In Which I Discover Trash TV Clips on YouTube

I am only slightly ashamed to report that I spent much of this weekend watching Judge Judy clips on YouTube, and enjoying every minute of it. I hadn't really seen Judge Judy clips before this (I'm sheltered, and don't have TV right now), but after some blog linked to an initial clip, I started clicking around and got hooked because this shit's awesome!

Some trashtastic highlights:

This one had me cackling like an idiot. Judge Judy learns the ins and outs of Away messages, then gives the defendant a surprise spelling test.

The two-part tale of a miniature human/budding welfare queen.

All of my childhood fantasies come true. Go, nerd, go!

Judge Judy dishes out some life lessons for a handsome young buck.

And the video that started it all...Judge Judy owning an eBay scammer.

I've been watching so many of these clips, the voice in my head is now the voice of Judge Judy. "I can't heeeeeeeeeeear you!" "I don't believe you!" "That's baloney!"

Faceted Fantastic

Apartment Therapy has turned me onto amazing faceted home furnishings, including Arik Levy's Rock Tables - coffee tables that look like impossible large pieces of polished hematite! Drool! As a total mineral nerd (yes, I have a rock collection), I soooo want one or two of these.

They don't really match my decor, but what the hell. This is certainly an idea to file away in the "When I'm Rich And Have Money to Decorate" folder.

I am a better person than you.

I did it...I went down to the blood bank and gave blood! I nearly had a panic attack (AFTER the needle went in, oddly), and three different ladies had to poke me with their fingers to find a big enough vein. But I didn't pass out or embarrass myself, and I got apple juice and crackers! Yay!

Blood and Guts

I made a donation to the Red Cross online, and I'm heading to the SD Blood Bank in Hillcrest when I get released from work to give blood, since many of their centers are shut down and they are in dire need of the red stuff.

Now, all I have to do is get over my fear of needles...

Stuck at work, feel like crap.

My throat is burning, my eyes itch and I feel weirdly hungover. The lack of good sleep and good air is really taking its toll. Maybe I have nothing to complain about - my house is fine and I have the time and money to donate or volunteer.

Still, I can barely sit upright without feeling like I'm going to throw up or keel over.

Needless to say, I am not getting ANY work done. I don't know why people even came to work today. Yeah, we have an important client (supposedly) coming in today, but shouldn't we all be, like, volunteering or something, rather than sitting at our desks and pretending to work?

I called a phone number that wannabe volunteers are supposed to call. No answer. I might just go down to Qualcomm, or give money to the Red Cross from right here at my desk.

This air is like insta-cancer. I hate it.

I'm going to give money to the Red Cross right now so I don't feel like such an asshole.

Day 3 of the Fires

Even in this air-conditioned highrise downtown, the air is smoky and stale. I cannot stop blowing my nose, and have a mini coughing fit every so often. I also have a headache.

Everyone's buzzing about the status of their homes, family and friends. I know I could go home, or go to Qualcomm Stadium to donate supplies or volunteer, but frankly I'm loath to go outside because the air is so disgusting. I could go home to my hermetically sealed apartment and try not to breathe too much...or I could just stay here, checking up on news sites rather than doing any work.

I was going to bring my digicam to work to take pictures, but I forgot. Because of the wind and position of the fires, the worst smoke is toward the ocean and the north...very, very odd. I can barely see the harbor, though I'm practically within walking distance of it.

The Faces of Shopbop, Part 2

In Part 1 of The Faces of Shopbop, I examined the model who looks like she wants to drape me over a couch and do naughty thing to me. Today, we have ... The Redhead!

The Redhead Who Always Looks Miserable and Confused, I should say.

Why does she always look so miserable? Does her credit card keep getting declined? Did she just discover she's lactose intolerant? Did the photographer murder her parents? Or, worse...is she miserable because she has no teeth? Because this girl never smiles.



[Pictures used in collage courtesy of shopbop.com]

On Fire.

San Diego's on fire...again. The last time this happened, it was 2003 and I was at UCSD. I flew home from a family reunion into a thick cloud of smoke blanketing the city, and classes were canceled for days. I holed up in my dorm room and did art projects to pass the time.

