Rafting the Universe

Because I'm as Sick of that Last Post as You Are

2009-02-02T18:08:00.006-06:00

I will write on this blog. Someday. Right now a lot of factors--including a busy-ness that doesn't even leave me time to read and the frustrating fact that life in the city, especially during this most disgusting stage of frozen-over, tends to harden my brain against inspiration--have coalesced into an almost complete disinterest in writing for pleasure. So until the day (and it will come) when I'm not filled with anxiety at the thought of giving my mind over, for as long as it takes, to an activity that no one is demanding of me and that will make me no money, here are some pictures from the very relaxing trip we took to Duluth two weeks ago:

Luxury. Eric and I agreed that this hotel room
was about the same size as our whole apartment.

The view from our private patio.

Ducks in the canal. Lots of them.

Eric with the Rasputin burrito from Burrito Union. It's huge.

Good TV.

To Those Who Have Recently Taken My Money:

2009-01-15T11:09:00.003-06:00

Health Insurance Company, please enjoy your 2009 profits. I don't know what you expect them to come to, but since you're raising my premium and my deductible and have shifted all of my prescription medications to the highest possible tier, I imagine they'll be rather nice.

Officer, I know it's technically against the law, but no other cop--even in this city--would actually put a ticket on a car parked eight feet from the crosswalk on a residential street. I think your sense of duty is smothering your sense of basic human decency. You might want to call it off.

Ann Taylor Loft, American Eagle, New York & Company, Eddie Bauer, J. Jill, and Aerosoles, your wares are entirely worth it. Thank you for the shocking sales and the lovely new wardrobe. As you can see, I've been kind of tightly wound lately, and I needed the pick-me-up.

Dear Ridiculous Customer,

2009-01-02T19:27:00.003-06:00

In response to your parting comment ("It's too bad people have to be so bitchy and mean just to get what they want."):

You'd have to pay me a lot more than 35 bucks in store credit to act like that.

Gradually, A Milestone

2008-12-30T20:29:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I bought a wedding dress. A "taffeta A-line tank," if you believe the description on my receipt. But I swear it's pretty. And now, after going through the tortured crazy-woman stages of being underwhelmed and then second-guessing my decision, I'm so excited I can't stop pulling up the crappy picture of it on the designer's website. If you've ever read wedding magazines, you know that you're supposed to know it the minute you put on Your Wedding Dress, and late last night I realized (and this brought me out of my funk once and for all) that I did know. And the three lovely ladies (mom, sister, aunt) who were with me knew, too. But because it was only the second dress I'd tried on (out of probably 15), and because we're all pretty level-headed (we mocked the people crying and saying "It's sooooo pretty!" in the next room over), the moment passed without much more fanfare than a collective intake of breath.

I can't wait.

Break for Spirit

2008-12-16T16:50:00.003-06:00

I just finished wrapping (almost) the last of the Christmas presents and arranged them artfully under the tiny twinkly tree. Then, with the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas still playing, I poured myself a glass of egg nog (Straight up--it's a little early for brandy.... I'm not that kind of writer.) and parted the living room blinds to watch snowflakes rush through the blue-gray evening sky past street lamps and bare tree branches and the snow-capped bird feeder Eric erected in our building's front yard.

And now...

Back to dishes and laundry and manic writing.

Because If Cybill Shepherd's Worth It, So Am I

2008-12-11T16:27:00.010-06:00

I'm breaking my writer's block-driven blogging strike to announce that the $40 I gave to a hairstylist today was entirely well-spent, even in light of the fact that we have nothing but lint in our pockets these days. In fact, it would take huge units of measure, like tons and eons and miles, to quantify how much better I feel. This is a truth I started to suspect while paying attention to some of my students, who I know make less money than I do and have two, three, four, five kids besides, but still show up to class with brand new hair weaves and professionally groomed eyebrows. I, in contrast, tend to dispense with my personal appearance first when money is tight, until it all melts down into a puddle of I-can't-remember-the-last-time-I-bought-a-new-shirt-and-I-have-to-pin-my-bangs-back-when-I-eat-so-they-don't-go-in-my-mouth. And then I go crazy. So I'm starting to develop a strategy for taking care of myself that doesn't involve credit cards or having to occasionally skip paying the electric bill. The haircut I couldn't really afford was step one.

Also, on a totally unrelated note, since I'm still refusing to get a Twitter account: over the last few days, I think my downstairs neighbor has given up on recording music and switched to recording industrial noise.

Umbilically Attached to Our Stuff

2008-11-28T14:15:00.003-06:00

Okay, so I enjoy giving (or receiving) the perfect gift just as much as the next American, and I would never suggest to anyone that you-know-who is the reason for the season. But I do think we've lost track of something huge (our humanity, maybe?) when a crowd is so focused on getting at the Cheap Stuff They Want that they inadvertently kill a person on their way into a store, and everyone just keeps on shopping. In fact, screw our humanity: at this point, even our animal instincts toward self-preservation are being dangerously misused.

Equal Opportunity Recommender

2008-11-25T17:36:00.004-06:00

Just now, watching a small dust bunny float around a circular path on my freshly cleaned kitchen floor, I suddenly felt the need to write something. Preferably something fictional, involving a character who gets out of her chair to pick up and throw away tiny dust bunnies. Bad news for that urge: it's writing about acupuncture (this week) that gets me paid. And anyway, that character is really just me. But I think the desire to be creative comes in part from the music I'm listening to tonight, by a local guy who is about to top the masculine companion to my list of wonderful female musicians:

1. Jeremy Messersmith
2. The Fratellis
3. Jeff Buckley
4. Damien Rice
5. The Raconteurs
6. Jack Johnson
7. Mason Jennings
8. Modest Mouse
9. Eels
10. Tom Waits
11. The Shins

5 Things that Have Made Me Smile This Week

2008-11-12T13:43:00.004-06:00

1. I had a really great Monte Christo at the Red Stag during a Sunday brunch with my family, and the restaurant was offering free mimosas, which of course I took them up on. It was good to see my family, too, but food is very important to me. In fact, while we're on the subject, Eric made perfectly grilled sirloin the other night. (Yes, grilled, like outdoors, and I think it was about 40 degrees and dark at the time. The guy loves to grill.) Also, the wild rice, mushroom, and sausage soup I made last night was pretty awesome.
2. Two days ago, my dad called to make a suggestion and prefaced it with, "Don't get mad at me." That's grounds for a smile right there, but then the suggestion was that, since I hate apartment living so much, maybe I should find out if the people contributing to our wedding would be willing to help us with the down payment on a house instead. I declined, for several reasons, but it was a nice suggestion, and so very much like my dad.
3. President Elect Barack Obama. Still not quite over that one.
4. My three-year-old nephew, Owen, pronounces my name "Elmo," and was super excited to see me on Monday. Coincidence? Maybe not.
5. Piper, the devil cat, has started pooping in the bathtub. At first we thought it was because I'd let the litter box go for an extra day between cleanings, but now we're pretty sure she just prefers it. And yeah, I know, behavior problem and ewwww. But it's really a pretty clever litter box alternative, and I pride myself on usually being able to see the humor.

What made you smile this week?

Anti-Riots in the Street

2008-11-04T23:28:00.002-06:00

About an hour ago, a small crowd of people ran down our sidewalk whooping and cheering. We went outside with beers in hand to join the celebration, and after they passed, we could hear cheers coming from houses down the street. The neighbors raised their bottles and cigarettes and victorious fists. Cars honked at our little group as they drove by. And we all teared up a little watching Obama's speech.

This feels good.

Go Big O!

2008-11-04T10:55:00.003-06:00

Early this morning, I stood with Eric in a line that stretched around the block from the front door of our polling place, then twisted through a church basement and back up the stairs to where I cast my very own slightly-more-historic-than-usual vote.

I've never voted for a winning presidential candidate. Here's hoping this is my year.

Baby Break

2008-10-22T19:29:00.004-05:00

This week I'm busy trying to get back into my regular writing schedule, since I'm done teaching until mid-January, but I have to take a short break to recount our weekend trip to Fargo. Actually, it was pretty unremarkable, except that Eric spent two whole days helping his brother shingle a garage, and we got to meet our newest nephew (number five, in case you're counting, and not a single niece). This is Conner Halden, who is two weeks old today:

Now you can feel free to go back to whatever you were doing.

Tackled by Joy

2008-10-15T12:46:00.003-05:00

Does this ever happen to you? You're doing something innocuous--say, making the bed--and suddenly your whole body wells up with the realization that you're happy. Not so much about making the bed, but with life and what you've made of it. And then, for a little while afterward, all the things that normally blur that crystal-clear, panoramic view of happiness just disappear.

Because sometimes that happens to me.

Don't Believe Everything You Read

2008-10-10T23:04:00.004-05:00

This is the description on the back of Dedication, the DVD I watched tonight:

"Mandy Moore and Billy Crudup star in this uplifting romantic comedy about life and love in the big city. Crudup is Henry Roth, a successful children's writer more comfortable with fiction than real people. When his only friend and collaborator passes away, Henry must team with Lucy - a beautiful-but-sassy illustrator who drives him crazy before eventually melting his gruff heart."

Internet, this movie is about a crrrrazy person. Legally, clinically, certifiably, and in all other ways crazy. It is the darkest, grittiest romantic comedy I've ever seen, and it only becomes "uplifting" toward the end, after crushing your spirit under its boot heel, and then it's really only relatively uplifting. Like, you no longer want to off yourself. I'm not saying I didn't like it--in fact, I'm glad it wasn't a vat of sap, and the acting was primo--but I don't appreciate being lied to under any circumstances, and the spin in the description has wandered deep into the rolling hills of Untruth.

Sheesh, anonymous movie blurb writer. Other people have to be writers, too, and now no one's going to trust us.

Oh, and my fellow American consumers, stop demanding pablum. Then maybe marketers won't feel the need to lie to us quite so baldly.

Back from the Dragon-Infested Precipice at the End of the Earth

2008-10-07T15:18:00.007-05:00

I've been quiet here lately, and I should probably continue that silence today, considering that it's already 4:00 in the afternoon and I have yet to get a single important thing done. (Well, I taught a class this morning, but whatever.) But for the first time in a while, I feel like sharing. I won't share the really interesting stuff, like the imaginative ways some of my students have been messing with me, or the passive-agressive conflict I'm entrenched in with a family member, or the over-the-top crazy customer stories I've been able to collect at the bookstore lately. Sorry. I'm trying really hard to keep this blog from becoming a sounding board for my anxieties and bad moods.

