Gettin' Stuff Done, Again

So, today was just a get-things-done kind of day. It had to be, after the last two days of goofy fun! Don worked on his truck, trying to get it ready to pass inspection (he got pulled over and 'warned' last week) while KK and I went to the laundromat. This was actually very satisfying! The thing is that Don and I are both messy, procrastinating people. We always have a load of laundry in the dryer, one on the dining-room table ready for folding, folded laundry stacked on the piano (yes, nice way to treat the nicest thing I own, I know), and a load moldering in the washer, waiting to dry. The laundry has never been "finished" since we first rented the washer and dryer! Well, we finally had them cart away the rented machines and we dragged (drug?) the dryer up the stairs--a perilous process. I was terrified that Don and dryer would fall back down the stairs. But the washer is still in the garage, and the dryer needs a different plug in order to go into our wall. Hence my first trip in two years to a laundromat. There's nothing quite like coming home with stacks of clean, folded stuff ready to put away! I remember this feeling from Vermont, when Don and I would wait until every single thing in the house was dirty (we're procrastinators, remember?) and I would haul all the sheets, towels, socks, everything down. Three hours later and it was all clean, stacked percariously on the shelves that house had in lieu of a "closet". Today KK and I did our cars while the clothes dried; there's a self-serve carwash across the street from the laundromat. Now my car is shiny and vaccuumed and I have enough clothes to last the week.

We also went to the mall today and I actually bought things-- a rare occurence! Usually we just wander aimlessly, window-gazing, people-watching. The original point was to get Don's hair cut. For reasons I can't fathom, he seems to need moral support for this, because he only goes when I go with him. But there was a long wait at the hair place so we shopped. Victoria's Secret, the Limited, Express-- lots of stuff on sale and I actually had a little spending cash. I need to buy new things more often; I kept saying things like, "Look! The elastic in this underwear is stretchy! And the colors are so bright!" Now I have some new things I really needed-- underthings, pants that I don't have to squeeeeze into. All on sale and bought with cash, yes. At one place the total was 27.06. I had a 100-bill, so I gave the cashier 102.06 to make it nice and even. You would have thought that I'd asked her to perform an appendectomy or something.... seventy-five dollars back, it's not that hard. Silly me thought I was making things easier.

Previous conversation with Don:

Him: So, what is that one called?
Me, on the floor: Downward-facing Dog. It's good for the back and everything.
Him: Yeah, I could see that. . .
Me: You should try it.

Today:

Me: Good grief, doesn't that hurt your back?

Don: Nah, it's actually kind of like that Upside-down Dog thing you were showing me ...

(Yes, he is INSIDE the truck hood... it looks like it's trying to eat him...)

The Long Way 'Round

Don and I wanted to go to the Arboretum today. And we did go, after a bit. But neither of us knew where it was. He thought maybe it was down by Fair Park, east of the city, so we drove down in that direction, and went all around Fair Park, touring some of Dallas' ickier areas. I thought, maybe it's near the zoo! Which is somewhere near Oak Cliff-- I remember passing it during my job training down there. The Arboretum is not in Oak Cliff. We have driven forever at this point, and somehow we end up in Las Colinas, which is where Don works. Here we stop and buy a Mapsco and find that the Arboretum is.... right on White Rock Lake. Which is so much closer to where we live than anywhere else we've been today. We ended up driving in huge looping circles around the greater Dallas area, almost 80 miles total, to get to White Rock Lake. Crazy, I know.

But the Arboretum was fun! We wandered all around the paths, making wedding plans (by 'making wedding plans' I mean this of course:

Me: "what if we blah blah blah? We could blah! And blah! !"
Don: "OK! Sounds good! Whatever!"

repeat.....)

We played in the fountain, made out in the more secluded areas, did all the stupid things that we're old enough to know better but do anyways. All and all it was a nice day, and now he's grilling dinner. Hamburgers and hotdogs, of course, for Memorial Day weekend. Tater salad. I'm going to see if it's almost done yet.

Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping

Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle-jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle-jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it.

Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle-jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin' swingin' madly across the sun
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to
Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me
In the jingle-jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

**********************************************************

I guess everybody has those few songs that they can listen to over and over again, that evoke the same emotional response every time and never get stale or overplayed. This is one of those songs for me. But I wonder how legitimate a connection to a song can be if a song is about one thing to the singer, whether a drug trip or a road trip, a breakup or a death or the Pied Piper; but about something vaguely different to the listener. Can I truly relate to my favorite song if it's about LSD (say some) or a drug deal (say others) without having experienced either? Does the greater theme of loneliness and escape widen the song so that the literal interpretation isn't relevant? Or, does it matter at all? We've all wished for something that would make us forget about today until tomorrow, to take us far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow, to let us dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free with all those cares forgotten, at least until morning...