This time, I am safe in Hillcrest, but know plenty of people who have evacuated or otherwise been affected. My old neighborhood, Rancho Penasquitos, is in direct peril.

I went to work today and downtown was practically deserted. Very, very eerie. I'm not sure if I'll go to work tomorrow...the air quality is so poor, I don't even like going outside. This morning I randomly got a nosebleed while sitting in my office. My tender nosicle hates dry air, especially when it's impregnated with dangerous particulates.

Anyway, I am fine, though I may have evacuees (er, friends) coming to stay with me for as long as they need.

I'm tired and just want to go to sleep. This is all a little too much.

The photo I took from my stoop last night. More pictures here. I'm honestly very far from all the action, but the skies are eerie all the same, so I can't stop snapping pictures.

My Favorite Blog Post of the Week.

Feministing is an amazing blog, and I am quite taken with a recent post entitled "Ten Things You Can Do Right Now to Love Your Body."

I would elaborate on #3, "reconnect with your authentic hungers," and say something along the lines of:

Eat healthy and you will feel better. Your body will be stronger and more resilient, and you will have better self-esteem. You will learn to enjoy preparing meals and sharing them with the people you love.

Eating healthy means cooking at home as much as possible, eating food that is close to the earth, and avoiding food that is processed, sugary/fatty and/or comes out of a box.

(So says the girl who lives on a steady diet of chocolate croissants and grilled cheese sandwiches...)

Thoughts on Breeding

This weekend, I met a man who - despite being not that old - was already a great-grandfather. I spoke to him about parenthood, and expressed my intention to never have children. "I'll just screw them up," I protested.

Sheer dismay and confusion crossed his face. Here was a man who supremely enjoyed his family, and he seemed genuinely concerned for me. "No one's perfect," he said. "Everyone screws up their children to some degree. But it's still worth it. It's all still worth it."

And you know what? He's probably right.

My aversion to having children is a little mysterious to me.

On one hand, I am quite convinced the world is headed for environmental collapse, and I would hate to have my children live in a world strangled by war, famine, and worse.

And I'm concerned I won't be the perfect mother. I'll be strict, and I'll pass onto my children all the fears and flaws and shortcomings that I myself have.

And, I'm also scared shitless about the actual pregnancy/childbirth thing - the trauma, the pain, and the lasting effects. Even though I realize it's all totally natural, it's also totally terrifying.

And then - backing up a little bit - there's the niggling voice in my head saying, "Who would want to marry me? Who would want to have children with me?"

Those four concerns are all concerns of the head. And then there's my heart, that tells me that parents may not be perfect, but they do the best they can. An that family is supremely important, and having children - even if the children are handicapped or demented or something - is the most gratifying thing you can do.

So after talking to the man this weekend, I'm open to a little compromise. First of all, I would love to adopt children, or to be a foster parent. I have always been open to this possibility, but now I am more enthusiastic about it. I think that would give me all the gratification of being a parent, while being a bit more selfless than creating more people (when the world already has too many people).

And maybe I'd be open to having one child of my own. Just one. To see how I like it. Trust me - the mere fact that I am open to this possibility is a huge step for me.

The Faces of Shopbop, Part 1

Every model has her signature. Some look haughty; some vaguely dissatisfied; some too glamorous too care.

And then there's an anonymous brunette model on shopbop.com, who often looks like she wants to mount the camera.

To wit:


Now, don't get me wrong. This model is stunningly beautiful and makes any piece of clothing look fantastic.

But sometimes I really think that her internal dialogue when posing must have been, "Hey! Buy this sweater. Also, wanna fuck?"

Click here for Part 2 of the Faces of Shopbop: The Redhead!

[Pictures used in collage courtesy of shopbop.com]

Mascara Is A Series of Tubes.

I bought some new mascara. It's going to change my life.

Some backstory: Conventional mascara is disgusting black goopy stuff that you paint on your lashes. For women like me, who have long but blonde lashes, a bit of mascara makes us look fifty billion times better. So I've been a devoted mascara user since age 15 or so, despite the fact that I actually hate the stuff, and it hates me.

