MissFunkshun is officially MissAnthropy. I have a WordPress blog and was able to import all of my LiveJournal entries as XML files. If you read regularly, please make a note of the change. Is it good Interweb manners to leave you all comments on your blogs to let you know or should I just leave this puppy up for a while?

Speaking of comments, now, if you're not a LiveJournal user, you can save your information rather than the annoying anonymous commenting. I'm still working out kinks. The main one being that, of all the things that didn't translate in the import, my tags are missing. Perhaps that's a good thing since I have about a thousand on LJ and have just added five or six on WordPress.

Off we go!

For a long time I avoided listening to Death Cab for Cutie. I thought, like Radiohead, they were talked about a little too much for me in terms of the indie music scene. Besides, how "indie" can you be if I've read about you a hundred times in the past few years? I also didn't think I'd really like them all that much. I'd long ago outgrown bands with male singers who whine about unrequited love and that which is now lost or "undone." Sorry, Robert Smith, but it's true. No more "emo" for me.

However, 92.3, our local halfway decent college rock station, began playing "Soul Meets Body" and I was hooked. I didn't want to like them, but I did. So I ended up downloading a few songs on iTunes.

Then I heard "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" and every time I hear that song I cry. I can't believe someone can string together words that make me feel that emotional, but here Death Cab has gone and done it.

Charlie and I had a pretty good weekend. Despite his having to work at the club Friday night, we still went downtown early, had dinner together, and saw the Alison Krauss and Union Station concert at the Lawn at White River. They provided us with chairs, but we brought a blanket so I could lay down. I'd put on sunscreen before leaving but since we sat there for two hours before the show started I had to hide a bit rather than getting fried. I also slathered myself in bug spray and remained blissfully free of mosquito bites. It was such a nice, cool evening. I was thrilled.

It was a great show and the crowd was good, too. The requisite spinning hippies were there on the sides, which I always find amusing, but not in an I'm-making-fun-of-them way, although most people have no issues openly staring and poking each other as they point and laugh. Hey, they're having a good time.

There were also an unusual amount of Barbie wannabes, mincing around the crowd. If you didn't already know, Alison Krauss plays fiddle in a bluegrass band and sings. Union Station, the band she plays with, is best known for doing most of the soundtrack to "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" so all the Little Miss Carmelites and their French manicures seemed a bit out of place. Most of the audience was older, and I heard several people talking about how they don't really like "country" music, but like bluegrass. My best guess is that the decked-out women's husbands or boyfriends get box seats for every show and they just went for something to do. Most of them slithered out of their seats in tiny mini-skirts about halfway through. Not their style, I guess.

While we were gone, Cavan stayed with the dogs and ended up fixing the dining room light which has been broken since about two days after we moved in. I bribed him by getting him an omellette (did I spell that right?) and cinnamon toast from Patachou so he'd stick around to let the pooches out and we could ensure a parking space and food more affordable than a four dollar soft pretzel or nine dollar beers.

We also went to see the new Harry Potter movie today after getting Q'doba for breakfast with Cavan. The theater was completely packed with people who found the previews absolutely hilarious. I leaned over and whispered to Charlie at one point "I have to move out of Indiana." I couldn't believe how ridiculous some of these new movies are or how hilarious the crowd thought they looked. A Christmas movie where Vince Vaughn plays Santa's brother who encourages the elves to take time off? Gag. A Disney movie that has cartoon characters traveling into the Real World? Barf.
One preview was for "10,000 B.C." A woman sitting behind had to explain what the title meant to her daughter. "It means ten thousand years before Christ, but that doesn't matter because it's not real and none of it happened." Nice. I almost turned around to tell her not to lie to her kid.

When we got home we walked the dogs then made a run to the hardware and grocery stores. We replaced all the blinds upstairs and I planted some heather and lavender, plus I priced shelves for the spare room. I'd like to finish the whole room off with them so we can get our plethora of figurines off bookcases.

I felt like we got a lot done but still relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. I imagine how nice it will be when he finally quits that stupid weekend job and we have time together.

