Sometimes - ok a lot of the time - I wonder exactly what people think of me. If I don't know someone I tend to be very quiet and reserved. I don't speak up, don't really offer my opinions, don't expand on my thoughts or comments. Flying under the radar, being invisible, that's my usual MO. I think this is what an old friend meant when they told me I was very un-Leo-like. Inside, however, I am quite the Leo. I want attention. I want people to laugh at my jokes. I want to be engaging. I take pride in my appearance. The inner Leo always fights with my low self confidence but usually loses. Most of the time just can't shake that ugly, unpopular, wallflower kid feeling from middle school. I feel that anyone I meet immediately sees that I don't measure up and that I am not worth consderation. It's not as though people come up to me on the sidewalk and ask just what business I have going out in public but sometimes it feels that way. My husband tells me that he wishes I could see myself through his eyes. I wish I could too.
There are days when I do open up. Then I talk and laugh and joke. In the moment everything feels fine but afterwards doubt creeps in. Did I talk too much? Was the person just humoring me? Do they think I'm just nuts? I have a caustic sense of humor and a keen sense of observation - does that make me appear harsh or critical? I think I notice these things more the older I get. Possibly because it's so hard to meet people when you don't have a ready made community like high school or college.
I'm not even sure where this post is going...just some random thoughts going through my head at the moment. I'm resisting the urge to delete it though.
Several things have been bugging me lately that are driving me nuts about the LJ communities on my friends list.
1. People using 'big' or 'advanced' words incorrectly or even inanely. This is a sentence from a post that appeared today: "I just love purveying things that are hand made" She's talking about buying things at craft fairs. Mmm, okay. I'm not even going to give her the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that it was meant to be 'purchasing'. It's probably a case of someone using a word that they think means something else. Maybe I'm just weird but any time I'm uncertain of a definition I look it up. Even for words that I use frequently just to make sure I'm not confused. At least she spelled it correctly which brings me to #2
2. Bad spelling - argh! Again, any time I'm not sure of the proper spelling I look it up. A learning disability is one thing but pure laziness (or apathy which I think may also be part of the problem) is another. And something else I don't understand is how someone can't see that they spell things wrong. My biggest example is the tattoo LJs. I can't even say how many times I see someone misspell the word tattoo which is used so often that if you played a drinking game you'd be drunk after reading one or two posts!
3. People posting questions that could be easily answered by using a search engine - is it that hard to look up something? Asking for opinons is one thing but wanting someone else to work for you? Lazy.
4. alot - haaaaate!! And what's even worse is that if it's not in the dicitonary now it will be soon and people will assume then that joining 'a' and 'lot' is correct. Much like many people think irregardless is a real word.
Now I freely admit that my grammar and punctuation is crap. The last lesson I had was in 7th grade and, to be honest, I can't remember a thing. Where to put commas and semi-colons, what splitting an infinitive means, why you're not supposed to end a sentence in a prepostion, what a preposition is anyway...dangling participles...all terms and rules that march through my brain with no tangible sense of how to apply them. I suppose everyone has their Achilles heel. Am I a hypocrite for berating anonymous people about one thing when I'm so weak in another? And that I have no frame of reference for why they post the way they do? I don't know. It's food for thought.
Oh my god am I tired. Lots of tossing and turning plus some freaky dream where I was married to David Haselhoff (who had long hair, wtf?!) made for a poor night's sleep. The night before was like that too only with a different weird dream. I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. Maybe I don't want to know.
My husband has to go to Vegas for work in July and was asking me if I wanted to fly out towards the end of the week for a mini vacation. I like Vegas but I don't know if I want to go out there when it will be so beastly hot plus I'm not sure if I want to use more of my leave. We haven't figured out if we're going to Europe or Morocco in the fall yet so I don't want to take time off that may be better spent then. It also might make more sense to save up and go in the spring and take a few local trips.
I can't wait for the three day weekend to get here, even if I am on call.
Yesterday I went in for the next stage of my tattoo. This session was color, shading, and reworking my old tattoo to make it part of the new design. I'd been pretty psyched all week for my appointment but Sunday morning I was feeling some trepidation. Maybe it was because the feeling of the needle was still fresh in my mind or maybe it was something non-tattoo related but I was not in a good mindset for tattooing when I got to the shop.
