Automating my life

Last night I bought all my groceries. On-line. Safeway is delivering them today. I realized that I save more money and stick to my grocery list if I buy through their website instead of going into the store. If this experiment works out, I'm going to do all my grocery shopping through Safeway.com. It's just easier.

I went to the mall on Saturday looking for a new pair of shoes and I found a decent pair of black Kenneth Cole's, but I wasn't about to shell out for the $178 price tag. I went home empty handed but thought I might try Zappos.com and see if the shoes were there. They were, for about $90 cheaper and free shipping.

Using the internet to do all sorts of things I would normally just leave my apartment to do has gotten amazingly easier and more convenient. I shop on-line, I pay my bills, do all my banking, watch TV, rent movies, sell my old crap, buy new crap. Now I'm looking for laundry service in DC that will pick up and drop off my clothes. I found a few businesses but nothing cheap.

This has me thinking. With all this time I've been saving from shaving minutes off of everyday tasks, what am I doing with all these extra hours? Well...not much. I can tell you that I am interacting less with people, I seldom leave the apartment and I'm acting more like a...well, recluse.

But I'm not complaining. At the same time I've been reading more, chatting more with friends and family, I'm getting more work done. It's just all on-line. My life is becoming digitized, it's the transitioning from the tangible to the digital that I have to get used to.

Am I happy? Yeah. I am. And you know, I'd be more happy if I could find a laundry service to wash my clothes for $10 a bag instead of $25.

Tag: Automation

Losing my mind

One of my friends wrote today about losing things. Another of my favorite blogs included a post on bumbling, putting the lunchmeat in the freezer, forgetting one’s own phone number, etc. It’s a subject that’s been often on my mind – losing things or more specifically losing my mind.

I joke about it, losing my mind. These days, I’m the closest that I’ve ever gotten. I’ve read that stress causes short-term memory loss and in my case, I fear it’s true. I’ve been getting a little scattered lately. A lot scattered.

January is the start of my busy season and honestly, it stays busy for months. Last year, we hired someone to relieve the stress and later, we moved someone over from another project to help. My stress has simply changed forms as I struggle to keep everyone occupied, productive, positive.

(Not only do I have to worry about the work itself, I have to keep the customer from knowing that I’m stressed or tired; I have to keep the new people happy and certain that they know I “like” them. On top of that, my health is a little screwy right now. I am definitely stressed.)

I give up drinking sometime late January. I don’t pick it back up until Easter. I just don’t drink when I’m stressed and I don’t drink during Lent. (I might not be particularly religious, but I take Lent seriously. Though, the year I gave up alcohol and swearing almost drove me to insanity.)

Anyway, memory and stress. I am stressed and I am losing my mind.

I rely heavily upon my mind. I don’t use a calendar. I don’t use notes. I keep everything inside my head and actually, I manage to keep everything straight. I use the phrase “it all makes sense inside my head,” and it does. I started using the phrase in freshman geometry, in outlining proofs. As with geometry, I eventually figure out how to make sense outside my head.

Everything I do revolves around the mind, creating memories. Plays, travel, books, movies, photography, music. Everything I love. I suppose that a good bit of my life goes toward the search of the “perfect moment” but even more than that, I cherish the imperfect moments: the stories, the adventure, the mishaps that make life mine (and I have a lot of mishaps).

I spend much of money and most of my time in search of these moments. They are the currency I esteem and the language I know most fluently. I fear the day I lose them, and lose them I might.

My grandmother suffered from senile dementia. I remember the last time I saw her, a decade ago, sitting on her sofa in Minot, North Dakota. My visit coincided with my father’s 30th high school reunion and I brought photos from my brother’s high school graduation. My grandmother thought I was my mother, forgot my father and looked through my photos a dozen times in a row, asking the same questions every time. It broke my heart.

A few years later, when my grandfather died, the nurses had to tell her daily and sometimes hourly that he was gone. Each time as if it were the first. That breaks my heart as well and I don’t know if I envy her the ability to forget or pity the fresh pain of learning daily, sometimes hourly, that she’d lost the love of her life: the red-haired man who used to race past her one-room schoolhouse, trying to impress her.

They are both gone now. Other than a handful of pictures, all I have left are my memories.

Alzheimer’s. Dementia. Depression. Stress.

So many things may tear my memory, my life away from me. I have no defense against time or my faltering body. All I can do is continue to live for the moment, to live for the story, to cherish the mishaps that make life mine.


Tag: Memory loss Forgetfulness

Quick question

When a dog wags it's tail, is that similar to a person whistling while walking down the street?

What's my name?

I'm posting this for Kris.

So, as legend would have it, finding someone with whom you can fathom spending the rest of you life with is a hard feat. I mean, up until recently, I thought it would probably be one of the hardest things a person would have to do, at least in the “relationships” chapter of one’s life. I was pretty “set in my ways”, as one might call it. I actually told my husband, early in our relationship, not to “put all his eggs in one basket”. It was a terrible thing to say, and I apologized that night. But to emphasize my point, getting from the “eggs in one basket” moment, to the wedding was obviously not an easy task (especially for my poor husband-to-be).

So what, you might be asking, IS the hardest thing about the relationships/marriage chapter? Well, again, some might guess that if it isn’t the decision to GET married, it must be the actually GETTING married, or planning of the marriage, etc. I can honestly say that the planning of our wedding, and the actual wedding itself was easy. Our wedding was, in a simple word, perfect. And that’s including the time spent in the ER after the reception, getting two stitches for me, and treating my new husband’s concussion (yes, for those of wondering if we are of the famous “Wedding Crashers” amateur video circulating on the web, it is us; and no, despite tags to the contrary, we DID go on our honeymoon without issue).

No, out of all of our supposed “road blocks” to our happily-ever-after, the one thing that has been the most difficult, headache-inducing, trying experience has been the DC Social Security Office. See, all I wanted was to change my last name. I think it’s a pretty simple request, and I am almost positive that I am not the first person to make this request. Call me crazy, but somehow I have to believe that someone, somewhere in the District of Columbia, someone has tried to drop their middle name, move their maiden name to middle name, and take on their partner’s last name. I took an informal poll, and, while people commented on lack of fun they had waiting in lines, this request was not off base.

