What were you expecting?
In case you were wondering, The Runaways? Not a good movie. It had no point. And The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was just strange. But Brad Pitt is NICE to look at (when he’s his own age, of course).
Last thing: the color of Cate Blanchett’s hair in that movie is what I was aiming for (and missed by so so much) when I dyed mine three summers ago. If I were to ever try again, I’d go for that. Maybe a tiny bit darker.
She’s so pretty. And I loved her dress. LOVED Pippa’s dress. Tom and Lorenzo covered every fashion-related aspect of the wedding (and there were many). See here (hats), here (ceremony and procession), here (guests), here (Pippa), and here (Kate). And then I left work early. Happy Friday!
The inside of my head is not a particularly interesting place to be right now. I have no funny stories, no frustrating little incidents to relate. Just songs stuck in my head. Today it’s Pink’s “Raise Your Glass”. If it must be Pink, I’d rather get stuck with “So What”. I like that one more.
Aside from that, my brain is shouting something about how bored it is and how much it wants to be anywhere but here (work). I hear the occasional “Work SUX!”, too. (My brain doesn’t always like to spell words correctly. It’s being kind of a brat just now.) It doesn’t seem to know what exactly it would rather be doing, though. Mostly, I’m having a hard time concentrating and it’s NOT because I’m having a wonderful daydream about those houses in Vancouver I linked to the other day and how nice it would be if we were crazy wealthy and had all the time in the world to devote to doing all the things we actually enjoy doing. Really, it’s not because of that daydream. That just occurred to me. I wish my day had been spent in that daydream. Unfortunately, there is nothing coherent happening in my head (beyond this post, and that’s debatable).
Actually, this is helping. My to-do list is crystallizing. Can I leave now? I’ve got stuff to do!
Every day for the last….large number of days has been nonstop. No time to think, no time to breathe, from getting up in the morning, through the work day (especially through the work day), and then home to exercise, to make dinner, to run errands… There’s some time during and after dinner, actually, but I can’t say I’ve felt particularly relaxed. I’ll try to be more conscious of that time tonight and see how it goes. We’ve been avoiding turning on the AC for a few days in favor of leaving the windows open all the time, but it’s been pretty warm (in the 80s) and at night, it takes a LONG time to drop to the 60s, where it’s actually comfortable. Add to that the oh-so-cheerful birds that start singing around 5am, and you get not enough sleep for the last few days. (The birds don’t wake me up, but John does when he gets up to close the windows. Waking up to birds singing makes me feel like a Disney princess. John doesn’t have the same response.)
Anyway, I feel a little frazzled, but it’ll pass. Until the next thing. I want to be serene. Unflappable. Unperturbable. (And imperturbable. Both, please. 
) Zen. Might get boring, though.
Corrupt orphans screwed with my computer last night. For reals. They were obviously upset with Michigan State Senator Bruce Caswell, who recently proposed that money set aside for clothes for Michigan’s foster children should only be spent at thrift stores like Salvation Army and Goodwill. (Story here, courtesy of (and with commentary by) Nancy Nall.)
I’m not kidding about the corrupt orphans, though. I tried to boot up my computer this morning, and it got stuck. I called my handy live-in IT guy to fix it. He helped those poor orphans out. Very competent, that guy. I think I’ll keep him around.
You should be so proud of me. I just got back from a long walk with dogs and started dinner. Dinner will only take ten minutes, but I’m hungry NOW and I want to munch. To graze. To eat food high in calories and not good for me. Like those candy-coated chocolate eggs that are my favorite Easter candy ever. Or chips. (Not as exciting, but STILL. Chips.) I resisted the urge and reached instead for – wait for it (this is where you should be proud of me) – baby carrots.
I’ll wait for the cheers and applause to die down.
Thank you.
Yes, instead of pounding down delightfully tasty treats with no nutritional value, I’m chomping on crunchy orange CUTE little carrots, chock full of vitamins and other healthy things. They only occasionally remind me of toddler fingers. Or my own thumbs. Not at all disturbing.
