De-cluttered, finally February 19, 2008 ~ 10:52 am
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closedFor the first time in I have no idea how long, my home office space doesn’t look like a trash heap. It took all weekend to get to that point, but it was totally worth it. See, I hate filing, and it didn’t help that I hadn’t updated my filing system since 1999. So rather than filing, I was putting all paid bills, taxes, etc., into an inbox of sorts. I had been doing that since I moved into my old basement apartment four years ago. This weekend, in an attempt to “red up” in case I do start freelance grant writing and actually need a functional office, I went on an office decluttering mission.
I went through everything in the inbox and shredded all bills over a year old. I got rid of crap that I didn’t need. I went through my filing cabinet and did the same (which meant I got rid of virtually everything since I hadn’t filed anything in there in four years), got rid of all the stuff left over from grad school that I didn’t need anymore, and generally reclaimed the space. The shredder broke halfway through this (it was old and sad and had done well in its time), so I manually shredded for three hours. But it is effectively done - all that’s left is the filing of things from the past year (a very small pile), and cleaning out the cart beside my desk that houses all my old computer programs. Now I want to buy some organizational stuff and a replacement shredder (tax write-offs, my accountant tells me), and the office will be an actual office instead of just “that paper-strewn place over in the corner where I play on the internet.” Yay!
Now I just have to call the artistic director at the theater and talk to her about the grant writing. Cross your fingers, people.
One off January 30, 2008 ~ 3:13 pm
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closedYesterday I was eating a Fun Size Milky Way and noticed a little disclaimer on the wrapper: “May contain nuts.” Wouldn’t that make it a Snickers bar?
Our insectile president January 10, 2008 ~ 12:50 pm
Posted by Julie in : Politically Incorrect, Random Insanity , comments closedTwo posts in one day (yep, there’s another one I wrote this morning right below this one)! It’s a banner day at EvilJulie.com! But this was too good not to blog. In fact, it’s the kind of thing that was the main reason I started a blog.
Lori and I are talking about politics, about race and gender and how that plays into this Primary season for the Dems, about Gloria Steinem’s op-ed piece in the Times yesterday, and I said that I am seeing women of a certain age (Steinem’s generation, basically) who are basically saying “I’m voting for Hillary, I’m tired of men running this country!” (actually, those were my boss’s exact words about a half hour ago), and that propelled us into this:
Julie: I’m not tired of men running this country per se, I’m tired of stupid men running the country. At this point I wouldn’t care if a freakin’ cockroach ran the country as long as it was reasonably intelligent and cared about the American people and got us the hell out of the middle East.
Lori: Cockroaches are not good public speakers though.
Julie: This is true. And as many people are swayed by the candidate’s looks, that would be two strikes against the cockroach right there.
Lori: The little one doesn’t have a prayer.
Julie: Yeah, someone will bust out a can of Raid and assassinate our insect president.
How I learned to stop worrying and just play arcade games. January 9, 2008 ~ 10:55 am
Posted by Julie in : Politically Incorrect, Random Insanity , comments closedLori and I fell into the trap known as Dave & Buster’s last night. There is one in Times Square, and we’d been meaning to go forever. Last night we finally got our acts together and went. And anyplace that lets me play Skee-Ball while drinking beer? That’s my idea of heaven. We’re planning a return trip as soon as possible, this time just to play arcade games and drink. Because while the food was excellent, if we eat at Lori’s before we go there we can afford more games. And that means we can win more tickets. And that, my friends, that means that we can redeem the tickets for more cheap crap like the stuffed animals we got last night. We all know I need more cheap crap at my house.
Last night’s New Hampshire returns were a bit disheartening until I realized this morning that despite the 3% difference in popular vote, Barack and Hillary got the same amount of delegates out of it. As Rick keeps telling me, it’s only one primary. I don’t hate Hillary, but I think her time on Capitol Hill has affected her - she’s had to change her stance a bit in order to get places with the good ol’ boys on the Hill (like her vision of a health care program, and the war, and…well, we’ll leave it at that). If in the end, she is the Democratic candidate, I’ll vote for her because I fear all the Republican candidates. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be pulling for an Obama/Edwards ticket until the very last minute. And since New York is going to be voting on Tsunami Tuesday with half the states in the union, I’ll actually get to voice my opinion before it’s all decided for once.
Until then, though, you’ll find me at Dave & Buster’s. With a beer in one hand and a skee-ball in the other.
A visit to Skippy that didn’t cost me an arm and a leg January 8, 2008 ~ 4:03 pm
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closedSeveral weeks ago I bit down on a popcorn kernel. Hard. I thought I had done something to the big ass filling that Skippy put in the tooth (the one that was nearly a root canal), but wasn’t sure. It didn’t look any different, but maybe it felt different? Since I wasn’t sure, I adopted a wait and see attitude.
Well, last week I was in a bit of pain and couldn’t decide if it was from a possible cracked filling or from my job which is so stressful it makes me grit my teeth all day and makes my TMJ act up. I thought about it, thought about how I was going to be in Florida in a little over a week and a half and thought “Hmmm, if this sucker is going to break off, I would really rather it didn’t do that in Florida when I am many miles from a dentist who takes my insurance.” So I made an appointment with Skippy.