Well, either D.C. Social Security has it out for me, or they retain supremely incompetent individuals under their employ. As much fun as a conspiracy theory is, I have to lean towards the latter. I mailed in my request, with my marriage license and birth certificate. Got my new card a few weeks later…with my original middle name and new last name. This was not what I wanted at all. No offense to my parent’s naming abilities, but I don’t even particularly LIKE my middle name. I want my maiden name. I feel more attached to it. So I called the DC Social Security office, and was told that they are not able to drop one’s given middle name without a court order. This seemed fishy.

I conferred with my co-worker, who got married on the exact same day as I, and she confirmed my doubts. She went to the Virginia Social Security office with the exact same documentation as I did, and got the correct name. So I made a trip to the DC Social Security office, where I was told once again, that it’s not possible. But I can try the passport agency, because you don’t have to show proof of Social Security to change your name, just a marriage. They will also take a driver’s license, but DC DMV won’t change your name on your license without a social security card license (side note: as my husband pointed out, this means that it’s easier to get a U.S. passport than a drivers license in DC, which makes perfect sense). Confused? Yeah, me too. I still don’t know who’s wrong, who’s lying, and who’s stupid (though I have some strong opinions about that one).

What irritates me is that instead of sending me a notification letter, saying they were unable to process my requested name change, DC Social Security just chose a name for me. Along those lines, if you are going to choose a name for me, why not make it fun, like say… Princess Consuela Bananahammock?

So now I’m stuck with this name, for the time being. I just found out that my project at work is going to require a security clearance at some point, so I have to submit my paperwork, and wait to change my name correctly until afterwards.

As it is, I feel a little lost. I spent months preparing myself for one name (remember how wonderful I am with change), and now have a completely different name. Okay, it’s different only in the middle name. But it’s hard enough to get used to a new last name. To totally lose the name that identified you for 29 years brings about some really strong feelings.

I finally have the answer to the age-old question: What’s in a name?

Your entire identity, apparently.

-Kris

Free money

With the help of my sister, some savings and the desire to get out from under debt, I've paid off the rest of my credit card. There's something about our culture that makes it difficult to ween myself away from the "have it right now (even if I can't afford it) and pay some time in the distant future (at $15 dollars a month!)" mentality.

I've also had to (re?) condition myself to understand the credit is not "free money." I'm 28, not so sure why this took me this long to get around to realizing but I know I'm not alone. The average American has over $8,000 in credit card debt. Two friends while in college declared bankruptcy while racking up over $50,000 in debt on their Super Titanium Mega Awesome Cards, paying for clothes, huge televisions and college tuition with their credit. A roommate (who shall remain anonymous) wracked up and still has huge debt without much to show. He went on shopping sprees buying junk from Fingerhut, Banana Republic and the nudie bar, all going on his card. It's crazy the things he's bought, it's crazy the things I've bought. I graduated college with $5,000 in credit card debt and when I drove to Minnesota after leaving school, I couldn't even fill my car with my possessions. Talk about nothing to show.

Now that my card is paid off I'm going to save. And work hard. And resist the urge to buy things. Even though I've been hardwired to buy junk, I'll resist. Right now I'm searching through Amazon.com and Cribcandy for cool stuff I think I need but don't really want but I'm fighting it.

You know, I lucked out. I didn't buy stocks with my credit card, I didn't rack up $50,000 in debt. $50,000 or $5,000, the weight of debt on your back is a real bummer, crawling out from underneath it, that's a good feeling.

Tag: Debt

Capitol Lounge reopens. Fully. Finally.

Tonight, the end of the most depressing day in the year, made me happy. My favorite place in the world, the Capitol Lounge, reopened.

Some might worry –some actually do – that my favorite place in the world is a bar. My brother thinks I have a drinking problem, my mother thinks I will. My dad just worries about me across the board. (My sister thinks I'm fine.) I am done with worrying about what they think.

The Lounge makes me happy.

I am a regular. I have achieved that status with hard work and an actual game plan (including weeknights, weekend days, rules and sticking with the same beer, not to mention years of regular visits) but I don’t want to go into that. Tonight, I want to focus on the fact that the Lounge has reopened. All of it.

Three-quarters opened a month or so ago, but it wasn’t the same. I waited with bated breath for the main bar.

Honestly, I don’t drink that much, but when I do, I want to go someplace where I feel as comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt as an evening gown, a place where everybody fits in and everybody talks and a place that always passes the 15-minute rule. For me, the Lounge is that place. I have been there in jeans, wedding kit and everything in between. I have made friends with the bartenders, with other regulars and the stool, somewhere mid-bar, close to where the taps used to be.

On August 24, when the bar burned down or out or just plain burned, I felt that I had lost a member of my family.

Today, tonight, the main bar opened.

The blackboard is gone, the rules with it (no politics, no Miller Lite, be polite or you will be asked to leave). They are printed on a white sheet of paper, but it’s not the same as the hand-lettered, smudged chalk sign. The scarves are gone except for the one Tony hung over the television – DC United. Not a bad start.

I don’t remember the curve of the ceiling, but it might have been there. I don’t remember looking up all that often except those days, those nights when I found myself under the fan in an unseasonably, unreasonably short-sleeved shirt. The new fans are lovely, as are the new light fixtures with their properly dim lighting.

The walls seem painfully bare. But I am certain they will soon be filled with memorabilia and I spied one or two of the items I donated – presidential nesting dolls, a bumper sticker proclaiming “I’m the Watergate,” a poster of Nixon, a G. Gordon Liddy board game, others. They make me happy, but it's not the same. I suppose it’s similar to going home and discovering that mom’s changed your bedroom into a sewing room, dad’s changed the den into a weight room. (Though, we all know he doesn’t really work out.)

The room, the main bar, smelled of paint, polyurethane, smoke (of the cigarette variety, not fire). The kitchen isn’t open yet and everything seems just a little too new, but it was home. It was good. All is right in the world on this depressing day.

