Meghann thinks....

Here I am, couch ridden yet again. I may be setting a personal record this year with the amount of times I've caught the cold of the month.

Luckily my new found hobby of embroidery goes well with my couch potato state. I've advanced fairly well if I say so myself and am pretty pleased at the results. My fingers are surprisingly sensitive to the touch right now from pulling and poking the needle around, perhaps I'll develop a bit of a needle callous?

I don't really know where to go from here with the whole embroidery thing. This lady was just supposed to be practice to get myself back in the swing of things, but now I quite like her and want to do something with this. It's too small and uneven of a scrap piece to make a pillow or anything out of her, so I guess she'll be a wall hanging, or maybe I can find a nice way to frame her. I want to hang her in my next show (December 13th, if all goes through).

So an update on the last show. Though Glo's was a super crap fest, I managed to sell a piece to a couple who saw it at Glo's.
Winter Surprise now belongs to a super attractive and friendly cap hill couple, and I, in turn, bought the following boots :)

http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/productdetail.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=-2233397914460908676&id=840185&parentid=SB_BOOTS_FLATS&pushId=SB_BOOTS_FLATS&popId=SB_BOOTS&sortProperties=%2BmarketingPriority%2C-saleDate&navCount=32&navAction=poppushpush&fromCategoryPage=true&selectedProductSize=&selectedProductSize1=&color=cho&colorName=CHOCOLATE

So now my head is filled with ideas, and i'm sure that only a select few will be fully realized, i'm excited and inspired again. Steve and I have spent the last week drawing, playing music, cooking, and conspiring to take a stab at brewing our own beer and making home made pickles and quince preserves.

Some things that I've been rolling around in my head:

- an embroidered large throw pillow for my sister KP that will say "Poop" in fancy letters with birds and flowers... this will be her christmas present if I can actually pull it together

-putting together an etsy site for my artworks

-marie's painting - I've started it twice but am still not fully happy with the results

- a set of greeting cards for birthdays and the likes - maybe post cards

We'll see how long my fingers last under all this pressure. I hope I can at least eek out a few homemade christmas presents this year!

New Medium.

I used to embroider when I was young, but my mom was a bit of a perfectionist and under her tutelage I quickly grew tired of it.


Tonight I stopped by Stitches in Capitol Hill and picked up a hoop and some muslin. I thankfully never threw away my old sewing box (a heart shaped wicker atrocity from the earlier days of stitchery) so just a few new needles and I was ready to go.

I'm excited.

For the love of windy nights

I quite enjoy the wind. I sat inside nearly all day watching the one small tree outside my window flail about. The rain drops really make satisfying thuds on the front window when propelled by the wind. Once the rain had passed, I had really re-defined the meaning of lazy, having watched movies and tv all day and having not really moved from the couch with the exception of short jaunts to the kitchen eat more food (frozen soy chicken nuggets). At 4:30 I made the bold decision to leave the house. I went up to Broadway, bought two books from Bailey/Coy, got a delicious coffee at the new Vivace which is at the bottom of the new Brix development then headed to the Soap Box where I met up with Mark Gilzy. He's buds with the owner so we get free stuff all of the time. I was tempted into purchasing four bars of soap (actually 2 bars, since every sat is buy one get one free) my delights included 1 orange clove bar, 1 avocado clay bar, 1 salt water taffy peach bar, and 1 lemongrass bar. We chatted with a few other locals who had a rather well behaved and adorable brunette dachshund. People were remarkably friendly today on the Hill. Perhaps it's gentrification, or perhaps it's the fall, a friendly older gay couple and I chatted quite a bit at Vivace, and all of the patrons of the Soap Box (who all equally adore the owner Phil who is bursting with personality and seems to pride himself on knowing everyone's business) were particularly outgoing and friendly. Mark and I then walked over to Shinka Tea where I read my book while he worked and we both ate delicious chicken and mushroom hombao.

I am about to venture out into the night once more to get dinner and drinks with some folks. I'm not feeling entirely well (still have this damned chest cough), but I'm propelled by romantic notions of a lovely autumnal evening....

Pity Party

I want to stomp. Scream. Throw rocks through windows.

