This is NOT my cat.

This is SUPPOSED to be my neighbor’s cat.  She (or neutered he?) is an indoor/outdoor cat.

About three weeks ago my neighbor moved out.  I guess that when it came time to gather up this cat he forgot to make sure that all of the doors and windows to his apartment were closed because when he tried to put her into her carrier she clawed over his shoulder and went straight through the (open) sliding glass door, over the side of the balcony and hid in the crawl space under our building.  I discovered this when I saw him wandering back and forth in our courtyard calling “kitty! kitty!” and making kissy noises. I’m a sucker for a lost pet so I gave him some of the kitty treats that always bring Poppy running from whatever hiding space she’s crawled into in our apartment and offered to help get her out.  I’m something of a pet whisperer, at least with cats and little critters, but my neighbor said no.

Ten minutes later he knocked on our door to tell me that he had to give up for the day because he had somewhere to be but that he’d be back the next day.  I asked if he wanted to leave his phone number so that, if she (neutered he?) came out I could call him so he could come pick her up.  He said no thanks and left.

I haven’t seen him since.

Two weeks ago Will was out on our balcony when he heard a cat crying.  He looked down and saw the neighbor’s cat looking back up at him.  She (let’s just go with she) looked scared but she cried to him anyway, so he dropped down some of our cat food for her to eat and then left me to deal with things because he had to go to work. I spent the next three hours crouched down in the grass next to our balcony trying to coax her out.  This poor cat was absolutely terrified.  She was shaking really badly and crying at me and I honestly couldn’t tell if it was one of those “get awaaayyyy” cries or more of a “I don’t know you so I’m scared but I’m hungry and need some attention” cries. I tried to keep my distance but would creep closer every once in a while as she got used to me.

Side note:  We also have quite a few of these guys that hang out in that space:

The whole time I was out there, I was fighting the urge to get down on all fours to try to reach under the crawl space because look at all the ducks!  Think of all of the duck poo that I was probably crouched in right at that moment!  My brain was fighting overwhelming spasms of “don’t touch the grass! Duck poo! Don’t touch the grass! Duck poo!” I ended up doing a lot of squatty walking–if that makes any sense at all.  Anyway! Side note over!

After a REALLY long time the cat came out to let me pet her and to eat some more food and drink some water.  And this is where I failed.  After petting her for a few minutesI got all brave and “in charge” and I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and tried to put her into our cat carrier. I wanted to be able to hand her off to our landlord so that she could call the neighbor to come pick the cat up and take her home. I felt bad but I really wanted the situation to not be my problem anymore.  The cat and I had quite a wrestling match for a few minutes but eventually she got free and went sprinting back under the balcony and refused to come out.  I was really irritated, both at my neighbor for leaving the cat behind in the first place (who DOES THAT?) and at me for not being able to really capture her.  Later Will told me “it’s okay, you’re just not mean enough to do stuff like that” which…thanks? I guess?  I gave up and called the landlord to tell her that the cat was still around and to ask her to pass my number along to my neighbor so that he could call me himself and get an update and to maybe make arrangements to come back out to get his cat.

Fast forward early this week.  I haven’t heard a single word from my neighbor–no phone call, nothing (he might be mad at me for accidentally “outing” his cat ownership to our landlord who had no idea that he was with pet. Oops).  I’m opening our windows and I see the cat out in the tall grass by the creek looking quite a bit like she is about to try to get one of the ducks.  I’m not about to let her go after any of the ducks (I’ve known most of them since they were duckling babies! Most of them recognize my voice and will come running when I call to them!  This is not actually a good thing but, um, it is still kind of neat) so I go out to the balcony and call for her and drop some food on the ground in front of our balcony.  She comes running but won’t come up onto the balcony because she is still really skittish.  I repeat this same scenario for a few days and then! On Wednesday! I opened our blinds and guess who is nosing around on our balcony!  She ran away when she saw me but it didn’t take long for me to coax her back up onto our balcony with a dish of food.  After only a few minutes (during which she inhaled that whole bowl of food, poor thing) she was crying to be pet and rubbing her face all over me.

