2003-03-25 - 7:55 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "The Tide is High", Blondie

Sorry for the delay between entries. Newfound motivation for Getting Things Done, good weather, and writer's block have all contributed. It was sweet of you to worry, Nikolai. :)

OK, so, the fun thing I keep forgetting to mentioned is that the Volkswagen has come out of hibernation along with me. A week ago Sunday I gave her a bath, and have been driving her every day it's warm enough to do so with the top down. (Visibility is just too limited with the top up, so I always drive with it down.)

The downside of this, of course, is that we smell like a Volkswagen all evening. Poindexter is being a good sport about it, though.

People talk to me about the car all the time. A guy tonight said "They should make a new Ghia, like they did the Bug." Last week, a guy was asking me, while stopped at a traffic light, what year and what color, and we got honked at when we didn't notice the light turn green. People gawk and point. My next door neighbor more or less insisted that I open the garage when he caught me outside one night, so he could have a look up close. It's enormously entertaining.

Portrait of a Marriage, Part II

One thing I keep forgetting to mention is the appreciation thing.

Part of being married means being partners in running a household. Running a household is an enormous pain in the ass. We've got the chores pretty well divvied up between the two of us, based on which chores we detest (i.e., if one of us hates it, the other person does it), something like this:

Me: Straightening, all kitchen duties except cooking and stovetop, paying bills, recycling, garbage, any shopping that doesn't require Poindexter's presence to make a decision

Poindexter: Laundry, vacuuming, cooking, bathrooms, cleaning stovetop, all projects, all phone calls

Some chores just get done depending who has a bug up his/her ass about it, such as sweeping or dusting. Neither of us particularly hates that one. Sometimes I help fold laundry.

But the thing that we do, on a daily basis, is thank the other person for whatever work they did that day. Poindexter always compliments me when I clean up the kitchen after we cook (he is a messy chef, so the effect is dramatic). I always thank him for cooking. When he vacuums or cleans the bathroom, when I discover what he's been up to and how nice it looks, I yell, "WOW!!!!" sometimes startling him if he's not expecting it. And you wouldn't believe how happy I get over the clean socks he is consistently providing me with. There are also hugs and kisses involved in all this thanking.

Yesterday he swept up some rice that *I* had dropped all over the floor, and as we were drifting off to sleep, I said, "You did something nice for me today ... what was it ... I wanted to thank you... oh! the rice!" and I could feeling him laughing, and he hugged me.

It's nice, though. I like knowing that the work I do is appreciated, and I like that he feels the same way when I appreciate him. It sure makes it easier to do, that's for sure.

On Saturday, I sat in our disaster of an office and made a couple half-hearted attempts to organize it. I got all frustrated and almost gave up, because I was encountering papers and things I had NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH, and there were SO MANY OF THEM, and I was NEVER GOING TO GET THEM ORGANIZED.

Then I chatted with Mark for awhile and avoided the whole issue.

Finally I figured it out: Organize what you know you can organize, and throw the rest in a box for later. So that's what I did. I set up my file cabinets and threw all my folders into there without looking at them. I'll do a big throw away/add/reorganize thing at a later date. I pulled things together from the far reaches of the house, and put them in labeled boxes or containers. Things that now have a Designated Place To Be Put are:

- all kinds of tape (masking, scotch, packing, duct, etc.)
- seven years of bank statements (these used to be scattered in several different boxes)
- greeting card stash, thank-you notes, envelopes
- checkbook, stamps, return address labels
- Work-related CD-ROMs, backup CDs
- spare computer components
- maps
- change (one change bowl per floor)
- mixed paper recycling (one brown bag per floor, in a closet)

I have a list of more things I want to organize, plus there are tons of papers in the box that need to be sorted through. Freakin' PAPERS. UGH.

I also got myself a little foot-square set of small drawers, into which I have placed:

- AA batteries (40 of 'em, from a sale)
- paper clips
- suction cups with hooks (for hanging Christmas lights on windows, mainly)
- rubber bands
- hearing aid batteries to be recycled
- spare keys (plus some unknown keys)
- staples
- subway tokens
- miscellaneous screws

It may not sound like much, to do this, but prior to that this crap was ALL OVER THE GODDAMN HOUSE, in drawers and random jars and whatnot, and you'd have to SEARCH for them. There will be NO MORE SEARCHING for these things. They have a PLACE.

On Monday I got back from chauffering Poindexter and started doing some more organizing. I became somewhat obsessed. I realized that if I don't watch it, this is going to turn into a HOBBY. Hopefully once I have a place for everything, the obsession will wane a bit.

On Sunday, Gonzo and Jess came over for lunch!!!!! This was too cool, to be able to have them come to my HOUSE. And it also made any possible online-to-IRL translation weirdness just disappear. The couple hours they were here just flew by.

Now I'm starting to get much more social-minded. I used to think I didn't want to meet people IRL because it would be awkward and stuff, but it's turning out that people are just as interesting IRL as they are online, and it's ten times better because there's all this EXPRESSIVENESS and we're not limited by how fast we can type.

I had to send them on their way at 3pm, because it was Susannah and Brennan's 3rd birthday party. Among other things, I got them the new no-spill bubble-blowing thingies, and we spent a good 45 minutes outside blowing bubbles together. Gotta love it.

Don't have permission from Gonzo & Jess yet to use their pictures, so here's a crop of just me from Sunday:

previous index next