Archive for the 'The Great Moving Caper' Category

Diminishing Marginal Utility

October 17, 2007 | Filed under: Mmhmm That's Right, The District Of Columbia, The Great Moving Caper

“Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.” ~Arthur Christopher Benson

Part of my major was Economics and though I did well in college level economic courses in high school, college was significantly more difficult. I retain very little information when it comes to math or science, which is why my attention span for the production possibilities frontier waned after the first 20 minutes. Those precious moments were instead used to think sweet thoughts of J. Crew and how to perfect a keg stand. The one thing I will always recall is the law of Diminishing Marginal Utility (DMU). With ‘utility’ being satisfaction, the premise follows that as a person increases their consumption of a product, there will be a decline in the satisfaction (utility) that the person derives from the consumption of each additional unit of that product. It’s the law that keeps Chinese Buffet in business as they know that while it’s technically ‘All you can eat’ no one is going to eat seven plates of orange, MSG filled, faux Chinese ribs even if the first plate is so awesome, the subsequent plates of ribs will be less awesome and then you’ll you want to vomit. Not that I know from personal experience or anything.

Lest you think that I’m extolling all of my economic knowledge on you, I have been finding that DMU applies to most everything. Like on Sunday, when we went apple picking, Matza and I each bought a dozen hot apple cider donuts. In years past she had to overnight them to me individually wrapped in order to retain their delicious freshness and I would have one – who the hell am I kidding? Three – and share the rest. I was able to eat them fresh out of the bakery this time so we both had one in the car on the way to the apple trees. Then because I was doing most of the work and demonstrating my flexibility by arching my back to get under a tree to a perfectly shaped apple, I was exhausted at the end so I had another. Then I got home and The Roommate wasn’t there so while watching Tell Me You Love Me, I had two more. There were other insignificant events that mostly involved me sitting in front of google reader and then going to the gym but each time I felt inclined to have a donut even though by the 10th (I shit you not), the allure of the crispy outside and the soft cake-like inside made me want to die. So I did what any smart woman who doesn’t need a larger ass would do; I dumped half a bottle of Downy Wrinkle Releaser on the last two donuts. On Monday, I survived on two apples and a bowl of peas.

I’m writing this from a hotel in DC, where my satisfaction of coming back to one of my favorite cities in the world, has significantly declined. The first time I came back to DC it was great, the second time still pretty good; I could see my friends, shop in Georgetown and buy as much organic seven dollar oatmeal from Whole Foods as I wanted. This trip will last until Saturday and it is my fourth in two months. If DC were donuts or plates of lo mein from the Chinese Buffet, I would have wretched all over the bathroom floor by now. It’s not that I don’t love it here, because I do and everything will always and has since compared to DC, it’s just that I have had this very large tub full of sweaters and boots sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor for like six weeks now. Every morning I have to choose which side to get out of bed based on what I fancy ramming my toe into that morning. Will it be the suitcase full of God knows what? Or maybe I’ll go for the hamper and the box of books? It’s like a fun little guessing game I like to call “How will I fuck up my toe?” and my big toe always loses.

At a fundraiser last night, people couldn’t believe that I lived in upstate NY and continually asked if I was happy and if it was good and how in the world people survived outside of the beltway. The answer is very, very easily. I might complain and compare and might punch the next person who tells me in excruciating detail what it will be like the first time I try to park in my neighborhood after it snows; yet my satisfaction of being in upstate NY has yet to diminish, in fact it’s finally starting to show.

Protocol

September 19, 2007 | Filed under: Great moments in narcissism, The Great Moving Caper

“When we ask advice we are usually looking for an accomplice.”  ~Charles Varlet de La Grange

A few weeks before moving, I found out that people in Upstate NY had been read my blog, noted that I had occasionally enjoyed a fermented beverage and then told my mother. Causing memories of the fifth grade to come flooding back to me because telling on someone is about as grade school as it gets. Telling on someone to their mother when you are over 30 means you deserve a sharp jab to the ribs and possibly some animal crackers and a juice box. Cry baby. Though I suppose that their lives were so incredibly vapid and coma inducing that they decided to share in my life. Which for the record, is about as interesting as watching someone pick their nose.

