Elsewhere!

Quick update: If you just can't get enough of my writing I have wonderful news. I'm blogging for my K-3 Literacy class this semester. It's much different than the writing I do here (academic, coherent, etc.). I discuss articles, books and podcasts about reading and literacy techniques for younger elementary school students. That blog also doesn't include any identifying info (the course requires that we stay anonymous on the web since we're students) which means I'd appreciate if you didn't comment there with a list of everything you know about me. Here's the link.

I do have a couple non-school related posts in the works including a completely out of control list of things we'd like to do to this house while we live here and details about an adventure I had yesterday involving dissecting an old set of curtains for throw pillow fabric! Stay tuned! 

Pandora just gets me

One of my Pandora stations was killing it during my snow day housecleaning session on Wednesday (A once a in a lifetime event, you can be sure). Pandora scored my adolescence with frightening accuracy. So, if you're a kid of the 1990's, a teenager of the early aught's, prepare thyself.

Here is, I swear, the actual playlist I got:

The Wallflowers- One Headlight
Third Eye Blind- Never Let You Go
Jimmy Eat World- The Middle
Eve 6- Inside Out
Blink 182- What's My Age Again
Nine Days- Absolutely
Vertical Horizon- Everything You Want

I could immediately picture the living room of my childhood home- Ikea shelves packed with thift store books, square, grey Macintosh on the huge desk, Mom vacuuming the oriental rug while Jacob Dylan shot moody daggers out of his VH1 music video. Then, I was 15 in the Rotary Youth Camp kitchen with Megan, shouting song lyrics with all the suburban angst I could muster. It was an interesting afternoon. Here is, in case you needed a laugh, what my awkward, angst-y self looked like then:

I've cropped out friends so as not to expose their high school selves  without permission.

So, in case you were on the fence about whether technology is taking over, I'm here to tell you Pandora is my therapist.

In completely unrelated news, I have a desk! For the last few years I've just been commandeering the dining table. It's not that we use the dining table all that often (read: ever) for actual dining but it certainly isn't ideal to have notebooks, bills, pens and the like strewn everywhere waiting for the next gust of wind. My much more suitable solution is complements of a coworker who was nice enough not only to give me the desk for free but bring it to our place! Three cheers for rock star coworkers! Here is my new setup:

Of course, this moment documents the tidiest this area will ever be.

This very blog post is up on my computer in that photo. Woah, meta.

Let's try again, shall we?

Right...so, about this whole consistent, reliable thing. I've not done very well at it. That's going to change. My primary reason to give this blog thing a real try is because I, once upon a time, felt the benefits of writing regularly. I could think through my day on paper, spend a few calm minutes retracing my mental footsteps. That type of thing is really helpful as I tend to be the tiniest bit neurotic (and by tiniest bit you know, of course that I mean my defining characteristic). 

I invent problems. Seriously. If everything seems to be going swimmingly I start brainstorming about what could change and result in a calamity. It's sick. Boyfriend is a champ about it. He also happens to be the world's most easy-going person which makes him think I'm all the crazier. Here's an entirely too common situation:

Me: We're going to be late.

Boyfriend: It's a party, we're supposed to be a little late.

Me: But it takes like half an hour to get there.

Boyfriend: It's going to be fine.

Me: What if there's traffic? or it starts pouring? or baboons attack the car?

Boyfriend: Baboons?

Me: Maybe they're enraged chimpanzees, it's tough to tell as they're sliding across the hood of the car.

Boyfriend: *rolling his eyes and backing away* ...It's going to be fine.

Yeah. I'm a crazy person. You'll thank me though, when you're prepared for those baboons.