Now that the tryptophan has worn off	November 25, 2005

I have not eaten very many Thanksgiving dinners without my family. There was one year that I attended a drunken dinner for orphaned twenty-somethings in Chicago, which was fun and headache-inducing. And last year, I made my very own spread in my very own kitchen, and served it to a very small party of two lonely orphans. This year, I joined Steve and his family for their dinner. I rather felt like I was crashing someone else’s party, but once I got over that, it was a lovely day. It was a full-on family event—grandmas, aunts, cousins, dogs—and my first introduction to the lot of them.

It was exactly as Thanksgiving should be. The day started with breakfast and coffee and the Macy’s Parade (which, as every year, made me cry more than once). We made the trek to Steve’s parents’ place, so he could work his mashed potato magic, then on to the site of the dinner itself (with me annoyingly singing Over the River and Through the Woods on the way). We sat and drank wine while the finishing touches were put in the meal, then sat down to a gigantic table and stuffed ourselves silly. After eating like pigs, a few of us snatched up the family dog and went for a walk in the woods, which was a great refresher (though a bit on the nippy side). And then we sat around the fire and drank coffee and ate pie and listened to each other spin yarns.

I did, of course, find myself missing my own family (my one attempt to chat with my mom was thwarted by the crappy cell phone reception in rural South Dakota). But the family I was crashing in on was sweet and receptive and didn’t seem to regard me as a crazy person. My dating existence has thus far consisted of very little family-meeting, so I always find that I am a bit anxious about it, but so far, I have only had good experiences.

My contributions to the meal were veggie and relish trays, which means that the only leftovers I had to bring back with me were carrot sticks and dill pickles, which are much less dangerous temptations than, say, pie and stuffing. We managed to escape and leftover-pushing by ducking out a little early, so we could go catch Walk the Line at the spiffy new theater in Tyson’s Corner (it really is spiffy – if you are picky about your screen size or sound quality or seat comfort, I highly recommend it). The movie is excellent – every bit as good as everyone is saying it is.

Today I am at work, with about 6 other people in the whole of downtown DC. It’s spooky – there’s no one on my floor, there’s no one on the street, there was no one on the metro, there was no one in the coffee shop. It has allowed me to be pretty damn productive, but I am starting to get lonely. Thank goodness for a few long tedious design jobs that I need to finish. They’re keeping my brain just occupied enough to not run screaming from the building.

Hope all had a great time yesterday! Welcome to the official start of the Christmas shopping season (eek)!

Searching Stats	November 23, 2005

For the longest time, looking at my web stats was not the least bit interesting. It was kinda cool to see where people who read my site are coming from (all you slackers seem to read this from work – tsk tsk!), and it was somewhat interesting to see how many hits I get and what pages people read, blah blah.

But since it’s a relatively new site, there weren’t any interesting search engine reports – until now! It seems that, of people who find my site via search engines:

• 20% are looking for me (searching onyah, onyah.com, onyah’s blog, etc.)
• 20% are looking for clothing (searching velvet blazer, plaid wool skirt, etc., and are finding this post)
• 80% are looking for The L Word (searching strings of lyrics from theme song and are finding this post)

Here’s to disappointment!

The dumbest kind of panic	November 23, 2005

I keep my checking account balance in an Excel spreadsheet, and I balance it every few days or so. I seem to have some sort of difficulty when it comes to typing in the amount of my biweekly paychecks – I always seem to reverse the second and third digit (somewhat similar to how I continually mistype myslef, afriad, and Cedra Rapids). This lowers my pay by a few hundred dollars. And every time, I get to the bottom of the sheet, and see my balance, and FREAK OUT for a lot longer than I should before I realize my error.

But on the plus side, it’s always such a breezy and wonderful feeling when I realize that I’ve made this mistake and *poof* my balance goes up with one quick keystroke.

My weekend down south(ish)	November 21, 2005

I spent this last weekend in visiting Steve’s many friends in North Carolina, which is, to date, only the second time in my life I have visited a state that is considered “southern” (in high school, I went to Memphis once). There were really very few things that made it any different from here. People had slight accents, breakfast came with grits, and there was a fried chicken place on every single corner. Otherwise, just like any other place I’d been.

Steve got his masters in English, and pretty much everyone I met was a buddy of his from grad school, and pretty much all of them now work as English teachers. I flew into Raleigh on Friday, and spent the day bumming around with the first of the English teachers. Later that evening, we joined up with some more English teachers, and went to dinner at a tapas place with 3 other couples. The beers there were $2.50. Another plus-side to leaving the DC area. After dinner, we went back to the house of the folks who were putting us up for the evening, and we played a television trivia game. I am sad to report that I TOTALLY KICKED ASS at this game. As in, everyone else had moved 5 or 6 spaces, and I was already close to finishing the board. I do enjoy knowing stuff, and winning games is also fun, but it made me feel pretty lame to be the one who knows the most about TV.

