Category: Personal

Of Life and Lacquer > Personal

Layla Retro Pink & How I Almost Got Into A Fight

Posted on by Cynthia

I headed over to Ulta today (I was writing this on Sunday night but fell asleep) because I wanted to see if they had the Essence polish that I saw swatched here. Yeah, I know it’s glitter, but I just wanted to see it in person and get it out of my system. Of course my Ulta didn’t have it so I ended up drooling over the Layla holos again. I already have three of them, and I had been saying that I really wanted Flash Black but decided to get a pink one instead. Shocker, right?

How gorgeous are these? If they weren’t so pricey, I’d get them all instantly. I think I already mentioned this before, but here I go again: you can use a coupon for these at Ulta. I printed their $3.50 off any $10+ purchase coupon so I ended up paying just under $13 tax included. Paying $15.50 + tax for a tiny polish kind of makes me mad, but these are so pretty that I just try to ignore the price. Yay for coupons!

I took some pictures at the beach today. It was so pretty outside so L. and I just went to hang out, get some coffee and get some sun. It was more crowded than we expected which was kind of a bummer. After the pictures, I’ll tell you about how I almost got into a fight.

We decided to stop an watch an acrobatic-type show that looked pretty interesting. It was just a bunch of young guys doing stunts and cartwheels so we took a seat on a bench on the front row. We got there about 15 minutes before the show was supposed to start precisely because we wanted good seats and a good view of the show. Once everything started, a man with his wife and 3 children came up and were standing next to us. Because we were on edge, there was an opening so they were standing there and were being very loud. Slowly, they kept moving over and ended up standing right in front of us. What the hell? Why would they think that’s ok? At first we thought it was just a momentary lapse in judgement on their part, but they wouldn’t move and we could no longer see. L. seemed annoyed but she didn’t do anything. I got up, tapped the guy on the shoulder and said: “I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re standing right in front of us and we can’t see the show.” He turned and gave me a dirty look and muttered under his breath that we could move. WTF? Why would we have to move if we got there early and his retarded ass just decided to stand in front of us??? Well, I wasn’t just about to take that: “Well, we got here early precisely because we wanted good seats. Why should we have to move just because you decided to be rude and block our view?” I don’t really know what he was saying because he was mumbling. So not only is he a rude asshole, but he’s too afraid to say everything to my face? Oh, Ghetto Cynthia is out in full force. He backed off and we went back to watching the show. Later on, L. told me that it looked like I was getting ready to punch that guy in the face. I found it amusing because I am so NOT confrontational, but nothing gets me revved up like rudeness. It really makes me wonder what kind of crap people teach their children nowadays. This guy was a complete asshole and was basically teaching his kids that it’s ok to be an asshole. I feel sorry for people like that. When I was a kid, I was a little demon child, but my mom always taught us good manners: to greet everyone, to be polite and always say “please” and “thank you.” If I acted like a turd in public, I knew I was going to get a spanking when I got home.  Anyway, that’s the end of my rant about this. I took some video of the show and I might have caught some of the “fight,” but it’s not on the SD card!!!!!! Where is it???  I am sad about that…I wonder if it got saved on my camera but that doesn’t make sense. Oh well.

How do you like my new holo? Have you purchased any Layla holos? Do you usually speak up when someone is rude to you or do you just ignore it? I hope you all had a nice weekend and happy Monday!

10 Books I Can’t Live Without

Posted on by Cynthia

I was talking to one of my friends today about how literature can impact your life. I remember that when I was a freshman in college, I was convinced that I wanted to be a Shakespearean scholar in the vein of my literary criticism idol, Harold Bloom. I don’t know when that was put on the back burner, and I lost interest in so many things. It was a rough period, and I think that I’m just finally starting to find my way back to rediscovering the intense passion I used to feel for things. I don’t have many (any?) friends who share my love of the written word so I decided to just make a list here and put it out there. Yes, I started this blog because I wanted to indulge my obsession with nail polish, but I quickly realized what a wonderful vehicle this is to get things off my chest and just talk about anything and everything. There is no judgment here…no fear at all. I love that.

