All shopped out

My friend Stephanie and I spent FIVE HOURS outlet shopping today.  We tried on all the clothes at the Ann Taylor and Banana Republic Factory Stores and bought half of them, and then we visited every single shoe outlet there.  Struck out on shoes, though.  I’ve lost track of what I’m looking for, except for a pair of black pumps that I can wear with anything for work and a pair of boots.  I didn’t find anything remotely like the boots I want.  I’ve been noticing people wearing them, but I don’t know where they’re from.  I’ll be heading to DSW again soon.  I checked Zappos and they’ve got what I’m looking for.  I’d just like to try some styles on before I order.

I’m looking for something like these:

Type Z Mamie

Lucky Brand May

Romantic Soles Brooke (Wide Calf)

Gabriella Rocha Abbey

Enzo Angiolini Visco

They’re casual, something I wouldn’t be afraid to really wear (I don’t want to have to worry about scuffing them, so I want boots that can take it), looks good with jeans…  I love boots.  Before I buy anything else, though, I’m going to clean out my closet.  For real.  I wear the boots I have, so they can stay, but most of my other shoes will go.  I mean it.  Clothes, too.  I’ll be ruthless.

Not a life-changing experience

I already knew this, but now that I’ve been to a concert, I feel the need to say it again: Bruce Springsteen is not for me.  John and I went to the Springsteen concert in DC on Friday night.  Wait – I need to back up.  A few years back, John went to his first Bruce concert with a few friends of ours who are rabid fans.  I mean, these guys know every song he’s ever recorded, have all the albums, always go to concerts when Springsteen is on tour.  That stuff doesn’t make them rabid fans.  No, they go to as many concerts on each tour that they can manage, sometimes traveling miles and miles to go to back to back shows in three different cities.  Friday’s concert was the sixth show our buddy Joe has gone to on this tour alone.  On top of that, they know the set lists of practically every concert he’s ever played ever.  It’s not unusual to have a conversation with one of them that goes like this:

Hey, I kinda like song X from that one album.

Yeah, that’s a great song, but you won’t hear that when we go to this concert.  He hasn’t played that one live since the Evanston show of 1993.  Now THAT was a great show.

Anyway, John was just a casual fan before he went to that show (he’s more than that now, but hasn’t reach rabid levels of fandom yet) .  These guys (and every Springsteen fan I’ve talked to since) told him he HAS to go to a live show, it’s AWESOME, it’s an experience you’ll never get anywhere else – it’s just amazing.  So John went, and it was great.  He had a really good time, it was a really great show, and he started paying more attention to the Boss.  That’s fine – doesn’t bother me one bit.  He went to a couple more shows over the next couple of years, and I had to suffer through a little more Springsteen in the house, but that’s not that big a deal.  Then this tour started, and the guys got together and decided to all go.  John really wanted me to get in on this, and I’d been hearing how great these shows are, so I agreed and we bought two tickets.

I have to admit to not being all that excited as the date approached.  I love live music, and I knew I’d have a good time, but I didn’t prep for it.  I know a handful of songs (“Glory Days”, “Born in the USA”, “Dancing in the Dark”), and I recognize a few more but don’t know more than a couple lines from them (“Born to Run”, “Thunder Road”), but that’s it.  Frankly, I don’t really like his stuff, so prepping didn’t sound appealing at all.  Why listen to more of what I don’t like?  I was counting on the LIVE aspect of the show to be more entertaining than his depressing and repetitive songs.

Ultimately?  It was fun, but I’m in no hurry to go again.  It was loud and crowded (both in a good way) and energetic and everything, and all of that is cool and fun to watch, but it was still Bruce Springsteen, and you know what?  I still don’t like Bruce Springsteen.  Well, personally, I’m sure he’s a fun guy.  I don’t like his songs.  When the band did some covers (“Devil in a Blue Dress”, “Twist and Shout”) at the end of the almost four-hour concert, I thought it was great.  Did it change concert-going for me forever?  No.  No, it did not.