The depth and darkness of Dylan's imagery is so strong. Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves/ The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach...
It seems incongruous that he recorded it the same year as the Beach Boy's "California Girls" and Sonny and Cher's infamous "I Got You Babe". I think he was on a different page, somewhat. Did they separate music into genres on the radio back then like they do now, with alternative rock here and pop there, or was it all mixed together? Would someone who loved the Monkees suddenly be subjected to the Beatles' Rubber Soul workings? I'll have to ask my dad sometime. Sometimes it seems like that's their most-ignored album, and it's my favorite. You can always hear earlier stuff on the golden oldies station ('I Wanna Hold Your Hand'; 'Hard Day's Night') and later stuff makes it on to the classic rock stations a lot, but you can't hear 'Norwegian Wood' or 'You Won't See Me' unless you own it. The whole record is like a transition piece. But this was supposed to be about Dylan, remember, Mara? Not about the Beatles. Even if he did influence them a bit then.

It's been a weird long week, staying at my parent's house, away from my own little family here. I'm glad to be back but my sleep cycle is all screwed up and it's one in the morning so I'm writing and listening to my best of Dylan CD for the third time through instead of walking Alice and going to bed. Maybe tomorrow I can write with something approaching coherency.

****Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind******

Gas prices are up! (Yay!)

So at work today I had to listen to some customer bitch and moan about gas prices, about how they're going to hit 5 a gallon, etc, etc, etc. Everyone seems to have this attitude that if situations change in any way from the way things are now, that it's a BAD THING. CHANGE IS BAD. The funny thing is, what's so great about the way things are now? As a country we're overweight, overworked, overstressed, and we spend more than an hour a day (average) commuting to and from work. What would happen if gas got so expensive that we couldn't afford to buy it willy-nilly anymore? Maybe we would have to walk some places instead. Maybe, as a country, we could shed a few pounds from the walking and lose the embarrasing moniker of "world's fattest country." Maybe walking more and losing weight would relieve some of that stress, the stress that creates everything from heatburn/ulcers, to back pain, to heart issues, to . . . weight gain. Especially if, say, we were commuting less; after all those 50/60/80 hour weeks are only compounded by the hellish drive to and fro. Cars are expensive and require insurance, maintenance and fuel. If some of us let them go entirely, a major expense would dissapear from our debit columns. We could work a little less or (more likely) spend the money on something funner, or even reverse the negative-savings trend that keeps people from falling asleep at night. If enough of us could stop driving, maybe we could reduce the smoggy pollution that is destroying the environment, the ozone layer, and our health.

I know what you're thinking... you're thinking, "There's no way in hell I could walk to work, or to anywhere else for that matter! My work is 20 miles away! There's nothing around my house for miles exept other houses... no corner stores, restaurants, libraries or post offices are within walking distance from my home."

Ever since the end of World War II (that's the second one), our cities have been designed on the principle that families have cars, can afford houses, and would prefer to live in the suburbs. Unfortunately this has not proved paticularly true; it just served to separate the haves and have-not-quite-yets by miles instead of blocks. As for the happiness, the suburbs created in one short decade that whole "feminine ennui" thing that's kept women's study authors and novelists busy for decades (you know, when they discovered that there is more to fufillment than a new washer-dryer combo and self-defrosting fridge), and... the teenager, that creature of the suburbs filled with angst and rage and boredom. Lack of true community= major disenchantment. Sleeper cities are no more community than my apartment complex is... we all drive away in the morning, and come home to walk our dogs and sleep. I'm actually convinced that anyone who really likes the suburbs just hasn't had the opportunity to live many other places.

What if, due to the unavailability of fuel, we had to start redesigning our habitats so that we lived and worked in tandem, so that work wasn't more than a short distance from home? This is more possible than ever due to the fact that our jobs are more and more "white collar"; living near office buildings and retail shops is a bit more desireable than, say, a smelting plant. Trust me; my mom grew up right next to some smelting plants. Or something like that. They belched black smoke and looked like something out of Ferngully-- the bad bits. When I get to visit the old, nasty parts of Detroit I totally understand why the suburbs were invented in the first place. But the majority of us don't smelt. It's not like this would require major legislation; people move to places--and take jobs-- in places they'd like to live. A company has an easier time staffing if it locates in an area with a good cost of living, a great climate, lifestyle accoutrements (nightlife, skiing, museums, whatever); an easy, walkable or bikeable commute could become just one more desireable asset to a community.

