Maure's Xanga

Facts.

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:41:28 GMT

It's been a long while, I guess, so here are some facts:

1. I'm still alive, and my hair is getting very long.
2.I'm no busier than I've ever been, but I have less inclination to be on my computer. That may change tomorrow, because
3. I'm getting a new laptop, the first new computer I've bought since 2001 (my desktop is 2003, but I didn't buy it).
4. I have a round trip ticket to New York, the time between flights being very nearly a month. I am excited and also nervous about being away from home for that long.
5. I am super excited about being able to see NY friends more than the usual once or twice a year.
6. I am on the hunt for garden party attire, and you have no idea the consternation and delight this is causing me.
7. I scrubbed the bathtub sparkling clean about twenty minutes ago, and am about to take a bath with a book and some tea and a shocking abundance of bubbles.
8. I've discovered that I am quite good at saving money, after all. Who knew? Not me.
9. I have an eye appointment tomorrow with my favorite eye doctor. I am getting new contacts and new glasses, both.
10. We're having boys' night out tomorrow night -- Tom and Stefan and I are going to see I Love You, Man. Only I'm not a boy. Shhh.
11. I think, much to my dismay, having always preferred a different sort of monster, that I am turning into a werewolf. Or Mr. Hyde. My teeth feel unusually sharp today, and dogs keep barking at me. I offered Michael and Tom several situations they may find themselves in ("what if all my bones started cracking and reshaping themselves, and I was screaming and there was blood everywhere from my skin splitting, and I became this terrifying monster and started eating everyone, what would you do?" "Well, are you going to change back into you?" "You don't know! I just all of a sudden became a monster and I'm eating everyone! You have no idea if I'll ever not be a monster again!" "I'd still be your friend."), and their answers stifled my anxiety that once having become a monster, I'd lose all my friends.
12. I may be reading too much folklore research on the internet.

I hate this game.

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:18:27 GMT

I went grocery shopping today. I shopped for about forty minutes, getting things on my list and not on my list. I had a cart, not a hand-held basket. That's how much shopping I was doing. I left my shopping cart for less than two minutes (I would be hard-pressed to imagine it was even more than a minute and a half) at the end of an aisle in order to get something in the middle of the aisle, which was halfway blocked with boxes a teenage employee was unpacking and shelving. While I looked for what I wanted, he left the aisle. When I decided I didn't find what I really wanted and went back to my cart, it was gone. I looked up and down aisles for it. Totally gone.

I'm pretty sure the teenage stockboy decided it was an abandoned cart, and took it to the nearby back room to unload.

I didn't get any of my groceries because I didn't want to spend at least another half hour reshopping for them, especially because the store had been filling steadily with pre-Bowl game shoppers since I'd come in myself.

This is just one example of what was typical of today.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:08:43 GMT

One of my students from seven(?!) years ago has gotten in contact with me via Neil's FAQ line!! heeheehee!! She remembered me reading them Coraline before it was published, and sent Neil a question asking if he could tell her how to contact me. He forwarded it to me, and I'm in the middle of emailing her, but . . .

life is so strange, sometimes, isn't it!

You may have already heard . . .

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:02:25 GMT

My friend Neil, whom I have known for a shorter period of time than it feels like, and a longer period of time than I actually ever remember, has won the Newbery Medal. Isn't that just the coolest thing?!

We're almost there, guys!

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:58:57 GMT

Two more days.

I love New York in Spring, how about you?

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:42:11 GMT

I was idly (reaaallly, Maure? Idly? Yes, dammit, idly!) skimming Craigslist tonight to get an idea of current apartment prices for Manhattan (no reason! no reason!), and I came across a request for someone to catsit for a month in exchange for staying in the apartment for free. I hemmed and hawed for a bit (a very little bit), and dashed off an email offering my services to the lister. I hope so much that she decides to use me -- a month in NYC would be the perfect thing for getting a handle on whether or not I really am interested in moving, and beyond that, it would be a great adventure! Not entirely a vacation, because I can pick up work in NY cafes (the benefit of working for a corporation -- everyone's connected, and you can get work at any cafe that can use you) a few times a week if I want to do, but a much-appreciated escape nonetheless. I am trying not to be too excited for the prospect, as I'm sure there will be many many applicants, but I can't help it. A month in NYC! Hot dog!

I wasn't going to say anything, but . . .

