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April 30, 2012

here is a picture of a pond

In my many days of not-writing, I have come to believe that there’s no such thing as writer’s block. There is not knowing your plan, not being prepared, not doing your research, and not knowing the reasons for or the limits of what you need to do. Without these things, the writing becomes too big for the focus that the writing requires.

I am all of these things, and I’m also unable and partially unwilling to sit down with myself long enough to figure them out. I tell myself I’m just too honed-in on leaping over the skyscrapers in my way first, and by the time the days are done I am exhausted and sore and stretched to my limits. Maybe things will uncomplicate themselves soon and maybe they won’t.

In the meantime, here is a picture of a pond:

pond

February 26, 2012

it’s got to be the coffee

purple

an early arrival

It’s hard to believe that a week that included something so beautiful — in February — could have been all that bad, but last week was so, so bad. I took a few emotional hits early in the week and by Wednesday night I’d pretty much given in. Thursday morning I let it all out; I cried shortly after waking up, I cried in the shower, I cried until I felt better. And then I threw myself head-first into a couple of projects, including a tiny pet project I’d been thinking about trying out for a few weeks.

Every Friday morning, we go out to breakfast as a family and I load up on high-octane coffee at the restaurant. And every Friday morning, when I sit down at my desk to work, the ideas fall out of my brain, moreso than any other day, littering my workflow with really bad ideas, really great ideas, and everything in-between. It’s got to be the coffee.

Whether or not I’m actually more productive on Fridays is debatable, but with so many ideas floating around, I probably forget and throw out so many ideas in these Friday sessions. Maybe these ideas wouldn’t be all that bad if they’d just somehow make it past the initial hurdle of self-criticism and lack of motivation.

Before I fueled up last Friday, I set up a text file on my phone specifically for jotting down ideas as I had them: ideas for work, ideas for this site, ideas for different posts, ideas for everything. The ideas spilled out fast and furiously until around noon, moving perhaps to more quality and less quantity as my workday came to a close.

I ended up with 16 pretty good ideas out of the whole thing. Looking over them now, I’m struck at the loss of every Friday’s coffee-induced brainstorms before. Why didn’t I do this sooner? And why didn’t I write down that I should figure out how to get some of that coffee at home every morning?

February 22, 2012

the overlord and the sorcerer’s stone

Olen loves to “play truck” — which involves running and pushing a large toy truck at high speeds across the house — and he often slams the truck into things purposely and accidentally. We’ve mapped out a path for him that involves the least amount of destruction at home, but it was actually no surprise when his school called to say he’d had a playground accident with a truck. (However, seeing the caller ID come up scared the crap out of me.)

High-speed Overlord + truck + mulch = pavement + face. He didn’t get scraped up that badly, just a little road rash above his lip and on his forehead. Plus he got lots of TLC during the clean-up process; he’s still talking about how they took him to the “kitchen” to “ice! ice!”.

As his wounds healed, the one on his forehead started to look like a little lightning bolt.

lightning bolt

it's not going to scar.

So we gave him a black plastic drumstick and tried to get him to pretend it was a magic wand.

olen with a "magic wand"

the overlord and the sorcerer's stone

February 16, 2012

an overlord valentine

olen's valentine heart (2 years old)

(I am clearly not the paragon of timeliness here.)

We loved this sparkly Valentine heart, even if it shed glitter all over the house. I have found glitter in Olen’s bed, in his diaper, on my toothbrush, under the kitchen table, all over my car, on the staircase, and stuck to the bathroom mirror. I’m sure I’ll find more. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a small price to pay.

Love is: glitter. Everywhere.

My husband gave me an seriously wonderful Valentine’s Day present this year. (He’s been really killing it with the gifts lately, my birthday and Christmas were some of my favorites for sure.) And there were flowers and chocolates too, but to be able to write about his gift in the way that it deserves… I just need a little time, dear reader. Until then, I’ll leave you with this: it was thoughtful and romantic and absolutely perfect.

Dare I say it? Life-changing.

