the post holiday slump

every year around this time i think to myself, good grief, where did the last year of my life go? it's almost new year's which means that i have to adjust to writing /09 instead of /08 and it also reminds me that i'm that much closer to turning 30, which i like to think i am cool with but will most likely have some sort of breakdown when it actually does happen. for instance, i was over at my mom's last night and as i was leaving, for some reason or another, it occured to me that i am nearly 30 years old and i do not live at home with my parents anymore. and that kind of made me sad. not because i want to be 30 and living with my parents, but because sometimes i really do miss the times when i was a kid and living at home and my biggest worry was whether or not the plastic dinosaur i left out in the rain was going to mildew or if my mom was going to cut the ends off my peanut butter sandwhiches. it's so cliche to say, but it all goes by so quickly, and the holidays only serve to remind me of that, because i get all excited around thanksgiving and start listening to christmas music and wrapping presents and gearing up for this one day that is...over in a heartbeat. so where did my 2008 go? well, let's see. i went to puerto rico twice on business this year. did makeup for a local cooking show, a few fashion shows and photo shoots and even got paid for a few jobs. i took my sister to see tom petty, and she took me to see billy joel. i put in volunteer time for the national museum of women in the arts and the animal welfare league of arlington. i celebrated my one year wedding anniversary. i finally made it back to italy after 6 long years. i saw the acropolis in athens. went to see a midnight showing of the latest batman movie. i shook hands with the last living lead actor of gone with the wind, my all time favorite movie (that would be olivia dehaviland), i hit some golf balls with my father, auditioned to be a MAC makeup artist (i still think that is their loss!!), drove to montreal and back in a 72 hour period, shared a stage with the First Lady at the White House, took erik to see cirque du soleil, voted for a new president, and kissed my mother approximately 9,784 times. although it was on a sad note, i did see my dad's family at my uncle's funeral, and i was able to share mother's day brunch with my grandmother. i took around 5,000 pictures. i spent time with my girlfriends. i laughed a lot. i cried a little, too. (ok, i cried a lot, what of it??) i got a little stronger and a little more wise. i've seen a little more of the world. maybe i am not a little kid anymore and maybe i have bigger things to worry about than where i left my favorite barbie, but i guess i wouldn't be able to live the life i live without growing up a little every day and letting go, just a little, of the safety net of my family. but i mean, just a little...i could crumble any day now and run crying back to my mother with a skinned knee, you never know. it's a delicate balance. but i'm looking forward to 2009. i have goals. there are trips i want to take. things i want to do. i will have a new niece or nephew come summer time, and erik and i will be moving yet again next month, so i will start the new year in a new apartment, and god knows i love organizing closets, so there's that. 2008 went by really quickly. REALLY quickly. but it was a good year. there were ups and there were downs, but now that christmas is over and i'm hanging in the balance between all that holly jolly and all the happy new year, i can take a minute and look back and say, yeah. i did the best i could this year. and i'm happy with that.

things that i do not understand, cont'd

america. america, america, america. let's talk. have you all gone mad? have we lost our collective minds (or our collective sense of good taste??)? i have just been informed that - and i never thought this day would come, really i didn't - LIL WAYNE leads the grammy nomination pack this year with something stupid like 7 or 8 nominations. excuse me?? WHAT??? lil wayne?? the guy who apparently suffers from some sort of clothing disorder that prevents him from ever fully pulling his pants up over his rear end?? the guy with 19 platinum and diamond necklaces around his neck at any given time?? this kid who mumbles about lollipops (and i can read between the lines, mister...i know what that song is REALLY about, and it is not candy. EWWWW!) and looks like he is a 13 year old gangsta is the person that we have chosen to lavish with grammy, i repeat GRAMMY, nominations galore?? i do not understand, america. i am at a loss. this is music? this is where we are going with this?? are there even any real instruments played in any of his songs, or is it all studio produced beats with women panting in the background?? am i wrong? tell me, america, AM I WRONG??? you know what? ok. ok. i'll admit it. i like britney spears. i said it. I LIKE HER. actually, no. maybe I LOVE HER. maybe i stayed up to watch her "documentary" on MTV (oh my god, i just admitted to watching MTV...for shame, for shame!!!), and maybe i have at least ten of her songs on my ipod and maybe i really am a slave 4 her, but this does not mean that i think that she deserves awards for her music. i do not think she is doing anything groundbreaking. i do not think she is creating new music for new audiences. i think she is producing catchy pop sugar music and she looks better now than she did a year ago so i'm ok with her wearing belly baring tops on tv again. what has this lil wayne person ever done that was so amazing?? has he ever had his picture on a bubble gum card?? hmmmm?? how can you say someone is great who's never had his picture on a BUBBLE GUM CARD???!?!?!? (sorry...if you've never seen charlie brown's christmas ((and if this is the case, i encourage you to stop reading my blog and never speak to me again, you imbecile!)), you probably won't understant that reference. but i don't really care.) lil wayne does not have some mind blowing vocal range, he is not a musical prodigy that can play any instument you give him, and in fact, i can't think of ANYTHING this guy has done except pollute the airwaves with music that i cannot relate to. this saddens me, america. i had better hopes for you. for us. it saddens me but i can't say it surprises me. you know who should win grammys?? PEOPLE WITH TALENT. i thought that was the whole point. thank you for correcting my mistake, america. how very considerate of you.

