I started this blog on January 22, 2003.  For all you youngin’s out there, back then blogging was actually kind of like Twitter, just with more characters and less people. It was more of a stream of consciousness — you’d blog short things, long things, multiple times a day, whatever.

Blogging was a bit more intimate with considerably less bloggers — we used to be able to count them on list. Remember the Top 100 on Blogrolling? No? I’m old.

It was a tiny pond and at the time, I guess I was about a mackerel in terms of popularity or maybe a trout. I wasn’t like, a yellowfin tuna or anything. I kind of want an “I was famous on the internet once” shirt, but they don’t make those.

I had a total blast meeting people online. We’d start conversations between blogs, “trackbacks” were all the rage, and Zonkboards. Holy crap, Zonkboards… the original Twitter.

I kind of miss those days sometimes — I had more things to say (after 9 years, you get tired of writing about yourself and can’t remember if you already blogged about that. Blog senility, I guess.). I was also almost a decade younger, single and living in Texas. So… life was decidedly different.

I’ve met amazing people through blogging.  Kathy, the blonde ying to my yang, and I started Blog Moxie a mere 3 weeks after we met through our blogs in Feb 2003. I met mikey at the same time, thanks to blogging. I met my best gays because of blogs. And so many other wonderful people I now consider good friends are all because of blogging.

So I have my career, my family and my friends all because Sarah (who I ran a message board with prior to blogging) suggested I start a blog. She even picked this domain name.

I’ve pansied around with other domains over the years — some of you may remember SnappyHour.com and YetUpbeat.com, both of which I didn’t connect with and came back to my roots: Tenth Muse. I recently found the database with the posts from those urls in them, so I hope to dig them out.

In my older blog posts, you can see immaturity — I complained a lot and swore a lot — mostly because that’s what bloggers did most of the time back then (and I suppose still do). It’s cool to be disenfranchised and sarcastic when you’re in your 20′s. It’s not as hot at 38.  But that won’t stop me from virtually rolling my eyes, saying ‘fuck’ where appropriate or posting conversations about monk balls. I’m only human, people.

I’m glad I’ve kept this blog alive, even when it gets a little dusty. I hope to write more on it, as whenever I do write, I think of like 30 other things I want to write about… then forget… until I write one of these “I haven’t written in a while” posts and the cycle starts all over again.

In the meantime, I’ll share some of my favorite posts with you from over the years.

• Like They Do on the Discovery Channel
• Burgess Fisherman and the Discount Diaper Cream
• Debbie Diapers and the Amazing Technology Craptacular
• You Say Potato, She Says “Hell Yeah!”
• Ben Stein Likes Boys and Other Bar Stories
• Fiddy Wouldn’t Front
• Trigger Happy Jack
• Whispering Punanni and Slick Dick
• Codfish to Strangers
• Hat Sass
• Meltdown in Aisle 5

Source: dietcokeandasmoke.tumblr.com via Joelle on Pinterest

It wants to be ugly, but it just can’t. It can’t — it’s too brilliant. It starts out good, then kind of goes south and comes righ back around to good again.  I need this couch.

I could do a whole massive series of my favorite romantic jazz ballads and standards and such, but I don’t have all year.

Download here. (Revised version.) Here’s the playlist:

• Be My Yoko Ono – The Barenaked Ladies
• I Know You Well – Fountains of Wayne
• I’ve Been Waiting – Matthew Sweet
• Every Day I Write the Book – Elvis Costello
• Fresh Feeling – Eels
• The Ghost in You – Psychedelic Furs
• Nothing Like You and I – The Perishers (NOT Crystal Method — I’m not sure how that tag got on there.)
• Fade Into You – Mazzy Star
• Pictures of You – The Cure
• Pure – The Lightning Seeds (In my top 5 favorite songs of all time. It’s what I imagine being in love looks like, were it a tangible thing.)
• Tech Romance – Her Space Holiday
• Walking After You – Foo Fighters
• Tear in Your Hand – Tori Amos
• The Luckiest – Ben Folds
• A Beautiful Mess – Jason Mraz
• Pure – Allison Gill (a reprise, as she’s my friend and I really love her cover.)

Enjoy!

I can’t remember if I submitted a photo last year or not… but I will this year, though I don’t know what the motif will be. I tend to go with the sort of arty boudoir kind of thing.  You don’t need to see every freckle, do you?

It’s funny how after all these years of looking at headless blogger boobies, I do recognize some. I’ve never seen 99% of these women topless with their heads on, but I can still pick out certain bloggers like I’m choosing chocolates from the See’s box.

