Regan White's Ranting and Raving

Um, wow

Yesterday was one of those monumentally, one in a lifetime bad days. Everything that could possibly go wrong yesterday did. It was the kind of day where by 2 p.m. you're already nearly numb it's that bad and you just kind of walk around anticipating calamity and ironic twists of badness. 

That's all I'm going to say about that. 

Suffice it to say, when I hit the sheets last night, I hit them hard. By 9 p.m. I was barely coherent any more and yet even lying in bed it took me until 1 a.m. to unwind. But when I passed out, I was out. 

It's amazing what sleep can do - how it necessarily shuts down the body and reorganizes the brain to be able to process things again. The morning lag time is always strange - those few moments of being awake where you first awake from sleep and remember nothing (usually, unless it's one of my freaky dreams). Usually there's a split second where you're a brand-new person and the slate is clean for half a second. 

And then usually it all comes back - generally not bad, but sometimes it is. Like when you've been through a bad break up and are surprised to find that there's a second or two in the morning where you forget all about it during the blissful haze of sleep. And then in a second you recall that some jerk dumped you or a tree fell on your car or what have you and you think, "I can't believe I was able to forget that for a few seconds."

While neither car-on-tree nor jilting was my particular issue yesterday (amazingly, since I had quite a few), I still felt that same sensation upon waking today. It was such a relief to have a second or two where I could stretch my arms and think, "I don't even remember what day this is - and I don't care. That's how well I slept."

Ah life. How strange it can be. 

Needless to say, I'm delighted it's Saturday (although for some weird reason my brain just typed (well my fingers typed for my brain - that would be gross if my brain could type) "thursday" What the hell does that mean? Maybe because my birthday is Thursday?).  Saturdays are my absolute favorite days. 

My sister is taking her MCAT as we speak. I made her a pump-it-up song mix before she left for her to listen to in the car. It's weird - I think I know what songs would get her pumped but in cycling through it was hard for me to remember what songs drive her insane. I hope it came out OK for her tastes. 

Even more, I hope she's kicking the test's butt. She's studied for so long and so hard. She deserves to kick it's ass and move on. 

We're celebrating afterward at a fundraiser at BlackFinn from 3-6 p.m. $15 gets you in while helping to fight Batten disease (a really crappy, rare fatal disease that affects a friend's sister). The Chapel HIll/State game will be on, there will be specials on beer and sliders and well, I'll be there. That's worth $15, right? ;)

Happy Saturday, all of you. xo

No water

Some kind of utilities problem has meant that I've been without water since 5:30 a.m. 

Not happy.

A daydreaming Wednesday

Happy rainy day Wednesday, Charlotte and surrounds!

I'm dressed like it's summer today, in white and gold. I'm taking it as a sign that I'm sick of the drear of winter. It's a blessed thing I don't live in the northeast any more. If I can barely take overcast skies and 40s and 50s temps, I shudder to think how I'd be with my car permanently drenched in slag.

It's a daydreaming kind of day. I stayed late at work last night so pushing the paper out today didn't seem nearly as painful as it usually is. Typically I like to be in my pajamas in this kind of dark, rainy day ... maybe reading a book, taking a nap, having some macaroni and cheese (yes, I'm 5). But the confines of my cozy office and some good music while editing will suffice for now.

I've been keenly aware lately of just how lucky I am to have the friends I do. I have hilarious co-workers who every day make me laugh with their quick wit (something I've also realized there is a great dearth of in this world). And I have equally witty friends who are at turns funny, caring and sensitive - they keep me honest, put up with me on the phone until 1 a.m. and care when my birthday is. For all the troubles in this world, I am one of the luckiest girls I know.

I have a friend Pete who demanded I send him my list of 2008 accomplishments and goals for 2009. I have yet to give him the list. Pete loves Feffie, if you're reading this you can officially add me to your disappointments list for both 2008 and 2009. The list is made but hidden in the bowels of a Hello Kitty notebook in my bag. I'll unearth it for you. Nothing dreadfully exciting - but it's all yours when I get around to typing it out and all.

