Caterwauling

Cat Hair Trap, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

The living room is now a work-in-progress, whereas it was formerly a black hole o’ nothingness. Couch/loveseat fit perfectly.

I just broke my back moving that entertainment center (there’s a 32-inch TV hidden behind the smoked glass, and don’t look too closely ’cause I didn’t hang them straight just yet!), but oh well. Something to sit on to watch that TV!

I’m getting rid of the coffee table/end table, if anyone wants to call dibs. They were donated from a friend, so I’ll donate them forward.

Can’t wait to have time to decorate, although I suspect that won’t happen till June at the earliest. Can we say “apartment-warming”? I knew you could!

Squee!

Ahem.

1. What is your all-time favorite song? You can only choose one.
*perusing iTunes* It would have to be a Bon Jovi song because, really, how could it not be? I’m going to go with “Wild is the Wind,” from their “New Jersey” album.

2. What is the cheapest price per gallon you recall ever paying for gas?
I remember it being below $2, although that was in a galaxy long ago and far away. I’m pretty sure it was around $1 or $1.15 in late 2001, when I started driving (at age 27. Shut up!). 🙂

3. How long do you think you could manage without any Internet access before totally losing your mind?
If it’s a workday, give it 10 minutes (just long enough to go to Starbucks and back) and I’ll be chewing off my own arm in frustration. On a weekend, I can unplug for a few days with only a passing curiosity what drama I might be missing.

4. If you could bring back one canceled TV series, which one would you choose?
I would want to see how “Reunion” turned out. But really, it’s that I miss seeing Mathew St. Patrick in high-def every week. Rowr.

5. Do you use Twitter?
Addicted!

6. Do you use MySpace?
I let all of five people see what I do there. Not so much.

7. Did you celebrate Cinco de Mayo on Saturday?
We celebrated on Friday at work, with a catered lunch from Baja Fresh, a party (which my team and I missed — we went and ate at our desks) and a mariachi band.

The mariachi band strolled the hallways afterward, and our friend Terri walked around with them, with her own sombrero and guitar. One of the musicians was at our party last year, and he asked her out. But when she said, “Are you Jewish?” and he said “What’s Jewish?” we knew it would never work out for them. *sniffle*

8. Have you ever had a mint julep?
Loved ’em — I hosted a fund-raising cotillion one year, and our theme was “An Enchanted Southern Garden.” It was when I decided I should have been a Southern belle and probably was in a past life. We even had the mint juleps in the “right” kind of glasses (my team of volunteers researched it).

9. Would you rather be in a hot dog eating contest or a pie eating contest (assuming you’d have to 5 lbs. of the food)?
Pie, preferably banana cream or sweet potato. If it’s something made with all that nasty fruity gel, I’d go with the hot dogs instead.

10. Ask me something.
When are you getting your new furniture?

From the Hallway, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

The problem with living by a furniture store means that you will be LAST on their delivery route, not first. Which gives you a good five-hour window to wonder whether your brand-new purchase will not only fit through the (small) front door, but whether it will also engulf what you had thought was a decent-sized living room.

I didn’t realize the cats were at the bottom of the shot, so say hi to Maddie (left) and Kadie. They’re like, whoa dude, where’d all the boxes go? (Off to the right, in the dining room, actually!)

So, this is the “before” photo. And I’m hoping the “after” photo actually has furniture in it and that it won’t look like a tiny warehouse/showroom when all is said and done. Funny how I don’t get nervous about much, but this? Makes me batshit, wondering whether today will have a happy ending after all.

Subtitle: Once you go black. …

OK, so after yesterday’s furniture misadventure, sponsored by the flaming assholes at Value City Furniture, I was loath to keep furniture shopping. Because, really, I can spend that money on a MacBook instead. Although I would gander that sitting on a MacBook wouldn’t be quite so enjoyable as a couch, but I digress. 😉

I decided to sleep on the possibility of buying the oyster-colored set I saw last night at a local liquidation sale. And when I woke up, I said enh, fuck it. I’ll keep looking.

So I ended up at my favorite crappy furniture store. I go there a few times a month, just to see what’s new. And when I walked in the door this afternoon, the angels sang hallelujah.

