Out of sequestration!

And so I have, this evening, joined the ranks of those who have finished reading the seventh - and final - installment in the Harry Potter series.

It took me longer than I'd thought it would to read it, only because I was having some difficulty finding significantly adequate chunks of time during which to read. I hated the thought of trying to read it a few pages at a time, and my 10-minute breaks at work were just enough for me to get so engrossed in the story that I would return from the break feeling anxious and resentful about having had to stop reading.

I will admit that, yes, I cried throughout various points in the story, and at the end of it as well. My tears at the end were a mixture of sadness, happiness, bittersweetness, and the hollow feeling that comes from knowing you've reached the terminus of something you wish would never end. And yet I was almost disappointed at the ending.

Now, of course I cannot give said ending away or offer much commentary on it, at the risk of producing a spoiler for those of you who've not yet finished. But now at least I no longer need to shield myself from the blogs and messageboards and myriad commentary on the book.

I wonder if this is how the O.J. Simpson jury felt after the trial.

Defying the status quo

I graduated from a prestigious all-girls Catholic private school in Buffalo. It's not a "Catholic" school, per se (privately funded, not part of the Diocese), so I'm not a traditional "Catholic School Girl;" no uniforms or daily rosary readings or nuns beating me with rulers, but yes, I went to Nardin Academy.

When I tell people this, I get the same reaction: "YOU went to NARDIN?" I'm never sure if I should be insulted or flattered by this reaction, because I'm never quite sure how to interpret it. Is it that I don't seem smart enough to have gone there? Rich enough to have afforded it? Well-behaved enough to have managed to stay in? Or is it that my lack of success in life belies my superb educational background? Maybe it's because I didn't grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer or a software developer, or any of the other various "good" career paths chosen by my classmates. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up to marry a Canisius boy and pop out a mess of Nardlets whom I cart around in my M-class SUV. I mean, hell, I don't even own my own home, let alone a giant one in East Amherst.

This is not to say that I feel bad about any of the above possible reasons. I never wanted to be a lawyer, and was strong enough to face the truth about myself and a career in medicine two years into a pre-med program. I hate the suburbs, and I never even liked Canisius boys. I always thought they were obnoxious, spoiled, preppy jerks, and coming from the modest background that I did, felt I was - and never would be - snobby enough to fit into their social circles, even if I'd wanted to. Nope, I was happier dating the public school dirtbags and the occasional Timon boy, not to mention catching myself in a load of trouble with a dropout at one point. Yeah, I sold myself short most of the time.

But I digress. I suppose the status quo of the typical Nardin girl is nothing like what I've turned out to be. And I'm okay with that. I just wish people would be a little less obvious about registering such shock when they find out I'm an alumna.

Why I hate my job sometimes

It's 2:00 on a Saturday morning, and I'm wired on the grande skinny cocomoco (yes, I went to Spot - *gasp*!) I guzzled down earlier this evening. Why, in the name of all things holy, did I not order decaf? Because I have declared myself "immune" from the effects of caffeine. A silly and unrealistic declaration, for sure. I'm not immune, and now I'm posting a blog entry fewer than four hours before I need to be at work for an 8-1/2 hour shift. Ugh.

I never really minded working mornings, but lately as my summer winds to a close and my social life makes a final surge before school starts in a month, I'm getting increasingly annoyed with the fact that I have to cut my nights short to go to bed so I can wake up at the crack of ass to go to work on a Saturday. I was having FUN tonight, damn it! And it was all for naught, since all I did was come home, toss and turn, and get up to post a blog entry. I could have stayed out and been in the company of interesting people instead of this.

Alas, this is the nature of the beast. Ironically, the reason I'm working in the morning is because I didn't want to work tomorrow evening in favor of going to see some beloved bands playing out. So I suppose it's, as they say, six of one and half a dozen of the other. And until I figure out a way to be independently wealthy or talk my boss into letting me work short mid-shifts on the weekends, I suppose I'm stuck.

Why am I always alone when this stuff happens?

This afternoon, as I was sitting at the light at Hinman and Delaware, I noticed a woman at the bus stop. There was nothing extraordinary about her, really; she was older, maybe in her 60's, and had kind of funky, longish gray hair. Anyway, as I watched her, she pulled out from her dollar store bag a bottle of talcum powder, the contents of which she proceeded to dump down her pants. She was, I could tell, trying to be somewhat surreptitious about this, tugging slightly at the waistband and holding the powder bottle closely, but there was no denying what she was doing.

As I watched this, I burst out in hysterics. I mean, sure, we all need a little freshening up now and then, right? But something about this scene just seemed so odd to me, and I had to laugh. What sucked, though, was that I had no one with me to share in this oddity. I just think it would have been funnier if someone else had seen it, too. This doesn't surprise me, as I spend a great deal of my free time by myself. That is to say, when I'm not at work or out socializing, I am usually by myself. And even when I go out, I normally arrive and depart solo. This is not a bad thing, but when I see something funny, I do sometimes wish there were someone sitting in the car with me so that they can at least corroborate my story.

And I only see stuff like this when I'm by myself.

A perfect example of this is That Guy Who Walks Down Delaware. I see this guy every day, sometimes several times a day. He wears a red cap, sunglasses, has a white moustache, and carries a black bag, looking ever determined like a man on a mission. Every day, no matter what time of year it is, I see this guy walking. I see him as far down as Forest Lawn and as far north as Kenmore. I've seen him early in the morning, I've seen him late at night. A couple of months ago, I saw him exiting an apartment building in Kenmore. But whenever I ask anyone about him, no one knows who I'm talking about. I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode sometimes, the way people look at me quizzically and make that face like, "oooo-kay..." when I talk about him. And whenever he walks past my work, by the time I'm able to point him out to anyone, he's out of sight. That Guy moves pretty swiftly.

I see him so much that I'd decided a while back that if I ever got close enough, I was going to talk to him, ask him what his deal was, ask him where he's always walking to, maybe try and get a glimpse into that bag. One day I saw him in the laundromat, but I was only there to pick up my cleaning, so I didn't have time to try and sidle up to him and strike up a conversation. I got my chance again a couple weeks ago, and I chickened out. I was shopping for shoes in Target, and because I was shopping for work shoes, I was in the boys' section (I have little feet). As I was trying on some super cute athleisure lace-ups, this figure cast a shadow over me. I looked up, and there was That Guy, shopping for new sneakers in the mens' section. I froze. I got nervous. I mean, here was a guy that I have seen and wondered about every day for the last four years, and he was practically breathing down my neck. I kept thinking I should ask him about his shoes, maybe make a comment about how he must go through a lot of sneakers with all the walking he does. I wanted to snap a photo of him, and send it to a bunch of people, but as fate would have it, my phone was in the car. Curses! In the end, I walked away having not said a peep to him.

Since then, I've continued to see That Guy, but never do I ever have anyone with me when I do. But at least now I know where he got those new sneakers.

Eight is Enough

Meet Pepper, the newest addition to my rattie family! She's a Dumbo (see the ears?) Black Berkshire. I picked her up earlier this week from my friend Amanda in Rochester, and she was well worth the drive!



So this brings me now to eight rats in my colony. I think I'm going to stop for a while, since I think eight rats is all I can reasonably manage.

I went to the fabric store today to buy fabric to make new pads for the cage, and the woman working at the cutting counter asked me what I was making with all this cute, brightly-colored, girly-patterned fleece. I said, "I'm making bedding for my rats' cage," at which she responded, "Rats?! You mean, like, rat rats?" I affirmed this and she said, "Oh, tell me you are not sewing for rats!" I stopped short of saying, "Oh, but I am...and I COOK for them, too!"

What was funnier was the woman standing behind me really liked the pink and purple "Princess" patterned cotton and asked if she could have the bolt when I was done having it cut. She asked me what I was making with it, and I said, "a hammock for my rats." She kind of choked and said, "Oh. I'm making pajamas for my granddaughter." I guess you had to be there, but it was funny at the time.

So yeah, I've got a new baby, and I'm finally gonna bust out the sewing machine and try my hand at making some simple pads and a hammock for the cage. It shouldn't be too difficult, but then you've never seen my sewing. It's on par with my cooking, so these poor rats may end up with some weirdly-shaped stuff. But I'm sure they won't mind. And besides, they seem to like my cooking.

Embarassment and Triumph, Part III (with new toy)!

Aaahhhh....stepping out of the clean shower into a clean bathroom is heavenly! The "before" photo of the bathroom really doesn't do the mess justice - it had actually gotten much worse before it got better, but just try to imagine a few more towels and clothes on the floor, and fixtures in sad need of scrubbing. The after photos don't really show how squeaky clean the tub and sink are, but trust me - they sparkle!

Bathroom before: And after:



AND! I did the music room today, too. I went to the music store today to buy a mute kit for my drumset (so I can practice whenever I damn well please), and while I was there I saw a keyboard on sale that I couldn't resist. So I bought it, and was inspired to clean up the music room so that I can spend hours of clutter-free practice time in there! Now that I can actually access my instruments with ease, I might actually play them as often as I should! Yay!!!

