Inane Chatter

Sadly, I don’t think it works that way.  I did two classes back to back this evening at the gym.  Work today was a nightmare, I left late with no time to stop at the store, got home with barely enough time to change and get to class, and I still had to pick up my dry-cleaning first.  So I dashed into class and found a spot near my neighbor (Have I mentioned that my next-door neighbor comes to this class?  We’ve chatted more in three evenings than in the last five years.), a little out of breath, and within two minutes, I was calm, relaxed, and happy.  It was SO nice to not have to rush, to just BE there.  I didn’t get that any other place today.  I’ll be looking for it the rest of this week, but with three days in DC in a row (starting tomorrow), I don’t think I’ll find it.

I need a vacation.  A home vacation.  The kind where you stay home for a week and get things done.  It’s not necessarily relaxing, but it’s good for your peace of mind because all those little home projects that have been driving you crazy while undone can finally get done. But I don’t want to use up precious vacation days.  I don’t see a solution.  Nope, no possible solution.  None at all.  Sorry, can’t be done.  I’ll just have to live with it.  All or nothing.  Now or never.  Looks like the end of the line.  No light at the end of the tunnel.  Carpal tunnel.  Carpe diem.  Seize the carp!  I don’t want a fish pond in my backyard.  I’d be inviting all the mosquitoes to move in, get drunk, and have lots of mosquito babies.  Running water would be better.  I could totally live with a babbling brook.  As long as I couldn’t hear it from my bedroom at night.  You know you have to pee in the middle of the night when your dreams involve frantic searches for toilets.

I need a vacation from my brain.

The first annual Waddle for Winter Ultra-Marathon:

Thanks to The Daily What for finding it.

I just finished the first Sookie Stackhouse novel (Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris), and I can’t decide if I want to keep reading them.  This is the series that the HBO show True Blood is based on, and I have kind of a love-hate relationship with the show.  John and I have talked about reading the books a few times, so he picked the first one up for my birthday.  He asked how it was going.  You know how Sookie babbles (I mean on the show, of course)?  Way more information in one sentence than anyone needs?  Well, Anna Paquin does a good Sookie Stackhouse.  And she’s the narrator.  And if you think her relationship with Bill is messed up on TV?  Reading the book will not change your mind.  On the other hand, it’s quick, it’s entertaining, but for once (twice, really – I feel this way about Jodi Picoult novels), I think I don’t need to own these books before I read them.  The library will do just fine.

John got up around 4:30 this morning.  I assumed he was just getting up to go to the bathroom.  I certainly didn’t hear anything, but I did wake up.  I heard a strange sort of beep when he closed the door, but I assumed it was the hinges.  I heard it again when he came back out.  So, definitely hinges, right?  But not your normal hinge noise.  I blinked and realized that John was now in the room across the hall with the light on, and the noise was getting louder (or maybe I was just more awake).

Sleepy and confused me: “What is that?  What’s going on?”

Wide awake and thoroughly irritated John: “It’s the smoke alarm.  It’s not hooked up to anything, and I’ve removed the battery, but it won’t stop beeping.”

It was our very own re-enactment of a Friends episode.  Except I’m pretty sure John just replaced the battery and came to bed.  I think.  I didn’t ask.

Work today was not cool.  There was drama, and I cried.  (Less than five minutes, alone in a bathroom stall – that sounds really pathetic, but it wasn’t that bad.  It was after I got an apology of sorts, not while the drama was going on.)  It’s over, I’m home, I exercised, John made dinner – all is well.  But I’m tired.  Drama wears me out.

