Pore me

This just in from my dermatologist: There is no way - do you here me? - no way to effectively shrink the pores in my nose.

But she did give me a goodie bag full of Retin-A in case I wanted to try. She also hooked me up with twelve samples of high quality face lotion and eight samples of sunscreen. Beats any birthday party I've been to in awhile (although I did receive a tiny fez-wearing monkey at the last fete, which is nothing to complain about).

Sleep is where I'm asleep

At this moment, there is nothing more inviting then the twin-bed-sized patch of carpet next to my computer. It calls to me, beckoning me to give my door a gentle tap, sending it shut, and avail myself of its industrial-quality glory.* Nevermind that it is undoubtedly strewn with bits of loose tea and graham cracker crumbs.
The only thing that at the moment that would rival that would be a hot fudge malt from the diner nearby. But alas, even slurping sounds too difficult (they do make 'em thick).

*The carpet was put in a year ago, and selected from a series of office carpets unified by a Chicago theme. This one was called "lakeshore," I believe. One option in the series was "deep dish pizza," a revolting orange with green and brown flecks. Pizza carpet? I admire the creativity, but eww.

Squirrelly

Cabin fever is setting in... send help! Husband and I escaped the city with a trip down to our alma mater to reminisce and eat at old hang-outs and smell the library and see college theatre featuring a previously-mentioned boy that I think is cute (although not as cute with the play-necessitated haircut). This weekend, thank god, I will be escaping to the wilds of the north, where there is hopefully enough snow for recreational activities. Am contemplating more cabin trips in March but am not sure whether that is a Wise Idea.

I celebrated Valentine's Day by getting up at 5 a.m. OK, I woke up early because I'd gone to sleep at 9 with a cold, but I did enjoy standing outside in the eerie silent dark of morning, amidst snow-frosted and laden trees, shoveling the wet snow in my lime green pajamas and coat.

Chew on this

As I was getting very close and personal with the mirror last night, working the floss carefully between each tooth as instructed by my dental hygienist, I wondered why Americans are so obsessed about teeth. Now I'm all for dental hygiene, but why exactly are dentists separate from doctors? Why do we have dental insurance and health insurance? What we get from all our obsessiveness is freakishly up-to-date information. Every time I go something has changed... they've realized that polishing is actually not very good for your teeth, and they have that annoying little tool for measuring the number of millimeters between your gums and teeth. "What I really want," I thought, as the mirror revealed just how large the pores on my nose are, "is someone to pay this much attention to dermatology." Why are we still getting zits in our mid-twenties? Why can no one give me a straight answer about moles? Help, medical industry! Why do you throw us to the mercy of the evil skin care industry that is Biore, with their empty promises and overpriced products?

You know you're lame...

when you own husband doesn't even read your blog! Yes, he cooked me a fabulous dinner last night, and snuggled with me while watching West Wing, and admired my abs when his hand rested on my stomach while snuggling, and encouraged me to get a chocolate malt (!) at the coffeeshop, and listen to me blab on and on at the coffeeshop because my book wasn't very good....
But he does not read my blog! So hee hee... it's like a guilt trip in advance... when he finally gets around to reading, he'll just find this and feel bad! Heh heh heh.

When BYOB goes horribly wrong

Our Super Bowl party host instructed his twenty-or-so guests to bring something to the party - namely BYOB.
Eighteen people brought food: four bowls of guacamole, two huge vegetable trays, four extra large pizzas, a platter of tacos, two pans of bars and a chocolate-chocolate cake, several giant bags of chips, a baked artichoke dip, french onion dip and potato chips, several bags of Skittles and Rolos, a cheese and salami platter, and feta-spinach tartlets.
And yes, that left two people who brought beverages: two six-packs of beer and one two-liter of Coke.
Hee hee.

If I'd only had one of those whistles...

Last weekend I got to do something that I've always wanted to do: direct traffic with one of those orange flags. I'm not talking about those blistered and miserable-looking people who have to hold a caution sign for hours. Rather, I stood in gorgeous 40-degree weather warning people not to drive down a road because it was closed at the end. Why was I doing this? Because I care about the local urban cross-country ski race (for which the 40-degree day was not so much a blessing). The best part was that if people blew off my warning and screamed past me, they were stuck having to turn around and slink back to my intersection, where I'd coolly glance over and give them the Look. [It might be helpful for readers to know that I was a Patrol Captain in 4th grade. Not only did my bright orange sash have a metal police-like badge pinned to it, but I got to leave class before lunch to escort the afternoon kindergarteners. In the winter we were allowed to help ourselves to cocoa from the staff lounge, where we discovered the golden ratio that is 4 parts cocoa powder to 1 part water].
This is why I volunteer - where else do you get to do fabulous things like watch famous athletes pee and wear reflective orange vests?
In other not-so-glamorous volunteering, I also worked two hours at our church's nursery. Wise of them, putting six teeny-tinys (I'd give you the ages, but I have no idea) in the care of a person who has never changed a diaper and who left a co-worker's very small child unattended in a wooden-armed office chair.

