tried to donate blood today. apparently my hemoglobin levels are too low. my hobgoblin levels though are just fine for halloween. shoot.

INSOMNIA, YOU ARE THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.

for what ails you

been in a pessimistic mood of late. hardly surprising, eh? doing my best to fight off the blues.

if you are in the same boat, try this: while driving, sing at the top of your lungs to "greatest love of all" by whitney houston. because that pretty much makes me laugh every time. i might have to do that song the next time i go karaoke.

further disclosure: my ipod then served up "holiday in cambodia" by the dead kennedys, then "paint it black" by the rolling stones (which i also rocked). next time i am in a job interview and they ask what i can bring to the position, i'm going to ask them who of their other candidates has that series of songs on their ipod shuffle. because that's what i call an intangible skill that also demonstrates what a well-rounded person i am. no, i am not grasping at straws here.

this is what the job search feels like.

it's funny (and insulting) cuz it's true

my friend showed me this site, target women with sarah haskins. pure hilarity. she was on npr today, and i found out she was an american studies major in college. i minored in this when i was in school, and man, do i feel like i missed the boat. sign me up for a gig like this. anyway, you'll think twice about ads after this. my personal peeve is the glade candle and air freshener ad campaign.

this one's about yogurt, the very first segment.


this is the newest one, about how ads help men know how to get hot chicks.

ultimate power anthems

this takes me back to 1999. and do i ever want to party like it is 1999. (sorry)

it's week 2 of the dogsitting extravaganza and i've been watching too much late night television. don't worry, i'm not so far gone as to think getting this cd is a good idea. oh cheesy christian music. so cheesy it hurts.

keep on truckin'

i just had an amazing experience. i bought 2 pairs of jeans that i am quite happy with. it took me 30 minutes, if that. i only tried on 3 pairs of jeans. it's still blowing my mind.

see the last time i went jeans shopping was at costco, where i found some calvin kleins in like 2004 for 20 bucks a pair. i loved how they fit, and bought several pairs. because i hate hunting to find the right rise, leg length, and fit. on the list of things i hate doing: 1. going to the dentist, 2. bathing suit shopping, 3. jeans shopping.

anyway, it's this tiny shop in berkeley. the basement shop (cheaper jeans) is filled with jeans from floor to ceiling and the standing area in the dressing room is probably one square foot. the key here is that you can walk in, tell the people that work there, "i want jeans that look like this" and point the faded, well-loved pair that you are wearing. they eye for the waist and length, ask you what color/wash you want, reach into the impossibly huge pile of jeans and hand you a few pairs of levis. it's freaking awesome. i wanted to hug the women that helped me.

i have been on a short blogging hiatus because i am currently dog and housesitting. said dog is some kind of mutt with german shepherd in him. he's massive, but is kind of a big baby and can't be alone. he is used to sleeping on the bed next to the owner which i am not so thrilled with. it's one thing for a cat or smaller dog to do it. it's another thing for a dog that probably is more than 80 pounds. ah well, it's "work" and i enjoy having a reason to walk regularly.

said house is also without an internet connection and i am reduced to mooching from my neighbors. coverage is spotty at best.

likely to have another interview soon. prayers would be appreciated. this is for the same job i interviewed for last fall. anyone have any interview tips?

in other words (alternately: accentuate the positive, in light of recent events))

i haven't even written about the book reading and launch party, which was the whole reason for this spontaneous road trip. partly because i don't like to toot my own horn - this is where jane and dane would be useful in the production of this blog post.

after fighting the traffic through olympia and tacoma on my way up from portland, i found mars hill grad school (where the reading was taking place) changed in my car (which was of no concern to the woman walking her dog while i was doing so) and walked up the street to meet the other authors for happy hour. we made introductions, i sat down and ordered a drink and appetizer and then bit into the quesadilla i ordered and promptly had a few beans spill down the front of my sweater. super.

in a wonderful twist of fate, i was not wearing white, and the waiter kindly brought over some club soda for me. my only response to this was to laugh - i was not at all surprised that something like this should happen.

this book was three years in the making. maybe about a year in the selecting of essays and editing. then two more years finding a publisher. many thanks to our editor hannah notess for all her hard work in getting this to press. it was awesome to meet her after only having email contact for so long. and it was good to meet the other writers - always good to find people with the same odd bent towards writing.

