Where to start?

Does anyone else out there feel like they will never, ever get totally organized? Do you feel like you'll ever get to the point where you think, "O.K., now I've got everything set just right, and I can start exploring new things and really put my heart into it?" Because I'm slowly coming to the realization that this is never going to happen for me, and the only question remaining is, can I live with this?

O.K. that in and of itself is a stupid question--of course I can live with it. I'm not going to kill myself over the fact that I'm probably never going to go through the unpacked boxes in my basement, or that it's a pretty safe bet that my entire house will never be completely clean all at the same time. The question is, will I ever get to the point where I accept this fact of life and don't obsess about it constantly?

I wonder about this all the time--how do people manage to get things done, on any kind of consistent basis, while carrying on with their day-to-day requirements/activities? Because, despite not even having kids, I never seem to have time to really get on top of . . . well, anything. I manage to maintain a lifestyle where I don't live in filth, get most of my bills paid on time, and, with some effort, can track down some important paperwork when needed. But I always feel like I'm barely hanging on as far as all that goes. For example, if someone asked me to produce my passport right this very moment . . . well, I could produce it by the end of the night, probably. But right off the top of my head? I'm just not sure where it is. Ditto for my Social Security card. Last year's tax documents. This year's tax documents. My dog's vet records. My 401K information. (How much, exactly, do I have saved for retirement thus far? Couldn't tell you.) It's all just too much.

I do wonder sometimes, though, exactly where the time goes. What if I came up with a plan, in which I totally clean and/or organize one thing per night, until I'm all caught up? Good plan, huh? Yeah, that's never gonna happen.

Tonight, for example. I tried to set a goal of cleaning the bathroom. That's the one thing I set out for myself to accomplish before the day was over. Simple, right? Easily accomplished? Well, here's how my day went:

7:00-6:00: Work. Yes, I am working 11-hour days right now, minimum. Doesn't help much as far as accomplishing anything else goes.

5:30-7:00: Talk to a friend on the phone. (Obviously, this overlapped with working. I'm trying to multitask my many responsibilities.)

7:00-7:30: Mess around on the computer a bit. (Note that with the new Mac, I could be doing this 24 hours a day and still wouldn't make a significant dent in exploring the possibilities of my new computer. More on this later.)

7:30-9:00: Walk the dog. We started off at the park, with all of our fellow dog-walking friends, where we stayed for about half an hour. Then, it was such a beautiful evening, we just had to go on an extended walk. It was gorgeous and peaceful.

9:00-now: Got home and realized I had absolutely no desire to clean the bathroom--I just wanted to write. Also realized I'd totally neglected to eat dinner. Also, I'm tired. There's not going to be any bathroom cleaning tonight . . . so when? There's a whole new to-do list for tomorrow night (basically, laundry), which means bathroom cleaning will happen . . . when? I really don't know.

Other people manage to clean their bathrooms and get other shit done. How?? I'd love to know. Of course, maybe most of them don't have blogs . . . .

eHarmony Update

Great. I tried to log back in to see if there were any other "matches" besides Christopher in the last hour, and the web site is not recognizing my password--the password I know is right, since I just signed up and wrote it down--it's sitting right here in front of me. And their support center is closed today for "maintenance."

I just really want to slap someone right now . . . .

I've Been Had

O.K., so some of you know about my new plan, which was . . . to sign up for Match.com. Originally, I was only going to sign up to mine for blog fodder--after spending a few hours trolling around on the site, I realized it was rich with potential blog material. Some of the pictures these people post, the things they write in their profiles, even their nicknames, are just--ridiculous, nonsensical, absurd, hilarious. (Would you contact a guy whose nickname is "plushbunnies"? How about "fuggindude"? Dude--what???) It also surprised and kind of alarmed me that, after specifying that I was looking for men, ages 30-45, within 50 miles of the greater Columbus area, the site brought up a bunch of pictures--and I recognized three of them! One is a guy who hangs out at a local bar I sometimes go to--and up until about two months ago, he was hanging out there with his wife. Now, his profile says he is separated and looking for his "soulmate--that special lady to share his life with." Yeah, buddy, that's a great idea--why not hop right back on the horse, right? Another is --get this--the attorney who represented my husband in the divorce. I didn't notice the phrase "complete and total asshole" in his profile, so obviously he's not representing himself accurately. The third I will refer to as "the woman-man from Match.com." You should see his profile photo--he's got feminine features to start with, and he wasn't helping himself out by posting a photo showing his long, lovely hair pulled back in a ponytail and resting on his shoulder. I kept staring at this picture, thinking they'd put a woman on the guys' page by accident, when I suddenly realized he is a man, and that I've seen him jogging on the bike path. When you live in Columbus, it truly is a small world.

