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Emily

Emily Papel


Last Updated: 8/1/2009

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Gender: Female
Status: Married
Age: 31
Sign: Libra

State: Washington
Country: US
Signup Date: 2/3/2006

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Sunday, October 25, 2009 

Current mood:  confused
Category: Food and Restaurants

I was in the meat department at Safeway today and there was a woman squeezing all the chicken.  She'd embrace, pinch and wriggle a package of chicken, determine that it was not a good package of chicken, then move on to the next and repeat this behavior.  She literally went through every package of chicken until she landed upon one that must have buckled under her grip just right, because she placed it neatly in her cart and left.  I stared after her for five seconds or so, perplexed by what I had just witnessed. Then I stared at all the squeezed packages of chicken and decided that if they weren't good enough for her, then they're certainly not good enough for me, plus they now had finger imprints all over them, and that's just kind of 'ew.' 

A man pushed his cart up rather hurriedly and grabbed the first package of chicken he saw, and as he threw it in his cart he gave me a funny look which read "why are you just standing here staring perplexedly at my chicken?"  I gave him a look which was supposed to mean "someone was just manhandling that package of chicken, and you might not want it now" but probably looked more like "Don't mind me, I'm just a dumbass."

So answer me this - why squeeze the chicken?  Is this a shopping trick I've never heard of?  I'm aware that many people tap on cantelopes and press on the tips of pears, but fondling meats is a new one for me.  What are you feeling for?  How do you know when you've found it?
5:42 AM 
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Friday, October 23, 2009 

Current mood:  content
Category: Blogging

I haven't blogged in over a week.  Remember that time I was going to paint my laundry room?  Ya, it was my last blog post and it never happened.

I've been working and sleeping (mostly sleeping) like a dog and I haven't been in the mood to write.  I have to get back into the swing of things because National Novel Writing Month is looming on the horizon (9 days) and I'm in it to win it again!  No, I never did edit the book I wrote last year.  I wouldn't even know where to find it, to be honest.  I'm sure it got moved around a ton of times when we reformatted.

Nothing new to say. The Laundry room is still white, the kids are getting fevers, I've been working and snoozing, Oscar is leaving on business this weekend, life remains the same.   Ou, a vida sempre na mesma, as they'd say in my Portuguese class.

This morning I unplugged the television to punish the kids for making a mess of my living room.  They haven't even noticed.  I just realized we have too many other fun electrical devices to keep them entertained.  I'd have to unplug the entire house if I wanted to send a message... and even then, they'd just build themselves a tiny solar panel and run around heating marshmallows with it or something.  Kids are crazy.
1:48 AM 
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009 

Current mood:  groggy
Category: Art and Photography
I was planning on painting my laundry room today, but then I accidentally fell asleep instead.  and I slept, and I slept.  I slept for so long, when I woke up I thought I had traveled through time.  My bedroom was layered in dust and my belongings dated back by a millenium.

But then I remembered that's just how my room looks all the time.

Maybe I'll get started on the laundry room after work tomorrow.  maybe.
10:46 PM 
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009 

Current mood:  nerdy

I was going to clean my house, but I think I'll blog instead.  I just checked my blog and I haven't updated since that time I finished the laundry.  The clean laundry lasted about an hour.  It was fun though.

Truthfully I haven't updated because nothing is new.  Our lives tend to just happen these days, and while there are eventful occurrences and interesting trivialities, they all seem to blend into one another, and then boom - a week or two passes and I realize that there is too much to say, and I can't remember any of it.

A month or so ago I was a little crazy over several different major projects that were going on, so I'm happy to report that I've cut back on a few of those.  I made the executive decision to only work two to three days of the week, at whichever job I happened to want to do those days.  So, I still have all my jobs, I just pick and choose which ones to do, and I don't force myself to work more than three days of the week.  Yesterday, for example, I worked as an instructional assistant in Kirkland.  This morning I took a training program to be a Para Educator in the district.  Thursday morning I'm working at the church.  There, that's three days dedicated to employment this week, so I can stop searching the job board for postings, or hunting Craigslist for random money-making opportunities.  That's nice.  Now I just have to actually do the stopping.  I'm a little addicted to biting off more than I can chew.  That's a life skill to work on.

My cartoon is still running smoothly.  I don't consider that work because:
a) I only earn about a penny per cartoon from ad clicks, and
b) its more like a hobby than anything else.

About my cartoon, many people ask me "are these real conversations you have with Oscar/your kids/etc?"