in reading the book so far (and this is long after the reading), i have enjoyed the breadth of experience the many essays offer. the book offers honest insight as to what the evangelical experience has been like for women, which obviously hasn't gotten much consideration. my hope is that is sparks further conversation and sharing of stories for women and hopefully men listen well. i kiddingly told a friend of mine that i could just kick him in the balls instead of reading the book of women's stories. rest assured, there is more to the collection than that. there are real glimpses of struggles with faith and family and church.

reading my own essay out loud (to more than 50 strangers!), was exhilarating. and makes me once again scratch my head over how my faith has it's roots in the the youth group culture of chubby bunny (a potentially, possibly already, lethal game), a lot of chaos, and talent shows. how i got from that point to where i am in my faith today makes me laugh in surprise. only god could construct something as bizarre as that.

as any kid (and adult) in my old youth group will attest, i am awkward in front of large groups. it's the persona i adopt for them - because they have such a heightened sense for awkward, it's the only way i can get their attention - like how you rubberneck at a car accident. after many years of making friends laugh, i was quite pleased and surprised to be able to make a room full of strangers crack up. in my humble opinion, i killed. and my friends reading this will probably roll their eyes and go, "well, duh!" come on, i'm a little slow here. and neurotic. cut me some slack.

before the reading, i happened to walk past the mars hill free book shelf outside the library. of course i have to take a look to see if there are any steals. no dice, but i did grab a copy of the purpose driven life which i gave away at the end of the night as a prize to the first person who named a woman in the bible. i almost chickened out doing it, but there was no way i was going to take the book home that night.

people actually wanted me to sign their copies of the book. that was cool - i need to work on having a cooler signature. i get a deal on the book as a contributor, so let me know if you would like a copy. help a starving artist out.

blerg

so i was in the middle of writing a different post, which i will probably finish tomorrow.

today was just one of those days. i had an interview yesterday for a job that i wasn't particularly excited about, but i'm not that picky these days about what my source of income is. besides, i was more than reasonably qualified for the job, and actually had direct experience doing this job. i had resigned myself to making the best of it and accept the job if it were offered to me. so i was surprisingly disappointed when i got an email informing me that someone else had been hired for the position. SUPER. i can't even get hired for a job that i've actually done before. on one hand, i am a tiny bit relieved, as my previous experience kind of sucked. on the other hand, what's it gonna take for me to get a damn job? seriously.

and then tonight i go to read at a coffee shop, get my mind of my misfortunes and decide to wander around the shops a little bit. when i walked back to my car it was nowhere to be found. i wandered up and down the street racking my brain and wondering if i was going crazy. walking farther down the street, this drunk girl walks up to me and asks me where she is. then we proceed to have this odd conversation and she keeps asking me if i'm okay. she then focuses on me and then declares, "i'm undercover, i'm undercover, what do you need?" about 10 minutes before this, i had seen her running down the street and duck around a wall, look around and then keep walking. so i didn't really believe her. but she seems to want to help me when i tell her that i'm looking for my car, even if she is talking cryptically. abruptly she asks one more time if i'm okay, and then turns around and walks away. real helpful and bizarre.

i finally call my dad and he comes to get me. we drive around the area a little bit, telling me that once this happened to him at the mall and my car is probably around somewhere. making me think i am really going insane.

finally we give up. the proximity to the police station in this town makes me believe that my car has been towed, rather than stolen. and of course, my dad gets pulled over as we are heading home - because of some deal with the registration claims the cop. it's friday, we're near a bunch of bars (hence "undercover" drunk girl seemed somewhat believable) and we had just been circling the area slowly in our car for 15 minutes. yeah, i'd have pulled us over too. after the cop takes down the registration and scolds my dad for not getting the smog test done on his car, my dad asks if he knows where we can find out if my car got towed. when he say, "blue honda fit" the cop says, "oh yeah, i towed that car." turns out i had parked behind a car that was in a red zone. the dude had showed up right when they were towing it so he got cited and left. i had probably been in the barnes and noble down the street reading entertainment weekly when this was all going down. so ... it's a consolation that my car was towed and not stolen. even better if it hadn't happened at all, but what can you do. my dad and i will pick it up tomorrow. hopefully it won't cost too much.

of course, i wouldn't mind if some things went my way. this is getting a little ridiculous.