I think my artwork is cursed. I am taking a break from it all. I get an email from Glo's at 4 p.m. yesterday that says:

The owners decided to repaint the walls and no longer hang local artwork. They took down your stuff and a piece was broken. Please come pick up your things tomorrow at 7:30 a.m.

Awesome. Just so awesome.

So we went there this morning. Again, the lady who set the whole thing up did not show. The hipster bitch at the counter was... a bitch. No sympathy, no apologies for breaking my things and ending my showing 3 weeks early and giving me a one day notice. There were posters of Marilyn Monroe and the usual 50's bull on the walls. In approaching said bitch about compensation for my frame I was told "take it up with Cyra" (no show lady). I said hell no I was not making another trip and tracking down their flake of an art person. She asked how much I said 50. She said no way, and that they would only replace the glass on the visibly broken frame. I commented on the fact that they were ON THE FLOOR of the restaurant and had scratches that were never ever there. She said "are you REALLY going to re-frame that because of a few scratches??"

I am ready to admit I have anger issues sometimes.

This whole ordeal occurred in front of a bunch of older customers. I did NOT keep my voice down at this point. Forget about it. Forget Glo's. No longer will I wait an hour to eat their stupid food. No longer will I deal with the stupid hipster apathy that comes with the shitty coffee every 30 minutes while you wait an additional hour for the food. There are too many other places doing brunch these days to waste my time.

I feel embarrassed. I feel ashamed for letting myself get so worked up. I'm not a serious artist, I shouldn't expect to be taking seriously. I want to throw myself a giant pity party involving me, my bed, and a leather bound diary to write all of my feeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings in.

I think I have a problem

Disclaimer: this entry is devoid of intelligent subject matter. It may disgust you.

BEHOLD!

Today after a delightful feast of noodle soup AND dim sum delights, Miss Beth introduced me to a whole new world of shoe heaven. I had never been to DSW, nor even knew that there was such a place... I am now in trouble. At delightfully half-off prices I hope to never be foolish enough to spend over $100 on shoes again!

As you can see from the above evidence I have a problem with buying shoes - and that problem is saying no. After my impromptu shopping trip with Beth I decided to clean out my closet to make room for my (3!) lovely new pairs. In doing so Steve dared me to line them all up to prove how ridiculous I am... The above is the result - all shoes included with the exception of running shoes and flip flops. I am both embarrassed and delighted, for in doing so I discovered a few that had fallen into the depths of our closet.

The results also inspired me to do something that I never ever do.... take care of my shoes. I polished up my boots (which have seen far too many rough nights of drinking), cleaned up the stain on my grey suede peep toes, and put the first four shoes on the right in a bag by the front door so I would finally take them to get re-heeled (they've been pushed aside for over a year waiting for this treatment). And, after a long legacy of shoe deaths by water logging, I finally began the process of waterproofing my shoes.

Today's treats:

By far the most ridiculous of my shoe finds today, these shoes, in the words of Beth, were made for me. Of course they are perfect for Seattle fall weather with their fabric exterior, peep toe-ed ness and shiny pleather heel.... I suck.

These, while incredibly cute and comfortable, will probably not stand the test of a rain storm either. I love their yellow suede interior....

Now, these, these are a smart find. $30 bucks, comfortable, cute, actual traction on the bottom, and while they would probably drown in a puddle of any serious depth, they could at least keep my feet dry for at least as long as it would take to get home to change into those big blue rubber boots pictured above....

Now if only I could train my feet to never feel pain..........

and now my fingers are black....

New painting hooray! It's a bit of a color barf I know, but I had a lot of fun on this one. She is eating delicious buns of perhaps the dim sum variety :)

Will Power.

I have none.

This morning Steve and I slept in late, walked down to Pike St. Market to get some breakfasts. The wait was too long at Cafe Campagne so we ended up going to Le Panier to peruse the pastries and grab a coffee instead. Prime example of a lack of will power- Meghann thinks, "gee, do I want a savory pastry or a sweet pastry??? Oh my goodness there are a million choices! Oh my goodness what if I want a whole loaf of brioche instead?? Wahhh!" Ultimate decision- I ate two pastries, one savory and one sweet (a mushroom one and a raspberry jam one to be exact).

Did I need two oh so buttery pastries? The answer is no one needs two pastries in one morning. Bah!

