2005-03-25 - 10:05 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "How Much Is that Doggy in the Window?"

Monday, March 21st, 2005

Ugh. I feel like my thoughts are being pulled in fifty different directions today and I'm having trouble focusing. I miss the days when I was obsessed with journal-writing and my journal-voice was turned on all the time. I said to somebody the other day that my journal jumped the shark a long time ago -- I think it'll never be the same as it was when we lived in Virginia. Back then, my obsession was writing in my journal, and the attention to the pursuit shows in the writing. And of course, Diaryland is down right now (they had a massive hardware failure) so I can't refer you to some of my favorite old entries. Maybe next time. :)

But jeez, I started my journal almost five years ago, on June 26th. Wow. I still had a couple of grandparents then.

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Precisely because neither one of us could be considered "fat" unless you were pro-ana, Poindexter and I amuse ourselves by calling the other "fat". Technically, what we are squeezing is fat, and fat feels good to squeeze and hug.

Evelynne: Ugh, I ate so much cajun chicken. I'm STUFFED.
Poindexter: Fatty.

Or when Poindexter is bent at the waist washing his face at the sink, I'll hug him from behind and squeeze his little beer gut.

Evelynne: [Delightedly] Mmm.... Tubby!
Poindexter: Hey!
Evelynne: You're so FAT!
Poindexter: I am not!
Evelynne: Yes you are!
Poindexter: Chubby chaser!

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Over the weekend, I began Stage I of gardening. I built SQURLS KEAP OUT cages around the pots with bulbs in them. And while picking up the chicken wire I treated myself to some pink pansies in different shades. SO PRETTY. I cut off all the flowers so the plants would concentrate on growing roots, and put the flowers in the window in the nook.

I also took inventory of my pots and the seeds I collected last year (mostly morning glory/moonflower, basil, coleus) and ordered some new seeds from Park's. I wanted a low-maintenance garden with strong plants, and last year the strongest plants I had were the ones I started from seed. Sometimes the nursery plants don't seem to adjust well. So! Among the new seeds I am trying this year are:

Heliotrope - vanilla scented!

Lobelia Fountain Blue, because I like stuff to spill over the edges of my containers.

Columbine -- I saw this while I was on the open house tour with Pete and his wife last year.

Coleus Wizard Mix -- I love the reds in this.

I also have some cuttings for three types of fuchsia and two colors of double impatiens. I'm impatient to get all this stuff outside and growing!

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005

If you thought Smittens were bad, check this out.

These are the people who make my duck umbrella. I don't even know if the website works, since the building housing the business it was associated with burned down to the ground a while ago.

Also, I am in love with this umbrella, but $245 is entirely too much. Damn you overpriced designers! I have a Monet umbrella that I am also in love with that I got at Wal-Mart for $7.88.

And also, may I rant about copycat designers!? Everybody goes on about how designers are original and high-quality and blahblahblah, and then every other handbag I see this season is a total ripoff of Marc Jacobs's signature two-pocket bag!!! How is this original?!

Here's a classic Marc Jacobs Venetia bag, $975:

And here's where Marc rips himself off designing bags for Louis Vuitton:

Here's Versace, $1575:

Dior:

You know, I don't mind that they rip each other off. There are obviously a lot of different ways to interpret the "bag with two pockets", and depending on your taste, those are nice bags and perhaps preferable to the Marc Jacobs bag. What I don't understand is why no-name designers who do the exact same thing are looked down upon for not being original, when clearly the designers aren't being all that original themselves. It's a CONSPIRACY.

The more I shop and find good quality, interesting clothes for less than $50 per piece, the less convinced I am that designer clothing is all that. It must be a prestige thing that I just don't understsand. I guess trying to convince me of that is like trying to convince me it's worth paying thousands of dollars for a diamond.

Thursday, March 24th, 2005

Work has been busy this week so I'm behind. Fun busy, though.

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Poindexter complains a lot about being old. The other night I had indigestion from eating an apple (a Fuji! come on!) and he had a headache (a migraine, but nipped in the bud with Advil as soon as he got the aura so it wasn't debilitating). We were brushing our teeth and I mentioned the indigestion and he said, "We're old." I said, "We are not. You're fussing about a number. I don't look old and I don't feel old so I am not old."

I say things sometimes to try to convince myself of them.

On Sunday morning, when I got out of bed to open the window and let in some sunlight, I returned to the bed to discover my husband laying curled on his side on my side of the bed. So there was nowhere for me to get in.

