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September 30, 2007
Happiness in My Heart
I recently had a conversation in which I compared my own happiness to someone else's. I'll spare you the details, but the gist is that—on average—I am a quite happy person. I attributed it to not having expectations that need to be fulfilled in order to be a contented person (like marriage, kids, whatever), but that instead I am delighted to feel like I am taking advantage of whatever opportunities are presented.
I didn't think much about it until I saw this article in today's Washington Post. Titled Is Great Happiness Too Much of a Good Thing?, author Shankar Vedantam writes about a new study out this week that suggest a happiness paradox.
Put another way, a hidden price of being happier on average is that you put your short-term contentment at risk, because being happy raises your expectations about being happy. When good things happen, they don't count for much because they are what you expect. When bad things happen, you temporarily feel terrible, because you've gotten used to being happy.
I'm not sure what that means about my own happiness…although it does suggest why I get bummed out at silly little things (for example, when someone makes a rude gesture at my driving, it will ruin my whole morning), but also why I can bounce back relatively quickly when things don't go my way. The article ends with this thought:
The psychologists are studying ways to help people retain their sensitivity to positive experiences. Individuals and couples who attend to everyday accomplishments, celebrate the positive, and cultivate a sense of gratitude for what they have seem to have the best odds of getting off the happiness treadmill.
In that spirit, please allow me to share with you the amusement I experienced today. It turns out that Janie was asked to draw "what was in her heart". (I assume this was some sort of Sunday School project.) There was room for four things and guess who made the list?
Mommy. Grandma. Aunt Jen. And…
Who would get the coveted fourth space? Would it be daddy in San Diego, or new-dad Mr. Eagle Six? Would it be granddad, who dutifully gets her that second donut every week after church? No…it was…
That's right. My cat made the list. Just in case you were wondering, this is the same cat that hisses as Janie every time she enters the same room. The cat that nearly cost me two fingers last week. The cat that probably dreams about clawing her way to freedom. But according to Janie, "sometimes she's nice".
So here's to "sometimes being nice" being good enough to get you into someone's heart.
September 28, 2007
Time to Go Home
New Orleans isn't nearly as fun as I hoped it would be. Yes, the man in the elevator flirted shamelessly with me, and yes, I have a spa appointment tomorrow afternoon. But it's been raining all week, I have too much work to do, and I just want to go home.
That said the room is super luxe, the bubble baths are delightful, and I got to see the Grey's Anatomy premiere with a tray of room service in my bathrobe.
It's almost midnight here, and I'm calling it a night--I need to save up my energy for tomorrow. Friday night in New Orleans...anyone want to vote on my plans for the evening?
Posted by madchen at 12:32 AM | Comments (1)September 27, 2007
Lessons You Should Learn Before You Get Any Older
One
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and you would be wise to invest in a more robust medical insurance plan. (Ok, that ones for me.)
Two
Please go through your wardrobe and ditch those miniskirts. While you've got a great body for a mature lady, your knees look old. At the very least, wear them only in very low lighting.
Three
Name-calling makes you look like a petulant child (albeit with a shocking vocabulary). It doesn't matter if you are angry or drunk or even entirely justified, you need to curb that tendency immediately.
Four
I know you are just six, but its time you started living up to your commitments. When you say you're going to call me…well, I expect you to follow through. It's not nice to leave your poor aunt waiting by the phone.
September 25, 2007
The Art of the Huff
In the last few days I've learned a little something about leaving in a huff. Sometimes it's been me ("Good day sir—I said good day!") and sometimes it's been directed at me ("good fucking night, whore"), but what has become glaringly apparent is that no matter who does it, and for what reasons, there are few things that scream "drama queen" like a huffy departure.
As I sit here in my swanky hotel room in New Orleans, tucked into a bed overflowing with pristine white pillows, and watching a Next Top Model marathon, it strikes me that the time and place for such hysterics is in reality television—and I tend to avoid those shows for a reason.
That said, I *would* have left in a huff from the plane today when I got stuck next to the most obnoxious man alive. He talked on his cell phone from the minute he boarded the plane, through the welcome announcements, and only turned off the phone when the flight attendant came back for the second time. He monopolized the armrest, TURNED ON HIS CELLPHONE MID FLIGHT TO SEND A TEXT MESSAGE, asked for double the usual complimentary snacks, and declined to pull his seat back up when we were landing. That, and he had his seatbelt off the entire time. And once the plane landed, he was back on the phone giving whoever had the unfortunate luck of being on the other end of the line sweeping directions and making arrogant pronouncements.