Right inside the door — the first thing I saw — was a black microfiber set. And last night, didn’t those yin-yangs tell me nobody makes black couches anymore, and certainly not in microfiber? Heh, fuck you, assholes. I found the holy grail!

Here’s the set in red, because the black literally just arrived on the showroom floor yesterday:

I sat down right away and was in love. It was a little stiff, but as the sales dude later explained, it hadn’t been adequately tried out by customers yet. I said I had no worries — a few nights a week of my ass plopped on it in front of the TV, and it would feel like a soft, warm hug in no time.

He said, I’ll give you time to think about it. And I said no way in hell was I waiting another minute — ring it up!

For the same price at that big tank of suck called VCF, I could have gotten the sofa, loveseat AND a goddamned dining set. But aw, boo hoo, they lost out. *snaps in a circle* (WTF? Did I just do snaps in a circle?) 😀

I got a discount on delivery because, well, they could walk it to me (after yesterday, hell yeah I stayed local!). And they kicked in some ugly lamps for my trouble, which ironically match my bedroom set. (I never said I liked my bedroom set.) I really wanted the additional overstuffed chair and ottoman, but those added $500 to the bill and I couldn’t do it all.

Delivery is tomorrow, which is awesome because it’s a big week followed by an even-bigger week, so joy. But I kind of laughed because the delivery window? 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nothing like fucking me out of the middle portion of my day. I will probably go into work after the delivery, although I am sorely tempted to stay home the whole day and plant my ass on my new purchase.

I was of course hyperventilating as I handed over my debit card. I said you know, keep the fugly lamps and give a customer a paper bag in which to breathe, will ya. For that much money, I should lose 30 pounds or something just for showing up. Lord knows there are mere PENNIES left in my checking account after this odyssey.

In any event, the color is called “Obsession Black.” I was really trying to move toward red or some other color that would give the house some personality, but alas, I always default to black. When I called to tell my mom that I was buying this set, she mused, “Once you go black, eh?” And I realized, yes, how true that is.

Now to order the black votive coffee table and end table from Brylane, although we need to squeeze in a paycheck or two before I can afford it!

I’m Google-bombing these bitches. Value City Furniture sucks donkey’s balls.

OK, so I’ve had no furniture for the past year. Money’s been tight and well, really, I have a 32″ television and a bed — what more does a girl need?

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been looking. Because I have. Especially in the past month or so since I’ve moved — I have a 1,000-foot apartment that’s looking mighty sparse. And I don’t want to unpack books and knickknacks because I may want to move the shelves, depending on where the furniture will go. So, I continue to fall over my boxes in the interim. Joy.

I’ve been to every furniture outlet known to man — or, at least, the names familiar to D.C. denizens. Marlo Furniture was a waste (and my friend had a really bad experience with them). Sticks ‘n Stuff was a big fat disappointment. Nationwide Warehouse wasn’t worth the drive. Z-Lights had cute stuff but it was a little on the pricey side for the quality, I thought. The list of stores I’ve visited goes on, but I don’t want to give them the airtime.

So, I’ve bought a few things from that shithole Value City Furniture in the past, when I lived in Pittsburgh. Other than the idiot VCF delivery guys who couldn’t fit my overstuffed couch through my second-floor apartment door and left the thing SUSPENDED IN MIDAIR instead of taking it back to the store (no shit, it was wedged and we had to walk under it to get to our apartment. Classy), I’ve loved the stuff. I still have an entertainment center from there.

So I checked out the Web site. I was totally digging the black Calypso set. I would have ordered it straight from the site, had they offered that service. But alas, you have to go in person to order. I ran a search for the closest store and got Falls Church. Meh. I hate Falls Church. It always rains when I have to go to that area, so I always know to expect doom, torture and depression. And today’s voyage? NO DIFFERENT.

The second I got there today, a voicemail appeared from someone I wasn’t disappointed to hear from. 😉 So I actually thought it was a good sign. But really, the day would just go downward from there.