But today I woke up to rain, and drove to work in rain, and drove home in rain, and read a good book and intermittently napped in a gray living room. And outside, there was rain. There's still rain. Some people might be depressed by that, but I love it. I've never listened closely enough to that Blind Melon song to really know what Shannon Hoon was talking about when he said, "And I start to complain that there's no rain," but I like to imagine that the guy was like me and felt comforted by rain. (I'm sure Eric will correct me later.) So I've been taking advantage of the weather, allowing myself to be lazy and sleepy and lost in a story. I'm even going to put a positive spin on a negative part of my day. Watch:

The downstairs neighbor is recording a pleasant, bluesy guitar riff this afternoon. I'm annoyed that it's as loud coming from his apartment as it would be if I were playing it on my own stereo, and I'm not in love with the constant stopping and starting over again, but I'm not complaining yet. That's partly because it's not as bad as the rap that usually emanates from downstairs, and partly because he's been pretty considerate lately and I feel indulgent, and partly because I'm exhausted from all the complaining I've done in the past couple of weeks, since I decided it didn't make sense for me to just accept his noise as part of my own life. The effort has paid off, especially in terms of the bass level and the inappropriate hours, but I instinctively avoid confrontation, and it's hard work for me to be a bitch, even in the very best sense of the word. Which is, by the way, Tina Fey's sense:

So today I'm taking a lot of deep breaths to suppress the sudden spikes in my blood pressure that correspond with the rise of the guitar notes, and it's working. I feel relaxed and refreshed and ready to turn up my own music so I can plan my last three days of class (hooray!) and later on, cook comfort food (homemade macaroni and cheese), then watch the presidential debate and make snarky comments about John McCain (it's called having fun with political bias, and I'm not proud of it, but I do enjoy it).

Compelling New Evidence that I'm a Total Geek

2008-09-21T14:11:00.004-05:00

Next week I'm teaching a chapter on adjectives and adverbs, so today I'm writing a test that includes a number of sentences containing misplaced and dangling modifiers, and they are cracking me up. Some of my favorites:

After washing the car, my dog wanted to be walked.
Excited about my vacation, the plane took off soon after I boarded it.
Having not eaten for hours, the sandwich looked delicious.
At dinner I would indulge in a giant lobster tail watching the sunset.
Last year, my sister bought a car from a neighbor with no backseat.

Ha! Lobster tails watching the sunset! Now that's comedy!

I'm afraid this may be a very embarrassing week for me.

Getting Out My Telescope

2008-09-11T11:42:00.004-05:00

The better to see the silver lining.

The class I taught today was for me largely an exercise in patience and crowd control; culpability, embarrassment, and humility; and understanding and authority.

The answer key for a quiz and I made a joint mistake, and then I went on to make some more all by myself. When I promised to regrade the quiz, a student argued that some of her classmates may have taken the opportunity to change their answers (true), and a tiny riot nearly broke out. It was not an exemplary day of teaching.

Except that I believe I handled it with grace, firmness, and respect toward everyone in the room. I've devised a solution to the problem that I'm confident will at least acknowledge each point of view that was (loudly) voiced, even though I don't expect anyone to be overjoyed by it.

Today I did what an instructor does when careful planning fails.

It's My Pity Party and I'll Cry if I Want To

2008-09-07T11:39:00.006-05:00

Those of you who subscribe to this blog have probably figured out that I bumped the keyboard shortcut for "Publish" (what are the odds?) while I was typing the title of this post. You will have been notified that I posted something about self-pity, which turned out to be blank. So even if I decided to write this for pure catharsis value and then not publish it, some of you would know I was emotionally wonky. This being the case, I figure I owe you an explanation of what's been making me sad/angry/frustrated lately (aside from the fact that I'm a careless typist):

1. The class I'm teaching went amazingly well for the first week, and then went promptly into the shitter. Case in point: when teaching a chapter about locating subjects and verbs, it's best, as the instructor, not to have to admit in front of your students that you aren't really sure what the main verb in that sentence is. Being groggy from a long weekend cannot fully excuse flamboyant stupidity.
2. Aside from that, I thought I was doing pretty well, and that the students were, too, until I graded the first test. Not good. Not good at all. While this probably has more to do with test anxiety than my teaching skills, I'm afraid a certain amount of self-blame is just part of responsible teaching.
3. Due to some ill-timed government nonsense, I'm pretty sure we're driving around in an unregistered car.
4. I'm thrilled that the loud sex neighbors are now shrieking with orgasmic delight over someone else's head at 4 A.M., but we're still stuck with the neighbor directly below us, who has a recording studio in his bedroom (I swear I couldn't make this up), and likes to work in it after midnight. When he wakes me up, one of us goes down to complain and he falls all over himself apologizing, but feeling bad only goes so far when he's too clueless/inconsiderate/forgetful to make it more than a few nights without doing it again.
5. Because I want to limit my complaints to when it really matters (at night when I need to be sleeping), I feel unable to go down and pound on his door right now, while the volume on his stereo is up so high our whole apartment is vibrating. I don't recognize what he's listening to now, but the other day I was startled awake from a nap by "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Just like if Bobby McFerrin had been in my living room.
6. Also, he thinks my name is Erica, and calls me that every time he sees me. It's too late to correct him.
7. A very good friend moved to Washington this week.
8. Most of the friends I'm left with are casual friends from work, or Eric's friends first. A lot of them are single men.
9. Last night, while we were trying to make plans with some of these friends, one of them suggested going to a strip club. I think a strip club could be fun, but only if there were other women in the group, and there weren't. The guys briefly surmised that they didn't want to "choose between boobs and Amber," then unanimously chose boobs. I was left home with the cats and a rerun of Saturday Night Live.
10. Sad calling, it turns out, is not entirely unlike drunk dialing. Sorry, Emily.

Whew. I think there's room in my head now for the work I need to do. Thanks, Internet.

Having a Celebratory Beer

2008-09-01T20:07:00.002-05:00

While we were out of town for the weekend, the loud sex neighbors moved out. Boy(s) currently moving in upstairs. Cheers.

The Blogging Paradox

2008-08-30T11:53:00.002-05:00

Sometimes this happens. I have things going on, things that beg to be blogged about. I think about blogging every day, but my brain is clogged by all these blogworthy things I'm doing, and I'm too busy to sit down and relax enough to let the clog flow free into this space. So even though I would like to feel able to write (vaguely and confidentially) about the class I started teaching this week, and even though you may be interested in hearing about that, I have a test to write and a couple of classes to plan, so we'll all have to be satisfied for the moment with a list, in no particular order and with mainstream choices unashamedly mingled with the heroically underplayed, of eleven women whose music you should probably be listening to, if you aren't already:

1. Keren Ann
2. Feist
3. Kate Nash
4. Regina Spektor
5. Madeleine Peyroux
6. Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
7. The Pierces
8. Rachael Yamagata
9. Goldfrapp
10. KT Tunstall
11. Vyvienne Long

Feeling Fetal

2008-08-18T14:52:00.002-05:00

Today we're hashing out what we expect each element of our (relatively frugal) wedding to actually cost. Someone buy me a lottery ticket.

Dear Veterinarians of the World,

2008-08-14T13:00:00.003-05:00

Please desist using soap to lubricate your thermometers. Because I have a cat that's half maniacal to begin with, and today, two hours after a routine checkup (just like six other, uneventful routine checkups she's had in her lifetime), she is still trying to lick her poor violated behind. And every time she tries, she ends up foaming at the mouth and running around the apartment like she's trying to escape her own mouth. Apparently, and I think any foul-mouthed child with disciplinarian parents could have told you this, soap tastes bad. This may not faze normal cats, but my cat is prone to trust issues. And when you can't trust your own butt, who can you trust?

Uniformly Unique

2008-08-07T19:09:00.003-05:00

For someone (me) who likes to do things with a twist--just a little bit unconventional, a little bit different, a little bit surprising--planning a wedding is a constant disappointment. I'm forever finding my own ideas in magazines (Very often in lists of ways to make your wedding unique; is anyone willing to join me in my outrage over that piece of irony?), and I just found my perfect first dance song, which I thought was a little bit quirky, midway down a list of the best first dance songs. I won't say what it is, because I want it to still surprise some of our guests--it suits our relationship too well for me to change my mind about it over a silly little principle like nonconformity.

Uncle. I guess.

Meet Luke

2008-07-30T11:48:00.003-05:00

Luke Daniel, our nephew and godson, born on Friday:

This one's the killer:

Country Mouse

2008-07-29T16:25:00.004-05:00

I hate to come back glum from a two-week blogging hiatus, and I promise to make it up to you tomorrow with at least one picture of a newborn baby, but the discontent that's growing inside me again needs some leg room.

I think I've said before, and I will very likely say again, that I'm glad we live in the city for now. It's brought us closer to friends and family and entertainment and great food. For me, since I tend to fear anything I haven't done before, it's also killed off a whole bundle of fears. But the last two years have also made it clear that I really belong somewhere else.

Lately, "somewhere else" is a place where my peace and conscience aren't disturbed, respectively, by footsteps above and the awareness of another life below. Where the house next door is not so close that I can hear the humming of their air conditioner and my own lights are reflected brilliantly off their white siding. Where strangers don't stand a few feet from my open windows and smoke. And we can bring home nice things and not have to even think about whether they'll be clearly visible from outside the building, and if they are, whether someone will try to steal them. Where we don't have to close the windows next to the couch when we watch TV, to mute the sound of traffic. And I don't have to think about what day of the week it is before deciding where to park the car outside my own home. Where on Tuesday mornings I can do the laundry and shake the bathroom rugs on the back step without worrying about running into a neighbor while unwashed, pajamaed, and braless.

Right now my perfect somewhere else, the somewhere else where I belong, is a place where sometimes I can feel alone.

Better than an Apple on my Desk

2008-07-14T22:19:00.005-05:00

Today I picked up the books for a reading class I'll be teaching this fall so we can stash more money to pay for the wedding, and there were some papers in my mailbox along with the books. Just now, while Eric ran to Blockbuster to pick up the next disc of Lost so we can stop scratching at our necks and having seizures and hallucinating dead babies on the ceiling, I casually looked through the stuff. The last thing I opened was a large envelope marked "Confidential," but with no other clues to its contents. The papers inside weren't clearly labeled either, so it took me a few seconds to realize that what I was looking at were the results of the student course evaluations they never mailed to me after the last class I taught at that school. After seven months, I wasn't expecting to ever see them. But I'm so glad I did.

Except for one or two outliers, they loved me, man. And reading their written comments made me remember that I liked them, too. I hadn't been sure how I felt about teaching again, but now I'm pretty sure I feel confident and even a little excited.