Some days, I’m just not capable of thinking up things to write about.  Even boring things, like the weather (we had ice this morning and I went in to work late – it didn’t make work more exciting).  I promised pictures of the new bookshelves, but I was hoping for sunlight.  And I’ll probably wait until there’s stuff on the ones in the dining room.  It’ll make for a better picture.  The house is shaping up pretty nicely, though.  The first floor only.  The second floor needs some work.  We’re almost in the market for a futon to replace the twin trundle beds in the guest room.  (I say almost because we spent WAY lots of money this weekend.  More furniture will have to wait.)  Before the dining is done, however, I need wine racks.  Wine racks that will fit on bookshelves.  I’ve seen a couple, but nothing I love.  And I don’t want to turn the whole bookcase into a wine rack.  Which means I’ll need other places to store wine.  I haven’t yet given up on this (it would look quite nice next to a chair by the fireplace or near a chair (that I would need to buy – what was I just saying about money?) in the library), and I’m looking for similar items…

In the meantime, I found this picture on Bookshelf Porn, and I’m torn between wanting to swim through the books (like Scrooge McDuck in his money pit) and itching to organize them.  They’re crying out to be sorted by genre and alphabetized!

Can't you hear them? "Sort us, please! We're so confused!"

Tonight’s Kukuwa class only had three students (including me), and all three of us came straight from the Monday night strength and toning class.  No energy left.  The mirrors reflected a line of zombies shuffling their way across the room.  No coordination, no life – just stumbling from step to step with one eye on the clock.  Not a good workout.

If you love books and need decorating ideas (for your books – no, also in general), visit these websites.  SuzRocks told me about one in yesterday’s comments (best birthday present from the internet ever), and I just don’t know what to do with myself now.  Other than get lost in these sites.

Bookshelf Porn

Bookcase Porn

The best part of the timing of my birthday is, of course, the three-day weekend it usually falls on.  So even though, technically, my birthday will be over in just under two hours, I really get another day.  A day with a trip to a used bookstore.  You know what I don’t have enough of?  Goats. Books.

This weekend last year, we went to Ikea, bought bookshelves, put them together, and re-shelved all the books.  This weekend this year, we went to Ikea, bought bookshelves, and will be putting them together and re-shelving all the books tonight and tomorrow.  I’d like to make this my new birthday tradition.  Very few things make me as happy as puttering around with my books.  Tomorrow (maybe Monday – there’s a lot to reorganize), I’ll have pictures.

February is a big tease.  Or in desperate need of medication.  It was 75 and sunny and wonderful today, but this is our forecast for next week:

Mother Nature might be bipolar.

John is in class tonight, so I have the evening to myself.  What have I done so far?  I’ve watched TV.  TV John isn’t interested in.  Two episodes of Glee and the Valentine’s Day episode of Cougartown (which, if you can get past the stupid name, was really good last season – not quite up there this season) later, it’s 8:30, and if it weren’t for the laundry, I’d be able to say I haven’t left the couch since I got home.  Sounds lazy (I’m not a couch potato!), but that’s what I wanted.  After last night’s class and this morning’s workout, I can barely move my shoulders.  Feeding myself hurt a little.  Good hurt.  Ooh, a bath!  I’m totally taking a bubble bath.  With candles and music and my book.  If I only I could figure out how to hold my book so I can see it without having to use my arms.

The dryer is buzzing at me.  Must go.

In no particular order:

• Nathan Fillion
• John Stamos
• Daniel Craig
• Hugh Jackman
• Romany Malco

This list is constantly under review.

Runners-up (who occasionally rotate onto the list)

• Christian Bale
• Colin Firth
• George Clooney
• Clive Owen
• Taye Diggs
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers
• Alexander Skarsgard

MY sister (not YOUR sister – MY sister (well, maybe your sister, but I don’t know her, so this is for MY sister) passed her oral exams today!  Comps is (are?) over, and she passed with flying colors.  Go Min!  I asked her if she was AB-Masters, but she said, to be accurate, she’s actually AB-double Masters.  Show-off. 

I’m a snorer.  I can’t help it.  Most of the time, if I snore at all, it’s quiet enough and not constant enough to bother John.  (Or so he says.  It certainly doesn’t bother me.)  Unfortunately, we had a little change in the weather recently, and I’ve been the tiniest bit congested the last two nights.  Just enough to start snoring.  Just enough to keep John from sleeping.  His reaction to my snoring?  Jiggle the bed with his leg.  It’s like a small earthquake, but I know it’s a signal from John that means “Ohmygodyou’resnoringpleasestopNOW.”  So I roll over onto my side and try to go back to sleep withOUT snoring.  It doesn’t last.  More bed-jiggling, more rolling over, more guilt on my part ’cause the last thing I want to do is keep John from sleeping, and while all this is going on, neither of us is quite awake enough to consider moving to the guest room.  This morning, though, that was the first thing on my mind.  I’m awake, I’m exhausted, and I’m sleeping in the other room tonight.

