The Cost of Progress

So Backseat Sandbar is reporting that ear X-tacy owner John Timmons will be making an announcement on Friday regarding “potential changes” at the store. You can read the whole press release at Backseat Sandbar, and I think you’ll agree that it doesn’t sound good.

I feel really conflicted about this. The idea of ear X-tacy closing makes me feel sick. I’ve always been so proud to have such a great music store in Louisville, and I think it’s a huge asset to the Highlands neighborhood and the city as a whole. But honestly? I almost never buy CDs anymore. I’m pretty sure the last time I bought a CD at ear X-tacy – or anywhere, for that matter – was when the New Pornographers released Challengers in 2007. (Actually, I did buy my dad a Marty Robbins CD for Christmas in 2008, and I ordered it from Amazon, which pretty much just makes me a lazy asshole.) I have no use for CDs, and the New Pornographers is really the only band for which I’ll buy them, because I love them and want their cover art and all of that. But 99% of the time, if I buy a CD I’m going to rip it to iTunes, put it on my iPhone, and never look at the physical CD or its packaging again.

And I think to myself “ear X-tacy is in trouble, I should go buy some music!” But I don’t want CDs. We have a gigantic shelf in our basement that is full of CDs, and we never look at them. I don’t need more stuff taking up space. I’m quite happy with mp3s. It is true that ear X-tacy now offers some digital downloads, and I’d like to say that I’ll start buying digital music there instead of iTunes, but:

1. iTunes is cheaper.
2. iTunes has a much more user-friendly interface.
3. I have iTunes on my iPhone.

Do you see my dilemma? I love the idea of ear X-tacy in theory, but in practice, I don’t really need it anymore. I’m not enough of a music geek to have ever gotten chatty with any of the ear X-tacy staff about anything, so it’s not like I depend on their expertise. Nor do I ever purchase vinyl (although I do own a turntable and see the appeal of it). ear X-tacy just doesn’t serve much purpose for me anymore, and I imagine that’s the case for a lot of Louisvillians. And that’s incredibly sad. But I don’t know what to do about it. It’s a business that I love that depends on selling technology I no longer use. What can you do?

 

Bitten.

It’s only been a few weeks since my last post, but there’s so much to talk about! Christmas, the New Year, the fact that 2010 is going to include such important events as my wedding, (hopefully) returning to school for another master’s degree, and my 30th birthday. But never mind all that.

Let’s talk about Twilight.

Let me preface this by saying that I am, by and large, completely out of touch with popular culture. This isn’t through any conscious effort on my part, I just somehow end up Not With It. Apparently I’ve been this way all my life; I’m a child of the 1980s, and I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars movies. It came to light last night that I’m not sure I’ve ever played Monopoly. I never read any of the Harry Potter books. I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of Sex and the City. We don’t have cable, so I never know what the hell people are talking about when the subject of television comes up. The only reason I know anything about Lady Gaga is that I made an effort to investigate her once some of my Facebook friends started losing their shit over her. Etc. What I knew about Twilight was that it involved vampires and that teenage girls were very excited about it. Thus it did not seem like anything I needed to pay attention to. (I did, however, know enough to get a tremendous kick out of this.)

And then a friend of mine, who I’ll leave anonymous except to say that her name rhymes with Babetha Gladkins-Plato, started pestering me to read the books. Although she is a highly intelligent, highly educated 29-year-old woman, she had succumb to Twilight obsession, and she wanted to be able to share her obsession with me. I admit that humoring her was not very high on my list of priorities. But I got a Kindle for Christmas, which meant that I wouldn’t actually have to go to a bookstore or to the library and be seen in public with the books. And they were only around $5 a piece in the Kindle store. So, highly dubious, I downloaded the first one on Christmas Day.

I started Eclipse, the third book, last night. I can’t put this shit down.

And the writing is so bad. It’s repetitive, there are obvious screw-ups that should have been caught by an editor, and even though I want Bella and Edward to be together, their relationship – and their dialogue – make me want to smack both of them and Stephenie Meyer. I feel like in the hands of a more capable writer, these books could have actually been really good; the premises are certainly interesting. But we have to settle for crappy yet somehow totally addictive.

