The Myth & The Majesty

Twelve Things Happening In May (that I intend to observe) 1. My 25th birthday. 2. Shorty's graduation [a road trip west]. 3. My parents' 33rd anniversary. 4. My dad's 54th birthday 5. Mother's Day. 6. Memorial Day. 7. Opening of kayaking tours in Wausau. 8. A work trip to New Jersey. 9. A shopping trip to Appleton. 10. The Russian National Ballet in Wausau. 11. International No Diet Day. 12. No Sock Day.

Our building smells vaguely of ... Hm. I'm not sure it smells like anything most people would recognize. Normally it doesn't make it down to this end of the building, but today -- egads. Apparently it's the scent of neutralization. Whatever it is, it ain't pleasant.

Oy. What a day. I feel pretty lousy. Which means that in addition to feeling like crap, I've had to endure swine flu jokes all day. I really want to go to tango tonight ... but I'm afraid if I do I might actually pass out. Not good. April has been a month of nutcaseness, but it looks like May could be alarmingly similar. Not excited about that, either. Wow, I'm whiny. At least there's one road trip in there and some kayaking. It'll keep life interesting. (I could go for a distraction.)

On this month's soundtrack: Modest Mouse, Badly Drawn Boy, some new Jars, Norah Jones, ZZ Top, Weezer, JuteBlue, and Pavarotti. I think this is part of the problem. This rabid squirrel attention span of mine is not conducive to any kind of work. Not the things I should be doing, not the things I'd like to get done, not the normal things that I do almost every day. Seriously. I zoned out while filling my water bottle and very nearly flooded the kitchen. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But it could have been bad. Embarrassing at the very least. Something must be done ... I don't know what. Maybe it's time to camp out at the B again. They've gotta be getting tired of me there, though. It'd be a starting place, though. Get in the right mindset. Then maybe I could get something done. Novel idea.

Today's Yahoo! horoscope for Taurus: It's time to start winging it again! Get back in touch with the unconscious or subliminal forces in your life, because they always push you in the right direction. Act on your impulses, not your conclusions. Right now, moving through your life without thinking too hard about what you are doing might not be such a bad idea. You are used to thinking things through -- and that is certainly wise. But moving forward on a project does not always require a detailed road map. Winging it? Really? That usually ends in disaster for me. Fiery, spectacular, entertaining-to-outsiders-but-frightening-for-me disaster. I think I'll pass, at least for tonight.

Still bemoaning my lack of intelligence this past weekend where my bedtime was concerned. Aside from the cause, it's a pretty standard Monday. I'm tired. I'm staying busy but not overly swamped yet. I'm looking forward to heading home tonight. Not that complicated. I'm truly distracted. Bah humbug.

This is one of those days that the pages of history teach us are best spent lying in bed. -Uncle Willie on "The Philadelphia Story" Maybe it's not such a bad day. We need rain (particularly those of us without outdoor spigots for watering our yards). But it occurred to me halfway through my errands this afternoon that it's not the kind of day to be spent walking back and forth between your car and any building. No, today is the kind of day you spend thankful for a roof and a warm drink. And to think -- last Saturday it was 80° out there. Something seems to be going backward. At least I've finally got some energy again ... The first few hours awake I was completely useless. Actually, I think "dead tired" is more descriptive. Now, maybe I can get back to working on that mess I'm trying to turn into a haven ... Hey, it could happen.

You know, two years ago I spent most of my weekends either exploring Wausau alone or bored out of my mind. (Sometimes both.) Now, I spend my weekends ... tired. It's a shift. I think I'm going to track down some food ... Wow, I need to go grocery shopping.

I haven't been getting to work as early as I used to, a fact I'm trying to combat a little. But this morning -- this morning was different. This morning, I awoke at 6AM to an orange sky. It was pretty cool -- everything outside was awash in Day-Glo. Twenty minutes later, the storm was in full swing. I curled up on the couch and listened to the rain and thunder instead of spending that extra time getting ready. The one difference that stands out to me when it comes to summer weather in Wisconsin is that there aren't as many thunderstorms here as there are back home. And -- oddly enough -- I miss them. Really miss them. We usually get plenty of rain -- but no thunder and lightning. It was good.

