Where the Devil is Andy?

I’ll bet a lot of you are asking, “where’s our favorite loudmouthed liberal?”

Andy’s been taking a little break from blogging to get his house in order. He moved last weekend and is also in his second week of a new job. As if that weren’t enough to juggle, he’s also been in a lot of physical pain from a combination of playing sports without stretching and using a less than ergonomic workstation during countless hours of programming at home.

That’s not to say he’s not in good spirits. I spoke to him last night and overall he sounds happier than I’ve seen him in a long time. But doing any more typing than strictly necessary is just not in the cards for him right now.

I’m sure, however, that he’d appreciate getting some love in the comments. So if you have some words of advice, support or just plain love for Mr. Sparrow…give it up!

Quick Rant

After working from noon until 11PM without a break, seeing that your car has been towed is generally the last thing you want to see. Especially after you paid five dollars for parking. But apparently on certain streets on Capitol Hill, certain zones become tow-away only between 4 and 6PM. I just figured that if I parked next to a parking meter, the curb is gray, and the parking meter said pay for parking from 8AM-6PM, that I could park there if I paid for parking. This especially sucks because today was the literally the first day in almost a year that I went from in the red to in the black. Well, that was a nice day in the black.

More Push-Polling And Scamming

801-623-4621. Just got a call from them, no voice, just dead air, and did a look up. Apparently this number comes from a calling company in Provo, UT that does push-polls and/or scams. Looks like they are going to be out this election season.

SCAM ALERT

I just received a phone call from 503-403-2674. As soon as I picked up the phone, it hung up. Apparently, this part of a scam. If you call the number back, you get this recording:

“Welcome to Wells Fargo, to get started please say or key in your card number.”

This number is most definitely NOT Wells Fargo. They just want you to give them all your information so that they can take all your money. Hopefully the Feds will shut them down quickly. In the meantime, block any calls from the following numbers:

1-503-403-2674
1-503-403-2660
1-503-403-2665

Room Vs. Roommate?

So I’m looking for a new place on the Westside, and I checked out some apartments today. So now I have to decide: huge room with so-so roommate, less huge room with more laid-back roommate, or smaller room with really laidback roommate.

So what do you think is more important in finding a new place: a sweet room or a laidback roommie?

P.S. If you say the answer is both you are annoying.

Last Day Of School!!!

For most people, this is rather meaningless. If however, you’ve been a teacher for the past three years (and never had another full-time job), then it’s kind of a big deal!

Don’t worry though, there will still be Sparrow’s in the teaching world, as my little sister Snoozy will begin teaching in the state of Washington this coming fall. Congrats Snoozy!

Moving To The Westside

For those who read this blog regularly, you are probably aware that I have been working as a teacher on the Eastside of Seattle for the past two years. Starting next week, I will no longer be working as a teacher. I’ve actually already started my new job as an Interactive Web Developer, and they let me work remotely while I’ve been teaching. So I’m going to be switching affiliations from Eastside to Westside, and along with switching gang colors, I need to switch apartments. Anybody in the Cap Hill/Beacon Hill area who needs a roommate, let me know. If you are reading this post, you can probably figure out enough from my blog to discern if what kind of roommate I am.

Happy Birthday Teresa!

Please join me in congratulating Teresa on having reached the quarter-century mark. We are all proud of you Teresa!

And I’m hoping that the voters in Indiana and North Carolina give her what she wants most for her birthday: an Obama victory!

I actually rooted for Hillary to win PA so that the timing of Obama’s knockout blow might corresponding with Teresa’s birthday.

We’ll have some updates in a few hours about the ultimate winner. Preliminary reports are good for Obama though. Zogby predicts Obama by 14 points in NC and 2 points in IN, while the Drudge Report predicts a large Obama win in North Carolina and a small Clinton win in Indiana.

Sloth

I’m at home in Utah right now. I’ve noticed that whenever I go home for a few days, I become extremely lazy, spending the vast majority of my time on the couch watching TV, sleep a whole lot, and lack the basic energy needed to feed myself. It took me ten minutes to get up the energy to order Domino’s. Does anyone else experience a complete and total wave of lethargy when they go back home?

I’m Back. :-)

Sometimes, a girl just needs a break.