If I could have figured out a way to do it, I would have pushed him out into thin air and considered it a service to humanity. That's the kind of huff that still has a place in my book.
September 24, 2007
Stand Back Ma'am
In another episode of "if it's not Comcast, it's some other thing fucking me over", I was effectively barred from my new place yesterday when the lock broke. With me outside. In the hallway. With my arms full of boxes.
Truth be told, this day had been coming, as I had noticed that the door handle required a little more "jiggling" than usual over the last week or so. But yesterday morning it just stopped working altogether. Five hours and $300 later, I have a new doorknob and yet another set of keys.
It ruined my big plans, which included finally catching up on my Big Idea work (including projects for my very dear Ms. ADA who has been waiting so very patiently for my results), wrapping up two client projects, and even mopping the floor with my new Swiffer.
But it was not to be. Instead it put me in a horrifically grumpy mood, which was not helped by the fact that my shoulder still hurts like hell from the tetanus shot last week and I can't bend my bitten index finger more than 15 degrees before it just stops moving.
Bah. Even now I'm feeling bitter and petulant.
September 23, 2007
First Date Blues
So I recently went out on a first date with this new guy that I met online. I was a bit nervous since he looked pretty cute in his picture and well…it was a first date. Anyway, I shouldn't have been worried at all because while he was certainly not repulsive, he was not super attractive. And if he was 5'9" you can call me Tyra Banks.
This was by no means a dealbreaker, since I've dated and fallen in love with guys who weren't Brad Pitt look-alikes. But it definitely set a tone—a date motif, if you will. And that motif was mediocrity.
He was only kind of funny, not particularly smart, sort of laid back, a bit forward, and mildly entertaining. It wasn't that I was left with a feeling of distaste; rather I just didn't feel any sort of click.
Again, not a dealbreaker, since I've dated and fallen in love with guys who didn't immediately make me think "ahh, here is a catch!"
But ultimately, there WAS a dealbreaker. It happened when I invited him back to my place (totally on the up and up, since we closed out the Starbucks and they locked the bathrooms as we were leaving). Since my place was right across the street, I volunteered to let him come up and use my facilities before his long drive home.
Big mistake. First of all, my bathroom has two doors; one facing the entryway and one facing the bedroom, which has a very large window that reflects light back into the living room. Dear reader, he didn't shut the second door and I got an eyeful of "man peeing" when I walked into the living room. Awkward.
But it was after I had shooed him out the door (we hugged and as I was releasing he actually pulled me back in for a kiss on the cheek and a comment about hoping to see me again—double awkward) that I realized we would not be going out again, ever. When I walked back into the bathroom, there were drops of pee on the floor, the toilet seat was up, water had been splashed all over the sink, and the hand towel was all awry.
Dear reader, I gave him a pristine bathroom and he used it like a common pub's. No thanks, I would rather be the crazy cat lady forever than deal with someone whose best "first date" behavior includes marking his territory, literally.
Attention Male Readers: I'm not being overly fussy here, right? If it were just some water on the sink, that's one thing. But PEE ON THE FLOOR?
September 22, 2007
On Becoming Jimmy Stewart
Ok, so I don't have a broken leg. And there's no mysterious murder happening in the apartment complex next door.* But I do have a pair of binoculars and a great view of the parking garage out of my sunroom window. And I'm nosy.
So far, here's what I've noticed:
The midnight parking attendant must be in the initial stages of a relationship because he spent 3 hours last night chatting this girl up on the fourth floor of the garage. She brought him food and gave off lots of "I'm here and I'm a woman" signs (clear even from across the street), but as far as I could tell they mostly just stood near his car and talked. I kept waiting for a shocking make-out scene, but none was forthcoming.
Not so with the teenagers in the late afternoon, who drive up to the empty top floor for alternate make-out and drug-swap festivities. There is even the occasional skateboarding, but this tends to attract attention and so the merriment is generally limited to more covert pleasures.
While I have not witnessed it personally, someone had a grand time doing wheelies on the top floor. I know this because of the tight circles burned into the concrete. Some are around the light poles, others are seemingly at random. Frankly, I'm tempted to go up and see if my tiny car can make smaller circles than those already left.
The day-time parking attendant rides his bike up and down the seven floors like the scene from The Sound of Music when the kids all take their bikes through the dappled afternoon sunshine and sing that brain-numbing "do-a-deer" tune. I wouldn't be surprised at all to know that he's humming show tunes to go with his swaying, swerving path.