I've tried about 20 different brands and colors, and they all irritated my eyes to some degree. Some were so bad I instantly tossed them (while violently clawing at my eyeballs, of course). Some were better, but were a pain to remove, such that even after using makeup remover at night, I would wake up with raccoon eyes.

Regular waterproof mascara practically takes a wrecking ball to fully remove, and when it finally dissolves, it dissolves into a black smear. Not nice.

Then a little trip to Sephora changed all that.

I found this amazing mascara that, instead of coating your lashes with a disgusting tar-like substance, forms tubes around them. It doesn't apply quite as well as conventional mascaras, and it takes a little time to set, but it wears fantastically. It dries into a tough, waterproof coating that doesn't flake or fade, and removing it is a snap - last night I soaked some cotton in warm water, pressed down, and slid off the tubes (which look like thick spider webs, don't make a mess, and don't get into my eyes). Every last bit of the mascara slides off with no painful wrangling. For the first time in ages, I woke up with no raccoon eyes. Hoooly crap.

Even as I sit here with a raging cold, my eyes feel amazing. For the past eight years, they have been constantly irritated, and for once they actually feel good - like I'm not wearing mascara at all. So although this mascara was expensive, it's totally worth not having painful eyes all the time. A winner in my book.

I also bought a fantastic new Smashbox eyeshadow trio, the Stila lipgloss I love, and a light pink, basic eyeshadow for everyday. I'm really not huge on makeup, but Jesus Christ, Sephora is like crack. I dropped a hundred bucks there without even thinking.

Oh well, at least I look purdy.

Kiss Me Mascara, $24 at Sephora.

Think they would sell?

After reading this today, I want to make t-shirts and/or bumper stickers that say "Feminists Make Better Lovers."

How I Spent My Weekend.

Well, the seminar was a rousing success! I enjoyed it in all its hippie-dippy, self-help, "you form your own experience" cheesiness, and I'd totally be lying to say I didn't get anything out of it.

If you're unfamiliar with this sort of seminar, imagine this: approximately 10 professional women ad 10 professional men, all stuffed into a small hotel meeting room for three days. Some attendees have come by their own volition; others, like me, have been sent by our employers, and are there with a few scattered co-workers. Add three facilitators whose job it is to whip every last person into an emotional frenzy. When even the most stoic manly men are crying their eyes out, your work is done.

Also, be sure to take the most self-conscious manly man and make him dance to a Elvis song in front of everyone, then act surprised when he starts weeping from abject shame and tells you that he hates your guts.

Shocking displays aside, I do feel the seminar will help me shed some of my cynicism and self-doubt, and will help me become more attuned to my emotions. It gave me a lot of insight into how I act the way I do (for both good and bad), and how I can generally be happier and more fulfilled. For these reasons, I recommend the seminar for everybody. (If you'd like details, just contact me.)

Of course, it should also be noted that after being whipped into an emotional frenzy for three days straight, I did not sleep well. And now I have a nasty cold, a wacky sleep schedule, and a near inability to get anything done at work.

It should also be noted that I met a very cute guy at the seminar, and there's no doubt meeting him made me a whole lot happier about the whole experience.

Guh.

Very busy day today, and I have a three-day seminar starting tomorrow. I do not know what the seminar is about, or why it has to cut into my "cavorting with attractive men" time, i.e. weekends. However, it is titled "Possibilities Seminar," so perhaps it will open up the possibility of, y'know, not spending a whole weekend inside a hotel conference room.

Anyway, enough cynical wisecracks. I have been working on a thrilling post about FLOKATI RUGS, aka little dead furry sheep, but it's not quite done yet, so here is a samplng of other fantastic stuff I enjoyed having in front of my eyeballs today:

red + blue - at j'adore decor

Artwork by Lindsey Adelman - at Design*Sponge

prints from tracemyface on Etsy - at More Ways to Waste Time

How to...Make a Closet on Wheels - at Apartment Therapy Chicago

drool-worthy blue armchairs on Ebay - at More Ways to Waste Time (side note: I told myself that in my new apartment I would stay away from blue and instead focus on pink, teal and gold. I succeeded - there is very little blue. But Jesus if I don't fall for sky blue all the freakin' time. Case in point: the background on this blog. Someday, I shall have a room that is blue and white, and it shall be grand.)

