the neurotic girl in a bloody white dress

5:20pm: Last night we went to see the movie The Woman in Black. I got really scared, and startled and all of that fun stuff. And no i kind of wonder if it was a bad idea to see it when Tony will be leaving for Singapore on Friday. I just know when I am all by myself at night I will be thinking about the movie and freak myself out. Often enough I sleep with the light on, but now I wonder will I need to leave the tv on, or something, as well? I wish our cats were the type that would stay in the bed with me, because even that would be a little comforting. That or it's too bad I don't know anyone with a dog that doesn't mind cats, and can be dropped off at our house each night, then picked up every morning when I have to go to work. Too complicated. 
I went grocery shopping and bought tons of things for the whole week, so I'm not going every other day, like we used to end up doing. That was really satisfying. Then when I came home I finished cleaning out the fridge so now there is nothing in there that is unusable, but still well stocked with assorted veggies, hummus, yogurt, cheeses, ground turkey, etc. Well, there is one container that I'm still too scared to take out and clean. But someday I will get to it. I am not feeling at all motivated now though. I had been working on this fun collage-ish project but I  don't even feel like picking that up. I love catholic iconography and paintings for decoration because they are so creepy in their own way. But Tony still doesn't like it around the house so I've been taking pictures of Mary ( and sometimes baby jesus too) and doing things to them to make them more creepy. I love it, but I need more inspiration! Hopefully I'll find it.

12:27am: use your words, they say.
easier said than done.

Auditory Processing Disorder
Pragmatic Language impairment 

i was diagnosed with these as a child. finding myself more aware of it more and more often.

8:06pm: fireworks are so white-trash.
 i do enjoy 4th of july fireworks. and by fireworks i mean the ones put on by an organized group of safety professionals, at a good distance from all the people who choose to watch them. anything else, besides sparklers, i do not like. you know, the kind of fireworks you can buy at a roadside stand and light up yourself. i really don't care if i offend anyone, but i think "those kind" are super white-trash and redneck.  besides also being super dangerous. if it makes you feel better you could say i'm just skittish and that i probably had a bad experience. but honestly it seems to me all too often people mess around with fireworks and don't give a second thought to what kind of things could happen if they are not perfectly careful. it can't be dangerous if it's all in fun, right? fuck that. if the fun could easily seriously injure/maim someone (or worse) i really don't think it's fair to expose anyone else to it. that is, unless you give some kind of actual consent that you would like to participate.
and yes, i did have a bad experience. but only relatively recently, and my feelings about fireworks have been around my whole life. so my bad experience is really more about being unable to let go of the anger that resulted from it. it also bothers me that there are nice people who would have a party, and set off  "surprise" fireworks directly behind where i am sitting as a "joke." yeah, that's really funny. i don't care how careful you are being, that is really stupid. even if you had been planning it all along, i think you have some responsibility as a host (even if you're a halfway-decent host) to not put any of your guests in an potential danger. how hard can it be to make up some reason to say, "excuse me, but could you not be sitting here right now?"  also, once it's obvious someone at the party is beyond upset, i think that's when you decide, "maybe that's enough for tonight." not, "hey, let's do some more!" 
sigh. whatever. fireworks are dangerous. it makes me sound old. i don't care. i don't need to light things on fire to have fun and act like an idiot. i can be an idiot all by myself. but if you ever have a bbq and invite me, this is why i will first ask you if there will be fireworks before i give my answer. please answer honestly. .