Since when have there been seven days in a week?

I have found myself completely unable to tell what day of the week it is.  At least I’m not alone.  I told Mom today I would check on something Tuesday, thinking today was Saturday, even though I went to work today and complained about it  being Monday several times.  Probably.  That’s something I’ve been known to do.  I’m sure I did it today.  Unless it was last Monday…  Mom thought it was Tuesday all day.  I talked to Jess yesterday, and she was convinced (or at least hoped) it was Saturday.  It’s probably just wishful thinking, like my dream last night that I was eating brownies and cake with whipped cream and strawberries.  (Oh how I want that.)  Let’s continue to assume it’s wishful thinking and not the deterioration of my brain.

Hypothetically ruffled feathers

A pest guy (guy in the pest control business, not a guy who’s a pest – although those guys are usually both) just came by the house selling pest control services (he was conventional like that -it would’ve been more interesting if the pest guy was selling, I don’t know, ANYthing else), and I got rid of him by leading him on a little (“Sure, give me your number.  I’ll check the company out online and give you a call if we’re interested.”).  I also told him I never make decisions like that on the spot, and as he left he said, “No problem.  Just check with your hu – [big pause here] – whoever you need to check with, and let me know.”  Nice catch, buddy.  Never assume!  Although he does still seem to be assuming someone else makes this kind of decision and not me.  What?  Just because I was home all day today?  You don’t know me.  I’m sure I’m reading too much into it, but it’s FUN to get hypothetically angry at the hypothetical assumptions the hypothetical real pest guy was making.  How dare he?!

It is time for me to take on the enormous task of catching up on the internet again.  It keeps getting away from me.  In case you need help with the same task, I’m very happy to tell you that Jess has started blogging again.  Like, yesterday (or a couple of days ago), but still – it’s a (re)start.

Leaky brain syndrome

I had a couple of half-formed ideas of things to write about today, but they’re pretty much gone.  Or far enough away that I don’t have more than a sentence.  You know, like how Jess’s phone called me without her knowledge this afternoon, and how I can’t get enough avocado lately, so I was terribly disappointed when I asked to have avocado added to my sandwich from Panera this evening and they left it off and I didn’t realize until I got home and then it was too late and I was sad.  I had avocado in my salad for lunch (Au Bon Pain – spinach, egg, bacon, avocado, chicken, black beans, honey mustard, and a little more avocado – oh wow good), so it’s not like I had to get through the whole day avocado-less.  Just dinner.

Insert Homer Simpson drooling noise

Mom has made some really good book choices lately.  The last two books I read (well, the one I’m reading now and the one I just read) were her recommendations, and I am very happy with them.  That’s not to say that her recommendations aren’t normally trustworthy – they very much are – but sometimes I need more persuading.  Maybe I’m just being stubborn for no reason.  Or for the same reason John gets stubborn he’s looking for his next book and I send a continuous stream of suggestions his way.  Suggestion overload!  Anyway, I think the best thing – okay, best things about these latest two are a) I knew almost nothing about them before I read them, and 2) they are not at all similar to each other but are both really good.  And good to read back to back, for reasons I have not yet thought out.  And I really like that I hardly knew anything about them.  Mom told me the premise of The Age of Miracles, but she told me absolutely nothing about Gone Girl, and I think I kind of prefer it that way.  John and I work pretty hard to avoid spoilers for movies and TV shows, avoiding just about anything that mentions them.  We really like going into these things with no preconceptions.  With books, you’ve usually got the cover, the blurb on the back, some expectation based on the genre or author or something.  With Gone Girl, since I’m reading it on the Kindle, I don’t have anything but the title and the author’s name.  In the long run, I can see how that might make it difficult to decide what to read next since I often decide based on what genre I’m in the mood for, but once in a while starting a book completely in the dark about it is fun.

Speaking of my book, I’d really like to read it now, so, you know.  Bye.