And the favorite of today...

Craigslist Q&A in the New York Times!

I am a humongous craigslist fan (I can literally thank them for my job, my house, and all my furniture), and I love how populist and candid the founders are. Craig Newmark was on the Daily Show at one point, and the combination of awesome and awesome (him and Jon Stewart) nearly made me cry with joy. Fo' serious.

[image from the New York Times]

Moving Day!

Today was moving day at the office. Oh yes...they like to shuffle us around every so often. Kind of like how elementary school teachers shuffle kids around each semester, just for the hell of it.

I got the new seating chart a couple of days and and my eyes lit up. By some incredible stroke of luck, I was assigned to sit in the most scenic, sunkissed area of the office, right along a huge wall of windows. We're on the the 9th floor with a stunning view of Old Town, the airport, Balboa Park, and other scenes, so this is a big deal.

As 4pm rolled around, about half of the people at the agency packed up their desks and migrated either east or west. By and large, the Search Department and Account Services simply switched places. After scoping out my new desk all week, I was READY! The woman whose desk I was taking wasn't quite as quick, though, so I took a quick siesta on one of the couches in the small conference room.

Right around 5 I got all settled in and enjoyed my new space for a whole 30 second before I left.

Of course, now I'm sitting right by the entrance to the CEO's office. I am not sure how I feel about this. He's in the office pretty rarely. However - more importantly - I am now very close to the kitchen. No more long treks to get water or bagels!

(By the way, the image above is not my office. Though I'd be thrilled if it was.)

[image from Jackie Blue Home]

Am I crazy?

Or is this settee pretty cool? I like the pink upholstery combined with the nailhead detailing.

Yours for $375 on San Diego's Craigslist.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well, not quite yet. But I've been researching trips and today I got the go-ahead from my employer to take a few weeks off in the spring. HELL YES. I'm finally gonna do it! Travel, that is.

Now, all I have to do is decide where in the world I want to go. So far I've narrowed it down to:

Thailand/Cambodia/Malaysia - Southeast Asia totally appeals to me, and I'd like to see some of the less-frequented places in the region (like Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam)

India - Just a sweet country. Take a look at my apartment and you'll tell that I embrace a lot of Indian things, whether they be food or pillows.

Tanzania/Kenya - I would love to see the Great Rift Valley and even climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. At this point, though, I'm tempted to go to Africa after I cut my teeth on my very first major trip abroad, but we'll see.

Peru/Inca Trail/Galapagos Islands - I've seen some trips that combine a trip on the Inca Trail with the Galapagos, and that sounds really awesome. The only downside of this trip is that I'd like to get off the American continent. Lame, I know. Maybe I'll do this trip next year.

Australia/New Zealand - Amazing, but the 16-hour plane trip scares me. Again, this is probably a trip for when I'm a more seasoned traveler.

As for Europe and all the usual tourist destinations - yeah, I want to see Europe, but honestly at this point, I'd rather sweat my ass off hiking in the tropics, sleep in a longhouse, and have other totally off-the-beaten-path sorts of experiences, rather than touring cities and seeing all the usual tourist attractions. And I kinda feel like the ecological wonders of places like the Galapagos are disappearing fast, while the beautiful cities of Europe will be around for awhile longer (right?)

Anyway, I could not be more excited about taking a trip. I can't even imagine how much it will expand my horizons and open my eyes to locations, people, cultures, etc. I didn't even know existed.

At this point, I am very excited about a Malaysia trip described on Gecko Travel, UK-based travel agency that specializes in eco-friendly tour groups of Southeast Asia (with small groups of 1 to 9 people). I like their mission and philosophy, and they've been nice about responding to my clueless questions so far. Anyway, we'll see. Is Malaysia a totally random place to go? That's exactly the point.

[image from geckotravel.com]