MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

 1) I got bored the other day and had my nails done. Steve was out doing networking stuff and I didn't want to sit at home alone anymore, so on a whim I went to the same salon that the owner of our company goes to and said "Give me the works!"

Well, not really the works. Just a full set of acrylic nail tips and a gel polish. Heehee.

I don't think I've had fake nails put on since my wedding, or at least close to that long, but lots of women that I work with have such pretty, manicured nails and I have the hands of an offshore oil driller. I covet how put together they always look and figured I'd play along and try to capture some of their glamour.  

I forgot how claustrophobic I get when I'm having beauty stuff done. I literally had to take one of my panic-stopping pills while I was sitting there because having someone working on me and not being able to get away freaked me out. Not that I couldn't have left if I absolutely needed to, but it would have been awkward (and very rude) to run out in the middle of a manicure. 

So I got the things and they were gorgeous, and I loved them and they were so shiny and perfect! I had them painted a color shifting blue/pink/green so that they would go with lots of stuff, and they caught the light and made my hands look so nice!  I felt this way for about 24 hours before I remembered why I don't get acrylic nails done anymore.

I couldn't do shit with my hands. I have to face the facts that I'm usually like an unevolved primate that has to use its claws to dig for grubs and roots. With the fake nails on, I couldn't properly pick things up, write, put on/take off my clothes, open packages, or even scratch an itch. I purposefully got them short and still couldn't do normal everyday things without issues. I knew I was in trouble when I tried to take out my contacts and nearly blinded myself. Also, I forgot that real nails grow out, so the fake ones start looking weird and have a scratchy ridge on the bottom that will drive me crazy. Basically, I'm a basement gremlin who doesn't know how to be a fancy lady.

I kept them on for two weeks, cutting them, shaping them, trying to make them less intrusive, all to no avail. I couldn't take it anymore. I decided to take them off, but it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be! When I had them before, I just soaked them in fingernail polish remover and they eventually peeled off. This time, and I think due to the gel polish (really a kind of resin that hardens with UV light,) the nail polish trick wasn't working. I scraped, pulled, soaked, snipped, and tugged. I finally had to go and get some pure acetone and soak my nails in that and then chip away at them and it STILL took two days to get most of them off. It wrecked my real nails, and my cuticles look like they got in a fight with an angry ferret! Also, I still have some of the acrylic nail stuff on my real nails, which makes it impossible to cover up the damage with other nail polish without looking like putting paint over peeling wallpaper. 

So, in an attempt to be pretty and fancy and polished, my hands look worse than they did before. At least I've learned my lesson about spending my money on fake nails! I guess, if I want to look nice, I'll just to focus on something less complicated. Like showing off my cleavage. ;)

2) Logan graduated from Air Force basic training last week!  We are so proud! I know he's a grown man who is married and has a child, but he will always seem so young to me. Angie sent me pictures and I unexpectedly got all weepy. I guess because he's officially an adult now! *sniff*

3) While Angie and Shawn were in San Antonio for logan's graduation, we got to keep Logan's dog, Beau. He's 8, almost 9 years old, but I don't think he knows it. He's still as hyper and crazy as ever. He was very sad when Angie left him with me, but he and I came to an understanding. He learned I am a sucker and will play with him all of the time, and I learned that he is a dog that can con me into playing with him all of the time. Steve was home with Beau most of the time, because he mostly works remotely. Beau was quiet, sleepy, and calm while Steve was there. Once I got home, all of that went out of the window. We played ball. We played tug. We disemboweled several stuffed animals. We also slept in the recliner together at night so he wouldn't be scared, and to be frank, he was the only one who got any sleep because it's not comfortable to have a 60-pound cinderblock of a dog sticking his pointy claws into my armpit, while he rolls over and over on top of me. Also, waking up randomly in the middle of the night for belly scratches was disruptive too. Steve went out of town for the weekend, and I was there with Beau alone for three days, and those three days almost killed me. I love the dog, he is precious, and if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in the room and then myself, but damn if I wasn't a little bit glad when Angie and Shawn picked him up on Sunday afternoon. I think I slept for 18 straight hours once I was alone. I still haven't recovered.

4) You know how I mentioned above that I don't know how to be a fancy lady? Well, we are going to a fancy-pants wedding this weekend and to date I've bought 4 dresses for it and still have no idea which one is most appropriate. At some point I've just forgotten how to be a woman.

