Just don't achy breaky my camera...

Forget Miley's risque photo shoot. Check out Annie Leibovitz chatting with Billy Ray Cyrus (2nd picture from bottom).

He seems to be making her laugh.

THIS is news, people.

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Hey, it was a slow day, OK? The movers aren't coming until next Monday so I opted to abandon the packing frenzy and "last" quests for one day, and instead succumbed to god-awful daytime TV while prepping Mom's Mom Day gift. It was either this post or something about "all I learned from Oprah." Be happy it's not the latter.

Proof that learning is inspirational.

Last week at the Oakland Museum I saw a stuffed version of a vagrant shrew. That's it's common name - vagrant shrew. I don't think the naming people were even trying on that one.

It gave me a great idea though. If things don't work out in Portland, Plan B is to be a vagrant shrew, just wandering the world scolding people in an ill-tempered manner.

Get it while you can.

Her Majesty, eeking out the last days of Vitamin D exposure before the big move...

She's getting suspicious. Today I packed another six bags for the Salvation Army which are now sitting in a pile where the dining "nook" table used to be. And all the large framed photos are off the walls, leaning up against the wall near her food bowl waiting to be packed into a box. (She actually looked up at an empty space on the wall today and meowed. Perhaps she is smarter than I give her credit for.)

Not to mention all the funny smells this morning as I dumped 19 spare bottles of suntan lotion, at least three bottles of perfume/lotion, 187 travel bottles of shampoo/conditioner/lotion I've collected from numerous hotels in my lifetime (all partially used, so I couldn't donate them to womens' shelters) and hair products for short hair that I will never use again - until my next midlife crisis when I chop it all off again - so that I could recycle the containers.

And THEN? Then! There was the man who came into the apartment with the other man, to look around and see if HE might like to live here! It wasn't the catsitting neighbors, it wasn't the friendly maintenance guy, it wasn't a remotely familiar face. You could almost see Her Maj gasp and swoon before running like a banshee into the bedroom to hide under the bed.

Wait till I tell her there's a ten-hour drive in her future. Don't spill it - I'll break it to her gently... and then sedate her heavily... and then be on my way.

I can't, in good faith, say there's a connection BUT...

When Bill Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993 the average price of regular grade gasoline in the US was $1.06/gallon, depending on your source of information.*

When George Bush Jr was inaugurated in January 2001, the average price of gas in the US was $1.38/gallon (a 30% increase over the eight years Clinton was in office). At Bush Jr's second inauguration, gas prices were averaging about $1.80/gallon (another 30%, this time in just four years).

Today, the average price of gas in the US is about $3.35/gallon. That's an 86% increase in just four years, and a 142% increase in his eight years as our fine president.

Somewhere in there (I think) is a 373% increase between a 30% increase in eight years versus a 142% increase in eight years.** Regardless - inflation hasn't gone up that much*** in sixteen years.

Earlier this week, I actually drove around looking for cheaper gas for the first time EVER IN MY LIFE.**** The cheapest I could find was just under $4.00/gallon, but I think the money I spent on gas driving to various gas stations ended up saving me money in the end.

Gas prices also influenced my decision to drive to Big Sur in one day, versus driving down the night before, paying to stay somewhere and driving back the next day. So now I'm one of those fun travel-related statistics you hear about on the 5 o'clock news. Suh-weet!

Figures that this is the year I decide to move myself and, separately, all my crap, 500 miles away via good ol' highway 5. Meh...

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* Mine was the Energy Information Administration... lord knows we probably can't trust THEM for reliable data.

** I think. Math nerds - I failed high school calculus - hook a sister up!

*** Substitute any of the numbers you see above for "that much."

**** On principal alone I tried to save money on gas - not because I'm unemployed and trying to save money. If it were the latter I wouldn't have succumbed to the $22/lb cheddar whiskey cheese yesterday. I only bought $5 worth, but I just ate a few slices on a mere 4 crackers and it's half gone. But those 4 bites were sooooooooooo worth that $2.50.

14 hours.

Beginning.

Middle.

End.
More here.

I'm sorry, Billy.

Yesterday in the car I was scanning the radio and ran across "Release Me" by Wilson Phillips.

It is with great remorse that I admit I remembered all the words to this song, yet I missed some of the words to one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs a few minutes later. (On on a different station, obviously.)

A travesty, I tell you. A horrible, embarrassing travesty. The brain is a mysteriously complicated organ.

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In case you've forgotten, it just goes on, and on, and on...

Whoever said "never put off till tomorrow..." wasn't unemployed.

I can't remember if I've already told this story. I think I have, but it was eons ago if so.

When my dad retired, he bought a dry erase board to keep track of all the house-related things he needed to take care of in order to be able to sell the house and move them to a smaller place. If he woke up one morning and didn't feel like doing what was on the dry erase board for that day, he would erase it, write it in for the next day and do whatever he wanted on that day.

Ahhh, retirement.

Granted, it's been almost three years and the house-related things are not even close to being done, but...

Tomorrow I plan to drive to Big Sur for the day. I've never been, and it just seems like something I should do before I leave California. But I had a pleasantly longer-than-expected evening with a former coworker tonight, which put some prep for tomorrow out of whack, and I have some volunteer things I should really take care of, and what if the moving company can't reach me via cell to schedule a move date? I'll have to wait until Monday, which puts everything out of whack. And also, the wine isn't helping other than helping me to forget the several work-related calls over the past few days which sent my blood pressure reeling. (Seriously. Check my blood donor card. Yesterday was OFF THE CHARTS.)

I suspect I will still go tomorrow. I might get a late start, but time is running out and I do want to see the the road a-winding go from golden gate to roaring cliff-side and the light softly low as my heart becomes sweetly untied beneath the sun of California One.

Plus my cat is driving me fucking crazy right now, and they're coming to do maintenance in the apartment tomorrow, so it will be nice to get away.

But if I choose to erase and re-write for one day next week, I have that option. And that's a beautiful thing.

You always wanna know why they call it Inspiration Point? Well, take it in...

Exhibit A:Exhibit B:

Which apparently caused some tree-art inspiration:

And some Jen(n) art inspiration (is it me, or is the tree art modeled after the cattleguard?):

And say hello to my little friends... This is Sam:

And this is Jake:
I {heart} unemployment.

Uninspired + unemployed = bad combo.

I have no idea what to do with my day today. I have Friday through Monday covered, and Tuesday/Thurs/Fri evening next week covered as well, with the days next week filled with packing/cleaning.

But today... Hmm.

I have a free pass for the Oakland Museum. Maybe I'll check out the EB Parks photography exhibit and get inspired to go hiking.

Maybe I won't enjoy retirement as much as I think I might.

Who am I kidding - YES I WILL.

Comment disclaimer.

I finally figured out how to log in to blogger with my gmail account. (OK, it really wasn't that hard. But still. Now I don't have to sign out of one account and sign into another in order to blog. Priceless. Or worth a small smidgen of my unemployed dollars, anyway.)

But I haven't figured out how to get comment notifications sent to my gmail account. (I don't require permission to comment - yet - but I like to see who's commenting on what, so I request a notice when something gets posted, and I've noticed several things posted that I haven't seen before tonight.)

So until I figure this last piece out, which should really take two seconds of googling but I'm just lazy right now... If you make a particularly astounding comment, or any comment at all, really, and I know who you are, and you get no reply comment... I'll get to it soon. Promise. In the meantime, please email me if you have something REALLY IMPORTANT to say. :)

Net loss: one box.

I am officially on a quest to reduce the amount of crap I take to Portland. I've already decided on new dishes, flatware and pots and pans so the old stuff is going as soon as I run the dishwasher one last time. Most of my current stash was donated by former coworkers ten years ago, and I just don't want to be reminded of that anymore. The one-offs I will keep for travel/relocation purposes and eventually get rid of up there.

Turns out that Ikea has a curiously similar set of flatware to the one I covet from NY MOMA and some cute dishware. (From my experience Ikea dishes hold up better than Cost Plus dishes, but I haven't compared them to Ross dishes yet. And I have a gift card to Ross, so perhaps all bets are off. Regardless - whatever I buy, it will be of my own choosing, for once. And it will be for one person... So if you come to visit, BYOG, BYOP, BYOB, BYOS.)

