Lucy's Spleen

MORNING

There's a new boy slinging coffee at my downtown coffee place and I'll tell you- Oh, my. I was already enthusiastic about going in there, as the place plays a key role in my daily achieving-of-consciousness, but let's just say now they have two ways of getting my blood going. Pitter pat!

My first reaction when I discovered him was to be startled. I can't remember the last time I was attracted to someone besides my spouse. I had to run that first little excitement through the ol' data processor for a minute before I could identify that what was happening was my cartoon pupils turning into heart shapes at the ends of a pair of cone-shaped eyes bulging out of my cartoon head.

NOON

How often have you been mindlessly humming some tune, something you know backward and forward without even thinking about it and you've been humming or running it silently through your head (depending on how much at work you are) for the past two hours or two minutes (who can tell, and what difference does it make?) it's just THERE, you've been not-thinking it for so long that it is a part of yourself, it's the theme song of your life, it's what your days just go along to, possibly what all your days have always been going along to, only all of a sudden you realize you're singthinking it all fucked up and wrong? 

"When you're/ With the Simpsons/ Have a yabba dabba doo time..."

NIGHT

Speaking of my (beloved, first above all others even up to and including junior baristas) "spouse," otherwise known as my partner: right this minute (and at all other times, it seems to me lately) I'm supposed to be working on putting together some exquisite, labor-intensive, crafty assemblage to ship out later this month by way of save-the-date notices for our wedding next summer. Or should I say our alleged wedding next summer? Given the way I've been fiddling around with this blog and every other possible distraction, there could turn out not to be a wedding. I'm currently going for being in denial about all the effort involved, so I'll be able to work myself into an appreciable frenzy/World of Hurt next spring when suddenly it's all upon us and everything. Quick! Somebody give me a smart little epigram about procrastination so I can better shame myself as I continue to fart around and not do anything.

Too late, I have an old family favorite on hand already.

EPIGRAM

If you will not when you may, when you will there shall be nay.

Debate It At The Bar

• Tyson vs. black bear
• Tyson w/ bowie knife vs. black bear
• Tyson vs. mountain lion
• A chimp can lift 300 pounds up a tree
• Tyson vs. hippo
• Ralph Macchio vs. _____
• Karate Kid vs. _____
• Can a man pry open the jaws of a pit bull?
• Tyson vs. nurse shark (in 4 feet of water)
• Jesse Ventura (in his prime) vs. nurse shark (in 4 feet of water)
• How to kill a nurse shark with your bare hands

Directions: Quaff beer, enough to make you start feeling a little belligerent. Argue heatedly over the likely outcome in each/any of the above situations. Assert any vague impressions you have formed about the various qualities of the listed parties as points of hard fact. Act very incredulous about whatever weak argument the other guy is whining about. Punch each other in the face if you want. Part ways believing you have argued your points convincingly. Feel you are just, and also true. 

P.S. Everyone should totally click that hippo link.

Things Worth Doing

Maggie started this and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So, without further ado, here are some of the scenes I hope to relive as my life flashes before my eyes:

1. Camping in Southern Utah with friends and the dogs; no one else around for miles.

2. She-crab soup in Charleston, S.C.

3. Sunset on the beach on Hawaii, staring as I hard as I can at the horizon to try to catch the green flash.

4. Dancing as if my life depended on it.

5. Any of various caffeine rituals I have had over the years.

6. Watching the path of moonlight across my bed under the skylight; not being able to sleep because the light was so bright, but not minding because the full moon was so stunning.

7. Racing wagons fast down the steep hill of the sidewalk on our street.

8. That party we threw was a terrific success.

9. Riding bikes to the Saturday morning farmer's market, the breeze in my skirt.

10. Taking a standing-room-only train to Karlsruhe, Germany to sit on the ground outside the town zoo with hundreds of multinational strangers staring at the sky and sporting funny sunglasses. Feeling awed as the clouds parted just in time to reveal the total solar eclipse.

