Generic spiced rum, a turkey and a hookah. It's how we roll.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!
This week has been an interesting one. Policecop is home, massive blizzard, spontaneous combustion of Mercedes Benz in the parking lot of BJ's warehouse, Christmas, etc.
Last night my family gathered together to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus by eating obscene amounts of food, drinking spiced rum among other things and gathering around a hookah. Nothing says Christmas like a hookah party. I'm pretty much set on buying my own now. Found: new hobby for the year 2010.

So here are some random pictures. I'm in a food coma of sorts and am going to retire to an office marathon and hot tea. Peace and love to all, so on and so forth. Muargh!

1, 0!!!!!

Everything is SET. Cape Cod salt and vinegar chips. Chex party mix. Ginger ice cream. Christmas chocolates. Gatorade. Espresso roast coffee. Peanut butter Cliff bars. Lil' Smokey mini hot dogs (per request). Cutty Sark and Drambuie for rusty nails. All the tools for pbj sandwiches.
Room: Clean. For now.
Tobacco: Well stocked.
Fresh sheets, clean bathroom, check, check.
IT'S ON.
All day I've been thinking about the things I have left to do, being grateful that I took care of 90% of those things well ahead of time, and just kind of went through the motions at work in a surreal-type daze. In which I forgot to clock out and put away the broom. Sorry guys.

Policecop is currently on a plane heading towards Boston from Chicago. I'm stalking the flight online, in between mud mask sessions, nail painting, and trying to figure out what movie to watch online that might possibly distract me from being so wired with nervous excitement for a while.

This whole situation has been so shitty. To put it simply.
Shitty, non-stop circa July 27th. I'm so used to shitty, I can't quite yet wrap my mind around the concept of it just ending....I'm having trouble with words. Let's just say this sucked, I hated it, and I never want it to ever happen again.
Also, I have a new found respect for all the Army wives and girlfriends out there. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how I did it for just a matter of months, without even having to worry about his safety for the most part. I think there should be more organizations to support the significant others of soldiers overseas. I know I want to send a christmas card and a hug to each and every one of you girls. I've got mad respect for each and every one of you.

So as it goes, I'm going to take a little hiatus from blogging for a bit. Though I do plan on taking massive amounts of pictures for the holidays and everything else going on.

xoxo, Jackie.

The value of $3.99. (Day 4, take two)

So here's some fashiony stuff for the first time in a while. I'll give you a break from all of the christmas cheer. I'm ready for one myself, after hearing an x-mas-ized parody version of Dy'er Mak'er in JCPenney, which made me want to gouge my ears out with the first hanger I could grab. Instead of "oh oh oh oh", it was "ho ho ho ho", letters to Santa and whatnot. You get the picture. It was an atrocity.
Anyway, I was in JCPenny because I got another one of those $10 off coupons in the mail again. I have to say after the 17 cent dress, it's all been downhill for me with this store. Bland, generic, overpriced garbage. Except for this little black cardigan, $5 with the coupon. Other than that, nothing worth mentioning in the entire store.
However, I did win big at DSW. I had been holding on to a $10 off coupon from them for a while, and decided to scour the clearance section while I was down there just to waste time. It's a good thing they have a bathroom in this shoe store, it takes me so long to go through everything I always have to use it at least once. Apparently they understand their target group.
The find: sweet gold/brown leather heels from Guess on clearance for 80% off of $69.94. Aaand with the addition of the coupon, a grand total of $3.99. I don't understand why these were on such severe clearance, but I really don't have a problem with it. They are fantastic.
Worn with the aforementioned cardigan, skirt and knee-highs from Target (a while back), and my mother's scarf which I have decided to make mine for a while.

