Analogy

We were having breakfast at Cyclops.

“I have a hard time letting food go to waste,” I said, as my date eyed me boxing up my one lonely triangle of polenta cake and accompanying tomato romano sauce.

“I’ve noticed that,” he said drily, not needing to mention that I had boxed up most of my chicken dinner the night before at Shelter and insisted that we leave Ballard and take it back to Capitol Hill to put in my fridge, even thought we had to go all the way back to Ballard for the Moisture Festival. It wasn’t a new thing. On our third date I had boxed up most of my carbonara at Café Bendodi and insisted on carrying it around all night, finally getting it safely to his fridge in Belltown but of course forgetting it when I left. (He ate it, of course, and promised to buy me more, a promise I hope to collect on soon.) Hence my recent insistence on getting my leftovers all the way back to Capitol Hill. I had carried boxes of food around on MOST of our dates, except the ones where we ate at Happy Hour or with other people.

“It’s not that I grew up poor,” I said. “There was always PLENTY to eat, and my parents love good food. It’s that food is such a lifeline for me. If I don’t get it, I pass out. I can’t possibly waste it. If I give up this food now, what if I NEED IT LATER?”

He nodded, trying to understand. Being a previously house-trained man, he knew it was important to at least pretend to listen to the woman sitting across the table from you.

“It’s like drugs,” I said, using a metaphor I’ve used before, and one that I knew he’d appreciate. “You just can’t let ANY go to waste.”

The light bulb clicked on, and he laughed. “HA! No kidding. I could have just crumbs of [censored] left in the [censored], but damned if I’m going to throw it out. And that’s probably way less valuable, monetarily, than that amount of food that you just saved. It’s not about saving money.”

“No. It’s about the intrinsic value of the substance to you. The phrase ‘worth its weight in gold’ comes to mind.”

“Yes. It’s worth WAY more than the money itself.”

“Yes.”

“Good analogy, engineer. You broke it down so a sales guy like me could understand.”

“Thanks.”

Blogging The Brainwave: A Passage from Daniel Gilbert's "Stumbling On Happiness".

"What would you do right now if you learned that you were going to die in ten minutes? Would you race upstairs and light that Marlboro you've been hiding in your sock drawer since the Ford administration? Would you waltz into your boss's office and present him with a detailed description of his personal defects? Would you drive out to that steakhouse near the new mall and order a T-bone, medium rare, with an extra side of the really bad cholesterol? Hard to say, of course, but of all the things you might do in your final ten minutes, it's a pretty safe bet that few of them are things you actually did today.

Now, some people will bemoan this fact, wag their fingers in your direction, and tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show that some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice."" (End emphasis mine.)

-Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness

Note To Self

One of these days, I'll figure out how to make photos from my App Cameras rotate properly BEFORE publishing them through Blogger-Droid.

Fairy tale fountain

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Completed to do list.

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More Thoughts In No Particular Order

Holy crap it's been A MONTH since I blogged.

My car insurance is now $75 a month. Sure is nice to have all those tickets gone from my record. (Also note: I obviously haven't gotten any MORE. Whew.)

I am dating SO FREAKING MUCH. I barely have time to do anything else. I love it, and I'm learning a lot about myself.

And other people, of course.

Things I have learned about love:

You can really like someone as a person, and you can really like them as a lover, but sometimes that's not enough. If you can't--or won't--be vulnerable with each other, that is not a relationship.

Things I have learned about myself:

I need my dates to be articulate motormouths.

And I need them to have something going on in their lives. They need to be ABOUT something.

(Cafe Presse is playing Roy Orbison and it makes me smile on the inside.)

Questions for the universe:

Is there a service that will send cards for you? I need that.

How many cracking noises in a windshield is too many?

Is there an extended-life battery made for the HTC Incredible?

How can I move AGAIN? Roomamte and I JUST moved, feels like. We are still moving IN. We just got things rearranged. And now we have to move again. But for a good cause.

I'll hang on to that happy thought.

Thoughts In No Particular Order

My second cousin is in a music video being played on MTV!

My friend Athena is funny. Her Facebook status: "Life as we know it canceled due to snow."

A Korean that I support for work will just call me over and over again until he reaches me on the phone. This is frustrating. Paradoxically, it makes me less inclined to call him back, which I know is childish and beneath me.

Still.

