Mishmash Monday

Hello! I am in a brand new office, and I have unpacked exactly half a box, out of three. I am cold--the heat doesn't work yet, or if it does, it's set way too low. (It's not just me, EVERYONE has their coats on.)

However! It is SUNNY here! Yes, sunny. As in, the big yellow thing in the sky has FINALLY decided to make an appearance, which is damn good because the ski season (sniff!) is coming to an end (SNIFF!) in just three short weeks. (SNIFF, SNIFF!) I'll miss the mountains, of course, but with the sunshine out, and with a day of actual spring skiing under my belt on Sunday, in which the sunshine was gorgeous, we took our jackets off as we sat outside and ate lunch, and I had some absolutely spectacular falls, I am almost pacified. And now, onto the mishmash:

An Outline of My Life In Chapters, or, Computer Withdrawal and How I Survived

Sunday: Computer stops working. Completely. Stops. Cannot be Revived. I did not realize how dependent I was on the internet until that exact moment. I do not know the hotel at which I am staying, can't look it up, and have no work numbers to call, can't even get in touch with the coworker who I am meeting. I accost random strangers in the airport, hoping to use their power brick to make my computer work. No luck. I call my dad. He, blessedly, and with great patience, listens to me ramble, looks up my hotel, and wishes me well. Bless you, dad.

Monday: I call the B In-House Computer Group. After reassuring themselves that I had tried everything I could, including pushing the power button for a longer time, actually something they suggested, they advise me that the computer is "dead" and that I should go to the nearest laptop service center, in spite of the fact that I had specifically said I was at a conference, away from my desk, in California, early on in the conversation.

Tuesday: More Eyeball Conference. Usually at these conferences I have quite a bit of down time, but not so at this one. I spend ten hours a day inside talking about lasers, with no latte. I have no internet connection and I cannot blog. Someone is going to get hurt.

Wednesday: My conference buddy Ashley and I are chased away from enjoying our lunch by some damn aggressive geese. I finally get to post.

Thursday: Conference ends, thank the good Lord above, and I get to see family, who takes me out to a very nice dinner and listens sympathetically as I blabber on about politics, food, eyeballs, and the LT.

Friday: I'm HOME FROM CALIFORNIA! Immediately stuff myself with Ethiopian food and excellent company, thanks to the visit of two old, and dear, friends from college. (Shoutout to R and A!) It's raining in Seattle and we lose track of time, enough time that the LT makes it to my house before I do. Whoops.

Friday night: I shower and pick up my place, and attempt to unpack, while the LT naps and watches a little TV. He also has a friend in town for the weekend (Hi, Nick!) a nice guy that I also know, from CMU, and pretty soon it gets to be about 10 and Nick calls LT, saying he's parking by my apartment. LT goes out to fetch him.

Friday Night, ten minutes later: Four hot Navy guys walk into my apartment. Only two of them I know.

Friday Night, five minutes later: I curse myself for not having beer, pour out the wine, and slap some makeup on while simultaneous calling my close girlfriends to come join us. No answer on anyone's phone. The rest of the evening turns out very nice, actually, we shoot some pool down at The Garage, and are home not too late.

Saturday morning: SLEEPING IN! Then brunch, and then shopping at Whole Paycheck. The LT fills up his beer collection while I spend an embarrassing amount of money on Mrs. Meyer's Cleaning Products, partly because the packaging is so adorable, and partly because I'm hoping to propel myself to finish my apartment. (I bought this freakin' adorable spring-cleaning kit. Don't look at that and say it wasn't worth the money!)

Saturday Afternoon: LT and I watch Stranger Than Fiction, just as good (and maybe better!) than I thought it was going to be, and even better, a movie (a NEW movie!) we both enjoy! A rarity! (Note to self: the soundtrack is awesome. Investigate this.)

Saturday night: More Navy men show up at my apartment.

Sunday: Spring skiing! And the most spectacular fall ever, of my entire life, of which sadly there is not a single picture. And so I have attempted to recreate it by Paint instead:



Yes. In this picture, I am hanging upside down by my skis, as they are cross braced on a couple of handy trees. (Right under a lift. I received several helpful suggestions, none of which I followed.)

Yes, I made it down the mountain in one piece. No, I will not do it again!

Monday morning: Off to unpacking!

Leaving California

I got to see family, I met a genuine rock star, and I am drinking a proper latte for the first time in five damn days. I may not get to fly first class on this flight (darn!) but so far today, in spite of getting up at 5 in the effin' morning, my life isn't too bad. Hope all is well with everyone--I have tons of pictures coming!

Mind-Numbing Monterey

...And right now everyone is saying, "...huh?"

Hello from California! I am here for a top secret conference, which I can't really talk about, so just imagine that I'm here to talk about installing lasers in my brain so I can kill people with just a look, and you wouldn't be far wrong.

Unfortunately the technology isn't quite ready yet. (Or maybe fortunately. Because I know people who would happily sign up to be part of THAT testing. People that I will not name here because it is not good for your health to piss off people who really, really want lasers to shoot out of their eyeballs.)

Anyway, not only is THAT technology not ready yet, but neither is any OTHER technology. My own laptop crapped out four days ago, went to that great big Circuit City in the sky. This was a big deal four days ago, when I was in the middle of traveling here and I didn't have my hotel reservation information, and no way to look it up, plus no phone numbers of people to call, and it got to the point where I was accosting random people at SeaTac, hoping their power cords would work with my laptop. (Pipe dream. My own power brick was fine the whole time.)

And then I learned that my flight had been overbooked, which sounds like a bad thing until I realized I had plenty of time to give up my seat, happily accept a free round-trip ticket as thanks, and also get bumped up to first class. Readers, I have not flown first class since I was thirteen. Let's just say that soon I forgot all about my laptop problems.

Sunday night I tried to post three times from a sticky (!) and ridiculous mobile keyboard, on the TV INTERNET (!!) from my hotel room here at the resort before I gave up and crawled into bed. Today, Wednesday, I am more than halfway through the conference, I am tired of talking about eyeballs, I just sat out in the sun with friend and ate lunch while being eyed by some damn aggressive geese (fortunately sans lasers) and this evening I have to attend a large banquet featuring old men and food I don't want to eat, when all I want to do is have a big salad and take a walk on the Monterey Coastline, and maybe bark at some sea lions.

Because at least the sea lions won't talk about eyeballs.

Don't Try This At Home

Have you ever promised your boyfriend that you would be packed, for the trip you were both about to take, ahead of time, possibly for the first time in your entire life, and you realize that if you break this promise he would have every right to break up with you, and so you stay up until 1 in morning packing?

Have you ever discovered that it is 1:30 in the morning and you have no idea where your Passport is?

Have you ever torn your apartment apart at 2:30 in the morning?

Have you ever fallen sleep at 3:15, exhausted, beaten, and imagining a terrible future in your head?

Have you ever dragged yourself out of bed the next morning with all the energy of a slug on Valium, half an hour AFTER you were supposed to be AT work?

Have you ever gone to work without taking a shower for the THIRD DAY IN A ROW?

Have you ever packed up your cube while running a teleconference, since not only are you going to Whistler, but are also flying straight from Whistler to California, and will be there for a week, as in, over the time that your office is scheduled to MOVE from one building from another, and so you have to pack up in advance?

Have you ever left your cube in complete disarray while you dashed home, sending prayers to various deities that you would FIND YOUR PASSPORT, ALREADY?

Have you ever had such a profound sense of relief when, at lunchtime, back at your apartment, you finally lay your hands on your passport, that the subsequent energy crash from the four hours of sleep and huge adrenaline rush causes you to fall asleep at your desk?

No?

Good. Me either.

Hungry, Hungry!

My Little left today (in fact, honey, I hope you're already in the taxi!) and we agreed that we should never be allowed to hang out again with the supervision (and assistance) of a cook. Dear God. I don't think I've ever eaten so much in a weekend, ever before in my life. If we were taking it easy at home, we ate; if we were out walking around, we ate; if we were driving somewhere, we ate, and all the other times that we weren't recharging at home, walking around, or driving somewhere, we were actually at restaurants, and at those restaurants, we were...eating!

I should have seen this coming. Most of our college hanging out revolved around her showing up at the house and throwing pillows at my head until I woke up and agreed to come to Pamela's (in/famous breakfast place.) After eating our own weights at Pamela's, we'd go next door to the bakery and buy raspberry and blueberry tarts with sour cream, and when we weren't doing that, we stopped off for Frappucinos on the way home. When she was sick in the hospital I brought her bagel sandwiches from Bruegger's and her favorite Frappucino.