Tag: Capitol Lounge

By the way, thanks to Jamy for meeting me. It was nice to be there with a friend, and I mean a friend other than the people who work there and the other regulars, including the guys from IndeBleu, and a drunk friend who dropped trou to show me “Superman” (on the underwear, not in the underwear). It was nice to be there with a friend who planned to be there with me. Though, I've never had trouble making friends at the Lounge.

The most depressing day of the year

According to a study performed by Dr. Cliff Arnall at Cardiff University, today, Monday, January 23, 2006 is the most depressing day of the year.

Bummer.

Apparently, bad weather, unfulfilled New Year's resolutions and credit card debt from the holidays all conspire to make today a black Monday.

I can see it. The weather is kind of crappy in the greater DC area – cold, gray, not yet rainy but it's getting there. And resolutions? New Year's seems a lifetime away and such an arbitrary day to change one's life. I think I resolved to be less negative. That seems to be working out for me so far, but it’s all relative. Less than what?

I am feeling a little negative about traffic. I generally don’t drive but I need the car to get to a doctor’s appointment, and honestly, the doctor’s appointment is bringing me down. It’s a usual, run-of-the-mill appointment with the girly doctor, but as anyone who’s ever visited the girly doctor knows, that just kind of sucks.

Add a history of bad test results, brushes with cancer, surgery, and about a year’s worth of strange symptoms, and today is not going to be fun. But I’m not going to think about that. And not thinking about that is something I’m going to do for the week or two until the results come in.

Not even I am conceited enough to believe that is enough reason for most of the world to feel blue today. Or even the two people who knew about it before this post. Back to the report…

Arnall's formula also accounts for general Monday malaise. Somebody’s got a case of the Mondays and all that jazz. And money. Money. It makes the world go ‘round and apparently brings it down. Credit card bills have morphed the season of giving into a season of reeling.

Definitely a bummer.

But the most depressing day of the year? Really? I think my most depressing days are just about any day I step on the scale. Or come back from vacation. Or have to say goodbye.

I am going to call my sister, go out to lunch, watch a favorite movie. I just got a rush from the military helicopters outside my window. I am cranking up the music. (Though, I will have to skip through Radiohead and Air.)

Today will be a good day. I will be happy. Period.

Tag: Depression

Body butter

I didn’t realize the extent of my problem until I came home today. The bag, a bag bigger than Bloomie’s Medium Brown Bag, the bag I carried a mile home, was filled with body products.

Shower gel, body butter, lip shimmer, scrub. And lots of it.

Generally speaking, I am a low maintenance girl. Sometimes I don’t brush my hair and that, the nonbrushing, happens a little more than I like to admit. My clothes are more Gap than anything else and while my shoes are fairly high quality, they are not this season. Or last. The body products, though, I just keep buying them.

I think it started last year. I was looking for Bath & Body Works and discovered too late that the store at Union Station closed. I walked into The Body Shop, picked up some shower gel and succumbed to a sales pitch, the pressure to join their “club.”

For every 20 dollars spent, I would get a stamp. For every 50 dollars, two. (The math doesn’t really make sense to me either.) With my card, I would get a 10-percent discount, free merchandise with every fourth stamp and free stuff on my birthday.

Now, one might ask how much I often I visited the store, whether I really liked it, if it was worth it. One might wonder a lot of things. I didn’t. I decided to join the club and with my $10, I stepped blindly into a committed relationship with the store.

I thought I could quit at any time. I was wrong.

At this point, the following products line my dining room table: Seven bottles of shower gel, six jars of body scrub, four canisters of body butter, two tubs of lip shimmer, a pump of shimmer lotion, a candle and a bag of “spring essentials.” I’m sure there’s a partridge in a pear tree somewhere, but it won’t fit on the table.

This is what I’ve bought since Christmas.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how I got to this point. I used to be a casual user. Sure, I liked my shower gel but I seldom went through more than two or three bottles a year. I flirted with lotion, sometimes using it, sometimes not. Never enough to warrant more than twice yearly trips to Bath & Body Works.

The card, that membership card, must have done it.

That’s all I can figure. I’ve gone through an entire jar of body butter in the past three weeks. The apartment itself is starting to reek of cranberry. (Though, people do keep telling me that I smell lovely.) There’s something about having an extra four or five tubs around that make me feel free to use it.

A couple of years ago, I bought myself olive oil/orange/oatmeal scrub. In New Zealand. It sounds a little funky, but I thought it the greatest thing since sliced bread. I slathered it on until I discovered that I couldn’t get more. I emailed the company. I scoured the web. Nothing. I stopped using it. Eventually, the stuff I bought went bad.

I don’t know why I didn’t use it up. I don’t know why I didn’t allow myself to enjoy what I had without considering the end or appreciating even more, knowing that it would end. I let the knowledge of the end ruin the experience in the middle.

I suppose that happens a lot in life. We look too far. I look too far ahead and start back pedalling, protecting myself, distancing myself from an experience. I’m trying to change, to live for the moment. Sometimes I slip and maybe that’s what I’m doing now, stocking up on bath products, making sure I have enough of the products I love like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter.

That or I am nuts, nuts and really, really into body butter and free stuff.

Tag: Bath Shower Gel Addiction

Scar tissue

Scar tissue that I wish you saw
Sarcastic mister know it all

Every time I think of scar tissue, Anthony Kiedis barrels through my brain. It’s not a bad place for him to be, but it happens a little more than I would like to admit.

I have a lot of scar tissue.

In movies, the tough guys fall in love with tough girls over comparisons of war wounds, injuries incurred in the line of duty.

I find my own scars a little less romantic, a little more ordinary, mundane, common. Nevertheless, as the words bring back the tune, the scars bring back memories.

The lightning bolt at the base of my thumb: Summer camp and playing “I spy” in the emergency room. Red ought to have been off limits (the blood on that man’s shoe) and I ought not use saws but the counselor wasn’t all that reliable.

The jagged, inverted U farther up: Living in Colorado, making dinner and doing everything wrong – holding the cabbage, cutting toward myself, using a paring knife. I am lucky to have a thumb.

The tiny line under my lower lip: The house on 9th Street where Scott and I earned matching scars in consecutive trips down the stairs in those infant saucer walker things with wheels.

