At 9am tomorrow morning I will be sitting in an office in Renton, starting my new job with The Mosaic Company as an educational consultant.  Up until this very moment I haven't really been thinking about it much, except when people asked me questions.  Apparently that is changing, and now I am starting to get kind of nervous with all the standard questions one has about a new job.  Will I be skilled enough to do it successfully?  Will I like it?  Are my coworkers going to be cool?  How will I feel about working again?  Can I do this?  Was this the right choice?

Nervous nervous nervous.

I know it's really just a case of the "wedding day jitters" equivalent for jobs, but still, what a crazy way to wake up and start my day.  I can already feel a neurotic compulsion to start cleaning the house from top to bottom and organize stuff.  Except...well....I got the house clean and organized and there isn't much left to do on that front.  What do I do with this nervous energy?  Aside from folding laundry and a visit to the Farmers Market I don't have much in the way of plans today.  Looks like it's going to be a day of reading and trying to stay calm and relaxed.  Maybe I'll go clothes shopping since I'm short on summer tops for work. 

Can't believe it's less than 24 hours to the start of my job. 

I start my new job in a little over a week.  Hard to believe it's the 11th of July already when it was just the 4th.  I guess between my eye injury and Matt's harried European trip for work time has just flown by.  I've been watching a lot of Netflix movies, and reading voraciously.  Recently in a period of two days I watched: The Last Mimsy, Murderball, Enchanted (well, tried to), National Treasure 2, Running With Scissors, Maxed Out, and a whole lotta Simpsons episodes.  Last night I finally watched Vertigo and will be sending that back today, and a few days ago I watched 27 Dresses.  On top of the movies I've torn through Stephenie Meyer's books Twilight and New Moon.  I can hardly believe I missed these books as they came out over the past few years, but I'm glad I didn't start reading them until a month before the final and fourth book in the series is due to be released.  I've pre-ordered it on Amazon and book 3 should be arriving in a day or two as well so that I can smoke through that one, too.  They're releasing a movie for Twilight in December, but now that I've read the books and really formed pictures in my head of the characters I am afraid I may not be able to go see it.  We shall see.

What else is up?  I am working my way through the house trying to get it really, really organized before I start working, running errands and making phone calls.  Leya and I continue to spend Wednesdays together, and Rosalie has returned to New Jersey for a month or so before heading to Austin to start grad school.  I can't believe it's already so close to being time for her to start school.  Her MS diagnosis was a tough journey for all of us, and for her especially, and she has carried herself through the process so well, considering it all.  I miss her and will be glad to see her return to Seattle for the summer next year with luck, in between semesters.  Leya is seeking employment and keeping herself busy.  I am amazed at how much she has grown and changed since we first met last year.  Time sure flies by!

That's about it for me.  I still am not thinking of my new job much.  Really, what good will that do since it's coming anyway and there's not really any kind of preparation I can do for it.  Feeling a little apprehensive, but mostly excited at this point, and wondering how much travel I will actually have to do for it.  Will I be in Seattle for a long while, or off traveling within a week?  At least I know I have vacations planned in September and October to look forward to with Matt.  It's been a while since I've taken a vacation with him.

Also, I still have the music from Avenue Q in my head at least once a day.  Good thing I know the words to most of the songs now.  :)

What are all of you up to these days?  It's been quiet here in the blogosphere since many of you started twittering.....

Whew!  It was a whirlwind weekend here at Chez Mew, and in true Kristen format I still managed to get a few naps in.  Heh.  Friday night Matt was exhausted after work, so Rosalie and I left him home to rejuvinate while we headed down to Alki with some friends to drink and watch the sun go down.  After many hours of laughter, running amok, and tasty beverages we were ready to head back home.  I have not ever spent time on Alki before, even though I've lived in Seattle for 17 years.  It really is a lovely place, especially over in the grassy area at the end where we were some of the few people populating it.  The sandy areas were crammed full of people, so we avoided those like the plague.

