{F} fiona apple, 2011 catalogue model.
i’m not completely sure what possessed me to re-watch fiona apple’s video from her 1997 song criminal. i think it might have shown up on my tumblr readings, or i thought about it while listening to one of her happier songs this weekend.
regardless, i ended up last night watching criminal on youtube, and it was just as disturbing as when i saw it when i was 16, but for (mostly) entirely different reasons. my best friend at the time was a guy named dan, who LOVED fiona apple. (and poetry, e.e. cummings, guns, working on cars, and having long hair. not your average teenage dude.) he listened to it a lot, and because i had yet to go through my depressing period of time (that came later in seattle) i didn’t connect much to fiona apple’s music, although i rather liked how it sounded.
i particularly liked the song criminal, because, well, it’s a really good song. i wasn’t allowed to watch MTV at my house, so i avoided seeing the video for a number of months, until it came on over at a friend’s house.
i was…disturbed. i don’t even think i could fully put my finger on it, as nothing really explicit was happening in the video, but it just skeeved me the heck out. i was a pretty good girl, and it just seemed so dark and twisty and creepy. and i don’t think the bruises all over her helped. the guys i knew thought it was both creepy and weirdly kind of hot (the boy confirms this to be true) but i didn’t get that at the time. i was not a dark and creepy teenager, even though i kind of wanted to be.
dark times certainly came later, but creepy always eluded me.
in fact, a few years later, after a little more life lived and boy heartbreak, i dug up my fiona apple CD’s and ms. apple and i got along on a whole new level, but i never saw another video of hers again.
fast-forward to last night.
watching the video again, i was disturbed, but for adult reasons. the same adult reasons that cause me to balk at shortened text message-speak and give the side-eye to loud kids at a restaurant and go to bed at 8pm like i did last night.
i’m just too old for this business.
i mean, i’m not old, but i’m too old for the entertainment of the young people.
here are my thoughts when watching the video now, as a 30-year-old:
1. sad houses are usually not this nice-looking (i mean, without the dingy-porn-lighting). i mean, this house is remarkably well-furnished (there’s an expensive eames chair and a sports car in the first 30 seconds) for being, presumably, a Lair of Destitution.
2. that red-eye business makes her look like a rat. how is that attractive? they should really make a button to remove that from video/pictures. so unflattering. oh wait…there’s a button for that. 1997, meet 2011.
3. sleeping on concrete looks really uncomfortable. why would anyone make a bed on a concrete block? i thought this house-owner had money.
4. who’s holding the camera in the bathtub? aren’t they afraid they’re going to drop it in the tub? cameras are expensive. and, more importantly, someone else’s bath feet are about 2 inches from her FACE. i’d freak the crap out. i don’t like other people’s wet feet touching me. or dry feet touching me. let’s just make that feet touching me in general.
5. i get the pizza & bottles littering the floor, half-naked women strewn about and cameras…but the vacuum sitting out? nothing says party like attempting to suck up the crumbs, amiright?
6. and what’s with the oranges in the bathtub? won’t those go bad? there’s, like, 8 oranges there — enough to make juice! that juice would be so tasty. and healthy.
a decade ago i thought she looked so strung out and weird in the video, which i think was the point.
now, she just looks like an urban outfitter’s model.
times i have changed.
(E) + L
my friend sarah just had twin baby boys, and they are delicious. i mean, to look at. i would never try to eat a baby. maybe some toes, but that’s it. i got to hold them for hours the other weekend and caught a few moments on film.
{i love the little wrinkly face L byrd is making in the left photo, and the nice little side-eye he’s given me on the right–like, what gives lady? let me sleep!}
{this is little E byrd with his dad.}
one of the best things about sarah’s pregnancy was that their last name is byrd, so before we knew their names (which i won’t share as i don’t know how they’d feel about their names being on the internet, but trust me their names are SO CUTE) we knew them only as
the baby byrds.
i mean, come on. cute overload. you can only imagine how much bird-related stuff they have. beyond cute. you can see some of what i’m talking about from the lovely baby shower we hosted with our good friend and event planner at smash events, ashlee.
just the cutest little birds byrds i’ve ever seen.