Before:





After!





It's music to my eyes!

I still have the basement and the upstairs work studio to work on, but I think for now I'm just gonna enjoy my living space. In a few days I'm going to try and sort out the various closets and cabinets and make them more user-friendly. Most of them are jumbled messes with the exception of my bedroom closet, which is beautifully organized these days - gotta keep track of all those damn shoes, of course!

Stay tuned, dear blog-watchers! There is much more to come!

Embarassment and Triumph, Part II

The bedroom is done, and I can now sleep easy. There is something to be said for sleeping in a clean room - somehow sleep just seems to come easier when you're unobstructed by clutter.

I call my bedroom "The Princess Lair" because it is, unlike most of the other rooms in the house, very girly. Definitely shabby chic and very feminine, and I like it that way. One time a while ago when my place was clean (because it wasn't always so messy, you know), a friend of mine came over and looked in there and expressed shock at how girly it was. I asked why he was so surprised, and his response was, "I don't know, I figured you'd have it decorated in, like, a Harley motif or something." God, I hope that's not really the image I project!

Well anyway, here's the moment you've been waiting for -- another set of before and after images! Woo-hoo!

Before:



After:
(Yeah, there really was a bed under all that crap)!



I'll be going to bed now.

Small town city

I really don't know what it is, but I have this uncanny knack for running into people I know every time I venture out. Not just people I know from working with the public - I don't count those people, unless they're regular customers with whom I've established a deeper rapport - but people I know on a personal level. It seems like no matter where I go or what I'm doing, I run into at least one person I know. Stores, restaurants (remember the buffet bust?), shows, bars, festivals, or even just driving down the street...there's always someone.

I used to think Chicago was the biggest small town I'd ever lived in, but Buffalo has it beat. Today I was driving back from running errands in Williamsville, and as I was inching along on the expressway in rush-hour traffic, I pulled up next to a familiar-looking car. It was, indeed, a fellow partner from Starbucks. Then I was in Target, and as I rounded the corner of an aisle, I ran into my cousin. Then as I was driving home I heard a beep next to me, and there was my drum teacher and her roommate waving at me.

Note to self: don't commit any felonies. Someone will recognize you.

For the love of rats

I was recently asked by someone how I got into rats. Those of you who know me know all about my obsession, but not many people know how it happened. Having been asked the question a few times now, I thought it prudent to compose a blog entry with the answer. And in formulating said answer, it occurred to me that my love of the critters came about quite accidentally.

I've always been an animal lover. There has never been a time in my life, save for the first four years, that I have been completely petless. For the past several years I'd thought about getting a rat, and often I would stop at the rat cages in various pet stores and watch them. Part of it has to do with their "underdog" status in society, I suppose, but in observing them and talking to people who've owned them, I was intrigued by their sweetness and brightly intelligent nature. So one day in March of 2006, I was in the local pet shop buying dog food, and I asked the girl if they had any rats. They did, but they were kept in the back in the "feeder" tank. I asked if I could look, and she let me back there. There was a white and black hooded rat who looked at me quizzically through the glass, so I asked if I could hold her. They took her out and handed her to me, and she squirmed a bit, but I held her tight, looked into her eyes, and said, "Listen, rat, you're coming home with me, it's a good place, you're going to love it there, and that's final. Understood?" The rat immediately calmed down, almost went limp, and I was in love.

I brought her home, named her Nancy (another story in itself), and couldn't believe how cool she was. A couple months later I got her a cagemate, as I had read that rats quite literally require the companionship of another rat, and just happened to see an ad on craigslist for a female rat that was being given away. The cagemate had a rough start (suffice to say her name "Dash" was given to her due to the fact that she'd escaped in the car on the way home and spent three days living in my dashboard before I was able to coax her out) and she was a bit more of a challenge, as she had been kept alone for quite a while and had had no socialization. Eventually she came around, though, and I fell in love with her, too.

A few months later, I decided a third rat was in order, so this time I went to a breeder, a fellow in the Grant-Amherst area who specializes in exotics. Ivy was the most obnoxious rat I'd ever met; completely misbehaved and resistant to any kind of affection or discipline, and she ended up scurrying into the darkness one night. But still I couldn't stop. I had this huge cage now, and I felt compelled to fill it. I brought Rosie home from Steve's Pets in Williamsville one morning, introduced her to Nancy and Dash, and the three became fast pals.

I still had all this room, so one day this past March I was in the same store where I'd gotten Nancy, and that's where I got Paula. If you look back into the archives, you'll see the post about Paula and her babies - but just to refresh your memory, I brought Paula home not knowing she was pregnant. Three weeks after I brought her home, she had her litter of fifteen babies. I had to keep the babies for at least five weeks before I could adopt them out, so at that point I had 19 rats.

A couple of weeks after the babies were born, Nancy passed away despite the valiant efforts of the vet to save her. I was heartbroken. Nancy was, as we call it in the rattie-loving world, my "heart rat." She was the one who introduced me to the love of rats, to the coolness that rats could be, to the loyalty and affection one could never believe would come from a rodent. Nancy spent hours riding on my shoulder, content to just watch the world from her perch. Everyone who met Nancy fell in love with her. Nancy was, to sum it up, one really cool rat. Shortly after Nancy died, Dash, who'd been ill but until Nancy's death was making a recovery, fell seriously ill again and also passed away. It was very tough losing two rats in a week's time, but bittersweet knowing that Dash just gave up without Nancy.

At 5 weeks, I had to separate the babies by sex. I knew I was keeping a few of the girls, so I decided to invest in the most coveted of all cages known to rodent owners the world over: The Midwest Ferret Nation. This thing is a behemoth of shelves and levels, a powder-coated luxury rodent condominium on wheels that cost me more than a week's pay. I spent the days preceding its arrival trolling thrift shops and dollar stores to outfit it with brightly colored blankets and toys. After it arrived and I put it together, I then spent two days covering it with 1/4" hardware cloth becuase the bars were spaced too far apart and could easily facilitate escape. But when all was said and done, I filled it with my treasures, and the rats were, as only rats can be, thrilled. The best find was the Weebils treehouse that plays music when the rats step on the ferris wheel. It's awesome to be sitting here and suddenly hear the tinkling and beeping of canned circus music coming from the cage. The first time it happened I nearly jumped out of my chair, but I've gotten used to it, and it makes me laugh. Anyway, the thing is a cinch to clean, and it has made my rat ownership that much easier.

After I'd adopted out all the girls I was giving away, I still had two boys. Bob and Nathan were the coolest, but I couldn't let them live in the Ferret Nation with the girls. I shopped around for a vet who could neuter them, but in the end it just proved too costly, so with a heavy heart, I decided to put them up for adoption. As fate would have it, five minutes after I placed the ad I got a response from a girl who had the exact opposite problem as me - she had two girls that shd couldn't put in the large cage with all her boys. So one Friday morning last month, I delivered Bob and Nathan to her house, and came away with Dex and Moushe. It was a worthwhile trade; I've since heard that Bob and Nathan adjusted fantastically and are much-loved by their new owner and cagemates, and my two new girls, despite an initial fracas in which Rosie's right ear was badly damaged, have made friends here.

I have another girl in the wings, a baby from my friend Amanda in Rochester who, ironically, had taken two of my babies from Paula's litter. Right after she adopted my girls, she had an accidental breeding of one of hers. So see, in the rat community, we never really get rid of our rats, we just trade them back and forth. :-)

So that's the story of my rats. I don't see myself ever not having rats now, and it's hard for me to imagine life without them. Yet despite my best efforts to educate the rest of the non-rat world on the joys of rodentia, it's a tough sell. But that's okay, because as long as there are people like me in the world, rats will always have a place on this earth.

Now I suppose I should include some photos with this entry, just so you can see for yourself how adorable these little kids are!

The Ferret Nation!



Nancy (RIP) meets Turkey the kitten:



More Nancy:



Dash (RIP):



Dash and Rosie spooning!



Moushe squishing into the little house:



Liza in the Treehouse:



How many rats can squish into one igloo? I think I counted six:



I should send these to McDonalds, lol!






Now tell me they're gross!

Embarassment and Triumph, Part I

Operation Project Toss Redux is well underway, and holy shit I have a lot of crap! In the past week I've thrown away no fewer than five Hefty bags full of stuff, and that's just from the living room, dining room, and kitchen. I still have a bathroom, a bedroom, a music room, a basement, and a studio space to clear out and organize. But here is the first round of photos, representing three solid days' worth of work.

Keep in mind that this is a "work in progress;" once the cleaning is completed, there is remodeling on the horizon. I like the kitchen the way it is, but the living room and dining room will look much different when all is said and done. I plan on painting over the awful paneling, the horrid orange carpet will be ripped up and replaced with laminate (or the floors underneath will be restored if they are able to be), and I have vertical blinds to install in the living room, replacing the cat-battered miniblinds.

So, without further ado...