Saturday was Rosalie's last full day in town while Matt was around, so we got up and had a family outing to Bainbridge Island.  We enjoyed a delightful voyage on the ferry and up on arrival we headed immediately out to the Bainbridge Vineyards and Winery for wine tasting.  Oh man, do they make a good wine over there, and they are the only winery in Western WA that grows their own grapes!  We tasted everything for $3 apiece, and then bought a case of whites to drink on the hot sunny days that seem to permeate our summer months here these days.  Yum!  Afterwards we went for some lunch at a place that had amazing food, but the crappiest service I've seen in a long, long, LONG time.  Not only did I tip them nothing, I actually went so far as to write "worst service ever" on the receipt of my credit card statement.  I highly recommend you avoid the Winslow Way Cafe if you're out in that area, unless you have almost two hours to sit around and wait for food to arrive. 

After the Bainbridge ferrry back home, I took a nap and then met up with Leya to go to the Wildrose.  We hung out there, drank beer and ate burgers, and then went to the dyke march for a while, where I ran into my ex, Maxx, who I haven't seen in quite some time.  It's always fun to see people who were a large part of your life so long ago, and it looks like she is doing really well, which makes me happy.  After marching for a bit, Leya, Amy, Dasha and I decided to go to my house and drink and play Apples to Apples, which was great fun.  After that I went to sleep and they headed to the Madison Pub.  Later, Matt and Rosalie picked up Leya from the pub and brought her back home to me.  Mmmm..!

Sunday morning Matt left to fly to Texas and I was in a house with two VERY HUNGOVER women so R stayed home for the day, and Leya and I headed to the Pride parade downtown.  After watching -most- of the parade, we caught the monorail over to Seattle Center, ran into a few exes of ours, and enjoyed the Pride Festival for a bit.  I have to say, Pride seemed so much more meaningful to me back in the early 90's when we still didn't have discrimination protection on as many levels as we do now, and it felt so much more commercial this year than it did when I used to go.  I wonder if I am just old, old and jaded, or just jaded?

Anyway, after a quick bus ride home, Rosalie, Leya and I headed over to the zoo to see Indigo Girls with our friends Rebecca and Paul.  We ate splendid food from Whole Foods, got hot and sweaty and sang while it was a whomping 80 degrees and sunny, with a light breeze.  There were no issues falling asleep when we returned home, even with the condo at a sweltering 85 degrees.  I think I could have fallen asleep in an oven by that point.

Today was a trip to the eyeglasses store because Rosalie can't seem to locate her glasses, and then we went to the zoo again.  This time to see the animals instead of hot lesbians.  After nearly 4 hours of traipsing about the zoo we all felt like wilted lettuce and have just returned home.  The original plan was to have tasty cheesy chicken soup, but a bagful of ice and some chilled salad sounds more appealing to be honest.  We'll see.

Hope you are all finding spectacular ways to stay cool in this heat.  I admit I'm a native, and when it gets above 75 I start melting.  Whew!

It's hard to believe that summer solstice has arrived again.  Time flies by, even when you're unemployed, and this year has been no exception.  Here in Seattle we aren't afraid to embrace the celebration of the longest daylight day of the year, whether the sun is shining high in the sky or it's pouring down rain.  Not only do we have a whole fair to celebrate it, but we also have a gigantic parade too. 

Most of you have probably attended the Fremont Solstice Parade at one time or another.  Many of you were there yesterday.  I enjoyed the tweets and dodgeballs from everyone saying they were down there celebrating the (not quite out) sun by watching the parade.  Matt and I watched from our usual location, the statue of Lenin.  Turns out this year (and maybe last year, which I didn't attend) they made the statue of Lenin area into the "Center of the Universe Stage," which was quite annoying on a number of levels.  First of all, the naked bicyclists, whom I love and adore and enjoy every year, came flying by about 5 minutes before noon.  Their antics, costumes, and the pole dancing kitty were hilarious.  I was so excited.  By the time the parade actually arrived (nearly a half hour later) we were feeling restless, but excited.  So when the first thing that happened when the parade got there was a guy on stilts announcing the parade and then telling us what each group was by asking them, and slowing the parade down a lot, I was frustrated.  Some of what he had to say was interesting, like the fact that the parade was 20 years old this year.  Much of what he had to say was filler, annoying, and distracted me from being able to just enjoy the parade.  By the time the flying spaghetti monster (accompanied by my friend Jami in pirate array) passed by I was already thinking about how I could ditch the parade and go get food or something.  I was really saddened and disheartened by how commercial it felt instead of it being the hippy, free-flowing parade I remember from past years.  Did anyone else have these feelings at the parade?

