evidence of continued exuberance

sometimes I wonder if I'll ever become one of those mature people, those people whose careers are more important than their personal lives, those people who act all serious all the time, those people who shower every day before work.

sometimes I worry this will happen and then other times I know that it won't. for example, I just spent the past 45 minutes searching for a "let's hear it for the boy" ringtone for my cell phone to use when Boy calls. (it's perfect but btw, I wasn't able to find a good one so if any of you know where I can find this, lemme know.)

however, on the job front, it seems I'm going to be moving into a new position at work, one that's more in line with my "career goals" (wait, do I have those?) and more in line with the stuff I like to do. rumor has it, some time in June I'll be moving to the marketing department to become the "content strategist" for the websites for the new joint venture company that IBM is forming out of my department. this sounds important. and I think it may turn out to actually be important. but most importantly, I think it will be fun and creative and I'll get to make lots of creative (and non-creative) decisions and then tell other people to make them happen. it's the perfect job for me!

but still, I'm saying "rumor has it" because 'round here, one never knows. anyway, back to the ringtone search!

flickr scares me sometimes...

okay, so as we all know, I have a flickr account and mostly, I love it. it's pretty interesting to share your photos, check out other peoples', communicate with friends, etc.

but recently... I was notified that someone added one of my pictures to his/her "favorites" list. the picture s/he chose was a closeup of my right foot on the black sand beach in Hawaii. I clicked on the person's link to learn some more about him/her. s/he had no photos to display and no profile info. and (here's where things get a little strange) all of the pictures in his/her "favorites" section were closeups of feet.

so... um... I don't even really want to say it but, well, I couldn't help but think foot fetish.

two things ho related

#1 - Don Ho died and that makes sense because when I saw him this past October, the man was pretty much on death's door.

#2 - HoHo's are celebrating their 40th birthday and did you know that Pittsburghers consume more HoHo's than anyone else in the world. that's kind of strange.

and I guess this one should be like #2a. people in Chicago consume more Twinkies than anyone else in the world. also kind of strange.

because of the HoHo conversation, my friend B. went to the vending machine and bought some DingDongs. they are not HoHo's but they're close. he was unable to eat the DingDongs once he saw how many calories they contained so he gave them to me(he is a volunteer fire fighter and his goal is to make it into the fire fighter calendar, you know - shirtless.)

I have to tell you, the DingDongs look good. however, I can't quite bring myself to eat something that contains "beef fat" yet is not a beef product...

Tuesday, 2:36 pm.

okay, this is actually an important question: I'm wearing some of those "noise reducing" headphones right now and, for some reason, it seems like I'm breathing with a little difficulty. why might this be?

Tuesday, 12:44 pm.

okay, I'm still bored and so I decided to just randomly search blogs and see what came up and I discovered that Jesus has a blog and it's aswesome. :) (see, the emoticon lets you know that I really mean it!)

Tuesday, 12:09 pm.

okay, in case you're as bored as me you can read this article from the New Yorker about email style (or eStyle, as they call it). I'm definitely usually a lower-case non-punctuators, even at work. I'm also glad to see that exclamation points are catching on. and emoticons, as well. the thing is, the more people use them, the more people expect to see them and so you could be burned if you don't include a little winky guy from time to time.

anyway, I once dated a guy who almost always used the "respond in portions" method which is just so icky, even when done by a lower-case non-punctuator. ;)

Tuesday, 12:03 pm.

I'm at work and I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored.

Interestingly enough, this morning I made the comment that I don't really get bored. Goes to show me because I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored. I'm bored.

pictures, phase 1

friday I "worked" from home and finally got my pictures from the Grand Canyon/Moab trip uploaded to my flickr account. hopefully you've bookmarked the link to my account but in case you haven't, here it is again: my flickr account.

I plan to get my monterey pictures uploaded tomorrow, or at least before I leave thursday for my next trip. this weekend I'll be in longboat key, florida , hanging out with boy and his parents.

technically, I've already met his parents but that was before we were dating so at first I thought it was no big deal to make a trip across the entire country to hang with his peeps. however,it's kind of a big deal, making a special trip to hang out with the parents, isn't it? is this too big of a deal or am I just maybe having a small freakout moment and making too big of a deal out of this deal?

well regardless of the deal, 80 degrees + sunny + beach always = good.