It's not that cars are evil, or that we shouldn't ever drive anywhere. This is, after all, a country just asking to be explored by vehicle. But maybe a change in the way we live wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. It would certainly be better than scrambling to maintain the status quo: going to war for oil so that we can each drive an SUV, drain our final reserves (destroying everything from fragile tundra to fragile wetlands) so that macho guys can drive their pick-up trucks (just to work and back, they wouldn't want to get the truck-bed dirty), and subsidizing fuel so that every family with one or two kids can maintain their fleet of minivans. All that just to maintain our status as overweight stessed out overworked unhealthy Americans with video players in the back seat.

Doggy Rant

Why is it that some people get dogs, anyways? I just don't get it. I mean, you're introducing a completely different species into your life, with specific needs and abilities. Dogs take effort, work, understanding, and patience. To be a good dog owner you really need to understand dogs, maybe do a little research, to know where they are coming from, so to speak. Unlike having kids, getting a dog is a completely conscious choice, a decision to add a household member that can easily be with you 12 years or longer. I have a co-worker who just got a puppy, a really cute little thing, half Shi-tzu half Maltese or something. She's always saying things like, "if this dog makes my house smell like 'dog', it's outta here!" or "I'm getting rid of this dog if she doesn't stop pooping in my bedroom!" I try to point out that the dog is only 8 weeks old and requires training to not poop wherever, and that if she didn't want dog smell maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get one in the first place... I mean, come on. It would be so typical that someone would spend 200 bucks on a little puppy and take it to the pound a month later, because it turned out that it was, gasp, a dog. On our Long Trek this morning Alice and I ran into a middle-aged woman with a black dog, whom she kept as far from us as possible; not enough to keep it from snarling and growling at mine. Hello, dogs require socialization; they need to learn to get along with other dogs. (And people, children, cats, et cetera.) It's completely irresponsible to have a dog that's so unsocialized, and it's not fair to the dog, who shouldn't have to go through life that way. Alice was like that when we first got her (probably because she's from the shelter) but she got over it, because we were always taking her places where she could interact with dogs nicely, dog parks and such. Shying away from all contact with other dogs only reinforces your pet's behavior, and yes, lady, that was aggression, not fear. Every bookstore has a long shelf of books dedicated to living with dogs, training dogs, understanding dogs... obviously these writers and those that read them realize that there's more to having a dog than just bringing it home with you. Too bad they're not required reading...

Hi, My name is Mara and I'm a coffee adict.

Yeah, so I do have a kidney infection, blech. It seems to be behaving, though, and I'm taking my meds like a good girl, so it will all be okay. Still getting used to my new manager at work. He doesn't involve himself so much in what we're doing as the other one did, which is nice. He just lets us get on with it. This is my sixth day with no coffee. It's rough but I slept like a log last night. I don't know if it's just because I was really tired and we went to bed early (10:30), or if it was because Don is sleeping in the living room for his back, or the fact that there's no caffeine in my system, but it was great. I've got to go to work now, yay.

Fightin' with my innards

Ugh, not writing all week because I thought that if I waited, I wouldn't have to write about this draining urinary-tract infection thing I've got going on here. Soooo awful, and for a whole week now. I feel *almost* better except, now my kidneys hurt. I think it's my kidneys, anyways; twin painful spots up in my back. I'm drinking so much water that I pee clear. I've gone cold-turkey on the coffee. I've drunk 3/4 gallon of cranberry juice in the last 3 days-- the really strong kind. Whatever it takes not to have to go to the doctor. All they ever do is prescibe antibiotics, and antibiotics really mess me up. I always end up with more stuff wrong with me than there was before-- yeast infections, the works-- which of course require various treatments. A vicious cycle. I had to take some in January for a nasty throat infection, but that was the first time in maybe 2 years or so. This kidney part is worrying me, though; I've never felt like this before. I hope I don't have kidney stones or something. I think I'm going to visit one of those medical websites now.

Funny moment from Don this weekend:

"So I was walking the dog and thinking about that song, "One-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people eater", and I realized that must be why there are no longer any purple people, because they were the only kind of people that this monster would eat. Which also explains why the monster itself went extinct-- it demolished its foodsource and couldn't adapt to normal-colored humans instead."

(insert dazed stare from Mara here, then a much-too-long discussion about whether the monster itself is purple or eats purple people, the concept of "made up, not real", and the importance of placing modifyers in the right places ...) Well, at least on one level he understands the concepts of environmental sustainability, k-curves, etc. One of my environmental-studies professors once commented that E.S. is something most little kids understand intuitively but adults have to re-learn. It makes sense, in a way. I'm afraid my stream-of-consciousness-conversation style has had an effect on Don over the years.

*******************************************************

Okay, according to WebMD, I need to go to the doctor, afterall; infection may be in kidneys not just in urinary tract. Damn. I guess I'll stock up on the yogurt to take with the cranberry juice....

Quiz

You Are 20% Evil

You are good. So good, that you make evil people squirm. Just remember, you may need to turn to the dark side to get what you want!

