it's not the size of the tsunami...

it's the size of the fight in the tsunami.

i guess i'll always remember the end of 2004 for a few things--good things like family and friends--but also big things, like the tsunami overseas. literally.

and the tsunami in our downstairs hallway this morning.

at 556 i woke up, realized that dan and i were laying there and had just heard or felt a large boom. we both thought immediately that it was an intruder, and dan found a dowel rod from the upstairs mess room, hefted it and headed downstairs. halfway down he stopped, got a strange look on his face, and just walked the rest of the way.

downstairs the back hallway was full of water; he slid the door open and water just shot out of the water heater. the spigot at the bottom was completely busted out, and he couldn't get the valve at the top turned off, so it just kept spouting and then trying to refill itself.

i called the emergency maintenance number and the guy talked dan through shutting the water off for our whole building. about 45 minutes later an angel of mercy by the name of ken the handyman arrived and lent some assistance...with a whole new water heater. it took about two hours, one wet-dry vac, and a dryer for the carpet in the back hall, and we're drying. slowly.

also, we have water again, and better yet, so does the rest of the building.

the bonus here is that because we're still renting, we didn't have to pay double time and a half for ken the angel of mercy to spend 2 hours soldering and cursing at the pipes in the back hallway, and we didn't have to pay for a new water heater, and we won't have to pay to have the carpeting fixed and shampooed. the other good part is we got the living room pretty much cleaned up, kitchen and bathrooms, and the back hall floor has NEVER been so clean. (;

the down side is that i'm kinda tired...but that's easily remedied.

no federal aid required, no UN walk through, no presidential helicopter tour. sean penn will not be mucking about offering assistance in the garage (which has become a bit of a holding cell for sopping rugs and christmas stuff that needed to be evacuated.)

no where near what the people affected in the south seas by the Real Tsunami are suffering, and recovering. this effort will be miniscule in comparison.

but it's strange how i can think about these things--the Big Wave and the Little Spouty Wave in my Back Hallway--how things happen in your life that take precedence over cnn and the video of bags of rice being unloaded. it's like a call from life, a reminder that the big and terrible stuff in the world can be mirrored in the small and relatively annoying stuff.

it makes me...well, thankful.

home

they say home is where the heart is. home is where you lay your head. home is where they have to love you. blah blah blah. i'm just glad to be where my BED is, right now. (;

christmas was good. glad it's over, but good. thursday we ran to st cloud, friday back to burnsville, then sat over to eau claire. which was actually quite nice, aside from the fact that we haven't spent much time with jen, matt and the boys, and i had no idea of how dirty their house was going to be. there were four kids all at the same time when i was little, and our house was NEVER so nasty. the carpeting is ruined, the kids are kinda scrubby, and i feel like i have a layer of ick all over me. i have to do some laundry tonight so i guess it's not a bad thing, entirely, but it's the thought that counts. i just cannot imagine living like that, not caring about my surroundings to that extent, and especially not caring about my children enough to care about their habitat, so to speak.

at the same time, there was good that came of that visit; once again, dan's mom was normal. it's strange because for so long she wasn't. but i often wonder if that was just a matter of relationships clashing, as dan and his mom are both very stubborn, very opinionated, and very headstrong people; perhaps the issue was deflated a bit when he moved out and she didn't have that source of emotional boom.

it was also quite nice to see the boys; caleb in particular looks like a dishwater blond and blue eyed version of dan when he was little, right down to the serious mouth. both boys have echoes of that haugen bull-headed-ness. i guess it might be hereditary. (;

another nice thing was that we barely listened to the radio at all during all the car rides; just too busy chatting and discussing and talking. quite refreshing, for a change, from dan asking for a cd and popping it in, cursing when the cd player doesn't work because batteries are missing, and then has to search on his side of the car (because they're not on my side) for replacement batteries. i'm glad that after twelve years we still have things to talk about. course half of the journey was spent on the issue of: if you could have your own vanity plates, what would they say?

my response was B!TCH, and dan just said that he didn't think he would ever have vanity plates and therefore couldn't come up with anything on the spot. i'm still waiting for him to formulate an answer. LOL

another good thing is that i got my online book ladies addicted to julia quinn. always a wonderful, wonderful addiction, books are.

i now need to get up the gumption to get to the natural foods store for comfrey and a bit more lavender, and then down to the walmart (insert shudder here) in apple valley to see if they have half pint kerr jars. (i'm making bath salts for the girls at work and ran out of jars...and of course now every walmart i've hit so far doesn't have them!!! how can there be only one twelve pack of half pint kerr glass jars in the twin cities? and how come i am the only person to find that one last pack? and how come i can't count and think well enough ahead to know that i'd need more than just a dozen? *sigh*)

we were invited over to darin and cathy's tonight for gaming but i just want to shower and watch a movie. this week is going to be draining, and i really need to recharge. perhaps i can scrounge up a few quarters so i can do some laundry here...that would rock...cause i'm sleepy and i'm home, where the bed is.

gift

wednesday morning, en route to work, i opened my first gift...little early. you could call me greedy, i supppose but it was freely given--good songs on the radio, sundogs that encompassed the sun, frost gilding trees, and those five geese, defying gravity overhead. i smiled the whole way to work.

it was a nice feeling, the generosity of the world. some days i think that the planet's really got it out for me--monday in particular, when my six mile drive took 2 hours because of ice on the roads and forty-five minutes into the drive i realized, as i was finally getting onto the highway, that i had to pee like a racehorse--but for the most part, it's just nature. the ice would happen with or without me, if i was driving or walking or rollerskating to work. (god forbid, let me tell you what...the rollerskating bit, okay?)

anyway it's that divine conglomeration of so many things--the music, the view, car running smoothly. all contributed to an absolute feeling of joy.

i felt like someone sat down the day before and planned out the morning, just so that there was no way i could arrive at work in a bad mood. impossible, what with the singing and the gazing and the speeding. (let's be honest, i was going a bit over the limit...but the state patrol officer was on the other side of the bridge, behind me, already occupied with someone else who'd apparently been similarly influenced...)

today i'm at my parents' house. but just for the day. tonight we drive home, and then tomorrow morning over to eau claire. it'll be nice to spend time with dan's family--everyone together again--but at the same time, it's going to be tiring, and stressful. nothing can make up for that walking-on-eggshells feeling i often get around his mom--it's just automatic, like the sun coming up this morning. i'm trying to adjust by wearing thicker glasses, donning thicker skin, and trying to avoid confrontation. which is something that i've done all my life, so it shouldn't feel like a muscle strain, right? (;

so wednesday morning, thank you. thank you for being lovely without trying, and thank you to the radio people for playing songs that make me shout along in an off-key and quite karoke style. thank you for your artless gift of life, and thank you to whatever divine prescence opened my eyes at that moment and bluntly informed me that i needed to see the beauty.

thank you to all my friends too--who sent cards and called--i will try to keep up but i'm feeling a bit defeatist right now...too much to do, not enough hands to do it, and certainly not enough time LOL. thank you to eero for the barnes and noble certificate, and thank you to dan for shaun of the dead--i have a feeling we'll be watching that today, and laughing just as we did in the theatre. also it has outtakes! brilliant!

off to see if i can help mom out in the kitchen at all--sounds like potica is being made and this will require my non-expert use of a rolling pin. (;

cheers all--i hope your holy days are filled with joy--k(:

let's do the time warp again...

i long for the days, when i was a kid, that just draaaaaaaaaaaagged out into oblivion. i long for them with my whole soul. i don't know when it happened, but suddenly time is flashing past me, staggeringly fast. it's like spinning in a circle--and then you stop, and you're not where you started out at all any longer.

that's how this weekend went. it feels like i should just be getting ready to head up to my sister's for the drive to st cloud, and now i'm home and it's time to go to work tomorrow. *sigh*

we did NO scrapbooking at all this weekend. it was kind of sad, really, as we'd all been looking forward to this for ages now. but at the same time, it was kind of nothing new, par for the course, for what actually happened.

got there friday, sat around. saturday sbw and i watched vh1 for a few hours and then crawled through the shower and became demi-human, and then beth showed up...and then david...so we sat around chewing the fat with mom. dad got home from work and we had dinner, and then beth and sbw and i went out w/ beth's friend to play music trivia. (which was awful, i suck at music lyrics BECAUSE I CAN'T HEAR A BLOODY THING. hee hee hee) got home and watched the bourne supremacy w/ sbw, and then went to sleep. today we were supposed to leave at noon but that got pushed back because mom cooked, and you just don't skip dinner w/ the family. it's unthinkable. LOL

it was good to go home. it's always good to go home. i have sooooooooo much fun with my family--we're all sarcastic and i always leave the house feeling like i've done about 300 situps, due to the laughter. this weekend was kind of the usual mix of hysterical giggling and somber thinking--dad's salary got cut by 16%, which really, really, really sucks. i know that they'll get by, and i know they'll be fine, because my parents are not big spenders. but it kills a little part of me to know that anyone can treat anyone else like this. basically what it comes down to is that the company is trying to force the guys who are over the age of 50 into early retirement.

which would be fine, in dad's case, except for the fact that they're not ready to retire yet. for so many years they didn't have the cash to put aside because they had 4 kids--and now that they're able to put money aside, they're being cut back. i guess their original figure was for dad to retire at 65, but now they're just praying he can hold out until he's 62, or even 60, and then sell the house and downsize a great deal. dad's afraid he won't find another job if he leaves, and he has the same painfully loyal attitude that seems to be singular to my family. (ie, remain in job that lacerates your soul because you a) don't feel worth more and b) don't want to let anyone down, even tho the company is getting the good end of the screw and you're not.)

so yeah. it's always like this--the sweet and the sour, the good with the bad. but i have a firm belief in that very christian saying that when god shuts a door, she opens a window. it might seem a bit bleak and depressing, especially at this spirited time of year, but perhaps longnight this year will be another sort of rebirth.

