Category Archives: vanity

On Christmas Shopping for Men

Posted on by
3

Zack meandered into the office the other day holding all the catalogs I’ve been getting in the mail from stores wanting me to buy their stuff this Christmas season. He set them down in front of me on the desk and pointed out that he’d kindly dog-earred some pages for me, you know, if I happen to be interested in figuring out what he wanted for Christmas this year.

Since then, I’ve caught the shopping bug. But instead of browsing websites endlessly for my primary benefit, I’m browsing for my secondary benefit. Because, while I’m shopping not exactly for me, let’s be real: Zack dressing all sexy and sharp definitely is a very good thing for the both of us. Hubba, hubba.

P.S. To those of you who love Zack and were planning on writing me soon to be like, UH, WHAT THE WHAT SHOULD I GET YOUR HUSBAND FOR CHRISTMAS BECAUSE, I DON’T GOT NO CLUE: I have good news. I have created a pinterest board called For Zack, and it is filled with sexy, (sometimes even) purchasable, Zack-approved items for your shopping inspiration. 

Once I Was Blind, But Now I See.

Posted on by
8

As all of you well know, I really like to make good grades on tests. My therapist thinks that it’s because I’m always looking for approval and self-validation. My friends say it’s because I’m an overly competitive super-geek. Both observations are likely correct.

It is for this reason that I’m always a little nervous about going to see the eye doctor. A trip to have your vision checked at the eye doctor’s office is always full of tests that you have no idea if you’re passing or failing. In fact, the tests are designed that way on purpose so that you don’t say things that you think are the “right” answers. But tests that don’t have right answers are the kinds of tests that make people like me, people with Winning Complexes, break out into cold sweats. One of the tests I was subjected to today was prefaced with these instructions: “Look in here, and press this button any time you see a ‘wavy blur.’”

I wanted to jump back and be like, “WAIT JUST A MINUTE.” Because, a wavy blur? What the hell is a wavy blur? And how was I supposed to recognize something that vague?! I mean, if I didn’t even know what I was looking for, I could have failed the test just because her “wavy blur” criteria were different than my wavy blur criteria! I was seconds away from an wavy blurred existential crisis when I saw the first wavy blur in my peripheral vision. Then I was like, “Oh, yeah, that looks just like a wavy blur. It’s cool.”

But as we progressed through the test, I realized that as soon as I clicked the button that signified that I recognized a wavy blur, the wavy blur would vanish. Sometimes another one appeared immediately in a different place. Other times, there would be a 2-3 second pause before the next wavy blur showed up. As soon as I realized that there was a variation in the time between the wavy blurs, I started to psych myself out. I sat there wondering if there really wasn’t a time variation, but in fact, the times when I thought there wasn’t a wavy blur there really WAS one, but it was just one I wasn’t seeing because I was FAILING THE WAVY BLUR TEST MISERABLY, AND NOT EVEN BECAUSE THE EYE DOCTOR’S NURSE AND I HAVE DIFFERENT INHERENT DEFINITIONS OF THE TERM “WAVY BLUR.”

I never got any answers. As soon as the nerve-wrecking Wavy Blur test was over, we ran through a few other “no wrong answer” kind of tests, and then nurse sent me back to the waiting room where I was forced to contemplate my probable failure, and what life was going to be like when I had to learn how to read braille and navigate busy intersections with my blind-person cane.  I moped because Zack was the one to always chose to be blind when faced with the classic “Would You Rather” scenario of Blind vs. Deaf, but I always chose deaf! And now I was sitting in a waiting room, sure that I was going to be told that I was an incompetent wavy blur identifier and should go ahead and get to work on my Vision Bucket List.

