Category Archives: these are the days of my lives

February 27, 2009 · 3:00 pm

Why I might be insane

My car was stolen.  I already wrote about this.  Progressive gave me a check; I signed over the title of the car.  Story over.

But then the police called on Monday and said that they’d found the car and that I had 20 minutes to go get it before it would be towed.
Interesting that it has turned up, and that it has turned up in Oakland.  But technically, I don’t even own the car any more, and also technically, I don’t have the keys because I handed them over to Progressive.  I called the insurance company and told them, and they basically just said “we’ll let you know if we find any of your stuff in the car.”

Today my insurance guy is calling me back and wants to know if there weren’t more keys to the car out there.  Why?  Because the car was parked a block away to where I live and does not appear to have been stolen.  There’s no damage at all, doesn’t look like it was broken in to, and there’s all kinds of stuff still in there.  So, um.  Weird.  Nice little theivies were kind to the car, didn’t take my stuff, and just brought it right back to me?  Really?
Then he dropped the word “misplaced.”
How could I have misplaced my car?

So, let’s review:  it was a Monday, at the end of January.  The cold that I’d been incubating for 2 weeks had reached a crescendo of horror and I could no longer breath without making a sound sort of like blowing bubbles into your soda with a straw.  I was feeling pretty darned heinous, so made a last minute appointment at my doctors, left work early, visited the MD, got diagnosed with walking pneumonia, and left with Px for antibiotics and a hefty codeine cough syrup.  And then I went home and then I went to Walgreens.

Here’s where it starts to get a little fuzzy.  Did I drive straight to Walgreens from the doctor’s office?  Or did I drive home and walk to Walgreens?  Did I fucking leave my car in the Walgreens parking lot?!  Did I?!  I have no idea!
What I do remember was that after waiting for 45 minutes in the Walgreens for my prescription, I begged the counter girl to please help me before I fell over from wooziness, she said it’d be ready in another 15 minutes and I said that I couldn’t wait, I had to leave.  So I left.  David went to pick them up for me a little bit later.

The address that I’ve been given for where the car was left is not the Walgreens parking lot, but it is definitely in the same neighborhood.  I was told that the car was towed because it had been left somewhere residential – which doesn’t mean Walgreens parking lot.

But this story smacks of lunacy in the key of Maggie.

Nobody’s asking for the claim money back, so *now* this really is still the end of the story.  Except that maybe it is the start of my descent into madness.

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February 19, 2009 · 6:41 pm

I have an imaginary friend named Dooce

I’ve developed a huge internet crush on Heather Armstrong, based on her blog Dooce, which I’ve been reading daily for about a year. Recently, I’ve started going through the archives and just being immersed in her. And I love her! I love her the way you love a character in a book, ie Bridget Jones, and wish that said character could be your friend. So you get a bit obsessed with the author, but the author, while probably brilliant and clever and charming, is not the same as ficto-person. You settle for smoking Silk Cut.

But Heather is real, not imaginary. And only a year and a half older than me. And sometimes visits San Francisco. And she’s funny and snarky and creative and clever and sweet and judgmental. If I were in the habit of thinking up imaginary friends to fill my emotional voids, then she. would. be. IT.

I am despondent on days when she does not post. Because our relationship is so one-sided, I’m really dependent upon her to tell me some form of helloes. I don’t get to start the conversation from my end. And while I guess I could send her an e-mail, she must get at least 8 requests per day to be Suzie or Beth or Todd’s new best friend. I’m definitely better than any person who might happen to be named Suzie, but I can’t imagine Heather agrees to adopt new pen pals.

Although frankly, how would that work if she did?
Ok, so I lied when I said I couldn’t imagine it.  Because I can.  And it would be weird:

Maggie to Dooce:
Dear Heather,
I adore you. <List of reasons, ad nauseum>. I wish that you would be my friend. If you got to know me, I think you’d find that I’m kinda funny and charming, too. Be my friend?
xo,
Maggie

Dooce to Maggie:
I’m a sucker for a friend request. I’m in. You have an odd penchant for weasels and I like that.

Maggie to Dooce:
Yay! I’m so stoked! I will commence being your friend right now! But, um, this e-mail correspondence seems to be petering out, so… right. We’ll do more friend stuff later, yeah?

Dooce to Maggie:
Hell to the yes. Right back atcha. Look me up if you’re ever in Utah.

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February 18, 2009 · 3:37 pm

Do You Wanna Ride in my Toyota Boy?

