Category Archives: Blurbs

I ate too much.

Blurbs

In which my luncheon over at El Sombrero has left me overfull and sleepy.

Work: My employer publishes an online newsletter each month, and all the employees write little articles for it. I chose to write my article for May on blacklists. Did you know that during the last quarter of 2007, an estimated 95% of email traffic was spam? Ninety-five percent!

Someone’s paying for all that stolen bandwidth, and I bet they’re pissed.

Food: I just had a cheese & onion enchilada with rice and beans for lunch. So good. So high-calorie. So awesome.

That has nothing to do with anything, really… except maybe deliciousness.

Dog: Bindu’s appointment has been rescheduled for Monday. I wrote it down wrong and went yesterday morning but there was no vet available to see us. I hope she’s just old and fat, and not truly sick.

Band: I went to open mic last night, and outside in the beer garden had the obligatory “How much do you really care about this band?” discussion with the guitar player.

I’ve had this conversation with at least one member of every single solitary band I’ve ever been in. I’m not sure how my showing up at practice, sitting in at gigs, and being totally gung-ho in general causes other musicians to wonder if I’m committed or not. I’ve been playing for twenty years and never made a living at it, but I’m still doing it: does that fact not speak for itself?

He was nice enough about it, and I suppose considering how much work he does booking gigs he deserves to feel proprietary, but through no fault of his own I’ve just had that talk too many times and it bugged me. (I mean, would it be terribly bitchy to point out that despite the earnestness of The Talk, none of those other bands still exist?)

Books: I finished this last night. Brilliant, transcendent, gorgeous. I love Kay.

Movies: I’ve had a Netflix vid that I haven’t watched in a month. I think it’s three episodes of Doctor Who.

Weather: See this? ‘Nuff said.

Spring is sprung!

Blurbs

In which I’m still boring, but the weather’s gorgeous.

Main StreetSpring is truly here. Flowers are in bloom, the days are sunny and breezy with big fluffy white clouds in an achingly blue sky. My morning walk to work is becoming more and more pleasant each day.

To balance out all this goodness, I have a third damned cold. (Started two days ago. Sneezing, stuffy head, a tickle in my throat, and a scratchy voice.) I feel juuuuust a little fuzzy and a little tired, but mostly I’m just pissed off because three colds in a row is just stupid and I’m tired of having one. I had better be well and in good voice by the time gig season starts, that’s all I have to say – three colds in a row, one with an annoyingly lingering cough, have wreaked havoc on my voice.

My band’s drummer’s coming to town this weekend, so we’ll have an actual full band rehearsal Saturday night. I’m pretty excited about it, really, because it’ll be nice to be putting final polish on the songs we’ve been working on. (And by ‘pretty excited,’ I mean ‘mildly interested,’ because band practice is, in actual fact, fairly dull. Sitting and learning songs is not the fun part of being a rockstar.)

Work’s been crazy this week because one of the techs is out on vacation. There have been unresolved tickets in the queue every night when I leave, and I hate that. (I like to have everything cleared when I clock out. Everything.) Then there was a 4-state DSL outage yesterday so it was freakin’ NUTS for about three hours. Then the day before yesterday was International Pissed Off Asshole Caller Day, so 90% of the people I talked to said ignorant shit like, “You’ve screwed up my email again and I expect you to fix it before I go to another company!” when the problem was actually that they didn’t have their phone line plugged into their computers so they couldn’t dial up. (We have a LOT of dial-up customers.)

All that said, there is something terribly satisfying about getting a DSL customer connected after an hour-long call.

It’s Friday. I may stop for a drink on the way home.

I don't even care if she was lying.

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In which it was totally flattering.

I walked over to the Chevron on my lunch break and bought cigarettes. The lady behind the counter asked to see my ID. I handed it over and she looked at my birth date.

“Wow!” she exclaimed, grinning at me. “You really don’t look your age!”

It was awesome. Although it could be the fact that I dress like a kid, I’m blaming it on the good haircut and the diet. (Yes, I’m dieting. It freakin’ sucks, but I’ve gained weight since having surgery last fall – apparently bleeding to death was using a lot of calories! – and I simply cannot stand this gut any longer omgwtfbbq.)

Easter Weekend

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In which I roll out the stunning vista of my upcoming weekend. Booyah. (Srsly.) (The pace, it’s killing me.)

