IS THIS APPROPRIATE?

I am seriously frightened for the future of the world when it is appropriate to respond to an employment ad (for any job) with "myspace page" instead of a resume or even just a letter of interest. Scary.

Am I just getting old?

DESIGNERS FOR PAYLESS SHOES

Welcome to "Stuff I Didn't Buy!!!"

Today's item comes from one of my favorite categories: SHOES!!!



Lela Rose for Payless Elsby Brocade Pump

Now, at $38.00, these would not have broken the bank account. However, I chose not to buy them. Even though I love peep-toes, I love brocade, I love the silver-y color, and I love the little bow, I said "no."
First of all...faux wood. I do own a pair of wedges with faux wood, and I only wear them occasionally (as in, to an outdoor concert where there may be mud that destroys my shoes.) Faux wood on shoes is more obvious than faux leather (which is fine for vegans...I mean faux leather that tries to look like leather). Maybe nobody else ever pays attention to that kind of thing, but I do, and I don't like faux wood on shoes.
But the silver brocade still called my name...and then I remembered another reason why I should not buy them...my past with Payless shoes.
When I was 20 and had just moved back to this hellhole from Colorado, I worked at a music store, bought all my clothes at Forever 21, and thought that having 100 pairs of cheap shoes meant I was the shiznit. (Not really, but whatever.) I really wanted this pair of grey pumps from a catalog, but they were $300 (which, unbelieveably, was almost my entire rent back then!) and I didn't buy them. But hey! I walked into Payless, and there was a dead ringer (in the way that those plastic surgery people who want to look like celebrities are dead ringers for whatever celebrity they are trying to look like--meaning FAKE and OBVIOUSLY FAKE!)
I paid $12.99 for them and wore them out that night. To a club.

And 30 minutes into it, my friend Michael waved his hand at me, and said "Look up at the camera!" and took a photo. Of me crouching down, drunkenly putting wet napkins under the straps of the shoes. He captioned it "This is a new dance move called 'Ouch my fucking shoes hurt'" and I never lived that story down.

I have dancer's feet. They are destroyed, they have very high arches that require support, they swell from overuse. Even expensive, well-made shoes hurt my feet. So the $12.99 Payless shoes were donated to the Salvation Army the next day. I hope some (lucky bitch) woman with narrow, cute feet found them and is still enjoying them in all their yummy fake-leatherness.

Finally...for $38.00, I can go to DSW and score some real leather shoes that won't give me a blister the size of a silver dollar.

And, where would I wear silver brocade shoes? It's like my dress collection...I have nowhere to wear any of those things, anyway.

SO I AM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING...

giving my blog a theme of "Things I Didn't Buy Today."

Why? Well, I think my blog sucks because it doesn't have a theme or a purpose, and it is just not interesting to read about a nearly-30's girl who doesn't craft or sew or knit (but that may be changing!) and who can no longer afford to spend her entire paycheck on clothes. And I won't be actually buying new things nearly every day for a while, but I sure do still see things that I would consider buying, and don't, for whatever reason.

So I guess I can throw in some other themed days, and definitely post things I do buy, if and when I do, but I figured "Stuff I Didn't Buy" would be funnier.

And we shall see how long this lasts.

I LOVE SETH ROGEN. I LOVE CHIHUAHUAS. OH, PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME...

Last night I ran into Whole Foods at 10:47 p.m.
With only thirteen minutes before closing time, I made a beeline for the wheatgrass I so desperately needed and headed to the checkout. Of course, there was the inevitable poky person in front of me, so I had to wait as she complained, counted coins, and cursed the cashier. To waste time, I looked up at the magazine rack. And nearly died.

I saw this:



Now. I am not really sure if I have ever mentioned it, but I have the world's biggest crush on Seth Rogen. No, really. I'm not even sure if Kevin Griffin (from Better Than Ezra) would win over Seth if it came to a "Battle of the Crushes." I mean it. Maybe that is a good thing. I mean, Seth Rogen does kind of remind me of my husband, so that's a good thing...right?

(But...curly hair...*chases after Ben with a home perm kit*)

(Really...notice that both Kevin and Seth have curly hair, while Ben's hair is about as far from curly as it gets.)