Kitchen before:



And after:





Another kitchen view before:



And after:



Living Room before:





And after:





Dining Room before (God, this is SO embarrassing!):





And after:





So there you have it! More photos to come...

The Greatest Thing EVER

So I bought myself a P-touch labeler, and it is the single most awesome thing I have ever owned in my life. As part of Operation Project Toss, it has become the most indispensible tool in organizing my crap.

And to think I made so much fun of my boss for labeling everything at work...she really was on to something!

Kicking ass and taking hints

Why are people such cowardly shits sometimes? I mean, it's like this: if you don't like me, just tell me. I'll get over it. But if you just ignore me and expect that I'll simply fade into the ether, I mean...come on. Let's be grown-ups here, shall we? It's not that I can't take a hint, it's that I refuse to, based on mere principle.

*frantically searches for dog-eared copy of He's Just Not That Into You*

Where is the line? Seriously! If I decide to move on my own terms I'm selfish. If I blow off a date or do not avail myself, I'm chastised. Yet if I show enthusiasm or optimism, I'm branded a stalker.

I give up. I just can't fucking win this one. Short of getting a personality transplant, I'm doomed in this department. And ironically enough, this time I wasn't even looking for anything. It found me, and it still kicked my ass.

To the Curb

Operation Project Toss Redux continues.

My mom is having a garage sale next weekend, and I'm furiously trying to go through all my shit and figure out what I don't need anymore. I'm convinced that if I just clear all the junk from my house, the junk in my head will follow closely behind. It's actually a proven fact that a messy house = a messy mind, and vice versa. Ironically enough, it's also been proven that messy people are pretty damn smart. I'm not kidding; studies have been done correlating IQ with level of messiness. Something about how the smarter you are, the more pies your fingers are likely to be poking around in, the more interests you have, and the more likely you are to collect stuff. It goes with being creative as well - to a creative mind, there is a potential use for just about anything.

This all makes sense to me, but it's a vicious irony, because I have all this crap laying around with the intention to turn it into something someday, and in the meantime I'm hindering my ability to get anything done in the here and now. Ah, Procrastination, my old friend...time to kick your ass to the curb.

Speaking of the curb, why will I never, ever learn my lesson when it comes to letting people into my life who don't belong there? Well, maybe I'll figure it out once I get rid of all this shit piled up all over the house.

.................................................................................................
Oh, and I've lost 16.8 pounds! Squeeeee! If you're interested in reading still more of my ramblings, musings, and grumblings related to this venture, check out my other blog!

Operation Project Toss Redux

In my initial post way back in March of 2005, I mentioned that I am an incurable messie. I've thought about blogging more about it, but it's pretty damn embarrassing, to be honest. Basically, I suffer from CHAOS - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome.

So anyway, here I am trying to find things to do with myself instead of eat. I decided that cleaning the house would be something that might keep me occupied for, oh, about six years, so this morning I set to work. An hour into it, I got a call from the Williamsville store asking me if I could cover a shift this afternoon. Being the hour whore that I am lately, I said yes, dropped my trash bag, and hopped in the shower. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was eat dinner and watch a movie and take a nap. But this place is getting to the point where even I can't stand it. Yeah, it's that bad. So I decided that this summer's project is going to be getting this dump into some semblance of order. I'm calling this "Operation Project Toss Redux." (The original OPT was a few years ago before moving here). I took photos, in fact, but I'm not going to post them until I've finished the job.

This is not a job for the weak at heart, believe me. Despite having pushed myself for the last couple of hours to try and at least make a dent, it seems like such an endless venture, like Sisyphus and that damn boulder. Well, at least I won't be bored. Between the diet and the house project, I'm gonna be getting rid of a lot of junk. I hope.

And hey...I lost 5.4 pounds! Ha!

The Fat Chick Speaks

Weight Loss Counselor: So, Deanna, if you continue in your current habits, where do you see yourself a year from now?

Me: Dead.


Morbid? Yes. Exaggeration? Not so much. As stated before, many moons ago when I gave Weight Watchers my 14th try, this is not a weight loss blog. Chronicling the ebb and flow of the number on the scale and blogging about every morsel that passes my lips is not the point of this venture. But it's worth mentioning that my weight is something I've struggled with my whole life, starting when I was about 10 years old. I put up a humorous, Roseann-esque front about it most of the time (like yesterday when I pointed out the irony of the shirt I was wearing - it had whales on it), but deep inside I've always known it would be my demise if not lassoed and corralled for good.

When I was in my 20's, weight loss came easily. Weight gain came easier. I bounced up and down the scale at astonishing speeds. And then when I turned 30, it was like I could hear the audible grinding halt of my metabolism, damaged by years of yo-yo-ing and a myriad of eating disorders, and I've done little else but pack on weight ever since. I'm not going to crunch numbers here, or reveal how much I actually weigh, but I will say that I am officially 108 pounds heavier than I was six years ago, and the most I've ever weighed in my life. Somewhere in those six years I lost about 40 pounds, and put it back on, then lost 35, and put that back on even faster. And while it's been weighing heavy on my mind (nice pun, ha, I kill me!) these last few months, Bill's death last month was the wake-up call I needed. Bill wasn't even overweight, but it brought to light the fact that if I could lose two acquaintances and nearly lose another - all under 40 - to heart attacks, then it wasn't so far-reaching to think that I, myself, weighing over 100 pounds more than I should - could be on a mortician's slab before long. I'm not "obsessed with death," as has been charged by some; I'm simply faced with my own mortality.

I will confess that I waxed poetic about the futility of life for a while after Bill died, thinking, "wow, what's the point if I eat this donut or not...I could drop dead in the street tomorrow anyway." Yet if I'm going to be found dead on the street, I don't want to weigh so much that they need a fucking piano crane to lift me up into the coroner's wagon. I'd also like to lose some weight so that I have the energy to clean my house before I drop dead and end up with one of my friends or family members saddled with the task.

So. Yeah. I joined Whoopi's ranks today and signed on with L.A. Weight Loss. In the last 20 years or so, I've tried Weight Watchers (several times) and various offshoots like dear old Ida's Ideal Weight Program (several times). I've done the Idiot's Diet, the Grapefruit Diet, the Hollywood Diet (oh, yuck), pills, pills, and more pills, from quack mail-order shit from the back of Cosmo to Metabolife to prescriptions like Meridia and Phentermine. I've consumed enough Slim-Fast to drown an entire small nation in artificial vanilla flavor. I've done protein shakes, South Beach, Beach Body, fasting, and some diet that a customer gave me to try. Some of these plans have worked. Some of them worked well. Others didn't work at all. But nonetheless, the weight always came back, and with a vengeance. I never tried Susan Powter's diet, but I can see now where the "Stop the Insanity!" sentiment comes from.

Anyway, this entry has gone on long enough. You get the point. I'm fat, and I'm trying to not be. But more than anything, I'm just trying not to be dead.

Random thoughts from the bowels of hell

It's like a thousand degrees in my house right now, and I can't sleep...so I'm updating this thing instead.I've been meaning to update for the last week or so, but just haven't gotten around to it. So hey, why not take advantage of not being able to sleep?

This heat is making me think of those Chicago summers when it would be so hot I would strip down to nothing, jump into a cold shower, and then lay in the middle of the living room floor under the ceiling fan. I still marvel at how I survived living in all those third-story walkups with no air conditioning. I can still remember the first summer there, the way my kitchen on Pratt smelled like coffee and cigarettes and pine-sol, mixed with the occasional rotting banana. There was only one small window in the kitchen, and it faced another building. Our back "porch" was little more than a landing, and in the summer our lack of diligence in taking out the trash would manifest itself in yet another lingering smell in the sweltering kitchen. Michael and I would sit around and smoke and read and guzzle gallons of iced coffee and slurpees while the pets would flatten themselves out into furry pancakes on the bathroom floor.

My second summer there, 1995, was the most brutal summer on record. Over 800 people died in one of the worst heat waves in Chicago history. It was so bad that the city had to call in refrigerated trailers to store the bodies, because the morgues were all full. I was managing the Shell station at that point, and I would get up at 4:00 in the morning, walk the dog down to the lake, and the two of us would jump in and swim for half an hour. Then I'd go back up to the sweltering apartment, take a cold shower, and go to my air-conditioned job, where I'd stay for the entire day - not because I had that much work to do, but because it was cooler than my apartment. I hated that job, in fact, but it kept my body temperature down.

Speaking of the apartment on Pratt, the friend who found it for us - Michael's best friend since childhood, Bill - passed away last week. He's the third person under 40 I know who's had a heart attack in the last year, and the second one to have not survived. I had a whole entry on the fragility and futility of life planned out after I learned of his passing, but I just haven't had the energy to write it. Maybe if the temperature drops a bit.

Superpowers

This morning, my friend and I were discussing which super power we'd want to possess (I guess kind of like on Heroes, except I don't watch that show so I don't really know what he was talking about). At first I chose invisibility, but then I decided I'm already pretty good at throwing on the figurative invisibility cloak. What purpose would being literally invisible serve, other than to fulfill a couple of voyeuristic fantasies? Meh. That's why God made webcams and the internet.