I think of that list today for I hope to get to Ireland this year. I've never been and failed to get there last fall as planned because work got in the way. I don't want it to get in the way again this year. I imagine it could almost be a place that I visit and decide, on a whim, to stay. But then again there's the whole dreary rain bit - ever more prevalent in Ireland than here, really. It could be manageable in a cozy cottage, though. With some Guinness. And shepherd's pie.

I wish I had hilariously funny things to catch everyone up on. Gma has been up to her usual tricks and then some. Nothing appropriate to share here, sadly. Maybe one day. Not today. Not on daydreaming Wednesday.

Our hilariously funny layout duo brought back a box of biscuits from The Flying Biscuit this afternoon with a large tub of cranberry apple butter. There's nothing a warm biscuit can't fix. I've been dancing in my seat ever since.

Awww yeah.

Where are the cupcakes?

A quick note: A co-worker gave me a scented oil diffuser for Christmas - you know, a bottle of oil with the decorative reeds coming out of it. It's vanilla buttercream scented, which is delicious, except that now that the reeds have begun diffusing at full force I keep coming into work and thinking, "Wow! There are cupcakes in my office!" And then I realize with full disappointment that there aren't any cupcakes, cake or frosted cookies - just scented oil. It's amazing how it tricks my brain and how multiple times a day I can think, "Where's the cake!?!" only to realize there is no cake.

It's very frustrating.

Rather than take mild offense to any kind of hint that might be implied by a diffuser gift, I'm chalking it up to the fact that clearly my co-worker wanted to make sure I had a safer way of diffusing scents. (Shortly before Christmas I got some evergreen air freshener because I wanted it to smell like Christmas in my office and I was pining - no pun intended - for fresh-cut evergreen smell. Unfortunately, I sprayed three pumps when one spritz would have sufficed and I nearly passed out from the evergreen overdose. Hours later, staffers came into my office fanning themselves from the evergreen fumes. Now they just get angry that I don't have cupcakes.)

And as a side note, I had a dental cleaning this morning which was fun and predictable. I love my hygenist, which is weird, so we always have a great time - a rarity for dental cleanings in my experience. Afterward I picked up some lunch to go so I'd be ready for the office and shortly before pullling out of Stonecrest I heard a thud and realized that the driver-side door of the car next to mine had smashed into my car. I turned around and realized that the driver was out of her car hamming it up with another mother and her kids. I was so ticked - I actually had to get out of my car and ask her to close her car door so I could pull out. She didn't apologize or anything - what a ho.

Back to the cupcakes. Not really. I wish. Happy Monday.

I'm about done with the cold now.

Why do I live this far south if it's going to be cold? Having grown up in cold climes, I think my blood has thinned. Big time. All of that aside, I would like to see some snow before this leaves us. Just some flurries - maybe a big wintry mix. 

It was snowing outside the hospital window when I was born (the big bday is three weeks away). I think the last time I had snow on my birthday I was in college. I remember it was 3 or 4 in the morning and I could see the snow coming down fast and thick outside the window. The New Haven sky always had a weird orange/red tinge to it so it backlit the snow perfectly. Instead of making a wish on a birthday candle that year, I remember sitting up in bed, leaning on the sill and making birthday wishes on snowflakes. Then I ran outside in my pajamas and twirled around in the snow. Campus was quiet at the time and it was beautiful, a wonderful birthday present.

I guess the cold isn't so bad, though. A good excuse for roaring fires, hot chocolate, wool socks, blankets, snuggling and sleeping with my dogs. (My dogs are currently royally peeved with me. While I let them sleep with me last night, they're in their cages in my room right now and they are alternating between crying and sighing - although from the sound of things one has succumbed to puppy dreams.)

Ah, the birthday is looming. I'm actually pretty excited. 27 was a kind of nonevent. The year flew by. I don't know if it's the even number or what, but 28 seems like an exciting year. Bring on the cake and adoration! ;)

I have no idea where this weekend went, but it was a good one. Really good. Ah, bittersweet Monday.

