High of 53 today! Woooo! I get to wear a sweater! Best day ever!
To celebrate, here's some Margot, the perfect cool cloudy day band. My boyfriend says its thirteen year old girl music, but he's the one that introduced me to them, so it can't be that bad of a thing.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The Bronze
Not much to say. Since it's my seven days "on", I've just been working and sleeping and working. I did get to take an exciting break in the monotony and fix the broken belt on my dryer. I was actually pretty happy to change it out since it's been broken for about ten days - that's how long it took for the part I ordered to come in. I was starting to getting worried about the laundry that was overflowing out of the basket. About two years ago, I had to take apart my dryer and I was pretty meticulous about it. I printed off directions and drew some pictures. This time I just attacked it with a screw driver until the front came off. I think I had six "extra" screws left after I put it back together. But hey, it still works!
That was a lame story, but I'll leave you with an awesome song.
That was a lame story, but I'll leave you with an awesome song.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Music!
I don't know how I've never heard this Queen song before. In case you haven't either, I'm here to help you out.
And in case you've never seen Mulholland Drive:
Speaking of Mulholland Drive, I don't know anyone who really liked this movie. It's hard to follow and it's like two completely different people wrote and directed the first and the second half and it's weird. Weird. But you should watch it, if only for the Club Silencio scene. You are told directly that "there is no band", that it's all a recording, but when that woman gets on stage and starts singing, the song hits you in the gut and you still feel shocked and a bit betrayed when she falls to the ground and it turns out, hey...it was just a recording, an illusion. And then you get to thinking about the illusion of movies in general and the illusions in your own life and then you get a headache and take a nap.
And in case you've never seen Mulholland Drive:
Russian literature
I already have my major picked out for the alternate universe where I am able to go to university just for the joy of learning, and there's no need for anything I learn to have a practical career-type application. It's Russian literature! Whoo!
It seems like every time I read a Russian novel it rocks my little world. I don't know if I'll ever read anything as relentlessly witty as Pushkin's Eugine Onegin. And it's a novel in verse, so I'm sure there are things that were too subtle to translate well from Russian to English and it is still extraordinary. I started to slow down when I was reading it about a third of the way in, because I already knew I was going to be sad when it was over.
Anna Karenina and War and Peace both had such terrific character development. I always believed in every decision that each character made since they were all so individual and their motives and desires were distinct. It seems simple, but it's not. Especially, when you have as many characters as Tolstoy insists on having.
Anton Chekhov's short stories devastated me. It was as if the author would take you into a world and then end the narrative when the characters were at their most desperate point, leaving you to fill in their future. Certain passages of In the Ravine were just like poetry.
Now I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov and I'm really enjoying it. If you have ever wondered about the meaning of life or the existence of God, it seems like Dostoevsky has already thought of every possible argument and is hashing it all out between four brothers, so you should just read this book instead of lying awake at night agonizing over why you're here.
It seems like every time I read a Russian novel it rocks my little world. I don't know if I'll ever read anything as relentlessly witty as Pushkin's Eugine Onegin. And it's a novel in verse, so I'm sure there are things that were too subtle to translate well from Russian to English and it is still extraordinary. I started to slow down when I was reading it about a third of the way in, because I already knew I was going to be sad when it was over.
Anna Karenina and War and Peace both had such terrific character development. I always believed in every decision that each character made since they were all so individual and their motives and desires were distinct. It seems simple, but it's not. Especially, when you have as many characters as Tolstoy insists on having.
Anton Chekhov's short stories devastated me. It was as if the author would take you into a world and then end the narrative when the characters were at their most desperate point, leaving you to fill in their future. Certain passages of In the Ravine were just like poetry.
Now I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov and I'm really enjoying it. If you have ever wondered about the meaning of life or the existence of God, it seems like Dostoevsky has already thought of every possible argument and is hashing it all out between four brothers, so you should just read this book instead of lying awake at night agonizing over why you're here.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Farewell, Fence. I hate you.
I feel like my days off this week have been eaten up by one project: taking down the wood fence around the house. I wasn't planning on tackling this until the spring since fall is normally when I paint a side of the house. However, it's still been a bit too hot for me to want to start painting yet. Oh, and this happened last week when we went to close the gate:
The wood just gave away at the hinge. I have hated this fence for the past year, so this was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. I was ready to have this thing gone. Since it was just a demolition, I figured it would be fairly easy. However, I should have learned by now that most home improvement projects take twice the amount of time and money as you predict. That was very true this time. It started off fairly easy; I bought a small reciprocating saw to saw the fence panels down, leaving just the posts, which the boyfriend pulled up later. Since the posts were only a foot in the ground, it wasn't that hard, but they were fully encased in concrete, which necessitated us buying a sledgehammer to break them up. Then we had large holes where the posts were, which necessitated another trip to the local home improvement store to buy some fill dirt. We did take one truckload of fence panels to the landfill, but we still have this in a pile in the back of the yard.