There are days when the internet is no fun. Sure, I can still keep myself occupied (for hours, if necessary), but sometimes I find hilarious and interesting and share-able things, and sometimes I don’t. It’s probably me, not the internet. Maybe I’m not in the mood. I need new fun websites to explore.
My oral surgeon told me I had to lay off the exercise for a week to ten days after my tooth thing. I did that. Today is ten days later, and I went back for a follow-up. Know what he said today when I asked if I could go back to normal exercise? “Stay off the stairmaster for another two weeks.” What a strange thing to say. Was he kidding? So I asked. “Are you kidding?” “No. You bounce too much on that thing, it’s part of the motion. The bone around your implant needs to harden, and if you bounce, it could move around.” Well, crap. “So no running?” “Nope.” “How about light jogging?” “Wear soft shoes.” Again, what? So now I’m paranoid about bouncing.
Battery died. Post was lost. It might have been brilliant. (It wasn’t, but it might have been.) It’s gone. You’ll never know.
Last week, there was a blogger/social media conference in New Orleans, and a lot of the bloggers I read were there. Dooce just posted a picture from her trip, and I want to go back! To New Orleans, not necessarily to the conference (although I would probably really enjoy one of those). I want to go right now.
Right now!
The caffeine wore off. Or maybe I’m coming down from the sugar high. Whatever it is, I’m all of a sudden super tired and so very glad tomorrow is Friday.
Also, I would like to move here.
What made me think it was a good idea to have tea for breakfast and a cup of coffee when I got to work (yummy delicious flavored coffee with too much sugar) and then another cup right after lunch? I’m jittery. Tapping my fingers, clicking pens, jiggling my knee… Anybody need anything auctioned off?
Is it possible to go through a day without a to-do list? (I started with “get through life”, but that’s too big.) Seriously, though, one day. There will always be something, right? Typical (and very very basic) work day to-do: shower, go to work, do work, come home, make dinner. At a minimum. There are always things like go to the bank (didn’t do that today), plant the new trees that arrived today, pick up the contact lenses when they come in, buy new running shoes, call a deck guy, clean the house, exercise, feed the dogs, make your bed, clean up after breakfast (and many many more, of course, with hundreds of variations for those with kids). What would a day without a to-do list look like? Maybe if you slept outside (no need to get out of bed or let the dogs out) and were fasting (for spiritual growth, let’s say, so no need to prepare meals or clean up after them). Your to-do list could be as simple as 1. Wake up. 2. Go to sleep. Would you have to add 3. Watch the clouds float by? Nah, that’s optional. Doesn’t need to be on the list.
On the other hand, who really needs a list to get through the usual parts of the day (like shower, go to work, do work, come home, make dinner)? So maybe I’m not even talking about a to-do list. I mean, I don’t make a list to get ready for bed every night. (1. Pull hair back. 2. Wash hands. 3. Take out contacts. 4. Floss. 5. Brush teeth. 6. Swish with disgusting medicinal mouthwash for recent tooth thing. 7. Wash face. 8. Wash with other face stuff. 9. Dry face.) I just do it. In that order. Every time. I don’t need a list to remind myself to eat breakfast or turn off the burner after the water boils for tea.
Where am I going with this? Is this about goals? About direction? About being a teensy bit obsessive?
Maybe?
I have really enjoyed my few days stuck at home. Really. Except for one field trip on Sunday with John, I haven’t left the house. I’m not saying I want to do this every day (I’d feel much better if I could go to my fun classes at the gym or run), but I kinda like not working. And I was SO productive. I finished one book, read two more, and started a third, spent countless hours cataloging the internet (kind of), watched several movies, including one today…what movie did I watch today? Seriously. I even liked it. Hang on.
The Recently Watched section in Netflix tells me I watched Desk Set today, a movie with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy that I really liked, except for the dumb ending.
These are from several days ago, but you should watch them anyway.
Adorable ticklish baby penguin (Watch to the end. It’s short.)
And this is beautiful. My favorite part is near the beginning, when the movement of the clouds looks like ocean waves.
The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.
A few days at home with orders to rest and what do I do? (Besides read, watch TV, watch movies, and commune with newborn puppies via puppy cam, I mean.) I go through my bookmarks. Have some links.
