Hi everyone

Hi everyone, Happy Halloween!  Are you celebrating or are you recovering from the damage of a super-storm?  All my New York and New Jersey friends whom I’ve been able to contact seem to be doing alright. If you are from a heavily affected area and you are reading this, hopefully that means you have power!  I hope you are doing well and have food and a way to get to work or wherever you need to go. The size and reach of Sandy has blown my mind.  Even out here in Chicago the beaches and lakeshore paths are shut down because the wind is making Lake Michigan go crazy.  Having lived in the Midwest all but six months of my life, I have dealt with tornadoes and snowstorms, but have never been anywhere near a hurricane.  The prospect of it is completely terrifying to me.  

I was pretty excited to dress up for Halloween this year - normally it’s a favorite holiday, but the last two years sad things have been happening on/around Halloween.  I did not end up dressing as Picasso’s Blue Period or a Zombie Vulva.  I went to a party on Saturday dressed as Zombie Abraham Lincoln, which meant lots of fake blood and a tall hat.  Before the party I was walking to the liquor store in the dark and a lady jumped and said “aye, Dios!” when she saw me, so that was pretty great.  Today I am just wearing my normal all-black getup, but with the addition of my “witch’s shawl” and black and white striped tights instead of black leggings.

At work we found a gift certificate to a salon that didn’t get purchased at our fundraising event last year, and I ended up getting it.  For over three years all my haircuts had been at hair schools and I had always colored my hair myself, so I was pretty stoked to get a certificate to a fancy-pants Lincoln Park salon.  I went and got my hair done last night and it was so nice - super-massagey shampoo session and cool asymmetrical cut.  

While I was at the salon I leafed through Marie Claire and while I was certainly expecting it to be all fluffy-puffy fashion, body image blah-di-blah I was still surprised and dismayed by some things.  For one, there was a large piece about getting ahead at work.  It was eight page longs, with two of the pages completely devoted to how women should look at work, and large sections of the same on the other six pages.  The piece also included brief snippets of interviews with powerful women and a section about race and ethnicity in the workplace.  Because female leaders, workplace discrimination, and fancy high heels are all worthy (and should be worthy) of the same amount of attention when trying to establish a successful career.  Right.

The other awful thing was a first-person article about how wearing towering high heels is what Grown Up Women do and even though these shoes are painful you will look terribly frumpy and un-adult if you don’t wear them.  The solution: every nine months get incredibly painful (by the author’s description) foot injections that leave you hobbled for a week; your stilettos will still be uncomfortable, but you’ll at least be able to stand them for longer periods of time.  And that is worth the cost, time off of work, and pain from the injections (plus the completely unmentioned harm caused to the rest of the body by wearing tall heels everyday).  I’m six feet tall and I like to rock a heel from time-to-time when I’m feeling fancy or outrageous, but to state that the only appropriate adult woman footwear is something that causes one to adopt an unnatural and unhealthy posture is just rage-inducing.

Today is the third year anniversary of when NB and I got drunk and made out for the first time.  And even though (because?) I was covered in fake blood, it was still great.  By this time next year, we’ll be married.  I don’t generally think that things are “meant to be” but this definitely feels that way.

Who wants to

Who wants to come give me a massage?  I will take it!  As long as you are non-creepy and know what you’re doing and won’t charge me.  Doesn’t that sound like a good deal for you?  I need a free massage because I hurt my back doing my super-mini morning workout, which is only light calisthenics and a lot of stretching and doesn’t seem very dangerous or likely to cause strain, but somehow it did.

Today I am all about health.  I ate a pretty healthy breakfast and lunch, got a flu shot and TDaP vaccine, and made an appointment to go to the doctor for the all-over mystery pain that I’ve had for several years (until recently I thought everyone felt like this but just didn’t complain about it because it’s just a part of life, but I’m finding out that is actually not the case).

