Gray sky

Oh spring, you fickle tease, where are you now that I'm sitting watching the ball games? My fingers are so cold, I can barely type. The robins have been replaced by one hawk, circling up in a sky the color of a thin layer of ash left behind after a cookout.

I have to sing tomorrow at church; I really hope I don't sound like I have a code in my node.
Carly(via Blackberry)

Ranger

1. My friend T and I were discussing Lost and have agreed that in the end if it turns out they've all been dead this whole time, T and I will punch each other in the face.

2. I was chatting with my friend K and it turns out we were both at the same REO Speedwagon concert about 23 years ago. The music is still good.

3. I had to write up a survey about our school lunch program; they're starting to come back to me from parents. Oh m geezy, as my kid says. You can feel the flames coming off of some of these bad boys.
4. I have a new puppy, the best kind - it doesn't pee on anything. It's stuffed. He just sits on my desk and makes me happy. I may send him on adventures around the world this summer (like Chico and Donkey if you remember the Where's my Pace Hat gig I did)

Carly(via Blackberry)

Left foot left foot left foot right

Yesterday I inadvertently told an old friend of mine in a rather offhanded way that a mutual acquaintance of ours had died.

I was standing there waiting for a really crappy sandwich to be "made to order" (they always get at least one thing wrong; yesterday she slapped this big gross pickle on my plate and I never, ever eat those things-- she always asks "Dill or sweet" and I say "no pickle" and she says "No pickle??" like I'm asking for dry coffee mixed into curdled milk. Dammit.)

Anyway. Back to me putting my foot in my mouth.

M walked up and said hello. I said hi and gee, I'm sorry to hear about your friend, your employee. (About a month ago one of her staff died very suddenly and I haven't seen her since then.) She said "Yes, HR told me it was a terrible week, there were four employees that died right around the same time."

So then I said "oh, I know, I was just talking to XYZ the day he died. It was so sad." Then I noticed the blink, the double take.

Crap.

Crap.

Who knows

I have a widget on my google desktop that counts the days until whatever event you are tracking. I had it set for the 5K on may 31st...31 days from now. The only trouble is, I haven't run. At all. In months.

So I'm giving up on that. I'm discouraged. This month has really kicked my ass, and I just can't see myself running through that park in 4 1/2 weeks. It's kind of hard to believe I managed to do it last year.

There is so much stuff going on at school with staffing cuts and people handling things the way human beings with emotions tend to handle those situations. People reacting to things that maybe in their heart of hearts, they knew on some level, would probably have to happen someday... but still stunned and waffling between frustration and sadness and thoughts about the future.

It's hard to watch, because I still don't know about MY job. And after a meeting yesterday, I don't know what I want anymore. I felt so TOTALLY out of synch with one of the people I was meeting with. I felt like anything I said, she just blinked and moved on with her train of thought. It was draining. I can't do my job if no one will let me. But I need my job.

Bad haiku

At the baseball game
Freezing despite the blankets
Damn metal bleachers

Carly(via Blackberry)

Not necessarily news

Catching up on some celebrity "news"...

This article speaks disapprovingly of Katie Holmes and Posh dining out and that they

shared a green salad sans dressing, one piece of fish and one side of steamed spinach. They also ordered one regular Coke and two glasses of ice.

This is bad? Caesar dressing is loaded with calories. They probably got oil and vinegar. I've seen fish on restaurant plates that I would cut into THIRDS, not even just in half. Steamed spinach is healthy, and there was probably the equivalent of a box of frozen spinach in that "side dish". People. Seriously. If they'd shared ONLY the salad, I might raise an eyebrow. Going out to eat with a friend and splitting meals is a good thing. Just as Hungry Girl - who, by the way, has a new book out. She is all about splitting meals and making healthier substitutions.

Yes, Katie is tall and lean - she runs marathons. She's young. Deal with it. As for Posh, those ta-tas really bother me, but if she wants to knife up, that's her business. She is out in Plastic Surgery Cult city, after all. Do we really NEED to criticize how these women eat in a restaurant?

Then we have another article which I found very insightful. I completely agree with McNamara's assertion that Miley is a living, breathing Disney princess.

It's their classic formula, complete with an idealized father figure and (apparently) absent mother. Remove the parent(s), make the princess vulnerable. Ever notice that about Disney movies? It's been that way since I was in college. When I see the Vanity Fair photos, I see a young female who looks as though she's been assaulted. The messed hair, the smeared eye makeup. Not cool. Not a "beautiful image" or whatever expression they tried to use in defense.

This is why I don't read the news very often.

