Oh, the hardships I endure before 7 a.m.

by Camille Posted on February 26, 2010

***This post is published in conjunction with the Spin Cycle over at Sprite’s Keeper. Today’s subject is “confessions.” Click here to read more of the internet’s most confessional posts.***

Morning people are so annoying. So judgmental. They think just because they like waking up at the crack of dawn, that everyone should, and that those poor schlops who don’t are just plain lazy.

Morning people’s greatest joy in life is to phone their non-morning-people friends early just to rub in the fact that they are so superior for waking up early. You’d think that during all those dark hours that they’re awake before the sun, they could come up with a better hobby than belittling their sleeping friends.

Image from here.

I don’t know why, but for some reason when I get those kind of calls, I always feel compelled to act like I was wide awake, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to be awake and functioning before the sun even rises in the morning. But really, why should I be ashamed that I like to sleep in? They should be ashamed that they interrupted my sweet, sweet dreams.

But that’s not the kind of response morning people like to hear. They go out of their way to make The Others feel guilty for sleeping in. You know the type: the kind of morning person who tries to shame you into feeling guilty about your sleeping habits.

My mother-in-law does this to me at least once a week. She’ll call around 9:00 (I KNOW IT’S LATE, BUT DON’T YOU JUDGE ME—THERE WILL COME A TIME WHEN I WILL LOSE THIS GIFT OF WELL-RESTEDNESS, AND I DO NOT WANT ANY REGRETS ABOUT FAILING TO LIVE IT UP WHILE I STILL COULD; I REFUSE TO BE ASHAMED) and glibly sing, “Good mor-ning!”

Whenever my response sounds even mildly grouchy, she gets all excited, and immediately pounces on the possibility that I may have still been in bed:

“You’re not still sleeping are you?”

At this point, the conversation can go one of two ways: I can reach into the depths of my soul and procure the fakest of awake voices ever known to man and lie through my teeth: “No, I’ve been awake since five-thirty!” or I can stifle the inner swear words in my brain and grumble, “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

Ninety-nine percent of the time, I lie and act cheerful. She knows I’m lying, too, because I’m never that cheerful even when I really have been awake for hours, so any sort of chirping voice is highly unconvincing. Every time I lie, she sees right through my facade, and, satisfied that she has successfully shamed me about my sleeping habits, she giggles at her superiority for a moment before she gets to the point of whatever she is calling about.

One time I chose to take the honest route and just grumble that yes, I had still been in bed, as a matter of fact, and what could possibly be so important that she was calling at ten-thirty in the dadgum morning, she paused for a moment, baffled at my blatant lack of shame, and then decided that said shame must be produced at all costs, so she said, “That is pathetic! It’s time to get out of bed, Lazy!”

It worked. I was shamed.

Why is that? Why is it that morning people feel so superior to those of us reasonable individuals who don’t like being awake when it’s still dark outside? Why does every morning person I know feel the need to judge me for sleeping in? It’s not like I call them at one a.m. and squeal, “What? You’re not in bed already, are you? Get up, you lazy thing! The night is young!”

I would never do that.

What’s really infuriating is that a couple of days a week, I will call her house in the late afternoon, you know, when I’ve been awake for several hours and am really starting to get revved up for the day (around four o clock), and more often than not, such a phone call will will wake her up from a nap. I am always so tempted to gloat, to say, “Ha, ha! Who’s lazy now, huh?” or “That’s what you get for being stupid and waking up so early—if you would just sleep in a little later, you could actually be utilizing these precious daytime hours instead of wasting them away like a lump on a log,” but inevitably, without fail, she will make me feel guilty for waking her up!  ARGH!

The ironic thing is that on the rare (very rare) days that I do feel compelled to rouse myself from bed early, say, at six in the morning, people have no faith that I have actually done such a thing. I always text Poor Kyle when I stay awake after he leaves for work, simply because I feel the need to prove to him my diligence. But he gets up at 6:00 and stays up on a daily basis, so he’s never impressed by my rare early mornings. One time, I had an appointment at 9:00 to run some errands with my morning-person neighbor and she called me at 8:45 to ask in a sing-song voice, “Good mor-ning! Are you awake yet?” I had been awake since six because I don’t like being late for appointments, so I flatly said, “Yes, of course. I’ve been awake for hours.” I tried not to be offended, but it didn’t work—who gave her the right to assume that I would be late for our appointment just because I like to sleep late?