In other news, I'm becoming a bit confused over this wisdom tooth conundrum. There's a vague soreness in my throat on the same side as the problem tooth, or at least I think it's my throat. It's very wishy-washy and I can't quite pinpoint where it's coming from. I mean, I'll take wishy-washy over stabbing and soul crushing any day, but long story short I'm becoming concerned that the tooth is slowly rooting itself into my throat. I don't know if this is anatomically possible in any way, but it's always good to mentally prepare yourself for the worst, right?
I mean, is that what people are referring to when they talk about wisdom teeth coming in "wrong"...? And how do you know if you don't have the insurance/luxury of going to the dentist to figure it all out? Do I have to wait until I have the roots of a ten foot tooth protruding from my neck? And then what? Hide it like a hickey with a scarf? If this were Canada, all of my problems would be solved and I'd be on the couch in a percocet dream world looking forward to a day off tomorrow.
When it was bothering me 18 months ago, I self-medicated with Jack Daniels and obscene amounts of Aleve. During this time, I was able to move from Taunton to Amherst, start a new job, quit it a week later, move back to Taunton and then to Carver, and find a new job. So obviously, Aleve and Jack Daniels are the solutions to all of my health and motivational problems. Maybe my wisdom tooth is telling me something...
It's likely that I have a mild cold, along with the doom-tooth situation. I've been sneezing, having ear issues, etc. So it's likely that in 3 days when I finally get to see the boyfriend after 5 months, I will be in a snotty world of pain with a jaw swollen to Leno proportions. FANTASTIC.

P.S.- Albany was a great sport for posing with me tonight. Earlier in the evening my mother and I attempted to give her a pill for some rather troubling tummy issues she's been having. She managed to wriggle free without swallowing the pill, and was so entirely traumatized over the whole experience she nearly vomited on my rug. I am not looking forward to attempt #2. If anyone is good at this stuff, I will buy you a 12-pack to take care of it for me. No joke.

On knowing when to stop/Logic.(6,5,4...)

This past Thursday/Friday were nasty for me. Wisdom tooth pain (after 18 months of smooth sailing) with the plus alpha of general rage syndrome.
I'm not tyicallly an angry person by any means. At least I don't consider myself to be. When I think of that particular temperament, I picture red-in-the-face corporate executives, Bill O'Reilly, bank tellers, Madonna, John McCain and Mike Tyson. It's unsettling for me to think that I may fall into this group. I like to imagine that I fall into the semi-easily-irritable/sulky category.

More often than not it's just a matter of me keeping things all bottled up and locked down till I feel like I'm going to explode at the drop of a dime, and I can't put my finger on what it is that's tearing me up until someone asks me what's wrong...at which point I burst into tears and need to have a code-red emergency cigarette break. This happened Friday, while I was ringing in my slips.
In the end, just cracking a bit and letting out a few tears was all it took to make me feel better, 100% better. The cigarette helped too. Sometimes it's really just very pleasant being a smoker. Sitting there in my car with nothing to do but breathe in carcinogens and soul-soothing nicotine, all of the pieces came flowing together like a slow-motion game of tetris, in which I finally won after being at that critical point, where the blocks are building to the top and the music is speeding up, for two days straight without a damn L-shaped piece in sight.
Tears and cigarettes for the win. We all have our moments. Don't say you don't.

I had a tough time figuring out how to wrap up Friday on a positive note. Turns out the light at the end of the tunnel was waiting at Borders. Christmas decorations and accessories at 40% off. Fact: My room was plenty decked out until I realized that a 2' tall pink christmas tree for $7 existed in this world. All previous decorations and trimmings were instantly rendered insufficient. Pink christmas tree, make me whole again.
And it did. It's kind of impossible to feel entirely shitty about life when you've got a rose colored sparkly-glowing tree on your desk, in your warm room with four walls. Childen in Africa don't have beer...you get the point.
Now I finally have a place to put all those mini candy canes. Thank god.

