Before I am in Paris!

Last night some friends and I watched The Darjeeling Limited, and my running comment through the whole thing was “Those boys should have let me pack for them, that is way to much crap” (Ok, the other running comment was about the naughty things I would do to Adrien Brody and his gorgeous nose) Things you should know about me dear readers. I am completely OCD about packing. Not about anything else, but when I pack it is a sight to be seen. I know down to the ounce how much shampoo, conditioner, face soap, body wash, lotion, hair goop, perfume, etc. that I will use for a week, two weeks or three weeks. I test it out with sample bottles at home. I hate that I might have to skip some part of my normal beauty regime (I have really good skin mostly because I take really good care of it) so I refuse to skip something because I am traveling.

So I have been working really hard to whittle everything down into small enough containers so that I can fit it all into a quart sized ziplock.

I also like to play bathroom chemist. I hate having to use 3 products when one would do fine. So I took my normal face moisturizer with anti-zit medication and mixed it with some foundation. It works really well as a sheer tinted moisturizer. I also mixed my moisturizing body wash with my drying face wash and came out with a really awesome bottle of stuff that works all over my body. And I have switched all my normal makeup products for things that come in pencil form. I don’t wear a lot of makeup to begin with, just eyeliner and lip gloss but I have a problem with EVERY SINGLE LIP COLOR I wear making my lips into some horrible candy pink color. Think teen hooker Barbie. I found an awesome lip gloss pencil in bronze that doesn’t make me look like a streetwalker in candy land. YAY.

Now that toiletries are done (and mostly packed- I just have to throw my bag of makeup pencils in) I am working on clothes.

The clothes part for Paris is daunting.

This handy little backpack from ebags is what I take for trips from weekend length to 3 weeks long. (Mine is in a now discontinued pink color- HA). It is barely bigger than my school backpack, weighs less than 3 pounds and is awesome.

I don’t want to look like garrish American tourist but I also don’t want to look like a boring middle aged traveler with a wardrobe of black pants, black skirt, ugly blouses. This trip we won’t be there long enough to do laundry (one of my favorite things about traveling is sending the laundry out to be washed by someone else). So I have to either bring things that can be worn more than once without looking wrinkled and lame (like jeans) and/or pack a particular outfit for each day. I’ve been making lists, trying things on, remaking lists. It’s sad really.

My one best hints for packing clothes is using a couple of 2 gallon sized ziplock bags instead of spending money on compression bags or folders. You just roll the air out of them like you would a compression bag.

I also have a large microfiber towel that is awesome (packs tiny, sucks up mountains of water, dries fast and doubles as a blanket) and a silk bathrobe that always go with me. And I have a tote bag that folds into itself so it’s no bigger than a key chain. This is very handy for carting food from the grocery store or laundry to the cleaners and as an overflow bag when I come home loaded with goodies (the Kid always gets a t-shirt from wherever I go and I am bringing back wine for the two darlings who have agreed to watch the Kid while I galavant around the world).

Can you all still respect me knowing that I am packing freak of nature?

Before I am in Paris!

Things you should know about me dear readers. I am completely OCD about packing. Not about anything else, but when I pack it is a sight to be seen. I know down to the ounce how much shampoo, conditioner, face soap, body wash, lotion, hair goop, perfume

when this is the graffiti in front of your house (or my house as the case may be)

that most of the guys I date are foreign, and generally not white. This guy, and all guys like him. All all guys who maybe aren’t like him but can “see his point”. And all guys who want to be like him. And all guys who have ever thought of being like him.

I’ll take over-educated Asians, Latin Americans and even some Europeans rather than come within a thousand feet of the “Angry White Guy”. Shit I’d become a celibate nun before coming within a thousand feet of this guy, and I don’t really believe in god.

Maybe they are angry white guys beause the women they used to get to subjugate have discovered that hot Asian guys are better hung than the stereotype implies, or that there really is something to the Latin lover thing. Hell, at this point even the mildest Canadian would be more interesting than Angry White Guy.

Via Jeff Fecke at Shakesville, a white guy with more sense than the writer of this stupid article and all the angry white guys he thinks are being ignored.

After yet another scary, awful home crisis (I’m not getting into it y’all- I’m really tired of being a charity case) I still managed to finish the little essay I was working on.

It’s been edited for grammar by my good friend Ms. J, the schoolteacher, and content by B!

It was submitted just a minute ago. Wish me luck. I am wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more nervous about this one than i was about the last one (prolly because last time I was in the middle of Effexor withdrawl and just keeping my wits about me left little room for nervousness.)

Regarding Obama’s recent open letter to the LGBT community

It’s one thing to keep your ears open to other voices, it’s an entirely different thing to give lip service in an open letter while inviting religious bigots to help with your campaign.

Are we ladies who periodically feel down about his sexist dogwhistles going to get a meaningless open letter next?

Actions and words Mr. Obama. You don’t get to shake our hand with your right while smacking us in the face with your left.

I was watching a show on PBS the other day about polar bears and grizzly bears and I noticed something that may send the Walk of the Penguins loving fundies into a tailspin of cognitive dissonance.

Nature loves the single mother lead family, especially in large predators. See bears, lions, tigers (actually most cats).

So if god hates single moms and homosexuals- why did he make so many examples of them in nature? Or is the devil responsible for those editions?

When you can download books to your phone.

I am totally in love with this. I’ve got 6 novels on my phone now and when the Kid needed to read War of the Worlds for school we put it on his phone too.

Mostly it is books that are past the copyright date, but there are a few contemporary writers who put things up too. I’m fine with the classics though, being that I am a serious anglophile when it comes to reading. I just finished Wilkie Collins No Name

That I am rarely wrong? Oh I will freely admit it when I am (I actually have to write a post about how you can defeminate women after having a lovely chat with my doctor) but it is rare enough that I get to claim royal status.

What, you thought the queen thing was just cause of my giant ego? giant ego alone would make me a princess. Giant brain makes me Queen.

So after that bit of braggery (not a word, I know) more proof that your fearless leader wasn’t wrong about the white dudes.

Obama has based his entire strategy on sending messages to white males, assuring them he will take race and sex privilege off the table of American discourse