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An Unexpected Day Off, Plus a Couple of Projects

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I had an unexpected day off today, and so far it is superb. I’ve been out in the field Sunday and Monday.  I haven’t done this kind of work before so it is definitely putting me out of my comfort zone.  That can only be a good thing, right?  But each day I’m getting a little more used to the work.  But I can’t say I was upset when my field manager called off work because of the bad weather we’ve been getting.  And even better, the work doesn’t have to be made up later, so my schedule will still stay the same. YAY!

I woke up at 7 this morning and it was delicious.  When I was growing up, my mother was never the sort to sit down in the morning and watch TV, and I’ve found that those habits have rubbed off on me.  I worked on some reports for work, and then have been busy cleaning ever since.  This is my first break all day.

This weekend, I visited a beautiful home. It was so lovely – wooden floors, an open floor plan, and the most incredible backyard view of the Hill Country. She is an artist and her home reflected her work.  It was tidy but comfortably lived in – paint materials were compiled neatly in a corner, while art books lay across her coffee table.  I don’t have any shred of artistic talent whatsoever, but seeing her home gave me a strong desire to paint.

When I returned home to my apartment, I felt inspired by seeing such a pretty home. I found myself giving it a critical eye.  I really like my apartment, but what could I do to improve it?

Answer: the patio.  Oh God, the patio.

I don’t use my patio very much.  I really just use it for storing my trash before I drop it off at the apartment dumpster, or putting unwanted furniture on it. My parents have decided to leave the dog cage here for their visits, so that also stays parked out there. To be honest, the hornet’s nest on the light fixture really dissuades me from wanting to be outside.  But the hornet’s nest is now inactive, and it’s almost summer; even though I’m not a social creature who has very many people over, it’d still be nice to have a pretty, summery patio with flowers.  So that will be one of my summer projects.

I’ve been wanting a cat lately and now I actually want plants on my patio.  Is this what happens as you start approaching thirty?

Here is another project I am working on:

I think I mentioned on here before how I’m using excess yarn in my basket to create the fugliest blanket possible. And since I only know one crochet stitch, I think I am succeeding in that quite well.

Well, I feel like cleaning up my car.  That is going to be interesting.  I hope you all are having a great week!

Simultaneous Maturation and Regression

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I have many pictures of family and friends hanging in my cube.  One is of me and my high school best friend.  It was Spring Break 2003, and I am just 18. The other was taken last week of me and someone I love.

The pictures hang next to each other, and I can’t help comparing the two.  The toothy grin and hair color are the same, but my face is fuller in the second picture.  I am not as thin as I was in college.  My hair is slightly more sophisticated, and I wear a little more makeup.  In the first picture I look…younger.

Of course I look younger.  The picture was taken nearly ten years ago.  But sometimes it’s hard to see just how much you’ve changed until you compare yourself to an old photograph.  I wear more make-up now than in my fresh-faced college years (but not TOO much makeup. I don’t like looking like one of those old ladies who want to sell you expensive makeup at the mall).  For years, I could see only incremental changes when looking at old photographs of myself.  Now, I think, “…oh. I actually am starting to look my age.”

If I go on a college campus, I no longer feel like I can blend in the crowd.  Don’t get me wrong; people still confuse me for being younger than I am, which is a genetic blessing.  But I feel different when I’m on a college campus. I no longer feel like I can go incognito. I feel…old.

I know I’m still technically young, but I’m two years away from thirty.  There are small lines appearing under my eyes and around my lips – “laugh lines,” I suppose (or frown lines, depending on the day).  Stubborn white hairs insist on growing even if I try to dye or pluck them away.

I feel so much older, especially throughout the past couple of months.  This year has been full of joys that I hadn’t been expecting (wait, that sentence makes me sound like I’m pregnant or something.  Let me say – no.)  But it’s also been full of tension, stress, frustration, and anxiety, much of it self-imposed.

It’s not like I have a dangerous job that adds to the stress and worry.  Sure, my job can be stressful at times, but I sit in a cube in front of a computer all day. It’s not like I’m a first responder or anything.

