Nic Notes

but I'd rather eat candy...

Well, all diet plans have gone out the window now that I sit in front of books prepping myself for the LSAT. And you know what, it's not fun. I do not care if Andy and Bobby and Carrie are in a row boat with three rows and they have to sit two by two and  David, Ernie and Frank have absolutely no desire to sit near Andy or Carrie and will only sit next to Bobby if Bobby is directly behind Ernie and  Andy and Bobby won't sit next to Carrie.  What they really need is a disciplinarian to  tell them to just sit down and shut the hell up already!

Not kidnapped by Madonna

Eek! I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted. Bad blogger! Bad me!

I went to see Madonna last week.

It was... you know... okay.

I had a fantabulous time with my mom and my sister. We drank martinis and Malibu Bay Breezes and wine and enjoyed the company. It was a blast. We stayed in a Sofitel and they had the most amazing beds in the entire world. Seriously, if I travel, I will look for a Sofitel in a city before I'd look for a Four Seasons, Hyatt or and Historic Hotel of America. Hands down. They had down feather beds and down comforters and amazing down pillows. I wanted to move in. My sister and I shared a room while my mother lounged lazily all by her lonesome in her own special suite. Ali, my sister, worked for Clinique at one point and reconfigured my entire cosmetics life. We chatted about our lives, bitched about politics, hit on men in the hotel bar and drank more martinis (Pomme Rouge martinis to be exact - sour apple pucker, vodka and cranberry juice, ah.)

Of course, the other exciting parts of the trip included a power shopping trip to JCrew where I got some awesome new clothes and mom singlehandedly putting me on the Fat Flush diet.

The non-exciting part of the trip was Madonna.

Yeah. Madonna. Not Exciting.

She was an hour late for her concert and when she did show up, it just wasn't a big WOW thing.

I would have been impressed by the performance if it were Ashlee Simpson, but for Madonna I was totally expecting more. And so were my mom and sister.

As for the Fat Flush, yeah, I'm doing that now, albeit a little half-assedly seeing as how I haven't completely cut out the carbs, but I am taking all of the supplements. I explained that I simply cannot cut carbs until the planets align and my period is over. Why? My ovaries are PISSED at me for letting them get all butchered up. They might cause problems if I cut carbs. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself to put it off for another week. Mom swears by the FF, I'm pretty sure she'd even swear on our lives (actually, just on the other children's lives -- she knows that I'm the one who's going to make sure she doesn't start washing her hair with that bluing shit and protect her from the gold lame). So now I drink diluted, unsweetened cranberry juice all day, and take flax supplements and drink lemon water, and you know what, I think it works a little bit. I still haven't entirely neglected Weight Watchers, I'm still following most of those principles as well. We'll see how I do this week.

I will post, again, soon, I promise. Thanks Amie for making me remember!

Showers

Today, at approximately 2:30 PM I took a shower. Despite the deluge the Midatlantic states have experienced in the past week, and well, the flooding, it appears we are in a water shortage. We finally got water back after nearly 36 hours without, around 11 AM. The time delay on my end is due entirely to reruns of Alias on TNT that I had TiVo'd.

Also, I looked through my last post and realize that I didn't clarify that the shirts I posted were not club-whory. I may have been a little trigger happy after looking through VS's website. I'd probably, under the right circumstances and in the right body, wear those. This, this, this, and this, well, not so much.

My Itchy Life

(First, I can't find my USB cable. Stupid moving.)

I'm still itchy. I have to apply prescription cream to the itchy spots twice a day. I saw the doctor on Friday, the itchyness is still a mystery and he gave me a super strength steroid cream. Which, you know, yay. Apparenlt I shouldn't use it too often because I run the risk of my breasts growing breasts or some weirdo things like that. Seeing as how I already have enough breast tissue for all of the plastic surgeon waiting rooms in LA, I haven't gotten it filled. (I'm also not keen on growing body hair, or quite frankly, applying anything to my body that my doctor says, "I really wouldn't use a lot of this," with a grimacing look on his face.

I'm on my first week of WeightWatchers trying to lose a couple pounds. It's going like one would expect torture to go well. The plan is easy to follow even if it's entirely devoid of food with flavor and texture and bulk, oh my!.

