Coming Out of the Dark

I am not sure what depression feels like, but I am done with sleeping 10 hours a night.

Let's call this "sinuses" and move on.

Also, maybe change your diet.

Good Friday!

You and I, Friday, we are going to watch a lot of free recorded Showtime. We are going to play video games and eat popcorn in our pajamas.

On Sunday, we're going to drink mimosas and dress up like bunnies. Maybe someone will stick a ham in front of us, and we'll realize that we don't even really like ham, but BOY we wouldn't mind a good deviled egg.

You'll be long gone by then, Friday, so I am not sure why I am still referring to us as a "we." Except that I hope to keep your spirit alive and with me, a little bit of chillax in a crazy world. And, how often do we get a true Friday off without having to use up vacation days? Mondays... no one likes Mondays... the collective workforce sheds Mondays every chance we get. But Friday. A good and lovely, medium temperatured, Friday, with no obligations. They just don't make days like that so much anymore.

Dear Dentists of Houston,

Over the years I've visited a few of you, and have not yet found a dental home. I have, however, found plenty of "not going back there" dental practitioners, and this has educated me very well on what I am not looking for.

So today I received a "welcome to the neighborhood; let us clean your teeth" message from a neighborhood practice and I can tell right away we would never get along. In her intro letter said dentist is going on about her state of the art this and that, and why live with ugly teeth? philosophy, and how I can avoid ugly fillings and relax to soothing mp3s while visiting with her.

What I want, and I do not understand why this is so difficult, what I want is a dentist who is on time, and fast, and who will clean my teeth, and who will not find any cavities. And if this dentist must find cavities, I want to know where they are, and what are my options (yes, I want to know about the ugly options), and I do not want the transaction to feel like I am buying a car. Do not write any sums of money on a pad of paper and slide them to me. Please do give me information to take with me and consider (do not make me decide right away unless the tooth is hanging on by a thread) but if you will not say the amount of money it will cost out loud I am not paying for it.

I do not want to pay for DVDs, or CD players, or crazy camera gadgets, or extraneous dental assistants.

I DO want a toothbrush when I leave. Because, you know, tradition.

I hope this is included in the new health care bill (Dental Sanity Amendment of 2010), but I doubt it.

I mean, whatever...

Ping.

Mary, update your blog.

Here are some series on my DVR:

Lost
What Not To Wear
Hoarders
Project Runway
The Soup
Antiques Roadshow
Saturday Night Live
Gossip Girl
America's Next Top Model
IFC's "In Short" short films
The Amazing Race
That show where CEOs go in disguise and scrub toilets or whatever at their companies
Modern Family
Austin City Limits

It is a lot to keep up with.

I would like to join the gym down the street and start exercising again. They have a special "neighbor discount." Isn't that nice? I would like to support these people. Plus I can walk there!

I opened a Roth IRA.
I started a new job.
My brother got married!
I am not pregnant, but a lot of people around me are.
(I hope it's not contagious.)
Since the new year, I have been wearing makeup and trying to revamp my wardrobe.
Oh, because, during that time I turned 30.
And you know, it's time to stop wearing hoodies.
Last weekend my old HS flame asked "Are you writing?"
And I knew what he meant and I said no.
And then I thought "well... writing... hmmm... let's broaden the definition..."
And then I said no again.
But there's not really any reason why that answer has to be a no.
NO TWEETING DOES NOT COUNT.

Reinventing the Internet

As has become embarrassingly clear over the past year, I'm not at all sure what to do with this space anymore. This is not an uncommon phenomena, in fact, my blogger mentors have all been through one or more mid-blog crisis: Alison slowed down, Ryan shut down and then reinvented his site.

Other things have happened, too, since 2003. Flickr happened. Facebook happened. All my friends moved away, and I stopped teaching. My life got a lot less interesting, or at least less blogable. (The ethics of blogging while teaching are debatable, too, and I don't care to debate it.)

Things got really private for awhile. Blogger deleted all my posts from 2003-2004, and I was crushed, and then I got over it. Tumblr happened and I couldn't get into it. LinkedIn happened, and that was good for my professional career. Facebook expanded to older (than me) generations, and suddenly Moms were friending me. The iPhone happened, and I was connected ALL THE TIME. Twitter happened and I was like NONONONONO and then, finally, ok.

Other people in my immediate circle are still successful at blogging. I enjoy Mindy's updates about her life and about her daughter, and I imagine what an amazing baby book it will make. Babies across the globe will one day have access to their early years in detail that is mind boggling to me.

For the most part, my family members either do not understand or are justifiably concerned about our (our = the world's) growing internet presence. I share their hesitation and try to stay private/censored/professional as much as I can, while staying true to myself and enjoying the ease of connectivity and a public outlet for creative ideas.

