It’s been over a decade since I left home and moved out on my own, and it took me until just today to have a flashback of my old bedroom. Honestly, I’d all but forgotten what it even looked like. But tonight one of the kids told a story that jogged my memory, and a couple hours later the image of those old yellow walls came flooding back.

To this day orange and yellow are my least favorite colors. They would be for you too, if you’d grown up in a room with shag carpeting in those colors. Oh, and how could I ever forget the Sesame Street bedspread and coordinating curtains? Good job making me use them until I was sixteen and got a job to pay for new stuff, Mom.

I remember having to de-preschool my bedroom before having friends over. Eventually I opted for an Esprit / Duran Duran hybrid theme. Teen fashion and 80s pop… What a combo. By the time I was fourteen I had every visible inch of wall plastered with catalog and magazine pages. Does anybody else remember those huge Esprit catalogs?

As for Duran Duran, I hate to admit John Taylor was my favorite. Today I have only two words for him: brow lift. What was I thinking? I suppose there’s no explanation for the behavior of teen girls. But hell, something had to cover the framed Precious Moments posters on the wall!

So I’m curious, what was your old bedroom like?

11 comments June 20th, 2005

I don’t care what all the angry skeptics have to say… I liked it! Even though the leading characters weren’t as hot as Brad and Angelina it was still a highly entertaining movie. It was dark enough, badass enough, and doggone it… People like Batman

6 comments June 19th, 2005

We live nextdoor to our very own Shrek: A down-to-earth guy who looks like a giant redneck Viking. He occupies a one-bedroom over the garages and the kids think he’s great. To surprise him, they had the brilliant idea of decorating his walkway… CONTINUE FOR PICS

I laughed so hard I almost peed. The older they get, the harder it is to tell they’re not biologically related to me… Those poor girls.

6 comments June 18th, 2005

I’ve been cheating on my website, and with work no less. My affections have momentarily been transferred to our corporate web presence, which I have decided to rescue from the tyrannical rule of Digital Insight… I can no longer bear spending hundreds of dollars every time we need to upload a new PDF or change a word somewhere.

Just for giggles, and because I think I’m such a badass now that I’ve learned a little about CSS and CMS, I used an extra database slot that we get with our Intranet hosting to test a new design. After investigating my options, I fell head-over-heels in lurve with an open-source content management system called MAMBO.

Installation was a breeze, and it took me less than 8 hours to customize a template and load all the content that we already had on our site, plus a whole bunch of new stuff that we couldn’t even dream of before – Like polls, and banners, and… I’m getting choked up. It’s just so wonderful! If you want a powerful, flexible web site, Mambo is the shiznit.

PS. I’m still a love-slave to WordPress… See ya tomorrow!

4 comments June 17th, 2005

I still recall the day I shrieked in horror at “Rich Girl” – Gwen Stefani’s pathetic rip-off of a song from “Fiddler on the Roof”. And now she’s come out with this horribly bad “Hollaback Girl” nonsense.

The last time I heard it was in spinning class yesterday. That’s probably the only place it belongs, too… You’ll pedal harder hoping that the bike will take flight so you can avoid its assault on your ears.

Well, it seems I’m not the only one who had a hard time making sense of the lyrics in this tragedy of a song, but thanks to The Zero Boss and Greg Stacy of the Orange County Weekly…

10 comments June 16th, 2005

I’m related to a bunch of nuts. Some certifiable, some medicated, and some in permanent denial that probably led to their condition in the first place. In any case, the older I get, the less of their crap I’m willing to put up with. One by one, they’re dropping from my list of associates.

First was my mom, who certainly earned her partial excommunication. Then it was my dad, who has become such a mealymouthed liar that I can’t bear to be around him. To be honest, I always hope things will improve, so I check back now and then, but I’m usually sorry.

Well, now it’s my aunt. She’s the only local relative whose psychosis is somewhat tolerable, meaning that it generally doesn’t aim itself in my direction. Except when it does. She thinks she’s more perfect than anybody else on the planet, in every conceivable way, and woe be it unto any who disagree. Mmmhmm… Riiiiight.

I finally gave up and stopped responding to her on Memorial Day weekend. We had agreed to meet up for a short visit and I called in advance to finalize our plans, but then she proceeded to obsess over what kind of mood I’d be in, what my attitude would be like, blah blah. Sending conflicting messages. Impossible to please.

