AJAX BELL

Author of the Queen City Boys books

Tag Archives: weather report


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many useless things

Wow this DVD has like 9 previews on it. Ridiculous! And most of them are even vaguely similar to the movie. Bleh. Also, yes, Shoot ‘Em Up is a terrible movie. Really terrible. It seems to be entirely a vehicle for Clive Owen to fire guns, say pithy one-liners, and carry a baby around. So, uh, actually it is fucking awesome. However it’s actually Paul Giamatti who is making it suck, which is weird.

Also I am oddly filed with a “Starbucks is not the enemy” rant, but I’ll tamp it down.

Okay, this didn’t start well. I was going to come and write all full of cheer about how much I love my job. How Boss Daddy and Chef Daddy are the best. Even though I complain about work (who doesn’t?) I do love it. Sometimes the light is just exactly right, and it feels so warm and cozy and safe in the restaurant. Sure customers run the entire range from awesome to heinous, but I genuinely like most all my coworkers.

I am quite sure I am losing my mind. My obsession with sewing and crafting is growing at an insane rate. I am starting to look at things like this and think, oh! yeah, I should totally make one of those. I might need an intervention soon.

It is gorgeous outside. Has been for the last few days. But, wow, chilly out this morning. Like genuinely chilly. Oh fall, I can’t stop being ambivalent about you. I want you, I do love you, you know. But still, you are second best, and you mean oncoming winter. So in the end, you will just break my heart, even if I give you all my love.

(I realize sometimes my posts are disjointed and random, but that’s because I often open a window, start typing, then go do other work and come back periodically all day add a sentence or two until I think I am done.)


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pretty grey day

It’s nearly noon and already I want a nap.  I think I got a lot of sleep last night.  I don’t know.  I’m sure I went to be early but I am not clear on how early.  I only managed to read 5 pages of my book before I dropped it on my face, hurt my nose and decided t go to sleep.  I have been pretty productive today.  Maybe.  I mean if I look at my to-do list for the week, I’ve barely made a dent in it.  But I did a bunch of things that weren’t on the list.  Which I guess I should add to the list, so I can cross them off.

I was actually cold out when I got up this this morning. And by cold I mean, if I was back home, I’d still wear shorts, and maybe a hoodie, but here I’m all ack! Jeans!  Sweater!  Yikes!  It really is impending autumn outside, however.  I think I am happy about that.  I haven’t actually decided yet.


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towns with walls

We made it to Arkansas and back.  I have to say, it really is one of the most depressing states to drive through.  Pretty in and around the mountains, but man, I felt like crying most of the way home.  Hard to explain why, partly the poverty, partly the way American small towns seem so isolated.  The isolation seems so limiting and horrible to me, like we, as a nation, are choosing to turn our backs on influences from the wider world.

I took pictures on the drive home with an actual film camera.  Weird, right? Will post if they actually turn out.

Am totally exhausted, but too much so even get up off the couch and go to bed.  I woke up early, early this morning thinking someone was running a bath in the hotel room–that booming water in small room sound–but it was actually the insane rain from the end of hurricane Ike passing over us.

I don’t know if it was the storm, or the excitement, or being not in my bed, but I had crazy ass dreams too.  Don’t remember enough to relate here, except there were dreams with in dreams and small towns that become huge temples, and visions of cities past that never existed.

Will sleep and maybe make sense tomorrow.


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rainy everything

It’s sort of stormy here.  Though in more gentle way than I’ve come to expect from Tennessee.  It’s grey, windy and probably going to rain some more, but even with the heavy rains it’s oddly mild feeling. People keep saying it feels like fall, and I guess, because it’s grey and cool.  Still the light hasn’t hit that just noticeable difference that really means fall, and the air does not yet have the sweet scent of decaying leaves.  So I’m going to stick with late summer and storms.

However I did buy new jeans and a sweater the other day.  I’ve been talking about corduroy skirts and tights and fall shoes.  The true indicator of season change: when I start thinking about the clothes for the next season.

I spent a bunch of time changing all my auto-pay stuff for my bills (even though I got my cards back after the robbery, I’d already canceled them, so I had to wait for the new ones).  Only discover that I had most the important stuff set up directly from my bank account, rather than on my card number, so that change was unnecessary.  Go me for having the forethought to set things up like that, boo me for not remembering that I’d done it and stressing myself out.

