I caved. I read Twilight. Sunday, Sep 21 2008

It’s a huge hit among the tween girl set, and it’s been dominating the bestseller lists for months.  It’s becoming a movie this fall.

Despite the fact that it’s a kid’s book, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and read Twilight.

I bought it at Borders.  I hid it underneath a more literary book until I got to the register.  The cashier was about my age.

“Is this for you?” she asked.

“I, um…” I began.  I had to come up with a witty self-deprecating reply.

“It’s okay!” she reassured me.  “They’re really addictive.  And the worst part is that she includes the first chapter of the next book in it.”

Well, I read it.

And I loved it.

And I’m in love with Edward Cullen.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s not nearly as imaginative and brilliant as Harry Potter.  But Twilight is something different.  It’s insanely romantic.  It’s sexy without being deliberately sexy — making it perfect for tweens.

Twilight is told from the point of view of Bella, a high school junior who moves to the rainy town of Forks, Washington, to live with her father.  She struggles to fit in at school and finds herself captivated by one of the guys: the pale, golden-eyed Edward Cullen.

She then learns, deduces and finds out for sure that he’s a vampire.

Here’s the movie trailer.  I LOVE the casting — Edward is played by the HOTTTTT guy who played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movies!

I can’t wait to finish the series!  Working right by Borders is so dangerous that I’m going to order them all from Amazon.

Watch this…

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The Someecards Confessions Wednesday, Sep 10 2008

I read about this on a blog somewhere — perhaps The Modern Gal’s?  Or not?

I love the site someecards.com.  These are the funniest ecards on the Web, and they’re stunning in their simplicity.

What I’m going to do is join in the game of choosing five confessions or cries for help that are true for me.

Here we go:

Every year, I go back and forth.  Tan?  Melanoma?  Tan?  Melanoma?

And I love that gradually darkening Jergens stuff…but it makes your skin smell weird.

As long as it’s not the GOP, just give me the chance.  Please.

This one goes out to my dear friend Josh Debauche.  I’m getting there, babe!  I’m getting there!

(Get your mind out of the gutter, Josh.)

I will do any job in the kitchen — ANYTHING — before I make a salad.  If it’s a salad bar, that’s one thing.  If I have to wash and dry and chop and arrange and save the extra pieces, I will not do it.  My whole family knows this.

There’s nothing like drinking a Calimocho on the patio at Toro on Tremont St.  Or a glass of sangria at Casa Romero in the Back Bay.  Or a lychee martini at the patio of Alibi at the Liberty Hotel.  Or a beer or strawberry daiquiri, overlooking the Pike at the Other Side Cafe.

I love city outdoorsiness, but that’s about where it ends.

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How to Lose Weight: Become a Vegetarian! Tuesday, Aug 5 2008

I’ve been wanting to write this entry for a long time.  I never, EVER dreamed that I would become a vegetarian, but I did — and the rewards have been phenomenal.  I never dreamed that I would lose weight this easily!

My whole life, I’ve been very skinny, and I grew up in a family of skinny people (as in those who say “I hope there’s food left” whenever a fat family leaves a restaurant).

Essentially, in my family, being fat is the ultimate sin.  Gay?  Awesome.  Dumb as rocks?  Okay.  Republican?  Forgivable.  But fat?  NO.  ABSOLUTELY NOT.

I was always pin-thin growing up, and even remained skinny after I got curvy in late high school and early college.  I never gained the “freshman 15” — I maintained my weight while everyone else gained extra pounds.

However, I gained a lot of weight during my junior year in college.  I studied abroad in Florence during fall of junior year, and that’s when the pounds got packed on.  In addition to enjoying the pasta, pizza, wine and fabulous steaks of Florence, I was also binge drinking to the point of blacking out and/or vomiting at least once a week.  It wasn’t healthy; in fact, it was quite dangerous.  That semester, I gained a LOT of weight.

(That’s when my sister and even my parents started calling me Heavy K.  Sarah drew a cartoon of Heavy K at home, complete with a “forgotten pie” trapped between the rolls in her stomach.  I was the fat one in the family.)

The weight came off a bit being home from Italy for a bit, but senior year, I gained even more, mostly due to drinking and discovering how much I liked to cook.

