Category Archives: Admissions

Coffee Table

Admissions

In which there’s an item of furniture.

Bought a coffee table. (Also bought a couch, to replace the air bed we’ve been using as a couch, but it’s not here yet.)

Coffee table! It weighs a ton and reeks of finish, but I love it! Was expecting something much flimsier, but this guy’s solid as hell. Nice, simple, non-plastic little piece of furniture.

I’ve never bought a coffee table before in my life, I don’t think. Furniture is generally either already there when I arrive, or gifted or found, right? People give you old coffee tables, right? I mean, I bought a desk, but a coffee table? Who buys coffee tables?

Me! I bought a coffee table! Box says it’s walnut, and I like it a lot.

Spring is coming

Admissions, Weather

In which I just looked out the window!

It’s Sunday so we slept in and then went out for brunch. I had a veggie omelet (with sweet potato in it, for some reason) and hash browns and a side of vegetarian gravy because I love gravy.

Then we came home and he studied for his cert exam next week and I took a nap.

Spent some time massaging my music library (I’ve backed up my ancient iPod yet again but this time I’m actually doing something with the data — I put it in MusicBee and am working on art and tags and replacing corrupted/DRM’d tracks) and then I went out into the living room to get something and glanced out the window and

HOLY SHIT! THAT LITTLE TREE OUTSIDE IS BUDDING OUT!!!

I probably don’t have the words for how fucking fantastic it is, like, on a cellular level, to be back out here where I’m from. Spring in Minneapolis doesn’t come until June, so the winters are not only cold as hell but extremely long.

I know this winter has been disturbingly mild, I know that, but there’s been green all winter. Just bits, here and there, in lawns or next to the irrigation ditch or whatever, but it lifts the heart to see it. (Plus, I’ve only worn cleats two days this winter, during that ice storm thing last month!)

Sincerely looking forward to a long-ass season of mild and green and growing and non-blizzard this year.

Really should weed those raised beds out front; maybe tomorrow.

Yeah, I got my Christmas on

Admissions, Holiday

In which Christmas is in two weeks and I finally put up the tree!

How is it Christmas in two weeks?! What the fuck, time. Of course, in Minnesota we’d have already lived through two blizzards and weeks of sub-zero temperatures, so the lack of brutal weather makes it sorta feel like it’s earlier in the year than it is. BUT STILL.

We’d discussed getting a real tree, since we’ve got an entire house and plenty of space, but it looks like we’re not into the idea enough to, you know, actually go out and do it. So! Our sixth year with our tiny baby fake tree!

Here it is, on my guitar case! I just decorated it!

His mom’s been sending us proper, full-sized ornaments for a few years, so I put those on the avocado. Here’s a terrible picture of them!

I did the kitchen right after Thanksgiving, though, so it’s not like I’ve been totally laming off.

The table!

Christmas tea towels!

I hung ornaments from the valances!

So, yeah. You could say it’s quite festive up in here now. Maybe next year we’ll get a full-sized, proper, real tree!

Finally, a fuckin’ BIKE

Admissions

In which I rode my bike to the store today!

When we moved to M-F I decided I needed a bike.

The grocery store’s a mile away, and there’s no way I’m hauling a gallon of milk an entire mile on foot. Work’s a half mile away, so a bike would cut my already-short commute time in half, plus I could haul stuff — packed lunches, extra jackets — more comfortably.

So there’s a cheap-but-new bike at the College Place Walmart I like, it’s a Scwhinn and it’s cute (I’m totally the demographic, the bike’s clearly designed for middle-aged white chicks; I know it’s tacky as fuck but it appeals to me). I decide I’ll buy it online and go pick it up! And then I’ll have wheels!

This was back before the winter fog set in, when the sun still shone, and there were still leaves on the trees, you dig.

Anyway, so I buy the bike online, easy peasy. Then I check back a couple hours later, and discover it’ll take over a week, nearly ten days, before the bike is ready? What the fuck, it’s literally right there in the fucking store, I’ve seen it, why can’t I have that one?

Oh, well, whatever, a week or so, fine. The reviews say it’ll be assembled, maybe they only have the floor model in stock, I don’t care. I can walk to work for a week.

So it finally comes in, and I ask my better half to go pick it up. He does.

