I know I've mentioned that I'm going to be in Boston for a few days, but I think I've failed to mention that I'll be in Boston for my birthday. In much the way I feel about the trip itself, I'm simultaneously bummed and excited about this fact. I've never been out of town on my birthday, so it should be fun (does anyone know if Dunkin' Donuts gives you free stuff on your birthday?). But I've also never been so far away from family on my birthday, so that makes me a little sad. Though, I am looking forward to at least two weeks of belated birthday celebrating (this also gives the boyfriend more time to shop for gifts).

This trip is just happening at a weird time in general. The conference starts on Sunday, which means I fly out on Saturday, and miss a few things that are happening this weekend (Tribal Fest, Bay to Breakers, a co-workers husband's open studio, a friend's birthday, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else).

All of the above is keeping me from being as excited as I should be about this trip. I'm going to Boston! I'm not paying for it! I'm attending a design conference I've always wanted to go to but never had the chance! All I can muster up is a "woot".

I did buy two new books tonight though, so that's making me look forward to the flight just a wee bit more.

For those of you keeping track, the student showcase belly dance performance was on Saturday. Photos from the second half of the event can be found here.

You might notice that there's a photo of me with my eyes all done up in that set. I think I figured out the make-up problem. It's not the make-up itself but what I used to remove it - Philosophy's Purity Made Simple face wash. I've worn make-up twice since that first test run, and it's been fine. This does not mean, however, that I'll be wearing make-up on a regular basis. Unless someone wants to come over every morning and put it on for me.

I cooked quinoa for the first time tonight, and it was an interesting experience. I also had a culinary adventure with some swiss chard stems. More on this later, including a photo.

In less than a week, I'll be in Boston. I'm simultaneously excited and wishing I didn't have to go. I think it's mostly the five hours in the center seat on the plane that I'm not looking forward to. Would someone just hurry up and invent a teleporter already? I'm guessing that won't happen between now and Saturday, but I'm going to cross my fingers anyways.

And finally, happy mother's day!

Tuesdays, I think, are not usually the day one should receive bad news. Tuesday is the day you recover from whatever Monday threw at you. It's the "do-over" for Monday. It's what gets you to Wednesday and helps you make it through the rest of the week. Bad news, in my opinion, should be delivered later in the week. Thursdays are good. Sometimes even Friday works. Then you have the weekend to sort of absorb and recover.

So when I wandered into work yesterday, A TUESDAY, I was really not expecting to find out that I was being "kicked off the island", again. This time, however, the actual kicking didn't happen the same day. In fact, it may take a few months before they escort me away. I'm still trying to decide if this scenario is favorable over immediate expulsion. Maybe I'll have a better idea in a week or two.

I've been told that it's not a reflection on my performance, it's strictly budget related. That doesn't really make it sting any less.

Anybody need to hire a competent and quick graphic designer?

This morning, looking rather incognito (hat and sunglasses), I hopped on a train and headed to the Maker Faire.

- Photos I took at the Faire: on flickr
- Things I ate at the Faire: corn dog, garlic fries, funnel cake, a small Scharffenberger semi-sweet chocolate bar
- Things I wanted to eat, but did not: chicken teriyaki on a stick, soft serve ice cream cone
- Hours it took before my stomach stopped feeling sick: about four

I think part of the stomach malaise had to do with dehydration, but I'm feeling much better now after having a bowl of chicken pho for dinner. If I go again next year, I think I'll have to focus less on the food and more on the faire.

(Only 12 decent photos after 4 hours? Pretty pathetic if I do say so myself.)

Roughly two months ago, I gave up. I cried uncle, stomped in to my nearest Sephora, and bought a bottle of Philosophy Purity Made Simple facial cleanser. EVERYONE had been raving about this stuff. It was like my RSS feeds had become a face wash advertisement. I HAD NO CHOICE. It's not like my current face care routine was letting me down, but from everything I had heard and read, this would be the only face wash I would ever need EVER AGAIN.

You might be able to tell, by my use of the caps lock key, that the Philosophy face wash and I didn't exactly work well together.

