Sarcomical

Things that charmed me this week:

A pitcher of water infused with sliced lemons.

Being warm & insulated during a snowstorm.

A fluffy cat who kept reminding me to pick him up and nuzzle his face.

My ugly, ugly bread machine loaf of olive & feta cheese "Greek Style Bread". It was flat, flat, flat, but I snacked on it all week long.

I. Got. Bangs.

oh, dear...

As it became clear I needed a trim desperately, I had to take on the task of finding a stylist to start fresh with again (my last cut being during our vacation in New York, and not quite yet jet-setty enough to whisk off whenever I please and all). I got Twitter input, consulted a few of my hair goddess friends (ahem Sarah ahem), decided to be brave, and then two hours before my appointment got a staggering case of The Bok Bok Boks (that's chicken language, my friends). I decided I'd just get my layers shaped up and sidle off quietly hoping everyone I'd bothered and pleaded with for hair opinions would maybe just not notice.

BUT.

Turns out, this new stylist I found...he's not afraid. In fact, he kind of took one look at me and the candy-ass photos of mediocrity I brought with me and suggested I go for it. He had a sample photo of his own from his recent training session with Nick Arrojo (oops, did you drop a name, there?) which was much more brave than what I was prepared for by the time I came in. He said, "let's try this, but a little longer and less bold, and see how you like it". And also, "can we curl it?" Um, yes. And, yes. Thank you, Greg, of g.michael Salon. Thank you for making the transition quite painless and, might I even say, not sucktastic in the least.

All Hallows Rarity at the SarcomiHaus

We typically don't pay a lot of attention to Halloween here in the SarcomiHaus. Sure, it's nice to see the neighborhood children dressed up when they come knocking on the door, but as a standard Mr. S. and I barely otherwise acknowledge the holiday. For some reason, this year I had an impulse to stop into the Halloween superstore driving by it a few days prior. I was thinking it might be fun to get Mr. S. a wig or mask since he would be walking around with his brother and two of our nieces to trick-or-treat.

Well, what began as a quick errand resulted in me wandering aisles of smelly plastic and giant hats, placing a disoriented call to my mother discussing the merits of foam viking armor versus pirate patches, and in the end I had a wig for each of us with only a vague idea about how it was all going to come together with clothes we had in our closets. After all, I personally haven't dressed in any costume for Halloween since I was 18 or 19 years old, and I think the same can be said for Mr. S as well. The results were, well...

This venture into the world of dress-up managed to terrorize our 13-year old cat. He scurried and crouched and hid stubbornly under the bed and refused to come out until we looked like ourselves again. He completely had no idea who we were. Of course, the dogs didn't realize anything at all was out of the ordinary - BIG GIGANTIC DERRR SHOCKER. (Please ignore disgusting skanky firehose dog toy in the photo below.) I whipped off that wig and dug into a pile of makeup remover wipes within 5 minutes of the end of the treat-dispersing. (And yes, that IS a George Foreman grill behind me, yo. Grilled cheese melts away stiletto boot pain, my friends. Also, Boot Hate is probably the cause of the look on my face.)

 

One Way or the Other...

*psst - i am currently culling over 500 photos from our week in new york city and getting ready to tell you all about my trip in the place i would like to marry or at least have some babies with. until then...

Here's what I've noticed.

There are a number of similarities between the way I behave when I've had a tumbler of coffee too late in the day and the way someone behaves (not me - NOT ME, of course, oh my silly pet hahaHAAA I don't do that...ahem) when "they" have imbibed a bit more than a wee glass of wine. How so, do you ask? (THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE ASKING; YOU KNOW IT, DON'T DENY IT.) Well. Allow me to count the ways:

