Author: grid

I found an article on voulentary downsizing while surfing http://www.pseudofamous.com/ for the first time today. I haven’t read it all yet, but the gist of it was that there are these people who apparently don’t live month-to-month, and thus can afford to take lower paying jobs and work less. (or at least less-hard).

Well, whoop-de-fucking-do.

I guess this is a new idea or something… The fact that I (and millions of other people I’d imagine) have been looking for a way to make enough money to pay the bills while only working part-time is not, apparently.

As of quitting time yesterday, Laura had worked 24 hours in the last two days. The joys of christmas season at a photo lab… I don’t envy her, but it’s strange, she came home in a better mood than most days. Maybe it was the thought of that fat overtime paycheck.

I’m still at work at 6:30 on a friday, because this site was due at noon today, but I didn’t have all the creative until this morning. (OK, I guess I still don’t really have all the creative, but as much as I can do now is done.)

It’s dark outside, and my head is swimming. Maybe I should move to France, where I’ve heard the maximum work week is 35 hours.

Astronaut Wife is so catchy it’s making me sick! I’ve had one of their songs stuck in my head for about three days straight now, and unlike some catchy tunes, listening to it hasn’t helped alleviate the problem. In fact, I accidentally put the track on repeat on my way home yesterday (Laura finally bought me that mp3 playing CD player she promised for my birthday, so I’m still learning how to work it.) and it was almost 3 times through before I noticed!

They’ve got a new CD coming out, and I suppose I’ll have to buy it. They’re not even listed at allmusic.com, and I’ve only heard of them because I got a free ticket to their upcoming show at first ave when I went to see Lali Puna. I brought the ticket (with a few others) to juggling, and offered them to a few friends. My friend Jay seemed ecstatic that I was really giving that ticket away, and claimed he’d paid over a hundred dollars to see them last time. (which seems odd, because they’re basically this no-name techno band out of minneapolis, but he is an international traveler, so maybe he had to fly back for the show or something.) Anyway, Jay made me a mix-cd in exchange for the ticket, and that’s what I’ve been listening to for about a week now. I’m excited to see the show, and even more excited for the new CD!

The wind is whistling outside, while inside, the howl is from Laura’s humidifier and I’m almost ready for bed.

I’m contemplating a barely-remembered dream, and driving for 7 hours straight home from thanksgiving vacation. For some reason, I drove for 7 hours on sunday without even getting sick of it. I mean, I was sick of it, but I could have driven for hours more if I’d have had to. What does that say about my disposition that day I wonder? It was medative almost. I fantasized almost the entire time, not about sex, more about the house, about writing a novel, about video games, (creating them, not playing them). There are so many things I want to do with my life. This line of thought reminds me that I ran into Neil Stevenson’s homepage today, and how opposed he seems to be to things that will distract him from his writing. I think you have to be that way to really accomplish anything.

I hate to say this, but I will probably never accomplish anything. If I do, it’ll be something I plod away at for years, a novel that takes 5 years to write is still a novel. I should get started on it.

The one memorable part of our seven hour drive home was a quick detour through the windmill fields about two hours south of the cities on 35W. If you’re ever driving that way, it’s well worth it to drive about 3 miles west of the freeway to see them up close. They’re much bigger than they appear from far away. I want to go back and take pictures. I’ll drag laura, and she can take one of me standing next to one for perspective.

Every year at this time we head down to Iowa for thanksgiving to visit with the relatives, eat turkey dinner (in the middle of the day, usually after lunch would occur, but before I’d usually get home from work), and hang out. Then, the next day we put up christmas lights, the old plastic and wire tree, and open all the presents we would normally exchange at christmas, again, eating a nice big feast in late afternoon. We call this weekend Thanksmas. One year we even made shirts. I can’t remember what they looked like, but I know they had a turkey with a santa’s hat. Unfortunately, if I remember right, they were this horrible shade of light green. Needless to say, nobody wears them.

This year will be the first year I won’t be eating the meat because I’m vegetarian. In the past I’ve always had to make some excuse.

I’m leaving straight after work. (like in minutes, really.)

I don’t know how frequently I’ll update from IA, but anyone reading this is used to my slack already, so it hardly matters.

I was tempted to jump on the haiku bandwagon, but inspiration jumped ship about two paragraphs ago. ciao.

I don’t know if I should be making this out to Laura, or to to $14 socks everywhere, but I’d like to write up a formal public appology. $14 socks are not just for weak minded shoppers at outdoorsman shops like REI. Instead, it turns out $14 socks are really nice, thinner than my usual 6-pair-for-$6 socks, and warmer too!

I’m sorry for ever putting you down, $14 socks. I was wrong. Quality over quantity, always… always. I was a fool for ever straying from that old standby.

On a related note, our heat went out again yesterday. They’ve already fixed it, but I owe the safe non-frozen state of my ten very warm toes all to Laura’s $14 socks, which I am still wearing. I’m affraid she’ll make me take them off tonight… I never want to return to the land of $1 socks again.

Well, it was just before 5:00 in the AM on a Sunday. All the lights in the house were still on, and the last guest has just left. AJ doesn’t count, he had just went upstairs to pass out on the futon.

In the thick of it, there were over 30 people packed into this de-house-party-virginized party-house. There were approximately 50 guests total, although I think only about 3/4th of the ~40 evite “In like flynn” recipients were in actual attendance. (I should do the actual numbers on that). I would have thought it would be more crowded with that many people, but only about 4 people ended up using the upstairs chill-out room — and only for like half an hour, max.

On ICQ this afternoon, Ryan agreed that the house was small, but “snaky”, so as to easily fit lots of people.

Toward the end there, Nate was getting pretty drunk. His “I (heart) my penis.” t-shirt wins the “best dressed” award.

I was in a daze the entire night. I had just tried some of the irish cream that was a housewarming gift. (someone else opened it, which was just fine, really.) My teeth were coated with the stuff. (It’s good, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as bailey’s.) What with all the house-warming alcohol gifts, I think we ended the party with more than we started. This is especially true of beer. Before party: 8 cans of Guiness. After party: nearly a whole fridge-shelf full of crappy bottled beer. (Laura exclaims: “What do you mean? There’s newcastle!”)

The party was decidedly a success.

We may do it again just after christmas. We probably won’t buy as much shit next time, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to clean for 7 hours straight again… ever.

Of course, we won’t have to unpack as many boxes next time either.

I locked the door, headed upstairs, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. The end.

well, the party is tomorrow. The mouse smell has, inextricably, disappeared. The house is much cleaner than it was (although we anticipate spending all day tomorrow cleaning). It’s friday afternoon, close to quittin’ time, and I just ate (a very late) lunch. I feel good.

I’ve been feeling jittery about the party. I shared this with at least one of you already (sorry peter), but this morning I woke up and started imagining disaster scenarios. Maybe this is a sign I’m not suppose to host parties, I don’t know.

Basically, I was walking around upstairs in my room, which has a creaky floor. I suddenly had this vivid scenario run through my head where the “breaking the elevator by trying to see how many people we can fit in it” thing happened to our house. My room was full of people, and suddenly it collapsed. (Strangely, I didn’t imagine all the people in the kitchen downstairs crushed and dying, just the ones upstairs falling to their deaths. But even more chilling was the rest of the horrific fantasy, where we lived out the rest of the winter with giant opaque plastic sheets between the livingroom and the snow outside. *shudder*

I have to clarify that I was not consciously fantasizing about this. It was more like one of those dreams you have while just waking up. After you’ve opened your eyes, but before your brain makes that jump into consciousness.

The evidence is impressive!