miller's crossing

Do you know these guys? They're monsters. Don't listen to them unless they're telling jokes. Then you can listen, because they're quite funny. And it's a good thing to laugh these days.

Good news: I might have found an apartment -- the last one-bedroom in my new, sunny Pacific Northwest home. Keep your fingers crossed. I realize that me and half the midwest have moved out here recently, causing an apartment shortage. I apologize to all midwesterners coming here after me. You can crash on my couch (once I get one) while you're looking.

So, I'm learning to love my limbo. It's like vacation, but you don't know when it'll end or where you'll be taking your suitcase to next. But you can get a tan (as long as its sunny) and catch up on your reading.

Geek alert: I'm loving Eat, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. It's a book all about punctuation. I'm sure my posts will still be full of typos and sloppy comma deployment, but I'll know more about what I'm doing wrong. Quiz: is it "Truss's book" or "Truss' book"? Read it and find out!

I saw two enjoyable movies over the weekend: Knocked Up and Waitress. Yes, there's a theme; But (thank god!) I'm not pregnant. I recommend them both. Knocked Up is silly and clever. Waitress, especially due to Adrienne Shelly's really senseless death, is bittersweet.

My lovely one-speed bike Good Vibrations and I have been rolling all over town -- up and down, hither and yon -- in search of apartments, work, entertainment, a good view, a good dinner, you name it. This is a bike town. We're loving it.

The monsters, by the way, I believe are still hanging out in an attic in Madison. I may have to create a few more to keep me company and tell me jokes while I'm hanging in limbo. I bet I know where to find some cardboard....

Did you see the moon last night? How were your dreams?

I've been having some pretty interesting dreams lately. Last night I dreamt I finally had found an apartment and started moving into it with a friend and his dogs. This is good, I think, because I view this particular friend as very stable and settled. I felt good and safe in the dream. I felt like I was discovering what it meant to have a home. And even though the apartment still seemed kind of temporary, I think I'm figuring out that home really does exist internally: in my heart, I am at home. Now that's good news.

Synchronicity alert: I painted the monsters in the month following the 9/11 attacks as part of a puppet show I wanted to do on the incident. There is a guy sitting right next to me in the cafe talking on his cell phone. What's he talking about? 9/11 conspiracy theories and the like. He didn't start talking until after I chose the picture.

Now, why that picture? Well, I haven't being taking any pictures lately -- haven't felt like it. So, I looked in the photo archive and picked this one. I've always liked these guys. And I kind of miss them. Five years later, I'm still pulling out photos of monsters; he's still talking about the "put options."

Meanwhile, I can't email friends in France or Italy without knowing that the emails get caught in the big NSA net. ... At least Gonzales had to resign.