February 16, 2006 | Filed under: Is She Still Talking?

I know what you’ve been thinking: there just haven’t been enough quantitative posts here. To remedy that, today we have all numbers, all the time! (You Haters of Math probably don’t like me very much right now. Sorry.)

In the past thirty days, since I started spying on you – er, I mean, watching my traffic stats – there have been 759 visits, 1531 page views and 82 comments left. I’m happy with that. Really. Never mind the fact that some blogs I read have more comments left than I have visitors in a day. That doesn’t bother me in the least. *Sniff.* It’s not a popularity contest, after all. Right? Right? (To be fair, those blogs have been up and running for years, so I’m not going to take it personally. Yet.)

The traffic, it will come. (Send your friends and neighbors over, they’ll love it here!) But comments? We can always use more comments! Otherwise this is just a self-absorbed, narcissistic, one-sided conversation. Oh.

I’ve noticed that weekday traffic is pretty steady, with peaks around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. EST. However, site traffic plummets over the weekend. These two facts mean one thing: y’all waste a lot of time at work! Or you have more exciting weekends than I do.

Another curiosity: the day with the most visits was January 26. I don’t know if you came here in search of more Pretty New Shoes or if Steve’s birthday was the big draw or what. Steve, did you send all your friends over here to see the baby pic? I know you’re a shameless self-promoter. No worries, I’ll take the free publicity!

What intrigues me is who’s behind each IP address - something I’ll never know (because I’m not, well, the CIA). And how he/she ended up at this site - which I get to know some of the time. Searches within the Blogger tool are the most common referral source. In fact, “fuck” is the most popular search term from random people who end up here. Shocking, huh? But I wonder what people were hoping for when they do the search. ‘Cuz I probably disappoint on that front. One visitor was more specific. He searched for “pictures of people doing sex.” Forgive the poor grammar – he’s from the United Arab Emirates. He was referred to this post. Quite a let-down, I’d imagine, as there are “pictures of people” and talk of “sex,” but not actually “pictures of people doing sex.”

Some of my other favorites include someone from Missouri searching for “Midwest” and “pregnant.” Again, I probably didn’t have much to offer, other than I am intimately familiar with one and not the other. Google refers a lot of people here who are looking for the Oscar Wilde quote in the masthead. (Blog traffic tip #9: First, put a really famous quote in a prominent place on your site. Then, sit back and wait for strangers to wander in unintentionally. Voila! Instant traffic!) And in the referral that made me laugh the most, someone in Sweden searched for “two tragedies vanilla Coke,” so assume that he/she is not such a fan of the Vanilla Coke. I can only hope my review of Black Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke was of service.

Official Ski Trip Update: I think I’ve got all the necessary gear and accoutrements. Now I just need to locate chains/cables for the car. Apparently the chains available at the Sport Chalet were not the right size for my cute little car with its cute little tires. Yes, we are taking this cute little car up into the mountains, where it is currently snowing. Sounds safe, huh? The chains are a crucial component in my bid to avoid death on the side of a mountain, driving, so I hope some nice man at one of the local tire stores wants to sell them me.

February 15, 2006 | Filed under: It's Called "Having a Life." You Should Try It., People I Like Even More Than My Job

Ugh. I don’t know where it all goes, but that loud whooshing you hear? That would be the sound of dollars being sucked - at high velocity - out of my checking account.

I’ve been searching for a nice black handbag, probably something high quality and, therefore, expensive. In an attempt to be somewhat fiscally responsible, I went to an outlet mall a couple of weeks ago. (You know you’re old when your first stop is the Black & Decker store, and you walk in thinking, “Maybe I can get a good deal on a vacuum.”)

I came home with thank you notes, Christmas wrapping paper, Valentine’s Day gifts, new sunglasses and three black handbags. (Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!) Amazingly enough, no shoes were purchased on this trip (the Nine West store was closed for remodeling), but I did buy a handbag solely because…wait for it…it matches my sunglasses. (Whoosh!)

I used to wonder who, exactly, spends a couple hundred dollars on a handbag.

Ahem.

Apparently I’ve developed a little bit of an obsession with Coach handbags (whoosh!), the byproduct of which is that I feel the need to refer to them as “handbags” and not the more pedestrian “purses.” But, all sixteen handbags/purses still have tags on them, awaiting approval from Accessory Queen Danielle, who is visiting this weekend, yay! The winners will stay; the losers will be returned on our expedition to the outlet mall.