This afternoon when I got home I looked at the seven boxes of books I'd already packed, took stock of books I'd brought home from work or collected from various people over the past few weeks, reminded myself of the movers' estimates and decided ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH. I have too many books.

So I went through them again, this time with a very selective eye:

• I have one favorite bread machine cookbook that I always use. Why am I schlepping four other bread machine cookbooks up there? For my bread machine that I will not use for at least 6 months because there are only eight outlets in my apartment? Buh-bye.
  
• Books from high school and college that I enjoyed at the time, but that I will never, EVER read again yet I have on hand to make me look smart... Because, you know, so many people walk through my bedroom on a day-to-day basis and peruse my bookshelf and say, "wow, you must be so smart." Buh-bye.
  
• Not to mention textbooks on social deviance, death & dying, social inequality, statistics and the history of film which I will never, EVER, crack open again. Buh-bye.
  
• And why do I still have A Confederacy of Dunces, which I loved to a certain point but then he just got on my ever loving nerves and I know I will never, EVER finish it? And also the book itself reminds me of someone I have no desire to be reminded of? Buh-bye.
  

So several second-guesses later I'm up three bags of books to sell/give away and down one box after I added in the aforementioned work/collected books. Net loss of one doesn't sound great, but I think this is progress... I mean, emotional progress counts, right?

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Want any of the aforementioned books? Let me know by next Wednesday.

An abysmal #$%! showing.

I'll be sure to work on that in the coming months. Perhaps I can start with today's bloody adventure (literally... and also in the English cussing way).

After a lovely discounted massage at NHI, I did some browsing at Ikea for microwave carts, coat racks and computer desks (all of which I will need one of in my new place) and then headed over to my blood donation appointment.

[Ed. note: Easily squirmish readers should skip to the next post. Ye be warned.]

I have small arm veins, and my right arm is especially tricky so I always opt for the left, which is why I have numerous hole scars where my elbow bends. Today it took the guy several pokes and some rooting around to find my vein. Literally, rooting around. While the needle was in my arm. I've had nurses who had trouble finding my vein before but there was usually just lots of poking, no rooting, and in all but one case it took less than a minute.*

Anyway, whenever I give blood I am always fascinated watching the needle go in, and today was no exception - what with all the rooting - although since I felt kinda bad for the guy I occasionally looked away or over at my magazine to reduce any pressure he must've been feeling. At one point I said something like, "good thing I'm not a heroin addict, huh? heh heh heh" to try to ease his nervousness. (I don't think it worked. I later suspected that joking about heroin addiction in a blood donation clinic is on the same level as joking about bombs at the airport.)

I'm not particularly bruised from the experience, and I got to read about Drew Barrymore's design secrets, and I gave "the babies" some blood, so all in all it was a good experience despite a minor setback in the beginning.

I mean, a good fucking experience. Now go give some goddamned babies your blood. Ahem.

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* The one case where it didn't? About ten years ago, a novice nurse was poking poking poking and finally found a vein, but the gadget w/vial she was supposed to attach behind the needle malfunctioned which sent the needle careening into my arm. I actually felt it hit my bone... At which point I said something to the effect of "Jesus fucking Christ!" and she apologized profusely and called over her boss to finish up.

"Hey, over here! Have your picture taken with a reclusive author! Today only, we'll throw in a free autograph!"

I went to a dinner party of sorts Sunday evening. It was a small party, but I only knew about half the people there and a big part of me was dreading being social with the other half. I just don't do "parties." Or "strangers." Especially in large groups.

Of course they were all very nice and told amusing stories and initiated stimulating conversation and in the end it was all fine. But it did make me question the issue of not really knowing anyone in Portland, and how I intend to change that when I don't do "strangers." I'm sure that in time, I will meet nice people through work and meet more nice people through them. And I think my plans to join a running group and volunteer are sound starts to meeting non-work people (especially seeing as how I don't have "work" at the moment). As long as I actually do those things, rather than holing up in my apartment which has been my tendency lately.

In the end it will all be fine. It's just the middle that I'm a little worried about...

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Today's subject brought to you by Thomas Pynchon, who I have not read... yet.

Actual Friday five.

Five CDs I bought today instead of buying a Mother's Day gift for Mom, in no particular order:

• She & Him - Volume One
• Colin Meloy Sings Live!
• The Moldy Peaches
• M. Ward - Duet for Guitars #2
• Modest Mouse - This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About

I'd love to say I bought the MM disc based solely on the title of the album (or based on the combination of the album title plus the song called "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset"), but that wouldn't be entirely true. It is partly true though - they had a lot of MM discs I don't yet have and yes, I pictured the next 10-hour drive involving repeated listening of this disc. But really, I just love the band.

I did almost buy a bargain bin disc for $1 because the band's name was Early Man... But I feared that I'd listen to it and it would either be lots of grunting and drums, or REALLY LOUD METAL, and neither of those were worth my $1.

And can I just say, I am so back to the real live music store concept of purchasing albums. It was nice to browse through pretty cover art and talk to the checkout guy about the Colin Meloy CD and get a good recommendation for another M. Ward CD I need to find. Of course, I also ended up buying more than I should've and since I'm unemployed I actually have TIME to browse for 45 minutes and chat for another 10. But still. I hope it sticks.

But... what will I use to prop up all my folded empty boxes?

I'm now down to selling stuff on Craig's List. Need a pretty decent computer desk? A corduroy chair your cat will love?

I'm also giving stuff away. 120 empty CD cases, mostly in good condition, free for the starving art project or musician.

I did get a bite on the bar stools for sale... But after giving away the small dinette set this afternoon to a coworker, they're all that's available to hold up the pile of empty folded boxes that I have to keep propped against the wall or Her Majesty will sit on them and scratch the hell out of them and render them utterly useless for packing.

You just don't know. Moving is complicated.

I can relate.

Yesterday morning at the airport I bought a copy of SPIN to read about REM's new album and how they agree with the world that the last three albums were not very good. I haven't downloaded the new one yet but I plan to as soon as I free up some space on my hard drive...

Anyway, there was also an interview with Kim Deal. In speaking of her newish-found sobriety, she made this comment:

"In the beginning, it was just weird to be sober. I was stunned by the length of the day. You just wake up, and you're like, 'okay,' and then ten hours later, you're like, 'is this ever going to @#$%ing end? God, what do people do with their @#$%ing day, man?'"

I've been up for 6 hours. It's noon. I have done everything I wanted to get done today. If not for late lunch plans, I'm really not sure what I would do.

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I know, I KNOW I keep talking about this, I'm sorry. But really, it sucks. I just need to start running again and all will be well with my sleep habits.

And of course I'm kidding in that last part - I have a mile-long list of things I want to do before I leave the Bay Area...

OH. MA. GA.

Are you sitting down? Sit down. OK, ready?

My dad has a gmail account.

{pause}

MY DAD HAS A GMAIL ACCOUNT! Sorry, but this is just very unexpected and exciting news.

There was even mention in his gmail email (ge-mail?) of perhaps getting a cell phone... Which just begs the question, who are those people and what have they done with my parents?!?!

What a long, strange day it's been.

It went a little something like this:

4:30am - wake up with a start, toss and turn, try valiantly to go back to sleep.

5:00am - give up and get up... make coffee, check email, check in for return flight this evening.

5:30am - oatmeal time.

6:00am - check Portland weather, check bag for cashier checks and all other required lease-signing information for the NINETEEN MILLIONTH TIME... finally clean the oven which was sprayed with Easy Off about a week ago and hasn't been used since.

6:45am - shower and get ready.

7:30am - pace... play with cat... check bag for cashier checks and all other required lease-signing information for the TWENTY MILLIONTH TIME.

7:45am - leave for airport... no traffic, yay.

9:35am - leave for Portland... no canceled flight, yay.

11:05am - arrive in Portland... no rain, yay.

11:15am - head to Lloyd Center to kill some time and buy "something" for the apartment, just because I wanted to leave a newly purchased decorative item to watch over the place while I wasn't there.

12:30pm - purchase cute silver photo frame from Marshalls... eat lunch... try to read and kill more time.

1:00pm - head to 2pm signing appointment at apartment ten blocks from Lloyd Center.