2:48am: so random
 believe it or not i'm a huge fan of Annie. today i took a little time for my wikipedia addiction and ended up at some links related to the show. then i remembered something that was big in the news in 1997. they were doing a 20th anniversary show of Annie on Broadway, and auditioned girls all over the country. the girl who won got the lead part did the show's tour, but a few weeks before they got to Broadway she got sick, and they sent a fax to her parents saying they were replacing her with one of the other orphans,
(instead of an understudy for the time being). she was fired. supposedly the reasoning was a lack of chemistry between her and daddy warbucks, or they thought she could sing but not act. her parents then decided to sue. i remember one of the newspaper article headlines, "Life's War and Bucks, Daddy."
i remember being really interested in the story at the time, it's very touching, and i could certainly imagine the crush disappointment. but i think at the back of my mind i always figured there had to be something to what they were saying. so today i decided to dig around and find out what ever happened to her, and to see if i could find some videos of her so i could see for myself. i found a whole bunch of stuff, surprisingly. videos of her singing "Tomorrow", also her audition (as well as the other girls that were up for the part, who ended up as her orphan friends), and for a basis of comparison, the orphan who replaced her. 
fuck, did she get robbed. brilliant acting and absolutely amazing singing. the replacement looked ridiculous in comparison. i had to stop because obviously that was forever ago and there's nothing i can worry about now... so where is she now? in my search for her videos what i actually found out first was that she auditioned for season 8 of American Idol. this got me excited. i don't like that show, but if it meant she got a second chance i would have been glad things worked out for her. and she did make it past a bunch of rounds, but eventually was forced to drop out because she was a close friend and neighbor to some of the producers. plus, she already had an album. so a lot of people were saying she was "a plant" or a ringer. huh. oh well. i still say she was fucked the first time around.
but i didn't bother to look at any of the american idol videos.

1:56am: california
 tony is again the best husband ever. he had a whole bunch of airline miles saved up that he had to use, and because he is so awesome he said we could go to L.A.  the miles ended up covering both of our tickets and even a rental car. we found a really cute place to stay just outside the center of hollywood, since i wanted to be close to my old neighborhood. the website even had a big banner that said it was a "gay friendly hotel."  for us i guess that means we can at least know that we will probably only be in the presence of relatively open-minded people. i have never seen this place but the landscaping and garden look so pretty and well kept that i am sure the clean rooms in the pictures must be for real. i don't think anyone who didn't give a fuck about the rooms of their hotel would bother to keep such a well manicured yard. plus when tony called to make the reservation he it seemed like the person he spoke to was nice.
i can't even express how excited i am. i am sooooo excited. there isn't even anything in particular i want to do. i just will be so happy to be there. but i did make a list of things to do during our stay. most of them are just normal every day things, only because those are things i've missed all this time. though there are a few things i put on my list just cus if we're going on vacation we should also do something fun and different. tony also has some errands he wants to run for Clothes That Kill, which i don't mind at all because anything we can do to potentially grow his business is great. but also because it will probably require a lot of driving around, which i always like anyway (i'm like a puppy that loves being taken for rides in the car) and it will most likely be places i didn't see before.
i do definitely want to go to Bar Sinister again. it's disappointing that most of the people i know have moved away, but hopefully we can still go out and have a good time.

soooooooo fucking excited!!!!

tomorrow night is projecTronik and i'm really looking forward to going out again and being at Town. looking forward to being in the fashion show just because it's so fun getting my hair and make-up done. but i'm also really nervous because unlike last year i have no idea what i'm going to be wearing, or if i'm perfectly honest, if i'm going to be picked to wear anything. there are going to be a bunch of pretty girls there. pretty and tiny. the designers get to pick who they want when we arrive. i'm preparing myself in case i don't get picked... or if i get picked but then the clothes don't fit me. no big deal. i can join the rest of the club and get a drink, dance and talk with my friends. sigh. we'll see.

10:36am: some people
i can't tell you how many times someone has posted something on facebook that just sounds really idiotic. and i soooo badly want to comment letting them know it. or to make my own post that seems vague but it really so obviously about this person. but i DON'T DO IT. it's reeeeally really tempting sometimes, but as a result, no big cat fights and no confrontations or whatever happens when you have this so called drama.

every once in a while people go on about how there's so much drama on facebook. too much drama and they don't want to be a part of it. or facebook is bad, there's too much drama. really? is there? i don't seem to notice it. does that mean i'm boring or does that mean there's some thing i'm not doing that maybe the complaining people are doing? because i think for most us us facebook is just a way to tell people what you had for breakfast and to have the chance to know what that kid from your old middle school had for breakfast too. let's think about this a little more, is it just facebook that's full of drama, or is your life full of drama too? come on, it's not really the facebook at all is it? if it's not uncommon for you to start a fight with someone- ok nevermind. i'm guessing that if you can't admit it's not the facebook you also can't admit that you are starting these fights. not even fights really, just open bitchy-ness towards certain people where it would be way more appropriate to just rise the fuck above it and act like a more decent and polite human being for like 5 minutes. then when you're done, if you're frustrated and very annoyed, go vent about it with someone that you're close to. no need to post about it on facebook or tell everyone who will listen. that's gossip. gossip is how drama starts. do we all know the story about the feathers? you let out a bag of feathers into the wind and you will never be able to get them all back. 
and right now i'm not talking about going onto facebook and complaining about clients, or customers, or for some of you co-workers (assuming you are not dumb enough to "friend" a co-worker you don't like and then openly post shit about them on facebook). i get that, and usually we all are amused by it. since none of the concerned parties are getting involved. 
but if you go onto facebook and, for example, post about something annoying your boyfriend does and ask other people if that's normal etc, and your boyfriend is ON YOUR FRIENDSLIST... you are creating fucking drama. YOU are trying to get a rise out of him. and it's your fault and only yours. take some fucking responsibility. 