I asked one of the vultures sales associates to take me to the Calypso collection. Which she did, but she bypassed it by three couches. She pointed out something to me, and I thought OK, maybe it’s a new piece I hadn’t seen on the site. So I said great, do they have it in black? (The collection is usually shown in mocha, and I ain’t an earth-tone girl.) She said no, it doesn’t, but she’ll check.

Grr.

So I walked over to the Calypso couch (the one she showed me had another “C” name, and don’t think I didn’t have a few “C” names of my own for HER at the end of this adventure) and planted my ass on it. Comfy. Loved it. Overstuffed microfiber seats, backs and arms; pleather everything else. And the throw pillows were microfiber and pleather in a cool geometric pattern. I love squares and straight lines. This was perfect for me. I hated the brown, but the one I wanted was dark-gray and black. Like everything else I own.

So she comes back and says oh, the thing you’re sitting on comes in black. Um, duh. I said I needed a few moments, but I wanted the couch and the loveseat, but I needed to go hyperventilate into a bag at the thought of spending that much money in one day.

I called my mom and wandered around the store. Found a fantastic dining room set that seats six, and I loved the etagere and the sofa table that matched it beautifully. I wanted it all.

And though it was going to kill me, I decided to buy it all. I work for a living; I can earn more money, right?

It only took me an hour and a half to come to that conclusion, however. But yeah, when I was ready, I was ready.

So, I found the girl (I really don’t care about commission, but I figured I should at least try to give it to her) and was happy to give her what was going to be a $1,500-plus sale, before adding in shipping, tax and protection plans. I was thrilled — finally, my house! Will be livable!

Cue the screeching of brakes.

I give her my shipping address and it’s all, whoa, we don’t deliver out there. I said fine, find a place that does deliver it because I’m paying in CASH and I don’t want any delays. And she said no, dumbshit VCF only delivers within 15 kilometers (the hell?) and I am right outside of that. (I don’t know — it was maybe a 20-mile drive to the store.)

So, basically, the Northern Virginia store doesn’t deliver to D.C. proper, is what she’s saying. And the next-closest stores that have it in stock are in Baltimore and Hagerstown, Md. WHICH I WOULD GANDER ARE MORE THAN 100 MILES FROM HERE.

I wasn’t having it. I said, “Fine. I’ll pay more.”

Now, this is where she would think wow, I’m going to rob this customer of $2,000 and she still says to tack on more charges so she can get this shit. Perhaps there is something I can do to save this sale?

Bwahahahaaaaaa.

She said sorry, nobody will deliver it. But you can take it home yourself, no?

*headslam*

Clearly I decided to shop alone, and me and my iddy biddy widdle sports car wasn’t going to handle a dining set for six and living room seating for six as well. And even if I rented a truck from the lot, what army was going to help me load/unload it? Or, for that matter, to DRIVE the truck?

Sure, I could have rounded up some of the locals — I have very good friends who would probably have gladly helped me out of this jam. But why put them out when I can just pay somebody else for the aggravation?

I was so freaking angry, but I tried to control it. I said, “So that’s it? You’re refusing to deliver it? I drove here — to what YOUR WEB SITE said was the CLOSEST store to my house — to buy furniture IN CASH and I can’t actually HAVE it?”

She said, “Well, yes.”

I said, “And there’s NOTHING I can do or NO ONE who can help me?”

She said, “Not unless you pick it up yourself, no.”

I said, “No sale. And I cannot WAIT to put this on the Internet!” And stormed out of there.

ARGH.

So. Very. Angry. Cannot tell you in simple, typed words how PISSED OFF I am.

I decided to treat myself to lunch after that mess, although don’t we always treat ourselves unless we have some nice young man and/or good friends who will do it for us? Anyway, I rested and mentally came up with a vicious blog entry about just how much VCF sucks, and I was fine.

When I got closer to home in D.C., I decided to visit one more furniture store. For the hell of it. I had seen signs along the road that they were liquidating their inventory. And all these fucking stores act like they’re going out of business 365 days a year, but you can come back in two years and they’re still there, using the same signs to draw in customers.

But the place I saw really WAS liquidating. They had brought in a team of salesmen from their main office and they were throwing deals at me that were almost too good to pass up.

Almost, I say.

