Hey, look everyone!

Tina Fey's older, ultra-conservative sister has been tapped by McCain as the GOP's VP!

Here Be Monsters...

Anyone who has seen the movie Arachnaphobia or has spent any amount of time in the Carolinas will warn you about the spiders. Yes, spiders are ominpresent here. I've kinda gotten used to that. You can't walk to your car without dragging a web along on your head, and its former inhabitant as well if you aren't lucky. My condo community is essentially the underside of a deck extruded to three stories, so webs and spiders are just part of the aesthetic. I let the local arachnid populace babysit Fenway while I'm at work.

So, spiders I get. I'm not 100% comfortable with them in their large fuzzy redness, but no fang marks as yet. It's the bugs, though, that really creep me out. Not because they're all over, but because they're FUCKING HUGE. I was walking down the faux sidewalks of the local shopping center yesterday, bound for the local Bar & Grille for some end-of-week, stomach-twisting dinner and G&Ts, when I saw something the size and shape of an Insecticon Transformer (alas, not the right color) on the sidewalk. It was a moth. A moth so FUCKING HUGE its compound eyes were the size of dimes. I didn't get to see it's full wingspan, but it was definitely comparable to the small birds I'm used to from Cambridge. I decided to look away so as not to lose my appetite. It was a horror.

But, ok, a moth. Massachusetts has some big moths, too, if you're in the right place at the right time. Sure, they don't panhandle on the sidewalk up there, but I actually think this one was dead... most of the FUCKING HUGE bug creatures I see on the sidewalk are actually empty husks (maybe they molted and got FUCKING HUGER?). But today really brought home how this could effect little old me in a real way. Today, as I was about to make myself comfortable on my porch/patio for a morning crossword failure, I was visited by a FUCKING HUGE bee. Literally: two inches long at least, and 3/8 inch in diameter. And not like a big cuddly bumblebee either--a fierce looking full-fledged, run-away-from bee the size of a AAA battery (are AAAs the bigger ones, or AAs? because I'm talking about the bigger ones). Scare-the-fuck-y. Holy shit. If you're used to getting girlish around a normal bee, just imagine being buzzed by one that FUCKING HUGE.

So, in summary: if you are not a fan of bugs and spiders and such, North Carolina may not be for you. If, however, museum exhibits of prehistoric insect life make you all excited inside, come see the real deal down here in the Carolinas. I mean really, these things should be in zoos. Holy shit.

Baby Steps to Quality of Life

I began a weekly program last weekend to advance my quality of life by a little bit each week. I think this will mostly mean buying stuff, but instead of it being dumb stuff like huge chocolate bars (we'll keep that in the list just in case, though) it's more about buying stuff that enables a better lifestyle. So, for example, last week I purchased both a toaster oven and new coffeemaker, as I felt that using my broiler setting on the oven to toast sandwich bread was... very lame. Also, I've always seen drinking coffee on the patio as a life goal. Sadly, on the latter part, I found out this week that my consumption of caffeine was destroying my quality of life by making me very, very anxious, so that purchase in particular was not well timed. I'll need to invest in some decaf grounds.

So, I write this now from my canvas porch chair on my patio/porch thing. This week's purchase was a wireless router, so I am no longer tethered to my desk next to the cat shitbox if I want to surf. I firmly believe this will allow me to write more often as well as be outside more often, both things I consider important to my quality of life. Next weekend will be a biggie: I plan to go couch shopping. As yet I am still enjoying my digital cable and DVR from a folding slingback chair which was never intended as the sole sitting device for a 2BR apartment. So within a couple weeks, I will have a new couch on which I can stretch out and be a human being. Of course, this will give me more reason to be unhappy with going to work.

Yes, the job... I'm trying to be upbeat and reserve judgement here, because I recognize that my current heinous situation is not really anyone's fault but is rather a fluke of really, really shitty timing. Allow me to explain: I arrived at the new job with the understanding that I'd be working on one project but was quickly diverted onto another that had an even more tragically-scheduled deadline. So right from day 2 I was in the thick of a very stressful deadline-powered hell that promises to only get worse up until Labor Day weekend, which is the primary deadline. Being out of practice with work in general and architecture thinking in particular, I've felt like dead weight since I started. And yet I've still been putting in extraordinary hours for a newbie nonetheless. So not only do I feel like shit, but I also feel like shit more hours of the day than seems reasonable. The really sad part is that my work experience thus far has really dimmed my enthusiasm for being here in Raleigh, as my job is about all I have time or energy for when it's this demanding.

Now that I've had a few hours away from it (I worked a half day yesterday as well), I realize that it's not a good idea to be judging my overall relocation experience based on a few weeks of one project that isn't going well. My hope is that once the deadline has passed and I get out of town for a day to visit the family up in Virginia, the heat subsides (it's begun to already), the couch arrives, late summer spiritual doldrums pass, new shows start cropping up on TV again, then I'll start seeing the benefit of being here. Until then, I have to grow up a little and just slog through it.

Wish me luck.

Run, Forest, Run!

Three weeks ago or so, when I started working, there was a forest of pine trees across the street from the parking lot at work. Today, I realized that the forest is gone. The former forest is now a pre-construction site. I have no idea what will go there, but I'm damn well sure it won't be another forest.

Huh?