1:10pm - arrive at apartment where neighborhood cats are happy to greet me... realize I'm not in Oakland when they all have tags and owners and are just friendly little kitties instead of feral rabid beasts... look at my watch, sigh, then continue up Broadway to see what else I'll be within walking distance of, in addition to Peets and the MAX and crazy ice-rink mall I will never shop at (other than today)... scrapbook store, tattoo shop, vet, 2 brewpubs, 1 pizza place quite highly ranked, 3 movie theaters, lots of interesting restaurants, Fred Meyer (my new BFF)... SCORE... head back.

2:00pm - sign lease and all other required paperwork... hand over my cashier checks... point out hole in floor and make guy write it down ("I did not do that!")... see guy to the door.

2:20pm - FREAK OUT completely.

2:30pm - measure rooms and document layout for later furniture placement planning... lament proximity of exterior garbage bins to living room windows... lament 4 pairs of outlets in the whole joint (apparently people didn't need too much electricity in the 1930s when the place was built?)... further lament that only one of them is a 3-prong pair of outlets... think of all my electrical needs and FREAK OUT again... realize all the rooms are well lit so no lamps are needed (three outlets free - woohoo!)... wonder what I'm going to do about my electric toothbrush (hmm).

3:30pm - start off on a nice long walk to explore and CALM THE HELL DOWN (people do this every day... the lamenting will only serve as incentive for me to begin the house hunt shortly after relocating... etc etc).

3:35pm - realize that I'll be living in a neighborhood called "Sullivan's Gulch" (really)... wonder who I am all of the sudden... remember the neighborhood cats who lounge on car hoods and trot up to say hello... decide it's a lot like Alameda... decide it's all good.

4:30pm - circle back, hit Fred Meyer for miscellaneous necessities and the latest Portland Magazine featuring all kinds of articles on why it's the best time EVER to buy a house in Portland and restaurants I would kick myself for missing out on.

5:00pm - drop stuff off, spend another 30 minutes FREAKING OUT trying to visualize all my crap fitting into this place.

6:00pm - give up, head to Rogue Brewery for celebratory beer and pizza... read Portland Magazine... calm down.

7:15pm - head to airport.

9:05pm - leave for Portland.

11:00pm - wonder how many more times I will actually walk up the stairs to my Oakland apartment... FREAK OUT.

________________
I've done day trips for work before, but usually with laptop in tow and always within the same state. It was quite surreal to do all of this today, and still I'm amazed that nothing has gone wrong. The more things go right, the worse the "wrong" thing is gonna be whenever it happens... (Still freaking out. But in a very tired way. And I think, a very happy way. I definitely grinned when I saw the pine trees on the train from the airport to downtown.)

Voluntary unemployment, day #2.

Got up around 6am (what is it with this getting older crap??). Made some coffee. Putzed around getting things together for today's errands. Worked on a volunteer thing for a bit.

Went to lunch at a local favorite taqueria, then walked around the lake in hopes of a) exercise and b) baby geese sightings (too early still?). Came home, showered, pulled the hair back (ahhh the joys of 15 minutes to get ready) and went to the blood donation appointment. Got denied (darn hemoglobin!), walked up and down College Avenue wondering what all those other daytime wanderers did for a living, spent approximately 90 minutes in two bookstores. Bought some books including a SF restaurant cookbook. I already have plans for my first week in Portland, when I will be jobless and hungry and yearning for the tastes of SF.

I was restless, though. I thought about sitting down in a cafe to peruse my new book with a latte, or sitting down at a cafe to have a snack and peruse my new book. It wasn't the money-spending that turned me off from those ideas. It was the idea of SITTING.

Unless TV is involved, I am not a sitter. I need to be on the move, checking things out, constantly, well - on the move. I was saddened to realize today that I could never be one of those writer folks who spends hour upon hour at a coffee shop poring over their latest potential novel. Unless there was wireless, and I had a laptop with wireless, at which point all bets are OFF.

Later - watched my cat get exploded upon for no reason whatsoever by the kitty water purifier. PRICELESS, although I do hope she will ever consider drinking again after the trauma... Injections of hydration ain't pretty.

And now, making a pizza and drinking some wine in prep for my one-day trip to sign a lease which I am totally prepped for.

Still waiting for the bomb to drop - this is all still WAY too easy - but otherwise, loving life.

Mid-week Friday five.

And now for something completely different - five things I absolutely covet from the NY MOMA's spring catalog, which I would never buy for myself but which would go on a wedding registry (hell, probably even a baby registry) in a heartbeat, in no particular order:

• Yagani flatware
• Mosaic placemats (but not the coasters so much)
• Lizard organizer
  
• Garland table lamp
• Tripod trivet
  

I also kinda like the index chopping boards but they didn't make the cut. They might get gross after a while anyway.

Pot Kettle Black.

If Wilco were doing a live show tonight, and if they were the type to dedicate songs to politicians, I suspect they would dedicate Pot Kettle Black to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain, and all their advisors and spouses and supporters, from Mr. Obama with love... (Live in a cave? Read all about it here.)

Let the record show that I am so effing sick of Hillary Clinton. If it's her vs. McCain, veep candidate depending, I will probably consider voting for McCain. And that's saying A LOT.

(Oh wait - I could just vote for Nader. That'll show 'em. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Oh, Ralphie, sigh...)

What I would LOVE to see, is rural America's response to this. You know - bitter, clingy rural America. Who have no jobs because all their jobs have been off shored so that the suits can make a profit, who can barely feed their families because only the crazy SF (OK, and Portland) liberals care about buying locally and organic, who risk their lives at war or at sea because there are no better ways to make a living given the tanked economy that started its downfall with "Reaganomics." Heaven forbid they hold on tight to their God and their guns and hope that something better comes along.

(Disclaimer: read yesterday's post - I'm not smart, I don't claim to be smart, I react to news, and especially politics, based on emotion... Just like most of America, for what that's worth. Correct me if you must.)

I searched for a while for such a response, but other than some content on Obama's web site the best I could come up with was a couple snippets from the 622 comments (and counting) about the SF Gate article, which turned out to be way more amusing than any truly relevant comments I ran across. Here are a couple favorites, typos and all:

• "Help me figure this one out- Hillary and Bill practically live at Susie Buells house, Hillary has raised more money from SF liberal elite then anyone and she is supported by the gay marriage mayor for pete shakes and she now drops "San Francisco" like a pejorative term..." (my official new exclamation - "oh for pete SHAKES!!")
• "if obama loses he will move to the napa valley, build a house made out of earth, and open a vegetarian restaurant which serves brie and chablis" (um, I'll take my brie with a fine cab, thank you very much)
  
• "Yes, we're so "elite". In fact, we're so "elite" that over 60% of San Franciscans have to rent and can't afford to buy their own home. We're so "elite" that we have chronic homeless problem. We're so "elite" that we're so exclusive that we don't exclude anybody for any reason. Yeah, we're "elite", all right. By the way, "elite" means "the best or most skilled members of a group". So I guess this all means we're being trashed by the worst and least skilled members of our society... yeah, good to see that the old Roman tradition of catering to the mob is very well alive and well in modern America. I have to go be "elite" now. Bye." (and it all comes back to the SF motto!)
  
• "SF is tolerant my @$$. Just try being a Christian, or a conservative, or try supporting our President in SF. SF is tolerant of those who agree with their liberal policies. If you don't tow the line, SF is the most INtolerant of cities." (a few close friends would probably wholeheartedly agree with this comment, and I can't disagree with it either.)
  

I will say this - my parents used to be conservative. Twelve years of Reagan/Bush, two layoffs and retirement with a very meager Social Security payment later, they have switched teams. And now, talking with them about politics is a treat.

And I will say this - my rural country relatives refer to "California" as some foreign exotic country whenever I go home to visit.

I will also say this - I think those who offer the criticism that his comments could've been just as easily directed at inner cities, are right on.

Next I will say this - Obama is not good with off the cuff speeches but he's brilliant with pre-orchestrated speeches... JUST LIKE EVERY PRESIDENT SINCE KENNEDY. Cut him a little slack already. At least he doesn't make up words.

And finally, I will say that if Wilco were doing a live show and dedicated some songs to Mr. Obama, they would have quite a few to choose from:

• Misunderstood
• Shouldn't Be Ashamed
• That's Not the Issue
• What's The World Got In Store
• Christ for President
• On and On and On
• Let's Not Get Carried Away

... and hey, if Wilco* endorses him, I think I'm sold. OBAMA 2008!

