Leapin' Lizzards

Okay, so I discovered my new favorite song: Dream a Litte Dream by the Momas and the Papas.

Okay, not so new. IS that a cover, or did the mamas and papas write it?

I can totally picture Carol Burnett singing this... OH that would be a fun version. Speaking of Carol Burnett, Remind me to review the absolutley horrible Disney movie I watched the other day... ahhhhg.

So, this time I set the song not to play until you click play, so you have some freedom of choice here

To Salary, or not to Salary

Okay. Lame title, forgive me.

About a week ago, my art director asked me to send her my hours for the last 4-5 pay periods. Apparently, she is trying to get us on salary to simplify things. My first reaction " oh cool, like a real job."

Second reaction... "Oh, wait, Salary doesn't mean they are going to start giving me benefits. It also means that I won't get paid for extra hours If I have an extra busy week. It also means I will feel guilty for not doing much work on slow weeks."

Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh. hey.

Cocoa-type

I've long since gotten past the embarrassment of purchasing "feminine hygiene products," but today I found my youthful blush returning when reached the checkout stand.
I'd promised a co-worker I would buy her a truffle bar, and while I was at it, I bought one each for brett and me.
So, there I was at the grocery store buying 4 boxes of tampons and pantiliners along with three large bars of chocolate.

Oh, my... I'm a stereotype.

I vote for a new committee

Here is an exert from an announcement I Recieved for the R.S. Enrichment:

We will be "Speed Friendshipping"
(our version of speed dating) and
Playing "The New Neighbor Game"
(The Dating Game)



Speed friendshipping? If that is not the most demeaning activity I have ever heard of. THe only way I can see this being fun is if I tell everyone different lies about me.

peek-a-boo, I see you

I have tons of work to do; so, naturally I find myself flooding with blog ideas that just can't wait.

I really love this quote from hitchikers guide: "...a creature so mindbogglingly stupid that it believes that if you can't see it, it can't see you..."

Part of the reason I love this so much, is that I distinctly remember (as a child) pondering the question of " If I can't see them, they shouldn't be able to see me right? or could they?"

I was in the hinebaugh's back yard, behind a tree, and Lori and some others were on the patio at the table... so weird.

I wonder if that was the day I discovered that they could, in fact, see me.

OReos in the bathtub

My mom wrote a comment on the last one about how she eats popcorn in the bathtub.

For those of you who do not my mom well, There are two things she eats daily

1. Popcorn--not with butter, not with salt, not even poped in bacon grease, just dry, air-popped corn
2. Chocolate Chips. My brother once said something to the effect of " you can always tell when mom has been over because you can find little piles of chocolate chips all over the house.



But, that wasn't the moral of the story. Once upon a time I had a roomate who wrote an essay on her roomate who left oreo crumbs in the bottom of the bathtub. I have no idea who she was talking about.

For the record, I always wash my oreo crumbs down the drain... but atlas, sometimes it is neccesary to lie in english essays for dramatic effect.

One day I should tell you about the H.S. English class where I got the most wonderful praise for my practice "college entrance essays" where I made up the most outlandish "true" stories from my childhood. Once she read the whole thing out loud and everyone was trying to figure out who wrote it. It was the funniest thing ever.

I just realized one of my H.S. English teachers has this blog address. I have no idea if she actually checks it though. I wonder if them English teachers keep in touch. That could be funny...except for the part where I would never find out about it.

a lappy bath

I've decided I like to take baths with my computer. It just balances soooo well on the edge of the bath tub too. I keep reminding myself that it is probably not the brightest of all ideas, but I've been lured into its amazing balance sense of security. Bad Charlotte.

bad store, no internet.

Sometimes I have a beloved piece of clothing that is falling apart and I want to replace (such as my cute but waterproof london fog boots), and I cannot find them online. Why do so many clothing companies make themselves sooooo hard to find online. This happens to me all the time and it is so frustrating... Like a pair of jeans I buy at ross or tjmax, and I want anothe, but it is just try to find a duplicate pair of jeans in one of those stores. Seams like the closest I ever get is finding them on ebay, and it is never the same exact item.

