Knock

Listen its like poker you can play your best/ But you got to know when to fold your cards and take a rest/
And know when to hold your cards and hold your breath/ And hope that nobody else is stacking the deck

“I don’t play a hand unless it’s paired or suited.”

*pause*

uhm… then you don’t play very much, do you?

“Exactly.”

I learned to play poker (Omaha and hold ’em) my sophomore year of college from my boyfriend’s apartment-mate.  Scott is a beanpole of an Asian kid, quiet and witty.  He had a passion for poker, the likes of which I had never seen.  I harassing him regularly to teach me, in between hanging out in my boyfriend’s on-campus apartment while he was at class exclusively so I could watch TLC.

We sat down, finally, one night.  I absorbed the rules and layout of play quickly and let him deal me a few hands face up so he could explain strategy.  My boyfriend quickly got bored and wandered off to play Halo.  I was rapt as he explained statistics and percentages, numbers that made a game quickly less of a game and more of a math equation that I would NEVER get a grip on.

“So, you have a five of clubs and a eight of diamonds, what would you do?”

Play it, at least until the flop and see what my odds are for the straight.

“No. You would fold.”

…

“The odds of you hitting a five to nine or four to eight straight aren’t in your favor, and you have nothing else to work with.”

Oh.  So.  I fold.  That’s boring.

“No. That’s smart.”

He finally let me conceal my cards. I was so excited to have a secret.  We folded hand after hand.  I got bold and played hands he wouldn’t, he expressed (generally with a sigh) the luck I got in flops and rivers.  He still beat me, of course, but I was hooked.  My birthday was celebrated on the beach and I requested we play poker at a picnic table after lunch.

Now when I play, I always think of Scott.  I don’t talk to him anymore, I rarely talked to him after my boyfriend moved out of the apartment.  But I sit and play on free poker sites, rolling my eyes at how other people play.  I don’t fold as many hands, but I’ll ride my blind when given the opportunity and raise aggressively on good hands.  I’ve lost more than I’ve won, but I can hold my own.

Scott also once, for a minute, convinced me that horse sweat was poisonous and that’s why cowboy’s wear chaps.

He could apparently teach me anything.

Begin the Domestic Adventure

So, you’ve seen Extreme Couponing, right? Where women with binders that weigh more than their children drag their poor defenseless husbands to big box stores and pay pennies for food that they’re just going to let overheat in their “stockpile” – aka shelving units invading every free square foot of space in their track housing townhouse.

I watched a few episodes. And went “Bitches be crazy, yo….

But I could do that.”

So I did. I started perusing printable coupon sites, following couponing networks to catch the deals. Researching Safeway deals and combining coupons against promotions. Mini-celebration-in-honor-of-me when I realized I could register my safeway club card in their Just4U program and score sweet-ass deals.  Getting frustrated when I couldn’t find any more deals, couldn’t get my printer to print, and realized how much time I had spent already.

But today I shopped, although I didn’t expect much.  Regardless, I needed groceries and I’ve always been relatively thrifty in that regard, so now it’s a personal challenge.

Here’s what I did, with the discount(s):

2 Emerald Breakfast to Go on sale 2/$6, J4U $1 off, $1 MFR coupon = $2 each
Betty Crocker Instant Mashed Potatoes on sale 2/$5 (forgot the .50$ coupon. waaah)
Kraft mac n’ cheese on sale .88$
Rice (not on sale) $3.19
Canned Mandarin oranges (not on sale) $1
3 Kinds of canned beans .89$ each
Frosted Flakes on sale 2/$5, MFR $1 coupon rejected
Jiffy corn muffin mix on sale .49$
Tortillas J4U price .99$
Pasta Sauce on sale 2/$3
2 CanadaDry Ginger Ale J4U price .77$/each
DunkinHines Large Vanilla Frosting on sale 4/$5
Kleenex J4U .99$
Friskies canned cat food on sale 10/$7, J4U BOGO = .33$/each
TidyCat Litter on sale $6.99, J4U .50$ off, MFR $1.10 off = $5.39
OreIda Tatertots on sale 2/$6, J4U $1.99/each
3 Stouffer’s lasagna on sale 5/$11, $1.10 off MFR coupon rejected (totally bummed about that one…)
Eggs (12 count) J4U  FREE
Lucerne String Cheese on sale $3
Lucerne Milk 1/2 gal J4U $1.49
Lucerne sour cream 16 oz on sale $1.77
Lucerne butter J4U $2.49
Mother’s Day Card !!
Safeway 100% whole wheat bread J4U $1.48
Assorted produce (oranges, potato, onion, cucumber, cantaloupe) all .99$/lb
African Violet on sale $3.33

And the roundhouse kick to the face? $10 off a $50 purchase!!

