Miss Grace's Disgrace

No one wants to read it but I'm writing it so there you go

2012-05-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

I had an unpleasant puking experience this weekend.

First, all puking experiences are unpleasant, I realize that.

And any puking experience that in any way involves me is obviously infinitely more unpleasant than any other puking experience. That's not up for debate.

So anyways, this weekend I threw up, which was gross and I hate throwing up, but I felt better afterward, and then about 6 hours later I threw up again, with the same results of blech.

ANYHOW.

In case you are wondering why I'm talking about my puke on the internet (I mean, this isn't even about my CHILD'S puke, what kind of blogger am I??), there is an underlying complaint! About which I would like to complain!

Both instances involved puking up a combination of water and unsweetened dried mangoes. These mangoes are my go-to crazy lady purse snack to keep me from starving and whatnot, and I love them, they are my go-to.

But now...puke.

In fact, all dried fruit is sort of reminding me of pukeyness.

I need a new default purse snack.

That doesn't remind me of vomit.

That won't get all squished and ruined.

Or make me feel fat.

WHAT SHOULD I DOOOOOOO?

This is about my closet

2012-05-10T18:36:00.002-07:00

Hey we haven't talked about my closet for awhile, have we?
Well here's what I wore today:

Nothing new or special, but I did include bonus chicken earrings, cuz hey.
Why not?

These have been sitting on my mom's windowsill for months. I have no idea whose they are or where they came from. I am strangely drawn to them.

On Tuesday I got dressed like this:

The other days this week I either went to school in my yoga pants or didn't go at all.
/shrug.
That cropped trench coat was on sale for less than $20 at Old Navy. It is obnoxiously yellow, but that's never stopped me before.

I got one of those WEAR ME 27 DIFFERENT WAYS convertible dresses.

You can wear it exactly one way with a bra on.
False advertising.
But it's cute and comfortable and I think it might make me look slimmer which is always a selling point. It's a skirt with two long strips of fabric sewn to the front. If you have experience with baby carriers, you totally have this. If not, there might be a learning curve.

I bought this ridiculously short dress from the Target juniors section a few weeks ago.

Then I wore it out, loved it, and have been on a quest to find more of the same. I bought this exact one in a sort of 80s-esque floral, and I also go this one:

It's terrifying to think these are the clothes for our teenaged girls.
The zipper!

These aren't a particularly recent acquisition but I don't think I've showed them off yet:

I got them at Marshall's and they are some of my most versatile work shoes.

I bought some new tube tops from Old Navy because that's a thing I do:

And finally (drum roll please)! I bought, and have worn, in public, a bikini. Like the kind that shows your stomach.
There was a point in my life when I vowed that I'd never wear a bikini again.
I look exactly the same now as I did when I made that vow (actually, I'm probably chubbier now), so I'm not sure what changed.
But meh.
Whatever.
Bikini!
It's from the GAP.

My Official Twitter People Following and Unfollowing Philosophy

2012-04-30T15:01:00.001-07:00

You care.

Don't act like you don't care.

EVERYBODY CARES.

Okay, nobody cares, but I'm going to tell you anyways.

Twitter! I have the 'you have a new follower' notifications turned off, so I don't know or notice when new people follow me.

When new people TALK to me, I notice, and I try to always ALWAYS follow them if they are talking to me and follow me.

I follow new people who DON'T follow me if I know them in real life, if they are news source people, or occasionally otherwise, but very rarely.

I unfollow anyone who pops up into my stream and I think, "WHO THE FUCK IS THIS?" or if they post something really insufferable and I don't know them all that well to begin with or if they only post links to their blogs and never actual content or if they think twitter parties are a normal thing to participate in or if they unfollow me or if they say something that I find super offensive or just makes me think that they're an idiot or if they auto-DM me or if they ask for votes in any sort of internet contest more than once exactly or if they send me skeevy messages and act like they want to see my lady parts or if they bandy about the C U Next Tuesday word in a way that offends me OR (more often than you might think) twitter unfollows people FOR me and I won't realize because it's madness in there and one day I'll see a retweet or other mention of a person and think to myself, "Why didn't I see anything that she (it is usually a she) posted OH LOOK I'M NOT FOLLOWING HER I DIDN'T UNFOLLOW HER," but if that happens I refollow the person and just hope for the best.

