caitmakeswaste

how not to make a plan

2008-05-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry! Its been awhile!
I haven't been excessively busy or anything, just giving in to springtime premenstrual malaise.
Oh, and also freaking out about money, but what else is new, right?
I had a minor car emergency: the 'ol dear decided to need a new exhaust system (among other things) in order to pass state inspection. So I had to fork over just over $2000.00 to make things right.
It was really painful for me. I had the money--I have been saving pretty aggressively-- toward the goal of purchasing a new-to-me vehicle sometime early next year--so I had about $5000.00 in an account called "the transportation fund". I did a big pro-con list and toyed with the idea of giving up on my car and trying to sell it for parts instead of fixing it and just getting by with a bike until weather gets bad again(I tried this last summer--gave my car to my youngest sister and took the bus / biked / walked everywhere until a car cut me off on my way home one day and I broke my wrist falling off my bike, so in theory this is doable, but it makes me slightly nervous given past events). My sister pushed for immediate car shopping and using the money I had as a down payment on something new-er, pointing out that the $600 + a month I had been putting aside would be less than a car payment on most things (also, she likes to go car shopping). And then I talked to the mechanic and voiced all of my concerns and he told me that the car looks to be in really good shape (other than the exhaust) and should make it to 300,000 miles with ease(it is currently at 220,000, so this is maybe two years away). So I took $2000.00 out of my transportation fund and had it fixed. And then when it came to $2300.00 I gritted my teeth and put the rest of it on a credit card.
This was an exercize in re-working goals. I have this tendency to get really driven toward a particular goal and to lose site of other stuff, and having to go in and evaluate where I was putting my money made me realize that my $500.oo emergency fund is inadequate, and that as much as I might want a newer car, putting nearly all of my savings into one goal / fund isn't the smartest way to make it happen. Because I do get really rigid about what the money is supposed to be for, and then have trouble with re-allocation and not thinking of it as a failure. So I've restructured my savings a bit: dropped contributions to the transportation fund back to 10% of my net income and increased contributions to my emergency fund to 10% as well. I'm also putting 10% into a "house" fund (that will be way more long-term: I don't even know what town I want to live in yet!) and 10% into a sort of "undeclared" (meaning I have not stated a specific purpose for it, not that I am hiding it from the government or something) playing-with-stocks fund (through Sharebuilder, divided among 5 different index funds) that, theoretically, I can to wherever I most need the money later on . Barring sudden crashes of the economy and my own ridiculousness regarding money.
I haven't changed my pre-tax savings at all; I am still contributing 15% (which still, sadly, does not get me close to the cap of $15,500/year) of my gross every paycheck to the company 403c (but they upped their match from 7% to 8%!! so there will be slightly more money going in there after June 1). This is money I never count, although when I get the biannual report it is always nice to see those numbers and think "someday this could be mine" Haha.
I feel better about it, though I am sad when looking at the considerably lower balance in my transportation fund especially when I think about how I only paid $500.00 for the car I just fixed for $2300.00!! My hope is that it will be money well spent though, and that I will have the car for another two years at least.

They found a lot of things in the attic that day

2008-04-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

Back from California!
It was really all in all a very good trip. I got a notice from my credit card company today that I had gone over my pre-set spending limit (bound to happen when they charged the hostel room surely). but that is okay since I actually have the money to cover that mostly in hand already (payday, handily enough, is also today). The wedding I went to attend was fantastic and beautiful and an all-around good time, there was dancing and alcoholic refreshment (though not too much, just enough for a bit of bubbly fellow feeling and exchanging hats with near strangers) and delicious food and lots and lots of sunshine (because it was Santa Barbara, heretofore know as the sunshine capital of the universe--man was it bright out!). I obtained a new set of grandparents --we're supposed to have lunch in mid-May and they have demanded that I call them "Meme and Pepe" (thats French for grandma and grandpa, by the by), met another knitter who lives in the same city I live in (how strange to meet on the opposite coast!) and some all around gorgeous humans (is it that California attracts them in droves, or is it just that they're more likely to be wearing very little clothing due to the heat, so you're more likely to notice?) who pronounced me and the other East-coast wedding attendees "so 'real', you know?" which never failed to crack me up (is 'real' California code for "out-of-shape" or "pale" or both?). And I ran somewhere in the vicinity of 14 miles beach side. I had a great time. And I'm not even quite broke yet! Woo!

sofa king

2008-04-22T06:17:00.001-07:00

So I took two days off from running this weekend, sort of accidentally--I just didn't have time! I went to a friend's impromptu birthday party, which was full of margaritas and whiffle ball(excellent combination, by the way, though it did end with getting the whiffle ball somehow stuck in a tree), and then the next day got talked into going to my sister's best friend from college's baby shower(no margaritas but there was that punch with the sherbet floating in it? and a tour of their new house, which was mega super cool--a really well kept 1880s farm house they've inherited). All of this would have been no problem if these people were not spread out over several hours of driving in different directions. But it was fun anyway! In between (on the way down to my friend's birthday party, and then on the way up to my sister's friend's baby shower) I picked up the last few things that I needed for my trip, so that now I should be all set (well, I still need new running shoes) to just pack and go on Wednesday.
The upshot of this was that yesterday's seven miler felt amazing. It was like my body was having a sort of revelation, saying "damn! I missed this!" and feeling really well rested --the end of last week I definitely felt like I was proceeding more slowly than usual, but I felt speedy as they come yesterday! Downside is I've sort of broken my streak, and I have this wish to keep my mileage above 20 for the week, which translates into a couple of long "insurance" runs before I leave--I have a tendency to run short (and slow) when I don't know an area well. I like to look at houses.
Financially, the next couple of weeks are going to be a bit of a stretch. I've been keeping the spending pretty tightly in check, most weeks getting by without spending too much more than $100 (pretty much gas+ food) and this week is going to be different, to say the least. I've got a "fun fund" to tap into for this, but you know how it goes--you have some money sitting in a fund and it becomes a sort of comforting cushion--I've been looking at that $500 as my sort of "pre-emergency emergency fund" and now I am really hesitant about spending it. This is of course ridiculous and entirely a psychological problem of my own, but that doesn't make it easier to get around.

Happy Tax Day Uncle Sam

2008-04-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

Its gloriously sunny outside today, still chilly enough to need a jacket (and scarf...and mittens) but the sunshine makes it feel refreshing rather than frigid.
Yesterday afternoon I went running in my cardigan sweater after work. That was a little ridiculous, but it was cold enough to need a coat (and I hadn't brought one appropriate for running) so I figured that my sweater might work--and it did, though it is certainly as dirty as it is ever likely to get(when its cold out my nose runs harder than I do).
I've been running most days for the past three weeks or so--I'm trying to make a habit of it, and so far the easiest way to do that is to run before I leave work for the day (even if I do it after the actual work day, I don't go home and then go running, I go running and then go home). Something about coming home at the end of the day seems to prevent me from getting a run done--this hasn't always been the case, when I was living by myself I think I was sort of in a routine of running before I did anything else for the evening, but living with roommates (several of whom are about as inactive as you can get) there seems to be a certain amount of inertia contained within the building.
I've read a couple of things on your friends and acquaintances impact on your health and size
and I understand the idea, I think: a lot of it has to do with the social norms you create as a group--whether or not seconds or thirds or extra poundage are accepted creates a way of eating and living that either is or is not conducive to weight gain. Its all about being creatures of habit. Which certainly we all are at least to some extent.
So I am trying to create in myself a habit of daily running--I've never been successful at it before--in the past when I've been training for specific events I have hurt myself every time I've tried to make the sessions daily rather than having a "light" day in between, but right now I'm not actively training for anything--and so some of my running days are very "light", but they're still days I run. I'm liking it a lot so far. I'm generally pumped to go out and do it, even if "it" is only three miles, I love that my weekly mileage is creeping up and my hips are disappearing (the more mileage I log, the smaller my hips seem to get, everything certainly tightens as a matter of course, but my hips specifically seem to shrink away-- I have no idea of exactly why, other than it is perhaps where I carry excess weight). I have more energy and am sleeping better. Its great! I suppose we'll see how long it takes me to hurt myself this time--I always seem to find a way!

Someone stole all the earplugs!

2008-04-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday!
Friday seems to be one of people's favorite days around here. In fact, my boss generally refers to Thursdays as "Friday eve" Which is kind of funny. But really only the first time you hear it. But anyway.
One Friday a month are staff meetings, which mean food and talking via video conference equipment with people we don't generally see but do talk to a lot via email, so it has a certain novel appeal.
As does moving office furniture. So thats what I'm going to go do now.
Have a good weekend!

Now you're singing from your socks!

2008-04-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

It has been amazingly spring-like here for the last week or so, and in celebration I've been running almost every day for the last week and a half. I'm not usually a daily runner--I think I have more of a tendency to injure myself when I run everyday, but last week when there were two sunny mid-40s days in a row (with a possibility of snow& sleet(that didn't ultimately happen) on the 3rd day) I thought "I can't pass this up! What if it snows again!" and I've been sort of playing it by ear ever since: so far no new aches or pains, and my hips (which have been my problem spot--bursitis is a horrible thing, let me tell you) have been awesome lately! Yeah!
In other news-that-isn't-but-is-to-me:
I hosted a clothing swap at my house on Saturday: If you are craving spring new clothes but dreading the price of such things, I would have to say this type of event comes highly recommended by me: it was awesome! It totally fulfilled my springtime urge for new clothing and was a good way to get together with friends I haven't seen in awhile. I told about 15 people about it and only about 7 showed up, but that was plenty. I made some food, people brought wine and it was all the fun of shopping with a group of friends ("oh my god you've got to try that on!" "oh that color! what were you thinking?!", enormous amounts of giggling, et cetera) without the price tag! I spent about $40 on food (which will also last me the rest of this week, I made more than people were willing to eat while also trying on clothing) and came away with several new-ish pairs of pants and spring-ier shirts and light sweaters. When I invited one particular friend she said "Oh! a "naked lady" party!" and I thought that sounded sort of strange (and lewd) but once boyfriends and other males left there was indeed a fair amount of pants-less-ness going on in my living room as people decided to just try things on where they lay :) so now it does make some sense.
Also in money saving modes: My days of paying for rentals may be about over! hulu might be all I need: Generally when I do the netflix thing it is for the old tv shows or new-er movies, a lot of which seem to be on hulu--and since I already have internet access and don't mind watching on a computer screen (actually right now we don't have a working dvd player anyway so thats the only option in the house). So with the addition of some red box codes I might be able to stretch the "entertainment" part of my budget further than ever before! I am pretty excited about this, any ways I can find to trim a little $ means I don't have to worry quite so much about gas prices going through the roof before it is warm enough to start riding my bike in to work again.

the handbook of misinterpreted activities

2008-03-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

Its very Gray here and hard to remember that it is officially spring.
They've boarded up the windows in my office so even the gray doesn't penetrate--my whole world is brick-and-beige. If it weren't for the doorway (and sobriety) it would feel like a Poe story.
Its for progress that they've gone and bricked up my view, but it doesn't make me very happy. My understanding is that this is a temporary situation, but that doesn't really make it suck less.
I've been thinking about that, the temporary: Mostly my time lines for things in a "Your money or your life" way: I want to be living it not working for it, you know?
Sometimes I could kick myself for going to graduate school the way I did. If I hadn't, I would still have had school debt, but on a much smaller scale. I would also, however not have had the work opportunities that I've had with the extra degree. But maybe that would have made me get off my ass and get writing, something I tell myself I would like to do more of but rarely manage to do more of.
And I really like my job. I do. When I first started it, I wondered several times the first month if I hadn't actually hallucinated it: its that good. But (as my father always has said) there is still a reason they pay you to go there: right now that reason is that I can't see the outside world or any natural light at all from my desk: I'm pretty much in a packing crate. This is really sad given that I used to have a great view of the river.
So: how long am I here for anyway? Is this what I want to do with my life? What could be next?
Always the questions, huh?
I know I would like to try my hand at self-sufficiancy. Living off the land as much as possible. I've read a lot on the topic and it is exciting and also scary to me: mostly in that big-bad-world/woman-alone way. So (don't laugh please) I've been doing some weight training and taking a karate class. damned if I will be a girl in distress if I can help it. There is a school of traditional building an hour or so north of here that does timber framing workshops a couple of times a year(and once you take a class they'll let you host a workshop on your property--i.e. lend their help to put up your house, which is quite appealing), or there are always Yurts--which as they are lightweight might actually be a better option for a girl to think about putting up on her own. These are not exactly low-cost things though, The timber framing course is around $800 and a Yurt can run close to $10,000 (that was for a used one with some sort of deluxe snow package, which this year might have come in handy here). So I've got a little ways to go. But I do think (well, obviously) that that is the direction I'm headed in: I'd like to pay down as much of my school loan as possible and build myself a fat little efund and also buy a little piece of the planet to call my own and live as close to it as possible. At the rate I'm going, I think I'm looking at 5-8 years. Is 5-8 years in a packing crate worth it? Hard to say, and who knows, maybe I will have changed my mind by then anyway.

into the lab again once more

2008-03-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

The weekend away was great! Raleigh was a very cool (fairly inexpensive) place to go for a weekend. There were even daffodils! It was still pretty much sweat-shirt weather, but I did wear my flip flops the whole time without ill effect.
It was really great to re-connect with my friend from gradschool too, and totally fascinating to me how different our lives and backgrounds are--this has always fascinated me about this particular friend, but I kind of forgot until we were talking and comparing our career paths and also to a certain extent our finances. I was bowled over by how different our paths have been.
Without giving too much away, let me explain: I had written something fairly long and detailed about our particular paths and current places, but it seemed to just come off as though I was bad-mouthing her decisions. I don't want to do that. Everyone makes their own choices and has to live with them, and I don't want to be the sort of person who casts aspersions and questions the abilities of others or even be a person who sounds like they are by comparing themselves to another. Suffice it to say, I had a really good time, but there were several times over the course of the weekend where my inner cheapskates' eyes popped at some of the things that we differ on budget-wise. I thought it was really interesting that people who are so similar in some ways can be so completely different in other ways. My major memories and experiences with this person are all attached to a time in our lives where we felt we were broke, at least temporarily, and though I have sort of stayed in that mind-set (or budget, I guess) she has moved beyond that and is finding herself frustrated by the limitations of her income.
But aren't we all frustrated by the limitations of our income? I know I am always hoping I can spend a little less and save a little more--even when I go and do things like take a weekend trip. And I did manage to keep my spending to cash and spend less than $100 over the course of the weekend on food and drink and a birthday present for my dad, so I am pretty happy about that!

caveat

2008-03-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, so re-reading the posts I linked to yesterday, I feel I should say. Ultra-ready I am not. I am most likely much too laid back to ever actually commit to that sort of distance (though I have trained for marathons and run them in the past). Ultra is different. I have a feeling it would shred my hip joints.

