Of course mercury was in retrograde!

So while pondering my failure to communicate with my husband this weekend, I came across a tidbit of astrological information that might explain everything:

Mercury is in retrograde, hon.

I know selective astrology is just stupid, but I'm totally going to sign on with this one.

In other news, I just spent 9.99 at target on an adorable lexan tumbler in order to up my water consumption. I always drink more through a straw. But 9.99?

House hunting

How on earth am I supposed to pick out the space where I'll spend at least 45% of my time over the next __years if I don't have the foggiest idea what I'll be doing or who I'll be spending it with? Besides my husband, of course.

I think there was a sex in the city epi that referenced the idea that after a certain amount of time, a failure to make a decision in certain instances is a decision.

I can't imagine being a mother. And I can't imagine not being a mother. Perhaps mine is simply a failure of imagination.

Exhausting friends

So I have two friends from college who realized that they have been madly in love with one another forever. They made this realization while attending my wedding less than six months ago. So guyfriend lives in my new hometown and girlfriend lived 3 states away until 2 months ago. She kicked her live in boyfriend out and broke her lease to move here two months ago. Now guyfriend and girlfriend are now sharing a 600 square foot apartment with several various and sundry animals.

I made the realization friday night over thai food that this pair together totally exhaust me. Love them, but holy crap! I can't keep up my end of the conversation and it just doesn't matter. I'm working on plowing over my whole drama cultivation stage, but they seem to be dedicated to sustained, 4 season cultivation of drama.

Maybe that's part of the reason I've been moody this weekend (see below.) It's tough realizing that it's going to be a lot of work finding a similar social network to what I had in my old home town. And its tough figuring out where old friends fit in.

Looking at the big picture, it would seem that I'm having a hard time figuring out where I fit in. All these new roles: wife, big-girl-job-holder, well liked by many yet friend to few in a new town.

I'm right back to my Junior year in high school, scanning the cafeteria at my new school for a friendly face. Another story for another time.

Welcome to PassiveAggressiveVille, population YOU!

It's not PMS. I don't know what it is, but I've felt moody this weekend. Last night, I put clean sheets on the bed. Clean sheets thanks to my husband who stripped the bed, washed the sheets, folded them, and placed them neatly on the bed.

I was tired and cranky and had some negative feelings toward my husband and I didn't feel like putting his pillow cases on his pillows. I hate putting pillow cases on pillows. Just like I hate putting the silverware away. But wouldn't it have been nicer to put the pillowcases on my husband's pillows? Clearly.

The negative feelings toward my husband had been brewing all day. I felt like he was acting moodily toward me while we were cleaning the house. At two separate points, I thought enough of it to ask him if there was something bothering him. I got the trademarked short "no." Seriously, if he were someone I was dating rather than my husband, I would have gotten the "wow, he's totally dumping my ass this week" vibe.

He came to bed around 1 AM, two hours after I turned in. He rassled with the pillowcases in the dark, throwing them down hard enough that it roused me from my deep sleep.

When did I hop the fast train to passive-aggressive-ville? More importantly, how do I get off?

I'm cheating on my husband with SHEETZ (or I heart gas station coffee)

Seriously, my Sheetz addiction is getting out of hand. Coffee, giant diet sodas, delicious sandwiches...seriously, I could probably live for an entire year on nothing but Sheetz. Yesterday I decided the lunch I had previously deemed balanced had fallen short on protein. It was a sad, sad excuse to cross the street and purchase 2 hard boiled eggs and some light honey mustard dressing in which to dip them. (Delish, by the way!)

It may be time for an intervention.

I've seen the doppler and the damage done

What first seemed like a dark but still funny post-script to my signature coctail party story in my former hometown has become much darker and sadder. While it's no longer cocktail party worthy, it's actually much more compelling. So thank you, troubled weatherman for your part in helping me make friends in my then new, now old city. Sorry you've run into problems, and I'm really sorry I never attempted to engage you in a conversation when I had an opportunity to do so.

My first contact with the Troubled Weatherman (TW) was a few months after I had moved to Roanoke (Even though I've linked this to his true identity, I'm not going to use his name in the story). I was 28, my boyfriend lived 3 hours away, and I was lonely. It seemed like the people my age in the area were at completely different points in their lives, and the person I had connected with the best was my 19 year old intern. She joined me for a month during her winter term at Oberlin. She could do anything she wanted for credit, and rather than joining the ranks of the mythical "Here's what happened when I got drunk for 28 days straight" crowd I had imagined when I considered applying to Oberlin 10 years earlier, she decided to join me knocking on doors of homes that had been determined to be a lead poisoning hazard a decade earlier to find out if there were any kids or pregnant women living there.

