The Internet loses

My faithful interweb is totally failing me right now. There's nothing doing on the internet. I'm at work, I'm bored, I can't find anything to entertain me. This blows. And when did I decide to write and speak like a 18 year old on Spring Break from Orange County?

I feel bad for Orange County, they've received a particularly bad rap since the whole "O.C." "Laguna Beach" craze. Frankly, it all started with that Jack Black movie that featured an overweight Jack gyrating in dirty underwear. The O.C. was doomed after that. Does anyone remember when Ocean City, MD used to run a campaign featuring the "OC Ocean" tagline? I wonder if that that actually worked...were people having trouble remembering that Ocean City was, in fact, affiliated with the ocean?

I'm currently listening to my new Dar Williams CD, that I had to buy even though I have the digital files on a burned CD somewhere but no computer to make them into something meaningful. Listening to music at work is nothing new for Lizzie Musar, I need to have music all the time. This time it's the means by which I am listening to the music that is somewhat remarkable. I don't have speakers on my work PC, instead I have a microphone and earpiece headset so that I can use our long-distance-replacement VOIP software and that is how I am listening to Dar. I'm sitting at my computer, phone operator headset on, feeling like I should be asking someone if they'd like information on their Craftomatic bed. The microphone is my favorite part. The one headphone is my least favorite part, I feel like there's a concert going on to my left and no matter how many times I turn to find it, it's just not there. This may turn my brain to mush. But I've been driving with only one speaker in my car for about a year now, and I'm still ok.

California rolls are shortly being delivered to me, so maybe that will serve as the necessary pick me up. The healing powers of sushi and all. Ironic considering the almost lethal mercury content in most fish these days.

My relationship with money

I have never really been on the best of terms with money. Frequently, I want more than I have. Thankfully, I have never actually spent more than I have. I could pay off my tiny bit of debt right now, except it's not hurting me. I have had people spend money on my behalf, which I now owe other people - example, student loans. I could not pay off my student loans right now, and don't ever actually anticipate ever being able to do so.

But the underlying truth is this - money has never hurt me and I have never hurt money. We have a cordial relationship where I don't abuse it and it doesn't get me into trouble. I thought that that was really that needed to exist between us. Anything else is just needless complications.

Apparently not. I'm trying so hard, SO HARD, to do the Exec Budgets for next year, because apparently this is part of my job, and I just don't get it. Money and planning for money and for not having money just do not make sense to me. I understand the purpose of a budget. It's to keep you in line with the money you anticipate having so you don't go off into the deep end of the financial pool. But as far as the tiny little details - isn't that what we have back account balances for? Not sure if your company can afford to hire a new person or buy a new boat (if you have some kind of boat-based company)? Check you back account, factor in the stuff you know you ahve to pay for in the future - if there's enough left over, buy the boat!

Why can't the world just operate according to that policy? Why do we need budgets, with FY05 Actuals and Targets and Forecasts and Allocations and stuff I can't even pronounce?!? Is there something inherently wrong with just trusting yourself to not spend more than you have or have access to?

I think it's exactly this thinking which has prevented me from ever actually balancing my checkbook. I have a rough estimate of what's in there. I know what I'd like to buy, and if the numbers don't add up or give me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I put said item back on the shelf and move along. Is this too much to ask for from the rest of the world? Are we not all capable of showing such restraint?

CAN I PLEASE NOT HAVE TO DO THESE STINKING BUDGETS?!?!

Two wayward travellers in a Corolla with a guy named Vic

Or something like that, it's from a very bad movie called Forces of Nature. I don't recommend it. Instead, go see March of the Penguins and tell me all about it.

Hanging out at work for a little while so I can time the mass transit trip home right and not have to wait 45 minutes in the blinding heat for a bus home from my fair, faraway Metro stop. A mile is just too far to walk in weather like this, especially in a skirt. Granted the skirt did get lots of attention today, and could possibly even snag me a ride home if I were to play my cards right, but I don't do the hitchhiking. Except for last Friday when I convinced the hospital shuttle driver waiting around for employees at the station to drive me home because he wasn't doing anything else. But that wasn't hitching, my thumb wasn't involved. He was very nice and only asked to see my Inova Health employee badge at the end of the trip. I shrugged my shoulders and he told me to have a nice day. Ahh, public transport, bringing people together.

Can't really think of anything all that interesting to report. I've found myself going on doomed interweb searches the past few days. Not doomed in the sense that I won't find what I'm looking for, but doomed in the idea that I shouldn't be looking for it in the first place. I should chalk it up to experience and leave it in the past, I should not regress via Internet. But I do, and then I get surprised by what I find, and then it gets stuck in my head. And while I do not want it in my head, in fact I want it dead and buried, it's still there. Hopefully the end to this little tale is I overcome the brain barnacles and rise to victory in the end. What kind of victory, I'm not sure. Probably a victory in which I do my work at work instead of looking at old boyfriends on the Internet. It's not like I'm looking for reconnection, it's just kind of a wondering - "I wonder what happened to so-and-so." I mean isn't that why people go back to their high school reunions, to find out what happened to the people they hated?

Time to leave for the Metro now. Ugh, humidity.

Oh the joys of family!

If your not a Powers, I pity you. The Powers is the best lineage ever. We are of questionable background - there may be some Scottish or French or maybe even Welch in this blood, but we are in fact the best. For only at a Powers family function can you rename your aunt's dessert contribution Aunt Ann's Famous Couter AND have your grandmother laugh heartily and repeat the joke. Oh, Ann's famous couter - delish!

Fun things that happened today - got to go to the International Spy Museum and tour the Natural History Museum again. In a most disturbing turn of events, I watched the birth of a kanagroo baby about three times because I just couldn't turn away from it. It was hypnotic. Yuck. Kangaroos and their half-born babies are just gross.

Brendan's laptop is about to die, so this will have to be it for now.

Katie's blog readers - leave comments on my blog, I've been keeping it up longer!! Haha, that sounds dirty. I meant I've been blogging longer, which really isn't much to be proud of. Off to rediscover my lost knitting skills for a Upton's baby booties!

Living in the Deep South

Hello, world. My new blogging sister has shamed me into updating as she is so on the ball.

Fun new events in the life of Lizzie - I started my job, I confirmed that I do actually love my job. I found the most wonderful roommates in the world to live - Kelly and Brendan, they are newest addition to my urban family. I walk about three miles a day thanks to my new pledge to only use mass transportation. I'm thinking this is just a whim and may well pass in the next few weeks.

As a new Virginian, I've noticed a few things about this backward state:
- on I-66 it seems like every damn lane is marked as an HOV lane, but everyone's in the car by themselves.
- they sell beer and wine in the GROCERY stores! The GROCERY STORES!!!! Where any little child or impetuous teenager can get their hands on it. Crazier yet - the liquor stores, which are all strangely run by the state, only sell hard liquor, making them a tremendous fire hazard.
- The sales tax varies by county.
- Route 7/Leesburg Pike magically connects every road in the state.
- The Mixing Bowl is the Bermuda Triangle of acceptable commute times - you get in there and all dreams of driving for less than two hours fly out the window.
- No one has southern accents.
- The roads are all named after colonial heroes and Civil War tragic heroes.
- Virginia's urban planners apparently tried to make the most confusing intersections possible, and succeeded - Example, Seven Corners.
- There's a tragic lack of Blockbusters, and a gross overabundance of 7-11s and BB&T branches.
- There are signs at intersections reading "Don't Block the Box." Does anyone else think that's a little dirty?
- Northern Virginia shouldn't even really have Virginia in the name - it has nothing to do with the rest of the state.