I may look at this in five years (or less, depending) and say holy-f, what was I thinking...this gaudy looking thing!? The same thing happened with those giant platform go-go boots I bought in Japan in 2000. I threw them out a few years later during such a did-I-buy-these-sober moment. A decision I now regret terribly. Lesson learned? Fantastic decisions can become bad decisions, and may possibly turn out to be fantastic ideas again one day. You'll never get those go-go boots back. Don't throw out the pink christmas tree. It needs you, you need it.

Now, I'm goint to use the impulse purchase of a pink christmas tree to segway into the topic of logic. I'm not the biggest fan of utilizing it. Logic is the biggest thief of youth, spontaneity, happiness, creativity and heartfelt things. Here's an experiment: for about three minutes, try to play pretend. Like you did when you were a kid. Imagine you're in a different place, imagine that your laptop is really a missle launching apparatus, that your sofa is a fucking pirate ship. Go wild.

I bet you can't do it. I can't either. I tried to out of boredom one day while I was on deliveries. I attempted to pretend that I wasn't really driving, but rather on a water slide. It was a constant struggle, which left me feeling the fool and in great need of a vacation. Diabolical failure.

I think this is why alcohol is the holy grail of fun for adults. It let's our brains play pretend on auto-pilot. Not that your refrigerator will suddenly become a time-portal in your eyes (that kind of stuff requires heavier shit). To put it simply, Idea A, while in the world of sober is a ridiculous thought, becomes wildly awesome in drunkland. Note: Idea A is never wildly awesome in hangover land. This is a fact.

Anyway, logic. I had to drag it out of the junk drawer of my mind today.
Policecop isn't getting back until 11:00 pm on Thursday. Despite the fact that his graduation is at 8:00 am our time, and he is pretty much free to go after that. Since we all know that the army doesn't exactly excell at getting shit done in a timely and favorable manner, I guess I should have seen this coming?
But I didn't.
So, nay on the romantical reunion at the airport (I have a thing for airports), nay on going out for dinner, nay on that car ride home together down 495. Nix that whole night that you've been anticipating for nearly half a year, building it up in your mind like it's on par with the second coming of christ. Friday morning is the new Thursday night. Surprise! Why? Because 11:00 is too late, and Logan is too far.
What the hell am I even going to do with myself to pass the time Thursday night? Play boggle with my cat? This is not the way it was supposed to go down. Army, you owe me more than the US owes China. If anything else gets screwed up or delayed, if one more daydream is put on hold I'm teaming up with Putin and it's going to be fucking ugly.

It might not seem like one more day would be a big deal after all this time, but it is. I would rather stab a hole in my wrist than re-write the number 4 on it tomorrow morning.
I guess this is how it has to be though. Logic prevails. I understand. It makes more sense in my brain. My heart however, is retrogressing back to age four. It's currently writhing on the floor in the Barbie aisle of Toys R'Us, screaming "BUT I WANT IT NOOOOWWWW!!!!!!!"

Anyway. Enough of that. In other news, I'm mailing out christmas cards this year. If you want one, send me your address.

Love, Jackie.

Pink is the new christmas (10,9)

I'm pretty sure that gift giving is what makes christmas for me at this point. Last year due to an extremely unfavorable financial standing I wasn't able to give much of anything and it kind of ruined the holidays for me.
This year, I'm entirely on it. With some careful planning, I've been able to finish my shopping with 16 days to spare. Not to mention everything is wrapped, tagged, ribboned and bowed. I am notorious for over wrapping/adorning gifts. It's kind of awkward watching people struggle to open my presents, but I just can't help going crazy with the presentation. It might be a wise idea to carry a box cutter around with me this christmas, to make it easier for everyone.
This years theme: Pink. I am obsessed with pink christmas at the moment, which is odd since I can't remember ever liking the color even as a child. I recall preferring turquoise and sea foam green.
What is it with the color pink anyway? I guess it's pretty, but it looks terrible on me and I tend to associate it with societys generic model of femininity and girls who admire "bling" or have arrested development issues. And yet, I get all starry-eyed when I walk by Victoria's Secret...I think that I like it around me, just not on me.
Tomorrow is apparently going to be some sort of rain-snow-sleet shitstorm. My plans include wearing some serious winter gear to work, making atleast 15 lbs of buttercream frosting and drinking lots of hot black coffee. Ideally I would be able to look forward to a dvd and cuddling after work, but I've got another week to go through before that can happen. It's so close but yet at the same time the days are dragging...like waiting for water to boil. It might have been a good idea to spread my christmas preparations out a bit more. Sigh.

