Getting into the Festive Spirit

I finally got my Christmas tree last night. My fiance, after protesting that I had to get a smaller tree than the one he had to carry up the stairs last year, agreed to help me. This year's tree, of course, is a full foot taller and about three feet wider than last year's. The good news for my fiance: it's just barely touching the ceiling, so next year's won't be any taller -- unless I'm living somewhere else.

As we wandered around the Christmas tree lot, my fiance hopefully lingering among the seven-foot-tall trees while I carefully inspected the eight- and nine-footers, I fondly recalled the day we got our very first Christmas tree. Because I am an electronic pack rat and can manage to dig up such things, here's how I told the story in an email to my Mom way back then...

So my (then-)boyfriend (now fiance) has this brilliant idea that we're going to cut down a Christmas tree. He doesn't want to buy one from a Christmas tree lot, because he says they don't stay fresh and they get dried out too quickly because it's too warm here for Yankee fir trees. Since it's supposed to be 70 degrees today, I suppose he has a point. (No such problem this year; the Yankee fir trees are feeling right at home. It's the Yankee woman who's doing all the complaining -- I moved here to get away from weather like this.)

So, on Saturday, we drive around out in the country (which starts about ten minutes outside of the town where he lives) for about an hour and a half looking for a Christmas tree. In honor of the occasion, my boyfriend's wearing his red plaid flannel lumberjack shirt. He said that he had found several Christmas trees -- cedar, not fir -- on empty lots over the years. Apparently people have gotten wise to this tactic, because all of the really nice cedar trees that we see are on the wrong sides of barbed wire fences. Including all of the ones on the "cut-your-own" Christmas tree farm, which we decide will be our last resort.

My boyfriend has one more idea before that: his company owns the huge, partially-wooded lot behind his office. It's only partially-wooded because most of the middle of it is a swamp. But it's too cold for snakes, so we trudge through the muck looking for the perfect Christmas tree. And it's there, with one small problem: it's about sixteen feet tall. I, of course, am determined to have this tree, or at least as much of it as we can fit into the house. My boyfriend, of course, thinks I'm out of my mind, and has no intention of cutting down a sixteen foot tall tree and lugging it through the center of town.

Half an hour later, he's dragging the top twelve feet or so of the perfect Christmas tree through the swamp and up the hill to the parking lot. He looks like a pissed-off lumberjack, I look like the cat that ate the canary, and the tree ends up sticking out three feet off the end of the pick-up truck as we drive through town.

I got my five boxes of Christmas stuff and the tree stand out of storage on Sunday, and we set up the tree (minus about another three feet off the bottom) that night. The tree is huge; it's about eight or nine feet tall and looks like it's almost that wide. We trimmed the "back" branches short so that we could put it closer to the wall, but that made it front-heavy, so we weighted the bottom down with bricks and tied it off to the wall so it wouldn't fall over. So far, so good. The only thing that didn't work was my angel; the top of the tree isn't strong enough to hold it up, so we put a bow up there instead.

So far, that tree is my favorite of all the ones I've ever had.

Blogging Creatively

At the moment, I'm blogging from my phone, killing time before dinner and a show with a friend. Ah, technology...

I attended a panel discussion last night on "Working Creatively," which was originally billed as a session on how to bring creativity into jobs (like mine) which are not generally seen as "artistic." It ended up as a rather impassioned discussion on how to keep and advance the efforts of creative people in cities (like Memphis) which are not generally seen as supportive of such efforts. So I didn't come away with any new perspectives on how to make my work more fresh and exciting, but I did get a lot to think about on how to make the city more fresh and exciting. And some great insights on why people here think it already is.

It always inspires me to be around people who love Memphis for what it is and have great hopes for what it can be. Especially people who are willing to step up, in ways big and small, and do their part to achieve those hopes. I'm hoping that all the excitement that was generated last night can be channeled into something bigger.

For my small part, I am off to support local theater at The Glass Menagerie. The last time I saw a production of it was in college, on the tail end of the meltdown I alluded to several posts earlier. I am sure this one will probably resonate for me in different ways.

