Iconic hipstorer bag is merely a sequel to the baby-sling

Last week I worried everyone with talk of my running career being over because of leg and back pain, and although no one came over and massaged my aching body, someone did give me some excellent advice which actually seems to have remedied the problem.  This person was my mom and her advice was to buy new shoes.  Let this be a lesson to all of you Googlers out there who don’t know what you’re doing.  Sometimes you just have to ask your mom what you should do.  Unless your mom is a dumb-ass.

In other news, I made this amazing Coach fanny pack for my rugged male companion for his birthday:

It's a Coach Hipstorer. It doesn't need a caption.

After the making of this, I laid in bed thinking about fanny packs, which we will now refer to as hipstorers.  I thought to myself about different materials I could use to make more hipstorers for the betterment of the world.  The thing is, though that I don’t really want to be the one to make them.  I want other people to make them because I’m really less of a manufacturer and more of a thinker.

Remember the other day when I was thinking about this memory in my head of the last time I had an idea to make something useful to people?  Of course you don’t because it was going of inside of me, and you’re out there.  This other useful thing that I made was a babysling which is a bag for carrying your baby.  I wanted to make a line of slings that matched the mother’s style of dress and wasn’t baby-themed.  This was around the time that I was in the slave portion of my motherhood, which is very different from this period of motherhood where I just have this ten-year-old person that just kind of hangs out with me.  In the beginning, I had to carry her.  Something strange happens when you carry a person around for a couple of years.  Your arms become tired, and your brain becomes full of ideas for giving your tired arms a break.   I actually made a prototype of a sling that copied the design of the Dr. Sears babysling, but was a fashionable black with red paisley trim.  I’m so cutting edge.  My mom mostly made that bag because I was the thinker and she knew how to sew.

This lifetime of making two bags made me realise that maybe I’m just incredibly tired of carrying things.  Maybe my mom shouldn’t have made me carry groceries in from the driveway to the house.  Even though she solved my back problem with her shoe-buying advice, I think it’s only fair that I blame my mom for this fatigue I feel.  I mean, she sent me a text message this morning that said I needed to make pancakes for my daughter every morning and stop buying soy milk.  I know my daughter was speaking through her, and because of this I feel incredibly sandwiched by the surrounding generations.  They are squishing me with their pancake demands.  I now blame both of them.  The Coach Hipstorer is their fault.

My job of professionally carrying things is also to blame.  I basically wear a hipstorer to work everyday.  In the restaurant biz, we call it an apron, but it’s a hipstorer.  It’s a waste-fastening method of carrying all your crap around, so now what?  I get enough practice carrying things around at work.  Why do I have to carry them here in the outside world?  I don’t think it ever stops either.  Old people have to carry their walkers and iron lungs.  We have to carry our smart phones.

We have to carry our smart phones.

Yesterday I was sitting on a couch in the middle off the mall with my phone on my lap when I looked over at one of the guys who was about to fall asleep at the mall.  He had his phone on his lap.  I think I’m not so different from the people who fall asleep at the mall.  I’m addicted to my electronic device too.  I’ve had this idea to go through electronic device deprivation for a few days and then to write about it.  I’ve had this idea for two years but am so incapable of not being in contact with the rest of the world via my smart phone that I can’t even go  through with it.  What is that?

We all need fanny packs!!! I think my running career is over too!!! AMERICA!!!!!!!

Your purse just bit you and got you robbed. Who's dorky now?

We definitely have a mixed bag of things to discuss here, or should I say bags?  Or should I say waist-fastening bags?!  YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!  Fanny packs.  Let’s talk about them.  We had our first “discussion” about fanny packs back in may when I discovered the distance runner’s dirty little secret.  It’s not even that dirty…it’s just a link to my Camelbak blog.  It wasn’t a discussion either that’s why there are “”s around that.  Well time has progressed since ye auld fanny pack monologue, and we are in October.  In the moons twixt now and then I have learned many things.  I have learned that I can still lose things regardless of this incessant sobriety, and that things need to be carried around, AND things need to be carried around around my waist but not in an ugly way.  I know you’re wondering ‘why the waist?’  The reason you’re wondering that is the same reason why you would buy a bag just because it says the word ‘Coach’ on it.  You don’t think!  I’m going to make a whole list of reasons that fanny packs are better starting with number one…..