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* The idea that Wilco endorses him is completely fabricated by the author... although I think it might be true.

I think you need to fire Bob in marketing.

In today's mail I got a preview of Ode magazine - a self-proclaimed "magazine for intelligent optimists." OK...

A) being an "intelligent optimist" is basically impossible in today's world, in fact it's somewhat of an oxymoron to me, and

B) I am really neither, and especially not both combined, when all is said and done. I don't even need the "non-optimist" disclosure, and I am not smart enough to read Utne, the Economist... I don't even bother with Time anymore. Occasionally I'll hit the BBC news web site, but if it's depressing, or requires some knowledge of historical events, or doesn't feature a cute baby animal, or requires any significant level of thought, I ask my smart friends for the summary. And then I go Dishing.

Next thing you know, I'll be getting a preview of FUD, the magazine about government organization, or Ego, the magazine about things that are of medium large size. Or perhaps Jonx, the quarterly periodical about authentic replicas people take to the Antiques Roadshow only to be told they're worth about $0.50.

________________
Make your own magazine! Take an oxymoron, then find a hip word that somewhat resembles the oxymoron in the Urban Dictionary to use for the magazine name... Or start with the dictionary and then find an oxymoron that fits. It's fun!

Er... I suppose it's even more fun if you're unemployed...

Apparently, I am not one of them...

... because I didn't really get it.

It felt unbearably long at a mere 95 minutes, and it was a bit like Dan In Real Life, which I did not particularly like... But it had some redeeming qualities (the main one being Thomas Haden Church's performance) and it was not about effed up middle class people bitching and moaning. One small step for Hollywood.

At least being in a stale-air enclosed movie theater made my allergy/sinus headache go away for a little bit. (I really thought it was a slight hangover from yesterday's BBQ, but 44 oz of water and all the right foods later, and still all I really want is to remove the front part of my brain with a hack saw, or whatever will do the trick in a timely and efficient manner...)

Belated Friday five.

People keep asking me what I'm going to miss about the Bay Area. Other than the obvious - my friends - I don't really have an answer for them. So I gave it some thought, and I hereby post five things I will miss about the Bay Area, other than the obvious one, in no particular order:

• KFOG's Kaboom
• watching the fog roll in from the East Bay
  
• SF's annual Pride parade (at least I will be able to stream Live 105's KGAY, which is sometimes even more fun than watching the parade)
  
• the Fillmore, the Great American Music Hall, the Greek Theater, Bottom of the Hill
  
• taking first-time visitors to Muir Woods to be wowed by the massive redwoods

So, dear readers, if you were leaving the Bay Area, what would you miss the most? Other than the obvious, of course...

As an aside, last night I went to another "last time we'll get together" gathering with some friends (there have been at least three "last time we'll get together" gatherings just with this group of friends - and we're still talking about getting together for lunch "one last time"). Nine hours, many drinks, one fire pit construction, too much food and one mustache shaving later, armed with photos to remember everything, I started my car and the radio played the last chorus of "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)."

Strangely coincidental, or serendipitous? Given the added Seinfeld connection, I'm going with the latter.

"You don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man."

I am officially unemployed.

Voluntarily officially unemployed.

In today's economy that just seems so wrong. But not wrong enough to stop me from enjoying the "doing nothing" part for the next few weeks.

"Pleasure, of course, is a slippery word... Our pleasures ultimately belong to us, not to the pleasure's source.”

Last night I learned from Billy Collins that I am supposed to steal from others and twist their creativity to fit my own style. OK, not really, but something like that.

So I have to say, I would've called it "BSG budget gets drastically slashed," or even "MST3K budget gets drastically slashed (which may or may not be redundant)" but hey, whatever.

And to also surprisingly quote Billy Collins, sort of - I was like OMG hahahaha!

I know this, yet still I look, every single day, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Thus ends the pop culture references for the evening.

"I don't know where I'm gonna live, don't know if I'll find a place."

About 30 minutes into the drive up to Portland I listened to one of those aforementioned "old tapes" from Beach Week 1992. That was fun. (Really!)

One song from that tape stood out to me - Matthew Sweet's Divine Intervention. I think that set the tone for the entirely-too-unnecessarily-stressful week.

For starters, I got to the cute-but-cheap Vancouver motel at 7pm Sunday night only to realize that there was only wireless access, and the laptop I borrowed from work appeared to not have wireless (not that I even knew what wireless looked like on a laptop - punchline to follow). OH MY GOD PANIC DID ENSUE. How the hell would I log on to Craigs List or the property management company I'd been working with? Oh yeah, and I was supposedly "working" for 3 of the 4 days I was on the road - how would I deal with THAT without wireless?

I stopped by the motel office ("yeah, um, is there, like, a Best Buy around here somewhere?") and headed up the street to get a USB wireless gadget. Along the way I saw a FedEx Kinkos and a library, and figured - hell, if I can't get this laptop thing figured out I can just hang out there for a couple hours...

And my heartbeat and racing pulse immediately slowed, and it was right then that I realized that no matter how stressful this whole interstate move might be in the end, I can FUCKING HANDLE THIS SHIT. It was quite a revelation. I do not jest - I slept like a baby under this revelation Sunday night.

(And the next morning on the phone with the Help Desk guys, turns out the laptop did have wireless, which just made the whole problem laughable - and entirely sleepable.)

The rest of the trip was tolerably stressful - what with the not knowing my applicant status on the apartment I really wanted, but still valiantly searching but not really wanting the rest of the apartments I saw in that short three days. Wednesday afternoon after looking at a small studio while (STILL) waiting to hear back from the apartment I really wanted, I mentally resolved myself to another road trip to Portland, and yes, things don't always work out well the first time around, and... and that would be OK.

And I think I grew a lot mentally on this last trip. And I think I got the apartment I really wanted, which just makes this whole story pointless, but... Not really. The next year is going to be a huge challenge for me. Knowing I made it this far helps... A LOT.

"Marriage is like a tense, unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond, only it doesn't last 22 minutes. It lasts forever. "

I took my portable DVD player with me when I drove to Portland. I was sorta thinking that if I got bored with my music, I had two DVDs (Knocked Up and OT: Our Town) that required no actual viewing, just listening, so I could put the DVD player on the seat next to me and pass the time listening to the movies, accident-free, just fine.

And more important than being accident-free, getting these out of my queue would put me THAT MUCH CLOSER to a few more episodes of Battlestar Gallactica Season 3, which I have the first couple episodes of, and which I really need to catch up on so that I can start watching Season 4 in a reasonable amount of time.

But with all my excellent preplanned music I didn't need to do any of that. However, Tuesday night I did watch Knocked Up. I guess I would just have to say... Meh. I got the "everyday man/woman" references, with the goofball dialogue and "it could happen to anyone" situation... But otherwise...

{can you call these spoilers? if you are HOLDING YOUR BREATH to watch this movie, skip to the next post, I guess}

... I would love to think that an unemployed waif would agree to father a child with a one-night stand, and that the career-driven female party in this one-night stand would consent to stick it out with him for nine months despite all the obvious lacks of commitment on the unemployed waif's part but... I just don't think it happens in real life.

So I guess I hereby change my review from Meh to Bah.

Until I meet the completely different guy who knocks me up and disagrees with me on minor shit, who doesn't read the fucking baby books, but then ends up reading the baby books, that I end up marrying. When that happens I take this whole post back.

Have I mentioned that Yet. Another. Friend. Is pregnant?

I love other peoples' kids dearly and all, but... I think I'll just run another marathon.

"I forget what eight was for."

So for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to go to the 2008 Whiskey Expo the night before I drove 19,000 hours to Portland. Except for a little fuzziness while packing the next morning, it turned out to be fine in the end.

And in the beginning, and in the middle as well. I lost track of what we'd tasted about 2.5 hours into it, but I was happy to follow my far-more-knowledgeable-about-whiskey (but no-less-drunk) companions' leads to continue tasting. And unlike the last WOW, where apparently we attended several lectures but I really only recall one of them, I do remember everything that happened last Saturday night. (Helpful hint: drink a gallon of water and eat several LARGE MEALS the day of the next WOW. You won't be sorry.)

