Tuesday, March 27, 2007

My apologies to the Ducks

It's my fault Oregon lost on Sunday (or whenever the hell it was), because I had to go and root for them, and I know damn well that any team I ever want to win anything never ever wins. So I should have just kept my mouth shut and tried to forget that I knew of a team called the Ducks. Ducks? Ducks who? So, I'm sorry, everyone. I've let you down once again.

The only even half-way vaguely interesting thing going on in my life right now is that I've started watching Extras, the British Ricky Gervais show that's basically just Ricky Gervais being himself, only there are celebrities involved. It is of course a slice of Ricky Gervais heaven, a slice that makes you cringe and wince and bury your head in the couch cushions to get away from all the awkwardness and unbearable social faux pas. So pretty damn funny.

In wedding news, I'm trying to get all geared up for bridezilla-ness and have been reading bridal forums and glancing at Modern Bride magazine, but alas, everything is still too up-in-the-air to begin planning anything. We don't know where we're going to be living this summer, or next summer, or the fall and winter and spring preceding next summer, and we have yet to even narrow down which state--nay, which country-- we'd like to have the wedding in. So I'm in bridezilla limbo. Here's a question, though, for any of you who may be a former bride or know former brides: do you think a simple yet elegant wedding can be orchestrated from the opposite coast of which said wedding will be taking place with only minor nervous breakdowns, and with the couple getting married still speaking to one another by the day of the wedding? Or is that so far away from the realm of possibility as make getting anywhere near Possibility completely fruitless even with a map and typed-out directions?

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Go Ducks!

So I see that Oregon made it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament (notice how I sound all like I know what I'm talking about). Not that I have been able to watch any of the games, because (a) me and sports on TV don't mix, but more importantly (b) the network affiliates out here are not aware that there is a whole nuther part of the country beyond the Mississippi River, so they never broadcast any of those games. They probably think that Oregon is one of them Canadian thingamajigs, or maybe just one of those U.S. protectorates, like Guam. So anyway, even though I am not normally much a sports fan, being forced to put up with a bunch of east coast sports snobs makes me happy that our Northwest boys are representing.

In cat news today, the BF is taking Easy to the vet because of her chronic constipation. Oh, the lovely, lovely charms of elderly cats. I, of course, am working, much as I work just about EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE, so will not be in attendance. He's no doubt looking forward to the visit with as much anticipation as one looks forward to one's own visit to the butt doctor, but what can you do. My "job" (which consists mainly of babysitting the printer and copy machine and listlessly surfing the web) sucks all of my time and my life and my will to create anything meaningful. I had a moment of clarity on the subway this morning, wherein I suddenly realized that I only have a finite amount of time on this planet, and yet every moment I spend in this city in this hateful job is completely wasted.

Yeah, so I'm pretty cheerful today. Although still glad that Oregon won last night.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Senile dysfunction

A few things.

1) It seems that my 14-year-old cat is going senile in her golden years. Is this even possible? There doesn't seem to be any other explanation for her behavior, though--I mean, she's not banging into walls or anything, but what used to be her funny little foibles and quirks have lately turned into full-blown neuroses. For example, she's always been picky about her water dish - she does NOT like stray objects in her water while she's drinking, and this includes cat hairs, dust mites, and itty bitty bits of food (I guess I can't blame her there; it is kind of disgusting to have floaties in your water) - and will splash the water repeatedly with her paw in order to expel the offending debris. She has done this since I adopted her as a kitten, and it's just been one of her odd little things. However, since her kidney disease diagnosis she's gone off the deep end with the splashing splashing splashing SPLASHING. It's gotten to the point where we'll set a completely cleansed and newly filled bowl of water in front of her and she won't even so much as sniff it before the splashing commences. We wake up in the middle of the night to her splashing. We can't walk into the kitchen without wading through a pond of her splashed water, and we've had to change socks more than once because we forgot that, oh yes, our cat has gone insane and splashes water water EVERYWHERE! Of course, her brain is too small to realize that sticking her grubby, furry, dirt-and-litter-covered paw into the water only makes things worse for herself, and I often find a disgusting cement-like substance churning in the bottom of her dish from the various sand and dirt grains she's transported into her Sea of Tranquility.

Another example of her sudden-senility onset: ever since I lived in an apartment in Vancouver that housed a particularly large, cavernous, dusty-and-dark-corned closet where incidentally her cat food was kept, she has chosen one closet in my apartment with which to become obsessed, I guess in the hope that suddenly one day that same closet with the shadowy expanses of investigatory bliss will suddenly open unto her. In my current apartment, her closet of choice is the laundry closet in the bathroom where the washer and dryer are. There is nothing else in this closet except a broom, because there is no room in there for anything else. She knows this, and she has been shown the washer and the dryer many times and found them lacking in interesting features. Yet her obsession with getting a peek inside that closet continues unabated. That sort of behavior I have taken for granted as semi-normal, because she is silly and old and apparently her memory is hazy. But what used to be occasional begging for the magical closet door to be opened whenever BF or I were in the bathroom has turned into a sudden lunge for the bathroom anytime one of us stands up or moves in any direction that MIGHT indicate a visit to that hallowed ground, and she now spends much of her free time sitting in the bathroom staring at the closed closet door.