Apparently the need for food and affection won out over the fear and it turns out?  This cat is really sweet. Of course my own cat, the famous Poppy, wants nothing to do with her.  And was so ticked off at me for petting this other cat that she wouldn’t come near me until I took a shower to wash off the other cat smell (and then put on fresh, non cat petty, clothes).

Now the cat cries at our balcony door when she’s hungry or needs attention.  She’s made a bed out of our grill cover (that we keep forgetting to put back on our grill and leave lying on balcony floor).  She is trying to make friends with Poppy (through the door of course).  Poppy is not interested.

People.  I am not adopting this cat.  I know that I’m a softie and yes, if I had my way, I would adopt ALL of the animals that need a good home but I cannot adopt this cat.  We don’t have the money for a second pet deposit.  We aren’t sure if she’s litter box trained (probably not the best selling point I know but there you go).  Our current cat is not interested in sharing her people.  I also don’t want her to get used to being loved on and petted on our balcony because there is no way to guarantee that whoever lives here after us will be as nice to her.

So.  Do you want a cat?  Do you live close enough to come pick her up?  She really is very sweet once she gets over her skittishness.  She is also quite the talker.  And look how cute she is! Please?  Every kitty needs a person.

This morning I was just stumbling out of bed and toward the kitchen when I heard “ALL A’S BITCHES!” roared from my living room.

Will’s grades came out today and he got a 4.0 for this term!  Every day I’m given another reason to be proud of that guy.  I didn’t even laugh much as he trotted through our apartment, pumping his fists and chanting “ALL A’S BITCHES!” over and over again. Honestly, it was a pretty good way to start our morning.

Another good way to start the morning is with blog work.  I’ve given myself an hour or so to work on this site, get caught up with e-mails and twitter messages and just generally keep up momentum.  I discovered yesterday that there is a big quote from my w00tstock post on the w00tstock site (I knew the link was there but didn’t know about the pulled quote) so that has me super jazzed.  Thanks Powers-That-Be at the w00tstock site!

Now let’s get on with the post!

If you were playing around on Twitter at all last night (and let’s face it, you probably were) you probably saw the #booksthatchangedmyworld trending topic.  I watched it for a while and noticed, at least with the people I follow, that the books fell into one of two categories.  There were the traditional “smart” books–stuff by Hemmingway, Steinbeck. Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, people we all studied in lit classes.   There were also the “lemme prove my geek/hipster cred” listings: Douglas Adams, Orson Scott Card, Chuck Palahniuk and Hunter S Thompson were all well represented.

I’m not saying that any of these people were being poseurs.  It is likely that all of these books and authors really did change the readers’ worlds in some way.  I remember reading Ender’s Game for the first time and being blown away by it.  I remember what it was like to fall in love with Shakespeare and the language of Austen and Dickens.  I remember appreciating Virginia Woolf (oh! There is a doggie daycare chain here in PDX called Virginia Woof and every time I see one of their locations I launch into a diatribe about how totally and completely horrible and inappropriate the name is.  Seriously: do these people not know Virginia Woolf’s story? Gah! Oh look–I’m doing it again).  So all of these claims are more than likely totally legitimate.  After all, Twitter is a diverse universe.

At the same time I kept thinking “what about all of the regular stuff?”  So I listed a few of the books that changed my world: On Writing, Bright Lights Big Ass, We Thought You’d Be Prettier and The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.

I know that Jen Lancaster and Laurie Notaro are, by most, considered to be “light and fluffy” but you know what?  They were the first real humor-for-humor’s sake books I read.  Sure I’ve skimmed some Dave Barry in my time but until I read We Thought You’d Be Prettier by Laurie Notaro I had no idea that publishers would publish funny essays as they were.  Until then, I’d thought that all books–even funny memoirs–had to follow a theme or tell a story.  We Thought You’d Be Prettier blew my mind because it is exactly the kind of book I’d like to put together myself someday but hadn’t known was possible.  Bright Lights Big Ass gets a nod because it never fails to make me laugh.  I’d never had a book that I could pick up, open to any page and find something to laugh or smile about before.  I’ve now read that book so many times it is very nearly falling apart.

