i've been obsessed with boots

for a long while. five years ago it was uggs (still rocking them, still don't listen to the haters), four point five years ago it was cowboy boots (still wear these many times a week, still grateful that awful trendy phase has passed) and then four years ago i became obsessed with finding a PERFECT FLAT LEATHER BOOT.

they'd look a little different from the norm, make me feel like an elf, and go with everything.

but they were nowhere to be found. and whenever i'd finally track down an acceptable pair, they'd be twelve jillion dollars and too pradalicious for my tastes. yet i didn't give up hope. i searched and hunted and stalked and obsessed and along the way purchased a whole slew of not-quality almost-but-not-quites. (the calf was too fat, the zipper bunchy, the color too astronautish.)

in the past couple years this flat boot thing has really taken off. especially in san francisco, especially in my current office. while i still enjoy the look, they are by no means spesh anymore. dime a doz, left and right.

but cc, who's lived through all my boot trial and tribulations, was determined this christmas season to help find (and fund) me my treasure boots (to go with my treasure pants) and put out, once and for all, the fire that's burned my innards for months and years.

i wanted to wait till after the big day to avoid crowds and find some sales, so yesterday we hit the stores, scoured the racks, peed in lots of public restrooms. (what in the hell is wrong with women, btw? why is every single toilet seat covered in urine? are we not ladies, ladies? dee-sgust.)

and after all our research, i learned something important, friends. something i hadn't realized from simply perusing ebay four hours a day for four years: i'm after a little something different than i thought i was. something a little more solid, a little more classic, a little more this-will-hurt-if-i-kick-you.

and so, behold! the frye boots i just ordered! that will arrive in 2-3 days! that i will wear over and over and over again, over pants and under dresses and through rain and fog, and will kiss goodnight and make coffee for every morning!






thank you, dearest hubs, for making my dreamiest, bootiest dreams come true.

a girl definitely wrote this post

back when i was really skinny, back in the high school and college years, contrary to popular public opinion, there wasn't an eating disorder involved. just an overall lack of appetite, an overall lack of food interest. it's hard to explain/remember because i certainly don't have this issue now, but lots of times i just didn't get hungry. and when i did, a few bites of whatever i could find would fill me up.

the thing is, i wasn't really happy with how i operated. i knew i was too thin - i was cold all the time, sick all the time - and going out to dinner with friends or dates was embarrassing. i wanted to eat like a real person - cram a few pieces of pizza down my face then beg for an ice cream cone. but most of the time i felt too nauseated to even pretend. of course people assumed i was hungry but denying myself - which really helped female friendship relations. i'm not entirely sure what the deal was, but i know it had something to do with my underlying anxiety issues. because while some people shove packs of twizzlers down their throat when they worry, i had the opposite reaction.

back in those days, i lived in a mild state of panic - butterflies in my stomach, dizzy spells on the subway - and it constantly undermined my appetite. when something bigger happened - a breakup, a move, whatever - instead of just the annoying minutia of everyday life, i would completely lose the ability to eat for days on end. and it scared the shit out of me. this wasn't a "i need control over this largely uncontrollable situation so i'm controlling my calories by not eating but i'm really starving" thing. i had no hunger rumbles in my stomach and couldn't swallow food without gagging.

the end of my freshman year of college i created some intense drama for myself, a dawson's creek scene involving breaking up a four-year-long senior couple and cheating on my clueless macrobiotic boyfriend away in connecticut. it was thrilling and sexy and nuts, but the whole thing also filled me with guilt and terror. i barely ate for eleven days and was convinced i would die. (i didn't.)

after many more scenes like this, where i subsisted exclusively on boullion cubes and tea, i slowly pulled my act together - through therapy and thinking and yoga and walking - and got down to eating. i don't suffer from the panic anymore, (obsessive worrying? yes. thundercloud depression at times? yes. panic? not really.) which means i don't suffer from the appetite suckage.

