A Pumpkin is a Fruit

Last night my boyfriend and I finally got around to carving our jack-o-lanterns. It was a really nice break from the normal evening routine and a good way to forget about work and laundry and bills, etc.

I mean, nothing cures one's ails like taking out some artful aggression on an over-sized squash, right?

My boyfriend's pumpkin (with the bat) is on the left, and mine (with the spider) is on the right.

What if I Entered the Conference Room in a Cupcake

Pray for me. I have to interview people today for the first time ever in my life, for my department's open copy editor position. I hope they don't pick up on the fact that I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing.

I think it will be OK. And either way, I'm getting a massage after all of it, at 4:00, in order to help with my back pain, so even if the interviews do go horribly wrong, at least maybe the stress will get massaged right out of me.

Plus ... yesterday some random person e-mailed one of our editors and asked her to please, please consider this item for the magazine's holiday gift guide:


It's a Cupcake Car. You can get one for a cool $25,000 right here.

I look at that photo, and suddenly, I feel better.

Image property of Neiman Marcus

My Job is Bad for My Health and Other News Bulletins

I took the above picture only a few moments ago. This is part of our "backyard" here at the condo, and that's a little family of javelinas that passes through every so often. Last night, while my boyfriend and I were eating dinner, we had opened our patio doors and so we could hear these guys munching around in the dark out there.

This morning, I got up and went out to the kitchen to open our window shades and make our coffee and, lo and behold, the javelina herd was still there, chewing up whatever edible things they could find among the dirt and rocks.

I watched them for a long time. I think next time they come by I should try to make a short video of them to post here. They're interesting creatures that a person might never really get to see unless he or she lives in the Southwest.

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A couple of months ago I messed up my back. Actually, correction: A couple of months ago my back started feeling like it was messed up. Every time I stand up after sitting for a long time, I can't immediately straighten up. It's like my back seizes up, and I have to walk several steps before I can stand up to my full height. It's been very uncomfortable and at times, pretty painful.

I'm only 25 years old, and if I didn't do so much desk work, I'd say I had no idea why this was happening to me when I'm still so young. But for all I know, I've been doing damage to it for years, via poor posture for too many hours spent sitting at a desk, combined with eye strain, neck strain, stress and who knows, maybe even the occasional inaccurately performed yoga pose or weight-lifting move.

So I've started going to a chiropractor. Which, by the way, I will fully admit that I was skeptical about doing in the beginning.

I think most people grow up going to an eye doctor, a dentist and a physician, and that's pretty much what they stick with for the rest of their lives. But how did we all decide that those were the only three doctors we ever needed to see regularly? Maybe it's just tradition by now.

At any rate, I think going to a chiropractor for a regular checkup is a great idea. I've been going for treatment for just over a month now and I'm starting to understand why we shouldn't ignore our spines. I'm also wondering why in the world I thought that they only special parts of my body that needed special doctors were my teeth and my eyes. Now it makes sense to me that my bones and my spine need special attention, too.

So two to three times a week I've been having my back and neck adjusted, and my treatment will last for a few more months. I've definitely become more conscious of my posture during the workdays. And I try to take more breaks to get up and stretch and walk around.

This whole experience has been a really excellent reminder to me of just how human I am; I can't just abuse my body and not expect to face the consequences. If I'm not good to it, it's going to let me know it's unhappy with me eventually, one way or another.

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And while we're on the subject of bodies threatening to break down ... my eyes ... hurt ...

A week and a half ago -- or maybe two weeks, I don't know, time is running together -- my eyes started getting really red and sensitive to light, and my vision started to become blurrier. I just figured that my eyes were tired from too much work and that my vision was just doing what it's always done -- gotten worse.

Nope. I was wrong. I went to the optometrist's office yesterday and they told me that I have infections in both my eyes caused by wearing my contacts for too many hours at a time, which is also suffocating my eyes because they're not getting enough oxygen, and the tiny infiltrates in my eyes, combined with the white blood cells that are fighting the infection, are scattering the light, causing everything to appear brighter and blurrier.

And the doctor also said that the infections are so bad that they're one step away from cornea ulcers. Cornea. Ulcers. I could have ulcers. On my eyes.

So now I am banned from wearing my contacts, and in fact, I have to throw out the rest of the contacts I bought for the next six months because it turns out I have to switch to a different, more "breathable" kind. AND, I get to put a steroid antibiotic drop in both eyes every three hours from now until my next check-up with the doctor Friday morning. Meanwhile, driving has become a tad bit more challenging during the day, and I just don't drive anywhere past sunset if I can help it. My boyfriend's been nice enough to chauffeur me around. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

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Tonight I'm going to the pre-opening party of the Barneys New York in Scottsdale Fashion Square mall.

My editor and I are on a super secret mission. First, he and I must look the part -- there will be Armani suits and Chanel dresses involved. Next, there will be cocktails of the most frivolous, most delicious variety. And last, but not least, there will be charm like you've never seen charm before ... Our mission? To locate and approach Barneys creative director and fashion expert Simon Doonan and elicit from him some of the most burning questions in the fashion industry this holiday, i.e., "Simon, what do you want for Christmas?"

OK, so it's not really a secret mission, and we'll probably actually wear something like J. Crew and Banana Republic, but we do still have to track down that adorable man amid a crowd of gorgeous, expensively dressed socialites and ask him holiday questions, lest we wanted our editor in chief to kill us come the December issue. It will be just like an episode of Alias, I'm telling you.

Good times!

Puppies Make Everything Better

The bad news is that one of the web publications I've been freelancing for, my highest-paying client, actually, has cut back on freelance articles (I suspect due to budget constraints), and so I will be receiving significantly fewer checks from them. Bugger.

The good news is that this video makes me feel so much better about, well, everything:

Test

"This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received actual instructions on where to go and what to do." -- Angela Chase, My So-Called Life



Have you ever gone through a personal crisis and just thought that it seemed so unfair that the world just kept on turning? Like how you're still expected to return phone calls, go to work, pay bills and get groceries? When all you really want to do is stop somebody, maybe even everybody, and say, "Hey, wait a minute. I can't deal with all this crap right now. I have bigger problems to take care of. Can't it wait?"

But the sick thing is, it can't wait. You still have work to do, you still have a family that needs you, and you definitely still have bills to pay. And so we simply have to deal. On the fly. On the go.

Have you ever noticed that how people deal with things -- how we all process the bad stuff that has happened or is happening to us -- really reflects what each of us is all about? Some people lock themselves in their bedroom for hours and cry their eyes out, some people watch TV, some people punch pillows, some people punch other people, some people drink, and some people start wielding weapons ...

We all deal different ways, because we're obviously all very different. Sad, non-confrontational, frustrated, angry, apathetic, aggressive. During really bad times it's like we get stripped down to the basic stuff we're made of in order to find out what kind of mental and emotional obstacles we're capable of overcoming.

But the really interesting thing is, this is always going on. Every person is dealing with something. And whether that something requires five seconds or 50 minutes to fully be explained, it is still being dealt with, still being processed, still testing that person.

I am currently dealing with a personal crisis. Probably just like everyone else. And I'm trying to remember that latter part every day. The cashier at my regular coffee shop ... The teller at my bank ... My coworkers ... Maybe they're all dealing with difficult things, too. Maybe the next time someone comes up to me and says something mean or rude, I'll be able to hear what they might really be saying: "Hey, wait a minute. I can't deal with all this crap right now. I have bigger problems to take care of. Can't it wait?"