How Evil Are You?

Screw all that jazz!

I've come about face and decided that I'm not going to hide my blog from anyone, anymore. That was a gut reaction, an instictive response to an invasion of privacy; I've reconsidered now. Do you want to read my blog? Then welcome! Enjoy! It's in the public domain and I'm not sheltering it. When I first started this journal, I grappled a little with how much to say, how honest to be. My inner writer and inner editor were at odds until I finally decided that full disclosure was the way to go. I got shaken up again with everything that happened last week, and couldn't post freely-- I wanted to censor myself again-- what if this gets read by the wrong people? It's why I didn't write for a week; I was going through something very personal and didn't want to put it "out there". Well, screw all that! It's behind me now--I'm over it.

My period was a week late, last week. A whole week, even starting on "day 31". It was just enough time to get worried, freak out, and . . . get really exited. Enough time to start conjecturing due dates, daydream about a warm little bundle in a sling. So, getting my period really sucked. The universe's way of saying "nyah nyah nyah," I guess. It's not like we were *trying*, of course, but still...brought me crashing back to earth. It really made me realize how much I want to "start a family", which sounds too sterile to describe what I really want; something warmer, gooeyer, more complicated. It feels like an illicit desire, even though I'm 25 now, not 17 or something. Wanting kids just doesn't seem "done" by my age-group, unless in the context of "down the road someday." I think I'm gonna have to put the pressure on Don full-strength, haha, because who is ever financially 'ready'? If having babies had ever depended on male 'readiness', this species would have died right out. "Not this year, darling, we really just don't have enough mammoth jerky stored up yet, and this cave is too small, we'd have to move, and who knows what next year's hunting is going to be like..."

I'm so ready to move away from Dallas. It was supposed to be a temporary stop, just a couple of years, but it's starting to feel as though if we don't get out soon we'll settle here forever. Don is looking for a promotion this year or he'll start looking outside his company; I'm always at this website http://bestplaces.net/ that lets you compare all these statistics about various places to live. So you can figure that where we live in North Dallas area has a cost of living of 94.1 (of the national average) while, Seattle, Washington's CoL is 145.6 with a median house cost of $459,800 (good grief); but that Seattle votes Democrat (yay!) and has a climatic "comfort index" of 72 compared to our 25. (higher is better). Repeat this for every locale that sounds interesting; North Carolina, New Mexico, Colorado, back to Vermont (I wish). I promised Don after the last time that we'd never move again without having jobs lined up in advance-- those months of unemployment were hell on the savings, not to mention the relationship. The poor guy has up and shipped across country twice now on my account, jumping in head-first. This time the ball's in his court; we won't go anywhere until he has a position there. The only hard part will be leaving my family, again.

Just a Quickie

Yeah sorry for that long silence. It's been a weird week at work, because my manager is leaving, and at home, because Don's boss is on vacation which equals tons of extra work for him. (Yes, I finally tired of calling him "D" all the time. Who cares, anyways?) I have mixed feelings about my boss taking off. On the one hand, she was a good manager and I really like her, but she's moving on to bigger and better things. I'm not scared of change in general, and it might be nice to work under someone new. Wait and see, I guess. I brought a cake for the good-bye party but it came out kinda weird. The icing ran down the sides and pooled under the cake instead of staying on top. Tasted ok though.

Poor Don is so exhausted he went to bed around 8:30 tonight. I got coffee with KK and we came back here and chilled out for awhile, which was nice. I haven't seen that much of her lately and hardly at all just for the heck of it-- usually just dog-drop-off and pick-up.

Tomorrow I will post longer when Don's at work, because it's bedtime now.

A new day

Cheesy, huh? I felt like a cheesy title today. I feel like a cheesy dinner, too; maybe it's just in my mind or something.

Today was stressful, because I had to be phony and smile to someone; had to, because I wasn't confrontational enough to say to her, "You read my blog! Bad so-and-so! Now I don't like you so let's not be fake, ok?"--and clear the air a little. I'm bad at confrontation but worse at fakin' it. Things will probably normalize soon with some kind of conversation. I will not apologize, though, for writing insulting things here, where nobody she knows should be reading. Least of all her!

So enough with all that, I'm trying to not dwell on it anymore. It was SO SLOW at work today, maybe from the weather. When it's too busy I long for a slow period, but days like this drag on and on. When it's busy, time flies and then it's quittin' time.