in lieu of this nomination news, i am boycotting the grammys this year. this INCLUDES any website like people.com or perez hilton and their "best and worst of the red carpet" lists. and if you know me, if you really know me, you will know how hard that will be for me. BUT NO. i am not watching. i am not caring. I AM LOSING MY FAITH. i am angry, i am dissappointed, i am dumbfounded. and obviously, i am NOT a fan of lil wayne (or anyone, for that matter, who prefaces their given name with "lil" like lil kim or lil momma). look, america, i have tried, time and time again, to give you more chances to prove to me that you are not in a downward spiral. but that's it. it's over. i am done with your shiteous taste in music and i don't need you anymore to tell me what i should listen to. you wanna know why i keep listening to journey and heart and billy joel and dire straits?? CAUSE THAT'S REAL MUSIC. PEOPLE PLAY REAL INSTRUMENTS AND THEY WRITE REAL WORDS THAT MEAN SOMETHING IN A REAL LANGUAGE. so. my headphones are on from here on out. i'm sorry, america, did you say something? i can't hear you. my REAL MUSIC must be turned up too loud.

things that i do not understand

cheesecake. i do not understand cheesecake. i will not eat it simply on the principle that it sounds like it is cake made out of cheese. i like cheese and i like cake. (well... i like icing on cake, so what if i scrape it off and then throw away the cake?) but together? ick. cream cheese. that just sounds like evil. and i do not consume dairy products that i think may be trying to kill me. apparently, however, i make a mean pumpkin cheesecake.

away messages. or, out of office auto reply messages. hello, if i am trying to hide from the world, why do i need to set a message in my email to tell people that?? let them think i fell into a black hole under my desk or that i ran away to the south pacific. no one needs to know my business but me. and really, i have no intention of returning your email as soon as possible, anyway.

having to work the day before or after a major holiday that will involve massive amounts of eating. come on. i am completely checked out at least 3 days before any holiday. just go ahead and give me the day before and after. i promise i'll be ten times more productive than if i just get the one day off.

weave. or hair extensions. whatever you want to call it. are you so ashamed of your regular hair cut that you need to glue in 10 inch long strips of someone else's? i mean, i know sometimes its hard to be patient if you are trying to grow out your hair, but really, if your hair is shoulder length one day and down past your rear the next, rest assured that we all know that shit's fake.

why i am still here. honestly. i am still at work. why is this?? this i must remedy immediately...

only in america

i make no secret of the fact that i love thanksgiving. i mean, i LOVE it. not just because i love turkey. i mean, i do love turkey, but i hate stuffing, greenbean casserole, sweet potato casserole, that red cranberry stuff that comes out of the can and looks like jell-o (really? what IS that?), and just about any other thanksgiving-y side dish you could think to attempt to put on my plate. but i do love thanksgiving. i just love being with my family, the noise and chaos that a houseful of people who are related to each other brings, knowing that 2 hours after i've consumed enough turkey for a week's worth of dinners, i will be in the kitchen again, making myself a turkey sammich...really, i think this is what the pilgrims actually had in mind all those years ago. and i'm sure that had those pilgrims not been so busy trying to make sure that they didn't starve to death over the long and brutal winter, no doubt that they would have made huge cartoon character balloons that required 45 people to hold them down, and they would have paraded those suckers around the woods and asked vanessa williams to sing christmas songs to top it all off. if only the pilgrims knew that a gathering that for them was a matter of life or death would, hundreds of years later, turn into an annual "gorge yourself because it's thanksgiving" festival, complete with turkey themed napkins, parades hosted by katie couric and that annoying al roker guy, an enormous floating spongebob squarepants, and the chance to consume EVEN MORE the next day, in the form of leftover turkey and one day sales. aren't we just so lucky that our forefathers had the wherewithall to conjure up such a wonderful, wonderful holiday. leave it to a country where obesity runs rampant, to step things up a notch and encourage EVERYONE to eat not just one or two, but three helpings of stuffing and mashed potatoes, and at least 9 pounds worth of that 30 pound bird on the table, because god knows all that tryptophan will help you hibernate your way to spring! (don't worry though, we will wake you up for christmas - wouldn't want anyone to miss out on all that chocolate and good cheer!)

seriously, though. i love the holidays. i really do. especially because it means i'm one day closer to the "a christmas story" marathon on tbs and every year i vow to sit through all 24 hours of it, and every year, someone eventually breaks down and makes me turn it off (i happen to think it's endearing that i cannot watch it without quoting every single line, but apparently, most people find that to be "annoying.") the greatest thing about the holidays, though, is the time off work. i don't know what it is about sleeping until 9am on a thursday, but i swear, it's the greatest feeling on earth. and anyone who knows me knows that i spend most of my weekends with my family anyway, so having a whole day or two off just so that i can hang out with my mom and dad all day?? it's the gift that keeps on giving.

bring on the peace and goodwill to all. i'm totally ready for it.

halloween is defintely NOT for kids anymore!

i will let the photos speak for themselves.

