Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

RIP, Michael Jackson

Whatever his personal problems, and God knows he had many, he sure did make some awesome music, didn't he? One of our local stations has been playing Michael almost exclusively this morning, and wow, talk about the soundtrack of my childhood. Thriller came out in 1984 and I was 8. It was the first record I owned. I played it to death, knew every word to every song, and it was all over the radio. There were so many great songs, not just on Thriller, but throughout the '80's and early '90's. "Smooth Criminal", "Bad", "Dirty Diana". Man, it was like taking a walk back through some of my earliest musical memories.

Thank you, Michael, for the music.

Inspiration

Inspirational quote for the day:

There is something I know about you that you may not even know about yourself. You have within you more resources of energy than have ever been tapped, more talent than has ever been exploited, more strength than has ever been tested and more to give than you have ever given.

From FISH! attributed to John Gardner (may or may not be a real person. I found several in a google search, but none that sounded right.)
I read that quote this morning and it just really struck me. It makes me want to do more with my life. Get out and exercise and lose this annoying weight. Do more with my photography. More that I can't even think of right now. Just more. I've felt bored recently, stuck in a rut. I like my job fine, but I certainly don't leap out of bed excited to come to work. I have plenty of work and a few challenges, but it is a fairly routine job, with the same tasks each week. Rock and I have a good relationship, but it seems like even we are in a rut of sorts. We need new topics of conversation. New things to do to spend time together.

Of the Awk

Two awkward situations have cropped up recently. First, one of my coworkers, whom I do consider a friend, invited me to join Twitter. Of course, she doesn't know about this blog. Nor do I want her to. So I can either join Twitter with my real name and not mention my blog, or join Twitter but not friend her (or whatever you do on Twitter). So far, I've ignored her invitation and she hasn't asked about it. Whew.

Second, remember this guy? The college boyfriend who wanted to meet for lunch to catch up? Well, he's emailed me randomly a time or two since friending me and is getting progressively weirder each time. The last time, he sent me an email saying that he had had a dream that something bad happened to my father, and just wanted to make sure he was okay. So I wrote back and said, okay, that's pretty weird, yes, my dad is fine. Then, he asked me some questions about kids (he and his wife just had their first), all of which I answered. And can I just say here that I have never, in all my life, had a dream about an ex's father? I thought that was a little suspicious, but whatevs. That was back in April and I hadn't heard from him since. Until yesterday. See, yesterday was his birthday. (Which I wouldn't have remembered except for the little FB notice thingy.) So I left a message on his profile wall saying, "Happy Birthday - hope it's great!", which is my standard birthday greeting for friends. I logged in later and had the following email from him:

"Shelly-I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to wish me a Happy Birthday. I am not quite sure why, but it means a great deal to me that you would do that. I hope that some day you will be comfortable enough to catch up sometime. I would really like that. I think of you and your family so often. My Very Best- [Ex-Boyfriend]"

Oh Lord. WHAT am I supposed to do with this? What does he want? I swear, I want to write back and just say, "WHY? Why do you think of me and my family so often? I don't think about you at all. Ever." And the "comfortable enough" line! I would be perfectly comfortable around him. I just have no interest. I can't begin to imagine what we would talk about. I talked to one of my friends about it last night and she said that he needs closure, but that there's no way that I can provide that for him, so I should cut off contact. What do you think? Is she right? I'm trying to be the kinder, gentler Shelly here and not cut off contact with people just because they piss me off, so I'm hesitant to cut off contact except as a last resort. But if there's truly no way I can help him, I don't want to prolong this any more than it already has been (10 years, people!), so if cutting off contact will help him get closure, then I'll do it.

Any suggestions?

Nerd Out

Check out this Entertainment Weekly poll of most hotly anticipated book of the summer:
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/06/must-list-poll-whats-the-must-book-of-the-summer-.html

Jennifer Weiner vs. Stieg Larsson vs. Richard Russo vs. Pat Conroy?! I may have to take to my bed.

As The Uterus Turns

First things first - Hair update:
Important things I have learned in the past week:

• The actual purpose of blow-drying. Before, I thought blow-drying was just to get the water out of my hair. Then I styled it with a curling iron or flat iron to create a "style" (we'll be using that term loosely - this is me we're talking about and nothing about me can be called stylish.) In the past week, though, I have realized that I can use the hair dryer to create the shell of the style I want. In fact, the shell I create through blow-drying is the style I get, regardless of how badly I screw it up. If I don't get it right the first time, I might as well go back to bed and pull the covers up over my head.


