My Own Planet

2008-04-30T22:44:00.002-04:00

OMG!
I swear, if I see one more ad campaign that features the phrase "OMG," I am going to scream. (Although yes, the screaming will probably include an "Oh my God!" or two.) Seriously, though. It was kind of self-deprecatingly cheeky when Gossip Girl did it (in that signature self-depricatingly cheeky Josh Schwartz manner), but all the second-rate copycats are wearing on my last nerve.

I think I probably need to watch a little less CW and a little more PBS. And maybe spend less time reading about the Miley Cyrus controversy and a little more time reading about...I don't know, the economic crisis. Although really, at this point, it seems like only a matter of time before President Bush begins a press conference with, "OMG! The Fed totally just cut interest rates again!"

2008-04-25T15:00:00.002-04:00

Retro no-no
Yesterday afternoon, I was cruising home from work, listening to She & Him while wearing my compliment-inducing, Katherine-Heigl-bastardizing yellow rose sundress and feeling pretty cool with the retro '50s vibe I was working. But then I saw a girl drive by in an aqua-blue T-bird convertible, and I was suddenly seized with envy, knowing that my retro facade would not be complete without that car.

Unfortunately, earlier in the day, I'd succumbed to the sale goings-on at Fish's Eddy and ordered myself a 12-piece set of their Pantone dinnerware, so I didn't really have enough money (or lack of conscience) left over for another impulse purchase.

2008-04-20T20:20:00.003-04:00

Double dog dare
I was Metro-ing back from the Mall one Saturday last April when a bunch of people in matching T-shirts rushed onto the train. Matching T-shirts are a common occurrence in D.C., but this group stood out--not only because their shirts said "Urban Dare," but also because they were consulting maps and talking excitedly about strategy. Even before I got home and Googled "Urban Dare," I had a sense that in a year's time, I would be on the receiving end of stares from curious Metro riders.

Who better to accompany me on this mini-Amazing Race through the city than fellow TAR fan Autumn? Fortunately, she was just as excited about the concept as I was, and so yesterday at high noon, we found ourselves on the south end of the Ellipse, tethered together at the knee, about to plow over a couple of sunbathers who were blocking the path of the world-record-setting three-legged race that marked the start of the 2008 D.C. Urban Dare.

While waiting for the race to begin, in addition to taking a couple of practice strides with our three-legged gait, we had discussed strategy. Given that the sample race on the web site didn't seem to follow any particular geographical order, I thought it might be best to take a few minutes at the start of the race to gather answers to all the clues and map out the best route. Autumn agreed. Unfortunately, once we had our clue sheet in hand (after swiftly completing the three-legged race as other teams floundered around us), all talk of strategy was instantly forgotten in the heat of the moment as we set off toward the first clue we knew the answer to, planning to gather others on the way.

This proved to be a costly error in judgment, but it wasn't until we phoned Jason for help during a dash through Capitol Hill that we realized we were walking mere blocks from the finish line...with at least half of the clues left to go. Most of which were pretty far west of us, in Foggy Bottom, Dupont Circle and near the Mall. Oops. Although doing the race essentially backwards did cause a little backtracking (we ended up walking/running more than 10 miles, whereas the most efficient route would have only taken 6), it also had its advantages, in that we were able to speed through all of the Hill dares in record time. We managed to recover quite well and devise a fairly efficient route for the rest of the race, although we did experience a few other hold-ups, including a possible sabotage on one of the dares (so not cool) and a lengthy argument with a Union Station bus driver about the best bus route to the finish line.

In the end, we finished 80th out of 126 teams with a time of 3:46, which was well within our goal of not coming in dead last. (I'm guessing that honor went to one of the more nonchalant teams we passed on our route, like the ones who were strolling along with big fat Starbucks cups in hand.) We managed to learn a little bit about our fair city (Did you know there are a bunch of statues of South American liberators along Virginia Avenue? Or that there's a rotunda at the Canadian Embassy that has a really awesome echo?) and to devise a strategy for next time (i.e., actually stick with strategy devised before the race). Not to mention, we got one hell of a workout.

2008-03-24T09:04:00.002-04:00

Babes in Thailand
Hey, remember that time Bri and I went to Thailand? Yeah. I've finally managed to finish the maybe-a-little-too-detailed recap of all of our adventures. I post-dated it in November '07, because years from now when I look back at this blog, I can just see myself thinking, "Wait, why is the Thailand recap in March '08? We went to Thailand in October/November '07." (Or actually, years from now when I look back at this blog, I'll want to pretend that I'm not such a procrastinator. Although procrastination is only part of the story--this thing is nearly 20,000 words long, and that kind of meticulous recounting takes some time.)

Anyway. If you don't feel like working on your Monday morning (and who does, really?), you can start your adventure-by-proxy right here.

2008-03-21T14:20:00.003-04:00

Worlds are colliding!
For 18 years, I lived in the same small town and had pretty much the same circle of friends. Sure, there were subtle shifts as the years passed and our ages and interests changed (case in point: Bri, whom I've known pretty much forever, used to be my sister's best friend when we were all still in the single digits, age-wise), and there were some peripheral people from camp and band and other activities whose paths occasionally converged, but for the most part, I'd known all of my friends in some form or fashion for most of my life, and therefore was pretty much immune to those cool little cross-connections that the writers of Lost are so fond of.

