Remember Friendster? I used to have an profile there until sometime in 2006, when I deleted the account in favor of the Myspace profile I had set up sometime in 2005. I deleted that account sometime in 2007, when I set up my Facebook account.
Anyway, back when Friendster was the thing, I used to use the blog feature of the account. At one point, I moved all of my Friendster blog posts and archived them on this Blogger account when I started Gorgeous Little Things. When I put the blog to rest a couple of years ago, I assumed all of those old posts were gone forever.
I was wrong. Last week I started getting notifications of comments on my Friendster blog. WTF?, I thought, when I tried (and failed) to log into my still-deleted Friendster account. Most of the old posts existed in some sort of Friendster zombieland. I'm in the process of sorting through them and re-archiving most of them here. But let that be a lesson, kids: The Internet is Forever. (ETA: I contacted Friendster and they deleted the old blog.)
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
It's the Little Things
It's funny the little rhythms in the neighborhood that I get stuck on. There will be a thing that I see almost every morning as I walk to the subway. When I see it, I feel like my life is in balance; when I don't I feel let down.
Right now my thing is a neighborhood dog. He's a huge, black Newfoundland and his owner walks him as she walks her kid to the school down the street from the subway entrance that I use. He looks like such a good-natured, gentle giant of a dog, with a slow, bouncy gait and a lolling pink tongue. He seems popular with the kids at the school; if he and his family are at the schoolyard when I pass by, he's usually getting hugged or petted, and it looks like he's loving the attention as much as the kids love seeing this big bear of a dog.
It makes me smile every damn day that I see this dog and I feel like something's missing when I don't. Part of me wants to contrive a way to start a conversation with the dog's owner, but another part of me likes having a little bit of a private magic moment to look forward to every morning.
Right now my thing is a neighborhood dog. He's a huge, black Newfoundland and his owner walks him as she walks her kid to the school down the street from the subway entrance that I use. He looks like such a good-natured, gentle giant of a dog, with a slow, bouncy gait and a lolling pink tongue. He seems popular with the kids at the school; if he and his family are at the schoolyard when I pass by, he's usually getting hugged or petted, and it looks like he's loving the attention as much as the kids love seeing this big bear of a dog.
It makes me smile every damn day that I see this dog and I feel like something's missing when I don't. Part of me wants to contrive a way to start a conversation with the dog's owner, but another part of me likes having a little bit of a private magic moment to look forward to every morning.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Just Like Starting Over
I forgot that I had deleted the previous incarnation of Gorgeous Little Things.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Lipstick Vogue
I don’t often get excited about makeup. I try to be above such piffle so I can focus on more important things (mostly music, boys, and celeb gossip). But I am completely thrilled with some lipstick I bought yesterday.
I’ve always loved how a little color on the lips can pull your face together, and make it look like you aren’t half-asleep; I’ve always hated how quickly lipstick fades and how often it needed refreshing. I’d tried long lasting lipsticks years ago, which while staining my lips, left them puckered and cakey. I decided it was high time to see if makeup technology had progressed in the past decade. It has.
I bought Maybelline Superstay Lipcolor (774, Cinnamon, a neutral medium beige-pink). With these new long lasting colors, you get two fun bits in one package (I think the Cover Girl version is similar, as is probably Revlon, L’Oreal, etc.). First you apply the color with a spongy wand. It has a distinctly Bonne Belle lip gloss smell, which is probably a deliberate ploy to nab my demographic, who tend to light up nostalgically at the scent. After the color sets, there’s a lip balm at the other end that helps seal the color and keep your lips soft. Then you are free to eat, drink, kiss, whatevs for hours, without having to reapply.
Oh how I feel liberated from frequent lip checks and reapplications! I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that this will give women the freedom to take over the world, looking fabulous.
I’ve always loved how a little color on the lips can pull your face together, and make it look like you aren’t half-asleep; I’ve always hated how quickly lipstick fades and how often it needed refreshing. I’d tried long lasting lipsticks years ago, which while staining my lips, left them puckered and cakey. I decided it was high time to see if makeup technology had progressed in the past decade. It has.