Then I thought I might like to fly, but since I don't live in Chicago anymore and the ability to fly over traffic is useless in Buffalo (unless you're headed downtown on Delaware and hit the light at Hertel, at which point it might come in handy), I switched to the ability to time travel. Though our discussion was brief, it stayed with me and got me thinking about what things I would change if I could go back in time.

There's a lot I wouldn't change, despite the fact that it was bad. Why? Because, as Senor Rubio, my friend Gus' late dad, used to say, "No hay malo que no viene para bueno" - There is no bad that does not come for good. I would still make a lot of the same mistakes, date many of the same bad people, and consume some of the bad things I ingested. What I would change, however, would be my opinion of myself.

If I could travel back, say, 20 or 25 years, I would ignore the people in my life who made me feel like shit and made me second-guess myself all the time. I would take better care of myself and be more selfish. I'd learn how to say "No" more often and walk away from things and people that were no good for me. I'd know that when a person no longer wished to be in my company I'd accept it as life and move on. I wouldn't take everything so personally. I'd realize that the definition of insanity is, indeed, doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, and in doing so I could prevent myself from making a lot of the same mistakes. I'd eat fewer twinkies. I'd lose my extra fat cells before puberty, and I'd lose them because I'd love myself enough to want to be rid of them, and not because I was trying to please someone else. I would control my temper better. I wouldn't start smoking. I'd hang out with more nerds and care less what the cool kids thought of me. I'd study more, and not just because I was trying to not be grounded for an entire semester. I'd think more and talk less. I'd look in the mirror and like what I saw, even if the boys on the bus barked at me. I'd save my Pigs in Space lunchbox and sell it for a small fortune on eBay in 25 years. I'd listen when my elders tell me time goes too quickly. I'd enjoy the present, forget the past, and not worry so much about the future.

The only thing, though, is that I guess on Heroes, the dude who time travels continues to age in "real time" so it's different. Even still, now that I've gotten a chance to look at what I would have done 25 years ago, I realize that I still have time to do all that stuff - and then when I'm 60, I won't be writing the same post over again. Because that, by definition, would be insane.

Rats!

They're a good thing. And they've taken over my life. I'm not talking about the garbage-eating, suburb-infesting, gigantic, evil mud-brown ones; I'm talking about my pets. When I got my first one a year ago, I never imagined that I would be taking her to the vet, giving her twice-daily antibiotics, hanging out on rat-owner message boards, and making it my mission in life to educate the entire world on the total coolness of rat ownership. Oh, but I am.

But this post is actually about Paula. A little over three weeks ago, I was in the pet store and I walked by the back room and noticed the feeder tank had a few rats in it. I know myself all too well when it comes to "just looking" at pets, yet I still asked to be allowed back to do just that. I ended up taking home a black berkshire who I named Paula, and soon she was co-habitating peacefully with cagemates Nancy, Dash, and Rosie. Last week I looked at Paula and thought, "wow, she sure is fat!" Then she stood up and I realized that she wasn't fat - she was pregnant! Rats gestate for three weeks, so I wouldn't have known she was pregnant when I first got her, and besides, they really don't start to show significantly until the last few days.

So all of a sudden, I found myself scrambling for information, freaking out like a nervous dad. Through my acquaintances on the rat forum, I got the basics: separate her from the other rats. Build her a nesting/birthing cage. Feed her lots of extra protein and fatty stuff. Watch for the signs of labor and delivery. I went on Friday and got all the necessary supplies - an 18-gallon plastic storage tote, some aluminum screen, duct tape, white paper towels, and some super-soft bedding stuff. By Friday afternoon she was set up in her new digs and was nesting like crazy. All night on Friday I kept checking to see if she was in labor yet, but I couldn't tell. She looked like she was about to burst, and a few times I looked at her and she was actually grimacing. If you've never seen a rat grimace, it's quite a sight to behold, I'll tell you that much.

When I left for work at 6:00 Saturday morning, she was standing up and pressed up against the side of the tote. I didn't see any blood, but she looked really stressed out. And sure enough, when I got home from work a little after noon, she'd had the babies. All FIFTEEN of them. Yes, I said fifteen. One-Five. 15. So now I have 19 rats, and my house has become nothing but rat cages everywhere you look. Nancy and Dash are sick, so they're in quarantine in the big cage. Rosie is very unhappily living on her own in the medium cage. Paula and the babies are in the birthing tank. Eventually the babies' eyes will open and they'll start exploring, at which point I will have to move them all and play musical cages. Depending on how quickly they get adopted out, it's quite possible I may end up with more cages lining the perimeter of my house.

I guess I should be happy I got such a great deal. I mean, hell, I got 16 rats for the price of one. But now I have to find homes for them all.

Oh, and baby rats look like hippos.

The most wonderful time of the year

It's spring! But more importantly, it's Easter time!

Now, I couldn't really care so much about Easter, though it is a pretty important holiday in my religion (I generally shy away from discussing religion, since it's such a personal thing with me, but in a nutshell, I'm a Spiritualist, and Easter is the day that proves everything we believe and hold true about our bro JC); but as most of you know, I possess possibly the most raging sweet tooth on the planet, and with Easter comes...

Creme Eggs.

Oh my god. Creme Eggs, along with Indian buffets and ranch dressing, are grossly responsible for my corpulence. Thankfully they only come along once a year, because if they were available year-round, I might not fit through my doorways. I hate myself for loving them. I hate Cadbury for creating them. I hate Rite Aid for putting them on sale for 39 cents and planting them smack in the front of the store where I can't ignore them as I'm passing through to pick up my prescriptions. I hate that they make my teeth hurt but I still keep sucking them down because they just taste so. fucking. good. And if they weren't already evil enough, now they come in orange flavor, too! Kill me now before I eat myself to death.

In other news, I saw not one, but TWO robins yesterday. Yes, indeed, spring is here. Spring brings new life. Spring brings change. And I swear I'm going to make some changes this year. As soon as the creme eggs disappear from the shelves.

It's official! I'm a BFA candidate!

I PASSED PORTFOLIO REVIEW!!!!!

What this means, for those who may not know:

When you enter the design program at Buffalo State (or any other school, for that matter; most of them operate like this), you are listed as an "uncommitted" design major. Depending on what concentration you decide to pursue, whether it is Communication (in my case), interiors, ceramics, wood, etc, you take your foundations courses first and then go on to the upper level courses in your concentration. Before you can go on to the upper levels, however, at some point you have to submit your portfolio before you are formally accepted into the concentration. In the case of Communication Design, once you've taken Visual Communications I (remember the kiosk fiasco?), the following semester is when you submit for review.

Upon reviewing your portfolio, a jury comprised of faculty and department heads will decide if your work warrants admission into the major. If you pass, you go on your merry way and your status changes from "uncommitted" to "BFA candidate in communication design" If you fail, you get another chance. If you fail the second time, they kick you out of the department altogether and you have to pick a new major.

So I passed, and I'm in. And now I'm just a little less crazy.

But some days do suck, and apparently so do I.

You sleep alone at night
You never wonder why
All this bitterness wells up inside you
You always victimize
So you can criticize yourself
And all those around you

I guess I've realized recently just what a generally unhappy person I am. Outside influences like school, relationship, and work stress aside, internally I'm miserable. I've tried to laugh it off and dismiss it as a "Gemini thing," but quite frankly, it's driving me down.

It's like for every good thing in my life, I can think of three bad things. I'm actually having a kick-ass semester, but I submitted my portfolio for review this week and will find out on Monday whether or not I made it into the BFA program. And truthfully, I'm worried that I didn't pass. I feel like I've worked hard, but maybe not hard enough. Or maybe I've worked really hard, but I'm just not talented enough. Maybe design isn't what I'm meant to do, and this is a devastating revelation.

For every friend I have, I seem to have five enemies. I've seen with my own eyes, in print, the hatred projected upon my person. I'm a "manipulative loonball" and my "chi is unbalanced." I shouldn't let it bother me, for out of all these people only a few have ever even met me in real life - the others are going on mere conjecture and internet representation. However, it is interesting to note that my father is a manipulative loonball, and originally this post was going to be about him.

Anyway, I think the reason that all this crap bothers me is that I am just not happy. I try to surround myself with the things I think will make me happy, but I'm like that person in the middle of a crowd who feels incredibly lonely. I keep looking for solutions to my problems, and keep thinking that "if I only had/did/knew/lived/weighed _____, I'd have it made," while in truth, it's what's within me that's killing me. I don't have/do/know/live/weigh what I want because inside something isn't working correctly to allow me to open up to receive these things.

