Identity Crisis

I hate blogs.

That's not true. I hate my blog.

I hate my blog because it's inconsistent. It's been around for over four years. Most of the early posts are pretty bad, though they served their purpose, which was keeping in touch with friends while I was abroad. More of the later posts are acceptable, but many of them are months apart, and there are still crappy ones. Just write something, I told myself. Get it going again. Occasional bad posts are okay when they're hidden by a flood of content. They're not so acceptable when, like this one, they are one lonely dot on a sparse timeline.

I hate my blog. That's not true. I'm just frustrated. It's been so long, and for what?

Maybe it's time to start a new one. Almost three years ago, I was thinking about renaming the blog, since I was no longer an occasionally-itinerant Landstreicherin in Europa. Then again, I only had a few months of college left, so I would be moving somewhere, maybe even traveling again. Back then, I was applying to teach English in Austria through the Fulbright Kommission, but that didn't work out so well, leaving me without a plan at graduation. (My application got lost in the mail.)

I moved to Grosse Pointe, and was not a tramp, but an outright, sedentary bum. Not a cent of income for four months.

Okay, not a bum. I went to Ann Arbor every weekend to see my boyfriend, and then I moved to Ann Arbor and got my surprisingly long-term restaurant job and commuted to Detroit every other weekend and then some.

But now, it's two years from then, and I haven't even moved in over a year, and my blog is pretty much dead.

Thought of the Day: Internet/Sauna

Thought of the Day: 
I am incompatible with the internet* life.
Oh no, I'm incompatible with modern life!
I'm doomed!

Motivation: 
Can't ever seem to finish the tasks requiring the internet, because there are always more. More importantly: lost count of how many days in a row I've had a headache. I had the same headache for over three days. By now, I don't think I can claim it's the same headache (day five? day six?), but I'm writing this from hour 4 of ibuprofen. Maybe by hours 6-8, as the ibuprofen wears off fully, I'll feel that same dull agony and recognize that it never truly dissipated.

More computer never equals less headache.

Alternate Thought of the Day:
I love saunas! Even though it's been 90 degrees out forever!

*Why is this still officially capitalized? Please explain.

Porches, Painfully Obvious

I have a summer dream, and that dream is porches.

ALI AND DREW, MARRIED, RELAXING ON A PORCH. This is a really good porch, by the way, at a truly lovely hunting-lodge style home in the woods of Georgia, south of Atlanta. Any of the below would be great on this porch. Photo courtesy of Ali's cousin Katie.

The Hairpin is out for the weekend. The Circuit Court and County Building here in Washtenaw County, Michigan, have a four-day Memorial Day weekend thanks to a furlough day. I'm down to one out of four attorneys and no calls lighting up the switchboard, I've got my sunglasses open on my desk and a stomach clamoring for lunch.

It's almost dinnertime. Remember when I had a porch in the canopy of downtown Ann Arbor? Emma and I ate twenty-four pierogi at our first meal on that porch. We had a graduation cocktail party for Emma in the wind and chill of late April. Later, they passed a bottle of Jim Beam Black around in the dark until it disappeared. We had a welcome-home party for Emma after a summer of Yiddish on the East Coast. Meg and I drank a bottle of vinho verde on that porch after I got home from Detroit via Amtrak, two hours late or more. We sweated and sweated and finally escaped the heat at a nearby bar.

So many breakfasts of scrambled eggs and orange juice, while the bumblebees bumbled into the sliding glass doors, bump bump bump. I never knew a bumblebee could be so loud.

A porch, a table and -cloth, the evening sun. Sunglasses, eventually pushed up onto your head. A pitcher of water, glasses. Bread and cheese, burgers, whatever, I'll take it. Just give me some carbs and some fat and a drink, and some smiles.

It was my birthday on the porch, once, on a Thursday evening almost a year ago. Basil gimlets, uh...attempted Singapore Sling? Blood of Christ? Something red.

When the sun sets, candles. I buy so many candles in my attempts at being a girl, and use them so rarely. I don't have a porch this year, not really. Candles don't really work in the wind, also, but that's what lanterns are for!

It's five, goodbye, office, goodbye, internet.

(I have a lot of summer dreams. Beware.)

Salt Tooth

I need some new snack ideas.

Or maybe I should have just bought a new box of stone-ground wheat crackers when I was at Trader Joe's two hours ago. Three or four crackers and a few slices of cheese is an entirely reasonable snack, especially accompanied by a little fruit. Lately, though, with the demise of my fancier cheese (1,000-day gouda, so hard, so salty, so good), I've turned back to my old habits. Butter just goes so well with these crackers. Just three buttered crackers, just tonight, not so bad.

Just two more buttered crackers. Two more.

Every night.

And so today I told myself, no more stone-ground wheat crackers right now. Butter is too addictive.

