Give pause, if you will.

I was walking to the bathroom at work today and saw a notice posted on the door that said:

Is it a cold or the flu?

It went on to list the differences between a cold or the flu, but I did not continue reading, which means I don't know the differences, which means I'm screwed. The next time I cough, I'll spiral into a panic; What is this illness I have!?!

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, no one cares if you have a cold, but if you have the flu, you've got some legit s**t going on. Which got me to thinking about articles and definite articles and which ones people would use if they were talking about my life.  



This is what you'll find if you Google "articles".

Por ejemplo:
Did Steven and I just buy a TV or did we buy the (best frikking) TV?
If you picked the, you are correct! (And if you want me to quit mentioning the new TV, fine.)

Por ejemplo 2:
Did I marry a Steven or the Steven?
Tricky, I know, but I married the Steven.

And finally:
Am I living a life or am I living the life?
And this answer is the trickiest of all because it is both. Sometimes I am living a life and sometimes I am living the life. The articles change based on my perspective. Well, that's not entirely true. I wish I had a womanly enough perspective to say that I am in charge of my articles, living the life, but usually the situations I'm in determine my phraseology. I also have a tendency to give all of my definite articles to the future, thinking that eventually I will have the job and not just a job. And so on.

This is no way to think and no way to live a full life.

I should also say that I could use a little more humility in my day-to-day; more thoughts like I am only one person in the entire world, a person among many. I need to consider how I am situating myself as an a around the most definite article of all, God.

So that's that. I hope none of you get a flu this season.

This one goes out to all you crazy cats and kittens...

Does my title sound vintage, like something you'd hear over the radio in the 50s?  Good.
And does the fact that I used the word "crazy" in the title of my last post hint that maybe life has been just a little crazy lately? Because it has.

Oh I know, I know. You thought all I'd been doing was laying around watching movies on our great TV, which is so far from the truth, my friends. The weeks since my last post have been a little more like this:

Apple picking!

Renaissancing!

And also, we have done other things. 

Steven's schedule is increasingly more busy, which helps me to keep my 9:00 to 5:00 in perspective, when I start missing my do-nothing-days. Not only are his days long, but I remember when I used to be a student (sigh) that studying was always in the back of my head. He's doing really well to balance me and school; he listens to my stories and helps keep our little space clean. He also mentioned that maybe the fall here is a little more colorful than in Kansas and I nearly cried! 

Some immature thing inside of me recoiled when he said that. How disloyal! How east coast of him! 

But now that I've grown up a little bit, I can see that it's true. The fall here is amazing. The billions of trees that, when green, were cramping my style and blocking my sunsets, are now like a sunset all their own. Beautiful, beautiful colors that are especially hard to beat when the sun hits them just right in the morning. It's like driving around in the October page of a seasons calendar... or in one of those tacky pictures in dentist's office that says something like:

Embrace change. 

Well, dentist. I'm trying. Last weekend at church they served a hunk of bread with apple butter for communion. Change. Embrace.

I made a homemade pot pie for dinner. Embrace.

The Chiefs won! Change. Afraid to embrace. 

So you see, I'm taking life in stride. And the biggest change of all will be the end of my temp job this week and the start of my new job in November. I'm excited and a little nervous. All in all, it means I'm one month closer to seeing our family for the Holidays, when I'll be embracing like crazy and begging the days to go slowly.

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time. -Napoleon Bonaparte

A year ago, Halloween. We were ourselves.

Weekend, you krazy.

On Friday, Steven and I drove to PA via the non-toll roads, because we are BA. Also, having a GPS pays (literally). 

Anyway, we crossed the Susquehanna river in the dark hours of the night to spend the weekend with a friend. Because it was late and we had been at work/school all day, we needed to stop somewhere to eat. We found a Five Guys about a half an hour before closing time and multiplied the number of diners by two. So there were four people eating in the Five Guys. Math.

There were also two workers... Two, long-haired, pale faced young men, who lacking any real girth, could have shared an apron. They were kind, and avoided sweeping under our feet as they cleaned, which made us feel less like jerks for sneaking in at the last minute. They were also playing some freaking creepy music over the speakers. I kid you not, it was eerie Halloween music with screams. 