February 15, 2012

storage auction wars hunters

Almost two weeks ago, Olen came home sick from school with a high fever and a cough. The sick coursed through our house, pushing its sticky fingers into all of our noses, throats, lungs, ears, and eyes. Today, I’m the only one still sick because I’d staved it off for a whole week before it knocked me down. My voice is shot, I’m pretty much a mess, and by my count, I’m four days behind my husband who just started feeling better a day or two ago.

The good thing: getting sick has forced me to slow down a little from the hectic and totally demoralizing state of my work these days and watch some very, very bad television.

I listen to the hellyeah! show, a podcast put on in part by my long-time friend Emory. (If I hadn’t deleted about 12 years of archived posts in January, there would be a link here to one of the posts I had written about Emory, maybe the one where he took me to get my tongue pierced for the second time or maybe the one about how great and valued I felt when he got sick and called me of all people to bring him some much-needed supplies. Either way, carry on.) In episode 1×23 they discussed Storage Wars, “the best worst show on television”. A few days after listening, in a feverish-fog, I set a TiVo season pass for Storage Wars. It was the beginning of the end…

Here’s the premise of the show, if you aren’t familiar (and seriously, get on that, because you should be): if a storage unit isn’t paid for x number of months, it goes up for public auction. All kinds of people attend these auctions, including thrift store owners and collectors looking to turn a profit by buying low and finding a unique treasure inside the unit. This particular show follows four regular (and a few semi-regular) players. The first segment covers the bidding, the second covers the opening of the lockers, and the last segment is appraisals.

I was hooked from the first show I watched and quickly breezed through all available episodes, plus the whole first season on Netflix instant. I needed more. The podcast had also mentioned there was a spin-off, Storage Wars: Texas. I immediately searched for it and came up empty (the next season, I later found out, is due out in March), but I happened to stumble upon Auction Hunters and set a season pass so quickly I’m not sure even I read the description.

Imagine my surprise when one of the two “stars” of the show was none other than my old Clean House crush, hubba-hubba-heartbeat-hunk (and might I add animal rescuer) Allen Lee Haff. You guys, even when he was “Yard Sale Guy” he always had a confidence and unique swagger but in these heated bidding wars it’s pretty much breathtaking.

New favorite show EVER. Sold!

This is unbridled voyeurism for me. I have never understood storage facilities; I’d rather donate and/or throw out a whole lot of personal items before I spend good money each month to store them out of sight and out of mind. So I really love being able to peer into the mind of someone who would store ratty old wicker furniture and costume jewelry. I try to imagine what exactly would drive them to hang on to what amounts to trash, at a monthly fee. Then again, these shows exist because people like that lost their unit and their trash because they didn’t pay the monthly fee. Even so there are often pretty rare and valuable things in the units along with all of the junk — or so we’re led to believe. Such is the fantasy of reality television.

I’m not sure I care so much about what the stuff is worth — even though it’s exciting to see someone turn a several thousand dollar profit, half the time the valuations they throw out seem like wishful thinking at best — but I get visibly excited (much to my husband’s amusement) when they find something really cool and unique. I don’t give half a crap about slot cars, but OMG:

I’ve always had a thing for hidden treasure. I’ve always wanted to comb beaches with a metal detector and BTPS (the dark and often scary “Before TPS” era) I dated a guy whose only redeeming quality to me was that he (illegally) metal-detected fields in Virginia looking for old Civil War coins and slugs and whatnot. Hot.

I also remember at some point in the 80′s sitting around our old television watching divers search for treasure in the wreckage of the Andrea Doria. I also remember being totally fascinated with the special that aired when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s vaults. The promise of hidden treasures had me glued to the TV.

So here I am, even all these years later, glued still. In fact, I just stumbled upon another similar show called “Storage Hunters“. My season pass has already recorded 3 episodes, so it’s time for less writing and more watching.

If you can’t live a life worth writing about, watch one on television?

February 7, 2012

less lists. list less.

