And That's That.

I ate and drank enough to choke a horse last night. Raw steak and booze is a fine way to welcome 30. And the presents! I highly recommend making as big a deal as possible out of your 30th birthday (that's aimed at you, NPW) because I totally cleaned up.

And it's not over...tomorrow night is my semi-surprise party. All I know is that it's at 7pm. Somewhere. Where there will be booze.

Also: Dom Perignon? No better than a $40 bottle of champagne. But the box is cool.

Also also: another year of NaBloPoMo is over, and I almost made it. This might be the last time for me - NoBloShoeMo, however, is right up my alley. We'll have to see what the next 11 months brings...maybe I'll have something fascinating to write about every day.

What a Difference a Day Makes.

HOLLA, BITCHES!

I'M 30!!!!!

Typing in all caps seems appropriate today. I've decided to own the hell out of this birthday, especially since it's a weekend-long celebration.

And - I got elephant poop stationery this morning!

Really...can it get any better than that?

I almost got into the champagne in the refrigerator this morning, but then my dad called and I forgot about it. I guess it's okay since I do have to actually function today, because, like rust, homework never sleeps.

So I'm beginning what will be one of the most important years of my adult life. And I feel good about it.

But don't you say A WORD about my grey hair.

That's It.

I'm not turning 30. Somewhere in the last 18 hours I've changed my mind. I was okay during the drinking last night, but by this morning it lost its lustre and that was it.

Yes. I know. I cannot stop the march of time and I'm going to get older whether I want to or not. When I poo-pooed my husband's feelings on turning 30 last year I had no idea I'd end up feeling the same way he did.

So here I am in the last hours of my 20s and realizing that maybe 30 means you have to grow up and holy cow I don't want to do THAT. And so I refuse.

Time Keeps On Ticking...

Somehow I feel like I should party like it's 1999 for the next two nights. I turned 21 that year, so at least I was legal. Except that I don't think my liver could take that anymore. Time is a cruel, cruel mistress. So is liquor.

Instead, perhaps I will party with some Carvel ice cream cupcakes. That? Is about my speed, especially since the end of this week is going to involve a whole lotta drinking. I have to pace myself, as the aforementioned liver literally weeps alcohol when I drink.

I am an old, old woman. And for the first time today I got burned by a 20-year-old. She's lucky she's my friend, or I might've kicked her in the box and shoved her.

20.

I can't believe I'm a full 10 years removed from that now. One part of me is wistful and nostalgic for that time. Then the almost-30 part of me whacks it with a hammer because dude, 20 wasn't all that great. I was in college and poor and paying my own way through school.

I'm not poor anymore, at least. How far I've come.

And This.

I'm obviously done working for the night...bad library customer indeed.

Today's Achewood.

So Much Work...

So little motivation. Welcome to the end of the semester. And why did I choose to not have a break between semesters? Oh yeah...that e-portfolio thingie.

Grr.

Anyone want to finish my wiki or create a digital communication implementation plan?

That's what I thought.

And the Hammer Falls

Or the axe, as the case may be. Our biggest project at work is slowly going on hold...and people are slowly exiting the building as they're finished. This, while sad, is the nature of the beast in our business and like the cockroach, I am going nowhere.

I did apply for my first job last night. Not that I think it'll mean anything, as I'm a dime a dozen as an entry-level librarian.

We'll see.

Off to learn Islam!

A Letter to My 15-Year-Old Self

This has been done before, and by much better writers. But 15 was the defining year in my life.

Dear 15,

I know that waiting for the inevitable to happen made you sick, too. I still remember. You cried so little after it happened, not even at the funeral..so strong, so stoic. You loved her more than anyone in the world - you were her pumpkin, her little girl. The hole left after she died was never filled, and you immediately were an adult. You ran a house, and spent so much time alone while he escaped into his work. But you never let anyone know that it hurt. You had a smile for everyone and you were just fine...you'll get really good at that. Your sister left school to take care of you - you'll never be able to repay her for putting her life on hold for you, but you will do whatever you can for her and the kids that will become as much yours as they are hers.

