Here...have some graham crackers...

Okay...so this is my first blog post, and I think I'm just going to do a general welcome. My name is Brittany. I am engaged (love you, Andy). I was born in New Mexico, raised in Ohio, but my roots are in the wonderfully cheesy state of Wisconsin. I have several projects, art and otherwise, which I hope to bring nearer to completion (true art is never "finished"). The biggest of these is the house project Andy and I have undertaken. Maybe I will post before and after pictures sometime. I can't get enough cereal. I'd eat it for all three meals every day if I could. I'm trying to go green, but that's difficult since I live about an hour away from where I work.

I don't understand this: I love my job. I don't mind going to work in the morning, and even though I count down the hours and minutes until I get to leave, I don't have that heavy feeling weighing on me that I had at several of my other jobs. However, it is the most mind-numbing repetitive job I have ever had. I change peoples' addresses and perform maintenance on investment accounts. So here is my dilemma: do I try to find a better, more challenging job with the chance that I may hate it and may want to tear my hair out with the stress, but also with the chance that I may grow or expand my horizons? Or...do I stay at my job and hope that I get hired on and move up at a place of employment that I really don't want to work for the rest of my life, even though I enjoy the safety and comfort that it affords me? Decisions, decisions.

On another note, Andy and I watched The Illusionist with Edward Norton on Sunday May 4.

I saw that it was based on a short story and looked the author up during my break at work. I decided to read some of his work that was published in The New Yorker. It turns out that I really really enjoyed reading this guy. It was kind of a throwback to my college days--it seemed like it could have been pulled out of a college textbook because it was a work of fiction in which I could actually pull out arguments and a thesis. Steven Millhauser is his name and weaving intricate narratives is definitely his game. He begins with the observation of a small event, which leads him to recall a slightly larger event, which leads him to recall an even more significant event, all of which seem random, yet nagging at the back of the mind is the thought that these are going to be connected somehow. I think the character in his novel feels the same way at some point. I was inspired by the story's main point, and it gave new meaning to my concept of the English language. Someone once told me that language is the currency of thought, which gives words value and weight. Millhauser argues the opposite, that words diminish the meanings of things, that the sun becomes less when we try to describe it, that words do not have the power to compete with the beauty of nature. In this, I could see why Wikipedia called Millhauser a Romantic. It reminded me of William Blake and the rest of the British Romantics who called for people to turn to nature to find peace and understanding.

I could go on for hours, but it is time to snuggle with my one and only favorite dog, Stella, who is curled up on my side of the bed, snoring softly, and waiting for me.