buoy

huge thrilling news: a lesson in nonchalance

i'm sorry for my silence over the past few days.  

some things have come up which required immediate attention, which then resulted in my total distraction from...  pretty much everything in my life.

i can't even begin to describe how totally thrilled i've been since the boy and i made our final decision late sunday evening...

we're moving to tucson.

back to tucson!

sunday evening we decided at the very last possible minute not to renew our (over-priced and getting more expensive) lease, and less than 12 hours later we "signed" a new one for the most perfect little 3-bedroom adobe in barrio viejo.  

(by "little" i mean more than 3 times the size of our current apartment, for about half the price.)

my parents, thrilled beyond words, immediately offered to loan us enough money to buy a cargo van so that we could drive our belongings back across the country without dealing with shippers.  (and so that we could make a road trip of it...  the boy and i have actually never done a road trip together...)

my mother has been calling me on a fairly consistent basis since then to shriek into the phone when i answer, and then ask me ten to 12 times if i'm still serious.

in a month, i will be going home.

have you ever been so happy you cried?  really cried?  not just said it - "i'm so happy i could cry," but really did it...

i suggest you try it.  

find something that makes you that happy.

i don't really know what else to say right now.  my brain is already in tucson, and i still have three more days at bumble + bumble before i really can even start focusing on pulling everything together that needs to be done before a person can move across the country...  (tuesday is my last day at the job!!)

but i'm happy.  

so happy.

i have never felt so certain that everything in my life was falling into their perfect places before.  

tucson!!

i'm coming home!

sun city

i learned today that fresh sunburn + macbook on bare legs < fun.

(is it natural for plastic to get that hot?  or skin to get that pink?)

gettin' ready to leave my apartment for the first 

time since...  ok, last night:

i'm wearing the cutest, most faded vintage keds (they were black once, but now they're navy blue-grey,) with tan laces, which i found at a thrift store in tucson.  

they make my feet smell funny, and i get a little upset thinking about it, because my feet have never smelled funny before, (ok, once, in vegas,  in november 2002.  but see?  it's such a rare occurrence that i remember not only the location, but the month and year as well.), so i know this funny smell is a gift from the previous wear-er.

ew.

it gives me the same skeevy feeling as my stimulus check.

wanna see pictures from the boat trip i took with sarah today?

    

after above mentioned boat trip sarah had to go "do something," so i had an ice cream cone by myself, and then walked over to B&H to oogle the nikon's, but they were closing.

sigh.

it was still a good day.

(one more thing: who thought recording scarlett johansson was a good idea?  it kinda makes me want to go buy that paris hilton album that came out a year or so ago, because at least no one tried to take it seriously...  just sayin.)

 

things i have been avoiding...

putting pictures in my posts.

i think this probably makes for a very boring read.

i'm sorry.  

i will attend to this immediately.  

and now, a little bit about my apartment.

when i was in college (back in t-town az...) i lived in an apartment i fondly dubbed my "turtle shell."

it had an enormous kitchen, living room and bedroom, a small "office" with a closet, two decent size closets in the kitchen and bedroom, and two (yes, two) bathrooms.  

it had saltillo tiles throughout, level floors, windows in every room, shelves set into it's thick adobe walls, lots of counter space, and beautiful antique trim on everything, (which happened to be painted the most perfect turquoise color.)  (this looked especially pretty against the golden browns of the tile.)

i had enough space in my bedroom to set my bed at an angle and still fit my bookshelves that my father built me, two antique night stands, and a very long vintage dresser.  

i forgot to mention the little nook in this bedroom, which perfectly fit my wicker lounging chair with all the pillows, where i could curl up under the window and read. 

i paid $450 for this apartment, and that included all utilities.  

i was six blocks from downtown.  

sometimes when i can't sleep at night, i lie in the dark and cry for this apartment.

now i live in a fourth-floor walk up across the street from the maujer projects in what the boyfriend and i have not-so-fondly dubbed the "shipwreck."

we pay three times what i did in tucson.  we have 400 square feet.  this does not include utilities.

sometimes mike and i play a game where we sit on the living room - i mean futon - and try to figure out which direction our building is falling in.  this is not an easy game, as it appears that our building seems to be falling in many directions at once, which gives the appearance of the apartment being "bumpy" rather than "tilted."  

i no longer drink at home, as after one drink the combination of the alcohol and the angles of the windows and the doors create an overwhelming sensation of motion sickness, and i vomit.

out lease is up at the end of june, and for a couple days mike and i forgot that we lived in reality, and discussed the idea of moving into a bigger, cheaper, more luxurious and level apartment somewhere near by.