My parents are finally giving KK the ultimatum: go back to school full-time or say goodbye to the free money. Talk about years too late! At least this will force some kind of decision on her, though, after years of drifting. Because they've been helping her out the whole time, she has no idea what it's like to work for a living. She doesn't fully realize that not every Starbucks employee can afford trips with friends (Austin, California, Padre, Austin...), expensive concert tickets, lots of beer and cigarettes and (most likely) other certain substances.... Waiting tables won't seem so "fun" if she has to log enough hours doing it to pay rent, utilities, food, gas. She's got until mid-May to sign up for summer school at the community college and re-apply at the university. I think it will be so good for her, either way. Either she finally finishes school and starts taking herself somewhat seriously, or she makes her own way in the world, and starts taking herself somewhat seriously. The free money hasn't done her any favors, and this has been a long time coming. It was "a semester off", four years long!

I'll still puppy-sit for her, though. That's not enabling, right? It's better for the dog. And I like seeing her so often. I think I'm taking D out for dinner tonight, if he's up for it. He's been a little down lately because I'm lending him some money to pay off a debt. He doesn't like to ask for help.

Speaking of which-- if anybody out there is paying off a student loan, KEEP ALL PROOF OF PAYMENT! Forever! In a fire-proof box! With photo-copies! Because the government can come after you 15 years after the fact and say that you never paid up and if you don't have the proof that you did, you have to pay all over again, with 15 years' worth of interest tacked on. And 20 years from now, whatever bank you wrote those checks from will have been taken over several times. Unlike most debts (real or not) that expire after I think seven years, debts to the government like student loans never will, and they can dock your pay. Even when you already have half your paycheck going to child support. So I'm lending my sweetie a little dough. It's a good investment.

Flabbergasted and Mindboggled!

Wow. Just . . .wow. I realize that I haven't been blogging very long and that I'm not very savvy about how the Blog-world really works. Of course I know empirically that anybody can read any blog they wish, that a blog is in the public domain unless it's password-protected. I just never thought that anybody I didn't want reading my blog would read it . . . Silly, huh? I thought that blog-readers fall into a few distinct categories: friends, strangers, and weirdos. Friends being those people that you intentionally introduce to the blog and the people they bring along-- the readers of their blogs, etc. Strangers being those harmless lurkers who may never comment but who skim through your blog and maybe come back if they like you. I lurk in some places. Weirdos being those stalker types you hear about, the reason that nobody includes much real information-- full name, address, birth date, that kind of thing.

Now I find that there are other kinds of blog-readers. People who know you; who would read your blog even while knowing that you never intended to share it with them; who would lurk, never commenting or announcing their presence or telling you that they happen to read your blog; who would read things never meant for their eyes. People who would intentionally, blatantly go behind your back, invade your privacy, and use what you write against you in a sphere that has no connection to the blog at all. Imagine if a sister or a cousin found your blog, turned around and complained about it to your parents. Imagine a co-worker researching your blog and turning it into something to discuss with the boss. Imagine some similar situation and you'll see where I am.

Some things I learned today:

1. I have an enemy. I find this a little baffling because I never felt important enough to have a foe. But after all this time it turns out that I'm not paranoid, they really are out to get me. Why, I'm not sure yet.

2. Blogs actually aren't a safe place to vent because anyone freaky enough to search for you will find it. Changing the address will only work for a short time; whatever it was that drove somebody to find it before will find it again. Therefore nobody shall ever be named by name again unless I love them. My fourth-category reader will Hereby be referred to as "Umbridge". (I was thinking "She who must not be named" or "you-know-who" but that made the whole thing too important. "Umbridge" fits much better.)

3. I'm totally out of my league here. I'm not good these two-faced, sneaky, gossip-y, game-playing Machiavellian maneuvers that women use against each other, of saying one thing to one party and something else to another. I generally say what I think, or I keep my mouth shut. Everybody who knows me knows where they stand, all the time. I think I'm screwed...

4. If your behavior is so immature and unprofessional that it drives somebody to rant about it in the privacy her blog (instead of anywhere else), and you read that blog without permission knowing that it's private, and what you read offends you, then maybe you should re-think that original behavior instead of being mad at somebody for stating the bald truth in an anonymous venue.

5. Blogger doesn't do password-protected blogs. I've just gone to ridiculous lengths trying to erase all contacts to the previous address and to my profile.

Potter nerds unite!

I can't believe I only scored "Acceptable" on a Harry Potter test! That means if there were a "Harry Potter" NEWT-level class, I might not even get in. This is a really hard test!

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#static:quiz

Good luck people.

One of my favorite 'Farside' cartoons shows a bunch of people picketing with signs that read
"Dyslexics of the World Untie!" . Get it? Maybe it's only funny because I'm a good bit dyslexic myself. Mom says that comes from being left-handed but she blames everything about me on that. ("You didn't sleep well? It's because you're left handed. Left-handers die earlier, you know. They don't sleep well either.") Maybe not that bad but it does come up a bit. I say, if she didn't want left-handed children she should have thought twice about marrying a left-handed guy like my father. Same goes for fidgeting.

