Swimming in November

Sad days. My kitty, my dear, sweet Mohammad, is currently at the vet because of kidney failure. It makes me cry a lot, but he's a fighter. He's eating and drinking, which makes me think he'll be okay. The vet's testing his kidney enzymes again tomorrow, which will be the real tell, if his little fluffy body is responding to the IV fluids he's on. If not, well, I don't want to talk about that.

Also, let's say, theoretically, you were offered a job in Washington DC at the United States Capital. And let's say the pay was decent. And let's say you're a little sad at the thought of leaving your home, but you're scared you'd be bailing on a huge opportunity. And let's say you know absolutely no one in the DC metro, so you're also scared you'd end up a lonely cat lady for nine months. THEORETICALLY. Would you take the job?

I'll cut my legs off!

My current favorite quotes have been, "Someday you'll be in a bath house" and "one of these days, Daniel Day Lewis is gonna have a bowling pin." I got the fine privilege of watching the Oscars using bunny ears last night, so everyone looked a little jumpy. But, I still have to give props to Helen Mirren and Steve Carell's potty mouths, Bourne freakin nailin it, and of course, the movie directed by the Jews about the true ethical battle of good vs. evil that just happened to be mostly be filmed in New Mexico. Between that and There Will Be Blood's cinematography win, it's official. New Mexico's the place you come when you want to make films about deranged men. It's purdy, que no?

Sadly, I didn't enjoy too much of it, nor am I enjoying this morning at all. You know that fantastic feeling of your brain being completely coated in mucus? Welcome to my head. If this is the demon head cold Kathy contracted, I'll be under for about a week. Please no. I gots the rents to pay. It really only started kicking up into full steam last night, right around the time Kyle back from Arizona. And sadly, here I sit at work, waiting for the Ameripride guy to leave and Kathy to get here, so I can retreat back to bed. Whimper.

Finding a job is lame, by the way. I guess it's my own lame fault for trying to stay in entertainment. I'm good at what I do, someone please hire me.

You drank. You drunk. You fail.

I've become a canyon winder. Every day, I commute through the trees and into the big city. And I love it, really I do. That drive makes me feel 5 years old and amazingly adult all at the same time. It's nostalgic since I made that drive so often when I was a wee Catherine and now I make it on my way to my 10:00 to 6:00 job. I loved that cement plant when I was a kid. Just like all other mountain kids, I thought it was a castle and wanted nothing more than to go slide down one of those giant slides. Now, I'm very glad I was a timid child.

I've decided we need to go back to a barter system, given the recession. My Western Civ I teacher told me that capitalism as an economic system only had another 20 years left in it and I think he was right. So, I vote for "give me a goat, I'll give a fence." However, since I don't have any goats or fencing, I'd prefer "give me an iMac, I'll give you a keg of Shiner."

Angie gave me an offer I couldn't refuse yesterday, a public lecture at a small town public library talking about piercing safety and history. HELLO. Yes, please give me an excuse to talk a whole lot in public about things I can never shut up about.

I applied for a very exciting job yesterday, one which I can't speak too much of yet. With any luck, I'll be staying here for it, but I might have to leave. As I told Joel on Saturday, the longer I stay here, the more I want to stay. I've been out now, I've seen a good chunk of all these states and I still proclaim that New Mexico is the fairest of them all. I love being entrapped.

I'm spent.

Working at a live music venue in Albuquerque means you have to deal with a pretty decent number of serious potheads. You have no idea how hard it is to get ticket sales counts from the Zone. Not to mention, a promoter managed to drop tickets off at a place called "Mike's Zone", instead of the actual Zone on Eubank. So, sweet, there's about $200 floating around in a discrete Heights head shop. Frustration abounds!

But enough of that. I have a new home! If this weather holds, I hope to have my fantastic mattress sitting pretty in a two bedroom townhouse this weekend. Maria lives down the hall from me. I'm so fantastically excited about having a short commute, as well as green chile stew. It's making me nostalgic for those old school dorm days, when French was hard and relationships were even harder. Geez, if I only knew.

