I’ve had some extra time as of late because I called in sick to work because I was sick. We spent the past weekend at home, working on projects, doing laundry, and eating soup. And by the end of the weekend, I felt pretty caught up.

Now, wait. At any given time, I probably have a few dozen things I SHOULD be working on, each with varying levels of urgency. I’ve been building some websites for my employer. I’m working on our own websites. I have a couple logos I need to finish. I’m helping my sister design her wedding invitations. I have a book I should work on for my next book club. There’s always laundry and cleaning the bathroom.

But after three or four days of being sick and not leaving the house, and not really doing anything but eating soup and having my face buried in my laptop, I’m feeling, sort of, caught up. It’s weeeeird. I don’t know what to do with myself.

It doesn’t mean everything is done. I still have a quite a few things to do. But I’m stuck on a logo, for instance, because I’m not a very good cartoonist. I need to draw something cartoony for a logo and I’m stuck. What this means is that I will procrastinate until I pick up a pen again later and draw something (probably crappy), and because sufficient time has elapsed, or I’m impatient and sick of waiting, whatever I draw will be “good enough.” I wrote every single paper in college using this same procrastination technique.

So I still have stuff to do, but I’ve had too much free time to get it done. I got all the stuff that was on my “urgent list” done. Now maybe I could work on some back burner stuff, but, I have too much free time. You know what happens then? I go look at baby animals. Or we actually watched a movie last night for the first time in months. I don’t know if you know this, but Dave has a huge, huge crush on Humphry Bogart.

After an ongoing list of various projects, it’s a bit disconcerting to get to the bottom. Like, what am I supposed to be doing? Where am I? And at the bottom of the list, is usually all the fun stuff that I put off in favor of more pressing obligations. So I have a few fun things that I’m poking at. But without the weight of other obligations, that whole procrastination thing kicks in. You see how that works?

I think it means it’s time to maybe close the laptop and get out of the house. My brain needs oxygen.

Comments: 1
Categories: Lists

I seem to have developed a new pattern of getting sick. Or rather, NOT getting sick. I haven’t had a full-on cold in quite a long time. However, I have had many, many instances where I felt like I was coming down with something. I felt the irritation in my throat, or I got sniffly, or I’d get a little cough and figured I was getting sick. I would prepare by becoming preemptively miserable and whiny that I was coming down with something.

But then, nothing would happen. I would have a few days of a vague sore throat, or my nose might be a little stuffy, but that was it. And then it would go away. It was baffling. In the past, when got a sore throat, it was always, ALWAYS, the beginning of a cold. There was no way out of it. Now I get these on and off little symptoms that come and go. It’s kind of bullcrap. I would almost rather get fully snotty, sloppy sick and then recover completely and be healthy after that.

I was explaining all this the last time I went to my doctor. She asked me if I had tried a Neti pot. I had never heard of such a thing. She wrote it down for me and said it was the greatest thing ever. Everyone in Oregon should use one.

I went home and Googled it (fair warning, there’s slightly revolting photo of a guy that looks like James Doohan flushing out his nose). This looked like a way to recreate the stinging water-up-the-nose experience I had as a kid. And Dave was positively grossed out by James Doohan. So I didn’t buy a neti pot.

But my on/off sinus and throat irritation continued, with a flare up last week. Again, I thought for sure I was coming down with a bad cold. I was even tired, achy and feverish. Everyone seems to be sick lately. But my throat never got any worse than mildly irritated and I never got more than a little stuffy. With a dry tickle cough that kept me from sleeping. Not debilitating, just fricken annoying.

And the SUPER annoying part was that I’m eating really healthy. I’m taking vitamins everyday. And fish oil pills. And I’m drinking green tea. I’m doing all kinds of healthy stuff I’ve never done on a regular basis. And after all that, I get this stupid little illness. It’s bullcrap.

So I resolved to get a neti pot. I didn’t care how much it grossed Dave out. My doctor recommended it. And I can’t help but think this string of low grade sicky episodes might be some kind of ongoing infection that just hasn’t completely gone away. I just want to be over it.

I got a neti pot and I brought it home. I mixed up a store bought solution. You can make your own with salt and baking powder (I think), but I didn’t want to experiment during my first attempt. I didn’t need a layer of complication or excitement while shoving this thing up my nose. It seemed like a lot of liquid. I tilted my head to the side and shoved the end of the neti pot into a nostril.

And the first sensation is that panicky “Water up the nose! Water up the nose!” emergency feeling from childhood. I had never really fathomed, until that point, that one nostril was even connected to the other, somewhere in my skull. I just thought they were two separate roller coaster tunnels leading off somewhere. But here I was, pouring water into one nostril, and it was coming out the other. Neat.