This weekend is also the Official Ski Trip to Tahoe Weekend. Strapping myself to two little strips of fiberglass and hurtling down the side of a mountain? Yeah, that sounds like a good time. If you like death. We’ll see how it goes.

And can I just tell you? Skiing is an expensive little hobby. Particularly when the only winter outerwear your own is intended to be worn over a suit. So, yes, there has been much purchasing of ski-related equipment lately. (Whoosh!) And lift tickets, ski lessons, lodging, etc. (Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!)

Do not confuse the sound of me hemorrhaging cash with the sound of me going down the ski hill. The latter will be something like, Whose (bump) stupid (thump) fucking (thud) idea (crunch) was (gaaaaaaaah) this? You know, anything other than Whoosh! But this means I will have satisfied one of the Fundamental Requirements of Living Out West and will forever be able to look down on those Eastern ski slopes with you-call-that-a-mountain? disdain. Hopefully I’ll come back with some good bruises stories, and maybe Danielle can capture my plight on film for you.

My goals for the Official Ski Trip to Tahoe are to (a) not die; (b) spend more time upright than lying sprawled out in the snow on the side of a mountain; and (c) meet a hot French guy, fall in love, get married and move to the Alps where we can ski our little hearts out. I think (a) and (c) are totally achievable. As for (b)? I’m not holding out much hope.

February 13, 2006 | Filed under: Boys Are Dumb

Some relationship advice from someone who has been there, done that. Or seen it on TV. Names have been omitted to protect the idiots.

[Editor's note: these may sound rather snarky, but really, they're meant to be funny. In an ironic-funny sort of way. In an I-can't-make-this-shit-up sort of way. Because, seriously, I couldn't possibly make this shit up.]

• If, in a social scene where everyone knows everyone, all your friends are surprised the two of you are dating, all his friends are surprised the two of you are dating, and you find yourself a bit surprised the two of you are dating, perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned. And that lesson is: the two of you should not be dating.
• If you spend your time on the phone with him reading, taking notes and highlighting your history book, and subsequently score a 99% on the midterm exam, get a clue: you’re just not that into him. And, the two of you should not be dating.
• If you meet someone at a conference and you’re concerned about breaching the bounds of professionalism, check to see that he’s not sharing a room with a colleague. This is especially important if he works for a cost-conscious government or non-profit entity. Because there’s throwing-professionalism-to-the-wind and then there’s having-his-colleague-witness-the-face-sucking-and-complete-lack-of-professionalism-firsthand. And, the two of you should not be dating. The two of them maybe…
• If you’re picking him up after a weekend away wearing nothing but a negligee, stiletto heels and a trench coat, do not go speeding through Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. At midnight. With no one else around. Not only will you win yourself a ticket, the Arlington County policemen will not believe you when you insist that you haven’t been drinking, and will subject you to not one, but three field sobriety tests. No, this piece of advice has nothing to do with relationships, but the experience was damn funny!
• If you pick him up from a weekend away wearing nothing but a negligee, stiletto heels and a trench coat, speeding through the airport and earning yourself a ticket from policemen who do not believe your claims of sobriety, and you still don’t get any, just leave. He does not deserve you, and the two of you should not be dating.
• If you spend the majority of your relationship trying to figure out how to set him up with your sister, dump him already. Please. The two of you should not be dating.
• If he slips a line in an e-mail informing you that he’s gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend, get one of your engineering friends to figure out a way you can reach through the DSL lines and strangle him with your own bare hands. Because that’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel any better. Barring that, call and leave really bitchy voice mail messages for him at 1:30 in the morning. They won’t ever be returned, but that fact will conveniently escape his tiny little brain and he will swear that he always calls you back. And guess what? The two of them should not be dating.
• If, months after you’ve broken up, he gives you (via a friend) a ring and a letter begging to be part of your life again, feel free to return the ring (via a friend), along with a lovely fuck-you-gram. When he trashes you to all of his friends and your mutual friends, calling you an Uppity Bitch, go ahead and laugh like the Uppity Bitch you know you are. And be glad (a) someone finally came up with a creative nickname for you and (b) the two of you are no longer dating.
• If, on the day before Thanksgiving, the guy you’ve been dating exclusively for the past four months (but refuses “boyfriend-girlfriend” terminology) unabashedly states that he doesn’t “feel compelled to send you flowers,” do not resist the urge to (a) hit him; (b) burst into tears; (c) storm out of the house, slamming the door behind you; (d) all of the above. And for the love of Pete, do not proceed to spend Thanksgiving with him simply because you’d already extended the invitation. Because, really? No one is required to be that nice. And, the two of you should not be dating.
• Finally, if you take a job that requires you to move 3000 miles away, spend the last few weeks locked in your home and office and do nothing but pack. Do not go to happy hour, do not meet someone, do not like him, do not start dating, and, most of all, do not – DO NOT – enter into a long-distance relationship. Not because it won’t work out (it might) but because it will EAT YOU ALIVE. That is all.