Now I am bereft. I need a little salty snack to finish the day; lunch was too big to warrant dinner. Frozen custard around four was too everything to warrant anything.

Perhaps popcorn. Made with at least a quarter-stick of melted butter. That will show my non-cracker buying self!

(Emma and I went to Somerset and Birmingham for Important Wedding Preparation Errands. Namely eating pizza and browsing Anthropologie's sales rack and housewares--Very Important. Now you know.)

Hot Beef

Emma:  I think I'm going back to the part of my life where I try to not eat flour

 me:  oh SADZ

NOW

 Emma:  I know

except for like a treat

 me:  i was trying to give up a thing or two every week

like, sweets 

 Emma:  it makes it easier to be less hungry

 me:  or snacks

or alcohol

but not all three

but i couldn't even pick one

or decide if a smoothie was a sweet

so i gave up

and then i had a hot beef sandwich at the sidestreet diner last night with my parents

omg

the fakest white bread plus roast beef so good covered in such good gravy the whole plate

and a big scoop of delicious mashed potatoes in the middle under the gravy

and then a scoop of my mom's potatoes

and a corner of my mom's sandwich too

and then three bites of peach cobbler covered in whipped cream with cinnamon on top

oh my god

can this be a blog post?

 Emma:  that sounds like a bob dylan song

Catchup Day

But not really. There is never time to catch up on Sunday, even if I get off work at six instead of eight like today. The past week held me up in different ways. Last weekend (not the one that is currently ending) was fun, friend-filled, and action-packed. No time to blog.

Last Friday we lit candles and drank Riesling and listened to music. Saturday, I worked out at the Y for the first time, wearing my stinky old wear-to-the-restaurant sneakers. Then Maraia came to visit from Kalamazoo; it was the first time we'd seen each other since the summer, I think. Impromptu burger for lunch with the boyfriend—this should happen more. I went shopping for some essentials, like a new external hard drive that (probably) works (unlike the first attempt, which would not format to Mac) and running shoes! to use at the Y, now that I am a member. I made apple cinnamon muffins, watched some more of the Wire (for the second time) with the urban planning people, then went out for a coworker's birthday part three or four or who knows what.

This is not that club. This is the KGB Wodkabar in Freiburg, and the lights are pretty. Plus, no crowd that night. But I thought you might want a photo.

I learned that I hate places that are clubs or like clubs. I was not surprised to dislike the atmosphere, the crush of bodies and the strangers/unwanted dance partners that appeared out of nowhere, but I was surprised by how quickly and how acutely I hated it. While waiting in line (I had forgotten that places like this have lines on Saturday nights, because that's not the kind of place I generally choose to go), I looked, then stared wistfully across the street, where I could see the lights of a brewpub, the Jolly Pumpkin, twinkling through the wintry scene painted on its windows. I've never been there, but I know they take care with their drinks and you can probably have a conversation.
I really prefer conversation. But! Saturday was good. Birthdays are good. Experiences are experiences.

Sunday was work work work, comme toujours, but then it was impromptu post-work beer with Emma, and Important Hand Cream and Unimportant Subtle Goldy Nail Polish Purchasing time at CVS on the way home. ("Because You're Worth It" is the color's name. Barf, L'Oreal.) I also brought my second and final pair of wear-to-the-restaurant, stinky sneakers to the restaurant, which is to be their final home before they meet the fate of my even older, stinkier ones that already lived there. Those, I plopped into the trash, and everything was good.

This week, a cold put all my plans on hold. I was sick on Monday. I was sicker on Tuesday. I was less sick on Wednesday. Unpleasant to miserable to hoarse-sore-voiced. But friend, boy- made a pot of chicken soup just for me, even though he'd just done it a week ago. I've had eight bowls of chicken soup this week, and that was a definite perk.

Then I was okay on Thursday, and Emma and I worked out before having cheap yummy dinner at IKEA and splitting a beautiful little slice of the Daim cake, the one with an extra layer of cream just under the chocolate coating. Then it was impromptu drinks with Caitlin time—surprising, but so satisfying. Friday involved a nice post-work hot-chocolate chat with Jessie, and her delicious chocolatey pretzel treats, and I was in a great mood. Saturday, we'll talk about later, with photographic displays of deliciousness and fishiness—but not the tilapia I ate for dinner. For now, suffice it to say that a trip to Detroit was joyfully made, the sun shone, and I had terribly persistent sniffles and sneezes. Sneaky second sickness-wind! Sunday, today, I wasn't late for work. The weather was so perfect, though, that if I'd run into Louis the Cat on the way there, I might have quit like I wanted to last time I saw him on the way to work on a Sunday.

My nails are very golden and I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of a great person with ice cream in his arms. Or something like that.