On this date...

My birthday: January Seventeenth

3 Events (in this century):

1945 - The Nazis begin the evacuation of the Auschwitz concentration camp as Soviet forces close in.

1975 - Bob Dylan releases Blood on the Tracks, often considered one of his best albums.

1991 - Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm began early in the morning. Iraq fires 8 Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.

3 Births:

1706 - Benjamin Franklin American writer, inventor, publisher, and ambassador (d. 1790)

1899 - Al Capone, American gangster (d. 1947)

1942 - Muhammad Ali, American boxer


1 Death:

1964 - T.H. White, English author (b. 1906)

Read it and see!

D and I had AWESOME SEX last night. Just thought I'd share that, since it's not the kind of thing I would mention to anyone I know out loud and this is my journal so neh. The kind where the next day you just feel all laid back and smiling, and when people annoy you, you just think "jeez, he/she/it needs to get laid already" in a very smug kind of way. Today he spent hours cleaning the apartment when I was at work. And made dinner. (I'm not sure who this stranger is, but I think I'll keep him ;) ) That's my guy. I'll try to see him and match it tomorrow re: the apartment because I'm off of course but he has to work do to the massive anti-anti-illegal-immigration-bill march tomorrow that is going to decimate his hotel's staff for the day. Gosh knows the apartment has another day's worth of labor due at least! We're such slobs.

I'm editing my co-worker Ana's thesis paper for her. It's an interesting task; I have no idea what she's talking about but I can fix phrasing and such. I warned her that's it's for grammar and style only, I can't do content. What I really need from her right now is a general outline of the paper so that I can see where I am; she only gave me a few pages so far and I don't know which pages. I didn't have to do a thesis when I graduated, I don't know if that's because it was a different school, or because I didn't graduate with honors, or what. The stress probably would have done me in as I was already really bad off that final semester with the killer gall-bladder/ulcer/heartburn/I'm-sorry-we-can't-figure-out-what-it-is thing.

Off to see if D's up for it again. Figuratively speaking. I think.

Time for a nice Rant!

Another weird night! It's becoming epidemic! D comes home early and leaves to go to a ballgame. I come home, walk the dog. I go to bed. D come home, walks the dog, goes to bed. D gets up and leaves around four. I wake up quarter till 6 alone, wondering if I dreamed him coming home until I find his stuff in the kitchen. All very disorienting... I called him on my way to work to see when he'd gone back to work.

I'm currently ranting internally about the way our society tries to re-form every body to its own image. From cosmetic surgery to tanning booths, they want us all to be the same, tall thin blonde and dumb. We internalize this message to the point that we want to erase all of the little idiosyncrasies and personal traits that make us who we are; to shrink large noses, lipo that round tummy, laser away sexy eye bags, hold in that sarcastic edge. It's ironic because the things we hate about ourselves (because they make us stand out) are the same things that endear us to others and vice versa. I could get a boob-job, because gosh everybody knows that B-cups just don't cut it anymore in this world. But I know of at least one person who loves them the way they are. Isn't it annoying when a friend with beautiful skin, romance-novel skin (you know, creamy, smooth, etc) complains about being pale? We get brain-washed into thinking there's only one pretty kind of skin.

What if you went out and got everything fixed up just the way it should be? What if you dyed your hair blonde, fixed your nose, got the boob job and the liposuction? What if, right when everything was perfect, you met the man of your dreams, and it turned out that he didn't go for any of that stuff? that he prefers the all-natural, doesn't like spherical fake breasts, loves brunettes in glasses? Then what? What kind of people will you attract once you've bought into the barbie-doll image? Someone who wants a barbie, I guess.

The fact that all this stuff is bad for you doesn't even seem to be an issue. The carcinogenic tanning beds, dangerous operations, et al are a small price to pay for artificial beauty. Get your tits fixed and you could have major problems down the road if you ever want to nurse your babies-- not that this would stop anyone now; how long has it been since breasts have been nothing more than decoration/man bait/sex toys? Wait, you mean they had another purpose originally? How weird is that! Kinda gross, really!

That's it, I'm moving back to Vermont, where just shaving my legs makes me ultra-glam and feminine compared to the norm, where there are lots of brunettes, and where very few people seem to feel the need to digitally erase their bags of either saddle or eye variety.