Sleeping late doesn’t mean that I can’t manage my time well—it means that I manage my time a little later than some people manage theirs. I am fully capable of getting up early if necessary…I simply go to bed a little earlier the night before. It’s not the ideal way for me to live my life, but I certainly can do it.

The days of me feeling ashamed about my sleeping schedule are over. Starting now, anyone who calls me while I’m still in bed will be told the truth, plain and simple: Yes, you woke me up, but that’s okay because I don’t judge people for needing to make a phone call in the morning. No, you don’t have to hang up and call later because I’m already awake so you might as well get it over with; what can I do for you?

I don’t expect people to know what time I wake up every morning, because it varies from day to day; if I really didn’t want to answer the phone, I’d just sleep through it. But if I have the decency to pick up the phone at seven in the morning, all I ask is that they have the decency not to judge me for sounding a little croaky and incoherent.

So, confess: have you had to deal with this sort of problem? Or are you a morning person, and see my argument from the other side of the spectrum?

Posted in oh brother what next, theories, thisandthat, what I'm about, woe is me | 29 Comments

These Letters Mean Something to Me

by Camille Posted on February 24, 2010

A little over a year ago, I decided that each Thursday I would answer questions submitted by my readers.

It was fun.

For some reason, though, over the summer, I sort of…quit.  Not purposely; I just gradually tapered off.  I always knew I would start it up again, though, so I have faithfully collected each and every reader question that has deserved its own post and filed them away for future reference. And that future is today.

Actually, no, the present is today; the future is tomorrow. But who can be bothered with such technicalities? [Well, I can, obviously, or else I wouldn’t have brought it up.]

But I digress.

The point is, I’m reviving the Archives of Our Lives Q+A. Starting right now.

Question, from Whitney:  What does the P stand for in your name?

Answer, from me:

Let me begin with a bit of background information for those readers who might not know what Whitney is talking about.

When I reply to comments via email (or when I send any informal emails at all, for that matter), I sign my name like this:

—cpsf

CPSF.  My initials. I’ve written about them before, about how important they are to me, but I’ve never addressed the “P” part of my name despite the fact that I am asked about it quite frequently.

So, it’s like this:

The “P” doesn’t stand for anything. I made it up.

I remember the day distinctly:

It was Junior year (Grade 11, Canadians). I was at a She-Rah Man Haters (i.e. girls only) party hosted by two of my awesome friends from high school. There was a sign-in book (although, come to think of it, I don’t know why we had to sign in for that party…was it for posterity’s sake? Lindsay, Chelsie, please enlighten me…), and as I picked up the pen to enter myself in the annals of She-Ra history, something inside me just…snapped.  And instead of simply writing “Camille S—” and moving on with my life, I clutched the pen with my fist and scrawled boldly, “CAMILLE P. S–––.”

I took up two whole lines, and I don’t think I even apologised for my greed (sorry, guys!).

Anyway, I don’t know why I did it. It was not premeditated. I had never called myself Camille P. S— before, and I didn’t expect to call myself Camille P. S— ever again. I was purely living in the moment—possibly in the throes of teenage rebellion, for I had always been bitter that my parents did not see fit to give me a middle name—but I didn’t really think anything else of it.

Later that night, though, the hostesses were going through the ledger book, and when they noticed my misdeed, they asked me why I’d done it.

“I don’t know,” I confessed, ashamed. “It just sort of…flowed.”

I guess they thought it was funny. Who knows, maybe I thought it was funny myself—P is a funny letter, when you think about it.  Either way, from then on, throughout the rest of my high school career, some of my closest friends would address me as “Camille P. S—.”  Over time, I adopted the P for myself, and took to signing my notes, letters, and emails as —CPS. I liked it. It really did flow nicely.

Plus, I argued, why shouldn’t I be able to give myself a middle initial? My parents didn’t think I needed a middle name, because they wanted me to take on my maiden name as a middle name when I got married.  But my maiden name is not a middle name—it doesn’t even come close to sounding like a middle name.  Moreover, what if I had never gotten married? Then I’d just wander the earth middle-nameless for all of my days? That’s not fair. For seventeen years, I suffered the agony of simply crossing out the space for middle names on government forms, and I guess by Junior year I had had enough.

Now that I’ve matured (I use the word loosely), though, and I sign my emails as —cpsf, I’ve come to see a deeper meaning in it all:

C—The letter given to me by my mother, who put her foot down when my dad wanted to spell my name “Kuhmill.”  (Thanks, mom.)

S—The letter given to me by my father, whose last name I will always bear with pride.

F—The letter given to me by my husband, whom I love so much that I didn’t even force him to hyphenate our last names like I would have liked, and…

P—The letter I gave myself, because I wanted to and I could.

Posted in ask me anything, self-actualisation, thisandthat, what I'm about | 14 Comments

Oh, ye of little faith.

by Camille Posted on February 22, 2010

Now that I’ve committed to Yoga (at least once per week for the next couple of months, anyway), I’m trying hard to do my best at it. I mean, even though the class I signed up for is fairly inexpensive as far as most yoga classes go, I still want to get my Poor Kyle’s money’s worth. Money is money, right?

So I’ve been going every week, and trying to do the poses all professional-like, but the thing is…

…I’m too suspicious for yoga.

See, every week at the end of the hour-long class, we do a series of extended relaxation-stretches. Gradually, one pose at a time, we work our bodies down into sitting cross-legged, and then stretching our legs straight out, and ultimately lying on our backs with our eyes closed and arms to the sides.  We’re supposed to really sink into the pose, trying to let the mat just swallow our bodies whole, like quicksand.

It’s all very relaxing.

Or so I’m told.

Unfortunately for me, I grew up in a big city during the late ’90s when gang violence was at its peak, and as a consequence, I don’t trust anything. Ever. So lying there on my back with my eyes closed in a room full of women who are supposedly doing the exact same thing?

That doesn’t work for me.

I get all twitchy—I can’t keep my eyes fully closed because I keep expecting someone to come up and kick me. It’s like that feeling when your eyes are closed and you know the person next to you has just plucked a hair from her own head and is, at that very moment, preparing to gently brush it across your nose and tickle you—it’s most unsettling.  Every week when I’m supposed to be relaxing, I am a bundle of nerves wondering if anyone is sneaking laxatives into my water bottle or trying to steal my iPod™ from my purse.  (It would be an ideal time, if you think about it. All those health-conscious women dressed in Lululemon™ gear surely don’t go far without their iPods™ in tow. I know I don’t. I would steal my iPod™ if I were me.)

It’s so ridiculous, too, because if there were ever a town where my iPod™ would be safe from thieving yogis, Mayberry is it. But I can’t stop thinking that THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT ME TO THINK. Shame on the Mayberrians, lulling me into a false sense of yoga security just so you can steal my iPod™.

So you see, I’m pretty much hopeless.

The sad thing is that I think I could be good at yoga, if only my mind wasn’t thwarting me like this.

Mind over matter, Camille.  Mind over matter.

(Famous last words.)

Posted in Canada, failures, fiascos, health and vitality, It's All Good, mediocrity, oh brother what next, Recreation | 14 Comments

Most of You Lost—Now You Know How I Feel.

by Camille Posted on February 21, 2010

The winner of the Lush™ shampoo bar is…

…comment #9, which turns out to be…

…Cristin Lassen!

Cristin, email me as soon as possible with your address (if you don’t email me, I’ll email you—I just wanted to check and see if you’re paying attention first).  Cristin chose the Godiva bar, so I will send it off as soon as I get the necessary information.

I’m sorry I couldn’t give away more bars. As I was entering the data into the random number generator, I thought of all the other bloggers/company owners who have done the very same thing to choose a winner for contests I have entered these past few months (as per my goal of the year). I wondered if they felt sad about only having one winner for their giveaways—I know I do. So far, I haven’t won any of the contests or sweepstakes I’ve entered yet, and it’s quite disappointing. So, to all the losers out there who are not Cristin…I’m so sorry.  I feel your pain, truly.

If I ever make it big, strike it rich, or wake up one morning to find myself lying on a huge mound of cash with gold bricks for pillows, you can bet your bottom that I’ll pay it forward and buy all of you a Lush™ bar of your very own.  For now, though, I can only give one away.  For those of you who swore you’d buy a bar even if you didn’t win the giveaway, I’m holding you to that promise.  I would be delighted if Lush™ shampoo bar sales increased this month because of me and my post; I really don’t want them to go out of business.  So as soon as your current bottle of shampoo runs dry, toss the empty container in the recycling bin and carpool down to your nearest Lush™ store (or Lush™ website, because you can buy them there, too), and get yourself a shampoo bar.

Your scalp will thank you for it.

As for me, it’s Monday, which means tomorrow is Tuesday and I’m back in school.  For the last week I’ve been free on account of Reading Week, which is the Canadian cousin to Spring Break.  I hate that my university has their semester’s week-long break in February—it gives me absolutely nothing to look forward to in March.  My week was lovely, but it’s in the past, and I can’t be living in the past all the time.  I have to look forward to the misery that I know is coming my way.

Truth be told, this semester has me worried a lot more than any of the other semesters I’ve suffered in the past.  I have no idea where I stand in any of my classes, because I haven’t gotten many grades back on the work I’ve done yet.  I set the goal of getting straight A’s again this semester, but I feel like these next two months are gonna hit me hard as I work to achieve that goal.

The good news is that it’s only two months, and by the time I’m free, the snow will be melted and I will be one semester closer to never going back.  The way I have it figured, there will only be one more winter of me going to university.  This one’s practically over, and I can handle anything for just one more year.

So there is some good in all of this.

And this summer is going to be amazing.

Did you all have a lovely weekend, aside from the fact that you didn’t win a free bar of shampoo?

Posted in giveaways, Green Living, It's All Good, mondays suck | Tagged | 12 Comments

Lush You.

by Camille Posted on February 18, 2010

***I am posting this in conjunction with the weekly Spin Cycle at Sprite’s Keeper. Click here to see what other people can’t live without (or could, but would rather not have to).***

A Long-Overdue No ‘Poo Update:

I have not updated the No ‘Poo experiment since August. I’ve been getting lots of questions lately about what’s going on with that, and whether or not I’m still doing it. Here’s the truth:

I aborted the No ‘Poo movement after four months—I started on June 15th 2009 and quit on October 20th, 2009.

The reason I quit updating from August to October was simply because there was nothing to update.  No real changes.  And a whole lot of nothing makes for boring blog posts.

The reason I quit the experiment altogether was because I started getting mild dandruff.  I truly believe that the cause of the dandruff was induced by the cold weather and not my lack of shampooed hair, since I had not had a problem with it for three summertime months of being ‘pooless. Seriously, though, dandruff?  Gross. I can live with all the side effects of going No ‘Poo…all of them but dandruff. My shamlessness ends with dandruff.

Also, after four months, I wasn’t amazed with the results of forgoing shampoo.  My hair wasn’t as miraculously wonderful as the internet claimed it would be—it was certainly manageable, and workable (which might be the miracle in itself, after four months of not using shampoo), but the internet claimed I would be happier with my ‘pooless hair than I ever was before…and that SIMPLY WAS NOT TRUE. I missed it smelling like flowers, for one. And the internet promised me I would never need to use hairspray to hold curls, but I totally still needed it.

Will I ever go back to No ‘Poo?  Yes, I believe I will.  I can fully see myself skipping the ‘poo every week for the entire summer.  It made me feel like a hippie, it made me feel liberated, and it made travel a breeze (less stuff to pack).  I liked that a lot.  If I try it again next summer and I don’t get dandruff again?  I’ll stick with it.

But for now I’m using shampoo again.

HOWEVER…

…even though I decided to use shampoo again, I was still concerned about buying plastic bottles every month just for my hair—that was, after all, the main reason I started the experiment in the first place.

So I did a bit of research and discovered Solid Shampoo—shampoo in bar form, like a bar of soap—from Lush™, my most coveted handmade soap company (I’ve had a secret crush on Lush™ ever since I discovered it in London during the summer of 2004).

Intrigued by the thought of a bar of shampoo with absolutely no wasteful packaging, I ordered two bars.  I used one two times and liked it but ended up giving it away to a dear friend; the other one I’ve been using two to three times a week since October, AND IT STILL LOOKS PRACTICALLY BRAND  NEW.

Don’t believe me?  Below, the blue bar is the one I’ve been using for five months; the white bar is brand new:

In the side-view photo below, you can see that it has shrunk a little bit, but seriously, for five months’ usage? That’s amazing.  I have every reason to believe it will last me another five months:

I am so delighted with how long this bar has lasted.

On their website, Lush claims that one  “bar lasts between 60 – 80 washes, contains no preservatives or packaging and is full of fantastic essential oils for the hair and scalp”—a fact I can vouch for myself—and that “using just one of these fresh green bars will last long enough to save the environment from producing, shipping and recycling three plastic bottles of liquid shampoo.”

That solves my problem.

When I started using the shampoo bar, I didn’t want to get back into the habit of overwashing every other day; I only use it two or three times a week, and I still don’t use conditioner (if my hair feels overly dry, I use a tiny bit of BioSilk or coconut oil to tame it down after showering).

The bars range between $8-$10, which seems really high, but if it were to last even six months (and I expect mine will last eight or nine), that’s like paying $1.60/month for shampoo—just a little more than you would pay for a bottle of shampoo at a dollar store, and WAY better quality for your money.

They lather well, they smell fantastic, they leave my hair feeling much cleaner than it ever did during my No ‘Poo days, and best of all, they are plastic-less and preservative-free!

I’m a huge fan of these shampoo bars.

I’ve tried three different types total (I just bought a new one for kicks the other day), and have been delighted with each one.

The other day I was at a new mall and found, to my great delight, a Lush™ store.  I dragged my mother-in-law inside and spent ten minutes hemming and hawing over which new shampoo bars to buy (she didn’t believe me that they were amazing; she never believes anything I preach about). I finally settled on these three:

1. Godiva

The Lush™ website says this of the Godiva bar:

“Godiva is famous for riding through the streets naked on a horse, her long locks flowing behind her. We imagine her hair smelled of sensual jasmine, and made this bar as homage to those beautiful tresses. We pack it with nutritious cocoa and Shea butters to soften, condition and loads of shine, making it a two-in-one (but really the jasmine perfumes your hair too, making it more of a three-in-one). We don’t necessarily endorse riding naked through the streets to celebrate your new shampoo; but if you do, be sure to tell them it’s Godiva.”

2. The Ultimate Shine

I have used this kind before, and I can vouch for its shine-factor.  My hair looked like it came from a Pantene Pro-V commercial after I used this bar. The shine was ridiculous.  In a good way. The Lush™ website says this of The Ultimate Shine bar:

“If you’ve got a sparkly personality, and you wish your hair reflected that, wash with The Ultimate Shine. Subtle gold glitter and ylang ylang oils keep your hair looking extra shiny and violet leaf oil decongests your scalp and alleviates anger, so you can radiate on the inside and on the outside. Three swipes across the scalp for a shiny white lather, a rub and a rinse and you’re ready to gleam!”

3. Karma Komba

(The saleslady at Lush™ said this bar is best for almost all normal hair types.)  The Lush™ website says this of the Karma Komba bar:

“If you can’t get enough of our signature Karma fragrance, wash with this solid shampoo bar to perfume your locks so you can smell it all day long. Along with scalp-pleasing patchouli and elemi, we add orange and lemon oils to cleanse hair and increase shine. This one is great for detangling messy hair, so use it if you are the type that gets your hair all caught up in knots (use Jungle afterwards for extra detangling and conditioning action).”

4. Free sample of Jungle solid conditioner.

As a bonus (I’ve never bought anything at Lush™ when I didn’t get a free bonus at the checkout counter), I got a large sample of the solid conditioner, which I had never used before today. The Lush™ website says this of their Jungle solid conditioner:

“One sniff of our tropical solid conditioner (invented by our Helen Ambrosen) and you’ll think you’re in a fruity jungle, flying on a vine from tree to tree. Made without packaging (so there’s no litter in the jungle) or preservatives (it dissolves into the earth without harm), and a base of cocoa butter that melts into hair leaving it glossy and smooth. Fresh organic avocado extract nourishes and bananas moisturize and soften. Make sure your hair and the bar are wet, slide along from root to tip and rinse.”

I broke off a little chunk of the conditioner and used it in the shower today, just to see how it worked.  It smells delicious (eight hours later and my hair STILL smells like heaven), but I’m not totally sold on it—for one, my hair has been fine without conditioner for the past eight months; and moreover, the conditioner bar is not as easy to use as the shampoo bars.  It kind of crumbles, and it doesn’t feel like it’s getting worked through all of my hair.  I will admit, though, that it did work well as a detangler—my hair combed out much nicer after my shower than it normally does—but I just didn’t like its weirdness during application.

So.

Today, because I really like this product and I want to spread the gospel of it to the world so that Lush™ doesn’t go out of business like all my favourite places seem to, I am giving to one lucky reader:

-one shampoo bar
-one travel tin, and
-the chunk of the conditioner sample {which should last for at least five uses})

[A $15.00 value total (hey, it’s not much, but I’m unemployed.)]

To enter, simply comment on this post, and answer either (or both) of the following questions:

1. Why do you want to win this Lush™ shampoo bar?

2. Which bar would you pick if you won?

The contest will be open until midnight on Saturday, February 20th, and winners will be announced Monday, February 22nd at whatever time I feel like it (I hate Mondays, so it will probably be late-ish).

***Disclaimer: I am giving away these products because I like these products. Lush™ did not sponsor me in any way (but Lush™, if you’re reading this, I totally take sponsorships).  I paid for these products with Poor Kyle’s own money.  I will pay for shipping with Poor Kyle’s own money.  Why? Because Poor Kyle loves me, and I love you, and love and Lush™ are what make this world go ’round.***

Posted in giveaways, Green Living, like-it-link-it, reviews, what I'm about | Tagged , , | 39 Comments

What is Lent called if I’m not Catholic? Deprivation for no reason?

by Camille Posted on February 17, 2010

I am not quitting Project: Proxy like I said I was. Sorry for all the drama.  (No I’m not; drama is the whole point of this blog.)

It was the heckling of longtime AoOL reader Cristin that was the deciding factor in my decision to continue the project. Cristin writes:

It sounds like to me that you are only interested in Project Proxy if it is things YOU want to do. I thought the point was that people would give you ideas and you would do stuff you normally wouldn’t do. Maybe if you said you would do illegal things, you would get more ideas. (C’mon, GALLON CHALLENGE!!!!)

That’s some solid snark right there.  I don’t like being heckled, so naturally, I had to rise to the occasion.Unfortunately for Cristin, I really hate the thought of doing the Gallon Challenge, so I’m putting it off until next week.

Instead, as my first official act of proxy, I will be giving up sugar for Lent. This suggestion was brought to the table by Jordan of Jordan Sometimes.  Lent starts today.

For proof of my commitment to this project, here’s a photo of me not eating sugar:

This is not the face of a girl who has indulged in a cookie recently.

I thought about maybe giving up DDP as well, but I don’t love God that much. Is that blasphemous? Maybe. Is it true? You decide. Anyway, I’m not even Catholic… Am I allowed to recognise Lent if I’m not Catholic? If the Pope has me arrested I guess that will answer my question.

So far today, I’ve consciously forsaken three sugary items—one sugar cookie with cream cheese frosting (had to dump it in the trash to make it stop taunting me—take that, cookie!), and one chocolate chip granola bar (I resisted the same bar two different times {I’m persistent when I’m hungry} so I’m counting it as three resistances total). I’ll check back regularly to let you know how it’s going.

I’ve given up sugar several times before in my life, for way longer than 40 days. It’s always been a good experience for me; last year it even helped me lose 25 pounds (that was six months of no sugar, plus upping my vegetable intake and committing to a regular walking regimen…in case you were wondering [but getting my wisdom teeth pulled may have pushed things along]). The main key to forgoing sugar is simple: don’t allow it in your house. As long as there is not sugary food sitting around the house taunting you, it’s really not too hard to forget about it. I mean, unless you work in a bakery, you usually have to go out of your way to seek sugary food at work or school—from vending machines or the gut wagon or the coworker whose kid you know sells Girl Scout cookies every year.  So don’t have sugar in your house, and don’t go out of your way to acquire sugar during the day.

Done.

Are you giving up something for Lent?  Or, if you’re not Catholic and think I’m sacrilegious for pretending I am, is there something else you think I should do for Project: Proxy? Let me know.

p.s. Come back tomorrow for an exciting thing.  If you want to, that is (I hate being bossy).

Posted in Cutting Back, health and vitality, Project: Proxy | 14 Comments

Well, I feel stupid.

by Camille Posted on February 10, 2010

Apparently my Project: Proxy idea is lame.

Ouch, that hurt.

As soon as I posted it, I immediately put my day’s plans on pause so I could sit in front of my computer and read the hilarious ideas that I was so sure would come.  I just knew that people would be excited to have me as their proxy.  I was convinced I would be inundated with emails from people begging me to choose their idea first.  I was going to cancel all my plans for the entire day just to stay on top of all the emails I was so sure would come.

Yeah.  That’s what I did.

Until I realised that…uh…it wasn’t happening.

Of the four commenters who were interested in my cause…

-One said she’d have to think of something good and get back to me…

-and the other three suggested variations of the ideas I’d already come up with for myself (although, admittedly, Jacque’s ShakeWeight suggestion was something I had never heard of, and I sort of do want to try it).

(I mean, it does kind of look awesome.  You must admit.  Really, you must.)

But back to the depressing stats: four comments expressing interest.  Four people out of the several hundred who read my blog yesterday.  That’s like, a negative percentage (or something—meh, I hate math {which is too bad, because maybe if I liked math, I could have figured out the equation that Proxy+Camille=bad idea; as it is, I just scored a giant red F in social algebra}).

Which means that I am lame, because I thought Project: Proxy was awesome, and people who think lame things are awesome are themselves lame by default.  (My apologies to the four kind commenters, but this does mean that you all are lame, too.  Sucks to be us, doesn’t it?) Which means I must now mourn my lost identity of perceived awesomeness.  I must lick my wounds.  I must hide under the Rock of Not Posting until I can make believe that everybody has forgotten my unfortunate (and oh-so public) misdeed.

*Please, everybody: just forget that last post ever happened.*

That’s the worst thing about online-ity, you know?  The extreme permanence of it all. Oh, sure, I could try to take a step back in time, back to the moment where I thought that Project: Proxy was a good idea, and then retreat just one moment before that, to the pivotal pause where I thought to myself, “Is that a good idea?  Or is it just lame?”  And I could try very hard to pretend that I made the right choice at that crossroad, instead of the very obvious wrong choice I did, in fact, make.  I could delete the post and pretend it never happened…

…but that’s almost even worse.  That’s denial right there.  Because I know that you know that it did happen; I did make a fool of myself, all the while thinking I was the awesomest thing since awesome even became a word.

To delete the post would be like putting heavy makeup on a crusty, dried-out pimple after popping it in hopes that it would disappear: it never really does disappear, and it only makes everybody who sees it feel more sorry for the miserable soul who’s trying so desperately to cover up the horror of it all.

I will own my scabby pimple post.

But as a sign of my mourning, I’m taking an e-vow of silence until my scab heals up and falls off on its own; blogging again so soon after such a devastating zit-eruption would be like picking and picking at the scab until my blog becomes nothing more than a bloody, oozy crater—a pock mark of its former glory.

I think I owe myself some time to heal.

Don’t you?

Don’t answer that.

Posted in blogger finger, failures, fiascos, mediocrity, oh brother what next, Project: Proxy, sad things, what a nightmare, woe is me | Tagged | 18 Comments