Good reads, indeed!

One of my favorite things about the commute in is that it gives me a good 40+ minutes both ways to read.  Occasionally I’ll do the crossword puzzle, but I prefer to have a book in my hand.  Because of that I have suddenly torn through my previously large pile of “need to read” and I’ve started mooching off people at work to let me borrow their books.

Today at lunch I took advantage of the spectacularly beautiful day (70 degrees!  Sunny!  First day I haven’t worn a jacket and actually had to push up the sleeves of my very lightweight sweater because I was too warm!) and walked over to the magnificent Boston Public Library to get my library card.  I checked out two books which should last me into next week. 

If you want to keep up with my reading or need some inspiration, you can stalk me over at Goodreads.com, which lets you build your own library and let your friends know what you’re reading and recommending.  In fact, please stalk me because at the moment I only have one friend and it’s my sister so she is kinda required to take pity on me.  I feel pretty lame.  I’m username “tayloropolis” and my email is tayloropolis at gmail dot com.  Here’s my profile

BE MY FRIEND! 

 

I need some inspiration

I’ve been trying to make an actual effort to update this blog more often, which is why I’ve been regailing you with the ever exciting topics of shoes.  And poop.  Hooboy. 

But the thing is, I really don’t feel like I have much to say.   I’ve been doing stuff, though.  Last night I went to a surprisingly fascinating lecture about aerial maps of the 19th century at the Boston Public Library, but somehow I doubt that most of you would find that as compelling as I did.   I’ve been working in the “garden” now that my soil is no longer permafrost.   But that’s about it.  Yawn.

So loyal blog readers (Hi mom!), what would you like me to write about?  Give me some topics and I’ll mooch off of your creativity. 

 

Poo-y

You know my house with the crazy lights and the sockets that don’t work sometimes and the uneven doors?

(wait, have I told you about the uneven door?  I don’t think I have.   Here goes: When we were painting back in the fall, there was an odd break between the dining room and the living room that I didn’t know how to deal with.  It was one flat wall, intersected by the front door, but I wanted the rooms to be two different colors.  I had the idea of build a fake cornice over the door using pieces of molding.  Pete’s mom and I had done this with the mantle and had great success with it.   So I bought a few pieces of molding to test with and I discovered that the door-to-ceiling height is 1 2/3 inches taller on one side.  WTF, right?  Once again with the crappy builders.)

Right, so what I’m getting at is that we have some issues with our house. 

But there are other issues…stinkier issues.  We have a bad septic system. 

My condo is attached to 4 others, and our building shares the same septic system.  Even before we moved in we knew it was an issue since there were all sorts of meeting minutes and comments by neighbors and all sorts of guidelines you have to follow (No garbage disposals in the sink, don’t run your diswasher and washing machine at the same time, make sure your toilets don’t run, don’t pour any non-biodegradeable substances down the sink, etc.).  There have been issues with it, but most of it hasn’t effected us.  Our neighbors have reported yucky smells and the pumping truck has been out a few times to…how do I put this delicately…vacuum the shit out of people’s front yards.  That’s it!

The last couple of weeks have been particularly bad for our neighbors but we had yet to experience anything.  I was hoping it was because the system lives under the middle of the building and we are on the very end, but I was being overly hopeful.  Last night we went to Pete’s parents house for dinner and when we got home at 8:45, we just decided we were exhausted and we were going to go to bed early.  At about 9:15 Pete bolted out of bed because he could smell the garbage (which was on the first floor) (in the trash compactor) (with nothing smelly it in) (He has a remarkably sensitive nose…I didn’t notice anything).  After he took it outside, I walked out of the bedroom and was hit in the face with the distinctive, wretched sent of poo wafting up the stairs.  And it was getting stronger by the second.  “Honey,” I said, “that isn’t garbage.  I think its…poo!”

We immediately went into “Oh SHIT” mode (no pun intended!) and ran all over the house looking in every toilet and smelling every drain because I was convinced that a geyser of the poop of strangers was about to rocket through my house.  Pete went down into the basement where he swore the scent was more intense, but he said the washing machine wasn’t stinky, so we never actually found the source of the smell.  It was like it was osmosing through the walls of our house.  So we did the sensible thing and threw open the windows in the bathrooms and in the master bedroom (which we don’t sleep in because the smaller bedroom stays much warmer) and a few downstairs as well.  We turned the thermostats down as low as they would go (because heating fuel is $4.17 a gallon here) and I didn’t want the furnace running pointlessly all night.   We shut the door to the bedroom and cracked a window because Pete was worried about the methane and threw on another quilt.  I was convinced that I was going to freeze, but I actually work up very warm and comfy this morning.  I doubt Pete felt the same way, as I looked over a realized that I had managed to literally cocoon myself with the down comforter and the extra quilt while he was left shivering under a paltry cotton sheet.

