The Freckled Diaries

Dear Friends,

As you all no doubt know already, I am a stupid piece of shit when it comes to intersex relations. I do not understand the male of the species and his Neanderthal ways, and very seriously doubt that I ever will. It has recently come to my attention that on a fairly regular basis I am approached in such a fashion that would suggest interest beyond what I would categorize "friendly conversation" but that I have systematically and predictably failed to recognize such advances, resulting in some humorous anecdotes for those who witness the exchanges.

To that end, it would be beneficial, nay, encouraged, that the next time you see one acting in such a manner that you deem "flirtatious" (beyond the obvious "hand up the skirt, your place or mine"* kind of way, which I do in fact recognize as a come-on) that you alert me to the situation and allow me to deal with it in the manner in which I see fit.

I thank you in advance with your assistance in this matter.

Sincerely, 

Catherine

*No joke, this actually happened, and this is the PG version of what was a decidedly X rated (and one-sided) conversation, hand up the skirt and all.  In reference to this particular instance and any similar ones which may follow, if you ever receive a violent kick in the shin under the table when something like this is happening, chances are I'm looking for some help with defense (you know who you are).  Thank you.

Strange Days

Ever had one of those days that bizarre happenings surround you and you have no control over them?

It's almost impossible for me to get into any of it here, because I've dedicated this as a gossip free zone (one of the only ones in my life) and I'm going to stick with it.  Not because I'm above gossip, mind, just that I don't feel the need to get caught in the act of gossipmongering. Never put anything in writing that you wouldn't want your boss, spouse or mother reading on the front page of the New York Times.  And for me, I wouldn't care if the information (and holy jesus is there a lot of it, from like a bazillion areas of my life) was on the front page, but I would care if it was "Catherine M blabs that....".

So yes.  The bar has been buzzing, and not just with my tidbits. It seems to be in the water.

::Self Censored Complaining about School Project::

And finally, I have long had the rule that my romantic life (such as it is) won't be on here either, mainly because I know someone who got burned that way (went on a great date, wrote a blog about it, guy got freaked/pissed and dumped her).  So that leaves my current blogging life quite sparse, because really all I've got going is gossip, bitching and swoonyness.  So this blog is all about complaining about the weather, documenting my domestic pursuits, giving general, non-interesting updates about life and butchering the English language with words like "swoonyness".  Sorry folks, that's just how it's got to be sometimes. 

82 Degrees

What the hell?  No, seriously. That's hot for October even down here in Dixie.  And yes, I have made my peace with Virginia, preferring to think about it through the lens of Thomas Jefferson, and dogwood trees, and Williamsburg rather than the home of the confederacy, tobacco chewing hicksville land, and capital of dropped Gs but when I get frustrated with it, we're right back at the Dixie epithet. To be fair, when I got frustrated at Massachusetts (which was rare), I referred to it as "a hellhole of an icebox". My proposition from four years ago still stands: if Virginia goes "blue", I will forgive the weather. I think it's worth 13 electoral votes and not having to wear scarlet letter of "red state" to just stop bitching and go visit halfway decent weather.

But anyway.  82 degrees in mid-October will not stand.  That really is ridiculously warm even for here, which isn't exactly known for it's crisp, nice autumns (Virginia seems to have spent every last bit of it's "nice weather" capital on spring).  The average high for this day, according to Weather Underground is 69 degrees.  Warm for autumn (in my estimation...I think the high 50s/low 60s are perfect highs for this time of year) but still understandable at this latitude, and at that temperature you can feel that autumn bite to the air.  But you just can't at 82. 

82...that's JULY weather in the Bay State, hell, that's July weather in Philadelphia (look it up...average high in 19312 for mid July is 82). 82.  Christ.

I also can't stand the weather forecasters who (a) act like they've had a hand in the weather and (b) think that this prolonged warmth is something that we all want and like; ie. "we're bringing another great warm week for all of you out there".  Screw you.  

That's all for now.  

Schadenfreude

Or, I still check rental listings just to assure myself that I have, in fact, made a good decision.  Oh, and part of me like to gawk at the terrible deals.

This one stood out:

$1795 Rennovated Effic./Furnished parking/2 blocks to Potomac (Old Town Alexandria)
And the link will go dead eventually so I'll copy and paste the text.

Furnished rental with one assigned garage parking space. This Unit is fully renovated, marble bathroom, huge walk in closet and granite and stainless kitchen and flat screen TV. Partial water view. Available now, Short-term leases considered. Dogs considered on a case-by-case basis. Secure building. Price Change offered at $1,599per month, or with an option of $100 more with cable included.