Not too long ago I came to understand that I can't rely on other people for my happiness, that being alone is what I do best, and that the more I admit I don't know or understand, the more I'm able to learn. It's a nice sentiment, but I can't seem to put it into any real sort of practice. I do rely on other people for my happiness, and when they fall short of my expectations, I get upset and I take it personally. Failing to recognize that all people are not my type and that not all people think the same way I do is my biggest weakness. Caring too much about what people think of me is my second biggest. Knocking myself out trying to prove myself to those who don't like me is my third. A truly happy person does not do this. A truly stable and sane person does not do this. Manipulative loonball Geminis, however, do. And they do it all the time.

I'm caught in a complicated web of shit that just keeps getting more and more tangled and difficult to sort out. Years ago there was a Honda ad campaign where the company encouraged people to "simplify." That's what I want to do. (Simplify, not buy a Honda, haha). I look around at my messy house, my screwed-up relationship, my teeming schedule, my out-of-control habits, my dwindling bank account, my rising bills...and I just want to scream, "GET OUT!" to all of it. Everything is a fucking production, a dramafest, and a hassle. I can't ever get from point A to point B; instead I start at point G, work my way back to E, jump ahead to M, backpedal to D, and then stay up all night working back to A so that I can finally scramble to B in the nick of time. I think this post is a testament to that.

James (the ex from NOLA, for those of you who haven't been following the continuous orbit of Planet Deedums) broke up with me, for the most part, because he found me unstable. The ironic thing is that I feel like I've spent my whole life pursuing stability. Every time I move, start a new relationship, change jobs, join another cause, I think, "this is the one I'm going to stick with. This is the one that's finally going to work. This is the end of the line. This is the one I'm going to settle on." But the real issue is that I just can't be honest with myself. I put myself in destructive situations, involve myself with destructive people, and engage in destructive behaviors; and when I do get into something good, I run away or push it away to the point where it runs from me. Then I get all "poor me" about it. That's pretty messed up.

And just like everything else, this post is leaving a trail of destruction behind it, so I think I've said enough.

Feel free to jump in with some armchair psychology here, folks. It'll be cheaper than that Jungian shrink who didn't do shit anyway.

Not all my days suck!

Ever have one of those days where you just seem really lucky? Like...you have two projects due that day, but you only get one of them done...then you park illegally (and really close to the building) and slip into the room just as the professor is starting to take the attendance. Then there ends up not being enough time in the class period to go over the project you haven't finished. Then you get to your car and there's no ticket.

After class you go to your closing shift at work, and everything is practically finished when you walk in. You're working with awesome people, and you end up getting out 15 minutes after the place closes.

I love days like that. Too bad they don't happen more often.

Some random updates

It just occurred to me that some past posts may warrant updates, so I just thought I'd throw those down while I'm thinking of it.

The Charm Bracelet - I got one for Christmas the same year I posted that entry (2005). It was given to me by two people I've never even met in person, a couple from Oregon I met on a message board. We did an online Secret Santa exchange, and they'd picked up on the charm bracelet thing, and sent me one, along with a little silver starfish charm. It's awesome and I love it. Now I just need to fill it with more charms. My mom gave me a cat charm and a shamrock charm for Christmas, but there's lots more room on it! I was browsing a charm shop online and saw some really cool ones. My birthday is in May, folks. And, not that it matters much, but Valentine's Day is next week. Surely there's a secret admirer who wants to give me one of these, no? ;-)

The Viscom project/Last semester's grades: The travel kiosk was a bomb. And not as in "the bomb," either - it was just a bomb. I ended up with a C+ in the class. BUT...I rocked that Anthro final, landed an A in that class, along with a B+ in each of my other classes. Final tally=3.24 GPA. So I still pretty much rock.

Canine Senility: Alex is getting worse. She has to be confined when I'm not home and now when I'm asleep, too. She won't eat the food in her bowl but is happy to tip the food bin over and spill it all over the floor, and she's even happier to empty my pantry of as much of its contents as possible. Last night she got into a box of spaghetti, a container of salt, a bottle of olive oil, and a box of cereal. THAT was fun to clean up off the floor. Not.

And I'm still not in love. Or maybe I'm just in denial.

What is my deal, anyway?

It must be a Gemini thing; you know, that whole "twins" issue. I used to say of myself "Behold the living dichotomy!" but lately I've been noticing that my life has gone beyond dichotomy and has moved into just plain chaos.

I wish I could be one of those people who is just one thing, who has set parameters and static opinions. But I'm not, and I suppose that's what makes me who I am, right? My whole life I've never been able to stick to one "image." One day I'm a hippie, the next day I'm a biker chick. Tuesday I'm a librarian and by Wednesday I'm just a scuzzy old slacker. I sometimes feel like I don't wear outfits, but rather "costumes" to reflect what kind of mood I'm in that day. This might not be so bad, but I'm 35 years old, and I sometimes dress like I'm 14. I think it has some deep-seated roots in my parents' constant squelching of my self-expression during my most formative years. Sometimes I think it has to do with my hugely diverse musical tastes. I've never been one of those people whose CD collection contains only one genre. Spend a few minutes shuffling through the playlist on my iPod and you'll hear Joni Mitchell, Henry Rollins, Tracy Chapman, Alice Donut, Ice Cube, Cake, Kool and the Gang, Laibach...you get the picture.

At nearly 36, I'm still struggling to figure out who I am. While most people my age are married (or divorced) with kids, stable jobs, established careers, and homes of their own, I'm floundering about in a sea of self-doubt and second-guesses. I often think about how different things might have been if I'd made different decisions along the way. Like, what if I'd not moved back to Buffalo? What if I'd stayed in Chicago and toughed it out? What if I'd moved to a different city? What if I'd chosen a different career path? What if I'd stood up for myself and pushed harder to explore my interest in advertising when I was in high schoo,l instead of meekly accepting that I would be what my parents wanted me to be (and then failing)?

What if I'd not done the things that led to the failure of one relationship after another (because yes, I do blame myself for many of them)? What if I'd given so-and-so a chance? What if so-and-so had given me a chance? Would I be married? Would I have kids? I've decided that, indeed, marriage and children are not my thing. But did this come about because I never got the opportunity to have them, or did I not open myself to the opportunity because I knew in my heart of hearts they weren't what I wanted?

There are so many questions and so few answers for this shit. I didn't mean for this post to become so philosophical and depressing; in fact it was supposed to be about how weird I am. Well, I guess I just reinforced that, didn't I? I promise my next post will make you laugh.

Wow, the first post of 2007!

I can't believe it's already February. It seems like just yesterday I was posting that "first post of 2006" about LePew. It's been a year!

It really is true what our parents told us all those years when we were little and so impatient for the time to pass; the older you get, the faster it flies.

(Speaking of time flying, I'd like to send out wishes for a very happy 6th wedding anniversary to my dear friends Gus and Lynne)!

Anyway, dear blogwatchers, the new semester is well underway now, and though I don't want to jinx myself, I must say it's going pretty well. My portfolio review is coming up, though, so hopefully that trend will continue. I haven't quite begun to stress out about the review yet - but talk to me in a couple weeks and I'm sure my tune will have changed!

So what's in store for the new year? Lots of stuff, I promise! I've made some resolutions, some anti-resolutions, and some changes. Expect to see some sorting of it all right here on the hallowed pages of As Planet Deedums Turns. I'm sure you can't wait.

When Bad Habits Attack!

So after all the craziness of last week, I took a trip over to the doctor to see why I haven't been feeling any better despite the antibiotics I was prescribed earlier.

Well, turns out I have asthma. Heh. Looks like all that bodily abuse of the last twenty or so years is finally catching up with me. While smoking hasn't been an issue for a while (but was for more than half my life), and my drinking was brought way under control once school started (I have a tendency to drink a lot in the summer and hardly drink at all during the fall and winter months) it's mainly my weight that's plaguing me now. Looks like that's the source of all my troubles. First the bad back (which wasn't caused by the weight but is certainly exacerbated by it), then the migraines, now asthma...what's next, diabetes and a handicapped parking permit? Well, sure. Why not? Throw me a cane while you're at it.

*sigh*

I guess I'm going back to Weight Watchers. Happy Holidays, indeed.

Being fat sucks. Being fat with asthma sucks even worse. Hindsight sucks the most balls ever. Take better care of yourselves, gentle readers. I wish I had.

More on this later. My steroids are calling me.

Another semester under my belt!

As of 7:30 this evening, my semester officially came to an end. Looks like it was another relatively good one grade-wise, though I won't know for sure until grades are posted next week. I hate that they make you wait so long to find out! Talk about nerve-wracking!

I was going to post this morning, after an extended cram session that involved a shit-ton of work, reading, and stressing out and not so much sleep, showers, or nutritious food. Alas, as I sat down to write it all out, my body decided to scream a hearty "fuck you!" at me, and I crashed. Hard.

See, I was working on this project for my Visual Communications (or VisCom as it is more commonly known by those of us who just can't bear to expend the energy for eight whole syllables on a class name), and it hadn't been going very well. It was a 4-paneled advertising kiosk for a travel agency, with graphics on all eight surfaces. For the last couple weeks I struggled with design and construction problems, mostly born of motivation issues stemming from a raging case of Decemberitis and exacerbated by an otherwise hectic schedule. Then two days ago I discovered that my flash drive was missing. It must have fallen off somewhere, and though I spent the entire evening retracing my steps, I turned up nothing.