Long story short, there was no crack in the cavity, it’s fine, and Skippy sent me home with no bill and a story about the time when he was photographing a hockey game at the Garden and Bobby Orr took a stick to his hand. And this is why I like Skippy. I hate being in the chair, but he tells me entertaining stories to help me get over my dread of it. I have come out of that chair hearing about dental technology developed during the Vietnam war, and his daughter’s Portuguese in-laws, and now a story about why you should never ever cheer for the other team when you’re in the photographers’ pit and Bobby Orr has his eye on you. Bet your dentist hasn’t given you that.
I heart the holidays December 26, 2007 ~ 11:57 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind, Fambly, Random Insanity , comments closedMy past three days have involved a 911 call, a trip to the ER with Rick’s mom, a fair amount of time spent at the hospital, a bomb scare at work this morning, and eight calls (and counting) to my office from someone screaming “She’s going to throw a bomb! Die! Die! Explosions!”.
How was your Christmas?
Newsflash December 18, 2007 ~ 12:03 pm
Posted by Julie in : Craftiness Is Next To Godliness, Random Insanity , comments closedThe socks were finished at 11:44 PM last night. Now onto the mittens.
Admit it, you guys are all tired of the knitting content, aren’t you? Just for those of you that are, I will add that Pepperidge Farms Chessmen suck. No other shortbread cookie leaves me with a weird aftertaste in my mouth. As a matter of fact, the only thing I expect an aftertaste from is cough syrup.
Which reminds me of when I worked at a grocery store on breaks during college, and there was this one woman who would buy two bottles of NyQuill every week. Every week, people. And she never had a cold. How sad do you have to be to drink freakin’ NyQuill for a high? And how high was her NyQuill tolerance that she was going through two bottles a week? I mean, one dose and I’m on my ass.
Also, when I worked at the grocery store, the owner’s son worked as a stockboy and used to get high doing whipits off of cans of whipped cream. Ah, life in small town Pennsylvania.
Check it out! I talked about something besides knitting!! Now that’s a newsflash.
Arrr. December 10, 2007 ~ 1:00 pm
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closedI do not suffer fools gladly. In fact, I don’t suffer fools at all - my tendency is to either reach out and slap them upside the head (which I’m not allowed to do at my job) or to get progressively more irritated as the day goes on.
No wonder Zuul resides in my stomach.
Today has been a banner day for fools and idiocy in my little corner of the world. I’m beginning to seriously ponder if “hermit” constitutes a valid career choice. Hermits don’t have to deal with idiots. They just live in their caves and ignore everyone. But I don’t think hermits are so keen on the tech, so that won’t work for me. Is piracy still valid? I could handle being a pirate. Pirates would like tech. And I could work drunk on rum, which would make handling fools easier. And if I didn’t like them, I could run them through with my cutlass. And I could have a pet monkey.
Piracy…why did it ever go out of style?
Points to ponder December 6, 2007 ~ 11:59 am
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closedWhat the hell is this, exactly?
Is it a monkey? Is it a hedgehog? Is it a gnome? These are the things that keep me awake at night.
Christmas proposal November 15, 2007 ~ 10:58 am
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity, Story Time , comments closedI love Christmas as much as the next person. I love decorating for it, buying gifts for other people (I get a real rush from finding the perfect gift for someone), making things for people…I’m still a big kid about it. Especially this year, which will be Samang’s first Christmas. (I went out and bought her a “Baby’s First Christmas” Winnie the Pooh ornament Monday night. She likes it very much and wishes she could eat it.) I can hardly wait to see the look on her face when she sees the Christmas decorations and lights.
However, like I said yesterday, this whole “put the decorations up the day after Halloween” thing is a bit much. Seeing the runners stream under the garlands on the streets during the NYC marathon? Just wrong. I like Christmas decorations, I enjoy how they brighten up gloomy winter days and give us something beautiful to break up the long dark nights. But I would like to propose something: how about next year we put up the lights the day after Thanksgiving, like we have always done up until now, but we leave them up an extra month to make up for not having them in November? I dunno about you, but January depresses me. No festive holidays to look forward to, just cold and darkness. I think January needs brightening up a whole lot more than November does. Because really, November has Thanksgiving. You might not go all out decorating for it unless you live in my neighborhood (we’re Irish, we decorate for everything), but you’ve got it to look forward to. I do not look forward to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the same way. Perhaps because there’s no pumpkin pie.
Note: this late taking down of decorations has worked before. When I had a roommate and liked to annoy her in retaliation for all the shit she pulled on me, I left the decorations up until March one year. I simply told her that in my family we didn’t take the decorations down until Little Christmas. I then told her Little Christmas was in March. And she fell for it. Her gullibility led to a much brighter and happier winter for me, and her obsessive compulsive self had fits every time she walked into the house and saw our fake tree still up and lit. (I was going to say “everyone wins,” but really it was just me who was the winner. I’m okay with that.)
