on and on and on

Oy to the vey. Life has been a bit of a manic dervish lately, what with me getting slammed with a tsunami of freelancing at the same time I’m planning my upcoming move. I feel like I’ve hardly had time to breathe.

Me taking a minute to freak the fuck out.

I’ve been feeling a bit angsty over the past few weeks, too. What it boils down to is that I feel like I’m fine with my life until I find out that former classmates/friends/acquaintances got married, spawned, got a master’s degree, etc. Times like that make me dislike my own life because there are no advances. Aside from buying the condo, I mean. My life is exactly the same now as it was five years ago. I’m in the same apartment, at the same job, in the same position. I’m still not dating anyone and still not doing anything different, new, or exciting. I’m exactly the same.

I dissected all of this with Missy, and since time is a bit tight right now, I think it’s easier to just copy parts of my emails to her here, rather than reinventing the wheel. Why share it? Well, why not? At least it will explain to folks why I haven’t been very communicative lately.

When stuff like that happens, I always go into a tizzy of questioning my life and wondering what’s missing. It’s odd because I never felt the need to keep up with the Joneses, and yet here I am, wondering if I should follow their lead and get my ass down the aisle and into the maternity ward, even if it’s not something I particularly want. At times like these I start to feel like an autistic person who is one step out of beat from the rest of society. It’s somewhat fitting that I’m hopelessly incapable of following sequences of steps (like with dancing and aerobics), because emotionally, that’s exactly how I feel sometimes: like I’m one or two steps behind everyone else, and no matter how carefully I try to do so, I’m unable to keep time with them. Not that I necessarily want to keep time with them...but having the ability to do so would be nice every once in a while.

***

Part of me wants to do something to shake off this stasis and another part of me is happy with things the way they are. After all, I’m not an ambitious person and therefore don’t want to climb any corporate ladders. And I tend to be a creature of habit—someone who takes great comfort in routines—so I actually like that life is pretty safe and predictable. Plus I have no desire to date anyone and I really do love my job. Honestly, the only thing sorely missing from my life is traveling, but it’s not like inertia or my lack of ambition is what’s keeping that from my life. I’m not traveling simply because I don’t have money to travel, but once I save up some money, I’ll begin traveling again. So...I don’t know. The part of me that wants to shake off this stasis really doesn’t make much sense, because I can’t imagine that living my life differently would really make me happy. I mean, dating wouldn’t make me happy and switching jobs wouldn’t make me happy. Maybe I just need to take a class or pick up a hobby—something that will prove to myself that I’m evolving, even if only in tiny increments.

***

I think part of the problem—part of what drives the angst I feel in these situations—is that I haven’t yet found a raison d’être. Not just a dream, but an actual reason for existing. Everybody needs something that fills them with joy. It’s that thing which is the luminous little spark inside of you. Something that eclipses everything else in its orbit. Something which gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning (aside from obligation, chores, and that onward grinding push for survival). Something which will enable you to continue going onward after everything else has been taken from you. For some it’s a spouse and kids, for others it’s art, singing, creating, gardening, whatever. And I haven’t really found my “thing.” It used to be writing, but now...eh, not so much. So I look at so-and-so and I’m like, “Well, see, clearly he found his raison d’être, because now he’s a happy-looking family man, and meanwhile I’m still here standing here tracing my toe in the dirt, biding my time, just kind of...existing.” And it’s a stupid mentality, really, because you shouldn’t let one relationship or talent or hobby define who you are. You shouldn’t let one single thing be the pivot on which you spin. Besides, nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors. It’s easy to say that so-and-so must now be blissfully happy and feel utterly fulfilled because she found her so-called soulmate, and it’s easy to say that my Scranton classmates have found their raison d’être because they’re now all successful lawyers and corporate crusaders with spouses and two kids, but in reality, I don’t know what bodies might be beneath their floorboards. There could be marital tension or a feeling of emptiness from working at a soulless job. They could be feeling just as lost as I sometimes feel. Who knows.

***

I do feel like I need to inject something new into my life—something I’ll genuinely enjoy, like taking some kind of art class—as a means of trying to figure out what my raison d’être is. But I should also try to stop feeling like I need to fix other areas in my life that may not even be broken.

***

I’m not sure how, or if, I want my life to change. The only thing I’ve striven toward over the past two years was buying a house. Now that I have the condo, I wonder if it’s going to be terribly anticlimactic and I’ll be sitting in there thinking, “Now what?”

***

I never thought I’d stay in this area this long (it’ll be 10 years next month), and I’m not really happy with this area, yet I don’t feel compelled to go elsewhere, because the older I get, the more comfortable I get. I’m sure I’d love living in the Pacific Northwest, and 10 years ago I would’ve had the balls to do it if a job would’ve been available to me there, but I don’t think I have the balls anymore. I don’t even think I’d have the balls to move to London if the opportunity arose. I’m just so safe and comfortable where I am, and nowhere else in the US (aside from the Pacific Northwest and maybe Maine) appeal to me.

***

I’d be all for taking a class for fun, but doing a full stint in grad school? Never. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t know what to study. Nothing beyond my major ever appealed to me and my major itself didn’t exactly rock my world.

***

And I don’t want kids, but I also think about what will happen when I’m old and alone, with only nursing home companions to keep me company. (Why does that even matter? I love being alone!) And I think about what will happen before that point, when my family starts dying and I have nowhere to go for the holidays except to friends’ houses, where I’ll feel like I’m intruding in their lives. I always have to remind myself that having kids doesn’t guarantee that I won’t be alone when I’m old. My kids could disown me or die before me or just be such hateful shits, I wouldn’t want them around. Or they could turn out like [Ms. X]. That’s the big thing that scares me about having kids: the idea that I could do everything right and still end up with [Ms. X] or a serial killer or a rapist as my child.

***

I do spend a lot of time wondering what the point of everything is. Not in the same way I did before I was medicated, though. I’m just thinking of the big picture—why we sweat and toil and pay bills and wash dishes and do all this stuff that never leads anywhere, day after day until we die. Just thinking about it is exhausting. Like life is one big boulder and humans are Sisyphus permanently pushing it up that hill. It’s not that life necessarily seems bad—just futile. And yeah, I agree that most people will say that Christ is the point of life, and we’re here to do good works in his name and just savor the fact that we’ve been given the “gift of life,” etc, but that just doesn’t cut it for me. Sometimes being faithless makes life really freaking difficult.

So anyway, that’s how I’ve been feeling lately. After I move and get my condo set up, I just need to focus more attention on finding my raison d’être. The only things that even remotely appeal to me are traveling and photography, which means I should make more of a concerted effort to fit photo safaris into my life and save money for future trips. Actually, I’ve already begun the latter.

Ever since I got back from Iceland, I’ve plotted how I can get back there and see the entire country (as compared to my three days in Reykjavik and the Golden Circle). I figured the ideal scenario would be to rent a car with my dad and drive the entire perimeter of the country on its ring road. I thought it would be nice to spend some one-on-one time with him, and since he’s a massive hiking/nature enthusiast who doesn’t like being around people very much, I figured getting him to Iceland—with its sublime natural scenery and startling dearth of people—would be a slam-dunk case. But it turns out he’d prefer to go back to the western US and do more marathon hikes out there, which is totally understandable.

So I found myself back at square one. Going alone really wasn’t an option, because although I have no qualms with traveling alone to many places abroad, spending 2-2½ weeks alone in the empty wilds of Iceland ain’t one of them. I’d want to split driving duties with someone, and I also wouldn’t want to be alone if something went wrong, like if I got desperately lost or ended up with a flat tire or got into an accident.

That’s when I decided to ask Missy to join me. I knew she always wanted to see Iceland and the northern lights, and, like me, she’s been feeling a bit adrift lately, so the solution seemed simple. And it was. She eagerly accepted my invitation and now we’ve begun the long, arduous process of saving for it. Our tentative plan is to go in September 2009, if we manage to save enough money by then. Two years and counting...



song heard most recently before posting:
Sister Fatima—Don McLean

something from the "you learn something new each day" files

Just as I was 25 before I learned the official name for my lack of smelling ability, I was 33 before I learned the official name for my favorite sitting position.

See, all my life, I’ve had a very particular way of sitting on the floor with my legs splayed—a way that always elicits exclamations of “How can you bear to sit like that?!”—and I only just learned that it has an actual name: W-sitting. Who knew!

