Ok, time to start blogging again

I am going to start slow…we are doing well, right? Two posts in as many months…

I’ve been feeling a little bit sorry for myself this afternoon. Not for any really good reason mind you. My life is quite acceptable. It’s just not what I thought it would be. I am 8 months from 30, and pretty much nothing that I thought I would have at 30 is here. And all I can think of is Sandra Bullock’s line in Hope Floats, “You know, I always thought I was gonna be, I don’t know, special. But I’m not. I’m just… I’m just an ordinary person.”

I want to stop thinking of that line.

But that’s just how it is. In the meantime, I suppose I will just continue to play my new Wii, and work long hours. Ahh, awesomeness.

Look who’s back!

I haven’t written since June…that’s terrible. I tell you what folks…I am thinking about becoming un-anonymous. I am not sure there is anyone out there to read this thing anymore, but I am thinking about going rogue, and letting everyone know about it! I can’t decide though if I should just let everyone know about this site, or start a new one. There are some really old posts that are pretty personal. Anonymity was my friend. On the other hand, starting a new blog, with no posts, like a newbie seems so boring!! What would you do, internets? Think it’s possible to delete the private posts? I notice this little button on the side panel here, and it says, “keep this post private”…wonder if I can do that retroactively…It would take a while to find all the posts, but I think it would be worth it if I could do that. I feel like I have plenty to say, but that I’d like to share it with all of my friends. Even if that requires a little censoring, you know? Being in Chicago, and having so many friends in Dallas, it seems like I have a lot to tell them.
In the meantime, I have been very dilligent about updating my facebook page…If you want to friend me, shoot me an email, and I will let you know my real info!!

On NOT Having a Car

Strange as it may seem, after just 2 months being carless, I am starting to feel like I can’t imagine spending the money on a car that I once did. How funny the speed with which I have adjusted! Dallas is a car city. Life is built around having one, and driving a nice one. But here, in a city where you only use your car for necessities, if at all, the status that was once needed no longer exists. Of course, it’s still here, but once people know what part of town you live in, the looks you get from driving a beater or not having a car at all disappear. It’s nice! I even briefly dated a Neurologist who drove a 10 year old Saturn, and I only though, oh, nice, he HAS a car!

And it turns out I am cheap. I thought I would take many more cabs, but that’s not the case. I really don’t take many at all. Maybe 2-4 rides each week, which is the same as before I sold my car. The cost of a cab seems to be $10 no matter where you are going in this city. There was a $1 fuel surcharge added to each ride recently, and boy, it seems to tip the scales just enough to make a big difference! Given my cheapness, and my lack of car and insurance payments, I now get to sock away a good chunk of change each month! Which I love! I can promise you, I will not get another car until it becomes absolutely necessary…let’s see if I am still saying that in January, but that’s the plan right now!

All I can wonder now is how could I have spent that kind of money here for so many months! Do you KNOW how much money I could have in the bank if I had sold it when I got here?? I shudder to think.

Just a Quick Hello!

I really need to get back to writing here. It’s funny how I am in such a cool city, yet I never write about it. There are so many great little moments, but I forget them before I have a chance to write about them.

An example:

Last night, while walking home from the train, it started to rain. I whipped out my yellow umbrella (which matched my Yellow Xterra, naturally) and continued on my way. Walking toward me was a 4 year old boy and his mother. He had long curly hair, and suddenly, he and his bouncing curls came running toward me, yelling “Stop, Stop, Don’t Move! Wait right there!” I stopped, and he ran under my umbrella, stood still with a large sigh, and said, looking up at the yellow canopy over top of him, “Whew! That’s better!”

He had run toward me because in his 4 year old, silly, faux panic, he saw the umbrella and wanted to get out of the rain. It was adorable! His mother and I chuckled, and then went on our ways.

That would never have happened if I was still living a car-centric life. I love those moments.

I will do my best to continue sharing them!

Hears Hoping Chiquita Finds a Loving Home!

I am officially a City Kid! I sold my car yesterday! And didn’t get a new one!!

I was wasting money on car payments, gas, and insurance every month, and I was going to just downsize to a cheapy cheap car, but then I decided I should just bite the bullet and go carless as long as I can.

So I went to Carmax, and sold my baby, Chiquita, my gorgeous yellow Xterra. It was my perfect car, in virtually every way, and I really didn’t want to let it go, but $500 a month won out over perfect. The biggest hurdle was that I owed money on my car. Because it is an SUV, and people aren’t buying SUVs like they used to, my car lost more money in the last year than I paid on it, and while I was ahead last September, I went upside down this summer. I wound up having to pay Carmax $1000 to buy my car. Crazy, right? But the writing I saw on the wall was the potential to lose a lot more than the equivalent of 2 months of car related bills, so paying a little to save a lot made weird sense.

