Drama!

So, yesterday, I was running around the kitchen trying to get dinner together, when I felt an intense, localized pain in my left heel. I looked down and saw a teeny tiny shard of glass poking out of my foot, which I promptly pulled out (have no idea what it's from -- a wine glass was broken in my apartment weeks ago and I've vacuumed/mopped several times since then) and thought the incident was largely over. Until I started bleeding. Dramatically. Which grossed me out. In the panic of the moment, my thought process was, I better clean up this blood. Not: I should clean the wound and stop the bleeding. So I'm hopping around the kitchen trying to get to the paper towells, my boyfriend is telling me to sit down over and over again and I'm saying, "Just a second, I need to clean this up." I think it took a long minute for him to convince me to sit down and let him handle it. Which he did, and as soon as I got gravity on my side by elevating my foot, it stopped bleeding quickly.

But the weird thing is that it was oddly funny and the experience reminded me of the lobster scene in Annie Hall. Except, instead of wayward lobsters we were dealing with a puncture wound.

My New Friend

Sorry, folks, for the long lag between entries. I'm having a much harder time this semester balancing work and school and taking care of necessities like eating and sleeping and making fun of the Swiss and still finding time to blog.

So, first, I wanted to let you know that the closet project was completed successfully. I'm still a little afraid that Nick and I will wake to the sound of it all crashing down some night in the future, but for now, it's beautiful and functional. We're taking a slight break from home improvement, although the holes in our bathroom look a little creepy, like there might be webcams in there. (There are NO webcams in my bathroom, for the record). So we'll take care of that in the near future.

Secondly, I bought a Roomba. It's bright red and an "entry model" which I find to be a hilarious phrase. Do I practice on this? Or is it more like a training bra and I just use this one to get used to the idea of robot vacuums?

Anyway, it's kind of awesome. Here are my observations:

(1) you have to spend more time getting ready to vacuum. When you are in control, it doesn't matter that there is a stray sweater in the corner. You can just pick it up when you get there. Roomba (I'm thinking of naming it "Roxy" by the way. Thoughts?) will just vacuum your sweater and get all confused.

(2) you don't actually save much time, because you end up following the robot around your apartment, thinking, "holy crap! The robot is vacuuming."

101 Reasons Why I'm Not Bob Villa

So Nick and I are installing the larger of our new Elfa closet systems today. And it's the slowest, most excruciating experience. The first one Nick did all by himself and zip bam boom it was done. This one is stubborn and horrible and I want to move rather than finish.

Yesterday, it all seemed so promising. We knocked down the existing shelves with ease. We spackled, we painted, then we went out for sushi while it dried. We started the day with optimisim, cheerily marking where we'd need holes in the wall. We get out the drill. Encounter a little resistance. Grab the plaster anchor screw thingy to see if the hole was deep enough. Knock it a few times and then we hear "clink-CLUNK." We have gone through to the other side of the wall, which happens to be my bathroom , and knocked a tile clean off into the tub, where it shatters. Luckily, the bathroom is old and I plan to fix it up one day, so it's not such a big deal. But Nick and I quickly realize, "hey, this wall isn't thick enough." So we come up with this wooden frame concept. We went to Home Depot, got some lumber cut, and basically felt ready to host a home improvment show about problem solving. We get home, we paint this lumber, we let it dry. Then we try to mount it. We drill holes where need to, and still manage to go clean through to the other side, so there are now 5 holes lining my bathroom wall. Also, the lumber is total crap and completey warped. By rejiggering our frame concept, I'm pretty sure we've again problem solved our way around it. But it's 7:00 on Sunday, and all we've managed to do is screw a couple of pieces of wood to a wall, the contents of my closet are all over my studio apartment, and we're both exhausted.

The direct relationship between trashy television and my writing

I have a confession. As I'm scrambling to get my submission together for grad school, I've started to half-watch a lot of really terrible reality television. The kind of stuff you can have on in the background, but still get work done, because it requires about 10% of your attention to follow. Also, it keeps me from getting intimidated by the silence of my apartment. And it sort of occupies Nick.

