Because I am a product whore, I have spent way, way, waaaaaaaaay too much time today on Makeup Alley. I’m in the market for two products, see, which I plan to buy this weekend (payday is tomorrow! ROCK!).

1. A subtle pink blush, and although Benefit Dandelion is tempting, I just can’t see myself paying $25 plus shipping and handling for a freakin’ square of blush. I’ve heard that some of L’Oreal’s Blush Delice shades are comparable, but I don’t know for sure.

2. A really good girly pink lip gloss, and I have no idea where to start on this one. I used to have a really good pink lip gloss that I lost at Blueberry Hill almost a year ago, and it’s getting to the time of year when I want to start wearing pink lip gloss again.

Any ideas?

Oh, and yes, I did end up making it in to work yesterday. I left the house for the second time at 11:15, and between getting out of the neighborhood, getting lunch, taking Ginny to work, and getting gas, it was almost 2:30 by the time I got here. And I’m still working on those stupid charts and graphs.

However. Tomorrow I get PAID PAID PAID PAID PAID, which I am clearly quite happy about, and that means that today I can write checks. Dear baby Jebus, I love money.

Well, this totally sucks.

Good thing about working in education: snow days. When the school is closed, you basically get a free vacation day.

Relatively bad thing about working in higher education as opposed to the primary/secondary school level: higher education is more concerned with actually holding classes, and so colleges close much less often than public elementary and high schools.

So. We were closed on Monday, and when I looked outside and saw how bad it was I prayed we’d be closed on Tuesday too, and though they didn’t make the decision until yesterday morning, they did finally close.

Today we’re opening at 10:30. It’s 10:10 and I’m sitting at home because I can’t get out of my neighborhood.

I live on a road very similar to Cookie’s, except that ours is not state-maintained and therefore never gets plowed. Seriously, never.

Ginny left about fifteen minutes before I did. She has the assy Ford Ranger with rear-wheel drive, that gets stuck in a dusting of snow, and after a few tries she made it down our driveway (also very long and downhill) so I figured I’d be okay.

So I cranked up the heat and proceeded to remove the snow. Snow covered in ice sucks my ass, because you have to break the ice before you can get the snow off the car. I sort of kind of ruined my parents’ kitchen broom in the process – sorry about that! Oh, also, did I mention the high wind advisory? Which means that it’s fuckin’ horrifyingly cold and, also, that every chunk of snow I loosened from the car proceeded to fly straight back and hit me in the face? And did I also mention that my cute Mudd loafers were full of snow, as were the cuffs in my work pants, and I’m not even that dressed up today? (See: red Gap fleece pullover and black pants)

Once the snow was gone I made it out of the driveway in a couple of tries, and drove slowly and carefully through my neighborhood. When I got to the corner before the last uphill part, there sat my sister, stuck in the truck. Ahead of her, half in the ditch, was a Blazer. I stopped and asked her what happened, and told her that if I could make it up in my car I’d take her to work. Off I went, only to make it about thirty feet before my tires spun uselessly against the packed snow and ice.

Ginny left the truck there. I turned around and brought her back to the house. And I just called work and am not going in today and am freaking out about it.

My coworkers are like “don’t worry about it; just stay home and try again tomorrow” and I’m all you don’t understand! I NEED to go to work today! I have been in my house for four days and we have no food and I’m going completely stir-crazy and I NEED TO LEAVE THE HOUSE TODAY DAMMIT!

Also- this is the part where lots of people like to say things like “Didn’t you used to live in Chicago?” to which I will, if not in a business setting, respond along the lines of “Fuck straight off.” Because for one thing, it’s all relative. It’s all in what you get used to. But also? Snow in Chicago is not such a big deal because people don’t act like insaniacs when it snows. Many Chicagoans know how to drive safely in snow. The city budgets for snow removal and gets right on plowing and salting, sometimes before the snow even starts. Around here, there’s never enough money for adequate snow removal. People either continue to drive 80 miles an hour or slow to a 5 mph creep. They also go to the store and have bitchy arguments over the last loaf of bread, the last gallon of milk. In a word, they go nuts.

And now I’m grouchy AND hungry. Time to make another attempt.

I like sweaters with boat necks and sleeves a little too long. On Monday I wore a sweater whose sleeves just reached my wrist, barely, and it ruined me for the day; I tapped away at the keyboard with frequent pauses to yank the offending cuffs down over my naked wristbones and resented every second of it.

Monday’s sweater had made another egregious misstep – it was one of those that acted like a twinset but was really one piece. I’d forgotten the reason why I’d stashed it in the back of my closet until I was wearing it, and by the end of the day I’d sworn off it again.

Tuesday was the CTS. Wednesday was the favorite sweater, which I stole from Ginny. It meets the requirements – boat neck, sleeves too long, soft and stretchy and black. I wore it with the Bad Idea Pants and kept my hands tucked into the sleeves almost all day. Professional? No. Comforting? Yes.

Along those lines, today I am passing off a red fleece pullover from the Gap as work-wear, following that fashion rule from college that says that you can dress up any shirt you want to as long as you wear it with black pants. And so I did. And it’s working out okay so far.

