'Tis the season to be recording this year's Christmas album. If you recall, it's all original tunes this year for us. We got the guitar recorded for my "Meowy Christmas" song and my country song yesterday, and I got the vocals down for the kitty song, too. Feelin' pretty good about it. I can't wait to get back into the studio again!

In other news, the Steelers are kinda struggling to kick the Bengal's asses. WTF? Straighten up, boys. No more 96 yard runs for them, k?

1. I'm fed up with religion. Super, super fed up. And really, really angry. Is what it is.

2. I'm tired of careless and/or selfish people who either don't see how their behavior affects others, or don't care.¹

3. My new meds make me pee... a lot. I can live with that if they do their job.

4. The sun is shining but it's only 47 degrees! This excites me.

5. Tonight we're celebrating Joe & Ams joint birthdays. YES.

6. Tomorrow we're attending our 5th and final Halloween party of the year. It's a housewarming. I will be glad to finally put Ursula to rest. It's a great costume, but not easy to wear. I hate wigs, and the clip-on earrings have not been kind to my lobes.² I also can't wait to stop wearing this red nail polish.



¹ I'm not addressing anyone in particular. If your immediate reaction is to worry that I'm talking about you, maybe you should reflect.
² I have never had my ears pierced. The clip-ons pinching my ears all night is less than comfortable.

Is it wrong that I'm already thinking about next Halloween? Who am I kidding, I never stop thinking about costumes!

Here's what I'm possibly going for next year:
- black pants
- black bustier
- white button down, open
- black bob wig
- bloody nose & chin
- syringe sticking out of my bloody chest...

If you still don't have it, maybe this will help:



This would be easier for someone like Robin to pull off because Uma is so tall & thin, but I feel like even a fat version would be recognizable with the syringe in the chest. And it would be a gory costume for once!

$20 to get in for all you can drink (2o kegs!)
Rollercoaster.
3 live bands.

Well. Last weekend was pretty close to perfect.

A pal from NYC visited for a long weekend. She got here Thursday & we gathered on the South Side to see her and Eric D. do standup. They were the best two there. And no, not just because we know them. For realsies, most of the comics were a) men, b) really, really angry c) sometimes angry toward women! So it was nice to get a female in there, and people who didn't just whine about shit the whole time.

Friday, just the two of us went to FallingWater. It was abso gorgeous. It was a somewhat rainy day, but that didn't put a damper on the day at all. In fact, I like that it brought out the smell of the woods. Know what I mean? The house was unbelievable. So smart and beautiful at the same time.

Saturday was the big party, of course. We had a much better turnout than expected (50+!), and the costumes were fabulous! Our Little Mermaid theme came together really nicely! It was a great mix of old & new friends. You guys really are the best.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the party.

1. Me fighting with Triton over the trident.


2. The whole Little Mermaid group. Josh became a make-shift Sebastian when he showed up in red long underwear and LZ happened to have red fingerless gloves in her bag. Hilarious.


3. Me with my minions, Flotsam & Jetsam. I love this photo because Triton is coming in for the kill from the upper right corner.


4. The villains & Triton. Scary, no?



This weekend we conquer The Evaline!

Today was crazy busy. Like, I feel like I didn't have a Sunday.

Morning
10:30 Rise & sorta shine
11:00 In Acchord rehearsal (with audition callback for a new guy)

Afternoon
1:30 Drive back home for costume stuff I already bought, stop for gas
2:00 Pick up Eric, head to Robinson for costume shopping¹
4:00 Go to his parents' to use sewing machine, make tentacles²

Evening
6:30 Stop at Sheetz³ for dinner, drop Eric home
7:30 Go home to drop off purchases, pick up Joe
8:00 Meet up at Sean's to help with moving to new place⁴

Night
10:00 Pick up Halloween decorations we're borrowing for the party
10:30 Get home, put up Psycho themed shower curtain⁵
10:45 Die from fumes being emitted from Psycho themed shower curtain⁶


Now it's 11:45 and I'm shipoopied. Goodnight!



¹ Dollar Tree, Michael's, & JoAnn. Wish I had more time in each of them!
²They look AMAZING. Eric is a fucking wizard.
³ MTO!
⁴ We missed the worst of it (loading) but were there to help with unloading (which was a snap!)
⁵ The plastic stinks!
⁶ Like, REALLY STINKS!

Dear lord this is amazing:

I saw an endocrinologist today.

While my PCP has been great about a) diagnosing, b) explaining, and c) starting treatment for my PCOS, I just felt like I needed a specialist's opinion. When I talked to my PCP on my last visit about some symptoms that concerned me, she seemed to think they weren't abnormal.

No offense, doc, but I know my body.
I can tell something's not right.

So, I met with Dr. Lubowsky today. Yep, it's pronounced just how you think. He was smart, good at listening, even better at explaining, and he sprung into action. He made it clear what my hormone levels mean and what we can do about them. First we do bloodwork, then we act according to the results.

When talking to him about PCOS and various treatments, it became apparent to me why he's a specialist. While my PCP certainly knew enough to diagnose me and initiate treatment, she didn't mention anything about how different types of birth control can have drastically differing affects on hormone levels, and that we may need to adjust my BC accordingly. She also didn't mention that if my hormone levels appear normal, there are still some add-on medications that can help to reduce symptoms.

Dr. Lubowsky has given me hope for the first time in a while. It's a nice feeling, and I look forward to my follow-up with him in a few months.

I'm having a moody night, so instead of bitch & moan about it (like usual), I'm gonna talk about something else.


I have been doing lots of Little Mermaid research because of my costume. Here are some things I've learned:

The pretty girl Ursula becomes is named Vanessa. Didn't remember that.

You can watch the movie in its entirety on YouTube in 10 ten minute segments.