The following is a list of the 10 books that I feel have changed me to the core at the time when I read them. Not only are they works of extraordinary beauty, but they have and will stand the test of time.

10. Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita

9. JD Salinger – The Catcher In The Rye

8. Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man

7. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince

6. Leo Tolstoy – The Death Of Ivan Illych

5. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby

4. Henry James – The Beast In The Jungle

3. Gabriel Garcia Márquez – Love In The Time Of Cholera

2. William Shakespeare – Hamlet

1. Gabriel Garcia Márquez – One Hundred Years Of Solitude

If you are a lit geek like me, do you have your own list?

 

Friends, Travel And Other Demons

Posted on by Cynthia

I had a really nice day today mostly because I got to spend it with D. I told him that he has to come visit my blog. I know most guys aren’t into nail polish or reading about nail polish, but he should do it because he’s my friend, right?! We haven’t been hanging out too much lately since he got his new job so it was nice to just veg together and catch up. D. and I go wayyyyyyy back to August 1997; that was our first day of college and we met in French class. How fitting! We ended up being super close especially after we were both studying in France for a year at the same time. To this day, I still tell him that he just copied me. Eventually we ended up working together at Air France which allowed us to go gallivanting around the world for a few years. Over sushi, I asked him what he thought was our craziest travel adventure and he mentioned two:

1) Running to catch a train in Milan. We ran as fast as we could, threw our bags onto the train and did a flying leap onto a moving train. I don’t know how we did it, but we did. I also got my wallet stolen on that trip because D. walked off and left me alone in the compartment while I slept. Ok, it wasn’t really his fault, but I like to bust his balls about it.

2) The time I had tickets to go to Amsterdam and we were going to go for 3 days until we arrived at the airport and we were told the flight was cancelled because the aircraft had been hit by lightning. That should have been our clue to go home and just relax before having to go back to work. So what did we do instead? We took the red-eye to New York without hotel reservations or any idea about what we were going to do. We ended up in some kind of drug house hotel with Russian immigrants and then I walked into a homicide scene on the street. Yeah…I think I will talk about this one.

At our company Christmas party, I had won a pair of tickets on KLM so we made plans to take a long weekend and crash at a friend’s place in Amsterdam. I was super excited about this trip until we got to the KLM counter and we were told that the flight had been cancelled due to the incoming aircraft being struck by lightning. Completely disappointed, we headed over to our counter to see if we could re-issue our tickets for a different destination. Because we were airline employees, we could buy super cheap stand-by tickets for any airline we had an agreement with. So we decided to buy some tickets on the next Delta flight to NYC. The next available flight was unfortunately the red eye. I won’t talk of that flight because it was miserable. We got to NYC around 5 am and we had to now figure out where we were going to stay. To say that we had a limited budget is an understantement. We had planned to crash with a friend so we hadn’t truly thought about the cost of lodging…oh silly, Californians who know nothing about New York.  The only thing that was in our budget was on the corner of Crack Whore and Pimp Alley. Oh well. We weren’t going to be in the hotel much, right? Well, we ended up in some shit hole with exposed pipes and bunk bends. Nice. It was so gross that I was afraid to take my shoes off at all. We did make a point of staying out all day and visiting EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, it was December and it was freezing. I soon started to complain about the cold and drove D. up the wall.  It’s a gift I have. D. is actually one of the most patient people I have ever met in my life, but I somehow manage to exasperate him. That night we decided to catch a movie late at night so by the time we got out, it was way past midnight and we had to get back to our hotel. We decided to take the subway and we got a little lost….great. I got irritated with D. and I started walking ahead annoyed that we couldn’t find our street. Well, we finally got on the right street and then I raced ahead because I was tired and irritable. I started to hear screaming and running but I wasn’t really in the mood. All of a sudden, a bunch of police cars converged on the corner and I saw someone lying on the floor face down. Did I just walk into a murder scene? I was so shocked that I just kept on walking…right past the body and into a liquor store. I don’t know what I was thinking but I yelled at some man to let me through to buy a Coke. D. was behind me, probably in utter shock, and we finally got to our hotel and passed out. We spent a total of 3 days in NYC with plenty of other silly things happening, but these were the main highlights. How do you like NYC?