Example two.

Meghann goes to Nordstrom to look for shoes to go with this: oh so adorable dress she bought for Shirlae's wedding.

http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2974055/0~2376776~2374327~2374331~6014133?mediumthumbnail=Y&origin=category&searchtype=&pbo=6014133&P=2

Steve to Meghann "Didn't you buy like three dresses for the various weddings last summer?" Meghann can't find shoes, but then sees a perfect bag, of which she cannot find a picture of on the internet. Meghann has been punishing herself for losing a kenneth cole bag she bought in San Francisco by leaving it at the semi-sketchy hotel she stayed in. She owned that bag for three days total before losing it. Her self-inflicted punishment has been to not allow herself to buy a new bag until the fall because she was so careless and should learn to take better care of things lest she take anything for granted.

Obviously you know that in the end i bought the bag. So much for saving up for my bulldog friend.

Ever since my promotion I've been spending money like I have no responsibilities in life. Food, shows, clothes, shoes, boozes. I'm starting to feel the guilt, and feel a little bit reckless and afraid of screwing up by not be able to say no to myself.
ACK!

This little blog is totally pointless I know, but I just need to slow down a little and get back to the center. I know "wah wah wah" it's a selfish little rant. Part of it is that I don't want to buy a car - so no savings toward that. I get to go to grad school for free because of my job - no savings for that. I lack foresight and want to live in the now, saving up for babies is not even something I can fathom yet. I guess if I was a little wiser I'd save for travel, but I guess my frustration is that Steve and I are never able to get enough time off to take a nice vacation, also all of our vacation hours are gobbled up by family events, weddings, etc. I guess the responsible thing to do would be to return the bag... At least I don't have astronomical credit debt, but damn I suck at saving.

The End.

A good night

New Art (kinda blurly photo)

Sitting here, drinking 2/3 of a bottle of wine. It's almost midnight on a Tuesday. Steve and I are watching the Arts Channel - Baryshnikov is jazz dancing to some 40's crooner - so smooth. Gazing out the window at a low orangy half-moon overlooking the blinking lights of the city and it's ever present cranes. Steve is now curled up in the window box with Inga. He has bought flowers with pea vines twirling through them. The mess of tonight's dinner (angel hair pasta with garlic, basil, tomato, chard and a squeeze of lemon, and of course some asiago cheese grated on top) is strewn about the coffee table. For once the kitchen is clean, but the floor still has my artwork and various scraps of magazines in piles (kitchen remodel ideas, artwork ideas, outfit ideas) all about - and cat hair- lots of cat hair. I'm not the cleanliest person you know. We've booked tickets to Minnesota, and have a lot of free time there - please send recommendations. Today was lovely. Got the painting Steve's mom bought framed. I wish I could frame all of my ladies with a limitless budget and good strong matting. We've developed a new bad habit- there is a beer store on Pike that we've recently discovered. About 300 different beers, sorted by region. Tonight of course I bought local wine :) I picked up some new pens and markers at Utrecht my fav art store on Pike and resumed my doodling for Miss Caroline's fashion 'look book/catalog' thing.

When I am mildly drunk I become effusive, so here it is:

Last night, after Caroline's Poetry Reading in Fremont we went to Big Time for a few beers. As Caroline was leaving she tipsily gushed to me (I'm approximating, I may have also had a few beers) "I have such amazingly creative friends, I just want form an artists' salon or something!" and though I think this all the time, I really felt a surge in satisfaction at this comment. I am truly amazed at the talent of the women in my life. I love how uncompetitive my ladies are in their love of art and am touched every time one of them wants to either buy my work or collaborate on a project. I admire all of them and instead of your regular run of the mill jealously I feel really proud whenever each of them performs or produces a truly beautiful piece.

Hahaha ok, I'm becoming my mother, sitting here with my glass of wine, falling in love with the world, strongly fearful of becoming too attached because of an overactive awareness of the fragility of it all. Oh, and just to make things that much more poignant, A Gershwin Piano duet is now playing, which also makes my think of my mother (who spent ages trying her hardest to play this piece, I'm not sure she'll ever reach that point, but it will never cease to remind me of her). Except, now there is a very 90's black and white performance of The Phantom Of The Opera on the arts channel and it is bringing out more scornful emotions ;)

I don't want to sleep tonight. I just want to finish this bottle, bother my cat, doodle a little and enjoy my Panda. This is a good antidote to a week and a half long bout of terrible dreams and a bad attitude.