On a bad note, I missed a call from work around eight this morning. I slept in for the first time in months and months (past nine!!) and my phone was still on silent from the concert, anyway. Apparently, Matt never showed up and never answered his phone. Worst case scenario, he'd be in jail or the hospital, but apparently came in around eleven (three hours late) saying he never heard his alarm. Annie gave him three write-ups - one verbal, two written - he signed them without argument, and she said the next time he's even five minutes late he's fired.

The good news is, at least I didn't have to go in. I honestly didn't hear my phone because I was still asleep, and I never thought to check it until after ten.

Last night I had a dream where Annie got mad at me because I only filled one of the containers we keep coffee cup sleeves in. I woke up thinking "I know I filled up both of them last night when I closed!"

A few nights ago I dreamt that one of our regulars who I've seen everywhere lately was waiting for the bus (as far as I know he owns a car, so I have no idea why he was at the bus stop in the dream) and stopped in at my house because it was raining. I was telling him about the Alison Krauss concert this weekend that I got tickets for Charlie's birthday. He tried to convince me that I wouldn't like it because her new album was awful. I woke up thinking "Oh, yeah, I haven't gotten her new album."

Several nights ago, in yet another dream, two regulars - the really obnoxious older trophy wives with obvious face lifts and too much collagen who don't understand the physics involved in hot milk versus cold milk being poured over ice - were ordering their drinks. After I made the lattes the women both picked up six-inch-tall stacks of napkins. I tried to stop them, pointing out how they didn't need a hundred napkins a piece. There was a lot of shouting on my part about their wastefulness and consumerism and entitlement. I suppose my subconscious was relieving a little pent-up frustration.

In waking life, they both usually take one or two to wrap around their cups, which annoys me because I think it's wasteful and pointless. People do it all the time and like to point out how incredibly hot or cold the cups are to me, like I have any control over it, and despite the fact that they have sleeves. My biggest pet peeve is when someone takes a hot sleeve to put on a cold cup. I know I've probably built up a tolerance to the heat and cold of the cups after years of coffee service, but seriously. Is it that painful? If so, you may want to consider changing up the temperature of your drinks.

Of course, when people do, I find that annoying, as well. When someone gives me a specific temperature, I quietly fume. The worst was the guy who wanted his brewed coffee at one hundred and twenty degrees. He told me this specifically. I had to pour ice in a cup with a thermometer until I got the 200-degree java down to his exact measurements.

So I've been having a lot of dreams lately with people from work in them, which I think sucks. Not only do I have to see these people everyday, but they're in my dreams, which aren't even that entertaining. I need a vacation.

I think Charlie and I have decided on the more-affordable day trip option. We're both taking a week off: Saturday through the following Friday. We plan on seeing his dad one day; spending a day in Bloomington; probably going to Chicago one day and possibly staying overnight; one day will be devoted to absolutely nothing; another day will be devoted to Serious Cleaning; then he and Cavan are going to King's Island with a mutual friend.

I'm going to stay at home with the dogs so we don't have to pay to board them. I'd bought myself a ticket when I got theirs as a surprise, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to go. I don't go on rollercoasters but they both love them. From what I understand, even when an amusement park isn't all that busy you still stand in line forever to get on a ride. And I could definitely not be convinced to do so. Cavan doesn't want to do the water park part of it and I don't see standing around taking photos being that much fun after about two hours or so. As I discovered this at last year's State Fair, you can only photograph so many morbidly obese people and dudes in stone-washed denim shorts with mullets before you start to feel like an asshole.

Charlie's finally taking the ginormous (it's a word now, even if LiveJournal doesn't recognize it yet) television back and getting a smaller one. You know, if you measure the distance (in inches) between where you sit to watch TV and where your TV sits, then divide it by three, it will give you the estimated size of the perfect television for your space.