Outlining the old ink wasn't so bad but it seemed harder for me to adjust to the pain. It was especially intense when the artist started shading in the areas around the old design to join it with the new. It seemed to go on and on and I could swear that all my skin was gone and she was working directly on the bone. The odd thing was there were some parts that hurt so much I thought I'd start crying and others two milimeters away that felt like nothing. I'm guessing this was different because I've never had much more than an outline and extensive shading was a whole new kettle of fish (not to mention more needles). I didn't cry and in fact I hardly made more than one or two exclamations the whole session but inside I felt like I wasn't handling it was well. It seemed much more mentally taxing than physically.
I had scheduled three hours but at the two and a half mark I had reached my limit. I could feel my instincts making me want to shrink from the needle and felt that it was probably a good time to stop. It seemed to me like I was wussing out...like I hadn't accomplished what needed to be done. She'd hardly started to use color - just a bit of dark blue in some areas - when I said 'uncle'. It wasn't until I looked in the mirror and saw that most of the work was on my old tattoo and now it looked crisp and dark and brand new (and, really, I guess it was). The whole bottom of the design had a new intensity from the dark accents. It looked amazing.
My next appointment is almost a month away but I think that's a good thing. It will give me time to heal and adjust and prepare myself for the next stage. I'm truly amazed at anyone who can sit for hours under the needle. Maybe someday I can work up to that but for now I need to take small steps.
I totally forgot about my blog here. On the one hand I feel like I'm not doing much worth writing about but on the other it's pretty much pure laziness. I've been going through a phase of apathy recently; from dancing, to knitting, to sewing, etc. Little bits of creativity surface now and then but for the most part I feel as though I'm out of touch. Part of the problem is all the sutff in my apartment is piled everywhere and I think it saps my energy. I know I'd feel better if I would get off my butt and clean and organize but I am hardly ever in the mood to do so. The ony time cleaning urges occur are at some inopportune time like midnight when I really need to get to bed so that I can get up for work and also I'm sure my neighbors would not appreciate me running the vaccum at that hour.
My husband and I are a deadly duo of disorganized packrats. I have lots of stuff (collections and crafty things) and he amasses tons of papers and gadgets (and the boxes and manuals and accessories that go along with said gadgets). Even though I can look around and see more of my stuff than his I somehow feel that I am not the problem (oh denial ) since I feel as though my stuff is in neat piles and his is just scattered around. He, however, does not feel the same. We keep talking about changing our habits but that's all it's been so far - just talk. We even bought a book on organzing and cleaning but I think it got buried How sad is that? We really need to find a solution soon though because winter is coming and having to spend more time indoors makes looking at it ten times worse.
Oy vey.
I feel like I should get a sticker that says "I made a phlebotomist happy today!" Every time I have to have blood drawn for tests they always tell me "oh, you have such nice veins". I guess that's cool. Though I'm not thrilled that you can see most of my veins because I'm pretty pale, I'd rather have an easy time giving blood than not. I'd have to say I'm lucky that no one's ever missed a vein or had to dig in my arm.
I had initially decided to start my blog with a recap of my vacation but I'm feeling pretty tired at the moment so I think I'll do that later. I had to get up at quarter to five this morning to work on some servers during the maintenance window. Unfortunately there's no other time to do this but I don't really mind. It means that I get to leave work early and that means I'll miss rush hour traffic. The only crummy part is that I have to get up early the rest of the week to finish the installs so my sleep schedule is going to be off this week.
The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is crawl into bed with my vampire book. I'm not usually one for vampire stories but I really like Charlaine Harris' take on them. My only complaint is that they aren't long enough and I usually finish them within a day or two. It's a nice change from all the history stuff I've been reading lately.
I almost wish that I didn't have belly dance class today but I know I'll change my mind once I get there. That's how it usually goes with yoga too. I just wish I had the chance to take a longer nap after work but since I have to get up early that's probably a good thing.
Gah! My boss keeps sending me emails about new projects and tasks and my mind is so mushy right now that I just can't process them. I have a feeling it's going to be like that all week.
Ok, I admit it. I went shopping yesterday. I didn't need to but I did it anyway. It was the MAC thread that made me do it. I just had to see the new lines and I haven't bought any thing new for a while...er, yeah. I thought I was going to get off easy with a couple of pigments and one of the new cheek stains but then I saw the new liquid liners and - swoon! They had aqua and lime, how could I turn that down?! After that I went down to the book store to pick up the last two Southern Vampire books that are available in paperback. Then I went to Urban Outiftters to check the sale rack because lately I've been finding some amazing deals there. Yesterday was no different and I scored a black lacey 80's style skirt that kinda looks like it got caught in the car door because it has an uneven hemline. Original price was $68 marked down to $4.99! Score!