Only a little spooky

The gym at night is a peaceful place.  I know I won’t work out tomorrow (going to visit Jess and Chuck – yay!), and Sunday will depend a lot on when we get home, so I figured I’d squeeze in an extra workout tonight.  Especially after IHOP for dinner.  The gym is open until 10pm on weeknights, and most nights there are still people there pretty late.  Not tonight, though.  I walked in at 8 and I had the place to myself.  It was kinda nice.  None of the TVs were on and neither was the music, so the only sounds were my own.  I could pretend it was my own private gym.  No annoying people allowed.

As if on cue, Riley came over and shoved his dripping head into my lap just then.  (He’s a messy drinker.)  I’ve got to pay him some special attention to make up for boarding him overnight tomorrow.

Good night!

Being geeky

This weekend was just about perfect.  I made a list of things to do and got nearly all of them done and still had time to sit on the porch and watch the rain.  Among my things to do were backing up my blog database, updating WordPress, and installing Linux.  Okay, so John did the actual installation for me and then solved my wireless problem, but still.  Now I have the latest version of Ubuntu (the Linux distribution I decided to go with after conferring with a couple of people).  Huh.  That makes it sound like I gathered opinions and did some research before deciding.  It didn’t go exactly like that.

“Hey, Randy, what version of Linux should I install?”

“Hey, John, Randy suggests Ubuntu.  What do you think?”

“Great, let’s do it.”

Thanks, guys.  🙂  Anyway, now that it’s installed, I have do some configuring.  It looks….different.  Cool, though.

Alien, but pretty. Customizing is underway.

Must go.  Time for pie.

Inspired by the six-year-old

We’re at the breakfast table this morning with Gaby, who is writing in her journal about what we did yesterday.

Gaby: Well, I want to write that we saw monuments, but…I don’t know how to spell “saw”.

John couldn’t hold the laughter in.  She had no problem with monuments.  And then I heard her spell Washington with very little hesitation.  She’s a genius!

We’re all on our laptops (except Gaby, who’s using a cute little spiral-bound notebook) this morning, after a nice lie-in.  Wolf Trap cancelled last night’s performance of The Pirates of Penzance, so we stayed in and had our picnic dinner in the family room with The Muppet Show.  It’s just as well – we were all pretty worn out after the heat and the driving.  We met up with Jess (Hi, Jess!) for a yummy lunch in Annapolis, blew some bubbles at the harbor (also thanks to Jess), ate some really good ice cream, and tried on lots of hats at Hats in the Belfry.  Hey!  That’s news for us – John found a hat.  One that fits and looks pretty cool and will keep him from burning his head every time he goes out in the sun.  It’s a miracle.  I fell in love with a plum-colored cloche hat, but then I looked at the price tag.  I just can’t spend $175 on a hat.  Even when it’s this cool.

Today the plan is to stay inside and hide from the heat.  No plans, no schedule, just whatever we want to do, whenever we want to do it.  And now that the internet is back (the storm late Friday night knocked it for most of yesterday)…you know, I really don’t know how to end that sentence.  I don’t remember where I was going with it when I started it.  Now that the internet is back, we can…play on the internet?  But we’re not really going to do that today, so…yeah.  No idea.

Yay John!

I’m not sure it’s possible to cram more things into one weekend.  They were all good things, all fun things, but – what happened to my weekend?  We got up Saturday morning and met Erik and Margaret (and Corinne) for brunch.  Totally fun and very good to see them.  We got home Saturday afternoon, cleaned up after the dogs, and mowed the lawn.  Then we went out to see The Avengers (SO much awesome) with Will and Christina, and then, since we hadn’t seen them in a while (we’ve seen Will pretty regularly, but I haven’t seen Christina in nearly two years), we stayed out with them until nearly 1am.  This morning, we got up at a reasonable hour and headed to the George Mason campus for John’s graduation (from Virginia Tech, not George Mason).  Finally, it’s official.  John has an M.S. in Computer Science.  (I failed big time in the photo department.  Too blurry, too dark, too late – missed him.)  We met John’s parents and sisters there (they drove down for the ceremony and dinner after), so we had a very pleasant afternoon and evening with them.  Now we’re home, thoroughly exhausted, with dogs that wonder where the hell we went all weekend.  I only wonder where the hell all these ants came from.  We leave town in four days.  It’s be nice to solve this ant problem before then.

