things that make me kind of crazy

when the catering manager at the place we may or may not be interested for our possible beach wedding, tells my fiance that we are a little late in planning for a 2006 fall wedding. a little late!
more than a year in advance is a little late!

it struck fear into my soul

I was googling a topic for a friend, something along the lines of "How do you tell a guy you are just not interested? but still be nice and not crush his gentle soul." Because as you know we are girls and we were raised and socially adjusted or perhaps genetically wired to always be "nice". * Seeing as how it is a digital world and really, I don't know anything I haven't learned from google, or wikepedia (via Quinn), I offered her my internet searching skills. Surely someone has had an experience with that type of puppy dog boy or girl. The kind that is not taking your oh so subtle hints. They call you every night of the week and you never initiate and call them. You tell them you are too tired, busy, or generally overextended to do anything. It just does not seem to be sinking in. Jeez, you think, do I need to bang you over the head with it? Even my friends don't call me this much. So you google it.
first I google this
tell him you are not interested
because I am way to lazy to use boolean search tools the first time around. Especially when sometimes the I'm feeling Lucky button is all you need on a friday afternoon. The first site I click on in order to see what that came up with and how I really need to refine my search is this one

I really did not read very far when my suspicions were aroused that this was not the stand up and tell the man what you really think type site I was in search of. Seriously, I am surprised I did not throw up all over my lovely laptop.

I promise I will use the boolean search methods...just anything to avoid this tripe. A site devoted to returning to relationships where "the man wears the pants"
ew.
what is that supposed to mean?
sorry, but I was not raised to remain pretty and vapid.

one day all my friends will have blogs

and then instead of calling them to catch up on everything in their lives, I will call them to hash out specific details, and to find out all the things that go on that they are too shy to write about.

Here is the newest: Deborah

guilty pleasures ...or maybe not so much

I have the most basic of basic cable. I have tier one or just the lowest amount of channels you can get with the internet access package. I have it for the cable modem which I love. I really, really love the wireless internet that lets me watch tv while I am on the internet. I have a love hate relationship with the excessive amount of television I have been watching. I have been watching lots of E!. It is disgusting and pathetic but given my lack of real cable the only thing I can watch to avoid the local news other than the PAX network, which comes in with static anyway. E! programming seems to be on the same 24 hour cycle all the time. They film one days worth of shows for the month and shuffle them up and play them in a different order each day. The show I have been catching after work is Dr. 90210. (I know I should be ashamed it is so repulsive) But I cannot watch surgery shows when michael is home he gets too grossed out so this is what I watch when he is gone. If I had real cable I would be watching TLC where they show real surgeries and lots of home decorating shows and foodtv etc. But I have been watching Dr. 90210, so here is where I have a problem.
In plastic surgeries involving breasts or boobs or whatever slang you prefer they put a fuzzy mark over the nipple. But, get this...in a female to male transsexual breast surgery, they put the fuzzy thing over the nipple when it is still a "female" nipple and then they don't have the fuzzy thing over the nipple when it is a "male" nipple. What is up with that? The feminist part of me is totally pissed and also confused. What is the inherent sexually explicit difference between a transsexual's or anyone's for that matter male vs. female nipple? I really have to stop thinking about this. But not before being disgusted by the doctor who continually tells the boob ladies how much prettier they are as Full C/D cups and the women getting the implants who continually emphasize how these new breasts are really going to make them feel so much more confident and will help them finally get over what that mean boy said in 7th grade when he called them no tits or something. Yes, of course boobs and self esteem are synonymous in my dictionary. How about yours?
other horrible disgusting embarrassing things I did today:
Today at work the internet was out during lunch, when I would normally read blogs for the 1/2 hour that I eat my lunch. I realized that, while eating my lunch at my desk is sad with the internet without the internet (or a book) it is downright pathetic without these things. So, I heated up my lunch and went into the cafeteria. I never go into the cafeteria, so I don't know what goes on there, first I saw that there was no one I really knew to eat with and the people I sort of knew were at full tables. Okay, I don't have my book, but there are two book cases stuffed with books people bring in to share (isn't that nice)....no. It was nice in the 1980's which is the last time that someone brought in a book to share. So my choices are all romance/spy paperbacks from the 80's and there are magazines from several years ago and one copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. While me and my love of gross out medical things would probably love to read the what to expect book, I can't stand the implications if I was caught reading said book by anyone at work. 10 years in office work has taught me that if you are of childbearing age people will think you are pregnant for innocuous statements about having an upset tummy. I am probably equally embarrassed by all of the romance novels and even slightly sickened by them. And so...my choice...my 6th grade favorite Flowers in the Attic. Now I know this is bad and pathetic but it is also so reminiscent of a time when I loved reading and could fall right into books, something I have been struggling with all summer. This book is so pathetic and horrible and yet I remember loving it so much and also watching the bits and pieces of the movie as it played on HBO again and again. While I was reading it I wanted to start writing down ridiculous passages to share with you here. But I really can't do that to you. To further matters I had only read a small portion of this travesty of pre-teen tripe when several of the guys I work with came in with their lunches and joined me. "Oh, so you're reading Nance. What are you reading?" I smashed the book into my lap and just said it was some junk I found on the shelf. I don't think they really cared anyway and I had finished eating so I could exit with haste to return to my desk where the internet was once again working. whew!