What are you thinking, nice teenage boys? You live in a town that grows mushrooms (and it smells like BUTT), in this beautiful, historically rich state, and you are freaking. me. out. And seriously, as Steven and I stuffed our faces with fries, we wondered if we were going to die. Death by burgers in a Five Guys (in a town that smelled as if it had been shoved up the butt of a mushroom) was an unacceptable way to go. 

We finished our burgers and left, so we're fine, and here I am to tell you about the rest of our weekend.

We bought a TV! It makes us act like these guys:

Our new TV is so smart and big and shiny and big! We spent many hours, several at the Best Buy store in Delaware (no tax), looking at TVs, trying to decide which one was just right for us and we finally decided on a ______ __________. I omit telling you exactly what we bought because maybe you'll have strong opinions about the brand or type, and until you come over and watch a movie with us, you are not allowed to think one negative thought about our set.

So come over and watch a movie already! I'll even let you hold the remote; the plastic is so smooth.

And today, Sunday, we hung out with our friends. We went out to eat and played volleyball and went out for frozen yogurt and held hands and sang songs. All in all, we just had the best darn weekend a body could hope to have. Why does it have to end? Because even though I don't think Columbus deserves a holiday, it sure would be nice to have the day off.

So happy day off for all of you who have it, and to the rest of us: Columbus was a jerk anyway. 

An Affair to Remember

Tomorrow may be my birthday, but tonight was the party! Steven made plans to take a break from studying so that we could go out to eat. I traded my sweat pants for jeans, put on a little birthday lipstick, and took off my glasses, because seeing well wasn't as important as being seen NOT looking like a librarian. 

When we walked into the restaurant, I expected that we would be seated at a table for two. Without my glasses, I couldn't distinguish the table full of people waiting to surprise me. I need new glasses. I do not need new friends. 

It just so happens that I have great friends- people who took time from their busy lives, at the very end of their weekend when everyone is normally winding down and preparing for work- to eat with me and sing to me and make me feel like a freaking POT OF GOLD. Or something else equally awesome. I'm still riding the high and will, for a long time, hold tonight as a very meaningful memory.

Doesn't get much more top-notch than this.

My cake! 

Me (doing that happy eye squint) and my stellar spouse.

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it and to those who wanted to make it but couldn't; I missed you! I also have a lot of friends and family who have been thinking of me and loving on me even though they are far away, and to them, "I miss you and I love you." 

But really, what I'm trying to say is: 

What's Going on Around Here?

My first week as a temp is over, and now it's the weekend. Thank the Lord, and Saturday, you never looked so good, girl!*

Mmm mmm mmm. 

Despite my plans to sleep in today, I still woke up before 7:00am. But because it was beautiful and fall-like outside, I didn't care. I grabbed a blanket, opened the windows, and relished the morning. I shoved a bunch of candy corn in my mouth and hooked up to an apple cider IV. I sprayed the apartment with Pumpkin Spice air scent, plugged in the apple cinnamon wall scent, and watched Young Frankenstein. Then I watched Clue.

It was great. 

And when thoughts of having to go to work on Monday tried to cramp my style, I resisted. Job? What job? What filing, data entry, paper-printing, paper-clipping things could I possibly have to do ever again... 

Weekends are a beautiful thing. One forgets to appreciate weekends when one is jobless. I'm going to have to be careful not to get carried away by this combination of total free time and the autumn breeze, because I cannot afford to crash and burn from returning-to-work depression in my cubicle on Monday. Nothing is private, when you are in a cubicle; just because you can't be seen, you can still be heard. And smelled. 

I'm going to have to work on my cubicle etiquette. 

Rules of the Cube: 

1. No farting. It wafts. 

2. No talking to yourself. Other people think you're talking to them. 

And that's it, that's all I know so far. But I know a lot about how to sort through file cabinets without getting paper cuts. Also, I know how to pick crabs, Maryland style, because my work hosted a crab feast. It was really messy, and a little dangerous and sad, but I'm pretty good at it.

