It’s interesting to see the differences between men’s commercials and women’s commercials. View the differences:

Body wash for women.

Body wash for men.

To be perfectly honest, I’m less interested in relaxing and exfoliating and being all calm as I am in having a SOLID DEFENSE against DRY SKIN.

TAKE THAT, DRY SKIN.

YOU HAVE BEEN HYDRATED.

Why do women get all of the boring commercials?

The other day I discovered Listography and I am totally addicted.

It’s a great place to just record random things you’d rather not forget. I’ve always been a compulsive listmaker, anyway. (Did I ever tell you about the 35 page binder I made at the age of eight where I listed names, colours, words, cars, CD’s, actors, actresses, phrases, definitions, and places I’d want to live? IT WAS EPIC.) But I’ve really been enjoying a place where I can just write things without needing an explanation.

For example, this list comes in handy for me to remember all the random people I’ve talked to at work. It seems like every single day someone comes into my store that I know, and it’s both unnerving and interesting. It’s a reminder that I work in the neighborhood I grew up in, something I think I’ll appreciate in four years when I live somewhere where there are no familiar faces.

My favourite list so far has the most to do with this picture:

It’s the story of my life, people.

Listography is also great for recording wishlists, to-dos, and also things you’d like to be able to access online. I might have one or two lists that might not make much sense to you, but to me they’re a list of character names or a reminder to not bite off more than I can chew. It’s one of the reasons I love the internet, you can use it as an external USB hub.

At last! I have recieved two rolls of developed film, as well as some new contacts, and some enlightenment.

Work has been interesting lately. I’m slowly gaining a lot of confidence and also losing it as I make mistakes and right myself, with a lot of help from my coworkers.

I also have a new flash for my old Canon SLR. I am very pleased about that. You know what this means? Next time I have nothing to do (aka “next time I have a paper to write”) I am so totally making myself a ringflash.

Look out world, here she comes… with a sexy cardboard ringflash.

Whew! Been a few days, hasn’t it? My apologies.

You see, on Wednesday on last week I had three teeth removed. Wisdom teeth. Thursday through Saturday can be fully summarized by saying that I slept a lot and Vicodin is my best friend, even though I couldn’t eat for three days.

I’m back, though, and feeling somewhat better. I’m still a little swollen on one side, and prone to taking a lot of advil, but really, I’m better. Last night I returned to work, and today was the first day in a while I’ve felt like I’ve had enough energy to do things without needing a nap afterwards.

Though I wouldn’t mind a nap now.

My older sister returned from South Korea last week, filled with fun stories about her students and being the tallest blonde woman in the province. I have missed her so much over the past five weeks, and since I had my teeth removed the day after she came home, today was our first day to drive with the windows down (listening to our theme song, “SexyBack” of course!), talk about frivolity, and for me to take pictures.

I was possessed with feverish insomnia last night, and I decided to start taking more photographs with real film, and start pulling away from the ease of a digital camera. Ever since my lovely little Canon died and I’ve been stuck with Mom’s Casio I’ve lost a lot of my desire to shoot pictures, and mostly because of the Casio’s inability to focus when I want it to, or to take the photograph I see in my head (Unlike my Canon, which must have had some angel dust in between it’s inner workings, because it was perfect for me.) So today, Angel and I drove to Fred Meyer’s and I bought four rolls of film.

We drove through Germantown, on Old and the ‘new’ Cornelius Pass Road, ending up at the Skyline elementary school. It was a lovely day of sunshine and hanging out with my awesome sister, what more can I ask for than that?

I can’t wait to get my film developed–I’ve forgotten how semi-sweet it is to open up an envelope of freshly developed film.

Lots of things are changing over here.

Last week we had our yearly week long house party. That’s really what it is, though we don’t smoke or drink (much) and the extent of us trashing the place is normally a lot of potato-chip bags and a few decimated cakes.