The short answer is 'yes.'  The long answer is 'the cartoons are loosely based on much more extensive experiences from our real lives."  I assure you we are not two-dimensional stick figures who dialogue in formulaic four-panel--beginning, build-up, climax, denouement--conversation blocks.
We are, however, fairly one-dimensional, anti-social humans who get into the most trivial of situations and discussions, and from those mundane instances I derive most of the humor for my cartoon.

So, take for instance yesterday's comic - #46-School.  That conversation is a ...well... okay, that conversation did take place pretty much exactly as it is written, but we were mostly just kidding around.  I don't dislike kids and I know school is six hours long.  really.  I swear.

But the cartoon before it --#45-Complex Psychology-- was only loosely based on a situation that was happening at Oscar's job.  He didn't actually have to choose between two people to fire.  In fact, he doesn't have that kind of control over his coworkers at all, but he was asked to make a few recommendations during a re-org.  I assure you no one got fired... or, if they did, it probably wasn't because of Oscar's input.  Anyway, while we were discussing his assistance with the team re-org, we got into a conversation comparing it to Psychological research theories and voila - a new 4-panel cartoon is born out of me telling him to be quiet because he has no idea what he's talking about. That happens a lot.

So that answers that - some cartoon scenarios happen almost exactly as written, others are very simplified versions of the much longer and more dynamic conversations we find ourselves in. 

Not all the conversations take place in our computer room, either.  Lots of them happen via live messenger, or in bed, or in the car, but I draw the characters (whom I affectionately refer to as "Lem and The 'Bot") in the office or standing around.  I like to pretend The Bot doesn't need to sleep or sit down at all, but that he just remains upright and recharges like The Borg does in Star Trek.  In real life, however, Oscar sleeps more than any of us (However, he can only sleep by plugging his brain into his laptop or iPhone... so really, him and The Bot are very much alike.)

The difference between me and Lem is that she wears skirts and I don't.

My favorite cartoon will probably always be #32 - Thirty Two, which was a real conversation (including the awkward pause!) that took place after I drew the very first cartoon and showed it to Oscar.  I waited patiently to use it as the thirty-second comic, as 32 is two to the power of five, which was the basic equation that launched the entire project.

So, that's a little bit about that.

See the comic here:  http://2tothe5th.com/
become a fan on facebook here:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/2tothe5thcom/241202645312


edited to add:  and before anyone asks, my kids are, in fact, conjoined triplets.

Just kidding.  They're Irish Trips, but they are each a unique, intelligent, separate and wonderful human being.  It just so happens that they tend to run in a pack and ask the same ridiculous questions at the same time, so it's just easier to draw them as a three-headed monster.
7:57 PM 
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 

Current mood:  determined

A cataclysmic event is about to occur in my life.  I have almost achieved something monumental, something only a select few have dared to strive for, and that even fewer people have accomplished.

Save for the clothes on our backs, I've almost finished doing all of the laundry in the house.

I'm not really sure how it happened.  One day last week I started organizing the laundry room, and I found that doing so required a little more space to maneuver, so I threw a load of laundry in.  Then another, then another.  Then I needed a place to put the clean stuff, so --and this is an amazing feat for me-- I hung them in closets and stored them in drawers!  Soon, laundry was not only disappearing off the floor of the laundry room, but off other floors as well.  I'd walk by a shirt on the floor of the bedroom--one that I had walked by a hundred times before--and actually stop to pick it up and bring it to the laundry room.

Now that I'm so close, I'm in a mad frenzy to finish.  I washed three loads of laundry today, and then I dried them, and then I PUT THEM AWAY.  My hamper of dirty red clothes only amounted to half a load, so I dashed upstairs and tore the pink sheets off Maggie's bed, just to fill up the machine. 

I think I have about four loads left.  A load of whites, a load of delicates, a load for sheets and towels, and a load for whatever we wore today (and possibly tomorrow, if I don't finish by then) and then I'm done.  DONE!

Sure, something might go awry.  Maggie will probably wear her bright red pants and David will wear a pale yellow shirt tomorrow, or something like that, but besides those stray items in the hamper, for all intents and purposes I will be finished the laundry.  Finished!