Don't Drink the Water

2008-07-08T09:36:00.005-05:00

Last night Eric's youngest brother called--jubilant and exhilarated--to tell us that he and his wife had just--ten minutes earlier--found out she's pregnant. And I'm so excited for them, because they've been wanting this for a while, but I'm also fascinated by the rate at which his family has been reproducing lately. In my family, someone has a baby once every eleven years. Exactly. So I can have a baby in 2013. Until then, I'll have to wear a bird flu-style face mask when we visit any of Eric's siblings, because in the twelve months between this past March and next March, they will have produced four--four!--new babies. And how certain are we, really, that pregnancy isn't contagious?

Musical Crack

2008-07-03T18:24:00.004-05:00

While fighting hard against the wedding planning infection in my brain in the interest of actually getting three seconds worth of work done today, I pulled up some vintage Madonna on iTunes. (Nothing after 1989. That's the rule.) And suddenly I'm relaxed and happy and writing almost fluently. Embarrassing but true.

Vacation, Part 3: Fun with Landscapes

2008-07-02T16:16:00.009-05:00

On Thursday night we said goodbye to Mesa Verde with appetizers and drinks at the rooftop lounge and went to bed early.

Friday morning started in the dark, at 4:30. We packed our things, drank our coffee (Eric) and tea (me) on our private balcony while the sun rose, and were seen off by four mule deer that surprised us by bounding out, all at once, from behind a large bush, and then spent a long time grazing just a few yards away.

This was our longest day of driving, so we scheduled a break about halfway through, at a place Eric wanted badly to visit anyway: the tasting room at the Fort Collins Brewery. If you're a beer fan, I very much recommend trying to locate some of Fort Collins' stuff. Their brews fall all over the flavor spectrum, and everything I've tried has been excellent. The brewery made a great rest stop, too, since the atmosphere was laid back and the people were nice. And don't worry: we drank in moderation and hung around afterward for long enough to shake the buzz before we got back in the car.

We spent most of the remainder of the day driving straight up the eastern side of Wyoming, which is gorgeous in a grassy, windswept, lonely way. We pulled into a drive-in restaurant in Lusk for cheeseburgers and fries before continuing into South Dakota, where we got to watch the sun set in rich, steely pastels over the Black Hills. After that, the drive quickly became less pleasant, since Eric had to drive for hours through deer country in the dark, and despite my promise to help him scan the sides of the road for reflective eyeballs, I completely failed to stay awake. Happily, we made it to our motel without hitting anything. Except a suicidal bunny. But we try not to think about that.

If you ever have a chance to go to Wall, South Dakota, please don't. Especially don't stay at the Motel 6. (Sorry Motel 6, but it's the way it is.) We arrived close to midnight to find that we'd been given another unsolicited free room upgrade, to this huge room directly over the motel office that had a door in it marked "Employees Only" and a very large chlorinated hot tub. But no bedside tables. A couple of young French guys were staying in the room next to ours, and they turned out to be the housekeepers. The room wasn't so bad as long as we were asleep, so we just tried not to spend much time there while we were awake.

On Saturday morning our quest for pancakes took us to a restaurant across the street from Wall Drug, and after breakfast we wandered over to see what the hundreds of miles of signs were all about. And it was at least as bad as we expected. It's kind of like the world's largest crappy souvenir shop, with smatterings of legitimate crafts like Minnetonka moccasins and Black Hills gold.

Our only reason for being in Wall was to spend the day at nearby Badlands National Park, but since the average visitor to the park only spends something like an hour and a half there, we didn't expect to be able to fill the whole day with it. Turns out, though, that aside from Wall Drug and the Badlands, there is quite literally nothing to do in Wall. So after sitting in our motel room for an hour or so, picking up neighboring hotels' wireless signals on Eric's iPod and feeling the life slowly drain out of us, we decided to head for the Badlands. And you know what? We managed to spend the whole day there.

I don't have much to say about the Badlands, except that it's this entirely unlikely area of rock formations in the middle of what is otherwise flat grassland. When you walk or climb on those formations, they turn out to be made of such soft rock that its surface is really just parched dirt, dusty and cracked and crumbly. We spent hours driving around, stopping frequently for little hikes and to admire the formations, the prairie dogs, and finally the sunset. So it was a good day after all.

Sunday was our shortest drive of the trip and uneventful except for a huge, yummy small-town breakfast along the way. And, oh, also: the sweetness of home.

Vacation, Part 2: Newfound Respect for Rocks

2008-06-25T20:49:00.000-05:00

Mesa Verde is phenomenal.

I don't use that word often, or actually ever, but really: it's this gorgeous place with gorgeous park facilities, and it deserves "phenomenal."

As I was saying, we checked into Far View Lodge a little before sunset, when the mesa was drenched in golden light. You'll just have to excuse the purple prose, because that's how it looks in my memory. We were given an unsolicited free room upgrade, and I was initially disappointed and upset by that because I'd just spent 12 tense hours in a car and it had made me crazy, and also because after booking our room, I learned from a guide book that the older, cheaper rooms were simply furnished but had spectacular views of the mesa. Like this:

Our room, on the other hand, featured more luxurious hand-crafted furniture on the inside and a view that included a parking lot, some lodge buildings, and a tuft of trees. It took me a few hours and some sleep to get over this, but it turned out that we didn't spend that many waking hours in our room anyway, and for our purposes when we were there, a little bit of luxury was nice. Besides, it's not as if the view was bad.

The restaurant in the lodge was fantastic, and we started both of our two full days at Mesa Verde by glutting ourselves on the delicious buffet-style breakfast (scrambled eggs! fresh fruit! three kinds of meat! good tea!). Then we spent the rest of the time working it off in the hot, dry sun. On Wednesday, we started easy by touring Cliff Palace, the largest dwelling in the park.

Then we ratcheted it up a notch or ten by taking (on nearly empty stomachs) a 2.5-mile hike along the rim of a canyon. We saw only a handful of other people on the trail (compared with droves at all the cliff dwellings), and couldn't understand, as Eric put it, "how anyone in their right mind could come here and not take this hike." The views were incredible and the trail, which led up, down, across, and between huge rocks, was challenging and fun. It was also the only way to see the largest petroglyph panel in the park.

On Thursday we toured two cliff dwellings, starting with Balcony House, which was by far the most impressive and fun. We were able to get farther inside the structure than on the other tours, and getting in and out meant climbing tall ladders, crawling through a tunnel, and navigating narrow spaces between the rock face and ancient walls.

Later in the day, we walked through Spruce Tree House, the best preserved of the dwellings, and one of the few that visitors are allowed to tour without a ranger. We also went on another long hike, this time along the bottom of the canyon and back up to the mesa top. After our hike the day before, this one was kind of a letdown--just a stroll through a sparse forest followed by a huffing, puffing, high-altitude, uphill trek. But, like everywhere else, there were cool rock formations along the way.

Our last stop, late Thursday afternoon, before the gift shop and ice cream counter, was a trail amidst some older ruins on top of the mesa. These structures were left before the Ancestral Puebloans moved down into the natural alcoves in the cliff faces, and they're less awe-inspiring than the cliff dwellings. But they were also less crowded with people, totally free of rangers, and mostly open for us to walk through.

The last structure on the trail is Far View Tower, which we crawled into through the little window on the front.

And that's where Eric asked me to marry him.

Vacation, Part 1: Headed Toward Wonderment

2008-06-24T10:59:00.007-05:00

This morning, I am green. Filled with jealousy almost to the point of spilling over. I'm jealous, crazily enough, of myself. My past self. Because my self of one week ago, exactly 168 hours ago, was in the car on her way into Colorado. She was in a great mood, and she knew this was coming, one week later. I may be crazy, but at least I'm consistent.

Last Tuesday was the second day of our road trip. On Monday we left early, drove through Iowa and most of Nebraska, and stopped for the night in North Platte, where I'd reserved a room at an old but extremely clean two-story motel.

I'd heard bad things about Nebraska before we left, but it turned out to be not so awful. The landscape reminded me of parts of Minnesota, but with more cows. North Platte is a major railroad town, and more attention has been paid to its architecture than we were expecting. We walked through downtown on our way back to the motel from dinner, and were impressed with the intricately carved stonework on most of the buildings. Even the bases of the lampposts were decorative. Even so, it was very much small town America: my meal of lemon pepper chicken linguine (at a restaurant that claimed to have "the best food in town") was so terrible and ugly that I hardly ate any of it (Eric's chicken-fried steak, on the other hand, was very good); we watched a man in a pickup truck rev his engine loudly and squeal away in challenge to a friend standing by his motorcycle in a parking lot; and there were two poems, one patriotic and the other religious, tacked to the wall in our motel room.

That first night, we took a cold, dark swim in the outdoor pool, slept heavily, and woke up early for another day on the road.

On this trip, Eric and I learned that a full day of driving, when you're braced for it and it's part of something worthwhile, isn't all that hard to do. But the second day of our trip was not a good example of this. On that day, we drove into Colorado, where they have mountains. I don't know if you've ever driven through mountains in a Saturn sedan, but I think it's safe to say that they weren't designed for that kind of driving. During the four days we were in Colorado, we saw one other Saturn. One. And it had our sympathy. Going up, we had trouble maintaining a speed of 45 mph. And going down, especially on curves, the anti-lock brake system kicked in and made us worry that our brakes (which we checked shortly before leaving) were not working they way we needed them to. The drive to Mesa Verde was harrowing, nerve-scraping, and about two hours longer than we had planned. Pretty, though:

After finally arriving at the park in a flood of relief and paying the ranger for our vehicle pass, we discovered that the lodge where we were staying was still 15 miles away. Up a mountain. To the west. At sunset. Eric was driving, and for all 15 miles, I clutched the door handle next to me, breathed studiously, and tried not to look down.

But.

It was all worth it.

Back

2008-06-23T21:43:00.002-05:00

Last night, Eric and I returned home from a very successful vacation. I have a lot of things I want to write about here, things I spent most of the past week writing about in my head, but tonight I'm still too tired and disoriented to sort through the internal notes and the photographs and create a piece of writing worthy of our trip.

So my goal--and be warned that I might not quite make it; the next several days will be full of cleaning (when you leave two cats mostly alone in an apartment for a week, I guess it triggers some kind of cat hair world domination sequence), writing money-making stuff, evening shifts at work, and weekend plans--but my goal is, over the next week, to recount our road trip (with major stops at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and Badlands National Park in South Dakota) in a trilogy of blog posts.

Stay tuned.

The Gods of Bad Timing Must Be Very Proud

2008-06-13T22:29:00.002-05:00

Two days ago I began to develop a cold in my chest: tight lungs, wheezing, loose cough, awful sore throat. Tonight I can feel it gradually encroaching on my sinuses.