The box talked about flushing out allergens, pollution, debris, extra mucus. This makes it sound like shipwrecks were going to come out of my nose, so I was a little disappointed that it was just clear water.  After a short amount of time, I stopped to see how much liquid was gone. More than half. I tilted my head the other way and used the rest up the other nostril. Imagine, this is a religious ceremony in India.

When I was all done, I spent 10 minutes blowing my nose. I was still waiting for shipwrecks to come out. But it was all water. And what I really wanted to flush out was the back of my throat, behind the soft palate, where I suspect my trouble lies. I fight with this region a lot. I’m sure there’s bad stuff going on back there.

Dave did not want to witness any of this and I don’t blame him. But like any former little boy, he was equally grossed out and fascinated by this whole process. I mean, I’m shoving something up my nose. And blowing it out the other side. These are the kind of things that would have gotten a kid sent to detention.

I continued to blow my nose and tell him all about it. I was expecting more booger action. I was glad that it didn’t make me feel worse, because that’s always a possibility. There was still a lot of water up there, and I kept blowing until it felt like it was all out. Sort of a non event. I was hoping it would be more exciting.

We changed the subject and Dave showed me a new website he was working on. He was sitting and I was standing over his work station, behind him. When he was done, I leaned over to give him a kiss. And leaning, tilting my head, I somehow matched the angle I just used with the neti pot. And I went to kiss him, but instead, a bunch of water dripped out of my nose onto my boyfriend.

Oh. My. God.

“It’s just water! It’s just water!” I veered away and ran for a tissue. The look on his face. The horror! The horror! He was stunned. He was the one grossed out by all this in the first place. He showed me where I dripped on his sleeve. “It’s just water!” I am remarkably competent at embarrassing myself intentionally. But I have no idea how to handle embarrassing myself unintentionally. I almost couldn’t look at him. He was both horrified and amused.

And really? Yes, it was water. But it had been up my nose. So really, it was booger juice. IT WAS MOSTLY WATER. But it had still up my nose. I dripped booger juice on my boyfriend.

He says he still loves me. Because I’m so romantic. And a class act.

Comments: 7
Categories: Awesome!, Bullcrap, Drivel

I’m a girl. Let’s get that out of the way. I’m going to talk about undies. It is not going to be titillating. But I’ll take the smut search hits anyway because I’m a traffic whore.

Probably like many women, I dislike the word “panties.” But I realize most men LOVE the word “panties.” Boy, they love that word! I try to meet in the middle and use the word “undies.” I think it’s cute. You can use it for men, women and children’s underclothes, and it’s funny (I think) to say for grandparents, too. “Look at Grandpa in his undies!” See? Funny.

The other day, I ruined my whole day before even leaving the house. It all started with my underwear drawer. I had allowed my laundry to pile up and as a result, I had to do some deep, deep reaching into my underwear drawer. This is not uncommon. I seem to have to do this a lot. I’m an expert at undie drawer digging.

I’m not actually talking about a problem caused by undies in this instance, or lack thereof. Many years of apartment living has caused me to have a veritable ass-ton of undies. Because I’d rather buy more undies than fight the laundry trolls in apartment buildings. Perhaps this is a consumerist or wasteful attitude. But I like to reason that I have enough undies to be prepared for nuclear war, the second coming, or a zombie infestation. As long as it doesn’t last for more than a month and a half.

No, in this instance, the source of my troubles was a bra. Again, like many women, (I assume), I have good, happy bras and bad, evil or sad bras. I have favorite bras and I wear those often. I have other non-favorites that I have as back ups, for working out, or bumming around in. But because I was running low on laundry, all my favorite bras were in the wash. So I dug through the non-favorites, and then reached even further, and found something interesting. A brand new bra that I don’t remember ever wearing. Ever. Brand new. It was way in the back, so had I forgotten about it.

I put it on and it was a little snug, but not uncomfortable. I knew I had another bra that was identical to this one, that I wear often. So I figured this one would be the same, but it was just so new, it hadn’t been “lived in” yet. I adjusted the straps and went about my business.

Next I selected a shirt, and I made my second mistake of the morning. It was a shirt I had worn before and had no issues. Now, it seemed like it had been through the wash and the arms were too tight, the neckline was wonky, and the fabric in the armpits was bunching up. But I remembered wearing this shirt before and it was fine. And I was becoming late for work and I didn’t have time for this bullcrap.

So now I’m running late, and I used a new trick to fix my hair. I’m growing my hair out as best as I can so I can look like an adult at my sister’s wedding in the summer. I don’t want to be the only person in a dress with a boy’s haircut. So I’m trying to let my hair grow out and it makes me feel frumpy dumpy. As soon as all the wedding stuff is over, I’m going to cut it short and dye it green.*

My new hair trick is to twist it up in a clip. Not rocket science, but my hair is still a little too short and I have to pull it pretty tight to make it stay in all day. I didn’t have time to mess with it. I got all my shit together and rushed out the door, off to work.