Last night RB took me to see a band. We went mainly because the band in question gets A-list blues gigs here in the northwest, and we wanted to hear what the competition sounded like. They were good enough, but not terrifically impressive. I can sing circles around the chick singer they had.

I drank four or five cocktails, got three phone numbers (a girl who could be friend material, a tattoo artist, and a guy who just amused me). Then I ate three items off of the Taco Bell menu and went to bed because apparently I’m not chubby enough yet.

This morning I brought Bindu to work with me. We had a lovely walk across town, and saw many other dogs downtown and woofed at them. Work’s been really slow today, with long breaks in between calls. (I like working on Saturday because no one bothers to turn the overhead lights on and I don’t have to fight the glare on my monitor all damn day.)

At six, Gramma’s going to pick us up because she wants to go out for dinner. I really don’t need any more food – I ate an entire bag of salad and a frozen pasta dinner and half an avocado and two bottles of Naked juice – so I might just have an appetizer.

Tomorrow we’re going out for Easter brunch with the family. I think we’ll be eating at the Eagles or VFW or something. Luckily, it’s not until noon so I don’t have to roust out of bed too early. Tomorrow afternoon I intend to do laundry and clean the bathroom. Monday afternoon I’ll be at band practice. (We’ve actually got gigs lined up. We’re playing the Balloon Stampede in May!)

So, yeah. That’s my stunning life. I’m sorry you wasted moments of yours reading this post. *smooch*

Last Night

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In which I am totally reaching for material, here. Totally.

RB picked me up after work and took me to the studio, where he played a new song he’d written for me to sing (a kick-ass blues/R&B number I wish I’d written myself about leavin’ your man), helped me learn a run in another original that I’d been totally bricking, asked me my opinion on a drum track (it just laid there), and gave me A SUPER BITCHIN’ TAMBOURINE. “Now you can’t say I never gave you nothin’,” he announced.

Then we went to the Mill Creek Brew Pub and met this dude who used to play pool with Doc Severinson.

After that, I went home and went to bed. ZzzzzZzzZzzzz.

This morning I woke up and did the sit-ups and push-ups and leg lifts that I did not do before bed last night, and then fell back asleep ’cause that’s how I roll. Then I got up, had a breakfast sandwich, showered, dressed, and then walked briskly to work.

Briskly. Gah. If only I could exercise while asleep… that’d be ideal.

Oh, mah gawd!

Blurbs

In which there’s a hair emergency, bitches!

This morning I washed my new hair and conditioned it and slathered it with all the product I own, which isn’t much but should have been enough to control it.

Then I went outside, where it’s raining, and under an umbrella walked to the bus stop and then rode the bus and then walked a few blocks to work but by the time I got here my hair had stopped being sleek and straight and cute and had become instead this giant flouffy thing!

I NEED PRODUCT IN THE WORST WAY. I shall be visiting the salon on my lunch hour, OMG.

Update: Whew. I went to the salon, and they sold me productz! Yay!

Hair!

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In which I feel totally cute.

I got up early today and went and had my hair done.

I got highlights, I got lowlights, I got it cut using three different types of cutting devices, I got my eyebrows colored and waxed, AND I got free coffee. My hair is all blonde and straight and asymetrical bob and everything.

I’m so freakin’ happy! I shall have cute hair for GBM!

When I walked into work, everybody was all, “Your hair! It’s so cute!” and I was all, “Dude! Thanks!”

A Couple of Years in the Life

Blurbs

In which we turn and face the strange / ch-ch-changes.

Two years ago today, I was married and living in rural Iowa doing the American Dream thing, with the mortgage and the house under reconstruction and the quiet desperation and all that shit. The Ex was working in Cedar Rapids that week and I was very carefully not blogging about what a fucking relief it was to have him out of the house so I could have a break from the daily battle of either providing sex I didn’t want to provide or enduring a nasty fight instead. He’d been being a good husband for months by that point but I couldn’t bring myself to care. He’d waited too long, made me wait too long, and I found I just couldn’t thaw over a clean kitchen counter or a load of folded laundry… not after having literally begged for six years for just such small kindnesses.