At any rate, I was the heaviest I had ever been when I graduated from college.  I was always the skinniest girl while growing up, but I ended college at 5’4″ and a weight of 142 pounds.  I had started college at the same height and 111 pounds.

Here I am at the end of college:

Fat Kate and roomie Kelly Anne at the Fairfield Senior Ball at Foxwoods

Fat Kate at the Fairfield Senior Ball at Foxwoods

Fat Kate with BFF Kara at the Family Dance at Fairfield

Fat Kate with her girls at the Levee at Fairfield the night of graduation

Six months after graduation, I moved to Boston and started walking at least two miles a day to and from work.  That helped a bit — about 10 pounds came off — but I was still much heavier than I wanted to be.

This winter, my friend Lisa got me the book Skinny Bitch, which is a bestseller in the U.S.  Basically, it’s a bitchy, no-nonsense diet book for girls — and once you start reading it, it actually tricks you into becoming a vegan.  A vegan, for the record, is one who eats NO animal products, including meat, fish, eggs or dairy.

Skinny Bitch is definitely worth reading — it really surprised me with the information it presented.  However, here are a few of the most interesting facts in the book:

• No species other than the human race drinks milk past infancy — and we are the only ones who drink milk of a different species.
• Most of the meat sold in this country, along with most of the dairy, is filled with hormones designed to make animals grow fat — which, in turn, makes you fat.
• The atrocities that animals face in slaughterhouses are infuriating and heartbreaking, even to someone like me, who is ambivalent at best about most animals.

For the record, this book is not perfect.  But it can point you in the right direction.

I never thought I’d become a vegetarian.  I adore bacon more than anyone else I know, I have a soft spot for buffalo tenders, and I grew to adore the bloodiest steaks imaginable in Florence.

I always made fun of vegetarians and called PETA the “People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.” I considered myself the last person to become a vegetarian.

But after reading about the hormones and toxins in meat, I decided to stop eating meat, just to try it out.  And it was so easy!  Once I stopped, I had no reason to start again!  I didn’t even miss bacon!

For the past six months, I’ve been living a meat-free lifestyle. I acquired new staples to my diet like meat-free Quorn chik’n patties and chik’n nuggets, Morningstar black bean burgers and tomato basil burgers, and soy milk and yogurt.  (I still eat dairy, but much less than before, and if there’s a soy option available, I take it.)  I’ve added more vegetables, more hummus and more snacks like nuts and sunflower seeds.

And the result?

Without adding exercise, I lost another ten pounds without any effort.  That’s 8.5% of my weight.

Do I miss meat?  Nope.  Not at all.  I am SHOCKED — I thought I would at least miss it a little bit, but no!  Once you cut it out, you don’t miss it.  And being vegetarian often forces you to make smarter choices, like eating salads more often.

I will admit that I have fallen off the wagon a few times.  I once decided to try a McDonald’s cheeseburger to see what would happen after a few meat-free months.  The result?  It felt like a heavy weight in my stomach and my entire face broke out within a few hours.

That’s another thing.  My skin has been so much clearer since giving up meat.

But — let’s face it — losing weight is the most important part.

So, let’s take a look at the results!

Skinny Kate in Reading a few weeks ago

Skinny Kate with Joshua at a house party in Jamaica Plain three months ago

Skinny Kate with Holly at Kingston Station in Boston two months ago

Skinny Kate with Lisa in Vegas a month and a half ago

I’m not quite where I want to be in terms of weight.  I have another ten pounds to go before I get to my pre-college weight, but I’m pretty sure that’s unattainable, given the changes a girl’s body goes through between ages 18 and 20.

I’ll never be a size 0, at least not without looking like a freak, and I’ve come to terms with that.  Still, I’d love to lose another five or so.

Becoming a vegetarian has been so much more successful than I ever imagined. I can’t believe it was so easy to lose so much weight.

And now that I’m skinnier, I can wear clothes like this:

That’s me on my 24th birthday this past weekend with my mom and my sister.

And you know what?

They haven’t called me Heavy K in months.

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The Final Funny Days of Work; plus, I’m Gullible Saturday, May 10 2008

I have a few tidbits from my final days at work that I need to share.  They’re hilarious.  But first, a nice picture of me and my friends:

Jackie, Nadine, Esther, me and Michelle in front of our building

I love these girls.

