I got the idea for this over at Ally’s blog where she completed hers far more masterfully than I am about to here:

It turns out that when you go many many months without eating a fast food hamburger the first one you eat–particularly those that are “now with 25% more beef”–will result in a…shall we say, gastro-intestineological adventure.

I now know what it looks like when you attempt to cross breed the common house cat with tigers and cheetahs and it answers to the name of Rex.

Your turn! Two sentences! Go!

So. The Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal finales were last night. I vlogged about them.

I will say that this finale wasn’t as difficult to process as the season…five? Six? Finale–the one with the shooter in the hospital. That one was damned traumatic. I still can’t watch it all the way through. I understood why Shonda made the choices she did. I know why it wasn’t a two hour finale the way it has been in the past. At the time of the filming there were still a few actors who had yet to sign contracts or decide whether to keep going with the show.  She did a good job of working in that uncertainty without it being… suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper contrived. Contrived, yes, but in that fantastic Shonda Rhimes way that is somehow believable enough to suck you in and make you care so much you find yourself sobbing into a blanket when [SOMETHING SPOILERISH HAPPENS HERE].

Yes. I have issues. Bite me.

I’d say it was on par with the trauma of the second season finale. At least in terms of heartbreaking ugly-cryness.

The Scandal finale… wow. Talk about making damned sure you’re going to get a second season. Holy schnikes.

I know, I know. I watch too much television.

I’m okay with that.

By now you probably know I’m something of a workaholic. I kind of have to be–work being how I keep a roof over my head and pay my bills and all. But at the same time, I’ve noticed that over the last few months–even with as busy as I have been out of the house–when I’ve been at home where the work is, I just…work. And then work. And then work some more. I have a stack of library books to read. I have lots of yarn that is begging to be played with and made into…something. I have an extensive Netflix Queue. And all of it goes untouched in the name of earning as much as possible.

Of course, there comes a time when I lose my ability to think critically or creatively. I work myself stupid. I really do. And then I spend a day or so kind of wandering around, wanting to work but not being able to focus on anything and hating myself for being such a slacker.

It’s a harsh spiral to be stuck in, believe you me.

So, for the last couple of weeks I have been making a concentrated effort to create some semblance of a Work Day. With real Working Hours and a Work Stopping time. I’ve kept the chat clients (the ones for personal use anyway) off during the day and have been getting better at getting started on my work before the afternoon rolls around. What is tripping me up is the stop time. I get stuck in a “but I can write a few more words… and I can still write just a few more words… I can hash out another page” mindset and it is really hard to make myself put the work away and just…be.

It is especially difficult on days like today, when I did not actually accomplish much real work during the day. I had stuff to do out of the house this morning and then I met my friend Indy for a co-working session in which I planned out a bunch of work to complete tomorrow and Friday (did I mention I’m doing my best to take my weekends off from work too?) and I guess that counts, but it doesn’t feel as productive as actually whipping out a few pages of rough draft or fine tuning something before turning it in.

But I’m still telling myself “self, it is evening time. Put the work away and watch something fun. Read something fun. DO SOMETHING FUN.”

It’s weird. And difficult. And it makes me scared for my finances but I also know that letting my brain get rest endangers my finances as well.

It’s just… you know? I do not do relaxation well.

Monday Monday… somethin’ somethin’ some…somethin’ ellllllllllllllse.

Thank you, thank you, that is the one and only time that I will serenade you. Until I forget about this post and do it again.

It’s always hard to get started on a work week after a relaxing and fun weekend.

On Saturday I went to see some Star Trek improv with what turned out to be a huge group of friends (this is what happens when you talk about your plans on the Internet) (which is why I talk about my plans on the Internet). It was held at the Funhouse Lounge (which has the scariest clown room ever) and we got there three hours early so that we would be able to find seats all together, hang out and play games. We played a rousing and long game of Cards Against Humanity (which I will be buying as soon as they make more of it) (and I have a few spare bucks)-one of the few games that is possible to play with fifteen people. Then… oh then. There was Star Trek improv.

Star. Trek. Improv.

It was so much fun.  They have a couple more episodes that they’re improving throughout this month and you can bet your sweet bum that I will be going back to see their “Borg” episode.

