Cheeky monkey

This has probably been around for ages, but I just discovered it and it absolutely kills me. What do you get when you cross two young tigers with an agile gibbon? Hilarity, I tell you.

I'm 33 for a moment

Welp, there you have it. Another birthday has come and gone, sweeping past like a commuter train, knocking me aside with its gusty bluster and leaving me unbalanced by the tracks in its turbulent wake while the litter swirls and settles, strewn about hopelessly.

How did I get here? Why didn't the train slow down? Will I still find myself bewildered trackside when the next one comes? Is it possible to have a one-third-life crisis?

Aren't you glad it floats for all your zestfully clean as a whistle parts

So here's something strange:
I was running some errands at lunch today and wandered into the giant Walgreen's up on Market St, past the huge Old Navy. I only really needed one thing here and that was some soap, as my current bar in the shower is down to an impossibly thin sliver that will break in half any morning now. Anyway, I wandered the aisles of candy bars, snow globes, cheap toys, plastic cablecars, hair dye and feminine hygiene products and finally found the soap aisle. But, all the bar soap was inexplicably shelved behind locked plexiglas doors.

What the...? I mean, a few aisles over were the unprotected razors, and in the other direction all the cough syrups and unregulated dietary supplements were free to be plucked from the shelves. But here in front of me, the Dove and Ivory and Irish Spring were impossible to reach without the daunting task of first finding a store clerk.

I recognize that this store is questionable-neighborhood adjacent. It's basically in the liver of the shopping district though, and visited by thousands of regular shoppers in addition to the local homeless population. And should the store really be upset if their biggest problem is shop-lifted bar soaps? I mean, shouldn't we all be encouraging the personal hygiene of the unfortunate souls who can't afford to bathe in weeks or months?

What's doubley strange is that in the Walgreen's a block and a half away, at the overlap of the shopping district's duodenum and the bladder of the Financial District, the bar soap was out in plain site, free for the nicking. That store doesn't seem to have a similar problem; like maybe stealing soap for a bath in the fountain isn't worth an extra block's walk.

I, however, was more than happy to cross the street to pay for my Lever 2000 without having to find someone to unlock a cabinet. But I'm still not entirely sure I understand what's going on here.

Goodbye Blue Sky

Somewhere along the line I became a TV junkie. I'm not sure exactly when it happened in the latest incarnation, though I definitely experienced a surge immediately after college, due in part to the complete lack of TV I watched for 4 years.

But between then and now, I feel like I had a life - I went to bars, I finished my weekly Economist and monthly Discover magazines, I went dancing, I met with friends, I went to movies, I went hiking, I made pottery, I got on my bike several times a week.

So when did all these things stop? I still want to do many of these things, so it's not like sitting in front of the TV is just a filler activity for lack of anything better to do. I sort of blame my TiVo, though that's not entirely fair just because it's made it easier for me to watch all the things I wanted to watch anyway. Some of it is the sheer explosion of good (or entertaining, if not quality) hour-long programs across the cable spectrum. It's shocking to me that I can watch a couple hours of TV every evening before bed (spreading the load out across the week) as it is, not even counting all the TV to be caught up on via the glory of DVDs.

The beauty of the DVD (and here, briefly, my life and blogspace again parallels Ebony's) is that you can watch an entire season in one red-eyed Ben&Jerry's-fueled pajama-wearing weekend of commercial-free numbitude. Which is what I have basically just done. Yes, the last thing I needed was yet another TV show to watch, but Netflix, in all its nefarious fabulosity, delivered unto me the entire first season of Battlestar Galactica. The modern, one, if I must specify.

And it is gripping, I tell you. I can't pull myself away -- and not just because of Jamie Bamber's biceps. We'll see where it leads, but this is how sci-fi should be done. Of course there are cheesy bits, and I'm totally a sucker for good civilization-ending epic disaster dramas, especially ones focussed on the human element told through well-fleshed out characters (à la The Forge of God [no, I haven't completely forgotten how to read, and thank you Joy for letting me lighten your move from LA by absconding with those books]). But they've also managed to throw in fascinating political and philosophical elements against this sci-fi backdrop.

Hopefully I can push through the entire series (so far) within the next couple weeks before Lost returns. And don't even talk to me about the movie situation - guess the remaining 469 items in my Netflix queue are going to have to wait till summer when TV is in reruns, perfect weather be damned. I've lived in California long enough to stop feeling guilty about staying inside on a glorious day; there will be more.

Because it means the molecules aren't moving

I didn't have a single good reason to move to California, but there are many reasons I've stayed. One of them is that I'm in control of the weather. I mean, in the heart of summer, if I want to experience staggering sweltering heat, I can head a few miles inland; or if I want biting chill and gloom, I can head over to the beach. In the fall, if I want rustling autumn-colored leaves, I head up north a little ways; but if I feel like bougainvillea blossoms and palm trees, I head a little south. When I long for ear-tingling cold air and snow, I drive up into the mountains. But I can always return to my weather-neutral city where it's perpetually 68 degrees. Or so it seems.

So that reason's been blown all to hell lately. Not to be a whiner, but California is not supposed to get this cold. Seriously. It's been in the low 30's overnight for a week now in the City. Hello? We don't have insulation. It's not like the plumbing's freezing, but I turned my thermostat down all the way while I was gone this past weekend and when I came home the heat was still on just trying to maintain the minimum temp. And during the day? Oooh, it got up to whopping 45 the other day. That's ludicrous. Even I, who usually make fun of the parka-clad wusses, have been wearing my winter coat.

