720 minutes

Wow. Dang. Yeah. Another long day at the office. These 12 hour days are so 12 hour. It’s kinda like taking a road trip every day but without the scenery and bag of FunYuns. Although I could watch DVDs on the iBook and eat a whole bag of FunYuns every single day but that might just be too confusing given the fact that as 6pm rolled around I’d still be only a half block from home. Instead I spend the day writing, emailing and talking on the phone. Sometimes I’ll toss in something weird like jumping on the couch or seeing how long I can hold my breath - - you know - - to break up the day. But in the end, it’s still 12 hours and 12 hours of anything gets kinda boring after a while.

Enter Illustration Friday! My latest attempt at spicing up the long long days. I’m working on my rooster themed artistic escape for my Friday post. I won’t say much, but I will say this: it involves origami paper and glue and, well, a rooster. Cock-a-doodle-doo!

How long I jumped on the couch: the whole time I talked to P.

How long I held my breath: 58 seconds.

I was asked by my would-be boss to answer, essay style, 10 questions about the would-be job. I half expected there to be a wee college blue book in tow but there was not! I pounded out as smart of answers as I could muster and sent them along. We have the much anticipated part 3 of 4 this afternoon. In my true cart/horse style I have an application for a way cool Seattle (C@L!) apartment in my e-mail inbox. It’s on Capitol Hill. It’s pale blue and butter colored. Lots of windows! Claw foot tub. French doors. You can walk to lots of neat things! The absolute best part though – cats are a-ok!

I got a present! Janey drew me a picture! Look here!

What I think of presents: they ROCK!

I had a funny little conversation with P the other day about Nessie (The Loch Ness Monster! Our peaceful underwater ally!) and what would be in her pouch if she were a marsupial. I said grilled cheese. He said Ron Popeil’s Pocket Fisherman and pointed out how damp the grilled cheese would be. Good point, I thought! So that lead to Zip-Loc bags and picnic blankets and generators and extension chords and diving bells. In the end, he solved all my soggy concerns with the idea of a magic air bubble that would surround her at lunch time and keep the grilled cheese toasty and dry. Genius! Now on to the problem of Nessie not really having arms. No arms! No pouch to mouth delivery! No good!

Where else you might stumble across the phrase “pouch to mouth”: kangaroo porn.

On that note…

pretty like this

I’m about half way to C@L!

I had phone interview numer-oh two-oh last night! It went well! Things such as moving companies and reimbursement checks and start dates were discussed. There was laughing and agreement and sentiments such as “we’d be lucky to have you” tossed about freely. My new office is red wine colored (I’ve been in it before!) and I’ve already decided that I’ll fill it with pink art and glitter paintings! I’ll figure out how to work a Ramones t-shirt into my 9-5 clothes without getting yelled at. Same goes with these gloshes. I’ll dazzle them with my ideas and Minneapolis-free smile. I’ll buy a really really fucking cool umbrella.

A conversation snippet:

Me: I probably shouldn’t talk about things like this, lest I jinx it!
A: There is no such thing as jinxing.
Me: Cool!

I have again decided that music is the best thing since fluffernutter or elm trees or sugar-free gum or something like that. My good friend P (pee!) made me a few CDs of happy glam rock meets punk rock meets Pat Benetar music to help groove away my long long days at the coffee shop and they continue to make me smile with each repeat. I’ve been spotted singing along and rhythmically wiggling. WIGGLING. Heck yes! Thanks, P!

You know who else deserves a thanks on this here little piece of information superhighway real estate? Lots of people! My friend Jo. She took me shopping and scolded me until we’d found an outfit that was professional enough to land the swank job. My friend :I: is also deserving of thanks. She’s kinda like my mom! OH, and since I’m talking about moms, I should thank my actual mom, too. She’s been way nice and supportive. My new friend D. She chats with me and makes me laugh and posts way nice comments for me here. J, too. He’s the king of the smile inducing comment! My other friend J. He’s my hero! He can cheer me up in a single bound. :A:, too. Her kind looks and abundance of wit have worked wonders on my mood and spirit. A new person, S, she is nice, understanding and ready to defend my honor at a moments notice. All the customers and friends and people I’ve worked with who are pitching in to help sort this mess out. C and H, too. They are awesome, fun, funny girls with a knack for putting things into perspective. All the people who read this pollyblog, too. It makes me happy to see that 50 or so people read me each day! Brightens my spirits. Makes me feel proud. I’ve really been showered in kindness. I’m a lucky girl! Thank you, everyone. Let’s hug!

hold your breath, make a wish, count to three

One of the things to which I thought I could not speak has been cleared for speaking! Which is good because not much else has been on my mind as of late other than THIS VERY THING! It’s exciting! It’s ginormous! It’s earth shattering! It’s… well, it’s not THAT amazing, but it’s almost that amazing. It’s a job interview! For a really great job. It would pay a TON. It would whisk me away. It would solve lots of this mess and have a way good chance of helping me find happy again. It’s in Seattle. It’s at a newspaper. I’d have an office and a staff and a boss and a career again. I’d have a new place to live and new people to meet and a clean slate. I’d have ocean views and open air markets and space needles and mountains. Mostly though, I’d just have the chance to be me there. Happy me.

