short pants romance

it is so absurdly hot. even franny can't get comfortable. all evening she's been stretched out in bizarre positions in obscure spots all around the apartment. like me, it's as if she's restlessly saying to herself, "this can't possibly be as cool as it gets." i'm insisting that we hold off on air conditioning, as it's still just may and it's only going to get more and more brutal in the next few months, but this ceiling fan in the living room is just not cutting it. perhaps i should buy one of those industrial fans they have at the gym and turn the apartment into a wind tunnel. of course,what with the strain on the power grid, we may as well just put the AC on.

the holiday weekend proved pretty fun but relaxing. saturday my sister and i went to ikea, where they had a face painter (susanne got a flower on her cheek and i opted for the diabolical curly mustache and pointy goatee) and i bought a bunch of crap i probably don't need. then onto target for some awkward stares from other shoppers, to whom i explained in an embarrassing tone "i'm having a bit of a hormonal problem right now". saturday night after initial ambivalence toward the evening, we walked downtown for dinner and stopped to sit in the park on our way home. this time of year is nice, because the evenings are perfect and the streets are social, but the cockroaches haven't caught on yet. sunday i went with casey & josh to this fabulous flea market and antique mall out near lancaster where i bought some goodies (perhaps i'll post some photos tomorrow) and last night we picked up some pizza and watched a movie. today was an ill-fated attempt to play miniature golf in NJ, until we realized that the reason we've only ever played down the shore, and at night usually, is because inland it's hotter than hell during the day, the only breeze coming from the windmill. so instead we got ice cream and came back to attend amanda's barbecue.

i'm feeling very contented having hung out with some new people this weekend. to me, making new friends is always almost as good as courting with a new crush. it normally takes me forever to feel comfortable enough with people to invite them out, which means they usually give up on me before we've officially become "friends." i had so much fun at the flea market with casey and josh, and i dare say they seemed to enjoy themselves too. and today at the party greg and i got on well with everyone, with promises to hang out soon. it's just always good to increase your arsenal of friends, especially when the ones you already have start to become busy with things like careers and marriage.

today's haiku, in honor of this hot sticky may weekend:
grime sticks to the dew on my forehead
this is only the beginning

whoohoo! i just bought new plates!

every once in a while i find a role model to prove that parenting does not equal the end of life as i know it. this woman seems to lead such a nice life, i can only hope that someday when i have little ones of my own i'll handle it with such grace and creativity. and that i'll have enough time to keep up a blog. i think the fact that she lives in a place like oregon helps. it's tough to be "up with people" when you live in philadelphia.

a very unpleasant feeling: when you personally are partially responsible for the destruction of the website you work for. sending out an email blast to 70,000 people is always a bit stressful. every tuesday at 12:30 i hold my breath as the email pops up in my inbox, desperately fearing that something is mispelled, or a link is going to the wrong place, or worst of all, a broken image. something i don't always expect is that because of the way i have linked an email, the entire site grinds to a screeching halt. the result of this is that angry customers call the help desk, and we lose thousands of dollars worth of sales.

boy is my face red.

on an unrelated note, i wonder if a dutch tub would fit on my patio?

i've been in a very optimistic mood lately, and as absurd as it may sound, i think it's partially a result of my sudden addiction to design websites (see sidebar for some of my favorites). first off, i'm finally feeling some inspiration for projects to work on. and secondly, there's something very positive about looking at interesting design. i think there's something to be said for surrounding yourself with beautiful things. growing up in my house, pretty much everything we owned was either a crappy hand-me-down from some deceased relative or a k-mart clearance item. granted, my parents didn't have much money, but they also weren't willing to put any thought into what they purchased other than the immediate need it filled. on the other hand, maybe i'm just lucky to be an adult in a time where the best place to find stylish items is at a flea market.

as an offshoot of this, my plan for the summer is to hit up plenty of flea markets, garage sales and thrift stores and get some good projects going. oh, and if anyone has any good links to share i'd be very interested.

today's half-assed haiku:
the simpsons play in the background
i'm having a hard time focusing

please correct me if i'm wrong, but everyone always says that when you're drunk, you only do and say things that you would ordinarly do and say if social conventions weren't what they were, correct? because tonight at happy hour, amanda said (in her alabama twang), "kate, i'm so glad you came out because secretly i just think you're so cool and i just want to be friends with you!" and gave me an enormous hug. i almost cried. seriously people, if you love me you need to tell me because i always presume that everyone's default feeling for me is ambivalence.

i think starting off with this new blog my resolution will be to take a more positive stance on things. greg would be proud.

well, it's a long time in the making, but i've moved on from the now-defunct fallingthroughspace.com to my new home here at shortpantsromance.com. i just sort of slapped this up here while i work on an actual design, so hopefully i'll come up with something a little less generic.

one of my first orders of business is to write and post a small and most likely dumb haiku every day. some may be pointless and some may be pretty, mostly they'll probably be about everyday banal things. i wrote a bunch of them while sitting in an excruciatingly boring meeting and it struck me as a good way to get my creative motor kickstarted. now before any of you japanese poetry majors complain, i realize there's some actual formula for haiku, but i'm just going to go with the old 17-syllable requirement.

today's haiku:
monday's fork still lies on my desk
papers smudged with oily balsamic

oh, and erik, you can stop bugging greg about my site now.