Western

I love these little dudes.

They’re part of a sculpture called “Feats of Strength,” and I think they look like turtles without shells. When it’s nice out, I eat lunch with them.

Finale season

You know you’re over a show when you can’t be bothered to set an old-fashioned VCR on another TV when there’s a programming conflict. (My TiVo only gets one show at a time, but Rob has a DVR in another room and like, we have several VCRs between us, and at least one DVD player that’s not even plugged in.)

So, I chose Top Model over the final episodes of Alias, but then realized I could TiVo Alias on a Canadian station on Sunday afternoons, of all times. Then I forgot to set TiVo to do that. And didn’t even notice that I’d missed a few episodes.

Rather than pick up with the finale, I think I’ll just wait til I can Netflix the last disc of the last season. But decided during the waning minutes of my Friday afternoon, to read the summaries on Television Without Pity, which may actually have been more enjoyable than watching the episodes themselves.

And I’m mad at ABC anyway. Sure they gave us Lost, but why are they taking away Invasion?? Now we’ll never know what happened to the pregnant brown-haired journalist who got turned into a hybrid after getting shot in the final scenes of the finale. Would she have given birth to a full-fledged alien, or just another hybrid?

Also, I can’t really get excited about the finale of 24. They lost me with, “It’s a Russian submarine!” Whatever.

Beauty way to go

While eating my burrito al fresco, I observed, without turning my head:

3 white flouncy skirts
1 white mini skirt (denim)
4 white capri pants
1 white pair of those culotte pants that everyone has this season

Guess white is in.

Question: Is it better to have a visible panty line showing that you aren’t wearing a thong, or one showing that you are?

Just send me some free stuff, all right?

Neutrogena’s reply: Since your particular situation requires a more in-depth conversation than is possible through e-mail, we would appreciate the opportunity to discuss this matter with you further.

Your phone call will help us to quickly gather important information for our Quality Assurance department and to determine appropriate compensation for you.

So I called, answered the questions, and the lady didn’t say nothing about compensation! She did say someone might contact me if they need anything else…so we’ll see.

Free stuff! Free stuff!

Tokyo, June 17, 1991

Kendo is the most fun thing in the world. We wore the official robes with the armor and everything. The boys teaching me were so cute! The sticks aren’t very difficult to use. You do this swinging motion and whack the opponent on his side and it makes this great sound. And you say either “doh” or “meh.” It’s so fun!!!

I’m mad that the boys get to do it again, but the girls have to do dyeing and weaving.

Tokyo, June 18, 1991

After lunch, the girls had Judo and I guess that’s better than playing basketball with the boys, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun as Kendo. A lot of the exercises hurt my knee and I was embarrassed to say anything. We did a “free judo” fight and I won all three times.

I did eventually mention the soreness in my knees when they began to teach a tripping technique. The last thing I need is to break my leg again!

Kyoto, July 1, 1991

We took the bus to a Shogun castle. It was so cool! I could envision myself living in that time period. The gardens were so beautiful. We went to a Buddhist temple with more big Buddhas (yay!) and a square hole to paradise which I managed to squeeze through.

The Shinto shrine was pretty useless. We pet tame deer – so cute! Their antlers were warm and fuzzy.

I love Buddhism — as soon as I figure out what the beliefs are — I wanna convert.

Teen angst bullshit

During recent trips home (to my Mom’s), I discovered letters and journals from an extremely painful period of my life. Which, at the time, I thought was the best time of my life.

High school.

And freshman year of college, actually. The letters that I wrote to my then-boyfriend, and apparently never sent, were particularly pathetic.

From my current, well-balanced (medicated) standpoint, I can so cleary see that I was then a severely depressed individual. Chemical imbalances aside, the root of my unhappiness was extremely low self-esteem (and fear of abandonment due to said low self-worth.)

In recent years, even before I met Rob, I’ve known that I can be a fun person to be around. I’m smart, I’m clever. Any guy would be lucky to have me. I just needed to find the right one.

But as a 16- through 19-year-old, even after I captured the guy I wanted, I didn’t think I was good enough for him. Nothing special about me. I may have thought I was unworthy of love.

So I picked fights and worried that he’d leave me.

Last weekend, I found a letter he wrote me before we left for separate colleges. He told me that I was the perfect girl for him, so how could I ever doubt that he wanted to be with me?

How much easier those years would have been if I believed that like I believe that Rob wants to be with me. Rob can go out to get a beer by himself while I stay home and watch TV. I know he’s not going to meet some other girl he likes better.

