Marcia Marcia Marcia

I would just like to start off by pointing out that not once this whole season have I complained about the weather, being cold, rain, gray skies, lack of sunshine, nothing. And to tell you the truth, there were few days that I even wanted to. Our little pop culture librarian. She's finally growing up.


Today the weather made me a little cranky though. My inner brat shall not be squelched completely.

To counterbalance this lack of annoying weather-whining, I know I have been a leetle whiney about work lo these past few months. There have been times that I have thought about work so much that it put me off wanting to post anything here, because I just could not See Past It to write about anything else. That sentence I just wrote there makes me want to pukey up a cukey. Honestly, lady. Get a grip.

This got me thinking the question that is so tedious: why do I blog again?

For about 98% of the time I have been writing this blog (look kids! math!), I have had the attitude that I was writing about something that made me happy (yes, I am one of those people that writes and then guffaws at my own self, like Bob Hope or Harvey Korman or Jimmy Fallon) and then throwing it out into the world like a message in a bottle (so un-green, throwing shit in the water like that), and if people happen to see it, wow, that's pretty cool. I am old enough to still marvel at the power of the Interwebs in this way. I have never marketed the bloggy, or told my friends about it (some of them know by now, but not because I was obnoxious hey-Read-My-Blog-Girl), or anything like that. Most of my blog friends are people who I have commented on their blog, so then they come over and comment on mine, all neighborly. I know there are other people out there, but I don't know how you found me, or what makes you stay, if you do. After a couple of years, when I started to get curious about this question, I installed a sitemeter, which was fun for a while (look! someone stopped by for 3 minutes one time from Tanzania and then never returned!), but then I got rid of it because I kind of liked not knowing how many people were out there. And I started to get all philisophical about whether It Mattered that there were three people reading, or three hundred, and I wanted to be all "it makes no difference, yo, I am nonchalant," because I like to try to impress myself sometimes.

So most of the time, I just write, and post, and I really have a pretty hazy idea if anyone is reading beyond like, ten people. And if anyone ever comments to say howdy, I really do feel delighted, each and every time. And if anyone ever says anything to me in person about the blog, well then that just blows my mind and bugs me out. It really does. I don't tend to get a lot of comments, and it's not like people are knocking down my door to tell me that they read this stuff, so each time it happens I am still agog. The internet: it is magic. Oftentimes it can be porny magic, but it has other magics too. Really it does.

Yesterday, I got an email from a blog friend, telling me that she basically met a new BFF because they both read my blog. Like, dudes. Friend love was found in the comments section of this little space. Birdies, rainbows, hearts, kitties! You know how, in Sleepless in Seattle, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet because they both are listening to that horrible Dr. Marcia Fieldstone? Hey, I was totally that horrible Dr. Marcia Fieldstone! Sort of! So yay me! That is way better than getting a lot of hits on a sitemeter. If only there was a meter that counted happy shit like this, I would totes sign up for that.

I have been feeling a little yawny about blogland lately. My blogland in particular. I think I was on my way to asking that tedious question of myself again. But now, I won't. I blog because I just like to. Simple as that. And if nice people meet each other in my blog comments and want to leave their Seattle houseboat and boring Bill Pullman in Baltimore (it is sort of scary how much I remember about that movie) and meet on the top of the Empire State Building, and I could be Dr. Marcia for them, then hells yes. Total bonus.

Stop Making Sense

Some folks say that what makes a great relationship is the love, honor, cherish stuff. Ok, sure. I would add that saying/singing/dancing weird stuff out of nowhere and having the other person do nothing but volley that nonsense right back to you is right up there too.


In bed, drifting off to sleep...

Me: Goodnight, Darnell.
Him: Goodnight, Jessipeen.

Whipped His Hair

Well, it has been a little over a week since I decidedly proclaimed to Rejoin the World.


Come on everyone, don your annoying Sarah Palin voice and say: "how's that workin' out for ya?"

Well, I'll tell you. The efforts have been valiant. Let's start out with the positives. I successfully got my hair did. Never mind that the person who does my hair has apparently decided to give me the most boring haircut of all times. Still, it is cut. Did it put a spring back into my step as a good haircut can? Not so much. It's a boring step, not a springy one. And it's making me want to break up with my haircutter. So, I guess I get a C-plus on that.

