Things I should be doing right now:

1. Researching/arranging more college visits.
2. Thinking about what to have for dinner tonight.
3. Cleaning anything, ANYTHING AT ALL.
4. Taking a walk to fight against inevitable decline and death.

Instead, I am looking at cute school supplies. For me, I mean. The children are all set. These are the pencils I just ordered on the encouragement of Twitter friends:

(image from Amazon.com)

Kikkerland Woodland Pencils. I’ve had them in my Amazon cart for literally years. They’ve been $9ish, and I thought they were really cute but NINE DOLLARS FOR FOUR PENCILS ARE THEY IN FACT KIDDING ME. Plus, I kept thinking I’d see them in a store for less. Yesterday they dropped to $6ish. Today I bought three sets: one set for me, two to give as gifts. I am feeling conflicted, yet happy.

In part I was fortified by the success of these pens by the same company:

(image from Amazon.com)

Kikkerland retro pens. My sister-in-law and sister-in-law’s sister and I were out shopping at cute gift shops when we found these cute pens. My sister-in-law and I were both wavering, because they were something like $7 and that seemed kind of pricey for what were probably inferior pens dressed up in cute exteriors. Then the clerk said, “Oh, those pens are so cute, I had to have some. And you know what, they actually write really well! I’d assumed they’d be terrible, but they weren’t!” Well, how about SOLD? And she was right: they ARE really great pens. Since then I’ve bought two more sets for myself, and two more to give as gifts. I just love them. They go up and down in price on Amazon, so I keep them in my cart and buy them in the $6-7 range.

I have something to add to the underwear post. First, after not being able to find the Hanes Constant Comfort in my size/cut for AGES, Target had one of those temporary cardboard displays set up with a TON of them, and in a 4-for-the-price-of-3 pack. I bought two packs, even though I am nervous about them being undersized.

Also, I found these, but in different colors, at Walmart for $10:

(image from Amazon.com)

Fruit of the Loom Cotton Stretch Hi-Cuts (or here’s another listing for what looks like the same thing and may or may not yield a better price). Notice they claim to have a “comfort covered waistband.” So, okay, I hate to gamble $10, but if they’re good, that’s great; and if they’re not good, I paid $10 for info. That’s the way I’m looking at it.

I washed just one pair, figuring that if I hated them I could donate the rest of the package. I don’t hate them, but I don’t love them either. The fabric is indeed stretchy, in a way I can’t tell if I like or not. It IS nice not to feel as if I’m wrestling myself into them. Also, they’re plenty big, which is a nice change after the running-small Hanes that have been hurting my feelings lately. The colors/patterns are okay: my pack had solid magenta, magenta with white polka-dots, solid teal, teal with white polka-dots, black, and white (my pack didn’t have a bonus pair).

But they seem more like briefs than hi-cuts, or at least like a briefs/hi-cut hybrid. And the fabric feels very thin, not nice and cottony. I mean, it’s not slippery/satiny either, but…I don’t know. Anyway, I guess I’m keeping them. I don’t think I’m rushing out to buy more of them, either, but we’ll see. I hate this point I always seem to get to with plus-size clothing, where it’s like “Does it work AT ALL, even SORT OF?? Then I’d better STOCK UP.” But here we are.

I would like suggestions for plus-sized underwear. The kind I like has been long-since discontinued, and I have cherished my remaining pairs so long I can no longer pretend the holes in the sides are sexy lace accents.

The ones I had before were Hanes, and they had the following attributes:

1. They were 100% cotton, except for the elastic. I have noticed that finding anything in 100% cotton is a bit of a challenge, so I am willing to go for a cotton-poly blend—but I would be much more reluctant to try nylon or anything slippery.

2. The elastic waistband was covered with cotton fabric. This was called a ComfortSoft waistband, I think. I really liked this, and would be drawn to similar.