In the beginning, I had high hopes, even though I was a little worried due to the sensitive skin issues I've rambled on about before. The first few weeks were fine. I didn't notice any drastic improvements or anything, but I decided I'd keep using it. After a couple more weeks, I started to notice small pimples. This isn't out of the ordinary for me (though don't get me started on being over 30 and still having to deal with pimples - DEAR GOD WHEN WILL IT END), so I kept on washing my face every night with the stuff. Then the dry patches started. I chalked that up to a slight change in the weather and continued on.

After about a month and a half, I decided I should stop using it. What, might you ask, was the Philosophy face wash deal breaker? The giant, cystic pimples.These were not normal pimples. They were super pimples that were impervious to my Neutrogena On the Spot acne treatment, and refused to go away in a timely manner. I had never experienced pimples like these ever before, and I wanted to avoid them at all costs in the future, so I went running back to my trusty bottle of Cetaphil. Can you blame me?

While I'm not painting a very pretty picture of this particular Philosophy product, it's not my intention to discourage you from trying it. Other people rave about it, so I imagine it must work great for them. In fact, if you'd like to try it, I've got half a bottle I can sell you for cheap...

I am all about singing in the car. Especially when it's just me, the windows are up, and my favorite song just started playing. I will not hesitate to sing at the top of my lungs. It's totally therapeutic.

Though, I often wonder, if someone who liked to sing while driving had actual singing skills, would they sing at the top of their lungs? Or would they try to harmonize and sing along with whatever song came on? I am completely lacking in the vocal skills category, but every once in a while, I try to harmonize or sing along in what I think is my "natural singing voice". It never sounds right to me (probably because I'M NOT DOING IT RIGHT). So I go back to my tried and true method of singing at the top of my lungs, or trying to imitate whoever might be singing the song I'm listening to. It turns out this imitating the singer thing is actually useful for something, because I totally kicked some arse playing Rock Band (warning: site has music) with my littlest brother on Sunday.

The littlest brother (who just turned 18 - OH MY GOD I FEEL OLD), and his best friend were both on guitar. So I was left with choosing the drums or vocals. I picked drums. And after only a few notes, it became painfully aware that drums are HARD! Even on the easiest setting, I wasn't doing very well. It was the first time I'd played them, so I guess that should be expected, but I was still feeling more inept than I should have. After my second sucktastic attempt, the boyfriend comes in and decides he wants to try the drums. So I'm now left with the microphone. I figure I've done karaoke, I can do this. We all decide on playing Creep by Radiohead. A song that I practically know by heart. Even if there hadn't been lyrics going across the screen, I would have done okay. But there were, so I was fine. And as it turns out, the game WANTS you to imitate the vocals! I ended up scoring 96%! I ROCKED! I have mad imitation singing skillz! All that singing in the car totally paid off! We played 3 more songs: The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and David Bowie. And I scored above 90% on all of them.

The first time I played Guitar Hero, I was pretty smitten, but I think I may be in love with Rock Band. I may have to really buy that Wii now...

Many years ago, I decided to give up wearing women's pants. I could never find any that fit, and I've always hated women's sizing. The sizing on men's pants makes so much more sense, don't you think? Find your waist size, find an inseam length, and find pants that mostly fit! Brilliant! So I started buying men's pants. And for many years, I was happy with my pants purchases.

Until a couple of years ago, when I realized that maybe the men's pants weren't all that flattering. I found myself yearning to try a boot cut or a flare trouser. I wanted to find something a bit more feminine and stylish. This happily coincided with Old Navy having a huge selection of pants at the time. I was buying trousers and jeans left and right. Not all of them were great purchases (sequins, anyone?), but I was able to replace almost all of my "man pants".

Since then, it hasn't been that hard to find pants. However, in the past few months, Old Navy has been taking the crazy pills, and I can't find a decent pair of pants to save my life. Some of them have belt loops located 2 inches below the actual waist. Or they only have two belt loops (which are in the front and completely lacking in the more critical back area). I'm also finding that even their angle length pants have all of a sudden become too long. Why is it so hard to make a simple pair of cotton pants that fit?