Home

It's almost three a.m. and I'm still fairly buzzed from Tracy's bachelorette party.

If my parents and sisters did not live here I would never come back to the Tri-Cities. It's so bizarre here. On one hand the weather is unbeatably beautiful, but this trip more than any other has caused me to really feel stifled here.

Everyone here treats me like it's a 'town mouse' versus 'country mouse' competition. This world is so damn small it makes me feel like drowning. I need to get back to the city asap. I'd like to be anonymous in bars and to just have good non-competitive conversation with my ladies. My Tracy is amazing and great, but damn I hate coming here. I feel like I'm being scrutinized by people I haven't seen in four years for every pound I've gained and every stress wrinkle under my eyes. All the girls here are tanned within an inch of their lives and blond. I wore a cute little dress and heels out to a bar tonight and I felt mormon next to everyone else.

blarg. I'm just really happy to be spending time with my sisters.

The Meghann right now.

I’ve not written a post in a quite some time. Let’s just say I’ve been swamped with life. Not in such a bad way, I just am unable to leave a day or a weekend free from commitment lately. The consequence has mainly been an increase in friendships and a decrease in my bank account.

Last weekend was the birthday weekend. I tried to keep it low-key this year, tried. Friday night Steve’s parents took Mark Gilz, Daron, Steve and I out to dinner at Taste because Shirlae was in town. I know I am biased because it’s the restaurant Steve works for, but I really really love the food here more and more. They just remodeled to remedy the scathing reviews for being “cold and cafeteria like” by adding dark brown circular booths and extra lighting. I wasn’t blown away, but the spring menu definitely did the job. Some of the favorites were lamb with cherry jus and fried blue cheese, smoked gouda polenta with some sauce that I can’t recall, and of course one of my fav dishes of all time the gemelli with crab and cheese. This dish is mac and cheese on crack. Handmade little swirly noodles in just the right amount of cheese with large lumps of fresh crab meat, truffle oil, bread crumbs and mache (kinda like baby arugula but not as peppery). I could eat bowls and bowls. I’ve already decided that if I had to choose a last meal, this would at least be a course in that last meal.

We then all walked over to the Paramount to see Avenue Q. I almost peed my pants laughing a record number of times. I was really really surprised at how hilarious this musical was. I now want cute little floating muppet bears to follow me around taunting me to “buy some beeeeeeeer! Yaaaay that make us happy!” If you can scrounge up the funds (holy cow expensive tickets) I’d recommend this any day. Afterwards we walked up the hill to get drinks at the Capitol Club. I’d never been, but they have a perfectly uncrowded balcony. As poop-tastic as the weather has been, the nights have been soo lovely up on the hill. We sat for a long time watching city lights, peering out from the tree-tops (the balcony is nicely nestled near the top of an old tree and looks out over downtown). It was cool and slightly windy but dry J

Saturday we went to Elena’s ‘non-bbq’ (she does not own a grill, but we sat in the sun and drank beer in the spirit of bbqs). We played some basketball, Frisbee, sat on their glorious balcony in eastlake. We managed to fit 10 people onto the balcony, and I managed to actually get a hint of sunburn. We sat out there pretty much the entire night talking, smoking cigars (ok, not me, but everyone else, can’t stand cigars), and eating the requisite ‘bbq’ foods. It was a lovely day overall and I’d never been so happy to have a redish nose and pink shoulders.

Sunday morning we woke up and went to Steve’s parents house to cook a father’s day brunch. Steve made a hash from potatoes, cauliflower, apples and asiago cheese, I made buttermilk waffles from scratch with caramelized bananas and pecans, and Shirlae made blueberry cobbler. It was a fat kid brunch for sure. Steve’s mom brought out the champagne and all. After lounging around in our fatitude, we decided to go for a walk around scenic Medina. There are a ton of 4-8 million dollar homes for sale in Medina right now in case you were interested. Yikes! We also took Inga out for a ‘walk’ in their backyard. I tried to make her put her paws in Lake Washington just for fun and she scratched me… big shock there. Why are cats just soooo fun to torment? After sitting on their back porch in the sunshine looking out over Lake Washington, watching people in their yachts drive by we returned to normalcy by heading back to Seattle. We then rushed to dinner with some friends, a small little bday dinner at Wann in Belltown where we proceeded to eat even more food and drink more than a few drinks. It was very lovely indeed.