Both of us absolutely love food, so we're bad influences on each other, and we have huge appetites. We immediately went to the grocery store upon her arrival. At Pike Place Market, she bought garlic-infused olive oil and Dungeness Crab, and in wine country, we bought bottles of wine that cost more than a restaurant meal and artisan chocolate.

I couldn't be prouder. In her honor, I am writing a long post about food and foodie-ism on the OTHER blog. (Eventually. It'll be there eventually. I promise.)

Anyway, we had a great time, in spite of me not washing the sheets, even though I said I was going to, and in spite of my shower head attacking her one morning, and in spite of the CONSTANT rain. (It's sunny today! Yay!) Pictures are coming!

Next up for me: a trip to NYC!

Shenanigans

About fifteen people went to Sushi and Sake (if you went: holla!) last night to meet both my Little and LT, who indeed lives in the area but hasn't met a lot of my work friends, and for reasons why, see, "Skiing, Addicted To."

(We're gone all the time in the winter.)

One of the LT's friends was also in town, mainly to ski and see the LT, and a lot of our mutual friends came out, too. Many, many funny and brilliant things were said, as I have brilliant and funny friends, and almost all of us are engineers, so we have similar senses of humor and play off of each other--and those of us who are NOT engineers, mainly work with engineers, and they don't take any crap FROM engineers, and really, I am very lucky in that I am surrounded by really cool people. Of course, I showed my special brand of love by insulting everyone.

A classic example:

Me, telling the story of the crime wave that hit my neighborhod: "...So then my car, and my then-landord's car and his BOYFRIEND'S car all got broken into. In the same month."

RBB: "I have to confess that I totally stopped listening at "his boyfriend."

Now, RBB is a hick from Pennsylvania, but he normally hides it so well that I was surprised at this. He saw that on my face and continued:

"...But only because I'm dumb! Sex makes me laugh! I mean, my good friend has recently gone to Thailand, and I'm the guy who, every time he mentions it, snickers. 'Ha. You said BANGKOK.'"

I began to laugh. "Ha! That's good, you should make that explanation every time. It's hard to be politically offended by an idiot. Actually, I'll start mentioning that, 'Hi, meet my friend RBB! If he says anything offensive, just ignore him, his IQ is like, 70."

RBB: "HA! Awesome."

Later, RBB was telling this story to Dave (mentioned here before) and our other friend D, and they laughed, and in the process, Dave took off his jacket, at which point I noticed that he and D were dressed almost identically in red polo shirts.

Me: "AWWWWW! You guys look like a well-dressed couple!"

Dave: (shoots me a look) (heavy sarcasm) "Thank you, Aarwenn. This is why we love you."

Whoops. I do try to avoid insulting the LT, though.

I've Been Gently Reminded

I've been told I need to post more, specifically for Quatoes, who apparently needs more things to read at work.

The problem is, my Little (hi, Little!) is in town, and she is awesome, and I'm grabbing a few minutes to write this post between social engagements while she naps. And my brain is sort of tapped out.

So: I'll tell a story.

A lot of people have been asking questions about the LT, or if that's not entirely accurate, a lot of people have been surprised about facts like, "Oh, LT went to CMU?" or, "Oh, LT works for the Navy?"

It's time for a profile.

Name: L.T.
Age: 27
Job: As he says, "Parking Valet."
To Which I Say: "You mean, a traffic director for Nuclear Submarines?"
Employer: U.S. Navy (Only until OCTOBER!)

How We Met:

A little over a year ago now, I got this message on MySpace:

"Hey, Aarwenn, it's LT! From CMU! Remember me? Hope you're doing well, etc, etc. I need a girl, and not for that. I just bought a house and moved into it, I'm trying to paint and trying to hang curtains. And I have no taste. So, do you want to come over sometime? I'll feed you, if you lend your girly advice, to colors and curtains and so forth. And I'm in Seattle a fair amount, so maybe we'll connect before then."

And I sure did remember him, he was a fraternity brother of my then-boyfriend, and he dated the best friend of my big sister, and in a strange twist of fate, I once rode in his brand-new car one night when he was about to graduate, both of us extremely intoxicated, to fetch an inhaler that my then-boyfriend desperately needed. (I ride around in that very same car today, both of us much less intoxicated.) A very wise and prudent man named Nick stopped us on the way out of the fraternity parking lot and convinced us to walk to fetch the inhaler instead, and indeed went WITH me all the way up the hill, me furiously smoking a cigarette the whole time, to fetch said inhaler. Such a man cannot be thanked enough. (Thanks, Nick. You rock. Really hard.)

Anyway, back to the email chain. Me: "Sure, I'll lend my advice! How are you, how's everything? Next time you're in Seattle, give me a buzz--Bremerton's a long way away. Feel to join the rotating cast that crashes on my couch."

Him: "Sweet."

(Fast forward two or four or maybe six weeks later.)

We kept getting beers, I went over to his house several times. At first, I was trying to set him up with my friends, because he was a stand-up guy, and good bachelors cannot be wasted, and then after awhile, I thought, "Hmmmmm!"

(As our friend Dave puts it, "Well, no one ELSE would date him, so Aarwenn finally had to date him herself!) (Aarwenn says: perhaps if we had been closer in college, we would have known each other too well, but since I met him all of three times--one of those times involving the car incident, above--we barely knew each other. And that proved to be a good thing.)

That was---a little less than--nine months ago. Hi, sweetie! Hope you enjoyed this, please feel free to correct any mistakes. And I know you will.

The Mountain comes to Mohammed!

T-Town came up to Seattle last night! We devoured a loaf of French bread, two bottles of wine, cheese (for her) and fake cheese and hummus (for me), and talked a ton. And it was good.

(I was actually trying to use her for apartment wisdom, and we got nothing accomplished except hanging a picture of my father. So much for that.)

Before T-Town arrived, Titan and I walked, as usual, except it wasn't very usual because my Jeep in-car thermometer said it was 64 degrees yesterday. For the record, those of us who have been stuck in Seattle during The Gray, which has been with us for the past four months, including November, which was the rainiest month EVER, in Seattle HISTORY, were pretty damn happy to see any sunshine at all. I thought about going straight to the park, but chose to walk Broadway instead, hoping that the sunshine might bring out the people, and I was so right, Broadway was packed. The most interesting thing I saw on my walk: an elephant strapped to a truck! (A topiary elephant.) Reason I didn't get a picture: the old gross guy driving the truck thought I was staring at him and was leering back, mouth actually hanging open. GROSS. (I should have gotten a picture anyway.)

Speaking of elephants, I was browsing Half-Price Books the other day and found an old copy of Babar! Anyone remember Babar, King of the Elephants? As a child, I didn't realize that it was translated from the original French, although of course as an adult it's a lot more obvious. I bought the copy to add to my "nostalgia" collection of books. (Like I need any more books.) Moving on!

It's Titan!

(I hope. Can anyone see the video? If not, try original YouTube video.)

(Note: It's amazing how clean-ish my apartment looks if you only look at one tiny corner. And that gray futon is now covered in white dog hair.)

Women's History Month: Sorority Girls, Image, and Other Problems

Note: March is women's history month. There might be a lot of these posts to follow.

Or there might be none, as I've been sitting here with an empty screen for almost an hour.

Here is one of the saddest, and yet most typical, articles about sororities I have ever seen: Sorority Evictions Raise Issue of Looks Bias.

Right when I got this notice, I emailed LT. He and I went to college together, and he was a fraternity brother--that's how I met him. The following is our correspondence.

From: Aarwenn
To: LT

This particularly hits home for me--and many other Zetas--since although there were exceptions, this was Zeta's rep at CMU, too. Zeta never had this problem, specifically, because we weren't national and didn't have a national chapter to please. One of the reasons I'm happy with AChiO is that they seem to put a lot of emphasis on grades, not on looks--their national chapter is very concerned with philanthropy and extra-curricular activities, and making sure its girls lead well-rounded lives.

That doesn't mean, of course, that they don't want to be the prettiest and most popular house on campus, but I think if given the need, they'd try to invigorate recruitment by pushing each sister to be more interesting, more entertaining, express herself more at Rush, etc. And also to brush their hair and put on a little makeup, of course, but a few reminders towards personal appearance aren't a bad thing, especially at CMU where we tend to sleep in our clothes. It's a well-known fact that good personal appearance enhances people's perceptions.