Me W-sitting as a toddler.

The reason I looked it up online last week and found out the name is because recently I’ve noticed that Olivia does it a lot when she’s playing on the floor. Neither of her parents ever sat this way, and no one in either of their families (aside from me) sat this way.

Olivia W-sitting during Christmas 2006.

And again in October 2007.

Also, a few years ago, I noticed Heather’s daughter Elizabeth sitting this way, and when I commented on it, Heather told me that her brother Justin and sister Whitney have always preferred sitting that way, too, and when their mom spoke to their doctor about it, she was told that some specialists believe it’s a sign of creativity, artistic temperament, and giftedness. Well, Elizabeth, Justin, and Whitney are, in fact, all very creative, artistic, and gifted. So I thought, “Oh wow, if that’s true, that’s really cool, because that’s my favorite way of sitting.” And when I saw Olivia doing it over and over, I thought it was a good thing. But all the research I’m finding is actually saying it’s a bad thing! It supposedly causes pigeon-toeing, hip dysplasia, and a host of other orthopedic difficulties. None of them affect Justin, Whitney, Elizabeth, or me. (But some doctors also say that W-sitting can eventually lead to loose kneecaps or early hip arthritis, so it’s possible that its toll on us has yet to be seen.)

Apparently W-sitting isn’t overly uncommon among toddlers,** but most outgrow it by age five. I never outgrew it, though, and I don’t think Justin, Whitney, and Elizabeth did, either.

Sadly, I haven’t found a single shred of evidence hinting toward a correlation between W-sitting and giftedness, but of course I’ll keep pathetically looking!

**I have learned that two friends of mine (Angela and Skevy) also used to W-sit as children. However, their teachers/dance instructors scared them into stopping it by filling their heads with horror stories about what would happen to their legs if they didn’t learn to sit properly.

song heard most recently before posting:
Let’s Dance—M. Ward

we're not all killers!

*groans*

Here we go again: yet another school shooting (this time in Cleveland). Astoundingly, there were no fatalities in this latest round, apart from the shooter himself, but a few people were injured.

My intense annoyance with this trend is twofold. First of all, when they interviewed some of the shooter’s classmates on the news, one of the first things out of each mouth was, “He was a loner.” Then they started talking about how he wore a lot of black, was considered a goth, liked Marilyn Manson, yadda yadda yadda, and only then did they get to the “Oh yeah, and he recently got suspended, and he had a history of getting into trouble and showing psychological distress, and he’s been making threats” bit. The most important, relevant information got buried beneath the screeching, distracting headline in everyone’s head: HE WAS A LONER. As if that alone explains why he went on a shooting spree. As if loner is a synonym for killer.

I expounded on this topic twice already on this blog, including this bit:

I know I’m being hyper-sensitive here, but I loathe when the media fixate on killers being loners. It just adds fuel to this society’s already rampant suspicion of anyone who likes being alone. Not all loners are one gun away from becoming killers! And not all killers are loners! Let’s recall Ted Bundy and the BTK killer, shall we? As a lifelong loner, this whole attitude is so offensive to me.

I just worry there’s a real risk that anybody who is different, acts unconventionally, writes strange things, or listens to strange music will become suspicious in everyone’s eyes—labeled a potential killer. I’m not saying everyone should turn a blind eye when there’s a person displaying noticeably strange, erratic behavior. But there has to be some sort of middle ground between automatically assuming every weird, introverted person is a killer and automatically assuming s/he’s just shy and harmless.

Second of all, I’m annoyed with the shooter himself, not only because, duh, he went on a shooting spree, but also because what he did was so clichéd. Shooting up your school is just such a tired cliché! I know how painful it can be to not fit in with your peers—to be maliciously or casually ostracized, to be ridiculed for being different. And I’m sure being openly bullied—physically and/or verbally—is equally painful and downright devastating. But shooting up your school is. not. the. answer.

The alienated kid deserves better than to become a walking cliché. It’s bad enough that half his classmates already can’t stand him because he’s “weird” or introverted or different. But now, on top of that, he has to be loathed by people nationwide forevermore because he thought the only way to strike back at his jackass classmates was with a gun. His name will be permanently entwined with mass murder or attempted mass murder. He deserves better than that.

Not to mention the fact that bullies aren’t the only people who die in school shootings; innocent people die, too. Kind people die. But not even the bullies and ostracizers themselves deserve to die. They may be malicious, borderline-sociopathic, little Neanderthal shits, but it doesn’t mean they deserve to be killed by their victims. Vigilante justice never dissolves evil at its root. It just hacks off a branch that may or may not grow back.

It’s said that the best revenge is living well, and I really do ascribe to this belief. The best thing any outcast or bullying victim can do is survive, flourish, look good, feel good. Sadly, we don’t live in a fairy tale society where mistreated orphans always become princesses and the wicked always get their just desserts. Sometimes, yes, sometimes the bullying brutes in high school come out on top. Sometimes they rise to the top of their field, armed with trophy wives, McMansions, and BMW SUVs, while their victims struggle to make ends meet and spend the rest of their lives alone. It happens. And it’s really fucking unfortunate, but it happens.

Still, even when this happens, it’s up to the outcasts, the mistreated, and the bullied to continue to live well. To be the best and most successful people they can be. To find happiness and purpose in their lives. To be good people. To not waste a minute thinking about the people who taunted, tortured, or ignored them, even if those people are currently living the sweet life with wealth and success. Those people who made your life so miserable really don’t deserve a minute of your time, your energy, your angst. They don’t deserve the time involved with planning a mass shooting spree. They don’t deserve to be canonized while you—the shooter—are reviled. What they deserve is to lose the power that comes from having victims. If their victims walk away with their heads held high, and go on to be as happy, fulfilled, and productive as possible…well, that’s truly the best revenge you can inflict upon them.

Some quotes on this matter from my collection:

If they’re not worth hanging out with, why are they worth killing? You wouldn’t help them in a time of need, but you’d go to jail or commit suicide to show them exactly how worthless you think they are? You don’t want them as friends, but you’ll accept them as victims? Why would you want any connection to them? –The Misanthropic Bitch, on the Columbine shootings

Black trench coats? Marilyn Manson? Nazi propaganda? Writing in all caps on a Web page? Using the personal quote: “It’s fun being schizophrenic?” Copying KMFDM lyrics? How obtuse can one be? Even in death, those kids were clichés. All black clothing. Pisspoor planning. Done-to-death one-liners. When the fuck is someone going to shoot up his school wearing a bunny costume and singing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”? –ditto


song heard most recently before posting:
Extra Ordinary Thing—Aqualung

inspection

Today marks five years since I’ve been at my job (which is the longest I’ve ever worked anywhere), and I kick-started the day by having my home inspection bright and early at 8:30am. It seemed to go well. My realtor was there and my brother in law joined us, too, which was nice. Everything looks good except for the central a/c unit, which, as I predicted, isn’t working. I really need to talk about this with my realtor in depth and find out the best way to either convince the home warranty people to replace the unit, rather than just fixing it, or convince the bank that owns the property to get this fixed/replaced before I move in. I didn’t think this was an “as-is” property (which would allow the bank can wipe their hands clean of fixing things), but who knows. Buying a house—even if it’s just a little condo—is so fucking complicated!

The condo has really been dominating my landscape, along with freelancing. Everything else (like getting my car to the mechanic for its 90,000-mile tune-up) is falling by the wayside. But I do need to carve out some time to hit the Corcoran Gallery soon, as they have an Annie Leibowitz exhibit and an Ansel Adams exhibit starting soon. This will definitely be the biggest downfall to living in Frederick: no longer being a hop, skip, and a jump from downtown DC. I’ve gotten so spoiled spending the last five years living so close to the city!

To distract myself from the gnawing anxiety of home buyership, I filled out one of those random questionnaires circulating on MySpace:

1. What is your salad dressing of choice?
Honey mustard, I guess, but I rarely eat salad, so it’s hard to say!

2. What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A tie between Subway (I love their Veggie Delite subs) and Burger King (because they offer veggie burgers and onion rings). But if I feel the need to eat fast food while abroad I always go to McDonald’s, since they still sell the phenomenal old-school apple pies there that McDonald’s in the US ditched a million years ago.

3. What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
I don’t really have one—I’ve been to loads of amazing restaurants over the years.

