I have a new addiction.

I fall asleep with the television on, so I try to choose shows that I've seen a million times like Golden Girls or Seinfeld. It's enough to give my mind something to occupy itself, but nothing to really focus on, and it helps me fall asleep. It's one of the ways that my main character Grace and I are alike (but for the most part we're not). Anyhoo, last night, instead of doing that, I ran across a show called, Extreme Wife. The concept is that a young, single British woman is exploring what it means to be a wife in different cultures, whether they be different countries, or alternative lifestyles. It's fascinating.

The first episode I caught was about mail order brides. She followed a group of guys as they journeyed to Russia to meet the women they'd been corresponding with for weeks or months or years. It was pretty thought provoking stuff; sad and scary at the same time. First thing out of the box is the complaint that western women want to be equals.Grrr. Second thing that irritated me... entitlement... and shallowness. This guy says... "in the US a perfect 10 wouldn't look twice at me, but I can come here and get these beautiful women." Well kudos to you... it's as cringe-inducing as Megan Wants a Millionaire, which I flipped past yesterday (one of the girls from Rock of Love who now has her own show where she's dating millionaires, hoping to land one). The guy was gross, and the lady making the documentary implied that he didn't smell so good... but these women aren't supposed to care about that.... he's doing them a favor... It pissed me off that he thinks he deserves better than what he has to offer... he needs to work on himself and be something worth having (internally).

Okay, so second episode is about free love. I DVR'd it and intend to watch it while I eat dinner (which, on second thought, might not be the best idea). Saw part of the first half and they all look alike to me... long scraggly hair, desperate glazed eyes, and hunger. Seriously, this woman had three lovers and they all looked virtually the same, I thought it to myself and then the journalist commented on it, too.

I'm a monogamist so I don't get it. I like to think that there's more than one soulmate out there for us, but at the same time, when you find one and make that connection, I want the happily ever after. I want the best friend and the lover that I can completely let go with, to trust implicitly. That's my fairytale anyway. To me, sex is tied to emotion. I know that not everyone agrees with me (fine), I know that not everyone is faithful (not fine).

I guess I just don't get the concept.

The thing I can't seem to get past  is jealousy. How do you deal with that? I'm not normally a jealous person unless my gut is starting to sense that something that I just don't want to consciously recognize. I try to go into relationships as a new person, I try not to bring my baggage with me. So even if I'm dating a flirty guy, I tend not to be bothered by it as long as I feel secure in my relationship with him. If, however, I was in an open relationship, I don't see how I could rationalize that to myself, because the guy would actually be sleeping with other women. To me, an open relationship is the precursor to the end. It's a couple who isn't entirely happy with each other, but they don't know if there's anything better out there, so they're auditioning other partners before they let the other go. Things probably work okay until the day comes when one of them finds that person who drives everyone else from their mind and makes them realize that they just aren't happy.

Different strokes for different folks, but on this one I have to go traditional.

I woke up tired this morning, I battled zombies for most of the night. It was a really elaborate dream... sometimes I wish my dreams weren't so vivid.

I know I said I'm not going to talk about work, but this is vague and it would be amusing to me if I didn't actually experience it for myself... Each month I get to look forward to doing 'best estimates'... that means splicing people into tenths of a person and distributing them across several charge numbers in a vain attempt to accurately reflect the projects and tests people are going to be working on for the upcoming fiscal month... other people do this by gazing into a crystal ball or reading palms... best part is when the (aptly named) 'best estimates' are wrong and we get to explain why... they don't actually accept 'because they're best estimates' as an excuse. After working with numbers all day, inputting tenths of an hour for 125 people across 15 different charge numbers, I'm a little bleary-eyed and have a slight headache. So I came home, ate dinner, planted all but one of my remaining plants, watered them so they don't die, worked out on the treadmill for 20 minutes, and now I'm exhausted. All I have left in me are these random thoughts:

1 - I'm all for recycling, but sometimes you just want the crap off your counter.