I don't know how my AChiO chapter is doing at CMU, and I'm scared to find out; I'm pretty sure they're still having a problem with recruitment. I hope the methods they use are similar to the ones I described above and not similar to the ones Delta Zeta used.

The real problems with this terrible story are:

1. Obviously Delta Zeta National is a lot different from the mood at the DePauw chapter, or there was a miscommunication at a basic level or something. The sisters of the sorority assumed their brains and personalities would be welcomed on a national level as they were on the local level. That turned out to be not true. That's the first big problem with Delta Zeta that I see. Either keep a tighter rein over your local chapters or truly be the kind of national house that allows each chapter to blossom differently. Don't suddenly decide that a local chapter has strayed too far from the MotherShip and employ strong-arm tactics to make it bland and pretty again--now they have to start all over because they have six sisters and three pledges. They're in ten times as bad a shape as they were.

(Side note: I know girls at Sorority ABC AND Sorority DEF--names changed to protect the entirely guilty--who were asked to stay in their rooms during rush. It really does happen.)

2. Delta Zeta seems to be taking its reputation as a sorority way too seriously, especially about weight. Haven't they heard this joke: "How do you get a sorority girl into your room?"
"Grease her hips so she can get through the door and throw a twinkie on to the bed!"

I mean, it's mean and terrible, but I know that on many campuses, sorority girls are often stereotyped as overweight--that much beer and pizza, not to mention partying, will do that to any figure. Does Delta Zeta not know this? Some chapter, on every campus, has to be the dog chapter, the chapter that welcomes brains and personality over looks, and more to the point, these reputations change over time. But instead of waiting for that, or taking comfort in the fact that surely other Delta Zeta chapters have better reputations on other campuses, Delta Zeta employed these terrible, awful, no-good very bad tactics. I don't know what to say.

From: LT
To: Aarwenn

Honestly, I don't think I've ever heard that stereotype of sorority
chicks; I've heard more that they're hot, dumb, and easy. WHICH IS NOT
WHY I'm dating you :) You're hot and smart, and..well...you know. :)

Seriously, one of the huge problems I have about this article is it
doesn't distinguish between NATIONAL and LOCAL representatives. "The DZ
president...." Which one?! Local or National? It EFFIN' MATTERS!

Also, I'm not sure what you mean that the sorority is taking their
reputation too seriously...your reputation is vitally important.
Locally, it's how you stay alive, and if your reputation is that you're
a bunch of drunk partiers, you won't attract any decent recruits.
Nationally, it's a Public Affairs NIGHTMARE if you're apparently a bunch
of drunk partiers.

Enjoy your blog post. :)

From: Aarwenn
To: LT

Yes, reputation is vitally important. What I mean is, I think there's room on a campus for sororities with all sorts of reputations, although I may be wrong.

Zeta always went for girls who weren't "typical" sorority girls, which seemed to go well at first but began to work against us as CMU became more mainstream, and the girls who rushed became more mainstream, so our market shrank.

However. There's a big difference between a negative and a positive approach, that is, there's a big difference between painting yourselves as "the anti-sorority" (read: "anti-beauty") and instead painting yourself as "focused on achievement and well-rounded lives". That way, you're not purposely shutting out girls who might happen to be mainstream/pretty in looks but are also choosing to focus more on their lives than their reputation at the fraternity houses. We had a sister who was a perfect example of this. She was stunningly gorgeous, laughed at all the right times, was an asset to any party. We heard that Sorority XYZ's Rush Chair cried when she learned that this girl had pledged Zeta instead. This girl didn't want a typical sorority experience; she wanted a house that would be there for her, but she wasn't interested in what she called "sorority bullshit." We would have never gotten her if we had immediately looked at her and said, "Oh, she's too pretty for us."

Side note: Girls who don't think of themselves as pretty discriminate just as badly as pretty ones do. Had we done that with this girl, we would have been judging her personality by her looks, and we would have been really wrong.

So: reputation IS vitally important. I agree it's how you keep a chapter going. I'm saying that there's ways to be non-mainstream and still succeed in the sorority system, I think, and national DZ took the wrong path in "fixing" their supposed problem. I agree, though, too, that perhaps the local chapter of DZ was going about recruitment the wrong way too. The proof would have been in whether the sorority was shrinking in numbers or staying steady as a smaller chapter.

Sigh. Do you think I'm wrong? Do you think all sororities have to be known as pretty to succeed? It seems logically impossible to me--we can't ALL be "the pretty ones".

Can we?

Dog Is My Co-Pilot

Someday I will start a whole series of posts about what Titan and I see when we walk. We don't always see interesting things, although perhaps I should amend that since we live in Capitol Hill, and my definition of "interesting" is "a guy on stilts". A hooker on the corner wouldn't even make the list. It might be more accurate to say that we always see interesting things, but rarely does a sight or sound stay in my head on the long trek back, and almost never all the way back to the apartment, ready to flow through the fingers and onto the page. It's either been lost or relegated to long-term memory by then, and my long-term memory has quite a cache, let me tell YOU.

Titan and I walk every day, at least twice if not three times a day. Usually we walk for about an hour total, sometimes less in bad weather. Walking is my therapy. It keeps me grounded, no pun intended. Sometimes I go out for a walk while actually crying, sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I just want to Get It Over With, but no matter what, when I enter the apartment again with Titan, and he sits and I take off his leash and haltie and he dances around while I get his dinner ready, and then he sits patiently while I tell him to eat, well...that is the best feeling in the world.

And then I immediately sit down at the computer looking for entertainment and lose all the creativity I found on the walk.

Although in my defense, or maybe in defense of my habits, it's not just the computer, it's my brain--somehow all the thoughts and thoughts on thoughts that I have while walking hide, or dissipate into the wind, or get completely deleted when my brain deletes its history, search me how it happens but it DOES.

Oh, well. Guess I'll have to spend more time walking! Darn. Come to think of it...

...is this all a secret plot by the dogs of this world? Has anyone studied this? Because Titan already has me trained to scratch his belly on command and sleep on the futon, for God's sake. The future is almost too scary to contemplate.

Goal for today: Drink More Coffee.

Crazy Aunt Purl has a post about going dramatically crazy regarding products that may be available in Canada, but NOT in, say, America, and it's not like I would know anything about this since Titan's muscle-and-joint supplement is not available in America anymore EITHER, and really, wouldn't it be easier to just throw in the towel and feed him powdered crap made of chicken parts?

Anyway. Although I haven't yet made Aarwenn's Last Stand regarding BioJoint (the actual product name), I WAS reminded of the showdown between LT and Tall Kiwi (to differentiate him from Normal Kiwi) and the Fools That Run The Pacific Place Parking Garage. At the time, LT threatened to NEVER park there again, and I thought, ...Yeah, right. This is the only cheap, large, and covered parking garage in downtown Seattle. He will definitely park here again.

I'd just like to say that he has proved me wrong. No, we are not stubborn. Thank you for asking.

* * *

This weekend, and past week, were slightly long without the LT, but I did have a lot of time to...well, party, which was great and a great chance to see a lot of people I know and love. "Bobby" and I went to a friend's housewarming party, and also her roommate-warming party (heh!) as said friend applied for a roommate on Craigslist, and in the grand, time-honored tradition of Craigslist, got super lucky on her first try. (Hi, Roommate.)

I have spent a lot of time on the streets of Seattle recently, and it has been wonderful, between clubs in alleyways and eating breakfast in Fremont and being approached on the street and invited to underground speakeasies and also just bumming around with my dog. Titan and I took a trip to the hardware store recently, and the hardware store was dog-friendly, and Titan put his paws up on the counter and they tossed him treats and scratched his ears. Just yesterday we were waiting to cross at a light when a (rather ditzy-sounding) security officer said, "Why's he have that thing on?" (Titan wears a halter when we walk.) "Is he mean?"

I said that no, he wasn't mean, and he could eat and drink water and everything with the halter on, it wasn't a muzzle, it was just like a bridle so I could control his head. "Because otherwise, it'd be a big battle," I joked, and the security officer laughed.

"No kidding, he's bigger'n you are!" (In sneakers, I do appear pretty little.)

The nice thing, the REALLY nice thing, about walking with Titan, is that I feel protected and safe. I feel like I CAN talk to people on the street, I even try to smile at homeless people occasionally, and because of this, I'm building a community of people I know. There's a gay couple that I saw at the dog park, and one partner works in the Starbucks by the ferry, and I see them at the QFC. The other day I ran into Stephanie ELFORD, of all people, at the Madison Safeway. (Note to Stephanie: we must get together!) After the housewarming party on Friday, I ran into five or six people I knew from high school at a bar called Ballroom in Fremont. Several days ago I was walking Titan through Volunteer Park and I ran into a fellow band-mate from ninth grade.