Should I start calling nursing homes?

2) Anyway. I have decided that Girl Scout cookies should be declared illegal, because 1) they are fattening and are contributing to the obesity epidemic of the nation, and 2) they are laced with crack or a crack-like substance. How else to explain how a calm, rational person can sit down with a box of Girl Scout cookies and think to oneself, "OK, I am going to have two reasonably-sized cookies and then close up the box and put them in the cupboard and not even contemplate eating any more until tomorrow," and then suddenly find oneself thirty minutes later in a fat-induced stupor at the kitchen table staring at an empty box of cookies, with smears of chocolate in one's hair and on one's clothing.

I'm not saying this happened to me, I'm just saying - those cookies ain't right.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

My home and native land

I want to marry British Columbia.

California's OK, too. (But only in a strictly platonic sense.)

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Sorry, haters

I apologize for my lackadaisical updating as of late, but don't worry, you haven't missed much. I had planned to go into a diatribe about the weather here, but I can't muster the strength anymore. I have surrendered to the will of the mid-atlantic climate. Which sucks. [In case you're wondering though - after the last snowfall we had about five days of warmer, mild weather; on Thursday the high was in the mid-70s, then the temp plummeted by 40 degrees Thursday evening, and it snowed/sleeted again much of the day yesterday.]

What else? I've started watching the Up series - 7 Up, 7 plus 7, 21 Up, etc. - a British documentary series that follows the lives of kids in different socioeconomic classes and catches up with them every seven years. The most recent installment, which I haven't gotten to yet, is 49 Up. I highly recommend watching the films, not so much because any of them are great documentaries in and of themselves, but because it's fascinating to see how the individuals mature and change over time. But then I'm an inveterate eavesdropper, nosey-rosey, and voyeur, so there you go. One of the more interesting facets of the series I've noticed is that as seven-year-olds, there is an obvious distinction between the upper and lower class kids, as far as vocabulary, articulateness (is that a word? whatever it is, it's obviously something I lack), and comfort in front of the camera. However, by the time the kids are 14 those distinctions have for the most part been obliterated and by 21, many of the lower class kids have become in some ways if not more articulate, then at least more self-aware than the upper class ones. And they definitely seem happier. Also, the kids from the lower classes become insulted whenever it's hinted that the upper class kids in the documentary may have had more opportunities - they are very proud of their lives and seem quite content with the way they've turned out so far. I'm really looking forward to seeing how their lives progress and am secretly rooting for certain ones to succeed and others to be taken down a peg or two.

Lastly, BF and I went to Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend just for the hell of it. It was fun if uneventful. We walked around the University of Virginia campus, which was beautiful and made me wonder why I didn't go to school there, and also visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home. Oh, and we drank a lot and ate a bunch of food. Good times.

Then today I bought two boxes of Girl Scout cookies even though I knew I shouldn't. But I did anyway. And they were good.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Um, didn't we just talk about this?


I give up. Winter and I are no longer on speaking terms. But you can tell Winter for me that he can shove his snow right up his icy cold butt.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

P.S.S. to Winter

OK, now you're just being creepy. I thought I made myself clear last week when I said I didn't want to see you anymore. But today I get up, and whose ugly face do I spot out the window? YOURS. I see you hanging around everywhere I go, and it's just really starting to bug me. Am I gonna have to file a restraining order? Geez, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY.

And don't even think about snowing tomorrow. I am so totally serious. Because that would just be crazy insane. Do you hear what I'm saying? Insane.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Not much going on, really

Some detritus:

1) Lately I've been feeling like starting public brawls. Mostly I get this feeling in situations dealing with the subway. For instance, when someone cuts in front of me at the turnstile, my first instinct is to punch them in the throat.* Is that wrong?

2) I've been so bored during work this past week that I've started reading all of Dooce's archives, beginning with the first post. I'll probably finish them tomorrow at work. Tomorrow being Sunday. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

3) Aforementioned boredom has gotten me depressed about my life again. For awhile I was feeling OK, since I was just happy to be away from the Job From Hell, but now I'm itching to do something with my life once again. Of course, we've already established that there are no libraries in this city that will hire me as a librarian, and if they will hire me, there is something very very wrong with them.

4) My legs have started hurting in all the same old places again, and my shin splints are worse than ever. I need a leg transplant. And today I just received a $74.50 bill from my doctor. Yeah, I got your money right here, buddy.

5) The weather warmed up this week, and all the snow from last Sunday has melted. I remain prayerful, in my atheistic way, that winter does not rear its ugly head once again. Living in the South-that-doesn't-know-it's-the-South has made me even more of a wimp than I had previously been.

*So far I've been successfully stifling this instinct. Who knows how long it will take me to snap, though.