Well, see, I wasn’t kidding when I said that I didn’t have any experience with this sort of stuff. I’m having a huge crisis right now, because I started cleaning a whole bunch of things, and I got about halfway through them, and then I had other, better, things to do, so I never quite finished the whole cleaning project.

For me, the halfway point of cleaning comes right about when I’ve taken all the things that were neatly arranged, if not organized (see Stacks of Boxes and Assorted Electronics in My Living Room Corner), and strewn them about the living room in an attempt to organize them and dispose of or sell the items I do not wish to retain.

If you couldn’t parse the previous paragraph-sentence, the point is this: there is shit EVERYWHERE. My living room and my room are unholy messes that depress me to the point of non-functionality. I now wake up in the morning (having slept atop the clean laundry that has taken over my bed), peer at my surroundings, and fall back asleep simply to avoid dealing with the disaster that I’ve created. When I fall asleep, I dream about my day and all the things that I am supposed to be doing. It’s just like that Calvin and Hobbes* cartoon where Calvin dreams that he’s gotten up and brushed his teeth and put on his clothes and gone to school.

Anyway, it is monumentally disappointing when I wake up only to discover myself surrounded by an ever-worsening maelstrom of CRAP. I can’t handle it. Parallels between my poorly planned launch of Operation Spring Cleaning and the war in Iraq come to mind. I’d rather just forget about the whole thing except that I am confronted with it as long as I am awake, making avoidance IMPOSSIBLE.

Oh well. Because my roommate is sitting in the living room, and I don’t want to explain to her why I am taking pictures of our disastrous household, I will instead leave you with a picture of my car. You will notice that there is something wrong with my car in the picture. I will tell you about that soon.

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*I found this when I was searching for Calvin & Hobbes links. It is really not all that interesting except that I just happened to watch Fight Club last night and I have also read every single Calvin & Hobbes collection, probably several times. So at least all the references were clear in my mind while I read it.

I have never in my life had the mindset of “spring cleaning”, or of any cleaning, for that matter. Not that I live in a pigsty…not 100% of the time anyway… it’s just that there are always better things to do than chores. I spent 80% of my time from ages 12-15 doing chores. Not just any chores, mind you - chores like Scrubbing the Large Kitchen Floor With A Toothbrush - EVERY WEEK (you may substitute Toilet Bowl Base, or any other number of tile-based surfaces, for Kitchen Floor if you’d like) - thanks to ESM (that’s my stepmom - go ahead, guess what the E stands for). And just so you know, the other 20% of my waking life was spent in school. I guess it was supposed to keep me out of trouble?

(I feel I should clarify - while I can tolerate clutter, I cannot tolerate DIRT. Dirt is gross. Grody. Nastirific. It makes me feel as though I really am as Poor as I am.)

Anyway. Today, many years after I thought I put all chores behind me, my bathroom is in sad shape. Specifically, my tub is frightening me to the point that I cannot step foot into it, which sort of ruins the rest of my day. And since this has been going on for a couple days, I have decided it is time to take control. The Bathroom Ambush is scheduled to commence as soon as I finish this entry. Ahem.

(I’d take a picture of the tub but honestly I am far too embarassed - and considerate - to let another set of eyes be burned by that atrocity.)

Also - to run with the theme of Taking Control, I intend today to assault the living room. Despite the fact that I renewed my year-long lease yesterday (read: I have lived here for one year), it still looks as though I’m just popping in for a casual stay, ala “Hey buddy, do you mind if I just bring a couple boxes by, just for a few weeks, I promise, and then I’ll be out of your hair!”

To wit:

	This is my living room RIGHT NOW. In my ever-so-slight defense, all xmas decorations are my roommate’s. I’ve been looking straight through them for about 2 months, and only rediscovered them now, with you. It’s a bonding experience; do you feel it?
What was that screen up above hiding? This, the Collection Of Articles That Should Be Stored In The Garage Except I Don’t Have One. If you look very closely, you can see that the last time I entered this area was October, 2004. Actually, it was July 2004, which is when I would have written in the dates for that 4-month calendar. Hmm.