Song for the day: Dolly Parton – Somebody’s Everything (click to download)


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It’s the little things that count

Songs for today:

Cry – The V-Roys (click to download)

I’m Yours if You Want Me – Chris Thile (click to download)

I’m miserable today. No, I don’t want to talk about it. And it’s isn’t just me, a bunch of my friends have been sick or injured lately, a couple lost their jobs. Gas prices. The economy is grim. Blah blah blah blah.

So instead of me continuously dwelling on all that and my own current personal problems, let’s look at the good. (I am not Rebecca of Sunnybrook farm, butgodfuckingdamnit, I am going to look at the bright side if it kills me).

  • The weather in middle Tennessee is GORGEOUS right now. Perfect. Delicious for walking and running in. Beautiful for sitting in. This is the gift we get for the tortuous heat and the ugly winters. It is worth it.
  • We are getting a hammock. Porch sitting in a hammock. Does it get better than that?
  • I’m pushing forward, albeit somewhat slowly, but forward nonetheless, on the new websites. Fear me and the HCT/SROTS girls. We will be media moguls soon. Ruling the world here we come!
  • The art jewelry I’m making is getting closer and closer to perfect. It looks in real life like it does in my head! Hurrah. Working on getting much more made so I can be a rich fashion entreprenuer as well as media mogul.
  • I have dozens of episodes of Scrubs on the DVR to watch instead of feeling sorry for myself so that’s awesome.
  • Miss Sparkle and Ladybug are the best friends ever.  They bring me foodstuffs and ice creams and listen to me whine.  That’s what real love is, people.
  • I have the best momma ever.  And the best sister.  And my extended family is pretty freaking cool too.
  • My toenails are painted a pretty bizarre green color not found in nature.


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the usual, breif, because I should be working

I have been having some seriously messed up dreams.  I can’t remember them when I wake, but I’m left with sense of dread and creepiness.  Bleh.

I find a high of 96°F with a heat index of 107°F to be fairly unbearable.  Yes, I know I live in Tennessee, I know it’s nearly August.  But man, I want to go for a nice afternoon walk outside without giving myself heat stroke and brain damage.

Song for today:  Passionate Kisses – Lucinda Williams (click to download)


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back in the saddle

Last night I fell asleep to the sound of the rain.  This morning I woke up to it again.  Joy!  We really need the water.  And so calming.  Even with the low thunder rolling periodically overhead now, it just feels very peaceful.

I’ve been in absentia from the internets for a while.  My sister was here for ten days and we’ve been running around ding all the fun things I can think of (which, really, isn’t a lot).  We shopped and touristed and hung out and saw movies.  We went to Knoxville for a couple days and visited with Rhi and her beautiful babygirl and husband.  She took us driving around in the mountains.

YIKES!  Okay, that thunder is not peaceful. Yow!

Anyway, my sister is the most amazing, awesome teenage girl ever and I miss her already.  Seriously the world would be a better place if there were many more of her in the world.

Now I am trying not to let overwhelmed by my own to-do list.  I’ve actually made sub-lists in it by subject.  It is large and really I’m not sure where to even start.


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memory: body and mind

Last night I dreamt of complicated relationships, both romantic and platonic.  I ran through sleep confused and little sad.  Mostly trying to get to my big sister, so I could talk to her, so I could relax, so I could stop worrying. There was a nice date in the dream that consisted of lots and lots of of amazing Chinese food.  And closets full of clothes I’ve never seen. But mostly it was dreams of painful situations and anxiety and complications.  Um, Boots, clearly I need to call you today.  I have a ton to do, but I’mna try and set some time to empty my head to you.

Sometimes I feel like the past chases me in this weird way. Like I rarely dwell on it.  I remember the good times fondly and I’ve made peace with the bad parts. I live entirely in the present and look positively toward to future all the time (maybe too much, but that’s a story for a different day). And yet the past often haunts my dreams.  Not specific incidents, but people from all through it, elementary school, High school, college, last week, all seem to pop up in random storylines in strange dreamscapes. I don’t know what this means.  If I should look more to the past, or if I should simply remember that going forward I am only made up of the past.  I am nothing but an accumulation of my experiences and so, even if I’ve made peace, I am still carrying all the past with me?

Work last night was killer.  I am generally aware that I have one of the most simple jobs.  It’s really pretty easy for the most part.  But, wow, fuck me, after having a week off, I’d forgotten how hard it is to wait tables.  By the end of the night, my back hurt, I was exhausted.  I could talk to people just fine, but I’d lost the body memory of the job.  Like I wasn’t able to move around right in the kitchen and cramped spaces with other employees, I was bumping into things and generally was not at all graceful.