I owe you all an apology for my unannounced and unexplained absence from this blog over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been in serious need of a mini-retreat from the online world. During my time away, I read and thought. I meditated and did yoga and walked around Mercer Island. I even danced to music from my iPhone in public and didn’t care what anyone thought. In short, it was wonderful.

And now I’m back. And I have some more energy, which I will be bringing to this blog starting…now!

Verizon Wireless

Do any companies still have decent customer service? All I need is for Verizon Wireless to send me a new phone, because my old one stopped working? But apparently this means I have to talk to half a dozen people on the phone. My phone isn’t working properly - send me a new one. How hard is this?

Apparently, too hard. It’s gorgeous outside, so I’m going outside to bask in the sun. If you need to reach me, there’s only a 50% chance my phone will work.

In Loving Memory of the Cosmic Infedabulum

Just about every Friday night, I go over to my father’s house for Shabbat dinner. Tonight, some really hilarious memories came up.

When I was very little, my parents and I lived in a rickety old mustard-colored house in the University District. In the hallway between my bedroom and my parents’ bedroom, there was a little bump in the floor where the hardwood had warped and peeled away. Beneath it, there was a ventilation duct.

If you stepped on the bubble just the right way, the ventilation duct would bend and the sound of metal flexing would echo throughout the house. It was incredibly loud. To a four year-old, it seemed like the house was angry.

My eternally creative father referred to this amusing and occasionally terrifying feature of our house as “the Insyc Roder.” He explained to me that this mysterious machine opened the gateway to an a pocket of space-time called “the Cosmic Infedabulum.” Whenever things got lost in our house, they got stuck in the Cosmic Infedabulum and eventually drifted to “Mezzapoopa Time,” where all lost things go.

I hadn’t thought about any of this stuff in years, but it all came up over dinner tonight. It’s probably one of my happiest memories from childhood. I just felt like sharing.

Happy Birthday to Anna Banana

My little sister, the adorable, amusing, athletic and acrobatic Ms. Anna is ten years old today! She recently discovered e-mail and signs all her messages to me with “Lots ‘O Smiles.”

To commemorate the occasion, I offer you this photo of Anna laughing with chocolate cake smeared all over her chin.

Happy birthday, sis! I’m proud of you.

After the Smoke Clears, I See Better

One of my favorite Toby Lightman songs (iTunes) goes something like this:

I find myself in need of a pause
I’m not sure why, but I think that it’s because
Of this desire to be what others want me to be
Which is nothing close to me

But I’ll see better when the smoke clears
When the smoke clears inside my head
And I can listen when the screaming doesn’t repeat everything I’ve said
And all that remains me and who I am at the end of the day
And this happens everyday

That song has always spoken to me, but these days it’s starting to mean more. I’ve wasted big chunks of time in my life trying to see myself through the eyes of people who don’t accept or understand me. I figured that if I could understand their problem with me, I could somehow fix what wasn’t broken to begin with. I thought I was too sweet-natured, sensitive, enthusiastic or excitable. The truth is, those are my best qualities and the people who don’t get them can go fuck themselves.

The other night at the “It Won’t Stay in Vegas” blogger party, I got to sing onstage with Dehner Franks. Dehner is an old friend of mine. We used to gig together back when he lived in Seattle. Jamming with him again reminded me that music is such a huge part of who I am.

So many things suddenly snapped into focus for me. I bug my friends constantly to do karaoke with me. I gave up the music business partly because Andy was never all that interested in being a part of it. I bug my friends to come to karaoke bars because I want someone else to come with me and make it easier for me to get up onstage. I stopped doing something that meant so much to me because someone else didn’t find it compelling. I have to wonder about the priorities that create a sacrifice like that. I have to turn those priorities on their ear immediately.

Singing is the love of my life. What’s more, I’m a genius at it. Now that I understand why I stopped, I’m terrified to see where that dream might lead. But it’s something I have to pursue. I may never be a big star, but like they say, “the worst that can happen if you dare to hope is a broken heart, the worst that can happen if you don’t is a life without hope.”

Why Do I Always Feel Like the Guy Spinning Too Many Plates?

I had a really crappy day today. It started off well enough. I was going through my kGTD list and moving rapidly through my workflow. Things were going so well that by 1:00ish, I thought it was safe to take a break and run a few errands in Bellevue.