11. Making out with a stranger.

12. Dogs, mountains, me. 

13. Phoning my singingest friend from La Scala opera house.

14. Turning twenty-something (24, maybe?). First/only real birthday party I ever threw myself. Friends and family, little kids and pets and everybody all gathered in my own backyard. They like me, they really like me!

15. When I wake in the morning next to my new forever lover he opens his eyes, sees me, and sighs, "Yay!"

16. Christmastime evenings when the only light in the room comes from the tiny colordy ones on the tree.

17.  Walking Prancing out front door and down the steps of my high school right in the middle of 5th period while the rest of the class was in chemistry to be picked up by my older boyfriend in his car so we could go make out at his apartment.

18. Turning twenty-one in Paris on Bastille Day.

19. Bedecking the Girls' Hideout at the cabin with a literal carpet of moss.

20. Returning to The Hideout the next day to discover that deer had been by in the night to appreciate our decorating scheme- by sleeping in it.

21. My very own puppy!

22. Walking at sunrise over prairie hills; a tiny plane flies low overhead- it's a friend of ours! We can't see him in the tiny yellow plane in the giant outrageous pink-orange sky, but I know he sees us and is waving down hello.

23. Sunday afternoon naps.

24. Paddling across the lake, the water under the canoe is so blue that, peering over the side I can see clearly every fish, every stone in the white sand.

25. Sipping a cocktail in my pajamas on the balcony of my apartment downtown, recalling that as a kid I had a fantasy of what "adulthood" would be like and this is exactly it.

It is hot here this week. Very hot. It is so hot that the the little thermometer on the thermostat in our living room has maxed out; it just can't go any higher. It is so hot that it's too hot to do anything other than sit around in your underwear reading in front of the tiny, ineffectual air conditioner in your bedroom, unless the other thing is to sit around in your underwear at the computer and ogle your Internet buddies.

There were things I was supposed to do today. I was to return the trial Interview Outfits that didn't pass muster and get back the money I shouldn't be spending on such things. It's amazing how expensive it can be to try to find a job. Especially out here in the land of WWBs (Women With Blazers). My mom says I should have a blazer for the follow-up interviews I have scheduled this week for a very blazerly firm downtown. "You can carry it on your arm, " she says. I say it's ninety-three degrees; no one else will be wearing a blazer, either. I wonder if that's even how you spell blazer? Maybe it's actually bleah-ser; seems like that would be more fitting. I've rather enjoyed my month of unemployment. It's refreshing to not be devoting forty-five hours a week to The (underpaying) Man. But looking for work is stressful in its own right, you're constantly selling yourself and constantly spending cash you're not replenishing. Plus it gets a little lonely at home. I'll be very happy if word comes back that I should show up someplace at 8:30 on October 1 with my blazer on.

I think Harvard is doing right by Stan. It seems to be everything he expected, and more, and less, and other things. He hasn't seemed to need to work/study nearly as much as I was anticipating, but he's a smarty and what the hell do I know about graduate school? He is definitely the Dad of the first-years. We got together with a few of them for beers last weekend and I was mesmerized by their plump, radiant baby faces and wondered how it could be that these children know anything about anything. Turns out on talking to them that they know plenty, because they went to fancy prep schools and prestigious colleges. So.

It appears that a feature of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is constant events and gatherings. Stan has meetings of various sorts lined up almost every day and there are parties we're supposed to RSVP for and election events and all types of this kind of business going on. It reminds me of every film you've ever seen or every book you've ever read about goings-on at University. I'm rereading This Side of Paradise now just to, you know, keep in the spirit of things.

So far my Top 5 things are:

• Our apartment, which is spartan but lovely and coming along. Slowly.
• "Dave's" around the corner which is a cafe really but which we use as a market for the staples: wine, beer and bread.
• The weekly farmer's market in our square where we buy mountains of gorgeous produce (heirloom tomatoes, especially).
• Our neighborhood, which has the perfect mix of old-school hippy community charm and yuppie boutiqueyness for the likes of the two of us, and is also convenient to get to and from without being quite so intensely/grungily urban as a lot of neighborhoods.
• The autumn light and weather have been phenomenal. Apart from today, which is too damned hot, as I have mentioned.