2 - A great title for a book would be the error message I get when I try to save anything to a Microsoft excel 2007 file: A minor loss of fidelity.

3 - Waterhoses are kinky, and not in a good way. I think I have a blister from trying to disconnect the waterhose that for god-knows-what-reason, the foundation repair people saw fit to join together (the end that goes to the spigot and the end that you put the sprayhead on... they don't belong together...).

4 - This guy looks eerily like Robert Pattinson - who also looks eerily Robert Pattinson-like.

And I talked to the contactor next door... I'm so looking forward to seeing that house put back on the market. It was a foreclosure and the people who bought it paid somewhere around 40k under market price for it. But they've had this guy and his helpers over there almost every day for a month... putting up a fence, pouring a patio, installing cabinets, tiling the floor, doing foundation work, installing new windows (geez, it's almost like my house). Anyway, my curiosity is piqued because by the time they get done I'm thinking they'll be lucky to squeeze a 10k profit out of it (realtors suck up a lot with their 6% commissions so I'm thinking more like 5%). Anyway, the contractor invited me over to see it when it's finished, so I think I'm gonna peek inside and see what it's like (and get all jealous of the new floors). He says it should be done next week (and mentioned something about having almost redone the whole ceiling? WTF?).

And now I'm going to pop an aspirin, relax a little and then turn in for the night... morning always comes too soon... and one of my cats (I have two... I'm not the cat lady...) wakes me up because when she cleans herself she makes this horrible slurping noise that just turns my stomach... I can't stand it, so I push her with my leg to get her to stop but she goes right back to it and by the time she stops... I'm awake. I should learn to make friends with sleeplessness, fighting it doesn't seem to do any good, it wins every time... zzzz

Dropped by the local nursery after work - 50% off, ah how I love those words... even though I realize it's all a scam... I feel like I've been working on the inside of my home and neglecting the outside... well the front of the outside anyway... the back isn't so bad. All I can say is wow - the ground is really hard right now. I planted about six or seven of the smaller plants (less digging, more payoff) and gave up for the day (though I might step back outside now that the sun is starting to go down). I'm going to have to do this in stages and hope no one is heinous enough to steal my plants before I get them into the ground. It was so bad that I stood on the shovel, balancing on it, hopping up and down, and that only shaved about an inch or two of dirt off the top, didn't really deepen the hole much. We need rain... what's really bad is that right before I gave up, I was digging in the flowerbed where the foundation repairs had just been made... that dirt should have been easier, but it was full of those white stones that used to be popular in the 70's, so it was hellish! Hellish!

I'm not built for that kind of labor... my arms and legs feel all rubbery. Don't get me wrong - I've worked hard before... lugging fence posts around, painting walls, tiling floors, tearing down an old pump house (which I thoroughly enjoyed doing by the way, I found my calling) - I'm not a wimp, but digging is not my strong suit. I think I only worked for an hour before I came in to eat dinner and guzzle some water... water is sooooooo good...

I was thinking that I need to make a bucket list. Not that I think I'm going to die or anything, but there are so many things to see and do in this world that I want to make sure I don't forget about any of them. Thing is, I forget about all the neat stuff out there and when someone asks me what I want to do I inevitably draw a blank. There are so many experiences that I haven't had; I want to try new things. I've never ridden a horse, never been skiing, ice skating, or gone on a sleigh ride. I haven't been to the Grand Canyon or any of the other national parks. I would love to go to Maine, take a windjammer cruise, go even further north and see Niagra Falls... My grandpa worked on the railroad but I have never (that I can recall) ridden a train. I still want to go to England and Italy and Greece. I want to take a helicopter ride, ride in a hot air balloon, go white water rafting. Sooooooooooo many things to do if I just had three things: time, money and someone to do them with. Life has a way of working itself out, so I'm sure I'll be able to accomplish a lot if I set my mind to it. Until then, I can dream.