(D)elta Burke pants.
first, my sincerest thanks for all the kind words from my readers (that title makes it sound like you’re such a crowd, right?) about my mother-in-law. truly, having a community of people is never undervalued currency in my life.
now, let’s lighten things up around here. it’s time to tell you about my Delta Burke pants.
some background information:
1. delta burke: for those of you who don’t know who delta burke is, let me tell you. delta ramona leah burke is a television actress. (would the proper verb be was? i mean really, where have we seen her lately except on the label of a department store item that you will soon learn about?) she is perhaps best known for her role as Suzanne Sugarbaker on the CBS sitcom Designing Women, which aired for about 7 years in the late 80′s-early 90′s. a bunch of southern ladies + one african-american ex-convict character = hilarity. i’ve seen just about every episode, and remember distinctly when dixie carter’s character, julia, chewed out a tax collector named Ray DON, and her eyes got all big and crazy.
delta burke in her suzanne sugarbaker heyday:
tell me that she doesn’t look all 80′s TV-Star who peaks and then devolves into movies of the week and salvages a career by starting an clothing company you can find exclusively at k-mart ala jaclyn smith?
2. in britain, pants = underwear. so, for this story, pants means underwear. interestingly, pants is also slang in the UK for screwing things up royally, like “he really pantsed that up”, which — as you will learn — is also not entirely an inappropriate sentiment for this story. however, i’m an american, so in this story, underwear = underwear. pants = underwear and underwear = underwear. basically what i’m telling you is that everything = underwear (as it usually does in life, right)?
* * * * *
for the last two months, the boy and i have been spending our weekdays 6 hours away in grand junction with his mom during her radiation and chemo treatments. on the weekends we come home for a few days, but this situation has entailed us keeping everything we need (clothes, food, computers, work) with us at all times. we’ve been staying with relative of his mom during the surgery and for the first 4 weeks of treatment (6 weeks altogether), but it’s stressful to have people in your house for that long, so we decided to give them a break and stay in a hotel for the last two weeks. we happened upon a lovely residence inn that had two-bedroom suites with kitchens that would be perfect for what we need, and it is close to the cancer center. they also have snack and free happy hour, which bodes well for the local college students who are staying there because the college ran out of housing.
they also have a pool and jacuzzi.
now, when i am going to a place with a pool and jacuzzi, i ALWAYS remember my swimsuit, because packing my suitcase and taking a trip is out of the ordinary, and so i think about all the things i need.
unless you’ve been living out of a suitcase for two months.
guess who forgot their swimsuits? (i’ll give you three tries, and the first two don’t count).
no big deal, right? we’ll just find a cheap swimsuit — since they’ll probably be on clearance this time of year — and call it a day, or just not go swimming. except, his sister was coming to hang out with us and absolutely wanted to go swimming, and she would have been by herself.
let me tell you this: there are NO swimsuits in western colorado in november. none. zero. swimsuits? nyet. the only swimsuit we could find was $70 at a sporting good stores for, you know, actual swimmers.
plan b.
the boy had some shorts he could wear, so we decided that i could wear the tank top i have to run in, since it’s a swimsuit-y material, if i could just find some shorts, like cheap spandex bike shorts or something. emphasis on the word cheap, because i want to go swimming, but not like $50 bad. store 1: nothing. store 2: nothing. stores 3-6, nothing. at store 6 there was a glimmer of hope with some flourescent volleyball booty-shorts on clearance, but they didn’t have my size. at least the patterns were hideously ugly, though. points for ugliness.
grand junction apparently is a desert for something other than just climate.
the boy even found some plaid swim trunks at old navy for $5 that we initially thought were hideous, but have kind of grown on us by now. we had nearly given up on our little acquatic adventure when hope arrived as we were wandering around ross (dress for less!) waiting for troy’s sister to try on things, in the form of one Delta Burke, actress and apparent underwear apparel magnate.
let’s talk about this: are you seeing how far these things go up? the picture frame actually cuts off the top of these pants (pants = underwear); i swear they extend about 2 more miles inches up to provide dual action underwear + blindfold purposes.
i’m not sure if that’s how they are supposed to be, but they might stretch that far up because these were 3 sizes too big. yep. it’s what we call big-girl pants (see also: grandma panties). there are a few reasons for this: one, my choices were either extra-small or 3 sizes too big. yeah, not going to be prancing around in an extra-small anything. two, these were the only shorts-like pants in the store. if i’m going to be swimming around in not-a-swimsuit, it’s not going to be in lacy underwear cut up to there — you know what i’m talking about…there.
that’s how i found myself the proud reluctant wearer of $5 underwear from a forgotten 80′s actress, around the pool. like, in front of actual people, with a steely glare for anyone who dare insult my ridiculous awesome swim-pseud.
no reason for shame, though, because these delta burke pants are going to SWEEP THE NATION, people. in fact, it’ll be so popular, wearing 3 times too-big underwear, that the new “pull up your big girl pants” will be “hike up your Delta Burke pants.”. i’ll see to it.
don’t mess with me in my Delta Burke Pants.
