Found: One Diaryland Blogger

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: I suck at blogging.

I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm sure that you, Interested Party, don't mind too much. I, on the other hand, actually mind a lot. It bugs me that I can't seem to find the ability to write competently about either the trivialities of my life or deeper thoughts about the world at large. Recently my attempts at entries have gone like this:

So the other day I saw this thing and I was like "man, you know?" And I mean, I know stuff, and you know stuff, but....wait what's my point?

It's a problem.

My candidate won, and all signs point to a decent first couple months in office. I've been rather pleased that, pretty much the instant the election was called, all of the petty bitching and ignorant moaning evaporated (at least in my parts of the world). I'm excited, Interested Party. I realize that my guy is still mere mortal, and even worse, a mere politician, but I can't help feeling a tingle of hope and happiness whenever I spare a thought to his transition into office. The people he's choosing for cabinet and practically-cabinet positions warms my heart in so many ways. Science might get credibility back. The environment might be important again. Education might become more about the kids and less about the test scores. Foreigners might become our friends again. We might not have to live in a culture of fear anymore.

I couch all of my hopes with the modifier of "might", since, well, we can't know. But the right people are being put in the right places, so hopefully the machine will work according to plan.

Wee Martin turned 21 and I, myself, turned 23 not too long ago, and it's quite frankly creeping me out. We're old, folks, and the passing of my birthday has put an extra sort of pressure on my shoulders to Grow the Fuck Up. Sure, I have 3 jobs, all of which Iknow aren't "real" in the way my mind has classified job choices. Sure, I pay my mom rent every month and I buy my own gas and by and large purchase my own food and will have my student loans paid off in their entirety in two more months. By many measuring sticks, I'm doing just fine.

By my measuring stick, however, I'm failing. Most of this is due completely to a lack of effort on my part, and I tell myself that once I really start trying, I'll get that "real job" and my inner life-angst will be assuaged. Perhaps this is true. I do tend to be fairly lucky when I put some elbow grease into it.

I'm going to be honest right now, Interested Party, which is a rarity for this here blog. Not that I'm ever dishonest, but I am frequently vague and very often frivolous in my postings here, ignoring things that are actually happening in my life and mind. I've been slacking off in terms of real-job searching and apartment-leasing because I'm waiting to see what The Boy wants to do once he graduates. I decided a long time ago that while I don't know where I'm going, what I'm doing, or how I'm going to get there, I do know that I want him to be there with me.

I also decided a long time ago that my life is flexible. Whether by chance or design, I am an extremely mobile person. Because I'm living with my mom, I can pack up and leave at any time. Because my BA trained me for a field that, literally, has officeseverywhere, I can probably find a job anywhere in the country. Because my "paying for college job" was/is at a national chain, I can get an immediate position that'll earn me a livable amount of money anywhere in the country. Therefore, whether The Boy has given any thought to what he wants to do, where he wants to go, or if he expects me to be there with him, I'm ready at a moment's notice to move off to the East Coast with him, or find my own way wherever the opportunity presents itself if things don't work out like the chick flicks.

My point? I'm not sure, Interested Party. I'm at a weird place where I'm not sure if my conscious inaction makes me feel better, or worse. On the one hand, because I'm choosing to be where I'm at in life, I'm not a loser, because I know that once I choose to get a real job and choose to get my own place, it'll happen. On the other hand, how pathetic is it that I've consciously done nothing since I graduated because I'm waiting for some guyto make up his mind (let alone some guy who's notorious for indecision and apathy).

I don't know I don't know. So much going on in my mind and so little I can do about it because of my decision to wait and see. In the meantime, Boy things have been unusually wonderful, which is a nice change-up from previous months, and I'm happy, by and large, with my life.

The good news, Interested Party, is that I always find time to post an end-of-the-year recap and New Years wish list of things to pass, so I won't be absent from here for too terribly long.

Deep breath,
Catherine Elizabeth

And this, this is my Season

I will go down with this ship

In the universal tradition of small talk, my coworkers and customers alike have been lamenting the change of the season. It seems that I am alone when it comes to celebrating wintertime, since everyone else makes a sour face when the word "snow" is mentioned.

Winter has always been, and will probably always be my favorite season. When I was little I loved it because it contained Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New Years, and Valentine's Day. Holidays always meant days off school, and the holidays that didn't (my birthday, for example) came equipped with gifts bestowed unto me, so it all evened out in the end. I've gotten a little bit older and have faced the sad reality of having to work on holidays and have stopped caring about receiving anything more than hugs on my birthday, yet the magic of winter remains.