And when I do find the store, they don't even show there products. I understand the whole not stealing business from your distributers thing, but I would like to know if the product is even still made. grrrrrr suck.

Seams really stupid to me.

Calling all girls; name your faves

The time for new make up has come.
/
I have been out of conceler foundation now for almost a week, and my under eyes are beeing rather dark and brooding about it. Yeah for allergies... and pale translucent skin. The stuff I used was good the first time. Not so good the second or third time, so now, less than a year later, I am on the prowl for something worth buying.

I'd like to know anyone's favorites, especially for undereye, conceler, foundation- but all are welcome. My mascara is getting to the point were spraying it with water and dipping it back in the tube isn't producing much of anything.

Long lasting is key. I rub my eyes a lot... play with my eybrows when I am bored, etc. So stuff that doesn't wear off is preferable.

speaking of which, is there such thing as a lipgloss that stays on longer than an hour?

Dibble Dabble

I'm sorry I haven't said anything very witty lately. The curse of working.  In the meantime, I was brainstorming for my BFA Project, and I will cut and paste an excerpt from that for a little get to know me  moment (BOOOOO!  I  know you are all rolling your eyes... serious stuff.. SOOOOO boring.  I'll tell you what, I wont have a quiz on this entry, so you can skip it if you wish).

I am a dabbler by nature. Often mislabeled as indecisive, I have an easier time (when faced with a myriad of choices) saying what I don’t want to do than what I want to do; it is not that I don’t know what I want, but rather that I want too much—a little bit of everything.  Call it selfishness if you will. I’ll call it a love of learning and trying new things.

My notion of success is an amalgamation one-hit-wonders: write the lyrics to one chart-topping song, write one bestselling novel, act in one oscar/academy nominated role, do a voice over for one amazing cartoon, design one gorgeous dress, etc..  Because of this, I have developed many skills while perfecting none.

I think of all of the skills I learned at one point or another—skills that I have since left untouched in search of a greater variety of “light and knowledge.” As prophesied, my buried talents have begun to slip away. I’m saddened by my crumbling abilities (i.e. sewing, book binding, guitar, modern dance, poetry, physics, grammar, framing, French), but it does not change the fact that I am still searching for more. I’ve begun to learn tennis and graphic design, and long still to learn web programming and metal working.

Thus, I’ve spread myself pretty thin, leaving little room to be more than mediocre in anything. With such being the case, I feel as though I would be best defined as a 209 scattered fragments… and I have no idea what they are fragments of—I’ve never seen them in once piece.  I’d like to.

Did you hear about the Mullah who...

BTW, I finished Kite Runner a few days ago. Not on my list of best books ever read, but still good. I'm a bit concerned about the movie though. Some things can be implied in a book without getting to disturbing, but visually a couple very key points could easily get out of hand. I did cry during the book though, if that means anything to anyone. I also craved  pomegranates quite frequently. Partially because I saw a little video tip on how to easily get the seeds out of pomegranates, and have been wanting to try it ever since.

As many of you know, I've been trying to follow up on politics a bit, via the miracle of podcasts, and I started understanding some of the news  reports better from reading this book. For instance, I know Afghanistan has gone through several leaderships within my lifetime, and that it is located next to Palestine. I also recognized the word "mullah" too.  Okay, so that is nothing, but I haven't had a geography quiz since 4th grade, which is why I couldn't name a single state that boarders Tennessee. 

I am pheromones, hear me roar

Isn't that the coolest title ever. I was lying in bed last night when I thought about it. Almost ran in and posted just the title. You see, the truth is that it has nothing to do with anything, I just like the title.

Someone (or some quiz?) recently asked me if I did my best thinking in bed. I said no. Just incase it was a person, I would like to take this moment to say "I'm sorry, but it appears I may have lied about not thinking when I lie (down)." Har-de-har-har-har.