it also means i go home for christmas now and step on the scale and faint because i weigh a full twenty more pounds than i did back then. i left the bathroom and immediately put away the mashed potatoes i'd heated in the microwave and pouted on the couch.

because while i'm happier now, the weight gain is still complicated.

i wasn't healthy then and i wasn't loving food then and i was that girl people resented then because i was skinny. because people are crazy and think that skinny = ecstasy. (wrong, wrong, wrongness.) and it was just such a thing, such a defining feature of who i was. which is creepy. i love (love) to eat now, i love that i can eat a huge, fatty meal and still want dessert, i love that the first thing people say when they see me isn't "you're wasting away!"

so for the most part, for the stuff that matters, i'm sticking with what i've got going on. i'm a fox and i work it.

but i know i could/should exercise more, and i don't need to eat quite so many grilled cheese sandwiches or drink quite so many glasses of grape juice. (and that's not "grape juice" meaning wine, that's grape juice as in the official drink of kindergarten.) and the sad truth is, i know i'd feel a little better if i were a little thinner. but i hate even typing that, hate that i even care, hate that i have to give up some of that food bliss that was so hard won.

as my mom and i like to say: poor humans.

some ho-ho-ho highlights

well hello! it's been a few days, hasn't it? i hope you all had a relaxing and goody-getting holiday week. the hubs and i traveled afar to the wilds of massachusetts for christmastime funz and yesterday returned to the strangely-not-much-warmer bay area. we had a lovely time filled with turkey and cranium whippings and delicious babies and boomerangs lost in the snow.

would you like to see a few fotos?

okay!



my little brother is into barefoot running. but that type of thing doesn't exactly go hand-in-hand with snow and salt and ice and such sooooo - he asked for these strange rubber ape-foot things that make it feel like you're running sans shoes but give you protection. i think we can safely assume we were the only house on the block opening these puppies up.


again - pretty sure i'm the only kid on the block making an expression of pure joy/disbelief/ecstasy over a cd-on-tape narrated by hugh laurie. swooooooooooooooooooon. (p.s. these are what my bangs look like now. i think i like them more side-sweepy like this vs. straight-hanging-down. but we'll see.)

that's cc with the coffee cup i bought him. (in a presh target shirt we found in texas. me heart.) you were thinking he just went to 'bucks and ordered a grande, right? you're wrong! it's a ceramic cup made to look like paper one. sn-ap.

my lil bro also received a boomerang because, well, he asked for one. this is cc and t in our driveway about to throw it...

uh. and then it was gone.

still gone. crocodile dundee we are not.

after opening presents at home, we headed up to my cousin christie's brand spanking new house for a family par-tee and gift exchange. we really had a fun time and i loved getting to see everyone at once - just wish it was for longer. here's cc helping the little ladies and little man put together a crazy game with lots of sticks they eventually stuck inside my ear.

um. heart = stopped. cc holding christie's brand spanking new baby girl libby. she.is.perfect. made my uterus do somersaults.

i thought i'd zoom in so you could see 1) HOW CUTE THIS BABY IS. 2) them holding hands. 3) her foot in his hand. he's a natural, right? RIGHT?

cool shot cc took of my front yard/street before we headed back. bye bye home! hearts and waves.

the dude who lives downstairs

is named mike. we don't know his last name so we call him mike neighbor. it's actually pretty catchy if you say it enough times. try it!

about a year ago, mn was having a lot of funz smoking the dope and playing the reggae. just as i was getting cozy in my jams, snuggling under my covers with sherlock holmes and soy crisps, he was pumping the volume. a couple times i snuck down the stairs and sort of stared at his door before turning around and running upstairs quick like a bunny. it all seemed very freshman dorm and not in the fun, eat a pound of mozarella sticks every night from the late night cafeteria, way.

eventually i got cc to do my dirty work and talk to mn about his noise pollution. mn said he'd turn stuff off by 11 if i stopped jumping up and down by 11. i think this was in my tae bo days, but you don't have to ask me twice to stop exercising; a deal was a deal. and we had a really nice run of things, mr. neighbor and me.