For the second weekend in a row, I was away - this time in Monterey, CA visiting my cousin, Jen and her husband Noble, an occasional guest commenter to my blog. It was a fantastic
weekend - the weather was great, we did tons of fun stuff, ate tons of
yummy food, and the Easter Bunny was even able to find me on Sunday
morning!

For the first time ever, I felt like an official Colorado resident. We did a bit of hiking in Big Sur
on Saturday. The hike was pretty much uphill the entire way and I
didn't feel it at all. Guess I'm finally adjusted to this altitude
thing...

Again, lots of pictures and I promise to have them
uploaded some time this weekend but probably not tonight because a) I'm
exhausted!!!! and b) I'm going to a hot yoga class with friends J. and
C. I've never been to hot yoga before and I'm a little worried that I'm
going to have the song gonna
make you sweat by C + C music factory stuck in my head the
whole time. Then again, I think I'm too tired to do yoga and think at
the same time.

On a slight side note, I thought this
article was kind of funny but I'm wondering if that's because
I'm tired and giddy. Thoughts?

moldy muffins

upon returning from my trip, I realized I had no food so yesterday, I bought some english muffins from the crappy little market down the street from me. I had one yesterday and it tasted a little funky, kind of like dirt. I thought maybe it was just me. but this morning, when I opened up the package I noticed copious amounts of mold. gross.

so the dilemma is do I take the muffins back or just through them out? I debated over this for a few minutes but then decided to just through them out and then never buy muffins (or bread products) from the crappy little market again.

anyway, I'm back from my trip and I had a great time. we put close to 2000 miles on our red, rented ford focus in about five days. here, basically, is what we did:

Tuesday night: loaded up the "car" after "work" and drove south toward the "land of enchantment" (a.k.a. New Mexico). didn't make it. spent the night in a days inn somewhere south of pueblo. oh, also got pulled over in some dinky little town but the lady cop said she just wanted to make sure we were okay and let us go without even checking id's.

Wednesday: said good bye to Colorado and hello to New Mexico. spent some time in Taos and I have to say that I'm not sure I understand what all the hype is about. it was incredibly touristy and consumer driven. though I did have the best carrot cake I've ever had at this artsy little coffee shop where boy kept bumping into the table, eventually spilling about half of my americano. tried to make it to Flagstaff by Wednesday night but got stuck in a random snow storm thing that caused an accident that caused the highway to be shut down for an hour and a half so we ended up staying in Winslow, AZ instead. no biggie.

Thursday: finally made it to the grand canyon. it was snowing and boy hadn't brought any cold weather clothes, despite my caution of "in the 40's and snowing on Thursday..." our conversation over lunch went something like this:

boy: I can't believe it's snowing...
me (dressed in winter coat with hat and gloves): um, yeah well I looked at the forecast before we left and saw that it was going to snow so I told you that we'd need to pack warmer clothes.
boy: you did?
me (with cocky, I-told-you-so look on my face): yeah, I did.
boy: well to be honest, I'm only listening to you about 50% of the time you're talking.
me: hmm... that's probably for the best.

the weather being what it was, we hung out at the lodge, drank beer, and tried to get reservations for the sky walk but couldn't probably because of the mass hysteria that thing is causing. the sky walk was also about four hours away from so it didn't happen this trip.

Friday: better weather! hiked three miles down into the canyon and, after being scared by all of the "it takes a billion hours to get back up from here" signs we decided to turn around. found out that living in boulder, you often forget how in shape you are compared to normal folk but quickly realized this fact as we smoked people left and right coming up the trail. boy was pretty much running which I think was partly to blame on the fact I told him about the theory that everyone you pass becomes your slave in hell. made it out of the canyon in about an hour (faster than we had gone down). picked up a butt load of slaves that day and were claimed by no one.

Friday night: headed to Moab. drove through Monument Valley at sunset to get there (probably the coolest part of the trip). got a room at a motel 6, which is boy's favorite cheap motel chain. however, being in Moab, it was not so cheap. and I was not so impressed.