On Tuesday a few of us went to the local swimming pool (well, we call it the ‘Aquatic Centre’, but it’s the same thing) and were awkwardly the only adults there without children. It was still a lot of fun–it’s interesting to think that in high school all four of us would have been too terrified to even consider going swimming in public. None of us were cool or in shape enough, where now nobody cares and we have a much better time. I’m one of the few people who actually had a semi-decent time in high school, but even I’m glad it’s over.

Speaking of school, I am desperately trying to register for classes. I wasn’t really planning on attending this semester (long story), but Mom talked me out of it when we learned how much money I’ll have to pay for my insurance, something I can’t afford without paying for tuition! I’ve tried to register and lo and behold, I have to declare my major(s). I can’t declare them online and the next time I can get on campus is on Tuesday–do they make these things so inconvenient on purpose? Hope with me that I can see a guidance counselor, I’m not sure what I will do if I can’t see one!

My sister comes home next week, and also my wisdom teeth are being stolen by the dentist. It’s going to be interesting.

Today is my half-day off, and I’ve been chilling out with my Mom. We watched the biography of Patrick Stewart. A clip from The Next Generation came on the screen, and it was the good Captain talking to Data. I mentioned that I’ve always wanted to watch more TNG, since I haven’t exactly seen much of it. Apparently Mom and Dad were big fans Back In The Day.

My Mom gestured at Data.

“You know what is cool?”

“What?”

“That guy.”

“Yeah?”

“He is a robot.”

I live right next to the local airport and the annual summer airshow starts next week.

This means that about once every thirty minutes or so my entire house vibrates and all sound is lost to the overbearing roar of plane engines streaking above my house. It is both a nice tradition and an irritant. Even though it occurs in my hometown and people flock here to see the jets and antiques, I have never been. I much prefer to watch it from below, and afar.

This photo was taken two years ago. It’s funny that now it’s one of my favourite pictures of silly me. I look pretty different now, but it’s still an accurate depiction…

Tomorrow my two best friends come into town, and I intend to make the most of that rare time.

Today marked the final day of my training at coffeejob, and my last day of the work-week that seemed to never end. Six days straight, people. That’s a first for me, especially since I worked the same shift, over and over and over again… that gets a little old.

But I went downtown, attended the class, sampled some coffees (Folgers really sucks, apparently) and once and for all I proved that even if I don’t know a single soul in the class I still act the same way I always have–assertive, cheeky, sarcastic, and dumb. It’s like once any class starts my will to be mature just… floats away from my body, leaving this crazy imp in its place.

I must say that I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself. Heaven help me when I have a boy to embarass.

Afterwards I met up with my Uncle and he gave me a lot of history about my family. I’ve always found all the terrible gossip incredibly interesting, and it’s neat to hear how my eyes look like Great-great-aunt Stella’s and she was the most marvelous, sweet woman and again the story of how Great-great(tired of that yet?) Grandfather disappeared for a year, and to this day nobody knows where he went, and how he reappeared one afternoon, sitting on the couch reading the paper, and that was that.

Tomorrow I am going to sleep in and really dig into this new book I’m reading. I can’t wait.

Tonight I am recovering from a full week of work and from being around too much coffee.

I’m still gaining confidence in my work, but I’m still lacking. I’m both extremely shaken by today’s 6 hour shift and also excited, as I’m finally starting to get to know the other extremely sarcastic baristas.

In about five minutes, Darcy and I are going to Barnes and Noble to buy Breaking Dawn Some Grown-Up, Non-Romantic, Intelligent Books, and also I have a Toffee Nut Bar I’m going to share.

This has been a very cherry summer.

I’m starting to miss and wish that I’ve done more summer activities in the past few months. I haven’t swam, we’re not going on our semi-annual roadtrip to Sisters, no rafting down the Deshutes and crying “Ohana!” at each other, and no late-night hair-electrifying parties that keep the entire house awake until well after 3am.

Since I’m working, I’m really not sure how many extreme late nights we’ll be having when the ladies come to visit next week.

Anyway, what I really intended on saying in this post is that Kristi and Jessica said we could go to Enchanted Forest, and nobody, NOBODY, is going to stop me us.