You'll make it out the other side with the grace and maturity of someone much older. You'll realize that bigger and better things are out there for you somewhere and you won't waste the chance to find them, even though it means leaving your life 3,000 miles behind. I admire your resilience and pragmatism - others will notice and appreciate this as you navigate your 20s.

I wish I could give you a glimpse of what life is like 15 years later. You'd be surprised...maybe a little shocked about the path chosen, especially because being a librarian is nowhere near as sexy as being a record producer. But one day you'll wake up and realize where your passion lies, and that it's what you were really meant to do.

You married the musician just like you said you would, by the way. And a lot earlier than you expected. Not so much with the kids though.

You will be loved, admired, and respected as a person and a professional.

You're going to be okay. More okay than you ever could have imagined. In 15 years you'll be on the cusp of the most exciting year of your adult life. You'll wish she was here to see it.

And maybe she is.

Lost Puppy Update

Squeezle has been adopted!!

I'm so glad...if he was still there next week we'd have brought him home.

State of the Union

So I turn 30 in five days. It's finally sinking in, I think, but I'm not dwelling too much on it, especially since I'm in the midst of reviewing Russian archival practices and creating wikis. I have a friend whose daughter-in-law quietly turned 30 this past week, and we've decided that it has a lot to do with where one is in life when it hits. His d-i-l is married, has a house and a new baby. She's at a good place in life, so being 30 is nothing.

I think that's why I'm pretty at peace with it. I've been married for years, I have a good job, I live in a house (that while not my own is a fine place to be until I find the foreclosure of my dreams), and I'm six months from getting my MLIS. If I were single, living by myself in a studio apartment with a purse dog or worse and working some lame job, I might be freaking out about it. But I'm okay.

30 might be the best year yet.

In the next five days, I'll say a few things to my younger self. Things I wish I had any clue about 10 or 15 years ago. Because sometimes I wish I could just put my arms around age 15 and tell her that it'll be okay - better than she ever imagined...she could've used that.

OH NOES!

I missed a day!

I remembered at 11:15 last night and said to myself, "I am so not getting out of bed just to post." And really, if I enjoyed my day too much to even think about getting out my laptop, that's reason enough to be thankful this year.

So, due to Thanksgiving, I am a NaBloPoMo failure.

But I will soldier on and finish out the month because this is the last week of my 20s.

Eek.

Thanksgiving Eve!

And you know what I got for Thanksgiving?

A PAP SMEAR!

Sorry, was that TMI?

And I got weighed. We won't discuss that. God bless my doctor for not mentioning it.

I am a well woman for another year.

In other news, my cell phone has finally died. The screen is a beautiful shade of white. And nothing else. My husband has been after me for months to get a new phone because I don't get good signal and the speaker is slowly dying. But I lurve it so much. Now it is gone and I have to buy a new one this weekend. *Sigh*

Also also: STEVE MADDEN has opened in Pasadena. I may never have to leave town again.

Sweet Caroline

Neil Diamond finally announced whom Sweet Caroline was written about.

But we all know that's not true. This is how it came about.

Best. Sketch. Ever.

Off the Rails Much?

Holy meltdown yesterday. Today is a much better day. Sometimes I'm slightly dramatic.

Just slightly.

But everything is fine and even though I decided last night in the midst of meltdown that I wasn't going to have a party and blah blah weepcakes, it's all planned and people are invited and I should just shut up.

Selah.

Lost Puppy Update.

He's still at the shelter. They say he's about three months old.

Isn't someone looking for him?? He's just a baby.

Now I'm irritated about that too.

GRRRRRR.

I don't know what it is about today, but holy crap am I irritated.

Even Blogger is pissing me off right now because it's really SLOW. Gah.

Wait. I do know, and this is going to get personal.