I bought Maybelline Superstay Lipcolor (774, Cinnamon, a neutral medium beige-pink). With these new long lasting colors, you get two fun bits in one package (I think the Cover Girl version is similar, as is probably Revlon, L’Oreal, etc.). First you apply the color with a spongy wand. It has a distinctly Bonne Belle lip gloss smell, which is probably a deliberate ploy to nab my demographic, who tend to light up nostalgically at the scent. After the color sets, there’s a lip balm at the other end that helps seal the color and keep your lips soft. Then you are free to eat, drink, kiss, whatevs for hours, without having to reapply.
Oh how I feel liberated from frequent lip checks and reapplications! I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that this will give women the freedom to take over the world, looking fabulous.
Sunday, October 1, 2006
23. Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism, Lisa Jervis & Andi Zeisler, eds.
Bitchfest was an impulse purchase I made a few weeks ago. I’ve never been a reader of Bitch magazine, and only a sporadic visitor of its Web site, but it should be pretty obvious that I’m firmly in their demographic and supportive of their ideas. I was pretty excited to curl up with a compendium of essays from the past ten years.
Surprisingly, the essays can be a lot to take in one swoop. Though I mostly agreed with what I was reading, at times I felt I was being chastised for somehow being a "bad" feminist. For example, sometimes I casually say "you guys" when referring to a mixed group of people, but if I would happen to do that in front of Audrey Bilger, I would be soundly corrected for my patriarchal wielding of language. While intellectually I understand her point that seemingly small things can have a chaos-theory-like effect on society, I’d rather spend my energy on larger corrections (health care, the environment, reproductive rights, etc.), and believe that kind of po-faced finger-wagging—the kind that hair-splits, judges, and yeah, nags—is part of the reason that so many young women today are reluctant to define themselves as a feminist. Maybe some would rather maintain a radical, activist core and view people like myself as squishy, Girl Power sellouts. I’d rather live in a world where words like "liberal" or "feminist" were adjectives, not epithets.
Anyway, there are loads of other, funny, touching, thought-provoking essays that examine feminism and womanhood (and race, class, gender, leadership, and more) from unexpected angles. There’s lots of examination of how these issues are played out—whether they’re celebrated or undermined—in pop culture. By the end of the book, I’d thought about all the facets of my self: my Jackass lovin’, Austen readin’, horny, crafty, what-my-bikini-area-grooming-says-about-me worryin’, often foul-mouthed, list-makin’, liberal, feminist, self.
Surprisingly, the essays can be a lot to take in one swoop. Though I mostly agreed with what I was reading, at times I felt I was being chastised for somehow being a "bad" feminist. For example, sometimes I casually say "you guys" when referring to a mixed group of people, but if I would happen to do that in front of Audrey Bilger, I would be soundly corrected for my patriarchal wielding of language. While intellectually I understand her point that seemingly small things can have a chaos-theory-like effect on society, I’d rather spend my energy on larger corrections (health care, the environment, reproductive rights, etc.), and believe that kind of po-faced finger-wagging—the kind that hair-splits, judges, and yeah, nags—is part of the reason that so many young women today are reluctant to define themselves as a feminist. Maybe some would rather maintain a radical, activist core and view people like myself as squishy, Girl Power sellouts. I’d rather live in a world where words like "liberal" or "feminist" were adjectives, not epithets.
Anyway, there are loads of other, funny, touching, thought-provoking essays that examine feminism and womanhood (and race, class, gender, leadership, and more) from unexpected angles. There’s lots of examination of how these issues are played out—whether they’re celebrated or undermined—in pop culture. By the end of the book, I’d thought about all the facets of my self: my Jackass lovin’, Austen readin’, horny, crafty, what-my-bikini-area-grooming-says-about-me worryin’, often foul-mouthed, list-makin’, liberal, feminist, self.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Musings of a Jetlagged Brain
It’s almost 4:30 a.m., and I’m only just now getting ready for bed. That’s what happens when you spend a week staying up until 1:30 a.m. in Pacific Standard Time and suddenly find yourself back in the Eastern Standard Time zone. More about the trip will come, as will pictures. For now, I am too tired to create a narrative to do justice the fun week I’ve had.