Blue

Technically not illegal

#1.
The other day as I was leaving work Suzy called me.

I was being a good citizen of our fair state and grabbed my hands free headset and we chatted for a while. Suddenly I noticed her, two cars ahead of me.

We drove side by side for a while, laughing about how that very though would make our mother start gnawing her thumbnail.

I decided to take her picture and in so doing, swerved just a LITTLE bit into her lane.

Luckily she is a better driver than I am; no surprise because after all she got a degree in TWO years and it took me 4. (That's our running joke.)

#2

I've had this running complaint open with facilities because I shouldn't have to wear fleece OVER a sweater in mid spring because an icy wind is blowing on me. The work order was opened, ingnored, escalated, ignored again, and so on.

Friday I was visited by one team member and his manger and they said they'd fixed one of the 30 thermostats on the floor. They were sorry, I was forgiving. It even SEEMED WARM after that.

After lunch today I noticed the icy blast start up again, because the universe felt my Monday wasn't quite bad enough yet.

Five minutes ago a facilities guy came around a corner and pointed something gunlike at me. I was about to scream and dive under the desk, but then I remembered seeing my boyfriend Alton use one on tv. Yes I was faked out by a fancy thermometer that he was pointing at the heat/ AC vents. .

For the record, two thermostats are now dueling for the turf my cubicle occupies. I just hope nobody else show up with a thermogun again.
Carly(via Blackberry)

Squares

Sunday art... we're getting REALLY loose with this category but here goes:

http://thepostitproject.blogspot.com/

has little ditties like this one:

And boy, am I someone who wishes that a lot of the squares in my life were round. Gaaah.

Most of the cartoons on this site are kind of funny or bizarre, but every now and then one makes me wince, and take a closer look at myself (granted - maybe a little too harshly, it's JUST a post it note for crying out loud...)

Digging a Ditch

Digging a Ditch
Run to your dreaming when you're alone
Unplug the TV and turn off your phone
Get heavy on with digging your ditch
Cause I'm
Digging a ditch where madness gives a bit
Digging a ditch where silence lives
Digging a ditch for when I'm old
Digging this ditch my story's told
Where all these troubles weigh down on me will rise
Run to your dreaming when you're alone
Where all these questions spinning round my head will die, will die, will die
Run to your dreaming when you're alone
Unplug the TV and turn off your phone
Get heavy on with digging your ditch
Cause I'm
Digging a ditch where madness gives a bit
Digging a ditch where silence lives
Digging a ditch for when I'm through
Digging this ditch I'm digging for you
Where all these worries wear down on me will rise
Where all these habits pull heavy at my heart will die
Run to your dreaming when you're alone
Not what you should be or what you've become
Just get heavy on with digging your ditch
Cause I'm
Digging a ditch where madness gives a bit
Digging a ditch where silence lives
Where all these disappointments that grow angry out of me will rise
Will die, will die, will die
Run to your dreaming when you're alone
Unplug the TV and turn off your phone
Get heavy on with digging your ditch

People bug me today. Hmmph.

I'm tired of some of the "stuff" at school that I'm dealing with, and tired of wondering if I'll still have a job at the end of this year. Today at the function I had to run for school there was a whole buzz about the latest gossip and people fishing for what I know and what I think about it all. Tapdancing, all evening. Because I can't say what I think and all of the reasons why. People think it's so desirable to be "in the know". I don't want to know "stuff." I wish I didn't.

Tired of wondering what certain people are thinking and if certain problems I'm having are my fault because I don't explain myself well sometimes. Tired of questioning my own judgement, and whether I'm too emotional; tired of second guessing things I would like to say, emails I would like to send.

Tired. Tired of not feeling good and not sleeping well and of not liking how I look or feel. Tired of resolving to do something about all of that, and falling short because I'm sucked back into habits and just that whole "being human" thing.


I want to go off in a kayak and paddle out into the long quiet part of the lake, and feel the sun on my face, and watch the dragonflies skim over the water, and look up at the trees and the sky.

Parting shots

Apparently Spencer & Heidi were at Central Park the same day we were. I only wish I'd seen then so I could go up and flick my finger against his forehead and say "you're SUCH a twit".

B was desperately hoping to see the Jonas Brothers at their "favorite" restaurant in little Italy but we did get a picture of her, standing in front of it hopefully looking around at everyone nearby.

We wanted to spend much more time in the park, and I want to go back to the museums, and the kids have never seen a show, not even the Rockefeller Christmas show, so we have a long list of things to do when we return (B was very miffed that we couldn't go to the wax museum so that she could see Miley. Please. $120 (for all of us) for her to stand next to one doll and then say "I'm hungry, when's lunch?" I don't think so.)

