The Least Planned Vacation Ever

It's nearly time for my annual trip to England, and I tend to disconnect from technology while I'm on vacation, so you won't be hearing from me for a few weeks. Apart from staying with my sister for a few days, I have no plans and no clear idea of what I'm going to do. This could be good...or it could be a disaster!

Milhouse Mother Say Milhouse Handsome!

I've been shocked at the incredible bursts of adrenaline and resultant feats of strength I've performed while moving, including lifting a recliner up to shoulder level and carrying it up a narrow flight of stairs. (Note: if you could see me you'd be unlikely to believe this.) Yet, in the wake of my friend's recent nasty bout with childbirth, I find it difficult to imagine women have been doing that since time began. How does this species continue?

The Map Says So

In Cleveland, we don't speak Midwestern, we speak Great Lakes. At last I'm vindicated in my quest to convince Jim (who is from Miami County) that he talks funny.

Jersey people have definitely mistaken my phonemes before. I say "copy" but they hear "cappy", for example.

Although, I would take issue with the fact that the map groups South Jersey in the same dialect group as Kansas and Nebraska. Clearly the cartographer has never been to South Jersey.....

Moving

While wrapping up my glassware and dishes for my impending move this afternoon, I had a wryly fond remembrance of when I moved out of Cleveland Heights.

It was during the Scene vs. Free Times debacle, and I had gone down to Que Tal or Tommy's or something and scooped up all the dozens of Scenes that were sitting there, untouched, to use as packing material - something to which I never would have subjected the Free Times.

A silly protest, but I am just one person. What can I do?

Is My Coffee Normal?

I, like Hermione Granger, can be an insufferable know-it-all.

I know, for instance, that it's not normal to spray a mountain of Redi-Wip onto an unflavored, unsweetened cappuccino, and have been horrified to witness this being done to my order at about 4 different coffee shops here. I can recognize that as the by-product of a culture of coffee-unsophisticates (sorry New Jersey) who are addicted to the Dunkin Donuts that spring up here like so many roaches in a Queens apartment building (sorry Jim).

However, I don't know if this is normal:

I went to a coffee shop in Bradley Beach that appeared to be pretty decent - and not just "good for the Shore", either. But when I ordered the cafe au chocolat orange, what I got was a mouthful of little slivers of orange peel. There were hundreds floating in my drink, and although it tasted good, I wasn't sure about the effect: there was something slightly "rat-tailly" about it. And I've never seen this done anywhere else. Of course I've ordered espresso before and had a slice of citrus peel on the saucer or (at the most invasive) cocked on the edge of the cup.

But...this? Shrug.

I wonder

Would it be possible for me to be a coffee librarian?

Could I somehow sit behind a counter, a la Whoopi Goldberg in Next Generation, dispensing wisdom while pulling shots?

Life Story

After an evening spent cleaning, the title of mine might be Everything I Owned Was Covered in Cat Hair.

What would yours be?

What's That Now?

Could someone please tell me if this phrase is a Cleveland (or, indeed, Midwestern) regionalism? I've been called on it several times at work now. Here's an example:

Coworker, mumbling, asks question that I don't quite hear.
I say, "What's that now?"
Coworker gives me quizzical look.

I asked somebody once what they would say if they hadn't heard someone properly, and they replied, "Excuse me?" Which to me sounds either too formal or like something you'd say after you break wind.

I never noticed What's That Now before, and have no idea if it's natural for me or if I picked it up from somewhere else, like TV or my friend from Texas. Or my dad, who isn't a native Clevelander and has a strange lexicon all his own.

Do you say this?

On Procrastination, and Moving, and Such

I think I need to admit, once and for all, that I don't enjoy moving. I need to admit that I cannot have a stress-free move if I have as much stuff as I do - and it's not like I have that much. And, if I want to keep the amount of stuff that I have (which I don't, but I seem to act as if I do), then moving will cost more, especially when I live someplace where I don't know anybody, let alone somebody with a truck.

I've just recently gotten over a lifelong character flaw: beating myself up over my constant, egregious procrastination. One day I asked myself, quite zenlike, "what exactly is it that I have to do that's so important I can't sit around for another hour reading Harry Potter?" And the answer was nothing. And that nasty self-flagellation simply evaporated into so much self-absorbed freedom.

But now that I'm faced with an actual task with an actual deadline, I'm resisting. It's no coincidence that I revived my last gasp of a work blog at the same time I'm supposed to be coordinating a move.

I've moved every year - sometimes twice - since 1996. This has taught me three things about myself. One, I'm never satisfied. Two, I don't like being told what to do and when to do it (i.e., "you have to be out by the first of the month"), which is probably the sole reason I wrote off journalism as a career. And three, I hate having lots of stuff.

However, each has a counterpoint. One, I may find a problem with every place I live (loud neighbors, usually), but I generally don't try hard enough to find a place where this definitely won't be a problem. Two, the only person I hurt by putting off packing, cleaning, and getting rid of stuff is myself. Three, I love having a big, heavy, comfortable sofa - a place just doesn't feel like home without it. How do I reconcile that with the compulsion to fit everything I own in the boot of my car?

One more thing I've learned this year, and Clevelanders take note: not every place has an abundance of thrift stores, period, let alone thrift stores willing to take your old furniture. When you live someplace where the median family income is over $100,000, there is an unsurprising lack of thrift stores. The moral of the story: I should have gotten rid of more stuff when I had a place to unload it. Yet another reason why you are so much, much, more lucky than I!

What If

What Sarah Wilson-Jones said in the comments of this post has been weighing on my mind for a while. There is part of me that's always been disgusted by the idea that you have to be "educated" to work in a respectable profession. It's the same part of me that wishes I kicked and screamed harder when my guidance counselors in high school waved off the idea that maybe I'd like to go to Polaris instead of sit around filling my head with unusable things like calculus. But a more vocal part of me was wrapped up in the idea that you had to have an expensive degree to be somebody, and if you didn't, you weren't worth spit on the sidewalk.

Well, now that I'm educated I realize that I got a lot more pleasure out of my work when I was making whole wheat pesto bread and vegan cookies for people, when I was frothing milk and pulling shots. There was some way I connected with coffee customers more than I do with library customers - a kind of friendly/surly "my drug is thy drug and I know exactly what will happen if you don't get it" kind of understanding.

I just feel like coffee as a job had less baggage attached to it - the baggage that's associated with being a "public servant" just isn't present in retail: an angry "let me speak to the manager!" has nothing on "I'm a taxpayer, and [insert any number of petty complaints]." Let me tell you, the hidden subtext behind "I'm a taxpayer" is "you're part of 'Big Gub'mint', and you're lower than dirt, and the fact that I pay your salary means that I am entitled to break the rules by keeping this DVD out for as long as I please and don't you dare charge me a dollar a day in late fees!"

So...yeah. I don't quite know what to do with this feeling except find myself a caffeinated mentor and apprentice myself out.

Well...

I'm starting to see the folly of taking a job in what was described in the Insider's Guide to the Jersey Shore as one of the most expensive rental communities in the nation. Apparently I had never explained to my friend Kevin about how Jim and I had to get a co-signer on our lease here (i.e., Jim's mother, which was pretty humiliating for someone who'd been living successfully on their own since age 18). Well, I did last night, and in outrage he said, "what on EARTH kind of place do you live in that you can't qualify for a rock-bottom apartment on a salary of over $40,000?"

In some ways, this relocation attempt has been more successful than my year in Montana, in that I can recognize when I'm unfairly comparing my new home to my old one. But, I drove out to Montana at age 22 with no skills, a useless liberal arts degree, and no prospects, and I still got an apartment. I lived in a walkable neighborhood and was able to get to my job at the University on public transportation - which was free for U of M employees - and I certainly didn't feel the isolation of being the only person driving around with a Kucinich bumper sticker (here, the most liberally decorated car might only have one "W" sticker instead of 17.)

A young person with no debt and no kids can live like a king in Cleveland for $40,000 - in Pittsburgh, you could even buy a pretty decent house for that price. I suppose I was dazzled by all that gold. I thought that maybe I'd be able to save up some fast cash pretty quick, which I did while Jim was living here, but now that he's moved to Queens it's just the same as when I lived in Cleveland Heights paying $685 a month on a salary of $26,000. As in, doable but with no real advantage.

Well, now I'm just yearning for life in a one-room apartment with a futon, a desk, a chair, and a bookshelf. Really, my quality of life has just gone downhill since those days. I've probably said this over and over but can't seem to figure out a plan of action.