Where I emulate a hibernating bear

My weekend went something like this:
Eat
Watch West Wing
Sleep
Shop
Have lunch with friend
Shovel
Wax
Discuss Live Bait (not a very good book club book)
Eat
Watch West Wing
Sleep
Attend church (worship would be a little strong... I mostly sat)
Meet friends for lunch
Go to coffeeshop and read
Watch Little House on the Prairie (the blizzard episode - one of my favorites!)
Nap
Watch Little House (the one where Carrie falls down the mine shaft!)
Build fire
Bake carrot cake
Eat
Watch West Wing

Notice the trend?

Anna and the wiley toothpaste cap

I lost another toothpaste cap to the sink drain. There is that moment of "nooooooooooo" when the cap slips from my fingers and spirals around the sink, disappearing swiftly into the dark abyss of the drain. I'm reading Anna Karenina, and when Anna arrives in Moscow on the train a man kills himself by throwing himself on the tracks, and she thinks, "BAD OMEN." I had the same thought as I swapped in a red cap from a trial-sized toothpaste - BAD OMEN... what will my day hold. Since I know how the books ends, having read it before, will I befall a similar fate to the paste cap and get sucked down the drain? Nooooooooooooooo!

Things that change when you get married, Vol. 1

You're no longer taking birth control, but practicing family planning.

You have to have gynecological exam only once every other year, because they finally believe you're monogamous.

Swish kick glide

I was soaring down snow-slick hills and waddling up inclines on Saturday, mind fully freed by the exertion, when the whomp-whomp of a helicopter registered in my brain in the way that passing thoughts do while you exercise. "Maybe they're filming people out enjoying the snow for the nightly news...," I mused, "And if they are... I hope that they don't catch me because boy am I skiing sloppily," ha ha ha... swish kick glide, swish kick glide.
Mom writes yesterday that she saw me on the news.

Chipotle is not Satan's spawn

I'm starting to realize that I'm a little outspoken and holier-then-thou at times. I occasionally find myself unable to contain my wrath for Chipotle and my disdain for the weekly devotion to many reality TV shows. I shudder at daily Lean Cuisine consumption, and turn my nose up at overly trendy or ugly clothing.
I realize that the number I friends I make with this attitude are far fewer than the number of friends I lose with this attitude.

Pink triangles

So I went to the pharmacy this morning at 10 because someone forgot to refill her prescription sooner than the day she absolutely needs its (actually, the she in question apparently threw away a month's worth of pills on a cleaning spree, forcing her to pay full price for a replacement. That will teach her not to clean). Later, I delved into the white paper sack for my headache pills, which I'd also picked up, only to find the name "Megan S****" written on top and one of the nine pills missing. Annoyed, having been to the pharmacy three times in the last two days, I called them to let them know what happened. "Sorry about that," the pharmistress said. "She can't afford to buy them all at once so we keep them for her." With shame, I remembered that the pills, a designer drug, are extremely expensive without insurance. How sad, and how fortunate I am.

Products I adore

1. Vitamin E salve
2. Origins ginger scrub
3. Body Shop nut body butter
4. Tom's of Maine toothpaste, gingermint or fennel (try their pastes once and you'll never go back)

Writing this list makes me realize that I have a surprisingly few products that I am devoted to. For instance, I have no life-altering shampoo, no must-have foundation, no the-perfect deodorant. I am ambivalent about my hair products!
Got a favorite? Let me know - share this gem with world.

Corporate lingo and trendy words that should be made obsolete

1. Touch base
2. Utilize (means to find a practical or profitable use for, not a ten-point synonym for use)
3. Robust (not technically wrong, just makes me feel icky)
4. Process (as in, who will process the mailing? An important-sounding word for the banal task of folding, stuffing, and labeling envelopes)
5. Sexy (still belongs in the bedroom or in reference to Hugh Grant in About a Boy or Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall, not to the new ad campaign)
6. Google (particularly used by those who just learned of Google or read about its use as a verb in a business magazine, except if they happen to be related to me - then it's charming)
7. Current (nearly always superfluous)
8. State-of-the-art or cutting-edge (whatever that means)
9. not Lingo or Trendy but any words such as Director and Company that are Capitalized Unnecessarily
10. "key" and "impact" (Thanks Professor Larson, for teaching me how vague words such as these deter us from our goal for precision).

