Strike

I'm on strike. Again. For reals this time.

Glasses

I started wearing glasses at nine years old. They were turquoise and large and I looked very silly. But at nine years old, I felt pretty super cool wearing them because as far as I was concerned, they were a mark of smartness. The mark of someone smart enough to come up with a better word than smartness. Cleverness? Intellectualism? Whatever. Point was, I was less concerned with looking attractive and more concerned with my teachers liking me and writing nice notes on my tests.
Obviously as I grew older my priorities began to change and suddenly adding glasses to the mix of giant fluffy hair, legs of disproportionate size to my body, and practically translucent skin was terribly unappealing. So I stopped wearing them.
But...could you SEE? you might ask. The answer is no, no I could not see. From age 12 to age 16 I wandered around in a cloudy haze, not even completely sure of what my friends looked like, which occasionally caused minor problems when I arrived late to the cafeteria.
At 16, I changed my life by getting myself contacts.
I hate wearing glasses. I hate the way they look, I hate the way they feel, I hate the way I have to take them off and on when I eat or read so I don't get a headache. Also I hate the way they look. But for eight years now it's all been okay, because I wear my contacts most of the time.
And then June happened. June did a large number of unhealthy things to me, including giving me the Eye Infection That Would Not Die. The doctor tells me it is minor, and it certainly feels minor, but it means: No Contacts. For an Indeterminate Amount of Time. Thus far an Indeterminate Amount of Time has been very nearly two months and is beginning to look more like an Interminable Amount of Time.
Here we come to the Poor Decision Making. While I was a teenager, wandering around totally blind was acceptable because I was a teenager, and teenagers are stupid. Now, however, I am 24 years old, and for a month now, I have done a lot of stupid things without wearing my glasses. Going on walks, to dinner, to bars, to clubs, on dates...
It is one thing to go out with your close friends and say, "Just make sure you don't leave without me" and another to be on a first date standing painfully close not because it is a key part of your seduction technique but because you are afraid if he moves much farther away you won't be able to pick him out of the crowd.
This, clearly, cannot be allowed to go on. And yet my vanity is so monstrous that I cannot overcome it with common sense. So I'm trying uncommon sense. I went out and spent money I don't have on an expensive pair of chic red designer glasses in the hope that my love of wearing things that are red and expensive will trump my hatred of looking at myself in glasses.
The most smartest solution possible. Clearly. We'll see how well it works after I finally pick them up this week.

Bathing Suit!

What with the insanity that has recently become my life, I did not find a topic for today's post. Rachael and I have been spending a large amount of time with each other and, more recently, with her new foreign exchange student. Actually, there is a poor decision for you. I demanded his hand in marriage this weekend, which is probably something I should not have done, the fact that he is only 19 not withstanding. And I do mean demanded rather than asked. Though he believed I was joking. So I'm just going to have to try again this weekend.
But news! Between picking up strangers in bars (okay, maybe another poor decision?), having trouble parking (I PARKED RACHAEL'S CAR), getting lost (Rachael stopped paying attention to the streets and started paying attention to Ke$ha on the radio), freaking out the exchange student with the size of our cheeseburgers, and other shenanigans, WE BOUGHT A BATHING SUIT. Rachael made me drive out to the far reaches of the far reaches of the edges of the city and I found the absolute only one piece bathing suit in a size below a 6 and I promptly BOUGHT IT.
No swimming today though. Trip to FunFest! Where fun will be had by everyone but me. I will be busy running around shouting "KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF!" "STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER!" "STOP TELLING YOUR SISTER YOU ARE GOING TO KILL HER!" "STOP TELLING YOUR SISTER YOU ARE GOING TO KILL HER BUT IN SPANISH. I UNDERSTAND SPANISH."

Omigod, Shoes

So it's been a while since my last post. For those of you who feel slighted, wronged, or let down by this, may I refer you to my first post, in which I detail how I am a killer of blogs. You were warned.

That said, I am not ready to accept my inevitable defeat, and am finally going to post something worthwhile on here.

Here goes.

The poor decision, which has led to blinding, consuming addiction, and which I repeat on a near daily basis is the decision, nay the need, to purchase shoes.

It began innocently enough, and, as a point of fact it's all my parent's fault. Mere moments after my birth, soft cuddly baby booties were placed on my innocent feet, and something in my head clicked. Angels sung, lightning flashed, climax was achieved! Or something similar. I'm not one to quibble over details.