Happy almost MLK Day! Happy almost inauguration! (Wasn't U2 awesome on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? holy crap.) Happy almost Groundhog Day, almost Regan birthday, almost Big Red birthday! This reminds me, I need to resurrect the idea of the Regan National Holiday and what it would entail. I don't think I ever finalized the details last year, which won't do if it's going to be instituted by the time I'm 30.

That's it for now. Sleep well, xo

Par-tea

I'd like to complain for a moment. My sister and I wound up at SouthPark mall today and having enjoyed a late Friday night I was desperate for some caffeine. I haven't been drinking much coffee lately because it's been too much and making me feel gross, so I'm generally opting for tea. I've always enjoyed SouthPark's TeaVana whenever I've stopped in.

However, I don't understand how they have so many people working there with so few really doing anything? How are they getting by? Particularly when, aside from having tea samples, they don't do a very good job of marketing the fact that you can purchase a cup of tea nor have I found them exceptionally friendly in walking you through the options. Which is tricky since they offer dozens and dozens of teas. Now, in their defense, it seemed that the guy in the know was walking some guy through buying loose-leaf tea, which is fine and assuredly their main money maker. But I'd like something between a brusque "what do you want?" and a three-hour conversation about the finer points of loose-leaf tea.

If I had that maybe I wouldn't make the crappy choice of the Snow Geisha white tea which came out smelling and tasting like a Luden's cherry cough drop. My whole car has the pungent smell of cherry cough drop illness now. Lovely.

On a much greater up note, I'd like to give a shout out to Big Red for making my Friday. 

xo

It's nearly 2 again

I keep promising myself I'll get to bed early.

It's almost always a lie.

It's rather amusing since I'm the worst liar ever. I think when I was younger I used to still try and lie, convinced that I'd get better at it and ever pushing the envelope to see what I could get away with. I didn't realize that being a bad liar was as a part of me as my nearly translucent skin (which turns blotchy red) or my thin-lipped mouth, which upturns with smiles and laughter every time I even attempt an untruth.

It's been a while since I've even attempted one - except against myself with trivial things like getting to bed by, oh, 11 p.m. Even midnight would be nice lately.

The world seems a little weird these days, doesn't it? Like weirder than usual?

It just seems like weird things are happening all over the place. Of course, the economy still blows and it's continuing to blow because everyone is just standing around, holding their breath, waiting to see what's going to happen, waiting for someone else to make the first move. I'd say that I'm still doing my part to infuse the economy with senseless cash, but even I haven't gotten out much in the past two weeks. Sorry, guys. I take the blame.

And of course, the presidential inauguration is nigh - a time that many are awaiting with expectant, held breath for a billion different reasons - some joy, some skepticism, some hope, some fear. It's rather like New Year's Eve in a way, this feeling right now. The emotions are individual, personal and yet it's a shared event we all go through - a new year, a new president, inevitable change.

But even weirder things have been happening. The shady credit union by our office was robbed for the third time in 18 months yesterday, and as the helicopters buzzed our building I wondered at how it was only a day prior that the same news choppers were in the neighborhood getting still shots of the nearby Quiznos that was robbed, with one person shot.

Won't you be our neighbor?

Seriously, for the second day the area where I work was swamped with cop cars. And yet, paranoid and anxious as I generally am, I'm not terribly freaked out about it.

It's like how after the gym tonight I swung by Trader Joe's and coming home I passed a cop car and ambulance on Rea Road. About a block away I passed a shady guy who was pulled over with his flashers on, sweeping the bushes with a flashlight. 

Once again, my heart flipped over slowly but it wasn't my usual panic mode.

Like yesterday when I watched someone almost get creamed at a major intersection. Really major intersection. The left-turn, green arrow signal went off next to those of us who were going straight and I guess the guy in front of me thought it was meant for him because he plowed into the intersection, right into the oncoming turning traffic. My mouth fell open to my chest and yet again, no anxiety, just numb disbelief. I wasn't alone. No one even honked. Oncoming traffic just kind of awkwardly stopped in the middle of the intersection and the crazy person wound around them.

