EDGY, WHOLESOME
You might notice a new tagline in the November header. That is because this header is the last one to carry the Flawed But Authentic tagline. I guess this month my header is kind of sharing them both.
In a few days I’ll be announcing a new project. (I know, right? You can’t even believe it.)
See you then.
xo
>We have friends coming this weekend. Yippee!
>I hope everyone knows how much I love my kids and my last entry was not supposed to mean otherwise.
>My ex did mention he was looking for work to me before my son mentioned it. It was the ‘far away’ part and the ‘back where I used to live’ part that got to me.
>Need some design work done? Ask me.
>I vote the weekend starts tonight.
>The word ‘autumnal’ makes me very happy. I say it over and over like a mantra.
>The Crazy is ebbing and flowing.
>I feel confined in a box. A smaller box than I used to be in. The highs are less high and the lows are less low. I dream about feeling the highs. I suppose some part of me misses it.
>I also dream about chain smoking and self-harming and eating disorders. So far not much of that has made it to the daytime hours.
>I’m sleeping better and longer than I have in years.
>I’m waking up at 7am every morning. Sleeping in is a thing of the past.
>I’m thinking mostly in lists and the rest of the time in ‘writing conversation’ style in my head. Pretty much all the time. Like right now.
>I would like to invite you over for a cup of coffee and crochet. I promise to talk in complete sentences. Mostly.
>If you are one of the people that couldn’t find me after I redesigned my homepage: sorry and I added a link now. Future employers will just have to be won over by my brilliant smile and critique me on my writing style more than content.
Regarding the song I Wear My Sunglasses At Night: what the heck is Corey saying during the chorus? It sounds like:
Don’t mess aBLEEECH a-da-BLEEECHaBLECHaBLEEEEEEEECH
I’ve pretty much always hated this song because of his odd throat condition.
I’ll be taking a short break, friends. Don’t forget, LA Angst is on the 20th. Sign up to be a reader of just drop by. Don’t tell LA Bloggers Live!, but Angst is my favorite. I mean, I love Bloggers Live! almost as much, but with a gun to my head, I’d have to pick Angst. It’s just that great. LA Angst has been canceled for this month. I’ll let you know when it’s rescheduled.
You might find me over at RealMental.org. I’ll be putting up a few posts. The other writers over there make a visit worthwhile, though. They are pretty amazing. And maybe I’ll post at Schmutzie’s, if I can think of anything remotely engaging to say. I’m getting gaggy at the downer theme that’s been happening with all my writing, so we’ll have to wait and see if I can manage to think of anything else. And I’ll probably be Twittering. See? It’s like I’m not really gone at all.
In the meantime, know that I think you’re ACES and I love you like GANGBUSTERS. xo
p.s. have you listed your blog on BloggerNetwork yet?
I’ve started and never finished a ton of posts. They sit here in my drafts, lonely. Some of them look so familiar, I swear I’ve completed them already. I used to see them every time I started a new one, but at some point, not sure when, I stopped seeing them. They don’t exist to my every-day-eye. They are destined to live a sad, lonely and unwritten life. And there are some good ones, too!
I’ll list a few of them, including the contents of the unwritten post, which I suppose are hints as to what I was going to say about the subject. Although, some are just too cryptic for me to figure out.
Mad Lib
remove the words
top 10 my space
oh, sorry. i thought you were just doing myspace
i dont even have a myspace.
well, if you didm youd be in my top 10!
Mother’s Day
Last Mother’s Day (notice that date is 2005. 2 years ago, people.)
Drivers License
https://leahblooms.com/blog/images/drl.jpg
Post # 742
bees out around the car.
we had a pool.
And my favorite:
??
sticks
I seem to frequently wear the wrong shoes. I’ve done it time and time again. You’d think I’d learn, but out of the 40 pairs I own, and of the four I can find, only 2 are comfortable enough to wear for any length of time without blistering and one of those is a pair of tennis shoes. So, why do I keep grabbing the wrong pair? Why??
A few weekends ago I went down to San Diego to see friends. I hugged my hellos to Margot and she exclaimed on how cute my shoes were. The cuteness factor is in direct proportion to how much they will hurt later. I guess the only thing to figure out is how long you have before your toes are curling and bloody. Someone should come up with a formula. Anyway, we were walking into the closest furniture store and I had just got done telling Margot about how amazing it was that my shoes didn’t hurt at all and how wonderful it was to wear shoes that didn’t hurt my feet that were ALSO CUTE and she said something about how that was so nice because she had a very similar pair to the ones currently on my feet that she could only wear for an hour or so with limited actual walking before they hurt her very much, and then it happened. It was like someone turned the switch to PAIN and my feet started hurting. Besides embarrassing, because of my most recent platitudes, it was painful and required an extra trip to her house so I could swap the cute shoes for my flip flops.