Someday. When I finish my remodeling, which :::;drumroll::: might start soon. In a week, maybe. Yeah, I know. That's not a flashy announcment. This stuff is crawling along and I really wanted it done by the 4th of July but that looks out of reach now. At least I have May to more or less get things packed out of the way from the family room & kitchen. It's gonna be a BIG mess, I can feel it in my bones.

This tulip

.... Won't be here when I get home, probably. Effing rabbits. At least I got to see this one.
Carly(via Blackberry)

Bleeding Love

Not sure if you caught Leona Lewis on Idol tonight. My kid has liked her for a couple of weeks now and so the song is stuck in my head for good. Here's her giant face on the front of Virgin Records in Times Square (that's Mariah's foot over her head)

What, you thought this post wouldn't be about the city? sorry...

Brooklyn Bridge

...and I promise to stop talking about Manhattan. Soon. Soon-ish.

Did I tell you that there were police everywhere, and I mean everywhere, police standing and police on horses and people who were clearly police with sniffer dogs and...some people might be nervous about that; I wasn't really bothered by it all. We had arranged our plans to sort of stay out of the Pope's way on Friday. So it was no big deal.

One NYPD officer was very nice to my son. He and his partner had a truck, it was a some sort of power generator truck, and it was near St. Pat's. We were waiting for other family members to finish something, and so I took my son over and introduced him. The officers were really friendly and took a bunch of photos with the kids and made it a very cool moment for my son.

We also made friends with our cab driver; there are only four cabbies in NYC who are SAG members and so when a movie is filmed in town and they need cabbies, this guy is usually somewhere on the set. I'll have to look for him; he talked about being in some movie Julia Roberts is filming now. (Duplicity, with Clive Owen, who is NOT hard on the eyeballs, thank you.)

Just curious

I often listen to. "Beach house" by Tony Braasch when too many people arond me at work are yakking. I just need to not be able to make out their words so that I can focus. It's waves against rocks and there's a wind chime faintly jingling. It's an hour long so I tend to accomplish quite a bit.

I wonder if there is a similar mp3 of white noise sounds of the city? I mean, I don't really like crickets or wolf sounds, and I'm just still in Why Can't I Go Back to Manhattan Now mode

Carly(via Blackberry)

More shots

Central Park & St. Patrick's....

Sunday Art

One of the luxuries of having a digital camera is being able to take as many photos as you want, or hand the camera to your kid and let them play and learn. You can delete any Ooops or Ughs later.

So, two photos by my son. He had plenty of shots where his hand got in front of the lens, but some gems too. There is probably nothing remarkable about the photo above, except that I just like the candid nature of it. I'm very ok with random shots of "nothing."

I'm definitely hoping he continues to enjoy the hobby.

Goodies

We got the usual shirts and magnets on our trip; I also purchased a Dean & Deluca tote bag - I'll be using it for work, because I have my laptop and my lunch and my wallet and blah, blah blah. I sprayed the hell out of it today with a waterproofing spray I got at "Lids" for my son's white Yankee cap.

I also got this (Americaware.com) because I liked that it's giant (for 16 oz of tea, of course, not wine, I would not ever drink wine in this) and that it's sculpted in a wee bit of 3-d.

But, no Coach bag. Or Tiffany dragonfly bracelet.

What is sweet about the sorrow?

It's so hard to get in the car, and look out the window at you as I pull away. Everything behind me gets smaller and smaller, and then when I inevitably have to turn away, and leave you in my back window, I feel that cold steely hand clench around my heart and squeeze. My stomach flips over inside of me, and lands with a dark thud that echoes through me until it escapes with a weary sigh.

This visit is over, it pains me to know that I will carry around this empty space inside for a while; the space that is so filled with joy, when I am there.

Now, I am here. Back to "normal".

"There" is excitement. Possibility. Energy. New thoughts and ideas and things to discover. All so unattainable on any permanent basis.

"Here" is just so ordinary and routine and the same. And lonely, somehow -- a contradiction in that there are SO many people around me. And yet. Lonely. This, unfortunately, IS permanent.

I hope it won't be too long before I see you again. But the tiny, quiet fear is always there. What if this was the last time? What if there is no next time?

Seriously

Honestly. It's a candy store. An effing AWESOME candy store full of candy I don't even like. but still.

I mean, really. How can you not want to go there?

Oh, and my daughter has about 350 pictures to my 250. I've created a monnnnster.