I found a great set, overstuffed microfiber loveseat and couch, with a retail price of $1,700. Ouch. The deal they offered me? $901 for both.

Dayum.

They had it in hunter green (but the cushions were all southwestern-y and shit, with cacti and orange accents. Weird) and brown (again, not an earth-tone girl) and a color they call oyster. It’s sort of like sand or stone or what I’d call pebble, but that’s just me. 😉 The brown wasn’t too bad, but it had a nail head trim to it. And I don’t dig that, not one bit.

Not to mention, but the dining sets were tragic, but that’s neither here nor there. As far as the couch, I wasn’t opposed to spending that much money on that nice of a set. Boy, was it comfy. And I felt SMALL on it. The thing is huge. I have a huge place, but I’m not so sure about getting it through the front door, which is miniscule. But to fill up that big living area? This would work.

That pale color bugs me, though. I don’t do lights or whites. I did this whole pebble color with my bedroom — the duvet cover, sheets and pillowcases are this “nothing” color, and I hate it because it stains very easily. You don’t wash it for a week, and it looks dingy. And forget it when cat hair gets on it or if I spill something (what do I mean “if” I spill? LOL) — terrible, terrible purchase aesthetically, although I can’t bitch because it’s a 400-threadcount wonder, and damn, that makes for a good little nap here and there.

So, do I want to dump a grand on a couch/loveseat in the SAME FUCKING COLOR?

The good news about the couch is that they deliver it here. 😉 (Had to ask!) And I could just pick up some throw pillows in my color of choice. And the really sad part? THAT FUCKING OYSTER COLOR MATCHED THE FABRIC ON THE SEATS OF THE DINING TABLE I COULDN’T GET FROM THOSE FUCKHEADS AT VALUE CITY.

The dining set was all black wrought-iron and glass, and the seats had a cream color to the fabric. I didn’t love it but then I saw the new couch and god DAMN it, it would TOTALLY work together.

Grrr.

I don’t know. I’m tired and crabby and frustrated over the whole situation. I decided to sleep on it all. I just want a couch, but I want something I love. I told the guys I just want something black, and they told me to get out of the ’80s and pick a damn color already because nobody makes black couches anymore.

*kick*

Decisions, decisions. Why can’t I get what I want, when I want it, especially if I’m paying for it?

Perhaps I’ll just measure the door tomorrow and try to figure out whether that glorious overstuffed wonder in the fucked-up color will fit through the door. But at least the delivery guys can’t be as fucking moronic as the VCF guys who left my couch jammed at the top of a door frame. One hopes, anyway. …

The real reason I’m sitting here blogging is because I need to waste some time for my cell phone to charge because I forgot to do it last night.

I was just celebrating the one (perhaps only) perk of moving — finding clothes I used to love but that I’d totally forgotten about until I had to go through three wardrobe boxes and nine multi-gallon storage tubs of crap (that doesn’t include the three storage tubs of shoes). Because the shirt I picked for today? Way cute. Seriously, I am loving me today.

Don’t write me off as egotistical — feeling cute doesn’t come around too often, so we celebrate “The Cute” when it happens!

But this brings me to my blog category about Being a Girl. This is where I get to dump my rants on frilly things and where I get to indulge my habits and emotions. The category could easily have more than 136 rants in it (of the ones I bothered categorizing), but those are the ones I choose to publish. If anyone ever got inside my head and saw the things that go unblogged, that category would have at least 40 billion entries.

Like, the ladies’ room at work. There’s a subject that reeks (literally) of the insanity that plagues women. No, I’m not speaking of the gal who stares at herself for a half-hour on end while her (male) supervisor probably searches the rest of the building for her. And she doesn’t just stare at herself — meeting someone’s eyes in the bathroom mirror is just fucking creepy, so you just learn to avert your gaze. Dude, I was just touching myself — now I want to cleanse myself and I really don’t need to have this moment be a shared one. *squick*

But it does bring me to the bathroom door. In archaic style, we had a combination lock on the ladies’ room, but not the mens’. And even though it was rather easy to remember, I am one of those people who waits forever and by the time I get there, the onset of jaundice typically prevents having any time to spare. I always put in the combo incorrectly, and everyone knows me by my high-pitched shriek of “FUCK!” when I screw it up.