it's dark early, now. the sun goes down at an hour that, during summer, your day is still long. but the longest night is just next tuesday, and then it's all shorter and shorter from there on out, until next year. waxing and waning. i'm a bit maudlin right now, perhaps i ought to forage for food and raise up the old blood sugar, but i'm the first to admit i'm easily distracted and the computer was a bright shiny object nowhere near the kitchen.

cheers (:

friday morning

which i'm sure ya'll will surmise by the date on the blog. LOL

so this morning i woke up early with the intention of getting a load of laundry done prior to heading out to work. only to discover that i have no quarters. *sigh* which kind of makes laundry impossible. *sigh again.*

on the flip side, i need to pack because i get to go to my parents' tonight, tomorrow and for a bit of sunday (depending on when my sister picks me up) for girlie weekend and scrapbooking; it's our birthday gift to my mom, as we couldn't be there for her birthday. i still haven't found a car, so i'll be housebound when i'm there, mainly because i can't borrow my sister's car (it's a stick. :P and so far our lessons have only progressed to "how to get into first gear" LOL) hopefully after i get a new car i'll be able to drive up and actually SEE you, sara!!! that would be enormously fun. (: (: (: i think i'll be doing a lot of belated visiting after the new car issue is surpassed. (:

*sigh* and it's friday. just thinking about work right now makes me want to run screaming from my house, preferably naked, as that might give me more jail-time than if i just ran clothed from the house. management is from another planet, i have been now totally convinced, where i was just on the path to enlightenment before yesterday. i've got overtime that they want me to use up. today would be the day i have to use it up. i have two meetings scheduled AT THE SAME TIME at 915, both ok'd by the same person, and then we have two people leaving early (noonish) to go have various medical procedures. and then more meetings this afternoon. to top that off, i'm unable to leave early as my shift ends at 530 and since i'm the most tenured person until that time, i cannot be let off early. *sigh, for the third time in one blog. garg!*

i just don't get it.

the feeling of wanting more out of work is dichotymous with another feeling i experienced yesterday--made stranger by my horoscope from a few days ago, which said that i should expect to have to accept something without being able to give in return at the same time. something like that. i like giving much more than i like receiving. one of my clients came in yesterday with all these things for me--a huge 2 1/2 foot frasier fir wreath, a kite, and a picnic basket of goodies (read: fudge, cookies, lemon poppyseed bread, all hand made). it was an astounding amount of thanks, and i don't feel i deserve it.

course, i don't feel like i deserve a lot in this world unless i do it for myself. it's why i remain at a job at which i don't feel too important, and which is driving me nuts currently. i don't like the thought of someone slaving over something for me, because that might make me important to someone, and for some reason, i have this need to be forgotten. i think that's why i'm not a very consistent correspondent--i just assume that i don't mean much to the people around me.

and then something like this happens--or a card arrives in the mail (ie that hamster card from sara! ROFL!), an email from someone i haven't heard from, a random hug from my SO, and i'm reminded that i AM somebody, to a lot of people. it's very humbling. again, still makes me want to crawl under a rock. LOL my mom said something a while back about how she didn't understand how she could raise four children, all of whom had both no idea of their worth, and never felt deserving of anything. i think it came from being raised by two people who felt the same way, just never professed it vocally.

so now that i'm done being profound pre-shower, and having my little ego boosting humility moment, i'm off to work. cheers all (:

a good bra is hard to find

Maybe it should be: ask not what you can do for your bra, but what your bra can do for you.

I say this only because I am wearing my favorite bra. EVER.

It's supportive, it's flattering, and it makes my boobs resist gravity ala Wonder Woman, and gives me cleavage that just plain old makes me feel super-duper.

Not that I'm lacking in the bust department. I've got enough to go around, make my back hurt from time to time, and cause me consternation in shopping for shirts. But most bras kind of just hold things in place and look crappy, and don't give me a nice shape. This one is my exception.

Which is good. Because I really needed some support today. And sometimes, the best support you can get is from yourself. If you're feeling down, and finding it difficult to summon the means by which you make it through the day (and in this case, the week at all) you'll take what you can get.

Hence, good bra equals better mood.

So anyway. The week is ALMOST over. I'm exhausted. I've read a ton of books by Julia Quinn this week, and had myself empowered by my online book club after sheepishly admitting that they were all romance novels...to which there was a hue and cry that romance novels are nothing of which I should be ashamed, and that they're something that has transcended their guilty motif and moved into a very feminist movement.

Upon reflection, I have to agree.

I guess I'm having a really girly month. I'm thinking about a hair cut, and this weekend is girly weekend with my sisters and mom. (Yes, another weekend spent NOT car shopping. I did some the other night. Honest. At the end of a day at work, right now, I don't want to do anything other than hide under my coffee table and shudder in anticipation of the next day at work. Blah.)

I'm also having a big obsession lately with pondering life in general. I think it's that end of the year thing---what have I done this year, what has gone on this year, etc. It's been a long year--Dad's heart surgery in February, Serena moving to CO, Eero moving in, Quinn passing on, Shiva moving into the house, Lupe crumbling as I drive, Dan going back to school, my sister getting hitched. It's this whole conglomeration that shapes life--or maybe that just *is* life.

All these things for some reason have made me very aware of my mortality, that I'm only given so long on this earth. It doesn't seem fair to me, suddenly. I don't want to have to think about what my parents are thinking about--retirement, how many years do I have left, how many years do my parents have left. And I guess I don't have to think about it yet. But I'm struggling with this inner demon that's based on the Grasshopper and the Ant--have I saved enough, have I done enough, can I do more. The answer is always yes, I can do more, I haven't saved enough, I need more time.

And I glance down, and my bra, right now, is one of the most uplifting things and inspiring happenings all day. I've got great boobs for today. That's enough.

brownies and time machines and whining, oh my!

i'm supposed to be baking 66 brownies for my work cookie exchange today. why brownies, you ask? because i am a confirmed cookie killer.

don't laugh, the only cookies i can bake with authority and panache are peanut butter.

everything else ends up with singed edges or uncooked middles. it's not a beautiful thing. edible, barely, but beautiful, no.

so i rely on bars. i'm a big fan of them--my faves being chocolate chip cookie bars. simple, homey, and moist. YUM. but for a christmas exchange i'm doing brownies, actually brudgies (serena you know EXACTLY what i'm talking about LOL). it's a combo of a brownie and fudge--which turns into a very thick, very heavy brownie that is just delish. AND it's in bar form, so i just slice the pan when it's done and call it a day.

also it's a lovely windy day outside. i miss the wind enormously. up north when it was windy i'd hie myself out to the state park and stand out by the lake until my cheeks burned. i'm not sure it's *that* windy out right now but it sure is windy. luuuuuuuuuuuurvely. maybe i'll have time for a walk? who knows.

last night i drove up to my sister's house in south mpls and had whiskey steak with her and her new hubby. she made this sauce w/ the aforementioned whiskey that was absolutely divine. i'm not a big meat eater so that was a big thing for me--and she cooked that steak to perfection! i'm still getting drooly thinking about it. *sigh* there's just something about bloody red meat...rrrraaaar. serena, i'll have to see if i can get the recipe for that because it was simple and sooooooooo right up your alley. LOL

in other news...i'm avoiding car shopping. can i say that a bit louder, perhaps? i dislike salespeople and the cars down here are so overpriced that it makes me ill. dan and i drove through a few lots the other day and he was just appalled, having only been out once with me and not aware of my love affair with cars.com, keepitlocal.com, and nada.com. all of which are quite extensive sites, and all of which are easy to search, and all of which give me tics just thinking about going back to them right now.

additionally, i really, really, really don't want to go back to work on monday. i'm tired, i'm sick of being walked all over, and i'm too afraid of losing my job to speak up. on the plus side i get to do more training on tuesday. but this is going to require a VERY early morning tomorrow in order to get ready for the whole week and get my desk cleaned up. it wouldn't be so bad if all the crap on my desk didn't affect someone's bank account, federal id number, or tax filing come next april.

which is to when i'd like to skip. if someone gets in contact with h.g. wells let me know--i'm up for a test drive of THAT machine.

gray

it's overcast today--just like yesterday and the day before. my stomach is finally settling down a bit after last weekend's episode of stomach flu, which was accompanied by a stunning fever and muscle aches. i felt like the poster child for saltines and thermometers.

today i'm just tired. i had high hopes that i'd sleep in today (which i kind of did...) but at the same time i was up until 2 so sleeping until 925 am wasn't that much of a sleep-in. i just couldn't get up the gumption to lever myself off the sofa last night and preambulate up the gravity defying stairs. so i manned my couch station and watched a terrible episode of animal precinct on animal planet. i'm not sure if it was like catholic confession or what--self flagellation? or just watching a car accident? they pulled 49 fox terriers out of a house in manhattan somewhere (i'm sure this was years ago now) and i just cried for those dogs. part of me is unable to grasp what possesses people to do these things to animals--it just breaks down my moral fiber to even consider it. at the same time, it's a mental illness. whoever did this needs help.

anyway, prior to that we went to a lacrosse game. which was kind of like the most violent hockey game i've ever seen crossed with soccer and basketball. i'm not sure how else to describe it. these guys were fighting, and i mean punches that knocked heads back and were really going to leave a mark. it was amusing insofar as before i left work my friend tangee asked what i was doing and i said, free lacrosse game. she said, well, if there's not enough violence you can always come over and we can watch movies to exoricse the week's work drama. turns out i saw more fighting than i've ever seen short of watching it happen in riot-form on cnn. the additionally awful aspect was that these guys don't wear near as much padding as hockey players, so when they beat each other up, they really do beat each other up.

who knows. it was interesting but i'm not sure i'd go back. i'm jonesing for the nhl to return; i think i need a hockey fix. (;

today we're heading up to adp to do a video conference w/ serena out in denver. this will be her last time in the denver adp building, or in adp at all, i'm guessing, short of a visit to mpls later. congratulations are in order!!!!!!!!!! so if you know her, pat her on the back. (: (: (: should be fun. i also am hoping that after the video conference we can get over and test drive a car in wayzata that i was looking at online last night.

