I attempted an experiment today.
The Hypothesis: Dot can go to work with everything she needs in her pockets.
The Challenge: Fitting all 243 items that women usually carry with them onto my body. Lip balm, wallet, mini-purse (for coins, different from wallet), digital camera, keys, cell phone, notebook, thumb drive, pen, snacks for 3 pm in the afternoon…
The Result: This is what a bag-free Dot looks like.
The Trick: Simplify, simplify, simplify.
The Lesson: What I need is certainly not what I think I need.
This.
This is Insta-Romance.
Fire up two tealights with a lighter and voila! You have Insta-Romance!
Or, as I like to call it, “Romantic Lighting for the Cheapos.”
Just er, ignore the random battery, wallet, and scotchtape dispenser in the foreground.
We’re simple folk with simple needs. (And a computer table that doubles up as a dining table.)
For email, use computer. For dinner, push laptop aside, light two Tealights-Who-Wished-They-Were-Candles, and ladies and gentlemen, we have Restaurant Quality Atmosphere. Insta-Romance (TM)! Love in two clicks!
Tell me, can you FEEL the love tonight?
Why? Why? WHY does a migraine exist?
And why didn’t I have my Super Fly-like Sunglasses today?
Sunlight is my enemy when an attack occurs. I wished I had these on today.
If Jack Bauer and the CTU wanted people to talk, they’d develop migraine in a syringe.
Jack Bauer doesn’t pee. Jack Bauer doesn’t eat. Jack Bauer doesn’t sleep. Jack Bauer doesn’t charge his cell phone.
As a Prisoner of Season 5, I am trapped in my own home under much the same circumstances.
Except for the cell phone.
I don’t think I used it in my entire life as much as he’s using it in 24 hours. It disturbs me to know the fate of the free world depends on Jack Bauer getting a signal on his cell.
The weekend is upon me, and I need to finish Season 5.
Thanks to Yiqi who alerted me to some hilarious Random Jack Bauer Facts, I’ve since scoured the Internet for more 24-crazies with too much time on their hands. This includes an extensive body count index and this guy who put together a video of all the “Damn its” from Season 1 to 4. (It’s a drinking game thing. I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.)
What did people do before digital cameras, emails, jpegs, attachments, and killer processing capacity?
This!
A Zip diskâ€â€remember these?â€â€slides, photographs “for scanning” and gasp, a floppy disk. A FLOPPY DISK!
That’s like saying I found a glitter pen and some Doc Martens.
Whatever happened to the early 2000s?
I could have sworn I was toting around a Zip disk not so long ago, or was it so long ago?
I uncovered these gems as I cleared the office todayâ€â€a mission obviously never attempted by anyone before me in said office space. Evidently editors moved in and simply accumulated stuff. There were papers from the 90s. Nineties, people.
Everything’s online now. Your photos, your company info, your life.
Who’s throwing THAT stuff out?
I found out two things from the name tag hanging around my Borders cashier’s neck yesterday.
His name is Matt. And he is a “Radness Expert.”
Ah, Abercrombie and Fitch.
I pop into this bastion of bare chests and low-hanging jeans every once in a while when I feel like I need my fix of Teen Angst.
You know, to remember what it feels like to want to be someone else. Desperately.
In case you haven’t noticed, Teen Angst (or is it simply Angst?) is all over the average Abercrombie store. You’ll find it in the oh-so-casually attired sales people in their hormonal and testosterone peaks flirting outrageously with each other. You’ll find it in the mocking ads that face you in the fitting roomâ€â€see above. You’ll find it in the quiet desperation of the regular human-sized shoppers picking out clothes made for Lilliputans.
You see, in the Land of Abercrombie, I am a Large. Sometimes, I am even an Extra Large.
I’m not sure who actually buys most of the clothes at the store. They must be six years old.*
Nevertheless, I enjoy stepping into the store with no pressure to buy anything or be anyone. Don’t we all remember those days when we dressed TO BE someone else? Like in those Abercrombie Ads of Wishful Thinking?
These days, I dress as an expression of myself. I don’t want to be anyone else, because I AM.
What a difference 15 years and a verb conjugation make.
*Full disclosure: I have bought clothes at Abercrombie, sized L. I am not six.
I have mentioned how I am not much of a dog person.
I will pat a dog. I will say, “That is doggone cute!” I will even ask Jay for a dog. (You know, being caught up in the cute moment and all!)
But, I really don’t know what to do with them.
“You always ask me for a dog,” Jay said.
“I know, but you’re supposed to stop me!”
I do not enjoy licks. I do not like dog hair. I especially do not like dogs rummaging through my bag, finding my snack stash of banana bread, and eating it. (Happened today, long story, later.)
I am in love with the idea of a pet. Just not in love with a pet.
I even have names picked out: Google and Tamago.
“Maybe I can get fish,” I offered.
“How often do you have to feed fish?” Jay asked.
“Okay, a plant. I can do a plant.”
“So you can kill it?”
By the end of THIS conversation, we were talking Chia pets.
Sorry for not blogging.
This is embarrassing.
But, er, I have beenâ€â€how should I put it?â€â€indisposed.
If you count sitting in front of your computer doing nothing, then yes, I have been majorly indisposed.
I am currently cooped up watching all episodes of Season 5 of that utterly silly Kiefer-Sutherland-bang-bang-vehicle 24.
It’s like watching one very long episode of Law & Order. Since I cannot stand not knowing what happens, I am unable to leave my computer except to eat, sleep, and perform other survival bodily functions.
I rarely read fictionâ€â€The exceptions are every Enid Blyton book on the face of this earth, Agatha Christie, and spy novels by Robert Ludlum. As a kid, I would not stop reading until the last page. It drove my parents crazy because I read in bed, at dinner, during Chinese New Year visits, everywhere.
It was my one Obsessive Compulsive Action: Getting to the End of the Book.
24 is much like reading a good Ludlum.
Luckily for me, two things work in my favor these days.
I’m not 12 anymore. And no one’s telling me to put down the iMac.
Jay does the Funky Chicken in the Lift (Elevator).
And I am a conference call virgin.
Okay, they’re unrelated, but at some point during yesterday’s multi-city conference call, I wished I could have bust out the Funky Chicken Move.
Two things ruined it for me. First off, the idiot in me ensured that I could not figure out how to turn on my speaker phone. Thus resulting in me holding on to the handset for two hours listening to Important Stuff.
Number two, there was a Heavy Breather on the phone. I’m not sure who among the 20 people online was responsible, but it was TOTALLY messing with my ability to pay attention to said Important Stuff.
I wondered what everyone was doing during the conference call. Digging their noses? Surfing the Internet? Doodling on their notepads?
Don’t look at me. I was taking notes.
And doing the Funky Chicken in my head.
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