You can watch various clips in a slew of other languages, including Finnish, German, Greek, and apparently "Canadian" (Wouldn't that just be French?). I discovered this when specifically looking up "little mermaid vanessa."

The villain in the sequel is Ursula's sister, Morgana. She's basically a skinny version of Ursula, but Pat Carroll returns for the voice. Behold, Morgana:




Now behold my bed time.

Something made me think of the McDonald's coffee case today, so I read up on Wikipedia. Apparently, the woman ended up in the hospital for 8 days because of the burns from the coffee. She received treatment for two years following the incident, and the original intent of the lawsuit was for McD's to pay her $20,000 since her medical bills totaled $11,000 (um, why do you need an extra $9,000?). When they offered her only $800 (which is ridiculous considering that they could afford $11,000), she pursued the case further.

The woman was 79 when the incident occurred. She died in 2004 at the age of 91.

Nang will be visiting in a couple weeks. When she's here, we're taking a trip to Falling Water. I'm pretty excited because I've never been there.

Joe's mom is visiting this weekend, so we had lunch with my family today. I mentioned the trip, and mom and dad said they had visited there in 1978, when my brother was one and I was just a sparkle in my daddy's eye (which I still am).

Apparently, they were not allowed to take my brother in. No babies were permitted inside. If that's still the case, this will be an even better trip than I thought.

; )


We went to Sharp Edge last night with Joe's ma, then came home and just chilled out. We were planning karaoke after dinner, but were all way too tired to do anything else. This evening we're watching football while Kate knits.

Mom and dad sent us home with leftovers (as usual), but that's not all we brought home from this trip. Mom's church had a flea market and came into a load of old sheet music that they were selling for $1 a pop, so she bought a bunch of it and told us to look through and pick out what we wanted.

Some of the music we found:

MacArthur Park

This Guy's In Love With You

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

The Stripper

Star Wars Theme

A Billy Joel songbook (Eric, you can have this if interested)

Some oldies compilations

A Disney songbook (from 1985, so sadly nothing from the 90's)

Joe has already been playing some of them tonight. I like having the keyboard in the living room!

We're having a quiet Saturday night in, so I thought I'd post some poetry. Put on your black turtleneck!




Heart in Hand

If I could keep any part of you
all to myself I'd choose
your heart

Naturally

You guess
it's because of your modesty
or your countless and completely
altruistic good deeds --
like the time you fed a homeless man
sandwiches and hot coffee
or the stray you saved
from the pouring rain
and gave warm milk and TLC

I must confess
it would make sense
to fawn over your endless charity
but I was thinking a little more literally

See

if I held your heart
in the palm of my hand
you could never live apart

from me

This is the most ridiculous photoshop I've ever seen. I mean, at least this guy is doing it as a joke with actual Chiclets.




(Ad from weather.com)

Bought black shiny pleather tonight for the tentacles. Light purple for underneath. Thinking I should've gone darker, but I'll have Eric check it out and approve or reject.

I think for the suction cup look I may just make a potato stamp and stamp them on in a lighter purple (another reason to go darker with the fabric).


Also got stuffing and styrofoam cones for in the tentacle tips. Still need wire, though. Wanna be able to pose them!


I'm getting REALLY excited about this costume!


The Disney version really falls flat (it looks like a literally deflated Ursula), but there are some awesome homemade ones out there if you do a Google image search. Here's an example, complete with Flotsam & Jetsam:

I purchased the first two items I will need for this year's Halloween costume: elbow length lilac fingerless gloves and a wig.

The character didn't actually wear gloves - that's just my interpretation of her. Her skin is purple (hint!) and I don't feel like smearing purple body paint all over myself. That being said, this is what the wig looks like.


I imagine you can come up with a few good guesses based on skin color and hair. Going shopping for the rest of my supplies this Thursday! So excited!

So.

I've always liked Andy Samberg. His songs are one of my favorite things about SNL. This one might be the most ridiculous yet.

Please. Just.... watch it.




Aaaaaaaaaand on the completely opposide end of the spectrum is this: a song that captures the essence of what I want my Irish song to feel like for the Christmas album. I have all my words & music down, we just have to arrange the instruments. I am SO excited.

It starts out a cappella but gets bigger as it goes. My song will definitely not get anywhere near this epic, but it's a good example of the style I want (the part with instruments, anyway).

I'm getting *REALLY* excited about this year's Christmas album. We decided to do all originals for this one, which has already been both challenging and rewarding.

If you're expecting a gift from me this year (or even if you're not), it will be the CD. I've hesitated to give them out to everyone in the past because it's mostly just been a lot of hokey karaoke tracks (from my end, anyway), but this year it's a lot more meaningful because we wrote everything.

So, yeah.



Yay.

This is disturbing for three reasons:
1) This is the kind of shit George Sodini was subscribing to. He is in this video.
2) There are women at this seminar. WTF were they thinking?
3) The speaker is overwhelmingly BORING. Who the hell listens to this guy and things, "Yeah, I'm inspired to do what he says!"?? SNOOOOOOOOOOOZE.

Ladies, you'll appreciate this. I've had this strapless black & white damask dress from Old Navy for at least two years, but I'd never worn it until yesterday. In fact, the first person to wear it was a male friend of ours using it for a sketch comedy costume (as a housewife).

I broke it out yesterday for a wedding we attended. I paired it with a mustard yellow ruffled cardigan, black tights, a chunky black patent leather belt, and my (slutty) black gator-skin peep toe stilettos (which, I might add, are unexpectedly comfortable).

The tights were the smartest decision I've made all year. The wedding was outdoors at Phipps Conservatory, and boy did it get cold after sundown. Thankfully we warmed ourselves up with some dancing.

Hooray for crappy cellphone photos.