From there I was ushered into the Eye Doctor Hot Seat, where they put you into a dark room with a giant machine that sits right in front of your face and you get asked the same question over and over again, never knowing if you’re getting it right or wrong. “Tell me which one is clearer, this, or this?” the doctor always asks as he flips back and forth between two lenses with differences so minute that no human can detect a difference between them. I sat there and squirmed in my seat. “They both suck?” I’d say, hoping for some kind of validation that I was on the right track. The doctor would confirm my sentiments, but then gracefully force me to make a choice. “Yes,” he’d say, “but does one suck slightly worse than the other?” This is like asking me to tell you which I prefer more between Homer’s Iliad or Homer’s Odyssey. I can’t compare them. To me, they are both the same, and they are both terrible. But the Eye Doctor doesn’t care about my philosophical and literary ramblings. He just wants me to pick A or B. “This, or this?”

Just when you have reached the brink of insanity, it all ends. The doctor finally says, “Okay, how’s this look?” as he pops two lenses down that bring the whole world into crystal clear focus. Life makes sense again. You get the feeling that everything is going to be okay. You even forget about your devastating (possible) failure of the wavy line test until a week later when the UPS man shows up with the cane you ordered from amazon.com while you were in the waiting room.

A Post-Pumpkin Carving Epiphany

Posted on by
1

Yesterday I carved a pumpkin for the first time in my life.

Cute, right? It was an accident how the texture of the pumpkin turned out to look like the texture of a New Mexican Mesa in the light of the rising Sun, but it was a happy coincidence.

I worked today, and all day as I moved patients from bed to bed, I felt some soreness in my right chest, not unlike the soreness one would experience if they were to do a set of push-ups during their work out. The trick is, today, that soreness was unilateral. Only on the right side. I spent a lot of time today trying to figure out why the hell I had soreness in my right chest. And then I figured it out. I am sore from carving a pumpkin.

And that’s why I’m going to go ahead and join the crossfit gym. Like, real soon.

Dark Hair!

Posted on by
4

I got my hair did today, and I got it did dark!

I have brown hair again, and that’s pretty crazy. I wonder how many days it will be before I start recognizing myself in the mirror again?

Amateur Meal Planning (and Other Domestic Things, As Well.)

Posted on by
8

I’m feeling like a total movie star* tonight because I flash-fried some okra that I’d cut up into french fry-like strips and it was outrageously delicious. (*Leaving nursing school has left me without a way to constantly measure my efforts against others, so I’m having to celebrate the little things, you know? Today, my victory was okra. I’d bet I fried okra today better than any of you suckers did! I bet you didn’t even TRY! I totally WIN.)

This weekend Zack and I realized that we were in the middle of the first “normal” weekend we’d spent at our house in over two months. By “normal” I mean a weekend where we didn’t have any plans to go out of town, go on vacation, have a birthday party, have a graduation party, or do anything of the sort. It was a really strange feeling being home & plan-less with him on a Friday and a Saturday night. Both days we wound up running errands & going out to eat during the afternoon hours, leaving us at home watching movies on the couch together for the entire evening. We barely knew what to do with ourselves.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. Zack knew what to do with himself. He surfed the internet on his iPad and watched TV. I, on the other hand, was all, WHAT THE WHAAAT? MUST BE DOING THINGS. AM FAILING AT LIFE IF I SIT HERE ANY LONGER. I may or may not be very un-used to not doing things.

So, naturally, I did what any workaholic/busy body would do in that situation. I started creating stuff for myself to do. I broke out all my sewing stuff and started working on a project; I decided that I was going to make a quilt top. I chose to do this particular project for several reasons: 1.) My grandma gave me a bunch of hand-embroidered hand towels a few years ago for Christmas, and I would like to use them in a quilt, rather than using them in my kitchen (were they will, no doubt, be destroyed, because I destroy things in the kitchen). So before I make the Family Heirloom Quilt, I decided that maybe I should have a practice quilt first. Congratulate me. That was a good choice. And 2.) Quilts are supposed to take a long time to make. Especially your first quilt, right? I am not a very well-practiced or highly-accomplished seamstress, so I thought that making an entire quilt would take me a while to finish, and that would help me with the whole WHAT THE WHAT, NOTHING TO DO, HEY CRAZY TOWN, I’VE BEEN MISSING YOU TOO situation that I’d been facing over the weekend.

