New apartment fun

UPDATE: new pics of new apartment fun on my Flickr page. Yeah for Flickr!

I am slow

I have been struggling with Blogger and haven't had the time to mess with it. I will work on some new postings but in the meantime check out the new Borderline podcast, #62. Comedic gold. :)

Vocation Vacation

I was reading an article in the paper last week about these new services popping up that give people the opportunity to take vacation from their real jobs and try out a new one. The article highlighted some young international banker hot-shot who took early retirement at (get this) 42 to become a dog trainer. Next week is a show week, meaning a big trade show occurs next week - this one in Florida. And its times like these that I begin to ponder other careers. At first the idea of PAYING someone to work seemed crazy and in some ways it seems sort of like a let-them-eat-cake pastime for the upper class. But the more I think about it, the more I think what other jobs might I like to try. [wavy dream sequence and harp string music]

• Nurse: lots of access to doctors, drugs and of course, help people
• Journalist: go back to the J-School and split my time between advertising and news ed
• Chef: I don't have that much natural talent or patience, I do like to eat good things tho
• Restaurant reviewer: see above
• President: hey, even I could do a better job
• Inventor: I am forever thinking of cool things that would make me billions of dollars
• Attorney: enough said I think.
• Event promoter
• Horse rider (pro)
• College professor
• Forest ranger / guide

Things I would never want to do:

• Day care provider
• Winter car wash operator
• Gardener
• In-house IT staff person
• Personal stylist (everyone would end up in jeans and a t-shirt)
• Butcher (again)
• Highway construction person
• Kill mechanic at a processing plant
• Anything with heavy machinery

How about you?

Love Is

An afternoon pick-me-up note from a friend.

"I heart you! Just keep at it and things will get better. Deep breathing. If that doesn't work, go out into the mountains and punch a coyote in the head."

Open the Gaits!

Morning weight: 157.5 pounds

Yesterday's meals (bad):
Breakfast: low-sugar oatmeal with 2/3 cup soy milk
Snack: 15 baby carrots and salsa
Lunch: (yikes) Tin Star chicken and portabella mushroom soft tacos. Initially skipped the soft taco shell and rice, later at the shells separately during a business luncheon. F*ck.
Dinner: (completely unskinned) baked chicken breast, leg, thigh meat (they were so tiny! I swear) extra large salad w/ sprinkle feta cheese and salsa, two or three dill pickles
Walk: 1 hour
Evening: Skinny cafe au lait w/sugar free vanilla shot

I have been attempting to at least walk for an hour a day in addition to trying to get back into shape. I have rediscovered my most belov'ed diet snacks. Dill pickles (cut into four spears) and popcorn. The bad thing is that popcorn smells like ass and makes the apartment gross but Roommate won't have to live with it a long time. Also have been eating salad like a maniac. So hungry! Bah humbug. :)

First full week of dieting begins!

9 Months to go!

Will this upgrade make me prettier?

I broke down today and bought a used external hard drive in order to back up my Mac - b/c there was no other way to finally get this done. I am seriously considering an Erase and Install and try to really soup up this bad boy. God help my computer b/c I am not the most tech savvy. The upgrade will allow me to Skype into the show and also to be more popular.

Upgrade listening: the new BORDERLINE! Finally out, check it out. This episode features Booming Cave Voice™. Also be sure to check out our new, souped up After the Show section.

UPDATE: Success! Success! I even did a clean install! I am so proud of me. Thanks AirFerg!

Borderline logo drawing by the fantaboo Len of Jawbone Radio.

T-minus

Today begins my 10 months of dieting and losing my unemployment / post college / whiskey-swilling weight. I am just going to rip that band-aid off, no one finds me attractive anyway so who gives a shit. I am going to track my progress on the blog:

Weight: 160
Goal weight: 135 (min)
Deadline: April 1
Help needed: Jackie from that gym show on Bravo

I am tired of being embarrassed of myself and I definitely don't want to feel that way at Kat's wedding. I am hoping to lose 15 at least by Thanksgiving. ugh. My boyfriend, I just found out, is leaving for a month and a half. I wouldn't care but I just started to maybe sort of kind of almost get a little attached and now I have to move out of my apartment and my only other friend is leaving. Maybe I can redirect my energies into exercise. Considering gym membership for pool access.