All in all, I only used 2 coupons, had one forgotten (on a box) and had 2 returned to me (the cashier and manager-on-duty said they didn’t list a way to authenticate). I had a bunch of other coupons, but I want to wait for the items to go on sale.

My savings? 47%  I spent $58.35

Now that I’ve gotten a taste, I’m ready to do some more research and get my saving on!

And sometimes you’re more of a dirty hippy…

Oh, Santa Cruz. Known world-wide as coated in hippies and crunchy granola.  Seven years here will change a girl.

 

No, I’m not dredded or birkenstock-clad, nor do I ever intend to be.  But after being pummeled constantly with organic, hormone free, paraben free, sodium laurel sulphate bad!, unprocessed, tinctures, vitamins and judgments… Well, you pick some stuff up.

Mostly, it’s changed my view of western medicine.  Granted it has a time and a place, not to mention the great strides it has made in human health.  But I will NEVER throw pills at a problem, although I have strong suspicions my kids will all get their shots because I firmly believe there is a difference between preventative and reactive care.  I became a much healthier person when I started seeing a chiropractor and paying more attention to my body… In fact, I (somewhat foolheartedly) don’t even have a general practicioner because I don’t see it as being helpful IF – and only if – I’m being well to my body.

Hypocritically in a way, I don’t really like the concept of vitamins either.  I believe in their abilities to rebuild a compromised system (like immune for example), however I really believe if you’re so focused on getting those vitamins, you should be getting them from your food whenever possible.  If you can’t get it from your food, how on earth could you need the quantities you’re taking?  I don’t know, it doesn’t really make sense to me, so I don’t align myself with it.

 

The biggest change for me? Product.  The negative, unnecessary things put into commonplace products is absolutely ridiculous.  Check out Bismuth Oxychloride, for example, found in many mineral makeups.  It looks like shards of glass under a microscope… and if you’re using Bare Minerals, you’re grinding that right into your skin.  Parabens and sulphates are always an issue that come up for me at work… And once I discovered that sodium laurel sulphate was in my toothpaste I swapped it out for one that didn’t have that ingredient, and promptly stopped gagging on my toothpaste in the mornings.  It’s amazing to me these things that we overlook and the effects that they have.

 

Food, though, is where I lack the most.  I don’t buy all organic because I simply can’t afford it and I tend to be wasteful of my produce.  I do love the abundance of fresh fruits and veggies at my weekly neighborhood farmers market, and generally shopping the farmy marmy (as I call it, shh don’t tell because it sounds stupid) saves me some money too because I can buy in very small quantities.  I won’t buy my stone fruit, salad mix or berries anywhere else.  Also? I just really like me some kraft mac and cheese sometimes too.  And that’s okay.

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me… there’s a lo-carb Monster and some natural nail polish with my name on it.

 

🙂

Life Lessons from the 2010

Now that we’re solidly no-turning-back into 2011, I figure it’s time for reflection.  For those who missed the drama-post, this blog has been functional (in a very loose sense of the word) for just over a year now.  The funny thing is, nothing really remarkable happened in 2010.  Once you leave school and enter the monotony of the REAL WORLD with a Steady Job and a Solid Paycheck, very little actually happens.

That’s not to say that nothing happened.  Or that I didn’t learn anything.  Because hot damn did I get a schooling in some things…

1) Being single is awesome. And lonely.  But mostly awesome, especially when you live alone.   I got the pleasure of residing in my favorite two bedroom apartment entirely alone for three months out of 2010, and it was amazing.  No one’s messes but my own, no shame-food to hide from anyone, no unexpectedly running out of toilet paper, no one to wake up if I come stumbling in at all hours of the  morning. Except of course Miss Milwaukee.  Of course it’s not a financially viable option, so I also found my first craigslist housemate.  In a space so small I was omgsuperfreakingscared of letting anyone else into “my” space, but I ended up finding a pretty chill roommate.  To recap: Single = not as bad as expected, living alone = freakin’ amazing, craigslist = not full of murderous killers.

2) Sometimes what you’re getting yourself into is exactly what you should be getting yourself into.  I went to my boss’ seminar “graduation” for a program that I was sure was going to pass out koolaid at the end, and I fell in love with a new way of being.  I fell in love with being able to achieve anything I want.   I’m dedicated to a new lifestyle that has only proved positive so far.

