Trapeze Me, Please!

Last week, I was down at bayfront park and I saw the most funnest thing in the whole wide world! A trapeze! Not only a trapeze, but a trapeze class! OMG, I am SO going to do it!

I've been feeling a little sad-face lately. Work has been kicking my ever-expanding ass (I've been eating my feelings all week, good-bye forever skinny jeans), and I just feel that my personal and private life has been somewhat stilted. I'm like the Woody Allen shark, my friends. If I stop moving, I'll die. And emotionally, I sometimes feel like I've stopped moving and shaking.

J. has been working non-stop, and that often leaves a lot of alone time. Not that I mean being alone. I revel in the fact that I'm an introvert. I love the idea of friends, but sometimes they are a bit overrated. I mean, I always know what I'm going to get with myself. You follow?

Anyway, the idea of learning the flying trapeze is something that I think will give me a little piece of myself back. Almost like earlier in the summer when I wanted to learn gymnastics, but felt like a dateline predator and had to drop the class. The lady on the phone did say there would be other adults there! Liar.

I've tried to get my cousins involved in this whole trapeze business. I thought C would definitely want to do it because she's so carefree and all, but she said she wasn't into it. I tried to convince her by telling her that if ever there was an emergency that would require the skill of a flying trapeze artist, she could rest easy in the knowledge that she had taken a class, but she wasn't buying that roll of baloney.

So, I told my friend S. from work (yes, I have friends, just not tons), and she was all into it. So, hopefully, next Saturday, I will be on the flying trapeze, and I'll be able to say, "Hello, self! How I've missed you!"

Tattoo Lounge

Last weekend, J and I got into an argument, and I left in a big huffity-huff like the big bad wolf. I went to my cousin C's apartment on the beach. My cousin C is sexy, single, and a regular pocketful of rainbows and sunshine, which is why she was the perfect person to visit to get my mind off J.



Her apartment also happens to be right across from a tattoo parlor called the Tattoo Lounge. In my frazzled state, I decided that what I wanted to do was get a tattoo. C was hesitant, at best, but her boyfriend was very encouraging, and after much debate ( didn't want to get anything cheesy like a Tweety bird or Betty Boop)I decided I would get a small cross near my unmentionables. That way, if I loved it, I could get it a little bigger, and if I absolutely hated it, the only person who would ever see it would be J. Maybe. If I ever decided to speak to him again.



Now, I had been toying with the idea of getting a tattoo for a while, and people usually thought I was joking. I'd kid that I would get J's name on my butt, and then when people would ask the inevitable, "What if you guys get divorced?", I'd just respond that I'd change the tattoo to read, Joe Mama. So, although the idea of a tattoo was often enticing, I don't like to buy anything I can't return.



But, like I said, my body was humming with anxiety, disappointment, and anger, and this helped fuel my courage. Well, that and the fact that I had had a shot of Cuban coffee, a glass of wine, and a warm bath. All of which only further served to confuse my body. Did I want to get hyped up? Did I want to relax? Did I want to take a nap? My body just wanted me to make a choice and get a grip.



Anywho, I made it to the tattoo parlor and spoke with the owner about what I wanted and where I wanted it and that I was TERRIFIED of getting it. There was a pretty perfect perfection girl about to get a tattoo at that very moment, and she said it would be alright for me to watch. She was getting the outline of a lotus flower on her lower back. After watching the whole process, and after much assurance on her part that it didn't hurt a bit, I was seriously considering it. I mean, my emotions were zigzagging all over the place! I was not in my right mind! I was not my smart cookie self! Who was this person?



Let me just say that Jesus and his angels were watching over my insane ass. I had decided to wear a dress that night and there was no way in this reality that I was going to lay my near naked butt on that table with my unmentionables on display. If I had been wearing shorts or jeans, I would have just rolled down the waistband, but a dress? Oh, hell to the no!



So, I've decided that although I like tattoos on other people, I might just have to pass. Good lord, I could've had a tattoo near my hair pie!

I HEART Tim Gunn!

This morning, I was watching Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, which, to be honest, I only watch because he's so darn charming and endearing, and because it's Columbus Day and I got a day off from work.

Because Tim is great, and I even like that new lady Gretta, so much BETTER than Veronica Webb, but the show is definitely not as good as What Not to Wear on TLC. I mean, I have rearranged my Friday night plans to watch new episodes of What Not to Wear. And, I've stalked, I mean seen Clinton twice at Macy's events, one of which was an event for plus size women, and let me tell you, even though I've moaned and groaned about gaining weight, I am no where near the double digits. To further add to the insanity, a girlfriend and I are planning on driving to Naples to see Clinton again. Crazy, much? Don't even bother answering.

Anyway, this is not about my unfailing love for all things Clinton. This is about T to the G. I love his ginormous vocabulary and how he always looks utterly flummoxed (it's an SAT word, dictionary.com it) when he looks in the participants' closets. The look of abject horror is priceless, if not a bit worrisome, for folks on a budget like myself.

Now granted, he never mentions labels, only fit, silhouette, proportion, and style, but he also never mentions The Gap, Old Navy, Forever 21, or Macy's, which is where the bulk of the clothes and shoes in my closet come from. I think I've got a pretty good sense of style, minus everything I wore in the nineties, of course, but there's no way I could afford to shop at Bloomingdale's.

In fact, last week a friend told me he splurged on a pair of Gucci boots for fall, at Barneys, nonetheless, and I was SO JEALOUS! First of all, he's a boy, and a straight one at that! And second of all -GUCCI! Would I love to be able to splurge or invest, as all the major fashion magazines are trying to convince me would be a more appropriate word, in high quality items? Well, duh. It doesn't take Scooby-Doo to figure out this mystery, but Mr. & Mrs. Smart Cookie have to pay the mortgage, my friend, so it's not going to happen.

Back on track, it got me to thinking. What would the Gunn think about my wardrobe? Hmmm. I'm not really sure. I like the way I dress, but is it, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style? Not always. So I will have to live with the knowledge that should Tim Gunn ever visit me and my budget babe's closet, he will be nonplussed, to say the least. But then, I'll just have to fill him in on Smart Cookie's Guide to Style.

Holla at your girl!

Back to Blog

My computer has had an STD of the PC kind, so I have been M.I.A. for beaucoup longtemps. But I'm back! Not in a creepy poltergeist way. More like a happy read my thoughts way. Did you miss me?

Random Ramblings

Today I was:

• struggling to get out of bed and out of my p.j.'s.
• thanking Christopher Columbus for his chutzpah and the day off. You go around the world!
  
• happy to be posting again after such a long hiatus!
• debating on whether or not to buy a Swiffer Wet Jet, or just keep doing it ghetto style with the Cuban mop and a bottle of water. Three dogs + White Tile =prescription for insanity.
  
• feeling like a book of antonyms. Calm, restless; happy, sad; satisfied, unsatisfied; blah, blah, blah.
  
• coveting a pair of deliciously sexy Steven Madden booties.
• planning how my alternate self would wear said booties in a parallel universe. I'm thinking skinny jeans, tank, shrunken jacket, and a scarf, all the better to strut my stuff against a cool fall breeze. As opposed to the soffee's, USMC t-shirt, and converse I am currently sporting.
  
• dreading going to spinning class, but I've lost a teeny bit of poundage and I've got to suck it up and stick it out.
• thinking, "There's got to be more...."