The other night The Roommate and I were discussing sharing and how we know very little about each other. In fact I didn’t even know what she did for a living until two days ago. So we shared the superficial stuff like middle names and how when I see a bottle of wine just sitting there with wine still in it, I feel compelled to drink it. She agreed, because then we split two bottles of wine. The quandary that has presented itself is whether or not to divulge that I get great pleasure out of writing about my life on the internet. While there is possibility that she’s already aware and is waiting for me to just tell her there is also the tiny bit of me that is protective.

It’s not like this is a secret or something as I do recall the glorious year of having my full name as my URL because I thought, “who the hell would use Google?” But part of me has some odd privacy issue wherein it is perfectly acceptable to tell tales of drunken debauchery and general lack of intellect with a heap of ignorance and stupidity to several hundred people. And though I’m sure it is perfectly fine to tell The Roommate the same, there’s something about her reading about it on the internet that makes me want to remove every instance of the ‘C’ word and all of those times I mentioned vomit.

It’s some sort of odd boundary issue. The kind that plagues me when I meet someone new. How much is too much to know? It’s like any other relationship; you want to share as much as possible but there will come a point when that person will annoy to the point of making your brain come out of your ears and you’ll want so badly to write about wanting to kick that person in the crotch. But you can’t, because they read your fucking blog. And then you’re left with internalized feelings of detest and dreaming of tap dancing on that person’s head because Really? Your mother taught you to put the toilet paper on the roll like that?

Settling in

September 16, 2007 | Filed under: The Great Moving Caper, This side of the Hudson

“I like corny, I’m looking for corny in my life” – Kate Winslet

I moved again this weekend. Which is really nothing out of the ordinary at this point given how fluid things have been as of late. But I moved and it was by far one of the easiest moves I’ve had in ages. Any other move – granted, I’m counting moves between dorm rooms for two and a half years – has involved a soul sucking process of packing and wondering how seven pairs of socks up and disappeared and realizing that I own seven ugly shirts, none of which fit. Each move more soul sucking than the previous time, which is probably why I’m a soulless, callous, bitch; because I keep fucking moving.

And each time, I think of how wonderful and charming my neighborhood is and how much I adore it and want to snuggle up to it and never leave. Then comes the regret of moving to said neighborhood because the people suck and the meter people have sticks shoved so far up their asses that they can’t see straight. This is why I now get hives and queasy every time I step foot on Capitol Hill.

This time it’s different as I really do like my neighborhood and want to curl up next to it and never leave. It’s not a place where I would find it unfathomable to purchase real estate in. It’s cute and charming and I want to snuggle most every part of it, save for the homeless man next to the organic food place who keeps calling me baby while snapping at me. Everything else gets a hug but he gets a swift kick to his ‘happy place’.

Besides neighborhood love, I’ve had another great epiphany: Despite the fact that it will be a balmy 36 degrees this evening and that I’m desperate for my sweaters and that eventually it will snow for 15 days straight, and around every corner is a person from high school; it’s really not that bad. There’s something enjoyable about small city life and that I can just run to a parent’s house when in dire straights. And I really haven’t given everything here including my friends…Oh yes, I do have friends here. I just never see and/or speak to them because I’m hell bent on going to DC as frequently as possible to see my other friends. Anyway, I haven’t given them or the area or – hell – my job a fair chance because I’m too busy wanting something else instead of accepting what I have and just dealing with it. That said, it is September, always the start of something new and possibly adventurous. I’m going to make every attempt to stop complaining about having to be here. No one forced me here. I came on my own volition and can leave whenever I damn well please but I’m staying. So, no more complaining. I won’t even complain in January when my toes are frost bitten and I’m scraping seven layers of ice off my car and my nipples are permanently hardened. Not even then.

Simon

September 10, 2007 | Filed under: Humdrum, Oh The Stupidity You'll See, The Great Moving Caper

 
“After scolding one’s cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word.  And has filed it for reference.”  ~Charlotte Gray

On Thursday night I went over to my apartment to do some measuring and to admire the vast amount of closet space I had suddenly acquired. Enough space for me to fit my shoes, bags, clothes and a few dead bodies if the need should arise.