running away with the circus

last night i went to see cirque du soleil's "kooza" which was, as i expected, completely amazing, but this particular show was sort of a throw back to the roots of cirque, with more focus on traditional death defying circus acts, and on clowning as well. that sort of made me roll my eyes when i got the tickets, because i, like every other normal human on the planet, am afraid of clowns. they are CREEPY. these clowns, though...they were FUNNY and not at all creepy, and had me laughing so hard my stomach still hurts today. there were three female contortionists (which i actually aspired to be when i was younger, but upon seeing that act, i'm actually glad that there are things that i cannot do with my body, because, oh yeah, it's not NORMAL for your limbs to bend that way!!) and i swear their act was the most insane thing i've ever seen, i don't understand that level of flexibility. i mean, i do yoga. i'm bendy. but this is a completely different game. i can't even describe what this girl was doing with her legs over her head and flipping herself around, but i will say this: i just can't imagine that contorting yourself that way can be good for your internal organs. at one point i was watching and thinking, where on earth is her stomach right now? - cause she was completely bent in half, with her rear end on her head and her feet on the floor in front of her. and i was also thinking...how on earth do you discover that you have that talent? i mean, i used to watch tv standing on my head, but i can't imagine what these girls were doing and how their parents must have reacted every time they heard "hey mom! look what i can do!" the music was also incredible, which i remember from another cirque show that we saw, but what i find most amazing is the engineering and the "backstage" work that goes into traveling productions like this. they set up this whole little village with these incredible tents and then bam, 2 weeks later, they fold the whole thing up and put it in a couple of trucks and off they go. i just finished reading "water for elephants" which was a great read, by the way, and i'm so interested in that whole lifestyle, and how so much of it is illusion. i also must say, as much as i hate to see any of the performers screw up, the last show we saw, not even a pinkie toe was out of place, but this show seemed more human - we saw a tightrope walker fall off the rope (um, after he leap frogged over another walker in front of him, so we forgave him his shortcoming!!), and after being catapulted through the air, another performer fell short of landing on top of a man standing on another man's shoulder and the whole thing came toppling down. it's nice to know that even these performers aren't perfect, and that what they are doing is actually hard to do, becuase when there is no flaw at all...it just seems like i could walk up there and do the same thing. there was also this realy amazing act that i don't know how to describe other than saying 2 guys who clearly have no fear of falling to their deaths did an amazing and highly entertaining performance on this giant metal circling ring of death thingy. i'm sorry but that's the best i can do. all in all, it was a great night, i'm so glad we got a chance to go and i hope we get to see cirque every time it's in town. in light of all this financial and political doom and gloom - especially here in washington - it was the perfect way to spend an evening thinking that there is nothing i would like to do more than run away with the circus.

how to bake a fennel

so, the cousin had me over for dinner last night and wouldn't you know it, he doesn't just cook you spaghetti like a normal boy would. no, no, we had baked halibut with fennel and asparagus, and in the process of helping him cook it, i learned the difference between peeling and "supreming" an orange (ok, really there is no difference, except for one you just peel it, and for the other, you use a big fancy knife to do the same thing that is accomplished by peeling and you call it some fancy word like "supreme"), and that you can actually put parchment paper in the oven. who knew? i thought you wrote illuminated manuscripts on parchment, so i'm happy to learn that you can also bake fish with it. we also made real live mashed potatoes, not the kind you get from a box that you mix with milk, and it makes all the difference in the world. but the fennel was a completely different story. what is a fennel, anyway? it looks sort of like an onion, but has this big scary celery looking arms coming out of the top of them, and the recipe is just all like, slice the fennel, but uh, i sorta need detailed directions on how to do that...so we just did our best. needless to say, i sliced that damn fennel and we made a bed of it in parchment paper to put that halibut to sleep on. then we covered it up with a blanket of asparagus and supremely supremed oranges and some salt, pepper and butter. it definitely came out much better than i'd imagined (i tend to cause disasters in the kitchen), but most of the fun was in the actual putting together of the meal. so, thank you, cousin, for making me make an out of the ordinary dinner. it was much better than the mac and cheese i would have eaten had i stayed home. i am still scared of fennel, though...

a word on that which is supposed to be a convenience...

there must be some technical, offical medical word for this thing that i have. i suffer from the fear of losing my money to a vending machine - vendaloseaphobia, perhaps. every single time i put my money into one of those wretched, conniving machines, i momentarily forget about everything else and hyperfocus on whether or not i'm going to end up with the diet coke or the baked doritos that i have selected. well, i lost this battle this morning, much to my dismay, since i had only enough change for a soda - which meant i couldn't even take my remaining change and go try another machine. oh no. this thieving automated vendor straight up took the 35 cents that i had fearfully fed it's greedy coin slot and refused to return it, or even acknowledge that i'd given it money to begin with. so now what will i do with my remaining change?? it's not enough for a soda at another machine. it's not enough for some candy to ease my suffering. this means i will have to make the trip outside of my office, i will have to venture out in to the cold, in to the wind, in search of my caffeinated, carbonated diet coke fix. this fear of mine, it also manifests itself in the form of an anxious knot in my stomach once the machine does accept and acknowlege my money in its bowels - as i watch, on pins and needles, as the spinning arms circle around my selection and i pray, oh how i pray, that my white cheddar popcorn will not get stuck in it's steely arms. how many times, how many, have i lost out on some tasty mid afternoon treat because the stupid vending machine only pretends to give me what i want, and then laughs in my face when it refuses to yield my prize, dangling it instead, taunting me with its cruelty, and no amount of shaking or kicking will free my twix bar. damn you, vending machines. damn you all. and so it is, me against them...when i actually do hear my chips hit the bottom of that merciless machine, it's like winning the lottery. and on those rare, rare occasions when you get your selection, plus that of the poor fool who'd stood up to that monster before you and lost, it almost makes you forget about days like today, when your money is stolen and you're sent, sulking and empty handed, back to your desk. almost.