I do recall missing some folks on the departing "I love you man!"s as we parted ways on BART, but suffice to say - I love you all dearly and I very much look forward to WOW 2009. That's an event worth coming "home" for.

And to everyone else - try the Alchemist's Macallen. YUM, and affordable. Unlike the YUM, and $800-a-bottle others I would also highly recommend...

Early Friday five.

Much to tell. But too tired to tell it. Let me start with an early Friday five, and a bonus early Friday five, and then I'll tell the rest this weekend.

Ahem.

Five things I would say to almost all the I-5 drivers I encountered this week, in no particular order:

• What part of "slower traffic keep right" are you having trouble with?
• It's called CRUISE CONTROL. Use it. It's your friend, especially on those pesky hills.
• If there are no cars behind me for miles, you really CAN wait another 5 seconds to go around the semi, instead of squeezing yourself into the 20 foot gap between me and the car in front of me and forcing me to end my cruising. (Every time I step on the brake while using MY FRIEND CRUISE CONTROL, God kills a puppy. You know that, right?)
  
• If there are no cars in front of me for miles, you really CAN go around me instead of riding my ass for 5 miles straight. Really. You can.
  
• It's called RAIN. You live in OREGON. 55 mph? COME ON, already.

And the bonus Friday five - which is really a "Friday one" split into five, but who's counting: five signs you know you're in Medford, OR, in no particular order:

• You pass a strip mall, which features
  
• a store called "Good Guys Guns," which is next to
• a liquor store, which is next to
• an "Adult Shop, open 24 hours," which is next to
• the Hometown Buffet.

Ahhh, small towns.

The long and winding road.

I have 8 days of music on my now fully charged iPod. I made several new playlists of music I've been meaning to pay more attention to. I made a special "road trip" playlist with lots of upbeat songs. And I pulled out all my old tapes from previous road trips - those always bring back good memories.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, I expect to hate ALL of my music somewhere around Chico tomorrow.

Sigh. At least the drive from that point on should be pretty.

Gaaaar.

Overheard in New York... I wish I had thought of this genius concept. (The web site overall, not asking drunk pirates to pay in doubloons.)

On a related note, I told someone, "not sure, I wonder if I'll get Knocked Up today," in response to their question about what my Friday evening plans were. My follow-up statement ("I mean, I hear it's funny") did not help to clarify things, so I just walked away...

Wait... something worth watching on MTV? The end is near!!

LOST was a rerun tonight so I scanned the channels looking for good background fodder while I packed away another box or four, after getting home from "going away party" number 5. (There are 2 more to come. I hope I actually do really go away, at some point. Otherwise these people might be pissed.)

Unfortunately, it ended up being just one box packed because I found this, and got TOTALLY SUCKED IN for numerous hours. (But I packed during the commercials.)

First let me say that I'm a sucker for anything that generates camaraderie. Like, at a U2 show, when they turn the microphones off and the crowd sings along with the chorus to "One," I get a little weepy. I think it's because I'm in the presence of a few folks who have the power to make 30,000 folks memorize their song lyrics, and that's a pretty overwhelming thought. (It also happened at the last Beastie Boys show I went to. 30,000 folks chanting along to Paul Revere. Some might find that scary, I was comforted.) Or like, when an audience gives a standing ovation for the actors in a play, I am often overcome with emotion.

SO. That said, I watched this live dance-off tonight and got a little weepy - several dozen people creating such a commotion amongst many young (and my age) Americans. Would the gymnastics experts overcome the group who lost a group-mate a few months ago? Both groups - hell, all the groups reunited tonight for the live finale - totally ROCKED OUT.

And made me weepy.

Then again, my hormones are all off this week...

Once again - NO CABLE IN PORTLAND. BAD. CABLE BAD.

Almost (but not really almost) Friday five.

Five reasons I am feeling awfully optimistic today (and parenthetical blah blah blahs), despite waking up at 4am to fret for 3 hours about the impending EVERYTHING, in no particular order:

• a potential job I wouldn't exactly hate (second interview next week!)
  
• two friends on the verge of not being crotchety old single ladies, as I currently expect to be (they give me hope!)
• health care coverage through the end of April (never again will I quit a job at the end of a month!)
  
• emailing a bunch of property management/moving companies about apartment hunting and moving quotes (seriously thinking I'm gonna outsource this puppy - everything about it - to save my sanity!)
  
• last time feeling like my voice went unheard at the management meeting this morning (and first time feeling like it might not have gone unheard, which is sad and ironic after 13 months - but true...!)

There have been many other "lasts" in the past few weeks but this last "last" felt the most significant. I'm glad my coworkers have dropped the whole "you don't care - you're leaving" bit, because really, after 10 years of investment in this organization, I DO care. And I will continue to care.

Note to self.

Adding one full tablespoon of red chili pepper flakes to the homemade tofu version of Trader Joe's General Tso's Chicken (the sauce is a bit bland) was a bit too much. (AS IN, OMG WAAAAAAAAAAH MY MOUTH IS ON FIRE too much.) But I confidently recommend adding one HALF tablespoon of red chili pepper flakes (and a handful of fresh broccoli) to make it a genuine spicy sauce.

And another note to self - it is probably some sort of abomination to cook deep fried tofu with sugar-and red-chili-pepper infused sauce while watching The Biggest Loser, but I'm OK with that. After all, I'm going to join a running group when I move really, really soon. Or if nothing else, lots of the apartment complexes seem to have fitness centers. And hey, broccoli was involved. Thrive.

One small step for mankind.

Look - progress!

(Yes, I'm so proud of packing my 75 remaining "frequently played" CDs - the other 350 were packed into plastic storage bins two Superbowls ago - that I needed to take a picture of it and show you guys. And now I really must take a break to watch the third Planet Earth DVD because I've had it for over two weeks now, and it's making me anxious just sitting there implying that I don't care enough about it to pop it in. Or maybe I should watch Rent in honor of the end of the Broadway stint.

I am starting to get the feeling that this is going to be a long, painful move...)

"They can't all be ballads, Julian."

I took a walk to the far away drugstore this afternoon to get some supplies that would help me in my whittling down (no, I wasn't procrastinating, the closer-by drugstore didn't have what I needed... and yes, it's ironic that I needed to buy things to help me get rid of things).

ANYWAY, Kimya Dawson accompanied me on my iPod. I couldn't help but think that the mostly upbeat but completely somber songs were so inappropriate for such a lovely day. (Another fine reason why I'm moving to Portland. "Goin' where the climate suits my songs...")

It reminded me of my freshman year of college. Pearl Jam's "Ten" came out a few months earlier, and on any given sunny afternoon you could walk through the quad and hear "Porch" or "Black" blaring from a dorm room's open window. It was such a refreshing change from Bob Marley or the Grateful Dead, also prevalently wafting out of dorm room windows that year. (And every year prior and every year to follow, I would imagine.)

So for a little while today I felt slightly hip, or at least 10 years younger. And it was good.

Mwah hah hah...

Hah. Haha... Still laughing.

What's YOUR blog's reading level?

Add to dictionary. ADD! ADD!

I was writing an email to someone today and mentioned how nice it was to work for a Christian-based organization because we got Good Friday off. (Yay, Jesus! Oh - I mean... sorry, Jesus! It'll be allllll good on Sunday, promise.)

Anyway, I misspelled "Christian" and instead of correcting the spelling manually, I right clicked for the auto-corrected spelling. None of the choices was remotely close (which was odd, I didn't misspell it that much!) and one of the choices was actually "Antichrist." I'm not kidding.

It reminded me of the time I spell checked an email to a non-native-born coworker and the spell checker didn't recognize his name. Right clicking revealed that one of the suggested replacements was a word that had no business being in the company spell checker's "suggestion" list.

I won't do a link or a quote or anything because I don't want the virus bots to attack my or your precious machines, but here's a hint: it's one of the words within the song from the Hair soundtrack whose title is illegal in several dozen states. (I almost googled how many states it was actually illegal in, and thought better of that as well.)

[pause while the realization that this was in the company's "suggestion" directory kicks in]

... I KNOW!!

"I don't need you to Hollywood me home!"