There were plenty of other noteworthy things I saw on this site, including:

• A guy who obviously cut and pasted his profile photo out of a modeling publication, complete with shirtless shot, 6-pack abs, and an artsy black-and-white background. This guy also claimed to be an American and native English speaker, but upon reading his profile, it's totally obvious English is his second language. It was like reading a profile posted by Borat. (His tagline? "Looking for someone that need nice man." His religion? "I believe on Jesus.")
• A lot of people who were unclear about how to fill out their profiles in the first place. See, when you first sign up, you answer all these basic questions about yourself--age, job, marital status (hopefully single or divorced!), whether you smoke, how often you drink, whether you have children and how you feel about having children, etc. You also describe what answers to these questions are acceptable to you in a potential partner. A lot of people, however, give contradictory answers to these questions. For example: "Do you want children in the future?" [Answer: Yes.] "How many children do you want? [Answer: None.] There's more of this type of thing going on than you might think.
  
• One thing I noticed is that there are some things everyone answers in the same way. Everyone loves to travel. Everyone loves the outdoors. No one likes to play games, and everyone is looking for someone who doesn't like to play games. (Headgames, that is, not board games. Board games are O.K.) Everyone loves dining out, especially at ethnic restaurants. Staying in and snuggling on the couch while watching movies with your sweetie is completely acceptable, but no one fesses up to spending some Sunday afternoons watching Law & Order for three hours. No one!

Anyway, I could go on and on, and maybe I'll revisit this in the future, but it's not the point right now. The thing is, as I was perusing the site, I found that there actually were some interesting guys on there. With some of the profiles I read, I found myself thinking that I wouldn't mind meeting this person. So, why not give it a try? I hadn't yet subscribed--you can troll around and create a preliminary profile for free--but I was seriously considering it.

Around this time is when all the computer stuff happened, and I wound up with my new (wonderful, fabulous) Mac. And I discovered that when I tried to log in to my Match.com profile, everything was all screwed up. I couldn't access or edit my profile, and I couldn't download a photo. I couldn't do much of anything. I e-mailed their support group, but I haven't heard back yet . . . and I started to get restless.

So, earlier today, I thought, as long as I was going to do it anyway, why not try another site until Match.com gets back to me (if they ever do)? And so, I logged on to eHarmony.

I should have clued in right off the bat, when I saw that they only match heterosexuals--no gay matching at this site. That irked me immensely--what's up with that? Did I really want to join a site that had yet to enter the 21st century? Big red flag. But, against my better judgment, I signed up anyway. I then spent about two hours that I will never get back filling out their "personality profile" forms, where they ask you about everything, multiple times. And, as they admonished me over and over to do, I tried to be completely honest--I didn't sugarcoat anything. Those of you who know me know what this entails. I was straight up about children, partying, politics, religion (or lack thereof)--everything. And, I actually paid the initial subscription fee, which is $60 for a month. (After that, it goes to $40 per month--still pretty steep, if you ask me.) And I clicked "submit" and waited for the 60 or so matches that I expected would pop up immediately, as they did on Match.com. And waited. Refreshed the page, waited some more. Finally, I got one match--Christopher from Pickerington. O.K., first of all, I'm not going to date anyone from Pickerington. It's too far away, and the people there tend to be--how shall I put this?--hicks. But, I clicked on his profile anyway, since . . . well, since there were no other options. Here's the basis of Christopher's profile:

"Christian man seeks girl-next-door type who will make our relationship the priority in her life."