Years passed. Shoes came, shoes went. Little hand knitted sandals. Those tacky little jelly things that were so hip in like 2001 and that they're trying to bring back for some reason. An enormous pair of Union Jack platforms with these tacky tacky laces that I bought at Hot Topic and thought were the shit. These adorable green bowling style shoes that I wore until my mother threw them out. Black corduroy ballet flats that cost all of three dollars. About a million pairs of flip flops. My first pair of two hundred dollar boots. Excuse me, I need a minute to compose myself.

Alright, I'm back.

The point is, that shoes are amazing. When I see a good pair of shoes, I go all weak at the knees. And I'm not talking about comfort here. I'm not talking about function. I'm talking peep-toe fuck-me pumps. I'm talking platforms. I'm talking patent leather. I'm talking orange strappy sandals. I'm talking foot crippling, blister giving, ankle breaking, stairs falling, heart stopping fabulous fucking shoes. I may need another minute.

I suppose I should refocus myself. This entry isn't supposed to be about bragging about how fabulous my new cork platforms are, or how cute my ankles and calves look in those hot little green booties I bought last month, or how many fantastic pairs of shoes I have (at last count, a paltry 35 pairs). This entry is supposed to be about poor decisions, and defeating them. Turning poor decisions into opportunities for learning. For growth.

AND SO, in the spirit of growth, of literacy, and of giving it the old college try, I am facing my addiction.

I admit it. I admit I have a problem with shoes. I admit, that when pressed, the decision over whether to buy groceries or to buy a fabulous new pair of pumps becomes rather more difficult than it really ought to be. I admit that I have fantasized about last season's amazing Prada heels with the ribbons ohmygod. I admit that I have theorized that if I were a pair of shoes, I'd be these fantastic printed silk pumps by Pucci that I saw once in Vegas and have obsessed about since. I admit that I have cooed at the windows of particularly nice shoe stores as if they were full of goddamn puppies. I admit it.

And I do not regret it. Poor financial planning be damned. Nordstrom is having a sale next week, and there are some seriously cute boots in their catalog. Who's with me?

-Rachael

Poorly Thought Out Promises

Outside of a few forced hours as a camp counselor, I have not been swimming in about 12 years. I have several reasons for this. 1) I do not like being immersed in water. 2) I get cold in the water very quickly and feel quite miserable. 3) Have you actually watched exactly how much snot kids leave behind in public pools? I have. 4) I hate wearing a bathing suit. I know, I know, long legs slim waist, NOW people are all, "Oh I wish I had your figure!" Where were those people in my formative years? During the years when my self esteem/self perception was being formed I was surrounded by people who mocked me, told me I looked "disgusting" and like I "should be dead" and was offered help for my imagined anorexia by complete strangers. I have about ten billion issues at this point in my life in this general area, but that's not all that relevant. The relevant part is, I have a horror of appearing in public in a bathing suit. Which is why, I DO NOT EVEN OWN ONE.
I have stated before, I work with children. This summer, part of my work with the children is taking them twice a week to the community pool. And of course, they all want me to play in the water with them.
I love my children. I adore them. I would do and have done a LOT of things for them. I would get over my dislike of water immersion, and I would deal with being cold and miserable, and I would try very hard to forget about all that snot. The bathing suit thing...that's pretty deep rooted. But these children, they can get me to do anything for them. So only one week into swimming, after swearing up and down that there was absolutely nothing those obnoxious little brats could do or say to convince me to get in the pool, there I was promising them all I would go out and buy myself a bathing suit JUST so I could swim with them.
This was already a Poor Decision. But then I took it further. They were so whiny and so...large eyed and C and A and M and J and all the others make those FACES and when they do that all I want to do is make them HAPPY so I told them that if I failed to do as I promised I would just get in the pool in my CLOTHES.
I really thought I would have a bathing suit by tomorrow. I did try. I went to all kinds of stores. The thing is, whoever designs bathing suits seems to think that if you are a size 2-6, you want to flaunt everything. As far as I can tell, no one even MAKES one pieces for those sizes anymore. And not only are there no one pieces, the two pieces are so tiny that it would be less scandalous to run around in my smallest under garments.
I technically still have this weekend, but I'm quite busy and not at all hopeful and running out of places to bathing suit shop.
I am in trouble, you guys.