michael

Deborah, This is for you. Here is what Michael looks like now with his short hair. and feelin' pretty happy cause his friends came and surprised him for the recital...so a few drinks later...This picture was taken 15 days before Sophia.

the walmart of wedding dress stores

I spent Saturday with Caitlin sorting through a jungle of white fluff encapsulated in crunchy bags. We would wade through the aisles pulling on bags in the $99 Sample Sale at the fancy bridal salon, and then later at David's Bridal the Walmart of bridal salons. Wedding dresses are poofy. "Oh is that the style?" my mother asks, hell if I know. The only style I have observed is that of the poof, the strapless, and the tiara.
I have to thank Caitlin for spending the entire day sorting through the white, the tulle, the rockcandy beady dresses, interrupted only by some (mediocre at best) Mexican and a horrible terrible mumbly complainy waiter.
So if for some reason you are reading this and you don't know me here is the background. I am 5'9" tall. I am fairly thin. All wedding consultants work on commission. They say things like, "Oh my god, you look gorgeous in that" "That looks perfect on you" and "That dress is new and I have been dying to see someone try it on, it is gorgeous/perfect/blaka-blook-a-dee" (thanks Caitlin)
Meanwhile (as Caitlin has dubbed them) a bevy of "Suzy average bride" accompanied by mom look on as they try on VERY WHITE, bedazzled and trained dresses that are so heavy I am sure you need to climb into them. They stand on the raised carpet covered circlets in front of mirrors as bridal consultants swarm around them and bring crowns and tiaras and tulle to finish off the cake.
I thought I wanted a simple dress but I don't think they actually exist. And the ones I have tried on are shiny and make me feel like "Hi, I'm Calpurnia you know Julius Caesar's wife. Hold on I'll be right with you, let me just grab my olive leaf headpiece and strappy sandals."
I am so not a wedding person, though I do look forward to the wedding as much as I do any good party. I also don't expect anything I do, plan or choose to be entirely groundbreaking. I don't care about being one of a kind, I mean it is a wedding, I will be wearing a whitish dress, there will be my dad and some type of aisle, our friends and family eating catering chicken and drinking from the open bar. I mean it can't be that bad, but I am certainly not planning on hanging a 18"x24" glossy with fuzzy photoshopping (to make it dreamsicle) anywhere in my future apartments. So I don't really care to try to make the white dress prepackaged event into the celebrity wedding of the year. When I think back on how much I recall from the 8 weddings I've attended in the last 7 years, I really think that I don't remember much past the dancing and the appetizers, so I know what to make stand out. cheesy poofs and cool music of course.
Finally, I was talking to Michael on the phone today and reviewing my rant on dresses etc. He actually asked me how I am going to wear my hair. I told him I am growing it out because according to the bride magazines and websites you are not allowed to have short hair when you get married. Then I asked him how he would be wearing his hair. I mean for real. I think maybe I will break down and get it cut at a salon. woohoo. give up my art girl haircut that has arisen only through my impoverished student life that requires a bottle of wine over a haircut any day. for my wedding. sure

I don't like living in Ohio because of the language barrier

People here say pop instead of soda,
and on the news today I heard a hit and run described as,
a hit and skip
now that's just wrong.

the worst is the word "Please?"
not used in a pleasant exchange, Please and thank you and your are so welcome but instead as a local "Huh?" with the expectation that people from other parts of the country are supposed to understand that this means "Excuse me?" or "Pardon me?" or "Could you please repeat that?"

....all I really want is a wooderice.

Here are some other language links:
http://www.slanguage.com/cincinnati.html
and here you can listen to language samples of people from Ohio.