Incidentally a few blocks down a cop pulled out of a neighborhood and got right behind Mr. Crazy Distracted Driver and I thought to myself, "Where were you three seconds earlier? Do you have any idea what that crazy guy just did?" And no. Of course he didn't. It's amazing how often things are timed that way.

Still, it's like all these weird things have been happening around me and I'm walking around oddly unfazed. It's like when you drive your car through an intense cloud of dust and you think, "I should really cover or at least shield my eyes," and then you remember you're in a car and you pass through the huge patch of dust, dirt and rocks unscathed, eyes open, slightly distant. Strange.

I went to a Pilates class tonight. It's the second Pilates class I've ever been to and I love it. For a nonflexible person, it makes me feel stretchy and long. As long as 5'3" gets, I guess. I used to do a lot of group exercise classes, mainly cardio work, but it's been a while since I've made it jive with my work schedule. After a Christmas bout of legs so cramped from sitting all day that I could barely walk, I was politely informed by my doctor that my nonflexible butt better get to a Pilates class if I plan on still walking by the time I'm 40. I bristled. I also had flashbacks of 20 years earlier when my dance instructor told a tear-stained Regan (that's me) that if I worked on my stretching every single day that one day I'd be able to do a split. 

She lied, too.

I've loved Pilates so far, which is a far cry from yoga, which I want with all my heart to love but it always just makes me feel inadequate (and amusingly anxious at my inadequacy). Pilates does what I had hoped yoga would do - it calms me and makes me sleepy as hell in fact. I walked out of there and it was all I could do to stop yawning. 

The concept of group exercise makes me laugh. Never mind that it's a concept that's been around for thousands of years, I still think it's funny whenever I take time out to think, "You're butt's in the air and your swiping your legs above your head like scissors - and so is that 65-year-old guy next to you." There are worse things, though. Like exercises that seem childish or awkward that are done in groups. Like running sprints. I went to a cardio class a few times where they have you run sprints in the gym. It's weird - reminiscent of middle school gym classes (which I loved) only performed by uncoordinated, exhausted adults. Almost like if you had someone over for lunch and they asked you to "ride bikes" with them or whipped out a can of Play-Doh and you both started modeling things.

It's kind of like that. Maybe not really.

In other news, I used an oscillating mascara wand this morning. I guess it worked well. My lashes were decently long with it and it did reduce the clumping factor. But it was weird. Like it's not THAT difficult to jiggle the mascara wand back and forth. Unless I find myself without my right arm, I can't imagine I would ever NEED an oscillating mascara. (This was free.) The whole time I kept thinking of my oscillating razor and thought, "Someone was totally in the shower shaving and thought, 'Hmmm... what about on my eyes?"

If you have perfect mascara suggestions, please let me know. I'm undergoing a bit of a personal mascara test these days. You know, to keep occupied. 

More soon, xoxo

A quick 2 a.m. post

Hello, folks! A few quick photos...

1. My dad recently was one of four finalists in the Carolinas Champion contest to recognize outstanding community service. He didn't win, but it didn't matter to our family, really. He won in our eyes. (And in Sir Purr's apparently.)

 

 

 

 

2. In other news, I've gotten a lot of grief lately for not decorating my grandmother's cane for the holidays. I haven't done it in a while, but it seems like suddenly tons of people have been bringing it up. And so, on Sunday, to conclude my session of Gma-sitting, I decorated her cane for Valentine's Day. She was getting ready for bed when I did it, hence the silky pajamas. Sexy for a 94-year-old, I know. Here she's posing with her new best friend, Leeloo, who rarely leaves her alone anymore.

 

 

 

And that's all you get for now.

xoxo

Uh oh.

