5 signs that you’re watching too much daytime tv while unemployed

this could also be titled “5 reasons i love tivo” or “5 reasons why i’m a loser” or “5 reasons i need to get out more,” etc.

i've also been watching a lot of those court shows where bitter d-bags sue each other for, like, $100... ooo, and car chase shows. all time well spent.

1)    you find yourself watching the home shopping network (hsn)– and you keep watching.

2)    you find yourself amazed by a demonstration of [insert useless product here] and wondering how you’ve lived your entire life up until that moment without said product.

3)    you find yourself dialing the 1-800 number on the screen with one hand and clutching your visa card in the other.

4)    you find yourself ending the call and realizing, with horror, that you actually just ordered this off the home shopping network.

5)    you find yourself seriously considering enrolling at western career college to begin training for an exciting new career as a medical assistant!  and for the rest of the day you find yourself repeatedly singing that retarded jingle: “western career college– you can do it!”

two more signs and we might have an apocolypse on our hands.

of course, if there is, i won’t notice since i’ll be glued to hsn, draining my ever-shrinking checking account as i purchase jewelry from the tori spelling collection in between deciding whether to become a massage therapist at the national holistic institute or to call bryman to find out how to get started toward earning a degree in criminal justice…

oooo, maybe i need a personal injury lawyer, too…

airing my dirty laundry

so, most of my posts thus far have outlined the various things i hate with, according to my standards, very solid reasons for hating them.  i am now adding cleaning to that list.  i have a horrible tendency to allow the state of my room and the height of mount laundry to reach such a pitch that i suddenly can’t stand it anymore and feel compelled to fix it immediately.  after seperating mount laundry into colors and whites in two hills of laundry (not tall enough to qualify as mountains), i am taking a break to compose this post while the whites spin at warp speed in sudsy water to soon emerge clean and wet and ready for the second leg in their journey: the dryer.  i am sitting on my partially stripped bed realizing that by starting the cleaning process so late at night has essentially sentenced me to a long night of loading loads into washer, switching to dryer, folding half-heartedly, and trying to stuff various articles of clothing into their assigned drawers in a dresser that is way too small which will, as usual, result in most of the clean clothes ending up in piles around my room where they will accumulate wrinkles and eventually be deemed “dirty,” thrown back onto mount laundry before they’ve even been worn.  i am so predictable.  it’s kind of annoying.

mount laundry and natural surroundings

you would think that if i can recognize such faults in myself that i would be able to somehow change, to rectify.  but, alas, this is not the case.  i am very good at criticizing (and that applies to all the people in my life), but i fall short of actually fixing the problem(s).  oh, well.

so, what’s new?  i need to make a “to do” list of all the crap that i need to take care of before the mental list i’ve got going gets so long that it overwhelms my psyche and i just give it all the middle finger and forget it.  i really can’t allow that to happen… again.  so here’s another list for those of you who choose to spend your precious free time reading about me, my life, and basically just my whiny-ass self.

voila.

very important and vital tasks to perform as soon as humanly possible:

1. make a list of very important and vital tasks to perform as soon as humanly possible– check!
2. wash clothes– make piles of “to keep” clothes and “to give away” clothes
3. go to sjsu financial aid office and get someone to explain what the fafsa form i received means, find out how much $$ i get and how much i’m responsible for
4. make appt with prof. bob before spring break to discuss my progress (ugh)
5. get new audiobooks from all ears
6. go to work to complete on-line training
7. list little tv/vcr on craigslist (various vhs movies included!)
8. dust, vacuum bedroom
9. dust dust dust!
10. return that dvd to blockbuster before they charge me to just keep it (zack and miri make a porno– good, not great)
11. schedule appt with stanford blood center for platelet donation (i have cmv negative blood– most people are positive so being negative makes my blood particularly valuable since hospitals can’t give cmv positive blood products to preemee babies, hiv/aids patients, cancer patients, and any other people with immunity issues.)
12. make regular posts to blog… even though i still haven’t told a soul at work or any of my friends (except shelbs and o. from class) about it
13. start taking more pics now that i have nice new laptop and a good digital camera (merci boyfriend!)
14. take charlie for regular walks
15. schedule appt w/ vet for charlie check-up
16. call my chris for hair appt– cut and color (pink?)
17. recycle all the bottles accumulating in back seat of car
18. take car to classic for good scrub down and vacuum
19. pay visa and macy*s bill
20. stop making lists of shit to do that i won’t actually do and torture myself for not doing

well, that was fun.  probably pointless, but fun nonetheless.  today i did manage to at least start the cleaning process and i returned a window shade i bought for the boyfriend’s bedroom in his mom’s new condo that turned out to be too small (of course) since i didn’t bother to measure the damn thing first.  well, she ended up buying him a nicer one anyway, so it worked out.

