Depression: Obviously, still there. I mean, if you don't really do anything about depression, it will settle in and get comfy, and I haven't really done much to address it. I am forcing myself to be active, to go outside a bit more, and to get at least one thing (laundry, change bed sheets, wipe down sink, etc.) done every day, and that has been surprisingly effective. The sense of satisfaction derived from doing something, anything, versus wallowing has been helpful. Now, if I can get my eating behaviors under better control, I may be able to fix one of the main contributors to my sense of worthlessness: my weight. Baby steps, right?
Rats: Mostly eradicated. The rat guy came out, rolled his eyes at my landlord's griping, and did a rock-solid job of closing off all the openings that the rodents were exploiting. He also set several traps in the attic. After ten days, he came back, double-checked that no one had gnawed through his work, and cleared several dead rats from the attic. He warned me that since we hadn't signed up for the maintenance plan (landlord unwilling) we would need to be conscientious about walking around the house every few days to make sure that there were no new incursions. He also added, almost as an afterthought, that we may occasionally hear sounds from the rats trying to get back in. Sure enough, last night, we hear the weirdest noise. I can't even describe it. Almost a grinding. It was in the same place where the original rat hole was, so we realized it was a rat trying to chew through the metal grates that now adorn our soffitts. Since we are survivalist nutjobs, we happen to have some very powerful pepper spray on hand, so we crept out to the backyard and doused the area the rat had been chewing with the spray, then scurried back into the house. Back in bed, we smugly congratulated ourselves on outsmarting Mr. Rattus rattus, and settled down to sleep. I can now attest to the fact that rats are not deterred by pepper spray. I shall have to do some more research to figure out something that will repel them.
Job: Still don't have one, but I've updated my resume pretty much all over the internet, and I continue to apply to several jobs a day. I've dropped my minimum salary requirement a little bit, and am hoping that will help. Ideally, I would find a way to be paid to troll Facebook, write tweets, and play Candy Crush, but that job does not seem to be hiring.
Food: We signed up for a CSA share, and I've been enjoying the challenge of using all the veggies every week. So far, I haven't been super creative; a lot of veggies end up in a broiler pan underneath a bunch of chicken thighs, or sauteed in some olive oil and served over pasta, but hey...gotta start somewhere. We keep getting these tiny, tiny beets with greens attached, and let me tell you, you roast those under some chicken for 45 minutes at 475, and they are UH-mazing.
I also tried a recipe I had never heard of, but which is apparently quite common: Beans and Greens. I found this while searching for uses for Escarole, which I had never cooked with before. This recipe allows a lot of customization, so I'll share my version:
1 lb Bacon
1 head Escarole
2 cups of fresh Spinach you still have from last week's CSA, and really need to use up
2 cans White Beans with liquid
ALL the garlic
3-4 bulbs spring onions, finely chopped (also in my CSA share this week, you could probably sub shallots or white onions)
Dash or two (or more if you like) Dried Red Pepper Flakes
Splash of Half and Half (totally optional)
Chop bacon into bite size pieces. Fry over medium heat in large skillet til crispy. Set bacon aside on paper towels. Move one or two tablespoons of bacon fat to another skillet, and set over medium heat. Remove bacon fat from original skillet, leaving one to two tablespoons. Add beans to bacon fat in original skillet, along with garlic, onions, and pepper flakes. Stir to combine, and allow to come to a gentle boil. Reduce heat to simmer. While this is happening, chop escarole and spinach into bite size pieces, and add to second skillet. Toss leaves to coat, and allow to wilt for seven to ten minutes, tossing frequently. When escarole is done, add it to bean mixture, along with reserved bacon pieces. Season to taste with salt and black pepper, and add a splash of half and half, if desired. Allow to simmer another five minutes for flavors to combine. This is a good time to slice up a loaf of crusty bread. Serve beans and greens with bread. You can probably skip the spoons, the bread is fabulous for scooping. Inform husband that he will have to find his own food, as you do not wish to share this.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Unedited, uncensored, unhappy
I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know how much longer I can keep waking up, keep putting one foot in front of the other. I've never been unemployed more than a couple of weeks, and the lack of solid routine is killing me. I'm not even kidding. First I stopped doing all the deep cleaning. Then I stopped doing laundry. I'm still managing dishes, shopping and cooking, but that's largely because I need to do those things in order to eat, and eating is what I do when I can't do anything else. Husband lectured me this morning about the fact that I've stopped exercising, that I'm spending too much time in front of the computer, and that I can't let myself (Let myself. After seven years, you would think he would get the most basic thing about depression, but no)get in to such a deep funk, that I have to pull out of it. Then he left without really saying goodbye, which is the kind of thing that drops my mood even further. Despite his lack of depression empathy, he is a good husband, he's a good friend, and I want to be with him, but in the state I'm in right now, I find myself wanting to run away from home. If only I had the slightest idea where to go. If only I wouldn't still be me when I got there.
Depression lies. Depression lies. Depression Lies. Keep saying it, keep thinking it, cry when you have to, do whatever it takes to keep yourself from lying down and never getting up again. Drink more coffee, take the dog on a longer walk. Try that new peach lemonade thing at Starbucks. Fuck it, eat a goddamn pastry while you're at it, too. Sugar feels good for a little while, the sadness, the emptiness all falls away along with the crumbs, at least until the guilt sets in again.
The guilt ALWAYS sets in again.
Troll Craigslist, write cover letter, send resume. Smile prettily and charm as hard as you can through the interview. Spend two days manic, thinking of how this job will fit your life, what time will you get up in the morning, maybe the budget can stand a new outfit, or just a new top, even, to wear on your first day. Plan the grocery list so you have good stuff to take in lunch. Put on your best smiley, professional voice when you see their number on the caller ID. Keep up the professional tone as you say "Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that, I was very impressed with your company. Yes, good luck to you as well." Hang up, try to breathe. Go back to the first sentence of this paragraph. Allemande left and start again.
