I Have Become My Father

I've spent so much of my life worried I was going to become my MOTHER that I was completely blindsided today by the realization that I am purposely keeping my apartment at 60.

Purposely.

And I didn't even realize it until I had set some Brie out on the counter to warm up. An hour later, it was still not warm.

I stood in the kitchen with a piece of barely warm Brie in my hand and laughed hysterically, standing over the sink, just me in the apartment alone, CACKLING.

My father, somewhere, is also cackling. At least chuckling. And marking off "Battle With My Daughter Over Her Determination To Keep The Homestead At 72" as a W.

I Just Realized What's Wrong With My Writing

I don't have my own voice.

I parrot other voices well, though. And other voices are good. It's not that parroting, or imitating, isn't a good idea. It's how you learn, right?

But I'd like to see if I can develop my own voice. And that will take a lot of work.

Bear with me, kids. Thanks.

That's One Small Step for Woman

I want to make clear that my feet have been shameful, really shameful, for a period of time that is in no way exact, but must span at least years, and perhaps decades.

Really shameful. People couldn't look directly at them in public.

The extra-shameful thing is, I *didn't know*. They were my feet. It seemed normal. Being able to walk on rough pavement and scratch leg itches with the calluses heels (I know) seemed normal to me. I had never known anything else.

This is what happens when you spend your development years at the pool. I had diving coaches whose heels had potholes.

Dear boyfriends of the past: I’m so sorry.

(I once had a pedicurist in St. Louis who spoke very little English pull me aside to give me some friendly advice because she was that concerned. “Don’t spend so much time in water,” she said. “Use more lotion.”)

I snarked about the conversation to "Bobby" later. "Spend less time in water? I barely shower as it is!" And then I waited two years to think about putting lotion on my feet. Turns out you TOTALLY CAN. I know! I KNOW! It's one of those assumptions you didn't know you had until it was suddenly broken: my feet are not some no man's land at the bottom of my legs. (In spite of the advanced topography.) You can, like, wash them, with normal soap, and put lotion on them, and all that stuff, because they are JUST SKIN. (Under the calluses.)

About this same time I discovered that they would also just SELL the magic feet-softening device that pedicurists use in the stores. To the public. Like, for three dollars at Target.

You don't have to show a perdicurists license or anything, if indeed such a thing exists. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL TO TOUCH YOUR OWN FEET.

I bought TWO.

It is basically a very serious blade that is attached to a handle, like a vegetable peeler only much more serious. It is not actually a softening device, if you are imagining a massager of some kind: it is, in fact, a callus remover. It is extremely unsexy and I don’t care. I have been using it religiously and for the first time last night, or possibly early this morning, I was in the thralls of sleep and I had an itch on my leg and I moved my foot to scratch it—keep in mind, not with the toes, but with the brillo pads helpfully installed on the sides of my heels, and…it didn’t work. For the love of blog, it didn’t work.

My feet may, at some point in the future, be ready for public view.

*This post is terrible and I can't figure out why, but I'm tired of looking at it so I'm just going to post it. SO THERE.

A Song and a Quote

Share Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondells

Also, everyone must immediately go read The Trephine, whom I found through Maggie Mason, WHO IS AWESOME.

A key quote:

"Cheesy music can really cheer you up. The cheesier, the better, really. Let Destiny’s Child offer you a strong moral message while also providing a beat to dance to in your new apartment. Note that your pets will not, in fact, throw their hands up at you, even if you entreat them to do so. Technically, they are not independent women, so I suppose this makes sense."

I laughed so hard at this that I woke up Roommate.

Boundaries

"Did you bring your bike with you?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said. "And the pump. Who's a poster child for medication? THIS girl."

"Now if only you had arrived ON TIME."

"Hey. Pills aren't MAGIC."

"Anyway. You get away with it this once because it's too nasty to ride anyway."

"I see. Then why did I bring it?"

"Well, I thought we could put it in the storage unit. Then we'll always have the option."

He looked at my face. "What? Did you have plans to ride to work this week?"

"No, but...you're inviting me to put something in your storage unit?

Silence.

"You know what? Good point. Never mind. Let's just keep it in your car."

"Allrighty then."

In Addition, I Return to Aiming For Pretty

Okay, this is flat out ridiculous. I have looked like a baby mole rat for almost a week, including a weekend jaunt to Port Townsend with a Boy to meet all his friends (fortunately, many of whom I had already met) and a couple dates and some important work things and it hasn’t really helped, and I am going back to using eye makeup, goddammit. I don’t care if my eyes fall out. And I have thrown out all the stuff I already owned and I have bought a whole new batch of stuff, and I’m excited about it.

(After some furious internetting, I have determined that what I probably have is blepharitis, which is a good explanation why no one around me seems to have caught what I thought was my pinkeye, including my boyfriend for all of last summer, when it was worst, and also my roommate, who—although we do AIM for separation—uses my eye makeup.)

