Can I just tell you

about my very chic vintage brass lamp that I bought for my living room at a thrift store?

At first, I thought it was ugly in a cool kind of way.

Then I thought it was ugly in an ugly kind of way.

Then I read about someone on the hunt for vintage brass lamps on some design blog, and learned that I was sitting on a gold mine.

So I kep' it, and that's when the very chic vintage brass lamp became the bane of my mortal existence. The thing is freakishly large and did not come with a shade (as Marisa and I lamented recently, one of the challenges of our tax bracket is never finding a complete fabulous thing) and apparently ginormous lamp shades do not abound at any stores in my state.
I LOOKED EVERYWHERE, PEOPLE.

I tried to make it work with a normal-sized lamp shade from Target.

It looked really special.

I tried taking the lamp apart to make it shorter.

I broke it.

I had to fix it with my pink lady-sized tool kit.

And then today, just when I had given up hope and was about to spend a ridiculous amount of money on what I thought was the only friggin huge lamp shade available in Utah, I decided to drop by the thrift store where I bought this evil chic lamp.

And what did I find, but the shade that I'm sure once belonged to my lamp in 1967!
It was broken! It was ugly! It was MASSIVE! And it was five dollars! I revived and recovered it using my mad hot-gluing skills, and now my lamp has a shade.

now here's a before and after picture (because i also painted those old windows and the tv table). the rug in the 2nd pic looks really gross for some reason. it needs a lot of attention. it's like a needy boyfriend. but anyway, there you go. you can see the lamp in the second pic. again, now that i've taken a picture it still looks sad (i hope i can blame most of this on bad lighting and/or my camera), but you know. baby steps, people.

Thanks, I’ll try.

That’s what the paint counter barista at Home Depot told me last night when I said (with a friendly smile),

“Thanks – have a nice night!”

I thanked her for mixing the beautiful paint that would punch up my tv table by several orders of magnitude, and she looked at me like she was in pain, mumbling, “thanks…I’ll try.”

Maybe she was. In pain, that is.

But assuming she just had an attitude problem:

Am I just old fashioned, or is it the #1 rule of retail to always fake a positive attitude? I remember when I worked in retail in high school, I always faked it till I made it. So what if I never made it? I kept faking.

And I faked and I faked and I faked.

When I had to be a Ralph by Ralph Lauren pusher even though I think that perfume smells like hot garbage, I smiled.

When I had to tell the old lady how bitchin’ she looked in every pair of doctor-prescribed-looking shoes, I smiled.

When I had to give unclean-looking people hand massages with Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion at the good ol b.b.dub, I smiled even though that lotion should have been called High Fructose Corn Syrup and gave me a headache.

It’s just what you do when you’re working retail. You fake cheerfulness. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.

But the thing of it is, I love paint. It’s a weird thing to say, but I do. And if I were a Home Depot paint counter barista, I would be high on life (and paint fumes). And having a good night would not really be much of an effort.

You better get ready.

Because Chuck Bass and his friends are back in action next Monday, and it’s gonna be good.

I will even sit through the hot mess that is the Lily/Rufus saga for the next chapter of Chuck and Blair. But kind of mostly Chuck, because hello:

I’m also really hoping they’ve got some good Nate Archibald drama cooking. Ever since I saw Chace Crawford on Jimmy Fallon last week, I’ve got man bangs fever. Seriously! Have you ever seen Chace on a talk show?! He has got to be the most precious southern boy ever born. I mean, all the Texas talk, and the shout outs to his mom, and the modesty, and the careless hair…

I just read this, and I sound 13. So I’ll stop.

I’m just really excited for new episodes of Gossip Girl, and I wanted to tell someone. Here’s a little something to whet your whistle:

A little sermon, or the one in which I blog about blogging.

When I tell people I have a blog, they respond with one of two things:

1) So do I. Let’s do our secret handshake!
2) I could never blog. I don’t have anything to say.

If they respond with the latter, I give them my spiel about how ANYONE can blog, and you don’t need to have a lot to say to maintain an active blog. In fact, the best posts are short and based around a very simple thought. Just a fleeting whim in the transfers of your mind is all you need for a good blog post.

