Headdress on

Headdress on
Originally uploaded by dckatastrophe

I love Halloween.

I love crafting.

It's only right that Halloween mean a few hot glue gun burns, finding needles in your couch-used-as-pin-cushion, hunting through your spare fabric, and general giddiness because you dug to the DEPTHS of your stash of stuff you save for moments exactly like this.

I had more fun making my Carmen Miranda headdress than I can properly explain. It's raining out. Shitty E! is playing in the background. I am "allowed" to come into work a little late tomorrow because I've been pulling some late hours. I covered something with hot glue. There are remnants of feather everywhere and there's no avoiding vacuuming my couch (really: i should get a desk).

I've already paraded around my house trying to get the balance of it correct, which I think was pretty even (you know, on purpose, I'm cool like that).

I got the idea from CRAFT magazine, which totally sells out my awesome geekery. Angie Pontani of the Pontani sisters (a burlesque troop) supplied the instructions and inspiration. When I saw it online, I IMMEDIATELY knew it was for me. I don't think she knows yet, but we are friends. Submitting stuff like this to awesome magazines? BRING. IT. ON.

I just need to make a skirt. I was most-worried about the headpiece, so making a skirt will be easy-peasy

Life doesn't get any better than this. Ok, well less burns on my fingers might be nice. I am typing this in pain. HOT GLUE IS HOT!

Faux-Halloween is in full effect on Saturday and I can't wait.

It seems to me

That the "shorter period" birth control commercials have cornered the market. And by that, I mean they know how to sell birth control pills. By featuring basset hounds to capture my attention before I go "OH, another birth control commercial! Telling me how much I must surely be suffering in some way for my chemically responsible decision to not have children."

Usually when these commercials come on I laugh, and think "Buy the three extra packs. And maybe just never have your period?" and roll my eyes and go back to looking at the internet while watching TV while talking on the phone.

There are a few exceptions.

There's the commercial for Loestrin 24, featuring Cammie and her basset Shorty. I like that fellow. He's wee and has ankle fat. Floppy ears and is leash-trained. What's not to love?

Perhaps the idiotic dream that his doggie-mama lives in alphabet city, sits around googling birth control and THEN calls up her man. When I googled the commercial, you find a whole RUN DOWN of how this character lives her life.

But I'm not going to switch my birth control in hopes of becoming like her, and having a loft, I "fix up with flea market and second hand" finds. And no, I do NOT believe she lives in Alphabet city, but NICE ONE Loestrin. I'm sure some teenage girl might think that is EXACTLY what she might do when she graduates college and becomes suddenly aware that brilliant good luck like Cammie's TOTALLY exists. Move to this New York and see if she can't have a loft in a pricey neighborhood, with a dog and a man and skinny-ass legs in jeans tucked into boots.

The basset hound is the only thing in that commercial that's real. That chick is perplexed enough by lady times to spend an idle afternoon googling it. Thankfully, she doesn't hide for a whole WEEK when her period comes and ruins her life, she only hides for up to three days! It's like four whole extra days to LIVE.

And then! Today! One minute, staring dreamily at Anthony Bourdain in Tahiti talking to drag queens, then another and THERE IT IS. Some chick, alone at the beach because her friend wouldn't come with because she had her period. The bad, bloaty friend texts back and forth with her sunbathing, well-adjusted friend about how shorter periods would bring world peace. Or feed children in developing countries.

Or rather, how the sunny, skinny friend is SMART! Takes birth control that lightens everything up. Lame bloaty friend seems to think you must sequester yourself in shrouds of lady-misery and communicate only via text.

Friend at the beach is all "whatever, Bloaty", cuz she has two ice cream cones and a man waiting for her on the boardwalk.

See that? Sit at home with a sweatshirt tied around your waist to hide any potential "issues" and you could miss out on meeting a MAN. A handsome man who loves mint chocolate chip as much as you do. AND ALSO, HAS A BASSET HOUND.

I'm telling you.

Clearly, market research has been done. I'm mad ad agencies know this. And tell pharmaceutical companies to capitalize on it. A bunch of old white guys must know the twenty-something ladies, like me, seem to think that the trifecta of happiness is skinny, man, and dog.

I'm not going to lie. It's a bit my life dream to be skinny, have a nice man-friend (check!) and have a dog.

My life's dreams are being sullied. So that I might be marketed to.

More dogs, less whiny friends in commercials, please.