The straight white line across my middle finger: Cutting Rice Krispie treats in my college dorm room followed by cutting tomatoes in the kitchen of the Carriage House restaurant on Mackinac Island. The chef told me to watch myself as he handed me his knife. I watched it happen. I still can't feel anything at the tip.

The worm on my elbow: My arm through a window and shivering in the emergency room, wearing a damp bathing suit and waiting for my mom.

The fat slug on my knee, near my newest bruise: The night I met Brian. Cheryl crying because she thought she saw her ex on the anniversary of the night they met and he didn’t even acknowledge her. A broken canister, cotton balls on the floor, slicing through my favorite pajamas. A shallow cut that never healed quite right.

Scars and scrapes and places that just won’t heal. My knees are dirty all year ‘round and won’t tan in the summer from cuts and scrapes and scabs long gone. Some things just don't heal and not all the scars are visible.

My ears bear the marks of infections long gone, my balance and hearing shot. My heart just plain hurts.

I’m pretty sure that the scars will fade, as will the memories. The scar on my leg, the scar of Brian – other men have traced it, caressed it with their thumbs. Others will do the same in the future. All of them fade. The scars of my body are becoming as familiar, as worn, as soft as a patchwork quilt. The quilt of me.

Scar tissue that I wish you saw
Sarcastic mister know it all
Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you ’cause
With the birds I’ll share
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view

Push me up against the wall
Young Kentucky girl in a push-up bra
Fallin’ all over myself
To lick your heart and taste your health ’cause
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view...

Blood loss in a bathroom stall
Southern girl with a scarlet drawl
Wave good-bye to ma and pa ’cause
With the birds I’ll share
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view

Soft spoken with a broken jaw
Step outside but not to brawl
Autumn’s sweet we call it fall
I’ll make it to the moon if I have to crawl and
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view...

Scar tissue that I wish you saw
Sarcastic mister know it all
Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you ’cause
With the birds I’ll share
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view
With the birds I’ll share
This lonely view...


Tag: Scar Tissue

Caution

Caution. The moving walkway is ending. Please watch your step. Thank you.

Over the course of the past fifteen minutes, I have heard it a hundred times. I have heard it before. Sitting here, alone in the airport, I can’t help but remember.

I pursued him. We met, talked, laughed and he left. That was it. For days, I thought of his eyes: deep, kind, warm. I looked him up on his company website and emailed him. We emailed a month before our first date and we kept emailing.

Eventually, we met. Again. And again. And again. He skipped Christmas to eat Chinese food and watch movies on my couch. He called to let me know that I was appreciated on Valentine’s Day, not waiting for our date.

I sat in the hospital with him after surgery, waiting ten hours to take him home, seven of them in the waiting room. Alone.

He promised me dinner in recompense. He never made good on that oath. Not long after the surgery, his vulnerability, we stopped having dinner. We moved to lunch. A baseball game. Nothing tangible.

I still pretended. I called, answered, made plans. We went out. We seldom stayed in. We saw each other less and less until his birthday present culminated in an all-day music festival. At this point, we had been dating for eight months.

We spent the day together, with friends, with music. We left early, tired from a day in the sun and rain. I drove home. He leaned over, kissed me goodbye and climbed out of the Jeep. Out of my life.

He stopped answering my calls after that night. He stopped calling me.

A month later, I called to say that I assumed things were over. I wanted him to deny it, to tell me I was wrong or he was sorry or something, anything. He left me a message, apologizing for being a “bad friend” message two days later.

Bad friend. I told him he was a bad person.

I heard the voice warning caution. I knew that it was ending. I knew it was ending a long time ago. I just failed to watch my step.

Given another chance, a chance to do it over, I would probably stumble again. Sometimes, my feet don’t get the message – my heart gets in the way.


Tag: Relationships Caution

What draws traffic to your site?

Over on my other site, I use MyBlogLog Pro to keep tabs on where people are coming to my site from. I get some odd hits for gold teeth, Rudy Huxtable and the biggest draw is Frances Bean Cobain. If you Google her name under the images section, a pic on my site comes up in the top row.

Of course you're going to get some weird-a$$ comments when you draw in a ton of traffic for some very specific entries. Example:

What sort of crap comes out of your mouth Brokekid, she don’t look like her father at all.

Comment by Jogn

and

Kurt Cobain didn’t commit suicide. If he wanted his daughter to grow up good he would have tried harder to stop. Maybe it was like that time in the bathroom when he was saying he was gonna. Then the trigger slipped or something scared him or he stepped on it or something. Yeah she does look like Kurt. Maybe he also commited suicide because his childhood. You know he lived under a bridge for a little while, right?

Comment by Lena

and

LET THE GIRL ALONE !! DO IT FOR KURT!! WHO CARES ABOUT HOW MUCH SHE RESEMBLES HER DAD , SHE HAS THE SAME BLOOD AS HIM , THE SAME EYES…AND HE LOVED HER MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE…FUCK YOU ALL ! SHE´S JUST A KID

Comment by Lau

What's draws traffic to your site?

Winning sucks

Uno.

In the time since I won, I’ve watched some headline news, gone to the bathroom, changed into my pajamas, poured a little wine, wrote a little, and seriously considered picking up my book.

Nobody else is out yet. Nobody will play (or not play, as the case may be) with me.

In the meantime, tensions are flying high as my friends and former competitors break out the plus four cards, the reverse, the skip. Karen’s out of green. Watson’s out of blue. Kris, well, Kris has 50 or so cards and Wide Left of Center keeps flirting with that single card, uno, broken by, “My name is Karen” in a high-pitched voice and draw card, draw card, draw card.

In the meantime, Karen’s really the only one who cares about the game, getting more and more frustrated.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to get competitive over this,” goads Kris.

“I said that because I thought I was going to win,” shrills Karen.

Earlier in the game, before I went out, I hit Uno once, twice, three times, irritating the heck out of Karen, if nobody else.

“But I don’t care if I win,” I protest.

“That’s what bothers me!” Karen screams across the wine, bread, cards.

Still, I go out.