I went to a dance show last weekend. Contemporary 4 at PNB. It was pretty good. Not knock your socks off good, but sometimes I need to just calm down about everything needing to knock my socks off. My socks can stay on and I can still enjoy myself. Which I did. And yay, I dressed up, got out of the house, saw some friends, saw some art. That's my happy place. So I felt pretty good about that. Then this weekend I went to see Alvin Ailey, which was off the frigging chain. So much so that it can make me say things like off the frigging chain.

Also, I no longer fall asleep every night at 9pm, only to wake up the next morning still tired. Now I stay up until a grownup hour, and do things. This feels like the biggest accomplishment of all. How sad is that?

You know, I thought my list of positives would be longer. Shite. I feel like I am coming out of the loop I was in where I went to work, ate, slept, thought about work, repeat. And I am, I know I am. But my list up there needs beefing up. What is a list of positives without beef?

So, update on Rejoining the World stands at: Needing More Beef.

Silliness seems to have re-entered my life though, which makes me feel more like me than I have been lately. For instance, yesterday we were at the store, waiting in line, and there was this kid who was maybe 13-years-old, and he had a really long, really impressive mullet hairdo. The front was really short, and the back was really long, like maybe down to the center of his back. And super lush and thick. If you're going to go mullet, then hallelujah, do it up, son. At least you don't have a snoozefest going on on your head like I got. Anyway, he was being sort of hyper, as 13-year-olds can be, and he started to run through the store without really thinking ahead about where he was running or how to best go amok in a store. He whipped his head around as he started to run and his mullet swung around and whipped him in the face (insert Willow Smith reference here) and went exactly across his eyes and he couldn't see but AT ALL, and so that made him trip and he sort of flew through the air, forward, mullet across his eyes with his hands outstretched like a blindfolded-mullet-kid-Superman, and he crashed onto the floor and it was specTACular. He jumped up immediately and kept running, and Nordic Boy turned to me to catch my eye to see if I had seen this, and I turned to him in the exact same moment and we conked our noggins together hard in our excitement over hairblinded Superman and simultaneously said "OW!" and grabbed our respective heads and then giggled as inconspicuous as we could.

This all happened in the span of about 10 seconds. Head whip, mullet mask, trippy trip, Superman, kiss the floor, jump up, run, skull smack, tee hee hee. You could not have choreographed it to be more poetic. Eat your heart out, Alvin Ailey.

Onward to another week, all. Hope it's a good one!

Suck It, Skidmore

Before Biogirl went to grad school, she lived in this apartment. We called it PinkDick. The reason for that was that the apartment she lived in before that was a weird tan color, and when we really looked at that color, somehow it reminded us of the color of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. You know the color I mean, right? It's like a tanned Barbie, but smudgy. So we called that apartment TanDick. When she moved, she moved into an apartment that was built in the 50s and had one of those pink bathrooms that were so popular then. It also had pink elements in the kitchen. Thus, PinkDick was born.


Listen, it sounds perfectly reasonable if you were there.

When she lived in PinkDick, it was discovered that the walls in that apartment building were pretty thin. Thus, we got to hear her neighbor who lived upstairs from her. This person seemed to do one of three things whenever she was home at night. These were, in order from most frequent to least frequent (but all of them pretty dang frequent):

1. She vacuumed. A lot. A whole lotta lot.

2. She ran on a treadmill. Again, a lot.

3. She made a sound that can only be described one way. You know when you are taking a bath, and you sit in your tub, and you scoot down or back, and you bare buttockal area sort of skids on the bottom of the tub, and it makes a low pitched squeaky sound? This lady was apparently taking a lot of baths and scooting around because she made that sound OMG SO MUCH.

We concluded from this that this lady did nothing but vacuum. On the off chance that she wasn't vacuuming, she was running. And if there was any time leftover from any of that, she got her scoot on in the bathtub. We called her Booty Skidmore because of it. Well, mainly because of the bathtub thing.

We realized that she might have had some sort of OCD issue, because how could someone possibly only do these three things so much of the time? We also realized that diagnosing someone at all, much less through an apartment ceiling, probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world to do, so we stopped that. We also realized that perhaps the sounds were not at all what we thought they were and perhaps she was doing things far less weird than we could have imagined. Maybe it wasn't a vacuum cleaner. Maybe it was a power tool and Booty was creating glorious works of art in there. We didn't know. One never knows in these sorts of situations.