At my *old!* job, I would get work assigned to me from a team of assignors — Workflow.  They’re mostly in our Canadian office, but we email each other so often that I’ve gotten to be friends with several of them.

I sent them out an goodbye email, and I enjoyed the following email chain that ensued, everyone replying to all:

Me: Yo workflow, I’m leaving [the company] today — and I just called a guy with results who now wants me to do a crapload of requests for him, so if you could stop sending me work FOREVER, that would be sweet!  Kate

Joe: LOL……I bet that was fun to say!!!!

John: FOREVER!!!!

Sabrina: lol…awwww, Katelyn!!!!!  best of luck with everything!!!  We will miss you! 🙂

Kevin: Rubbing it in a little, ain’tcha?  Sheesh.

Michelle: :-)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin: I hit reply-to-all on this one when I shouldn’t have. Katelyn and I have a very good rapport, in case anyone was worried about her taking that the wrong way.

Me: I am rubbing it in and throwing some salt on it for good measure. 😉

Kevin: *gasp*
*jaw hits floor*
*wide eyed shock*
Well, I never! Then again, I don’t get around much.

Hahaha.  Love those guys.

But the best message of all came from my friend Mike, who started at the company on the same day as me, who has almost always sat next to me and is one of my favorite work people.

He left me the following voicemail message yesterday:

“Hi Kate, this is [a really prominent manager] from [the company].  I just wanted to call you and let you know that [an HR person] told us about, uh, your exit interview, and we have some questions, just about your performance and that sort of thing.

So if you could give us a call back whenever, see if we could schedule another appointment for another exit meeting and interview you, the number is [617-555-1234].

You know we don’t want to get the police involved, or the FBI, or anything like that, we just want to handle this internally.

So if you could just call me back, again, this is [a really prominent manager], the [manager] of the Boston site, so give me a call.”

Okay.  The ludicrous part:

I totally believed it up until the word FBI.  Not police, FBI.

It didn’t matter that the voice didn’t sound a thing like the manager, or that this call came from MIKE’S CELL PHONE, of all places, but I honestly believed it.

I’m insanely gullible, but this is a new low for me.

I made my roommate listen to it and everything.

Seriously, though, it wouldn’t TOTALLY surprise me if a manager called someone after quitting to talk about his or her exit interview with HR.  I’ve seen stranger things happen.

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My Blonde Moment Friday, Apr 11 2008

Before I write this entry, let me state that I know so many witty and intelligent blondes, my sister included (even though she hasn’t been truly blonde since she was in middle school).  “My Blonde Moment” just makes a better title than anything else I could think of.

I turned on my computer yesterday and realized that it would turn off whenever the cord became dislodged.  After turning it on for the umpteenth time, I realized that the battery wasn’t working.  A symbol in the corner of the screen said there was no battery.

I started Googling like crazy for an answer, wishing that I had bought myself a Mac last summer.  Yahoo! Answers is a pretty good source, and I followed the advice to check the Control Panel.

Everything was normal.

I checked and checked and Googled for about an hour and eventually figured that I’d have to get on the phone with tech support in India.  Oh, if only I had bought a Mac!

When I got home from work tonight, I turned on the computer and noted that there was no difference.

I then turned it over to see if something had come loose.

Turns out the battery had FALLEN OUT.

Can you believe it?!  I’d had it on my lap the whole time, and over the course of several hours, I hadn’t even noticed that there was a large gap underneath!

I’m a weirdo.

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Kate vs. Katelyn Thursday, Mar 13 2008

My full name is Katelyn, but I’ve gone by Kate to some since I was eight and to everyone since I was thirteen.  That was until I started my job a year and a half ago.

I introduced myself to my training class as Kate, and I’ve always been Kate to them.  However, as the weeks went by, it started to make sense to go by Katelyn instead.  It’s because I’m listed in all employee directories as Katelyn.

I started identifying myself as Katelyn, just so it would be easier for everyone and result in less confusion.

I work for a large company spanning multiple sites.  If I get a call from someone outside the company and he or she only has my first name (which happens all the time, no matter how often I leave my last name), it takes long enough for my co-worker to figure out who this person is talking about.  If I identify myself as Kate, it will take forever.

So it makes sense to go by Katelyn.

But I’m not sure that I like it.