Last weekend, I saw 1776 for the first time since I worked on a production 10 years ago. I was struck by the references to tyranny and terror and the tradeoff between liberty and comfortable safety. It sounded so much like a commentary on wiretapping and waterboarding. But, of course, neither of those things existed in 1776.

Requiem for a Saloon

I feel like I need to comment, at least briefly, on the passing of Shooters, which apparently burned to the ground this morning some time before I got out of bed. Although the place hadn't been called Shooters for at least four years, that's how most people I know will remember it. Those that are capable of remembering it at all, that is.

My own recollections are pleasantly vague for the most part, but I did make some friends there whom I still enjoy seeing in other places. It's definitely been a landmark of my time here, and one that I have missed and am sorry to now see gone forever.

A Simple Market Analysis

As all of the conflicting reports and general chaos about the current financial crisis swirl around us, I feel like it is my duty to put my economics degree to work and provide some clear, concise, useful information to those lucky few who are smart enough to read my blog. So here, for your enjoyment (or despair, depending on whether your money is in mutual funds or under the mattress), is a Simple Market Analysis:

One share of Starbucks stock is worth approximately the same as one pound of Starbucks coffee. Or two triple venti vanilla lattes (make mine nonfat, please).

One share of GM stock is worth about as much as a quart of moderately-priced synthetic motor oil. Take heart, though, GM shareholders: you can't even get a quart of cheap motor oil for what Ford is trading at. You can, however, get one of those little pine tree air fresheners to hang from your rearview mirror. Maybe even two if they're on sale.

Last month's cable bill would have bought five shares in Time Warner Cable or seven shares in Comcast.

My cell phone charger cost more than a share of Nokia stock.

One share of Citigroup is worth about 1/3 of the late fee that they charge their credit card holders. And one share of Bank of America wouldn't cover a bounced check fee in most states.

One share of Coach stock will barely buy you a handbag at Target.

For what it costs to check one suitcase on most airlines, you could buy a share in American, United, AND Northwest. Which is why you should diversify your portfolio. And carry your luggage on the plane.

And one share of MGM Mirage costs less than I'm going to lose in poker tonight. Maybe I should try gambling in the stock market instead.

Untitled

When I was 19 and a sophomore in college, I had a meltdown over a guy. Looking back later with the wisdom of many years and self-help articles, I came to realize that I was having a meltdown over a lot of other things. The guy -- who, at the time, I believed was the primary reason for my meltdown -- was, to be honest, probably pretty close to the bottom of a long list of reasons. Like my rapidly-declining academic standing, the fact that I'd gone from being a "really smart" high school student to a worse-than-mediocre college student, and not really having a clue how to fix that problem. Or the problem of being nearly 20, supposedly an adult, and not knowing what I was doing in college in the first place.

Grade school was all about getting into the "right" high school; high school was all about getting into college. All of that made sense, and I had succeeded into getting into a college that was supposed to be good at getting people into other things. I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to get into next. I felt, of course, as if all of my friends were completely focused, driven, and entirely sure of themselves, and would surely find it ridiculous that an almost-20-year-old could be almost half-way through college and not know what she wanted to be when she grew up. Some of my friends, who much later admitted to being equally clueless, will probably laugh when they read this.

When I was 28, I started to have a meltdown over another guy. Armed with the wisdom of several more years and self-help articles, a six-pack of beer, and a pack of cigarettes, I was determined to put a stop to it. This time, I couldn't even pretend that the meltdown had all that much to do with the guy, because we'd only dated for about three weeks. Even I couldn't squeeze that much melodrama out of the demise of a barely-existent relationship. But there was the problem of my rapidly-growing dislike for my brand-new job, my roommate's decision to move out, and my realization that everything that I'd been excited about three weeks earlier -- new job, new guy, newly-cleaned bedroom -- had been turned upside down. I was nearly 30 (though I never would have said that out loud), supposedly an adult, and still didn't have a clue what I was doing.