And lying down reminds me of how nice it is to wake up cold in the morning and being able to reach over and push a button. Electric blankets are pretty. I'm just waiting for someone to invent something that will fix the wake up in the middle of the night and have to pee thing. Turns out Brett does not like the idea of a catheter. Probably for the best. I move around way too much.

Last night I read "Kite Runner" from page 48-233. I just got "Water for Elephants" in the mail, and that motivated me to get going with "Kite Runner," though I certainly didn't plan on reading past 4 am. I should have known better, even in elementary school I would read in bed into the wee hours. I used to build a fort with pillows and read with a flashlight, and Cerise would still complain about the light. Tsk Tsk Tsk. I also have one book left over from the last time I went on a reading spree... over a year ago: The Age of Innocence. I ran out of time after reading probably 15 books in the summer. I left that one for last because I didn't like the cover.

LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!

I spent farrrrr to much time writing my poll questions. So answer ye them.

It's Podcastic!!!

This story starts out with my recent discovery of podcasts and ends with a poll. I used to dismiss podcasts as nothing; they were something for the hardcore fans of shows like "One Tree Hill," and I am not such a fan of anyone or anything--especially not teen soap operas.

I began a few months ago to listen to a certain talk radio show on a certain AM radio station. My listening was sporadic at best, but over time it began to effect me, or is that affect me... no matter, that is a discussion for the END of this entry.

I decided that it was time I catch up on politics so that, when the time comes to vote, I could make a well informed decision pertaining to the future leader of the executive branch of our government (wordiness is fun). This ultimately led to me
1. discovering and downloading the podcast for the above mentioned AM radio talk show
2. sampling and subscribing to some other, hopefully more diversified, news and political podcasts
3. learning a lot but ultimately needing a break from politics.
4. listening to Grammar Girl podcasts.
5. listening to podcasts through out a decent portion of my workday

Now, a while back I began wondering if I should clean up my blogs. I've gotten rather sloppy, and while I don't think blogs in particular require proper punctuation at all times, I do know that when you stop practicing things, you forget them. For example, every time I pick up the guitar (every 3 years, for about a week strait) I have to relearn the tab system. So, while My favorite class in high school was College Preparatory English Grammar, and while a lot of my minor classes were of the editing sort (and I aced them all, thank you very much), I am letting so much slip.

As I've been listening to Grammar Girl, I've been reminded of several things that I used to know quite well, but that I've stopped doing, simply because I rarely write. When I do write, it is usually a rushed e-mail or a rushed blog (that I shouldn't be writing, e.g. right now I should be catching up on work).

So, there are two morals to this story. First, sooner or later I will catch up on all these weekly podcasts, do any of you have podcast recommendations for me? Second, answer my polls on the left, please.

Impure Evil, and a grammar argument with myself.

Applause, applause. I went to bed at 1:30 am last night (2.5 hours earlier than I have been able to fall asleep lately), and although I took a sleeping pill to achieve it, I woke up on my own at 8:30. That is 2.5 hours less total sleep than my body typically demands. Awesome.

Unfortunately, I awoke from a rather intense dream I was about to call Pure evil, but Then decided that calling it so would merely dilute the true meaning of "pure evil," and thereby bring the downfall of the english language. Now, being a descriptivist in the linguist world, I typically don't fight such things and reserve the right to capitalize words like "Pure" and "Then" in the middle of a sentence (because, lets face it, it is not like you suddenly couldn't understand the meaning of my words because I capitalize words as strikes my fancy), but for some reason, I felt rather guilty about using pure evil; hence I say "impure evil."

Among other things, thedream included a parkinglot full of hyper-active large snakes that filialed ( how does one spell that?) rather than slithered--thereby wildly bouncing 4 or so feet high.

