You know you're secure in your manhood...

...when you paint your toenails* purple just because you know it'll make the baby squeal. And man, did she squeal. Like a BYU dolphin who'd just bumped into her long-lost roommate in the food court.




*Yes, kids, he painted them himself!

Through the looking glass.

I was looking at the post-party self portraits I did the other day (hard proof for my mother that I do on occasion curl my hair and wear contacts, earrings, and nylons simultaneously) and it took a long while to figure out why I so much preferred the long shots I took in the mirror to the ones pointed straight at my face.

Conclusion: I've never resigned myself to the fact that I don't look like the image in the mirror -- that I actually look like the mirror image of the mirror image.

But but but.....in what sick universe would a poor girl's LEFT eyebrow be higher than her right one? If such asymmetry must exist in this cruel, fallen world, it is clearly far better for the right eyebrow to be the higher one, as I'm sure you can see when you compare the highly hot Mirror Me





















to the severely lacking Actual Me:






















See what I mean?

Reality is a harsh, harsh mistress.

It's not like this whole enterprise hasn't always been self-serving.

I have been tagged by the lovely Lena, and as I fear her wrath (nah, because I love talking about myself), I have decided to comply. Seven random things about myself that you neither know nor care to know:

1) I am so boring and unremarkable that no one in my immediate or extended family gave me any nicknames. My sister had several nicknames, my brother had heaps, I had zero. When I whimpered about this to my bro a few years ago, he cooked up a couple for me. One of them should have been Pathetic Patsy.

2) I have a massive head, a fact that I think most people notice but always pretend they don't. It is GARGANTUAN, people. No hats fit me, even most of the adjustable baseball caps. My poor mother needed a postpartum blood transfusion, and the doctors thought I was terminally ill with hydrocephalus. This does not translate to more brains, sadly -- just more hot air:

3) The main reason I applied for one of my favorite jobs was that it was three doors down from the office of my entrancing Spanish teacher. Long after he ceased belting "Maria" at me in the hallways and swoonifying me with his swarthy complexion and ice-green eyes, I adored that job. And that is my testimony of doing good things for dumb reasons. Hallelujah, amen.

4) I like soggy things. The Pacific Northwest, toast soaked in cocoa, gloppy cold tapioca pudding, and Life cereal that's been stewing on the counter for at least five minutes.

5) One of my nervous habits is tugging on my Brooke-Shields-meets-Sam-Donaldson eyebrows. One day in sixth grade I was particularly nervous and started attacking my right eyebrow. Later that day my friends informed me (between violent giggling fits) that I'd almost entirely wiped out that one eyebrow. Let's just say the one-eyebrow look is much worse than the no-eyebrow look and that eyebrow pencils are a precious gift from on high.

6) I am credited in the liner notes of my favorite band's third CD. Several of you know this. What you probably don't know is that I was involved in the final editing of the liner notes, and was asked to help them trim the lengthy "Thank Yous" section down to a reasonable size. I had known the band for just a couple months and clearly didn't deserve to be credited at all, but I decided to not cut my own name from the list. Why? Because I'm evil and vain and wanted my future children to think I was supercool.

7) According to Shroud of Turin loonies, I have the same blood type as Jesus. This is why I am better than you.

Okay, now I get to tag seven others. (Don't worry, Wynne, I'll leave you alone.) Howzabout Natalie, D'Arcy, Sophie (are you still there, darling?), Emily, iieee, April, and Gawain & Vesper. I guess this will conclusively prove whether or not any of these people are still reading this blog....