Next week, Eric and I are going on our very first real vacation ever. There will be untold amounts of hiking. I would so much rather stay healthy right now.

On the Flowing of the Juices

2008-06-11T12:09:00.006-05:00

Don't be misled by the title of this post: it's not just more complaining about my neighbors' raucous sex. I'm making an effort to ignore them and not dignify their inconsideration by letting it seep into my daytime consciousness. Even if they have woken me at 4 a.m. twice this week. Even if one of those times, her screaming was so over-the-top, it made my cat growl.

Nope.

This post is about writing.

Turns out, I haven't written anything (except a few blog posts) in a month. That's pretty much unacceptable, though not entirely my fault. Life has been exceptionally demanding lately. I'm sure a more disciplined writer would have made time to write, but discipline is one of the things I struggle with, and forcing myself to sit down and stare at the computer monitor for the hour between finishing breakfast and leaving for my 11 a.m. shift at work is not going to magically turn me into a writing Jedi. But it might make me crazy. So instead I read a book. That's called caring for my mental health. It's important to me. And to Eric.

Shortly before I stopped writing, I started a new article for the website, on the inspiring topic of getting rid of crabgrass. Since my life has started to resettle into its natural rhythms and I'm trying to reclaim my writing routine (along with my eating routine, my exercise routine, and my cleaning routine), I've pulled that article back up a few times, fully intending to resume writing it. I've even placed the cursor on the next line to be written. Where it sat, blinking at me cheekily, until I realized I'd forgotten to look up who did the voice of the villain in Kung Fu Panda. (Ian McShane of Deadwood.) Which led me to spend all my writing time looking at pictures of celebrities online.

But today, I have nothing but writing time. And there's no way I can spend an entire day looking at pictures of celebrities. They just aren't that interesting. So I have to actually write. But suddenly, staring at that stupid cursor, it dawns on me that I don't know anything about crabgrass. Or the English language.

So I reread my notes. I feel like I know a little bit about crabgrass now, but I'm still stumped by the problem of forming thoughts into words and words into sentences. And the best way I know to solve that problem is blogging. So I blog. I blog long and hard and not very interestingly, I'm afraid. And it works, a little. I can feel the grease seeping in amidst my brain's moving parts. I think I might be able to write productively now.

Thank you (yes, you) for your help.

Ye Olde Stone Temple Pilots

2008-06-06T23:21:00.001-05:00

They give you your money's worth. The show tonight was theatrical and sexy and totally rocktastic.

Still Alive. More or Less.

2008-06-03T09:33:00.005-05:00

The two-week vanishing act was unintentional. In that time, I finished moving into our new apartment (there are just a few random things scattered on the floor that need to be shifted into permanent places) and cleaning the old one. I also attended two out-of-town graduation parties (both for cousins who will be attending my alma mater next year). And I've been working a few extra hours during the week. So I haven't had much time for writing, and when I have had time, I've been uninspired or afraid that anything I write will come off as relentless complaining. (For example, our new apartment, though it is in many important ways better than the last, comes with an upstairs neighbor who walks laps around her bedroom in heels at 7:30 in the morning, when I'm still trying to get another half hour of sleep, and who has sex noisily and often.)

This week will be busy, too, with an extra shift at work and a groom's dinner and a concert and a wedding. So I'll probably disappear again for a while. But I'll be back. I always come back.

Three Cheers for Poor Planning

2008-05-21T09:14:00.005-05:00

Today we finish moving upstairs. It feels preposterous to say that, because this does not look like the apartment of people who will be living somewhere else in 24 hours. But the next four days are spoken for, so this is our only chance. Yesterday while Eric was at work (thanks to my friends Natasha and Gina, who carried the heavy stuff), I managed to move and put in their places 80% of the books and most of ~~Eric's rocks~~ our knick-knacks, plus the electronics (minus computer) and hundreds of movies and CDs--which are all up there, in the media cabinet, alphabetized. I also cleaned the living room, hall, and bedroom, so the windowsills are no longer black, the mats of cat hair on the blades of the ceiling fan and in between the radiator coils are gone, as are the several things on the walls that may or may not have been boogers.

But--and here's the ridiculous part--that leaves cleaning the (filthy, by my admittedly neurotic standards) bathroom and kitchen, plus moving about half the living room furniture and the entire contents of our bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. And nothing is actually packed. On the bright side, I discovered yesterday that it's surprisingly quick and easy to toss stuff in a box, carry it upstairs, and empty the contents of the box into their proper place. Plus, today I have helpers: Eric is off work, and our friend Jonathan will be our bitch for the day. I think he works for beer.

Still, I'm feeling overwhelmed, like I've been given an hour to eat an entire cow. With a plastic spork and no knife. And since my morning cup of tea is empty now, I think it's time to start digging away at it. Wish me luck and sanity.

My Sister the Rock Star

2008-05-17T21:54:00.002-05:00

Tonight I got to see my little tiny baby sister sing in front of a small audience, and I wish you all could've been there. Because her voice is mature and smooth and smoky, like something I could really listen to, and because she wrote one of the songs she sang. She's so talented, I had to smile while she sang, just to let some of the air out of the pride pressing against the inside of my ribcage.

Teresa, I'm honored to be your sister. But--fair warning--when you're famous, I still get to call you "kiddo."

Short-Haired on the Outside

2008-05-15T13:30:00.007-05:00

At the moment, the inside is having some trouble identifying with the outside. But then again, it's only been given a couple of hours to get used to it.

This morning, I looked like this:

Then this happened:

The ponytail on the counter used to be attached to my head. Obviously, it's not anymore:

My hair hasn't been this short since I was about a year old, and to me, that just doesn't look like me. But give me a couple of days--I think I'm going to like it.

(Thanks, Natasha, for going with me and taking such great pictures at the salon.)

Not Recommended

2008-05-07T09:57:00.005-05:00

Being afraid of your own cat is a pain in the ass.

I know I said I wasn't going to write about it anymore, but forgetting has turned out to be futile. Piper hasn't even really forgotten yet. I thought she had, mostly, because she'd been so cool and normal for a few days, even yesterday when the property manager banged on our door to borrow a pen. But last night after dinner we opened The Window for the first time in two weeks to clear the eye-burning onion residue from the air, and she became a giant ball of kitty tension. This morning she was fine until the other cat and I walked toward her at the same time. Then she fluffed up to about twice her actual size, and I felt compelled to call Eric out of bed to protect me. He's sleeping again now, on the couch, with Piper stretched out next to him. A few minutes ago I gave her some love and some treats, and all seemed well. But Eric leaves for work in an hour and a half, and I'm anticipating a tense day.

I've been reading about cat aggression online. The usual recommendation for a situation like this is to block the cat's access to The Window. Not sure how that's done. I've emailed the property manager. We're moving. Preferably before our lease is up in August. Maybe that's how that's done.

***UPDATE***
I just talked to the property manager. The apartment directly above us will be undergoing a few renovations, and will be available at the end of this month. She showed it to me. I called Eric. We said we'd take it. Time to start packing.

***UPDATE 2***
The crazy has begun to set in. More specifically, the: did we act too impulsively what if the layout up there is too similar to abate the cat's window anxiety oh no I'd given up on that out-of-town job I applied for but now what if I get it and we're saddled with another 12-month lease this is going to cost us more in rent I don't get any of the excitement of moving into a new and different space maybe we should have held out and looked at more apartments I can't believe I'm moving into an apartment that still has a gouge in the door from where someone tried to break in not that long ago now I have to start packing up my house and it hasn't even been a year since the last time we had to move and I have an insecure cat who, according to my imagination, could attack me if I start packing boxes and moving stuff around. You know, the crazy.

Extreme Bravery on the Horizon

2008-05-06T18:21:00.010-05:00

This morning, suddenly, apropos nothing, I felt ready to go through with that Locks of Love donation I've been mentally toying with for the last few years. Ten inches will take my hair length up to my chin at least, and it hasn't been that short since I was 14. The thought of giving up my (limp, out-of-control, boring) mane of hair gives me a little spasm, like it would be a lapse in modesty. Like I would need to cover my naked self. That spasm felt terrifying a few months ago, but now it feels exhilarating. I even took the step of finding the cut I think I want (picture Elisha Cuthbert brunette, and less beautiful, please):

I like that it's short without being spiky or extremely head-hugging. Internet? Are you behind me?

Making Molehills out of Mountains

2008-04-27T11:00:00.003-05:00

On Wednesday my cat Piper attacked me. I've been writing about this in my head for days, and the story has gone from funny to dramatic to this final version, which is just short: It was a beautiful evening, the windows were wide open, and when Piper began to fight with a large white cat that appeared on the other side of the screen, I got in the middle of it. Piper turned her impulse to fight on me, and I came out of it with a bite on my left hand, a bite on my right forearm, and a few scratches on both wrists. When Eric got home from work, we went to an urgent care clinic, where they gave me a tetanus shot and a prescription for antibiotics that make me nauseous.

There are people out there whose next errand would have been to the vet for a little euthanasia, but we are confident that in that moment, Piper was concerned only with defending herself. She was blinded by instinct and adrenaline, and I was in her path. That's all. So far, this theory has been pretty much borne out. She was easily spooked for a couple of days, especially by noises and movement at the living room window, and by me. At this point, though, she seems to have lost even most of her residual memories of our fight, and the cuddling this morning has been pretty much like old times.

But my brain is bigger than hers, and I remember it all clearly. No matter how often I remind myself that she had always been capable of doing what she did, and the only difference now is that I know about it, I still can't quite trust her. I've never been afraid of any animal before, and I don't like it. So I'm trying to forget. My wounds were impressive, but there have not been, and will not be, any pictures of them. Beyond this post, I will not write about what happened. The only part of this I want to remember is that getting anywhere near an angry cat is a bad idea, no matter how many times you've picked that cat up and made her dance the mambo.

Amateur Gardening, Lesson 1: Perennials

2008-04-23T11:54:00.004-05:00

In the little wildflower garden outside our living room window, standing amidst the hyacinths, is a single plant that I'm pretty sure is marijuana.

Happy

2008-04-21T15:47:00.002-05:00

Eric is home today. I just made cookies. Now he's making a loaf of beer bread. The weather is beautiful. On our walk to the liquor store early this afternoon, we passed a row of lilac bushes just beginning to turn green. Our windows are wide open, forcing everyone who enters the building to smell our baking and wish they had cookies and fresh baked bread, too. I'm in the middle of a good book, and I have cats to cuddle with while I read. So here I go.

