30-Day Challenge: Day One

[spritechan]

I took that pic just now XD

1. I love having painted nails but I hate painting them. They look so pretty! Paying for a manicure is too much, but I'll throw it in with a pedicure or an eyebrow wax once in awhile. I always need to apply two coats to my nails at minimum. I'm also pretty sloppy at it... I get it all over my fingers and then obsessively pick at the skin to get it off. I really shouldn't be allowed to paint my nails, to be honest.

2. I internet stalk a lot of different people. Not because I want to be creepy, but because I like to know people. I often then talk about online people as if I really know them, or if they're my friends. Sometimes I even get annoyed with Steve when I reference someone - Not Athena, he knows you :) but like Jessicka or Carmen or Allie - and then he doesn't know what I'm talking about so I have to be all, "Allie from hyperbole and a half?!" or (back in the day) "Athena-from-livejournal-who-lives-in-Portland?!" In fact, most of the time I have to say those things anyway because he makes fun of me for talking about you all as if we are on a first-name basis.

3. I have never been happy with the way I look. I want to change so many things about myself, many that I can't even control. Buuuut, I want thin arms and legs and a flat tummy. I'm so lazy. And even if I wasn't, I really don't know how much I could really alter my appearance. I've always had chubby legs and flabby arms, even when I was skinny. I wish I had more of a chin. I'm also super annoyed with my hair. Thinking about going with a change... maybe getting some bangs. It's always so scary when making that decision because bangs can take so much time to grow out. I'm definitely changing colors. I wish my parents let me dye my hair the fun colors when I was a teenager, because I have this unfulfilled need to dye it pink, or purple, or green D:

4. I crave being crafty. I always want to start some new amazing craft. Currently I mostly just knit, but I always wish I could crochet, or do beadwork, or pick up cross-stitch again, or do stuff with food, or make jewelry, or draw/paint/sculpt. I want to do it alllll. I took a sculpture class in Junior High that I LOVED. It was so fun. I'm not very good at art though. I never took any art classes in high school. My fine arts requirement was filled by band, and I didn't have room in my schedule anyway. When I think about Leah + Art, I hear that line that Allie's (from Hyperbole and a Half XD) dance teacher wrote about her talent: "Allie tries hard." That'd be me and art. As a child, I thought I could write. I remember my family loving my work, but I don't remember finishing any stories, and I'm horrible with poetry. I just have a vivid imagination!

5. I'm incredibly awkward around people I'm not close to. I can ACT professional and friendly, but I give away my discomfort by blushing. It never fails. Even in work meetings I still blush when I'm contributing information, even though I know all of my colleagues pretty well. I'm terrible at small talk and don't enjoy engaging in it. I try to let people know this by not asking them questions. I've noticed that a lot of people will just wait for you to ask them a question in order to keep conversation going, and even if you are acting absorbed in something else, they will often just supply the information they wanted to tell you anyway. For example, working with Tamara last week. I'd be WATCHING something, or READING something, and she'd ask me questions. I'd give terse and absent answers to try to indicate my disinterest. "Do you have any pets? Cats? Dogs?" "I have two cats." She'd wait a few minutes. I would go back to reading or watching. "...I HAVE THREE DOGS! A BIG ONE, A MEDIUM ONE, AND A LITTLE FOOFY ONE. SHE LIKES MY HUSBAND BEST. BUT MY HUSBAND ISN'T REALLY A SMALL DOG PERSON, BUT IT'S JUST SOOOO FUNNNYYYY BECAUSE SHE JUST LOVES HIM. BUT MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE SHE SLEEPS WITH ME ALL DAY" -etc. and then she'd ramble on for like 5 minutes before getting tired of the topic. It was very unpleasant.

5. I love being warm. I can't wait until summer. I keep my car generally between 82 and 85 degrees in the winter, much to the chagrin of everyone in the car with me, and about 75 in the summer (though I prefer the windows being down instead of any sort of air). If my car is too cold when I get in, I wear a blanket on my lap. This same blanket is what I'm notorious for wearing at work. I also am usually wearing a hoodie and a jacket at work/school/conferences... anywhere there's A/C. I despise air conditioning unless it's ridiculously hot out (like, 90's). And even then, I only like it for the 5 minutes I'm hot; then it's back to sweaters and jackets. Otherwise I love to fall asleep in the sun. It just feels so good to lay outside. I love it being super hot out and then going swimming. It feels soooo good!