Anyway.
I'm going away for a weekend, to visit a friend from grad school. Its pretty exciting (to me)--I haven't been doing much in the way of traveling lately. I've been a crazy little saver lately instead, which makes me nervous about this trip: for awhile after I bought the plane ticket I was regretting having spent the money ($158 round trip) --it could have gone so many other places! But I've never been to North Carolina (where my friend is currently living) and I haven't seen her since I finished up my program (I got a job pretty quick and was living too far away to go back for graduation).
I've already committed to going to a wedding in California in April, it will be an expensive (and tight) couple of months. I am waiting to hear back from a friend who might come out to California with me--it would be great to have someone to split the hotel room with, but I am not sure if she is about to bail on me (I called her yesterday to say I was ready to buy the tickets and book the hotel room and she asked me to wait until today...dun-dun-duhhn). She just had a baby, and as far as I know it doesn't have any sort of job at the moment, so I can understand her reasons if she decides she can't go. (yeah, we're supposed to take the baby too--traveling with a 6 month old will be a new experience for me).
Its a hard thing: I have all of these savings goals and a massive percentage of my income (I think I'm at about 55% ? its not a huge amount of money, sadly, but it is kind of cool--totally only do-able because my living costs are so low right now--having 4 roommates has a definite upside!) being direct deposited into various accounts and holdings, and I don't want to stop any of it--which I can (conceivably) get away with if most all of my discretionary money gets put toward travel expenses...which will be hard given the price of gas and necessity of food. But I have been saying I wanted to loose some weight...Not that starvation for budgetary reasons is really a good diet plan to follow. I just get nervous when it looks like the numbers are going to be close--if I have any sort of snafu like my double-deposit nightmare I could be in some trouble real quick.

In it for the T-shirt

2008-03-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

I keep reading on various PF (personal finance--I love these!!) blogs about connections between running and PF/ frugality, and similarities between running and professional careers(okay, both of those are talking running as in Ultra running--which I have yet to catapult into. I've done my 26.2 and at the moment I will probably be staying well away from any Ultra events--I've only just gotten my hip to stop screaming at me on a daily basis!). Its interesting to me because I am/ have been a runner for awhile, and I am sort of paranoid about money if not totally frugal.
I don't run much with groups--I am thinking that that might change, there is a local track club that has a meeting once a week about a quarter mile from my house, I would be an idiot to not take advantage of that, but for the time being, I usually just run by myself, occasionally with one or two other people (my little sister and I have been known to buddy up for training runs: where she kicks my ass, and sometimes she will stick with me through the beginning of a race). For me, running isn't necessarily a social activity, but I wonder if I would do it more if it were?
I'm not really uber-social, I like a good book or long weekend totally to myself every now and again, but sometimes having people around can be good(like at the end of that long weekend where you find yourself talking to your cats).
Running appeals to me because it is something you can do alone, and because it is something you can do with very little equipment (sneakers, and if you're a girl, a good bra) and very little training (really, once you learn to walk you're on your way). So the initial costs are very low. Sure, you can buy some really spiffy stuff (that ipod that has the shoe attachment and tells you your mileage) but you really don't need it. So I think that might go a ways toward explaining the PF-running connection, but the professions? The two I've seen mentioned were teaching and programming. Anecdotally, when I was helping with course clean up after my last race, I was doing it with an electrical engineer and a programmer (I'm in education myself). So I guess that could be a pretty true-to-life equation. But I have family members who are runners and belong to other professions (and doing a poll of my extended family the largest running group are those in the medical professions) I think it is maybe a little closer to the truth to say that people who tend to be overachievers/perfectionists/totally and ridiculously passionately involved in their careers are more likely to find running appealing. My youngest sister (@med school currently) has said it best I think: "there is nothing else that makes you feel like you're working quite as hard". Its all about the push I think.
And on that note: I'm hoping to do a timed 5k on my own tonight in preparation for a race I'm running with work folks next week. I want to kick some ass at that one.

tripping on the alarm bell

2008-03-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

Why isn't daylight more of an intoxicant? Don't you just wish sometimes that the mere act of respiration could infuse your soul with glee--that some sort of genial hallucinogenic powder could have accidentally been spread on your office chair?
I am having a sort of longing for college lately. But not the class part (and in general I enjoyed the class part) more the alleged extra-curricular illegal substances part. It was never a huge part of my life, but it was certainly an interesting sideline.
Yesterday afternoon was sort of pleasant that way, only with alcohol and live Celtic music at some bar downtown. It was nice. I got very full (nothing goes with Sunday like Guinness) so after the second one I called it quits and had a pleasant little glow to go with the fading afternoon light. Very nice indeed.
My finances were a little out of control at the end of February--that whole double-withdrawal thing really freaked me out, and so with the start of this new month I am still feeling some hesitation and worry in the financial sector of my life. I am hoping it doesn't happen again, and also worried that it could--that my finances could be totally out of my own control for the foreseeable future. That would be a very bad thing. Some of the worry comes, I think, from waiting for money (seemingly endlessly--I got my federal tax return back in the mail late last week: I forgot to sign it! so I don't know when I will actually get the refund I am supposed to have coming to me). I have a roommate who hasn't been doing so well financially (a post for another day: diet and finance: the mind-money-health connection)--she just started a new job, so things should be better. She's owed me money for utilities for about a month now, and when she got her paycheck on Friday she sent me a happy payday email letting me know she was going to pay me...but she still hasn't. She has been out to dinner with friends every night this weekend though, and did a (from the looks of the fridge anyway) huge grocery shopping as well, so I'm a little nervous that her good intentions may have been subverted by her stomach. Which, well, I don't feel like I can complain about honestly: you need to eat. I totally get that. I am not going to deny someone food so that I can get my money. On the other hand, its kind of inconveniencing me (not to the extent of starvation, but to the hey-can-I-really-afford-another-beer?-nope-not-really point). I don't want to have to hound her for the money, I know (the text message) that she knows she owes me...so now I'm just waiting for the check. And waiting. And waiting

what happens if the world is your oyster and you're allergic to shell fish?

2008-02-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

Today the world is doing this thing where it is very slowly snowing: those big fat lazy kind of flakes that swirl and dance as they come down, and don't ever seem to amount to much on the ground. Its beautiful and romantic and causes me to gaze longingly out my window rather than doing things like real work or even fake work (hello blog).
I think I am at heart a lazy sort of a creature. Although my laziness is punctuated by periods of actual productivity. Today, however, would appear to be one of the lazier days.
Yeah, not much productivity in sight. But the snow sure is pretty.
Everyone around me seems to have made it a point to grouse about the snow at least a little bit. But come on people--isn't this what you expect of a proper winter? I think people who aren't directly related to snow industries tend to forget that historically March is the biggest snow month here (I dated a guy in college who did ski business--yes it was a real program. and he lived like he had a trust fund coming to him (he didn't, he just liked to pretend) and spent most of his time on a snowboard. --so I know a bit more than I ever wanted to about the back end of such things--but I also got to go to some World Cup events --and see Wu Tang for free once (honestly, if it wasn't free I would have missed that one) --and Vail for a couple of weeks one year. It certainly wasn't all bad:) ) so we should be expecting more of the same, whether we want it or not.
I've always been a fan of snow. I'm not really excited about driving in it all the time (when things go wrong they can go scarily wrong. I have done my share of accidental 360s) but I don't generally mind (driving chant: slow-n-steady-slow-n-steady). On the whole, though I do like having it around. The winter I lived in England I really missed the snow (England's winters are very very damp plenty of rain and mist, only once while I was there did it "snow" --for all of about 20 minutes) although I did run a lot more that winter than any winter lately. When I was in high school I always traded my sneakers in for skis (nordic) for the winter, but lately I don't feel like I have the cash or time to make that kind of trade--I still have my high school race skis, I just don't have all the assorted upkeep-equipment: the wax and scrapers and iron and klister (eeewe klister-- I worked at an XC place one winter that called their snack bar the Klister Kitchen. Klister is extremely sticky gooey stuff that, if someone brought it into your kitchen, you would probably boil them alive for resulting mess--I always thought that was rather ridiculous. Oh the powers of alliteration)--all that good stuff. Which is another way of saying: I am way too lazy to gather all of this miscellaneous equipment that would probably cost me less than $40 to acquire.
Hah. I have just written yet another post about how lame I am. I guess thats sort of what they always boil down too. I should probably change the title up there to "The Lame Adventures of Cait the Mundane" or something. actually I kind of like how that sounds.

edit to the last post

2008-02-27T08:13:00.000-08:00

Well, this is a first.
I totally forgot about halfway through typing that last bit that I was going somewhere with that first paragraph that I never quite got to(You're not surprised, are you? Of course not. We're talking about the girl who licked a paper towel) . So anyway, where was I?
Okay: so the ranty mcranty rant that I went off on earlier: That whole entitlement thing really makes me queasy, but I totally do it too (doesn't everyone?) about stupid stuff like making my lunch every day for a week (I get to order Thai takeout!) and running over fifteen miles in a given week (automatic ice cream!) and sticking to my savings/ debt repayment goals (trips--next month NC here I come!).
And is there anything that makes you think you've "earned" something like being broke for a week? I wrote earlier about how I screwed up and double-withdrew from my checking account...so its taken until today for things to finally reverse and all to be good again in the Checking World, and so all week I've been making little lists in my head of what I was going to do/have/buy when I got that money back because I have been "broke" all week.
(on a side note: I dated a guy in college who once, between jobs, went (with me in tow) on a CD purchasing binge because, he said "nothing makes me want to buy things quite like being broke" he obviously had some problems with personal finance, but isn't it just the truth sometimes?)
So the money is back in my account, and I don't think I am going to do much of anything with it except put gas in my car and pay back my "utoh"fund for the gas bill. Which sort of makes it a savings extravaganza (sort of) ...kind of makes me want to go out and splurge on something.
Okay, now I think I'm done here.

s'not funny

2008-02-27T05:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wish the world owed me something. Most of the time I loathe the people who operate that way though--you know the ones? The folks who give in to introspective selfishness and indulge themselves at every given opportunity because they've "earned it" when in reality, or at least from the outside, it doesn't really look like all that much has happened / been earned / is deserved at all.
Privilege. Its one of those things that raises my hackles. Partly because of the class-awareness/ classlessness of the American system , at least in the time I grew up in (the mid-to-late '80s preppie fascination with upper-class stylings; the late '80s-'90s grunge-itude and punk resurgence when the "wrong side of the tracks" was the right one). Partly, I guess, just because .
I think part of the problem we are finding ourselves in today, as a country (hello mortgage crisis, hello credit card debt and negative savings rate, hello corporate scavenging by CEOs CFOs and COOs) is because somewhere in the American Dream propaganda, and the life-will-be-better jargon is this idea that you've earned it--the bigger house (that you can't quite afford)--the flashy flat screen (no cash? put it on the credit card!) --the two cars and daily Starbucks coffee(car payment or savings account? car payment!) --the multi-million dollar bonus even though you have to cut 30,000 jobs to make a profit (this one really gets me--(class warfare!) "competitive benefits" my ass).
Yeah, we work pretty hard. But that doesn't automatically entitle anyone to anything, does it?
I guess it should entitle you to what you've earned: your paycheck. Decent benefits, a modicum of security that your job will be there next quarter or year or decade, or at least a heed-able warning that bad times are coming.
That is certainly not to say that the stereotype I've just drawn is all that wide reaching --I mean, its a caricature if its anything, obviously--but it is also a feeling I get, sometimes, talking to people. My friends from college believing in the Great White Dream (mr. shining armor coming to take their credit card debt and dead end jobs away) the few hospital administrators and insurance types I talk to with any sort of regularity (insurance ethics? now theres a joke), the other kids, like me, a few years out of college or graduate school trying to put things together and making a place for "whats in it for me?" (I work sixty hour weeks. The least I can give myself is a daily mocha latte. And a gym membership. And a monthly pedicure. And a night out with the guys. et cetera et cetera). Its like the whole world is on a treadmill these days: we're not going anywhere, but we're still afraid we might fall off.

smile when they ask you too and you'll get them expecting things

2008-02-25T06:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday.
I did a stupid thing last week. Or actually, somehow I managed to do a stupid thing a couple of weeks ago, but because it was a stupid thing having to do with automatic transfers of funds, it didn't kick in until last week.
I have set up automatic transfers of money into various accounts, to coincide with my pay dates. Its really nice, an easy way to save money and stay on-budget or close to it. When I first set it up (sometime last year) I was really fanatical about checking every time I had a transfer set to go, to see what the balance was in each account, see when it had gone through, see how much was left in my "spending money" account, that sort of thing. But then I got used to it, and used to just having a certain amount left over after all was said and done with the transfers.
I got a notice from Sharebuilder (who I've been using for a couple of years now, but who I've only been automatically saving with for maybe five months) recommending that I check my account and "re-balance" to make sure I'm meeting my savings goals et cetera. I'm totally invested in Index funds through Sharebuilder, so there isn't really too much to do as far as "balancing", but the stock market is kind of tanking, and it has come to my attention that I am going to need to be investing in a new(-er, it will still be used, rest assured, but it will be a new-to-me) car in the near-er rather than farther future. So I decided to about halve my contributions to Sharebuilder and funnel the other monies into a "car fund". I thought I had gone about doing this correctly, but apparently I never canceled the original transfer-of-funds order for Sharebuilder, I just added another that was half as much. At the same time I set up a transfer into an ING account for half as much. So I got screwed on this one when I tried to withdraw the same money twice basically. I feel like such a doofus. I'm really lucky it didn't screw anything else up, but now I am waiting two more days for that money to get re-deposited into my spending money account so I can buy groceries.
Its always something, isn't it?

how very unexpected

2008-02-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

So its snowing here, which was expected. Only I thought for sure it wasn't going to start until later on. So now I'm kind of screwed because I didn't go running this morning.
So instead I am admiring the construction worker outside my window. There is just something about carharts, you know? Man.
Anyway I guess the east coast is supposed to get slammed. Its like a gigantic conspiracy by the internet to make me fat and lazy. And damn is it working well.
Oh universe, why are you against me?

Whats the crisis compadre?