Then it gives details as to who to contact, a licensed realtor (and you can so tell with that pricing scheme, end with "99" to make it mentally lower, offer two choices of "deals" and then give the impression of a markdown), at a mac.com address. Also I really really hate that spell check tried to force me to capitalize "realtor", when even the realtor didn't.  Which actually makes me think that she's not a Realtor"®" but a real estate agent because Realtors® can be kind of....well, I don't want to offend.  Mind, this is coming from someone who has had the occasion to have sit-downs with reps from the National Association of Realtors® on their lobby day and not only was this whole name debacle brought up but they are kind of pushy.

Anyway, to begin with the pricing doesn't make any sense.  Is it $1795, $1599 or $1699?  Either way, the salient detail is that they are asking somewhere between $1600-$1800 for an efficiency.  And it sounds great being in Old Town and on the river and all but that just so happens to be the part of town that's kind of between the Metro bus place (where they park them at night) and a coal fired power plant.  

But still....regardless....almost $1800 for a freaking studio?  It's been a long time since I've checked out Manhattan prices but something tells me we're in that realm now.  I'll go check.  Yep, here's $1650 for a studio on the Upper East Side (no address) and just to make sure that that Upper East Side isn't waaaaay upper aka Harlem (which apparently is pretty nice these days) here's...$1500 for a studio in Murray Hill (near Grand Central).  All that was no-effort, too.

Anyway, enough ranting.  I can't imagine someone taking that apartment.  I can't imagine why it's listed so high (well, sadly, I can and my imagination is taking me to "housing crisis").  This one, while a Very Bad Deal, does not somehow make me feel that I've got a Good Deal...it just confuses me.

School, Scotland, Wanderlust and Questionable Sanity

Today (tonight, really) I had my first class of the semester.  It's the "Libraries and Information in Society" core course so not too terribly much to report awesome class-wise (that should be tomorrow and Thursday), but I did see my seat buddy/ group project partner from last semester's classes and it was nice to catch up.  I told her about Alaska, she told me about Scotland and just as I finished my oft-repeated sigh of "oh, I have always wanted to live there, I gotta make that happen one day", a girl sitting in front of us piped up saying that she had lived in Edinburgh after college and (a) can show me how to get a student work visa for up to 6 months (b) her old roommate is a librarian there and could help with the finding of a job (c) knows how to find short term furnished apartments.  Awesome.  Add the fact that I could probably squeeze in a class or two to apply toward my degree(s) (I'm working out the history component) and that could be basically awesome.  

It's not the permanent move I've long wanted to make but it's a start, and now that this is becoming more reality I'm not sure if I'm totally up for a permanent move to someplace I've never been, even if it does seem like a match made in heaven.  Or, well, I'm not sure if I'm totally up for a permanent move at all to anywhere because I seem have a strong aversion to making permanent decisions (God help me on that front or I'll never marry!). But if I were up for a permanent move somewhere, Edinburgh would be top on the list along with Philadelphia (home), Portland and Seattle. I had others (extremely random others) listed but then, upon reflection...no.  I wouldn't wish to end up in those places permanently...not saying that I wouldn't DO it, I just wouldn't make it one of my "genie wishes".

There are also seriously promising avenues on the international development front.  In fact, the American Library Association has a whole "working group" for international sustainable library development within its International Relations Roundtable and on TOP of it, one of the members just so happens to be a Catholic professor.  Add the encounter last semester with the new president of the International Federation of Library Associations (who happens to be African and have contacts with some programs for library development that I found on my own), and that, too, is a promising avenue.  I doubt that any of this would result in long-term relocation because the nature of these programs is to get them to be self-sustainable. For me, that's good and bad (and for the libraries, all good, obviously). 

The good is that I do like to keep on-the-move and really don't like feeling "stuck" anywhere (even if I like it there) but the bad is the exact flip side of that coin and it is that when you're living and working somewhere you love it's really hard to move on.  This insane conflict of desires is a constant in my life and I'm getting kind of sick of it. But just think, the longer time you spend in one place or doing one thing, that is time that you are necessarily withholding from other, possibly more interesting,  prospective living and working situations.  Basically, every month you spend in DC is one month you won't be able to spend elsewhere.  Every day spent on one project or in one job is a day you can't spend in your "next" project or job.  It's maddening.

But either way, on the development front,  3-6 months of work developing specific outreach programs, funding projects or library worker training (or just helping get a new library off the ground) would be both fun and rewarding....I'm just sure I'd want to stay longer while having the drive to go back home and also wanting to live someplace entirely new.  Crazy, I tell you.

But then we come around to the constant sticking point.....the cats.  What to do with the cats? They do qualify for the special US/UK pets program that does not require quarantine but I kind of question Penny's ability to survive the stress of that particular trip, as well as much longer ones (most of the development stuff I've looked into has been in Central and Southern Africa). This is the same cat who wound up in the kitty ICU the one and only time she was present to witness a move.  What was wrong?  Respiratory distress brought on by stress related to moving. I kid you not, I have a cat with a nervous condition.  Something tells me that 6 to 12 hours in a cargo hold (after several hours of driving to airport/being in airport) would not do the wee beastie any favors.  

