skins of the snake

the other day i was jogging down through the college district. it's that time of year - lots of dewy-eyed freshmen and their directionally challenged parents wandering the district. it's like they've never walked on sidewalks before. i mean, i know they SEE me. they have to SEE me. why can't they just budge over a tidge and let me safely pass?

but i digress.

i was once a dewy-eyed college freshman, and one among my myriad regrets is not taking advantage of the inherent chance to reinvent myself that starting a new phase of life presents. i managed to shift my faux-punksterism into faux-countryism, but that's about it. i didn't change my name, my wardrobe, my thinking about myself. i completely missed the rebranding opportunity.

before that, i'd missed the same opportunity when i started a new school in 9th grade. and, before that, when i'd started a new school in 7th. and before that when i started a new school in 5th. in 1st grade, i did manage to brand myself "the smart kid" and THAT stuck like fucking glue.

i nearly missed the chance when i entered the working world, but i woke up a couple years in and dropped "ace" for "aceifer", which is my full and formal name. i mean, ace is fine and all here, but i wanted to be more grown up at work. i just came in one day and announced that everyone should call me "aceifer" from now on.

i haven't made any equally drastic changes, but i haven't completely stagnated. i've phased-out-phased-in new wardrobes -- managed over the years to trade pumps for keds, skirts for skorts. i like to buy clothes for work at the golf store now. and, like gradually changing my wardrobe, i've chipped away at my tries-too-hard attitude and acquired a doesn't-have-to-try confidence.

it wasn't until i was out of college altogether that i realised i'd missed a golden opportunity to reinvent myself freshman year, but now, looking back, i know that sudden reinvention isn't a real thing. the most i could have done would have been to have enacted a bunch of changes all at once, but those changes would have had to have been part of a plan.

reinvention isn't random. reinvention is a choice that we make when we're done with ourselves. the reason i realised after college that i'd missed the chance to reinvent is because after college, i was done with myself. when i was a freshman, when i had that chance, i wasn't done with being the person i was. i still had some things to do with that person.

so, now.

now i am who i am because i have reinvented myself along the way, discarding the selves i was done with like a snake shedding skins.

picture pages!

this is called a rambutan. my boss got it from her mani-pedi girl when the fruit truck showed up during a mani-pedi session. rambutan is a tropical fruit. the hairy outside feels like eyelashes. seeing this for the first time, i felt sort of small... like... amazed at how little i know of the world and what's in it.

to eat the rambutan, you peel the hairy skin off to reveal the fruit. it's fairly easy to peel - you don't need a knife or anything - but it's still a lot of work for a tiny fruit.

this is the tiny rambutan fruit. it's nicer to look at than it is to eat. i mean, it's not bad to eat, just nothing special. it's sort of a lime-coconut-kiwi flavour with the texture of a peach. i can only assume the flavour is richer when it's fresh, because while i can see someone eating this for sustanance, i can't really see anyone getting all excited over it. but still, it's quite translucently beautiful.

this is apparently a sought-after collectible colander. back in the day when we first moved into this house, my bff gave me a cutting board, colander, and [something i can't remember] set for my new kitchen. i still use the colander and cutting board, and believe me, it's not but a few short years later... anyway, i tried to find this company on the internet, but ol' shamrock-neatway of minneapolis doesn't seem to exist anymore. i found a "shamrock" company and emailed them to see if they are the same company, but haven't heard back.

this is a curly grape vine. i think sometimes we forget that grapes grow on vines. i know it seems obvious, but still. i think we all think they come in plastic bags and that the grapes are stuck on sticks in a uniform way. i like to be reminded that food comes from plants and plants are random.

speaking of random... CARROT LEGS!

progressive ablutions

the other night, i slept with my contacts in.

i didn't do it on purpose. i hadn't been out all night partying. it was just a normal night and i didn't mean to, but still... i tumbled into bed with my contacts in.

i mean, i guess i did because i woke up the next day with them in. it's possible someone put them on my eyes while i was sleeping, but occam's razor and whatnot -- most likely, i forgot to take them out.

i've worn glasses since i was 9 and contacts since i was 16. not to give to much away, but it's been a "while" since i was 16. in all those years, i have never had the kind of contacts you can sleep in. mine have always been the put-em-in-in-the-morning-take-em-out-at-night sort.

back in the day, you got one pair of contacts to last you an entire year. that was it - one pair. and to make matters worse, the cleaning system involved tiny little lens cases with tiny little cages that had tiny little latches. try operating that sort of machinery with uncorrected vision. now, try doing it with your one and only, yearly pair of contact lenses hanging in the balance. those tiny little latches just loved to catch the edge of a contact.

if you tore the lens, you had to go back to the eye doctor and get another. and, they weren't cheap. i can get 3 pair of lenses now for $13.95 from the online lens dispensary. back in the day, you couldn't get one pair for less than $100. now i generally have several pair just sitting around waiting their turn.

so, lenses are cheaper now and taking care of them is easier. no more tiny little cages with tiny little latches. now you just throw them into some multi-purpose solution and go on with your life.

and, that's what i do every night. i just throw them into some multi-purpose solution and go on with my life. i have the same prescription in both eyes so i don't even have to watch if i am putting the right lens in the side of the case with the R on it. easy peasy lemon squeezy.

so.

if it's this easy, how did i leave them in?

well.

this particular pair was DONE and i planned to throw them out. yes, this makes it even worse to have slept in them.

due to our having remodeled the house, my evening ablutions do not take place all in one room. it's like a 70s progressive dinner only it's ablutions. first, i remove my contacts and brush my teeth in one room, and then i go to a complete other room to pee, and then i go to another room to enter beddie-bye. in the room in which i remove my contacts and brush my teeth, there is no trash bin. because i planned to throw this particular pair in the trash, i sort of needed to be in a room with a trash bin when i took them out of my eyes. the room in which i pee has a trash bin, so i thought, i'll brush my teeth and then when i go pee, i will take my contacts out and throw them away while i am sitting there.