See my doctor? Take some pills? Well, I can't. I was uninsured forever, so I couldn't go then. Then I finally got insurance, but work was so busy, I never quite got around to making that appointment. Then Husband's employer screwed us. They switched providers, and the new guys started the pre-existing/major waiting period over again. With my luck, when the waiting period expires, the bastards will switch again. There's also the fact that we are soon going to lose the ability to afford the horrific premium, and will drop my coverage. Even if that doesn't happen, the last time I talked to a doctor about depression, I ended up on a merry-go-round of pills that didn't work, pills that made me sick, and pills that made me feel as if I was legit losing my mind. I don't want to try it again. I'd rather feel this than feel crazy.
It lies, it lies, it lies. La la la la la la I can't hear you, depression. Go away. Let me be.
Write a blog post, send a tweet. Try to reach out in the world, try to feel part of something. Make yourself be funny on facebook. Play Candy Crush. The bright colors, the ridiculous sound effects.
I'm not having fun. I just want to cry, but tears won't come. I watch sad videos to try to make myself cry. I get a few trickles, but can't seem to manage the soul-tearing ugly cry that I'm sure will make me feel better.
Go to bed early, so I can feel better tomorrow. Lie awake from 1 to 4, staring into the darkness, fighting the urge to elbow his snoring ass in the ribs with all your might. Close your eyes, wish they would stay that way.
I don't know what to do anymore.
Depression lies. Depression lies. Depression Lies. Keep saying it, keep thinking it, cry when you have to, do whatever it takes to keep yourself from lying down and never getting up again. Drink more coffee, take the dog on a longer walk. Try that new peach lemonade thing at Starbucks. Fuck it, eat a goddamn pastry while you're at it, too. Sugar feels good for a little while, the sadness, the emptiness all falls away along with the crumbs, at least until the guilt sets in again.
The guilt ALWAYS sets in again.
Troll Craigslist, write cover letter, send resume. Smile prettily and charm as hard as you can through the interview. Spend two days manic, thinking of how this job will fit your life, what time will you get up in the morning, maybe the budget can stand a new outfit, or just a new top, even, to wear on your first day. Plan the grocery list so you have good stuff to take in lunch. Put on your best smiley, professional voice when you see their number on the caller ID. Keep up the professional tone as you say "Oh, well, I'm sorry to hear that, I was very impressed with your company. Yes, good luck to you as well." Hang up, try to breathe. Go back to the first sentence of this paragraph. Allemande left and start again.
See my doctor? Take some pills? Well, I can't. I was uninsured forever, so I couldn't go then. Then I finally got insurance, but work was so busy, I never quite got around to making that appointment. Then Husband's employer screwed us. They switched providers, and the new guys started the pre-existing/major waiting period over again. With my luck, when the waiting period expires, the bastards will switch again. There's also the fact that we are soon going to lose the ability to afford the horrific premium, and will drop my coverage. Even if that doesn't happen, the last time I talked to a doctor about depression, I ended up on a merry-go-round of pills that didn't work, pills that made me sick, and pills that made me feel as if I was legit losing my mind. I don't want to try it again. I'd rather feel this than feel crazy.
It lies, it lies, it lies. La la la la la la I can't hear you, depression. Go away. Let me be.
Write a blog post, send a tweet. Try to reach out in the world, try to feel part of something. Make yourself be funny on facebook. Play Candy Crush. The bright colors, the ridiculous sound effects.
I'm not having fun. I just want to cry, but tears won't come. I watch sad videos to try to make myself cry. I get a few trickles, but can't seem to manage the soul-tearing ugly cry that I'm sure will make me feel better.
Go to bed early, so I can feel better tomorrow. Lie awake from 1 to 4, staring into the darkness, fighting the urge to elbow his snoring ass in the ribs with all your might. Close your eyes, wish they would stay that way.
I don't know what to do anymore.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Rant Aftermath
If you follow me on Twitter, (and if you don't why not? I almost never tweet, I won't take up much space in your stream) you saw the ranty rantyness of my day yesterday, specifically about the rats in the ceiling, and my landlord's lack (to my outraged eyes) of suitable action. I was very ranty. I didn't quite come right out and call him a slumlord, but I was hovering around slumlord territory. Now, with the passage of time, and the reduction of righteous adrenalized outrage, I am feeling apologetic. One hundred forty characters will not suffice for that, so I decided to clear the cobwebs from my blog, dust off the keyboard, and say some stuff.
So, just to catch everyone up, here is the story. About three weeks ago, I heard a scratching sort of sound. Just very briefly, and very quietly. Quiet enough that I only noticed it because my snoring husband hadn't come to bed yet. I didn't really think anything of it. Though we live in the city, we live between a greenbelt and a sedge bog/wildlife preserve park. There are A LOT of raccoon, possums, coyotes, feral cats and largish insects in the neighborhood. It's not uncommon (I've seen it happen, in fact) for the local racoons to run up the tree at the corner of my house, out along a branch, drop onto my roof, and sprint across the roof to the chimney. From there, the crazy bastards leap onto another tree branch and from there, I don't know where they go. The point is, it's not unusual at all to hear things running across the roof. I heard the scratching, but I thought it was something smaller than a raccoon.
A few days later, I made a rare visit to the backyard, intending to deal with a blackberry bush that was threatening to undermine the neighbor's fence, and which had entwined itself around a rosebush I rather liked. I was checking out the roofline as I went, because it's the time of year when wasps build nests, and if there were any ambitious wasps out there, I wanted to know about it now, since it would take at least a week of whining about it to get Husband to go out there and deal with it. (What? I don't DO wasps. If I wanted to deal with insects, I would have stayed single. I acquired a husband to avoid these things. I also don't take out the garbage or the recycling, but I will pull the bins up after pickup. Marriage is about compromise, people.) No building activity, but there, between the roof fascia and the soffitt, a small hole. Slightly bigger than a 50-cent piece, with edges that seemed rather...chewed. "Huh." I thought. "I wonder what that's about?" But I promptly forgot about it, as the blackberry turned out to be a rather formidable foe.
Fast forward to five days ago. It is one a.m. We are trying to sleep. But instead of sleeping, we are staring up at the ceiling above our heads as the sounds of many, many tiny feet scamper about, and as weird, scritchy, chewing sorts of sounds occur, again, directly above our heads. On the cheesy, I-doubt-it's-very-strong acoustic tile that makes up our ceiling. I don't say it out loud, but I am certain that at any moment, dust motes will come sifting down at us, and a tiny, rodent nose will appear, and then a cascade of squirrels will rain down on us, and I will simply die.