Now. Too tight bra. Shirt that cuts into my armpits. Hair pulled tightly back into a clip. I wasn’t even halfway to work before I was PISSED OFF. And I didn’t have the presence of mind to know why. All I knew, I was goddamned crabby and my day hadn’t even started yet. And a day like that, by nature, isn’t going to get better. It’s not like I could give myself a pep talk. “I’m going to go ahead and stop chaffing now! Awesome! What a great day!”

By the end of the day, it felt I had been wearing a straitjacket for ten hours, which is for the better, because I would have gladly started a knife fight if only someone had given me the opportunity.

The moral of the story: I have a washing machine and dryer in my apartment. I’m going to use them. I’m going to wash that evil bra, and because I make no sense, I’m probably going to put that bra back in my drawer. It’s brand new! I’m not going to throw it out!

I’ll see if I remember this post in a couple years, sometime when I’m running low on undies. Or during a zombie infestation.

*(I’m probably not going to dye my hair green.)

Comments: 4
Categories: Angry, Drivel

I don’t have a lawn. I have never had a lawn. I haven’t touched a lawnmower since I was a teenager. And when I was a teenager, I HATED mowing the lawn. More than anything. I have absolutely no desire to ever own a lawn. If I buy a house, I will likely rip out the lawn, plant native plants, and let them grow wild until they swallow the whole property. I will be a fantastic gardener.

Yet last weekend, I was at a Home Depot, and at the check out line, there were bags and bags of some kind of lawn care product. I don’t know if it was dirt, or seeds, or weed killer, or fertilizer or poop or what. But there were images of sparkling emerald carpets on these bags. Clearly, these bags were selling the types of lawn you NEED to have.

I was already feeling guilty for even going to Home Depot. I popped in, sort of casually, to see if they had any little succulent plants that I might use to make a little indoor succulent garden. I was out somewhere east, in the triple digit streets, which I forget exist. Home Depot was right next to Bed, Bath and Beyond, where I went to buy a scale because I’m trying to eat better and the scale will help me obsess. I had a coupon.

I felt guilty about going to Home Depot because Pistils is right in my neighborhood and I love Pistils, plus they have chickens and baby chicks. But the last time I went to Pistils, they didn’t have just what I was looking for, something low growing that spreads OUT instead of UP because I have a bastard cat that thinks any vegetation in the house is a salad. I love plants and I wish I could have some in our house. But the cat eats them then pukes on the bed. Bastard. Eff-ing. Cat.

I am familiar with Home Depot. Like many big box stores, there is a Home Depot every five miles in southern California. When I lived down there, and I had a “Home Depot” type purchase to make, I made an effort to go to smaller, local stores. Because there is nothing more charming than small, hodgepodge, family run hardware stores. I can get fishing bait, a VCR, and a toilet seat cover all in one trip!

But the smaller stores are sometimes hit or miss, or the store hours are funky, or the parking is impossible. And it was sometimes easier to go to giant, predictable, generic Home Depot. Or Bed Bath and Beyond. Or Target. None of this was ever good or bad. It’s just how you buy things when you live in southern California. Probably most other places too. You get in your car, you drive on the freeway, you buy stuff, and you bring it home. That’s how it works.

Now I live in Portland. And I’m not sure if it’s possible to be more opposite of southern California. Now it’s a huge pain in the ass to go to those big box stores. It’s so much easier to go to a small store, a hardware store, a garden store, an art supply store, even if it’s a couple neighborhoods over. If I need gifts or books or clothes, or breakfast, or even succulent plants, I don’t need to go further than one block in my own neighborhood to find them.

However, I don’t have a lawn. I’m supposed to want a lawn, right? Isn’t that what we are supposed to want? So you can mow it, and sit on it, and your kids can toddle around on it and eat bugs? I see cute little houses on little patches of land and think “I could do that.” The lawn would be emerald green and free of weeds, and neatly trimmed, and make my neighbors gnash their teeth and wonder how DID she get such a lovely lawn?

I grew up with a yard. It was an acre. I had to goddamned mow it. I’m not sure how I came from rural/suburban heritage and became more of a city person. Mowing the lawn may have done it. My mom told me of how we visited Boston when I was a kid, and I proclaimed that I would one day live in the city. She dismissed my remarks as babbles from a dim child. My parents never dreamed the fruit of their loins would ever turn into a city girl.