Speaking of, love day was lovely. I worked 8 hours, watched Training Day, then went to 66 Diner and Le Chat Lunatique's CD release with my boyfriend. I hope you all got loves. I meant to send out Valentines, but settling in became priority. Just know I love every person reading this blog. Probably.

And go see the NM Burlesque Showcase this weekend. Good luck ladies, I'll be trying to sneak in on Saturday night. :)

Frontier burrito.

5,626 miles, by the way.

I woke up this morning to the empty sky.

Well, here I am. All's familiar once more, perching above the Golden West in the cold haunted office. The desert's outside.

I've been telling everyone it feels like I never left. I came back and it's the exact same weather. Not quite meriting a full jacket, but just enough to be cold in a hoodie. Good weather for cuddling. And thankfully I have a boyfriends and dozens of friends to fill that very void.

I spent the weekend trying to cram as much enjoyment as I possibly could into two days. A crave salad at Flying Star. Burlesque craft night at Cari's. Flood the Sun at the Launchpad. Wiggle butt. Hanging out with the night crew at the bar. Movie shopping with my mom. I did it all because I knew Monday was like my D-Day, the return to the work force.

And man, have I ever been dragging. Yesterday was the worst, I just felt completely useless and I was messing up the smallest things. By the end of the 8 hours, I was so apathetic and slow, it's a miracle I made it back to Edgewood okay. So, today I tried to fill myself with positive attitude, eat a good breakfast and listen to the Bouncing Souls to give me some energy. It seems to be helping.

It is very nice to be back, by the way. It's so nice to see so many happy faces when they greet me. And I got my sky back. My skin's having a hard time rocking the dry air again, but Swedish skin care is proving effective.

I'm meeting up with Maria today to discuss a possible roommate arrangement. Oh, how quickly the world changes. But, I'm excited to have a full time home for me and my mattress, that isn't at my mom's. I'll be couching for most of the week because of this supposed monster of a snow storm that's rolling in. Done, done, done with living out of a duffel bag. Soon I hope.

I'm going home.

And you laugh about the scars.

Chicago only got worse. My attempts to stay positive completely failed when I went to leave the parking garage yesterday morning, only to discover that my car battery was dead. I called Matt and he came back to the garage and we hooked up jumper cables and waited for a few minutes. Then waited for some more minutes. Then some more. Nothing happened. Matt called his dad who informed me that I might have a battery that's not "maintenance free" and I might need to add water to it (WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME ABOUT THIS? In the history of car repair, which I really, honestly try to make an effort to know about, this was never brought to my attention. I really hate being a stereotypical naive car-girl, but there it was. Did I ever feel stupid.) so we tried to get the caps off to add water, but nothing I had in my car would pry the caps off. So, there I sat, in my cold, non-functioning car, already thinking of the horror of hiring a tow truck back to New Mexico. That, dear friends, was depression. Luckily, after about 50 minutes of charge, the dang truck started up. I was so happy I jumped out of my truck and proceeded to jump all over the parking garage, literally leaping in the air, while Matt did what he calls his "big dick dance". So, Cat jumps, Matt dances. These are priceless memories, all thanks to potential disaster.

Moral of that story is I will never, EVER go to Chicago again. So, don't ask me if you're looking for a road trip buddy to the windy shitty.

If that wasn't terror enough, Illinois decided that it would be awesome to have killer fog for a few hours. Only 40 minutes of my drive in that great state was clear enough to see anything. Freaking land of Lincoln, pssh, land of demon fog... I have never been so happy to see prairie once it lifted.

Yesterday marked the longest one-day drive of my trip, all the way from Chicago to Norman, 13 freaking hours. However, it was also the first time I had someone in the car with me, which RULED SO HARD. Matt's buddy Chelsey sat shotgun for about half the trip and we chatted and chatted. It was great to have company, but even better that the company was totally awesome. We got into Norman at about 1:00 in the morning and I slept til about 1:00 today. That ruled pretty hard too.