You might also not know about my MAGAZINE BUYING BAN. At the beginning of December, I put myself on an until-further-notice magazine buying ban. For two reasons. Well, three.
One: I filled the paper media recycling bin every week, and I don't read the daily newspaper. Ugh, waste of trees.
Two: I was buying, at that point, about 40 magazines a month. 40! Fashion, fitness, yoga, spa, news...you name it, I read it all. Yeah, go ahead, do the math. How sad.
Three: Magazines serve one two purposes in my life: to make me feel like crap about myself/my eating/my exercise/my fashion sense and TO MAKE ME WANTWANTWANTWANT. I mean, that is what they are for...they are driven by advertising dollars, so they make you feel "less than" unless you buy what is in the ad, and then feature pictures of things that you simply MUST HAVE until, of course, you get them from your favorite online store and that $600 handbag is really made just as crappily as the $50 one. Yeah. Talk about "going to hell in a handbag." Oops. It's "handbasket." Whatever.

So, I said NO MORE MAGAZINES. I did fill out some survey for a free year of Self and Shape, which kind of suck as far as magazines go, but are nice for treadmill reading. I had a few slip-ups, and one time Ben bought me BARK, but come on...

The grand total of magazines that have actually been paid for by this household since December 2?

Four.

That is, er, ten percent of what I used to buy in one month. In over three months. So I consider that a triumph.

However. Back to Seth. I seriously considered buying that Vanity Fair last night. But I didn't. See, at the moment, $4.95 for a magazine seems like a lot to me. I have a lot of stuff I need to pay in order to put myself in a better position for the future. And maybe I haven't been perfect, but I have been improving.

And chihuahuas. If you don't know of my "I must own 10 chihuahuas someday" goal and my love for the breed, you haven't been paying attention. I wanted my first chi when I was about 6 and the neighbor girl had them. My parents said "no, they are mean...and we have the Labs."
Humph. How boring, for a little 6-year old girl who could not decide if she wanted to be a tomboy or a ballerina princess. Labs were great for the tomboy part, but ballerina princesses do NOT have drooling, doggy-smelling, duck-retrieving dogs.
So the stars of Beverly Hills Chihuahua (which I loved, by the way) on the cover increased my interest...probably more than Seth did, to be honest.

But still, I told myself "no."

Besides...I don't even read Vanity Fair.

So...if any of you out there are offended by Seth's cute little jiggly belly, or by the bow-tie/barrel ensemble, and you would like to get rid of your copy (or even just your cover!) of this month's Vanity Fair, please let me know. It would be much appreciated.

Because nothing in the world is sexier than a man with a little beer belly, wearing glasses, a bow tie, and a barrel, holding a chihuahua and gazing at the camera. Nothing.

BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA

Ok. First, let's have a little talk about how much I DON'T like Disney movies. Disney anything. I remember helping my friend Cesare shop for a gift for his girlfriend...oh, nine years ago?...and having to go to the Disney store. Oh, I nearly barfed on the cute little tees and pajama sets.
I don't know what it is, since I loved my Chip'n'Dale cartoons as a kid, but lately, Disney stuff just makes me feel kind of...horky.

Anyway. I wanted to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua ever since I first saw the poster. That was something like last January. For some reason, we never made it to the theatre, and I had been (not-so-) patiently awaiting its arrival on DVD. Yesterday I logged on to redbox.com and scored a copy for the night for the bargain price of $1.08.

My husband had his reservations. Sure, he loves our girls, but a movie about talking chihuahuas? A Disney movie about talking chihuahuas? Um..."I'll watch it for you" was his take on the whole thing.

Yes, it was cheesy and Disney and silly, but I cried. At about 4 parts. My husband told me that someday he would buy it for me just to see my face when the pack of chihuahuas comes out into the desert and scares off the mountain lions. And even though I hate sequels, I am secretly hoping there will be one.

This all might have something to do with the fact that Chloe, the chihuahua in the movie, looks almost exactly like my Marley. Marley was a chihuahua I had in 2004. We found her a new home before she was a year old because I got too sick and messed up to take care of her. I had to leave for a month and I am still upset that my mom or my dad would not care for her for that month. I miss her so much! I hope she is happy still.

I am hoping that I can find a used copy of the movie for less than retail...until then...no mas!

VEGAN, VEGETARIAN, FLEXITARIAN...WHAT???

