Did you know that there are some people who actually make a living by doing something that they love?
No, really. I thought they were fantastic, mythical creatures who subsisted on lemonade and sugared clouds but it turns out that they actually exist!
For example, I have seen actual evidence of people doing that which I have dreamed of doing since I was very young. These people are called "authors" and they are the ones responsible for my abnormally large collection of books.
I want to know if these people sat around wishing that they were authors before they actually got down to serious authoring. I wonder if they spent many hours sitting in a cubicle in a semi-catatonic state with just a bit of drool about to slip down their chin dreaming of writing interesting books instead of yet another freaking status report.
Did they doubt? Were they afraid? Did they quit their dayjobs or schedule writing time between their 5:00 meetings and 6:00 workouts and 8:00 dinnertimes and 11:00 bedtimes?
National Novel Writing Month is coming. I participated last year and churned out an amazing bulk of Nothing Very Useful. I thought it would be the catalyst that I needed to get me writing and to put me one step closer to realizing my childhood dreams.
Yeah. Not so much.
I'm not really able to put my finger on exactly what my problem is. I guess it boils down to fear. I mean, what if I dreamed of becoming something and then I tried and failed? Then what would I dream of?
But never trying? How sad would that be?
I stole this from Dana who stole it from Julienne.
FIRSTS
First best friend: Stacy Moser.
First real memory of something: My brother coming to get me out of my crib so we could watch cartoons before mom and dad woke up.
First date: I can't remember. I think it was a Jr. High School dance but I don't remember the boy's name.
First real kiss: My neighbor Petey and I used to smooch all the time when we were six.
First break-up: Again, I don't remember. The first one that I remember because I was actually sad was a guy I dated in college named Matt.
First job: My very first job that wasn't babysitting was at The Fitness Factory. I signed up new members and showed people how to use the weight machines. I worked once a week.
First screen name: I'm ashamed to say that it was "Earthmurfin".
First self purchased album: I bought "Pac Man Fever" with money I made babysitting.
First funeral: When I was in High School, a classmate of mine was killed in a car accident. I think everyone went to that funeral. Sadly it was the first of four funerals for classmates including one person I considered a friend.
First pets: Winnie the Hamster who died in an unfortunate heater related incident and Mandy the Border Collie who once saved me when I fell into a pond.
First piercing/tattoo: Pierced my ears in 6th grade. First tattoo was on my ankle when I was 19.
First credit card: Visa.
First true love: My only TRUE love is my hubby.
First enemy:
First big trip: Is this a trick question? I went to Mexico with a group of students when I was in High School. And I once believed that I was absolutely burning up so I had to go outside in nothing but a t-shirt when it was 20 below zero.
First play/musical/performance: First play was "Dragon Soup" and I played a lady-in-waiting.
First musician you remember hearing in your house: Simon and Garfunkle.
LASTS
Last big car ride: Driving back from Colorado in a u-haul.
Last big bus ride: I've never been on a BIG bus ride.
Last kiss: Just a few minutes ago I scored a smooch from my hubby.
Last good cry: Please. I cry almost every day. I cried earlier while watching Sex and the City.
Last library book checked out: The last thing I checked out from a library was a Harry Potter book on tape.
Last movie seen: Anger Management. We rented it.
Last beverage drank: Diet Snapple Peach Tea.
Last food consumed: Celery.
Last crush: Some cute, geeky boy.
Last phone call: Boring work-related call related to software test scripts. Snore.
Last TV show watched: Watching Law and Order.
Last time showered: This morning.
Last shoes worn: My Reeboks.
Last cd played: Allison Krauss.
Last item bought: A book called "The Pocket Muse".
Last annoyance: Just now when my husband FARTED on me and LAUGHED!
Last disappointment: There was a reorg at work and I didn't end up where I wanted to be.
Last soda drank: Diet Coke.
Last ice cream eaten: Wow Cow frozen yogurt.