6. One of my most favorite vacations was when we went to South Dakota in the badlands and black hills with my dad's family. The trip started out great, with us kids (me, Bethany, and Adam) rock-paper-scissoring for who got stuck in the middle and who had to sit on the single seat (we were in a van). Jack got the other single seat because he was a baby. I think we actually ignored our loser and made Joe sit in the middle so we could sleep on him, as he was not present when we were bickering. We drove 14 straight hours there, with a couple stops for potty breaks and I think one meal. The week was spent doing activities that each person chose to do. I chose amethyst caves, Adam chose an exotic reptile house, Dad chose some mystery/sciency thing, Bethany chose gold-panning, Pam chose to visit the Laura Ingalls-Wilder place, and I can't remember what Joe chose! Then at night, we kids and Joe played poker with pennies and gossiped about James and Alicia because they were watching the house, and we KNEW what they were up to (interestingly, Alicia actually did get pregnant around this time). Adam and Joe are two of my favorites, and spending all that quality time with them was amazing - climbing all over the badlands was the best.

7. Underwear tidbits: I purposely mismatch my socks. Usually I do it with some sort of organization, like they match my outfit or something. I also require them to be of the same style, like ankle, knee, or fuzzy. I started doing this after I started dating Steve. When he did it, I thought it was weird at first. When I asked him why he did that, he said that it made socks more interesting, and pairing them up in silly combinations was fun. It didn't take long for me to warm up to the idea, and it made more room in my sock drawer for the billions of socks I buy and collect since they don't have to be in individual balls anymore. I love buying socks and underwear. It's so fun! As for undies, I mostly wear boyshorts and bikini. I went through a rather long period in my life where I'd wear thongs exclusively, because I felt that my ass was too big for other types of panties that weren't for grandmas. Now, I can't even remember the last time I wore a thong. Panty lines, unless super obnoxious, don't really bother me. It's like, "Yeah, I'm wearing undies. SURPRISED?!"

8. I enjoy being on Depo. I have had no adverse side effects, unless you want to cite weight gain, but that's iffy. I probably gained weight from a variety of factors. I don't get periods, which is amazing. I was on it for so long that when I went back on the pill for a couple years, I felt so trapped and miserable by having to buy tampons and go to the bathroom more often than I want to. Not to mention that bleeding and shoving things around the area didn't help with my UTI issues. I also like being able to have sex whenever I damn well please. Now I'm back to being goop-free, and haven't had a UTI in a LONG time. Yay! Do I know if I can get pregnant? No. If I was on any other form of birth control, would I know if I could get pregnant? No. People blame birth control as the reason they can't conceive, when really, barring any sort of KNOWN medical issues (such as PCOS), no one REALLY knows if they're fertile. My doctor once told me it looked like I was shooting blanks, even though I was still getting my period. Since then, I've always been aware that when the time comes, I might not be able to have a baby. Guess what? Unless you've tested for it or already had a child, NEITHER DO YOU. Thank god for adopting the children already here who need parents!

9. I get really bad headaches sometimes. I don't know if they're migraines or not, but I say they are. When I was young, my mom had a stroke. She was in her mid-twenties (between 23 and 26, I can't remember). After many months, they labeled it as a "complicated migraine." She was "lucky" in that the stroke hit her sensory region, so her long-term effects have included things like dulled smell receptors vs. limb or speech problems. I was aware of my mom always having migraine issues. She'd describe to me that she saw tv lines and static. I would get horrible headaches too. I never saw anything. But my mom would ask me if I saw the things she described, and sometimes I'd convince myself that I I DID, in fact, see them. I didn't, but I sure as hell knew that my headaches made me want to lock myself in a dark room and cut off my head to relieve the pressure. I once had a headache that lasted about 3 months. They gave me a CAT scan to see if I had any tumors or swelling or anything. Turns out I was fine, but my headache lasted awhile longer. The worst headache I can remember as an adult was a couple years ago. I was out at the mall with my friend Maggie, and I got SLAMMED by this thing. I was dizzy and nauseous, and even grayed out a few times. It was awful. Luckily there was a Target in the mall and I choked down a couple of naproxen. I get headaches in waves now. I can go months without a headache, and then have several within a week. My headaches and UTIs are the only time I really require Western medicine.