And here I sit, watching CNN. They’re talking about OCD and at least three of us have stopped to watch the clip on a girl struggling with the search for perfection. The game proceeds. I have nothing to do and the book beckons.

I head to the bedroom again, pour a little more wine, all in my sunglasses. Late at night. In a hotel room. We go through cycles of glasses on. Glasses off. Glasses on. Glasses off. Three of us own the same glasses and have as of this morning. It’s a thing we have. A very lame thing, but that’s okay when you’re playing Uno with your friends in the middle of the night.

With a shriek and a laugh, Karen goes out. In the meantime, I have written dozens of words, surfed the web, taken a nap. All of which I mention.

“Oh, shut up, K-dog.”

Winning sucks.


Tag: Winning Uno

Falling

Fuck.

It’s not a word I use all that often. I am more of a fudge, oops-a-daisy, that’s unfortunate kind of girl but at this moment, even in this place dedicated to God, all I can say is

Fuck.

Looking straight ahead, which also happens to be up, I see beautiful blue mountain ski, untroubled, unfettered, unclouded sky. And branches. Briefly, I search for the birds that caused this whole mess.

Fuck.

Beneath me I feel ice melting, soaking into my already frozen hair, my jeans, my underwear.

Fuck.

I wonder if I can sue the Mormons. Seriously, it’s their property and if I’m broken it’s probably their fault. I slide my hand across the ice, making sure that it’s actually there, that I haven’t just randomly fallen, and I feel the arctic smoothness beneath my hand.

Sliding my hand even farther, I reach to where my camera has bounced and skid to a stop. I pull it in, push myself up to a sitting position and look around.

Fortunately, I am alone. I would be mortified if little blond children (more likely them than other children, given the venue) heard the word that just came out of my mouth. Repeatedly.

I look around again, wishing that someone had been there, if not little blond children. I want someone to witness my pain, my outrage, the neglect of the Mormon church, leaving a slick of ice right there, near the statue, beneath a tree with filled with sweetly chirping birds.

The birds started this whole mess. Tittering away in that damn tree. I heard them, looked up, searching between the long dead leaves and tangle of branches and then, in time-lapse photography awareness, I saw my feet slide, my legs, back, head crash down to the icy pavement, head bouncing before coming to rest in melting discomfort, my camera bounce and slide toward the snowy grass.

I had been so careful, picking my across glassy, crunchy sidewalks for the 20 or so blocks I had already walked. But the birds, chirping, clean, crisp air - they distracted me, pulled my gaze up and down I went.

Flat on my back, swearing before God, birds and the Salt Lake Temple.

Fuck.

Tag: Falling Swearing Mormons

Things I could do without

In school a couple of friends had a list of "People that Should be Publically Shot." It was a pretty funny list though maybe a tad extreme. Hence my list, "Things I could do Without."

This is going to be an ongoing thing as daily I think of things I could do without.

The List

• Pictionary
• Ann Coulter
• Taco John's
• Wal-Mart
• Karaoke
• Clapping your hands to the beat of a song
• Being any place where everyone thinks they should clap to the beat of a song
• RIAA
• Scientology
• Fox News
• Elevator Friends (kind of like bar friends, where you only see in the elevator and you engage in small talk and you have no idea who they are)

Not skiing

So here I sit, laptop in lap, wondering why in the world I am sitting here. It’s not really an existential question. Why in the world am I sitting in a hotel, in Utah, trying to write?

I came to Utah (aka Hatu, which is Utah spelled backwards) with friends who wanted to ski. I didn’t want to ski. I don’t ever want to ski again.

I first attempted skiing my freshman year in college, back in the days of requisite physical education credits. I signed up for whitewater rafting and downhill skiing. Both cost an extra hundred bucks but for that money, one could avoid a twice-weekly class, knocking out the requirements in a holiday weekend trip. I worked pretty much fulltime through college; my time mattered more than the cost of the courses.

For whitewater rafting, fall semester, we loaded up charter buses and drove seven hours toward Fayetteville, West Virginia, where we devoured breakfast, donned wetsuits and helmets and jumped on rafts heading down the New River. After cursory showers and maybe a sandwich, we boarded the buses and headed home.

Piece of cake and I still love whitewater rafting.

Skiing. That was a different story.

For the record, I am not terribly athletic and the older I get, the less inclined I am to pick up new sports. My joints are absolute crap. I’ve been through physical therapy twice for my knees and honestly, they’re never going to get any better. Even surgery wouldn’t help. Trust me. I’ve talked to multiple orthopedic surgeons and all of my joints are equally bad – hips, ankles, shoulders. They just are. I think I inherited them from my dad.

On top of that, I have balance issues due to a number of inner ear infections and massive amounts of scar tissue. I doubt that my proclivity for loud concerts helps. And I have asthma, which wasn’t diagnosed until I was about 23. I just figured I was really out of shape. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t breathe for a reason. Gotta love small town doctors.

Sound like a load of excuses to you?

Me, too. I have my issues, but I am not completely unfit. I swim regularly. I walk miles every day. I used to hike extensively and even dragged my ass up Long’s Peak, a 14,000+ foot trail that required a 3 a.m. start time so we could be off the mountain before the afternoon storms. 12 hours later. I probably could ski, but given the joint issues, the injuries, the congenital disorder, I probably ought not do it.

Nevertheless, in college, I decided to forsake all of the above for the sake of a weekend trip and an easy credit. The night before the trip, I hit the Palace of Auburn Hills for (don’t hate me for admitting this) a Billy Joel concert (come on, it was the River of Dreams tour), which required driving home in whiteout conditions. My friend fell asleep at the wheel, veered into the median and almost hit oncoming traffic, which was fortunately light due to the whiteout conditions.

We weren’t the brightest of freshman girls.

The day of the trip dawned snowy, cold and bright, and far too early given the late night before. I packed my bag, headed over to the gym and boarded a bus for Mount Brighton, a garbage dump in Michigan. Literally. (Or so I've heard and like to believe.)

We got there mid-afternoon, secured rentals and separated into groups based on skill and experience. I joined the group of the fucking clueless in a basic course and tried my best to turn, stop, pick myself up when I fell down and we slid slowly down a bunny hill a dozen or so times before moving over to the rope tow and sliding down a slightly larger hill.