So yesterday morning I found myself no closer to being done with the thing than I was two weeks ago, and so I took a deep breath, thanked God that I'd had the wherewithal to back up all my files on disc last week (how's that for irony?), and got to work. The timeline went something like this:

6:30 - I drag myself out of bed for my second final of the semester, my Color Theory critique, which goes from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m.

Between 10 a.m. and noon, I run around gathering supplies I was going to need for the project. Then I run a few necessary errands, and by noon I'm on my way back to campus.

Noonish - 1:00 p.m. Fart around, check email, talk to some people, extract the files and organize my thoughts. Freak out a little but remind myself that I've got all the rest of the day to finish this thing.

1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. one panel has the graphics and text finished and laid out, three of the four inside panels are printed.

3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. I take a break to run a few more errands, come home to walk the dog, make a phone call, and stop and get some dinner.

5:30 p.m. I realize I've got exactly 24 hours and 10 minutes to get this thing finished.

4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Graphics for second panel (a photoshop collage extravaganza) are done and laid out. Still needs text, though.

7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. I screw around a little, get up and stretch and walk around for a minute, then one of my classmates comes in and I end up chatting with her for a while before deciding to take another break. I go and get some coffee, stop home to check on the pets and change my shirt (I'd been wearing this huge sweater and that studio gets hot).

9:00 p.m. - 4:30 a.m. Finally finished with the layouts and printing of all eight sides, the piece is ready to for the construction phase. I decide to do this part at home, because at this point I'm really sick of the inside of Upton Hall room 203. I've had enough. I have bags under my eyes, my vision is blurring, my left eyelid is twitching, my back is stiff, and my right hand is permanently formed into the shape of a mouse.

4:45 a.m. Stop at Tim Horton's for coffee, and for the second time in two weeks, I pull up to the drive-thru only to be shot down. Who knew they closed every night from 4:30 to 5:00? Damn it!

5:00 a.m. - 6:30 a.m. Prints are mounted onto board. Boards are cut and slotted and fit together. Turkey the cat keeps jumping on me, the piece keeps falling apart, and I'm getting increasingly agitated. Finally, at 6:30 a.m. - 17 hours after I started, and 24 hours since I'd last slept - the thing is finished. I'm so damn proud of it, I take it to Starbucks with me when I go to get coffee. My coworkers are slightly baffled as to why I do this, but I wanted someone - anyone - to see the fruit of my labor. Unshowered since Tuesday, skin a sallow shade of gray mixed with the flush of sleep deprivation, looking like I'd been socked in the eyes, rocking indigestion from gallons of coffee and some horrid fried chicken strips, and on my 25th hour with no sleep, I am a picture of creative psychosis.

6:30 a.m. - 7:30 a.m. I still have two books to finish reading for my Anthro exam, which is happening in six hours. I'm confident I can do it, since they're short books with interesting subject matter. Plus I'd been to all the lectures and figure I can just skim over the contents and pick out the stuff I think he's going to test us on. At 7:30, however, my body just gives out, and I literally drop the book I'm reading onto the floor and walk, zombie-like, into my bedroom where I curl up on the bed, clothes and all.

11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. I wake up in a panic, thinking I'd overslept. I look at the clock and realize I still have two whole hours before exam time, so I read for another half hour and then go back to sleep for another 45 minutes. Then I get up and - for the first time in two days - take a shower. Not since the shower I took after hitchhiking for 12 hours in 90-degree weather from Mansfield, MA to Rindge, NH in 1989 has a shower felt so good.

A short time later, I sit down to my Anthro test, and I know all but a few answers. I hope I am right and not just delusional as a result of the previous day's activities. But I'm done in 15 minutes, and walk out feeling pretty confident that I'd done okay. Shortly thereafter I meet with a professor who has agreed to look over my portfolio and advise on some things I can do with it over break in preparation for my review in February. He has lots of advice. I'm going to be busy. Anyone got a copy of Illustrator for PC they can give me?

And then...the answer to the burning question that has you all on the edge of your seats right now: How did I do on the kiosk project? Well...my classmates seemed to like it, but the prof panned it. Not totally, I mean, he didn't tell me it was the biggest hunk of crap he'd ever seen or anything like that, but he had lots of "suggestions for improvement." Basically I'm going to have to do it over again before my review.

But for now, I'm just going to get some sleep. I deserve it.

I'm not in love, so don't forget it...

Don't read too much of anything into this, dear faithful blogwatchers, it's just some weird philosophical musings while I procrastinate working on my final projects for school.

I was given the advice on one of my previous entries to "stop looking for love." And then I started thinking...Maybe I don't want love. Or maybe I do. And then I starting thinking that it would depend on one's definition of love.

Why does "love" have to be such a black-and-white thing? Why can't you love someone even if you don't want to run off and marry them or have their babies? Why does saying "I love you" strike so much fear in the hearts of so many? It's like saying it automatically evokes a sense of entitlement and attachment and commitment and forever-ness. But it shouldn't.

While some of us use the word with reckless abandon, and throw it prematurely, apathetically, or even with some twisted cruelty at people we don't really mean it for, some of us are so afraid of it that we doubt we could feel it at all. Or we start to feel it and we run away and shove it deep down inside because "oh my god, it's scary!" It's not supposed to be scary, though, it's supposed to be wonderful! Fluttering hearts and bluebirds and sunshine and rainbows and all that puke-inducing stuff. Right?

Right?

So why, when we feel so strongly about someone, when our hearts race and the bluebirds orbit our heads, are we not supposed to say we feel this way unless we are fully prepared to commit to this person? What IS it about those "three little words" that holds SO much power and control over us?

Three (and a half!) decades on this planet have shown me that "love" does not always equal happily ever after. It does not always equal a serious or lifetime commitment. If it did, I'd have been married a long time ago. So those I have loved in the past (and to this day still believe truly did love) are to be discounted because I didn't end up with them for the rest of my life? And am I to believe that they did not also love me, because our futures didn't align? And what about those who don't want to be married? Ever? Are they not allowed to love or be loved?

I love lots of people. I'm not just talking about my family (because let's face it, if you know me you know there are more people in that group who are not loved than who are). I have great friends whom I love most dearly. I love my pets to death. I love peppermint gum and little greasy pepperoni. And it's okay for me to say "I love you" to my sister, my best friend, or the slice of pizza I'm about to shove down my throat.

But if you're dating someone and those three words slip from either of your mouths at the inappropriate time or place, it's like the god damned world screeches to a halt and all hell breaks loose.

I guess we'll never know. Because I don't think anyone really knows what love is - or at least there aren't that many people willing to look at it a little more objectively, anyway.

Okay, back to my schoolwork. I love you all. :-)

It's a breakthrough! The DVD is hooked up! And this post is REALLY long!

Long overdue post, I know. I've been busy, plus I guess I just haven't been feeling very inspired. However, today is a joyous day for me, and I must rave...I finally hooked up my god damned DVD player. And I feel like a total idiot because it has taken me nearly TWO YEARS to get around to it.

Yes, two years. Now, you all know my penchant for making a short story very long, so settle in - here's the whole sordid story of my DVD player's journey from twinkle in Deedee's eye to actual, functioning member of Deedee's Audio-Visual setup:

*cues cheesy background music*

Back in September of 2004, I had just started working for a company in an area where the most convenient place to get lunch, unfortunately, was McDonald's. McD's had just come out with the Chicken Selects, you know those really outrageously delicious and overpriced "real" chicken strips, and at the very same time had just fired up the year's "Monopoly" game. So I became hooked on the Chicken Selects (and the occasional Quarter Pounder) and started collecting the Monopoly stamps. The promo that year was a tie-in with Best Buy, wherein no matter what, you earned at least one "Best Buy Buck" or something (I can't remember what they were really called, I think because all that processed food has shorted out parts of my brain). I never won anything on the other stamps, of course, because that's how they rope you in. Everyone gets all nuts because everyone - everyone is just "one stamp away" from a million dollars. But I digress.

I continued to collect the Best Buy stamps and filled up a whole card with them, totalling 20-some-odd dollars. I think I also racked up about 20 pounds during my little stamp-and-chicken frenzy, but that's a separate story altogether. I kept the card in my car with the intention of using it the next time I had occasion to be in Best Buy, which I figured would be soon, since Christmas was right around the corner. My boyfriend at the time had asked for CD-R's for his recording projects and I had my eye on a couple of CD's to which I thought I might like to treat myself, and so I figured I would just hang on to the thing until I got a chance to get over there - or was forced to redeem it before it expired.