13, 12, 11.

This weekend summed up:

Friday- Work could not end soon enough. I was grumpy, and very much ready for the latter part of Friday. I blame it on a few different things, but the tremendous amount of dish washing was a huge factor. Anyway, Friday marked D-13. Friday...13. It was just unlucky from the get go. Not much to mention aside from the fact that I was an unruly bitch. That, and I did manage to cheer up a bit after finding mini-stockings at Job Lot for 65 cents a piece, and new pillow cases for $2.50!!! I was sick of the green and black, the red and turqouise have brightened things up a bit. Also, wrapped super-top-secret present for Policecop. It's kind of a joint gift for both of us. And no, it is not a Liberator sex cushion.

Saturday- D-12. Nasty, crap weather. Not much to rave about here either, just spent the day/night watching webisodes of the Office, 48 hours, 20/20 and Medium; any type of murder mystery available for free viewing on the internet, from my warm, warm room.
I had planned on dragging out the x-mas decorations from the shed, but I would have rather had a mammogram than go out in such weather. Got a nice big salad delivered from Georgio's. And that is all.

Sunday- D-11. Woke up delighted to see the sun pouring in, spent two hours just drinking coffee and smoking. This is my choicest Sunday morning activity. Actually, it's my #1 choicest morning activity, period. Regardless of the season. However, for some reason, it's always better when it's sunny out.
In the afternoon I went to visit Policecop's parents for tea. It was very nice since at this point we're all very excited for his return. There was a considerable amount of snowfall up their way. I felt the sharp teeth of New England winter shattering my spinal cord as I got back in my car to leave after sunset...today for the first time, it feels like dead-on, code red winter. EUGH. Is all I have to say about that.
On my way home, I made a Target detour, which is generally a bad idea since I tend to find things I want terribly but don't need even a little every time I do this. Example, today's find: little pearl-ish and sparkly christmas lights...in red and white. I fell in love...oops. But I did not buy a full sized tree...and that is what counts. That and sparkly snowflakes ($1 each), and a sea-urchin looking star for my wall tree ($2). I've decided to even put my gifts under the tree, it just kind of completes the picture. Except I keep my moisturizers and whatnot here. Dilema. Move them? No. This is inconvenient. Solution: utilize that excessive ribbon collection and just make the bottles look like presents. Outcome: You are a total freaking dork, but it does look cute.
All I need now is a doily for the tree skirt, and we will be done. My room is like a big warm bubble of happy. Love Love Love.

On the second day, we got down to business.

Today things started getting festive all over. We're kind of struggling at the cafe, drawing up a plan for the window decorations. Brennan's smoke shop on the other hand was going full-force in their effort to win the Main St. window decorating contest. They've got moving displays and nutcrackers with cigars in their mouths....the whole bit.
I even got to buy two little mini trees at BJ's today. I generally (always) hate my trip to BJ's, but it was a bit nicer for this...aside from the fact that the damn things stabbed me all the while I was transporting them here and there.
So after a quick nap after work, I decided to get down to business on the giant holiday/,Policecop is coming home so try to make it look like you haven't been living like a feral slob, cleaning project. After two giant trash bags, it's done! After much deliberation I finally got myself a legitimate curtain to replace the giant beach towel that has been there for months. This was a good move, definitely knocked the white trash factor down a few points.
Best move of the night would be dismantling my star wall and putting the lights in the window. I'm going to try to get a better picture of it, but it looks freaking mystical and shit, like you could climb through it and enter a warm, fuzzy galaxy. With the reflection of the lights on the window, and how it's set back from the curtain, it has this 3-dimensional effect. I love it and don't ever want to take it down.
Also made use of some of my massive ribbon collection accumulated over the years. I could probably braid together a rope to the moon with it. Highly excessive amounts of ribbon.
And in place of the star wall...a shower curtain. It was the cheapest replacement I could find for the previous decor, and it just happened to be holiday-friendly.

