it never ceases to amaze me

how much better I feel about life after I clean up my living space.

dishes. two loads of laundry. cleaned the bathroom. swept the floor. (the amount of hair that I shed each week never ceases to repulse me). clean sheets, folded the laundry. made real food for supper.

now it's writing time, I think! hooray. 

and maybe time to listen to the third period of the Blackhawks game online. which, here's my thought process for which NHL team I should be a fan of: I'm from southeastern pennsylvania, but let's be real, no one likes philly. my dad is on record as saying, "can't we just give Philly to New Jersey?" (which did make me think of Infinite Jest, yes, and the near-future dystopian US government forcibly handing over part of New England to Canada. but I digress). aaanyway. Philly teams generally are terrible and/or heart-breaky [although I admit, I've been stockholmed into caring about the Eagles - it's nearly impossible to escape WSMC unscathed in that regard, haha] and the Flyers seem to be no exception. I started watching hockey games during the playoffs last year when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, and they have this guy, not to mention the best PR people ever. (Yes, I clearly have too much time on my hands right now). So I think I'm just going to call myself a Blackhawks fan, and continue to amuse and befuddle my friends who still can't figure out why I care about hockey at all.

***

Some pictures from my walk in the McCrillis gardens today:

what a weird day

Thia: It's still funny to me that you like hockey now.

Me: I learned something about the Stanley Cup the other night. When it gets full of names, they can just - it's on rings, the names are, I mean, and they can just slide the top one off and put a new blank one on the bottom.

Thia: [blank look]

Me: So each name is on it for like - 13 years.

Thia: So the names aren't on it forever?

Me: No. But they have a vault to put them in!

Thia: What - [helpless giggling] - How did you even -

Me: I saw this picture online and it looked like it was getting full of names, so I wondered what happened. When it got full of names. So I googled it -

Thia: [more laughing] Classic.

Me: - and there were all these threads on Yahoo Ask about the same thing, and they were all answered pretty much the same way, so I figured it was probably true.

Thia: ... It's like David Foster Wallace, setting the novel-about-everything in a Tennis Academy. Maybe this will be important to your writing, someday.

Me: ... maybe.

--

I almost missed the bus today coming out of work - there's construction or something going on in front of the bus stop and the lane was closed and my bus almost drove past without stopping. I ran out into the closed lane and waved at the bus and the driver pulled over half a block down the street, and I ran and got on. It kind of felt like I had suddenly turned into one of those city-slicker New Yorkers from the movies, or something. Like when people very confidently hail a taxi in a crowded street. 

--

Conversations with the Boss always makes me feel vaguely panicky. I could feel myself flushing today when he was asking me about my results/experiments... "Hey, no pressure," he said, "just as long as you're having fun."

Right. Let me just stop sweating nervously and then we can talk.

--

I thought for about half an hour today that my identity got stolen, thanks to a charge I didn't recognize on my bank statement. Then, after I had already called the bank in a panic, I realized it was actually legitimate. 

It was one of those moments that made me feel 'incompetent at life.' One of these days, I keep thinking, I will actually have everything under control. I won't make any more embarrassing mistakes. EVER.

That probably isn't true, huh. : )

200th post

I thought about doing some kind of epic "200" list for my 200th post, but that seemed like a lot of work for a small payoff. But then I thought, 20 is kind of like 200, except... pleasingly small.

So, I bring to you:

20 things I want to do (in no particular order) before I write 100 more blog posts

1. read Infinite Jest again, this time in chronological order.
2. submit a poem to a literary journal, just for fun.
3. gain greater guitar skills. this is actually going to happen, unless I somehow manage to write 100 blog posts in the next 3 weeks.
4. go to an NHL game, try not to feel guilty about the violence of the game, etc.
5. read The Brothers Karamazov; attempt to build a friendlier relationship with russian literature.
6. go on a date. ...one recent trip from harrisonburg to bethesda included a conversation between 4 women on the merits of online dating. which was hilarious, I tell you what, but a less creepy option might be to find a guy from hyattesville to go with me to a poetry reading at busboys and poets.
7. make pumpkin soup in a pumpkin. this also will happen, thanks to The Housemate.
8. memorize another Eliot poem. 
9. meet Christian Wiman. this will never happen, but a girl can dream.
10. go to a political protest. surely something interesting will happen near me before I reach 300 posts.
11. sleep a lot. this will definitely happen.
12. make something edible with The Housemate using the foraged acorns. hopefully be pleasantly surprised.
13. get a pet. a turtle? give said creature a name relating to particle physics (charm? lepton? yes.)
14. send more mail. this is not altruistic. I would like to get more mail.
15. go to an art museum. maybe after the government un-shuts itself.
16. visit baltimore & hopefully run into the crazy americorps people again. oh, and hopefully NOT get lost.
17. gain public transit skills. DC Metro, I'm looking at you.
18. start a fiction-writing group? this probably will not happen, given my neuroses about my writing + how busy all my writing friends/acquaintances are. 
19. re-henna my hair. or something.
20. grow an avocado tree. seedling. whatever. it's in the works.