• The usefulness of leave-in conditioner and straightening gel. Rock uses leave-in conditioner on Supergirl's hair and has always told me I should use it, too. But I've always disdained using any products in my hair, so I resisted. I tried it the other morning and managed to create a curly hair style that stayed all day and didn't get frizzy. Yes, Rock gloated. A lot. And today, I'm trying some old straightening gel that I found in my cabinet and am rocking a straight style. It's after lunchtime and it still looks pretty good, so I suppose I can qualify that as a success, too.

So, I swore (to myself), that I wasn't going to discuss this subject again. But I really can't resist. It does help to write things out. Plus, you guys are awesome and totally supportive and I want to make out with all of you. Yesterday, after a day or two of denial, I counted the days to see if my period was, in fact, late. It is. Today makes three days late. I did this in the middle of the day yesterday which was a terrible idea, because then I spent the rest of the day trying not to freak out at work. Because holy conflicted emotions, Batman! One the one hand, I would be thrilled to be pregnant again. But on the other hand, I would be terrified to be pregnant again. On the third hand, (what? it's just for the sake of argument - no one really has three hands.) I would be annoyed to be pregnant. I would really like to lose some weight before getting pregnant again, and have finally started making some progress in that area, so admittedly, I would be annoyed to have that interrupted. So I would be relieved to not be pregnant, except that I would be disappointed to not be pregnant, because, you know, I WOULDN'T BE PREGNANT. How's THAT for a no-win situation? Or y'know, win-win, cause I'd actually be pretty happy either way. Well, thank god for those cheap, early pregnancy tests, because I took one last night at 10:00 (negative) and then took another first thing this morning (also negative) because I realized that taking a pregnancy test at 10:00 after drinking water all day might not be the most effective way to get an answer to this question. So. Not pregnant, yet no period. Whatevs. At least I know I'm not pregnant so I can stop freaking out. And, y'know, have a glass of wine or two with my friends this weekend.

Snarky Facebook comment of the day (ie. Comment I would like to leave on a friend's status):
If you think of high school as "the best times ever", you probably need to get out more.

Random

I have several ideas of things to write about in my head right now, so this will probably end up being one of those really disjointed, bulleted list posts. (You: And that's different from your usual posts HOW?) Lots of bloggers are talking about really interesting things, so I'll piggy back on a couple great posts.

Molly, at Les Cadeaux, asserts that a bad haircut is worse than bad sex. I agree. I have bangs right now, for the first time in years, and I go back and forth on them. Some days, I really like them. They frame my face better and prevent fivehead, which I am way prone to. However, they are a bitch to style and I have a cowlick right in the middle of the bangs that I have to style them around. The days I don't succeed, I wind up with my bangs flipping out in each direction from the dead middle. Also, for some reason, my hair is no longer getting along with my curling iron. I curl my hair in the morning, and by the time I get to work, it's a frizzy mess that looks like I didn't style it at all. My other option is straightening, which to straighten my wavy hair requires the hottest flat iron I've ever found on its highest setting. Is it possible that because I've been straightening my hair lately, and because the curling iron is cooler than the flat iron, then my hair doesn't respond to the curling iron?

I won't tell you how bad my evening was last night, but let's just say that this morning I want to list vacation destinations I would like to see in my lifetime (possibly alone).

• Hawaii
• Scotland - I want to take my dad. This is our ancestry, so he would love it.
• Vienna - I went after college and really want to go back and take the kids.
• London
• Paris
• Sweden

So tell me, where do you want to go on vacation?

Parenting FAIL

So last night, as we were getting ready for bed, I was playing with Wildman and happened to look in his mouth. Y'know, because I LOVE baby teeth. There is something awesome about those little, teeny tiny teeth that makes me just want to snorfle him up with my nose. Anyway, as I looked at his teeth, I noticed that his molars had what looked like black spots on their surfaces and immediately freaked the freak out:

Oh my God, he has cavities! Huge, black cavities on both molars on that side. Let me check the other side - oh God, there are cavities on that side, too! He's only two and his teeth are going to rot and fall out and he'll be gumming his food for the rest of life! I have failed and my child will be toothless like an old man before he can speak clearly!

...Or are those crumbs from the Oreos he ate 15 minutes ago? Oh. Let me brush his teeth and see. Oh, look, shiny clean teeth with no cavities.