I flirted briefly with the idea of heading out to stay with Dad in Colorado while I "made a fresh start." My logic: I had made some ridiculously bad job choices out of the need to have an income. Any income. If I crashed with Dad, I could work part-time while I did a real "career" search. Then I'd get my own place, and hopefully get over the shock of living in a place where people exercised more in a week than I did in a year, despite the fact that there might be snow on the ground from Halloween to Memorial Day.

So I called up Dad and pitched my idea to him. He listened in his quiet, attentive, Dad-like way, and then he asked me if I still had "that cat." With a sinking feeling that I knew where the conversation was going, I told him that, yes, I did. "OK," he replied. "As soon as you find him a new home, let me know, and we'll talk about whether you should move out here." I protested, with a growing sense of desperation, that one doesn't just give away an $800 alleycat. Especially when I hadn't even finished paying off his surgery yet. "I know," Dad told me. "You're an adult, and you have a responsibility to provide a good home for that cat. My place isn't a good home."

"You're telling me I can't come," I accused him.

"You're my daughter and you're always welcome," he answered. "I'm just telling you that you can't bring that cat. If you'd like to visit, I'll buy you a plane ticket."

I did fly out, and made a big show of looking at apartment listings and job listings and talking about how it wouldn't be all that bad of a place to start over. My last night in Colorado, there was a frost warning, despite the fact that it was technically still summer. I gave up all pretenses at that point, got back on the plane, and went home to that cat. I found a new roommate, finally got around to that "career search," and paid off the alleycat repair bills. Somewhere along the line, I fell in love. But that's another story.

So why have I chosen to draft this particular chapter of my largely-unwritten memoir right now, when I finally have a clue what I'm doing and absolutely no excuse to be thinking about meltdowns? A random encounter got me reminiscing, and, actually, I did start with a title in mind. Just can't quite make it all make sense just yet, but I'm hoping that I'll have a chance to see where it might go. And then I'll write about that, too.

The Requisite Political Post

Over the past year or so, I've pretty much managed to prove (and mention frequently) that I don't post often, and that my blog pretty much has no coherent theme or apparent purpose. But the people who read it like it, and I guess that's good, especially since I probably read it more than anyone else. It's good for me to like it; if I didn't, I might not post at all.

In one of my rambling commentaries on what I don't write about, I made some vague reference to not being inspired to write about politics beyond the humorous material generated by being a lifelong Democrat surrounded -- at least in my personal life -- by Republicans. When my fiance and I lived together, the comedic potential was, of course, much greater. Especially since we lived together in a decidedly Republican town in a decidedly Republican county. Unfortunately, I moved out before said town and county ended up with a decidedly Democrat Representative in Congress. Giggle.

Still, there's something to be said about the fact that we are quickly approaching the point in each election year when my fiance and I will cease to communicate with each other beyond pointed stares and cold silences. Given that we do a lot of our communicating by phone these days, I can't help but think that there might be trouble right here in River City. Which is yet another reference that my theater-oblivious fiance will not get. The previous one -- "Feed me, Seymour!" -- led to a discussion about why I had just called him by the wrong name. Please. As if I even know any guys named Seymour.

The latest volley in our war of opinion came today from my fiance, courtesy, I'm sure, of one of his decidedly Republican co-workers. I tried very hard to post it here, but I couldn't get it to be legible, so I will translate. In a cartoon strip, two people are walking down the street having the following conversation:

"Shouldn't voters have to pass an intelligence test?"

"You don't have to be intelligent to vote." (As if the results of the last presidential election didn't prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt.)

"What if there are more stupid people than intelligent people?"

"Then the Democrat wins."

Please. As if the party that nominated Sarah Palin has any room to talk about stupid people. Shouldn't vice-presidential candidates have to pass an intelligence test?

The Little One's First Big Adventure

As I mentioned in my previous post (which was surprisingly recent), I had to take the new addition to the vet. The $800 alleycat was shamefully overdue for his check-up (I had been dreading the lecture about the dangers of feline obesity as much as he was dreading the rabies shot), so he got to come along for the ride.

