the little apartment that shook

Gale force winds outside tonight (what is the exact force of a 'gale', anyway?)
My apartment is shaking as branches snap and bottles go skittering around the parking lot. It always makes me nervous how much my apartment shakes in the wind... the way the gusts snap around my walls sounds **exactly** like big waves breaking, so with the movement of my little NE facing apartment bobbing up and down on its support beams, I feel a little bit like I'm out to sea.

Really tired, so I won't do much more than a numbered list for tonight:
1. Christmas. Awesome. Obscenely quiet. Lived at my folks' house for almost a week, which hasn't happened since I was a receptionist home from college over the summer.

2. My annual Bachelorette Party. Even more Awesome-- now with 20% more fun. Photos available on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21442478@N02/
I love my friends so much, it hurts.

3. Work- I did another 'let's make fun of everyone I work with' skit, which got big laughs, did not result in me getting fired, and gave me the very unusual chance to use the word "skit" outside of the third grade. Beth and Robin filmed & edited the whole thing, which reminds me that video nerds live up to our name

4. Meredith and I did a Christmas Eve gig for our our friend's Pastor, which somehow morphed at the last minute into us being in a Christian rock band, complete with electric guitars, keyboards, drums, mics, our own monitors, a light show, and a seriously difficult time keeping a straight face in front of a congregation of Christmas Eve worshipers. Next time, I will write sad things on the toes of my shoes so I will have an easier time looking solemn while playing a heavy metal bass line on my acoustic cello while a slide show projects "Halleljuah, GOD IS NEAR" in confusingly capital letters over my head.

5. My parents are pretty much the coolest people I know. I can't imagine dad rallying any harder for the holidays given how absolutely shitty he feels. Despite the fact that my family lives close by, it's a lot different to move in with them for a week than to just occasionally drop by for dinner or a movie... it was hard coming home after having a really, really bittersweet 4am crackers-and-peanut-butter chat with my dad. He's a different person right now than I've ever known and it scares me and moves me at the same time.

6. Holy. Mother. It is INSANE outside right now! Wind, wind, wind, wind, BOOM... every 30 seconds or so, branches are coming down everywhere. I don't know where to move my car, but I'd prefer to move her into my kitchen until the Apocalypse is over

7. Had about 3,000 reunions over the past week, including anyone I ever met before 1990. There's a fast way to have a BALL and lose all self-esteem at the same time. Glad to have seen everyone, but I also have that post-reunion emotional hang-over thing going on

8. One thing that my (VERY WEIRD) job makes me think about a lot is something that bothered me when I was little-- how hysterical people get over whether their baby is a boy or a girl. As a little kid, I was downright frustrated with that because I didn't understand why that would POSSIBLY matter. And as an adult, I have unfortunately picked up the same reaction to every newborn that crosses my screen... a GIRL, she'll be a mom someday. A BOY, oh, his son will probably play soccer just like him. Gender does pervade the brain so deeply.
This morning I was wondering about gender differences.

I'm more gender-savvy than I was at age four, and I still strongly dislike gender-based discussions, but the one thing that I *will* say after my long day of contemplation is that I hope men appreciate what women go through to someday bring their little mini-me's into the world. I was in a bar a couple nights ago where a guy was drunkenly complaining that his crazy "ex" was a psychotic PMSing bitch (not to mention a series of thinly-veiled racial slurs that he threw in the mix... not to mention that it was painfully obvious that he was still "with" said "ex" and "playing the field at the same time"). I digress. Obviously he was just a drunk idiot, but my friends and I had to really hold ourselves back from not stuffing a sock into his yapper from frustration.

My personal opinion is this: if you're a drunken guy in a bar who will never, EVER in your lifetime have to deal with a *miserable* monthly phenomenon that doesn't even have a name cute enough to use in mixed company; if you will never EVER be asked humiliating questions by your doctor about your chances of being pregnant just to get a cold medicine prescription; if you can go to a party and drink your face off, get amorous with the cutest girl there and stumble home at the first light of dawn while she gets a hangover cure of anxiety, loneliness and the fear of whether or not drunken protection may have been the 2% that the contraceptive companies warn you about... well, DON'T be that guy in the bar. Because while girls are in no way victims or 'entitled' to any kind of sympathetic treatment, those girls are your friends; your sisters; your girlfriends; your co-workers. It's like the old song says-- mama said there'd be days like this. And it's great to be a woman, but drunken idiot in the bar, the shitty country songs do not lie, and it is hard to be a woman sometimes. So do yourself a favor and just pay your tab and go home. Chivalry is DEAD... we're not asking for you to joust for our attention, we're just asking that you do not loudly demean us in public. (*on a side note, I am not damning All Males Everywhere here. And surely, as a female, I forget what's tricky about being male. Suggestions are more than welcome)

9. At one point, this was an attempt at a light-hearted, positive, upbeat numbered list

10. Mama said there'd be days like this.

11. Goals for the new year: (spontaneously. to be re-visited)
1. fix dad
2. work on staying as positive as possible, even under duress
3. stay on top of things that can fall through the cracks: financial organization; contact with very far-away friends; putting laundry away instead of letting it live in the dryer for a few days on end; etc
4. major positive job change (in any meaning of the word 'change')
5. Stop, at all costs, discussing boring dreams, even if it's just to myself here online

12. Last number for the night: I had the craziest boring dream last night.
Sort of a vampire/zombie combo dream. Weirdly Holocaustic (surely, I just butchered two words here)

A bunch of us were herded down a very claustrophobic colorless street-- Italian, probably-- as people passed us. We knew that we were getting herded into sort of a group mind-f*ck vampire-inflicting kind of situation, but we couldn't fight it. Instead of drinking our blood, they('they'- an unseen, terrifying presence that we could only feel by the hair going up on the back of our necks) just kind of forced our demise into our minds, and I realized that everyone else around us had been inflicted because their faces and necks were breaking out in deep scarlet rashes. My uncle passed me on the street, and he had a rash that was creeping up around his chin, and he had dark red candle wax crusted all around his eyes... the thick wax had a faintly raised pattern on it, like the wax seals on letters. He was peeling it away from his face when he noticed me looking at him, and when our eyes met, I realized that his pupils were bright red, too. I shrunk back in horror and he closed his eyes firmly before opening them again-- they were pitch black, and it was impossible to tell where the pupils ended and his irises began.
He smiled at me and started picking the wax out from underneath his nails. I could hear his nails scraping on his skin, and his eyes were so bloodshot that it looked like fractured pieces of wax had just melded into his whole body.
It was awful... everyone around me had fallen expressions; their faces had blotchy red patterns bursting out all over and their lips were cracking from a clammy dryness as they looked around blankly for their next victim.

Then the alarm went off, and I knew that it was time for Monday...