beauty and the beast

an interesting observation – both yesterday and today, i didn’t wear any makeup… which evokes much response from my coworkers, apparently. “are you sick? you look sick.” “are you tired? you really should sleep more!” and more and more. i’m going to wear makeup tomorrow and i am sure i will have more do-gooders excited over my miraculous recovery of whatever mysterious disease that drained the color out of my features. depressing.

on another note, i have made friends with the cleaning man at work, since we seem to spend many of our evenings together. he comes in around 6pm and i’m usually still there, and we have been silently bonding for the past year. the week before gma, he finally asked my name. his name is jim. jim is probably the best cleaning guy in the world, he always empties the trash and vacuums the carpet. one time i had a three-month temp stint in facilities management, and let me tell you whoever was emptying the trash and vacuuming the carpet back in those days was not jim, because they really just never did their job. every morning i would come in to work and go through my inbox piled high with emailed evidence that the cleaning crew once again did not fulfill their duties. i guess that’s why we hired jim. he smiles a lot.
anyway, next time i complain about my job, someone smack me and tell me to shut up and be thankful that i was raised as an overprivileged  white english-speaking middle-class suburban brat who was able to spend over $60k on a college education and doesn’t have to clean up other people’s inconsiderate messes for a living.

oh happy may

goals for the month of may:

• find out who googled ‘what if i eat fruit all of the time’ and become their best friend
• restore my computer to the automated powerhouse it once was before the crash of february 07. that thing could have cleaned the bathroom for me if i had asked it nicely and pressed the right combination of keys.
• stop drinking coffee and soda
• blog about the hallucinations i experience
• read some books or at least finish that list i was making of books i should be reading
• stop deleting my blog entries
• go to the grocery store at least once
• salvage my mental and emotional well-being
• get perez hilton to write me an email

commendable and attainable goals for sure!

I apologize in advance…

There was recently a really interesting article on Relevantmagazine.com entitled “Messy” that I felt I could have written. Apparently, so did a large number of the commenters. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my guilt-ridden perfectionism.

Here is a good story for you. Once upon a time we bowled in the hallways of EMI.

This is my friend Tim setting up the bowling pins. He won the bowling competition.

This is the hallway bowling setup. I bet you wish you had sweet hallways like this.

This is a real bowling ball and some people I work with.

Once upon a time, my desk was a perfect illustration of what’s in my head. Chaos…

birdcage’d.

Feeling all cagey, as of late. I haven’t left Nashville in a long time – or rather, the only times I’ve left have been to go straight back to the 757 and rush around madly for a few days until I jump back in my car and drive another 12 hours back here. And I can’t leave until May. And frankly, that’s a discouraging thought. I think I have a typical case of spring fever – yes in February – and the past few weeks have been the kind of exhausting weeks that you really just want to close your eyes, go to sleep, and pretend never happened. There has been a bright spot, but I’m exhausting myself from thinking about it… and I’ll start destroying that too. I swear there is something wrong with me. Anyway, here’s to hoping I snap out of it. Life sure isn’t slowing down for me to drag along behind it wishing for things that can’t happen.

This post is to contrast the generally-lightharted atmosphere I tend to portray in my blogging. Also, it’s to tell you that somehow people find my blog by googling all of my friends’ full names.

computery things.

I’ve been a bit of a computer nerd lately. There’s so many amazing things you can do to a mac with just a little bit of nerdy knowledge. Anyway, this blog is brought to you solely so that I can state that whoever is out there googling my full name and arriving at my blog, you are creepy.

bright light.

Today, when I left work, it was still light outside. That’s the first time that has happened in many months, and I almost skipped down the steps. Then I remembered that loose brick and came up with a wiser plan – speeding home with my windows down… it’s 30 degrees.

Maybe I’m just an all-around idiot.

Life has been sort of a rollercoaster… or maybe more accurately one of those spinning teacup rides. You know, the kind that is so exciting and yet so extremely nauseating at the same time that when you finish you sort of stagger off and vomit. Yeah, I’d say that’s about accurate.

it’s christmastime in the city

I’m about to go back through some old unfinished drafts and maybe finish them, maybe. However, for now I will bring you what is likely my last blog entry of 2006… because we all know I don’t update this thing. So I bring you… A Christmas Greeting From Me To You.

Attractive, I know.

I don’t have a top 10 albums this year – I do have a top 3.
The Working Title / About Face
Jeremy Enigk / World Waits
Damien Rice / 9

At risk of being here all night, I’ll refrain from my “honorable mention” list. No one wants to spend that much time with my blog.

I’ve learned a lot this year, done a lot this year. Highlights below…

• got my first filling (broken tooth)
• signed my first real lease (in my name)
• got my first bachelor’s degree
• read 100 books
• spent less time on the internet
• got my first “real” job with benefits
• departed from my teenage years
• had to make my first drastic car repairs
• spent time with some different, amazing people
• found bubble tea in nashville (!)

Okay, makes my life sound boring… this year wasn’t, I swear. Merry Christmas.

happy halloween

Did you know…

When I was younger, I was not allowed to celebrate Halloween?
I went to the Hallelujah party instead?
I’ve never been trick-or-treating?
One year I dressed up as a Bible?
The same year, my brother dressed as Zaccheus and his tree?
My mom locked the doors and closed the blinds and we would turn off the lights so as to appear “out” for all wandering children in the neighborhood?
I wasn’t allowed to watch The Little Mermaid because of the “evil witch”?
I’ve been on more hayrides in the church parking lot than on an actual farm?
I’ve never carved a pumpkin (because jack-o-lanterns are eeeevil)?

Now you know.

apple picking

Yesterday… was really cool.  Because what better thing to do on a Sunday afternoon on the first day of October than drive to Kentucky and pick apples? I picked a whole peck of apples. This orchard was amazing – three kinds of apples to pick, many more to buy, and many more that aren’t ripe yet. Fresh apple cider, cherry apple cider slushes ($1.75 for a large one beats any concession stand price I’ve ever seen), honey sticks (ahh, childhood), apple salsa, apple butter, apple cobbler mix… and even some apple dancers. And a weird wormy looking plant thing.

You may also be interested in knowing that I climbed two trees.

I plan on baking lots of appley things tonight.

sufjan stevens at the ryman

Probably the closest thing to heaven I’ll ever experience on earth.