Cold Feet, Warm Heart

I don’t know about you, but every time I take a trip, ANYWHERE, the night before I decide I really DO NOT want to go. Paris? Couldn’t peel me away from my Con Law II reading. Rio? Needed to spend some quality time with my cats.

I don’t know what the problem is. Usually once I start packing I’m fine, I’m ready. I can face whatever might happen THERE. Wherever it is I’m going.

Tomorrow I’m heading to a place I’ve LIVED BEFORE, for goodness’ sake (NYC). To see some girls I’ve known and loved like sisters since I was 16. But still, I get scared, I guess. My routine is gone, I won’t have access to my full closet and pantry, and WHAT DO I THINK COULD HAPPEN THERE? AM I 80?

Now that I’m older, it’s a little better. I have enough disposable income (we’ll pretend I’m not a student who called my parents for a loan this month, eek!) so that I can buy the missing toothbrush, socks, whatever.

But still, there’s fear. Do you know what I mean? I know Laurie does. And she’s a world traveler! We talked about it this evening. What about you? Do you get that sudden pull in your stomach? I have felt that way before driving up to Redding! To see my parents! So silly.

Maybe though, just maybe, my feet are EXTRA COLD this time. Maybe because I’m not wearing tights. Nay, I’m wearing…..

LEGGINGS!!

Oh yes, I succumbed. One soy chai latte and a burst of insanity later and I’ve ignored ALL OF YOU and purchased a pair of leggings. WHICH I’M WEARING ON THE PLANE. And if you could just pretend, despite the fact that I have foolishly ignored all of your advice, that my legs don’t looks like stumps, then I would love you forever. Because the last thing I need is to feel no confidence on the plane tomorrow. Since I’ve decided I don’t want to go anyway.

Also, The Boy and I made jack-o-lanterns last night. Mine is the sloppy-looking one on the left.

UPDATE: Legs Safely UNensconced, Other Sources of Happiness

No, no leggings will grace these gams. Thank you all for saving me from a fugly fate.

Also, the following are making me very happy:

1. I’ve discovered that short, black fingernails are an excellent substitute for leggings in my desire to adopt a seasonal trend!

2. THIS gives me daily, unadulterated reading pleasure.

2. Upcoming trip to NY to see these two ladies:

3. The Boy called me tonight while I was writing a paper to tell me to turn on Channel 13, where the weatherman was doing the white man’s hip-hop overbite grind across the blue screen. (“And what about Saturday, Bob?” “Warmer, uh-huh, uh-huh.” (thrust, thrust)). The lead story of the evening was about how cell phone usage allegedly decreases male sperm count and featured interviews of women blushing and giggling. I LOVE LOCAL NEWS.

4. Van Morrison’s “Sweet Thing.”

5. Women? We are crazy. But men? Just as nutty. No matter what some may think.

6. I am going to try NaBloPoMo. Because usually by the time I get around to posting something here, it’s been so long I have no idea what to say. Dude, I have been boring MYSELF to tears.

7. I have decided to forego originality and repeat my Halloween costume of last year:

8. New season of Top Chef. Harold appearing as a guest judge in the first episode.

9. My family.

10. Halloween means I can finally (semi-reasonably) start thinking about Christmas. And because it’s only Halloween, I can still fantasize about how I’ll outdo last year’s WRAPPING BONANZA before reality sets in and I end up giving everyone I know M&M candy canes I got from 7-11.

Leggings: Only for Lemmings?

Are they empirically ugly? Universally unflattering? Or a cute new trend I should try when I go fall clothes shopping tomorrow?

I Was Not Buried Alive in a Cave Earthquake. Luckily.

Recap:

1. Coors Light + Fire = AWESOME

2. Big! Trees!

3. Here’s what I look like tired from sleeping through a rainy night in a tent, with hat hair, and wearing the closest thing to outdoorsy gear I could come up with.

p.s. If you are ever on a tour of a cave, which, if you’ll remember is UNDERGROUND and full of HEAVY ROCKS, and you have a pimply-faced 12-year-old of a guide who likes to compare cave features to dragons and wizards and needs validation in the form of questions from the audience, please do not ask about earthquakes. Please. Because you might send some people, who were hitherto enjoying all the stalactites and stalagmites, into a mental tailspin of fear. And they might hate you. And spend the rest of the tour hoping for some really good lighting in one of the cave chambers so that you could see the death glares they are sending you. Dumbass.

Into the Wild

Would any picture on this site be complete without a flash of Fred or Ethel tail?

Dude, I am going CAMPING. Which I have not done since, like, COLLEGE, during which time I also experimented for two weeks, maybe more, only Urs knows, with not shaving my legs in some UCSC-induced attempt at getting back to my “natural” state (which, btw, any deconstructionist worth her salt will tell you never existed, yay for liberal arts education! I heart Baudrillard!) and maybe with some other things as well but I’ll never tell because what if I want to run for Congress? They’ve got standards in who they let in (bet you thought that was a link to Mark Foley, eh?)!

Anyway, I am CAMPING. AND it is probably going to rain, or maybe even SNOW. And I am happy that I’m still the kind of person who will give it a go, the ole’ college try even, even though I have NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING. Today I learned to pitch a tent and start the PocketRocket stove.

Probably you do new things all the time. But I think because my 30th is looming (in fact, I’m even getting excited for it), I like to give myself a pat on the back any time I step out of myself and try something new. I’m laying down new tracks in my brain, you know! Staving off Alzheimers! Because I have to think about that now!

