It has been my experience that when you are waiting upon someone’s arrival who is not technically late but could get to you at any moment the best way to expedite that arrival is to start a blog post.

I think this mostly because doing the dishes, going to the bathroom and pulling out the vacuum haven’t worked.  So, basically, maybe blogging is not the BEST, but if it works then I’m not going to knock it.  Especially when this has been a month of blogging FAIL on my end.

So first I’m all “oh hai! I have a blog! I’m going to be writing in it again!”

And then I was all “wait, what day is it? Oh crap.  Behind on a project!”

And, um, I didn’t start writing again.

I don’t really have anything useful to add to the blogosphere right now at all but I felt guilty for neglecting this space again so. Here I am. Typing away. About nothing.  Look, it’s like a really bad episode of Seinfeld, right here on my blog! (Would now be a bad time to tell you that I was never a really big fan of Seinfeld and only watched because it happened to be on between other shows I wanted to watch?) (Does that destroy any of my uber-television-fan-geek cred?)

Here are some tidbits from the world of Snarke:

1.  In spite of reading Twitter over my shoulder when I open up Tweetdeck on my laptop and in spite of, on several occasions, yanking my phone out my hand so that he could read my Twitter stream, Will absolutely refuses to join Twitter himself.  I jokingly set up a @mrsnarke account for him a long time ago but he refuses to use it.  He refuses to set up his own account.  Why? Because “meh, it’s okay but its nothing I get excited over or think about.”  This, from the man who more than once has come home and before even saying hello has asked “anything good on Twitter today?’

2.  Remember how we were all financially borked (okay I didn’t actually spell it out beyond a few comments in my last post but for a while we were financially borked) and have just now finally gotten things back on track?  Well, last night we may or may not have very nearly bought iPhone 4s. Thank God Best Buy was out of them or we might have them right now.  We are still thinking about doing the upgrade when they get more in.  Why?  Because we have iPhone 3Gs and the latest service pack/upgrade thing has made this phone all but a fancily clad brick.  Nothing is working correctly or even at a semi-usable pace on these phones anymore.  They’re freezing up all the time and they’ve become more than a little bit irritating.  Yes they are still worlds better than the phones we had before these and we don’t want to go backwards but seriously.  At this point we’re pretty sure it’s worth the $400 ($200 per phone to upgrade with an extended contract) to get something that we can actually use.  What we’re torn on is whether or not we really want to stay with AT&T for another few years.  Verizon is supposed to get the phone in January but it’s bound to have some serious growing pains once everybody flocks to their network.  Plus, with the whole Verizon/Google being evil and trying to undermine net neutrality thing I’m not sure I want that company to get our money…though I guess AT&T is supporting it too so… who knows.  Is there a non-evil cell phone carrier out there with a kick ass phone that rivals or is better than the one I have now?

3. It’s hot.  I know, I know.  Portland’s 90s highs the last few days are nothing compared to wherever you are and it’s triple digit heat.  They aren’t even that bad compared to recent summers up here.  This summer has been absolutely the mildest summer I have lived through since I lived near San Francisco (where 70 is the end of the world hot).  For this summer, though, the high 90 degree temps the last few days make me feel like my brain is melting.  I’ve spent the last few days holed up in the bedroom with the air conditioner blasting away.  This is not going to help us save money on our electric bill.  Thankfully tomorrow its supposed to drop by somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 degrees so things will be more livable.  This kind of has me scared for how cold the winter might be but I guess we’ll take that as it comes (like we have another choice).

4.  I have finally started watching Dr. Who!  After W00tstock and the many Tardis jokes and seeing so many people talk about how awesome it is, I thought “hey, it’s on Watch Instantly, why not?”  and it is super fun.  I STILL think that the Daleks look like some primitive form of R2D2.  I know that they came first but seriously, look at the two.  How is R2D2 not at least inspired by the Daleks?

5.  PAX is in just a few weeks!  The schedule is finally up and I have to say that while I’m looking forward to the experience (having never been to a convention before) I’m a little afraid that I won’t be able to get a ton out of it.  I mean I’m not all that into gaming and this is a conference that is centered on it.  Will has been geeking out over the schedule and making notes about the panels he wants to attend.  There are a few that have caught my eye too (not the same ones because that would be too easy for us) but part of me just wants to wander around for the two days that we’re there and soak it in–get a feel for the thing and then try to plan for things maybe the next year if we decide to go back.  I’m sure that, if nothing else, it will be a great place to take photos and learn about stuff.