It's a very strange thing to be bundled up in a coat and gloves, shivering as you wait for the car to warm up, while driving past rows of towering palm trees.

And in Tahoe this weekend? Jebus. It reminded me of Wyoming. Snowboarding was great fun despite the concrete snow and occasional stump hazards, but it was fucking cold. It was like 2 degrees overnight in Tahoe. The lake never freezes over, but it was sure contemplating it, let me tell you. And I gotta say I don't really miss the nose-hair freezing feeling of frigid air inhalation, the chill-induced finger-bending slowmo, or the prickly heat tingles of defrosting.

Enjoy your oranges, tangerines, strawberries and avacados now, because you might not be able to afford them for the next two years. *sigh*

Oh well. Thanks, Universe, for the reminder that my sense of control was really just an illusion anyway.

And I went down to the demonstration, To get my fair share of abuse

Because I'm well aware that I'm the one to blame for this mess, I try to make it a point not to complain about work or my job -- beyond the usual wouldn't-it-be-great-to-win-the-lottery-and-never-work-again talk (and anyone who says they'd keep working because they'd get bored or wouldn't want to disrupt their lives clearly doesn't deserve the lottery money). But tonight, as I sit at my desk at 8:07 pm eating a dinner of Cheetos and Famous Amos cookies from the vending machine, I'm really tempted to do some serious bitching.

This is my own fault too, of course. I'm the one who said yesterday, "I'm going to head home a little early today so I can get some stuff done in preparation for the weekend." When last night got blown all to hell and I was at work late, like an idiot I put it out there again today. "Today I'm definitely heading home by 5 so I can get everything done I wasn't able to do yesterday." Clearly this is just the bait fate likes to lunge for, clamp down on with its chitinous jaws, and yank away in the opposite direction.

And tomorrow will surely be no different. Because tomorrow I must leave at a reasonable hour. I don't really have a choice. I have to pick up a rental car before the place closes, and I have to throw all my snowboarding gear and weekend wear (unwashed as it will be since I obviously haven't made it to the laundromat before closing this week) into said rental car and drive to The Sac where I will be spending the night before proceeding to Tahoe for a weekend of winter. Obviously that means I will be late, unprepared, hit traffic and get no sleep.

But yay! Snowboarding!

Green Disease

So, it being the start of a new year and all, I did a very adult thing and decided to drop a lump sum into my Roth IRA rather than make regular deposits throughout the year (the better to earn interest, my dear). This, then, got me to thinking about my 401k.

Since they stopped sending paper statements, I've paid little to no attention to this account, which, it turns out is probably a good thing. Now, I'm far from a financially responsible person, believe me, but I have been funneling a certain percentage of every paycheck away since I was eligible to do so, and I just pretend that money does not exist.

Well, I dug up my login info and had a little look-see, and suddenly wished I hadn't. The problem is, of course, that this is retirement money and that I can't actually do anything with it now, unless I wanted to take a loan against it, which I'll only do when I decide to buy a house and/or have a steady secure income doing the thing I foresee me doing for a while so I can pay it back.

Anyway, so here I was, staring at my screen, salivating and calculating and gnashing my teeth. Don't get me wrong, it's not a mint vault or anything. But it's certainly a fistful of dollars more than I have currently available with which to, you know, buy a new iPhone (Mmmm, sexy Apple gadget.... alalglgllgghghgh....).

And I was overcome with this terrible greedy impatience. I actually started doing math. Math! for crying out loud. And here's what I learned: at the current rate of return, if I quit my job and ceased making payments, it'll take 25 years before I'm a millionaire. And that seems too far away and like still not enough.

What's happened to me?

Sick boys, naa na na naa

I've really got nothing much to talk about, but I'm trying not to let too much time pass between posts. That should be one thing I can do this year. Especially since I'm not exactly accomplishing much of anything else lately. I had grand visions of going snowboarding, or sorting through the mail pile, or accomplishing the heap of non-essential laundry, but sadly none of these things happened this weekend. It was a lovely weekend weather-wise, too, but rather than go for a hike or a bikeride, here I sit inside having gone through almost an entire tissue box and trying very hard not to cough up a lung. Again. Dammit.

Holiday quiet on these streets

Well, the holidays are over, the new year's begun, and things are slowly returning to normal. The office was still relatively depopulated, but all the crazy amounts of snacks and fudge and cookies and gift-basket food that was lining the cubicle rows has been cleared away, the grey and curled disaster-waiting-to-happen conflagration tree in the building lobby has been removed and its needles swept up, and talk has already turned to Presidents' Day in February.

Jen visited me this weekend (she'll have to write about her travels, though, because wow) and we went out to a comedy show across the street for NYE. It was a a great show and a good way to spend the evening. Yay! But now that she's back in LA and the roommates are back home and not working, the next thing I've got to look forward to is snowboarding with the family in Denver. Which is going to be blast, but just seems so far away.

It's funny, I rarely get wrapped up in the holidays (har har), but still there's a little post-holiday depression. I'm sick for the second time inside a month, the worst of the rainy season lies ahead, there's no day off for a month and a half, and I already know I'll be breaking my resolutions. And the discarded remains of the season are piling up curbside quite literally on every corner, in a sad display of wasted resources (though arguably getting chipped into mulch isn't so bad).