What a weird, smelly day

Saturday after D got home from work (bad D!) we got lunch and window shopped got coffee went to Borders saw Ben bought the Harry Potter Goblet of Fire DVD got more coffee went home made pancakes and watched the movie. So that was all good and he was forgiven. Sunday D was giving his truck a tune-up when something bad happened with the fuel line he was working on. Don't ask me what, I'm not an automechanic. I was just working on the laptop when he stormed up the stairs cussing like a sailor and reeking of gas, trying to wash his ear out under the faucet because it's all filled with gasoline. His ear, that is. The whole apartment filled with the smell of gas and I got a killer headache and had to evacuate to my folk's for the evening. D and I have agreed that future tune-ups will be done by (liscensed) professionals. Some things are worth paying for, and he doesn't need to be lying on his side on the concrete garage floor what with his back and all. Not to mention that if anything had happened like an explosion or fire or something I'm pretty sure the apartment complex could sue us for all we're worth, not that that's very much but still I don't think we're supposed to do engine work on site.

Rambles on filthy stuff.

I feel better than I did when I posted last. For one thing, I didn't think to call Kristen (not annoying-coworker Kristin, but old UTD scientist-friend Kristen) and see what she was up to before deciding that I have no friends etc. Also, spent yesterday evening with Ashli for the first time in ages. She's doing well now; husband working, new raise at work, etc. It sounds like it was pretty hairy there for awhile but now things are looking brighter. Ashli has promised to get better at staying in touch but I'm not holding my breath. Work yesterday was really busy because it was payday for so many people; the every-other-Friday folk like D, the 15th-and-31st folk like me, and the every-Friday folk all got our monies yesterday. They don't line up like that very often, it's like an eclipse. Except that instead of being an amazing celestial phenomenon, it's just a really busy work-day. I did 250 transactions before going home. For those who aren't immersed in the bank-teller world (most everybody, I hope) that's pretty kick-ass.

D promised earlier that he wasn't working at all this weekend, that we'd have lots and lots of "couple time". Then he amended that to say that he had to go into work early on Saturday but just for a few hours. Guess where he is now, at 1:00p.m. Saturday? Well, he's not here at home. Scratch that, actually, because that might be the garage door now. It's not like I asked for this time or anything, just that he oughtn't go about making promises that he knows he can't guarantee. And all week long, I said "that's nice, sweetie, I'll believe it when I see it though" which pissed him off a little even though (or maybe because) he knew I was right.

Perhaps we can spend some time cleaning up this black hole of an apartment that we habit, do the laundry, make it livable. Right now, the place has a 'smell', that "two dogs and a cat occupy this small space and one of the dogs isn't fully house-broken yet and they both smell" smell. If I ever got a huge raise or a higher-paying job, I think that my frivolous-gift-to-self would be a housecleaning service. Just the one time. I think that if I could get half-way there and let them do the rest the apartment could be wonderful for a day or so. My parents have a lady who comes by twice a month to clean; it was the solution to many scary fights they had after my mom started working full-time again. I never understood why mom insisted on tidying-up the night before Carol was coming, it seemed like she was cleaning for the house-cleaner; now I understand. If you pay someone to spend say three hours cleaning your house, she can only get it really clean if it's already tidy. Can't clean the sink if there are still dirty dishes to be done, or vaccuum if there's stuff all over the carpet that needs to be dealt with. I can spend hours tidying the apartment and not even get to the dusting-vaccuuming-scrubbing part of it.

I once tried to calculate what Carol and her sister make (or could make) cleaning houses and it's unreal. And they get paid in cash, which could mean much lower taxes. And they use supplies and machines furnished by the households, that van seems to be the only overhead. Being in business for yourself, no matter how small the operation, is the only way to make real money, I think.

I'm off to clean the bathroom, yay.

Revelations

Personal, not biblical. Thank goodness. It's been kind of a weird day for me, filled with realizations; not at all usual. I'm at home alone, D's at some work shindig. It kind of pisses me off that he never takes me to these things, keeping work and home life separate blah blah blah. He never used to do that. In the beginning we worked together so it was impossible; in Vermont the town was just too small, I guess.

Anyways. I realized that I really want to explore this proof-reading, copy-editing career-flash-idea that I had recently. I don't know why I've never considered it before; I mean, reading is the single thing that I do best, that I like best, and I'm always editing and correcting what I read in my head, muttering on about clunky writing. There's not much money in it, but it probably beats the heck out of being a bank teller. You get to sit down, for one thing. I'd have to take some classes but that would be ok. My bank would even pay for those, I think. They do that.

I also realized that I'm a fucking loner. I've taken introversion to a level that's not good and I spend my time either at work, with D, with my family, or alone. Reading, on-lining, shopping, bookstore-browsing, driving . . .