I guess the first thing that set me off was the fact that I found a whole pile of drawings at work that are filed in the completely wrong spot. This means that doubles are appearing and taking up extra space on the already too small server. I’ll do something about it next week.

But the thing that’s sticking in my craw has to do with my birthday. All I wanted was a party. I haven’t had a party since I was six, and I think 30 probably deserves one. Everyone has been aware of this fact for months…and yet a party is only half-planned and if you’re keeping track, I’m turning 30 in 10 days. I’m pretty sure that no one’s even been invited, because the DATE HASN’T BEEN SET.

So, thanks! Thanks for half-assing my birthday. It really means a lot that you think so much of me that you can’t even plan one fucking birthday party. I guess it was just too much to ask. You might as well forget about it because honestly? By the time it actually gets planned it’ll be too late to invite anyone.

So hey! 30 is already turning out to be great and I’m not even there yet.

Did You Lose a Dog?

Because we had a slumber party with a Jack Russell puppy last night. One of the neighbor boys found him wandering around and took him to his house where his two big dogs subsequently lorded over him and caused great loudness. So, he brought him over to us and OH MY GOD IT WAS SO CUTE I couldn't say no.

RULE NUMBER ONE: put some DAMN TAGS on your dog. He had nothing - no ID tag, no license. Just a tiny choke chain that was so small it might as well have been a necklace.

My plan was to call animal control and they'd come pick him up and all would be well with the world. And I did call. At 5:30pm. No one ever called me back to come pick him up. By 8:30 he'd fallen asleep in my husband's lap in his studio and we decided to just keep him for the night. Because honestly? I can't imagine my own dog, who is 75 pounds and has a two-layer coat, sleeping in an outdoor kennel all night, and this was an eight pound purse dog.

But jeez, what a whiner. That dog whined about everything, and when Ki decided she wanted to be pals with him, he barked and screamed. GAH. He ended up sleeping at the top of our bed while Ki slept in her usual place at my feet.

This morning it was off to the shelter with the dog I had named Squeezle, because I'm sure someone is missing him. He was too well-groomed to be a stray.

And my husband just texted me to say that the dog might have ringworm. Yum.

I am freshly showered and all linens are being washed.

Dusty.

Thanksgiving time is the time of year when I actually clean my house, mainly because people come over to eat and I can't give them a dust-covered cocktail glass to drink out of...so this afternoon I pulled all of the glassware off the shelf and holy crow the dust that was underneath was amazing.

I really need to dust more often.

But now everything is washed and sparkly and later I'll be throwing out the old expired liquor to make room for the new liquor that will be thrown out next year.

That's all I've got today. Except that I bought a roasting pan today - then I suddenly realized on the way home that I probably don't need it as I think I bought one a couple years ago. But I wanted it and it was nice! I'll probably end up returning it after I sigh over it a few times because I really don't have room for two roasting pans since I don't have access to my back apartment right now.

Thought for the Day.

Why do people who used to work at Disney insist on reliving every detail of their time with the Mouse? You are not there anymore - don't you have anything else to talk about?

The. End.

Hmm.

A few hours ago I was going to write something, then I got sidetracked and can't remember what it was.

Eh.

What I do know is that I'm going to Disney Concert Hall to see Neko Case tonight.

I love love love her. It will also be the first show I've seen here - and not because I hate the building, which I do. Everyone seems to think it's some kind of masterpiece, but I'm no Frank Gehry fan.

My husband, who politely declined my invitation to accompany me because I had an available escort, thinks it is sacrilege for her to be playing in a classical music hall. He's cute. Also: a classically trained violinist.

Next week is Dvorak's Ninth, and he is very happy to be my date.

FAQ

Why is your program so LONG?

One: the SJSU MLIS degree is 42 credits. Each class is only worth three credits, as opposed to the four that most grad schools grant. Don't ask me why.

Two: I only take two classes a semester, because I work full-time and I don't want to get divorced.