It's finally raining. It was trying while I was driving in to work ... Just enough for me to wonder if it was raindrops or "local rain" -- that is, fallout from surrounding steam stacks. But a couple minutes ago the skies finally opened. It's definitely spring.

I swear too much. I admit that most of the problem is just me, but it's also a hazard of my job, to some degree. However, I've become much more self-conscious about it lately (it's not very ladylike!) and I've found that using random British slang has helped. Two words in particular -- "bugger" because it's a great stand-in for almost anything (and fun to say), and "nutter" because you can't have too many ways to imply that someone is off his or her rocker. The catch is that I am a firm believer that the bigger issue is in fact the intent behind the words, not so much the words themselves. Alas, my biggest problem has been using words that are a bit too strong a bit too freely. Which is to say -- I don't intend to stop cursing altogether. In some circumstances, those words are the ones that fit, and saying something else isn't honest. But using them when they don't fit isn't terribly honest, either. All about balance....

It was the end of my freshman year of high school. I was 14; my 15th birthday was just a couple weeks away. The students involved were peers. The survivors of that day are now contributing members of society, homeowners, parents, advocates. They have, in large part, overcome that day, overpowered it, refused to let it reign. It is one of the events that has defined the current generation, and it happened in a place just like any other -- where people were prone to scoff, "Nah, that can't happen here." Have we changed? I hope so.

After four perfect days -- including yesterday, where it reached 77°F -- it's cold and rainy. But that's okay. We've kind of been needing some rain. Had some fun with Matt -- sushi, the Square, and stops by the two breweries close to downtown (all of which was in walking distance of my house) on Friday, and some random touring of the greater Wausau area on Saturday. Lots of time outside. A good deal of sunshine. It was awesome. I've also managed to -- gasp! -- put together a photo album with my pictures from England. I can count on one hand the number of times I've finished a picture project, but you know what the secret was this time? There were a bunch of other things I should have been doing instead. It's magic, I tell you. Now it's time to bake some bread and slowly torture the kid upstairs. (Baking bread is good for that.) Maybe I'll even get around to those things I should have been doing. Or maybe I'll make a big dinner with a lot of leftovers...

It's on days like today that I find myself thinking about everything EXCEPT work. For instance, Matt's going to be in town tonight and most of tomorrow. I don’t yet know what we're going to do, except that there will be sushi. (Yay!) Summer's fast approaching. In the couple of months, I'll be headed back west for Shorty's graduation (crazy!), hopefully going kayaking for the first time over Memorial Day, and flying out to Rapid City for my granddad's 75th in late June. (Which reminds me, Katie -- we should talk!) I suppose somewhere in there I also need to go swimsuit shopping. Ew. Volleyball starts next month and concerts in the Square start in June. I need to get to Green Bay sometime in the near future. It'll be a good excuse to move on to Door County, too. There was also talk (casual though it was) of a road trip up to the U.P. some Saturday for some hiking. (Novel idea -- going on a road trip with other people. What?!) Plus I don...

Another perfect day. That's three in a row. Mind you, I'm talking strictly about the weather here. Perfect. Warm. Sunny. Light (if any) breeze. Gorgeous stuff. And I'm in a fabric-covered cube. Bah.

Good weekend overall. The next couple of months are going to be interesting ones, though. Had a kind of humorous wake up call when someone asked which one of us girls wrote the blog ... I tend to forget that this thing ends up in Google searches from time to time. Not that there's anything up here I don't want people reading (I censor myself a bit because it would be dumb if I didn't) but it still catches me off guard. So ... Hi! How are you?

It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23: 44-46) I've been told before that you are supposed to write what you know. Today is the day of limbo, and, well ... I know limbo. Nothing is said of the day in between in the Gospels; it's a mystery. The disciples scattered shortly after they witnessed the horrific torture and murder of their teacher. They didn't know what was coming next, but on that in-between day they started to regroup, started to see if they could come up with a plan. They were wanted men in a world forever altered. Their movement was limited. They had no idea what to expect of the days to come -- or if there was any reason to hope. They were lost. It was the Sabbath; Jesus had been buried b...