And what a ride it was. I loaded the alleycat into the hardest working (pink -- it was the only color they had) cat carrier in town, and packed the kitten into a banker's box. I highly recommend banker's boxes for all your moving needs: no packing tape required, and the handles double as convenient air holes if you happen to be transporting live animals. Beware, however, of using the handles to transport the box, because the live animal inside will try to claw your fingers to ribbons.

With the banker's box riding shotgun (and me trying to hold down the lid while staying out of reach of the clawed paws flailing out of the handle holes) and the pink cat carrier emitting piteous howls from the back seat, I managed to make it the vet's office mostly in one piece and pretty dang close to on time. I carried the box into the waiting room and anchored the top down with some big, heavy books while I went back out to the car for the cat carrier. Upon returning, I replaced the books with a big, heavy, highly-annoyed cat in a pink carrier.

Next up: "the paperwork." Round one was easy: got the name and birthdate... breed = alleycat... gender = male... description = large, grey/white, overweight, slight limp. Round two was more of a challenge: name, none; birthdate, unknown; breed, kitten; gender, female(?); description, small.

The vet's staff didn't find this funny, of course. “We can’t make a file if she doesn’t have a name.”

I am, of course, a firm believer in the “if you name it, you must keep it” school of pet adoption. So the new addition -- still on adoption probation at that point -- now has a file bearing the name “Kitten.”

On to the exam room. The little one checked out “cute” and perfectly healthy, except for a bad case of fleas that was quickly remedied by a super flea-killing pill. The $800 alleycat watched warily from the confines of his pink cat carrier. Jury’s still out on whether he was more terrified of (a) the presence of a 4.4-pound interloper in his life or (b) knowing that he was next in line for the dreaded rabies shot. He, too, checked out healthy, but more overweight than ever. I managed to forestall the lecture with lots of questions about low-carb cat food.

We departed with the new addition in a more manageable carrier, my wallet significantly lighter, and a banker’s box full of dead fleas (courtesy of the flea-killing pill). The alleycat got to ride shotgun on the way home, though, since I didn't have to worry about the dead fleas trying to jump out of the banker's box.

... And Some Things Do

Like people you haven't heard from in years showing up on your Facebook page. But that's definitely a change for the better.

So maybe you caught the subtle reference in the last post to the "new addition" to my household. And maybe you thought "wow, she complained about six weeks without Snickers bars, but she managed to be pregnant and never said a word?" Oh, hell, no. Not even close.

Earlier this month, I began volunteering at the House of Mews, which bills itself as the "oldest legal cathouse in Memphis, Tennessee." It's a no-kill shelter for wayward felines (male and female), including Penny (see picture), a rather large tortoiseshell with a penchant for unladylike postures. Apparently, new volunteers are immediately fitted with a unique tracking device: in a voice only cats can hear, it whispers "if you follow me home, I'll keep you." Fortunately, this device only activates outside the store, lest the unsuspecting volunteer find herself at the head of a Pied Piperesque train approximately 100 four-legged cars long.

The purpose of the device is to help any stray cats not fortunate enough to have landed themselves at HOM to locate cat-lovers like me who will give them an equally loving, and slightly less crowded, home. And it worked perfectly: two days later, I had not one, but TWO stray kitties try to follow me home. The larger of the two, sadly, I could only supply with food and some petting, and hopefully she will find an equally soft-hearted fool elsewhere on my block. The smaller of the two, however, scored the grand prize: deluxe overnight accommodations in my bathroom, a trip to the vet's office (more on that later), and an assortment of kitten chow and cute pink play toys. Congratulations, mom, it's a girl. Six months young, four pounds small, and spring-loaded like only a kitten can be.

Some Things Should Change

Like I should really post more than once a month. At this rate, it'll take me at least 30 years to turn out enough stuff to make a novel.

Things that should change, besides my level of motivation:

Mornings should start later.

