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FROM THE DRAFT PILE #2

I have been going through some of my old drafts that I never posted over the years (there are over a hundred) and I think I will post some that I find notable every once in awhile. They date back to 2010. 

I thought this post was funny because I continue to have the exact same thoughts about Christmas and this year I screeched the exact same thing: “YOU BREAK IT, YOU BOUGHT IT!” when the annual throwing contest began once again. This year it was stuffed plush snowballs, OMG just kill me now. 

Also notable for some history on my love of nail polish. 

Post Title: BACK AT IT (the grind, that is)
Date: 12/31/11

CHRISTMAS:

The Post-Christmas report? Well, I had to sacrifice my garbage disposal to the gods in order for Christmas to occur, but on the plus side, the cousins did not destroy anything else in my house during their wrapping paper fight, a highly aggravating and destructive family tradition that I put the kibosh on when I told them if they broke anything they would have to pay for it… right after they beaned my chandelier.

Sigh. Family. Gotta love it.

Well, tolerate it.

The thing is, this Christmas I never did feel the Christmas spirit, and honestly I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I lost both my grandfathers this year, and the first Christmas without them was peculiar. 2011: the Great Scourge of Grandpas. I hope next year, as we move on with our lives, will be a little better. We’re coming up on the 1 year anniversary of Jason’s death, and it’s so hard to believe that it’s already been a year. I really miss him crabbing at me. He had this thing

On the plus side, I am the happy new owner of LEGEND OF ZELDA: SKYWARD SWORD! Purchased for me by my father, which I find vastly amusing. I just need to get a Wii Motion Plus add-on for my controller and I will be ready to hack and slash. I should also note that I haven’t actually beat LoZ: Twilight Princess yet; it sort of got lost in the shuffle when I moved. Three years ago. Ahem. I should dig out my Gamecube.

Also: I am two thirds of the way to my beautiful MK watch, hurrah!

NAIL POLISH OBSESSION:

I let it slip in my last post that I am currently embroiled in a sleazy love affair with nail polish. Margie commented that she too has fallen under its dastardly spell!

Uh, so this summer I maybe had like 10 nail polishes? Mostly old ones. I used to paint my nails a lot when I was in high school and just sort of fell out of the habit. And then, my friends, I discovered OPI. I can pinpoint the fixation to the last weekend of August when Abby and I were at Ulta at Tanforan and I spied the Serena Williams Grand Slam duet box of a fabulous glass fleck tomato red and the world’s most perfect gold/bronze:

Mmm. Since then, I’ve gone on periodic binges with people (Malvina… Abby…Penny… etc.) and the collection has grown. Just yesterday I hit a post Christmas sale at Sally’s Beauty and managed to get two of the holiday collection gift boxes from China Glaze and Orly for – get this – $8!! That’s like saving at least $22 on all that. They were marked down and then there was a 50% sale on all redlined items. OH. EM. GEE.

And then there’s the layering polishes – glitters, flakies, shimmers.

Oh God, you guys, it’s a full blown obsession!

I love colors a lot – and have a lot of them now. But what I find myself gravitating towards in daily wear are neutral metallics; they are definitely my favorites. I say this on a day I am wearing shimmering green with gold micro-glitter layered on top. Ahem.

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WATCHING / LISTENING 02.02.18

MOVIES:

The Shape of Water. So, something sort of crazy happened to one of my friends over the holidays. She had to go in for a medical test that was very expensive and not covered by her insurance, so she reluctantly set up a GoFundMe for it. People were starting to send in a little bit of money and then one of her friends tweeted the link to Guillermo del Toro (the director of this movie and many other visually stunning films), asking him to retweet the link. Instead of retweeting the link, Mr. Del Toro paid the remainder balance of the GoFundMe. How amazing is that! My friend was able to get her test without worrying about the cost (and she will be okay).  SO even though I rarely go to the movies anymore, I knew that I had to go see The Shape of Water as an homage to the dude who helped my friend. Not like it was a hardship or anything, I love GDT’s work and even went to his art show at LACMA in late 2016 (At Home With Monsters).

Anyway, this is kind of a Beauty & the Beast fable, about a mute janitor lady who works in a government facility. There she witnesses the delivery of basically the Creature of the Black Lagoon and adventures ensue as she tries to figure out how to help him escape.

Other than being about 20 minutes too long, it was pretty good – nice visuals and some great performances.

Kong: Skull Island. Took me two tries to get through this one (fell asleep the first time) but it was actually a pretty decent monster movie! Was also a period piece – the movie is set in 1973.