P.S. I might, on certain occasions or in certain instances, use the following, but only with a slightly sarcastic edge: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8. Just so no one calls me a hypocrite.

Wisdom from the mouths of stars

"I just need one cup of coffee a day. I like to shower, but that became less important after I had a baby. It didn't fit into the schedule. But Matthew and I think about coffee when we're lying in bed. The night before, we're like, 'When we wake up we're going to have coffee, it's going to be great. I'm going to use the yellow cup, it'll be great.'"
Sarah Jessica Parker (quoted in Time)

Krissy and Michael and Lisi and Libby

I had a high school friend whose parents had chosen her and her sister's names because they couldn't be shortened (Vanessa and Heather). I thought that was a bit controlling at the time, but now that I'm adult and all the Krissys and Mikes of the world are reverting to being Kristines and Michaels... I'm finding myself much in favor of the not-traditionally-shortened name. I'm all for those people with nicknames who don't actually ever introduce themselves by their nickname (like a Kelly who is occasionally called Kel but would never adopt it as her own) but I think I'm going to take the controlling route. Besides, I would always fear that the child I named Elizabeth (which I do like) would choose a terrible nickname for herself like "Libby," and then where would I be. (The only acceptable derivations are Lisi and Lizbeth.)
Husband and I are not actually ready for children or particularly fond of them, but we do enjoy discussing names. Unfortunately his last name, with its back-of-the-throat velar sound and just one syllable, doesn't sound good with everything. As far as I can see, naming the child seems the best part, and the only interesting thing to amuse yourself with as you wait those nine (ten) months with your body held hostage.

Eats, shoots, and reads

Am on the annual super cleansing diet, which has required me to devote much more time to cooking, although I have tried out some very tasty recipes this week: Sweet Potato and Red Bean Curry, Eggplant Kibbeh (a Lebanese baked thing with a bulgur/chickpea crust), and Celery Root Coquettes (tasty little cakes made with millet), all courtesy of our favorite cookbook, Vegan Planet. I have rediscovered the vital connection between sugary fatty foods (especially of the dairy persuasion) and mood, however. I quickly plunge into crabby must-eat-now-but-cooking-this-dish-takes-two-hours tantrums when I arrive home at 5. But it is euphoric to be freed from the decision of whether or not to partake from the latest large gift basket of Ghirardelli goods from a print vendor at work.

Reading: Monkeewrench, a fun local mystery thriller that reminds me how much I like these type of novels; Can you keep a secret? a good book with a bad title by Sophie Kinsella that closely rivals Bridget Jones in hilarity without being an shoddy imitation, Found, that fun picture book of various stuff (mostly notes and letters) people have found and mailed into the author, and Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line, a book about the marketing and running of colleges.

Hamm's the beer refreshing

My resolution about not being so selfish is already working. I let someone cut in while driving yesterday just to be nice. I also plan to make a resolution not to talk about money. Talking about money is crass and I've been doing it too often lately.

Had a lovely white wonderland time at the cabin. There were loads of fluffy snow just waiting for the tips of my skis to slice through them or to be smashed down by my snowshoes. On a different, smoky, dirty, and Ben-Gay-filled note, I went to a casino for the first time with the purpose of gambling - one of those huge Indian-owned casinos with parking lots that are always full. I lost money with surprisingly rapidity on fishing- and Price is Right-themed slot machines. I did find one old-school machine that actually allows to you pull down the handle, so that was exciting.

More interesting posts not centered on my banal thoughts to follow in the new year!

Selfish and blue

Well, Christmas spirit has got to me... namely reminding me that I haven't done anything really nice for anyone in awhile. No treats at the office, no quarters in someone's expired meter, no Sunday evenings at the shelter serving dinner. I haven't been a Scrooge necessary, but I haven't sought out any opportunities either. I see a New Year's resolution developing. I do, actually, (well, not that anyone who knows me is surprised) keep a yearly list of eight to ten resolutions that I check up on throughout the year. The day of reckoning is coming soon. It's much more fun to create next year's resolutions than it is to face last year's.

Snow report: About an inch, although I think it was enough to raise people's spirits.

I had an attack of the holiday blues this morning. I was driving to work at 6:58 (don't ask) and rockin' to my Mini mix, and suddenly had a thought of my grandpa who passed away a few years ago and was abruptly weeping. Those car rides are dangerous.