After the parade was finished (yes, we stuck it out), we attempted to get food, but as you might well guess the lines were outrageous.  Since Matt has free parking under Adobe as an employee we figured we would just go on Sunday and shop, when it might be less crowded.  So we left.  Our voyages took us to the Philly Fevre cheesesteak place in Madison Valley, and then home for napping.  When we woke up we got dressed and walked down to the Paramount to see if we could score tickets to Avenue Q for the evening.  Lucky for us, the show hadn't sold out.

Avenue Q, if you've not heard about it, is a Broadway musical performed with some puppets and some humans as characters.  It is very much a Sesame Street meets Rent and South Park kind of production, but it has a heart of gold and addresses a lot of sensitive social issues that don't get discussed much in public.  The music, which I've just ordered on Amazon, is amazing.  Matt and I were both very sad to hear that none of the shows here in Seattle sold out.  Considering its poignant topics, and the l-can't-stop-laughing humor, I was surprised to hear it.  Granted, tickets aren't cheap, but they never are for Broadway shows, and many of those still sell out.  I hope next time it comes around that all the shows sell out.  It's a brilliant play, with wit and humor and seriousness, and love and sex and puppets.  Hard to go wrong with that combination.  Also, the temptation to buy one of the show shirts that says "yes, they're real" was high, but I resisted. 

If you've got the spare money, and the free time, there are two more showings of Avenue Q today--at 1pm and 6:30pm I think.  Go!  It's worth the money, and you'll be so glad you did.  After all, where else can you hear a song called "The Internet is for Porn" sung by monsters?

Well, the wait is finally over.  After a little over 6 months of hunting, withdrawing applications, interviews, happy days, sad days, and in-between days, I have been made an offer that meets all my criteria for a job I want.  The idea of having a job, in the field I want to be in, where travel is a given part of it, and I get to work with various clients and stretch and learn, is still a little overwhelming.  I think I am more scared and shocked than excited as of yet, but I am sure that will wear off and I will be all hopped up to start by the time I am actually working again.  Here are all the details you are probably wondering about:

Who: Me!  Oh wait, you probably want to know what company.  I'll be working for The Mosaic Company (www.themosaiccompany.com), a small educational consulting firm based out of Renton.  They've been around since 1996 and now have about 60 employees working for them across the country.

What:  A JOB!  A full-time job.  It's my first exempt position, so now I feel like a real adult.  My official title?  Consultant.  Hey, that's already my title now while I'm doing contract work, so that won't be a big change for me!

When: My official start date isn't until July 21st, so I've got a few weeks to wrap up my current contract, really get the house cleaned and under control, and spend some quality time with family and friends.  I'm actually kind of glad they don't need me quite yet.

Where:  Initially in Renton while I go through orientation.  After that there is up to 100% travel possible, depending on what project they need people on.  I could be in Seattle, or fly off to Ohio, California, Alaska, or anywhere else they need me.  They tell me if I'm out of town for travel I fly out Sundays and come back Thursday nights, so that means I still get my weekends here either way.

So that's the story in a nutshell.  I negotiated for a salary that makes me decently happy, and between the benefits and the people I've met over there so far I think it will be a good fit for me.  I am looking forward to having a little more structure to my days again, and finding meaning in my daily life outside of the condo for a change of pace.  The time off has been a nice vacation, but stressful (as unemployment often is) and I am looking forward to using my new skills and stretching my abilities finally.

I suppose this calls for a party.  Maybe we will have a little open house celebration in mid-July for those of you who want to raise a glass with me to say farewell to my days of slothing around the house.  Details to come soon.  Thanks to all of you for the support you've given me over these past many months.  It was needed, and appreciated.  I still say I have the best set of friends a woman could ask for!

Well, we are multiple weeks into our "eating local" experiment, so now is a good time to update y'all on our progress.  The first week went really well, and ever since then we've been struggling with some of our choices.  We have been eating out more, and the food at the house is not getting consumed at the rate it should be.  Still, we are eating the foods at home much more than before, and I have eaten some things for the first time this year in my entire life (varieties of lettuces, cabbage tops, young garlic, etc.)