The other two books I listed, Stephen King’s On Writing and The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Edwards (you might know her as Julie Andrews) got listed simply because they changed the way I think about things.

On Writing is the only Stephen King book that I have read all the way through.  I learned more about writing and being a writer from this book than I learned in all of my schooling put together.  I read that book for the first time in 2004 and I still get twitchy when I use an adverb (which means I twitch a lot–those adverbs can be very handy).

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles changed the way I look at things–it taught me how to literally see the forest for the trees (or whatever the cliche is).  The book is all about learning how to look deeper at things, to examine them and see them for what they actually are.  It taught me about paying attention to even the little things that seem unimportant.  And it’s a super good story.

Today I took a look at the topic on twitter and saw that more kids’ books are making the cut.  I saw some Bernstein Bears, some Lois Lowry and a couple of Baby-Sitter’s Club mentions. Have I mentioned my love of the Baby-Sitter’s Club here before?  I have? Okay good.  Because those books helped me grow up and but for the limit of 140 characters and not wanting to spam the thread, I would have listed them last night too.

So what about you:  What are the books that really changed your world?  And why?

FTC Annoying Stuff:  NONE of those links are affiliate links.  I linked them because they are sites and products that I whole heartedly endorse.  Nobody paid me for any of that stuff.

Other note: This would be longer but I used up all of my scheduled “blogging for fun” time. Now I have to get to work!

So.  This weekend happened.

Let’s just break it down:

On Friday my Mom got here at noon to do a belated birthday celebration for me (for those just joining us, the big 3-2 was Wednesday).  Of course none of us is very much a “bash”y kind of person so we went out to dinner and then came home and watched Sherlock Holmes on Blu-Ray.  This might not sound like very much but it kind of was because I finally found the perfect thing to order at Black Bear Diner.  The perfect thing, in case you are wondering, is the hamburger basket.  The burger is smaller than their average burger which makes it exactly the right size for me.  I ate all of it and still had room for fries, which made me really happy because that is something that does not happen very often.  I am glad to have found something that I can order and eat all of.  My daily world, it is exciting!  I also discovered that both my Mom and I have a thing for Robert Downey Jr. which is….actually? a tiny bit icky.  Apparently I am not adult enough to accept this sort of thing because this skeeves me out just as much as it did when I was younger and she’d proclaim one of the dudes in my teen magazines “a babe.”  Part of me seriously wants to still say “Mom! Stick with the Fonz! Or John Travolta (pre-creepy Scientologist-ness)!  Instead I just did my best to bypass the whole moment like it did not happen.  Maturity.  I haz it.

Saturday was the day I sat in a small ballroom at the downtown Embassy Suites and watched one of my oldest friends get married.  This girl and I have known each other since we were fourteen years old.  It’s been a long ride since then–we lost touch for a while, we’ve both grown up, we’ve both had our struggles–and seeing her all dressed up and so happy was, oh gosh.  It gives my heart happy flutters just thinking about it. This is the girl who “caught” the bouquet at my wedding (okay I might have shoved it right into her hands and forced her to take it because I knew she was engaged) last September. When Will and I got there (very early), she actually forced me to take my bouquet back with “It did its job! Take it! Take it! Thank you but please take it! It’s yours! It worked!”  The wedding itself was lovely.  It was simple and elegant and just… my friend all over.  It was also a great way for Will to meet a couple of the extended “in laws” (aka the parents of some of my best friends who were also there).   I think he was a little bit shocked at just how friendly and excited they all were to meet him.   All in all, the wedding was wonderful.  I’m still a little choked up over it.  My friend just looked so so happy and I’m so ecstatic for her.  And *sniffle* *tear* yay!   I was also happy to learn that the next one of us (my core group of friends) to get married was the one who caught the bouquet.  Will and I had to leave before everything was over because he had to go to a grad party for his best college friend in the evening so I missed the actual toss but I heard about it on Twitter and grinned from ear to ear.