And I'm Only Drinking Sparkling Water

2008-04-10T15:31:00.004-05:00

My least favorite part of writing is all of the time spent watching the cursor blink and trying to figure out what the substance inside my head is. Doesn't feel like brains. Maybe beer foam?

An Evening With Eels

2008-04-08T00:18:00.003-05:00

That's what it said on the marquee, and on the tickets our friend Nils was good enough to get for us. If you don't know this band, try a little listen. They aren't for everyone, but if you think you might like introverted, quirky, substantial rock music, Eels are your guys.

Actually, it's mostly one guy: Mark Oliver Everett. His dad was Hugh Everett, the quantum physicist who devised the theory of parallel universes. Tonight's "opening act" was a documentary film about the son traveling the country to learn more about the father and his theory. See? I told you: quirky but substantial.

Look!

2008-04-02T11:31:00.004-05:00

I took this picture this morning while standing in flip-flops just a few feet from a gradually receding line of snow in the yard. Because that's what it means to be from Minnesota.

No Need to Advertise

2008-04-01T18:54:00.009-05:00

seeks outdoorsy M

to enjoy the finer things in life,
(like the second tiny hotel from the left)

good food and drink,
(Try the Apricot Wheat, it's delicious)

beautiful cities,

and long walks on the beach.

*****

Eric and I returned home yesterday from a really excellent, mostly lazy, weekend in Duluth. We learned from the last time, and got ourselves a luxurious hotel room at awesome off-season rates. There was a pool on the roof and free Starbucks coffee in the lobby. And a big-screen LCD TV in our room. With cable. We usually scoff at the people who spend most of their vacation lounging in the hotel, but this time, except for the couple of hours we spent on Sunday walking along Lake Superior and climbing on stuff, we were unashamedly those people. And it was pretty great.

Like Standing in Place, Watching Everyone Run Around Like Lunatics

2008-03-27T22:12:00.002-05:00

The year we were 24, Eric and I went to four weddings. And a couple more the year before that, and the year after. Now we're 27, and everyone's breeding. You saw the pictures of Eric's sister's new son. In a month or two, some good friends are having their first baby (a boy). Later in the summer, Eric's oldest brother and his wife are having their third boy. And tonight we found out that his other older brother's wife is pregnant. I have two things to say about this. First: Holy crap. Second: Will someone please make a girl?

Now With More Mystery

2008-03-25T16:03:00.002-05:00

I killed my mood indicator. I'd been on the verge of doing it a few times over the past several months and could never quite resolve to it. But I've been changing it infrequently for a long time, and more and more often the word that would really describe my mood wasn't on the list of options. Then, a few days ago, Eric pointed out that I usually changed it from one negative mood to another negative mood. So that settled it. If the mood indicator was making me look like a crabby bitch, it had to die.

From now on, if you're wondering how I'm feeling, assume "content" and picture a tiny yellow smiley face. That's my emotional baseline.

Babies and Other Stuff.... But Mostly Babies

2008-03-24T19:21:00.007-05:00

For Easter this year we drove up to my grandma's house. We had ham and it was delicious. Which was a good thing, since we had ham sandwiches for dinner last night and ham with our eggs this morning. And there were good people there to talk to, including my mom and sister, who are with me in the picture below. I like this picture partly because the other one, where we're all looking at the camera, is a little blurry, and also because it's typical of me that even when someone has just told a joke and it was clearly funny, I'm still very focused on what we're all supposed to be doing.

Since my grandma lives half an hour's drive from Eric's sister, who had her first baby about two weeks ago, we decided make a detour on our way home this morning to visit them. Meet Cole:

He's a pretty cute little monkey-looking fella.

Suggestion Box

2008-03-21T19:35:00.006-05:00

Dear Minnesota,
The winter wonderland thing is charming in December, but now that it's late March, I think green tree buds would be much more heartwarming.
Love,
Amber

Dinner, Grandma-Style

2008-03-19T18:20:00.004-05:00

It's in the oven now. Smells incredible.

Incidentally, I'm afraid this is about all you can expect from me in terms of blog posts for a while. A pretty picture and some Neanderthalic grunting. I've been thinking about blogging lately, but I keep rejecting the idea because I'm pretty sure you'd end up reading either a report titled "What I Did This Week," in the grand 3rd grade style, or some avant-garde rambling about how washing a chicken is eerily like bathing a baby.

I'll be back eventually. We have a couple of trips coming up. Spring is fighting its way into Minnesota. I'll probably have something to say soon.

Ready for Its Close-up

2008-03-07T21:26:00.012-06:00

Today I realized that the picture I originally put on this post was blurry, and it was making me twitchy, so I made Eric take another one.

A blue vervain flower for creativity, and an aspen leaf for eloquence. That's according to some obscure Celtic herbal lore I dug up on the internet. Between the tattoo and the bed, I think you can expect my Booker Prize-shortlisted novel to hit the shelves sometime next year.

By the way, if you like this and you're in the market for a tattoo and you live in or around the Twin Cities, go see Shawn Hebrank at Identity Tattoo. Good artist, nice guy.

I'm Going to Be Such a Good Writer Now

2008-03-05T11:05:00.007-06:00

This is our new bed. Yes, that is actually the model name, and no, I did not push for this particular bed because of the name. I'm almost that much of a geek, but not quite. In fact, I didn't even notice the name until I looked at the invoice after we'd bought it. And then I was admittedly ~~a big dork~~ pretty happy about it.

The real reason we chose this bed is that it's obscenely comfortable, and we got an excellent deal on it. Thanks for that go jointly to Eric's brother (who sells beds for a living) and my stepdad (who's loose with his money). So we're thoroughly spoiled, but we deserve to be, after all the years we slept on our old mattress, which, in addition to being creaky and saggy and really hard on our backs, rolled and heaved like a waterbed every time one of us moved on it. This is a vast improvement.

And now I'm going back to bed.

Eat Your Heart Out, Donna Reed

2008-03-04T09:38:00.002-06:00

So my bloggity friend Loralee is giving away an apron, and I would love to have it. (Yes, I said "apron," and I meant it. When you hate spending money on clothing as much as I do, an apron is a worthwhile investment. But I haven't been willing to make the investment yet, and now that a few minutes of writing is all I have to invest for a chance to own a super sexy apron, the miser in me is breathless with maniacal laughter.) The rules say that a blog post linking to Loralee's Fantastic Apron Giveaway gets me additional entries in the drawing. So here it is.

[Maniacal laughter.]

[Asthma attack.]

Fine, Thank You

2008-02-26T10:40:00.004-06:00

It was a good weekend. (Incidentally, "weekend," according to Amber and Eric's Post-Collegiate Dictionary, is defined as roughly Saturday evening through Monday.) The first half was spent with people: On Friday night Eric's youngest brother and his wife drove down from Fargo to sleep on our living room floor for a couple of nights, and Eric's oldest brother and our friend Nils joined most of the attendant festivities. I made simple but fantastic chicken on Friday (Thank you, Tyler Florence, for being both hot and genius.), and on Saturday we discovered a bar within walking distance of our apartment that has good food, good beer, good happy hour specials, a good jukebox, pool tables, and was not obnoxiously crowded or noisy. On a Saturday night. Impossible, but true. On Sunday we had the most amazing Chinese lunch ever, and then everyone left. And we proceeded to do nothing. Unless you count watching TV (Apocalypse Now, Gilmore Girls, and The Sopranos), reading, and napping as doing something. I actually don't.

So now I'm all peopled out and rested up for the hard work and diligence of the next two days, when I intend to do a lot of cleaning and writing and maybe even some writing about cleaning. And then I'll go to Barnes & Noble for a couple of days and do a little work in between social time with my coworkers and the customers.

I'm not sure this is really adulthood, but for the moment it's working for me.

Not For Sissies

2008-02-20T20:25:00.001-06:00

I just got a tattoo. Ow.

Don't Read This, Mom

2008-02-19T11:29:00.005-06:00

There was a break-in at our apartment building this morning. I don't know any of the details because when a neighbor told me about it, I didn't have the presence of mind to ask the normal questions. Such as: "Was anything stolen?" "Was anyone hurt?" and "What?!" I do know (because I just recently went up to get the mail) that the door to the apartment directly above ours is being repaired. I've never felt even vaguely unsafe here before, but I kind of do now.

***UPDATE***
The details: Would-be thieves pried open the alley door with a crowbar, then made their way to the apartment directly upstairs. Tried to pry open that door, but a neighbor heard "some goofy stuff in the hall" (probably the same noises that made me lock my door this morning) and walked out of his apartment to check it out. Found two guys standing in the front vestibule, one holding a gym bag, who claimed to be waiting for a cab. He talked to them for a while, until they left (not in a cab), then called the police. The property manager has already been here, and the doors have been fixed. The residents of the apartment building across the street seem somewhat less savory than the ones here, and the neighbor thinks some of them were able to see from there into the upstairs neighbor's apartment (her blinds are always wide open at night). They didn't get into her apartment because they were interrupted, but that was lucky, and I'm feeling pretty vulnerable.

Prose Poem for the Weather

2008-02-09T13:16:00.000-06:00

From an apartment in the basement of a building embedded in a hill in a city, it's hard to tell if it's still snowing. Especially when the wind comes up, lifting blizzards from the ground. Swirling clouds of snow buffet each other in midair, and cars drive through them as if nature is no big deal.

The Best Part of Waking Up

2008-02-09T09:29:00.000-06:00

My bowl of Cheerios was at that annoying stage where there is so little cereal floating in the milk that the spoon refuses to capture more than a few Cheerios at a time. Because I didn't want to spend the next 45 minutes eating, I drank a mouthful of cereal straight from the bowl. I should be an expert at this thing I've been doing for more than twenty years, but today one Cheerio went farther back in my throat than I was comfortable with, and--bonus!--I sucked up a small piece of banana that I didn't know was still in the bowl. This combination made my gag reflex very excited while my mouth was very full. So I tried to gently clear my throat to loosen the rogue Cheerio.

It didn't work.

Unless by "work," you mean that all the milk in my mouth, and a couple of Cheerios too, suddenly spewed from my mouth and nose with surprising velocity. The cat was so freaked out she jumped off my lap, and I haven't seen her since.

All I have to say for myself now is that I'm glad I was planning on cleaning this room today anyway. I was sitting at the computer desk when it happened, and everything--everything--on the desk got milked. Of course I wiped it up with a paper towel already, but this is milk. Milk scoffs at paper towels. In fact, since our calendar hangs on the wall behind the desk, I'm kind of looking forward to it not being February anymore.

Eight!