Okay. This entry has taken FAR TOO LONG, because I was trying to get the above pictures and corresponding text aligned just so. Re: Anal Retentive Perfectionist OCD Freak (See: Me). Now that it’s been an hour or two and I have completely lost all motivation to clean, I am going to commence Operation Spring Cleaning - Ambush Bathroom, Assault Living Room. I will post updated pictures, because the only reason for posting any in the first place is to motivate myself to provide after shots.

I leave you with a picture of my shiny bike, with air-filled tires, which I washed earlier today as the prelude to cleaning up the house. Just to prove that I accomplished some sort of cleaning today.

By the way, my previous post was the one that I was complaining about, re: XHTML validation. Apparently nobody in the internet universe has been able to create valid XHTML code for posting quicktime videos (though I did find many solutions for Flash videos). I came to this conclusion after HOURS of research trying to find proof to the contrary.

These people came close (and this seems to be the authoritative — or at least most-often-cited — method), but it only works if you want your movie to autoplay, which I do not.

I learned that I could cheat and make my own definition of what is XHTML valid, so that I could attain my goal of seeing “GOOD JOB! NO ERRORS!” upon validation, but honestly, it’s no fun if you make up your own definition of what NO ERRORS consists of.

Anyway, if you care about this sort of thing, and I realize that 100% of my readers do not, sorry for the lack of audience consideration, I thought I’d let you know the scoop. If you care more than the average bear, and you know of a way to do what I want, I’d love to hear about it. Thank you.

I’m not really sure how this came about. It certainly wasn’t a planned project. But I was in the habit of taking pictures of every step of my dinner projects (for a happy dinner diary, which will be updated soon, okay!?) and I don’t know, this particular dinner kind of just slipped in there.

Then while I was organizing my photos in iPhoto, the slideshow sort of jumped out at me. So I present to you, my Freschetta(tm) dinner. (Push play to get started. Also, you may want to adjust the volume first, cause it’s screaming at me. Sorry about that.)

Isn’t that toaster oven rad*? A gift from my rockin’ sister. Thanks, sistah!
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*did I just say rad? shhhh. keep it on the dee-ell.

I ran out of gas, again, tonight. I mean, honestly, how dimwitted can one person be? To run out of gas three times in the past six months (but twice in the past two) is hardly something to be proud of. Putting gas in your tank is one of those essential errands. I KNOW THIS.

But, see (oh, here it comes)… gas is so expensive. And I am so poor.

Okay, that’s not really my excuse. I do have one, however, and here it is:

It starts like this - my dashboard lights don’t work. The little lighted checkpoint symbols come on when necessary, but I can’t see the gauges on my dashboard at night, and haven’t been able to for probably coming on three years now. I’ve got some workarounds, though. My car is a stick-shift, and I can determine pretty well how fast I’m going by the feel and sound of the car. This hasn’t failed me, so far. The RPMs are simple, too, re: stick-shift.

Luckily I don’t have a problem with overheating, so I never worry about the temperature gauge (although I did have a dream just last night about my car’s radiator dying and the temp. indicator needle sitting firmly to the right).

And for the fuel? Well, I don’t have a “low fuel” light on my dashboard. But I can see the backlighted odometer. And I keep fairly good track of my mpgs… so, I fill up my tank, and when the trip meter gets to, oh, about 320 miles, I know it’s time to fill up.*

I mean, that’s how it used to go.

Now that I’m poor, and gas is so expensive (see excuse attempt numero uno, above), I rarely fill up my tank. As such, my method of monitoring miles driven and applying the distance to my mpg does NOT WORK. Now, I drive 320 miles, then put in $5 worth of gas, and try to remember that I’ve got 2 gallons to drive on. But after the 15th time of putting in $5 of gas, and staring at the trip odometer reading 890.1 miles, I can’t keep track of how far I can still go on what’s in the tank.