C. Cancer.
about six weeks ago, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with a grade 4 glioblastoma, which is a highly malignant brain cancer, with tumors about the size of a golf ball in the left frontal lobe of her brain.
have you ever seen a weather radar tracking a hurricane?
it looks like that, but on someone’s brain.
and my vibrant, active mother-in-law? she’s far too young to have a hurricane in her brain.
there’s a lot that is interesting about being close (and getting close) to someone who finds such a dark weather system in their head. what i found most interesting was the process by which you discover that a loved one does, indeed, have cancer.
it was harder than i thought, more unsettling and less straight-forward than i ever imagined.
in this (and most, i believe) situations of diagnosing brain tumors, the process is similar: one has reason to get an MRI of their brain — usually because they are experiencing weird neurological symptoms or, in many cases, seizures — which shows the dreaded hurricane. the scan is sent to a specialist; the specialist recommends a craniotomy to remove the tumor (or debulk it, if a complete resection isn’t possible) and biopsy it, and then once the pathology report comes back, begin treatment.
so, what happens as you embark down this road is that for weeks, from diagnosis to getting the pathology report, you only have one word to describe this terrible thing that’s happening: a tumor. an evil, unwanted visitor. a hurricane on a ghostly outline of the brain you’ve never actually seen before, only self-consciously been cognizant of. and you desperately avoid resurrecting your kindergarten-cop-movie-circa-1990 impression of arnold schwarzeneggar saying “it’s not a toomah!“, because, unfortunately, it actually is.
but this is immediately what your brain jumps to, because you are emotionally 12 years old, apparently.
the more people you talk to, the more people want to know exactly what kind of tumor it is. benign? malignant? and you search for answers, desperate for some finite facts you can lean on, good or bad, because whatever the new reality is, at least it’s real. you can trick yourself into preparing for the absolute unprepareable.
the not knowing keeps your proverbial one-shoed-self squinting up at the sky, looking for signs of the other one to come tumbling down at any moment.
you speculate, conjecture, discuss, google, and dance around the word that you’re wondering about, but fearful to verbalize out loud. you make a list of all the other things this tumor could be besides…no, you’re not going to say it. why think the worst, right?
at this point, about 2.5 weeks post-hurricane-tumor spotting, my mother-in-law had surgery. the surgery debulked the tumor by half (note: this is not the most positive scenario) and also found that the hurricane was building energy, growing in size since the last radar picked it up. the surgeon shares this with her husband, her mother, my husband and i in a tiny room that seemed to be losing oxygen by the second. he also shares that he is hopeful for the best, and we should have pathology in a week.
we were hoping for news; we got hedging. i suspect that our very wonderful, gracious neurosurgeon knew what he was most likely dealing with, but being the prudent and professional doctor he is (and exceptionally nice to all of us), he followed protocol.
she recovered for a few days in the hospital, and then about a week at her family’s home in grand junction, where many of us were staying with her.
it was a tough week. brain surgery, of any kind, is no picnic.
and with all the discussion of care, talks with medical professionals, little by little progress in recovery, questions coming from concerned friends, we still have…no answers. no ground on which to plant our feet and determine our course.
i think: this is not how it happens in movies.
in movies–and books for that matter–the diagnosis is wrapped up nicely. in fact, sometimes the process of diagnosis is not mentioned at all, instead all focus centers around the emotions and trials of recovery from and life with cancer.
i realize: this is not how it happens in real life.