1.  Fanny-packs are theft deterrent.  Have you ever heard of anyone getting belt-snatched on the street?   NO you haven’t because it’s not easy to steal a belt.  Also, belts aren’t even that great.  Why don’t you just get pants that fit, and you won’t have to worry about people stealing your belt.  Jesus.

2.  You don’t have to put it down to do things with your hands.  Have you ever done anything with your hands?  It’s easier when you’re not holding something.  Hands-free, people!  don’t they make everything hands-free?  Why not our bags?  I’ll tell you why.  Sexism.  It’s true.  Men meet up in secret cigar rooms and plan this shit.  “Oh hey, how can we slow down those uppity dames?”  “I know!  Make them carry something at all times so that they are super slower when we are trying to chase them down the street.”

People are getting chased.  Not chaste.

3.  You’re dance moves are way better when you’re not holding a bag, and it makes everyone less (and more) nervous.  Have you ever been to a party and just didn’t want to put your purse down but needed it for one reason or another?  Annoying right?  At a club and you and all your girlfriends leave your purses in a pile while you dance?  That’s pretty stupid and nerve-racking and distracting enough to make you a target for being chased later when all the cigar-smoking males have become sex-crazed from lurking on the dance-floor.  Not chaste.

4.  You can hold your bfs hand while walking down the street without having to switch sides with your purse.  I don’t know why this is so annoying.  It just is.  I hate my shoulder bag, you guys.  But also I hear that I might not have to worry about hand-holding activities while wearing a fanny-pack because of the ‘dorkiness factor,’ and this is where I need all of you to come in and unite for a better future of being able to carry things without arms.  While we’re at it, think about the people without arms.  Don’t they deserve more attractive fanny-packs?  Don’t we all?

Also while we are on the subject of being chased, I have to put this out there in the hopes that maybe a doctor reads it.  This is my new form of seeking medical attention besides google since I don’t have health insurance.  I have not really been able to run for the past few weeks because of a pain that extends from the right of my lower back down to the front of my knee.  Because of this, I am experiencing a terrible sadness and many lower back pain google sessions.  I wish I had health care, America.

to be continued…

This blog has lost its innocence, Katy Perry style.

 I have to tell you firstly that I haven’t written because I was really busy doing loser things like joining the gym, eating doughnuts, and going boot-shopping.  I may have also played phone games and trolled Facebook for God knows what, and I’m really sincerely sorry because I realise that no one knew what to do without my gentle words of eternal wisdom.

Wellll….here I am.

I don’t know if you guys know this about me, but you’re about to find out that I strongly dislike Katy Perry and other similar creatures.  This isn’t a case of the playa’ hatin but the result of being forced by everyone and my daughter to listen to popular songs.   Due to circumstances beyond my control, my lovely and intelligent young daughter has developed a taste for top 40 hits.  I understand that the popularity of anything at her age has a great influence on whether or not she will see the value in it.  I also have a number of peers who are fans of pop music.  It is not my job to correct the lack of taste in my peers, but as far as my child goes, it is a never-ending war, and I’m pleased to announce that my side won the battle against Katy Perry.  

Well my first attempts during the auditory invasion that has been Miss Perry were just weak declarations of disgust.  When ‘California Girls’ came on I  would just tell her, “this song is awful.”  Unfortunately, ten-year-old girls are not concerned with their mothers’ opinions on music.  This is one of the reasons why I don’t understand the point of children.  In fact, I think I’ll ask her what the point of her is when I pick her up from school today.  Maybe she’ll make one of her confused  ’what do you mean?’ faces, and I can answer my own question by being amused at her looks. 