Well, I've forgotten how to be a dressy, nicely put together woman, at least. There are all kinds of ways to be a woman that I still know how to be, but none of those ways can tell me what to wear to a black-tie-optional wedding - or wear fake nails. 

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

 1) As much as I enjoy social media (well, as much as anyone can enjoy it if they manage to avoid the ugliness that it can produce) one thing really bothers me. Every once in a while, some app that I’m using will give me a notification saying that it has a new option for me to modify my circle, or however they put it. They tell you that you can create a special group of people within your followers to talk to and exclude other followers. Granted, I suppose this makes sense if you are a marketing site and have paid memberships that get special content, but I don’t understand it in the context of personal accounts. It makes me uncomfortable. It’s like inviting people to a party, but not talking to them or letting them hear any conversation. They can sit at the table, but no one will acknowledge them. It’s weird. I don’t like the fact that they are giving me the option of being a Mean Girl. 

2) I'm procrastinating SO HARD at work right now. I'm so tired and I don't want to do anything. Allergies are kicking my ass and I feel like the only thing I have any desire to do is lie down and float in the ether of pollen and malaise. 

I've got a lot of things on my to-do list, so I'm going to see how many of them I can ignore before things go 30 Seconds to Midnight.

3) Last Saturday, Steve and I went to the Mad Scientist Bash for this year with some of our other coworkers! It was fun! I'd been planning my costume for a while, but it turned out less "Mad Scientist" and leaned more towards "Super Villain." However, being fair, a lot of super villains start out as scientists that are mad, sooooo...

I found a black lab coat, wore all black clothes and boots, and had a pair of LED glasses that you could program with messages to scroll. Also, and I'm not sure how smart this was, I dyed my hair blue. Well, I tinted it blue. It's mostly noticeable in the places where my hair is already white, so it's not all that obtrusive. Also, and I didn't consider this until DAYS later, the event was in a large, dimly lit building, so no one could really see that my hair was tinted anyway. Oh well, I like it, even though I know it's going to turn green before it fades completely. Look, when I pick a theme, I COMMIT. Heehee.

The keynote speaker was obviously a very brilliant man, but he kept chasing tangents and so I didn't have any idea what he was trying to talk about. To be honest, it was probably going to go over my head anyways, but I think it could have been pretty fascinating. I may have to look into the subject on the internet and see if there is a "for Dummies" version out there. We ate, we drank, and we danced. Because I was wearing the mostly face obscuring glasses, I didn't have any self consciousness, so I was dancing like no one was watching. However, it turned out someone was watching and I got filmed by someone. I don't know who. So, if you happen to see a video clip of someone in black, with blue hair and a screen on their face that kept scrolling "Greetings Fellow Nerds" dancing like a lunatic, that was me. You don't have to admit to anyone that you know me. I'll understand.

4) Y'all, can I confess something? I feel overwhelmed lately. I don't even know what I'm overwhelmed with. Life, maybe? I don't know why, since my work load hasn't changed, and my everything else load is about the same, but damn, I feel like there is just too much. Does that make sense? I wake up ready to go back to bed, and during the day I just want to hide in a closet and wait there until it's time to go home so I can cram myself under a blanket and hide from everyone and everything. Like, I have so much I need to do at home, but by the time I get there all I can do is stare around and be overwhelmed by that, too, so I don't end up doing the stuff. Steve is hardly ever home anymore, so it's kind of up to me to make sure everything is all in order, and since it's just two of us you'd think that would be easy, but I can't get seem to make myself do any of it because it still feels like too much. In turn, not doing those things makes me feel even more overwhelmed because I know I'm just going to have to do it later. 

The occasional work event (see above) or hockey game, or things like that are a nice respite, but I sometimes almost feel like they're too much, too. 

Am I burned out? Is this what burn out feels like? I hate it.

5) I'm addicted to string cheese. Addicted to it! I have always been meh about it in the past, but a couple of weeks ago I got some for work (at the request of a coworker) and I ate a piece and now it's almost all I want to eat. I am going to get SCURVY.  I don't even know if it is the taste or the fact that it is a pleasantly tactile sort of food, but all I know is that I have to have a bag of it in arms reach at all time or I start feeling withdrawal symptoms.