So Many Birthdays

June 9 is a big day around here. It's Natalie Portman, Michael J. Fox, Johnny Depp, my brother, and my dear friend Alisha's birthday. Alisha and I celebrated with a 40 mile trip to the nearest Sonic, then I introduced her to LABELS! She got a couple of cool things and so did I including $30 7 FOR ALL MANKIND JEANS FOR REAL I R SO CITED! Sorry I lapsed into lolspeak for a minute there. After Labels we hit the mall. Here's me in the Delia's dressing room waiting for Alisha to try on jeans.

 

Happy Birthdays everyone!

Independent bookstores are cool.

One of my favorite bookstores now has an "Undead" section. This is only one shelf of it, there's actually a lot of undead stuff out there now. I'm not much for the vampire stuff, though I liked Thirsty by M.T. Anderson and I read The Strain because I wanted to see what Guillermo Del Toro would do with the genre. In related news, if you think you can handle it, please watch Pan's Labyrinth.

Personally, I go more for the zombie end of the undead craze. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a semi-successful and ultimately pretty entertaining experiment, and I hope it ends up being a gateway for a lot of people to read Pride and Prejudice that might not otherwise. World War Z by Max Brooks gets the award for most committed to its own conceit--even the flap copy and author bio are part of the story. I recently saw a glut of zombie movies, of course Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later lived up to everything I've heard. And as a bonus, here's one you've probably never heard of. Sample dialogue (Japanese dubbed to English): 

Wife- "There's something wrong. I think it might be zombies."

Husband- "IF IT'S A ZOMBIE I'LL EAT IT!"

Classic.

6-5, 6-7, and 6-8-10

Here's a few outfit pics. Number one, Saturday for work. Hollister sweater from Labels, linen shorts from Kohl's.

Monday, work and hanging out with friends. Billabong dress from Macy's, sweater from Goodwill.

Me watching a Jack-in-the-Box commercial. Piratey shirt people seem to like a lot from Charlotte Russe.

I don't want to be a cowgirl

Here's another post that starts with a drink cup!

Here's the thing about pizza--on the West Coast, we have Pizza Factory. Pizza Factory is the best pizza ever, my long-time favorite. Except that when you get an iced tea with ice, refill it on the way out, and leave it on the floor next to the couch when you get home it will slowly leak and when you look at it for the first time three hours later it will have had an "accident" and you will use two Pizza Factory napkins cleaning it up (luckily you have laminate flooring and not carpet) which is not that big a deal except you purposefully brought home five napkins since you've been out of paper towels and money for like three weeks and now you only have three napkins. And your cup will have to go inside another cup--a cup diaper if you will--to contain the drips because it is pretty good iced tea (see picture above). But the other thing about pizza is, I've never had East Coast pizza. So who am I to judge what is good pizza?

The other day I took Joe home to his apartment (35 miles away from where I live), and we stopped by the mall for some reason. To get a soft pretzel? Yep, it was because he wanted a soft pretzel. But then he got Chinese food instead. Anyway, we stopped at Target to get him an oven mitt, and holy cow did we hit the jackpot because he got a set of two hot pads and an oven mitt for three bucks. And while he was in line buying said items, I wandered over to the clothing section and drooled over these REALLY AWESOME SUNDRESSES AND SOME OF THEM WERE FIFTEEN DOLLARS THAT'S A REALLY GOOD DEAL TARGET GOOD JOB. I even tried to show some to Joe but of course he didn't care so we left and did some other stuff around town and then went back to his apartment and around eight I was all, "I should probably go home now I don't want to get too tired" but really I thought maybe Target closed at nine and I wanted to go there on the way home. So I stopped off for a "quick trip" (45 min) in which I tried on about six dresses, which were cute but none were quite worth an entire fifteen dollars (I've been buying a lot of secondhand stuff lately and fifteen dollars buys at least five things at Labels) BUT I tried on this super cute shirt from the children's section and it was fifteen dollars:

I wore it today and Joe became a boyfriend mushball of compliments about how cute I looked. He seriously loves when I wear button-up shirts. I almost ended up looking like a cowgirl though so I made sure my boots were sort of a chic vibe. GUESS WHAT MY BOOTS ARE ALSO FROM THE CHILDREN'S SECTION AT TARGET. A few years ago a girl I used to babysit had these exact boots in this exact size and I liked them so much I tried them on and then ran out an bought myself a pair the next day. I think she was nine at the time. 