I have no idea what that quote means. It's from Catch and Release, a predictable yet tolerable comedy/romance... as long as your definition of "tolerable" is "playing in the background while catching up on 19 back issues of various magazines."

Yeah, I have no idea what that quote means. But she said it while very drunk as someone escorted her out of the bar.

So naturally, I hereby dedicate it to whoever is forced to deal with me after the WOW next weekend...

"What if you were offered some kind of a stock option equity sharing program. Would that do anything for you?"

I have my first Portland job interview today. It's a phone interview, obviously, and I'm hoping that the vet was right this morning and that Her Majesty will get sleepy from the vaccinations pretty soon instead of doing her usual conference call thing (sitting at my feet meowing while the people on the phone laugh, then sigh, then "JEEZ!" over the course of the call).

The interview is with my former company, for a job I know I could do and probably wouldn't mind doing for a little while. I'm not getting my hopes up, especially because I could NOT do the job and NOT mind NOT doing the job, and also I think their hiring time frame is not going to work with my current plans.

The main question I have for her is whether I'd still be within the time frame to start accruing vacation days at 7 weeks/year (which is what I had when I left).

I suppose I ought to think of some other, more thoughtful questions...

I iz jest life imitatin art.

It started today at the volunteer gig with Felix. Then the kittehs... er, kittens, then Paisley, and so on, and so on... And it ended with Her Majesty.

"Oh hai."

I couldn't help it. It just came out naturally. Automatically, in fact. Oh hai Felix. Oh hai kitteh. Kitteh! No bite! Bad kitteh!

I wonder when I will be able to say a normal "oh, hi" again.

In related news, the gig is going well. I was worried that it would make me sad, all those poor cats in need of a good home. But actually there's great turnover so while I'm sad that Oliver, Slow Bear (aka Riley Reincarnated), Dorothy*, etc. have been adopted, I am of course thrilled for them... I dread the day when Felix will not be there. He's my current fave. It's kitten season so perhaps he'll be around a little longer.

I'm also on a new kick to foster cats after Her Majesty becomes a dearly departed (because lord knows she wouldn't have any of that nonsense while she was still alive and well). There's something appealing about socializing a cat to ready them for adoption, then giving them away and having your life back. (Which is, coincidentally, my approach to kids, generally speaking. Hmm.)

But the best part about this gig is the confused look on Her Majesty's face when I come home smelling like 20 different cats instead of my neighbors' two. Priceless.

_________________
* OK seriously, who names a cat Dorothy?

And in the words of the great Jon Stewart...

"And so, at 11am on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race... as though they were adults."

The entire speech seemed utterly unrehearsed, unscripted, unteleprompted - even though he glanced down a lot and looked left and right only, it seemed as though he'd spoken these words millions of times before. If only Hilary was remotely as eloquent. I really, truly hope this ends well.

More here. (Crib notes here.)

In today's news...

... is anyone other than me befuddled at (irritated with, morbidly appalled by, etc.) John Corbett's new Applebee's commericals? (I kind of agree about the JC Penny Plant/Krauss sellout too, but it doesn't bother me quite as much.)

Oh and also - I waaaaaaaaaaaant one. Mainly to see how it actually helps you brainstorm topics for essays, but still...

And now for something completely different.

One could say that I've had an off day.

I went to bed early last night knowing that I had to wake up early today (early for me, anyway - rise and shine is almost always between 6-7am). This morning I hit the snooze one fatal time (my clock radio only handles so many snooze hits... after which point it just shuts off... I *really* need a new clock radio) only to be immersed in an "I know what you did last summer"-corporate-stylie sort of dream. I don't recall the specifics but somehow the ship was set to explode, and my brother and I had been peripherally involved with setting the explosives but we didn't know why, and we were not allowed off the ship due to the investigation, which seemed a little odd - if they suspected a bomb on the ship you would think they would evacuate, but no, the investigators contained us all. So as soon as I was about to find out how I had been involved and what kind of sentence I was facing (other than death, as this was right before the ship exploded), I woke up.

Clearly a work dream. CLEARLY.

I woke up at 7:30am with a start from this dream. According to the plan last night, I was supposed to get up early to be clean and awake for an 8am meeting which was fortunately a 5-minute drive away. So I had 20 minutes to kinda clean up but not feel completely comfortable, and I was in no way awake for the meeting. I just kept thinking about the dream, and wondering why/how I'd been involved. Five minutes into the meeting I got the sense that the person I was meeting with had other priorities so I wasn't too concerned about my own distraction, although it was our last ceremonial bitch-and-moan session before I leave and I'd been looking forward to it. At least I got coffee'd up and fed.

Then later I sat through another meeting where I got really emotional for no apparent reason other than the suspected fact that my doctor switched a prescription to the generic brand and now my hormones are all off, and there's not much I can do about it since I won't have insurance in the near future. So I tried my best to hide my emotion (and I think I did OK) but it still bugged me that I couldn't contain - or explain - myself or my thoughts.

And then at the evening meeting that I was looking forward to, I got snubbed by someone which shouldn't have really surprised or bothered me but it did, and then (probably due to the aforementioned hormone issue) I started to feel feverish and even after eating something I didn't feel better, so I scurried out without really talking to anyone.

And now two hours later I've had some tea and played an hour of virtual Texas Hold'Em (which I learned about thanks to stalking ex-coworkers on Facebook), winning numerous points from strangers...

And I wonder if this is what my life will be like in Portland. And this worries me.

And so I will shut down Mr. Computer and turn to my other best friend, Mr. TV... well - actually - Mr. Planet Earth. I think I need a nature/nurture/I-am-really-not-that-important-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things night.

And some more cheese. That always helps.

Now spinning in my head 90% of every hour, although I am too lazy to update the list: Wilco - Sky Blue Sky - namely, Either Way... "Maybe the sun will shine today, the clouds will roll away... Maybe I won't be so afraid... I will understand, everything has its plan..."

And in other news, another belated Friday five.

Five things on the "things you do that really piss me off" list I got as a present on Saturday, that I actually do, in no particular order:

• choose TV over you
• correct your grammar
• screen your calls
• use "was like" as a verb
• call you "dude"

And in other, other news... I was like, dude, I gotta get me one of these!!

Uh oh.

I've... found... the... Texas hold'em... Facebook... app... sorry... have... to... type... between... dings... omg... my... life... is... over...

Misunderorganization.

I paid my car registration fees a few months ago. When I got the sticker and registration card I promptly put the sticker on my license plate... and did something with the registration card. That something did not involve putting it in my glove box as I usually do.

This did not occur to me until Tuesday of this week, when I was cleaning the glove box and realized that my old registration card was set to expire on Friday. I searched high and low for that dang replacement card to no avail. So I got up early Friday morning and headed to the DMV to pay the $17 fine to get a replacement card.

This afternoon I was cleaning out my file drawer (more with the whittling/purging) and got to my car folder. Insurance card from 2006, oil change from summer 2005, don't need those... Hmm... Here's the top portion of my 2006 registration card, and here's the 2007, I wonder if...

And sure enough, I must've put the promptly sticker on my desk and also promptly filed the stupid registration card in its correct folder. Where it would do me no good. D'oh.

If the duration of initial <-> end sticks, I figure this means that I'll find the two birthday cards I made four months ago, that I was supposed to hand out last night, sometime around April 26th... and that in about 3 minutes I'll remember that two weeks ago I told my neighbor I would feed her cats today.

Belated Friday five.

Five things that made me laugh today, in no particular order:

• cheaters, animal stylie
• me, circa April 1994
• tard models
• me, circa April 1996 (only I was at the Olive Garden in Colorado, but man did those freaks WANT THEIR BREAD NOW! - I love the drugs-in-the-tap-water move)
• mitosis
  

Tasks are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup...

No, I have not yet seen Across the Universe, though after this glowing review I can't wait to. I've been too busy to watch the three very intriguing Netflix flicks awaiting me, let alone anything new. Too busy to venture out into the real world to see movies, bands, life.

Instead, I just keep making lists. Lists of things to do before I go, things to do when I get there, things to do to GET me to there (um, hello, the most important part), people I should call (present and future), places I should visit (present and future), restaurants I should eat at "one last time"... Overwhelming.