I am not pleased

John had brunch with the band this morning (Rock stars do brunch, don’t they?  No?  Well, they should.  Brunch is awesome.), so I took my book (The Bloggess‘s hilarious Let’s Pretend This Never Happened) off to Starbucks with me.  I got my favorite drink (tall skim no-whip toffee nut white mocha – I mention it all the time because I assume you’re planning on memorizing it so you can order one for me next time we’re at Starbucks together without even having to check with me.  You’re planning to do that, right?) and sat at a table outside to sip and read.  Lovely half-hour or so, only slightly marred by the kid at the next table who stared every time I laughed at my book (which was about every 10 seconds).  He was just jealous.  Then Wegmans (Yes, I actually went to the grocery store this weekend.  Can you believe it?), home to unload, and back out to get my nails done.  I was desperately in need of both a manicure and a pedicure.  I went to my favorite place, but for the second time this weekend, I was turned away.  Terribly sad.  The first time was Friday evening.  My friend Chastity was in no hurry to face traffic on her way home, so we decided to get our nails done and went to this place.  Turns out this weekend was prom weekend, so they were fully booked.  Sad.  We gave up that night, but I assumed that by Sunday I’d be able to walk in.  I should have asked, since when I got there today, there was a sign on the door that said they were closed for a private party.  Disappointed, I went to my old favorite salon.  Unfortunately, they’re under new management, and I am not happy about it.  It wasn’t a terrible experience, but it wasn’t the relaxing afternoon I’d hoped for.  They didn’t stab me in the toe or anything, and my nails look okay, but they’re cut too short, and the lady was a bit rough with my cuticles.  So I have to find another back-up nail salon (or plan ahead).  My life is so hard.

Count to ten and breathe deeply

Statistics is over and John’s thesis has been turned in (his defense is Friday evening).  I should be able to relax a little now, right?  Why don’t I feel relaxed?  Relax, dammit!

Okay, yelling may not be the right approach.

Let’s blame it on work and leave it at that.  Actually, let’s blame it on getting up at 5 in the morning three days a week to get to work.  I can’t handle 5am.  6am is fine.  Maybe it’s a mental block, but it’s one I can’t (and don’t want to, to be perfectly frank) get past.

(I have one thing to say to all of you who are just itching to tell me what to do about it: I KNOW.  I will do something about it.  I have a plan.  You don’t have to tell me again.  So shush now and let me vent.  Thank you for your time.)

In other news, I got to hang out with a most adorable puppy (and Jess and Chuck, but let’s get our priorities straight here).  See?

His name is Rashi and he is the snuggliest puppy ever.

You want one, don’t you?  (I do.)

It’s a bird! It’s a plane!

Someday we’re going to live in a place where good sushi isn’t readily accessible.  I’m not looking forward to that, but I can’t really see making sushi a deal-breaker when looking for a place to live.  Not that we’re looking right now.  Still, sad day ahead.

You know what’s not sad (or who, I should say)?  Erik and Margaret’s teeny baby when I’m holding her.  We went to their place yesterday to meet adorable little Corinne, and I surprised us all by turning into Supersitter!.  Supersitter! took the baby (who was fighting her nap) when we got arrived, and Supersitter! swung and bounced her while we chatted in the kitchen, and then Supersitter! soothed wee baby Corinne right to sleep, head buried in Supersitter!’s armpit (which seemed odd to Supersitter!, but what can you do?).  It certainly wasn’t Supersitter!’s arms that got tired or Supersitter!’s stomach that was growling – those things don’t happen to Supersitter!.  It was a nice afternoon.  Good to see them all.

