Invincible: The Blog of Warrior Two

Wouldn't be my blog...

2012-02-09T22:16:00.001-08:00

...if I didn't include a photo or two of handsome men.

I’m afraid of 22 out of 69 common fears.

2012-02-09T18:04:00.000-08:00

Cross out the things you’re afraid of and put your score at the top.

the dark
~~staying single forever~~
being a parent
giving birth
being myself in front of others
open spaces
~~closed spaces~~
~~heights~~
dogs
birds
fish
spiders
flowers or other plants
~~being touched~~
~~fire~~
~~deep water~~
snakes
silk
the ocean
~~failure~~
success
thunder/lightning
frogs/toads
my boyfriends/girlfriends dad
boyfriends/girlfriends mom
rats
~~jumping from high places~~
snow
rain
wind
crossing hanging bridges
~~death~~
heaven
being robbed
~~falling~~
clowns
dolls
~~large crowds of people~~
men
women
having great responsibilities
doctors, including dentists
tornado
hurricanes
~~incurable diseases~~
~~sharks~~
friday the 13th
~~ghosts~~
poverty
halloween
school
trains
odd numbers
even numbers
being alone
becoming blind
becoming deaf
growing up
~~creepy noises in the night~~
~~bee stings~~
~~not accomplishing my dreams/goals~~
~~needles~~
~~blood~~
~~dinosaurs~~
the welcome mat
high speed
~~throwing up~~
~~falling in love~~
super secrets

If you repost this, it’s been requested that you title it “I’m afraid of _ out of 69 common fears”

If you get more than 30, I strongly recommend some counseling.

If you get more than 20, you’re paranoid.

If you get 10-20, you are normal.

If you get 10 or less, you’re fearless.

(What is amusing about this is that it did not include some of my biggest fears. Crickets. Car accidents. Certain kinds of mushrooms. Human emergencies. Becoming schizophrenic. Exorcism movies. Nuclear war. Having human hair in my food.)

Oh, My Clean Floors!

2012-02-09T15:23:00.001-08:00

I just cleaned the floors yesterday, and now they're a digusting mess. Short of getting rid of the cats, I must devise a setup that will prevent this from happening (at least to this degree).

First Things First

2012-02-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

My cats are the most important thing in my life. It's one of the reasons I moved into my own apartment. Having housemates meant that windows would get left open, cats would get trapped in locked rooms, and I was never totally certain they were secure at home. I like being in control of that.

The first problem with this apartment is that I get home from work after dark. The main light switch is next to the front door, but buried inside the built-in bookcase:

I have to open the door pretty far before I can snake my arm around the bookcase to turn on that light. When it is totally dark I can't see if my intrepid cat Emma is trying to get out or not. Last week in trying to block her path, I accidentally stepped on her foot.

So I determined I needed to be able to turn on the light without having to open the door more than a sliver. That's where this gadget comes in handy:

Wah-lah. I bought this nifty wireless light switch at Target and mounted it directly onto the bookcase just inside the door. There is a receiver hooked up to a table lamp across the room; here is the receiver with the lamp plugged in:

There are a number of wireless light switches out there. Some of them are designed to be attached to a hard-wired light, but the problem with those is that you can only use them with incandescent lights, which are becoming obsolete, especially for us energy-conscious folk. This particular wireless switch, made by Westek, works with any type of light. It cost me about $17, and now I can see when cats are trying to escape whenever I'm coming through the door.

Who am I? What is this?

2012-02-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my blog. Duh.

You may be wondering, though, since there aren't a lot of posts here, why I am doing this now. Well, as with every story I tell, there is a preamble.

First of all, my name is Kelly. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and lived here for pretty much 35 years before I started to think, I should really see more of the world, you know? Somehow, I'd gotten it into my head that the Pacific Northwest was romantically gloomy, and that I would fit in well there. So, after one false start, I finally made it up there: I moved to Seattle in January of 2010. It was such an expensive, exhausting ordeal, driving a truckload of crap and two howling cats 800 miles up the road, that I determined to stay there and nest, most likely for good.

Things started off well: because I am awesomesauce, I got several job offers and finagled my way into the best of the lot, doing something I loved for a low, yet seemingly reasonable wage. I tried living with housemates, as I had back home, but that was a tetchy and difficult arrangement. After six months of that ridiculousness, I found my own apartment within walking distance from work, a high priority considering my distaste for cars. The neighborhood was convenient enough, with everything I could need close by.