It’s in a box and most definitely not assembled. I pitch a fit, he puts it together because he’s a goddamned SAINT, but parts are missing. The PEDALS are missing, for fuck’s sake.

So I open a ticket with Schwinn, and they send the missing parts. It takes about a week.

The parts arrive, I finish assembly, but because I’m an ass I don’t bother to adjust it, and the first time I try to ride the bike to work the derailleur goes into the spokes.

ARRGGHH!

So I contact Schwinn again to try to buy a replacement derailleur, and even though their documentation explicitly says bad adjustment is not covered by warranty, they send me a replacement for my fucked up derailleur for free. KILLER customer support.

There’s some delay with the package; it takes ten more days to arrive.

I read up on replacing derailleurs and watch a couple YouTube videos and think, “Fuck this, I’m taking it to a shop.” I mean, we have a garage and some tools, but I don’t have a bike stand and I’ve never done it before and it just looks like something I’d rather pay for.

Well, of course there’s no bike shop here, and I have no car of my own, and I work Saturdays, and all the bike shops in nearby towns are closed on Sundays, and and and, so it takes awhile to get the stupid thing to a shop. Like, another week or ten days.

But we did finally get it done, and he picked it up for me yesterday on his day off (because HE’S AMAZING), and today I rode my bike to the store for the first time!

Yay!

It was glorious weather for a maiden voyage: bright overcast and cool. Allegro Cyclery adjusted it perfectly: shifts great, brakes great. The cheap saddle bags I bought seem to have turned out to be a remarkably good deal! And they’re lighter than the Wohl chrome baskets I’ve always preferred, which definitely matters now that I’m fat.

Having not ridden much in years, I have no quads, which sucks, but they’ll come back. Turns out the journey to Safeway is all sliiiiightly uphill, but check it: the journey back is all slightly downhill! Fortuitous! I don’t have to pedal much when hauling groceries! Whoo! Coasting rules!

I didn’t go in, because I don’t have a bike lock and I would absolutely flip my shit if the very first time I take the bike out I get the stupid thing stolen, but I’ve finally Been To The Store On My Bike, and it took a long while to achieve this feat, and I am SO pleased and SO stoked I just can’t even tell you.

I timed the ride from work to home: it’s four minutes. I have a four-minute work commute now. How glorious is that?!

I’ll just order a bike lock online and drive the Jeep over to Safeway later for the weekly shop, like a gas-guzzling asshole American.

Laundry

Admissions

In which THIS IS THE WEEK the washer and dryer come!!!

My favorite aunt bought us a washer and dryer.

We ordered them back in October, but they had to be shipped in, I guess, and we had to wait a couple months for delivery.

They’re due ON TUESDAY, and they’ll go in this very corner right here:

It’s stupid to be excited about what is typically a boring chore, but I’m really very excited to do a bunch of laundry! In my kitchen!

Dishwasher

Admissions

In which I love this goddamned appliance, okay?

I cooked three full meals in this kitchen today, for a total of eight courses, and I have not done the washing up.

Look at it. Just look. It’s spotless. No dishes anywhere. THEY’RE IN THE DISHWASHER, off the counter, out of sight.

It’s amazing. I never wanted a dishwasher, but now I doubt I could stand life without one.

This kitchen has tons of counter space, I could easily fill them up entirely with dishes dirty or clean — but I don’t have to! Because: DISHWASHER!

This house is so great.

Hello, I’m old and it’s weird

Admissions, Health

In which I’ve gone and turned 51, of all things, and here is a short paragraph about it.

I’m fat as hell, my feet always hurt even though I only work part-time, my skin has no elasticity and is just drooping like fabric on the bias, I have a nearly constant stabbing pain in the index knuckle of my right hand, my hips hurt, I have nerve issues in my feet due to, according to google hospital, either menopause or neuropathy that occasionally drive me bugnuts when I’m lying in bed trying to go to sleep, sometimes I can’t sleep, or I wake wide up for no goddamned reason at all, my teeth are yellow, my desire to go out and hang with people is nearly as low as my introvert better half’s, I’m more or less running out of British TV shows to watch, I’ve been so sedentary for so long that popping up two flights of stairs here in the house makes me pant for three minutes, whatever symmetry my face may once have enjoyed is well and truly over, HOT FLASHES, sometimes everything from ovaries to vestibule feels weird as hell because hormone changes and so-called sexual atrophy, there’s no fat at all on the balls or heels of my feet, vericose veins, I’ve actually sharted, something I always thought was either a joke or an affliction affecting only young, stupid beer drinking males, twice in the past three years, my hair is thin and brittle, my nails are ridged, I think about death a lot and find sex scenes and courting plots juvenile and annoying, I have actually heard myself say “nobody’s writing any decent sci-fi these days,” I’m freaked about the fact I’ve never made any money and owe more in student loans than I’ve saved for retirement, my nose and ears are enormous and are just going to keep getting bigger, my eyebrows have discovered what it is to be tufty, my ass has changed shape to such a degree that I now fart like a man, and my sweat smells weird and old.