Wait--Squirrels? I thought it was rats.
Well, it is rats. At the time I'm telling, though, I was thinking squirrels. For some reason, squirrels seemed less offensive. And I've always heard that rats and squirrels don't occupy the same ecosystem, because they compete for the same resources. Apparently, I have always heard wrong, as my frantic internet research the next morning showed. Squirrels would have been good neighbors. Still not something you want in your ceiling, what with the urine, feces, and chewing of electrical wires, but at least diurnal. We would have been able to sleep if squirrels were living with us. No, the nocturnal activity meant either rats or raccoons, either of which made me want to strike a match, and toss it over my shoulder as I walked away. A bit more research confirmed that I did not want to do this myself. For one thing, access to that space would be difficult, if not impossible--the attic doesn't extend over our bedroom, which was added on several years after the house was built. For another, I was not going to live trap and release the rats, because I didn't want to be anywhere near live rats, and I wasn't going to snap trap them, because I didn't want to be anywhere near dead rats. Poison was out, because no way was I going to have dead rats in my ceiling over the summer. That would render our bedroom truly uninhabitable. So I called in a pro, who would dispose of the rats, seal off all the little openings they had chewed, and would guarantee a rat-free environment for two years, all for the bargain price of 684.38.
Now, some landlord background. We moved in to this house in December 2007, so we've been here awhile. My husband works in the building trades and once owned a contracting business, so he's pretty handy. We like our privacy, and we HATE the guy that does maintenance for the landlord. He's weird and tweaky, and we suspect him of being a meth head. We only call our landlord, let's call him Mike, for maintenance/repair of the roof, which leaks at least once a year. Husband has done his share of roof work, and hates it, and I'd rather not worry about our sole provider falling off the roof. Everything else that happens, we deal with. Mike never even knows about it. Door frame needed fixing, we fixed. Faucet needed replacing, we replaced. Mike decided on his own to paint the house last summer, but that and buying roofing materials for the tweaker is the only money he's spent on this house since we moved in. Because we've been such profitable tenants, I assumed this rare request for him to act like a landlord would be cheerfully assented to.
Boy, was I wrong. Mike wanted to purchase poison, and have the tweaker deal with the rats. I pushed back, pointing out that some of the access points the rats were using were caused by Tweaker's poor workmanship on the roof. (This was according to the Rat Guy.) I didn't want to have to worry about this next year when the rats were looking for nesting sites. It was a health hazard, it was ruining my peace of mind and enjoyment of my home, and I wanted it handled professionally. Mike objected to the expense. I put him on hold, and told Husband what was going on. He sighed. "Cheap bastard. Tell him we'll pay half." Mike didn't like it, but he assented, and supposedly, a check is in the mail. (Why he didn't just have it taken out of the rent, I don't know.) Since my internet sleuthing has revealed that he bought this house VERY cheaply (he bought juuuuuust before the Seattle housing market EXPLODED, and before this was a desirable neighborhood) and that he paid off his mortgage long before we moved in, and that his property taxes are only about $2000 a year (versus the more than $13,000 a year we pay in rent) I felt cheated. So I ranted.
Now, I'm wondering how fair that was. Yes, we've been inexpensive. But, in a neighborhood where most houses rent for 1400 to 1600 a month, our rent has been 1100 a month since we moved in. He's never raised the rent, and since we are month to month, he could do so. When we moved in, we had one cat, for whom we paid a deposit. My kids were living with their dad at the time, so the lease terms were Husband, me, and Original Kitty. Since then, both kids have moved in, (Donovan moved out again) one dog has come and gone, another dog took his place, and a second cat has joined us. None of which we cleared with Mike, and no further deposits were paid. The original lease reverted to month to month after a year of tenancy, but still, we are probably still bound to abide by those terms, ethically if not legally. Furthermore, while Mike is required by law to deal with the rat situation, his original offer of having his maintenance guy deal with the problem does fulfill his legal obligation. He is required to get rid of the rats; he is not required to do so by the methods I prefer. So my ranting was out of place, and childish, and unfair to him. I called us "great tenants" in one of my tweets. Dishonest tenants are not that great, really. Although I do have to stress that we have done no damage to the house, my kids were always well behaved, my cats have never been scratchers, and there was only one unfortunate incident with the dog, which I cleaned very, very, thoroughly. Still, given that I haven't behaved in an exemplary fashion, I do feel as though I should retract the rant.
I have such a bad temper. And I am bad about owning up when I'm wrong, and I think I'm wrongish in this case, so, sorry Mike. You're still not a great landlord, but I'm not such hot stuff either.
So, just to catch everyone up, here is the story. About three weeks ago, I heard a scratching sort of sound. Just very briefly, and very quietly. Quiet enough that I only noticed it because my snoring husband hadn't come to bed yet. I didn't really think anything of it. Though we live in the city, we live between a greenbelt and a sedge bog/wildlife preserve park. There are A LOT of raccoon, possums, coyotes, feral cats and largish insects in the neighborhood. It's not uncommon (I've seen it happen, in fact) for the local racoons to run up the tree at the corner of my house, out along a branch, drop onto my roof, and sprint across the roof to the chimney. From there, the crazy bastards leap onto another tree branch and from there, I don't know where they go. The point is, it's not unusual at all to hear things running across the roof. I heard the scratching, but I thought it was something smaller than a raccoon.
A few days later, I made a rare visit to the backyard, intending to deal with a blackberry bush that was threatening to undermine the neighbor's fence, and which had entwined itself around a rosebush I rather liked. I was checking out the roofline as I went, because it's the time of year when wasps build nests, and if there were any ambitious wasps out there, I wanted to know about it now, since it would take at least a week of whining about it to get Husband to go out there and deal with it. (What? I don't DO wasps. If I wanted to deal with insects, I would have stayed single. I acquired a husband to avoid these things. I also don't take out the garbage or the recycling, but I will pull the bins up after pickup. Marriage is about compromise, people.) No building activity, but there, between the roof fascia and the soffitt, a small hole. Slightly bigger than a 50-cent piece, with edges that seemed rather...chewed. "Huh." I thought. "I wonder what that's about?" But I promptly forgot about it, as the blackberry turned out to be a rather formidable foe.