I would like to take this moment to thank my father for raising me with pet snakes. If I were a normal girl, I probably would have woken up in a cold sweat. Fortunately, I don't mind snakes at all as long as they hold still long enough for me to see if they are poisonous. Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify the head shape on a violently filailing snake (If love that word so much, I really should figure out how to spell it). So, that part of the dream still left me uncomfortable.

BUT THE WORST PART was the parasite my mind invented. IGGG! I woke up and repeatedly checked my finger as Iie in bed (notice that I said Lie instead of Lay...see, I am not completely disrespectful to grammar. I know what I'm doing, I'm just lazy. Oh crappers, its past tense.... maybe it is lay after all. grrrr. I really should get a good usage dictionary. not that it matters, I still effectively presented my message).

So I am still kinda freaked out by this parasite. I think I would rather have candiru than my own parasite, which I shall call "igg,"in honor of my reaction to it.

Special thanks to poodle's blog for helping me realize I can embed links in my entry without simply writing out the link for it. I should have known, but I didn't even think about it.

Just Poodle it.

This entry is dedicated to Poodle, who probably won't be impressed with this, because she probably got an even better deal within the past week.

Okay, girl moment.

Brett finally convinced me to go shopping. I got money for christmas that was more or less dedicated to buying clothes, but haven't had time to shop. So, at 8 pm brett convinced me that if I hadn't started working yet, I wasn't going to (which isn't exactly true... )

Anyhow. I finally decided to buy a 1/2 sleeve sweaterish thing. Store closing in 5 minutes... so naturally, I bought all 6 colors (thinking I would try them on with stuff at home, return some). Turns out I like them all.

Original pre-tax total = $156
Sale post-tax total =$39.75
Savings = $116 (as in 116 Frosties...?)

And that is why you should think twice next time any of you want to mock me for only searching sales racks. Full price is for suckers.

I don't get books.

Brett got me "Kite Runner" for Christmas, and I started reading it last night when I couldn't sleep. Now, when I open a book, I typically do it with one one purpose in mind- To read the book- which leads me to my fist point.

"extraordinary praise for..."

Now, the reason I wanted the book, was because I heard it was good. It came up on several "recommended based on items you've rated" type of lists, etc. IF I AM OPENING THE BOOK TO READ IT it is a little late to try to sell me on the book, so I really don't understand the purpose of putting in a 4 page section entitled "extraordinary praise for the amazing 'so-and-so's' amazingly-amazing novel." If I have bought the book, I am not going to waste my time reading 4 pages of reviews on the book when I am perfectly capable of reading the book and formulating my own opinion on it...and, if I am holding in in a bookstore trying to decide whether or not to get it, why not read the first four pages instead... shouldn't that give you a better idea of whether or not you'll like it than the opinions of 19 (yes, I counted) reviewers I have never met and have no reason to trust that their judgement would coincide with mine.

That, and I think it comes across rather vain- which is annoying.

Point 2-
Book club questions.
I've never been one for book clubs, and probably because all the women around here tend to pick books I have absolutely no interest in (ann of green gables...If I wanted to read that, I would have done it 15 years ago Dearie. I'm sure it is great, but It is time you moved past adolescent literature). Anyhow, I figure that if a group of people want to get together and discuss a book, they probably are intelligent enough to know what they want to discuss... and if there really isn't much to discuss about the book, than haven't you wasted enough time reading it? So basically this rant is aimed at the "book club" or "reader's guide" questions at the end of the book. WHY? Once again, I find that annoyingly vain. "Here you go... my book is sooooooo deep, I couldn't possibly expect you to understand it unless I helped you a bit. Okay, I put a quiz at the end of my book... If you discuss them with your friends they might be able to help you understand how truely deep and amazing I am."

I recognize that I can be stubborn, and knowing at least 3 of you are readers, so I invite your input. Am I wrong? Should I give book club questions a chance?

We should have them put MOVIE CLUB questions in the extra's section of the DVDs. "Tim Burton used color and camera angles differently between Edward's mansion and the village. Discuss."