3) I too can be a hockey guru. My twitter is filled with hockey players, commentators and news sites.  I know the Sharks schedule at least two days in advance, I can comment on player and team stats and could choreograph a dance routine solely using ref calls.  And I love it.

4) Online dating BLOWS. Seriously, it’s the worst meat-market around.  And if you don’t have the patience to filter through the bullshit,  sexual advances and pathetic one-liners, you might as well give up. So I did.  But sometimes it’s your only option, and to those who survive it still I give you mad props.

5) Sometimes what you think you want is exactly what you’ve never wanted.  I was devastated the middle of this year after I got played by someone I really trusted, but honestly I wouldn’t have had it any other way now.  Now I can walk away, now I can be shocked, now I can hold a little disgust.  And I have.

6) Sometimes what you swear against is exactly what you’ve needed.  It wasn’t going to happen this way, I didn’t need that treatment, I didn’t want to be weak.  It wasn’t going to be the same song and dance again, especially after what happened earlier in the year.  The funny thing is, it hasn’t been.  And it never will be, nor am I afraid of that.

7) Sometimes you need to give up on the expected, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.  Those who you want to trust so badly cannot be trusted.  Those who you never want to trust will support you fully in a way no one ever could.  Non-issues will become issues, fights will surface, true friends will float to your aide.

8 ) Starting a business is hard. It’s beyond hard.  I haven’t even really started yet, and I don’t know where to go. I don’t know if it’s viable, but I know it’s popular and niche and could work. But we’ll see.

Ultimately, I learned that I am capable of so much more than I thought: speaking up, firing a gun, starting a business, becoming a makeup artist, being a manager, leading a team, giving myself fully, fighting for what I want, blogging blogging blogging, loving myself, surviving alone, going on dates (shudder) and taking care of business.

One bonus lesson from 2011?  I am fully capable of getting pneumonia and being legitimately sick. And that’s how I’ve spent the past week and a half.

Here’s to 2011: life lists, happy days, continuous growth and never-ending wonder.

[i was home all along…]

“Girls don’t like boys, girls like cars and money…”

Around the time right before you start to get boobs, you start to notice boys.  Then you hope, pray and curse everything you know to be holy that you will very soon get boobs and therefore get noticed by boys over video games and kickball.  Some women never experience this because they come out of the womb with massive tatas.  Others buy them.  If you’re like me, you can stand naked in front of Call of Duty and get no response. But that’s besides the point…

The kind of guys that come through your life make up a montage of good, bad and (let’s face it, ladies) ugly.  Your standards rise and fall with the tides (and sobriety) and you look back sometimes and go “WTF was I thinking?!”

Guys have this way of making your sanity fall on it’s face.  Of making you become “that girl.” Of making you doubt yourself in ways you never thought possible.  Of making you feel pretty, tiny, helpless and bold.  Of making you smile so big your cheeks hurt a day later, crying until you’re going to puke and roller-coastering in a way you never thought possible.

Long story short, it drives me fucking insane.  but it’s all about the ride…

Shatter

I never EVER have felt like my business was going to fail. Never.  Not once in three months.

Until now.

Now I feel like it’s going to fail.   Like all of this work and networking and hope and dreams and support and self that I’ve poured out in the past three months is going to be in vain.

Do you know that when you search “how to start a website” you get almost a billion results?  I no longer know what I’m doing. I can’t afford to hire someone.  Every extra piece of myself, be it time, money, ideas and energy has gone to this frivolous idea that might make it.

I didn’t need this wall right now.

Excuse me while I pick up my pieces… I didn’t realize when I fell apart that I would shatter so.

Strong Suits

I think I’ve whittled down my three strong suits, or three ways that I am to succeed.  Feel free to put in your two cents about them, but I’m thinking observant, pleasing and adventurous.  Here’s the story behind each one.

1) Observant

There’s a story my mom told me a while back which only made me think “well, that’s not shocking.”  She told me that when I was about 5, I watched the kids outside play for a solid week from our huge front picture window before I decided that they were safe to play with.  I grew up on a court with 24 “kids” among 14 houses, so that’s a bit significant.  I had been quiet and shy anyway, and the oldest child, so I had learned to be cautious probably due to protectiveness from my parents.  From this observing though, I have my longest friendship and the majority of my childhood memories are outside with those kids.  Observing paid off though, and those kids were “safe”… so it stuck with me.  I don’t make friends quickly to this day because I don’t let people in immediately.  I need to take that time to feel them out.  However, the friends that I do have I am extremely loyal to.