2008-02-04T23:21:00.000-06:00

Today was our eighth anniversary, and we celebrated by climbing a steep, icy hill behind the library while snow fell around us, then sledding down it until we were tired and sore. Afterward, we went to a great local restaurant and had a decadent lunch with good dark beer. Everything that happened after that was the stuff of a pretty normal day, but that didn't keep me from remembering how much I'm still in love with Eric.

Good Idea, Batman

2008-02-02T12:58:00.000-06:00

I listened to public radio while cleaning my kitchen and bathroom this morning, and caught this little gem of programming: A Candidate Blind Taste Test. It briefly states the remaining presidential candidates' positions on the major issues, but it gives the candidates pseudonyms so you can evaluate their views without being distracted by their personalities, reputations, or affiliations. It's by no means a comprehensive guide to choosing the next president, but it's a nice little step in the process. It's available online; check it out.

On Trying to Get Some Work Done

2008-01-29T13:41:00.000-06:00

Nina says work is overrated. She prefers cuddling. That usually works with my schedule, except on days like today, when cuddling means digging her sharp knees into my lap and depositing cat hair in my mouth by means of face-rubbing.

This moment, she's sitting in the same spot, purring and following the mouse with her eyes every time I move it. Pretty soon we're going to try the lap thing again, and maybe this time she'll thank me by sitting still long enough that I can write some notes.

Let the Record Show

2008-01-28T21:12:00.001-06:00

I love our apartment. Really I do. It's cozy and beautiful, it has a great layout, it's in a nice neighborhood, and the management is just the right degree of attentive. But ceramic tile and cute archways don't make for good blogging the way that cracked walls, broken water heaters, out-of-con trol boilers, intrusive maintenance guys, neighbors' lea ky toilets, and giant bugs do. Also good blogging: this place smells like pee. Now, don't go jumping to conclusions--our cats use the litter box every single time. But some people's pets use the side of our building, and our windows, well, they're at ground level. I knew all about this months ago and had gotten over it because it's never really been an issue. Once or twice I noticed a faint urinous smell seeping under the windows, so I tossed an odor absorber onto the sill and it went away. But last week I walked in the door after work and was immediately smacked in the face with the smell of pee. Eric had the same experience that night, and if Eric notices an odor, it's pretty smelly.

So there are odor absorbers in the window sills that haven't quite accomplished their task yet, and every time we come home we gag a little on the smell and light a candle until our noses get worn out on urine and stop registering it. It's gross, but it's got to be temporary, right? I'm blaming it on the weather: today it was at least thirty degrees warmer than it was a week ago, and half a winter's worth of animal pee is melting and warming and reeking right outside our windows. Eventually it'll freeze again, and later there will be rain to wash it away.

And then our apartment will be perfect again.

Structurally Unsound

2008-01-19T23:05:00.000-06:00

On each of the two outside walls in our living room, there is a long, thick, patched crack like a lightning bolt in the poured concrete. Some parts of these, under the layers of plaster and paint, must be very deep and wide; if you rap your knuckles against them, you hear a light, hollow sound, not the thud of hitting solid concrete. When it rains for a long time, the crack under the window lets moisture in, turning the paint shiny and tacky. Tonight my attention drifted while I was watching a movie, and I noticed hairline cracks in the paint over these bulging scars in the wall. It has been very, very cold outside. The ground is swollen with frost.

The earth is trying to come in.

(This is not what I asked for.)

Smothered

2008-01-17T19:21:00.000-06:00

Forgive me for writing infrequently lately. And for writing graphically about food poisoning when I do. My excuse is that I do not use language well for events. I use language for description. (I'm the Virginia Woolf of bloggers.) (That creaking sound you just heard was Virginia Woolf and all the rest of Bloomsbury rolling over in their graves.) And aside from fantastically pink vomit, my life includes little these days that I feel compelled to describe. And even then, dang it, I have to hold back in deference to propriety.

Also, while I do a fair amount of self-analysis, I rarely feel comfortable putting it into writing. (If you like confessional blog posts, enjoy this one. This is about as good as it gets.) Oh, I voice my self-analysis. I talk to myself. To Eric. To the cats. To imaginary interviewers for magazines. (It's not crazy if you know it isn't real.) But it looks silly in print. I'm embarrassed to see my own stream of consciousness in black and white. (Guess I'm not Virginia Woolf after all.)

So I've felt best about this blog when I've been able to describe nature. And often those posts revealed something about me, too. I'm deeply affected by the weather and the grass and the trees and the light and the running of water. Seeing myself juxtaposed with and connected to the natural world gives me perspective. Gives me insight. Gives me inspiration. Gives me words.

I'm glad that we have lived in the city, and there are many things I enjoy here. But I've clearly lost something here. The mechanics of city life and nonfictional human interaction give me little to write about. They wear me out with their noise and their concrete and their close spaces, and narrow the space in my mind for creativity. Maybe--probably--I could find inspiration in the city with time. But I think I want my nature back. I think we may not stay here for much more of our lives.

Vomitastic!

2008-01-14T11:52:00.001-06:00

If I had known 2008 was going to be the year of being sick all the time, I would have had second thoughts about celebrating on New Year's Eve. But I did celebrate--too much--and shortly after midnight, I was sick. The next morning I was hungover, of course. On January 2nd, I had the first symptoms of a nasty cold that still has a tiny little finger hold on me. And then--then!--this past Saturday night we went out for a friend's birthday.

Festivities started at the seafood restaurant we went to for Eric's birthday last year. They were out of coconut for the coconut shrimp, so I had a somewhat disappointing basket of fish and chips and (this is important; remember this) one beer. I didn't finish my food because I started feeling full and bloated about halfway through, but greasy food can do that to me, so I thought little of it, even though I got increasingly uncomfortable after the food left the table. This is how we were persuaded to walk a few blocks to an 80s-themed bar full of pink and blue neon and loud music. Because these were primarily Eric's friends, I was determined to hold it together for as long as he wanted to stay out, and anyway I was still convinced that I just had some indigestion. So I sat in a chair and didn't drink and looked miserable enough that people felt bad for me and I felt bad for that.

And finally I was done.

I signaled to Eric that I was ready to go, we said our goodbyes, walked out of the bar and probably 15 feet down the sidewalk, and I threw up a pink avalanche into a snowbank. In front of people.

I really don't think it's fair to have to vomit hot pink in front of people outside an 80s bar when you didn't have a thing to drink inside that bar, and when the pink color (it took a while to figure this out) is from zinc and echinacea lozenges.

And, hard as this may be to believe, my night went downhill from there. On Sunday we were supposed to drive to my grandma's house to finally celebrate Christmas, but I had to call my aunt at 7:30 in the morning (after a night of sleeping for one-hour intervals) to tell her I was pretty sure that wasn't a good idea. Our belated Christmas dinner is in the freezer until further notice.

I have to say I'm disappointed. I'm usually not sick very often, and I always imagine sickness as some sort of welcome break from real life. Like if I get sick enough I'll be able to skip work and spend the day on the couch reading books and watching movies. The reality, I now realize, is that sickness likes to take up your three days off in a row, and that you don't feel like doing a damn thing on the couch when you're sick enough to stay there all day. And then your boyfriend, who's spending his two days off being incredibly nice and making you broth and Jello, gets bored.

Being sick sucks.

Side Effects May Include

2008-01-05T17:46:00.000-06:00

So the weird people mostly stayed home today, and I probably should have followed their lead. I'm on the fourth day of an illness that I suspect would be worse if not for the whole bag of zinc and echinacea lozenges I've consumed in that time, but it's still wearing me out pretty badly. Among its other symptoms, apparently, is the nearly irrepressible urge to flick annoying customers on the forehead. Or to use the step stool I had to retrieve from halfway across the store to smack the woman sitting on a much closer one. Or to drop to the floor shrieking when the ridiculously unintuitive computer program we use can't find a title because I'm misspelling a name by a single letter.

Good thing I only worked a five-hour shift.

I'm feeling much better now that I'm home, and since tonight is Eric's poker night, I'll be having a girl's night in with myself. And the cats. They're girls too. But they don't get to share my calzone.

Occupational Perks

2008-01-04T17:59:00.000-06:00

Some days people are weirder than on other days. Or maybe on some days more weird people buy books. My favorite comment of the day, out of the mouth of a guy who until then did not seem weird, was, "I'm not a communist, so I watch Bill O'Reilly."

I Must've Been a Very Good Girl

2007-12-24T12:31:00.000-06:00

I just swung by the Barnes & Noble where I work to do my last-minute shopping, and when I got there a few of my coworkers mentioned that my Secret Santa gift was in the break room, and that it was a huge bag of stuff. So I went back and opened it, and I don't know yet who my Santa was, but it's someone who gets me. The giant bag contained a little party: Asian-inspired trail mix, cheddar and scallion sourdough twists, dip bowls, plastic cups, beverage napkins, and a mixed six pack of good beer. (For those of you who are interested in these things, it contains Hacker-Pscorr Weisse, Golden Leaf Wheat, Peroni, Sierra Nevada Wheat, Singha Lager, and Sapporo. Ha! All lagers and wheat beers, which Eric doesn't like and won't steal.)

I hope my Secret Santa's intent wasn't that I'd share...because I just don't think that's going to happen. You know, because I'm full of the spirit of holiday giving.

We leave for Eric's parents' house tonight...hope all of you have a wonderful holiday!

Birthday Self-Indulgence

2007-12-22T12:41:00.000-06:00

Today's my birthday. And I'm milking it. Last night, Eric and I initiated the festivities by going out for a semi-romantic dinner (We're really a very grounded couple, and don't spend much time gazing into each other's eyes. I'm pretty sure eye-gazing is a requirement of a fully romantic dinner.) at the Loring Pasta Bar, where they make incredible food and lay the atmosphere on as thick as possible, and where there was a live jazz quartet. This morning I was up before nine, and I've spent the hours since doing yoga and drinking almond-infused black tea and finishing The Golden Compass in my pajamas. Next up is a long hot shower, and baking myself a birthday cake from scratch (which I haven't done before, but seems easy enough), and playing The Sims ad nauseum, and eating leftover chicken marsala, and listening to the Tori Amos CD my mom gave me for my birthday. Later tonight, I'm going to Natasha's solstice party, where I will make people eat my homemade cake, whether it's any good or not.

Birthdays are awesome.

A Bad Case of the Crazies

2007-12-16T19:43:00.000-06:00

Combine pre-holiday stress with a job change (tomorrow's my last day of teaching, and then we'll be relying much more on the online writing for income), a $98 ticket for expired vehicle registration (because I never received the tabs in the mail after ordering them online), a grandma in the hospital, a day of feeling vaguely sick and disgusting, plus the guilt of not getting through even half the work I had planned for that day, and you end up with a pretty scary Amber.

