Wheeeeeeeew!

We made it.

We live in Austin.

Our belongings are in Austin. Our bodies are in Austin. Our mail is even being forwarded to Austin.

Now all we need are jobs and a new place to live, 'cause I love my parents but I only want to crash at their place temporarily, not live here. I need personal space, to be able to leave dirty dishes in my own sink and to walk around in undies. Walking around in undies is very important to me.

Anywhozzile, I am updating this as I am supposed to be completing an essay question for a job application. But my tummy hurts, and I might need a nap...

Oh, the unemployed lifestyle. I hope it doesn't last too long, but I'm going to love it while I can.

What could make my life better...

Hot chocolate with whipped cream and shavings of Prozac.

Yeah... I'm not so much a trooper this month.

Currently my favorite photo is of...

Benson being disagreeable about a photo op on the National Mall.

I've been woefully neglectful...

I haven't written anything in an obscenely long time. But hey, I'm not just neglecting this blog, nooooo. I also owe several people emails and I have yet to fully dedicate myself to a job search in Texas (where I will be living in 40 days). At least I'm consistent in my neglect.

Wait, whoa! Did I just say I'd be living in Texas in 40 days?! Sweet Lord, I need to pack. And by pack, I mean purge, since we're not taking anything that doesn't fit in the car. The car that will also be carrying me, my Lovie and our 72 pound dog. So we're not really taking much. We're mailing our some of clothes and other belongings, but only the best will be worth shipping. I realized how severe the cuts will be this morning when it occurred to me that shipping two pairs of jeans with holes in them might not be a good investment. Therefore, I will be moving to the ATX with only one pair of jeans.

Its scary, but also a little thrilling. We've taken the terrifying leap into accepting how little we actually need. Our priorities are each other and our dog. Oh, and my grandma's kitchen table. Oh, and the antique chest my dad lined in cedar for me. (... and anything else I can convince my Lovie to try to squeeze into the car.)

I'm going to try to be better about writing. I'm also going to get a high paying Texas job, a lovely Austin house/apartment, save up money to buy a foreclosed property, take sewing and piano lessons and apply for and go to grad school. Oh, and secure free money to pay for said grad school. Yeah... ALL of that is going to happen. Sure, why not. I mean hey - I updated my blog. Who thought that was gonna get accomplished?!

I wish this video wasn't so true.

Sounds like a good life...

Man, I just remembered Jamiroquai today...

And it has brought me pure, dancing-in-my-rolly-chair joy today at work.


Please, go enjoy yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJj2v37T9xA

New dog = Love and Extreme Fatigue

Meet Benson:

Testify!

This weekend we rented a Rug Doctor and bought its related cleaning products from the slightly-more-ghetto Safeway in our neighborhood.

And let me tell you, I was verrrry skeptical. Especially when it cost 57 bucks.

But, (oh, let me share with you the most wonderful "but") it worked. It worked so amazingly well. The stain remover alone erased all evidence of our visiting dogs intestinal indiscretions. And the Rug Doctor itself made the apartment smell deliciously clean and removed so much soot from our aged Berber carpet that I almost started to think that covering the ground of your abode (that you walk on like ALL THE TIME) with easily soiled and absorbent fabric might not be such a bad idea.

I could eat off this carpet. Thats how clean it really is.

I'd like to end this post with a shout out to my Lovie. Who not only was not initially intimidated by the Rug Doctor (I was s-t-r-e-s-s-e-d), but worked ever so hard sudding and sucking the carpet clean AND even moved the furniture about in the living room a few times to appease me as I rearranged.

What. A. Catch.

Forth of July...

Plans to go camping
+
Checking the weather forecast
+
Deciding not to risk drowning in an tent on a holiday weekend
+
Neighborhood BBQ
+
Massive amounts of illegal fireworks
=
Ahhh... America!

Having a Nellie McKay moment

I wanna escape this rat race I've created...

Things my Lovie is not allowed to talk about when in bed with me

- Possible "theoretical" baseball-inspired commentary for any on-going bedroom action
- Piggy banks, savings accounts, CDs and IRA accounts
- Excel spread sheets

Things I am not allowed to talk about when in bed with my Lovie

- The grocery list
- What needs to be cleaned
- The dogs' digestion-related issues
- How sad I am that the blinds or vacuum is broken
- The fact that my Lovie is essentially dating his mother
- My calendar
- Information I need from for my calendar to be well kept
- My Lovie's brother's 4th of July plans
- My bad gas
- Possible ghosts

Two dog-shaped holes in my heart

The muttlings that we've been pet sitting for the last 6 months have headed home...

Let me assure you that despite the numerous reasons my life will now be easier sans dogs, it's a really really really big bummer.

A new (and joyous) obsession!

I only just discovered www.etsy.com and it has changed my entire life.

I have already completely decorated 4 homes. I have purchased gifts for everyone in my family for the next three years. I have decorated my future children's rooms and and I have fallen madly and deeply in love with 46 different objects. All without actually making a single purchase!