i also know that dan has reached a new low in his job search because right now he's watching america's next top model. i can hear tyra banks narrating. i think they ought to change up the teleprompter--i can hear her looking at the camera and saying, for god's sake, dan, change the channel! out of 70-odd channels there has got to be something better on...doesn't there?

if only life came in the form of a tv guide. "at three pm on tuesday TNT will be airing you've found a life-affirming job, and then at five on CNN, a special on how to win the lottery, which will be followed up on wednesday with the emmy-winning special: you just WON the lottery! a reality show with a happy ending."

anyway better do something. just don't know where to start, right now. that doesn't seem to have stopped me in the past, however...

so what's really happening?

after all my bluster from yesterday about making sure i test drive cars, etc, my mom calls this morning and is wondering if we want to meet them for lunch today in coon rapids, which is about an hour north of us. i of course would love to...which means that i have to wake up dan in about an hour to get read, and then we can leave around 11 or 1115, or whenever my sister calls.

however my newest dilemma is twofold. if i don't go out and buy my cat food, she will cry and whine so loudly that someone in the house will put her in a box. so i need to go do that first, and foremost.

my secondary dilemma is do i look for a car up by blaine and coon rapids? i suppose i could. or maybe stop at a few places on the way home? will have to consider as i really, really want to do at least one thing on my agenda this weekend.

last night was a flop. the whole "brewing" thing turned out to be stomach flu brought on by, i'm sure, lunch--a blackened cajun chicken sandwich and--yes, i drank 'em--two HUGE glasses of coke. it just sounded soooooooooooooooo yummy at the time. then i read until about 2 and now it's almost 10. so i'm glad i'm up and i feel fine now, but i'm not into the whole charge-around-the-cities thing, either. besides the fact, i'm not sure my car will reliably make it all the way up there. it's kind of shaky on the olde safety fronte. but i have to try.

so. right now, as the shower's in use, i better look up some car places. wish me luck and wish fervently that shiva will survive until a bit later without her daily dose of fancy feast. (:

brewing

you ever get that feeling that something's brewing? just out of sight--kind of like when you flip on the weather channel and there's this huge-antic mass of green flashy orange stuff to the west, and you know it's coming your way, but the sun is shining and the sky is still crystal?

that's kind of the feeling i have. the other shoe is going to drop, somewhere. maybe it will land on me? unsure as yet. there's no giant reebok on the radar. but i'm not holding my proverbial breath, either.

sometimes it's like tripping on a rug. or a bend in the carpet--you can't see it and then all of a sudden you're on your ass, hoping like hell that you didn't just break your tailbone, and yet pleased because now being on the floor you can see under the couch, where the lost remote has been lingering unfound for months.

who knows.

it's probably a poem brewing, because it's not forming any playdoh like strands of story. just more random access crap.

i think shiva's giving birth to a hairball somwhere...ah, the gentle retch of cat in the dusk. course if i run upstairs i'll find nothing and she'll just give me a dirty look because the low thunder of my feet has disturbed her highness' slumber. if i don't go, i'll forget about it, and foot will meet kitty barf in a few hours.

so i'll stay put, as i'm up for fun later. hee hee hee. maybe it's not here. it could be another noise of the house, or some such. i shouldn't be making auditory judgements as i'm the deaffie.

so anyway. this weekend's docket looks a bit like this:

go rummage through a bookstore for a trashy romance novel, as i'm verging on deprived of velveeta

go car shopping, as i realllllllllly need a more reliable vehicle

try to remove myself a bit more from my beloved lupe. i will seriously miss my car. she's my bebe.

probably try to finish up at least one of my christmas gift craft disasters. serena, i'm sorry in advance if this turns out bizarre looking...but just go with me on it...when you open the box, don't run away...LOL

maybe see about getting out and into the woods. i'm feeling a walk coming on. maybe that's what's brewing. it felt good to get out there last weekend and just tramp around in the woods in my big bad ass winter boots. they're so perky.

watch a movie? run rampant through the mall? last night i got to roam ikea again, courtesy rene. it was so nice to see her again--i always feel more like myself after i've hung out w/ one of my girlies. and it's strange because when i get to do that, it's like no time has passed--almost like family. we had dinner there--my second try of the swedish meatballs. delish. one of the few ways i'll eat beef. of course in retrospect the gravy needs some shrooms, and the taters need some garlic, but then, i'm not norse. i live for garlic. mmmmmmmmmmmm buttery garlic and taters! maybe i'll glut myself on starch this evening...nah.

i'm outtie. grins all and happy bday again S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (:

Antsy

Not sure what the deal is. Maybe a slight case of cabin fever. ? Unsure. Just know that I'm feeling eminently distracted by life in general right now. No focus tonight.

Here I was all excited yesterday about having passed a Big Milestone in my writing life: I got past the 100 page mark. Yay. However, the story is losing interest for me. I don't want to have to wrap up all my loose ends, and I have no idea of what I'm going to do with it next. It reminds me of my first afghan knitting experience. Halfway through stitch number 900, Serena asked me what I was making, and I was like, I have noooooooooooo idea. No pattern, no reason to it--just this giant jumble of stitches and yarns and voila! It's a something.

And that's how my story is panning out. I am finally understanding why people outline before they write. But I have a difficult time doing so. When I was in college, or maybe it was high school...dunno. Anyway back in the day when I had to write essays and they had to have an outline, I'd write the essay and THEN write up the outline of what I'd written, rather than have to stick to any sort of planned out ending.

However, as I told Dan yesterday, I am now comprehending the beauty of an outline. Things might actually get finished in my book as opposed to getting to the end and then just running into a giant wall, one that I actually built in the beginning of the story. I'm also having a hard time maintaining the same voice.

I think I need to find an outside writing group. Someone who will read this and give me feedback. It's just odd to think that I'm out of college and NOW am needing an objective and very critical opinion of something long, unweildy, and never before attempted by This Chick.

I mean, honestly. In college and out, the longest thing I've contrived before was like 60 some pages, and I had the same problem eventually with that one--the creative grant that funded the pages ran out, and my inner author was like, Well, screw that shit, let's do something else.

*sigh*

So tonight I sat down, on page 104, with every intention of doing some serious typing, and everything but everything is distracting me.

Maybe I should run to the grocery store, just real quick, and pick up another jug of milk.

Maybe I should find a book to read. Maybe go to the bookstore to do so.

Maybe play with the cat, who's been woefully lonely from the looks of it?

Maybe think about something for dinner tomorrow?

Maybe check email?

Too much, too many things. Everything in my world is bright and shiny and windchime in nature--look, over there! It's noisy!

Earlier today I had the beginnings of a migraine. Those usually signal to me that I'm either overtired or stressed--either way, I need to slow down and nap, or rest, or meditate, something that will bring relaxation to my shoulder region. I get this flashing light thing in one eyeball, and it moves like an oilslick on pavement, and I can't tear my eyes away from it. Often it's triggered by bright lights, glare on something, aggravated by the earlier mentioned lack of sleep, etc. If I take ibuprofen it goes away; if I don't, it makes me queasy and eventually leads to a killer headache as I can't walk properly, get dizzy, the whole nine yards.

I think my job is a contributing factor to this.

Anyway the ibuprofen cleared things up and I was able to actually look at my computer screen and not see a giant flickering rainbow amoeba. At the end of the day, as I was leaving, my mgr approached me about my friend S who moved inter-company to CO. He was all concerned about if she liked ADP, etc. I wanted to tell the truth and say, well, who does like it right now? But I just stuck with the obvious and it sounds like if they can, they'll remote her in as another CSR.

Which is fine, in the long run. The bummer is that he's so concerned with someone who lives out of state, who left the region, and has no idea of the stress level of the people in our region--people are verging on dropping like flies, with all the calls, all the newbies, and year end approaching. It's nice that he's worried, it'd be GREAT!!! to work with S again and even better to have another rep helping out, but at the same time, I wish he'd walk around and get a feel for what is going on daily in our region.

Tomorrow I do get to take a longer lunch and test drive a car over lunch. Dan's going to meet me and we'll drive over from there. And then on Thursday it's D Fong's night, in addition to having dinner with my good friend Rene, who's down from the Vortex for a few days on work related stuff. And Burt's back from Nepal, too.

Can you hear the ants? Dear god, I'm just tired. Maybe that's the problem. I think I need a day or two just to unwind and not think about work and how terrible it's been lately, focus on something less complex than a banana.

Slightly off topic but I did get to tromp through the woods on Sunday and it felt ever so nice. A little nervous because I'm paranoid, but it was nice to just have me and my boots and camera, out in the snow. The only crappy pants part about it was I could still hear planes. Poopy.

Also: a new favorite cuss word: Pumpkinfucker. It's just so...wholesome.

5 Things I Should Be Doing Right Now...

1. Looking for a new car.
2. Eating something healthier than cookie dough.
3. Doing yoga and/or checking my bill due dates.
4. Cleaning up dishes in the kitchen.
5. Working on that never ending story I've typed.

So on to 5 Things I've Done Instead...

1. Checked ALL my email.
2. Checked my message board.
3. Checked blogs.
4. Finished a cheesy romance novel, and I mean CHEESY. This was nearing the point of Velveeta, right up a step from Cheez Whiz, but not into E-z Cheez.
5. Getting distracted by the flashing cursor.

I am an excercise in procrastination lately. When I say that I say it with gusto; I'm well aware of my lack of giddy-up, and make a note daily to myself that I really have a lot to get accomplished.

And then I reach for the comfort of a book that will make me smile and life's said and done, and I can hearken back to the Victorian age and men who are ruggedly handsome, wickedly sexy, well-spoken, sandalwood-scented and accomplished horsemen. Yum.