In sum, I will follow you if you follow me, interact with me, and aren't a twat.

I'm @grace134.

Lately

2012-04-26T08:32:00.001-07:00

*tap tap*

Hello?

Is this thing on?

Where the hell have I been, anyways?

Well classes started back up a couple weeks ago, and it turns out they're taking most of my time and energy. Not in a particularly enjoyable way, but I just have to make it till July 6 without failing anything and I'm home free with my degree in hand.

I got my tattoo worked on, again. Taking forever, is it not?

Looking great, does it not?
What remains: the other half of my trees, allegedly the moon, although I'm not actually sure what is happening with the moon.
I ceded control long ago.

I've been buying lots of clothes that are too young for me in the juniors section. Cuz....everyone needs a too-short polka dot dress?

Or two?

The nice thing about not dressing my age is that the clothes are all a lot cheaper.
I'm probably having a 1/3 life crisis or something.

Little League is still going. Gabriel is still the cutest Met I've ever seen in my life.

Plus, hopscotch!

Bought a bunch of Kardashian Kolors nail polish. This is Rainbow in the S-Kylie.

I wasn't kidding about that 1/3 life crisis.
Glitter!

Hey you know what I did last Friday? I saw Jenny do a reading/signing/book tour thing up in Corte Madera.

I'm not looking at the camera because I'm not wearing my glasses, and without my glasses I have only limited seeing skills.
Jenny's so awesome.
Buy her book.
NOW.

My mom bought me a new (used) couch from the Salvation Army.
I love it.

So what's new guys?
What have I been missing?

Hawaii. Hawaii is very, very nice.

2012-04-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

Gabriel is an excellent traveler. Well behaved on airplanes, docile when docility is needed, good at making friends with other children, interested in eating in nice restaurants and driving to hidden beaches and hunting for tiny treasures.

Hawaii is very nice.

Very nice indeed.

I just had one of the most pleasant weeks, full of lounging and basking and swimming and reading and dozing and relaxing.

Hawaii is very nice indeed.

Gabriel's Feats of Strength

2012-03-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

Festivus may have come and gone, but Gabriel has been doing some serious stuff lately.
Like swimming slowly across the pool. It may look like glorified floundering, but he's traveling through water and not drowning. I think it counts.

Or perhaps you'd like to watch him flip around on the monkey bars?
This kid has serious core strength.
He literally climbs my walls, although I never manage to have my camera with me when he's doing it.
Plus it's annoying and he's not allowed to.
Get down off the walls, child.

Or, if none of that is to your liking, we went skiing on Saturday!
It was Gabriel's first time.
He loved it.

What have y'all been up to?

Teach Me How To Dougie

2012-03-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

Life running past in February of 2012

2012-02-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

My internship is….going.
Which is not to say that I’m not enjoying myself.
I am.
“Enjoying yourself as an accountant?”
Yes, which is the precisely the reason I decided to rejigger my life and jump off the deep end and change everything. I wanted to do something that I enjoyed. More to the point, I wanted to do something that would allow some measure of financial comfort, that I also enjoyed. It’s a tricky balance.
So I enjoy my internship.
But I’m not settled, and school is in the back of my mind and the pit of my stomach.
I’m not done yet.
This isn’t school.
I have to go back to school.

Oh god, I have to go back to school.

I am in an accelerated master’s program. In 2011, this translated to 31 consecutive weeks of condensed coursework, with a major paper or exam due almost daily, combined with a fervor of recruiting maintained at a level that simply cannot be healthy. By the time, this past December, that I got my first break from the unending slam of The Next Important Thing, I was a shadow of myself, drinking to get drunk, skipping showers for days and days at a time, showing up late, leaving early.
I needed a break.
I have suggested, for future classes, that they build one into the program. Breaks are necessary. Universities have term breaks for a reason. I argue that one reason is to keep their best students from falling off a high stool, drunk off whiskey in a dive bar the afternoon before their final project is due.
The spring and summer will be easier. I have a job to go to upon graduation, effectively eliminating the interview process that I find so trying. Six consecutive classes, with no break. Six is a lot, but it is not 12. I start classes again on April 17. My last day of classes is July 6.
My graduation paperwork is filled out and turned in.
I can see the end.
July 6.
I can surely do that.
I’m telling myself I can do that.
Until then, my internship is going.
And I’m enjoying myself.

