Am I Pretty Yet?

My absolute favorite beauty tip has got to be the one given to me by my very good and overly-concerned friend, way back in middle school. One day on the playground, after talking and laughing with a few guys, she pulled me aside and told me, very earnestly and with big eyes, that if I kept laughing so much I'd get nasty lines around my mouth, and then I would be ugly. Hideously ugly. No boy would ever want to speak to me, and I'd be in a state of perpetual loneliness. FOREVER.

Horrified, I stopped laughing and smiling for the rest of the day, before getting on the bus that afternoon and realizing what a completely retarded concept it was. Show absolutely no joy or personality, and people will love you. Didn't make much sense. Besides, I looked constipated everytime I tried to hold back a laugh. And a state of perpetual constipation isn't much of a victory over a state of perpetual loneliness.

After that reasoning, I dismissed the idea, and didn't think about it again until...

[GAS STATION, THE MAGAZINE RACK...]

{Alex and I stand in the gas station, chatting. Alex tells a hilarious joke, and I laugh hard at it. We keep talking, drifting over to the magazine rack.}

MOI: "Heh, baby seal walks into a club... that's highbrow stuff, right there." *picks up an issue of Cosmo* "Well, what do we have here...?"

{As I pick it up, the Cosmo Cover Girl turns her head and frowns at me.}

COSMO: "So, I see you were laughing pretty hard at that boy's joke."

MOI: {O_O} "...Alex, the magazine is speaking to me."

ALEX: *flipping through Sports Illustrated* "I don't care about your hip art school jargon, Keeley. If you like it, buy it."

COSMO: "Keeley, do you know what happens when you smile too much?"

MOI: "…People like you?"


COSMO: "You get smile lines, Keeley! Big, ugly parenthesis around your lips and eyes!"

MOI: “Oh… right. I've heard that before."

COSMO: "And it's true! Listen, if you keep going around, laughing and smiling as wide as you are now, you're going to look horrible in a few years! Pitbull cheeks, Keeley! Churchill-esque jowls!"

MOI: "Churchill-ESQUE?"

COSMO: "Damn skippy."

MOI: "...Wow. Yeah, that’s… that’s too bad about that."

COSMO: "Yes, it is. So, the next time Alex tells a funny joke, what’re you going to do?"

MOI: “Mmm…”

True, it seemed like a stupid tip back in middle school. However, now I've heard this little factoid from not one but TWO sources. And really, Cosmo has a pretty straight record of accuracy if you look at the Letters to the Editor page. They seem to have helped many women... why should I be so quick to judge?

[THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL...]

ALEX: "...And so then he says, 'I've been through many hardships'!" *grins*

MOI: "…You’re a cunt."

ALEX: "What?"

MOI: "YAY, I’m beautiful!"

And with that, it was decided; from now on, I'm going to smile as scarsely as possible so that people will love me! Best idea EVER.

MOI: "So, wanna go grab a pizza?"

ALEX: "You just called me a cunt!"

MOI: "Great! So I'll see you at seven, then!"

Yep. Loneliness is for happy people.

[PS - Completely unsubtle and unoriginal snipe at beauty industry... check. Buy me a drink.]

A Kickstart to Blogging

Today was Awesome. It was Awesome with a capital A. It was awesome in every sense.

• Chose a new route to run - a 2.5 miler up John Street and back down again, with one considerable hill by the observatory. The weather was beautiful, I felt fantastic, and my iPod played all Basshunter songs even though I set it to shuffle and the majority of my main playlist songs are classical. Another runner came off from the dormside at the first stoplight and I followed his back, watching him get further and further away until he turned onto Bailey's.
• Recorded Skip's friend, Professor Owen Butler, playing the ney. The ney is a Persian flute with no reed - you make the sound by pressing it against your palate and vibrating the inside of your mouth. Professor Butler spoke like a Woody Allen Jew, and asked him to call him "Owen, for God's sake". He had asked a dentist to split his teeth further apart to make his ney playing easier. There are four tiers of ney playing, and he is on the first - only four people in the world are on the fourth.
• As a thank you, Skip gave me the most amazing hippy chocolate with instructions on the back, telling you exactly how you should eat it. One tasted like cardamon and dark chocolate and dried figs and orange, the other tasted like sea salt and almonds and milk chocolate. Both were exquisite. Both were very hippy.
• Mark visited me in the ADR room while Prof. Butler was playing, stuck around a while. Alice came by later and gave me a copy of her LGBT Commercial, fixed the sound. We watched Drunk History and laughed about the hippy chocolate and some pamphlets her PR professor gave her, involving old clothes.
• Went to the mall and Wegmans with Blaire, Dan, and Alex. Told them Stef's android story, got their opinions. Bought a cinnamon role from Subway that made my intestines curdle. My Sprite had no fountain syrup in it, so Dan dumped it out in the fill grate and poured me a Cherry Coke. Guessed Dan's birthday - wrong. Ran through Wegmans with Blaire, looking for Hot Pockets. Finally have food in the apartment again, so I can eat at home tomorrow.
• Took out the trash. All of it. Threw it away. All of it.
• Wrote Alex's birthday note and got to watch him laugh hysterically via Skype as he read it. Easily the best part of the day.