Fast-forward 10 years, and the waters of my circle of friends have gotten a lot muddier. I've lived in four different places (Columbia, London, Birmingham, D.C.) since leaving home, and now I have several subsets of friends to keep track of. Not only that, but there are certain people who fit into more than one category (I met Danielle in college, but we weren't really friends until she moved to Birmingham; I grew up with Ryan, and then he ended up at my college...and then in Birmingham), which makes it all the more confusing.

So when I saw the notice on my Facebook feed the other day that Chase and Jessica were now friends, it didn't occur to me as strange at first, since I knew both of them. But then it dawned on me: Chase and I met in college; Jessica is a friend of a friend from Birmingham. There's no way they possibly could have met each other through me, and so they must know each other some other way. Yep--it turns out they went to junior high together. Whoa.

I think it's incidents like this that make it possible for me to wake up from a dream in which Taylor Hicks is proposing marriage to me and not think it's all that strange. (I also had one recently in which I was giving Billy Bob Thornton love advice, but I did think that one pretty strange. And yet also an improvement on my last Billy Bob Thornton dream, in which I was naked in the back of a pickup truck.)

2008-03-12T23:36:00.005-04:00

"All the immediate unknowns are better than knowing this tired and lonely fate"*
Lately, it seems like my new blog obsessions tend to mirror what's going on in my own life--or, more accurately, what's about to be going on in my own life. (I'm no Boy Scout, but "always be prepared" seems like a good idea, no?) When I was planning a trip around the world, I was addicted to reading the blogs of people who were taking trips around the world. Don't get me wrong, I still love my travel blogs, but now that those plans have been scrapped and I've been thrust back into the world of single-girl-hood, I've become more obsessed with reading the next Carrie Bradshaws (that is, ones with way better fashion sense and way fewer stupid puns. Although can I pause to say how totally excited I am for the Sex & the City movie? I didn't think I would be, given how Carrie and I left things, but I really, really I am. I think it's because the clothes don't look too horrible. Well, except for the infamous wedding dress. I mean, what is with that pointy hat thing?)

But I digress. While the lovely and amazing KT and Rachel have been fitting the single-gal bill for the past few months, I've recently stumbled upon another Carrie incarnate to love: Single + Cats = Sad. The blog's author, Martini, is a 27-year-old magazine editor who recently broke up with a long-term boyfriend because "it just wasn't right." So basically, we're the same person. Oh, except that she's a model in her spare time, hangs out at the Playboy Mansion and dates B-list actors, whereas I write quizzes for teenagers in my spare time, hang out in dive bars and...well, given that I live in D.C., my only option for dating the marginally famous is B-list politicians, and given the way the A list has been behaving lately, that doesn't seem too appealing. But these are tiny, insignificant details. The point here is that her blog is well-written and funny and makes me just a little less nervous about dipping a toe back into the shark-infested waters known as the dating pool.

*Is it just me, or should Jenny Lewis be the poster child for girls who break up with boys who seemed so right but turned out to be not so right? I heart Jenny Lewis, and only partly because starred in Troop Beverly Hills.

2008-03-11T11:56:00.002-04:00

I heart Rob Sheffield
It's no secret that I've had a pretty huge crush on Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield for a while now. His column was the only thing that kept me subscribing to Rolling Stone for years after the rest of the magazine failed to hold my interest. I even proposed marriage to him once, although he, along with George Clooney, Colin Firth, et al never responded. (Although looking back now, some of these non-responses were blessings in disguise. Ralph Fiennes? Ryan Adams? Both kind of skeezy now. And Hugh Grant was technically kind of skeezy at the time of the proposal, but he's even skeezier now. And let's not even address the whole Clay Aiken thing, except to say that I have always had a soft spot for the gays.)

Anyway. Given my long-abiding love for Rob Sheffield, and the fact that I tend to fall in love with memoir writers anyway (see also: Obama, Barack), I realized that it was going to be somewhat difficult not to fall even more hopelessly in love with him while reading his memoir Love Is a Mix Tape. Sure, the fact that the book is all about his love for his late wife did give me pause--at least, until I discovered two very important pieces of information about Rob Sheffield last night:

1. He hates it when people interrupt stuff (dinner, a conversation) to answer the phone.

2. He hates the word "utilize."

I also do not believe in rushing to answer the phone if you're doing something else (isn't that what voicemail is for?) and think the word "utilize" should be banned from the English language. Clearly, this is meant to be. The only problem is, I'm afraid that if Rob Sheffield were to look at the cumulative collection of mix tapes and CDs I have created over the past 15 years or so, he would deem me very uncool indeed. Alas.

I don't think it's going to work out with me and Barack Obama, either. But at least I still have Clooney. If he ever writes a memoir, I'm a goner.

2008-03-09T23:19:00.002-04:00

Rolling with the punches
This weekend I:

-Placed a carry-out order from a Thai restaurant that I thought was on my way home from the gym, and only realized when I was walking to pick up my order that the restaurant I was thinking of was not the restaurant I had ordered food from. And, in fact, the restaurant I had ordered food from was several miles away. Which meant I had to walk back to my apartment, get in my car and drive to the other restaurant (Al Gore hates me), where they were pretty much just sitting around, wondering if I was ever going to show up and get my food. Oh, and all of this was taking place in the pouring rain. Good times. At least my food was still warm when I finally got it home. Thank God for Styrofoam (Al Gore really hates me).

