docsrock

Due primarily to our recent move, I'm behind on many things in life (chief among them a freelance writing gig that I stupidly undertook), so my main update at present is this: due to a fall deployment and other considerations, we now have a new month -- January of 2012. That gives me a good solid year to wrap things up here that need to be wrapped and submit my tenure file this fall. That said, I've been doing academic library stuff full-time since 2001, and I'm ready for something different. I've been ready for about a year and a half, and so when I land in North Carolina, I shall be delighted if I can get a non-library job. I'm so curious about the world outside of academe; I hear that it is a wondrous place full of small woodland creatures and fairies and pixie dust. I anticipate it with joy.

In other news, moving into a house (we moved into Allan's house, which is in Lacey and which sat on the market prior to this with zero enquiries) has been wonderful. It is so nice to have ample space and a large backyard. My roommate and I are already planning the summer's garden. On the practical front, getting a roommate last spring seriously accelerated the pace of my student loan progress, and moving into this house is accelerating the acceleration. The end result is that by the time we're married, I'll have almost all of Oberlin and UW paid off, and then we will march happily onward with only one debt between us, the mortgage this house. And we intend to keep the house as a rental, so it's all good.

Last, Friday night is our regular "Fringe" night with some friends, but one of them is quite sick at the moment. I really hope she gets better, because we want to do lumpia. And I finally figured out the core reason that I don't really like Fringe (I watch because everyone else does and I like to be social--I could just sit in my room but that would be stupid...they know how I feel, so it's all good). Speaking as someone who loved the X-Files, the reason that I don't like "Fringe" is that I perceive it as not crediting the audience (i.e. me) with the amount of intelligence that I think a show of its type should; this lack of respect is manifested in multiple ways (which, if I were a good essayist, I would now list but I'm actually fixing to go to bed). God knows, I love John Noble (Denethor in LOTR & Peter in Fringe), and he's pretty much the only reason I haven't poked my eye out with a stick yet. But the show itself sucks to me. Other sci-fi/fantasy geeks who are waaaay geekier than I love that show to death, and more power to them.

We don't have a ring, or an official engagement, or anything like that, but by God, we have a month. In August of 2011, I'll get my just deserts for all those weddings for which I never bothered to RSVP. I have no doubt that the universe will reward me handsomely.

Yup, Olympia did indeed get dumped on. The saving grace is that unlike my friends to the north, Monday's commute home was blessedly short and sweet. I hope everyone's commutes today were better. We had a snow day today, and hopefully we'll get one tomorrow, too. My folks haven't had power for the over 24 hours, and they may or may not have it Thursday. If not, Freddy and I will be staying in Olympia through the holiday and going up Friday.

I can't believe the semester is almost over. It has been a blur of work, math, and thinking about North Carolina. I gripe about math, but it's actually been very enjoyable. It's been really fun thinking "like that" after not having done so in nearly a decade. It's sort of jumping the gun, but I've been wondering that since I will be going to the trouble of taking Calc I (derivatives), perhaps I should just man up and take Calc II (integrals) as well. If I've already gone 2/3 of the way, may well as not do the full circuit, yeah? My extended family thinks I'm a bit insane, but they love me anyway.

In other news, we went shopping, and I picked out a ring. It looks like this thing is happening, folks, and although I never thought I'd be marrying an engineer and/or military pilot, what can you do?

Just finished an incredible 4-day weekend. Allan came up on Friday and left this afternoon. We attended a birthday party for a 2-year old, saw the pets from Saturday's pet parade in Olympia, went to the farmers' market, visited the Seattle Aquarium (my first visit ever), and ate lots of great food. It was really hard leaving him in the security line at SeaTac. Strange, as you'd think I'd be used to it by now. In a few days, he takes off almost a month of training, and the saving grace is that I get to look forward to visiting NC in October.

It is HOT here. I know that you folks in places like Arizona, Texas, and oh, say, the Eastern seaboard are laughing. But people, it's hot for Olympia. It is 23:27, it is 70 degrees F, and we have some fans but no real relief from the heat. No one here can sleep, including yours truly, which is why I am updating this journal and listening to "Avenue Q."