I felt like a royal bitch but I was too fractured to stop being one. I was drinking a great deal, and working a part-time job when I wasn’t cleaning fucking house. I was miserable and rotting and totally ignoring it because I couldn’t figure out how to escape the double albatross of marriage license and mortgage. I had panic attacks all the time and I censored damn near everything I said because the vast majority of it was so terribly cruel it couldn’t be uttered. I felt frozen. If you’d asked, I’d have told you I was happy. I spent hours daydreaming about being single: not about handsome lovers or travel or riches, but about being alone in a small, clean space I had total dominion over.

One year ago today, I was separated. I was living in AmmZon’s house and starting a part-time job. I was drinking a lot and sleeping a lot and partying a lot, but I was beginning to feel more like me than I had in years. It was a transformative phase, and I remember finding incredible joy in simply not being nagged, not having to check in with anyone, not having to do anything I didn’t damn well want to do. I felt like I was decompressing, like I’d been chained at the bottom of the sea and had finally gotten free.

Today, I’m living thousands of miles away from all that. My whole life is different. These days, instead of being a wife on 27 acres with literally tons of belongings I’m a 39-year-old woman who owns no towels or flatware, no furniture or linens. [I own less right now than I did twenty years ago. If we count success by accumulation, I’m a miserable failure: I don’t even have a bicycle, let alone a car.] I’m just starting to make friends here, but for the most part I’m lonely. I live with my grandmother and work a full-time job that offers no room for growth that I’m incredibly grateful to have at all. I spend an awful lot of time alone inside my own head, thinking about ageing and what I thought I’d be doing the year I turn 40 and realizing I never had a plan: when I was younger I wanted to get married and play house but I don’t think I’d ever really visualized myself actually being that person…

Before marriage I was always looking for The One, but ever since my separation the mere idea of starting a romantic entanglement sends me into freakin’ orbit: I want nothing to do with anyone else’s desires or needs WHATSOEVER. I’m craving friendship and companionship, yes, but I’d probably gnaw my own arm off before I’d consider seeing anyone romantically. I’ve realized that when you’re in a relationship you’ve tacitly agreed to give a shit about another person and that you’re obligated to try, no matter how tired or needy you are yourself, pretty much whenever they ask you to. And I do not find the perqs of a relationship to be worth that cost. I’d rather be alone, quite frankly. It’s too expensive, to be always willing to try, to be always willing to give, to be always willing to put another first just for some dubiously good companionship and a little more money than you ever have when you’re alone.

I think I’ve finally become disabused of the notion of romantic love. Not because I’m a scrooge, but because I don’t think any such thing exists: a successful relationship is probably built of enjoyment and tolerance and understanding and honesty, and all of those things as far as I can tell are diametrically opposite of ‘romance,’ which seems to require in order to function a certain amount of misunderstanding and objectification. What I mean to say is that if you know someone well enough to actually be with them, you can’t possibly have ‘romantic’ feelings about them because by then you know they fart and you can’t possibly ever crave them in that romantic love sort of way.

The whole concept of romance has done hearts and culture more damage than fast food, I swear. Meh.

In other news, today is goblinbox’s seventh birthday! Happy birthday, goblinbox.com!

OMG So Yum!

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In which there are superdelicious foodz!

The Best Aunt Ever™ picked me up after work last night and took me to College Place for dinner at a tiny little place called Bangkok 103.

College Place is a vegetarian haven because apparently the town is comprised mainly of a Christian sect – Adventist, I believe – that is entirely vegetarian. They have a kick-ass crunchy veggie store I have yet to see the inside of, and the stores in the area all have rather extensive vegetarian food sections because of them.

Bangkok 103 is run by a wife/husband team and is reservation only. I had Thai iced tea and veggie curry with tofu and it was wonderful, as was the company of my dad’s sister (who taught me how to twist and do the monkey when I was quite little, and is therefore practically the most important figure of my formative years).

After dinner, which she paid for, we dropped by her house and she gave me two bags full of books and I fell in love with her handsome boy dog, a sweet shepherd who shared his “bunny” (all stuffed toys are bunnies to him) with me. After that I was SUDDENLY FREAKING EXHAUSTED because of this never-to-be-sufficiently-damned COLD and went home and went to bed, where I slept for fifteen hours before coming back to work.

In other very tragic news. Lips the Office Fish died today. It’s a sad day for the entire office.