10. I'm sometimes sad that Bethany had a child so young, or that I haven't had one yet, but not probably for the reasons you think. I grew up with several cousins my age, and I had a lot of fun with them. I grew up playing pirates, going on outings, digging in the dirt, playing hide-and-seek, playing house, and video games with so many kids in my family. We'd go on vacations or spend a week at our grandma's house or our aunt's house.Huge birthday parties with a ton of kids running around. I have so many fond memories of people in my family that I don't really see anymore, and I'm grateful for them. Cayden has no one his age. The closest he has is Ella, who is almost 4. And technically she's MY cousin, because her father is my uncle even though he's only two years older than I am. I want him to have the experiences I had as child. I know that maybe he could be like August, who gets to spend all his waking hours with his friends, but I either didn't spend enough time living at a place to keep friends, I lived too far away from where all my friends lived (I went to school in a different city than I lived), or we couldn't coordinate hangouts (as my parents didn't like interacting with others' parents and never wanted people sleeping over. Things are quite the opposite for my brother). Cayden's birthday party was kind of a downer in that regard, because the youngest after him was August, who's going to be 13 this year.

Comments

[silver-tiamat.livejournal.com]

5. I'm not so confident that we'd burn out. XD Milly and I spent 90% of our time in high school together, and then talked on the phone for around 4-10 hours every day after school and often spent weekends together (or on phone or online) for all four years, and we never ran out of things to do/say/etc. XD And heck, we're still talking a lot...

8. Well, it may be that he gets annoyed at people getting irritable, but that he thinks that all some people need is to be taught how not to freak out about everything. I mean, if you're an environmentalist who hates when people are ignorant of how little our "going green" really is green, the last thing you do is keep your mouth shut when someone says something wrong--you speak out and find the people who think that we're doing "enough." Maybe it runs on the same principal?

Or maybe you're just hot enough that Steve's willing to get used to it? XDDD

I can't recall if we'd "met" by the time I'd posted my Haiti post, but it'd certainly be something that's a volatile topic that we'd agree on. It's not that as a human I don't feel empathy for all disasters--seriously, watching/reading about incidents like that can see me burst into tears--it's that it's not SOUND sense. It's not a good way to help. Pouring money into things consistently isn't the answer. Yes, there should be a disaster relief effort, but it should be a globally connected decision, not just one more way that the US meddles in other people's affairs so that we ignore our own problems.

Considering that Haiti is also just a "bunch of poor blacks, basically homeless" for the general most part, I don't think that was the primary reason we wanted to get it over with quicklys. I think people in America, especially in the places that don't really SEE serious poverty 365, 24/7 around them just have no idea how "third-world" some of our country is. They just assume, oh, we're Americans, so we can handle it. Sure, there are jokes about the "back water" Southern states like Louisiana and Arkansas and Oklahoma, but the reality is that the sheer scope of Hurricane Katrina was VASTLY underemphasized in the media. I mean, when we went across country, we saw the damages as early as Texas, and they were still talking about how entire CITIES were wiped out as we got further east, including some that were meant to be major money draws (including the establishment of three casinos and restaurants to make a mini "Las Vegas" in Alabama). And these places are just GONE. It wasn't just New Orleans, and most people have no idea. And so, we're just letting people "figure it out" when they have no means to do so. How do you "figure out" a 7 figure debt that you were meant to pay off within 10 years with your brand new casino that is now barely a foundation covered in rubble?

I was talking to Justin about his fears that China, as the newest rising Super Power, and with our decline, that it'll go out there and try forcing countries to adopt it's communist government policies...and one of the things I said was, "If they DID...it'd sort of be our own fault. We paved the way for that attitude, especially when we decided to invade Iraq to "force" democracy on it in violation of the opinions of the U.N." Not that I want it to happen, or that I think it's now suddenly okay--I think both parties are totally wrong. I just think, you know, in a karmic kind of way, it would kinda serve us right. ~_~

[vixenofflames.livejournal.com]

5. Bahaha that's very true. I DO have a lot to say, and you are even a touch more than me on that subject XD It'd be so fun!

8. That sounds about right. He DEFINITELY is on the boat for the Please Don't Unnecessarily Freak Out. He's not an overreactor, and hates when other people are. He's pretty good about telling people when they're being like that, especially in a comical way to try to ease the tension.

No no, me too! I don't like to watch videos or look at the gory pictures people post, because it IS very sad. But it's, as you say, sort of misguided and definitely misplaced. It needs a different kind of effort.

People in America take this weird sense of pride that turns into a blind eye towards places like the areas hit by Katrina. It's like they cross their arms and say, "Nope, not in MY country. And if it IS true, then obviously they did it to themselves, and need to get themselves out of it." The out-of-date "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is still quite prevalent, and drives me up the wall. And I'm a perfect example of Katrina being underemphasized. I didn't know until YEARS later just how bad it was. I was completely oblivious and wrapped up in college. So I was like doubly pissed when I learned how it REALLY was/is, because I was so ignorant and completely duped.

As for that last paragraph... exactly.