Rain Rain Go Away

On Sunday, I didn’t do much. The humidity was making me feel droopy and I was tired. All day long, I had this nagging feeling that there was something I was supposed to be doing, but I could never figure out what it was. Yesterday, it suddenly came to me. My dad had asked me to stop by his house on Sunday and empty the dehumidifier (he’s at the beach). Of course, I had forgotten all about this and since it had been raining for days, I was a little worried that the place would have jungle-style humidity and possibly be flooded. So I stopped over there last night. Unlike most other times that I have taken care of the house, there was absolutely nothing wrong. It wasn’t too humid, and despite the nonstop rain and flooding everywhere else in the city, the basement was bone dry. While I was there, my dad called my cell to ask me how things were as he had heard about all the flooding and was a little worried. He was totes impressed that I was at the house checking on things. I decided not to mention that I was only there because I had forgotten to stop by the day before. I’m a bad kid.

In keeping with my fascination for all things Anna Wintour, I present you with this little story. Maybe it’s a big fat lie, but it’s pretty awesome. The Devil Wears Prada opens this weekend. Be there!

Normally, I love rain, but this is getting ridiculous. Although I must say, I haven’t had it too bad. I walk to work, so my commute has been wet but no longer than usual. And we live on the 6th floor, so no flooding. Today I am wearing the most adorable white eyelet skirt, which unfortunately became obscene when I was rained on while walking home. It’s also covered with mud splatters. Sigh.

Ka-Boom

Last night, we celebrated Lord Kissington’s birthday with a few friends at AV. Dinner was good and the conversation was great. Among the highlights:

“I am so over MySpace. Especially now that I can’t talk to the teenagers anymore.”

“It only takes me 30 or 45 minutes to get through an issue of US Weekly.”
“It would take you a lot longer if you really cared.”
“And surely it takes you longer than 30 minutes to cut out all the pictures of your favorites and paste them in your scrapbook.”

At one point, Ward and June’s baby (Bean) was playing with his dad’s blackberry and it was totally adorable because the Blackberry looked so huge in his tiny little hands, and I said, “Oh, look at his tiny little hands. They’re so cute.” And then the baby gave me the dirtiest look, which was seen by others as well, so I’m not just some paranoid loon who thinks babies hate her. I didn’t know 6-month-old babies were capable of giving the stink eye. I just gained a lot more respect for babies.

A crazy thunderstorm woke me up around 1:30 this morning. It took me forever to fall back to sleep since the thunder was insanely loud and the lightning was bright enough to illuminate the whole room (thanks, lightning. Like I need another reminder that my bedroom is a mess.). As I lay there unable to sleep, I marveled at the fact Lord Kissington was sleeping through the cacophony and light show. And I pondered the twists of fate that brought a woman who has been plagued by insomnia since childhood together with a man who falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. I’m so jealous. Is it awful that I sometimes feel the urge to punch him just to wake him up? Of course, if I did that, he would just mumble “huh?” and fall immediately back to sleep, so it wouldn’t be at all satisfying.

Bad Wifery

This week, I feel like a really bad wife. I already knew I was a bad wife in the retro, traditional sense, in that I don’t really provide a nurturing, soothing environment for my husband to come home to every night. No, I get home long after he does, and when I finally arrive home, I usually try to find ways to convince him to run out and get me a bottle of wine. I do most of the cooking, but purely because I am a control freak in the kitchen, not
out of any sense of duty. So, I fail in the 1950s definition of a good wife, and I’m pretty comfortable with that. But lately, I’m failing in all kinds of new ways.

1. I’m not throwing a party for his birthday.

2. I forgot to buy him a gift until two days before his birthday, when I ordered some stuff from Amazon and had to pay $45 in shipping to get it here on time.

3. This morning, I forgot that it was his birthday and did not wish him Happy Birthday until I had been awake for quite a while. (In my defense, I’m really not a morning person.)

4. When organizing his birthday dinner, I invited some mutual friends and my friends, but forgot to invite all of his old friends. Oops.

Oh well, there's always next year.

