I beat myself up, I don't need anyone else to do it for me

I bruise pretty easily, and I always have. Unfortunately I also have a terrible memory, so when I get a really ugly, looks-like-it-came-from-a-fight bruise, I can very rarely tell people what happened. My senior year of college, my bedroom was set up so that I was constantly knocking my shins into my bedposts, so those bruises were easy to account for. But for about two months last year I had perpetual bruises on my forearms, and to this day I haven't figured out where they came from. The steering wheel of my car? My desk at work? Flailing around wildly in my sleep? I am wondering just as much as the people who asked me about them.

Working at Target has done two things. First, I am way more bruised than I have ever been in my entire life. I run my ankles and shins into shopping carts. I bang my arms on boxes and doors. I drop things and am just generally clumsy. It's just not pretty. But second, I have learned to mentally take note when I hurt myself so I can recount the event later. For example: last week at work I misjudged a corner and ran into it while opening a door. I said to myself, "aha! THIS will be a bruise, and I will know where it came from."

And I am so glad I have learned to do that, and so glad that I made that specific mental note, because last night I was at a bar, and I was waiting to pay for my drink when a guy turned to me and said, "what happened to your arm?"

I have to admit, I swelled with pride because I knew the answer. "I ran into a door at work," I said. "I'm pretty clumsy."

He looked at me skeptically. "A door."

"Yes!" I cried. "I guess it sort of looks like I got knocked around, doesn't it."

He eyed my roommate and his brother, who I happened to be standing with. "Yeah, it does."

I reassured him, but I'm sure it's hard to believe my story (a door? REALLY?) if you don't know that I am constantly hurting myself. And I guess it didn't help that I had just been play-fighting with my roommate about 30 seconds before our conversation started.

Denver: Month Two

It seems like I have been here in Colorado for longer than two months. I have been feeling guilty for not getting a new drivers license yet, but 60 days, psh, I have plenty of time. I actually went to get it at the end of July, but they said my birth certificate wasn't notorized correctly. The very same birth certificate I'd used to get my passport. And verify my identity for the last two jobs I had and a replacement drivers license the last two times I lost it. And I think you get the point.

In fact, I have not done most of the things that would make my life here seem permanent. I still have my Ohio license plates, and I still belong to the Ohio AAA club. I haven't yet sent in my IRS change of address form. I also haven't unpacked my winter clothes or hung anything on the walls in my bedroom except a calendar.

I think my main reason for all of these things is that I haven't found a job yet. The last few weeks have been promising, and I was hired for a part-time job as a library clerk today (hooray!), so I am feeling more and more optimistic. But I think I am afraid to commit to this new life until it looks stable and comfortable.

Something I have done is find a new vet. My dog would not get out of bed at the end of last week, so in we went to the vet. I think they thought I was overreacting, because of course as soon as we got there she was chipper and interested in EVERYTHING. There was a dog there whose head was the size of Francie, and because the vast size of this dog distracted me I very nearly let its huge, wagging tail knock my dog across the waiting room. But never fear! I was able to get Francie out of the way and thus prevented any gigantic-tail-to-small-dog contact. The vet ended up giving her some antibiotics because I told him I thought she may have a bladder infection, and she seems to be doing better now so all is well.

I have also been working in the grocery section of a huge store, which at first was intimidating because if you'll remember, I couldn't find ketchup until I was in my twenties, but I have learned quickly enough where bread crumbs and rice milk are located. Of course, every store is different so this really does me no good anywhere but this one single store, but progress, right? And being around food all day makes me about 99.9% less hungry than usual. So there are a few perks. I also enjoy the people watching, which is not as good as it is while you're lifeguarding, but it obviously beats out a desk job.

The next month looks like it will be more busy than the last. I'm flying home for a wedding in a week, and then the next weekend we're heading to Red Rocks Amphitheather for Monolith Music Festival. I also start my new job (and keep your fingers crossed that it becomes jobS soon), and end my stint in the grocery. And maybe I will go ahead and hang things on my bedroom walls.

Interior Design

Alright. I spent the last year fantasizing about having my own apartment. I have a folder of bookmarks in my browser that I carefully filled with things I wanted to buy as soon as I had my own place. Things like this Keep Calm & Carry On print (I like the historical kitch factor) and this Ikea bookshelf. Or this kitchen herb garden. Just a lot of pretty things that I just didn't need while mooching off living with my parents.