It's a really good thing.

A Note to Titan:

Dear Titan,

Please note that you are a large, hairy dog. Please note that your dog hair gets all over the place when you sneak a nap on the bed, so don't pretend you haven't been up there. Please note also that you get DIRT on the mother-fucking bed. I have already relinquished the futon, and now I have gotten you a dog bed. A DOG BED. Please note: you are a dog. That is your bed. I put in the spot you always sleep in. Please sleep on it! It's not that complicated! Thank you!

Love,
Mama

P.S. Um, yeah, so I fell asleep on the futon last night, not that it should matter since I damn well bought all the furniture in this house including the futon, and I should be allowed to sleep on it whenever I damn well please!

But I sort of understand, and will simply ignore, the fact that you took my bed when I took what has traditionally been your bed, even though your bed is SUPPOSED to be the overpriced cushion on the floor. I get it. Sorry. It won't happen again.

I'm FAMOUS, Part III

Remember how, many moons ago, I talked about Bumbershoot, and said that I was interviewed for Spin Magazine, standing next to T-Town?

I totally was, and I can prove it.

UPDATE: Starbucks exchanged my mug no problem, god bless 'em.

In Which the Universe Circles Me, Pointing Its Finger and Laughing

I dropped my mug--my favorite mug, the mug that changed my habits in mugdom--this morning and the head broke off. I was crushed.

I am so taking it to Starbucks and asking for a refund. Because they do not understand how important this mug is to me. For the first time in my life I was carrying around a mug, making sure I had it, carrying it to the coffee shop on walks with Titan. I rinsed it out every night. I CARED for it. Sometimes I even talked to it. (Not really.)

And I am not letting go easily.

Also, I am without coffee. I fear for any Starbucks employee who tells me I can't exchange it today.

Speaking of tales from customer service, several days ago as I was moving in, I decided, "What would look really good against this kitchen wall, this big empty space between a high built-in shelf and a lower built-in countertop, is Pegboard. A big sheet of pegboard that I can hang my pots and pans from. I will go and get some."

Little did I know that apparently pegboard is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get. I did make the mistake of not calling around first, I guess, but how was I to know that pegboard is a legally controlled substance?

I went to a hardware store first. It was completely empty, especially of workers, I could have walked off with anything in the store. A mouse skeleton may have sat in one corner. Finally I tracked someone down by following their footprints in the dust.

Me: "Excuse me. Do you have pegboard?"
Troll of a Shop Worker: "What?"
Me: "Pegboard."
ToaSW: "What's that?"
Me: "You know, pegboard? The board with lots of little holes drilled in at regular intervals?"
ToaSW: *Blank Look*
Me: "You know, THIS stuff! That you have RIGHT here in your display, that things are clearly hanging from?"
ToaSW: "Ohhh. Oh. No."
Me: (very patiently) "Okay. Do you know who MIGHT have pegboard?"
ToaSW: "Uh...a lumberyard?"

I wanted to ask him how the pegboard in his own displays had appeared. Was it magic? Surely you must have gotten it from somewhere?--but I decided that would be an exercise in futility and moved on to the lumberyard.

Lumberyard guys, once they made me stand around in the cold for awhile to prove I was serious, were very nice. I fought my way through a crowd of old guys drinking stale coffee from styrofoam cups and asked for pegboard.

Quicker, Smarter Store Worker: "Yes, we carry it. Eighth-inch or quarter-inch?"
Me: "I'm going to hang all my pans from it, so...quarter-inch."
QSSW: "Oh!"
Me: "What?"
QSSW: "You know...they have POT RACKS, now. Like in kits."

I looked at him, discerned that he was serious, and refrained my first, second, and third reactions.

Me (kindly): "Yes, I know. But I don't have the right kind of space for it. I don't have an island or a sink with a lot of space over it, and my ceilings are too high..."

I trailed off, noticing his look of confusion. I could see him in the store, buying a pot rack, and it said, "Pot Rack" on it, and that was exactly what he was going to do with it, hang his pots on it! What was the problem?

Me: "Just give me the pegboard. I think it will work great."

And it does, thankyouverymuch. Humph.

Hump Day!

Things that make me happy: The LT's eyes lighting up when he hears that I've made more of his favorite cookies, just for him.

Things that make me sad: I made those cookies so he would have something to take with him on the plane home.

Things that make everyone sad: He's heading home to attend his aunt's funeral. Everyone please send their good thoughts his way.

Things that make me happy: Walking with Titan! It's my therapy.

Things that make me sad: I forget everything I think about while walking. I HAVE a damn voice recorder, I should use it!

Things that make everyone sad: The loss of my brilliance. DUH. Yes. No?

Things that make me happy: The new Lily Allen album, which I have listened to approximately 2098 times since I bought it. And I don't think there even ARE that many hours in the time period since I bought it.

Things that make me sad: There aren't enough artists that inspire me the way she does.

Things that make me happy: I told a nice artist-type lady at a boutique that I was a writer.

Things that make me sad: I have written exactly one page of new material for my novel in the last, oh, year. YEAR.

Things that make me happy: The EXCELLENT pizza I'm making!

Things that make me sad: It will be tomorrow by the time everything is ready.

Things that make happy: I have a new purse and new boots. These things make me VERY happy.

Things that make me happy: I get to go skiing with T-TOWN on Saturday! Her leg is recovering! We can ski together again!

Things that make me happy, last one: I will probably go to T-Town, the city, and see people I know and all that, this very weekend!

Things that make me sad: I'll have time to do so because I won't see the LT until Sunday! Boo.

Boo, indeed.

Things that make me happy, lighter note: My mother, for a long time, has brushed off guests' offers to help clean up after meals and things with this reassurance: "Oh, the elves will get it." And I just realized that I have told people, many times recently, "Oh, I'd better go tell the gnomes to start dinner/walk Titan/clean the kitchen/start the commotion." This makes me giggle, our similarities.

Things that make me sad, lighter note: WOW am I like my mother.

Confidential to my Christian readers: I hope you all had a contemplative and rewarding Ash Wednesday.

Reason #4327 Why I Love the Internet

After a mere four hours of straight working (read: surfing the net), I happened to come across the perfect thing for my blog today. It's a Valentine, maybe a little late but still applicable, for both of the serious men in my life.







Happy Belated Valentine's Day to my four-legged and two-legged sweeties.

Thanks for Reading! Here are Some Pictures.

My good friend Bri, from whom I have learned many things, most importantly the existence of mapmyrun.com,, threw herself a pub crawl on Friday night, and it is a mark of Bri's reputation in the community that easily 35 people showed up to her pub crawl, as in, way more people than I actually communicate with on a daily basis, including instant messenger friends, unless Titan counts for 25 people all by himself.

Anyway, Bri posted a narrative on Facebook, and I would feel completely remiss if I didn't copy the relevant parts (read: the parts involving ME) here.

Bri says: This is Aarwenn showing off her powers of seduction as she has 3 guys entrapped in what she's saying. +3points Aarwenn. Aarwenn says: If you'll look closely, I think they're reacting to a spider that is crawling on my neck, or something similar. Their expressions do NOT imply easy listening!

Bri says: This is us, cleverly searching the map I put together of all the bars. Suprisingly, a lot of people printed out the map... and proceeded to openly tease me for its toolishness. Yet, let me point out that not a SINGLE drunk person got lost! Aarwenn says: It's true. Check out mapmyrun.com.

Bri says: Bri and Aarwenn, meet bob. Low and behold Bob actually works at the same building as Bri. He also had a STRONG desire to make it through the pub crawl. His victory was 7/17, while the rest of the group averaged 5. Well done, Bob! Aarwenn says: For real, I was done at 4.

Bri says: What could bring so many people together? You guessed it, alcohol and lots of it! Perhaps we shall have to make it a tradition... Aarwenn says: Please do!

Bri says: Here's where our drunk fingers take over and we start getting a little CRAZY...or it's just the point in the night where we got a little camera happy :-P Aarwenn says: ...too true.

Bri says: Meet Jeff! he's the man responsible for all of these pictures!