i heart you, savion!

last night, the husband and i were treated to a double date with his parents. maybe not everyone would be thrilled about dinner and the theatre with the in-laws, but even if my mother in law was the wicked witch of the west (which she is far, far from, by the way), i would have still been estatic about our night out. after dinner (veggie burger and sweet potato fries at the elephant and castle, YUM!) we walked over to the warner theatre to see savion glover, tap dancer and visionary to the stars. :) erik and i have seen him once before, at the same venue actually, but little ol me bought the tickets and we ended up waaaay in the back, where you lose out on so much of the fancy footwork going on. but this time, we were 6th row and could see their shoelaces we were so close! i was blown away before, but this time, since we could really see what was going on, i was just absolutely in awe of this man's gift. the performance was called bare soundz, and included two other incredibly, incredibly talented men, and they each tapped on a small raised wooden platform that was mic-ed underneath so every little tap of their feet sounded like a drum. i had expected there to be music accompaniment, since he had tapped to classical music the first time we saw him, but the really cool thing about the show was that the tapping was the music. their feet were the instruments. they even sell cd's of the sounds the tapping makes, because if you close your eyes, you'd swear it was drumming, or a bass or something. just unreal. i'm so happy we were able to go again. i know erik will be tap dancing around our apartment for weeks to come, and i've been looking up tap videos on you tube all morning. i found an astonishing one of gene kelly tapping in roller skates!!!! seriously, my mom couldn't have pushed me a little bit harder to find some sort of useful talent? this guy could tap dance in roller skates...and i can crush an aluminum can behind my back. really? i guess you're just born with it, and i'm telling you, savion glover was born with enough talent for a hundred people. amazing. also makes me wanna curl up on the couch and watch happy feet (which, in case you did not know, savion did the choreography for!)...and perhaps i will. it is friday, after all...

returning to earth

three day weekends are always hard to recover from. not because i was out partying or i saw so many of my girlfriends or i did some yard work or something...mostly just because i got used to laying around and doing nothing and thinking, "hey! i don't have to go to work today!!" so i spend all of tuesday slugging around the office like i'm hungover but really my mind is just not ready to be at work yet, since it spent the day before singing "nanny nanny boo boo" all day long. i guess i did do a little bit of non-couch-sitting stuff over the long weekend...in fact, i did a lot of stuff. i went to my husband's ten year high school reunion, which was interesting to say the least. i was blown away by how many people in the room he didn't know, and when i asked him why, he said he went to high school with a thousand people, and graduated with over 300. yikes. since my graduating class was a whopping 81 people, i sort of assumed that everyone knew every last person that they graduated with. no so, people. not so. but it was a fun night, and it was especially nice that i didn't have to spend the evening answering questions about what i've been doing for the last ten years, because no one knew me so no one cared. i also took my dog to the park about 97 times because the weather was so lovely and knowing this part of the country the way that i do, i know it won't last long and i wanted to take full advantage. lincoln and i also volunteer as pet therapists for a local animal shelter and once a month we go to a boys' group home and the dogs and the boys run around for an hour and play, so we had fun doing that and he had fun getting fat off of all the treats he got, spoiled little turd. i spent most of sunday reading "a million little pieces," which is now all that i think about (funny how a book about addiction can get you so addicted to it), and marveling at the fact that erik actually wanted to sit through tbs's midafternoon screening of "encino man." i made him get off the couch and come with me to the dog park just so that we could say that the day wasn't a total waste. monday was a busy day, actually. i shopped, i got hairs cut, i dyed hair, i lunched with the sibling, i visited the parents, and i took lincoln to the park no less than three times. i read until midnight and i'm STILL not finished and all i want to do is read, read, read. but i have to work, work, work. so, i'm treating today as if it were monday, and justifying my lack of productivity by telling myself that my body and mind just haven't adjusted from the long weekend. the upside to this is that by the time i am all "adjusted" and ready to get to work, it'll be thursday afternoon, and by that time i'll be slipping into weekend mode and will be utterly useless to do anything other than think about what i'll be doing this weeekend.
i'm hoping that during the debate tomorrow night, one of the candidates will say that they will propose 3 day weekends, every single weekend of every single month, to cut down on energy costs and on car emissions. cause i would vote for that man, oh yes i would, in a heartbeat.