The Fate of the Furious. I think this is the 8th Fast & Furious movie? Something like that. It is dumb. But fun. I will say though that I miss Paul Walker (RIP). This one had Charlize Theron as the bad guy in it. I do NOT know what she was doing in this movie aside from collecting a paycheck. Also one of the side characters dies. 🙁 Also there is a submarine.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. This Guy Ritchie King Arthur adaptation is over the top and ridiculous. But there is NO LANCELOT in it! I hate Lancelot! He is the worst! So is Gwinevere! I rather enjoyed it.

TV:


The Alienist. OK, so when I was a kid I found this book in my house and I remember the dark and creepy cover and FOR SURE thought that it was going to be about aliens. Man, was I 100% disappointed. For one, I was way too young to be reading this book about a late-19th-century psychologist and the grotesque murders he was investigating… for another, I never even got that far into the book to realize that’s what it was about because it was so, so boring. When I realized it was not, in fact, about extra-terrestrials, I bounced.

But now that I am twenty-five years older <insert grimace-face-emoji here> and basically watch non-stop true crime 24/7, this type of stuff is my jam. Also, Cary Fukunaga produced and his work is also my jam (first season of True Detective, anyone??). So I decided to give this a try.

The pilot episode is pretty terrible. Setting-wise, costumes, Luke Evans, that’s all fine. But hot damn do the accents suck and like the acting is terrible and it’s violent and depicts boy-whores which is so off-putting on so many levels. But if all that still doesn’t put you off, the second episode was much better. The acting was better and everyone seemed a little more at ease with their characters and what not. I’ll continue giving this a try.

This dude TOTALLY LOOKS LIKE HE COULD BE AN ALIEN, am I right??????
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FROM THE DRAFT PILE #1

I have been going through some of my old drafts that I never posted over the years (there are over a hundred) and I think I will post some that I find notable every once in awhile. They date back to 2010. 

This one features my grandfather Jason, who was still alive at the time, and I was in my “gap months” between employment. About a month after this was originally written I got hired at the job I am still at, 7.5 years later. This post, which I don’t remember writing, made me feel bittersweet.

Post Title: You Need to Ensure That
Date: around 7/1/10

I am leading a life of leisure.

Not on purpose. BUT let’s face it, there are some benefits to being out of work and on the dole:

Sleeping late every day!

Last night I went to Jason’s as usual because it was Wednesday and we all go over there and have dinner. Jason even remembered not to eat before we all got there, so that was nice.  When I got there, my uncle Joel was already there mowing the lawn. And when I got inside, Jason said, “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, plopping on the couch. “It’s Wednesday. Time for my usual mooching of dinner.”

“It’s Wednesday?” Jason seemed perplexed. Then he thought about it a little more and sort of remembered that my mom was bringing over dinner.

“Did you eat?” I asked. The last two weeks he had forgotten we were coming over and had already eaten.

“No,” he said.

“Good.”

Jason is 83.

My mom eventually showed up with the dinner, a hot-weather meal of grilled ham-n-cheese, applesauce, and macaroni salad. I still look at macaroni salad suspiciously, even ten years later. Even my mom’s. But mostly I am suspicious of my other grandmother’s macaroni salad. It is delicious. But I now check the mayo bottle in the fridge for expiry dates every time I’m over there. Lest I land in the hospital with food poisoning and randomly get diagnosed with a 25 pound tumor again.

I digress.

So then my cousin and aunt show up (the rest of Joel’s family) and we had dinner. Jane brought me a cake for my birthday which is on Monday, balloons, and presents! I wasn’t expecting all that, so that was really nice.  They got me movie tickets and my cousin even got me a Starbucks card.

Then my mom started talking about going to Costco because Jason needed some more paper plates and napkins, and since I like Costco and don’t belong to it, I said I would like to go with her. I like the free samples.

My mom takes Jason to the doctor now, and the doctor said he was getting pretty skinny, so told him that he needed to start drinking Ensure every day to get the calories. You can get Ensure at Costco for pretty cheap.

So this morning, having slept late, and still in my pajamas, I get up and am in the den checking my email when my mom pulls into the carport. It’s like, a little after ten.

I had completely forgotten that I said I would go with her to Costco.

But, I was ready to go in a few minutes and we headed over there. It was pretty busy, but I guess it is a holiday weekend (Melissa’s Birthday Extravaganza Weekend; it’s a national holiday).