Bri says: This is roughly the time of night that I realized that I need to spend the next year courting Aarwenn. Not only does she LOVE dogs and preach animal rights, she manages to walk sexy in flats. How HOT is that? Aarwenn says: Also, my nose alone could inspire a legion of evildoers. LOOK at the thing. I had no idea that it was crooked like that...until right now. It makes me happy that I have attracted your much-fought-for attention! Court me! LT won't mind...right, honey?

Bri says: Who's "that guy"? It's my bf! Well done Joey! Aarwenn says: He was going to be in that picture no matter what. He was DETERMINED.

Bri says: He has a man purse! Gotta love Seattle! Aarwenn says: Indeed. I personally know three men who carry man purses.

We both say: Thanks, Greenlake! Let's do it again! Call me, okay?

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! Let’s talk about sex!

My mother just choked on her hot water.

I’m a feminist, which is hard to just state right out like that, three words, nowhere to hide. I’m. A. Feminist. Usually I say, “Well, I consider myself a feminist,” which is much more equivocating and therefore easier to hide in, it’s a longer sentence, contains more coverage. But I don’t say it that equivocating way because I’m afraid of the f word, or that I’m afraid of what some guy that I meet MIGHT think (pffft) but because I’m afraid that I’ll say this in the company of another woman, a woman who really IS a feminist, not the kind that shaves her legs and wears occasional makeup, like I do, but the kind with hairy armpits and who believes that marriage is simply a property exchange between father and husband and that all penetration is rape.

And yes, there are women who believe that, although very, very few.

Also, I’m doing feminism a disservice by even listing those examples, because although I’m not making it up, just by putting those in print I’m enforcing such a stereotype, and worse, just by repetition I am making these extreme examples seem more applicable to, and representative of, “normal” feminism than they really are. I’ve written about radicalism and mainstream movements before, and I’ll remind the audience here that although I don’t agree with radicals—of any movement—I know that we desperately need them.

So in this case, listing extreme spectrum ends accomplishes a dual purpose: I include them out of respect, as a valuable part of the movement, and as a benchmark of why I worry about saying I’m a feminist in mixed company. For example: when I say I’m a feminist and people around me curl their lips in disgust because they think all feminists are hairy arm-pitted lesbians, and I wish the Andrea Dworkin (may she rest in peace) followers would just go away and quit ruining the word for me, I KNOW that they are doing valuable work, so I include them for that. And also, by listing them, I inform my audience that even though I seem to be a little radical in some ways, BELIEVE ME, there are women who are MUCH more radical than I am, so radically left that I can’t even see them on a clear day. And I live in Capitol Hill, among many of these women, and therefore when I’m in the company of strangers, or even acquaintances, and I say I’m feminist, I’m worried that I’m opening myself up like a tuna can, ready to be scooped out, mashed up, and devoured.

And this post is already long enough, so we won’t go into why I appear to think that everyone around me would be so interested in ME in particular that I’M always at the center of these political arguments, because that’s just what happens.

Why am I worried about stating I’m a feminist? Because of articles like the following, which my friend Tri-Tip recently sent me: Some Coffee Stands Get Steamier. Go read it, I’ll wait.

I responded to him, laughing, that coffee stands using sex to tell their coffee certainly weren’t the first, nor would they be the last, to use sex in this way. The LT lives somewhat near the Natte Latte, also mentioned in this article.

Tri-Tip: “I figured you would have some choice words for me, you crazy vegan feminista. You disappoint me.”

Me: “You do remember that I was a cocktail waitress for most of my pre-B existence, yes?”

Tri-Tip: “Obviously not, but I do now. You surprise me. My sister yelled at me.”

Me: “What? Why?”

Tri-Tip: “She was a politics and women's studies major, and she works for a battered women non-profit. Take a wild guess.”

Me: “Ah. I can see that working with battered women all day would slightly influence one’s political views.”

Tri-Tip: “My sister said, and I quote: ‘Obviously I am totally against this place. Why don’t those girls just go be cocktail waitressess somewhere they would make more money and obviously have no qualms about walking around in their underwear and degrading themselves?’”

Excuse me? EXCUSE ME?

Right about here, I decided I no longer cared if I offend other women by calling myself a feminist, because I realized just how wrong that is, and as a side issue, how wrong THEY are.

I degraded myself while being a cocktail waitress, is that it? I hate statements like this. This sentence, which is supposed to communicate the speaker’s ideas to the audience, contains only buzzwords like “cocktail” and “waitress” and “degrading themselves.” That’s not a sentence, that is propaganda, and you can tell because it draws sweeping generalizations, jumps to conclusions, and assumes a certain mind state, location, and even time of day.

For example: What if I was a bartender, instead of a cocktail waitress, also at night? Would that be okay? What if I was a cocktail waitress during the day? What if I only wore shirts that came up to my neck? What if I only worked daylight hours but served cocktails? At what point, exactly, am I degrading myself? Is there a hemline I should be looking for?

Statements like this are pretty retarded, and if I wasn’t trying to be nice, I would add a lot of other choice words, like trite, bourgeoisie, countrified, childish, and sheepish—this is the feminist party line from about forty years ago, and people who say this prove themselves to be idiots that will repeat anything they hear without thinking about it at all. I’m a feminist, and I’m proud of it, and “feminists” that spout this line hurt the party and degrade women far more than short skirts ever will.

Random Anti-Sex-Work Feminist: EXCUSE ME?

Me: You heard me.

RASW Feminist: How is that possible? YOU are obviously degrading YOURSELF when you tamp down your personality and play up your sex appeal to get something you want!

Uh, no. I’m not.

If this is true, then PEOPLE degrade themselves. All. The. Time. Men date gold-diggers and heartbreakers and psycho women. Women date Neandathrals. (Even I have.) Teenagers break themselves to get into the popular crowd, boys and girls try drugs because of peer pressure, it’s sad but unavoidable, and we all do it: we tamp down our personalities, playing up our appeal, trying to seduce people into liking us, accepting us, inviting us to that party, sleeping with us, maybe just cooking for us. Seduction and sex appeal is a natural part of life, and when we, as humans, feel instinctively that seduction will get us to our goal faster than trying to logically convince, we will turn to it, Every Time. (When I’m done with this post, I’m just going to trash it and attach a good picture of myself instead.) Is this degradation? Because if playing up your sex appeal for a goal is degradation, then we should stop procreating immediately.

What I believe Tri-Tip's sister is trying to say, however, is that presenting myself as a sex object, automatically lowers the status of women in all fields and walks of life, and in their defense, if this were true, the use of the word “degrade” would be correct.

So, me in a very short skirt in a cocktail club, working for tips, is degrading the status of women in our society, and by extension, myself, right? No, it’s not. It’s not at all, period. Because how is that in any way different from being forcefully degraded by hundreds of old fat Lazy B men watching me walk through the factory? Because, hello. You can choose to act sexy or not, you can choose to wear pants or a skirt or not, you can choose to wear loafers or combat boots or heels, and I guarantee you, someone you don’t like will find you sexy, and will objectify you, and congratulations! You’ve been degraded. You cannot avoid it. You can sneer at men who open doors for you, or yell at men who whistle at you—I do, sometimes—or refuse to wear skirts or skulk around town with your head hanging down, but Jesus Christ, how degrading is THAT?

I, as a woman, will always have sex appeal. Always. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s part of me, part of my body, part of my mind, part of what makes me me, it’s mine to do with as I choose and I own me, right? That is one of the tenements of feminism.

So. How is it NOT degrading to be told that I cannot show off my legs and also be a feminist?

WTF? Aren’t my legs, and what’s between them, mine? How is any anti-sex-work feminist going to tell me what to do with it? Why in the world would I not allow men to rate me as sexy or not sexy, or try to control me using my gender’s qualities of sex, but be perfectly fine with allowing WOMEN to do the same? Are they crazy? Hello! I, and other women like me, are just poor girls with breasts and an ability to be cute—yes, please tell me I can’t use that in my job! PLEASE take away our rights! Protect us from ourselves!

And go to hell.

Hassle

I have a long article I want to write and I can’t start it.

I want to write about freedom, and why, as a feminist, I am not against sex work, or strip clubs, or the recent boon in sexy coffee stands.

And somehow I want to tie that in to my opinion about the Navy employing anti-terrorism dolphins.

Wish me luck.

Part of the reason I don’t want to write is because, jeez, I know I’m right already, so why bother trying to convince people that they should agree with me? If they don’t agree with me, they’re dumb, and if they do, they already do—my writing isn’t going to change a thing.

Except possibly make me feel better.

