five (not) faves

I totally wouldn't blame Hallie if she personally uninvited me from joining her legions of favorites ever again after what I'm about to do: use her bright and sunshiney link-up for evil. I've been trying to come up with things that I am fired up about this week, but what my brain is actually doing is: oh that song? I HATE that song. That song SUCKS. or That recipe was GROSS. or This product has done NOTHING for my skin, why should IT be a favorite. I have lots of not favorites and no new favorites.

Basically, I've been on my broom. I try to internalize my witchier moods, and I think I mostly do, but there are certain things that just do a little dance on the very last weathered and beaten nerve that my bulging body possesses so, what do I do? I write about it. Then I link it up. (Quickie and handy example: there is a persistent bugger of a fly doing rotations around my head even as I type, and I wish I could real quick pull a Katniss and arrow that b to the wall. Then I would laugh like Mr. Incredible when he's in the volcano and has gotten the kink out of his back. These are the things I think about. PS, I've never even read Hunger Games. Thank you Netflix and Jennifer Lawrence, for keeping me abreast of relevant pop culture.)

Not Favorite, the First// Pregnant Feet

Forget the dry, cracked heels. I've got a Pinterest recipe that promises to remedy that. Those always work, yes? No, that's not even the problem with my pregnant feet. They're swelling big-time. Ok, I wouldn't say they're Kardashian status quite yet

but then I'd never try and stuff my sausage toes into ridiculous, not-even-cute shoes such as those. The problem with my feet is that they're stupid tiny. Therefore, as my ankles become cankles, and my feet continue to swell, they are becoming increasingly monoline, and have taken on the appearance of fat hooves.

Here, I snapped this one of my pretty feets for you

And also, they're ON FIRE. I'm pretty sure I could power Google for a good few hours with the heat radiating out of my tiny toes. Suddenly CAKE's song Nugget takes on new meaning:

Clever feet that flicker like fire

And burn like candles in smoky spires

Do more to turn my joy to sadness

Than somber thoughts of burning planets.

So very true for me right now. Except my feet are not clever, just beefy. Beefy feet that flicker like fire. (That song is purposefully not linked. It is overrun with f-bombs. I'd go so far as to say the f-bomb plays a starring role.)

Not Favorite, the Second // Exercising/Not Exercising

Exercising and I are at an impasse. I hate exercising in the same exact proportions that I hate not exercising, as mathematically improbable as this may seem. The dread leading up to exercise is equal to the relief felt after exercise.

There is a steepish hill at the end of my regular walking route and, as I was huffing and puffing and nearing death while tackling it the other day, I glanced across the street to an old guy carrying a briefcase, probably on his way to the bus stop or something, and he didn't even need to open his mouth to breathe. Then I just felt like Ron Livingston in Office Space when he's sitting dead stopped in traffic and the 90 year old with the walker on the sidewalk is moving faster than him.

Not Favorite, the Third // My persistent desirefor My utter dependency on My full-blown addiction to chocolate

There was this cute little four-second stint during my first trimester where it seemed that I'd been freed of my lifelong shackles to sweets and was ready to move forward toward a more mature palate. Yeah that's over now. The thought of chocolate consumes me all day. It consumes me nearly as much as I consume it. The reason the dimensions are unequal is because

1 all-consuming thought about chocolate = 4-7ish of those little chocolate bricks consumed

Let me reiterate: I don't buy this stuff. I try to stay out of harm's/carbohydrates'/20+ grams of sugar's way. But when I go into work, I know where that bowl of Hershey's chocolate-almond bricks is kept at my co-worker's desk for people to graze at will. When the image of one of those gold-clad blocks of goodness floats across my cerebellum, it's like zombies to the smell of flesh. I muuuuust have it. Help me out here, does anyone have some will power/self-control/big girl pants they could throw my way?

Not Favorite, the Fourth // My hair

Ok it's not that I don't like it all short like this. It's just.....ugh, in order for me to like it I have to do it. In order for me to do it, I have to invest 8-12 minutes with the blow-dryer and straightener. And sometimes, I'd really just rather invest that time to Pinterest. Or Instagram. Or blog rounds. But when I don't do my hair it looks eerily like Sir Dudley Moore's

minus the volume and plus a few unfortunate kinks due to a couple ill-placed cowlicks at the back of my scalp. I'm tempted to splurge on Hallie's recommendation though, and just sea salt the crap out of my hair. I'll probably just end up looking like an '80's Rosie Perez without excellent nasally sass though.

Not Favorite, the Fifth // Construction

California, what the deal is. Alllll the sudden alllll the road things need to be fixed at once? The potholes, we must fill them! The perilous overhanging branches, we must trim them! The double lines whose pigmentation is venturing dangerously into more of a butter yellow than a deep marigold, paint them! paint them! California....are you pregnant? This looks a lot like nesting. And hey, I feel ya. But here's the thing: your hormones are seriously impeding my daily commute and my treasured punctuality. Tighten up on your reins, you're runnin' wild. Not all the tax money needs to be spent all at once, you know.

Now you know my innermost concerns, and I have defiled a perfectly lovely link-up with my doom and gloom and nonsense. A day late no less. (I started this post 25 hours ago. That fly from the beginning? He's dead now.) I'm going to redirect you to Hallie's now, where other linkers have better things to say. In the meantime, I'm going to sit here and assure myself that the sun will come out tomorrow.

And it will probably be really flippin' hot.