My Very Own 'Popstar' - please help

Come April 9th, I'll be walking for the 2005 Annual Las Vegas Multiple Sclerosis Walk, and I'll be doing it for my best girl, Poppy Johnston, a wonderful friend of mine who's been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Right now this means that myself and the rest of our team -"Poppy's Pal's"- are on the fundraising track. I would LOOOOVE to report that I'd reached my individual fundraising goal~ PUHLEEEEZE SPONSOR ME ~ please HELP me do it! Every dollar counts! If you would please, please, please visit my personal M.S. page, hosted by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, you can make a donation online, easy as pie!

Help end the devastating effects of MS ~ (did I say please already?)
and Thank you for your support!

That's my Popstar in the center (me on right)

St. Paddy's din-din

St. Paddy's Day din-din! Yummy! (ewwgh, feeling sick to my stomach...)

J.Lo and the Lowdown on Fur

Here's the most notable thing to have happened to me in the last 2 weeks, and I swear, I am changed. Why? how? I checked out the P.E.T.A. website after work last Friday, before going to class. Just so you know, other than the very middle part, "Let me Tell you" and the very end of this post, everything typed with color is a link.

The first thing I viewed on "Peta TV" was nothing short of an absolute and total nightmare... J.Lo and the Lowdown on Fur. I will not go into any details - just see for yourself and I swear to you, you'll NEVER EVER WANT TO BUY ANYTHING MADE OF FUR! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! Flat out, I burst into tears. And then, a total glutton for punishment, I watched two additional videos from Peta investigations, one of a pig farm featuring James Cromwell as the narrator, and the other for a cattle 'processing' plant called AgriProcessors.
The cows: the behavior of the machinery operators!?!? I was completely stunned and thought, as I continued to cry, what happened to these people??? for them to be so cruel and so casual, and completely detached from this 'process,' even making fun and light of what was happening? And then, the video featuring a pig farm and a poor, lame sow, subject to a totally unheard of use for an Exacto-size knife...
The pigs: I never understood before now how anyone could faint from either seeing or hearing 'bad news', no matter how horrific, but I do know now. The strength of my physiological response to this video was overwhelming; honestly, I began to black out! I tried to rest my head on my desk, as the video and its sound continued to play, but even the SOUNDS of what was happening!?!? I felt myself weaken further, my head swimming, vision failing and my stomach began to churn violently. I had to turn it off.

Okay, now why in heaven's name would I want to share this with anyone? better yet, include links to the video???
LET ME TELL YOU...
Sure, ignorance is bliss, HOWEVER, I'd much rather be informed and know what role I may play in any of this, no matter how insignificant. I want to be as far REMOVED from it all, the best I can. And knowing now what I know, I can make an informed decision as to how I want to conduct myself. MOREOVER, I have a NEW FOUND APPRECIATION for all living things, my own sweet boys/pets, my family, my own livelihood, and the power I can have as a consumer, if I SIMPLY CHOOSE to buy or NOT to buy.

On Monday, I went back to the Peta TV website and watched more. Yes, I subjected myself to more, but I wanted to know what else is done ~ and let me tell you, here's what I now also know:

With the exception of fishies, I will NEVER purchase an animal from a pet store. I will NEVER allow an animal of mine to have a litter, when there are millions of shelter animals put to death each year; too many animals who go without a home and they either die on the streets or die in shelters. And I will avoid at all costs placing lost animals in a shelter...I'll put it upon myself to either find lost/stray animals their home, or find them a new one...real soon, I'll post a related story to this.

I AM A PLEATHER GIRL - NO MORE LEATHER FOR ME, as best I can avoid it. I realize this one may be really hard, since leather is a very common retail product, BUT one of my most complemented jackets is a pleather leather-look-alike. IT CAN BE DONE! And No more wool. There are plenty of synthetics out there, either equivalent or superior to wool products... AND although this will be difficult to adhere to at all times, I've requested a list of anti-animal testing manufacturers (here's a partial list of some that do animal testing) to buy my needed stuff from. Just to name one, No more Proctor & Gamble.

Honestly, I can't begin to list everything I've learned and just how much it's changed me or what I will now choose to do, and what I will avoid.
BECOME INFORMED.

"Oh Leo, I just don't think so..."

Recently, I had confessed to someone the names of those few male celebrities I've had, ahh, visit me in my dreams (if ya know what I mean):

1) Matt Damon - in my dreams, I know him reallllly well; he used to be a regular visitor. Hey, don't frown at me like that! I have no control over this stuff when I'm sleeping - except when in a state of lucid dreaming...hee hee (what about Matt Damon?)
2) Jude Law - just scrumptious head to toe, especially w/ that accent
3) Paul Rudd - very 'cute'
4) Orlando Bloom - all I can say, is that for me, Legolas is totally HOT

Now for the record, I haven't had any interludes with these guys for some time, due to a wonderful relationship in which I'm enthralled currently...but the other night? Guess who paid me a visit in my dreams...
Leonardo DiCaprio. Yup, never have I had him 'visit' me. To be honest, I've never been all that into him really - I like him as an actor, but juuuhst not into him, and this fact, in my dreams it was even apparent.
In my dream the other night, Leo was allll into me, flagrantly flirting, making blantant advances, playing the smoooth playboy, charming as could be. Then it came to the point when I truly had to DENY HIM and put him out of his misery, to end the chase per se... I casually, oh-so nonchalantly told him, "Oh Leo, I just don't think so..."

EVEN IN MY DREAMS (in which it should be a free for all, right?), I TURNED LEO DOWN! ha!

Not once or twice, BUT 6 Times...

SIX different times spread throughout today, six different people, in one way or another and each quite blunt about it, told me I look tired. Not only was I told SIX times today that I look tired, each time it was either the immediate first or second thing each person had to say to me upon seeing me.

Generally it went this way...
"Good morning (apply sing-song voice of neurotic-'It's Monday'-glee) - wow, you look WAY tired."
-OR- "Hi! geesh- you look beat." -OR- the simple, straight to the point, "You look tired."

No, I haven't yet looked at a mirror to confirm just how tired I must apparently look, and I honestly cannot recall even looking at myself in the mirror even once this morning. I do know that I did go through the daily ritualistic application of minor make-up, yet it was done without having to think about it and involved only specific, focused attention to certain parts of my face. I remember seeing my eyelashes as I brushed mascara on them (or is that memory from yesterday morning?), and I vaguely recall judging the even application of "rouge" (as my Great Gma Ruth liked to call it, what I call 'blush') upon my cheeks, but I have absolutely NOOOO recollection of actually seeing or acknowledging a full-frontal face image of that which is me. None whatsoever.

I'm still at work right now and this post is my first moment of me-time today. That's not a complaint; a mere observation at this point. I'm really not complaining ...just rambling. My left eyelid began twitching about 2 hours ago, but I'm too tired for that to freak me out.

What I would really like right now is TELEPORTATION - directly to my bed, lights out, no questions!

oh, my heart!

On the phone, my honey-man's 6 yr old angel boy-O asks me, "Do you miss me as much as I miss you?"

my.heart.is.melting