Also it was nearly 90 at midnight last night and swampy.  The rains rolled in this morning.  The thunder was incredibly long and loud and close for for what seemed a very long time.  Like storm wasn’t rolling over, but rather just hanging over us.


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peekchures

I just realized that I never posted a link to my Seattle pictures. There are very few of them, actually. I either forget to take pictures, or some horrible psychological, deep buried, homesickness was going on and I was too paralyzed by it to take pictures, I’m not sure which. Anyway, the ones I did take are here. Mostly scenic, or of something I has some weird need to capture.


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hot color

So I stopped dyeing my hair a year or so ago.  The grey is coming in pretty niftily and I’m mostly happy with the color of the rest of it now.  How ever years of bleaching means that the ends of my hair are still sort of orangey red from fade out after I dyed the blonde out.  So today I fixed that. I’m happy.  I doubt anyone will notice, as it isn’t a huge change or anything, it’s just the same but better.

The weekend was nice, despite the rough night at work.  The temps have dropped a bit,  back to levels that one can think at.  But it looks like they are rising back to brain searing heights again.  Alas, summer in Tennessee.  I know there is no point in complaining.  I did all I could, I bought shorts, I packed all my warmer/long sleeved clothes, so they won’t mock me when I open the dresser drawer, and I changed my bedding out to as light as possible.

Are badgers scary?  I can’t remember if they are hideous like wolverines, or cutely benign like beavers.

Now, what’s for lunch?


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sun shines even on bad cops

I have recently had cause to be generally unhappy with the way the Nashville police respond to things.  The Seattle police force certainly had it’s problems, but Nashville is quite clearly not serving and protecting all it’s citizens equally and it’s a shame.  I know it’s tied to a lot the other urban problems we have, but it doesn’t seem like it’s going to get addressed any time soon.  Also I know it’s funny to joke about the rivalry between Memphis and Nashville, but fucking hell, Memphis, really? I’m not saying it wouldn’t have gone down the same in Nashville, but the fact that it didn’t happen here makes me feel at least a little better about our cops.  Even if it would appear that steroid usage is common among them.

It is a another glorious under 80 day in Nashville.  I am going to celebrate by cooking out.  If you are reading this and you want to come by and eat with me and miss Ladybug, call me.

God, I love E.Nash.  The the 35 minute delay between writing this and the paragraph above, my pal, Heartbreaker, came by, brought back some stuff he’d borrowed, invited me out to a show tonight and hung out and generally encouraged me on the work I am supposed to be doing today.  In the PNW people don’t just drop by and hang for a bit.  I love it when they do.


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hippies, squid and crying (no this isn’t about Bonarroo)

For some reason my eyes won’t stop watering today. I hope this doesn’t become an ongoing thing. Not only does it interfere with my vanity (makes my eye make up run and no one wants to look like they are crying all the time), but it is kind of uncomfortable.

It is past noon in Tennessee and I am not hot. Seriously after days of over 90 temps, this high 70s stuff feels AWESOME. Perfect, beautiful weather. Too bad I am inside working. Bleh.

I spent my weekend in Memphis with Whopperjaw the Exceptionalist (such an unwieldy nickname that it suits him perfectly). I ate the real deal calamari (squiggly and without deep fried breading), excellent scallops (not quite the ones at Wild Ginger but great nonetheless), paella that WtE made for me himself. All in all a lovely, fun, relaxing weekend. Sadly I feel even more overwhelmed by how much work I need to get done now. And my schedule at the restaurant is in crazy flux because we are still short a good back-up person. Ugh. It seems no matter what I do the more time I have the more I end up needing to get done.

News from the town where I was born. See? You know I’m not really a hippie, just from the West Coast where we are all hippies to some extent. But man, this is where I am from. I may look like a hippie in Tennessee but that’s only because people don’t have these kind of whackjobs to compare me too.


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hot in the city

It is hot here.  I know I always say I won’t complain about the hot when it’s cold and vice versa but you know I am lying.  The biggest problem is, well, the sun.  The thermostat in my house is in the dining room, on the far west side of the house, in a dark and curtained room. My bedroom is on the east side, and sure I have curtains but it doesn’t help.  For the first few hours of the morning it is chill and lovely on one side of the house and sweltering on the bedroom side. Yes, I know the solution to this is to get up at 6 am and not be in the hot part of the house, but that doesn’t work so well for me when I don’t get off work until 1 am.  So the next best solution I have is to get a programmable thermostat and jack the AC up just for the early hours of the morning.  It might be worth it not to have to wake up groggy, with my hands all swollen, and just feeling yucky.

