It's gone straight downhill since 1984

You know what I am dreading? I'm dreading the Olympics.

That's right, I'm an UnAmerican Whore who hates the Olympics. I don't care about the latest figure skating controversy (and there is ALWAYS a figure skating controversy). I could care less if Bode Miller is drunk or stoned off his ass when he flings himself down the snowy hills of Turin. (That's right, Turin. How many Americans do you think realize that Torino=Turin? Hardly any, I bet.) And do I even need to discuss curling? I think not.

It's not just the Winter Olympics either. Can't stand the Summer Olympics either, with their blips of swim meets and endless track and field competitions. The stupid countdowns that NBC constantly runs for the months beforehand (only 10 more days to the Olympics!) fill me with dread, because it means that there will be nothing on NBC except Bob (fuckin') Costas for the next 16 days.

Really, it's NBC that has ruined the Olympics for me. They show the events in clips and moments, with treacly, "life affirming" stories about athletes (usually only American ones, even if they're not the best in the field) interspersed in between. Good luck seeing much more than a recap of that hockey game on NBC; hope you have cable, because if you don't, you're SOL. No Olympics for you!

And the sponsors! Did you know that Kleenex is the Official Tissue of the Olympics? At least, according to their commercials they are; I couldn't find anything listed on the Torino 2006 website, but Johnson & Johnson is an official sponsor so maybe they fall under there? Oo, Kyocera is a sponsor too...does that mean no Nextel phones for athletes? Budweiser's a sponsor too, I wonder if they are the Official Keg Suppliers of the Olympics. I think every corporation in America has its hands in the Olympics somehow.

Oh, and don't get me started on the mascots. Check this shit out:

She is a soft, friendly and elegant snowball. He is a lively and playful ice cube.

The hell? An "elegant snowball"? A "playful ice cube"? Get off the drugs, Olympic Committee people.

Whatever, it's not like I'm going to watch any of it anyway. The opening ceremonies have been getting progressively weirder over the past few Olympics, so there's no need to see those. And I can read the results on CNN and get as much info as Bob (fuckin') Costas will give me. My mom will watch and record every last bit of ice skating, ice dancing and ice humping, so I can get detailed reports from her if I want to.

In the meantime, thank God for Fox and Netflix. At least I'll still be able to watch some nannies kicking ass while the (goddamn fuckin' all over the place) Olympics are on.

There's a guy in a Hyundai who had a way worse day than you

Most Awesome Random Quote of The Weekend:
"Wanna go get breakfast?"
"Yeah, I'm wicked hungry, I just realized."
"Did you also realize you're not from Boston?"

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You want to know something really fucked up about Wedding Thinking? Wedding Thinking makes you think that $500 is an amazingly small amount of money to spend on flowers, $600 is a good deal for a dress and $5000 is a FANTASTIC deal for a party involving dinner for 100 of your closest friends.

I was so very excited last night when I finished doing my flower order (online, of course, since this is above all, an Internet Wedding). I ordered the sweetpeas the wholesaler here in town refused to supply, the daffodils the same wholesaler couldn't guarantee I could get through him, my very favorite gerbera daisies, the ranunculus with it's layery petals that I adore, and enough filler and lemon leaves to build a lemon leaf village surrounded by a Queen Anne's Lace forest. I got everything I wanted for the 18 table arrangements, 4 corsages, 3 boutennaires, 2 nosegay bouquets and 1 bridal bouquet that we're going to have to make, to be shipped overnight to my doorstep two days before the wedding, and I got it all for just $500. Woo!

Dude. $500. Since when is $500 considered cheap?

Since I started planning a wedding, that's since when.

Man, I hope this goes away after the party's over.

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So today a gigantic 18 ton freeway sign was knocked down by some nimrod truck driver who left his hydralic bed in the up position. The sign came crashing down onto a Hyundai and traffic got stuck for hours. Stuck. Just...sitting there. Getting out of their cars and walking around.

Unfortunately, that is the freeway I get onto every morning, just long enough to get over onto a different freeway.

Man, that section of freeway right before the sign is on a giant bridge that makes me nervous every time I drive over it. It's in what basically amounts to a natural wind tunnel so if I'm not going fast enough my little car gets blown about a bit. I hate that bridge.

Good thing I was running late and still doing my hair when the news alert came up on the morning news then, isn't it?

Instead, I got to cut around it with the other (goddamn idiots that kept cutting me off and trying to hit me) who knew better than to get onto the 805.

Speaking of the 805, it drives my friends and family who aren't from Southern california crazy every time they hear me call a freeway "The". But screw that, man. That's the RIGHT way to say it. The 805. The 5. The 163. None of this "I-" crap. our freeways are important (just ask thos poor souls stuck on the bridge this morning), and they should be referred to as something important. The 15. The 94. The 52 and The 56 and The 78 and The 125.

Hm. Maybe we have too many freeways.

Nah.

Want to see somthing cute?

Happiest Baby Ever
Originally uploaded by Minarae.

