My apartment looks lonely

The one part of moving that I hate, detest, abhor, and loathe is packing. There is nothing fun about packing. Part of this comes from my history of moving. When I was younger and we moved every 3-4 years (thanks U.S. Army), moving companies would just magically show up at our house and pack everything. And I do mean everything. If you didn't watch carefully, your garbage would get packed. I remember my parents stationing themselves around the house to watch and as we got older, I believe my brother and I did this too. My parents had to be very specific about certain areas of the house that we'll call "packer free zones." Family photos, important papers, and some of my mom's antiques would be in this zone. We had many items walk over the years from my dad's tools to an afghan my grandmother made for my brother. I'm convinced that my enormous Cheer Bear Care Bear (the pink one with the rainbow on its tummy) was stolen not just left behind when we moved to Alabama.

It's not like we never had to pack when we moved. Obviously we had to pack our clothes and things we'd need in the car but the majority of the work was done by someone else. (In most instances. Don't ever ask my mother about the move from Georgia to Hawaii. Ever.) It wasn't until I went to college that I had to start packing on my own. In college, packing wasn't so terrible because I didn't have much to pack. As I moved from dorm room to my first apartment, most of my belongings fit in a few suitcases and boxes. Furniture was minimal. I think my roommate and I had only a few big things between us (beds, the sofa) and everything else we got once we moved. Friends gave us most of our furniture anyway so it wasn't like it mattered if it got a little beat up. Even as we moved from that apartment to a larger one the next year, we still didn't really spend much time packing. We probably needed a few more boxes to accommodate my roommate's love of all things Christmas (we could have a tree!) and I think we had acquired more kitchen stuff since eating on campus was not really as much of an option anymore. Packing was fun because it usually involved drinking and planning all the awesome things we'd need to get once we got settled into our new place. I miss college some days.

Between 2001 (when I graduated from college and spent a year in Hawaii) and now, I've begun the very grown-up process of accumulating stuff. And when you accumulate stuff you have to pack it when you move. That's how moving works. When I moved back to Louisiana after the year in Hawaii, I moved into my first apartment by myself. I was responsible for all the furniture and dishes and everything else you think you need in your house. I started buying real furniture, got my first television, starting collecting Fiesta dishes, got a stand mixer, and began my collection of baking accoutrement. I also have a lot of books and a decent CD collection. And clothes and shoes-so many shoes.

Packing takes forever. I started the process in mid-May and you'd think I'd be done by now but I'm not. Once you've started accumulating stuff, packing becomes a multi-stage process. My packing process goes something like this:

1. Purge the clothes. I go through my closets (I have 2 here), my stored clothes, and my chest of drawers and get rid of anything I have not worn in over a year or that doesn't fit anymore. I do the same thing with shoes. If it's still wearable, it goes into the donation box. If not, the trash.
2. Purge books, DVDs, and CDs. This is much harder than the clothes purging. I'm ridiculously attached to my books and CDs so deciding to get rid of any of them is always difficult. For books, I use a few questions like "Did I buy you at the airport?" and "Did my friend who loves chick lit recommend you to me?" Those go in the donation box. For CDs, I think about the last time I listened to it. If it's over 2 years and I don't anticipate listening anytime soon, it goes in the box. I might add a few songs to my iTunes library first but it still goes in the box.
3. Purge kitchen and housewares. This is relatively easy so I do it last because I don't agonize over getting rid of the extra set of cake pans that I don't really need or the plastic holiday serving trays that I will never use again.
4. Begin packing. I start with non-essentials. Non-essentials include my books, CDs, DVDs, all kitchen stuff I don't use frequently, extra sets of sets and towels, and all clothes I won't wear until I get resettled. I usually find more stuff to donate or throw away during this process.
5. Pack everything else. This allows you to put things you'll need immediately towards the back of the truck (because you will need them first when you get to your new place) and separate what you'll need in the car and on the drive (and this is true whether you're moving across town or across the country).

I've just recently finished steps 1-3 and I'm almost through with step 4. Step 4 is proving to be the hardest because this step includes pretty much all the stuff that makes my apartment my home. I've taken pictures off the wall, boxed up all my books (sorry little friends), and just packed all the little randoms that live around my apartment (including my Sex Pistols lunchbox, a Mr. T figurine, and my owl collection). My apartment looks lonely.