I searched the internet until I found a quilt top that I thought was both cool and feasable, then I figured out how to re-create said quilt top without using a pattern due to the fact that I am too cheap to buy a quilt pattern, and also, the fact that I, uh, don’t know how to use a pattern. I did some math. I dug through my fabric piles. I pulled together a quilt pile, and I started cutting. I thought that it’d take me the whole weekend to plow through cutting out the blocks for the quilt (inspired by these quilts), but I was wrong. It took me an hour. Then I thought it would take me the rest of the day to piece together all of the little blocks. But I was wrong. It took Zack and me about 15 minutes. Then I thought it would take me the rest of the day to sew them all together, and I was wrong about that, too.

A few hours later I’d sewn together all of those stupid little blocks, AND I’d ironed all of the seams the way that you’re supposed to when you’re gettin’ all fancy and doing crap the way you’re actually supposed to do it — which is, to say it nicely, NOT AT ALL my typical sewing practice.

I quit after I’d finished all of the ironing, even though Friday’s evening sun hadn’t even set yet. It was then that I decided that I should dedicate myself to more activities. More time-consuming activities that I never do ever. Like MENU PLANNING.

After combing through my entire stack of recipes, I selected meals that I planned to make this week. Then I carefully listed each ingredient from each of the recipes onto a list. Then I re-ordered the list into grocery store sections such as “produce” and “meats.” Then I grocery shopped accordingly. Never, not ever once in my life, have I ever done this before.

You wouldn’t think it, but menu planning has taken up a ton more of my time than quilt making has. Sometimes, it occupies me because it takes a long time to read and make lists and shop and cook and what not. Other times, it occupies me because I’m having to make so many mental notes about the MASSIVELY WRONG way I went about menu planning for the very first time.

My friends, menu planning is not so simple as to go to the store with a list, and then to follow that list. Oh, no. First, you must choose the meals you want to make, then you must choose the days you want to eat them. Then you must ensure that the days you want to eat the meal that you have chosen, that there will actually be people at your house to eat that meal. Then, once you coordinate all of that (which I did not do), you should go to the store and buy things that will not go bad before that chosen date. So, for instance, if you decided that you were going to get all fancy and make you and your husband some Mahi Mahi, and then you bought fresh fish because you’ve recently been to Hawaii and you’ve now turned into a total fish snob who wouldn’t DREAM of eating anything that’s been FROZEN, then you should wait to buy that fresh fish until one of the days when your husband is going to be home for dinner. Because Mahi Mahi does not stay good in your fridge for 5 days, and you can’t pop it into the freezer because THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT. TO NOT FREEZE THE DUMB FISH.

So that’s the real irony, here, I guess. I’m sitting around feeling like a total superstar because I flash fried some okra (which was a side for the homemade chicken nuggets that I made with my friend Nick the Magic Chef’s Magic Recipe tonight, which puts Chick-Fil-A’s to shame, and that’s not a statement that I make lightly), but who was here to eat the fried chicken and the okra? Nobody. I had an early dinner with a friend of mine, and Zack wasn’t here for dinner tonight, either. So sure, maybe I’m the world’s best amateur okra fryer, but nobody will ever know one way or the other, because I was the only one here to experience it! And I didn’t even eat it for dinner!

So maybe my super-star bad-ass world’s-best-okra-fryin’ self is not exactly a superstar meal planner yet. Lesson learned. And even though I could be annoyed at my meal-planning learning curve, I’m not. I’m just glad that trying to figure out the complicated art of this particular domestic skill is taking up enough time to keep me away from NOTHING TO DO CRAZY TOWN.