Saturday morning, we awoke to breakfast, which we ate while watching Land of the Dead, the new George A. Romero zombie movie. As you may know, I love zombie movies, so I was excited to see it. It was a bit odd to watch it first thing in the morning, while trying to enjoy my cinnamon rolls, but I’m really glad I got a chance to see it. I shall provide a review of the film at a later date.

Once the zombies were slaughtered, we showered and dressed and headed to Greenville, where the other batch of English teachers lives. We met up with a group of 7 or 8 folks for lunch, went back to our hotel to chill for a while, and then went to dinner with yet another English teacher couple. Dinner was followed by an evening of theatrics – first a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest being performed the University drama club, and then a concert headlined by a very wacky band called Art Lord and the Self-Portraits. I had never seen The Importance of Being Earnest before, and I really enjoyed it – I laughed my ass off. I can’t say enough about how much I love Oscar Wilde. Seeing Art Lord was one of the more interesting experiences I’d had in a while. Picture a dude who looks not unlike Jack Black, clothe him like Alex from the Clockwork Orange, give him an accent like Latka from Taxi, put him in from of a new wave electronic punk band, and fill the room with multi-colored balloons. And you’ll have my Saturday night!

Sunday was pretty much just waking up, a lazy breakfast with a few select English teachers, a quick tour of the university campus, and we were on the road.

It was a great weekend. It’s always good fun to be somewhere you’ve never been before, and always heartening to come upon an expansive group of folks who got advanced liberal arts degrees and all seem to be employable. Not to mention the fact that English majors are just a witty bunch. I was really intimidated about going there – these being Steve’s “real” friends who know him the best and would be most inclined to harshly judge his new girlfriend. But they were all really good people, who made me laugh, and it was great fun all around. Sweet southern hospitality!

When you’re there, I sleep lengthwise...	November 13, 2005

...and when you’re gone, I sleep diagonal in my bed. Let there be no confusion that I am some sort of Phish fan (there has got to be a name for those people – Phish-heads? Phish-mongers?) This song has simply been running through my head.

This is because Steve is gone, and I’m sleeping alone. We’ve managed to wedge ourselves into a comfy little co-dependant cocoon, and have been spending pretty much all of our nights together for the past few months. It’s funny how quickly you become accustomed to it. The last time I was in a comparable cocoon with someone was over three years ago, and before that, I’d never experienced such a thing. So it’s not as though I am someone who has had a man by her side for the majority of her adult life.

I shot up in bed this morning around 3 AM, because I heard what sounded like a high-speed car chase outside my window – tires screeching, engines flooring, police sirens, and the terrifying sound of an auto collision. It was one of the most unsettling things I’d heard in a really long time, and aside from being a testament to how happy and safe my neighborhood isn’t, it made me see how much I’ve come to hate sleeping alone. It’s hard to believe that something that I’d been doing for the vast majority of my life up until now suddenly seems so intolerable.

Five nights until I can sleep lengthwise again.

I am getting old, part 2	November 13, 2005

This is a pretty consistent theme in my life – bitching about how I can’t do so many of the things that I used to be able to do. Part 1 referenced my inability to drink like a rockstar, the way I used to. Today’s part 2 is even sadder. I have not been able to stay up late enough to watch an entire episode of Saturday Night Live for quite some time now.

Sure, if I am out at a party or a bar, 2:00 can come and go pretty stealthily before I start to nod off, but when I am in my own house – particularly if I am on my own couch – I cannot make it to twelve-frickin’-thirty. I like Jason Lee, and I had hoped to be able to see the whole show. No such luck.

Stay tuned for parts 3, 4, 5… it seems that not a day goes by where I don’t feel sad and old in some way.

She'll be having fun fun fun until...	November 11, 2005

For most of the people who live in this country, the simple task of driving to the grocery store is as mundane as a hangnail. Today, however, I drove to the grocery store, and it was, like, the best day ever.

I went and picked up a zip car – a sporty-yet-spacious cherry-red Toyota Matrix – and drove myself out to Virginia, where the grocery stores are huge and the prices are lower and the selection is wider. I found myself driving along with this big idiot grin on my face. You’d think I was at Disneyland. I just really really miss driving. And I really really enjoy shopping without having to worry about how in the hell I am going to carry everything home.