The final straw was the order I received last night. I had ordered two different sizes of what I thought were normal pants. They appeared to have belt loops in all the right spots, they were cotton, and they came in my beloved grey (which is my favorite color for pants lately). What I received yesterday were pants that had a zipper and a button ON THE SIDE. They were too long. The smaller size was too small, and the larger size was WAY too large! OLD NAVY, WHAT IS UP WITH THE CRAZY PANTS?!?

It looks like I finally might have to start looking somewhere else for my trouser needs (and the prospects aren't promising). Perhaps this is the universe's way of hinting that I should just wear a damn skirt already?

Just in case you're wondering, I did venture out and buy some make-up a couple of weeks ago. I had a whole slew of advice from all of your lovely comments, and after thinking about it for a while, I went to Target (also known as "the happiest place on earth"). I decided that I didn't want to buy expensive make-up because it's entirely possible I'm not going to be wearing it ever again. Unless perhaps I end up performing in another show (and frankly, I think it'll be a while). Target has a wide selection of make-up in varying degrees of niceness. So I wandered through the aisles, and decided I would try some of the more hypo-allergenic brands. I came home with this:

- Physicians Formula Wet/Dry Eye Shadow in "Baked Oatmeal"
- Physicians Formula Eye Definer Eye Pencil in Black
- Boots No. 7 Sensitive Mascara
- Maybelline Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner

I didn't buy any lipstick because I already had a tube of mostly unused Clinique Almost Lipstick floating around.

After I brought home my haul, the boyfriend remarked, "Do you even know how to put this stuff on?" Which was a good question, because I have little to no clue regarding how to apply anything except maybe lipstick (if we're being honest, and I think we are, I'm not very good at the lipstick thing).

A couple of Saturdays ago after class, we had a little make-up dress rehearsal. We all crowded around the mirrors in the practice space, and this is when I finally took everything out of its packaging. I started applying some of the eye shadow, and it was just sad. I felt like an ogre haphazardly smearing color over my lids without any rhyme or reason. Eventually, after attempting one eye, one of the gals in the class came over and helped. She starting applying color to my other eye, and explained what she was doing, and showed me what she was using (she had some small brushes and such). I made a mental note to buy some brushes, and perhaps a darker shade of brown for my eyes. She even fixed up my other eye a little bit so they looked the same. When she was done, the general consensus was, "Hey, you look good! Maybe you should wear make-up more often!"

I decided to leave it on after I left class. I figured this would be a good way to see if I had any sort of reaction, and it might give the boyfriend a good chuckle to see me all done up (which it did).

I ended up removing it all a couple of hours later when I went to rub a corner of my eye and smeared some of the shadow down the side of my face. I figured I was in the clear because my skin didn't seem to react to anything while it was covered in make-up.

However, the next day my eye-lids were dry and irritated, and I felt like they were a little puffy. They remained dry and flaky for most of the week. It was terribly attractive, I assure you. If it wasn't the make-up, I'm chalking it up to what I used to remove it (Philosophy Purity face wash). So now I'm feeling a little unsure. Do I figure that I won't be wearing it that often, use the make-up from Target, and suffer through the resulting dry, puffy eyelids? Or do I investigate some fancier, more expensive make-up?

I didn't realize how unsure I was until I found myself in the aisles of Sephora this weekend. The new Bare Escentuals "Eye Starter Kit" caught my eye, and after a lot of debate it ended up in my basket. I also ended up buying a few odds and ends to go with it (black eyeliner powder, an angled eye liner brush, a lip liner pencil, and probably a couple of things I'm forgetting). I'm not having a complete buyer's remorse attack, but I'm still unsure. On one hand, if I do decide to try wearing make-up, I've got a pretty nice set to start with now. On the other hand, I've got a bag full of really nice make-up that I may only use once or twice a year.

So this is what I'm thinking. I try the Bare Escentuals stuff and if I have a reaction, I have a completely valid excuse to return everything to Sephora. Then I'll use the Target stuff for the rare occasion that I need to wear make-up. If I don't have a reaction, I've found make-up I can wear! Of course, I don't think that means I'll be wearing it all the time, but I'd at least have that option if I wanted to go down that road.