In addition to my continued love for hats, mittens, scarves, boots, and hot cocoa, I associate winter with peace. The world stands still as we move further away from the sun, and brings a beautiful quiet to our world. As I sit here typing, snow is falling rather rapidly outside the window, and even though it's "stormy", I bet if I were to go sit outside, there'd only be the faintest rustling of snow as it deposits itself on my car. I love the quiet, I love how nothing seems rushed and everything makes more sense.

Winter break, which will now be known simply as "winter" to me from now on, has been my time of reflection. I sit down, make my lists and figure out what's going to happen with my life for the next year. Being able to do so in the solitude of stilled life, in the calming effect of cold air, and the illusion that life is on hold until the spring thaw has a cathartic and inspiring effect.

This year brings more difficult things for me to sort out due to the fact that said "things" are emotional in nature. I'm a firm believer in keeping my feelings wound up tightly like rubber band balls which are then locked up in one of those fire-safe boxes that will probably withstand Armageddon. Therefore having to even acknowledge that I have rubber banded balls of emotion, let alone attempting to unravel them in order to plan out the road ahead is a task needing some snowy solitude to sort out on its own merits.

Eskimo kisses,
Catherine Elizabeth

1 day until wee Martin turns 21
14 days until I'm un-palindrome'd
26 days until Christmas
32 days until 2009

Mind Your Own Business: Election 2008

Our shoulders bear an awful weight, but still we trudge on just the same

As this election draws ever nearer, I want nothing more in this world than to find the courage to actually, physically, shove socks down everyone's throats. Heck, not just physical throats. I want the power to shut down the internet, pull the plug on news stations, and give every pundit a terrible, permanent case of laryngitis.

Don't misunderstand me. I, ever so meticulously trained in the Socratic method and Aristotelian rhetorical methods, understand that the only way to get things done in this world is through discourse. Asking questions, argumentation, and debate are the pillars of our society. It is how we create change and raise awareness.

However.

There is a time and a place, people. With infinite more importance than your message are the concepts of Time, Place, and Audience. Before you go spewing marginally true facts and bloviating about your candidate of choice, take a moment to ask yourself these questions: Is the person I'm attacking likely to take heed to any of my points? Are we in a public place? Does this argument serve any purpose whatsoever? Do you even know what you're talking about?

I'm going to vote for Obama, for better or worse. I believe he is, indeed, "The Change We Need", if only because we need a change, period. As my dad, perhaps unwisely, said to some church friends the other night, "Anyone who votes a Republican into office again clearly hasn't been paying attention these last 8 years."

So, please. My mind is made up. Don't tell me what an asshole Obama is. Don't rattle off his Senate record. Don't send me links to videos and articles telling me about all his bad points,especially if they're from Fox News or the GOP. Don't wax eloquent about how he's just gonna be assassinated, or how by electing him we're bringing another 9/11 on our heads.

Just... don't. Stupidity makes me physically ill, and I'm far too apathetic to bother telling you why you're an idiot for citing Bill O'Reilly as the source of your information.

My brain is tired and my eyes are about to fall out of their sockets from all of the involuntary rolling they've been doing.

Is it November 5th yet?
Cathi

Know Your Name and Go Your Own Way

If you're shocked, it's just the fault of faulty manufacturing

Lately I've been feeling a vague tug somewhere around my heart/lung area, which I'm attributing to a sense of Wanderlust, and not, say, the plague. Between my 3-ish jobs I'm working more than full-time and getting less than satisfactory sleep, but I've got this nagging feeling that I'm not doing much. My life consists of my path beween NCC, the condo, Friday's, and the radio station. Every so often I'll drive the other way on 55 and spend a few hours staring at The Boy, or mosey a couple miles to the west to see my dad, but all in all I'm on a very narrow wheelbarrow path.

I want to get out and experience life outside of my Naperbubble. I want to move away. Just get up and go. Start my grown-up life in a place where I'll be forced to make new friends, learn new roads, adjust to a new climate, shop at a new grocery store, find new parks to walk in and movie theaters to frequent and bars to loiter in. I want a new view out my window where, for a while, every day feels strange and fresh, and perhaps even a bit lonely. I'm getting clasutrophobic surrounded by all this familiarity.