Today we ended up watching a French movie called Intouchables. It was amazing, and I highly recommend it if it’s playing anywhere near you.

Afterwards, we went to my favorite sushi place and really pigged out. No, you don’t understand. WE ATE LIKE PIGS. Don’t believe me? Here we go…

This is  my favorite: octopus. I only have a couple of pieces because it tastes so much better if you’re left wanting more!

Yes, two people ate all of this. We have a term for this: sushicoma.

I wrote this because it was a really nice day and also to just share some of the weird things that we both got to experience when we were still carefree and in our early 20’s. I spent a year in my early 20’s completely incapacitated by depression and I hoped that I would never have to go through that again. I never sought any kind of help for my issues and they kept resurfacing every few years until I completely broke down last year. We should never be ashamed to ask for help so don’t piss away a whole decade of your life before you get the courage to get help whether it’s therapy, medication or both. Today was definitely a good day. It’s a real gift to have a friend with whom you can still act like a kid regardless of how old you are.

I hope you read this, D. You promised, you freak!

Fifty Shades Of Crap

Posted on by Cynthia

I just finished Fifty Shades of Grey, and all I can say is holy horrible writing, Batman! If I ever meet a woman who actually uses the phrase “inner goddess”, I will surely punch her right in the ovary. A straight shot. Right to the babymaker. (Yes, Anchorman is one of my favorite movies ever!) I can’t think of any fictional character that has annoyed me more than Anastasia, and considering that I am a voracious reader, that’s really saying a lot. So, how do I explain that I read this book in one day? I mean, it’s not that I found the kind of retarded sex scenes that interesting. I can pretty much guarantee that because one of the main unfortunate side effects of being on an SSRI is that you pretty much have the libido of a corpse. So whatever. I am just really interested in finding out what happened to Christian that made him that way. I wonder if they’re really planning to adapt this trilogy into some mainstream non-porn films. I guess I should start on part 2 soon…

In other random news, I’ve been feeling kinda crappy. I have someone in my life who completely stresses me out and I’m finding it difficult to deal with the whole situation. For the last two nights, I’ve been having strange nightmares which in turn have me in a state of anxiety all day. I’m trying to not let it affect me so much but my resolve is crumbling. I know maybe I’m just hitting a low tonight, so I hope that I will feel better tomorrow.

Have you read the Fifty Shades of Grey books? What do you think of them?

 

OPI Vintage Minnie Mouse

Posted on by Cynthia

I grew up in Orange County, CA and have only been to Disneyland 3 times in 32 years. No joke. When I was a kid, my parents couldn’t really afford to take us to Disneyland (damn you greedy Disney) so I didn’t grow up being in love with that place. Yes, I would watch “The Wonderful World Of Disney” on TV and loved all the classic Disney animated movies, but I was never Disney obsessed. When I saw this new OPI collection at my nail place, I decided to get three of the four polishes; I passed on the glitter which should be no surprised to you if you have followed my blog for a while now.

My friend V asked me to swatch one of the polishes for her so I figured I might as well swatch the other two. To tell you the truth, I’m not super excited with these colors. They looked cute when I saw the bottles and the fact that they are Minnie Mouse inspired was the biggest draw, but now they are are just kind of blah.

If You Moust You Moust is a saccharine sweet color. I don’t find it that interesting but I don’t think I have any dupes for it so it’s a welcome addition to my collection even if it reminds me of Pepto-Bismol.  I remember that one time I faked a stomach ache because I wanted my mom to give me some Pepto. Is that weird? I had a really hard time applying this polish because the brush was wonky. It was thin in the middle so when the brush fanned out, I would get very few bristles in the middle. I think that because of this, I had some weird bald spots. I hope it was just my retarded brush and not the formula.