Anyway, I'm starting to find that it has a truly beneficial effect on my writing. I live in a very insular city. You forget over time that there are people out there who not only do not know who the Majority Whip is, but don't know what a whip is period, outside of westerns and bondage flicks. So, shows like Wife Swap give me some great character ideas and break me out of the DC mindset. I can't wait to use someone inspired by the 12 year old on an episode a few weeks back, who after her borrowed mother took her through some Tae Kwon Do breathing exercises, wrinkled her nose and said, in utter disbelief, "Breathing. Who breathes?" Or the delusions of grandeur that pervade American Idol -- that show reminds me of just how often the word "respect" gets misappropriated in this country, and also just how badly most people want to be somebody they aren't. Which is great material for a story.

Anyway, fellow writers who stop by and read this blog, do any of you have surprising sources of inspiration?

Demolition! and Tuxedos!

Today is a bit of a schizophrenic day. Nick and I spent last night at the Container Store, purchasing Elfa closet systems (the sale runs until Feb. 5, for those interested) and we have spent the morning beginning the installation project. (For purposes of this blog entry, "we" means "Nick"). This means pulling out the exisiting wooden shelves, which are nailed to the plaster and have been painted over approximately 900,645 times. Then, we need to spackle and paint, and finally we get to actually start constructing the new closet. It's all very exciting. I can't be more helpful, because I have a grad school deadline in six days, plus I need to go get a haircut.

Tonight, Nick and I are going to a black tie event for my job. So, around 5, we'll have to put away the power tools and the sawdust and get gussied up like we've never been gussied before. At least since prom.

The Exercise Wars: Bicylcists v. Joggers

I live near this wonderful, wonderful place called Rock Creek Park. Yes, that's the place they found Chaundra Levy. And no, you shouldn't wander around it late at night by yourself. But during the day, and on weekends, it's a wonderful place to go take a walk, run, have a picnic, sit down with a good book and your back against a tree, etc. However, there's an ongong tension on the paths that wind through the woods and next to the road. It's a war between bicyclists and joggers.

I've been in both roles -- I'm in a jogging phase now, since I have no place to keep my bike in my studio apartment. But I remember how aggravating as a rider it was to come across a jogger on a narrow stretch of path, who had his iPod on full blast, to the point that I could hear Foreigner over the sound of my bike's tires against the dirt, who couldn't hear me call "on your left!" over and over, so that I 'd have to slow to a crawl and practically walk my bike past him, and still receive a dirty look from him as a thanks for not running him over. However, I did find joggers like him to be the exception, that most were happy to step out of the way as long as you gave them advance warning and some indication of where you were coming from.

I'm starting to think that most bicylclists are raging jerks. I actually got hit by one the other day. His shoulder simply banged against my shoulder, it didn't really hurt, but it could have. Bikers just ding their little bell when they are three feet from you, expecting you to have some extra sensory perception enabling you to know exactly which part of the path they are on without actually looking. When you fail to have this sixth sense, and look back, they are already upon you, and gasp! have to use their brakes, and then you are treated to a muttered, "asshole," as they whip by as quickly as possible.

I guess this is just another one of those "society is getting ruder and ruder" kinds of stories.

Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot pick a little more

I should have more sympathy for 15 years old girls. I was one once, after all, a highly talkative and opinionated one. I remember feeling no matter how fast I spoke, I might not get a chance to get it all out. I know I spent hours and hours on the phone, more hours driving around with friends, or shopping, or talking walks, all the time more and more words just constantly tumbling out in a pitter patter of inanity. It seemed so vital at the time.

But when I see those girls now, I begrudge their very right to coexist in my universe, especially on enclosed spaces like the metro. We ran into a gaggle like this on our way to a concert last night. Then, these two little slivers of hormones and lip gloss tried to score better seats by slipping into our row (where there was ONE empty seat), encountering little resistance from the stoner mom on the end of our row. It was easy to identify the leader/follower relationship. The shorter one, who immediately spied all eligible men between the ages of 14 and 24 ran the show, while the taller one who kept looking around to see if they were going to get caught was the follower. They stayed for a song or two (I used aggressive dancing techniques to hint that maybe they weren't welcome) and mostly just text messaged people. The point of trying to sneak better seats just to text message is beyond me. I must be old.