I posted a ton of new pictures. Check the sides.


Happy New Year!

Who got an iPod?



I GOT AN IPOD!

And.. I'm done.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanza, Merry Festivus from all of us here at Self Improvement is Masturbation.

“They’re goyim. I mean gentiles. Ugh, I mean.. non-Jewish.”

Look! Twice in one week. That’s not a new record, but those of you addicted to my blog (and I know who you are..) should be pleased and accept it as yet another gift from me to you. I’m just in the spirit of giving..

Since I last blogged I went shopping.
Again.

I’ve been at the mall a lot lately. I almost never go to the mall and I was there three times already this week. That’s insane. I think my bag is going to permanently smell like Clinique Happy Heart ® because I’ve taken so many of their samples.

Jenna, StephanieBrown, and I dragged Janice along with us to do some more holiday shopping on Monday. We had a good time making fun of people and trying on weird clothes. I felt like I was back in 8th grade again. Only, you know, without bangs and better make up. I find going to PV Mall nerve wracking because no matter what, you run into about 90 people you know from your past life and school. Scary place.

We had Amanda’s surprise party at the bowling alley at Jillian’s soon after we dropped Janice back off at home. We were almost late, but it wasn’t our fault. We left at the proper time, but traffic around Desert Ridge is ridiculous. We ended up getting there two seconds before Amanda, so we were still able to yell surprise for her, but barely. She seemed shocked, though I have no doubt she already knew.. or suspected anyway.

“No!” Amanda told me when I asked her if she knew, “I just thought you were going to come to my house and wake me up early and take me out to breakfast for my birthday. Like you did for StephanieBrown.”
“Well, I’m glad you weren’t expecting much from us…”

The party was fun. We bowled. Andrew ate. I took pictures (which will be up soon). It was a fun evening. I had to leave early though for some Chanukah Festivities at mi casa, so Andrew, StephanieBrown, and Jenna came with. We ate latkes and lit the candles, played Chanukah games.. but then we got bored. You can only play Dreidel for so long before it becomes dull. It was 9:30 by this time and we figured that if we went back to Amanda’s party, it’d be over by the time we got there, so we decided to go get some hot chocolate at the Biltmore Hotel instead.

Andrew, who has never been anywhere nicer than a McDonald’s apparently, was in awe of the hotel. We sat outside by their fountain where they had little fireplaces and heaters.

“They should really light that better.” I noted, talking about the fountain. “Its so pretty in the daytime.” It surprised me how much I sounded like my grandmother.
“Yea.. they should.” Andrew stared up at the heater.
I watched him for a few moments before I quietly corrected him. “I meant the fountain Andrew, not the heater..”
“Yea, ok, that makes more sense.” He adjusted himself in his chair.

That’s probably not funny to anyone except the three people who were there with us, but that’s ok.

We went to venture off to go play giant checkers, but the pieces were in for the night, so we played with shoes, purses, people, and menus. It didn’t really work as well, but it was a fun makeshift game. The pool area was still open so we went to observe the drunk adults sitting at the poolside café and then we stole some towels to commemorate the evening. Its cool, they match my set at home. Same color blue.
What? You’d do it too. Shut up.

Today, Jenna, StephanieBrown, Brianna, my sister, Shana the dog, and I went on an old fashioned picnic to the green belt in Scottsdale. It was so much fun. I hadn’t been on a picnic in forever and it was just nice and quiet. We let Shana off her leash and let her run around. Then we ran around after Shana since she loves to run after other, much larger dogs who have heads that are bigger than her entire body. Many an old person stared at us as if we were nuts while we were out there but that’s ok. They probably were just surprised that teenagers would take a younger sister to go, of all things, on a picnic. By the time we left, we were all covered in grass stains from running around as much as we did. My mom probably won’t be too happy about that… Does anyone know what gets grass stains out?

I came home and watched Thoroughly Modern Millie with my mother and sister and that concluded my evening.

Kind of boring. One day I swear, a good post will come your way.

Quote of the day:
“Our waiter is bad. He’s bad. He’s really, really bad.”
-- Me to Andrew about the waiter at Jillian’s who looked like Michael Jackson during his Bad years.

That's the Bike Lane! The Trilogy: Featuring Why Don't You Just Roll to Your Car?, The Tomato Disaster, and Stupid

School is out.

