Well, Hello!

Hello there! Yes, it HAS been a long time, hasn't it? How have you been? Yes, I've been doing well too. You look smashing. Oh, yes, I know I do, too. Oh, you. Oh, you're making me blush. No, really, stop, so I can please get a word in edgewise?

WELL. Now that we've gotten that out of the way. It HAS, in fact, been some time. Only three months since I last posted, but really, more like a year since I posted with any sort of regularity at all, and before that I'm scared to look at my record, and I pray that you are, too.

Let's just get the stats out of the way in a fairly boring manner so we can swallow them all at once like a mouthful of broccoli we never intended to eat:

1. I live with my boyfriend!
2. In a warehouse!
2a. Not the lofty sort, either, but a real warehouse with NO light and, worse, NO EXPOSED BRICK. I know. I had the vapors.
3. I left the Lazy B!
4. So I could work for my boyfriend's business!

And with that, I really WILL have the vapors now. WHEEZE. WHEEZE.

Still with me? Not passed out in front of the mirror? (Is that just me?) Whew. I'm glad we all survived, and to that end, I'm going to have another glass of wine.

*swallows*

That's better. Writing always makes me so THIRSTY.

And it's to this end (not the wine drinking, because I can do that with no excuse at all, but the writing habit) that I'm starting (I hope, no promises whatsoever) to blog again, at least with some kind of regularity. To be honest (which I hate doing, much like sucking in my stomach to look skinnier, but I do that with EVERY KIND OF REGULARITY and so why not attempt honesty while I'm at it?)...where was I?

Oh, yes: I am attempting to write regularly again.

Writing has always been my therapy. And for some years there, more than I like to admit now because I feel completely stupid for not realizing this earlier, say, TWO! YEARS! AGO! that a lifetime of typing at the computer has taken its toll on my nervous system, I created less and less and I listlessly scrolled through the internet more and more.

Call it nerves (which I have--and so do you, for that matter) or call it Drift or call it whatever you want, but I had starting creating less and less and drifting through life more and more. There was a time...in which I decorated my apartment enough to be featured in Apartment Therapy's Small Cool Contest and had a piece published in the Seattle Times' blog. (Which I will link later). But. That was a long time ago. But! I can reacquaint myself with the medium!

Because writing is important to me, and I miss it. And sometimes it hurts me, now, but really...I'm living with my boyfriend in a WAREHOUSE and trying to RUN A STARTUP! If there was EVER a time to blog, it is now. I will not piss away these years of my life. I will focus.

And writing = focus.

Want to know how to survive without a shower? In the middle of a frat house? In the middle of an EVIL frat house? Want to know what it's like to live with your boyfriend for the first time? To think, for the first time, that you'd ever have a long term relationship again?

Stay tuned, my lovelies. And get yourself a refreshing beverage while you're at it.

Mind Reading

E and I have been on the computer, doing some work, as you do, when "you" is "an entrepreneur that never stops working". He has gone into the other room, and calls out to me:

E: "I have a song from THE JUNGLE BOOK in my head."

The lightbulb flashes on for me, and I cackle. I know which one, too.

E: "What? No. You couldn't possibly know."

But I do. I can guess it.

E: "There's only a limited number of songs in The Jungle Book. You could nail it by guessing enough times."

Okay, one guess then.

E: "Okay, I will give you one guess. Shoot."

Bare Necessities.

E: "YES! THAT'S IT! HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?"

You've just been over my shoulder at the computer, looking at my email. On the top of my email account is an advertisement email from a bra company called..."Bare Necessities". 

E: "Holy shit, I didn't even see that email. Or at least I don't remember seeing it."

You didn't notice it consciously, but clearly it attached itself to your subconcious. Because then you said "Jungle Book" and I put two and two together.

E: "I love you so much."

Your god is not my god.

A conversation with a team mate, who is an avid cyclist:

“Bikes are awesome, man. Everyone should bike!”

What about an ebike?

“A what?”

You know, an electric bike.

