in the halloween spirit
even google has gotten into halloween! do they get <a href="http://www.google.com">this fancy </a>for every holiday?
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even google has gotten into halloween! do they get <a href="http://www.google.com">this fancy </a>for every holiday?
i hope all of you are having spooktacular days! halloween has got to be the best day of the year. i just love it!!
today i dressed as a ladybug to work, but the real costume will come tonite. i can not reveal what it is just yet, as some of you may be seeing me tonite, and andrea and i made a pact not to tell. let's just say that we were up past one last nite sewing away in preparation. we wore our matching halloween pajamas (courtesy of my mother) and i busted out with a few halloween songs (the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout...) and by the end of the evening, or rather into the morning, the costumes were complete. they are divine. they look so good, you just want to eat them (hint hint)
i hope everyone is having a grand halloween! <i>(as an aside, holden caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye has totally ruined the word grand for me. i feel like he has such a strong distaste for it, that i shouldn't use it. and he isn't even a real person. i wonder if anyone else feels this way) </i>
presently i am boycotting
-soda (boycott effective september 26th, briefly broken on account of the food poisoning forcing me to have sips of ginger ale)
-hamburgers (boycott effective october 22nd)
-chicken (unintentional boycott, but i don't think i've had it for weeks)
i like to boycott foods that i get disgusted with. sometimes it's due to an overdose, sometimes it's just cause i'm weird. i always debate about the length of time i should boycott these items for. my longest has been soda for a year. right now, i'm thinking the soda and hamburger boycott will last at least until the new year. then i will reevaluate the situation. the chicken...just not into it. but the last time i did an official boycott of it, i ate chicken mcnuggets 2 days after the declaration of the boycott because i forgot that they were made of chicken. this also accidentally broke the fried food boycott. it wasn't a good day. but you can tell that by the mere fact that i ate at mcdonalds.
i don't think i will ever declare myself a vegetarian, because i don't really hate meat. i even like it upon occasion. but for instance, in asian dishes, i always order tofu. i just really enjoy the texture of fake meat products. i had the pleasure of trying seitan when having dinner with <a href="http://lay-c.com/log/">lacey</a> last month. twas lovely. and i did always like the fake bacon my old roommate anne would eat every once in awhile. not into the veggie burger though. but maybe i'll give it another chance...i haven't had one for 6 years. mayhaps my tastes have changed.
sometimes country music just says it all...
and i can't seem to find a voice of reason
everything seems upside down and right side wrong
while part of me is here and won't like leaving
the rest of me, the best of me is gone
and i'm sure no one will wonder where i've gone to
but if anyone should ask from time to time
tell 'em that you finally drove me crazy
and i'm somewhere untangling my mind
staying true to her name, juliebutt carved a pumpkin this weekend with a smileyface on the front, and an ass on the back.
i would expect nothing less.
1) i carry a shoehorn with me when i go shopping so i can easily put my shoes back on after trying things on
2) i like made for tv movies on the abc family channel
3) i sing (loudly) when i am alone on an elevator
4) i stick my finger up my nose once or twice a day to check on my nose ring (i don't know how i might have expected it to change, but just to make sure nothing fishy is going on)
5) i like to watch the public access channel on tv
i passed by a pile of leaves this morning and imagined us holding hands, closing our eyes and falling backwards into it, the smiles on our faces engulfed by the dried up maple, oak and ginko leaves.
it's too bad you weren't there.
black white indian man woman lives across the alley from us. he/she gets a nice view of our bathroom and andrea's bedroom. his/her name comes from the fact that we can never tell the gender/race of this person. most recently black white indian man woman has been a bearded white male who never leaves the dining table and most definately has been caught looking into andrea's bedroom.
but now, black white indian man woman has disappeared. the lights are always off and no one is around. in a strange way, we miss him/her. i'm a little worried, but if i call the police, i think they might have a hard time coming up with a composite sketch for black white indian man woman.
............