No, really. I was joking about a PhD the other day and my husband said he'd leave and come back when I was finished with it. I am not getting a PhD. Ever.

That is why I've been in school for two years. You can't really do it in less than that, because they won't let you take more than three classes at a time, and two during summer sessions.

It's a good thing I love it.

Spider!

Somewhere a spider is lurking around my chair...I'm sort of creeped out about it, but when I saw it I screamed and flung it somewhere else. I should've squished it.

Anyway.

People always say that Los Angeles has no seasons. They can believe that all they want, because when I can drive home from work in mid-November with my windows down I'm not missing them. That belief, by the way, is bull. We have four seasons just like everyone else. Just because it doesn't snow or tornado or hurricane doesn't mean the weather doesn't change. So there.

I keep thinking I see that spider out of the corner of my eye.

In other news, today I registered for my LAST SEMESTER OF GRAD SCHOOL. This is it. It's almost too good to be true, even though I know the next six months are not going to be a cakewalk. It was just two years ago about this time that I was accepted.

What a long strange trip it's been.

Back to archival ethical issues!

This guy is my hero.

Here Are Some Things I'm Looking at Today

Digg - for this week's Digital Communications lesson.


The Creation Museum - which is Gene's fault, because he sent me this blog link.

That led us to this Flickr photoset.

Would you believe I've written a paper AND done productive things at work today? Because I have, as I am SUPER MULTI-TASKER!

Sailing the High Seas

But only in my head. Last night I had a dream that I was sailing with pirates. They weren't very good at being pirates, though. They had some kind of homemade sailboat, and the captain sat in a hole in the deck with a hatch and only his head was sticking out. Someone said something about hoisting the sails, which consisted of unfurling a six-foot bed sheet. Then we took the 14 waterway toward Canada.

And I wasn't even drunk.

They had a dog, too - but I can't remember what she did.

It's been a long day, and my homework is half finished, which is where it will remain until tomorrow as I am hibernating in the hopes it will quell the grippe that I seem to have finally caught from the office. I so cannot get sick.

This is the End...

of another Vegas weekend. The princess was totally interesting and very open about Saudi culture. Also: she's an alternative medicine practioner, not a pediatrician. I wish I would've had more time to speak with her. Hopefully another time - she did invite me to Saudi Arabia, but my husband won't let me go. That one is written in stone, for sure.

This time last year, it was the beginning of my nightmare descent into a month-long UTI that wouldn't die.

One word of advice: go see a urologist. It'll fix everything. I haven't had a problem since I went to see him. And that is a miracle because believe me, if I sneeze wrong I get an infection.

A-men.

Tomorrow it's back to the real world, and very early in the morning.

It's Vegas, Baby

Which has so far consisted of going to dinner here, stopping for ice cream here and coming home to pass out on the couch at 9:00 last night. Both of those places? Are what I never miss when I come out here - we get off the plane and go straight to dinner. And that ice cream is the best on the planet.

Today it was day of beauty! Or something. Hair, nails and eyebrows, and now I'm ready to meet some Saudi Arabian princess who's a pediatrician. She's a friend of a friend, I guess, and my host for the weekend has gifts for his friend's children that she's taking back with her.

What a life, eh? Then it's off to Pamplemousse! This is one of the few local places I've wanted to try but haven't made it to yet.

So, if you're ever in Vegas and need some suggestions? I'm there at least six times a year - I've been almost everywhere, and can tell you what to skip.

Back to the drinking!

Also: I've been accepted to do the special project I mentioned the other day. w00t!

@#$$%@@

If I were to write a post right now every other word would be "fuck."

And then I would pass out.

In 15 minutes I'm leaving for the airport and then I'm off to Vegas.

FUCK. THIS.

See?

All Work and No Play...

makes me cranky. I spent 11 hours in the office today, and I'm 45 minutes into my homework for the evening. Interim deliverables are for the birds, is all I have to say.

