A N N A J O H N ' S D I A R Y

Liveblogging The 80th Academy Awards...

Jennnifer Garner-  my favorite look of the night.  Love it all.  Dress, makeup, hair, jewels.  She's flawless, even if she had to name-check that hag Rachel ZoH.

Amy Adams-  bravo for the super-dark-green color, which I couldn't see properly until she was on stage!  She seems really nice.

Cate Blanchett- luminous, but I don't think it's because of her makeup. :)  She's so beautiful, I'm not even noticing her halter dress.

Katherine Heigl-  not loving the color, but it's okay.  Dress seems fine.  Not her best look.  What is up with the circle-cut-out on the shoulder-trend?  Katherine and one other actress are both sporting this...

Ellen Page-  I like her hair.  She seems to prefer low-key dresses, which is refreshing compared to what other youngsters are sporting.  It works for her, this forgettable frock. ;)

Marion Cotillard-  Gaultier!  Oui, oui!  She is beautiful.  Her dress is art, and might be my favorite among all the super-pale choices of the night.  I keep thinking of koi ponds when I look at her.  You know, my mom used to do my hair like that...LOVE HER SPEECH!

Laura Linney-   lovely.  elegant.

Cameron Diaz-  I dislike the silhouette of this dress, the inverted tulip thing going on around the hips.  I think it's petal pink in color, which I like...and I dig the pleating, but that's about it.  She looks naked, b/c of the color, the lack of jewelry, the makeup...

Jessica Alba- the feathers are distracting!  I'm not in love with the color and I'm annoyed because her dress looks uneven, but not in an intentional, assymetrical way.  In kinder news, I think she might be the only one who could rock that hairstyle and not look stupid.

Kerri Russell- I'd get married in this dress, if it fit my chest better than it did hers.  What gives?  I'm so distracted by this, I can't appreciate what is obviously a pretty gown.

Renee Zellweger- has been working out.  From the back she looks so coke-bottle-shapely, it seems exaggerated...can't wait to see her dress, all I glimpsed was silver above the podium.  Her hair is fabulous, totally suits her face.  Okay just saw her back again, and she looks like someone I once knew from our water polo team.  We didn't have a female one. ;)

Nicole Kidman- I don't know if I like her in black, it almost seems too dark a choice for her ultra-paleness.  Also, her L'Wren Scott necklace isn't centered and thus, is looped over one of her breasts.  Not like I'd know what THAT problem is like...

Penelope Cruz-  eh.

Hillary Swank- I can't decide if I like this dress!  As she's walking on stage, I'm thinking, "not so much", but as they zoom in on her, I like it.  It suits her.  She looks more feminine than Renee did, despite both of them having no body fat...

Tilda Swinton- this might be the ugliest dress at the show.  WHY.

Helen Mirren- another apposite choice for her.  My brain keeps telling me that I should dislike the blinged out,  faux-shrug and type "without that, the dress would have been blockbuster, it's so unnecessary", but she looks good.  I love that red and I love the skirt of the gown.  She looks beautiful.

Diablo Cody-  I hate this dress, pacifically the slit.  And her hair...texture-wise, it reminds me of my own RIGHT after I dye it, it's rough and jagged, but not in a good way.  I like her makeup, though.  And her emotion. :)

It would have gone in my real Diary, when I started it back in 1983

February 16-18

All I did was sleep. 

What a waste of a three-day weekend.  I didn't even make it to church, let alone address the laundry/project "space bag" situation. Between the allergies, the pneumonia hangover (?), the cramps and the ankle, I am feeble.  Whyyyy all at once?  And why did Eve ever have to bite that fucking apple?*

::

*That's the answer I received in the 7th grade, when I first got my period and all the attendant misery, and I asked my Mom whose idea this crap-fest was, anyway...

February 12

Today is Tuesday and while Tuesdays are always the worst days of my week because of deadline-laden Wednesday morning, today is extra hives-worthy for two reasons:

1)  I've been given an additional, extremely challenging, "emergency" assignment on top of the two reports I haven't even been able to start yet, both of which are due by COB.  I have never used what I will need to use to finish this urgent task.  Funnily enough, this bothers no one.

2)  I've "heard" that I'm not working enough hours, i.e. it would be greeeat if I could come in even earlier, though I stay until 8 or 9pm, regularly.  Right. I cannot work 12 hour+ days right now.  I am just barely over pneumonia.  I was thisclose to being hospitalized and I left bed-rest a week earlier than I should have, because we were short-staffed and I didn't want to screw over awesome people  whom I genuinely like, so I said I'd come in part-time as long as I was able to get my rest.  Everyone agreed to this, happily.  The whole reason I got so sick, sicker than I've been my whole life, was precisely because I put work first.  Out of the blue, we had a minor staff change.  And the new person missed pneumonia-palooza and just thinks I'm flakey.  Awesome.

My day is scheduled in a way where it's only going to get progressively worse, until about 8:30pm.  Then, I will go home and probably be so stressed/exhausted, I will not want to write any of this down.  So I'm writing it now, during the agonizing moments when I can't move forward because I'm waiting on someone else (it's not their fault).

. . .

When I left the office after one of my toughest days at work, ever (no, I didn't cry, but I sure as hell broke in to hives), I didn't realize everything was so dangerous because of the severe weather (just in time for the Potomac Primary!).  Not only was there a twenty-car pileup in Maryland, there were mini accidents everywhere because of the ice storm.

Once outside, the ground looked wet; it didn't look frozen. The near-total darkness did not help me discern what was ahead of me.  I just knew there was no salt to be found, which automatically made me think "rain, not snow".  The moment I started to skate instead of step, I stifled a freak-out and just took a deep breath.

Though I was walking as slowly and cautiously as I could, in rubber-heeled ballet flats with nubby soles, I slipped on the massively iced-over sidewalks and before I realized it, I was on the ground, with no one nearby and nothing to pull myself up with.  I predicted what would happen next with grim certainty; though I tried to get up carefully, it was so slippery, my right leg moved in a direction it shouldn't.  The word torsion comes to mind. 

Not only did I re-injure my ankle, I hurt my knee.  I couldn't even think about that though, because I was simultaneously enraged/despair-ridden that nine months of excruciating, glacial progress could be undone in an instant, by a different sort of ice.  I had to get home.  I could tell this was bad and now I was cold and scared on top of exhausted and frazzled. I limped in to a taxi.  The driver could tell I was in pain, and he felt so bad.  When he got to my building, he wanted to help me.  I told him it was okay, because he had other people in the cab, so he stayed there, idling, until I made it in to my lobby...but that took a while, because I have stairs to climb and guess what!  The banisters were iced over!  Yay!  I waved to him and he looked sorry for me while driving away.

By the time I got upstairs and took off my ever-present brace and my super-cute Michael Kors outfit, I saw what I was dreading: a swollen ankle.  It was getting worse.  While I had limped to this low point, up to the sanctuary of my apartment, now, I could barely put weight on it.  I was miserable.  I emailed the office and told them I would not be in the next day, since the ice was supposed to continue inflicting death and destruction on the district until lunch time, and I couldn't take the risk of further injury. 

I also needed to not move my worthless ankle for at least a day.  So, I slept for almost 24 straight hours, through all of Wednesday.  I didn't even get up to eat or drink water.  After that, my ankle feels better, but my limp is back.  The pain is back.  And my frustration threatens to consume me, because it's all so precarious, isn't it?  And unfair.  Just when I had three seemingly insignificant milestones that I was so grateful for  (last week, I climbed stairs for the first time in almost a year), I slide backwards, where I desperately did not want to go.

Liveblogging the 50th Annual Grammy Awards

Alicia Keys- (outfit while presenting NOT red carpet)Alicia's breasts look as if they are being held hostage by her gown.  I think I once had a Nike sports bra with the same cut-out action in front.  I like the green, dislike the hair and wish the earrings were a little sparklier.  Make-up is exc.

Rihanna-  (outfit while interrupting Morris Day and The Time NOT red carpet) Sigh. The bondage shit is getting old...the hair reminds me of when I was younger than the Barbados-born-beauty herself, though.  Summoning memories of Grace Jones.  Then again, her face is so beautiful, who notices her bizarre grey dress.

Fergie-  (again, while performing, with John Legend) What an awful color...and it looks shapeless at first glance.  Okay, maybe it has an excessively-draped thing going on...but I'm not a fan of the cape/fringe/back.  Ugh. Not g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s. (Just caught up with Fergie's red carpet look and I can't stop looking at her cleavage, which seems way too...vertical.  Also, her elbows look old.  How is that possible?!)

I wonder if Miley's hair is real or Indian?  They need to let that child grow up for two years, she's so nervous she can't speak.

Cyndi- is so sacred I shan't blog a thing.  I bow.  I bow.  I remember when GJWHF came out and I feel blessed because of it.

Cher's dress is as deconstructed as she is meticulously constructed.

Beyonce-  (note: while doing that FANTASTIC introduction for Tina Turner/while performing "Proud Mary") Now, finally, a dress I like.  Beyonce rarely disappoints.  I don't always like what she does, like some of her hard-core acolytes naturally would, but more often than not, this girl has me nodding approvingly.  I like her meaty-by-Hollywood-standards thighs.  Hell, I'll vote her best-dressed for showing real legs on stage.  Has she cut her hair?

February 4: Monday is for Mufflers

365- day thirty-one:, originally uploaded by suitablegirl. 

One of my favorite people in the galaxy made me this scarf two years ago and I've been in lurve with it, since. No one besides my late Nana ever knitted me anything and even she stuck with blankets after making the little booties I wore as an infant. ;) 

It was just such an unexpected gift, in such an unexpected color.  And knowing the plethora of shades yarn is available in, I was struck by how much care was taken to find the hue that seemed right...for me.  No one else in the whole wide world has this exact scarf.  That's a present in itself. :) Don't we all love custom-everything?  To not have what others do?  (This is why I find the mall-ification of cities like NYC disconcerting, btw.) 

My pretty, knitty friend is so modest, Modest Mouse wants to sue her for infringement. 

February 2: ZzzzzzZzz

I woke up today at 5:30pm and then again, at 8:30pm.

I think that sums up my day rather effectively.

Is this pneumonia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?  I've been in bed since yesterday, i.e. Friday, when "payback" for my foolish attempt at returning to work on Thursday commenced. 

Six days of bed rest passed and I thought I was well enough to work on Thursday, which is traditionally one of the "easier" days of my week.  Nine-and-a-half hours later, as I logged out of my Scottish-fold-adorned PC, I realized I was fuuuuucked.  So much for taking it "easy".  Thanks, work! 

Friday morning, I woke up with chills.  I was having coughing fits.  I took medicine and called my Mother, who for once didn't sound bored or blase ("What?  You have bronchitis?  So?  Do you know that I just saw a patient half your age, with a brain tumor?  HALF!").  If anything, THAT scared me most of all, to hear concern from a voice which rarely betrays it.  "You might need to be hospitalized," she said as quietly as one can via speakerphone, and I listed while tying on my ankle brace, near my bed.  I felt woozy, no, more than woozy...I felt like I did, right before I faint, which is something I did regularly during my teen years.  Three hours later, I woke up half on my bed, half on the floor. 

Bad, very bad.

I ripped off work clothes and crawled back in bed and slept.  And I woke up a few times, for a few minutes, usually because I was coughing...but then I'd drink more water, make sure that ABC NEWS NOW (I love it, it's my favorite cable channel, just leave it) was murmuring in my ear and I'd pass out again, almost immediately. 

I used to dream of sleeping for days.  Now I'm doing it, and it doesn't seem to change or improve anything and more worryingly, it increases my anxiety versus counteracting it.  You'd think all this rest would do something...