4. On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
20% unless the service was awful.

5. What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
Breakfast cereal and Cedarlane vegetarian ham and cheese pockets.

6. What do you like to put on your toast?
Butter, maybe with a little jam.

7. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
At home: a picture of Plath and Freyja cuddling. At work: a picture of Olivia in one of her Disney Princesses dresses.

8. How many televisions are in your house?
Two. And I live alone!

9. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Right.

10. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
You mean aside from my ability to hope and dream, which was yanked out by life? I don’t think so. I’ve had four major surgeries but nothing was removed during them. Well…actually…I think a bit of bone from my skull may’ve been removed during one or two of the surgeries.

11. When was the last time you had a cavity?
Two or three years ago.

12. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
The weight of the world, currently residing on my shoulders.

13. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
Just by anesthesia!

14. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
I don’t think so. Knowing me, I’d just fixate on it and ruminate constantly about that date. It would consume my every waking thought.

15. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
Something not shared by 12 zillion other Gen Xers—something like Freyja or Finley (two names I love).

16. What color do you think looks best on you?
I’ve been told garnet red looks good on me, and I guess light blue, too, since it matches my eyes.

17. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
Probably just gum, fragments of gnawed pen caps, and harmless nonsense like that.

18. Have you ever saved someone’s life?
Not that I’m aware of. But who knows…maybe I inadvertently saved someone’s life in a Sliding Doors kind of way by, like, leaving for work late one morning.

19. Has someone ever saved yours?
See above answer.

20. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
Sure.

21. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
No, because I’m really freaked out by deformities like that. But if I were offered $2 million…maybe. I’d just hire a therapist to get me over my deformity issues!

22. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
Hell yeah!

23. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
I’d try it, but I honestly don’t think I could make it all the way through without vomiting.

24. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
Ditto Seabold’s answer: It depends on the target.

25. What is in your left pocket?
There are no pockets on the dress I’m wearing.

26. Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
It’s okay. It had its cute and funny moments but I don’t quite understand why it became such a huge pop culture phenomenon.

27. Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
Carpet now, but once I’m in my condo it’ll be hardwood (laminate) all the way, baby!

28. Do you sit or stand in the shower?
Stand. My shower is tiny, and who regularly sits in the shower, anyway? (OMG, I just typed that as “shits in the shower.”) But when I’m really sick yet still have to shower, I’ll sometimes sit just because I’m afraid I’ll pass out if I stand.

29. Could you live with roommates?
Nope! Maybe a significant other someday, but other than that? No way!

30. How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
Just one; they were given to me by my sister and I wear them if I’m barefoot and need to run outside and it’s wet.

31. Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
When I got my last speeding ticket, which was maybe a year or so ago.

32. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Retired. And not being forced to live on dog food because of it.

33. Who is number 1 on your top 8
On MySpace? Uh...Shawn, I think? Because he was the first person to accept my friend invitation.

34. Last friend you talked to?
On the phone it was Heather; over email it was Angela.

35. Last person who called you?
My sister.

36. Person you hugged?
My niece, this morning.

37. Current mood?
Meh. Worried. Pensive.

38. Listening to?
Nothing right now. I was listening to a Paul Potts CD as I drove to work earlier.

39. Watching?
Nothing right now; tonight I’ll watch House.

40. Worrying about?
Buying a condo. Money.

41. First place you went this morning?
My condo, for its home inspection.

42. What can you not wait to do?
Get completely settled into my home.

43. What’s the last movie you saw?
Vacancy.

44. Do you smile often?
No. And because of that, I don’t have to worry about smile lines!

45. Are you a friendly person?
Not really, but only because I’m shy and a bit asocial.


song heard most recently before posting:
Por Ti Seré—Paul Potts

home bittersweet home

In an astoundingly whirlwind turn of events, I just bought a condo in Frederick! I saw it for the first time last Saturday, submitted an offer immediately thereafter, and just found out yesterday that my offer was accepted (this wasn’t a slam-dunk case because someone else had submitted an offer as well, and the condo easily could’ve gone to him/her). It was in the back of my mind that the day I submitted the offer was the one-year anniversary of when I arrived from my lovely stint in London, and the day I officially “won” the condo was the one-year anniversary of when I returned. And yes, I also thought about how the five-year anniversary of when the DC sniper attacks began took place the day before I scored the condo. Because I’m morbid like that.

I never wanted to live in a condo or in Frederick (no offense, Frederick!), but single-family homes closer to DC are just too expensive. Those that are somewhat reasonably priced are either in a ghetto or need rehabbing. Condos, meanwhile, are either really tiny or have high condo fees. Or, because they were apartment conversions, they don’t even include washers and dryers. Screw that!

So, I’m pretty excited but also very, very nervous. Like, so nervous, I’m amazed I haven’t vomited yet. Settlement will be on November 5th and I’ll move in later that month. This, of course, will mean having to pay a mortgage and rent at the same time, and don’t ask me how I’m going to do that, but I need time to get wood (laminate) floors and plantation shutters installed and get the place painted. Plus I need to buy a fridge and washer/dryer (with the $2000 appliance allowance the seller is giving me) and a new sofa and armchair (since Plath ruined my current ones during his pre-Prozac urine-spraying days).

It looks like a good neighborhood (**knocks on imaginary wood**). Hopefully I won’t have the noise issues I’m facing in my current place. With a condo it’s always iffy, but on the plus side, this building was built as condos, not apartments, so maybe there’s a bit more soundproofing in place? One can only hope.

It’s cute and cozy and it’s a decent size (just over 1,000 square feet). It has a cute sunroom that faces west, so it gets a ton of light in the afternoon. The price is good for this area. It’s still going to be a financial struggle for me, but if I become frugal and watch my pennies, I think I’ll be okay. I hope.


song heard most recently before posting:
Disconnected—Veruca Salt

bathing in blood

Danielle and I had such an awesome time meeting Tim Gunn in Baltimore yesterday. The highlight: when he asked Danielle if she looks so young because she bathes in blood each night. She described the whole thing much better than I could on her blog, so if you have a free moment, I recommend checking it out!

The whole day was a hot adventure of a lifetime, mainly because she blew out a tire on 95 just as we left Baltimore, and blew it out to such a degree where part of it literally turned to dust. Since she drives a Jetta, her tire had an anti-theft device on it that required a special tool to unlock it, and the tool couldn’t be found, so we had to be towed from Baltimore to a VW dealer (it’s where she got the car) in Tyson’s Corner, VA. Our tow truck driver was a toothless gem named Jake who had verbal diarrhea for the entire trip, and the things he said were priceless. Once we got to the dealer, we immediately learned that...d’oh!...the special tool was in the trunk all along. It had gotten stuck in some side panel crevice, which is why we never found it. It kind of felt like a Lucy and Ethel moment. I had a blast all day long.

Here’s a shot of me with Tim Gunn! (Yes I look ghastly; the harsh shadows and bright light did me no favors!)





song heard most recently before posting:
O My God—The Police

"socializing" isn't always a four-letter word

This weekend proved to be a tad surreal. On one hand, the old familiar framework was in place: attempting to sleep late while Freyja pawed at my covers and Plath screamed in my ear; working on freelancing for hours on end; watching Netflix DVDs; and exchanging messages on Facebook. On the other hand, it also involved a bounty of two activities that I almost never do: drinking and socializing.

On Friday afternoon some coworkers and I went out for a long al fresco lunch and each of us enjoyed a glass of sangria while there. Pretty tame, admittedly, but it’s also like, Ohmigod! We’re drinking! On our lunch break! And then we have to go back to work! Ohmigod, we’re so scandalous! Sometimes being a stodgy old fogey is just grand.

On Friday night I was off to a coworker’s farewell party—which also turned into an early Oktoberbest celebration (at least in name). I had some bottles of English cider left over from the Princess Diana death anniversary party, so I took those along and some people were really excited about it. I grabbed one of the bottles for myself and enjoyed my time with the assemblage of coworkers and significant others who were there. The weather was great and it was a perfect evening to hang out under the party lights and trees. One of the benefits to parties thrown by my coworkers: all the food is vegetarian. In fact, the hostess of this particular party even labeled which dishes were vegan versus vegetarian. I love it.