A strange thing has happened:  my Toyota Echo was stolen and I simply don’t have a car any more.  I had one.  And now I don’t.
This past weekend, I picked up a check from Progressive, in essence, having sold the non-existent car to my insurance company.  In a really disappointing turn of responsibility, I’ve decided to hand the check over to some credit cards and make a real concerted effort to do some debt reduction.
So I don’t have a car, and I don’t have a prospect for a new car, and I also don’t have a pair of Tiffany earrings or a trip to Greece.

That Toyota Echo was the first car I bought myself.  Mom and Dad did give me $3000 for the deposit, but after that I forked over the $255 every month for 5 years.  I cried in the process of agreeing to make the purchase, as I was terrified of the commitment.  At 22 years old, 5 years of payments seemed like a very long time.  But I did it.  I even finished a few months early.

I keep thinking of the poor little Echo trying to make friends with the mean, scary cars in the ghetto.  Or maybe the Echo has just been totally mangled and all of his important parts have been removed, leaving a sad little shell.  And what did they to my Dave Matthews sticker?

This car mostly got me to and from Whole Foods, or the West Oakland BART station.  It takes me to my weekly session of UGH, otherwise known as my cello lesson.  Jessica and I drove it to Las Vegas once and another time to San Luis Obispo.

But when I start thinking of car memories, they generally go farther back… to Red Car and to Gordy.  Both of those cars were 10 to 15 years old when they came into my life and they both died in my posession.  Both of them were the types of cars to just crap out while I was driving them, leaving me frantically trying to restart as I edged through the toll plaza or down the main drag of my college town.  Thus, was I motivated to buy myself a brand new car and never suffer the tragedy of car death again.  So some cars die and others are kidnapped.

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Filed under Momentousness

February 12, 2009 · 7:41 pm

Two to the Fifth

Today is Jessica’s birthday.
Ever since I started doing things like turning 20, Jessica always did it first.  For that, I will be ever grateful.  It’s not so weird to be 24 or 29 or 31 when your soul mate does it first.  As panicky and weird as I have gotten over a birthday, I can only imagine that it would have a certain kind of awful if I didn’t have the knowledge that it was ok and normal, because that’s how old Jessica is.

And today she is 32.  I always have this sense of gratitude on her birthday and rather wish that I could wax nostalgic on her actual birth.  But thanks, all the same, to Crazy Janey and Jimbo who made it all possible.  And to the brothers, who used to feel like halfway to my own brothers, for being a part of that person.

Jessica

I don’t know how a person like me got a friend like her, but I’m awfully glad that I did.  She’s the best sort of person possible.  She is patient and listens to people.  I get jealous, in fact, of just how well she can listen to absolutely dullards.  She is adorably (possibly freakishly) in love with her cats.  She has a wonderful fashion sense, appreciative of the right flavors of quirk, vintage, and classiness.  And she changes and evolves so that it’s almost kind of like having a whole new friend, who you immediately love from the word Go.  A new friend who suddenly likes miso.

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Filed under Girl land, Special happy things

February 11, 2009 · 1:50 pm

Hey baby hey baby hey

David’s sister had a baby girl yesterday, Elizabeth Joy.

To be fair, David’s sister’s husband sent an e-mail with the subject Elizabeth Joy!

Some people interpret this to mean that they had a baby girl, named her Elizabeth, and then felt joy.

Other people may surmise that Elizabeth has a middle name and it may be Joy.

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October 25, 2008 · 12:43 am

Happy Birthday, My Sweet Boy

Today is David’s birthday. He is far, far away in Ye Olde England, so I couldn’t do anything special for him, but he was much on my mind.

You are an excellent human and it’s been a pleasure to give thanks for that today.

I hope the last year of your 20’s is a wonderful one, that leaves you fully satisfied with a decade well done. Or at least prepared to enter the next one. I, for one, will feel quite glad when you start being 30 so I won’t be in that 30 business by myself. Except that when that happens, I will be 32, and that’s gross.

But I love you today and very much look forward to this year of prime numbers.

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October 20, 2008 · 9:26 pm

Tell me a story

My very, very sweet boy also reads to me every night.
Complete with voices.

A few days ago, out of nowhere he said “Can I ask you something?”

And I panic, because once I give permission for the question, it could be:
Why don’t we have sex every five minutes?
Would you mind if I spent more time on my own?
Do you secretly eat whole bags of crisps in one go?
Really, how many people have you slept with?
How would you feel if I moved back to England next year?
<continue out of control mind spin>

So I say, “Oh my god. What?”

