My Boring Life

It's official: My life is boring. Last week for my "spring break" I mostly just studied for licensure. I looked at flashcards until I was about ready to crawl out of my skin, all the while thinking "All work and no play makes Helga a dull girl." And you know what? It does. I obviously need to consider early retirement.

For instance, as a diversion last week, I would spy on the neighbors who live in the house behind us (this is not hard to do -- all I need to do is look out the kitchen window when I walk by). It's a couple (man/woman) who have recently had a baby. For the last several months, I've watched the mom go from a little pregnant to bursting at the seams. Then, last week, I heard the crying of a newborn while it rode in a sling as mom let the dog outside into the yard. For some reason, I found this very exciting. I feel strangely connected to these people to whom I've never spoken. I thought about sending a congratulatory card to this couple, but then remembered they don't know me and sending a card would out me as the neighborhood spy. If I were really the crazy old woman that I'm acting like, I would just march right over there and ask to hold the baby. As I did so, I would regale the couple with stories of my own experiences with babies, which would be limited to the many kittens I've raised. Instead, I'm just an old woman trapped in a younger woman's body. I'm a crazy cat lady with no cat cred. That's a shame. Early retirement beckons.

Happy Anniversary! Have some groceries.

Last week, I had my own special little Ides of March experience: Upon arriving to work, I discovered that the can of Diet Coke in my lunch had a tiny hole. Nearly all of those 12 ounces of liquid sanity had emptied themselves into my backpack. So I spent the first part of my morning wiping down my personal effects and wondering where I'd get my afternoon fix. Luckily, the only thing in my backpack that sustained any damage was my planner. I laid it by the radiator in my office, and it dried into a fairly respectable, if slightly browner and crinklier version of its former self.

This morning, as I sipped my coffee and contemplated the beginning of my spring break (working at a school really does have its advantages), I happened to page through my planner. This is really the first time I've looked at the pages in the back -- the ones that have places for "notes" and addresses and other wastes of paper. In past planners, these have been a wealth of useless information. This is the case with the back pages in my current planner. I came across something called an "Anniversary Gift List by Year." As one might guess from the title, it lists some traditional types of gifts for (presumably wedding) anniversaries from the 1st to the 75th. And some of these are hilarious. For instance, for the first year, the appropriate gift is one that involves paper, plastics, and/or clocks. Hmm. I suppose this means that you should get your beloved a clock and have it double-bagged at the grocery store? Or maybe just buy a plastic clock and wrap it in paper? Kjerste, this should make your planning so much easier!

Then, of course, there's year 10, where the gift should involve tin, aluminum, or diamond jewelery. Is it just me, or do these things not quite fit together? Some recycling to go with that necklace, dear? This isn't nearly as good, however, as the 24th year, for which the gift is musical instruments.

The ante goes up around year 41, though: After being with someone for this long, it is suggested that you buy some land. And then, the following year, improved real estate is the gift. So put something on the land. But then, in year 43, you should go on a trip. I guess all that nesting (and thinking of retirement?), with the land and the house was too much. The 44th anniversary, however, represents a return to the nest: The suggested gift is groceries. Groceries! These are definitely not on my list of desired gifts for any occasion. Plus, I don't think it should take 44 years and an anniversary to get one's significant other to pick up a few things at the store. And if it has, I say give back the plastic clock and the tuba, and move off that plot of land. Everybody's gotta have a limit.

I See Dead People

Kjerste kindly reminded me today that it's been a while since I've posted. Just before she did, I was thinking the same thing, and wondering what I would blog about next. Lately, life hasn't felt too exciting, and almost anything I could post on this blog would be old hat. To wit:

Yes, I'm still trying to get in shape to hike to Machu Picchu.
Yes, Todd and I are still counting the days until we can move to Cambridge or somewhere else not in the 'burbs.
No, I still don't have a Real Job, not that I've been trying that hard.

So there you have it. Really the only new thing is that I've begun studying for the licensing exam. And is this exciting? No, it is not. It involves flashcards. And practice tests. And a big time commitment, which is another reason I've not been hitting the blog: My bloggin' time is being encroached upon by studying time.

Perhaps the only really exciting things are the dreams that I've been having lately. And I'm not really sure that "exciting" is the correct word, as the dreams involve dead people. I would like to note that my dreams seem to be the exact opposite of Suziemusi's recurrent dreams of growth and birth and all that good stuff.

In the dream I had last week, I was in a house (not my residence) and became aware that there were a couple of people -- both women, I think -- who had committed suicide and were hanging in the bathroom. They were hanging over the toilet from a metal towel rack of the kind you might see in a hotel. A (female) police officer/detective was on the scene, and she needed me to identify the bodies. So I guess this means I must have known them or something. Anyway, she's prepping me to ID them by letting me know what a gruesome scene it is -- I have yet to enter the room, and yet, I can basically picture it anyway. She's also telling me that it smells pretty bad. She takes me in the bathroom, and she's right: It's gruesome and it smells like dead bodies. Not that I know what that smells like, but I've read Stiff, so there you go. And the detective is giving me this look like "I told you so!" Anyway, I this point I wake up frantically, and with the smell of those dead bodies in my nose. Again, not that I actually know what that smells like.

After waking up, I realized that I had to pee, so I tiptoed to the bathroom (you know, the room with the dead bodies in it!) in the dark . At which point, in my sleepy fog, I began to think of scenes from scary movies I've seen, notably The Sixth Sense. And yeah, I started to get scared, much as a small child might after a nightmare. All I could think, however, is "Damn you, M. Night Shyamalan! You screwed me up!" Then I went back to bed.

Last night, I dreamed of dead folk again. In my dream, I was in Alaska, or some other cold spot, with a bunch of people that I seemed to know. We were on some kind of expedition, and we were stuck in the snow. We started to dig into the snow for some reason, and came upon some body parts. I remember, in particular, finding the face of a person, frozen solid and rather like a mask. Finding all these body parts indicated to us that another party had been there before us and had resorted to cannibalism. And in fact, we were needing to do that ourselves. Somebody produced a dead body (a rather large man, I think), with his hands, feet, and face removed (which I've heard from PBS can indicate cannibalism in archaeological evidence). Just as we were contemplating dinner, we all realized that there was a very small town about a block away from us. We hadn't noticed it before. There was some confusion about if it had sprung up during the course of our stay (how long had we been there?!) or we had just been oblivious. There was a general store and what looked like a Chinese restaurant. So we didn't eat the guy after all, but felt pretty stupid, since we had apparently missed some pretty obvious but important information.

So there you go. And stop looking at me like that. I'm not disturbed. And I'm qualified to make that assessment, especially with all this studying.