The whole trip would have taken no more than half an hour, except that just as I was getting ready to come home, my car refused to start.

I checked the oil. I checked the battery connections. There was nothing wrong that I could see. I tried to start the car again. No luck.

So I called AAA. They told me to sit tight and that they’d be there within the hour. They showed up two and a half hours later and fixed the fuel filter, which was the problem.

By the time I got back to work, it was nearly 5:00 and I still had a whole afternoon’s worth of work to get through. To make things worse, I had to get on three conference calls and put out some unanticipated fires that cropped up in my absence. And in the midst of it all, my friends were lobbying me to get my shit together and come rock climbing.

I love my friends, and I love my job. But there are times when I would kill every living being on the planet with a single thought just to get five minutes without some new piece of information, question or request flying at my head.

Whenever I get this overwhelmed, the only solution is spending several hours in a complete vacuum. I turn off the phone, unplug my computer and lie back on my bed with my eyes closed. Unfortunately, this makes me kind of a bad friend because I don’t do a very good job of communicating this need to the people that matter to me. I just suddenly sign off instant messenger, stop picking up the phone and retreat.

Do any of you guys ever get like this? What do you do? How do you explain to the people that you love that you’re just too overwhelmed to deal with them right now and would they all please just leave you alone?

Uncertainty

I spent last night tossing and turning because of the current amount of uncertainty and unpredictably in my life. I used to feel like my life was on a track, and I could see exactly where I would be working, living, working out, and who I would be friends with 10, 20, 30 years down the line. An idea of what each summer would be like, an idea of what each winter would be like. It was very reassuring.

Obviously, no one can predict the future. The smallest things can have major impacts on our lives. I hate the cliched “butterfly flapping its wings” metaphor, but I probably wouldn’t even write for this blog if a butterfly ballot in Florida hadn’t placed a man I despised in the White House, as opposed to a man who bores me.

Very few of our lives are in our way predictable. In 1990, my parents never could have imagined living in Utah. In May of 2005, I never dreamed I would spend a year in Florida and become interesting in computer science. If my parents and I hadn’t canceled a vacation at the eleventh hour, I probably never would have even applied to the job.

If it weren’t for two scheduling glitches at my job last year, one in favor, one against, I would have a completely different job right now. If it weren’t for one person I barely knew having a brief change of heart during room draw my sophomore year, I would have left college with a very different group of friends, and I may never have even met Teresa.

Our lives exist in a sea of meaningless noise, attempting to push us in every conceivable direction. Every so often, one of these seemingly meaningless events has a major change in the course of our life. Sometimes we can see it coming, but that is the exception. Even the most tracked people can derail. And even the people who seem to have spent their whole life striving towards one goal, never say the many ways they could get there. When I think of a driven, tracked, goal-oriented person, I think of Hillary Clinton. However, I don’t think she could have realistically believed in 1987, when she was married to an obscure Southern governor who was engaging in multiple risky sexual affairs, that twenty years later she would be the first female President of the United States (probably).

In an increasingly noisy, complex world, however, it is reassuring to have some foreseeable future. This I believe, is the allure of fundamentalism, and helps explains its recent rise. The whole world, even the afterlife, becomes predictable and planned down to the smallest detail. All questions can be answered by one book. I would probably sleep better with that reassurance.

But since that doesn’t really fit me, I occasionally get really stressed out trying to figure out what DOES fit me. Because that is all that we can really do when butterflies flap their wings and change our options from A, B, and C, to X, Y, and Z; know ourselves, and take the options that seem to fit best.

Happy Birthday to Andy and Susanne!

What is it about people born in mid-November that I love so much? Two of my favorite human beings in the world have birthdays in the next couple of days.

Andy turns 25 on this very day, and everybody knows just how much I think of him. He’s kind, funny and incredibly bright. In the last few months, he’s attained entirely new levels of awesomeness. I’m really proud and lucky to have him in my life.

On Monday, Susanne (a.k.a. “Roo”) turns 24. Susanne is awesome because she asks great questions, loves to explore and never jumps to conclusions about anything. It’s been such a joy to have my thoughtful, kind, considerate friend now living near me in Seattle.

Happy birthday to you both!

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