I’ll skip the part of when the lock was broken and someone fashioned a rope handle from a computer cable, and I’ll even try not to talk about the big note on the door to remind us to use the rope (as if we missed the LOCK and DOORKNOB being gone). But I will say that I actually MISS that combination lock.

Why?

Because when I’m alone in the bathroom, I don’t just duck out, straightening my clothes on the way out without the benefit of the mirror. I actually take that extra 30 seconds and ensure that I look the way I intended to when I got dressed that morning. And if the underwear just isn’t working with the outfit, I can do a quickie adjustment without anyone seeing.

So of course this leads to the fact that I have my hands down my pants when someone starts to walk in. And I of course thought I had that full three seconds before they entered, but alas, I have about a millisecond to get the hands above the waist unless I want to be remembered as the flasher. In comparison, having one ass cheek hanging out and trying to “walk out” the wedgie seems classy. 😉

Anyway, I type all this not because it’s funny or even because I had a moment of humiliation. (I slobber when I have dinner with the opposite sex; I have no right to be embarrassed by anything else if that doesn’t mortify me. And it can’t bother me, because it happens as sure as the sun shall rise.)

I just say it because you guys just don’t KNOW how much we go through just to seem normal and cool. It doesn’t come naturally — if you think we seem slightly scattered, I assure you, it’s a victory because we’re completely and totally fucked up, most of the time. We’re always wondering if you notice. Some of us try not to care, but yeah, we always think we did something to offend.

And those of us who’ve been around the block a few times know that half the time, y’all don’t even notice the stuff we obsess over thinking you might have witnessed or even perceived. Then you’ve got the girls like me who wonder whether we SHOULD have been embarrassed by something that didn’t particularly bother us at the time it happened or even for awhile afterward.

Now, if you do something, we usually think it’s cute. Even if it isn’t. 😉 But hey, we come equipped with rose-colored glasses — it’s a birth right. But we only use them when we’re looking at somebody ELSE, not ourselves. So for me to declare today as a “cute day,” I assure you, it took a lot for me to think it and a hell of a lot MORE for me to say it. And all because of a shirt!

But today? I own “the cute.” And it is on a day like today that you will see me and not necessarily know what that special spark about me happens to be — you may write it off as that “je ne sais quoi,” and you should — you might not realize right away that I am confident and happy and ready to take on the world.

But that’s the thing — you don’t need to see all the work that went into feeling that way. You just need to appreciate that I got there, and when you admire the best version of me, I will aspire to be that way more and more until it comes naturally.

If you see someone with an extra spring in her step, smile at her today. It might just be me. …

Went to see a play that a friend of mine wrote, directed and starred in. “Mill Town Girls” is currently gracing the stage of the Quotidian Theatre, and it’s a fabulous, fabulous play. And I’m not just saying that because I work with Audrey and it never hurts to be in her good graces. 😉

“Mill Town Girls” is the prequel to a play called “Fin and Euba” that’s won a bajillion awards in the local area and that is going to be turned into a screenplay. (She says they’re shooting the trailer for it Sunday — odd because the film hasn’t actually been shot and they’re doing the trailer first!)

We got to “meet” Fin and Euba in high school tonight and learn how they became who they are. The thing I love about my friend’s writing is that you can’t help but immerse yourself in the scene and characters.

I mean, the woman’s a designer for a living, and detail is her specialty. The play was set in 1986 and everything down to Fin’s bedroom set (which I HAD!) and the posters of Rick Springfield (*swoon*), Don Johnson and Prince in “Purple Rain” (another favorite from then AND now, as it worked its way very seamlessly and memorably into a recent conversation) were just awesome.

And the characters’ clothes! My god, it was like going back in time and being there with them. And because I know the theater-geek types, I find myself paying attention to lighting tricks and sound effects more than I usually do. (I do love that stuff.) Wow, the thought and the work that goes into a simple two-hour production — and for people with full-time day jobs, to boot! Amazing.

