No really, I walked into a wall

I joked last weekend that the bride would probably fire me if I showed up at her wedding with a black eye. A few days earlier, I snarled at Rob that he couldn’t demonstrate a beat-down technique on me because my arms bruise easily.

In 2003, toward the end of the U-Haul unloading, I whacked my head on the latch of the trailer and gashed my scalp. It was about 4:45 p.m., and my mother said, “Stop bleeding so we can return the trailer by 5.”

So yesterday, on the sixth and final, nonconsecutive day of moving, I was waiting for the dryer to finish (yes I did take two loads of laundry to Olympia because there’s a washer and dryer there and not here), and the carpet was vacuumed and the shower and sinks sprayed with Lysol with bleach. I noticed some spots of blood on the window slats where Emerald liked to rub his spines after I tortured him by pulling off stubborn shed.

I strode across the living room to reach through the space above the counter-top/bar into the kitchen to get the bottle of cleaner. Evidently I forgot that there was wall above the empty space and I smacked my forehead into it. Hard.

Rob asked me if I cried. I didn’t really, because I was so startled. I was afraid to remove my hand because if there was blood, a) it would scar and b) I’d probably have to go to the Emergency Room and that would definitely keep me from getting home by the time Rob got off work.

There was no blood, but there’s an ugly bump, and some broken blood vessels. I look a little like a vampire partway through the prosthetic process on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Guess I won’t be taking new passport pictures this weekend.

Speaking of U-Haul, (no really, I did, a few grafs up) why are its employees required to be jerks? Like they’re doing me a huge favor by letting me borrow their trailer?

I wanted to get a 6 x 12 trailer, but learned that despite the website’s assessment, my hitch couldn’t handle it. We got a 5 x 8, and man, you wouldn’t believe how Rob packed all the furniture and most of my worldy possessions into that thing and my car.

Except a rose bush, a lamp and a vacuum cleaner, which actually is his. So that’s why I went back yesterday.

Ketchup

I’m sorry I haven’t written. It only took me a day to get over my fear of writing personal e-mails at my new job, but blogging feels riskier. Specially since I now work for the government. ‘Course, I was working for the government when I started this blog, but that was different. I was in Prague, and people weren’t living in fear of having their blogs discovered by their bosses. (Although Dooce already had been fired for hers).

The job is great. Living with Rob is great. Everything’s great.

I have an office with my name on the door and two tall windows that look out at trees. I have three plants in the window and one of them has fragrant hyacinth blooms. Another has a little gnome living in it. We live very close to my job, so I take the bus in the morning and Rob picks me up after work. If he circumnavigates the campus, he can pick me up right outside my building. I can see him from my window.

This is useful as we are in our 23rd straight day of rain.

Weddingpalooza comes to a close this weekend in Los Angeles. (Sorta, since now Chelsea’s on the bridal train.) I’m a little concerned my French manicure won’t last the weekend and that my green Vera Wang trunk sale dress won’t actually fit properly, as I had three fittings and had to leave town before I was satisfied with the finished product. Had to leave the seamstress with the instructions to take the strap in a little (or was it out?) Three fittings for a bridesmaid’s dress did me in. Do we think I’m going to go through that for a bridal gown? Answer is no.

Still, even if I don’t get to wear green fingernails that match the dress I didn’t pick out for myself, I’m certain the wedding is going to be a good time.

What a way to make a living

As I was walking out the door at 5 sharp the other day, my boss asked how I was liking the area. I realized that if I didn’t have a boyfriend to go home to every night (and his martial arts classes to go to), that I’d be pretty bored and lonely between 5 and 10 every evening.

At the newspaper job, I felt like there was no way I could have a family because I didn’t have time or energy to do much else when I was getting off work at 7 or 8 each night.

So my analysis is, those life-sucking reporting jobs are good for young single people with nothing else to do. If you don’t want your job to equal your life, you get off at 5 and spend the evening with your honey.

Today’s fortune

Many opportunities are open to you. Seek them out.

Maybe I was bad last year

On the subject of the office Secret Santa exchange, some coworkers told me they opted out because they’d been burned in the past. I threw my card in the mix because 1) I have a lot of business cards to use up before Dec. 30 and 2) I still had a little Christmas faith.

