Wake-ing up

You said, "Wouldn't it be a shame if I knew how great I was five minutes before I died. I'd be filled with such regret before I took my last breath."

And I said, "You're willing to tell me this now and you're not going to die any time soon."
-- Alanis Morissette

Woke up really suddenly this morning from a dream in which I was invisible and sitting among my friends at my own wake (thus the art from The Wake).

Everyone was sharing what they thought of me.

"She was a good listener," one friend said.

"She was such a hardass editor," said a woman I didn't even know, pulling out a piece of paper covered in red. I tried really hard not to laugh; nobody could see me, and I was pretty sure they'd freak out if they heard me laughing.

"And she always had such a clean car," piped up one of my coworkers. My boss was crying.

I guess a dream like that is meant to remind me of the way I want people to remember me -- the legacy I want to leave behind. And I am a really good listener and a thorough editor. But I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, have a clean car -- inside or out. Nor would I really care if someone brought that up at my wake. ^_^

For a very brief moment this morning, I was all freaked out. As I recall, Abraham Lincoln foresaw his own death, right? But after I started thinking about it, that car comment is so random and, well, untrue that the dream is in no way foreboding.

... But don't expect me to be washing off that dirt any time soon.

'One, two, three, four monsters walking 'cross the floor'

Lance, the guy I share an office with, was playing this the other day. Perhaps the only song that's catchier than Feist's original.

Oh oh oh oh, stayin' alive

Just wanted to direct your attention to WomensSelfDefense.Info, a growing, Wiki-style site started by a friend of mine and dedicated to, well, women's self defense. ::grins::

Browse through the tips and maneuvers ... and, should the muse move you, post your own.

Eh, I've made light of it in the past and haven't even told my friend who runs WSD, but there have been a lot of situations when I've come out of my office into the alley at night and (surprise!) there's a drugged-out guy wandering by. Once, there was one propped against the door and I was stuck in the building for a while. Pretty creepy. Had my flight-or-fight been attuned a little more to "fight," I probably wouldn't have been so frightened.

With less than a week to go at work, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be locking up the office and facing the alley alone anymore. But it's still nice to keep in mind a move or two just in case.

Counter changes (and a note to E)

As you can see, the counter is now at (about) eight days instead of (about) 11 days. We're leaving (about) three days earlier than I expected.

E: Thnks fr th mmrs. Is it over?

'Strange feeling'

I cleaned out my office today. With only a week to go, I felt it high time to get rid of some of the clutter and depersonalize it a little bit (take down my diploma, pack away my pictures). While packing, I came across this quote scribbled on a Post-It note. I know I posted it a long time ago, but it's especially poignant now.

"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, like you'll not only miss the people you love, but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way again." -- Azir Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

About 10 days to go and I'm crushed. But when you hit the bottom of the roller coaster, the only place you can go is up, right?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

I've loved energy drinks since college, but my body can't handle the megadose of sugar and caffeine the way it could when I wasn't taking a few medications and had slightly better blood pressure. But I can't give up the pretty, shiny cans altogether, so I tend to limit my consumption to every once in a while.

I split my allegiance between drinking a couple of tried-and-true favorites -- Crunk and NOS come to mind -- and occasionally trying new things, such as the Steven Seagal drink I blogged about a few months ago. (Incidentally, I didn’t drink that. It looked too gross to even bother.)

I've also really been into pink lately, which is a little disturbing because I don't consider myself a "girly girl" (says the woman in her pink PJs lounging next to her cell phone in its pink case with pink Bluetooth headset). Not that girly girls are the only people who wear pink, but it hasn't been part of my wardrobe until recently.

So in my latest pursuit (low-cal or low-carb energy drinks that actually taste decent), I came across a bright pink package, judged the book by its cover, and bought a $2 can of Bad Girl Power Drink by the Bad Boy folks.

Verdict: Yummy! Twenty calories a can, and a little more than the caffeine content in two cans of Vault Zero. Both the can and the drink are bright pink, so No Boys Allowed ... except for really metro boys who are secure enough in their masculinity that they dig pink.

I also bought a can of the much more masculine Sugar Free Crunk. Haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I love regular Crunk, so I’m hoping the sugar-free version stacks up.

So energy drinks -- love them? Hate them? Know a good one I should try? Wouldn't touch one with a 10-foot pole? Let me know.

The nearly gone going-away party

With just more than a week until my last day at work, the office threw me a little going-away bash. Okay, a big going-away bash.

The spread included Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken, potato salad, baked beans, cheese/salami/olive platters, fruit, a shrimp platter, and the ginormous cake to your left. (It’s half chocolate, half vanilla). My only regret: Everyone ate the chicken before I could snag a piece for Paul. That’s OK; I’ll take him there for dinner before we go.