What else?

Oh! Yes! on Sunday I had Panda Kitchen for the first time in weeks and it was So! Tasty! NOM NOM NOM.

You would think that, after a two week absence on the blog, I’d have some wild and crazy tale of where I’ve been.  And I do! Oh how I do! Except, well, I don’t.

I don’t have any fancy excuses or tales of adventure.  My life is pretty boring.  So where have I been?

I spent the majority of the last two weeks working.  I worked like crazy.  Our finances this summer have been, for the most part, a clusterfrak of “we owe how much on that card?” and “wait, what’s overdrawn?” and “oh holy sh*t, how is the rent due in four days? Isn’t it still the sixth?”  I’ve been working like crazy fora couple of months now trying to keep up and it all came to a head during the last couple of weeks of July.  I won’t lie to you: it was pretty craptastic.  It felt (and still does but to a lesser extent) like every single conversation Will and I had was about money and our lack of it and why it was being spent on frivolities like food.

The good news is that now all of our bank accounts and credit cards are on track. I intend to keep them that way.  I did, after all, work fourteen hour days (also known as 20-30 page days) for weeks to get them there.

This past weekend Will had his annual WoWapalooza over in Bend with his friends from the game and I? Well, I worked on Friday and then I crashed.  I crashed hard core.  I rented half a dozen crappy chick flicks and spent all of Friday night, Saturday and most of Sunday lying on the couch and watching them.  I’m pretty sure my IQ probably dropped by a few points but it felt so good to just relax.

So now it is back to normal. I hope.  See you tomorrow!

Every month at about this time I swear that, next month, I will be better prepared.  I swear that I will have everything taken care of so that I don’t have to get so tunnel visioned.  I swear that I will keep up with everything so that I won’t have to spend many days in a row writing so much that my brain turns to soup and starts to ooze out my ears.  I promise myself that I’ll manage everything so that there won’t be a last minute crunch to make all of my ends meet nicely.

And every month, at about this time, I find myself crunched for time, writing so many pages that my brain turns to soup and leaks out my ears.  I find myself facing mountains of work that must be done right! now! so that I can make all of my ends meet.   And I swear to whoever that I will not let this happen again next month.  Next month I will be more responsible! I will stay on task and not procrastinate!  I will take care of everything so that nothing else has to suffer or be put on a back burner! Next month will be far different from this month! I swear!

*sigh*  If you need me, I’ll be spooning my brain back into my skull.

I’m trying super hard not to think about the fact that my due date would have been tomorrow.  I spent a few days throwing myself into work and errands and activities.  Things! Lots of things to keep me distracted! Yay!  And then, oh then, Wednesday night as Will and I were curling up to go to sleep, it just… hit me.  It hit me that, if nature weren’t so effing mean, I would almost definitely (given the sporadic nature by which babies are actually born on their due dates without the induction of labor) be holding my kid right then. And that is when the floodgates opened.  I thought that I would let myself leak a few tears and then I’d hunker down, make my belly all steely and let it go.  But you know what?  Once I let one tear out, a whole bunch more came out.  And then?  Oh then I was doing the ugly cry.  I haven’t done the ugly cry very much since my procedure.  That first week was hard.  But I have an awesome (cheerleader sometimes) husband who does his very best to keep me feeling positive and moving forward.  What happened was awful but it isn’t like there was anything I could have done to prevent it.  Nature is just a bitch sometimes. Unfortunately my brain knowing those things wasn’t quite enough to stop the very primal and very uncontrollable…despair.  It’s not really the best word for it but there you go.  And in the midst of all of that ugly-crying and as wave after wave of fresh, well, pain rolled over me came this:

“Sadness is salty.  It’s not all that different from the wonderful fizziness that starts to fill your cells when you’re “close” but there’s no explosion of joy or love to follow it up.  You can feel it spreading up from your toes and out from the center of your brain and you know that when it meets in the middle the only explosion you will get is tears and grief…and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. All you can do is ride it out and hope that at the end there will be some sort of calm.”

It’s hardly poetry but it was eloquent enough to distract me with “wow, I’m deep” thoughts so that I could fall asleep.

And then, when I woke up the next morning, I decided it would be a good day to quit caffeine cold turkey.

I? Is not so bright.

I went all day yesterday without even a teeny bit of caffeine.  And you know what?  If those are the symptoms I suffer when I go through caffeine withdrawals from Pepsi?  I am soooo not ever cut out to do any harder drugs.  Between the emotional roller coaster I was already riding and the lack of caffeine, I was a hot mess yesterday.  I only wrote four pages.  The rest of the day I spent lying down and wishing that my head would stop pounding and willing myself to not start dry heaving.  I did not get my way on either counts and, after a tasty pizza dinner, well…. gross.