In fact, the hardest part about it is not coming up with content, but remembering that thought, and writing it down before it goes stale and loses relevancy in your own mind. Does that make sense? I probably tell myself, “I should blog about this” about 20 times a day. The only reason I don’t post 20 times a day is that I forget what I told myself to blog about, or the thought goes stale and therefore the post would read stale.

Anyway, one blog that does this masterfully is My Religious Blog. You Mormons will love this one. The posts are short, focused and hilarious. I recommend checking in with it regularly if you’re in the mood to lol. And, pay attention to his posting style. Just proof that a blog doesn't have to be groundbreaking and eloquent to be great.

I don’t know about you,

but this whole Daylight Savings Time circus is really not my favorite holiday.

Yesterday, I felt fine, because it was Sunday. On Sundays I don’t have to be anywhere until noon, so even when I’m technically losing an hour of sleep…I’m still probably getting my eight hours.

Good to go.

Last night, I had an inordinate amount of energy. Like, crazy amounts of energy. At about 9, I decided to color my hair. Then I proceeded to do a full blowout and flat iron to get the full effect.

I then played my guitar for a solid hour and a half. I learned all kinds of chords.

At 1:30, I found myself popping in a movie. My DVD cabinet didn’t look too organized. I took care of it. I alphabetized the whole library. I moved shelves. I debated between mixing in the TV on DVD with the other discs or keeping them separate, eventually deciding full integration was the best policy. I thought about the DVDs I have loaned out to other people and left room for them on the appropriate shelves (in related news, I wish I would get my 30 Rock DVDs back).

A little after 2, I found myself crawling into bed with the movie going after alphabetizing my entire DVD library, wondering, “what is wrong with me?!”

And today, I’m tired, and I hate it. I know – super original of me to be whining about this.

I’m done now.

Now Hear This.

Lest I fall off Kathleen’s blog roll, I have decided to quickly post something.

I know that this blog is not the most intelligent thing you will read today.

Let me rephrase that.

I sincerely hope that this blog is not the most intelligent thing you will read today. But, just in case, here is a little gem of wisdom from the one and only Jack Donaghy:

"If you want to go anywhere in life, you have to dress for success. That’s why I sponsor a charity that donates tuxedos to homeless people."

You're welcome, internets!

why i love mark zuckerberg.

i don't watch the bachelor, and this is why:

once upon a time, there was a very earnest college sophomore named hollylynn. she had watched every episode of the bachelor/bachelorette there was. she and her roommates loved every season and watched faithfully as a "family." even though she can't remember a single contestant at all now, the bachelor(ette) franchise was very important to her, and it was so nice to see chris harrison getting work other than on that horrendous hgtv show, designer's challenge (which she also loved a lot, btw). no, she doesn't remember any of them. except one.

the one with meredith.

you remember meredith, too. short dark hair, square jaw, terrible at making huge life decisions on tv...ringing any bells?

you know...this clown:


it was a pretty standard season of the bachelorette until she chose ian over matt. or was it matt over ian? who has time to think about names, anyway.

the point is, hollylynn, along with one of her roommates (someone remind me which one!) was in love with matt/ian/the one that didn't get picked and they knew that since they couldn't have him because they were no good at sharing, that meredith should have him. they were mfeo.

but it goes beyond that. not only were the girls miffed about meredith's poor choice, they actually cried about it.

tears.

it was very emotional.

and one of the other roommates (it was kassie or rashelle...one who wasn't crying) took pictures of hollylynn and her roommate, boo-hooing over stupid meredith. all i can say is: good thing facebook hadn't been invented yet, because that was not a pretty picture. and had mark zuckerberg gotten around to his invention just a year or two earlier, there would be a horrid picture tagged of hollylynn, crying at a reality tv show, online for the viewing pleasure/horror of all those who would facebook stalk her forever more.

so thank you, mark zuckerberg, for putting off your innovation until hollylynn's junior year. because of facebook's delayed inception, she was able not only to actually focus on her studies for the first two years of school, but she was also able to escape public humiliation (until she subjected herself to it anyway by writing this post).