3. They were the style known as hi-cut. I would be willing to try another style, I guess. But I don’t like briefs, especially in plus sizes. I suspect I would look dumb in the boy-short style, but I guess I’ve never TRIED. I used to like the bikini style, but now they bother my c-section scar; I suspect the hipster style would have the same issue.

4. They could be purchased in 3-packs for about $10. I am willing to pay more these days, but I did so appreciate being able to just pick up a pack at Target.

5. They were available in solid, non-neutral colors. I don’t like beige or white (black and grey are fine); I dislike most patterns. My favorite is if I can have an assortment of pretty colors: one pair turquoise and one pair bright pink and one pair aqua and one pair royal blue and one pair purple and one pair light green and so on.

I don’t know why I hate the regular Hanes hi-cuts. I’d THINK they’d be pretty much exactly like what I used to buy, except for the uncovered elastic—but no, everything about the fit is wrong. I bought a pack, threw away the pair I tried on, and donated the rest.

These are the ones I started buying instead, when my supply first started getting skimpy:

(image from Target.com)

They’re Hanes, they’re a cotton-poly blend, the waistband is soft, they’re hi-cut, they can be purchased in 3-packs for about $10. Unfortunately:

1. The last, say, twenty times I’ve gone to the two Targets near me, they haven’t had them in my size/cut. I could buy them online, but then I don’t get to approve the color/pattern selection.

2. The last time I DID find them at Target, they were smaller than they had been before. It is hard to know for sure who is to blame for this (maybe they’re the same size as before but my older ones have gradually stretched?), but there are online reviews that say the brand is now running a size small. And I am buying the top size Target sells already, so I can’t just go a size up.

3. In each three-pack, there tends to be one solid-colored pair I like, one solid-colored pair I dislike (beige, for example, or taupe), and one patterned pair I wear only one week a month because I dislike them so much I don’t care if they get ruined. This feels like a waste of money. I wish I could pair up with two other women my same size, one of whom likes patterns and one of whom likes neutrals, and we could swap. As it is, I was thinking if I bought three packs at a time, I could carefully re-package the three patterned pairs into one pack and donate them.

So anyway, I am open to suggestions.

(image from Amazon.com)

All day I kept thinking, “Wasn’t there something I was supposed to do today? Grocery shopping? No. Appointment? No. Kid activity? No.” OH! CHOOSE THE WINNERS OF MY FRIEND’S BOOK!

The winners are:

1. Joanne
2. BKC (8/17 at 11:39 a.m.)
3. Stacie (8/16 at 3:40 p.m.)

I’ll email the three winners and get shipping info! Everyone else: check your libraries! We were planning to donate copies to our library—but they had already bought two on their own! (Or if you have the spare cash, of course it would be extremely pleasing if you bought the book, but I will not be pushy. Except at the holidays when I’m making gift-idea posts: then I plan to push a little.)

One of my dearest friends had something exciting happen this month: Knopf published her book.

(image from Amazon.com)

Horus and the Curse of Everlasting Regret. I think the cover art is SO CUTE.

It has been a long and very exciting wait: I remember when she got the news that the book had been chosen and it seemed like August 2016 was A MILLION YEARS AWAY and would NEVER be here. But now it is here. I went to a bookstore today, and there it was on the shelf! multiple copies of it! RIGHT ON THE SHELF WITH OTHER REAL BOOKS. IN A REAL BOOKSTORE IN MY ACTUAL TOWN.

Anyway. I recommend it. All seven of us at my house have read it. The target age is around 8-12 years, approximately grades 3-7. I don’t usually like to read juvenile fiction so I was worried I’d have to do some suffering for my friend’s sake, but actually I really liked it. It reminded me of the Harry Potter books, where you don’t really feel as if you’re reading a “kid book” per se, except in that you find yourself thinking how much you would have loved it when you were a kid.

It is a little bit of an adventure/thriller/suspense book, with exciting parts. There is good comic relief to keep things from being too tense—but they are a little tense. The mummy is a good mummy, not a scary one. And there is a darling, darling, DARLING, not-scary pet bat.

Anyway! The hardcover is on a really good price right now on Amazon, so I will buy three copies to give away. (U.S. shipping addresses only.) Leave a comment below to enter. (Or you can leave a comment below if you’re NOT entering, and just add that you’re not entering.) You can just say “Enter!” or whatever, but if you like to write a little more, it would be fun to hear who you’d be winning it for: yourself, your kids, relatives, whatever. I’ll pick three names on Friday, August 19th, at around noon Pacific time. [Winners]

I am back from visiting my parents, and I am a little punchy: because of the time changes and the difficulty of getting from this particular point A to this particular point B, two days out of the previous five have involved staying up for 23 hours in a row, and I am getting a bit old for that.

I have so many things to say, I’m sitting here with a mind like a bag of mice. I’ve asked the children to please give me a 45-minute chunk of time, and I’ve given them a piece of paper to write down all the things they will think of to tell me as soon as my eyes focus on the computer screen. When I made this request I had already listened to 45 minutes of Pokemon Go, Dungeons and Dragons, cute things the cats did, and what they bought with their tickets at the arcade Paul took them to, so I feel I have earned a little time with my sorely-missed computer.

All our flights went beautifully and on time, with no cancellations and only one small delay (waiting for passengers from a delayed flight) that the pilot was able to make up for during the flight, and I’m not sure the last time that happened with flights I was on. The mid-90s, maybe? We flew Southwest. I love Southwest. Top favorite airline, would check their site first every single time. And if you are wondering if Early Bird Check-In (which puts you early in the pick-your-own-seat boarding order) is worth it, I vote YES YES YES A MILLION TIMES YES, especially if you dislike middle seats and/or if you have traveling companions you’d like to sit with. And if I fly another airline I have to pay to check my luggage (Southwest lets you check two suitcases for free), so I just mentally transfer the baggage-check fees to the Early Bird Check-In costs.

I was so happy I’d put my phone-charging cable in my carry-on, because there were outlets ALL OVER the airports. This is something probably most of you know. But I think the last time I traveled, I had not yet started playing phone games, and was only charging my phone every couple of days.

I was also happy I decided in advance to pay the high prices for airport food. It added significant, worth-it fun to the whole thing, for me and for Rob and William. It is hard to pay $26 for a pizza when usually I pay $14-minus-a-coupon, but AFTERWARD it seems like a ZERO-BIG-DEAL difference, and it’s nice to have a meal that isn’t granola bars and water, and the kids were like, “This is AWESOME.”

I read 1.75 books while I was gone:

(image from Amazon.com)

Britt-Marie Was Here, by Fredrik Backman. I don’t want to talk about the book too much, because I thought the best part was how it unfolded when I didn’t know anything about it beforehand. But I will say that during the first chapter, I did not think there was a high chance of finishing it. And then I ended up loving it, and I have added two more books by this author to my library list.

(image from Amazon.com)

Chestnut Street, by Maeve Binchy. This is one of Maeve Binchy’s posthumously-published books, and it is painful to know there are no more books coming (probably), so I saved it for a special occasion. I’d say that if I had read it without knowing it was put together by other people after she died, I would have thought, “Huh. She’s kind of slipping a bit, but I guess that’s normal after so many books.” The preface says she “would have wanted” this book published, but I think she would have wanted to work on it a bit more. I suspect that the people who profit from it are the ones who wanted it published. STILL, I am three-fourths of the way through it and I am enjoying a lot of it. My review sounds so tepid, when actually I would definitely recommend the book; it’s just that I feel a little irritated on her behalf that people seem to be attempting to rake in as much money as possible. Also, I guess I’d first recommend anything published while she was alive and could approve the final drafts. ANYWAY. Moving on.

Actually, my time is up. More coffee now, more talking soon.

I have some frets to vent. They are all small. I sense Paul has reached his limit for small-fret-listening, and yet I still have fretting to do, and so here we are.

I am supposed to get my hair cut tomorrow, after months spent REALLY REALLY wanting to cut it shorter and being VERY tempted to just cut off big chunks of it myself and FINALLY getting around to making the phone call and then LONGING for the appointment to be sooner and waiting impatiently for it to arrive. I was thinking of something between chin and shoulder. And now I am chickening out. I’ve had my hair longish for a long enough time now that I am not sure what I DO with it when it is shorter. Also I am nervous she will hurt the new piercing. I worked myself into a very silly panic about the whole thing, where I was spinning around thinking “AAAAGGGGHH the embarrassment of cancelling!!!” vs. “AAAAAGGGGHHH not sure I want it shorter!!!”—until I realized I could just go to the appointment and have her take an inch off and avoid BOTH unpleasant outcomes. Now I feel less panicky but am back to thinking, “But should I get it cut shorter? I’ve really been sick of washing it and brushing it and dealing with it lately. And it’ll grow back out, if I regret it. But I don’t know what I do with it when I don’t twist it into a quick bun.” I wish hair-growth were more adjustable, so that it could stay put when we have a great cut, or grow ultra-fast if we regret one.

My new piercing is itchy. It is a little bit swollen and a little bit pink, and I have been searching online for information about infection, but it is not meeting the standards for that: it looks as if this is “irritation” rather than “infection.” The information I’m finding is soothingly condescending, like “You have to realize you have put a foreign object into your body, and your body’s job is to get rid of it. Have patience and give your body time to adjust.” But this itchy tenderness is making me even less want a hair cut: I’ve been pulling my hair way away from the piercing, and if it’s shorter I have to re-figure-out all my ways of doing that. (I can always just have her take an inch off. I can always just have her take an inch off. It will grow back. It will grow back.)

My weight keeps going up. I don’t really want to talk about it more than that. I just want to let you know that that is one of my fret clouds right now.

I’m taking the two older boys with me on a trip to see my parents, and the fretting about air travel has begun. What if the check-in takes forever. What if we miss our connection. What if it’s so tight that we have to do one of those panicked-dashes-for-the-gate AND we lose the earlier-boarding-for-a-better-seat we paid extra for and we all end up in middle seats in separate rows. What if I accidentally bring something I’m not supposed to bring. What if they don’t believe me that my 6’3″ child is a minor, and they demand to see his ID. What if I forget something. Soothing techniques: Remembering it has all gone fine in the past, even when things have gone wrong. Remembering that anything I might accidentally forget is almost certainly something I can re-purchase. Remembering that I always get all worked up, and then when I’m actually traveling I wonder why I got so worked up when it’s not really that big a deal. Adding “student ID” and “copy of birth certificate” to list.

I have a lot of errands to do before I go. Some of them are things I need to acquire for the trip or handle for the trip; others are things I need to do/acquire for the household I’ll be leaving behind. I tend to get overly worked up about both lists, feeling as if all those things MUST be done or LORD HELP US ALL. When actually, Paul could go to the store for milk, and I could buy saline in my parents’ town; and if it REALLY came to it, I could pay $1/pill for Dramamine at the airport.

There. I think that’s all. I sit ready to listen to your fret-venting now, if you like.

*runs up you you, panting heavily, and grips your upper arm*: DID YOU KNOW YOU COULD JUST BUY EAR-PIERCING EARRINGS ON AMAZON?? FOR HARDLY ANY MONEY??

I waited until my order arrived to tell you about it, because it felt as if it could not be the case that I would buy a 12-pack of assorted ear-piercing earrings for about a dollar a pair and have them be, like, actually the same earrings they pierce earlobes with at thirty bucks a double-pop. But now I have seen it with my own eyes. (In fact, you can also buy an ear-piercing gun, but NO THANK YOU, I’M ALL SET.)

I wanted ear-piercing earrings for MULTIPLE REASONS:

1. Elizabeth wants to change her earrings about twice a year, so I like to get her earrings she can just leave in all the time

2. I am the same way about my upper-lobe piercings: I just like to leave a pair of earrings in all the time without taking them out or changing them

3. In 6-9 months I will be able to change my cartilage piercing, and I will want something very surgical-steely for that

I have little mini gold studs I wear in my upper-lobe piercings, and because “piercing is free, just buy the earrings,” and because I didn’t realize I could buy locking-back surgical-steel earrings anywhere other than a piercing place, I paid THIRTY DOLLARS for those earrings (I did not need another set of piercings, just smaller studs than I’d had my ears pierced with). Now I find the EXACT SAME ONES for slightly over a dollar a pair. This makes the whole thing seem like a rip-off. Which is silly, because all along it has NOT been free piercing, it has been $30 (or whatever) for piercing-including-earrings. But they SAY it is $30 for just the earrings, and I am very irritated by irritating marketing ploys. And I am so annoyed that they followed right through with that ploy and actually did charge me $30 for just the earrings.

Anyway! I am sorry, I am so wound up with excitement, I am not composing this post in an organized fashion.

What happened was this: I was writing the post about my fresh new cartilage piercing, and I wanted to find a picture that illustrated what I meant by “non-bezel-set,” because I’m not sure what that other kind of setting is called (I would call it “regular,” maybe). And the hits I got for images of ear-piercing earrings included some from items listed on Amazon, like this one, that looked VERY VERY MUCH like the earrings I’d been offered at my recent piercing session:

(image from Amazon.com)

Surgical Steel Ear Piercing Studs 12 Pairs Mixed Colors White Metal

And so I clicked through, and I read the details, and I read the reviews, and with hope and disbelief I ordered three sets: the silver-looking bezel-set ones above, the same basic deal in gold-looking metal, and a 12-pack of mini gold studs. And they arrived, and they appear to be FOR REAL. Behold!

There is perforation between each pair of earrings, so you can tear off just one set. You could give a few pairs in her favorite colors to a niece with recently-pierced ears, and keep the rest for yourself!

They have the sharp points and the locking backs. They look identical to the ear-piercing earrings I’ve bought before (for THIRTY DOLLARS A PAIR). They are glorious. I love them. I am so happy.

This is what the backs of the packages look like (blue is what’s on the back of the two sets of colored stones; red is what’s on the back of the gold studs):

I am especially pleased with the 12-pack of mini gold studs (2mm instead of 4mm like the usual piercing studs). I’ve been wearing mine for so many years that the plating has mostly worn off and they look silver, but DARNED if I was paying another $30! Now I have TWELVE PAIRS, all shining and golden! But those are also the ones I’m most nervous about, because they are a different brand than the others, and they are the only one with a review saying they irritated the reviewer’s ears so she wondered if they were not surgical steel as advertised. Well! We will see!

Another set I considered but decided against is this one: it has only six pairs, and includes duplicates from the other sets—but it has stars, hearts, and pearls. I also considered this set, which is what I was originally looking for when I set out to find a picture of what I meant by “non-bezel-set”/”regular” (and here they are in silver-color). Turns out it’s called “prong style.”

I was trying to make room in the filing cabinet, and I found a folder labeled School. In that folder were some test results I had no idea I’d kept. Back in college, I changed my major about six times the first year, and finally at the suggestion of my sixth advisor went to the Career Center to do some vocational testing. Here is the result of a test that is apparently called the Strong Interest Inventory of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank. It is supposed to determine which of the six vocational types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) a person is interested in.

NONE strong interests! That seems about right.

There’s a second page that divides occupations into lists, sorting them by how similar I am to people in those occupations. I have no matches in the “very similar” category. In the “similar” category, I have six occupations: photographer, lawyer, librarian, broadcaster, public administrator, banker.

In the “moderately similar” category, I have eight occupations: advertising executive, reporter, elected public official, store manager, public relations director, social science teacher, Chamber of Commerce executive, and marketer.

In the “very dissimilar” category are ALL THE REST OF THE OCCUPATIONS. A lonnnnnnnng list. It includes all the medical professions, most of the teaching professions, all of the science and engineering professions, and also things such as forester, carpenter, mathematician, and police officer. Nopes all around.

While all of this is a little discouraging, not to mention not very helpful, there is a sense in which it is comforting to see that I have been the same all along: low interest in pretty much everything, no feeling of having various possible paths to contented employment. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t feel like I was wasting decades of career growth by having a lot of kids: I didn’t have anything I particularly wanted to do anyway.

But it makes it hard to figure out what to do as the kids get older. Surely I will not still be sitting in the house without a job after the last kid is gone? And yet, my job experiences so far are not giving me much hope. Well! Still many more occupations to attempt!

On the How Did You Choose Your College? post, Missy asked if there could be another post where people say what their major was and what job(s) they got with that. She says: “Part of the reason I think it is so hard for kids to pick majors is ‘what kind of job would that be’?”

I agree. One of Rob’s potential majors is theoretical math. Not applied math: theoretical. And definitely my question there is what kind of JOB would that be?

Also, I think it’s so interesting to see how there can be a huge gap between major and job: sometimes they are (or seem) almost completely unconnected.

So let’s talk about that today, in whatever way applies to you. For example, maybe you can say, “This was my major, and here are some of the jobs associated with that major.” Or maybe you can say, “This was my major, but this is where I ended up, because etc.” Or maybe you can say, “This was my major, and there are NO JOBS, so I went back for schooling in this other thing.” Or maybe you will want to tell what happened with someone else. Just, whatever you think applies to this discussion.

Here is what I would rather not see, if we can avoid it: fighting about whether it’s better to go with a major that is attached to a definite employment path, or whether it’s better to follow one’s heart/interests regardless of future employment possibilities. It seems clear to me that the answer to that dilemma is “Sometimes one way is better, sometimes the other way is better, and it’s super-hard to figure out in advance which way is best for an individual person and their individual interests/life.” I’d rather stick, if possible, to stories about “This major —-> this job.”

Things are not good right now, are they. I think I’m going with links.

1. The ACLU has a good article on the right to peacefully protest, but the format is annoying because you have to keep clicking to get to the next item on the list. Still, it is a good list, if you are wondering about what is allowed and what is not, maybe because you are planning to participate in a protest, or maybe because people in your Facebook feed are acting as if it’s illegal to do so, or maybe because people in your Facebook feed are acting as if protesters don’t have to follow any rules at all. (Perhaps you are extra-lucky and you have BOTH kinds of people in your Facebook feed, fighting each other as you try not to let it make you want to start digging a hole for the bomb shelter.) Know Your Rights for Peaceful Protests. Here is a PDF version that doesn’t make you click to get to the next item: PDF Know Your Rights.

2. Sometimes it is hard to know where to send money to be HELPFUL: should the money go for legal support, or for education, or for the families of people affected? Should I send money to put out current fires, or would the money be better spent on preventing future fires? I can easily end up spinning my wheels and doing nothing. When I am overwhelmed by choices but want to do SOMETHING, I like to send a check to Plan International. They’re a non-religious charity that works on the very basics of making the world better: water, food, medical care, shelter, and not getting sold into slavery.

3. Or, here is a list of charities in the Human & Civil Rights category that Charity Navigator rates 4 stars (the highest rating). But I feel a little overwhelmed even with a pared-down list like that. Too many choices. On the other hand, I find it soothing to see how many people are working on making things better.

4. This Craig Ferguson quote:
“…Ask yourself the three questions you must always ask yourself before you say anything:
1. Does this need to be said?
2. Does this need to be said by me?
3. Does this need to be said by me now?”