Luxury: Scents and sensibility

Yesterday a package arrived in the mail for me. I've gotten caught up and actually ahead with ThereBucks sales (finally) so I have a little bit of discretionary income to spend and I bought myself a bottle of chanel No 5. I had been reading a book called "Deluxe; How Luxury Lost Its Luster", which talks about the history of luxury and designer brands and how they've changed (or in a very few cases, not changed) over the years. Probably the biggest takeaway message of the whole book is that you should be an informed consumer...you can't just buy a certain brand, whether it's jeans, cars or ketchup and just assume that because you have always purchased that brand and it was up to a certain quality standard before that it still will be or that just because some rap star sings about how they've got so much money and that's what they spend it on, it must be great. Not that I'm aware of any rap stars singing about their favorite brands of ketchup. Maybe Shonen Knife should do a rap album. Most brands compromise the their quality and trade off the reputation they've built eventually...even if the company founder is against it, eventually someone new is head of the company or there is a board of shareholders demanding greater quarterly profits or they feel the need to get their foot in the door at Walmart. More and more these days I think companies don't even have to change and grow to "sell out", these days many of them plan it that way right from the start.

So why did I buy a bottle of Chanel No 5 eau de parfum? The book talks about how No 5 was created and how it is now the standard against which all others are judged and how they still use natural ingredients still grown in the same region of France where they have been since the perfumes inception. I guess I just felt the need to own that standard against which all other perfumes are judged. Which is not to say that perfumes aspire to BE LIKE Chanel No. 5. Actually, smelling Chanel No. 5, with its notes of jasmine, rose and aldehydes, I wouldn't say it's a classic so much as really old fashioned...like your 80 yr old grandmother who doesn't think you should go out on a date without a chaperone and calls you "dearie". Some say it's too mature for anyone under the age of 25 to wear, but I'm an ancient old 40 yrs old and I think it's too mature for me.

I usually wear Bond No. 9's "Chinatown". I'm a little obsessed with perfume. It took me quite a few bottles of things I didn't really like to find Chinatown, and I can't help but wonder sometimes if there is another perfume (maybe another Bond No. 9) that is even more "me". While sampling different perfumes, I purchased many decants from eBay. These were little samples that ebay sellers took from full size bottles of perfume and put into a smaller roll-on or spray bottle so that the buyer could try stuff without buying a whole bottle and the seller could offset the cost of their own bottles. This was great...I mean a lot of perfumes are only available if you are in New York or in Paris or you know, they aren't just in every KMart store, you have to go to the actual store that sells that perfume (often in conjunction with a clothing line, a handbag line, a luggage line, etc.) and then spend $250 or more on a bottle. (This is considered "entry level" luxury...you get to buy in to a brand name without spending $25,000 on a couture dress. Hey, you can't afford the Christian Dior dress you saw on style.com but at least you have the Dior perfume! Actually, I have Miss Dior Cherie and it's not bad. I do wear it once in a while.) So, the decants are a great way to see if you like something.

After buying a whole crapload of decants, I thought "hey, *I* should sell decants on eBay!" I mean, I had also purchased a few full size bottles and it's an expensive habit. Not like I thought I could make money selling decants, but I thought I could maybe offset the cost of trying new fragrances. So, I read loads of perfume blogs and perfume websites, I ordered books on perfume and the history of perfume from Amazon, I ordered loads of decanting supplies (spray bottles, roll on bottles, padded envelopes, cute tissue paper, mailing labels, a usb postage scale, photo studio in a box, etc...etc...) and of course I started ordering a lot of full size bottles of perfume (and cologne). What a great excuse to order a bunch of full size bottles of perfume! The only thing is, I found I was too lazy to actually do it. I've sold stuff on eBay before, but I have other things to do with my time and the idea of photographing everything, writing up listing descriptions, pricing everything, researching what decants have sold for in the past, and worst of all...packing up and actually MAILING stuff just seemed totally not worth it. Maybe I'm spoiled by selling virtual goods most of the time, but I could just not get excited about printing out mailing labels and contacting the USPS or UPS or possibly having to actually GO TO the post office...ugh.