I'm hoping that my dad will be able to come buy with his trailer the next weekend I'm off of work so we can take the rest to the landfill in one trip, versus the 2-3 trips that this would take us with the boyfriend's truck.
I was planning on just living without a fence for a while, to see if I even wanted a replacement for it. We don't have kids or pets we need to keep in the yard or anything, so a fence would pretty much be for looks. However, I didn't really like how the end of our yard and the alleyway blended into each other in one particular section without the fence. Everywhere else the fence was, the end of the yard is marked by the road but after our driveway, the alley turns to just grass, no gravel or pavement. So, the boyfriend came up with the idea to plant some shrubs there just to deliniate it a bit better. They're Nellie R. Stevens holly and they are pretty small right now, but these are supposed to grow to 15 feet wide and 30 feet high. There's no way I want a hedge that high, but it will take a while until we have to prune it to keep it in check. Since they grow so wide, we only needed to buy four.
before:
after:
And hey, check out the progress that they made on the newly constructed house the next lot over. There's a roof now!
I still think I have to get used to the way the yard looks without the fence. I feel oddly exposed even though that three foot picket fence wasn't exactly for security. On the plus side I do feel like I have a lot more space for planting new things now. I think I'll restrain myself until spring though. I already had to resist the urge to buy some flowers when I was at the store picking up the fill dirt. Now that the weather is cooler, it seems like all the home improvement stores have restocked their plants.
before:
after:
After spending so much time in the yard, I have numerous bug bites and bruises on my arms and legs. I also managed to break out in a rash on my arm. I think it had something to do with the fungus growing on some of the rotting boards. However, I did not re injure my back, so I win!
I was planning on just living without a fence for a while, to see if I even wanted a replacement for it. We don't have kids or pets we need to keep in the yard or anything, so a fence would pretty much be for looks. However, I didn't really like how the end of our yard and the alleyway blended into each other in one particular section without the fence. Everywhere else the fence was, the end of the yard is marked by the road but after our driveway, the alley turns to just grass, no gravel or pavement. So, the boyfriend came up with the idea to plant some shrubs there just to deliniate it a bit better. They're Nellie R. Stevens holly and they are pretty small right now, but these are supposed to grow to 15 feet wide and 30 feet high. There's no way I want a hedge that high, but it will take a while until we have to prune it to keep it in check. Since they grow so wide, we only needed to buy four.
before:
I still think I have to get used to the way the yard looks without the fence. I feel oddly exposed even though that three foot picket fence wasn't exactly for security. On the plus side I do feel like I have a lot more space for planting new things now. I think I'll restrain myself until spring though. I already had to resist the urge to buy some flowers when I was at the store picking up the fill dirt. Now that the weather is cooler, it seems like all the home improvement stores have restocked their plants.
before:
after:
After spending so much time in the yard, I have numerous bug bites and bruises on my arms and legs. I also managed to break out in a rash on my arm. I think it had something to do with the fungus growing on some of the rotting boards. However, I did not re injure my back, so I win!
Friday, September 21, 2012
Grandmother
My lovely grandmother's birthday is coming up soon, so I decided to have some flowers delivered to her for the occasion. I found out a few days after I placed my order that my grandma had just learned that she has colon cancer. She is going in for surgery the day after her birthday.
It is times like this that I wish we didn't live so far away from our relatives. We're the only offshoots from our clan living in Texas. Everyone else lives in Michigan and Wisconsin. We made it a tradition to drive up and visit my Grandmother every summer about seven years ago. Sometimes someone couldn't go because of work or school, but a group of us always went up and it always included my father. He will be taking some time off of work so he can drive up and be with her during and after her surgery next week. It feels selfish to say, but I am just as worried for my father as my grandmother.
It is times like this that I wish we didn't live so far away from our relatives. We're the only offshoots from our clan living in Texas. Everyone else lives in Michigan and Wisconsin. We made it a tradition to drive up and visit my Grandmother every summer about seven years ago. Sometimes someone couldn't go because of work or school, but a group of us always went up and it always included my father. He will be taking some time off of work so he can drive up and be with her during and after her surgery next week. It feels selfish to say, but I am just as worried for my father as my grandmother.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Second lust
I have come to admit to myself that one of the reasons I stayed single for so long was that I had become genuinely afraid of being in a relationship again. As far as I was concerned, I was bad at relationships. I let myself get used financially and emotionally. The easiest way to prevent this from happening again was to just not date. To my credit, I don't think I repeated any of my past mistakes in my second relationship. However, many new mistakes were made with Guy#2.