This week has flown by, I’ve managed to make it to the gym once, but played basketball with Steve for an hour on Wednesday. Gotta break these bad spending and eating habits! I’ve spent almost all of my free time after work planning my HS friend Tracy’s bridal shower next weekend so I’m looking forward to relaxing a bit this weekend.

No plans tonight, which is quite alright with me. I wouldn’t be surprised if I manage to fill it with some form of social activity, but right now my goal is to leave it open for some alone time. I’m reading Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union and I’ve been officially sucked in. I am excited to get some breakfasts with the Beth tomorrow morning, then explore the delights of the Fremont Fair with Ms. Okano, then off to the Gilzenbirth celebration at the Kingfish Café!

More food, more friends, less money…. Sigh.

Unfinished thoughts and total failures

After cleaning my place all afternoon I finally feel ready to spend time on my art again. To get me in the mood, and to follow the "spring" cleaning vibe, I present to you a collection of things that didn't work. (I say "spring" because it's fucking snowing).

I actually kinda like the ring lady, she's got a nice fat butt and big hair. Maybe someday I'll make her bigger and better.

I keep trying to do the reading lady and I think I've finally given up on her...

Third is a drag queen. Hot mess

Fourth was drawn before my show in a moment of pure stress and agony.

Aww this one turned out blury, but she's a doodle from school
This was the beginning of something that went nowhere. she's the same as the book girl above.

Sometimes I try to draw men. And fail.

First in a series of mad and unsuccessful attempts to transfer my style to watercolor.

More failed watercolors

This looks like 80s fashion watercolors...

Sometimes I just take a magazine and try to draw the models in my style. Sometimes that results in a mess.

Sometimes I can't draw feet that are proportionate...

Anywho, that was fun, I'm ready to do some new stuff finally so maybe I'll have an update with those things soon!

New Hobby

www.cheiler.blogspot.com

Check out Steve and I's new hobby/blog.

Lovely things...

I want to go see this oh sooo badly:
http://www.pnb.org/season/dc2008.html

I've seen this guy dance once w/ ayako at Bumbershoot and I was thoroughly in love afterwards....

Sexy Sexy

So last night Steve and I finally rented and watched Lust, Caution- the Ang Lee movie which has the reputation of an NC17 rating for violence and lots of naked Tony Leung.

Highly recommended. Maybe not at the level of In The Mood For Love, which caused me to forever fall in love with Tony Leung, but it was so intense and lovely that I keep thinking of it all day at work. It also makes me want to go back and watch In the Mood for Love again because he is much younger and far less creepy :)

I felt that Ang Lee's lengthy use of subtly in this movie worked much more powerfully for me than his approach in Brokeback Mountain. It's still a fairly lengthy movie, but it moves much much faster. Also, very importantly, the chemistry between Tony Leung and Wai Tang is intense. INTENSE!

Aside from all of that, it really really made me want to do my hair up in pin curls and wear hats that slant over one side of my face. Wei Tang's wardrobe in this movie is absolutely delightful. Carefully detailed blue trench coats and black velvet hats, red lipstick, and many many skin tight silk mandarin collared dresses which oh so boobed white girl me could never ever wear. I wish I could pull something like that off.

Anywho, I try to make my 'movie reviews' fairly vague. Living with Steve has caused me to be overly sensitive to the fact that many people don't want to know anything about the plot of a movie before they see it. So, I guess what I can say is this movie is powerful, sad, beautiful to look at... And there is a ton of "doin it" as Steve would say.