I look older and I just feel older.  I feel more mature in many aspects.  A good friend noted this as we were having one of those long discussions that friends have after a particularly nasty argument.  “You’re being really mature about all this,” he said, and he sounded almost surprised that I could be that mature.  I find myself changing my ways of thinking and analyzing situations. I try and strive to be more pragmatic, logical, to react without letting my emotion get to me first.  It’s a tricky battle and not one I always win.

And yet, for all this supposed maturation, I still feel so young sometimes. I still struggle to find the optimum budget.  I got pulled over a month or two ago and issued two warnings – one for speeding, and one for having a car registration expired for two months…and even after all that, I JUST got my registration renewed last Friday (you can expect a blog on that misadventure in the future).  I did my taxes on MONDAY NIGHT.  I try and do the right thing, and still end up hurting someone without even trying.

I want to be a proficient musician. I want to be a good writer. I want to enjoy running again (which is finally starting to happen). I want to be intelligent. I want to be a hard worker. I want to be a good daughter, a loyal friend, a loving girlfriend.  I try so hard to be everything and sometimes I’m too exhausted and incapable to succeed.

I was talking to my mother yesterday about various worries and concerns, and she said, “You take life too seriously.” My mother.  You don’t want to hear that from your parents. Parents are supposed to tell you to get with it, Jennifer Nicole, to pay attention and get your shit together (which is what my father would say regardless).

And on that note, I end this entry.

FINE

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It’s been over four weeks since I dislocated my shoulder, and while it’s mostly back to normal, it still isn’t completely healed.  There are certain ranges of motion that remain painful for me to do, like scratching my back.  Sometimes it still hurts when I sleep on it, and it made a delicious popping sound the other night (which luckily was pain-free).

I haven’t been doing any plank exercises or push-ups or lifting any weights, which sucks because I like being GRRR STRONG WOMAN and not some wimpy girl who can’t lift something.  Sometimes I feel like it wants to pop out again when I stretch for something, which is kind of alarming.

And my dad scared me a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about my injury.  “You know it’s probably going to bother you for the rest of your life,” he said.  And when it felt like popping out again after I was on the elliptical machine last week, he suggested that I get it looked at and get a physical therapy regimen.

So I requested an appointment, and this time, I am not going to cancel it. I wish I’d been smart enough to see a doctor right away when I injured it instead of being such a wimp, but you learn. Hopefully it’s not too late for it to heal normally.

YOU WIN, UNIVERSE.

Vague Intentions of Improbable Fruition

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I was in a certain Mood today – you know, the kind of Mood where you’re like, “I need to accomplish SO MANY THINGS WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY TIME?” This Mood makes me feel like working on crafty things, playing my guitar, violin, drums, and learning Italian, all in one day. I actually did only one of of these things (guitar), but the rest are on my perpetual to-do list.

It was a cloudy day, and I was also highly caffeinated, which accounted for the Mood.

One of my half-baked New Year’s “goals” was doing more crafty things.  I used to be a really crafty kid when I was younger.  In middle school, I used to do a lot of crotchet and needlepoint but my output has decreased significantly as I got older.  The last major project I did was back in 2005, when I made my parents a blanket for Christmas.

I was going through my craft drawer tonight when I found all these crazy crafts that I’d forgotten I’d even purchased – you know, the type you pick up at Half Price for ten bucks because it seems like a great idea, \when you really know that it’s going to sit in a drawer for the next two years.  Hence why I have a box of glass rocks to paint in my craft drawer.  Yes. That happened.

Anyway, I have vague intentions of completing more crafty things, so look out in the future for pictures of items of questionable beauty.  For instance, there is the Blanket of Many Colors that I have yet to finish.  I will work on it. TONIGHT!

So yeah.

YAY.

I’m totally not caffeinated anymore but YEAH!