How to Advertise

Use this 10-part formula:

1. Are you ways?
2. Do you things?
3. Then THIS is The Solution!
4. Here's what The Solution WILL DO FOR YOU
5. These are the specs of The Solution; the Solution means QUALITY
6. You are incomplete without The Solution
7. how much The Solution costs (not too flashy)
8. Hey! The Solution is MANAGEABLE and EASY TO USE!
9. Change the way you be and do, purchase The Solution (here's how)
10. Try The Solution for yourself and WITNESS THE RESULTS

Have you been fiddling interminably with marketing materials for two days straight at your office? Are you so bored with yourself you can hardly stand it? What you need is a formula! A formula will lend structure to your rambly promotional emails and things. Our formula is a ten-or-so part construction that has been proven effective by thousands of infomercial experts through decades of success in clinical trials. Your life without a formula is empty and meaningless. Lucky for you we're giving away this formula absolutely free! (For a limited time only.)The secret behind the formula is that it is already deeply ingrained in your brain's subconscious associations with advertising. Easy to use, the formula is so simple(minded), you'll find you stick to it whether you intend to or not! Don't let boredom bug you. Bear it- the thoughtless way! Try our formula today!

Do lists count in this game? I hope so because it's nigh on 9:00 and I'm still at the office after moving and hauling and more moving and organizing and a couple of beers.* This is okay with me because a. the beer was on the company, and b. I'm the last guy here and the final reason I'm sticking around is to take a few moments to blog, but not too many moments, thus- a list:

Things About the New House

• It's only partly finished! There are some doors on some rooms, but not all doors on all rooms, and no knobs on any doors... yet.
• Everything is very immaculately clean and very shinily new and very inoffensively non-personal-smelling, except the closet wherein we jammed all our crap until we get a chance to organize it.
• It's neighbored by a park and a historic farm, but is also quite near the highway in a very populous suburb south of Salt Lake (we call it "South Bejeezus") which is crisscrossed with major thoroughfares and where (as far as I can tell) the only businesses are big-box stores and chain restaurants.
• It's kind of like living in the country, except not. Evidently the farm, just out our back door, is a great place for bird-watching. We heard at least three vees of geese** passing over the house this morning, which is charming. We can also hear a subtle hum of traffic all the time.
• It is deeply comfortable in every imaginable way. I woke this morning from an impressively sound rest, rolled over and said to Stan***, "Mmmm, it feels like sleeping at grandma's house." To which he replied, "Emma, it IS sleeping at grandma's house!"
• Um, so have I mentioned we've moved in with the parents? We have. Stan's mother and her husband are allowing us to take gross advantage of their hospitality and free rent in the hopes that it will advance the time line of our childbearing agenda and bolster the ranks among their steady-growing fleet of adorable grandchildren. That reason, and because we're just so damn delightful to have around all the time.
• This is an exceedingly choice situation, even if it is way out in South Bejeezus.
• For example, they've assigned us this tremendous bed we can't quite believe. Stan woke up this morning and said to me, "It's like sleeping on an aircraft carrier. They can land planes on here and you just keep on dreaming!"
• A new, more stunning view of the Wasatch Mountains- hwre!
• A commute- blech.
• A surprisingly noticeable difference in elevation/humidity- brrr.
• All those big-box stores- I have no idea how to deal with them.
• Living with moms is totally fun (I know, I've done it a lot)!

Things About the Old Apartment

• Still a huge fucking mess. Lots of work to do this weekend during the times when I am not at Werk work dealing with a huge fucking mess.