Um, no. No, and no, and no. No no no. This is what I spent two hours and $60 for??!! They were supposed to match me up based on about 1,600 measures of compatibility, and they got exactly zero of them right. This seems to be almost a litigious-worthy situation. For those of you who are attorneys--thoughts?

The Buttons Are Back!!

Burb, in his infinite kindness and generosity, called me back to explain how to integrate Firefox and Blogger, so now I can once again do this! And this! And, that's about it right now, but I'm sure I'll figure out other stuff eventually. Like how to post a photo to my blog home page, maybe?

Actually, I'll do a little experiment here and try to post a photo of my niece. O.K., I did it, as you can see, but how to move it? I can't figure out how to move it from the beginning of the post to the end. Burb is going to regret ever offering to help me, I suspect!

(Sorry to inundate my blog with all this computer-related stuff. I'm sure it's not that interesting to a lot of you, but . . . I'm in love! And, as people tend to do, I'm inclined to ramble on and on about my new love interest as I explore the beginnings of our relationship. Please bear with me!)

I Am Clueless

O.K., I downloaded Mozilla Firefox--now what??

My Life Is an Onion Article

O.K., if I had to pick a title for my life right now, it would be:

Yet Another Area Woman Can't Get Over How Much Her iPod Has Changed Her Life

Trite, but true. Well, that, along with the new computer--my life truly is transformed. For one thing I've discovered an affinity for multitasking at home. Earlier tonight, I was writing an e-mail, downloading music, eating, and watching Law & Order--all at the same time! It was awesome. The music thing is blowing my mind. It's slowly dawning on me that I have access to just about any music I want, at any time. I know I sound like Rip Van Winkle, but what can I say? It's all new to me.

Speaking of which, I'm finding the Mac extremely easy to use, although I do have a few questions that I can't find answers to in any of the provided materials. Without further ado . . .

Top 10 Questions for Apple

1. What if I don't want to log on to your website for the answer to my question?
2. What if I CAN'T log on to your website?
3. Could leg sweat harm my laptop? How?
4. I'm still having Internet connection problems. Could you kick WOW's ass for me?
5. I just figured out that I need to use the apple key instead of the control key for control-plus functions. Why didn't your salesperson tell me that? Seems it would be a pretty common issue.
6. Why do you charge $200 more for a black computer than a white computer, even if they're the exact same computer?
7. That's not a racist thing, is it?
8. Why do people continue to buy black computers?
9. Why don't you write a Freakonomics article about that topic?
10. Why don't I write a Freakonomics article about that topic?

See, I'm getting all kinds of inspiration from this new computer stuff . . .

(Legitimate question for burb: Why have I lost all my text formatting capability in Blogger?)

A Whole New World

O.K., guess where I am? On my couch! And why, you ask, is that so exciting? Well, usually while blogging, I would be up in my office, where the computer is . . . but now, the computer can be anywhere I want it to be, because--I got a laptop! And a router! And it's a Mac, my first one ever, and I actually figured out how to set the whole thing up myself, so yes, I'm feeling a little proud right now. Granted, they've made things pretty user friendly since the last time I bought a computer, but still, there were a lot of steps involved, and I'm kind of amazed I didn't screw anything up.

The funny thing is, I sort of got tricked into buying this new computer--by my old computer. It was giving me some trouble last week--running really slow, trouble connecting to the Internet, etc. I kept running the anti-spyware programs, defragging, scanning discs, etc., and nothing really helped. Finally, yesterday morning, I couldn't get on the Internet at all, and I just got fed up. I've needed a new computer for a long time--my old one was from 2000--so I just decided to bite the bullet. And I bit it big-time, because as we all know, Macs aren't cheap.