But it’s also true that I’m not on any meds at all*, which I’ve been told by a doctor friend is “unusual” for “someone my age.”

*yet

m0N3Y

Admissions

In which LOL MY MIND THO.

What’s the word for that psychological condition in which, after you quit a job and receive your final paycheck and have no income, you suddenly find yourself wanting, practically needing, to spend money on inane shit?

I always have this! Every time I’m unemployed.

Well, shit, no money coming in, let’s eat out and go to bars and shit I should buy this dress, right?

(I mean, I already have a job offer in Washington, so I’m only temporarily unemployed and not rife with uncertainty, and we have savings, but all I want to do is BUY SHIT lol. I think the point is sorta tangentially related to UBI: financial uncertainty, even mild and temporary, seems to have an effect on the way the mind works.)

Moving and my mind

Admissions

In which I very nearly gave myself a panic attack.

We’re still over a week away from loading the shipping container — and we’re at least half packed — but my mind just served up this whole entire OMFG WE’RE NOT READY, WE CAN’T DO THIS, IT’LL NEVER WORK, IT’LL BE A NIGHTMARE thing about moving because minds, it turns out, are stupid.

I mean, it did everything it could to freak me out and make me feel bad. WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF, IT WON’T FIT IN THE CONTAINER, WE’LL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO THROW AWAY!!! IT’LL BE A DISASTER, THIS FEELS TERRIBLE AND SCARY, I’M INCOMPETENT, IT’S AN ABJECT FAILURE!

I had to google the dimensions of the box again and look at a bunch of pictures again to convince myself of what I already knew, like, three months ago: without any furniture but the bed, all our stuff will totally fit, plus there’ll be overflow room in the car if necessary.

And fuck, mind, so what if we have to toss something. What do we own beyond the file box with all our papers in that’s truly that important, anyway?

Honestly, the real trouble is that no one wants to buy the couch so we’ll have to figure out what to do with it, and he really needs to sell his desk. (My desk is already mostly apart and can go in the dumpster with his office chair.)

It’s fine, mind, and in two and a half weeks we’ll be snugged up in the ancestral pile surrounded by family and friends.

Stupid mind. Jesus.

Alone

Admissions, Love & Marriage

In which this is really weird.

He’s gone for two weeks, and I have the place to myself. Off managing the integration of a satellite office for work. I can do whatever I want! Including nothing! I don’t even have to make dinner if I don’t want to! I can do absolutely NOTHING AT ALL if I like!

Except the dishes are dirty, there’s still a load of laundry left, the floor could really use sweeping, and the throw rugs haven’t been washed in most of a year. There are also a couple bags of recycle to take out, and the stovetop needs a scrubbing because it’s greasy and gathering dust and looks gross. I should clean all my random shit off the table and do a general tidy. Nothing’s been dusted in months, either.

In other words, there’s a list of chores to do like there always is, this is just another Monday like any other, but now I’m also feeling sad and lonely. He won’t be home at six. He won’t be around at all. It’s just me and the apartment.

There’s still snow on the ground, barely a quarter of the lawns are showing green, and there are no flowers. The trees are barely starting to bud.

I’m not on the schedule at work until Friday. (There’s a new checker in training on the liquor side, so I’m guessing that M. and T. are getting extra hours in the cheese shop to keep their F/T schedules? I dunno. All I know is that I have four days off in a row, which is pretty fucking great, really.)