I did redeem it on the expiration date - December 11, 2004. It's pretty sad why I actually remember that date, but I had found out the day before that the above-mentioned boyfriend had another girlfriend and had pretty much broken up with me - he just hadn't gotten around to telling me yet - so it was a pretty memorable date. Anyway, after a night of tossing and turning and being really upset, I woke up the next day and said, "Fuck him. I'm buying a DVD player!" and off I trotted to Best Buy to redeem my little stamp booklet, a small paper testament to 6 weeks of eating pounds and pounds of deep-fried, breaded chicken strips and french fries, drinking buckets of Hi-C orange drink, and soothing my new-job stress with M&M McFlurries (God, Judith Moore and Wendy McClure would be so proud of me right now, I think).

So with my red eyes, sore nose, and pounding head (I cried a fair bit over this asshole), I walked in and began to wander around, looking for a good deal on a DVD player. I found one, too - it was on sale AND came with a rebate, and so I bought it. Now, if you know me, you know how proud I get when I score a great deal. So when all was said and done, I think I ended up paying twelve dollars for the thing. Serious bargain. My elation, however, would be short-lived.

Shortly after the killer aqcuisition, I plunged into a pretty deep depression. First the DVD player sat in the back seat of my car for a good couple of weeks. I only took it out when I did because I had to clean out my car for the trip to my sister's house for Christmas. After Christmas, I got worse. The DVD player sat, unopened, on the floor of my living room for quite some time after that. My mood darkened, and I got increasingly sadder and sadder until my house grew an incredible mess around me, and I just didn't care. The poor DVD player was buried under newspapers, junk mail, clothes, and whatever else I'd thrown on it, until only a tiny corner of the box could be seen through the mess. I finally, sometime that spring (we're into 2005 now, dear readers), picked the box up off the floor and set it on a shelf, where it stayed for about a year.

In April of this year (yeah, that's right, I'm talking about 2006), I finally got the house cleaned up and took the DVD player out of the box and put it in the entertainment center. But it wasn't until today, October 8, that I would actually hook the fucking thing up and use it. What was holding me back? Laziness, mostly. Laziness and fear. I was too lazy to pull the TV and everything out, afraid that I wouldn't be able to figure it out, afraid that I wouldn't do it right and would screw it up, scared that I'd be too lazy to put everything back together and set the impetus in motion for another catastrophic mess (because this is usually how they start). I'm saying this, by the way, based on the fiasco that has been my VCR every time I move. It's all based in truth, folks, not just my neurosis.

So in a brazen move, I decided today that the DVD that came with my new Beck CD simply HAD to be watched. I pulled out the package of cables and owner's manual, and I set to work. In a matter of 10 minutes, I was hooked up and ready to go, and the DVD was spinning smoothly in its tray, projecting images of Mr. Hansen all over my TV screen, and I was one happy girl.

The reception on my TV is now worse than ever, though, which kind of sucks...but then again, there are only two shows I like to watch, and now I can always get the entire season when it comes out... on DVD!

Busted at the buffet!

As anyone who knows me is well aware, I don't cook. It's just something I was never really good at - or interested in - doing. Oh sure, I can boil pasta with the best of them, and I'm a self-proclaimed mac-n-cheese gourmet, but mostly I eat out. Not the best thing for a broke person with a weight problem, but whatever. I'm lazy.

So one day last week I got hungry around dinnertime, and I started thinking of what I wanted to eat. I was sick of pizza and Mighty Taco, and not at all in the mood for fast food, in fact. I decided just to get in my car and drive around until something struck my fancy. As I drove, I passed two grocery stores and thought about just breaking down and buying some actual groceries to cook myself something cheap and nutritious. That thought passed quickly, however, and I kept driving. I thought about going for Indian food, but again - not in the mood. I was hungry, and my stomach was screaming at me to feed it like Audrey II to Seymour Krelborn. But I just couldn't figure out what I wanted. All sorts of stuff sounded alternately good and awful, and then finally it came to me. The answer to my dilemma - the buffet.

Now, buffets depress me. Even the really swank casino buffets bum me out. Something about all that food and all those people shoveling it into their fat faces (myself included) just really makes me cringe at the level of gluttony. I also have this really weird hangup about eating in front of people (which is why I eat out alone most of the time), and an almost paralyzing fear of tripping and dropping my plate. Alas I went, by myself, and as I usually do, I started with a salad. No sooner had I speared the first leaf of romaine with my fork and brought it up to my gaping maw when I heard a familiar voice, "Hey, what's this lady doing here all by herself at the buffet?"

Good God. It was my coworker. I should have known, given the fact that I have this uncanny knack for running into people I know no matter where I go, that the odds were with me that I would see someone I knew. I'd actually had a fleeting thought to turn around on my way there, because something in my gut told me this would happen, but my hunger pangs were stronger, so I forged ahead. And look what happened. I was mortified.

So as I sat there stuffing my face, I tried to think of all sorts of clever ways to hide what was on my plate, or create diversions so that this coworker and her family would not see how many trips I made (I think it was three...four if you count the cup of horrid coffee). Mostly I prayed that she wouldn't go to work that night and announce to everyone that she'd seen me there. Because they wouldn't understand.

Note to self: next time, just go to the fucking grocery store.

Not-quite midlife crisis...in ink.

Behold my homage to the great Henry Rollins, plastered (painfully, I might add) on my back:



(Here's the original, on the man himself):


Lots of people have asked, "why?" I can't say I blame them. I mean, who gets tattoos of band logos on their backs, not to mention the logo of a hardcore band typically displayed with "Search and Destroy" above it? Certainly not 35-year-old women! Well, call it another phase in my not-quite-midlife crisis, but it definitely was not a whim. Like all my other tattoos, it was a well-thought-out decision and was years in the making before finally happening. And, for the record, my first one was the Urban Blight logo on my shoulder...so band logos are not anything new to this bod.

I've tried to explain it every which way I can. Rollins Band is my favorite. Henry Rollins is my hero. The album which sports the logo on its cover, The End of Silence, is one of my favorite RB albums (Come in and Burn is my favorite and means even more to me, but the razor skull x-ray just wasn't as appealing...) and is deeply significant to me. The details of the significance are personal, private, and profound. But you know what? At the end of the day, I needn't have to explain it to anyone.

As Henry himself said, "It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself."

So there. Search and destroy, indeed.

Death of a Memory

This past Wednesday morning I was reading through the paper, and I stopped to read the obituaries, as I normally do. Call it a morbid obsession, but I read them every day as part of my daily paper-reading. Anyway, I spotted the name of a childhood pal and thought, "no, that can't be the same guy." Sure enough, it was. It didn't say how he died, only that he'd passed away in the hospital on Tuesday.

Donnie was 25 days older than me, and we were in every class together from kindergarten on up through 6th grade. We grew up together, lived just a couple blocks from each other, and were constant buddies. Kids will be kids, of course, and we were teased for being friends (nyah, nyah, ... sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S....blah blah blah), but of all the friendships that came and went throughout the school years, ours was one of the few that endured and remained constant. We did hook up on and off during junior high, but it was more a matter of convenience than actual attraction. We were just really good friends.

So high school came around, and I went off to my hoity-toity private school, and then I moved to a different town, and I lost track of most of my old friends. I tried looking Donnie up a few times after I moved back here three years ago, but never really got around to calling him. It was more a "hey I wonder what ever became of him" sort of thing than a real desire to rekindle the friendship.

The wake was yesterday. I went. The waxy, pasty embalming process notwithstanding, he looked exactly as I'd remembered him from 20 years ago, only with shorter hair and a fuller beard. I stopped at the casket, said "Hey Donnie" and signed the guestbook before mustering the courage to go talk to his brother. Apparently Donnie had had quite a drinking problem and basically died of cirrhosis. At 35 years old, his liver just couldn't take it anymore and shut down. Fucked up.

The weird part was how I was like, "oh wow, that's sad and it sucks" but in a sort of "disconnect" mode while I was at the funeral home...and then halfway home I just burst into tears over it. As I shed my tears, I realized I wasn't necessarily crying for him, per se, because it's not like my life is affected directly by his absence in it. It was like it suddenly hit me that this kid I grew up with, was good friends with, played with, fought with, laughed with, partied with, and I'm sure talked about our futures during all of this...it's all gone for him. And he was just so goddamned young. I keep moaning and groaning about how I'm "so old" but man, it's not time to die yet.

Rest in Peace, Donnie Roehling: 1971-2006. Don't give Miss Sinnot too much trouble up there, okay?

Please read the archives!

The archives are full of cool stuff that I really wish people would read. As I approach the one-year anniversary of Planet Deedums on Blogspot, I've concluded that last year's stuff was way more entertaining and engaging than my most recent whiny-diary entries. If you've been here all along, you've likely seen it, too.

So please, indulge yourself in some classic musings of yore. You'll be glad you did!

Too bad I don't get free earplugs anymore

It's occurred to me recently that I've become a little self-absorbed in my posts, mainly obsessed with the dating thing. (Yeah, I know, I hear you all going "a little?!" Quiet now, the lot of you). It's like this quest for a decent, smart, childless, nice guy has become this all-consuming thing; it's less about the actual guy and more about the pursuit at this point. While amusing and entertaining, it's also exhausting and frustrating. Therefore I shall put it aside for a while.