Sunday was The! Big! Day!  Graduation Day!  Oh. Gosh.  I know how overwhelmed I am by the whole thing so I can’t even imagine how Will felt.  Mom and I scored awesome seats–close enough to be able to see Will clearly and take some pretty good pictures of him and his friend S (they sat next to each other).  Here’s a (slightly) zoomed in picture from where we were sitting:

Isn’t he handsome?? Swoon!

The ceremony itself was pretty okay.  The graduation speaker used her time to give a pupitty political speech that was not particularly uplifting or inspiring but one of the student speakers talked about rocking out in his cap and gown to Lady Gaga so it all evened out.  I’ve never been to a big University graduation before so I was not prepared for just how quickly all of the names were called.  The school I went to (which, for the record, I did not graduate from) was super tiny so it actually had all of its graduates walk across the stage when they got their degrees.  With Will’s gradution the rapid fire calling of the names just amazed me.   But! He did it! He graduated! Yay!  And I only nearly burst into tears once.  What? I’m very proud of him! He worked so hard to get to that moment and hearing his name called out took a little bit of my breath away.

Here’s my handsome and freshly graduated husband after the ceremony:

After graduation we went out to dinner with my Mom and Will’s sister and her husband (and a couple of other friends who decided to meet us).   I had a Turkey burger which was very tasty.  And then we came home and pretty much just passed out.

I’d like to say that next weekend will be lazy but it looks like we’re going to another wedding–we got Facebook invited to Will’s stepsister’s wedding on Saturday (they are not even a tiny bit close and he does not particularly care for the groom so don’t get offended by the Facebook invite, it is kind of appropriate) so it looks like we’ll be going to that and then on Sunday I’m getting together with a couple of friends for a few hours of girl time and downtown Portland exploration. That means that the weekend won’t be lazy but it still should be pretty okay.

My Mom will be getting here in a little over 12 hours.

On Saturday one of my super good friends is getting married.

On Sunday my husband officially graduates from college.

It is highly unlikely that I will have the time or brain power to blog or e-mail over the next few days but know that I’ve gotten everyone’s comments and messages and I’ll be responding to everyone as soon as I can

Also?

How cool is it that my Mom gets to come up for the belated birthday/Will’s graudation extravaganza?

How cool is it that my friend is getting married! Eeee! So exciting!

How absolutely amazing is it that my husband is graduating with his undergrad degree?  Can I just say again how super proud of him I am?  He has worked so so hard for this.

Catch you all on the flip side!  Have a great weekend!

(I have a feeling there will, however, be much twittering)

I’m 32 today.  Weird.  It feels like just yesterday I was 31.  (Har har har)

Since it’s my birthday I’m allowing myself to do two things today:  blog BEFORE I try to get any work done (woo!) and write down a list of 32 things about me that you might not know.  Or maybe you do.  But here are thirty two random things about me that you might (or might not) know already.

1.  Last night I decided that Michael Westin is totally one of my five.

2.  I harbor a not so very much secret dream of someday being a rock star.

3.  Barring that I will settle for playing the role of Annie someday when my retirement home does its own production of that musical.

4.  The last time I rocked out on rock band in my living room I pretended I was rock banding it up at PAX.  (Do they even do that there?)

5. I almost never remember to clean my glasses.

6.  My current favorite video game to play (besides rock band when nobody else is home) is Wii’s We Cheer.

7.  I don’t care what the cover looks like, that game is fracking HARD.

8.  It doesn’t matter how pristine the rest of my apartment is, if my kitchen isn’t spotless I feel twitchy.

9.  I’m pretty sure that means that I am well on my way to becoming my mother.

10.  This does not irritate me as much as it once did (don’t get me wrong, it is still kind of freaky but I’m not as…horrified by the notion as I would have been a decade ago).

11.  Whenever Will touches my face I get all melty even if the touch is just because I have somehow left part of my lunch there.