February 12, 2006 | Filed under: I Run Therefore I Am, Is She Still Talking?

Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t kill their husbands, they just don’t.

Oh, really? Tell that to my body. Let’s take a quick poll.

Toe: Still ugly and gross and cause for concern. May have to seek actual medical attention.
Knees: Seceding from the Union. Threatening to take ankles with them.
Calves, quads and hams: Dammit, bitch, will you please stretch after you run? For reals.
Abdominal muscles: What, you want us to do something? Not just lay here and look pretty under those layers and layers of fat cells where no one can actually see us?

All this pain because of a number. THE number. The Number Above Which I Am A Slovenly Fat Cow And Nothing You Say Will Convince Me Otherwise. Also known as The Number That Shall Not Be Named because (a) I do not feel the need to share such intimate details with the Internet; and (b) knowledge of that number would compel some of you to form an army, storm my house and shove brownies down my throat. And I’d like to avoid that, if at all possible.

Yes, The Number made a surprise guest appearance on my scale this week, and I will not take this lying down! (Actually, standing is quite a painful proposition. May I take this lying down, please?) This explains why, on a recent Saturday morning (yesterday), I was up at 6:00 am to go running, do Pilates, and then spend eight hours running around helping people look beautiful at BR. Because I am a sick, sick woman. Also, a highly motivated one. Because I refuse to see The Number again. Or, in fact, anything close to it.

I was never the type to worry about my weight. As a teenager, I had plenty of other things to stress out about, thank you very much, like global warming and getting into Harvard Law and just being perfect in general. I was always the smallest one in my class, thanks to being short (these days we say “petite”) and a year younger than everyone else. I played sports year-round, so my weight just kinda took care of itself.

But in college, life caught up with me. First semester freshman year I actually lost weight, thanks to my bout with meningitis and landing in the hospital for a week. I didn’t even notice. But, dude, when your fourteen-year old brother comments, “You were soooo skinny when you came home at Thanksgiving,” you know things are bad. Apparently in the busyness of trying to simultaneously not die and not fail out of school my body used up its excess reserves. (I was sick for a good three weeks before I made it to the hospital, during which time I went to as many classes as I could and did as much homework as I could muster, but every minute spent not asleep was a challenge. Things like “eating dinner” and “showering” were at the bottom of the priority list. I pulled down a 3.5 GPA that semester and, in retrospect, I can only say, Wow. And, Thank you, George S. Parker High School for teaching me everything I needed to know to get through that first semester, because I did not learn a single new thing. Except how to diagnose meningitis.)

It was all downhill from there. Nights of boozing, followed by pizza and Pokey stix at 2 am. And beer? Ew. So I opted for whatever wop/punch/hard-liquor-with-juice-or-soda was available. Tastes great! Has 5,000 more calories per cup than beer! (My children will be getting a much more comprehensive lecture on The Evils of Drinking than the one I got before going away to school. Family history of alcoholism and manic depression? Bah! Potential to do stupid/illegal/dangerous things with your friends/boys/strangers? We’ll get to that later. First, it’s time to review the Food Pyramid, kids! Alcohol = simple carbohydrates = empty calories. And that should scare the bejesus out of you.)

Many years later, when life had settled down a bit, I lost weight in a non-life-threatening way: insane amounts of exercise and militant calorie-counting. I reached a weight I hadn’t seen since sometime in high school and even wore a bikini to the beach. In front of other people. I know it confused some of my friends when at happy hour I would have one beer and then switch to Diet Coke. One commented, “But you look great, you don’t need to watch your weight!” Ummmm, no, I look great because I watch my weight. Causal relationship, believe me.

But lately all I’ve been watching are the numbers on the scale…and their slow climb upward, culminating in the appearance of The Number this week. (For the record, The Number is eight pounds more than my Record Low, and comfortably below my Record High. No one else has noticed my drift into Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Territory, it’s just me.) So, we’re going back to the insane amounts of exercise and militant calorie-counting for a little while. Carrots are my new best friend. For lunch? Oh look, it’s a salad! For the 286th day in a row!