For example, the distance between the sofa and entertainment center at our house is eight feet. Eight feet is equal to 96 inches. Divide that by three and you get 32. Hence, the thirty-two inch television we used to have (which now occupies the "PlayStation room" upstairs [which doesn't have a PlayStation in it because Charlie hooked it up the forty-two incher downstairs]) was the perfect size. Now that it sits in front of the futon in the spare room, it's now way too big for up there, as well. The perfect size TV for that room would actually only be about twenty inches. But, oh, noooooo.

So he's on his way to return the way-too-big one from the living area for something more reasonable (but still bigger than we need).

I, myself, am a fan of electronics. I don't think I have an unusual amount of love for electronics, but perhaps more than the average gal. Still, it's difficult for me to fathom his obsession with bigger and bigger flat panel TVs, an iMac on top of the PC laptop, a PS3 and all the various "necessities" that go along with that (wireless controllers, adapters to play older games and use the previous memory cards, a remote to watch Blu-Ray discs, and of course Blu-Ray discs).

After reading a few books on consumer culture, I'm beginning to feel that my stuff is owning me. If something happened to our house and we lost everything (god forbid) I would not want my top priority to be immediately "replacing" all that stuff. I think it would be time to take stock and assess what's really important.

Which brings me to our next topic: I'm considering a long-term boycott of Target. I know, I know. You never thought I'd say something like that. This is only partially related to my desire to support my community by patronizing only local, independently-owned businesses. The truth is, they really pissed me off.

Recently, my Target "RedCard" interest rate went up, despite a customer service rep telling me "It's a store card. The interest never changes." She said this to me because I was trying to negotiate a lower rate. I have a line of credit through USAA that's better and Target wanted to replace my store card with a VISA that has a $6,000 credit limit. Okay, you can't increase my limit from $300 for almost a decade, but you're going to give me six grand for no reason?

That wasn't the point. They refused to lower my limit, telling me that would never happen, which must have been a technical fib because it went up.

The worst was that they changed their billing cycle from 28 to 25 days without clearly notifying me. And by "clearly" I mean in language that made sense, on a piece of paper that I would look at, or in a message on the Web site where I pay my bill. I would certainly remember reading that somewhere, and I most certainly did not. In the past few months, my bill has gone from being due on the 8th of every month to the 7th last month, to the 3rd of this month, and now it says it's due on August 2nd. I was late twice, which gave me two minor, but still irritating, negatives on my credit.

I know, I know, it's a business and they gotta make money, but it seems to me that arbitrarily changing due dates for bills is just an easy way to prey on an otherwise good customer and put cash in the company's pocket. If it hasn't happened since I first got the card in the late 1990s, why is it happening now, and why didn't they make a bigger deal of it so I'd be aware?

I finally decided to close my account because I don't agree with this. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't called their customer service line and been treated rather poorly by the agent I spoke with. She could have cared less if I closed my account and basically said "Fine, see ya." It seems like companies used to care if you stayed with them or not. Considering how much money I spend at Target and Super Target stores on clothes, furniture, groceries, cat litter, makeup, hair dye, toiletries, cleaning supplies, printer ink, magazines, movies, CDs, and gift cards . . . well, we're talking a significant portion of my income. In fact, I think I spend more there annually than I actually make. If that's possible.

So I sent them a letter, explaining why I closed the account, my disappointment with the customer service rep, detailed how much time and money I spend there, and said that if my business wasn't that important, I could take it from the chain stores to the local businesses and put that money back into my community.

Perhaps I'm just being whiny about all of it. If I get a stock, form-letter response I'll be ticked and I'll take some time off from Target. Long-term, however, I can't make any promises. After all, they're building one in the old Glendale shopping center. I don't know if I can't take advantage of that proximity.

I'm trying to figure out how to convince our landlord to sell us this townhouse (the one we live in, not the house in the photo. That's just a house I'd want). Not because I'm completely in love with it so much as moving again seems like a major hassle. We've been through this before. As the child of a Navy officer, I became accustomed to moving frequently. It carried over into my own adult life and I haven't stayed anywhere longer than 18 months in my entire life. Maybe that house my parents bought when I was in high school, but I don't count that since I was rarely there except to sleep for about two years. The idea of buying a home and staying in it permanently, or even for a few years, is intimidating. I get bored looking at the same four walls after about 6 months.