Tonight I was going to be all about debauchery - my dear friend, DZ, and I had planned a vodka infusion night, but she has bronchitis, which is such a big bummer, especially because she is uninsured.  I know there are lots of opinions and findings and arguments about how we should get everyone insured.  I am not going to go into that here because this isn't that kind of blog, but damn, can we just make this happen?

I am still reading Bonk and yesterday I read a section talking about the cremaster muscle, which is a word I knew at one point, but had completely forgotten.  All day yesterday I kept saying cremaster in my mind.  And then I watched one of those forensics shows last night and the murderer’s last name rhymed with cremaster.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Today I possibly

Today I possibly woke up and became very upset over some nonsense I don't care to discuss here and called in sick to work.  I may have then asked NB to fetch me a beer before he left for work, and as he brought me my 9am beer, simultaneously thought, "wow, what a non-judgmental sweetie," and, "wow, what an enabler".

Since I am not working today, I am of course using my time wisely and reading up on Halloween costume ideas.  I read an idea for Picasso's Blue Period which involves tampons dipped in blue food coloring.  I love this idea so much, but past experience indicates my comfort level with discussing menstruation is a lot greater than many other people, so maybe the tampons would gross some people out?  Or not, and I don't care too much.

Speaking of Halloween and menstruation, Zombie Vulva would also be a great Halloween costume.  Here's a video for a DIY vulva costume.  (Fun Fact: Debby Herbenick was one of my professors in college.)  Maybe use green and grey pantyhose/blankets to make it look zombified.  Add zombie makeup and buckets of fake blood. Make tons of hilarious jokes about bleeding for five days straight and still coming back to life.  If you like penis, change the "braaains" zombie groan to "glaaaaans, glaaaaaaaaaaans".

You can also get zombie vulva jewelry.

Today I went to

Today I went to a Work Event, which is almost a guarantee that I will drink too much coffee.  Now I am mentally tired from talking to people all day but  physically awake from the caffeine.  NB is not home to listen to my sleepy, caffeine-fueled jabbering so instead I turn to you, Internet.

Over the weekend we carved pumpkins.  Our pumpkin looks disgusting.  We got one of the lumpy ones and carved it to look like a zombie.  I put red and green food coloring in some of the pumpkin guts and put them trailing out of the mouth.  Now the guts are kind of dry and crusted on, and I have to say, it looks even better.

How about some reviews of books I've read recently?

Epidemic! The World of Infectious Disease, edited by Rob DeSalle, published in conjunction with The American Museum of Natural History. Pluses: really easy to understand; published in 1999, so kind of interesting to note the absence of SARS, West Nile virus, swine flu, avian flu, and HPV and to think about how many diseases have emerged and/or become familiar to the public in a relatively short period of time.  Minuses: pretty simplistic and some parts are obviously aimed at kids; doesn't include many descriptions of diseases, which is why I checked it out in the first place.

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, edited by David Sedaris. This is a short story collection.  I didn't love every single story, but really enjoyed most of them.  The stories don't share a common theme, other than being short stories that David Sedaris likes, so you get a really wide variety.  I did find a couple of stories difficult to read (especially "The Girl with the Blackened Eye"), so be forewarned if you decide to check it out.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach. I'm in the middle of this book and so far I'm really enjoying it.  It contains some really great sentences, such as, "Albert R. Shadle was the foremost expert on the sexuality of small woodland creatures."

How about a story?

In 2008 I was temping as a receptionist and really hated my job.  One day at work, in an attempt to cheer myself up, I decided to go to David Sedaris's website.  It was perfect timing, because he was just about to come do a reading at a bookstore near my apartment.  I bought a copy of When You Are Engulfed in Flames, his newest book at the time, and went to the reading.  Afterward, I lined up in the book-signing line.  I was so completely starstruck when I finally got up to him that I just stared like a freak until he told me to hand him the book so he could sign it.  Then he asked me how I straightened my hair and drew a picture of Abraham Lincoln's head on the title page of the book.

How about two truths and a lie?

One time I got stuck on a rollercoaster.

One time I threw up in the air sickness bag on an airplane.

One time I found a mouse inside one of my snowboots.

Is anyone reading this?  If so, try to guess the lie.  Or just say hi, if you want.

I feel like so many

I feel like so many of the things I want to write about are negative.  This makes me worry somewhat that I am overly negative in my communication, but at the same time, I think that is a natural tendency for a lot of people.  And, things have been getting me down lately, not to mention that the world is just so full of shitty things.  So please allow me a moment to just say that work is stressing me out, I feel like I might be getting sick, I’m always tired, my apartment is currently in crazy disarray, my to-do list is too long, the world is generally sad, and I long to curl in a ball and speak to no one for a long time.  Or better yet, have access to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z (I have some knowledge of this show after living with several people who watched it), so I could rest and then at least get my personal life in order.

Of course these problems pale in comparison to how monumentally awful life is for so many people and the systemic problems that exist in so many areas and at least my life isn’t regularly under threat and I have access to food and education and clean water and I have fairly reliable social support when things go awry.  These thoughts are meant to put my own problems in perspective, and sometimes they do, but when I am already teetering on the edge of a bad place, they can make me feel so heartbroken about the world and unsatisfied with my efforts to fix problems.  Or sometimes I just feel guilty for thinking at least I don’t live in an oppressive, theocratic society or a country where lack of clean drinking water is an ongoing problem - at least I don't have to face serious problems that many, many people live with on a regular basis.  What a privileged, bitch-face, white, first world-guilt stereotype.  And the fact that I have the time and ability to type all this out further speaks to how I should just SHUT MY MOUTH.

I’m going to stop before I chase my tail further around into a crazy spiral of guilt, truisms, and not one original thought or statement regarding privilege and society and the whole blah-de-blah.

On the positive side of things, I love people in the world and I am loved back.  I live with a very nice man and our personalities click in so many important ways.  I live with a very nice cat who has a round face and likes to cuddle just the right amount.  I have access to library books and black leggings and scarves and beer and public transit and lots of other life-enhancing things.

Well, who wants to end a blog post like that?  No one.  So here’s a link to some Babysitter’s Club fanfic, discovered via the often enjoyable thehairpin.com.

Last Friday

Last Friday, NB (my fiance), a few friends, and I all participated in the wedding of two very good friends.  It was a great time, made NB and I super-psyched for our own wedding, and made me feel incredibly close to my friends.  I went through a several year period where I held almost all people at arms length, and reflecting on this weekend I realized that this is the greatest number of people I’ve allowed to get close to me in the past 10 years.  Navigating social relationships is not always the most natural thing for me, so that was kind of a cool realization.

The weekend was also kind of exhausting and involved a lot of driving and staying out late and sleeping on couches.  I am still feeling it today and it is combining with stuff going on at work and perhaps some wonky brain chemistry to give me The Sads.  The plan for tonight involves lots of cuddle time with NB and the cat, plus pasta with goat cheese, broccoli, and fake chicken.  It really cannot come soon enough.  

Who’s excited that it’s October?  NB and I started our annual scary movie kick a couple of weeks ago, but it will shift into high gear now.  A couple of years ago, NB and I watched a few too many seriously scary movies and both became convinced that our apartment was haunted.  Believing your apartment is haunted by possibly unfriendly spirits is unpleasant.  The cognitive dissonance of being afraid of your haunted apartment while at the same time not really believing in ghosts is even more unpleasant.  So now our rule is to watch the occasional legit super scary movie, some corny B movies, and mostly movies that are scary but not utterly terrifying.

After writing that last paragraph, I realized that in the last few weeks I’ve watched several scary movies, my TV viewing has consisted mostly of shows about female killers and old episodes of The Walking Dead, I’m reading a book about epidemics, and on Sunday I started making a horror-themed mixtape.  I guess I’m in the mood for the macabre.