No More Caffeine

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I think I’m effectively finished with caffeine.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but it sure has not been loving me lately. I can’t enjoy caffeine like a normal person anymore.  If I have coffee, I go from being a rational person to, “OH GOD, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE ONE DAY AND THE UNIVERSE IS GOING TO TAKE OUR SOULS ONE BY ONE AND DISASTER IS IMMINENT.”  This is all set to the soundtrack of my heart beating at 300 beats per minute.

Fuck you, caffeine. I’m done.

I Think I Jinxed Myself

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This weekend, I was chatting with my parents in my dad’s office.  My parents are both in the education field, so they were discussing the various illnesses they pick up from students.  I said, “You know what? I don’t want to jinx myself but…I haven’t gotten sick at all this year.”

“Girl, you still have two weeks left in the year,” my dad said.  Mom said, “You better knock on wood!” I knocked on my dad’s desk.

I was crowing over my amazing immune system, while my brother was fighting off a cold this weekend. “Don’t get me sick!” I admonished him, and thought, why should I?  My immune system has survived worse.   I am, thankfully, a pretty healthy person. I get sick only once a year, twice a year on rare occasions. I expected to get sick so many times this year.  I always get sick after ACL, but I didn’t this year. I expected to pick up something while flying all stressed out, but I didn’t then, either.  And I thought for sure I would get massively ill after my marathon. Nope.

It’s always when I think, “Way to go immune system! You’re awesome!” when things go downhill.  Last night, I woke up with a scratchy throat and a stuffy nose.

The scratchy throat was gone this morning, but I’m left with sniffles and a little sneezing. It can go either way.  If I’m smart and take care of it now, maybe it’ll go away.  Maybe it’s just my body fighting a little something.

Or, I spoke too soon, jinxed myself, and about to get sick.

ONLY TIME WILL TELL.

Why Don’t You Have a Seat Right Over There?

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According to WordPress, someone reached my blog by googling “Sexy before puberty.”

I made a post a couple of months back about wearing braces as a teen, and I posted a picture of my fourteen-year-old self with them.  I think I made an self-deprecating,offhand comment like, “Oh, look how sexy I was!” and then, “Actually, I was only fourteen here, so please don’t think I’m sexy.”

Apparently, people have gotten creative/really disgusting with their googling and this has led to hits on that particular post.

So to those people – I think there’s someone who needs to talk to you.

A Guide to Halloween Wigs

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I can sum up my guide to Halloween wigs in one sentence – they are made of LIES.

I have worn a Halloween wig once or twice in my day.  The first was at nineteen, when I decided to wear a blonde wig on campus all day for the fun of it (this was about four years before I actually dyed my hair blonde).  The other was a black wig for when I was a witch three years ago. Each wig was really long, but I don’t remember feeling like they were misrepresented on the package.  I wanted a long, cheap wig, and that is what I got.

I bought my Betty Draper wig this weekend. I went to one of those Halloween Express stores to get it.  I was torn between two wigs.  Both had bangs, which vexed me, because BETTY DRAPER DOES NOT HAVE BANGS.  So it really came down to the price – one was ten dollars, and the other was twenty.   Let’s face it – I’m cheap.

I selected the ten dollar wig, so I should not have been surprised at what came out of the package.  Really, I mean, I’m going to be 30 in a couple of years. I should be old enough to know that advertising is often misleading and untruthful.

This is the wig of LIES AND DECEIT.  At this point, the fact that the wig had bangs was the least of my worries. I was more concerned that I looked like Marilyn Monroe in drag.

Buying another wig was not an option, because that would have been totally unnecessary and more money than I wanted to pay for just one party.  You’re talking about the girl who spent six dollars total for her prom (I bought a wrap/shawl to accentuate an old bridesmaid’s dress. BAM.)  So I tried several things.  I brushed the wig’s hair and tried putting rollers in it.  I even tried hot rollers.  Nothing worked.

Finally I thought, “Fuck it, it’s only ten bucks,” took some scissors, and started living out all my fantasies of being a hair stylist.