Oh, I’m just leaving the damn parantheses behind. Blepharitis is basically malfunctioning tear ducts. They block up for some reason, and then your lower eyelids swell. It can be due to an overabundance of oil, which often happens in dandruff (ding!) and rosacea (ding!) sufferers, and it can happen because you’ve been on Accutance (ding!) and apparently the condition can hang on for many years and there isn’t much you can do. Drugs sometimes help if the infection gets bad. (Infection?) Mine aren’t infected, just a little swollen, which causes redness, and occasional eye styes, which are so tiny that no one can see them except for me. ANYWAY. It’s not contagious, and it can be easily managed with good eye hygiene and normal Visine-type eye drops. Good to know. Thanks, Internet.

And I did a little more internetting and poking around and I added a few supplements to my routine, and I learned you can enhance red hair with BEET JUICE, among other things, which I will try. Because I am apparently crazy. And I have given myself a pedicure. During which I bled. Right before a date. That’s the next post.

In Which Mr. Neighbor Makes Himself Useful

Remember the post in which I complained about controlling hardware experts (my, those people DO sound serious) coming over and rearranging one’s entire computer system?

My buddy Mr. Neighbor, formerly a CS major at Carnegie Mellon, now one of the hiring leads for a division at Amazon that is growing so quickly that they’re having to double up on desks (read: Mobile Devices) has, as you might guess, a few opinions on technology. He happened over a few nights ago, sniffing around for tequila to make up for the dinner date that we had already had planned but that I canceled on (obviously, at the last possible minute, it’s a wonder why anyone still speaks to me) and while he was drinking his apology tequila, I showed off the AV system.

“Hmmm,” he said, taking a quick look at the front, but then immediately pulling everything slightly out from the wall and checking out the connections. (The hardware equivalent of first kicking the tires and then popping the hood.) “I see you’re missing a few speakers,” were his first, ill-chosen, words. My hair stood on end.

“I am not MISSING a speaker!” I said, rather too loudly. “Are you saying I somehow need more speakers than what I already have?”

He looked up, surprised. “Well, you have seven channels here,” he said. “I mean, seriously. You could have surround sound PLUS two extra speakers.”

“I know,” I said, feathers settling. “But we wanted the towers. We liked the sound better, and we don’t watch a lot of movies.”

“And you don’t have anything with a slot hooked up to your screen, I notice,” he said, “making it difficult to watch movies anyway.”

“Well, physical ones, anyway. Thanks to your suggestion, we have a Roku box, so we can stream. But the towers are fine for that. We thought about getting a Blu-ray or a PSP, though, just for that reason. For the slot issue.”

“You could hook up your computer, since it’s right here,” he said, peering behind the receiver again. “That is, if you hadn’t made such a mess of hooking up your devices already.”

He was in luck; I was already feeling contrite. “Is there a way I can do it better?”

“Well, sure. This receiver can receive pictures, as well as sound. You could shoot everything here, and then have only one input shooting OUT to the TV. But you’d need more HDMI cables.”

“Oh, I have extras,” I said loftily. “I have a fear of running short of cables and I always buy extra.” (NOT always true, sadly. Roommate and I were stuck without INNERNET for a day after our second rearrange because Bread Winner—that would be me—hadn’t thought ahead about coax. But back to the story.)

“Well, some other time we can rearrange…”

“Um, why not now?”

“Because we’ve been drinking tequila?”

I just looked at him. He shrugged.

“Ooookay, I guess we’ll rearrange things right now.”

We rearranged, and it was good.

And now I have a new problem: my old tower doesn’t have an HDMI input, which means I spent some time standing in front of the “Cables” aisle at Office Depot this morning, trying to remember what kind of inputs I DID have on the back of my tower. VGA, yes, but that was being used. DVI? Well, I guess I’ll just buy it and find out.

Moment of Honesty

I have half a tank of gas, my car’s oil has been changed recently and I just got the emergency brake fixed, along with the thermostat and the cooling system.

 

The liquor cabinet is restocked, I fixed my favorite shoes, I ordered more coconut water from Amazon. I paid my motorcycle tabs. (It needs a lot more work than just tabs, but that’s tomorrow’s problem.) Titan has had his yearly bath.

 

I am not behind at work.

 

I have properly hydrated myself today.

 

And I even have a hair appointment scheduled for next week.

 

Trying to figure out what the heck I’m going to freak out about next!

 

Oh, yes:

 

I own several dresses, but none of them are right for the wedding I’m going to in Houston in a week and a half, and I don’t have shoes, either, OR a purse; and I need a pedicure and my feet are ugly.

 

Short on Kombucha for the apartment.

 

Need a radio for the Jeep.

 

Still haven’t bought window boxes for the apartment.

 

Nor have I cooked in two months at least, maybe more.

 

And finally, I haven’t worked out in two months either, and I could really stand to lose five pounds before the wedding.

 

And post-finally, I can’t seem to wear eye-makeup without my eyes freaking out.

 

Yes, men, this is really what women think about. All. The. Time.