"somewhere near by" turned into "bushwick," and "cheaper" turned into "many hundreds of dollars more."

after a few days of this, we remembered that bushwick is terrifying and we're broke.  

so we decided that for now, we will cling to our shipwreck.  

we will rent a life boat from avis, drive out of the city, we will spend a weekend at antique stores and ikea, we will return with cheaply made "organizational systems for small living spaces."  

we will read "domino" and "ready made" and "blueprint," holding the sacred issues above our heads to keep them dry as our little apartment continues to sink and sink and sink.  we will over-analyze our limited options and try hanging curtains, artwork, blinds, at different matching angles with our window sills and doors, we will try to create the impression that the space is larger, strangely usable, uniquely perfected, and most of all, level, even though we already know there's only so much an optical illusion can do, and we will continue to try to figure out exactly why the universe brought us here.

is it me, or is it everyone else?

(correction: in my last post i wrote "i don't drive on your roads" in my love note to the current government.  what i meant to say was, "at this moment in time, i do not yet have an astrovan, and so i currently do not take advantage of your public roadways.")

over the course of today i have collected three distinct and separate examples of interesting conversations that have graced my waking hours.  i'm not exactly sure how to file these in my mental inbox...

case I:

(my boss walks in to work.  for any of you who don't actually read this blog, but just return to the site to enjoy my exhilarating layout, i have had two foot surgeries since february.  this means my shoe choices are extremely limited, in that "attractive" shoes are rarely produced in a width that accommodates my swollen monsters.  today i was wearing what i thought were my "cute" option.)

boss:  "oh...  honey...  did they make you special orthopedic shoes now?  you poor thing.  i'm so sorry..."

key word: "thought." 

case II:

(while gazing at the feet of my co-worker/friend jessica, who had a similar foot surgery about 10 years ago.)

me: "jess...  do you ever freak out that it's gonna happen again?"

jessica: (looking frantically around the waiting area at work.)  "what?  you mean with all these people here?"

me: (long confused pause.)  "um, what the hell are you talking about?"

jessica: "i mean, fuck man, there are just a lot of things i'm really freaked out about happening again."

note to jess if you read this: i absolutely adore you.  no one makes me laugh as hard as you.

case III:

this isn't so much a conversation, but a list of terms my boyfriend managed to both create and incorporate into conversation as we did the post-work cuddle/babytalk, before i got totally fed up and turned on "24."

-tumor-pube

-poop-flakes

-doo-doo rag

he also recited his newest song lyrics for me, which is a love song.  it involves reminiscing about a time when (we? a random couple?) were much more innocent and free, and poisonous gasses rained down on (our?  their?) apartment and (we? they?) ran to the basement to pray.  

i was then reminded that i chose him.

and now i'm gonna go to sleep next to that guy.

night.

day one...

word of the day:

exhausted.

first day back at work...

barely had time to eat this morning (boy made me breakfast.  thank you.)

rushed to the train.

worked all day.

came home.

for lack of a better term, this is really stupid.

and it's stupid that it still frustrates me.

i think the websters description for "idiot" is "one who smashes head against same time-clock for months on end and bitches about things she can not change."

why do i insist on wasting all this energy on something that only time will take care of?

also, since we've established that i'm rather cranky tonight, i'd like to make it be known that i have now received every bit of my income tax refund that the government feels i am entitled to for the year, which amounted to less than six hundred dollars, not including the additional $600 "stimulus check," which they made very clear was not part of my tax refund, but a special gift from the government to help me out in this time of need.

which makes me feel that i need to make clear that the other $3500 of mine that they kept was not a special gift from me to the government, but actually pretty stolen.

so if we're talking about "gifts," how about you just give me my other god damn three and a half thousand dollars back and keep your fucking gift, k?  

