supercheesegirl

I bought the tickets back in September. We later booked a weeklong trip to Florida Feb 6-13; still later, I got assigned a business trip Feb 16-20, while still later I got a horrible cold right before the business trip. All this made the prospect of going to a concert on a Sunday night immediately afterward not too attractive, but we were both really, really glad we went.

The last time we went to a show at Union Transfer we made a whole night of it, got dinner out and had a few drinks and everything. This time, we just went straight to the show, all businesslike. We got parking no problem, and immediately upon getting in the door, we headed straight up to the balcony with the hope of getting actual seats (as the last time we were at Union Transfer, they had little cafe tables and chairs up on the balcony). This time, there were no little cafe tables, but there were risers with seats at the back of the balcony, directly above the bar. That was fine by us, and we sat in the very back row. (We feel extremely old and go to bed extremely early for this sort of thing so we need seats these days.) Another major perk of Union Transfer, besides the availability of seats, is the good beer. We had several.

Opening band was Elephant Revival, whom I'd never heard of but adored. Modern folk, really excellent, I bought one of their CDs and got it signed by the band. I also bought a Josh Ritter concert shirt, as they were selling girly-style V-neck shirts in size XL. My shirt is very comfortable.

Josh was great. It's wonderful to see him looking so happy these days, just so obviously loving his music and loving his fans and loving playing with his band. I'm not sure why he's wearing paint-spattered coveralls in his concerts and on the album cover, but whatev, he's awesome. He played Hello, Starling. He played Kathleen. He played the Mummy song, which is one of my absolute favorites. It was a great show. And we were sitting down and drinking craft beer during it. Five goddamn stars.

I feel compelled to document this year's Trash to Treasure sale, just because we got a crapload of stuff.

Every year, the college where F works sponsors the Trash to Treasure Yard Sale in June. As the college students move out at the end of the year, they take all the junk that they would have just thrown away or left by the side of the road, and instead they drop it off at the field house/athletic center. All kinds of stuff, everything from mini-fridges and rugs to clothes to bookshelves to half-empty bottles of laundry detergent. Volunteers sort through all the stuff, arrange it, and price it, and then there's a huge yard sale to benefit United Way. This is seriously a fantastic event. It runs Friday-Sunday, but on Friday morning 8-10AM, there is a special sale preview for College employees. We were ready and waiting at 7:30, with big plastic IKEA bags to carry our loot and a list of the items we were looking for. With buying a house, we knew there'd be some specific things we'd need, and we wanted to get it all as cheaply as possible. Shortly before 8:00, volunteers come down the line with photocopied maps of the yard sale layout (clothes on the left, mirrors on the right, etc) so you could plan your attack. On the back of the map was the price list.

So the doors open at 8, and we flash our College IDs and run inside. First stop is cleaning products, where we fought a bunch of middle-aged women to the booty and picked up I think three mostly-full laundry detergents, a few green cleaning sprays, and three or four mostly-full bottles of shampoo and conditioner (all these bottles added up to $4 total). Then we dashed for furniture, where we snagged one square end table, a small folding table that could easily be an outdoor table or plantstand, and two-drawer file cabinet. Since it's kind of impossible to do any more shopping while lugging a file cabinet, we went up and paid for the furniture ($25 for the two tables and file cabinet) and set them to the side with a sign that said SOLD on them. We then found a round end table, a nice table lamp, and a couple of books, then split up to hit clothes. The pants selection was truly mediocre, but I had fantastic luck with dresses: I got four really cute summer dresses ($6 each), plus a cute top ($3). F found a table fan, a couple of energy-efficient light bulbs, some shorts, an exercise shirt, a pullover windbreaker, and a wintry hat, plus a set of silverware, a grill brush, and some towels.

Now I need to mention that F is actually injured right now. Without going into details, he took a tumble two weeks ago and banged up his knee pretty badly, and it turns out fractured his shoulder. So he's not supposed to be carrying anything heavy with his left arm. He's lugging around the round end table, which is very lightweight, and an IKEA bag full of stuff over his right shoulder. I've got the bag full of cleaning products, which is actually quite heavy, and the lamp, plus dresses piled all over me. We get in line to check out, and the line is very long now--stretching from the end of the field house all the way back through lamps--so we know we've got a wait ahead of us. I shove the dresses in my bag with all the heavy bottles and leave it with F; as the line moves forward he moves each object up one at a time with his good arm. I run up to go move our previously purchased furniture out to the car. I get the two tables first, at which point I realized that we're parked on the opposite end of the field house from the exit, so it's a bit of a walk. Tables loaded in the car, I head back inside, flash my ID again, walk all the way to the exit, pick up the file cabinet, and head back out. The file cabinet isn't super heavy, but it is awkward. With the help of a fence, I hoist the file cabinet up on my shoulder and hoof it back to the car. I am Super Power Woman. I am drenched in sweat. I am of course wearing my work clothes.

Then I head back inside and find F much closer to the end of the line. The line leads first to the pricing table, so the volunteers can add up everything you've got, and then to the payment table. Everything we have with us (table, lamp, fan, dresses, bottles, everything) adds up $70. Plus the $25 we spent on furniture already, we have spent under $100 total and gotten a crapload of stuff! We are totally pumped. That was at 9:35. By 9:51, we've gone home, unloaded most of the stuff, gave me a quick spongebath to deal with all the sweat, changed clothes, fixed hair, and I'm on the train. Score! Awesome morning! I'm wearing one of the new dresses now and have already received a compliment on it (as in, "You have to tell me right now where you got that dress!").

I also got some good news this morning, unrelated to shopping or houses or yoga or anything else going on lately, but I'm not at liberty to share it. I'm really excited about it and can't wait till I can tell you.