There was a time when you would never see an ass on television. It was about the same time that the word 'ass' would never have been uttered on the radio, except in reference to a donkey - not even when it was bleeped out, because let's be honest, everyone knows the guy is saying ass anyway. Whoever came up with bleeping or blanking out of words should be hit over the head with my giant cartoon hammer... but I admit, it was a brilliant ploy and it has been widely accepted, "hey, let's bleep it out, then we're technically not saying it... but we're still saying it... muahaha..."

These days it seems like the airwaves are blanketed with shows that push the envelope so much that it's tacky. I like the Alfred Hitchcock school of sex and violence. Give people the general idea, and let them take it from there. I guess what I'm saying is that shows shouldn't have to be nasty in order to be marketable. I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show are still two of my favorites, and they didn't rely on shock value to be entertaining. I realize every day how old fashioned I am... I don't want to be June Cleaver or anything, but I would like to feel a little less worldly.

Enough of that soapbox... yesterday when I hit the treadmill I actually ran... a minute here, a minute there, but I ran... and it didn't kill me. I can tell that my stamina is improving, and maybe at some point I'll spend the whole thirty minutes running. It really depends on the incline... I tend to try to stay at 5% or better because the calories burn off more quickly.

For dinner I made a yummy, yummy tomato salad. What makes it so great is that you salt the tomatoes, collect the juice, mix it with garlic and balsamic vinegar and reduce it, so that the flavors are concentrated. Then you cool it down a little, mix it with olive oil to make a vinaigrette and pour it back over the tomatoes and add mozzarella and basil. Mmmm... it makes even substandard grocery store tomatoes taste good; it's really just a slightly more complicated twist on insalata caprese. The reduction would probably be awesome as a salad dressing or even as a glaze for chicken or fish. In any case, another winner from America's Test Kitchen.

Got up at 7:30 this morning to go to the grocery store with the intention of renting one of those steam cleaners, but decided to buy a rug stick instead. Pretty impressed with it. After I scrubbed the foam in, the rugs looked pretty good. I won't say they're soft and fluffy, but they're much improved, I got a workout, and I didn't have to go back to the store to return the nasty rug cleaner (or attempt to shove it into my trunk). It's great at grabbing pet hair, so that, if nothing else, helped greatly.

Made lunch... wasn't terribly impressed with the rosemary-garlic beef skewers with horseradish-cream. Sounded great, was kind of eh. Was easy though, pop them under the broiler and they're done in 6 minutes. So I think maybe I'll go Tex-Mex for the dinner party unless I can figure out something else to pair with the potatoes.

Then I painted the hallway. Pretty impressed with myself actually, I had to match the paint, and I think I did a pretty good job. There were more little white dings on the wall than I thought... tried to just touch them up but that didn't work. Scrubbed some adhesive off the floor from the a/c install. All in all, things look good again. Less shabby.

After that, I stepped outside and painted the trim around two of my windows. Not so sure about that. From far away it looks good... Closeup... I tried to be careful, but...  And the flowers will have to wait, I'm tired now, and by the time I get around to leaving the house it'll probably be dark, which is no time to be planting flowers. =)

Bought a corset for my halloween costume, had a gift certificate, so it was pretty cheap. Now I need to find a peasanty top to go under one of them and I should be set. I hate putting costumes together, I suck at it... but I hate the pre-packaged ones that cost a mint but are such incredibly poor quality.

All in all I feel like I accomplished something. Now it's time to print out the latest version of my story and see what needs to be edited... and take a nap!

It's Friday! It's Friday! It's Friday! I don't have big exciting plans, but it's Friday, and I can relax and unwind and that's all I care about!

I had intended to go to Shakespeare in the Park tomorrow evening, but I'm heading into town on Sunday and I don't want to drive it twice. I hate traffic. Hate it. So unless I get around to it next weekend, I'll probably miss out on SitP this year.
=(   <--- That's me pouting.

