God, I feel like I've been out of town or something. What's happening in the world? What's happening in your lives? I haven't had a good "what's up" kind of a question in a while, so how's this: what's going on in your life right now? Get me up to speed.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Answers

I'm trying to get in gear to do some gardening, but first we have to replace the fence all around our yard, which is no small task.

Also, a friend of ours sold his parents' house and wants to wait to buy a condo or whatever, so he's going to be staying with us (and paying to do so) for a few months. Which should be both nice and weird. I haven't had a roommate who wasn't a boyfriend since I was in college.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Sick child
Distracted husband
Cat on the outs
Good job
Planning to do my own web page thing. Need a creative outlet for myself.
Not too much else.
Dinner with the in-laws over the weekend.
Running errands with and without the hubby, but always with the daughter on Sunday.
Back at work today.
That's it. :)

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

We're gearing up for a progressive dessert/appetizer/beer thing on our block next weekend; we're hosting all the kids on the block (about 8 of them, aged 6-13) because we've got the biggest house (bwah-hah-hah!). Unfortunately, having the biggest house means having the biggest cleaning job to get done. Anyway, all the other parents get an evening off from their kids and they buy us all pizza.

I'm also learning how to play the recorder, playing Might & Magic VIII, and continuing to avoid bottling my beer, wine, mead, and cider. That last part I've got down cold.

Crocuses are just starting to push up through the last remants of snow. We've got the bird feeders out and filled in hopes of attracting beaucoup birds to chase the pigeons away this spring.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Oooh, my garden is shaping up nicely. I've got lettuce, spinach, mustard, raddichio and sugar peas in the veggie garden. A row of sweetpeas lines the trellis fence in various stages of growth, from almost blooming to seedling; soon I shall have a colorful, fragrant fence! My iceland poppies are finally producing faster than the slugs can eat them, the foxglove is thinking about blooming, the freesia has started blooming and the dutch iris are probably going to bloom right about the time I'm on vacation :-(

There's more afoot in the garden, but that's enough for now.

The big, exciting news is that I'm going to Spain for two weeks on Saturday! I'm going to spend about 3 days in Barcelona by myself, then I'll take the night train down to Granada, where I'll probably do another day of sightseeing by myself. Then to market in Orgiva, where I'll meet up with my sister who's been backpacking around Europe and N. Africa for the past year. She's going to teach me to hitchike so we can go back to her little commune where she's living these days... it sounds like paradise; I can't wait!

I'm focusing on the trip, so I won't bitch about the bad parts of my life....I'm going to Spain!!!!

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

It's very depressing to read how all of your gardens are taking off...we still have tons of snow on the ground and haven't been above 35 degrees yet. It's all part of Alaska, but gets very hard to take this time of year. So we are shovelling snow around the yard and getting ready to move plants into the unheated sunroom...hopefully it will be warm enough in the next week or so. Otherwise, the big excitement is that tomorrow I get interviewed by the local newspaper on some research I've been doing (holdover from my grad school thesis). This would be even more exciting if the interview wasn't happening in my house...which means we are cleaning cleaning cleaning!!! Where does all this dirt come from?? I think I'll shave the dogs today..

Cheers!

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

After 3 years of "time off" after college, I'm finally gearing up to go back to grad school this fall. This involves many hours on planes visiting different programs, frantic organization of work stuff so I can leave useful notes for whoever winds up with my job, and lots of tough decisions about where I want to live and what I want to do with my life. I'm a little overwhelmed right now, but also pretty excited.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

At this late age I am striving to perfect my communication skills. I am trying to learn more about people I meet and what drives them. In the exciting venue of journals - diarys - or whatever the hell the writer wants call them, I have entered a world with such unlimited vistas that I wish I could be more knowledgeable last year. Of course up with me also is the daily routine required for survival, but that is also a measuring rod for me to compare my life to other lives. Why ? Because I am me !

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

What's going on? Um, not an awful lot, and most of it's film-related. One of the guys from the community radio station where I work is setting up a film-related website to which he wants me to contribute, and he's hoping to get that up and running sometime this month. I get a week off the show next week because it's Persian New Year and the group who broadcast the Persian show over the weekend have bought our timeslot for special extra programming to celebrate. I'm on air again on the 27th. The Chauvel cinema is showing "Andrei Rublev" tomorrow so I'll probably go to that. And I'm doing a film history course at the University of Sydney. In non-film related news, I wrote an essay over the weekend and may write another in the next few days. And, um, I think that's kind of it

Tonight We Sleep In Separate Ditchesa lot goes on, but nothing happens

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2000

Lets' see, had a decent sized party last Saturday. Spent the week leading up to it cleaning and shopping.

I'm on my crazy weekend schedule again -- either I'm going someplace or someone is coming over every weekend for a very long time.

I'm swamped with weddings -- my own, my sister's, my fiance's sisters -- all happening in the next 6 months.

And I'm dying to do some gardening. I bought seeds and supplies to start growing some plants indoors and I need to find the time to get them started. The fringes of Spring are hitting my area of New York and it won't be much longer now.

And I'm paying too freaking much for gas. 1.93 for super today, 1.73 for regular. I sure wish I could take the train to work!

Colleen Alone in A Crowd

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

Moving to San Francisco. Yes that's right -- run in fear, I'm joining the West Coast contingent.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

What's happening around here? Breaking up with my boyfriend of three years, moving into my own place this weekend, hoping I can pay the bills, trying to decide if I can go back to school next semester, looking forward to being alone.

I've never looked forward to being alone before, but I've never spent so much time being berated, criticized, and questioned before. I'm better off alone. Remind me of this in two months, please.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

Hey, I just quit my job today and agreed to go back to New York -- the big firms are competing with the dot coms to get lawyers, and corporate litigation in NYC now pays nearly three times what I'm making here in Boston. When my old NYC firm called, it was impossible to say no.