 

The Color Of Minnie was the least interesting of the colors in my opinion. It has a certain shimmer that makes it look somewhat frosty, and I don’t really like frosts much. I can also see some VNL and I don’t like that at all. At all.

 

I’m All Ears is the color that I was most interested in trying when I saw the promo pics. I actually really do like this color even though I can still see VNL after 3 coats. I wonder how this would look layered over another color…probably pretty cool.

 

Today I got another email from Alfie’s new mom…I’ll call her BB. She wrote that Alfie is doing really well and that he’s a very happy go-lucky dog. They have another Wheaten, Rose, who is now 14 years old. Rose seems to be super grumpy and doesn’t want anything to do with Alfie so of course he follows her around ALL DAY. I can totally picture him trying to get in her face the way he does with everyone and Rose just wanting him to go away. He has been on a few short car rides without throwing up which is great, but he still won’t get in the car on his own. I always had to pick him up and put him in the car if I wanted to take him with me. I hope he gets over it soon so he can learn to love car rides. I know that eventually it won’t hurt as much to talk about Alfie so for now I am taking comfort in hearing how well he is doing.

Empty Boxes & The Wheaten Greetin’

Posted on by Cynthia

Today I received my second SpaRitual delivery from Beauty.com. You may recall that I ordered the SpaRitual Holiday Duo about two weeks ago during their Friends & Family Sale. I am a sucker for a sale, so I couldn’t resist getting this set at such a great price. Well, that was a major letdown when my package arrived and the actual box set was empty. I called them up and they re-ordered the set and sent it out to me. I’ve been waiting for these polishes for almost 2 weeks!  I really want to try them out since I only have one other glittery SpaRitual polish, and the ones I ordered are cremes–my favorite finish. So this is take two:

Yay pretty box again! 🙂

 

Uhm, empty box…again?!?!?!?!?!?

You have got to be kidding me, right? Is someone playing a joke on me? I called Beauty.com again and the CSR told me that they are going to “investigate” the issue with the warehouse and that I will get a call back the next day. They offered to refund my money, but I’d rather wait and see what happens. I really want my nail polish, dammit!

And on the Alfie front, he is really coming into his own. If you don’t know much about wheatens, I suggest you watch this video:

I’m nearing a week that he has been here and he is starting to let his wheaten personality come out. Today he realized that he is a prodigious jumper which was just his stepping stone to the wheaten greetin’. He jumped up on a couple of people today to say hello. I know this is something that people try to train them out of doing, but I love that about them. I’m sure a lot of people would hate it if some random wheaten jumped up on them so I don’t know how I’m going to handle it yet. He jumped on some kids that we ran across  on one of his potty breaks and then completely lost it once I got him back inside. He was running around like a bat out of hell. At one point he was running across the room towards his crate but he missed it and crashed into me since I was sitting near the crate and putting some of his toys away. I now have a huge bruise on my leg thanks to Alfs. He has also completely mastered going up and down the stairs, and now I just have to train him not to go so fast. Here are some Alfie pictures. I took these after he wore himself out horsing around like a lunatic.

The best part of my whole day was when Alfie licked my cheek and wagged his tail. He hadn’t done that to me yet so I am confident that he is making a lot of progress. I hope he continues to grow into the wheaten playfulness. I love my stinky little pup.

My Last Orders Came In & Puppy News

Posted on by Cynthia

I was anxiously waiting for my last couple of orders to come in from Cult Nails and from the Beauty.com friends and family sale. Finally, I got everything and I couldn’t wait to try my new polishes. Look how pretty everything is:

I purchased these three during the last Cult Nails sale. Woo hoo for sales. The colors are: Iconic, Hypnotize Me and Let Me Fly.