In other news, I just had an epiphany when I realized I needed to take my outfit shot but it's night and artificially-lit inside shots always look kind of yellowy. I realized my bathroom is the perfect spot for taking my pictures! I can set the camera on the stack of Poetry magazines I have on my toilet tank (true story) and it frames the pictures perfectly! And the lighting looks great! And you can see the awesome shower curtain Tori and I got at Ross for eight dollars! In case you're wondering, I'm turning my head so you can see my crappy ponytail and my face looked weird in every shot where I was looking into the camera.

Well, that story about my taking pictures in my bathroom wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be.

The Internets are eating my minutes

There are three things I procrastinated doing today. One: eating. Got home from work, ate, sat on couch, got on internets, ate again a looong time later (I only worked until 3 today). Two: getting a milkshake. I decided I wanted one around six or seven. Just got home from milkshake run to McDonalds. Current time is 10:19. Three: stopping by my parents' house to say hi since they were out of town last week and got home Monday and I haven't seen them yet. And it's Thursday. And I live next door to them.

Bah! I just ejected my memory card from my camera so I could post the picture I just took of my milkshake and it JUMPED OUT OF THE CAMERA AND ATTACKED ME!

My memory card is staging some kind of revolt. It did the same jump attack move when I tried to put it back.

Today started off well enough. I'm still having ear problems, as in I feel like I just got off a plane. When I shower it sounds like someone installed a rain stick in my head. We experienced a brief reprieve today from the major rain deluges that have been going on for a couple of weeks and, according to the weather reports, will continue until beyond reasonable weather-prediction ability. And my legs were recently shaved, so BRING ON THE LEG-BARING ENSEMBLES!

Please ignore the horrendousness of the nineties-tastic loveseat behind me, it was free and it's really comfortable.

After I got home from work I kind of sunk into the internet wasteland and got lazy and sort of depressed and frustrated in a where-is-my-life-going kind of way, and then mentalfloss introduced me to Hyperbole and a Half and that's what happened to my day.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

P.S. That's The Lightning Thief on the "coffee table" and it was great. I read it in a couple of sittings, and I was into it enough that I would be reading and Joe would say "Hey, we should go to (location) and (do something) and I would be like "Okay, I have eleven pages left in this chapter" and he would be like "Let me know when you're done" and then I would secretly finish the chapter and read two more because they were only like three to five pages. 

6-2-10

I spent today babysitting for my good friends Janin and CJ, and when they got home we all went to dinner and hit the mall. Keira's outfit way outshines mine so I'll post her instead. Here she is trying on shoes at Macy's (I told her to smile, and this was the face she made saying CHEEEEEEESE):

Later when we were at a shoe store that had pink Converse in her size, she became immediately obsessed. I asked her if she was going to buy them, and she said yes. Then I asked if she had $25, and she said yes. Then when we tried to leave the store she refused to let go of the shoes for a couple of solid minutes, much to the amusement/confusion of the very pierced and tattooed teenage guys who worked there. Luckily, she complied in the end and we were able to exit the store peacefully.

On an unrelated note, my ears have been plugged all week. Today in particular I feel as if somebody inserted a balloon into my ear canal and blew it up. Ahhhh why won't it go awaaaaaaaaay? I am super annoyed so here is a soothingly pretty picture of the sunset tonight:

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, I forgot National Dress Day yesterday, but I just wore one on Saturday so I think I get a by (or is it bye? I have no idea. That's what I get for trying to use a sports term). LOOOved my work outfit here, and my hair looks awesome.

Sunday I threw something on with very little time, this shirt was a birthday present from Megan last year, and the sweater is from some stuff she was giving away last week. I didn't realize it at the time, but she was responsible for most of my outfit. Thanks Megan! I wore my teeteringly high Nine West wedges, which made the whole look a lot better, but I almost didn't get a picture and I'm about to change into pajamas here so I didn't feel like hunting down my shoes at that moment.

No shot from Monday or Tuesday but I had some good times. Memorial Day was kinda crappy weather, so Joe and I went to see MacGruber with Kirk. Major disappointment. But the pretzel bites were good. Later we took a bike ride to a nearby playground and I was in my trench coat, a t-shirt, miniskirt and leggings. I felt like one of those sophisticated French or New York girls who often casually ride their bikes in skirts and dresses. I have no photographic evidence, but trust me I was super cute!