Big Girl Underoos

My Mom sent me the following email: I haven't heard from you in a while - busy? I've been totally busy at work, myself. It's always either feast or famine! Then, when I get home, I'm a lazy slug because I'm so beat! Then I get depressed about being a lazy slug, so I feel even less like doing anything. I'm working on snapping out of it. Arrggh. Having somehow managed to be super productive of late I thought about how I could pass on whatever wisdom I've garnered. After I sent the message I realized that I should share this wisdom with the world - or at least my readers, and those random people who find me while Googling "Underoos" or something less benign. So, here are the tips I sent my Mom on how to stop being a slug - use one at a time or all in conjunction to pack a real punch: 1) Do not sit down when you get home. 2) Put on music, fast music - not the TV (unless the task at hand can be done in front of the TV - like crafting). 3) Depending on t...

This sucks. Someone took poor, lovely, normal sized Katie Couric and made her into a stick figure. I relate well to Katie - she's about my height, has had short brown hair (I'll admit I'm not big fan of the blonde), and is often described as "cute". Plus she's wicked smart and articulate. Why the fuck would they airbrush her into anorexic oblivion? There is no earthly reason to change her (unless perhaps she'd had an unfortunate run-in with dioxin right beforehand. (Or, like I did the day of Dance School pictures, sucked a cup onto her chin while watching Saved By the Bell and gave herself a big purple chin hickey.)) Why do this? We all see her on TV every day and that even adds 10 pounds so why can't we see her in a freaking picture as herself, the way she is? I don't get it. I really don't.

I'm totally paying myself $5 today despite not going to the gym (see last post for clarification). Reasons: 1) I went up and down my apartments stairs 8 times, and up and down my basement stairs 5 times. I counted. That's almost as good as 30 minutes in the stairmill. Ok not really. However... 2) The $5 reward was the only thing keeping me going while I purged boxes, or brought bags of purged items to my car (hence the number of stairs), or took pictures of things I want to sell on eBay. I really needed something to keep me going let me tell you. I almost quit a bunch of times. I still have too much stuff but I'm getting there. I put my twin bed up on a local trader. And I plan to do the same with a CD rack I have now that I have pictures. Oh! And I got rid of a box of old financial papers. I'm bringing paystubs and things with my SS# on it into work tomorrow to shred. Whoo!

Of course I have a plan. I always have a plan. Do I always follow through on my plans? No. However, I find it handy to have one, even if it doesn't last too long. I've been thinking about ways to rein in my extraneous spending - such as $3 on mocha lattes, or $6-10 bucks on a quick lunch downtown. I thought I should give myself a budget, say, $20-25 a week. If I hit Saturday with money left over it should go in a can or jar or bank and be set aside for the other extraneous things I want but don't need. Like clothes. But if I spend all my money by Tuesday, tough luck chica. No mocha lattes for you! Knowing me, if cash I have in hand, I am less likely to spend it. Debit cards are bad because I can't see how fast the money is going away, and I don't track my little incidental expenditures. Actually, I do track them in Quicken but I don't really see them for what they are - a whole lot of little expenses that add up to a bigger than necessary number. Then I was thin...

If I hadn't seen a tamer version of what happens at Jesus Camp myself - while visiting my friend's Assembly of God youth night in high school (What? I was on a quest to find myself. But I wasn't there.) - I would think this was an exaggeration. But sweet lord almighty it is not. My friend is now a lesbian Unitarian so there is hope for these kids. The brainwashing may not be permanent. Thanks Shell for the heads up.

I can't say I've missed watching the news since I got rid of TV because, if the dribble I caught tonight while at Friendster Guy's this evening counted as news, well then, I'm not missing anything. Can I just say that the news folks are absolutely DROOLING over the fact that a hurricane may hit New Orleans on the one year anniversary of Katrina. For the next week every "news" show will be having some kind of tribute/expose/broohaha over Katrina and the aftermath with only slightly hidden glee that they can also talk about the impending doom descending on the city. They couldn't have planned it better themselves. Tonight's commentary included their absolute shock, SHOCK I tell you!, that the levees *gasp* may still not be strong enough to withold the brunt of a powerful enough storm. Well fucking duh! It's piles of dirt and a little engineering against an entire ocean and the worst that mother nature has to offer. I'm not saying they should ab...