Hey, remember my yard? The one that was total Jumanji time when we moved in? The front yard is still looking sort of sad, but at least it is cleaned up and the plants and trees are healthy and not trying to strangle each other. The backyard though, is still Jurassic Park-ish. I really don't have a lot of interest in going out there and cleaning that shit up, to be perfectly honest. Not because I don't like doing that sort of thing (well, maybe a little bit because of that), but more because it can feel overwhelming. Also, we have lots to do on our house and that backyard has just not been a priority so far. So there could be orangutans and yeti back there for all I know.

My friend K8's daughter L is on break from collegiating herself and it came to my attention that she was looking for odd jobs. Hi L, meet my backyard. It is odd. I will gladly pay you should you want to stage dive into that mess and not drown in greenery. What do you say?

She said yes. And she showed up on Saturday, and she started to work, and it was glorious- GLORIOUS- to be in my house getting other stuff done while she wrassled the brambles.

As Nordic Boy and I left to go to the store, I left L with a key to our house, so she could use the bathroom, or get some water, or take a break, whatever. "Hey, just so you know, we started our robot vacuum cleaner, so don't be alarmed if you go into the house and it's running around in there," I warned her. I don't know why. Who would be scared by a robot vacuum cleaner? Jeez.

On Sunday, she came back again. We left to go out to lunch, and again, I left her the key. As I was leaving, I remembered that the vacuum cleaner had been grumpy the day before (ok, maybe it's busted) so I better try that again. I set it to on, and then left.

When I came back later that afternoon, the robot vacuum cleaner had gone totalmente kaput. It had cleaned up half the house and then decided to stop right in the middle of everything. Sheeyot.

So, I hauled out our big upright vacuum cleaner, plugged it in, and vacuumed the house myself. Who needs robots? Screw robots.

As I was vacuuming, I happened to look up and see L out the window, working away. This is when it dawned on me. Yesterday, I had warned her about the robot vacuum cleaner. Today, when she came into the house while we were gone, she probably saw the vacuum cleaner running again. And now, she could clearly see that I was vacuuming the house myself, AGAIN. Two days in a weekend, and she has witnessed three vacuuming attempts. Oh, Booty Skidmore, if only you could see how the tables have turned.

Next time L comes over, I am going to make as many squeaky bathtub sounds as humanly possible.

Gaseous Clay

Ok, as promised, I am back from my "vacation" (if you want to call that shit that I just went through a vacation, which would be, like, the saddest thing ever), and I am sick of having Work Be My Whole Life, so I am stopping that right this minute and doing what I said I was going to do, which is Rejoin the World.


And, to celebrate, guess what? I have gas!

Bet you didn't think I was going to say that, did you? I am talking about the fact that we had a gas line put in so that before next winter, we can get a new furnace. We were thinking about taking a trip to England this summer or fall, but then our heater started being a total asshole so now we have decided that a having heat is more important than travelling the globe.

Listen, I never said that Rejoining the World would be so's I could do exciting stuff.

Actually, the gas line thing was sort of exciting. The people in the orange vests came and they had a crazy amount of equipment and they bored a hole from the sidewalk to our house and tore up the street and one of the dudes was smoking the entire time he was doing so which didn't seem like the smartest idea in the world but what do I know. For all the work we do on our house, we never really have other people that we don't know come in, tear shit up, do something, and then clean up and leave all within a few hours. Like, at least not people that we don't already know. So it was exciting. We may have stood in our house and watched them through our window all day, like an inverted fishbowl. Maybe.

In the two days since we got back from our trip, I have successfully done other things that make me feel like a human being rather than a library robot. They are!

1. Made a haircutted appointment. I have neglected the head hairs for months, and I may soon be entering Cousin It territory, so to the salon I go. Tomorrow!

2. Made plans to go to not one, but two dance shows. That's like, my church.

3. Made three dinner dates.

4. I emailed a few folks that I haven't been in contact with for a while to inform them that I am indeed still alive, and hey, hi.