Is it raining on Paris?

2012-02-18T21:12:00.001-08:00

Love Song

2012-02-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

Safety Nets

2012-02-04T00:23:00.000-08:00

Five years ago, I was deeply unhappy, traumatized, lost, unemployed and unable to find a job, an overwhelmed mother to a difficult one-year-old, one half of an emotionally abusive party of two, and stuck.

Sometimes, you want to leave.

Sometimes, you want to make your life better.

Sometimes, you don't know how.

It took all the courage I had to go into the county services office and apply for help.

It is a horrible and degrading experience. I was spoken to like I didn't know how to read, treated like a child, begrudgingly pushed forward in the endless line of perceived fuck-ups.

Because I took a deep breath and started sleeping on a friend's couch instead of my own bed, I was able to qualify for the services that allowed me to leave.

Four years and ten months ago, I got my first welfare check. I worked. I worked and I worked and when I didn't work I looked for work but where I lived work was hard to come by, and it was even harder for me. I was overqualified for the jobs I could get and underexperienced for the jobs I could qualify for.
The state paid my childcare bill.
Foodstamps fed me and my son.
Medi-Cal covered our healthcare costs.
We didn't go to the dentist.

I had a graduate degree.
I had always worked.
I had never been poor.
This couldn't be my life.
This was my life.

Ask me if there's pride in that.
Ask me if that's where I wanted to be.

I did everything I was supposed to and everything I could.

I moved to be closer to my family, to shift the burden of my needs. Of my son's needs.

I worked.
I worked and worked and worked.
And to an extent, it worked.
I worked myself off cash aid and food stamps and healthcare and (almost) everything.

Until December of 2010, I was still a CalWorks Stage 3 recipient. My childcare remained subsidized. I made $15/hour and childcare? Childcare is expensive.

Ask me if that's what I wanted.

In the Fall of 2010, in the midst of a(nother) California budget crisis, my childcare subsidies were cut.
I was one of the named parties in a class action lawsuit against the state of California.
I volunteered.
Without that help, I couldn't pay my childcare bills.
Without childcare, I couldn't work.
Without work, I was back to the beginning.
You know what?
The government pays for the beginning.

Trapped in a circle and always swimming and never winning.

I asked the lawyer for the case, "Am I the right person? I don't feel like I'm the right person. I have a steady job. I'm employed by the government! I have a graduate degree."

"Everyone on this program is the right person. People need to understand that this can just happen and it can happen to anyone and bad things happen to good people and you jump through all the hoops and sometimes you still need help."

Five years ago, I got my first welfare check.

This year, I sit for the CPA exam.

I'm not the exception.

I'm not the rule.

No one WANTS to need that safety net.

But god, what if it wasn't there?

I'm not an exception.

But I've been there, and there sucks.

I'm so grateful for the help I had.

Gabriel, Six

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Gabriel,

It's your sixth birthday! I know every parent everywhere wonders at this, but how did you get so big, so fast?

I can't believe all the new things that happened this year.

You learned how to ride a bike.

You lost your first (and second, and third) tooth.

You started kindergarten.

You had your first Little League season.

You started to read.

You spent your first summer at your dad's.

You went to Disneyland.

Add to that our two moves and the way I totally spun our lives upside down and backwards by going back to school.

You've handled it all so well.

You're this incredibly smart, radiant person.

You think things through carefully.

You are a delight.

I can't wait to see what six is like.

I love you,

Have the best day.

Whiny Winey Monday

2012-01-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

Daniel

2012-01-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

My brother Daniel is 15 today.

He's pretty great.

I think it's time for cake soon.

2012 Resolution Remix

2012-01-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

For 2012, I'm re-resolving my 2008 resolutions.

I seem to have lost sight of what matters.

Have more sex.
Make morally unambiguous choices.

My feelings about moral ambiguity are as before. Try not to do the wrong thing, obviously, but when I do, I like to know what I'm doing and own it.