1. I talk a little faster (yes. faster.)
2. I want to call or email every single person I know.
3. I believe everything I'm thinking is rather brilliant and write down little notes all over so that I don't forget to expound upon the most creative thoughts ever thought by a human the next day. In either case, I wake typically only to find cryptic and disjointed messages, such as "kick in the butt along with other factors", "Jimmy - speed it up", "cynic. perceptive. true." and "balloons so the boxes float". (These are of course examples, heh-heh, of, you know, POSSIBLE things I would write down, uhh...purely hypothetical and not just gathered from a stack of post-its in my desk drawer..nooo way.)
4. I chat up my dogs a lot. No, A LOT.
5. I concentrate intensely with great physical might to ensure I appear completely in charge of my faculties, i.e. "no, no, I'm not hyper/tipsy, I'm totally calm/sober you see, because caffeine/wine doesn't really affect me and LOOK how deliberate all of my movements and thoughts are, no jitters/slurring!"
6. I make very unfortunate food choices (as in, YES I think I need that burrito the size of my foot, please).
7. I'm pretty sure I can feel my body vibrating a little.
8. I begin to lose my fear of singing in public. Or, at the very least, want to do it quite loudly while alone.
9. I find myself giggling. It can become annoying.
10. I start to consider both HSN and QVC unironic and even slightly soothing television viewing choices.

Punch Out the Slasher

I was born into a heritage of women who look perpetually young for their age. These fortunate genes appear to have cleverly and deceptively delayed the appearance of aging parallel to my years for quite some time. For instance, in college I felt downright juvenile. At 23-24, I was often asked when applying for part-time jobs if I had graduated yet from high school. When I interviewed for more serious jobs at 27-28, I was given the Eye of Skepticism by older women who assumed I was there freshly out of college. I was carded for an R-rated movie as recently as last year (okay, while that is true, even I find that ridiculous). All of this is to say that yes, though it has on occasion been annoying, I have always known that as a lady, I would be a bloody fool to have a problem with looking younger than I am.

AHA, but you see, I am now 33. THIRTY-THREE. You can run, but you can not hide, sucker. Up until this past year I have never given a second thought to gravity, or joints, or noticed anything changing on my face aside from the bags that take over my reflection on certain mornings like two gray, flat butt cheeks under my eyes.

Suddenly, I am realizing just how much my laziness has begun to catch up with me, much as the killer in those slasher movies who appears in the medicine cabinet mirror behind the infuriatingly stupid woman who takes a steamy bath in the dark, empty two-story Victorian after her next door neighbor and all of her friends have been murdered, and then gets out, loosely drapes her towel around her chest and leaves the water running while she's reaching into the cabinet to put her toothbrush away, ensuring that she will have ZERO chance to hear said slasher coming up the stairs and then she shuts it and BAM! Cue the eee!-eee!-eee! music and HIS MENACING REFLECTION IS BEHIND HER.

My once naturally (and maddeningly to others) narrow limbs and flab-free stomach have been slightly losing ground under my lackadaisical care. I have only just recently (and merely a few times before that) even bothered to dedicate myself to any workout because I know that I can ALMOST be as lazy as I want if I just eat right and don't mind turning a blind eye toward the state of my ass.

I have never quite managed to maintain a truly steady facial routine, partly because I skip around with products quite a bit, and I admit I have more often that I'd like to divulge gone to bed without washing my face at all. I am now seeing some lines here and there that actually dare to linger a few seconds after a facial expression no longer requires their services, and I am becoming increasingly disturbed by the crease I notice in my neck after a few hours spent mindnumbingly bent over my keyboard. WHAT THE HELL?

I have back "issues" (even worse than I did as a tense young person who had deplorably sluggish posture) and as such I occasionally find myself getting up from a seated position and walking in a bent, staggering shape for a moment which TO MY HORROR I recognize as the exact stance I have seen my mother-in-law hobble along in during holiday gatherings after a long day. LO, I AM ELDERLY!

I'm beginning to hit the realization that if I don't crack down, and crack down HARD, the best I will ever have looked in my life is about 3-5 years behind me, and oh my God that is not even remotely acceptable. Not only will I have already looked my best, but I will have already felt my best, and I have to tell you I imagined the best feeling better than I have yet experienced, so I am at Critical Hour Code Orange here. While I am by no means a ragged mess, I am not setting myself up to be the hottest grandma at the pool, or perhaps something that sounds less gross than that, but you get my point.

Now...excuse me, I have to go bench press a refrigerator or run to Canada after I apply an oxygenating facial mask.

Life's Little Lessons: "Cute" is all in your head.

Here's what I've learned:

You will never accurately estimate how cute you are in a given day. This can be easily proven with a sneaky and/or ambush photograph taken of you by some jerk (let's call them, Your Husband...or Your Nerdy Co-Worker Who Can't Keep His Hands Off His iPhone,...or A Toddler High On Pixie Stix) who doesn't have the decency to give you a respectable lead time for preparing your angles and whatnot before snapping away.

