Gibson Girl

I feel bad for Mondays. They get such a bad rap. It's not Mondays' fault that they have to go right after Sunday-- clearly the best day of the week. How are they supposed to follow Sundays and still be somewhat cool?

But really, weekends are the best invention ever. Particularly weekends in October. Is there anything better? Always plenty of pumpkin pancakes, watching Say Yes to the Dress, NFL, going to farmers markets, and making soup.

Being a busy twentysomething living in LA on the third floor of an apartment building without cable is a little less ideal for lazy fall weekends. But just like everything in LA I am learning to adapt. I stir in pumpkin puree into my oatmeal instead of making oodles of pancakes. Then there's always Netflix and Rachel-visiting for television. I missed out on my family's trip to Wilcox this weekend-- my first ever-- but have found another pumpkin patch up north that I am going to visit on Saturday. I'm making it work. Tim Gunn would be proud.

Friday was a perfect welcome mat to my weekend. In the morning I headed into work at my payday loan consolidation call center job (Let's just call it SOS... the name of the company in my sketch based on said call center job) for a couple hours before heading to West Hollywood for a JOB INTERVIEW WITH A MAJOR, MAJOR COMPANY.

Yes, indeed, I can't say what company. As soon as they found out I had a blog they were very quick to mention that I couldn't say anything about it. Duh. But it was an honor to be there, let me tell you that. The building was enormous and enormously intimidating. There were large gold emblems on the walls and everyone had lanyards around their necks to buzz them into different doors. I couldn't stop smiling. It was a nice feeling to be somewhere near what I want to do. Just to refill a little bit of that hope. I may have been running a bit low. The interview went really well. They did their best to scare me, and believe me, they did. But I'm a tough cookie. We'll see what happens.

Friday night was movie night--- with my two favorite ladies, Sarah and Danielle from SOS. I have to be honest with you, I secretly love working at SOS, if anything simply because now I can call these girls my friends. We all get to work every morning at 7 am so we can catch up with each other over breakfast and coffee. I don't know what I'd do without them-- we constantly keep each other laughing throughout the day. This was our first real life friendship outing. It was pretty successful, me thinks. We went and saw 50/50, with Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Seth Rogen about best friends dealing with cancer. It was BEAUTIFUL. A lovely balance between comedy and real life stuff. We all tried not to cry or sniffle in front of each other, which was kind of hilarious. It was a big step in our friendship. I'm lucky to know them. Thanks, SOS.

Saturday morning I went to my obligatory Yoga XFlowsion class before packing up some Trader Joe's goodies and heading to Rachel's... for the most epic day ever. Just thinking about it makes me smile. Though once I got into the USC area all of my unfortunate memories from two weekends ago flooded back to me... but I conquered them and now have new happy Rachel thoughts to replace them.

Rachel and I are two of a kind, really. Every time we see each other we're still so excited that I FINALLY live in California. We turned on her beautiful, beautiful cable loving television to catch some college football. Then we got to work on some homemade food: apple pie, 5 layer bean dip, lavash chips, guacamole, and fresh popcorn right off the stove.

It was some kind of beautiful--- the autumny breeze rolling in through the window, cuddled up on the couch with a refreshing cold Stella, delicious warm aroma in the air.... Mmm. And of course, all the while we were decked out in our teal and black to support the first game of the season for the SAN JOSE SHARKS!

It was an amazing game--- we beat the silly Phoenix Coyotes 6-2. Very good for the ego. Talk about a season opener!

During the game I start putzing with my hair. I knew the general idea of how to do a fishtail braid but had never really tried. I secured my silly braid into an elastic and went into the bathroom to see it. I screamed. This was my first fishtail braid EVER ya'll. I must have magical fingers.

It's the little things in life, friends.

I somehow motivated myself to get out of bed yesterday morning to go to Yoga Shelter, grumbling all the while. I'm glad I went though. First of all it got me out of the house, and second of all, dear ol' Deborah needed me.

Deborah is a 54-year-old woman who was doing yoga for the first time ever... at Yoga Shelter. A little ambitious. She talked my ear off before class, expressing her concern about not keeping up but proudly boasting the amount of money she saved by buying the classes on Groupon. By the time class started I knew her whole life story-- bad trick knees and epileptic dog included. She did really well though, despite giving a few exasperated grunts from time to time and muttering things to me in between downward dogs. I just kept telling her to go into child's pose, it's okay, Deborah. She thanked me profusely for helping and comforting her as we walked out together.

There must be a lesson here, somewhere. Perhaps it's when you're feeling unmotivated, get off the couch and do stuff anyways. If not for you, then for Deborah. You never know when she might need you.

And now for some quick updates on life:

I am currently signing Jamie and I up for a Turkey Trot in Santa Monica for Thanksgiving. It's only a little baby 5K, not too bad. Just enough to burn off some percentage of the mass quantity of food we will certainly consume during the day.

I am also still on the hunt for some sort of recreational team to join. YWCA's activities have been rather uninspirational while the various women's rugby teams have become more intimidating upon closer inspection. I've found some volunteer jobs with kids that I need to follow up on though. Anything to get me out of the house and keep me busy!

I am unfortunately and pathetically back on OkCupid. I KNOW, you guys. I get how lame it is. This time its much less comedic and much more embarrassing, as I can no longer use the convenient "I'm-a-writer-I-need-material" excuse. Done that. But really, those boys love me on OkCupid. They say the nicest things. You know the saying "cowards write their insults"? Well the hopeless romantic cowards send me flattering messages on OkCupid. Sorry, Johnny, I know how I am disappointing you. But the good news about OkCupid is that I can really screen through people: You were in marching band? That's not going to work. You can't grow facial hair? No thanks. You're only 5'6"? I'd rather not. You know. Being picky on an internet based level is slightly more acceptable, right? I'd deactivate my account but it says I have to be active for at least a week... (Another convenient theory). I GUESS I'll just have to keep checking my nice honeyed messages from boys until then.

I've been hanging out with Jackie a lot recently and it has been so refreshing. We spent so much time together when I first got to LA and then I got swamped with life. Now that things are settling down it's been so lovely catching up with her. We saw The Ides of March last night--- pretty darn fantastic. Jackie is also currently in makeup school and asked me the other day to come be a model in her class.

Hrmm.

I'm working with her friend, Hillie, a sassy 29-year-old with long bleach blonde dreads. She's awesome. They're working on different eras right now. Jackie showed Hillie a picture of me on facebook and Hillie said she instantly knew what she wanted to do with me.

THIS:

A Gibson Girl, turn of the century. I've been told I look good in bonnets before, but this? Well, hand me a glass bottle of cola and call me Mary! I am slightly bummed, simply because the girls around me were getting 1940s curls and lipstick and 1970s Farrah Fawcett waves and icy eyeshadow... and then there was me... hair teased and flopped on my head like a big pile of hair poop with just white powder on my face. Ah well. I like being different. Pictures to come soon!

I hope everyone has found something pleasant to do, see, or eat on their Monday. After all, "mon" in French means "my", so technically every Monday is "my-day". Isn't that special?

I made some homemade veggie pizza and only have four more episodes of Arrested Development before I'm DONE. I know what I'm doing tonight.

Happy Monday, ya'll. Kisses.