life and puppies

Andddddddddddddddddddddddddd ……………………. we’ve plugged that cord back in. Tee hee. We were not long for the cord-cutting world, it seems. Actually, I think we could have lasted longer than (just shy of) two months, but the only other internet we were able to get was a super slow AT&T product that comes through the phone line. The phone line! Talk about the dark ages, ammiright? Anyway, so we’re back to being slaves to Charter, but we have cut our monthly bill by about $100 a month, so there’s that. It’s a weird game these crazy kids want you to play – cutting service and reestablishing service – but if it means saving money, getting HBO AND a DVR, I’ll play it. Now I can’t wait to get home and watch some telly!

Ok, you know schadenfreude? I feel like this is similar in its perversity, but it seems to be self-punishing. Only I kinda enjoy it. What am I talking about? The act of purposely reading things that annoy me. For example, I pretty religiously follow this religious (ha!) parenting blog that I find beyond annoying. It’s preachy (ha!), poorly written and pretty smug. And yet I read it. AO seems to think I’m nuts when I rant about how obnoxious it is. It’s not like I have to read it. But I know that he reads lots of things that he knows are going to annoy him but he seems to read them because he wants to be annoyed. Like the Republicans explanations for the WEDC. Ok, maybe politics isn’t a good example because we should all stay apprised of what’s going on whether it’s going to annoy us or not. What’s another example? Hmm. Oh! He will read Doug Moe’s columns and then make the same criticism of him every time: He thinks he’s Mike Royko, but he’s not. And I’m not picking on AO. I’m just trying to prove to myself that I’m in good company. Or here’s another example that I think a lot of us do. I’ll read the comments on an article and I just get more and more annoyed but I don’t just stop. (I actually think newspapers should just do away with this feature altogether.) What is the word for this behavior? Am I deriving pleasure from being annoyed? Is it unhealthy? Or is it part of human nature? Or both? I feel like some of you may say, “Kate, the older I get, the less apt I am to concentrate on things that annoy me or make me unhappy. Just don’t spend your time that way.” And you know what? I get that. I do. I’ve become better about doing that in some things. And yet. I still read the damn parenting blog. I just want to know what the word is.

UPDATE: Or more, a clarification. I’m not referring to, say, watching Ann Coulter and getting annoyed. Though, if that’s your thing, then that’d count. I’m pretty good about staying away from things that will serve only to drive me completely batty. I’m talking about watching (I realize I said reading above, but it doesn’t have to be reading) or reading or listening to things that you take some sort of perverse (too harsh?) pleasure (too pleasant?) out of disliking. To me, it’s sort of like how Terry likes to email and text about how annoying Taylor Swift is. Why is Terry spending any time on Taylor Swift? I can’t imagine she comes up that much in her everyday life. And yet Terry can’t stand her and wants to talk about her. Totally normal! I think a lot of us have these things. Maybe not the more enlightened among us (not that you’re not totally enlightened, T), but a lot of us.

No, not for Molly. For me. I think, at my core, I’m a pretty lazy person. I’m pretty content to just stay home all the time. And yet I have this annoying compulsion to sign up for things. All the time. I sign up for things regularly. And then I drop them. Last fall, I signed up for an interior design class and then dropped it before it began. A few years ago I accepted a job as a waitress (during the Great Pumpkin Fiasco of 2007-08) and never went. I’ve analyzed this quality (deficiency) of mine ad nauseum. Am I just flaky? Am I trying to prove something? Do I find it liberating to quit things? Am I a loser? Do I have trouble committing? Am I just annoying? I don’t really know the answers, but I think it’s a combination of not always listening to my instincts/pretending to be someone I’m not/optimism. And then sometimes I think that what I signed up for just turns out not to be what I really wanted it to be.

And that’s where I think I find myself today. Or at least sorta. I knew that when I signed up for a three-hour landscape design class, held in the summer on a weekday evening, that I was sort of setting myself up for failure. It takes a special someone to want to sit in a classroom for three hours after a full day at work on a summer night. But I thought that it would be a good investment for our home. And maybe it would have been. I did learn some interesting things on that first night. But I also learned some very boring things. And some things I have no interest in. So, over the last week, I thought all about whether I would return. For most of the week, I thought I would. I realized today, though, that 90% of the reason that I wanted to go back wasn’t because I wanted to take the class. It was because I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t flaky. Ten percent was because I want a landscape plan. But after just taking a walk through part of our beautiful Marquette neighborhood, and some searching on the Google machine, I’m pretty excited to come up with a landscape plan outside of class. And after talking with GAOOG, I realized that I just don’t want to take the class and that that’s enough of a reason not to take the class. It seems so simple, and if it were anyone else questioning this, I’d tell them to have their head examined. It’s a simple decision! You don’t want to take a totally elective class? Don’t. Take. It. But for some reason, I’ve made this more existential than it ever needed to be.

So, dear reader (and by that I think I just mean my mom because I’m not sure anyone else reads this anymore), I won’t be taking the class. In case I hadn’t already made that abundantly clear. And I’m going to try really hard not to sign up for anything for awhile. I’m currently on two boards of directors and one city commission. I’d like to work on getting our lawn in order and some house projects. And I’d like to have a really nice summer with my family and friends. And that all seems like more than enough for me.

I miss Gracie. A lot. But it’s been over a year since she’s been gone and, for better or worse, I think Phoebe is here to stay. She’s still a lot and I still wouldn’t recommend getting a puppy when you have a two-year-old (or maybe ever), but we do love her. Especially on Friday nights when she’s had the chance to run off her puppy energy in day care. So, I changed the header. It’s been Gracie up there since I started this thing in 2007. I love you, Grace. And welcome, Phoebe.