Not forever or anything, but for two weeks.
Two weeks of glory.
Two weeks of no homework. No tests.. no getting up in the middle of the night so that I can make myself decent-ish just in case a hot boy transfers to our school.. (Yea, like that'll happen.)

It is nice. I feel.. feel.. like I should be studying for something..

The last few days before break were a struggle to get through, but I did it. And hopefully I managed to pass all of my classes at the same time.

Thursday after school, Jenna, StephanieBrown, Brianna White, and I went out to lunch at that Pasta Pomadora (or however you care to spell that) place and then to Kierland. We did the usual making fun of people/starbucks/pictures thing. To spice thing up a bit (we had nothing better to do) we tried on push up bras at Victoria's Secret. I am so jealous of StephanieBrown's cleavage. Its not fair. I have nothing and her cup runeth over. Oh, if I could only be so blessed.

Everything else has been pretty boring. I spent my first full day of vacation with my mother shopping for different people. Nothing on the exciting side particularly, but then again, when is my life ever over the top exciting? After that I had Eric's Republican Christmas Party. Twas fun as we spent the evening making fun of Eric's brother and messing about. I drove Amanda's car to top it all off. That was pretty exciting for me anyway. Torturous, I assume, for Amanda. I can't believe she agreed to it. G0d forbid I dent Spiegel. The yelling that went on was crazy...

"DON'T HIT THAT CAR!"
"Amanda, it's a parked car. I'm not about to hit it!"

She was only a little petrified, as I still only just have my learner's permit (because my mother wants me to take actual driving lessons before I get my license. I am MAKING her call tomorrow though, because I want my license already, Jesus.)

Its not like I am totally incapable of driving though. I'm good. I am. I stay in my own lane and I don't cut across four lanes of traffic EVER (ahem, I won't name names like Amanda). Ask Jenna or StephanieBrown, (with whom I drive with illegally on a regular basis... I can't get arrested for that.. can I?) or my own mother.

Saturday I spent a majority of my afternoon/evening with Juana. We went to the movies and saw the Jack Nicholson movie Something's Gotta Give. It was really cute in an old people kinda way... but, go see it, its good. Good music. Good fun. Keanu Reeves shows like four different emotions then made out with Diane Keaton. Weirded me out.

Today StephanieBrown and I decided to go shopping for people who we've yet to buy gifts for.

We ended up not buying anything for anyone really... I bought a hat for myself. A super cute hat. Not a trucker hat. G0d no not a trucker hat...

Jenna Stokes came and met up with us later in the day and we went for a quick lunch at what is now becoming "our place" Pasta Pamadoro .. I should probably learn how to spell it if that is the case.. And then we shopped some more and actually bought gifts for people other than ourselves. It worked out.

That's been all so far. New pictures coming soon. I swear it.

Quote of the day:
Stefi: "She used to be a nun. She told me she still had her habit."
Mommy: "I wonder if she puts it on and plays "the Nun and the Sinners" with her friends?"
-- My mother wondering about Maestra and her extra curricular activities.

“I’m a conservative communist.”

What a day, what a day.
My life is the equivalent of a bad Jennifer Love Hewitt movie. Well, they’re all bad.. and I don’t think my life has as many kissing scenes as one of her movies.

Anyway,
So today sucked, yesterday was ok. Finals blow. I’m sick of pretty much everyone save for a select few.. but on a bright note- I’m blogging again…

I went through this Tuesday half asleep and not feeling at the top of my peak, so really no different from any other day if you think about it, only for some reason it seemed a lot worse today.

Shunned and ignored by some of my friends who apparently didn’t need me to do anything for them today or just don’t care, I spent my lunch hour going over questions with Janice for English and talking about Tom Cruise. Sixth hour I spoke with StephanieBrown about why we hate high school and boys before walking to astronomy class late.

After school I had a fantastic democrat club meeting where I felt that we had really made a difference in the community. Totally worth the 30 minutes I stayed after school. I think we made some really good progress.

A kid named Max who wore a green turtleneck, Harry Potter inspired glasses, and carried around a blue artic ice lunch bag sat in on the meeting so he could learn about the democratic views. Though, as he stated to us, he leans much more towards the conservatives… and he’s a communist. Our very own president, Katie Davids, G0d bless her camel toe, chirped in that she herself could be classified more as socialist. We continued to be busy busy busy until 2:30 when she finally adjourned the meeting and let us leave.

Jenna drove me home after that. Not much on the exciting side. Everyone is too stressed because of finals.

I’m thinking about picking up the studying again, but I may take a nap instead…
We’ll see.

I’m off. I have better things to do with my sorry life.

Quote of the day:
Jenna: “Its like, Hey Grandpa! Where you goin’? It made me uncomfortable.”
Stefi: “Maybe he needed to rush to the hospital?”
-- Jenna talking about some old guy tailgating her this morning

Ok, so its not that funny, but, its all I have.

“Finer than Katie Davids on a cold day.”

So, I’m tired.. and a tad loopy. Maybe even cranky.. slightly.. but its been a pretty good weekend.
Friday, my mother got me out of school a little early (just 1:30) to have a mother/daughter bonding day because my dad and my sister were out on a 6th grade field trip and wouldn’t be home until about 7PM that night. I had a lot of fun with her. We went to go see Bad Santa which, as funny and disgusting as it was, was also completely sad, but I loved it. Must see movie. It gets the Stefi Stamp of Approval. We went out to dinner after that to Pasta Pomadoro or something that sounds like that only to see- Mrs. Rosenberg.

Oh yea.
She didn’t see me, she was having dinner with family (It was a Bar Mitzvah party the waiter told us), but nonetheless I immediately felt ill and couldn’t eat anymore, so we left to go to the mall soon after that. At the mall we picked up some Chanukah gifts and then retreated for home so that Matt could come over to work on his documentary for newspaper class. It was all in all a nice evening.

Saturday, Matt woke me up with a phone call at noon and then I got up and did about four hours worth of homework before he came over to work on his project again. We decided he’d spend the night since he had so much to do and it was due Monday.

I hadn’t had a sleepover (if you can call it that) since about 7th grade.

Around 2:30 AM or so we began to get loopy. Coke cans were suddenly making noises that sounded sexual (which, at the time, was hysterical), everything that poured out of our mouths was funny. Everything. None of it made sense of course. That’s why it was so awesome. To make a terribly boring story short, in the end, the laughing resulted in waking my father from his slumber so he was a teensy bit ticked that Matt was still over when it was now about quarter to 4 in the morning. More so because I didn’t tell him Matt was staying the night. My mom knew, but.. I thought it best to just let my dad be surprised in the morning. Probably not the best idear. He keeps threatening to have a talk with me now about my behavior, but hasn’t yet.

I finally gave in around 4:30 AM and went to sleep, leaving Matt to work on his project without my input. I woke up at 8 AM to a completely out of it Matt talking to me about rivers of tiredness being held back by the dam of awakeness.. The kid hadn’t been to sleep all night. I finally got him to sleep a little around 9 AM and he told me to wake him up when his movie was done rendering on the computer. I did as he asked, but when I woke him up around 9:30 he gave me instructions to let him sleep for another hour.
“Matt?” I tapped him a little. “Matt.. your movie’s done, but its saying that it can’t open the file. Go check it… Matt?” He didn’t move. He was totally out of it. I tapped him a little more. “Matt?”
He awoke with a start which scared the life out of me.
“What?” he asked with one eye still closed.
“Your movies done, but it says it can’t open the file. Go look at it.”
“What’s done? What?” he rubbed his eyes.
“Your movie.” I persisted.
“My what?” He asked again, he was still wearing the beret hat (part of his Mel Gibson Director look).
“Your movie.”
“Oh, ok.” He promptly closed his eyes again.
“Matt, its saying its not working, go look at it.”
“I will in a minute.” He repositioned himself on the couch. “Wake me in an hour.”
“An hour?” He had told me before to wake him when the movie was done, so this surprised me. “You want me to wake you in an hour?”
“Yes.” And with that he went back to sleep.

Flash forward to about an hour later…. The phone rings, waking us both.
I had fallen asleep again..

Matt got up, freaking out, “I told you to wake me when it was done!”
I was now half asleep again and completely confused. “I did!”
“Its 10:30!” He was upset and going to the computer.
“You told me to wake you in an hour!” I argued.
“I did?”

He completely didn’t remember. Probably because he’d had a total of an hour sleep.

He finished his movie though. Its beautiful, it really is. I hope you get a chance to see it.

I am way too tired to be funny at the moment so I’m going off to do the rest of my homework and then maybe watch a little CNN to see what’s going on with the whole Sadam thing. I’m glad we caught him, but sadly this probably means another four years of Bush.

Dear G0d, save us all.

Quote of the day:
Matt: “Don’t sleep! Why are you laying down?”
Stefi: “Because it feels nice.”
-- Me when I wanted to sleep last night around 4 AM.

Or-
Matt to a random older boy on a bike: "Hey, do you know where any little kids are?"
Kid: ::looks at him weird:: "No.."
Stefi: "No, that's not creepy at all.."
-- Matt when he wanted a little kid to interview for his documentary

“Shish kaShana. That needs to be your title.”

Weekends are loverly. Let me tell you what.

Friday I couldn’t have asked for a better day.
I got John off. And it felt goooood oh. Yes it did.

After months and months (six to be exact) of having dreams where I was taking him out of my mouth, I finally really did get that damn palate expander off. He was quick and easy, but it wasn’t exactly painless.

Stephanie, the model who was working on me for the day, managed to give me two cuts along both sides of my mouth in my gum while removing the expander. I didn’t particularly care though despite the fact that I did bleed for a good 15 minutes or so. Is that normal? Whenever I bleed it always lasts for an extended amount of time. I cut my finger the other week and I seriously bled for about 45 minutes. In any event, for the first three hours I couldn’t talk or swallow without going “Whoa…” immediately afterwards because I was amazed with myself.

I’m still excited about having all of this room in my mouth. It’s a Chanukah miracle! I can whistle again (not that I could properly to begin with, but you know..), I can do my Drew Barrymore voice again (I did miss that), I can say beach again, and cute, and idiot. Yea, this is so great you have no idea. Its the simple things in life. Enunciating is absolutely fantastic.

Superb, I can say that again too.

I went back to school after my appointment and went around showing off that I could now talk again. I annoyed Jenna on the car ride home from Starbucks after school, talking non-stop and telling her all the words I could now say properly.

How lovely it is to speak again… Green.. You never know how much you miss being able to say that word until you can’t anymore…

Everything tastes different too, its weird. Anyway, Matt came over that evening to celebrate with my family and me. He brought me over some Rice a Roni (the San Francisco treat) because I can now actually eat rice again. Nice. We went out to dinner to this Italian restaurant, not that I could eat (since I was still pretty sore and sensitive) but nonetheless I had a nice time. Afterwards, while passing by The Candy Store (and by candy store I mean the topless bar by the school, not actual candy) we decided we should interview a dancer/stripper/show girl thing. Whatever they are. It took a bit of coaxing to try to get Matt out of the car just to take pictures, but he did eventually. Being the fearless girl that I am, I went into the club (mind you about three feet in because they stopped me faster than you can say underage) and asked the white trash manager women thing if she could please let us interview a dancer for the school newspaper. She was a tad apprehensive about it, but eventually got us a girl to interview. “Kirsten” was gorgeous and had a ton of cleavage and stilettos that made Ginger Spice look like a wuss. She was too great and answered everything we asked her. They were all pretty much legit questions too because Matt is actually using these answers in a documentary project he’s doing for his newspaper class. You think we do these amazing things for fun and games? Hell no people. This is work. Kinda.

We ventured to TCBY (you can never go wrong with TCBY) and then back to my home to watch Pirates of the Caribbean after that. And that concluded our glorious evening.

Saturday I slept all day pretty much and then went over to Amanda’s house for a tree-trimming gathering. It was fun, seeing as how I’m Jewish and don’t do much tree trimming of my own. I got to witness what people do during their gentile holidays and observe their ways. Always entertaining. Usually I only see that in the movies. I guess that explains why Jimmy Stewart nor Nic Cage came out of a room in a robe saying something to the effect of "Its a miracle!". That woulda been cool though. Then the Christmas celebration would have been complete... I wish I had a tree.. but I'll settle for the gifts I get on the coffee table on the morn of Jesus' birth. So what if I'm Jewish? Jesus was too. Get over it.


My Sunday was filled with homework, avoiding my sick sister, and calls to Jenna to make her feel better because she had to put her doggy to sleep today. I’m sorry, Jenna.

Tomorrow brings an early wake up call (if I get up when my alarm actually goes off for once) and school. The only thing good about that is it means we’re that much closer to two weeks of freedom.

Quote of the day:
Matt: “Do you like younger guys?”
“Kirsten”: ::pause:: “No, I prefer them older..”
-- Matt and the stripper dancer thing