<i>update: andrea has spotted black white indian man woman. i think we will all sleep a little better now, knowing that he/she is safe</i>
andrea and i often receive mail addressed to "the family at 2219...". we kid about it all the time, about our little family unit. how she is the man of the house with the power drill and i'm the housewife, busying myself with a lattice crust for a pie. but little did i know, 2 years ago when i moved in with her, how all the junk mail would be right...we really are a family. in a heartbeat, we are there for one another, just the way you would be for your siblings or parents. over the past 2 years, our love for one another has truly grown unconditional. i've learned so much about how to be a better person from her. although we have plenty of differences (her love of star trek is not exactly my cup of tea, and the way i wear my pants makes her cringe), but every night coming home is a treat because i have my family waiting there for me. someone who always wants to hear about my day, someone who always has a shoulder for me to cry on, someone who is always willing to laze around on the couch and watch "whose line". 2219 has truly become my home. not because it is where i go every night after work to sleep, but because it is where my family is.
this is the title of the latest book i'm reading by augusten burroughs. i read a review of it a year ago and have been wanting to buy it for quite awhile. it's a crazy memoir of this guy's childhood. it's funny and sick all at the same time. as you read it, you are just in shock that it is all true. although i've only read about 50 pages, i highly recommend it. if i change my mind later, i'll give you an update. here is my favorite line from it so far...
this is after the mom uses maxi pads to construct herself some instant shoulder pads...
"She is delighted with herself. It's as if she has drawn a picture and placed it on her own internal refrigerator door."
isn't that just great?
since i cut my hair, i have become somewhat obsessed with petting the back of my head. the hair is so short, it is kind of straight which is quite the novelty for me. and sometimes it kind of does this flip out which i also find fun to rub. i walked around work the other day, making people try petting my hair, but no one seems to be as interested in doing it as i.
other parts of me that are fun...between my little toe and the one next to it is really soft. so is my inner, upper arm, right next to the armpit. oh and one more, the bottom of my ear lobes. i realize i am weird for thinking these things, and even weirder revealing all this to all of you. but you all have to love me anyway. maybe even some of you love me because of my weirdness.
maybe i'm not so weird and everyone has parts of them they like. what parts of you do you like?
i was walking to work this morning feeling pretty decent, groovin' along to the tunes of natalie merchant playing on my headphones. and then suddenly everything changed. it was though i stepped into a giant fog of melancholy. a wave of sorrow just washed over me. i stopped for a couple minutes and looked around to see exactly what it was that made me so sad. but all there was was a layer of dead leaves on the ground in front of a fire hydrant. why would this make me so sad? and it stayed with me. i'm still sad, and for no reason.
i think it might be a general feeling of autumn. while it is, by far, my favorite season, it always carries a bit of depression for me. maybe it is just because i get homesick, but that's not really what i felt this morning. i guess there isn't really an explanation. unless we keep in the spirit of halloween and attribute the fog of unhappiness to me stepping through a ghost. come to think of it, that spot was a bit colder. hmmmm....
last night i went down to wrigleyville with the <a href="http://lay-c.com/meisa/archives/2003_09.html">intent to riot </a>. i went with a couple friends from work, but andrea stayed home just in case we would need someone to bail us out of jail.
just kidding. i think most of you reading this know the likelyhood of me rioting. but really, i just wanted to see what it was like.
as the train approached the addison stop, you could see the hordes of people milling about. it was really unbelievable how many people were down there. we got there at about the seventh inning when the cubs were up 1-0. everyone was walking around so happy. high fives left and right to random people, everyone exchanging smiles and hugs with their fellow chicago brethren and cubs fans. we couldn't even get into a bar to watch the game, it was so crowded. instead, we stood outside a bar and watched the last few innings through a window. with every strike pitched by mark prior, cheers erupted from the stadium and passed quickly through all the streets.
and then...then came the catch by "that fan". it started with obscenities being screamed by all the fans and then a cloud of sadness just settled in amongst the crowd. everyone hoping for a comeback, but knowing it wouldn't happen. the drunkards in front me flipped their caps inside out to "rally caps", but it didn't help. we all walked away sad for the cubs and even sadder for the city.
i'm headed down there again tonite. andrea, once again, is in position to bail me out. only one thing is different. tonite, we're winning!!!!!
we looked at one another and immediately started giggling, knowing exactly what the other was thinking...mary love dancing as though she were slapping someone's derriere saying "hi, this is mary love"
i hadn't seen anne for 6 months, and within an hour, we were already reading each other's minds.