In the meantime, I'm making a pledge to myself to simply experience life. I'm going to read the newspaper and actually figure out, as best as I can, what's happening to our economy outside the scope of dwindling restaurant business and lackluster tips. I'm going to start conversations with people who are passionate about this election, one way or the other, and find out what makes us tick. Come election day, I want to be in a crowded room with other people delirious with hope, so we can be lifted up or crushed together. I'm going to take more walks where the air actually moves around me and the temperature changes from shadow to sun instead of sitting in my climate controlled hive watching crime dramas. I'm going to laugh more, think more, and attempt to feel more, so that when I do feel a minor twinge of emotion it's because it's something genuine and true, and not just a random misfiring of my robot heart.

Who wants to come with me?
Thrine

And sometimes, I feel very small

But love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken "hallelujah"

I've only ever given one ultimatum in my life, and for reasons far beyond my comprehension I was tested on it today.

Ultimatums are tricky things, which is why I've only ever levied one. Not only do you really have to mean what you say in the moment, and not only do you have to be prepared to actually act upon it, but you're going to have to deal with the sense of betrayal that accompanies whatever it was that violates your terms.

If it wasn't for "Fate", I might not have been able to stand firm, which troubles me. At the time when I issued my ultimatum I was trusting more in the recipient's ability to be a good kid and not cause me to make good on my treat than I was in my ability to follow through. And so, when push came to shove, I found my shoving-arms to be malfunctioning until other circumstances helped me save face.

But now, Interested Party, I'm at a bit of a loss with how to proceed from here. I don't think my army of acrobats with their safety nets can weave me a plan big enough to deal with this. Do I issue another ultimatum, even though I just learned that I very likely don't really mean it? Should I forgive and forget? Or perhaps I should take this as a sign, put my acrobats into suitcases and bail out now.

It's not exactly earth-shattering, but my world has been sufficiently rocked. I suppose my first step should be to find my footing, then loose some arrows and well-honed barbs, enough to teach my former-"good kid" not to do it again. Maybe I'll just cry.

Smoke and mirrors,
CB

Summer Summary

I will walk beside you, carry on

I constructed a long list of things I would like to do to improve myself (brush my teeth more often is at the top of the list), but I think shoveling a plate of home made nachos into my mouth at an astonishing rate isn't quite what I had in mind when I added "eat all my meals at home 6 days a week" to my list.

So, history has shown and the current times prove that I categorically suck at blogging. The last time we met was about a month ago where I was freaking out about the future.

Things I've Done Since Then
-Went to Hawaii
-Used chopsticks more times in one week than all previous chopstick use in my life
-Held keys for Friday's
-Found I couldn't be mean to a douche bag customer from Olive Garden
-Acted like I knew stuff at the NCC Summer Speech Workshop
-Applied to Liberty Mutual Group to be an insurance underwriter
-Accepted a part-time coaching position at NCC
-Watched 2 seasons of The West Wing
-Read more Kurt Vonnegut

Any or all of those are topics for another day. The main reason I don't blog so much is that I lack inspiration, and today? The inspiration is lacking. My apologies.

Later, baby,
Cathi

The Future Freaks Me Out

I’m a dreamer, I’m not a vicious schemer

The concept of forever gives me the jibblies. I don't necessarily mean in the infinity and beyond sense, although contemplating an infinite sense of time and universe gives me an existential twinge of uneasiness. That kind of forever isn't really much of my business.

The forever that makes me curl up in a ball and suck my thumb is the kind that that many of my peers appear to have conquered, as evidenced by the myriad of facebook status changes from "in a relationship" to "engaged". I won't say that I don't trust other people, but I am exceedingly skeptical of my own ability to adapt to the changes in others.

I mean, I like The Boy well enough, and all signs point to him tolerating me pretty well. And, to be perfectly honest, I don't foresee either of us breaking up with the other any time soon. But I cannot guarantee that at any given time, The Boy won't do something to irreparably change my esteem for him, like voting for Bob Barr in November or deferring his imminent graduation to follow his dream of living in a cardboard shack in Belarus.

I also cannot guarantee that I, myself, won't suffer a psychotic break and glue feathers to my arms and terrorize children for the rest of my life. Some things just can't be predicted.

So, when I contemplate forever it's always with an elaborate system of "buts" and "ifs" so forever is neatly dissected into more manageable pieces. If everything works out. If we want the same things. But I don't mean wedding bells. But only if you want to. Etc...

Sometimes, I curse my penchant for foresight.

I rock the Haro sport,
Catherine