Where are all of my friends? When I realized that I had the evening to myself, it came to me that I didn't feel like staying in and reading. How strange. I called my best friend, Ashli. She was busy with family obligations. I called Ben. Ditto. I called....wait. That's it. I didn't have other numbers to dial (like we really dial anymore. Cell-phone one-touch, more like.) Unless I wanted to hang out with my sister (see Family, above) which I didn't. What has become of me? I'm no misanthrope or social outcast! I like people. Some people, anyways. I've just been sucked into the marital/quasi-marital trap in which D and I spend all of our time together. Alone, together. I've always made my friends from the people that I worked with, from that hotel job that turned up D, to the Borders in Vermont with Becca and everyone, to the steakhouse's constant supply of drinking buddies and poker pals. Trouble is, I don't like anyone at the bank enough to try to be friends with them. It's not like I don't like them, just that 40 hours a week is enough. More than enough. I left friends back in Vermont; Holly, Erin, Nicki, Becca. I'm changing this dismal scene, pronto. Mara is now Open for Friendship. No more turning down invitations, staying home because D really is anti-social; no more self-doubting shyness or snobbish Mr. Darcy-ish standoffishness. Maybe I should join a book club or something. :)

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Anyone who reads my blog regularly (right) might be thinking, best friend Ashli? What best friend Ashli? Today was the first we've spoken in months. Isn't that weird? It's not like we had a falling-out, although I was starting to think so. Ashli and I have been friends since seventh grade. We don't agree on anything, not movies, books, religion, politics, marriage, which guys are hot, etc. Our conversations don't tend to include any of the above. And yet we've been close friends for over a decade. She got married last June and I was her maid of honor. I last saw her sometime in October I think.

She sent me a holiday card, kind of generic, signed from her and her husband. I called and left a voice-mail to say thank you, and another to say Merry Christmas. She sent me an email on my birthday, I replied to it and sent a birthday card to her parent's house. I emailed her when my grandmother died, to tell her what happened and could we get together? She replied to that one.

I thought maybe she was just cocooning with the new hubby, or wrapped up in work; but who can't pick up the phone every now and then to say hi, or hit 'reply' to an e-mail? (Don't I sound like somebody's mother? I sound like my own mother.) I was a little pissed, to be honest, and ready to just put the friendship on hold until she saw fit to remember it. Now I wonder, though. The tone of her last email wasn't good and I think that she may be doing that...thing.... where you retreat when things get hard because to talk about it is difficult, to admit that life isn't all grand (especially if marriage has always been the goal, the panacea, and the destination) to make things even harder by trying to do everything yourself. Stubbornness, pride, that paranoid fear of seeing judgment in other's eyes. We're alike in some ways after all, I guess. Or she really has been ignoring me. Maybe she's made cooler friends, friends who don't read Harry Potter. But we're going out tomorrow night so I'll see. I'm still kind of ticked though.

Update on the stupid!Kristin thing... she may or may not have been drunk during the whole accident-and-next-morning thing. True, I didn't notice anything, but then, I never do. Intoxication, like homosexuality, usually goes under my radar completely, unless I have some reason for inquiring into either. Points in favor of intoxication: she didn't call the police about the accident, citing the fact that the other car already left the scene. Doesn't make sense because even I know that they have to make an accident report for the insurance company. But if she were drunk it would explain it better. It would also explain why we had to stop for her to throw up at the bank. We'd only been driving for 10 minutes or so, is that long enough to get motion-sick? I don't know. The other point (less substantive) is that the other bank associates who saw her do think so. Perhaps they're more observant than me. Points against intoxication.... none, really. Oh and even though she doesn't seem at all injured or hurt, she has off from work on a doctor's note until Saturday. The whole thing leaves me ticked off. Go ahead and axe her, then.

Ack! Feels like Monday!

What a jarring start to my day! I woke up from the dreaded school dream (I've enrolled for classes and about half way though the semester, I realize that I haven't been to this one class at all, that I've missed the semi-finals, it's too late to withdraw, and I'm failing. It's always too late to do anything about it.) It's always the same dream, since about 8th grade, even though it's been a good 2 years since I graduated. I guess my sub-conscious, after 18-odd years of school, just translates any stress into "school". Sometimes the school is a weird, Dali-esque version of my high school, sometimes it's college. It's always a math or science class. Anyways.

My supervisor calls me up at 7:00 (7:00!) to ask me if I can pick up Kristin from her house and take her to this meeting she's supposed to be at by 7:45. I'm in bed, stark naked and half asleep, and I'm supposed to somehow get her across town during rush hour in 45 minutes. RIGHT. She was in a car accident last night and couldn't drive her car. One interesting thing about my work: nobody seems to understand the concept of a taxi-cab: you know... you call them, they drive you somewhere, you pay them. We never make it to the meeting. Between the traffic, which was unbelievable, and Kristin's nausea (we had to stop at our branch for her to barf) I was actually late getting to work. Also feeling sick from the traffic, with no coffee and no breakfast, and I left my enormous buritto at home. The only saving grace was that my boss went out and got me a Starbucks to get me though till lunch.