Conversational Angst

I always feel uncomfortable when I'm with a group of people and the conversation turns to dieting or exercise regimens, and how much everybody wishes they could lose those last two or three pounds.

I sort of feel like adding to the conversation with my own personal experiences. Things like, "Did you know that, if humans were like amoebas, I'd probably already have divided into two people by now? Maybe three if they were particularly svelte?"

Or, "Yes. My darn gravity well just keeps getting deeper and deeper. I think if I have any more of this chocolate cake, I'll probably become a black hole."

Or, "Hey, do you see this softball rotating around my middle? It's a small moon I acquired just last week. It's the latest in plus-size accessories."

But instead I sit there, looking like a human beanbag chair, nodding sympathetically as people talk about elliptical machines and only being able to muscle down two bites of the incredibly sweet dessert that I've already had two servings of. As if I know what they're talking about. As if we're even from the same universe.

My back aches all the time, my ankle twists with great regularity, and I will probably die of a heart attack at age 39. Now. Can we please talk about something else? Books, I hear, are very nice conversational topics this time of year.

Does it count if I just draw a picture?

Hi. So, I'm back. Sort of.

Truth be told, I'm not sure if I'll ever start blogging in the long form again. I might, though. I might at that...

But regardless of the future of this particular blog, I thought I'd direct you all to a brand new enterprise (of sorts) I'm starting up. It's a chronicle of the many adventures of Chobee and his friend Harry (the horse).

Here's the url: http://chobeeandharry.blogspot.com/

For now (until I figure out how to do all of this better), you'll need to click on the picture itself to get a larger (and readable) version.

This is something I'm doing occasionally in the evening when I have some spare time, and am sitting in front of the TV with nothing else to do. In short, I don't have any kind of an update schedule right now. This may change if I get more dedicated and all that.

Which, given the sorry state of this blog, would be somewhat...uncharacteristic of me.

Cheers!

Finding Old Stuff You Love > Buying New Stuff

With all of this being jobless and sort of trying to get myself to be productive but mostly failing at it, all the while watching my bank account dwindle to approximately $0.03, I have pretty much put a moratorium on the purchasing of goods. (Aside from the DS, that is, which I got with my Christmas/babysitting money and which, along with providing a great deal of entertainment, has also made it even more difficult to lift myself into the realm of productivity.)

I kind of miss the thrill of purchasing. You know, that little rush you get after you go into a store stuffed full of things that you might need but mostly want and you find that one thing that you've never seen before but you're absolutely convinced you'd love and you pick it up and carry it to the cashier and hand over your cash or card and get the item in exchange. Then you feel that little thrill of ownership, that sense that, no matter what the world takes from you, it can't take away this...ceramic unicorn, or Star Wars coloring book, or digital camera case. Because it's yours. Forever. Or at least until you break/lose it while moving to Minnesota.

But I digress.

It feels pretty great. For about an afternoon. And it usually feels better when the purchase is relatively small and you don't have the sense that you've just spent about 100 hours of your working life on something you kind of didn't want anyway.

Sadly, I have had to live without that new-ownership feeling for what seems like a long time. Unless, of course, you count the purchase of prescription medication, a cup of hot chocolate (paid for entirely with coins) at a local Barnes & Noble, or that secret stash of peanut butter M&Ms I bought on the sly.

But I've discovered something better, something that makes my acquisitional nature flutter with happiness. I've found that rediscovering old treasures is even better than getting new ones.

Because I've had most of my things packed away in boxes for almost eight months, many of my possessions are currently tucked away inside cardboard, all but inaccessible in their stacks in the corners of my parents' basement (inaccessible unless you have scissors, of course, and a sense of adventure and determination and a strong defiance against the fear of dust). The other day, though, I found that I needed some article that was still unpacked, and I hadn't made note of which box contained it. So, I found myself crouched in a storage room, lit by a single naked bulb, hovering over boxes with my tiny craft scissors shimmering in the half-light. Oh, it was an epic experience.

I sliced into the boxes and dragged forth their contents into the light, and as I did so, I began to recognize things. There was that geode with the pewter dragon glued inside! And my jewelry box, full of tacky, sentimental things that I hardly dared wear but loved to look at. And the bookends with ships on them, and the Chinese dragon I bought in New York, and the tapestry pillows and my gloves and the stuffed bean-frog with the little crown on its head. And. Well, in fact pretty much all of it was tacky. But I loved it.

