The weird urges I get

Last night we went to a concert at the Disney hall in downtown LA.  First, though, we had dinner in Little Tokyo (really yummy udon noodles) and then I went into a Japanese outlet store and bought a bunch of pens, which make me very happy.  I know a Pilot pen is supposedly a Pilot pen no matter where you go, but when it's in a pouch with Japanese writing all over it, it's way cooler.

So anyway, back to Disney hall.  We saw the LA Master Chorale - the highlights were the Byrd Four-Part Mass, and John Taverner's Song for Athene.



We were sitting in the front row of the nosebleed section.  The woman next to me kept putting her little beaded evening bag on the low little ledge in front of us.  I really really, but really wanted to knock it off, down the twenty-or-so feet to the next section.  I had to sit on my hands the entire second half.

The other thing I really wanted to do was jump off and do a superhero move where I'd grab onto the recording equipment hanging down, about fifty feet in front of me, and then swing back and forth.  If life were Oblivion and I had become a master of Acrobatics, I'd totally have been able to do it.  But seeing as how we don't live in Cyrodil, I probably would have broken my neck.  Not cool.

It totally reminds me of how, when I was first learning to drive on the back roads in Lancaster County, I would always have this desire to swerve into oncoming traffic, or off the road, just to see what would happen.  It reminds me of a quote I heard once, probably on This American Life - something about how the devil doesn't actually make us do evil, he just makes us forget that we have brains - something like that.

The Lost Weekend

Do you ever have a weekend that's just a flop?  Head to toe, total flop?  I'm having one of those.  The highlight was my walk by the lake yesterday, listening to my new audiobook from audible, Broke USA by Gary Rivlin.  It's essentially about the big-business of loaning money to the working poor - the rackets of rent-to-own places, pawn shops, payday loan stores, and other predatory stuff that doesn't get much notice because it's not Wall Street losing the money.  It's alternating between really pissing me off, and inspiring me to want to do something (like picket the payday loan place that opened up in my town last spring, much to my consternation).

Anyway, when that's the highlight of your weekend, you know you're doing something wrong.

We went to Home Depot and bought a hot water heater, but it's too freezing outside to install it, and we also aren't sure how we're going to get it up the 37 steps from our driveway to the house, given the fact that it weighs 120 pounds.  So I'm still being Amish for the moment.  I've got the whole taking baths thing down to a science though.  Two and a half hours (and one really sore right shoulder) is all it takes to be soaking in a nice steamy tub.

I spent much of today in an Oblivion haze.  I'm going to have to watch myself on that.  Now that I look back on it, it seems that most of the Spring of 2008 and much of the Spring and Summer of 2009 were spent leveling up in alchemy, killing goblins, and rising to the head of all the guilds.  I don't particularly want to lose another season to it.  A Sunday isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things, but I'm really going to need to put limits on my playing.

So now I am officially declaring this wasteland complete, and getting a good night's sleep so I can take the week by storm.

Simplicity, Apps, and Video Game Randomness

Probably selling for $1 at my local thrift store

So we all know that I'm on a simplicity kick, which started when I got pregnant, because we have a serious disconnect between the amount of space in our home, and the amount of stuff we seem to have.

When we lost Baby T I stayed on the simplicity kick because if I want to live the kind of life I say I want to live, I can't do that with craploads of stuff.  I want to travel, and live in lots of different places, and you can't do that with 33 pairs of shoes.  You just can't.

It all goes back to this time in my life when I could fit all my important stuff into 3-4 suitcases - ok, so they were big suitcases - but still...

I realized that many of the things I'm still holding on to are staying not because I like them, or wear them, but because I have a sentimental attachment to them.  Which, in my view, isn't the right reason for keeping something.  So I've decided to share the stories behind some of the objects that I'm most dreading getting rid of, and then, once posted, I am releasing them as an offering to the Thrift Store Donation Gods.

First off, these sneakers.  The story behind these is that, as those of you who have known me for a long time will remember, I once had a teeny obsession with a completely inappropriate guy.  From February of 2000 until approximately September 2004, I was kind of off-and-on in love with a British choral singer.  He was kind of partly the reason I moved to the UK in the first place - you know, I figured I could make him fall in love with me back.

Ok, so this gentleman - we'll call him Joe (that's not his name.  I've never been in love with a Joe) lived near the Archway station on the Northern Line.  I was also a north-Londoner, living in Barnet, Highgate, Muswell Hill, and finally Finsbury Park.  For three out of four of those places, I passed through the Archway station every day.  I used to check myself in my compact to make sure that my makeup was perfect as the train would leave Highgate, because, well, you never knew when he might wind up in my carriage.

So you kind of have to get the absurdity of that thought.  Northern Line trains have about 12-15 carriages.  Each holds maybe 50 people, closer to 75 at rush hour.  The trains run every 5-7 minutes. The chances of Joe coming on to my carriage on any given day were completely astronomical.  But still, I would pull out my compact and arrange my hair in my reflection on the window.