On Sunday I spent a relaxing and lovely day with the wonderful J, exploring the Alberta arts district (aka walking all along Alberta in search of food that didn’t involve a ninety minute wait) and hanging out. On the way home we decided to try out the new freezey drink things at McDonalds and you guys. Normally my approach to McDonalds is “eat it, try not to admit it and definitely don’t think too hard about what it is that you are putting into your body” but the frozen Strawberry Lemonade that I got? That was a spot hitter. And then some. YUM.

It’s really rare that I will take a full weekend to relax and just…enjoy my friends and some free time and this was the second weekend in a row that I was able to do this. I feel super appreciative of it in my warm, squishy and G-RATED areas (get yer minds out of the gutter. Jeez).

Your stomach.

So for a long time people have been telling me that it is not only possible to substitute ground turkey for ground beef in some recipes but that it is virtually impossible to tell the difference between the two, taste-wise.

Pfffft. Whatever. Turkey and beef do not taste even remotely similar to each other, I thought.  These people are carazay.

Then I thought, “self, it’s so much better to actually try something before you pass judgment on it. How many times do you get irritated because people don’t believe you even though you are absolutely right about everything ever?” So I bought some ground turkey and made spaghetti sauce with it. I made it exactly the way I usually do, except that I used ground turkey instead of ground beef.

And I’ll be damned if it didn’t taste EXACTLY THE SAME.

Apparently I can be wrong sometimes. Who knew? (Shut up)

The problem, though, is that it does not look exactly the same. As I was cooking the turkey I was all “it’s weird. It’s weird. It’s turning white. I know that’s what turkey does when you cook it but… weird! WEIRD! This looks weird!” and it did. As someone who is used to darker spaghetti sauce, this stuff (though tasting the same) looked… weird. Not necessarily a bad weird, but a difficult to pass of as looking appetizing weird. While it was in the pan, though, I could approach it as “I’m cooking something new! ish! Look at me growing!” and feel intrigued by the weirdness of its appearance.

And then I poured it over some spaghetti noodles.

You. Guys.

It was not an….unfamiliar looking substance. In fact it looked really familiar.  Anybody who has ever walked up or down a dormitory hall staircase the day after finals are over would recognize it immediately. Or who might be walking next to the exit ramp of one of your more… stomach-lurching carnival rides. Or down any urban street with a bar on it early in the morning before the street and sidewalk cleaners have done their thing. The only thing I have ever seen look less appetizing on a plate was this thing they used to force on us in middle school called “Cheese Veggie Bake” which looked like something my cat horked up.

It is a good thing I tasted that sauce while it was still in the pan and only looked vaguely weird. If I had simply been presented with a plate of the finished product… there is NO WAY I would have gone anywhere near it. Not even to be polite.

But I ate it. Like a grownup. And it was really REALLY tasty.

Next up: learning to eat with a blindfold on. I can do it and so can you!

Okay well, not really… because I doubt she noticed my absence (seeing as how she doesn’t actually know me or that I exist) but I was supposed to go to her reading at Barnes and Noble tonight.

Instead I spent the evening holed up at home because? I’m pretty sure? the Universe is out to get me today.

I woke up from a gunky dream… I’m not entirely sure what all went on in it. I know it prominently featured my ex-husband and that I woke up feeling trapped and sludgey–and it took me a minute to realize that it is now and not this time last year.

Then I had to deal with a shady client payment snafu (they are par for the course when most of your business is conducted online, there are always a few gross characters that ruin it for all of the awesome people who are out there) that involved a call to PayPal and having to dig up some emails and stuff.

Then I got a massive nosebleed that took forever to stop.

All before ten AM.

Among other things, this morning and afternoon: I forgot my brush at home.  The ATM tried to eat my deposit without crediting my account. I accidentally dumped my bag of library books on the floor at lunch (thankfully I had already put my food down). My stupid nosebleed kept starting up again.

All that by 3 this afternoon. Which is when I gave up.

I adore Jen Lancaster. I really do. I’ve gone to three of her readings already. They are always a good time and I always leave feeling happy and inspired for my own projects (inspiration which, frankly, I am in dire need of right now) but I had the feeling that if I went back across town instead of staying at home and working I’d accidentally bring my cloud of doom with me and infect everybody there.

