The One Who Makes Me Smile

Monday, June 1 is the eight month anniversary of Matt’s and my first date.  This weekend, he decided to do something special for me.  I didn’t really think people celebrated eight months so much, but what do I know?  Maybe it’s important to him because that’s how long he was with his previous (lying, cheating, mooching) girlfriend, and he wants to celebrate this much better relationship with me.

He surprised me with gift certificates to a very fancy French restaurant downtown.  (The radio station here gives deals on gift certificates to different places around town every week; mostly it’s a two-for-one type deal, which is especially good for the nicer restaurants in town) Unfortunately, we didn’t make a reservation and the wait was about 45 minutes, which would have been fine if Matt didn’t have to leave for work by 8:30, and we didn’t want to be rushed.  So we decided to try to make reservations next week, and go to a different restaurant instead.

We ended up at this cute little Italian place called Vivace.  It was fabulous.  I got penne pasta with chicken and mushrooms in a marsala sauce.  A-maz-ing.  And we were seated right next to the guitar player, who was really good.  So we sat there, chatting about things, eating our awesome food, listening to great music, and admiring the beautiful paintings of Italy all around the room.  It was all just so sweet and romantic.

I can’t stop being happy when I’m around him.  Last Tuesday, before I went into the field, he sent me a text message asking if I had time to go to breakfast with him before work, and before I could even respond, he was at my door.  I just kept smiling and smiling that whole morning.  I couldn’t help it.

Is that love?  I don’t know.  I’ve never been in love with anyone.  I’ve definitely never said it to anyone.  Can you even be in love with someone after eight months?  Is that allowed?

The funny thing is, I think I’ve heard him say it to me before.  It happened so fast, though, that I wasn’t sure that it actually happened.  I remember thinking, did he just say what I thought he did? And by that time, the moment was gone.  (I’m a little slow sometimes) Maybe he got embarrassed or something because he hasn’t said it since then.  Hmm, oh well.  I guess we’ll just go with “like” for now.  As long as he keeps me smiling, that’s all that matters.

And in This Moment I am… Happy

This song is… perfection.

I heard it earlier this week while driving to the Gila and it made me happy.  Just listen to the lyrics.  It reminds me of the time when I was a junior in college and my professor threw the books away.

This is what happened.  Our class had just finished a story project and handed it in to our professor who was going to a writing workshop somewhere.  She took the stories to grade on the plane while we stayed behind and worked on our next story assignment.  The professor returned the following week completely enlightened.  She informed us that she had discovered a new way of writing and that our stories that she had just graded were a complete disappointment to this “method,” as she called it.  Previously we had been very “by the book” with our writing exercises; this was no longer acceptable.  After a little bit of discussion, she said, “That’s it, I am starting this class over.”  And she walked out of the room with her books in hand.  A few moments later, she re-emerged, throwing her books in the air and exclaiming “I’m throwing the books away!”  So we did.  We never went back to the books, and we began practice of The Method.

The Method is a writing exercise in which you do not think, you just write.  To help get us in the mindset, our professor read us this poem.

You’re sitting here with us, but you’re also out walking
in a field at dawn. You are yourself
the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt.
You’re in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you’re wind. You’re the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach. You’re the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins
that are lute strings that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf, but the sound of no shore.

– Rumi

Then to help get us started with our writing, we were asked to use this formula:

I am…  You are…  We are here because… The worst thing in my life right now is…

From this formula, you can either draw on a memory or create a fictional story from it.  Personally, I think it’s easier to start off using memories because they require less effort and “thought.”  Remember, thinking is not allowed.  It is supposed to come from some place inside you, outside the realm of thoughts and ideas.  This is really difficult, and takes a while to master.  I’m not sure if I ever did, or if anyone in the class ever did.  For a while, I even decided it was stupid and I went “anti-method,” but every time I hear songs like this one, I can’t help but think that they are using the method, and they are using it beautifully.  Maybe they don’t even know it.  That’s probably the best way.  Because then you aren’t thinking about trying not to think.  You’re just writing.  And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

From this I’ve decided that I’m going to use this concept a little more in my blogging.  I’ve realized that sometimes I think too hard about what I’m writing, and that people seem to like what I write better when I’m not trying so hard.  Take my last post.  I honestly thought it was a bunch of crap, but people seemed to like it.  And writing is nothing if it is not for an audience.

