Pardon Me, Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?

I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes
-And-
I certainly haven't been spreading myself around.
I still only travel by foot and by foot it's a slow climb,
But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so I can't stop changing all the time.
-F. Apple
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Oh, first summer away from Colorado, how weird thou art. I've been discovering all sorts of things about the nature of my own character since school let out and the summer of a million jobs commenced. Even Dr. Kim said to me today, "Speaking of Advisor stuff–I think you're working to much this summer." And it's true. After four years off the parental payroll, I've learned the one thing that I'm patently obsessed with, and distracted by, is getting paid. It's not that I'm addicted to gambling or robbing old ladies, it's just that I'm terrified of poverty and all of its traits.

Living without heat in the house sucked. Eating ramen everyday sucks. Not being able to spring for a movie ticket sucks. Not being able to afford a plane ticket home, that sucks more than anything. And I have no desire to ever live that way again (let alone now). Meanwhile I'm working myself into a froth and I still can't ever pay off that last bit of debt from Europe and this Computer. (Oh Mac, I love you and the financial ruin into which you threw me.) A lady doesn't talk about her finances, I'm sure, but you've probably already noticed that if you call and ask where I am at any given time I'll say, "At work," or "In bed–I have work tomorrow."

Bo-ring.

With financial aid cut back by $2,500 each semester this year, (no love for the fifth-year student), if you know anyone in the market for a kidney, I've got one (part of a set, lightly used).

Paying rent and electric and the phone bill is nice, and all that, but I've also learned this summer that what I really don't want to lose is my pantry. Being poor and eating nothing but hotdogs (no offence to the noble foodstuff) and canned soup is about the fastest way to make me miserable and cranky. I love looking at all of the random ingredients on that pantry shelf and knowing that, oh yes, one day I will have eaten them all. And it will have been glorious.

I lament that my (girly) roommates (which includes Kristin, even though she doesn't live here and has her own people to cook for) and I only cook together about once every six months, but I suppose they're in the same boat I am, as far as working and being a slave to the paycheck. Digital cable is expensive. But on the bright side, I'm also fortunate enough to live with people who are busy doing interesting, exciting things (like working at Red River Radio, coaching a kids' swim team, and writing a paper about the Iraqi voting system) in their "spare" time rather than scratching themselves and watching Kung Fu 24-7.

Shameless overachievers, the lot of them. (Though if you could scratch yourself and watch Kung Fu for a solid week, that should be considered an achievement as well.)

Please, if you have any exciting plans for Sunday, let me know. It's my only day off this two weeks and for God's sake I want to do something utterly pointless. Give me a call.

Colorful Colorado

Colorado was, and remains, a majestic towering state of glory. And thanks to Tim, my dad, my mom and my grandma, I had a great birthday that lasted for a week and about 2,500 miles.

Tim and I drove all the way and listened to some 12-odd hours of Moby Dick on CD. Talk about an experience... 15 hours in the car, Tim behind the wheel (because I'm a slouch with no driver's license), 500 coke cans and candy wrappers and the greatest story ever told about a whale, told by the most boring person to ever read a book-on-tape. It was alright though, Herman Melville had a sense of humor and Tim was sensitive to my car-ride narcolepsy. I'm lucky if I can stay awake on the drive to the Library so... here's to me never getting behind the wheel.

Anyway, Colorado is tall and green and amazing all the time. We spent two days in Boulder with my Dad and my grandma, who just had hip replacement surgury. She's a trooper. Interestingly, our last day there we went to the "Body Worlds" exibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science where we spent two hours looking at dead human bodies that have been plastinated. Among the exibits was a pelvis with a hip replacement in it. The exibit is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. You forget that they're real dead people until you get to the ones that still have skin. And then the combination of not having anything to eat all day, seeing body parts everywhere and standing up for two hours combines into a lovely shade of nausiated.

