Steady progress

I spent most of the weekend unpacking my many belongings. Where did so many things come from? I have three words about that: my parents' attic. They may say they're sad to see me move out, but secretly they're thrilled to unload all the crap I've been hoarding in their house. Needless to say, I have thrown out ten times my weight in stuff, and relegated another eight times' worth to the Goodwill pile.

Although most of my rooms still have small pockets of stuff to be dealt with, the house has taken shape as a place with furniture arranged and things in/on said furniture. Very exciting!! I even lugged a few things up to my tiny attic. The tiny, rickety pull-down stairs and my fear of heights will motivate me to hoard less stuff up there than in my parents' walk-in attic. I hope. Of course, there's always the empty Morgan shed in the backyard.

I'm in, baby!

After four days and many sore muscles, I'm moved in and at least preliminarily settled into my new house. I LOVE IT! There's still some serious chaos going on in the office and guest room, but steady progress will march on.

Meanwhile, all hell has broken loose at work. I can't go away for more than a day without the the web server crashing. Serious faces all around. My boss joked that next time I wouldn't want to come back at all. My happy new oasis/home certainly makes that a possibility, except I need to continue to pay for it and all the nice things I want to put in it.

But I'm too tired and too euphoric to worry right now. God, am I tired and sore.

Spammen zie Deutsch

Since Saturday night, the college has been bombarded almost continuously with German spam. When I came in Monday, I had about 200 spams in German--mostly the same ones, sent over and over. My favorite one has a subject line in English, which states "The whore lived like a German." Since I don't know German, I don't know what the others say. It's highly annoying.

Shifting to another topic, gentle friends, I have to say addiction is an ugly thing. Our on-campus coffee shop has closed for the summer because the students aren't around to support it. What about me and my daily dependence on an afternoon latte? I'll tell you what--I am doomed to cranky, sleepy afternoon hell.

Had a great weekend, though. MC visited me Friday and Saturday, and we learned that my bedroom requires heavy curtains to block out the unearthly light from no less than four (and probably more) motion-sensitive floodlights pointed directly at my house from the neighbor's wall. It doesn't help that his son (who I knew in junior high) likes to beat a path at all hours of night between his car and the tiny guest house in the backyard where he lives.

I spied him the other day (like my father, I spy on people; unlike my father, I don't get caught) trudging along to his tiny old Civic. MC accurately described his look as "grunge gone to seed." The thing that hit me was that he moved like an old man, and since he's in his early 30s he must have been (1) stoned or (2) heavily medicated. I like to think he was on his way to buy Cheetos.

But back to the weekend. MC helped me pack and move china and other fragile items, and then she was off, away to husband and child. I went out to dinner with my friend-man. We went to this funky place that tries to do South Florida seafood shack. It's kind of bizarre, but I do like their bar a lot, and also the fact that the private booths have wooden screen doors on them, like Florida cracker tatami rooms.

We sat at the bar and had a lovely time, and my friend-man, who has lived two and a half years so difficult that you couldn't even imagine them unless you were of a cruel bent, this gentle friend who has been sad for too long, declared that he is pretty happy with life right now.

Those moments when we actually realize hey, life is good, seem rare and precious even for a run-of-the-mill existence. To hear that life is good from someone who's bungee-jumped the gorge of despair--that's almost a religious experience. I don't mean that sarcastically, either. It was a divine moment.

Moving to a lighter topic, my couch is fabulous. About five people can sit on it, and two can lie on it. Enough said.

If my office were on South Beach

Crazy, busy day, so I give you, dear reader who isn't already Joanna, excerpts from Joanna's observations during her week-long conference in Miami/South Beach, where she has seen "more T&A than necessary." I know what you're thinking, and I too weep for this poor unlucky soul, with her fresh seafood and bitchin' new tan (except she's a redhead, so she just becomes one giant freckle).

Jo says:

I'll be excited to be home, but I kind of like the leisurely pace of life here ... If a two hour session starts with things I want to hear but continues on to things I don't care to, I just get up and walk out. It makes you wish this were the case at work. If you could just walk out and leave when you had lost interest. Also, if you lived two blocks from work and also, conveniently, right on the beach, I feel this would be a general improvement.