as kathy griffen has said, "say it to your face? no, i was raised right. i'm going to talk about it behind your back." or something. it sounds terrible, but we all do it it! and if we always did it this way we'd get along a lot more.

9:36pm: food journal
 i'm going to attempt to record what i eat every day. though, if i don't plan on writing a real entry i will make eating habits a private entry b/c i don't expect anyone to care what i consume.
a while ago i learned that green tea helps boost the metabolism. i already drink a lot of green tea for the anti-oxidants so it's good to know it's even more useful than i thought. but with projecTronik fashion show coming up at the end of the month (and hopefully another big thing that i can reveal shortly after that) i'm drinking it more. i figure it doesn't hurt to be drinking stronger green tea more often as long as i also drink water. a glass of red wine is supposed to also be a boost for the metabolism, so i'm enjoying a glass right now. i think i will stick with just red wine for a while, when i do choose to have an alcoholic drink. 
hopefully i'm done getting sick for a long time. i really do think that being around so many children this year contributed to being ill so often. the thing that bothers me most about getting sick is that it ruins my work-outs when i go to the gym. with one month left until the fashion show i really need to be able to work hard. i usually have trouble being strict with what i eat, but seeing as how getting sick slowed me down, the best way to catch up is to watch what i eat for a bit so that i don't have to kill myself at the gym. i've never done this well at the gym as i have been the past 2 months (when i wasn't sick), but i know it's not realistic to try and do even more. i could say i would. but it wouldn't happen. 
so... continue with at least 3 trips a week to the gym, where i will do 800 - 900 calories on the treadmill (that's in under an hour). and some weights (that varies). 

today i ate:
*a bowl of Special K with skim milk
*2 cups of green tea with 2 tea bags each
*around 12:30 PM i had a Special K raspberry cereal bar (90 calories)
*lunch was a Lean Cuisine (i always buy those for work days, 300 calories)
*when i got home i had a few reeses pieces (like 5 or 6. i gotta have something to keep me from going crazy!)
*right now drinking a glass of red wine
*tony's making dinner now. whole wheat spaghetti with tomato sauce and ground turkey. i've decided that since i hate cooking (yes i love to bake and hate to cook and that helps me ZERO) dinner will just have to be all about portion control. 

for a treat later this weekend i bought Edy's real fruit popsicles, which i love. i usually get strawberry but tonight i discovered that the orange with cream filling has *drum roll* only 80 calories!!!! that will be so nice for tomorrow after i've gone to the gym.

8:20pm: v-day weekend
since i was off work today i decided to use it for baking for valentines day. i like to bring in heart cookies to work, kinda like we used to bring valentine cards and candy into school as kids. i also have a box of brownie mix that i don't know what to do with, so i will probably make those and bring them in too. brownies are one thing i can't seem to make from scratch. they always come out like regular old chocolate cake.

hey, becka: if you end up having to work that night i will save you some. i am opening in cafe, which looks like it might be a regular thing since we need more people for cafe shifts.

