I REALLY Have Got to be More Creative

We went to Lindygroove last night, and there was a costume contest for work today, and my Marilyn Monroe outfit just did not cut it. Though, a couple people did not realize it was me because lipstick is a good disguise. Sure, she's hott, and wears a cool dress, but is it creative to be Marilyn Monroe? Shnopes. Not when compared with the likes of:

• Rainbow Brite
• WWII Hobos (camped around a fire for three hours)
• Bender
• A Mercedes Benz (he had a grill!)
• Jack (from the box)
• A jellyfish
• The ghost from The Grudge
• Audrey Hepburn

There was a costume contest at my work, and aside from being highly embarrassing as we each had to strut our stuff in front of the ENTIRE COMPANY, it was the best day ever. Everyone was happy and cheery, they catered Carl's Jr. for lunch, they hired a DJ, and my boss who is awesome was pulled up by one of the little Mexican guys and danced to Thriller in front of everyone without being embarrassed at all. She is the definition of AWESOME. Especially because she dances like a white girl. The winners of the costume contest were: Rock Band (who break-danced in the middle of the floor with his little guitar), Art (someone dressed up as a very highly accurate version of our graphic designer), and Frieda Kahlo. I twirled my skirt for nothing.

I guess not absolutely nothing. After all was announced and done (like letting us off work early), I did get a line of 6 or 7 short Hispanic men who asked if they could please have their picture taken with me. Flattering? I'm not really sure. I'm definitely not wearing cleavage to work again, though.

The Ramifications of Being Nasty

About 2 months after I started recepting at the company, we added a column to our list of extensions that indicated to future receptionists the relative goodness of each person. Most people are blank, because you don't need to call them. The rest is a system of "*" for helpful if need be, "**" for downright friendly and/or excessively helpful, and "-" for DO NOT CALL THIS PERSON FOR ANY REASON IF YOU VALUE YOUR SELF-ESTEEM. I am not joking on the caps, either.

When we started the list, there were 7 such "-" people, all of whom, now that I think about it, were women. It has GREATLY restored my faith in large corporations, though mostly mine, to find that in the span of just 4 months, that list has been reduced to just 2. 3, if you count the one returning from maternity leave eventually, but her underlings are just praying she'll love her new baby too much and never come back. Fat chance, because what type of personality earns a "-" in the first place? Not the kind that loves babies.

I just thought it was interesting how whatever powers that be have reduced specifically the bitch population of a company IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY. I had always thought that was kind of a prerequisite for getting a good job there. Thankfully, I have been proved wrong. There are only two meanies left, though they are of the meaniest sort that take joy in putting other people down while subsequently trying to make themselves look more powerful, but only succeed in making people a) cower, and b) talk crap about them behind their backs and spread vicious rumors, which I hear every now and again wafting through the workplace.

Win for the nice people!!!

It Wasn't Stolen / Halloween Picture (already? Yes.)

It had fallen down the side of one of my many jewelry parts containers boxes of crap. But! This is it.

Also, because I loved Jesse's costume SO MUCH, I had to post a picture of him wearing it even though it's not halloween yet - we went to Do Something Blue on Friday, and he was the best costume there. Though - there were a LOT of good ones. Not this good:

P.S. His costume would only make sense if you were a dancer and had witnessed the original fake tattoo sleeve in person.

Yar be no More Complaining about Government Class

Because I finished, and I won.

I have a 78% percent, without having the points added yet for my mostly excellent paper that reduced me to tears because of the DAMNED BIBLIOGRAPHY, nor the points for my fair rate of class participation, each of which is 10% of my grade. 78% + 8% + 9% = 95%. There is no way I do not win at this class.

This leaves only Macroeconomics, which is wholly unremarkable except for the trashy girl in the back who is finally getting TOLD by the teacher, and there is a guy named Fazika.

Leaving me to be jewel-queen:

I was going to post a picture right here of this fabulous bracelet that took me hours and hours to weave, but I went and first couldn't find the camera (it was under the couch cushion Jesse sits on all evenings), and then, and still, tragically... I can't find the bracelet. I was doubly upset, which is to say, twice as upset as I usually become when I can't find something I JUST HAD TWO DAYS AGO. I'm convinced it has been stolen.

Sexy Doodle-Heck

You know our little old lady? The one that says "what the doodle-heck" all the time? She is a secretly dirty-minded little old lady that is in love with my husband. The entirety of the previous sentence is perfectly acceptable to me. I mean, if I love him so much, it would make sense that other people would as well, and especially the lonely-like old soltera who he whisks away like a knight in shining Dodge Magnum to Trader Joe's or Michael's to get sequins for the Christmas balls she makes all day every day. Guess what we're getting for Christmas? Balls.