12.  If anybody else tried to touch my face I would probably bite them.

13.  I have serious personal space issues.  If I don’t know you please stand outside of arm swinging distance.

14.  Interestingly, I have absolutely zero problems with crowds.

15. My favorite number is 16.  I’ve never really been sure why but I just realized that I am now twice as much as my favorite number.

16.  That is about the extent of my math skills.

17.  Dragonflies creep me out.

18. Lemon is probably one of my very favorite smells.  That’s why all of my cleaning stuff is lemon scented.  Except the vinegar.  That is vinegar scented.

19.  Every time I toss something into a pan while I am cooking I say “BAM!”

20.  Even though I haven’t touched a piano in fifteen years or so (holy crap that just blew my mind) and I only knew how to play a few things when I did play, one of my major financial goals is to be able to afford to buy my own piano.

21.  My other major financial goal is to be able to buy the good, locally raised, hormone free, free range meat when we go grocery shopping (without feeling guilty about the super cheap stuff that, if you season it enough, still tastes fine).

22.  There was a time in my life when if I had $5 to my name I’d spend it on a movie ticket.  Even if it meant that I wouldn’t have enough money to buy food until payday.

23.  I almost miss being a coffee slinger.  I have a ton of coffee knowledge in my brain and nothing to use it on!

24.  I’m starting to think that it is physically impossible for me to only type one space after a period.

25.  My one true talent is being able to remember every single movie I have ever seen (I don’t always remember what they are called but I’ll remember the plot lines, the actors and all the rest of it).

26.  I am extraordinarily good at the “six degrees of separation” game with actors.

27.  I have every original series Baby-Sitters Club book ever released and when things get stressful I have been known to pull out a book or two and read through them because they are comforting.

28.  I only learned how to properly blow dry my hair six months ago.

29.  I can count on one hand the number of times I have put on makeup (outside of performing during my high school drama days and makeup class in college).

30.  My very favorite character in all of television history is Toby Ziegler.

31.  I have a sickness for buying stuff made by bloggers.  I have an entire shelf that is filled with books published by bloggers.  When I have spare cash I like to see if a blogger has a store and buy stuff from it.

32.  This list was harder than I thought it would be!

I had two very awesome sentences in this spot just now.  I loved them very much and spent over an hour staring at them and trying to figure out how I could take them and turn them into the beginning of a blog post.  Then I sent them to my friend Wendy (she of the BFF fame) who responded “those might make the beginning of an incredible book!”

And so it goes:  another one jumps on the “you should write a book!” bandwagon.

I have dreams of writing a book someday.  Someday.  But not now.  The type of book I would write would be but a drop in an already filled to capacity with wannabes bucket and likely get lost amongst everybody else who reads Jen Lancaster and Laurie Notaro and thinks “I want to write one of those!” I know this about my type of book and my type of market but it doesn’t stop the dreaming.  It certainly doesn’t stop people from telling me “you should write a book!”

What “helps” this along is the fact that two of my friends are now published authors and a third has been working on her staggering work of incredible genius for, oh, about a decade.  Each time someone I know makes a stride in the literary world, someone else turns to me and says “your turn…but you know, no pressure.”  Nope.  No pressure at all.  [Here is where I'd need a Sheldon Cooper-esque sarcasm sign]

But oh those sentences.  They really were awesome.

I wish you could have read them.

What about you?  Any unrequited dreams people keep telling you to pursue that you keep saying “eh…maybe someday.”?

So.  Remember when I said this post was going to be up “soon”? Apparently I have caught my husband’s “I know I said 20 minutes six hours ago but I’m in the middle of a raid and I will be off soon dammit!” definition of “soon”.

For those of you not keeping track of this via twitter or through my offline whining, this is roughly the seven kwabillionth version of this post. I have started it over and over and over again because I keep thinking about things I want to add, things that I want to take out, the tone I want to hit and stuff that I really want to say but probably shouldn’t say because it would probably make me sound creepy and weird (as opposed to mostly lovable and weird which I much prefer).