Since our landlord's owned this place outright for a decade, it'll be difficult to part him with ten grand a year for just one side. In other words, I wouldn't doubt he'd be willing to sell for an unbelievable sum - probably something upwards of $150,000. It hasn't got much of a yard (which is a necessity for both of us to buy), and we share a driveway with the next-door neighbors as well as a garage with the other side of the house, but I can't imagine living somewhere else anymore. But I don't know that I'd want to live next door to other renters if he didn't part with the other side of the double.

I can't even imagine what it must be like putting twenty thousand bucks in your pocket annually for something you have literally nothing to do with. The last time we got any work done on the house, we had to tackle the maintenance guy our landlord employs as he was leaving the girls' side of the duplex. In 14 months no one has bothered with the dining room light fixture which has never worked, and we finally got the hose outside fixed yesterday. If I remember correctly, we signed the lease on April 14th of 2006 and the light stopped working on the 16th.

I read this book from the library a while back, something like 'one hundred questions every first-time home buyer should ask,' and she mentioned settling a lot; how people get attached to a home and feel like nothing else This Perfect is out there for them and despite glaring problems, they'll get frustrated with the process and end up with something they really shouldn't be buying. In my case, this house is far from perfect. It's just convenient, I'm lazy, I adore the location, and it's huge. In fact, that might be a drawback. As someone who former roommates have considered a "neat freak," I can tell you that moving into a place twice the size of any home you've ever lived in can break you of obsessive cleaning habits. When I stop and consider the ten rooms, three or four of which are huge with eighty-five foot ceilings (or so it seems at times), I get overwhelmed before I even start.

So, as I'm sure you can imagine, sometimes a few dust bunnies chase one another across the kitchen floor and I just watch them, then go back to whatever I was doing. I'm insanely envious of people like Jay & Scott or my mom and dad, who seem to be effortlessly clean. But at least they have each other. You'd think with two other people here we'd have long ago figured out a pattern of housecleaning that would satisfy all parties. Instead, I have one guy who, when pushed or bribed, will sweep and, occasionally, go balls-out with the vacuum or Shop-Vac for no apparent reason, and another guy does the dishes once we've run out of cups. I think he hordes them in his room.

When it comes right down to it, I don't really want to buy this townhouse. I know what problems it has, so that'd at least be a leg up on any other home, but I also know what problems it has. Specifically, being about a hundred years old and in desperate need of electrical updates, with upstairs hardwoods begging to be refinished.

While we still have no definitive plan for 2009, when I finally, hopefully graduate and our lease is up a month after that, we are still leaning towards buying. Neither of us is one of those "I hate to throw away money on rent" people, so the idea of continuing to rent isn't a bother. I guess I'm beginning to feel like there should be A Plan in place for our future and we haven't got one. Then again, you are what you are. I'm not trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Today was shaping up to be a busy one right about 5:59 am when I got a call from work. Apparently, our trainer who was coming in at six called in sick (more accurately, she'd found herself in a bit of a kerfuffle over the weekend and couldn't make it to work on time for reasons better left unsaid), and I was scheduled at seven. Of course, I wasn't anywhere near awake enough to get to the phone. Luckily, Mondays tend to be a bit on the slow side so my manager was cool running the place until I got there.
Unlike most Mondays, however, we did get a bit busy. All the usual suspects came in at the same time for their skinny latte run, all of them were running behind and checking their watches a lot as I banged out the drinks.

I walked myself home a little before noon in sweltering heat that made me - as it does every summer in Indiana - reconsider my choice to live in this state. I was talking to Charlie at the time, trying to coordinate schedules, and reached into my purse for my house keys. They weren't in my purse. In my rush to get to work this morning I'd left them hanging by the door. Most mornings when I go in at seven, we walk the dogs together, I make a drink for Charlie, and he walks them home. It's a really nice routine. This morning he was already standing outside waiting for me, and in my concern for my manager being alone, I didn't even think to grab my keys. Cavan is out of town for a few days, so he wouldn't have even been there to let me in.