Did you know that one of the reasons your head hurts so bad when you go through caffeine withdrawal is that your…some sort of receptors…are letting too much blood go to your brain?  I always figured that the more blood I had flowing into my brain there was, the happier (and smarter!) my brain would be.  There is a reason I’m not a doctor, guys.

This afternoon I caved.  I had gone with Will to look at weapony things and on the way back we stopped at a 7-11.  I thought about getting a Sprite but all I wanted was a regular Pepsi.  And I was beating myself up pretty badly about wanting to cave so soon.

“I feel like such a loser!”  I wailed to Will, “People get over frackking heroin addictions and I’m ready to have soda after thirty six hours? And it’s so bad!  But my head hurts!  I’m such a looooseeerrrr!”  (PMS+hard week under normal circumstances+sleep deprivation+caffeine withdrawals=DRAMA. QUEEN.)  And do you know what Will said?  I swear to God and whatever deities you find holy and worth reverence, he said: “you need to do what feels best for you right now.  Don’t worry about the long term, that will take care of itself.  Do what you need to do right now and no matter what you choose I’ll support you and be your cheerleader because I love you.”

His wonderfulness and awesomeness and oh-my-God-I-love-him-so-much-ness is marred only by the fact that he physically wrestled a Super Gigundo Double Gulp bazillion ounce cup out of my hand once we were inside the 7-11 and said “moderation dear, moderation,” before handing me a 32 ounce up instead.

I wrote sixteen pages today.  I have 44 to go but I know I can get them done before the weekend.  This weekend we have a friend coming up to visit and a housewarming party to go to.  The busy-ness!  I just never stops!

I keep thinking of things to blog about but because I want to get this assignment done so quickly I haven’t been putting my all into this blog.  But I’ve been on Twitter!  I even checked into Facebook for the first time in a little while.  And I have been playing Words with Friends with Will!

I keep meaning to get things evened out.  To find time for this blog and for paying work.  To have enough time to hang out with my husband and not feel guilty about neglecting anything.  To get eight hours of sleep at night and not feel like I’m being lazy.  To write some things just for fun and not feel like I’m taking something away from something else.  To watch a movie and not worry about the apartment that needs to be vacuumed.  And on and on it goes–the things I mean to figure out how to do.  But not tonight.  All that is left for tonight is getting some sleep so I can get up and write more pages tomorrow.

On Sunday we kind of accidentally slept in until eleven.  This is not something we do very often.  But! Don’t you worry.  We made up for our accidentally laziness with the following:

A couple of hours at Portland’s monthly gun show (not really my scene and really, that’s its own blog post but I was being a supportive wife).

A leisurely drive along the….something road that goes along the Marina on the Columbia in North/Northeast Portland.  It had a super clear super awesome super beautiful view of Mt. Hood so we took the road all the way until it merged onto the 84.

Late lunch/early dinner at Ikea

Browsing at Ikea (miraculously we did not buy anything but lunch which is, quite honestly, the first time we’ve managed to do that)

A trip to Lloyd Center to get Will’s sunglasses from Sunglass Hut (this, also could be its own blog post)

Driving around Hillsboro looking for future rentals.

And that’s just Sunday.

Yesterday, I did not sleep in.  Instead I was awakened by the landscapers mowing the lawn at seven thirty in the morning.  Yowza. No fun. But! that didn’t keep me from being productive!

I did a few days’ worth of grocery shopping.

I did two bank errands.

I did three loads of laundry.

I did caught up on three months of paperwork and accounting.

I helped sort out some Financial Aid for Will.

And I did my usual work stuff.

So today I took a break right?  I gave myself some time to rest, right?  Not so much!  Today, so far:

I have taken the train to downtown.

I ran three different bank errands.

I went to the Post Office.

I turned in some Financial Aid paperwork for Will at PSU.

I went to Fred Meyer for some cleaning stuff.

I went with Will to Tigard on his lunch break.

I went back to Fred Meyer to get some iced tea for Will and some lunch stuff for me.

I finished cleaning our oven.

I finished the ironing.

And now I’m writing this.

In an hour I’ll go meet Will at work and then we’ll go to Target.

After we get back I’ll get to work on writing stuff so that I can earn a living.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll take a nap!

