dianaschnuth

I bought this skirt at the mall last week. Afterward, I purchased some socks online — these are technically over-the-knee socks, but my still-oversized thighs forced the socks into submission as Harajuku-style scrunch socks. I finally located a black turtleneck sweater in the back of the closet to complete the outfit, and voila! Cuteness.

While shopping, I made the mistake of picking things up, saying, “But where would I wear this?” and putting them back. I almost said that with this skirt, but it was just too damned cute. It wasn’t until later that I recalled a favorite sentiment from those evil What Not To Wear hosts: Do you need an excuse to look fashionable? Freaking wear it to the grocery store! Who cares?

Really, though: 80% of my wardrobe is casual clothes that I wear less than 30% of the time — that is to say, on the weekend. Sheryl thinks I could totally wear this outfit to work (with nylons instead of socks), but I’m kind of hesitant. I’d feel less professional and more cute, and I’m not sure how that would work out. Maybe, though. We’ll see.

P.S. – For yet another startling photo comparison of my new weight versus the old, check out the original “Cute Skirtness” entry from March 2005.

Did 30 minutes of Wii Fit this evening, along with a little bit of housework. Currently working on the Zen podcast. Planning to go to Zen meditation tomorrow evening. Life is getting back into its normal, non-depressed groove.

I’ve decided that the best way to go from here, assuming my mood doesn’t continue to improve, is the Fake It Till You Make It approach. Keep busy, keep upbeat, don’t make it obvious that I have a shitty self-image, and eventually my brain will fall into line.

Wednesday evening is Zen. Thursday evening will involve doing yoga and cleaning my desk. Friday evening will be more Wii Fit and probably continuing to clean my desk. (I’ve noticed I do feel more positive and productive if my work area is clean and tidy.) The weekend will be the weekend, and on Monday, I will begin my blog migration / redesign in earnest. I may even move it and make it live before the design is completely done, just because I’m so looking forward to a new design and a decrufted installation of MT.

Keeping busy, but not TOO busy. Leaving time to pamper myself. Sit zazen. Tweeze my eyebrows. That sort of thing.

I’ll be fine. Thanks for thinking of me. 😀

Apart from a few minor issues that I need to finish addressing, my freelance gig is complete. The site is done, the client knows how to update it, and I’ve been paid for my work. Now the trick is to get Chelsea Tipton‘s website to come up first in the Google rankings for a search on his name, instead of being stuck on the second page of results.

Now that I have one project in the bag (or I will very shortly), I can contemplate my next project: moving and redesigning my blog.

And after that’s done, I have a laundry list of projects that will literally never end. Not until I’m dead.

Minor things like editing home videos and outputting them to DVD. Major things like finishing a novel or two. Mundane things like getting my fucking desk clean once and for all. Pragmatic things like updating my resume and portfolio. Creative things like songwriting, or photography, or scrapbooking. Oh, Lordy, the scrapbooking. I haven’t even finished scrapbooking our honeymoon, and we celebrated our 5th anniversary this past May.

Whenever I hear someone say they need a hobby, I want to invite them to have one of mine. I have more than I’ll ever use up.

I was out on a sushi double-date last Saturday when the first oddity arose. I went to pay for lunch, and my debit card was declined. My debit card? Huh. I chalked it up to weirdness with their credit card machine and paid with an actual credit card, which went through without a hitch.

Later on, Aaron suggested I try paying for our Starbucks with my debit card to see if the earlier issue had just been a glitch. Nope — my card was declined at Starbucks, too. I started to worry, and made a note to check my online banking when I got home.

Later that evening, I logged into my online banking and found the first major WTF: a $635 charge from Virgin Blue. Airline tickets?

I got on the phone immediately to the NCB call center.

The customer service rep who spoke with me was super polite and helpful and told me that my debit card had been frozen by the Fraud Department due to some suspicious charges. He gave me the number for Fraud, although they wouldn’t be in until after the long weekend. That was OK: I wasn’t overdrawn or anything, so it could wait.

Forgot to call Tuesday. Called from my desk at work on Wednesday. The woman in the Fraud Department was also very nice and explained that some unusual charges had come in. Since Saturday, another charge of about $400 from Oman Air had appeared in my online banking, in addition to the $635 charge for Virgin. (Good thing I’d just gotten paid, so my balance could take the hit.) Then she proceeded to rattle off the charges that they’d caught and stopped before they hit my account: London, Turkey, Skype, Yahoo, PayPal, all adding up to more than $1000 — and that’s not counting the $1000 that DID post!

Now THAT would have wiped me out, but good.

So, the nice lady in Fraud ordered me a new debit card with a new card number (note to self: must change anything online that autodebits my debit card) and told me to go into a branch to fill out an affidavit of fraud to get credit for the charges that posted. Plus the International Transaction Fees that posted along with them. Sigh.

No problem. Left work early, went to the bank, and TaMika hooked me up. Didn’t even have to fill out or sign anything — it was all done in their computer system. I should be getting my provisional credit in about four business days; until then, I’m going to be careful about which bills I pay when, so I don’t overdraw myself before I get my $1000 back.

Despite all this, I’m not on the road to being one of those people who gets the prepaid credit cards from their bank for online shopping. I probably just used my debit card on one unscrupulous site — or with a company whose wi-fi network wasn’t well-shielded enough — and away my number went. Who knows where it got leaked. At any rate, I’m still going to shop online, although I don’t know if I’ll be so cavalier about using my debit card online anymore.

My debit card number got stolen, and it turned out to be just a minor nuisance (so far). I count myself lucky: other people have had it worse.

I think it’s funny that, anytime I sit down to write the sort of entry I would have written in a paper journal (back in the pre-blog Dark Ages of the year 2000), I feel the need to reaffirm the fact that this is still my personal journal. This isn’t my full-time job, I’m not monetizing my blog, and I shouldn’t feel like an inferior blogger just because I keep a wide-ranging, personal journal. I’m not topical, like some of the tech blogs; I don’t craft witty and humorous essays like Dooce; I’m just making public what was once a private venture, from my first journal at age seven to my last pre-blog folders of scribbled notebook paper and “Talking to Myself” text files on my old Mac.

That said, here’s what’s going on with me:
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