Chocolate should be a food group. Actually, it should be four food groups: dark, milk, white, and the kind with nuts in it.

There should be a 9/11 memorial in New York City by now. I started this post by re-reading the one I wrote this time last year. Yep, still feel the same way. That shouldn't change, though.

People in Memphis should do more than complain about the things that drag this city down. I went to a forum on crime last night that had so few attendees it was pitiful.

I've been on an anti-complaining kick lately. Maybe it's the stress of trying not to have a whiny blog. I'm not willing to let anyone else whine either. Except the overweight alleycat, who is downright indignant about the new addition to our household. But not nearly as indignant as he's going to be about the new diet cat food that I'm about to buy. And even he only gets to whine for a couple of days.

So I am off to buy diet cat food, an extra umbrella, and sunglasses, because somehow I managed to lose every pair I have within a week's time. But no complaining.

Happiness is...

... finding out that your fiance likes your blog. Especially when you and your fiance have been going through some decidedly unhappily-ever-after type stuff lately. And when you weren't quite sure that your fiance was technologically savvy enough to find your blog in the first place. Even if there's a link to it from your Facebook page.

So I guess I should be glad that my aversion to whiny blogs has prevented me from writing about the potentially unhappy-ever-after stuff.

My fiance did suggest that I make a point of noting that he successfully drove across the bridge in BOTH directions the other night without even flinching. I will do so, but I can't resist adding that I always found his phobia all the more bizarre because he was only afraid of driving over the bridge in one direction.

I am sitting in my office at school because, at this hour of the night, it's cooler than my office at home. My sunroom/office/source-of-many-insightful-blog-postings has a big westward-facing window, which I'm sure is adding at least $20 a month to my electric bill. Despite the fact that it stays 100 degrees in there from mid-afternoon until well after midnight. My office at school is inexplicably comfortable at the moment, considering that it was miserable in here this morning when the A/C was supposedly running. I am sure that it's been turned off by now since I am most definitely the only fool still working at this hour. I may not be working at this MINUTE, but I was working within this hour. And now I am secretly gloating because I have overcome a huge case of writer's block and cranked out a decent draft of the proposal that I've been fiddling unproductively with up until late this afternoon. I am gloating in secret, of course, because having fiddled unproductively with said proposal means that I feel like I haven't gotten much work done in the past few days. Unless, of course, my boss happens to be reading this...

HawaiiBlog, Part 2

Which, of course, I am not writing from Hawaii after all. Because I did get sunburned, and thus ended long mornings by the pool.

I'm not writing from my phone, either, although I was pleasantly surprised to see that my phoned-in post looks normal on my computer. I suppose I could have blogged via phone from the Phoenix airport where I got stuck waiting for my flight, and the Memphis airport, where I got stuck waiting for my ride home, but I was much more concerned at that point with actually getting home. Surprisingly, all my luggage did, too.

Hawaii was supposed to be about sorting out a lot of the stuff that's been rolling around in my head so that I could come back and start cranking out light-hearted, somewhat cerebral, occasionally witty blog posts. I don't think I'm quite there yet, though. But I do have some great pics that I will eventually get around to posting.

HawaiiBlog, Part One

I just figured out that I can blog from my phone. Which solves the problem of not wanting to drag my laptop down to the pool each morning. It also answers the question of what I'm going to do for the next three mornings while I sunbathe.

Not that I need to do anything at all, of course. But I've never been good at sitting still, and I'm almost finished with my third book. I'm also bored with playing solitaire. Ah, the perils of vacation.

Right now I'm watching the Pacific Ocean crash into the lava rocks and trying to convince myself that my job, my cat, and my fiance are compelling enough reasons to go back to the mainland a week from today. Since both my cat and my fiance could move and my job still seems to be finding me even though I'm thousands of miles away and five hours behind, I'm thinking that it might be OK if I just stayed. After all, I could write proposals on my phone, too. And I'm much better at being a morning person here. Up at 7, down to the pool by 9. Back inside when the vog overtakes the sun. Which might not actually happen today. But my phone needs charging and I need to not get sunburned, so I will have to continue my pointless rambling tomorrow.