2008-02-21T06:19:00.000-08:00

So the mid-life-crisis our fathers had has turned into a quarter-life or first-third-of-life or third-decade-of-life -crisis for our generation.
So many folks I know who are on the eve of their third decade seem to be taking a break or breaking things off or trying to change some huge thing about their lives right now--like where they live, or the industry they work in, or the company they keep. Its really kind of fascinating.
Myself, I don't know. My roommate and I were talking last night about making a list of things we want to do before we turn thirty (its kind of a big number, and if you're in your mid-twenties anyway, it has begun to feel land-mark-ish and like it is approaching rather quickly).
Maybe this comes from what they were saying in Time and People and other singular-word-named-publications when I was in high school: that we, as a generation, were growing up faster than our parents had (even with the drugs sex and rock'n'roll of their time)--we're all revved on group supervised activities created to improve our marketable skills and computers in our bedrooms, all jaded and promiscuous because of the easy availability of condoms and ecstasy since our early teens.
And maybe now we're just hitting the wall: we've been out of college for a decent handful of years and what has any of us accomplished? I know a lot of girls who have gotten married (and at least one who has subsequently gotten divorced) some are pregnant with their first child, others have dropped a sprog already (sorry, that sounds cruder than I meant it to). But are we where we want to be?
Is anyone ever where they want to be?
Has anyone even figured out where they want to be yet? I sure haven't. And that is certainly worrying. Shouldn't I know by now? If I don't know now, will I ever?
I have several female friends who each, singularly, have a fantasy of a male savior. Of some guy sweeping in and taking care of their life, marrying them, taking them away from the work-a-day world and up into something infinitely preferable: marriage and being a stay-at-home-mom seems to be the general way this particular fantasy ends. I can't really stomach that one, myself. Its just too fatalistic. Too little control of your own destiny is disgusting, as far as I can see. But for these friends its not really the end (hazy-misted and far away as it is) that matters, its the idea that something else might exist within reach, that gets them through a dead-end day at a dead-end job. Keeps the crisis at bay.
And what keeps my own personal crisis at bay? Well, I'm trying to see life as a work in progress and not freak out too much about level-setting and goalposts. I think its important to remember that the ultimate goal of this particular journey is a graveyard somewhere (oh I'm just so happy. What pleasant imagery, huh?). But seriously: thats what we get to at the end, no matter what sort of crisis we have or avert today. So you might as well enjoy it while you've got it.

bitter orange

2008-02-20T06:06:00.000-08:00

So, contrary to popular opinion, losing weight and skinny pants are apparently not correlated in my life.
I stepped on the scale yesterday to discover that I had gained about 4 pounds. This is depressing because I wanted to lose about 10 before this incident, so now I want to lose about 15. Man. Isn't that just always the way?
I haven't been doing a whole lot of running lately, in the winter its always a little harder to talk myself into getting out and doing it--it becomes more of a "get it over with" kind of thing, rather than a "yeah! lets do this!" kind of thing, and I am just not dedicated enough to "get it over with" more than once or twice a week I guess.
Well, unless you bring weight into it. Stepping on the scale and seeing the numbers go up rather than down is always something that will make me rethink my commitment level (which obviously isn't all that high). So I know I need to do more.
Weird thing is:
This morning I was pretty much totally out of pants. I haven't done laundry in over a week, so I've managed to make most all of them slightly too grimy for work. I pull out the dreaded skinny pants--which usually fit if I'm running 15+ miles a week or so (my hips shrink, I swear) and give them a look, knowing that the scale has said they shouldn't fit right now. But I try them on anyway, because I'm desperate for pants. And they do fit. Weird. I mean, I did have to do a little shimmy to get them over my hips to begin with, but they button fine and are not saran-wrap tight or anything. its very strange.
Whats bad is what this particular information could do to that revised commitment level. Yeah. I'll try not to let the pants go to my head, but its going to be hard. I mean, they're the skinny pants!
I am so going running this afternoon. I so am.

now in tasty snack size

2008-02-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hi
So this is just a post to remember that I like to post. Type type type. oh how fun.
Yeah.
Things are not too bad, not to spectacular, not too too--you know?
nothing very exciting has happened in awhile. so I am not ignoring this thing or anything, I just don't have too much going on right now. and I can't seem to come up with a rich inner life to fill in the gaps either.
Maybe next week will be better.

measured in verticle inches

2008-02-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have those mornings where once you get out of bed nothing else is easy? Not having trouble getting out of bed, but upon leaving your bedroom being suddenly sapped for energy and ready to return and stay? I'm currently having one of those. Oh yeah.
So easily distracted and uninterested in it all.
Oh and did I mention theboy called from NZ? Do I even have to mention? It was really good to talk to him blah blah blah but then after that I didn't even have to get drunk to feel like I have a hangover/got hit by a truck in my sleep last night.
well, I'm a dipshit, what can I say. And also this is officially the world's weirdest "breakup" (yes it deserves quotes. it is not all in my head. I swear. I hope) I mean. why does every conversation end with "I love you"? whats up with that? I keep making ultimatums to myself about moving on or (how stupid is this?!) what to say to him when he comes back (oh yeah. in a year? or more. I'm such an ass)
Do you ever do that (I say that like other people read this thing. I have some ego today, let me tell you) ? I mean, plan a conversation, or plan responses to imaginary questions? Sort of get your story straight or provide your own imaginary witty banter as you get ready for your day (imagine: putting on your socks and having this conversation "what? oh these socks, hah, my mother made them. they are very fuzzy but quite warm. yes yes so funny" as if anyone is ever going to ask you who made your socks--but if you, too have stupid imaginary dialog, you too should try blogging!)
But anyway, yeah. I have this list of things I want to do, and indicators that I am generally an ass when it comes to making decisions that relate to men (case in point: mr.goodbye-i-don't-owe-you-anything, whose cell phone I paid for for three months after our breakup, who I loaned money to so he could break our lease (losing me the security deposit, which of course I had paid in full for us both) and who owes me money to this day--I try to forget about that one most days, but he certainly was a series of lessons learned).
I don't even know if any of the plans are worth it--am I just trying vainly to make myself worthwhile? How lame is that? I wish a dinosaur would eat me.
But the conversation I like to pretend I would have with Theboy goes a little like this
(him): I missed you! I want you back!
(me, all calm-cool-collected): oh i don't know, I've grown so accustomed to not having you around.
(him, obviously frantic and repentant): oh no! please take me back!
(me, kind and sad): well you see, there are things i would like to do before i get seriously involved with someone again. i need time for myself.
(him, dropping to the ground in despair): is there anything i can do?
...yeah, i know. fantastic isn't it? my imagination is rather trite today. maybe after that last bit he should get eaten by a dinosaur. put him out of his misery.
too bad i am too vengeful to be "kind and sad" like the script calls for up there.
also i've never been referred to as "calm cool and collected" either, save for in my little fantasy- mind-scripts. I'm more likely to attack someone with a spoon or cry uncontrollably. oh well.

kerfluffel

2008-02-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't love a strange word?
Apparently there are a lot of people who don't. I always find it quite amazing that some people seem so totally uninspired by the language--how can you go about your daily business without at least noticing (if not pausing to ponder) the wonder that is modern language structure?
I have particular words that I am fond of, even particular letters that are favorites and not-so-favorites of mine (I have never liked the letter k. And I can really give you no good reason, other than the fact that probably someone in my formative years attempted to spell "cait" with a "k" and I hated on that change the way children often do). You know the ones that keep you up at night / get you up in the morning: anathema, indefatigable, leachate, orangutan, cake, wobbly, muffin, pants, lobby, existential, lupine, prosaic, libertine, dilettante, mouse, pancake.
so I was very greatly pleased to discover this . A very neat thing indeed (and probably the perfect place to put that list right there too, huh?) total swoon.
In other news: one of the bars downtown had dollar drafts last night. Yet another beautiful thing. Sad that it was so frickin freezing that I drove to the bar and had exactly $1 worth of beer. But it was tasty nonetheless. I am hoping against hope for warmer weather next monday so that I might manage several more dollars worth and have a leisurely stagger home.
I'm all about the responsibility or rather the un-shouldering of it.

The Shallow Cup

2008-02-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry for being so lame about this thing lately.
Haven't really been very good at motivating myself lately. I need to find a way around that, but so far its a lot easier to just wallow in it. I kind of wish I was a fatalist lately. That I could just sort of give it up and wait for something to happen to me. But I've never been much for that. Fatalism is for floaters. I don't want to float, I want to swim run bike whatever the terrain requires. I'm leaving under my own power.
Its just one of those things. I'm a girl, and I'm small and I have a total lack of upper-body strength and I haven't ever wanted to give in just because of any of that. I am going to do it on my own, even if I can't actually do it at all. I've never been good at asking for help (with pretty much anything: heavy objects, a total lack of paycheck, whatever, I am much better at giving help than receiving it. I'm always too ashamed--I feel like its cheating, and like other people probably need that help more anyway).
But yeah, so I'm in sort of a funk. The kind of funk where I don't really feel much like doing much of anything at all. Writing included. But I am trying to move past that by just ignoring the whiny pansy-ass part of my mind that is crying "Noooooooo!" every time I get out of bed and just going on with things as though it weren't there at all.
This morning I pretended that my cat needed me to get out of bed, that she was my sidekick in a wacky comedy series and she was sick (cough, cough) and I had to go to work to get her medicine and so I had to get up otherwise the tv audience watching at home would know that I was a lazy sack and stop tuning in every week for our outrageous adventures, and then we would have to get real jobs again and poor sick sidekick kitten would never be able to hold down a real job so we might end up out on the street. She totally played along by getting up even more slowly than I did (loaf--kitty) and then getting all mouthy and following me into the bathroom to perch on the sink and serenade (berate) me while I showered.
I know its rather more involved than it ought to be probably, but providing a zany and improbable backstory to my morning makes it at least slightly better.
I was going to go running yesterday but I couldn't hack it and now the temperature has dropped and its about 10 degrees out and man am I going to feel lame if I can't talk myself into a mid-afternoon run. Perhaps it is some sort of challenge? Maybe I need to rescue a group of retired clowns who are on a hijacked school bus headed toward the ocean. ..yeah, I don't know about that one either.

we're gonna gonna

2008-01-29T16:23:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life is easy to forget about. Sometimes you just sort of roll with it and things go along fine and you don’t even need to look deeper or think that maybe you ought to be finding a reason or drive or need to push you onward outward forward.

But then things get slow, there is nothing on television (or you don’t have one) and your boyfriend is out of town (or he left you) or you read all the books from the library already (or the ones you bought from Amazon still haven’t arrived) and then you start to wonder. What in the hell should I be doing with myself anyway? Shouldn’t there be something: a driving desire to write and have the writing be readable / be read by someone, or a craving for entrepreneurial enterprises: to go out on your own and start a dynasty, a hegemony, an institution of a small business? Shouldn’t I need something like that? Surely it would be a hell of a lot easier to get up in the morning if I could just picture something that concrete.

I think often in novels the main character has such a drive, such a need to succeed and re-create themselves in such an image of success. But I am not sure if that isn’t just a plot device rather than a common life plan. Damn it.

Well, I guess at least that means that I shouldn’t feel so bad for taking so long to figure mine out.

I hear reminiscence can kill you

2008-01-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

Its a bad idea to re-read your own stuff. It just reminds you how enduringly pathetic you are.
And obviously I don't need reminding.
One of the holes the construction workers outside my window dug last week filled with water over the weekend and they have spent all morning pumping it out. Its about 18 degrees outside today so I can look at them and be really really greatful that it was never my life's ambition to be a construction worker, because it looks like today would be the kind of day that would kill an ambition like that.
And nobody really wants to live through the day their life's ambition is killed, do they? I don't anyway.
I have this half hearted ambition to aspire to thinness. I have never really experienced thinness personally, and from an outsider's standpoint, it looks like it could be nice. Those skinny girls always look so happy eating their nachos and batting their eyelashes at the big wide world that would appear to be theirs for the taking.
So I aspire. But really only half-assedly. Its sad really. But most anything approached with a lack of conviction are eventually sad.
I go along for most of a day (we're talking the awake part, obviously, so we can say between 12 and 14 hours in a stretch) thinking that I will be good and control my intake of calories and then put forth some effort in the form of exercize to narrow myself even further and I will win this battle and be able to stand beside someone sideways and disappear. Delightful idea, right? There are all sorts of pop culture images that recommend this approach on perusal. Who among us doesn't look at Angelina and think even as the headlines scream above her that she is wasting away that she looks damn good in that black dress? Yeah, I know. Its totally anti-woman and anti-strength and anti-feminist to believe so but I still wish I had a little more conviction. But I don't, as displayed by the following:
@ I crave chocolate almost constantly. Its horrible and it won't go away and I want to eat Milk Ghirardelli Chocolate Chips every day for a month.
@ I give in an annoying amount of the time. Sometimes I can go two or three days without having any, and then it gets a little easier, but most of the time I can reason myself into a small bowl of chocolate chips or something similar with embarrassing ease.
@ yesterday I bypassed the chocolate chips at the grocery store and resolved to stay strong, but last night as I was taking out the garbage I convinced myself I could go for it and bought some Chubby Hubby at the convenience store down the street and ate the whole pint
@ I can't seem to make myself puke it up either. I am that lame. I thought about it and didn't go through with it. I have no shame and I lack commitment.
@ I didn't even go running yesterday, because it was snowing. I might go today, or I might just continue to suck at life

So yeah, I pretty much suck. Its one of those you-know-better-but-you-just-can't-help-it sort of things: I have read enough stupid books on the topic that I should be attempting to change the bad behaviors and yet I continue the cycle, keep banging my head against that wall, and am frustrated with my lack of results. How ridiculous is that?
Completely. I know.

in a post-fanatic haze

2008-01-25T06:52:00.000-08:00

What is it about winter? I feel sluggish and hungry and lazy. I don't really want to go out and do anything at all. I have no real interest in exercize. I want to watch movies and read books and wear blankets over all my clothes.
It is cold here, around 9 degrees this morning, and I have to go running today. I am going to try and do it during the work day (this is one of those occasionally negotiable things: sometimes my boss will go down to the gym instead of taking a lunch break, sometimes I do the same) because I am hoping that I can be out during the highest temperatures of the day rather than trying to squeeze in six miles between the end of work and the fall of darkness (and with it the falling temperatures). I thought about waiting and trying to do it tomorrow (Saturday) but the weather is supposed to just get colder from here, so best bet would appear to be this afternoon.
Running in the winter can be a hard sell for me. I know I should do it and I will feel better once I have done it, but it isn't quite as pleasurable as it might be . The boy (the one who left, who I've heard from every day since he left--odd huh?) used to say that it was never a bad idea, and that was the main thing to keep in mind: that you might regret not having gone, but you wouldn't regret going, once you got started. I think that is generally true for shorter runs (3-4 miles). I haven't ever regretted a short run that I can remember. Longer stuff is another pot of soup all together. Were I to dole out advise on running (not that I am necessarily qualified: everything I know I learned by trial-and-error--mostly error) I would not recommend anything over 8 miles if you don't know:
1) how hydrated you are ( : did you drink too much last night? then just don't try it, trust me) 2) the temperature outside ( :does the air sting your face and make your eyes water? maybe you should invest in a thermometer before you layer up and go)
3) that you have enough time to not make yourself crazy ( : do you need to be at work in three hours? then trying to run 9 miles and shower is a stupid idea and you know it.)
I have plenty of anecdotal tales I could tell where any one of these things has made me regret a run. The worst is the first: hydration is so important in anything in the middle distances! I think you could probably get away with 6 miles with a hang over and not hurt yourself too badly, but 9 miles? or worse 11 or 12? You're going to want to die if you haven't been drinking enough water and if you aren't either carrying water or stashing it along your route.
The first time I did an 11 mile training run with a bad hang over I ended up just giving up and laying on the side of the road for about a half hour after my second water stop (--somewhere after mile 7 I think--I do bottle drops usually--I don't really like carrying things while I run). It was awful. I thought I was never going to make it back. With a really bad hangover and altitude sickness (getting drunk in Vail first night there and then running the next morning--a bad, bad idea) I even regretted a kicky little 4-miler (Oh that was so terrible--8950 is no joke my friend, it catches you quickly! Especially if there is vodka involved!).
But, doing 6 miles today, during the day, when I at least know there will be some sort of temperature break (though I will be closer to the ocean here than at home) is something I won't regret. At least I don't think so right now.