Recently, a friend was asking if I had ever been on Accutane, the infamous acne medication that (I believe) combatted acne by trying to kill you just enough that your acne was scared off, a circumstance that often led to other nasty side effects. My friend and I swapped stories about our various side effects - the unbelievable dryness (essentially, your skin fell off), the hair loss (I realized while getting ready for Homecoming that I could pull my hair out, painlessly, in large clumps. I filled up the sink with hair demonstrating for my mom before she yelled, "Just stop pulling!!!"), dry mouth, unbelievable stomach trouble. The list goes on.

Our conversation quickly strayed to what I see as the hallmark of the Accutane product offering: namely, the repeated warning that if you even thought about a baby while taking Accutane you should stop taking it immediately. The pills came in these horrendous blister packs - the kind that you have to punch the pill through both foil, plastic and then cardboard. Over each pill opening there was a line drawing of a pregnant woman in profile - with a giant red cross-out circle over her. Every, single pill had these. The spine of the cardboard pill sleeve (it opened kind of like a weird card) read "FEMALE PATIENTS AVOID PREGNANGY" in all capped, red font. Practically every inch of the packaging read a warning about pregnancy. 

But it was the drawings of the potentially messed-up kids you could have while on the drug that no one ever forgets. 

Every female patient had to take a pregnancy test before going on the drug. The packaging goes into great detail about how Accutane in any amount could affect any exposed baby. It was suggested in two paragraphs of bold, red text that all female patients use either two forms of birth control or abstain from sex entirely because the risk of infant mortality and deformity associated with the drug was so high. It even reads, "Birth control must be used even if you think you cannot become pregnant, unless you have had a hysterectomy." 

Basically, even if you are 55 and think it isn't humanly possible, if you still have the parts, you better not be taking this junk. 

But again, it was the pictures. Beneath these sad renderings the pamphlet reads:

"Line drawing representing some common birth defects associated with Accutane use during pregnancy. These include low-set deformed or absent ears, wide-set eyes, depressed bridge of nose, enlarged head and small chin. More severe defects than these can occur including mental retardation. This picture does not show the severe internal defects that may occur including those of the brain, heart, glands and nervous system."

In short, "you don't want to know."

I was a junior in high school when I went on Accutane - or at least when I last filled the unused prescription I ran across while cleaning out the hall closet at my parents' house this weekend while watching my grandmother. I ditched the Rx around the time my hair defected to the sink. I was not sexually active and yet the literature scared me to pieces - as if even thinking about babies while taking the medicine would make future ones come out like Coneheads. 

After visiting the dermatologist and being grilled about if I was pregnant, if I thought I'd be pregnant while on the med, if I ever even thought about pregnancy etc., I confided in the doctor that the literature scared the piss out of me. 

"The warnings in red are enough to make anyone pause," I said. "But the drawings?! The drawings are something else. It's enough to never make me want to even contemplate getting pregnant. Ever."

The doctor shrugged and said it was his job to make sure the concern was taken seriously.

He left the room and I remember turning to my mom and saying, "Honestly, if it does this to fetuses, what, exactly, is it doing to me? I mean, I might not have acne, but I might lose an ear."

And think about how bad the infant side effects must've been for them to put those kinds of warnings and precautions into place. That's prime marketing space they used to print those renderings on. Clearly it worked as I've never been able to shake their misshapen heads from my conscience. I'm glad I wasn't part of that drug trial.

After talking about it at length, I couldn't believe I ran across the old prescription more than 10 years later. It scares me - think about all the discarded prescriptions like that - the trace amounts of mind and body altering drugs that are winding up in our soil, our oceans, our sewers. I'm surprised I haven't seen cats running around with heads like these - flawless skin, patchy coats, big heads with wide-set eyes.

Same as it ever was

There's nothing like clean sheets - clean comforter, clean pillowcases, the smell of powdery, flowery detergent. Ahh. Happy New Year!

I hope everyone's holidays were joyous and wonderful. Mine were exceptionally low key (work aside), which was wonderful. Christmas itself already seems like a year ago. Everyone behaved, interestingly enough. Strangely it was I who wound up pulling medical shenanigans, with weird leg cramps that won't seem to go away and that landed me in the ER the Saturday after Christmas to ultrasound for clots in my legs. Fa la la la la, I'm a freak.