good plan, ace!

apparently, by the time i progressed from the first place to the second, i had completely forgotten the plan. maybe I should have written it down. 

all the cool kids are sociopaths.

so. robin williams hung himself with a belt in the bedroom #cluegame and the community at large is "shocked and saddened".

huh. shocked? really?

i was more shocked that my tooth cracked today while i was eating crackers. CRACKERS, for godsakes. it's both shocking and the best pun of the day.

now. i will admit i'd have been shocked if ol' robin had hung himself from the sycamore in the front yard, but hell. c'mon people. suicide in its own right is simply not shocking. suicide of a comedian is not only not shocking, it's par for the course. it's a 3 out of 5. it's so not shocking, it's borderline expected.

but still we will head into the hand wringing and head shaking. "WHY WHY WHY." again, c'mon people. how can anyone be surprised anymore that manically cheerful people are covering up a soul whose terrain has been plowed with salt? i mean, really. tears of a clown and whatnot.

humour is a self-defense mechanism which keeps people at a distance from the safely guarded inner self because if anyone saw the inner self, they'd reject the person altogether.

sure, that's one theory.

personally, though, i use humour as a self-defense mechanism to keep people at a distance from the safely guarded inner self because if anyone saw the inner self, they'd adore me all the more and be consumed with an insatiable need to be near me.

and, i just can't have that.

but i digress.

robin williams hung himself with a belt in the bedroom #cluegame and the community at large is "shocked and saddened".

saddened, huh?

i find myself saddened at the darwin awards. you know those stupid people who pull coca-cola machines over on themselves and whatnot? i am sad for those poor stupid people who didn't see death coming. i am sad for the people driving down the interstate just in everyday mode, heading to work or a picnic or a funeral #ironic, who are killed by a semi driver who fell asleep. i am sad for the fisherman who falls in the water and drowns. i am sad for winnebago owners who go to sleep with the space heater on and wake up to find themselves dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.

not seeing death coming, that's sad. setting about to cause your own death isn't sad so much as selfish.

but, still. if you were someone who knew robin personally, you were married to him, you had worked with him, you met him frequently for a coffee and suchwise, well then i can see how you'd be sad to suddenly no longer have that. but the rest of us "knew" him through his movie roles, so our relationship with him is not diminished one iota. how can that be something that saddens anyone?

it's only august...!

i heard the other day that to change your attitude -- and perhaps those of the folks around you -- you could, instead of saying: "it's august already?!", say: "it's only august...!" like, in the first case, you're all bummed over half the year being gone. in the second case, you're realising how much of the year is left. how much of your life has gone, how much of your life has left. how far your glass is empty, how far your glass is full.

so. it's only august...!

this summer i:
+ experienced a broken, then healed, wrist.
+ moved out of the house... then moved back into the house.
+ got a promotion. (there's no second part to that one.)

i have thought of many things i wished to tell you, but couldn't because
+ it's difficult to type with a broken wrist.
+ my computer was packed.
+ there was no good place to use my computer.
+ i forgot what i wanted to tell you before i even found the time to think about telling you.

many things could cause one to move out of ones house but the only one of those things which is true for me is that i moved out because the house was being remodeled. we had hardwood floors put in throughout the entire house and that's a process which when it's in process renders a house unlivable. we moved in with his mom for a while, and then we moved in with junior and mrs junior and baby junior. during the entire process i had that broken wrist i mentioned, and also ran a marathon, went on two business trips, suffered food poisoning (don't eat the clams in st louis!), spent two weeks at summercamp, and played myriad soccer games.

it's both as much a hassle as it sounds like, and not as much a hassle.

before we got started, we thought we'd be out of the house about two weeks. we ended up out for eight. so, i wore two weeks' worth of clothes for eight weeks, and it really brought home to me how few clothes i need. i mean, there were a some items i missed, would have worked into the rotation, without which i was forced to do laundry more often, but really, it comes down to: hell, girl, how many clothes you need?!? while unpacking the boxes to move back into the house, i was glad to see some of the things, but ended up giving more clothes away.

i missed having my computer. i missed watching 'once upon a time' and 'rizzoli and isles'.

we ate out a lot of meals, and let me tell you how it goes, eating out a lot. at first, it's fun. because eating out is generally something special, when i get to eat out, it's a treat. breakfast out is especially special. so, at first, eating out is swell and neat. but, pretty soon the novelty wears off and it's actually quite a pain. no one does MY breakfast: one hard boiled egg, greek yogurt with peaches, a wheat english muffin with cream cheese. very few places are open for breakfast at 6am. it turns into a chore. but then time passes, as is its wont, and in its passing, time rubs the hard corners off the experience, and eating out becomes easier and easier until it is the default, the way we live life, simply what we do. eating at home seems the difficult chore.

i missed having a banana or a glass of wine when i wanted it. i missed having a comfortable chair.

we decided to ditch nearly all our old furniture. i mean, we're this far in debt, right? might as well go ahead and get new stuff to put in our new-cabinet kitchen and new-floor den. we are still putting things together, and we don't have any kitchen chairs yet, but we do have a kitchen table with two leaves, and a bed and dresser and nightstand (with a nightlight which glows underneath!), and a glass-door cabinet for the television components, and a brown recliner, and a blue sofa on order. we have a new rug by the new dishwarsher and a new soap dispenser beside the new sink in the bathroom. lots and lots and lots of new.

there was a time in my life when i missed having hardwood floors to slide around on, in my sock-feet.

but i don't miss that anymore.

[smile]