audio but no video

2008-01-24T06:19:00.000-08:00

What is it about pickup trucks?
The seem to be everywhere. I parked in between two of them today, and there are three visible from my office window.
With gas prices the way they are you would think you'd see fewer trucks rather than more. But I guess that isn't necessarily the way the American mindset works. We don't necessarily see prices rising and decide its time to economize, do we?
Listening to the news this morning I heard someone explaining the current finance crunch in terms something like "health care costs and fuel prices have risen sharply and the median income in America has dropped by $1000 in the last year" I don't know who that is from, but I think it was during Marketplace . It made me think about the things I've been reading about financially for over a year now--about how the US has a negative savings rate and the middle class is relying on credit cards to make ends meet these days. Its kind of totally terrifying that our system is so broken (and we're so broke--and not just financially either, some might say morally and culturally bankrupt as well). But even more horrifying than that? The proposed solution is to give every wage earner in the country $300. Sweet dude that should totally fix things, right? (Please note the very heavy sarcasm).
What are you going to do with your $300?
Oh the American Dream.

whipped up

2008-01-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, hi there, sorry.
Its been a long little while. I have been lazy and introspective and reading too much shameful genre fiction. But I get like that sometimes. Some weird combination of sudden (long-planned) abandonment and the cold of winter are making me want to hibernate, huddle under covers and not move much, possibly for a month or more.
However, I am trying to resist the urge. Besides all the delectable genre fiction I've been reading (and ordering from amazon and waiting with baited breath for) I have also signed up for a new activity (Karate) and gone to dinner at a friend of a friends house (generally when offers like this come my way I say "no" with very little pause, but I figured I really ought to make some sort of effort not to hermit myself forever). So I think I'm doing alright, thank you very much. And so far Karate is very cool. I have almost no skill whatsoever, but I am going back tonight in the hopes of learning more. Soon I will be kickass. Or something.
On the missing/ leaving frontier, he left and I miss him--but it has been suddenly nice to see / know that he is going to miss me too, and that he was ultimately sad to go (there was a whole lot more crying than I expected at that final farewell--not all of it mine, for a change). I've actually gotten several updates from him since, which I hadn't really expected--I mean, the lack of communication was one of his reasons for not wanting to be together during all of his travels, and yet he hasn't been gone a week yet and I've already gotten both a phone call and email from him. Its nice. But we're still "broken up" or whatever, so its not that nice I guess.
Why can't things be less complex? I don't want to be the wait around girl who is all faithful in the manner of a puppy dog until he gets his crap together and comes back. But I don't really want to not either. Grrr.
Enough about the boy--all I can really worry about right now is me.
I have this problem, you see, with being insanely early for things.
I get out of work at 4. I have Karate at 6 about 1/2 way home. So it doesn't really make sense to drive by it and go all the way home for the scant hour I would actually have there before I had to leave again to go back, right? But it doesn't really make any sense to get there an hour early either. I'm still working on how this one will work out. I think I might go to the gym on this campus before I leave today--only I took the bus in from a satellite lot, so I need to first figure out how late that bus runs so I don't have to walk the five miles to the parking lot in freezing weather. I guess the walk would definitely ensure I wasn't super ridiculously early any way.

i wanna wanna be a dilettante

2008-01-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

well, its friday, and it was a crazy friday, and i thought i felt like writing something sad, something morose about the death of love or being the left behind. but i don't really, i keep going over it in my head, how sorry for myself i am or have been, how i wish i had some recourse, but i feel sort of done with that part. sort of.
i crave forward movement. i feel a need for something more something fulfilling something that might better me and distance me and keep me from continuing to feel so badly for myself. self pity is no fun to be around, especially for the person feeling sorry for themselves.
well, maybe some other time.

snack attack

2008-01-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling more like myself today, and less like a ball of mucus. I'm not totally better, but I am a hell of a lot better than yesterday.
I keep hearing how Hillary Clinton's win in New Hampshire is because she "proved she was human" and grating my teeth. What in the hell is that even supposed to mean? People do not seriously doubt her humanity--AI intelligence hasn't come that far yet, they doubt her authenticity maybe, but not her actual physiological being. And I generally think of politicians using the word "human" in phrases like "I'm only human" (i.e. "even I screw up a good bit") So what in the hell? Really?
Also, let it be known that at the moment I rather despise humanity.
With me this is a pretty cyclical thing, both the reason I want to live alone and the reason I have a feeling living alone would be a bad idea (hello modern day hermit). But in all seriousness--my roommates reprogrammed the thermostat while I was at work the other day, a full 10-15 degrees warmer at every preset time period across the board. And I'm the girl who handles the gas bill and still hasn't been paid their parts of it for June-through the present. And I've heard endless variations on how very broke they will be until their respective refund checks come in at the end of the month (they're both students) and when I got home last night they were just coming back from a little old navy shopping fest with a bunch of useless crap that was on "supersale". And I don't want it warm, for several reasons, the first being finance (oil prices are skyrocketing and my checking account balance has plummeted--I have to wait for my next paycheck to cover the next gas bill--which again they will need to reimburse me for eventually) and the second being health-- we do not need the interior of our house to reach 70 degrees in January, no sir no way cool air is better for sleeping and better for plant growth and better for human health as well.
And of course I am being a major cranky-pants and passive-aggressive as all get out (yes thats right this morning when I discovered the re-program I went back in and changed things back again to the way they'd been). I actually thought about leaving a note on the thermostat saying something like "if you plan to turn up the heat please pay your part of the heating costs first thanks bye" but then I rethought that. Instead I may just go to town on them with a frying pan. That, at least, wouldn't be at all passive aggressive of me.

When the architects ask are you supposed to act happy? Well, too late.

2008-01-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

I have something of an affinity for toast.
It used to be more of an obsession: something I needed to have at least once a day and often fell back to if things were difficult or uncertainty presented itself.
Mmmm toast. Warm crispy bread with a nice layer of buttery goodness (often Earth Balance--a vegan butter alternative that is still quite buttery enough in flavor) followed by a layer of fresh ground natural peanut butter or raspberry preserves. Oh yeah.
Makes a great breakfast, makes a great lunch. An excellent snack and even a decent dinner if you add a cup of tea to it.
Also, in some circumstances well-steeped black tea and burnt toast are used as an antidote to poison.
So you know they're good for you.
Only sometimes enough is too much, and I've laid off the toast for awhile now. But this cold, with its attendant misery has made me want toast--I was aiming to have it for dinner last night, but instead had a bit of the too-peppery eggs my sister and her boyfriend made (everything my sister makes has too much pepper in it for me I think--she has a spice allergy and likes things spicy so she compensates with weird things like over-peppering everything instead of just her own meal) . I woke up late for work this morning and though I thought about toast the whole way down the stairs, I forgot about it when I got to the kitchen and realized what time it was.
So maybe later, since obviously I'm obsessed.

Can I get a bottle of that to go?

2008-01-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

At the moment I am totally and completely filled with mucus and wondering how it is that this year I just keep getting sick: typically I am fairly healthy on a regular basis, but it seems that more often than not lately I have some sort of malady or malaise. What gives? I am tempted to blame it on numerology (this is a bad year--have I mentioned that?) only thing is, although my personal age/ year is inauspicious, the turning of the calendar has brought us into a better and potentially fortuitous set of numbers, so I would hope that things are going to improve. Only, obviously, that can't start right away, otherwise I wouldn't be feeling so down in the pits. Possibly it has something to do with my mood and mindset; I can see that that would certainly have some bearing on my physical well being (and, aside from a particular fondness for the number 8, I don't really hold too much with numerology generally) --I can understand if a general funk were to turn into a particular ailment I think. And of course I've had my heart bruised, ever so slightly, again (he would be willing to stick around for the right job--isn't that great? he won't stay for me or with me, but employment might be enough for him to at least post pone his ticket. He sure does know how to make a girl feel special). But I am brushing it off. Or at least ignoring it. Which is easy to do in the midst of a river of snot. A big downside, however, is that I can't really go running, and I really need to: I've got two races in February that I don't want to look like a complete tool in. I did a nice 9 miler right before the onset of this cloud of grossness but I should have done at least three miles today and instead I've stayed glued to my couch. Major bummer, really: starting the week in the dumps and in a hole as far as mileage goes. Hope it all gets better quick-like!

and the tea cozy pulls ahead at the last turn

2008-01-04T10:07:00.000-08:00

Several days ago we had a decently sized snowfall--a wet warm sort of snow that is great for building snowmen in and has a tendency to coat the branches of trees with several inches of whiteness, and then it got very cold very quickly, creating what the ski industry calls a "bulletproof" snowpack. The dense wet snow has frozen as hard as concrete and its not going anywhere. While this might be unpleasant in some circumstances (say, shoveling my back stairs) it has had the effect of turning the whole world into a white-rimmed fairy-land: there is a 4 or 5 inch coating of snow on anything big enough to hold it: the branches of trees, fence tops and exterior molding on buildings--its really very beautiful. Its a little cold at the moment (hovering around 6 degrees above zero fahrenheit) so I haven't really been out to enjoy it, but just driving my car to and from work its been quite uplifting to look at.
I've been on my own all week--all of the people I live with are off on various holiday and family type visits and so it has been very quiet and I find I'm enjoying it and at the same time wondering what I would do with myself if I lived on my own all the time. I've rented movies and re-arranged all of my furniture, created detailed point lists of things I want to get done and hung out with my cats. I long for bargain basement genre fiction to fill my time with but have yet to go and purchase any (hasn't stopped me from looking at amazon longingly though). Perhaps tonight will be the night--I have a single semi-firm plan for the weekend which leaves me with plenty of time between now and Saturday at 6:30 so perhaps the siren call will finally be answered.
Or maybe I'll just hang out with my cats some more and read one of the many fine nonfiction books I was given for christmas.
Its not that they are not wonderful--I love good information and I got a lot of it, on several subjects that are of interest to me--its just that sometimes a girl wants a little fantastical adventure in her life, a little peculiar happening and out-of-the-ordinary excitement, and at the same time to snuggle under covers and stay in one spot with tea and a kitten. You know what I mean? I hope someone does.

pieces of pie

2008-01-03T07:51:00.000-08:00

A lot of hype about new year's resolutions goes on at this time of year. There are lots of deals to be had at gyms and the anti-smoking hot line has increased its staff in the hopes of a flood of callers hoping to kick a habit in the new year.
I enjoy writing lists, generally, so of course I make a list of goals / wishes / plans / hopes for the coming year: Things I want to do or stop doing generally, and sometimes it isn't bounded by the calendar year. I like three year plans and five year plans as much as I like plans for the new year.
In general my goals tend to be pretty basic I think: the growth of my net worth, the shrinking of my debts, dropping 10 or 15 pounds (I have managed, once, to do this, but it didn't last long my body is pretty set in its weight, and as I'm not technically overweight I don't tend to worry about it: I'm at the high-middle of my BMI range, and I'd like to get to the low end and stay there for awhile, if it were possible), getting ahead career-wise and taking up some new extracurriculars (sewing, and possibly a martial art of some sort).
As far as plans, I'm going to run a couple of ten-milers in February, possibly a half marathon in April, a 10k in August and possibly part of a marathon (as a relay team member) in October.
I've got a wedding to go to in April, in California, which is why the 1st half is a maybe, and hopefully plans to go visit a good friend I haven't seen in a while in Raleigh this winter, which is still very up in the air. The over-arching point of all the planning is not to dwell on the boy who is leaving me at the end of the month. That part sucks, but I am looking forward at this point to having the time to myself. I'm trying to look at it as an opportunity rather than a loss. I'm hoping that will make things easier. This isn't really much like a list, but it is what I want my year to look like: filled with activities I like and activity in general. You won't find me sitting still, no siree.
And thats the way I like it.