Of course, moving into my own apartment and quitting my job at the SAME TIME sort of threw a wrench into any plans I had of outfitting my rooms in fabulousness. My roommate had been living by himself for several years, so he had a lot more stuff than I did. Which is fine, it's just that our place has a distinctly male vibe. The most feminine accessory we have is my stack of cookbooks on the kitchen counter.

Anyway, it just so happened that we decided to live together around the time my roommate started watching How I Met Your Mother. And the friends on that show? They're roommates. And you know what they have in their apartment? A pair of swashbuckling swords. So you know what we decided we needed? The same thing:



Our swords not are identical to Ted and Marshall's, and to be honest, I don't even know how you come into a pair of swords as perfect as the ones on the tv show, because we spent a LOT of time looking for them. We finally settled on these Marine swords, which we found for a pretty good deal on eBay. They now hang over our dining room table.

It is super classy. Luckily, I was able to put my foot down and say no to the kegerator. I am not kidding.

Home from the groomer's (A series of text messages)

"They put bows in her hair! I am leaving them in for your viewing enjoyment later."

"If she doesn't pull them out first. My parents' dog could only keep them in for about an hour."

"Well whatever, I am embarrassed to take her outside with them anyway."

"Why? Francie is a female and now all the male dogs will know."

"Yeah, but all their owners will know I am the kind of person who puts clothes on their dog."

"I wouldn't worry about it. It's just a bow."

"It just seems like a strange thing to me, that's all."

"The bows only look good the first day anyway. Afterwards, it's just annoying."

"Well, aren't you the dog bow expert."

"I'm an expert at pretty much everything."

Wondering

if the people above me are moving out or just doing some deep cleaning because they keep throwing things off their balcony onto the ground in front of our patio. Things you maybe shouldn't throw, like folding chairs and kitchen appliances. I am a little concerned.

Activists

My roommate and I haven't had cable since we moved into our apartment, but last week we realized we were going to miss the Olympics if we didn't hurry up and make an appointment. At first, we thought maybe we should just boycott China and their terrible human rights by not worrying about watching at all, but suddenly we were talking about archery and soccer and my roommate was calling Comcast. We're going to have cable tomorrow, so while we're missing the opening ceremony today, we'll be able to watch everything else.

We hadn't talked about it much since then, until last night when we were sitting around watching X-Files dvds. Out of nowhere, my roommate said, "I'll watch the Olympics, but I'm still going to boycott China in my mind."

I guess he'd been feeling guilty. "Yeah," I said. "Me too. That'll show 'em."

There are also serious altercations when I open a can of tuna

My roommate's cat is 13 years old, and to put it nicely, she is not very friendly. In fact, I happen to be scared of her, because I still have a scar on my arm from an incident last winter when I thought we could be friends and she thought I would be good for biting.

My dog is also afraid of her. The cat likes to sit in the hallway between my roommate's bedroom and the kitchen, which effectively prevents Francie from getting to or from the kitchen, the front door, or the bedroom. Every once in a while the dog will be in one of these places and she'll get stuck because she is afraid to go near the cat. She stands there, sort of frozen in terror, waiting for one of us to come rescue her. Sometimes we don't notice until she starts to cry. Which to me is a little funny because YOU ARE A DOG. You could totally take that cat. Don't be a wimp.

The biggest point of disagreement between these two is their food. At first we thought we had a problem because we'd be watching tv or playing video games and the dog would come out of my roommate's bedroom, licking her chops like she'd just eaten something completely and utterly satisfying. And the cat's food dish would be licked clean. But then? Sometimes I would go to my bathroom, where I kept the dog's food, and shut the door only to find that I wasn't alone. I had a friend! And she was hissing at me to get away from her food! Even though it wasn't hers. As much as I enjoyed our surprise get togethers, once we realized that the cat wasn't eating any of her own food anyway, I decided to give up and move the dog's food to a more neutral area.

I think this draws Francie's attention to the fact that THE OTHER THING IS EATING MY FOOD. Of course, she is too scared to do anything about it. So whenever she hears the cat crunching down puppy kibble, the scene in our apartment looks something like this:



which is to say that the dog sits and watches worriedly while the cat feasts away. When she finishes, she goes back to my roommate's bed or wherever it is she hides, and the dog goes over to the food and checks everything out. It's almost like she's saying to herself, "okay. Everything's okay. She just ate some food. It's gonna be alright. Now I can have some, because she's gone. Whew. That was a close one."

I'm not sure if she's ever going to figure out that she doesn't need to be afraid. But it is sort of entertaining this way, with the exception of making those rescues from the kitchen.