The last thing I want to do is put this kind of luck on Jen Lancaster with whom I wish I could be BFFs.

So I stayed home. And worked. And then made some spaghetti because hi, comfort food.

I feel bad about standing up one of my favorite writers but there will be other signings (hopefully) and you can bet your butt I’ll be at those.

I spent this weekend in super sloth mode with my friend J… my friend J who was so determined to get me to take a day off he spent all of Saturday watching chick TV and movies with me. Seriously. This guy sat through Julie and Julia, Scandal and even Grey’s Anatomy–cheerfully.

That’s a good guy right there, that is.

Then, on Sunday, we went to see The Avengers.

I will write more about the movie later. I want to actually talk about it, but I know people are still seeing it. Plus, after taking a whole weekend off (the LUXURY of it all!), I’m having a little bit of trouble getting started back up again. My momentum, it is lagging.

Still, it was nice to have some me time… and a little weird. But mostly nice.

So a few weeks ago I noticed that the light in my fridge was no longer staying off. I noticed this mostly by happenstance. I went into my kitchen and, because I hadn’t yet turned on the kitchen light, noticed a sliver of light shining through a crack in…whatever the door sealer thingie is called.

“huh.” I thought.

I opened and shut the door a few times, to see if I could figure out what the problem was. From what I could tell, when the door was starting to close, it was pushing up the little switch that turned off the light but then the switch simply wasn’t staying as…up…as it needed to go. I figured it was a problem with the switch and, since a light bulb not turning off is not the biggest deal in the universe and something that I could probably solve myself (I solved this problem by sticking a small pad of Post It’s in there so that the switch would stay up) I didn’t tell my landlord about it.

A couple of days later the bulb burned out (I was only using the Post Its during the day when I was home because leaving them there when I left the house just seemed like a bad idea…a worse idea than using the post-its in the first place) and I thought “well that’s that. All fixed!” And forgot about it.

Over the last week or so I’ve noticed that I had to be quite deliberate in the shutting of my refrigerator door or it wouldn’t stay shut. I couldn’t just give it a nudge and let physics do the work because it would just pop back open. This was annoying but, again, nothing super crazy or damaging or worrying (at least to me) so I didn’t run to my landlord about it. I thought maybe I needed to clean the…sealer rubber thingie or something but made a note to talk to my apartment complex’s maintenance guy about it the next time I saw him…which turned out to not be until today.

Because!

Last night, I went to retrieve a soda from inside my fridge and…well…the door just… swung right off. Like…OFF off.

“Huh.” I thought

“I guess people really WOULDN’T like me if I’m angry” was my second thought…and then I applauded myself for being able to reference comic books in spite of, you know, pulling my refrigerator door clean off it’s hinges. And then I realized what had happened and spent a few minutes calling out things like “Are you KIDDING ME?!?” to the Universe.

I managed to get the door sort of stuck back on (aka wedged into place) and first thing this morning went to find the maintenance guy and talk to the landlord (who gave me a stern talking to about waiting until the last minute to report things) (apparently the light switch not working was sign one that something was about to go awry with my refrigerator door.

The good news is that the maintenance guy (who I adore because he is super funny) managed to fix the door. And then he reinforced both it and the door to my freezer. And replaced the bulb inside my refrigerator (with one of the energy saving kind so now the inside of my refrigerator looks kind of like a red light district). And then thanked me for not actually calling the maintenance line last night when the door first came off. All is as it should be now… except I’m kind of afraid to touch my refrigerator.

Because really. You WOULDN’T like me when I’m angry.

My ex-roommate’s room is still stinky.

I feel like I have to keep calling it my ex-roommate’s room until I get that…SMELL…out of there. I am hoping that cleaning the carpet will get the job done becuase if it isn’t… well I already feel like it is moving time anyway but this is planting my feet more securely in the “go right now!” column.

Speaking of columns and moving and stuff… Internet, I do not know what to do.

Now that this apartment is, technically–in spite of the smell, all mine and only mine and did I mention all mine? the urge to flee it has waned considerably. Part of me wants to just stay here for a while. Put some work into the place and actually make it my own instead of what it has felt like for the last lots of months: a place to store my stuff and sleep while I figure out my next move (literally. Darn it, I was hoping to avoid the pun). I have lived in what feels like a constant state of transition since…well, if we’re being honest, at least the last year. It is wearing on my soul a little bit. I just want to be done. I just want to be settled.