I watched Prozac Nation last night. Hard film to watch, mostly because of all the screaming. Christina Ricci’s character was more manic than I was (if you can believe that) and rebellious with sex and drugs in a way that I was not. But I understood the feeling that the author was trying to convey.

I felt pangs in my chest watching her go off to college and pine over a guy who wasn’t calling her back, who ultimately couldn’t deal with her mental instability. The more freaked out she got, the less attractive she became, which pushed him away more, and made her freak out more…

You know, that’s one of the reasons not having kids seems like a good idea. I’m past all those painful times and in a really good place emotionally, as well as with my career and my life. To endure that all over again through my child? Doesn’t sound like much fun.

Oh! And I’ve finally thought of a good response to those girlfriends who keep saying, “But you always used to talk about having kids.”

I also used to talk about being a movie star. If I’ve decided that’s not a life I want, why can’t I do the same with parenthood?

The pandemic begins

So I’m feeling a little under the weather. I’m perfectly capable of doing my job of sitting at my computer and writing, but when I stand up or try to have a conversation, I feel sort of foggy.

Out of concern that I might wake up tomorrow feeling worse, I started plotting the morning’s sick call-in. Must get affairs in order so others can do the things I would do.

But then I realized that I’d have to be pretty freaking sick to stay home. It’s not like Rob would be home to play with me tomorrow. Staying home would be rather boring, methinks.

Thank you, Ted Casablanca

“Why didn’t Tom Cruise listen to his pro-advisers, who were telling him to stay home and act like he cared more about new daughter Suri’s feeding schedule than he did doing press for Mission: Impossible III? Getting out there and doing bad breakdancing on cable TV was not the best message when you’ve got a newborn at home.”

Rhymes with citrus

Hot damn does an orange taste good when one’s throat has that pre-cold scratchiness.

Flew to So. Cal during each of the previous two weekends, which seems to have taxed my immune system, even though I took Airborne. Probably should have taken more.

Have had several marginally blog-worthy thoughts during past few days…

One is that my azalea plant is faring better than Emerald did, after mirroring his last few days. I came back to work Monday and she was wilting. I gave her lots of water but she still looked bad. I’m glad I didn’t rush to pull off all the wilted blossoms, though, because when I came in yesterday, she had perked right up. This is where she deviated from Emerald, however, because she did not subsequently suffer severe diarrhea and die.

Speaking of Emerald. Saturday Night Live was the least funny it’s been in years last weekend, and I blame Tom Hanks. However, even though Amy Poehler’s Caitlin sketch did not make me laugh, it did make me smile, cus it featured a live iguana! Who performed very well, I must say. Especially in her close-up.

On another note, I evidently bought the wrong kind of Neutrogena Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle cream. I’d seen the commercials where the 30-year-old complains that she shouldn’t be getting both pimples and fine lines, and um, related. But I shoulda gotten the Healthy Skin Anti-Wrinkle Anti-Blemish cream, because without the salcylic acid, the retinol made me break out like a damn 8th-grader. Which is odd, since retinol is the main ingredient in Retin-A, no?

So I’m back to Healthy Skin moisturizer with alpha-hydroxy, as I don’t trust the retinol combo right now. Not til I’m cleared up.

I expect Neutrogena to send me free samples or coupons or a refund or something, cus I complained on their website. Before I knew it was my fault for buying the wrong product.

Donde esta la sirena?

I used to have these great drinking glasses. I may well have blogged about them before. They had Mexican tarot cards on them: La Sirena, La Luna, La Rosa, El Diablo, El Mano, El Corazon…

I systematically broke one every time I moved and a couple of times in between. I may have broken the last of them in my most recent apartment, but if I have one left, it’s in storage.

I have the opportunity to return to the scene of the original purchase this weekend. The Rose Cafe Gift Shop. There’s no reason to believe that they’ll have them there because I’m pretty sure I’ve been there since I started looking for the glasses, and they didn’t have them then.

The really weird thing is that I haven’t been able to find them online. Up until a few minutes ago, I couldn’t find anything with the images on it. But that was when I was searching ebay and google using terms like “tarot” and “fortune,” when the word I was looking for was “loteria.” Great. Fine. So now I can find the Loteria shower curtain and coasters…but not the drinking glasses!

Closest I’ve gotten is La Sirena pitcher.

Por Favor! Yo quiero comprar los vasos con las picturas de Loteria.