Last time wanting to die: I can't even remember. It was a LONG time ago.
Last shirt worn: Blue v-neck t-shirt. Still wearing it and I should change because I wore it to the gym tonight. P.U!
Last website visited: Dana's super secret ninja blog. You're not invited. ;)
Saying goodbye sucks. Even when you know you'll see the person again someday so you say that it isn't really goodbye? It is goodbye. And it sucks.
Kristin and I met a couple of years ago when we started working together. We became friends immediately. Of course, anyone who meets Kristin wants to be friends with her. But I digress.
Even though she lives in New Jersey and I live in California, we get to see each other frequently because she travels here at least once a month for work. Every time she goes home I'm a little bummed out. Still, I always know she'll be back.
Everything is changing at work. Kristin has been very unhappy for a long time and these changes are far from improving the situation. She needs to move on and she's well on her way to doing that.
But that means that I have no idea when I'll see her again. Depending on how things go, she might be back in October. Or she might not be back until she decides a Cali vacation is in order.
So, tonight I had to say goodbye. And, yes, I know I'll see her again. And of course we'll still be friends. And of course I'll still talk to her nearly every day. The only thing that would change would be the certainty of seeing her on a regular basis.
The thing is, most of my closest friends don't live nearby and frequently large amounts of time might pass between our get togethers. One of my best friends lives about a billion miles away in a whole 'nother country. We seem to manage fine. And I'm sure Kristin and I will, too.
But I'm still sad. And goodbye still sucks.
Dear Apartment Manager,
This is to notify you that we intend to move out of our tiny, ghettoriffic apartment in 30 days.
We regret to inform you that we have been unable to identify the scent that emanates from the closet. I know that, when we did our walkthrough, I failed to actually write down "something dead in closet". I did, however, write down that the whole place needed cleaning and I think this falls under that umbrella. I mean, dead things really should have been removed before we took up residence.
Hey, by the way...do you intend to overwater every square inch of this complex? Are you under the impression that moss should be growing on the sidewalks and that walking on the grass should be like walking on thousands of moldy kitchen sponges? I'm just asking.
We also thought that you might like to know that there is something weird going on in the apartment above us. We aren't entirely sure what it is. I mean, we aren't entirely sure what it is that lives up there. Is it human? You might want to look into that.
Just out of curiousity, is the air conditioning powered by a Harley Davidson engine? It's just that it is a bit loud. Just a bit. Sort of like an airplane is taking off in the hallway. Thankfully, the apartment is so small that it only takes about 15 seconds to cool it down.
Thanks to all of you for always being so nice and friendly and happy. I'm pretty sure you are like that because you don't live here. When we no longer live here, we will also be nice and friendly and happy. We're sorry you've only witnessed us tired and surly and depressed.
Sincerely,
The soon-to-be (but not soon enough) former residents of apartment 311
"Do you ever feel like you want something but you don't know what it is?"
I posed the question to my friend Kristin, who I felt certain would know exactly what I was talking about. I mean, who doesn't feel this way?
At first she thought I was hungry and that I was talking about food. I wasn't. I was talking about this....thing....where I feel like something is missing and I can't figure out what it is. See, it's this thing where I want....something. I want life to be something that it is isn't or I want myself to be someone that I'm not.
Often, when I feel like this, I do eat. I feel empty and I guess eating is my way of trying to fill up this mysterious black hole that I sense but can't explain. But that thing is still there.
What is it that I'm looking for? And how did I get started on trying to fill the hole with food? And what will I fill that hole with now that I am trying to eat like a normal human?
I really wish I had something profound and enlightening (or even something touching that you could empathize with) to say here. I don't. This is a grand mystery to me. It is disconcerting and even a little frightening. Am I flawed? Have I overlooked something? Am I missing the proverbial boat?
I wonder what it would be like to just be satisfied.