I won’t be using the method in here, because that form of writing is not for an audience.  It is something very personal.  But what’s the point of writing it then, you may ask?  My response is this.  Just because no one will be reading the original thing you wrote, does not mean there will not be later versions that will be read by a future audience. There is also an editing process in which you get into the same mindset that you were in when you first wrote whatever you are editing.  Go through it and cross out anything that is too “think-y.”  You can do this ten or a million times.  It’s up to you.  But eventually you’ll come up with something very different from what you first wrote, and that is when it is time to let other people read it.

If you’d like to try this, here are the rules:

1. Don’t think, just write

2.  Try to write first thing in the morning when your mind is not bogged down by thoughts of the day.

3. You are not allowed to type on a computer.  Everything has to be written out by hand, in ALL CAPS.  On paper with no lines.  And write very slowly.  This makes you focus on the formation of the letters instead of on what you are writing.  Some people even paint their letters.

4.  Set a timer and write for 10 mintues.  You can work your way up to longer amounts of time as you get better at it.

5.  DO NOT think about the timer while you are writing.  Just let it go and stop writing when it goes off.  Don’t try to finish a thought after the timer has gone off.  You are not supposed to be having thoughts!

6.  Be patient!  This is not easy.

7.  Have fun!

Holiday Weekend of a Single* Working Girl

*and by single I mean not married.  I essentially function as a single person, who happens to have a boyfriend.

This was a four day weekend for me.  I got back from my first week of field work and had enough hours to take Friday off, so I did.  But it wasn’t exactly all fun and games.

The reason I took Friday off in the first place was because of a doctor’s appointment.  In addition to getting a shot, a pap test, and having a lovely conversation with my male doctor about sex and birth control (extra fun), I also figured out how much I weigh.  I don’t own a scale so I haven’t actually weighed myself since Christmastime at my parents’ house.  So it’s been a while.  And let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.  Kinda depressing, actually.  I hiked around a lot and did quite a bit of hard labor in the field last week, and plan to continue doing so for the rest of the summer.  Hopefully this will help.  Unfortunately, I do not think my pedometer is giving me an accurate measure of how much I am walking.  At the end of a day in the field, it was only calculating about 3000 steps per day.  This does not seem right, since I get about 1000 just waking up and walking around my apartment in the morning before I take a shower.  Odd.   Also, my office is being dumb and not letting me count the steps I took in Lincoln because I wasn’t there to report them.  Boo. I guess I will not be winning the competition at work, but I still may have a chance to win the competition against myself.  We shall see.

In addition the doctor’s appointment, I also had to switch the title for my car from my dad to me and get it registered in New Mexico.  NM has this awesome thing called MVD Express, so this would have been super easy if it weren’t for one minor detail: the emissions test.  Is this a common thing?  I never even heard of it until I moved to Vegas, and I didn’t register my car there so I never had to do it.  Here in New Mexico, I live in the only county where the emissions test is required to get a registration.

Anyway, I went to get the test and my car FAILED.  Why?  Because of the gas cap.  I had no idea that even counted as part of it.  I knew my gas cap was loose and I had gotten a new one but had never actually put it on, so I put it on and went to take the test again.  Still failed.  But the guy at the Jiffy Lube was super nice and helpful (much nicer than at the previous one near the MVD) and told me I could still get the car title, just not register it, and get the problems checked out at Autozone for free.  So I got the title and then headed over to check out the problems.  The guy over there told me that as long as my check engine light was on, I would always fail the test, even though I already fixed the problem.  They don’t tell you this so you have to keep coming back to take the test and pay more money (duh).  He showed me how to erase the problem codes and said to drive it around for a day to see if the light came back on.  It didn’t.  Hooray!

That was Friday and Saturday.  On Sunday I went clothes shopping (I needed some new field pants and had to buy –gasp– a size 12.  Oh the shame!), took a long walk, dropped off my recycling, picked up some stuff I needed at the store for packing my vacuum to send back (if you haven’t heard, electrolux is doing a recall on certain models of their vacuums due to exploding batteries or something like that, and mine is one of them.  lucky me!), and finally managed to squeeze in a little time with Matt.  We had seen each other for about an hour the previous evening before he had to go to work.  I tried to make dinner but was in a hurry, so it was a total mess.  Plus I was annoyed with him for being cranky and watching the basketball game on tv instead of listening to me when I was talking to him.  I was so upset I just started crying then and there and couldn’t stop.  This made him feel bad, so he took me to dinner on Sunday, and he got me ice cream too, even though we both know I don’t need it.

