My narrow escape from mall jail...

Aleigh and I were at the Southpark Mall on Sunday (my favorite shopping mecca when in Charlotte). During our trip, we went into the Apple store to ooh and ahh over the coolness (don't judge me...we still don't have any Apple stores in Charleston) and on our way out I noticed that the window display had MY very same pink Nano in the window. I might have squealed a little bit, as I love my iPod more than I love some of my family members. Al decided to take a detour into the women's room, so while I was standing there I decided to snap a photo of the window display with my digital camera.
As soon as I pulled out my camera, a little man (you can see part of him to the far right of the photo) wearing a mall security guard uniform came up to me and mumbled something.

"What?" (I said as I snapped some photos.)

"You caint take pitchers in the mall."

"Why?"

"You caint take pitchers."

I raised my eyebrow into the "you didn't answer my damn question" position.

He put his hand on his "holster" of what I assume was pepper spray.

I nodded toward a nearby common area where a family who clearly had never been to a mall before was madly snapping photos of each other. "So no one can take photos in this mall? Or is it just me?"

"You caint take pitchers of stores."

"Really? I guess you have to put me in mall jail then." I laughed like I was joking, but I really wasn't because I thought it might be fun to be "detained" by the mall police. Can you call them police? They can't carry firearms.

He walked away, presumably to go tell the family from Bumf*ck, NC, that they "caint take pitchers in the mall." I snapped a few more before putting my camera away, just to be a bitch.

I love brunch...

I would brunch every weekend if I could. While in Charlotte on vacation this weekend, Aleigh and I met our friend Lindsey for brunch at a lovely restaurant called Lulu. The food was A. Maze. Ing.


This is me waiting for Aleigh to snap the photo so I can dig in to my Lulu Benedict. It had lobster and a fried green tomato and something spicy and hollandaise sauce and I think it was from heaven.


Lindsey and Aleigh are ready to dig in too. Yay, brunch! I hardly missed the bloody marys and bellinis.

Everybody needs a little time away....

I am having a mini-vacation (back to work on Wednesday). I'm in Charlotte right now and today there were several hours during which I did not a) check my email, b) look at my blackberry, or c) know what time it was. Aleigh and I were in the middle of Target and I realized that I didn't know if it was 3 o'clock, 5 o'clock, earlier, later. No idea. Fish tacos for lunch, some shopping, manis and pedis (they're very summery pink), a visit to my favorite store in Charlotte, Paper Skyscraper, hanging out with the dogs in the backyard, chopping a big platter of veggies while Al made Caprese salad (buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, basil from the garden, olive oil), and now I'm sitting with my feet propped up on a big stack of books that I plan to read this weekend. After we watch the Passion of Ayn Rand (we're both Rand geeks).

Tomorrow: Brunch, shopping at the Southpark Mall (Sephora! Joseph Beth Booksellers!), lounging, reading, frittering away some time, watching videos on my new favorite iPod Nano toy, taking the dogs for a walk, and forgetting where my watch is.

Maybe she's born with it...

Charlie sent this to me (and I'd forgotten about it) with the email subject line "Maybe it's Maybelline!" Hilarious. We'd stopped off at Walgreens before the wedding we went to on Saturday to get memory cards for our cameras and I posed in front of the cosmetic display on the way out. Because I'd had some Xanax (at least the equivalent of a martini or two). And we're hilarious. Charlie kept calling me "trannie" and "hot mess" and "fierce" interchangeably. I did have enough makeup on to qualify for drag queen status.


p.s. It is not Maybelline. I am born with it.

All my rowdy friends....

(really just one rowdy friend this weekend).
My good friend Charlie came into town from Austin and we had a blast. Shopping, mani/pedi, Target, making silly videos, a wedding, more shopping, a lovely dinner, a lovely brunch, etc. Charlie has an amazing ability to make anyone feel like a VIP (very important Princess). And he did that for me, even though it was his vacation.

This pic is one I shot with my short arm (OK, they're both short) and you can't see that we're wearing fabulous cocktail attire. And that we're at Sewee Preserve for a reception.

I am too disgruntled about too many things...

...to write a coherent post today (unless you really want to hear me bitch about a bunch of stupid, random crap that you won't care about anyway), but I will offer the following:

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
~ Mark Twain

And because I'm doing this new thing where I'm trying to phrase things in a positive manner (don't freak out...I don't think there is any danger of me turning into Ms. Mary Sunshine):

I am lucky that I get to spend so much time around people who are really great and not small.
~Me

Behold...

This was my old computer background. Margaret suggested that its discordant colors and cacophonous design might be contributing to my general ill humor. It basically shouts, "be peaceful, dammit!" I'm taking any and all suggestions right now so I decided to change it.

This is the new one. It is a photo I took of the sunset on the marsh during a bike ride. It reminds me of riding my bike and it does seem to make me feel calmer. Because I have been in front of one computer screen or another for way too many days in a row now.

I'll let you know if it works.

Gasoline theft?

Because I work in media, I get a lot of press releases. In the past few months, I've noticed a trend with an influx of press and new products to prevent people from stealing your gasoline. I quote (from multiple releases and news stories):

"Gas theft? Yes, it’s happening. That’s why locking gas caps are becoming so popular."
Um, really? I'd better run out and buy one right now even though my car was made after 2004 and no one can open my gas tank UNLESS I SAY SO.

"Gas Theft Blamed On Higher Oil Prices: The theft of gasoline from cars is becoming rampant..."
Rampant? I just asked four people what they thought. Three of them laughed at me and the other one asked me if I own a 1984 Gremlin.

"U.S. motorists, angered by soaring gasoline prices, are resorting increasingly to theft..."
People who steal from others, and that includes "big corporate" gas stations, deserve to get a mouthful of gas and/or third-degree burns. We're all in the same boat, dumbass. Just try not to kill anyone else when you're sucking on that hose.

So are we supposed to be guarding our gas? If you own a gas station, yes (apparently drive-offs are up too). If you don't already have a locking gas cap and you don't park in a visible area, I guess caution (and a lock) would be prudent. Who knows? With prices rising (it took almost $50 to fill my damn tank this weekend!), we might be just months away from having to go all Mad Max on gasoline thieves. Personally, I'd rather not wake up in the middle of the night to a flaming gas thief in my driveway.

Milestones...

First dress my mother made for me: Age two. See left. It was the seventies. Don't judge.

First curse word: Age three. Goddamn. As in "goddamn dog," in reference to our monster English sheepdog, Taffy, for knocking my ass out of the way every time she moved.

First scary: Age four. I didn’t have an imaginary friend. I had an imaginary enemy. I didn’t know his name, but I called him “the bad man” and he followed me every f*cking place I went.

First crush: Age seven. His name was Sean. We lived on a military base and all the other boys had crewcuts, but Sean had long hair. When he first moved in, they teased him. Then he beat up four boys at once all by himself. I fell hard.

First kiss: I was eleven. No tongue. I kissed a boy named Troy and made up a song about it called "A Boy Named Troy." We used to sing it at the bus stop.

First disdain: Twelve. I had a brown puppy with white feet that I named "Fogfeet" (a line from a Carl Sandburg poem that I misheard when my mother read it to me, "the fog comes in on little cat feet"). When my mother sold him to a couple down the street, they renamed him "Brownie." I hated them for their lack of originality.