And he looks at me, a bit startled, and asks “Do you think you’d mind if I did the voice of Count Rogen differently? I don’t think I got it right so far.”

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October 2, 2008 · 1:14 pm

I Feel Pretty

This morning, as we were walking down the sidewalk beginning our daily commutes, my boyfriend said to me “you look pretty.”

Of course, this is a nice thing for a boyfriend type person to say.  But at this particular moment, I looked at him, opened my mouth to say something, and after a lengthy pause, managed “ok, well that’s nice of you to say, poppet.”

Over instant messenger, once we were both at work, a ridiculous argument ensued about why I got annoyed that he said I was pretty.  For real.  So either I’m just an evil asshole, or boys are silly.

So, I know I’m not a supermodel.  And certainly I’ve got some physical attributes that I’d say are less than gorgeous.  But in a completely objective way, I know that I’ve got a nice enough looking face and that I’m probably better looking than at least 50% of the population.

But!  This moring:
1.  I have spots.  Not big gross ones, but a lot of little annoying ones.  Blackheads that just won’t settle down and are getting irritated and making blotchy read camp sites around my nose and chin.  While donating my apartment to the sleeping needs of the boyfriend’s visiting sister and brother-in-law, I went without Proactiv for about 3 days.  And it shows.
2.  I am exhausted.  I don’t know if I’m half-way catching the end of summer cold that’s been going around, but I am dragging.  And it is written all over my face.  Particularly in quippy little witticisms under my eyes.
3.  In order to eek out as much sleep as possible, I didn’t get up until it was too late to take a shower.  So my hair is a bit scrotty and ratty, and vaguely precursor-y of the greasiness it will be in 6 hours.
4.  No make-up.  Same reason as number 3.  Too tired to take the extra five minutes.  Thus, am spotty, with a splotchy skin tone.  No eyeliner or mascara = pasty puffy piggy eyes.
5.  My pants are just a little bit too tight and are all crease-y across my hips and upper thighs.  Some good eating and going to the gym habits have slipped.  Whatever.  I suck.

Thus, it was not my foxiest day.  I look rather fugly.  Not a big deal.  Some other day will be better.  But a strange time indeed to be telling me that I look pretty.  And the thing is, I get it.  He’s a boy, feeling like saying something nice and loving.  And his boy noggin says to him ‘what’s a nice thing to say that expresses my lovingness and attraction?’  The noggin, very uncreatively, suggests the ol’ ‘you look pretty’ line.  So he tries it.  It falls a little short.  She gets annoyed and the boy and the noggin are confused.

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September 24, 2008 · 6:23 pm

31

I am turning 31 today.  It’s a prime number.  And odd.  And sort of like 30, except one year later.  So a lot less momentous and a lot more generic In-My-30’s style.

I’m not freaking out.  I’m actually a little bored.

But in an effort to try and give myself a little yay, I have been wearing nothing but green dresses all week.  And I have two more planned for tomorrow and Friday.  In fact, I have enough green dresses that I could keep going for a few days after that, as well.  So green dresses it is.  Self indulgent in a mildly bizarre way, I guess, but that’s what I want.

Dinner tonight with my best girl and my best boy.

Drinks on Friday with whoever might deign to show up.

And then a whole lotta days of just being 31.  Hopefully, an excellent version of it, though.

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August 5, 2008 · 6:22 pm

A Cheesy Test

I was at a social gathering of work colleagues of The Squeeze’s this weekend.  He works for a British company and many of the employees are British.  Conversation turned to the things that they miss living in America, and cheese came up.  Specifically, cheddar cheese and how it is non-good.  What with the tooting and touting that goes on over California cheese, and more vociferously, Wisconsin cheese, I got a bit huffy.  American cheese is awesome!  You fools.  Just because we sell cheez in a can here doesn’t mean that we don’t also have high end hoity toity cheese as well!

I drank beer, the huff abated.

But then, last night I was in Trader Joe’s.  And I was looking at cheeses.  I noticed that Trader Joe’s has got an ample selection of cheese from England, so I thought I might get some to please The Squeeze.  But then I noticed that there was simply an ample collection of cheddar cheeses from all over the place.  So I went a bit nuts and got blocks of English, Irish, New York, Wisconsin and California cheddars.  I brought them over, along with some crackers, and requested that he do a blind taste test of the cheeses at his office.

The drama is unfolding right now!

And while I rather wish I myself were nibbling some cheeses, my delight at the prospect of a ridiculous cheddar cheese tasting is huge.  Ha!

Except that so far, early reports indicate that the English cheddar is in the lead.  Wankers.

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