And I got that fluttery, just-having-bought-something-great feeling. That sense of fond ownership, of familiarity, of things that reminded me not only of people I loved, but of myself as I was a year ago, or a decade.

And you know what? I wouldn't trade it. Not even for a nice, new bag of peanut butter M&Ms.

There has been a slight change.

You know those times when you've been growing your hair out for awhile? So that now it reaches about to your lower back? And undulates in sort of half-fraying curls? And you decide, sort of on a whim, but not really, that you're going to get your hair cut? Really, really short? In fact, shorter than any previous cut that you can remember? Except for maybe that time when you were five and your sister was playing with your Mom's scissors and basically cut your bangs completely off? And you go to get your hair cut with your Mom and find a style that's pretty short, and is pretty much what you're looking for, but you're not quite sure if it'll work with your decidedly less sculpted face? And you get the cut anyway?

And it all turns out to be one big horrible mistake, and you cry all the way home and for the rest of the day?

Yeah. Today is SO NOT one of those days. (Well, everything up to the 'horrible mistake' part is pretty much 100% true. But not after.)

I have a new haircut. And it's short. And I likes it. Sorry I couldn't seem to get a decent picture of it, but the above at least shows you that it's short. Which is what I wanted. Because, for some reason, the hippie look just wasn't working for me anymore. Time to get with the 21st century. And time to start looking my age.

And time, frankly, to feel just a little bit more awesome.

A Lizardbreathian Year in Review

So, I only have about 33 minutes left of 2009 as I type these words. By the time I actually send my post out to rest on the thin strands of the interwebs, it will likely be deep (aka minutes) into 2010, and this year will be behind me.

So I feel like I owe you all, my tender and devoted readers (Hi, Jill in Romania!) a kind of recap of what this year has been like for me.

And I will do it with a list. Because. I feel like it.

1. Unemployment - So...the economy has been a little low lately. Although it's showing signs of perking, kind of like the plant you thought would be okay for the three weeks of vacation you took in the heat of midsummer with all the air conditioning turned off in your house, and you come back and it's basically a vaguely green puddle collapsed around its pot and you pour about a gallon of water over it just so you can tell yourself that you did all you could to save it, and so water seeps out the bottom and gets your tabletop all wet and after about a week one of the leaves starts lifting itself up just a little, as though the force of gravity was almost too much for it to bear. Yeah. The economy's been like that. And, unfortunately, although they're being used more than ever, libraries currently seem to be on the list of non-essentials when the funding pie is getting dished up, leaving the hefty slices to go to crazy things like fire departments and schools and stuff. (Ahaha. Of course I know that these services are essential. Pleasedonotsendmehatemail.) And the library gets that piece of burnt crust that's left over in the pan after all the other pieces are taken out. So, they're naturally not able to hire new librarians, so the recently graduated librarians (aka me) still remain jobless. Sigh.
   
2. Job Hunting - This has been my task for the past many months. Although, I have liberally sprinkled the in-between-hunts bits (and the avoiding filling in yet another lengthy and unnecessary application bits) with watching all five seasons of Lost and doing some freelance writing for my bro-in-law, who is a fantabulous foot doctor and is being way kind enough to pay me for it.
3. Whining about being unemployed and having to spend my time job hunting - This is an activity I engage in whenever people ask me how I'm doing. I'll kind of make a wry little grimace and then proceed to harangue them with anecdotes about libraries that are closing all around the U.S. and about how there are on average 2.5 billion applicants for every library position and that the human resources department are now using resumes as an alternative fuel source to save on heating bills. So, sorry folks. You know. If I've ranted at you for awhile. You're forgiven for clamping your ears shut and running away.
   
4. NaNoWriMo - I completed this for only the second time (although it was my second attempt as well, so I've won every time I've attempted it--yay me!) and I was, to put it frankly, totally proud of myself. Of course, I haven't touched the novel since. It's currently sitting at the point just after what I consider to be the most exciting scene I've written so far. So it's been kind of scratching at my brain, trying to get me to write it. And I'll probably give in. In January.
5. Family - Despite being jobless, and despite getting bouts of severe anxiety every time I remember that I have to pay over $500 a month now for the next ten years to repay my student loans (all this without a job...hmm...), I actually really, really love being here. I do get twinges of missing Boston now and then, particularly the awesome folks I hung with out there (shoutouts to school, work and church buddies!), but I'm loving life in the West. And I'm loving catching up on Gilmore Girls with my mom. And seeing an entirely adorable baby niece get progressively chubbier cheeks. In short, I may complain, but life's pretty darn good. So, I guess I can say 2009 was pretty darn good, too.
   