I am absolutely and completely befuddled. I could swear that I had ordered Dragon Moon along with Eat Me and Obatala and Hymn to Proserpine but after looking through my emails and Paypal I can't find any evidence of such an order. I went back to look at the description of Dragon Moon and there's just no way I would have passed that up ::scratches head:: How freaking frustrating to miss out on Dragon Moon as well as realizing that yummy things I thought I had on order aren't and now I have to wait all over again. I'm so annoyed with myself
Seriously - wtf? This is from the Dragon Moon thread:
I knew I didn't imagine that order! The only thing I can think of is that I never hit the final pay button on the paypal page. Gah
My back itches. I feel like I'm mentioning this too much in the How Are You Feeling thread so I'll expand at length here. For those of you who don't know, I got a tattoo on Friday. It was only the outline but it's pretty big so there's a lot of it and a lot left to go.
When I first made the effort to go out and start looking for an artist, finalizing ideas for a design I had no plans to get what has turned out to be a back piece (or at least two-thirds of one). My original goal was to find something to go around the larger of my two older tattoos which have faded and blurred and don't really have the same appeal to me as they once did. I went and spoke to the artist and when I came back to see her design I was instantly sold. It was wider and higher than I imagined but it was as though she just pulled the jumble of images out of my head and combined it with her own ideas to create the perfect design for me. She let me take the outline home and I looked at it every day. Instead of having reservations I found that grew more excited at the prospect of having this beautiful artwork on my back.
As the day for my appointment drew nearer I began to get anxious - what if I had a panic attack and freaked out? A small part of me wanted to wuss out but I knew I'd be hugely disappointed in myself if I did that. Luckily I had a good friend to go with me and once I got to the studio things moved so fast that I didn't really have time to stop and worry. I forgot to bring a button down shirt to wear over my front (didn't even think about it) so I ended up using a jacket I'd brought just in case I got cold. Good thing otherwise I'd have been sitting there topless. Once my back was shaved and the outline was put on I had to sit backwards on a chair and lean over the top which I shortly realized was rather uncomfortable. The moment the tattoo artist started I thought I was going to cry. It hurt so much more than I remembered! I could not imagine sitting there long enough to get the whole outline done much less adding color later on. My second thought was that there was no way my hsuband could ever sit through this. He wants to get something at some point but I honestly don't know if he could stand the it. My friend held my hand and talked to me so that I wouldn't focus on the pain so much. I thought there was little chance of that and I also didn't believe the tattooist when she said it took about ten minutes to get used to it - how could you get used to such a thing? But not too long after this thought I did start to forget and I was distracted. Some parts still really hurt; my ribs, my spine, oh my god those were the worst. At first I thought I'd want to take breaks but I started to realize that it only felt worse even after a minute and that it was better to just gut it out. Two hours later and the outline was done. I was at my limit and didn't want to push it. My back was cleaned and then the bandage was applied and I was sent home with aftercare instructions, A&D ointment, and Smarties (actually, she gave me Smarties at the beginning too). I was exhausted but pretty much unable to sleep that night. My back felt like I'd had a sunburn with road rash. I had a couple of pillows from the couch I was using to prop myself up so that I could sleep without moving too much. Apparently I kept pushing them away in the middle of the night and they'd knock stuff off the shelf over our bed and onto my husband's head during the night I did that twice
I've pretty much moved from the ouch stage to the itchy stage. I'm not sure which is worse. Pain I can deal with but itching is annoying. Hopefully that will go away in a few days.
The funny thing is that when I got my second tattoo I thought it was huge. Couldn't believe I'd done it and thought maybe it was too big. I thought surely I'd do that with this since it's three times as big but no! I was looking at my back thinking, hmmm now I need something on my shoulders.