I'm feeling better now, thanks to burger-fries-root beer float-boyfriend therapy.

Christmas Meme

2007-12-11T09:38:00.000-06:00

I wasn't tagged; just felt like borrowing this from Laura.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. Because I enjoy wrapping presents and because my cats usually try to eat gift bags.
2. Tree--Real or Artificial? When I was living with my parents I always said real was the only way to go, because the smell was so important to me. But for now, an artificial one is more space- and cost-effective.
3. When do you put the Christmas tree up? Never ever until at least December 1st.
4. When do you take the tree down? Right after New Year's. And then Eric does a little jig of happiness.
5. Like egg nog? Oh yes. So much. But it's a problem for my cholesterol.
6. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope. In our house, Santa Claus is the reason for the season.
7. Favorite gift received as a child? I got lots of good, memorable gifts. And honestly this question makes me nervous, like I'm forgetting a gift that was incredibly important to me. But I'm going to take a stab at it and say the bright red Barbie Ferrari.
8. Hardest person to buy for? My grandma on my dad's side.
9. Easiest person to buy for? My mom and my friend Nils are equally easy. With both of them, it's more about limiting what we buy than trying to find something.
10.Worst Christmas present? Couldn't tell ya.
11. Mail or email a Christmas Card? Usually neither. I've mailed cards in the past, but it's been quite a few years.
12. Favorite Christmas movie? A Christmas Carol (any version, really; I just bought an NPR version on CD to listen to this year) and A Christmas Story.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Early December, during Employee Appreciation Days at Barnes & Noble, when I get an extra discount on books.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I don't think so.
15. Favorite food to eat on Christmas? Lutefisk and lefse. But I only get it on Christmas Eve if I'm with my dad's family.
16. Clear or colored tree lights? Colored.
17. Favorite Christmas Songs? "Silver Bells," "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," and, strangely enough for an atheist, "O Holy Night." Because the melody is haunting.
18. Travel during Christmas or Stay home? Travel. But I'm not a big fan of it. When we have kids I think I'm going to be torn between seeing family and having a relaxing Christmas at home.
19. Can you name Santa's reindeer? I just tried it, and apparently yes.
20. Angel or Star on Tree top? A nice, big, secular velvet bow.
21. Open presents on Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning. But because my birthday is December 22nd, I usually get to open my birthday presents from whoever we're visiting on Christmas Eve.

How the Sprint Guy Stole Christmas

2007-12-09T16:47:00.001-06:00

Late this morning, Eric left on a solo shopping trip to get my Christmas present while I stayed at home and did some work for my class. An hour or so after he left, I started to get hungry and made a mental inventory of what we had in the house for lunch. And came up with nothing. So I tried to call Eric to ask him to pick up some lunch on his way home. But after a single ring, a pleasant voice interrupted to tell me that my account could not be validated. I was instantly pissed. I pulled up the checking account online. The bill was paid, just a few days ago. I dialed *2 to talk with customer service and was told that because the account is in Eric's name they couldn't give me any information without his password or the last four digits of his social security number. Which he wasn't around to give me.

After speaking rudely to the woman on the phone, I fumed for a few minutes and then realized that I probably knew where Eric's social security card was. So I found it and called Sprint back. And the woman I got this time (a different one, thankfully) asked me to check the device number under the battery of my phone, which I couldn't since I was on the phone. "Did you get a new handset?" she asked. "No, I've had the same phone since we opened the account." "You didn't go to a Sprint store recently? Because the account is showing a device number swap for that line." "No, not at all. That doesn't make any sense.... Oh wait."

Pause.

"Shit."

"What is it?" she asked.

So I told her about how my boyfriend had gone to get my Christmas present today, and, well, I was pretty sure I'd just figured out what it was. She asked what kind of phone I had, and I said, "I don't know, a dinosaur phone. It's a Sanyo." She confirmed that I had indeed just figured out my Christmas present and apologized for ruining the surprise and advised me to act surprised when he gave it to me. Which was impossible because I knew he wasn't planning to give it to me until Christmas, and I wasn't about to go two weeks without a phone.

When he got home a few minutes later, I told Eric the story and he was bummed because he had confirmed and reconfirmed with the guy at the store that we could set up the new phone later, after Christmas. And we could. But the guy forgot that for us to get the upgrade discount I was due for, my line would have to be associated with the new phone. And my old phone would be automatically disassociated from that line.

So the surprise was ruined. But the important thing, in case you haven't heard, is that I have a new phone. I can call people on it. And it takes pictures. And it fights AIDS in Africa. (No, really.) And it's pretty. See?

26, almost 27. Why do you ask?

2007-12-08T11:10:00.000-06:00

I swear the frost did this on its own. That makes nature the immature one.

Minnesota After All

2007-12-07T18:33:00.000-06:00

An hour ago I spent a little while outside in around-zero temperatures in a skirt, and even now that I'm home, wearing flannel pajama pants and a thermal-lined sweatshirt, I cannot get warm. I just spent the better part of five minutes draped across the radiator in the kitchen, and I'm terrified to clean the litter box because it means I'll have to go back out there. Out there, in the screaming vortex of cold.

On the bright side, it'll only be like this for another three or four months.

Spiffynew

2007-11-28T17:32:00.001-06:00

Collars!

This excites me beyond reason. But they'd been wearing the same collars for years, and the old tags still had our Bemidji address on them. And these? Well, these tags are swanky and reflect the cats' personalities. Which seems like the important thing when you consider that the cats never leave the apartment unless they're in a carrier, so the tags will probably never have to perform their technical function. If I'm going to be paranoid, I might as well do it in style.

The Pierces

2007-11-26T18:20:00.000-06:00

I don't usually do this, but for the past couple nights I've been full of the urge to spread the word. And that's why I insist that you go here and turn your sound on. The MySpace page seems to play the whole album if you just leave it up. This is very different from all the music I've listened to for, oh, about five years. And that might be why I'm so excited by it. That, and it's really freaking good.

On Deciding Not to Look

2007-11-23T18:27:00.000-06:00

So there's a shelf attached to the bottom of our computer desk that sits about two inches off the ground. And I'm sitting here with my legs folded up underneath me because...well, it's my natural seated position. But I'm conscious of it now because both the cats have been trying rather hard for the last ten minutes or so to get underneath that shelf. I've never seen them do this before, so I'm pretty convinced there's Something under there. Centipede? Mouse? Tiny alien life form? I don't know, and I've decided to keep it that way unless the thing comes out. Because if I find out what it is, I still can't get to it to do anything about it, and it's easier to pretend Something isn't in your apartment when you haven't actually seen it. This is my dispensation of wisdom for today.

This Post Never Happened

2007-11-20T10:30:00.000-06:00

If you want, you can just ignore me while I'm over here in my corner, self-promoting the articles Eric and I have written for a second website. Of course, if you're actually interested in how to do these things, you're welcome to check out the articles. All I really need is for these links to exist:

How to Clean Silver
How to Clean Dog Urine
How to Clean Cat Urine
How to Clean Stained Glass

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Lesbian Romantic Comedies

2007-11-17T23:30:00.000-06:00

I approve.

Saturday Night, Hermit Style

2007-11-17T19:40:00.000-06:00

Tonight Eric is visiting a friend who lives waaayhayhay out of town, where they will be drinking, and since driving from way out of town back into town after drinking is generally purported to be unwise, he'll be sleeping at his friend's temporary bachelor pad. (The guy's fiancee is out of town.) Normally I would look forward to a whole night of behavior straight from the id, like uninterrupted reading or Sims or crocheting (mine is a very nerdy id), but tonight those options sounded a little lonely, and I was left with the realization that while I like a lot of people who seem to like me back, I don't have many friendships well-developed enough that I can just call and request company for the evening. (And the ones I do have are with moms or other perpetually busy people.) I did decide that it is no longer uncool, at the age of almost-27, to like and be friends with my mom, so I tried to call her to see if she wanted to go to a movie, but she didn't answer either of her phones.

So I'm making the best of it, and doing a pretty good job, I think. First, I got and ate in its entirety one of the world's most enormous burritos. Then I watched a compelling BBC documentary about the neurological aspects of spiritual and religious experiences, during which a scientist tried to induce such an experience in Richard Dawkins. After that, I casually started researching my next Get Rid of Things topic. Later, after I put away my laundry, I'm going to watch a romantic comedy and probably drink a peppermint patty. I'll no doubt end the evening by reading Crime and Punishment and falling asleep in the middle of the bed. So...relaxation, edification, fun, productivity, and good food. I think I'm okay.

Aha

2007-11-12T18:53:00.000-06:00

In the continuing spirit of instructor-class confidentiality I won't be specific, but there was a moment in class today when I was so proud I could've pooped.

Bring on the Happy Music

2007-11-10T09:49:00.001-06:00

I have a lot to get done today: cleaning, class planning, yoga to ease my spasming back, work at the bookstore late this evening. And all this while groggy from too much sleep (got up at 8:30, not bad for a Saturday morning, except that Crime and Punishment and I were asleep on the couch by 11:00 last night) and unwashed because of a continuing lack of hot water in my building. I'll be boiling bathwater on the stove again today, which should make me feel better (and less itchy), but not until after I'm finished with the sweaty vacuuming. In the meantime, I'll have to draw my energy from artificial sources. Like Beck and Modest Mouse and this otherwise pointless blog post.

Turns Out

2007-11-07T09:28:00.001-06:00

Our thermostat does control something: the heat for the whole building. No one, including the owner of the building, knew that. So this means until they get the heat set at the right temperature, they'll be in and out of our place a lot. Also, since our apartment is in the basement and has hot water pipes running across the ceiling in addition to radiators in every room, it will always be the hottest apartment in the building. So for everyone else to be just comfortable, we'll have to be cooking in our skins.

Also, it turns out the little voice in my head that said I should take a shower last night in case the hot water was off again this morning was right. Now I haven't showered in two days. It wasn't so bad yesterday, but I teach today. If we don't have hot water by early this afternoon, I'm doing it Little House style: by boiling a pot of water on the stove and pouring it into the tub.

But She's So Sweet

2007-11-06T12:48:00.000-06:00

This, as many of you know, is Piper. She's one of our two cats. And yesterday she struck fear into the hearts of two grown men.

I came home from class last night to a note on our door from the maintenance guy and two skittish cats. There had been an "emergency" (I think more people than just us didn't have heat in their apartments, but down here at the molten core of the earth we weren't about to make an emergency maintenance call over a 65-degree afternoon.), and the maintenance guy had to bring a plumber into our apartment without informing us in advance. This, incidentally, is something we have told him he should avoid. Because of, you know, the wittle fluffy evil kitty.