I'll be sure to l et you know how it goes. But first, I'm going to have to get over my fear of actually opening everything up.

Two days ago, I started writing something about my make-up experience (because I'm sure you're just DYING to know how that's going), but I never got around to finishing. As much as I'd love to get it done now, I'm going to wait. Because first, I feel compelled to tell you about the day I had yesterday.

It started with a dentist appointment that I had on my calendar but my dentist did not. Despite not getting a confirmation call the day before, I showed up at his office at 8am anyways, where I was greeted with a quizzical, "Did we have you down for today?" look? Luckily (depending on how you look at it), the 8am person that was scheduled had canceled so they could fix my cavity. Uh, yay?

I arrive at work, and a co-worker and I get online to start registering for a conference we want to attend next month. We go to the site, and it turns out there's several registration options. One gives us the chance to go on some design studio tours, another one doesn't but we can get a set of mp3's of some of the conference sessions. However, this isn't entirely clear to us, and it takes a couple of phone calls to figure it out. Once that's sorted we then have to pick which sessions we want to attend. There is a plethora to choose from, and it takes a while to work out a schedule where we go to the sessions we want and still allow ourselves time to wander around Boston. Once this is done, I head out to meet My Favorite Cousin for lunch.

When I return to work, I call our travel people and start booking flights and hotels. Sounds easy, right? I WAS ON THE PHONE FOR THREE HOURS. Booking the flights was relatively painless (though we're flying out of a less convenient airport in order to get a direct flight that departs and arrives at decent times). The hotel accommodations proved to be more difficult because apparently a lot of out-of-towners are going to this flippin' conference AND half of Boston's youth is graduating that same weekend and all their relatives need hotel rooms. SERIOUSLY.

Here's the scenario: I've got the phone to my ear with one hand, and I'm using the other hand to look up the addresses for the list of hotels offering discounted rates for conference attendees. I give the travel agent a hotel name, she puts me on hold, calls the hotel to see if they have rooms, gets back on the phone with me to say they're full. REPEAT FIVE TIMES.

Finally, the last hotel she checks has rooms. BUT they're only for the last 3 nights of our stay. So now we start searching for a hotel for the first night. She manages to find one and books one room, and by the time she tries to book the other room, it's gone. Neither one of can believe it's this hard to find a hotel room for a conference that is a little over a month away. She searches again, tries one more hotel and manages to book two rooms. I thank her profusely and finally get off the phone.

Now it's after 5pm and I have actual work that needs to get done before I leave. A little before 6, I send my last e-mail for the day and as I'm leaving the boyfriend calls to tell me he's going with his brother to look at a bike in Santa Rosa. I'm totally okay with this because I was planning on going to belly dance class (which I was going to be late for if I didn't hustle my arse home). Then he says, "You might want to lock the door when you get home because the police had our block surrounded earlier while they were looking for someone."

Because you know, I wasn't stressed out or anything BEFORE he told me that.

To make a long entry short: I made it to dance class on time, and then ended up going to Casey's house after class so I didn't have to sit in my previously surrounded by cops apartment by myself.

As you might imagine, I'm incredibly glad that it's Friday. In fact, I think a cocktail or two might be in order.

Remember last year when I unintentionally spammed everyone in my address book? Haha, wasn't that fun? It was so much fun that I DID IT AGAIN. Because, sometimes, I am dumb.

Reunion.com. I hate you. And honestly, I should have known better. But I went ahead and put in my e-mail address, and my password, and without even ASKING ME, it just went ahead and spammed EVERYONE. No pause to ask, "Would you like to send e-mails to these people in your address book?" Just instantaneous spam. When I realized what happened, I immediately deleted my reunion.com account. Of course, by that time (a mere TWO MINUTES) the damage had already been done.

So if you receive an e-mail from me saying I looked for you on reunion.com, please ignore it. I sincerely apologize, and I SWEAR I'm going to do my best to not let this happen again.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find my dunce cap and go sit in a corner for a while.

By nature, I am one who lurks. Okay, that sounds kind of bad. I don't really lurk all secretive-like, but I would definitely classify myself as more of an observer than a doer. In my early geek days, I used to dial up to chat boards (on my 2400 baud modem, woo!), and I'd maybe talk with one or two people, but most of the time I would just sit there and read what everyone else had to say. I would lurk.

