23 June 2006


My future home.

Other people's pictures

I tend to enjoy www.dooce.com a lot. Probably more than I should. When it gets incredibly slow at work (like it has been since I started almost two months ago), I make my rounds of websites. Mostly I end up reading stuff (as opposed to playing stuff) and I frequently end up at Dooce's website last...sort of a treat for getting through all of the other places.

She takes a picture everyday (how glorious is that?) and I apparently decided to try to look at every picture in her archives. At least, that's what I now think I did. My mind stopped thinking, my finger kept clicking "previous," and my emotions took over. You're probably thinking about how cheesy this is, right? But something inside of me just thought that every picture depicting a good time or an adorable daughter or an obedient dog was the best thing I'd ever seen. It made me long for the time when I'll have a family, a pet, a house, a life like that. I think that today...but next week I'll probably be ecstatic that I can go to a movie premier without having to be concerned with anyone but myself (and Richard Linklater, god love him).

It also made me wonder if my mom sometimes looks back at pictures of us kids and finds tears in her eyes. She's not the most emotionally outspoken person in the world, but there was never a question of whether or not we made her life complete. Now we're all grown up, and I wonder what that feels like. It can't be too terrible I guess, as I'm the only child out of three that doesn't live within a one mile radius of my parents.

So go check out Dooce's website. And maybe I'll be a professional blog writer one day too.

Probably not.

21 June 2006

Former Boss

As I was walking home today, I stopped to talk to a friend who was biking by. He was explaining to me why he was thinking of selling his car. This led to a conversation about how his aunt had given him 1000 Swiss franc and he had to drive all over Austin trying to get the best exchange rate. The conversation ended with him looking up and quickly saying, "Oh there comes your boss. I'd better let you go." I quickly glanced in the direction that he just had and saw my (devilish) former boss walking toward us. I mentioned something like, "Yeah, you're right I'd better go" as I turned in the direction I had been heading, quickly putting my headphones on.

My music was up loud enough (and she was far enough away) for me to pretend that I didn't hear her calling my name and not feel too guilty, but the simple fact was that I heard her. I heard her and kept walking. I tried to turn my head so that she could see my headphones blocking out her voice, but I doubt she got that message. I'm sure she understood that I just really didn't want to spend any of my time talking to her. She caused me a lot of grief. If I can avoid thinking about that now, I will.

But, amazingly, I still feel like a horrible person. Shouldn't I have swallowed any ill will I feel toward her and turned around? Shouldn't I have had small talk ("Hi, how are you? Fine. Yeah, walking home. New job's great (mainly because you're not my boss anymore). Ok, see you later") Would that have taken SO much out of me?

YES.

19 June 2006

House, interrupted

This is our fourth week of living in the new house, and it's really starting to feel like ours. Which makes me sad, because by the end of the week there will be a new person there. We'll have to begin to let him feel like it's his too. How do we do that? I hope he has no qualms about us having the cleaning supplies in the half bath, the Paramount and Alamo Drafthouse calendars on the kitchen walls, or the rather pink bean bag in the living room. I also hope he has no problem with me watching a lot of ESPN or FSN, though I think he might be able to get over that. We'll see how he reacts to my cousin's Lifetime TV.

This weekend we finally had the housewarming we've been craving for a year (ever since we moved in together). It was, I think, a success. Except for one guy having to leave because he had gall stones. And one of our nicer shot glasses getting the top broken off. And most of the beer still sitting in our cooler. Wait, maybe the beer is a good thing. If only we could find room in the fridge.