You know how sometimes you crave crap that you know is horrible for you? Like the aforementioned cookie dough. I go through bouts of conscience during which I read things that are considered nice and literary--Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, or some well written fantasy, etc. And then I go in jags where I crave Lady Edna and her dashing saviour-on-a-barely-rideable-black-stallion, Sir Frank, and all the smut that entails.

It's like a guilty pleasure to find a romance novel that's well written and amusing, and doesn't have so much graphic explanation that I blush. So for the moment, allow me to tout my latest guilt trip, Julia Quinn. She has good grammar, simplistic and believable plots, and characters that make me laugh out loud.

Talk about escapism. This is worse than craving chocolate one time a month.

In the same breath, I've got a pile of books about two feet high building up by my bed, which includes all kinds of stuff other than her.

I may be in denial. But that's on my list of 5 Things I Have To Do Saturday...

1. Face reality.
2. Test drive at least one car.
3. Drop off accumulated stuff at the thrift store.
4. Bake a cake for girly craft night.
5. Find something else to read so I don't feel so...dirty. But it's dirty in a good way, right? Yeah.

I am so thirsty for the marvelous

"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

Anais Nin

the ring

i can't whistle while i work because i just plain out and out can't whistle. dad used to try to bribe me into whistling with cash, etc, in the same manner that i was prodded onto a bicycle. but it just never worked. my sister beth is the same way--no such luck.

so anyway while i was working around the house i was thinking. i mean, when is anyone not thinking, but kind of quiet focused, what else do i have to get done today thinking. in the bedroom, after a long bout of solitude with just me and the green dusty Comet cleanser vs. the shower stall, i came across the ring dan gave me ages and ages ago, obviously when we were much younger and more idealistic.

it means a lot to me yet, that ring. when i look at it, i'm reminded of being hopeful about life in general, and college, and being on my own for the first time, away from parents and restrictions. it brings me back to bemidji and roommates i didn't know, life in the dorms, and a much more youthful version of the relationship of which i am currently a half.

that ring opened up such a can of worms. dan had sent my parents a letter stating his intentions--kudos to dan, that's risky if anything in my family, and it took guts to do it. no one faces each other about any of the Big Issues. it just doesn't happen. additionally, my parents are stout catholics, and dan is anything but.

not that i consider myself a catholic at this point by any means, but to my parents, i'm still at least a christian. that's a thought for another day.

anyway dan sent this letter and my parents responded with a letter of their own about how there were other fish in the sea, we were young, etc. we bought a ring anyway, our own little show of solidarity, and the shit hit the fan after mom and dad found out. i can still remember all the crying.

for ten years i think i've carried that around with me, the disapproval. i held it like newspaper wrapped around something cherished, put it in a box, and decided not to look back.

over the last few months it's been sitting on one shoulder. my sister got hitched; darin and cathy are engaged. that box of disapproval has moved with me from one house to another, prodded my relationship into strange fits of angst, and lately, been opened up again.

the only cliche that comes to mind is "bad taste in my mouth." i can pattern anything over it--we don't have enough money, i don't want to piss anyone off by doing it my way, etc--but in the end when i opened up that little gray jcpenney box and saw the ring again, a little part of me said, what the hell have you been waiting for? ragnarok? do you want to call dan your husband? do you want to be his wife? you already know the answer. so what's the hold up?

when i shut it i could see what hung over that ring like that cloud following pigpen--the parental glare, the hurt i felt when dad wouldn't talk to me, the constant battering of my extended family as to all the reasons why we should wait. i think i translated that into a real "well, screw you too" mentality. the harder people pushed, the harder i just shut down. today, all i ever hear is "so, when are you going to tie the knot?" and all i can think i, "you know, when *I* wanted to tie the knot, you all were so against it that i didn't do it, just to win back your approval. i lived with dan all this time, kind of my own protest against your shoving."

anyway what i'm getting at is that i really have grown up. a lot of the things that used to bother me when i was younger--hell, they'll always bother me as i age. nothing will ever rub out that feeling of abandonment i had when my parents found out about this ring.

i guess i'm past the denial stage. well into acceptance. i'd like to put that ring back on my finger again; maybe a different ring, maybe the same ring. i'd like to be proud of the relationship i have with dan, and not feel like i'm constantly trying to make up for it, or hide it, from my parents. it's a big step for me, something that i guess i've been given signs about over the last months, but just been too blind to see, or too deaf to hear. or too busy to concentrate on.

maybe i should learn to whistle.

gray skies, empty birdfeeder

time to clean house.

i'm not looking forward to this for two reasons.

one, i really ought to wait and clean tomorrow, and car shop today. but it's so gray out, and just unappealing when i add car salesmen to the mix, that i'm finding myself regarding leaving the house as some type of root canal or related nasty.

two, i'm having that girly time of the month, and it has sapped me of all energy and viv. i'm sure after cleaning and showering and getting my house in order, i'll be better. cripes, after moving closets around the other day and now finally having my clothing in order again (knock on wood that the closet stays in the closet) life has a sunnier outlook. i can actually *find* clothing. yay me.

anyway, between the two things listed above, my bathrooms will get cleaned and probably the upstairs bedroom will get reorganized, which isn't a bad thing, i suppose.

thank you for the card, sara! i got it yesterday and it's ever so nifty! i have one around here to send to you...but good luck on sifting through to locate said paper. LOL i'm sure i'll find it later today and then can toss it in the mail. mail! yikes! car payment due. crap-o-la. once again i'm sure it'll be late. i don't know how on earth the 21st of the month can sneak up on me so fast. it feels like i just, literally JUST paid this stinker. on the bright side, i only have like two payments left and lupe is paid off.

which would be nice except for the fact that she's like a tinker toy right now, and hopefully i'll have a new car sooner than later.

anyway, insert self motivation here, i'm off to see the wizard. the wonderful wizard of Fantastik.

short...

I'm feeling pretty small today. Was doing okay at work, busier than you can shake a stick at, and more work piling up, but I was doing okay.

I got home, found out that Dan has gone over my transcripts (which I turned in a while ago after the dean of arts and letters at bsu told me to) to discover that I'm short.

One credit.

*sigh*

I always have brushed off my degree as I do most of the rest of the important things in life: who cares? I will have the same job, the same life, with or without the degree. Yeah, it'd be nice, but honestly.

When I found out that I could still get it, this little elated wee beastie stood up and roared, happily, for a few days. Dan helped me send in the plans. To find out that I didn't have enough credits, even after how many years of pushing this aside--I feel like those tomatoes you see on the floor at the grocery store, stepped on a few too many times but still retaining some kind of shape.

With the whole Jed thing going on too, I am having difficulty focusing. I need to get a thousand things done, and I just keep obsessing. At the same time I don't want to go over my transcripts myself, because I don't want to find that I only have 191 anyway, and I don't want to insult Dan by redoing his work. At the same time, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea, because two sets of eyeballs are better than one.

I'm just kind of crushed, in a very surprised type of way. I guess part of me thought, damn, I could actually *finish* something. Me, the procrastinator, could complete.

Like most things lately I'm reaching too far into the closet, and just a bit too short to actually get anything out.

lost: one creative wellspring

i've been feeling kind of empty lately, the empty i know i'm exploring when i bury myself in a book and/or craft project to the extent that i actually start worrying about it ending, because then i'll have to step outside the box and think about either a) what i'm going to do next or b) why on earth i'm feeling so watery.

is it because i'm a pisces? that could explain a few items, i'm sure.

it just seems to be ingrained in my flesh to wish-wash about life in general. i'm the gray spot, i'm dusk, i'm dawn, i'm fog and i'm sundogs. just in the corner of your eye, giggling, never taking up too much space if i can avoid it.

i often get the feeling that i have absorbed myself into myself. this brings me to the point at which i wonder why i can't get anything done, and if i'm so terribly self absorbed that i've become a true and utter *gasp* BITCH.

i mean, i do feel slightly pms-y today, and yesterday, and the day before. i'm almost positive that in the next week the moon will pull my tides right on out, and i'll be in full blown P.M.S., and painful to be around, let alone live with.

i am my very own annoying roommate. sorry, all.

anyway, back to the empty portion of the evening. so yesterday i reached this girly low spot when i could not get the dvd player upstairs to work (kept fuzzing out, i had sound but just a big blue screen where Shrek was supposed to be) so i gave up and turned on my happy little cd player...which started skipping the cd. the camel's back was broken beyond chiropractic repair. everything i'd been coiling inside of me, like a garden hose for winter, kind of uncoiled and flexed and was like, just get the freakin' kleenex, a pen, and your notebook. i did a bit of writing and of course, just when i'm thinking that i've got nothing left to spill onto paper, poetry runneth over.

it makes me feel better when i'm able to put words down on paper like that. nothing is quite as cathartic for me. except walking in the woods, but i've only got sat and sun to do so, and i kind of wasted the weekend hiding from car salesmen and the possibility of having to push back when looking at vehicles.

all in all it turned out to be a good weekend. i really needed to get that nasty monkey off my back, and i'm a weeper, so that'll do it. i also found a new book i've been enjoying the hell out of: kate collins' "mum's the word." quite fun. i'll have to ship it out to you, serena, after my sisters go through it.

anyway, i'm off to clean up the current craft project of the month. i can't tell what it is because it's someone's christmas present and i refuse to spill beans. (; i hope you'll like it, s--nuff said.

grins all -- k (:

What day is it again?

I'm kind of having one of those bobble-headed dashboard hula girls type of days. I actually considered about ten minutes ago, running to Barnes and Noble to find a book I've been looking for.

This is AFTER spending the last 45 minutes getting my lasagna ready to put in the oven. In roughly 20 minutes I have to take the cover off and let it crisp up a bit on the top. For a half a second I actually thought: I could make it there and back in time.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIght. Attack of the 50-foot bobble heads. Everyone duck, I'm perambulating.