Then I spent last night and most of today getting ahead on my homework.  Exciting.  And apropos of absolutely nothing (but courtesy of The Bloggess), here are some otters that look like Benedict Cumberbatch.

Where the grass is labeled

This is still my favorite XKCD comic.  I think.  It’s one of my favorites, definitely, because it’s one of the ones I continue to laugh at, even though it’s been years since it was posted.

Also, this one.

Do you have the Draw Something app?  Our friendly neighborhood Wombat asked me that exact question just the other day.  My response (after immediately downloading it to my phone) was “I do now!”   I am so very bad at it, but it’s fun.  It’s like Pictionary without the yelling.  (Usually.)  And Wombat is being very gracious about my terrible drawings.  She’s good – she drew a great cheeseburger.  I really suck.  Truly.  But if you download it and you want to play, send me an email!

Watch out for falling cliches

Happy New Year!  It’s a brand new year, not too cold (I’m convinced we’re going to be paying for this in February), sunny and shiny and fresh, and I have the cliché-est of all resolution clichés: I want to lose weight.  Eat right.  Be healthy.  Find the exercise routine I lost a couple of months ago.  I’m reluctant to even call it a resolution.  It’s a thing that is always true and that I’m always making some effort to do.  How much of an effort is what varies.  Let’s just say I’ll start paying attention again.  Making better choices.  I also think I want to be a database administrator.  Maybe.  I’m still trying to find out what it would take.

Something almost unheard of happened last night.  Or didn’t happen, actually.  I didn’t knock over any champagne glasses.  !  You’re shocked, I can tell.  No one knocked anything over, as far as I know.  Jess had a close call, but she saved it with her catlike reflexes.  A little champagne dripped here and there while it was being poured, but that doesn’t count.

John and I have done very little today, and it has been wonderful.  The best thing about right now, right this very second, is that there’s no work tomorrow.

The best thing about last night is that there were too many good things to pick one.  I LOVE having our friends at the house, New Year’s Eve or any eve.  Thanks for coming, guys!  Man, we should have taken pictures.

I am a runner

I did it.  I ran the Army Ten-Miler, and I did it 13 minutes faster than any of my workouts.  And it hurt like hell.  The day was just shy of perfect.  The temperatures were low and it wasn’t raining, but the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  A cloudy day would have kept us cooler AND probably not given me a sunburn.  (I wore sunblock.  On my face.  I didn’t consider the back of my neck ’cause it’s usually covered with hair.)  And speaking of hair, I had no hair disasters!  Yay!  Over the last few weeks, my braids have come out of the bun repeatedly, come loose altogether (the bottom hair bands lost forever) twice, and generally behaved like Houdini getting out of a straitjacket.  This morning, though, my braid felt secure in its bun and it didn’t even jiggle.  It came down when I took it down, approximately 8 hours after I put it up.  Good bun.  Good braid.  Good me!  Practice works!  (I’ve been wearing my hair in a braid at every opportunity lately.)

So John and I got up at 5:15 yesterday morning, took care of the dogs, ate some toast, and headed to the Pentagon.  We’d been debating the metro vs parking issue for weeks, but when I heard that there’s only bus service between two of the stations on the line nearest us and we’d have to drive most of the way in just to find a station with uninterrupted service to the Pentagon, I convinced John that parking at Pentagon City would be easier.  Less stressful.  He wasn’t hard to convince.  We got to the parking garage right at 7, just as planned, and joined the mobs of runners trying to get to the port-a-potties near the starting line.  30,000-ish runners = long lines for the bathroom.  EVERYone has to go.  Almost everyone.  I’ll come back to that.

John and I were in different starting waves, so we split up to wait in our own personal crowds.  Eventually (couldn’t tell you if the race started on time, but I can tell you we waited and waited and waited and waited….), my crowd started shuffling towards the start we couldn’t see.  We must have been half a mile away, and we were packed in.  A guy behind me started mooing.  He switched to baaing when we stopped laughing at the moos.