It occurred to me the other day that even 17 years later (yes, you read that right), I'm still lurking. I have a gianormous list of blogs that I read. And I try and keep up with them as best I can. I rarely, if ever, leave comments. I do the same thing on flickr. I favorite here and there, and I sometimes make a comment on a friend's photo, but in general, I don't say much. I'm not even sure why I'm so silent. I'm self conscious perhaps. I'm going to spell something wrong and look dumb, or nobody is going to get it if I try and be funny, or there's so many comments already I just don't bother.

And now I'm starting to think that maybe I just need to get over it already and say something. That seems to be how this whole internet community thing works now. You comment on someone's blog, they comment on yours, and boom you've started a little friendship. I don't mean to be all "Boo-hoo! I don't have any bloggy friends", because that's not true. I've made some fabulous friends through this site, and I love them all. But after 7+ years, I feel like maybe I should know more people? Or at least have some sort of relationship with more?

Let me give you a bad analogy: It's like I'm working at this big company with tons of employees and I've worked here for years and I recognize a lot of people and maybe some people recognize me, but we don't really know each other, because we never say anything to each other. Yet, we pass each other in the hallway every day.

(See, I told you it was bad.)

I dunno. I guess lately I just feel like I'm doing this wrong, and I'd kind of like to start doing it right and see what happens. So I guess that means I just need to suck it up and start leaving comments, regardless of how many comments there were before, and regardless of what anyone else will think.

So, Hi. I'm the weird self-conscious girl that's going to attempt to leave more comments in the blogosphere.

But I think I'm going to go hide in that corner over there first.

Sunday is all right for a list of things that are completely unrelated:

Thank you to everyone for their make-up suggestions! I have yet to buy any make-up, but will do so sometime this week. I'll let you know what I end up with and the results (Will I break out in hives from the eye-liner? Will the eye shadow make my eye lids an itchy mess? Stay tuned!)

I registered for BlogHer today. I didn't go last year because the whole Chicago thing was too much for me (I have nothing against Chicago, I'd love to visit someday). However, this year, it was hard to say "no" to San Francisco. Maybe I'll do another shoe poll like I did for 2006. I'll be there for the entire conference, so there will be multiple shoe opportunities. I think I'll need lots of help.

Friday night I went to a Spring Fling celebration at a local coffee shop. There was dancing. To be specific, belly dancing. I took lots of photos.

Some of you might recall that I mentioned attending a tribal belly dance class last year. I know I haven't really talked about it that much since then, but I've been continuing to go to that class. In fact, I go to the beginning and intermediate class now (despite how that sounds, I'm really not that good at it).

Earlier this year, the instructor announced that there was going to be a student show. I instantly decided I didn't need to be in the show. I really enjoy going to class, and felt no need to perform in front of other people. But after about a month of thinking about it, I decided the student show might be kinda fun. I like all the girls in the class, and I really do like to dance (despite my inadequacies). I was starting to think that if I ended up on the sidelines watching, I'd feel like I was missing out a little bit.

So I asked the instructor if it was too late to sign up, telling her I only wanted to be in the chorus (meaning I'd be in the background during the whole thing). Turned out, the instructor already had my name down for the chorus.

But now, I need your help. There's costuming involved in tribal belly dance. Some of this costuming requires make-up. Long time readers know I don't wear make-up, but I'm willing to put on some eye shadow and eye liner for the performance. This means I've got to actually BUY make-up! GASP!

I have extremely sensitive skin, which is part of the reason I've never worn make-up. But it's probably about time I had some for occasions like this. So this is where you come in. I need some brand name suggestions before I wander aimlessly into Sephora and end up having someone give me a make-over.

Specifically, this is what I need:

• eye shadow (in earth tones - mostly browns)
  
• mascara (waterproof would probably be good)
  
• eye liner (also waterproof...do they make waterproof eye-liner? (See? Totally clue-less.) This is the one I'm most worried about, because we'll be drawing tribal-ish stuff on our faces and I've had reactions to that sort of thing before...though that was over 20 years ago when my mom was drawing whiskers on my face for various feline themed Halloween costumes.)
  