2) Pleasing

When I was in 1st grade, toward the end of the year my best friend Stephanie Beasley moved away to Pismo.  She left me her aunts address to write to her, but I never heard back.  I was crushed and devastated, even though I don’t think I let it show.  I’ve actually tried to find her on facebook lately, and we were only friends for a year.  I still remember her gap-toothed 1st grade smile, and remember thinking she was just the bees-knees.  Obviously, I was young enough to think that she wasn’t writing me back because of something I did.  From that point on, I became destined to please people and uber-conscious of what people thought of me, so that they wouldn’t leave.  There was one time in second grade where someone boldly came up to me and said “you don’t like me do you?”  My exact response?  “Weeeellll…. You’re not my favorite person in the world…” because heaven forbid I hurt their feelings.  There’s nothing wrong with pleasing people, but it can make you very inauthentic, especially with yourself.

3) Adventurous

When I chose a college, I chose UCSC because my friend was there and it was just far enough away that I could move out, but not horribly far from my family.  I’m not kidding.  Those are the only reasons.  I was stoked to move out and be on my own, be grown up and away from my parent’s control.  I was a good kid, but I needed to live a little.  And I did my first quarter.  Then grades came.  I got a D in psych.  I never got below a C in anything in high school, never studied and just understood everything.  Like my mom said, I don’t really know how to learn.  I spiraled down into a depression so deep I could hardly come up for air.  I didn’t fit in with the dance team because I didn’t party.  I didn’t fit in with my housemates because I had a boyfriend.  I didn’t fit in at college because I didn’t know how to study and then couldn’t get back into psych 1 to get started in a major AND was on academic probation.  No job, no one around (besides my EXCEEDINGLY patient boyfriend at the time), my passion of dance was failing me and I couldn’t do it.  I just couldn’t.  At some point near the end of the year, probably toward the dance team show when I started becoming really good friends with this awesome woman Ashley S., I realized that it didn’t matter.  I changed majors, dropped dance team (they were catty bitches anyway, for the most part), and reconnected with a high school friend.  The school year ended, I moved home and by the end of the summer I was DYING to move back.  And I did… to a house well off campus.  And I started doing more and more things outside my comfort level.  And I thrived, while still realizing that in the long run what happened in college didn’t matter.  I now wear bright colors daily, color my hair however I (or my stylist at the moment) want, take weekend trips, try new food and make crude jokes.  Because (to put it in terms of my hair): It’s just hair.  It’s just life, live a little.

Feedback Requested

So, maybe I’m not making this thing private just yet. I’m in a bit of a pickle and I might be using this as a slight cop-out but… well, no buts. It is a cop-out. And next week I commit to doing better on my assignment. But for now:

Disclaimer: This is part of an assignment I have to do. It’s not really important what the assignment is for, or even the specifics of the assignment in the long run. All I’m asking of you is to comment. It can be supportive, it can be rational, it can even be discouraging. But comment none-the-less. And now, we cue the music…

The Assignment: Part 1

I’ve created a list. A list of things that I don’t feel I have full self-expression with, or freedom with. It’s a bit… lengthy to say the least. We all have our faults and what we view as short comings, but what those really become are opportunities to grow and thrive while surprising yourself with yourself. My list goes from mundane (financial stability) to personal (knowing that I’m always good enough) to repetitive (I actually wrote down “time to dance” twice. TWICE. Apparently it’s important). I’m going to talk about one or two here now.

The Assignment: Part 2

(yes I’m that official)

1) Grow a successful garden.  This seems stupid just writing it, but I need to get over that because it really bothers me.  It bothers me that I am so inauthentic about being a gardener that I come off as lazy.  Because I’m being lazy.  My garden doesn’t thrive because I don’t take care of it.  I purposefully pick plants that are highly specific to “sun/part/shade” and preferably drought resistant.  I PICK THAT.  IT’S A SELLING POINT FOR ME.  Because heaven forbid I go out and turn on the hose for 15 minutes twice a week.