Go TEAM!
Fight A LOT!
Totally MOVE!
ALRIGHT!****

P.S. Day three. I went ahead and added the link and the seal, up on the left over there. One of these days maybe I'll even bother to register...

* I get to drink beer at we-erk! Neener, neener, nee-ner!

** Jeez.

*** For those of you who go way back with the Spleen, Stan = Asberger. I know, you're not caught up- I'm working on that.

**** (mostly) Actual cheerleading cheer I happen to know, but not from being a cheerleader because I never was one. I only changed one word in this cheer, which word used to be WIN! Actually I may have changed two because it may have originally been YAY! or HOORAY! or FUCK YEAH! instead of ALRIGHT!, I can't really remember. Except it wasn't FUCK YEAH! because I definitely would have remembered that. Anyway, believe it.

Vocabulary Assignment

Isaiah is ten years old and is completing a portion of his schooling for the year at Youth Brigade, the tutoring center where I work. The following are sentences he composed for a vocabulary assignment he completed this week as homework for his tutor, Tommy:

Isaiah was watching Tommy farting attentively.

Tommy farted and Isaiah said it was almost palpable.

Isaiah pooped and Tommy was distraught because it was the size of Tommy.

Isaiah had to fart so bad for a year and he was so apprehensive; then when he farted it blew a hole through the earth.

Isaiah pooped on a salsa dancer and it was a transgression.

Isaiah said, "Fart," as he farted, so it was unison.

Tommy farted and Isaiah was fascinated.

Fascinated. No doubt!

1.  I'll take it back if, in the next five minutes, everybody in the web cafe catches Smooth Jazz Fever and they launch a spontaneous, island beat-inspired orgy under the sultry blue glow of their laptops. But, barring such an occurrence, I maintain that, with the exception of "Smooth Operator," Sade kind of sucks.

2.  I confess, I had a really hard time taking the temp agency seriously. For some reason the way I want to describe it is as seeming "small-town," but what I mean to say is that their standards weren't exactly off the charts. I tried to come at it with a professional approach, but the girls in the office were so diffident/procedurally indoctrinated, and the testing so redundant/pointless, and the Welcome Aboard Video so painfully directed to the lowest common denominator/dimmest temp-to-perm bulbs that I could hardly bother to stifle or apologize for my egregious yawning. Yet, I speak English! Fluently! And I have experience- with actual employment! Prior to going in I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get a job at all, but by the end of my "interview" ("Are you willing to show up for work? Name something you enjoy about showing up for work. In the case that you were to show up for work, would you be willing to do actual work once you got there? Really? Good! Okay, name a skill- it doesn't need to be one you HAVE- just whatever you can think of....") I felt confidant enough to start saying things like, "So it looks like I've got a little room to be choosy here, right?" and, "You'll work with me on that then, Kirsten?" So if all my tax crap and paperwork go through it seems as though I've got a few assignments to choose from, and of course they are TEMP jobs, but that's kind of what I'm after right now and I'm (knocking on wood while optimistically) thinking that I may begin to garner actual income sometime in the sort-of-near future huzzah!

3.  The other day I sat down to pee, then started trying to multitask and forgot what I was doing there in the first place. About halfway through trimming my nails I said aloud, "Pee." in the imperative like that, and thought What the hell am I talking about? Why did I say that? and then I remembered- ah! I have to pee. So I peed. True story!

4.  Moving along, then.

5.  I'm kind of disappointed with how the Iraqi tribunal is going. I'm not a real rabid news junkie, but I used to be getting a kick out of the trial and now it's really hard to give a crap without sulky Saddam getting all truculent and bawling around bitching about his dinner not being yummy enough or whatever.

6.  This kind of game we used to play consisted of laughing about how "sleeping bag" sounds really funny to say, but is also great because that's what it is! It's a bag! And you sleep in it! Then we'd think of other kinds of things you could claim were for sleeping and which could or could not actually make sense for that function but were required to sound funny like, "...and over here is my sleeping pole," or, "Do you need to borrow my sleeping slice?" Anyway I had forgotten about this game but then the other day I watched An Officer and a Gentleman which has one line that goes something like, "Meet me in five minutes- in the blimp hangar!" which made me laff all by itself, but also reminded me of the game and since then I have been thinking, "This is my sleeping blimp!" and crack myself up every time.