Color me surprised. When I left the city eighteen months ago, I would have said that no amount of money would be worth going back to working all those late nights and weekends. But, hey, outlooks change. And I have learned that money is really, really valuable. Children, man. Children are the parents of greed.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

Trying to keep a baby marriage going (they aren't kidding when they say the first year's the hardest)

Taking up smoking again (see above...)

Having fun with my own journal (Read me! Oh please please read me!)

Playing too much Playstation

Going to school -- trying to get a Master's in Library Science

Not much else, alas. I wish I could have a garden, but we have no yard at all. Just a teeny patch of dead grass that never gets any sun.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

What is up, what is up--I'm going to CU-Denver tonight so they can tell me what I need to take to enter the education program. I graduated with an English major at a U.S. university without a single class in American lit, so if I teach high school English they'll want me to have read some Hawthorne. But I have, I have! Just not officially. (I did the English major quick-like in two semesters; but at least I did more than fulfill all the requirements for my History major, which did require U.S. coursework.)

In February I found a not-open-for-the-season new-to-me shop called the Potted Garden and I hope they can tell me what chances cherry tomatoes would have on my deck, and if I can plant more imaginative than petunias and pansies (which I really like, though), and how not to kill seedlings, and stuff like that. I'm going there Sunday.

The most important thing in the past 24 hours was the laugh I had through Mary Ellen's link to Modern Humor and Harry Potter's work of staggering genius. Has anyone but me and Kymm read both Eggers and Rawlings? I tried to explain it to my spouseling who's read neither-- that didn't work. Anyway, I kept laughing all night, remembering.

Otherwise, for what's up--I might go to Boston in late April, I have to bring a friend to DIA tomorrow morning at 5:15, I need to find a wedding present for my notstepsister, Blake's growing in two more tail feathers including a long center one, my hair was cut unevenly, I was stoked to be one of the one-in-six who got the long census form, I'm going skiing on Saturday, and the nonnative trees in Denver are in bud.

In the news, anti-snowmobile sentiment is building and hopefully Yellowstone will be spared their noise and air pollution forevermore, and Ambassador Duke is running for president.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

Agggh. I'm in the middle of negotiating a job offer. I really really want this job, but I also want a little bit more money. It's hard not to feel greedy, but everyone tells me to negotiate, so I will!

In the meantime, though, I have to finish my stupid thesis. Aiyeee!! That's going to be hard; I'm completely not interested anymore. *sigh* And I'm dying to just pack up my stuff and go start my new job.

It's in D.C. (if it all works out, nothing's signed yet.) Anyone from D.C.? Any advice on how to look for an apartment? My SO is in California; I'm prolonging our 2-body problem for awhile, but this is a wicked cool job, and I think I'll be happy in my work for a change.

So, life's hectic. I've been a bit mellow on my site lately, though. Funny how that works.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

Let's see......I just got back from visiting my family in California.

Work is really good, I am in the middle of designing sites for a couple of products we are launching in the next couple of months.

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait for summer. We just bought a jeep. It will be fun in the summer.

My baby Oliver(our puppy) got the jewels snipped yesterday. He was really grumpy and out of it last night. So hopefully he will return to normal soon.

We are looking for a house right now. It is so frustrating to try to find something we like in our price range. Hopefully it will work out.

I think that is about it. Not too exciting.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

dealing with full-blown 24/7 "morning" sickness. :(

everything else is secondary at the moment. http://members.xoom.com/angstbabe

- t

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

It's looking as though I may well be following Beth K. back to San Francisco. In and of itself this is a pretty good thing (it's a nice place to live, I've missed it), but boy am I not looking forward to packing up all my stuff yet again!

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2000

Busy with full-time schooling and an awfully boring job.For all of you coming back to sanfran.,prepare yourselves.the housing and rental markets have gotten tougher then ever.Of course if you work for a dot.com,you'll probably find an easier fit,in both work and in finding a place to live. lets see, ah,back to my to my midnight studies...Utopianism,Ideal- societies,eh-hogwash!Were probably all in the sinker...

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2000

lessee.. I'm just never happy, but that's not really new. I came back from holiday in Sri Lanka [2 weeks!] to discover I lost all interest in my job, my flat, everything.
Hopefully this will change again, I'll work more on my site, loose weight, change jobs, you name it.

It probably all comes from having a boring job and a long-distance relationship. Makes me want to find a closer, better job, but boy this is hard!

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2000

Well -- I'm not moving _back_ to SF:) This will be my first time living in the Bay Area -- you could say I'm a Bay Area virgin ..

At any rate, the job is a Linux startup in Oakland, so we will be living on that side of the Bay, rather than SF proper.

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2000

What's up with me is that I'm on a jury for the first time in my life!

-- Anonymous, March 16, 2000

Finals. Last night, in the midst of nervous breakdown #3 for the day (complete with caffeine-fed sobbing and singing of love songs to my cat), I adopted a stress-relief mechanism you mentioned at some point or other: after I finished with each notecard, I tossed it frisbee-style across the room. In addition to providing the cat with entertainment (she'll stay up all night with me, bored and pissy), it made a jolly mess on top of the jolly mess already established. Considering that I went through 4 100-card packs (using both sides for most of them) this quarter, I have to ask--how did your roommate handle the paper carpet of notes for the week the cards stayed there?

-- Anonymous, March 16, 2000

Since my roommates were all cats at that point, they managed to overlook the issue.

I don't think I did the note card throwing thing when I still had human roommates.

-- Anonymous, March 16, 2000