I’m kind of a shit-head.  This is why I make a better personinpilatesclass than a writer. 

So I finally broke Katy’s lyrics down to the child when the song ‘Last Friday night’ just became too much .  You dug your own grave, Katy Perry, because every time the child plays this song I have a new opportunity to disgust her at what is actually happening in the lyrics.  I’m like, “Hey guess what a menage a trois is! That is where three people have sex with each-other!” 

At first she just pretended it didn’t affect her and that she had total loyalty to the song, but my full disclosure must have sunk in because a week after she found out that this song was mostly about getting drunk, my daughter told me she didn’t like Katy Perry anymore.  Whoop.

Google plus?

a whole 'nother' way to waste the day.

So there’s a social networking site called Google plus.  It’s new, and I’m on it.  This is a whole new third chance to make a fourth impression in the social networking world.  I’m doing this by using sidebangs and sunglasses to let everyone know I’m cool.  I”m like, “hey guys, I’m new here at goople.  Sup?”  Super chill.   But seriously, I want to let you know what my attraction is to Google plus because I like to endorse things willy nilly for no money.  They have these things called ‘circles,’ and you can put different people in different circles and have different things viewable supposedly so your grandma doesn’t have to hear about how much you’re going to masturbate all over the likeness of Megan Fox’s naked body that you drew in your journal.  I made a circle called BFFs and I’m going to post everything I ever wanted to say about tampons and butt pimples in there. Honestly I think the last thing any of us need is another social networking site, but supposedly in this new world of technology and e-everything, if an aspiring author wants to  publish a book, she should develop some kind of readership and self-promotion skills-so they say.

That’s really boring to talk about. 

Let’s switch gears and talk more about the potential for circles.  I could create circles based on what I want from certain people and how I want them to see me.  Like maybe I have friends that are really sympathetic and good at comforting words, so I’ll make a circle called ‘the crying corner’ where I can complain about cats and boyfriends.  YOU GUYS!  I could make a circle for only my smart friends where I spout off about the GDP and how to synthesize a methylated alkaloid!  I could make a circle of people who I know are really squeamish and judgmental and post a bunch of bat shit crazy things like that I’m cooking cats and eating them in my Satan worshipping chamber.  I just have to figure out how to use it AND I need more people to get on there, then I need the sun to come out  because the beach would have been a healthier way to spend the day!  I could make a circle for all my writer friends, and one for all my exercise friends, and one for all my cat-fancying friends, and one for all my Dr. Who-loving friends.  All I see is circles.   More of what you want and less of what you don’t. 

That’s why I have googly eyes for google plus right now.  It’s got curves in all the right places.

just like Megan Fox.

If you’re going to hate something, start with the word ‘Gogurt’

More like Nogurt

I didn’t know that I could hate a word that wasn’t ‘tits’ until my sis told me that she hated the word, ‘Gogurt.’  It was then that I realized my own hatred for the word Gogurt.  If you don’t know what Gogurt is, I will explain that it is yogurt in a plastic tube.  It is easy to eat on the go and is thus called ‘Gogurt.’  Trader Joe’s calls them Squishers, and I appreciate that.  I appreciate many things about Trader Joe’s.  Mostly, I appreciate that I don’t have to see Gogurt when I’m there.  I don’t go to Trader Joe’s to notice the lack of Gogurt, but I notice the lack of Gogurt when I’m there.  I should buy some TJs Squishers and take them into Vons and squish them all over the Gogurts and be all, “you’re not goin’ anywhere!”

Bangs, botox, or grace.

RELAX...I mean PARALYZE your forehead, Hag.

Since deciding to grow out my bangs, I’ve uncovered the secret of my forehead.  My forehead has been hiding the fact that I’ve been surprised or interested or concerned often in life.  Its says this with a series  of horizontal lines and a couple of verticals.  There’s this great invention called Botox which will paralyze the muscles responsible for this tragedy.  I suggested this as something I might need to a coworker and she freaked out on me.  

