Ways to Kill the Time

and not be doing the Things You're Actually Supposed to be Doing....

I'm editing photos right now. Right this very second, in fact. I am not typing, I am editing. I have not already examined every corner of the internets to see if there's anything I might have missed earlier and I am, in fact, being very productive and catching up on all those pointless photos I've taken.

There's no fooling you, is there? I'm totally not editing photos. What I am doing is staring at unedited photos and being bored, bored, bored. And repairing a co-worker's computer, which is actually a very Useful and Productive thing that I am doing but it's also boring because all I do is press a button every few hours while the machine furiously scans and whirs and repairs itself. Whenever I "fix" computers for people, I don't tell them that I barely did anything at all because it makes me look much smarter if I'm vague and mysterious and mutter things like "malware" and "boot scan". I certainly never tell them that I've figured most of it out by Googling it.


Unlike tonight's happenings, Sunday was pretty great. J treated his kid and I to a day on go-karts to celebrate the beginning of summer vacation. Go Karts, it turns out, are AWESOME!! While I didn't beat the other seven racers, I didn't come in last, either. There were three people left to straggle in behind me and those three were children and I BEAT THEM AT GO KARTS. I BEAT ALL OF THE CHILDREN. BECAUSE I WIN AT THINGS. I was the very last adult to cross the finish line but those kids, they were toast.

Look at that sweet loser face.

The other recent Very Exciting thing to happen was this:

What? You can't tell what that is? Let me tell you: Amber and I went to see a screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (themed cocktails! I had the Ramona Flowers and it was delicious. Free manicures!) last night at the W Hotel in Hollywood and after the movie, who should pop up but EDGAR FRICKIN' WRIGHT!!! The director and co-writer of such fantastic movies!!! His personal space was promptly invaded by yours truly, his hand was shaken and this photograph was taken. Then I learned a valuable lesson. Always, ALWAYS check your stupid camera settings before you hand your camera off to someone else because you might run into your favorite director and work up the courage to take a photo of him and the photo? It will suck and no one but you will ever know that you have a picture of yourself standing next to Edgar Wright (and he knows you're there and is willingly being photographed with you. This is key.)

And that was the last two days, presented to you with photographic illustration.

Just some travelin' stuff. You know....

I saw this photo
and got really excited (again) about the trip I'll be taking with this person

in September. I cannot wait to see Paris again and I've never been to Amsterdam - I hear Good Things.

Then I saw this photo

and added Malta to the list of places I really, really need to visit. How awesome is that wall o'windows? I have to see it with my own eyeballs.

Malta, I'm not sure why I've never paid you much attention before but I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you.

I'ma gonna be payin' you a visit.

Exciting News!!

I'm not sick anymore. Not the exciting news, just something I thought I'd mention because I know you were all extremely concerned.
Thank you.

EXCITING NEWS!!
I'm on my very first diet, ever!
This is not exciting, I know, but I thought if I could make it sound really awesome, I'd be less annoyed by the whole thing. Here's the thing: I'm terrible at it. Horrible. I'm only cutting three things out of my diet (alcohol, bread, and sugar) and I'm only doing it for a few weeks to see how it goes. In the last four days, I've already forgotten about it for at least three meals. Pathetic. See, I'm sort of genetically blessed and (until now) have never had to work out or diet to maintain a sort of blobby, not-skinny but not-so-fat figure that still wears the same clothes I had fifteen years ago. Not ideal, no, but lazy, which for me is PERFECT!! Now the blobbby that is me is starting to blob out in all kinds of places that weren't much of a problem before. Turns out that I am going to have to do something that requires actual effort and diligence on my part to keep from having to replace all of my beloved dresses. The horror!!
Hopefully it won't be too difficult. As much as I joke about it, I don't drink alcohol that often, I don't like soda, and I can live without my beloved dessert for a while - I'll eat berries and healthy junk. It's not as limiting as I was afraid it might be, mostly because I still eat dairy and everyone knows that everything's better with butter. And cheese. Fish, meat, veggies, fruits - lots of stuff on the menu that I enjoy. It's really a very lame diet and it will probably take a long time to get any results but it's quite possibly the only one I can stick to for longer than four hours.

It doesn't get more shallow than this, does it? I know that there are lots of things going on in the world for which, if I were a less shallow blogger, I would have all kinds of opinions and condemnations and approbations. I also have other, bigger problems that I could be moaning about but right now, this is it. In these fifteen minutes that I've been staring at the laptop, that's the big thing in my brain.

The lack of sleep is beginning to affect my brainthoughts.


Also, this happened

Really? Again?

Every time I get sick I end up writing a post about it. Well, NOT THIS TIME! I'm not going to waste your time and mine (any more than I already am, anyway) whining about how sick I feel, how I've got the plague, how I'm pretty sure I'm on my deathbed, and how utterly useless my pets are in this very drastic situation. I will also avoid mentioning how I ended up not going to my second job tonight because I thought maybe other people would be appalled and disgusted by the buckets of snot dripping out of my face. Instead of working, I'm woozy from Nyquil, watching Liam Neeson movies and getting ready to play video games (LA Noir - so far, it's kind of awesome). If I've got to be sick and suffering, this is an excellent way to go about it.
Since I didn't talk about how sick I am, this post has been about nothing. What a waste.

Home is hard to do

New Orleans was wonderful - great people, amazing food, gorgeous architecture, amazing food... Everything I ate was soaked in butter and then deep fried and I LOST four pounds. Want to know my diet secret? I'll tell ya: Walk all day every day for four days in sticky, humid, 90 degree weather and sweat your face off. You'll lose weight, guaranteed.
I'm not even going to charge you for that little nugget. Feel free to send me a check if you're really grateful.
Coming home and diving right back into my three jobs was a little depressing but now I've got thoughts of Paris in September to keep me going.

WORDS PEOPLE HAVE USED LATELY TO DESCRIBE ME:
Travel-addict
Defiant (AM NOT!!)
Elfin
I get stuff like 'stubborn' or 'talkative' on the regular. Those other three, those are new. Two of them aren't so complementary, either. And the third one doesn't even make any sense. Elfin? Really? I appreciate that it was an attempted compliment and compliments, attempted or otherwise, are always lovely but Elfin? Do you even know what you're talking about? NERD FAIL.

OTHER AWESOME STUFF
Yesterday a friend and I enjoyed a picnic at Griffith Park. We saw coyotes, Tai Chi, bad plastic surgery, good plastic surgery, tourists, and squirrels, all from the comfort of the picnic table. I wore four-inch heels, we ate fine cheeses and drank wine, and basically became one with nature. You know, really touched our roots. It was awesome.
OK, I'm kidding about the 'one with nature' thing. We looked like jerks but we had a great time and the cheese, it was magic.

(No cheese photos because as soon as it was served, it was attacked and I totally forgot I was taking pictures).


I AM AN ELF!!! Watch as I peer at you elfishly through leaves and such.