but lately, he's creeping back into his old ways. liiiike right now, 12:12 in the a.m., he's got some serious surround sound action going and i can hear actual dialogue. i think it may be signourney, i think it might be alien, i think i have work in 8 hours.

it all feels too intimate, me knowing what he's watching on a wednesday night, probably in his own sets of jams. i already know what he's smoking, i can't handle anymore detail.

so if you'll excuse me, i've got some sneakers to put on and some hop scotching to inflict. bye!

a little known fact about cc,

who's generally cool as a cuke, is how afraid he is of me getting hurt. of course all (good) h'bands worry about their wives, but his is definitely kicked up a notch from the typical. (sorry to blow your cover, buddy.) i have a feeling it comes from how much he travels and the resulting inability to be here instantly if anything went wrong. but it spills over into lazy saturdays, too, when a big bottle of shampoo falls in the shower and he runs in to make sure it wasn't me biting the dust. ("you okay??") i'm the worrier in our relationship, so for him to have mini panic attacks over potential paper cuts makes me grin.

i'm not particularly clumsy, i don't think, so i'm usually rolling my eyes at (while secretly enjoying) his hand wringing. but i can be a bit, uh, hasty in my tasks and sometimes, suddenly, i'll get it.

like late last night, all ready for bed, in my sock monkey jammies, contacts out of eyeballs, hungry for a snack before zonking. i found a half-eaten loaf of french bread, grabbed a big serrated knife, and got to hacking. and cut right into my thumb. couldn't see a thing, but hell that hurt and the blood was aplenty. strike one for my left hand.

then today i'm in the office kitchen, mid-afternoon blood sugar/caffeine crash. i grab a handful of peanut m&ms and drop a tea bag into my mug. then proceed to pour the hot water directly onto my left hand, completely and inexplicably missing the cup. hurt like a bitch and i lost a bunch of m&ms to the floor. double whammy. strike two!

strike three hasn't happened - yet dum dum dum - but my left hand is super nervous and keeps hiding.

to tie this theme into my evening's activies, let me remind you of this spring when i read the novel twilight. i finished it and liked it fine, but only because the plot - human chick falls in love with vampire dude - was great; the writing made me hurl. (er, sorry ms. meyer, says aspiring young adult author on her public blog...)

one part i especially didn't get was edward's (the vamp) total obsession/dedication to bella (human). he'd get all angry at her because she wasn't careful and tripped a lot and might die. get a grip, ed.

but then! i saw the movie. and seeing his mini tantrums on screen totally reminded me of my own vampire and how worried he gets when i slip or drop a fork. it made me giggle like a tween. and it made total sense.

oh, also - this movie rocks! super true to the book in terms of plot, but about 152 times better. totally, utterly threw me for a loop that i liked it, but i did! and my writer friend who accompanied me tonight, and who's picky about similar things, also really dug it. run don't walk!

you know that old adage

(may or may not be the correct usage of this word) about boiling a frog slowly? as in, if you put a frog in lukewarm water and very slowly increase the heat he’ll just sort of hang there until he dies of boil-dom? many times i = frog.

like my sophomore year of high school. every morning I’d wake up and hop into the shower (not entirely true – I’ve always been an every-other-day type of gal, but you understand the use of hyperbole in narrative, don't you?) and soap up before beginning another day of algebra 2 and eating ice cream sandwiches from the vending machine.

at the beginning of the school year, the water pressure in said shower was fine. I didn’t really notice it one way or the other. hop in, hop out, put on my l.e.i. bell bottoms. as the year progressed, the water pressure very slowly, slowly, almost imperceptibly, became weaker. again – I just went with the flow. since my dad used the downstairs shower, and my mom takes baths (is this too much information on my family’s former bathing habits? apologies) and I have no idea what my little brother at age 11 was doing, there wasn’t much intra-family discussion on the water situation.

one morning I woke up, tho, and holy s*%t. one small drip of water was exiting from one of the shower head holes. one small drip. one hole. and it was cold. the scary thing is this seriously didn’t happen overnight, it had taken like six months to boil me.

eventually the plumber came in, checked out our situation, turned to my mom and said:

“you weren't living.” amen.