My former boss – wife of the guy I share an office with – came to the party even though she’s an interior designer now. Sweet move on her part.

I try not to blog about the office too much, but I might as well say it now: I’ve had the most amazing, fun, energizing experience working where I do. The projects I’ve worked on and the people I’ve worked with have taught me a lot. It’s going to be very hard to leave, and not just because they threw me a party.

I wish everyone had the same opportunity and environment I’ve had. ::love::

On rehabilitation(?)

Story promo I just heard on a local TV station:

"You didn't plead guilty to unlawful possession of a weapon?"
A News Channel 3 investigation into the lifeguards that are supposed to keep kids safe.
"I'm not sure they should be around children."
Lifeguards hired by the city.
"Reckless endangerment involving a deadly weapon ... found guilty driving under the influence of drugs ... theft. You've got two felony convictions and you're a lifeguard here?"
And it's not because there weren't background checks. The city knew.

Sounds like a witch hunt to me. I understand the whole "Do the crime, do the time" principle, but what about rehabilitation? Getting another chance? Working a summer job as a city lifeguard can't pay that well, but I assume it's better than flipping burgers. Perhaps they're trying to start over, get a legitimate job and make better lives for themselves. Does it do any good to call them out? And it looks like they approached at least one of them on the job. How is that fair?

I'm sure my outlook will change if I become a parent.

Adornment, ahoy (the jewelry update)

I added six new pieces to the Almost/Nearly etsy shop today. I love a hobby that takes my mind off packing, but I am Really Bored with cropping photos. ::grins::

When I sent the second batch of wrapped lampworked marbles back to Mattie a couple of weeks ago, I kept one here because I was having some sort of wrapper's block as to what would best "fit" it. I tried a couple of things and didn't like the way they looked, so I sent a note back with the other 17 pieces that let him know I was very sorry but that one was just going to have to wait.

Something struck my fancy a week or so later, so I wrapped the marble and loaded it on etsy with a bunch of other stuff. Surprise, surprise: It's attracted the most attention. That boy really knows what he's doing. I guess I should've listed all of the marbles on etsy to see what would happen. Sigh. Maybe he'll bring them to Charleston and we can work on photographing and posting them.

The best investment I've made so far has been to buy sterling in bulk for these projects. It's about half the cost of what I was paying retail. I'd buy my stones in bulk too, but there's a local retail store I love and want to continue to support. I'm going in tomorrow to price some things for a special order. (Here's hoping they don't mark it up too much.) After I move, the owner has said it shouldn't be a problem to drop-ship orders.

By the way, the stone in the picture is a mahogany obsidian I wrapped before work Thursday morning in the time I should've been catching up on the news.

So that's that. I made my first etsy sale last week and was absolutely ecstatic. I'm trying to be patient -- I mean, things on there don't sell super-fast (I've checked out a LOT of other sellers), so I felt pretty confident selling one within less than two weeks after posting my first six or so. As long as I can sell a few here and there, I'll feel justified to keep it going. I really have Mattie to thank for all this. If I hadn't broken his necklace two years ago, fixed it, then shown him when he was in town, we wouldn't have come to the agreement to wrap marbles. And I wouldn't be spending a couple hours on the weekends ... cropping photos. (So it comes full circle.)

Besides all that, I did some packing this weekend and went to the arcade on my anniversary. <3 Cool, huh?

Free onions!

I know most people aren’t – and don’t care to be – statisticians. Statisticians spend a lot of time trying to convey the importance of ... well, why they're statisticians.

Journalists are similarly miserable, with journalism ranking among the top jobs in the U.S. for rate of alcoholism. Bourbon with your B-roll?

All that said, you'd think journalists and statisticians, finding themselves rowing down Unhappy River in the same lonely boat, would find some common ground. But, alas, it isn't so. Most statisticians think just about anyone could read words off a teleprompter at 6 and 11 (save for the inch-thick makeup and perfectly coiffed hair). And most journalists, frankly, don't give a rat's big toe about statistics (save for the bite-size pieces that fit on a teleprompter or in a couple of paragraphs).

This, of course, is vastly simplified and is based on absolutely no hard evidence other than the time I've spent number-crunching for a newsroom.

I flipped on XM yesterday in the middle of a CNN Headline News story about rising food prices. Now, I did come in during the middle of the story, so I’m willing to give Mr. Talking Head the benefit of the doubt. But his quote (paraphrased):

The cost of onions rose 400 percent in the last couple of years, then dropped 100 percent.

Again, benefit of the doubt: I’m sure he was trying to say onions are now only 300 percent higher than they were originally. But if they are, indeed, 100 percent cheaper these days, I’d like to claim my free onions.

