Moving along

I'm starting a new blog. I have decided to take up CSS and try to figure out building it myself, so it may be a while before you see a design, but I'll be writing there from now on. So: http://iamapeony.blogspot.com/. Sorry about the name, I'm getting tired of trying to title something that doesn't need a title.

The latest from the messiest home in Texas

I think it’s sad that I don’t update my blog often, but it’s just the way things happen.

I’ve been obsessed lately with turning our house into a grown-up home. I’m obsessed with containers. I realize now there’s no artful way to display clutter. It must be contained. I’m also obsessed with new furniture, but have no idea how to find furniture that’s affordable and doesn’t have tassels. Every piece of outlet furniture I’ve seen has tassels on it and looks like it belongs in a fourth-rate brothel.

Another complicating factor is the fact that we’ve added a kitten to our home. Of course that was going to happen. The second mom told me she had gotten the pregnant stray to come inside, I knew we’d have a kitten. She’s tracking a fly right now. She spends a lot of time tearing up the couch. Perhaps it would be best to wait until she settles down before I spend hundreds of dollars on my new tasseled furniture.

Work has been going ok. I panic every other day that my life and work aren’t going anywhere, so I tried to take matters into my own hands and at least move the work stuff along. But it’s tough to move up in a dying industry. Really tough. I’m grateful to have a job right now, but I am also ready to move upward and onward and not be stuck in this phase of my career. I am spinning my wheels right now.

I guess this was kind of an anticlimactic blog post. Sorry, I have to go rip some plastic wrap out of the kitten’s mouth.

Failure

I’m on my fourth week of not working out. The time has flown. The tiniest slivers of progress that I made from January to mid-April have been erased. I come home wishing I had that inspiration that I had just a few weeks ago to put on my jogging shoes and go for a jog. I should have known summer would ruin my momentum. It was easy when it was lovely outside. Yes, I should have known.

So I’m considering joining the nearby Y for the summer. I started considering it yesterday morning and have still not stopped by there to check it out. I guess I could try tomorrow. Right now I’m just feeling like I let myself down in a big way. I had some momentum and even if I wasn’t seeing results, it was the start to a healthier life.

A few friends are doing a fad diet right now and losing lots of pounds. I know they’ll just gain it back.

Also, we got this new kitten. She’s really kittenish – she runs, she flips, she jumps, she climbs, she scratches. She’s going to the vet tomorrow for a check-up. I’m a little worried because she hasn’t pooped since we got her. The other cats are very upset, but staying in the room longer each time she visits. They’re hissing a lot. She hisses and puts up her hair. It doesn’t help that she plops next to me and acts like she owns me while they glare at her. I get all embarrassed and wish she wouldn’t do that. I’m like, “I do still love you guys, really, you can’t believe what she’s telling you. I just find her kind of amusing is all. You will, too. Promise. Guys? Don’t go like that….” And then they’re gone and the new kitten is all, “that’s right.” And I’m like, “shut up. You don’t even have a name yet.”

A rainy night

There’s a cool breeze coming in the living room windows, leftovers from the storms that rolled in tonight, unexpectedly ruining plans.

I went for a bike ride last night. I’m kind of a terrible bike rider. First, I think my seat is adjusted a bit too high for me so I have trouble getting on and off. I also don’t like to ride anywhere near cars, so when crossing intersections I get off the bike and walk it across the street, which is dorky, especially when dozens of bicycles whiz past as I’m doing this. When I get back on the bike to start over, I weave dangerous, wide arcs trying to get my momentum back. I look silly.

Last night I rode past a rare, empty field beside the expensive houses near the library. It had a tree that managed to hide the entire field perfectly. Not really, but it was the focal point and whatever you did beyond it would be hidden by the focus of the tree. I often think of playing outside in the field next to our house. It was the greatest playground. We had one nook that had an abandoned cement drain pipe that we used as seating (and sometimes crawled in because we were small). It had a short line of china-berry trees that served as a wall that filtered the sun. It had one tall pine whose needles covered the ground like carpet and sap that oozed out of the tree and onto our fingers and we would smell of pine all summer. There were landscaping rocks abandoned from a project; large and smooth. One was broken in half and you could see bits of quartz inside. I spent a lot of time putting the two halves together to obsess on the perfection of the whole.

Our little corner was a small piece of a large field and it felt like a room. It was next to the neighbor’s large, manicured backyard of their rather pretty, two-story (huge!) house. We picked flowering weeds and left them around. We had a shard of a mirror that we tried to place in the branches of one of the smaller trees so we would always have a mirror. We didn’t bring much else, though, it was just a spot where we gathered to play out ideas and sometimes yell at each other.

The spot is now gone, I think. The field is now another duplex and I can’t see behind it anymore, where the spot was. I don’t know if the pine tree is still there. The two-story (huge!) house has fallen on hard times; a once respectable, pretty house looks like a crumbling, dingy  shack. I imagine the owners from years ago would be saddened at what their home has become. And I’m kind of glad I can’t see the corner where we used to spend our time, I think it would only be depressing or, worse, gone.

I rode quickly last night, trying not to fall as ever, past the field with the tree and remembered all of this.

A little below the water

I suffocate at work. I don’t think I have done a thorough desk cleaning since moving to that desk a year and a half ago. It feels like I’m sitting in a pit of my own trash and it suffocates me but I don’t have to time to clean it because I have to go home sometime. And then there’s the sheer workload of this thing. It is the most amount of work I have ever done in my life. There are lists upon lists of tasks that can’t even be touched yet because everything is so new that everything takes so long to do and we’re spending time hunting for users and trying to coax Twitterers from their dumb little lair to our site and we’re in meetings about titles of things and we’re sidetracked by discussing how we can coax better.

The coaxing so far is not working. I have to have faith that once the grass-roots marketing starts (it will never be a full-fledged public assault. you’ll just get a flyer on your car maybe or get handed a sticker somewhere) that the word will spread and this will all be worth it. Right now it is not worth it.

Tomorrow I am taking a day to breathe. I have to work, too, but it will hopefully be fun field work. Or at least peaceful, away from the constant chatter of everything we say to stop from being afraid that we’ve failed.

This is my life now, there is truly nothing else. Except the running some evenings. I went to a show last week with a new friend and that was nice. The garden is petite, but everything looks really healthy. I ran over the lawn mower’s cord so the backyard looks like a jungle, which I will have to fix very soon before the heat comes.

A little help here

So I’m talking to this guy on Friday. I’m not sure what to ask. It will be my first time talking to a genuinely famous person.

Crocheting a blanket

I’m trying to find some peace at home, when I’m not working at home, so I’m crocheting a blanket. I am also running. It’s not quite the spa relaxation I’m seeking, but it’s an attempt. It was pretty relaxing to see my family last Sunday. I realized that I’ve been having dreams about work because I’ve been working with my laptop in bed. That’s a no-no. I haven’t been holding up my end of the dinner bargain – cleaning the kitchen – because I’ve been working at night and I feel guilty about that. I’m a mooch. I’m also super itchy today. Not quite hives, just little rashes all over. I’m looking forward to Easter. There will be more swimming, I hope. And barbecue. I love my sister’s house. I am exhausted by Gameboy’s mood swings. I cannot help him. I wish I could give him a little bit of optimism. I guess I should go to sleep soon.