how does one find friends like that?
today i debuted my glasses. the nerd kind, black plastic frames. this must mean i am smart. or smart now anyway. at least everyone else has been fooled into thinking so. i intimidate all!! muh hah hah!!!!
i felt very city-like walking to work this morning...nerd glasses, short hair, jean jacket (don't even get me started on how cool i think i become when i put on the jean jacket. this feeling never left me from the 1980s), and insulated mug of hot beverage in my hand. if only it had been a caramel macchiato from starbucks instead of tea. then i would have been ultra-urban-hip.
but no worries, i am still me...dork down deep. and if you ask most people, you don't have to dig too far for the dorkiness to emerge.
This is the FISH!
i've finally figured out where all swarms of ladybugs go when they are not coating my clothing and attacking me. they appear to sit on the leaves of trees throughout the night. eating maybe? sleeping? do bugs sleep?
a comment i made in <a href="http://lay-c.com/hi/">shokufeh's blog </a>yesterday reminded me of a *mild* obsession i used to have with whitney houston.
i learned at a young age that whitney houston and i had a lot in common. despite the fact that she was a beautiful black woman with an amazing voice and i was a chubby 3rd grader with little to no talent, we were essentially twins because we had the same birthday. so you can imagine that when my school put on a "celebrate black history month" play, not only was i perfect for the role of whitney houston, as her chubby 3rd grade twin, i had the right to portray her. turns out my afghani friend (sara ashraf, i will never forget the name of the girl who stabbed me in the back), also felt that she was the perfect whitney houston. the only solution, of course, was to audition for the part.
naturally, being so close to whitney, i had a video of her music videos. i watched and studied her moves to "greatest love of all" and was fully prepared to blow sara ashraf away. to this day, i maintain that i was a better whitney, but sara moved her feet a little more and got the part. and who did i get to be? barbara jordan. do any of you even know who barbara jordan is? i didn't think so . you can imagine this wasn't much of a consolation. i was demoted from ultra pop star to first black female in the house of representatives. i didn't even get to sing and dance on stage.
i feel that this was a huge turning point in my life. who knows, maybe if i had gotten the part, i would be on stage today, singing with whitney.
if any of you know sara ashraf today, please tell her i have moved on with my life and am quite happy, but i will never forget what she did to me. (and that i still make a better whitney than her)
no puking yet, but i think the bagel i had this morning was a mistake. maybe there is some sort of creature residing in my stomach. a worm perhaps? i should ask <a href="http://lay-c.com/hi/">shokufeh</a> about that one; she has experience.
so on saturday i got food poisoning. this has never happened to me before, and i don't ever want it to happen again. i should have known things were fishy at al's. [for you non-evanstonites, al's is the best sandwich shop ever, or at least a close second to the cheese shoppe in williamsburg, va] al's is always good. it doesn't matter how hungry i am, i always enjoy it. but not this time. it all tasted the same, but i just didn't like it.
then i really knew i didn't like it as the tomato soup i had was projectile vomited from my mouth 2 hours later.
it all started out simple enough with the vomiting of the soup. but later came decision time. with each new trip to the bathroom came the choice from which part of my body to expel my half digested food.
gross.
thank goodness it's over. but now i don't know what to do about al's. i still love it, but i think i will stay away from their tomato soup for quite awhile.
when khalid heard my dad was coming to town this weekend, he asked what our plans were going to be. my response was "eat and sleep". i would like to amend that response now. yesterday afternoon i picked him up from the airport and when we got home, we slept. at dinnertime, we woke up and ate. following our meal, we returned home and slept. so actually, our plans were to "sleep, eat, and sleep again"
i wonder what today has in store for us. so far we have eaten but taken no naps. fear not, the zzzzz's will come.
meisa,
so you did it. and the question we're all asking is "why?" did you enjoy it this morning when you went to squeeze the water out of your hair after your shower, and there was no hair to squeeze? did you like your walk to work with no hair against your neck and the frigid wind hitting you? are you happy with a giant pom-pom on your head? i hate to say "i told you so." but it's true. maybe next time you'll learn to listen to yourself. but i doubt it.