I'm shocked and amazed at myself.  As a gift for my success at accomplishing such an impossible feat, I've decided to sort socks and THROW OUT THE SINGLES.  Normally I have a big bin I store stray socks in, but after tonight - not anymore!  Tonight I start tossing them out.  It's going to be difficult for my psychoses - some of the funkier socks were given to me as gifts, and I cherished them dearly--hoping one day I'd find their match--but I think this great moment in history is telling me that its okay to let go of some things, for the greater good.  ...and that maybe, just maybe, its time to give up purchasing funky multi-colored toe socks and go with 10-packs of basic black instead.  I think, once I get over the pain, I'll feel a lot more free with that box of stray socks out of my life.

I've never said this ever in my life, but... Yay Laundry!
3:35 AM 
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Friday, September 25, 2009 

Current mood:  lazy
Category: Games

I really dislike topiaries.  You know those weird plant-like things that are designed by crazy people?  I could never figure out why I hated them so much.  But then I had a completely unrelated experience... 

For some reason my house became inundated with flies.  Not fruit flies, like when one of the kids hides a banana peel behind the computer, but large, outdoor flies.  They were everywhere.

Normally one or two flies don't bother me.  They have a right to existence and subsistence just like I do, of course.  But these flies were everywhere.  It was crazy.  I yelled at them "go buy your own house!" but they insisted on staying in mine.  So I shamefully bought some fly paper and set it up in random places. 

Well, it worked.  Now I have fly paper around my house completely covered in dead flies.  I had nightmares last night about all the killing I've done.  It's horrible.  I feel so ashamed and un-Buddhist.  But then I thought to myself, "look, self, if flies could invent human paper, don't you think they'd use it on us?" and my self thought "yes, yes they would use it on us - humans are very annoying and completely in-your-face.  We're probably more annoying than flies!  It's not my fault flies can't invent human paper.  I can only do so much for nature."

I felt better about myself, and on the way to breakfast with Oscar this morning, I spotted some topiaries in someone's garden, and I realized why I hate topiaries - they're completely unnatural.  I like natural things, like flies and the invention of fly paper and the possible future invention of human paper.  topiaries are unnatural, fake displays of plastic or (even worse - murdered) flora.  Could you imagine if I took my dead flies and stuck them to a styrofoam stick and called them a topiary? egad! 

This thought was brought to you by my procrastination over organizing the laundry room.  My apologies for the absurdity.

I dislike topiaries.
7:48 PM 
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Friday, September 25, 2009 

Current mood:  hopeful
Category: Life

Today's blog serves merely as an update to my friends and family who live far away and who might occasionally wonder how we're doing. There is nothing particularly funny in here, so for casual readers who come to my blog looking for entertainment and enlightenment (ha ha!) you might want to click away before I bore you to tears.


I'm practicing saying "no" to people now.  I do way too much and its not because I'm super nice or anything, its because I have a strange mental disease where I feel I must personally do everything that needs to be done.  Then, of course, I overdo things, to the point where it costs me money or time or patience.

So this past week I practiced turning down work.  For example, I declined to take a couple of dogs in October, and I passed on a few sub positions at the district.  But then I was feeling guilty so I told the bible study group I'd work beyond what I gave as my official quit date.  I have to pace my 'no's I think, or else my brain will malfunction.

I've always been the one to overkill things until they fizzle out - like my manic fitness craze in March, my scrapbooking insanity earlier this year, my college education phase last winter (at least I finished and got the paperwork, though.)  and then in the past few months I have been sobbing about my disorganized life, and boom - I was on an organization kick.  I've received and read all the books, I've bought all the supplies, and now I can feel the passion starting to fizzle again before project completion, and I'm getting angry with myself for always doing these crazy things and dropping them like lead before they're done.

Oscar says the cure for overkill is moderation, so that's what my goal is now.  I'm going to try and bring fitness back into my life, but in moderation this time - no more 5am wake-up calls for an hour of working out, maybe I'll just go for a walk.  I'll also organize the house, but slower this time - today I'll move some stuff in the laundry room, tomorrow I'll sort papers, etc.  I'll be working on my next college certificate, but it doesn't have to be done in one season, I can stretch it out over a few years.  This sub job is awesome for me because I can pick and choose what days or weeks to work.  I'm so glad I turned down those other jobs that were full time, although at the time I was job hunting I was REALLY gung ho to work 40+ hours per week!  whew.

That's enough boring stuff about me.  Here's the rest of the fam's updates:

Oscar: Oscar is trying to do something to revolutionize Mobile Search, but I'm not really sure what it is or whether I can talk about it, so I won't.  He's doing very well.  He didn't get the promotion he wanted, but I think that's because of corporate budget restraints this year, not because he doesn't deserve it.  One day he'll own those people, I'm quite certain. Actually, I'm pretty sure he already does own the entire department, the payroll department just doesn't know it yet.