Looking pretty, feeling fine

It's strange, the things that stick with you, like the title of a book for teen girls my sister had back in the early, early 80s (Looking Pretty, Feeling Fine). It was one of those wholesome little rags with makeup tips and who knows what else. How to keep your flybacks in place, I guess. Today we have lovely publications like Bobbi Brown Teenage Beauty, which teaches you to look like a big ole ho. This is supposed to be Bobbi's tips for light, natural makeup for fresh young things, too. I fear what she's suggest for a fossil of three decades like myself. But then, I've always favored colors indistinguishable from the ones God gave me.

Anyway. I wasn't planning to bitch about teenage makeup and mode of dress. That's a whole other blog waiting to happen, since I work on a college campus. Oh, I have wanted to launch into a litany of the strange things I see here (mostly high heels and too much flesh, as if this were a school for strippers), but no. Not today.

What I wanted to say is that it's scary how much of a difference exercise can make in the way you feel. I got a good workout last night for the first time in about a week, and consequently got the first good night's sleep in at least that long. Every day, I've been rolling out of bed stiff, grumpy and barely coherent. This morning, I actually felt as close to great as the early a.m. ever allows.

I even managed to put together a cute, flattering outfit from clothes I've had a good year, but never thought to combine. Happiness all around. Today is my friend Amy's baby's first birthday, so I'm going out to buy her giant crayons. I figure she'll grow into them soon enough.

Star seeds

One of my first chores when I took possession of my house was to peel off all the tiny, luminescent stars on the ceiling of The Purple Room. The family's teen-aged daughter had created a quite a little universe, and though her mom had removed many before vacating (she was extremely thoughtful that way), there were still a good fifty stragglers.

Everyone in my family kept exclaiming, "WHY would someone DO something like that," but the reality is, many of the dorm rooms I lived in had star stickers on the ceiling, to which I contributed my own galaxies. It's just one of those things that seems cool at the time, though you forget about them once they're up there. Kind of like real stars when you live in the city.

So, I climbed the ladder in the Purple Room and popped those suckers off with a spackling tool. I missed at least a couple, and you can see their faint outlines in the painted-over ceiling. The stars I freed have now dispersed to the winds. Some stuck in my hair and slipped down the shower drain. Many made the trip in my car back to my parents', like furry spores and rodents traveling the high seas in Old World ships. Now they litter the laundry room floor or show up in the lint catcher. They're spreading through the house, and soon I'll find them in the office, in my food, maybe at YOUR house!

Spring blooms, and a young woman's thoughts turn to...

...middle-aged men of Irish descent. Did I mention I saw The Interpreter a couple weekends ago? It was quite good, in an updated Three Days of the Condor sort of way, which means there's more of a neat set-up leading to a Big Message. In Three Days, there was no redemption--just Robert Redford walking away and you knew he was going to be menaced by the CIA for the rest of his no-doubt short life. And then there was bleak NYC in the 70s as the backdrop, instead of sleek, swooping shots of the UN in 2005. Still, I liked the Interpreter and I ogled Sean Penn with his lovely graying temples.

Then Sunday I watched Gray's Anatomy, which can be summed up as "ER without the ten years of emotional investement." Because why else would anyone still watch ER, except that you remember when it was still good and all the characters weren't 17 years old. Gray's is kind of mediocre, but when I saw Patrick Dempsey I thought damn, what an improvement since Can't Buy Me Love (because, though his list on IMDB is long, that's the last thing I remember him in). But I guess 18 years can do that.

I could go on like this for a lot longer, but I would just be getting myself into trouble. How about it, dear reader(s)? What middle-aged Irish man floats your boat?

Weekend roundup

Things that went wrong Friday-Sunday:

1. Received couch. Instead of "cloudless sky" blue, it was "cardboard box" brown. Sent it back. Reportedly will be receiving correct couch this Friday.

2. Received facny chrome/leather chair. Its legs are uneven so it rocks. Normally, I would fix this type of issue by sticking some sugar packets under one leg, but not when you pay grown-up bucks for a friggin' chair. My dad (who now will be known as "Nopey the Naysayer") sat in it and jiggled it all around, so it doesn't rock as much. I may or may not send it back; furniture store has been called, am waiting to hear from warehouse manager.

3. Bought washer and dryer. Went home to look at the dryer's electrical outlet. It was supposed to be either three-prong with and "L" or four-prong. It was a three-prong without an "L." Turns out the 50-year-old house just has an extra stove outlet, which people used to plug dryers into. Progress marches on, though, and now you can't do that. The outlet will have to be brought up to current code for the dryer to be installed. Enter electrician.