I miss michael

Even though this is what our weekends look like when he is here. Sad right? But look I learned how to use the timer on my cool camera. yay me.

do you know when...

people at work come up beside you and try to instruct you to open a certain folder or click on a specific link. Is it just me or does the mere presence of another person suddenly make me completely blind. It is like I stop reading and can't find anything. I don't know if it has to do with how I operate on computers, that I am visual and in motion and I have trouble converting language into the pictures I see and my usually automatic movements. Or maybe it is just my jobs which are so mindless that I lose brain cells each day I go to work. There is another possibility that this is not just me, and there is some unspoken phenomenon that makes a computer screen look like a camera lens covered in vaseline, as soon as a coworker steps by your desk and says "Can you open this..." or "Have you seen..." I am immediately braindead.

two thoughts

Because I know I have not been posting often enough (for some) here are two evening (or early morning for some) thoughts.

while work is normally freezing cold, so much so that I bring ugly sweatshirts, sweaters or jackets and generally wear them for the entire afternoon, yesterday was insanely hot. So hot that I wanted a popsicle more than I have this entire summer.(the air conditioning was completely broken) So hot my forearms would stick to the desk as I typed reminding me of my lack of ergonomic grace. (but broken only in my part of the building) So hot I was dreaming of shorts (which I almost never wear) and wishing I had worn flip flops (talk about a fashion faux pas) to work .

Why do people in Cincinnati, grow up, go to school here and subsequently buy houses in the same neighborhood they grew up in? Is there some sort of innate draw these neighborhoods? Is this a nation/worldwide phenomena that I have somehow avoided thus far? Have I avoided it because of the neighborhood I grew up in, or is it really just that I am not an engineer, doctor, or pharmacist (the people I usually work with) and I have not yet gained the finances to buy a house anywhere near where my parents live? Is that really the goal? I know young people laugh about it here, but they do it, and seem vaguely proud and embarrassed. Strange.

happy for everyone

Happy Birthday to Caitlin! 22 years
and to new Anna Elizabeth 7lbs10oz
Congratulations to Jamie & Colleen and new Aunts Amy and Maureen. YAY!


Spent 4th of July weekend with Nora's family at their lake house in Kentucky. It was a wonderful time with lots of relaxing and tons of great food. The lake was lovely, but I am still an ocean girl at heart. In the ocean (at least in New Jersey) you must always be on guard because another wave is coming and will hurtle you into the sand if you don't jump around, or in, or over. Lakes are still and quiet and full of boats and fish and turtles.
I am starting to really look into wedding stuff (ick!) so if anyone is really into this and can pass on any suggestions I would love to hear. I am the anti bride it seems because the details seem beyond me. The only way I can get motivated is if I think of it as putting on a big play.
I think I played bride when I was a little girl for maybe a weekend. This can be explained away by the props, I did have that 1st communion veil on hand. I think I spent more time playing 1st communion with Cheez-its for hosts. "body of christ" --place cheez it in hand (or on tongue (ew) "amen". Mom put an end to that one when she stopped laughing I am sure and decided to bring some spirituality back in to the event of transfiguration. Truly I never knew much about that. We were CCD kids and we practiced on Sunday's or Tuesday evenings with unblessed host, necco wafers or inexplicably, tootsie rolls. It is difficult to put on a big production with hundreds of 2nd graders. So I guess a wedding will be easier, non-catholic so I need to get a book or find some vows and poems and things to make it like an event, without the church part. hmmm.

too much free time apparently

illustration friday

if I move to New York next year, this is what I will be eating instead of hoagies.

angry kind of day

I am tired of everything today including:

• the post office clerk that look past me and speed speaks my shipping options. Like I have any idea what the difference is between parcel post and mumbledy mumble post. Waiting for my receipt to print he sighs like it is too much to be sitting by himself in an air conditioned post office on a 92 degree afternoon. His fat ass needs to get a walking route, Newman.
• the clerk in the next store I go to whose response to "do you carry phone cards?" is "What kind of phone card" me "I don't know what kind of phone card is there?" (the kind you use to make a call? maybe) him "over there." he gestures, they are on the display less than 3 feet behind me and yes there are wireless and regular cards but ALL of the phone cards are on the same display...Why not just tell me where the phone cards are?
• listening to my coworkers health problems like I care. I don't (at least I don't care to hear it before I log in and check my email in the morning) please call a physician, what? Your chiropractor told you it might be deadly mold in the work place?, still call a general practitioner. Tell him or her your symptoms, see what they can do for you. Or go home that's fine too.

I know all the bad stuff about blogging about coworkers blah blah blah, but this job is not exactly a resume builder, more a vehicle to keep me in food and shelter until I can finish the degree. 5 more weeks of work. 4 more weeks til Michael returns.