Last night I helped another coworker belatedly celebrate her birthday. We had dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant we discovered in Georgetown two years ago, then spent a bit of time drooling over all of the unattainable goods in Anthropologie. Although talking myself out of buying a gigantic metal J for $98 wasn’t too difficult, talking myself out of buying a tabletop metal and wood J sculpture thingy for $28 was a lot more difficult. Oh how I coveted that damn thing! But sanity prevailed in the end, disappointingly. Afterwards we headed to Strike Bethesda, as she really wanted to go bowling (which would also mean kicking my ass at bowling, because let’s face it—I’m not exactly athletic). Once we got there and saw how ridiculously high the prices were ($35.95 for one hour’s use of a lane? Come on!), we decided to scrap our plans.

On a whim we headed over to Dave & Buster’s in Rockville. We had drinks, played the various games (well, Susan did, anyway—I was too cheap!), and stalked a hot gangly nerd. As always, Susan questioned my taste in men after I furtively pointed him out to her (not that he would’ve noticed—he was way too engrossed [one could even say to an obsessive degree] with the interactive Police 9-1-1 game). Based on my ragtag assemblage of geek crushes, I suspect the girl basically thinks I’m a nutcase...and perhaps she’s right. After we got tired of stalking him, we hit the road.

Also? I’m totally freaking the fuck out about this house situation. I just don’t know what to do. I can’t decide if I can make that monthly mortgage payment work. I can’t decide if buying this house will be the stupidest move of my life (because I may not be able to afford it, and house prices may continue to decline, so if I just wait for a few more weeks/months, I may be able to find a more affordable home) or if it will be the smartest move of my life (because no better properties at that price will appear, and passing on this house means passing on my one chance to have a decent home at a semi-affordable price). I analyzed my monthly expenses to within an inch of their life, cut costs from them as much as possible, and poured over my freelance earnings for each month during the past two years to try to figure out how much they could save my ass if I buy this house. I’ve become an old pro at fretting and wringing my hands while being completely paralyzed with indecision.

Long live the joys of adulthood.


song heard most recently before posting:
Symphonic Dances, Op. 45: Non allegro—Sergei Rachmaninov

Why can't buying a house be so much easier?

This house-hunting thing and mortgage-shopping thing has become the bane of my existence.

Thus far I’ve spoken to four respectable lenders (as compared to potentially dodgy lenders on the internet) and none of them have given me numbers I can deal with. I can’t pay $1,500-1,600 a month for a mortgage. I just can’t. So logic says, “Okay, you’ve held on for this long; why not just keep waiting until housing prices drop further?” Yes, I’m paranoid that there’s going to be another housing boom and I’ll lose my chance to buy a place, but I recognize that it’s not a very realistic fear. Everyone on the news is saying that prices will continue to drop for another year or so; although they might just be panicmongers, there’s really no reason for me to not believe their core message, just like there’s no reason for me to think that interest rates will suddenly skyrocket. My immediate problem is that I actually found a great house on Friday night.

We (my brother-in-law Bryan, my realtor Allie, and me) went to look at two houses in Frederick. The first house seemed okay on the outside. It looked like a relatively quiet, working-class street of duplexes. Allie told me it was highly Hispanic and I was like, “I don’t care. I just want to live somewhere quiet, where I don’t have to worry about hordes of people standing out on the street at night, talking loudly and playing music and whatever.” Really, my neighbors can be black, white, Asian, three-headed, whatever, as long as they’re not dangerous and/or noisy. In terms of race, ethnicity, and religion, all people are the same in my book.

The backyard was huge and had potential. The much-anticipated hot tub was a washout, though—it looked like something from a horror movie. The yard had two water features: a long, narrow, canal-like pond which looked like it might have a small waterfall mechanism, and a full-scale pond. It was massive! At first I was charmed by it but then I realized just how much work it would entail. It would need one or two pumps and god knows how much other maintenance in order to keep it from turning into a West Nile virus factory. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get into the house. The listing agent had warned Allie that the renting tenant might not let us in, and he was right. The house was dark when we arrived, the blinds were drawn, and no one answered the door. What the hell? Why isn’t the seller doing anything about that? When my previous landlord was selling his house, I had to let prospective buyers wander through my apartment no matter what time of day it was! Allie offered to come back and take digital pictures inside the house for me, which sounded good to me. But later Bryan—who had previously grudgingly admitted that the street didn’t look too bad—began saying how this neighborhood has the highest crime rate in all of Maryland—worse even than Baltimore and PG County. I was thinking, Uh, great. Well, if I’d really had a keen interest in the house, I possibly would’ve ignored his warnings. Or, I should say, I wouldn’t have taken them at face value. Instead, I would’ve done independent research to try to figure out just how unsafe the area is. But the thing is, I didn’t have a keen interest in the house. It was cute on the outside but it was too expensive ($190k) and the yard seemed too daunting. So I just told Allie to forget about taking the digital pictures for me.

The second house has so much potential. That’s the great house I mentioned earlier. Is it my dream house? No. It’s just a run-of-the-mill brick townhouse from the 1960s on an average street in Frederick. But the street seemed quiet and nice (granted, it was raining, so that could’ve kept the hooligans inside), and the house is next to a church, which gave me a strange feeling of safety, even though I’m completely areligious. Allie did a bit of research and found that there isn’t a lot of turnover in that neighborhood—people stay there for quite a few years. That’s a good sign. Plus, although the house has a HOA fee, I wouldn’t need to get homeowner’s insurance, which would save me money. Apparently with condos you only have to get renter’s insurance. I never knew that before.

The house itself was average but it was a perfect size for me. There’s a dining room, albeit one that’s basically part of the living room, and there’s also room for a table and chairs in the kitchen. There’s a half-bath downstairs and the basement is quite large. It has an unfinished section to serve as a laundry room and the finished section could serve as my storage area and as the place where I eventually put an exercise bike (I’ve decided that my lazy ass needs to get in some semblance of mediocre shape). The master bedroom had been split into two children’s bedroom with a makeshift picket fence (yes, an actual fence!) and the owner offered to either take it down to restore the room to its original state or put up a permanent wall to create two rooms. This would give me a guest room and an office. There are loads of closets—I was impressed by that. The house has a fenced in patio that would really be perfect for me. It’s small, but still big enough for a café table and chairs, a bird feeder, and lots of potted flowers. It would give the cats fresh air yet keep them safe, because the wooden fence is high.

Negatives: the appliances and windows are all quite old and would probably need to be replaced pretty soon, and for some inexplicable reason the central air doesn’t extend to the upstairs, so that would have to be done. Not just because I like it cool when I sleep, but also because it’s more energy-efficient. I mean, any air blowing downstairs is going to drift upstairs, which would keep the downstairs from getting very cool, and thus the a/c would pump harder to keep the downstairs cool. Aside from those things, though, the house is in good shape and would look splendid with wooden floors and my jewel-toned walls.

But at $179,500, I can’t afford it. That’s the bottom line. Even with getting two mortgages to keep PMI at bay, which would save me money, I can’t afford it. And that just makes me so incredibly sad, I can hardly bear it. Bryan thinks the pricetag is crazy and the house should only cost $165k at the most. But Allie said that a counteroffer should only go down to $175k. If it did go lower, maybe I could afford it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s worth trying? The seller almost had the house sold but the deal fell apart the day before settlement. He has already moved into a new house and wants this place gone so he doesn’t have to pay two mortgages. Maybe he’d be willing to settle for less money.

What else can I do? I’m going to contact a mortgage broker friend of Bryan’s tomorrow and see if I can magically get better numbers out of him. He’s a very nice, very honest guy; I got some decent numbers from him back in 2005 when I first started thinking about buying a house, and he did a fabulous job with refinancing Kristen and Bryan’s house twice. Maybe I’ll ask how much my monthly payment would cost if the house cost $165k, just in case. It probably wouldn’t be much lower, though. That’s the frustrating thing about mortgages: a price drop of $10k really makes no difference in your monthly payment.

This is all so close, and yet so very unreachable…


song heard most recently before posting:
Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201, 1st movement—WA Mozart

'round here, something radiates

Today is what I always refer to as my study abroad anniversary. In my head I never marked the day I actually landed in England (good thing, too, because it was September 11th); instead, I marked the day I left. It felt like such a monumental and massive point-of-no-return moment when, literally sobbing, I turned away from my family and friends at Newark Airport and began my long, shaky walk through the airline gate into the great unknown.