Life rocks.

The people who never do stuff that they decide is stupid are the same people who start every story with, "This guy I know..." instead of "So I was at this Denny's in Alabama at 3AM when a trucker started assaulting me with ketchup bottles..."

Home Again, Home Again

One of my favorite things about the holidays - aside from the road rage, the sub-degree weather, and the suffocating amount of Christmas carols on the radio - are the gifts. And not just the ones addressed to me: buying gifts for other people and seeing the reactions is also a big part of it:

[SCENE - Random Holiday Living Room]

(A group of people give each other gifts beside an open fire.)

Boy: *opens present* "Oh wow, cool, a Zelda shirt!" *reads* "...You make me hard like the Water Temple?"

Girl: {^_^}

Third Person: "OH GOD, THE FIRE! IT SPREADS! WHY DID WE MAKE IT OPEN?!"

Just memories of loud and merry gatherings, exchanging gifts as we nurse each other's second and third degree burns, give me a high even my dealer can't match.

Which is why it's so frustrating when you just can't find that perfect gift.

[SCENE - Inside Borders Book Store, A Day Before Christmas...]

(Alex is on the clock, and is helping me look for Christmas gifts. Alex does not need to buy Christmas gifts because he has foresight. He is also a filthy, filthy Jew).

Alex: "So Keeley, I noticed that you're doing a good deal of your Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. Should I call you a dipshit now, or wait until my shift's over so I can do a little dance while I say it?"

Moi: "The dancing one. Now shut up and help me, I need to find a present for Will."

Alex: "This late? You haven't done that already?"

Moi: "No! Because he's making it as difficult as possible! Everytime I bring it up, the same thing happens:"

[FLASHBACK - Will's Living Room, Day...]

Moi: "Hey Will?"

Will: "Yeah?"

Moi: "What do you want for Christmas?"

Will: "YOU'LL NEVER KNOW!!!"

*Will leaps across room and SMASHES out of living room window*

Moi: *shakes fist* "YOU CAN'T RUN FOREVER, HALAS!!"

[SCENE - Borders Books, Day...]

Alex: ( -_- )"...No, it doesn't."

Moi: "Fine. It doesn't. But he won't give me a straight answer. We always have the same conversation."

[SCENE - Will's Living Room, Day...]

Moi: "Will, what do you want for Christmas?"

Will: "...Keeley, we've been dating for six months."

Moi: "Yeah, see, that doesn't answer my question."

Will: "You know what I'd want."

Moi: ( >_< ) "No, Will Halas. No, I do not. See, because if I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Because I'd be out fucking buying it. Or stealing it. Or wrapping it. Or shoving it up your ass because getting a straight answer out of you on this particular subject IS LIKE PULLING MY OWN TEETH OUT. SO WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

*awkward pause*

Will: "...I'd like anything you give me."

Moi: "GOD DAMN IT."

[Back to Border's...]

Moi: "You'd think I was trying to torture the guy, not buy him a gift." *picks up book* "He's going to get Oprah's Big Book Of Happiness for Christmas, and it'll be his own damn fault."

Alex: "He has a point, though. You've been dating the guy for six months, and you can't figure out a Christmas gift for him?"

Moi: "You're a Jew."

Alex: "Keeley, that has nothing to do with - "

Moi: "It's not just finding a present, Alex. It's finding a great present. Because I know when we exchange gifts, he's going to have something radically awesome, and I'm going to have something shitty like a CD or a pair of socks, and then he'll be able to lord it over me for the rest of the year! I have to one-up him, Alex! My present has to be better!!"

Alex: "...You're a dipshit."

Moi: "And you're a Jew."

*OHJOYCHRISTMASSHOPPING!*