I did go off program on Thursday night, which I expected to do because of cooking class. We made Scotch Eggs which were good, but not worth going off program for. For hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and then deepfried, I expected a bit more. I should have stayed on program and hooked myself up to an intravenous lard drip. But that's okay, we also made Bilbao style shrimp, which is shrimp in a garlic, white wine and crab broth mixture   served over crusty bread. Yum. My task for the evening was working on a fresh spinach salad with a warm vinaigrette dressing with bacon, roasted red peppers and pinto beans. It was divine. And ridiculously easy to make. We finished the evening off with an apple tart in a Basquaise sauce. The tart wasn't special, but the sauce was divine. Of course, any cinnamon infused cream sauce is divine. And precisely why I have to experiment with Weight Watchers.

The whole watching my weight thing would be a hell of a lot easier if I didn't work so heavily with food. While I talk about other things in my job, the food is a pretty big component. And then, of course, all weekend long I have to look at food. Lots of food. Good food. Trays of fresh mozzarella and tomatoes just about did me in yesterday. But it wouldn't have been very professional had I just pulled out a fork and started digging in. Which is a good thing. Though now I'm thinking about that mozzarella...

I should probably occupy my time with other things, like wondering if Heather Mills McCartney really was a hooker, if baby Suri really exists and why the coverage of the new Messiah aka Shiloh Jolie-Pitt is really unsettling or why my life is so empty that I actually watched an entire episode of My Fair Brady: We're Getting Married and hoped that Adrienne Curry would find someone else and leave that pathetic Chris Knight or what color I should paint my toes next.

So, I'm just going to go and paint my toes, and watch TV, and count down to when I can work out again. Oh, and eat dinner.

(This entire thing would have been easier if my doctor would have listened to me when I was going in for surgery and removed my abdominal fat because I am certain it was aggravating the cysts on my ovaries. But no. No. He just removed the crap that was growing on the ovaries.)

pictures! tomorrow!

At Amie's request, I will be featuring a picture of Count Dracula, although only half of him so you won't get to see his rad furry shoes. I know, you're sad, but he's, uh, counting. Yes, he's counting the number of boxes from the old attic. He's very handy that way. To cheer you up I will also feature pictures of the gypsy moth invasion of the front door, my fully finished and totally hated Clapotis, and if that's not enough, I can regale you with pictures of the mystery rash that is taking over my body formerly thought to be started by the gypsy moths but according to the doctor is "weird" and in no way related to the gypsy moths, and if you're very good, I may even show you a picture of my incision, reopened in a new spot a-freaking-gain because it doesn't give a flying hoot that it's been SEVEN DAMN WEEKS since my surgery.

But for now, I've only taken the picture of the Count and a nice hefty dose of Benadryl so I probably shouldn't be trusted with the camera. Or a blog.

The gypsy moths

I am currently living under an infestation of gypsy moths. It is horrible. I feel like the locusts are coming. The gypsy moths are everywhere. When I go outside to get in my car, I end up with one in my hair. When the furniture was moved out of the old house and into the new, the gypsy moths fell on all of the pieces, preferrably the ones with nooks and crannies where they could hide, and are continually emerging from out of nowhere when all I try to do is simpy sit down. It doesn't help that my skin is super reactive to them and I ITCH. ITCHY. EVERYWHERE. I have welts on my hands, my feet, my legs, my face my back. It's insane, disgusting and unnerving and I HATE them.

I hate them so much that yesterday I was cursing mother nature, quite ironically because the stupid fuckers have eaten all of the leaves off the trees and it looks like it's January (which is also interesting because we had the same, mild weather in January), and my 11-year-old cousin filled me in that it wasn't nature or God who created the gypsy moths, it was man. A man who tried to create a better silk worm failed, and some of his prototype worms escaped, and low and behold, over a hundred years later, I ITCH.

Of course it was a damn man. Pantyhose, tampons and now gypsy moths. Jerks.

pantyhose woes

What kind of sadistic bastard invented pantyhose?

And more importantly, what asshole decided that it would be proper etiquette to wear them.

I hate them.

I wore a pair the other day for the first time since surgery. Within 20 minutes of wearing the brand new pair, there was a hole in my toe.

That was not comfortable.

It's also not comfortable when they shift throughout the day and the wee parts of your body are suddenly rearranged when you stand up.

It's also not comfortable when your abdomen is swollen from surgery and you lean to reach for something and the bastards take off on a roll down the belly, over the button, past the pubis before stopping right before it's at the edge of your skirt where it would be visible. (Note: The edge of my skirt is welllllll below the pubis thankyouverymuch.)

It's not comfortable when you're wearing control tops and you pull them up too quickly in the bathroom putting your thumb through the essential support and control section, giving the illusion through your clothing that an alien is trying to escape your abdomen.

It's not comfortable when you have to move quickly and you can feel them start to heat up as your legs rub together, curiously wondering if they could actually catch fire only to have your thoughts distracted by their capture of a single strand of the ultra fine, invisible to the naked eye hair that resides on your upper inner thigh.

And those are only physical discomforts.

Sometimes in the morning you might be getting ready with all of the lights not fully on and you get to work and notice that your stockings make your legs look oddly pale and shiny and you remember that you bought a ton of hose on sale and you probably didn't look closely at the colors.

Or sometimes you're wearing a brown skirt and the only clean, run-free pair you have is black.

Not to mention, you have to navigate through the jungle of off black, jet black, black and dark black to figure out what you're looking for. And the 14 shades of tan.

Of course, it's not like you can just log on to the Internet to search for pantyhose reviews without coming across the truly depraved assholes who are probably the same people making the money off of these things. It's easier to find reviews of breakfast cereal and toilet paper. Pantyhose? Well, no. Unless you want to talk to P@ntyH0$LUVR or TyMeUpWithH0z.

Why does it seem that women are the only ones with relatively expensive and yet disposable needs? Feminine hygiene products and pantyhose. Obviously some men are rolling in the dough. Women wouldn't do this to each other. They would not. It would be akin to bitch slapping my uterus. A woman just couldn't do this.

More TV for me.

My incision opened a little bit. (I'm sorry! It did!) The doctor says that maybe I've been purshing myself too hard. Two more weeks working part time only.

Yay.

I have very mixed feelings about this, but I suppose the best I can do is to just enjoy the time. And fix the colors.

Which is worse?

I don't know what the worst part about this is: paying $2.75 million for a phone number or having your number published on the internet.

Don't look in her eyes...

My mother and step-father are in Vegas for a big convention. Mom is spending her days between the spa and the shopping and her nights between the shows and the restaurants.

I got a little nervous when she said she was going to see some shows.

"Which shows are you going to see?" I asked nervously.

She lists them out for me.

The Blue Man Group. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Cirque du Soleil. How cool!

Chicago (the band, not the musical). Fun enough. (Step father won't go with her.)

Barry Manilow is dark on the only night she can see him.

Oh, and...

"He won't go to see Celine Dion with me either."

You know, most children of any parent would be worried that their parents would take in the nudie shows in Vegas.

Not me, I'm afraid of Celine Dion.

"Mom, you can't see Celine Dion."

"Oh come on, it would be fun."

"No. She's scary."

I don't know how she did it, but she rolled her eyes audibly.

"No. She's really scary. She's a bobble-headed stick figure. Her head never grew out of its infancy proportions."

As her head moves back and forth she could be hypnotizing the crowd to destroy the world. (Maybe THAT'S the secret of the ultra-right wing members of the Republican party...)She might try convincing Mom that Lilly Pulitzer and Gucci are bad for her health. I need her to believe in them because I believe in the power of hand-me-downs. Her hair probably holds the bodies of several audience members. And every time she opens her mouth, I'm afraid a car might drive out. (She could probably star in an entirely different genre with that sucker.) (Wow, that was an incredibly bad pun, but I didn't realize it until later and now I'm cracking up so I totally can't take that out.)

So no, I don't want my mom to see Celine Dion. I would fear for her life.

Thankfully she'll spend the majority of her trip shopping. (I'm going to have to mentally block the spa part because I have literally been sitting on my ass for three weeks and could really use some spa treatments to make me look half-human. Or at least paint my toes. That's far too uncomfortable to even attempt.) And she has show tickets to other shows, so she won't see her, but it didn't stop my goodbye: "Ma, if you're walking down the street or in a store and you see a picture of her, or you see her, don't look in her eyes and step away slowly. 'Kay?"

I'm not risking the damn Lilly Pulitzer collection (Pink! and Green!) or her 20 years of Gucci purses.