Here's what I've discovered so far:

• tomatoes are a big hit at our house.  One week I spent nearly $18 on tomatoes and all but two tiny ones were eating within that week.  With the big scare around the mainstream grocery tomatoes I don't feel so bad giving a lot of money to people who aren't likely to kill me with their produce.
• things in bags in drawers don't get eaten unless I look at them frequently enough to remember what's in them.  Need to do that more often.
• Grass-fed meat is tasty.  And expensive.  I have bought a whole lotta dried red beans and will attempt to cook with them this week to see if I can find some cheaper alternatives in using local beans as a protein.
• Brown and white rice are important staples in our household.  As is pasta and pasta sauce.  I can't wait for it to be tomato season so that I can spend some time canning pasta sauce using fresh tomatoes.
• There is always plenty to eat at the house.  It's really a matter of me pulling it together.  Salads are a viable meal option, especially if beans or cheese is in the salad.
• Buying local produce and meat can be a little spendier, but my food tastes more like....well....food.  Plus I get to see my favorite farm people every week.

I hit the Farmers Market in the U District yesterday and was impressed with the wide, wide variety of items available there that we didn't have at the Broadway Market.  Included in the list are: strawberries, multicolored kale, local flour and breakfast cereal mixes, and...uh...did I mention strawberries?  Oh man, I didn't buy any yesterday and today I am so sad because there weren't any at my market.  Plus the U District market is on Saturday which interferes less with Matt's schedule for going to the Buddhist Temple on Sundays. 

I am very much enjoying the pleasures of learning how to cook new items (like garlic tops) and how to combine all the stuff I have into something tasty, handy, and nutritious.  Please do keep asking how it's going.  I think I'd like to stick with more local food all summer, and then reevaluate in the fall to see if we can do a modified version for fall and winter.

Well, Matt and I are in day 6 of our eating local food experiment.  There have been a few stumbling blocks but on the whole I'd say so far I'm pretty pleased with what's been going on in our food life.  Monday I ended up eating out with a friend and her (allergic to more things than not, it seems) son, so we went for Thai food.  I figured my food restrictions could be softened for a little one who has a heck of a time eating safely.  Yesterday morning, also, I ended up at Glo's with a friend for breakfast and indulged in some toast, a few slices of bacon, and a Sprite.  Barring those two exceptions I have eaten only things that were in my house.  Here are some examples of things I've done:

• boiled up some tiny purple potatoes, then dressed them in a vinaigrette and put them in the fridge for snacking, salads, etc
• slow cooked asparagus on the stove for nearly an hour at low heat until it was tender and sweet
• made my first omelette in years for Matt with spinach, tomato, and local cheese
• ate organic fair-trade chocolate from Theo
• drank the last of my vodka by making a white Russian with our local milk.  mmmm!

Meals don't actually take much longer to prepare from scratch.  Less than an hour, usually.  I've done really well with prepping foods in advance, like chopping green onions and radishes so that I don't have to do it later.  There is still a ton of food in the fridge and I will need to buy less this week to keep us going.  Though Rosalie comes tomorrow, so I'll need to have a little more on hand for her.

We are making an exception for Folklife, of course.  It's a special treat to think about eating lumpia and huli huli chicken tomorrow.  After that, though, I'll be back onto local foods.  I am definitely enjoying my food better, and for whatever reason I don't feel like I'm eating the same thing day after day, which is nice.  Am looking forward to my visit to the farmers market on Sunday, where I can replenish what's been consumed, and buy more meat, which I am craving desperately.  We have used almost exactly a dozen eggs, so the dozen extra I have should hold us over for most of this upcoming week.  I might buy an extra dozen just in case.  Especially since I won't make it to market next Sunday, when I'll be in San Diego for a conference.

Just found a source for local flour and hope to find a local source for oats as well in the near future.

So Matt and I are going to attempt to only eat things grown and produced in the state of Washington for the next many months. I am hoping to attain three goals with this effort:

• Increase the amount of delicious, fresh items that show up on our table when it's time to eat. Right now when the hunger hits it usually results in something from a can, a box, or the freezer appearing and then spending a few minutes in the microwave prior to consumption

• Reduce the carbon footprint of our eating.  Along with reducing the amount of fuel used to get these foods to use, we benefit from foods picked more recently, lending us more of their healthy vitaminy goodness.  A good deal all around.

• Lose weight.  I know I need to get up and go to the gym, but eating less fast food and fewer processed items will allow me to have more control over what kinds of foods go into my body, and in what quantities.

There are a number of exceptions we will have to make that we've run across so far: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, spices, and rice.  We will do our best to buy these in ways that are the most beneficial to our world, but they just don't grow around here, and they are mainstays to our eating lives.

Today I hit the Farmers Market on Broadway for our foodstuffs for the week, knowing I can supplement from Pike Place and Whole Foods for some items as needs arise.  Here's what I bought today: two dozen medium organic eggs (from Olympia), a pound of fingerling potatoes, about 2.5 pounds of heirloom tomatoes, two grass-fed frozen beef patties, a big slice of cheese, radishes (normal and the pretty French kind), spinach, some other kind of salad green I'd never heard of with angular leaf edges, baby bok choy, baby garlic stems, green onions, asparagus, and a bunch of flowers. 

I discovered, in an effort not to throw out anything I could eat from the items I bought, that radish greens are spicy and make a tasty addition to salad.  Also, baby bok choy if torn small enough, is a nice addition to a salad since it is still firm but tender.  I am excited to see what I can make with these ingredients.....spinach and cheese omelettes, stir-fry bok choy with garlic and tomato, etc.  Matt is still not eating meat, which means finding enough protein for him will probably entail me buying a fridge full of Beecher's cheese and such, but if he picks up the habit of eating meat again I can find grass-fed beef and pork at the Farmers Market, as well as organic chicken, but the chicken is really only exciting to me since it makes Matt be dead if he eats it.

I don't really know what to expect from this experiment.  It may be that within a week we discover it is just too difficult to do with all the easy temptations around us, or we may discover that food grown locally, organically, and eaten the day it was harvested (or very near to it) spoils us for the cardboard-flavored stuff we pay so much for at the grocery store.  I am going to try and track it some here on my blog for my own purposes, but I welcome suggestions or ideas from any of you who have undertaken this journey before, or who have considered it or know others who have done it.

I am already excited by the three large bags of food I brought home today after spending 1/3 of what I normally spend at QFC for less stuff.  I hope it works out well and becomes a permanent part of our lives.

What an amazing day. Woke up at 5 am unable to sleep and spent some time in the living room watching a movie and petting cats. It was 75 degrees in our living room by 5:30am, which is pretty warm for this time of year. After another 15 minutes or so I felt drowsy and returned to sleep until nearly 9am. A leisurely morning of email, chat, and job searching was dealt to me as I lolled around in bed with my Mac while Matt watched tv and poked around on his laptop in the living room.

Around 11:30 we headed over to the U District for the Farmer's Market and Street Fair. We ate some food, did a little wandering, got filmed for a documentary about panhandling, and purchased some soap and a sale pair of Birkenstocks for me. It was hot, and we were sweaty and covered in sunscreen, and after all that walking Matt stopped to get an iced Mocha at Tully's where we were blessed to find a little respite from the blazing rays of the sun. After returning home from the Fair we spent most of the afternoon playing Rock Band, and I think somewhere in there I retired to chat on the phone with a friend for a while.

The evening found us out at our friend Anne's in Monroe where a feast whipped up by Anne and Tina was laid out. After some drinks, some amazing food, and a bonfire, we all gave our best wishes to some newly married friends (in whose honor the feast had been created) and toasted them with champagne. The cake was also super tasty.

Around 10 we headed home and Matt crashed out, but here it is nearly 2:45 in the morning and it's clear that the soda I had with dinner is not letting me find sleep. So I went out with a friend for drinks since she and I were both online chatting and figured we might as well just hang out in person since she was just a stone's throw away from the condo.

