good morning blogland!  i'm hoping this week i'll get us back on track here at loosefromthezoo.  last week was a bit of a panic-stricken one trying to get everything done in preparation to replace steve's car slash try and make a dent in our mess slash work on wedding details slash feel like i'm making any progress at work.  but the past weekend was one big pleasant surprise!

we accomplished some of our to-do list, but not all.  our living room is still a mess, but sans financial hardship, steve has upgraded from herman (chevy monte carlo) to hank (mazda tribute).  another extra big thank you to my mom and dad for saving hank for us, instead of trading him in.  even after driving the new car from kzoo back to ann arbor, steve couldn't get enough of his favorite new toy, so we had to take an extra little joy ride around town.  since i lazily took next to no pictures this weekend, here's a great shot steve's mom got of him and his new ride.

we're still plugging away at the wedding plans, but one of the exciting parts we got settled this weekend was "finding" our wedding officiant.  we met up with steve's roommate from his freshman year in the dorms, alex, along with his lovely girlfriend erin, last night.  alex has been there pretty much since the inception of steve & becky (steve's five AM profession of love, the dorm fort, wizard people: dear reader, etc.).  we all treated ourselves to some serious face-stuffing last night, and plenty of wine, fish tacos, mushroom risotto, chocolate pumpkin cheesecake, and brandy alexanders later, one of our best friends was signed up to officiate our wedding!  oh and the four of us are having a combination j.crew outlet shopping, hockey game watching, cat and kitten introducing slumber party next weekend.

a sunday feast of epic proportions with wonderful friends sure is the best medicine to get your week started right.  now it's time to get on with the cleaning house so we'll be ready to host my sister when she comes for a visit the weekend after halloween!  busy?  yup that we still are, but we're filling life up with happy times, so i'm ready to stop complaining!

hope everyone's week is starting out on as good a note as ours! we are feeling like lucky ducks these days!

word count:  33,365

today is an honorary weekend

not really, i still have to go to work and stuff.

but we did some epic moving this weekend and so i'm going kinda slow today to give myself the break we didn't really get.  and i finally caught the germs that steve has been complaining about lately (blerg)...

and i didn't work on my draft on friday so i'm focusing my writerly energy there today, which is going pretty well.  

hope you all get your week started on a creative, or otherwise wonderful foot!

word count: 14,812

the move has begun

i hope everyone's weekend was splendid!  ours, though light on the hardcore fun-having, was excellent and well-needed.  we relaxed a lot, made a huge dent in the packing process, and sunday evening steve flew to pittsburgh for a work conference, which meant i got to lie around in the bathtub and read chekhov.  the weekend was perfect balance of lazy and productive.

you'll probably be hearing about our moving attempts for quite a while here.  one of the glories of college-town living is the way property rentals tend only to be available at random staggered intervals in mid-august through early september.  this means that, although our lease does not start until august 15th, we have about 90 steps along the way to getting our asses moved in together.  my lease is up a week from tuesday, which means i'll get to endure temporary housing at steve's place (if you enjoy fear factor, you'll probably want to come back and read how that goes for me... fortunately steve is no longer living with the nuclear physicist who pooped his own pants while stone cold sober... i wish i was kidding).

for the most part i'm going to soak up all the bathwater i possibly can until steve comes home, while bert continues to enjoy himself exploring the newly-empty corners of the townhouse.

such as this one:

happy monday everyone!

word count: 9,669

shall we just watch the video?

in high school i used to be a huge video geek.

my friends and i would run around town with a camcorder and a lot of free time, and back in the early days of windows movie maker and imovie hd 6 i ended up with some enjoyable footage.  hopefully one day i'll be able to do something with all those 8mm tapes.

so it might sound odd that i was a little skeptical about instagram's new video function.  i had not been using vine previously so the concept took a moment of getting used to.

honestly, having downloaded vine to make the comparison, i think i actually prefer it to the video version of instagram, but since so many more people use instagram than vine the purpose is definitely there.

steve and i watched trainspotting last night, which is a favorite of mine as far as something so grotesque and hard to watch can be.  for some reason it is one of those movies that often gets me really inspired to be creative.  maybe watching such a humanization of a bunch of heroin junkies gets me thinking about what i'm busy doing with the time i have... with the privilege that i have... with the freedom and decisions i have.

or maybe danny boyle is just a really talented filmmaker.

we have all kinds of technological resources that foster creativity, from blogger, to instagram, to photoshop and vimeo, but sometimes all the different outlets make it feel like i'm drowning in a million ideas instead of developing one big thing.

i think i want to change that.

so hopefully i won't be the only one spending this week thinking about creativity and what i want to do with it.  i think i'll start where i always do and write something.

happy monday!!

new week: words of others

i've always loved inspirational quotations, but my internal hipster has always preferred something quirkier than your average "dance like nobody's watching" insta-pic.  to kick off the week, here are a few words i've read over the years that have stuck with me, made me think, and reminded me i'm not alone.  hope everybody has an amazing week!

"any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out." - anton chekhov

"time is not even.  space is not empty." - tite of eiko and koma performance art

"it enlarges the heart. something bigger than the self." - david foster wallace, infinite jest

"you can't regret the life you didn't lead." - junot diaz, the brief wonderous life of oscar wao

"my heart was a hysterical, unreliable organ." - vladimir nabokov, lolita

"does she like a lot of teal?" - my brother, on determining whether or not a woman has taste.

oh and hey PS...

i got a new car!