Some people argue that studying abroad really only matters if you’re in a place with a completely different language or culture, and England hardly falls into those categories. I’ll consent that studying abroad is more challenging in a Third World country or a country where a different language is spoken. But at the end of the day, this is what I think: going off to live in a different country when you’re only 20 years old is scary and brave in all circumstances. You’re leaving behind the comfort of friends, family, your college, your routines. And even Western, English-speaking London felt like a different world when it came to navigating its weird university system. There was a tough adjustment period and there were times when I wondered if I’d made a mistake. There were times when I really, really missed home and all my loved ones there.

Still, the listing ship of this experience righted itself in the end and I can now look back on my year abroad as one of the happiest times of my life. For someone like me—extremely shy, socially inept, almost paralyzed with clinical depression—what appeared to be the dumbest decision I could possibly make turned out to be the smartest. It set in motion the process of me emerging from my shell. It chipped away at my shyness and fear. I suppose one could even describe it as being my coming of age experience. I made some great new friends and finally found the Holy Grail I’d been seeking ever since I departed for my freshman year of college two years earlier: a normal college experience.

Scranton and I never gelled. While my senior year ended up being somewhat normal, thanks to my beloved David and wickedly fun Kara, my freshman and sophomore years were a wretched purgatorial state. I spent the bulk of them in quarantine, separated from the rest of the student body by a thick, sterile slab of shatter-proof glass. I didn’t connect with anyone and, coupled with my ever-present depression, I turned further inward to a degree where I was essentially a mute hermit.

Goldsmiths could’ve easily turned out the same way. I was resigned to the possibility that it might happen, and I consoled myself by saying, “Well, at least I’ll be in London.” Hey, being a social pariah isn’t so bad if you’re in London! It sure beats being a social pariah in Scranton, Pennsylvania, anyway! Still, there was a kernel of hope inside of me—one that whispered I think it might be okay.

And it was okay. Right off the bat I met Annida—still one of the most important people in my life—and we extended our social circle and had fun and soon I was tip-toeing my way through that dazzling Oz of normal college experiences. No, my time wasn’t spent drinking and snogging, and to that degree, I suppose my experiences weren’t completely normal. But suddenly I had friends hanging out in my room, walking to class with me, eating breakfast with me. Suddenly there were in-jokes and goofy photos and silly experiences. Suddenly I could write about more in my journal than just my ever-present angst and woe. These are all things that your average college student takes for granted, but for me they were as exquisitely, unexpectedly rare as spotting a unicorn while driving to the supermarket.

Goldsmiths is considered by many to be the UK’s leading creative university (especially in art, music, and design), and therefore, it was a perfect fit for me. Scranton, bless its heart, was a fundamentally white-bread school when I studied there. Its student body was primarily white and Catholic. The bulk of the students came from northeast PA, New Jersey, the Philadelphia area, and Long Island. There weren’t many other nationalities and ethnicities. Nearly everyone dressed the same: jeans, sweatshirts, baseball caps. Then I got to Goldsmiths and immediately met people from all over the world. On any given evening our table in the dining hall had students from Italy, Greece, Japan, France, Norway, and Malaysia plunking down or stopping to say hello. There were different races, languages, cultures. I saw pink hair, piercings, Mohawks, funky clothing. I was in heaven.

So today, 13 years after I carted my weeping, tremulous ass onto that Virgin Atlantic flight from Newark to Heathrow, I give thanks to Goldsmiths College and all it offered me. Long may she wave!


song heard most recently before posting:
Raining in Baltimore—Counting Crows

nature's bounty

I had a lovely time in Lebanon and greatly enjoyed our Princess Diana death party. Missy decided that she wants her funeral to be an exact replica of Diana’s funeral (minus Westminster Abbey and the zillions of TV viewers, of course), so we had fun planning that. Because that’s what normal thirtysomethings do on a Friday night—they sit around and plan their funerals. Thursday night, meanwhile, involved white trash karaoke and an 11pm trip to Wal-Mart. It was trashtastic.

After joining my grandfather for breakfast at Friendly’s on Saturday morning, I headed home to unpack, do laundry, work on freelancing, blah blah blah. I’d unfortunately forgotten to pack my Effexor when I left for PA, and I was really starting to feel the effects by the time I screeched into my driveway early on Saturday afternoon. Effexor is notorious for having a withdrawal symptom known in common parlance as “brain shivers.” Everybody seems to describe it differently; I find myself unable to describe it at all—it defies my capacity for language. All I can say is that it’s a very weird, unique, uncomfortable type of dizziness.

The weather was stellar all weekend so on Sunday morning I headed over to the US National Arboretum. I’d been there a few times in the past, but never with a digital camera. In the end I pulled some muscles and got some sunburn, but it was all worth it just to spend time in that beautiful place. My photos can be seen here.

My holiday was mostly spent watching DVDs, reading, and updating my website. It was wonderfully relaxing.

Some excellent links:

Beautiful, sumptuous bridal photos taken in a scene of breathtaking urban decay.

Fab design ideas.

I love altered books.

The #1 reason why my lazy ass needs to learn how to cross-stitch.



song heard most recently before posting:
You Don’t Know Where Your Interests Lie—Simon and Garfunkel

The Shuffler - vol. 2

Vol. 1 is here. The following songs were all belched out during yesterday’s evening commute and this morning’s commute:

What a Feeling – Heather Nova
On her Siren album this is second only to Winterblue as my favorite tune.

Oh Had I a Golden Thread – Eva Cassidy
One of my least favorite Eva Cassidy songs, actually, because the roller rink-esque organ music grates. But oh, that voice!

Uchu Ryoku – Yoko K.
Last year I went to a joint PostSecret/Found event and I thought the DC musician who performed the electronic background music for the PostSecret side of the show was just phenomenal. As soon as her CD was released by a local label, I snatched it up. This is a splendid groove from that album.

Upside Down – Tori Amos
Quite possibly my favorite Tori B-side. When I was at Goldsmiths I had Annida write my favorite line from this song (“I found the secret to my life: I’m okay when everything is not okay”) in calligraphy, and I hung it in my dorm room.

Running to Stand Still – U2
My favorite song from The Joshua Tree. I love the line “You got to cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice.”

Schankheden – Swap
I really dig Nordic folk music, and this song in particular makes me want to get up and dance. So y’all better step back right now—you don’t want to lose an eye.

The Angel Song – Great White
Power ballads are so fabulously cheesy. Fallen angel ripped and bruised! Life is rude, treats you bad, tears your wings away! Hollywood ain’t paved with gold—it’s just a trick of light! A spider’s web of tangled lives lays stretched across the hills; from distances it’s glistening
like El Dorado’s halls! The streets are hard, they’re mean and scarred, where only fools find gold!

Vehicle – Bo Bice
I wish his post-American Idol career had been more fruitful. This is a fun tune and he has a nice voice, so where the hell is he?

Auf Achse – Franz Ferdinand
When I first heard them, they were the first new band I’d gotten excited about in a long time. This CD rocks!

Love Takes Over Me – Kylie Minogue
David, Kylie fan extraordinaire, exposed me to this great song.

Eye of the Tiger – Paul Anka
I just love Anka’s big band covers of ’80s and ’90s songs!

Love Montage (I Saw Him Once/In My Life/A Heart Full of Love) – Les Misérables
Aw, Les Mis. Fabulous musical. And fabulous book, too. I read the unabridged version on my own in 9th grade, then read abridged versions in my English and French classes later in high school.

Renaissance Affair – Hooverphonic
My first introduction to trance-pop. I miss your touch and your embrace…delicate and ethereal desire.

Meanwhile:
Missy and I have been raging Anglophiles lately, and I’m not quite sure what triggered this onslaught of fervor. Whatever the cause, tomorrow’s 10-year anniversary of Princess Diana’s death seems like as good an excuse as any to take the day off work and, with her Anglophiliac parents, be total dorks who spend the day watching Di’s funeral, reading Di memorial magazines, stuffing our gullets with British junk food, and watching her parents’ copy of Season 2 of Life on Mars. They have the capability of watching foreign DVDs, so they bought both seasons of Life on Mars from England. And since BBC America never bothered to play Season 2 of LoM, this’ll be my one chance to finally see it, while pounding back Ribena, choccie digestive biccies, Irn Bru, Heinz chocolate puddings, and more.