1 week post-surgery, we have a meeting with a chemotherapy doctor.
now, i have to say this: in retrospect, it seems so obvious what she has. i mean, think about it — a growing brain tumor that’s not an infection, a concerned neurosurgeon, a meeting with a chemotherapy doctor–this obviously equals cancer, right?
but, a) what if we’re wrong about that, and now we’ve fixated on cancer as being her disease, and b) if it is cancer, what kind? doesn’t cancer go in stages? what stage is this? is it fixable? maybe chemotherapy is used in non-cancerous tumors. what do i know?
so, we go to meet the chemotherapy doctor, and only when we walk in the entrance do i get my first answer.
it’s definitely cancer.
we meet with the chemotherapy doctor, who, it needs to be said, is remarkably abrupt and cold. my mother-in-law and stepfather-in-law sit on one side of the room, with the boy and i sitting at a small table. we fill out forms, and glance around the room: brochures about head & neck cancer, booklets about how cancer stages work, various charts and graphs about leukemia, lymphoma.
for as much cancer awareness as there is these days, i realize how little i know.
the doctor (who incidentally only has one arm and thus plagued me once again with stifling my knee-jerk middle-schooler-obsessed-with-pop-culture response of movie-quoting, this time from the fugitive — “it wasn’t me; it was the one-armed man!”) proceeds to ask questions and examine his fragile patient, while we sit there watching anxiously. he drives on, not stopping to take a breath, talking about the specific kind of drug she’ll be taking, for how long, and side-effects.
side note: as it turns out, her brain cancer is (chemo-wise) rather simple. she takes three pills, once a day. that’s it. side-effects are usually minimal, but definitely depends on the patient. we don’t know it then, but her side-effects from the chemo will be zero.
he finally, after about 800 days ten minutes, pauses, looks us in the eye and says: “so, that’s it, unless you have any questions.”
um, yeah, we do have a few minor questions like OH MY GOD, WHAT DOES SHE FREAKING HAVE, PLEASE TELL US SOMETHING FINALLY.
so, then he rattles off her cancer: grade 4 glioblastoma, like he’s telling her she has a common cold and to not worry about it. he starts throwing around months, numbers, figures, and suddenly his voice suddenly sounds like charlie brown’s teacher.
i mean, you’d be surprised the lack of emotion and reaction involved in hearing what could be, without the miracle we’re believing for, a possible death sentence handed down to someone. we recently saw the movie 50/50, in which the main character finds out he has cancer at the age of 27. there is a scene with his doctor–a very cold, aloof doctor–who barely looks up the entire time while telling him his diagnosis.
before my experience with my mother-in-law’s disorienting, confusing diagnosis process, i would have dismissed that scene as pure hollywood dramatics, written only for the screen.
i now know that the scene is entirely, surreally, weirdly, true.
it’s jarring, really. as the doctor’s talking you look around at the other people in the room, expecting something, anything, that conveys shock.
a sympathetic look? a reaction from his mom/stepdad indicating sorrow? that tinny, tense strings music in movies that tells the audience in sharp tones THERE IS DANGER AFOOT!?!
nothing. so, you determine that you surely didn’t hear what you heard.
because if you had, people would certainly react. right? or, or…or, the ground would open up. and locusts and frogs would start biblically pouring down. something. anything. because you need confirmation that your feelings of worry and life-altering sadness are appropriate.
you hardly hear what comes next, a litany of statistics rattled off with an almost monotone affect.
i interrupt the monologue, asking a follow-up question along the lines of “can you explain to me in plain english what we’re dealing with here?”
not getting an answer.
but i had the answer, in my heart.
i knew it.
i knew i heard correctly.
this hurricane in her brain is an epic storm, of the worst proportions, with the worst (earthly) prognosis.
and in that doctor’s office, before your heart fills with hope again, before prayers are lifted and hands are held, before finding reassurance from survivors, before spending six weeks in close proximity with your newly-minted mother-in-law and someone you now can count among those you really know, before travelling 10 hours a week from our home to stay with her monday through friday while she goes through treatment in a city away from her home, before seeing the strength of someone so radiantly shine through as she turns her face towards the light, before loving and understanding all the cliches about life and hope and survival that you’ve hated hearing before, before the tears and laughs, before the ups (and downs), before the resolute decisions to continue to have faith in God among this uncertain path, to stand strong with the ones who love you, before you end up redefining what this family is really made of…
before all of the hopeful and good things that come out of this journey that you literally see every single day…in that moment, in that doctor’s office–you’ve never wished you were more wrong about what you’ve just heard in your whole, entire life.