Anyway, after a surprisingly pleasant sales experience at the Apple store, I headed home with all my new toys--computer, router, printer, and, to top it all off, an iPod Nano. I got out the manual, set everything up, and then tried to get on the Internet . . . and nothing happened. As it turns out, the whole problem was with my Internet connection, not my computer. So, thanks to my Internet provider, I'm out $1700, but it's totally worth it. I have iTunes at home! I can watch Quicktime videos! I have a new printer with a scanner and I can . . . scan things! And, I finally got an iPod! You know what's better than walking your dog through the woods on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? Walking your dog through the woods on a beautiful Sunday afternoon while listening to your favorite music. Our walks are going to be a whole new experience.

So, I'd like to take a moment to welcome myself to the 21st century. It's about time.

Heather needs . . .

. . . well, for one thing, more sleep. After eight years of a steady 9-to-5 (or, sometimes, 8-to-6) job, I've finally reached the point where I can't sleep in anymore. Don't get me wrong--this was never a goal, it just happened. I've become so accustomed to getting up at a certain time every morning (which, lately, is about 6:00) that, even on the weekends, I can't seem to sleep past 7:00 or maybe 8:00 if I'm lucky. I've always known people--even people without children!--who experience this, but I've never understood it. Sure, you might naturally wake up at a certain time because your body's used to it, but why not just go back to sleep? For many years, I was able to do this, but no more. Lately I've found that as soon as I wake up, my mind starts to race--I just start thinking about stuff, and it's impossible to get back to sleep. Is this just a part of getting older? Teenagers and young adults can sleep like the dead; older people, not so much. So, apparently I've moved into the category of "older people." I'm trying to look at this as a positive thing, though, for two reasons--one, I need to appreciate the fact that I have interesting things going on in my life to think about, and two, waking up early gives me more time to get stuff done.



But anyway, that's not what this post is about. I'm totally ripping off an idea I got from another blog. (I would link to this other blog, but I can't find it now. I do a lot of blog-trolling, and I lost track of which one I saw this on . . . oh well.) Anyway, the idea is to Google your name with "needs" after it (e.g., "Heather needs") and see what pops up. I totally recommend trying this at home, kids--everyone enjoys the narcissistic experience of Googling their own name, right? (Well, except child molesters, I guess, and other assorted criminals . . . but I digress.)



Anyhoo, here are my top five "needs," according to Google. This totally cracked me up.



Heather Needs Men . . . Now!

Heather needs to start wearing a brassiere

Heather Needs Two Therapists

Heather needs something more to be satisfied

Heather Needs Gatorade



So, apparently, the Heathers out there in Googleland tend to be slutty, thirsty, unfulfilled, and in serious need of therapy. (Two therapists are needed! One won't do!) Hmmm.

Experiment

So, yesterday I left a half-full cup of chocolate pudding in the fridge at work. (In the work cafeteria, they sell these huge cups of pudding, so I usually only eat half of it, or I share it with someone. Sometimes our whole lunch table shares a cup. We're tight like that.) Anyway, today I get to see if the pudding is still there, or if someone took it.

This has happened before.

Not Everybody Loves Raymond

Have you ever noticed how, if you have cable, some shows are on, like, all the time? It seems some of the smaller networks just don't have much in their reportoire, and so they wind up showing the same stuff over and over. Sometimes, this is a good thing--e.g., if I find myself wanting to just veg out for an hour or so in the evening, I can almost always watch Law & Order. And if I want to veg out for half an hour, I can almost always watch Scrubs. But there is a dark side to this phenomena, as I experienced the other day when I accidentally watched an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, which is another show that's on all the friggin' time. Unfortunately.


So, how did I "accidentally" watch this show, you ask? Fair enough question, but I swear, it was a legitimate mistake. I was talking on the phone and had the T.V. on (muted) and was channel surfing (yes, while the T.V. was muted. Doesn't everyone do this??). Then the phone conversation got suddenly very interesting, and I stopped channel surfing to devote my attention to the call. The phone call went on for a while, and when it was over, I hung up the phone and unmuted the television in one fluid, subconscious movement. (Yes, I'm graceful like that.) And I sat there for a while, thinking about the conversation I'd just had. Gradually, it dawned on me that the T.V. was no longer showing the program I had landed on when I stopped surfing (The Simpsons) and was now showing another program (You Know What). And I had been kind of watching this new show for a few minutes (while thinking, you know?), and now I was kind of actively watching it, completely by accident. Makes total sense, yes?