Granted, I’m a great gardener for about a month after I pop plants in the ground.  I’m awesome.  “Oh look there, you’re getting a little droopy, here’s some water.  Whoopsie, there’s a weed, gotta get that outta there.”  Cut to one month later and I’m like “Plants? I have plants? Can’t they take care of themselves by now?  They’ve been around for like… two dozen days already. They should hunt and gather water for themselves.”  (Which leads me to how HORRIBLE of a parent I will be some day).  I replanted my garden last weekend, because that’s what I do.  When everything dies, I rip it out and start fresh, picking new plants because the other ones “just don’t work well in my space.”

Moving forward and in all seriousness, I am going to be the gardener that I actual am.  Sitting on my butt on the couch instead of watering outside, breathing in wonderful clean air from plants that love me is hardly a valid comparison.  And having a wonderful garden is something that says a lot about you as a person, too.  When I see a happy, thriving garden I think that the person who tends it is focused and dedicated not just to their garden but to many other things in life too.  I’m inventing the possibility that I’m probably a better gardener than I think… and in three months time, my garden will still be gorgeous.

2)  Time to dance.  Might as well address this one right away since it came up twice.  I’ve been really REALLY struggling with this, ever since junior year of college.  At that time though, I had options to create and doors to open that were pretty much right in front of me.  Or seemingly that way.  I had drive, and desperately needed that output to regain and grab hold of my sanity.

Here’s the deal: Dance saves me.  That itch that you get where you can’t sleep or you’re so mad you could punch something or you could scream and shout because you’re so happy or you just want to feel like you’ve achieved something… dance gives me that.  Turning on my head phones to ANYTHING that moves me… cranking it up to the point of doing longterm damage and flailing (because I’m aware entirely that that is EXACTLY what I do) around like a moron on speedballs… that gives me peace.  Exerting everything I feel in one fall swoop and collapsing into a pile of happy exhaustion.  Knowing that what I did just then was 100%, inarguably me.

But it’s fallen by the wayside.  Dance isn’t like writing where you can pick up a pencil anywhere you are and just go.  I’ve danced in the middle of the day, not giving a fuck to who was watching, on a crowded beach.  People stare.  People wonder what the heck you’re doing, or what you’re on.  It’s hard to get past your fears on that one.  Really hard.  So I’ve stopped.  And opportunities to perform aren’t coming up like that have before.  Or they’re out of my budget.

So here’s to myself.  I commit to dance. Twice a week, in my living room if I have to.  Going out counts, because it’s just as fun.  Because dance is who I am, and who I’ve been since the summer before 6th grade (a memory I distinctly remember but won’t delve into here).  “I just wanna dance…. I practiced! I just wanna dance…”

So reply…. tell me what you think.  Even if I don’t know you, or you don’t think I care what you have to think.  Please, reply.  It’s much appreciated.

Buried Life #9: Fire a Gun

I did this a long time ago… but I’ve decided I want to blog all of my Buried Life adventures to catalogue them as legitimate adventures in this blog, ya know, to validate the nomenclature.  This adventure took place January 10, 2010.

My coworker, we’ll call her Belch (endearingly of course), is this quiet-petite-thing of a girl.  She’s always put together, has clients who are generally nice, barely pre-menopausal women covering gray who still shop at Banana Republic because they have the money to do so, and got me hooked on zombies.

Now, after working at the salon for two years, I have forged interesting bonds with my stylists.  I tend to pull the weird out of everyone, I think, because no one really knows what to expect from me.  I spend time listening to what they’re talking about with their clients, and chime in when appropriate.  Take for example T-Ball (another nickname, hope I can keep these straight later)… we talk about hockey and sports and almost nothing else at this point – thank you Olympics.  Belch and I started talking Zombies after both seeing Zombieland in theaters right when it came out.  She turned me on to the best video game ever made… the rest is history.

After playing Overkill obsessively, she suggested we go to the gun range and fire a real gun because they MAKE ZOMBIE TARGETS.  I shit you not.  They’re amazing!  Check out Osama-bin-Zombie:

Baller, right? They didn’t have him at the range, but they did have three others…  Anyway, she had experience shooting guns and took me down to Watsonville so we could shoot at “the real thing.”  Now, I had never in my life fired anything that didn’t shoot water, paintballs or rubber bullets.  I’d never even been near a gun before.  Needless to say, the adrenaline had me straight shaking.

Belch shot first, to show me how to load and fire the .22 Revolver we had chosen to share for the hour.  We bought three boxes of rounds (bullets? I have only gone once… bear with me), and alternated shooting five different targets, including….

Me shooting a zombie. GLORIOUS!  We shot a few different targets, and after an hour all I could taste was the sweet bite of gunpowder as we drove home, my hands still slightly shaking.