These days, outside of work, the only people who call me Katelyn are my parents or sister when they’re angry or aggravated with me.  I don’t identify with the name itself.  Whenever I speak to a client or vendor with my name, I always write down “Kaitlyn” or “Caitlin” — it’s like I’ve completely removed myself from the name!

And it’s starting to get on my nerves.  I internally wince whenever I say it.  That’s a bad thing, but it’s true!

(It goes back to when I was little.  My parents told me that they spelled my name the way they did so that I could easily go by “Kate” when I was older.  Always impatient to grow up as quickly as possible, by the age of eight, I interpreted their reasoning to mean that “Katelyn” was a babyish name, and I had to cut myself loose from it as soon as possible.)

So, even though it will cause a bit of confusion, I’ve decided to just be Kate at work from now on.  Most of my good friends at work call me Kate already.  It’s mostly my acquaintances who call me Katelyn, but there are some friends, too — and I should give them the, “Well, actually…” conversation.

My name is Kate!  Kate is retro, bold and sexy as hell!

And NOT Katie, either.  I’ve freaked out after being called Katie since I was little (unless it was a guy to whom I’m attracted, even just a little bit — then, I’m sorry to say, it feels sexy, but probably because of the familiarity a nickname he coins on his own entails).

I don’t hate my full name, and I don’t dislike it, either — I just don’t think it’s me.  I’m a Kate.

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BSC books we wish existed Monday, Feb 25 2008

I was looking around the Baby-Sitters Club Online Community (which pretty much consists of grown-up girls in their twenties and thirties who thoroughly mock each and every book with plenty of snark.  The best example of this is Claudia’s Room — it’s brilliant.

People always talk about the books that should have been.  One reader, thesilverstrand, created a ton of great icons with the book tales that we wish existed!  Check them out:

 

Hilarious.

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I bet this isn’t what Tom Brady pictured when he left his pregnant girlfriend. Monday, Feb 4 2008

It’s been over a year.  Surely, Tom thought he was off the hook by now.

We don’t know all the details of what happened between him and Bridget Moynahan.  However, we know that he was never even close to being 100% innocent.

Tom Brady was well aware that what he did was wrong.  If not, he would have handled the situation much differently — for example, actually attempting to communicate with her.

There have been all of these hardships that happened to him over the past year, and every time, he figured that this was it.  This was his karma.  His baby didn’t have his last name.  He barely got to see his baby.  He had to go through a messy PR campaign and endure the humiliating OK! magazine headline of “Life Without Daddy” as little John clung to his somber mother’s shoulder.  There were many more that we know nothing about.

He probably thought that these were examples of his karma, stinging him where he least wanted to be stung.

He NEVER thought that he would lead his teammates to the ultimate record-breaking season, only to screw up in the fourth quarter and watch it all slip away as a crappy team claimed the ultimate victory.  They were so close.

Somewhere in California, Bridget Moynahan is smiling and pouring herself a glass of wine.

I am proud to say that even as a Massachusetts-born and -bred girl, I do not care one iota for sports of any kind, even Boston sports.  They fail to hold my interest in any way.  I’ve tried, and it’s never worked.

This is why I didn’t care whatsoever whether the Patriots or the Giants won the Super Bowl today.  I spent the game curled up on my mom’s couch, surrounded by my usual stack of travel books, as the game played in the background.  (I came for the food and to see friends.)

But I do care about the unexpected effect of this game’s outcome — the reverberations that are felt throughout Boston and New York.

Wow, this sucks, huh?  The Patriots were going to make history.  They were going to be undefeated.  This was going to be the best football team in history, to go along with the Red Sox’s stunning win this year and the Celtics’ winning season.  It would have been beautiful.

It’s too bad they choked in the fourth quarter.  Can you believe it?  The Giants aren’t even that good a team!

I just hope this wasn’t the only thing you had going for you.  You wouldn’t want this to get under your skin.

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Now, THIS is how you take a mug shot. Saturday, Nov 10 2007

The Smoking Gun recently released David Bowie’s mug shot from a 1976 weed possession charge in Rochester, NY. The shot was sealed until now.

Pretty hott, huh?

Part of me wants to get arrested, somehow — hopefully for something noble, like taking part in a political rally, maybe fighting with abortion protestors about to bomb Planned Parenthood or something — just so I can have a mug shot. A hott mug shot.