Also mosquito season is begun. Which means I’m all bitten.  Ugh.  It seems like I’m getting bitten the same amount but the bites aren’t as hideous this year. So far. And they go away in 36 or 48 hours.  Which is great.  Except when one gets bit every single day it doesn’t matter much how long the bites last.

Whine whine whine whine whine.

On the other hand, the sun is out and man do I love the sun, even when it burnses me.

I have a ton of work to do.  Hard thinking work. I think I will try and get organized first.

I will leave you with my current favorite song: Bruce Springsteen – Girls in their Summer Clothes (click to download)


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breif breifing

I have a lot to say, but mostly I am to busy. Or tired.  Or whatever. So you get uninteresting bullet points:

  • The restaurant I work at was robbed at gunpoint this past Weds night.  I wasn’t there, as my flight in from Seattle was delayed.
  • I’m working on a huge new project that involves far too much staring at code, thinking, planning, and like work.  Ack work! Ha.  It is satifying but time consuming without much to show for it yet.
  • K is here for the week.  Apparently she missed the heat, or she brought it with her, I’m not sure which, but I am damned sweaty.
  • I have many pictures to upload and share.  Someday.
  • I was going to tell you about everything I ate in Seattle but I suspect I won’t get around to it.


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greetings from the land of sneezes

It is BLOOM season here in Seattle.  It’s been mostly grey and little chill, but totally tolerable.  The flowers have been amazing.  So brilliantly colorful that they make up for the lack of sun.  My allergies however, are most certainly plotting my death.  If they have their way I’ll drown in my own snot or my head will explode from sinus pressure.  I suspect, though, that this is my punishment for not having any allergies in Nashville this season. My incredibly awesome, spectacular, surrogate grandpa, Major Mac, said today that allergies were just like hangovers: you are busy trying to feel good enough to die, and everyone else thinks it’s amusing.  He’s spot on.

Mac and his wife, Aunt C, came for lunch today and told us incredibly true adventures of their lives in the incredible way only they can do and then asked all about my life and were super supportive and interested and wonderful.

I am having a great time on this trip.  I got to see a ton of people last night which was fun.  I hope the sun comes out for me art least once more.  3 hours on the first day wasn’t really enough.

I had a bunch of stuff I’ve been meaning to write about, that I keep thinking of through out the day, but of course I’ve forgotten all of it, so instead I will go drink this pint of Duvel, and eat the salmon my ma is cooking and watch a movie with my dad.  Cheers!


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jiggety-jig

Here I am in Seattle! 

Thank goodness.  The flight was uneventful, but I had a rough time getting to the airport.  My car broke and cost me way too much to get fixed.  And then I couldn’t pick it up  before I had to leave for the airport and so Ladybug has to take care of all it for me. Making her, for the 47,836th time, the absolute best friend ever.

Right off the plane I was whisked away to a lovely restaurant full of salmon and red wine.  My parents are still my parents only moreso.  Listening to them natter at each other while trying to find the restaurant was classic:

ma: turn left here
pop: left
ma: yeah. no, wait go straight. it’s the next intersection.
pop: this one?
ma: well, I don’t know until I can see the intersection.  Yes, turn right, then left.  It’s there by the feed store.
pop: there’s no parking
ma: you can park behind it
pop: how do I get behind it?
ma: turn right at this corner

ma: don’t park there. park up where the chickens are
pop: what chickens?
ma: they have chickens at the feed store.  sometimes they are the alley.
pop: I don’t see any chickens.
ma: well park up there where they would be.
pop: up where?
ma: there!

Oh family!  You are so amusing!  Also my sister made me a huge, sparkly poster that said welcome home that she held up in the airport!  Ma is getting me a poster tube to take it home in.  Yay!

At dinner my mom was going on about how crackerjackSister and I look exactly alike except she has her dad’s nose and I have my maternal grandfather’s nose. And then we extensively discussed my sister’s teeth (she just got her braces off).

This morning I’m scrounging around for coffee. Although I haven’t been a barista in years, apparently I can still make a great shot of espresso.  I make it and pour it in a cup.  When my mom comes in from dropping my sister off, I am digging around in the fridge looking for milk.

me: there’s no milk?
ma: *look of complete confusion* there’s not?
me: no
ma: well, use what I do.  It’s non-fat, sweetened, condesned milk.  No one else likes it so there’s always some left.
me: oh.  yum. *grimace*

Yes, I find, “no one else likes it” is always an award winning reccomendation for something.  The coffee is drinakble though, so whatever.