Now I'm home, watching Dante climb on all the furniture he's not supposed to be on (coffee table, dining room table, etc) and wondering how to get some sleep when I still feel fully awake. It's too warm for a bath, and I'm not sure if watching multiple episodes of the Simpsons will help me calm down, but it's worked before. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

Anyway, it was a full, pleasant day, and I was able to visit with many friends old and new. I feel at peace with the world for a moment, and I am enjoying the cool breeze coming through the sliding glass doors, the sound of the cat grooming his paws, and the pleasant feeling of calm.

Tomorrow, Capitol Hill Farmer's Market, and maybe the Cheese Festival!

If you're on my friends list, I want to know 36 things about you. Please respond with answers and post the questions to your journal as well. I will happily send you my 36 answers if it shows up on your blog.

1) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
A.

2) What was your dream growing up?
A.

3) What talent do you wish you had?
A.

4) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
A.

5) Favorite vegetable?
A.

6) What was the last book you read?
A.

7) What zodiac sign are you?
A.

8) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
A.

9) Worst Habit?
A.

10) If you saw me walking down the street, would you offer me a ride?
A.

11) What is your favorite sport?
A.

12) Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?
A.

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
A.

14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
A.

15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
A.

16) Do you have any pets?
A.

17) What if i showed up at your house unexpectedly?
A.

18) What was your first impression of me?
A.

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
A.

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
A.

21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
A.

22) What color eyes do you have?
A.

23) Ever been arrested?
A.

24) Bottle or can soda?
A.

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
A.

27) What's your favorite place to hang at?
A.

28) Do you believe in ghosts?
A.

29) Favourite thing to do in your spare time?
A.

30) Do you swear a lot?
A.

31) Biggest pet peeve?
A.

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
A.

33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
A.

35) Do you believe in God?
A.

36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

I realized I haven't posted in about three weeks, which is a long time to go without posting for me. Some quick catching-up:

-no, I still don't have a job. Yes, interviews and phone screens and such are happening. I withdrew my application for a training job at Walmart after I realized I just couldn't work for them, even if they paid me a lot of money.

-yes, Leya and I are still broken up. I miss her a lot, and we are working on finding a comfortable way for us to be good close friends without all the unhappy stuff brought by being in a romantic relationship.

-Matt went to Yemen to visit Rosalie and came back bearing gifts and neat stuff. We are both excited about Rosalie's return to the USA. It will be nice to know she's less apt to be blown up by a bomber or something here in the States, and plus she'll be here to visit and much closer to fly and visit when she's in Texas!

Beyond that things are moving at the pace of someone who is unemployed. Time has slowed down and I have a hard time keeping track of what day of the week it is sometimes. This week I visited the Master Gardeners plant sale on Saturday and acquired a number of new herb plants, as well as tomatoes and two small Japanese Maples. I am uncertain about whether the maples will take the heat of the sun that our deck gives, but I'm willing to give it a shot. They really are so pretty most of the year and hold a special place in my heart, bringing me tremendous peace with I see them. The tomatoes and the basil can't go outside for a few weeks, but I pulled all the dead plants out of their pots and loosened the dirt in the pots so that things will be ready when it's time to plant things. The strawberries are already starting to flower, and the fennel has some lovely fronds for my next cooking foray.

House-wise, there is a constant flood of stuff to pick up. I don't know how we manage to make our house so disastrous on a daily basis, but my appreciation for people with kids goes up every time I pick up all the stuff laying around. How do people do it? The back bedroom project is coming along as well, with multiple boxes of stuff being ready to take to Goodwill for donation, and as space frees up I start to see how this bedroom will serve us when it's all pulled together like we plan.

I am heading off to Nashville for a few days this week to visit my friend Shana and get a break from Seattle and the condo. I'm hoping to take off in June to go to Critical Massive for a few days as well. Guess I ought to hunt around for some people to camp with if I want to do that. Anybody else going?

It's spring, and today's weather is just gorgeous. It felt so good to have the sun on my face while I pulled things and prepared my patio garden for the new season. I know I am ready for the growing and change that comes with the spring.

Ah, those were the days. Back when people dressed up, and boys wore makeup. I remember the way the black and white checkerboard floor looked in the lights while dancing to this song on acid.

It has a very strange, clearly 80's style, video, but the beat is still good. I have the song on vinyl, but not on mp3. Anybody happen to have a copy of it on mp3?