After a year or so of living in London I started forgetting about Joe.  Not in a conscious "I'm going to get over him" kind of way.  But more in a "man, I'm having fun, and there are such lovely other guys around me...hmmm...would you look at that...I haven't thought about Joe in 2 weeks..." kind of way.

I was taking singing lessons from a Welshman who lived near Crystal Palace, which would have me get off the train at Victoria, get the Victoria Line to Euston, cross over to the platform for the Northern Line, and wait for my train up to NoLo (I just made that up - it's short for North London - I'm going to start using it in conversation - feel free to do the same).

So one afternoon in July, I was hoofing it from Victoria, running like crazy to try to make all the connections in the sweltering summer heat.  By this point I was familiar enough with the route to know which carriage I should get in that would allow me the fastest change.  Incidentally, there are people who study this stuff.  The novel Tunnel Visions is about a guy who makes a bet that he can go to all the stations in one day, which happens to be the day before his wedding.  It's a hilarious story, and I highly recommend it, if for no other reason than the next time you find yourself wondering what the easiest route is from Ealing to Maida Vale, you can probably figure it out using this book.  Incidentally, there's also an iphone app which tells you which carriage to get in based on your route - where the exits are, the changes, etc.

Ok, back to my story.

I was hoofing it, the weather was hot, we're like three hundred feet underground in a subway infrastructure that's a hundred years old, and I'm kind of sweating.  And my hair is a wreck.  And I probably hadn't shaved my legs in eternity.  And my pedicure was bad.

And I ran from the Victoria Line platform to the Northern Line platform in Euston station, hoping I'd timed it just right, and I'm huffing and puffing and get to the platform and realize the train is still a minute away, and I'm giving myself an inner high-five and thinking I can sit down for a minute, when who would be on the bench where I wanted to sit but...you guessed it...Joe.

He didn't notice me at first, and I thought I could get away with passing him by to the other end of the platform, but just as I was tippy-toeing past him, he looked up from his newspaper, and said my name.  I considered pretending that I wasn't me, or I was deaf, or anything to avoid showing my sticky, sweaty face to him, but it didn't work.  I had to sit there and make conversation, and when the train came, I had to ride for like four stops with him.

This relates to my shoes because he happened to be wearing these trainers that looked like bowling shoes (trainer is British for sneaker).  It was mid-2001, and I think it was quite trendy at the time.

On a trip home, I went to Target, and they had these quite-trendy-in-a-knockoff-sort-of-way shoes, and I used some advanced algebra to figure out that if I bought these shoes, Joe would love me.  Example using the transitive property:  Joe likes these types of shoes.  I get these shoes.  Ergo, Joe likes these shoes on me.  Resulting in: Joe is madly in love with me.

It kind of made sense at the time.

Anyway, they're comfortable, and I've worn them loads since, and I never even think about Joe when I wear them now, BUT the damn soles are broken, and the other day I was walking in snow and my feet got soaked.  So, sentimental value or no sentimental value, they are going to the thrift store.  Maybe somebody can repair them with super glue.  My hubby probably could, but I'm too lazy to ask him.

Ok.  The Story of the Bowling Trainers has been told and documented for the ages, and I am now releasing the shoes to the thrift store.

That felt good :)

On a side note, I started playing Oblivion again last night.  I started playing Oblivion in 2008.  I spent much of that spring and early summer obsessed with closing the Oblivion gates.  Then it kind of faded and I picked it up again in 2009 and bought the Shivering Isles expansion pack, which really rocked once I got a powerful invisibility spell.  Then I did all of the quests, finally, except the Daedra ones, which kind of freak me out because they involve clearing out these ancient shrines and there are a lot of vampires and the music is scary.  I hardly played at all in 2010.  But then the PS3 broke and we bought a new one.  Which meant that all the data was lost, and I got to start all over again.  This is a good thing.  Which brings me to my favorite App this week: the Elder Scrolls Discussion Forums.  I can use the app to search for game tips and cheats, walk-throughs, and hints...because sometimes going to the Elder Scrolls Wiki on my laptop is just too much work, you know?   (That was meant to be sarcastic)  There's going to be a new Elder Scrolls game released in November, which has me completely excited.  That gives me just enough time to do Oblivion properly again.

The Unbearable Smugness of Carrying my KPCC Thank-You-Gift Travel Mug

I really don't know what that blog title means.  I just like how it sounded.

Well here's an annoyance... I go to ebay to look for some doc martens (in an attempt to regain some of the innocence I had when I was 17, I think) and the default search box seems to link you to the page to sell an item. So I keep putting in Green Doc Martens and it brings up a page walking me through the steps to sell my Green Doc Martens, which I can't do because I don't have them, because I want to buy them, but it won't let me.  It's a circle of ebay craziness!  I guess they're doing updates or something to prepare for Cyber-Monday (but seriously, how many Formally-Named Shopping Days do we need in this country?).