And there you have it dear reader. High drama in the parking lot.
* I'm also not going to Washington, or jumping off a bridge at Christmastime to see what life would be like without me.
September 21, 2007
More Fun Than I Thought
I cannot even begin to describe the adventures I had last night. But what the hell, let me give it a try.
Half of what made it a night to remember was that it was totally spontaneous—I mean, rarely (and by rarely I mean "never") do I go downtown to speak at a business networking event and end up sneaking out of a hotel room at 6:30 a.m. to grab a cab back home. The hotel room of a semi-famous person. Here's how it happened:
I met the guys in a serendipitous sort of way at a swank hotel bar. I was just finishing up an event for the Big Idea; they were just coming back from the house of a particular European ambassador who is keen on their professional sport. One thing led to another and I found myself at dinner, doing sake bombs at a table of ten guys and holding an emergency Big Idea meeting on my cell phone in the bathroom (we'll see if I managed to close the deal in a few weeks).
From there we went to another DC hot spot, where the bartender took our pictures in a very paparazzi kind of way and people came up to our group to gush about their enthusiasm and shake hands with their heroes. It was a scene straight out of Entourage, I tell you.
I consumed more alcohol in an 8 hour period than I have in the previous 6 months combined—including several varieties of shots that I wouldn't recommend to a hard-core alcoholic. I got celebrity gossip (he fucked HER?!) straight from the horse's mouth. I was invited to Camelot when some of the group split up (but declined), and ended up…well, I'll just skip over the next few hours and go straight to the beauty of catching a cab that drops you off right outside your doorstep. I've never had that luxury before and it made the perfect end to a strange and fabulous night.
September 20, 2007
Things I've Learned Recently
Being unable to use a thumb is difficult. Being unable to use a thumb AND forefinger is nigh impossible. It also makes one realize just how ambidextrous one really is. I, for instance, never realized that I hold Starbucks coffee cups in my left hand. When forced to drink with my right hand (while also walking down the street), I ended up sloshing caramel latte all over the place. Not pretty.
There is great internet coverage in Trail, BC (that's Canada, eh), but very crappy coverage in St. Louis.
Knife sharpening requires two working hands. Fortunately, this was a lesson I learned quickly, and disaster was averted.
The local Giant Food has a dearth of attractive men. Social Safeway, it is not. Killing twenty minutes while my prescription was filled resulted in precisely ZERO "ohh" moments. But I did get a chance to peruse an entire aisle of ice cream.
Naked Alone Time is best spent with old 90's music blasting in the background, so as to provoke dramatic karaoke moments. Currently I am jamming (albeit in my pajamas) to Biz Markie's "Just a Friend". A classic. James's "Laid" is also excellent for this purpose.
While a tetanus shot might not hurt when given, it hurts like a bitch the next day. And the day after that. And one of the long term side effects can be "wasting of the arm muscle, which may last for many months". Yikes, that sounds bad.
When sung properly, the lyric "you're crazy bitch, but you f*ck so good I'm on top of it" is not nearly offensive as it might otherwise be. When sung PROPERLY.
A mango is a slippery beast and peeling one should only be undertaken with a sharp knife and 10 working digits. Eight will NOT do.
The pharmaceutical companies have gone too far in their pill proportions. I ask you, is this necessary?
September 19, 2007
Comcast Part Three
So yesterday the Comcast repairman came to…well, repair. As you may recall, the MDU (whatever that is) was broken in my brand new building, and it took them 11 days to get me a follow-up appointment. I've been going a bit crazy…between moving to my new place, random travel, and a tiny (and by tiny I mean a strong possibility of losing my fingertips) bacterial infliction I've been pretty much confined to the house (when not in the Canadian frontier). So it was with eager anticipation that I entered the 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. appointment zone.
Unfortunately, 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. came and went with no sign of any internet miracle. I ended up calling Comcast, who rather lackadaisically informed me that they couldn't check on the progress of the technician directly, but could instead call the dispatcher who could relay the message to the technician, and then somehow pass an updated time on to me. For a company that proclaims itself at the forefront of the digital revolution, you'd think they could get a better tracking system in place.
Whatever.
Anyway, the Comcast guy did eventually show up at 12:30 p.m. (at which time I was beginning to think that a tetanus show was a good idea—my cat-bitten fingers were turning distinctly purple) and managed to fix up the MDU lickety-split. Unfortunately, he informed me that he was just the repair guy and that I would need to make another appointment in order to get the internet actually turned on.