I have finally figured out why it is that my husband and I are utterly incapable of ever saving money:

“Since you spent $140 on Pax tickets I think it’s only fair that I get to spend at least $140 on my sunglasses.”

Guess which one of us said that to the other.  Here’s a hint:  I already wear glasses and could probably find those fitter overer sunglass thingies for $10 if I had the dedication to hunt for them in the right shape and size.

Of course, it isn’t totally him.  I can’t sit here and point to my husband and blame him for everything.  Okay, I could but that would probably just bite me in my own ass later (though I can blame him for half our cupboard doors being open all the time.  It’s like he’s allergic to shutting them or soemthing).

A few weeks ago, he was having one of his “there’s a game I liked playing as a kid and I want to play it now” fits (apparently this is something all gamers go through from time to time?) and found out that, to play the game he wanted to play, he’d need to buy a joystick thingie that connected to his computer via USB cable.  A joystick thingie that would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $60.

I did not say no.  I did not point out that we have zero spare dollars right now.  I did not remind him of our looming bills and the fact that we really truly want to move into a bigger/better place as soon as we can.  Instead?  I said, “Okay but then I get to buy the first two seasons of Leverage on DVD.”

We are working on changing this particular aspect of our relationship, for the sakes of our bank accounts, but I think we probably have a ways to go before we are cured.

In other news: my apartment is clean.  It is clean and dusted and swiffered and bleached and vacuumed and cleaned oh my.  Even the coupons I always forget to take to the store with me are organized. This is what happens when you are waiting for an assignment from your client and they have to wait for another part of your same project to get finished by someone else and your husband is at work for eight hours and cannot get in your way or undo any of your hard work for a while.  Even our office is clean which is nice because now that there is not a big pile of debris threatening to eat the whole room, I can get some more work done in there.

I have thinking work, which needs to be done in the office with music blaring loudly (my most recent choice includes a mixture of Lady Gaga and Everclear, don’t ask me why it is intensely satisfying writing music but it is).  Then there is the work that doesn’t require a whole lot of focus and is much better done on my laptop while I sit on the couch and watch TV.  The work I am waiting on is the latter.   I can’t do any of my thinking work because, well, the office is occupied by Will who, from the sounds of things is blowing things up and slashing people with swords while something that sounds like a car alarm whines in the background.  It isn’t a real car alarm–I have now checked at least enough times for Will to get annoyed and say “why do you keep looking out the front door?!?  It’s my game!!!”

So.  I’m writing this, a long rambly list of whatever floats my boat that isn’t connected to anything super major or of any real consequence to anyone but me.  What else should I tell you?  Here’s something: Albertson’s $8.99 Fried Chicken meal is super delicious and has become my favorite Saturday night dinner.  We finished watching FullMetal Alchemist: The Brotherhood tonight.  I have been re-reading John Scalzi’s book on writing (it’s called “You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop”).

Finally: I think that this post proves something that professional writers have been trying to pound into the heads of amateur writers for, well, ever: if you want to write well, you need to read and you need to read everything.  While I am not a professional writer by any means (pfft, that will be the day), I can say that reading good writing makes me want to produce writing of my own.

You’re welcome.  Peace out.

This has only been slightly proofread.  Apologies to your brains.

Today was Will’s Company’s Annual Company Picnic, which means that we spent four hours sitting around in the blazing sun and now my brain is all the way dead.  But! I haven’t updated my blog in a while so you get to read a bunch of random updates and other stuff.  Fun!

First, I don’t remember if I told you this already or not: Stray Cat finally has a home–with my former neighbor!  After, what, a month? My former neighbor FINALLY called and said that he did still want his cat after all and that he was going to come pick her up.  Will made me promise not to rip him a new one when he got here but boy oh boy I tell you, it took a lot of self control not to give him a very stern lecture on responsible pet ownership.  Who let’s their cat stay stray for a month??

That cat spent roughly nine hours in our apartment.  We brought her in the night before he was supposed to come get her because we wanted to make sure that she would be around when he got here.  We fixed up a little nest for her in our bathroom with food and a litter box.  It was only nine short hours but O. M. G.  The Fleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeas!  It was like a Joe’s Apartment of Fleas situation!  Poor Poppy got attacked by the things so badly we ended up having to give her a bath because she was starting to scratch her own belly raw from the itching.  We’ve since also dosed her with some Frontline but every once in a while I see a flea jump on me (usually while I’m on the couch and can I just say WTF fleas?  Why do you have to infest the place I spend the most time?) so I’m thinking of making a second trip to the vet for some flea spray.  Ugh.  Even typing it out makes me itchy.   Also?  It was Will’s idea to give the cat a bath.  He’s the one who held her still while I lathered her up and rinsed her off.  I was the one who dried her off and snuggled her in the towel while she calmed down but I was the one she hated for a week.  Where’s the fairness in that?