On Better Looking Barefoot Shoes

Posted on by
9

In order to be able to adhere to the principles of the barefoot running lifestyle while doing tasks such as grocery shopping, I have purchased some barefoot shoes (that adjective/noun combo is still a terrible oxymoron) that do not make me feel like a gorilla.

I have admittedly been pretty lax with my running lately. I don’t know if y’all have noticed, but it’s been really stinking hot in Texas this summer. I have a hard time getting psyched to go run in 108 degree temperatures.  Nevermind my summer vacation from exercise, I am still a big believer in the barefoot stuff. Ever since I made the switch, I haven’t had the searing pain* that running (and walking) provoked in my tibialis anterior.

The hard thing about being a big believer in the barefoot running movement and having the gorilla shoes (aka 5fingers) is that the 5fingers are not attractive. Which is to say that they are not aesthetically pleasing. They are attractive sense that they attract a gaggle of people to come and talk to you about your shoes every time you step out of the house wearing them. I love running in those stupid looking foot-glove lookin’ shoes, but I haaate doing anything else in them. I just can’t get over the look of them. I tried to rise above it, but I can’t. I’m vain, and there is just no two ways about it. 5fingers are ugly.

SO. Imagine my surprise when I wandered into a shoe store the other day to find that Merrell has made a girl-version of Zack’s barefoot running shoes! And lo! My toes are not individually separated in them! And so the masses do not congregate to ogle my feet! They just look like normal shoes, but they still have all the barefoot mechanics and they’re even kinda cute. Win, win, win. So now I’m grocery shopping (and working) in my Merrell Barefoot Lithe Glove (which are so covertly barefoot that nobody even notices) and only running in my Vibram 5fingers, which is great because people don’t generally stop me to talk to me about my footwear while I’m running. (Some people do, because some people are weird, and also delusional if they think I’m going to have the volume of oxygen required to explain anything about those weird-ass shoes whilst in the middle of running.)

*I have is an incorrect gait that I’ve had forever and ever which caused this muscle to become disproportionately large and aggravated. Since the tibialis anterior is a muscle which is almost impossible to stretch, the only way that I could decrease the inflammation was massage and heat and perhaps even, you know, correcting the way that I walk/run that causes the pain in the first place. I tried to do just that — to correct the way that I was lifting my foot — but was decidedly unsuccessful until I jumped on this barefoot running train, which, I guess, is why I’m so dedicated to it even though I’m absolutely not awesome at it. At least barefoot running doesn’t make me want to cut my legs off. Well, at least not when I do it right.

On Going Wavy

Posted on by
6

I wore my hair curly today to the hospital.
20110727-234856.jpg

I have (attempted) to wear my hair curly (wavy) about 12 times in my life, and 9 of those times were in college (1.0) or before. One of those times was when I was about 10 and my mom let our neighbor give me an at-home perm that took everywhere except on the crown of my head. That was not cute.

Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that my post-shower waves have become slightly more pronounced. Then, the other day, I happened to hear a girl say that her hair was super straight, but she could rock some waves with this one product. I decided that product was going to be my ticket to glorious beachy waves.

As it turns out, it takes a little more than just that one product. It takes about 3 and some slow-speed blow drying/defusing. But it works. It kind of totally works. The waves make me outrageously happy.

Here’s the thing about having really straight hair for always and then showing up somewhere with waves: people react funny. All day long, people noticed that my hair was different. Some people said, “Woah! Your hair is different!” Others just noted a change, asking, “Huh, what is different?”

My favorite, though, is the people who didn’t say anything at all. The people who just walked by, looked at me, and then, from across the room, would bring their hands to their heads and pat the air around their skulls, as if they were pantomiming “motorcycle helmet” or showing someone the approximate location and size of Bozo the Clown’s wig. No commentary as to whether or not they like the new hair style or if they prefer the old. Just wild hand gestures from the far end of the hallway that communicate the simple idea of, “HEY! I SEE YOUR HAIR IS LARGE TODAY!”