But why onions? Why can’t the price of, say, iPods or new cars – or even pineapples (!!!) – drop 100 percent?

An update on E (and a short note to him)

In case you haven't read the latest from E:

E here
sorry for the delay
i was viting relatives
on the other side of the state

you know me through people
a strange combination indeed
from your grandparents,
a girlfriend, and a newspaper see

i know that's confusing
but i cant just tell you straight
for then the game would be over
before my projected date

i would email you
on the account you gave to me
but i'm scared you have a tracker
i know a computer geek or 3

so we'll continue to conduct
our business on your site
but we need to end this thing
so I can say goodbye, right?

Three weeks. Just three weeks to go.

I momentarily had a harebrained idea -- thus the "get in touch with me" note -- that I'd have a cookout Downtown and all the invitations would be scavenger photo hunts. It's an idea, however, that I couldn't have pulled off alone. So I just nixed the plan. It also seemed kind of sad to be throwing my own going-away party, anyway.

Man, I am so sleepy I could fall over right on the keyboard. What happens now??
ks

In lieu of a post

I'm going to get this frickin' frackin' Etsy Mini button posted on the side of the blog so you can see all my pretty stuff.

P.S. The garage sale went well. Sold two TVs (including one I hadn't planned to sell, but oh well), along will all the furniture except a bookshelf. Also sold a ton of books and random things I assumed would end up at Goodwill. Money-wise, Paul and I came out slightly ahead of Mike, but not by much. And that boy is so sweet -- gave me a mint copy of The Dark Knight Returns for letting him use our garage.

So far ...

... we've sold one ginormous vase and a bunch of random stuff. Mike's sold way more, including his PS2 (which we did not buy) and Tekken 4 and Virtua Fighter (which we did buy). I'm holding out hope we'll sell more so we can buy more of Mike's things.

I'm kidding.

Kinda.

Buying in

My first mistake was postponing the yard sale by a week. I mean, the rationale for having a July 4th and 5th sale was sound: I was off work, surely other people were off work, and there was absolutely no reason why people shouldn’t show up in my driveway at 6 a.m. on a holiday.

The rationale for putting it off a week was just as sound: I wasn’t ready.

But all was justified the day Paul defended his dissertation. I was at a celebratory lunch with five people much smarter than myself, and I was eating a barbecue bologna sandwich. On my side of the table were Paul and Mike, who’s graduating at the same time as Paul and is piggybacking on our garage sale. The three of us explained we were postponing the sale, and the other side of the table – which, incidentally, must be much smarter – told us that made perfect sense. The locals aren’t out shopping; the out-of-towners don’t want to cart stuff home with them.

Thank goodness I procrastinated!

But after the 4th passed, I had no good reason not to get ready for a sale. So Paul and I have spent the last few days boxing up crap and carrying it to the garage. I cleaned a bookshelf at 6 a.m. yesterday and spent the rest of the day patting myself on the back.

Smacky, bless his soul, mentioned we probably had cool stuff for sale. We don’t. We’re keeping all the cool stuff for ourselves. What would I read if I got rid of my Sandman and Fruits Basket miscellany? What would I watch if I sold my DVDs of The Office? The packrat’s problem is knowing that everything has a use – even if that use doesn’t immediately spring to mind.

We’re selling un-fun things like desks (3), chairs (2), ginormous vases (2), a Gamecube, half my handbag collection, random furniture, and about a billion books. There's more, but that's what pops to mind.

I e-mailed Mike to ask what he’s selling, and he wrote back:

Mike’s Stuff

1) Playstation 2 bundle- PS2 console, extra controller, DVD remote, component cable, w/ four games
2) Dreamcast bundle- Dreamcast console, two VMU (memory units), w/ six games
3) 32-inch JVC TV (flat-direct view CRT television) w/ remote and manual
4) 27-inch Zenith TV w/ remote
5) RCA 8-inch powered subwoofer (home theater)
6) Aiwa bookshelf system (3-CD)
7) Comic Collection (choose from 250+)
8) Basketball ball card collection (choose from 500+)

So while I try to peddle a good portion of my worldly possessions, I must resist the urge to buy his stuff.

... His cool stuff.

Stuff that really would fit nicely in our new apartment. Stuff that wouldn’t take up much room in the moving van. Really.

Who am I kidding? I call dibs.

MARKETING FAIL

Quote of the day, courtesy of Tennessee Williams

About 10 years ago, I fell in love with a quote from Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie. I hadn't thought about it in years until I was cleaning out my garage yesterday. (The garage sale was moved to next weekend, FYI.) The passage was scrawled into a notebook. The whole thing looked rather tattered and forlorn.

The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would've stopped, but I was pursued by something.

It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow.

... I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger, anything that can blow your candles out. For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles ... and so good-bye.