So now I have all this perfume STUFF. It's been sitting around for a while now. Not just perfumes I don't care for or colognes I have no use for, but all the packaging and such for decanting and mailing. *sigh* And...I'm looking around the other day to order my bottle of Chanel No. 5, and I get a little interested in some Hermes cologne that I'm wondering if my bf would like so I think "maybe I can find a decant of it on eBay". Not only did I NOT find a decant of it on eBay, but I couldn't find a decant of ANYTHING on eBay. It was actually rather strange. I did a little investigating and I found that apparently, due to some pressure from some large corporations, including some that also have filed lawsuits against eBay for refusing to take responsibility for all the counterfeit goods sold on their auction site, eBay has prohibited the sale of decanted perfumes. People who like to sell and exchange perfume decants have now moved to sites like Perfume of Life where you need to be a paid, premium member to access the private section of their forums where you can connect with others looking to sell or trade decants and/or full and partial bottles of all sorts of perfumes. Perhaps that will be a suitable place to sell my rather expensive box/bottle of limited edition Fleur d'Oranger 2005 Vergers de Nabeul Eau de Parfum from L'Artisan Parfumeur.

Ebay's stance on decants along with the pending (I think they're still pending anyway) lawsuits should be very interesting to anyone freaking out about IMVU and their apathy wrt music rings, those small objects some imvu developers create to enable the owner to play a full song by a music artist without actually having any rights to that song. IMVU's attitude seems to be "well, we'll deal with those when the music companies and artists actually come and file a dmca takedown notice and/or threaten to sue us". Until that time, developers can steal and redistribute all the music they want, it seems. Perhaps some of them don't even feel it's wrong...especially depending on what country they are from. I've had people say to me about piracy "well, it's not illegal in my country". I don't even know if that's true, but I think just because maybe the police won't prosecute you for doing it in your country, it's still illegal under international copyright law. But anyway, I suppose eventually music companies and artists will start filing lawsuits and dmca takedowns...and then IMVU will probably take some drastic measures to eliminate this stuff quickly...something that also ends up removing a bunch of legal content. Now, how they will deal with lawsuits against allowing people to use trademarked stuff on avatar clothing and stickers and such seems a bit trickier...who is going to go through millions of items to find that stuff? Well, maybe that day will coincide with the day that some big company wants to buy IMVU for megabucks to use for their own purposes, and this big company will just pretty much discard the whole dev program or severely restrict the whole thing because it's not what they want the chat program for and THEN IMVU will have nothing to worry about. (OR, perhaps the pending lawsuits will prevent a sale instead...)

Okay...backing up from that tangent and coming back to perfume...

My bf and I had gone to brunch and then wine tasting in Livermore one Sunday. (I know, I know...who names a city Livermore? Great place to go for wine, though.) Afterwards we stopped at a mall...him to buy a new suit jacket and me, I wanted to stop by Sephora for some Frederick Fekkai Glossing Cream. That stuff is so awesome. I hope they don't decide to ever ever change the formula to please some shareholders board. It's the stuff that turns my hair from a rats nest to smooth and manageable. Of course, a little goes a long way and my bf bought me a large tube of it that will probably last about two years, so I could imagine that the shareholders board would be quite tempted to try and make some change that would force me back into Sephora to buy more creme brilliante on a more consistent basis.

While at Sephora, my bf decided he also wanted to buy me some perfume. We tried a bunch and finally picked out Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle. I don't know if après wine tasting is the best time to pick out a new perfume. It's very nice...you don't have to be 105 to be mature enough to wear it. However, it's no Chinatown, with its notes of peony, gardenia, peach blossom, patchouli and cardamom. After a few months of vainly TRYING to wear it, I went back to my beloved Chinatown and am currently plotting to buy their Bon Bon collection...and I'll have to be sure and judge each one against the bottle of Chanel No 5. It's funny how I just read this whole book on the homogenization of luxury brands and how we are first lured into the dream and the promise of these things with gateway items such as perfume, and yet here I am...pickier than ever, but still obsessed.

OLPC BOGO and Foneros

For the longest time I couldn't figure out what BOGO was, they'd talk about it in Payless Shoe ads all the time and I'd go nuts trying to figure it out. I don't remember when I finally figured out it stood for "buy one get one", but now I see it everywhere. Usually I could care less about BOGO deals, it seems like it's just a way to get more of something than you need, but today I found a BOGO deal I'm totally wound up about.

You know those OLPC laptops? My first thought when I saw them was a little less than philanthropic. I thought, "I want one!" I was bitterly disappointed when I found out they would ONLY be available to children in developing nations. Why do THEY get the really cool laptop? Life is sooo not fair!!! (Irony here people.)