5. Signed up for the MS Walk in April. Nordic Boy's sister has MS as does a friend of ours, so if we can't get our asses out there for one morning to raise money/awareness, we really would need to be kicked in the derry-air. This year, my signing up was intolerably late due to my worky robotness. Stupid.

6. Made a list of people for whom I totally glossed over their birthday for the past three months and got them belated cards. Better late than never. I know, I am a freak about birthdays.

7. Started planning a trip to New York City. (NEW YORK CITY??? Get a rope!) I swear to god I can't not say that.

I would say that is a pretty good start to being human again.

Dumb waiter

One of my favorite things that movie stars say is "there is so much waiting on movie sets. I just sit in my trailer and wait," and then they sit back as if waiting for a purple heart. Don't you love that? Give me a jillion dollars and a sweet trailer and I will put your waiting to shame. Heck, I'd do it for a tenth of a jillion. Or, let's face it, I'd do it for a can of Pringles. This complaint is right up there with "I had to sit in a makeup chair for five hours! It was so haaaaard."

What I'm basically saying is: I am a total movie star these days. Without the swanky trailer. Or any dollars. Or a movie. Or anyone asking me if waiting is so haaaaard.

Other than those things though, I am totes Angelina Jolie.

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Still snowy

By Michigan standards, there is a reasonable amount of snow on the ground. By Seattle standards, this amount would cause mass hysteria. Every morning, I look outside and say "wow, still snowy!" which is enough to call my Midwestern roots into question, but what can I say. Seattle has seeped in somehow.

Wednesday: "still snowy!"
Thursday: "wow, still snowy!"
Today: [Nordic Boy, beating me to the punch to the tune of the theme song of The Neverending Story]: "Neverending Snowy! Eee-Eee-Eee, Eee-Eee-Eee, Eee-Eee-Eee!"

Maybe we are tired and loopy, but we laughed our guts out at that one.


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Hey, we just saw him

Back from the hospital and watching guess who before bed: Doog!

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As we look at the doctor who is attending to my family member...

Me: It wigs me out when I see doctors who look our age.
Nordic Boy: I know. It's like, there is a person who didn't waste his youth.
Me: Are you saying all my years perfecting my curling iron technique was wasted time?
Nordic Boy: Well, your hair does look better than Doogie's over there.
Me: Well at least there's that.



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Vacation Scenery

I hear tell that people take vacations to see new lands, or ski, or say things like "Vegas Baby!" is this true?

My vacation views look a lot like this.

You think it'd be weird if I said "Vegas Baby!" in the middle of a hospital? Just to make it more vacationy?

Being inappropriate is how I deal with things. I can't help it. It's classy.

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Way Too Many

Very first conversation I heard when I got off the plane...

Man #1: Hey cousin! How was the west coast?
Man #2: It was pretty good, B. But really, they can have it, and I'll leave it.
Man #1: Not for you, huh.
Man #2: It was a'ight. Just too many mu'fuckers though.

...aaaand I'm home!


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Jet Bag

I'm at O'Hare waiting to board something that looks like a tin can that supposedly will secret me away to Michigan. While I wait, I figure I'll post a really bad photo of my gorgeous new bag. It's grey! It's felt! It came with a diaper changing pad!

She who felt it, dealt it.

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I Resolve It So I Don't Dissolve It

For the last two months, work has taken up more of my brain that I usually allow it to. All of my available brain space is taken up with worky concerns. Poor Nordic Boy- if he has to listen to one more hour of me going on about how I need to figure this thing out or how I need to get going on that project or how should I deal with this work issue... That man is a patient one, but at this point we have barely had a conversation about anything else for two whole months. That just ain't right.


The other result of this stupid behavior is that when I am not at work, I cannot keep my eyes open. Ever. I have become the granny that falls asleep over her soup at dinner. We have been watching The Wire on DVD, and I can usually stay awake for oh, about 10 minutes before the gunshots and the gritty realism send me straight to the Sandman. Nordic Boy now says to me when we turn it on: "Time for your lullaby!" Snoozy Suzy, party of one. Sheesh.

So blog friends, don't feel too bad that I have been neglecting you. My in-person friends haven't seen me since January either. Nordic Boy barely sees me in a waking state. It's stoopid.