Last year, I got a stapler shaped like a cat. It wasn’t even a nice-looking stapler shaped like a cat. Plus, I’m not a cat person. I thought I’d regive it this year, but I tell you, it’s so not cute that I can’t even think of anyone to regive it to.

I gave my person a DVD of an HBO movie that I got for free at a journalism conference — maybe she didn’t think that was such a hot gift either. And I was so jealous and disappointed because all the other recipients were shooting the whole newsroom a note saying “Thanks, Secret Santa! I love my [insert totally festive, cute or tasty gift here].” My person didn’t post a thank you, and neither did I.

Still, I kept the faith, because odds were the cat stapler person wasn’t going to pick my name again. I thought about regiving the cat stapler to my person, but I couldn’t be sure she wasn’t the one who gave it to me last year. So I picked out a nice desk calendar, appropriate for an editor type, and gave it to her. She sent an office wide thank you, so I feel good.

I was further rewarded with four blue and white tea cups and a gajillion chocolate coins. I tell you, I have been mechanically peeling and eating those chocolate coins for the past hour.

Auteur Theory

I think the problem with Kong is that no one wanted to tell Peter Jackson that he didn’t need to use every single frame of footage. Sure it’s all great footage, but I actually found myself thinking, maybe an hour and a half in, that the story would work better as a television series, because I was getting antsy. We didn’t even hear the monkey roar for a whole hour.

But it wouldn’t really work on TV, because the TV commercials made my brother think it looked like a cartoon, but on the big screen, I found Kong pretty realistic looking. There were a couple of scenes when it didn’t really seem like he was holding Ann Darrow, but for the most part, good monkey.

I didn’t get though, why he sat there shaking her like a salt shaker and roared for a seemingly very long time when he first met her.

We did not need three hours of this. Easily could cut out five minutes by editing out the slow-mo bits. What was that about?

First we have the battles with the natives, then meet Kong, then the dinosaurs, then Kong and dinosaurs, then more of Kong and the dinosaurs, then giant bugs…I mean, someone, tell Peter we didn’t need 10 minutes of the bugs.

Seems like he fell in love with the footage and could bear to leave any of it out.

Lame duck

I gave notice today. As of Jan. 3, I will be living and working in the same city as my boyfriend! And cohabitating with him. I’m less nervous about how he and I will get on, than how he will adjust to my four-and-a-half-foot-long iguana.

His scorpion recently died, but Emerald takes up a little more space. Still I think he’s less trouble. His food doesn’t chirp. (Scorpion ate crickets).

Goodbye newspaper, hello public relations, a coupla more dollars per hour and happily ever after…

I’ll be yours in winter

Some people take pictures. I paint images with words.

A month or so ago, we had autumn. I remember getting off the freeway at exit 107 admiring the red and yellow leaves. One day, a red tree reflected so brilliantly in the glass doors of my office building that I turned around to see what blaze of fire was behind me.

Last week, we had snow, and unlike last year, it stuck. So I drove to work past evergreen trees flocked with snow. For maybe two days.

Although we are having below-freezing temperatures at night, we no longer have snow on the ground. Or leaves on the trees. While exit 107 still has a number of green trees, the red, orange and yellow ones have dropped their leaves to become branchy skeletons of their former selves.

And I’m not sure, but this morning’s sky looked browner than it was gray. What is that? Smog in the Evergreen State?

I’ll never ask for anything else as long as I live

A girl should always keep a leather jacket in her car, just in case she’s invited on a motorcycle ride. True, I no longer acquire articles made of animal skin. However, the jacket in the trunk, underneath the picnic table that came standard with my CRV, predates my vegetarianism. Hell, it predates my puberty.

That jacket is — literally — 20 years old.

I don’t recall the occasion that made me think it was a good idea to store it in my car, but I do know that the last time I wore it was on a motorcycle ride on Pacific Coast Highway, circa 1999.

Today, while on the job, I was invited to accompany a strange man on a charity motorcycle run. I changed into my black leather jacket, was amused that I could zip it up, and waited for him by the Honda motorcycle that I thought was his. When the thousands of other bikers mounted their bikes, I was surprised to see a couple that was not my date approach the Honda. By then, the parking lot was a sea of chrome, leather and red Santa hats, and I couldn’t find my friend.

So, yeah, I feel a little like I was stood up by a biker.