Category: metaphors

real estate ads get personal

Looking to find that special someone? It turns out that so is the house next door.

Coming soon to a classified ad section near you: the personals meet the real estate listings.

Easy living: fully furnished apartment looking for someone to get their hands in my drawers, unpack my chest, and jump right into my bed.

Open living space: Contemporary 3-bedroom home looking for a ménage-à-trois.

Airy A-Frame: Ideal for someone who likes to play around down below, without being bothered that there’s not much going on upstairs.

Cozy space: Cramped studio with no kitchen looking for individual with few belongings who enjoys long walks on the beach and eating out.

Eclectic bungalow: Colorful and heavily accessorized home looking for someone to seek hidden treasures. The carpet doesn’t match the drapes, but may be willing to strip down to genuine hardwood floor.

Cheap rent: Flat looking for relationship with a tolerant and supportive individual willing to overlook minor structural damage, occasional leaky faucets, and baggage left over from previous occupants.

Modest cottage: Frigid home seeks like-minded individual who is willing to bundle up in lots of clothing and keep your hands off my thermostat.

Penthouse Wannabe: Upper story apartment with mind in the basement desires occupants willing to make up some good stories.

Scenic views: fishbowl-style street-level apartment with large windows and no blinds seeks exhibitionist looking to entertain neighbors.

Well built: Attractive home with impressive plumbing looking for like residents who enjoy lots of hot and steamy showers.

Closet lovers dream: Cosmopolitan metropolitan loft apartment with comfortable walk-in closets looking to be shared by a pair of “roommates.” Spacious living area is ideal for a party for when you are ready come out of the closet.

Vacation rental: Seeking short-term fun with no risk of commitment.

——

This post was inspired by this week’s Monday Mission, which sought a meaningful relationship with posts “in the style of a sales pitch for your house, from the point of view of your house.” My house didn’t have a lot to say, it turns out. But it would appear that a few other homes did.

weaving out of control

overwhelmed and under pressure
buckling under, in over my head
fruitflies overtake an underripe banana

overeducated and underdressed
chronic overachiever feeling snowed under
underestimated tasks, schedule overloaded
commitments overlapping and under the gun
time to shave underarms when hell freezes over

overwrought and under attack
hot under the collar I overreact
overeasy eggs have undercooked yolks

overextended and underfunded
tree branches overhang, basement floor under water
the undergrowth is overgrown
overdue bills crackle under foot
in under the roof, squirrels overrun the attic

overprivileged and underproductive
an overstuffed sofa cushion under my butt
get over yourself and get underway
the monkey’s overboard and the undertow pulls

overtired and under the weather
overconfidence getting undermined
soft underbelly feels overexposed
overanxious thoughts swept under the carpet
laundry overflowing and no clean underwear

overwritten and underwhelming
an overzealous undertaking
overblown metaphors from under my hat
overcooked pasta with underseasoned sauce

nutty as a fruitcake, happy as a clam

I’ve been keeping something under my hat. I’ve been going on lately about how I have a lot on my plate, crabbing that I have may have bitten off more than I can chew. Sometimes I run around like a chicken with its head cut off. And then I’ve also been feeling pretty under the weather, with my head in a fog half the time. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. And as things stand, come hell or high water, I’m about to open up a whole new can of worms.

I can certainly be one to beat around the bush, and you may well wish I’d just let the cat out of the bag and talk turkey. I mean, here I am, dragging things out at a snail’s pace, as slow as molasses in January. I could just sit around and chew the fat till the cows come home. But I suppose I should just come clean, take the bull by the horns, and spill the beans. So here’s the dirt, in a nutshell: I’ve got a bun in the oven.

catching up (or a cream cheese update)

I’ve wanted to avoid the sort of post that says “sorry I haven’t been posting lately,” but well, um…It would appear that I haven’t been posting much lately. So, um…Sorry?

Things have been busy, and I find myself too tired to write the posts I’ve been meaning/wanting to write. (It has not escaped my attention that I haven’t even posted a “Themed Things” list in 3 weeks.) I mentioned a few months ago that I would be spreading myself a bit thin over the next few months, much like too little cream cheese for too big a bagel.

Well, as often happens, I enthusiastically used a lot of cream cheese up in those early weeks. But the truth is, there is still a lot of bagel to cover. I’ll be co-teaching an 4-week course starting this Tuesday, which will need a healthy amount of cream cheese. Then my group at work is planning to submit at least one abstract (hopefully two) to a conference with a deadline of January 18th, for which we have a lot of work to do, and for which I have committed quite a bit of cream cheese. There are other school- and work-related odds and ends I’ve committed to, which will require dabs and dollops here and there. Holiday travels and activities, while good, ended up taking up more cream cheese than I’d anticipated. Phoebe requires quite a lot of my available cream cheese, as always. So it would appear that blogging is the part of the bagel that has had to go with the thinnest coating of cream cheese, and at times must make do with no cream cheese at all. I’m not yet ready to give up that part of the bagel, but realistically, it may not get a decent layer of cream cheese for a few weeks yet.

There are lots of things I’d like to share, like photos from our trip and other stuff that’s been going on. I also have a few posts I’ve been planning, both of a serious and a frivolous nature.

(Speaking of things of a frivolous nature, I noticed a couple of weeks ago that due to some sort of WordPress change, suddenly a whole list of pages I’d carefully hidden away were exposed right there on my front page index, including a page that consists entirely of the word pants repeated 100 times. My stats indicated that this page was viewed 8 times before I hid the pages away again, and that other related pages were also viewed. If you are among those people who stumbled across those pages, I can only wonder what you thought of them. I mean, beyond the usual, “damn, alejna’s weird.” Or “wow, she really does love pants.”)