30 things you should have and know by 30, according to Glamour Magazine
By 30, you should have:
- One old boyfriend you can imagine going back to and one who reminds you of how far you’ve come.
Still have ten years to go before 30, but I’d be such a boring person if I said “No” to this. - A decent piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in your family.
A plastic stool, a white fluffy rug, a round cosmetics bathroom mirror =\ - Something perfect to wear if the employer or man of your dreams wants to see you in an hour.
As long as its not a laundry day, I have enough in my wardrobe to choose from. - A purse, a suitcase and an umbrella you’re not ashamed to be seen carrying.
Yes, yes and yep. - A youth you’re content to move beyond.
Think I’m getting there. - A past juicy enough that you’re looking forward to retelling it in your old age.
Still 10 years, but I hope so! - The realization that you are actually going to have an old age—and some money set aside to help fund it.
Hope so. - An e-mail address, a voice mailbox and a bank account—all of which nobody has access to but you.
Need a voice mail. Realised the other day that I should set one up and maybe ditch the “If I don’t answer, they’ll text” philosophy. - A résumé that is not even the slightest bit padded.
No. I suck. - One friend who always makes you laugh and one who lets you cry.
Its better to have a 2-in-1 for that! - A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill and a black lace bra.
No to the first two, and the third is yes, but they’re not in lace. - Something ridiculously expensive that you bought for yourself, just because you deserve it.
Probably did that with my purse… or perfume. - The belief that you deserve it.
- A skin-care regimen, an exercise routine and a plan for dealing with those few other facets of life that don’t get better after 30.
Skin care, yeah… exercise kinda… - A solid start on a satisfying career, a satisfying relationship and all those other facets of life that do get better.
It’s why I do what I do in college. No to satisfying relationship…
By 30, you should know:
- How to fall in love without losing yourself.
Agree. - How you feel about having kids.
Don’t want them. But am willing to babysit or be some vague form of an aunty to friends’ future children. - How to quit a job, break up with a man and confront a friend without ruining the friendship.
- When to try harder and when to walk away.
- How to kiss in a way that communicates perfectly what you would and wouldn’t like to happen next.
- The names of: the secretary of state, your great-grandmother and the best tailor in town.
Don’t know the SoS of this country… her name was Meg… and I don’t know any tailors. - How to live alone, even if you don’t like to.
- How to take control of your own birthday.
- That you can’t change the length of your calves, the width of your hips or the nature of your parents.
- That your childhood may not have been perfect, but it’s over.
- What you would and wouldn’t do for money or love.
- That nobody gets away with smoking, drinking, doing drugs or not flossing for very long.
- Who you can trust, who you can’t and why you shouldn’t take it personally.
- Not to apologize for something that isn’t your fault.
- Why they say life begins at 30.
http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2007/02/things-women-should-have-and-know-by-30
My GHD, 2005-2009
So here’s the damage. It happened yesterday. I was having a bad day from the moment I woke up because I went downstairs with the idea of just getting a bottle of water out of the fridge then going back to bed for a few more hours. But after I shut the fridge I saw on the microwave that it was 11:25. I didn’t think it was that late in the morning so I decided not to go back to bed but to stay awake and make some breakfast. Once I had fully woken up I turned on the television and it said 8:45. Then I realised I had re-set the microwave clock the previous night and had set it a few hours ahead incorrectly. So that annoyed me. Then later in the day I decided I would try making chilli again, to practice getting it right. Last time I had forgotten to put the chopped tomatoes in. So I tried making it again and it came out ok, had all the ingredients, only this time it didn’t taste enough like chilli or something? So that made me more annoyed. Then I decided to take another shot at making a chocolate cake since I fucked that up the last time I did it too. I followed the recipe but when I took it out of the oven it had burnt quite badly on the top… >_< Then for some reason I said in my head, “God, I’ve finally realised something I can do worse than driving… Cooking!” But that made me pissed off because while I stood over another failed chocolate cake and the smell of not-quite-right chilli in my kitchen, I started wondering what the F can I do well? Nothing came to mind immediately. So I went into a big “I can’t do anything, I suck.” monologue inside my head and went upstairs to get something in my room. And this is where my GHD became an accidental victim to my distracted frame of mind. My room was completely dark because the curtains were still shut from when I got up at 8.25 only to have the microwave lie to me… but yeah, it was all dark and I had shit all over my floor. Dirty clothes, bags, shoes, a hairdryer, damp towels from a shower and my GHD right on top of this pile. I walked in and I was tying my hair up into a ponytail. I suppose if you’re a girl you’ll understand this… but when you tie your hair up (at least I do anyways..) when you kinda bend your chin down to your chest a little and look up as your walking… And while I was walking in doing this… I stepped on my GHD and it snapped… it SNAPPED… in half… at the base. I swear when I heard it snap I just stood still, I didn’t even finish tying my hair.
