Seriously, I cannot think of a worse feeling in the world than lying on the floor of a dorm bathroom puking your brains out at 3 in the morning, bare-ass naked because you don’t want to get puke on the only outfit you have. And also? No deodorant. No soap. No toothbrush. And an entire box of Momints just wasn’t cutting it.
More later!
I have about a million and ten things to get done before I leave for New Hampshire tomorrow afternoon.
I have done two of them. Eek!
Clay on Wednesday was great. Ginny wasn’t able to get to the seats we’d bought so they exchanged the tickets for disabled section tickets, and they sat her at the very back of the arena, but right before the show started I spied two disabled seats in front of our section and ran and batted my eyes and sweetly asked the ushers if Mom and Ginny could move to those empty seats, and they said yes. So they actually got to sit closer than Sam and Jay and I did, and could see all the stuff going on behind the stage. He’s a good singer, and the show was mostly wonderful, but I could have done without the YayJesus song with the accompanying Son of God backlighting and the video clips of Bibles and church steeples. He sang it well, and it was a pretty song, but still – for a few minutes there the Civic Center turned into a tent revival, complete with witness hands from the audience and everything.
In complete ignorant honesty, I don’t know what the witness hand thing is really called, and I don’t know why people do it, but it annoys me. Because I see some people at religious events doing the witness hand when a singer is singing, and I don’t believe for one moment that they’re all feeling the spirit. I think there is always a handful of people who are doing it so that other people can see them doing it, and they tend to be the same people who tell people like me that we’re all going to hell. So, you know, it bugs me. I’m sure some people are just really into the music or the spirit, and that’s fine. It’s those other ones that bug me.
Man, when I’m having a bad sinus day, it really affects everything. Today is one of those days, and I’ve felt vaguely queasy and specifically fatigued all day long. Ew.
I bought a big-ass box of Dramamine for my flights. I hope it helps with the inner ear stuff. I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass if it makes me groggy. I won’t have to drive anywhere, and besides, I’d rather be groggy than nauseated and dizzy.
I’m really starting to hate this design and have been fiddling around with ideas for changing it, but I have nothing good so far.
Tonight I need to do laundry and pack, and I’m sure I’m going to have another bout of packing issues like I did the last time I took a trip. Already I’m stressing about whether my Old Navy booty shorts are appropriate pajama bottoms, since I NEVER sleep in pajama bottoms at home but am sharing a hotel room for part of this trip, and I tend to get too warm in hotel rooms and fling the covers off of me in my sleep, and the last thing my colleague wants to see is my ass in pink and orange polka-dot boyshorts, so I need bottoms but pants won’t do because of the heat issue. And about which flip-flops I want to take for the dorm shower and which ones I want to take just to wear, and if “casual” means flip-flops are okay anyway. And do I need a bathing suit? And do I need jeans? A jacket? How am I going to fit a study lamp and a fan in my suitcase? Why did I buy a laptop that weighs ten pounds? Does that brown shirt really look okay with the jean skirt? Will I look too college-kid in a jean skirt? Even if it’s a normal jean skirt, not one of those trendy flippy ones?
What the hell’s the weather like in New Hampshire, anyway? Okay. Weather Underground says it’ll be in the mid to upper 70s this week. So maybe I do need jeans. But do I need a regular pair of shoes? Because I was just going to take sandals and sneakers. Dammit. I’m terrible at packing.
Wow. I haven’t gone anywhere since January. And although I’ll be out of the office next week, I’ll be at a conference, so that’s not so much a vacation. And then the week after that is band camp, which is also not so much a vacation. I really need a week where I don’t have to do ANYTHING, but I don’t see that happening before Christmas at the earliest.
We get free internet access at Dartmouth, so unless I’m out drinking every night, I’ll be writing from New England. Hey, I might even take pictures.
Y’all have a great week.
Okay, it’s really poor form of me to put up a bullshit post about the contents of my latest Target receipt and then not update for five days. Sorry about that.
We did not go out of town this weekend after all. Ginny is having some problems with her knee (the one she can stand on) and it’s been locking and slipping and, in general, not holding her upright reliably. The last thing we wanted to do was drive three hours to Richmond and then be stuck there if she had a fall or something. So we didn’t go, and I know she was really disappointed about it. Ginny’s having a really tough time right now.
Since we weren’t out of town on Saturday, we were able to go with the rest of my family to the party for Fallon, the other girl who survived the crash. It was kind of weird. Very bittersweet. All the parents were there and while it was mostly fine, there were some definitely awkward moments too. I think it’s the first time everyone has been together since the wreck.
I think I must have done something on Sunday but I don’t really remember what right now. Oh. I went shopping. And I got a jean skirt and some cargo crop pants, because this workshop I’m going to in New Hampshire next week is casual and I don’t have enough casual summer clothes to get through a week. That’s pretty lame.
And last night I went to the Summer Music Games, which is a DCI (drum corps, for those of you not in the know) competition held here in town. Ginny had wanted to go, and I wasn’t really feeling it, and then it turned out she couldn’t go because of her knee problems, and the high school I’m working with had an extra ticket, and at the last minute I decided to go. It was good, as usual, and it always gives me a little pang and I start missing doing performances and competitions all the time. I really, really, wanted to be in a corps (I’d still love it, but I’ve aged out) but there was always some issue, usually money. So yeah, they were awesome, but I would have had a better time with my sisters. I got Ginny a Cadets tee since she wasn’t able to go.
Here are a few questions I’ve been meaning to toss out in here for some time (and may already have, actually):
Yes. I’m weird. And anal.
During the broadcasts of I Love the 90s, they’ve been airing commercials for Jamie Cullum about 150 times per hour. This should make me prehate him. But I’ve really liked the clips they’re using in the commercials, and by the time we’d memorized the damn commercial last night, Ginny and Sammi and I decided that we needed to buy Twentysomething as soon as was humanly possible.