B is for Brother/Sister
i collect new music and songs much like i do new clothing: i go for long periods without buying anything, maybe picking up an odd accessory here or there, and then go on a spurt where i need new clothes, or the seasons change, and i buy a bunch of things at once. and then return a good chunk of them a few days later after buyers remorse sets in, or i see them in a normal mirror and not something specially designed to get me to buy these crazy items in the store.
okay, that last part doesn’t happen with music.
sometimes i find new treasures while digging for other things at a thrift store or perusing some overlooked corner of the Internet Shopping Mall.
such is the case of the 3-song EP for the band Brother/Sister. interesting anecdote: Brother/Sister is, indeed, made up of a brother and a sister, Theo and Sasha Spielberg. and if that last name looks familiar, you would be right in assuming that they are the children of Steven Spielberg. like that family needs any more freaking talent. ugh, some people’s kids.
if my finding of their music was represented in a really crappy flow-chart, this is what it might look like:
reading tumblr dashboard —> read post reblogged by zooey deschanel —> post was a video chat karaoke from the site she co-founded called hellogiggles —> watched the video, which made me wonder what other ones were there —> watched a few —> which included one from a girl named sasha spielberg —> which made me remember how much i like the song she sang (brand new key, by melanie, which was nearly ruined for me by its inclusion in the movie boogie nights, which i watched against my will in high school by my then-best friend —> bought brand new key on itunes —> while it was downloading, googled “sasha spielberg” because i’m nosy mcnosystein —> found out that she’s the daughter of steven spielberg, tweets often, as does her half-sister jessica capshaw, and that she formed a band with her adopted brother, theo —> which made me listen to one of their songs on youtube, since i struck out on spotify and grooveshark —> which made me want to acquire all of the songs —> which made me search for it online, finally finding a free download from the website bandcamp.com.
and now you know why i can’t get anything done during the week.
but, these dreamy-three songs are now on my playlist of the week, and will imaginably in heavier rotation this fall winter. it’s (as my husband says) “totally dreamy-60′s-girlish-pop that my wife would listen to.” fair warning: that first track gets in your head, in the positively best way possible.
it’s yours*, compliments of my procrastinatory internet-trolling tendencies. you’re welcome.
Brother/Sister — Call It What You Want
Brother/Sister — Eli (Why the Charade?)
*as always, to download, just right-click and select ‘save link as’ and follow the directions.
A is for A Really Bad Idea, or Alphabet (take your pick).
ovember is, in the blogging-world at least, known as NaBloPoMo, which is a national blog posting initiative, and not, as it sounds, a popular phrase from the old mork & mindy television show. the goal of NaBlowPopMo, or whatever, is to post once a day for a month, and to improve your writing by simply doing. well, by doing and learning, as they also offer tips for better writing and writing prompts for every month, centered around a theme. these prompts help you avoid what they call the “mid-month wall” that keeps you from following through on things like your blog, or say, personal hygiene or going to work, and is what i call “nearly every day of my life”.
his month is also NaNoWriMo, the no less gibberish-sounding but possibly much more popular National Novel Writing Month, where only the most crazy lunatics disciplined writers write a novel and, well, get some proverbial sh*t done, writing-wise.
although my business card says “writer” on it, i have no desire to EVER write a novel, yet this is surprisingly what everyone assumes what i want to do when i say that my job is being a writer. why is that?
actually, if we’re being honest, my business card doesn’t say “writer” as my title, as i just couldn’t wrap my head around that identity, and instead blurts out “i write things”, which (i think) is a much more mature and professional way to communicate my profession.
think i am pretty sure i don’t get away with saying ridiculous things like this because my much more talented partner-in-crime, my husband, is a graphic designer and makes everything i say look so cool that nobody really questions me. ah, see, now i’m telling you all my secrets! don’t tell. pinky promise. YES, PINKY PROMISE. i told you i was a grown-up.
now, what was i saying?
es, improving writing and tips on such. i’m obviously in the market for improving my writing as i can’t seem to keep track of the words coming out of my own mouth, even when i can just scroll up and read them. i had been toying around with the idea of just going through the alphabet, all popular-murder-novel-series-and-overdone-internet-meme-style, for lack of other brilliant ideas, and then i procrastinated just long enough to make it almost to November, where I can pretend that this it A Brilliant Idea–that is, unless you read the title of this post.
nevertheless, we shall make our way through the alphabet, mainly because i realized that i’ve become stagnant in terms of feeling like talking about anything, let alone anything of interest, and needed to do exactly what i used to tell my students to do: just write–and when i realized that if i went through the alphabet, i could use jessica hische‘s daily drop cap illustrations which are amazing and badass (as they make things much prettier)– and it was already going to be a National Thing, i simply had no more excuses.
ell, that’s not true, because i am a Pro at Crastinating, and i can find excuses like it’s my job. hmmm…i wonder how much that job would pay? would there be benefits? would i penalized if i were late to said job? i digress, as i’m quite certain i’ve lost all three of you reading (hi dad!).
i’m feeing like there should be something ceremonial to kick this off? how about this gratuitous picture of an explosion:
et the writing commence!
my mission, should i be forced to accept it.
and, really, i have no other choice except to accept.
i’m all geared-up: laser-like steely gaze, my favorite headphones, and this brownie here. [sugar = fuel = good in this equation, fyi.]
i have several work things that need my attention today, and i intend to focus solely on them without stopping!*
*except to get more food.