While measuring space for a bookshelf and questioning what type of cheap, Swedish furniture I should get to fill up the place, I noticed my roommate’s cat, Simon, underneath the bed.  I had been previously advised by The Roommate that Simon is psychotic. Simon needs some serious kitty therapy to get him through his often disgruntle behavior. It’s all of that living of his incredibly difficult life of sitting on his fat ass all day long and having things brought to him that has Simon hating his life, people and the direction in which the wind blows through the house.

So I ignored him and continued to think about the new chair I was going to get for my desk while tuning out his increasingly loud hissing. When the hisses turned to low rumbling growls from the depths of his evil black heart, I turned around and rolled my eyes and told him to shut up and perhaps try a Xanax. Apparently Simon did not take too kindly to those suggestions which I noticed as he lunged towards my leg and took a nice chunk out of my meaty ankle.

And so I did what any normal person who had just been attacked would do; I screamed like a little girl and gave him a firm swat to the face with my Coach bag causing him to run off and me to slam the door and call him a “stupid little shit”. Maturity, thy name is HB.

Now on the one hand I would pride myself at being an animal lover. The Roommate has a puppy, which was a major selling point for me. Well the puppy, the access to bars and the hardwood floors and I’m a big fan of rolling around on fresh hardwood floors and professing my undying affection for them. We actually once had a cat, Salem, who wasn’t permanently having the male version of PMS. And I’m sure Kris just recoiled in fear knowing that someone she had left in charge of her cats, recently smacked a defenseless kitty in the face with a sturdy leather bag.

But I had my reasons, which I conveyed through panicked breaths while trapped in my bedroom. Stacy, dear gorgeous Stacy, once lost an eye to a fucking cat therefore, I’m going to have to refrain from engaging in any sort of cordial behavior with a cat with a serious stick up its ass as I’d rather not have the same experience. Speaking of sticks, I used one, at the behest of my mother, to finally flee from my personal hell. When I walked, nay sprinted to the front door, there was Simon sitting calmly under the dining room table, licking his nether regions.

So perhaps he’s psychotic because he’s horny? Who the hell knows. At any rate, I showed The Roommate the carnage done to my ankle and she suggested spraying him with water and showing Simon who is in charge. I suggested letting Simon out for some fresh air come mid-November. Perhaps a little bit of cold and a large snow plow will teach that little shit a lesson or perhaps give him a bit of an attitude adjustment. Or maybe he’ll meet another nice female kitty and get laid.

Chaotic

September 9, 2007 | Filed under: Humdrum, La Madre, The Great Moving Caper

“Housework, if it is done right, can kill you.” ~John Skow

Several weeks ago, I decided to embark on a little project called painting my bedroom. It should probably be more aptly named ‘a fantastic way for my head to meet the corner of a desk, over and over again’ because I about lost my damn mind. Patience is not a virtue and when a project requires roughly $200 in supplies and several coats of primer to get rid of the seizure inducing canary yellow color that the previous owner had put up, well then the mind; it is gone.

Mind that I did the requisite reading, hence the primer. But nothing prepared me for standing precariously at the top of a ladder in order to paint the very edges of the wall while lunging out towards the offending paint drops as Intense Teal paint falls on my brand new hardwood floors. And the cat tramps through to step in the paint, hiss, scratch me and then run away when I spray water on it as the dog eats the paint. I’m now wondering whether or not it’s possible for a puppy to pee blue.

Really it was just one big party-tastic weekend. The photo above is a good representation of how I’ve left my bedroom and high tailed it to DC (I’m writing this from my hotel with a lovely view of Dupont Circle) spontaneously. When my mother found out that I had to leave to go to DC, she volunteered to go to my place and finish painting while I’m away.

The above isn’t a sign of niceness or motherly love. It’s the sign of a woman desperate so very desperate to get her mooching daughter* out of her house that she’ll paint alone on a Sunday. This is a major step forward in our oft tumultuous relationship wherein we she says the sky is blue and I will fight her to the death that it’s actually green. I’m going to enjoy this moment of us finally agreeing that I need to get the hell out and for this moment of complete understand and bliss, I am so very thankful.

*Ok, if she’s ALREADY going to the grocery store, I don’t see why I should go as well. So I just tell her to pick up a few things. Necessities like fruity cheerios and three packages of veggie burgers. I just don’t understand the point of us both going there to spend money when she is doing it already.