I’ll plan it in advance, style my hair, do my makeup nicely, practice poses in the nearest shiny thing beforehand. Then I will pose and take the hottest mug shot since Bowie’s.

He was 29 when this was taken, and he is just as sexy now.

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Halloween 2007: To Ho or Not to Ho? Tuesday, Oct 23 2007

I almost cracked. I almost bought a generic slutty costume at that crappy place in Faneuil Hall today.

BUT I DIDN’T. And that’s what’s most important.

Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday. I love coming up with a creative costume, dressing up and going out to party. Halloween pictures are always great to have. And back to costumes! I always try to win contests.

My most memorable win was in 2004, when I went as Michael Jackson. That was around the time that he dangled the baby over the balcony, so I wrapped up a doll and threw it around all night. I won a huge TV — the TV that sits in my room today.

Every year, I do something new, and I make my costume myself (usually with help from my mom). The only time I’ve been the same person twice was Britney Spears — but that was Baby One More Time Britney in 1999 and Pregnant Britney in 2005. Very different things.

Anyway, all along, I was planning to be Amy Winehouse, but I wasn’t sure how that would be at the clubs (I hope to go out at least three times for Halloween-related events).

It’s hard when EVERY SINGLE GIRL DRESSES LIKE A GENERIC SLUT!!

I’m like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls — I put in so much effort to do something original, homemade and different, and I am completely overshadowed by slutty policewomen, slutty prisoners, slutty cavewomen, slutty pirate wenches, slutty firefighters, slutty fairies, slutty ladybugs, slutty Marie Antoinettes….

I was ready to join the boring sluts.

I checked out some costumes in Faneuil Hall.

Nothing spoke to me.

On the way to the Garment District, I had a flash of inspiration. What if I could have two Amy Winehouse costumes — one casual, authentic Amy Winehouse, and one completely slutty Amy Winehouse?

–Casual Amy Winehouse is completely authentic and will give me a chance to get every detail correct. I can do that at work.
–Slutty Amy Winehouse is not accurate at all, but it will allow me to outdo those generic sluts in so many ways. That is definitely my club outfit.

Garment District was AWESOME! I love that place. I ended up buying everything I need for BOTH Amy Winehouse costumes.

For both:
–Awesome Beehive/Elvira wig
–Black eye makeup, black eyelashes
–Black tooth wax to black out her missing tooth
–Tattoos drawn on with PERMANENT MARKER. Yep, I’m going to be hardcore.
–Maybe coke under the nose? Handle of vodka?

Casual Amy:
–Black tank top
–Stovepipe jeans
–Old, worn-out ballet slippers (from my ballet days in Florence!)

Slutty Amy:
–Multicolored lingerie top
–Short, tight black skirt with metal decoration
–Black thigh highs with fishnet detailing in the back
–Black leather Mary Janes (I am no longer going out in heels)

About being on slutty on Halloween….

It’s strange. You’d think that being a feminist, I would be against it, saying that women do this just to get attention from guys, since there’s no other way to do so.

But that’s not true. Even though my costumes have been creative, a bunch of them (not including Michael Jackson) have been slutty as well.

I’m just against the lack of creativity! It’s time for you to SHINE! Be slutty, but be creative!

I hope that when I go out this year, I see new innovations in slutty costumes….like slutty Condoleezza Rice. Now, THAT would be great.

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One Expensive Brazilian Rhinoplasty Friday, Sep 28 2007

One of the amazing travel books that I bought the other day is Fly Solo: The 50 Best Places on Earth for a Girl to Travel Alone. Fantastic book. I love it.

Anyway, each destination has the top ten things to do, and while reading about Rio de Janeiro, I came across #10: Operation Vacation.

Rio is the plastic surgery capital of the world. So, while in Rome…Companies offer cosmetic vacations. Come home with a tanner, tighter body.

I was curious.

I emailed my pictures to cosmeticvacations.com.

I’ve wanted to do something about my nose since I was little. My nose is TERRIBLE. The bridge is very wide, and it actually gets smaller below, unlike everyone else in the world. To be honest, I feel like it’s the only thing holding me back from having an ideal face.

So, yeah, I was curious.

The doctors offer free consultations based on pictures.