You probably can't tell but there are nails in the wall where my awesome NOLA photo collection used to be.

Red is for avoidance

 I've been trying to avoid the lonely apartment phase of moving. I dyed my hair, decided to reorganize my bathroom cabinet, watched Rhinestone again (too bad it's not in the On Demand free movies section or I'd watch it a third time this month), and have read about 7 free books on my Kindle. (This is why I shouldn't have ever gotten a Kindle - free books are just too tempting.) I'm writing this post instead of dealing with my kitchen. I've also spent way too much time looking at the things I've found as I repack and organize. For example, I found my patch sash from when I was in Brownies in 1986. It was at the bottom of a box of pictures and mementos from school (elementary through high school-yeah, I save everything). And now I want to figure out how to give patches out for everything in life. The last two steps are taking forever.

           The move is going to happen a lot sooner than I think. I have this week, then I'm out of town for a work trip, and then it's my last week in Alameda. I have to finish packing, clean my apartment, drop off another load of donations, figure out what to do with the tv and furniture I don't want, pick up the truck, and fetch Scott from the airport. Then we have to get the truck loaded and get on the road. And of course, I need to say goodbye to people, do those last few California/East Bay things I want to do before I leave, and say goodbye to my favorite apartment of all time. When does the fun part of moving start?

Life is a highway, Part Deux

Back in March I was traveling more frequently for work. Work travel is typically not glamorous travel and I was tempted to simply skip my next work trip and head off into the sunset or South Dakota. Apparently, I'm not alone in this desire but I'm also not alone in the fact that no one actually does this. Sad for us all.

Anyway, I just spent 10 days in Arlington starting the transition to my view position at work. I don't officially start in this role until August 1 and I'm still away from my actual move but this trip was a natural step in moving into this new role. This trip also meant that I got to spend an inordinate amount of time in traffic.

DC Metro area traffic is terrible. So terrible that it's terribleness is a cliche and complaining about it's terribleness is even more of a cliche. I won't waste valuable time talking about my anger or frustration during the last 10 days. You get it, I get it. Spending days in traffic made me think of two of my favorite parts of a road trip:

1. Planning routes
2. Wasting time

Planning a road trip, regardless of length, takes planning. I know everyone has this romantic notion of just jumping in your car and driving somewhere but that kind of road trip doesn't happen all that often. Sometimes that kind of road trip works out for all involved. Sometimes everyone gets killed by an axe murderer. You just don't know and why risk an axe murderer?

Anyway, planning road trips is fun. The rise in popularity of GPS has meant a decline in actual map usage. This saddens me as much as the fact that no one writes letters anymore. Maps are interesting and fun and controversial. They're a different way of communicating and it's possible that there are people out there who don't know how to read a map. I think you can tell a lot from the lines and boundaries on a map - sad stories of stolen land, brave stories of pioneers (which normally coincide with stolen land), hopeful stories of rebuilding. Maps are both functional and artistic.

I like the ways that roads connect to one another. The ways in which a person can go from Point A to Point B are usually so numerous it's hard to make a choice. I was reminded of this when I drove back to the airport yesterday. Normally, I'd take 95N to start this trip off but there was massive construction on 95N this weekend (shocking I know) so my dad suggested I go around it. I ended up going through Alexandria so my route looked like this:

Route 1 N  to 395 N to 295 N to Baltimore-Washington Parkway to 195 E to 170 to the rental car return  to BWI

This route took almost 3 hours because of the traffic everywhere but it was a way around what probably would have been a Hulk rage inducing trip on 95N. Hulk smash. Hulk drive into fancy car of driver who just cut me off.

I'm in the final planning stages of my move road trip planning. I know the route and the stops but I need to find the hook - something to keep my brother and I occupied along the way. One of my friends suggested the truck stop tour, which could be both awesome and disgusting. You know I love a theme.

Which brings me to my second favorite thing about road trips: wasting time. Normally when you go on a road trip you have an end destination. You're going from your home to someplace where you'll be on vacation (more than likely) or visit family or friends. The drive might just be a function of  the trip or it's the actual vacation itself. I'd characterize most of my childhood road trips as the former. We were either moving or going to visit family in Detroit so the drive was really just a function of the trip. 