However, it never felt quite right. The company I worked for was small, and I lacked certain crucial work benefits. As an independent, single lady, I didn't have the benefit of a spouse's health care or supplemental income to help pay the rent or pick up the slack should I get sick for a few days. As a result, I found myself racking up credit card debt and visiting the payday loan center a bit more than I should have. I was living in a sleepy neighborhood which was a bit too far from everything via bus line. Although my apartment had a lot going for it, I simply couldn't get excited about it. Sure, it was warm, secure, had loads of closet space and great built-in lighting, but I was depressed by its total lack of natural light, goldenrod paint job and carpets that my cats loved to tear up and vomit on. Despite my attempt to make it all fit together and work out--for the sake of the "perfect" job--I found myself missing Berkeley, and my friends and family, like crazy. I finally had to tell my job, my apartment, and Seattle, "It's not you--it's me."

Two years later, I packed up a truck and two howling cats and ambled back home, and here I am.

So what does any of this have to do with starting up the blog again?

Well...

I have always, always, always been fascinated by people's houses, apartments, and living spaces.

Huh?

Hang on. Bear with me. I've long been obsessed with Tumbleweed Tiny Houses. I saw one once, parked right across the street from an apartment I lived in some years ago, and I was delirious with joy. I thought I might want to scale down all my belongings and live in a teeny little treehouse. I also spend hours and hours on Apartment Therapy, drooling over the ultra-sleek, colorful, tidy decor. After years of less-than-thrilling living spaces, I decided to do something sort of new-agey and ridiculous, which I have long since read about and scoffed at. I made a list of everything I wanted to find in a new apartment. (With my finances and bankruptcy, building or buying anything right now is out of the question.) I wrote it out like this:

Studio
Hardwood floors
Good natural light
Accepts cats
Separate kitchen with full-sized fridge
closet space
garden area
on-site laundry
within my budget
within walking distance from work

I wrote the list out several times and put it everywhere. I stuck a copy in my jewelry box (the "wish" area). I put it on my computer. I wrote it out in my apartment hunting notebook, and put it on my phone so I could refer to it if necessary. The thing is, I don't make great money. I work customer service. I have mediocre credit. I didn't really think in a million years that I would find this ideal apartment. Heck, I was willing to settle for the "accepts cats" and "hardwood floors" (if only so the cats couldn't rip up any carpeting). But the most amazing thing happened: I found the apartment. Not only does it have virtually everything on my list, it has a few other perks I hadn't dreamed of.

Now, after the cozy comfort of my Seattle apartment, I admit this place needs a bit of work. It's got a few issues--things that can be easily rectified with a little ingenuity and elbow grease--and of course, I am dying to put my own personal stamp on it, too. Maybe even to feature it in one of Apartment Therapy's "Small Cool" contests.

So that is why I'm writing in this blog. Basically, I am going to document the home improvement process. I suppose I could have given it a cutesy name like Manhattan Nest or Door Sixteen, but I already had this blog, it looks pretty good and it has a bad ass theme song. I love reading people's DIY home improvement stories--in fact, I rely on them for my own projects--and some really cool changes are already afoot. So I decided that if I'm blogging about that, it's worth blogging about.

Oh, who AM I? That description in the top right corner pretty much sums me up.

Future Shock

2011-11-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

I am constantly assessing the toll information overload takes on us all. Nowadays everyone's face is glued to their smartphone. We're madly texting and tweeting and tumblr-ing, as if the whole world needs to know exactly what we're up to, and where, at any given moment. Once upon a time, we told stories in the village, everyone gathered around. Then radio came along, and a bigger group of people listened to the same thing. When I was growing up, people said, "Hey, did you see 'All in the Family' last night?" and pretty much everyone had. Nowadays, I constantly find myself saying, "Did you see that video with the talking sloth?", and having people tell me no...because if they were watching anything, it could have been any one of the 3 billion videos people watch on YouTube every day. Maybe this is why so many people follow the shit out of sports. At least there is still that form of shared experience. Since I find sports boring, I read my preferred blogs, I listen to my preferred podcasts, and I'm completely in my own specially-designed media bubble. It can make a person feel lonely.

Of course, I live in a large cosmopolitan city, the home of Microsoft and Amazon, so it's to be expected, but smartphones and streaming internet has penetrated even the third world.

I deleted my blogs a while ago because I didn't think the world needed MORE content for the web. I was also hyper-aware that instead of actually living my life, I was walking around composing it...for the blog, the tweet, or the status update. Even in the days before the internet, when I used to carry around my 35mm camera, I noticed how the urge to document something removed me from experiencing it. I was on an old-fashioned ferris wheel at the county fair. I'm scared of heights, and I was really feeling it on this thing, but I noticed to my surprise that if I looked through my camera lens, the fear evaporated. A different part of my brain engaged, and I stopped feeling entirely. This is what happens when I keep a blog.

The photo I took while contemplating blogging.

I had lunch with a friend today and we talked a lot about blogging. I realized later I really do wish I had better documented my two years in Seattle, if only for my own sake, now that I'll only be here for another month.

Ugly Mug Haiku #1

2011-08-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

We live just next door
Loose tea and eggs for the win
Starbucks can suck it