Airport tripping

I love taking people to the airport.

Except, I actually hate it.

But, really, I love it.

I love it because it's that last chance you'll see someone before they go off to Maine or Texas or Indonesia for a few days/weeks/months/years, and it's such a smorgasbord of teary embraces, promises to write (emails, nowaday, I guess...or texts) that really won't be kept (or if they are, by only one party), and maybe, depending on the identity of the driver and/or departee, some good smooching might go on.

Not for me, but hey--I recognize that it's a perk for some.

I hate taking people to the airport because, inevitably, bad airport karma comes and surrounds me like the dust that orbits Pig Pen. If I am the one doing the departing, this means multiple days of delays and foul weather that threatens to strand me in Omaha, Nebraska until 2012, when the world's going to end anyway, so it won't really matter anymore. If I am the one doing the driving and delivery, this means that A: The actual travelers will misremember their departure time and thus leave for the airport a full hour after they should have, or B: There will be a massive accident on the freeway that backs traffic up for approximately 400 miles. (Although, I gladly and gratefully admit that it is much better to be caught in traffic than to be in the accident that caused the traffic. The one today was a doozy.) This traffic will make the driver (me) frustrated, snippy, and also reckless, and the travelers will try to calm me with words of comfort and possibly medication.

So, to my dear sister and bro-in-law, I say this: I really hope you enjoy your few days away from the doldrums of regular life. Also, I'm sad we didn't get that teary farewell as you left, since by the time we finally got to the airport, the combination of our lateness and my crankiness made you ready to pretty much rocket yourselves out of the door the moment I pulled up to the terminal. (Glad you remembered to snag your luggage.)

Also, I will be more than happy to drive you or anyone else to the airport at pretty much any time in the future. Except, I think I may in the future demand that we leave a full 24 hours in advance. Just to be safe.

Sometimes a lack of posting means I will give birth to a novel in a month.

After perusing my blog stats, I've realized that my readership has dropped down to virtually zero. For the one reader who still checks this blog, (or possibly two? Are you a reader out there, person from Romania?), I wish to send out this apology:

I'm sorry.

You see, I've been a little occupied this month. I was in Colorado for some of it, during which time I accessed the internet only once and realized my unread emails had accrued enough mass to collapse into a supermassive black hole that is even now sucking in the entire internet, and from which I only just managed to escape with my life.

Also, there was that whole Thanksgiving thing, which involved a massive amount of time and energy. Energy which was expended on corralling and entertaining a tornado of children (I believe that's the official phrase for 'a group of children,' isn't it?), consuming vast quantities of turkey and pie (not together, just so you know), and playing fiercely competitive domino games with the adult family members (and one niece, who is even more competitive than the grownups).

In short, it has been a wholly awesome month.

However, there has been one more thing that has kept me from blogging, namely NaNoWriMo, which required all of the writing juice I could squeeze out of myself. (Writing juice is a lovely deep caramel color, with sweetness like honey and just a faint hint of lemon zest. And sometimes garlic.) So, you see, I had pretty much nothing left at the end of the day to squirt into the blogosphere. (That...that actually sounds pretty disgusting. Eugh.)

But now, behold, I have returned. And what's more, I have returned...

A WINNER!

Behold the mighty winner's trophy for those who vanquish the terrible NaNoWriMo beast and...

*Ahem.*

Sorry. Got a little carried away, there.

Naturally, my novel is nowhere close to being actually finished, although I crossed the NaNo finish line at rather an exciting point in the story, so I'm pretty confident I'll see this thing through to the end. (Unlike my last NaNo novel, which has been gathering virtual dust in a corner of my computer for the past three years.)

So, my blogging should be back on schedule, now. (That is, I'll blog when I darn well feel like it, and not before.)

And also, HUZZAH! For I have won! And maybe, maybe someday, I may actually be able to hold the novel in my hands, coo at it a little, and read it aloud as a punishment to misbehaving children.