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]