Cerebral is just another word for...

... bullshit, maybe?

I was having a beer and some margaritas with my friend who reads my blog the other night, and he was talking about his roommate, who is apparently a much more prolific blogger than I am. My friend said that the speed at which his roommate types is directly proportional to how pissed off she is at a particular moment. Which means that earlier tonight I could probably have put a court reporter to shame, but that's another story. And one that I probably won't tell here, because, as I told my friend and as I've said here before, I don't want to have a whiny blog. I want to have a witty, charming, and memorable blog. Well, anyway.

"Your blog isn't whiny; it's very... cerebral," my friend replied.

So, a quick recap of the (short) list of "cerebral" things I've blogged about:

Googling ex-boyfriends
Borrowing parents
Paying way too much for playoff tickets
Having writer's block
Saying yes to mess
Having my car vandalized
My overweight, $800 alleycat (here and here and probably other places as well)
Veggie burgers (and lasagna)
Septic systems
Armadillo roadkill
Giant grasshoppers
Fruity drinks and sailors
Walk-in closets
Off-color jokes about flying reindeer
Laundry (and more laundry)
Bridges
Patriotic belly button rings
Wallpaper
Matchmaking
Taking on the U.S. Army - and winning
Beaches
Sesame Street Christmas ornaments
Brad Pitt
Bugs
Schmoozing
Googling Google

And insomnia, which is pretty much what this post was all about. Because it's way past my bedtime.

How Melissa Got Her Faith Back

This post has been rattling around in my head for a couple of days, but I ran out of reasons not to do laundry. More importantly, I ran out of clean clothes. And now it's about to go off in a direction I never imagined that I'd ever have to go. But I'll get there in a minute.

It all started with some random musings about Facebook, which I admittedly neglect only slightly less than my blog. Musing led to thinking about the fact that my Facebook page identifies my employer as a certain Catholic university. It also identifies me as the genius behind this semi-anonymous blog, and provides a link. Which suddenly makes this blog considerably less anonymous.

I guess I always considered my potential readership to be composed of people I told about my blog (for whom it is not the least bit anonymous) and possible random people who won't ever know who I am (until one of them decides to publish my memoirs and make me famous). I hadn't really considered the possibility that I might be writing for people who know me that I didn't tell about my blog. Like people who find me, and my blog, through Facebook. And if I don't know that they're reading, then how can I know what I might not want them to know?

All of this is a very long-winded explanation of my decision to re-visit one of my very first posts (from way back when I posted more than once every couple months) about my relationship (or lack thereof) with organized religion. Which is one of the things that I might not want someone from the Facebook network of my Catholic employer to stumble across. I thought about practicing self-censorship: I could delete the post, or the link to my blog from Facebook. Not because I think it will get me fired, or reprimanded, but because I feel like I need to explain -- maybe to myself more than anyone -- how exactly I've reconciled my uncertain relationship with organized religion with working for a Catholic university. Hence this post.

Even if I haven't found a church home yet, I've had the chance to rediscover the one thing I've always appreciated most about the Catholic Church. I've always credited my Catholic education with teaching me to think, to question, to keep digging until I find an answer that works for me. Everything and everyone I ever encountered about my present employer showed me that passion for education: for teaching students to think and for listening to and understanding them. So I'm putting my passion into doing the best I can in support of that mission, and still having long talks with God about all the things I haven't figured out yet.

Which brings me to what will probably be the topic of the next one of those talks. On Friday afternoon, our university lost its president in a car accident. Before my first interview with Brother Vincent just over two months ago, I had been cautioned that he would be "a little intense." And he was: intensely excited about the university and everything that he wanted it to accomplish. Intensely proud of the people and the place that he obviously loved. Every encounter that I had with him reminded me of that energy, enthusiasm, and optimism. Every day from now on will seem a little empty without it. But I will always be grateful that I had a chance to know such an amazing example of everything that's ever seemed right about our shared faith.