It’s hard to believe that I was a car-owner (a cherry-red car owner, at that!) for nearly a decade of my life. It seems like so long ago that I lived in such luxury. But after spending a day like today, I can clearly remember how much fun it was to spend a day driving around and shopping. It puts me on some sort of a high. And I could also clearly remember how I got myself into such horrendous credit card debt. There is something about the driving/shopping combo (peppered with trips to drive-throughs or Starbucks – another form of indulgence that I could live without) that just feels good. Dangerously good. After I returned the zip car to its home, I walked away from it wistfully, wishing we could have more time together. But the more I think about it, the more thankful I am that I don’t have a car of my own. They’re like the devil’s playthings.

Someone broke my shoe gene	November 10, 2005

Women love shoes, right? Women are supposed to want nothing more in life than a closet full of strappy clicky sparkly pointy sassy sexy shoes in all colors of the rainbow. Well, whatever is supposed to ignite that desire in me is just not functioning. I enjoy one style of shoe – clunky and black. I own clunky black loafers, sandals, boots, slides, mary janes, and more, and they suit me just fine.

I am trying to get myself to walk to and from work more often. I really can’t get behind wearing my work clothes with my sporty shoes the way so many do. I just can’t bring myself to look that silly. So I am on a search for clunky black shoes that are sporty enough and of solid enough construction that they’ll serve me well for long distances of walking, but will also look nice with my work clothes.

So my shoe gene is supposed to go “yay! shoe shopping!” And I am supposed to enjoy trolling around to different shops. But I don’t. I hate it. I lose patience for it very quickly. And I refuse to buy shoes over the internet – that has never served me well. I have gigantic feet (size 10), and it is very important to me to actually see the shoe in my size on my own feet, so as to assure myself they aren’t totally boat-like. Oftentimes, what looks cute in a size 6 looks like a scary drag accessory in a 10.

I think the heart of my problem is that deep down I know I should just throw down $130 for a pair of Danskos or something that will really serve me well. But that’s a lot on money. Maybe there is nothing wrong with my shoe gene. Maybe it just gets eclipsed by my “cheap-ass bastard” gene.

Welcome to my Blague	November 8, 2005

This morning, a coworker of mine went to a U.S. Newswire Blog Workshop at the National Press Club. She phoned our receptionist, and asked him to send a quick e-mail to us in her department to remind us that she would be in late. So he did, referring to her “blague seminar.” I like that. Blog with a little bit of class.

I did some quick Googling, and apparently, French bloggers spell it that way – many references to “La blague du jour!” Everything that French people do just makes me laugh.

I AM the Biggest Loser	November 7, 2005

Some of you have heard me babbling about this already, but today I’d like to announce a little something new that I am going to be doing with my blog.

I am going to place myself under a microscope for a while, and create a second blog that is all about my upcoming grandiose weight-loss attempt. Today is Monday, and I am going to go to a Weight Watchers meeting on Wednesday, which will officially begin my seventh isolated attempt at weight loss.

My history of yo-yo dieting has instilled in me a fear that I will never be able to truly accomplish this task in a way that will stick. I am sincerely hoping that this time will be different, and I am hoping that using my new sub-blog as a means to vent, share stories, seek advice, and hold myself accountable will be just the thing I need to succeed.

Many people will find this subject boring-as-hell, so I’m creating a separate blog, rather than replacing this blog with that blog. If you’re not interested in hearing how many fat-free fudgesicles I ate last night, or how good it feels to throw out the size 16 jeans, then don’t bother visiting my new blog – it’ll bore the shit out of you.

Thanking you in advance for your support!

A dru-blogging failure	November 4, 2005

Not once, but twice now, I have gone home at the end of an evening of drinking with Stef, promising that I’d rush to my laptop and do some dru-blogging (drunken blogging). And not once, but twice now, I’ve gotten home and done nothing of the sort. Typing after drinking is not something that is new to me – the first year after I moved to DC all I did was waste away the lonely hours sitting at my computer, drinking beer and chatting with freaks (not exactly the highpoint of my life). But nowadays I have a hard time doing it. It's like my eyes, the screen, and my fingers can't get in synch with each other.

Fortunately, Stef held up her end of the bargain and blogged about our bizarro drinking experience last night. If you want to hear the ins and outs of our evening, see how she tells it.

Note to Stef: When I woke up this morning with a less-foggy head, I remembered that the Kirk Cameron dorking-out-on-Growing-Pains scene that I had been trying to recall was to the tune of “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister, not “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore,” as I had thought.

I am the luckiest girl alive	November 1, 2005

Yes, that's right - it's a grimacing Johnny Cash/fairy drinking a Budweiser.