I bring this up, because I’ve had a slow simmer going in my lower back and right leg (simply put: b/c of the way I’m built and I move, my pelvis gets out of alignment, making one leg longer than the other, making everything along the way from knee to hip flexor to feet go into excrutiating spasms) for a long, long time. I was just starting to get it fixed 4.5 years ago before a trip to india. I thought the physical therapist would be able to fix it in a few visits, but after her assessment – come in once a week for lots of months, you’ve got lots of damage to reverse – I just got discouraged/bored. she’d made me feel better in the short term and in my just-graduated-from-college mindset, that was good enough.

but over the past 4.5 years, it’s gotten worse and worse, making me squirm on the couch and live with an electric heating pad down my pants. and since I almost popped a leftover-from-an-ear-infection vicodin before heading to work today and my name is not gregory house – it’s time to get some help. I’ve got an appointment lined up in two weeks and I’m looking forward to it more than christmas. (I kind of wanted to make a tiny tim joke there, but I couldn’t figure it out nor did it seem very nice.) the end.

as the new year approaches

i've really started to think re: life priorities.

and when i say life priorities, i mean the commencement of american idol in january and whether i'll find a way, sans cable, to watch it this year. i've followed the past seven seasons (hi, i'm old) with rabid (except the fantasia year, that was more along the lines of tepid) interest.

but dedication has been waning over the past couple years (there was nowhere to go but down - we used to tape - vhs - every song clay aiken sang...) and without my own cable i'd have to procure a fellow fan and then glom onto them and their couch twice a week? unlikely. also i'll be in classes tuesday and wednesday starting january. also that new songwriter judge chick is going to ruin everything.

hmm. thank you for walking me through this. it has been cathartic and informative. i do believe that seacrest...i'm out.

my fourth grade teacher,

mr. hayner, taught in a regular school but wasn’t really a regular teacher. i think we only used one textbook (math) and we were allowed to go through it at our own pace. (i finished very early if you’re wondering. and yep, i’m bragging about my age-9 math skillz. we gotta grab what we can in life.)

he was really into projects and “real life learning” - for example, to learn about money/budgets/planning, we were divided into groups, given a few triple a books, some maps, (life without the interwebs!) and told to plan a trip to new york city for x amount of dollars. usually i hated these fakey construction paper type things - just give me the damn worksheet so i can fill it in and hit the playground to work on my made-up play. but for some reason – i think it was the use of real travel books, etc – i lived for this s*&t.

one day he took us to the supermarket down the street. another “environmental learning” math class opportunity. we all had clipboards and i think we had to price check stuff? compare products? not sure, but it was fun. ben maxwell slipped a pack of gum into his fanny pack and i’m still horrified. he also wrote on his leg that he loved me. equally scared still.

my mom was a chaperone for this excursion and fell in love with a certain classmate of mine named jenna. something about the studious way she held the clipboard and got down to business, i think. (she went on to graduate second in our class. mom wasn’t surprised.) after all this post-trip raving, i decided to give this chick a chance. we became besties pretty quickly and yada yada yada had lots of fun together for many years to come.

i bring this story up because a) we all like to think our past lives are charming don’t we? and b) i just got back in touch with jenna and holy god, she’s a licensed ship captain traveling around the world on boats?!?! like, as i type she’s cruising around australia and then falling asleep in a bunk bed after eating a sandwich and seeing some fish swim. and in her emails she uses all these boy/military words like “head” for bathroom and such. i’m in awe. of both her vocabulary and her kick-ass-edness. i heart my life and live for on-land coziness, i just think it’s pretty neat my former fellow ballerina friend might have to fight a pirate one day.