Fast forward to five days ago. It is one a.m. We are trying to sleep. But instead of sleeping, we are staring up at the ceiling above our heads as the sounds of many, many tiny feet scamper about, and as weird, scritchy, chewing sorts of sounds occur, again, directly above our heads. On the cheesy, I-doubt-it's-very-strong acoustic tile that makes up our ceiling. I don't say it out loud, but I am certain that at any moment, dust motes will come sifting down at us, and a tiny, rodent nose will appear, and then a cascade of squirrels will rain down on us, and I will simply die.
Wait--Squirrels? I thought it was rats.
Well, it is rats. At the time I'm telling, though, I was thinking squirrels. For some reason, squirrels seemed less offensive. And I've always heard that rats and squirrels don't occupy the same ecosystem, because they compete for the same resources. Apparently, I have always heard wrong, as my frantic internet research the next morning showed. Squirrels would have been good neighbors. Still not something you want in your ceiling, what with the urine, feces, and chewing of electrical wires, but at least diurnal. We would have been able to sleep if squirrels were living with us. No, the nocturnal activity meant either rats or raccoons, either of which made me want to strike a match, and toss it over my shoulder as I walked away. A bit more research confirmed that I did not want to do this myself. For one thing, access to that space would be difficult, if not impossible--the attic doesn't extend over our bedroom, which was added on several years after the house was built. For another, I was not going to live trap and release the rats, because I didn't want to be anywhere near live rats, and I wasn't going to snap trap them, because I didn't want to be anywhere near dead rats. Poison was out, because no way was I going to have dead rats in my ceiling over the summer. That would render our bedroom truly uninhabitable. So I called in a pro, who would dispose of the rats, seal off all the little openings they had chewed, and would guarantee a rat-free environment for two years, all for the bargain price of 684.38.
Now, some landlord background. We moved in to this house in December 2007, so we've been here awhile. My husband works in the building trades and once owned a contracting business, so he's pretty handy. We like our privacy, and we HATE the guy that does maintenance for the landlord. He's weird and tweaky, and we suspect him of being a meth head. We only call our landlord, let's call him Mike, for maintenance/repair of the roof, which leaks at least once a year. Husband has done his share of roof work, and hates it, and I'd rather not worry about our sole provider falling off the roof. Everything else that happens, we deal with. Mike never even knows about it. Door frame needed fixing, we fixed. Faucet needed replacing, we replaced. Mike decided on his own to paint the house last summer, but that and buying roofing materials for the tweaker is the only money he's spent on this house since we moved in. Because we've been such profitable tenants, I assumed this rare request for him to act like a landlord would be cheerfully assented to.
Boy, was I wrong. Mike wanted to purchase poison, and have the tweaker deal with the rats. I pushed back, pointing out that some of the access points the rats were using were caused by Tweaker's poor workmanship on the roof. (This was according to the Rat Guy.) I didn't want to have to worry about this next year when the rats were looking for nesting sites. It was a health hazard, it was ruining my peace of mind and enjoyment of my home, and I wanted it handled professionally. Mike objected to the expense. I put him on hold, and told Husband what was going on. He sighed. "Cheap bastard. Tell him we'll pay half." Mike didn't like it, but he assented, and supposedly, a check is in the mail. (Why he didn't just have it taken out of the rent, I don't know.) Since my internet sleuthing has revealed that he bought this house VERY cheaply (he bought juuuuuust before the Seattle housing market EXPLODED, and before this was a desirable neighborhood) and that he paid off his mortgage long before we moved in, and that his property taxes are only about $2000 a year (versus the more than $13,000 a year we pay in rent) I felt cheated. So I ranted.
Now, I'm wondering how fair that was. Yes, we've been inexpensive. But, in a neighborhood where most houses rent for 1400 to 1600 a month, our rent has been 1100 a month since we moved in. He's never raised the rent, and since we are month to month, he could do so. When we moved in, we had one cat, for whom we paid a deposit. My kids were living with their dad at the time, so the lease terms were Husband, me, and Original Kitty. Since then, both kids have moved in, (Donovan moved out again) one dog has come and gone, another dog took his place, and a second cat has joined us. None of which we cleared with Mike, and no further deposits were paid. The original lease reverted to month to month after a year of tenancy, but still, we are probably still bound to abide by those terms, ethically if not legally. Furthermore, while Mike is required by law to deal with the rat situation, his original offer of having his maintenance guy deal with the problem does fulfill his legal obligation. He is required to get rid of the rats; he is not required to do so by the methods I prefer. So my ranting was out of place, and childish, and unfair to him. I called us "great tenants" in one of my tweets. Dishonest tenants are not that great, really. Although I do have to stress that we have done no damage to the house, my kids were always well behaved, my cats have never been scratchers, and there was only one unfortunate incident with the dog, which I cleaned very, very, thoroughly. Still, given that I haven't behaved in an exemplary fashion, I do feel as though I should retract the rant.
I have such a bad temper. And I am bad about owning up when I'm wrong, and I think I'm wrongish in this case, so, sorry Mike. You're still not a great landlord, but I'm not such hot stuff either.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Makeup Monday: Lip Edition, and Kera Breaks the Fourth Wall
In my previous Makeup Monday post, I mentioned that I rarely wear lipstick. Although I adore lipstick, I am not the type that pays attention to my makeup once it's on, so lipstick lasts until I start drinking my tea. At seven-thirty. In the morning. By the time it occurs to me that I should touch-up my lips, it's three o'clock and I figure, why bother? I may have to change my ways after what happened this last Friday, however. I was wearing kind of a dressy black top to offset my jeans (hooray for casual Friday!) and on the spur of the moment put on a dark red lipstick. I never, NEVER wear red to work, because with red you really have to stay on top of it. It's such a dramatic look, and dominates one's appearance so much, it just seems tacky to not keep it neat and fresh-looking. But this Friday I was feeling a little pale and tired, I'd been in a hurry and only had time to put on a light coat of mascara, and with the black top, I looked even more pale, so I redded things up.