Can you leave kitties behind for 6 months? The longest I've left them was for 8 weeks, once for the campaign and once for Vietnam.  Does it even make sense to bring them for such a short term?  What happens if I DO wind up moving permanently? I don't want to leave them behind but I don't want to risk killing them (or, well her...Toby would be fine because he really doesn't care what you do to him as long as it doesn't involve water and provided there's food afterwards).  I love them, but I kind of get a little regretful about the roots that they've given me.  Stupid roots.

So....in case you haven't caught on, the wanderlust is gnawing at me again. I have no big trips planned (I WAS going to do the January term class in Nicaragua but it apparently filled up in a matter of hours), and have been discovering and re-discovering just HOW MANY options there are in this field and it's kind of overwhelming....like "trip to the fabric store" overwhelming, not scary overwhelming, and I suspect that this is the source for this particular bout of the travel bug.  For the record, though, I have visited 10 international library development sites, 6 cities' Craigslists (for apartments) as well as a few Edinburgh specific rental websites, and 3 international pet moving specialist companies all in the past hour.  

Going into Radio Silence

So that whatever powers that be decide if an individual should be jinxed or not doesn't know to evaluate me for my jinx-worthiness.

This is all part of a larger story but I don't want the jinx hunters to hear me so shhhh.....

An Open Letter

Or statement, really, to the owners of the property on the NW corner of Duke and Fairfax Streets:

Not. Cool. 

That lilac bush wasn't hurting anything and brought beauty and a lovely, happy smell of Spring to the block.  My day got a little happier every time I passed it in bloom and now it is dead, chopped, hacked, killed and lying on the sidewalk.  I'm not even totally certain it was on your property in the first place--that may have been (technically) City property.

If there was some sort of wasp infestation, or botanic disease, some root problem or another, I send my condolences for your loss and I apologize for my harsh tone and hope that you understand that I'm just defending what was once my favorite place to stop and smell the roses (or, well, lilacs).  But if you removed/murdered the plant just because you don't like the sweet innocent purple flowers, or like how the bush looks or some anti-lilac cosmetic reason:  a pox on you!  And a blight on whatever inferior plant you put in that bush's place! (Unless of course it's peonies in which case I can kind of understand, but still: think of the poor lilacs! And if you are going to plant peonies and are interested in getting back into my good graces, I am not above floral bribery).

That's all I have to say about that.

Winge

I always preferred the word "winge" to "whine". It sounds more pained (and somehow brings to mind getting fingers caught in a doorjam) and less....swine-like.  What is the correct word for that?  There must be one.  Bovine is cow-like.  What is swine-like? Swinal?  Ew, what a terrible word, that really can't be it.  Not even the clunkly, unattractive English language would allow something like "swinal" into its lexicon.

Oh, hello.  In case you can't tell I'm a little loopy.  I have been up all night "doing my paper" which for my purposes is synonymous for "doing everything else except doing my paper".  Trouble is, I really like my topic.  Like, a lot.  I think it's fascinating and has so many different fun facets (I think of them as the poky little alleyways of the thought process) to explore and it's all so interrelated and so influential to how we as a society think and it's just great.  Seriously.  I know I'm waxing a bit philosophic at the moment but....it's just all that and a bag of chips.  No, the problem here is that I currently lack the mental discipline to organize and write down my thoughts.  My brain is going at the speed of light (as it is wont to do when I'm excited about something) but the rationality just can't seem to break through and take over.  If I could sit down and talk to the professor about this topic for an hour or two, I could.  And it would be awesome.  And I'd get an A.  But the writing of the paper is escaping me.  I'm starting to remember one of the main reasons why my last year at Smith was so terribly and completely painful*.  This.  This is it.

But now, I don't even have a bathtub to go think and hide in.  I miss having a bathtub. 

Revisiting the more positive note, I really really really do like this topic (I'd say what it is but it would sound very, very boring without a  long winded explanation which really, if I'm going to do that it really ought to go in to the paper, right?) and think that I may actively pursue a career (or at least a practicum) along this path.  And life would be awesome.  Or, well, more awesome because all things considered (except the paper, obviously), life is already pretty great. 

Yep.  That's the state I'm in.  I'm off to try to think in the shower.  Sigh.

*Nothing to do with Smith, mind.  I loved it there and still do.  It will always and forever have a special place in my heart.  I'm so glad I went there, and would do it all over again in a second.  My senior year, though, was awful.  And I may be repeating the past. Or at the very least worrying myself that I may be repeating the past, which does me just as few favors.