*sigh* I guess you just have times when life comes into focus, followed by times when it clouds up again. It's like sitting in your car on a good winter morning, surveying the frosty, silvery outdoors, and then suddenly realizing that because you're sitting there letting the car warm up, you've fogged your own windows, and then it's a mad race for the defroster, fan on high, and if you had my car last winter (or even earlier this month), the fan on high would cause some small gnomes to be tortured with sharp sporks under the hood, thereby waking up everyone in a fifteen mile radius.

I got the refund check today for my stocks. It felt totally defeatist to cash them out, but it was kind of a circular argument. Do I have enough money to buy a new car? No. Do I have a savings account? Not so much. Do I have money piling up somewhere? Yes, indeed I do.

So the other day I had to go online and cash it out. It was a low point in my adult life (or at least an adult moment in my otherwise childish life) to be cashing out stocks. I should have just made do, or have set aside money in an account elsewhere, but it just never occurs to me until far beyond the oh-shit-turn-on-the-defrosters moment. By the time I'm thinking about doing something, the windows are fogged and I'm distracted and making footprints with the end of my fist, kissing the windows and judging lip shape, drawing in the icy moisture.

I guess that's the way it goes. Life is partly cloudy, partly sunny, 50% chance of rain, 1-6 inches of snow in the forecast, drizzle through Friday. I cannot expect that on a daily basis I'll be able to function at full blue-sky capacity. Dusk comes early in the winter and for some reason, I can focus in the dark.

9:19 pm

That's what time it is RIGHT NOW.

We'll see how long I type tonight. Hopefully not too terribly long as I've got to find my Prilosec and I have to pee.

But that's not saying much, as I am a terrific procrastinator, and my mind-over-matter skilz rock.

Anyway.

This year has been so busy. I'm thinking back to January, and the end of Year End 2003 at work--and then Dad's surgery, and then Serena moving, Eero moving in, mentoring and losing the trainee and now mentoring again, my sister's wedding, Rene's going away party, trip to Chicago. It's all blurring in my head, too much at one time.

It's kind of like putting a crayon on the dashboard of the car in July. I could say it melts, but in all reality it just takes on a different form...perhaps the wrapper is on the inside now, the outside is three feet long and splattering on the floor mat. Yeah, it's all melted up inside the old brain pan.

Makes it hard to keep it all straight. Lately I'm having trouble focusing on anything. Last weekend was kind of an exception. You know when I was a kid I got into trouble for being bossy all the time--"Stop telling your siblings what to do, maybe ASK them," blah, blah, blah. Last weekend we surprised Dad with a new office, something that we do every year on the first weekend of deer hunting. It's always fun and interesting, and always turns out well. This year, however, we weren't as prepped as say, last year when we did the kitchen. This year was a lot more moving and a lot more work, which was needed...I think.

First we had to move the bed in my brother's old room into my sister's old room. Then the daybed upstairs in the "office" into my brother's old room. Then everything had to come out of the office. Piles and piles of it. I felt like we were actually on Clean Sweep and at any moment we'd have to set up a rummage sale. Luckily there was no chick w/ whistle to keep us on track. Anyway...we got everything moved and painted, and then we had to put together the desk Mom bought.

Which should have been a piece of cake except for the fact that Sara and Beth were putting together peices as they went, and Mom was busy counting every. little. connector. and. screw. *sigh* All in all by the time I asked if I could help, we had to dismantle a bunch of it and then put it back together. I got frustrated with my sister Sara because she kept saying, "Should have gotten it from ikea." After comment Numero Seventy-Four, I just got pissed and said, well, we didn't get it at ikea, so we have to deal with what we have--in other words drop it! Annoyance. Garg.

Dad loved it, which was the main idea. We found a pic of him and his 69 Dodge Charger, blew it up and framed it, and put a collage of his license plates up on the wall too. The walls themselves turned out superb--a nice deep blue-gray with green undertones. It dried to a rich turquoise, but nothing overpowering.

The whole weekend for me centered on keeping everyone involved focused. We work well together as a team, my sisters and mom, but it's hard to get everyone on track and keep them there. For all the years of "stop bossing me around" I ended up doing just that.

But then when it came time to head home, since my car had a tire issue the week before and Dan had dropped me off on Friday, I was back to being supported and held up by my sister again--can I have a ride, etc. (The car thing was this WHOLE THING--the front inner tie rods are wearing the insides of the front tires bald--which sucks. Anyway on voting tuesday I called home on my way home from work to let Dan know I was en route--and then the car kind of made this flopping noise and I had to ask for a pick-up. Just finally got a new tire this morning. I need a new car.)

Which brings me back to my focus issue. Why is it that putting together a desk I can be so utterly focused, so one-minded and completion oriented, and then when I have to think about a car, or a different job, anything--I run into this brick wall and what started out as a "Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeet's go!" turns into a "I'd rather be sleeping."

Gah.

Well, it's 9:35 now. Night all.

house, asleep

tonight
before i woke you off the couch,
sent you up to bed
you snored
softly
cat on your chest
her nose tucked under white paw.

now the room hums
neighbors creak and shut doors
computer fans blur silence
tap of keys as i type
sonorous click of clocks
i cannot hear you, upstairs,
but shiva's gray tail breathes in
and out,
rumbling
nasal little
soprano
snores.

Samhain

I slept for a long time last night. Just kept sleeping and sleeping. Before I actually pulled the covers up and called it a day, I made out my to-do list for the weekend. Which is longer than lists I used to make as a kid for Santa.

Woke up at 1130 and now don't want to do anything on the list. For some reason I'm craving a visit to my parent's house, when I was just there last weekend for a bit on Friday night and Sat am. Dunno. Just one of those cravings you get.

I also tried pulling off the fake nails last night. Not so fun. I got two of them off but the rest are cemented onto my nails. Well, glued actually...with no intention of vacating. I give. They don't look bad but they're making doing normal things very difficult. Also I feel kind of as girly as I ever want to feel. "Dan, could you open this can of pop for me?" Mother of god. Please.

But it's Samhain. I want my house cleaned up and smudged within an inch of its life right now, for the start of the new year. And conversely, after the last few weeks of work, little to no sleep and a most excellent and full moon enhanced bout of pms, I just want to cry.

I feel used up again. Tired and hollow. I look around the house and I have one roommate who is home ALL THE TIME but the house is still a mess. The dishwasher is clean--empty it! It's not that difficult, is it? I think I'm in a holding pattern right now, akin to Sisyphus. I need a break, a week off, something. Time to go bury myself under some leaves and recharge.

Winter and autumn have always been my favorite times of year. I love the smell of them, the cool feel on skin, the winds burning my face. My sister's message scribbled down by Dan the other day was about Mom's 60th birthday. Just those words are enough to make me cringe. Sixty? She can't be sixty. She's only 40. Right? Samhain is a time for remembering and starting fresh. Sloughing off the old skin and inviting in the new.

Tonight I'm going to a party that I've been looking forward to for a long while now. I have to admit that I wanted Dan to come with me, but he doesn't want to go. So he'll be home and I'll be there. Maybe I can talk him into driving me in case of drunken behavior on my part. But that's just a cheap ploy because I want him to meet my new friends. I want them to like him. I have this need right now to belong to something. When I was up north I did--I could go into the woods and just be. It's taken me two years to find new friends down here. I haven't lost any of my old friends--but they're all involved in lives they created down here, up there. I've been feeling very dis-attached. And now when I am feeling attached to something, and I want to share it with Dan, and I knew that this would be the case from the get go, I still am letting myself feel bad about it.

The doing list beckons. I better get my butt in gear and get going. My house and my life need some organizing. Cheers, all--I hope that Samhain brings you both remembrance and renewal.

guadalupe, the san francisco treat

lupe has been my very first own car. she's all mine, in her periwinkle glory. and i think she's on her last legs.

*sigh*

when i think about my car i think about so many things. seeing it for the first time, driving it back and forth to bemidji and st cloud, sitting in traffic, blaring rod zombie on the way to breckenridge sd that one fourth of july, seeing the car all painted up as a going-away gift from my friends at lueken's. so many things. i love my car.

dan asked me today why on earth i got so attached to cars. i can throw away clothing and other household stuff at will, but cars make me cry.

i think it's based greatly on my childhood, and my dad. dad loves cars. dad knows a lot about cars. he treats his with great care and concern, and even a sense of respect--that he's honored to have the car. can you give that to an inanimate object?

for some reason i don't consider my car inanimate. i named her before i bought her.

i guess it's been a tough year--things that aren't considered a big loss by the majority of the world, i feel i'm losing--touch with my friends up north, my girls whom i consider sisters. serena moving to colorado. my dear quinn. and now my lupe. i feel like things are being amputated.

at the same time, the only way for growth to happen is via change, or loss, whatever you want to call it. i always think about driving through yellowstone national park after the fires out there--miles and miles of blackened ground, the green of grass and new little trees standing out so brightly. i think about walking through bemidji state park in the spring--when all the leaves that are falling now are a damp carpet, flattened by all the snow, rotting softly, little spots pushed up where sprouts are unfurling. if i think hard i can smell it, rich and deep.

i think about those things and it's not all awful.

but if i do lose my lupe, i know there'll be tears. i love my car. i tried to explain to dan that to really get a sense of my attachment you have to imagine that my car is a horse. maybe a better explanation would be to reference captain jack sparrow--it's not just a ship, it's freedom.

and it's probably not good bye quite yet. i hope. props to lupe--you've been a good little mazda 626.

creation

that's a big word. right now, i mean. i'm sitting here, having just spent the last few hours poring over palladium books w/ eero and corpse. eeeeeeeeeeee. i'm not into math but i suppose i like looking at catalogs enough sit here and poke around for this length of time.

i've got this story cooking around in the back of my head. just simmering. i've been working on it forever but it's got no end in s ight and so many frayed edges that i'm at a loss as to how to get them all put back together. if i stand back and look at it it reminds me of a patchwork quilt--with no discernable pattern. *sigh* someday i'll learn to be a little more linear.

and the moon will turn out to be made of gouda.