However, my parents are fun and mildly eccentric and they've raised two offbeat (albeit normal) children. We all really enjoy weird things you encounter while driving, whether it be a non-chain hotel with a pink elephant statue in front or an off the beaten path restaurant that was worth the extra two hours even though it did resemble the area where the axe murderer might live. Road trips aren't any fun if you only stick to the safe (and by safe I mean fast food places and Marriotts) and the boring. Wasting time on a road trip isn't really wasting time at all - it's about cultivating your sense of adventure and discovering hidden nuggets of awesome across this vast land we live in.

Unlike real wastes of time, like watching an America's Top Model marathon or the remake of Godzilla, road trip time wasting never makes me feel like I'm being lazy or owed time back. Instead, I crave more of it. I want to find one more roadside attraction to photograph or one more postcard to buy or one more reason to stop for homemade ice cream. I love a roadside stand. Equally as amazing are large signs telling me that the World's Best Peach Pie is up ahead at Doreen's Diner and I have to stop or my life will be empty and meaningless. No one wants that.

I like peach pie and don't want my life to be empty and meaningless so of course I'm going to stop. 

 

Hangin' Tough

Happy Father's Day! I hope all the dads out there are having a rocking good day.

My dad is one of my favorite people in the world. Like my amazing mother, my father is pretty rock star. He puts up with our jokes, crazy schemes and general ridiculousness. He rolls out the cookies at Christmas time and makes a mean pecan pie.

I've learned a lot from my dad: how to fix things, why you need to rotate the tires on the car, how to organize a car for a cross-country move, laundry, why you should drink red wine (although I tend to ignore this), how to colorfully swear at slow traffic (and mumble so other passengers in your car don't hear), that men should take care of their of their families, and that dads can fix just about anything. It's true - they can. Even by phone when I'm having an anxiety attack. Dads are superheroes and my dad is right up there. I thought about buying him a cape for Father's Day but then I realized he's super nice and he'd probably wear it and that would be embarrassing (mainly for him; I would think it was funny).

First concerts are a very important rite of passage for most people. I remember my first concert very well. I was eleven years old (which is sort of young by most people's standards), it was 1990, and the concert was New Kids On The Block. It was at the Superdome. My dad went with me.

Yes, I save everything.

Imagine the Superdome filled with rabid Saints fans. Maybe this will help:

Now replace the Saints fans with pre-teen girls obsessed with NKOTB. Screaming, singing along, wearing band t-shirts and buttons, wavering posters (that the band will clearly see in the nosebleed section and will of course, immediately fall in love with you and ask you to marry them or something), dancing around. Standing next to each pre-teen is a bored and overwhelmed parent whose ears are about ready to bleed from the screaming and the music they can't stand. True parental love.

I got tickets to the New Kids concert for my birthday that year. One ticket for me, one for my dad. This was not a time when parents dropped a kid off at a concert and went to hang out with other parents waiting around for the madness to end. Remember this was 1990 and this concert was at the Superdome. No one would let their eleven year old go to any show at the Superdome alone. So my dear dad had to suffer through the screaming and the singing and the dancing. I don't remember his ears bleeding or him complaining. It's also possible that he spent part of the concert remembering the Rolling Stones show he and my mom saw a few years before at the Superdome (Steel Wheels tour, 1988). Maybe that got him through.

Eventually (like a year later) I was no longer interested in boy bands. I had moved onto rock bands (and punk and metal bands). My second concert was Def Leppard on election night in 1992. I remember Joe Elliott announcing that Bill Clinton had won the election. And guess who my concert buddy was? You've got it - my dad. I think he might have enjoyed this one a bit more. He even knew some of the songs and didn't seem to hate it at all. If I remember correctly, he even shared that one of my uncles used to get stoned and listen to Led Zepplin and Def Leppard (he liked On Through the Night).

Over the years, I've been to a few other concerts with my dad but none of them were as amazing as NKOTB. I even tried to convince him to go see them with me again when the band toured a few years ago. He respectfully declined and I just couldn't go to see them without him - it wouldn't have been right. Parents do a lot of stupid stuff they don't want to when they have kids. I'm sure no one wakes up one day and says, "Gee, I'd like a two-tone blue Ford Aerostar minivan." Or "Yes, let's watch Annie again. I love that musical too." That's what you do when you love your kids.