Bait and Switch

On my way to work every morning, I pick up a copy of The Express. I like to read the gossip section and the Blog log (to see if anyone I know made it. I will never make it because I don’t blog about politics, the metro, or pandas). This morning, I went to grab the top copy and noticed that it was a copy of The Blade. Nothing against The Blade, but I wanted my Express, so I grabbed the next copy down, folded it over, and tossed it in my bag. Imagine my surprise when I got to work and discovered that I had actually picked up a copy of The Examiner. It’s not that I’m so attached to The Express, but I refuse to read The Examiner because months ago, they had a headline urging their readers to vote for “All-American Carrie” in last year’s American Idol, which bothered me on two levels:

1. This action seemed to lack journalistic integrity. I know it's only a free daily, but have a little integrity, please. Yes, newspapers endorse political candidates, but they do it on the editorial page, where it’s clearly an opinion, and not on the front page. And voting for American Idol is hardly at the level of voting in an actual election.

2. Wasn’t there anything more important going on in the world that day?

So, to the person who thought it would be really funny to put copies of other free newspapers in The Express’ box this morning, shame on you for taking advantage of my sleep-deprived brain and tricking me into picking up The Examiner. You people are bastard people.

What I Could Have Bored You With

Things I considered blogging about this week:

1. How annoying it is when people waiting for the bus spread themselves all over the sidewalk, making it an obstacle course for the pedestrian.

2. This cat I used to have. She was really cool for a cat.

3. How annoying it is when people put their food in the microwave and then leave and don’t come back when their food is done and then they get annoyed if you take their food out.

4. How much I love Wes Anderson, even if The Life Aquatic wasn’t as good as Rushmore or The Royal Tennenbaums.

5. How annoying tourists are, especially when entire families walk in a row, blocking anyone from passing them and insisting on stopping at every garage and waving cars in, even when pedestrians clearly have the right of way in this situation.

6. The heavily hyped Britney Spears interview with Matt Lauer.

And the reasons I didn’t end up blogging about said items:

1. Lame. And whiny.

2. I’m just not someone who can blog about cats. Especially a cat I don’t have anymore (I lost her in a breakup. Long, boring story).

3. See number 1.

4. Do you care? Also, it doesn’t seem remotely topical since his last movie came out like two years ago, and I was only reminded of said love when I was going through some old magazines in an effort to declutter and I found an article about him. He is adorable though.

5. See number 1. And tourists are just way too easy a target.

6. I only made it through two minutes of the interview because it was just too fucking depressing, especially when they showed clips of what she used to look like.

Yeah, it sucks to have nothing to write about.

On Dreams and Plane Crashes

Last night, I dreamt that I was in a plane crash*. As the plane was crashing, we were very close to the airport (National, I think) and I told myself, “Ok, we’re going down into the water right by the airport, you have a very good chance of surviving.”** And I did survive. The plane just sort of floated in the water and it seemed like everyone was ok. Once I realized that I was going to survive, I thought to myself that this whole experience
would be a really good blog post***. Then the dream went off into a completely different direction that involved Christmas presents.

When I was in the shower this morning, I had this vague thought that I had something really interesting to post about today. Then the dream came back to me and I realized that I hadn’t actually been in a plane crash and my great post evaporated. So here I am posting about how I can’t seem to separate my sleeping from my waking thoughts.

*I have plane crash dreams a lot, although I’m not especially afraid of flying. I used to have dreams about planes crashing into buildings all the time, but they stopped after 9/11.
**On rough landings or take-offs, I always reassure myself by thinking that I have a decent chance of surviving since we wouldn’t be crashing from that high or in a really bad place, like say midway over the Atlantic in winter. I don’t have any scientific basis to back up this assumption, but it makes me feel better.
***Surely an odd thing to pop into my head shortly after I’ve survived a plane crash?

I Swear, I'm Really a Size 6 (Well, 8 in jeans)

Because I am lazy and can’t seem to make it to the gym these days, I figured I might look into some diets*. I tried Atkins once a few years back and I lasted about 4 days, at which point I gave up because the lack of carbs was causing me to want to stab someone (anyone) with a rusty fork. Baby loves her carbs. I looked into the South Beach Diet, which promises all kinds of amazing results (all with the disclaimer that results are not typical). I signed up for a “free diet profile,” which didn’t really tell me anything. It quickly became obvious that this whole South Beach thing wasn’t going to work for me, for a variety of reasons.