Saturday: ate an incredibly yummy breakfast and then went to Arches NP.hiked around. again, felt physically superior to the "others" but were passed by two incredibly in-shape, younger looking guys. drat. hung out in Moab. drank beer. ate ice cream. decided another night at motel 6 wasn't needed so headed back to boulder. got back late and happily drifted to sleep in familiar surroundings.


I took tons and tons of pictures on the trip which I will eventually upload to flickr. however, it won't be today because I'm going to opening day at Coors field where I will be doing my best not to drink any Coors.

1:43 in the afternoon and I just got done doing the only thing I needed to do at work today which was go to a meeting and nod my head.

Last Friday, I officially completed all of the work that I have to do. My fellow team members are off this week. My boss is off too. As of Wednesday, I'll be off too. Boy and I are going on a Grand Canyon/Utah trip for a few days. I've never been to the Southwest before (unless you count Colorado and I don't count Colorado) so I'm pretty excited. I hope to be eating salsa at every meal.

Because I don't have any work to do, I spent most of my time today messing around with my flickr account. I've had one for a few years but only recently started using it. I thought about how much of my life you could piece together from my pictures/comments and I think you could probably piece together a lot. You could know my name, who my friends are, the state in which I live and maybe even the town. And if you figured out the town and you were really, really good, you might be able to figure out where I live.

Maybe now is a good time to throw out the fact that I earned my black belt in kung fu in December 2005. I also like to cook and so I own a number of sharp knives. ok? ok.

I think everyone needs someone in their life who will, from time to time, send them an email that contains something like, oh, I don't know, the William Tell Overture, and no explanation as to why.

they made me do it

I had no choice, no control, no ability to change it. I just wrote the following sentence and there's nothing I can do about it:

"To access the preprinted mark/tractor hole sensors, open the upper center
front and lower center front covers of the printer."

huh?

can you believe we actually named the things the "upper center front cover" and the "lower center front cover"? and these people make more money than I do. sometimes I think I'm in bizarro world...

Fearful people do stupid things

That's what the bumper sticker on the car in front of me said. Before that, while I was in my car, my theme song for the year came on (it's 32 flavors, the Alana Davis version, because I'm 32...) and the line "I never tried to give my life meaning by demeaning you" resonated with me. I've always been aware of the statement but because of everything I went through in 2006, I heard it more tonight.

Before that, when I was in the parking lot after yoga, it was dark out but I noticed a bright patch of sky behind the mountains, the sun setting. It made me think about the cyclic nature of the physical world (the day, the seasons, etc) and that made me think about the cyclic nature of our lives. There are good patches. There are rough patches. Neither one will last forever. Both will be part of your life. And it's good to have them both.

Before that, in my yoga class, the teacher had been talking about times when she had acted badly and didn't like who she was at that particular time. She said she was so grateful to have the friends she did because they loved her enough, believed in her enough, to give her the space to be off center, to know that she would grow and wouldl again be in a better place. It made me think of P. and how, during my bad time last year, he wasn't able to love me, believe in me, enough to know that I would grow and come back to a better place. I used to be incredibly hurt by that but what it comes down to is that he doesn't love himself, believe in himself enough to do that for himself and so he couldn't love or believe for anyone else.

Fearful people do stupid things. There is no object, no person, place or thing, in that sentence to indicate to whom or what fearful people do stupid things and I think sometimes what we forget is that fearful people hurt themselves, too. Actually, they probably hurt themselves more than they hurt others. Cause if you're actually happy and you're happy with yourself, then there's really no need to be mean to others. There's no reason to want them to feel bad, to make them look bad to others, etc. Sometims it seems so simple I'm not sure why we don't all get it. Then, other times, I know.

upset

last night I was watching b-ball with boy and we watched duke lose which made me happier than you'd think. why do I not like duke? it might the fact that the b-ball team looks like a bunch of rich, tall snooty white guys. and it might be the fact that everyone I've ever met who has gone to duke also looked like rich, tall, snooty white guys. this is not to say that they were rich, tall, and snooty but it's kind of creepy, really, how people from duke seem to look so similar.

anyway, I think it's my need to constantly root for the underdog that made me so happy. hopefully there will be more opportunities to root for underdogs in all of this madness this march. boy is rather sporty and so I'm sure there will be more b-ball watching. it's funny but I think that other's I've date (or maybe married...) would have thought that march madness was a sale at banana republic.