Here is the reply I received, which describes the procedure and answers some of the questions I had:

Dear Katelyn,
Analyzing your photos I reach the conclusion that the ideal surgical plan for you is:
1. Make nasal bones thinner(fracture of the bones)
2. Tightening of nasal tip, elevating a little bit
3. Cartilage job in the tip to make it more delicate.
This procedure is what we call “complete rhinoplasty”.
For this you will need to stay here, in Rio for 10 days but the swellings will stay for 3 to 4 months.
After the third day you can go sightseeing, and after the seventh day with no dressings.
This is a very easy post-op care, just cold compresses during the first two days.
You can do it alone.
The food restriction is just for hard meat (no “churrascos”) and french bread during the first 3 or 4 days.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Dr. Domingos
The total cost of the Rhinoplasty procedures is: USD 7170.

WOW. WOW.

I thought they were supposed to be 30-50% cheaper than in the States! In the States, they’re supposed to be 5000-8000!

That’s not worth it.

For the record, I know it sounds sketchy to have cosmetic surgery in another country. But the horror stories you hear are about dumb women who go to Mexico for $800 breast implants by fake doctors. Brazil is only second to the U.S. in terms of plastic surgery per capita, and it’s easily to find a surgeon with the right qualifications.

I’m disappointed about the cost.

Imagine having an amazing trip to Rio, and on top of it, having a brand new nose.

By the way, I mentioned this to my friends at work, and several of them told me that I had to be kidding, that I absolutely DO NOT need a nose job. That was good to hear. (Except for Holly, who told me that my nose gives me character. “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!” I cried. “NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THAT MEANS, THEY JUST SAY THAT TO PEOPLE WITH BIG NOSES!”)

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Have I discovered a cure for cellulite? Wednesday, Jun 6 2007

Let me begin this entry with a bit of a disclaimer. I have never used any products for cellulite in my life, nor have I ever used moisturizer on anything more than my face and hands. I’ve never touched an allover moisturizer.

Consequently, my experience with this product might be affected by the fact that I’ve never tried anything else. I don’t have a control subject with me!

Anyways, I guess it began with the self-tanning debacle that left trails of dark down the white bottoms of my arms and legs. That look was not good, and it was achieved with CVS-brand “fine mist sunless.” For my next round, I decided to finally buy some of that Jergens sunless tanning moisturizer that darkens your skin gradually.

This was a HUGE product last year — it was so popular, it flew off the shelves! Now, this year, it’s widely available. I came across it when I was in CVS, and I noticed that there were two kinds — regular and firming. The firming kind cost a dollar more, and I purchased it right then and there.

Cellulite, that cottage cheese-like fat that lives on your thighs, affects nearly all women — I think something like 98% of women have it. In women’s skin, there is a layer above fat that is shaped like cylindrical tubules. The fat pushes through these tubules and pokes out the top, resulting in a lumpy appearance.

Men do not have this.

Cellulite is not directly related to your weight. It’s true that heavier women almost always have it, but many thin women have it pretty badly as well. Katherine Heigl and Mischa Barton are two of the more prominent examples.

I also have it very badly — worse than anyone else I know. I haven’t worn shorts or a short skirt in public in close to two years because of it. Also, although thighs and butt are the main locations, as they are on all women, I have it in my arms, calves and especially on my stomach. It’s pretty bad.

So I bought this lotion with the purpose of getting a healthy tan, and I ended up with so much more.

I showered at night and put the lotion on. The next day, I noticed how nice and smooth my skin was everywhere — like on my back and other places where I have NEVER moisturized!

And then I noticed that everything felt firm. It still looked dimpled like the hills of Umbria, but it really felt….different. I told myself that I was probably imagining it and mistaking smoothness for firmness.

But a few days later, I noticed an unbelievable change in my stomach. My stomach was one of the lumpiest parts of my body, unless I pushed it out all the way (which was not an attractive look, let me tell you that!). But now? Oh, my God. It’s smooth. It’s not lumpy at all. I keep feeling it and feeling it to see if it’s real, if this is really happening! I wish I had before and after pictures. It’s still a little bit lumpy if I suck it in all the way, but the difference is visually striking.

You HAVE TO GET THIS.

I think I understand it better now. There is no cure for cellulite — but creams like this CAN make a difference. Creams won’t get rid of it completely, but they can make a sizable dent (no pun intended). Maybe it’s working so well because I’m still pretty young. Maybe it’s working so well because I’ve never tried anything else. I’m not sure.