i'm not an organized person. chaos is my aura and lifeline. i feel much more comfy in a place that's consistently fluctuating than a world that has limits and lines and borders. just not my bag.

which is i think why my current occupation bothers me to the degree it does.

i dislike being told what to do. i dislike letting people down. i dislike having people pissed off at me. i dislike paperwork and filing and all that other crap from which Office Space sprung. naked, as athena from the head of zeus... blah blah blah.

anyway i've had this issue building up for ages at work and of course today it all came to a head. too much work, too much work, too many new hires asking questions and too many clients taking up my time--this equals disaster of paperwork building up on the desk, and consequently, management interest.

can i get this all done by friday? god only knows. there are not enough hours in the day, days in the week, etc. i have essentially been given the tools to create this mess...and no tools to dig myself out.

i'm feeling slightly wrathful at the moment. also tired and somewhat boggled, by nothing important. just life handing me the door and no key. same old drill. tomorrow night we have another meeting, after work, after hours, to discuss how to deal with everyone's individual profiles of how we deal with the world around us.

gah.

on the flip side, we might be getting another kitty. cathy's got someone with a new baby who's allergic to kitties, and the family has an 8 yr old abyssinian mix who's got allergies herself. so that's a big maybe. i'm not sure how shiva would handle having another cat in the house, and i'm not sure how i would do either; this kitty needs a shot once a month for her allergies. who knows. thursday we're supposed to stop by the savagedorm and dan apparently has some fun stuff to play for them--some new richard cheese he just got.

anyway i'm off to bed. cheers (:

the sunday paper

I used to love reading the paper. When we were just in the first years of college, we'd get the ol' hometown paper to see if we knew anyone getting hitched or popping out a kid, etc. Read the whole paper, get my fingers all black and smudgy.

Dan's reading the paper now. If I think about it there are probably three sections I'll read: Variety, Arts & Entertainment and Travel. And the Target ad. Poke through the comics, and call it a day after about 10 minutes.

Fingers clean as a whistle. Strange how over time something that used to be a relaxing hour eating donuts and laughing at finding out that one of the cheerleaders is on child Numero Five has morphed into: I have SO much more to get done. So much better to do. Really? I do? Humph.

I didn't get my books signed the other night. We got up to Uncle Hugo's after fighting traffic for 45 minutes, grabbed something at the KFC after getting our number and settled in to wait. The store was packed, and because it's Uncle Hugo's and small and filled with piles of books already, stuffy and hot--and not in the good sauna way. By 745 LKH had only gone through about 40 to 50 sigs--this was based on her start time of 6 pm. She wasn't done w/ February and I was holding the date May 9th. I was over heating and bored, and having some blood sugar issues--dinner of biscuits and popcorn chicken and a diet Pepsi will do that. So I threw in the towel and Dan and I drove home.

Yesterday we did have fun--after going in for training at work in the morning, I wanted to do something cheapish, but out of our ordinary loop, and luckily Dan did too. So we grabbed lunch at Roly Poly sandwiches--VERY yummy! I had a stuffed spinach wrap, grilled, with cheese and tomatoes and artichokes and spinach, and for a twist, cornbread dressing. It was divine. Then we went over to Fort Snelling, where neither of us has been since forever. At least over 10 years for me, longer for Dan. We traipsed about and I got to visit with the living history folks, which is always amusing and fun. Everyone was very informative and we had a good laugh over the thought of Dan trying to fit in one of the bunks. I guess during the big days when the fort was stock full, and during MN winters, the men would sleep two to a bunk--which was about 5'8" long. The thought of 6'4" Dan squidging into the bunk just gave me the giggles. I did get to see some pretty nifty medical supplies--the "doc" was able to take out and show off some reproductions of trepanning equipment and an amputation kit. Very cool. Then we watched them blast off the cannon. I wish it'd been more than once because it was such a nice big boom! Everyone was so informative and they've done an excellent job of keeping things alive and in perspective for the folks participating. Spiffy.

The thing that struck me later, as we were leaving, was that the buildings that you pass on the way into the fort, Buildings 17 and 18, were used in WWII for soldiers and for the Japanese Americans who were doing translations, etc. Those buildings, built long after the parts of the fort that are original, are in worse condition than the for itself, which was construced in 1827. I hope that someday they'll have the funding to fix them up--seems strange that we're more concerned w/ 1827 than 1945.

Had dinner at Grizzly's and played a game of trivia--Dan won, I took second--and then came home.

Well, I'm off to page through the paper after strolling around the Ikea site quickly to see if there is a shelving unit there that will support my obscene amount of clothing that no longer fits in the closet. *sigh* When I was there the other day I got distracted by some really nice dishes...but dishes are gravy. (; What I need is a good sized dresser-wardrobe system. Something that will no doubt take up the whole closet and most of the upstairs den too. (;

cheers (:

tgif...i think...

so i was all excited when i woke up this morning because it's friday! yay! last day of the workweek. aside from the fact that i didn't get much sleep because we hit barnes and noble last night and of course i had to read at least part of one book before nodding off 6 hours ago, life should be dandy.

then after a minute or two you recall why life is not so dandy. yesterday as i was leaving work my muffler, which serena will recall that same episode from last june in which the muffler started out sounding like an irish tenor underwater and slowly but surely developed a nice, rich, deep bass sound, has sprung a hole somewhere and is apparently in the tryout process again. this is in addition to needing a serpentine belt for the car, which screeches when i start it ONLY when i'm either at work or at my sister's house in south minneapolis. why? who the hell knows.

i can put this to the side because since dan's not working hopefully it'll be easier to work out something to get the car fixed. hopefully. i can also put this aside because tonight after work there's a book signing by maryjanice davidson up at uncle hugo's. the downside is that i'm feeling guilty because laurell k hamilton will be there too but there is no way in blankety blank that i'm purchasing her newest anita blake, vampire humper, book--from the reviews it's about 682 pages, 80 pages of plot, the rest is soft core porn, and not very well done, either.

so ye olde catholic guilt is kind of catching up to me. i really want to meet maryjanice--her books are fun and fresh and set in mpls, and she's from around here--but i'll no doubt have to walk past lkh and that's kind of an affront. which i suppose is what i'm looking to do at this point. *sigh* i think.

on an up note, i did finish first rider's call by kristen britain, so s, it should be on the way shortly when i have cleaned up the house. also that book by diana pharoah francis, path of honor, is out i think dec 4th...and the new kelly armstrong book, industrial magic, is out oct 26th.

so that's all uplifting and kind of counters the whole my-car-sounds-horrible feeling.

and then i remember that tomorrow morning i'll be at work right now for two hours of training. *really BIG sigh* just when i need a weekend off when i'm not sicker than a dog and sleeping or helping with something all weekend...and i know it's just for 2 hours but 2 hours is more than no no hours and i would really, really, really, really, really like to sleep in at some point...and not just three days of the next three weeks! (training is three weekends straight...) to top things off on wednesday we have to stay late after work and discuss a personality profile we took that will apparently help everyone deal with everyone else better. garg!

well i've got 45 minutes...which isn't much at the moment...my pigtails from yesterday are kind of messy and not where they were before, in fact one has migrated nearly to the top of my head. i really need to strip some paint off my toes and do the whole girly pedicure thing, and there's the whole shower issue too...and after mentioning that i feel the need to point out to myself that i did open up the blinds, to my left, on the sliding glass patio doors...so everyone else in the neighborhood is presently basking in the radiant glow of my grumpy mood and frumpwear.

i'moff to create humanity with soap and makeup...houdini, eat your heart out.

still

it's still outside right now. i can hear the hum of a plane, and someone who needs their muffler plugged, but just still. no birds at the feeder, tho feed is scattered about. no chippies wandering, or rabbits. the cat is staring at her litterbox, which i just refilled this morning. i should be showering.

*sigh* it seems like everyone is in the same state right now--verging on dormancy. i don't recall feeling like this last year, or the year before, or any before that, mainly because i adore winter. maybe it's my lack of contact w/ nature as of late. i know i ought to get out there but with this whole wedding thing and then this cold that just won't evacuate, i'm exhausted. i slept for a total of four hours last night. and then i was up every hour, on the hour. well, 338, 438, 538, etc. then i woke up at 706 and thought, the hell with it.

so what do i do, when i could be getting ready for a bang-up day at the office and get there *gasp* early? i load the dishwasher. check the weather (high of 70, low of 58) and clean the litterbox. i never did laundry last night, as intended, just glued my butt to the chair and paid bills. then got on my fave forum, and then surfed about lazily until1030.

i feel like i'm missing something. like i'm watching some part of my life go by--the plane humming, and i'm the bird feeder, half full and hanging, still even in the breeze.

giggles

These toons just gave me the giggles--had to share. I guess it's a geek-girl thing. LOL

http://cartoons.ashtonpress.net/startoons.htm

Anyway it's almost Thursday and I had a lovely dinner tonight w/ Tangee and Tish at D Fong's--mmm, sesame chicken! So yummy and fried! So bad for my hips! But delish. We had some fun giggling over how a coworker was frightened of Tish's pentacle necklace and talking about Halloween costumes...Tish mentioned maybe being a middle aged version of the chicks from Charmed...which Tangee said may be impossible, but I ruled possible with a certain amount of hair dye.

Riiiiiiiight. I doubt that'll happen. LOL

So I have gotten exactly SQUAT done this week thus far. I have SO much to do yet and I'm just putting it all off. However, I must run now and actually clean up the upstairs room--we may have guests on Friday night, unsure as yet, and also tomorrow Shiva will need to be in the upstairs room for a bit due to our landlords removing and painting the front door tomorrow. Odd but they're strange to begin with.

On a side note, I'm sleepy. : night all!

verging on inane

Sigh.

It's Tuesday, national day of crap that doesn't go together. I'm tired. Have all kinds of crap I could be working on--finishing touches on the wedding flowers, writing a toast for my dad/me for the Big Day on Saturday, cleaning up my luggage from last weekend.

