Pocketbook romance

We've been having an email argument (centered around finances, as usual) all day. I've come out of it with a bad feeling in my belly and the worst temptation to just stay in Vancouver after our reception.

This temptation, by the way, is currently being fanned by the sister, who insists upon sending me job ads. Not entirely selfless, this girl, though I puzzle over what place I would have in her life now that she's got herself a steady boyfriend. I digress.

I've spent the better part of the day on the verge of sobbing my eyes out. Nothing like going for a mani/pedi/brow wax and having to choke back the bawl as the esthetician rubs your cuticles away.* The architect is burned out and unable to bring in more money. I am still sans green card and pretty much in the same boat. What to do? My only money option seems to be to stay behind in Vancouver and get a job. Hopefully the parents can put up with me for six months or so and I can put some cash aside. The thought of this, though, leaves me completely in the weeds. I don't have anything anymore - no car, no room of my own, my friends have moved on with their lives. I share the architect's space surrounded by furniture he's paid for. I can lay claim to a few kitchen items and the quilt on my bed - other than that, I have nothing. Nothing.

They say that you are not defined by your material possessions, but you are surely defined by your lack of them, and I have nothing of my own, anymore.





* I have a barter deal going with my manicurist - I poke around at her website and she gives me monthly mani-pedis. No money transferred hands. God I sure did need that pedicure, though.

Fly me to the moon

So I'm heading up to Vancity on Thursday for the second of a billion wedding celebrations. I mean, shit - if you have a good time doing something once, why not keep doing it? Seriously.

Anyhoo, I'm downloading some books to put on my iPhone for the flight. Dude wtf didn't I think of this before? I can listen and only have to carry the phone. Oh fuck let's not kid - I will have to take a couple-twelve books with me anyway, but I mean this idea is the shit.

OMG I just realized it's free burrito day at chipotle.... God I'm going to be a frickin whale.

Into the Infinite

RIP David Foster Wallace, dead from an apparent suicide at his home this past Friday. He was, arguably, the premier essayist of the postmodern era - surpassing (in my opinion) even David Sedaris and Hunter Thompson. His distinctive style - rambling prose, lush facts, and deliciously tangential footnotes - made him both a pleasure and a challenge to read.

I would like to say that I practice the sincerest form of flattery when I make my meagre attempts to construct creative non fiction, and that I model my work after his, but I have neither the talent nor the innate intelligence to do so. The man was a walking encyclopedia of fact and somehow managed to be the Cliff Claven of our generation without being annoying or pedantic. Moreover, what he didn't know, he researched - exhaustively. For example, a footnote to this article on the Maine Lobster Festival includes an apology to the readers of Gourmet Magazine (the article's first publication point) for missing the opportunity to interview the sole member of PETA present at the fest, for the purposes of adding an alternative viewpoint to the narrative.

I respect that.

I respect and relate to the urge to learn *everything* about a topic; the urge to immerse yourself completely in the archane minutiae of a subject matter and burst forth from the other side perhaps not smarter, but infinitely richer than you were a short while previous.

I know nothing about DFW's personal life. I don't know if he suffered from depression, addiction, or societal malaise. I know only that I hope he's now sitting with Damiel and Cassiel, listening in on the words and thoughts and dreams of the world for, if ever there was a sentiment that personified DFW's work, it is "I want to know everything".

It's true

I am sitting on a step waiting for the library to open. Yes I am that cool.

You spin me

So last night I hosted my quasi-monthly geek group gathering. What's a geek group, you ask? Well it's a few people who get together approximately monthly to discuss a peer reviewed article selected by another member of the group*, do some eating, and have some drinks.**

Well, I guess I drank WAY more than I thought I had, because after everyone had left (around 9.30 I suppose), I was all of a sudden LOADED. Like I got the spins and went to the bathroom to force myself to yak. SO GROSS - red wine is kind of like acid coming back up. I'm sure you want to hear that. My point is, that when I came back to bed I still had the spins - I was doing the whole one foot on the ground thing and nothing was helping. Dude how did this happen? I was sure that I'd only had a couple of glasses of wine, though upon closer inspection I guess I did drink about 3/4 of a bottle. But that's not that strange for me. The drunky spinny thing? Not normal. Not approved, to say the least.

In any case, I quite expected to feel like ass this morning, but it's not too bad. I'm STARVING though, and craving pizza, which isn't the best thing for my ever expanding waistline. I may have to buck up and go get some in any case because the rumbling coming from my belly region just startled the cat. Heh.







* Last night our selection was "The Pub and the Irish Nation" by Bradley Kadel. It was pretty good, but was an excerpt from his dissertation so it wasn't completely well flushed out - there was some basic information missing that would have made it much better as a stand-alone article.
** I made Dublin Coddle and soda bread. There was a lot of Guinness and Smithwicks consumed, though clearly not by me.

Ug

OK so there was a House marathon on yesterday afternoon / evening. I started watching somewhere around 4pm and finally tore my eyes away at around midnight when an episode I'd already seen slipped into rotation. Not an episode I'd seen anytime before, mind you, one I'd already seen THAT DAY. I've never really watched the show before, and yet all of a sudden I was fascinated and in deep lust with Hugh Laurie. Rawr. I also drank a bottle and a half of wine as I watched, so I'm not sure how much the one had to do with the other.

At any rate, rawr. I do feel mildly hungover, though - nothing too crazy, just that irritating ick feeling in my left temporal lobe (that's the technical term. Learned it on House yesterday) (Heh).

So I'm going back up to Vancity in a week or two for our wedding reception. We've been half-assed planning it for months and now here it is three weeks away and I'm starting to panic about the money and whether or not we can pull it off. I think it should be ok, but at the same time I dunno how we are going to make it happen, you know? I'm probably just getting nervous, but when I think about the whole thing I start to get a little sicky in my belly. Le sigh.

awesome

I'm sure that everyone has seen this by now, but in case you haven't - here's a fabulous report from the LA Times music blog featuring an A Capella performance by RATM steps away from the RNC.

my cat

Yeah so I was reading on Sabrina, See yesterday how one of her friends threatened to dismember her or anally penetrate her with a hot curling iron or something if her blog degenerated into love and cooking and puppies and crap. Since I'm fairly sure I've already jumped that shark here, I'm going to continue along my merry way.

My cat has pretty much decided in his mind he's a pinup girl or a porn star all of a sudden. I swear you can't turn a corner without being confronted by the no-nutted wonder, spread eagled and airing out his junk. I mean, I can't say for sure that's what he's thinking, but the photographic evidence as illustrated above would certainly go towards supporting that thesis, no?

They've been ripping up the street out front for approximately a billion years and right now it sounds like they are using a dental drill on chalkboard teeth. If I'm not here tomorrow it'll be because I took a kitchen knife outside and murdered the entire work crew. Wish me luck.

I got something to say

So I've been participating in this online talkboard social networking site thingy since we moved down here. I mean, it's pretty fun and it's how we've met pretty much everyone we know in SD, so that's cool, but it also serves to remind me how stupid people can be when you allow them the thin veil of anonymity that the innerweb provides.

For example - in one of the threads the other day, one (married) member of the group was indulging in a bit of online flirting. Someone took it upon themselves to send his wife (another member of the group) a message ratting him out. Now this couple has been together a LONG time. They clearly have boundaries within the relationship for harmless flirting and whatnot, and who knows whether he crossed that line with what he said. However, once a third party becomes involved (i.e. the rat) the wife is almost honour-bound to take action, don't you think? If she lets it slide, she kind of looks like a cuckold, a chump, or something along those lines.

I mean, why do people regress to junior high school the minute they get behind the keyboard? It's like getting to school on Monday and having that girl who pretends to be your friend (even though deep down inside you kinda know she's spreading rumours about you all over the school) come up to you and say she saw your boyfriend kissing someone else. Even if it's not true you a) feel like an asshole and b) kinda have to take action. Gawd I've never been very good at that game.

Dude I'm a flirt - always have been, always will be. It's harmless, though, and the architect knows it. I encourage it in him, he is amused by it in me. However, if someone came up to him at a party and made comments, of course he'd feel like he had to say something to me about it - even if he knows I'm loyal, faithful, and would never betray him. All of a sudden we are in conflict for something that has been, to this point, not a problem. Ridiculous. People should mind their own business.

By the way

Maktaaq has written a fabulous post about the point of blogging. Check it out.

Scrabbling

While some folks (i.e. the sister) have adopted the new EA facebook scrabble as their own, I'm still holding out. The jingly jangly animations etc are too distracting for me. I mean, I'll play it b/c I don't seem to have another option with her, but I'd rather stick to emailing the old school scrabulous back and forth.

I've been reading like a madwoman, lately, and, to my credit, I've been mixing up my brainless mysteries and/or fantasy novels with a nice smattering of non fiction and biographies. I just received my first $5 Borders Bucks coupon (for every $100 spent) and promptly spent it. Also, I've been walking down to the library at least once a week, and perusing our two local used bookstores easily that often. AND the architect's aunt is clearing out her library and is letting me go through them before she donates. Yay!!!

In other boring housewifely type news, I baked bread for the first time in forever yesterday. The brother gave me an artisan bread cookbook for my bday last month and so I gave it a shot (as pictured). I think it's too salty, but the architect says it's still tasty. I'm going to buy more flour and yeast, though, and play around with it. Mmmmmdeliciouscarbsmmmmmmmmmmm