Weekend delights

So life has been in full swing. This weekend was pretty low-key, yet fulfilling. Friday evening Steve and I met up at the Stumbling Monk, which was ever so gym-sock smelling as per usual, with Tracy Lin, Elena and Daron. After perusing the selection of various board games that are tossed around this old man’s basement of a bar, we settled on Scatergories, which is probably my all time favorite game. This is a family favorite, because unlike Monopoly, this game didn’t lead to WWIII levels of family fighting. My second all time favorite game would be Apples to Apples, similar reasons. So after many rounds of scattergories, quite a few heavy Belgian beers, Elena making inappropriate suggestive selections, while my mind went for the four year old humor (yes, I put down “poop” for “something sticky”), we walked across the street to the B&O Café. After not being seated for quite some time, whilst staring at four open tables in the bar, we finally spoke up and said “You know, we’re all 21….” I am by far the youngest at 22, while the rest of the group is in the 24-25 range. Sad. After hours of desserts (best bread pudding in the city), we all stumbled home. Or, that is, Steve and I stumbled home and the rest of the gang drove back to the east side. Suckers!

Saturday was stunning. Pure blue sky, kinda chilly still, but I went for a walk without a coat. Went home, pulled down the shades and Watched Graveyard of the Fireflies, which of course, after watching, made it necessary for me to go outside and take another walk… Then after grabbing some Jai Thai take out, went back home to watch Thirteen on tv. Woah intensely depressing movie day. Overall it was pretty nice though. I went on a third walk, stopped off at Café Vita to do some reading, then walked through Cal Anderson Park (many puppies and bums running about). It was a good day, because it forced me to get back to that place where I enjoyed slow paced days spent alone. I took a quick stab a cleaning, but didn’t get too far.

Sunday morning went out to Dim Sum with Beth and Matt at Purple Dot in the ID. They had never been, so it was especially exciting. Steve usually has to cut me off, but this time Beth and Matt both wanted to try as many delightful little dishes as possible, hoorah! Various dumplings of the pork and shrimp variety were enjoyed by all. I really wanted to undo the top button on my jeans after that meal. We briefly walked around the ID in the same stunning sun/cool breeze weather that I had enjoyed the day before. After parting ways, Steve and I drove over to Fremont to visit Yako-monster at the music shop. We brought her some bbq pork humbao (is that how you spell it?) some calpico, and a little custard treat. After distracting her from various customers, making a rukus on the various keyboards and bizarre sound machines, we headed to Queen Anne to go see the Opera. Steve’s mom has been taking vocal lessons for quite some time now and went to go see Tosca the night before. She enjoyed it quite a bit and wanted us to check it out so she generously bought us tickets for Sunday’s matinee. I’d never been to the Opera (tending to be more of a ballet or symphony person), so I did feel a little underdressed in my jeans. I left my coat on the whole time because it was quite a bit more formal than what I had on underneath. Glad I wore heels. Steve of course ridiculed me for caring, but such is life as a girl. Aside from the Opera being really enjoyable (sadly, the tenor, who I thought was the strongest singer, had to be swapped out for the understudy half way through the show due to ‘upper respiratory issues’), I found it quite delightful to people watch. All the old ladies in their purples and feathers and shiny bejeweled handbags, several bean poll blonds wearing barely cooch covering dresses hanging off the arms of clearly rich men, then the tourist who look as underdressed as I do…. I’d gladly go again, I thought it was a pretty fun way to spend an afternoon.

We decided to thank Steve’s parents for the tickets by cooking them dinner. I just made sugar cookies for dessert, so while Steve cooked dinner Steve’s mom and I watched the Oscars. It was pretty fun because she just wanted to look at the dresses too…

Overall pretty delightful. A great way to cap off a super stressful work week. Next weekend it’s off to the cabin!

just like the inspirational posters at the professional development office.

Right now I want nothing more than to go sit in a postcard-beautiful place, like the middle of the woods, while slightly raining and just breath for a half hour... I think maybe I should take up a yoga class.

Congrats Dude!

A tribute to the future Mrs. Raley

One more thing....

A very odd part of me really wants one of these.....


http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/01/fishtank-habitrail.html

How ridiculously difficult would it be to clean?