Wowsers!

I should know by next weekend. Cross your fingers. Your toes. Braid your hair. Throw salt over your shoulder. Kiss a frog. You know the drill! I need all the help I can get!

How I want to spell Seattle: C@L

Guess who just happens to live in C@L: Isaac Brock! HECK YES. All the Modest Mouse you can see for the low low price of $8.95!

In prep for the trip there for the final interview and GOD WILLING the job offer, I went shopping with a friend to find an outfit that would be fitting of the SAVE MY ASS salary and swank corner office - - found one! It’s pin stripe pants and black jackets with white piping and hot pink shirts. It’s high heels and pig tails and enough of me where I can smile in it. Girls, listen up, if you didn’t already know this, what I’m about to say could change your life: pinstripes are WAY flattering. Seriously, we should start a movement were pinstripes are on EVERYTHING. Jammies. Sweatpants. Blue jeans. They’re magic I tell you, magic.

AND I may need that special magic given the sad fact that anxiety is the one emotion that still makes me seek out things like cheese puffs and junior mints and tootsie rolls. I’m officially anxious about this job and the thousand other things swirling around me. It has to do with nervous energy. Fidgeting. Being unable to sit still. Chewing is apparently a way to keep busy! This led to some ideas. The “best” of which being really really hard taffy that would take hours to eat. D and I thought we’d call it “Taffy To Gnaw On For Anxious Girls” or TTGOFA for short! It would come in all sorts of flavors. Strawberry. Banana. Spring Roll. Chocolate milk. Nacho cheese. One wee piece would keep your mouth busy for about an hour. Added bonus: Dentists would also probably really like TTGOFA given it’s filling removal possibilities. So as you can see, it’s really win win for everyone. Us for selling it. Girls for munching on it. Dentists for repairing the damage. Ahhh, synchronicity!

Driver’s License Weight Goal Update: half a pound away! HECK YES.

How I will most likely celebrate reaching the above goal: going out to dinner! That makes sense in the same way skim mochas with whip cream make sense. Which is to say it makes very little sense at all.

Here is my new favorite thing: Illustration Friday. Thanks to :A: for showing it to me! Armed with my digital camera, a shoebox full of markers and 12 hour days at a coffee shop I just might be a force to be reckoned with by next Friday!

it's all in the eyes

Today is the day where things happen. Big things. Things that I can’t get into just yet for reasons of superstition and street smarts. Things that if typed in here right now would send me in search of something made out of wood on which to knock. So it’s best I keep my trap shut and let these possibilities decide if they are gonna hook up with me for a while or drift on by and let the next set work their magic. Possibilities are like buses that way. There is always another one coming.

I am now 2.5 pounds away from my goal of weighing less than my driver’s license says I do. I have never weighed LESS than my driver’s license says. Never! From 16 on, I have always weighted more. LOTS more. For instance, I had to lose 70 pounds to reach this little goal. YEAH. Stop laughing! I actually thought people wouldn’t notice! I should go renew it today and drop another 70 pounds on plastic. I’d be nearly see though then! Awesome!

Is that really awesome: no.

Wouldn't it be cool if what you wrote on your driver’s license for height, weight, hair and eye color came true: HECK YES. I’d like purple eyes, please!

Bananas!

I often wish we lived in a world that was a little more James T. Kirk than it is. I would very much like a computer friend who was all knowing concerning my activities and body functions. It would log even the smallest of tasks in huge databases that were instantly cross-refresenceable and provide answers to many of my most pressing questions with out batting a diode.

“Computer, how many waffles have I eaten in my lifetime?”

“422.”

See!?! Hours of fun!

“Computer, how much time have I wasted looking for scissors in the past year?”

“3 hours”

DANG!

“Computer, how many times have I misspelled the word “museum?”

“Everytime you’ve written it, or 1,435 times.”

Yikes!

Fuck! I’m yawning! And I got 8 more hours to go! Wish me luck! Send me emails! Keep me busy! It’s gonna be a long long day!

first the "a" and then the "b"

I spill out ordered alphabet components, stream of consciousness like, when I can’t think of anything to write. When that first word won’t come. Or sometimes when there is just too much to get out and I don’t know where to start. Tongue tied. Hands in lap. Staring at a blank page. That was yesterday’s post. I just let my head go for a few minutes and watch what happens. It’s almost like a game. It is a game. It was in my writing book. My writing book. The only proof that I take this seriously. The only hint that my secret daydream is this, is writing. “Apple orchard angst” was my favorite phrase found in the pile yesterday. I like how it sounds said aloud. I like that it has a rhythm. I like that it makes me think of secret sects of teenagers creeping around scented apple orchards on crisp fall nights.

