A helping hand March 20, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Blog.1 comment so far
The last time I put up a donate here-type appeal was after Hurricane Katrina – and FYI, if you’re in the mood for donatin’ to hurricane recovery-related causes, do e-mail and I’ll be more than happy to supply a list. But Sweet of Sour N Sweet emailed about friends who lost everything, a loved one included, in a house fire. And us bloggers, we got to help each other out.
You can read the full story and news coverage of the event here on Sour N Sweet and information about donating to the Lewis Mountain Fire Relief Fund.
Thanks.
Just what the doctor ordered March 19, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Family, Life, Shopping.24 comments
(Updated: Just to be clear, I had my tonsils out last fall. I got the purse last weekend. This is how long I loved it.)
For months, I have been obsessed with one purse and one purse alone – The Lauren by Hobo International. It’s been around for a few years, I think, and I’ve had mixed feelings about it. I was unsure if it was large enough to hold all of my going out necessities. But I purchased a pink clutch by Latico Leathers a few months back and I love it – the bag holds just what I need: money and plastic, lip gloss, compact, key, cell, Blackberry. It was chic enough to carry with a dress and casual enough for nights out in jeans. And so I decided that one pink clutch was not enough. I needed to add a basic-black Lauren to my repertoire of handbags.
I will not lie. I like fashionable things, but I am sometimes stingy about the price. I see the $98 price tag on the Lauren and think that’s a bit more than I’d want to spend on a big wallet. But the more I thought about its versatility and how darn cute the thing is, the more I wanted it.
So I started bidding on Laurens on eBay. But winning one was hard – apparently I am not the only Bargain Hunting Lauren Wanter. Unable to watch auctions like a hawk, I watched the final selling prices on a few auctions and set my maximum bid to this amount. Then I went about my week, which included prepping to have my tonsils removed. I was nervous. I’d never had surgery before in my life, I hate needles, I have really bad veins – I often joke with the nurses at my doctor’s office that I couldn’t shoot heroin even if I wanted to because HOW WOULD I FIND A VEIN. They are not amused.
The Lauren was at the back of my mind until I checked my eBay homepage to see that I was winning a total of FIVE Laurens at a cost of around $250 plus shipping on each, which is not something you really want to commit to two days before surgery knocks you out of commission for two weeks. What if I won them all? How would I pay and would I even know? And what, pray tell, would I do with five identical purses?
I finally decided that if I won the purses I’d just have to wait until I was lucid enough to eBay and write apology e-mails about having had surgery and not upholding my end of the auction. Thankfully, I was outbid on them all – I have never been so happy to lose five eBay auctions in my life.
As I nervously fidgeted in my hospital room before surgery, my mom was trying anything and everything to calm me down. I was a bundle of nerves and anxiety. I knew I needed to have my tonsils out because I simply could not stay on antibiotics any longer. I had no tolerance to sickness left, I was miserable and my throat would swell and burn for weeks at a time. I had run into every person who ever had his or her tonsils removed as an adult and they all gave the experience very low marks and gave me this silent wincing look, like the pain and discomfort would be so great that no words would adequately describe it SO WHY EVEN BOTHER. But everyone assured me my life would be all sunshine, rainbows and non-sore throats if I made it through.
That said, I swear, I was mere seconds from bolting out of that place – I’m not sure how far I would have gotten on no food, no water and without shoes and tethered to an IV, but I felt like I could be amazingly spry if it would save me from the scalpel.
My nurse realized that I was going to have a panic attack if she didn’t intervene and suggested a cocktail. I was like, “Sweet, vodka.” She gave me a shot of something that was most definitely NOT vodka, but worked so much better. Within minutes I was annoyingly relaxed.
Relieved, my Mom engaged me in conversation. And she said all I would talk about was a Lauren by Hobo International. I explained that it folded out flat, had two flap pockets, was rumored to be a favorite of Sarah Jessica Parker, came in many colors and I wanted them all. As they wheeled me into surgery, I was babbling down the hall about this purse, wanting it in black and brown, how fantastic it was.
I remember none of this. I thought my Mom was lying, but she knew the brand name and everything.
So you can imagine my sheer joy when I purchased my Lauren this weekend. Maybe I wouldn’t normally spend $98 on a small handbag, but if it left such an impression that even heavily sedated it was all I could talk about, then I’d say it was worth every penny.
Looking back, laughing March 19, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Friends, Life.10 comments
There is a very saccharine-sweet saying about people coming into your life, leaving footprints on your soul and you never being changed. Or something ridiculously adorable like that.
Other people, I think, come in to your life, get under your skin enough to irk you and then leave you completely conflicted and generally annoyed. And you can’t, no matter how hard you try, forget them. You could bang your against the kitchen counter until your brains were all mixed up like scrambled eggs. And the first thing you’d think would be, “I wonder what so-and-so is doing right now, other than ignoring me.”
Most of the people who crawl under my skin like bugs are men, but not all men affect me in this way. There are the ones I scarcely remember — first dates or a drink bought — hell, some that I’ve kissed — who left little imprint, negative or otherwise, on my life, save a funny story from college or an odd, awkward moment in passing. The men who might not even earn a second thought until I’m actually trying to think about them.
When I first started really writing this, there was B. And he got under my skin so badly that I picked every little moment and interaction apart until it meant nothing. And I can safely say now that some things just don’t have second meanings or special symbolism. Life is not always so complex. A phone call is a phone call and a certain beer isn’t your special beer together. It’s just a drink.
And for some reason, for some inexplicable reason, some day, you just stop caring. And you feel kind of silly about the hours and hours and days wasted on this person and the sheer volume of tears shed, which could fill the Gulf of Mexico. Or so it seems at the time.