In my senior year of college I began to run short on money, so much so that I began selling everything I could. At textbook buyback time I began to haul stacks of paperback literature to the bookstore, hoping against hope that I could pick up a few bucks for them. I’d saved them all through school while culling out the big textbooks I’d never use again, and like that I relinquished them all for a few bucks. My Brontes, Austens, Woolfs – gone. Kafka and Camus. Dostoevsky. Rilke. Sartre. Waugh. As a student who relied heavily on visual cues for memory, I watched much of my learning get stacked in a pile behind the counter. I sold CDs. I sold paperbacks I’d bought just to read, not for class. I sold the friggin’ Elements of Style. Sometimes I paid $14 or more for a book and got fifty cents back. But that was okay. Fifty cents was a dryer cycle, which with a stolen dryer sheet and a wet washcloth could make my clothes last another week if necessary. If I could have I would have sold looseleaf paper by the sheet outside my dorm.

But now I miss those books. Luckily I work at a college and get a discount in the bookstore. It’s not a good bookstore for general reading but I go over there sometimes and browse the textbook sections for history, literature, communication and come back with some good things. I’m rebuilding a collection.

By the way, if you’re the kind of person who says things like “Thomas and myself will be at the meeting,” or “Contact myself or Susan for more information,” please stop doing it. It’s grammatically incorrect and it might make people think you’re pompous and a dick. If you want to say, “I just totally busted myself in the face with a rock,” that’s okay, though.

Otherwise: “Thomas and I will be at the meeting.” “Contact me or Susan for more information.”

I’m just sayin’.

Oh my god.

I think I’m in love.

Who is it, you ask? Who could be the lucky recipient of my affection?

Well. I don’t know his name. I don’t know if he has a name. And actually I’ve never seen him. But he sounds hot.

He’s the automated voice system for my bank’s phone banking center, see.

Seriously. I’ve been with my bank since June and haven’t had an opportunity to use the phone banking feature yet, since I obsessively check my balances daily online. But the online banking site is down today and as we’re in the last third of the month and I haven’t had a paycheck since December 19th, I have an ultra-obsessive need to know my account balance to the penny. So I called.

And my session with the automated banking guy was seriously so crazy. He’s super friendly, and his inflection sounds like a real person’s, and he’s all like “Here’s how we’re going to work together. Tell me if you don’t like what I’m doing and I’ll change it.” And then I can talk to him or if I don’t feel like talking I can push buttons instead and he’ll understand.

He told me my balance, and went through my transactions, and reminded me that if he’s giving me too much, I can say “Narrow it down,” and he’ll narrow it down. He follows instructions! He listens to my needs! He has a hot voice!

He’s the newest in a long line of my fake boyfriends!

And I’m willing to share. So you can call Bank of America toll-free at 800.432.1000 and talk to my new fake boyfriend. Even if you don’t have an account, you should enter a random number and he’ll ask if he got it right. Tell him “no” and he’ll apologize!! He’s so hot.

The only problem is that I feel guilty hanging up on him without saying goodbye.

I’m totally crushing.

Also, I have called him three times during the course of writing this entry, so I’m totally lame.

My hair and my sweater are having a disagreement today.

It’s more like a spat.

Actually, it’s really most like a white trash catfight, complete with the use of fake fingernails as weapons.

Hypothetically, of course. I’ve never had fake fingernails in my life. The ones I came with are quite nice.

So. It’s fucking cold here (shut up, New England. it’s all relative) and so I’m wearing a Chunky Turtleneck Sweater today. Chunky Turtleneck Sweaters are a different breed than regular turtleneck sweaters, because they are, in general, cut shorter and roomier, if that makes any sense. And the turtleneck itself is bigger and wider. Girls, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Note the difference:

Not chunky.

Chunky.

So, just so we’re all clear, I’m wearing the CTS today, and it is most decidedly not “mandarin.” But anyway.

I’m also growing my hair out, as you may remember. Right now it’s just past my chin in the front and ever-so-slightly longer in the back, in keeping with that whole trendy uneven layers thing that all the kids are doing these days.

It’s not quite long enough yet for a sleek ponytail, or even a simple pullback. And in the back, this is problematic because the ends of my hair and the top of the turtleneck are engaging in a turf war.

This is very bad for the hair, which is losing. The CTS is maintaining its dignity under fire.

Because some of the hair is trying to infiltrate the inner edge of the turtleneck, thus lying nicely on my neck but also looking sort of flat and odd and sneaky. Meanwhile, certain rogue pieces of hair are trying to breach the perimeter, and because they aren’t long enough to really live outside the collar, instead they are poking bizarrely in almost every direction.

The front of my hair doesn’t have much to do with the whole thing, but it’s feeling left out and melodramatic and is lounging around in a pathetically obvious parody of defeat. Just in case you don’t feel sorry enough for the back of the hair.

Luckily I have a Cute Hat, a lovely wool cloche that I got for Christmas, and this bug can work a hat like no other. So when I go outside I jam the Cute Hat down over the offending strands and though the ends of my hair continue to stick out like little hair guerrillas, people are too enchanted by the Cute Hat to notice the gang war between the hair and the turtleneck.

This is not generally a problem with regular turtleneck sweaters because on those sweaters, the turtleneck is close enough to my actual neck that it keeps the rogue hairs out where they belong. But with the CTS, it’s a war. And yet I always forget about the war every time I decide “gee, it sure feels like a day for a Chunky Turtleneck Sweater.”

But all too soon I remember. And oh, do I remember.