*and to pet the dog.
*and to read my book.
*and to get a drink to wash down the food.
*plus the requisite bathroom trip.
*and then touring around the internet for a few minutes so i can be “updated” before getting back to work (so necessary!).
*and to procrastinate, particularly by noodling around with photos with captions about how i’m totally going to focus on work today.
*and that pedicure that i promised i’d get with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.
*but, wait — brilliant plan — i’ll put the pedicure on my to-do list, and thus can count it as getting things done. like the to-do list equivalent of a tax-writeoff.
*my plan is so brilliant, i’m rewarding myself with a little break.
then i’ll get back to work.
promise. 
still here.
i’m pretty sure this is a reminder for me as much as anyone.
i’m still here.
there’s footing to be found in these surreal circumstances.
amidst sterile hospital rooms
foggy uncertainty
crammed suitcases full of nearly every piece of clothing i own
living in someone else’s home 5 days out of 7 each week
late-night talks with “the patient” (a.k.a. my sweet mother-in-law)
10 hours of driving a week
and
navigating the unsteadiest of roads without a clear map
i am still here.
god is still near.
friends and family are very dear.
and other things that rhyme as well.
*note 1: i didn’t mean for that to rhyme. but i kept it anyway. fun with english!
*note 2: the details of this situation are specifically vague, as it is not my story to tell publicly. however, i am nosy mcnosypants and i HATE vague posts that allude to some big story. so, if concerned readers want to know more, i’ll be happy to communicate in a less-public arena.
foxy chevron love.
in honor of finishing a big project and begging for it night and day, i was surprised with this modern little duvet number on my bed courtesy of the boy. he exerted his veto power by changing the color (from bright blue to a more muted grey) in exchange for permitting me to choose bright pillows it needs to punch it up a bit.
we already had this pillow made in a chevron pattern (they were MFEO, people) from fabric from our wedding as a wedding gift from our dear friend sarah.
but it wasn’t enough. it needed more color. something punchy. something…foxy.
liam, the woodland fox, will be joining us here in the domicile.
because stuffed animals for grown-ups are the new stuffed animals for kids.
i’m pretty sure that catchphrase is going to sweep the nation shortly.
perhaps i shouldn’t quit my day job.
but my day job is writing.
hmmm.
i’ll be here with liam thinking of a better plan B.
monday morning ugh-pdate: digested.
my childhood (and collegehood and adulthood, and, well, general lifehood) friend erin’s mom used to have reader’s digest around all the time, which i loved. i loved the idea of getting little stories that traveled to all corners of life and reported back in succinct form.
so, in that spirit and because i’ve been too busy to write, here’s the reader’s-digest-condensed-version-of-things-happening-right-now. catchy title, eh? you can see why people pay me money to communicate for them.
1. here’s the answer to the question i’ve gotten about 8 times in the last month as school has returned to session: no, i am not teaching this year. i may not teach next year. at this point, teaching (as i’ve known it in the public school classroom) is going on a high bookshelf — still accessible and visible, but not going to be pulled down anytime soon.
2. here’s the answer to the second question i’ve gotten about 8 times in the last month immediately following question # 1: what am i doing now? i am copywriting. the boy’s graphic design business, fixer design, has expanded to include me full-time since january. he’s art; i’m copy. i copywrite (which is writing primarily for advertising pieces, marketing campaigns, website marketing, etc.), copyedit (wherein i make what other people write sound all nice and pretty (or angry and disturbed or whatever it is they are going for), proofread/edit (wherein i get to fully embrace my anal-retentive and annoyingly nit-picky fastidious and detail-oriented side and make sure all the commas are not spliced and semi-colons used appropriately), grant write (wherein i…um…write grants), write (articles, websites, tweets, letters, etc.) and then generally collaborate with our art director on various other things like naming companies, editing the design work, making dinner, paying bills, and riding bikes.
note: the art director is my husband, otherwise things just got weird for you.
this week: we’re naming a company and i’m copyediting a few different things. funsies!