She yelled,  ”People with Botox are ugly!  Their faces don’t move!”  But she’s only 22, so I don’t have to listen to her.  PLUS I have never been able to identify a person with Botox myself.  Maybe being expressionless makes people somewhat invisible.  Like some big tragedy strikes and everyone is making all these crazy facial contortions and the person with botox is just standing there with a blank face.  Maybe our eyes refuse to register their faces because it’s like a missing arm or leg.  It doesn’t seem right, so your eyes just pass over it and move on to something more interesting like the river of wrinkles on my forehead. 

The best thing about me considering botox is that I don’t have the money to throw into vanity purchases.  Should I just fly my hag flag high?  In the same way I plan on letting all my grays stay that way once they appear, so goes my face.  I know the answer.  This all falls under the same category as the push-up bra, Bra.  It’s a SoCal obsession to get all wrapped up in being the perfect package.  I’m pretty funaffected by it.  Being funaffected means that you are affected by something but don’t want to be, so you pretend you aren’t by making fun of it.  I’m funaffected by many things. 

If I was a botox doctor, I would call my business ‘Beautifully Aloof.’  I’d have commercials with beautiful women getting slapped in the face with raw steaks, and they would just be standing there all stoic like marble statues.  The slogan for my patients would be, ‘make me care.’ 

The slogan for everyone else would be, ‘make me care that you don’t care.  I can’t even see you.’

A Stupeh perspective on music where you are stupeh.

you didn't have to cut off your arms, Stupeh.

You were just listening to Interpol for the last three days thinking about things that you think about when you listen to Interpol, i.e. the hopelessness of love and how to wear shoes like a dove.  You noticed not more than usual the way that what you listen to can affect your mood and why that is.  There always seems to be an explanation from anthropologists for these things.  Like how your body pumps out endorphins when you’re scared, so that you can become superman and save babies from the underneath of cars (stop leaving your babies under there- it’s not safe!).  You’re just trying to figure out for what reason the whine of a certain instrument causes your head to whine.  Is it like the sound of babies dying, and that tells you to be sad?  There’s a certain self-indulgence that is experienced during the solitary act of listening to music.  If you listen to a sad band that seems to always be breaking up with its lover, you can end up burying yourself in bed and get your pillowcases all mascara-stained (note to you:  black bedding or eye-makeup remover).  This is 100% a choice you make for yourself, though, so you must get some kind of satisfaction out of it?   Is this because you need to feel connected when you are feeling really alone, but not to a person in the room rather to the recording of a voice and instruments composed in a certain way that lets you feel your feelings even more so than if you were at..say a panel discussion of what can be done to stop urban sprawl?  Eh, YOU?

Music at a live performance is a different experience, though.  For you, it’s hard to experience the music as well when the performers are standing in front of you playing their own instruments.  Even though they are the ones who created it and are sharing it with what is usually a crowded room full of people, you resent them and everyone in the room for tainting your experience with the songs.  In this way your experience with music at best must always be a selfish one-like you want the band to play for you, but you don’t want to see them-or anyone else.  The last time you saw a band, your M gave you more things to think about and distract you from what you were experiencing when she brought up the subject of arms.  She didn’t know what to do with her arms at a show because if you cross them, you look like you’re being a bitch.  At the time, your arms were crossed, and you thought, ‘by jove, she’s right!’  So you had to uncross your arms and become conscious that they were just hanging more conspicuously than ever at your sides.  Then there’s the subject of dancing, which is a really tough one for you.  Don’t get me wrong, you love to dance, and I think that if you never danced, you would be one of those people who needs to stop taking herself so seriously and cut a fucking rug at least once.  What all these things add up to is a self-consciousness that stems from the lack of organized rituals  in the modern-day music scene.  Like, in the fifties they had dances to go with the songs.  Like The Crocodile Rock comes on and everyone does The Crocodile Rock.  Now, you’re either too cool for school and head-bobbing or you’re the free-spirited music junkie whose moves are on display mostly because very few others are moving.  You think it would be cool if bands came up with dance moves to go with their songs so that everyone could do them and take the ‘show’ experience to the next level.  You think Wyatt from Gypsy Death Star already invented one, and he doesn’t even know it.  You call it Gypsy Death Starming, and he does it when he sings.  Watch for it.  Now you know that everyone doing the same move is conformist and soooo not cool or whatever we all happen to be about, but what’s the headbob if not conformist?

