All Up In The AirDropping things since 2003!

For some disturbing reason, I haven’t been able to get enough of Flip This House lately. It actually kind of worries me that I’m so hooked on this show. I think I’m nesting, hardcore, and it’s scary. I don’t know where the appeal in that show is either. I mean, every episode is the same. They start out with some run-down house with a 70’s themed bathroom and kitchen, go through turmoil and angst while going at least $10,000 over budget, and end up with a shiny, modern, wonderful house. Every single episode.

But the thing that I’m hung up on the most is that everyone on that show seems to call the entry way into the house the foyer, like, that it rhymes with destroyer or employer. I’ve always pronounced it foyer. It always rhymes with day or yay or fish fillet in my head. And, OK, maybe I’m a snob, but it just sounds wrong to me the way those other people say it.

What’s worse, it seems the internet can’t figure out which way it should be either. For instance, check out answers.com. If you click on the audio pronunciation from American Heritage Dictionaries, they pronounce it the wrong way. But if you scroll down the page to the spelling and usage section from espindle, the first audio pronunciation says it my way and the second one where it’s used in a sentence says it that other way. Geez!

It’s driving me so crazy that I might actually stop watching the show. Either that or I’ll develop a nervous twitch every time I hear someone use that word. Funny thing is, until I recently kicked into my nesting phase, I rarely heard that word used. Now I hear it all the time.

Stupid HGTV.

Right now, as I type this, my sister is jumping out of an airplane at 13,000 feet. She got an email from a rock climbing gym we belonged to a few years ago saying they got a bulk discount and was anyone interested in jumping to their deaths at a cheaper-than-usual rate.

To think, just yesterday she was in town sleeping on my couch. One day later and she is 600 horizontal miles away and, like, a million vertically.

When she called earlier, I thought about saying “break a leg” because just saying “good luck” seemed too mundane and routine for what she was about to do. But after a second thought, “good luck” seemed much more appropriate.

I guess it’s a testament to how strung out I was on caffeine that when I went to originally post this, I hit the “save as draft” button instead of actually publishing it. I’ll go ahead and post this now and back date it to when I actually wrote this. Boy, was Friday ever a long day.

I really wish I was a morning person but I’m not. I’ve been trying to become one for the last several weeks but the goal seems to be just out of my reach. Isn’t there an actual, known disorder in which a person’s internal clock is off? I think I have that. Bad.

Last night I got an email from my friend, Jason, asking if I wanted to come over around noon to have a latte from his newly repaired latte machine. The plan was to go to bed at a semi-decent hour, wake up at a semi-decent hour, get some work done, then head over to his place. I ended up staying awake too long, overslept, and ended up waking up with just barely enough time to get to his place without eating anything first. The latte was really good. Jason knows how to make it well too. Not only did he give it a triple shot of espresso but he also put several spoonfuls of sugar in as well. I also got to play with his cat while he finished up some business. His cat is really sweet. In fact, it helped me get the need to get a cat of my own out of my system.

I can’t wait until I get a vacation. I’ve been working so much lately and haven’t been doing much of anything fun. I’ve been really busy with work and my stage-hand job isn’t really fun any more. It’s definitely becoming more of a “job”. But it’s given me some pretty interesting stories to tell. Luckily I’m going to Connecticut next month for a vacation. It’s long overdue. But Jason will be there as will my friend Monica. When I start feeling overwhelmed with work I have to remind myself that I have a break coming up.

Tonight I’m doing a load-out at the MGM Arena for the Police. I hope I get a T-shirt. One of the perks of doing this stage-hand stuff is that sometimes we get free swag. Usually when we do a load-out for a big concert, they give us a t-shirt at the end. The fact that we get shirts is nice but I’m still so in awe of everything I see that just getting to work the load-out is reward enough. Well, the money I get paid to do it is a nice reward too. It is so cool getting to see how these huge shows come together.

The downside of working this load-out tonight is that I will be crashing from this caffeine high soon and not wanting to do anything physical. I could eat something nutritious and take a nap, but I’ll probably keep working and just have some more caffeine right before I head out to my job.