So thanks Dad for doing the stupid things and the great things and the awesome things for me all my life.

Just for fun, here's a flashback to the early 90s for your Father's Day enjoyment. You're welcome.

Superdome image from espn.go.com

Video from youtube.com

Birthdays should never be on a Monday

Here is why:

• No one likes Monday. It's a fact (and if you do, there is something wrong with you). The euphoria of the weekend has worn off and you're spending most of the day dealing with being back at work or school or whatever you do with your time. Birthdays should not be a part of that.
• There is absolutely nothing fun about Monday. It's not even fun to say.
• The line at the coffee shop is always longer on a Monday.
• The only holidays that consistently take place on Mondays are federal holidays. That means that people will associate your birthday with discounts on furniture and cars. Also, not everyone gets to take every federal holiday off so there's always a little resentment associated with holidays on a Monday. And yes, I know that a birthday is not an actual holiday but it is the one day of the year that people celebrate you and your birth so it's like a mini-holiday.
• More traffic. People don't typically telecommute on Mondays so everyone is driving to work or taking public transportation. I spent most of today's commute behind a bus.
• I have awesome co-workers who planned to have lunch with me today but normally no one wants to take a lunch break on Monday because we all have too much to do.
• If you wanted to go out and really celebrate (you know, with adult beverages and staying up late enough to watch The Daily Show), it's a school night so you really can't. I have an 8 am training tomorrow morning that I have to drive an hour or so to get to so no late night out for me.

Since today is my birthday and it's Monday (stupid leap year) I've planned an appropriate celebration  - work, Indian take out, and the premiere of the new Amy Sherman-Palladino show Bunheads on ABC Family. I can only assume that Ms. Sherman-Palladino timed this show to premiere today as a birthday present to me. Gilmore Girls will always be my favorite but I'm hopeful that Bunheads will fill the void that was left when the magic of Stars Hollow ended.

I share a birthday with Jacques Cousteau, William Styron, Gene Wilder, Joe Montana, and PETER DINKLAGE! That last one had to be in all caps and I don't even watch Game of Thrones.

I'm also going to pretend that today is Tuesday. I can do this because it's my birthday and that's how birthday magic works. I'll still recognize tomorrow as Tuesday; I'm just going to call it Tuesday, part 2.

Today is also:

• Kamehameha Day - celebrates the unification of the Hawaiian Islands by King Kamehameha. When I lived in Hawaii I pretended that the parades were for me. No, I was not 10 (I was in my 20s).
• Hug Day - apparently we need 4 hugs to survive, 8 for maintenance, and 12 for survival (per day)
• Asparagus Day
• Dirty Book Day
• German Chocolate Cake Day
• Triple Crown Day

If today is your birthday too, I hope you're having a wonderful and magical day!

My horoscope for the day. Hmmm....

You're gonna make it after all

"Oh yes, I'm so very Mary Tyler Moore, everyone says so." 

-Janeane Garofalo, The Matchmaker

It's very possible that we've come to a time in history when not everyone knows who Mary Tyler Moore is and that there was an amazing and ground-breaking show called The Mary Tyler Moore Show. This is both sad and disturbing but entirely possible given the fact that there are people who don't know what a VCR is, who the Captain and Tennille are, and that there was a time when people read newspapers in paper form and not online. People also wrote letters to one another and didn't wear tights as pants. And I don't mean leggings, I mean tights. As pants. This can't be right.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was the first television show to feature a single, never-married, career woman as the main character. The show ran from 1970-1977 (yes, before I was born) and featured the amazing Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards, a single woman in her 30s who moves to Minneapolis and becomes a producer on the evening news program. She's not looking for a man or waiting for one to find her. She puts up with her curmudgeon of a boss, the wonderful Ed Asner and serves as the center of the show, the proverbial glue that holds it all together. The show also featuers the great Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern, Betty White as Sue Ann Nivens, and Ted Knight as Ted Baxter. And did I mention Cloris Leachman? Oh yeah, she's the landlady.

Oh and did we discuss the title sequence? If I wore hats I'd want to stand at an intersection in Minneapolis and throw my hat in the air and be amazing and awesome and have my own theme song. But I don't wear hats (even in the winter when visiting Minnesota).