-Wore my beloved Frye boots to a bar on the Hill, where they were complimented by the bouncer (yay!) but then accidentally doused with beer (boo!). At least I had weatherproofed them prior to the beer spillage (rain, snow, beer--it's all liquid, right?), and therefore they survived pretty much intact. You can still see the faint outline of the beer stain, but I've decided that this battle scar (and others surely to come) will give them character.

-Did not give myself enough time between my Pilates class and hair appointment today to get to the salon via Metro. Being late for the appointment was not an option, as the salon cancels your appointment and charges you the full fee if you're more than 15 minutes late. So I decided to drive (Al Gore hates me even more). Unfortunately, I made this decision after I'd already walked to the Metro and spent 5 minutes standing on the platform, debating the feasibility of various transportation scenarios, and so my stupidity cost me $1.35. But that's much better than the $38 I would've been out had I missed my hair appointment. (The driving allowed me to arrive right on time--after I spent 10-15 minutes circling the neighborhood, cursing and trying to find a parking spot, that is.)

-Spent most of my Sunday afternoon throwing a Top Model-esque fit about my new haircut, which is not what I asked for at all. Until I realized that the haircut I got this time is actually the haircut I asked for last time and didn't get -- the Thai prison haircut I've been coveting for about a year. I can now say, though, that I'm glad I didn't get thrown in a Thai prison, because this haircut doesn't look nearly as good on me as it did on Claire Danes. Also, I really need to find a salon where they'll actually give me the haircut I ask for, although I'm beginning to realize that getting a good cut for a reasonable price in this town is damn near impossible.

2008-02-28T15:08:00.002-05:00

Found a peanut just now
The other day I was walking into my apartment when I spotted a peanut on the sidewalk. Immediately, I thought of that perennial children's classic, "Found a Peanut" (which is my second-favorite repetitive children's song to sing to myself when I can't fall asleep, right behind "The Ants Go Marching"). I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if I did pick the peanut up, crack it open, see it was rotten and eat it anyway--if I would then get sick, call the doctor, hear that I was going to be fine but die anyway, then be doomed into a never-ending peanut-finding cycle for all eternity when I was rejected by both heaven and hell. At first, I thought it might be kind of cool to have my life mirror the song, but once I thought about all of the inevitable sickness, death and never-ending peanut-finding, I reconsidered.

Apparently, though, there are some children out there who haven't learned the lesson inherent in this song. I was at Five Guys earlier getting a burger for lunch (yum), and I noticed a sign on the door asking patrons to please not take the free peanuts out of the restaurant, as there were neighborhood kids with peanut allergies. I can only imagine that this sign was predicated on the fear that someone would drop a peanut once outside, and then one of these allergic "neighborhood kids" (this Five Guys is located in a strip mall, nowhere near any housing units as far as I can tell, by the way) would see it on the sidewalk and pick it up after thinking, "Cool! It's just like that 'Found a Peanut' song!" Way to go, Five Guys, for preventing innocent children from getting sucked into never-ending peanut-finding cycles.

2008-02-19T14:48:00.002-05:00

Awesome things discovered over my long weekend in London:

-Richard Coyle (aka Jeff from Coupling) is currently appearing in a play in the West End. This discovery was all the more awesome because I didn't find it out until I was walking into the theater for said play, which we'd already purchased tickets for.

-The menu at the West End Kitchen (which was serendipitously located right next to the theater) appeared to have changed very little since the last time I ate there--including the amazingly cheap prices.

-Speaking of amazing prices, the bookstores on Charing Cross Road still sell used books for a couple pounds each...although I don't remember quite so many of them having sex shops in their basements.

-Other than my favorite cafe and my favorite bar, pretty much everything else in the old neighborhood was comfortingly the same.

-Although said favorite cafe (Cafe La Cigale) and said favorite bar (Cafe Society) have since changed hands (now called The Tomato Cafe and The Longford, respectively), they are at least still a cafe and a bar with similar offerings. (Although The Longford does not have 2-for-1 nights, as apparently that's what did Cafe Society in.)

-Helen Mirren loves to watch America's Next Top Model, a fact that I came across on the flight home while reading one of the many British magazines I picked up. I really hope that watching America's Next Top Model is Helen Mirren's secret to looking so fabulous, because I not-so-secretly aspire to look that great at her age, and God knows I already watch plenty of America's Next Top Model.

Not-so-awesome things discovered over my long weekend in London:

-The £2 to $1 exchange rate is even more painful than I thought it would be.

-The landscape on Oxford Street has changed dramatically since I last shopped there. Most of the high street stores have moved toward Bond Street, leaving the stretch toward Tottenham Court Road with little more than junky tourist shops and totally messing up my standard shopping path.

-Speaking of shopping, Topshop now offers a 10-percent student discount. Where the heck was that when I was a student?

-Other things that would have been nice when I was a student: 24-hour buses. There are tons of them in London now, instead of just the infrequent night buses. Oh, the all-night-clubbing and bus-stop-ditching incidents that could have been avoided if only London had implemented this idea sooner...