Unfortunately, I still didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.

I managed to tow my ass up the hill, move into position and point my skis in the right direction. As the sun started to set, I started downhill, slowly, with massive amounts of fear and absolutely no skill. Eventually, physics set in and I picked up speed. Too much speed. I never learned to stop, so I fell down. I stayed down.

Because, well, I learned to take a rope tow and to turn a little and to fall down safely, but whenever I fell, the ski instructor just kept picking me up. I didn’t learn how to do it myself.

So there I lay, in the cold dark night, feeling like the kid in A Christmas Story. The slopes were clearing; we’d run the last run. The news later reported temperatures of seven below with a wind chill of 70 below. I couldn’t pick myself up. I couldn’t snap out of my skis. I just... lay there. And it sucked. I have never felt so helpless, so incompetent, such a failure. As hard as I struggled, all I could do was lay there.

Eventually, somebody came over and helped me. Frankly, I was mortified. I am mortified still. It was one of the worst experiences of my life – I tried and I failed. I hit a wall. I found something that I absolutely could not do.

I hated every second of it.

Eventually, I moved to Colorado. Tried again. Hated it more. Nevertheless, I love my friends, family and travel. So here I am, laptop in lap, trying to write.

Tag: Skiing Utah Friends

Tagged

More later about skiing or not skiing or life in general, but here's my tag.

Four jobs you have had:
Copy Editor (BG News)
Bookseller (Barnes and Noble)
Usher (Kennedy Center)
Cashier (Maumee Meijer)

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Home for the Holidays
Beautiful Girls
Desk Set
Empire Records

Four places you've lived:
Longmont CO
Rochester NY
Mackinac Island MI
Harpers Ferry WV

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Grey's Anatomy
General Hospital
That 70s Show
The Office

Four places you've been on vacation:
Australia
New Zealand
Guyana
Germany

Four of your favorite foods:
Ice cream
Ice cream... Oh, wait, I already said that. It probably counts as two
Pad Thai Jae
Cheese

Four places you'd rather be right now:
Nowhere but here, with friends, on a ski vacation, online

Four sites I visit daily:
www.technorati.com
www.bloglines.com
www.orbitz.com
www.ual.com

Four Bloggers you are tagging:
Chud
Johnny
EclecticBlue
brokekid

Foreign TV or foreign to me?

I remember the days that Ms. Decker wheeled the television and VCR into our Spanish I class. At first, it seemed cool and almost subversive - watching TV in the middle of third period – but then it just seemed weird. The plots, the costumes, the commercials. Oh, the commercials. I joined the rest of the class in laughing over the full-blown musical/laundry detergent commercial or the guy in eyeliner, mascara, and shiny, shiny hair charming the pants off some chicky for some product I never did figure out.

I suppose that it didn’t hurt that they were in a different language. I didn’t understand the words themselves, much less the cultural references. To me, it was just funny.

These days, I understand the language I little better, but I still get lost when I flip to Spanish soaps. The Japanese dramas? Those are absolutely beyond me, and the more I travel, the more I see, the less I seem to understand. Until today, though, I didn’t realize that it carried over to TV in the good ol’ US of A.

“Why are their teeth shining?”

Um, I don’t know. It’s a carpet commercial. And there are some farmers or ranchers vacuuming carpet. Outside. With a dog. Debating what kind of flooring they want to install in the barn.

It is weird.

Out of context, poorly shot and even less well acted. The weirdest part, though, was the still at the end, the shot with all of the pertinent info. Store name and number. Two floating farmer heads with big, white, sparkly things over their eyeteeth. WTF?

We’re watching ESPN. National broadcasting. In a pretty major city. How does a commercial like that fly?

Obviously, I should have realized that television really can’t be taken out of context. I watch General Hospital. Daily. Every time I give a rundown to people who don’t watch or a recap to people who do, I realize how ridiculous it is. At the time, I just get caught up in the story, in the absurdity, in the moment. I am okay with that.

As lower budget productions with 30 seconds, children in their Sunday best “acting” stiffly under harsh lights and no storyline, local commercials are just a little more absurd.

Football stars buying used cars at places where your job is your credit. Check cashing. Carpets and flooring. Lawyers – you might have a case. I hear part of a tagline and I can recite a dozen or so numbers of a dozen or so businesses in Southeastern Ohio, a place I haven’t lived since 1993.

Growing up, I never thought any of them strange.

They made as much sense as pairing mac and cheese with pickles, opening presents on Christmas Day or sticking flatware in the dishwasher handles down. Not everybody does it that way, but it’s how I grew up, what I know and it all makes sense inside my head.

But, seriously, vacuuming carpet? Outside? With a dog? Seems weird to me.

Tag: Television

The Peace Corps Request Project

I've started another Peace Corps project and Fundable is going to help me raise the money I need to get it done. Cool huh?

Give Now!

When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Guyana, I found it overly frustrating by the level of difficulty it was to find funding, resources, volunteers and other in-kind help for the various projects I started. Peace Corps lacked the resources and information I need to accomplish what I had set out to do, I thought there must be an easier way, especially these days. Instant access to information over the internet from anywhere in the world, even a tiny developing country like Guyana, has been a boon to development. So I thought, well, if I couldn't get the information I needed, and not much is being done about it, why don't I do something about it? I started a web based project that directly addressed the needs of volunteers for their projects. When local talent and resources aren't available, I want to provide a tool that will enable volunteers to locate what they need quickly and effortlessly.

One big problem is, I'm not a programmer. I need help on the programming side as well as the design side. I am trying to raise $2,000 to pay a programmer and get the project up and running and helping volunteers. This project will hopefully enable volunteers to become slightly more efficient and help them to produce better results.

You can visit the project at http://corpsrequest.ning.com

Give Now!

I know many of you are broke, and that's cool 'cause I am too, that's why I'm using Fundable.org. All I am asking is for 200 people to give $10 each. Pretty easy. The cool part is, you aren't obligated to pay a dime unless all 200 people pay $10 and meet the goal of $2000. If the deadline reaches and the goal isn't met, nothing happens. It's a cool fundraising concept.

Give Now!

- What is Fundable?

Fundable.org is a new service that lets groups of people pool money to raise funds or make purchases without risking the money they put in. A group collection on Fundable resembles an online auction; each has its own page, describing how much money will be raised and what the money will do. No participant takes a risk: if a collection falls short of its goal on deadline, all money is refunded.

But if you can't give $10, pass the word and spread the e-mail. That's pretty basic. Anyone can do that!

Give Now!

So check out this project and help me get this off the ground!

Thanks,
Scott

Tag: Peace Corps

Services and Merchandise

As anyone who knows me will attest, I am very detail oriented. Some would and have even called me Type A, obsessive, anal, impossible, but I prefer to think of myself as organized.

Part of this “organization” includes checking my checking account and credit card activity online at least once a day. Sometimes twice. I don’t think much about the balances. I just check to see what’s cleared, what’s coming up, to make sure that I keep a handle on my finances.

I know: I’m weird.

It is interesting, though, and helpful. I have managed to live without debt and with everything that I need, not to mention most of what I want. It works for me.

Seldom do items appear that truly surprise. Occasionally, I’ll have an “d’oh” moment when I realize that I actually did buy that round of beer. And the next one. And the one after that. More often, I realize that a check hasn’t cleared and I probably ought to follow up with my neighbors, landlord, sister, to make sure that the check didn’t get lost. Sometimes, though, sometimes something really surprises me.

MATCH EVENTS, INC. (Services and Merchandise): $35

I knew it was coming. I knew it would come today. I just didn’t know how the powers that be at the credit card company would categorize it. “Services and Merchandise.”

Huh.

The Match Event in question was a foray into the world of 8 Minute Dating. A service, I suppose. Definitely not merchandise. I think I might have classified it as “Entertainment.”

I am not sure why I went. I mean, I remember the circumstances surrounding it quite vividly. A friend said she was going and suggested that I sign up. I did. Another friend or two and a friend of a friend registered and we all got in. All of us except, of course, the instigator.

Coming up on the day, buyer’s remorse floated around our inboxes but we cowboyed up, got all pretty and made it to the bar on time. We even chatted up our 8-minute dates, sparkling through our 8-minute conversations. Mingling in our 8- or rather 20-minute break.

I just don’t know why I went. My head? It’s not in the place to meet someone. My heart? Even less so.

I might have done it for the story, but halfway through, well, I felt like a complete ass.

Here was this group of seemingly nice, very earnest men looking for love (or so they proclaimed) and I wasted 8 minutes of their precious search time. Okay, it’s not that much, but what if one of them honestly liked me? Wanted to make a connection for a second date, friendship or even to talk business? (Though, I’ve got to admit that I think the last one’s just a little fishy.)

I didn’t check a single box.

Honestly, the guys were nice. Some cute; some so-so. A couple hinted that they’d like to see me again, which is so totally against the rules, and one kept asking if he’d chatted me up before, tried to pick me up in the past, which I just found funny.

Nevertheless, the boxes remain unchecked.

I have a little time, but my head and my heart won’t change.

Tag: Dating

Break ins

Someone broke into my car last night. Actually, “broke in” doesn’t quite describe it – the doors were unlocked. Nevertheless, somebody invaded my space, my privacy, my car, all for the sake of about 17 cents and a roll of unexposed, professional black and white film that will require a 35mm camera to expose and about $30 to develop.

This morning, walking to the metro, I thought of how I worry about my car unless I have parked in front of my house. I don’t worry about the break ins so much as parking illegally, getting tickets, the boot. (I check when I get out of the car but am suspicious of street spots – did I park in front of a hydrant, an alley, in a street cleaning zone?)

As I walked past, on the way to the metro, I automatically checked the car. I found the passenger door ajar, the center console open. Obviously, somebody broke in.

It has happened before. I used to lock the doors, but I drive a Jeep Wrangler. People used to just unzip the window, the roof and crawl right in. Since I moved to Capitol Hill a year and a half ago, it has happened, maybe, a dozen times.

I have lost money, CDs, laundry detergent (three times in a week) and half a can of Pringles. Reduced fat.

I used to get angry. I thought about what I might do. Put bleach in the laundry detergent? Put a bible in the glove compartment saying “Take it. You obviously need it more than I do"? Booby trap the car? I worried about retaliation.

I decided to unlock the doors.

This morning, on the way to the metro, I realized that someone broke into my car. I shut the console, closed the door. I have lost nothing – no real money, no belongings, no peace of mind. I let go of my anger and regained control of my life. Maybe. Just a little.

Tag: Crime Jeep Capitol Hill

Little blue boxes

I worked through college, splitting my hours between four major jobs. The first year, well, that just sucked. I cleaned rooms at a local hotel. Minimum wage, labor intensive and I came home exhausted, sleeping the rest of the weekend away.

When I came back after summer break, I realized that I would do just about anything to not clean rooms. I applied for a copy editing job. I’d been doing it for friends - why not get paid? I got the job and then realized that it really didn't pay. For $50 a semester, I worked two nights a week plus every other Sunday for about five and a half hours a night. It averaged out to about $2.42 an hour.

I needed another job.

After a month of searching and dodging calls from the Best Western, I found myself at a local store. Klevers Jewelers. I stayed for the next three years, scheduling classes around my work schedule; though, the Klevers would have done anything they could to help me with my schedule. It was a family-run jewelry store and they treated me like family.

I learned a lot working at the store. Some about jewelry. Some about working, responsibility, trust. Some about people.

One thing I realized is that jewelry stores are happy.

There are a million reasons to visit a jewelry store and other than guilt, most of them are happy. Engagement rings and wedding bands. Silver rattles. Baby bracelets. Engraved pens. Charm bracelet and pearls, silver and china. Nobody really needs any of it. People buy it because they want it.

The little blue boxes? Well, they just seem like a step up. I’m not sure why.

Maybe some of it is the movie. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Audrey Hepburn allure. Tiffany’s represented something more, something better. Perfection.