Here, I have to again sing the praises of my bro-in-law, who makes friends with all the useful laborers of the world. Last week, he sent me a wonderful, sweet locksmith who worked on my locks for about 5 hours. He even re-constructed on bolt from scratch. I had no idea the locksmithing work was so slow, and I was bracing myself for a $500 bill. The total was only $148. I don't know how the man makes money.

This week, bro-in-law sends me an electrician he met at the gas station. They were filling up their trucks at the same time, and bro-in-law ended up getting him to do major re-wiring in his house. So at least I know he's tested and true. One thing about this whole home-buying experience that has been very positive is that most of the people I've dealt with have been good, honest folk. If there's one thing guaranteed to keep me up at night, it would be worrying about whether or not I'm getting screwed over.

Things that went right Friday-Sunday:

1. I FINISHED PAINTING.

2. I moved in all the kitchen things I currently own. Finally, the pots and pans from my sad days on Long Island have returned from their deep sleep in newspaper and attic heat, now under happier circumstances. I found the "morenita" stovetop espresso-maker Joanna and Susan gave me, which I thought was lost in the move. So now I have identical twin morenitas, b/c my aunt just gave me one. The bounty!

3. I received two bookcases that seem perfectly fine and unblemished.

4. I watered the entire backyard, unaware (or perhaps ensuring) that a steady rain would fall all day today.

5. I washed many things and noted other signs of progress, such as a complete set of blinds, a functioning security door and re-keyed locks.

Double identity

I'm leading a double life these days--seems like I'm playing point and counterpoint to everything. I'm living in two houses; maintaining two phone numbers that may or may not reach me, depending upon where I happen to be staying; checking two personal email addresses obsessively.

It makes it difficult to focus. I have to keep extra-good track of myself, report to people "you can reach me here, but not there. Call this number. Use this email." Everyone's confused.

What I really need right now is some good, strong sunlight. I'm getting pale and lizardy, which is what happens when I stay indoors too much. Pale is ok, scaly lizard not. It's the heartbreak of psoriasis, as they say.

Well, at least there's a big bed in my house now. That's progress.

Welcome, couch!

My powder-blue couch is finally coming tomorrow, along with my chrome-and-black-leather chair. Will the clash horribly with the light yellow walls? Anyone's guess. Also, there is now a nice queen-size bed in my house. My mother got a new bed and, though the furniture company had said they could not allow the movers to move the old bed to my house, the movers themselves had a different opinion.

As my mom said, "your father made friends with them, and they talked their Mississippi talk that I couldn't understand. Also, we tipped them." And in her usual paranoia, she made up a story about how I'm getting married, and then indicated that my sister and brother-in-law, who happened to pull up at that moment, where actually me and my fiance. All because mom fears that delivery men should know that her chaste daughter will be living in the house all alone.

This is the type of paranoia that is a daily treat in my family.

Butterfingers

I think it's probably not good that I frequently accidentally print out things just by clicking the wrong button. For instance, I just printed out the home page of the site I managed b/c I mistakenly clicked the little printer button in IE. What can I say? I'm a clumsy technocrat.

Retail therapy

This weekend, I blew off painting (finally did some late last night--still yards and yards of trim to be touched up. And it turns out painting trim isn't the rousing good time I expected) for some serious shopping.

A quick recap:

At the furniture store I bought two small bookcases that match my discontinued bedroom furniture at a wicked discount. Also purchased another short-person chair (the people at my office are complaining they won't be able to come and visit my hobbit-house) that's chrome-and-black leather. Definite splurge, sanctioned (nay, encouraged) by my mother. I don't want my house to be too chromy-cold, so I'm cutting myself off at two chrome chairs.

At the Macy's, bought a small microwave, originally $70, for $25. Awesome! Also, some nice sheets at a good price.

At Target, bought garbage cans. They really have a scam going, because they exile all the functional, cheap, ugly garbage cans to the darkest corner of the store. You really have to hunt for them, and meanwhile you pass all the lovely chrome or wood or porcelain garbage cans with matching toilet brushes, kleenex-box sheaths, etc, priced at $16 and higher.

I almost fell for it. I had a chrome can and toilet brush in my shopping cart. They would have matched the chrome fixtures in the bathroom. But I couldn't bring myself to pay more than $30 for things that basically were going to touch all the stuff I thought too gross to touch myself. How absurd.