Model Style

Posted on by
Reply

Last weekend, while we were waiting for the wedding to start, we found an A/C unit that was blowing.

I worked it, model style.

David tried it, too, but did not quite achieve the intended wind-blown effect.

Instead, he kind of looks like a model in an A/C commercial. “Come here,” he seems to say, “and buy this A/C unit. It’s super hott. That’s ‘hott’ with two ‘t’s. Because our A/C units aren’t hot with-one-T. They’re coooool.” As soon as the scene ends he’d be all, “DAMN, THIS IS TERRIBLE. CAN I GET A RE-WRITE, PLEASE?”

Mario and Mojitos

Posted on by
1

Before we even turned on the video game, Michael declared himself the world’s all-time greatest player of Super Mario World. This particular version was his favorite of all the Marios, he told Zack and me, as he confidently sat on the couch, wearing the face of a champion.

Before I started playing, I declared myself a novice. I’ve never played Super Mario World before, I told them. And I’m not used to this controller, either. We never had Super Nintendo. We just played the regular Nintendo forever. I was piling on the excuses. Video games are not usually my forte. Mostly, I am not very good at them at all.

There are exceptions to my mediocre video game performance record, of course. After all, I did win a game of Wii bowling the other day. And just before we started to play Super Mario World, I had been demonstrating my unmatchable domination of Mario Bros. That is what Mario and Luigi were before they became Super. They were just Bros. then. It is not a complicated game, but it is a game at which I am truly awesome.

I killed all my Marios trying to get through one level. It was shameful, really. I didn’t even finish it before I was told that my Game was Over. Michael held out his hand, asking for the controller. He politely asked me if he could play a round. His undertone wasn’t just asking to play a round, though. His undertone was asking me if I minded if he stepped in and showed me how a true professional handles Super Mario’s World. I forked over the controller. By all means, I said. Show me how it’s done.

He killed all of his Marios before he got through two levels. He didn’t even get to the castle before his Game was Over. He handed the controller back, ashamed.

I played two more Games Over. I never beat the castle either. Every time there was a Game Over, we’d have to go back to the last save spot and play those same 2 levels over again to get back to the same castle to die again. It was discouraging.

I handed the controller back to Michael. He failed to beat the castle again. We started blaming the controller. We started blaming time. He started saying that his 8-year old self would be really upset with him right now. We started laughing at how bad we were at playing a video game released in 1991. We gawked at how long ago 1991 was.

Michael handed the controller back to me. I killed 3 of my 4 Marios before the despair finally set in and I, without warning, tossed the controller across the room to Zack. Zack had been waiting patiently for his turn. Zack had not been openly mocking Michael or me for our failures. Zack had only been sitting in his chair, offering helpful tips whenever it was appropriate.

Zack snatched the controllers out of the air. Michael said something like, you’re giving him the controller now, and you only have one life left?

I said, it doesn’t matter.

5 minutes later, Zack had built his army of Marios back from 1 to 6, and he had beat the 2 levels that had been kicking Michael’s butt and my butt for the last 45 minutes. In 10 minutes, he’d beaten the castle and moved on to the next level. By that time, he had about 14 Marios in his arsenal of lives. Michael and I sat on the couch with our arms folded across our chests to protect ourselves from the humility that was pouring down on our shoulders.

Michael mentioned how Zack is always better at everything. I said, I know. I really do know. Then the two of us got up to make mojitos. Zack came in after a little while and made himself a mojito, too. He chose to make his a little differently than Michael and I had made ours. Zack insisted that his way was best. We all tasted each other’s drinks to see who had made the best mojito, and to see if Zack’s way really was better than ours.

Michael and I hadn’t discussed it previously or anything, but I think there was a mutual understanding that even if Zack’s mojito was better than ours, (and I’m not saying it was,) we weren’t going to admit it. Mojitos were our victory for the evening, and we weren’t going to give that up. There may be no denying that he can dominate us at Mario, but Michael and me? We’ll always have superior mojitos.