I am not kidding, I had people asking me all day if I had special plans after work, because I looked so nice. So maybe there is something to this whole lipstick thing. Maybe making the effort to keep things pulled together isn't such a bad idea after all!
Despite my lipstick laziness, I am a sucker for buying new lipsticks, and therefore have a ton of them. I keep them in a basket near the front door, so I can decide which one to wear right before I go. It's a complicated decision-I factor in what I'm wearing, the amount of makeup I've already applied, (basically pairing more dramatic shades with lighter makeup, and more natural shades with heavier)and even the kind of lighting we have that day, choosing brighter shades in summer, and deeper ones in winter. In theory, the lipsticks are neatly arranged in the basket, with the color indicator stickers facing up, so I can see them all at a glance. In actual practice, the basket looks like this:
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| A jumble of lipsticks |
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| Included are three lipglosses that I never, ever wear. I can't stand the stickiness |
Here's another view, showing off the color indicators:
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| For whatever reason (*cough*cheapskate*cough*) I seem to favor Revlon and Maybelline |
Today I'm wearing Pink Peony, which is the lowermost and rightmost of the open tubes. It's from the Maybelline Colorsensationals line. Their ads, featuring a drizzle of honey falling over flower petals, convinced me to try them, and the quality of the color made me scurry right back to Target and buy several more. They are very creamy-feeling, and highly pigmented, so the color lasts a long time without feeling heavy or drying. I even like the way they're displayed in the store-they're sorted into color groups, Reds, Nudes, Pinks, and Plums. I like that, because I'm usually not looking for a specific color when I browse lipsticks--I'm thinking "Hm, I could use a nice bright color for wearing with summer dresses." With this display, I can ignore plums and nudes, and know that I'll find something in reds or pinks. That's how Coral Crush, up there in the top left corner, joined the family. My only real beef with this line, is that they have a somewhat strong scent, and it's very ...lipsticky. It's sort of a heavy cosmetic odor, not really good or bad, just very, very present. It reminds me of being a kid and looking through my grandmother's lipsticks.
Also appearing, two of the the Revlon Just Bitten stains. These are fairly awesome. They are not as long-lasting as they claim to be, but you can get away with only touching up once or twice a day with these. The color end is like a Sharpie, which makes application super easy, and the other end has a lip balm, which keeps the stain looking smooth and moist, rather than dry or sticky. The color goes on sort of translucent, but deepens as you build it.
At top right, you will see that I have joined the cult of Honey. This is a stain/balm in crayon form, and if you try to take it from me, I will cut you. It's the perfect pink for me, it's longwearing, it's creamy, it even smells good.
Now, with no further ado, but with trembling hands, I present to you what I look like today:
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| In real life, I promise I am not quite so cheesy-meets-psychotic looking. |
Monday, May 6, 2013
Makeup Monday! Kinda.
I LOVE MariaMelee's idea of doing weekly makeup posts. I don't love the fact that these will by necessity be photo-heavy posts, and I am currently having camera issues. Well, camera user issues, mostly. I have a camera on my phone, which takes pictures that can only be called okay-ish, but I fail at getting cameras from the phone to the computer. I will eventually figure it out, but until then, I will make do with pictures from the internet. So you are not seeing my own personal products in this first post, and instead of showing all my makeup, I am going to focus on my daily routine.
First up, skincare:
For cleansing, I use the Olay Total Effects line. It's creamy and nice-feeling, rinses clean, and makes people gawp at me when I tell them I have an eighteen-year-old:
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| Photo: Walmart.com |
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| Photo: Amazon.com |
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| Photo:Target.com |
As I mentioned before, I almost never wear blush, so once I get my skin sorted out, it's eye makeup and done. I recently learned how to tightline my eyes, and I can't recommend it enough. You get all the benefits of wearing eyeliner, without looking like you are wearing a ton of makeup. It takes practice, it takes a steady hand, and it takes some experimentation to find the right type of eyeliner for you. I found all of my pencils to be too creamy to stay put that close to the waterline. I bought a gel eyeliner in a little pot, but couldn't seem to load the product onto the brush correctly, so it wouldn't go on smoothly. Then I stumbled onto this:
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| Photo: Maybelline.com |
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| Photo: Ulta.com |
Much like my eyelashes, my blonde eyebrows are also near invisible. I keep them plucked (sometimes waxed) into a basic thick-on-one-end, thin-on-the-other, slightly-arched shape. I use the Anastasia Brow Duo from Sephora and an angled brush to define them:
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| Photo: InStyle.com |
The whole process takes about ten minutes, start to finish, a bit more on days when I try to hurry and end up with mascara smeared beneath my lower lashes. I rarely wear lipstick, because I forget to reapply it, so it's gone the first time I eat anything. However, I am a sucker for buying new lipsticks, so there will probably be a Makeup Monday post covering lipsticks in the nearish future.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Opinions Expressed May Not Be Those of Management
I had an interesting experience yesterday. I went to lunch with a high school classmate. We weren't really close in school, but we were involved in some of the same activities, and our class was so small (36 kids) that you knew everyone no matter how much you liked them, disliked them, or were indifferent to them. Anyway, we have both since married and had children and jobs and all the other adult stuff that makes you realize how silly high school really is, so I was looking forward to the lunch, figuring that at this point in our lives we would be a lot more similar than different. I had reason to think this: our 20 year class reunion was this past summer, and that was overwhelmingly the experience, at least from my perspective. We were all older, we were all wiser, and even though we were a fairly diverse group in terms of politics and opinions, our shared history created a kind of sameness or kinship that was much stronger and much more obvious now than it was back in the days when we spent 40 hours a week or more together. Weird, but true. I left the reunion feeling a much more genuine sense of family and friendship and regret that it would probably be another 5-10 years before we all saw each other again than I felt at graduation.