I have three weddings to attend this year. That is more than than I have attended in the last three years combined. I'm

When I got in my car this morning to drive to work, the windshield was making horrible crackling sounds. Being that it was out in the 21 degree weather last night, and it's very old, I re-parked it immediately and am working from home. I'm a little scared.

Possibly way too late, I now possess a garage parking spot for my apartment. Well, maybe it will come in useful for my motorcycle.

Which I haven't ridden in MONTHS.

This is partially because I didn't fit in my leathers for awhile. I'm working on fixing that.

Also, it's now too bloody cold.

Also, I kind of want to sell it, but of course it's the wrong season.

And, due to my complete spazziness with the title, it's hard to sell.

SIGH.

New topic: I am officially, but OFFICIALLY, out of debt.

Which I want to change, obviously, by buying a new motorcycle. Perhaps I will attempt to save up for that, first.

Especially since Roommate and I just got the BEST NEWS EVER: WE GOT MOVED UP TO A TWO BEDROOM!

But we'll pay slightly more rent. And we'll need to buy a COUCH. And MORE FURNITURE, YAY! So. Perhaps I should really get to selling that motorcycle.

But then what will I put in my parking spot?

Brief Fascination

...with songs that involve morning sequences.



"Get Up In The Morning", by Chiddy Bang (which majorly samples...)



"Israelites", by Desmond Dekker



"That's Why I", by Dirty (Warning: video is really bad.)



"Goin Back To Cali", by Notorious BIG (That recorded conversation between Diddy and Big at the start of the song is a conversation that the Roommate and I have just about every morning.)

It makes mornings look fun. Which they are, when they're happening to OTHER people.

The Last Nine Days

...have passed quickly.

A lot of dates. A lot of music. A lot of roommate bonding. Some birthday parties. Did I mention some dates? And some music? Also, Roommate and I are trying to keep the place clean and bonding over it? I can't even TELL most of those stories.

Also I go to Kuwait in a week and a half, and I finally got our boot rack organized, thanks to City Hardware. Yeah, we have a lot of boots.

Half of the Blonde Squad is moving to Chicago. Molly is already gone, and C --the girl I went to Thailand with--is leaving in a week. That's right, she's leaving me, and the Lazy B, and her boyfriend, and moving to CHICAGO WITH MOLLY.

This post is random. My LIFE is random. I meet a lot of really great people and I spend time with them. People are fascinating, my job is great, and I'm late for another date.

Nightmare, or Stephen King's Next Book

I was staying in a beautiful resort in the middle of the woods, and then vampirism arrived to completely kill the mood. We thought we would be safe, but we weren't. I remember the first vampires staggering out of the closets, lurching and screaming for blood, and then I saw my fellow vacationers become blood-sucking monsters. I ran and hid for days, trying to avoid the spread of the disease and the monsters themselves, seeing people I knew and respected being turned and preying on each other. Every corner became a temporary hook up spot for public seduction and feeding, in all gender combinations, and then I wished I had just given in and been turned instead, because now I was being drafted as food and it was too late to be turned.

Was it a race thing? I looked around and realized, as I was pulled into the dark conference room and trapped on the big dark wood meeting table, that every vampire around me was black, men and women. Was I letting black women down by dating outside my race? Was I not allowed to live because I was white and weak? Was it because I was less beautiful?

And then I realized that, no, I'd been here before, this same conference room, in the middle of the day that time, and the previous vampires were white. That was different, though--that time I was the chosen sacrificial victim so that my friends could go free, and this time I was just unlucky and unwanted, the last kid picked for the softball team and I had made the wrong choices and I wasn't going to survive this. At any minute I might feel the fangs on my neck and I was terrified and I woke myself up.

From "Dream Moods":

"To dream about a vampire alludes to unbridled passions which are taking over you or another person. Ask yourself, if someone or something is depleting your energy and strength. Or maybe you are the vampire? In this case, change your cold-hearted behaviour and stop letting your instincts and primitive urges to take control over you."

"Dreams of being chased are among the most common dreams. They often are triggered by persistent problems. In the same way one might describe a nagging issue as 'dogging my heels,' the subconscious mind might present a literal image of being 'chased' by the problem."

After that I found myself safe as a worker on a big cruise ship with my two dogs, which barely helped because we were docked in Seattle and appeared to be going hiking in the woods a lot...

"To dream that you are in a ship cabin, indicates that are seeking some refuge from your emotions."

More on dreaming about vampires:

"Something is sucking the blood (passion, anger, energy) from you. Could be a particular person, event or emotion. A creature of the unconscious (dark) that is frightening, some repressed emotion."