And I already live here. And here has lots of space. Space is nice right?

But it isn’t downtown. And oh man, I want to live downtown. Every time I go into downtown Portland it gets harder to leave. I just love walking around it. My favorite neighborhood is still the Southwest Business district, with its taller buildings and wide sidewalks and the South Park Blocks and the Art Museum and the Central Library and Pioneer Square and many MANY food carts (and farmer’s market and Saturday market when those are in season).  I want to live there and never ever leave.

Which brings me to my next dilemma.

Studios are available all over the place down there. I toured one last week (I think I wrote about that). One bedrooms are harder to come by. Obviously I would prefer to have a one bedroom, just becuase well… it’s extra space. It would let me separate, however slightly, my working area from my sleeping area. It wouldn’t make me feel like I had regressed all the way back to living in a dorm room… I do not like the idea of being able to see all of my stuff all of the time (the idea makes me a tiny bit claustrophobic), etc.

At the same time… studios are available NOW. And if I get a studio I can rid myself of 99% of the furniture I currently have which, if we are being honest, I really don’t want to have to move. Part of me loves the idea of finding a small studio, selling almost everything I have now (exceptions: clothes, books, movies/DVDs, computers, some kitchen appliances…what? I REALLY like my bread maker) and starting all over almost from scratch. Building a home exactly the way I want to build it with no “ghosts” of dwellings past. The idea of making a fresh-ish start is really appealing.

But then, you know–space issues, claustrophobia–no space for having people over, if that is something I want to do, etc.

I…can you have a tri pointed metronome? between these three options: staying here, staying here and holding out for a one bedroom which could take a WHILE, scrapping it all and doing the studio thing downtown so many times every single day. I am starting to drive myself crazy…er than I already am.

I realize that I don’t have to decide right now, I can take my time, but I am so tired of living in a state of transition. It is wearing on my soul. I just want to be done. And decided. And done with it.

Thoughs? Advice? Insight? Please?

So the rule this month is that I blog before I do my paying work so… really I’m doing that. I know it’s 5ish PM but… yeah. It’s a Wednesday. Wednesdays have a way of getting away from me.

Today I went to look at an apartment downtown. It is the first of what will probably be many viewings–not of this one apartment, that would be crazy–but of different apartments downtown. The apartment I looked at today is a studio. I’m not really super in love with the idea of moving into a studio but if I can find a good one that is affordable I’d rather live in a nice and affordable studio downtown than in this big two bedroom apartment in the suburbs. Yeah. I said it. Anyway. The apartment.

The studio apartment. I knew it was a studio going in but the studio I looked at did NOT match the floor plan available on the website, which was strike one. It is, however, in a complex that is just…… it will be like living in a hotel. They have conceirge service, package receiving, a couple of pools, a sauna, a well equipped workout room, etc. The website says that there is extra storage available which I would so so so need because… I know that closet space isn’t exactly vast in a studio but the ONE closet in the apartment is about half the size of the closet in my bedroom right now…which would be fine if it had the tall rack thing all the way across but half of it is shelved up which….. might be nice if that matched my current closet needs but… it doesn’t.

There IS a really neat yarn shop about a two minute walk away from the building and the owner of the shop is really nice. I will absolutely be going back there. This is the biggest plus so far for this apartment.

The biggest downside–and I know I’m being a baby–is that it is literally backed right up to where my ex-husband currently works. That is just…too close for comfort, at least right now. Maybe after a little more time goes by it could be okay but for right now the idea of potentially running into him every single time I leave my apartment is…stressful. Yes. I know. I’m being a baby about it.

The good news is that I do not have to decide in exactly this minute. The apartment I looked at today is actually already reserved for someone, that person just hasn’t moved in yet. The EARLIEST I’d be able to move in to this building, if I decide to go for this kind of space is the middle of June. That means I get to keep looking.

And looking I will do. Craigslist here I come!

I figure that if I look at EVERYTHING, I’ll find SOMETHING.

That’s sound logic……right?