• slight color for my cheeks (though I might be able to get away without this - my cheeks are usually red enough without help)

I know there has got to be some natural, hypo-allergenic, non-reactive to my skin make-up out there, I just have no idea what it is! So leave a comment, let me know what you like, or what your friend with uber sensitive skin uses. I wanted to be armed with information when I finally go buy this stuff!

I am simultaneously feeling the hate and just the tiniest bit of love for Monday. The hate? Well, duh. It's Monday. I had to wake up to an alarm clock, pull myself together, and go to work. The love? It means the weekend is over. The weekend that was full of good, but couldn't pass without throwing a little bit of bad in there too. I'm glad the bad is sort of behind me now.

Saturday afternoon, I headed to K2's house for her annual St. Patrick's day party. She's one of my oldest friends, and I hadn't seen her in almost 6 months. I didn't want to miss the party. I had fun. Lots of fun. There was cheese, wine, tons of Irish beer, homemade limoncello, corned beef, cabbage, an amazing artichoke quiche, and tons of cupcakes. I was enjoying myself so much, that I ended up totally flaking on the Flickr Turns 4 birthday party, which I had every intention of going to. This was part of the bad.

I received the rest of the bad (in the form of news I was sort of expecting but still not mentally prepared for) when I arrived at my final destination: Mum's house. Sunday was spent doing my taxes, having a fabulously late lunch, and a bit of shopping. When we finally got back to her house, we ordered some Chinese food and watched an episode of What Not to Wear. At least the bad was sort of sandwiched between the good, right?

As I drove home, my belly full of vegetable chow mien, and my head pounding (probably due to dehydration or possibly the chow mien), I started crying. My Mum is moving away. And it's all happening way sooner than I thought, and there's nothing I can do about it. So I cried.

Eventually, I'll be fine. I know it's not the end of the world. At least she's moving somewhere cool, and it'll give me an excuse to do something with all that vacation time I accrue and never use. Lot's of people live more than an hour away from their parents, and they're fine. Given time, everything will be okay.

I'll probably elaborate more once my brain adjusts to the idea, but for now, I'm just going to cry a little, because that's pretty much all I can do.

Today, I bring to you another edition of self-inflicted injuries*!

Our first injury was obtained while walking for hours and hours on Friday. Walking to the train station, walking to Moscone center, walking around a trade show, walking to lunch (I heart you, 'wichcraft), walking back to Moscone center, and finally walking back to the train station. The end result was a tiny, yet extremely painful blister on the end of my left pinky toe. I haven't been able to wear anything but flip flops or a particular pair of sandals until today.

The second injury was mostly a result of my own stupidity (as most of these injuries are). When leaving work yesterday, I called the boyfriend as I walked to my car. It was a bit windy and chilly, so I was in a hurry to get inside my car (which has been sitting in the sun and would be nice and warm). I was in such a hurry that I didn't bother to remove my messenger bag. This results in me having to sort of wedge myself in to the seat and consequently lose my balance so I end up falling backwards on to the edge of the car seat.

Let's pause for a moment so I can attempt to explain the anatomy of the Beetle's seats. The front seats are bucket seats, and they have these edges that sort of flare out, so they're not completely flat. I had assumed that this feature was produced by a lump foam. I can now officially tell you that there was no foam. There is a frame that make this flared feature possible. A frame made out of the HARDEST SUBSTANCE ON EARTH.

So when I say I fell backwards on to the part of the seat, it was actually my back end that took the brunt of it. The section right above my tail bone, where there isn't a lot of padding or protection, and OH MY GOD, did it hurt. The poor boyfriend got an earful of profanities. After making sure I was okay, he then advised that perhaps I shouldn't drive while sitting down (always a comedian, that one).

The pain eventually subsided and I managed to get through the rest of the evening unscathed. However, this morning my backside is a bit sore, but I'm able to wear cute non-sandal shoes, so I suppose one sort of cancels the other out.

* For more self-inflicted injury stories go here, here, and yes here too.