I must be taking my job way too seriously... I don't seem to see anyone else at work that pops a new stomach ulcer every morning. Of course, most of them have been there a lot longer than I have, so perhaps they're used to it...

Somehow I've been pigeonholed as the designy guy on this project I'm working on now. That's fairly reasonable, given my background, but it seems like a bit of a stretch for someone who's been with the firm for two weeks to be able to navigate the months and months of backstory on this project and be able to contribute usefully to continuing the narrative. I mean, I like to sketch and think. I wish I could get paid for doing that all the time. But not with a gun to my head. Good critical thinking that expands the realm of possibility should not get a deadline every morning. It's just not effective, or, rather, I'm just not effective within those parameters. If I'm supposed to produce three brilliant ideas by 10am every morning, I'm going to die very soon. I'd rather just be in charge of drafting and offer up my one brilliant idea per week, unsolicited, when it seems appropriate. That's something I can excel at. That's something I can blow the doors off of. People who crowd around my CAD drafting and be like, "whoa, that guy can pump some mean CAD." Instead, I get a lot of quiet nonfeedback about my less-than-brilliant but timely designy ideas. And I feel like a brick.

So why care?

Reflections on One Month in Raleigh

...and one week at work

Friday was my official monthiversary of moving to Raleigh, although it took another week to get back to Mass. to retrieve the cat and get him to the new home. So, naturally, I've been evaluating my life post-move.

First, I should say how thankful I am to have a job. There are a lot of people out there who do not have the opportunity to choose their preferred home locale, not to mention be able to get a job within a month of getting there. So no matter how much I may moan and bitch in the weeks and months to come, I am very grateful to have a job, be drawing a real income, and be able to come home to an apartment and neighborhood that I chose on my own free will.

Late July is a difficult time to fall in love with Raleigh; actually, I'd guess that late July is a difficult time to fall in love with anything, anywhere, besides an air conditioner or swimming pool or ice maker or something. I don't know a lot of people who visit Boston in late July and August and leave feeling... refreshed. Maybe the Cape, several decades ago. But, yes, Raleigh is hot right now. Do you know that there's no such thing as a heat wave down here in late summer? No one can keep count how many consecutive days it gets above 90 for a high. The newspaper says that last Saturday was below 90, though I can honestly say I don't recall that. But certainly no meteorologist is saying "and now were on to an unbelieavable seventh straight day of heat wave!" It just is hot every day. Don't get me wrong--it doesn't affect me. I have central A/C in the apartment, at work, in the car, at the gym, in every restaurant, bar, library, bank, and supermarket I go to. I am rarely uncomfortable. But it does make it difficult to get doey-eyed about the city/region itself. So don't expect me to be shouting acclaim for my new home just yet.

That said, I still sit out on my patio when I get a chance. I'm contemplating another night of White Trash Outdoor The-A-tur on my patio if we avoid thunderstorms and I remember to put on bug spray. I'm thinking of ways to make the patio cat-escape-proof so that Fenway doesn't have to wear his leash but can still see all the birdies and squirrelies in the yard. So, if it's tolerable to sit outside with a coffee or a Mike's Lemonade in 95-degree heat in August, I'm very encouraged about patio-sitting straight through the fall. I am, in fact, optimistic about having a long, comfy fall and equally long, comfy spring. With a tiny but seasonally appropriate winter somewhere in between.

Now, the job--the job that I am so grateful to have. Well, it's never as good as the first day, right? Actually, that's not true. For me, work experiences tend to peak at about the end of the first year. For this job, though, commute traffic instantly became worse the second day. My first assignment was ambiguous enough that my level of expectation was far in excess of my assigner's, which resulted in great undue anxiety that persisted until Thursday (and could continue to some degree for at least a few more weeks). It's been hard to acclimate, and compounding that has been some really shitty nights of sleep. So week 1 at work was not a shiny beacon of hope. The project I'm working on is interesting, though, and actually an apt project for reintegrating an urban designer-type person back into the world of architecture. So once I get better control over the expectations of myself and my supervisors, it shouldn't be as bad. That drive, though... it's not wicked long, it's not crazy big city rush hour, but it is an unnecessary complication on life that must be phased out after a year, I think. One way or another.

Some things are great. I'm doing laundry now, and don't have a pocket full of quarters emptying itself every time I sit down. I have DVR and can watch Comedy Central Presents anytime I want. I go to the Y every day except Sunday and have lost over five pounds since I got here (though I'm not sure if it's my self-imposed poverty diet that did the weight loss thing). I play volleyball Tuesday nights at the Y and I'm actually one of the good players. Only complaint about the Y: old naked guys. Brand new YMCA locker room; same old naked guys. I can't imagine a mindset where walking around with my old withered peepee hanging out in front of a bunch of other naked men is an attractive prospect. I certainly don't get naked at the Y... I'd rather walk home sweaty and use the bathroom I pay rent for and keep my damn pants on in the presence of strangers. So, aside from the old naked men, though, the Y is great.

So, after a month: the jury is out. It hasn't been an easy transition. But one thing I realized today: I can actually contemplate doing things here I never could in Cambridge, foremost: buying a house. I can actually afford to toy with the idea of owning property here and being upwardly mobile. And the time I spend at this job is going to look really good on the resume. So I'm optimistic. I think once autumn breaks things are going to look real nice here.