I had some other stuff to say aboutt he idiot on the plane behind me who wouldn’t shut up, the cute cowboys in the Denver airport and politics (from reading news mags on the plane) but instead I am off to quickly shower, dress and warmly as I can and go freeze while walking around with my momma. I genuinely tried, but I don’t think I packed at all correctly for the weather here.  I anticipate being very cold for the next few days.


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like being beaten across the back by a redwood tree

Sure there’s perks to being a female.  We got boobs, cute toes, good hips and you know, just girlness, to make us awesome. But what part of evolution (or even creation) thought that bleeding once a month would be beneficial. I get it, it’s necessary for reproduction, but even then, could we just bleed? I mean, does it have to come with all the associated pain and other bullshit?

For the last hour or two I’ve had to periodically stop whatever I am doing just because the pain is so fucking bad I can’t even read or think or do anything but watch Wild Wild West (which, incidentally, is a terrible, awful movie).

It’s storming outside, which is appropriate given how my body currently feels.

I watched Juno this morning and was much less impressed than I expected to be.  I liked all the characters, and it had some great lines, but it wasn’t really plotted and there was no development arc for anyone.  Enjoyable, but sort of forgettable.  Like a great pop  song or bad chinese food, good at the time, gone from memory minutes later it happens.

I was going to do a bunch of stuff today.  I really need to, but I’m now so whiny and pathetic that I might just lie on the couch for the rest of the day and read. Or watch Life on Mars. Or eat all the mint Three Musketeers I have in the freezer. I once said I’d probably marry the first guy to send me flowers.  I’d be happier with a guy who would rub my lower back when I feel like this (plus I’ve given up on the idea that there are guys out there who actually send girls flowers).  Seriously, it hurts so bad, I might burst into tears at any moment.

Well, it’s raining so hard right now that I don’t have to feel bad about not washing my car.  I’d go stand on the porch and enjoy the rain, but have I mentioned that I have cramps which I may actually die from?  So bad, that I can’t even properly enjoy a thunderstorm.  BOO!


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open letters, no need for answers

Dear Obnoxious Fucking Work Client,

If I say I will call you as soon as I have the information, then I will call you. Do not call me every 15 minutes asking if I know anything yet.

no love,

me

—

Dear OFWC#2,

Yes, the website is down. No, I can’t do anything about it but call our web guy. I can not call our web guy if you keep me on the phone asking repeatedly if there is anything I can do. There isn’t. Trust me.

Sincere in loathing you,
me

—

Dear weather,

I am glad the rain is helping my garden. I am glad Tennessee is so green and I know we need the water. But man, today is hard enough. Can I get a little sun to break the grey? Maybe keep the depressing rain to only the hours before the sun comes up? I swear I will have a massive attitude adjustment as soon as the sun is out again,

Desperate and serious,
me

—

Dear entire male species,

You are frustrating and confusing. Sometimes I believe you are quite dumb. It’s a good thing you are so cute because otherwise, I might swear off you forever.

Love but with a bullet,
me

—

Dear self,

Just get over it already. Over yourself and your bad attitude, everything. Right now. I’m sick of it.

Yours in sisterhood,
me

—

Yeah, it’s one of those days. I might have to haul myself to the park or the mall or something and lunch and inject a little cheer into my day. Also how do I manage to forget that sake hangovers are proof that there is lurking, primordial evil in the universe just waiting to swallow my soul? It’d be great if I could remember this before I drank a bunch of sake. This is probably not related to my mood today, but maybe!


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bright

Good Monday, people! It is sunny and lovely and not at all like yesterday’s Something Wicked This Way Comes weather. Hurrah!

Today the rest of my office gets the announcement that I am leaving. Uncomfortable. But then first thing this morning Annoying Co-worker told me that he’d been in over the weekend and tried to use my computer, but it wouldn’t work and he wanted to give me a head’s up, in case it was broken. The problem? It was turned off. And he couldn’t figure that out… Yeah, it’s time to go alright.

I am conflicted about this show, Spain…On the Road Again. Food! Spain! But, then Mario Batali? They couldn’t have found someone that I don’t find insufferable? I mean, yeah, I’ll watch anyway, but boo on Batali.