Now, when I was in high school, I was in possession of the most massive inferiority complex ever known in the realms of humanity. I thought I was ugly, I thought I was fat, I thought I was ridiculous looking, I thought I was boring and awkward and strange. Looking back, I know none of this was true. I was actually quite pretty, I was lucky in terms of acne, and at 5'1 and 95 pounds I was definitely not fat. I was stocky and round-faced, and because I was so short, I always read that as silly-looking. My family was poor, so I never had good clothes, which is a big deal at that age, so that made me less secure in myself. Add to that the problems I had at home--abuse history, broken home, being the oldest of six with an exhausted mother and an indifferent stepfather--and I was not a happy-go-lucky perky type of kid. I was pretty good at hiding the misery, because I had learned early on that letting the misery show just resulted in a lot of awkward attention from teachers and social workers, and I wasn't interested. I just wanted to live my life, ignore my problems and hope they went away once I moved to the big city. (Spoiler Alert: They didn't.)
I was a smart kid, so I joined the Quiz team, which is kind of like competitive trivial pursuit, eventually becoming captain of the team. So now you have a short, poorly dressed nerd. Bully bait, right? Well, I got lucky there, too. While there was some picking on me, mostly by older boys, I was spared the mean girl bullshit, which, at that age, is usually much worse. Also, despite my height, I was a good athlete. I played three sports a year, so I had some jockyness to protect me. I had a boyfriend for a big chunk of my school years, so I didn't have boy anxiety to deal with. Overall, I've always thought I was kind of a middle of the road kid. Not popular, but not unpopular. Not bullied, but not completely unscathed by the social pecking order.
Now, Let's-call-her-Joanie had a slightly different experience. She was extremely religious for one thing. Her family was part of a very small, very strict protestant fundamentalist movement. She was very smart and very driven--she was obsessed with becoming valedictorian, and even when we were freshman this goal was very clear in her mind. She was pretty, but not in a way that counts in high school--she wore glasses, and because her family wasn't any richer than mine, they were cheap and unflattering and she dressed as badly as I did. She was disdainful of the rest of us, and borderline rude about her intellectual superiority. She didn't play sports, because they would interfere with schoolwork. She did participate in Quiz, which was a never-ending source of frustration to her, because she simply wasn't as good as it as she thought she was, and she was consistently passed over for a seat on the main team. She was also deeply conservative, while most of us were rather liberal, thanks to the idealism of youth, and she would say anything to win an argument. Today, she's a tea-party republican, so that should give you an idea of her conservatism. I'm a left-leaning moderate with some conservative ideas, so I can generally get along with people of any political stripe--I just keep turning the conversation in another direction.
So, there were some differences between us, but I had always felt that our high school experiences were more similar than they were different. I saw as both as outsiders, both as girls who were not quite pretty enough, who were too smart and too socially awkward.
Apparently, I was wrong.
All through lunch, though I tried to talk about work and families and present day life, she kept turning the conversation back to high school. She commented about the slideshow we watched at the reunion, which one of the guys had put together from our graduation video and various snapshots taken our junior and senior year, mixed in with yearbook photos. It was fun, and there were a lot of jokes about our 90's era big hair. But at lunch, Joanie said she thought it kind of sucked, because it seemed like the same few people were in all the pictures. I said I could see feeling that way, that it was just like the yearbook--there's always certain people that always seem to be in the candid shots more than anyone else. She laughed and said "Well, in the slideshow you WERE one of those people. You were in a ton of the shots." I felt like this was kind of an odd statement-she was laughing, and acting like hey, no big, but there was a bitterness in her tone that made me uneasy. So, I tried to laugh it off, saying "Well, I hung around the pretty people as much as possible. I'm like some kind of photographic collateral damage-they couldn't avoid getting me in the shot." She shook her head. "No. You were one of the pretty people." Now I'm really ill at ease, so I made some kind of throwaway joke about having insecurities you could see from space.
"No. You shouldn't have. You were the smartest person in our class. You dominated Quiz, you were good at sports, you were pretty and popular and everyone loved you and you DANCED your way through high school. It was like 'The Kera Show.' "
Uh.
Um.
What? No, really. What the actual fuck? Because I swear to you: IT WAS NOT LIKE THAT.
An awkward silence descended on our table. I finally said: "Well, I don't remember it being quite like that, but I do know that I was fairly self-absorbed. I look back now, and I wonder if everyone around me was in the same position. I know I said and did things that I feel bad about now, but didn't feel bad about then, because I just couldn't comprehend that anything I said or did would be important enough to affect anyone. I know I've been very forgiving of things that hurt me then, because I've assumed since then that the people who hurt my feelings were just like me...unsure, unhappy, and just trying to get by. I didn't think high school was the high point of my life, but I didn't dislike school either. Most of the time, I kind of enjoyed it."
She snorted. Yes, she did. "The popular ones always do."
Me: "Huh. Well. Like I said, I had my own issues that I was focused on, so..."
Joanie: "Like what? What problems could you have had? "
Me: "That's really personal. I don't want to talk about it."
I was on the verge of saying well, nice to see you, good luck in life and running the fuck away, but the food showed up at that point, and Joanie suddenly changed topics, chattering about her child and her job and her husband, telling me about a funny episode of "The Middle" that she had watched, and it was just so bizarre, that I found myself making small talk and trying to act like this was a normal, fun-filled lunch with girlfriends. I left as soon as possible, citing school pickup. At my truck, she asked me to message another of our classmates and try to set up a group activity. I said "Yeah, sure, sounds like fun, (SUCH A COWARD, OMG) well, I'll see ya later!" And then I got the hell out of dodge.
I feel really odd about the whole thing, and vaguely guilty. I can't even explain the guilt. I just feel like I should feel bad about something, but what? I'm sorry if her high school experience sucked. Maybe I should have reached out more, but I really don't think it would have mattered. She routinely batted away any friendliness that came her way. She was too busy striving for that perfect GPA, and too busy imagining all of us sinners burning in hell while she and her father stood on Jesus' right side shouting "Yeah, Jesus!! Smite those evil bastards!! Smite 'em good!" I know this, because she didn't imagine it silently. She was pretty free with her religious opinions. When I think of her in high school, I always picture her with a haughty expression--all of my memories of her involve her looking down on people.
Fuck, I don't know. I don't know if I did anything wrong back then. Maybe, maybe not. But really, I don't care anymore. Maybe our weird, bitter lunch yesterday got something off her chest and she'll move forward, happy and secure in the knowledge that she took me down a peg. I don't know. I do know it will be a cold day in hell before I socialize with her again.
Also, she didn't make valedictorian. She was salutatorian.
Now, when I was in high school, I was in possession of the most massive inferiority complex ever known in the realms of humanity. I thought I was ugly, I thought I was fat, I thought I was ridiculous looking, I thought I was boring and awkward and strange. Looking back, I know none of this was true. I was actually quite pretty, I was lucky in terms of acne, and at 5'1 and 95 pounds I was definitely not fat. I was stocky and round-faced, and because I was so short, I always read that as silly-looking. My family was poor, so I never had good clothes, which is a big deal at that age, so that made me less secure in myself. Add to that the problems I had at home--abuse history, broken home, being the oldest of six with an exhausted mother and an indifferent stepfather--and I was not a happy-go-lucky perky type of kid. I was pretty good at hiding the misery, because I had learned early on that letting the misery show just resulted in a lot of awkward attention from teachers and social workers, and I wasn't interested. I just wanted to live my life, ignore my problems and hope they went away once I moved to the big city. (Spoiler Alert: They didn't.)
I was a smart kid, so I joined the Quiz team, which is kind of like competitive trivial pursuit, eventually becoming captain of the team. So now you have a short, poorly dressed nerd. Bully bait, right? Well, I got lucky there, too. While there was some picking on me, mostly by older boys, I was spared the mean girl bullshit, which, at that age, is usually much worse. Also, despite my height, I was a good athlete. I played three sports a year, so I had some jockyness to protect me. I had a boyfriend for a big chunk of my school years, so I didn't have boy anxiety to deal with. Overall, I've always thought I was kind of a middle of the road kid. Not popular, but not unpopular. Not bullied, but not completely unscathed by the social pecking order.
Now, Let's-call-her-Joanie had a slightly different experience. She was extremely religious for one thing. Her family was part of a very small, very strict protestant fundamentalist movement. She was very smart and very driven--she was obsessed with becoming valedictorian, and even when we were freshman this goal was very clear in her mind. She was pretty, but not in a way that counts in high school--she wore glasses, and because her family wasn't any richer than mine, they were cheap and unflattering and she dressed as badly as I did. She was disdainful of the rest of us, and borderline rude about her intellectual superiority. She didn't play sports, because they would interfere with schoolwork. She did participate in Quiz, which was a never-ending source of frustration to her, because she simply wasn't as good as it as she thought she was, and she was consistently passed over for a seat on the main team. She was also deeply conservative, while most of us were rather liberal, thanks to the idealism of youth, and she would say anything to win an argument. Today, she's a tea-party republican, so that should give you an idea of her conservatism. I'm a left-leaning moderate with some conservative ideas, so I can generally get along with people of any political stripe--I just keep turning the conversation in another direction.
So, there were some differences between us, but I had always felt that our high school experiences were more similar than they were different. I saw as both as outsiders, both as girls who were not quite pretty enough, who were too smart and too socially awkward.
Apparently, I was wrong.
All through lunch, though I tried to talk about work and families and present day life, she kept turning the conversation back to high school. She commented about the slideshow we watched at the reunion, which one of the guys had put together from our graduation video and various snapshots taken our junior and senior year, mixed in with yearbook photos. It was fun, and there were a lot of jokes about our 90's era big hair. But at lunch, Joanie said she thought it kind of sucked, because it seemed like the same few people were in all the pictures. I said I could see feeling that way, that it was just like the yearbook--there's always certain people that always seem to be in the candid shots more than anyone else. She laughed and said "Well, in the slideshow you WERE one of those people. You were in a ton of the shots." I felt like this was kind of an odd statement-she was laughing, and acting like hey, no big, but there was a bitterness in her tone that made me uneasy. So, I tried to laugh it off, saying "Well, I hung around the pretty people as much as possible. I'm like some kind of photographic collateral damage-they couldn't avoid getting me in the shot." She shook her head. "No. You were one of the pretty people." Now I'm really ill at ease, so I made some kind of throwaway joke about having insecurities you could see from space.
"No. You shouldn't have. You were the smartest person in our class. You dominated Quiz, you were good at sports, you were pretty and popular and everyone loved you and you DANCED your way through high school. It was like 'The Kera Show.' "
Uh.
Um.
What? No, really. What the actual fuck? Because I swear to you: IT WAS NOT LIKE THAT.
An awkward silence descended on our table. I finally said: "Well, I don't remember it being quite like that, but I do know that I was fairly self-absorbed. I look back now, and I wonder if everyone around me was in the same position. I know I said and did things that I feel bad about now, but didn't feel bad about then, because I just couldn't comprehend that anything I said or did would be important enough to affect anyone. I know I've been very forgiving of things that hurt me then, because I've assumed since then that the people who hurt my feelings were just like me...unsure, unhappy, and just trying to get by. I didn't think high school was the high point of my life, but I didn't dislike school either. Most of the time, I kind of enjoyed it."
She snorted. Yes, she did. "The popular ones always do."
Me: "Huh. Well. Like I said, I had my own issues that I was focused on, so..."
Joanie: "Like what? What problems could you have had? "
Me: "That's really personal. I don't want to talk about it."
I was on the verge of saying well, nice to see you, good luck in life and running the fuck away, but the food showed up at that point, and Joanie suddenly changed topics, chattering about her child and her job and her husband, telling me about a funny episode of "The Middle" that she had watched, and it was just so bizarre, that I found myself making small talk and trying to act like this was a normal, fun-filled lunch with girlfriends. I left as soon as possible, citing school pickup. At my truck, she asked me to message another of our classmates and try to set up a group activity. I said "Yeah, sure, sounds like fun, (SUCH A COWARD, OMG) well, I'll see ya later!" And then I got the hell out of dodge.
I feel really odd about the whole thing, and vaguely guilty. I can't even explain the guilt. I just feel like I should feel bad about something, but what? I'm sorry if her high school experience sucked. Maybe I should have reached out more, but I really don't think it would have mattered. She routinely batted away any friendliness that came her way. She was too busy striving for that perfect GPA, and too busy imagining all of us sinners burning in hell while she and her father stood on Jesus' right side shouting "Yeah, Jesus!! Smite those evil bastards!! Smite 'em good!" I know this, because she didn't imagine it silently. She was pretty free with her religious opinions. When I think of her in high school, I always picture her with a haughty expression--all of my memories of her involve her looking down on people.