And there's just no other way to say this--I fucking hate this show. It's not funny. The entire concept is so tired. (Seriously, how many sitcoms have been done or are being done right now centering around the whole suburban-family-with-idiosyncracies shtick? Count them. I dare you.) Every character in this show is a stereotype taken to the extreme. The nagging, intrusive mother-in-law. The boorish father-in-law who never misses an opportunity to say something hateful and not-funny about his wife. The doofus older brother. Adorable children who just kind of hang around sometimes but are mostly absent and have no discernible impact on the lives of their parents.* An assortment of wacky neighbors, acquaintances, maintenance guys, and hangers-on. And, my personal favorites--the bitchy, annoying wife with absolutely no sense of humor, whose personality has been molded by the fact that her husband is a whiny, childlike character who can't be depended on to rear their (mostly absent) children correctly or to make any thoughtful decisions whatsoever, and so the situation has devolved to the point where he is basically another one of her children and a constant source of stress to her, as well as a constant receptacle of her bitching, and they never have sex, and when they do it's a major event, and the whole show revolves around this. Absolutely fucking hilarious.


The really insipid part, though, is that this show was conceptualized and is presented as the Everyman Show. Everything about it is designed to appear . . . well, take your pick--normal (whatever that is), bland, average, unremarkable, inoffensive, noncontroversial. The people are average looking. The house is bland. There's not a single character developed to the point of being even slightly interesting. And nothing ever happens. (And not in the way that nothing ever happens on Seinfeld--that was intentional.)


So, what we wind up with is a show featuring the scenario like the one I saw the other night. Please forgive me for actually outlining the plot of an ELR episode, but it's kind of essential to the post:


In brief, Raymond and his brother are out of town on a trip for some reason, and they're hanging out in this hotel room (which is the noncontroversial thing for two grown men on their own in a strange city to be doing). One thing leads to another (through, of course, an unlikely yet wacky but still innocuous chain of events that I won't try to recreate here), and they wind up losing Raymond's wedding ring. As gripping and drama-ridden as this plot turn already is, it gets even more complicated. At the airport waiting for his flight home the next day, Raymond gets hit on by an extremely attractive woman who, of course, is irrisistibly drawn to this average looking, not very clever man due to the fact that he is not wearing a wedding ring. (Yep, that's pretty much how it is with us single women. We see a bare wedding-ring finger, we move in for the kill.) Raymond graciously yet politely turns her down, immediately (which is the noncontroversial thing for a grown man . . . ah, you get the point). So, whew! Close call there, huh? Isn't that enough drama for one episode?


Oh no, it is not. In fact, we're just getting started. Raymond makes it home, and eventually his wife finds out about both the lost ring and the hitting-upon incident (despite Raymond's not-very-smart-yet-wacky attempts to conceal both from her). And, of course, she totally hits the roof. She's furious with him for accidentally losing his ring and then being hit on by someone while he's just passively sitting around. The fact that he subsequently turns this person down doesn't seem to matter one bit--someone hit on him while he was sitting in the airport! And that's the dramatic tension that needs to be resolved by the end of the half-hour. This situation is presented as an actual problem.


You know what my problem is? The fact that this show ran for almost 10 years and was wildly popular. And the fact that it will probably be in syndication for about the next 125 years and will continue to be watched by millions of people every day--on purpose! This is the kind of thing that makes me cynical about the future of humankind.



*This will heretofore be known as the "Rachel and Ross's Baby Syndrome." That kid was never around. It was like they never had her. This, to me, has a much more negative impact on the minds on our youth than any depiction of drug use, premarital sex, etc. Really, you have all these shows where people have babies and then just carry on with their lives as usual. What a cruel message to send to young people.