1. It would involve a lot of cooking on my part, and I don’t have that much time or interest**.
2. It would require giving up lots of things that I enjoy eating (sugar-free popsicles as a “delicious snack”? I think not.).
3. Nowhere does it state how much it costs to sign up for this, which makes me wary (and surely it would be cheaper to just buy the book).
4. Like I said above, I’m lazy, so I just don’t see me sticking to this, and do I really need daily emails to remind me that I’m a lazy, overweight loser?

Unfortunately, despite many disclaimers and my unchecking every possible box when I submitted my email address for my “diet profile,” it seems that the South Beach diet people have sold my address. I am now receiving multiple messages urging me to join “Big Beautiful Personals Plus,” so I can meet other Big Beautiful Singles. Yeesh, I only wanted to lose five pounds, not join a plus-size dating network.

*Because I’m a lazy American who wants an easy solution to all my problems.
**Also, all this cooking would require Lord Kissington to be on the same diet, something that makes him shriek in horror.

Fat and Lazy

I have gotten really lazy lately. I haven’t been to the gym in ages. My allergies are making me tired all the time, and I sit around on the couch a lot. I didn’t take a shower until 5 p.m. on Sunday, which at first I felt bad about, but then I remembered that when I was single, I did shit like that all the time, and I never thought it was a bad thing (probably because there wasn’t someone else in the apartment saying things like, “ummh, have you taken a shower yet?”), so whatever. Eventually, I did want to leave the house, so into the shower I went.

When we actually made it out of the house, Lord Kissington and I waited in line for about 15 minutes at McDonalds. This is probably the longest I’ve ever waited in line at a McDonalds, and there were only maybe three people in front of us. You would think that having to wait for so long would have cured us of the need to use that buy-one-get-one-free “premium sundae” coupon*, but it didn’t and we ate them (one Oreo sundae and one brownie sundae) and they were damn good.

So now I am apparently turning into someone who sits around in her PJs all day and then finally leaves the house only to visit McDonalds and use coupons to gorge herself. Which is hot, no?

*Which came in a book of coupons that my mother received in the mail, which she held on to and handed to me, saying “You eat at McDonalds sometimes, right?” To which I replied, “No, never… well, maybe every once in a while… ok, ok, all the time.”

You Might Want to Get That Checked Out

I’m always interested to see how people ended up on my blog. Here are a few searches that have brought people to me in the last few days:

“red blemish on nose for 6 years”

Ummh, get off the internet and get to a doctor already.

“etta supermodel”

Why, yes, I am. Thanks for noticing.

“love relationship”

This is awfully vague and I’m not good at advice, but hey, I’m sure you won’t die alone, half eaten by an Alsatian. Best of luck to you.

“Plum Sykes wedding Photos”

Given how much I loathe Plum, I’m hardly a good source for her wedding photos.

“How to become a fashion magazine editor”

If I knew the answer to this question, do you really think I’d be writing this stupid blog?

“Katie Holmes show your underpants”

This seems like a direct message to Katie, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read my blog. But if you do, Katie, run for your life.

A Party Dilemma

No, it's not a question of voting Democrat or Republican (I made up my mind in favor of the former years ago, and all the recent anti-gay rhetoric of the latter is exactly making me want to change me mind). This is a "to party or not to party" dilemma.

Lord Kissington's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks (13 days to be exact). We've been together for the last four birthdays and I threw him parties for three out of the four (2004 didn't happen because my grandfather died shortly before LK's birthday and I just didn't have the mental energy to throw anything together). The first two parties were a lot of fun and I enjoyed throwing them. Last year's party was sort of "meh."

A few things conspired to make last year's party not the best ever: (1) I had just thrown an insane going-away party a couple of weeks before from which I was still pulling shards of glass out of the rugs, (2) a lot of people couldn't make it for various reasons, so the turnout wasn't the best ever, (3) Lord Merlin kept "borrowing" our guests so we would periodically lose half the party, and (4) the next morning I discovered that one of the guests had stolen $50 from my purse*.