The Rant- Revisited

Since my major rant of social frustration I’ve noticed several positive turn arounds in my life. One, I’ve made significant effort over the last two weeks to see as many friends as possible, even if just for coffee or lunch. I’ve let frustrations with others go and have said ‘yes’ to every invitation even if I was feeling like being a bum. My overall mood has been elevated by this, I feel connected and I feel like I’m letting go of petty things. I’m also not allowing my devotion to my job take over my weeknights. I’ve also found myself able to be more outgoing and have made a few new friends just within the past week. I like this. I’ve always admire my friends (like Ayako) who are able to reach out to strangers and just befriend them on the spot. I’m finding that in balance, I can really care about my job and my future while also being young.

Another outcome of my little rant is that I think I’ve found a new sense of appreciation for all of the people in my life. I’m a cheeseball, I know, but I’ve had minor conflicts with a lot of friends within the past year, and most have had to do with life changes, growing up, etc. At some point with many important people I’ve considered giving up and not putting forth the effort to keep up with them. I think now I’m deciding that the effort is worth it, even if it feels one sided at times, I know that having those people in my life is going to be better overall than letting my pride overcome our friendship.

This whole life evaluation of course is compounded by the timing of a substantial change in my career life. I’ve basically been offered a huge career shift, which is perfect for what I’m looking to do in the future. They’ve offered to train me into a financial grants manager position and are discussing having me manage the new person hired into my current position. Needless to say when they presented this to me on Monday I was shocked and mildly terrified. I’m highly under qualified as far as paperwork goes, but they believe in me and that feels pretty damn amazing. One potential draw back to all of this is that I will have to spend a lot of time and energy taking courses, reading and studying all of our subcontracts with our other universities. Sometimes I step back and question if I’m missing out of life by diving head first into my career. Should I be poor and wandering some foreign country right now? That seems to me what most of my recently graduated peers are doing. I hope I won’t regret marrying myself to my career so early in life, but I think that the rant I had a few weeks ago also prompted me to look at what makes me happy in my own situation right now. Amongst friends, family, Steve, and food my job ranks in the top things that excite me. So I guess that answers it.

I’m excited right now at the crazy challenges I’m going to have to deal with, I also know that there are going to be days where I feel like I know nothing. I’m really glad that I dealt with any frustrations I was having over a potentially dying social life (oh so melodramatic am I). I’m grossly effusive on this blog.

On another note, I would like to say R.I.P. squishy wrist rest at my office desk. Today its side split and now its gel guts are slowly seeping onto my desk. It’s pretty gross. I’m pretty upset by this loss.

Extreme Jumping Off Points

If I were a cartoon right now bubbles would start floating out of my ears and my cheeks would turn bright red and my pony tail would start spinning out the back of my head.

treats

Weekend treats.

1. Pinball with the Beth, Pinball Mastermind, at Shorty's.
2. Tator Tots at 5 Point, extra grease please.
3. Coffee and reading Collette at Stumptown coffee while the sun is shining on a cold cold morning.
4. Croque Monsieur + Harissa coated olives at Cafe Presse. $10 My new fav lunch.
5. Purchased The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Sherman Alexie + The Russian Debutant's Guidebook, Gary Shteyngart.
6. Purchased super comfy, borderline hipsterish black turtleneck dress.
7. Hair dye for DYI (aka cheap) self improvement.
8. Now sitting on couch, drinking tea watching the orange/purple/blue sunset over the city.
9. Seeing Mrs. Smith tomorrow.

sleep

I woke up from a full night’s sleep this morning exhausted. Emotionally and physically.

I’ve had a pretty dysfunctional relationship with sleep my entire life. I’ll go through extreme bouts of insomnia about every three months. As a child I used to read with a flashlight, but parents caught on quickly. Then I’d stare at my popcorn ceiling and look for shapes. If you stare at something long enough something will come of it. Part two of my sleep dysfunction problem is nightmares. I would say this is way worse than staying up all night watching ‘insomniac music theater’ (a frequent habit in my middle school years). I think that because I sleep so lightly and some nights are more or less like fading in and out of consciousness I remember my dreams more than most. I have some pretty fucking awful dreams.

As a child I had one or two repeating dreams about my house burning down and my parents being trapped inside. In the past year I’ve dreamt nuclear holocaust, earthquakes that sink the Puget Sound, family members dying, plane crashes. It’s like holy crap subconscious dream portion of brain, calm down! The worst of the nightmare are the ones that you truly believe you’re awake, and when you wake up you’re completely unsure. Twice as a kid I dreamt the fire alarms going off in our house, both occasions I woke up and ran to my parents room screaming for them to get out of bed. I also used to walk in my sleep (resulting in a few unfortunate sleepwalk/peeing incidents).