There are probably people who shudder to think that my “front yard” is a sidewalk that leads to other places. I live in a building with neighbors in all directions, above, below, on either side. I know some people who think this kind of existence is absolutely wretched. I admit that I get tired of it sometimes too. I need to have occasional getaways to the woods or the coast. And as much as I enjoy those places, when I drive back to town, I’m still happy Portland is home.

The piles of lawn care products at the big box store reminded me how much my life has changed in the past three years, and how much I have changed. Visiting Home Depot feels like visiting another planet. Albeit, a planet with very nice lawns, but a different planet nevertheless.

Comments: 3
Categories: History, Portland, Transitions

I recently mentioned that I had my cholesterol tested. I got the results back three weeks ago. My cholesterol is waaaay too high. Like, 60-year-old-obese-trucker-Big-Mac-every-meal-heart-attack-waiting-to-happen type cholesterol. I thought I was eating a little better since my mom’s heart attack last April. Somehow though, in the past year, my cholesterol went UP 70 points. It’s like sympathy cholesterol.

I’m in my mid 30s. This is the kind of cholesterol that kills you by 45. Three weeks ago, the day I got my results, I had a few bites of some homemade macaroni and cheese, one of my favorite foods. I knew it would be the last time I’d be eating mac and cheese for a long, long time.

Since then, I have become hyper conscious of what I am eating. It takes me twice as long to go grocery shopping because I am reading the back of every label. And I already spend a hell of a lot of time haunting the grocery store. It takes me ten minutes just to buy a loaf of bread. Why? Because nearly all commercial bread has high fructose corn syrup. Or they add honey or molasses or brown sugar because it’s cute. And it fricken annoys me. Why would I want my bread to be sweet? Or rather, why would I want it to be so sweet it needs high fructose corn syrup? So I end up spending so much time fondling the bread that the stock boys get suspicious.

We’ve cut back on anything containing saturated fat. I used to casually look to see if food contained cholesterol. I didn’t realize that eating dietary cholesterol makes less difference than saturated fat. So before, I was practically slathering fish and chips all over my body thinking “cholesterol free!” I knew it was bad. But I didn’t think it was THAT BAD.

We’ve gotten books, I’m reading up more. When I want to learn about something, anything, I want to know EVERY infinitesimal tiny little detail about the thing. I want instruction manuals. I want literature. I want schematics. I think I must get this quality from my dad, who used to make us cry when he tried to help us with math homework.

And as it turns out, Dave and I already have a bunch of low fat and vegetarian cookbooks. He used to be vegetarian, and early in our relationship, he vowed that he would try to get me to eat more veggies. At the time, that sounded like “I’m going to make you join a cult.” Naturally, I was a bit skeptical.

Dave is reluctant to go to the doctor unless something is broken or falling off, so we can only guess what his cholesterol might be. We essentially shared the same diet, except he drinks a hell of a lot more beer. Happily, he is just as enthusiastic about eating better as I am. I am endlessly thankful for his support. And his resolve is steely. I get a hairy eyeball when I grate a little parmesan over my pasta. One ounce of parmesan has more than five grams of saturated fat. It doesn’t sound like a lot. But every bit of resistance feels like victory.

In the past three weeks, we have been very careful about the choices we are making when it comes to food. Eating at home is easier and we’ve cooked some fantastic extra healthy meals. On Sunday, I made a soup that was so damned healthy I felt like I could flap my arms and fly afterward. We live on the second floor. It wouldn’t be that far down.

Eating out is a little harder. Going to restaurants is not as much fun. I’m already sick of salad. But I don’t even look at heavy fat items. It’s like they don’t exist. I don’t even let myself be tempted by mac and cheese or fish and chips. It’s odd how easy it is to turn down food that isn’t healthy. Though when I get hungry, which happens much more frequently now, I’m not dreaming of healthy food. I’m dreaming of giant plates of pasta. With snowy white piles of parmesan cheese.

During one recent dinner out, I ordered a salmon taco special at a mexican restaurant. It was one of the only items without cheese or sour cream or meat. I won’t mention the restaurant because the food was pretty mediocre. The salmon was okay, and the taco had lettuce and tomatoes as you might expect. But it also had mayonnaise, (in a taco?), and wads of cheddar cheese. A month ago, I would have eaten it all without a second thought.

I dissembled the fish and the veggies and scraped the mayo and melted cheese out of the tortilla. And as I mushed it all to one side, I wondered how many calories and fat everything was. How much was that shred of cheese? How about that one? 10 calories? 20?

Are you exhausted? Am I sounding ridiculous? Because it’s kind of fun, actually. Yes, fun. It’s a bit of a game. I like the challenge. Three weeks, and I can already tell my clothes are fitting a little better. I just hope that we can keep it up. Because I really miss gnawing on blocks parmesan cheese.

Comments: 12
Categories: Nom Nom Nom