The Uncertain Twilight

I am unpacked enough today to sit down at my OWN desk at my OWN computer, something I haven't done in quite awhile, perhaps a year. A year. It seems almost ludicrous to think that I haven't done something for a whole year.

I sit here and type this blog post because it's my default state of being, a habit I picked up at college: if you don't have anything to do, you might as well sit at your computer, right? SOMEONE on the www will entertain you.

(One hour later) ...And indeed they have.

But it's easy to sit here, and not so easy to get up, because getting up requires making decisions. So far I have made the decision to eat a few crackers with tofu spread and hang out on the interweb. Earlier I made the decision to leash Titan and hang out on the Hill, and that's what we did.

NOW I have to decide: what I want for dinner, what I'm doing AFTER dinner, am I enjoying my new cable or finishing CSI or going to Beau's house, am I cooking tonight? Tomorrow night? Wednesday night? When am I making vegan goodies for V-Day? When am I starting on the rest of my apartment? How am I hanging my cork? What the heck am I doing with that rolling cart? Where am I putting my jewelery box? When am I organizing my bookshelf, my CD collection?

In Lorelai Gilmore's words: "It's too much of a hassle to eat. I'll just sit here and starve." (And I know that she said this because I SAW IT ON TV, TODAY, ON MY BRAND SPANKIN' NEW CABLE!)

Sigh. Anyone else have this problem? What's the first thing you do when you come home? I walk Titan, that's easy, but after that I'm flummoxed. Eat? Drink? Sleep? Be merry?

NEW Apartment!

I'm trying this new method of posting photos here. We'll see how it works out.

Gratuitous gorgeous mountain shot.

And now, onto the NEW APARTMENT!

In the late afternoon sun.

So many doors in this place. And nooks. And crannies. A veritable nook and cranny wonderland.

A nook, cranny, and shelf wonderland.

The brand new space with a boy.

Brand new space! Nice neighbors! Yay!

TGIMFF.

Picture-Crazy Thursday!

My friend Dave Fry, whose real name I will use because he puts it on the internet already, is a talented amateur photographer, although maybe not with the best eye for fonts (hi Dave!)) and has a terrific photo journal available on teh interweb. He's a little behind, but we won't hold that against him, will we?

Anyway, he takes pictures every day, every single damn day, sometimes of big things but just as often of little things, and he posts them. The End. So if you don't know Dave, this might not be important to you at all. Moving on.

The point is, he inspired me, because I had this terrible day of moving coming up, and I thought, maybe if I take pictures, this won't be so bad.

A picture of just how bad my mood was. I didn't even realize until I looked at this shot that I was scowling.

So I tried again. Faking a smile for the camera, even though it was indeed fake, actually did improve my mood. And THEN I saw THIS:
And that made me actually smile. (For those of you who want to know, my drink is a Triple Grande Soy Cinnamon Dolce Latte. Sans whip, obviously.) (And I bring my mug--which I talked about somewhere on here--about one-tenth of the time I visit a coffeehouse, which is 100% more than I thought I would.) (Fun with math! Hooray!)

Note: for those of you playing along at home, this is the Starbucks on about Third and Pike, I think. I waited for the bus at the damn busiest and most touristy-corner ever in Seattle, accompanied by this creepy mannequin stationed outside.

Don't ask. It's Seattle.

ANYWAY. I got the truck just fine, and it fit down the street, also good.


I hope you can see how gorgeous the weather was for this day. I picked an excellent day to move, just out of sheer dumb luck. It almost made me sad to leave, because Mike's house looks nothing but gorgeous.


Unfortunately, I had to leave. Which was actually good, because it turned out the place I was going to was even better!

Can Randomness Just Be Filed Under R?

They say that packing is hard, dividing your life up into little boxes, even trying to label a box that has your diploma and sorority pictures and also candle holders and candles and a bunch of other pictures and a few martini glasses and a few CDs that you threw in at the last minute plus the earrings you were wearing at the time that you packed, so that when you seal up the box and you reach for a pen, you are stuck, wordless. It’s impossible to summarize the contents in just a few words, and so you don’t. The LT unpacked a box for me a few days ago and stopped dead. “What is it?” I said. “There’s so much…so much…RANDOMNESS in this box!” He threw up his hands. “I don’t even know what room to put it in. You decide where it goes.”

What’s worse, though, is unpacking, especially unpacking boxes that haven’t been labeled because they contain so much randomness, so you’re not sure what to expect, and so you unpack and find pictures, pictures of lost time, reminders of friends you no longer speak to, pictures commemorating moments that seem SO far away now. I found a picture of me at 19, not only thinner (well, more muscular, anyway) but also so YOUNG looking, same hair and eyes but the smile so unbridled, so unsuspecting, so innocent somehow, although I wasn’t particularly drama-free at nineteen either. I am holding hands with my brand-spankin’-new sorority sister and look happier than I ever remember being in my entire life. It’s not so much that I’m thinner, because I know I wear the same size now: it’s the fact that the weight of the world had not yet settled on my shoulders. I was not yet burdened, my later experiences had not yet attached themselves to my arms and legs like so many bumps of cellulite, so many leeches.

This box, this box of randomness, contains so many surprises, so many doors that I chose not to open, so many paths I chose not to take. And also so many paths I DID take: joining a sorority in college, choosing to go to college far away, choosing a really hard major and then adding another one, relationships I tried, jobs I had. Each picture or postcard I pull out is a shock. I can’t categorize or summarize; I don’t know where to put them, if I should throw them out or what, will I miss them, can I just stash them somewhere and make these decisions in another month? Will I be more ready then?

One Of Those Things a Boyfriend Cannot Fix

I am moving tomorrow. Tomorrow, or maybe Saturday, I will once again have a dog. And my dog will need a schedule, like being walked. Which means I will not be able to come home and simply crawl into bed, which is what I have done. For the past three nights.

For the past three nights I have crawled into bed before nine. Often I have left the lights on, assuming that I would get up and turn them off later. Ha. Yes. That has not happened before 2 am, any of those nights, so what that means is that I sleep fitfully until 2 and then get up and turn the lights off and grab four more hours of sleep before my alarm.

I have gone to bed with bra and turtleneck and undershirt on, because it is cold, and I’m whiny and not good at cold. I’ve entirely stopped the practice of washing my face at night, or even brushing my teeth, and I take birth control in the morning now, so what this means is that I have structured my life around the ability to crawl into bed directly after dropping off my laptop bag, and I have done this, partly because I can, and won’t be able to after tomorrow, and partly because very stressful things like moving make me immediately want to crawl into bed.

I do not like moving, although I have certainly done it enough. I have to pack up my stuff, and somehow I feel like there is never enough time. Time to sort out what goes to the Goodwill, time to say goodbye to things I don’t need and organize the things I do need so I can find them again when I unpack. Just one time in my life I want a perfect move, where I have days beforehand to put stuff into boxes and LABEL them, god forbid, or at least have a general idea about what room they go into, and then maybe I can go and get a massage. I have a vision of movers, hired professional movers, showing up at my current place and finding neat stacks of cardboard boxes, all lined up with colored stickers on them showing what room they go into, and of course that would be pointless in my current life anyway because EVERYTHING goes into one of two rooms, as my kitchen is long and lovely but not wide enough to stack boxes in and still walk, so boxes can only go in my living room or bedroom, and there isn’t enough possible margin for error to require stickers.

My mother and father will be at my new place on Saturday (and I almost just typed “Starbucks”, Freudian slip much?) and I know they will like it, and LT will be helping me move on Friday, and his help will be invaluable, but no matter how much my parents and my boyfriend will be there, they cannot make my life somehow different, somehow pack for me, or mold my brain into the kind of brain that organizes and packs well, that sees no problem in starting off a large project with a few small steps, instead of looking at a mess and simply throwing up out of stress, or worse, crawling into bed at 8:30.

And when I am not crawling into bed at 8:30, I am writing blog posts, and more importantly, basing my entire perception of my own intelligence by taking online tests:

This test will drive you crazy, although not as crazy as I already am. According to the page, 19+ is genius. I got 21 before I got frustrated and stopped, which means according to this test I am apparently a genius. Maybe the good folks who wrote this test could come over and PACK FOR ME, since obviously I am a GENIUS about that, too.