Maggie: Maggie is good. She seems to be doing well, although she's struggling in math.  She's a storyteller, constantly entertaining her brothers with ridiculous plays starring those little McDonald's beanie babies. Now that we don't have cable, she's their TV.
She also needs to lose a bit of weight. I'm not sure what to do about that without creating a complex.  We're trying to do everything we can.  She's enrolled in several sports, we only keep healthy foods around the house, and yet the weight piles on.  Her brothers, meanwhile, are sticks. I guess she's just at a genetic disadvantage. We'll just keep things as healthy as possible and hopefully she won't care.  She is teased about it by the asshole 5th graders, though, which makes me cry.  Kids are mean.

David:  David is good too.  He's the total opposite of Maggie - prone to sports and science but completely oblivious when it comes to spelling and writing.  I can't understand anything he brings home, and the teacher keeps giving him check marks. She's a science-minded person too, so I guess she doesn't care about the spelling errors.  gah!!!
Despite having one leg shorter than the other, he's the star of his soccer team.  He has also begged me consistently for the past two years to sign him up for basketball, which I never did - partly because he's short and has that leg length problem, and mostly because it's a pretty big commitment (several practices/games per week) - but this year he's signed up. He starts that after the soccer season ends.

Jack:  Jack is Jack is Jack. I'm not sure what's up with that kid.  He hates soccer, but I've asked him nicely to finish out the season. He made me promise to sign him up for gymnastics afterwards, so that's what I'm doing.  Starting in November, he and Maggie will do gymnastics, David will do basketball.  Believe it or not, it's the first time I've signed kids up for separate programs. Usually when one does something, they all do it. But they're school-aged now, so I have to stop treating them life a three-headed monster. Although it works in my cartoon.
Back to Jack - I'm not sure what else to say. He's a very brilliant boy but he doubts himself, probably because Maggie and David tease him.  We've started informing them that Jack is actually waaaay smarter than they were at his age, but I'm not sure that's the right way to parent.  Oh well, it shuts them up.

I think that's it for us here.  Keep updating your own blogs!

 
3:26 PM 
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Saturday, September 19, 2009 

Current mood:  creative

Super kudos go to my friend Sandy over at http://www.modern-simplicity.com/ for providing the necessary ingredients to pimp my netbook.  Through her Uppercase Living web store, I was able to create this custom decoration for less than ten bucks.  Sweet!  I also ordered a couple of things for the kids bathroom mirror, but I haven't put them up yet.  Here's my netbook:



I'm so cool.

I'm working through the organization book I mentioned yesterday.  I haven't started on the actual daily or weekly cleaning tasks yet, as I'm still trying to get through all the closets and drawers in my house.  The authors of the book say it took them three months to get through all their cabinets, but that the rest of us should only take six weeks, tops. I'm not so sure.  Here's what I did with the spoon/spatula drawer:

1) Before - tons of crap, an Uno game, several pedometers, crayons, and a couple of spoons and spatulas.  That spatula at the front is worn and unusable, too.



after - neatly organized!  I splurged on these bamboo drawer dividers at The Container Store.  I would have gotten the cheap plastic ones, but I was feeling environmental this weekend.  Candles, birthday decorations and toothpicks are on the far left, spoons and spatulas in the middle (sans unusable spatula, which was thrown out), other kitchen gadgets are on the right. I threw out most of everything else.  The only thing I couldn't throw away was 30 ketchup packets.  After all, they're food!  I just moved them all to the back.




Yay!  My drawer is so organized.  The rest of my house is not, but if company ever drops by I'll invite them to have a coffee with me beside my drawer.

In other news, my youngest baby started soccer this past Friday.





That's it for this week.
10:43 PM 
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Friday, September 18, 2009 

Category: Life

So I'm working through this book, The Side-Tracked Home Executive, which was written in the late 70s and popular through the 80s. I'm just about 30 years behind on getting to it.

I'm pretty sure my Mom must have read it, or another book just like it, because I recall some similar organizational tactics she used while we were growing up, like the 'keep,' 'giveaway', 'throwaway' boxes, and a few lists of daily chores that came and went. Mom was quite a ways from organized, of course, but she tried.  I take after her in that way... always exceptionally motivated, never quite there.  But its the attempt that counts for those of us who aren't born as neat freaks. 