I have a few more days of work before we head off to the Grand Ol' Midwest for a familial visit. And when we get back from that visit, I have made a resolution. Yes, me, the one who never makes New Years Resolutions, is now making a March Resolution. It's an emergency, I have to.

Hear ye, hear ye, mine Resolution is suchly:

When I get back from my trip, I shall Rejoin the World.

Seriously. I am going to see my friends again, and go to some art shows, and stay awake past 8pm, and blog, and read books, and not go to work on my days off, and stop this current insanity.

Ok? Ok.

On the upside, I had two work events this week that involved cupcakes, so things aren't so bad.

Shop It Up, Shoppy

I often wake up in the morning with a random earworm in my head. Does that happen to everyone? Mine are so strange- they are of songs I haven't heard lately or barely know sometimes. One time last week I woke up with the theme song to Family Feud in my head. Makes me wonder what the hell I was dreaming about. Hopefully it wasn't that I was making out with Richard Dawson. Now there was a dude who could not keep his lips to hisself.
This morning, I woke up with a mash-up of "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus and "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen. This is odd because if there is one thing I am not, it's born to run, and also I don't recall that I have ever really "moved my hips like yeah." But there you go.

Anyhoo.

One time, Biogirl and I were walking down the street, and we saw this car that had a giant American flag painted all along the body. It also had a smaller flag flying off its radio antenna, and various flag stickers on its bumper. Biogirl said in an encouraging way: "Wow! Flag it up, Flaggy!" and I about died laughing. Just that she named the person Flaggy was funny enough, but it was also how she said it. You probably had to be there, but it was hilarious.

Ever since that time, we have re-used this awesome phrase. It can pertain to anything, not just flags. If I spend too much time reading, she might say "Read it up, Reedy!" or if her house looks particularly sparkly I'll say "Cleaned it up, Cleany!" We enjoy ourselves. It's good times.

I had a friend at work who always had at least three bags with her at all times. Her purse, her lunch bag, and a tote bag full of books (librarians are huge on the tote bag usage), plus maybe another bag for good measure. One day I said to her: "bag it up, Baggy!" She was good peoples so she laughed at my unfunny funny, and the next few times I saw her, she would try to recreate this moment, only she could never remember how to say it.

"Hey bagley! Have a bag!" she would say. Or "Baggo book me up!" Or "Baggy times, Baggola!"

Whenever I talk about bags, I think about her. Bagopolis, McBagger!

Remember when I said that I was in search of a new work bag? One that needed to have compartments, look stylish-yet-work-appropriate, and not be a pain in the ass to carry on the bus? Well I have looked high and low. I have looked at Etsy until my eyes wanted to pop out, and gone to every store I can think of. After all of this I am pained to say that my original statement still stands, and that statement was (allow me to paraphrase myself): CURRENT PURSES SUCK DONKEY DINGUS.

I did find one bag. Just the one. The price was more than I wanted to spend, so even though I yearned to take it and run (baby I was born to ruuuuuun), I held off and kept looking. How many hours is reasonable to look for a stinking bag? Why do I do this to myself? What is wrong with me? IT IS JUST A BAG.

Finally, I decided that time is also valuable and since I am a big old freak and won't be able to deign to buy a less-than-perfect bag (go ahead and roll your eyes at me because I so deserve that) I should go ahead and buy the one I want. Which I did.

The bag that I bought is two things.

1. It is a diaper bag.

2. It is for dads.

I don't have diapers (for myself or anyone else), and I am not a mom, let alone a dad, so this bag was double not-made-for-me. But I love it.

I ordered the thing on Friday. And since that time, whenever there is a silence in our household, I say the following:

"I wonder when my new bag will get here?"

The first 3 times I said this, Nordic Boy played along and made a guess. "Ima say Thursday. I bet it's here by Thursday." Then, he stopped answering. Smart man. He knows futility when he see it. This morning, I checked my email to find that the bag people have given me a tracking number so I can follow my bag's progress toward my waiting bosom. "I HAVE A TRACKING NUMBER!" I said as we left the house this morning. "THANK GOD," said my man.

Thank God, roughly translated, just might mean ok shut up now. If I spoke Sickobagese, which I don't.

In case you are wondering, my bag is now in Bloomington, California. I know you were wondering.

Yay!  Bag it up, baggy!