Awkward but true. 

Happy Autumn, everyone. And remember, you can pick your nose and you can pick your friends, but you cannot pick your friend's crab because they will become defensive and hit you with their mallet. 

*Yeah, I was talking to Saturday. And yeah, she's a lady, as if there were any question. 

Back in the Saddle

I don't want to put too much thought into this post. I'm tired... I just turned down popcorn, for crap's sake. But I still want you all to know what happened to me today, on this, my first day back at work in the suchandsuch year of our Lord. 

1. I arrived forty minutes early because I was afraid of the traffic on the beltway. I'm still afraid. The east coast is just trying to fool me.

2. I mentioned Kansas only three times, and it was not obnoxious. It was cool, like, "So, Kansas... How about that?"

3. I said "Yeah, OK," like ten thousand times, but only understood a tiny amount of what was tossed at me. 

4. I ate a can of tuna in my car on my lunch break. And read the last book of the Twilight series. I'm not sure which of those things is worse. 

5. I had some free time, so I donated blood. 

I WHAT!?!?

Yeah, today was a day to donate, so I climbed onto an American Red Cross bus, I kid you not, and donated blood on a weird bussy bed with the ceiling a foot from my face. The bus was old too, which seems safe and sanitary. 

This is not what my bus looked like, but it is a bus.

6. I got texts from some of the nicest friends in the world, wishing me a great first day. 

7. My husband was even happier than I was to know that people were nice to me. 

8. I'm in a cubicle. I don't hate it. 

9. There was no traffic on my way home from work! I'm still not buying it. 

10. Eventually, I'll get paid. 

So, there you go. I'll try and keep you posted as the week progresses and things develop. It's weird to go into a place, knowing it might be temporary. 

Goodnight!

To Almost Be and To Not

This is how badly I need to do dishes: I just ate cereal out of a mug with a 1/2 Tbsp.

Shameful behavior.

And this is how badly I just need to publish a blog post already: I have a draft written for every day since my last post and nothing to show for it. Let me tell you what you've been missing.


9/16 I wrote about how much I love dancing like Steve Martin.

He's so glorious.

9/17 I talked about how Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  is, despite common opinion, not that great of a movie. Now you know.

9/18 I confessed that looking for a job is about as fun as the most un-fun thing ever. 

It's so easy, in the process of finding a job, to feel unsure and inadequate. I know those are the opposite of the things I should be feeling, when I'm trying to market myself. I need confidence, I need to assert that I know exactly who I am and what skills I possess that make me the perfect match for their needs. But oh, it's hard. It makes me feel needy, like a girl who isn't sure where a relationship with a guy she likes is going, afraid that it isn't going anywhere.

9/21 I listened to Randy Newman's "I Think it's Going to Rain Today" and wrote about how much I miss Manhattan, KS.

I want to tell you about the great things and the great people. And maybe, if I tell you, you will be entertained. But also, maybe you will remember those most precious people in your own lives. The ones who put a cold washcloth on your forehead after your 21st birthday, when you thought you had the Scarlet Fever, but really you just had Tequila. Or the friend who bought a cinnamon roll to share before Spanish class, or the time you cut class with your kindred spirit to sit in the grass and talk without words. 

I even had picture after picture ready to upload. It made me cry, writing that post.

So the question remains, why didn't I ever get around to posting anything? And I think the answer is a combination of things like: No matter how inspired I am by Steve Martin's dancing, it's darn hard to write a whole post about it. Long live the King of Tut. But also, sometimes thinking the thoughts and writing the draft is all that I need to do to know that a story has ended and I need to let it.

Now I'm in the middle of this new story called How I'm Trying to Live Big on the East Coast. It's about how I start a job on Monday with a printing company and how I'm going on coffee dates with new friends. It's also about how I got my derriere out of bed and washed those damn spoons. Because I will NEVER eat cereal with a Tablespoon again. And I will no longer wallow in the belief that what has happened already is better than what is happening right now.