Reading/Listening, Good Words

Reading: Still Lewis Black. I got a new Popular Science so I got derailed for a bit.

Listening: I was listening to a lot of Medeski, Martin, and Wood over the weekend. For those of you who don't know them (all of you), MMW are a modern jazz trio. They are pretty amazing. If you don't like jazz at all, this probably isn't going to lure you. If you do like jazz, you should check it out. Songs like Bubblehouse are just simply really intelligent and are "must listen" songs.

I used the word "handsy" at work the other day and it got me thinking. There are tons of words that are just awesome. Handsy. Frolick. Vixen. I had a lot more, but I waited a couple of days to type this tiny, pathetic blog and so I forgot most of them.

Hope everybody is doing well. More soon.

Reading/Listening, Furniture

Reading: Still Lewis Black. I'm a little over halfway finished and I'm somewhat disappointed. It's not the book's fault, it's my own. I expected it to be exactly like some of his stand up. Instead, it is more like his views on things peppered with his humor. I thought I was in for an endless belly laugh, instead I get periodic chuckles. It is a very enjoyable book.

Listening: Virginia popped in some Frank Sinatra the other night which was a great change. It started me on a schizophrenic listening scheme though. Just today I've listened to trance, hip-hop, rap, punk, jazz, 80s (damn you Tiffany), a peaceful little number sung entirely in French, and some classic rock. And all of this occurred in the span of about three hours. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

We got our new bedroom furniture today. No more t-shirts in suitcases on the floor. I have too many damn clothes though, which is depressing. When Virginia moved here, my sister helped me clean out an entire closet's worth of clothes. Somehow I'm still busting at the seams with t-shirts though. I need to sort through them. The house is taking shape though. The kitchen is done for the time being. Virginia pained the bathroom today when I passed out on the couch with the dog. Now our bedroom is done. The tortoise is winning the race.

Reading/Listening, Vacation, Not Promotion

Reading: I finally finished Miranda July. I just made the decision to finish her and set to it like a horrible school assignment that I was dreading. The last couple of stories were okay, and I actually enjoyed one or two of them. I think she got tired of trying so hard and gave up. The irony is that her writing improved. I don't have the names of the stories I enjoyed because I lost the book in the move somehow. I'm sure it will show up, but I can't find it for anything right now. I've started reading a book by Lewis Black, Nothing is Sacred. It's not as funny as he is in his stand up, but I've always admired his opinions on everything I've heard him talk about. I'm maybe a third of the way through right now and it's pretty slow. I hope it picks up. I hope my next book choice doesn't leave me hoping that it picks up.

Listening: Deep in the Jungle by Blackalicious. This track is off of the Quannum labels showcase album. It's a really simple beat from Chief Xcel that highlights Gift of Gab's ability to absolutely blaze out words like the Micromachine guy. It's nifty. Check it out.

I went to Lake Tahoe over the weekend for a wedding. It was a nice break. I was really sick of work and just needed to get away. We saw Virginia's parents, went to her best friend's wedding on the beach of Lake Tahoe, kayaked around part of the lake, and spent the rest of the time kicking back. I did so much and right now I just can't spill it all. It's not that I'm hiding anything, it's just the writing isn't flowing right now.

I was denied a third promotion while I was on vacation. This one was expected, but still a nice kick in the scrotum. It was expected because the other ACSM who was next on the list for promotion worked in the branch with the opening. The branch manager only interviewed people because he had to. I interviewed really well, but I'm still on the same island. This is the third time in as many months that I've been shot down for a promotion. What makes it incredibly hard is that I'm already doing the job that I'm getting denied. It makes my head spin sometimes trying to wrap it around this thought. Okay, writing just isn't coming tonight. I'll stop here.

House Stuff, Blue, Vacation

So we've done a pretty good job with the house so far. I've nearly gotten the shower curtain rod back up. All I need to do is go and buy a drill bit for some guide holes and then we're back in business. I need to put another layer of joint compound over the holes in the basement because they didn't patch very well. I mowed the lawn today, as well as alphabetized my books and movies, and I also put some wire ties on the cables on the entertainment center. We only have one area left to unpack and then we have a lot of stuff to paint, starting with the pink room.

Last week was a bad week for me. I've been pushing it lately, and I finally crashed Friday and Saturday. I have to really focus on staying happy and not letting things get me down, otherwise it all crashes over me like a wave and I get caught in the emotional riptide and swept away. To summarize, Virginia's murderous pediatric surgery rotation took its toll on our relationship, my job somehow got more boring, there's a litany of things that need done with the house, and this list of things amplify the fact that I don't make jack shit for wages. These were the droplets on the leading edge of the wave that smashed me into some coral Friday. I'm better now. Despite being uneasy with Virginia for about a week now, we talked everything out and are much better. It's why I'm crazily in love with her. No matter what problems we have, we always talk about them very openly and very honestly. I don't know any other woman that I can look in the face and tell her that she's been "sort of a dick" lately without her getting mad. Also, she's the first woman that has figured out that she can do the same and I don't get upset either. It's why we work. So that fixed the relationship issues. The house issues didn't go away, but I just had to take some time to remind myself that it isn't going to be perfect tomorrow. It's okay if it takes me some time to knock out projects seeing that I'm not exactly "handy." As for the job, well, there's only one real fix there, and I'll be dedicating some time to it this week. I feel somewhat better, but I know that my feelings will improve all week.