Today I was hoping to just relax and maybe take a look at my maps for this week, but that didn’t happen.  I needed clean clothes so I went down to the laundry room, poured in the soap and dirty clothes and realized I didn’t have enough money on my card (we went to the card system a little while ago, no more quarters).  So I went over to the lobby where there USED TO BE a machine to put money on the laundry cards, but it is NO LONGER THERE.  Where did it go?  I don’t know.  But I couldn’t do anything about it because the office was closed for the holiday.  What was I going to do?  I had a bunch of soapy unwashed clothes in the laundry room just sitting there and no way to get them clean.  I did the only thing I could think to do.  I called my mom for advice.  My sister answered the phone.  She relayed the message to the family (and friends who were also with them celebrating the holiday).  After laughing at me, they finally came to the consensus that this was not an emergency and I should therefore not call the apartment emergency number, and the only thing to do was to go to a laundromat.  I wasn’t really sure which, if any, would be open so I started calling around.  No one picked up, except for one place.  The conversation went as follows.

Lady on phone: Bueno?

Me: (Oh great, they speak Spanish. maybe they’re bilingual…) Are you open today?

Lady: No ingles

Me: (nope) Um ok, esta abierto hoy?

Lady: Si

Me: (yay I got it right) gracias

To make an even longer story short, I ended up not being able to find the place, and I did not really want to look around for it, because it was in the barrio, as the Mexicans say.  Fortunately, the laundromat near my house ended up being open, so I went to that one instead.  After that I got groceries, came home, folded laundry, made dinner, saw Matt for about an hour, and that was the end of the day.  So while many others were celebrating Memorial Day weekend with their friends and family, I was doing all that.

It would be nice to have another weekend to recover from this one.  I’m completely exhausted.

Spin Cycle: My Former Life as a Pet Killer

I’m still not really sure what’s going on with my computer, but it seems to be working ok for the moment, so I am going to take advantage of that for some spin cyclin’

In my life, my computers are not the only things that have been diseased.  My pets haven’t really done so well, either.

When I was a kid, I was OBSESSED with dogs and puppies.  I wanted a dog so bad, but my parents would never let me have one.  They said I was not responsible enough.  Isn’t that a nice thing to tell your child?  That they are not responsible enough.  This was beaten into my brain on several occasions, not always having to do with pets, but that’s another story.  (love you, parents 

Anyway, so I wanted a dog but somehow my dad talked me into getting a bird instead.  I’m not really sure how a bird is less work than a dog, but whatever.  So I got a cockatiel.  I named him Herbie, after the race car.  I was eight.

Herbie was great.  He squawked every time someone opened the garage door.  I carried him around on my shoulder while cleaning his cage.  He loved to sit on the washing machine when it was running.  And he also loved to poop all over my piano music.  One time, I tried to give him a bath in the sink.  That was not really a good idea.  And sometimes I decided to be mean, and pretended there was an earthquake and shook his cage while yelling “Earthquake!”  I was a very considerate child.

On average, cockatiels are supposed to live about 20 years.  Five years went by and things were good.  Then, when I was 13, something weird started happening.  Herbie was vomiting all over the place.  In his cage, on the wall, pretty much everywhere he could spew.  It was kind of disgusting.  And I was the fortunate one who got to clean it all up.

Finally, we took him to the vet and found out that he had some sort of bacteria.  We got some medicine, which he hated taking, and sometimes threw up on, and for a while he seemed to be doing better.  One day, we took him out and let him fly around for a little bit and he ended up getting stuck behind the bookshelf for a while.  During this time, another bird, from outside in the “wild,” crashed into our family room window and died.  No joke.