Ghost Writer

I started this post an hour or so ago, but I got temporarily sidetracked playing around with a new look for my blog. I think I'm in an "artsy" mood because I've been playing with pictures and stuff at work. I stumbled upon a blog by another displaced Yankee living in the South. She has horses, which made me think of my mom, and writes full-time, which brings me back to the post I intended to write.

I desperately wanted my current job because it involved more writing and less talking than my former one. Not that I am opposed to talking to people, but I like to talk to people for fun, not for work. I'm just the kind of person who has a quota for how much human interaction I want to have in a day, and I don't like to waste it all at work. And maybe I'm a little bit on the shy side.

Now that I'm writing at work instead of staring at my computer doing other things all day, maybe I'll write more at home instead of doing other things, like playing games and finding perfectly valid reasons not to do laundry tonight. Which brings me to my next great idea.

Most people who have jobs like mine have to do a certain amount of schmoozing. In my case, my office already has a very successful resident schmoozer, so I am largely off the hook. I am getting the impression that people really will not be offended if I sit in my office, or (if it ever stops raining) on my back deck, and write. Which doesn't bother me at all.

When I first met my super-schmoozer co-worker, I thought that he and I would make a perfect team. I should first clarify that in this case "schmooze" is not a derogatory term; it's a vital part of the job description, and one that I am glad that he does well so that I don't have to. It saved me a lot of money on golf lessons. We balance each other well: I'm the thinker-writer-planner-dreamer, he's the talker-mover-shaker-schemer. Ideally, he'll make me a more confident talker over time, but I doubt there's much he can do for my golf game.

Apparently I'm not the only one that noticed our particular yin-and-yang balance. Today, upon finishing one of his many anecdotes about his colorful life, my co-worker pointed out that I would make a good ghost writer. "You could write -- you write well -- and I could just talk, 'cause I have tons of stories." (See above re: my observation that I write and he talks).

I have to admit that it would probably be a lot of fun, and an excellent education on how to become an expert schmoozer. I could see him at book signings, doing NPR interviews, schmoozing, taking all the credit. And me working on the tell-all sequel...

Tradition Revisted

My first job out of college was in Omaha, Nebraska, and I developed the after-work tradition of sitting out in the back yard each night with a cigarette and a beer while I was cooking dinner. Back then I did the kind of dinner-cooking that actually allowed time for the consumption of beer and a cigarette, unlike the five-minutes-in-the-microwave cooking that I do now.

Now that it appears to finally be spring for real and not just as a protracted (and repeated) April Fool's Day prank, I'm suddenly waxing nostalgic. But six weeks without Taco Bell and Milky Ways taught me the finer points of resisting temptation, so I managed to make it home (2.5 miles -- I love my new job) without stopping to buy a pack of cigarettes.

I grabbed a beer and headed out onto my back deck, which is usually as sadly neglected as my poor blog. On this particular night, however, I was joined by two dogs (neither of them mine), a baby (definitely not mine), and my neighbor (owner of one of the dogs and father of the baby). As I tried to juggle beer and laptop without accidentally locking myself out, my downstairs neighbor's adorable puppy squeezed past me into the kitchen and promptly began eating the cat food. My alpha-male, dog-averse cat took this surprisingly well, and I managed to get the puppy back out the door in one piece. I spent the rest of the evening nursing my beer and watching the baby unwittingly feed crackers to the dogs, while my cat sat wide-eyed and defensive on the other side of the security door.

I thought this post might turn into a long, rambling reflection on how much my life has changed since the summer of 1997, when my grandmothers were still alive and Google didn't exist yet (and yes, I did google Google to find this out for sure). But then my dad called, and all the words that I might have poured out onto the screen ended up in my conversation with him, so I'm honestly left with just one profound thought: a cold beer on a warm afternoon still tastes every bit as good as it did in 1997.

Starting out small

But not nearly small enough.