I did hear a fantastic story about the archivists from the Lincoln Library and Museum today. Let's just say their preservation techniques were not within the norm before the new building was built. Like shoeboxes in the back of a guy's car. That was the highlight of my day. The rest of it was spent in front of a monitor either putting drawings on title blocks or uploading. Thrilling! OH WAIT! I went here today. DUDE - it is like grocery store Mecca, or Makkah if you're being completely correct. (Yeah, we do a lot of work in the MENA region) Anyway, I'm in love and I might have to move in there.

Now I'm waiting for my husband to call with a status on the non-startation of his truck. I just made up a new word, yes I did. Thank god for roadside assistance, and the fact that he is at work and not stranded somewhere on the freeway. REAL TIME UPDATE - he got it started with the help of our friend Curtis, he of the automotive persuasion. This means I won't have to eat lamb alone.

Hello to my new commenters!

Back to work.

Over the Hump*

It's the downhill side of the week. Does this really mean anything to anyone anymore? Is that a lot of anys for one sentence?

I finished my papers FINALLY and sat through the longest almost totally irrelevant to me meeting ever today. Because really, we can hire an entire army of people, but it will do nothing to my workload except give me more bodies to explain things to. While everyone else gets support staff, I get more work. And if you think I'm kidding, our acting COO looked at me on his way out of the office today and said, "You're going to hate me, but I told what's her tits (not her real name) to give you all of the attraction information because it's out of control and she's buried, just so you know who to hate when it all shows up on your desk in two hours." To which I replied, "I won't be here. I'll hate you in the morning." (I had a salon appointment today) This in general is not a major issue. I am the document controller, and it is my job to take care that stuff. However, I am also functioning as a project coordinator, part-time graphic designer, and in a minimal office administrative capacity. This is what I call "sticking our fingers in the dam", and is what I've been doing for five years. It is also what we're trying to fix, and why we had a long boring meeting. But it will not help me, as I have and probably always will be the catch-all person in the company. When one job is given to another person, I get a new one.

So thanks, guys! In essence, this means I just have to take more time off in order to maintain my sanity. And go to places like Morocco. That reminds me that I haven't uploaded my Hawaii pictures yet.

I'll save that for when I REALLY don't have anything to write about.

Look at me ending sentences with prepositions! I feel so subversive.

And now it's time to get back to homework. Social bookmarking ahoy!

*your history lesson for the day.

Blocked.

But I could probably write a six-page blog post.

Today's trouble involves writing six pages about Facebook and MySpace. These days I don't think MySpace deserves six words, and I'm not much more interested in Facebook. However, this is my burden to carry and as it's due tomorrow, I must soldier on.

I hate ending sentences with prepositions. That is evidence of how much writing I've done in my life.

On a completely unrelated note, people who blog about work seem to have such interesting stories to tell - my days consist of emailing drawings, re-naming drawings, filing drawings, talking about drawings, throwing drawings...you get the picture. While I enjoy most of the people I work with, I don't have any particularly funny or entertaining stories to tell about them. If I could actually talk about what we're working on, that would be cool, but everything is confidential.

In conclusion, my life is horribly uninteresting and right now I'm wasting what desire I might have to write on blogging instead of actually DOING MY HOMEWORK.

This post is going nowhere. Just like that paper.

Oh, the Joys.

One - Mondays blow. Especially when I end up doing the exact things I wasn't supposed to be doing anymore because we HIRED SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT. Someday I'm not going to have the time to do these things anymore and then I will LAUGH AND LAUGH.

Then I will drown in a pile of paper.

Two - just when I think I've got everything in order and it's all downhill from here to my degree, another kink gets thrown in...today it's a new special project possibility that would be done by the beginning of spring semester, thus leaving me copious amounts of time to flail about with my e-portfolio. The project covers three competencies and lasts about three weeks and is worth three credits. The biggest thing is that it covers a competency that I've been worried about meeting without having to do a lot of unique research.

