Moving

Around 7:30am on a rainy day last week, I was walking from my apartment to my car.* A man was putting oil in his car about five spaces away from me, and when he saw me he called out, "Hey! What happened to your truck?"**

Shocked/jet-lagged/a bit confused, I mumbled, "I had a car accident." And he just nodded like, "Oh, okay. Just checking," and disappeared back under the hood of his car. Now let's put aside the fact that 1.) I was still extremely jet-lagged from my recent return from the UK, 2.) it was 7:30am, and 3.) I am so not a morning person. I would instead like to focus on the fact that here was this guy who lives in my apartment complex, who I have never seen before in my life, and he knows what kind of car I drive. Creepy much?

"It's time to move," I thought to myself.

But is it really? It's strange how my first response is "Oh crap, people are starting to remember that I live here. Must be time to get the hell outta here." I mean, I was always the kid who begged her parents not to move and felt sick at the thought of somebody else living in her house. Was it the fact that I moved at least twice a year from the ages of 18-24 that changed things for me? Has all this traveling and exploring made me way too restless?

Maybe not. Most of the time I like knowing where the nearest dry cleaner is or the best place to go for a pint. I've been getting my hair cut by the same person for three years now, and I've been working for the same company for a pretty long time as well. Maybe "too restless" comes when I have an experience like the one above and immediately run back into my apartment to start packing.

I still think it's time to move, tho. People should at least say hello before the freak the crap out of you.



* I use the phrase "my car" only for convenience sake because it, actually, is not my car. It's my mom's van that has been bequeathed to my Not So Little Brother. We affectionately refer to him as "Old Sideburns" because he can grow them and to the van as "The Tank" because it kinda feels like you're driving/sitting in one.

**No, this was not a miscommunication. I used to drive a truck. I hope to do so again sometime soon.

Viva la Postcard!

A dear friend of mine is currently traveling round Europe and the UK for a few months. Before she left we were talking about postcards and how it's such a shame that people don't really send them as often as in years past. So we made a deal. It's quite simple, really. We're just going to send each other postcards from wherever we are (even if that doesn't happen to be a vacation spot). After all postcards are cheap, postcard stamps are even cheaper and can be bought in mass quantities, you don't really have to say much, and they range in design from something you can send your kid sister or grandmother to something you should probably be embarrassed not to be putting into an envelope.

True that they usually arrive at their intended destination a week or so after the person who sent them has returned from their trip, but who cares? In this age of "all mail is either a bill or junk" isn't it nice to get something that's nothing but fun?

My answer to this question is yes.

Album Currently on Repeat: Kings of Leon, Aha Shake Heartbreak

We Recommend....

Sometimes you have to be super discriminatory when it comes to recommending something. Thankfully, a friend was wise enough to recommended this part of the McSweeney's site. One thing I can confidently recommend: do not read this at work unless you're really good at laughing silently (I am not).

Here are a few of the recommendations that made me laugh when I probably should've been working. And yes, the Steve Martin book they mention really is that good (and also makes you laugh out loud on airplanes and/or in other inappropriate situations).

*Fifteen-month calendars
Who doesn't like a little overlap?

*Duff from Ace of Cakes
This guy Duff has a cake bakery in Baltimore and a show on the Food Network. Maybe you know the show. Our sense is that if everyone were like this guy, and if every show had this joy, we'd be all good.

*The Remington ShortCut
If you cut your own hair and like it really short, this is the Jesus Christ of hair clippers.

*Fastpasses for rides at Disney's Magic Kingdoms
We wish there were Fastpasses for other things in life, like grocery shopping and graduate school.

*Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
The story of the genesis, apex, and end of Mr. Martin's standup career. This book has been justifiably praised.

*Microwaving cake for 20 seconds before eating
Doesn't matter how powerful your microwave is—you put the cake in there for 20 seconds. Remove. Add a dollop of vanilla ice cream (chocolate generally doesn't work in these cases, probably because of some kind of microwave-induced molecular rearrangement). Use a spoon. Do that mmm-mmm-wow moan-noise thing. Thank us later.

*Bacon of the Month Club
You haven't known pleasure until a full rasher of applewood smoked bacon shows up in the arms of the UPS man just as you're prepared to give in to the forces of healthy living and eat yogurt, or some crap like that.

*Sticky roller lint pickups
We remember the older lint pickups, the ones with the semi-velvety surface stretched across an oval head. Those didn't pick up shit. These do. (If by "shit" you mean sweater fuzz and dog hair and the like.)

*Baseball on the radio
A rich experience exceeded only by baseball at the park, in which case, we also recommend listening to the radio broadcast with an earpiece in the left ear as you watch from mid-lower level, left field. Funny, too, that the rise of radio and the rise of baseball were concurrent. Timely then, timeless thereafter.

Forever a College Student

I took a publishing seminar at U. Penn today, and the whole experience of being back on a college campus and in a classroom really made me miss college. It isn't really the first time I've been to a college since I graduated, but I don't want to count spending eight hours of mind-numbing boredom in the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne ballroom as a nostalgic experience. However, putting my mind back into student-mode made me notice a lot of things from college that I still have around me on a daily basis. This is by no means a comprehensive list.

1. My student ID is still in my wallet. I'm not ashamed to admit that I occasionally still use it to get money off things. If you have a moral problem with that, then put yourself through college and see what you can afford post-graduation.

2. My bright orange parking permit sticker is still on the back window of my car. I never did affix the college alumni stickers they keep sending me, but anyone who looks at my car knows I once parked in G Lot.

3. My boss at the library used to make me baskets filled with candy and assorted good things for each holiday. One year, she was out of town so Dee from the ILL department left some candy on my desk and named me "an honorary ILLer." I still have the tag hanging above my desk.

4. A Care Bears valentine from Rictor.

5. A note on blue paper that also sits in my wallet (seriously. and I just cleaned out my wallet too). This note is from Becca and was written with the spinal pen. I would reveal the message, but it's a private joke so you wouldn't get it anyway. Trust me, though, it's funny.

Speak Now or....

Sometime this weekend, I lost my voice. And it didn't go suddenly or with any dignity.

It began with a terribly minor experience with food poisoning (tip: feta cheese does not travel well), and before I knew it I had all the vocal quirks of a 14-year-old boy. My voice is naturally a little scratchy anyway, but as the weekend passed, words that normally would receive a slight inflection or emotion suddenly began to squeak sharply out of my mouth . By Sunday night, it was uncomfortable to say anything above a whisper. I thought an evening of hot tea and silence would get me up to a reasonable vocal level by the time I reached work on Monday, but I was very wrong.

In fact, it got worse. This put me in kind of a weird place when I'm trying to explain something to my boss or ask her a question. In the end, I've had to skip the chats with anyone around the office and rely completely on email. Though this has been kinda rough on someone like me who really does like to talk, it has made me think of how much I really count on speaking and how nice it is to not be forced to act like a mime in order to get your point across.

Though I must admit that at this point, I'd probably kick your ass at charades.

Baseball

Since yesterday was the official opening day for the Phils, I thought I'd revive a quote from Dr. Matthew Roth: poet, professor, and avid baseball fan.

"I found that if I changed my seat every other inning and held a dishcloth in a certain way, it was very lucky for the Red Sox."

:-)

Thots from Mr. Steinbeck

"After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he has really existed. He leaves his proof on wood, on stone, or on the lives of other people. This deep desire exists in everyone, from the boy who writes dirty words in a public toilet to the Buddha who etches his image the race mind. Life is so unreal. I think that we seriously doubt that we exist and go about trying to prove that that we do."
~J. Steinbeck
The Pastures of Heaven