So about ten minutes ago, I heard this very faint tapping sound. Tap tap tap, tap tap tap. And I thought it was maybe a woodpecker; we have one at my house that likes to peck the power pole behind the house. Still, it really wasn't quite loud enough, but then I thought well, okay, we have these new windows in the office, it probably IS one, the sounds is just muffled. And all the while, tap tap tap. Finally, I jumped up out of my chair because the sound was annoying the hell out of me (and really, what did I think I could DO about it?), saying something along the lines of "Jesus Christ, I am going to kill that woodpecker!"

And right around the corner on the bench we have on the other side of my cubicle, there sat a pre-teen girl playing her GameBoy; you know, one of the games where you need the stick to move things? Yeah. Tap tap tap.

I am so cool.

So I am back, and I have to say that even though I LOVE Starbucks, it is really getting out of hand up there in Seattle. There were parts of downtown, where my friend has her office, where there was actually a Starbucks on every block-and in one area, one on each side of the street in the same block. Too much. I remember being appalled at the notion of a drive thru window at Starbucks (I have this thing about drive thrus anyway, like we aren't fat and lazy enough already without making it completely possible to grab dinner, pick up a prescription, get a before-dinner coffee and an after dinner 6-pack of Budweiser all without leaving the car?), and now it just feels more and more inane. I did get a travel mug and a regular coffee cup from there, and I obviously WENT there, but it just seems a little out of control to me. I know I said the coffee is better, and it IS, but that much better? I just don't know.

I have been in something of a frenzy today, getting ready for my small vacation, for which I am leaving in a mere two hours and ten minutes-not that I am counting. I have these four kids, you know, and I haven't been anywhere except a funeral three years ago without at least one of them. Oh-not true, back in December I went to the Tool concert with Steve, and no one was with us- which actually was intended, as I needed to have lots of sex. ANYWAY, I digress. My day has been filled with all sorts of last-minute details like, oh, packing, remembering at hte last minute that I actually need to leave the baby's car seat with Jacquie, as opposed to in the CAR, with ME...you know how it is.

However, instead of panicking, I thought I would write you all a little list of the reasons I really, really want to go. Besides the little mention of FOUR KIDS, that is.

1. Starbucks. I shouldn't HAVE to say more, but I will. I went to high school up in Seattle (actually, Kent) and so knew Starbucks loooong before it was cool. They really do have better coffee, too.




2. Trader Joe's. I have never actually BEEN to one of their stores, but when I was pregnant with Owen, my friend would send me all sorts of really yummy foods from there, and I am addicted. Triple-Ginger gingersnaps, here I come. Also veggie sticks and chocolate covered dried bing cherries. We don't have TRader Joe's in Idaho, so I will be filling up the suitcase.

   The smell of the ocean. We will be going to one of my favorite parks while there, right along the Puget Sound, and I cannot wait to smell that briny, slightly fishy smell. I love Idaho, I love the desert, but I really miss the ocean.




3. Free lunch with one of our company underwriter's. this is especially cool because I want to pick his brain to see what I need to do in order to take his job 15 years from now.




4. A real bed to sleep in. See, again there are those four kids, and we live in a two bedroom house; I sleep on a hide a bed in the living room. And I am not really complaining, because hey, it's the biggest rrom and the bed isn't terrible, BUT: a real bed is going to feel SO lovely. A bed with no other person or animal in it. A bed without the faint smell of vomit from the baby's last bout with puking, a bed without a bar that jabs into my lower back, a bed....ah.

Incidentally, I am also looking forwarding to visiting my friends.

So I finally figured out how to crop a photo so I could use it for my profile; too cool. Unfortunately, I don't actually have any pictures of myself, so had to use one of the baby going incognito; I just wish I was that freaking cool!

I now have three blogs, including this one, and I am beginning to feel distinctly divided; kind of like Sybil, only without the drama of climbing on top of a bookshelf in a bid for one of my 98 personalities to be heard. There is my Gather blog, which tends to be more thoughtful; my blogspot blog, which is a little more in-your-face, tempered with a little bit of self-deprecating humor, and now this. I alredy knew I had a lot to say about the world, about the things that go on in this tiwsted little mind of mine; I also knew that there are certain people who only see one side of me, and I do that intentionally. So great, I think, now I am tempering my words in the sense that I have to figure out a few things: Number One, what am I really thinking about, and Number Two, on which blog should I post it? Like I need to put that much pressure on myself, right?

I am finding out, though, that I like it. And I don't know if that makes me really, really sick or just normal. I see that there are some people with a whole bunch of different blogs, and that makes me believe that we ALL do this to an extent-but I don't know if it makes us all sick or all normal. I will say, though, that my life is just crazy enough, and that I am by turns melancholy and introspective, pissed off and meek, hilarious and lame, that I really need a aplce for every part of me to shine.