I ate both White Castle and Hardee's yesterday. Make the most of those regional fast food chains, you know. But, man, do I ever need to start eating some salads. I just feel slugish and so out of shape. I'm jumping on the healthy living band wagon once I get home.

Speaking of that, home. I think it finally set in today that this is over. My grand adventure, my great plan that I've had for 5 years that finally got action is up. Yes, I'm excited about getting home, seeing best friends and boyfriends and eating burritos, but damn. I just cannot believe it's up. It makes me really sad, honestly. I start full-time work on Monday. Really? But, I just cannot think of it in those terms. I'll take so many more trips like this in my life. Like I thought about leaving Canada, this is just the beginning.

There was a moment yesterday when I officially welcomed myself back to the west, when I looked up and saw this huge, open sky. I knew I missed it, but I didn't know I missed it that much. So, I'm happy to come back to all things familiar, but I can't wait to see what else there is.

New Mexico tomorrow. Mind is blown.

By the way,

Jessica Alba's a meanie!

Always wondered how we fell this way.

I maaaaaaade it.

And I even made it on Friday, which means I got to see BOTH Hot Water Music shows. The driving wasn't really that bad. It was warm enough that the roads were pretty clear, just slushy. And speaking of Chicago, this place is slush.


Other than giant random faces in the middle of city parks, the city itself is kinda a mess. I don't think there was any urban planning involved, at all, so parking is seriously the worst thing in the world. I mean that. Of all the frustrations I've experienced on this trip, the single most frustrating hour I had was circling block after block looking for a place to park. My car is currently being stored in a parking garage in Lincoln Park that's $18 every 24 hours. I'm staying with one of Mattlahoma's friends named Ashley, as him & his friend Chelsey came up from Oklahoma for HWM. Her apartment is really great and she's been an awesome host, but seriously, screw this parking nonsense. Also, you would think that with such a parking problem that public transportation would rule, like New York. Incorrect observation.

But enough on the negative. Chicago's got some really awesome architecture. Their downtown and the magnificent mile is pretty great, but Wrigleyville and all the old buildings closer to the stadium are even better.


The Fields Museum also rules. WHO KNEW?


But really, how was the Hot Water Music?

The thing that's always gotten me about that band is their fan base. There's just this group of punk rockers who heard them sometime in their teens, maybe early twenties, probably at a point in their lives when they felt just a little bit lost, and Hot Water Music just made so much sense to them. And they really are one of those bands that just stick in your life; their fans never forget. I'm gonna say the female attendance at both the shows I went to was probably under %15. Everyone else there was a 20-something male with a beard. And they knew all the lyrics and they had the time of their life. At one point, the guys standing next to me toasted with the phrase "Here's to being 16 again" and it was pretty much the perfect summery of that experience. I like Hot Water Music and all, I think Chuck Ragan is an amazing song writer, but they've never fit that place in my life. I always had Rancid to take care of that for me. But, just to stand there and watch that comradery was an experience I haven't gotten since I was 15 years old and going to local punk shows in Colorado. Pretty great. Also, the theater it was in, the Metro, fantastic action.


Of course it's been a little snowy and a little cold. So I think we've been trying to limit our adventures to mostly indoor spaces. Besides the museum, we did a little shopping and a little eating today. Chelsey and I went to the Mac store, where she helped me get a new Studio Fix, as the first step in preparing myself for fancy-pants job interviews.


We also went to Dick's Last Resort, where the staff is mean to you and you pay $4 for a Miller High Life. But, it's all part of the gimmic. We went with Eric and it was nice to see him. He seems to be doing well and surviving art school, bless his heart. His creative will is much, much stronger than mine.


Meow.

We stayed late today, so we'll be leaving early tomorrow and it's a very long 12 hours to Norman. Matt's joking about just parking as much as possible, FOR FREE, along the way. I'm trying to think of it as my car getting a fancy hotel room. She needed it, right? Right? See, look at me getting upset again.