Yellow rectangular warehouse.

Yellow rectangular warehouse.

Yesterday, Erik, the father-in-law, and I went to the National Geographic Warehouse Sale in progress this weekend at the San Diego Convention Center.

If you live even remotely close to San Diego, GO. It ends today. Giant lovely books were $2-10. TWO DOLLARS. We got things like the Best Portraits ($10) and History of Religion ($Can't remember). Also picked up the new hardback World Atlas, for $60. I'm not kidding. This thing sells for $135. It's brand new! In plastic! Free fleece blanket! The thing might go to other cities next, but I don't care. GO. It's a little competitive feeling, since everything is in boxes and piled up and what have you, but how can you be competitive with sweet old geography-wizz ladies and men wearing those little photography field vests with the zippers for film, etc? Honestly, I didn't see any of those vests, but it wouldn't have surprised me if I did. There were in fact selling them, of course.

Details from the San Diego Reader:

National Geographic's Warehouse Sale runs November 25-27 at San Diego Convention Center (111 West Harbor Drive). On offer: globes, watches, books, maps, more. Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. 619-525-5000. (Downtown)

I totally wasn't paid to write this. But if anyone wants to buy me the little Lomo multi-shutter-release camera they have for sale there, my blogging will not be in vain.

Moved. Ish.

Moved. Ish.

I'd say we're all moved in, but the "all" part would be a rotten lie. We aren't going to get a fridge or washer and dryer delivered until the kitchen floor has been ripped up and replaced. We won't be unpacking anything in the kitchen until we paint the cabinets and try to un80s them. And the closets currently have giant holes in the ceiling with only a thin mesh wire cover protecting our clothes from the beasts and dust in the attic, so our clothes are just going to stay put in suitcases or the condo for the time being.

And also, we can't use our shower until the end of the week. This has proved to be wonderful. This morning, I took a bath. I AM NEVER GOING BACK TO SHOWERING. I promise you, I'm going to be a morning bath-taker from now on. I'm all soft and steamed and lavendery and what have you, and it took less time than a shower. Well, less time than one of my showers, that is. I also feel like of vintage legit about it.

I girl scout promise, we're never ever moving again. And not just because moving hurts. The house is so lovely in the mornings and the late afternoons. Light suits it very well and the living room is perfect for sunny naps. In fact, just thinking about our living room makes me feel a lazy spell coming on. That sounds bad, but I'm a little high strung and frantic sometimes, and I have a hard time doing the guiltless lazy thing. This will be good for my stomach. See also: morning baths.

Julia: spastic-colon-free since moving to Texas street.

When we find the camera charger, I'll take some pictures and give you all a little tour. (Of the house, not my spastic colon.) (Although, with the marvels of modern medical science, it can be done.) (For the love of god, stop this post now.)

Karen's toilet.

Karen's toilet.

I have a very dear old friend, Karen K, who, in addition to being gorgeous, caring, and hilarious, is also brilliant and wrote this poem in high school (roughly paraphrased; not even Karen remembers the actual wording):

As I feel the cold porcelain beneath the thin crinkly white paper
I wonder,
Is it wrong to pray on the toilet?

I have thought about that poem almost every single time I've used a paper seat cover on a public toilet since high school. Sorry, Karen, to think of you that way, but your thoughts are genius and I can't help it.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall: I hate you.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall: I hate you.

I know, this may sound like yet another rambling depressive pity-me event about my body/skin/whatever, but it's not! It's a house post! Lucky you guys.

Anyway, this last weekend has been all house, all the time for us. Ridiculously so. My reasons for wanting so badly to hurry up and move have changed due to this. Now, instead of just wanting the sweet life of living in a sweet house, I just would much rather be able to crawl into bed after painting until my arms ache, or at the very least, not have to pack three different outfits every morning. We even took over a TV tray and some folding chairs because we were sick of eating El Zarape potato rolled tacos (heaven!) on the floor.

I digress. We spent all.weekend.there, and if our bathroom hadn't been taped up and currently mid tile restoration and therefore out of commission (more on this another day), I might have dragged over an air mattress and some shampoo.

We also had Our First Totally Our Fault Damage, complete with Our First Taking Responsibility And Fixing It On Our Own Like Grown Ups event. I present to you: the office mirror. Yes, a mirror. In the office. And one of those giant bathroomy ones. Yes, you can't even see the edges of the mirror because it's THAT HUGE.