I went to Target at lunch today (and, miraculously, escaped only $32 poorer) to pick up a purse I need for all the weddings I’m going to be attending in the next few weeks/months, and got the CD. It’s a sort of jazz, sort of pop combination of covers and original songs, and so far I’m really enjoying it. “All at Sea” is particularly pretty.
You know how they say goldfish will grow as big as the container they’re in will allow? That’s sort of what happens when I go to Target. My purchases are directly proportional to the container I’m putting them in, and the length of time I spend in the store. So if I go on a Saturday and get a shopping cart, I’m going to spend a ton of money.
I’m trying to SAVE money now, though, which is really difficult for me to do. So I’ve been avoiding Target as much as possible, and not going after work. But I did legitimately need a small purse and I knew Target had a suitable one on sale for $7 or so. Ginny and I are going out of town tomorrow so I wouldn’t have time to go get it then.
My plan: to go at lunch (when time would be limited) and to bypass the carts and baskets entirely. That worked for a while. But I started to accumulate stuff and, wonder of all wonders, Target had a stack of shopping baskets right next to the cosmetics. I still did pretty well, though. From the receipt:
DR PEPPER DT – 0.99 (because you need a Diet DP for the road)
LREAL MASC – 4.00 (mascara on sale!)
AQUA FRESH – 0.99 (trial size toothpaste for trips)
L OREAL – 2.99**
AQUAFRESH – 2.99 (regular toothpaste for home)
TGT LIQ SOAP – 0.89 (hand soap for office)
CGIRL LQ MU – 1.69 (trial size TruBlend, woo!)
MINI TOP ZIP – 7.48 (the purse I came for)
CULLUM JAMIE – 8.99 (the CD)SUBTOTAL: 31.01
VA TAX 4.5000% on 30.02: 1.35
VA TAX 4.0000% on 0.99: 0.04
TOTAL: 32.40**Wait. What the hell is that?
I just looked through the bag of stuff I got (which I brought into the office so my makeup doesn’t melt in the sun) and I only bought one L’Oreal product, which was the Feather Lash mascara on sale for $4.00.
I totally got overcharged by three dollars. And this as I celebrated my ability to keep things under control by only purchasing the things I planned to go in for, and cutting corners where possible (like with the trial-size makeup).
No fair.
First, thank you all so much for your helpful comments and advice on the cat issue. I haven’t made a decision yet, but I feel so much more informed and less upset about it now. I went home and talked to my parents about it last night, and Mom is right with me on the no-declawing thing. Dad, at first, was being very voice-of-reason “it’s probably not so bad,” but I think he changed his mind when I was talking about the technical information I’d learned from sites like this one.
We’re complete animal lovers, which is how we ended up with so many in the first place. We don’t hunt, and most of us get pretty upset even about the occasional unavoidable roadkill incident. So. Declawing is completely out. I won’t do it.
I told my mom last night that I really have to consider the possibility that I’ll have to leave all of the cats at home no matter where I end up moving. I worry about this somewhat, since I do a lot of the messy cat work, but my youngest sis Jamie is an animal freak (we used to call her Elmira) and wants to be a vet and would definitely be a good caretaker. She does a lot of it already. And Dad said maybe I could get a little shelter mutt once I’m settled and have some time to spend with it. I’m more of a dog person anyway – it’s just that I’ve become really attached to our cats.
On to my real topic – why in the hell did I go and buy another car with weird-sized tires?
The first car I ever purchased from a dealership, with a loan and everything, was a 1995 Dodge Neon sedan. I freakin’ loved that car – it did really well for me even though I didn’t take care of it well and it was in pretty crappy shape by the time I traded it in. I loved it enough that when it was time for me to buy a new car, I didn’t even look at anything but the Neon.
They get a bad rap, but they’re great cars – especially the newer generation. I’ve obviously been really happy with them.
Problem: they have weird-sized tires.
I don’t remember what size the tires on my old Neon were, but I had a lot of flats in that car (mostly because I’m a jackass and ran over a lot of pointy stuff) and I’d regularly go to a place like evil Wal*Mart or Sears or something and they’d inform me that they didn’t carry ANY tires at all in that size. Or that they had exactly one kind of tire, which was like a Firestone SuperDuper Premium Drives-on-Lakes-and-Other-Bodies-of-Water Ultra 6000+. So I got used to paying a lot for tires.
When I traded up to the new Neon, I specifically noticed that it had larger wheels, and I thought “cool, now I’ll be able to get all kinds of tires.”
I bought it in October 2002 and it still has its original tires, and since I’ve put nearly 50,000 miles on it in only a year and a half, those tires are getting worn down. And I’m paranoid about tires since I didn’t pay attention to the tread in my old Neon and once had a bad blowout that nearly caused me to wreck. So I’ve been planning to get them all replaced before the end of summer.
Problem: they still have weird-sized tires. 185/60 R15, to be exact. Which is apparently way weird.
The shop I usually go to gave me a quote on the same tires that came on the car when I was in last. But I had this idea that, with as much driving as I do, I ought to shop around and try to get the best tires I can afford. One small detail is that I know almost nothing about tires, but I figured I’d learn while shopping around.
I went to the Bridgestone/Firestone web site and entered my info. I got back two tires – a winter tire, and an “all-season, world-class high performance tire” that certainly is going to be hellaciously expensive.
Michelin – one tire, which does seem to be an all-season tire although it doesn’t specify.
Goodyear – two tires. One’s the “all-season performance tire” that I think came on the car, and the other one is a “quiet riding, luxury sport tire.”
This is a pain in my ass. Maybe I’ll just go with the ones I got a quote for at the shop.