Viva la Britain!


song heard most recently before posting:
Renaissance Affair—Hooverphonic

parlaying angst into fame

Back in February I submitted some old high school-era poems and journal entries to The Cringe Book, which will be published next year by Crown Publishing. I picked the worst of the worst: words laced with overwrought, morose, angsty, vaguely humiliating histrionics. Yesterday I received an email from the editor telling me that two of my journal entries have been accepted for publication and will appear in Melodrama section of the book. Awesome!

(And I know I shouldn’t laugh at myself, because, melodramatics aside, I really was critically, dangerously depressed, and that is a very serious issue. However...I just can’t help but chuckle at how maudlin I was about the whole thing!)

Anyway, the editor wanted me to write a few lines about the entries—basically my adult perspective on the entries I churned out as a teen. This is what I submitted to her:

Re: the June 20, 1989, entry:
Anne Frank inspired me to name all my journals, which is why this entry is addressed to a person. Because, after all, the petulant woes of a middle-class American teen are so similar to those of a Jewish girl forced into years of terrifying, rat-like hiding by a genocidal regime.

I was 15 when I wrote this entry; I thought I was terribly “deep” and had an “old soul” because I half-heartedly worried about the plight of Romanians and Ethiopians. But not enough to actually, like, donate my allowance to them, mind you.

Re: the February 14, 1991, entry:

Well, Happy Valentine’s Day 1991 to me! This entry perfectly illustrates an equation that even a math idiot like myself can understand: severe clinical depression + 16-year-old angst + self-absorption = overwrought histrionics.

I love how trivial things like quiz bowl and my high school musical rehearsals (as compared to, say, the Gulf War, which took place one month earlier) were the last straw—the catalyst for me crawling beneath my bed, weeping to the sounds of a Puccini tape, and renouncing at all. Motherfucking Mame sent me into a depressive tailspin. I love it.


song heard most recently before posting:
Sad Lisa—Cat Stevens

snow day in August

I got an unexpectedly free afternoon today. At around noon I heard a groaning noise as the ambient electronic noise in my office suddenly exhaled its last breath. Everything went dim and I heard periodic curses volley around the cube farm (many from myself, since I’d been working on some business cards in Quark and hadn’t saved my changes) as people realized, “Aw crap, the power’s out!” We have power surges every so often, and last week the power went out for a minute or so, but it’s never been like this.

We sat around and shot the shit for a while, speculating that maybe terrorists set off an EMP (okay, so maybe last bit wasn’t exactly a “we” but a “me”), then resigned ourselves to working on the few meager tasks that could be eked out with no computers and no bright light. Without tapping keys, clicking mice, humming dehumidifiers, ringing phones, and a/c blasting from the vents, the office was eerily quiet. The silence and low chatter was broken every few minutes by the abrasive and insistant beeping of our computers’ battery back-ups.

45 minutes later a coworker—serving as a kind of town crier (in lieu of a working PA system)—yelled out that everyone was supposed to gather in the atrium for a staff meeting. We found out that a generator had blown, plunging half the city into darkness. Since Pepco didn’t have a clue what caused the problem or when it would be fixed, we were all sent home. So, yay! A free afternoon! Thank you, baby Jesus!


song heard most recently before posting:
On—Bloc Party

more questions & answers

Because it’s lunchtime and I’m bored!


Your SENIOR year of high school

1. Who was your best friend?
Heather

2.What sports did you play?
I had gold medals in melancholia and self-absorption.

3. What kind of car did you drive?
My mom’s car, when she let me use it (a 1991 Honda Civic).

4. It’s Friday night, where were you?
Hanging out with my friends, either A) cruising The Loop; B) sitting around my house, reading tabloids, and watching low-budget horror movies; or C) sitting around Missy’s parents’ house, reading tabloids, and watching low-budget horror movies.

5. Were you a party animal?
Did you not read my answer to #4?? Does it sound like I was a party animal?

6. Were you considered a flirt?
Hell no. I tried to be invisible around boys! (Except one particular crush, and even then I was too shy to flirt openly with him.)

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or chorus?
Not band or orchestra, but I was part of the chorus (ie, a background playa) in the school musical.

8. Were you a nerd?
Sho’ ‘nuff.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Not my senior year! (I got suspended junior year, though.)

10. Can you sing the fight song?
Did we even have a fight song? Our mascot was a fucking cedar tree—not exactly a warrior!

11. Who was your favorite teacher?
During senior year…hmmm…probably Mme. Clements, my French IV teacher. I always thought she was pretty cool. And the guy who taught AP History (god, what was his name? Mr. Snavely?) was cool, too, because he had a wonderfully dry sense of humor. Oh, and even though he was tough as nails, I liked my Honors English teacher, Mr. Linn, because he was the only teacher who really attempted to prepare us for the academic rigors of college.

12.What was your school’s full name?
Lebanon High School

13. School mascot?
A cedar tree. Yes, a cedar tree!

14. Did you go to prom?
Yeah.

15. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
I don’t have a desire to go back and relive my senior year, thank you very much, although there were some fun moments.

16. What do you remember most about graduation?
How stupid it was that we were seated according to our height, instead of being put in alphabetical order. Also, I was thinking ahead to my 18th birthday (it came two days later) and Senior Week (which started one day later).

17. Where were you on senior skip day?
We didn’t have one. Although…I guess Missy, Gates, and I kind of had our own Senior Skip Day when we skipped school in order to attend this C.A.U.S.E. environmental fair thingy in downtown Lancaster.

18. Did you have a job your senior year?
Nope, thank god!

19. Where did you go most often for lunch?
The cafeteria. We weren’t allowed off-campus; I think they may’ve even locked the doors to keep us inside!

20. Have you gained weight since then?
I actually lost a bit weight, and stayed at that lower weight for a few years, but now I’d say I’m a good 15-20 pounds heavier than I was when I graduated.

21. What did you do after graduation?
My family had a small party to celebrate my graduation and birthday. Some friends stopped by, but most of our bigger, more official parties had taken place in earlier weeks. Afterward I went to bed, because I had to get up early the next day to leave for Senior Week.

22. When did you graduate?
June 2, 1992. I only remember the date because it was my friend Jenn’s birthday.

23. Who was your Senior prom date?
My friend Terry.

24. Are you going to your 10 year reunion?
I did go to my 10-year reunion and it sucked. Will there be a 15-year reunion this year? I don’t know. If there is, I don’t know if I’ll bother going.

25. Who was your home room teacher?
Oh god…I have no idea. Frau Toews, maybe? She was my homeroom teacher one year, and I think it may’ve been 12th grade.


Seasonal Survey

JANUARY-

1. Who kissed you on New Year’s?
My cat Plath.

2. Did you have a New Year’s resolution this year?
Nope. I gave them up a few years ago.

3. Does it snow where you live?
Yeah, but not a lot. I’d prefer more.

4. Do you like hot chocolate?
I love it. It’s my favorite hot drink.

5. Have you ever been to Times Square to watch the ball drop?
No, unfortunately. I’ve always wanted to do that. Spending two New Year’s Eves in London and ringing in the millennium at a huge downtown bash in DC whetted my appetite for Times Square.

FEBRUARY-

1. Who was your Valentine?
Myself. NEXT!

2. When you were little, did you buy Valentine’s for the whole class?
Oh yeah. Well...actually, I can’t remember if I gave them to everybody or just the kids I liked.

3. Do you care if the groundhog sees its shadow or not?
The whole thing is ridiculous. There are, like, stadium lights and spotlights and flashbulbs raining down on the groundhog from all directions; of course he’s going to see his shadow!

MARCH-

1. Are you Irish?
Partially; my dad’s maternal line came from the little village of Butlersbridge in County Cavan.

2. Do you wear green on St. Patty’s Day?
[junior high voice]No. That’s gay![/junior high voice]

3. What did you do for St. Patty’s Day in 2007?
Nothing but the usual: work, work, work.

4. Are you happy when winter is pretty much over?
I love winter, but by March I’m usually ready for spring. Not the hot weather, though.

APRIL-

1. Do you like the rain?
Yes. But not flooding!

2. Did you play an April fool’s joke on anyone this year?
I hate April Fool’s jokes. I know: killjoy.

3. Do you get tons of candy on Easter?
Not anymore—I did when I was a kid. But I still treat myself to loads of Marshmallow Peeps and Cadbury Mini-Eggs each year.

