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.

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to my uncle, Tony Shable, who passed away yesterday afternoon. Uncle Tony, you will be missed by us all. We love you.

Confession

Every time I watch America's Next Top Model, I spend at least ten minutes afterward practicing poses in the mirror.

I'm really bad at it.

Japan, I thank you for George Takei and this.

This video is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Remembrances of Things Past

I just thought I'd update you on Situation: Nothing-- the on-going travails of my suddenly totally uninteresting life. While I was once the kind of person who could constantly enthrall you with my tales of The Time the Nurse Told Me That I Should Be in an Internment Camp Because of my Ethnicity, or The Time I Shared a Cigarette With a Homeless Guy Who Was Carrying a Stolen Ladder, I am now the kind of person whose everyday routine is pretty much the same, and sans racist nurses and ladder-toting homeless guys.

This is vexing to me, because I have always prided myself as the kind of person to whom interesting things often happened. This may be because I am cosmically preordained to have such interactions, or simply because I am too naive to avoid situations in which I may be forced into contact with, say, a speed-popping neighbor that tricked me into driving him to an acquaintance's house in order to beat the crap out of him (I thought we were just going to cash his tax refund!).

But as of late, the only interesting character with whom I have come into contact is Mark, a nice-enough guy with a three-legged dog that often accompanies me on walks with Che. I really don't know anything about him except that he seems nice, and his dog has three legs. I like to think that he's really some kind of drug kingpin, and that Pitch, the three-legged dog, turns into a battle-armored warrior dog at night. But really, I imagine Mark and Pitch just spend their evenings watching reruns of Evening Shade.

I guess the sad truth is that as you get older, you're less likely to run into zany situations. A stolen ladder becomes a three-legged dog. A racially insensitive, chain-smoking nurse becomes a guy that's maybe just a bit too into said three-legged dog. And an inadvertent evening spent as an accessory to a petty crime becomes an evening spent with Burt Reynolds in the shade.

Hair Apparent

Triumph! After three months of what I considered to be the worst haircut ever (no matter what everyone else had to say-- it was a reverse effing mullet!), I finally rectified the situation with this stunner. Admittedly, I have no idea how it will look when I wear it curly, but this look alone has me rushing out for a straight iron tomorrow morning.

Check me, dude. I am so hot.

Pardon our dust

As you may have noticed, my blog is looking a bit different-- this is mostly due to the fact that I spent about three hours yesterday searching in vain for a less lame blog template, and ended up wiping out all my links. I was able to recreate most of them, but if I've forgotten your link, please contact me so I can readd it-- I swear that this is not a roundabout way of booting people from the blogroll, but rather just further proof of my internet-based ineptitude.

I am still planning an overhaul, but should probably attempt it when I have more than a Sunday afternoon to unveil it. So if anyone has any suggestions for that, I'm all ears.

Basically, Frisby, I'm looking to you for both of these things, since your blog link was obliterated and you know everything there is to know about the internet and all things awesome.

In the meantime, please enjoy the somewhat ominous picture of my eyes burning into your soul as you read each new post. Please note that new Swing State author (and super hilarious dude) Matt is featured in the background! I think he's a little tired of me using this picture for everything from MySpace to Twitter, so I like to give him a little shout-out.

The Hair That Would Not Dye

I just got done dying my hair the exact same color for the three hundredth time in a row. That is not to say that I picked a hair dye that was the same color as my natural hair-- in fact, I picked something called "Caramel Latte," which promised to give me shiny light brown hair with reddish undertones. Instead, my hair is a shade I like to call "No One Pay Attention to Me Brown"-- still medium brown, no reddish undertones, with the dull finish and wispy flyaways of a homeless street preacher.

This is the same color I got when I tried Dark Mocha, Camel (which was a men's hair dye, not that that has anything to do with why it didn't work, but it might explain why it is the only one not named after food), Butterscotch Dream, and Espresso.

In fact, the last hair dye I can remember that actually changed the color of my hair in a noticeable way (other than those effing AWESOME highlights that I got from Pen during the season finale of the first season of The Apprentice) is one called Copper Penny, which turned my hair a seasick version of Ronald McDonald Red, thus highlighting the weird green undertone of my skin, and making me look like a sitcom star on a television with a color imbalance.