see ya next time… don’t expect any of the aforementioned crap to be done.  i was just airing my dirty laundry, so to speak.

sur ma liste aujourd’hui

he may have been lost, but all i could think was: "i want your hat."

i’ve decided to make lists.  i love writing out lists of endless amounts of crap i need to do, but i rarely actually do anything from my lists.  but i enjoy them all the same.

i’ve never really explained why i love paris so much.  since i was maybe eight or nine i dreamed of seeing the eiffel tower in person.  i must have seen its daunting beauty on tv or in a newspaper or something, but whatever it was, it lit a fire under me and for the next 10 years my dream lived on.  i went in high school as a 16 year old french student and took the typical tourist trip.  we hit all the important eglise, cathedrals, museums, monuments, castles, and quaint country towns.  the south of france was nice, but paris remains my true love.  so, while attending de asia, i signed up for a study abroad program that would set me up in an apartment (avec a roommate) and i would attend classes at a little extension school.  since i couldn’t legally drink back home yet, i basically stayed at least half drunk for two months straight.  i also started smoking a pack a day of marlboro reds to help me assimilate.  it worked.  i met some amazing people that i still think about, wondering what’s going on in their lives now that nearly four years has passed since i walked the cobblestoned streets, licking nutella from my chin and trying to absorb as much culture as possible.  it was so wonderful, i didn’t have to work for the first time in six years, and i could devote my energy to school and blending into the french crowd of which i so wanted to be a part of.  but april turned into may and may became june and i had to board a plane back to california.  while i still have so many memories from my time there, i’m no longer in contact with any of the people from the memories.  i miss ross and vered who proved to be awesome friends, with whom i shared so many bouts of laughter and with whom i sobbed tearful goodbyes into their shoulders, and they into mine.  i tried to keep in touch, but the circumstances just wouldn’t allow it.  vered moved to hollywood to be an actress and ross left for san fran to live with his girlfriend.  and sometimes i allow my thoughts to drift to one more person who left such a great impact on my soul.  but, like i said, i left paris to return to my home in san jose (northern california is a fantastic place to live, too, so i have been exceedingly lucky) and he stayed behind in his home.  i used to hope he would show up on my doorstep announcing plans to stay and live here, but that childish desire flitted away like a delicate butterfly.  i came home and shawn (aka the boyfriend) presented himself and for the first time in my life i found myself able to accept kindness and affection from a boy.  the boy i left behind did this for me without ever knowing it; he made it possible for me to love again.

**sigh**

life happens when you’re busy doing something else, or however the saying goes.  well, that explanation may seem cryptic, but i assure you there will be more paris stories over time– i’ve got a million of ’em.

ok, now the list of shit i will never do of things to do this week:

1. scale mount laundry and actually fold the shirts and whatnot right after so i don’t have to iron (ehh i hate ironing!)
2. purchase textbooks for this semester
3. take charlie for a walk qd
4. learn to add music to this blog
5. write in blog qd
6. drink more water and eat less without picking up smoking again
7. cut back on various vices (the boyfriend knows)
8. make valentine’s reservations at loony boon or boony loon or whatever that winery is called (merci ash & j.c. for the generous gift certificate) for wine tasting and food pairing, very chi-chi.
9. wash face q night hs (hs=at bedtime in pharmacy speak)
10. send two month late payment to capital one, transfer $$ to visa so they stop calling me
11. re-order checks from wells fargo so i can pay aforementioned bills
12. remember to save $$ q week for tuition in august (goal: $3000)
13. schedule charlie for vet visit
14. go to audiobook store all ears in saratoga for new books. (just finished all 7 harry potters, all of david sedaris they had, memoirs of a geisha, and the giver) next i want the time traveler’s wife and maybe something by christopher moore.
15. be nicer, be more gentle, and be a better listener.