look,

this isn't like when i discovered npr and caffeine and frasier. i've always loved a good movie. but with our new netflix sitch, i can think up a movie i want to watch and without leaving my couch or fumbling with the dvd player it's abracadabra! playing without previews or commercials and damn that's rad.

i'm especially finding the easy access to old movies intoxicating. like right now - i'm watching the way we were. i've always wanted to see it - especially after the sex+city girls reference it way back in the day - but not really enough to walk to the rental joint or move it to the top of the queue. but this is super low risk - i press a button on my laptop and then i continue to sit some more. and if it's good, i watch the whole thing and if it's not, i don't.

i said to my brother, film geek extraordinaire, tonight: "movies are great! they don't have commercials!" mostly joking, but also serious because wow! when all i'm watching is movies i sure appreciate the lack of all those bullshit blah blah blahs. (i was a model account executive.)

okay but a few quick comments on tonight's feature.

**forgot to add spoiler alert here last night and sorta ruined the end for a friend. sorry sharon! other readers, proceed with caution.**

a) barbra streisand is a good actress! who knew?
b) i totally identify with robert redford's character and despise barb's. except for when she hates hanging with the uppity crowd because well, who doesn't.
c) why did this have to take place in the 40's? gratuitous and boring. she could have been a 60's activist and worn snazzy bell bottoms with hair down her back.
d) even in his prime time, bob just doesn't do it for me. he always looks a little red?
e) lame soundtrack.
f) they have a baby together and he's totally okay with some other dude raising it and casually asks after her when he accidentally bumps into barb at the end? uh.
g) "your girl is lovely, hubble." i get it now!

in which i'm a jerk and point out 3 words lots of people use incorrectly. just because it makes my brain leak

bemused:
what it really means: confused.
what it doesn't mean: amused.

nonplussed:
what it really means: totally perplexed.
what it doesn't mean: un-perplexed or unimpressed.

ambivalent:
what it really means: torn between doing/feeling two opposites.
what it doesn't mean: indifferent.

annnnnnd scene.

bliss.

tough to find a movie scene that makes me happier.

must ice face; too much smiling.

do you watch house hunters on hgtv?

because i do. (that is until our cable gets shut off, of course...8 days and counting...) and you should.

i deeply enjoy it. the 1, 2, or 3? formula, suzanne wong's blunt bangs, the snazzy little tune.

a few things about it enrage me, tho, giving me a chance to purge the day's tensions, puking them all over my tv screen:

1) people who walk into a cavernous room and say. "it's a liiiiiiiii-ttle small." then shake their heads in disdain. no wonder furr-eners hate america. get a clue! a family of four could live comfortably in your pallatial bathroom.

2) people who comment on the paint choices of a potential house. "i don't know...there sure is a lot of yellow." followed by a heavy sigh. are you serious? that will take 1/4 of a day to fix. and i wonder who voted for bush.

3) people who worry about their furniture. "i really love the whole house...but will our bedroom set fit?" ridiculous.

4) people who call golf courses "great views!" ...no.

5) people who are obsessed with stainless steel appliances. sure, they're attractive, but also just a phase - just like that avocado laminate from the seventies. making this a deal breaker is insane.

but i hope no potential participants read this because i really don't want any of these things to change; i'd have nothing to yell about and yelling makes me happy.

bja's small/random/affordable gift guide

things i like that you might want to purchase for people you heart (including yourself):


a) kiehls is famous for its essential oils, especially the musk. for 16 bucks you get this teensy (but not too teensy) vintage-y glass bottle filled with enough oil to last you a long time/lifetime. (one small drop = a lot of scent.) they’re all supa delicious/pure/clean, don’t give me a headache (rare) and are unisex. i rock the musk and have my eye on cucumber.