As it turns out, waiting almost a month to post this is probably the best thing that could have happened to it, even for those of us who are patience impaired (Hi, my name is Erin and I’m a right-now-aholic). Why? Well a couple of reasons:

1. I had a lot of time to really think about what I want to say; both about the idea of W00tstock itself and the actual experience of going to the show. Many weeks of rumination have helped, I hope, elevate this from cheesy fan-geek-girl flipping out over the awesomeness of it all.

2.  By now so many different videos of the show itself have hit the internets that I don’t really need to do a break downy review thingy of it. But for those of you keeping score at home:  the whole show was awesome. Everybody was incredibly nice after the show when they were signing autographs into the wee hours after the show ran super long (but totally worth it). Also? There is nothing quite like the high that comes from making someone you totally admire laugh.

So on to the important stuff. Shall we? We shall? Okay.

I have to say that I was a little apprehensive about going to W00tstock. Yes I bought my tickets practically the minute they went on sale. Yes I was counting down until getting to go see it. I may have even, at one point, made fun of myself for having my own “Rex Manning Day.” At the same time, I was a little wary and unsure of what to expect.

Until W00tstock most of my experience dealing with different types of geeks en masse was had at the game store Will (husband Will, not The Wheaton. The name is PURE COINCIDENCE. I swear!)  used to work at before we moved to Portland and listening to the gamers he played WoW with online. And those guys?  Were giant douche knockers of fucktard proportions. Seriously. Intellectually I understand that not every geek is going to be like those guys. Obviously. I’d even go so far as to posit that those guys aren’t really gamers or geeks so much as they are giant asshats. Still, I was a little worried that I’d end up standing in line and sitting next to people who would get all competitive with me about who was a bigger fan or geek. I was a little worried that I’d be met with the same snort of derision that I’ve often dealt with in other areas.

I, um, kind of have a hard time fitting in…oh, everywhere.

See, I’m a little bit of many things and I’m too much of others but I’m not ever just enough of any one thing to ever be truly accepted by that thing’s “group.” On the one hand this has been awesome. I have an incredibly diverse group of friends that I love to death. At the same time, I have a group of friends so diverse that it pretty much guarantees that there is always at least someone rolling their eyes at me and saying “I just don’t get why you [care so much/don't care as much/value this/don't value that],”  followed by a big gusty sigh. So when it came to W00tstock I was 80% excited and 20% “uh-oh, what am I getting myself into?”

I was afraid that I wouldn’t be smart enough to understand all of it.

I was afraid that I’d spend most of the evening (aka the All of It Except Wil Wheaton parts because his was the only name I knew and he’s the reason I bought the tickets) sitting on the outside of some inside joke.

I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to relate to a lot of things.

And then we got there.

For what is possibly the first time in my entire life, I was surrounded by people who GET IT. They understand blogging. They got my cultural references. They tweet. We joked about being “I play a bunch of 3 letter words on Words with Friends because I don’t care about strategy, I just want to make words” players. We lamented people who throw sheep at each other and ask for help growing their livestock on Facebook. We compared our various levels of geek for different things. I could use the word “Dooce” in a sentence with someone I had never met before and it wasn’t followed by “Whuh….? Is that an internet thing?”  I told people that I write content for websites and didn’t have to explain that it is too a real job. Will talked with people who appreciated his “Gamer” shirt and compared gaming stories. I admitted to one person that I know jack crap about science and was told “but you blog! That’s so cool!”

There were fans and geeks of every stripe there and it was just fun. Nobody was trying to “out-geek” anybody else. Nobody was trying to explain how their form of geekiness was better than someone else’s because of x, y, z. Instead of “really? You don’t like that?” it was “Have you ever tried [this]? I didn’t like that either but then I [insert suggestion here] and was amazed that I liked it after all!”

For the first time since we’ve met, my husband and I had the exact same level of fun at something we chose to do together.