So, I've kind of lost my enthusiasm for parties. And there are a couple of reasons I'm not too jazzed about possibly throwing one this year: (1) the apartment is a total mess because of the wedding gift influx (oh, and the fact that we're both kind of messy), and I don't know if I can get it in working order in time; (2) the closest Saturday to his birthday is already claimed for a friend's baby's first birthday**, so the party would probably have to be on a Friday night, which is hard since we will have to run home from work to get everything ready; and (3) the noise complaint issues we've been having have made me paranoid, and I don't think anyone will enjoy a party where I ask them to remove their shoes at the door, don a pair of surgical booties, and keep all conversation to a dull roar.

LK has assured me that he doesn't care about a party. I don't need to throw one. We can go out to dinner with some friends or just the two of us or have people meet up at a bar and it would be fine with him. But I feel bad. I used to throw really great parties. I used to be the hostess with the mostest. I sort of feel like I am giving up if I can pull this one together. But I just don't think I have what it takes at the moment.

*Sadly, I knew everyone at that party well, except for a German neighbor that someone met on the roof and invited to the party. However, the German guy brought us a bottle of wine and I can't image someone bothering to give you a bottle of wine (a nice Chilean Merlot if I remember correctly) and then stealing from you. Also, the money was in my purse, which was tucked away in my bedroom, which was basically off limits (that's where I throw all the crap that I don't know what to do with at the last minute), so it had to have been taken by someone who wouldn't have seemed suspicious lurking around in my bedroom. Yes, this was all highly disturbing and I obviously haven't gotten over it.
**The mom came to last year's party, which was pretty funny, since it was her actual DUE DATE. Somebody enjoys a party.

And in other notes…

No sooner had I posted about Anna Wintour than another report surfaces about her wackiness. Yes, she's clearly nuts, but this does illustrate the kind of power she wields. Watch out, Lindsay Lohan. Anna will crush you like a bug under the heel of her Christian Laboutin's.

Tomorrow night, there's a blogger happy hour at Eye Bar. I was actually at the inaugural one last year, so it seems right that I should make an appearance at this one. I'll be the one standing in the corner not talking to you (because I'm really shy, not because I think I'm better than everyone, I swear.).

A Love/Hate Relationship

I have very conflicted feelings about Anna Wintour. On the one hand, I think she's kind of awesome. She has one of the world's coolest jobs, being Editor-in-Chief of Vogue (it's up there on my dream job list, along with soap opera headwriter) and she wields loads of power in the fashion world (certain designers were reportedly afraid to provide clothes for the upcoming film version of the The Devil Wears Prada-—based on a barely disguised roman à clef about Anna and working at Vogue-—for fear that they would be banned from the pages of Vogue). But on the other hand, she is said to be totally crazy pants (and mean) and she insists on holding the dreaded Sienna Miller up to the world as a fashion icon (really, the pimping of Sienna that goes on in Vogue lately is totally sick-making).

I always feel sort of bad for her when she is attacked by PETA, like that time they threw a pie in her face. I actually agree with the whole no fur thing, but their tactics are so lame and overused at this point, and she always comes out looking better.

Yes, she has issues with fat people (as Vogue writer Andre Leon Talley said on Oprah, "Miss Anna doesn't like fat people"), but does anyone really expect the world's leading high-fashion magazine to embrace people of all sizes? The designers they feature don't exactly cater to the plus-sized crowd. Besides, Vogue is little more than a paean to the genetically blessed.

Anna reportedly isn't much of an eater. One story told by a former staffer was that every day, she would send her assistant out to get her soup. Anna would then dump a pat of butter in the soup and basically just eat the butter and toss the soup. This is kind of clever; I've never considered the use of soup as a butter delivery system.

Years ago, Anna found a style (the bob, twin sets, and big sunglasses) that worked for her and she's sticking to it. That hairstyle is never going to change. And it's become her trademark, so more power to her (also, it makes for a great Halloween costume—-instant recognition). I do get the feeling that she has spent a lot of time examining herself in the mirror, looking for her best possible angle. In 90% of all pictures of her, she looks exactly the same, suggesting that she has perfected a "look" over the years (it's not quite blue steel, but it works). Check out this video to see what I mean.