Photo Challenge Day 11: Something Blue

2011-12-30T16:02:00.001-08:00

2011

2011-12-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
This year Gabriel spent a huge chunk of summer at his dad's, so I went the longest amount of time ever without seeing him.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
The only concrete resolution I had this year was to finish my tattoo, and I didn't, so no. I might make some, haven't decided yet.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Everyone had babies this year, it seems like.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, but a lot of people I know died.

5. What countries did you visit?
No countries. I haven't been out of the country since before I had Gabriel. SADFACE.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Money, time.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
My brother got married on July 2.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Grad school, definitely.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I've totally abandoned all exercise routine, and have been feeling pretty bad about myself, looks-wise.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing especially comes to mind, but I'm sure I had some ear infections or something.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
MacBook Pro.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Gabriel's awesome, per usual. My friends and family have all been wonderfully supportive of my life even though I've turned into a flaky recluse who isn't any fun.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
ExBF. Aubrey Huff. The awful temp I had to train to replace me at my old job. Maybe some other people but I think they read my internet.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Living expenses. Text books.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Grad school, birthday, job acquisition, skittles vodka, weddings, babies.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Something by Justin Bieber, since this is the year my son became a fan.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? About the same.
b) thinner or fatter? I feel fatter, not sure if that's true.
c) richer or poorer? Much poorer, but with prospects of becoming much richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Exercising, knitting, photography, art, sleep, sex.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
School, driving.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
At my parents' house. None of the kids freaked out or had meltdowns, so it was pretty successful.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Nah.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Always Sunny.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don't hate anyone, but there are people that I don't care to speak to anymore.

24. What was the best book you read?
I read a bunch of good YA this year, including: Forest of Hands and Teeth, Birthmarked, The Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Enclave.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don't think I made one. I need new music, whatcha got for me?

26. What did you want and get?
I got into grad school, I got a post-graduation job offer, I got the internship I wanted, I got a new computer, I have a yard now.

27. What did you want and not get?
When I really, really want something, I make a point of getting it, I'm stubborn like that. But I would have liked to travel more, and I wish I'd seen more of my friends.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Horrible Bosses.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went out in SF night before, day of hung out with my family. I turned 29.

30. What is one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Sleep.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Spent a lot of the year trying (and possibly/probably failing) to look professional. When I didn't have to do that, I alternated between 'starving student' and 'little girl dresses self for first time.'

32. What kept you sane?
Wine. No, seriously.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Chris O'Dowd.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Sports pedophiles, SOPA, limiting access to birth control.

35. Who did you miss?
Molly, Ben, everyone I didn't see when I didn't go to BlogHer, all my friends who live entirely too far away for my liking.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Krystal, who is my grad school friend (see! I made a new friend!)

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
My beliefs are important.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Run around just so I don't have to think about thinking.
--
2010
Apparently I skipped 2009
2008

Some Things I Bought

2011-12-29T22:47:00.000-08:00

Poised Pleats Dress

Elizabeth Dot Tie-Neck Blouse

Stuart Weitzman Women's Naughty Pump

Photo Challenge Day 10: Childhood Memory

2011-12-29T14:22:00.000-08:00

My grandmother was involved with the California Missions Foundation. She helped with Fiesta every year, and we spent a lot of time running around there. We also spent a lot of time learning about mistreatment of the Ohlone, so no need to chastise me for being fond of missions.

This was hers, and when she died, my mom gave it to me. I also have two more (Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo). In fourth grade when we studied the Missions, we each made a model mission, and I made mine with clay on a tile, after this one. My mom has it somewhere.

Photo Challenge Day 9: Someone You Love

2011-12-28T19:31:00.000-08:00

Photo Challenge Days 5-8

2011-12-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

Day 5: From a high angle

Day 6: from a low angle

Day 7: Fruit

Day 8: A bad habit

Photo Challenge Day 4: Something Green

2011-12-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Photo Challenge Day 3: Clouds

2011-12-22T14:50:00.001-08:00

There was hardly a cloud in the sky today.

Photo Challenge Day 2: What You Wore

2011-12-21T18:54:00.001-08:00

Photo Challenge Day 1: Self Portrait

2011-12-20T19:36:00.001-08:00