And this is just one incident of many. Too many to tell. But I’ll tell you one more. Over the weekend I wore my flip flops for an extended amount of time while we walked all downtown Santa Barbara, all the while pinching my big toe and the one next to it in a very particular fashion to keep my shoe on my foot as we walked. I didn’t notice until we were about a half mile away from home how much my ankle hurt. I started paying attention, as I walked, to the particular pinching of the toes thing and how it was hurting my ankle but even as I concentrated, I couldn’t stop. I just forged on and kept walking and wincing. The next morning, my right ankle was swollen and had a lovely shade of blue going on the outer side.
All day Saturday I reaped the fruits of my labor and wore a pair of tennis shoes that look like this. Good thing I didn’t waste time and money on a pedicure that no one would see. I wore them to the beach. No sand between my toes except the sand that made it inside my shoe, inside my sock and exfoliated the tender skin in between my toes as I walked home.
I seriously only wear four pairs of shoes. My tennis shoes, one nice pair of black pumps for skirts, my well-worn flip flops and the cute shoes that hate me. I used to wear an awesome pair of green and black checked Vans but I stepped in gum and couldn’t get it off the side so I don’t wear them anymore. But I haven’t thrown them away, either, even though I know I won’t wear them. I haven’t even been able to find the huge box of shoes that my daughter packed for me when I moved. It’s somewhere in the garage hiding under other items I don’t use. An entire box, 4-feet high, full of shoes I’m not wearing. I don’t even miss them because if I did have them out and in my closet, I’d just do what I used to do – try them on, decide they are cute, walk around the room a few times looking for my wallet and my necklace and then take them off before I even go downstairs because they already hurt, replacing them with my flip flops or my tennis shoes.
Someday, when I finally find that box and give those shoes to Goodwill, I’m going to make a person with size 10 in women’s shoes very happy. But their toes will hurt and they will have blisters.
Speaking of favorite things, this is my favorite bowl:
It’s one of the cheapest bowls ever purchased at Tarzhay and we own exactly one. So, don’t use it because it’s mine. My lens had a hard time seeing it alone but did better with getting the color right when there was something else to balance it. Here is my favorite bowl with a lemon:
And here it is with a tangelo:
But this one with the blueberries is the truest turquoise color to what my eye sees:
Yesterday, as I was running across the street (JAYWALKING) after the LA G33K D1NNR, Devon (HE MADE ME DO IT) yanked on my arm really, really hard and almost shoved me into traffic (TRIED TO STOP ME FROM NOSEDIVING). So, of course, I pulled off to the side a bit to avoid death (MADE OUT WITH THE CONCRETE FOR HOURS).
If I was a commercial, I would say, ‘This is my knee. A normal knee.’ and I would show you this picture of a lovely woman’s knee, which mine doesn’t really look anything like, but GEEZ we’re just talking about anatomy here and you don’t really need to see MY actual knee. And then I would say, ‘And this is my knee on asphalt!’ and I would make you look at this horrible picture, which is actually kinda close to what my left knee looks like today. Tomorrow, I’m expecting more bruising and stiffness.
I’m sure there is a moral to the story somewhere. I just don’t know what it is (DON’T JAYWALK). But I can tell you that searching for bruises using the google image search might bring you many more disgusting results than you were prepared for, so maybe don’t do that.
Changing the subject – LA Bloggers Live! is next week and I have 2 readers spots left. You’d be joining the likes of Kevin and Colleen, so I wouldn’t wait if I were you.
I’m not sure where the weekend, Monday or today went, but suddenly it’s 5pm on Tuesday. I’ve been doing stuff. New projects (would you expect anything less) job interviews, new writing gigs etc. I hate doing the flirt, dash and run update but I’m afraid that’s all I have in me at the moment.
Look, it’s my daughter:
Umm, look! It’s Ants on a Log:
Look! It’s my genetic eyebrow showing up in my son:
Do you feel cheated? Do you still love me? Are you still coming over this weekend with a 6pack of Red Stripe?
Sometimes, I am, in a word, Odd. I know this. For the most part I embrace it. But, it’s come to my attention that some of my favorite things are different than other people. In fact, it could be said that I have favorite things in some categories where others wouldn’t.
For example, ice. I like only a certain kind of ice – crushed but kind of soft so that the ice breaks apart easily between my teeth. I would rather have no ice than have the really hard, sharp crushed ice that, when chewed between my teeth, cuts my gums. And large cubes? No. I say no. None of that in my drink. But my really, really, really favorite part of crushed ice is when it comes out of my fridge door while I’m using the CRUSH feature and the tiny, tiny flecks get on the top along the rim of my glass and it reminds me of a snow cone or snow only better. When I finish filling my glass to 2/3rds full, I put it to my face, stick my tongue out and scoop those excruciatingly wonderful tiny flecks into my mouth. THAT is my favorite kind of ice.
I have a favorite spoon. Well, actually, spoonS. They are the only two of their kind and I have no idea where we got them. They don’t match anything and I don’t remember seeing them before we moved from San Diego a few years ago. They have a brushed silver finish, not too shiny, not too dull. The handle fits in my grasp in the most wonderful way. They have a perfect weight, not too heavy, not too light. The tip of the spoon is squared off but not harsh. The bowl of the large spoon is the perfect size for cereal and the bowl of the small spoon is perfect for ice cream. If you use one of these spoons and render it dirty for me to use next, I won’t say anything. You would probably never know they were my favorite. But, you might find that your pants are folded not as nice with the crease down the center next time. In this small way, I will be passive aggressive.