WTF?!
But wait, lest you think that my ordeal was over, please enjoy the next development. When I called Comcast to schedule yet another appointment, the next available appointment was….wait for it…13 days later.
I repeat, WTF?!
That's right, I was going to have to wait until OCTOBER FIRST to get my internet hooked up. But here is where a tiny glimmer of redemption happens. The Comcast technician, seeing that I was on the verge of a hysterical meltdown, told me to put down the phone and let him handle it. Indeed, a quick phone call to one of his "people" and I had an appointment for this morning.
Lo and behold, the guy this morning was even EARLY, and my internet was hooked up my noon—prompting me to practically drool all over my computer at the magic pictures that appear at the mere push of a button. (Not THOSE pictures, dear reader. Get your mind out of the gutter.)
Anyway, Comcast, I still hate you and your customer service bureaucracy, your crappy MDU installation process, and your ridiculously long waits for available appointments. But every once in a while you surprise me. That MDU technician…hold on to him. Right now he's the only thing keeping you from the inner rings of hell.
September 18, 2007
Calculations
Picture if you will, dear reader, my own personal Master Card commercial:
[zoom in on Ms. Write Again Soon earnestly signing an 8-inch stack of papers]
New condo: $300,000
[cut to scene of Ms. Write Again Soon surrounded by approximately a gazillion boxes]
Movers to help unload your stuff: $150
[flurry of scenes with Ms. Write Again Soon handing over her charge card with abandon]
New bookcases, desk, and shelving: $1,200
[cut to Ms. Write Again Soon coaxing a tiny cat from under the bed]
Pet carrier to transport cat to new condo: $25
[zoom in on Ms. Write Again Soon standing over the sink, crying]
First aid to quell copious bleeding after tussle with cat: $7
[pan across parking lot while a heavily bandaged Ms. Write Again Soon enters a doctor's office]
Visit to Minute Clinic to get tetanus shot after fingers swell to twice their normal size: $49
[cut to a harried Ms. Write Again Soon pushing her way through the bleeding masses]
Midnight visit to emergency room when fingers emit colorfully viscous ooze: $275
[view of Ms. Write Again Soon grimacing as she swallows a silver dollar size pill]
Week's worth of hard-core antibiotics: $190
[zoom in on a pile of used bandages, neosporin, painkiller wrappers, and peroxide]
More bandages and peroxide: $15
[cut to alarmed Ms. Write Again Soon as she looks at the IV antibiotics the doctor proffers]
Follow-up trip to emergency room: $225
Ability to recover from serious bacterial infection while having "naked alone time" in brand new home: PRICELESS
Posted by madchen at 06:21 PM | Comments (1)September 10, 2007
Toothache
I'm typing to you, dear reader, from a motel in the Canadian frontier. It is a mix of surprisingly nice (free wireless internet) and not-so-nice (a gigantic fly that refuses to be shoo-ed out the door). It's a mere 9:22 p.m. and yet I have a strong suspicion that I will be collapsing into a deep sleep in a matter of moments. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to take advantage of this internet connection to do a quick review of the last week's events.
I am finally shedding the headache resulting from two nights in a row of drinking (I can see Ms. NYC Rogue rolling her eyes and trying to remember the last time she went two days in a row without drinking), but have discovered a toothache that is not just annoyingly persistent, but almost assuredly an early sign of jaw cancer. At least, it feels that way tonight.
My trip here is going to be really fun, I think, but already I'm missing my new place. I moved in on Tuesday, but it was only this morning as I dragged my hastily packed suitcase into the pre-dawn lull of the parking garage that I felt the place was sufficiently "moved into" to feel like home. And then to get on a cross country flight, spend 4 hours in a layover, and then get on a prop plane with WAY too much turbulence for my comfort--well, it created an instant homesickness.
Last night I went out with Ms. Secret Blog and Her Boy, along with his two brothers. We saw a fun band (including a post-coma lead singer), drank cider (that in a perfect world would be accompanied by a peanut butter sandwich), and even heard a bit of the Silver Spring Jazz Festival during our arduous trek to find parking (and the subsequent meandering over to the Irish Pub where non-adventurous dinners were later served).
