peek a boo

I need to start posting on this here blog again. I’ve been tumbling and twitting and facebooking, but sometimes I miss writing in more than just snippets.

I’m very close to opening an Etsy shop. Nothing too fantastic to start, but it’s definitely been a big goal of mine and what with my recent obsession with sewing, the two seem to go hand in hand. I actually woke up at 5:30am and laid in bed thinking how much I’d like to go upstairs and sew. Unfortunately with our creaky floors and my loud machine, it didn’t seem right to do to Greg. So I waited until he got up at 6:30 and then went up and sewed. I am such a geek.

Someone on the other side of my desk has the most amazing smelling bouquet of flowers, it almost makes me not want to go home.

Truth be told, I’ve been having an existential crisis the past few months, that’s probably why I haven’t blogged. I’m just trying to figure some big things out, but the big things become even bigger and bigger in my head, and then I just can’t deal.

Casey’s coming for a visit next week!! I’m so excited, I haven’t seen her in aaaages and I really miss her. I’m not too much of a phone person, and email is simply no substitute for our banter, so I’m wondering how we’re possibly going to hit every important topic in the short few days that she’s here.

this american discomfort

As much as I love This American Life, I sometimes wonder how many lives that show has singlehandedly ruined. There seem to be so many episodes where the interviewers just insist on dredging up the most unpleasant of histories, especially among family members with some sort of deep dark secret or sensitive issue. Case in point. And they ask these hard-hitting questions that make the person examine their existence, like they’re Barbara Walters trying to make the subject cry. All of this is backed by incredibly melancholy music consisting entirely of sparse minor chords, which of course makes *me* want to cry. And they make everyone spill their guts, and confront family members about unpleasant things that happened in the past, and open up tons of old wounds. And then suddenly the crew leaves, and the microphones are gone, and you’re just left with the open wounds to mend. Everyone’s life was perfectly fine, and Public Radio International just *had* to come in and fuck it up.   Like when my dentist comes in and drills my tooth and then says, “Ok, the hygienist will be back in a few minutes to put you back together,” and then I just sit there in the chair, all alone and exposed and trying desperately not to touch the huge hole with my tongue. Ok, so maybe that’s my particular personal issue, but you get the idea.

I really sympathize with these people, because my family is the same way. There’s all this icky deep-seeded psychological stuff going on, but bringing it up would either be disastrous or just downright sad. And somehow I just don’t think that bringing it all up via a nationally syndicated radio show would soften the blow. I’m sure it’s all well and good when you have a bunch of strangers around as a buffer, but once they’re gone and there’s no longer any reason to be polite, I’m sure scariness would ensue.

I don’t know, sometimes I just think “the truth” is not necessarily the answer. Sometimes it’s best just to leave well enough alone and try to get on with your life. Especially when you’re dealing with older people. Elderly people make me so sad – their life is coming to a close, they’re dealing with probably the most scary experience a person can have, so the last thing I want to do is make them reflect on all of the bad things they’ve done in their life. It’s a very slippery slope to bring up a painful past. I know that the desired effect is to go down into the trench of misery in the hopes of coming back up on the other side a happier group of people. But what if you never quite make it? What if all you accomplish is going down into the trench and getting stuck there? Before you at least might have had a civil relationship, you might have been able to just hold it together. But now all hell has broken loose and you don’t know how to put the pieces back together.

So thanks, but no thanks, Ira. I’ll stick with my quiet resentment and civil relationships. But don’t worry, I still think you’re the dreamiest 50-year-old I know.

the idiot box

At the moment, Greg and I as a couple are grappling with an incredibly big decision that could affect our lives in a profound way:  should we or should we not break down and get cable?

We finally got our DTV box this weekend since everyone on TV has gotten us so whipped up into a panic that we’ll miss three seconds of valuable programming should we not have our box installed and ready to go on February 17th (which has apparently been extended anyway).    The box means one more stupid remote, and as far as we can tell, the only “new channels” we’re getting are additional religion and shopping channels, and probably a few channels where you can shop for religious artifacts and give praise to the gods of shopping.

So should we just get basic cable?  I’m not really sure if I’m ready for the responsibility and time suckage of having cable.  True, there are some cultural benefits, like The History Channel, Animal Planet and The Daily Show.  But honestly, I feel like I don’t do very many productive things with my time right now, and we only have like five watchable channels.  Right now the TV typically goes off by 8pm since most of the time there’s nothing worth watching, and on other nights, our Netflix selections fill the evenings.  But if we were to get cable, I have visions of myself spending hours and hours flipping through all of the channels and having nothing to show for my night.  And what with my new goal of getting out and doing more, that’s not so good.  Plus I feel like I’m sort of *just* getting to the point where I feel normal picking up a book in the evening or working on a project, so I don’t want to crush my burgeoning productivity right now.

Oh, not to mention, I don’t know what cable costs, but even if it’s $40, that’s an extra $40 a month that we could be spending on more important things, like beer.  And I sort of feel like the only thing that would make the whole thing worth it would be TiVo, in which case we’d have to get some sort of special DirectTV package with a million channels and spend like $100 a month.

Oh what a quandary!!

rebel yell

Oh my gosh, I thought I a was a total nerd for actually always recognizing this scream in movies (I always call it “the Star Wars” scream, although not really out loud, since none of my friends are Star Wars nerds like me) but I never realized it was an actual *thing* with a *name*.  Thanks, MetaFilter!

big hitter, the Lama

After watching the aforementioned talk with the Dalai Lama, I decided to do a bit of research on him. Although not at all related really, I was just reminded of this:

do you have to use so many cuss words?

This is always classic:

Also, the other day as I was trudging into the office, feeling crappy and beaten down as usual, I saw a bumper sticker on someone’s car that simply said, “Mark it 8, Dude.”  And it made my day.