dawn_felagund: Skeleton embracing young girl (Default)
Dawn Felagund ([personal profile] dawn_felagund) wrote2006-09-07 07:53 pm
Entry tags:

Random Mutterings about Life (tm)

Last night, Bobby had his last game as a member of Your Team Name Here. We are pretty good friends with one of his teammates Andy and his teammate's wife Cindy, who is also the scorekeeper at the ice rink. Last night, Cindy came in wearing a big smile and told me that she had good news. She asked me to guess.

"You got a house?" I asked, and I was right!

I asked the usual questions. I looked at her maps and community book and was happy for them. I didn't pretend that; when a friend is happy, I am happy for her, of course.

But the thought kept coming into my mind that I couldn't quite see myself getting likewise so excited. Actually, as she was talking about taking down wallpaper and putting up new paint, I was imagining this awful '70s wallpaper, gave a mental shrug, and thought that I'd probably just leave it up.

I don't know what it is...I've changed so much since last year.

Last year, Bobby and I were the ones excited about getting a house in the next couple of years. Now...well, he's hoping to get a new job, which will mean a pretty big pay cut, and I don't even care. I think of cars and houses and stuff and...*shrug*

I am rarely even motivated to clean the apartment anymore. Not like I used to. I used to vacuum and clean the bathroom twice per week. Now, it seems there are better things to do.

The 2005 model of Dawn Felagund says she doesn't even know the 2006 model anymore. :^P

With this thought in my brain, I went to the pharmacy this afternoon after work to pick up a prescription. Because there is nary a road in Maryland that is not under some kind of significant construction, they have Frederick Road closed and detoured onto Route-40. (Both are pretty busy local roads.) It took me fifteen fucking minutes to turn out of the pharmacy, drive across the street, and drive a half-mile to my apartment community. Why? Because the geniuses who govern the roads closed one of the biggest roads in the area, detoured traffic onto the biggest road in the area, and didn't think to adjust the light so that more than three cars could turn onto the detour at one time.

Argh.

So on top of having in my brain that 2006 Dawn is a drastically different Dawn from last year, I am sitting in traffic thick as mud and cursing the county that I am supposed to love enough to pay an extra $400 a month in rent than if I lived in, say, Harford County. Cursing the whole goddamn area for being friggin' Type-A, corporate-tool, cell-phone-in-the-ear suburbia. Because, really, I know that it's not Howard County. Howard County is honestly a beautiful place to live in a glossy-full-color-brochure kind of way. It's the Baltimore-DC Metro area. Nrgh.

As I sat in traffic, a half-mile from home, the thought came to me: "God or Eru or Whoever-Is-Listening, let this new direction in my life take me the fuck away from here!"

Naturally, because I had definitely caught Murphy's eye, I barely missed the light when I finally made it the hundred feet from the pharmacy to the intersection. I could have stretched the yellow, but Maryland is also the Redlight Camera Capital of the World--yay us!--so I decided not to take my chances. I was sitting there, listening to my iPod and trying not to be grumpy, and a guy pulled up in the car next to me. You know: a hand-draped-over-the-wheel, hat-cocked-to-the-side, rap-music-blaring, SUV-drivin' kind of guy. He was "cool," in other words. Well, his rap music was frankly overwhelming my music, which had just switched to "Evenstar" from the TTT soundtrack. Lovely song, makes me think of Nerdanel and Feanor. Since I was already bordering on grumpy, I turned up my music to match his. So here he is, cool and listening to rap. Here I am--hair to my bum and tangled from blowing in the wind, wearing a tie-dyed shirt and my clunky school-marm shoes from Payless--blaring the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Cool, indeed.

[identity profile] rinnor.livejournal.com 2006-09-08 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
A house that is too clean only invites asthma and other illnesses. Which is probably why I never get sick.

Wow, vacuuming twice a week and you don't even have furry pets. Without my husky around shedding all the time, I didn't even vacuum the other week, and I couldn't even tell.

Yes, you do have better things to do - I hope your writing is towards the top of your list; that would beat cleaning any day of the week. Or hiking would too. Or having a social/family life. Or just about anything else I could think of.

Cities and roads everywhere are getting more and more crowded. Even the rural areas are getting built up so fast, so yes, it makes sense to open the borders to anyone in the world who wants to come here.

[identity profile] rinnor.livejournal.com 2006-09-10 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Baltimore-DC has many awards to our credit.
Erm, sounds like a lovely city you have.


traffic congestion and aggressive driving
hmmm, cause, effect. Anyone?