John ran this race 5 years ago with a goal of finishing in 1 hour, 40 minutes (10 10-minute miles).  He said people were packed so close in at the beginning that his first mile took him 13 minutes or something crazy like that.  He made up the time later on and finished EXACTLY when he’d planned.  Magic.  I wasn’t counting on magic, so the possibility of a really slow first mile was pretty scary to me.  Luckily, my pack spread out pretty quickly once we finally got across the starting line, so it wasn’t really an issue.  The main race clock (and the timers at the mile markers) were set to the actual race start (which was about 20 minutes before I started), so I relied on my own watch to track my time, starting the timer as I passed under the yellow and black balloons.  (The Army needs to get better colors – yellow (or gold – whatever) and black make for some seriously ugly balloons.) Once I got past the first mile and realized I wasn’t going to have any crowd-related pacing problems, I let go of the what-if-I-don’t-make-it-through-five-miles-fast-enough-and-they-don’t-let-me-finish anxiety and concentrated on moving.  On concentrating.  On keeping my legs churning and my feet landing mid-foot or further forward (my right heel was giving me some trouble).  And then I got the 3-mile mark and found I was averaging well under 11-minute miles.  And then I got to five miles and saw that my average pace was 10:12.  Too fast!  So I slowed down for the last five miles, knowing I was going to be paying for the faster start later.

I did.  I still am.  But it’s a good hurt.  I worked hard for this hurt.  But I’d like it to stop now.  The second half of the race is a blur of bright sunshine and cowbell.  (LOTS of spectators had cowbells.)  I remember thinking the 14th Street Bridge would never end.  And I remember wondering whose bright idea it was to put three (four?) hills in the last two miles.  And then I saw Amanda and Greg and Alex near the finish (thanks for cheering me on, guys!) and then I could see the finish and then I smiled and then it was over.  And then we (John was waiting for me) came to almost a complete halt in a sea of people all struggling to get water (John had some for me because he’s wonderful.  And fast.) and get out and sit down.  For a while it hurt more to be standing still than it had when I was still running.  And we were like a mile from the car.  So we got our bananas and muffins and water and trudged all the way back to the mall parking garage.  When we finally got home (after a ridiculous search for a breakfast place – we at Anthony’s in Falls Church.  French toast!  Exactly right.), we put aside all plans to actually get much thesis and calculus work done, showered, and collapsed on the couch for some well-deserved TV.

It was fun.  No – it was painful and I was afraid it would never end.  But I would do it again.  I don’t want it to be so hard.  If I keep doing it, it’ll get easier.  If I keep repeating that, it might come true.

Moment of truth.  I’m going to check the official results.  Before I do, did I tell you that John finished a full 10 minutes faster than the last time he ran this race?  Because he’s cool.

Okay – my official time was 1:48:47.  (Only one second off what my watch said.  Look at me!  I know how to work a stopwatch!)  I beat my 2-hour expectations by a substantial margin and only missed John’s first time by just under 9 minutes.  Maybe next time.  🙂

Now I’m going to take more ibuprofen and go back to bed.  Lots more ibuprofen.

Right, I said I’d come back to the bathroom thing (many moons and paragraphs ago).  Yeah, the race had only barely started when, by the dozens, guys started hopping the guardrail on Route 110 and sprinting for the treeline to pee.  It was hilarious and a little disconcerting.  Was it planned?  Is that the best place?  Did they pass the word around?  Are these the guys who didn’t want to wait in the long port-a-potty lines?  Or just the ones who drank another liter of water while waiting for the race to start?  I mean, I have to go practically once an hour, more when I’m drinking lots of water, and yet I managed to plan ahead so that my last chance before the race started was enough to get me all the way home, almost six hours later.  Which, now that I think about it, pretty much means I was dehydrated.  Or a crazy-efficient sweater.  Sweat-er.  One who sweats.  Not the cable-knit kind.

That’s enough.  Go to bed already.

Great day in the morning!