Just know that you need to get this lotion. Be sure you get the FIRMING kind — though I’m sure you know that by now!

And I’m actually considering buying a pair of shorts for the first time since high school!!

About the weight loss thing too, I’ve recently made the decision to go off elective meds that have prevented me from losing weight. There are a lot of pros and cons to this, but I’ve decided that going off the meds will give me more benefits than staying on them.

I’ve been on them since before I moved to Somerville, and it was so weird to be suddenly walking a few miles a day, eating right and GAINING WEIGHT like crazy instead of losing it!! But now, between being off the meds, walking a few miles a day and eating right, I’ll finally be able to lose this weight, and hopefully look somewhat like how I did before I went abroad to Florence. And hopefully my sister will stop calling me Heavy K and bringing up fat jokes whenever I walk into the room.

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Newman is a CREEPY PERVERT! Saturday, Mar 31 2007

I have more than a few obsessions: celebrity gossip, world travel, Sex and the City. But there’s one that stands above all: the Baby-Sitters Club.

I started reading the books when I was seven, and I haven’t stopped. Those books were my LIFE. And a few years ago, I discovered all these communities of girls in their twenties who used to read the books back in the day, and who meet to talk about them, to discuss them as adults, to wonder if the real reason why Kristy’s dad left her family was because he knew David Michael wasn’t his son. (There are plenty of arguments for that.)

Anyways, the communities are great, and I’m not afraid to admit that I love them. There’s an awesome and hilarious blog on the right of this page, called “Claudia’s Room.” The girl who writes it is a librarian who started rereading them, and writes with shock, horror, and a LOT of humor.

Anyways, in one of the communities, someone was writing about how they were watching Seinfeld (the episode when Kramer and Newman try to return all their cans in Michigan to make 10 cents off each can), and there’s a brief scene in Newman’s apartment. The girl who was watching it noticed that he had an unusually turquoise video mixed into the stacks….and what could a bright turquoise video in the 90s be?

BABY-SITTERS CLUB!!

Someone took a screencap:

And that’s just gross. All along, Newman was watching the baby-sitters, and not for the plot value. (Believe me, these videos had NO plot value WHATSOEVER.) I can just picture him, the room dark, the TV on. Newman is eating popcorn or maybe some fried chicken — and sweating profusely.

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On Irresponsibility….and more Friday, Jan 12 2007

I’ve been responsible. If you look at the simplest details of my life, most specifically my life post-college, it adds up to conventional perfection.

I graduated from a great college, took two months off, got a job, got promoted, lived at home for a while to save up money, and moved out to a nice house in a neighborhood that was probably the safest choice, as well as the closest T-accessible neighborhood to my family. I pay my bills on time, I work hard, I barely drink, I wouldn’t even dream of touching drugs. I’m nice to old people, I’m polite, and I’m the antithesis of dysfunction.

And some part of me wants it to come crashing down.

It’s no secret that I’ve shunned convention in the name of wanting to live an exciting, adventurous, interesting life. But now it seems like I’m falling into the trap of being completely normal and unsurprising! And that makes me want to be unconventional to the point of being irresponsible.

Not in a boringly irresponsible way, though. If I decide to rebel, it won’t be by not paying my Amex bill on time, or by doing drugs or doing nothing at work.

I just want to get away more and more….I want to become a vagabond.

I want to travel with nothing more than a tiny pack on my back with my passport, sunscreen and an extra pair of undies!!

I’m definitely feeling the call more these days….I’m still saving up as much as I can afford to. As of tomorrow, when my big Chri$tmas check comes in, I’ll have around $2850.00 saved towards the trip. That’s a bit over 10% of the total amount I want to save.

(Is it bad that sometimes I think of blowing it all on a nose job?)

I’ve been reading The Drifters, by James Michener, and it’s a really great book so far….it’s about six young people around my age who all end up in Torremolinos, Spain, during the late 1960s, and they end up living as nomads, traveling, working, and living in a world devoted to hedonism.

If anything, it gives me the reassurance that if I want to travel for a long period of time, I can work in lots of different ways to keep the cash coming in. If only it weren’t for those pesky student loans I’ll be paying back until I’m 37….