In other news today was Will’s Company’s Annual Company Picnic.  First I have to be fair: they do try to put on a good afternoon for their employees.  This Company has a couple of hundred people working in different locations so keeping everyone happy is really tough.  Every year they rent out a farm that’s about a half an hour outside of the city.  It has a little train that goes around it and a small lake with boat rides.  There’s a bouncy house slide thing for the kids and a clown who wanders around making balloon animals and doing card tricks for the little ones.  They put up a volleyball net and encourage all sorts of other games like horse shoes and a tiny bit of mini golf and other picnic-y things like tug of war and sac races, etc.  They also feed everybody for free and there is an open beer garden.  They really do try.  But if you do not have kids and are not into sports and do not drink beer?  It’s kind of boring–especially if you’re relatively new in the company and don’t know that many people.  The other thing is that, while the picnic is not mandatory they do sort of manipulate you into staying for the whole thing because they raffle off some really cool prizes.  Every year there’s a ginormous flat screen tv that gets given away and this year there was also an iPad and an iPod Touch.  The only catch is that you have to be there to be able to take the prize home.  The picnic starts at 3.  So everyone shows up at 3.  And every year they wait until 7 or so to start the raffle.  Four hours is a long time to sit around and be bored.  In the sun. When you don’t drink beer and your only other beverage option (unless you were smart like us and stopped for sodas on the way out of town) is a cooler that gets filled with water from a hose and then sat directly in the sun.

But hey, free food that I didn’t have to cook.  That’s pretty nice!

I had a whole other thing I was going to write about.  But I forgotted what it was, so it must have been really important!

So.  This week.  It is the overs and where the frack did it go? I’m serious–I kind of would really like it to be Monday again just so that I can, I dunno, manage my time better or something.  How the heck did it get to be a quarter to ten on a Friday night?

Today was a busy busy day.  There were some chores to be done in the morning (there are chores to be done every morning).  Then my Sister in Law arrived to get her car worked on (believe it or not, it actually was worth the three and a half hour drive to be able to get her car fixed at half the price it would have cost her in Seattle) and to spend the day hanging out.  This plan was hatched just a couple of days ago at the last minute so yesterday was spent in a blind crash panic of “omg, I have to get all this work done because my week is ending a day early” but that’s another story.  Where was I?

Oh yes.  Sister in Law arrived (Hi SIL!) and we spend the day hanging out and showing Beth some of the finer points (for me, anyway) of downtown PDX.  (Hi Beth!)

Beth is the very first person that I have met in a hang-out-and-get-to-know-each-other capacity from the internet.  See, she posted a comment over on Wil Wheaton’s blog (Hi Wil!) about how she had just moved to town this past week and in a moment of big sisterly, “I know what it’s like to move somewhere you’ve never been and where you know no one” compassion/whimsy, sent her a comment back offering to show her around a little and help her get to know the awesomeness that is PDX.

I? Have reeeeeeeally poor impulse control sometimes.  But! It worked out for the best!  Because Beth is very nice and we had a very good time doing all of my staple “I’m in downtown, let me share my love of it with you” things.  SIL and I met her in Pioneer Square and then I walked everyone ragged as we had Chinese Food for lunch allllll the way up at Panda Kitchen at PSU (NOM) and then walked alllllllllllllll the way back down to Voodoo Doughnuts (NOM) and then allllllllllllllllllll the way over to the Multnomah County Library (book NOM).  I’d have taken us to Powell’s too, but it was super crazy hot out and Beth had already been there. We also found the bathrooms in Pioneer Place Mall and walked past the food court of food carts on lower 3rd. It? Was a full afternoon.  But there was good conversation and good company to be had so I didn’t even mind that it was blazing hot out.

And then? SIL and I came home and crashed in front of the Bert (the Portable Air Conditioner for those who haven’t yet met him) and watched Season One Episodes of Leverage until Will came home from work.  There may or may not have been some napping in there as well.

So. Yes.  Oof.  But a good oof!

Tomorrow and Sunday Will and I are going to be helping some friends of ours move from an apartment on the Park Blocks to a house in North East Portland. I suspect that will be an oof of an entirely different variety.