my favorite time of year

if you know me at all, you know that i love summer. in fact, i live for it. those 97 degree days with 98 percent humidity, when you are stuck to yourself and you can barely breath? I LIVE FOR THAT. all the other seasons are nice and all (except for you, WINTER. i bite my thumb at you!!), but the thought of a beautiful, hot summer day keeps me going all year long. i have but one exception to this rule, and that is HALLOWEEN. ok, you say, halloween is not a season, and duh, i know that, but see, october is associated with fall, and after fall comes the dreaded winter, so see how i don't want my happiness over halloween to be associated with that which preceedes the dreaded winter. anyway, i don't really even care all that much about halloween, whoopie, get dressed up and knock on strange people's doors and ask for candy (really, would you do this on any other day of the year??? no. because it would be considered creepy and strange. so why does doing it on october 31st, dressed up like a goon, make it ok???), or have strange people come and knock on your door. that's really not the point. the point is that halloween means CANDY CORN. and candy corn is the reason (other than sweating my own skin off in the summer) that i was put on this earth. every year, the only consolation i have for kissing my sweet love summer goodbye is knowing that one lover will soon be replaced with the next...and that lover is candy corn. if sugar was considered an addictive drug, i swear, i would be in rehab ten times by now for my sick, sick addiction to candy corn. you love it or you hate it, but there's no inbetween. and when you love it like i do, you see a bag and all you can think is, i want the entire contents of that bag in my stomach. NOW. sick, right?? there must be some sort of 12 step program for people like me, because even after making myself absolutely ill with sugar and getting pretty damn close to my body shutting down, the very second that i realize i'm not going to throw up, don't you know, i want more candy corn. MORE. this is the only reason that halloween has any excuse for even existing...because it means i get more candy corn than my system can handle. i have NO CONTROL over the amount of orange and yellow triangular goodness i consume. none. i even find myself a little thrilled with thanksgiving (though, given its proximity to the dreaded winter, it's hard to maintain focus on the candy corn) now, because they throw a brown tip on the candy corn and they say, "ta-daaa!!! autumn candy corn!!" and i say I AM TOTALLY OK WITH THAT. and let's please PLEASE not forget the beauty that is the candy corn pumpkins...you know what these things are, yes?? it's like 3 pieces of candy corn melded into the shape of a pumpkin and it is like HEAVEN IN MY MOUTH. candy corn sort of gets pushed to the side with christmas and all the chocolate and peppermint and fruitcake crap that floods the isles of CVS, but along comes valentine's day and what do you know...PINK AND RED CANDY CORN!! easter?? PURPLE, GREEN, AND YELLOW PASTEL CANDY CORN!!! i hardly have to live without it anymore. this is a blessing...this is a curse. one of these days, you will turn on your tv, and you will see me on A&E, on that intervention show, and my teeth will all have rotted out of my head, and i'll have thin wirey hair and i'll be standing in my mother's kitchen, barefoot, with a wifebeater and pajama pants on, screaming and ripping through the kitchen cabinets, furiously searching for one more piece of candy corn. just one more. this is the way it goes with addiction. it's love and it's hate. i am loving on you, candy corn. you don't always love me back, but you love me sometimes and it's enough. it's enough to keep me going... summer comes with sunburn. you come with elevated blood sugar levels. but this is why i love you both. you nourish me. you destroy me.

if this all seems like a sugar-induced rambling, that's probably because i just ate 3/4ths of a bag of candy corn. so it's entirely possible that i have no idea what i'm talking about.

the state of things

for once in my life, i have actually been paying attention to the news, especially the news in politics. i was talking with my family last night and someone brought up when mccain ran for president back in 2000, and i had no idea what they were talking about. what? he ran for president already? where was i?? how do i not remember that? let's see...i was 20 in 2000, so that would have meant my second year in college, which would have meant i was working at the wet seal at the crappiest mall in richmond. that would have been the beginning of my self-absorbed phase, which lasted until at least the summer of 2004, when i moved up to washington, dc. so that explains the lack of interest in politics, because clearly, at 20 years of age, i personally would have not given a rat's rear end about health care or the economy or gun control. i'm pretty sure i didn't even vote in the first election i was old enough to vote in, probably because that would have taken some time out of my day that i could have spent sleeping. not so this time around. it seems that once one actually has a job and a 401k and an insurance plan, some things that were at one point completely irrelevant suddenly become the most important things in the world. i don't want to pay taxes on my health care plan. i don't want to see the taxes that i do pay used to fund a war i don't understand. and i certainly don't want to continue paying close to $4 a gallon for gas. it should cost what it cost when i started driving: 99 cents a gallon. so, for the first time, i find myself riveted to the television, watching the debates, honestly caring about where the candidates stand on certain issues...it's insane. the more i find out about the government and the election, the less i care to know. all of this name calling and pointing fingers really gets redundant after a while, and if i were a political analyst on cnn, aside from making passes at anderson cooper, i would flat out tell america, hey ya'll...we're gonna be screwed for a while. everybody messed up and now we all have to pay for it. things might get worse before they get better, but they'll get better before long and it'll be another ten years before something like this happens again. but in the meantime, don't spend more money than you make and quit trying to skip out on paying taxes. it's interesting, this whole being a grown up thing, worrying about how much of your income will go towards a social security system that will more than likely implode by the time you're old enough to need it, or what the next president will do to decrease dependancy on foreign oil...i didn't even CARE about that kind of stuff before.

what i DO care about now, aside from all this economy and health care and foreign affairs crap...is that people start using the word "maverick" correctly.