Fuck, I don't know. I don't know if I did anything wrong back then. Maybe, maybe not. But really, I don't care anymore. Maybe our weird, bitter lunch yesterday got something off her chest and she'll move forward, happy and secure in the knowledge that she took me down a peg. I don't know. I do know it will be a cold day in hell before I socialize with her again.
Also, she didn't make valedictorian. She was salutatorian.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Blowin' in The Wind
So, it's been a nice, quiet couple of weeks, not much going on around here. Oh, except for the way I totally quit my job with nothing to fall back on. That happened.
I shouldn't say "nothing." I'm married, and my husband has a job, we have savings, we live fairly simply and could actually get by on those savings for a couple of months if we had to. We're not in crisis mode, at least not yet. Still, I don't think anyone would argue against the idea of lining something up before you tell your boss, "No, I can't wait around for you guys to decide if it's my word or his. I can't come in every day wondering if this is the day I get sent home at noon with a box of my stuff. This is my notice. Friday will be my last day."
Yeah. It was fun. The situation was weird, complicated in the way work stuff can be when you have a small office. The word betrayal was used several times by me, and the line "Don't forget to take the knife from between my shoulder blades before you go--you may need it again someday," may also have been delivered, also by me. It was unpleasant that last day.
But it's over, and I'm on the next phase of my life. I re-signed with a temp agency I worked with previously, and they've got an interview lined up for me next week. I found a couple of free-lance writing assignments to take on. I know, if you read this blog, you are thinking right now "Really? Someone is PAYING her to write?" It's true. I actually write pretty well when I have an assigned topic and rigid rules to follow. Husband and I decided to take advantage of the new situation. We are going to cut expenses, and strive for part-time work for me. The idea is for me to start taking some classes spring quarter, and to be more present for Erica. She's turning thirteen in a few weeks, an age at which girls become vulnerable to losing their damn minds, and I'd like to be around more, spend more time with her. When she was informed that Mom would be spending more time at home, she said "Oh, I'm just gonna LOOOOOVE that" with this dry, British sitcom delivery that was rather amusing. You should have seen her, though, yesterday afternoon when she spotted me coming up the sidewalk toward her on her walk home from school. Amber was with me, and nearly knocked Erica down, so excited was she to be taking a mid-day walk. It was nice.
Right this second, I am in the middle of the "Will I or Won't I" half-hour, the period between 8:30 and 9:00 when my agency rep could call me with a job assignment. I'm not a huge fan of not knowing whether I'm going to work on a given day, or whether I can make plans to get things done around the house and run errands, but it's better than not having any prospects at all. And it's probably only for this week. I tend to do well in interviews, so the odds are very good that I'll be back on a regular schedule soon.
I can't lie, I'm really looking forward to only having twenty to thirty hours a week. It's been nice having time to exercise without having to rush around to fit it in, it's been nice to fix dinner at a leisurely pace, and the house is cleaner than it's been in the last five years. Which is still not VERY clean, but hey, drops IN the bucket, right? Like anything else, I'm sure part-time stay at homing will start to feel like a grind, and if I add school into the mix, I'll be just as busy, if not busier, than I was with a full-time job, but I'm really enjoying this, right this second, and I refuse to wreck this moment of peace with worrying about what may be.
It's 8:59. I think I'm gonna be staying home today.
I shouldn't say "nothing." I'm married, and my husband has a job, we have savings, we live fairly simply and could actually get by on those savings for a couple of months if we had to. We're not in crisis mode, at least not yet. Still, I don't think anyone would argue against the idea of lining something up before you tell your boss, "No, I can't wait around for you guys to decide if it's my word or his. I can't come in every day wondering if this is the day I get sent home at noon with a box of my stuff. This is my notice. Friday will be my last day."
Yeah. It was fun. The situation was weird, complicated in the way work stuff can be when you have a small office. The word betrayal was used several times by me, and the line "Don't forget to take the knife from between my shoulder blades before you go--you may need it again someday," may also have been delivered, also by me. It was unpleasant that last day.
But it's over, and I'm on the next phase of my life. I re-signed with a temp agency I worked with previously, and they've got an interview lined up for me next week. I found a couple of free-lance writing assignments to take on. I know, if you read this blog, you are thinking right now "Really? Someone is PAYING her to write?" It's true. I actually write pretty well when I have an assigned topic and rigid rules to follow. Husband and I decided to take advantage of the new situation. We are going to cut expenses, and strive for part-time work for me. The idea is for me to start taking some classes spring quarter, and to be more present for Erica. She's turning thirteen in a few weeks, an age at which girls become vulnerable to losing their damn minds, and I'd like to be around more, spend more time with her. When she was informed that Mom would be spending more time at home, she said "Oh, I'm just gonna LOOOOOVE that" with this dry, British sitcom delivery that was rather amusing. You should have seen her, though, yesterday afternoon when she spotted me coming up the sidewalk toward her on her walk home from school. Amber was with me, and nearly knocked Erica down, so excited was she to be taking a mid-day walk. It was nice.
Right this second, I am in the middle of the "Will I or Won't I" half-hour, the period between 8:30 and 9:00 when my agency rep could call me with a job assignment. I'm not a huge fan of not knowing whether I'm going to work on a given day, or whether I can make plans to get things done around the house and run errands, but it's better than not having any prospects at all. And it's probably only for this week. I tend to do well in interviews, so the odds are very good that I'll be back on a regular schedule soon.
I can't lie, I'm really looking forward to only having twenty to thirty hours a week. It's been nice having time to exercise without having to rush around to fit it in, it's been nice to fix dinner at a leisurely pace, and the house is cleaner than it's been in the last five years. Which is still not VERY clean, but hey, drops IN the bucket, right? Like anything else, I'm sure part-time stay at homing will start to feel like a grind, and if I add school into the mix, I'll be just as busy, if not busier, than I was with a full-time job, but I'm really enjoying this, right this second, and I refuse to wreck this moment of peace with worrying about what may be.
It's 8:59. I think I'm gonna be staying home today.
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