I’ve happily had this song stuck in my head for several weeks, ever since Lelo sent me a copy of part of his Mp3 collection. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never been a Barry Manilow fan, but his version of ‘Moonlight Serenade’ is particularly attractive. I think mostly it’s because I can’t ever recall hearing the lyrics before. I’m very familiar with the tune and have been for as long as I can remember, but the lyrics, those are lovely. Now I’m dying to find a karaoke bar that would – by some quirk of fate – have that song in its collection. I would love to stand up in front of perfect strangers and belt that out, infusing all the emotions I can muster. And, of course, in this dream performance I’ll be in my lovely pale gold silk charmeuse Veronica Lake dress. In case you don’t know, silk charmeuse is exactly what you’d imagine when someone mentions luxurious silk. It is exquisitely soft to the touch. Almost like satin, only it’s incredibly light and glides gently in the breeze. It’s heaven. While I was in Oakland I went to a silk outlet that imports all of their silks from China. Mmm. They had the absolute perfect bolt of pale gold Veronica Lake silk charmeuse. Normally that stuff would be about $45-$70 a yard – I got it for under $10 a yard! My Mom and my friend Becky – the same lady who helped me with my other ball gown to get ready to go to Berlin – are going to make it for me. I’m really excited. It’ll be a dress to die for. Perchance we’ll see the birth of an Infamous Kick Butt *Gold* Dress. But no worries: this silk place also had the perfect Kick Butt Red Dress fabric, so I’ll be getting that too.

But I digress. (But digressing in silk never warrants an apology.) I’m still not sure I’m a Barry fan, but I do like that song. I’ve probably heard it a few dozen too many times in the past few weeks. I’m dying to sing it right now, but alas, I think some people in the house would be rather upset with me if I staged a solo performance at two in the morning.

I really like songs from that era. Not just Big Band, but the whole works. About twenty minutes ago I was in the basement and I put the ‘Royal Wedding’ DVD into the player and watched Fred Astaire dance as he sang, “I Left my Hat in Haiti.” I love that number. I got it stuck in my head on the way back from Oakland, but the trouble was, I’ve only seen the number twice so I couldn’t remember many of the lyrics or any of the dance steps except the very beginning. So, I’ll admit it, I danced along to the video as much as I could – it’s hard to do barefoot because of my four poor left toes. I really need to get some dance shoes, the problem is they’re so dang expensive. $50 for tap shoes that probably take about $5 worth of leather to construct. It’s insane.

That dance routine wasn’t enough, though. Even though my foot was hurting, I danced along to a cute scene with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire in it. You know, those two men were amazing. And it’s even more remarkable to see them dancing side-by-side. The differences in style, and yet they mesh so well together. (Plus, in this dance sequence, at one point Fred has a gray goatee and he’s so cute! He looks like Freud, in a good way.)

You know what makes me happy about Lush? They discontinued my favorite shampoo, Ibiza Party. No, that’s not a typo, that really does make me happy. Why? Because they replaced it with something even better! They have a new shampoo made with sea salts and all sorts of yummy things. It’s called “Big” and it does just that – my hair has never been so perfectly voluptuous. It has bounce, it’s no longer weighed down by the gel that I have to put on it to control the frizz and create perfect little ringlets. Instead, it’s light to the touch, soft as silk (charmeuse, even!), and yet it still curls scrumptiously and doesn’t frizz. I’m in love with Lush. The weirdest thing is the new shampoo isn’t even really like shampoo at all – it’s not a gel or a creme, it’s actually a bunch of gooey salt. Sounds nasty, I know, but only a pea-sized amount lathers up my entire head of hair. To give you some sense of perspective, I have so much hair on my head that when I try to dye it, it takes at least two boxes of dye to cover all of it. And to think a pea-sized amount of Lush shampoo makes my hair so yummy and still conditions it so much it only takes one minute to brush it out. That’s one minute less than it took with Ibiza Party! I’m really happy. After over 16 years of having to spend hours brushing out my hair, giving myself the worst headache you could imagine, and pulling out enough hair to clothe Cousin It, you can imagine why I’m so thrilled about this.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m babbling because I’m really tired but feel really icky – I’ve eaten strange food today because I was out and about, and now I’m paying for it with a sad stomach and a really obnoxious headache. Plus, I just watched ‘Legally Blonde 2’, so my head’s all full of warm fuzzies, french manicures, and lots and lots of pink. Lots. Hence all the expressed appreciation for fabulous haircare products and oodles of praise for silk charmeuse.