-It seems that for me, international travel is destined to go hand in hand with neck pain. Although the soreness this morning is much less painful than the $300 neck injury I sustained when I got back from Bangkok, it still is annoying. I'm not sure what caused it, but I'm going to blame the guy sitting behind me on the flight back, who seemed unable to understand that each time he yanked on my seat back to get up out of his seat, I could actually feel it.

2008-02-14T11:06:00.002-05:00

Everybody wants VD

Now that I have been both single and coupled on Valentine's Day, I can report with some certainty that I hate Valentine's Day only 7% more as a single person than I did as a coupled person. OK, so that number is totally arbitrary, but it's true that my hatred as a bitter and jaded single person is only marginally more emphatic than my hatred was as the bitter and jaded half of a couple.

Or maybe my hatred is magnified by 7% this year because it seems lately that everyone selling some sort of product or service has decided they need to capitalize on Valentine's Day. I'm used to the Valentine's propaganda from the usual suspects: Victoria's Secret, Godiva, Kay Jewelers. (Unexpected bonus of the writer's strike: Not watching TV as much means I haven't had to see nearly as many of those vomit-inducing "Every kiss begins with K" commercials, which is good because I'd pretty much reached my limit on those by mid-December.) But this year, I'm getting it from all sides, from cell phones (I can just imagine the ad-concept meeting there: "But a cell phone isn't a romantic gift!" "Ooh, what if we made them red?" "Genius!") to gift certificates to the Hair Cuttery (Worst. Valentine's gift. Ever.). I know this isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but it seems more pronounced this year. However, that could have something to do with the fact that I have to go through a mall to get to both my gym and the Metro, which means I'm being bombarded by this crap pretty much every day.

The good news? In about 12 hours, Valentine's Day will be over, which means the real fun (i.e., spring and Cadbury Eggs) is just around the corner. And in less than 48 hours, I'll be reunited with one of the great loves of my life (i.e., London). So all things considered, it could be a lot worse.

2008-02-09T23:07:00.000-05:00

J'aime Paris
I had no real plans for this evening other than watching whatever was in the Netflix hopper, which happened to be the half-annoying, half-charming Julie Delpy-directed indie flick Two Days in Paris. While the city was more of a background than a star in the film, it definitely got me thinking about Paris. A little while later when I decided I wanted to make some cookies, I took the opportunity to use the Eiffel Tower cookie cutter that my mom put in my Christmas stocking. And then I ate the cookies while reading National Geographic Traveler's March cover story on Paris. So now, despite the fact that this time next week, I will be in another of my all-time favorite European cities*, I am plagued by a desperate longing for Paris. Sigh. I must be the only almost-28-year-old out there who's fervently looking forward to my 30th birthday.

UPDATE: The moment I posted this, my iTunes decided to start playing Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien." Then I looked up and saw the poster of the Montmartre steps that Jeff gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago. Seriously, how am I supposed to quiet the yearning in the face of all of this?

*It's worth noting that the last time I was in Paris, Jeff and I saw an ad on the Metro for a special fare to London on Eurostar, and it was all we could do not to hop a train there for a night or two. Seriously, I don't think I'll ever be able to decide which city I love more. Too bad I can't afford to live in either.

2008-02-07T10:36:00.001-05:00

The bicycle thief
The last time I put in some face time with my bike (whenever we last had unseasonably warm weather; maybe about a month ago?), I kind of expected it was going to get stolen. In fact, I was a little surprised that it hadn't already been stolen, as the lock was missing, and isn't the whole point of stealing a bike lock to steal the bike? Anyway, I rode it to Whole Foods, where I had no choice but to leave it unlocked on the bike rack, hoping that the fact that the bike rack is tucked away in a corner of the parking lot and that I instructed a chocolate lab who was also tied to the bike rack to guard it would keep it from getting stolen. Which it did, although I don't know whether to thank the location or the dog for that. However, I have to admit that my desire for the bike not to get stolen had to do a lot more with not wanting to walk all the way home from Whole Foods than it did a desire to actually keep my bike. I realized some time ago that if I was going to use my bike for exercise, the whole thing would be a whole lot more tolerable if I had a bike that I actually liked riding--you know, one that didn't have crappy brakes, sticking gears and rusty components that made adjusting the seat impossible. So I was already planning to buy myself a shiny new bike this spring.

And yet none of this really tempered my outrage yesterday evening when I went down to the laundry room and discovered that my bike had been stolen! Although again, this had nothing to do with actual love for the bike, but rather a) frustration with myself for not removing the nice components of the bike (cushy gel seat, almost brand-new bell) when I knew it was likely to get stolen, b) a derailment of the evening bike ride I was looking forward to, and c) the realization that I will now have to come up with a new storage solution for the new bike, since clearly the laundry room is not a secure location. Stupid bicycle thieves.