4. Do you celebrate 4/20?
What the hell’s 4/20? Besides the Vernal Equinox (on some years)?

5. Do you love the month of April?
It’s okay. There’s nothing big to look forward to, but the schizophrenic spring weather is usually calming down by this point, so that’s nice.

MAY-

1. What is your favorite flower?
Heather.

2. Do you like the spring?
I do, actually. It’s not my favorite season (I prefer fall), but it can be so lovely and wild, I can’t help but be impressed.

3. Finish the phrase “April showers”:
“…usually flood my apartment.”

4. Do you celebrate May 16th: National Piercing Day?
If I had any unusual piercings I might!

5. Is there anything special about May to you?
Plath and Angela’s birthdays!

JUNE-

1. What year did/will you graduate from high school?
1992. Ugh.

2. Do you usually do anything fun during this month?
Celebrate my birthday! And Olivia’s birthday, too.

3. Have a favorite baseball team?
Nope—I can’t stand the sport.

JULY-

1. What do you do on the Fourth of July?
Usually nothing. When I was a kid my family always had a small cookout and watched fireworks, though.

2. Do you go on any vacations during this month?
Usually not. It’s too hot and everything (airfares, gas, hotels) is overpriced because it’s peak tourist season everywhere I want to go.

3. Do you blast the A/C all day?
I would if I could, but my upstairs neighbors control the a/c and therefore call all the shots.

AUGUST-

1. Do you do anything special at the end of your summer?
Just praise Jesus that the end of the heat is in sight.

2. What was your favorite summer memory of ’06?
The night a bunch of us drove to Birdsboro, PA, to see Charlie star in a local production of Aida. It had been ages since I laughed that hard.

3. Did you have a sunburn?
I got burned when I spent a day at the beach. Even with SPF50 sunblock and a beach umbrella, I still got burned. Welcome to my skin’s world.

4. Did you go to the pool a lot?
If I had access to a pool I would. I try to avoid the sun as much as possible, but damn do I love being in the water.

SEPTEMBER-

1. Will you be attending college/school?
No. At some point, when my schedule settles down, I’d like to take a class for fun.

2. Who was your favorite teacher?
In high school…probably Mme. Clements, who I had for French all four years, because she was kind of zany. She always kept things interesting by having us do activities like write a letter to our future selves in French each year and have little parties where we sang French Christmas carols and whatnot. In college it was Shelley Nameroff, who taught my On the Road class. She was such a fabulous hippie.

3. Do you like Fall better than Summer?
Hell to the yeah!

OCTOBER-

1. What was your last Halloween costume?
A Soviet prostitute.

2. What is your favorite candy?
It’s a multi-tie between Andes mints, Reese’s peanut butter cups, spice drops, and Yorkie bars.

3. Whose birthday is during this month?
Foster (on the 3rd), my cousin Kelly (on the 11th), and my grandfather (on the 17th).

4. What’s was your favorite thing about this month?
The growing coldness, the leaves, the anticipation of upcoming holidays.

NOVEMBER-

1. Whose house do you go to for Thanksgiving?
My mom’s, usually.

2. Did you know GoofyAuctions.com was started this month in 2005?
Uh…no?

3. What are you thankful for?
The fact that I’ve escaped trauma and that I’ve only lost one loved one to death.

4. Do you love stuffing?
Stuffing’s okay, but nothing beats PA Dutch potato filling. That’s what we have on Thanksgiving and Christmas and I dream about it all year long.

5. Whose birthday is during this month?
Jorge (the 24th) and Richard (the 29th).

DECEMBER-

1. Do you celebrate Christmas?
Yeah, even though I’m totally areligious. I love the secular side of the holiday, even if it is totally over-commercialized. (I mean, c’mon, Christmas products arriving in the stores not long after Labor Day? Please.)

2. What is December 1st, 2007?
World AIDS Day. Violet Affleck’s birthday. And…?

3. Have you ever been kissed under the mistletoe?
Ptthh. No.

4. Get anything special last year?
My sister knitted me a scarf, which was really cool. And I got pretty much everything that was on my list.

5. What do you want this year?
Miscellaneous crap I don’t need. If I have a house by that point, I’ll surely want household stuff.

6. Do you like cold weather?
Yup!


Seven Deadly Sins

WRATH

1. Who did you last get angry with?
The depraved little shits who maimed and murdered my dad’s neighbor’s Emu.

2. What is your weapon of choice?
Knives. Who doesn’t like to cut a bitch every once in a while?

3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex?
I’m not a hitter, but if I were, sure, I’d hit a dude.

4. How about of the same sex?
Same as #3, only with chicks.

5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you?
Mmm…honestly, I don’t know. If someone has been angry with me, s/he must’ve kept it well hidden because nothing was said to me.

6. What is your pet peeve?
I’ve got too many to count. For example, tailgaiters, people who don’t use their turn signals, rubberneckers, people who pull their food out of the microwave before it’s finished and then they don’t hit the “clear” button. People who borrow stuff and then only return it when you ask for it. The obscene loudness of my upstairs neighbors’ voices, footsteps, and snores. The fact that they don’t remove junk mail or wrongly rerouted mail from our shared mailbox when they get to it first. They always pull out their mail and leave the other shit behind for me. They know that my old landlord is dead, and therefore he obviously doesn’t need the mail that occasionally comes for him, so why do they leave it in the mailbox for me? Why don’t they just throw it out? Ditto for the mail that we get for tenants who haven’t lived at that address in years. Why do they leave it for me?? What do they think I’m going to do with it??

7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily?
I used to be out of control with the grudges, but I’m much better now. You really need to screw me over to earn a grudge.

SLOTH

1. What is one thing you’re supposed to do daily that you haven’t?
Wear underwear.

2. What is the latest you’ve ever woken up?
Probably around 1pm.

3. Name a person you’ve been meaning to contact, but haven’t.
A mortgage lender.

4. What is the last lame excuse you made?
I was invited to an outdoor screening of a Hitchcock film at Strathmore last week and was like, “I can’t—the America’s Got Talent semi-final is on.”

5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through?
Maybe in high school as a laugh; I can’t remember.

6. When was the last time you got a good workout?
Once upon a time in a land called Never! Actually, via walking, I got in a hell of a workout during my four days in London last fall. I walked until every muscle screamed for mercy.

7. How many times did you snooze your alarm clock today?
I don’t use the snooze button. Waking up sucks whether you do it now or three minutes from now, so why not just get the misery over and done with?

GLUTTONY

1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice?
None. I usually just stick with tap water and generic instant coffee!

2. Meat eaters: white meat or dark meat?
I’m a vegetarian. Back in my carnivorous days, though, I stuck to white meat.

3. What is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one night?
A single bottle of beer. I’m essentially a teetotaler!

4. Have you ever used a professional diet company?
No, but if I really had a desire to lose weight I’d probably try Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, because my willpower on its own…well, it ain’t so great.

5. Do you have an issue with your weight?
I’d love to lose 20 lbs and get toned, but I just don’t have the energy to do it. It doesn’t bother me that badly.

6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods?
Salty.

7. Have you ever looked at a small house pet and thought “lunch”?
God! That’s revolting.

LUST

1. How many people have you seen naked:
*bats eyelashes coquettishly*

2. How many people have seen YOU naked:
*bats eyelashes coquettishly even harder*

3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at someone’s chest/crotch?
I don’t think so. Face, yes, but crotch/chest? I doubt it.

4. Have you “done it”?
Have I done what exactly? Hmmm?

5. What is your favorite body part on a person of your gender?
Eyes, maybe? Or hair?

6. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute?
Haha! No, I think they’ve got better sense than that.

7. Have you ever had to get tested for an STD or pregnancy?
Thank god, no.

GREED

1. How many credit cards do you own?
A bunch. But I’ve been working at paying them off and only two of them have balances at this point.

2. What’s your guilty pleasure store?
Target. It’s so…common, you know? But lord am I good at dropping the ducats in there.

3. If you had $10 million, what would you do with it?
Travel, travel, travel, travel, travel. And buy a few cozy houses in areas that I love.

4. Would you rather be rich or famous?
Rich. Celebrities have a lot of advantages (swag, special treatment, etc.), but other than that, nothing about being a celebrity would interest me. I’d hate to have my picture slathered everywhere, with everyone constantly analyzing and criticizing my face, body, and clothing. I’d hate to be followed by paparazzi all the time.