Seriously, could today have been any better?  Only if it had unicorns and sparkles.  And it’s not over yet.  There’s hope.  Sure, we got up super early on a Saturday, but it was only so we could go to the giant used book sale that happens every six weeks in a warehouse in Annapolis.  Worth it.  AND I had a croissant and my favorite candy-coffee from Starbucks for breakfast on the way (tall, skim, no whip white mocha with two pumps of toffee nut – yes, I’m one of those now).  Extra worth the early wake-up.  AND we hung out with Jess while looking for books and then having bagels.  Better than extra worth it.  And THEN we went to IKEA and bought two more bookshelves, upper shelf extensions for those two plus the six at home that didn’t already have them, plus two wall shelves to go over the couch (and hold more books – maybe the graphic novels?).  We’ve spent the afternoon since then putting the shelves and the extension together while watching Law & Order: SVU, and now we’re going to pick up dinner from somewhere and settle in and watch a movie.

A day like today makes me so very happy.  Books, best friend, shelves, dinner, and a movie, a whole day hanging out with John, and sure, I didn’t do any calculus like originally planned, but John and I worked it out on the way home from IKEA.  Today we get the furniture part out of the way and relax a little.  Tomorrow, we’ll run, mow the lawn (it grew, like, two feet in 8 days), and do homework (my calculus, his thesis).  Sunday is the responsible day.

Happy Friday!

This week was a short week (thank you for Labor Day – I love three-day weekends) that still managed to feel like a regular week, but Friday is finally here.  Tomorrow I get to see Jess at a great big book used book sale and then I’ll spend the rest of the weekend immersed in calculus.  Except for Sunday morning when I have to run.  And except for later Sunday morning when I’ll help John with the lawn, assuming it dries out.  I’ll have to pretend the internet doesn’t exist, I think.  Give it the cold shoulder.  Hope it doesn’t take offense and will let me back in later.  How forgiving is the internet?  I know it never forgets, which is somewhat (a lot) scary.

It’s a mitzvah

Once again, the impetus behind my semi-quasi-half-assed (but still!) massive cleaning effort today is not the desire to live an uncluttered, streak-free, dog hair-free life.  Oh, no, I can live quite happily with clutter piled high and nose tracks on the windows, as evidenced by the state of the house.  I do have some pride though, and I refuse to allow someone – anyone (other than John) – to see the house like this.  Unless they helped put it that way.  And unless they’re in John’s band.  I don’t go to great lengths to clean up when the band comes over to rehearse.  Although maybe I should.  ANYway, I’m cleaning because we’re expecting a visitor this weekend.  Not just a visitor – a refugee fleeing the hurricane.  A refugee with cats!  Because cats shouldn’t have to fend for themselves in the middle of a hurricane.  Instead, they’ll have to fend for themselves in a house with dogs.  Honestly, I’m not sure which they’d prefer.  We’ll manage just fine.  Although based on the weather right now, it seems totally ridiculous to be planning for a hurricane.  It’s sunny, a little muggy, bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds that are not in the least bit intimidating…

Oh, speaking of intimidating, I passed a car yesterday (a dinky, dented, old Honda or something – not impressive (not that there’s anything wrong with Hondas – I’m just painting a picture)) with the license plate DOMN8U.  Really?  In that car?  Napoleon complex much?  It’s so aggressive and hateful.  Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Update: My house will not be a haven for hurricane refugees after all.  But hey – it’s clean!  So I can enjoy that.  And I’ll see my refugee friend in a couple of weeks.  All is well.

If I cared about symmetry, I’d skip the title

I have been busy.  Good busy and bad busy.  The bad busy parts stress me out.  The good busy parts are things I could do all the time, every day.  And if I could get rid of the bad busy parts, I’d have time for things I like to do when I’m not doing the good busy parts, like playing on the internet.  Like READING.  John looked over at my book the other night, noticed I wasn’t even halfway through it, and told me it felt like I’d been reading that book forEVER.  I’m not sure in exactly what way how long I spend reading a particular book affects him, but if he noticed I haven’t been reading much, then I really haven’t been reading much.  Tragic.