2008-01-24T13:28:00.000-05:00

Thank God the dial landed on "Jennifer Garner" rather than "Heath Ledger"
So I have to say, I'm a little shaken up by this whole Heath Ledger thing. (So much so, in fact, that when I first heard the news at pub quiz on Tuesday night, I promptly named our team "Heath Ledger, WTF?!" And we went on to nearly snare the victory, missing first place by only one point, and therefore really being glad this time that they'd changed the rules to include a prize for second place. But that's another story for another blog post.) Anyway, Heath Ledger. I can't say I've ever really had strong feelings about Heath Ledger one way or the other, other than not really understanding why everyone thought he was so attractive, and also not understanding why his Brokeback Mountain performance was nominated for an Oscar because I couldn't understand a damn word he said in that entire movie, but also (despite these somewhat-negative perceptions of Heath Ledger himself) wishing that he and Michelle Williams had been able to make it work, because I really like her and thought she generally looked very lovely throughout their entire courtship, as opposed to on Dawson's Creek, where she had a series of mostly unfortunate haircuts.

Where was I, again? Oh, yes. The thing that troubles me the most about Heath Ledger's mysterious death is that it seems like every new thing I read about calls to mind something in my own life. When the story first broke, I realized he was 28, the age that I will be turning in a matter of months. Then I heard that he'd just come back from London, where I will be going in a matter of weeks. But these similarities are kind of trivial to what I read today, which was that as many as six different prescriptions were found at the scene of his untimely demise, including sleeping pills and an antihistamine, and that authorities believe it may have been the ill-advised pill-mixing that did him in.

If there's anyone who knows about ill-advised pill-mixing, dear readers, it is me. For the other night, as in the night before I woke up with the swollen eye and Jennifer Garner lips, I took not only my standard Benadryl, but also one of the prescription-strength Motrin left over from my neck injury (because I had a headache, and also wanted something that would put me to sleep, since I didn't think I'd be able to get there myself with all the stress and the itching). Oh yeah, and this was all on top of a glass of wine that I'd had with dinner. But I reasoned that since the only warning on the Benadryl was not to mix it with another di-somethingorother (whatever drug is in Benadryl), and the only warning on the Motrin was not to mix it with asprin, they'd be all right together. And by that time, the wine was pretty much out of my system. But now that this whole Heath Ledger thing has come up, suffice it to say that I'll be much more prudent when mixing drugs in the future, no matter how crazy my hives are driving me.

2008-01-22T14:52:00.000-05:00

Further proof that the American public is essentially stupid
So it's generally agreed that the People magazine crossword puzzle is like the easiest crossword puzzle ever, right? And it's also generally agreed that the easiest clue in the already-super-easy People magazine crossword puzzle is the name of the puzzle's "star," whose picture is shown on the same page. Because by the time you get to the end of People magazine, and in fact if you are the type of person to read People magazine in the first place (even if you only indulge at the gym and occasionally in a long checkout line or in a doctor's waiting room, like me), you should have a pretty good handle on what celebrities look like and how their names are spelled.

So last night (at the gym), when I noticed that the crossword puzzle featuring Leann Rimes was entitled "Time for Rimes," I naturally thought to myself, "Come on, People! Aren't you making this a little too easy for everyone?" Yeah, apparently not, as the person who had filled in the puzzle spelled Leann's surname with a "y" (and also failed to notice that it was Loni Anderson, not Lony Anderson, on WKRP in Cincinnati).

Feel free to smack your own forehead with the nearest blunt object (perhaps a People magazine!) now.

In other news, for those of you who were wondering about the hives situation, I no longer look like a hideous monster (yay!) or Jennifer Garner (boo!). I went to the doctor yesterday (which, incidentally, is where I started reading the People issue in question, although I did not get a chance to see if its crossword puzzle was also filled in incorrectly), and he put me on Zyrtec. The good news is that it seems to be working much better than the Benedryl. The bad news is that I'm going to have to take it until the hives go away on their own, which my doctor confirmed could take up to two years. Oh, the humanity!

2008-01-20T10:54:00.000-05:00

Look away, I'm hideous!
So the hives (which, by the way, are now considered chronic, meaning they likely have no cause and could last for up to two years) were my first indication that my body was maybe not so happy with me and had decided to show it, in the manner of a petulant child. I don't know why, though, really. Except for the occasional indiscretion, I feel like I take pretty good care of it--eating fairly well (at least during the week), exercising regularly, not drinking too much, trying to get enough sleep, etc.

Only this week I've kind of let all that slide, since I've been more stressed (due to a variety of reasons) than I've possibly ever been before. As a result, my body has gone from "petulant child" to "screaming toddler," and has basically declared an all-out war on me. The hives, which up until now have been responding pretty well to regular doses of Benadryl, are now refusing to go away at all--I've had the same bumps and welts on my legs pretty much the entire weekend. As if that weren't bad enough, the hives have moved on to attacking my face, which, trust me, is the last place where you want to have hives. I woke up this morning to find that my scalp itched like crazy, and my right eye was sore and practically swollen shut, as if I had somehow sleepwalked into the middle of a cage fight. I was trying to deduce whether this swelling was a result of the hives, the stress, or crying about the hives and the stress (or the aforementioned cage-fight sleepwalking possibility), when all of a sudden I felt my lip start to swell, too. Great. So I now look even more like a hideously deformed beast, and if the Benadryl somehow fails to have an effect on the face hives, too, it's looking likely that I will not be leaving the house today.