The other day when Best Friend Ever was in town and we were jumping her in and out of dresses, B sent me a text message that he had a keg and I should come over. I have no idea why my almost-30 year old former Life Altering Crush had a keg on a random afternoon at 1:30 and, seriously, maybe he didn’t need a reason. But as I explained a few hours later that I was being a bridesmaid and he had a typical disdainful reaction, I giggled at how different I am right now. Years ago I would have weaseled my way out of anywhere to go casually hang out with him. And now I was just rolling my eyes.
On the way to dinner, I told Best Friend Ever about his text message and how I asked him, “Why a keg?” and he seemed to think that was the stupidest question ever.
“You know, years ago I would have just, died if I hadn’t rushed over there to sit cutely in his house and flirt and think maybe he’d look at me and realize how fantastic I was,” I said.
“Exactly,” she said. And then she paused, like she was looking for the right words. “And you know, I listened to you talk about him incessantly for years. And you know what?”
“What?”
“If I would have heard one more story about B, one more thing B did or didn’t do …”
“Yes?”
“I would have killed you.”
I laughed this hearty, deep laugh for myself and poor silly me who fell just a little bit in love on her 22 birthday — sometime between when the boy she’d met a week or so prior had showed up to her party and between when the cops showed up to issue her a noise citation. (She maintains, FYI, that the party was not THAT loud, for crying out loud. And even if it was, didn’t she deserve a warning? It was her first offense and her BIRTHday .) A few days later he’d kissed her and then abruptly left her apartment and she’d followed him downstairs, all barefoot even though it was December.
“I’ll see you around.”
“You will?” she asked.
“I will.”
“But, um, will WE see each other?” she asked. (She is, FYI, slapping her forehead in shame for how desperate that sounded.)
The blood drained from her face at his pause. It was dark, so he didn’t see. But she saw him nod reassuringly.
Little did she know, right?
We will see how Southern y’all really are … March 18, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Being Southern, Life.23 comments
Question: What is the correct response when someone says, “I’m so mad I could just hit someone!”
Oh, and there is only one answer. And, yes, I got it right on the first try.
Updated: Anon and Lissa (of Misplaced Texan) are correct! And yes, I SO did say, “Here, Hit Ouiser!” to someone last night in response to “I’m so mad I could just hit someone!”
Rocked.
Mattress 1, Charming 0 March 14, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Evil Mattress of Evil, Friends, Life.28 comments
I have a hand-me-down mattress. It came out of my grandparents’ guest room (I think) and I purchased a headboard to go with when I moved out of the dorm years ago in college because at some point it was just no longer acceptable for me to sleep in a twin bed.
It is a full sized bed and not a queen, but I just ignored this because it was free. I had this vision where if/when I purchase a home of my own, this bed goes into the guest room for company and I upgrade to a queen sized with a pillow top mattress and a new sleek headboard for myself (and possibly a lucky beau).
So I’ve ignored the lumpiness of the mattress and how it is generally uncomfortable, thinking, “One day I will force my guests to sleep on this bed and they will not be able to complain because it is impolite to do so.”
But over the past few months, the lumpiness has gotten progressively worse and a huge knot had formed underneath the surface of the mattress on my side of the bed. Even though I spend most nights in bed alone, I always sleep on the same side – the right side if I’m on my back. (I sleep on my tummy or side.) And I wasn’t ready to give this up for the left side, which seems so far far far away from the glass-topped nightstand where all of my essentials – nail file, a beer, cell phone, alarm clock, yesterday’s earrings, the silver fleur de lis necklace I wear most days, cuticle cream, rubber bands for my hair, my glasses, nose spray, my prescription allergy medicine and Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon Body Butter – sit, an arm’s length away for emergency elbow dryness or sinus situations.
Sure, there’s the OTHER nightstand on the left. The one with the drawer and the doors that shut, where I keep “special” things for “special” situations and an old stack of magazines, a sudoku book and a picture of me in France. And I could move my essentials to left nightstand, but this would completely disrupt my life. I have slept on the right side of the bed for as long as I can remember and it is going to take more than a silly mattress lump to send me fleeing to the left.
But the knot got worse. I was sleeping in the most awkward positions to snake my body around it. I slept quite poorly on Sunday night, part of which I attribute to it being the end of the weekend. But the knot was getting to me.
So on Monday night I’m sitting on my bed, half watching TV and half writing. I have my four pillows stacked behind my back with my laptop on my lap. I moved and felt a ridiculous scracth on the back of my thigh. I yelped at no one in particular and threw up my hands. I had had it with the lump in the mattress. And, as it turned out, it had had it with me. I took a close look and there it was, poked through the top of the mattress, a scratchy spring that ripped my sheets and my skin.
That was it. I tore the blankets and pillows off the bed, awkwardly flipped the mattress over in a bit of a tantrum, knocking much of the contents of the glass-topped nightstand to the floor. And as I huffed and puffed and flipped the damn thing over, all the while cursing and grumbling and generally carrying on to no one inparticular about the mattress – I was mad at this mass of springs and stuffing. Irrationally so.
I put the ripped sheet back on the bed and defiantly sat down, smacking the mattress with my hand, like, “I showed you, you stupid lump! I. SHOWED. YOU.”
The next day, after a so-so night of sleep, I relayed this story to College Roommate via e-mail.
“I’m picturing you waking up in the middle of the night with this big ol’ spring poking you in the back, and I am cracking up,” she wrote me back.
I was shocked (SHOCKED) by her careless laughter in the face of my quite grim mattress lump/haven for escaped springs situation.
I wrote her back, sarcastically noting that I thought it was “HYSTERICAL.” And then later, I referred to it as my “Princess and the Pea” bed, and, well, she thought that was pretty funny too.
Although I think it had more to do with the implication that I was the Princess in this telling of the tale.