And on to more pleasant subjects.  England drew the first test in the Ashes (yes, you can play for five days and not have a winner).  This is a Big Deal because it wasn't  looking too good for them on Wednesday when one of the Australian bowlers got a hat trick.  And I actually know what a hat trick is, thank you (it's when a bowler gets three wickets in a row, I'm pretty sure).   I love the Ashes.  Even more, I love that my hubby loves it.  Because then I know what's going on without having to put in the effort of following it myself.  Cricket is confusing!  I don't have the time to figure out why Australia decided to declare at the end of the second day, or whether England avoided a follow on.

For those of you not hip to cricket tournaments, the Ashes is a tournament between England and Australia that occurs every two years, alternating countries - though it always happens in the summer in each country, which means it's not quite two years on the dot, with the whole southern-hemisphere thing.  They play five tests, and each test is five days each.  So that's a 25 day tournament, which will extend until January 7.  They play all five tests, even if one of the teams wins the first three.

There is a big controversy brewing in the cricket world right now between the purists who want to keep Test Cricket going exclusively - that's the kind where both teams wear white, they have tea breaks, and it goes on for five days involving a lot of long-term strategy - and the new 20/20 matches.  And no, 20/20 doesn't refer to an eyesight exam score.  In cricket, every time six balls are bowled, that's called an Over.  So 20/20 means that each team gets 20 Overs, and then that's it.  20/20 games last about 3-4 hours, rather than the five days of test cricket.  And there are no tea breaks, which is sad.  Tea breaks in sports are very civilized and I approve of them.

20/20 got its first big break a few years ago when the Indian Premiere League started - they got the best cricketers in the world, paid them a huge amount of money, brought over  Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and created eight teams for a month-long tournament.  The cheerleaders had to wear tights under their skirts, incidentally.  After the first game, too many people complained of the impropriety of the short skirts.  Sharu Khan owned the Kolkuta Knight Riders and created this kick-ass theme song complete with Bollywood-inspired over-the-top music video.  It was a month of cricket-craziness, and thanks to Dish Network, we got to watch every minute of it, direct from India.  The commercials were the best - Indian personals websites, calling cards, money-wiring services, and an upcoming field hockey tournament (apparently Indian men play field hockey - go figure).

Four years ago we went to England over Thanksgiving, when the first test in the Ashes was just starting.  J wound up getting sick and camped out for three days on Sandor's couch becoming entranced by the bowling and batting.  I'm not as into the strategy of test cricket as hubby is, but I like the Ashes because Shane Warne is one of the commentators for the Australians and I have a total crush on him.

Shane Warne is not a good man, though.  Same old story - hot wife, he cheats, everybody hates him, etc.  This week Sandor and Anna Louisa were over for Thanksgiving and we watched Skating with the Stars, which is hosted by a very cute man who sounds like he comes from Yorkshire called Vernon Kay, pictured.  The conversation went like this:
Them: "he's big in America, too?"
Me:  "I've never heard of him - maybe just for this show?"
Them: "he's trying to get big outside of England."
Me: "he's super cute."
Them: "he's an asshole."

Turns out that he was married to a very-hot Tess Daly, and then decided that he would send racy text messages to a Page 3 Girl (ie the girls who take off their tops for Page 3 of The Sun).  When he was caught, he issued this very heartfelt apology:

“Now this week you may or may not be aware that because of some stupid and foolish decisions I’ve made I’ve disappointed and let down a lot of people. To my family and everybody I’m very sorry. Right, let’s crack on!”


No wonder he wanted to get out of the UK to host an ice-skating-reality-show for 6 weeks.  I'd want to get away too.  


And in other news, Gran Turismo 5 has finally been released.  Hubby has been waiting for four years for this game.  In 2006 the PS3 came out, and it was announced that GT5 would be released in January.  We bought a kick-butt huge HD tv used on Craigslist on Christmas eve that year.  Hubby got surround sound hooked up so that he could really get into the engine noise.  We bought the PS3.  And no GT5.  They said July.  July comes.  No GT5.  In 2007 or 2008 they released some kind of prologue with a limited number of tracks and cars, and that was supposed to hold over the fans until the real game came out.  It was released on Wednesday.  Almost four years after it was supposed to have been released.  According to hubby, this is not just a racing game.  This is a driving simulation game.  I don't really know the difference, but he does.  The introductory video that plays when you start the game is pretty awesome.  Hubby said that even if the game was comprised entirely of only this video, he would have been happy.  


Me, I'm wondering why, with all that awesome programming and the physics that each of the cars have, and the reality of it all, and the general awesomeness of the whole thing, they couldn't have come up with a better soundtrack.  It's all Smooth Jazz, just like GT4 was.  I always know he's playing a Gran Turismo game because of the crappy Sad FM smooth jazz emanating from the speakers in between races.


I have to admit, I'm slightly jealous.  Hubby gets his GT5 game, and I'm still waiting on a new Oblivion.  


I guess that's it for now.  Life is going on, and I guess that's what healing is all about.  Hubby is racing just like he raced in GT4 when I first met him.  Five years later, and so much is still just the same.  Different house, same general geographic area.  Same job.  More cats.  And I lost a baby.  It's just always kind of there.  I wonder whether that's how it will always be.  I guess I've got enough time to find out.