Isn’t every day supposed to be Valentine’s Day when you’re in love?  What makes today so special?  And why should we let somebody else dictate to us when we should celebrate our love?

On the other hand, celebrating love is a whole lot better than celebrating war or other bad stuff.

I love Russell Brand.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Riley usually doesn’t care about treats (unless it’s steak or fish or something irresistible like that), but tonight we’re only talking about a tortilla chip.  John offered it to him, and he slobbered all over it, but ultimately declined.  Walked away uninterested.  So John put the chip in Roxy’s bowl (she was outside).  A few minutes later, we heard a loud crunching sound coming from the other side of the island.  Unmistakable.  Roxy never knew what she missed.  And Riley may have developed a love for chips.

Why so many title pages?  This book has THREE.

First

Second

Third

They’re all in a row, one after the other, and that’s not even counting the page before the FIRST title page that basically works like the back of the dust jacket, with the title and author AGAIN (and a short bio).  I don’t understand.  Why so many?  Does Random House think I’m going to forget what book I just picked up? Every one and a half seconds?

I don’t get it.  But I do think Random House is a cool name for a company.  Maybe I’ll call my bookstore Random Books.  Or Random Reads.  Random Readers.  Random Shop.  Maybe just Random.  Maybe not.

Wanna see the worst haircut I’ve ever gotten?  I hated it.  It was the summer after my freshman year in college.  I was going for a pixie cut, something really short, something I’d never done before (and have never tried since), but that Mom and Mindy do really well.  If they can do it, I can, right?  Maybe I wasn’t clear enough with the stylist.  She gave me something that looked kinda like Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell in Hook.  With a mullet.

With a mullet. And not so many layers, I think. I don't remember. I've blocked it out.

It was awful.  I got home, cried, and went somewhere else the next day to try to get it fixed.  Which wasn’t really possible.  So I hated my hair that whole summer.  I recently came across a picture of me from later that summer, and while I still don’t think it’s a good haircut, I don’t think it was quite as bad as it seemed at the time.

It’s not something I’d do again, though.

And to bribe you into saying nice things about this old picture of me (or at least non-commital not-mean things), here’s Mr. Toad.

Maybe only linking to two things doesn’t count as linktastic, but they’re totally worth it.

Link #1: Today’s XKCD comic.  I’m a little twitchy now.

Link #2: By way of nn.c (and yesterday’s post, no less – I’m a little late), here’s a video both amazing and adorable.  It’s making me wish for a really good video camera so I can do the same thing with Riley racing at full speed around the yard.

Yeah, yeah, it’s less a link and more an embedded video, but I think you’ll forgive me.

#)(*$%^&*%#!

I would choose to use a mouse over a touchpad any day of the week.  If I’m sitting at a desk or a table or a coffee table or any flat surface.  If my laptop is actually in my lap, a mouse is more of a hindrance.  I mention this because I’m sitting at my little desk between the dining room and the kitchen, and I reached over with my right hand to move the mouse.  The mouse that isn’t there.  But my hand made the mouse shape and tensed to hold it under my palm.  Weird feeling to tense for a mouse and miss.  It’s very much like going upstairs while carrying something that’s blocking your view so you can’t tell when you’ve reached the top and your foot looks for the next step only to find nothing but air so you stumble a little as your foot misses and hits the floor.  It’s like that.

My brain has been buzzing all day, but only about work stuff, and I wish it would stop. I was asked to volunteer for some outside-normal-working-hours work, and that project finally started to need me, so work is reaching into my evening and weekend hours again. Thankfully, this particular project is due in two weeks, so the pain will be short-lived.

I have a desperate dog trying to crawl into my lap, making typing difficult. He’d climb into my skin with me if he could. Needy animal.  We’re going to try group meditation (me and the dog) and see if he’ll calm down once I’m fully relaxed.  Deep breaths, Riley. You can do it.