So maybe Anna is a crazy bitch who likes to run roughshod over her minions, but I still feel for her. Here she is, bringing the world style and culture every month, and yet all around her are badly dressed, frumpy, overweight people. It must make her die a thousand little deaths every day. (I can relate. DC is hardly a fashionable town, but tourist season is the absolute worst. For the love of Jebus, people, lose the neon, lose the fanny packs, and please please please lose the camel-toe-inducing shorts.)

Revisiting Some Old Words

In the process of clearing out junk from the apartment, I dug out my old PC, which I should have gotten rid of when I moved three years ago, but because I had never gotten around to cleaning out all my files, I just moved it, shoved it into a closet, and ignored it until now. But such behavior obviously no longer works in my new minimalist (ha!) lifestyle, so the computer must go. Thus, when I couldn’t sleep on Sunday morning, I dragged myself out of bed and sat down at the dining room table to see what was on it.

This computer has some bad history. I got it in 2000. It was already a couple of years old at that point. Mr. Ex and I had just broken up but were still on speaking terms. His parents had gotten a new PC and offered me the old one. I accepted. It wasn’t a bad machine, and it would give me a chance to do some writing. Some months later when we were on pretty shitty terms, he asked for the computer back, saying he wanted to give it to a friend. I told him to get stuffed.

I did use the computer a fair amount when I was living alone, mostly for writing (which I did a lot of at the time) and internet use. I hadn’t looked at any of these files since I moved. What I found was

Some notes for a “novel,” which were pretty bad.
Several short stories, mostly unfinished, but not absolutely terrible.
My journal from 2000, which was just painful to read (and far less coherent than all my paper journals over the years. The PC journal was a short-lived experiment) and kind of got me all stirred up since a lot of it was about a breakup I have long since moved past but didn’t really enjoy remembering.

The notes for the novel and the short stories were all very much based on what was going on in my life at the time (I’m self-centered like that. Also, I’m not good at coming up with new ideas.). As I was reading over them, I had some interesting memory issues. Was this really what happened? Or had I embellished for literary purposes? The latter would seem to make sense, but as I read these pieces, I remembered things happening very much the way I had written them, which makes me wonder if I wrote exactly what happened
from memory, or if the writing is influencing my memories. It’s been 5 or 6 years since these things happened, so the memories are going to be a bit fuzzy. I can remember the general gist of things, but not always the specific details. And I wonder how much of what I remember is distorted now by what I wrote. What I wrote wouldn’t necessarily make for better memories; some it is pretty brutal. So now, I am replaying all sorts of things in my
head.

“Did I really say that?”
“Did he really say that?”
“Was I that stupid?”
“Did I actually think that was a good idea?”
“How could I possibly think that was a good idea?”

And so forth. Sadly, the answer to all of those questions is probably “yes” (or possibly “vodka” to the last one).

The upshot of all this introspection is that there are a couple of bits and pieces in all this writing that I didn’t totally hate and that I might be able to work into something. Which would require some actual work on my part, but if Plum Sykes can manage to finish a book, surely I can actually finish a short story or two.

Stuff

I saw The Break Up this weekend because of some weird feeling I had that Jennifer Aniston really needed my help. I mean, Brad and Angelina had their baby this week and poor Jen's movies keep tanking, so I feel like she really needs a hit*. Besides, it's got that humpalicious Vince Vaughn in it**, so how bad could it be? Sadly, the movie did not live up to my (pretty low) expectations. The first half is pretty funny, with lots of typical Vince Vaughn schtick (but can we please lose the tired gay stereotypes? The brother character was funny enough without all the "he must be gay because he sings" jokes). The second half really disintegrates and just becomes depressing, which is not what I am looking for in a romantic comedy. I think the movie would have been better if it had spent more time on the two of them trying to force each other out of the apartment and perhaps a little more I Love Lucy-style antics with dividing up the space and whatnot***.