Whatever. Excuses are so boring.

Anyway, I was driving home from work tonight, and suddenly realized that I had no clue how much gas was left in the tank to power my little butt home. Right about that time, I started getting really paranoid that my car was not responding very well to my experimental stomps on the gas pedal.

Not paranoia. I’ve become familiar with the little protestations and chugs before she finally gives out, so I got myself off the shoulderless stretch of highway I was on, in hopes of finding a gas station near the off-ramp.

I didn’t even make it one block down the street before my baby shuddered to a sad, whimpering, stop. “Why don’t you take care of me like you used to,” she whispered, accusingly, before leaving me dead on the road.

The time was 12:51am. I called Triple-A (which is “triple A” in my mind, but AAA in print, I suppose) and they informed me that my membership had expired at midnight.

Oh, isn’t that nice? Glad I keep up on these things.**

As a courtesy, though, they sent someone out anyway. It was a high-priority call, because I was a helpless girl, alone, in the dark. They said it would take 30 minutes at the most, but because of the high-priority, help should come much sooner.

3 minutes later a cop pulled up, and while he was nice and friendly, and pushed my car to a safer spot on the road, he still just left me there, alone, cold, and sleepy.

32 minutes later, I called AAA to find out where in the hell my help was. I was starting to fall asleep, and I didn’t want to become a high-priority victim on the 5am news.

To cut this painfully long story short, and to expedite the flopping of my body onto my bed, the guy showed up and deposited 2.5 gallons of gas into my car’s tank. I hope he wasn’t lying, because I’ve calculated that I have at least 70 miles to go on that little booster. I only had to pay $5, which was a rockin’ deal, considering the cheap gas around here was $2.27/gal. at last check.

Tomorrow, I will fill up my tank and fret about the $27 going into my car. And in a couple weeks, I will most likely put $5 in the tank and begin the game all over again.

(Look at the nice purple shoe that popped up while I was searching for non-copyrighted “out of gas” images!)

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*I actually devised this method of fuel monitoring many years ago after I discovered that my fuel gauge was not accurate, even when I was actually able to see the needle.

**I was going to take a picture of my AAA card to show you that my membership expires on April 11th, and how dare they cancel it early, but when I pulled out the card, it said that my expiration date was in fact March 20th. Oops. But, I carry around a temporary card that does expire on April 11th, which is how I had that idea in my head. It’s just that the temporary card is handwritten and does not pack the same punch as the more official card. So no picture for you.

I don’t know if I am a sucker, a nice person, or just plain stupid.

Just now a kid came knocking on my door. For the record, I cannot stand it when someone knocks on my door, especially someone I don’t know. The dog starts barking and won’t shut up, it interrupts my busy schedule of trying to make my posts XHTML valid, and I know I am going to have to spend precious minutes of my life convincing an annoying college guy (that’s who always knocks on my door) that I honestly can’t afford to help him, and I put myself through college so I understand, but someday he’ll graduate and be making piddlywinks for money like me and then he’ll understand why I can’t give him any money right now, I hope.

Tonight I was studiously ignoring the knocking at my door. Until I thought, well, maybe it’s my pregnant neighbor who keeps asking me to come over and visit. So I looked out the peephole, and did not see my pregnant neighbor, but instead saw a tall, gangly young-ish kid. I stared at him for awhile, very quietly, and watched him adjust his identification badge and fidget and look very nervous. After a moment’s consideration, I very quietly tiptoed away from the door.

I went back into my room to keep working, because I am trying to post something else that keeps messing up my tidy XHTML validation and it’s PISSING ME OFF because I was supposed to leave 51 minutes ago to go see a friend’s band play up in godforsaken Pacifica (godforsaken primarily because it is nowhere near me, but also don’t get the wrong idea, it is not as great as they try to make it sound).