The way I figure, if I make her so miserable, the kindest thing to do is buzz off and leave her in peace. Of course, she knows by now that I’m deliberately avoiding her because we used to talk (does that phrase still apply when all I do is listen?) about three hours a week. So now I feel guilty because in a way it feels like a vacation from purgatory.

9 comments June 15th, 2005

They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, but in my case it might be even better than that. I spent my teen years feeling like a complete looser and therefore missed out on a lot of cool stuff, so I was thrilled when I saw this week’s Ten on Tuesday topic…

TEN THINGS YOU WISH YOU KNEW BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL

10. I could have landed any boy I wanted. While it’s true a half-Armenian adolescence is a tragic thing, I still had some major hotness going on, which was never utilized to its full advantage.

9. Most women are jealous, back-stabbers. Now, if I’d known that, maybe I wouldn’t have wasted so much time wondering why they treated me like shit. I didn’t realize it wasn’t personal.

8. Your juvenile record means nothing. Am I saying that I would have been a minor-league criminal if I knew how insignificant the consequences were? Yeah, I think so. At the very least I would have beat the living shit out of a few well-deserving individuals.

7. Marijuana does not kill you. I was convinced I’d take one puff and die of an asthma attack. What a wasted opportunity. I should have blazed my brains out then gone to rehab when I turned eighteen.

6. You can’t treat children like dogs. If I’d understood which forms of parental behavior were illegal, I would have had some leverage and wouldn’t have put up with so much of my mom’s insane crap.

5. HS grades mean little when you’re going to JC. Knew I couldn’t afford to go straight to university, but didn’t know all they care about when you transfer are junior college grades. Why did I bust my ass?

4. Tampon use does not devirginate you. I don’t care how many times I read that answer in a teen magazine, I still worried God would hate me forever for putting anything up there. Today I thank Him for tampons, because pads are from Satan.

3. Being nice is overrated. I wish I never bought into the pressure to be a “nice” girl. Even human compassion is largely for shit. If you have a problem with that concept, I’ll be happy to elaborate later.

2. It’s okay to be a kid. Having a divorced mom who couldn’t even take care of herself, and a dad that didn’t really care about anybody but himself, left this oldest child feeling and behaving far too responsibly. All work and no play made me a dull girl.

1. Just be yourself. And don’t give a crap if people like you or not. When you stop trying, the right people will be drawn to you – True friends. I’m still working on this one… Hope I get it right some day.

6 comments June 14th, 2005

Since I promised to post more about my bombshell girlie side, and seeing as how I can’t think straight after MJ was found not guilty on all ten counts, today I’m bringing you a product review!

There are a few home microdermabrasion systems on the market these days. Most notably from Neutrogena, and another Susan Lucci hawks via infomercial. Since my oily skin gets confused and flaky on a regular basis, I did some research and decided on the DermaNew system.

A few weeks ago I picked up their Total Body Experience kit. The main reason I picked this brand was the widespread availability of hardware accesssories, ie. replacement pads. DermaNew specializes in this type of skincare, so you won’t end up with a useless device on your hands a few months from now.

There are a couple girls at my local Sephora that have never led me astray, so I asked about these products. Each girl had a fascinating anecdote to share about their success with the DermaNew line, so I sprang for the big kit in order to enjoy the complete array of benefits.

For those unfamiliar with home microdermabrasion, all of these systems use a vibrating wand (yes, pack it with you on business trips) coupled with sponge and file attachments used to slough dead layers of skin. The facial systems are used in combination with a corundum crystal cream. They say results rival those achieved with a dermatologist.

I was skeptical until my first treatment, and then I was sold. In fact, I was so excited that I nearly posted about it right away, but I figured I really should be responsible and submit to a few more weeks of testing before saying anything – and now here I am, telling you it rocks!

First of all, I have sensitive skin and it did not irritate my mild rosacea. In fact, my skin has been behaving far more “normal” since I started using the scrub. It’s continually reducing some mild discoloration and unevenness in skin tone, as well as providing the most perfect surface I’ve ever felt on my face… Baby soft.

I highly recommend the DermaNew home dermabrasion system, and if price is a major deterrent, try the Neutrogena kit. Chances are there’s little difference in overall efficiency. What’s marvelous is that you can get (and keep!) beautiful skin without the outrageous cost and inconvenience of repeated visits to the dermatologist.

7 comments June 13th, 2005