Overheard

Tri-Tip: So do you still want to go to lunch tomorrow?
Me: No. I got "Bobby" to take me instead.
Tri-Tip: LAME.
Me: But the next time you want to go to lunch, I will! I'll be your date! Not that you would EVER have a problem finding someone to eat lunch with, I'm sure.
Tri-Tip: Whatever, now I am annoyed, and I have work to do. Lameass.
Me: WHATEVER! I offered! And you rejected me!
Tri-Tip: No, I will not be responsible for you spending money! I don't want you blaming ME for your brokeass in your blog!
Me: That blog has become an animal.
Tri-Tip: Uh-huh. A scary one.

The Boy Currently Known As Bobby: "Check out the girl to your left. Do we know her?"
Me, after a subtle once-over: "I don't think so. But she does look familiar."
TBCKAB: "She looks like a lot of girls I knew in college."
Me: "Me too! It's because she's so vanilla."
TBCKAB: "HA! No wonder she looks nothing like you."
Me: "That was random. What?"
TBCKAB: "You are nowhere near vanilla! You are the Ben and Jerry's Everything But... flavor!"
Me: "HA! Everything But! They should hire me to sell the flavor."
TBCKAB: "They'd have to make a vegan one."

The Seattle Saga, Continued

Hello, my name is Aarwenn (Hi, Aarwenn, and why the hell couldn’t you have picked an online handle that would be easier to spell?) and...hey! Want to go ride bikes?

Hello. I am easily distracted. As a person, as a writer, as a thinker, as a resident. Some of you may remember the Seattle Saga from before. Just now, in writing this post, I re-read a lot of my old posts from March and April. I can’t believe now how scared I was to move, and how scared I was of the crippling emotions that haunted me in West Seattle, and how scared I was to live alone. I moved in April, and it was such amazing experience that I never looked back! I forgot that I was scared! I finally have this “living” thing all worked out!

HA! Said Fate.

The Seattle Saga, Continued

In September of this past year, a very weird and bad and scary thing happened, and I talked around it at the time, but there’s no point in hiding the truth now: Titan attacked the mailman at my old apartments.

It was a random and terrible occurrence. I had Titan off leash and he ran down the stairs ahead of me and before I could get there, the damage had been done. The mailman was fine, physically, but he was extremely unhappy. It was not good. I was terrified that Titan was going to have to be put down. In the first few hours following the incident, I would have happily pushed the plunger myself. I owe a lot to Tacompton Tiffany and T-Town, who consoled me over the phone for many hours as I roamed the streets on that warm September night. The Animal Control Officer came two days later to assess the situation. Fortunately, he loved Titan—who doesn’t?—so the incident passed with just a report and a small fine for his unlicensed state. (Who knew you had to license your dog in Tacoma AND Seattle?) No doctor’s bills, no lawsuits. And as far as I know the Post Office has not been purposely sneezing all over my mail.

I was in the clear with the law and the Postal Service, but the apartment complex refused to renew my lease, not surprising, although they gave me an additional month to find another place to stay and wrote me (and Titan!) a good recommendation. Not that it helped. In early October I was still pretty shaken up, and in the middle of October I was celebrating the LT’s birthday, and in late October we were in Boston, and so it got to be the 24th or 25th of October and I still had no place to live. Come November, I would be homeless.

It was around this time that I thought I might buy a condo instead of renting. Someplace permanent! They couldn’t just kick me out! I wouldn’t be wasting rent! Ha. Yes. Has anyone ever tried to look for a condo in the dead of winter in the Rainy City? In the first two months of my search, maybe two or three condos appeared that would even come close to fitting my criteria. And they were terrible.

So, my condo search was failing and I hadn’t put any work into finding an apartment instead. Enter my friend Bobby, who had this on-and-off boyfriend, named Mike, and Mike owned a house in the Central District, and he had an extra room, and Bobby, may his possible children be blessed for all eternity, approached Mike FOR me and asked him if he’d be willing to rent to me, and Hecate be blessed, he was. So much so that HE emailed ME and offered his extra room. October 30th had arrived and suddenly a new place had fallen into my lap.

“It’s for six months or less, because I’m looking for a condo,” I said, and he said, “Great.”

Hello, January. By early January, a scant two months later, I still couldn’t find a condo, I was getting tired of looking, and Mike got some news: He was being transferred to the Heartland of America and had to sell his house! He sent me a frantic email: “I need you out ASAP! Sorry! No offense!”

Me: “...ohshit.”

The condo market was still sluggish and I was giving up hope, and so I decided to look for apartments again, and within five days, I found two perfect ones. I lost the first one and got the second one, and so, ladies and gents, on February second I am MOVING AGAIN. This will be the third time I have moved in ten months, but of course that is nothing unusual.

The new place is great, and I have included another map. This lease is a year long. The idea of not having to rent a moving truck for the next twelve months is my idea of heaven.
Labels make everything better.

Sure Happy I Passed

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

You Passed 8th Grade US History

Congratulations, you got 7/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade History?

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 8/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

...Since I tutor high schoolers and all that.

Another fun test option that I visit: SAT Question Of The Day.

Enjoy, all you trivia nerds. And I know almost all of you are!

2007 Resolutions!

Click the title to see my 2006 Resolutions.

SO! It's that time. I've been slow on this, partly because I've been busy living my life and skiing and stuff instead of thinking about living, but it's a slow Monday here at work AND it's lunch time, so...well, it's perfect.

I resolved to do a lot of things in 2006, some of which I did, and some of which...get recycled! Yay recycling! Um.

2007 Resolutions, For Real This Time

1. I resolve to DRINK MORE WATER. Sheesh.

2. I resolve to DETOX MORE. Again, sheesh. How hard can it be to not consume coffee, alcohol, or salt for just one day?

3. I resolve to never care about my skin again. So far, as it sits dirty, and has for days, it looks better than it ever has.

4. I resolve (again) to take a business training class! (Fun stuff, like applied microbiology, or composites. See? My job is awesome.)

5. I do NOT resolve to take a language class! Instead, I resolve to buy Spanish on tape and teach it to myself.

6. I resolve to write up a list of things I would like through the year, so that when Christmas rolls around, I won't be stuttering, "Um, er, gift cards," although they are awesome.

7. I resolve to continue creating a stranglehold on my finances, so that I can save for a condo down payment in 2008.

8. I resolve to try mineral makeup, which may seem petty, but it protects your face from the sun, doesn't clog pores, and is easy to wash off! Can it get better?

9. I resolve to listen to the stations 103.7, 98.1, and KEXP more.

10. I resolve to download KEXP programs and listen to those when contemplating buying more CDs.

11. I resolve to USE THE DAMN LIBRARY when I want new reading and listening material!

12. I resolve to NOT see a movie or read a book that I've already seen or read, when there are literally millions of amazing movies and books that I have not yet experienced.

13. I resolve to take my grandmother to see the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit.

14. I resolve to listen to more live music!

15. I resolve to go to Central Cinema, literally a stone's throw from my house, to watch cult movies and have a pint.

16. I resolve to investigate getting free tickets to events, and coupons for products.

17. I resolve to grocery shop on Member Days at Madison Market.

18. I resolve to buy books and media used, not new.

19. I resolve to pack my lunch EVERY day.

20. And my breakfast.

21. And not go to the cafeteria "just for coffee".

22. I resolve to send more thank you notes.

23. I resolve to clean out my cupboards, stationery boxes, and collections of "inspirational" magazine spreads, and either use what's there or toss them.

24. I resolve to make only TWO trips to the grocery every month!

25. I resolve to buy no indulgent coffee during the week!

26. I resolve to stop talking about saving money!

And finally...

27. I resolve to Attach Monetary Value To Everything I Own. With a label-maker, if necessary. Then, when I forget about a chapstick, I will think, "That's 2.74 down the drain! FIND THE CHAPSTICK!"

Ha!

Anyway, if you got this far, thanks for reading, and this is always my favorite part of the post because I get to talk about the Things that I DID Do in 2006:

1. Resolved to move to Seattle...and did so!
2. Resolved to keep weight steady...and did!
3. Resolved to stay out of Starbucks...and did! (Mostly.)
4. Resolved to be overdrawn less...and I was!
5. Resolved to love my job more...and I do!
6. Resolved to get less involved in church...and I did!
7. Resolved to get involved in Youth Programs...and I did!
8. Resolved to finish cataloging and organizing my mp3 collection...and I did!

Yay me! I hope everyone is just as excited about starting 2007!

We Regret These Errors

IT’S TIME FOR...

2006 Regrets!

You all may remember my long, slightly TMI post from last year, and if you don’t, be thankful. I’ve edited it slightly for the increased, rather mixed audience, so if you DO remember it, have fun trying to figure out what I’ve changed and erased!

