How's this for a good old fashioned rant? I hate people who don't pay attention in the elevator. This afternoon I took the garbage out (to P1) and had to go back up to the 2nd floor (where there's a street-level exit). As the elevator arrived at P1 (it had come up from P2), the man inside tried to push past me to get out, only to realize that it wasn't his floor...and he pushed past me once again to get inside the elevator. It was just the two of us.
Out of curiosity, I looked at the buttons in the elevator, figuring he was just going up to the lobby. Do you know which button was lit up? Floor 27. He thought that in the two seconds it took to go from P2 to P1 that the elevator had magically rocketed up 29 floors. I don't get that. And what's with the pushing? That's my rant.
Apartment lobbies are a funny thing — rented apartment buildings more so than buildings of owners. Upon entering the back lobby of our building on Friday we came across an immaculate, leather office chair. It was positioned in what I like to think of as the "free" zone. The precarious spot between the door and the sitting area that says, I'm not waiting to be taken outside by someone in particular, I'm just hanging around until someone (anyone) takes me. The parameters of the free zone are generally dictated by the table beside the lobby couch: on the table = free, beside the table = not for the taking. However, when oversized items are left out, it's hard to say. You're probably wondering if we took the chair. No, we already have enough crap in our apartment. Had it still been there the next day, it would have been tempting. So tempting, in fact, that the temptation would have outweighed the logical voice in my head that kept saying, Keep walking moron, you don't need another desk chair. I did, however, snatch up a 2-pack sample of the very shampoo and conditioner that I happened to purchase last weekend. Today's findings: a single dryer sheet. I left that gem for someone else.
Lately my brain has been so occupied with work and wedding that I've barely had a chance to think like a blogger. Usually I'm grasping at paper and pencils every 5 minutes because I can't keep up with my internal dialogue of blog writing, but lately it's been nothing but crickets up there. However, that's because my everyday life dynamic has changed in the past month. The blog writer is sitting there scratching her head and picking knits from her hair, but the intern and the bride are running around, arms flailing like a mom on the dance floor. And the grad student is studiously working on her thesis in the backdrop, trying to keep to herself.
I'm knee-deep in the second month of my internship and 11 weeks out from the biggest day of my life (until, that is, we start with the baby making). My 9-5 is filled with writing, reading, editing, html and other fun webby magazine things that require enough brain power that I can't be simultaneously writing blog posts. My evenings are consumed with little wedding details that I churn out until they defeat me and I collapse with exhaustion in my bed that is never quite soft enough to catch my tired, heavy limbs.
It's been busy, but it's been good. And the strange little things that always seem to happen to me still happen, I just haven't had the will and the wit to jot them down. Like when one of our neighbours stole the quarter out of my laundry basket (filled with my, ahem, delicates). My basket was waiting in line beside the washer and some crazy decided to snatch my shiny laundry money. I'm not pointing fingers, but I'm going to just assume it was the panflute player. I put in an honest effort to blog about that, but then I'm quite certain I fell asleep with my eyes open. But life goes on, I got another quarter and I'm telling the story now.
I'm writing an article this week for BC Living about Luc's and my hike to the peak of the Stawamus Chief in Squamish – which I will post a link to when it's done – so for now I've got this amateur, made-in-one-hour iMovie of our trip to the top.
So while I try to balance life as an intern, bride and blogger (and grad student, eek!), please amuse yourselves with this little ditty.
For the past hour or two I've been the only attendant of a private panflute/recorder concert courtesy of our downstairs neighbour. It's just her, leaning out her window, and me, sitting here trying to write a paper for school. Luc is off on a snowshoeing adventure with a friend, which affords me an entire day of silence and solitude (my prerequisites for productive Saturdays). It's just me and my brain (and my neighbour), trying to hammer some sense out of all the ideas in my head. But right now all I can think of is this:
The music is more distracting than Luc playing those video games that look like action movies. And it conjures up hundreds of images of elves dancing around in my head. So much for productivity.
Did anyone notice all of the alliteration in this blog post? Too much alone time (and too much panflute) makes me go a bit loopy - I might be turning into a Dr. Seuss character. Or maybe I just need some decadent downtime with dessert and a drink? Definitely.
A while back I told a friend that every time I bring my laptop charger to school, I forget it there. Every time. I really don't think I'm that absent-minded, though. I think it's become some sort of strange, self-fulfilling prophecy. Subconsciously I want to leave my charger at school to validate that comment I made months ago. Weird, right? Nothing is ever not weird when you try to psychoanalyze your own actions.
So there I was, a weekend's worth of schoolwork to do in one Sunday afternoon, battery power in the single digits, and Luc's friend arriving within the hour to watch the Superbowl. I had to leave the apartment if I was going to get anything done, but I needed a computer. It wasn't until I got in the shower (where I do all my best thinking) that I thought to ask the neighbours. And it makes sense; neighbours have always been the outside support network for household emergencies. Cup of sugar, couple of eggs, ladder to get the cat out of a tree. Neighbours are the quintessential go-to people, so why should my technological conundrum be treated any differently?
A wander across the hall, and a minute later my laptop was formatting presentation slides and scanning library databases. It also got me thinking - even just five years ago, how likely would it have been that my neighbours had an Apple laptop charger to lend out? It says a lot for the prevalence, and even the homogenization of technology. But it's later now and I've returned the charger, so I'd better not waste any more power bars on a blog post!