My feelings will improve immensely on Friday when Virginia and I wing it to Lake Tahoe for five glorious days of not working. Virginia has read me passages from an astrology book about my sign (Taurus) and it really makes sense. I don't put too much stock in that stuff but it is spooky how accurate it is at times. Specifically, I'm a Cusp of Power Taurus because I'm born so close to the Aries sign (I'm April 24th). One thing that really stood out to me was how the book said that I could do inhuman amounts of work as long as I had periods to decompress. It couldn't be more true. Sticking in ten and eleven hour shifts at the bank drain me, but I can keep plugging away when I know that I have a vacation on the horizon. These next three days are going to be hell knowing that freedom is just around the bend. The dog just fell asleep standing up next to me in bed, so that's the sign that it's time to end the blog. Until tomorrow.

Another Update

No meaningful post as I'm really tired. We got some things unpacked today, took Dot for a long walk, and I fixed four of the seven thousand things that I need to fix in the house. Go me. I also set up my Flickr account so I'll upload pictures of the house and Dot tomorrow for all to see. I'm really excited about the house pictures because I'll keep adding more as we fix and renovate things so I'll have sort of a photo journal of the progress.

On that note, Caleb and Tisha are headed to Omaha on Friday for an MMA fight (Caleb's brother fights) and so Virginia has decided that we must unpack everything and get the guest bedroom painted before they get here. The chances of this happening are -12%, but I will wait until later this week to crush her hopes. Okay, more tomorrow.

Update

So we're in. We're not unpacked, but we've got all of our stuff in our new house. I think there's a coffee table and a lamp left at the old place, and a hefty amount of cleaning, but it's all tolerable after moving. We fought a couch that we were putting in our basement for over an hour today. The couch won with a final score of two holes in the wall but it came down to the wire because we shredded the top of it. That'll teach the bastard. Virginia and I have already decided that it will be coming out in two pieces courtesy of a saw whenever we decide to replace it.

The holes in the wall didn't phase me as my honey-do list is pretty extensive. The people who owned our house before us half-assed every single thing inside of it, so now I get to redo it. Some examples:

Our main bath is a claw foot tub that they installed a hand held shower head in. They also installed one of those nifty shower curtain rods that attaches to the ceiling and allows you to cover all around the tub. One side is anchored into the wall, the other into the ceiling. Except they only put one of the two screws into the stud, so the other one has pulled out of the drywall. I get to fix it.

The garage door safety sensors are aligned using a block of wood. This was obviously a better idea than just installing them correctly.

Rather than get a three inch piece of wood to mount the door catch onto for the porch door, they had a two inch piece of wood that they just screwed the top of the catch into. Except it doesn't align with the door lock.

I could go on for days about this but there's no point. It will be good for me to learn all of these man things that I've never known how to do. I've decided that I'm just going to write down between one and three things every week and just knock them out slowly. If I try to do it all at once, I won't be able to afford to do everything right and I'll just be furious all of the time.

One thing that will relieve my stress is Dot. Yep, I bought a dog. That's the little pooper at the top of the post. I've had her for roughly a month now, but I've been keeping her a secret. Today we went and picked her up and I drove straight to my sister's to get it over with. She actually wasn't mad at all. I thought she would be. I consulted her before I bought the dog and she told me it was a bad idea. I agreed with her. Then I went and bought her anyway. We have a ton of pictures of her already, but I don't have a Flikr account yet to post them all. In the meantime, you'll have to settle for the one above. She's a Boston Terrier, but she's all white with one black spot on her. Typically Bostons are mostly black with a white belly and some marbling, but the white ones are rare. Like redheads. You'll definitely hear about her more, but in the meantime, enjoy the photo.

Quick Update

So we got all of the paperwork squared away for the mortgage, but there's one last snag. The appraiser said that the outside door that leads into the basement and the top portion of the back of the garage need to be scraped and repainted before he will sign off on the house. He's afraid that Virginia and I are going to eat paint chips and produce five-legged offspring. We found this out Wednesday. About the painting, not five-legged offspring. It was supposed to get done yesterday (Thursday) morning, but alas, mother nature decided we finally needed some more rain and so they couldn't do it. So now the ridiculously close schedule is that the painting will be done by 1pm, which is the time that the inspector will drive by again. We're still on track for a 4pm close. I'm not sure how, but I'm going to make this happen. Okay, bedtime.