So Charlie had to spend his lunch break driving back to the house to let me in. The icing on the cake is, he keeps his car and house keys separate, and had left his backpack - with aforementioned house keys - at his desk. Thank god he also had the keys to the truck, so I followed him all the way back to work and drove all the way back home. Meanwhile, the poor doggies had been holding their pee. Poor doggies.

When he did get home, we started talking about Our Next Vacation which was originally shaping up to be a doozy. We'd talked about Vegas, New York, Frisco with Liz, Toronto, Seattle, or driving northeast and just seeing where we ended up. At work today, I was looking ahead in the request off calendar and noticed four people taking week-long or longer vacations all through August and September. A couple of them overlap, right on my birthday. Not that I'm opposed to working over my birthday. It's certainly not a milestone and I generally don't make Big Plans. But that was shaping up to be the week we went on vacation.

The moral of the story, of course, is to plan ahead better, but in this case we really couldn't. We were trying to work around my school schedule since Charlie was originally going to leave the desk job to take classes full time. Now he's thinking about just working for a while, before he decides what he "actually" wants to go back to school for. No biggie; the GI Bill is good for another four or five years. But we also have all of my dental appointments. Timewise, I had to talk him into putting in his two week notice a week early (it wasn't difficult) so that he can take off the last week of July/first week of August in between jobs. So, to all of you that work with him: he's putting in his notice this Friday. But he's been planning it for about two years.

If we don't end up doing something amazing, it's okay. If he sits on his ass for seven days playing the PS3, I'm fine with it. I'm not paying four hundred bucks to board the dogs, so we're going to see if Cavan will be available - for a smaller fee - to walk and feed them and give Trinity her various eye medicines. If not, we may just be in for a few days chilling out.

For whatever reason, I like to look for rentals around town. Partly due to the fact that when our lease is up here I have no idea if we're going to buy, rent elsewhere, renew the lease here for a little while longer, or move out of town. Partly because I like to know what things are going for in different areas. And mostly because I'm bored and like looking at pictures.

My favorite place to look has generally been CraigsList, especially since it's finally taken off in Indy and a lot more people use it. Of course, you have the apartment complexes that post multiple times per day and the slumlords who try to make things look a lot better than they are (mostly calling 49th and Carvel "Meridian Kessler").

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a rental located in "Up and Coming South Broad Ripple," which sounded vaguely familiar. I noticed the same ad posted again this morning. What shocked me was the rental was listed as $1475 per month. I thought it must be a mistake, or it was a four thousand square foot six-bedroom, eight bath with a pool and your own housekeeper. The keywords, meaning that entire sentence, were setting off alarms. "Up and coming" almost never means anything good, and South Broad Ripple just means it's the shittier part of town, just north of 38th Street, but too far east for the landlord to get away with calling it Meridian Kessler.

The reason that phrase rang a bell is because I've read it before. Speficially, four years ago when I saw an ad in the Indianapolis Star that we ended up looking at and eventually renting. Twice. My former landlady has been calling her duplex "up and coming SoBro" for a decade or more, and it has yet to really come. But what my landlady is now renting is her own home, the one right next door to the double we lived in.

What else was shocking about this ad was that also called it "uniquely renovated," which I know means she has really horrible, outdated taste in decor and has slapped all manner of hideous wallpaper and borders throughout the house over the course of the past twenty or so years she's owned it.

The fact that she's trying to get a grand and a half per month for her (barely) three bedroom (one of the rooms is the attic) is ludicrous. I cannot imagine who in their right mind would pay that much on that street (although she did manage to rent one half of the double for $800 a month with a four year lease, including a stipulation that she can increase it incrementally each year) and I sincerely doubt she'll be successful. I also know the reason she's asking so much is because she's in debt up to her ears, having taken out second mortgages on our old double and her own house in an effort to purchase a trailer on a lake in Georgia that "talked" to her. It told her to buy it, so she did. I'm not kidding. That's what she told me.