When you're standing at the foot of the bed looking at it, my side of the bed is the right side. I've been sleeping there since I first visited Poindexter in California. His nightstand was on that side of the bed, so I must have picked that so I had a place to put my hearing aids and glasses. He still likes to occasionally complain that "That was MY side of the bed! You stole it!" and I have always offered to switch sides, and he always declines.

I yelled, "You're on MY! SIDE! of the BED!" and he didn't move, so I huffed and got in on HIS side and tried to curl up and spoon him.

And said, "I don't know what to do with my arm." It was uncomfortable. I was stiff. It was hurting to try to get into this unfamiliar position. Ugh. I AM getting old.

I lay like that for a while anyway. We are such creatures of habit that laying on different sides of the bed was quite a novelty. It was weird and new. It's like how Robin Williams, in Dead Poets Society, tells the kids to stand up on their desks to get a new perspective.

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Pete sent me a picture of me holding Philipa Penelope. And as you can see, I am quite enamored of her little toes. You watch -- pretty soon she'll be delighted to discover them herself.

Friday, March 25th, 2005

Now I'm busy with three family gatherings this weekend plus Ike and WB visiting next weekend, so I'm going to cheat and pull some stuff from comments I've written in the last few days.

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We do wear wedding rings. Poindexter has a white gold one that looks like he cut out a half-inch section of pipe. (Oddly, we discovered on "The Long Way 'Round" that Ewan McGregor has the exact same wedding ring. I enjoyed pointing that out to Poindexter, who scowled and scoffed.)

I wear a plain yellow gold band on my right hand, plus a plain silver one on the right that I picked up on our honeymoon. I also have my cubic zirconia engagement ring, which I only wear these days when I'm fussing over my appearance.

I've usually worn a ring of some sort on my right hand so the silver one is like a default ring, but I'll replace it with other rings on occasion. The yellow gold band never comes off, EXCEPT when I put lotion on my hands and forget to put it back on. Which is what happened in the picture of me with Philipa yesterday.

Sometimes Poindexter forgets to put his ring back on and goes to work without it, and then he'll IM me: "I'm single!"

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My views on [nonsexual, non-SO] touching have changed. I don't think I mind BEING touched by almost anyone -- the only thing that would bother me is if it was excessive, or seemed calculated or "ooh, I'm touching her, ooh" (as opposed to a person just touching me because it's how they express themselves -- some people like to pat your arm for emphasis or pat your shoulder out of affection and I am fine with that).

But I have noticed that I am less inclined to do the touching than I used to (I was called a "barnacle" in college because I hugged everyone all the time), largely because I'm more aware that some people don't like to be touched. (And partly because I get my touching quota from P these days.) And because on the odd occasion, I am touched by someone I don't want to be touched by, and I don't like it, so I don't want to inflict that on someone else.

I have a kissy Italian half of the family. Everyone -- aunts, uncles, cousins -- greets each other with a very tight peck on the lips. But somewhere along the way I got to the point where I don't like this. I will accept and give cheek kisses gladly, but I lost the lip pecking ability. I still do it sometimes, but I don't like it, so more often I will turn it into a mutual cheek kiss. I think it might have to do with spending far too much time kissing Poindexter and only Poindexter for a few years, so that lip-kissing in a non-wifely context became something I was almost never doing, and it became odd. I am used to not puckering when I kiss P (which is a far too sensual way to kiss), and I feel like I am going to forget to pucker when I kiss the family, which would be gross.

With general touching, I think I am more aware than I used to be that not everyone likes to be touched. Growing up with the kissy Italians, the idea of not being touchy was utterly bizarre to me and I thought everyone else was just weird at first. But then when I tried to put myself in their place, thinking how I felt being touched when I didn't want to be, it started to make more sense. And I like to err on the side of caution. And since I don't have as much of a need for touching now that I spend so much time clinging to Poindexter like a barnacle, I suppose I don't have as much inclination to touch people. Although I have found myself patting strangers on their (clothed) arm if we share a moment of laughter in the street or I bump into someone and apologize. I wonder if I'm freaking anybody out.

I do look to other people for my cues, and I prefer to err on the side of caution. Someone like Mark, however, I wouldn't hestitate to touch whenever I felt like it, because he is obviously a very tactile person and obviously likes hugging ME in particular. I am more touchy around someone else who is a touchy person.

I don't trust my judgment overall, though, which is another reason why I'm less touchy. I'm always making people uncomfortable by getting in their personal space so I can hear them better, so I figure I'd misjudge the touching thing too.

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