Insert Evil Laugh Here.

2006 has not been as crazy a year as 2005. I’ve moved less and dated less. I accomplished some resolutions, which is good, and…well, I got to keep others! (Read: they’re still on the list as unaccomplished.)

In fact, I regret very little, so little that I can’t think off the top of my head anything I regret, at this moment, and if I can, it’s all little stuff. I regret miscalculating and becoming overdrawn at the bank this month, for example. I regret losing the cell phone charger that goes along with my phone (Read: The LT’s phone that he is lending me after I lost MY phone in Houston!)

I guess now I might as well make a list:

1. I regret LOSING STUFF LIKE IT AIN’T NO BIG THANG. It’s ridiculous, juvenile, and more importantly, expensive!

2. I regret penny pinching on small things and throwing money away on big things.

3. I occasionally regret being a very typical yuppie, i.e., spending tons of money on coffee and groceries and no money on credit card payments.

4. I regret not drinking enough water or eating enough celery.

5. I regret never sending out Christmas cards this year, although on the plus side, I'm all ready for next year!

Ho-hum, I know. I can’t decide if this is a good sign or a bad sign, but no matter what, this post is way shorter and more boring than last year’s post, and although that is bad for you, my blogging audience, it means I move into 2007 with fewer regrets. And that, my friends, is a very good thing.

Things Done, Things Not Done

Things I Have Done:

Washed Helter Skelter (Jeep)
Bonded with Titan over a weekend and a long walk
Switched insurance companies for a much lower rate. (Anyone else have Esurance?)
(I sound like a commerical.)
Made lots of food over the weekend.
Set up my tutoring schedule for the week
Successfully avoided Starbucks for two days.

Things I Have Not Yet Done:
Found a new place to live. :(

In No Danger Of Staying Organized

I have a personal organizer and it is my new favorite thing ever:

No, you can't search inside this one. Try here.

And now I spend all my time with it instead of on the internet or with this blog!

But have no fear. I am Not, Under Any Circumstances, the kind of person who can be Personally Organized. The affair will be short.

It’s lipstick red pleather, which is hot, and it has a bunch of sections, which is also hot, but I worry about their practicality. “Calendar” is actually being used, so far, although I’m not used to having to label my own days. It feels sort of like I paid for a device that will continually test me on my ability to recognize and record the passage of time, perhaps not a bad idea. (Now that I have typed this, the LT will make me get a watch I have to operate by manually filling in the LED screen with a red pen, in the vain hope that I will eventually gain a grip on just how many minutes it actually takes me to get ready to go anywhere.) “Addresses” is clearly a holdover from another time, or perhaps another universe. It has one address, my tutoree, who calls me “Toot-toot” and treats me as one big joke she’s playing on her parents, and enjoys getting into my stuff and leaving “CLAIRE WAS HERE” signs, like many high schoolers do.

My “To Do” Section has been used; it has exactly four entries, one of which is “Recover from Hangover.” (It’s been checked off.) The others are, in succession,
1. Create Budget
2. Find new place to live
3. Peruse more secondhand bookstores.

Or, in other words,
1. Track money so you can save it.
2. Spend a lot of money all at once, erasing spending money for anything else.
3. Spend your spending money instead of saving it or buying a condo.

Obviously ALL of my personalities were involved in this particular activity. Way to work together, guys. Next time, let’s at least agree on a general direction first, okay?

Sunday Evening

Much like many Sunday evenings, I am making dinner and sipping a glass of red. I'm trying to get better about both eating more cheaply and cooking more sustainably, as in making enough for leftovers and NOT using an entire paper towel roll just mindlessly. I would talk more about it, except that Crazy Aunt Purl has already said everything I would say, and ten times better.

More in-depth explanation: Crazy Aunt Purl has started a regime--I think it's for three months--in which she is not buying anything that is not NECESSARY FOR BREATH OR FOOD OR SHELTER, a noble goal. And I was inspired! And I thought, I will do that, too! Hah. Let me tell you, it is more difficult than it looks. I did okay yesterday--if you don't count the Soy Chai at Tully's, when I was tutoring, or the Cinammon Dolce Latte today. (Ahem. Or the eight bucks I spent at Ross, or the fifteen dollars I spent at Target, or the forty-three dollars I spent at Circuit City.) (I swear all of them were necessary. I SWEAR.)

I'm also trying to make this policy extend to groceries, as it has become apparent to me that expensive groceries are sucking up most of my paycheck, so I'm cooking at home a lot and desperately trying to make the groceries in my cupboard already and the last thirty-seven-dollar bill at TJ's stretch all week.

Statistics aside, I've had an interesting weekend, not because I did anything, but precisely the opposite: I've had an interesting weekend because I did almost nothing. Because, you see, after six days straight spent in each other's presence, the LT ran off for a "ski with the boyz" weekend, and frankly it has been a pleasure to see Other People, as in my own personal friends, and go out, just a big group of single and single-for-a-night people, and come home and wake up when I wanted to and loll about Saturday night in bed, doing nothing except surfing the web and reading magazines and watching a movie that I know the LT wouldn't be interested in. I read Boobs, Boys, and High Heels, a used copy of which cost me 37 dollars on Amazon.com, and thought about me and life and Titan and houses and furniture and really, anything that came into my head. Lovely, and restful.

Listening to: The Very Best of Maria Callas

Currently Consuming: Glass of Target Cube Wine, Red.

Cooking: Aarwenn's Specialty: Mexican Flavored Veggie Nonsense. (A more complete description is here.)

Things to Remember: DON'T BURN THE GARLIC, YOU MORON.

Update: I did NOT burn the garlic! I am awesome!

Further Update, just for the LT: All this talk about the value of alone time aside, I miss you, sweetie.

I'm HOME!

I'm in Seattle! On a main street! There is a Starbucks not four blocks away!

It's not that I didn't like Texas--in fact, I did. It was big, and empty, and flat, and SUNNY, and it had the Gulf of Mexico and houses on stilts and boardwalks and beaches with actual sand, sand so real and densely packed that you can DRIVE on it, for miles and miles. There we were driving on the beach, watching pelicans hunt down dinner, it was completely surreal. Because where I come from, the beaches have rocks, not sand, and we are so afraid of disturbing our natural habitat that Titan, much less a car, is not allowed on any Seattle beach for fear of him "threatening" the local wildlife. My ass. Like seagulls need protection?

Anyway, it was extremely restful, and we did lots of touristy things, and it was very lovely. I spent six days non-stop with the LT and we are still together and even, indeed, still speaking to each other. It's not that Texas was so different, although it certainly was, because obviously the idea of a permanent home is not anything I need to stay mentally stable, although some would argue that I'm never mentally stable.

The thrill of being home, even in a bedroom which I am only renting and has no permanent value for me whatsoever, is in recognizing the magazine titles on the newsstand, and recognizing freeway signs, and knowing which direction the water is, and hearing the "skkkkkhhhhhssss" of milk being foamed, even at ten at night, and admiring the Seattle fashion in the airport, and taking a deep breath and filling my lungs with Pacific Northwest air.

Big, Quick Update

I'm in Texas, and so is my work laptop, iPod, camera, and most of my jewelery.

Which is good because had it been in Seattle, it would have been taken when M's house was robbed yesterday afternoon.

We didn't lose much, thank God--I didn't lose my skis, which for obvious reasons I did NOT take to Texas--but M and his boy lost their laptops and iPods. The theives dumped out my purses, although the overall mess level in my room probably didn't change much, and tried to take M's big flatscreen off the wall, unsuccessfully. They left all his stereo equipment.

Everyone please send good thoughts as we deal with the aftermath.

And also: wine.

Out-Of-Office Assistant: On Vacation

In RURAL TEXAS.

We are way past the suburbs, y'all.

On the plus side, it's only an hour to a town with a Starbucks, and at least it's not dry; I'm on the Gulf Coast, so there's lots of water. And also: fire ants.

I haven't met those yet, though.

So far I have spent a full day riding around in a big pickup with the LT and my hosts, the country music on high. I have been in stores that sold religious artifacts, lots of them. I have drank at a refined honky-tonk. I have been in restaurants in which you can smoke at the table. I have met parrots, seen pelicans and herons, driven by several oil refineries, and been on a boardwalk on the Gulf. I have eaten at Landry's. I have been to Galvaston and walked on The Strand.

I have been to church, wearing a skirt AND pantyhose.

I can only imagine what wonders tomorrow holds.