• I really hate that blogger spell check does not know or recognize blog blogger or blogging. All of its own stupid made up words anyway.
• I don't know what is up with the links I think I have Seinfeld on the Brain, I don't even know if anyone will get some of them but I just can't get the Kramer moviefone voice out of my head "Why don't you just tell me....
  

not getting it done

Whatever it is, is not happening. I am somehow only working 5 hours a day and yet not doing much of anything when I get home. I play on the internet, sort of glance at my piles of library books and cook some but all of the visions of my summer are disappearing. In the air conditioning of apartment I am doing more napping than organizing and more lounging than creative projects. I need to figure out how to get some motivation or how to schedule myself silly like I do during the school year, because all this free time is just not doing it for me. Lists! That's what I need lists. Tomorrow I will start with a list and if it is anything like the ones I do during school, I will promptly lose it and complete only about half the items in the time I expect. But half is still more than none.

too late

I was too late with my black and white drawing to put my link on illustration friday. too bad, I will try again this week. Maybe this week I will pull things together and have a better sense of what day of the week it is and what I need to accomplish. Wow, that last sentence makes it sound like I have a life, when really by accomplish I mean things like make the bed, unload the dishwasher, eat breakfast before leaving on time to go to my part time job. That is pretty pathetic.
Last night I went to Habenero's with Caitlin and Nora, even though my kitchen is bursting with fresh produce. I bought too much fresh food for just me and now it is just mocking me from the kitchen as it gets more and more ripe. I think maybe I will be able to eat it all but I really need to stop going out and start cooking. I think maybe fresh fruit and yogurt and granola for breakfast. That of course means I am not having cereal and not using milk which will of course go bad. Why don't they sell thing in smaller sizes. Wait that's not true they did have a smaller milk but it wasn't the super skim fortified with A and B vitamins that says Tastes's like 2% on the side. I often wonder if I am really eating healthy or just attracted by words like organic twice and much money, buy me I am fortified (whatever that means). Now I am going to go eat, or clip my stupid fingernails because they are too long and they are clicking annoyingly on the keyboard making my typing all wonky.
oh and check out my xanga I will be adding the books and movies of the summer soon.

no shades of gray

for illustration friday

not that it really matters but...

3 A's, one P, and a B in my class with the professor I would like to never see again. Unfortunately, I have to take another class with him this fall.

the boring vacation recap:
(I'm still of the mindset that if I was not lounging on the beach for several days it can't really be called a vacation)
I spent last week at my parents house not really sleeping in, but definitely doing lots of nothing, watching Discovery Health and TLC and the other high up cable channels I don't get in Cincinnati. I got to see Jaime and a little bit of Beth. Jaime made me the so many cool CD's and that made the drive back yesterday so much cooler. I had time to play with my adorable, pudgy nephew who will be one next month. He is so good and so funny. He is crawling now and is such a people person that if you leave the room he will follow you. I spent a day with my Dad at the Brandywine River Museum and we did a wine tasting at the Chaddsford Winery. I had a wonderful dinner with Angelique's family. It was a relaxing vacation, but the nine hour drive back hasn't knocked me out. Now I need to pull myself back together so I can get things done this summer. The first thing is to unpack my suitcase that is filled with clean clothes. Sad isn't it...the level of my laziness. Well if nothing else I have plenty of time.
I hope, in time, my motivation and writing skills will recover to at least a mediocre level.

finals done, countdown to roadtrip

I haven't been posting because finals week, and the week before, really make me feel like my head is going to explode. Then I write a lot of papers and I realize they don't all need to be fully comprehensive in all areas, as that would be impossible. Then I think I did them all completely wrong. Then I check my grades online compulsively for the next two weeks.
Its exciting to be me.
After work today, I am walking to campus to turn in my last exam (a take home test...is that good or bad, is he expecting my essays to be fully completed with thesis statements? oops.)
Tonight I am preparing to go to Pennsylvania for a week.
Goodbye wireless internet, I will miss you, but really me and the internet need a little separation time so I can get back to reading real books.

this weekend

has been:
sad ridiculousness over stupid ass professors and big projects
greasy chinese food and beers in the sound booth with lots of composers and a pianist
sheherizade and cello choir followed by more beers or wine on quinn's porch with silly shloppy undergrads
inn the wood for the last potato crisp
art store sidewalk sales to peruse
lots of stress over stupid school work followed by inexplicable calmness (as the work has yet to be completed)
mari's birthday with fun acquaintances and very cute yellow lab and tasty summer salads
julianna's party with ellis' dixie land band
now some sleep and tomorrow more school work
three projects left and only one more horrific class and all will be well.