"To see a vampire in your dream, symbolizes seduction and sensuality, as well as fear and death. The vampire represents contrasting images of civilized nobility and aggression/ferocity. It may depict someone in your waking life whose charm may ultimately prove harmful. Deep down inside you know that this person is bad for you, yet you are still drawn to it. Alternatively, to see a vampire suggests that you are feeling physically or emotionally drained. The vampire may also be symbolic for someone who is addicted to drugs or someone in an obsessive relationship."

OR it's very possible that maybe I shouldn't eat a weird concoction of whole wheat pasta, salmon, salsa verde, and Parmesan cheese right before bed.

Snow Day 2.0

This snow day was way less intense than the last one.

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Normal Conversation

I have just finished a successful work phone call at 10 pm. In which I cajoled, begged, verbally genuflected, and eventually got my way. I hang up. I pause.

"YES!"

Roommate, who had been trying to sleep, rolls over. "Hmmm."

"You're a little scared of my cutthroat business tactics, aren't you?"

"Honestly, I'm always a little scared of that."

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QotD: Responsible Engineers

"He didn't say 'That's weird.' He wouldn't have said 'That's weird' if a flock of sheep had cycled past playing violins. It wasn't the sort of thing a responsible engineer said."--Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.

It's been stuck in my head all day, so sue me.

Last Day of Vacation

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We have had a week of this stunning weather, from the 30th on. The urge to go condo shopping is almost irresistible.

Post Shopping Snack.

The juiciness of this pluot cannot be accurately described. It's an explosion in your mouth. Thanks, Fremont Farmers Market. Paired with some Port Salut from TJ's.

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Infamy

I'm in the car with the Ex on the way to Jazz Alley and "Ridin' Solo" comes on. I laugh.

"Is this your theme song right now?"

He laughs too. "It's been played a few times. Maybe more than a few times. And it's made the karaoke rotation maybe a few times."

"Wow, I'm famous!"

"Sort of. There's another word with 'famous' in it, have you heard of that word?"

"Nope. No idea what word you're talking about. Never been applied to me before, either."

Important Distinction

Roommate and I are locals, and have lived in Seattle proper for years, on and off, and currently live eleven blocks from Pike Place Market, which we have pretty much memorized, and yet here we are at Information, trying to find a tobacco store.

The Information Ladies don't know one off the top of their heads, so they are looking at a map to help us. I study the map outside. Roommate has been up since 2 am (not a typo) and is getting a little punchy and I'm worried she's going to cause the Information Ladies serious psychological damage. There are several maps of Pike Place Market, all drawn poorly, none with any relation to each other.

"This map is color coded according to building," I say to Roommate, around the corner talking to the ladies. "Apparently there's one in the Stewart Building."

"That's what they just said," she said, frustrated, "but who knew the buildings had NAMES? I just need them to tell me what it's by." (Pop quiz: can you name ANY of the Pike Place Market buildings?)

We finally agree that the tobacco store is probably by the Original Starbucks. We set off.

We walk in frustrated silence for several minutes, pushing our way through the hordes of tourists and Christmas dawdlers. Both of us agree that making maps that only reference building names is probably not the best way to go.

"Just proof that in the Information Age, simply having a lot of information is NOT the same thing as knowing anything useful," I said, rather dryly.

We found the tobacco store.

Winter afternoon sunshine.

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Activate Plan Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here

Okay, I have spent some time in Asian countries and third world countries and I rarely get overwhelmed, by ANYTHING, but I am in Seoul, and I just flat out escaped into a Starbucks. Let me tell you how rare that is for me. This may actually be a first.

Do not go into Namnaimun Market without valium.

There are things I actually want to buy, and every time I reach for my wallet I become paralysed by indecision and then I have to sit down, and there's no place to sit and I'm surrounded by 50,000 Koreans and everyone's pushing and shoving and no one loves me and I'm freezing and I have cramps and my roommate is cleaning the apartment and going on ACTUAL DATES and I am weirded out, man, and I need out NEED OUT I'M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND OMG A STARBUCKS.

Yeah. That's kind of how it was.

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Single AGAIN.

And I'm really pretty okay with it.

In honor of the demise of that relationship, I have an excellent text that I once typed, very drunk, to the most recent ex:

"Wowm jm. Uh noy sure how phrase the fact that I'm too dino to khalsa a penitent."

No, I didn't send it.