Barring anaphylactic shock (which, fortunately, doesn't really seem to happen in chronic hives cases), I'm trying to put off going to the ER today, since I'm actually still paying off my last ER visit (from the post-Thailand pulled-neck-muscle debacle). I will, however, be making an appointment with my general practitioner first thing tomorrow morning. I'd been putting that off in hopes of being able to find a specialist (dermatologist, allergist or similar), but at this point, the fact that I already have a GP and that they can usually get me in within a day or two of when I call for an appointment is making that the best choice right now. I hope you're happy, body.

UPDATE: Shortly after I wrote this, I looked at myself again in the mirror. While the eye swelling was not that noticeable with my glasses on, the lip swelling had gotten way worse. I have to admit, though, that even though I feel like a hideous monster because I look nothing like myself, the super-swollen lip also makes me look a little like Jennifer Garner. Kind of like how, in Vanilla Sky, when Tom Cruise's face gets all mangled, he looks like a hideous monster but also a little like Luke Wilson.

2008-01-16T19:19:00.000-05:00

This can't just be a coincidence
Why is it that every time Cingular/AT&T comes out with a new marketing concept, the thing that they promise will never go wrong with my phone if I have their service is the one thing that seems to constantly go wrong with my phone? When they touted themselves as the network with the fewest dropped calls, my phone was dropping calls right and left. (Naturally, this prompted more than a few hackneyed, "If they're the network with the fewest dropped calls, I'd hate to see the other guys!"-type comments from me.) Now that they're doing this whole "more bars in more places" schtick, my phone seems to randomly waft in and out of service, even in concentrated urban areas where you'd think they'd surely have service. (Come on, AT&T, if you can cover "Chilondoscow," surely you can connect me on the corner of 14th and U in downtown D.C.) I'm not usually one of those hard-core "There are no coincidences!" types of people, but this is all starting to look pretty suspicious. If their next marketing campaign is about combustion-proof cell phones and my phone spontaneously combusts, I'll know there's something fishy going on here.

2008-01-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

The writers' strike is ruining my life
You know, I'd really come to terms with this whole writers' strike thing. Sure, I was expecting a few pangs of withdrawal once the new episodes of my favorite shows ran out (The Office is already kaput; Gossip Girl and Grey's Anatomy trickle to a close this week), but I'd managed to console myself with the fact that I'd at least have a partial season of Lost to look forward to, in addition to another full season of America's Next Top Model. And I could always Netflix TV shows on DVD, which I almost prefer to watching actual TV anyway, since it's the closest I can come to having Tivo without having to fork over a substantial chunk of change each month. Plus, there would be time for other, more enriching pursuits, such as working out, reading books, connecting with friends and taking on more freelance projects. (Or, if I'm being honest, wasting tons of time on Facebook, which I got talked into joining and have become totally addicted to.)

So yeah, it's safe to say that I'd made my peace with the writers' strike. Until it caused the cancellation of the Golden Globes, i.e. the one thing that, for me, makes the month of January worth slugging through. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to get through the next 22 days of this wretched month now that my one beacon of hope has been taken away. Especially since I don't have another Obama victory to lift my spirits today.

2008-01-06T17:43:00.000-05:00

Nothing comes between me and my Calvins
I can only remember one time in my life when I had any sort of emotion about the brand of jeans I was wearing. It was in sixth grade, and we were in Sunday school, and everyone was going around and naming brands of jeans that were cool and uncool. (I seem to remember this being part of the lesson, although I have no idea how it possibly could have related to God and/or Jesus.) Anyway, the brand of jeans I wore (Lee) was called out as being uncool, and I was deeply, horribly embarrassed. Not that I didn't continue to wear Lee jeans for the rest of middle school, but I was horrified to learn that something as innocuous as jeans now represented another tally in the ever-growing column of my uncoolness.

Still, although I may not have wanted to admit it, I'd read enough teen magazines to know what the cool brands of jeans were before it was spelled out in Sunday school: Guess, Pepe, Levi's. In other words, jeans that were way too expensive for my mom to ever buy for me. But on top of all of those, there was the unreachable pinnacle of jean coolness: Calvin Klein. I remember my entire church camp being abuzz sometime in late elementary or early middle school over Abby Galbraith's white cutoff Calvin Klein jean shorts. Rumor had it that Abby come into possession of these shorts by stealing her mom's white Calvins and hacking into them with a pair of scissors. I couldn't imagine such audacity, as my mom had recently read me the riot act for cutting the feet out of an old pair of heart-printed white tights.

Given the impression that Calvin Klein jeans had made on my young mind, when I walked into the Calvin Klein outlet yesterday evening with Autumn, I certainly never expected to actually find, for only $40, the skinny jeans I'd been looking for to tuck into my new boots. In other words, for $10 more than I've been paying for crappy Old Navy jeans all these years, I could've been wearing Calvins. Now, I know this was the outlet, but still. Have Calvin Klein jeans always been this inexpensive, and I was just too young and stupid to realize it? (I am, after all, the same girl who once told her friends in third grade that she still believed in Santa Claus because there's no way her parents could afford a mini trampoline.) Or is it just that Calvins aren't as cool now as they were in 1989? Whatever. All I know is, the sixth grader inside of me is very excited about her cool jeans.