After all that entertainment I was even escorted home by a fireman and a policeman, sort of. These public servant siblings might take a cue from their older and wiser brother, who is a paragon of good manners and who, I'm sure, would have seen me all the way to my building instead of waving a nonchalant goodbye a block from my front door. But they are young and it's possible that I seemed WAY too old to warrant such attentions, and so I will forgive them the oversight.
In the spirit of catching up, I would also like to explain to you, dear reader, about Friday night with Mr. HSBF and how he finally made a move (apparently, removing the fear that my dad would walk into the room in a dramatic repeat of our youthful indiscretions was key to the whole endeavor), but my poor tooth hurts and puts me in a very non-sexy mood. Suffice it to say that I could not be more delighted to finally be in my own place.
Reader Alert! I am searching for a fun blog name for my new place--something like Tara, or Green Gables, or possibly The Den of Iniquity. All suggestions are welcome--especially those that convert to a great acronym.
Posted by madchen at 12:25 AM | Comments (3)September 08, 2007
Internet Installation
In another demonstration of it's never as easy as it should be, the Comcast cable installer arrived at my doorstep on Wednesday afternoon. Or, rather, Wednesday evening. I was dutifully present from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and at 5:02 p.m. called to ask whether I should still expect them to show up. I was assured that a tech person was on their way, and indeed—at 5:20 p.m. a surly young woman did show up.
She poked around for a few minutes and announced there was a bad MDU and that she couldn't fix it. No, there was nothing she could do--I would have to schedule another appointment. No, they had no time slots available this week. No, there was absolutely no way to get it completed before I left for Canada. But yes, they could schedule me in for 12 days from now. Could I be there between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m.? Perfect.
So for the last couple of days I have been lurking around the Seattle's Best Coffee (secret subsidiary of Starbucks, and permanent fixture in Border's Bookstores), using their pay-by-the-hour internet service. I grow weary of it, dear reader. Thank goodness that I'm leaving for another trip to Canada tomorrow morning—where I'll be wearing specially fitted steel toed boots and roaming around a mine site, miles from internet and mobile phone access. Because THAT is a good reason to be out of touch.
New tally: Comcast 2, Ms. Write Again Soon 0.
September 02, 2007
Finding Zen
This weekend has been one big tragedy of errors and I am one step away from having a total breakdown.
A 2-hour trip to IKEA yesterday, in which I fought alongside every pregnant woman within a 100-mile radius, resulted in having to abandon the ONE item that I ended up finding in stock (a new desk), because the box wouldn't fit in my parents' car--a car I had borrowed specifically because it had trunk space equivalent to the entire interior volume of my Miata.
And today, I am STILL locked out of my new condo because the developer failed to remove the "safety pin" from the front door lock. They promised to fix it on Friday, but when Ms. Wish to See graciously showed up this morning to deliver a couple of items they had been holding, lo and behold, I was still unable to get in my front door.
I've spent two hours on the phone with everyone I can think of--the building developer, the warranty company, the building management company, the building sellers, the project developer, etc. None of them can help--and the ones that can aren't picking up the phone AND HAVE THEIR VOICEMAIL TURNED OFF.
What this means is that I will have to arrange a completely separate day sometime next week to get moved in--I can't even use the "day off" tomorrow since apparently everyone is too busy enjoying the fruits of their labor to fix their gross incompetence from the previous week.
Add to this the fact that I have to "reserve" the loading dock and elevator space in order to properly move all of the big furniture, and the management company failed to return my call on Friday morning, meaning that I have no way of knowing when I might be able to actually move my belongings over It better be next week since come 5 a.m. on Sunday morning I'll be on a plane to the Canadian wilderness.
The bottom line: at the moment I am a proud (and heavily leveraged) owner of an empty condo that will apparently remain out of my reach for the next two days--the only two days in the next month that I had managed to clear for this purpose.
To top everything off, I thought that at least I could run a few errands on the way back to my old place (where I will spend the remainder of the day trying to work on Big Idea stuff that will be impossible to complete this week due to rearranged moving schedules). Unfortunately, my trip to the Big Idea mail box was in vain, since I hadn't brought my keys (having driven my parents' car--now filled with stuff delivered from Ms. Wish to See). The bag of cleaning supplies and groceries that I picked up from Trader Joe's ripped and spilled pasta and tile cleaner all over the sidewalk, and a next of baby spiders appears to have taken root in the growing piles of boxes patiently waiting in the basement for their day of glory.
Getting drunk and blowing the rest of the day off in a fit of pique sounds like the only option left to me.
Posted by madchen at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)