I spent most of the last three days (all weekend and much of Monday) working on my statistics project.  (This is one of the good busy things.)  Nothing about it was hard, but there were a lot of pieces and the instructions were confusing.  I tried to get clarification from my professor, but since I never heard back, I made some decisions based on what the instructions would have said if I’d written them.  I hope they were the right decisions.  I turned it in late last night.  One big task done.  Yay!  Actually, that was the main good busy thing.  The one that took most of my time.  I talked to Corey finally (he’s going to disown me if I put him off any longer) – hooray for change!  Also, I, uh, bought more wine from my favorite local wineries and went to Borders.  Again.  These were very important errands.  Really.  Oh, and I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love Saturday night with a woman I know from the gym.  It was cute.  Ryan Gosling’s ears are too small to be believed.  Seriously tiny ears.

I did one other kinda major good busy thing this weekend.  Big accomplishment for me.  (Big.)  I ran 10 miles Sunday morning.  Ten whole miles.  I wasn’t very fast, and I walked a little bit, but I did it.  I am no longer afraid that I won’t be able to finish the race in October.  I did it.  The last mile was really hard (it wasn’t early morning anymore and the sun was high and the shade had disappeared and I’d been running for nearly two hours and it was my tenth mile), but I realized as I started it that I’d never run this far before (8 miles – two weeks ago – was my longest run until Sunday morning).  And with every step I took, I was running farther.  Each step was one more than I’d ever run before.  There aren’t very many times I’ll be able to say that.

So that was my weekend.  The good busy stuff is all cool and great (now that I’ve turned in my statistics project), but it doesn’t end there.  I have two more quizzes and a final to complete by next Thursday for statistics, and my next calculus class (differential equations this semester) started yesterday.  I’m so glad my classes only overlap by a week and a half.  Any more than that and I’d be seriously considering quitting my job.  I don’t know how people manage working full-time and going to school at the same time.  With just one class at a time and no extra-curricular work activities (don’t get me started), when I can leave work at work, I can manage.  Anything more and my head starts to spin, Exorcist-style.  (It’s not pretty.)  But yesterday, even though it was a Monday and I had work to do and a project to finish, was a really good day.  The weather was perfect, I had the windows open to catch the very breezy breeze, I got a lot done, my legs didn’t hurt from the run the day before, and my strength class that night was calming.  (I really like my gym.)

———Break for earthquake———

This post was going to have an ending, but then there was an earthquake.  Nothing else got done today.  The earthquake ate my ending.

You’re all absolutely right. It DOES get better. I will never doubt you again.

We started Doctor Who a while back, but after six episodes we weren’t really thrilled, so we took a break.  I didn’t mention it because, well, because.  I knew I was supposed to like it.  Not liking it undermines what little geek cred I have.  At the urging of yet another friend (which is a reason I felt like I should like it – a large number of friends whose taste in this stuff I trust think it’s great.  What’s wrong with me?  Yeah, yeah, I don’t have to like everything my friends like, whatever…), we tried again the other night.  And all of our friends are right.  It’s better.  I’m not going to quit.  For those who are counting, we watched the 8th episode last night.

Is it weird that I switch pronouns (we to I and back again) like that?  I feel like I do that a lot.  I can’t decide if it sounds like I’m controlling John’s opinions or he’s controlling mine.  Neither of those is true, of course.  We just have similar opinions about TV.  And movies.  And vacations.  And dogs.  And friends.  And lots of things.  Mm.  We sound boring.  I swear, my mind is my own.  We rarely read the same books.  He doesn’t like spicy food.  I don’t like Sons of Anarchy.  He doesn’t like to admit that he finds cat videos amusing.  (Some of them.  I mean, come ON.  Cat videos are what the interwebs were built on.)  Etc.

To sum up, here’s a video (from The Daily What) of a mariachi band serenading a whale.