At least he wasn’t hit with a geyser of shit!

(and this morning, everything was back to normal with nary a scent in the air)

But they were pointy! And clickey! And cute!

I’m not quite sure what it was that possessed me to get up yesterday morning and put on those boots.  It must have been because it was 5:50 in the morning and I have been sleeping like a crackhead lately (I mean…I guess?  Do crackheads sleep erratically? That’s what I’m trying to say I’ve been doing…I AM AN AWESOME EXPLAINER).  My first mistake was probably getting dressed, because for some reason I decided that wearing brown pants and a brown shirt that were the EXACT same color that also happens to be the EXACT same color as my hair, which I wore down, and which is unbelievably long and sprawling at the moment, would be a good idea.  I was almost completely monochromatic, and the color that I was proudly wearing was “poop.”  HOTTT.

So anyway, in my stupor I say:  “ZOMG!  I have cute, pointy boots that are also this lovely poop color!  Let me put them on!”

(but, for real, these boots really are cute.  And, for the record, I really LOVE this color brown, but not when I am Lit-trally wearing it from head to toe)

The key issue about this isn’t the color (which makes it questionable that I am writing about the color so much, right? Once again:  AWESOME AT THE DESCRIBING OF THINGS.) (Jesus. Christ.  Enough with the goddamn parenthesis!  Why do I keep using these?), it’s that they have the little pointy heels on them too.  I do wear heels at work almost every day, but in my other life, heels are a rarity for me.  I love the way they look and sometimes pretty shoes in a store window will stop me in my tracks, but I just don’t wear them.  Before I moved here I wore flip flops every day, even in the winter, but now that I’ve decided I don’t want my toes to turn black and fall off, I’ve taken to wearing Merrils or boat shoes almost everyday.  Heeled?  Nope.  Cute?  Absolutely not.  Comfy? You bet your ass they are!  My  heels that I wear at work actually live under my desk at night, and I just change when I get here, so I never actually have to, you know, walk in them at all.  But I do walk quite a bit every day to and from the subway stations or from the train station if my train gets in a little early. 

I happen to work in a part of Boston that is rather “historic” which is a euphemism (is that right?  “A euphemism?”  Shouldn’t it be “An euphemism?”  That can’t be right though…) for “seriously wrecked sidewalks.”  There are bricks missing and unevenness and slick spots and all sorts of precariousness, which makes for awesome walking conditions.  Especially walking in clicky boots with high, skinny heels.  I, miraculously, did not actually face-plant into the sidewalk, but I was close.  And of course my feet are SCREAMING at me today for it.  Like, owy-owy-ouch, my feet motherfucking hurt like you wouldn’t believe. 

Now I remember why I’ve owned these boots for 6 years and have only worn them 5 or 6 times.  And why I generally don’t walk across Boston in shoes like this.  The warm weather is addling my mind and forcing me to make questionable fashion decisions!  My number one thing I am looking forward to about summer:  breaking out the flip flops again.  It can’t wait.

Oh, ye springtime!

Y’ALL!  It is 66 degrees in Boston today.  It may be grey and drizzily and generally yucky, but it is 66 DEGREES.  I got into the city ridiculously early today, so instead of taking the subway to my office, I walked, the long way, through Chinatown.

(An aside:  Even at 7:45 in the morning, the smell of cheap, greasy Chinese food is one of my favorite smells in the world.  I don’t think I have ever craved Lo Mein so early in the day.)

I am in the best of moods this morning.  I guess it isn’t lack of sunlight that bothers me, but just the bitter cold weather.  I haven’t been in spirits this high since the Fall, which is slightly frightening.  That’s an awfully long time to be in a funk.  No Matter!  It’s April 1st, and surely spring is around the corner (as long as I ignore the fact that it’s supposed to be back in the 30s by the end of the week).  It certainly helps that this morning when I left the house, I picked some of the Daffodils blooming – DAFFODILS!  BLOOMING! – in my garden to send to work with Pete so that he could give them to his Headmistress (She’s Welsh – Daffodils are the national flower of Wales and an enduring symbol for all Welsh people – and Pete just got word that next year he’s getting a big, fat raise, so she’s one of my favorite people at the moment). 

I have never been so happy to see a season coming. 

(OMFG!  Daffodils!)