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:46:39 GMT

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Updated Jan 15 09:25 a.m. CT

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nothing new to add, so I'll just address some comments

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:36:55 GMT

Jocelyn!: Your suggestion, or, your Mom's advice, rather, is a recurring refrain lately! It's very good advice for most people I think. My parents have concocted a plan to get me to move "home" (I've never lived there, but home is, I guess, where your family is, and they're all there now) and go back to school, but I am loathe to leave Chicago (unless it's for New York), so Wancy devised an alternative plan for getting my Bachelor's online, which I am kind of looking into, but the truth is, I hate school. I hate it. I hate it so much. I don't want to go to school. I don't see the point these days, either; we've had people with Masters degrees and even a person with a Doctorate apply to be a barista in the past couple months. No one I know with a degree is faring any better than I am without one, expect for the teachers (of which only the ones outside of the city are doing well -- the city doesn't seem to be hiring anyone else, and has been making cuts) and nurses. But I'm looking into it, because everyone seems convinced that it's something I need to do. It might make me feel better? But honestly, I can't afford any other expense right now, and I doubt I can get loans, so the prospect seems pretty dire -- even more drudgery than I'm doing now, and the payoff is questionable, with the short term being awful. I'm being overly dramatic, but like I said, I hate school. It's very much a last-resort thing for me. Very last resort. Would you be happy to know I've been writing? I have been! I think of you wagging a finger, too, on days when I don't feel like doing any work on stuff.

PGowan!: Oh, I know what's wrong with me. It's just cold after cold after cold. Everyone I know has them at different times, and my immune system took such a battering from the first time I got really sick with that hell cold that I keep letting everything else in. If any symptoms appear to be any more serious than the typical cold symptoms, then I really will go see a doctor, but it's just a cold really. A five month stretch of colds. Exhausting! I just need to hold out until spring, I think. I also need to be better about my sleeping habits. I work so early in the morning, but am a night owl, and I've been trying to accommodate both. It's not working, and it makes me feel like shit. I intend on going to bed at a decent hour from now on. Srsly.

new year's resolution: eat more

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:33:50 GMT

Every cell in my body aches. I feel every cell aching. I hurt all over. I don't know why or what it is, but I assume it's just the newest symptom of my five-month-long-except-for-a-week-in-November illness. I've started watching House as a half-assed attempt at research. Stefan said You know they have people whose job it is to specialize in the treatment and curing of sickness and I said You'll never get a wish from a bone. I went deaf in my right ear one day a couple weeks ago. Stefan said If you go deaf because you ignored some treatable virus or something, that's retarded, but the next day, I could hear again, so, what does he know anyway?

I decided for this new year that once every couple of months, I am going to eat somewhere wholly unaffordable and delicious. Somewhere that's like a whole paycheck meal. I want to do this so I don't feel so poor all the time, and when I am feeling poor, I can look forward to it, like a vacation or a dream. The first restaurant I picked is Frontera Grill. I planned to go there sometime this month, but then Bill from New York visited this past week (bringing me chocolates and perfume for helping him surprise Wancy on his birthday. Chocolates and perfume! I haven't felt so feminine in ages!), and he took us to Salpicon and Chalkboard. Both dinners were extravagant and excellent. I liked Salpicon better for its Filete de Res en Salsa de Moritas con Hongos (the filet was a little overcooked, but it was really good meat and an incredible flavored dish, whereas Chalkboard's "turf" portion of the Surf and Turf entree was cooked perfectly, but not as good a cut), but I love Chalkboard for the 30yr. Laphroaig I had with dessert (a hot pineapple bread pudding with a vanilla creme). I adore Bill. He is a merry scoundrel, which is the very best kind. And he can sing. So, having had two unaffordable dinners already this month (although I did not pay for them, I still had them, and I feel like I'm pushing my luck by wanting more so soon), I am thinking of planning to visit Frontera in March instead. What's funny about being strapped financially for the foreseeable future is that before, when I always had extra money, I went out for dinner all the time, never blinked an eye at it, but mostly chose just decent, average places to eat; now that I feel like an impecunious orphan in a Jane Austen novel, I'm eating lavish multi-course dinners with wine and cocktails at decadent, pricey restaurants. I guess I do have some Marianne in there somewhere, although luckily, the Eleanor in me is valiantly attempting to regulate the frequency of such passionate gastronomy.

I'm going to go look up likely candidates for the year's four or five remaining islands of bliss in this sea of wretchedness. It's going to be a high of 3 on Thursday. What a nightmare reality is these days.

Mystery solved!

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:13:13 GMT

But sometimes, they're more fun without solutions.