I almost went out and got a cat today. I didn’t because I’m going to be traveling a lot in July and I don’t want to be a neglectful mama to my kitty. But come August when the traveling is over, there could very well be a new addition to my household.

At first it was a spur of the moment decision that I would just go out and do it. Then I remembered the travel and changed my mind. Then I remembered that I’ve been wanting a cat for a really long time and this wouldn’t have been a spur of the moment decision at all. Then I felt kind of dumb for wanting to do something like that so spur of the moment.

Before I moved into the house I lived in in Sacramento I was a die-hard dog person. Then over the 4 years that I lived in Sacramento I lived with 5 different cats and I had a total change of heart. When I moved here alone, I consoled myself with the fact that 3 of the kitties still lived there and that I could visit them whenever I was in town. But 2 of them were killed in the last couple of months and I’m finding myself having pangs of loneliness over those kitties.

Over the last several months I’ve gone back and forth over whether I should get a pet or not. I live in an apartment and know this won’t be a long-term living situation. I kind of feel like it would traumatize a pet to have to move around with me for however long it takes me to settle down. Then again people own pets in apartments all the time. Pets move with their owners all the time also. But I still worry. I mean, it kind of freaks me out to think that I would be responsible for providing a good life for another being, even if it is just a cat.

I wonder what this means for me as a future parent that I’m already worrying about owning a cat. I always told myself I would not be one of those control-freak type parents. But then seeing as how I’m already worrying about how my non-existent pet will handle any theoretical moves, I think any chances of being a laid back parent are pretty much shot. Maybe I should hold off on getting a pet for a while. The longer I am pet-less, the longer I have to enjoy my sanity before I become a frazzled caregiver of another life.

Sprite, the cat, cuddling with me back in Sacramento – October, 2005

I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging lately. Or, more precisely, how I don’t really blog any more. It is kind of like I’ve wanted to break up with blogging for the last year or so but couldn’t bring myself to just make the clean break.

Sure I’ve been busy but that whole busy line is nothing more than a pathetic excuse. Seriously, I’ve been treating my blog like it’s a guy I’ve been seeing for a month and want to break up with. But I don’t have the balls to just do it so I start ignoring his phone calls. Then when I call him back after the 4th voicemail, I say, “Oh sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’ve been busy.”

Though lately I have been feeling the itch to blog. I just haven’t felt like expending the energy to type something out. I’ve even been keeping a list in a text document on my computer’s desktop of blog posts I want to write about. It wouldn’t really be that much more trouble to actually write the posts out, would it?

All that being said, I think the time has finally come that I give it another go. My reasons this time are that now all the cool kids are back to blogging again and I can’t be one of the losers who don’t follow the crowd. So I’m going to make a really big effort to blog on a regular basis.

No really, I am.

I might even get around to redesigning my site. Seriously.

I moved to Las Vegas one year ago today. Time really fucking flies.

Part of me feels like it was just yesterday that I left my old home. But a larger part of me feels like it couldn’t have only been a year, maybe 3 or 4, but not just 1.

I still love it here. I still love living alone, still love meeting so many new people, still love the way the desert scenery feels so surreal compared to the lush mountains and farm lands of northern California. I really love how houses here are affordable and how I will actually have enough business to buy one soon because the economy here is booming.

Earlier I was laying on my couch, reading a book, and trying to tell myself that my air conditioner, oscillating fan, and cold glass of water really were enough to keep me from dieing of heat stroke when I suddenly started to fantasize about Sacramento. Actually it was a specific memory of driving over the Watt Avenue bridge in the rain after eating a really good meal out with friends. In my fantasy I was anticipating getting home so I could talk with my roommate for the next couple of hours while drinking a beer and watching the cats play. It was a really warm, cozy memory.

I guess as happy as I am that I have moved on, my time in Sacramento will always be a part of me. If you had asked me a year ago if it was a good part of me, I wouldn’t have hesitated to say no. But now I’m not so sure.

Driving in Sacramento – September, 2005