I am fairly pleased with the results.  It’s not a perfect 60′s coif, but at least it looks Betty Draper-ish, as opposed to Barbie’s drunk sister.

P.S. I sent this picture to my friends (which explains my stupid camwhore pose), and told them I dyed my hair back to blonde.  One of them actually believed me, WIN.  That was totally worth the ten dollars and Fraggle wig hair all around my apartment.

Really, WordPress?

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Do you all notice the weird positive feedback WordPress gives you every time you post? Like you just did something really monumental instead of waste time on the internet and type some words in a box?

The last time I heard something declared as “boss” was back in 1998, from my skater-punk wannabe next door neighbor.  When we were in middle school.

WordPress, if you want your slang to be “hip and cool” with the young folk, then you should have said “Like a Boss.”   That reference would at least have been from this century.

Just Another Person Bitching About Facebook

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I laughed when I saw a status update yesterday that read, “Make sure you hug a white person today.  Between the new Pandora and Facebook changes, it’s been a hard day for them.”  There’s so much going on in the world right now, and Facebook is such an insignificant part of it.  So many people (including myself, at times) put their energy into wanting to change the wrong things.

But at the same time, I am very tired of Facebook.

I signed up for Facebook a long time ago, back in 2004.  Back then, you could go through lists of people and their profiles.  I didn’t really care very much for it then, and didn’t update it.  In early 2005, my friend Shark said, “Are you on Facebook?”  I said that I was, but that I didn’t do anything with my profile.  “Oh, you should,” he said. “It’s awesome.”  So I started messing around with my profile, and before you know it, I was logging into the damn thing multiple times a day.  I told him the other day that I totally blame my Facebook addiction on him, while he hardly ever logs in anymore.

I really dislike what Facebook has become these past five years.  Back then, Facebook pretended to care about your privacy.  You could hide your profile picture from people you didn’t know.  You could block items from appearing in your newsfeed.  You could hide status updates from certain people.  Then Facebook decided that they wanted you to “share” everything with people.  There’s been a consistent and disturbing erosion of privacy all while Facebook pretends that they care about privacy.

Let’s be real here -  Facebook doesn’t give a SHIT about privacy.  The most egregious flaw of Facebook’s stance on privacy is their opt-out, not opt-in policy.  If I had known what a behemoth Facebook would turn into, I likely never would have signed up.

The latest changes are causing more of an uproar, with good reason.  I’m disturbed at the idea of the real-time updates on the right-hand status bar.  Last night, I made a comment on a friend’s status update that had been quoting a Chumbawumba lyric.  No one else on that thread understood the reference, but I did, so I added a lyric of my own.  Five minutes later, another friend made a status update saying, “Someone just quoted Chumbawumba on my Facebook friend’s list.  Time to quit Facebook.”  Now, don’t get me wrong – the person making this update is one of my best friends, and I found the comment hilarious.  But I’d had no idea that people could see me trolling Facebook at 1 in the morning.  To me, that was the more serious issue – that people could see what I was saying on other’s status updates, that my activity was public when I wanted my browsing to be private.

What if I had been saying something about someone else on my friend’s list, thinking that since there wasn’t a common connection between these two people, I’d be safe?

That’s why I’m taking a break from Facebook for now. I don’t know yet if this break will be permanent or not.   I need to figure out the privacy settings (if they even exist) that will keep my browsing private.  But why should I have to go through so much effort to keep my browsing private?  That should be an automatic right given to me as a user.  I shouldn’t HAVE to spend so much time and energy making sure my private life stays private.

My Facebook break needed to happen, anyway. I was getting way too addicted to checking for updates, even when I already hate everything it stands for.  I hate the forced “sharing.” I hate the fact that people think the most insignificant shit is worth posting about. I hate that I am judged based on what I say or do on a social networking site.  I hate how a simple networking tool is being used to feed the ego and disturbing vision of Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t want to be part of your social experiment anymore, asshole.

In the meantime, I’ll be with the many people making the jump to Google+.  You can find me there.

I really, really am hoping that Facebook is the next Myspace.