'cause i don't drive on your roads, i've never gone to your jails, i barely used your school system, and last time i checked, my hospital bills are still going to collections.  in my name.  with me being solely responsible for them.

so until george w. decides to "gift" me with a couple of dental check-ups every decade or so, or the chance to become deathly ill, visit a hospital, and not have it destroy my chance of ever buying a house by marking up my credit report with "outstanding balances" and "gone to collections," then i will continue to wear my "what would denmark do" tee shirt, use my stimulus "gift" to buy groceries, and take full advantage of my rights as an american citizen and say that this country that i live in right now is pretty fucking bullshit.

sunday sunday

it's 12:30 in the afternoon and at this point the only thing i've been able to drag myself from the bed to do was find some advil, a glass of water, and my laptop.

what i need to be doing it cleaning up the apartment (read: stuffing everything in the closet in a "yeah mom, i cleaned my room" type maneuver), and shampooing my hair for the first time since... we don't really need to talk about the specifics here... in preparation for the poor girl who's been sent to my house-boat sized living quarters in my wonderfully sketchy neighborhood, to cut my hair for tomorrow's shoot.
here's to paying jobs...
and here's also to hoping that they will continue to rain down on me with a frequency that can only be described as "frenzied," until someone clues into the fact that i look goofy on film (as well as in person), and screams "halt!"
(note to self: continue as discussed with plan B.)

it's the boy's birthday today.
i won't be two years older than him again until next april.
i always greet this day with a mixture of sadness and relief.
although i claim to try to avoid high ratings in the "creep" category, i think i secretly take pleasure in being the older one.
(we had an argument last night in which i fished around for him to tell me i was creepy, and he insisted on not letting me have my way. i believe his final cutting words were: "just because you moved out of your parents house before i could drive doesn't mean anything.")

let's see who doesn't get a birthday present today?

boy played a show last night with some people i don't know, and i would post pictures, only i was working on this race i have with myself involving tequila drinks, my wallet, and the hours left in the evening, and i just didn't get around to pulling my camera out of my bag.

(actually, i really contemplated it, but i didn't feel like attempting to balance with my huge camera in front of complete strangers after said tequila drinks and the two surgeries i recently had, which left me with no feeling in either big toe. do you remember back in middle school anatomy when they told us that the big toe is crucial for balance, and without it you're pretty much screwed? remember not believing them? well start believing it.
nothing has made me feel like an old lady more than loosing feeling in my big toes.)

anyway, the whole point of the story is that boy told me that all he wanted for his birthday was for me to "get drunk" with him after his show, which actually works out great because i've been thinking about how responsible and goal-driven i've been for the last year and a half, and how i think i need to re-visit my alcoholic phase.
practice went real well last night, although i can't really recall the specifics...

i normally think adding video to things like blogs and myspace is stupid.
i will make an exception, if only because i am slightly in love.

hi. my name is diana, and i'm a procrastinator

i made it back to ny in one piece last night. (from tucson.)
i left one beautiful, grey, un-seasonably cool place (the desert) and returned to another (seasonably) cool, grey rainy city...

i had the most perfect/fantastic/wonderful/time while i was there, even though it became more of a buying trip for the ebay store than an actual vacation where i lounge around the pool in some heinous pink sweat-shorts and a clashing bikini top. (and to be perfectly honest with you, i'd rather be doing the hunting/gathering, than the lounging.)

tuscon appears to have an un-ending supply of awesomeness to stock one's store with, which got marked down on the list as "reason 397,423 i miss that city."
but i'm back in brooklyn now, so i'll try to stop daydreaming...

to be honest with you, i'm kind of not excited about the rest of the month.
i'm very excited about the months that will follow this one, but i'm wishing for a fast-forward button for the remainder of may.
tuesday marks the end of my leave from "work," and i thought when i left in the beginning of april that i wouldn't have to return (ever), but i wasn't exactly right about that. i'm returning for 2 weeks to:

a) not leave my manager hanging completely (i'm sort of a nice person...), and
b) to stay on my insurance through june, to cover the physical therapy/post-op visits i still need. (damn medical.)