Well, I must not be the only person who was thinking more about how *I* would like one of them more than how great it would be for some kid in a developing nation to have one, because they are going to be offering a limited time BOGO starting in November! You buy one to be sent to some kid in a developing nation, and they will let you buy one for yourself, too. Okay, technically maybe that isn't BOGO, it's more like "buy two keep only one", but "BTKOO" doesn't make a cute, easily pronounceable acronym.

I am so totally going to get one of these laptops. Then I can ride around on the train using one while everyone looks at it covetously while simultaneously thinking I am a jerk for owning one and keeping it for myself. Seriously, check this puppy out. You can power it by hand, it has built in wifi, yadda, yadda, yadda. The only thing that would make it better, because they network to each other, would be if someone else I knew had one. Maybe I should move to a developing nation and start hanging out with children.

And on another cool techie note, I was just reading about Fon today in Business Week. You buy a $40 Fon router and that automatically makes you a Fon member and you get access to the WiFi of every other Fon member. That doesn't sound THAT exciting maybe until you realize that there are about 200,000 current "traditional" WiFi hotspots scattered around the globe and Fon already has 280,000. It looks like it won't be long before they have a million hotspots - all free to members.

Sometimes I have problems with my Internet connection so I am interested in this as a way to connect closer to 100% of the time. I NEED that net connection. Sounds great for traveling, too. My current wireless router is totally unsecure right now anyway, so I might as well get some benefit from other people being able to use my WiFi. The site has a handy map so you can see if there are any Foneros in your area. I see a couple spots near me, but then I am in Silicon Valley so it's not that surprising.

I totally want a Fon router. Too bad I spent all my discretionary income on baking supplies! Dang, I think I was reading about this service last year when it was in beta and only cost $5 for the router. Why didn't I jump on it then????

I'm so sore today

Recently my bf said to me, "I'd like to lose ten pounds", so I give Mr. Works-out-six-days-a-week-for-the-last-couple-decades *the look* and he says "okay well, five pounds anyway. Well, an ounce or something. Why are you still looking at me like that? I want a little more muscle mass, okay?" Like as if working out with me instead of by himself is magically going to do THAT, I can't even spot him properly. What he really means is, "I know you've been gaining weight since the moment you met me, and I want to help you reverse that trend."

I had a personal trainer for over a year. When I met my bf I was going to the gym and working out with my trainer five times a week. Since I work in my home office and don't really know many people in this area (let's see, I know Sonny. Oh yeah and um, Sonny, and Sonny, Sonny and Sonny, haha) my trainer was the person I saw more than anyone else. I spent five hours a week with him. Then I started dating my bf, who I sometimes spend upwards of 40 hours a week with (it's like a full time job! One you really love) and I started realizing that spending time with my trainer wasn't that great. I was bored with the workout, bored with having conversations with someone who spends 70 hours a week in the gym and doesn't do much of anything else (except maybe watch porn movies and action movies) and doesn't really get my sense of humor. I mean, it wasn't that bad, it's just compared to my bf it wasn't that good, either.

About four or five months ago I stopped going to my trainer. Basically I stopped going to the gym altogether. I did join another nearby gym (I was intimidated by the idea of trying to muddle through a workout on my own with the-person-formerly-known-as-my-trainer right there in the same gym at the same time, probably thinking "wow, she really has no idea what the hell she's doing") but it's still basically under construction and I really never paid that much attention to what we were doing when I was with my trainer, so my original idea had been: I will work out with a PT for a year and by that time I will be really strong and have met a number of fitness goals and will switch several days a week to yoga or something and continue on with weights on my own because it will be such an ingrained habit by that time. The reality was more like: I have no idea what I'm doing, I never met any of my goals (like to be able to bench 150 pounds), it's really easy to completely stop going to the gym, and I still don't do yoga. It was my plan to stop seeing a trainer after a certain amount of time, but it wasn't my plan to then sit around and get fat!

Super Besitos Man to the rescue! Da-da-da-daaaa!