one week and counting

today, of all days, is monday. i would say it's a monday like any other except that exactly one monday from this monday, i will be leaving on a jet plane that will take me far far away to italy. i haven't been since the summer of 2002, when i spent a 5 week semester (yeah, let me tell you how much i studied) there in between "real" semesters in college. this will be a short trip, but one i've been waiting for for over a year now. actually, i've been waiting for this trip since my flight returned me to the us of a back in 2002...so it's a long time coming to say the least. i'll do one night in rome, two in florence and one in venice, where i will meet up with the rest of my family and we'll cruise on out of venice for the greek isles. life is rough, isn't it?? i've never been to greece before and my inner art history nerd is beyond thrilled at the chance to get to see all those monuments and artworks i studied for so long in college and in high school. i almost don't even know what to do with myself, i'm just so excited about it. granted, that's not a lot of time to spend in italy, but i'll take what i can get at this point, because it's been too long since i've had geniune italian gelato or bought some handmade in italy leather shoes! i don't have any real plans about what i want to do or see just yet, but i still have a week to at least come up with a (short!) list of what i want to see in italy...and our cruise will be a week long, too, so i have no complaints at the moment. i haven't been out of the office for 2 weeks since i started working at the age of 23 (hey, it took some of us a while to get out of college, ok? what's your hurry??), so the time off is also just icing on the cake. i promise photos when we get back, IF i come back!!

why is it always so dark in las vegas???

i do not know if you are a fan of csi: las vegas, but i am for sure (grissom, if you're reading this, call me!!!xoxo) and for as many episodes as i've seen (and re-seen) i can never seem to get over the fact that it is almost always entirely dark in every scene. in the miami version, it's always orange. in the new york version, everything is blue-r than it should be. but in vegas, these people are constantly investigating crime scenes in the pitch black darkness of someone's house or some field in the middle of nowhere with their flashlights and i have to wonder if the sun just doesn't come up in vegas or what? even when they are inside and it's dark, they walk around with their flashlights, when - hello - why don't you just turn on the LIGHTS?? and still, in the complete darkness, they can manage to find a hair under a car seat, or a fingernail clipping buried in shag carpet. it's quite infuriating when you think about it, especially when you consider that in most episodes, they get all the evidence, get dna results back, and put the guilty party in jail (and by the way, i do not know much about the way the judicial system or whathaveyou works, but i'm pretty sure that crime scene investigators do not find the evidence, question the suspect, and then make arrests. there are like 3 sets of people who do that - do they not watch law & order??), one neat little hour long package for our viewing pleasure. granted, none of this is as infuriating as the fact that horatio on the miami version NEVER looks at anyone when he's talking to them, but that's beside the point. my point here is: 1. turn the freakin lights on and 2. we may be fat couch potatoes but we are not stupid so don't think i don't realise that you don't find a body and solve the crime all in one day. except that gil grissom is the smartest person alive so i guess he can do whatever he wants. i'll still watch it.

on losing my faith in human kind

usually i am too creeped out by that plastic faced monster who represents burger king to actually sit through one of their commercials, but the other day i managed to calm my fears long enough to watch the unfolding of their latest contribution to humanity: the apple slice shaped like a french fry. have you seen this? they even serve these things in french fry containers. i don't know if the board of directors at burger king are all a bunch of childless freaks, but i would like to know what possesed them to think that you could dress a fruit up like a french fry and pass it off on children. ha ha, unsuspecting and naive child, you think you are eating crispy fried potatos, but no, NO ha HA! you are eating apples and you didn't even know it! what has the world come to? WHAT??? in order to promote healthy eating amongst already fatty hamburger patty kids, burger king comes up with this ingenious idea to say, hey, why don't you eat something good for you that is made to look like something bad for you?? brilliant. marketing genius. generations of children will grow into adults and have burger king to thank for helping them make smart and healthy food choices. no doubt by then we will be consuming pizza-shaped pears and steak and cheese-shaped salads. THIS MAKES SENSE. i realise that this is the BK's attempt at keeping up with the joneses (or in this case, the McDonald's and the Subways) by offering healthier options than chicken nugets and french fries, but for real, kids aren't stupid. if you want them to eat apples, let them eat apples. tell them to eat apples. shaping it like a french fry or a piece of cake isn't going to change the fact that IT'S AN APPLE. besides, we are insulting a child's intelligence by trying to fool them into believe that an apple is actually a french fry. most of them are smarter than we are. so. i give up. i throw my hands in the air. if this is what it's come to, i do not want to be a part of this. i'm off to live in my cabin in the woods. between french fry apples and a video game that simulates exercise, i'm officially done with human kind. god forbid we should go outside to get some exercise anymore. and try doing it with a real, apple-shaped apple in your hand. you'll be labeled as a freak in no time. then you and the burger king man can live happily ever after.