b) unclear why these boots get so many mixed reviews; if you order them online perhaps the picture is misleading? i bought mine in person and was beyond psyched when I found them for 30 dollas. they’re a dull/matte black (I hate a shine), completely flat, made of a strange moon boot material (it’s really not pretending to be leather, which i appreciate) and have a small opening/circumference for skinny calves. they’re comfortable, and cute with a dress (like today) or over pants/leggings, etc. my best find in a long time.

c) yes, i work for them, but i’d love this stuff no matter what. doesn’t matter if you’re a grownup, a baby, or a grownup with a baby - i do believe you'll enjoy it. this lotion is creamy, moisturizing without being greasy and smells incredible. if you could bottle that “baby smell” it’d be this; sweet, delicate, homey. i like to rub it into my neck and temples before bedtime.

d) my mom and I found this at cvs, during one of a few makeup trips pre-wedding. i had no idea what it was for, but it looked delightful and i do enjoy me some carmindy, so i dropped the 11 bucks. i don’t do foundation, so i use this on its own – if you do wear foundation, you’d use this stuff first.

after (or sometimes instead of) moisturizing, i use one pump and rub into my whole face. i have no idea how, but it adds 1) brightness 2) a tiny imperceptible shimmer 3) serious softness. it doesn’t bring any color, but it just makes me look more awake and dewy. love, love, love.

san francisco is so expensive

that the discussion of relocating becomes inevitable. not relocation = inevitable, just the constant, ambivalent debate of it all. pros of this place = natural beauty, liberal peeps, lotsa stuffs to do, temperate climate. cons = expensive as f*&%, far from family, kids raised here can end up super spoiled.

so we'll go back and forth and talk about goals and puppies and baking cupcakes with more counter space and such, but bottom line it always come down to: panic! we could never live outside a major metropolis! we would wither and die and probably start wearing pleated pants!

but then it's saturday, and i listened to my podcasts and drank tea with a heating pad on my back, looking out my window, while clay listened to his podcasts and played video games with intermittent breaks to make coffee and read a magazine. then i made pasta and we watched a netflix. then we drove to the liquor store to buy frozen yogurt, drove back and ate it. and now our headphones are back in place, we're across the room from each other, plugged into our respective podcasts again. (don't frown; these things make us happy.) at moments like these, which are often, of course we think WE COULD NEVER ENJOY THIS LIFESTYLE OUTSIDE A CITY!

uh.

me in white

i think i posted a link awhile back of 20-ish shots.

here are 162-ish.

hearts!

every time i wear a dress

instead of pants my day goes about 120 times better. and at end of those days i swear to myself that i’ll wear one everyday! all day! but i never do. i think it’s because i don’t have the perfect boots yet. even tho i hunt and bid lose and bid and bid and hunt and bid and lose on ebay. moving on.

you see, tho i have skinny limbs and a smallish frame, i was blessed ("") with a buddha belly. i think they call this body type an “apple” instead of a “pear” which is okay with me since apples + peanut butter is one of my favorite snacks and pears always taste mealy. every little kid has got one of these bellies – round, rubbable, pokey - it’s just that mine decided to stick around after i turned 4, and 14, and 24. so dresses drape over my little tum. while pants dig and ouch.

of course, katharine hepburn and others worked hard to make pants acceptable for the ladies, so i don’t want to ignore their labors.

i found these pants, but frankly those sound/look even worse than regular pants. I don’t want a tuck, fools, I want comfort that’s attractive. those = discomfort that’s fugly. nooooo thanks, crazy pants.

my point is, do you have any ideas for me? about these things called pants? that might be comfortable and cute?

and if you’re about to suggest these, please don’t: I already have them, love them, fall asleep in them. clay has named them “treasure pants” because of their special, magical, unicorn qualities. but am I doomed to elastic pants forever? i’m only 26, people. how about something with a zipper?

he gets me through my day

jesse thorn. host of the podcast jordan, jesse, go! i listen to hours of this show in my left ear as i make fedex labels. it keeps me alive.