It's Official...

...I'm losing it. Either it's a sign of the impending apocolypse or the women at work are REALLY rubbing off on me, because - LOOK! A movie about my dog.

Maybe I'm still delirious from my close call (hardy har har), but I think I feel something ALMOST, SORT OF, NOT QUITE BUT ALMOST like affection for the horrible animal today. I'm gonna go lie down until it passes.

They Are So Going To Take Away My Chick Card

So... Shoes. I’m afraid I don’t understand the whole shoe thing. I know that a lot of women love shoes, buy lots of them, covet more of them, and - I really don’t get it. They’re JUST SHOES. They cover your feet. You step on them. They protect your feet from snow and dog poop and dirt and pokey things. I’ve tried really hard to understand (and yet I still really don’t understand) what makes one pair of shoes cute and another ugly.

I don't get purses either, for that matter. My family had a white elephant gift exchange on Christmas Eve. You could contribute a joke item or a nice item, as long as it was under the price limit. The item I opened was a purse. I opened it and stared at it, because I had no idea if it was supposed to be a cute purse or a joke purse. I didn’t know how to react. Should I laugh? Should I be happy? So I looked around at the other girls in the circle who all made encouraging faces at me and said, “Oh – SO CUTE!” and then I pretended like I understood and enthusiastically said, “Yes, very cute, very cute.” I traded it a minute later for two photo albums and an iTunes gift certificate.

But I need new shoes. I really do. The dog chewed up my one pair of appropriate for winter church shoes and next week it's either fuzzy slippers or tennis shoes if I don't do something soon. Specifically, I would like boots. Looking around at church on Sunday I realized that 95% of the women in the room were wearing boots. And I thought - this is like a post-Christmas miracle, a sign from God that, yes indeed, boots were the way to go. He hath allowed mine eyes to temporarily discern shoe related fashion trends, and I have no choice but to take heed.

I don’t have any boots, unless you count short boots you wear under jeans, and my friend Liza recently told me that not only shouldn’t I count them, but really, I should burn them and never buy another pair ever, ever, ever again. And I’m thinking, "O.k., if ankle boots are ugly, why do they sell them?" Is there a crafty shoe designer out there saying, “Ha ha ha ha ha, I know these are butt ugly, but some loser will see them and buy them, and then everyone else will point and laugh. That’ll be awesome.” Why are they trying to trick me into looking dumb?

And I don’t even know, maybe Liza is wrong and they really ARE cute. I mean, who decides what makes it cute? Four teenagers named Chelsea at Hot Topic who quickly spread the word amongst their fashionista friends? And what if they're just messing with us? How can we know for sure that the shoes are cute and we haven't just all been suckered? HOW CAN WE KNOW? For example, look at these Balenciaga DESIGNER shoes! JUST LOOK AT THEM! What in the -


I would buy my shoes at Nordstroms, where the clerks tend to help you out and let you know what looks nice and what looks stupid, but I’m way too intimidated by the shoe department there. Back when we had actual money (oh, money, how I miss you) I would buy clothes there but could never bring myself to buy shoes. The shoe people frightened me. I was too scared to do much more than very quickly walk by the displays, sometimes twice but at full speed, not making eye contact with anyone. "Who, me, buy shoes? Oh, no, I'm much too busy walking around here, no, don't look at me, don't look at me, DON'T LOOK AT ME - Ayeeeee!!!" So I won't be shopping there. Plus I'm broke. DANG it.

That brings me to my other criteria… I need them to be, and this is key, cheap. I’m thinking I would gladly pay approximately two dollars.

No, I’m kidding. I would gladly pay three dollars.

O.k., FINE. I’ll pay more than that. But, when I’m talking about cheap, I just want you to understand the level of cheapness I’m talking about. Cheap. Cheap but cute. And quite obviously, I will need help figuring out what is cute, and what is not cute, and what is crossing the line into tacky, and what will make me look like I just came from a rodeo.

So – help me?

Please?

P.S. I have ginormous calves. GINORMOUS.

P.P.S. (You guys, thank you so much for all of the nice comments on the last post. They really made my day. I was waiting for everyone to call me nuts, and instead you are all just - awesome and real. And I would answer back to every comment saying, thank you, thank you, but that would get really boring for you to read. But thank you. I really do read and LOVE every comment to pieces. Ahem.)

The Life Cycle of a Blog

• Get a blog – lie and say you are just doing it to keep in touch with people
• Write a few self conscious posts. Get no comments.
• Post all the time! Sometimes multiple times per day! You have so much to say! All the time! Wheeee!
• Comment other places. Get a few comments back.
• Become addicted to comments.
• Compulsively check comments. When comments are low, let it affect your mood that day.
• Install site analytics/tracking.
• Wonder why Blogger Y is looking at your blog for 12 hours straight. Figure out Blogger Y probably clicked on your blog and then went to sleep.
• Wonder why a certain IP address is looking at your blog 20 times a day. Get freaked out. Realize it's you.*
• Check out other blogs. Wonder why they have awards and you don’t.
• What’s a meme?
• Watch traffic go up. Pretend you don’t care.
• Watch traffic go down. Pout.
• Get awards. Give away awards. Get more awards. Give away awards. Start to be very, very afraid of awards. Write post mocking awards. Never get another award. Sulk.
• Give your blog a makeover (Obviously, I skipped this step ;>)
• Put up ads.
• Have a couple of well received posts. Become self conscious about posting afterwards because you cannot measure up to yourself.
• Guest post places. Suck at it because when you guest post you are supposed to have an actual point and you, my dear, do not have one.
• Get writer’s block. You have nothing to say. Nothing at all. You SUCK.
• Decide to stop worrying about what people think and just - write stuff
• Watch traffic go down, down, down. Wheeeeee!
• Realize you will never be Dooce and become o.k. with that.
• Discover that even when people don't comment, life still has meaning.
• Stop being a total blogging freak and get a little perspective for Christmas
• Stop checking site analytics because you've realized it makes you crazy(er.)
• Achieve blog zen - blog because you want to, not because you have to

Don't pretend you don't do some of this stuff. Maybe not all of it, but some of it? Right?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Just me then?

Okie-dokie.

P.S. *Nicki, you know I'm lookin' at YOU. Hee. That still cracks me up.

Love of My Life

A few weeks before Christmas break, it was my daughter's turn to have her Student Spotlight. We showed the kids in her class the pictures on the poster we'd made, and read her favorite book, and then it was time for the children to ask her questions.

A little boy raised his hand and my daughter called on him.

He smiled up at her. "Who is your favorite boyfriend at this school?"

"Dillon," the teacher said in a warning tone. "You can't ask that kind of question."

He glared at her. "Fine."

He looked at Sarah again. "Who is your favorite boyfriend in this CLASS?"

She responded, "I can't have a boyfriend until I'm 16."

Score one for brainwashing.

Since then I've heard all about which boys want her to come play with them, which boys want her to be their girlfriend, which boys protect her from the other boys that want to kiss her. She is in FIRST GRADE. This cannot be normal. Is it?

Last night, in spite of the excessive amount of romance that seems to be percolating in her brain, we took them to see Enchanted. I don't know what was better - the movie, or watching my daughters watch the movie. They were enthralled. Sarah was so overcome by the romance of it all that she kept kicking her feet and squealing and covering her face. Like her mother.

Tonight after we downloaded some of the soundtrack songs and danced around the living room, she told me that Ian, a boy in her class, is the "love of her life." And then she sang along to True Love's Kiss, giggling.

Help.

P.S. I'm guest posting over at Segullah today, if you'd like to read about my first kiss.