We were a block away from my house when we knocked on TW's door. He answered in his boxers with this huge grin on his face. Did I mention that it was approximately 10 degrees outside? And he answered the door in his boxers? Well, it was and he did. I ran through my set of questions, looking past his grin and focusing on the guitar leaning against the wall in his hallway. "No kids here? Great. No pregnant women? OK. Here's some literature, bye!" After he closed the door, my intern looked over at me and said "I had to stop myself from saying 'Storm Team 10 meteorologist 'TW'."

Having no interest in local news, I had no idea what she was talking about. She explained who she thought our scantily clad friend was. I was incredulous--what kind of weatherman opens his door wearing only boxers when it's only 10 degrees out? And windy! So I didn't believe her.

Fast forward to a few weeks later. I receive an e-mail from TW, which I just happen to have in my eternally archived inbox. (My card was stapled to the literature.) Italics are mine, changed to avoid identifying information.

Hi there Bobloblaw
I think you stopped by my place in our neighborhood the other day passing out your prevention info! :) Which one were you? Are you single?
Hope you have had a good Valentine's Day and a good weekend
Hope to hear from you,
TW

Eek! Which one was I? it was sent on Valentines day which I found so depressing. I wasn't single, and I really should have just ignored it and forwarded it to my coworkers for a giggle, but there was something about the e-mail that made me sad. And seeing how he lived less than a block away from me, I was likely to run into him again. So I responded. Unfortunately the rest of the exchange is not in the eternal archives, but it went something like this--I told him I wasn't single and that my intern had returned to finish her freshman year in college. Thinking that would clue him in that she's close enough to jailbait for a 30something. I got an e-mail back from him to have my intern drop him a line if she wanted to get together when she was back in town.

I was totally skeeved by that, but whatev.

We did bump into each other several times while I was living in the 'noke, but I doubt he recognised me, and I didn't make any effort to clue him in to our first meeting. I just kind of wrote him off as a skeezy dude who would hit on anything that didn't move out of the way.

Turns out, maybe I wasn't the only one living on my street who was lonely. I just assumed that he was on TV! Certainly he had a lovely life and plenty of friends. He didn't need me to say hi to him in the grocery store or smile at him on the street.

Now I'm not under any kind of delusions of grandeur that had I struck up a conversation with him when I had the opportunity that he wouldn't have overdosed on heroin and almost died, but this situation made me think about all the assumptions I make about people. You know what? Everyone needs kind words. Everyone needs for you to say hello to them on the street. We need human connections. Be nice.

Kvetch: Neither indie, nor bride. Discuss!

So I got married 5 months ago today. And I still visit this $%&$ing website! It's like crack. Too cool for tulle crack. I need to stop. But for one thing, its informative, and for another, it's very entertaining. Where else would I figure out that A.) I need a $50 lunch box, and B.) exactly what I need to put in said lunchbox.

Truth be told, I go back for the posters that get on my nerves. I must be a total masochist. There's the know it all blowhard, the pro-lifer law schooler, and even a peripheral friend who I know in real life who has been planning her wedding since 2 weeks after she met her fiance. She joined the "IB" almost a year before she got engaged. I'm embarassed to admit I've probably read everything she's ever posted there. I feel so dirty.

Must stop.

What I love most about Kvetch is the "dust-ups." Personal favorites are here, here, and here. I'm such a drama queen.

OK. Maybe I'll blog instead of kvetching.

I made this money, you didn't, right Ted?

So I went a little slap happy the other night and serenaded my husband with the bb version of "My Prerogative." (As if I really have to make a distinction--I never even heard the britney version, probably because I'm from the street.)

I did a lyrics search so I could cyber serenade him today and realized that I've completely botched the lyrics for over a decade. My lyrics are really dumb, too:

"Don't get me wrong, I'm really not (unintelligible mumbling--sounds kinda like deuce)
Eagle treats is not my thaaaang
All those strange a-wastin' chips
Really gets me down.
I see nothing wrong with spreading myself around."

I had this image in my head of Bobby at some sad party where the only available refreshments were Shasta and Eagle Cheesey Poofs. He was looking sadly at the bowl of eagle snacks, sad because they would never reach their destiny of passing through the digestive tract of a party-goer. (Hence "a-wastin'").

What other songs might I be butchering for decades to come? This world is a trip. I don't know what's goin' on around here, I've got these people talkin' about me, these people...

We outta here.

Gun show?

My husband is at a gun show. I went once, figuring it would be great people watching. It was, but only for about 20 minutes. It was weird knowing for certain as I left that gun show that I would never set foot in another gunshow for the rest of my life.

I'm getting a haircut today. Not sure if I'm going to cut off everything or not. I have it in my head that I'm too heavy right now to look good in short hair. (I've put on over 10 pounds since I got married, but it's coming off!

In other news, I'm cooking shrimp and grits tonight. Not terribly good for the whole weight reduction thing, but it sounds soo good.

Went climbing last night and really sucked. I'm not making it up some 5.8s and breezing up 5.9s. The arms are a little sore today, but I must persevere. There are radishes and lettuce and beets and greens to plant this weekend.

Husband is home. Wonder what he bought...