I cried when I sold my car. I cried a lot. It was horrible. I kept seeing my car driving around the lot, driven by someone else, and it just made the tears come back. They were the type of tears that just roll out of your eyes entirely uncontrollably. I was in the middle of Carmax, and I didn’t care. It was really sad for me.

So now the Band-aid has been ripped off, and I am officially dependent on trains, cabs, buses, and my bike. I think of those modes of transportation, I will be using trains and my bike the most. At least until the winter!

Wish me luck in my carless life, and say a little car prayer that Chiquita’s next owner loves her as much as I do.

So long my beautiful, perfect car.

Blik is the Word

Remember my orange couch? I found something that goes with it! I was going to go back to Ikea and get the bland beige colored cover to make the couch work in my new apartment (that doesn’t come with gray carpet and gray trim) and just recover the couch in a more subtle shade…BUT, then I discovered my new favorite thing…Blik! Blik sells wall decals. But not just any old wall decal…These are removable, relatively inexpensive and based on amazing graphic designs, like Threadless T-Shirts! I found the one I want. I am thinking I might paint the wall behind my couch (a very large and very blank wall a nice beige, and then put this design on the wall. The decals come in pieces, so I think I will leave out the “love” talk bubble, but I love the birds!! Click on the pic to see more.

What do you think??

And We Have a Presumptive Nominee!

It is June 3rd…It is a day that will go down in history as producing the first African American presidential nominee. What a primary season! What a year for history!

Boy, am I glad it looks to finally be over! It was a hard fought race, but there was never a question in my mind that the energy this country needs is Obama’s, not Clinton’s.

Just 5 more months, and George Bush is outta there!

We’re really off to the races now…The gloves are OFF! Obama vs. McCain, Celebrity Death Match, here we come!

I’ve Moved Again!

Since my lease was only a short-term lease, and since I spent the last 2 months looking for a new apartment, I have moved into a new place!

So far so good! It’s a great place. It’s twice as big as my old apartment, and since it’s in a 3-flat building (3 apartments one on top of the other) it is much easier to get things in and out of the apartment, which is a welcomed relief.

And of course, what you really want to know is, “How do the cats like it?” Well, Luka thinks is a pretty neat place. He has spent the last 2 days discovering every fun inch of his new home. There are several deep window sills and he just thinks that is the shizznit! Brody on the other hand, spent his first 3 hours in the apartment still in his cat carrier…with the door open. Finally, I moved the carrier to the bed where Luka was, and when he saw Luka he crept out, gave Luka a nudge, jumped off the bed and hid underneath it. He stayed there for another 4 hours, and only came out because he apparently needed a bathroom break. Poor guy. He is doing better today, but I still don’t think he has made it all the way from the underside of the bed, to the front windows. He is such a sad little cat sometimes.

In any case, this apartment is definitely a step up from my old one, although it is still a step down from my house. What a year!

On Notice!

I have had just about enough of Hillary Clinton. She is now saying, if Iran used nuclear weapons on Israel, she would “obliterate” Iran. Obliterate?? Isn’t that rather incendiary? I understand wanting to express you would retaliate, but using language like that is going to do nothing but upset the millions of Iranians that DON’T already hate us. If a country’s leader said something like that toward us, it would do nothing but upset people who had never before had negative feelings about the country saying it. It just makes no sense to speak like that. We do not need to incite any more Iranians than are already unhappy with us.

In similarly irritating language, she is also twisting virtually every one of Obama’s ideas in the hopes that people will only hear her speak. Unfortunately for her, usually, listening to Obama for just 5 or 10 minutes makes it clear how much she spins his words. It is just so disgusting to watch her tear apart her fellow Democrat with spin just to give her a chance to increase votes by 2 or 3% percent.

Hillary Clinton is ON NOTICE!

To quote…

Hillary Clinton said this week, “I would not have stayed in that church under those circumstances.” Of course, this statement was made in regards to Obama staying in Rev. Wright’s church as long as he has given Wright’s comments.

This struck me as rather like the pot calling the kettle black. Her character should be in equal question for having stayed with Bill Clinton. Those issues seem to be a fairly good comparison. Yet, no one is noting this. It’s ridiculous to have brought it up to begin with, but now that it’s out there, I wish an Obama supporter would speak up and say, “So Clinton is telling us that she would have left such a church. Why didn’t she leave her husband when he had ’sexual relations’ with an intern while she was in the White House? How can she see the fallacy of Obama’s ways without acknowledging the flaws in her own character?”

Just sayin’…