Waiting and watching

pickle photo from cooksbooksblog.com

I was sad to discover that I wasn't the first to think of "procrastineater," because it dawned on me that's exactly what happens when productivity wanes. Because of course a rice cake and a pickle were crucial to finishing this job application...  

Urban Dictionary- procrastineating: Avoiding being productive by consuming food even when one is not hungry.

In other news, job news is a revolving door of not quite yet, but maybe again for the summer.

In much better news: the journeyman returns to the US in 17 days!!! He has all the mandatory debriefing in Georgia, but we should be reunited in roughly three weeks. Very, very, ready for this.

Tide out, tide in

So, the fabulous news is that I have a) acquired summer work and b) almost completely navigated through house negotiations to arrive at a sale.  And of course, after months of waiting and watching, above events happened within a day of each other.

I have discovered that the lovely hubs and I seem to have different processing for future stressful/intense events. I internalize immediately and begin my freakout, tapering off somewhere right before or shortly after said event. For example, deployment. Orders issued about three months before the move: instant Shannon implosion. I was still functional and mostly normal but it only took a tiny trigger to send me into worry mode- sappy movies, terrible commercials, a particularly nice day... bizarrely almost anything. It has been more or less steady suck until about a month after the deployment began and while things are still not fun, I feel like I've already put all my stress and worst-case-scenario thinking in and have exhausted my stash of worry. The recent bad news of Koran burnings has caused some stress, but honestly I've already been through most of it already. Which is kind of nice.

On the other hand, it seems that the hubs does less of this pre-projected worrying. Not to make a value judgement on it or say he's not aware of roughly the same things that have freaked me out for months, but it seems to be dealt with on a more case-by-case basis. Perhaps this is an evolutionary advantage- if we both hit the stress-ball stage at the same time, who is there to be reassuring? I find this pattern emerges in most of our major decisions, and in some ways I find it amusing- "Oh, I've stopped having nightmares about buying the wrong house and being trapped forever? About time for hubs to start voicing some concerns." I find it quite amusing now that I'm calming down overall.

Anyone else find this a trend in your partnerships?


Vocab of the day: 
Military: CIP = Community Involvement Plan

Happy dance to do list for 2012

Two days to separation. Suck. I'm feeling slightly bipolar, fluctuating between the happy dance of "It's a great adventure!" and, "Freaking ugh- don't wanna!" [See here post for full explanation of the happy dance.] Most of the time I'm enjoying being around the boy before he goes- being goofy, snuggling, watching hip hop documentaries. But most often it's when he falls asleep that I suddenly have a fit of panic. It lasts for an hour or few, and then the next day most is fine again. I'm also in an awful rut with fits and starts of productivity- getting 3 applications sent one day, then none for the next several... Not to mention the house hunting.

So today I decided to start making a list of fun things that I can more freely do once I'm a single lady again (or at least a separated one with all the living space to myself). Lots of these he doesn't even care about but I keep them to myself out of self consciousness- here's to unfettered ridiculousness at home for the next year!

To do while he's away:

• Take up new musicals and blare them at top volume in the house, car, while out and about/exercising, etc. Sing loudly with them, play on repeat until I learn all the words.
• Go to operas and musicals all the time! Ok, when budget allows.
• Eat waffles and french toast for breakfast whenever I want
• Hog the entire bed and crank up the heat
• Go to Burning Man
• Less shaving
• Watch my guilty pleasure TV shows at full volume whenever- Project Runway, America's Next Top Model are top contenders
• Indulge in a once-a-week night owl stay up forever binge and then sleep in late. But just one!
• Paint my nails wherever I want without being concerned about the smell.
• Perhaps do a 30-day vegetarian trial?
• Put up a giant cheesy 'vision board' a la Happy Endings (Year of Penny and Vision Boards). Maybe.
• Work on guitar/piano/sing at any time and volume without being concerned I'll break his eardrums
• Art/craft projects that can take up room and last days with just me tripping on them. 
• Make my kitchen table a desk. All my desk! 
• Enjoy dance workout tapes that are awesome but make me look like a flailing primate.

Well, that looks like fun. If we have to do this separation thing, at least I have some entertaining things to look forward to.


Vocab of the day:
Military: PES= Positive Enable System

When it rains....

So, Seoul has been great for my life and bad for my blogging. Not a bad tradeoff, but sorry to those few readers who have hung in with me.

We've had a most delightful string of Couchsurfers, most recently a Portugese-turned-Belgian couple Juana and Antonio who are on a honeymoon year (the Belgian government allows a year of unpaid travel with the guarantee you can get your job back- how awesome!). They also had great stories about their previous 5 years working with a computing giant, one in particular about a cultural training they had to attend. The trainers characterized French people's response to anything as, "That's terrible! It will never work!" and Americans' as "the happy dance," where things aren't good, they're AWESOME! That presentation wasn't fair, it was FANTASTIC! I love this idea of the "happy dance" and was amused that Juana and Antonio identified my happy dance so many times- "We're totally lost, what a great ADVENTURE!" and so on.

Juana and Antonio were also greatly amused at the phrase "when it rains, it pours" as there's no equivalent in Portugese. It's turned out to be a very timely phrase these days. No more moping in front of tv-on-my-computer for days, I have to schedule in lazy days now! Between museum docenting, general domesticity I undertake, part time online work, and travel/party planning, I decided to join ROLLER DERBY. Probably more on that later, but it's consumed my life and thighs and I couldn't be happier. The team is still pretty new and hoping to get bout-ready by spring. Which of course means...

Today got word we might be back in Seattle as soon as December. Eeek! After all that time pining for the US, work, friends and family there... of course it's now that I really wish I could stay until spring. But, of course it's not official yet, and can change a dozen times or not happen at all. When it rains, it pours.



Vocab of the day: 
Korean: rain= 비 (bee)
Military: "uncertain environment" = just what you think it might be