Anyway, the book directs us disorganized fools to write out daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal chores on recipe cards, one per card, and put them in corresponding date and month files, then work through them, always moving them to the next day, week, month, etc when finished, so as to get them the next time.  It's very confusing but once the recipe cards are in place, the whole thing is fairly simple - you just have to do it.

They've since updated the book from the classic 70s version, to put the 3x5 files on a computer database instead, but I opted to go the old-fashioned way with a recipe box and cards, because I'd never find an excel spreadsheet in the mess that is my desktop, and I definitely wouldn't check it every day.  It would just get deleted when we upgrade the computer.

But before I can start on the daily chores, the first order of business in the book is to clean and sort every closet and drawer in the house.  The suggestion is to move in a clockwise direction from the front door, and go in order, so you don't lose track of where you are and you don't get even more confused (something that tends to happen to me more often than not.) 

I had managed to get the front hall closet organized before I bought the book, so I was already ahead of myself.  woo-hoo!

Today I did my medicine drawer, which is supposed to be for insulin and other paraphenalia related to my medical condition, but which instead serves more as a junk drawer, judging by the crap I found in there. 
I gave myself 1/2 hour to empty it, sort it and find a place for everything that didn't belong, and then the rest would get tossed.  It was quite a motivating method, as at 9:28, with 2 minutes to go, I realized I hadn't done as much as I thought I would, and I quickly scrambled to pick out all the coins in the bottom of the drawer. 

The rest was tossed.  I'm not very good at tossing things, but I sucked it up and did it without looking.  I feel really good.  and, I found 37 cents!  I love being paid to work.

Tomorrow's job is the second junk drawer in the kitchen, which is supposed to be a soup-ladle/spatula drawer, but instead has a bunch of weird crap in it - such as a guitar tuner, an unopened toothbrush, and three pedometers.  oh, that's where those went! 

That's what I'm up to when not working.  How about you?

Hey, if I wear these three pedometers at the same time, can I add the steps together?
5:03 PM 
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009 

Current mood:  tired
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Work picked up more than I thought it would.  As of tomorrow I will have worked 6 of the first 11 days of school. Most of the work has been as an Instructional Assistant, which is not exactly my favorite job, but it's money. I like money enough to pretend to enjoy being an IA for six hours.

IAs are the people who watch hooligans on the playground, cut 100 sheets of construction paper into house shapes for the Grade 2s, sort through piles of famous artwork prints for the Grade 6s and remove the ones that contain nudity, work as crossing guards at the end of the day, laminate posters, collate copies, hand out hall passes, and take inventory of the hand sanitizer.  It's extremely tedious and mind-numbingly boring work, but the schools I work at keep calling me back because I do my jobs quickly and efficiently. 

I'm discovering efficiency is not a valued asset among most of the permanent IAs, but they probably have the right idea.  By being efficient I'm just inviting even more tedious work into my life. If I were to work slower, the teachers and admin would probably give me less to do.  Then again, sometimes I think I'd rather stay fairly busy than sit around growing mold on my neurons.  I need to find a way to hook myself up to the internet inconspicuously. Then I could read Facebook updates the next time someone makes me cut and staple Kindergarten coloring books.

But as I said, money is money and I've always been in love with money.  Just this week I scored $30 at the casino, got paid for selling that free porn DVD ($5.46 in pure profit!), did a focus group for $75 and received a $10 check from that real estate company for which I take pictures of foreclosed houses.  I'm the hardest working woman on my block.

Actually, I'm the only working woman on my block.  Everyone else is retired or a helicopter parent of perfectly capable people.  Speaking of tedious.

The other day someone pointed out that this is the first year ever where all my kids are in school full time, and that I should take this opportunity to enjoy the peace, sit back and relax, that I deserve it.  I accidentally listened, so on Friday I took off to Ikea all by myself and spent $200 on organizational shit I'll never use.  When I got home with it all, I realized that I can't afford to stay home and I will never be able to just sit and enjoy the peace. I'll always have some project on my brain and I need to be able to afford it.  So I'm going to continue working like a mad woman in order to pay for my crazy whims.  I'm sure one day soon I'll suffer from severe burnout and will need to be drugged and institutionalized, but until then I'll continue doing everything and accomplishing nothing.  That has always worked for me.

It's 10:30pm and Monday's cartoon is finally posted.  Thanks Oscar.


4:36 AM 
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