Once you see this photo (and you WILL see it, because the aforementioned jerk ALWAYS wants to show off his work immediately and to anyone within a quarter mile), you will either be pleasantly surprised by a perfect curl or glowing skin...or deeply horrified by your miserly posture, sickly pallor, wonky eye, random bulging area, gigantic squirrel cheeks, shockingly flat hair, phantom zit, etc., etc., etc.

No matter which way that glorious wind blows, your own estimation of your cuteness will never - not in the slightest - be remotely correct.

Midsummer Rambling with a Side of Photos

I myself have a complicated relationship with summertime. I love it; I always feel like I am coming a little bit more alive when the sun starts blazing and the flowers are exploding. On the other hand, of all the seasons, I always seem to come out of it with the sense that I completely missed it somehow. I wouldn't doubt this is something a lot of you share on some level; maybe it has to do with our childhood calendar, where summer was always this vast and endless expanse of fun and popsicles and chlorine.

(terrycloth, yo.)

About a week ago one of the little boys across the street asked if we could bring one of our dogs out to say hello. While Mr. Sarcomical took Ricky over to be the ambassador, I snuck a photo through our front door. I thought their body language and expressions were so cute. Kids in summer, WITH puppies...

 

It seems Mr. Sarcomical & I haven't had much luck so far this year of grabbing fully onto summer. We have yet to attend a festival or fair, have not taken a picnic anywhere, and haven't hiked, biked, picked or played. That's okay; I know we'll find a way to cram some of that in before it's all over. On the other hand, something we have managed to do that I love about warm days is people-watch and meander the sidewalks downtown.

 

We saw a few more of these pairs downtown that day, obviously on a photo scavenger hunt. Kind of fun, I thought.

We've only been to the Chatterbox a few times, but I love it. It's a super-tiny spot, just one row of tables, a bar, and barely enough room in front for the live (mostly jazz) artists performing there to pile in and play.

(...see Lucille Ball up there?)

I love murky summer night skies...

We're trying to plan some sort of outdoor adventure in the next couple of weekends, but in the meantime we'll go for long walks after dinner peeking into lit windows in the neighborhood and then cuddle into the couch together watching a bit of bad television...with this guy barreling his way between us, of course. (Ricky gets all the pooch press today, I suppose.)

"What, ith sthomething wrong with my fathce? Why are you stharing at me like that?"

Perfectly Acceptable Excuses for Being Absent from Your Blog for Four Weeks...

*feel free to use these if you ever find yourself in a similar position in the future

• I was trapped in David Blaine's clear box
• My fingers were temporarily rendered useless in a freak dryer lint trap accident 
• The aliens didn't understand how much my readers needed me
• I was rearranging my Netflix queue
• That concerto wasn't going to write itself
• I was peeling a thick-skinned navel orange 
• My dogs ate my keyboard
• My dogs ate my brainstorm post-its
• My dogs ate my will to get up in the morning
• I went a little whacknut trying to figure out that whole Jacob business on LOST. I mean, honestly, WHAT THE HELL.
  
• I was filling in for Oprah
• That "weekend" in Cabo got a little...hazy
• I couldn't think in plus-140 character concepts (thanks, Twitter)
  
• I was cataloging everything in the house for possible sale on Ebay
• I was an emergency alternate for I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here
• I was in an extended food coma
• I was swimming across the Atlantic
• Apple desperately needed my services in order to finish that new iPhone

But I'm back now.

You mean...like a George Foreman grill?

I radiate heat when I wake up in the mornings.

Pulsating, haze-wavy heat.

In fact, I could quite possibly melt your hypothetical ice-encased body (resulting from your hypothetical misguided time machine excursion into the Pleistocene Ice Age followed by the fortuitous hypothetical Star Trekian beam thrusting you back into the present and materializing you straight into my bed) with approximately 15.3 seconds of indirect contact.