This is my first RGB polish so I am excited to see what the formula and wear are like. This shade is Haze.

This SpaRitual Holiday set is really pretty. Just look at the pretty gold box. I am a sucker for packaging so I really loved this set.

Until I opened up the box….

Where are the polishes?????? Hahaha…this was such a wah wah moment that I wish you could have seen my face. Since I was in a crazy good mood for reasons I will go into shortly, I wasn’t super annoyed. I called up Beauty.com and explained to them that I received an empty box. The CSR sounded a little incredulous but he didn’t give me any grief about it or anything. He just re-ordered the set for me. Hopefully the polishes will be in the box this time.

 

So for my puppy news: I was going to put down a deposit for my pup pup and the breeder informed me that he was no longer available. Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! My heart sank. Then she told me that she did have an older puppy that had been on hold for a buyer who later changed his mind. So this is the pup that I’m going to go meet this weekend!!!! He’s 4.5 months old and absolutely adorable. I can’t wait to meet him.

 

 

And just for reference, this is a picture of the puppy’s dad so I can get an idea of what my pup will look like when he’s older.

 

I am sure that I won’t be able to sleep for the next couple of days until I get to go see my little Alfie. It’s finally happening. I’m getting my first dog at the ripe old age of 32. Wish me luck. 🙂

I <3 My UPS Man

Posted on by Cynthia

I only love him when he delivers my package to me and not my neighbor. I had to clear that up because I have always been very resentful about the time that UPS delivered my plane tickets to some random neighbor that I bought when I was drunk on priceline.com. When they couldn’t track them, they basically told me I was SOL and priceline wouldn’t do anything about it either. This was a round trip ticket to Rome so I was pretty upset as you can imagine. This was pre-electronic tickets so you had to have the paper tickets. Eventually I went all around the neighborhood asking if anyone had accidentally accepted my tickets and I tracked them down. Fuck you UPS and Priceline. That trip was awesome, by the way…even though I got the flu when I was in Italy by myself in the dead of winter. Ah…to be young, retarded and carefree.

I really wanted to go see The Dictator today so I went to a super early showing in order to avoid crowds. I hate crowds. It was really dumb so watch it at your own risk. Borat was a gem. Bruno and The Dictator? Not so much. Because I was so disappointed by The Dictator, I sneaked in to see The Avengers. I know, how very Jr. High of me. I just didn’t have that much going on today and I thought I might as well watch a movie…or two. I loved The Avengers!

Back to UPS: I had two packages waiting for me when I got home: my nails inc. set from Sephora and my 4 Deborah Lippmann polishes from HSN.

Before you think I’m insane for buying all those Deborah Lippmann polishes, I have to confess that they were on clearance at HSN. Each duo was priced at $9.95!!! Can you believe it? Thanks to Vienna’s post, I jumped right on these. She has some swatches up if you want to see what they look like. This is my first DL purchase so I’m glad I was able to get such a super deal. I can’t wait to try them out.

I am really excited to see what happens on Grey’s Anatomy tonight. Any other fans out there? Who do you think is going to die?????

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that I did get my dog letter from my psychiatrist and I sent it off to my landlady. Now I just have to wait to hear from her so that we can talk about the pet deposit. I hope it’s not a super ridiculous amount. Here is a copy of the letter. It seems so basic that I am a little concerned that it won’t be enough. My psychiatrist did tell me that they try to make it as vague as possible for confidentiality reasons. I’m sure they don’t want to advertise: Hey, your tenant is cray-cray!

So keep your fingers crossed for me. I am sooooo close to getting my pup pup. 🙂

Nicole: You Win

Posted on by Cynthia

It was an epic battle but someone had to lose. Considering my recent failure, I figured I might as well go out in a blaze of glory. So I concede defeat; Nicole you are victorious in the great battle of not cutting our talons nails for the longest period of time.