a big thank you to nikki for scheduling me off on sunday (big happy surprise, btw) so i can do some separate valentines baking to have at home. linzers and red velvet cupcakes, of course. though i think nikki and her family deserve a few of those, since i also have off the day *after* valentines day. that makes me wish that there was someplace to go out and get dressed up in a pretty dress and stompy boots and have red drinkies with cherries and dance. but there isn't. not around here at least. i am so dying to go out. it has been waaay too long. i was seriously considering calling to at least attempt to switch my shift so that i wouldn't be opening saturday morning so that i could go to Bound in Wonderland (which is tonight), since i would love another excuse to dress up wonderland style and i haven't seen people in forever. i think i decided against it because i have only been to The Loft once before and i get anxious in new settings. for some reason that doesn't seem like a big deal right now, but it's too late. i always end up choosing to stay home when there's a chance of panicking when i'm out. i mean, i am so used to being at Town, where it feels almost like home since i get there before everybody, know everybody who works there, and leave after everybody else. since i will be off early tomorrow and off all of sunday i think i will go with Kit to Midnight, if she's going. it's not usually my place, but i haven't seen her in forever. also Midnight is a smaller place where it would be perfectly acceptable and easy to join a table and sit and drink, if that's all i ended up feeling up to. i just so want to get dressed up and pretty for *something*
also trying to get Kit to come over for dinner monday night (yes, Valentines Day). it would be fun to do the opposite of fancy dinner for two and instead have the three of us, something like lasagna or fried chicken, drink vodka & gingers, and laugh a lot.

7:36pm: places
i'm not sure if these are in any particular order, but these are some places i've been thinking i would like to visit:
bermuda
australia
scotland
england (mostly the countryside and oxford, but i suppose london too)
french countryside
st. petersburg russia
egypt
japan (again)
new orleans
san francisco
hollywood (again!)

hmm. and maybe greece too...

i don't know what the point of this was.

10:17am: workout
i started doing more cardio at the gym. it seemed that i am pretty good at pushing myself on the treadmill to do just a little bit more, just a little bit longer, even when i'm exhausted. i can't really keep myself going when i'm doing weights or anything else. so i'm going to go with this, and it's really exciting because i am *finally* seeing a difference in myself. of course i skipped the gym yesterday, the day i really saw some change... but i guess that just makes me more motivated to go back on monday. i mean, i'm still going to do some weights, but i'm not going to force myself to get through 6 different machines. maybe 2 or 3. also trying to do crunches, but i hate them so much.
the really great thing is that besides trying to be better about portion control (which is really only hard for me when it's pizza or chinese. i know, the worst), i haven't really changed how i eat. which is awesome because that is reeeeally hard for me. i need my dose or two of chocolate.
speaking of which, i'm on my period, and i am totally not going to beat myself up for bringing a brownie home tonight.
i'm just so excited though. i really want to stick with this routine, and hopefully by summer i can look cute in a sundress. with combat boots, of course.
got to run to get to work on time. Big Love is on tonight!

8:11pm: books are my friends
i just went to b&n dot com and ordered Wings and Spells used in hardcover. i really am trying to just borrow books from work or buy them on my Nook (and eventually borrow them from the library *on* my Nook, just need to figure that out) so i can save money. also we really don't need anymore books around the house. but, like i say to people when i am selling the Nook, there are still some things i will have to buy to physically put on my shelves. i always say, "sometimes if you have a favorite series that you started buying some time ago you're going to really want to complete the set." well i never bought the Laurel series, i borrowed it. but i do think at some point i'd read it again and i'd just like to have it on my shelf as part of my library. so often i think of my books as friends. i have so many that i've read numerous times, either cover to cover, or just a part that i will be reminded of and take it down to remember again.
this is part of why i like the feature of "naming" your Nook. it makes it personable, so i don't feel like i'm cheating. and i can feel like, "i've got Kittie, and Kittie has all my books (puts in purse), come on Kittie, lets go."
btw, i'm not totally weird and random for naming my Nook Kittie. that's what Anne Frank named her diary. though i don't think it was spelled the same.
i also ordered Kittens First Full Moon, which was a Caldecott winner. the illustrations really remind me of Bowie. i got it used *and* cheap, so that if i chose to cut out and frame some of the pictures i don't have to feel guilty.
i can't wait until they arrive.