I will call him Guy#2 because I don't even think that he qualified as a boyfriend. We only met up six times. But the psychological damage was significant enough for him to get his own post. So, by now I guess you're getting an idea of how this went, right?
After texting back and forth a bit, we met up at a restaurant. He was attractive but he wasn't the type of guy I would have imagined myself dating. He seemed like a late 20's version of the kind of guy you knew in high school with rich parents, a nice car, and a letter jacket. Our relationship was mostly physical and very shallow. At the end of it all, I felt like I still hardly knew him. But I think that was the way he wanted it.
After seeing each other three times in five days, he didn't contact me for almost two weeks. The following week he wanted to see me almost every day again. He would never plan ahead our meetings; he would only text me the day he wanted to see me. I did not need to have that much relationship experience to get the impression that he was seeing at least one other girl. I never asked him directly because I think I was afraid of his answer. When I went to leave the last night we saw each other, I was surprised when he asked me to stay and sleep with him in his bed. And he meant that quite literally. Just sleep. So I did and he spent the rest of the night using my stomach as a pillow. Right before I left in the morning, he had the strangest look on his face, like he was starting to say something but stopped. And when we kissed, it was a goodbye kiss. I had had one before, so I recognized it. When he fell off the map for the next three weeks, only texting once to apologize for being so busy lately, I let it go. I say I let it go like it was a simple thing or an easy thing, but it wasn't. It was very complicated to me at the time and very difficult. I let go because I knew it was what I needed to do, not because it was what I wanted.
My ego took a bit of a bruising because ultimately, he was the one that ended it, not me. And more than likely he had ended it because he had chosen someone else. Also, I had to fill in a lot of blanks for myself and on bad days I filled those blanks in with the worst scenarios possible. We didn't "break up"; we were hardly dating so there was no finality to it other than what I created myself. All of these things combined with me never really getting out of the initial infatuation stage of the relationship, made it hard to get over. The whole thing had only lasted for two months in the summer, but it took until the winter for me to recover. I did learn one thing from all of this, which is that I don't do casual relationships well. At all.
After my second very much failed relationship attempt, I felt pretty discouraged. I know it was foolish now, but I became worried that I would never find someone I was compatible with. Someone I could talk to and understand and be understood. Someone like my brother's friend.
I will call him Guy#2 because I don't even think that he qualified as a boyfriend. We only met up six times. But the psychological damage was significant enough for him to get his own post. So, by now I guess you're getting an idea of how this went, right?
After texting back and forth a bit, we met up at a restaurant. He was attractive but he wasn't the type of guy I would have imagined myself dating. He seemed like a late 20's version of the kind of guy you knew in high school with rich parents, a nice car, and a letter jacket. Our relationship was mostly physical and very shallow. At the end of it all, I felt like I still hardly knew him. But I think that was the way he wanted it.
After seeing each other three times in five days, he didn't contact me for almost two weeks. The following week he wanted to see me almost every day again. He would never plan ahead our meetings; he would only text me the day he wanted to see me. I did not need to have that much relationship experience to get the impression that he was seeing at least one other girl. I never asked him directly because I think I was afraid of his answer. When I went to leave the last night we saw each other, I was surprised when he asked me to stay and sleep with him in his bed. And he meant that quite literally. Just sleep. So I did and he spent the rest of the night using my stomach as a pillow. Right before I left in the morning, he had the strangest look on his face, like he was starting to say something but stopped. And when we kissed, it was a goodbye kiss. I had had one before, so I recognized it. When he fell off the map for the next three weeks, only texting once to apologize for being so busy lately, I let it go. I say I let it go like it was a simple thing or an easy thing, but it wasn't. It was very complicated to me at the time and very difficult. I let go because I knew it was what I needed to do, not because it was what I wanted.
My ego took a bit of a bruising because ultimately, he was the one that ended it, not me. And more than likely he had ended it because he had chosen someone else. Also, I had to fill in a lot of blanks for myself and on bad days I filled those blanks in with the worst scenarios possible. We didn't "break up"; we were hardly dating so there was no finality to it other than what I created myself. All of these things combined with me never really getting out of the initial infatuation stage of the relationship, made it hard to get over. The whole thing had only lasted for two months in the summer, but it took until the winter for me to recover. I did learn one thing from all of this, which is that I don't do casual relationships well. At all.
After my second very much failed relationship attempt, I felt pretty discouraged. I know it was foolish now, but I became worried that I would never find someone I was compatible with. Someone I could talk to and understand and be understood. Someone like my brother's friend.
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