We didn't see a single dead body the whole time we were at my Mom's in Crawford. We bought day fishing licenses and caught approximately not one single fish. But we did get to watch the Pioneer Days fireworks and grill at the lake. My grandparent's were king and queen of Pioneer Days (which is my town's annual festival of firetrucks. Not really.), which makes me some sort of Duchess, I believe.

I'll publish pictures soon, I mean, it only took me a week and a half to write about it all.

OH MY GOD, I almost forgot. TIM GOT ME A LEMON TREE FOR MY BIRTHDAY.

I feel like we've adopted a charming and fashionable child from Asia or Africa ala Angelina Jolie. The Tree is a Meyer (Improved) Lemon, which is specially suited to living indoors, although it's also happy outdoors. It's a three-year-old, lovingly-raised tree that will bear fruit almost all year round and I AM SO EXCITED. OH MY GOD.

Seriously, I haven't been this excited about something since, like, a week ago when we left for Colorado.

Things have been great. Life feels good. I work all the time, but it's enjoyable. My house is full and summer allows me to be more of a hippy than ever. Come visit and see Tim's penthouse upstairs...

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on Fire...

Well, the Pussycat Palace is now, officially, The Pussycat + Tomcat Palace. We just got finished moving all of Tim's things into the house, upstairs into the space that I consistantly think of as "the loft" even though there's nothing remotely loft-like about it, other than that it occupies the second floor. We I say "we" moved Tim's things in, I mean Tim's family moved things in while I made room in the house for it all.

I just got finished jerry-rigging, and trumping up Tim's IKEA bed and I must say, three trips to Lowe's later, that bad boy is like a battleship of dependable comfort and style (Thanks for nothing, Sweden). I can't predict at all what it's going to be like for all four of us to live her, but I'm kind of glad that we're going to Colorado first. (Oh yeah, we're going to Colorado for the whole week for my birthday. Get out of my way, Texas and New Mexico.)

That way if it turns out that I really am a heinous nit-picking know-it-all and Tim is a terrible messy slouch, then at least it won't ruin our vacation. Cheery, eh? Optimism at it's finest.

Really, I think that it should be a blast. I'm glad that he lives closer now (a lot closer), but that we're not thrown into some little, lonely apartment somewhere away from everyone. I love living with Kacie and Amy and all the pink and purple frou-frou, crazy, hectic over-achieving and dish-ignoring, roof-sun-bathing glory.

Now it will just have a twist of sports trivia, Pearl Jam, piles-o-socks, chicken fingers glory as well.

The Right Honerable Admiral

Right now I'm grooving on this whole "empty campus" thing. Not that I dislike everyone, but I've always liked it when everyone went left campus to eat big meals with their families in Jesus' name we pray amen. However, summer.... ah, summer. This is pretty awesome.

Campus is all quite and still all day long: nothing but hop toads and robins who eat everything (and so we are kindred spirits). I went to the fitness center this afternoon and I was the one of 2 (two!) people in the whole facility. Nice.

It's kind of like living in Leeds castle and having this huge private garden party everyday. Except without black swans. But I'll talk to Dr. Leuck about that (he's a field biologist – they harmonize the species).

The library is also gloriously empty. So much so that it's the opposite of quiet because the library staff just yells back and forth when they need something or want to tell funny jokes about card catalogues and (tee-hee) the dewey decimal system.

I've been working in the library basebent arranging Dr. Kim's secret stockpile of articles about Virginia Woolf and Olive Schreiner. That's where I discovered that authors in the 16th century were so way badasser than authors now because they gave their books titles like this one:

The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries
of the English nation, Made by Sea or Ouer Land,
to the most remote and farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time in the
compasse of these 1500 years: Diuided into three feuerall parts, according to the
positions of the Regions Whereunto they were directed.

Yes. The Da Vinci Code! Ha!

The adventurous discovery of the most holy of grailes
undertaken despite the abundance of frenchitude on the part
of a great symbologist for the gratification of morally unsound individuals
and the denuding of secret evile societies in tiny european cars,
in Jesus' name we pray amen good bread good meat good God let's eat.

Fit that on the bestseller list. My jobs are so rewarding.