We’ll start with a little geography. The first link is to a couple of maps that compare the latitudes of North American and Western Europe cities. I knew they are farther north than we are, but I did not know that London is farther north than a lot of major Canadian cities. (I like maps.)
The second link is totally awesome and comes from the blog of a British woman who is raising her children in California. She found a video (watch the video) that explains the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom and England, Scotland, Wales, etc. Liked the video (the guy talks faster than I do), really like the blog.
My bookmarks are listed alphabetically (can’t remember if that’s automatic or if I did that), and these two both start with A, so you can see I didn’t get very far. It’s a start.
Sorry about all the short posts lately. I have the attention span of a gnat. Also, my face hurts. Although not as much as I was afraid it would. This whole procedure sounds more painful than it has turned out to be. Thank the whatever from high atop the thing. Seems like it would have been fairly simple, right?
Not so simple. Fake teeth don’t have roots. They have screws. Screws that have to be longer than the roots because, I don’t know, they just do. And in order for the new fake tooth to be sturdy, the screw has to be completely surrounded by bone. Can’t have the end of it sticking out in space. It wouldn’t be as sturdy. (What space? Right, the space in the sinus cavity above my teeth and behind my cheek.) The solution is to fill in some of the space with bone. I didn’t ask where they got the bone. Maybe I should have. Anyway, that’s what they did. My sinus cavity is not as big as it once was, and I have a screw sticking out of the hole where my molar used to be. Once it heals completely (about four months), I’ll get a nice new fake tooth.
In the meantime, I get several days on the couch. I’ve watched movies (Whale Rider – good, Saint Ralph – good), lots of TV (catching up on Scrubs and The Good Wife), started watching Harry Connick, Jr’s latest concert DVD (In Concert on Broadway – my good buddy Geoff Burke is in it! Very exciting. (I realize that seeing him play from 3 feet away for an hour and than talking to him for a grand total of maybe 15 minutes at the bar does not a best-friendship make (wait – I haven’t told you about that yet), but don’t think I won’t use every connection I can think up to get backstage the next time Harry is in town. Besides, he was cool. And really good.)), and played on the internet. A lot. And I finished my book (The Forever War). It was very good (as expected). I’d been looking for it in used bookstores everywhere I went, but couldn’t find it, so I finally bought it new. I’m glad I did. The latest edition has a foreword by John Scalzi, who has quickly become my favorite contemporary science fiction author. And blogger.
I’m rambling, so I’m going to quit here and soak up some of this sun before it dissolves into more torrential rain (yesterday was CRAZY with the rain) and read my book on the deck.
…from laughing so hard. I’m seven pages into Damn You Auto Correct!, and the cumulative effect is killing me. Pics of ship phone!
You didn’t really want to be productive any time in the next few months, did you? Of course not.
This is what the internet was invented for. Puppy cam!
I’m not allowed to have breakfast this morning. No food, no water, no nothing for six hours before my little procedure (tooth-related, no big deal, but I’m going to be knocked out ’cause who wants to be awake during a sinus lift?). I figured I’d sleep in a little, play on the internet, read, whatever, and then go. Sleep in a little turned into sleep in a lot. Woke up just before 10. And now? Time to go. Am I hungry? Not in the least.
Shouldn’t have said that. I’m a little hungry now.
This is why I don’t have any interest in living in Texas. The school textbook thing really bugs me.
I have a problem. It’s called food. I love it. I’m back on the PAY ATTENTION, STUPID method of watching what I eat. As of yesterday. This weekend was full of distractions. Anyway, I know what my scale is telling me (ugh), and I know what my mirror is telling me (eh). I’ll get there. In the meantime, I’ll take what validation I can get. I walked into my Kukuwa class last night, and this very nice woman (tiny, petite, adorable) came over to me and told me I looked slimmer. ! I love her. Meet my new best friend. (Sorry, Bridget.)
Flatter, as a verb, is kind of funny. And appropriate. Flatter is exactly what I want to be. In most places.
Starting to feel better (I’m slowly winning (or losing less) my annual fight with pollen). The Bloggess pointed me to this. Thought I’d share.