10:21pm: i am in the love with the Laurel series by aprilynne pike. love. LOVE. to make you understand how i feel, these books are for me what the twilight series is to millions of teenage girls.
yes... it's a teen series, but it's about faeries not vampires, and aprilynne pike is without a doubt a better writer than stephanie meyer will ever hope to be. after reading Wings i had to get my hands on Spells immediately. i read Spells in a day. a work day. since then i've been checking religiously to see when the next book will come out and what it will be called. a few weeks ago i finally found my answer. May 11, 2011. Illusions.
i will be taking that day off of work. i will make sure i have a clean and cozy house. i will have tea, fruit, and cereal ready so i don't have to take my eyes off the pages. then i will be suffering until the fourth and *last* book comes out. the last book. i heard a rumor there would be 6 books total, and now i am feeling a terrible loss for 2 books that will never exist. but there is something even more terrible i found out. something so tragic, so devastatingly disappointing... i hope i don't even need to explain. Wings was optioned for a movie shortly after it came out. that is not the bad part. i would see this movie. Disney was the one who optioned the movie. still not too bad. Disney movies are getting better. though i was considering sending a email to Aprilynne Pike's fan page, advising that she should be careful that the movie they make illustrates her book properly. that the movie is beautiful and thoughtful, with substance. and to NOT follow in stephanie meyers' footsteps and let the teen madness take the lead. Laurel is a strong character. the movie should not be ruined with heavy merchandising of team this boy or that. The Laurel series is so much better than that kind of crap.
so here is the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad thing i found out:
miley cyrus was who Disney was looking at to be Laurel. why is this so awful? there goes any credibility that this was a good series. there goes hope that anyone over the age of 16 would take this seriously or even attempt to give it a try. Ms. Pike, if this happened you might make a lot of money, but you already make # 1 on the bestseller list. please do not ruin your beautiful story.

now i would like to thank miss miley cyrus for doing salvia and you-tubing it. i'd appreciate it if you keep dressing the way you did in your last video, and please get out more. have some fun. perhaps then Disney will take back their plan of casting you in the Wings movie. besides, you don't want to go back to them, do you? you barely have Hannah Montana behind you (and you have made it loud and clear how happy you are about that). do you really want to get back with Disney now? don't do it!

2:01pm: does anyone know if there is a way to link your livejournal up with facebook? i would like to use livejournal mostly, but it would be cool if people on my facebook could see when i had posted.
anyway, we got the gorgeous purple sofas. soooo much bigger than i had thought. they are curved in a sort of kidney shape, but at their longest point they are both NINE feet. right now the only place to fit both of them is in our living room (which is really used as a living room *and* dining room, one open space). so basically the room is nothing but sofa right now. the blessing is that also from these auctions tony has got lots of shelving, so he is currently working on organizing his shop in the garage. once that is worked out, eventually that make our downstairs available again, and not just a storage area. then we can move one of those massive sofas down there, along with the purple chase lounge. it will make a lovely den and a good space for inviting people over for viewing parties and such. i'm so excited!
tony also found a kit for re-surfacing our kitchen counters. have you every seen the Brady Bunch? notice their 70's fabulous kitchen with dark wood cabinets and loud orange counter tops. this is what our kitchen looks like. minus any pantry space so we have no place to put anything. hopefully sometime soon we will be working on making our counters black, then painting those cabinets a crisp white with black outlines. and the walls will be red. much more modern and to our tastes.
trouble is, while tony has been working diligently in the garage, these lovely sofas make me want to do nothing but curl up with my Nook. oh well. .. now i will go find something to put on the tv so i can work while having something interesting to distract me from getting bored. tony also got a whole bunch of night stands super cheap. i'm painting them up in neat ways so maybe we can sell some of them. caffeine, my dear friend, would you come join me?

2:22pm: christmas was lovely. tony was awesome and actually found time to make a special dinner for xmas eve. chinese food is our tradition, and last year he didn't have time to make it so we got some good carry-out. but this year he made really yummy shrimp lo mein, chicken fried rice, and egg drop soup. our friend sarah came over and we ate and talked while watching classic christmas specials. i really missed having Kit there, since she usually comes over every christmas eve. after eating, i did manage to still get enough energy to make a coffee cake to have with breakfast christmas morning. i was very impressed with how pretty it looked, but it was a little dry. too many nuts i think. so next time less nuts, and maybe more chocolate chips and cream. i gave tony a treasury about all the Harry potter films and Alton Brown's Good Eats: the middle years. i as so excited to find that he had given me both Unico movies on dvd, extremely hard to find. also a new sewing machine! for both of us. even if it's tricky to use to start with, even just making fun alterations to clothes will take much less time now. he also got me the thermal hooded shirts i had been planning to buy myself, in purple, blue *and* black.
we had an early turkey dinner at my uncles house, ate way too much and got very drowsy. later we went to see Black Swan, which was amazing and i loved. it was beautiful, natalie portman is wonderful. (also apparently she has been seeing the guy who plays the prince in their production of Swan lake, and now she is having a baby! for real!) most of the movie is so tense that my hands actually got sore from clutching my purse so tightly throughout.
'but the most exciting thing... tony has been looking at auctions for places that are going out of business (restaurants, salons, bars, etc) and are selling *every little thing* for CHEAP. for example, furniture starting at 3 cents and going to maybe $10 at a final bid. he found a gorgeous purple sofa last week and i wanted it so bad, i can't even tell you. he won it today. in fact, he won two of them. i have ALWAYS wanted a fun purple sofa, but those kinds of things are so expensive. well now we have two. tony had to rent a van for thursday to pick them up, and who knows what we'll do with the second one (maybe sell it) but i am so excited. i can't wait to post a picture cus it's so gorgeous. i can't wait to have it in our living room! i can't wait to paint the living room to do it some justice! and the kitchen too, while we're at it ;)
i have cramps so i'm being lazy until work later, and not feeling guilty about it at all. also, i want chocolate.

10:17pm: long time, no see
it's been more than a year. but i still say i miss livejournal, and have only accidently given it up because there is nobody to read my posts. everyone has crossed over to facebook. i mean no offense to facebook, i do enjoy it, but livejournal will always have a bigger space in my heart. so i decided i should be more loyal, regardless if anyone is paying any attention or not.
christmas has gotten here so unbelievably fast this year. time has been going to fast just in general since i started working in the Children's department. i just love it. like anything else it can get stressful, especially since i have to work fast and speed/time managements are not project skills that i have. otherwise, for me, it's the best job ever. anyway, for christmas i had this idea of making tons of lovely baked goods: iced xmas cookies, peppermint brownies, and a coffee cake for christmas morning. i don't care about gifts, but atmosphere and tradition have always been important to me. but i worry i won't be able to fit it all in. cookies are made, but with 4 batches i will struggle with getting them all iced and decorated. then i still need grocery items for the house, i want to clean up the living room (just so it can feel cozy and pretty and for the christmas weekend)... we will see.
been having trouble getting to sleep. i feel i will never get used to not having batty stop everything and come jump into bed with me when i would call for her every night. only two years we had her and i will never get over it. last night i laid bowie between my ankles and scratched and pet him until he relaxed and closed his eyes. eventually he even laid his head on my leg and went to sleep. he stayed for a long time. but it's different because i really have to coax him, and even then it rarely works. once he was down i didn't dare move, even in my sleep, so as not to make him wake and scamper off. i often get teary eyed while i'm trying to fall asleep, missing my batty.

2:10pm:  last week i was feeling a lot of anxiousness and insecurity. it was a beautiful weather, so i think that helped a little bit, and i hope the cooler air continues to come in. thursday i went with tony to a Taste of Del Ray. besides just enjoying that neighborhood in general the food sample were very good, and the price of tickets was more than fair. When i was a kid my parents would take us to Taste of Bethesda and it was so frustrating because there were so many good things but we could on;y afford to pick one thing each. the system in del ray system was so much better because for $5 you got 20 tickets, and all the different restaurant servings were each only 1 ticket. so both of us got to try 10 different things. awesome deal. though i wasn't surprised when all the restaurants ran out earlier than expected. 
saturday we went to philadelphia for Dracula's  Ball. i enjoyed getting to spend so much time with tony. i know i don't really see anyone else lately, but along with the other things i've been feeling i've just felt really clingy, and tony is so great because he is so sweet and never seems like he minds at all. i had expected i would wander around and dance a little like at any club night. but i didn't see hardly anyone i knew there. plus, because it was all ages they kept the alcohol drinkers in little corrals around the bar. it was not very relaxing having to slurp down my drink by myself instead of taking a walk around or sitting with tony at the table. though i was glad i was able to be somewhat of a help in setting up, instead of just getting in the way. 
sunday i spent all day baking because i have only one heart-shaped pan and i wanted to make two 2 layer cakes. it was fun and relaxing to be a little bit domestic. 
yesterday i worked, even though i usually take off for my birthday, because i figured i could use the time-and-a-half. every little bit helps. afterwards tony took me to Flying Fish for sushi in Old Town, and then we came home  and ate cake and watched a movie. a quiet night but that's what i wanted. i just wanted to relax and be close with my husband. 
tomorrow i'm off from work and i am going to spend all day reading Judy Blume and eating sugar cereal. yup, my birthday present to myself is to be 13 again. 

next nice day we both have off i want to go to the Pink Bicycle Tea Room, and dress up all pink and girly for a real tea.

1:18pm: i <3 fall
 yesterday was the first fall-ish day. it was so refreshing and so great for my spirit. i skipped the gym and didn't feel bad about it at all. after work i stopped to change and get tony and we went to lowes to get a big flower pot and some mums for the front stoop.  hopefully in a couple weeks i can get another one and then once october gets around the front of the house will look a little nicer with the red and gold flowers and a cluster of orange pumpkins surrounding them. 
i bought the martha stewart halloween magazine yesterday. she has some really great ideas that really make me want to get the house looking great so that i can have a fabulous halloween dinner party with decorations and food like hers. i think this year i'll just have to settle for having the living room look nice. and just have us and maybe michelle over. though i think the halloween issue of Living from last year was better than martha's halloween zine for this year, since the former inspired more creativity, and the latter included a catalog to just order most of what you saw. her things a really fun, but they are too expensive. i'm going to do my best to make my own versions of her decorations for outside the house this year. 
i know she's not a good person, but i have got to hand it to martha. the way i see it, she's living the dream. not just for the cooking and home decor, but the woman made it doing arts and crafts! if i could get as good as her, and make a living off of it, that would be my dream job. not being an artist, that's not what i mean at all. it's all about crafts. it's my favorite thing to do. give me a canvas and i will stare at it blankly. give me a table, shelf, jewelry box, candle holder, soap dish, any useful object, i'll find a way to make it look more interesting. 

todays getting to be a lot like yesterday. i hope it stays that way until next week, cus i'd love this weather for my birthday. 
then we just need to get ride of that annoying sound of cicadas, and those horrible mosquitos and all will be right in the world.

12:02pm: the great thing about having your husband working from home is that you get to have him there when ever you are there.
the not great thing is that, like retail, saturday doesn't necessarily mean a day off of work for him.

i actually got off work on a real weekend day and spent all week excited about it. only this morning did i finally accept that maybe i would be spending it on my own.sigh. oh well. i'm going to get dressed and explore some thrift stores.

2:20pm:  i don't think it's fair for someone to call me "selfish and arrogant" just because that person is trying to justify being inappropriately needy.
if i casually message someone saying, "hey you should stop by the club after your show, i'll buy you a drink." then when the person agrees and i message back giving the address and say, "if you have changed your cell number, give it to me so i can text you if anything comes up." obviously this means that if nothing comes up to change the plans i do not need to text, so i didn't. but this person decided he wasn't going to show up without another formal invitation (he expected a text message regardless). he was in the area to see a show anyway, i just happened to ask him to stop by the club if he wanted, it wasn't a big deal. but suddenly i'm selfish for not going out of my way to be his host for the rest of the evening. this person often complains he is not invited or asked to hang out with people and is aware that he is very socially awkward and lonely. i tried to help but now i see why. i don't appreciate being attacked just because he was too scared to walk over the the club and find me on his own. afraid of "walking into the club looking like a moron if you weren't there." as if everyone would have stopped and looked at him walking in the door and said, "ha! look at the moron who can't find killian." plus, if i wasn't there, wouldn't that have been where i would have texted and said, "hey, actually i am not going to be there." this is how most people meet up when they go out, am i wrong? we are adults! it was a casual invite! "hey stop by and i'll see you there." i never said i'd keep in touch throughout the day. and if that is what he needed he should have just fucking said so. seriously, some people need to grow up. 

6:23pm: brian molko is very sick so Placebo has cancelled their entire north american tour.
i really hope he gets well SOON and they can reschedule because i was looking forward to seeing them so much... more excited than i have been about going out anywhere in a long time.
though i think Tronik is going to be a whole lot of fun. i just love town, it's such a great space. but it's still different.

i went out to get coffee earlier. i hardly ever drink coffee any more, but i was really craving some. in the past 2 hours i drank half the cup. oh well.

12:04pm:  i just got through 8 days of work in a row. my back was killing me. my feet, and my legs too. laying in bed for a couple hours reading a super awesome book that i could not put down, with the heating pad seemed to fix that. plus the cocktail i made myself with dinner.  i found out that after being with the company 5 years i get an extra week of paid vacation, but i didn't find out until it was too late to take it. LUCKILY they said i could have an extension, and so now after 8 busy and stressful days i am taking a few days off. not going anywhere of course, but i have 2 Advanced Reader Copies of books i'm really looking forward to lounging around with, and projects on which i can work.
though i've learned my lesson and i won't leave all of my vacation to the end this year. i figure October is my favorite month and i never have as much time as i would like to enjoy it and all of it's perfect weather and fall loveliness

del ray arts and crafts street fair thing
pumpkin patch
halloween decorating
planting mums
renn faire 
and walks in the woods

i would so love to go to Salem for a few days but i really need to be saving money over the next few months. it looks like tony will be taking another work trip in febuary, and i would love to go along again.

7:00am:  i promised myself i would stop buying books to read and go to the library or borrow the hardbacks from work. but this is proving very difficult. i like to keep the books i read. i get attached. plus the library's new hours really suck, and what if the book i want to read isn't in hardback, huh? what about that?!
there's worse things i could spend money on... but it's a slippery slope. must not buy book.

this goes against everything.

7:47pm:  we had a really great time in florida. destin definitely has one of the best beaches in the world, and i'm so glad we really got to spend a lot of time on it. tony is usually all about not wasting time doing nothing. but i'm so glad we were both able to enjoy a few hours just sitting with our feet in the sand, listening to the ocean, reading, watching the sunset, and not leaving until dark. he even got me up really early our last day to spend a couple more hours at the beach, when usually we don't even bother going until late afternoon when the sun is not so harsh and the heat is gone. it was definitely worth it. 

if i ever have a millions of dollars i'm buying a house in ( Seaside, Florida )

1:25pm: PLACEBO!
 i got up early on my day off to get placebo tickets and the live nation website kept sending me somewhere that "did not exist." i started to get frustrated and flustered. but that tony was getting the same problem on his computer and was already on the phone trying to figure out how to call to order them. so he got the tickets for us! it's very fun because i haven't been this excited about an upcoming show in a while.
i really hope they play longer than they did when they were in philadelphia, and i hope they seem less annoyed with the audience...
at least enough that they don't leave out 'pure morning' again.  because it should otherwise be a really good show, getting to see them in such a small venue as Sonar.

4:03pm:  friday i wanted to just get my bangs trimmed a bit. i usually go to my stylist because it's free just for that small trim, but that's in bethesda so i decided to risk it and go to the haircuttery across the parking lot from my work. it was a little frustrating having to explain excatly where to cut, just here, just a little more, a little more. i finally decided i was getting the best i was going to get and the stylist walked me up to the register to pay i gave her a tip and then realized i had left my check card in my other pants and had no more cash. i started to panic. i told her i didn't have my card and i was going to have to call someone to bring me the money to pay, then asked if that was ok. it seemed she thought i was asking if i could pay later, or something, because she got flustered and told me no i had to pay. i explained to her again that i had to call someone to get the money. then she understood. so embarrassing, everyone staring at me. i didn't want tony to drop everything and come over, so i called my work, almost in tears as i explained what happened and asked if they could send someone in the store who could loan me $15 across the parking lot to the haircuttery. i waited less than 5 minutes for jessie to get there, but in the meantime i just happened to take a seat next to one of our regulars. she offered to help me out, and i told her no thank you i had it worked out, "are you sure? don't worry i know where you work." she said, joking. when jessie got there they over-charged her a little bit and said that next time i come in to remind them to give me a discount. i laughed and said i prolly wouldn't be coming back and everyone waiting there laughed. 

i got to work and found enough change to get a tea and multigrain bagel, and told the story to some co-workers who in turn told me some of their embarrassing stories. even one of the customers standing there told me about how she once got upgraded to a suite at a hotel, and then ended up flooding the huge tub. that was kind of nice.