This was such a nice project that now I feel compelled to go full-on with it and grab my stuff from the shed...garland, oodles of lights, etc.
I did not decorate much last year. Probably because the year before I went all out and bought a full-sized tree for my room (which happened to be on the third floor at that point and took the help of two man-friends to get it up there (that's what she said)...)
After x-mas was said and done, I had no better way of disposing it than literally pushing it down the stairs and hoping for the best. It got lodged in the stairwell, completely stuck. The people living in that place are probably finding pine needles to this day. Luckily I found the pictures, so yeah. You can see the power of Jackie's plan-ahead-skills with your own eyes.

Note to self: Keep it a little bit more subdued this year, as to not end up facing the New Year with a giant daunting task on your plate.

On the first day of X-mas, I gave to me lots of knickers.

Oh hi, 11:11 p.m. It appears that I have fully recovered from whatever nastiness it was that I had, and here I sit after a full day, at 11:11 pm with boundless energy. This chick bounces back hardcore. Not that I'm mistaking this for a good thing at the moment, I should be in bed. But I can not.

So! I am here to bring to you a belated undercracker edition. I decided that VS Pink is the way to go, seeing as the pairs I got two years ago have lasted me up till now with no fray, no wear, no tear. Just a bit of fading. That is worth 5 for $25 in my book. And even better, 7 for $25 during their "Panty Raid Sale" (How cute) a few weeks back. To boot, they gave me a free giftcard with a secret amount (from $10-$500, valid in December). So I went back today, and got 5 for $15. A sea of dissapointment washed over me upon finding out I didn't win the $500...I could have sworn I felt lucky today, especially after this flu business...but can't complain, $10 off is still a good thing. Thus the new knicker inventory is complete!
My favorites from this season are without a doubt the "wanna get breakfast" and "if you can read this lucky you" pairs. Very cute.

In other news, I've gotten down to altering myself some x-mas-knickers. I went around town trying on all sorts of sexy holiday type stuff and let me tell you, it was rather miserable.

For one, those cut-out types (you know the one-piece with a bra hook and waist tie, monokini-esque things...) ARE TERRIBLE. If you are not Giselle, don't bother. If you are, then by all means. But the extra piece of fabric going down the middle does not serve to make your midsection look thinner, it actually makes it look wider and shorter...no joke. I look better in a two piece affair and I don't know if that's ever happened before.

Secondly, there is no way for me to look sexy in any number that is too elfish...I'm talking white maribou trim on red, santa hat, etc...
This might be partly because I have pointy ears...and an elfish look in general, I've been told...but these coustumey types made me look like a sad reject from the North Pole, who took a bus to Alabama to pursue a carreer as a daytime stripper. NOT GOOD.

So I'm going about fixing up a set that I found at H&M for pretty cheap.
I like the wide band of the bra, the criss-cross details, but the thing was just entirely red. It made me sad and lonely for the lack of contrast, and I think it has so much potential. It's kind of an off-ish red, so I'm using a seafoam green type ribon, and crystals...I can't detail this any more at the moment, I really need to try and start my nightly wind-down routine. But it all looks very pretty, just still in the making. Miss Mina taught me a few good tricks about making burlesque costumes, time to put that knowledge to work. Tomorrow.

P.S.- Can not stop listening to Me Gusta Tu by Mano Chao. I really need to sleep.