Except I’m home alone, and there’s nowhere to go, nobody to see. I could go out for a $6 coffee, but I have espresso and dairy here, and I really should finish the whole milk before it has a chance to go off. I could take myself out for dinner on Lyndale or Eat Street later, but I have a couple slices of pizza to eat, plus Indian food from the other night, plus stuff for nachos, plus unused produce that’s almost a week old that needs to be thrown into the Instant Pot before it turns to sludge. (Wow. Not to mention some lentil soup in the fridge, and two or three soups in the freezer.) In short, I have a fuckton of food to eat. No need to go out and spend money.

I could walk over to the art supply store, but nobody needs stationery less than I do.

Could go to the bike shop, but have I really decided to buy a bike this year? I love the old Schwinn, but I didn’t ride it at all last year. I should just sell it on Craigslist. And my work commute is two blocks, and I’d have to find somewhere to park a bike while I’m working. It’s a liquor store on Lake street in front of a bus stop; I bet bikes get vandalized and stolen from there all the time. Better to just walk. Don’t need a bike for my work commute.

I don’t need a bike at all, technically. I mean, I want one. Rides to the lake or the global market are really lovely… during the three weeks each “spring” and “fall” when I’m willing to ride a bike around here.

There just aren’t enough days per year in that sweet spot between 45 and 75 degrees. I don’t mind a little rain, but fuck biking in mud and snow, and absolutely fuck biking in 80+ heat and humidity.

Today would actually be a good day for a ride! It’s 51F and heavily overcast, and while there is snow on the ground all the pavement’s clear, and the Greenway looked free of snow and ice when I walked over it yesterday. Buuuuuut my bike’s got two flats, is too tall for comfort, and where would I go? The park around the lakes is grey and ugly as fuck because THERE IS NO SPRING IN THIS GODFORSAKEN PART OF THE COUNTRY, and I don’t really ride for its own sake–I greatly prefer it as a method of getting somewhere.

(I’m actually surprised it’s in the 50’s out there; all the pedestrians on 28th are wearing parkas and hats, so I thought it was colder.)

Could go to a movie, but I have a fiber internet connection and streaming everything so putting on pants seems like a lot of effort.

Everyone I know is at work so there’s no one to chat with online. Notre-Dame de Paris en proie aux flammes, and my president is a tit.

I don’t want to fucking do laundry.

E. tells me that when her husband travels for work she gets drunk and has a cry the first night he’s gone; I thought that was weird until last night when I got home from work and S. was in Illinois for the rest of the month and I felt heavy-duty sadness and separation; I guess I’ve never been with anybody before I liked to have around more than I liked privacy and space. I was always relieved, before, when whoever I was living with fucked off for a few days or a couple weeks. I didn’t expect to feel so fucking sad.

I mean, S. leaves every closet, cupboard, and drawer he uses ajar, snores sometimes, and often sleeps in the very center of the damn bed, but that’s really the worst of him. (Well, that and his habit of saying he’s “going to order us food” and then having to read multiple menus and “think about it” for three hours first, until I’m starving and end up eating cheese straight out of the fridge.) It’s not unfair to say he’s a bit boring in some ways, but it’s also true that every time I walked into the other room last night and saw that it was empty and dark, I felt absolutely hollow. No hugs or smooches. No “I love you”s. I mean, we chatted online, but he’s not here.

We were apart a few nights last year when I went to DC to see Amma, but other than that we’ve never been apart more than the length of a workday since I got here, five years ago tomorrow. You get used to a person, don’t you.

Oh, and part of what made yesterday and today so melancholy is likely The Curse. This cycle was 44 days long, and I had nearly a week of PMS symptoms (irritability, bloating, cramps) before I finally started bleeding, so there’s a whole hormonal component affecting my emotional wisdom. (If you can help it, don’t start your period the day before your favorite person leaves town for half a month; it’ll make you weepy.)

So, what will I do? Likely fuck-all. I’ve made the bed and a latte. I’m online, at my desk. I’ll probably surf Twitter and stream shit I’m barely interested in watching until I get hungry enough to go nuke something; then it’ll be dark and because I slept badly last night and stayed in bed until mid-afternoon I won’t be able to go to bed early, so I’ll just keep sitting here feeling weird and alone and not even getting anything checked off my to-do list.

Odds are I’ll go get a cocktail or two, wearing a knit hat because my hair’s dirty and I won’t bother to wash it, then come home and fall asleep listening to 15-year-old music on my iPod next to a basket of dirty laundry.