At midnight last night, I crossed the border into South Dakota. Just over eight hours after I left work, after seven hours of driving, a stop at Trader Joe's, way too much Pepsi, and a terrible burrito from Taco Bell (seriously ... it was gross), I rolled into the driveway and immediately felt I know it's not that much different here -- still in the Midwest and all -- but it feels like another world most of the time. Probably has something to do with this being one of those places where stressing out does me absolutely no good whatsoever. Not that stressing ever does much good ... Oh, never mind. So! Gonna meet up with Dani in a bit, then catch the crowd at Sunnycrest this evening -- and then we're into the family time of the weekend. Which lasts until I hop back in my car on Sunday and leave. Oh yeah. Lots of family time. At some point I'm sure I'll spill the beans about everything else that's going on (the last couple of months have been positively psychotic),...

I was singing show tunes in the shower this morning. Normally I'm not a shower-singer. Blame it on years of semi-communal living ... Even in the last two years while I've lived alone I've felt as though people could hear me far too well. It's more than a bit unsettling if your singing voice is like mine. Today, though, my sympathy for the kid upstairs couldn't override the fact that I had a song stuck in my head. Really, really stuck. Painfully stuck. Annoyingly stuck. It's still there. What happened to those days where the songs I heard going around and around were normal? Pop-ish? Rock-ish? Punk-ish? Why the heck do they have to be show tunes? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that my head isn't into work today. I'm thinking instead about a long drive and a long conversation with ... me. Maybe a phone call or two. Some good, relaxing alone time. I'm ready for this. At least then I'll only be singing to myself.

This past weekend was more than a little jarring. Following the events of Friday, four of us gathered at Moonie's apartment to eat pizza and drink a toast to the coworkers that had left that morning. It was a much-needed hour of relaxation after the most tense morning any of us had experienced in quite some time. After dinner, the Admiral and I headed to tango workshops with Miriam and Leonardo, the champions of Superstars of Dance. After three hours of classes, I headed home exhausted and feeling much, much better. The next morning, I was up fairly early and picking up my rather pregnant friend for the ladies' spring tea at church. Two hours of breakfast, girl time, and chatting about decorating (no, seriously -- that was the speaker's main topic: decorating on a budget) and I headed home for lunch before skipping off to tango again. It was later, after the workshop, heading home to dress up a bit, and as I was standing in one of the coolest buildings in town, wai...

They laid off a bunch of people at work on Friday. There. I said it. My department was spared, largely because ... actually, I'm not entirely sure why. I think there might be some creativity behind that one on the part of my boss. If there's a second round, we might not be so lucky. The guy across the cube wall from me (next aisle over) and four other people within normal-voice-range are gone, however. It's more than a bit to get used to, and tomorrow morning will be rough on all of us. At the same time that people were being called into HR, there was a "standoff" just down the street in one of the apartment buildings. There, a man had reportedly threatened his and his girlfriend's lives with a handgun. She got out, called the police, and he wouldn't respond to their attempts to make contact. In the end, they busted in, tazed him, and pulled him out. He's okay -- physically, at least -- and is being held. The whole reason I tell you this? It happened w...

Men reading fashion magazines Oh what a world it seems we live in Straight men! Oh what a world we live in ... Why am I always on a plane or a fast train? Oh what a world my parents gave me ... I think today qualifies as one of the more interesting days I've seen. Decidedly not, however, in a good way. It's a great reminder to live in the moment whenever possible. Think about the future, plan for it -- but don't live in it. You never know what might happen next.

I just realized ... I set a new personal record. I set a record for consecutive days lived in one place (as an adult). I had to stop and count -- and suddenly it was no wonder. I have, since my eighteenth birthday, moved a total of thirteen times. That's an average of about once every 28 weeks (six and a half months). The last stretch was about twelve and a half months, with a "fuzzy month" at the end where I technically had two addresses. At the beginning of last March, that fuzziness started when I moved to the bottom floor of this old house. As of this month, the time I've spent in this awesome apartment overtook the time I spent in my last, nice-but-slightly-less-awesome apartment. It sounds like a silly landmark, but for someone who doesn't hold still well this is a pretty big accomplishment. I'm just excited I found a place I still like this much after a year. Woot.

The week is improving. It doesn't really take much. All the same, I'm tired and I kind of just want to go home. Bah humbug.