Stuff Yvette Likes

Someone else posted in their blog items from the Stuff White People Like blog. I thought it was ingenious and went through the blog again to find all the stuff that applies to me! So here's the list in order from most applicable to least applicable to me from my point of view... The top 10-12 are pretty close - depending on the situation or whatnot. 

1. Traveling (leaving tomorrow)
2. Gentrification (look at my new house)
3. Study Abroad (Semester at Sea)
4. Dogs (puppy!)
5. Outdoor Performance Clothing (I think between K2 and North Face I should own stock)
6. Recycling (yup, I'm a recycler)
7. T-shirts (woe is my closet)
8. Indie Music (anytime)
9. Apple Products (iPod, iPod Shuffle, MBP, MB, iPhone, iMac, iBook...)
10. Bad Memories of High School (therapy please)
11. Netflix (subscriber)
12. Wine (drinking it now - mighty fine)
13. Microbreweries (I live in the pacific northwest - of course)
14. Bottles of Water (goes with the recycling - it's expected)
15. Standing Still at Concerts
16. Living by the Water
17. Irony
18. Farmers Markets (ironic since I don't go that often)
19. Breakfast Places (ironic since I don't even eat eggs in egg forms)
20. Grocery Co-ops
21. Difficult Breakups (hehe!)
22. Modern Furniture (look at my recent credit card bill - then you'll understand)
23. Idea of Soccer
24. Plays
25. Expensive Sandwiches
26. 80s Night
27. Apologies
28. Kitchen Gadgets
29. Arts Degrees
30. Having Gay Friends (but I do!)
    
31. Bicycles
32. Making You Feel Bad About Not Going Outside (I haven't been outside enough today... I even make myself feel bad!)
33. Japan
34. Diversity
35. Organic Foods
36. Being an Expert on Your! Culture

If you haven't read the blog - it's bloody brilliant!  Go read it!  And if you have then you'll know I'm pretty low on the scale with only choosing 36 out of the current 96 possibilities.

toe throbbing to the sound of a tennis ball smacking grass

I was driving home tonight from work around 10:30pm with KEXP blaring on my radio and my possibly broken toes throbbing to the beat of a song I'd never heard before.

I kept thinking about my comment this weekend to a friend about how I'm stubbornly independent... and suddenly out of nowhere there was a flashback. I might have been stubbornly independent putting up a 2 person required for assembly and preservation of one's toes book case this weekend, but dang, I've always done things that are a bit on the ludicrous side of proving my independence... like going to Wimbledon.

I couldn't remember if I'd ever blogged about my Wimbledon experience during the summer of 2006. Apparently I had. Rereading the post I was amazed at how I didn't mention all the points during the night where I freaked out and nearly gave up... at the airport in London, in the tube station, missing the night bus, on the night bus, getting off the night bus at the wrong stop, walking in circles in a dark neighborhood with a scary drunk on the corner... those were all times I wanted to stop and go find a hotel where I could lock my door and hide and give up and cry myself silly with patheticness. Instead I called my mother once or twice for fortification - I figured if she was freaked out for me I could be less freaked out for myself - it didn't quite work, but it was a valiant effort eh? Poor poor mom!! I think I gave her a few heart attacks during my Wimbledon adventure.

I never really knew why I didn't give up - and I still can't fathom what kept me going. I think not having a backup plan was part of it; wanting to get to the dang tennis match since I'd so carefully read up on how the entire thing worked was another; knowing I might see Agassi live drove me on for a bit there too. But part of it was just wanting to do it - knowing that I could do it if I just kept going - even if the going felt like scary trudging - and that was that end of story.

In the end that's the night I slept on a sidewalk for a handful of hours before getting ridiculously sun burnt. I think of the entire escapade and laugh and wish I could do it again. So possibly broken toes or not, I guess I am stubbornly independent - and dang it's fun to feel your toe throb to the radio station as you head to your new home late at night knowing that persistence really is a virtue..... sometimes!

Scrambled Brain

Disclaimer: Since I have a bunch of things I'd like to write about I'm going to start with a bulleted list of all these scrambly thoughts and see where it takes me.

• I really like python. I like python a lot more than perl. And django just seals the deal after learning mason since it's so much nicer. Although I think I'm biased since the perl/mason I was doing was working off of a huge existing codebase of other people's code and most of the python/django I'm doing is brand spankin' new. But I'm going to stick to liking python regardless of my possible biases.
• For the past year I haven't spent hours on end coding until today - I forgot how much it futzes with my brain and makes me feel all scatterbrained to finish up a really good productive day where everything I did was code. Now my job is much more random and although I get to code a lot it's not constant so I jump around more and I think that leaves me feeling less scattered at the end of the day since I was scattered during the day. I've always thought too fast - but now I realize it comes out differently when I'm coding or not.
• The plasma tv I ordered didn't fit in my brand new house's brand new living room on the brand new mantle because the brand new beautiful ceiling was in the way since the dang new fireplace is way too tall. I sent it back with the delivery guys and have a slightly smaller HD LCD tv coming Wednesday.
• I have fewer boxes and I'm officially out of my apartment. This is all due to my mother's good influence.
• I have a shopping list 12 miles long and I'm really really good at spending money. Thank goodness I'm employed. If anyone asks me if I'm ever going to get thing B or K or Z though again I'm going to scream. I may have a job but that doesn't mean I have unlimited resources and I don't want to rush the enjoyment of the hunt for the "perfect" item. I may dislike shopping sometimes but I love love love researching and browsing so I'm going to enjoy it.
• I'm starting crazy travel again. This all comes after making sure my hours are all packed - of course this means I need to go to CA, NV, NY, and who knows where else in the next month - let alone more than the next month. I already know I'll also be in CO, MT and OR as well this year sometime. Oh, thank you alaskaair for having my frequent flier miles. With you my dream of using miles to fly to Hawaii might come true. Now who wants to go to Hawaii? Oh, but before that I need to make my NV/NY trip reservations... I should do that now.
• I told you this list would be a brain scramble - you're even getting stream of conciousness.
• Goodnight.