One more in the coconut

2008-01-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

Happy Happy--everything really; new year, new month, new snow, same old pretty much everything else.
It was a pleasant snow storm last night though, and looks like it is quite a pleasantly sunny day. Due to my own forgetfulness I am going to leave work early today to go pick up some veggies (I have a usual Wednesday pick up because on a usual Wednesday I work in the evening) and I might just skip out on the rest of the day after that, but I probably shouldn't. There is a lot of stuff going on and I can always just go to the second location (much closer to where I actually live) rather than driving the whole way back here again.
I had a quiet languid occasionally alcohol soaked little break. It was pleasant and fairly laid back. I went to visit family and while playing cards managed to drink most of a bottle of wine and then spent the next day wandering around an art museum (a favorite hang over day occupation of mine). On the way home we had to race a snow storm which provided a nice little slice of drama and urgency to my mother's generally erratic driving. Then I came home and went to a friend's house for a new year's eve bash that lasted until around 3 in the morning. On that particular occasion I was able to remember and stick to an alternating 1-glass-of-water 1-glass-of-alcohol / rum ball rotation that left me feeling much better in the morning than several other overnight guests. I love it when I remember to do something right.
I need to collect my various scraps of paper and thought and put together a list of goals for the year and coming months. Hopefully I will have that done before the end of the month (theres a goal I can stick to! Hopefully!).
Watch the steps, they're slick!

slow slow slow hops the bunnygirl

2007-12-28T09:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head and it feels like it will be there forever. This seems to be especially common on days when there is a hangover present, as though marked absence of alcohol has left room for songs to sneak in and play on repeat for hours.
Yes I had too much to drink last night and today even typing is difficult. I've got this hollow where my brain used to be and my eyes seem to get stuck to objects that have no significance (hello coffee cup you sure are looking nice today. so nice I just can't look away).
I forgot where I was going with that. Case in point.
Oh--I went into the restroom earlier and after washing my hands grabbed a paper towel to dry them off and licked it I have no idea where that came from. I watched myself do it in the mirror and wondered what the hell I was doing and then the taste hit me and I though "my god, why would someone do that?" all the while I actually was doing it.
I am very lucky I suppose that there is nothing of great importance entrusted to me today I would assuredly fuck it up. As it is the complexity of putting together a citation style guide is proving to be beyond my abilities.
I went to a wine and cheese tasting last night and it was quite fun, which sort of lured me into going to dinner and drinking more red wine which led to going to watch some music and drinking cheap beer which eventually led to walking home in the early hours of the morning, making a pathetic quesadilla (I just spell checked that twice and spell check doesn't know what it is. it wants to make it "odalisques" but I can't imagine trying to make one of those at one am while drunk) with some bottom-feeder tortillas and parmesan cheese (thankfully not shaker cheese but still not something that usually leads to a good quesadilla) and then stumbling off to bed to awaken at 6:30 very very confused about the world and existence and all its baggage and also obviously quite stupid. Unfortunate indeed then that I have to spend a fair amount of time with my mother (stuck in a car no less) this evening.
But we do what we must. Because we must.
And really I can't think of another thing to write, and typing hurts me.
goodbye 2007 bring on 2008 already.

look out for the hydraulic crane

2007-12-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

This morning was all about laying in bed and contemplating mortality. Only I had to get up and go to work. Its a hard push-pull kind of a deal, talking yourself out of warm covers on a gray day, made no easier by thoughts of death and sleep being so similar and pleasant and preferable to movement or faking motivation.
It keeps hitting me that I'm a grown up now. Or as close as I am ever likely to get. Its a freakily unfulfilling realization. What in the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I think most of my generation is having the same problem. Or at least I hope so, nothing sucks quite as much as being the only one in the middle of an existential crisis.
Why don't I have things figured out? I thought I'd just go with the flow and things would fall together in some sort of fateful way, but at the moment it feels more like things are falling apart rather than together and I don't think that fate really has anything to do with it.
Most likely it is just because I'm lonely. The person I talk to the most is the one I know is planning to abandon me for bigger brighter better things, and that doesn't really lend itself to too much confidence or admittance.
So that has to be part of it. Here I am alone and likely to stay that way. Really part of me is looking forward to knowing for sure I'm alone. The part after may not be so good, but at the moment a schedule sounds nice.
I looked in on an old boyfriend the other day--online, not in person--and was happy/sad to find him as pitiful and unable to deal with the world as when I left him. Happy because it makes me very sure I made the right decision there and sad because it doesn't look like things are ever going to change for the better for him, and that is always sad.
And I keep remembering that time after I left, and how good it was for me to be alone. And maybe this time will be just as good--cathartic, fulfilling, and I will be alright with it.

red fish winging into the sky

2007-12-26T06:20:00.000-08:00

The 26th is kind of a let-down day all around for me. Holiday day, the 25th, is all about the family and the giving and the staying at home and eating too much, and the 26th, for me at least, as a little kid I wasn't sure what to do with it--am I still supposed to stay in "family" mode? Is it alright to abandon them immediately? I always feel badly about that. And what about the presents we just opened? My mother is something of a consumer queen--she never knows when to quit, and I always feel embarrassed by the sheer amount of crap I am left with on the 26th. This is the first year that she has kept tags on things and told us all that she is okay with our returning things we do not want. In years past it has been viewed as something only an ungrateful child would do: if you love her you will keep the things she gives you. And she is always trying to top what she did last year, a continuous escalation of stuff: more packages or bigger packages or whatever. Every year is going to be different, bigger, better, best.
This year my father and I talked a little about trying to do things differently next year: limiting the number of gifts any one person can buy, trying to keep things small and simple. Its too early to tell right now, but I hope at least some of what we're planning comes to pass.
I've been thinking a lot about the necessity of contrast: feast and famine, holiday and workday good day and bad. You have to have one to define the other, right?
The general idea of contrast.
Only it would seem that in this day and age, in this particular country we don't want to have both. We want to have a holiday every day, every year to be a "boom" year, a growth year a good year. But it can't work like that, can it? I mean, we need some contrast. We need to have days "on" to have days "off". We need to fast before the feast--in order to enjoy it at all. Otherwise how will we recognize the feast at all?
I am concerned that we don't--that our quest for the "good life" our "pursuit of happiness" has led us into a spiral--continuously having to top what has come before, searching for the next "good" and after that the next "great". Without looking for the sacrifice that should come before or after, the day of fasting before the feast; for contrast, for reflection, for perspective. Instead of taking a day out, taking some time to reflect, regroup, recommit, we just make the next one bigger--that seems to be the only contrast or comparison we want to make. Last year was big, but this year will be bigger. Always bigger.
We can't go on like this, can we? We need some simplicity. Some down time. Some contrast. Some perspective. Some rest.
Instead, yesterday we (as a society and also, specifically, my family) unwrapped our gifts, and today we (all of us) will go out and return them for new things and tomorrow we (the great unending "we") will start planning how next year will be bigger, better, best. I am hoping that we (my family) can get out of this consumer spiral, can set our sights on what really matters about the day and the holiday and that we (as a society) can some how, in a larger way, shake the urge to go bigger always as well.

holiday b&e cheer.

2007-12-19T13:08:00.001-08:00

Here we are, solstice on the verge, snow on the ground, Christmas on the horizon, Cait on the edge.
Only not really. Things are good, calm, peaceful. There is joy and cheer and camaraderie that I am happy to take part in.
Only thing, I'm not sleeping. I don't know exactly why. Last night I laid awake for four or five hours thinking about engraving. Of all things. The night before it seemed like the heater was making so much noise I was never going to be able to drift off. And I didn't.
But it could be reversable: I went running this morning, just a short 4 miler because it is cold and snowy and I am a lazy slack ass, but usually exercize helps. Physical exhaustion can often win out over internal rambling--my own little hamster wheel that won't stop spinning.
Man I am such a drama lately! Why can't I let it go? I am really looking forward to a couple of days off and away--I will be going to my family's for the holidays and hopefully doing nothing more stressful than carrying on polite conversation with my mother and watching sappy movies and some good bad cable.
Happy everything, anyway.

let's not forget the Rum.

2007-12-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

Its all merriment and cheer around here. And I’m totally feeling it. I’ve got my red boots--my favorite farm boots that make way more sense in mud and rain than snow, but which I wear anyway at any given opportunity because I love them: they’re big, they’re red, they rock.

Did you ever read that joke book when you were a kid that had the joke in it: “whats big and red and eats rocks?” in it? I was such a huge fan of that book and that joke in particular.

(answer: a Big Red Rock Eater! All the toddlers in the room fall down, all the grownups groan).

I made festive food last night, in the midst of a snowstorm. We got slammed, here on the coast. Lots of driving snow and wind-whipped road ways. It was quite romantic to be snowbound and baking with my sister.

Her boyfriend was trapped for about seven hours on a bus, which is totally unromantic, but he had his laptop, so he got some good paper-writing done I guess.

And today all the trees are tippled white and the snow is as pristine as it ever gets along the sides of major road ways. The roads themselves are already a brown churn, and much windshield-wiper fluid will be expended for visibility to stay good over the long haul.

I’ve got homemade candy to send to relatives all stacked up and waiting in the cold storage room, but because it is right there and already bagged and all, I keep giving it to other people. Not accidentally really, its just that I seem to want to give everything away lately. I am feeling a need to clean out my closet and crawlspace before the holiday--my mother has told me twice now that she thinks I have quite a lot coming to me, and I am worried that she has been thinking about the fact that I may be sad since August and taking it out on her credit card. I hate it when she does things like that. My parents, as a couple, and my father, as an individual, are big believers in sustainability and self-sufficiency. Once upon a not so far away time, they grew most of their own food and their house is as energy efficient as it was possible to make it (with the roof designed for the eventual addition of solar panels they’ve never been able to afford), my father is against all things consumerist and specifically “The Man”. Oddly, my mother only goes along with that to a fairly superficial point: she is something of an uber-consumer; she cannot say no to a “good deal” and thrives on discount shopping and post holiday sales and the like. She almost always overbuys in the cheap-plastic-crap department and it is something I’ve tried to talk to her about in the past, and totally given up on in the present. My dad feels the same way. When I balked a few years past at accompanying her to some post-thanksgiving day buy-buy-buy frenzy my father took me aside and reminded me that it was a small thing, I didn’t have to participate myself, and it would make her happy. My dad is good like that.

cradle and the cookie jar

2007-12-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

I get a little fixated sometimes, on the finance thing. I begin to obsess about numbers and they way they impact my life today and will impact the future course of my life. My sister and I have been having arguments lately about how warm our apartment should be at night and during the day, because I am interested in keeping costs as low as possible (within my measly budget) and she is sort of oblivious to costs, rising costs and the stupidity of heating a building that no one is in.
Its a hard thing about this time of year; the budget--It seems like there are suddenly a lot of things that require a small gift or item--holiday parties and Yankee Swaps and I have fifteen coworkers in my department who all send each other Christmas cards. I've been trying to keep things on the low end of the scales by home-making as much as possible--the cards for example--and toffee for party gifts and for the people I actually share an office with. I like to think that, on top of being cheaper it also is more personal. But even if other people don't see it that way, it is at least a little cheaper. I like getting to go to these little parties and being included in holiday gatherings and traditions, but I want to try and do it in a way that doesn't compromise me financially.
The heat thing, the continually skyrocketing cost of oil has me worried. I don't want to get myself into a situation where I have to abandon my savings plan to just make ends meet. My sister isn't on any sort of plan--though she is a student with a fairly small fixed income, she has that feeling common to students (at least in my experience) that things will work themselves out and time spent in school isn't time to worry about money. I'm a little frustrated with the attitude myself, but that might just be because I am a perpetual worrier, and financially fixated besides.
On the upside, Christmas is within striking distance! So it is almost over, thank goodness. I've got most everyone done--my mother is the last person I need to buy for at this point I think, and I stayed pretty well within budget for everyone except possibly her (I'm doing her stocking this year, so I've kind of gone overboard on the small-but-expensive items, like makeup and fancy beads, that I would want in my stocking, because thats the way I want to do it, I'm not going to cheap out on my mom, thats just not cool). But it is sort of troubling, you know, the massive commercialization of Christmas--really of holidays in general and the huge emphasis on gift giving . I don't have any children, but I have friends with small children, and its becoming apparent that this may be the last year I get away without buying toys--or books, I suppose, but boy could that get expensive fast!! I read an article or blog entry (and I don't remember quite where, so no link) about some people who made a conscious effort not just to not have children, but to not make friends with people with children so as to avoid the costly outlay for various holidays. I do think that is a little extreme, but at the same time I wonder if there may not be some sort of drift, over time, where people who have children and people who do not may begin to have less and less in common and a certain amount of annoyance for one-way cost cropping up on the child-free side of the line.
Not that I'm opting out of ever having children, just with circumstances the way they currently are, I'm pretty sure its not in the 3-year-plan anyway.

the cookie in the cookie jar

2007-12-11T06:52:00.000-08:00

When I was in graduate school I got kind of obsessed with personal finance literature. I don't know exactly why--I know the first book I read on the topic was some Suze Ormond thing and it left me with more questions than I had started with, so I went looking for another book, and after that one another, and then once I found out they existed, for blogs on the subject(and there are lots of them, very good ones) and web pages and the like. I am fascinated by it, and possibly if I had discovered it earlier I might have ended up with a degree in economics or in the field of financial planning.
Occasionally I look at academic programs and think about going back, but from this vantage point it doesn't make that much sense--I already like what I do, and it would cost me a fair amount of money and time take that path and see if it was really as interesting as it seems at first glance.
So instead, I keep reading, and doing my little "run numbers" sheets (occasionally also referred to as "bistro math" or "Cait's ridiculous percentage obsession") and trying to figure out what I should be doing with what I've got. It changes a lot. Every time I read something new I want to integrate it into my planning and also I don't want to be totally in the thrall of minute finance at every waking moment. I like the idea of simplicity and automation where it comes to financial things (I read about that someplace early on, of course).
For my first two years out of school I focused solely on getting rid of my credit card debt, I got rid of it for good (fingers crossed) early last year. Then I started on the current quest: a 60-40 split of income; where I live on roughly 60% of my take home pay and save the other 40% of it in various vehicles (high-interest savings, CDs, and Index funds predominantly). Incidentally this doesn't count my pre-tax 403b plan: into that I had been putting 8% of my gross income (with an employer match for the first 7%) . So I've been doing alright. Generally I'm pretty proud of myself. But then I read something new; for instance the fact that the limit for pre-tax account contributions this year is $15,500, and my measly 8% of my measly income doesn't even come to half of that. Also, I'm not debt free by any measure: I had to take out some considerable loans to complete graduate school, and during my debt-repayment phase I was sending double payments every month to the folks that hold those loans. But this fall I had a talk with my uncle, who was outraged that I was paying double (and in June was technically all paid up for the current year) on a loan that was only earning 2.65% interest. He said I was doing myself a disservice by not saving or using that money for myself, and education debt being considered "good debt" it was the kind to have around. I thought about it for awhile, and then I reached my 36th on-time payment and qualified for a 1% interest rate reduction and decided that I could make minimum payments on a loan earning 1.65% interest, let it live forever and be okay with it. So now I am, and I'm taking that money and hopefully offsetting an increase in my pre-tax 403b, from 8% up to 15%. Well, I say that but I think at the same time I may also have put that extra money into an index fund...I rebalanced my 40% savings scheme and set it up so that an estimated 25% of it is going into index funds (and of course the stock market is tanking...so thats not the smartest thing ever I suppose, but over the long term it should give me a decent return, again, fingers crossed) and the rest is sort of unevenly distributed between savings for a new car in about two years and a house in about five and a "fun" fund (about $25 a month) for the misc good time stuff that I will likely never buy.
Does any of this make sense? Its hard to say. I am not necessarily very good at keeping track of this stuff: I am not 100% sure how the increase in pre-tax savings is going to affect the size of my next paycheck, but I want to at least try to get a little closer to the maximum next year, because there is hope that I am young enough to have compounding interest working in my favor and helping me into early retirement. Which is, at least sometimes, a goal of mine.

what if the mice get to it first?

2007-12-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

This sums it up perfectly:

LIFE HAS NO PURPOSE, COMMUNICATION IS IMPOSSIBLE, THE EXISTENCE OF MAN IS ABSURD

Man, why can’t I get words like that? That’s exactly it; what I’ve been feeling in the back of my head for days now, but my attempts at expressing it are so much more amorphous, when I really just needed to come out and say that, and then it would all make sense.