You said you were going to NY to be a gymnast

Day 2: NYC.
Temperature: 8 billion degrees
Humidity: 98%
Times I've eaten: twice
Working hours: lots
Initial survery says: NYC is cool
Things I've seen: JK Rowling in a window or someone famous, the Mac underground store off of fifth, Berdorf's actual windows, Central Park, some water, the Hilton, a Trump Tower ironically with a huge for rent space on the first floor of the building
Needed: text messages
Not needed: a sweater
Plans: go to Rockerfeller Center and watch for Conan and / or punch Matt L in the face*

*per request from Lynn

Here comes the baby sister

During my afternoon nap, my little sister, my only sibling, called me to tell me her boyfriend had proposed this morning on their Minnesota vacation. I have been kind of reeling all day. This is a sharp reminder of how much I miss my family and the things I miss out on having moved away. I wondered about what was going on with my parents and how my mom was feeling. I enjoyed the thought of my big-kid dad having to keep this secret to himself for two weeks. This is the man who, unable to keep secrets or gifts under wraps, first let us begin opening a single gift on Christmas Eve. Then it was half of our gifts and now all gifts are opened the night before Christmas. Stockings are still saved for Christmas morning but I get the sense that even that is a trial for him.

Part of me is surprised because my sister is my little sister, now 20, and I'm sure she'll always feel like that to me. My great aunt, who's 86, still babies my grandmother who is 83. I guess that being a big sister never leaves you. Part of it might be my crushing fear of commitment, hell, I could only get myself to sign a six-month-lease on my apartment. I haven't heard any details about what they're thinking for a wedding. All I know is that she'll be a beautiful bride and I'll get hammered at the reception.

And I hate that there is even a single part of me that feels a pang of exclusion but that's how I feel. I am absolutely happy for my sister; her boyfriend is a really sweet guy and they're perfect for one another. At the same time, as a sort of pseudo matriarch of the family, a tiny part of me feels like an old maid. My family is in general well-educated but there is still a traditional sense of value in married life and children. The thought of people pitying me or making comments because she will be married first is exhausting. I know how those conversations will go b/c I've heard them over and over about other family and friends from back home. I know that we are very different people and I've had lots of experiences she hasn't because our interests and goals are so diverse. Maybe she thinks sometimes about moving away, I don't know. But it's not about me, it's about Kat.

Deep down, I just can't wait to see the ring. It sounds really beautiful.

You're So bitter you think he's sweet

"well he's wrong for you I swear."

I have been a slacker about writing. Planning and writing notes go to waste when I don't have the self-drive to put it into concrete form. The one thing I promised myself about this blog is that I would be truthful and honest about what's going on in my life. It's terrible when love affairs, even insignificant ones, interrupt your flow. Wait for more coolness to come from Your Mom...well, you know what I mean.

Look both ways!

Now, I don't mean to say all Colorado people are chew on a shoe crazy. But there are more insane pedestrians in this city than I've ever seen anywhere - and I'm counting San Francisco AND Ft. Lauderdale which have between them a insane number of yoo hoo's on the street. It's not to say that there are a lot of insane or mentally ill residents, I mean literally people on the streets. Pedestrians in this fair city seem to ignore the rules of traffic and seem to have no qualms about walking out into oncoming cars. I wonder if it's that perhaps Denverites are more exact, more calculating in their pathways. It's not enough for them to take patterns at right-angle intersections, they need to go directly to their destination; moving vehicles be damned. Perhaps the high altitude skews the brain's natural sense of cartography. This evening on my drive home I saw a group of people, three adults to be exact, cross six lanes of traffic TWICE. Together they ran, undaunted between cars, MOVING CARS and then back again.