For the third day in a row, it could not be more beautious here. 70 degrees and sunny. I'm going to duck out of work a wee bit early to go for a little trail run. Life is good sometimes, you know.

happy saturday to me!

In a town where it's sunny over 300 days a year, I've come to think if it as a little gift when you get a weekend morning that's cloudy and overcast and perfect for lying on the couch, drinking tea and reading while listening to non-upbeat music. no pressure to go hike up anything or even to shower.

last night I dreamt that I went to the library and spent all day exploring the children's section, looking for books from my youth and so today I feel I must go to the library and spend some time exploring the children's section, looking for books from my youth.

last night I went to a party for my neighbor who was celebrating her womanhood. she has been a woman for the past eight years and I wonder if she had been so graceful and elegant before she was a women. but maybe not. I think her's is a grace and elegance that comes from being completely comfortable with yourself and I think before eight years ago, she didn't have that.

the party was filled with the non-athletic side of boulder, which is nice to see every now and then. most people had some kind of connection to Naropa and a few were connected to the Psychic Horizons Center. They got me thinking that the pain in my lower back, which started last July, is not exercise or matress related and that, like Abby's occassional peeing on the carpet, may be related to traumatic events from my childhood that I have yet to successfully deal with. A woman who's apperance sparked a core emotional rememberance of both my mother and my sister made me think that they're right. And interestingly enough, my back already feels better.

it's semi-gray and cloudy right now and because I've grown so accustomed to seeing the sun, the weather makes me want to sleep. however, the sun is breaking through the clouds and soon it will be another beautiful day in boulder. but it's interesting how used to the sun I've gotten and it makes me wonder if I'd ever be able to live in a cloudy city like Pittsburgh again.

anyway, yesterday was my officemate's last day. she quit to go be "director of usability" at some small web-design firm. the firm only has about ten people working for it so not only will she be the director of usability, she'll pretty much be the usability department. it sort of reminds me of a girl I know who does her own freelance thing and has her own "company." she's the only employee but that doesn't stop her from billing herself as "lead visionary." puh-leez.

this move is good for my officemate because she's excited about the job. this move is good for me because, at times, my officemate could be a little mean and dysfunctional. there are no hard feelings though - she honestly couldn't help it (the being mean thing). but given the high number of dysfunctional people that were in my life in 2006, I'm glad to be getting them outta there in 2007.

the move is also good for me because I'm planning to turn my ex-officemate's desk into a coffee/pastry bar starting next week. my friend b. is bringing in a coffee maker that he doesn't use. I'll supply the first lb. of coffee, the sugar, and the milk products and then, hopefully, the venture will turn into a self-sustaining enterprise.

I'm thinking it will work like this: $.50 a day for unlimited coffee or $2.00 a week. that's more than enough to buy supplies for the cafe. then, when we start to see a small profit, I'll turn that money into various baked goods. the goal is to eventually get enough money to buy an espresso maker and a small fridge so I can start doing froofy beverages and perhaps light lunches.

yep, that's right - these are now my career goals.

how long do you think I can stay in business before I'm shutdown by the health department or threaten by the cafeteria workers because I'm stealing all of their business?

So I read this article in the NY Times and was struck by how one little line can say so much about, well, pretty much everything:

"In so-called attachment studies, young children or primates who are confident in their mother’s affections tend to be confident when exploring an unfamiliar room or meeting a stranger.

Whether you can relate to this sort of thing or not, chances are you know someone who can. And it's a good article. So you should read it.

Old meets new

My friend Mark (above) was my neighbor and one of my best friends in Pittsburgh. He and some other friends from PGH were staying in Breckenridge this weekend so I went up to hang out with them with Jessica (below) who is my neighbor and one of my best friends in Boulder. It was as if parallel worlds were meeting.



It sounds a lot like a girl scout song but it's nice when your old friends meet your new friends and it's copasetic. "Make new friends but keep the old. One's a samoa the other's a do-si-do..."

I'm a little worn out from it all (making a snow angel at 9,000 feet takes more oxygen than you would think) so I've spent most of the day being productive while sitting on my butt and by that I mean watching the Godfather, followed by the Godfather, Part II. That's a solid 8 hours of TV. I'm so proud of me.