As I said, the detail is magnificent. There was one scene I am not going to quote, but I lived it, too, and yep, that’s one of those scenes that you just don’t write off the top of your head. Either she lived it or did her research well, and considering that her upbringing has inspired her plots and characters, I’ll leave it at that. Good theater is entertaining; great theater hurts sometimes, it’s that spot-on.

I don’t want to give anything away in case anyone does want to go see this. (As well you should.) But the Fin character, Veronica del Cerro, was just plain magical. She actually turned down a VERY nice paycheck to star in a Disney pilot (you read that right — a Disney pilot) so she could be part of this production. Star quality, I tell ya.

Stupdendous, stupendous evening. Why these folks are wasting their time working with the likes of the rest of us and not doing this for a living is beyond me. But then again, all of us have big dreams and capabilities inside of us that are either undiscovered or simply neglected.

I’m so happy when one of my own group achieves such a milestone, because it’s inspirational. If she could find the time to make her dreams come true, why the hell shouldn’t I?!?!

Hot Pink Everything

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Feet-up Friday! Thank God it’s sandal season — my poor widdle feet were suffocating in boots and other hideously conservative foot coverings.

Most of the shoes got ruined anyway with the fucked-up weather we experienced here in D.C. this season, so I’ve thrown most of them away anyway. (Read: I get to shop for more!)

But *knock on wood* I think spring might be (mostly) here to stay. Hurrah! Sandals from now till Labor Day!

My favorite show on earth, “Grey’s Anatomy,” was not up to par tonight. I didn’t even realize it was a two-hour show till just now, as it’s 11 p.m. and all. I just thought the parts where they were setting up the spin-off for Addison Montgomery just SEEMED miserably long. But they didn’t seem long — they were!

The 20 minutes we got to spend with the usual crew of Seattle Grace were brilliant, of course. I see myself in Cristina more and more. Just the girl who’s always been the leader, the best student, the no-bullshit broad … but someone who just craves a little direction from someone else. It’s hard being in complete control of your destiny.

It’s nice to let someone else kind of guide you through the big and small moments sometimes. I guess it’s just a relief to be able to know someone has your best interests at heart and has your back, no matter what. I want that trust. I want that guidance and yet space to come along when you’re ready. People like her character and me, we’ll follow when we want to, and that’s what ultimately makes it our decision, even if someone else is leading the way.

I guess I finally felt like someone else “got” the stuff I’ve had swimming around my head of late (theoretically), because I don’t know how to talk about it and I don’t know how to process it otherwise. Nothing bad — quite the opposite, actually. But I guess I don’t know what to do with all these grown-up emotions when I feel like I am starting down brand-new paths that were never open to me before. I appreciate anyone who can help me to fumble along until I feel like I’m on solid ground again.

And that’s the thing — I LIKE the unknown. It just scares me, is all. But it doesn’t scare me enough to send me running back to what I know. I just need to know that I’m going to end up somewhere wonderful, surrounded by — I don’t know — everything and not standing on these unfamiliar roads by myself when I thought I would have a little bit of light to help me find my way to the other side.

Babbling as usual. But to bring it back to the show (because, let’s face it, life and TV always seem to walk in lockstep, in my world), it’s not (just) that I love “Grey’s” for the superb writing and acting. It’s how it helps to clarify my thinking that keeps me coming back, time and again. When the show goes on hiatus for the summer in two episodes, I’ll be living my life without my “friends,” but it will all feel right when I can continue learning about myself from them again in the fall.

So till then, I’ll be celebrating victories and making mistakes without having a pop culture reference for everything that happens to — and for — me. But leaving me to make sense of it all, left simply to my own wacky emotions and sometimes-convoluted logic? Is a TV series waiting to happen. … 😉

Via The Bachelor Guy, May is National Masturbation Month! (I know, I know, isn’t that EVERY month?)

And on May 26, the day after my birthday (why not a day earlier? Oh yeah, it’s a workday! LOL), use your free hand time to participate in the Masturbate-a-Thon. (The little Linux penguin is popping up, so I can’t test the link. Rats.)

Talk about spending some quality time with the one you love best. 😉 Blah blah, “love the one you’re with”!