Speaking of ice cream, I don’t really like it. Except one kind – French Vanilla Bean made with all natural ingredients. And I only want one small scoop with an entire sliced banana on top and one squeeze of warmed hot fudge sauce on top. No whipped cream or nuts or cherry. And if you can get me one of those just the way I like it, I might make out with you for an hour. But, only if you are my husband. If you aren’t, I’ll just say a muffled thanks while I snarffle. And then I’ll make you a quilt or build you a house or something. But, I only want one of those once every couple of months or so.
Right up there next to the crushed ice is the smell of freshly rained-on concrete. Or bricks. I can’t really expound on those since they are as simple as what I wrote.
Links for today:
>Jason Calacanis wrote about what he’s learned about weight loss. I’ve reread it a few times now and I still like it.
>I got this little zine from Jen Lemen at Blogher. It’s inspirational and worth every cent.
>Do not click on this link if you value keeping your lunch in your stomach. But if you do click and have any idea who the demographic is for this product, I’d love to hear. (via)
Everywhere I look there are flowers. I’m running and running and then finally come upon a swing set. Fabio turns to me and says, ‘Would you like a push?’ Without replying, (because I’m sure he knows my every thought) I jump up on a swing and Fabio’s big, strong (quite frankly, too large and bordering freakish) arms begin to push me higher and higher. The quiet creak-creak of the swing set gets louder and louder until it’s almost a deafening sound. I cover my ears with my hands and fall from the swing to the ground. Fabio won’t stop staring at me and it’s making me very, very uncomfortable.
And then I wake up and realize that there is someone outside my window peering in. My second story window. Peering in. At me. And making a sound that after a few moments I realize is tape. I just lay there, eyes tightly closed and willing myself to disappear. Maybe if I hold really still he won’t notice me! I do my best imitation of a turtle in the shell at midnight. The guy out the window says, ‘Good morning, Ma’am.’ And then I die.
I move my arm as slowly as I can so as not to call attention to myself, grab my phone on the bedside table and text Joe.
leahpeah: dude right outside my window.
leahpeah: seriously. can’t move. man right there! i’m in my underwear!
joe: hang in there baby.
leahpeah: how do i get out of bed? he can see me!
joe: i guess you cant.
leahpeah: oh well. there goes my day. and it was going to be a GOOD day, too.
Apparently, the owners are painting the exterior of the house. Good to know that it included a peepshow and that I could provide it, free of charge.
Let’s just say I’m neurotic in an endearing way. Is that fine with everyone? It may not be true but we can all pretend.
This morning I started doing the dishes because our maid seems to have forgotten to come to work for the last 36 years and as I rinsed one of the plethora of dirty glasses that somehow procreate offspring faster than you can say GO OUTSIDE AND USE THE FRIGGIN HOSE NEXT TIME! I caught the scent of mildew. Mildew, again! I’m not even kidding when I tell you for the past week I’ve been on a tear when it comes to isolating and obliterating the mildew. Mildew must die! And every morning when I start to do the dishes I’m sniffing like a crack whore looking for her next fix trying to find the source. We have at least 145 dishrags and they’ve all gone through the washer this week at least twice because they don’t pass The Sniff Test. I sniff them before I put them in the dryer. I sniff them when they come out. All fine. And then I pick one up to use it and it smells musty and mildewy! (not a word? bite me, spellchecker.) So I stand there, sniffing and tossing just washed dishrags back into the washer for their 4th rotation.
Which brings us to this morning, standing over the sink and once again, smelling the mildew. I picked up the rag I had just retrieved from the cupboard and sniffed it. Mildew! I angrily threw it in the general direction of the garage and got another. Mildew! My hands smelled! I scooped a little water in my hand and smelled it. Mildew. How can water smell like mildew?!
After huffing and puffing and telling Joe for eons about how whack this house is and how the kitchen sucks and everything smells like mildew and now EVEN! THE! WATER! smells like mildew he looked at me and said, ‘Well, that would be bad if the water really smelled like mildew. It would make us sick.’ And then he just looked at me.
As I started to question myself, I took one of the many, many glasses from the counter, filled it will water from the tap and inhaled deeply as if it were a fine wine – A hearty bouquet with a hint of oak. No mildew. Not even a bit. I had no choice but to dump out the water and admit I may have been overreacting.
And then I couldn’t smell it on any of the rags. I think someone is playing a trick on me. Like the time in Junior High when the tip of my nose smelled sour for over a month. It did! I couldn’t get it to stop no matter how many times I wiped it, washed it and dabbed on perfume. I walked up to people, some I knew, some I didn’t, and asked them to PLEASE smell my nose because it was driving me crazy. I needed someone to verify that I wasn’t crazy.
Funny story – I was crazy.