But, let me be clear, that’s only because I’ve participated every year and actually know those bloggers’ boobs, either in real life or because they told me it was them in the photo. And sometimes I don’t recognize the blogger, but do recognize the boobs from years past.

Otherwise, the Boobiethon is totally anonymous and very tasteful.  Photo submissions are usually covered, either by some sort of prop, hands or a bra or, for the more adventurous, there’s a bare gallery that requires a $50 minimum donation by viewers in order to gain access.  Men edit men’s photos, women edit women’s and for the love of all that is holy, if you don’t want people to know who you are, do not include photos with your face in it.  It will be edited out before it goes online, but remember that someone will need to do that and that someone will see your face. So, no faces. NO FACES.  And men? No junk. Seriously.

The lovely and talented Mel is in charge now and has been for the last couple years.  She’s totally kicking ass at it and has put forth a lot of effort and time to this cause, so your participation is encouraged and welcomed.  Right now, she’s accepting pre-launch submissions of photos, so get your racks ready and snap a few!

The 8th Annual Blogger Boobiethon starts on October 1st and runs through October 7th.  Submissions are accepted now and monetary donations will be accepted starting October 1st.  Both men and women are encouraged so submit their headless, faceless and junkless photos of their breasts.  Themed shots, prop shots and bra shots are welcomed — use your creativity! — and survivor submissions are greatly encouraged for the Survivor Gallery, which is the reason for this whole thing.

All proceeds, except a portion set aside for the Bloggers Helping Bloggers, goes to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  Last year $9300 was raised — let’s make it at least $10k in 2009.  In the last seven years, bloggers have raised over $50,000 for breast cancer research and awareness, so take off your bras, get out your cameras and show us your boobs!

My last place was probably one of the “coolest” placed I’d ever lived, in terms of hipness. For the most part, I’d lived in larger complexes that were fairly organized, well-maintained and suburban (though I did my fair share of couch surfing and car sleeping in my late teens and 20′s).  The last place was an old vintage building that I loved so much and the area was close to downtown and had a beautiful view.  It was a “cool” place to live, in terms of the area of town.

When GFI lived upstairs, it was fun — we had a good time and socialized fairly regularly, though we were always sensitive to the other’s need for space. But when she moved, aside from the view, there was really no reason to stay.  Now that I have Lulu, I needed a bit more space and I started to feel my stuff closing in on me.  Plus, with all the turnover in the building, the other tenants, newer tenants, live a “younger” lifestyle than I do (late nights, lots of noise, unpredictable schedules, Miller Lite for chrissake). Not that I’m old, but I’m certainly not twenty-four anymore and we were all just a little too close for comfort.

I thought moving to this new complex, which is beautiful, but smack dab in the middle of a corporate business park would be stale and boring, but you know? I really like it.  It’s soooooooo quiet and there’s hardly any traffic.  There’s every convenience I could want within a few blocks, I can access about 4-5 different highways/freeways within a couple miles and anywhere I’d want to go is about a 10 minute drive.

The area is really flat with beautifully landscaped streets and lots of palm trees, so walking and exercise is totally doable (and the area is full of people who walk with friends after work and on lunch breaks and lots of dog owners out with their pets after work — there’s even a little dog park!). The complex is big, but not too big and has lots of amenities like a gym, hot tub and a pool, BBQs, cabanas and all that fanciness, which I plan to use, but you know how that goes.  (Though I kind of don’t have a choice — my ass is the size of Brazil these days).

I originally wanted the largest one-bedroom they had with a den, but there was only one available that overlooked a parking lot (and it had old carpet and a vague scent about it) so I passed and took the slightly smaller one with no den and am on a waiting list for the bigger one, but I’ve decided I don’t need it.   This place is plenty big — much more spacious than my old place. Much. And I’d rather save myself $300 a month.

Corner of living room near hallway

I’m still unpacking, but I snapped a few photos with my iPhone. Some of the biggest priorities I had when apartment hunting were addressed by this complex, so I’m pretty happy: it’s on the third floor, it’s a corner unit, the price is right (for San Diego, anyway), there’s a full-size washer/dryer, walk-in closet, a balcony with storage and… the pièce de résistance, a roman soaking bathtub. When I lived in Dallas, my apartment had one and I became hooked. I had no idea how much those bubble baths balanced me and kept me sane.  Oddly enough, this complex is run by the same property management company and had the same builders as my apartment in Dallas, so I already feel very at home here.