Ouch! I have whiplash from my flashback to the 50s. Check out Josh's comments on a Forbes article titled - Don't Marry a Career Woman. Can I point out that ruling out career women will leave a heck of a lot of guys mateless and looking desperately, anywhere, for a date. I know very few non-career women. Especially ones who aren't married already. Scratch that, I know NO single non-career women. They don't exist. The article states that "recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it." That's because, unless they are lucky, the men they marry are still too stuck in the patriarchal poopoo kahkah to appreciate what they have - a hard working person who most likely does more than 50% (probably closer to 80%+) of the housework, childcare and everything else in addition to their job. You'd be unhappy too...

I started reading Not Buying It by Judith Levine today on my lunch hour in the local bookstore*. For those of you who haven't heard of it, Judith and her partner Paul decided to stop buying things for an entire year. There were rules of course - if something broke or wore out they could decide to replace it. But they stopped going to movies, eating out, splurging on fancy food items (wine was a bone of contention), even buying presents. The book (so far) is set up like a diary and very readable. The problem with a book entitled Not Buying It about the subject it is, is that it makes it hard to purchase. And so I didn't. I ordered it through interlibrary loan at my college and Cornell's copy should be winging its way to me as we speak. One of the first things they did was take an inventory of their home. The book doesn't go into great detail as their exercise was mostly to figure out which goods were necessary and which, when they ran out, would not be replaced. It got ...

You know why? Because it saves me money. My Geico bill dropped by $25/month - that's $300 a year! Then, my employer brought their contribution to my retirement account up from 3% to 5%. That's a 2% raise without even really earning it. All I did was get older. And I have no control over that whatsoever. Who knew? I also think I am getting smarter now that I'm 30. Or at least I'm finally getting around to the things I should have been doing - like electronic bill pay through my bank. It's free. It's easy. It saves me on stamps and considering that I'm still catching up my 37 cent supply with the 39 cent demand and usually putting 3 stamps on one envelope to make up the difference, that's also a time saver. I just paid my first bill electronically just a moment ago. It's surprisingly freeing. Now if only I'd already changed my name and address on my license, updated my passport, and got my car inspected I'd be all set with the grown-up stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I love Fall. It's one of my four favorite seasons. But falling leaves, geese, and coats in the middle of August? WTF? Yes, yes, I will grant you that I live in NH, but isn't global warming good for something ? Looking on the bright side though, it's perfect snuggling weather. Ok then, Mother Nature, bring it on. It's just, can you hold off on the snow just a little?

How in the heck am I supposed to work on my thesis if I get sucked into movies like The Notebook and get all weepy? Huh? I ask you? It's my own damn fault of course. I put the DVD in, but just to watch while I ate my lunch. An hour and a half later... But, it has inspired me to go through and edit an interview with this very cute older couple I know. (In case you don't know The Notebook is a series of flashbacks of a relationship and we get to see them when they are both young and old. Very moving. ) Here's an exerpt of my interview: Joe - I met my wife at a birthday party. My friend said, “Why don’t you come to the birthday party?” I says, “I don’t know the girl whose party it is.” He says, “You don’t have to know her. Come with me!” So we went, and my wife was there. I never knew her before then. I knew her father and her brother but I didn’t know her. The birthday party was in the fall and then New Year’s Eve that same friend called me up and he says, “Are you going out ...

What's the point of a relationship nowadays? It's no longer procreation, or survival (although combining expenses is quite helpful in that regard). So what keeps us pairing up and yearning for another to "complete" us? My theory? It is uniquely human to want someone out there in the world to be on your side and by your side. For someone to think you are worth spending time with, worth sacrificing things for, worth risking heartache and dispair for if you should happen to shuffle off this mortal coil. I have had two people in the last two days ask me the same question: What was it that was the final straw that broke up your marriage? When they asked me I gave them somewhat long convoluted answers, partly because I hadn't really thought about it that specifically, and partly because the process itself was long and convoluted. Having now had a chance to mull it over in my head, the answer can be distilled down to this: I realized that he didn't think I was worth ...