Now obviously, I don't stray too far from my natural hair color, mostly due to the Copper Penny incident (although just to let you know how fashion backward I was in college? I actually dyed it that color three times). I would never go platinum blonde (a color that I don't think works for Claire on ANTM, by the way), or black (which I also did once, in high school-- apparently, brown is the only hair color that WILL mask the alien green undertone of my skin). But I figure, come on, there is a DIFFERENCE between dark brown and light brown, or even dark blond, which I have also tried. But my hair is apparently like network TV-- you get red, black or brown, not the delicate shades in between. In short, I wanted my hair to be VH1-- it came out CBS.

To write or not to write?

I went out with my friend Denise tonight, which is fantastic, because Denise is one of the few people with whom I can have truly melodramatic conversations without later feeling like a retard. The conversation in question: is it time for me to give up writing?

The reason I asked is this: I spend a lot of time at work looking around and thinking-- this was not supposed to happen. Don't get me wrong, I do actually love my job-- as much as one can love auditing, not an inherently lovable profession-- but it's not exactly what I spent $13,000 (and my parents spent significantly more) for me to study. There is at least one moment a day in which I think-- I should be writing. And I'm not. Ergo, I am a failure.

So back to the original question: should I give up writing, even the possibility of writing, so that I can stop beating myself up about not doing it?

Denise, thankfully, thinks not. And I put a large stock in what Denise thinks, so I'm hoping to give it another try, even though

• I have no good ideas
• The good ideas I do have revolve around people I know, and they're not exactly flattering ideas that they might want shared with the general public
• I am very, very tired of staring at a computer after a long day of auditing
• Writing would take away from valuable time that could be spent playing Guitar Hero, which I am also very good at

But I think I need a jump start. Denise had a really good idea: write a sizable check to an organization that I don't want to receive my money-- say, the Church of Scientology-- and give it to a friend. If I don't produce some writing by a predetermined deadline, said friend puts the check in the mail.

That might be a bit extreme, especially since I don't want Tom Cruise dancing on any couches with my money, considering he still owes me for Vanilla Sky. But something along those lines. Anyone have any suggestions?

People are talking on the loudspeaker at the elementary school across the street from my house, and it's giving the whole neighborhood a sort of creepy, V For Vendetta type feeling. A few minutes ago, two women were singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" for the whole neighborhood to hear, which has vastly confused my notion about what could be going on-- talent show? But why would grown women be participating in an elementary school talent show? And do they not have any way to keep the announcements inside the building, rather than blasting from the air raid siren speakers on top of the building? As a former member of the Aurora High School announcement crew (until my fellow announcers and myself were forced to leave in a bloodless but still highly upsetting coup), I would have been mortified to know that stay-at-home moms in the surrounding neighborhood were woken every morning by my rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance.

After the blizzard

I have always loved extreme weather, no matter what the sort-- heat waves, hurricanes, endless rainstorms and face-melting wind. But for my money, nothing beats a good blizzard: the most peaceful destructive force there is. Blizzards like the one we had yesterday actually sometimes make me feel bad for people who live where there isn't any snow, because they never get to see the color of the sky as it's thick with snow, how bright it all is, even with no sun, and they don't get to see the way it shifts like sand, pooling, drifting, alive and on the move.



I was actually disappointed when I came outside at eleven o'clock last night and it had stopped-- only 37 hours? That's not nearly long enough for a blizzard in my opinion. Of course, my opinions may have been tainted because it was a Saturday, and I didn't have to go anywhere. Or rather I had to, but I couldn't. Another good thing about a blizzard-- it gives you an excuse to stay home and get your life back in order.

Anatomy of a Fall

I slipped and fell on the ice again this morning, marking the second such incident of the year thus far. Thankfully, the only person around to see it this time was Ben, who was much more sympathetic than The Asshole That Was Shoveling His Driveway and Did Nothing to Help when I fell last month.

As a person who slips and falls on ice more often than is strictly necessary, I have discovered that the incident is pretty much the same each go-round. It begins with The Shouting of an Expletive-- generally the F-Bomb-- at super-slow-motion speeds, sort of like when Ralphie spills the bolts in A Christmas Story. It then transitions into A Prolonged Period of Falling, which again, in slow motion, takes far longer than one would think. Then comes The Impact, followed quickly by A Short Period of Silence When the Realization That One Has Fallen and Is On The Ground, Cold and Wet, which is followed even more quickly by The Sobbing.