I’ll take some better photos once I’ve got it all unpacked and nice-nice.  Right now, I need to go feed Lulu some cilantro before she riots.  Demanding bun!

Already nabbed Tweetie (love it), a bunch of work-related apps and Facebook, etc. Any favorite apps I should try?

A couple weeks ago, Kathy told me about this new product line she loves called 100% Pure.  She got some samples or something to review on Lovely Safemama and gushed about how great it was so I had to order some of my own.  Kathy likes the pink grapefruit scent (which suits her, really — she’s totally a Spring/Summer) but I’m more of a vanilla, musk, spice kind of girl (more of a Fall/Winter).  Yet another in a long line of ying-yang things about us.

I checked out their different products and decided, based on Kathy’s recommendation, to try a scrub and the body cream.  I’m not really one for heavy creams or body butter — it’s a little too much for me, but this came in a pump bottle, so I figured I’d give it a go.  I chose both Tahiti scrub and Tahiti body cream for my scent.

They’re not cheap — about $17-$22 for the scrub and another $17 for the body cream, so my initial reaction on receipt of the product was “Man, that scrub jar sure is small.” (Ok, it was more like “WTF? Deluxe, my ass!”) The product description said it was “deluxe” sized so I assumed that meant it was more product — the photo kind of implied it.  It was slightly less expensive than the other scrubs not marked “deluxe”, so I thought it was some kind of a bargain.  So that was a lesson — my jar was 6oz compared to Kathy’s pink grapefruit scrub, which was 13oz.  I’m still not sure why this is, unless it’s because the ingredients are somehow more luxe, which wasn’t made clear.

I let the company know about this little marketing confusion and how disappointed I was that I got such a small jar, but conceded that I should have read the description more thoroughly. I’ve not received a response, but they might not have gotten to it yet.

That little quirk aside… sweet holy moses with a side of fries.  The smell is so good, I could just roll around in it. It smells like your skin after a day at the beach. It smells like very tall drinks with umbrellas.  It smells like slipping Paco the cabana boy your room key.  It smells like nutty, buttery, vanilla, coconut, cocoa butter, hot hot sex.

Surprisingly, I was unimpressed with the scent at first blush, when I unscrewed the top to take a sniff, but once I got in the shower and started stirring up the scrub, I was almost high with how good it smelled. The cream fragrance was just as good once it had a chance to warm up on the skin.  I couldn’t get enough of myself.

As far as the effectiveness of the products, I really love the scrub. I can tell I’ll go through the jar pretty quickly, but if you are reasonable with the amount you use each shower, it should last a while. Instead of an oil I needed to stir, which is what I was expecting based on Kathy’s description, there was a thick shea butter cream on top of the scrub that I mixed in with scrub bits hidden underneath.  The scrub lasts a while in the shower and is doing wonders for those little dry bumps on your thighs or elbows that come from sitting in an office chair for hours on end.

When you get out of the shower, there’s still plenty of oil/cream on your skin to towel off and follow up with the body cream. I love that it’s in a pump and it’s thick enough to do the job without being heavy and goopy like a body butter.  And like I said, I can’t stop sniffing my skin… which sounds weird now that I say it like that.

I do think they need to make a change in their marketing verbiage (and I hope to get a follow up email), but I would totally order again. I want to try some of the other scents. I tried the samples of shower cream and gel that came with my order, but was unimpressed with the lather, so I think I’ll skip that. But the scrub and creams are to die for, seriously.

You can order online at 100% Pure or find their stuff in some flagship Bath & Bodyworks stores and online.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find Paco.

It will be really great to use when going shopping or to the beach or the zoo… whenever I need to carry more than my usual amount of stuff.  And the bright colors and mixed patterns are so fun.  Really good choices!  The inside is totally different, too… aqua and green patterned.  Love, love. It’s even got pockets inside for smaller items.

It makes me feel so good to know that a client loved their website enough to create something uniquely for me in return.  It’s things like this that remind me why I love my job so much and why I enjoy putting the little extra details on designs for my clients.  They deserve a beautiful website, but it’s always wonderful to be appreciated.  Thank you, Gena!

This nicely sums up the next 5 days.  I can’t wait until Kathy gets here!  It’s officially our vacation, but I know we’re going to end up talking shop at some point.  We have too many ideas we want to dish about and when we only see each other once a year on average, we’ll take any opportunity we can get.

It’s first and foremost time off, but it’s a lot easier to talk shop with a side of margaritas, don’t you think?