Bibbity Bobbity Boo

I had two prom dresses. They were sort of wonderful, really, very prom-y, all satin and tulle and matching shoes with rhinestones. They were Jessica McClintock. It was all very glam. 

 

That was in 2003. Since then, one of the dresses (the red one with the embroidery) was lost forever, lent to a friend of a friend of my sister’s who either disappeared off the face of the earth or just stopped being friends with my sister’s friend, same difference. The other one has been sitting in my closet, gathering dust. I wore it once more, to a Hall Council formal in college, but it looked frankly absurd. Plus, I’m fatter than I used to be. Not a lot. But a little. 

 

Anyway, the point is, when I went home last week I pulled it out and was trying to figure out what to do with it, when I remembered hearing about the Fairy Godmother Project, which provides gently-used dresses (and matching shoes, I imagine) to chicks who need them for their own proms and formals. Is that not the awesomest, nicest, most pay-it-forwardest thing you’ve ever heard? 

I brought the dress back to the apartment, and later today I’m going to haul the giant thing on the train to the Boston Public Library and do some donatin’. I love the idea of getting it out of my house–and into someone else’s prom pictures.

Peach Schnapps and girlfights not included.

and i don’t believe in time

I got up twenty minutes earlier than usual so I could make it into work in time for a phone date with R, who is finally back on this side of the ocean. Besides getting to catch up with one of my favorite ladies, I’ve found that my head start has piggybacked on itself, allowing me to pull more and more ahead of schedule: I skirted the worst of rush hour, trimming my commute. Since the bus wasn’t crowded, I sat down and was able to return some emails from my phone. I was the first one here, so I had time to get organized before the phone started ringing. And on and on. It’s only 10:16, and I feel like I’m well on my way to knocking out my whole to-do list—all because I set the alarm a tiny bit earlier.

 

I’m going to keep trying this over the next couple of days. Who knows what I might get done?

Wanderlust

This week is a little bit crazy. Leprechaun leaves tomorrow for a wedding in Ohio, I’m super busy until Saturday when I leave for a mini road trip with my friend S, and then we meet back here next Monday so we can leave for the Dominican Republic and lay on the beach like sloths for five days.

 

Woot.

 

I know the rest of this week is going to fly, and to make the most of it—and avoid leaving my brain on the bus—I’m going to have to be as organized as possible. And that means, among other things, packing in advance.

 

No matter where I’m going or how long I’m going for, I always spend a whole day getting ready to leave. Scribbling a list on a scrap of paper, doing laundry, then obsessing about whether or not I’m bringing the right combination of clothes and toiletries—the process swallows hours and stresses me out until I don’t even want to go on vacation anymore.

 

This time, though, I’ve put together a master list—a couple of lists, actually, one for cold-weather trips and one for warm.  They’ve got a bunch of common to-be-packed items as well as fill-in-the-blank spaces for quantities. I think they’re pretty thorough: I tend to overpack, because a) I like to have options and b) I don’t think I have ever gone more than 12 hours without spilling something on myself. With a little tweaking, I’m pretty sure these lists will work for all kinds of vacationers. Here they are! Have at ‘em.

 

Hopefully, I can use these bad boys over and over, cutting the time (and angst) of packing solidly in half. That way, I can spend the time doing other stuff.

 

Like, you know. Being excited about my trip.