So I'm doing this thing for the wedding, and it involved scanning in a bunch of pictures of Kevin and I as babies/kids. And I decided that we were so damn cute that I needed to share them all with you guys.

Come check out the the whole set; it could be quite entertaining.

Happy Friday!

My brain was eaten by bridal zombies while I slept

My life is so utterly and completely dull and boring right now, it's kind of funny. I spent the long weekend cleaning, and I had a great time with that. Seriously. I usually do major "throw away everything because I hate lugging it around" purge of my household belongings every time I move, but I haven't moved in four and a half years. And so I had so many piles of crap stuffed into the corners and the closets that it was just insane. The bookshelf in the bedroom broke six months ago and since then, there were piles of books spilling out onto the bedroom floor only to be buried under the laundry that I kept dumping onto the floor instead of into the overflowing hamper.

In short, things were a disaster. And with a wedding shower right around the corner, I knew we needed to find some space. You know, throw away the old crap so there's more room for the new crap. So I spent the weekend ensconced with Kris, throwing away clothes and old projects and other assorted crap. I still have no idea how I threw away 12 giant garbage bags of stuff yet still have an apartment full of stuff, but I did. We also made a few trips to Kris' happy place, the Container Store. And then I spent a bunch of money buying bins and boxes and ways to make my life better through organization. Who knew that happiness comes from having one's shoes individually boxed up in clear plastic shoeboxes and a hall closet with everything sorted into bins? Not me, but let me tell you, coming home is way better now that there's no piles to trip over.

We even went to Ikea. On a Sunday. During a sale. In the middle of the afternoon. Why? Because I lost my damn mind and was so obsessed with finishing the bedroom that I insisted we go there to pick up bedside tables RIGHT THEN. Kevin was twitching by the time we got out the door with our bedstands (and zillions of champagne glasses for the wedding). And I remembered why I usually never go to Ikea unless it's a weeknight. Blech.

The kitchen/dining nook that we turned into an office still need to be reorganized but that can wait until After The Wedding. It's like its own time period, After The Wedding and Before The Wedding. AW and BW. BW is crazy time. AW is organizing time. Speking of the wedding, I was walking around the other morning while I was curling my eyelashes and managed to bump my elbow on the doorframe and pull out a dozen eyelashes all at once. And my first thought was "Wow, I hope they grow back before the wedding!" Not "Ow, mother fucker that hurt!" but "I hope they grow back before the wedding." Do you see now, how crazed I am becoming?

Work is about to be crazy-making too, so I should be ready for that straitjacket right around March. Speaking of work, we have got some crazy ass mother fuckers working as "security guards" in our building in the evenings. The other night, one of my coworkers and I were leaving, and we'd both already taken off our badges and put them away in our purses. We were leaving the damn building, we didn't need our badges on anymore. The batty old guy with the gigantic glasses looked at us and made some cranky comment about us not having them on and then he growled at us.

He growled and then barked. BARKED AT US for not wearing our badges.

We practically ran out of there.

You know, when a barking security guard and a trip to the Container Store are the most interesting things that have happened to a person in the past week, it's time to wrap things up.

There's a feminist in this princess

Every woman should own a tiara
Originally uploaded by Minarae.

So remember how back in November I was all "Oh, I don't want to talk about the wedding all the time" and acting like I had other things on my mind?

Yeah, that's done. The calendar flipped over to 2006 and wham, it's all wedding, all the time in this pretty little head of mine. The pretty little head that spent the evening with a tiara placed on top of it, no less. (Speaking of the tiara, every woman should have a tiara. It brightens one's day immensely.)

One of the more serious things that is part of this whole wedding shebang is my name, and the changing thereof. I had no idea so many people think that changing my name is some kind of betrayal of the feminist movement. But they do, and man, I really hope none of them decide to belittle my choices.

Here's the thing. The last name I currently have comes from my father. The father I do not speak with, have no relationship with, and will probably never see again. I don't know anyone on that side of the family, and quite honestly, I think of myself as an H, my mother's maiden name. Those are the aunts and uncles and cousins I count as my family, even though we don't have the same name. I always have had this view of things; I told my mom once when I was little that it would be okay for her to change her name back. She didn't, since it was the early 80's and the single mother thing was still new and she wanted to make sure she had the same last name as me.

And now I am marrying a man I love enough to share my life with and we're going to be a team and guess what? We're going to have the same last name, and it's going to be his. (We briefly contemplated throwing off the patriarchy completely and combining his mother's maiden name and my mother's maiden name for our Shiny New Name, but then we decided that would be too much trouble. Because we are lazy.) It's going to be his because I have no attachment to the last name I currently have attached to my first name.

And man, it's going to be a pain in the ASS to do that name change. Ugh, the paperwork and the shuttling from the county recorder's office to the Social Security Office to the DMV. The insurance and the credit cards and the loans and the work records. That's how much I want to do this. It may have been different, if I had research published under my name, or books or poems. Then I might keep it, professionally at least. I totally understand why people keep their names, and I applaud them for doing it.