Last night I noticed that I had a tiny little break/rip on one of my nails. Then I noticed the same on 3 other nails. That was pretty much a death sentence to my nails because it was just a matter of time before I snagged it on something and ripped it off. Just thinking about it makes me cringe.

I went crazy with my nail clippers. I cut my nails as short as humanly possible without hurting myself. Look how weird my nails look now! It feels amazing to not have to worry about my long ass nails

I give these about a week before they grow enough for me to be able to square them. Fun times.

Tomorrow I am going to pick up the paperwork from my doctor’s office for my dog. I am so freaking excited I can barely stand it. I had an idea today: would it be tacky if I threw myself a puppy shower? You know, like a baby shower but for a puppy. Let me explain my reasoning. I have gone to countless baby showers for friends and family which means that I have bought them countless presents for their babies. I am happy to celebrate their choice to have a baby so does that mean that I get jack shit because I’m fairly certain that I’m never going to have a baby?  Why can’t  they celebrate my puppy and the fact that I will not be bringing a screaming snot-monster that will one day be a horrible teenager into the world?

Here is some stuff that I bought for my puppy. I really feel like an expectant mother. I always end up having long conversations with people about pets when they seem me buying all this dog stuff.

This bed looks so comfy. I wish I had one of these when I was a baby.

I got him a food bowl and two toys. The newspaper looking one makes a crinkly noise and also has a squeaky ball. The other one yells “Oh noooooooooooooooo!” when you press its belly.

This is like a shamwow for dogs. lol It’s supposed to be super absorbent so I can dry my dog off after a bath. Of course I also bought a leash.

Lastly, I purchased a mat for his crate. I still haven’t purchased a crate, though. I saw a lot of them on ebay so I might buy one there.

Can you tell I’m so ready to get a dog?  As you can tell, my carpet is a light color. I am wondering how long it will stay that way once I get a dog. I doubt turds look good on it. 🙁 I don’t know how I’m going to deal with the mess that comes along with having a dog, but I am sure it will be more than worth it.

P.S. I was kidding about the puppy shower. Well, only sorta kidding. Celebrate my puppy damnit!

I Have No Willpower

Posted on by Cynthia

I’m hanging my head in shame as I share this information with you: I caved on my no-buy and purchased some nail polish. A few. More than a few…a lot. It all started on Saturday. I had been feeling crappy so my resolve to not buy any polish melted away. I was immediately tempted when the Cult Nails sale started. I just couldn’t pass up getting 3 polishes at 50% off. Sooooo…I bought three: Hypnotize Me, Let Me Fly and Iconic. Then later that day, I noticed that a friend had posted a $5 gift card for Sephora on my facebook. I didn’t think it was real, but it turns out that it’s a new app and it really worked. So I was just perusing the sephora site when I saw that Nails. Inc had brought back their neutrals set.

They are FOUR full size polishes that retail for $9.50 each, and this set costs $25. I didn’t really have to think too much about this so I snatched it up.  The retail therapy seemed to help, BUT now I had to deal with the guilt of failing!

Then today I was over the moon when I got the news about my dog  paperwork so I went completely insane and ended up buying all sorts of craziness.

From the 2012 Poppy-Razzi Collection: Lights and Bazooka

From the 2012 Love & Acceptance Collection: Who Is the Boss and Love & Acceptance

Random Color Club: Age Of Aquarius, Pucci-Licious and Hydrangea Kiss

Then I went to Ross and found some new Color Club sets…like I was going to pass this up. These are not labeled like the previous All About Color set so I’ve contacted Color Club to see if they can help.

And lastly, I saw a few Essie bottles at Ross for $3.49!!! When did Ross start carrying Essie? I failed to notice that these are super close to the Essies I had just purchased an hour ago. I guess I was too excited about Essie at Ross to even notice.

Essie: Nice Is Nice and Absolutely Shore

So, I am really annoyed with myself right now because I didn’t buy any polish for almost 2 weeks and then went out and purchased 23 bottles. Is this the ugly face of addiction? I think so.