“WHAT? No. No electric bikes. That’s against my religion, man.”

Does your god HATE PROGRESS?

Jealousy.

The dude whose office I am sitting in has a most superior chair.

Family Biz

Working for the same company as my cousin—especially at the same site—is a little strange. For example, I can chat to him over company IM, on company time. I’D LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT WE RARELY DO THIS. But. All the same, it’s a possibility. He and his wife just had a baby, so occasionally, news needs to be passed, and it’s odd, but handy, to be able to discuss things while at work, and just by typing.

And it’s handy for me when I do things like miss a bus and need a ride to the express to Seattle, and my poor cousin gets called at home while he’s already in his pjs, and drives me to Everett Station.

And it’s ESPECIALLY handy when we want to go to lunch together and can easily plan it, and talk about who’s driving, which led to the following exchange.

Him: “Hey, do you have an elite parking pass?” (Parking at our site is notoriously, outrageously, difficult.)

Me: “HELL no.”

Him: “LOL okay. I thought, since you just changed jobs, you might get some kind of ‘relocation’ or ‘guest work’ type consideration.”

Me: “I WISH. Some members of my new team did, and I wish I could hate them, but they are very nice about it and carpool me around all over the place. This makes it impossible to hate them.”

Him: “It would.”

Me: “B*tches.”

Nothing Is Irreversible

Mighty Girl. "Decorating Your Home: 5 Tips On How To Get Started"

Turns out I have the Number 3 tip DOWN PAT. I am that girl who says, with an extremely outwardly-expressed form of long-suffering patience, "Look, let's just get paint on that wall/move the bookshelves from the warehouse to the kitchen/move your table into the living room so I can install MY table, because I'm tired of making decisions, and if you don't like it, we can always change it later. NOTHING IS IRREVERSIBLE." Many roommates have been very bothered by this. I still have trouble understanding them. 

Comes With The Territory

"Hi", I typed to AZ. "I'm tired and whiny."

"So you said hi just to whine?"


Me: "Yep!"


Him: "How did I get so lucky?"


Me: "...you dated me."

On Romantic Love and the Duration Thereof

From my hero, describing the start of her romance with her husband:

"...But that same afternoon after my break-up, he told me he was going to walk to Wawa’s (the New Haven version of QuikTrip) to get a Coke, and did I want to come? I did. We walked to Wawa’s, then back to the law school, and sat on a bench beneath some blooming magnolia trees. He said something completely incoherent, then took my hand; this was the first time we ever touched. At that moment, if he’d asked me to marry him, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised, and I might well have said “Yes.” (We did get engaged several months later.)

Now, so many years later, is it the same? Yes and no. Yes, because I still love him passionately, and more deeply, because I know him so much better. No, because he’s passed through my heart and into my soul, and he pervades my entire life, so now sometimes it’s hard to see him. Married people are so intertwined, so interdependent, so symbiotic, that it’s hard to maintain that sense of wonder and excitement..."

And this:

"When we first met, I honestly wondered whether it would ever be possible for me to read when we were sitting in a room together; I found it so hard to concentrate that I couldn’t make sense of anything more complicated than the newspaper. Now, I find it hard to tear myself away from my work and my email to hold up my end of a marital conversation."

She and her husband love each other very much, I've no doubt, but I believe (from what I can tell of it so far) her description of making an ongoing life with another person is dead on. As always, her writing style is so naked and unashamed that it's like reading my own thoughts, only edited by, say, Sylvia Plath. Or possibly Anais Nin.  There's a great passage describing a sympathetic listener in "My Old Man and The Sea": "It's like going out to dinner with yourself." That's what Ms. Rubin does for me; she takes me out to dinner with myself.

Should your partner be able to do that for you as well? I'm not sure. That seems like a special skill that really a very few people have in this world; which means it may not be a practical requirement that you should look for in a life partner. I do believe strongly that your life partner should make you a better VERSION of yourself, but that's not necessarily the same as being the kind of sympathetic listener that attracts people to them like moths to a flame.