But come on, don't tell me I'm not a feminist just because I am changing my name. If anything, I'm being a true feminist by making the choice that's right for me, despite outside opinions and societal pressure.

Most people wouldn't call me a feminist, I know. After all, how could someone who regularly refers to herself as a princess, freely admits to using her breasts to distract on occasion, loves wearing pretty dresses and high heels and is wearing a veil AND a white poofy dress for her wedding possibly be a feminist? And I'm not a feminist in the traditional sense, I know. I don't consider myself equal to men, I consider myself every bit as good and smart and strong as men, but in a totally different way. In my house, chores are shared, but I do all the hanging of shelves and installing of ceiling fans. I know how to change my car's air filter and I was the first one to notice when Kevin's car started hiccuping. The Volvo YCC makes my head hurt, I'm ardently pro-choice and pro-civil rights, and I know what offsides means in football. I also do not want to be drafted, love buying makeup, and call myself a secretary with no shame. Kevin pays when we go out to eat and I do all the cooking, but I have no problem killing bugs.

So yeah, I'm a feminist in the sense that I believe women are different, and more awesome, because we are way prettier to look at naked.

But I'm changing my name, and I'm proud to do so. No telling me I'm wrong, okay? Because I can totally kick your ass, without the tiara falling off.

Issue heavy like lead

Most Awesome Random Quote of The Day:
"You don't want me to have one cold, achy foot and one warm, non-achy foot, do you?"
"There's other things that matter more to me, I must say."

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Wow, I really dropped that "updating on a regular basis" thing pretty well, didn't I? Man, I am awesome.

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Two things have happened since the year started. First, I finally got back on the Eat Right and Work Out More bandwagon. Between August and December, I was pretty much just not caring at all about things like grocery shopping and eating right and exercising on a regular basis. Instead, I was pretty much preoccupied with trying to keep myself from losing my fucking mind.

But I am back! On track! I am so back on track that the other morning I was at the gym early enough for me to appear in the background during the live feed for a local news station's morning show. In a moment of ultimate meta-ness, I was watching myself work out on the elliptical (from behind even, woo, go M's Ass!) while I was on the elliptical thanks to the TVs on every cardio machine. Craziness, I tell you. I don't want other people watching me work out, why would I want to watch myself?

Anyway, I'm back to Counting Points, which...gah. You know, Weight Watchers is a really good program that really does work for me, but only if I really do follow it and man, I hate making myself accountable. There's just something poopy about writing things down so that later on I can look back and go "Hey, look! I ate pizza and a canoli and promptly passed out in a food coma!" But hey, having to keep track of it makes me think twice about everything I eat since man, do I really want to admit it aftwerwards?

The answer to that is a resounding no. The reason for that is simple. I've always been a secret binger. God, when I think about the loaves of bread I scarfed down after turning them into perfect cinnamon toast. Or the entire pies that would disappear within a matter of 48 hours. The nights when dinner consisted of an order of Papa John's cheese sticks and a pint of Ben & Jerry's. None of that happened in front of anyone, it was always at home in my apartment by myself. No throwing up, just binging. But having to write it down, even though no one sees it but me...it makes me stop. I don't want to admit to anyone, least of all myself, that I can indeed eat a dozen cupcakes in one night if I put my mind to it. So I stop myself more often if I know I'm going to have to log it once I eat it. Sometimes I hate it, because I despise feeling guilty for eating something that tastes great but goes straight to my ass. Food is not something to feel guilty about.

But I don't own a scale. I don't weigh myself ever. The only time my weight is noted is when I go into the meetings or when I go to my doctor's office. They have this "free pass" that allows you to skip your weigh in if you know you've overindulged that week, but I never use them. If I've been eating crappy, I want to see what kind of damage I've done. It's the only way to keep me from continuing the behavior. Nothing else does.

It really pisses me off that I am this warped about food. I hate that it's a daily struggle for me not to gorge myself on Twix bars or Entenmann's coffee cake. I could go on for days about how stupid it is for me to have to struggle like this because I *know* what's good and right and makes my body work best, and it's not sitting on the couch scratching my ass after eating a pint of ice cream.

I'm sure that I would benefit from some actual therapy to deal with my food issues. I know I have some serious emotional baggage hanging around and making it harder for me to deal with this, but I just don't want to let this become some "I'm fat because my daddy abandoned me" kinds of things. I'm fat because I spent years eating too much and exercising too little, and it's time for me to change it. Sometimes I catch myself daydreaming about getting the lap band surgery, doing it the easy (ha ha) way. But nothing would change if I did that. I would still have the same goddamned issues, just with a smaller ass.

I'm really lucky, you know. I'm in amazingly good health for someone as heavy as I am. Nowhere close to diabetic, good blood pressure, perfect cholesterol ratio. No joint pain or bone spurs or other physical discomforts caused by my weight. I'm able to be physically active on a daily basis and the stairs at work don't bother me, even when I'm in 3 inch heels.

But that does not matter. What matters is that I have a truly dysfunctional relationship with food, and I need to fix it. Goddess willing, the fixing will stick better this year.