Seems an apropos thing to run my fingers across a month before I move. Why go to the moon when you can go much farther? Sigh.

Dried ice cream, ahoy!

1998: Paul is very serious about dried astronaut food.

In this photo, he admires the booty gleaned from plunderin' the International Space Station. (If only he'd fixed their half-functional toilet, the astronauts probably would've showered him with all the dried beef jerky and Tang he could handle!)

Yarr!

(Sorry for all the photos recently, folks. One finds lots of funny stuff when packing.)

Almost/Nearly

I am taking a huge leap of faith -- a huge leap of faith -- and putting some of my jewelry for sale on Etsy. This is a big, big deal for me, so here's hoping other people like my stuff as much as I do -- enough to drop a few dollars on it.

I've been frantically (OK, not really, but kind of) buying stones that strike my fancy. I've stocked up on 22- and 26-gauge wire. I have AA batteries for the camera. As an aside, I thought the hard part of this would be making the jewelry, but I'm finding it just as hard to take photos, post the listings and choose fair prices.

If I sell even a few pieces, it'll delay when I have to find an editing gig in a rather tight market.

The important thing, though, is that I'm doing something I love. Selling my work is secondary to that, for sure. So I guess the Etsy box will go back on the side of the blog now that I can list some of my own work.

The address of my shop is almostnearly.etsy.com, but you can get there also by going to www.almostnearly.com.

By the way, the store's name is taken from a grammar debate with a coworker over -- what else? -- usage of almost versus nearly.

I've come to realize (i.e., random meme time)

1. I've come to realize that my hair...
Will never be curly or red or full of volume.

2. I've come to realize that this weekend...
I'll play Rock Band and CoH, shoot fireworks and hang out with friends.

3. I've come to realize that when I'm driving...
I shouldn't listen to Michael Savage, Ben Ferguson or any of the CNN talking heads (Nancy Grace, Glenn Beck).

4. I've come to realize that i need...
To spend more time showing people I love them.

5. I've come to realize that I have lost...
Whole chunks of my long-term memory. (Good thing Johanna's there to remind me of college.)

6. I've come to realize that I hate it when...
I don't live up to my own expectations.

7. I've come to realize that money...
Pays for gas, which pays for road trips! (End goal!)

8. I've come to realize that certain people...
Will never like me for me, so I should just lay my cards on the table before I get emotionally attached.

9. I've come to realize that I'll always be...
A perfectionist who's never happy with myself (though I'm getting better!)

10. I've come to realize that my mom...
Spoils the cats (and loves me unconditionally)

11. I've come to realize that my dad...
Spoils the dog (and loves me unconditionally)

12. I've come to realize that my cell phone is...
My lifeline, especially to my far-away friends

13. I've come to realize that when I woke up this morning...
It was 5:45 and I was smiling.

14. I've come to realize that when i go to sleep...
I'm usually hopped up on Ambien and barely staying away to play my DS.

15. I've come to realize that right now I am thinking about...
Whether I want to find a job in Charleston, go back to school, or both.

16. I've come to realize that today...
Is the only today I've got.

17. I've come to realize that tonight...
Is the only tonight I've got. (Also: that my brother-in-law has announced he's on his way over.)

18. I've come to realize that tomorrow I will...
Wake up and do this thing all over again.

19. I've come to realize that I really want to...
Become Fairly Incrediblewoman. No higher goal exists. :D

Your turn. If you don't want to fill out the whole thing (understandable), at least answer a couple of them in the comments. ^_^

Doctor has such a nice ring to it

I'm not sure if he's Doctor Captain Paul or Captain Doctor Paul. Either way, he passed his defense today and the Ph.D. is official. :)

Here's Paul with the goofball shirt I had made, doing the Vanna White pose with the book that served as the basis for his dissertation. The book, Methods for Real-Time Measurement of THMs and HAAs in Distribution Systems, Part 2 (yes, it's a sequel), is available on Amazon. At a mere $300, its Amazon.com sales rank is #2,006,143.



Gosh, five years for three little letters after his name. I don't think I would've made it without his reassurance that today would be here soon enough. He has a whole list of official acknowledgments of people that helped him get to this point. But some other acknowledgments need to be made, ones that won't make it into any books.

Among them: Vault Zero, for getting us up early and keeping us up late; Amtrak, for carting him to important conferences in Nola and Chicago; Excedrin Migraine, for fighting off the "What the heck am I doing here?" moments; the chocolate chip cookie recipe I got as a wedding gift, for helping keep a whole group of grad students happy; the bookbags that valiantly gave their short, nylon-stitched lives to carrying books and papers; and our unlimited T-Mobile plan, for Paul's long chats with me and much longer chats with his research advisor.

Congrats again, babe. You did it!