Can't spell insomnia without MIA

It's two am.

I am wide awake.

blink blink.

W-I-D-E A-W-A-K-E.

In my living room. Gone AWOL from the bed because isn't that what you are supposed to do? Only sleep in bedroom, no fidgeting.

Where did I go wrong?

I suppose I slept in too late this weekend. That probably robbed me of a decent night's sleep last night and tonight. When you sleep 24 hours total in a weekend, why would you need weekday sleep? Aren't you supposed to not sleep in?

I suppose I shouldn't have taken ONE Tylenol PM last night in order to start the week off on the right sleeping foot since i slept until noon both days. I was strung out on it well past 4pm and useless at work. I was so exhausted from being drunk on whatever a half dose does to you that I fell asleep for twenty minutes this evening.

I suppose I shouldn't have taken a power nap at 7pm. I was just so tired from being drunk on Tylenol that I needed to give into the exact urge I had been fighting for 12 hours.

I suppose I should have been less combative in a meeting today, but I have no patience for self importance amid your post-it notes.

I suppose I should be more patient, or at least, learn to let my mini-grudges go. I think a large part of my insomnia is residual anger that just snowballs.

I suppose I should be less angry, and might learn from his that going to the gym exhausted is better in the long run for your mental well-being. Working it out at the gym is better than muttering to yourself about everything you are angry about at 2 am on an idle Monday night.

I suppose muttering might be ok, because it drowns out any creaks and groans from my apartment building that are crazed lunatics trying to break in. My windows might be 7 feet off the ground, but lunatics are raised mighty tall these days, and are hankerin' for a break-in.

I suppose whipping through "The Boleyn Inheritance" is not the best way to soothe yourself to sleep. First of all, it's heavy enough to fend off any potential attackers, and secondly, it makes me angrier about girls treating each other horribly throughout history, the lack of feudal feminism, and how I might end up poisoned or beheaded, or both.

At least there's Bourdain on for me at this hour. He's in Brazil, the least I could be in is lala land.

too much cheese, sushi and brown butter

I love the weekends because I get to cook (or eat!) a bit better than during the week just because I have more TIME.

During the week, I get home about 6:30 or 7, and often hit the gym. By the time I'm back ,it's late-ish and if I want to make an involved dinner, then I'd better be wanting to eat at 10pm or later. Often, if I feed the DK, I like to make something nicer than grilled cheese, because who doesn't like to woo one's significant other with delicious food? But eating late means it's hard to get to sleep, which means I can't sleep for days, and then I end up going to bed at 9pm, avoiding Anthony Bourdain, Tyra, and all other TV hosts that distract me from spending time in my un-cable equipped bedroom.

Friday night: Ladies fondue night at my house. We watched dreamgirls, ate cheese, drank arbor mist (YES! we are proud, whatever) and hung out with our full bellies protruding from our sweatpants. Classy girls night in full effect!

Saturday night: I grazed all day and then had delicious, delicious sushi at Bamboo Cafe in Virginia. It was an old haunt of my friend E's and we had some SERIOUS delights. They put creamy shrimpy sauce on California rolls. How smart are they?

Sunday: I went to Eastern market with Shifty, to buy lunch meats and fish for dinner. After drinking wine and eating pretzels all lazy afternoon, E came over for a dinner of scalloped potatoes, steamed veg, and fish in browned butter and lemon sauce.

This week I have delicious sandwiches and apples for lunch.

Life is ok. Sandwiches and cheese are plentiful.

I don't have anything to say

Partly because tonight marks night #2 this week that I will be in bed before 9pm. I guarantee it.

As a total night owl, this kills me.

I was at the gym, half-heartedly chugging along on an elliptical, and could barely keep my eyes open. I made a grilled cheese sandwich for my gourmet dinner, and almost let it drop out of my hand.

You have to be in pretty dire straights to be dropping sandwiches and can't make it through an episode of America's Next Top Model, let alone stay up for the Top Chef finale.

TV and sandwiches. That's really all I ask on weeknights. Maybe I go to the gym, maybe I have a beer with friends, but a good dinner and some tube is really all I need.

And right now, I am propping my eyelids up to see who Tyra kicks off and then promptly ignore my dishes and leap right into bed.

Ignore the vacuuming. Ignore the work I brought home with me that I will get up earlier tomorrow to do. Ignore listening to my voice mail (Alex, I'm so sorry I owe you a phone call) and just read a page out of my library book and just pass out.