I am glad, though, that I’d thought ahead to take off the day after I got back. There’s always so much to wind up and unwind: time-zone re-acclimation, restocking groceries, catching up on mail and e-mail, whatever, etc.—things that would otherwise loom as I tried to get back into the swing of the working week. It’s good to have a buffer between vacation life and regular life. It’s the built-in luxuries that make such a difference.
It is at times like these that you realize the city does in fact sleep, and that for the moment, you are not among the slumberers. It’s so quiet, I feel as if I have half the world to myself, and I relish it, even as I long for the heaviness of sleep. It’s as though I can’t decide which is the more privileged condition: that of the late-night thinker, or the late-night dreamer.
I am glad, though, that I’d thought ahead to take off the day after I got back. There’s always so much to wind up and unwind: time-zone re-acclimation, restocking groceries, catching up on mail and e-mail, whatever, etc.—things that would otherwise loom as I tried to get back into the swing of the working week. It’s good to have a buffer between vacation life and regular life. It’s the built-in luxuries that make such a difference.
It is at times like these that you realize the city does in fact sleep, and that for the moment, you are not among the slumberers. It’s so quiet, I feel as if I have half the world to myself, and I relish it, even as I long for the heaviness of sleep. It’s as though I can’t decide which is the more privileged condition: that of the late-night thinker, or the late-night dreamer.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
New York to Eugene: 15 Hours of Adventure
(Adapted from notes scratched along the way)
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
9 a.m.: Wake up. Go for run (in preparation for a week of marionberry pie and general sloth).
9:45–11:00 a.m.: Shower, dress, finish packing.
11:00 a.m.: Board F train at 7th Ave., determined to be a fiscally responsible and environmentally conscious citizen by taking public transportation to airport. Route: F to 34th St., transfer to N or W train, switch from N (or W) to M60 bus at Astoria Blvd. The M60 stops at LaGuardia’s terminals. This, in addition to the run, makes me feel slightly smugly virtuous.
12:30 p.m.: Board M60. Am suddenly reminded that buses stop every 10 inches to let off old, fat, slow people. Realize that this very frustration is the reason that I always take a cab or a car service to the airport. Oh, well.
12:50 p.m.: Check in at the United Airlines terminal. (Circuitous route to Eugene OR: LaGuardia to Denver to Portland to Eugene.)
1:05 p.m.: Have cleared security. Am always amused that they still do the show thing—it’s so 2003.
1:07 p.m.: Notice that lipstick and lip gloss are no longer carry-on contraband. Silently curse that I’ve packed them in my checked luggage. Debate getting a snack before hitting my gate, as I have not yet eaten today. I have 20 minutes until boarding. Nah, I can wait.
1:30 p.m.: Have boarded plane. Nice to be on a real plane for once, rather than a regional jet. Still, I wonder how people who are taller than me deal with the lack of legroom (I’m 5′2 1/2").
2:05 p.m.: "Engine trouble" announced. Mechanics allegedly on the way. Silently curse LaGuardia Airport.
2:50 p.m.: Flight 407 is cancelled. Everyone deplanes. All of our luggage is transferred to flight 409 to Denver. I join the line of people needing to transfer from 407 to 409 or other flights.
3:05 p.m.: Take time while on line to call aunt (who I am visiting). A travel veteran, she gives me tips on how to work the situation.
3:45 p.m.: Am assigned a standby position for flight 995 to Denver, which leaves about an hour after 409 and my luggage (does the TSA know about this?). At least it connects directly to Eugene. Am starving. Grab horrendously unhealthy and gross tuna wrap at Au Bon Pain ($6), and a coffee (not having had coffee by this time of day should be criminal). Remember that I hate Au Bon Pain’s burnt-ass coffee, but drink it anyway. I forgot to add milk, but am too frustrated to walk 50 yards back to do that. Bleargh.
4:40–4:55 p.m.: 995 is fruitlessly overbooked, owing to the cancellation of my original flight. I am going to get screwed with the number of connections I need to make. Unfortunately, the United terminal area is woefully understaffed by confused people. I realize that if lucky, I will end up spending the first night of my vacation in a hotel near the Denver airport if I don’t play some hardball.
I begin to form alliances with fellow standbys. There’s a pair of business travelers headed to Boise, a handful of business travelers headed to Denver, and a pilot who refuses to take the jump seat (greedy bastard). At least two of the business travelers have some sort of elite status, but for some reason the United staffer is reluctant to bump anyone up to the last two seats, which are in first class.
Meanwhile, flight 409 hit bad weather and has now returned to get more fuel. Am sure this level of incompetence will be the end of at least one of these Denver flights.
5:10 p.m.: United staff begins processing standbys onto other flights.
5:15 p.m.: Inform the United staffer that I know that there is a late-arriving America West flight to Eugene, and that I want to be transferred to that, and not stuck with an overnight layover in Denver. I know they don’t want to eat the cost of losing my fare, and would probably rather bump me to first than lose me entirely. This move seems to leverage me ahead of people whose final destination is Denver.
5:40 p.m.: 995 is still on the ground. I think they are still juggling seat assignments. I hope that someone with a close connection in Denver will get off. Suddenly I am plucked for the flight. I don’t ask questions, but realize that my standby ticket for the flight was already shredded. Am given a vague seat assignment and slip onto plane as United staffer, flight attendant, and another passenger discuss seat trades.
5:42–5:50 p.m.: Realize that seat I am told to take does not exist, so I take the only one that doesn’t seem to be occupied. So I’m on a plane with no ticket and my luggage on another flight. Convinced I am headed to Gitmo. Nearly have a heart attack when a flight attendant approaches me, but she seems to have been filled in.
6:20 p.m.: 995, originally scheduled to leave at 5:11, takes off.
6:45 p.m.: Snack boxes, our in-flight meal-buying opportunity, have sold out. Am given a granola bar and a free wine. Score!
7:45/6:45 Mountain Time: Have finished book, wine, and granola bar. Due to the inconveniences (schedule, no food) passengers are given vouchers for $25 in travel certificates.
8:15–8:40 p.m.: Land in Denver. Nice airport. Return a few calls, give my aunt the update, and check with gate to make sure I actually am on flight 6665 to Eugene. (I am.) Pop into Hudson News for an Entertainment Weekly and a tube of Blistex ($6). Head to hang out in gate area. Crowd is much more "Eugene" looking than "New York" looking. Hee!
10:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time: Near the end of the flight a heated debate breaks out between two people: one has obviously just read People’s History, and another who does not read and gets all their info from Fox News. Ah, to be a college freshman again, eh?
10:30 p.m.: Land in Eugene, meet up with aunt, and figure out that my luggage has made it as far as Portland and will join me tomorrow. Amused to know that if I’d gotten on that "earlier" flight, it’d have taken much longer than the crazy way I took. Sometimes the easier way is the harder way, I guess.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
9 a.m.: Wake up. Go for run (in preparation for a week of marionberry pie and general sloth).
9:45–11:00 a.m.: Shower, dress, finish packing.
11:00 a.m.: Board F train at 7th Ave., determined to be a fiscally responsible and environmentally conscious citizen by taking public transportation to airport. Route: F to 34th St., transfer to N or W train, switch from N (or W) to M60 bus at Astoria Blvd. The M60 stops at LaGuardia’s terminals. This, in addition to the run, makes me feel slightly smugly virtuous.
12:30 p.m.: Board M60. Am suddenly reminded that buses stop every 10 inches to let off old, fat, slow people. Realize that this very frustration is the reason that I always take a cab or a car service to the airport. Oh, well.
12:50 p.m.: Check in at the United Airlines terminal. (Circuitous route to Eugene OR: LaGuardia to Denver to Portland to Eugene.)
1:05 p.m.: Have cleared security. Am always amused that they still do the show thing—it’s so 2003.
1:07 p.m.: Notice that lipstick and lip gloss are no longer carry-on contraband. Silently curse that I’ve packed them in my checked luggage. Debate getting a snack before hitting my gate, as I have not yet eaten today. I have 20 minutes until boarding. Nah, I can wait.
1:30 p.m.: Have boarded plane. Nice to be on a real plane for once, rather than a regional jet. Still, I wonder how people who are taller than me deal with the lack of legroom (I’m 5′2 1/2").