I can’t put my finger on what it is I actually like about these books. I suppose they speak to my inner 13-year-old, that dorky girl who yearned for the fiery consummate romantic love that seemed like it would never happen (and which never actually did happen, because that’s not what life is like when you have careers and bills and pets and housework and stuff). Along those same lines, as ridiculous as it is, there’s something sort of hot about the vampire angle, about Edward wanting to consume Bella. All of this is completely antithetical to how I actually think about relationships; it bugs the shit out of me that Bella has to depend on either Edward or Jacob to keep herself happy, not to mention safe. And that she has no interests, hobbies, or goals outside of Edward and becoming a vampire. And yet… I cannot tear myself away. If there’s one thing Stephenie Meyer is good at, it’s raising questions and then taking an excruciatingly long time to answer them. And that, if nothing else, keeps me reading.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a whiny, dependent protagonist and her bloodsucking boyfriend.

 

Oh, December.

I hate winter. It is my least favorite season. Although I enjoy snow, we don’t get much of it here, and everything else about winter – the cold, the gloom, the short days, the multiple layers of clothing, the dry skin – totally sucks. And so I find it kind of funny that as much as I hate winter, I always find myself really looking forward to that most bitter of months: January.

I look forward to January because, in contrast to December, it is long and empty. It is relaxing. Don’t get me wrong — I love parties, decorating, gift-giving, and sharing holidays with my family and friends. But it’s always such a relief when the frenzy is over and life gets back to normal. January always finds me luxuriating with books and wine, cooking elaborate meals, and spending lots of time with Neil, wallowing in abject laziness. Ah, sweet, sweet January. You are mere weeks away!

All of this is to say, December is not quite half over, and it has been jam-packed. To wit:

1. I went to Tucson. And it was AMAZING. I took over 300 photos, which I will, at some point, get around to posting on Flickr. The landscape was gorgeous and unlike anything I’d ever seen. The people were friendly, the food was excellent, and the city was easy to navigate. I got to have a delightful dinner with friends I hadn’t seen in four and a half years and I picked out my wedding dress! In short, I loved Tucson and can’t wait to return with Neil.

2. We got the sofa. Oh my god, the sofa. Not to be all materialistic and stuff, but it has made me unspeakably happy. It is beautiful. It is comfortable. It is spacious. It works well for entertaining, relaxing, and sleeping. I could not be more pleased with it.

3. We had a holiday party. A lot of people came. (They loved the sofa too!) The whole thing passed in a blur and I feel like I hardly got to talk to anyone, but it was great fun. The white peach sangria and cucumber sandwiches with mint butter were big successes.

4. The following night, we went to a party at our friends Dan and Laura’s house. We had heard about their legendary parties before, but this was our first experience at one. And wow. We were exhausted from our own party and had only planned to stop in, say hi, have a drink, and split, but we ended up staying for quite a while and having a great time. The theme was Hippie Holidays, and Neil and I did not disappoint:

(No, I’m not the least bit inebriated, why do you ask?)

5. Yesterday we thought we’d have a nice relaxing day, so we trotted off to brunch at Ramsi’s and then saw Precious, which was totally brutal, but wonderfully done. We came home and set about relaxing on The Sofa, only for Neil to start complaining that his side hurt. Uh-oh. This was followed by upset stomach, vomiting, and ever-intensifying pain. Having gone through this twice before, we were both pretty sure that it was a kidney stone, so we made the wise decision not to go to the ER (a trip that lasted nine hours the last time this happened). Neil made it through the night with expired hydrocodone, and I slept on The Sofa, which I think is actually more comfortable than our bed. Neil went to the doctor today, was referred for a CT scan, and will find out tomorrow how big the stone is and what treatment is needed.

6. I have been reading Strange Piece of Paradise, which has been almost impossible to put down. I constantly feel it tugging at me when I should be doing other things.

Yet to come: sending holiday cards, sending save-the-dates for the wedding, Neil’s mom’s Solstice party, a holiday dinner with friends, shuttling back and forth between families for Christmas, and a 1980s-themed New Year’s party.

I am seriously ready for a long winter’s nap!

 

Sofa!

I am not one for impulse buys. I typically spend a lot of time contemplating major purchases, and more often than not I contemplate myself right out of them. But yesterday, I did something somewhat uncharacteristic for me. I decided I wanted a new sofa, and when Neil got home from work, we went and bought one.

Weird!

We’re having a big holiday party next month and yesterday morning I started thinking about how nice it would be to have new furniture before then. It’s no secret that I don’t exactly love our current furniture (nor is it a secret that Neil loathes it). My parents generously gave it to me when I moved into this apartment, but it had been in my mother’s formal living room, which I absolutely loved in her house, but which is not my personal style. Here’s a photo of it at her house:

I have that sofa, the table (and the crazy floral arrangement on top of it, which is currently the top of a bookcase with Neil’s camera collection), and two magnolia-patterned yellow chairs (you can see a bit of one in the lower left corner). I actually get a lot of compliments on it, but it’s not really my aesthetic, nor is it particularly comfortable. I’ve also never really like the way it’s arranged in my living room, which is smaller than my mother’s and is complicated by the existence of a large step that used to be part of a staircase before my building was converted into apartments.