Even though I have yet to fully explore the life-altering craziness of the past five weeks (only one more week to go until I can eat that Snickers bar in my freezer), this particular story's just bugging me to get blogged (pun intended).

I am officially one week and two days into my new job (the so-far successful result of the Major Life Decision-making), and trying desperately to convince everyone in my office (including me) that I am capable of arriving at work fully conscious and alert at 8 a.m. Until this morning, I like to think that I was doing a pretty good job. But my bad habit of turning off the alarm clock and rolling over for "five more minutes" finally caught up with me, and I ended up stumbling around my apartment in great haste. And then, in the middle of my kitchen, my morning rush minutes came to a screeching halt.

My boyfriend often says that I am "stable and rational" almost to a fault, usually when he is having a neurotic episode and I am being less than sympathetic. But at 7:45 this morning, I was reduced from "paragon of level-headedness" to blithering idiot by... a bug.

Granted, this was the biggest bug I ever want to see in any place that I intend that inhabit. And I did make an attempt to rationally assess my options in dealing with it. I even went so far as to arm myself with a clunky-heeled shoe and an attack strategy. I reminded myself repeatedly how ridiculously I was behaving. I mustered all of my courage... and then I retreated to that safest of refuges. I called my Mommy.

"I'm having a bleeping meltdown over a bug!" I wailed.

"Call the fire department," she advised.

We eventually devised a slightly less drastic solution, and I called my boss to make a vague excuse about why I was running a few minutes late. Then I headed around the block to the grocery store for a big ol' can of Raid. Somehow that bug didn't seem quite as big now that I was really armed. And somehow I can't help but think that a grown woman shouldn't need to call for a family intervention just to kill a bug.

Breaking the Silence

For once in the year of my life since I started blogging, I really did have a lot to write about. I did a lot of thinking about writing, but I didn't actually do it. And not because I was afraid of baring my soul on the broad public stage of the Internet. I was actually concerned about the more private circle of people I know who know about my blog. Just like there are some things you shouldn't put in a bathtub, there are some things you shouldn't put in a blog -- namely, things you don't want people to read about before you've had a chance to tell them.

So for a long time I didn't write about how badly my Thanksgiving trip really made me want to move back to the coast, about how I'd started thinking that my time in Memphis was maybe finally drawing to a close. I didn't write about knowing that I'd have to move on alone, and how I felt about the fact that I knew that.

I didn't even write about the grand scheme I concocted for running into Brad Pitt in New Orleans over Christmas so he could hire me to run his community development project and go back to making movies and/or babies. Despite his rumored success with the latter, I did not actually see him while I was in New Orleans. Perhaps that's for the best, though, because it would have really complicated my best friend's plans to have Angelina Jolie play me when he exercises his option on the movie rights to my life story.

So I spent way too much time being in a funk about the fact that I had to make Major Life Decisions without any of the vices that I've always employed in the Major Life Decision-
making process: cigarettes, excessive amounts of alcohol, and long, rambling diatribes on how bad I am at making Major Life Decisions. But then, as always seems to happen to me, Life offered me an apparent no-brainer through a laughably bizarre coincidence that really just might have been divine intervention. Especially since I think my current boyfriend is God's way of allowing me to do penance on earth for every bad thing I've ever done in a relationship.

I am still getting slightly ahead of myself at this point, so I can't quite divulge all the details just yet. But let's just say that the no-brainer in question made it a lot easier for my head to want to stay where my heart happens to think that it belongs. More to come...

Today is the first day of Lent, the forty-day period for which I have decided to give up both chocolate candy and fast food. The former choice was prompted by the steady supply of temptation that has been lingering in our office since Halloween. The latter is supposed to compel me to save money by (a) bringing my lunch to work instead of going to the Taco Bell near my office and (b) cooking dinner at night instead of going to one of the two Taco Bells near my apartment. Somehow I think the more likely result is that I will spend twice as much on sushi as I would have on chalupas.

It feels good to have finally done this. Time to head to the grocery store to stock up on temptation-thwarters.