KjB

Nobody tagged me with this (nor do i think i will throw that responsiblity on anyone else - unless they want it) but i read a couple of these biographical surveys online today, and i just feel a bit like reflecting.

So - here it is.

TEN YEARS AGO: July 1995. I can’t say exactly what i was doing on this day, but it would have been the summer after my freshman year at Ball State. I believe I came home for this three month break, (unlike my other college summers, when I attended summer session classes or later, when I lived in Muncie full time). This July was spent working at Pier One Imports in Florence, Kentucky - day in and day out stocking shelves and setting up cute fake-bathroom displays (which is actually pretty fun), and then driving across the river toward my parents’ house to watch TV or go out with the guy i was dating then. His name was troy. He fixed airplanes for a living. And he drove a late-model ford mustang - of a vintage that was smack in the middle of that car’s ugly body-style period. Man. That takes me back. I can almost smell the exhaust.

FIVE YEARS AGO: July 2000. I’m living alone in a crumbling monster of a victorian apartment on 4th street. CW is in Muncie, attempting to finish a degree he will finally give up on three years later. We’re barely on speaking terms (for various reasons), my apartment walls are painted colors that resembles dried blood in some rooms and the hue of a cancerous lung in others, and I am working the most hellish corporate job of my life—as an editorial coordinator for McGraw-Hill. My boss is an insufferable bully who makes at least one person cry in her office each week, and my 9-5 life is a 4×4 grey cube. I run, angrily, relentlessly, at the LA Fitness on Roswell Road every day after work, and spend my weekends watching TV and wondering where my life went so very wrong and so very boring. It’s also about this time that I pick up an old brochure from the Portfolio Center, and, on a whim, submit ads drawn in colored pencil (for the new candy-colored imacs, dial soap, and for FBI recruitment) to the college. Later, to my surprise, i’m accepted.

ONE YEAR AGO: July 8, 2004. This one i can substantiate by going back through my work files. Apparently, i was working on the chattahoochee river keepers video (unaware of the huge debacle it will very soon become), and planning for burning man. Geesh, are we WAY behind on that this year, compared to where we were last year.

YESTERDAY: Was my brother’s birthday. He flew into town earlier this week to talk to my employers about coming to work here on a contract basis. I worked on an ad for a carpet recycling program, ate lunch at Fellini’s in Candler Park with Kenzie and Dan 1, and met Mindy to pick up miss Jane (she’s been staying there since my trip to NYC last weekend). Then, Kenzie and i met CW for dinner at Chow Baby, and then headed off to the brewhouse for birthday drinks, after trying to get both Dans to come out and celebrate with us. (they were both sick/tired and declined.) After that, we all watched the second Kill Bill and then went to bed.

TODAY: Toured my future apartment (we’re moving at the end of july, when kenzie comes down to take a job here) - and learned what 9 years of two guy roomates living together looks like. It’s not pretty and involves copious amounts of mold, nasty ashtrays, dingy walls, and layers of disgarded socks lounging in corners. The complex assures me they will clean, sanitize, re-paint, sandblast and de-louse every corner of the unit before we move in. Good god, they’d better. After leaving the apartment tour, I got into a strange, almost comical verbal cat-fight with my across-the-hall neighbor—an incredibly bitter little bitch with a rat of a dog that likes to taunt jane and arrow from outside our apartment door. The girl lets the dog off the leash to run through the building, and it makes a b-line toward my door every time, starting a snarling, barking melee on both sides of the door. I asked her today, very nicely may i add, to not let her dog do that - and she gave me this incredible ‘eat shit’ look. I kind of sighed, and said, ‘ok.’ and continued down the stairs, where, at the point at which i was a safe distance away and she was easily able to run inside her apartment without fear of retribution, she screamed down at me somethinng about ‘how dare you even ask me about my dog when yours bark constantly…yadda yadda nasty bitchy ranting…” Whereas i replied something to the effect that she’d do better to ‘come down and say those lovely things to my face, but oh wait, apparently she’s a coward piece of shit.’ I think kenzie was expecting to see a full-on girl brawl - and was probably sorely disappointed when it didn’t happen. Man. Can’t wait to go home today.

Tonight i will meet Dana for dinner and drinks in the highlands, and then likely stumble home to bed.

TOMORROW: I will attempt to clean my disgustingly neglected apartment, organizing certain key areas that have become clogged with crap, and begin to think about how best to begin to move my stuff to the new apartment. I will probably take the dogs to the park, run, read some books i’ve been neglecting, have some wine, and then watch digital cable until i fall asleep.

5 snacks i enjoy: popcorn, gummi bears, triscuit thin crisps and hummus, fruit (especially cherries and strawberries), and dark chocolate.

5 bands/musicians whose song lyrics i know the most of: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Sarah MacLaughlin, Fiona Apple, and maybe Queen - though I haven’t listened to them with any regularity since high school.

5 things i would do with $100,0o0,000: Buy a big old house and rennovate it. Fix all the things that are wrong with my old but wonderful car, repaint it, and install air conditioning. Quit my job for a year (maybe more) and write a novel. Travel - just get on a plane and keep hopping countries until i get tired of it. Share the wealth: give my parents and brother big lump sums.

5 locations i’d like to run away to: london, san francisco, ireland, new york, some small, georgous town where the big, old house i’m renovating waits for me.

5 bad habits i have: procrastination. over-thinking situations. starbucks addiction. watching too much television. not keeping up with old friends. (and a bonus 6th - not updating my blog enough.)

5 things i like doing: running. reading. writing short stories (though i don’t do it enough). playing with jane/arrow. changing addresses.

5 things i would never wear: skorts. jumpsuits. socks with sandals. one of those crotch-skimming, t-shirt material miniskirts. gold jewelry of any kind.

5 TV shows i like: law and order, CSI, 6 feet under, deadwood, crossing jordan

5 movies i like: rushmore, orlando, garden state, both kill bill movies, white christmas

5 famous people i’d like to meet: jude law, michael rosenbaum (the guy that plays lex luthor on smallville - for the same lustful reason i’d like to meet jude law). wes andersen, kurt vonnegut, dorothy parker (even though she’s dead. hey, it’s a wish list).

5 favorite toys: my ipod. my powerbook. my pentax optio camera. my bmw 2002 (both toy-like and transportive). the wonderfully analog pedometer i got at neocon.