WEEKEND PLANS

Tomorrow I am leaving for the weekend to spend some time with a few of the women I met in June during my trip to the Women’s Leadership Institute. We’re not going to do anything responsible. We are going to be hanging out in a crowded hotel room, having some drinks, laughing and being ridiculous. Plus we’re going to talk. We like to talk. We may even play truth or dare or something along those lines because basically this is one giant sleepover. I’m totally not warning anyone that I snore.

SCHOOL UPDATE

So my adviser hunted me down and forced me to talk about school. It’s something I really haven’t wanted to discuss with anyone and I have been feeling really overwhelmed and hopeless about. We decided to up my schedule a little this semester and get me on a payment plan. She also assured me that while my math class doesn’t count towards graduation credits it does count towards financial aid credits.

She further assessed that it’s just not worth me taking on a third 3 credit class in order to get my financial aid back in place when a one credit course would work and save me a bunch of money. Plus I need to take a phys ed anyway.

My new schedule is:

• Intro to Communications Studies - MWF - 9:00am to 10:00am
• Dance 1 - MW - 11:30am - 12:45pm (Starting next quarter)
• Intermediate Algebra - MW - 3:00pm to 5:15pm

I do feel a lot better. This isn’t what I had hoped for right now, but it’s enough. Slowly, but surely I will keep getting there. I just have to be patient.

My math class is a Pass/Fail class so we have tests every week. We have to get at least a 75% on all tests to be allowed to take the final. We have to get a least a 75% on the final in order to pass the class. A little bit intense, no? We’re allowed to retake class tests until we get a passing grade, but that is still a lot of pressure. Plus it sucks knowing that I could pass all the class tests, but if I fail the final I still fail the class.

I guess I have to keep my game face on and really strive to get the best grades possible at all time. Which I sort of do anyway…

NON BLOGGERS JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND US

Me: Yeah…I’m really interested to see what our eBay auctions are at today. I left my computer at work so I would be more productive at home last night and not knowing what they are at is killing me.
Kasey: A whole night without your computer? I bet you were ready to malfunction.
Me: I was just fine! I’m only saying that I like to keep an eye on the auctions in case people have questions or whatever.
Kasey: Yeah, okay. [at this point she pretends to be a malfunctioning robot] Must update Twitter, check email, blog reader, ebay, email,Twitter…Must tell people what I am doing at all times. No one knows what I am doing right at this exact moment. Oh my god. Malfunction. Malfunction!
Me: You think you’re so funny.

1. Dyed my hair red. It has been sort of reddish the past few times I dyed it always fading to a light brown, but this time the red is unmistakable and I am smitten. I also learned Kasey prefers darker hair so I’m glad I didn’t go for the box of Lightest Auburn I was leaning toward in the store. This one is called Summer Sunset or some shit. Check out the results!

Are you kidding me? How much better does this look? It also cost me $6.99 where the salon costs me $70. I realize the quality is much different, but for a color that fades so quickly I think I am going to keep dying it at home for a while.

2. Went to Philadelphia for the official celebration of Kasey and I being hopelessly in love for a year. (It actually seemed like we celebrated for a month which goes to show the level of our gross loveyness. I apologize.)

3. While in Philadelphia as I mentioned I got a facial at Rescue. There is no doubt that I will be going back there. It was such an experience. I don’t know how much immediate difference it has on my face. (See photos below) However, the effect on my self confidence was huge. I felt like a million dollars afterwards. It felt like I was glowing. I loved it!

The woman who did it also gave me a lot of great skin care advice and recommended I get one every season to once a year. If I can afford it I will be getting one every season. This was my first trip to a spa and it will not be my last. I am in complete shock that Kasey got this for me. It really was amazing.

I know my skin looks similar, but the confidence aspect was huge and my face felt cleaner than it has ever before and for someone like myself who always feels like their face needs washing that was huge. I also bought a fancy bottle of scary liquid exfoliant. (Side note: Did we make up the word exfoliate?)

Also I started to break out the next day as my skin expunges all the grossness that has been trapped and that isn’t very fun for me. I can’t wait till this process is over and the clean happy skin part comes along.