2:05 p.m.: "Engine trouble" announced. Mechanics allegedly on the way. Silently curse LaGuardia Airport.
2:50 p.m.: Flight 407 is cancelled. Everyone deplanes. All of our luggage is transferred to flight 409 to Denver. I join the line of people needing to transfer from 407 to 409 or other flights.
3:05 p.m.: Take time while on line to call aunt (who I am visiting). A travel veteran, she gives me tips on how to work the situation.
3:45 p.m.: Am assigned a standby position for flight 995 to Denver, which leaves about an hour after 409 and my luggage (does the TSA know about this?). At least it connects directly to Eugene. Am starving. Grab horrendously unhealthy and gross tuna wrap at Au Bon Pain ($6), and a coffee (not having had coffee by this time of day should be criminal). Remember that I hate Au Bon Pain’s burnt-ass coffee, but drink it anyway. I forgot to add milk, but am too frustrated to walk 50 yards back to do that. Bleargh.
4:40–4:55 p.m.: 995 is fruitlessly overbooked, owing to the cancellation of my original flight. I am going to get screwed with the number of connections I need to make. Unfortunately, the United terminal area is woefully understaffed by confused people. I realize that if lucky, I will end up spending the first night of my vacation in a hotel near the Denver airport if I don’t play some hardball.
I begin to form alliances with fellow standbys. There’s a pair of business travelers headed to Boise, a handful of business travelers headed to Denver, and a pilot who refuses to take the jump seat (greedy bastard). At least two of the business travelers have some sort of elite status, but for some reason the United staffer is reluctant to bump anyone up to the last two seats, which are in first class.
Meanwhile, flight 409 hit bad weather and has now returned to get more fuel. Am sure this level of incompetence will be the end of at least one of these Denver flights.
5:10 p.m.: United staff begins processing standbys onto other flights.
5:15 p.m.: Inform the United staffer that I know that there is a late-arriving America West flight to Eugene, and that I want to be transferred to that, and not stuck with an overnight layover in Denver. I know they don’t want to eat the cost of losing my fare, and would probably rather bump me to first than lose me entirely. This move seems to leverage me ahead of people whose final destination is Denver.
5:40 p.m.: 995 is still on the ground. I think they are still juggling seat assignments. I hope that someone with a close connection in Denver will get off. Suddenly I am plucked for the flight. I don’t ask questions, but realize that my standby ticket for the flight was already shredded. Am given a vague seat assignment and slip onto plane as United staffer, flight attendant, and another passenger discuss seat trades.
5:42–5:50 p.m.: Realize that seat I am told to take does not exist, so I take the only one that doesn’t seem to be occupied. So I’m on a plane with no ticket and my luggage on another flight. Convinced I am headed to Gitmo. Nearly have a heart attack when a flight attendant approaches me, but she seems to have been filled in.
6:20 p.m.: 995, originally scheduled to leave at 5:11, takes off.
6:45 p.m.: Snack boxes, our in-flight meal-buying opportunity, have sold out. Am given a granola bar and a free wine. Score!
7:45/6:45 Mountain Time: Have finished book, wine, and granola bar. Due to the inconveniences (schedule, no food) passengers are given vouchers for $25 in travel certificates.
8:15–8:40 p.m.: Land in Denver. Nice airport. Return a few calls, give my aunt the update, and check with gate to make sure I actually am on flight 6665 to Eugene. (I am.) Pop into Hudson News for an Entertainment Weekly and a tube of Blistex ($6). Head to hang out in gate area. Crowd is much more "Eugene" looking than "New York" looking. Hee!
10:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time: Near the end of the flight a heated debate breaks out between two people: one has obviously just read People’s History, and another who does not read and gets all their info from Fox News. Ah, to be a college freshman again, eh?
10:30 p.m.: Land in Eugene, meet up with aunt, and figure out that my luggage has made it as far as Portland and will join me tomorrow. Amused to know that if I’d gotten on that "earlier" flight, it’d have taken much longer than the crazy way I took. Sometimes the easier way is the harder way, I guess.
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