I went to a memorial service on Saturday and it was really good, in that way that something sad and terrible can still be good, because it is about a whole lot of people getting together and remembering and loving someone (even if it is, okay, a whole lot too late for that person to get much out of it, it is nice to know that people care) and I enjoy the community feeling and the commiseration that make you feel like you are part of this group instead of all alone (as we all are, inevitably, at death). Of course it did make me ponder the point of continuing to live at all because (as stated so clearly above): LIFE HAS NO PURPOSE, COMMUNICATION IS IMPOSSIBLE, THE EXISTENCE OF MAN IS ABSURD. Yeah. Good times.

I don’t know how many people would come to my memorial service, if there was one. I know my mother pretty much planned one once (I was in a bad accident, and on the way to the hospital apparently my folks had the necessary talk about the necessary arrangements, but she still won’t tell me the details). Which is nice to know, I guess. At least there is a plan.

A plan generally makes things better I think. I get more done with planning and deadlines. I enjoy a certain amount of structure. If it were not, for instance, for the need to get up and go to work on weekdays, I would most likely have spent today laying in bed listening to Nirvana. Usually my laying-in-bed-questioning-the-futility-of-living music of choice is Tool, but something in me really wants to hear In utero back to back to back for a period of eight or nine hours.

But I don’t have a choice in the matter (or at least I tell myself there is no choice in the matter) I need to get up and go go go like an animated doll: get in the car, drive ever so slowly through snow and slush to work, and sit and type-type-type and think-think-think and make little to-do lists of the things I want done by the end of the week. My lists are always a little mixed up: I have a tendency to run together all the things I want done in work and out of work in one non-prioritized list:

Make new book display,
eat fruit for breakfast,
finish CSE citation guidelines page,
get to the gym at least three times,
do some actual collection development and get the slush pile off my computer desk,
make Christmas cards,
lose five pounds or grow five inches, your choice.
Write something you might enjoy reading sometime in the future

And honestly this probably does not fulfill that last one, I am just a rambler and do not really merit re-reading truth be told.

waxing pathetic...I mean poetic

2007-12-05T10:48:00.001-08:00

You need to write about the awesome.

So I know I haven’t done so well with the writing every day thing, for November. But I did write (I think) on the majority of days, and almost always was able to produce something on a day when I was in front of a computer for more than a half hour anyway. But looking back I think it was still good and worth trying to keep going: keep working on. I still haven’t actually submitted anything to anyone, I’m still all talk on that front. But I am at leas castigating myself about it (that’s the start of something, right?) and I know that it does help, so there is that.

About the awesome: often lately I’ve got that horrible stained thrown away feeling (you know the one, or would if you’d read anything from early in November I guess) and its bad in the crappy-getting-crappier kind of way, but if I look past it and try and find something good and fine and worth keeping, worth doing or looking forward too, there usually is something. And I have a feeling it would totally help the world view to write about the awesome instead of the crap-suck-a-potomous that is daily existence sometimes (well, except it feels so good sometimes to just write it all down, like blowing your nose: hah gunk! Now what are you going to do? Huh?). So yeah, the awesome: my best and least responsible friend from college has had a beautiful baby girl. She came to visit this weekend and called me at 7:30 on Saturday night because she hadn’t made plans for where they were going to sleep that night…its nice to know that babies don’t necessarily change people. Another one of my friends from college--who used to get rip roaring drunk and threatening to any and all comers, has a beautiful wife and a gorgeous one-year-old and he doesn’t drink at all anymore (his wife, actually, has never seen him drunk) and it doesn’t seem to matter--he is still fun and opinionated and insightful about things and he doesn’t miss it (well, he said sometimes he misses drinking Jim Beam at 1’o clock in the afternoon, but he gets over it)…so its nice to see that sometimes things do change and families make people feel whole in ways you didn’t know they needed to feel whole. I got fantastically farm-fresh produce today out of the back of someone’s mini van and was reminded how cool it is to participate in the local scene of something: you’re helping them and they’re helping you and there is really no downside because I have fresh cabbage and they have money to feed their chickens. And there is snow on the ground outside, and its new enough that it is still all white and stuck to tree branches in a decorative fashion and so I am loving it even though it makes it harder to run.

And its already Wednesday! How did that happen so fast?

the penguin in my head said "NO!" and I believed him.

2007-11-30T06:15:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you think things are going to be fine, you’re going to be fine: sure, you’re mad at your sister for not cleaning up the kitchen after she made muffins two days ago, but she’s in law school and under a lot of (constant, unending, self inflicted) stress and so you should just let it go, go easy there, clean it up your damn self if it is pissing you off so much.

But then, after you have painstakingly talked yourself into this plan and world view while scraping hardened batter off the counter and filling the dishwasher, in she walks and your mouth inevitably sets in that frowny-line and you just can’t let it go. She’s a slob and lazy and not using her time well and her angsty bitching is totally unnecessary given how easy she currently has it. She takes four classes a week. And that’s it. No job, no commute even--we live around the corner from the law school (but she still drives. And complains about the parking tickets she gets when she leaves her car in the faculty lot). She is unhealthy and unmotivated to get healthy and I am fuming about all of it: all the bad choices I have seen her make and see her continue to make because I live with her.

God, I make a horrible roommate don’t I? I really was going to just try and let it go and get on with my own life (which is obviously what I should be concerning myself with: its not like I’m making a whole lot of good choices for my own self most days) but instead for some reason while I cleaned the kitchen last night I felt the need to ruminate on all her mistakes instead of my own. Which is bad for so many reasons, not least of which because despite my pessimistic world view last evening she hasn’t made that many.

She went to a private high school on a full scholarship and got a great education. She went to state college when she didn’t get any full scholarships to save money and made sure (through constant involvement) that she got a great education. She took two years of Russian and then went and lived in the Komi for four months her junior year (still so, so ballsy in my opinion) with just one other English speaker in a city of several hundred thousand. She applied for and got into the state’s only Law School, which is expensive but still way less expensive than her first choice (which she also got into but decided against because she didn’t want $200,000 worth of debt after three years. She said she didn’t want to have to sell her soul immediately after graduation if she could help it). She’s a cool kid, she’s got a wide group of friends an eclectic taste in music and an open mind about pretty much everything. She’s really generally exceptionally kick ass as a little sister, its just that sometimes I forget.

we're going to have to skin it if we want to bring it inside.

2007-11-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

Sky is grey, wind blowing dead leaves around in little whirlwind circles in the parking lot. It’s a great example of a November day in New England.

The chill in the air isn’t serious, but would certainly make you think twice about flopping down onto the grass to get a better look at the clouds.

There is construction going on outside my window, and I wonder about working outside in this kind of weather. I’m sure once you’re moving the cold doesn’t intrude too much, but it seems like these guys only move as much as they have to: there seem to be a great number of breaks and shovel leaning going on around the site. At any given point several men smoking cigarettes and watching as the rest of the work flows on around them.

I’m always astonished that people still smoke. I never have, but my parents and grandparents did, and a lot of my friends through high school and college picked it up at least for a little while. Most of the friends I still have from that period have given it up--there are just so many ways you’re bombarded with health information these days that it seems like you can’t help but digest the fact that it is going to kill you and in the mean time make you look old and haggard before you’re ready to be mistaken for a grandmother.

So how did these guys duck the information overload? Its just another example of how the people around you influence your own actions: I don’t see how people could keep smoking, and yet there are a great many people out there who don’t see how they could ever stop--its too social or too ingrained or too pleasurable to be put aside so easily. And yeah, so its going to kill you eventually. But so is everything else. You just have to keep in mind that no matter what happens we’re all going to die and you’ll see that the whole death card isn’t really as big an issue as it might seem at first. We’re all going to get there someday, and wouldn’t it be something if you determined your own path, even that little bit?

Not that I am suddenly going to take up smoking just to get a jump on figuring out how I am going to die. Generally I am motivated by what might give me a slightly longer life span rather than a shorter one. Though today it doesn’t really seem worthwhile I must say. I read a bunch of stuff earlier (go to slate if you really want to read it, I will not link it and spread the sadness and mania) about avian flu and pandemics and global warming and general disaster preparedness and I just go to thinking: is survival really such a good idea? I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t want a chance at it like anyone else, but just: why would you want to live through the horror to live through more horror?

Say you get yourself all prepared and outfitted and manage to navigate the horribly debilitating worldwide illness that spreads, airborne, through your family, killing roughly half of those infected. So half of the people that you love and live with you now have to bury or dispose of and then you need to barricade yourself and the supplies you’ve hoarded into some little out of the way spot to keep from being killed for your pantry by the other grief stricken survivors who are now starving in the aftermath because they maybe didn’t stockpile quite as much as you did.

Kind of horrendous, right? To contemplate (at great remove, obviously, but still a major downer) loosing so many loved ones and friends and then having to defend yourself against others as similarly inflicted (if you actually did start saving shelf loads of canned tuna and dried beans like these columnists were recommending, which I don’t know if people in general are--my mother is, but she is a little on the “nut job” end of the “normal people spectrum”) . So yeah, anyone for an afternoon cancer stick?

lobster in the lobster trap

2007-11-28T13:03:00.001-08:00

Off site yesterday so I didn’t have any time to have myself a little sit-down.

Fun thing: it is supposed to snow here either later this week or early next week. I’m excited about the possibility. I love a good snow storm.

I would also dearly love a snow day, but for most of the adult world that’s not really a possibility. I can commiserate: at my last job I was the snow policy. At this job though we are given leave, in winter months, to examine the circumstances and decline to come if the conditions seem unfavorable. I love that--we can use our own discretion and judgment! How novel! How humane! Were I to take the temperature of my inner landscape into account I would probably call in a lot more frequently “I’m sorry its just looking a little dark and icy, I don’t think I can get out of my pajamas today” that doesn’t really fly though (save the odd mental health day). But I have high hopes and ambitions and plans for taking a day off my commuting schedule, at least by car: I’m hoping to leave my car at home one day a week and make my way here by a variety of buses. It is a little complicated (involving three changes each way) and a rather ridged schedule (the changes only match up if you make the 7:10 in the first place, otherwise the wait will be rather long between bus #2 and bus # 3 ) so I am going to aim for going car-free on Thursdays and see how it goes.

If it goes at all. I have yet to actually get to the testing process so we’ll see once we’re actually there.

In process and preparation I have been looking for a good warm winter coat. I do enjoy outerwear, but I don’t buy much of it. My great aunt was a horrible pack rat for that sort of thing: she had an entire closet in her apartment filled with just coats. When we cleaned out her apartment after her death I remember being slightly horrified and astounded: she had only ever worn this one raggedy purple down filled winter coat when I had known her, it was amazing to learn that she had had a closet full of choices and never done anything with them--neither wearing them herself nor giving them to someone who might wear them.

So I don’t really have a winter coat--I have an old English duffle coat of my father’s that is wonderfully warm and three sizes too big--which until recently I really haven’t minded. I also have a kids red ski parka that was given to me by a friend who worked at a L.L. Bean’s for a winter and got it for a couple of dollars. And I’ve got a rain coat that I wear most days, which has started to seem a little silly.

I keep seeing people out at night in town in these sort of “out at night in town” type coats and I keep wondering if I possibly look totally ridiculous in my oversized rain coat with sweater, hat and scarf. I think it is a distinct possibility and I am not sure I want to keep being the ramshackle girl--especially if I am riding the bus.

Way too much introspection, huh?

woops

2007-11-26T14:14:00.001-08:00

amazing how lazy i can get sometimes.
Thanksgiving was good--lots of food and just my little family.
Well, my sister's boyfriend came, but they're pretty much attached at the hip these days so it wasn't unexpected. Also he's kind of a blender--he just sort of sits back and doesn't say too much so it is easy to imagine he's just part of the woodwork I guess. He's supposed to spend christmas with us too this year.
I told the boy (my boy, who is so not my boy, obviously, since he is leaving me and not looking back in a little over a month now, but who I persist on still thinking of and treating as though everything were hunky dory and we were totally going to be together longer than six weeks. I'm such an ass) about how Mr. woodwork is going to come to christmas and he was sort of amazed--probably because in the recent past its seemed like our relationships (my sister and her bf and the boy and mine) have been rather parallel, but obviously they are not at this point--I'd like to think maybe he was feeling a little left out but I think he was really just thinking "what is Mr. Woodwork doing breaking in on their christmas?"
It was a weird weekend because of our whole odd dynamic--I didn't hear from the boy until late in the day on Saturday (I don't call him anymore--its a rule of mine that I doubt he knows about--so I hadn't heard from him since thanksgiving). He was hung over but we were supposed to be having dinner with a bunch of friends of his. I suppose they are my friends too--but honestly this time around it didn't really feel like it. Maybe it was just the state of mind I was in, but it felt like a lot of pulling back, a lot of "she's walking the plank there boys watch out"--I didn't say much and kept contemplating getting completely blitzed, but I didn't really have the guts to do it. He stayed in town with me and hung out on Sunday and maybe he got the hint that I was feeling like I had the plague--he kept trying to be comforting and at the same time avoiding the subject.
I kept wondering, all day--did we have things in common? Were there things that I thought were indispensable about us? Not about him, but about the combination of the two of us? I know he is singular and unique and wonderful (in his special special-ness...haha but really) but why do I think that he belongs with me? Do I even think that any more?
I can't figure it out. I feel like I've been through my stages of grief on this--bargained and made lists and cried a hell of a lot for so many different reasons--and he is still here and I can't quite figure out where to go from here. sometimes I just wish he would leave already I guess so I can get on with what is next. And all the time part of me is scared about what is next because I know him and I don't want him to go, even if I can't figure out what it was about us that I used to think was worth mourning.

raise your hand if you want ketchup

2007-11-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

First snow!

Always exciting--when I was in middle school and high school I had a particular friend who I would go walking with in the first snow. She had her first baby this year, has been married for just over a year and owns a home not that far from mine--we don’t really talk much any more (other than when she emails to tell me about her latest landmark achievement: buying the house, getting hitched, getting knocked up).

I had this huge grey and black sweater that I used to wear instead of a coat. It was my fathers, but it was too big for him too, so I appropriated it and wore it instead of both a jacket and mittens, since the sleeves were more than long enough to cover my hands.

My dad still has it I think. He has another one, a brown and black version, that actually fits him as well--I think they may have been gifts from an aunt of his and she got the size horribly wrong the first time around but liked the pattern and tried again.

I’m still not much for coats--I’ve actually ordered one this year, a fleece from some “mountain goods online” place, to go inside the rain shell I wore last year in place of a coat. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get it together to have an actual wardrobe--some odd combination of laziness and thrift and bucking conformity at all opportunities prevents me I guess.

I used to (and still, to some extent, continue to) have a huge problem with jeans--as in the quintessential teenage uniform, denim pants--I hated the idea that life could be so conscripted as to have that single choice: wear it with t-shirts! Wear it with sweaters, but on pain of death, wear it!