Instead, I whipped out my glue gun and glued crap onto pens for Rene's birthday box. The crap in question was little pictures of barns. Don't ask unless you want to hear a boring story that somehow has blossomed into in-joke legend. (; So right now, instead of having a cleaner house, I've got something that looks like we live with a four year old influenced by a material Pollock. That and a shirt designed with those thin strings of glue you get when you're a sloppy creator.

Is that why earth looks this way, is such a sloppy-ish mess a lot of the time: did the proverbial Creator get bored and just slap things together at the last minute? This could not possibly have been planned. Mud? Please.

Anyway, a few more days and my sister will be hitched and this all can go down in the history books. I'm tired of discussing only the wedding and ensuing chaos that's circling it like fifty-five hundred little moons of Saturn. You get caught up in this stuff and before you know it your life is subsumed by floral tape and finding a purse that goes with your dress, and it's not even your own fucking wedding.

Do I detect some bitterness? Perhaps the glue gun should be applied to my lips for a while.

Dan and I thought we'd get married "when we were done with college." Whenver the hell that is. We waited forever because my parents and family were so gung ho about us being done w/ college first. It was a good idea. In theory. I mean, we had no money when we were young, we had a lot of learning to do, the list goes on. I'm glad we waited. Should we have waited this long? Who knows. I don't, not anymore. It's all about perspective, I spose. We have just as much money now as we did when we first considered marriage, if not less with bills and post-college loan payments. I'm not sure we could get away with eloping but damned if it doesn't sound nice and simple after this inharmonious din that's been going on since Sara bought a dress in January. It's like listening to a kid with a kazoo. Cute at first, and then annoying, and then you reach the melt the kazoo on the hood of a Mack truck boiling point.

I think part of me is having that sibling rivalry going on in a small degree. Sara's the first kid to finish college, get her masters, get a "real" job, buy a house, have a dog, and now, get a husband. I'm still in the living with my boyfriend, working a job to pay the bills, still not done with college phase of things.

Am I cool with that?

For the most part, yeah. I mean, who cares? Sometimes it strikes me that I should care more. I could use a house. I could use a garage to store all my crap, I could paint the walls of my own house. I could do all these things. If I were goal oriented--which I'm not. My big goal is usually just minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day. If I try to think three weeks out it's nearly insurmountable in my head. It's like well, it hasn't happened yet, so why bother.

Besides the fact, if I had a house, it would look much the same as my house does now--strewn with crap. As George Carlin fondly points out, what is a house if nothing more than a place to keep your shit.

Sigh.

On the flip side there was Chicago last weekend, which was great fun. We had a rough start on Friday--got to the airport, you know the hurry up and wait tactic so may airlines employ--and our flight was cancelled. At 10 we finally take off for Chicago. And land, meet Serena and pick up the rental car and head back to the hotel. Next day we hit the continental breakfast and the Bohemian Cemetery (for Dan's thesis...the breakfast was just a bonus.) Get ready and hit the road for the wedding.

Great wedding--short enough and quite lovely. Sara's got a good eye for design and color and the way things look--it turned out beautiful...I think Will even shed a few squeaky tears. They're a great couple. Could I use the word great again in this paragraph? Let's not find out. (;

Sunday we dropped Serena at the airport, checked luggage and took the L back to Chicago, with intentions of seeing Little Italy...which, because it's Italian and Italians are notoriously Catholic, was pretty much shut down. So we trekked around the city and ended up down town staring up at the Sears Tower, which I thought would have been utterly cool to ascend...but I wasn't sure Dan could stomach it. So we foraged for lunch and had some great food, got back on the train and headed back to O'Hare.

I love to fly. I know this is quite the long blog at this point so I won't elaborate but I do so love to fly. (; Dan didn't get sick either way, tho there were a few moments on the to flight that I thought he might get green enough to eject items. The flight back was better, little fun turbulence and aside from a nosedive landing (which I can attest to was a bit unsettling...esp when, after noting the direction of the nose, the professed 16 year veteran stewardess sitting near us said: well, he's certainly taking us in for a nosedive, isn't he? Reassurance is wonderful.) and a meowing child was just dandy.

So it's Tuesday. I really ought to go clean up some of this crap that's littering my house before the cat trips.

Weekend is shot...

Literally. LOL This weekend was my dad's 3rd annual Shoot In--which bascially means that everyone gets together and heads over to the shooting range in St Cloud to sight in their rifles, and we all show up and shoot them at targets, just for fun. I really enjoy firing guns; however, the kick always leaves my shoulder feeling somewhat bruised.

Also this year I was hesitant after having my dad's 30.06 give me some scope bite last year. Luckily I had my glasses on, so it just leapt backwards and gave me a little bruise on my nose. This year I was eager to shoot again, but I didn't want to have it jump back again, so I only talked myself into shooting twice. I did hit the target (one shot actually hit the bull's eye! yay!) and Dan suggested that we look into getting a .22 so I can actually have fun shooting and all that jazz.

However the overriding issue from the weekend was my sisters. I love both of them dearly, like you do. (: They are two of my best friends on the planet. I know them better than I know myself sometimes, which is normal considering the amount of time I've both known them and lived with them.

Anyway, they're often like oil and water. Sara's very aggressive and goal oriented; Beth's very defensive. The whole thing started when, three or four or five months ago, Sara decided that we could all pick out our own dresses. So we did; Jan's is short and very fitting, mine's longer and has a cute handkerchief bottom, and Beth's is a simple sheathe with a cowl neck. They're all great dresses, all of them black, but Sara hadn't seen Beth's yet; just heard that it was a little low cut.

It all culminated last night, oil and water, when Beth refused to try on the dress for Sara.

It's hard because you know these people so well that you can see things happening, wheels turning, and when Beth brought out the dress and Sara had a little intake of breath, I knew what would happen. Beth went defensive. Sara went on the hunt. And before you could defuse the situation, Beth was crying and asking us all to leave her apartment. Yay. What a wonderful weekend.

I felt like yesterday was a return to childhood, or at least puberty. Sara and I spent the afternoon before shooting going through boxes we hadn't seen since my family moved about 8 or 9 years ago; lots of stuff from high school and such, lots of laughs, memories, the usual. Then at dinner, post shooting, we sat around listening to Dee Snider on House of Hair and doing Mad Libs. Total flashback. And then to cap things off, we have the complete reversion of roles and ages and maturity levels and we all drop back to being between 8 and 13 years old and doing things to push buttons.

Dan and I ended up leaving for home last night, just because I didn't want to take sides. I've since spoken to Mom and Sara, as Beth's working. Today was also catch up with everyone day--I talked to another Sara from college for a good hour, just chewed the proverbial fat and laughed, which is always lovely. (: Still waiting to chat w/ Serena and Cari today, and also read my payroll books, which I'm putting off because they're about as fun as reading about the life of a slug. Which could be infintely more interesting than reading about 941 forms. I'm trying to remember that this is learning, and that I like to learn, and expand my knowledge base and keep my memory active, but I'm just bored. I don't want to read it; I'd rather do anything BUT read it. I also still have to run to the grocery store and find something to eat during the week. And dig up a peice of luggage, and pack, you name it.

Also find something to do in Chicago. Something fun and not terribly time consuming. Sara suggested Little Italy and the Museum of Science and Industry; so maybe we'll try that.

All I know is at the moment I'm having that dichotomy you get the older you get--the balance between past, present and future. HG Wells thought he was creating a time machine story unto itself but we all have that time machine present and accounted for in our own brain cells. Right now I'm living in two or three worlds at a time--one of them is apparently still not graduated from high school.

humpty dumpty

sat on a wall
and gave up
because Wednesdays
suck.

I think I need to forage for dinner but I'm putting off because the thought of finding food is just anti-kim at the moment. I've been putting off getting more heartburn meds too, but today may be the last in a series of straws, and I'm going to just give in and go back to Target and get something. Again. *sigh* Someday, they'll come up with something to just fix it, and then I don't have to wake up feeling like I'm the third cousin twice removed of Benji the Dragon. :P

Today I felt...ineffectual. It's not a new feeling, but it's something that just bites, no matter how you look at it. I'd like to have a job wherein I feel like I'm making some kind of difference on the planet, and I mean, from some perspectives, I suppose I am...but I've been at this job for almost 2 years and when I wake up in the morning, it's been 2 years too long.

I love my coworkers. They're great. I don't mind my clients, or the computer systems that are actually cleverly designed flaming hoops with a snack size Snickers on the other side as incentive. I don't mind the cube, too much, because it has a rolly chair, which makes me happy on weird crappy days, like today, when I forgot there was a cube behind me and flipped the chair around and noseplanted myself into the cube wall. Good thing it's padded, I guess. It's management I dislike.

I could go on, but it's redundant. To sum up: do this, in this time frame, get me a schedule of it, and voila! Insta-meeting, supposed to last an hour, and fitting into 2 hours. I wasn't even *in* the meeting today, my trainee was. And now tomorrow, when I'm supposed to be reviewing, I'll be in the other fourth of the meeting.

Before you all, I declare this Humpty Dumpty Day. He wasn't just sitting on that freaking wall, he was trying to leave cubeland. I swear to god. Catbert pushed him.

Cat nap...

I love my cat. I really do. She's cute, she's fuzzy, she's cuddly. She's also very insistent and noisy, and has no claw control. Then again, she's a cat.

This morning I woke up to her lovely face nearing my mouth. She's got a thing about sticking her head in your mouth if you yawn; singers beware the curiosity of Shiva! (; Anyway I wake up as her nose touches my lower lip, and yank my head back in an excellent approxiamation of whiplash minus the car...and then, since my face has moved out of her range, she reaches out a paw and nails me in the chin, and then whines about it when I displace her from the bed.

It's like living with a small alien life form. I guess it is living with an alien; she doesn't think the way we do in the least. If she did, the hairball would have been over the linoleum. (;

*sigh* I guess right now I'm in my missing things and people stage of the month. There's usually a day during PMS that it all comes down to what I don't have, instead of focusing on what I do have. Dunno why it happens...just that it does.