So yeah. Yesterday morning I started fantasizing about sofas, I spent most of the day shopping online, and when Neil got home we talked it over a bit, went to the store, and bought this:

The chaise will be on the other side, but otherwise, that’s exactly what we’re getting. I’m so excited! I had never really thought before about getting a sectional; I always envisioned sectionals as those big ugly sofas that everyone seemed to have in the 1980s. But once I thought about it (and saw how nice sectionals can be), it made perfect sense:

1. It maximizes the seating in our living room without requiring awkward chair arrangements, which is great, because we do a fair amount of entertaining.
2. The way that Neil and I use our sofa is perfectly suited to having a sectional. We both like to stretch out when we’re watching TV or surfing the Interwebs together, which usually means that somebody’s feet are stuck up somebody else’s ass, and there’s a lot of rearranging and uncomfortableness. This is compounded by the fact that Otis often likes to join us on the sofa. The sectional offers plenty of room for everyone, and could even comfortably accommodate two overnight guests.

And now it’s time to go to Ikea to get this for our new living room:

Hooray!

(Unrelated: Neil and I were just measuring things in the living room when we looked out the window and saw a cute squirrel on the porch. “I like squirrels,” I said. “I mean, there aren’t very many wild mammals that you see on a regular basis.”

“At least not that you want to see,” Neil replied. “Like rats. Or ‘Oh my god, an otter!’”

“‘Oh my god, an otter?’”

“Well wouldn’t that startle you??”)

 

Tucson

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, I am going to Tucson next month!

In the course of my wedding planning I have totally fallen in love with a couple of dresses (although I won’t tell you which ones!) by Martin McCrea. Not long ago I said to my mom “We should go to Tucson and check them out in person!” Now, we are not the kind of family that can just fly across the country for a few days to buy a wedding dress, and I definitely said this in jest. But it just so happened that my dad is attending a conference in Tucson next month and my mom was going to tag along anyway. I cashed in the vast majority of the Visa Rewards points I’d been hoarding for the past several years, agreed to sleep on the sofa in their suite, and now I’m going to Tucson too!

I am excited about going to look at the dresses (although I’ve been corresponding with Martin – or Marty, as she signs her emails – and it turns out she doesn’t have the dresses I’m interested in in my size right now). I’m excited about taking a little vacation with my parents, which I haven’t done in a long time and which is almost always enjoyable. I’m also excited about having dinner with my friend Colin and his wife Sarah, who happen to live in Tucson. But mostly, I am excited because I have never been to the southwest before. Yes, I went to Dallas in September, but it really didn’t look much different from Kentucky. I’m talking about this:

This is actually the view from the hotel we’re staying in. Holy shit. I have never seen a landscape like that. I have never seen a cactus growing in the wild. I told Neil he’s going to have to hurry up and finally teach me to use my DSLR so I can take good photos.

Now I just have to hope that we don’t end up on The Doomed Flight. Because it would be seriously tragic if I died on a trip to look at wedding dresses. Especially if I had blogged about how tragic it would be.

 

We’re so hot.

A bit of back story: A few days ago I was putting on my sports bra and Neil made a comment about how unsexy he thinks that particular garment is. I responded by calling him Mr. Patriarchy and telling him that not everything I do is for the benefit of the male gaze, which he thought was funny, which is one of the many reasons I love him.

Last night I was sitting on his lap and we were kissing, but I stopped things because it was time for me to work out.

Me, lustfully: But I’ll be back after that. All hot and sweaty and wearing my black sports bra. And maybe even those blue nylon shorts I’ve had since high school. And maybe you can put on your black leggings and red t-shirt that make you look like some kind of weird interpretive dancer for UofL.

Neil: Or maybe I’ll put on my yoga pants and Alrenco long-sleeved t-shirt.

Me: Oh, yeah!

It could be time for new workout wear and pajamas.

 

Getting strong now…

Because I occasionally enjoy throwing my feminism to the wind and becoming the biggest cliche ever, I decided that I wanted to try to lose some weight before the wedding. My previous attempts at weight loss have gone a little something like this:

1. Make sure that I track everything I eat and am within my target calorie range.
2. Plan to do a bunch of exercise I hate and then not do it regularly because I hate it.
3. Get really sick of counting calories and discouraged when I inevitably fall off the wagon.
4. Gain back the 5-7 pounds I have managed to lose.
5. Wait 6-12 months, repeat.