So my plans for tomorrow probably revolve around cleaning and touching the house up. My house feels grimy. What with all the window installs, the A/C, the foundation repair and exterminations going on lately, the house feels like it's covered with sawdust and dirt and grime (even though it's not actually that dirty... it's all perception). I'm feeling a little ambitious, so I think I might rent a carpet cleaner to clean my rugs and my loveseat tomorrow, and maybe repaint the hallway (with paint I already have) and/or get started on the vinyl trim around my windows (had to buy paint for the leaf guards so I may as well use it up, and since the trim doesn't exactly match the house...). It's not completely out of the realm of possibility that I'll trim some of the hedges outside and plant a few flowers now that the gutter is fixed and plants will actually grow.... it was pretty brutal to watch them get pounded by Niagra Falls every time it rained. Also need to put covers over the soffit vents, but I'm not going to do that just yet. And my houseguest is moving into her own place (not that I want to get rid of her, it was fun having a roomie), so I'll move my stuff back into the other closet. That should kill a day.

If not, I can always test pack for Scotland... I have way too much to pack this time and I probably need to pare down. It's going to be cold, and since I have no idea what a real winter is like, I've got coats and scarves and hats and gloves and sweaters and raincoats and long socks and fuzzy sleep pants... Now I'm starting to put a Halloween costume together and that's going to take up space, too. I need to leave room for the things I know I'm bringing back with me--important things like whisky and soap... twelve more weeks...!!!

It's been over two weeks since I last got a rejection... which feels pret-ty awesome if you care to know. The first round of rejections came quickly, I think they saw the word 'vampire' and simply didn't want to represent it, but I like to think that the remainder of my queries are being considered based on my writing rather than solely on the subject matter and that takes longer. Yep... I like to think that...

I also submitted a poem to Poetry magazine. What the hell, right? Why not? I may as well blanket the market and see who bites. And they pay. Money.

Also started planning my next dinner party. With all the home repairs out of the way I feel like celebrating a little. I like to cook, and dinner parties give me the opportunity to make things I wouldn't normally make for myself. This time I'm probably going to break out the horseradish escalloped potatoes... after reading about them over and over again as I edit the book, I'm craving them big time. And this time I have a mandolin so I can slice the potatoes uniformly... much easier than eyeing it and using a knife. I used to stress myself out but I think I've got the formula down now... make something that can be tossed into the oven, then I can relax and not be running around like a rabid clown when my guests arrive. I don't worry so much if the house is spotless anymore, I do what I can ahead of time to prepare and realize that no one is as hard on me as I am on myself... this may not be a big deal to most people, but the way I grew up, company = stress,and I'm bucking the system here!

Gonna go head to the piano and play for a bit. I've been doing pretty good on Rachmaninov's Prelude in C-Minor... first half... second half is a bear... two treble clefs, two bass clefs and I only have two hands... it's just not possible... (for me). My fingers remember where the notes are supposed to be, but if I try to read the music I screw myself up, and I'm waaaaaay out of practice. I go for long periods of time without ever touching the keyboard and then sit down and play almost every day and wonder why the hell I wasn't doing that all along. It's so relaxing. I hated learning to play, but once I got the notes down I began to love it, and when I started writing my own music I think that changed everything. I'm definitely glad my parents pushed the lessons... hated the recitals, and still won't play in front of most people, but I enjoy playing for myself.

I'm trying to blog every day, it's a little like a diary, except that there are certain things I can't or won't blog about... work... romance... where I live... because who knows who might read it, and those things are personal. Suffice it to say that it wasn't the best day and I worked out on the treadmill. Twice. I'm still a little upset, but I'm working on it.

Sorry this one was a bore. That'll happen sometimes.

A day off is not a day off when you're having your foundation repaired and you still have to be up and at 'em by 7:00 am, and you can't take a nap because of the jackhammers ripping apart your nice patio. Or the guy singing. The house is creaking... and it moves... it's scary... I keep watching the walls and windows, and I wonder about my a/c connections and pipes and ductwork...