Finally we got him back in his cage and I was feeling happy because he hadn’t thrown up in a while and seemed to be doing okay.  Not long after though, he got worse again and things weren’t looking too good.  Then one day, when I got home from school, my mom made me wait outside in the backyard so she could tell me that Herbie had died.  I don’t really remember how I reacted to this.  All I remember is going inside and looking in the birdcage and seeing Herbie laying on the bottom with his eyeballs all shriveled up and sunken in.  Pretty gross.

So we had a little burial for him in the backyard and my brother started fake crying really loudly so I chased him around and beat him up.  A little later the neighbor’s nasty cat, Tiger, dug Herbie up and ate him.  Ooh, I hated that cat. It was one of the evil-est cats I’ve ever known.  Nothing like my parents’ cat now, sweet little Jazmine.  I adore her.

aww, so innocent...

And that was the end of Herbie, and the end of pets, for a while.  My brother got a guinea pig named Skippy that we had for a while until he got pneumonia and died.  After that, my brother swore off all pets and said he wouldn’t take care of them anymore.  Then it was my sister’s turn.  She got the next guinea pig named Marsha.

Marsha was super adorable.  She was one of of those fuzzy guinea pigs with stick-up hair.  And she was really sweet too.  Then a neighbor child came over and practically squeezed her to death.  She was never the same after that.  After that she became evil.  I thought she would live forever, basking in her evil ways.

One day, my sister and I were outside cleaning Marsha’s cage and we took her with us.  We set the top part of the cage on the ground and let her wander around in there for a while.  At this time, I probably should mention that Marsha had been drinking a lot of water lately.  We sort of forgot about this minor detail and went about our business goofing around with the garden hose and whatnot.  When we went back to check on Marsha, she was laying down and breathing hard, probably dehydrated.  We brought her back inside and tried getting her to drink some water but she had no energy left.  She died within a few minutes.

none of us knew what was coming

We felt really fantastic about ourselves that day.

Don’t Cry, Easter Bunny will be back next year!*

Oh, you guys, I really want to write a post about what I learned on my trip to Lincoln, because it’s interesting (or at least I think it is) but my computer is having MAJOR issues right now.  It’s gotten to the point where I can’t do anything with it.  It won’t stop finding viruses.  Ever.  I can’t even shut it down.  I click the button that says shut down, and it decides, no I would rather find some more viruses, thanks.

So I’m posting this at work and I don’t have the resources (or the permission) to be sitting around posting about my adventures all day, because it would take me a while.  (I write my posts with love and dedication, this takes time!)  Anyway, my field season starts next week so I’ll have no use for computers.  I’m excited and nervous because this will be the first year I go out on my own, and I have LOTS to learn, about many things not just soil related.

And with that, I’d better get going with my travel arrangements and getting the beast ready for my departure on Monday morning.  Later!

 

*I am not the Easter Bunny. This is from a girl scout camp song that I learned in simpler times, and it still amsues me to this day, as do many others.  I have a large repertoire of girl scout camp songs.  Hopefully I’ll be back before next year

HASAY: Because I haven’t done it in a while

Since announcing my intent to work out more and be more healthy, I have come to the sad realization that many of my clothes do not really fit me anymore.  And, unlike some of the other blogs that I read, I do not have a baby as an excuse.  (Trust me, it’s not.  If it was, Matt, myself, and my mom (and possibly my boss) would all have a simultaneous panic attack)  It’s all fat. Plain and simple.

So I’m really trying to take this fitness thing more seriously, and my work has graciously decided to help out, with this handy dandy pedometer.

They handed one out to everyone in our office who wanted it.  And began an eight-week-long competition between the employees to see who can get the most steps.  The winner gets some sort of prize (I’m not sure what) and everyone who participates gets a shiny new eco-friendly metal water bottle (which is awesome because I dropped mine in the parking lot and it broke).  There is also a challenge competition between the different staffs.  And I want to WIN!  Usually, I’m not much of a winner.  It’s true.  I just don’t really win much of anything.  But I’m really going to try this time.  So far I have done okay.  But I really need to step it up in the upcoming weeks if I even want to have a chance.

Yesterday and today I walked to the grocery store (yes, I went two days in a row), despite the fact that it was pretty hot out (I’m still in a bit of a shock going from cold Nebraska to hot Albuquerque within the span of several hours) and despite the fact that someone in a car thought it would be hilarious to throw a tissue box out the window.  AT MY FACE.  Who does that?

Anyway, so I walked to Albertson’s (where they’re still doing that Monopoly thing probably because no one has won yet, or at least I haven’t – again with the not winning) and forced myself to only buy healthy foods.  No chips, no cookies, no chocolate or otherwise overprocessed goods.  Only fruits and veggies and healthy whole wheat bread and skim milk and nonfat yogurt.  And no cheese.  I’m only getting Laughing Cow cheese from now on – it’s healthy, you can get it at Albertson’s and Sam’s Club (and the other cheese I got at Sam’s, because it really shouldn’t go to waste…) And I’m going to start making smoothies.  With my new blender, and with my own healthy ingredients.  (I will probably still add sugar, but it’s organic, so it’s okay, right?)

So that’s what’s going on with that.  And now I am off to figure out what I want for dinner.

Flying to a New Place, Underneath the Sun

These past two weeks I was in the absolute best place in the U.S., possibly in the world.

Can you guess where it is?

I flew from Albuquerque…

To Denver… (Fabulous, isn’t it?)

…To Lincoln, Nebraska!

What?  You don’t believe me?  That is not the best place in the world?

With the cows?

And the tall grass prairies?

Okay, maybe you’re right.  But it was actually a lot better than I was expecting.  I went with a group of new soil scientists for basic soil survey training.  In other words, I learned how to make soil maps.  (I’ll explain that more, probably later in a different post)  We stayed downtown near the university in a place called the Haymarket.

The Haymarket

There was quite a bit to do there.  There’s lots of different restaurants and bars all over the place.  And every Saturday morning there’s a Farmer’s Market.  I went this past Saturday morning, and I loved it.  There were booths set up with products from all the local vendors, and there was dancing.  It looked like East Indian to me.

Note that these are not the most attractive women. I think that was the point.

I wandered around for a bit, bought some things and then met up with some people from my group to go to the Natural History Museum.

The Natural History Museum is on the UNL campus, which is gorgeous. The landscaping was done really well; with the trees and flowers and old buildings you can’t even tell you’re in downtown Lincoln.  It’s like its own little world. As for the museum itself, I was pretty impressed for it being university affiliated.  The one in ABQ is still nicer, but it’s also not with the university.  This one had three floors with a lot of really neat things like a description of the local wildlife, bones and skeletons from dinosaurs and some prehistoric mammals,

And turtles!

several rooms dedicated to archaeology from different parts of the world,

Miniature gold chair, from Africa, I think.

This knife, when thrown horizontally, can cut off a man's leg at 20 meters!

a pretty nice collection of rocks and minerals,

Olivine, one of my favorite minerals

and lots of stuff to keep the kids (and me!) entertained.

flufferflies!

This tree stump was HUGE

Plus a whole bunch on Darwin.  They’re kinda obsessed with him, actually.  It was also astronomy day, so I picked up a couple star charts and entered a contest to win a telescope.

After the museum, we walked through campus to the student union, which I was also impressed with.  It was really nice, and very accommodating to the students.  The food court had about 5 different restaurants and a really nice seating arrangement (much better than UNLV).  There were a couple convenience stores, a huge bookstore, and the main door opened up to a very pretty fountain and a nice, large common area.

Then we moved on to do some shopping downtown.  We went to the Russian store, which was interesting, but I couldn’t read any of the writing.  And to the Nebraska store.  It had lots of little gifts and things from Nebraska.  I bought some jelly for my mom and a magnet for me.  Nextdoor was the licorice store so I got a bag of black licorice for my dad.  I think he likes black licorice.  Hopefully he does.

Sunday we toured the state capitol building, which was very beautiful.  I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a state capitol building before, so I don’t have anything to compare it to but I liked what I saw.  The tour guide was in a hurry and talked waaay too fast so it was difficult to actually learn much about the building’s history, but I think I picked up a few interesting bits of information.

Labors of the Heart

Mother Earth, with Opportunity at her feet (please pardon Opportunity's promiscuity)

Up on the 14th floor

outside the building

We also went to see a movie, The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, because sometimes girls like to see girly movies.  And had Chicago-style pizza for dinner.  All in all, a good weekend in the lovely (though sometimes kinda cold) Midwest.

As usual, I have a lot more to say but will save it for a later time.  Ta ta for now.