I have fantasy shopped like nobody's business!

And its so easy because just looking at EVERY SINGLE LISTING under their vintage section, was like living out my own personal fantasy. It was hoooot. And steamy. And surprisingly affordable!!!

I think all future gifts I buy for myself will come from there.

The end.

Confession # 2

Bad part:
I bought four pairs of shoes in one day.

Redemptive part:
I only spent $100 dollars total (thanks to DSW) and I undeniably needed* all of them.

Part that reminds you that this was still a bad thing:
I can't really afford to spend $100 dollars on anything. Like not even a gift certificate for a million dollars...


*They replaced shoes that were over 4 years old and/or broken and/or smelly and/or ugly and/or made me cry in the morning when I put them on.

Things that could have happened to improve my day

- Minor trip to the emergency room
- The creation of an impassable traffic blockade that required I return to my home and bed
- The taking of a nap in an inappropriate social situation
- The removal of ears and therefore pain radiating from ears
- Loss of all appetite and therefore compulsion to try to sooth throat with food
- Miraculous and effortless achievement of all items on my "To Do" list
- 12 hour coma instead of 12 hour work day

Bubalou and Gilly

One day I will have a mini donkey (Bubalou) and a pygmy goat (Gilly) and they will love each other forever and come running to the back porch of my glamorous farmhouse when I ring the dinner bell so that I can hand feed them baby carrots. It will be super. Trust me.

Sticky notes and automatically flushing toilets

When I go to the bathroom at work, I take a sticky note.

Its important. I need that sticky note to be able to use "the facilities" without experiencing emotional distress.

I just slap that sticky note, my trusty bathroom buddy, over the toilet's sensor and I can relieve myself free from the fear of premature flushing. When I'm all done, I pull off the sticky note and *whoosh,* its all good.

A tip from a Black woman to Black women

♫ Puuuuuuuhlease take off your glitzed up, bright red cowboy hat and gold earings the size of hamsters prior to your on screen CNN interview. It is very hard to take you seriously, regardless of your political position, when you look like an Eddie Murphy character...

You'd get the couch you deserved...

What if, when you were first born, *snap* a house popped into existence in Afterlife Land. It'd be an empty house. Totally blank. No color, no windows, no nothin'.

Throughout your life, you earn your furnishings. Sweethearts might earn huge, beautiful bay windows and deliciously comfy armchairs that miraculously still look sleek and modern. They'd die and wake to find themselves lying on the bed of their dreams, in the room of their dreams, in the house of their dreams.

But baddies would end up in houses furnished with some of the following:
- Chez lounge upholstered in rusty nails
- Angry fire ant rug
- Dry ice smoothie dispenser
- Clap on lights that require 17 and a half claps
- Razor blade-covered ottomans
- Hot asphalt floors
- Fly tape table cloths
- Red-hot iron flat ware

When people piss me off by being total jerks, I like to think that they just earned themselves some shattered-glass slippers... That and that later in the day they'll stub their toe so badly it bleeds. (Ugh - Just thinking about it makes me cringe!)

Good thing I'm not a baddie.

Things I compulsively save:

- Fortunes from fortune cookies
- Funky bottle tops
- Scraps of unique paper
- Boxes, ribbons, fancy gift wrap
- Clothes I don't like and don't fit into, but haven't yet replaced
- Ticket stubs
- Photographs of all kinds
- Odd magazine clippings
- Jewelry I never ever wear

Reasons being home is FABULOUS:

• My comforter lives there. So does my bed.
• It's warm. And even if it isn't, I can make it that way.
• Saves on gas.
• Picking your nose and wedgies is a lot less awkward.
• Jammies - You know you want to wear them.

Ooooh... Memorial Day

White grapefruit juice, vodka, ice cubes, a powerful beating sun, a poolside location.

Confession # 1

I have removed the Jiffy Lube sticker from the upper left corner of my wind shield because it was making me feel badly for ignoring the needs of my car, Tubby, for such an embarrassingly long time.

Introductions.

I claim Austin, Texas (78704) as home base, but I currently live in Northeast Capitol Hill with a nameless chinchilla, an obsessive Redskins fan & a life filled with contradictions, a small sample of which are listed below:

- Own & love my bow & arrow & think the best day of my life involved getting to shoot a grenade launcher & a 50 caliber machine gun, yet find hunting & violence in general deplorable.

- Snootily drive a stick shift because “you can’t drive an automatic car, you can only ride in it,” but couldn’t find my hood release button when last at Jiffy Lube getting my oil changed.

- Will happily bake for hours (regardless of the product), but will only grumpily cook for a maximum of 30 minutes (regardless of the product).

- Love to read & write, but am a rilly, rilly bad speller.

- Am nearly always too tired to vacuum, but never too tired to hula hoop.

- Ask "why" entirely too much for someone my age.

- Am a teensy bit toooo tidy.

- Peppy, but sardonic.

- Caustically optimistic.

Also: Being warm is very important to me.