Sorry, I promise the overt girliness will subside soon. But I still really want that dress… and I still love my shampoo…

I’ve managed to get a lot done today, despite having to spend quite a bit of time driving to the doctor, getting stuff done there, then driving back. I had to drive through a scary situation on the beltway today – a van had a tire blow out big time. So bad, in fact, that pieces of the rest of their car went flying all over the beltway with everyone going around 75mph. I was right there and had to drive through a cloud of debris. Remarkably, I wasn’t frightened and did such a good job avoiding the crap flying around that the BMW didn’t even get a scratch. Honestly, it was kind of fun, like my own personal little Clive moment. 🙂 And, after all, those Clive moments are precisely the reason everyone should own a BMW. Mmhmm.

You know what I love? Dermatologists. If I were a doctor, I’d be one of them, solely because they have the best toys. I went to see my Dermatologist today because a blood vessel burst on my left cheek – nothing serious, just a little red mark that’s always there. It’s been there for about six months and it was somewhat irritating. I’m so white and it was so pink that I couldn’t even cover it up with make-up. It looked like a constant zit, and that’s just not good. So I asked my doctor and she said, “They’ve got something that can take care of that.”


It’s a laser! Isn’t that cool!? I got zapped with a laser today to have a red spot taken away. It felt like I was on Star Trek. I’m absolutely thrilled that medical science is getting *this* much closer to tricorders. All it took was one little zap and the Doc said that it’ll most likely go away within the next two weeks. If not, I’ll get zapped again in four weeks. I love that. I wish all trips to the doctor were this easy – it didn’t even hurt.

The rest of the day I worked on designing the website for Prophet, Inc. Then, I called the Virginia Corporation Commission to see about what I need to file to add some more people to my Board of Directors – my brother Timothy is going to join the Board as our Director of Psychology, and Child Development Advisor to the Daily Prophet. Great title, isn’t it? And he’s actually qualified for it! His undergraduate degree is in Psychology, and he has several years experience working with psychologically troubled children and teenagers, as well as the mentally handicapped. He’ll be great fun to work with. According to the Corporation Commission, I won’t have to file any forms until my Annual Report next August. Until then, I can just name him and it’ll be official. Now I have to think of a cute, ceremonial way to announce it officially. Anyone have any ideas?

I also had enough time this afternoon to get some serious work done on a project I’ve been meaning to take care of for some time – online photo galleries! Huzzah! The first – which I’ve actually been working on for four months, but then forgot about – is a collection of pictures of me when I was a baby. It started out just as a project to scan all my baby pictures and recreate my missing baby book, but then some people heard about it and wanted to see some pics. So, here they are.


Also, here’s a lovely gallery of bugs. Right now it’s just butterflies, but later I hope to add some other creepy crawlies in there.


Finally, some pictures from my day in San Francisco with Tim. Just a note: I forgot to add captions to the pictures, so when you come to a picture labeled “Leggo My Eggo”, it’s named that because the guy in the picture was singing a rather ridiculous song which consisted of just rhyming certain things in a continuous strain of nonsense. Somehow, “Leggo My Eggo” fit into this, and it made me laugh. Also check out “Plumber Girl” – a little three year old girl we saw on the beach. That had Tim and I laughing for ages.

I think that’s enough babbling for now. Maybe I should try and sleep through this annoyance. Or not. We’ll see. Good night!