This evening my friend Rebecca and I met up at Thaiku in Ballard for a little dinner and dessert and then carpooled over to Hale's to see the evening variety show for the Moisture Festival. Tonight's entertainers included some strange German clowns in matching utilikilts, a man with funny hats, Ela of Lelavision playing what looked like a huge slide guitar but sounded like a sitar, two amazing aerialist performers, and some singers. Also, a guy who used to be in the Karamazov Brothers did spinning (as in fire spinning) with some crazy glowy light sticks in the dark. Nice! Overall there were only a few moments where I wondered if the act would ever end, and I couldn't believe the stuff the aerialists were doing on those swings. Yowza! Hot stuff, funny stuff, and some crowd sing-a-long stuff.

I still miss the Fringe Fest, but I'm glad Moisture Festival came along to fill the void until Seattle's art scene is strong enough again to maybe consider adding the Fringe Fest back into the mix. If you haven't gone to see any of the shows this year there's still another week left. I highly recommend it. Seriously, where else in Seattle can you see a performing Flea Circus, aerialists, sing political songs, and watch a guy make dodecahedrons out of bubbles? Not many other places. Get out and buy your tickets now!

surfing around YouTube looking at adorable kitten videos as they fall asleep to improve your mood. I highly recommend it if you're feeling down.

It all started in 1991. I moved to Seattle to enroll in the University of Washington and became friends with a guy named Brian Stone. Best friends, in fact. We were both pretty geeky and we spent a fair amount of time online "talking" with people and playing computer games. At least once a week we had that age-old argument....Mac vs. PC. He argued for the great strides Macs had over the PC and I argued about how I couldn't buy games and software that I used for the Mac. It was a limited platform, keeping me from doing stuff I wanted to do, and on top of that they cost...oh...a heck of a lot more. I was baffled by his undying Macintosh devotion. He was flabbergasted by my "stick to my guns" attitude towards PCs.

Somewhere mid-summer 2000 I acquired some additional new friends. These friends, one of them eventually my husband, were also Mac proponents. At least one of them worked for Microsoft on Mac programming. Background chatter about Macs followed me throughout my life, and the sight of that white apple symbol started to become more common. I resisted. After all, Macs still didn't offer me the stuff I needed. I can't run Adobe Captivate on it, I couldn't run Word or Excel on it. Regardless of how good the Mac version of those files were, they were incompatible for me with the world of business and academics I lived in.

Then, a few years ago, the cornerstone of my argument crumbled when Apple announced it was partnering with Intel to create Macs that had the ability to dual boot into both the Mac OS AND Windows. My resistance to Macs decreased, but didn't completely crumble in the face of this announcement. Still, rumors of various friends of mine switching over to Mac from their PCs started surfacing, and over the past year or so I have consistently heard nothing but raving from people who made the plunge after 15 or 20, even 25 years of using PCs.

So two days ago I joined the throngs of people switching over to the Mac world. I am now the owner of a shiny white MacBook. Barring the fact that I don't yet have Office for the Mac (a friend is getting it from the company store this week hopefully), it seems to have most of the stuff I would need for a computer. The interface poses some amount of frustration when, say, I want to switch between various windows I have open in Safari, but overall the transition has been easier than I expected it to be. I have a long history of causing Matt's Macs to crash just by looking at them, so the fact that this machine has been running more then 24 hours without a death requiem is a pretty good sign.

My old laptop is in the shop under warranty to fix a small power-related issue, and then it goes to Leya for future use. It has been a good friend for the past three years while I wandered the long path of grad school, and now it will go into the hands of someone who will love and appreciate it as much as I did, I think.

So, Mac users out there, are there special tips you want to give me on using this thing? Special quirks you love about the Mac that I might not pick up on in my time playing around with it or from Matt?

A friend sent me a Muppets St. Patrick's Day link that made me laugh, and this link was next to it. If you're feeling a little blue, you could watch and sing a long.

Color me a foolish ignoramus when it comes to my knowledge of history, both local and worldwide.  Today, after nearly 15 years of waiting, I sat down and watched the movie Gandhi.  In this time of my life I was struck by how relevant something that happened more than 60 years ago is to me, on two levels.  On one level, this movie gave me a stunning history of how India and Pakistan were created as their own countries, and the forces required to keep religion and culture in check to create peace.  The relevance of the unrest in Pakistan, and the issues rising up in the past many years in the middle east have been given more color, more background for me.  I feel like I understand just a tiny, tiny bit more than I did three hours ago.