life is a bowl of cheerios

i think it is a fair statement to say that i think i owe about 3/4ths of the happiness of my childhood to sugary cereals. i mean, yeah yeah playing outside and climbing trees and chewing the feet of my barbie dolls was all in good fun, but really when i think back to being a kid, i repeatedly picture that beautiful bright yellow cheerios box. wait. cheerios? YES. cheerios. maybe not your typical tooth-rotting breakfast selection (i'll get to those momentarily), but when you combine the cheerios with sugar and raisins (in that order), the glucose-y goodness that forms at the bottom of that bowl is enough to make a rock bounce off the walls. hmmmm...mother, perhaps it was not wise to let me scoop my OWN sugar into the bowl, but that's water under the bridge at this point. even now, there is (almost) nothing i love more than cheerios and raisins, although the sugar has been replaced with one packet of splenda (hey, we have to grow up sometime, huh?). my other all time favorite is hands down lucky charms. on the rare occasion that my mom would bring one of those sweet red boxes home with the dancing leprechaun on it, man on man...i would pretty much go through the whole box in one sitting. because clearly, when you get to the bottom of the bowl and there is still milk in it, you have to pour in a little more cereal so you don't waste the milk. then, oops, there is too much cereal and it needs more milk, so just a liiiiiitle bit more and whaddya know, there is leftover milk in that bowl, too. it's an endless cycle, so i never blamed myself for eating 5 or 6 bowls at a time. i can't help it if general mills wasn't working with the bowl manufacturing industry on perfectly perportionate breakfastwares. they should have seen that coming. and of course, lucky charms have to be eaten a certain way to maximize the pleasure of all that sugary coated deliciousness. one must eat all the "luckys" out first, leaving a beautiful rainbow of slowly dissolving marshmallow charms floating in a grey/green pool of milk. WHAT COULD TASTE BETTER THAN THAT??? i ask you. go ahead and try. you won't come up with a good answer. lindsey, what do you want for breakfast? lucky charms. what do you want for lunch? lucky charms. what do you want for dinner? LUCKY CHARMS. ohhh ohhhh or frosted flakes. who would think that if you put sugar on your frosted flakes, they taste even BETTER. now that i think about it, i'm quite sure i spent the majority of my youth in sugar overload which i may be confusing with happiness. i was probably a miserable kid but i just couldn't tell through the artifically flavored haze i was in. and who wants to remember the bad parts about being a kid? not being able to reach the cabinets without climbing up onto the counter (wait, i still have to do that)?? only getting to eat dessert if you eat all your dinner first (i STILL remember that time i didn't get a doughnut and everyone else did, mom!!!)? who needs memories like that? i rather like the sugar-coated spin on my kidhood. although my sister will say i'm glorifying my life. because we DID have a pretty sweet childhood. no pun intended.

check yourself

it's pretty hot outside today, so i thought i would venture down to one of the twelve starbucks within walking distance of my office for an iced coffee. normally i'm not a big coffee drinker, but those frappacino things are good, and if you put enough splenda in them, you can hardly even tell you're drinking coffee. $5.50 later (this may be why i have about 6 of these things a year), i was on my way out the door when i practically stepped right into someone's venti triple skilm three pump decaf frap (complete with whipped cream and chocolate sauce topping), which had apparently launched itself out of it's owner's hands and onto the sidewalk. the owner, no doubt a bitter and jaded dc resident, left the whole kit and caboodle right were it fell and was probably already back in line at starbucks to tell those defenseless baristas that his cup was defective and he wanted a new one before he drafted up a lawsuit. i mean, this person left the whole thing right where it fell. what kind of a JACKHOLE drops something on the ground and doesn't have the decency to at least pick up the cup, lid and straw and put it 3 feet away into the garbage can that it is plain sight? what kind of SLOB drops something and says, well, it's not my responsibility to pick this up, because clearly, this is starbucks' fault and they hire people to clean up messes like this, anyway. do not assume that the rest of us want to walk through your clumsiness, or that there are people just lying in wait to fall out of the sky and pick up after you. if you're going to be a big enough jerk to order a stupid drink like that, own up to your other mistakes. garbage cans are there for a reason, and this may come as a surprise, but it's not to hold the sidewalk down so you can throw trash all over it.

semi-nomadic yak herding

i took a long lunch break today and walked down to the national mall to see what i could see at the smithsonian folklife festival (http://folklife.si.edu/festival/2008/) - i've never been to it before and spending thirty minutes in the sun sounded way better than spending it under the halogen lights in my office. it was really pretty interesting, they have little "villages" set up from cultures all over the world, and my work buddy and i spent most of our time in bhutan, which i don't even think i knew existed before today. so apparently, this little country bordered by china and india (hey, no pressure) is about the size of west virginia, and the government controls foreign influences and tourism in order to maintain the country's national heritage. imagine that. i bet they don't even have coke there, or starbucks or even a single KFC. what a wonderful, wonderful place this must be! they had performers doing native dances (fascinating!) and demonstrations of architectural styles, crafts, food...all kinds of stuff that is way more interesting than anything we eat, build or make here in the US (this obviously excludes circus peanuts, because those are the greatest things on earth and i'm pretty sure only some sugar-sucking american slob could have come up with something so horrifying and so delicious). but get this: most of the population that lives in bhutan lives off of the land, many of them in tents (not luxury RVs the way we do when we are "roughing it"), working as semi-nomadic yak herders. huh? i don't think i've ever even SEEN a yak, nor could i imagine working as a herder of this mystical creature. and i'm also wondering if semi-nomadic means something along the lines of like part time, like they yak herd monday, wednesday, friday and every other saturday, and if that's the case, i'd really like to know what they do with the rest of their time. i think i would like being a semi-nomadic yak herder. for about a day. then my spoiled US senses would start kicking in and i'd be whining about needing to charge my ipod, check my email, wash my clothes in something other than a river, or have my meal delivered to me in 30 minutes or less, and i'd probably get fired. i bet, though, that actual real yak herders don't have to deal with too much stress, other than stuff like, hey, where'd that yak go? i wonder if life without diet coke and gps systems is worth that...

i can see for aisles and aisles and aisles...

