A new and better me

About once every four years, I am struck by a strong Self Improvement urge that I am powerless against, and must act on, even if it causes me to do insanely retarded things in the name of a new and better me. These bouts are usually preceded by a longish period of depression, which causes me to stay in, eat copious amounts of microwave pizza, and cry at game shows, such as the time I wept openly for nearly an hour when the Rodriguez family won the big prize at the end of Family Feud. It was only once I realized that the $10,000 prize would have to be split between the five of them, and that after taxes each one would only receive roughly $1,000, that I managed to calm myself down.

After awhile, being depressed gets boring and I get fat after months of bizarre eating sprees that involve crafting the Perfect Fast Food Meal (Burger King hamburger, McDonald's fries, Arby's Jamoca shake, Pizza Hut breadsticks), and that's when the Self Improvement urge strikes. It usually begins when a certain piece of music, one that I have never had much interest in before, suddenly seems to have been written just for me, such as Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler," or James Taylor's "Steamroller."

It's usually a pretty lame song.

Anyway, it's about at this time that I am compelled by forces larger than myself to buy a new notebook, usually orange, that I intend to fill with notes on how to find myself and become happy with the New Me. In the past, this notebook has been decoupaged with inspirational sayings cut from magazines; now I tend towards a minimalist look, with maybe just a sticker to cover the Five Star brand name.

No matter what the intention, the notebook is inevitably half-filled with hilarious screeds against the things and people that I find annoying. In the past, the notebooks have featured such targets as my old school counselor Etta, the country of Australia, every boy I ever liked that didn't like me back, and music snobs.

I also become compelled to read books that I would normally classify as SUPER LAME (the most notable example: Women Who Run With the Wolves. I spent a great amount of time underlining the passages that were about me, which were all of them, until I suddenly realized how totally queer I was and stopped). I listen to my lame empowerment song and make my Better Me lists and read my self-help books and become insufferable until I finally realize that I am once again acting like a dorkwad and shake it off.

I only tell you all of this because I am about to enter one of those phases right now, and I can't stop it from happening. I'm like Bruce Banner, turning into the Hulk, except instead of being green and super strong, I want to talk about my feelings in a totally earnest, non-sarcastic way.

I already have my orange Five Star notebook (although it is currently blank), and my empowerment song is Poison's "Nothing But a Good Time," which I blare pretty much incessantly throughout the day. I have yet to find my upsettingly lame self-help book, but I imagine that's coming down the pike here shortly.

One of the things on my mental New and Better Me list (which will be rendered real only when it is entered into the Orange Notebook of Enlightenment) is to blog more, and not worry so much about upsetting people with my posts (in other words, I have decided to use the word "retarded" a lot more). So I apologize now if I come on here and explain how I have a lot to learn from the gentle manatee, that does not hold its anger in but rather releases it peacefully to be lost in the vastness of mother ocean.

If that does happen, please don't stop reading. Because another one of my Better Me goals is to rebuild my self-esteem, and losing readers by the boatload is not going to help.

The Secret Lives of Auditors

One might think that my lack of blog entries is indicative of a totally boring life, dry and tasteless as Cracklin' Oat Bran, and just as regular. But in actuality, my life has been extremely interesting over the last two weeks-- I just can't tell you why.

Specifically, I can't tell you why because every interesting thing that has happened to me involves my job-- and yes, I mean interesting in a universal sense, not interesting in a only-interesting-to-insurance-people sense. But I don't really like to talk about my job on my blog for two reasons: I don't want anyone from work to find it and read it and come to my desk and quote it to me mockingly before they have me escorted out by security, and also, most of you pass out and begin drooling if I even so much as interject a word that sounds like "insurance" into a sentence.

But I can tell you, without fear of reprisal, the following short list of things I did at work today:

1. Jabbed myself pretty hard in the back with the pointy end of an exposed screw while scrambling around under my desk, attempting to plug in my jump drive so I could listen to "Sister Christian" on my computer.

2. Ate a horrendous sandwich.

3. Sent like a thousand people to collections-- take THAT, you non-paying a-holes! You'd best step off next time you make fun of ME for ordering tacos with just meat at Chipotle, because you don't even KNOW what kind of power I got.

4. Listened to "Sister Christian" a bazillion times; each time it got to the "Motorin'" chorus, imagined myself in the car with the windows down driving across a bridge while my hair whipped dramatically around me, like I was in a po-mo Zach Braff movie (side note: I feel that Zach Braff's voice is far too high for his physique)

5. Entertained co-workers with a story about a doll I used to have named Gorilla Ann

I also did a multitude of other things, but they were not funny things, unless you think writing e-mails to the Virginia Board of Insurance is funny, which I wager you do not.

Salon of the Damned

The women at my salon hate me.

No matter how hard I try to impress them, they are resistant to my natural charm, and consider me a hairy, unkempt beast who comes in solely to ruin their otherwise blissful day of snipping, dyeing, and ripping hair from the faces (and backs) of men and women who are willing to pay for the privilege of having hot wax applied to their bodies and torn asunder from their unsuspecting flesh.

