my poor neighbors

I lied. One more entry.

I downloaded the Dr. Horrible mp3s from Amazon and have been listening for ... awhile. I may also have it open on hulu.

Lucky for him, Jer is at work. I am having Dr. Horrible vacation time all by myself.

Oh, right. I should mention that we have our nine year anniversary tomorrow night.

Happy Anniversary, Jer. I know you won't read this but I'll tell the Internet just in case it gets back to you.

don't forget to pack your sentence fragements

It's my first night of vacation, and I couldn't stay away from the computer. Hi! I left work about 6:45pm and walked over to Elliott Bay Book Co., just as it started to drizzle.

I remember the first time Jer and I visited in 2003, when we came up here for a vacation. I thought, this store is just what a bookstore should be; I hope I make it back someday. And now I work a mere few blocks away.

That's what I call visualizing my future!

Upstairs, an odd group of people were engaged in a deep conversation about Hell and women and childbirth and Dante. They were the sort of people who are probably perfectly nice, but take the word "pontificate" to new and unwholesome levels. I felt a little dirty just crouched in the stacks trying to find a travel guide and I left convinced I would never find a book club that didn't make me cringe.

I ended up with two travel guides on New Orleans and, because I celebrate being a walking cliche, I bought a Sookie Stackhouse novel. (It's what True Blood is based on, and it's about vampires in the South.) I've also packed a P.G. Wodehouse novel because I've never read about Jeeves.

Now I'm drinking a cup of coffee with Bailey's, sort of watching HGTV, and recharging batteries. Because it's not traveling if you don't have 6 kinds of electronics in your bag. Apparently.

Also a monopod.

I am not expecting to have internet access where I'm going, so I will have to bid you adieu. I promise to eat some beignets for you and go to the Central Grocery. With hope the humidity will not make me melt.

See ya next week.

Dr. Horrible link

If you haven't seen it, you should watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

where did april go?

I'll be on a plane in a few days, sleeping between strange sheets, slowing my metabolism with booze, and possibly getting into trouble. Fortunately, Jer has a calming influence on my wacky adventures, so maybe it won't be so bad.

Do you have any New Orleans suggestions? I'd be happy to hear them.

Last week we learned we were pre-approved for a mortgage loan so this afternoon we met with a Redfin field agent and looked at 4 homes. By far my favorite is a complete fixer upper, but very charming. It would take too much money and time to "fix it" though. My next favorite is very nice and has everything we wanted -- though it didn't exactly pull at my heartstrings. I don't know. I could love it and it'd be a great investment in a fantastic neighborhood. I'll sleep on it and hope no one else snatches it up before I make a decision.

I'm terrible at shopping around. Terrible. So much pressure. I have to keep reminding myself that we've only just started looking, there will be more homes, and we have plenty of time. I am more of the type who says, I want that, and then doesn't think about anything else for awhile, which is okay for a pair of shoes but not so great for a house.

Jer and I have rented three apartments together, and except for our current place, I always picked the first place I looked at.

Oh well. The more time we wait, the more we can save...

Do spiders have plague?

Late Sunday afternoon naps are the best naps.

Maybe I shouldn't admit that.

April is half-way over and I don't have much to show for it. Cruelest month indeed. The final day of the work thing I've been frantic about for 5 months ends tomorrow, so if I make it through that, maybe I'll get to be "me" again. Though, as drunkenly alluded to in my previous post, I have been attempting to make up for lost time via happy hour all last week already.

On Friday night I went to opening night of a very large booksale that took place in a hangar. It took five minutes to walk to the end of the line. Apparently people queue up in the morning and make a day of it. Jer and I showed up when the doors opened and I paid my $30 entrance fee... they ran out of yellow cards to prove I'd paid, which later confounded the book counters and nearly made one accuse me of lying. Over two books. Hi, why?

The setup was slightly confusing for a first-timer -- though old pro book buyer -- like myself. I wandered into the Better Books section, which is apparently self-contained and after you leave it you have to either leave completely and walk around to the entrance or check your books at will call. I left... dropped my 2 books at the car and then came right back in. My $30 entitled me to purchase 25 books and ogle the silent auction selections, grimacing as some people tossed back the cover of Dante's leather bound volume like ... well, like people who don't have a clue. Finger oils! Stop fondling the etchings! Ahhhh. I ended up with 18 books total.

As we walked back to the car, Jer asked about what I bought. "Oh," I said, "mostly classics. Treasure Island, a Nabokov, and then I picked up The Plague." I meant Camus, he thought I meant bubonic.

I really should've had a drink first.

Later I found a huge spider at the bottom of my book bag. But hey, free spider!

nothing to see here

Dear world,

this is day three of going to happy hour. while i appreciate that there are people who are willing to forgive my busy-ness over the last few months, i would also like to point out that three days of this is very nearly a bender.

but i do this for you

probably should have ordered dinner.

dear world. have you lost weight? you look dead sexy to me.

love, crazy town.