In the end, none of this really matters to you, so go back to being a pretty princess.

NOW

MADNESS! ONE DAY BEYOND!

Maybe I'll deep condition my hair this time. Put things right.

Wouldn’t that be funny if you could time travel just one day into the future or past, but you couldn’t pick the day?  Like I was imagining on the way home from all my jobs the other night, what if I wake up tomorrow and I’m transported back to Sunday (Father’s Day) morning?  Wouldn’t that be a waste of a time travel day?  I was thinking about what I would do differently, and all I could come up with was to remember to bring the dinner menus to the two ladies on P2 because I realized on the way home from work that I had forgotten to do that for them.  Also I would not give the lady from New England such a hard time about her wacky way of ordering food.  The thing is that she was going to order an omelet that she made up in her own head, and it was going to be pepperjack and onion.  She asked me if I thought that would be good, and it just sounded weird to me, like it was missing ingredients, so I made a face at her.  The face said that her omelet was a bad idea.  But then she ordered her blueberry muffin cut in half and grilled.  That was also weird to me and I told her it was an unusual request.  I think if I went back in time to that day I would have been more used to people ordering grilled blueberry muffins and therefore would have taken it easy on her.  I swear.  Breakfast service makes me bitchier than normal.

 No wonder my dad fired me.  JK.  No really.  JKKKK. I’m serious.

My ideas are as underdeveloped as my chest. Goodbye.

Daughters and lingerie manufacturers prove to be less than supportive.

Look under your shirt to find out what you're worth. Mkay.

So after I decided to save the boobies and the babies, I took my number one future person with boobs bra-shopping with me so that she could witness the importance of embracing one’s God-given form.   I told her what I was looking for and why, and my daughter helped me as I searched the lingerie section of Macy’s for a bra with no lining, padding, or any sort of other contraption which would make my breasts seem more of a foreign object on my chest rather than just what they are.  We found two kinds of bras which fit my criteria.  Ugly ones that were too large, and pretty ones that were too large.  It seems that the powers that be do not believe that a small-chested woman would not want some kind of padding.  Even when I went to Victoria’s Secret, the bras with ‘no lining’ had lining.  Also, while shopping, I googled ‘bras without lining’  and what I learned is that Victoria’s Secret has started making nipple-bras…these are padded bras with fake nipple-erections built-in.  Guess what, though!  I already have built in nipples, and I think it would be more cost-effective to just go somewhere cold or think about something sexy in a bra that doesn’t have any lining!

I finally found something similar to what I was kind of looking for in the girls section of Target, and at the one time when I really needed my daughter to be there, she decided it was cooler to look for stretchy pants for herselfish.  This meant that I had to have the attendendant unlock the dressing room so I could enter alone with little girl bras and feel like a supercreep.   Unfortunately, tween bras do not provide adequate support for thirty year-old boobs.  

I found one at Khol’s which was the last place I looked because finding one meant I no longer had to keep on looking.  When I tried on the final bras, I had to shrug my shoulders and say “it’s just me,” in Hillary Duff’s voice.  My unhelpful mini-person told me to stop doing that.  She also kept telling me how cute the padded ones were and that I “should just get the padded ones.”

I’m not wearing push-up bras anymore, and neither are you.