At one point, one of the men started to bark at people in their cars. He was quite an intimidating figure - tattoos, shaved head, crazy hollow eyes and dirty overalls complimented by a dingy beater tank. Not alone in his journey, he was accompanied by a whooping girl wearing short short cut-off's and yellow, bleached hair and another companion running with a full, gas station soda. While I found the situation less than ideal after a long day at work - I was most amused by the reaction of the yuppie in the Honda in front of me. As the barking man passed his car he did the stare-ahead, pretend nothing is happening look. Once Barker had passed, Yuppie stared out the driver's side window with a death glare. The glare of man defending his territory, a primeval, instinctive glare bore down on the back of the unknowing barker as crossed three more lanes and was on his way. Fierce, burning stare with the questioning look so obvious on his face: Do I call the police? Do I do something? How can I not?!? This is MY street, I'm the one in a Honda! Becoming more and more simplistic. Turning as if to find something on the passenger's seat, perhaps in his attache. Where's my club? Man in oxford tough!

It was amazing, it was so instinctive - but alas, fleeting. I guess that rolled-up car windows block both UV rays and yuppie stare downs.

Cap'n Jack is BACK!

I just saw Pirates of the Carribean II. It was AMAZING. I am still so excited and flustered I think I have a fever. It was a packed house at the amazing United Artists theater in downtown Denver. I won't spoil, but there's a huge shocker ending! I am so in love.

I am still a child, when it comes to something wild

I spent my Independence Day weekend remitting my beloved grandparents to an assisted living apartment; giving up their independence. I gave up a lot to get to be there for my grandmother, who is my familial best friend, and had to leave her crying in her apartment. I get made fun of a lot for being a Jimmy Buffet fan, but when it comes to the fourth of July I think of this song. "The Night I Painted the Sky" It reminds me of nights like this past Monday, when my Uncle and is family, and my best friend, joined us for cheap fireworks and decadent sundaes in the hot Nebraska night. Everyone quits bickering, and picking at one another, and one fifth of the Stewarts (12) are still and sitting for more than five minutes. It's like a deep sigh in the middle of a crowded football game. If you enjoy this song, check out this album. I think it's both delicate and fun.

It's the child in me, selfish as it sounds, who can't say goodbye to the old house on Washington Street, now decrepit and falling down. I walked into the kitchen, during the move, and pressed my hand against the oak paneling and felt, for sure, it was not only my grandparents who were moving on but a goodbye to my home too.

I just did some poon

And not in the way that the boys would wish. Tonight I went out with a friend, her boyfriend, and the boyfriend's roomie. The roomie = n'est pas gentil. So my gfriend and her boyfriend took off in a dead we're-gonna-screw- dead run. And I don't blame them! I miss my Frenchman tonight. But they left me with the roomie, who when drunk can either a) come to blows w/said Dannielle and almost did tonight or b) be very nice. So the roommate was left behind; not so coyly grabbing my breasts and hitting on me. And so I decided to leave him, on some random street, asking him, "Are you a man? Are you afraid? Because I'm going home alone but if you're afraid I'll walk with you." With the total intention of ditching this creepy grabbo. So I left him, only two blocks from my house, on my bike, realizing that I HADN'T PAID MY TAB. The horror. I am freely and willingly able to abort the rules when given the chance, but I do not - I repeat, do NOT, leave a tab. So I call 411, got the name of the bar, and apologized. I then disassembled my bike, loaded it up, and drove back. Upon my arrival, the bar tenders were so excited that I came back, the three of us - Elisse, Nick and I - did a "poon tang." Which is like a mixture of some millions of alcohol and Red Bull (gag) but it was actually good. I did the right thing - and was rewarded w/more alcohol! Yeah for honesty!