So basically… I sat on my bed with it for a while trying in vain to smush it back together but it wouldn’t… then I actually said “I’m sorry” at it, like its a real person lol… I dunno. GHDs are important. They’re not irreplaceable, but they’re important and I wasn’t expecting to break it or stand on it… out of the countless times that it’s been on my bedroom over the years. It’s fallen off my table loads of times, dropped it, I’ve tripped over it, thrown it onto my bed in a hurry only to have it bounce and hit the adjacent wall… and even then it’s survived. Maybe this was just one incident too many =(
Have just discovered that my phone line exchange has been upgraded for DSL/broadband whateverness. But noooo… for some reason, the lines are still unenabled or something? You’d swear it was still 1991. Money gets poured into every square inch of residential land that’s a cough away from Grafton Street, add more Luas lines, but it can’t stretch this far down south… I can’t believe Cork council think that getting a FEW double decker buses for its outer city lines (only!!) think that’s a handout to be grateful for when Dublin has them for inner city lines and just general buggering about. It’s unfair.
But going back to the phone company.. If you look at the lines they have enabled… it’s so petty! How embarrassing for a major million-euro Austrailian-based phone company to announce on its website, “Go us! Today we have enabled DSL/broadband for the residents of FuckingNowhere of Cavan county.” Such a joke. I’m so annoyed right now that whatever our phone bill costs I’d rather get cut off and donate the money to a pointless charity… Heroine for the Homeless or something.
1 Month Countdown
23rd August! Exactly one month left of teenag… Amg I just heard thunder outside!!! It’s a sign… O_O Shall turn the lights off and unplug this from the mains.
Right! One month left of teenage life. I won’t miss it because it’s hard, surviving 13 to 19 is no easy task. The teen years have given me immense (and irregular) hormonal highs and lows, friends who came and went, friends who came and stayed, acute unemployment, tears and laughter, the official first kiss, the official first pair of high heels, getting my ears pierced, a failed driving test, being mistaken for a prostitute in a suburb of Atlanta, 3rd level education, nearly getting raped and murdered in an Italian city, and all the good and bad experiences, the stupid moments, the ultra I-want-to-rip-my-face-off-and-hide embarrassing ones, blah blah.
I hope the twenties will be like a very very adult version of what the teens are. And perhaps years where you get closer to the possibility/reality of impending house ownership, mortgage and marriages etc. where your friends stop dating and you suddenly find yourself going to their weddings, maybe being a bridesmaid. Then in your thirties you might find yourself babysitting their kids once or twice or something. Thinking about it, if I have any mistakes to make I should make them now so at least I can say, “Oh well, I was only nineteen.”
20s will also be about graduating from education completely and there’ll be nothing to do except life. That in itself will be interesting.
Stripper music, the wrong bed and animals in the zoo
Everytime I listen to Danity Kane I think I should be on a stripper’s pole! Seriously considering making a Stripper’s Music playlist… so much female RnB stuff leans that way… =\ Currently listening to DK’s “Lights Out”. Stripper music is excellent motivational stuff tho,esp for chores. Makes you feel like mopping a floor even if you don’t want to!
Very morbid, but I’ll say it: I was thinking of my will! I could only think of one thing I have to give. My music and laptop? Nineteen years, ten months and twenty-two days old (ish) and that’s what I have. My clothes could go to a charity or recycling thingy. I don’t own any trash anymore. Had a series of mammoth clean outs this last few months to the point where everything I own is essential to me. No more cupboards of pointless things from when I was nine. Gone. Everything that is sentimental and important to me is in one little tin box. And the stuff that’s in that is a few photos of some old pets, a gift my grandma gave me when I was born, accompanied with a lil note and a few silver bracelets I wore as a baby. And a bookmark.
They delivered the wrong bed. I was pissed. Found a new bed that I want. Chocolate coloured wooden thing. Really like it. So hopefully that’ll be my new one. Think my dad officially hates shopping with me. I lay down on the bed to see if it was comfy and I was all “I want this one” while he’s spent a few days trying to convince that the bed they have given me “isn’t so bad”. But it IS bad because its completely the wrong one. Or that, I should “keep the mattress”. But I’m actually so pissed off about the situation that I don’t want anything from them so I’ve told them to take the entire thing back. Poor dad.
In other news, I was at a zoo yesterday and I saw cheetahs, zebras, giraffes, oryx (?), marsupial rat rabbit dog things, monkeys, ducks, kangaroos, an eagle, llamas, a seal and flamingos. Think the giraffes, the monkeys and the red panda were my favourite!
X_X
My new bed needs to get delivered soon. “Allow 21 working days for delivery.” I can now feel the crossbeam of my bed digging into my back when I lie down. Apparently it’s coming on Friday, so its still 6ish nights left on the damn thing that I have now.
After a week of family visiting I am worn out. It’s nice to sit around today and not give a damn!
Not Responding Works
I’ve invested in Microsoft Office 2007 (thank god for student discounts, cost about €50 online). Of course, as soon as I buy it I hear that MS’s website are doing a beta Office 2010 as of today? I hate technological advancement. I’ve nearly had this laptop a full year and it’s probably already out of date. All the newest models are tiny little netbooks or whatever you call them. Anyways… I hope Office will serve me well. What made me end my long-term relationship with Works is the dissertation.
Smaller essays of 7 or 8 pages, some blocks of text and a few embedded images, Works handles that fine. But if you’ve got a file thats 30+ pages of text, and more with images… Works starts playing games. It likes to forget to keep your footnotes corresponding to the page (footnote four on page four is actually on page seven?). Likes to forget to keep them aligned properly (you can find random footnotes pushed into the centre when they should run from left to right). It’s second favourite game is Not Responding.
It freezes and for those heart-attack-inducing 30 seconds while it says “Not Responding” on your 30+ paged, 10-credit nightmare of a godzilla-sized essay, you really think it’s all going to go down the sinkhole. No USB back up will save you or your sanity at this point. Countless times this Not Responding thing has happened to me in the library reading rooms and I’ve had to literally bite my tongue and shut my eyes from the screen while mentally begging it to unfreeze so I can quickly re-save whatever paragraph I had re-written. Honestly, not fun. I’m hoping Word and I will make a good tagteam from now on.
In other news, since my neighbour got robbed and broken into, I’m still sleeping with my bat by my bed. Dad insists all is fine, thieves don’t (“statistically”) strike the same area twice, and that he only got broken into because he doesn’t stay there at night a lot (spends a lot of time at his girlfriend’s) and if a thief was looking for a place to rob, he would notice that kind of thing. But it just freaks me out to think that a thief WOULD scope out this area and go, “Oh yeah, that house is always empty at night cuz the guy goes off in the evenings. Perhaps to his girlfriend’s house.” and maybe, “Oh, look at that house next to it. Yes. I can’t rob that house because it’s obviously always inhabited, or can I?”
In which case yours truly goes screaming apeshit and inflicts brain damage with a bat. My favourite phrase is “Don’t get scared, get angry.” Although I don’t always abide by it because fear can be stronger than anger. But if you’ve got something to protect, like a house… I mean, a female under threat is a powerful thing. I think most women have such a great sense of ownership and possession… a child for example, you touch a woman’s kid and you’d know about it. Maternal, lionness, this-is-mine, Beyoncé-Oprah feelings. You know? Strong. Like Beyoncé’s songs Ring The Alarm, Crazy in Love, Boyfriend.. she owns. You know Jay-Z is her man. It’s ownership and the protection of that… Hmmmm!
Thief in the night!
Well the day just took an interesting turn. I was about to whine about a recently-experienced poor standard of customer service.. but this is far more juicy. My neighbour’s son, who now owns the house, and who is a nice young guy, late twenties. He came around the house. I answered the door. He looked all shaken up and asked if my dad was around. I got my dad, they had a big conversation. I went up to my room thinking it was nothing. Then I went downstairs to put some music on the CD player and my dad came in all like, “His house got robbed last night.”
I know. Shock. But what makes it more oh jebus is the fact that around 2 a.m. that night (and his house is right next to ours, just over our boundary at the top of the garden) our dogs were barking like crazy last night. It woke me up, and I was like “uggghhgehg” and just fell back asleep. Apparently dad got out of bed, and went outside to see what was up and let one of the dogs off and the dog ran up to the top of the garden still barking and running in circles wanting to get over the boundary… which dad thought was weird. He called her back, she was still restless but dad thought there was nothing in our garden so whatever.
So obviously that’s what was upsetting the dog. They took tv sets… computers… general expensive stuff. He was upset over it. And weird stuff has been happening recently, last night he got robbed… the night before at 2 a.m. the dogs were barking as well, and our other neighbour’s dog Molly was sounding off too. And then yesterday a man in a car (who dad said he recognised as a man who lived around here so it’s not too suspicious, but I’m still not trusting it) came up our driveway and was all “Hey, I’ve lost a cow, I was wondering if you’ve seen it.” to my dad. And my dad’s all, “Do I look like I’m a farmer?” Which is weird because we can’t even SEE cow fields from our house. We’re surrounded by trees and a forest to the back. And what’s MORE weird is that who would see a cow and go “Oh, that belongs to X”. All cows look the same. So a lost cow, who would recognise it from any other you might see? So why come up my goddamn drive asking?
So! The neighbourhood is all on watch, which is rather fun. Our gate is padlocked is staying padlocked for a while, along with the garage and shed. I just think how bad it’d feel to get robbed, so it’s better not to take a chance. So while dad was off spreading the word, I went around the house looking for heavy objects. All I’m saying is I’m keeping my softball bat in my room at night. Along with a frying pan. It’s scary that it happened to the house right next to ours. Which is too close for comfort.
It’s silly, but it’s been weird around here the last few nights and now this has happened. So it’s a good thing to be prepared, just in case the necessary occurs.
France and Lady Gaga
The neighbour’s dog is barking… it’s so annoying.
Anyways! Back from a month in France. It was interesting. For a quick recap, these things happened/came to my notice:
We drove from Roscoff to Toulouse during the first day.
I had 3 McDonalds in the one month I was there. This is surprising because McDonalds at home is a once every six months – if that – kind of thing.
I went to Paris… in Paris I saw the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre, went to go see the Mona Lisa again too, the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, the Pompidou. The Pompidou is crap, there’s only one thing in there of any consequence and that’s the Guerrilla Girls thing, but once you’ve read it and agreed with it, it’s a nod-and-walk-on thingy.
Went to Leonardo da Vinci’s house.
Went to a MoMA in Ceret which is where Picasso was for a while.
Went to the beach. Went swimming in the sea and in the swimming pool.
Went canoeing, nearly died doing it. Was saved by a very nice German.
French tv is crap, but after a month I was starting to follow it, watching their Secret Story (their version of Big Brother, I think) and Un Diner Presque Parfait, which is our Come Dine With Me. And their version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Desperate Housewives with dubbed French.
We rented bikes for a day and went cycling for aaaaaages in the countryside. It was lovely though, for some reason the countryside there has a ton of butterflies and if you go cycle along the hedge rows really fast, they fly out all startled and it is quite beautiful to see. Also that day, I learned how to ride a bike with no hands Then later my dad and I came across someone selling fruit, so we bought apples and cherries and ate them. Then we found a lake with some swans on it.
Went to see Chartres cathedral.
Saw this little place where monks lived, its a fortress thingy thats on built on a hill which is a peninsula out in the ocean and there’s only one road out to it.
Saw a German war base thingy on the coast too.
I’ll put pictures up of it soon.
Last night saw Lady Gaga. This was an interesting concert. Chris Brown was very… hip hop. More bass and DJ and dancing than lights and smoke. Lady Gaga was lights and smoke. I mean last night would have been bad for anyone suffering from epilepsy, I’m surprised there wasn’t a warning. There were lights that just lit the whole place up, big white flood lights that flashed down over the audience so hard that the stage went into shadow. Lady Gaga herself was good… she can sing, dance. Although she’s definitely crazy. And said the fuck/fucking a couple of times on stage, I’ve never heard swearing at a concert before. It started with her shouting “Are you ready to fucking party?” and… I thought, “Jebus… I’ve seen a lot of young girls coming in here with their mothers/parents.” And there were other F words about… but the most memorable thing was her talking about the female clitoris. And she actually said the word. And likened her audience’s applause to orgasms and then asked us to clap more… which I didn’t. But the songs were good, she can sing and it was a good performance.
