Yes. It's also the laundry room, which I'm totally down with, but Paul isn't as much.

Laundry in the bathroom is awesome (my friends' house where I lived for 6 months when I moved here had that). You can time doing laundry so that your towel is finished in the dryer just when you finish your shower. Divine!

You totally have good answers! You've been a loyal worker bee at companies in trouble twice now! That's a difficult situation!

We may have a local painting party. For both places, actually. Stay tuned.

Going back a bit -- my parents insisted that I learn on a manual, so much so that they were very upset that the school's driver's ed cars were all automatics. (I went to high school in a town with a big GM plant -- the school had a deal with GM for driver's ed cars.)

I've taught several people to drive manual. What works best is, "I'll drive for a while, and you sit in the passenger seat. Watch my right hand and my feet."

they would probably ask me those stupid "tell me about a difficult situation" questions. Have no good answers. BLEH!

I hate those. I'm thinking about making something up.

"Well, one prior employer turned out to be an elaborate front for a joint CIA/Mossad/Vatican conspiracy to seize control of the United Nations through a combination of propaganda, advertising and MK-Ultra mind-control techniques utilizing the phone services. This didn't really come to light until we were attacked by a crack squad of cybernetically enhanced ronin acting under the orders of an Artificial Intelligence that called itself Mr. Pooky. Mr. Pooky had been built by a crypto-anarchy underground movement called "Cockblock" that prided itself, as a whole, on smashing conspiracies just to smash conspiracies. So, that day, I had to fight off three of Mr. Pooky's cyber-samurai with a staple remover, expose my "boss" as a genetically enhanced alien/human hybrid super-brain encased in a large aquarium full of oxygenated fluorocarbons disguised as its desk (the mandroid behind the desk was a sophisticated puppet, see), and avoid being mentally subverted by Mr. Pooky flashing subliminal mind-controlling messages at me hidden in a complex fractal-pattern jpeg, all while dealing with a Mrs. Hewitt-Smythe of Boston, Massachussetts who needed to have her tax forms explained to her.

Thank God it was a Friday, you know?"

I'm good, thanks Plei! And hi everyone else. I have been here, lurking away, so know my ~ma has been going out to all and sundry.

Apartment hunting sucks. My roomie (sister-in-law, best friend, whatever) and I can't afford much, but we hate our dark and freezing basement suite and we want to stay in or near downtown. Unfortunately, that ain't cheap. We haven't given notice yet, so we are trying not to pressure ourselves. Still frustrating.

YAY Plei! LOVE that house.

My science grade just posted and I got a C+ in the class! Pulled up from an F that I had three weeks ago! My GPA is up! WOOTIE HOOTIE!

I drove manual until last year. I still miss the feeling of control, but my knee doesn't miss clutch combined with stop and go.

And GO PLEI with the new house! Lots of selling~ma to you!

askye, sorry you're not here, but happy you're taking a break for a good reason.

MM cracks me up, as per usual. Have I mentioned lately how much I miss you guys?

xposty: Yay bringing your grade up!

I've taught several people to drive manual. What works best is, "I'll drive for a while, and you sit in the passenger seat. Watch my right hand and my feet."

I never can learn to do anything physical when I'm told "watch, and then try it." I have trouble translating what a motion looks like while someone else is doing it into what it would feel like for me to do it. But if you tell me what to do or, even better, tell me what to do and what it should feel like, I do fine.

I'm sure you're right about most people, because I think visual learners are the majority. But it was a huge epiphany for me to realize, not too long ago, that I'm actually not clumsy or stupid once you take me outside of the intellectual realm; I just have a different learning style.

Maybe so. But they are helping to feed my child, and it's impossible to walk away from that.

Yeah, she runs fast. And she bites.

I've taught several people to drive manual. What works best is, "I'll drive for a while, and you sit in the passenger seat. Watch my right hand and my feet."

Yeah, I'm not sure that would work for me either. I've never had to teach anyone how to drive stick, and I think that's a good thing. It came so easy to me that I think I'd get frustrated. Though, I often thought I'd be that way with working with people on their writing as well, and actually I'm pretty patient. So, maybe not.