You're Doing It Wrong

I’m back. I forgot to blog that we were going on a vacation that involved no computers so there would be no new stuff for a week+. We went to Orleans and hung out with the family and swam and played some rowdy poker games and hiked to Indian Rocks and ate a lot.

Yesterday was my first day back at work and lucky me – a semi jack-knifed and fell on its side on the Marquam Bridge and completely blocked I5 south. I already had left late and then I had to buy gas (Pam travel hint: fill your car with gas and keep a small stash of cash for when you return from vacation — you will be happy you did.) Since I get off at the Morrison Bridge before the accident I didn’t think there would be much of a problem (doh!) so I stayed in the left lane and completely ignored the signs that said we would be diverted to the 405. Freeway blocked off at 405 so I got stuck in the huge car-jam trying to get onto 405 and a good time was not had by all. Anyway, an hour later I got to work and I could see the accident site from my desk and realized at least I didn’t get stuck right behind the truck and have to sit on the freeway for two hours.

It’s situations like this that give you time to reflect on your life and I used this particular incident to ponder: am I drinking too many liquids in the morning?

I heard on the radio this am that Elvis died on this day 1977 so I just wanted to tell you I can remember where I was when I heard. I was born in 1963 so I was 14 and I was at my oboe lesson. I think it was in Woodland Hills. I can see the music store in my mind and my music teacher was named Jacques Robinson. It was a funky mini-mall and I think the grocery store was an Alpha Beta — but I can’t remember precisely. I just remember my music teacher telling my Mom and she was shocked.

I just checked and now my posts are all showing up. hm, magically fixed and I didn’t do a thing.

I wanted to tell you one more thing. We have this problem in our neighborhood with people stealing the recycling — the bottles and cans — on pickup day. This bugs me — probably more than it should — but the recycling pickup is a business that provides a service. I don’t save my bottles and cans for the neighborhood riffraff. Bob and I started putting our stuff out in the morning — and even then one time Bob put it out when he left in the am and I left an hour later and it was all gone. This week I had a ton of stuff and I put it out the night before because I had to leave extra early for work — the jackass(es) took the whole bin. We used to have a bin of each color and now I have two brown ones because the criminal left me an empty brown one when s/he took my green one. What a loser.

I don’t know what’s going on with my blog. My posts don’t seem to be appearing on my page and I’m not in the mood to try to figure it out.

I just wanted to tell all my loyal readers that I FOUND A FRIGGIN BATHING SUIT. Yes, it was $80 and no, I don’t LOVE it, but I like it and it covers all my naughty bits and that’s going to be good enough.

We saw Patti Smith and Sleator-Kinney in Seattle last weekend and I never even mentioned it. Great show.

I have been so friggin busy I didn’t even log on for almost 48 hours — that never happens. Completely busy weekend. I went to writing workshops all day Friday and Saturday.

Today I got up early and did the bridge walk. I wanted to do the 8 mile but I only did the 5 mile because I had a severe need to pee and for some reason the organizers seemed to think that like 6 stalls for 5000 (or however many) walkers at the station just after the Fremont Bridge would be plenty. I saw this gigantic line and decided to just walk as fast as humanly possible (which wasn’t too fast seeing as how there were all these other people walking) until I could get back to the office. But I got to walk on the Fremont Bridge and that made me happy but it was a lot more fun last year with Bob.

Also today I watched this movie Cruel Intentions which was my relaxation 90 minutes. Completely twisted and hilarious in terms of the over the top clothes and housing. Then I ran a bunch of errands and then I did yard work and got all the various containers (garbage, recycling, yard debris) ready for tomorrow morning. So now it’s almost 9pm and I JUST got out of the shower. I’m going to the coast for work tomorrow so it’s off to bed for me.

More On Bathing Suits
I tried one more time to find a bathing suit. I’ve probably tried on 30 or 40 and I’ve found maybe 4 that fit but I didn’t like them enough to pay $80. I don’t mind paying $80 for tiny bits of cloth if I like them. But if I’m just buying something to cover my butt when I swim in the river, I’m not so inclined. So I figured I’d just safety pin last year’s on me and make do. Well, I decided to get some sun this afternoon and safety pins aren’t going to be much help, that thing is so stretched out. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.

I thought this week would be a lot more productive than it ended up being. I have no idea what I did but it kept me busy. I did manage to clear one or two things off my desk so I’ll just be happy for that. On Monday I had lunch with Liz and suggested we go to Abou Karims. She agreed and we had the Mezza for two. On Wednesday I had lunch with Don for his birthday. I thought about AK’s but then thought, no, I can’t go to the same place twice in one week. So I tried to think of other foods that sounded good but the only thing was hummus so we went Abou Karims and had the Mezza for two. I have no regrets.

Bob is at Shasta seeing String Cheese Incident. In a possibly related story, I woke up a 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I tossed and turned for an hour. I have been having all kinds of problems with my various email addresses and domain and so forth and as I tossed and turned, I had an idea and decided to go ahead and get up and try it.

Once I get on the computer, I’m history in terms of getting back to sleep.

So I somewhat resolved my computer problems and I read a bunch of The English Patient and at 5am I decided to try and nap a little. I think I dozed but then I thought I heard someone in the garage so I jumped up with my heart pounding and then figure out it’s just people packing a moving van on the street. So now it’s 5:30am and what’s the point of even trying to sleep? So I threw in laundry and looked at the paper and did a nice long jog/walk.

Hi: I was cranky today. Am I crankier than most? Or just more honest about it?

I’m feeling much better now but then, there is about a gallon of beer involved. Well, whatever works, I say.

So Little Friday— I’m taking a day long workshop next week to work on this. I have all kinds of homework to do but the biggie was re-reading the manuscript. I was expecting to cringe a lot more. There are a couple of chapters that need a lot of work but overall I think it still works. The homework is definitely opening up some ideas — it’s just how much work do I really want to do on it at this point? And the answer is, I’m not sure.

Tomorrow is errand day and Saturday we go to Seattle for a party. More on these stories as they develop.

I usually like to be a little bit prepared before I start typing the blog but tonight I thought I’d go by the seat of my pants. Not like I’m trying out for the Olympics or anything.

Today we saw Shrek which I thought was hilarious. Yesterday we watched Oscar & Lucinda on tape and I’d advise missing it if you haven’t already. It’s a well made movie and the acting is fabulous but the story had some problems which might work in a book but didn’t work in a movie and I won’t go into the whole thing now. On Friday we saw Planet of the Apes in a theater with me and 50 guys Bob’s age. I LOVED it. I would see it again. I’m not in the mood to explain why I liked it, let’s just say it entertained me and there was fighting and apes and Helena Bonham Carter with the most swell ape-doo you’ve ever seen and Marky Wahlberg dreamy air force guy.

Last week I tried to get all my various emails organized. I finally have a separate email for work: pam(at)lwilder.com and that is aliased to another address (I’m not sure if my terminology is right so bear with me) and then I have my domain and my alias that goes with that and then I have my yahoo mail so all together I have all these addresses I am juggling around and trying to keep all the passwords straight and pay attention to my sig files because last week I wrote an email to the webmaster about the gov’t site I complained about in my last blog post and then realized I had my personal sig file with my blog.html URL right there. How professional. My little struggle with technology.

Oh, also, we just started watching Jiminy Glick. I am not a Martin Short fan but I am telling you, this show is HILARIOUS.

I also finished re-reading Little Friday this weekend which I will write more about later.