But after everything, and ESPECIALLY after moving my bed, I know that I’m going to be here for a while. For years. And I’m happy. And I’m having a great time.

But I keep having the urges to throw everything away for the sake of an adventure…..

In other news, I saw Dreamgirls and The Departed today, continuing to work on seeing all the Oscar movies ahead of time. I loved Dreamgirls — more the beginning than any other part, and Jennifer Hudson has an AMAZING voice, and Eddie Murphy was great too — but then The Departed!! WOW!! I loved everything about it. The writing was excellent, the acting was excellent, and I loved those little Scorsesian touches of violence, like when Leonardo DiCaprio stabbed the guy in the face with that long fork, and the hand in the bag….I was surprised that only a few of the Boston accents were deplorably bad. Most were okay, but there was only one that made me cringe. One of the women.

And the scene at “344 Washington Street” in South Boston, that takes place RIGHT down the street from my office! I loved that, and was there a part that very briefly took place in Lynn? I think I saw a Lynn police cruiser very briefly, like blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, and there were two bodies that looked like they were by the reservoir.

I mean, Dreamgirls was really great, too. It was nice to see a musical that wasn’t too Broadway — most Broadway kind of gives me the creeps, but I love R&B, Soul, Motown, and the sixties and seventies. And the costumes were SENSATIONAL — I hope the designer wins the Oscar. There was one dress in particular that the Dreams wore that I loved — this long red poncho-type gown top with gold piping down the middle over these shiny gold pants. It sounds gaudy, but it was nothing short of GORGEOUS.

I’m going to be doing a little travel reading after I Love New York is over (GREAT show!!!! Love the guys!!!!), and then bed, then laundry and The View (I’m addicted) in the morning. I hope it continues to be a snow-free winter!

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Ugh, Here Comes Christmas Thursday, Nov 16 2006

Yesterday, I was driving to Wellington and absentmindedly changing the stations on the radio. When I was on Oldies 103, I heard some nice r&b instrumental music, and that’s what I like, so I started listening to that. And then it segued into a voice singing, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire….”

Hell, no!

It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of Christmas. There are plenty of reasons for that, including the stress it causes, the money-draining it does, and all the annoying things it causes, like being unable to get a parking spot at the mall, GODAWFUL CHRISTMAS MUSIC playing ALL THE FREAKING TIME, and kids getting selfish and spoiled.

It’s also because every year, my mom has had a freak-out on Christmas, going into some kind of screaming/crying hysterics that vary each year. She’s doing better now, though. Last year wasn’t that bad, and now that she has Mark, I think things will be going better. But it’s been so bad, and it makes me dread Christmas every year. I can’t even relax, knowing that something bad is going to happen. My mom always used to have the freak-outs on her birthday, Mother’s Day, her mother’s birthday, her mother’s death day, all that stuff.

And I love my glee club, and I always will, but having to spend months each year preparing Christmas repertoire was excruciating. I hate Christmas music. It’s awful. One year when I worked at CVS, I counted exactly six different jazzed-up variations of “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.” I hate Santa songs the most — why do adults sing them? (Of course, that makes me a bit of a hypocrite, seeing that I performed “Santa, Baby” in the glee club’s Christmas Pops concert last year.)

I’ll listen to Baroque Christmas music only. Nothing else.

And I really love giving gifts, and picking out the gifts that would be perfect for my friends and family, but it’s just too stressful to have to do it all at once, plus the wrapping and wondering whether the other person got you a gift of the same caliber. I think the stress cancels out the fun of giving. As for receiving gifts, I honestly couldn’t care less. It’s nice, of course, but it’s not like I look forward to it like I did when I was little….

Plus, since I was around 11 and did my first mall trip WITHOUT PARENTS with Amanda (that was such a great day, I remember it so well!), I have loved the mall. Whether I actually buy stuff, I love being at the mall and especially bookstores, spending hours trying on clothes or reading books or just exploring and seeing what’s on sale. And now it’s going to be about two months before it’ll be normal again. (My new schedule may help, but who knows?)

Honestly, I just want to get through this holiday….I’m thinking of working on Christmas. It’s TRIPLE PAY. Which comes out to an extremely nice rate per hour. I may get it, I may not. Hopefully I will.

Are there any thoughts? I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

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