The Sobbing generally goes on far longer than needed-- this morning it accompanied me all the way to work, until I finally got bored with it and turned on Howard Stern.

The good news, though, is that all day, you are given permission to Act Sorer Than You Are and Relive the Fall, and everyone treats you nice and gives you things that they wouldn't normally give you, like their leftover Valentine's Day candy and their last Mike and Ike (which I guess would be either a Mike or an Ike).

Still, though, it is not a prospect I generally look forward to, which is why I received my crampons for Christmas (because nothing says "festive!" like crampons). It is important to note, however, that you cannot wear crampons all day, because they cause you to slip and fall if you're not wearing them outside, and it is equally important to note that my two falls have come on days when I felt the crampons unnecessary, thus rendering them pretty much useless at preventing slip-and-fall misery.

I've Been Everywhere

I'm back.

States visited in the last six days: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana

Sporting events in which I sat in the front row: one

Funerals attended: one

Visits to Walgreen's: four

Number of bags of cheese curds purchased: two

Snowball fights had: one

Alpacas petted: one

Visits to Lambeau Field: one

All in all, a totally weird week.

Short Break: a Haiku

Going out of town
Please don't bump me off your list
Back on Monday night

Sick puppy

Ben has had the worst cold for about a week now-- probably the worst cold he's had in years. Which is interesting, because whenever I get a really bad cold, he gets one that seems way less intense, but which he firmly believes is just as bad as mine. Bad enough, in fact, that he should be allowed to watch copious amounts of golf all day, even though I'm the one that just hacked up a small but probably necessary portion of my lung.

This always used to make me kind of mad, because I am the type of person who once had bronchitis for over a month and still managed to live a totally normal life, despite the fact that my voice inexplicably went up two octaves and that I was expelling custardy-looking globulets of phlegm from various holes in my head, so I don't like it when other people try to steal my sickness thunder.

But now that he is so sick, I find myself waiting for even the slightest onset of a sore throat, or an errant sneeze, and with every passing moment that it doesn't come, I'm just a little disappointed. I still don't know what it means, but I'm starting to see where he's coming from-- it's kind of no fun being healthy when your husband and best friend is sick. And, you have to give up your rights to the couch for an indefinite period of time, which is enough to make anyone wish for a tickly throat.

Traders!

Because I know dudes think it's hot when I discuss sports (okay, so Ben does, anyway), I feel compelled to share with you the news that the Cavs have entered into a mamoo three-way trade, just before the trade deadline, that has us saying goodbye to Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Ira Newble, and Two Guys I've Never Heard Of. In exchange, we will be getting Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, Delonte West, and Wally Szczerbiak.

I consider myself to be more educated in Cavs basketball than most girls, but I still don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, so I'm not sure how this trade will affect the team as a whole. (According to three different, totally unrelated guys in my office, we have "traded garbage for garbage," a phrase I feel must have been issued to them in their Meaningless Things That Guys Say Handbook.)

My own thoughts on the trade are varied.

Bad For Cavs:

1. I totally love Drew Gooden, even though most of the time he looks like he just escaped from an asylum for the mentally deranged. See above. In general, I become overly attached to sports figures, and nearly wept at the news that Drew was leaving town.

2. I do a really, really good impression of Donyell Marshall. Which would be impressive, if anyone had ever heard Donyell Marshall talk,but it turns out no one has. No one I know, anyway.

3. Ben Wallace plays center, and we already have a really good center in Zydrunas Ilgauskas. (See, I had to bust some actual sports knowledge on you there for a second.

Good For Cavs:

1. Wally Szczerbiak? Smoking hot. See left. And also, he went to Miami of Ohio for college, and it's always nice to have some hometown guys on your team. Word on the street is that Ben Wallace is from here, too.

2. We now have two players that could inspire a Wig Night at the Quicken Loans Arena, and a Ben Wallace wig would be even cooler than an Anderson Varejao wig.

3. Even though he hasn't played for Detroit in awhile, it might be nice to rub Ben Wallace in the Pistons' face.

So really, I guess my reasoning about the trade is more about what's good and bad for me, rather than for the Cavs. But no matter what the outcome, I would like to bid a fond farewell to Drew and Donyell-- you will be missed. Some people might miss Larry. But those people are idiots.