So far no (apparent) damage from the fix (other than my patio). I keep watching the windows, because I have them opened a wee bit (to relieve the tension as suggested by the people who installed them) and I can see that the horizontal lines aren't quite parallel to each other. I'm assuming that will correct itself once the house is level. My already crappy floor still looks crappy. I keep thinking maybe I should just rip out the tile and put some of that concrete stain on it like I dreamt about one time... the glossy kind that gives it color but you can still see through it (like the black or cola versions on this page)  - then I can see cracks in my foundation really easily. I think it'd be really pretty actually. Right now I have crappy white tile that has a veneer on it because the previous owners went all out to flip this baby... (not)... it chips off and looks tacky.

Watched a couple of movies... Zack and Miri Make a Porno, pretty good, but very raunchy (you kind of expect that from the title though), and My Best Friend's Girl, also pretty good and very raunchy (but you kind of expect that from the big UNRATED VERSION stamp across the cover, and the fact that Dane Cook is in it). Made a baked potato for lunch, garlic hasselback potato to be precise, where you cut almost all the way through and fan the potato out with garlic slivers in between each slice and pour bacon grease over the top of it before you toss it into the oven. Pretty yummy. More satisfying than the frozen dinner I would have had for lunch if I'd been at work.

Well... hopefully they'll be finishing up in the next couple of hours (I bet they're ready to be done too... it looks pretty hot out there) and I can relax. I'm all tensed up until it's done and there's no water gushing from under my foundation.

Update: They're done and the crack in the grout is now almost invisible. Even more astounding is that some of the joint tape has almost straightened itself out... back to what it looked like before anyway... which was still crinkled in spots, but my inspector told me that is normal for houses this age (I don't know that I believe him now). The beam running along my living room ceiling is back in place. There was really only one door that didn't close, and it closes now (thank you to Greg for telling me to check that all the doors and locks worked before they filled in the holes). No cracks in my wall either. I'm pretty impressed. Broke, but impressed. Hopefully the patches in the concrete will be nearly invisible too... They got here a little after 7 o'clock this morning and they're leaving now (5:40). Long day... glad I don't have their jobs.

If you've ever wondered what it feels like to have bamboo shoved under your fingernails, I can now provide you with valuable information - it hurts like a motherfucker.

I have bamboo blinds in one of my rooms, and as I reached for the rope to raise them up, a piece of bamboo was sticking out just far enough that it was able to lodge itself under my fingernail. Imagine that. Through some weird twist of fate, my hand was at just the perfect angle to receive it. Another thing you should know about bamboo under your nails? Removal hurts almost as much as the insertion, and even after you remove it, it still stings.

Quite a bit.

For a while.

So I like to dress up for Halloween, and most years I attend a huge party that one of my friends throws, but this year I'll be in England (that's not disappointment you're sensing - don't get me wrong, I do look forward to the party and the Wooga... but party here... or party in England...). We'll be just under the Scottish border in Northumbria, at Chillingham Castle where we will spend the night... in a haunted castle... on Halloween... mm-hmm.

I was half-joking to my friends that we should dress up for the ghost tour. At this point it's gonna happen because now there's more than one of us who is excited at the prospect. It shouldn't come as a surprise that I will, probably, be dressed as a vampire... it's a pretty easy costume to don and I shouldn't scare too many people unless I get these contacts (which I'm seriously considering because they're cool... or maybe these). Anyway, I checked the Chillingham website because I was going to ask if people dress up, and I found out that they're having a bonfire and fireworks on Halloween night. AWESOME. So, a bonfire at a haunted castle on Halloween... how cool is that? It's pret-ty cool.

No... it's ridiculously cool.

BLOG COMMENTS:
Do I think that Britney is going to find love? I think the fact that she seems more together these days is a good sign. Do I think Lindsay Lohan is happy as a lesbian? I don't think Lindsay Lohan is happy, period. But since I don't know either of  them personally, eh... I could be mistaken.