I know she's a little dirty, but she's so sneaky and she knows she can get away with it because she's 83. For instance, she constantly CONSTANTLY is telling Jesse just how sexy he is. LOL!!!! Literally. She clings to his arm (she has a cane, but why use a cane when you can drape yourself on a handsome 24 year old chiropractor?!) and looks wistfully up into his eyes and tells him how much she appreciates his helping her. The wistfulness is so batty-eyed as to be funny. He'll start walking into the store and she'll say "after you, sexy," which is to say, "walk in front of me so I can stare at your ass." Then she'll lean over to me and whisper "now isn't he sexy?" I'm thinking "I guess I've got competition now."

Also that when she checks out of the grocery store and the young checker asks if he can help her out, she'll calmly state "not unless you want to go home with me" and he chuckles like she means she needs help getting the groceries out of the car. If she weren't 83 and 200 pounds, he might think past that, but as aforementioned... she knows she can get away with anything, and she's so right. I can't wait until I'm 83.

Craptop a Deux

To finish the story of the B.O.U.S., we decided after much much deliberation that it was probably time he got a new laptop, since that is pretty much all he does all day every day of his life. I am not joking. He is playing on his laptop now. He watched TV on his laptop for 8 hours this weekend. He plays facebook risk on it every day to satisfy his need for dominating the world in a non-dominational manner. He even uses it to do his homework, which is a mind-boggling task that I'm happy I'm not a part of. If we was concurrently in massage school, however, I would be more than happy to be part of his homework.

So we went to Circuit City, where everything was pretty much bobo except the one open-box item that he was iffy about because he is excessively obsessively particular about the highest screen resolution made by the world. The only reason being that he likes his fonts to be tiny (no joke, again - apparently squinting harder means you're better at life). It all means nothing to me, so all I can do is be like "whatever?" Circuit City = bobo + loud + incognizant "sales" staff.

Bobo means go to Best Buy, which we did, and after seemingly hours (maybe one), Jesse is the proud debtor of one excessively featured laptop that has orange trim, because real gamers think orange is cool. Or manly. Or something other than lame. It doesn't matter what color it is anyway, because you're so busy squinting to read the teeny tiny word in the bottom left corner that ordinarily is a "Start" button that you forget to look at the supernatural orange trim surrounding the keyboard. He also bought headphones, which, P.S., HALLELUJAH.

He also also bought Spore, which I have played but I'm a pretty lame player because all I want to do is play with the creature creator and make cows with 5 eyes and duck bills, which is not really the whole point of having bought the game Spore, but my name is on the bill, so I can make spherical cows if I want.

Craptop

So Jesse bought this laptop off of craigslist in February or so, not long after his previous laptop got stolen while we were asleep in his car on our HONEYMOON. If you can call it that.

It was a reincarnation of aforementioned stolen laptop, only real laptop reincarnations are supposed to be identical - I don't think HP goes out and makes them all just a lil' different for excitement's sake. Except this laptop was not identical. It had been owned by a GIRL. And a sissy one, apparently, though I never met her because the whole transaction was done in a dark parking lot. Wait.

To make a long story shorter than it could be, the reincarnation was crap. The hard drive clicked and buzzed and made general noises of agony. And then last week, the fan started being like "OH NOES! I'm not a fan. I am a Bumblebee of Unusual Size!" It drove me insane. Imagine trying to do your government class reading assignment about economic policy, which is hard enough to pay attention to as is, while this thing in the corner of the room is going "zzzzzzzzzkkkkzzzzzzzzzzzzzzkkkkzzzzzzzzzzzzkkkKKKKKkkkzzz." Distracting. Jesse's temporary solution was to take the computer apart, which did indeed stop the noises because all the laptop's guts were on the coffee table. After he put it back together, not only was it still buzzing like an angry hornet, there were also two screws left over. Hmm.... GJ. Second solution: stick a screwdriver into the fan socket. It magically stopped buzzing... but the computer would have overheated and then melted, and I do not want to clean up liquid laptop from white carpet.

I was going to tell you about what we did next, but I find that I'm tired of typing, as I just finished my last US Government final, which is an essay test of 10 questions that takes at least 1.5 hours to complete because you are expected to be able to explain why the Social Security system is going to fail in the next 10 years, and explain it without exploding. I feel like the laptop now. Two screws loose.

17.5 Pounds in 5 Weeks!

I still lost to the girl who has won three times in a row by eating only cabbage soup so she can get the dollars. I feel cheated. I least I practiced some self control in the face of temptations.

I lost by 0.23%. Lame.