Tonight: new tires! Tomorrow: baseball!

Tonight was my monthly small group meeting at church. It was AWESOME. We had such a good and thoughtful conversation! I really, really like these people.

Tomorrow I'm flying to Colorado! This is also AWESOME. I get to see F! And Amy and Josh, and their little boy Elliot! So exciting!

Because of the trip, I'm not planning to be around on LJ much for the next few days, so if something earth-shattering happens, drop me an email, OK?

Okay, so I hate Pearl Jam. Don't get me wrong, they have some decent songs, but every single one of them has been so overplayed I want to stab myself in the eye whenever they come on the radio. And many of their songs are just damn annoying. To avoid causing myself bodily harm, I change the station every time I hear Eddie Vedder's voice. However, tonight on the radio, I heard something that made me very, very happy.

http://www.joeconklin.com/

When you get to the main menu page, click on "Pearl Jam the Musical" at the bottom of the lefthand toolbar. I laughed out loud several times. Some of the interpretations aren't as good as others, but on the whole it's a beautiful thing.

My new speakers work!! There's no AM radio!! For only $25!! It's Valentine's Day and I have the awesomest boyfriend ever and I'm going to go order my favorite pizza and watch Buffy and then eat truffles and drink wine and take a luxurious bubble bath! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Dude! I get out of work at 3:00 today, because it's a holiday weekend! AND I get the day off on Monday to spend with Chelsea! Double the awesomeness!

I booked flights to AWP in Atlanta. I arrive on Thursday March 1 around 8pm, and depart on Sunday March 4 at 5pm. I'm sharing a room with Fritz and Xina and JT, and Rhett and Jay are going too, and Tom and Jennifer, and Jim and Terry and Stuart and Dan, and probably a lot of other Greensboro grads. I foresee... lots of good times! And drinking!

I think I may spend my usual AWP book budget on liquor. At least then I won't feel guilty about buying a bunch of poetry books and not reading them, which is what I usually do. I know for sure I will drink any alcoholic beverages I buy. Although I will probably buy some books too, or at least subscribe to some journals. All part of my new plan to start being a writer again. I got an offer in the mail to subscribe to Poets&Writers at just $9.95 for a year--that's a pretty good rate, so I may do it, and P&W has a lot of information on getting published, so I bet it would be worth it.

I went to the gym on Tuesday and last night (Thursday). Tuesday I did 37 minutes of elliptical and then spread out my yoga mat in the third floor classroom space, which is in the center of the indoor track. I was in the middle of a downward dog with one leg in the air when I saw a guy I'd chatted with before running around the track, and waving at me. Next time I was rightside up he jogged over to say hi. That was kind of funny. The other really notable thing about Tuesday's practice was that I got my leg straight in a revolving triangle pose for the first time ever. Over three years of doing yoga, and finally! I felt triumphant. It was only my right leg, not my left yet (although I felt close on the left), and I couldn't recreate it last night, but still! I'm definitely making progress. Didn't feel the usual knee wobbliness in revolving extended side angle, either, which was surprising and good. I'm glad I took time away from that one and it came out well. Did the full pushups and squats routine, too. I feel like it makes a big difference.

Last night I had time for 25 minutes of elliptical before yoga class. Class was good--I like Debi, but I don't really like her teaching style, or the way she modifies some poses. It also makes me crazy that she way oversimplifies some poses, as if for a low-level beginner class (lots of the old ladies at my gym have been taking yoga for a while), but then includes poses that are above and beyond my capability, let alone a beginner's. But it's always nice to do yoga with others. I felt good and strong last night, even though I didn't have time to do my pushups and squats. And! Last night I weighed myself, and I weighed the least I have weighed in a really really long time. 151.5! I had just worked out and hadn't eaten dinner yet, but that's usually the case when I weigh myself. It's not like the weight really matters, it's just a number, but still. I felt good.

I've been noticing some other little changes in my body, too. More definition in my arms, for sure, and also in my thighs. My calves have been rock solid for a while now. It's the arms I'm most impressed with, because the heaviest thing I ever lift is me, and my full weight never even rests on my arms. Yoga is just really good for me. Doing yoga and elliptical both, three times a week, is creating results I'm really surprised at--and I haven't even been that regular about it for very long, I was all over the place in December. I hope I can find an affordable gym near my new apartment. I was planning to find a yoga studio and just do yoga and study it seriously, but now that I've been doing the elliptical I want to keep up with that too. So... I want a yoga studio, and I want access to an elliptical machine for 40 minutes three times a week. I don't know that I'd use a gym for anything else. I'll have to see what's around.

...I'm considering not getting internet at my new apartment. I love you guys, but I spend way too much time online. I don't know if I can manage that, though. I'll have to think about it.

Today's Dinosaur Comics is the awesomest ever. Because of the last line. I heart T Rex!!

From the Kipling book:

An interviewer, noting the sometimes-insulting content of Kipling's travel letters published in India, stated, "If these letters are ever republished in book form, or any other form which will give the great American public a chance to get at them, Rudyard Kipling's name is Dennis so far as personal popularity in the United States goes." The footnotes tell us that according to the Partridge Dictionary of Slang, "Dennis" is nautical for pig, and "hullo Dennis" was an insulting catch-phrase in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

WAZZUP, DENNIS?!?

so last night, we went over to rhett's to watch buffy, and rhett gave me a present that she made me for my reading--using two bars of soap, she carved an Acathla (those who've seen 2nd season buffy know who that is) with his mouth open, and an Angel (whose leg fell off while she was carving him, but oh well), and the Angel is attached to the Acathla with a small sword stuck through them. this is seriously one of the most super presents ever.