You know those typhoons of mortification I told you about?

Here.

Mood: Gah. Story: so, I looked like a wreck yesterday – and posted “Rockin’ the homeless nerd look today. Saweet!” on Facebook. My sister Chere leaves the following comment:

“Hope you don’t run into ___.”

Only she didn’t blank out the name. Of the dude.

Oh dear.

You see, there’s a story to this. The last time I rocked the homeless look, Chere and I went to a Chinese buffet here in Provo. The lunch was horrible. But what was worse is that as we were walking in, this guy (yes, ___) also walked in. He’s a nice man – smart, funny, even speaks Chinese – he didn’t deserve to see me looking like that. No one does.

Now don’t protest that it couldn’t have been that bad. When I say I am “looking homeless” it is not hyperbole. I was so out of it that I was only wearing one earring (3″ gold hoop – can you say pirate?), and I hadn’t brushed my hair. I was rocking day old mascara and the same clothes from the night before (when he’d seen me last). I looked rough, and I was mortified to have been seen by anyone, much less him. After mumbling some kind of awkward hello, I fled to the other side of the restaurant and kept repeating, “I can’t believe I ran into ___ looking like this. I look homeless!” over and over again, much to Chere’s amusement.

So, when Chere commented, “Hope you don’t run into ___” that’s what she was talking about. Mildly funny inside joke, right? Now if she’d said it to only me, and not to a world of Facebook friends who know the guy but don’t know the story. And of course the dude himself – who obviously knows his version of the story – which probably goes, “I saw Tai at a buffet and she didn’t talk to me. She’s kind of weird.” The end.

I deleted the comment, of course. Too late? Probably.

So, in answer to the question. My mood? Chagrined, probably – with a soupçon of resignation. Because in the grand weather pattern of embarrassing moments in my life, this is but a gentle breeze in comparison to the typhoons of mortification I have experienced and no doubt will experience in the future.

First words today: No idea. It’s almost midnight, and the only reason I’m awake is because I’m waiting for my laundry to dry and my bread rolls to rise. It was a long and busy and incredibly productive day, and I really love that feeling of going to bed knowing that you eked out all you could from the hours allotted to you.

(Note: At this point, I fell asleep kneeling by my bed, forehead on spacebar and drool accumulating on trackpad. All that eke-ing wore me out. I woke up in time to go check on the bread rolls, but the rest of this post was finished the next day, which is now the true today. Or whatever.)

Considering: this Ambrose Redmoon quote: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.”

Self Improvement: I’m getting things together, keeping up with laundry, working on keeping the house nicer, and trying to get more sleep. Tomorrow I start getting up early to go walk. If it lasts longer than a day, I’ll let you know. I’ve only ever been able to sustain a night time workout regime – but I hear good things about the morning workout. Dang, that was boring. Moving on.

Want: I still need new clothes – I don’t know that I’m loving my style right now. But I just did a quick search of retailers, and either I was looking in the wrong places, or I just don’t like any clothes right now. (Nudism, you might ask? So drafty.) All I want to wear is jeans, hoodies and chucks – not exactly the look of a professional. Not to mention the fact that it does nothing to help my figure – it has the rough effect of turning me into a gender free zone. I did find this ensemble on the J.Crew website though. You think a slouchy shirt and sequined pants would look good on me? HEY, ME TOO.

I dreamed: So I have this thing with dreams – I have to find what I’m dreaming plausible, or my brain just won’t go along with it. So it says something about my optimism about relationships that my psyche will allow dreams about competing in the Winter Olympics but refuses to let me dream about anything romantic. (FYI, it was ice skating, and all the professionals died in a freak accident and they had to air something, and I was the next best thing.) Freud would gnaw his own beard off out of sheer boredom if forced to analyse me. I may have slept through all the chastity talks in church, but my subconscious was wide awake and taking copious notes – which it then typed out and forwarded to all departments and taped up in the break room (of my brain).

Cooking: I stayed up late last night and made barbecue pulled pork and big, fat, buttery dinner rolls. Both were fine, nothing to write home about. But I loved, loved, loved being up late in the kitchen, the night air whispering through the window, and the rest of the neighborhood quiet. I loved methodically wiping down the counters, checking on the rolls in the oven, and finally, a few minutes after midnight, having the fruits of my labor right in front of me. Glorious.

Listening: This will surprise you, but I’ve been listening to a fair amount of country lately – the Dixie Chicks phase I was in kind of led into this – that, and oddly, Fleetwood Mac. Well, actually that totally makes sense, because I love the song “Landslide” and while Stevie Nicks is brilliant, I like the Dixie Chick’s version better. Is that heresy? Anyway, so I’ve been letting the country ooze in, mostly in the form of Tim McGraw and Rascal Flatts. Here’s the thing about country music – (incidentally, should I be capitalizing Country Music?) – it is so unabashedly romantic and gushy and heartbroken and bighearted and just… American. It makes me think of all the big, tough men I know that listen to it, and that makes me want to poke them a little, and see if the marshmallow fluff pops out. Because that’s totally adorable.

Reading: Race Matters, by Cornel West.

Blogs: I’ve been reading a lot of food blogs lately, with Tartelette being my favorite, but there are so many amazing ones, inlcuding Eggbeater, Sunday Suppers, and the very lovely Canelle et Vanille.

What I’m wearing: I’m still not sure about this category, and I’m afraid it’s by far the most boring part of these entries. I always wear black pants, and I’m usually wearing black flats. Although – speaking of black flats, if you’ve seen me at all this summer, you’ll know that I’ve become ridiculously attached to these black laser cut flats from Target. These shoes were an early casualty of the days back when I kept having to chase the puppy down and screech “NO, NO, NO, YOU FREAKISH MONGREL!” at her while brandishing a chewed shoe. My big toe actually pokes through on the left one. Has this stopped me from wearing them? I laugh heartily, because no, it hasn’t. (Do you see now how I can lean toward looking homeless?) I have stopped wearing them to church – at least, sacrament meeting, etc. To ward prayer and other activities the shoes do indeed go (if you don’t know what ward prayer is, and think it sounds like a religious insane asylum – you… are not far off).

I got totally side tracked there. I’m wearing a purple top, black pants and holey black flats. Yawn. But I don’t look homeless.

Song of the day: I wanted to post Landslide – but I just watched the music video, and beyond being full of disturbingly bad CGI, there are also black choker necklaces and staggering amounts of eye makeup. So, I’m going to go with this instead – because, guess what, we are going to be friends!

PS. I love Jack White.