I don’t know how I missed this earlier, but a couple weeks ago Formulists announced they were shutting down. This is such a bummer to me: among other lists I’d created, I had spent a lot of hours and brainpower in late 2010 to create an auto-updating list of Columbia MD twitter people and while I don’t always have time to read it every day, I have loved being able to check the list stream during major local events (like Wine in the Woods, weird traffic snarls, or a freak snowstorm) and I’ve also met a ton of great local people to follow.

While the list still exists in my account, it doesn’t auto-update anymore, and that’s what was really awesome about Formulists. I’ve already seen a few people who have moved away from Columbia who are still listed; in the past with Formulists, they would have been dropped from the list automatically once they changed their location. Now that Formulists is gone, I have to do it manually when and if I find their location has changed.

Pain. In. The. Ass.

I also really loved my “where my friends at” list — generated by Formulists to list who talked with the people I talked with — it was an easy way to break the ice. The list description said “you talk with my friends. maybe we should be friends too? follow me @allura.” (I’m not a first-step taker, but I am always happy to meet new people.) And as corny as it was, a lot of really awesome people followed me, people I am so very glad to know now.

I really wish I’d not gotten wrapped up in work and life and all of the things that kept me from purchasing a pro-level account with Formulists last year. I’m not deluded enough to think that my personal purchase would have made an overall difference, but it’s worth noting that I wanted to buy and just didn’t. Maybe the problem was that I could actually run all of my awesome lists for a year and never felt pressure enough to up my free account to a paid one. Too bad I don’t have the option any more — the pressure is on now and I’d pay today to get my lists auto-updating again.

I hope someone, somewhere takes it upon themselves to work the list-creation, list-merging, and auto-updating features of Formulists into a solid product soon. It’s something I’d pay for — almost immediately this time.

January 25, 2012

oh two, i love you.

Olen’s still mastering his name. If we ask him what his name is, he says “Oh-no”, which is so cute it just reduces me to a puddle of goopy goo. Close enough, kid. (And if you correct him, I might stab you.)

He’s started singing a lot this past week — not just singing along with things or hitting the last word of every rhyme, but actual unprovoked singing and instrument playing throughout the day. So when he sings “Happy Birthday” while banging on his xylophone or our piano, he sings “Happy Birthday Oh-no! Happy Birthday to Oh-no!”

One of the ways we prepared Olen to go to preschool was by practicing separation at the house beforehand. I’d go to my office in the basement and tell him I had to go to work while he got to play with Dad. He got so used to saying goodbye for me to go to work at home that it was almost tear-free at school. Almost.

The other day on the way home from school he was chattering about his day. “School! Mama has to work day! Kids take a nap! Mama back real soon!” I always wonder what he thinks I do while he’s at school (or while he naps, even) so I just asked.

He responded, “Mama have work!”

“Yes, okay. What does Mama do for work?”

“Mama put away the work.”

Okay then. I think I’ll try asking again later.

We have always had the habit of eating out several times a week. As a result, Olen is usually really well-behaved in restaurants. I emphasize usually, because lately he’s started freaking out when the food comes to the table, grabbing and screeching and flailing arms. It’s like he’s doing his best impression of a monkey hopped up on goofballs — and it’d be pretty comical, if it weren’t for all of the weird judgy stares. So, we started talking to him in the car beforehand about how we behave in restaurants, really emphasizing that he’s not to grab food (which could be — and often is — hot), keep his volume down, et cetera.

The other day we were driving all around running errands and as we passed by one of the restaurants we frequent, Olen shouts from the backseat “No grab food! No screaming! No crying!”

Well, as long as our expectations are clear!

The last step of Olen’s bedtime routine is a backrub when he gets in bed. Ideally one of us would rub his back for a few minutes and then kiss him goodnight and leave, but he’s just not ready for that yet so sometimes the backrub part can last forever. I can always tell when he’s really close to falling asleep because he always makes a final request. Often, it’s asking me to rub his back — in true Overlord fashion –while I’m rubbing his back. “Rubba back,” the sleepy voice says. “Rubba baaaaaaaaack.”