So, I quickly unscrewed the little claspy mount things (this is totally how I would write my user manuals if they would make it through the review process), and nothing happened. I tucked my fingers behind the sides and tugged a little. Still nothing. The fucker was glued to the wall. We made a trip to Ace Hillcrest Hardware, as un-Home-Despot as they come, and picked up some respirator masks, protective gloves, and a putty knife that I could wedge behind there and do a little poking. Still nothing. I heard a few cracks and grumblings, but it wasn't really doing the trick. I started hammering the putty knife further down there, but that was lame. Finally, I took the back end of the hammer and used the simple scientific concept of leverage to pry the mirror off the wall. Some loud banging and cracking noises ensued (manifestations of which will be identified below), and suddenly I was using every ounce of my being to hold up the heavy mirror currently descending upon me. We didn't really have time to survey the damage, because at this point, I had dragged Erik into the picture to help lift out and carry the massive 500 lb mirror (not really). It's currently outside, and I'm waiting for mother nature to break it for me so I can throw it away guilt-free.

Unless you want to buy it! I give you good deal. It comes complete with 5 priceless pieces of our house!





Good thing we wore those respirators.

Another trip to the hardware store later (luckily, it's close, and the salesguys are adorably indie rock hardware storeish, my new favorite genre), and I was quickly versing myself in the fine art of plaster application. The room is now patched up:



...and has been primed and painted in a tasty creamy latte color, of course. Late last night, mid-first coat, I turned to Erik and announced my current hankering for a latte. That room is going to be the death of me. Please look at the pictures above to note the colors that were previously in that room. It was either leady mustardy yellow, barbie-flesh beige, or Apartment White. Not delicious. I'll take another picture later to show you the finished product this weekend, ALONG WITH ALL OF OUR FURNITURE. (Including the bookshelves that will likely be in front of the lame plaster patch job we just did.) Because we're finally moving. This weekend. Hot damn.

I was immensely proud of myself, and found each step of the destruction and repair process to be completely charming. I also understand that this will soon pass, and house problems will quickly stop being quaint and fun (which also means I'm not likely to blog about a step-by-step plaster patch-up any more, thank all that is holy). But I will blog about the spiderous crawlspace if I ever decide to tackle that, but I'm trying not to even entertain that thought yet.

Good times. Dusty, but good.

Overdue.

Overdue.

I wish I could have posted earlier this week, but my mind wouldn't stop spinning enough to string a sentence together.

For the first time, I honestly can't post about what's really getting to me because I'd get in serious trouble. But things just aren't right when your boss has to close her blinds so everyone passing by won't see you crying. But it's too late, because enough people have already gone by. And you also can't really tell what decade you're in. Why would someone treat someone like this? I love and hate my job at the same time. I hate that it does this sort of thing to me, but I know that I would not be able to handle any of it were I surrounded by people any less genuine, authentic, and amazing as my favorite coworkers. So I guess I'll stick around?

And you're also on a no-boys-allowed message board and somebody specifically pages you, by name, only to tell you to Fuck Off in words and in gestures.

I'm telling you, I'm this close to swearing off women altogether. There are enough gems out there to keep me grounded, but dude. Wait. Let's take a moment to sufficiently honor those gems, those amazing women in my life right now, because I definitely just "but dude"ed their sentence. I don't know what I would do without you, my lovelies. Okay, the non-gems: maybe it's the internet, or maybe it's just a few bad eggs, but I can't fathom how mean people are capable of being.

I don't know what my world has come to. But I'll tell you something; I've been so raw all week, and have felt things I never knew I could feel. It has indeed been cathartic and catharsis we know is good. Bad things happen to good people for good reasons blah blah blah. But right now I'm sitting in my favorite fair-trade coffee shop with free wireless (I would pay them to have the following tagline, "Cafe Korova: the wireless is free but the trade is not.") and there's an all-woman girl-power art show going on, and the whole package is just what I needed. A panacea. Right here on Park Boulevard.

If life weren't difficult at times, we wouldn't notice when things were amazing. Moments of goodness and peace and empowerment would slide by like a million speeding raindrops chasing each other across the passenger window.

I know I end 50% of my posts like this, but dude, I'm so fucking sappy.

Spirit.

Spirit.

Yesterday, I was telling my coworker Jade about a situation currently underway at church that's making me fairly sad. It involves praise music, so we'll just leave it at that.

In setting up the story, I had to specify that I was actually not playing guitar on the offending Sunday; I was taking a nap in the car during most of the service because of my overconsumption of sugary lemon martinis at the Halloween party the night before. Jade stopped me at the hangover part to point out how much better the story had just become.

Clearly, I'm the best damn senior warden a church has ever had.