Maybe I'm just tainted by the women at the old day spa where I used to work who used to greet everyone with enthusiasm, even the woman whose coat smelled like dead dogs. (Note: this did not apply to People With Gift Certificates, whom they all generally perceived to be one-time-visit succubi.) Or maybe it was just because they each had their own rooms, so I only saw them when they were in the lobby-- maybe they were just as cruel and heartless towards their customers behind closed doors.

But the women at my salon, which I would prefer not to name just because they might find this blog and hate me even more, visibly frown upon entering a ten-foot space around my body, and make me feel like an awkward, shaking crack addict, willing to push myself that extra mile to get that high-- or, rather, that haircut or eyebrow wax.

Today? I went in for an eyebrow wax (because if left untended, my brows grow to a creepy Andy Rooney shape, and stake out new territories far too north on my forehead), and the eyebrow wax lady didn't speak to me except to ask me how thin I wanted to go. And every time she did speak to me, she used my name at the end of every sentence-- "How does that look, Kim? You have a nice, you know, night or whatever, Kim"-- which, for some reason, I have always taken as an act of hostility.

And while I was there I saw the woman who cut my hair, whom in a desperate effort to impress I practically shouted at in ecstasy that I had done as she advised and bought a straightening iron and was practicing using it weekly. She nodded, and then asked if I was "at least liking my new haircut more than I liked the last one" she had given me, and then went back to chatting up the girl whose hair she was shampooing.

The bad news is, I will continue to patronize this salon because they are the only people I have found that give good haircuts (except for that last one, which I really did hate) and decent waxing at competitive prices; the only other salon in town, Ladies and Gentlemen, charges roughly eight bazillion dollars per hair cut (and I mean each individual hair cut from your head), although they do throw in a relaxing facial shampoo and arm massage while you get your hair washed, so I suppose that might be worth it.

The good news is, I won't live here forever, and when I move and find a new salon-- a salon where they appreciate me, and laugh at my witticisms about how my eyebrows have become Sasquatch-esque-- the women at my salon will find their lives a little colder and a little drier, and they won't know why.

But it's because they'll miss me. And also because I'm an awesome tipper.

I was shocked to learn yesterday morning that Charlton Heston had passed away the day before-- shocked, mostly, because I had had an Eerie Feeling that Elizabeth Taylor was going to die that weekend, and didn't, meaning my Celebrity Death Detector isn't the mad prognosticator that I had believed it to be.

To be honest, I was not that big of a Charlton Heston fan, mostly because I was already madly in love with Gregory Peck, and to spread my teenage geek love between two octogenarians seemed a little gross. But I do have two fond memories of the Omega Man, which I would be loathe not to share, considering how valuable my opinion on dead celebrities is in this whimsical world of ours.

1. My whole life, my family has celebrated Easter by watching Heston in The Ten Commandments, not because we value its religious message, but rather because we enjoy making fun of the acting. If you've never seen the movie (I can lend it to you-- I have it on VHS and DVD), please find the scene in which Heston, as Moses, realizes the folly of ordering up a plague to kill all of Egypt's first-borns, and witness the stunning display that is his delivery of the line "Turn from my fierce wrath, o Lord!" I personally have performed my own interpretation of this line thousands of times, and every-- single-- time, I find it funny. (Though this does not involve Charlton Heston at all, please also take a moment to check out the reaction of the women to the parting of the red sea. Hilarity!)

2. When he was in college, my friend Rich was a member of the Ashbrook program, an elite group of politically-minded students who were invited to meet many luminaries of the Republican party. On one outing in particular-- the day that Bob Dole came to campaign there-- Bob Dole was accompanied by NRA president Charlton Heston, with whom Rich had the opportunity to ride the elevator to the top floor of the library, where the Ashbrook scholars met. The ride was long, as the elevators at the Ashland University library are powered by donkeys pulling long strings with their teeth, and to pass the time, Charlton Heston turned to Rich, who was wearing combat boots, and said "Those are fine boots, young man. A good pair of boots will get you far in life."

Not unlike "Turn from my fierce wrath, o Lord!", I cannot resist saying this phrase whenever the opportunity arises.

So farewell, Mr. Heston. Please be assured that you will live on in multiple viewings of The Ten Commandments at the Shable and Oja houses, during which we will mock you. But in a loving way.

After a long day of yardwork at my parents' house yesterday, Ben and I were treated to a rousing game of "Who Can Find the Most Embarrassing Picture of Kim From Her Youth?" My mom was the winner, with this stunner.

Please note that the brown sweater I'm wearing is the infamous Afro Bathrobe, a gift from my grandmother that inflicted upon me a life-long fear of sweater coats and a firm belief that all of my clothes, no matter how cute or expensive, will earn me a horrible nickname. The rest of my wardrobe appears to have been plucked from the closet of a 1930's librarian, except for the long-strapped denim purse, a nod to the plucky, can-do attitude of Blossom.

In that purse, I carried paperback books of "Herman" cartoons. I was the lamest kid ever.