There's this Lee Jeans commercial that I keep seeing in which these gorgeous girls with impossibly tiny booties flaunt said booties in a variety of ways. I hate that commercial.
I hate it because I covet the tiny booty. I do. I want to shake my bitty can and prepubescent hips in my cute little jeans. This is never going to happen. Even at my thinnest, I retain what I will gently refer to as a "healthy" amount of....erm...padding in the area of the hips, butt, and thighs.
Sometimes I feel guilty for being jealous of the non-curvaceous. I feel like maybe it is an affront to all that is womanly and feminine. I feel like a traitor to my fat bottomed sisters.
There are other times when I can get on board with my curves. I look back at old pictures of me in times when I was convinced I was atrociously fat and I realize that I was actually pretty hot. And I think that, If I could look like that again, maybe I'd be happy.
But would I? Or would I still be comparing my butt to the girls in the Lee Jeans commercial?
Apartment living sucks.
The upstairs neighbor never seems to sleep. Our closet smells like something died in there. My cat, Duncan, and I have been sneezing our heads off since we moved in. I've been looking for toxic mold.
To pass the time, I like to imagine the lives of my fellow tenants. For example, there's the woman who stands in the parking lot talking on her telephone. She's having an affair with her sister's husband. Or perhaps her husband's sister.
There's an odd little man across the way. He has an odd little daughter. Once in awhile I see a tall blonde woman stopping by. I imagine that he once had money and that she married him for that reason. Now she's left him and taken half of his money and the house and the boat.
Then there's the Indian mafia. And The Steroid King. And the glue sniffer.
A girl has got to do something to pass the time.
I'm sitting in the living room of our temporary home as I type this. The sale of our house went through (YAY!) and now we are just waiting for our new house to be built. We are scheduled to close on October 20th. In the meantime, we are apartment dwellers once again.
I had forgotten about apartment living. I'm pretty sure that we have circus performers living above us. Maybe just circus elephants. Perhaps a herd of skittish sheep. Whatever it is, they get up mighty early in the morning.
This apartment is very small. In fact, I think it may even qualify as "wee". When we signed our lease, my mom was here visiting. Now I keep hearing her voice in my head saying "Well, this is nice. This is a perfectly lovely apartment." And I feel slightly guilty for not loving the apartment because it is perfectly lovely in a "charming little postage stamp sized apartment that really should have been cleaned before we moved in" sort of way.
It may also be worth noting that my mom doesn't seem to understand why we sold our house in the first place. "There's nothing wrong with this house," she kept saying. And there wasn't. But I also think there is nothing wrong with cashing in on a good thing and moving on up in the world.
I don't have a CD player in my car so I have to listen to casettes. You do remember casettes, right? Archaic, I know.
Yesterday I picked up some "Bargain Used Casettes" from Dimple. Today I learned that I still love the Psychedelic Furs just as much as I did when I was a teenager.
I used to love that band so much. I even had a hamster that I named "The Psychedelic Fur" (but we just called him "Psych"). I listened to those tapes until they broke. Except for the one that Rachel Babb ruined when she got pissed off at me and dumped a bottle of hairspray over it. Bitch.
On my way home from work, I cranked that music as loud as I could take it.
i'm in love with catholics
i'm in love with your blue cars
i'm in love with the words that scream
we are so stupid, we all dream
Music has a way of making memories so much sweeter sometimes.
My crush on Steve from Blue's Clues seems slightly less creepy now.
Today is my third anniversary. We celebrated by packing and by taking a truckload of stuff to the apartment we will call home until our new house is complete.
It was an uneventful day filled with uneventful things. Still, I couldn't help but look at my husband and be amazed that three years have gone by already. Where did it go? There was a moment today when I was playing with the hair at the nape of his neck and I thought to myself that there could never be enough time. Do you know what I mean? No matter how many years we have together and no matter if we were allowed to spend all of eternity together, it just wouldn't be enough.
Happy Anniversary, husband. I love you toobers and zots!