I didn’t really have a different plan in place this time around, I just thought that perhaps the wedding would provide the motivation I need to keep torturing myself long enough to reach my goal. But then something crazy happened: I discovered SparkPeople’s New YOU Bootcamp Workouts.

I have used SparkPeople before and I think it’s a great resource, but I’d never tried any of their videos. I liked the idea of having something different to do each day of the week and, more importantly, the fact that the videos are only 10 minutes long. How hard is it to get in 10 minutes of exercise a day? So I started doing them, along with 30 minutes of cardio almost every day (usually either walking to the grocery store for dinner or riding the stationary bike while listening to American Wife on audiobook). And this is how the weight loss has gone:

Week 1: Down 2.5 pounds
Week 2: Up 1.5 pounds
Week 3: Down 1 pound

So yes. After three weeks I have lost 2 pounds. This is not good progress by most people’s standards, and after week two I felt pretty discouraged. I told myself that I was probably just gaining muscle, but that was a small consolation. I needed that number on the scale to move! I needed to get from 183 to 160 by January so I could order my wedding dress! I was eating right and exercising and my body wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain!

Or was it?

Last week I was doing some honeymoon planning and I found out that you can rent bikes and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. And I started thinking “Hey, if I’m in good enough shape to bike across the Golden Gate Bridge, maybe it doesn’t matter what I weigh or even what size dress I’m wearing.”

And then I started noticing:

- My calves have gotten quite muscular.
- My thighs, though still flabby, are becoming toned.
- My biceps have become, well, kind of awesome (a fact that did not go unnoticed at the Halloween party).
- I’ve stopped having so many random upper back pains.
- There are tiny hints of definition on the sides of my otherwise flabby tummy.
- I can do a lot more crunches before I get fatigued.
- Cardio workouts are getting increasingly easier.
- My jeans are just the tiniest bit looser.

Today is Day 23 of the 28-day bootcamp. I have not missed a workout yet. This is totally unprecedented for me. I know that doing a 10-minute workout every day for a month may not seem like a big deal, but I’ve never been consistently physically active in any way, so this is significant. Not only is it establishing a great habit (I really love doing these workouts!), it’s getting me in better shape for more strenuous activity. (I think that’s where previous attempts at exercise always fell apart; I’d try to do too much too quickly, I’d hate the way it made me feel, I’d dread doing it, and then I’d just stop.) I find myself thinking not so much about being thin, but about being strong and in good cardiovascular health. I am still watching what I eat, because I could stand to develop some healthier habits in that area too. But I really feel like I’m doing something good for my body instead of just trying to get skinny for its own sake.

 

Rosie

I swear I will write a real entry soon, but right now I just want to share my Halloween costume. I think it’s my favorite ever.

My dad asked me “Did you get that muscle from working out or is your other hand pushing it up?” I am proud to say that that is all me, thankyouverymuch!

 

Meow!

Look at this hot man I’m marrying!

Photo by the wonderfully talented Lisa J. Huber, who will also be shooting our engagement photos in a few weeks (but who can’t shoot our wedding because she’s in it!).

 

This stuff is magic!

Otis is pretty much the perfect dog; he rarely barks, he doesn’t (usually) chew things up, and he charms the pants off of just about everyone he meets. But sometimes he pees in the house. This actually hasn’t happened in a long time, but there was a place on the carpet where it had happened twice. And we tried to clean it up. We tried Nature’s Miracle, which works great on hard surfaces, but didn’t do much on the carpet. And then we just sort of resigned ourselves to having a stain there, figuring that eventually we’d have to rent a steam cleaner or something in order to get our damage deposit back.

But then we met RugDoctor’s Urine Eliminator.

I read the reviews and I was skeptical. But I was also intrigued. People gushed over it. “THIS IS THE FIRST CARPET CLEANER THAT ACTUALLY MADE ME SMILE AND BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE!” reads one Amazon review. They sell it at Kroger, so I figured I’d give a shot.

Oh my god, people. I don’t know how it works, but it does. Like whoa.

I followed the directions, soaking the stain with Urine Eliminator and then covering it with a damp towel. 24 hours later, the stain was on the towel and the carpet was pristine. There was no scrubbing or blotting or anything. Spray, cover, blam.

If you have pet stains – even old ones – you need this product. Nothing has knocked my socks off like this in a long time.