2008-01-04T09:21:00.000-05:00

I am impossible
So remember how this whole "happiness journal" thing (cooler name? anyone?) was supposed to make me better at living in the moment, rather than dwelling on plans and dreams for the future? Yeah, that hasn't worked out so well. Instead, I find myself trying to plan my happiest moment of the day. Well, not really plan it (that's kind of impossible), but rather play this totally consuming guessing game about what it's going to be.

For example, knowing that the Iowa caucuses were taking place last night has had me thinking for days, "If Barack Obama wins in Iowa, hearing that news on Friday morning is going to be the happiest moment of my day." (I'm only about a hundred pages into The Audacity of Hope, and not only have I already fallen completely, hopelessly in love with Barack Obama, but I've also become convinced that he's the next John F. Kennedy.) Anyway, given that hearing this very news on the radio this morning produced an actual squeal of excitement, I have to believe that it's going to be very hard for anything else to top it today.

To make matters worse, I've already started hoping for this exact same happy moment next Wednesday after the New Hampshire primary. Seriously, I need help here.

2008-01-02T14:18:00.000-05:00

Baby had a bad, bad year
So remember back at the beginning of 2006, when I asked that Magic 8-Ball if it was going to be a good year, and it insisted that it wasn't? And then 2006 ended up being sort of awesome anyway? Yeah, apparently that 8-Ball was just off by a year, as I can now say with some certainty that 2007 was one of the worst years in recent memory. I and everyone around me seemed to be so plagued by death, disease, heartbreak, rodents and other assorted horribleness that at times I wondered if we hadn't just stumbled into one of the bleaker chapters of the Old Testament.

So I guess it goes without saying that I've never been happier to see the ball drop on a new year than I was a few nights ago when Seacrest ushered us all into 2008. This time I'm leaving the Magic 8-Balls behind and deciding for myself that 2008 is going to be a great year. I'm not sure that willing a year to be good will actually work, but I'm sure as hell going to try.

In keeping with this spirit, I've already done a few things to help shepherd 2008 in a more positive direction, the first being to paint one wall in my bedroom a lovely shade of green. I didn't really ask for permission from my landlord before doing this, but my lease didn't expressly forbid it, and the guy at Home Depot assured me that I'd be able to paint over this particular shade easily enough when the time comes. (Of course, he also assured me that I would need more than one quart of paint to cover the entire wall, which I did not. So yeah, we'll see how that works out.)

The other new thing I'm doing is keeping a happiness journal, which is an idea I got from Elizabeth Gilbert when I saw her on Oprah a few months ago. I have no idea what I was doing watching Oprah, since I usually do not watch Oprah, nor do I usually subscribe to things that are described with a phrase as lame as "happiness journal," but I haven't yet come up with a cooler name for it. Anyway, this is basically a small 99-cent spiral notebook from Target that sits by my bed, in which I will record every night the happiest moment of my day. I tend to have a real problem with not living in the present, and it seems like maybe this will help. In describing my happiest moment from yesterday, I ended up christening the notebook with one of my favorite quotes from My So-Called Life (yep, ever since I got the DVD set for Christmas, I've been kicking it 1994-style with a renewed obsession with the show), which kind of sums up what this whole project is really about: "Every once in a while I'll have, like, a moment, when just being myself, in my life, right where I am, is, like, enough."

So there you have it--2008 is going to be a good year. Whether it likes it or not.

2007-12-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

It's beginning to look a lot like...Bangkok?
You know, I had hoped that my trip to Thailand would be a life-changing experience in some way, but what I never expected it to change my perspective on...Christmas shopping. But indeed, apparently the most lasting effect of my Thailand experience is that it's made me more tolerant of crowded shopping malls. This past weekend, I undertook the dreaded task of heading to Tyson's Corner, the biggest and baddest mall this side of the Potomac, to gather up the remaining items on my Christmas list. Given my previous nightmarish experiences with Christmas shopping in Birmingham, plus the fact that Tyson's seems to maintain a pretty high level of crazy on any given weekend, I was not looking forward to it at all. But I was pleasantly surprised: Getting into and out of the mall was amazingly efficient (Birmingham city planners should have come here and taken notes before designing their shopping centers, because spending an hour trying to get out of a parking lot during the holidays? Is ridiculous), and the mall itself, while definitely crowded and crazy, was still only about half as crazy as Bangkok's MBK Center, with its floors upon floors of teeny-tiny crowded stores, each blasting a different thumping dance song from its neon-emblazoned frontage. Each time I would start to feel overwhelmed by the crowds at Tyson's, I'd take a deep breath and tell myself, "This isn't nearly as crazy as MBK." And then, restored and revived, I was ready to continue my shopping expedition.

Oh, and? The gigantic poster of John Krasinski looking adorable in a striped scarf at the Gap also helped immensely in making the trip more tolerable.