You're welcome.

Anyway, I've got a new obsession coming up right around the corner - I start my drum lessons on Thursday! I am told I should wear earplugs when I play, which I'm kind of thinking is a little like telling a blind person to put on sunglasses. But yeah, I wish I'd done this back when I was working for the safety place and could get earplugs for mad cheap - at least then I could give them away to my neighbors.

Time to vent the spleen!

Ever put your foot so far into your mouth you’re not sure if you’ll ever get the taste of shoe leather out? Well, yeah. That’s what I did recently. But that’s not what this entry is about, since I’m more or less hoping it’ll blow itself over and life can proceed as normal. Until I open my big mouth again, that is. So much for resolving to stop giving a shit what people think of me.

No, kids, what today’s entry is about is…food. Yeah, food. And men. But not just any old food, not just any old men. I’m talking about my love affair with Thai and Indian food, specifically, and the fact that I’ve discovered that the single male population of this area has an outright aversion to Eastern cuisine. Thai and Indian are my favorite foods ever, and obviously I don't really get to eat that stuff unless I go out. So when someone asks me out to dinner, I immediately suggest Thai and their reaction (at least the last three guys I've gone out with) has been "Ew, NO WAY." It's really disheartening. My third choice is Middle Eastern, which gets shot down just as quickly.

So that's why I get stuck eating *yawn* Italian. Or, *snore* "American" food. Don't get me wrong, that stuff is good, too, (and hell, let's face it, if I don't have to cook it or pay for it, I'll eat it), but shit, where is people's sense of adventure? Maybe it's because I grew up in a totally white-bread, Anglo family with a mom who cooked straight out of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (you know the one, with the red and white checkered cover, uh-huh, yep, that one), but I've found that people who've done so can go either way: either they crave more variety and interesting things (like I do) or they stay stuck in their meat-n-potatoes rut (like the guys I seem to be hooking up with lately). I’m finding a lot of compromises being made at my expense lately, and frankly, it’s really beginning to piss me off.

Now, my faithful blog-watchers, you all know that I'm a strong-willed, fiercely independent, opinionated, feisty, stubborn woman. I might not be the prettiest flower in the garden, I'll never be on the cover of Cosmo, but I'm sharp and I'm fun. But you know, deep down inside is a girl who just wants some company, someone to talk to and hang out with and go places and do stuff with, someone besides my friends (though I love them all), and someone who's not just a (sensitive readers, pleas avert your eyes) “buddy with benefits” (yeah, I totally edited that). I want the total package - intellectual, emotional, and physical stimulation and fulfillment. Someone who can be a companion and help share the things in life that bring both of us joy. However, I'm finding that the things that bring me joy (music, art, history, architecture, books, coffee, wine...) don't bring single men my age the same kind of joy they bring me - and in recent cases are actual sources of repulsion for some. This guy I went out with last night - a metalsmith/jewelry designer, no less - told me he's never been to the Albright-Knox because "Honestly, there's nothing there that I can't see in a book." Oh. my. god. And he calls himself an artist. Wow. That'd be like saying you don't want to go see your favorite band play live because you can just sit home and listen to the record.

I’m no art snob myself, but there is something honestly breathtaking about standing in front of an original piece of work. What immediately comes to mind is Pollock’s Convergence. No image in a book can ever command the kind of feeling you get standing in front of the original – the thing is a beast! It’s like 13 feet wide and 9 feet tall. There is an energy, an excitement, a certain emotional response that is evoked from stepping up and looking at an original Van Gogh, a Mondrian, A Lichtenstein...or how about Chuck Close's Janet, the nuances and details of the hundreds of tiny circles that make up her face, her hair, her earrings, her glasses, and knowing that the guy painted this from a wheelchair with a fucking brace to hold the brush to his hand...you just can’t get that from a book, I’m sorry. You just cannot.

Anyway, my last relationship having been long-distance, I'm used to being alone, used to going out alone or with friends to do stuff, not really used to combining the two things. So when I finally got over jerkface and decided to put myself out there again, I realized how much I don't know about the opposite sex, about the game and how to play it. I'm learning quickly that "Sex and the City" isn't so fictitious. I just can’t decide if I’m a Carrie or a Samantha.

I suppose it would be whichever one really likes Thai food.

First entry of 2006: Warning, it's a downer.

Fear not, faithful blog-watchers, I am back. A lot can happen in two months, and while I will attempt to pace myself and break the "catch-ups" into several shorter entries, there's a lot to cram in here.

So anyway, you may want to sit back and get comfortable for this one - it promises to be quite lengthy. And as promised in this post's title, this is not going to be my typical wry witty stuff - so if depressing stuff isn't your thing, you might want to skip this one and wait for the next entry, which I promise will not be so bumming.

*takes deep breath*

Okay. As most of you know, my beloved kitty, Lepew, passed away three days before Thanksgiving. It's been a rough adjustment for me, and while I've been longing to write out my feelings about losing her, I really just hadn't had the strength until now.

As we approach what would have been her 19th birthday (February 28th - we'll never know the exact date, but that's the one I'd made up based on the vet's estimation of her age when I got her), it's starting to only now really sink in that she's gone. If you knew Lepew, you knew how she had this awesome resilient, enduring, almost magical, other-worldly quality to her - like she was going to live forever. Starting with the circumstances under which she came into my life (thrown out of a car as a malnourished and abused kitten,left for dead in a ditch outside my house, and narrowly escaping life in a shelter by a completely shocking display of sympathy by my father), she was a weird but miraculous creature (not to mention the cutest one ever). She would disappear and reappear seemingly out of nowhere, like she could walk through walls. She was strictly an indoor cat, but would escape and put me through hell trying to find her, only to turn up right behind me, looking at me as if to say, "what are you freaking out about? I've been here the whole time!" If she weren't so damn cute it would have been creepy.

One time in Chicago I spent an entire day canvassing the neighborhood with flyers and kitty treats after discovering my back door wide open and Lepew nowhere in the apartment, only to come home to a message from my upstairs neighbor telling me that he'd found her in the hallway outside his door. Mind you, this was the inside hallway, the door to which I could not recall opening at all that day. Another time when we lived in New Hampshire she got out and we found her stuck in the wall in the boiler room of our house. Just shortly before she passed away, I woke up in the middle of the night to the dog whining to go out. When I opened the door and stepped outside, I looked across the street and saw Lepew, scampering across the street like she owned it. She apparently had gotten out earlier that evening, undetected.

No matter what, when she was lost or sick or even when her age started catching up and she began developing problems with her thyroid and her kidneys, she always came through with flying colors. So when she got sick so suddenly that Sunday night in November, I just couldn't process the finality of it. It never really sunk in that it could be the end. Even as I watched her struggle to walk, as I watched the "third eye" creep over her beautiful yellow-green eyes, as I wiped the drool and snot off her face and begged her to be okay, I just couldn't believe it. I just kept thinking it was going to be okay, she was going to get better. I was going to wake up the next day and she'd be yowling for food, climbing on my head, drinking from the toilet again. Even when she wasn't fine the next day, even when I called the vet and made the appointment for the following day to put her down, even as I prepared myself by shutting all the doors in the house so that if she needed to die at home she wouldn't crawl off and hide to do it, I just kept thinking it wasn't going to happen. I was going to come home from work that night, and everything would be fine. Alas, it was not to be.

She died while I was at work, something I felt so terrible about, because I'd wanted to be with her in her last moments - the only consolation I was deriving from deciding to put her to sleep was that it would allow me to do so, in fact. She just couldn't hold out, though, and died in front of the fireplace in the living room. She was not alone, I kept telling myself. She was in the company of Alex, her canine companion of more than 13 years. I'm sure that her old canine companion, Digger, and her Cousin Tootsie came to get her and showed her the way over the "Rainbow Bridge," (that special place, for those of you who may not be familiar, where our pets go when they leave us).

Even still, nearly three months later, I expect to see her sitting on the toilet seat when I open the shower curtain. I reach up to pet her when I'm lying on the sofa. I still, in my half-awake state every morning, instinctively try to be careful to not trip over her as I make my way to the kitchen, where it still invokes a sense of slight discombobulation when I don't see her bowls on the floor or her food on top of the refrigerator. I still call out for her sometimes, like I'm expecting that she'll just come walking through the wall when she's good and ready to come out . . .

And you know, maybe that's because she really is still here -- I just can't see her. She really was a weird little cat. :-)

The Final Countdown...

Great. Now I have that stupid Europe song in my head.

Anyway, I know I promised another entry way back there at midterm, and now look, it's finals week and still no new entry! Sorry about that, but I promise you there's one coming soon; I have lots to say, just no time to say it all!

They say time flies when you're having fun, so I must have been having a ball this semester, because it feels like it's over before it even started! Seriously - where did the last three months go? Just one of the many topics I'll be exploring during the next month when I have time to actually think about this kind of shit!

Watch this space...actual, substantial entry coming soon, I swear!