Here's a thought - whether we bring an end to terrorism or achieve world peace or what have you, some cataclysmic force beyond our control, some act of God, Mother Nature, or pick your supreme being/natural force, could totally wipe us out despite ourselves. And yet, I find it comforting that something outside of ourselves -a meteor, extreme seismic activity, a virus - could be our undoing. It makes our petty squabbling seem pretty stupid and useless and puts everyone on the same playing field - except of course for those people who get to hide in the big cave in case we actually see the meteor before it stikes a la Deep Impact . Or those who get the vaccine because they live in a wealthy country or know the right people. Hey, I didn't say it was a happy thought.

Guess who I saw while I was in Williamstown this weekend! Doctor Doogie Houser himself, Neil Patrick Harris . In the first play he was seated 5 rows behind me. In the second he was only two seats almost directly behind me. So close that I could hear his conversation. I think he was being bothered by some old lady he didn't really know. He seemed very polite though. I'm guessing he was there to see his friend and co-actor David Burtka who was in an episode of How I Met your Mother and was performing in the new musical The Opposite of Sex (based on the movie of the same name). And guess who else! Faye Freakin' Dunaway. She walked right by my Mom and I wearing a big floppy hat and showing signs of a few too many times under the knife. I love Williamstown. Aside: Doogie Houser was kind of like the original blogger, wasn't he? He typed his journal on what we would now call the blue screen of death and even though he wasn't sharing it on the world wide web, he was shari...

and forget to start again? Yeah, me too. Happy Friday y'all. I've been listening to Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg on CD and the reader - who is awesome by the way (I'm too lazy to go look at the cover in the car to tell you who it is...Kate Reading (ironic isn't it) or something - has been giving the characters Missouri accents so I've been finding myself using long drawn out vaguely southern words and phrasing here and there. I started to listen to Tony Morrison's Love but had to give up because she was the reader and her voice was modulating too much and I couldn't hear her half the time. Especially with my car windows down. This post is pretty much a cop out with no point but I feel like I've been neglectful of the blog, and pretty much everything else of late. Summer is my busy season. I don't know why. I don't even know exactly what I've done these last few months but my weekends have been full and I've been enjoying mysel...

I made ice cream tonight. Chocolate ice cream. With the new ice cream maker I got from my Mom for my birthday. This could be a very bad development. Or very good. Very, very good. Hand me a spoon wouldja?

I'd like to give a shout out to my friend B-Luv who broke up with her long term boyfriend recently and needs a little pick me up. Here's some e-love B! Love, Sassy

Otherwise titled: Why Sassy Pants threw herself a post-birthday-eve party pity party. Oh. Mah. Gawd. Friendster Guy and I had a communication misunderstanding of epic, potentially catastrophic, proportion. What was not expressed in my last post about my birthday was that after my Birthday Eve party I cried myself to sleep thinking I was going to have a repeat of last year's birthday - an event, or lack thereof, that was pretty much the straw that broke my marriage's back. Awhile back I had sent Friendster Guy an email saying something along the lines of "I would like to go out to dinner somewhere nice for my birthday. Here are some options. Surprise me." What I meant was "For the love of all things good and pure in this world, do not make me plan my own birthday." What he translated it to mean was, "If* you make plans, do NOT tell her you did. Surprise her." So, FG, being the wall of unreadableness that he is, can carry off a "surprise" ...

Happy Birthday to Me! Happy Birthday to Me! Happy Birthday to MEEEEE! Happy Birthday to ME!!!! Yup, it's my birthday. I am the big 30. And that's pretty cool. Here's an odd thought for my birthday. I'm reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and in it he talks about atoms and how there are so many atoms that we're all made of billions of them. And those billions of atoms were all part of people and creatures that came before us, over and over again. We're all recycled from the past. And that's humbling. On that note, my birthday wish is that everyone follow the Bill &Ted philosophy - "Be excellent to each other." Because you never know when you will be, or have already been, each other.