Now my bf and I are working out together three nights a week. It's been really great so far. It's a little intimidating, I feel a little self conscious, my bf is the type of person at the gym that inspires confidence and makes people say "hey homey, can you give me a spot?" and I'm more like...well, I'm the one making crow noises "caw, caw, caw!" in time with the reps and making jokes about my ghost trapezoids. OOooOOoooooo! (That's the sound ghost trapezoids make. You can't see them, but they can still feel pain.) I have a hard time doing some of the exercises with ANY weight (did I really have a trainer for over a year?) and I'd be very surprised if anyone besides MAYBE my bf asked ME for a spot.

Yeah but, despite our different gym personas, it's fun to go to the gym together. I just don't see how he thinks he can make any strength gains trying to get a spot from someone who keeps forgetting to count to ten. That's okay with me though, he is perfect the way he is, he knows twice as much about weightlifting as my former-trainer and if he wants to work out with me, I am just REALLY LUCKY. :)

So now, instead of just going out to the wine bar...we work out for two hours and THEN go to the wine bar! Well, not like we are going to go to the wine bar after every workout...just maybe once a week. The point is, we used to just go out and eat food (and probably drink wine), and NOW we are working out for two hours first. Not only do we get our workout in, but we spend less time with the eating/drinking AND probably enjoy it more because we're totally starving by the time we eat.

I'm soooo sore today I can hardly move, but it's so worth it!

Irony: Comcast Style

So, today I'm trying to log in to the Comcast site in order to pay my bill. I eventually gave up because my connection was so bad the page kept timing out.

Yeah, that really inspires me to want to make the effort to pay my bill.

Are Comcast and ATT both actually part of the same larger corporation?

Maybe I shouldn't laugh at the stupidity of Comcast...for several months I had both Comcast and RCN, and RCN worked flawlessly the whole time. It got more/better tv channels, too. I really am not sure why I still have Comcast but no longer RCN...I guess I'm the stupid one.

The Truth Behind the Numbers

My two current obsessions are condo cruise ships and gambling (my mom will be so proud).

About a year or so ago, I learned about a cruise ship called Residensea's "The World". This ship travels the world taking about four years to circumnavigate the world, stopping for two or three days in this or that exotic or not so exotic port and then eventually visiting them all again. What makes it different is that people don't just go cruise on this ship for a week or two, they LIVE on it in large luxury condos.

I've been thinking about it again lately because I just saw a one hour special about it on the Travel Channel. Hey, for around two million dollars, you could have a residence on Residensea. Considering Bay Area housing prices, that isn't too bad...except then you have to figure in about another ten thousand per month in fees for the running of the ship and dock fees and all the other expenses that the residents share, although I think you get a couple thousand of that back as shipboard credit in places like the restaurants and the deli, maybe the spa?

They say you need to have a net worth of about ten million to be able to afford to live there. The cool thing is, the tv special showed this real estate couple in their 50s who still work, they just do it from their shipboard condo. They each have a desk with a computer and anything else they need, with a fabulous ocean view of course, and they just keep working. Woohoo. I would LOVE to do something like that in my 50s.

I kind of lost some interest in Residensea after learning last year that they don't accept pets. What? That blows. But this week I learned there is a new ship being constructed, due to be completed in 2010, called the Magellan, which IS going to take pets, if they are under 15 pounds (no jokes about Rodney please, he's not an ounce over 14 pounds!) on three of their decks. Now I really really really want a net worth of ten million!

Haha...I don't know...it could happen.

And that brings me to the gambling obsession...

Nonono...it's not what you think. I'm not running around being a gambling fool. I've just spent time studying gambling and reading statistical books that explain the odds of different games and how you can actually win. They basically all make me NOT want to gamble. At least not with any actual expectation of winning.

Here is a statistic I got from "The Lottery Book: The Truth Behind The Numbers": If you played the lottery twice a week (because generally that is how often they draw the numbers) and you played $100 each time, on AVERAGE it would take you 11,589 years to win the lottery. (so even if you lived 11,589 years and actually spend $200 a week on the lottery, chances are only 50% you'd actually win by then.) Hey, I want to live eleven thousand years!

Now it's been tenthousand years
man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew - now man's reign is through.
But through eternal night the twinkling of starlight
So very far away - maybe it's only yesterday.

Heheh...I love me some Zagar and Evans. According to them, we won't be around to see that 50% chance of a payout anyway.

So, something with a little better odds...we went back to the racetrack Friday. I need to study horse racing a little more, because although we didn't do as bad as in the past, I think we could do better. And, by do better I mean not lose quite as much money. The problem is, if a horse/jockey is favored to win, you can't make much money on the bet, like twenty cents on the dollar. What fun is that? It's way more fun to play a long shot. I guess maybe I shouldn't complain, since we aren't actually betting MY money.

smacking the technicolor curtain

The euphemism generator appeals greatly to the really immature "teehee" side of me.

dot.bomb

I just finished the audiobook version of "dot.bomb" today. The book, which is the story of one dotcom that failed as told from the POV of one of its employees, held my interest for the most part but by the end I realized I had just wasted about 7 hours of my life listening to a story that anyone in the high tech industry is probably all too familiar with.

Just substitute different names for the company, the CEO and founder and all the other players and you could have just about any dot.bomb out there. In fact, some of them might be a little more interesting (like the place I used to work, Skyfish!) Still, if you've never worked for a dotcom, it might be worth a read or listen.

Oakland A's flipped

Yesterday was my first ever Oakland A's game. It was freezing and I didn't feel like moving around and holding my arm up in the air away from the warmth of my body, but I made myself take some video with my new Flip video camera anyway. I've never uploaded anything to YouTube either, but I thought I'd give that a try this morning. Here is my video of some Oakland A's dude getting a run. Right afterwards there was a homerun and the A's scored a couple MORE points, but of course I didn't get that on film. FYI the final score was 1 - 6.


I also got a nifty zip-up sweatshirt thingy with the A's logo on it. (Thank you Mr Besitos Man!) It's pretty nice even though it isn't very warm. At least now I have something to wear to a Giants game.

The Flip Video Camcorder is a neato device that makes shooting video and uploading it to the web extremely easy at a very reasonable price.

I decided to get a Flip because it got really good reviews, and it is pretty convenient. It runs on two AA batteries, and it's called the Flip because it has a USB connector that flips out from the side to plug into any USB computer port. That's when something cool happens...there is a simple video viewing/editing program built right into the camera that you will be asked if you want to use when you are plugging the device in. There is nothing to install on the computer you are using, and yet you can have something uploaded to YouTube from ANY computer with a USB port (hmmm...maybe the library???) without installing anything.

The Flip is so easy to use that you don't even need the short little instruction pamphlet that comes with it. If I could change a few things about it, I would put a tripod mount on the bottom, add a zoom lens, and take out the proprietary port on the top which allows you to take your camera in to an authorized store and have them burn your video straight to DVD and instead put in space for a memory card. The camera holds 60 minutes of video (there is also a 30 minute version), which is probably more than enough for uploading to the web (esp since YouTube limits videos to ten minutes) but it would be nice to have some extra storage just in case. Still, it's definitely worth the price if you just want to shoot and upload some video to the web quickly. It would be really fun to pass around at family gatherings.

Unrated Blockbuster

I've tried Netflix and I've also tried Blockbuster's movie delivery system, and I ended up with Netflix because they have far more movies including loads of documentaries. My biggest problem with Blockbuster was...they simply don't carry NC-17 movies. Or so I thought.

So I was confused the other day when I walked past my local blockbuster and I saw a big movie poster in their window bragging about the unrated version of some movie they were carrying. What???? Why would they have an unrated movie if they don't carry NC-17? I never noticed that they did that before, but it seems that although they DON'T carry NC-17, they DO carry unrated versions of movies. Walmart, too. WTF???? Such hypocrisy. Are they pretending that they have NO IDEA that these "unrated" versions are probably the same, if not twice as raunchy/sexy/gorey/violent as an NC-17 version?

It's great to see movie studios come out from under the thumb of the Motion Picture Association of America...obviously people want to see the unrated versions since they always sell more than the rated versions. Too bad this is only on DVD and not in the theaters, forcing movie production crews to make two versions of each movie. Haha...that's as bad as the porn industry, where they have to shoot one version of a sceen for softcore and one for XXX.

Still, I can't get over the hypocrisy of Blockbuster and Walmart here. There is a really good movie about how the MPAA works called "This film is not yet rated" that you should check out if you haven't yet.

Meanwhile, my bf is getting his new tv on Friday and it's just about big enough to be used in a movie theater...so maybe I'll just have to watch (unrated) movies at his place from now on. I hope he makes good popcorn. If people say one day in the not-too-distant future that home theater systems and dvds killed movie theaters...they would do well to remember that "real" movie theaters were showing censored versions of movies and maybe it was really the MPAA and the big companies that own those theaters that put them out of business.

Pig Worship

Totally cute pic, eh? A few months ago an ex-bf of mine was writing me a letter and drinking some wine. Halfway through the letter and the wine, he decided calling would be better. What followed was a phone conversation basically about how he regretted pushing me away and not wanting to possibly restart our relationship until he found out I was dating someone else, plus he had a dream about me, which made him feel he definitely DID want to explore any possibility that might have still been between us. In other words, typical guy stuff.

That didn't happen. I mean I'm dating a really amazing guy who lives right across the bay from me, why would I want to "explore the possibilities" with someone who lives 3000 miles away and isn't even really sure what they want and that I often have a hard time talking to without getting in a fight?

The letter that sparked that phonecall never arrived as promised, but today I received a small parcel in the mail that contained a note letting me know that he was cutting ties with his past and I wouldn't be hearing from him again but he hoped I'd have much happiness in life, and that he had destroyed all of the letter except for this drawing, which he thought summed up the spirit of the letter as he intended it better than the actual words ever could.

Admittedly, although I find this guy's behavior a bit flakey, the picture made tears well up in my eyes. The scan doesn't really capture it that well and some of the color is pretty inaccurate, but I think - like the original it is scanned from - it still conveys more meaning than a thousand words ever could. I think I'm going to have the original framed.

Happy Solar-powered Mother's Day

Last Sunday was Mother's Day, at least here in the U.S., and while many people probably gave their mom flowers and/or took her out for Sunday Brunch, I got my mom a Solio Universal Hybrid Solar Charger.
The Solio is soooo cool. You fan out the petals in the sun, and charge it up...something like 8-10 hours later it has enough juice to charge up two devices, like your camera and your cell phone or your ipod and your blackberry. Not only great if you are off hiking somewhere, but it also holds a charge for a year so you could store it for emergencies (you can still listen to and recharge your iPod if there is a blackout!) And just think of the electricity you are saving. Just don't forget to unplug your now-uneeded and old-fashioned charger from the wall, as they use electricity even when they aren't charging anything. I got it for her because I wanted one myself and I thought I'd live vicariously through her until I actually do get my own. AND, I think she'll actually use it...you know, my mom recycles and doesn't leave the water running, drives a Prius and goes hiking, etc.

I'm cuckoo for solar powered anything. I don't have a Solio yet, but I have solar powered x-mas lights (which you can find on eBay) - and they might be a bit hard to use on an indoor tree, but they work great out on a balcony...even if you don't have full-sun and even on cloudy days. That sun is powerful stuff, man!

Excuse: Spontaneous Rebooting

Monday morning I was, for the first time recently, doing some development work in Photoshop before going to the gym. Not just monitoring sales or doing customer service stuff or making banner ads...I was making actual "stuff" when my computer decided to spontaneously reboot. Again. It started doing this a while back, but this is the first time I've lost work because of it. So, I started out doing "work" and ended up using Panda ActiveScan and removing a couple USB devices that could have possibly been causing the driver failure (I hope.)

I'd like to say I got a bunch of work done later in the day, but I know I didn't. I'm not 100% sure what I was doing that afternoon, but Monday evenings are salsa class and this was the first day of the new session. Oooooh...I feel soooo bad I got my bf to play hooky for the last class of the previous session. This new class had some much more experienced people in it and it's bigger so we didn't get to dance with each other pretty much the whole time. I had guys trying all their much more advanced moves on me (butterfly? wth?) and he had women expecting him to lead them in moves he had no clue how to do. At the end of the hour he seemed pretty unhappy, but nothing a trip to Iberia Restaurant and four glasses of sangria (I hear Iberia uses something like six kinds of alcohol in it...would you like some wine mixed with your hard liquor?) couldn't almost completely reverse. We were feeling no pain. In fact, I'd say that fourth glass of sangria wasn't the best idea. I'd like to blame the bartender for that one...he poured it for us after the bill was paid. Of course that was in response to my "quiero mas sangria!" But...he didn't have to actually listen to me! I say all kinds of crazy stuff in foreign languages - some of which even makes sense, apparently - when I'm drinking.

Still feeling guilty (on top of being hung-over) for the hooky debacle, the next morning I ordered our instructor's salsa lesson dvd. She said you only need it if you're struggling in the class. Well, Monday evening we started struggling!