Anyway, the knocking came again, and the dog started viciously barking, and I had to yell at her, and then I felt like an asshole for obviously being present at home and not answering the door. So I formulated a plan for getting rid of the kid as quickly as possible (which involved the dog lunging through the open door) and went to face my tormentor.

This kid had a story about 12-13 year olds and their basketball teams and how they don’t have any uniforms and all it takes is a $10 donation to help a kid for the entire year, and I could also pick from his tupperware container of KING-SIZED candy bars if I made a donation. I watched him tell his story, and kind of squinted at his ID badge, and looked at the old candy in his tupperware container, and tried to keep the dog from lunging through the open door (change of plans) and in general, FOR ONCE, felt kind of bad for the kid, because I always hear about schools’ athletics programs and how they have no money for uniforms and I always comment, “isn’t that sad and pathetic and why doesn’t somebody do something about that?”

But despite feeling bad, I am still dirt-poor, and haven’t paid my health insurance yet, and have run out of gas twice in the past few months because I can’t afford to fill up my tank, and I have neither smogged my car nor paid my overdue DMV registration fee, and so I told the boy all of that. Except I said it a little more nicely, like “I don’t have any money, and I would like to help you, but I can’t. Good luck.”

And he was so polite and slightly apologetic and obviously thankful that I was not rude to him and then he turned around and left, and I turned around and came and sat back at my desk.

AND THEN THE GUILT SET IN. Here I am, about to drive 104 miles roundtrip to go see a friend’s band play (and ugh, I have to fill up my tank), and I used to play basketball when I was a kid, and how embarassing to not have any uniforms because SCHOOLS DON’T MATTER to people in California, and I have spent ten dollars on less important things, and maybe I should stay at home tonight instead, and help this kid who is trudging around in the RAIN, knocking on doors (and who likes begging for money anyway, I had to do it when I was a kid and it sucked), and what have I done for society lately anway?

So I grabbed ten dollars (yeah, I had ten dollars) and went outside to look for the kid. And when I didn’t immediately see him, I had second thoughts - If I’m going to donate money, shouldn’t it go towards books or something more academic? Shouldn’t this money go towards my ramen and peanut butter allowance for the month? I AM POOR, after all. Shouldn’t I be asking him lots of questions about his school and write down his badge number in case I’m getting gypped?

I headed back towards my front door, and then decided, what the hell. I waited for a second, saw the kid coming back from another apartment, walked up to him and told him I’d help him. I didn’t even squint at his badge or treat him like I was doing him a huge favor. I just handed over the money and picked out some Red Vines from his tupperware container.

And I briefly considered whether I’d been duped, and then decided I didn’t care. I probably should, but I don’t. I’d like to believe that he needed the help and that I helped him.

Now I have to take a shower and go visit my friend’s band.

Today is my sister’s first wedding anniversary. Congratulations, sister and hubby.

I wish I had developed the pictures from the wedding so I could show you how incredibly amazing the location and views were on that day. I am a total lameass when it comes to developing film. I mean, of course my sister had a professional photographer, so it’s not a huge deal that I haven’t yet (yes, you heard, me, yet) developed the photos, right?

I still think you should see just how beautiful it all was, so here:

It’s not my picture*, but we did stand under that gazebo and watch my gorgeous sister and her debonair fiancé glow with joy, while the ocean waves crashed on the beach below us. Really breathtaking, and an overall magical experience. Except for the late-night, four-hour, twisty-turny** drive back home on those tiny, winding, narrow mountain roads. And the airbag-explosion mishap that took place the night before the wedding, injuring the groom. Yes, magical except for those things, which aren’t really relevant and therefore you, dear internet, as well as I, should forget them, right now!

Hard to believe it’s been a year. Especially since I haven’t even seen you two since that visit (ahem). I hope you guys had a fabulous celebration today, and here’s to a lifetime of happy anniversaries and ocean breezes.