5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks?
Boring, yes. Stressful, no. Conflict of interest (like the NRA), no.

6. Have you ever stolen anything?
Hells yeah! But not in years.

7. How many MP3s are on your hard drive?
Right now: 2,146.

PRIDE

1. What’s one thing you have done that you’re most proud of?
Probably graduating from college on time, cum laude, without ever 1) changing my major, 2) transferring schools, 3) getting any final grades lower than a B-, or 4) committing suicide. I wasn’t totally convinced I could pull it off.

2. What’s one thing have you done that your parents are most proud of?
I don’t know…they’re strangely proud of mundane things, like the fact that after seven months in London I knew how to ride the tube on my own, and the fact that I know my way around the DC area AFTER LIVING HERE FOR ALMOST 10 YEARS. Clearly they think I’m mentally disabled.

3. What things would you like to accomplish in your life?
Buy a house, travel to all the places I really want to see.

4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place?
No, I’m not competitive.

5. Have you ever entered a contest knowing you would win?
Hmm…I don’t think so. I’m never confident that I’m going to win anything.

6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score?
Sha!

7. What did you do today that you’re proud of?
I can’t say—it’s a little too weird.

ENVY

1. What item does your friend have that you want?
I’m jealous of my friends who own homes!

2. Who would you want to go on “Trading Spaces” with?
I think I’d trust any of my closest friends to go on there with me. And one or two coworkers, too.

3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?
A Brit! I’ve been such an Anglophile lately!

4. Have you ever been cheated on?
I hope not!

5. Have you ever wished you had a different physical feature?
Yeah, I’ve wished that I could lose the craniosynostosis-induced dents and asymmetry.

6. What trait in others do you wish you had for yourself?
Ambition.

7. Do you wish you’d come up with this survey?
Not particularly.


Questions People Wouldn’t Ask (Uh...why not? —JB)

1. When’s the last time you ran?
Probably at JFK Airport last year, when I was desperately trying to catch a connecting flight. I ran and ran and ran…and didn’t make it in time. Maybe because I’m hopelessly, shamefully out of shape? Just a thought.

2. Do your jeans have rips, tears, and holes in them?
Naw. They’re in great condition, even though some of them are secondhand.

3. What are you reading right now?
The World without Us, The Essential Rumi, and Shazza Osbourne’s memoir. I’m about to start the final Harry Potter book, too.

4. Is your lipgloss poppin’?
What?

5. When is the last time you saw the person you like/liked?
I don’t like anyone. My heart is a stone.

6. What’s your best physical feature?
My eye color.

7. Can you dance?
I look spastic when I dance. I literally look like I’m having a seizure.

8. Do you get the full 8 hours of sleep a night?
Not on weeknights, but on weekends I get a good 10-12 hours each night.

9. Think of all your exes. Would you take any of them back?
It doesn’t matter because I like being single, thank you very much!

10. If anyone came to your house on your “lazy days” what would you be doing?
Lazy days don’t exist anymore! I work constantly. But, okay, occasionally there is a day when I don’t have to work or I only have to work for a short period of time, and on those days the rest of my time is spent vegging on the couch, watching TV or a Netflix DVD, and reading.

11. Who last grabbed your butt?
Oh god, I have no idea. Has anyone ever grabbed my butt? I don’t know why they’d want to.

12. Have you ever been on your school’s track team?
Hell no! I got a doctor’s note to get out of running the mile in gym class, for chrissake!!!

13. Do you own a pair of Converse?
I’ve faithfully worn Converse (but not only Converse, because they’ve got no arch support whatsoever and thus they’re lousy for excessive walking) since 1992.

14. Who did you copy and paste this survey from?
Shawn Seabold.

15. Do you eat raw cookie dough?
No, it doesn’t appeal to me at all.

16. Have you ever kicked a vending machine?
Probably at one point or another.

17. Don’t you hate when the radio ruins good songs by playing a bad one?
Well, I rarely listen to the radio, so it’s hard for me to say. My time in the car is usually spent listening to CDs or my iPod.

18. Do you watch Trading Spaces?
No. I watched Changing Rooms for a bit back in the day, but then lost interest.

19. Are you cocky?
Nope.

20. Could you live without a computer?
Probably not, sadly enough!

21. What age were you when you found out that Santa wasn’t real?
Hmm…I don’t know…maybe around age 10? I was a late bloomer.

22. Are you in high school?
I’ve been out for 15 years!

23. Is anyone on your bad side now?
Yeah, a bit.

24. What jewelry are you wearing?
A necklace I made out of old 1980s earrings.

25. What’s the first thing you do when you get online?
Check my email.

26. Do you watch Grey’s Anatomy?
Yup. I’ve thought Patrick Dempsey was hot ever since I saw him in Can’t Buy Me Love when I was in junior high!

27. How do most people spell your name?
It’s rare for them to fuck up Jennifer, but Boyer often gets misspelled as Blair, Bowyer, and Bauer.

28. Would you wear your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s clothes?
I don’t have one, so the point is moot.

29. What are you doing tomorrow?
Meeting Debbie for dinner at a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Langley Park.

30. Is Justin Timberlake becoming the next Michael Jackson?
Eh, I don’t know. I can’t stand Justin Timberlake’s music and never heard more than like three notes of his songs, so I can’t judge whether he’s like Michael Jackson or not. Or whether that’s a good thing.

31. Will you keep your last name when you get married?
Definitely!

32. When is the last time you left your house?
Today.

33. Do you return your cart?
Always. It’s rude not to do so!

34. Do you have a dishwasher?
Yes—it’s called my hands.

35. What noise do you hear?
Tapping keys, printers, the dehumidifiers that are attempting to keep my department from turning into a jungle.

36. Would you survive in prison?
I doubt it. I’d lay low and try to be invisible, but that usually backfires on me and makes the freaks come fast and furious, so I doubt prison would be any different.

37. If all of your friends were going on a road trip, would you?
Yeah. I love road trips!

38. Do you know anyone with the same name as you?
There are a million Jennifer Boyers and Jennifer Lynn(e) Boyers out there. Even my hometown had another Jennifer Lynn(e) Boyer when I was living there. But I’ve never actually met one in person.

39. How many pairs of shoes do you own?
Oh jeez, I don’t know. 20-30, maybe?

40. What’s the last thing you ate?
My lunch: carrot-ginger soup, a cinnamon-raisin English muffin with cinnamon-raisin peanut butter on it, and a container of blueberry yogurt.

41. What’s your middle name?
Lynne. *yawns*

42. Is your phone on vibrate or ring?
It’s on nothing—I keep it perpetually turned off because I can’t stand cell phones.

43. What brand are your pants right now?
Something called Freestyle. (Hot!) They were cast-offs from my sister.

44. Ever been to Georgia?
I went there for the first time last year to visit Annida.

45. What irritates you most on MySpace?
When people clutter up their pages with a ridiculous amount of video clips, music clips, pictures, etc. It can take forever to scroll through some people’s pages because there’s so much shit on there. Just create a damn website already! Don’t try to cram an entire website’s worth of junk onto one small MySpace page!

46. Do you watch movies with your parents?
If I’m staying with my mom for a weekend, occasionally we’ll watch a flick together.

47. What’s your favorite color?
plum

48. Favorite song?
Right now it’s GMT and Hinda Hicks’s Who Would You Have Me Love.

49. What color is your car?
silver

50. What song best describes your life right now?
Are You There?

51. Where do you work?
A non-profit that shall remain unidentified.

52. Are you taking college classes right now?
No, but I’d like to take a pottery class, Russian class, or metalworking class just for fun.

53. What do you drink most of the time?
water

54. Do you like sushi?
God, yes. I miss fish sushi, though. Vegetarian sushi’s not as good, but I still love it.

55. Do you get your hair cut every month?
No, I’m so bad with getting trims. Hence the split ends. Part of the problem is that I haven’t found a stylist down here who I like, so I still go to my stylist in Lebanon, and that means schlepping 2½ hours to see her.

56. Do you go online every day?
During the week, yes; during weekends, sometimes.

57. Do you enjoy your personality?
Sure, I think it’s okay. It has its pros and cons.

58. Do you know anyone that has changed your life?
A few people have changed my life in small ways.



song heard most recently before posting:
Girlfriend in a Coma—Joshua Radin