treading

this weekend, our treadmill was finally deemed fit for use, as luke cleaned off all the many layers of dust its insides had accumulated in the five years since someone used it.  it has always been a dream of mine to have a treadmill in my house, because i felt that its absolute convenience would produce huge amounts of guilt should i decide not to exercise, and guilt is an emotion much more powerful for me than laziness.  if i had a treadmill in my house, i would run all the time!  and be in shape again!  and not run a ten minute mile (like i did tonight)!  so, imagine how awful it's been for me to have something shaped like a treadmill, something that whispered the promise of a treadmill, in the apartment for months, without being able to use it for fear that the dirty old gears would combust.  that's all done now, thankfully.  i had my (severely disappointing) run tonight and feel accomplished, as i always do after i actually move around a little bit.  my ultimate goal is the elusive six minute mile, which i ran as a high school freshman when i was still running track.  however, even if that never happens, i will still carry with me always how hysterical it was to watch penny (below)

actually love the treadmill.  she learned how to walk on it all by herself, out of sheer curiosity and genius.

god, people are going to hate talking to me when i have my own children.  i'm already way too obnoxious about these cats.

i planned a potluck!

my brain is fried.  totally.  just from working three consecutive days at the children's clothing store.  i've wrapped countless christmas/hanukkah/birthday presents and burned countless more name-specific sing-along CDs.  the manager of the store* can often to be caustic and demeaning, but i'll give her one thing - she can work there ten hours a day, six days a week and still put together sentences, which is requiring far too much energy for me at the moment.

due to this inability to think coherently (and because the heels of my feet are screaming at me for forcing them to stand in terrible flats for nine hours today), luke and i ordered in thai food and watched "national lampoon's christmas vacation" when i finally got home from work.  i'm trying to become better at enjoying the time i have to myself because i've been pretty miserable across the board lately - i hated staying home all day by myself when i wasn't working, and i'm not particularly fond of working where i do.  it surprises me that i've gotten so bad at making the best of my situation, because usually, i'm overwhelmingly cheery (to which all my more serious friends can attest).  i realized today that since i've committed to working at the store until just before christmas, i should knock off the attitude, and i spearheaded the planning of a store potluck to be held on tuesday.  everyone at work is bringing something delicious, and so we'll have lots of sugary things to gorge on whenever we sneak into the storage/break room to get chapstick or water or just five seconds of silence.  i'm so proud of myself; i feel like mary poppins.  i don't know why i didn't think of organizing a feast long ago.

*this same manager has a terrible cold and spent the whole day sneezing and coughing up phlegm into a kleenex and touching doorknobs and keyboards and all the other various communal spaces.  i can most definitely relate to feeling horrible (as you might have noticed, i'm a bit of a whiner), but now i'm so upset about being exposed to such a vicious virus that i'm going to be downing cold-eeze lozenges until the massive doses of zinc fry off my taste buds.

huck

so, now that it's pretty obvious that i've become a crazy cat lady*, i've decided it's only fair that huck also get his moment in the sun, considering all the other cats have now been posted on the interwebs.

here's huck, our tiny little introspective rescue:

*for the record, i don't think, despite having four cats, that i qualify.  firstly, i live with a guy, which i think means i'm capable of human relationships.  secondly, i live in an apartment and having a dog in an apartment is cruelty.  and, finally, i'm a big liberal bleeding heart and will save whatever little animal needs saving, even if it means having more cats than society deems acceptable.

beards and fat tires

i'm currently sitting in the living room by myself (except for the cats, of course), drinking a fat tire almost entirely just because i want to use the empty bottle as a vase for the roses the great-aunts brought over today from their 100-year-old, immortal transplanted rosebush.  luke's already asleep, as he had an exhausting day, and abe (lincoln, named so because he has a perfect black beard), the more rambunctious of the two new kittens, has abandoned meowing in my face to chase the tails of the adult cats.  this scene seems ripped from some depressing, bridget-jonesy movie, but i'm perfectly content.  i'm thinking.  mostly about how i need to figure out a way to write a book.  i've been inspired to finally sit down and start writing again by a very unlikely source, namely a kid i went to high school with who is now pursuing music with his whole heart, despite the very unfortunate fact that he can't carry a tune.  if he can, so can i, i figure.

also, last night my friend josh invited me to go see "spring awakening" at the ahmanson theater in downtown.  it was fantastic - moving, hilarious, sad.  it hit every note (no pun intended).  and, it also spurred something in me.  the part of me that wants to actually achieve things, not just fret and worry about my future and be a "hand wringer," as my dad would say.  the characters in the play are teenagers, and the parts are played by genuine teenagers - teenagers who are already living their dreams, which i'm sure didn't magically happen for them as they were eating tubs of ice cream on their couches at 1 pm and hoping things would fall into place.  perhaps the most frightening thing about not being in school anymore (and about the correlated issue of no longer living with my parents) is that now i have to figure it out all on my own.  my life is up to me, and never, in twenty-two whole years, has that been the case.  i was in school, in school, in school, pushed along by my tremendous parents, who, in all their well-meaning, fabulous support throughout my life, really just ensured i'd never be 

prepared to take on anything myself.  it's always "blame the parents," right?

ok, to cheer myself up, here's a picture of abe and me this morning:

as might be obvious, this picture is more about abe than about me.  i'm dirty and sleepy and abe is adorable, and showing off part of his namesake beard.

fishing the marshmallows out of a tub of rocky road

the kittens are tiny adults now.  they are officially eating out of a dish, using the litter box, and managing to get into just about everything we own.  on wednesday, they figured out how to leap into our bed, and have been spending the night with us ever since.  there's nothing like waking up at 3 am to a kitten charging at your face from the end of the bed.  however, you can get away with anything if you're adorable.

also, i've decided to chill out a little bit.  no more of this hopelessness.  i'm going to go back to work for the holidays, make a ton of money and then fly off somewhere (hopefully spain) for a week or two.  i'm figuring now that quite possibly the only use for my college education is the requisite post-graduation european vacation.  it's sure as hell not getting me any jobs.  yesterday, my aunt laurie hosted an afternoon tea (where i managed to eat myself sick) and at one point, i was seated next to a woman who talked at me for many minutes about how well-educated and successful her children are.  i take serious issue with people saying things like to me just after i've confessed the terrible secret that i'm no longer in school.

however, speaking of school, i'm getting everything together to apply to grad school.  i desperately want to study forensic anthropology and work in a museum and be surrounded by fascinating things for my whole life, so here's hoping everything works out.

president obama!

oh. my. god.  i cannot believe it.  i thought i was ok today, but then i wore my barack shirt to a coffee shop, where the barista saw it and smiled, and then i had to hold back tears until i got back to the car.  and, every time i think of my mom and hard she's worked for eight years, i get insanely emotional.

it's incredible to live history.

obama!

in 2004, i voted for john kerry, because he was better than the alternative (which i think has been more than proven in the last four years).  however, this year, i voted for barack obama and the emotion behind that vote is overwhelming.  i just can't believe how much faith i have in that man and how much hope he has stirred up in this country.  after feeling so lost and angry at the government, i can finally feel that change is coming, and that is incredible.

so, now all there is to do is stress-eat cookies and try not to panic about the results tonight.