(Mmm, ocean breezes. That means you have to move. Soon. To a coast, you know, like, oh, OUT HERE.)
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* it’s theirs, and you should seriously consider them for your next coastal wedding plans.

** i wanted to make reference to how WIND-ey the roads were, but it kept coming out “windy” and although the car likely was being grossly buffeted by the mountain wind, the part that sticks out in my memory is the homicidal nature of those awful hairpin curves. Awful except for the ones that showed us beautiful views of the ocean and surrounding landscape — which I remember now number exactly NONE since we began our trek home at nighttime. (But by day, the views honestly were astounding!) Anyway, twisty-turny was the best I could come up with until I remembered, oh, yes, WINDING.

Hint: Ask somebody else.
The following conversation should help you understand how tenuously I grasp the whole xhtml situation:

sonsica (1:00:49 PM): btw it took HOURS TO GET THE PICTURES TO WORK and be xhtml validated
sonsica (1:00:57 PM): and i have no clue what that means anyway, re: xhtml validated
sistah (1:00:58 PM): i don’t even know what that means
sistah (1:00:59 PM): sorry
sistah (1:01:02 PM): oh
sistah (1:01:03 PM): laugh!
sonsica (1:01:18 PM): i just know that you get it done and it tells you if you have errors and then you fix them and it tells you, GOOD JOB~! NO ERRORS!
sonsica (1:01:20 PM): which i like
sistah (1:01:28 PM): laugh
sonsica (1:01:36 PM): laf
sonsica (1:01:41 PM): it’s true!
sistah (1:01:50 PM): that’s why it’s so funny

Sure I could look it up and understand why I did all that work. But the knowledge of a job well done is worth more than understanding why I did the job in the first place, apparently! Cause I’m not going to look it up for at least another three days.

I’ll keep you updated.

Update, 03.18.05: I made the long and grueling trek to check out the XHTML Validator FAQ, wherein I learned what I did and why. Go, me.

Earlier this evening, or really, yesterday evening, I told my sister about my grand plans for the night, which included:

1. Working until 1am, then upon returning home:
2. Downloading all the pictures from my digital camera and subsequently,
   • organizing these pictures along with the others currently sitting in my incoming picture folder;
3. Writing a new post (with pictures) in my newly-hosted, wordpress-powered journal (yeah, I kicked MT to da curb);
4. Filling out the claim report for the items thieved* from my car 2.5 months ago;
5. Doing several other things that I’ve forgotten, I’m sure.

 
Well, internet (this includes you, sis), here is my update, complete with excuses:

1. Mission accomplished! And it wasn’t so bad, either.
2. I had the best of intentions, but i can’t quite… find… my camera…
   • and though I still could have worked with the pictures already on my computer, I sort of lost my motivation due to the point above.
3. Response redundant! And here is a picture for you, too, of my housemate’s puppy looking oh-so-chic (just like her mama):
   
   
4. Oh. Well, I didn’t really forget about this, but I got so caught up in making my new site valid for both CSS and XHTML 1.0 Transitional (yay! double yay! what the heck, triple yay! this sort of thing is so validating for anal-retentive perfectionist freaks like me!) that I think I’m just going to go to sleep now.
5. Laundry. I have to fold laundry. Tomorrow. Not only because I hate folding laundry and therefore later is always a better time to do it, but also because it’s almost 5am and why am I here?

Welcome to the new site! I know it took awhile, but now it’s here to stay. Don’t forget to update your bookmarks and subscriptions and links and whatnots. I’m still working a lot on the layout and publishing, so if things are broken sometimes, deal. I’ll be getting around to it.

Also, may I suggest that you get Firefox if you don’t already use it? Especially if, for example, you see no images near the title of this blog. I can’t really be bothered to guarantee your viewing pleasure in any browser but the big, bad foxy fox.
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*shut it