With so much going on in my life right now, I am infinitely sick of being stressed out about food.
There are already so many things I can't or won't eat due to Hashimoto's, severe digestive dysfunction, wheat intolerance etc.
Add to that the fact that through experience, I KNOW that I feel better eating an entirely raw vegan diet (well, "beegan" since I do use the bee pollen...) and it seems like I have a clear answer.
Right?
Well. No.
See, I'm a calorie counter. And before you go off telling me how I should not do this, blahblahblah, just save it. It is what I know, what I do, and it isn't like it prevents me from working, going to yoga, playing with my dogs, etc. You get the picture. I have been a counter for 10+ years. I know by heart the calories per ounce of all fruits and vegetables, calories per ounce of fresh-squeezed juices, calories per serving of most foods (even packaged foods I have not touched in over 5 years)--by weight. Yes, by the gram. You could say I have a thing for numbers (which is also why I am working out a plan to--don't shoot me--take some programming classes at the local college. The economy!! Must give self job security!! Nitpicky copyediting skills plus math aptitude=awesome programmer. Right? But that's another story. Promise). If I can't measure it, I probably won't eat it (with the odd exception of sushi, because while I was crazy enough to bring a food scale to a restaurant at 20, I just can't do that anymore. Take-out sushi? You bet it goes on the scale. I have it down to a science I won't even go into, allowing for the fish, the rice...I don't eat the sushi with other crap, so that doesn't matter).

So. I'm a calorie counter. And on raw foods, I must eat a LOT of calories to stay as active as I am and not feel like I am starving. Like, 2800 a day, maintenance level for someone like me who works on their feet all day and hates elevators and goes to 90 minute Bikram yoga classes followed by an hour at the gym every day.
Which would be fine, if "maintenance" were acceptable.
It's not.

(Note to self: It's time to get serious about this. You have only liked your body a total of one year since you were 20. This is not some age-related metabolism thing. You have your health figured out. Do something. Just because an XS at almost every store is too big DOES NOT mean you are thin. In your case it means you have a tiny frame and the weight you are carrying looks 5 times as bad on you as it would on a taller and/or larger boned person. Stop pigging it!!)

So. The level I need to be at is next to impossible, with my "need" for giant 600- calorie smoothies (juice and plain fruit only, too--nothing added, I just need a LOT) and 310-calorie Organic Food Bars (the only really portable thing I can eat--don't say fruit or carrots--remember I can't really chew or digest any vegetables or most whole fruit--sucks). I mean, NOBODY would be satisfied this way. Trust me. Oh, if I could just eat until I felt full (which is what I fully intend to do when I am in better shape--it works for maintenance, at least for me) then 100% raw vegan would be so, so easy.
But right now the focus is weight loss, so I am adding in a few more foods here and there--things that are easy to take to work, things that help my crappy (no pun intended) digestive system, things that make me feel more satisfied.
I can't help but feel like some sort of icky failure. I mean, eggs? Really? Sure, they are organic, and I do like them, but...gross. And fish? I like it, but if I had to catch it and clean it myself, I would say "no freaking way!"
I'm sure I'll get 1000 comments about "doing this all the wrong way" but sorry, I don't have the faith in "just eat what you want now, sometime in the next 5 years 20 pounds will come off." Yeah, I would like to feel good sooner than 5 years from now, kthanksbye.
See, I have NEVER eaten anything close to the SAD (standard American diet). Red meat? Quit when I was 15. Fried stuff? Not since high school. Packaged food? A thing of the past. So my calorie counting is completely different than, say, a Weight Watchers calorie counting plan (oops, sorry, POINTS) where you can factor in a McDonald's meal and a fudge brownie. Nope. I'm talking about eating my mostly-fruit diet with some lentils, oats, eggs, maybe a little goat dairy.

WHOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO, I am LIVING ON THE EDGE NOW!!!!!!!

Sorry, I had to do that.
Anyway. Boring, long post, I know, but I had to let that out. I'll update you all on my guilt about being a crappy vegan (or non-vegan, if you will).

TODAY'S SMOOTHIE 2/27/09

Not very exciting. Please pardon the measuring cup wheatgrass shot container and the mess. Also please excuse the crap photo; I need to somehow fix the real camera:

fresh squeezed orange juice
pineapple
papaya
cherries
fresh-made wheatgrass juice

and the VitaMix in the background!!! Hooray!!

I might post a new one tonight if I get inspired. My husband is working late so I will be bored.