I feel bad for her and frustrated with her. We went back to the old double the second time because we found it impossible to rent an affordable home that allowed all our pets. We had to haggle over the price, though, because she wanted us to pay an additional $100 per month than we'd paid the previous year, claiming property taxes had increased exponentially. I know that was probably true, but you also have to consider market value. A 900 square foot townhouse with one bathroom and a moldy basement on a street with dog beaters and domestic abuse, where the sound of gunshots occasionally ricochet off the vinyl siding shouldn't reasonably rent for a thousand dollars. You could walk across the street and get the same thing for $600.

That woman will never cease to amaze me, but she does provide plenty of amusement on a quiet Sunday morning.

Tomorrow one of my closest, long-standing friends, Liz, is getting married. As much as I'm not into weddings, this one is kind of a big deal. She's only the second of my good friends to get married. I don't include Kate in that, mostly because we're no longer friends. However, had we not had problems she'd probably never had gone off to that thing with her dad where she met Shrek her husband. If we were still friends today she probably wouldn't be married. So, you're welcome. Everyone else is either gay or lesbian and, hence, isn't "allowed" or cohabitates, if they bother to be monogamous at all.

I never thought Liz would get married. I figured she might settle down at some point with a guy for a long time, but she's so ambitious and independent that I just couldn't imagine her compromising enough to work out a long term relationship; she's done enough of that in the past.

Kyle's a good guy, but his family sort of sucks. They think Liz is too old for him (there's a six-and-a-half year difference), and apparently his mother expected him to marry a doctor. Why any woman would want her son to settle down with a woman who's more educated and wealthier than him, I don't understand. His family seems pretty traditional - typical Hoosier family. They're the first generation of their families to even graduate high school, let alone make as much money as they do and live near Geist. I've met them a couple of times and I always wonder what it is about themselves that makes them think it's okay to be snobs.

Liz didn't really care to have a wedding. Like me, she was surprised when she found herself discussing marriage with her significant other. There are a lot of traditions she would rather not include in the ceremony and reception, but she's gotten a lot of pressure from Kyle's family to do these things. I went through the same thing. Wear this color, don't wear that color. Cut the cake, shove it in each other's faces. Include the moms, have a candle ceremony (I don't even know what the hell that is). Have it at a church, don't have booze. All that shit.

That's all beside the point. It's just being that several friends have gotten hitched lately gets me thinking about all that stuff, and, of course, how some people cannot share the same luxuries, which is infuriating. I'm glad Liz is happy and I'm glad Kyle is happy with her. As with any relationship, there are compromises but I'm sorry it has to be that his family doesn't think she's good enough. I think they're lucky to have found one another, but of the two, I consider him the most lucky. Liz is a great gal and one of the only people I've ever met that I would trust with my own life.

So my student loan check arrived today. With the extra they gave me in private loans, added to the extra I get for being a junior, I've now doubled the amount I had in loans last year and it's making me sweat.

When I ripped open the envelope, I was overcome with relief; my dental bills wouldn't be late, my credit card can be paid off (and I'll request a lower balance with USAA), I can pay down on the truck directly to the principle (and possibly lower my payments each month as a result), and I can start contributing more to regular household bills.

As I was headed to and standing on line at the bank I started to get nervous. The interest on student loans is radically lower than any other sort of loan or line of credit I could get, but I received a statement in the mail recently with what I owed before this year. I started adding everything together in my head and the total Nancee told me she owed between undergrad and graduate loans (and not even taking out the maximum allowed), and what I might rack up if I went to grad school. In comparison, purchasing a home doesn't seem so out of reach any longer. In fact, it almost seems preferable. At least that way we'd be building equity in something.

As much as I think an education outside of high school is imperative - if not downright required to get a decent job anymore - I cannot believe how difficult it can be to get one. Being older, starting college for the first time at 28, may have helped me in being more motivated and focused, but it has definitely not helped in terms of bills. I can't help but wonder how much I'd owe in loans if I had gone to college right out of high school . . . Well, considering I'd probably have flunked out within the first year, not much.

Oh, well. C'est la vie, right?