7. Apparently my "fans" in "Alabama" weren't really fans at all. That, or they were offended by my "reply" to their email because they never wrote me again and all my Googling for the "Church of Spleen" they claimed to have founded has proved fruitless. I think it may be because I told their leader his name sounds like luggage. Oh "well". It was fun while it lasted!

 

 

Good Things:

• It's raining much less hard today.
• This film.
• These incredibly decadent brownies I baked the other night and the way they keep on lasting, due to how rich and over the top they are.
• How tidy and organized my bra/panty/socks drawer is today, thanks to these.
• Being totally recovered from the cold/allergies that persisted for four weeks and had me convinced it was an allergy to our house and kept me from unpacking because I really believed that which neither of us could actually conceive of because it would be all too horrible- that we might have to move, again. But now! Now I am well and felt confident enough to hang up a picture! On a wall!

A (way) less good thing:

• Fleas. Eazy saw one jumping on the carpet and I've gotten a bite or two. This is a) a pain in the ass and b) particularly grody because we no longer have a pet, meaning the vile truth is that WE have fleas. I, Emily, have fleas. There, I've said it. Now hook me up with the links to the support groups, please.

Wherein I Rip the Mimi Smartypants Numbered List of Random Shit Format, Sort of

1. It is raining SO HARD here today. I was surprised the weather could actually get so dramatic here in the land of sunshine, palms and agave where every morning I walk out the door and say, "Wow! What an incredibly beautiful day!" and Eazy yawns, "Yeah. Another one." It's never too hot or too cold, sort of always just warm in the afternoon and kind of cool and misty in the evenings. We run the heater in our apartment, but it's just an ever-so-bitsy little gas radiator that hangs on the wall and clicks tunefully as it fires up and cools down through the night. Even today, with the rain coming down in sheets and umbrella-inverting wind lashing the trees, it's much warmer than it looks, and I was eager to shed the bulk of my woolly winter scarf coming in from the grey.
2. On my way here to the web cafe I saw two little lost dogs cruising yards along a busy street. They were scrambling around kind of directionless and excited and scared-looking, like We know this area but we've never been able to pee here off-leash before so I was sure they belonged to a home nearby. But when I called them over and checked for tags I found they weren't wearing any and I got a little jazzed about how I would heroically load them up in the car and drive to the animal shelter where we would scan the pups for microchips but we wouldn't find one in the little guy, the scrappy terrier mix who intrepidly scouted all the radical pee-spots and then offered to share with his timid shepherd buddy with a kind of jaunty wag-and-nod. I would selflessly offer to take the terrier home because I know the shelter is always plenty full, and I would provide him only the best loving care until such a time as it was determined that no one else was coming for him, and of course no one would, and then he would become Wayne, the future Companion Animal that occurred to me in the shower a couple of days before Lucy died. Anyway, in Real Life I kind of creepily lured the dogs into my car with doggie treats I keep under the seat for just such a pervy occasion, and then a neighbor came running up who knew what the deal was and helped me secure the dogs back in the yard where it turned out they belong and I hoped they had a dog house or something so they wouldn't get sodden. Also I was happy they were returned safely home, but I'm a little stung and sorry by the dissolution of my five-minute fantasy that the little feller would get to be Wayne. 
3. A collegiate-type over at the by-the-minute PCs just came over and asked me out. I'm so glad he took cover in the bathroom before I turned nine shades of purple after shutting him down. Abject deficiency in the art of saying no to people (especially people of the male variety) about anything, is still the most unfortunately telling hallmark of my Mormon upbringing.
4. I was going to do a 4, but now I'm not; I'm going home to start a puzzle.