During most given days, I feel as if I'm running about 10 degrees colder than any actual environment I'm in. I shiver. I chatter. I say things like "no, seriously, feel my nose!", which my husband becomes increasingly annoyed with in direct proportion to the rate at which I seem to believe that HE NEEDS TO FEEL HOW COLD I AM RIGHT NOW! I stash sweaters in every room at easy arm's reach. I've even sunk so low as to resort to using the ever-avoided vacuum to remind my blood to extend itself to the very ends of my body, or OH YEAH there's always working out to get things thawed out. (And yes, I would actually rather do a cringeworthy workout than vacuum.)

...and yet.

The Husband believes he could possibly cook eggs on my body for breakfast while I'm sleeping.

I have a theory that I am hibernating like a bear every night.

However if this is true, shouldn't that mean I'd be burning a hell of a lot of fat in bed? Hmm...Sleep As Toning Technique...I could get behind that movement, if only it appeared to be a working practice.

Someone get on that.

My alter ego could very well be a bad-ass chick cop...

Stop laughing. Seriously. How rude.

Okay, so I may not currently be in supreme shape. It is true I am not yet buff, but I completely plan to be in the next several months. Like...maybe Lauren Graham buff, not Jessica Biel buff. Jessica's arms terrify me. Plus, let's stick with the plausible.

Well, this lack of perfected physique may cause you to question my statement above. As could a few other tiny details, I suppose. Such as:

1. I detest guns.
2. I get pissy when anyone asks me to wear any sort of uniform as part of a work requirement.
3. Donuts kind of make me feel sick.
4. Blood/vomit/urine? See above.
5. Sometimes I get road rage.
6. A large part of my life philosophy to this point has involved minimizing my risk of death. You know, don't move near the San Andreas fault, stay inside the airplanes at all times, stay ON THE GROUND whenever possible, don't get on the down escalator without getting a firm grip on the rail first, etc.

However.

There is another part of me that gets very VERY pumped about feeling empowered and entirely too excited and braggarty (today, that is a word) when I see a new muscle pop out. I have a vehement sense of justice and always wanted to solve crimes. I can be cocky and tough (not that the two necessarily have to go together); it's just not a side of me I've nurtured much I suppose. Sometimes I think I could possibly have rocked a badge like nobody's business.

I mean, you totally get that I'd want to be the Mariska Hargitay cop, right? Not the local beat cop, no. I'm imagining myself with a sexy short shag, and endless array of cropped jackets, a tough attitude, pouty lips and a hot-as-hell partner, dramatically solving crimes with my mind AND my bod.

Oh, did I forget to say that?

technorati tags: NaBloPoMo

What You Do Alone

I think we all have that thing. Actually, most of us probably have a FEW of them. You know, what you do when you suddenly find yourself in the house completely alone - the spouse just headed out on a trip, the kids are off to sleep over at their friends' houses, your roommate actually got a boyfriend and has somewhere else to go for the weekend - you're alone not just for an hour or two, but HOURS AND HOURS. And now, you finally have a chance to be completely selfish and do what you save for those moments when no one is there to criticize, observe, interrupt, or judge.

What do you do?

Me? You want to know what I do before you answer?

I love to put on the most relaxing clothes I own, and then usually do one or more of the following:

1. spread out a load of books and magazines from the Stuff I Want to Read but Still Haven't Read but that Doesn't Mean I Won't Keep Buying More Stuff pile and pick one to dig into
2. put my hair in a ponytail and not wash my face for two days
3. slice up a whole onion, sauté the hell out of it, and eat the entire thing because who's going to be around to be offended? p.s. IT'S DELICIOUS
4. sing all over the house, possibly even attempting to hit some of the high notes in those Mariah Carey songs from the 90's?...yeah, you know which ones I'm talking about
5. watch something completely and utterly irrelevant and/or mindless, such as the Lifetime "I married a hot guy but then he started to beat me/tried to kill me/started to like other hot guys so I ran away/fought back/divorced him and learned to love again" movies, or The Food Network, or a Mad About You marathon
6. log on to Rhapsody, put the playlist on random, and turn everything up REALLY LOUD
7. sit on the bathroom counter to lean into the medicine cabinet mirror and pluck my eyebrows for a very long time
8. crack open a notebook and wait for some sort of magical inspiration to compel me to write something brilliant or draw something at least above 3rd grade level
9. take a nap on the couch with a puffy blanket on top of me and two of the dogs laying in my crooks
10. paint my toenails

Those are a few things I may do. Now, give me one or two of yours.

technorati tags: NaBloPoMo