But then I have to change my candidacy paperwork, work through my semester break, and not take the Web 2.0 taxonomy class I had planned on taking in the spring, and yes, I might have been interested in it because I AM A DORK WHO LOVES TEH INTARWEBS.

So, what's a girl to do?

Her homework.

Seven Year Itch.

Today my husband and I have been married for seven years. We've been a couple for 12. It's weird to think that we've spent over a decade together, and even weirder to think that we started dating when I was 17. I was almost 18, really, but we've spent all of our adult years together. It's hard for me to remember a time when it wasn't the two of us. We spent four years together in college, and then a long year apart when I moved to Los Angeles and he stayed behind to finish up school...the true test of any relationship. We got married five years to the day from when we started dating, and we're still plugging away today.

Some days we aren't thrilled with each other, but in the end I'm glad he's the one I wake up next to every morning. Well, him and the dog - if we haven't pushed her out of bed. I wouldn't have it any other way. Probably because I'm not sure any other man would put up with me.

So keep doing it with conviction, love - and may this year be the best one yet.

Randomness.

The cursor is already taunting me and it's only day three. I think my problem is that as much as I'd like to delve into my psyche, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be interesting, even to me.

So - let's talk about nuts. I have this phobia about eating unwrapped food items out of a community container. At work there are nuts and pretzels and animal crackers in bowls or jars and I refuse to touch them. Something in my brain tells me that they are teeming with germs and I'm going to catch a disease. One of the guys in the office gets the biggest kick out this and we laugh all the time about it. I have no idea why it squicks me out so much, but ICK.

However, I'll put any random writing implement in my mouth without thinking twice, and I know that is even more disgusting than eating a peanut out of a bowl. I catch myself and I immediately get grossed out and remove it, but I just don't stop putting things in my mouth. Don't read into that.

See? My brain is totally not interesting.

25 days until 30...

An Open Letter

Dear IT guys who randomly visit my office,

Thanks for jacking everything up. It's terrific when the wireless connection here works half the day and people on Macs can't even connect to it. It's also grand that all of my project files have yet to be migrated to the new server from the old one - this makes it impossible for me to actually DO my job, as it involves managing these files. While this gives me time to blog in the middle of the day, or write papers, it makes it rather difficult to find anything that wasn't created in the past three weeks.

Yes. Three weeks.

It should not take me 20 minutes to transfer 35MB worth of information from the network to a desktop. Really, it shouldn't. It never did before this new network was installed, and back then we were running everything off of one desktop PC.

I've also noticed, and so help me God I hope it's just my Mac mirroring the old server, that we have just over 2 gig of space left for storage. Please let this be my Mac acting generally retarded, as it often is, because if we run out of space today I'm quitting and going out to drink. A lot.

I hope all the kinks work themselves out - I'd like to have faith in your abilities, but I'm just as suspicious of you as I am of 30.

F.U.,

Corinne

Suspicious.

I've gotten very comfortable with being 29. I like to tell people, "I'm 29 for the first time." I'm the only 20-something in my office, everyone thinks I'm cool (ok, maybe not - I like to believe they do), and I'm old enough to be taken seriously but not too much of an adult. 29 and I have had some good times...it's not been the easiest or most fun year, but it has certainly had its high points.

I'm not so sure about 30. She stands there at the end of the month saying, "Hi! I'm fun, too! Would you like a cupcake? We're going to be BFFs, I just know it." And then she tells me my hair looks great and asks if I've lost weight.

I don't trust 30 one bit, because I haven't lost an ounce since I got back from Hawaii. I'm very suspicious of her promises of the best. year. EVER. I know what the first six months will hold - I get heartburn just thinking about it.

After that, maybe 30 and I will be inseparable and we'll go on our merry way holding hands and singing a happy tune. But until then? I'm watching her out of the corner of my eye because although everyone else's 30 was a wonderful companion, I'm not ready to buddy up to her just yet.

Also: welcome to NaBloPoMo!