The second level that this movie touched me on was that of the spiritual level.  Gandhi was not a man who struck out to be a leader.  He saw what was wrong and felt that it was a great evil to sit by and let it happen.  Courage, conviction, and the belief that love and peace can overcome anger and violence were clearly a foundation for his life.  Like water wearing away stone, his life was a journey of movement that touched the hearts of many.  In this day and age I realize there are very few convictions or beliefs that I would be willing to die for.  Something in this film touched a nerve in me, a desire to find the calling and purpose that brought me here to do what I do.  I know that I am a teacher, and always will be.  I wonder, then, what I am to teach that will bring forth this calling.  What foundations am I building so that I too can serve against injustice?

I know that injustice can be found everywhere, and that I can expect to be no more than another set of helping hands in the fight against all that makes the tyranny of this world so disheartening.  Still, to hear words and see actions, to know that the actions of one can inspire an entire nation to find its own feet and stand again on its own.  Well, that is powerful stuff.

So if you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend you carve out three hours of your life and sit to watch it.  I learned a lot, and I heard a tiny voice inside of me, calling me to come and take my place in the path of bringing light and love into the world, reminding me that I, too, am a child of God and am compelled to work towards bringing peace here, and now.

As some of you know I am currently unemployed, and today I flipped on the People's Court and heard a plaintiff refer to the defendant as a "hair and makeup friend."  Apparently he uses this term to refer to friends with whom you only discuss fluffy things, like hair and makeup, or the weather, and they differ from "soup to nuts" friends, with whom you share more intimate and important discussions.

I am amused by this term, and wondered if anyone else has ever hear this used before.  Maybe I'll start sorting people into H&M and S2N friends.....lol.  

Winter is always a rough time of year for me.  Between the lack of sunlight, the rain and grey weather, and more indoor activities like reading and tv-watching, I don't get very excited about life.  This year has been especially bad, though it's partially been my own fault for not using my light box like I should have.

It has been a very bad winter.  I hit rock bottom a few weeks ago when I realized I was unemployed, overweight, estranged from both of my life partners, and in debt up to my eyeballs.  It didn't help that we hadn't seen the sun in weeks, either.  I thought about cutting myself.  I thought about killing myself.  The logic was all there--eliminate debt for Matt because of my life insurance money, eliminate costs of the household by not eating or buying stuff, my student loans would go away, my gf would cry less when I spend nights with Matt, and Matt would not have to feel guilty for paying so much attention to his sweetie, Rosalie.  So far we are all in the plusses on this.  The only drawbacks anyone could give me were that people would miss me.  Pshaw...everyone knows they wouldn't miss me THAT much, I thought.  They'd get over it.

This past weekend I went to SF with Leya for a four-day getaway.  While there I saw the sun, I felt the heat of it on my skin.  I laughed.  I forgot about not having a job, and the 50 or more rejection letters in my email inbox for ones I've applied for unsuccessfully.  I ate crepes.  I ate Japanese food.  I had Korean hotpot.  I saw old friends, visited with Leya's mom and her friend, explored scientific experiments at the Exploratorium, and had some great alone time with Leya. 

All of a sudden, I didn't feel so despondent.  I remembered what it felt like to be strong and not to need everyone else's approval for my life.  I recalled that I am a human being worthy of love and a fulfilling job, and a house that isn't messy all the time.  I am in control of my weight, my health, my house, and my ability to get less depressed.  I can reconnect with my partners.  I can travel.  I can get out of debt.  So, slowly, I am wobbling and trying to stand on my own two feet again.  It's about freaking time.  I look back at my behavior over the past month and wonder what kind of a crazy madwoman has been possessing me.  It's like I was possessed, seriously. 

Some serious changes need to happen in my life to get me back to happyland, but I am already better able to be in the moment, enjoy what I have, and let go of some of the stuff around the house and my life that has been plaguing me mentally for weeks.  It feels so good to find ME again.  Welcome back home, love.