New Year's Eve and Day were wonderful as they were shared with one of my best friends, a best friend who, incidentally, also dragged me out to see "Twilight" a movie I never thought I'd see. Let alone twice. Read this week's rant for more commentary on that - not only the vampire bits but the state of young adult literature in general. If anything, "Twilight" is good for a hearty laugh and it was even funnier the second time around (despite the seething glares I endured from neighboring teens in the theater who were peeved that my laughter was disrupting their soft porn enjoyment of Robert Pattinson. I'll admit, I didn't expect to find him attractive. Post movie, I can see it in a weird, convict kind of way.

Tonight was my first night back on the wagon of trying to leave work early enough to grab some food and then head to the gym - this time to a Pilates class. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it nothing like yoga, which I absolutely loathe. Rather, the idea of yoga is exceedingly appealing. The application, in reality, is appalling, particularly for someone like me who makes 96-year-olds with double hip replacements look flexible.

The newly expanded Morrison YMCA is truly beautiful. It's a tad bit intimidating to go in the new entrance and have sweating people on treadmills above you staring at you from the open second floor (or conversely, sweating on the treadmill and have everyone who's coming in glaring up at you), but I guess it maximizes the space and is better than putting something else there that might be more liable to having exercise balls bounce from the second floor down into the lobby.

I talked to my favorite Y guy Tony tonight, who was manning the "front desk." If you can even call it that. Poor guy. The front desk used to be a valid, wraparound, L-shaped desk with room for two and then some and all the trappings someone at a front desk might need. The new entrance features a small, pod-like station in the center of the hallway, around which entering and exiting traffic can walk past. It's standing-room only in the pod and there's barely room for a highlighter or cell phone now that there's a computer, keyboard, and three or four other devices that need to be monitored and a phone to be answered - all mashed into the gym equivalent of a tiny toll booth. 

That and the undersized new locker room aside, the facility is gorgeous. I was surprised to hear Tony say that they've had a few complaints from people who apparently thought they were building the Taj Mahal of gyms and thought the walls would be stainless steel and the foyer adorned with fountains. Please! There's more room for exercise classes to spread out (although with the growth of south Charlotte I'm sure those will be full to the hilt immediately) and it looks like there are more spinning bikes, although I was sad to see they all face one wall in their new room, a stark contrast to the old spinning room which looked out the windows. Granted it was largely parking lot, but at least you could zone out into the trees and grind your legs to the techno music.

And in other news, how about this crazy weather, eh? I didn't realize we lived in Seattle. What's up with all the rain, fog and wind? That wind and rain storm the other night was insane. There are tons of deer in the woods behind the house and one must've gone insane in the storm and got stuck/impaled on a neighbor's fence. (Why do I hear more and more stories of this happening? Are there more fences? Are deer just freaking out? What's the deal? I had never heard a deer-on-fence impaling story before and now suddenly I've heard like five in the past two months.) I guess the deer tried to free itself and was shredding itself to pieces. The neighbors called Animal Control but couldn't take the agonizing noises any more as the deer struggled in pain.

All I heard were three gunshots.

It's a little weird when you hear gunshots in your neighborhood and you calmly think, "I wonder what's going on at the Walters?"

They're avid hunters and occasionally shoot targets and things with BB guns in the back. I've grown surprisingly used to it. There was no mistaking these shots weren't BBs.

Animal control rounded the corner at about the same time. I heard they had a bit of trouble getting the deer off the fence. I also heard to add insult to injury they used the neighbor's wheelbarrow to haul the thing off. Not only did they have to kill it, they got to clean their wheelbarrow of the poor deer's blood and guts, too. You can't beat that.

All in all, it's been a bit of a weird week. I must sleep. Last night was the first good night of sleep I've had in weeks. I hope to have a repeat performance. I need it lately for some reason.

Sleep well - xoxo