I watched reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Nick at Nite (around the same time The Monkees were on). I loooooved Mary Richards and her friends and her life. I've never been able to decide if I'm more Mary or more Rhoda (sort of like I've never been able to figure out if I'm more Rory or Lane - I think I'm more Lane). Do I get to be sincere and nice and the glue that holds it all together like Mary or the wise-cracking, dating disaster who eventually gets her own show like Rhoda? I just don't know.

When I moved to California one of my friends started calling me Mary (and only the two of us and one other person in our office knew what we were talking about without explanation) and told me how excited she was for me to forge a new life on the West Coast. She called me brave and pioneering. I didn't feel very Mary; I felt more like a character from the Oregon Trail (and yes, I know the Oregon Trail did not go through California - I read and played the video game). There was the real possibility that my car would break down on the drive or some other terrible thing would happen on the way to Alameda. I'm not sure what the modern equivalent of dysentery (obviously it could just be dysentery) or fording a river would be but I'm sure there's something similar. Maybe it's dealing with food judgement (I'm talking to you lady at the store who turns her nose up at the non-organic carrots in my shopping cart) or finding a parking spot in Berkeley.

I've decided that my move to California was not my Mary Richards moment; my move back to Virginia is. It's not that moving to Cali wasn't exciting or different but it hasn't been the life-changing moment I think my friend (and I) thought it would be. So this winter I would like to stage my own version of the MTMS title sequence in Arlington. I think it could be fun - I will need a photographer/partner in crime to assist. I would also like someone to write me a theme song.

On being a grown-up

Grown-up.

When I was a kid I liked to fantasize about being a grown-up. I wanted to live in New York, be a famous Broadway costume designer, have an amazing husband (think a cross between Lloyd Dobler and Superman), be a great mom to 2 kids, and have a bulldog named Albert. I would be responsible, wise, and sophisticated. And grown-up. I thought that being older and being on my own instantly made me a grown-up.

At work this week (a very grown-up thing to be doing) I sent an email around to my colleagues about working with college prep years (something that we do). I explained what it was and why students might take a 5th year in high school (not always by choice of course). Anyway, one of my co-workers responded to the email whether there was an adult college prep school. He was joking but it also got me thinking-why isn't there an adult college prep school or just adult prep school? It's both hilarious and 100% true - everyone needs a prep year. I think I might have missed my prep year. I don't particularly feel like a grown-up and I'm not entirely sure if I ever will. Of course, Lorelei Gilmore would say I'm definitely not because real adults would never call themselves grown-ups and we all know the Gilmore Girls know all.

When I think about adults I think about my parents not me or my friends. I've only used the word adult when buying movie tickets. I know I'm of the age that one would normally consider an adult but is it just age? I know plenty of guys who are my age who are not adults (or grown-ups) and lots of women who will always be teenagers despite being in their late fifties. I also know a lot of teenagers who are way more grown-up and adult than their parents. Does the fact that I like Hello Kitty and blogging about the 36 things I love about some random movie keep me from being a real deal adult?

Obviously, I do adult things (don't be dirty). I pay taxes, pay bills, vote, act civilly in public (not necessarily something all adults do), sponsor a child in Rwanda, get the tires on my car rotated, care about my health insurance plan. I wear high heels, carry a big girl purse, buy alcohol legally, and vacation in places that don't involve keg parties or 10 people sharing a hotel room. I don't drink bourbon (something I've always felt was the epitome of grown-upness). I only recently bought my first car on my own. I've moved cross-country (about to do it a second time) but I feel like that's something teenagers do; grown-ups put down roots, not act like nomads.

So what makes an adult? Or a grown-up? Is there a difference? Should we all get a prep year?

My 33rd birthday is in about a week. I feel like I should be an adult or at least feel like one. I feel grown-upish and I really do think there's a difference. I just can't figure out what that difference is.

I guess at least I'm not like Charlize Theron's character in Young Adult. I don't pine for my high school days, don't have a high school boyfriend I should have married (or think I should have married), didn't use Patton Oswalt and then treat him like dirt, and don't ghost write young adult novels. I would love to write professionally but I'd prefer to explore my idea of a children's book about a dinosaur named Walter.

Everything is better with dinosaurs...even adulthood.

This is my best attempt at drawing Walter. I never said I was an artist.