It doesn't help that the next 2.5 weeks are INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE. What with nineteen going-away parties (I didn't know I had more than nineteen friends, so the "nineteen parties" part is pretty exciting, albeit somewhat exaggerated, and also I don't even know WHEN I'm going away, so the going-away parties are pretty odd), several poker nights, petting cats (AKA volunteering) and - oh yeah, wrapping stuff up at work which includes several evening/weekend meetings... I have approximately 3 spare hours between now and March 30.

At which point I will venture up to Portland to spend a week finding a place to squat for the next 6-9 months.

OVERWHELMING.

Thank goodness for TV. Thank goodness for Lost. Thank goodness for wine. Must. Escape. (Briefly.)

Firsts meme.

Cribbed from a friend of a friend.

1. Who was your first prom date? My "first" prom date? I only went to one prom, and I went with a really good friend. We had A TIME. A TIME, I tell ya.

2. Do you still talk to your first love? I don't talk to any of my former "loves."

3. What was your first alcoholic drink? I believe it was champagne at my parents' NYE party when I was 10 - I had a sip, literally a sip, and I had a horrible hangover the next day.

4. What was your first job? Under the table: babysitter for Satan's offspring. Legit: data entry clerk at the construction place where my parents worked.

5. What was your first car? 1984 Nissan pickup. Purchased in 1990, died in 2003. May she rest in peace.

6. Who was the first person to text you today? No one texted me today. I get charged $0.10 per text. By the way.

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? I don't remember. Probably someone in some meeting I was dreading.

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Mrs. McClelland. I will never forget her - she was reprimanding some JDs at the front of the class one day, using her plastic meter stick to emphasize her point, and that puppy shattered from the force of the "emphasis."

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? Maryland -> New Jersey to see my aunt.

10. Who was your first best friend, and are you still friends with him/her? It was a girl I met in elementary school, and we stayed friends (though not best friends) through college (even though she didn't go to college).

11. What was your first sport played? Oh lord, maybe HORSE or badminton in the backyard with my brother? Or freeze/flashlight tag with the neighborhood kids?

12. Where was your first sleepover? My cousin Kelly's house. She had a canopy bed. I was soooooooo jealous. And we made rainbow colored popcorn, the whole ROYGBIV spectrum of colors, which I haven't been able to find since then.

13. Who was the first person you talked to today? Assuming Her Majesty doesn't count, I think it was saying hello to one of my staff.

14. Whose wedding were you in the first time? I was the flower girl in a neighbor's daughter's wedding when I was about 5 years old. Guess they didn't know any little girls so they asked me.

15. What was the first thing you did this morning? Hit the snooze button.

16. What was the first concert you ever went to? Neil Diamond when I was four! Yay Mom.

17. What was your first tattoo or piercing? First ear piercing - when I was about 13. The five other ear piercings were in high school. First tattoo was the spring I turned 18, during my second semester at college.

18. What was the first foreign country you went to? Does New Jersey count? How about South Carolina? That South of the Border is pretty crazy, after all. Ha ha, just kidding. First foreign country was London, the start of my 12-countries-in-7-seconds tour of Europe during my sophomore year in college.

19. What was your first run-in with the law? I got a speeding "warning" picking a friend up from the airport in my parents' Monte Carlo when I was about 19 (man that thing could coast - and fast).

20. When was your first detention? I never had a detention. I was a goody-two-shoes.

21. What was the first state you lived in? Maryland. Lasted 23 years, give or take.

22. Who was the first person to break your heart? My first "official" boyfriend in 8th grade, I had such a crush on him, but he called me boring, and my friend told me as much.

23. Who was your first roommate? College, freshman year. We got along OK, but she had issues. (OK, so did I.)

24. Where did you go on your first limo ride? I have never been in a limo. With the impending departure, I think it's time to plan that wine tour o'Napa or o'Sonoma! (Preferably not within a day of the WOW though.)

"Step by step, ooooooh baby."

March 2008 step one: final dentist appointment, final doctor appointment, final eye doctor appointment, figure out interim health care. Dentist = done. Doctor = done, cholesterol check pending my availability to wait in the lab for nine years, oh and also pending when I want to hear the results of the cholesterol check, which will be, oh I don't know, NEVER. Eye doctor = Monday. Interim health care = ugh ugh ugh, need to find the patience and energy for this.

March 2008 step two: final car tune up, final vet appointment. Car = $950 later, done yesterday. (Sigh.) Vet = next Friday.

March 2008 step three: secure hotel (errr... motel... cheap, sorry-ass motel fifteen miles outside of town) reservations for first week of April when I go up to seek housing in my new city. Done today.

March 2008 step four: secure someone's spare laptop for mad Craigs List apartment searches during my trip the first week of April. Anyone? Anyone? Hook a sister up...?

March 08 step five: Get. My. Shit. Together. Literally AND figuratively. Yeah, um... Pending.

I'm sure that at some point, the craziness of my lackadaisical attitude about this MAJOR LIFE CHANGE will hit me, and I will start to freak out, which will subsequently stress me and Her Majesty and everyone around me out, which is what I'm really trying to avoid. I went from nine years at one crazy job to over a year at another really crazy job without much of a break, and I'm making every attempt to use this move as an opportunity to take my time and casually meander up to the Northwest. But without deadlines, without any sense of urgency, and with everyone and their mother asking me "do you have a place" "do you have a job" "what's your move date" "what do you plan to do when you get there" etc., etc., I'm feeling a bit lost.

I really hope that I do find a new abode that first week of April. I think that will put a lot of things into motion. And if I don't... well, I really hope my boss is serious about me doing some consulting work in April.

"Step by step, I really think its just a matter of time."

________________
Virtual high embarrassing five to anyone who immediately knew the band quoted in this email.

This just in...

Today, I do not enjoy being a girl.

In other news, I am officially a fan of this gal on SFGate's culture blog. My current favorite excerpt:

"It's always a delight to watch Tim [Gunn from Project Runway] interact with regular people. He could not look more uncomfortable eating three-bean-salad balanced atop his lap on a stranger's Jennifer Convertible. You can tell he's dying to grab a hag and whisper, Did you see those entryway curtains? My god, they look like Cher's Oscar rejects."

And finally, today a coworker witnessed a burglary in progress so he called the police. I went into a meeting shortly after he called them, and returned to our office a mere 30 minutes later to find two handsome uniformed men getting his statement. It was a little intimidating to be
in the immediate vicinity of all those guns and all that dark blue. But can I just say - your tax dollars DO work.

(Or, more likely, it was just a slow day in Oaktown.)

There's five big bags there, I swear.

In a strange turn of events today, I slept until 10am. (Well, technically 9am - stupid daylight savings time.) I had vague plans to start "doing something" toward the impending move...

But then I got sucked into a Quarterlife marathon on Bravo, which was another strange turn of events. I'd heard the buzz about this show and tried to watch it a few weeks ago at its regular time, and I got bored so instantaneously even my yawn was surprised. My interest today was either related to procrastination, or PMS (which makes these types of shows more appealing to me... me + PMS + Dawson's Creek = sheer heaven), or my adult onset ADD (which makes watching shows week by week intolerable, but hour by hour totally enrapturing - I'm pretty sure I will not have cable in Portland because I've become so accustomed to the Netflix Tv-on-DVD concept).

ANYWAY. I don't recommend the show unless any of the above apply.

The marathon ended at 2pm so I ventured out into the beautiful day to get a fish taco and the newspaper, then headed back home to start "doing something" toward the impending move. Since I don't know exactly when I'm going, or exactly where I'm going, packing is damn near impossible - what if I need that wool skirt/book I have yet to crack open/fourth (of four existing) color ink cartridge between now and "then"? What if my new bedroom closet doesn't have room for my wire Ikea shelf o'exercise clothes/six pairs of shoes I have worn once/nineteen thousand empty hangers?

So instead I am working on whittling down. Today I attacked the closet and dressers using the "if I haven't looked at it in a year, it's gone... OK, now if I haven't worn it in a year, it's gone" methodology of getting rid of things. I ended up with a respectable pile of space saved in the moving van (especially when you include the lamp and chair, which are not coming with me - unless I can't offload a cat-hair-laden red corduroy chair between now and then):


This is just the start. In the coming week I will work on the kitchen. Surely someone at work still drinks Celestial Seasonings tea, or needs a giant ladle or some mason jars, or would love a box of Cheerios purchased by my Dad in December 2005.