So I never did. Although honestly part of this was most likely the fact that I couldn’t afford the nice jeans, I could afford the jeans from GoodWill or Salvation Army and that was about it. So I wore khakis or skirts or fatigues or (in place of that perennial ‘80’s favorite, the stretch pant) bright red long johns. I got a great pair of tight oil-stained jeans at a local dump store (literally a thrift store at a dump where people could drop household items that might have further use) and those are the only jeans I had through much of high school and college.

As a result, I’m still not very comfortable in jeans--its amazing to me how so many people put them on to show that they are “relaxed” or “casual” for a Friday. I have two pairs: one pair tight (my “hey its almost marathon time: check me out” pants) and one pair baggy (my “fat” pants). And generally when I put them on I feel like I’m putting on a costume, my I am a normal mid 20s girl hanging out casually--see me--see? Yes I am.

the clouds of snot do cover

2007-11-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

Sorry. I've been sick--still am sick. It doesn't help that beyond all sense I went out on Saturday and went to a wine tasting and two shows--that was a little uncalled for and I have not quite rebounded from it.
My head is too full of snot to be let any good words out.
maybe tomorrow.

would you be interested in a little harmless movie watching?

2007-11-14T12:51:00.000-08:00

On Wednesdays I work in the evenings, so my schedule is a little off--but generally I love it: its great to have a weekday morning mostly free to do the administrative things of life: going to the post office and bank and knowing that they will be open and not too crowded, using the kitchen while the rest of my housemates are away at school and work, and especially eating leisurely breakfast before I shower.

I don’t know about you, but on the typical weekday morning I am generally in a rush, lately I get up at the last possible instant, and even when I do manage to get up earlier I don’t really have time to ease into the day or take things slow. If I have to I shower (and very often I just say “screw it” and fake a shower with a wet brush and a quick face wash) throw on clean (does it pass the smell test? Then yes, in my book it counts as clean) clothing and throw some food into my bag to eat once I get to work. A true measure of leisure time, as far as I am concerned, is eating breakfast at a table and then showering.

Pretty much every day this week I have brought a piece of fruit with me with the intention of eating it for breakfast. And every day I’ve brought a piece of fruit I have abandoned it on a corner of my desk and gone for hot chocolate powder mixed with coffee. This should not be part of a balanced breakfast but has become my default breakfast of late. Obviously this is one of the reasons I’ve caught a cold and feel generally sluggish and unmotivated about life. Something really should be done.

I mentioned to my office mate that it looked like I was saving up for a fruit salad. He laughed and the next day he came back from the cafeteria (I don’t usually go there to eat--its only $4.75 so I do get there once a month or so, but sort of on principle I like to bring food from home because if I’ve already got it I might as well eat it, and if I keep throwing down $5 for lunch the numbers get big pretty quick: $4.75 x 12 = $57 spent if I went once a month all year! $242 if I went once a week instead! Oh how money lost does have a way of adding up!). Office Mate Man goes pretty much everyday--he has a regular crew that he eats with and so they all go together and he usually brings back the good gossip--but this time he also brought me a banana! And he has promised that tomorrow he will bring me an apple! So on Friday we will really have a fruit salad! I’ve got some frozen blueberries and also some plain yogurt already in the fridge at home, so although it will be an occurring-at-work post-shower breakfast, it should still be pretty good!

blustery indeed

2007-11-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

I have a cold. It’s the sneaky kind, the back of the throat sore, the sinuses dry yet leaky (eeew.) and the body as a whole kind of achy and slow.

I hate being sick but as sicknesses go, this one is not too terrible. The sneakiness and mildness of it allows for a certain academic detachment. As I breath in I notice the complete lack of moisture in my nose, as I swallow I follow the decent of the ache.

Also, it makes the needs so much easier to meet: I want warmth and stillness, which equals bed, empty save perhaps for a curled up kitten at the end. Simple and easily met, though of course first I’ve got to get through work, and then a training session with gym buddy and then an evening meeting (I curse all of these things individually but I will not back out of them. I hate being sick and do not want to use it as an excuse. I am a firm believer in using sick days only for ulterior purposes).

Which reminds me. At my last job once I used one of my insanely late work days (really more of a work night, since I would come in around 3 or 4 and work until 12midnight or 1 in the morning) to have a morning interview at a company a four hour drive away. I got up insanely early and drove down there and then had an hour and a half interview and then hightailed it back. On my way back I realized that with traffic the way it was I was never going to make it on time, so I called and told them that I was going to the doctors in town (with still about two hours to go until I needed to be in) and if I was running late that was why--and I told them that I was having a strep test and a monoculture done because I’d had a sore throat for a week (lies, obviously but I was thinking on my feet--since I didn’t want the job I had to know how much I wanted out). When I was a half hour from home I got a call from my director telling me to just go home and go to bed after I got done at the doctors, he would cover my shift for that day and the next so I could get better. It was unbelievably kind and made me realize that even if I wanted to leave I wasn’t going to be able to. And I didn’t--the other company offered me the job and I tried to play the bargaining game, but they didn’t want to pay me any more (their initial offer would have been 1/3 to ½ again as much as I was making at my first job, but the benefits were all in all more expensive, not as inclusive, there was little to no vacation time to speak of, and the area was considerably more expensive, cost-of -living wise, so the actual money in my pocket would have been about the same, with less time off and more expensive surroundings) and they didn’t want to give me anything for moving expenses, and they wanted me to start right away. So it was really a non-starter. Plus my boss had covered my shifts for two days because he thought I might be sick. And the department secretary called to check on me twice. So I stayed. and the second year wasn’t as bad, they hired someone part time so that I was able to work a steady 5-day (and night)-work- week and have my weekends almost completely to myself (there were always exceptions, but then, there always are). I found a cheaper apartment that was still within walking distance, which was sort of like getting a raise. And I started teaching yoga classes at a local health club in exchange for free membership, which was a fantastic move. How would you like to get paid $20 a week to work out? It made me happy, that’s for sure.

I have a thing for reference books

2007-11-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

I’m starting to wonder if I am going about things in the right way.

I did things pretty quick early on: I went straight from high school to college, straight from college to graduate school, mostly on the urgings of my parents--both of whom dropped out of college at least once and were concerned that if I didn’t get it all done quickly I would never finish even a single degree.

My four years of college were done at a state school fairly inexpensively--except for a semester exchange to England, which was expensive (but not something I’ll ever regret--I loved the traveling, learned a lot from it, and the study abroad was a great way to get out and do it). But my graduate degree (which I finished in 10 months because I was terrified of how much it would cost me to do in the recommended two years) cost about three times what my undergraduate degree did, and I am going to be paying back those loans for quite some time.

I think, if I had it do to over again I might not have jumped so quickly into a graduate program--with a little more looking around I probably could have found some way to not foot quite so much of the cost (I got a couple of small scholarships, but the rest of the money came in the form of loans).

When I finished my graduate program I had two months of being unemployed and worried about it during which I immediately refinanced my loans (and thank goodness I did--I managed to lock in a 2.6% interest rate for the lot of them, which dropped a full percentage point this year with my 36^th on-time payment). I went on three interviews and took the first job that was offered to me--making slightly less (before taxes even, gah) than I held in loans for the first year, and getting a 4% raise the year after to make about what I held in loans the second year.

When I got the job I had a pretty serious boyfriend who was a pretty serious waste of time. We had been together in college and somehow I never noticed that he didn’t have much of a work ethic or moral compass--we didn’t have many classes together and he was just so cute and different from me that I sort of glazed over the bad things for the first year we were together. When I went to graduate school he went to work at a private school, as a coach, and got himself fired just before the end of his first season. I was shocked and horrified, emotions that deepened when he went on to blame his behavior and sacking on everyone around him and take none of the blame for himself. We had fight after fight about petty little things that I’d never noticed before, but ultimately we managed to keep it together for the year we were apart.

Which turned out to be a mistake when I got a job and we moved in together.

We had lived together for our last year of college, so I knew what I was getting into, but I had hopes that things would be better--because we weren’t in college anymore, and I wanted to believe that we could be adults now, and clean up after ourselves among other things. Our apartment was decently sized--we got a cheap two bedroom and so had a whole room to use as “storage” --I wanted it to be an office eventually but it was really nice to just have a room to throw stuff in when I didn’t want to look at clutter. It was furnished with a combination of things we had had in college, thrift store finds and things my parents had given me. He never seemed to be able to close a cabinet door or actually throw away any of the packaging for things he ate--and he ate a lot of pre-packaged crap, all of a sudden. He would eat a bag of chips for lunch, or buy those gas station cinnamon buns and eat one for dinner and the other for dessert. I had no idea who he was. I was a vegetarian and pretty serious about health and health-conscious living--before, in college he had at least made an attempt, but now there was something seriously wrong.

While I was working my first professional post-graduate gig, he had gone back a step and gotten a job doing some seasonal work at a local ski hill. Although I wasn’t making much, he was making considerably less than I was, and he knew that his job had a definite expiration date. I started writing all the rent- and living- related checks so that he could build up a savings--only he didn’t, he just bought more crap: videogames, top shelf alcohol, pizza and other food that would be delivered, and several different controlled substances.

When I confronted him about the lack of savings--when he asked me to cover a couple of months bills it was so that he could save up and start looking at graduate school for himself--he raged at me that since I made so much more than he did (kind of an exaggeration, actually, but it was at least a steady pay check) I should be supporting him, it was only fair.

And then I kind of lost it. Even though he was still cute (though at this point a little pudgy), without the filter of college we didn’t really have all that much in common, and it occurred to me that this wasn’t really a relationship I had to be in, or wanted to be in.

I started writing lists; its what I do when I need to clear my mind and think seriously about a decision. He found one such list--I think he may have been poking through my stuff at the time, since most all of my writing was in a single notebook--and a couple of days later we had a huge fight followed by several days of tense silence and then his announcing that he was leaving me, had found a new apartment and would be gone by the end of the week.

I think he expected me to protest somehow, but I didn’t. it was a huge relief.

Then he asked if he could borrow $200 for the security deposit.

I loaned it to him--I should say gave it to him, since to date he still owes me somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 for covered rent, security deposit and a cell phone plan that included both of us.

It was quite a learning experience.

Anyhow, when I got that first job, our “plan” was that I would work at it for three years--long enough for that interest rate to drop, and for the two of us to save some money (I have a feeling he still hasn’t saved any money, but I haven’t talked to him in something more than two years at this point--mutual friends say he just had to drop out of graduate school because he owed the school too much money) and then I would quit, or take a leave of absence if they would let me, and we would travel for a year. Because I loved to travel, and he had never been out of the country. With our break up I decided I still wanted to stick to the plan--that I would work for three years, save as much as I could, and then take off for a year of well-deserved rest and travel.

But then I started actively hating my job. I didn’t really realize right off that I was being taken advantage of--I was working 6 days most weeks, sometimes until midnight or one in the morning, I was the office “snow policy” because when the breakup had happened I had left the 2 bedroom apartment behind for one that was ¼ of a mile from my job. After a couple of months of keeping this schedule I started to sort of look around and realize I’d put myself in a hell of a position. So I started using my late-night stints at work to look for new opportunities. I found one and applied for it, but when I did my second interview (the first was a phone interview, so I didn’t get to see the place until the second time around) I realized that the office culture was much like the place I was already working, so I decided to stick it out.

Then, as often happens, I met a guy. A good one this time: he was a vegetarian, health conscious, interested in a lot of the same things I was: organic agriculture, sustainability, zombie movies and post-apocalyptic fiction. And he was working in a similar field…two states away.

We started spending the weekends I wasn’t working together, and I started looking for jobs in the same state he was in.

I found one, and when I interviewed, mid-way through my second year at my first job, I discovered that it was perfect. So much more laid back, so much more time-flexible, so much better paid. I interviewed three times and then the manager called to tell me they had decided to go with someone else.

I was heartbroken. I called the boy and sobbed. He tried to consol me, wrote a very nice email about how he planned to be with me a long time--even though I was still two states away--and that he had started looking at jobs in my state as well.

It was so sweet and gave me renewed hope.

Then two days later the manager called again, to ask me if I might still be interested in the job. Something had happened with the first choice candidate, and she said if I didn’t take it they were going to re-open the search and get a new batch of applicants. I accepted on the spot.

I let my old manager know he was about to be my old manager and he took it really well and gave me a really decent time table for the transition.

I didn’t take any time off between jobs, I finished on a Friday, moved over the weekend and started the new one on Monday. And it was good. The people were nice, the pay was decent and the hours were fantastic.

It occurred to me at this point that I wasn’t going to be able to stick to my timetable: it would be almost impossible--I liked it and I had only just started. I couldn’t give it up after only a year, it just seemed unthinkable.

Plus it felt a little like things falling into place: a great guy, a great job, a great new apartment, though not with the guy--we had agreed that that was too far too fast--but everything was pointing toward our continuing to be serious, moving toward having a future together.

But then of course, nothing ever stays that way for long.

The boy in question has let me know he is planning on moving on--going to New Zealand for awhile, then traveling around a bit after that possibly. He’s not sure when he is coming back so he thinks we should break things off. He thinks we’re in different places right now: that I am settled and have a career, and that he just wants to travel for awhile.

I want to scream and shake him sometimes.

But part of it is right, I have sort of fallen into a career--and I’m wondering--am I going to feel like I’ve been trapped here? Am I going to regret not chucking it all and seeing the world while I’m still in my 20s and all my joints work properly?