2007-12-14T14:14:00.000-05:00

Because I said so
You know how when you're a kid, you think that being a grown-up will be so great because you can do whatever the heck you want, like stay up late and eat ice cream for dinner? Well, kids (I highly doubt there are any kids actually reading this blog, but just in case), I'll let you in on a little secret: It really is that great! It seems to me that far too many adults tend to look at their childhoods through rose-colored glasses, wondering why life can't be as simple as it was back then, before we all had to worry about jobs and taxes and car payments and all that crap. But you know what? Being a kid isn't all rainbows and puppies and afternoons spent roller-skating in your neighbor's driveway with your imaginary friends. (Yes, I had multiple imaginary friends, and yes, they were all as awesome at roller-skating as I was.) It's also homework and being forced to eat vegetables and clean your room. I had a great childhood, don't get me wrong, but I'd say that as a kid, I spent at least as much time worrying and being stressed out as I do as an adult, if not more.

Without a doubt, the most excruciating part of being a kid was waiting for Christmas. (Although any conversations my mom started with the words, "I looked in your closet the other day" are definitely a close second, as they almost always involved a massive cleaning project.) Believe it or not, the Christmas countdown was even more excruciating when I got older, as I was old enough to pick out my own presents, yet still young enough to have my mom's will imposed on me, namely that I was not allowed, under any circumstances, to wear or use said present until after Christmas. This was particularly painful the year I received a letter jacket, when I actually had to carry the thing home from school myself in its plastic wrapping and surrender it to my mom to hang in our coat closet for two months while we waited for Jesus to turn another year older. I felt I had a valid argument in that letter jackets have a limited shelf life as it is (because you want to wait until sophomore or junior year to get it so you have enough activities to put on it so that you don't look like a total loser, yet you can't wear it one day past graduation for fear of looking like a total loser), and therefore I really should have been milking every possible day of wear out of it that I could. But my mom was unwilling to bend on the no-Christmas-presents-before-Christmas rule.

While she does still adhere to this rule for Christmas presents she buys for me, in no way do I exercise such control over Christmas presents I purchase for myself. Case in point: Earlier this week I received an early present in the form of a $100 gift card from my freelance boss, which I promptly put toward the purchase of some very expensive boots that I have long coveted. The boots are due to arrive this weekend (via UPS, so they won't be at the mercy of my stupid postman, thank God), and instead of being wrapped and placed under the tree to linger for 11 more days, they will be going straight from the box onto my feet, where I suspect they will remain for much of the next week and a half. Merry Christmas to me!

2007-12-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

A lawyer, two MBAs and three journalists walk into a bar...
This may sound like the setup for a bad joke, but it's actually a setup for the announcement that our new and improved quiz team WON the Stetson's Pub Quiz last night! This was due in large part to me calling in a couple of ringers, in the form of my old college chum Jason (whom I didn't even know lived in DC until last week, and had no idea was such a trivia whiz until last night) and his roommate, Anik, the two aforementioned MBAs. Because while Kirsten, Daimon, Autumn and I are pretty well-versed in things like sports, literature, pop culture and geography, we tend to not be so great at subjects like math, science and technology. Such was the beauty of the expanded team: By the time the quizmaster had said, "What's the name of a verb that acts...", I had already written down "gerund" (Anik: "Is that even a real word?"), whereas I couldn't help but be wowed by Jason's lightning-fast, Jessie-Spano-on-caffeine-pills reflexes in using the Pythagorean theorem. We started out tied for first place and slowly rose in the standings until we dominated with a commanding 4-to-5-point lead for the last few rounds. This definitely beats our previous pub-quiz highs of getting a perfect 10 on the TV theme songs round (thanks to Autumn's and my love for 21 Jump Street and Punky Brewster, respectively) and a tenuous first-round hold on the lead. The only downside? When we used to tie for fourth-to-last, the prize was a $75 bar tab. Now that we're actually winning, they've split the prize so that it's a $50 bar tab for first place and a $25 bar tab for second place. Sure, winning is its own reward and everything, but come on. That extra $25 would have gone a long way in paying for all beer we ordered as soon as it started to look like we might actually have a shot.

2007-12-10T22:24:00.000-05:00

Still itching after all these years
Right before Christmas when I was 7, I rode a carousel in a mall in Memphis, where I promptly contracted chicken pox from a kid who shared the teacup ride with my sister and me. (Or so my mom tells me. How she narrowed down the chicken pox culprit to this particular teacup, I have no idea.) Anyway, this meant that I spent most of my Christmas that year being itchy and miserable, with only my new Cabbage Patch doll to comfort me.

Fast-forward 20 years later, and I'm once again facing the prospect of an itchy Christmas. This time it's a sudden and persistent outbreak of hives, the source of which I can't seem to hone in on, apparently not having been blessed with my mother's powers of deductive reasoning. (Actually, I'm pretty sure it's some Bath & Body Works shower gel given to me by my grandmother last Christmas that I just got around to opening. My dermatologist warned me years ago about the dangers of Bath & Body Works, but did I listen? No.) Anyway, what I lack in deductive reasoning skills, I made up with my memory, as I was able to recall my mom's solution for combating itchiness: Aveeno. (Also recommended by my dermatologist, by the way. Why didn't I listen to her, again?) Dousing myself with the stuff in both the bath and shower has proved to temporarily halt the itching, but the hives still haven't disappeared completely. And this year, I'm afraid, I won't even have a Cabbage Patch doll to comfort me. But with any luck, I will have noise-cancelling headphones and My So-Called Life DVDs, the two items at the top of my Christmas list. And I know where all the old Cabbage Patch dolls are, just in case those don't do the trick.