so, last night i tackled that household chore that i hate more than mopping the floor (and trust me, if your dog was as big and messy as mine is, you'd hate it too)...and that is grocery shopping. for some unknown reason, i would rather go to the grocery store every single night after work and pick up ingredients for whatever's on the menu for dinner than go once every two weeks and get everything at once. i do not know why, i really don't. so yesterday i made myself a list of what we would have for dinner every night through sunday, including what i'd need to buy for each dinner. i have to say that having a very detailed list cuts down on the anxiety for me, and while i spent a lot, i didn't spend a fortune, and i also didn't end up wandering the aisles aimlessly, trying to remember what it was that i was looking for. novel idea, right? a grocery list. i am a genius. for some reason i've been laboring under the impression that i could go to the store, get what i needed and get out in 5 minutes, no lists needed. of course, after the fifteenth time i went to put dinner together and find out that i'm missing at least three things, i figured it was time to try out this whole "list" thing. you know what is the best thing about it, though, is that it keeps me from putting stuff i don't need into the cart. you know, like bon bons and cheez-its, and the sugary kids cereals that are on sale, 2 for $5. i think i put two things in my cart last night that weren't on my list, neither of which was covered, dipped, or drizzled with sugar. so i was rather pleased with myself by the end of it all. i was also starving, since it was 8 o'clock by the time i got there - which is also a bad idea in and of itself. hunger will cause you to buy the weirdest things when you're in a grocery store, like, i swear, i really do need some fried potato sticks (those things are good, though, starving or not) and mac and cheese-flavored chips. everything sounds pretty tasty when your stomach is making more noise than the squeaky wheel of your grocery cart. i just wish you could go to the store once and be done with it, forever. the return trips every couple of weeks just seem so unecessary...hello, i just did this 2 weeks ago!!! plus i know i'm going to have to go back sooner than i think because food in my house means we eat about an extra 2-3 times a day. since there is never food in our fridge, it's so shocking to look in there and see sustinance, that we usually end up eating our entire week's worth of food in about 4 days. which means i'm back to going to the store once a day until i can build up the energy to make my way around those aisles once again.

the beauty of the 4-day work week

today is monday, and i, for once, am not filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. the upcoming week will no doubt be filled with paperwork, running errands, cleaning the house and my desk at work and lo and behold, i'm not all that worried about it. this is one of those weeks that is blessed with a bonus day off...so, thanks to our founding fathers, this friday i will be chilling on a lounge chair on my parent's patio instead of sitting at my desk counting down the hours until i can leave work. what is it about that one extra day off that makes you feel like you've been on vacation in some exotic locale, or just got back from a spa in the desert? it's only one more day. the thing is is that my weekends have really just become an extension of my work week...i have errands to run, laundry to do, a house to clean, all of these things that make me feel like i'm still on the clock - only i'm not getting paid. having one extra day to do all those things means i get to spread it out a little more, put it off a little longer, and actually still feel like i had a weekend. it also means i have to be more efficient in the office, getting my week's worth of work done in only 4 days, which translates to fewer visits to people.com and more time doing what i really need to get done. why every week is not a 4 day work week is beyond me. we'd all get more done in the office, have a little more time to ourselves on the weekends, and hey, some people are even saying it will help cut down on the use of gas getting to and from work, so it could even end up saving us money. i don't know how one goes about writing one's congressman, but i think this is a rather stand up idea. four day work weeks for life. who's idea was it to work 5 days straight and only have 2 days off after that, anyway? clearly, 2 days off is not enough. and what is this sneaky flex time thing that so many people are doing? work longer hours, and every other week, get a whole day off? that seems like a bit of a jip to me. why should i have to work 9 or 10 hour days just so i can have what should rightfully be mine anyway? four day work weeks seem to me to be a basic human necessity. really, who would argue with me? maybe a workaholic. but who likes those people anyway? let them work their 5 or 6 day work week. i'll take my 4 and i'll be just fine with that. god may have only taken one day to rest, but i don't think that creating the universe really compares with the amount of work, upkeep, and general running around that the average human being does in a week now. work for 4 days, sleep for 3. it's not rocket science.

what i went to college for

when i was in my early 20s (god, am i old enough to say stuff like that?), i remember telling my mom that i didn't think i was cut out for college. it was too demanding, the classes required too much work, and i was never free to be as lazy and irresponsible as i wanted to be. i thought that was the entire point of your early 20s, to screw around, not get anything done, and be as much of a waste of space as possible. needless to say, my pleas fell on deaf ears, and it's a good thing, because here i am, 5 years out of college, a bachelor's degree in art history (which is actually under my desk at this very moment, but that is another story), and know what i will be doing today? cleaning out old file drawers. which makes me think, my god, i'm so glad i have this college degree, because otherwise, i would most likely not know how to even open a file drawer, much less throw away any of the contents. but lucky me, since i have this degree (and i can dress myself in the morning), i am able to do the work that a well trained monkey could do - although i doubt that a monkey would spend as much time on the internet as i do, so the monkey would probably get more work done than me. and i don't know that a monkey would have the attitude problem that i have, either, so he might actually get a little further in his career than me, too. anyway, that's my day. it will take all 5 years worth of my college education, no doubt, to complete this mind-boggling assignment.

god, whenever you are ready to give me that rich and famous lifestyle we talked about, i just want you to know that i'm fully prepared for it.