File under water taxi

I love the water taxi, but tonight it let me down. There was a Mariners' game at 7:10pm which means it runs late. There was a sign up that said it ran until 10:30pm. So I arrived at 9:20pm to take the 9:30pm water taxi. It didn't run. I had to catch a cab with two other women, who were similarly stranded.

I would very much like to make an excuse for the water taxi, but the fact is, I had no way to get home.

That's all I got.

Updating to Add: It was an afternoon game, not a night game so it didn't run late. I must have misread the sign in the window and misheard the announcement. Oh well. I'll just make sure to triple check next time.

depends on rent, really

I was feeling pretty good about everything and then Monday came back around... In the last few weeks I've asked one person to stop disrespecting me and told another their response was inappropriate and rude. Fun times!

For the record, they were and it was.

Sometimes I wish I couldn't do math. If I couldn't do math then I wouldn't have realized if I didn't buy a house then we could move somewhere cheap and afford to live for quite awhile without jobs.

Jer made me watch "Dr. Horrible." I really liked it.

And on that note, I am going to bed.

My newest toy

My weakness is Levenger. I was probably in college -- which means years ago -- when I first found their site and began to receive their catalog.

"Tools for the reader," it said.

"Yes, please," I said.

In particular I fell in love with a bag called the Stanley Traveler, a beautiful tan leather briefcase that was always out of my price range. But for years I've been thinking about that bag, dreaming about it, wishing it could be mine.

This morning I saw an email about a 20% off spring sale, so I (dangerously) decided to check out the site again. They have a new version of the traveler bag that seems a little smaller, but is just as beautiful. Also, it was marked down. Applying the 20% off coupon to that total made the price almost reasonable.

So I did it; I bought it. Over ten years of want on the way to me, I can barely believe it.

Just don't tell Jer. :)

i prefer rain

I was home about 6pm tonight, which is strange and exciting. Daylight! I rode the water taxi to work. The sun was out, birds were chirping, just a gorgeous day.

Something's still not right in my head. It's all a little raw, but it'll pass. It doesn't help that I'm reading Murakami, "Kafka on the Shore." I love his writing but it doesn't help my mood.

It's really very quiet here, just me and the birds.

I forget how to talk to people. I would prefer to hide away for awhile. Find a cabin, stock it with books and sandwiches, listen to the trees. Banish the internet, build a fire, see the stars. I'm halfway to disappearing already; it wouldn't be much of a stretch.

Sunlight makes my feet itch.

Too good to be true

I read on the West Seattle Blog a couple of weeks ago that the water taxi would be running late M-F starting this year. But then I just checked the official schedule and it's the same as last year -- only running late on Fridays and game nights.

Major major bummer.

I don't care where the mixup happened, but it was nice for just a moment to think public transportation would finally get me home, both during mid-day AND at night. (The 37 only runs one way during commuter hours, 5:45 - 9am or so and then 3:30 to 7pm)

If I'm building a list of things I won't miss about living here, not being able to get home except during two commuting windows would top it.

Oh well. I'm still excited to ride the boat -- though you should be able to tell that already since my primary concern is that I won't get to ride it ENOUGH.

priority trouble

I'm not sure what to do with myself. I recognize that due to all of the long workdays and the six months of shaping myself into a new role, I've stopped taking care of me. I've replaced caffeinated drinks with water. I don't exercise. My food choices are not usually healthy, but reward-driven. I don't write.

There are little things I can do immediately if I cared. I could wake up a few minutes earlier and toast a slice of bread for breakfast, with a little peanut butter. I know that fills me up enough to not be tempted by Starbucks breakfast sandwiches. But the thing is, I can't bring myself to care. In this case, I'd rather sleep three minutes.

I think I keep waiting to hit my health rock bottom. Stupid. I know this.

I've been not so subtly nagging Jer again to request his schedule get changed to days. But then his company just had layoffs last week -- he is fine -- but it is not the time to be insisting on shift requests. I get that, so I'm going to have to let it go. I mention this because I've always wanted him to go to the gym with me, and if he worked days we could go after work together. Also I could cook meals for the both of us, healthy meals, instead of this bachelor-eating-over-the-sink crap. But that's out.

In two weeks and one day the crazy annual deadline I am subjected to will pass, and (hopefully) the vein bulging in my forehead will recede. Then I will remember to drink the right fluids and eat my toast and I'll be able to think about other things.

Maybe.

And now we're square

Hello world,

Now I express my feelings for you in the form of interpretative dance.

...

Good morning, April

It snowed a bit today, which got me thinking about the first time I took my new camera out last December. Here's a photo I took by Pioneer Square, with a bronze statue lightly covered in snow.

I would say snow isn't typical here, but this year has made me reconsider my notion of "typical" wintry weather in Seattle. The day after I took this set of pictures my bus got stuck on the 99 on-ramp and then the following day the bus stopped running altogether. Those were a crazy couple of weeks... though maybe the crazy just never stopped.

I worked another 11 1/2 hours today. My start and stop times are mostly according to the bus schedule. Next week when the water taxi starts running later, I hope I'll be strong enough to leave at a decent time.

In other news, I hope I can attend a happy hour someday again. (but not this week) I miss those.