I don’t know if I need a sleep therapist or what, but I feel like my nightmares kind of ruin my whole day. I’ve felt weird and off all day today, but I don’t really believe in analyzing dreams.

Maybe my mind just needs an extended weekend, oh wait, I do have an extended weekend. sweet.

The Rant

Good friends, please excuse me while I use the blog format for its traditional purpose of public ranting. Thankfully, I know my audience well and I will disclaimer that my frustration will inevitably fade within a few days and that what I’m writing has nothing to do with any of you who I know read.

Being young and selfish can be lots of fun for certain, but right now I feel like I’m in such an odd place where I’m not allowed to participate in such fun. I’m 22 and living with my boyfriend who I feel I coexist with perfectly. Part of this to me is that I don’t feel anxiety when we are apart and I don’t feel that he will ever be upset if I want to do my own thing (which I frequently do). I never ever, ever thought in a million years I would be at this stage in my love life at this age. What is frustrating is that marriage is still a far and distant thing for me, yet I’m starting to feel like I’m being socially put in a box by my living/relationship situation.

I’ve recently been confronted by a good friend about a variety of things that stirred up some emotions that I’ve been struggling with. Mainly that I’m losing track of friends who call me less because of Steve, and that I ‘wouldn’t understand’ the single lifestyle and because I’m not single wouldn’t enjoy activities such as going out all night for drinks, dancing, etc. She also went as far as saying that she doesn’t call me to go out because I only like ‘chic, expensive activities’ that she doesn’t enjoy and that she would never ‘fit in’ there just like I “wouldn’t fit in at a dive bar”. I’m bothered way more than I should be by this, I know. I feel like if I go somewhere ‘chic’ it’s once a month and because a lot of Steve’s friends are into that. Part of being a girlfriend is adapting to his friends, who have accepted me as their own thankfully. I go to dive bars all the fucking time, give me a break I’m not a yuppie I make just as much as she does (not a lot), and no, my parents are not supporting me. It’s as if I’ve been put in this ‘practically married yuppie who scorns single people’ box. It’s not as if once you’re in a stable relationship all memories of being single self destruct in the brain. I went very long periods of my college years without a boyfriend, and I had a ton of fun. Part of that fun was that I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend and I was just enjoying life. So, really, what makes my situation all that different now? Why must I be a ‘square’ just because my life is somewhat stable right now? I feel like she can only be making these judgments based on my current situation, not taking into account me as a person.

Friends, Steve can’t replace you, and he won’t. So if you stop calling me, it’s not as if I’m content to just spend the time I would have spent with you with Steve instead. It’s more like I feel incomplete and a bit like a failure.

As for the ‘expensive activities’ part, I know my situation is weird. In reality though, I still work 40 hrs plus, Steve works waaaaay more than that on average. We both pay (fairly high) rent and we both have to manage our savings and spending habits like everyone else. I don’t really have a lot of control over the way we appear to others, yeah, our place is beyond our realistic income, but we’re still paying for it. Also, I’m wholly satisfied by spending a night in with friends watching rented movies and drinking a bottle of wine, or in this case, going to a dive bar and ordering pitchers of cheap beer. I care way more about seeing my friends than what we actually end up doing. I’m feeling pretty hurt that she believes this about me. I’m still 22 folks. I still have a lot of learning to do. Also, treat me like ‘the man’ and I’ll have to regulate…

P.S. I'm not an angry ranty Mc Ranterson.... I love you all. I also love this friend who has made me so emotional. Such is life...

Mess

When I get home most days of the week and I look around the absolute last thing I ever want to do is clean. In order to clean I have to know when the next time will be that guests will be coming over. This sets me up for embarrassment when Steve's mom drops by when I'm not home and we have underwear thrown everywhere, bags of recycling sitting in the hallway, and little pieces of crumpled up paper that we throw Inga are strewn about in every room. This happened today.

I wish I were back at the cabin. For a month. I couldn't get anything done today at work because all I could think about was snow.