The only kind of apple I like: honey crisp.

Is it crisp? Indeed!

Does it taste honey-like? Not so much.

The 12 hour days suck! They’re not hard in the way a 12 hour day polishing tubas would be hard, they are hard in the bored, stuck and feeling lonely kind of way. My friends are being really supportive and nice and all that good stuff. Lots of phone calls. Lots of emails. Chatting on line. Stopping by for lunch. It breaks up the days. I’m still tired and brain dead and prone to the occasional teary eyed bought though. It’s no fun being left with something. Especially this something. But I’ll figure it out somehow. I’m doing what I can. Amazingly enough, things seem to be falling into place a little. Or maybe that’s not amazing at all. Maybe that’s just what happens when you start looking out for yourself.

WHO KNEW?

Oh wait, yeah, I knew.

I saw a pangolin for the first time the other day. That’s it up there. Today’s foto! It looks like a cartoon. I want one as a pet! You think you are all smart and have your animals down from like 3rd grade on and then you see something like that and are reminded that you maybe know 10% of the animal kingdom by sight, much less are able to make the accompanying noise. I have no idea what a pangolin sounds like, but I’m guessing it’s something like “gruwp gruwp.” I imagine they like to wear hats with ear flaps and eat pancakes for breakfast on Mondays.

Right now, someone is eating pancakes while wearing a hat with ear flaps.

Right now, a pangolin is putting together a bookshelf from IKEA.

Right now, I better sign off before this turns into a Van Halen song!

mash mush mope mango mwa mwa mwa

Traffic. Music. On a date to church. Still listening to the Replacements. Again with the bar and the beer and the bass lines making my insides vibrate. Mail boxes and camel cigarette ads. Fences that look like licorice. Cars covered in the grey of winter roads. Newspaper boxes. Piles of snow, dirtied. Almost black. Exhaust. A yellow ribbon on the side of a red Jeep Cherokee. The shop keeper across the way bringing in the morning newspaper. Lines of cars waiting for the light to change so they can go to work or to home or to nowhere. Impatience. Horn honk. The last car in the line has it’s left blinker on. The first car now. Everything sparkles, covered in frozen dew. Like a sugar cookie. Like my hands after I made 6th Grade Saturday Night. Like a super ball. Tired. Yawning. My eyes feel dulled. Scraper marks on windshields. Skinny defrost lines on rear windows. The people in a hurry with just enough gone to see. Inside the heat blasting. Warming up the glass from the back. Waiting for the wiper blade to whoosh the melt away. Bus sides covered in ads for doctors and malls and ice cream. So hungry I can feel the cold hit my stomach. The walk sign switching from orange hand to white walking man and back again back again. No birds. No squirrels. No grass. Artificial tree branches poke up over the window sill. Their bright green shouting out over the grey of today. Of the winter. Of the year. Yellow school bus with it’s stop sign flush against it’s side. Penguins and rabbits and triangles and words written in cursive and more school buses. All go by. No one here except for me and this cd. Trying to sit up straight. Legs crossed. Can feel the skin tight around my jaw line. Can feel the curve of my back. My arms stretched out to meet the keyboard. No appetite. Jeans hang low on my hips. The building across the street looks like it could be made of crackers. They have a mustard and ketchup awning. Muster. Muenster. Monsters. Why can’t monsters get along with other monsters? Why is it that vegetables can’t talk but cats can float? Accordion buses. Accordian solos. Weird Al once sang me a song. Warewolf hair and black leather jackets. Broaches on long wool coats. Customers who ask for skim or decaf or half caf or no foam or whip cream or cream or want to know if the bakery is fresh. I think sometimes I should just go. But I stay because I am strong like that. Responsible like that. Don’t want to leave like that. Leaves. Orange and red and yellow leaves. Fall. Autumn. Atonal. Argyle. Apple orchard angst. Archived. Alleviated. Almost there. Almost there. Done.

again with the kittens

I don’t feel so much like getting into it today. Some things are bad and sad and anything else that happens to rhyme with that. Other things are a little hopeful, brain kicking in, dusting off superhero suit kind of things. I’m just trying to take care of myself now. I wasn’t at all for months and months. I still don’t do it 100%, but I do it some. And a little more each day. I worry about other’s feelings, situations, messes too much. I want to fix everything all the time. I want to get to the happy. I’ll do the right thing in this mess. I’ll find the high road again. I’ll come out a-ok because that’s how I always come out. I’m stubborn like that. Determined like that. Hopeful like that.

My favorite part about getting through a huge mess: when something happens to make it all “worth it.”

What that thing has almost always been: a boy. FUCK!

What I want that thing to be this time: a kitten!