"Don't worry. I'm not here to eat."

I despise daylight savings time. Why?

Why, because I am apparently a pseudo-vampire who loves watching reruns of Buffy in the dark of winter when the sun sets at 4:30pm. Truth be told, I absolutely hate when the days are sunny for nineteen million hours at a time. Portland is just a step toward Alaska, which has one-hour-of-Mr.-Sun winters, after all.

But now, Yahoo!Tech ALSO gives YOU a reason to despise DST! Finally, a co-conspirator. Mwah hahahahahaha!!!!

(For geeks only: That's the extent of my pseudo-vampire impressions... Or is it? I DID quote Angel in the subject line, after all, and which of you Buffy fans thought they'd ever see the day I quoted THAT guy? Might as well be quoting Riley, for Pete's sake! Mwah hahahahahaha!!!!)

At last, I can sleep.

In order to round off the "comes in three's" we have to go back to last summer, but technically I think this counts because I just found out about it yesterday.

See, there was once this very sweet, very funny, very smart, very stylish person, the kind of person you wanted to be friends with, that I went to junior high and high school with. I wasn't good friends with her or anything, and we certainly didn't keep in touch after high school. But we shared six years of classes, and I liked her a hell of a lot more than most of the other people I shared six years of classes with.

A high school friend sent me a Facebook message about it. His wording was pretty somber so before I clicked the link, I sensed that the outcome was not good, but I suspected maybe a plane crash, or a car accident, or something having to do with some war somewhere. She seemed like the traveling Peace Corps-y type, after all. And I was on the Facebook high, poking people and taking movie trivia quizzes and joining social networks and what not, so clearly it had to have some positive spin to it. Never in a million years did I suspect that she had suffered a horrific death at the hands of her "boyfriend."

So I'm no longer fearing the reaper, as I tend to do while waiting for #3 to drop. Instead I've turned my attention to watching my faith in humanity continue to disintegrate by the ever loving millisecond.

From Postcards.

"I envy people who have the capacity to sit with another human being and find them endlessly interesting. I would rather watch TV. Of course, this eventually becomes known to the other person."

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Wishful Drinking. It was a personal, humorous, painful glimpse into the life of the woman who shall be immortalized as Princess Leia.

I hope my theatergoing friend will chime in, but my reaction to the show was all over the map. At times I felt disdain (oh boy, another sob story from Hollywood). At times I felt empathy (inbreeding, no father figure, men approaching you on the street proclaiming their love for you in "that little bikini number while you were chained to a giant slug," someone actually owning her likeness). At times I felt awe (Paul Simon wrote SONGS about this woman, I was Princess Leia for Halloween when I was four and I wrote a paper on the character in college - and there she is, RIGHT THERE).

But mostly, I appreciated her vulnerability, her openness, her engagement with the audience, her stories, her manner of storytelling, and her incredible sense of humor. Time has not been good to her, physically, but her inner strength is remarkable and I highly recommend this show for anyone who's remotely curious.

Now queuing Postcards from the Edge.

The silent treatment.

Her Majesty's incessant whining has really gotten out of control lately, to the point where I'm constantly barking "OMGSTFU already" at her, and she's waking me up at 4am to MEOW in my face, so after a visit to the volunteer animal gig tonight I decided to try another tactic: absolutely no acknowledgment of her incessant whining. (And also, I scheduled a vet appointment this afternoon.)

I have not said a word since I got home. Not to her, and not to my general surroundings. (I not only tend to acknowledge her whining, I also tend to talk to myself a lot when I'm at home.) Everything else has been as normal - she got her squishy food right away, she got pets when she was being quiet, she was calmly pushed away when trying to get in my lap while I worked on a paper online (which has never been OK - she has never been allowed to sit in my lap while I'm at the desk, but alas, this has never stopped her from trying).

She is now sitting at my feet, staring at me, occasionally moaning or groaning, reaching a paw up every now and then in an attempt to sit in my lap or sniff at the "other" cats I played with tonight. But in general, she's been fairly quiet for the past two hours.

Hmmm. I might be on to something...

But I'm still investigating kitty Prozac with the vet next week.

Two thumbs up.

After a many-year search for "vegetarian" General Tso's Chicken in the Bay Area that would rival that of Seven Seas (College Park, Maryland) version, which I got absolutely addicted to in college and which I ABSOLUTELY MUST have every time I go home to visit...

I have not found many competitors. In fact, until last week, I hadn't really found ANY competitors. Which shocked me, being in this culturally- and environmentally- crazy environment.

I have found several local sorry attempts to recreate the dish. They were pink and squishy and did not come with broccoli and they were not breaded, not deep-fried goodness, not at all spicy, and they made me throw them out after just a bite or two. Even after walking twenty or more blocks in hopeful optimism on my lunch hour. I just couldn't swallow them. So I threw them away and ate a backup Luna bar.

After all that effort, I have almost found it. I have almost found its rival. The texture was perfect, the broccoli was just enough, the underlaying sauce was just saucy enough - but not too saucy. The only issues I had were the lack of RED PEPPER OH MY GOD HOT spicy (that is, it wasn't quite spicy enough) and the size of the "chicken" (Seven Seas gives you big boneless wing sized portions, Big Lantern's were too small to be exactly chicken-sized - then again, they were easily consumed via chopstick whereas I have to use real utensils at Seven Seas).

And now, damn it all to hell, I'm moving to another state. So I suppose my new mission will be to find Portland's rival to Seven Seas' version of vegetarian General Tso's Chicken which I recently just about found at Big Lantern in San Francisco.

The job is suddenly coming together, the friend activity is suddenly coming together, and now the food is suddenly coming together. Must be time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Why I got nothing done today, exhibit #571.

Click this link, then wait for the site to load, then wait about 10 more seconds, then turn your sound down and enjoy. IKEA is fahrfrumgruvin' compared to these guys.

OK, back to the list.

My Saturday night.

We dug into disc one of Planet Earth, another wonderful BBC/David Attenborough collaboration. We laughed when the monkeys crossed the stream, arms upheld, looking annoyed. We stared in awe at the largest migration on the planet and rare footage of a snow leopard family. We cheered when the impala got away from those pesky hyenas (oops - spoiler alert!) and when the elephants frolicked in the water after a long, dry journey. And then we sat in awe through two more episodes about mountains and water.

It was brilliant.

The only thing I didn't like, that some people will probably love, is that the last 10 minutes of each episode featured a "how they did it" segment. It was easy enough to skip, but it wasn't in a separate "special features" section of the disc. When it comes to things like that, I don't want to know. I just want to experience the magic.

Come ON.

Yesterday in class I made a list of all the work and home things I want to get done this week. Eight for work, nine for home. Most relate to wrapping things up at work and getting ready for Portland.

I have been up since 6am, because apparently I'm old now and therefore incapable of sleeping in. It is now 3:43pm. I have done ONE THING on my list, and subsequently added about twelve more things. And done about six things that weren't on ANY list... And absolutely no TV was involved (well, except between 6:30-7am, when I watched a Buffy rerun on F/X during breakfast).

Finding time to do everyday normal things is hard enough. Imagine adding an interstate move... It's overwhelming.

On the upside, my allergies are back and I ran into a former coworker for the second weekend in a row, both of which cemented the thought that it's about time to get out of Dodge.

And on a totally unrelated note, the Parkway has joined the 21st century and now accepts credit cards. As when Trader Joe's switched from typing in prices to scanning items, this shift made me a little sad. There was something small-townish and charming about the prior situations. I know it's all about efficiency and the bottom line, but still...

Damn, I AM old.

Shockingly, I am not a comma.

I am a colon. No, not that type of colon. This type :

I am very orderly and fact driven. This is true. I am not concerned much with theories or dreams... only what's true or untrue. This is true. I am brilliant and incredibly learned. HA! Anything I know is well researched. This is true. I like to make lists and sort through things step by step. This is true. I am not subject to whim or emotions. This is mostly true. My friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. HA! (But they are a little sick of me being right all of the time!) DOUBLE HA!

I excel in: Leadership positions QUADRUPLE HA!

I get along best with: The Semi-Colon

What kind of punctuation mark are you? Please identify yourself, semi-colons...