In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base. I was in a space with a few hundred other people who just…understand. It didn’t matter what particular brand of geekiness you subscribe to or if, like me, you don’t really subscribe to any particular subset. We were there to have fun. We were there to learn about cool stuff and hear awesome songs and listen to awesome stories and be introduced to new cool people to follow on Twitter and online. We were there to get our respective geek on. We were there to take part in the kind of thing we had always wanted to take part in but hadn’t because we’d had a bunch of people telling us that it wasn’t cool/serious/arty/enough. It was amazing. That is why I tweeted this:

I tweeted this!

And imagine my reaction when I got home and discovered this:

I GOT RETWEETED

In retrospect it’s probably good that I did not learn about this until I got home. Otherwise I would have fallen all over myself in the autograph line even more than I did. If you’ve been reading me or known me since, oh, 2004, you know what a huge blogger-fan-geek I am for Wil Wheaton. And? It has exactly nothing to do with Star Trek, Stand By Me or Toy Soldiers. But that? Is another story for another time. Because? I’ve already taken three weeks to write this much of my story. If I go into the rest of it, we’ll be here another three weeks. And none of us has that kind of time.

So, to sum things up,  if you’ve been to one of the W00tstock shows already: how much fun was that?!?

If you haven’t been to a W00tstock but there is one coming to your area?  Get tickets now.  It is so totally worth it. Chicago and Minneapolis? I’m looking right at you!

Oh right, I have a blog!

Okay so that’s kind of a lie.  I never forgot that I have this blog.  Instead it has sat here mocking me for weeks as I have tried to find the time and energy to sit down and write about everything that I want to write about.  Like W00tstock.  Like Finales-a-go-go.  Like how I’m staring down the barrel of the month ending and having to pay my rent and trying to get enough work together to do that.

By the way? I LOVE it when clients change their payment schedules without telling me.  Love.  Big fluffy LOVE.

So that’s where I am.  Mired in work.  Gazing at all of the more fun things I’d like to be doing.  And hoping that you all will still be here when I get a free minute or two to really work on what I want to work on.

This has been a complainy post.

But, on a brighter note: Have I mentioned that I was quoted in The New York Times??  (I’m going to ride that train until I crash it)

ME!

I am still working on my W00tstock post.  I think that after this much time and this much self-hyping of it I have built up expectation (in myself especially) so much so that nothing I write is really going to live up to it.  Pretty soon I’m just going to hit publish on it and let that be that.  But!  I keep thinking of things I want to add! And take out! Because I do not want that post to be a zillion years long.  It’s a balancing act folks.  It really is.  But still, pretty soon I’m just going to have to hit publish and let it go.

I woke up at 4 in the morning yesterday and could not get back to sleep.  Last night I took some Benadryl for allergy sinus stuff which usually guarantees me about eight hours of sleep.  We went to sleep after midnight.  I was up at 6:30 so that I could come into town with Will and pay for parking (which is a really long story).  I have a wicked Benadryl hangover.  And I am kind of eyeballing the Sudafed in my backpack because I’m tired of dripping sinuses. But somehow I am thinking that taking Sudafed while still nursing a Benadryl hangover after only getting ten hours of sleep over two days might not be the best idea.  Forget operating heavy machinery, I’d probably lose the ability to walk upright!

Signs of Abbott are everywhere lately.  This will not make any sense at all to you if you have just started reading me.  If you’ve known me for a while, though you will understand why this is a big deal.  The most recent one happened just a few minutes ago when the song we played at his wake came over the speakers at Starbucks.  I am very proud (and a little surprised) that I did not have a colossal freak out in the middle of the coffee shop.  I just sat here and kept breathing until it was over.  After six and a half years the song doesn’t pack the same gut punch that it once did which is comforting but it still makes me wonder what the universe is trying to tell me.

In addition to working on my W00tstock post I need to get to work on my Blog Share post because it is due today.  I kind of like having all of this personal blogging work to do.  It is kind of like what my daydream life would be like: all personal blogging and writing projects all the time.

Oh, and: welcome people who found me because of a certain Twitter reply from last night!