Then this afternoon the maintenance guy had to come over again because now that we have heat, we don't have hot water in our apartment, and ice-cold showers? That's an emergency. When I opened the door to let him in, he craned his neck a little and said, "How's the cat?" I answered that she was fine, sleeping on the couch, and I'd grab her in a second. He looked nervous and offered to remain standing in the hall while I put the cat in another room. So I did, and he came in, and took a call on his cell phone about another apartment without hot water, and checked to verify that, indeed, our water is cold. He promised to work on that, then explained that he and the plumber will have to come back either today or tomorrow to replace our thermostat, and "About the cat...."

I told him I can lock her in the bedroom during times when both Eric and I will be gone in the next couple of days, and he looked very relieved indeed and then described yesterday as a horrifying scene in which Piper hissed at them, so he shooed her away with a broom, and then she jumped on top of the computer monitor and hissed at them from there, making him fear that she would jump from the monitor onto his face. According to the story, the plumber said that if she bit him, he was biting her back. I disapprove of this.

Actually, I disapprove of the whole situation. I have explained, and Eric has explained, to the property management company that our cat is not fond of strangers and that we need to be at home when maintenance staff comes into our apartment. But yesterday they came in without our knowledge, and a couple of weeks ago I happened to look upward in the bathroom and notice that the bad spot on our ceiling had been painted over one day, I don't know which, when we weren't here. And the fact is that most men, when confronted with a hissing cat, are not brave enough to do what my 15-year-old sister does, and just step over her. If they keep coming into our apartment unannounced, someone's going to get hurt. And in a fair fight between Piper and a 40-year-old man, that guy had better watch out.

Welcome to the Jungle

2007-10-30T11:58:00.000-05:00

The red needle indicates the current temperature in my living room. Outdoor temperature? 60 degrees, otherwise known as too warm to have the heat on.

And She Said

2007-10-28T20:03:00.000-05:00

Let there be chicken and leek soup.

And there was chicken and leek soup.

And she saw that it was good.

And since this was on a day when she had also said, "Let there be a whole week's worth of class plans," and there were class plans, she was feeling pretty good about herself.

On Getting Outta Town

2007-10-18T22:46:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I mentioned that we were going to Duluth for a couple days of something--almost anything--different. We stayed in a hotel in Superior, Wisconsin that was unremarkable except for the jaw-droppingly low cost, the thinness of the walls, and the fact that they still use these:

So the hotel wasn't luxurious or even a very good place to relax, and next time we'll drop a little more money on that. But the rest of the trip was great. We had lots of good food, even more good beer, and did one of my favorite things: we hiked. And the place where we hiked didn't have the vague chemical smell that I think pervades every bit of nature nestled in and around this city. What it did have was birds of prey. They were pretty much invisible to the naked eye (and to our camera), but you could see them with binoculars, like this guy:

After spending a few minutes watching the hawks, we followed Ole's Trail through the woods. It was one of the best hiking trails I've been on, partly because there were so many variations in the geography. We climbed rocky hills, walked through tall brown grass, and stood beside a creek. It was pretty. See?

This is Lake Superior from the hills above Duluth:

And this is Duluth from a pier on Lake Superior:

On Monday before we came home, we stopped by Lake Superior Brewing, where they gave us an in-depth tour and some free beer. Then we continued our vacation by buying CDs at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis (since we didn't have a single quarter to feed the parking meter at the Duluth store). We finished it off by making a frozen pizza at home and collapsing on the couch. Awesome weekend.

Possibly the Most Anyone's Ever Written About Radiators

2007-10-13T09:26:00.000-05:00

So they turned the heat on in our building last night, and for several hours I was in love with radiators, which I've never had before, except for that one dorm room where the radiator didn't work the whole time I lived there. At first I thought I missed the cozy winter sound of the furnace roaring on and the heat blowing through the vents, but then I noted the advantages of this: radiators don't blow ancient dust into the air to aggravate my asthma, and since they're always on, the room is always toasty, instead of going down to arctic temperatures every ten minutes before the thermostat notices and kicks the furnace back on.

And then this morning I realized, holy heat wave Batman, the radiators are always on. After I broke a sweat doing my yoga, and again while drinking my tea, I checked the thermostat, which might not be exactly accurate, being about 50 years old, but it's something like 78 degrees in here. Since the thermostat doesn't actually do anything except tell us the temperature we're being forced to live at, I could only turn on the ceiling fan. And that's helping, for now, but I'm not looking forward to vacuuming later today.

Also, in non-radiator news, we're leaving tonight after work for our weekend away. I'm feeling ambivalent now, like I always do, about leaving home. But we have just a couple of good things on our itinerary, and a few restaurants we want to hit, and I have no work whatsoever to take with me. The relaxing is going to be excellent, especially with this cold I have that makes me feel floaty like I'm on cold medicine, even though I'm not.

On Not Feeling Like It

2007-10-11T12:07:00.000-05:00

My to-do list for today includes an exciting variety of tasks, none of which I want anything to do with. And while I'll admit that some of that laziness is internally generated, I really think the fact that it's 47 degrees outside right now and I have no say over whether there's heat in my apartment (which there isn't yet) is playing a supporting role. Today is a perfect day for putting on a pair of fleecy socks, sitting underneath a big fleecy blanket and the pair of cats who refuse to relinquish contact with the fleecy blanket, and reading a good book while drinking cup after cup of hot tea. In comparison, cleaning, vacuuming, planning classes, and grading all sound like very cold activities for a cold day.

Too Many Irons in the Fire

2007-10-09T19:02:00.001-05:00

Early this morning, just before my final snooze alarm went off, I dreamed that I was going to the bathroom in a bar. And on my way back out to the table where my friends were I passed by the bartender, who said, "You look worried." And then started telling me why it isn't worthwhile to get stressed out. I didn't get to hear all of his reasons because my alarm went off, but anyway the point is that I'm noticeably tense, even in my dreams.

And ironically, one of the biggest stressors in my life right now is planning the trip out of town we're taking this weekend so I can exempt myself from responsibility for a couple of days. I won't go into the boring prissy/financial details, but I do want to say that I'm finding a little temporary relief in comfort food, a glass of apple brandy, and some old sad bastard music. You know, to remind myself that there are always good things in life, tucked in among the bad.

So This is Wanderlust?

2007-09-27T15:09:00.000-05:00

I have things to do. Lots of them. Along with the tasks that arise on a daily basis, my to-do list includes things that aren't urgent but really should have been done days, weeks, or in one case, over a year ago. But am I doing them? Nay. Lately I haven't felt much like doing anything. That includes reading, watching TV, crocheting, and taking hot bubble baths. In fact, the only thing that's been exciting me lately is the idea of stepping away from my normal life for a while. Train rides, campsites, and unfamiliar geographies tantalize my imagination. Tomorrow, assuming I finally get paid, I'm buying a National Parks travel guide. We can't actually leave town for a few months, but I can't wait to start planning our short-term escape.

Survey Says

2007-09-25T22:24:00.000-05:00

Apparently my previous color choices were very, maybe painfully, bright. But, like Loralee, I enjoy the orange. So here, for your appraisal, is a slightly muted version of the same.

Who Wants a Pina Colada?

2007-09-23T19:56:00.000-05:00

So Minima Black was starting to depress me. And now, while I'm definitely not bummed out by my blog anymore, I need to know whether reading these colors will make your eyes bleed. Discuss.

Refresher Course

2007-09-21T17:31:00.000-05:00

While boiling some noodles to eat with leftover stroganoff, washing the dishes and writing a web page, I'm listening to Ani Difranco. Because we're seeing her tonight and I've barely listened to her CDs for the past five years, most of which I spent in a sort of Ani Difranco hangover resulting from the years after high school when I considered her indispensable to my political and feminine coming-of-age and listened to little else. It's too bad, really, that I went off my Ani when I did, because I was just beginning to think I liked her newer stuff better than the older stuff. Mellower, more complex, less political. So I'm looking forward to tonight, both for the nostalgic fun of the earlier songs, and for an introduction to the recent ones.

Mold and Mail

2007-09-20T12:54:00.000-05:00

In the words of our (Polish, I think) maintenance guy, "Toilet leaking. I fixed it. I come back next week, fix ceiling. After dries."

The process of fixing the toilet earned our upstairs neighbor a thank you card taped to his/her/their door, and made the ceiling leak so steadily--until it stopped--that a large chunk of plaster is now dangling from it. That chunk of plaster, and the ceiling it used to be attached to, is partially covered with dark green moss-like mold, and my asthma and I aren't thrilled about letting it be there for four or five more days.

But--but! Thanks to the package that finally arrived this morning, I can Zen my cares away with my replacement yoga DVDs. And the new KT Tunstall CD makes me happy too.

More Reality on Steroids

2007-09-20T09:47:00.000-05:00

Between snooze alarms at about 8:00 this morning, a loud tapping sound suddenly caught my attention. There are a lot of noises here, noises from the hallway, noises from the cats. But this was definitely coming from inside our apartment, and I couldn't imagine what the cats could be doing to make this particular sound. So I got up, walked out of the bedroom, and followed the sound around the corner into the bathroom. Turned on the light, and said, "Oh, no. Oh, gross."

There has always, since we moved in here, been a sort of circular network of cracks in the ceiling just above our toilet, just below where I think the upstairs neighbors' toilet sits. This concerned me vaguely, but there are lots of cracks in our ceiling in other rooms, too, so I shrugged it off. And then, at 8:00 this morning, there was water dripping from the cracks in the bathroom, splashing tap-tap-tap-tap onto the lid of the toilet.

I whipped a cleaning bucket out of the closet and set it on the toilet to catch the drips, which stopped within a minute or two anyway, and called the property manager, who said, "Oh, that's not good," and promised to send someone from maintenance out today. And now I'm imagining a giant hole in my ceiling and huge clouds of mold spores and all of this going on for days and having to lock my cats--one frightened and one combative--in the bedroom for hours and hours on end.

Stay tuned.

A Little Grossed Out By Life

2007-09-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

This weekend was Eric's youngest brother's wedding. And it was great. Our hotel was a four-hour drive from all our responsibilities, we saw friends we hadn't seen in months, and there was free food and booze and a dance. Just tonight I learned of the existence of photographs of me doing the Macarena, which, in case you're curious, is still not cool.

But then we got home last night, and reality came barreling back into our lives. Complete with dried cat puke, a centipede on one of my flip-flops, an exceptionally boring day at work, a misread recipe that resulted in really really salty homemade salsa, and PMS. It's almost as if I had such a good weekend, it threw the universe out of balance, and now that balance is being restored.