And the exercise half? Endorphins, here we come! And if it means I have to choose between my pretty new peep-toe shoes, which conveniently show off only the ugly part of my toe, and continued use of my expensive-but-toe-defacing running shoes…well, I suppose I can sacrifice a toe for the greater good. I know I’ll be a happy, skinny, endorphin-filled version of me a couple of months from now, but in the meantime all I can say is: ow, ow, ow. Pierre-August Renior said, “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.” Good god, I hope he’s right.

OLYMPICS UPDATE: Michelle Kwan pulled out of the women’s figureskating competition due to a groin injury. Sorry, Michelle, no How I Triumphed Over Adversity interview for you.

February 10, 2006 | Filed under: I'm a Dork, The California Adventure

I love my house. Really, I do. It’s super cute, with its high ceilings and hardwood floors and built-in china cabinet thing. Nice neighborhood, wonderful neighbors, etc. It’s plenty spacious – 1000 square feet. A Thousand Square Feet! One. Thou. Sand. I’ll never be able to afford that much space in DC! My best shot will be to win that contest they have every four years to see who gets to live in the pretty white mansion on Pennsylvania Ave. (I think it’s put on by the people at Publisher’s Clearinghouse, but I’ll have to get back to you on that.) At any rate, my house is lovely. But, much of the loveliness is due to the fact that it was built in the 1940s, back in the days before “double-paned windows” and “insulation” were invented. Thus, my abode has the heat retention properties of mosquito netting.

Despite all the TV news reports about increased energy costs this winter and don’t use your oven to heat the house and blah, blah, blah, that January natural gas bill came as quite a surprise. $589,236.74 and my firstborn child? What, are you going to have him shoveling coal into the furnace? Are children the alternative fuel of the future?

Being the control freak that I am, I decided to take matters into my own hands. First, I turned down the thermostat, which had previously been set at a very tropical 64 degrees. Then, I went to Lowe’s in search of this plastic wrap for one’s windows that my grandma used to have. Like in 1987. (Yes, I know. I’ve skipped becoming my mother and turned directly into my grandmother. Scary indeed.) Did anyone offer me assistance? No. Because I am a girl in a hardware store, so clearly I am just looking for my husband who is busy picking out whatever home improvement things we need. (Husband? Hah! Owning a home? Double hah!)

As it turns out, they still make this plastic window sheeting stuff. (It is located at the end of the insulation aisle, should you be wondering.) And all you need to install it is a hairdryer, along with the plastic sheeting and special tape that comes in the little box. I can totally handle home improvement projects whose entire tool needs are a hairdryer! And the package promises to increase the R-rating of my windows by up to 90%. Which, according to my calculations, is better than zero. I thought about purchasing every package in the display, but decided that six would do – I’ve got to leave a couple packages for the rest of the Northern California customers taking it up the arse from PG&E.

So, to re-cap, all by myself I (a) found the plastic window sheeting, (b) purchased said plastic window sheeting at the little “Self-Check” station, which I was going to bypass, but the lone checker appeared to be in over his head with this couple and their truckload of 2×4s, so I decided to do the dirty work by my damn self, despite the fact that I know this plastic window sheeting is marked up to cover the cost of Lowe’s labor, of which I have made zero use and (c) installed said plastic window sheeting.

And the February natural gas bill? $50 cheaper, thanks to my $12 trip to Lowe’s. See? I don’t need you, PG&E. I don’t need you, Lowe’s checker-outer-boy and other non-speaking staff members. I don’t need you, friends/family/Internet strangers. I don’t need any of you. (Only I really do. Need each and every one of you in such a deep and profound way that it scares the crap out of me to think about it, so I just don’t.)

(Wow, I can’t believe I just said that out loud. My mom would pay good money to hear me say that. As would my therapist. Wait, maybe Mom can pay the therapist… No, I don’t really have a therapist. But I probably should. But why bother, when I can prattle on about my issues to the whole Internet for free?)

(And seriously? I typed that Very Scary Sentence with my eyes squeezed shut and my head turned away from the monitor, cuz just reading the words freaks me out, so I hope there aren’t any major typos.)

Anyway, back to my normal level of lunacy. According to the additional information from PG&E, my February bill would have been significantly higher than January because rates went up and the weather was colder. So, really, I have only me and my plastic window sheeting to thank. Oh, joyous day of reduced energy costs! I feel warm all over! Though it’s probably because I’ve got six sweaters on under this sweatshirt. And I may very well blow that $50 on a new pair of shoes. But no matter, it’ll keep me from noticing how blue my toes are.