My Barbies were always 28 or 29. They were always doctors (did anyone else have the one side examining room the other side city apartment?) or equestriennes or some respectable profession, but they never made it to 30. Probably because I knew that’s when my mom had me.

So I am happy, and scared, that I am going camping. Maybe we’ll see some stars. Maybe the stress of slogging through the rain and making astronaut meals in a tent will be too much for us. Who knows?

It’s crazy out there, man. There’s like, wilderness and shit.

These Are My Confessions

Me (on phone): Laurie, I am DYING. DYING. It has taken me FORTY MINUTES to go three blocks. My hand hurts from hitting the steering wheel in frustration.

Laurie: Whoa. Let me read you a little Trent.

Me: I am supposed to be Hollywood gossip-free for a week. Do you think it counts if I can’t see the pictures?

Laurie (BEST FRIEND EVER): No, totally not. Besides, how can you give up gossip? YOU were the one who made ME start reading it.

Me: I knoooww. I suck. So does this traffic.

Laurie: I love Trent. Now I can never see any baby without picturing a little pink thought bubble, “‘Sup, Bitches!” (Begins reading Trent).

And thus, my gossip hiatus was over. Less than 8 hours after I declared it.

Can you believe Paris and Nicole are friends again? They’ve got nothing on me and Laurie.

Falling Out of the Habit

Photo from Joshua Davis, via Creative Commons

A long time ago Gloria tagged me with a Name Your Four Vices meme. I never responded it because it seemed like an exercise in self-esteem demolition. Procrastination, unadulterated navel gazing, gossip, boozin’? Yes!

I’ve made some good changes over the last year — reintroduced green things into my life, started running and cut down on my shopping. But there are still lots of things I need to do better.

I know resolutions are typically something you do for New Year’s, but fall feels like the real Beginning of the Year to me. You should be buying school supplies and your first day of school outfit.

Anyway, inspired by Martha’s Going Green tips (I watched because Tracey Ullman was on, knitting!), and also because I drive the boyfriend nuts with this behavior, I’m going to start TURNING OFF THE DAMN LIGHTS. I don’t know how, considering my dad chased us around the house grumbling (“What, you think I am made of money? Electricity is not free. Goddamn cats.” (the cat comment would have had nothing to do with us kids’ failure to conserve our natural resources but would have been spurred with the sight of one of them, for whom my dad claimed hatred; however, Snuggles, Fraidy, Tickles, Bag of Bones, Bobo and Frodo could all offer plenty of petting and lap-snuggling in evidence to rebut, snap!)) and sending us back into rooms to turn lights off my whole life, but somehow I lost the ability to turn the light off when I leave a room.

It’s gone, much like high school French.

So that’s one resolution.

The other one (there are only two, baby steps!) is just a trial resolution. I’m not sure I’m ready to commit.

I am going to try, for one week, to stop reading any celebrity gossip. Just for a week! Just to see if I miss it. Mainly it was seeing this video that did it:

I am ruining Kate Hudson’s &@#*$%^ workout, dude! Or you know, the paparazzi are because I’ll look at stupid pictures of her running.

And I know, it’s the price she pays for what she does, and she has no right to complain given that those pictures advance her career, and whatnot. But I felt bad. And besides, who knows what else I might fill my brain with if I’m not spending a half-hour a day staring at Paris’ crotch or wondering if Mischa’s wrist is really hurt or she’s just copying Lindsay?

We’ll see. If I miss it after a week, I’ll head back to my favorite sites.

And if I don’t? Who knows what I’ll be doing with those free brain cells. Probably not much. I still haven’t kicked that unadulterated navel gazing habit.

From Martha to Fruit Flies in 2.3 Seconds

Wasn’t it just two days ago I was like a PARAGON of domestic perfection, minus the prison poncho and neighbor harassment?

Really! It was! Saturday my apartment was immaculate, my plants were watered, and I was preparing a picnic for 10 for a Hollywood Forever Cemetery screening of Dawn of the Dead. My kitchen was filled with the smells and sights of:

– prosciutto, melon and camembert-filled baguettes
– roasted vegetable and ricotta baguettes
– curried potato salad (which, btw, I amended by roasting the potatoes and adding raisins, yummy!)
– candied walnut and feta salad with blood orange vinaigrette

And I only burned myself twice! And only came to near-tears once!

And now? One paper due later and I’ve got a half-rusted baking sheet in my sink and there are fruit flies hovering which means that somewhere, some fruit or vegetable I can’t see is dying a slow, stinking death. AWESOME.

So, I surrender. I will never be Martha. Martha doesn’t cry. She certainly doesn’t allow fruit flies in her kitchen. I probably couldn’t even pull off Rachel Ray. Mostly because there is NOT ENOUGH COCAINE IN THE FREE WORLD to make me that perky.

It’s fine. I can accept that I’m no domestic goddess.

At least…

Until Thanksgiving, which I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT because I am making it this year! For my whole family! And Laurie and Amber! But I’m not going to get too ambitious. No. I can’t subject my family to my crazy machinations and self-induced stress implosions.

Now, where were those instructions for that grapevine chandelier I made a couple years ago?

I just hope at Thanksgiving my guests depart before the fruit flies arrive.

p.s. If you have any tried-and-true favorite T-giving recipes you want to tell me about, I would be ever so grateful! And so would my family!