this whole situation feels like that break-up that just goes on forever though. (or 15 months, to be exact.) i'm hoping that when it's finally over (7:01pm, tuesday june 3rd, if you're wondering when the party starts), i'll finally be presented with an honorary "warrior of the year" card.
the one that grants all-access to the "fun."

other than all the whining i've just done, i don't really have the brain cells to write anything of interest right now. i promise i'll be posting some pictures soon, although we both know that no one really wants to see travel pictures in a blog after the traveling has been done.
can we please just pretend?

maybe i'll also show you what my apartment looks like, now that i've lugged three duffle bags of awesome vintage finds home from tucson and deposited them in my (tiny) living room.
(here's a teaser: boyfriend observed the "unveiling" of the treasures last night, with a look of sheer horror. the floor of our living room is now level with the seat of the couch, and he doesn't even know that i shipped boxes too... those should arrive in 6-10 days.)

i'm going to go drink another 3-5 cups of coffee and try to figure out how to make 400 square feet large enough to house a small army of clothes.

xo

brian. part III

hey guys! here's the newest brian installment...

To cut to the chase, the major difference between Nebraska and San Diego is the people, as if topography, climate and location were enough. I think amazes me that the things around someone's life can makes someone who they are.

With all the factors in play, San Diego seems to be more withdrawn toward one another. For example, I can't tell you how many times you would go to a party and well, NOT meet people because they are just like you... what do you talk about in terms of small talk? I mean, when you know someone, it's easy to talk your head off, but to get to know a person? When there are 3 million people in an area that has arguably the best weather in the nation, a painfully high cost of living, and a class gap like no other, you really don't want to get to know them. You tend to end up fending (thats a lot of -ends) for yourself, and people just end up uninteresting. But hey! You will always have the same circle of friends, no matter how much you screw each other over!

However, meeting new people in Nebraska seems eerie. People talk perhaps too much. Don't get me wrong, I like friendly people, and I like attention when people see my California license and license plate. But when I get out of my car, it isn't out of place to be accosted by a neighbor walking their dog. Actually, I shouldn't say that... that's mean and I shouldn't make fun of friendly people. However, the bum at Jimmy John's is a CLEAR exception.

And my roommate has apparently drank a beer with Mumbles the Bum in an alley.

With that said, everyone knows everyone. I've been taken aback by the amount of people my roommates know. "Hey, do you know where I can get a ______" "Oh yeah, my buddy does ______ and can help you out with that." And I get the feeling it's like that across the board. EVERYONE from Lincoln is just like him. Problem with that is I haven't really made any contacts of my own. Everything has been through them, so it's almost like I have no purpose for setting out on my own. Sure this will change when I get a job, which is pretty much a brand new social network.

As for the dating scene, the pool gets interesting when you throw small farm towns and christianity into the mix. Not that you go to a bar and there are religious zealots everywhere (I can just imagine a swank bar with some biblical name like... damn... help me out here...) but there are plenty of disenchanted girls that have wandered into the big city either for college or to get away from the 'rents that are... lets just say ignorant. It's funny everytime I hear, "well, she's nice, but she's from a small town in western Nebraska, so I don't know..." There's also the black widow clingy-type from the small town. You think she's waaaay into you but in reality, her small town mentality just tells her to get with a guy and stick with it at all costs. In essence, hoping a guy will drop their standards just enough to make a mistake, and hoping she can play the pro-life card afterwards, if you know what I mean.

Perhaps this is my hyperbolic mind trying to make things here more interesting than they seem. I mentioned to my roommate these things, and he's like, "its not like that here at all!" So yeah... it's more liberal here than you'd think. But you know... the stereotypes ARE out here.

Oh yes, and I'm bona fide retarded. I even forgot to get the pictures of my room from my phone to the computer, let alone upload them. so yes... HERE IS MY ROOM:

And the basement it attaches to:

There will be after pictures, because we're renovating it for swank parties and band practices. Plus, I need a kickin' room to do my thang in, right? Thang being sleep. Duh.