I’m off to Nina’s this afternoon after work. I’ll be back in town Tuesday night.  Not sure if I’ll have internet while I’m gone — and not sure I want to take the time to post. So if you don’t hear from me…

I pray your Easter brings refreshment and rest, and that your spirit is renewed with the hope of Christ.

I’m sitting on my porch, looking out at the greying sky. The sun has just set, in a storm of reds and yellows. I felt sad when I saw it  disappear beyond the horizon. It was such a beautiful day, it seems a shame to let it end.

I washed my car today — just the cheaper, drive-though kind where I vacuumed it myself and drove out still slightly dripping water. Isn’t it amazing how good a freshly washed car can make you feel!

I spent over 20 minutes scraping off this obnoxious sticker the apartment complex had put on my front windshield, right in front of the driver’s seat. They claimed, in this sticker, I’d be towed if I parked where I was parked again. Even though there are no "No Parking" signs or red curbs anywhere to be seen. The complex manager — a rather obnoxious jerk of a man — said Metro Police had put the sticker on. Come on. Would a Metro officer really be stupid enough to put a sticker that won’t come off right in front of the driver’s side? I don’t think so. Law enforcement gives tickets and warnings… things in PAPER where they have a copy of it for future reference (also, and more commonly, known as CYA). Anything more permanent than that tends to come with an outrageous fee you must pay them in order to get your car back in driving condition.

I’m pretty much over the whole thing now. But I was very steamed when it happened. Parking is so horrible here that if I don’t get home before 4pm, I’m generally stuck parking about two to three buildings away from mine. Very annoying. Especially late at night, when I’m tired, and its raining. And especially since I then have to walk back down there in the morning, when I"m generally running late for work.

Ah, well. The "joys" of apartment living. When our contract is up in October, Adria and I are moving. She’d already told me she wanted to move closer to downtown and the east side where she works. I still like living in the south, and had at first thought about just finding another roommate. But now I’ve decided I want to move up that direction too — though I’d prefer more around West End or Hillsborough/Vandy/Belmont areas, or a little farther south of there toward Green Hills.

Check me out! I’m finally starting to get to know Nashville the way I know LA. Cool.

I went shopping today too and got sucked in by the 9 West Awesome Clothes Beast. I spent more than I probably "should" have, but I came away with a very cute jacket I can wear with all my business pants, a new pair of pants and two beautiful silk tank tops. Those were the killer items the Beast used to lure me into her lair. And there I succumbed to fashion as I never have before. I went in a level-headed woman, and came out a giggly teenager too excited by her purchases — and the 35% I saved on them by opening a Hecht’s account — to worry about the vast amounts of cash that had just left my possession, albeit through a credit card rather than the cold hard stuff, but gone nonetheless.

Worth it, I say. Completely worth it. I felt pretty in those clothes, something I don’t feel often these days. Definitely worth it.

That was an evening.

I cleaned like a freak. Then sat down to dinner and watched some wonderful eye candy that could actually sing (can we say heaven in seven different languages!!) on American Idol — got a good crop o’men this year…. Then, just when I thought I was all cleaned out, I cleaned some more.

And I did all this before 10pm. Now that’s something to celebrate.

I sat down to write, but got so excited that I could actually SEE the wood on my desk that I thought I’d take pictures. I think the last time I saw it was shortly after I moved in here in, what…. October. Sheesh.

Look — My desk is cleeeeean!

Here’s the view I have from my bed… which, by the way…

…has new sheets!! Yippee! I bought these from Bed, Bath & Beyond, one of my favorite stores. It’s the sateen kind. YUM. They feel sooo soft. I knew the colors would go with my room and tie the blue of the bedroom in with the rich reds and greens from the bathroom, but I didn’t realize how well the design on the sheets went with the rest of my room till I got them home. Check it out….

I’ve got a Rose Theme going.

Cleaned up the dresser too.

And now that I’ve got all this cleaning done…. my throat is killing me every time I swallow. Now that’s a part of my anatomy I didn’t expect to hurt. Odd.

I must be nesting.

Within an hour of arriving home I had straightened up my room (no small feat, I tell you!), made three piles of laundry to walk down to the main building later to wash (oh, how I miss the days of having the machines inside my home!!), stripped and remade my bed, made dinner (and yes, I actually DID make dinner — fish sticks, mashed potatoes and sliced tomatoes) and now I’m sitting down to watch American Idol…. Laundry will come later…

As I was in the midst of this flurry of activity, I started doing some math… yup. I’m nesting. My body is definitely in that rush of energy that comes just before the agony of pain from my head to my… well, you know. Oh joy.

Adria wants cookies. I want ice cream.

Problem is, we don’t have either here.

She’s playing Zelda. I’m reading The Tipping Point.

Neither one of us wants to leave what we’re doing to go get ice cream and cookies.

So I guess we’re stuck in the wanting….

::sigh::

Have you ever had a dream taunt you from just outside your range of memory?

For the last week, I’ve had remnants of dreams that dance around the edges of my peripheral memory, taunting me with a sense of importance and laughing at my inability to grab hold of them and perform a thorough dissection. Moreover, I think I’m having the same dream — or dreams with similar themes, characters and settings — every night, because the dream-wraiths all have a potent air of familiarity. It’s very frustrating. Like still being able to taste the spices from dinner, but not being able to remember what it was you ate. Drives me nuts!

The Guardian — And now for something completely dreary

If you stumbled out of bed in the dark this morning, fell over the cat, found no milk in the fridge for your porridge, had a row with your partner, received a rude letter from the bank, got covered in snow at the bus stop and finally arrived at work in time to be made redundant, you will already know that today is the most depressing day of the year.

And if you want scientific proof, then Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University has it.

He settled on January 24 after using an elaborate formula expressing the delicate interplay of lousy weather, post-Christmas debt, time elapsed since yuletide indulgence, failed new year resolutions, motivation levels, and the desperate need to have something to look forward to.

In short, all that’s left of Christmas today is credit card bills and a pervading sense that the next holiday is months away.

Well, that explains a lot doesn’t it.