What have I been up to these past few months? Well, not much. Allan didn't have any missions from about mid-April til he moved a couple weeks ago, so having him home was fantastic. Last fall I started documenting the dates of his trips, and over the course of the last year, we have basically cobbled together a relationship in two and sometimes -- if we were lucky -- three week chunks. Go us!

Now he's in North Carolina. He took his fish with him, and it somehow survived the car trip. Obviously we are in long distance mode, and he's going to rent a house from a colleague for the next 6-12 months. The idea is that will give him time to look around and see what options are available that are roughly halfway between Fayetteville and Raleigh. I wish that he were closer to the Triangle Region, but depending on the small town, Raleigh would be within commuting distance. Chapel Hill and Durham, not so much.

I'm not exactly in a hurry to leave Washington; I love it here, and I love my family, friends, work, and so forth. But often these days I feel like my brain has already checked out. I definitely feel like I am ready for the present chapter to end gracefully when the time is right and for the next chapter to begin.

Nice little story:

Allan and I have gone shooting at various ranges a few times. Last week, I signed up for a firearm safety class at Cabela’s (sporting goods store) figuring that if I was going to be around guns in the future, it would be prudent to have some formal education.

The other night, I went to the store to buy the ammo that is required for the class, and on my way to the back of the store where they keep the gun things, I passed by the hunting area (clothes, tents, etc.). They had a hunting video playing, and I stopped to see the little squirrel on the screen. I did not think they would actually DO anything to the squirrel (I thought it would a turkey or deer video and they were just showing the squirrel for the fun of it because it was cute), but anyway, it was unedited curtains for the squirrel. I was somewhat traumatized and almost started crying. I called Allan and did a pretty good job conveying how upset I was. The same night, I had a horrible dream where Freddy went to cat heaven (no, he wasn’t shot or anything). On top of the squirrel video, this was very upsetting so I texted Allan immediately upon waking up and he called me right away. If you know me, you know how I feel about squirrels, and you know how I feel about Freddy.

Later that morning at work, flowers were delivered with a note reading “For the squirrels...Love, Allan”

-I didn't realize the end-of-term was quite so near.

-I wish I could attend my 10 year college reunion.

-I started this year's lettuce and it's already sprouting.

-I was not the first person in the history of my university to flunk 3rd year review. Ok, it's not really a pass/fail thing, but everyone kept telling me "No one ever fails" so I figured that was a cue to the gods to jinx it for me and let me set a dubious precedent.

-I'm getting a roommate at the end of the month. There are several reasons why this is happening, and overall I'm quite pleased. She's a lovely person, and it should be fun.

-A. and I have started talking about marriage. And he is moving to North Carolina in early June. Yikes!

Have I mentioned that I have fallen in love -- hard, folks -- with the site www.livemocha.com? Holy cow. This site is rocking my world. Check it out if you've any language-learning to do, and if you're on there, msg me so we can friend each other. (sorry I'm too lazy to look up how to make the link go live)

Sweet Jesus, people, he's actually in the continental United States and en route to McChord. Yay!

Mr. Fellow -- whose name is Allan -- is coming home within the next 48 hours. This is predicated on German weather (snow flurries and the like). Then there is always the "subject to change" core that underlies any military undertaking. It could be worse: my friend's husband, Tony, has been flying Haiti relief missions for a week and a half and may not make it back for their cruise to Mexico that they have planned the 2nd week of Feb. He thinks he'll be back in time, but you just never know for sure. Good thing they bought insurance for the trip (apparently they buy insurance for all of their major vacations).

I realize how this sounds. Thousands of people lost their lives, and here I sit complaining about a minor scheduling annoyance and hell, Tony and his wife sit complaining about possibly missing a luxury cruise. I know, I know.

I just saw Avatar. I think I'm going to go get drunk now so that I can stop thinking about how much I hated it.