When not watching subpar movies, I spent my time in a neverending attempt at cleaning and purging the apartment. I shredded approximately 85 credit card applications (from only three companies. Take a hint, people). I threw out at least 25 old issues of US Weekly (or as I like to calI it, my secret shame). I cleaned out my sock drawer and my underwear drawer. I threw out any socks that didn't have a mate (life is so cruel to singles) and any underpants that had holes or looked droopy. I cleared out my linen closet, which, strangely, contains very little linen. It does contain the following:

Lord Kissington's most important papers (Don't tell me that you don't keep your most important items in the linen closet because I just won't be able to believe it.)
Some Chinese paper lanterns
Light fixtures (including this cool 1940s glass number that I have now moved twice but never used. I can't bear to throw it away.)
A naked Barbie doll
A 1998 calendar
Some potpourri****
A power strip that I have been looking for for the last three weeks.

So you can see what I am up against. It's an uphill battle, but we did throw out a lot of shit yesterday. And I put a shopping bag full of stuff next to the trash room with a sign saying "Free stuff. Please take." When I came back a few hours later, it was all gone (thanks, fellow pack rats).

If you are in need of some dishes, old pots, cheesy thrillers, naked Barbies, or dated looking Esprit purses, I can totally hook you up.

*Since it was the number 1 movie this weekend and made $38 million, it seems I could saved myself the trouble.
**I actually don't feel all that sorry for Jen, because I would take Vince Vaughn over Brad Pitt in a heartbeat. I feel like Vince would really make me laugh and I just don't find Brad all that attractive. His eyes are kind of small.
***Yes, my sense of humor is a little lowbrow.
****Which is funny, since I HATE potpourri. I think it was a gift. From someone I'm no longer friends with. Which is good since I was able to toss it without guilt.

Marginally Less Grumpy

I remain as grumpy as ever for the following reasons:

1. Yesterday, I caught my heel in a hole in the sidewalk and wrenched my knee. Owweee. Today, I am reduced to wearing sensible shoes (although by “sensible,” I mean “supercute blue suede sneakers,” not “orthopedic oxfords”).

2. My wedding ring is driving me nuts. Am I going to have to get a summer version a size larger to accommodate my fat sausage fingers? Lord Kissington, who has never worn jewelry before, has completely adjusted to the wedding ring, which makes me feel kind of bad.

3. I am drowning in stuff and I desperately need to get rid of some of it. Why am I such a packrat?

Things making me slightly less grumpy:

1. Another wedding gift arrived this week: Marimekko sheets and comforter. I am beyond excited. All of my sheets have needed replacing for ages (one set is so threadbare, it’s see-through), but I held off, figuring I would register for them and get them as wedding gifts. However, it turned out that most of our guests would rather give us really useful items like panini makers (my own darn fault, since I put it on the list) and crystal bowls. The new sheets and comforter are inspiring me to do something about the state of the bedroom. That’s right, it’s spring cleaning time this weekend (I know it feels like the dog days of summer out there, but technically it’s still spring until June 20). I need to do about 8 loads of laundry, which will be a huge pain, but will at least give me a sense of accomplishment (and clean clothes) at the end.

2. The imminent arrival of a package with some clothes and purses I ordered recently. I used to be a complete purse addict, but I have really cut back and have only bought one purse in the last year. It was time for some new ones. Now if I can just part with a few of the old ones.

Safe

I was walking to work yesterday morning, slogging along, listening to Madonna. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man who was walking rather oddly, sort of weaving as he walks down the sidewalk. As he moved in front of me, I got a better look at him and noticed that he was dressed rather oddly (way too much clothes for the hear) and looked quite dirty. I thought that he may be homeless. I didn’t give him much more thought until a block or so later, when he began to make barking noises and mutter to himself. I began to get a little nervous, because often in these situations, the person in question notices me and there is some form of confrontation (this happens to me a lot, although I never make eye contact with anyone in such situations). Then I looked around and thought, it’s 8:30 in the morning. There are tons of people on the street. What can possible happen? And then I thought, that’s probably what that poor woman who was stabbed near Logan Circle by a man on PCP thought, and it took 4 or 5 men to pull him off her. I slowed my pace down, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. The man turned around and looked in my direction and I looked away, trying to avoid any contact. He reached the corner and turned right, while I turned left. I sighed in relief but I was edgy for the rest of my walk, because I just don’t feel so safe anymore.