"If I could find a real life place to make me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name." - Holly

When my niece was born, I bought her an Elsa Peretti cross. (She’s also my goddaughter. My niece that is, not Elsa Peretti.) It’s still in the little blue box and will stay there until she’s sixteen. For my sister’s 30th birthday, I bought her the ID bracelet. She gave me one for mine and on that birthday, I bought myself the “k” I wear almost everyday. Even the charge on my credit statement made me happy. Tiffany #1. The original.

It makes me happy because, well, it’s a beautiful necklace. More than that, it’s a gift I gave myself. A little bit of happiness in a little blue box.

You say that we've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we're falling apart
You'll say the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
But I know you just dont care

And I said "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film,
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it."
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got."

Tag: Tiffany's

I've got the crud

I have the crud. You know it and I'm sure you've had it by now. The congestion, the hacking, the sneezing, the upper respiratory mess. I've had it about a week now and I'm not sure when I'm going to peak.

I keep thinking it might be bird flu. Every day as I walk to the Eastern Market Metro stop, I see pigeons. Lots of pigeons. I don't know exactly how bird flu spreads, or how fast or how I might get it from a pigeon but it doesn't stop me from loathing these birds as they snack on crumbs from discarded wrappers and bags of potato chips.

Would one of those birds have to fly into an open wound? Would there have to be some sort of fluid exchange? Or could the bird just cough on me? (do birds cough?) It's not like I come into regular contact with these birds, or any birds for that matter, so I don't know how exactly I would get bird flu. Regardless, those birds make me nervous.

I suppose I should worry more about my co-workers and about door handles and things like that making me ill. I don't want to imply that any one I know is exchanging bodily fluids with any of the local pigeons, but you never know.

I'll continue to hack and wheeze and cough and hopefully I peak soon. Though a word to the weary, don't get to close or too comfortable with any of the pigeons on Pennsylvania Ave, or with anyone who really likes birds, you don't know where they've been lately. And wash your hands.

Tag: Illness | Bird Flu

Mean reds

"Listen...you know those days when you get the mean reds?" - Holly

"The mean reds? You mean like the blues?" - Fred (Paul)

"No... the blues are because you're getting fat or because it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?" - Holly

"Sure." - Fred (Paul)

"When I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away." – Holly

Unfortunately, the closest Tiffany’s is in Tyson’s Corner; nothing about that will make me feel better.

Tag: Blues

First dates suck

Actually, I love dates: second dates, fourth dates, fifteenth dates. I just have problems with the first ones.

The anticipation, getting to know someone new, learning about someone, some place, something new - it all gives me a rush. First dates just feel a bit like interviewing for a job: creating a good impression without creating a false impression.

Last night, I went on a first date. With a group of very lovely women.

Bloggers all, I am not sure of the connections between us. I believe that it had something to do with a blogger Meetup (which I skipped after a red eye flight from Vegas).

I knew two of the women personally – one good friend, one newer friend. A third I knew by reputation – a friend of a friend - and the rest, the other three, I met for the first time last night.

It seemed a little strange.

As I said, we are all bloggers. I read their lives. I knew some of their joys, some of their sorrows, some of the things in between. I knew a little of each of these wonderful women, yet nothing at all.

I forgot myself at times, that I didn’t know them, that they didn’t know me and that none of us knew exactly how much the others had read, had written, had remembered.

I wanted to make a good impression.

Of course, me being me, I planned poorly. I rushed too much. In the two hours between work and dinner, I visited my sick brother, watched a [very short] DVD, swam laps, got a cramp, lost a contact, ran home, unclogged a toilet, tried to untangle my sopping hair, drove to dinner and hobbled in three minutes late. (For the record, foot cramps and knee-high, high-heeled boots do not agree.)

Fortunately, unlike most first dates, my dinner companions did not care that I looked like medusa. These women looked deeper, wanted to look deeper than wet hair and a bare face. These lovely women were intelligent, funny, quick, considerate, perfect in their imperfections. They laughed. They listened. They are as different from each other as I from them, but it worked.

I look forward to our second date.

Tag: Bloggers Dates

No pearls of wisdom

No grand revelations, resolutions, or revolutions of thought or action. 2006 seems to be bringing with it peace: peace of mind, peace of mine and maybe just a little piece of mind.

2005 went out with a bang. Actually, many bangs (on my legs, arms, pride) as I fell down a flight of steps. Sober. At the lovely restaurant where I joined a dozen or so friends for a very nice dinner. Kris in her party shoes and party dress tried to catch me on the stairs, to no avail, and I ended up with rug burns on my shins and forearms to accompany the random bruises I’d found just two hours earlier.

In order to save my face, I bared my bum, tucking my dress into my underwear. On the same trip to the bathroom. (I honestly didn’t know this happened in real life. I thought it reserved for movies, television, bad jokes.)

One of the many who’d watched me fall down the stairs came up to me and tapped my shoulder, motioning and mentioning the mistuck, my mistake.

“Your dress… It’s tucked…” she explained.

“Of course it is,” I replied, backing into a plant and the piano. Kris, the same lovely friend of the missed catch, blocked while I untucked. Still sober.

Cracking up, we returned to the table and relayed the story - many, many, many times - and I commenced drinking. The rest of the night followed without mishap except for the vegetarian entrée I ordered, which consisted primarily of the three vegetables I dislike.

I resolved to be less negative.

I enjoyed bringing in and ringing the new year with friends. My own absurdity amused me and despite the bruises and burns, my outlook is clear and bright. I eagerly anticipate a year with friends and family, bangs and scrapes and tumbles down stairs. As long as I can keep picking myself up, as long as I can keep laughing, it is going to be a very good year.

Tag: New Years Eve

The Chronicles of Narnia Rap - it could save hip-hop

Well, I don’t know about that, but Slate has a pretty interesting read on why this song isn’t just funny but why it’s good rap. I have to agree, it’s a funny, well written and well performed song that brings the genre to the geeks. It transcends the type of rap Eminem and the Beastie Boys promulgated. It’s dork rap, and it’s awesome.

Tag: SNL | Rap | TheChroniclesofNarnia | ChroniclesofNarnia