RIP, little Dell

I had my brand new Dell laptop for a grand total of...SIX days. And yesterday, as I clicked "GOOGLE" to find a court reporting trade pub, it froze. It didn't just freeze though - even the mouse shut off and it was if I was suddenly in the movie powder. There was a flash of light, and in an instant, I knew that the Dell was gone. We tried to restart but the keyboard wasn't talking to the mother board. We tried to power-restart, to "close it's eyes" if you will. It wouldn't even powder back on. So we let everything sit and cool-down, knowing that these new Intel Centrino dual core mumbo jumbo processors are running really hot. And what did we get therefore? It quickly flashed the Latitude black and white startup, and then, a dark screen with a blinking cursor. The Dell had died, right before my very eyes! I guess if it had to happen, I'm glad it did it now, before I was months down the road and full of files. But now all my email is gone, my work so far, and I gotta be honest, I'm not a happy camper. It's like that new Mac spot with the PC and the Mac, and the PC freezes, "I'll go get IT," I said.

Please don't make me do it

This is my friend Dan, cool name, eh? Dan looks like a nice, normal guy but is actually crazy-go-nuts-university. He is going to run TWO marathons in ONE WEEK this fall. The first is the Chicago Marathon on October 22, the second is in D.C. on October 29. Now, I would usually point and laugh at someone for running on purpose, but Dan is running for the Lukemia and Lymphoma Society through their "Team in Training Program." Dan is going to run in honor of Kirsten, a kindergartener from Lincoln who began her battle with cancer last fall. There is a kickin' site where you can donate to Dan's cause and track his progress...and every move. Let's push him over the top of his goal! Just point me in the direction of the celebratory party b/c I know he'll kick ass.

Congrats to the Keeme

Congrats to the Keeme of the KeemeCast on this weekend's OS #1 wedding and more importantly, on his forthcoming dowry goat.

Halloumi UPDATE! UPDATE

Halloumi is carried by "Whole Foods" markets!!! I asked the deli counter boy for some, he found one left and told me "I was very lucky." Apparently it's flying off of shelves. I wanted to point out to him that this isn't communist Russia and I wasn't looking for potty paper, I was looking for specialty cheese from Cyprus at a Whole Foods, but I was so excited I wet myself a little and ran to the express lane.

Eat my nummies

B/c I am such a foodie (my new favorite term) these are my picks for nummies for this week:

Halloumi = fucking orgasmic cooking cheese from Cyprus. It's very hard to find, I haven't found anywhere in Denver that carries it yet but it is unbelievably wonderful. I had some at Bristol Farms in Newport Beach and then we bought some to cook. A friend actually did them on skewers with other meats but you can cook it in a pan. It has a more fibrous consistency like tofu without the taste of feet and more like the taste of a first kiss. Find it, try it, love me! Wait, sorry, got carried away.

Mezetta, who makes some of my favorite pre-packaged salad treats is making new (whole clove stuffed) Garlic Olives MARINATED in - get this - brine and Napa Valley Chardonnay. Holy shit they're good; I have quite a few friends who love the gourmet green olives, these are awesome w/out the hassle of blue cheese stuffing.

Smoking Loon Merlot, a cheap but tasty bottle common in some areas as a nice house red, is a light, nice red to accompany any dinner. I love my chardonnay and if you're serving cold cheese with appetizers like veggies I "suppose" you should serve a white but tempt fate! I dare you. As a poor NOW EMPLOYED I am toasting myself with a nice light glass. I wanted to try some of this Chateauneuf du Pape comme mes amis, c'est trop cher pour cette fille.

Best lunch ever! I had a crab sandwich in Newport Beach with the delovely Shelly from AirFerg I had a traditional broiled crab sandwich that blew away our tiny pea brains, and when picking apart my rich and delicious dish we got the secret! Take sourdough (always best on the West Coast and San Fran, but you can choose a hard white bread, it might even be good with a bagette) and place it open faced on a pan. Baste with butter both sides of each piece of bread. THEN, sprinkle sugar on both pieces of bread. Use a light or lightly seasoned mayo if you choose on top of the sugar; place your cooked crab (we had blue) and place a slice of swiss cheese on each piece of bread. Broil. You will be a happy camper.