I had a really good dream about Quinn last night; I miss my girl something fierce. I also miss Cari, Rene and Amanda--coffee on Thursdays, crosswords in the morning and shaking our booties at the local bar in the Vortex. I miss Serena too--knitting, belching, laughing, hanging out and watching the FBI Files. (; I miss my woods, and my familiarity with the forest up north. I miss my first kitty, Wylie. And my parents. For some reason I always miss my parents. I hate this point because I could be doing something constructive, like cleaning the litterbox or the kitchen, but I just don't want to. I want to sit here and whine. LOL

So let me try to be constructive for a minute here. What's good about life right now? I paid my bills this morning. The Missing portion of today got a jumpstart when I was paying my bills and watching the money just roll away, dandelion fuzz in the wind.

Anyway I have a job that pays my bills. I have a great boyfriend who puts up with me and my moods and is tall. Which is good. LOL My family is healthy and doing well, I have my sister Sara close to me, Shiva to purr like a semi on my stomach, and a roof over my head. I get to go shopping today and hit the farmer's market. And I get to hang out with friends all afternoon. I also have an open invite to come out to the Renn fest, if I can make it, and hang out with Christen and Tangee from work and Barb from SG1 Fridays. (: I got to see my trainee perform stand up the other night--first time I've ever seen live stand up--and he was great. I did find a good park to walk in, a bit south of here. SBW's wedding is coming up. So is the Shoot In at my parents' next weekend. And then we're going to Chicago, too--Dan's first time on a plane. I get to be on a plane again!!! YAY! I have a lot to be glad about...right?

Why is it that when I have this much, the simple act of living somehow eludes me and hormones take over and flush the system? I hate this whole Must Cry Now thing that happens to me. It's annoying. Which says a lot coming from a Dedicated Weeper. LOL

Anyway I feel better now that I've gotten that all out. Still miss my Quinn tho. Hard not to. Maybe it's time to add another kitty to the fold...if Shiva could stand it. LOL I think sometimes she misses the dogs...I think. (;

the drapery effect

Remember in Jurassic Park how Malcolm is talking about the butterfly effect? The whole rigamarole of butterfly flaps wings in China and you have a hurricane in Florida. Drivel like that. Ikea caused this, they are at fault. I think curtains add something nice and homey that almond colored blinds just can't manage.

This all started out as a trip to Ikea to see if I could locate something that would assist in the upstairs closet. Which has, please note, once again given in to gravity and met with carpeting. Dan was quite lucky in that all his boardgame boxes once again lived to see another day, all their happy little plastic peices intact. My dress pants, however, took a beating. Every time that closet falls apart, little bits of drywall get ground into the fabric. It looks like I had an accident of gigantic proportions with a stick of deoderant.

The end of the day'd finally rolled into ADP and released me from twisty phone cord. Par usual, I probably was having some low blood sugar issues...which of course I didn't take into account. I ate an apple and figured I'd try some of those Swedish meatballs. By the time I got to the Swedish meatball section of Ikea, it was packed; dinnerish time. So I sailed on past and rummaged through the bargain section, where, if left unattended, I'm worse than a child with a mud puddle. Thus far my large and joyful yellow tarp-ish bag was full of crap--a spatula, a tea infuser that I later discarded as the mesh was bent (like the tea cares, I know...), a little orange basket thing that snaps onto the kitchen shelves, and some lights (that I have yet to find batteries for but am hoping will illuminate the sink area in the kitchen. I have high hopes, I do. Now if only Duracell implanted a locator in its packaging.)

I got all distracted in the clearance section by bookshelves, more bookshelves, and at long last, a comforter cover that was king sized and possibly could fit my monstrous down comforter. It was marked down to 20 clamshells, which was reasonable...but the more I thought about it, the more I reconsidered, and it ended up back on the shelves. Then I found curtains--not just any curtains, but tab top (yay!) floor to ceiling off white canvas-muslin type curtains. My needy little heart skipped a beat and in an instant my large yellow bag was bulging with more crap.

I say crap lovingly. Like ya do...

They were marked down to 10 bucks, and who can pass up that much fabric for ten dollars? Not this gal. Of course then I had to veer back through and find the rod, and brackets, etc. Straggle back through again, totally distracted this time by some neato vases in the greenhouse area and a candle that was marked to smell like oranges but smelled more like grapefruit of doom. So nifty, Ikea is. Made it through the checkouts. Saw T from work and had to stop and chat and meet her SO and son again.

So why am I just finished installing curtains at this late hour, you ask? Well, you're probably not asking. I'm sure of it. You're thinking, why the hell am I still reading this thing? She keeps talking about drapes. Which are *so* interesting.

I get home. Realize that I really, really ought to eat something, but before I do so I have to clean the kitchen up because I notice that I left my dear crockpot all smarmy with leftover red beans and rice bits. To clean that out I have to clean out the sink, and to clean out the sink I have to unload and load the dishwasher, and wipe off the counter...so at about 8 I eat something. Then on my way back into the kitchen I see spots on the floor.

This is not a pre-fainting issue. It's someone-"rinsed"-something-out-and-dripped-all-the-way-to-the-garbage. Not bothersome if you wear slippers or socks, but dang that sucks to step in. Ewwy. I clean the floor a while, just spot mop with the 409. Now it's what, 9? I think when I was going for the 409 I noticed the kitty box needed attention...so I did that...and then while I was in the garage I remembered I needed to find Serena's pullover--which Eero has now and you will have tomorrow night!--so I dug around and found that.

Then, before I could even think about drapery, I found the little clippy shelf for the kitchen and had to put that up...and then I got distracted by the lights and finding batteries...and finally I was ready to install some drapes. Then when I was looking for the screwdriver I pulled down the toolkit in the entryway closet and got bashed on the shoulder with the hammer. Dan, note to self: you are tall enough to SEE the hammer when it's up there, I'm not. *insert stuck out tongue here*

So they're up now. The room looks sufficiently homey and smells like pissed off woman, mainly because I HATE DRYWALL. It's worse than fricking plaster, I swear to all that's holy. I kept dropping things (go figure) and then having to sort through carpet fibers to find screws, which were so covered in drywall dust that they blended quite well, and then the little ends of the curtain rod (plastic cup things designed to protect the wall and/or drive you nuts) kept falling off. At one point I pulled out the dresser to look for the endie thingy, looked all over, only to find that it was still in the upper bracket, just sitting there. *sigh*

So there's my drapery effect--end score: Ikea 1, Kim thrown out of game for picking daisies on the field instead of paying attention. Or maybe hanging curtains. Something like that.

into the fusion reactor

Ah, Ivanova...I miss Bab 5. Sometimes. I miss Firefly more--it was more my speed, the diaster of life heaped on chaos. Babylon 5 is much more linear and organized.

But I digress...what I wanted to discuss today was obsession. I get hooked on things sometimes and then months later I wonder at the fury of my obsession at that previous time. One time I was caught by Bab 5. Another time it was Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. Books and series of books hook and catch in my mind like snags in a nylon, captivating flotsam in the jetsam of media crossing the ol' cranial channel.

Lately I've gotten obsessed with Stargate. Eeep. It's fun and fast paced, lots of humor, a good escapist bit of fancy. I guess that's what I go through life looking for--the perfect getaway hatch. The one marked "nirvana," or "chocolate." Is it the endorphin release? I look forward to some aspects of life with the joy of a child, others with the optimism of someone carrying Lysol into the bathroom. What is it about things that catch my interest? Sparkly and bright things, perhaps? It used to be this joke at work, perpetuated by my friend Cari, about how everyone with keys needed to leave the room because otherwise I'd be distracted by the bright jangly objects.

Which is too close to the truth. I can't stay focused on one thing long enough to let it capture my interest. And if it does, it burns so brightly that it's difficult to stretch my eyeballs away from what is going on over yonder.

I give. Right now I'm yearning to see some more Stargate, just to get out of the life I'm in and get into the lives of someone else--the erstwhile MacGyver who's gotten much better looking with age, mmmmmm Michael Shanks, the cracking humor, the newness of it, at least to me.

Tonight as I'm sitting here Dan's watching Babylon 5...Ivanova's mentioning the fusion reactor, and that she'd like to toss some choice folks into it. And I dwell on that line: into the fusion reactor. I think I'm staring into it.

sunday morning

sundays are usually one of my favorite days of the week. i like the laid back attitude a sunday has, the way you can just know that the afternoon will be lazy, that you have to go back to work the next day so everything you do will be your last free moments of the week, unencumbered. or something like that. sundays remind me of drives after church, donuts and the newspaper spread around wall
papering the living room.

of course now this sunday i've got work to do, so it's going to be more of working sunday than a normal lazy one. *sigh* i think we're grilling today, which is no big deal except it means i have to go through the bottom drawers of the fridge and root out crap that's been there for a few weeks and has no doubt gone the way of icky. also means i need to forage for charcoal, too, and something to have with steak. i think i've got some taters somewhere... (;

last night for some reason it hit me again that quinn wouldn't be downstairs to cuddle when i was done in the den. i suddenly wanted to be able to pick her up and feel that softness and complete trust, smell her honey scented shoulders and count all the little pink paw pads. she was one of the things that kept me sane down here; shiva is an affectionate cat, but she's somewhat demanding, and as different as another cat could be. i'm not sure i want to get another cat right now either; it's expensive to get their shots up to date and then if we decide to move somewhere else that only takes one cat or something, it'll be a series of what-do-we-do-next. also shiva seems quite content to rule the roost on her own. which is fine; having her is kind of like having two cats, what with the hairballs. LOL

anyway, i've got to get myself in gear and attack this day--i have my weekly fundamentals of payroll read to attend to, and i promised myself i would go for a good walk today, a walk that involves the woods and that lovely forest smell. it rained last night, so the whole world is vibrant and damp, kind of like a sunday morning should be. (: