taking it personally – Page 7

January 24, 2009

zzzzz

Since intersession ended on January 5th, I have not had a single full school-night’s sleep. Catching up on the weekends is useful but still not healthy.

Thursday was one mad dash after another at work right up until about 6:30pm, and culminated in drinking wine at a reception in our library, chatting with coworkers, then cleaning up and getting a ride home, arriving around 7:45. And immediately turning around to drive the car I time-share to its home, take the bus back, and collapse.

Friday was one mad dash af… well, you know. Ran around almost non-stop 8-6 with a two-hour break for a dental appointment (three cheers for my dentist, again), came home and had a fantastic dinner with this gorgeous babe who is funny and fascinating and has good taste in movies. I showed her An Ordinary Miracle.

Now it’s almost 2am. Not setting an alarm. Still, I’d like to figure out how to live life as fully as I want, and still get anything approximating enough sleep most nights. I feel my immune system wearing down.

January 22, 2009

hello, the world!

My phone is back. I’ve lost some IMs, some budget updates and… that’s it. Tonight, I back up my computer.

January 20, 2009

my gods.

I am so, so glad that I live in an age when I can watch my soon-to-be president’s face as he walks through hallways of walls and people on his way to assume office.

I’ll be telling my children about this day. My goodness, the smiles on people’s faces.

I don’t care if he doesn’t live up to the hype. There’s no way for him to. He’s a person, a politician, a president I want to follow. It’s breathtaking.

January 19, 2009

psa: no phone for a few days

I lost my phone on the highway. Don’t ask.

I’m getting a new phone shipped to me; given that it’s a refurb I couldn’t just walk in and get one in a store. It’ll take a few days.

No phone until further notice! Email, comment, etc. I love you all. In fact, I love you so much that I’ll write down all the information you need to get a replacement refurbished iPhone for $200 (8GB) without having to pay for a whole new phone line, even though the customer service reps say you can’t. (!!) I will write it after I eat breakfast, at 1pm this glorious Martin Luther King, Jr. Day morning.

January 14, 2009

Habitat-like, but not?

So, to go build stuff abroad through Habitat for Humanity costs a lot. Like, a couple thousand dollars, which may or may not include airfare, and… well, aside from the fact that I don’t have that kind of money, if I did (through fundraising or whatnot), there would probably be wiser ways to spend it on others.

Is there an organization that’ll take me abroad to… do whatever, really, as long as they pay for most or all of it? And here’s the catch: it needs to be non-religious. Like, if a church organizes it, fine, good deeds and all. But if they so much as peep to the natives about Jesus (or whatever), or even hold prayer meetings with the already-converted, I don’t want any part of it.

I know there’s a lot to do locally. Right now I’m exploring international options. I’m particularly interested in Latin America, but would consider other places.

January 13, 2009

add, subtract

+ audible.com

– this fucking economy, which makes me fear losing my job

+ Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, which taught me history and made my heart skip many beats

– the Rhode Island bureaucracy, which could’ve saved me weeks of waiting by putting a single piece of information on their website, but didn’t, and the person I talked to on the phone was totally unapologetic about it even while telling me how to save weeks of waiting

+ Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, which I only just started listening to (see Audible, above) and which is pretty fantastic

– people I’m close to are unhappy, and this makes me sad

+ I got to play dairy fairy today

+ Having finally received a memory order long time in coming, I’ve made several people’s computers go faster at work, and they’re, all, yippee! And I’m happy.

– I need to pour candles, and have everything necessary to do that, but haven’t done it yet, and have no excuse

+ finally settling down at work and getting some of the backlog done. Though, see fear above.

+ only a week ’til inauguration!!! (Not going, but I sure wish I were. As it stands, I’ll be glued to the internet feeds.)

+ the winter is receding.

+ check out this fantastic lamp Vanessa made for me! Holy cats!

+ the new dean of our school, whom I met for the first time today, is great

– life doesn’t have enough hours in it, and/or I need too much sleep. Can haz functional brain on, say, five hours of sleep a night? No? Well, it was worth a try.

– occasionally anxious about the future, and future planning

+ have tools to deal with that

+ live in a house full of great people, both resident and transient

+ my relatively-new primary care doctor leaves nothing to be desired

– my recent past is sad, and won’t stop being sad at least for a very long time

+ cats and small girls and time to myself and sleep are all balm for the soul

In conclusion, there is no conclusion. There is only now.

January 8, 2009

ocean! where?

Locals and Boston-area lovers,

This Saturday evening is the Wolf Moon – February’s full moon. No better time to go visit the ocean, I say.

If you were going to the ocean somewhere in the vicinity of Boston, somewhere wildish, where you can stand on a beach and not have a road twenty feet behind you, where would you go? I’ll be car-enabled.

(LJ readers, please to respond directly on Words’ End. Thank you!)

January 2, 2009

eight years ago today

Eight years ago today, my dad died.

I have nothing more to say about that, but it’s worth writing down.

January 1, 2009

welcome, 2009.

Earlier today (yesterday) I wondered why it felt so odd to feel kinship and rightness in both Solstice and New Year’s Eve-into-Day. I grew up with New Year’s like some of my friends grew up with Christmas. That’s when you had the tree (Yule tree, though I didn’t know Yule then), had the gifts, had the big party or went to one. We had no Christmas, nor Hannukah. Both of these have always been a bit alien to me, because I didn’t get exposed to either until I was almost 14. Then, six or seven years ago, I simultaneously tuned out of Christmas, repelled by all the consumerism and the omnipresent tchotchkes everywhere, and got into marking time by actual seasons – celebrating the solstices and the equinoxes.

Somehow, New Year’s didn’t get touched by this. It makes sense emotionally, but not logically – how is it that I deeply, viscerally relate to both? And I decided that they’re different markers. The Solstice is, for me, a turning point in the natural cycle. I move within it, and with it, and am happier following a moon calendar that changes ever so slightly to keep in tune with the planets and star and galaxy around us. Solstice/Yule is a social thing only because I happen to be surrounded by people who keep time by it, too, and for some of whom it is – as it is for me – a holy day. Not all of us have that privilege, and I’m thankful to live where I live.

New Year’s is a social thing in a larger sense. I’m part of a larger human community that keeps a 365ish-day calendar, and that by and large marks the midnight of December 31st into January 1st. I’ve taken part in that since I was little, staying up past midnight for the first time when I was six or so. (And stayed up until 6am! I should ask my mom exactly how insufferable I was the next day. If she doesn’t remember, that’s probably a good sign.)

Tonight I was with acquaintances and beloveds, eating good food and drinking goofy-making drinks and enjoying my brand-blue hair and petting the love cat, talking, listening, taking it all in. At midnight I was napping in a warm happy bed upstairs from the party. The new year is here, and it is welcome. My personal newest chapter began over a week ago; but the passing of 2008 actually closed the previous one. Couldn’t have happened soon enough.

Good night, fellow humans. Happy new year.

December 22, 2008

i have discovered the secret…

…to learning what to do with miso paste, when you just bought it for a single recipe that calls for a few tablespoons, and have no idea what to do with the rest of the inevitable big tub:

You put it in everything, if it even remotely seems like it’ll go. Chances are, miso paste will make whatever you’re cooking awesomely outrageous.

Today I had a small breakfast, no lunch, and a two-hour commute for dinner. (Disabled train, they said, but then why all the ambulances? That’s a rhetorical question.) So I came home, opened a bottle of a 2006 late harvest wine from Trader Joe’s (delicious), threw a whole mess of vegetables in a pan with miso paste, a little butter and fresh (!) herbs, and am eating the whole thing.

Next, I will conquer the world. That’s how I feel right now, anyway.