4. We also had dinner at Buddakan where our first date took place. That was nice and sentimental. We also had a whole lot of amazing food. Also ducks? Adorable and yet extremely tasty, which makes me feel guilty. (That is a topic for another day. Sigh.)

In any case, here we are after dinner!

We were standing outside waiting for the valet when some kind stranger offered to take our picture for us after watching us struggle to take a good one ourselves. Thank you stranger!

5. The next day we were going to go to Atlantic City to spend a glorious day at the beach. We packed sandwiches, beach bags and I wore my bathing suit under my clothing.

Upon arrival to Atlantic City it became clear that everyone in the world had come there to see some sort of air show. The boardwalk was packed, the beach was full of people standing around and looking at the sky and surly teenagers were trying to start with me via glaring. (It also made me feel old to realize if I was there age I would have said something, but alas I simply glared back and walked away.)

We didn’t even get to look at the beach. We were going to eat something, but prices seemed to be hiked up at the buffets ($29.99!) and the restaurants had 2+ hour waits. We stopped to get Kasey her favorite candy (sour belts) and decided to head back to Philadelphia.

Once there we hit up our favorite place to eat Delilah’s and headed to Duross & Langel to get some soaps. Then I even got some gelato at Capogiro. So it was still a nice day, but I had really been looking forward to spending time at the beach.

On the plus side my sister and her boyfriend are renting a house in Ocean City, NJ for the week and told Kasey and I that we are free to stay. So we are hoping to go there for 4 nights in September. So all is well.

Moving on! Hillary Clinton sent me a nice email to try to calm me down and The New York Times seems to think Biden has foreign expertise or whatever so I’m letting it go for now.

I also am currently inexplicably covered in bug bites and being itchy never fails to make me feel pissed off.

Though I do have a tiny tan colored rabbit hoping around my room so that tends to help everything look a little brighter. (Though a grey bunny overseeing the tan bunnies freedom from the oppression of her cage might tell you differently.)

I also just checked my email from Joe Biden thanking me for the warm welcome and that made me feel all guilty.

So…school starts tomorrow. I have totally been neglecting talking about it. This was supposed to be my first real semester. I was going to take a full course load for the first time and just feel like a real student. I was directing The Vagina Monologues and I am the secretary and treasurer of Women & Men For Awareness. Now? Now I am taking one non-credit course thanks to my financial aid not coming in. Oh and I was denied for a student loan.

When I think about it I get upset thus I have been putting it out of my mind. I don’t know the classroom, I don’t have the books, etc… It just all sucks so much.

So that’s that.

I’m not happy.

When I heard that Barack Obama was planning on announcing his VP candidate via text message I signed up asap. I like being in the know. I’m pretty political even though I usually keep it to myself. I signed up because I wanted to be prepared to do little victory dances around my room. I wanted to know as soon as he announced so I could jump online and order my Obama/Clinton bumper sticker for my car. I was so sure he would pick Hilary. She already has such a HUGE base of voters who love her. How would you possibly turn on those millions of people so close to the big election? Who else could he possibly pick?

Then this morning Kasey told me we had gotten the text just as my eyes were opening to the morning. She didn’t look pleased. Then she told me Obama has picked Joe Biden. What? I think my intense reaction made her smirk a little. I took her small smile as a glimmer of hope. “Oh wait” I said, “Are you kidding?” Alas, she was not.

So you’re are telling me that the new pick for Vice President is a man who couldn’t even make it to the top 5 candidates for President. That shows a lot of promise for how well received he is by the public. Way to go!

I also checked out his stances on the issues I care about and guess what? Many of them aren’t even discussed on his website. Fantastic. I did do further research into him and what he really believes. I found that: “Biden voted for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits same-sex marriage under federal law. In 2003, he said gay marriage is “probably” inevitable and that if marriage “brings stability” to gay couples, “I don’t know why we should be frightened of that.” Biden voted against a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and also voted in favor of expanding the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation.”

I suppose you can look at that as reforming your ways of thinking. Hey I didn’t like gay people in 1996 either. Mainly though that’s because I was a preteen suppressing thoughts of my own homosexuality. (Isn’t that usually the case with gay bashers?) However, I think it can also be looked at as changing your stances to fit in with the times. I don’t know. I guess I should be glad that he seems to be making an effort now, but the fact that he voted against it at the start gives me pause.

Also important to me? Heathcare. Here is what he feels about that: “If elected president, Biden said he would immediately insure every child under 18, “move for catastrophic health coverage” and push health care providers to use electronic record keeping for better cost savings. He would give more leeway to states experimenting with full coverage: “States are the incubators for this,” he said. In 2002, he sponsored a bill that would allow Delawarean small businesses and individuals to band together to purchase insurance at group discounted rates.”

Ensuring kids is great, but the rest sounds sketchy too.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just trying to find things not to like. I was just so excited about having an election where I really believed in and admired the party I was voting for. Back when it was Kerry vs. Bush I felt like I was voting for the lesser of two evils. This time I didn’t have that feeling. I had a feeling of excitement. At something different. At the possibility of change and breaking the mold of what had been for years a segregated position of leadership. Against women and other races. I was just so hopeful to see Hilary there.

I didn’t like her because she was a woman. That isn’t why I voted for her. Believe me if Condoleezza Rice was running I would vote against her in a hot second. I just admired her and everything she stood for. Maybe she’ll give it another go in four years?

I guess I’m back to voting for someone I don’t favor again. I’m certainly going to vote Obama still. There is no way I wouldn’t put my vote against McCain. I just wanted to be elated about it. It’s hard to think of this as a good thing. Maybe listening to the speeches will sway me. Somehow I don’t think so.

I don’t want to say it, but part of me thinks he picked him because Biden is a white male. Maybe that seemed to be an easy way to make some people (like southern democrats) feel more comfortable voting for him…and that makes me uncomfortable.

Disclaimer: Heres the thing. I am voting Obama. I’m voting for him and I am sure he will be a phenomenal president. I am just annoyed about my favorite VP pick (you know I mean Hils) not being chosen and having to deal with a candidate that I don’t feel like I know anything about. I just wrote this to get my thoughts and feelings out.

That’s all I got. Sorry to get all political on ya. If you want to here about face wash, check out my other site.

I started a new blog! It’s a super dorky blog about what bath and body products I am using. Fun, right? I know. I realize not that many people care. That’s why I created the new blog. So I don’t make you guys nuts. It’s called I Wash My Face. I know, I’m so damn creative that it’s scary.

In other news, people please go get a facial! It’s amazing. I felt like I was glowing for the rest of the day. Now? Not so much. I think it brought all the grossness to the top and I’m breaking out now. Hopefully that will go down soon. I bought some sort of fancy facial stuff I have been using and I’m excited for it to work. More about that on the new site.

Besides getting facials, eating fancy dinners in Philadelphia and starting new blogs I have been pretty much just playing The Sims 2: Castaway on my DS. It’s so addicting it’s scary. That’s why children shouldn’t be allowed to play video games. They are like crack. Then again I need all those tweens to help me out when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I did an obscene amount of google searches. How did people solve video games before the internet?

There are some incidents in your life that even while they are happening you know that one day it will become dinner conversation you can bring up and let your guest laugh at. Kasey and I had one of those incidents on Saturday morning.

I had been driving around my community all day on Friday well aware that my tank was below the E line. I figured I wouldn’t stress it until the light came on. With the prices of gas the way they are these days that is pretty much how I have been doing it. The light tells me when it’s time to fill.

This has been working well for me.

Cut to Saturday morning. Kasey and I decided to take a drive to Target so we could replenish our mouthwash supply. (Very important, you know. Never mind that we passed many stores on the way there. Target is better and so worth the drive.) We were about 10 miles into the trip (it’s a 10 minute drive) when she said, “The gas light just came on!”. All of the sudden the knowledge that I hadn’t put any gas in still rushed back. “Oh my god! That has been near E for days! Damn it. I totally forgot to tell you to stop. Umm…Don’t worry. If it just came on we should be good. The exit is only three miles up. We should make it there.”

We start driving 40 mph on the highway so as not to use extra gas and we turn off the AC. I think we’ll be alright and this has just been a close call. About two miles away the road slopes upward as we approach a hill. The moment we start heading up it Kasey gets a scared look in her eyes and says, “We’re not accelerating!” Oh shit. I decide that it’s time to go into my calm mode and figure out what we’re going to do. “Ok baby, just pull over. It’s alright.”

She pulls the car onto the side of the highway as other cars and trucks zoom by. We cost along the side for a few feet, but then all the warning lights come on and I decide we better just stop and turn off the car. We sit for a few moments and try to access the situation in our heads. “Do you have the cell?” I ask her hopefully. She feels her pocket. Looks at me with a frown, shakes her head, “No, I don’t.” Great. “Well” I started, “I suppose we better get out and start walking. Luckily the gas station isn’t too far.”

Off we went on the side of the highway walking to get some gas. We had seen my cousin earlier in town at the bank and we started to talk hopefully about the prospect of her driving this way and stopping to save us.

As car after car continued to go by us we continued our journey to get the gas. Eventually we looked back and were no longer able to see our car. I was getting nervous as we approached the exit because cars really aren’t careful around her and it’s one of the busiest exits we have since it’s right next to the outlets. Just as my anxiety was beginning to kick in we noticed a car pulling off to the side of the road. I saw that she had a bumper sticker that said, War is not the answer. I knew we were in good company. We ran up to the window and started talking to the woman and thanking her for stopping. Just as we were talking to her another car pulled up right behind hers. It was my cousin! We let the woman know it was my family and thanked her again. She needed directions so Kasey and I helped her with that too and let her know she was going the right way.

When we got in the car with my cousin it turned out that she had passed us already and gotten off the exit and came back around to get us! I thought that was so sweet of her. She drove us to the gas station where we purchased a 2 gallons of gas and one of those red plastic containers.

Then my cousin got us back to the car and we started figuring out how to work the container and get the gas into the car. It filled very slowly, but we got it in. After that it was smooth sailing. My cousin left to meet her friend (where she had been going originally) and we got the car started, got back off the exit and filled the tank.

I don’t think running out of gas is going to be a mistake we soon repeat.

Then we made our way to Target where we forgot to buy the mouthwash we were journeying for in the first place. We did buy a body pillow and two closet organizers. Go us! In retrospect though I was really glad we both kept our cool and were able to joke, laugh and smile through the whole experience. Everything seems like an adventure when I am with her.

Tomorrow we leave for our anniversary trip to Philadelphia were we will hopefully encounter no more car troubles.

I decided recently that I am going to own my life being a D-List blogger. It’s only fitting because Kathy Griffin is pretty much my favorite celebrity ever so I should be honored to be following in her footsteps. (Well following badly, but still following, yes?)

It’s funny to me because I started blogging in 2003 which is pretty earlier for blogs. (Well technically I started blogging in 1999 when we first got the internet, but those are entries the world will never see. I at least spare you and only give you post high school experiences. You should thank me quite a lot too. It would be insane.) I began at a friends insistance by joining Xanga which was sort of an online journal community. I read some people there, but it was always people doing it on the side and just writing out their feelings like a journal. That’s how mine started out. (I’m afraid it continues to be like that fairly often.) I read Toothpaste For Dinner comics compulsively after my older brother, Jason pointed them out to me. Somehow, and I don’t remember how, that led me to discovering Mimi Smartypants.

I adored EVERYTHING about Mimi. I loved the dry way she wrote. I loved hearing about her life in Chicago and the random things she noted down. Everything. My entire blogging experience stemmed from finding her blog. She was the only blog I read (outside of Xanga) for a while. I read Mimi from around March 2004 on and one day with one sentence she changed my entire blog world. That sentence? “Alice and I are cranky today.”

The name Alice was, of course, linked the fantastic Alice of Finslippy. I then started clicking and reading everyone who was in Alice’s blogroll at the time. That lead me to another love that was Jessica of Very Mom (then Kerflop now Balancing Everything).

A year later I had a url and website of my very own.

I never did see any other bloggers as being above me. I mean…when it comes down to it we’re all just people sitting around writing out our feelings to the internet. Right? Some of us, albet do it better than others. Though, I’m kind of sure if you mentioned the words SparklieSunShine to say, Fussy. She might say something like, “Hmm…that sounds a tad familiar. Might it be the looney girl who has been commenting me since 2005? I think she bought two of my t-shirts even though they don’t fit her.” Yeah, that might be about right.

While I don’t see any other bloggers above me I do get that they don’t have time to read/engage with everyone who reads them. Nor, I’m sure would they want to. But for the individuals on my blogroll their reading entertains me and that it enough for me. That’s why they are so neatly filed under: For Entertainment.

What was I talking about again? Oh, being D-List, right, right. So one blogger I found quite recently The Bloggess was writing a funny little excerpt about her Technorati rating. It was in the 4,000s. I was curious as to what mine might be. I mean, I’m getting around. I have two Five Star Friday’s under my belt and I’m featured on all top now. My rating can’t be terrible.

Oh, my lovely, wonderful readers. How very wrong you would be. My rating? It’s 4,567,345.

So really there are only 4.5 million bloggers ahead of me. You know, when you consider that there are billions of people in the world that’s really not so bad. I’m representing, yo.

I’m totally owning this. I even took a screen shoot for posterity.

Not really. This is from Rhi and she said she was just going to leave it up to us to tag ourselves. So I did.

8 Things I’m Passionate About:

1. Kasey
2. My Blog.
3. Being happy.
4. Finishing college.
5. Being myself.
6. Being joyful.
7. Experiencing new things.
8. Love.

8 Books I’ve read and enjoyed

1. Cunt by Inga Muscio
2. Feminism Is For Everybody by Bell Hooks
3. Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti
4. Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women & Feminism by Bell Hooks
5. Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
8. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty White

8 words/phrases that I say often

1. I’m cold.
2. Huh?
3. Oh! (I tend to exclaim this a lot and then go into a story.)
4. Seriously?
5. I don’t know. ( My one coworker asks me endless questions all about things I don’t know/care about.)
6. Take me home.
7. I love you.
8. Let’s snuggle.

8 things I want to do before I die

1. Have a home.
2. Get my doctorate.
3. Have children.
4. See another country.
5. Have a career.
6. Take a road trip.
7. Write something amazing.
8. Legally change my name.

8 Things I’ve Learned in my Life

1. You have to do what makes you happy.
2. Other people will judge you no matter what.
3. All you need is love.
4. Never compromise yourself.
5. LOVE DOESN’T HURT.
6. Friends who betray you weren’t friends to begin with.
7. Life in unexpected.
8. There is beauty in everything.

8 places I want to see

1. Portland, OR
2. Japan
3. China
4. France
5. The UK
6. Australia
7. The Caribbean with Kasey (I have been there before.)
8. Las Vegas, NV

8 things I currently want/need

1. An apartment/home.
2. A new design for my blog.
3. A new url.
4. Kick ass accessories for my date.
5. DS games.
6. A new wardrobe.
7. Cupcakes.
8. My mini-vacation to come up quicker.

8 people I want to tag

Like my D-List ass has 8 readers. Eh….I’ll play along anyway. (Feel free to do it if you would like, but don’t feel pressured. If I didn’t tag you and you do it anyway let me know so I can read it.)

1. Alice
2. Jill
3. Loralee
4. The Over-Thinker
5. One Scrappy Gal
6. Kyle
7. Kaza
8. Natalie

I am a Croc wearer. Yeah I said it. Go ahead and stone me to death internet!! I know that’s what you want to do. I don’t quite understand the venom behind most anti-Croc individuals. Have these shoes done something personal to you? Did a giant Croc once come up to you, slap you in the face and call your mother a whore? You would think so to read some of the things people have to say about them.

I especially love this article at The Manolo which details shoe horrors. I own two of the exact shoes listed. (Birkenstock Boston’s in Tan and Ugg Short Boots in Baby Pink, in case you wondered.) I also own 3 out of the 7 of the shoes discussed. (Ugg, Birkenstock, and Crocs, also in case you wondered.)

Let me clairify lest you cast me out as a fashion pariah. I like shoes that serve a purpose. I do not want to be in physical pain because of something I’m wearing. Call me crazy if you wish. I also don’t like sneakers. I two pairs and I can count how many times I have worn both on one hand. Let me talk to you about each individually.

1. Uggs - Sure. They aren’t the most attractive boots, but I live in the Poconos people. Our winters go from October to May. I’m cold all the time. I need warm boots. I don’t give a damn what they look like as long as I am warm. So sue me.

2. Birkenstocks - These used to be all I wore before Uggs. Then it was Birkenstocks in the Summer and Uggs in the winter. Oh what a happy time. Then I just stopped being able to afford new pairs or whatever and somehow they stopped being my #1 choice. I will still defend them to the end. As a teenager I used to work in a gas station where I would be on my feet all day long. These were the only shoes where I would make it to the end of the day without my feet feeling like they were on fire. They also look cute on, in my opinion and I love wearing them with tights. I wish I had a new leather pair. My old ones I have had since I was 16 and doodled on them. You don’t want to see that.

3. Crocs - Last, but not least. The evil menaces of the shoe world. Here for the sole purpose of making you miserable. I’m wearing them RIGHT NOW! How do you feel, internet? A little nauseous? Good! They allow me to walk all over Philadelphia with nary a care.

I’m not saying that I too am not hit with disgust when I see those dreadful yuppie families and all of them are wearing a variable rainbow of crocs. My eye twitches too. I also am filled with repulsion when I see over-tanned 48 year olds in teeny tiny skirts, halter-tops and Uggs. I’m human. I feel that stuff to.

Here is the thing though. It’s not the shoes fault. Those shoes deserve better than that. You can’t blame the shoes for these public annoyances. It’s the people welding them. It’s not like Dooney & Burke where the bags themselves cause the problem. I am wearing this exact pair. I also want these.

What I really want to get at here is the same sort of people who HATE Crocs and keep ranting on and on about how awful they are like shoes that are even uglier. Except it doesn’t seem to matter how ugly those shoes are as long as Vouge and Elle tell them they are lovely. I’m calling bull shit.

I put together a brief compilation of photos for you to further my point. (All current picks from Piper Lime.)

It’s a shame DSW wouldn’t let me save their images. You are missing this, this, this, this and this. (Please click those links. You will be missing out if you don’t.)

Suddenly Crocs seem like a pretty great choice.

Hi guys!!! How is everyone. I’m fabulous. Thank you for asking. Even moreso? Thank you for telling me I’m fabulous. All of you who commented on my last entry. You all really made me feel so much better.

No further emails have been received so that is a definite plus. Hopefully it continues that way. I also added a new email to my contact info for them to use. Let us hope that they do.

I have been oddly chatty lately. I don’t even think I have anything good to say. It’s just blahblahblah about everything. This is so unlike me. Usually I am having complex conversations in my head and also bullying myself into saying something. This is especially true when out to eat. Don’t you feel massive pressure to have great conversation when you’re out to dinner with someone? Luckily Kasey is a great conversationalist so she keeps things move, but usually I’m yelling at myself in my head going, “Say something! SAY something!!!”.

Not these past few days though. I have been finding EVERYTHING interesting and worthy of a conversation. Kasey said at one point I was talking and she zoned out for a while and thought of something to tell me, zoned back and I was STILL talking! About random things like sweaters and face washes. You know all that stuff your significant other is so interested in hearing about.

I think I need to find a happy medium.

I purchased a DS game yesterday at Target called Petz Bunnyz. I’m not going to deny that the young male gamer who was working there didn’t shame me with his eyes while opening the case, but I feel it was worth it. Now I need to get a new DS charger so I can play the damn thing. I ordered one off of ebay and hopefully it will be in by the time I go on my mini-vacation next week.

Shoe search 2008 has been rough going, but people seemed to favor my red flats that I own already and Kasey said the black heels I own are great too. So perhaps I’ll just stick with those and save the money. Still wish I have jewelry or a bag that really popped. It’s a pretty upscale restaurant so I would like to have a designer bag with me, but what does it even matter? I have a bright red clutch, but the clasp doesn’t always stay closed. Too much to decide on! Why am I getting myself all worked up about this date?

I was going to get my eyebrows threaded also before going, but apparently my eyebrows look fine the way they are (according to Kasey) and she thinks they look a little strange when there are tiny thin lines. (That’s the way I like to get them.) So now I’m not sure about getting that done either. I guess it’s saving me money. That’s a good thing, right?

I would include photographic evidence so I could get your opinion, but as usual I don’t have my camera with me at work. As usual.