I am not the first one to question the merits of staying connected to people I would otherwise grow apart from, and I have on many an occasion cut contacts ruthlessly and without remorse. Would I go out of my way to say hello to you in a crowded space? No? Then I wish you well, and you do not need to have access to my personal profile. Do we have any past interactions that make regular updates feel "a little weird"? Goodbye, friend, and go in peace.

The point is -- and after all these characters, I do have a point -- you see, Twitter would have cut me off LONG AGO because, like Mr. Moore my 9th grade English teacher, it is all: Get to the beach! -- the point is that ponycrusher will stay, until blogger decides to cruelly and unusually erase everything I have written over the last five years. The point is, I'm stretched in more internet directions, and that is ok. It is good to be concise. It is good to let the picture speak for itself. And it is good to, every now and then, post the diatribe that ties several ideas together. It is good to document. And good to know when to let it all go.

Oh, and Did I Mention...

Jury Duty?

...

"Run slowly, slowly quickly, horses of the night"

Can we just get May and June over with. They are going to happen and it might be awful but the only way I will get through them is knowing eventually they will have to end.

My vacation starts in July.

It will be so beautiful.

Afterwards, I will begin research into how much money do I need to start building my Earthship.

An Earthship is a home that operates "off the grid." It supplies its own power, water, sewage. I will have a garden and figure out how to grow my own food. There is an entire community for this in New Mexico.

I would like to have the boy for companionship. My hope is that we will be happier off the grid. Failing that, the cat comes with me.

Shelter, food, companionship. There is nothing else we need in this world.

I will never have to use Microsoft Office again, and it will be a happy, happy ending.

Pent Up, No Good, Long Time Coming Blog

I've got a lot on my mind.

First, let's talk about quitting:

YES, you internet jerks! I quit smoking. I have not had a cigarette for 15 days and even though the world is like, "oh yeah? here are some stressful things to test you with," I have not even really been tempted to smoke a cigarette. Maybe I will be tempted tomorrow but if I can go from almost losing half a million dollars today due to a clerical error, to getting it back in a teary, embarrassing, hands-and-knees episode, and not smoke after that, then I really feel like I am in the clear.

And it is so strange because I know I have "tried" before -- certainly it is documented and I remember in my head when I said I would stop -- but I did not and I don't believe I ever stood a chance. In 2007 I wrote:

One time, during a quitting spell, I went to the Stop and Go across the street and the store clerk mentioned that he hadn't seen me in awhile. "That's because I quit!" I beamed, purchasing my Starbucks drink. A week later, before the Pride Parade, I went with a friend and we bought cigarettes. "I thought you quit?" he asked. "Special occasion!" In all the resulting trips since then, he's said nothing and instead reached automatically for the pack of preferred brand. He has not ever said: "Hey, lady, WTF is wrong with you? Don't you have any willpower at all? I'm not going to sell these to you. Here's some gum on the house."

No one trying to sell you cigarettes is ever going to say that.

And yet when it finally happened I wasn't really even trying. I just stopped. Yes, I downloaded a hypnosis thingy. Certainly, it played a role. But I'm convinced that the greater impetus was that you hit a certain point where you realize: I am too old for this bullshit.

So here is what has happened amid the stressy not smoking: instead of smoking in the car on the way home from work, I really, really, REALLY, look forward to having a drink. Obviously this is a situation to monitor, and I am, but I am not overly concerned and here is why: 1) having a drink no longer makes me want to smoke; 2) having a drink does not lead to having multiple drinks.

And perhaps #2 is because I'm working so late that I don't have time for multiple drinks, I barely have time for 1 before I want to be in bed and asleep because that alarm is going off at 5am rested or not.

Still, monitoring.

The other must-blog moment came yesterday on the road, when I found a recently-purchased, though long-neglected Ani DiFranco album and wound up playing this song over and over:



To understand why, we have to go back to last week in the middle of all this bureaucratic nonsense leading up to today's episode. It's Wednesday and I am exhausted, and my co-worker reminds me that we signed up for a "business etiquette dinner" because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I look terrible. Great, I say. Ok -- off we go.

And the presenter, who is a lovely and well-established Houston woman, and who tells us we should not EVER discuss politics or religion at a business event but then makes it pretty clear that she hangs with Republicans, anyway she tells us that the 30-something women she knows, they are concerned about looking old. "If you are developing a facial situation..." she tells us, "You need to do the Botox or whatever it takes. You must look friendly and well-groomed." And we are all laughing and later in the mirror I'm thinking, hmm, I've had these lines in my forehead since *5th grade* -- I have these deep set worry lines, in fact I even wrote a poem about them. I wonder how much Botox costs, anyway.

REALLY AND TRULY, these are my thoughts. I want so very much to get ahead in business or at least be successful.

So when Ani is singing to me and reminding me of a time not so long ago, but long enough, and she says "there's nothing wrong with your face," I can't stop laughing and I'm like, rewind, tell me again.

So that is how I listened to this song 26 times yesterday.

Thanks for reading. I feel a lot better now.