Its just hard to know right now.

walk around walk around

2007-11-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

So. Yeah.
Had kind of a busy day yesterday, and obviously didn't get as much accomplished as I wanted to (for instance: no writing). But it was a pretty good day, all told: I managed to get up early (!! shock of shocks!!) for the first time in a couple of weeks and feel fairly motivated in the morning. I had a big presentation deal at work which went sort of haywire at t minus 2 hrs to lift off and caused a lot of running around and panicking, leaving me with massive amounts of adrenaline that stopped me from eating anything yesterday afternoon even though there was lunch at the presentation and my actual active piece of it only lasted through the first ten minutes. So that meant I went to the gym when I got home from work (after going to the city library to pick up shameful genre fiction that I will read in the seclusion of my quiet bedroom and nowhere else) and talked my gym buddy into trying this with me, which I am very excited about (I went the whole deal: I weighed, measured and photographed my "before" self in preparation for the slick new me. Friend thinks I am hilarious and ridiculous, and so far I can't say she is wrong, but I want to gauge and mark and track my progress. Here's hoping for progress!!)
Can you ever tell who you are going to end up friends with, or keeping in touch with? I never can. I think it is very possible that I just do not interact well or keep in touch well or something like that, and so possibly I am the only person who looks back at the last five or ten years and goes "my god: where did my peeps go? And who the hell are you?" I mean, there are people that I have kept in touch with and kept up with who are wonderful and fine and great and then there are people that I've had halfhearted online relationships with who, when we get together it bounces back into fullness and the friendship is totally alive and wonderful and you promise yourself no more dry spells but it never quiet works out. Then there are the folks that once upon a time you were inseparable for months or years at a time and now you just wonder "what happened?"
I bring this up in part because gym buddy is someone I knew in high school. She was Ms. Valedictorian, Ms. I-am-morally-and-intellectually-superior, and occasionally Ms. stick-so-far-up-my-ass-its-in my-brain-stem, back then. So I can't say I considered us close friends--we were both in the accelerated classes together, did the occasional project together, for a little while drama geek-ettes together, but not exactly confidants or pals or anything. But we kept in touch. Through her Ivy league education and my parallel state school stint. My graduate degree and the disintegration of my college romance , her quick marriage and drawn out divorce in (of all places) West Virginia. And now we're living in the same area code again, and we've started going to the gym.
Really, she asked if she might use me for my gym membership: she doesn't want to fork over the cash for one of her own, and one of the perks of my job is access to the gym for free--and I am allowed guests, which I had mentioned to her at some point.
But in a larger way, too, it is odd that of the people I knew in high school somehow I have hung on to gym buddy. I have a roommate right now whom I also went to high school with--but that makes more sense, because we also went to elementary school together, and played soccer together even before that. I have known that girl forever, and she is one of the ones that even though we might go a year or more without speaking, when we do talk it all comes back: the shared past, the quirk factories that are our brains, the camaraderie. I'm really glad that things sort of fell together the way that they did (it started out with a blind "hey does anyone know of a decent apartment for the summer...looking to sublet" that she sent to probably three dozen people and I just happened to be going out of town for a month, so she sublet from me and then one of my roommates moved home and she took his room and has been around ever since. fortuitous). I'm lucky to have both of them around (separately however--they do not and have not ever gotten along, which I remember well from high school) its just such an interesting thing, the way the universe works out sometimes.

and she was

2007-11-07T16:03:00.000-08:00

Home. Is where I want to be, lift me up and turn me round.

I listened to Talking Heads on the way in to work today, and it was so good--something to lift your spirits and make you think of things differently.

And then, of course, because this is a shitty year, I got pulled over.

I wasn’t speeding even! I learned my lesson last year, and got my one warning ticket. This time I got pulled over by an Officer Flint who meant business.

And he had noticed what I had been warned about--an expired inspection sticker.

It wasn’t my car, it was The Boy’s, and I should have known better I guess--I just figured that even though you imagine the worst happening, it doesn’t mean its going to happen that way. Only this time it did.

To the tune of $133. This is so not my year.

its not really a big deal. not really. just another setback. who would even notice, honestly? lately life is cluttered with them.
i'm trying to brush it off, let it go, get on with things.
so far, as you can see, that is working beautifully.
i did go to a really interesting lecture on happiness and coping mechanisms: apparently you can divide the world up into two kinds of people (can't you always?) one is strategically pessimistic (i.e. stressy about major/minor life events) the other strategically optimistic (i.e. totally laid back when it comes to the big &little stuff). and the woman giving this talk had done lots of different trials to try and make the stressy ones less stressy about things, and in the end it turns out: if the person is of such an inclination as to need to stress (imagine every possible worst circumstance, over plan and over prepare et cetera and so forth ) then even if you calm them down with soothing music or menial distracting tasks they will do poorly at whatever test you set them to because their physiology says they need to be stressing. i thought it was pretty interesting and telling--at the end she recommended ways to deal with each type (if you come from the other) and i loved that the main one for the strategic pessimist (which, hello, yours truly most likely falls into were the world to be divided as such) was give them more information so they can plan their doomsday scenerios in detail. yes please, i like my details. and i can also recognise that i have a habit of giving other people way too much information if they ask me for information (not in a TMI way--i do not share the gross minutiae of my life, but if you ask me for an article on lime disease you're likely to get three articles, a book chapter and a relevant web site).
Also today i ate lots of cookies and read about weight loss---hahahaha. i'll admit myself intrigued by this body for life thing which is similar and yet different from the fit for life thing i toyed with this summer. anyway all of my races are over for the season so perhaps i will make an attempt to shed the fluff instead of bulking up for the winter like i normally do.

soft shoe

2007-11-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

Okay so I suck. When I am not making some inane attempt, I am generally cracking wise to all and sundry, thinking I should really be writing this shit down because I am secretly brilliant. And then I go to write it down and the Big Fat Sads hit me and all I can write about is how some stupid guy is leaving me and blah blah blah. For chrissakes--do you think I’m going to get over this anytime soon? I hate the Big Fat Sads. I used to indulge in them a fair amount as a teenager--I was anti-color in clothing (shades were fine: black, white and grey. No color though. Not on my watch) and would have been wearing the big black eye makeup and such were it not for the fact that I grew up in rural Maine and I never learned how to put on makeup at all (seriously--I am a no-makeup person. I had friends who tried to teach me in college, but they would put it on and 15 minutes later I would have smeared it off--I’m really bad at most of the grown-up-girl-stuff). And I thought sad was probably the best of all the emotions. I was always sad about something.

So I think I may have wasted all my sad back then. Or possibly the summer after my freshman year in college, when I indulged in clinical depression (don’t worry, I think it was mostly situational) for a couple of months. So now I am all “sad sad sad” flailing myself around and then in mid-flail I suddenly realize how ridiculous I am and how stupid it all is: to be sad over a boy? Wtf? Okay so he is leaving me, okay so it isn’t going to work out in typical fairytale fashion. Did I really think I was that person? I mean, yeah today I wore khakis to work, but I am generally just about a half-step above streetcrazy as far as appearance goes, so how in the hell did I expect to “normalize” and participate in the mating games of civilized society anyway? Because that’s the thing: he totally made me feel like we were doing the “normal” thing, that there was a flow and we were following it, that everything was as it seemed and that that was a good thing. And so I’m all romanticizing life and imagining continuing normalcy and it turns out I was some sort of diversionary tactic prior to his world tour. Shit. And its one of those things that starts to freak you out, not in and of itself, but because you’ve been building your little romanticized worldview and as it gets pulled down around your ankles you suddenly realize that its cold out there without it and you can’t figure out how to keep warm anymore.

It reminds me, very pointedly of the most worrying part of my ramble around Europe in college--my aunt and uncle came to visit me in England, and we palled around for a weekend--did all the expensive London stuff I couldn’t afford to do on my own, went to visit some friends of theirs in Kent, that sort of thing, and then the time came for us to go our separate ways--and I had been traveling for over two months already at that point--I knew my deal, knew what I was doing and how to go about it, but when I left them at the train station I was suddenly terrified and uncertain about anything and everything--I felt abandoned and alone, because I’d been a kid again--a part of a group, a follower--for that whole weekend, and then I was jumping back into being in charge of myself again and it felt so totally foreign in that moment I wasn’t sure I could do it. But of course I did: when you haven’t got any other options it makes things pretty easy I’ve found. You do something because you have to and its just that simple. Which is where I am right now I guess. He is leaving me and I am all wrapped up in my Big Fat Sad but I’ll get over it because I have to: I just don’t have that kind of tragedy in me anymore. And I never did learn the proper way to do that eye makeup (I would still like to learn that I think--I do think it is fabulous still, to this day).

slack attack

2007-11-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

Okay so I totally slacked off this weekend on the writing side of things: I lounged on Saturday--well, I did the bare minimum necessary to keep up; the usual round of bank-post office-bookstore (okay so usually that’s grocery store, but I had paperbacks to get rid of and there was a Nor’easter going on so I needed new reading material). And then I made a bunch of stuff out of apples (I had a shopping bag full of apples in the basement that was about to be unusable, so I made applesauce and apple dumplings and finished them off).

I did a fair amount of laying around feeling sorry for myself, which isn’t really a good thing. I had a ticket to go to an event at the Expo--a sort of showcase of locally brewed beers that had sounded good at one point, and at the last minute (Saturday afternoon, for an event that was Saturday night) I decided I really didn’t feel like going and looked on Craigslist to see if I could get rid of it--and I did manage to make a little profit above getting my money back, which was something anyway.

Obviously I need a specific time dedicated to this little practice if I want it to continue, but I am (as always) having trouble setting aside the time or finding the time to set aside or whatever else I can blame it on.

And now I am kind of “eh” on it, because I haven’t done anything in two days--so why start now, right?

Heh. Yeah, I’m in trouble.

There has got to be something I can do to get this under control, right? It doesn’t seem like anything is totally under my control lately: my boyfriend is leaving me (breaking up with me) to go be Mr. Adventure because a) it “doesn’t seem fair” to him for me to wait around and b) he is not sure he will still want to be with me when he gets back. And its horrible, terrible awful because I loved him before but now I am all hyped on his unavailability on top of everything else and so angry that he is doing this to me: that he can’t see any other future for us than breaking up, that he can’t love me enough to try and make a long distance relationship work for the time he is gone when I am having trouble figuring out what a future without him is going to look like. I feel helpless and tragic and hate it. But I can’t seem to hate him, which is a bad thing. Since he is in the process of getting ready to leave me--cut me out of his life, replace me with something and someone new and all that jazz. Bastard.

And somehow I keep trying to find the funny--find some other stuff to hold my attention and help me deal and instead I keep coming back to this: I can’t understand why he doesn’t love me. What is wrong with me? It’s a horrible place to be and I can’t seem to get out of it.

down down down into the cake of eternal glory

2007-11-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

Doorways archways, openings. These things give an idea of movement, of natural forward progression that I can almost feel. I will move beyond this: I will get out of this room safely and easily and move into the light space outside that opening.

Only not today. There is a drag on my movement today, a mental pause that precludes movement and may in fact make it impossible.

I don’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone, be with anyone.

I don’t want to have to explain.

I feel so unlovable, so bereft, so alone. You would think I had been abandoned already, only it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it is the worse for all that: to see and to know that there is a person who claims to love you, only not enough. Not enough to stay, not enough to even make an attempt at keeping in touch at backing up what he says: if he loves me then how can he just be leaving? He can’t prove he loves me because he doesn’t. it’s the only conclusion I can come to. The only way it makes sense.

How do I prove so unworthy? How can I still be alive and be so unloved? What did I do wrong?

I want to cultivate a broad sense of the ridiculous, if only to attempt to keep a flame of humor alive in my skull. The darkness is blinding, isolating. I don’t want to know or speak to anyone. But maybe I can look, maybe image can sustain me.

There is a man outside striding around in the parking lot wearing a tall chef’s hat. It’s a peculiar thing to see, and he looks quite proud, I imagine him listing his credentials in his head as he walks, shoulders squared to some imagined chef’s convention or get together at 10am on a Friday morning.
And this makes me smile. I personally would love to have the nickname “Tripsy McStumble” for my very own some days.

I am, sadly, coming to the realization that I am rather accident prone. I’ve gone decades without knowing this, but it seems that lately whatever it is that can happen in a bad-news-bears fashion, it happens to me: a broken wrist, a fender-bender, a slip on the stairs, a fractured heart and ego, a spilt bowl of batter for cake or banana bread or pancakes. I don’t know how it happens, or why, but it just seems to keep happening to me.

I’m trying not to dwell on it, I really am, but it keeps coming up.

Despair just keeps finding me--I am trying to see the good, the absurd the life around me, but my mind just wants to go back to bed and listen to Tool for the rest of the day.

I really thought I could be more upbeat than this. This is not really turning out the way I had planned at all.

Such is life, as my father would say

I guess it can't all be fun and games, but why does that part have to come first?

2007-11-01T08:54:00.001-07:00

Day one. Start at the beginning.

There is no beginning. This is an obvious middle, or even potentially an ending, for some things. But it’s the first day of a new month. That is new, that is beginning-like. So that’s where we are.

I want to get up early but I can’t seem to actually do it. I have this idea that waking early is a morally responsible thing to do, that it is the kind of thing that will eventually turn me into a good person.

I want to be a good person.

But I can’t seem to get up early. My alarm goes off three times and then I lay there and think about how much sick time I have, or think about how much financial responsibility it will take to put me into the independently wealthy category of life.

It is going to take a very long time, and is a depressing thing to think about first thing in the morning.

These are my personal roadblocks. I seem to be totally unmotivated from the get go, from the beginning. This beginning, this first day.

Add to this a need and craving for human comfort and you have someone ready to slide into sloth, to climb under the covers of cozy mediocrity and rest on the laurels of work already done and hide her head in the pillow of self aggrandizement until late afternoon or middle life.

But there is a seed of me, a piece of me, that rebels. That begs for difference, for change, for progress. For writing. And getting up early in the morning.

So I set my alarms, all three, require wakefulness even if I cannot require uprightness first thing in the morning, and I hope that it will engender other things, other changes, other pieces of potential motivation.

I can only hope.

Its November first, and things haven’t changed very much so far. I was late for work this morning, I did not get up early and write or run first thing like I had hoped to do last night, but I am writing now, and I’m out at the desk which is a new something as well.

Little changes, baby steps. Maybe tomorrow I will make it in on time. Maybe tonight I’ll go running.

He’s still coming over tonight. He’s still leaving me in December. He’s still going down to Boston to visit an ex (roommate of mine, old fling of his. She is married. They are friends. We are friends. This should be fine. Why isn’t it fine?) tomorrow. Too much of me is still emotionally tied to him. Too much of what he does still matters, still hurts. I had a fond few minutes the other day, when I had partially gotten over my anger at his sudden need to see her, where I daydreamed that he was going down to see her so they could go ring shopping. So he could say “surprise! I am not really leaving you to go adventuring, instead I have decided I do really care about you and want to spend my life with you!” this is sad and delusional I know, and also is not happening. I do not live in a romantic comedy. Sometimes I may wish I did, but I do not. The best I can hope for is that the movie of my life isn’t a tragedy, as much as I don’t want to get out of bed some days.

Well, its worth a try

2007-10-31T15:51:00.000-07:00

I've been half-assing it for years, saying I want to write and not actually doing anything to change the fact that I'm not. So the plan for right now is to try and write 500 words a day (any words at all--preferably sensicle but not necessarily all-linked-together) for the month of November (Its like my own WriMo --which I need, because I've tried that before and its too huge a jump for me at this point: I just need to get a baseline and then I can think about upping the output into something novel-istic). I'd like to punctuate it by submitting things to various online writing communities: hopefully once a week I will submit something to either thisisby.us , 365tales
, Writer's Beat or Writing Gather so that I am actively putting stuff out there and interacting as well as doing that type-type-type into cyberspace that is what I understand blogging basically is.
So yeah, happy Halloween and here goes nothing. I wish Blogger had a word-count feature.