Last month I sent in my final car payment. I can't believe I've had my car for that long but there you go. I paid a bit extra every month so I was able to pay it off five months early and save some on interest. Since I usually receive my bill at the end of the month I thought maybe the title would be showing up any day now. Just to be sure I called the car loan people and found out that it hadn't been sent yet. Hmm. I'd heard that you sometimes had to call and ask them to send it and I even had visions of them telling me I needed to pay some sort of fee to get it. But no, the nice man on the phone said they'd send it out right away and to my suprise I came home last night and found that they had fedexed it overnight. Whoot! I now have the title in my hot little hands and my car is allll mine.
That's definitely a feeling of accomplishment.
Right now I'm listening to a Duran Duran remix album and the song Wild Boys is playing. I happened to see that video over the weekend and it's even weirder than I remember. It's also weird that I remember all these little factoids about the video (like how Simon LeBon almost drown on the windmill thing when it got stuck under the water and he couldn't get out of his harness, stuff like that) It reminded me of this Duran Duran fact book that my sister had which I would read over and over and marvel at things like how many walkmen Simon had lost during the year and that Nick Rhodes' dyed purple bangs turned pink in the hot sun when they were shooting videos in Sri Lanka. I suppose what's even stupider is the fact that I remember this stuff and that it's occupying space in my brain that could surely be used for something else. I still love their music though.
Saturday I did something I thought I'd never do. I bought a pair of wedge heels. I've been hating that trend ever since it came back a few years ago but the last few months I've found myself thinking "oooh, those are cute" while leafing through magazines with features on wedge shoes. I actually had no real need for a new pair of shoes much less heels, something I hardly ever wear but Saturday was a bad day.
I was having this insane Boston Creme pie craving and for some peculiar reason there is none to be found in this area (outside the frozen food section in the grocery store). The Cheesecake Factory has earned my enmity for discontinuing their cheesecake version as well as putting nuts in the choloate chip cookie dough so that was out and none of the local restaurants seem to have it on their dessert menu. Too pedestrian I guess. Since this is out of my reach I decide that I would be happy with a chocolate muffin with cream in the middle from Starbucks. But do you think I could find such a thing at the three SB in a two block radius? Nope. I guess it was available for approximately one week in April.
After being thwarted on the dessert front I decide to take my work laptop to Panera so that I can sit with my husband, browse the net, and sip a refreshing gallon of iced tea. Also to get away from the messy apartment that needs cleaning. Silly me, I never use this particular laptop and didn't configure it when they gave it to me eight months ago so I can't remember the password and unlike Linux, Windows is a complete pain in the ass to break into. Instead of sitting watching my husband tinker on his laptop I decide I'll go to Hechts and see what they have in the way of shoes.
I wander around and it seems they are having a sale but most of the shoes are ugly or expensive even when they are on sale. I remember thinking that there was a pair of retro black wedge heels that I liked but I didn't see them out on display any longer. As I'm about to leave I see them stuffed under a rack. I try them on but they are size six and are a bit too small. I decide that if they actually do have my size in stock I'll buy them even though I think $59 is a lot to spend on shoes. This is me playing a silly game where I dare myself to spend money if something actually works in my favor even though I'm really hoping that it doesn't. Suprise, suprise they have my size. I try them on and it feels odd to be taller and to see something other than my familiar chucks on my feet. I almost change my mind but decide to get them anyway (hey, shopping is theraputic right?). Lucky me the salesgirl gives me a coupon and I get them cheaper. A small victory in an othewise crappy day.
My cafeteria manager guy rocks! A few weeks ago I asked him if it was possible to get some Boston Creme Pie (yes I do have a fixation) as one of the desserts. He said he'd check and today he told me that it will arrive on Monday!
I loves me some BCP
My back itches! And that's pretty much all I have to say about that. My legs are also itching like a fiend for some unknown reason. I'm convinced that my skin has declared hostile intent and constantly looks for new ways to torture me.
Tonight I'm absurdly glad that I will be able to have a nice quiet dinner, watch tv, and finish my belly dance belt without any interruption. I love my husband but sometimes it's nice to be home alone. My mom always said I'd make a good hermit. I do like being around people but I also love reading a good book for hours or just watching tv while I knit or sew. There weren't many kids my age in my neighborhood when I was growing up so I learned how to amuse myself at an early on. I think this might also be the reason why I talk to myself so much.
This weekend will be my first performance as a belly dancer. I'm a little nervous but I'm also happy because it will make my dancing seem a bit more real since someone else other than my teacher and her husband will see me perform. Luckily it's going to be somewhat informal so the stage fright won't be so bad. I just hope I do ok.