3. i love my job. i love that i’ve been able to do it since january and hope that it continues to be so by the supreme grace of god. i love working from home in my office, i love being able to change my schedule around, i love being able to walk to the gym, i love working with the husband. it should be said, however, that work love is not all that dissimilar from relationship love, in that it comes with all the signature issues: i don’t FEEL happy/joyful/amazing towards/about my job every minute of the day. the job makes me doubt, wonder, fret about my ability to do my job well. it’s challenging on a consistent basis. i often feel as though i don’t know what i’m doing or if the job will stop. (now, tell me this doesn’t look exactly like a typical love-relationship?) good and bad, it’s what i’m doing now and i’m quite contented with it.
and if you need a writer/editor and/or a graphic designer, or just someone to help you transfer your music files from your hard drive to your computer (hi meg!) — you know who to call.
4. football camp. i work out twice a day, 5-6 days a week, and have been since the 4th of july. it’s going well, in the sense that i’ve learned to take the middle path (what some might call balance and not beating yourself up terribly because you had two cupcakes at the baby shower you went to because they went well with the cookies you had on your plate). it also means recognizing those actions as exceptions, and not rules. explaining, not excusing. being merciful to yourself. and much healthier. and i have a very cute running buddy, so that helps.
note: the running buddy is my husband, otherwise things just got weird for you again.
in order to not get bored, my workouts consist of the following: walking, jogging (increasing my endurance as my ankle is STILL recovering from the puffyfoot ankle incident in april), spinning (or bicycling-nowhere as my friend calls it), weights, elliptical machines, zumba, kickboxing, yoga, and annoying workout videos from people on television.
eating-wise, since that is such an interest of everyone (including me, i suppose), it’s probably about 85% paleo, and 15% let me have a freaking tortilla, kashi and a bit of raw-milk cheese for the love.
and, the occasional cupcake and frozen yogurt.
5. whatever marketing-trend-force that made frozen yogurt come back into vogue, prompting about 6 frozen yogurt places in town to open up: THANK YOU. i will totally give you my first born child.
6. i’m not pregnant. don’t even ask.
7. the current book i’m reading for my virtual book club is this one.
8. we just threw a baby shower for my friend Sarah who is having identical twin boys in another few months, and it was so much fun. i left all the details/planning/food organization to my friend Ashlee of Smash Events, and got to do what I love best: design & decor. and lots of cleaning of the house to host 16 people. more on that when i get pictures from ash, because of course i didn’t take any. what gives?
9. we aren’t really buying anything we don’t need right now in an effort to pay some things off, so i refuse to buy clothes until they are in a smaller size right now and can be justified as a need. it should be noted that shoes, accessories and jewelry DO NOT fit in this category, because i am the queen of loopholes.
10. i feel very adult because we actually have and are in the process of sorting things out like our IRA, savings, emergency fund, paying off debt, selling the jeep, looking into health insurance. these things feel very satisfying to do, but also make me uneasy. i’m still figuring out why the uneasiness…any thoughts?
11. we borrowed a monstrous fan from my parents to blow the a/c air from my office into the giant living room to cool it off and it worked AMAZINGLY. why didn’t we do this before? downside: it sounds like my office is a runway for jet airplanes.
12. speaking of adult things, we actually got excited when we came upon a new furniture layout for our living room which we will implement in winter when we don’t store our bikes by the front door. seriously, that’s the lamest sentence i think i’ve ever written.
13. the boy hates costco, but can be begrudginly convinced to come with me only on sample weekends when he can eat his way through the store. this is good for him (and me), because it lets him gain back 1/2 pound from the ridiculous amounts he seems to be losing by participating in 1/2 of my football camp regimen. i’d hate him for that, but he’s so cute and tall and gets excited about new furniture layouts.
14. my cousin lauren just moved to town and she’s opening up a lululemon athletica showroom downtown. you should have her explain what it is, because it’s all sorts of awesome. if you are into nice people, changing the average into extraordinary, yoga, being healthy, other healthy activities, awesome athletic wear…you will love it. and my cousin is just the nicest person you’ll ever meet, too.
15. i have been really enjoying spending time with my family, and i miss my sister who has moved even further away than my parents are (although still in the same town).
happy monday, all. tell me something nice.
