I guess we’re all one phone call from our knees…

The rain has finally let off here in Los Angeles. I’m spending the day at the CBTL on Melrose, which has by far turned out to be one of my more productive haunts. The Starbucks in the Marina is all right, but it really is kind of cramped sometimes, & I find that distracting. I think part of it for me is that I really don’t know anyone in my neighborhood, so oddly enough, I have more anonymity where I’ve lived for nine years than I do over by where I row. I’m reminded of that great line they gave Vanessa Redgrave’s character in the first Mission: Impossible movie – “Anonymity is like a warm blanket.”

I took Zoey for a walk today up to the Kinko’s on Sunset to make a photocopy of this week’s unemployment claim before I send it in — even if I’m down to partial claim, I still don’t trust them to find a way to frack things up, so there’s always a copy made before we mosey to the post office. At this point, if my destination is within a mile of my house, I just walk there – gas is $3/gallon for economy here in LA, and really, when you have street parking once your car is in a decent place you become loathe to yield the spot.

I’ve finished migrating this round of content for Civic!Co – it’s odd to have worked on the site for the city I live in – most of the time, I’m working on a website for Podunk, TN or somesuch. I’m afraid few of my acquaintances understand why I’m rather chuffed about the new design for our city’s website – no really guys, I’ve seen a lot of “before” sites – you don’t know how bad this could have gone.

I woke up this morning feeling oddly… empty. I once joked that I felt like a laptop working off battery – the screen’s a little dimmer & the response time’s slightly slower. That descriptive seem to apply today.

I think the drugs are helping a bit, honestly. Although, do they even count as drugs if you can buy it at Whole Foods? Supplements, maybe. Happy Pills? Winky-do’s? Wackety-Clackety tabs?
(Okay, I’ll stop now – but seriously, I could make up names like that forever – you should have been there when I worked for a supplement company & was allowed to suggest names for new products – it was Game On back then, people, I just can’t even tell ya.)

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Have moved to my apartment for the evening to watch Ever After whilst trying to find new color schemes for Finance!Site! client on kuhler. You know it’s bad if I’m giving in to that impulse — as a painter (at heart, if not in action at the moment) Kuhler is kind of like crack for me. I could lose hours on that site.
Ugh, I really just want this client to settle on a choice. It took quite a bit for them to okay a site layout, and now we’re playing with the color scheme. Lord help me, we haven’t even hit the feedback for the second round on the logo – I’m kind of dreading that.

Thankfully should have the site for the juniors done & uploaded tomorrow night, which would be lovely – not only to get that off my plate, but also for the cash. Z‘s a friend so I only charged him about a third of what the site would be worth, but in this case I don’t mind. 2/3 of the fee shall go towards bringing my rent up to date, 1/3 towards my tuition for hopefully starting school in July. I’m pondering starting a ticker for myself for my tuition – ya know, like people do for when their kids are going to be born, only in my case I suppose art would be my child. What can I say, there’s a reason my mother gave up & just sent me the cookbook that she’d been saving for my wedding day.

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Four-legged children
I have two couches in my living room – a full-size, & then a smaller that’s less a loveseat & more like an oversized armchair. As of late, I’ve found myself working on the smaller couch when home. Zoey’s response to this has been to climb up & squinch in with me. Poor baby Zo – being home has proven itself to be detrimental to my productivity, so I’ve been spending a lot of time in coffee shops lately, & she spends her days next door with her b/f Argo & his sister Skeela. The result is that when I do get home in the evenings, I’m greeted by a snugglebug who wants nothing more than to curl up as close as possible and sleep next to me. We don’t entirely fit on the smaller couch together, but I just don’t have the heart to kick her off, so here we sit, probably ruining the cushions and really not giving a damn.

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Sustainably cheap.
One of the things that Kate talked about last time she was up was that she wanted to start using her own thermal mug for coffee . As she rightly pointed out, considering that we each tend to go through at least one cup of coffee (or in my case tea) a day in our coffeehouse work habits, environmentally speaking it would probably be a good idea to just use the same mug every day. Plus, as she pointed out, when you have your own mug you can order a venti at starbucks, tell them you only want one teabag, & only pay for a grande. (Yes, we’re just that cheap)

Today’s google reader included the addition of Jason Mraz’s blog to my list, and it would seem he takes the same stance on water bottles, etc. Also, I feel rather a bit better about using ecology to increase economy when the guy who’s had at least 3 commercially-distributed albums & multiple top 40 songs is also celebrating the fact that he managed to save $300 by making a firepit out of the materials in his own backyard rather than buying one at the hardware store. Jason, next time I mosey down to San Diego, I wanna come over & hang out with you & yours. Think that might be good times.

Things to get:
-> 3 prong to 2-prong outlet converter — turning out to be very key for coffeehouse survival.

Music: Closer to Love – Mat Kearney