However, one must think that at least I didn't eat cabbage soup for 3 whole weeks straight. Also, doesn't she notice when she crows "I've lost 63 pounds in these contests!" that she did not start at 233 pounds at the start of the first Big Loser? Nono. She started at the same weight at the weigh-in of each contest.

I'm trying to make myself feel better about losing $600 by pointing at her not playing fair, but I still did not win $600 that we sorely could have used for, I don't know, rent.

I celebrated by quesadilla, which has sat in my stomach (not intestines) like a rock for 24 full hours. I don't think I'm supposed to eat that much cheez ever again in my life. And I didn't enjoy it that much, either.

Take that, fake winner! I no longer enjoy quesadillas!

Humph.

Should the Federal Welfare System be Abolished?

I wrote a paper stating that I don't think it should be, but that it could be betterly administrated. My paper consisted of many quotes and "research", and absolutely no original content. I did not care about the question. I might care more about the question if I did not have to write a 5 page, double-spaced paper with one-inch margins using Times New Roman and following generally the Chicago Manual of Style format for endnotes and reference pages. What is Chicago Manual of Style anyway? Why the hell do they keep coming out with new "standards" of reference styles so that you have to buy all the f***ing books so you know what your stupid professor wants to look at when he's giving you a grade based on how your references look, not on how your damn paper reads anyway? Paper writing makes me SO angry. Obviously. It's mostly the bibliography, though. They have always been frustrating.

Also that my roommate interrupted me at 10:30 when my paper was due at 11:00 to tell me that he'd unloaded the dishwasher enough this week and that the kitchen was a wreck so it's my turn to do something about it. I was like (in my head) "DUDE. I HAVE TO FINISH THIS PAPER NOW OR ELSE I'M GOING TO BLOW SOMEONE'S HEAD OFF. PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE WHILE I FIGURE OUT HOW TO REFER TO THE INTERNET AS A VALID SOURCE OF INFORMATION"

However. My paper is done. Life can almost resume back to normal - just one week left of U.S. Government on the internets, and then I can go back to being boring in the evenings, but less boring than a 26 year old reading about how the judiciary is elected. It still makes me angry to think about that damned paper.

**Note. Even if I only get 50/100 points, I'll still prolly get an A in the class. I'm that good at multiple choice.

Food, Glorious Food, Glorious Foooooooood

Yesterday was my first and only "cheat day" on my diet - a day where instead of eating powdered foods plus chicken n fish, I could eat whatever I felt like. I felt like Chili's, where the chips never end and the food is predictable. I did not want to try for possible greatness. I wanted something that came with french fries.

P.S. I feel like 15 pounds in 4 weeks warrants some tasty goodness.

I had chips and salsa. I decided that chips in and of themselves are mostly just vehicles for salt. They do not actually taste that good, though the crunchiness is highly desirable.

I had french fries. Also - vehicles for salt and ketchup. This is my main complaint about this diet - there is nothing that you can use ketchup on, and if it isn't obvious by now, I would like some lycopene and vinegar in my diet please. Potatoes aren't exactly flavorful foodstuffs. Just starchy vehicles for salt and ketchup, and sometimes other condiments as well.

I had a hamburger, but I couldn't eat the whole thing. It was salty and meaty and delicious. I didn't really want the bread, but then I would be even more of a mess than I ordinarily am while eating, so it's kind of a necessity. I especially enjoyed the mustard, the pickles, and the ketchup flavorings.

I came to the conclusion that all I would really need to be satisfied on this diet is crunchy things that I could put condiments on. Everything else is tasty, easy to prepare, and easy to eat. And easy to lose weight. I mean, like, DAMN it's easy. Unless you use food as a vehicle for your emotional outlet, which I sometimes did, but can't anymore because ....

As I was just typing this, I was trying to say "xx is not a good comfort food." Then I realized that I bet the reason this is so successful is because they have provided you with only comfort foods that you can have every two hours and feel thusly comforted. Milkshakes? Chicken Noodle Soup? Hot Chocolate? Nutritious candy bars? Soy cheese crisps? Pudding? Oatmeal? They are all in some way comfort foods, though oatmeal is questionable. It is warm, though.

Hm.

Creativity Unthwarted

Not really, though. I made these earring months and months ago to match a dress I have, because I am that much of a dweeb and have to have matching earrings (though it is a fairly fabulous orange dress).

What I'm actually excited about, besides the fact that I got to take them off at the end of the day because they are heavy like hanging a slice of an apple off of your earlobes, is the fact that one of the ladies at work noticed them and wants me to make her a pair and not for free. She asked me if I had a website where she could look at things I've made (I like how she assumed the plural of thingS). I do not have a website, unless this is it, and it's not a very good advertisement for professionalism and mad skills. Except spelling skills.

These are the make-my-earring-holes-look-like-vertical-mouths earrings I made: