Strange day. Lots happened. Plans made, paths carved, classes graduated.

Let me first speculate a few things. Browsing. Why the hell is that fun? I'll never understand that. I know people who do it all the time. Actually, I take that statement back. I used to love going to the mall. It was ridiculously fun when I was 15 and 16, but that's because it was a social thing. I met up with three friends and was ready to feel cool. It was an adventure because you were unsupervised. That felt rare at the time. You were in no parent's home, you were out. And where I lived, everyone went to the mall. Short Hills Mall in NJ on a Saturday - forget about it, it's a party. The whole world was there. I know I didn't come home with shopping bags, so I guess I just browsed. I walked into stores, played around in the Sharper Image and Bose, had some Mrs. Fields, and people-watched. Even if I saw some 15 year old boy I liked or some snobby country club bitches I liked to make fun of, I don't think we ever hung out. I think you just passed them back and forth, spied, and gossiped. Either way, the mall browsing experience was different back then. It was going for a walk, not actually browsing. Somehow, it's changed meaning. Maybe I've developed this love for new clothes so much that browsing has come to pain me. Well, I know that's true. Money means something different now. I also seem to want more, but maybe that's because I know I can't get whatever I want. Now, the idea of walking into a store I love to look at some clothes that I want, but can't afford - I mean, that's torture. Staring at shit you can't have, let's make a Saturday of it. No, I don't like to browse. I go to the mall to get whatever I went to the mall to get. I have a plan in mind. I go to the mall alone. I don't like going to the mall with several people now like I used to. I'm not even crazy about going to the mall with anyone. I like going alone. Why? Because it's not an activity to me, it's an errand. When you go with people, you have to go into stores you wouldn't go into if they weren't there. "Come on, let's go in here," I hate that. No, I don't want to go in there. What would I go in there for? Are you planning on buying something that you want my opinion on, because that's different, you know. I'll do that, but just wandering in...ugh. That's my nightmare times two - that's doing someone else's browsing with them. I don't even do my own, this is amounting to a colossal waste of time.

But since we're talking about stores, I need to discuss the issue of dressing rooms. It's not the entire dressing room I need to discuss - it's the lighting. Okay, lighting design is absolutely everything in every situation. No play or movie could exist well without planned lighting. No restaurant could consider being exquisite with fluorescent lighting. It's just everything because it deals with one of the most important elements to our reactions to a place or setting - our subconscious reaction. Speaking specifically about lighting in dressing rooms: let's think about this for a second. People try on these clothes to see if they like how it feels, but most importantly, how it looks. If it were just on feel, we wouldn't have mirrors. Now, if the stores want us to look good, to like what we see so that we will purchase that item so we can look as great out of the store as we do in, then they need to make us look amazing in that store. You CANNOT compensate with airhead sales chicks who mutter, "You look totally awesome in that sweater. You should totally get it. Seriously." See, that has an effect, I will admit, but I'm really going by what I think because that chick is not the one laying down the credit card. I need to throw on that sweater and think, "I have to get this, I look great." You know how that's NOT going to happen? If I look in the mirror and think I look fat or bald or bumpy or flabby or zitty. You know how I can look all those things? With bad lighting. If you take a bright, flat, white bulb and shoot it down onto the top of my head, so that every raised cell on my body casts some enormous shadow, then I will hate myself, hate that place, hate that sweater, which will consequently have me returning that sweater to the shelf. I was in Express today, and this fucking lighting made my already thin hair look nonexistent. I couldn't even concentrate on the sweater, I was too busy being blinded by my radiant scalp. When I managed to peel my eyes from my four hair follicles, I noticed each and every bulge my body produced. I felt horrible about myself. I looked terrible. I don't buy clothes when I feel terrible. So stupid of that store, and the solution is so damn simple. Now, when you walk into a dressing room with no overhead lighting, just warm, golden and pink bulbs against a long mirror - saturating the whole room with this hazy, glowing light - there is not a single out of place lump I can find. My skin looks flawless, my hair full, my stomach flat. The lighting is like an airbrushing, a Cybill Shepherd/Moonlighting kind of effect that makes me feel pretty and flawless. "I look great, I have to get this," I think, without a consideration that if I tried this on in Express, I would probably kill myself. I feel like I should study this and get paid to design dressing rooms. I went to an Arden B - I could've bought the whole store with that lighting. You know what store you would think had good lighting, but has the overhead? Victoria Secret. Oh yeah, I'm going to buy underwear that when I turn around and face the mirror, it looks like someone flossing Hagrid's ass. Sorry. No sale.

Anyway, I can no longer say I have two jobs. Well, I could say it, but it would be a lie now. I quit the first job and now just work full time at the second job. So, now the second job is what I'll refer to as "my job" since it's the only one I have. Okay, I start that on Friday, and I hope it goes well, but I'm feeling strangely confident, and I don't know why. I hope that feeling stays with me. I had to leave the first job because I hate it. I hate the place. I would never go there, so why should I work there. My sister talked me into it. She didn't know why I put up with a place so unprofessiona,l that caused me so much stress, that could make me money every once in a while, but the money-making shifts are so few and far between that it isn't worth the stress. So, she said, just quit. And I did. Never quit a job before, only "left" for school. Felt weird. Little scary, but relieving as well. I think I made a good decision. I'm pretty positive, but it's done now, so time to focus my attention elsewhere.

I graduated from my self-defense course tonight. It's an amazing course that I recommend to everyone and anyone. It's called Impact Model Mugging and you should look it up online and take it. It's a big deal, and though it's been exhausting and stressful, I feel so great for having completed it. I feel very confident now. Not superhuman and not invincible, but aware and a little safer.

I don't like how Nanny is on from midnight to one. Why? I need Golden Girls in that spot. Why does Nanny exist? How was that a successful season? How did it get picked up as a pilot let alone have many good seasons so that it was picked up for syndication? How, how, how? I really hate the Nanny.

It's late, and I'm going to bed. Will talk tomorrow.