Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Kerry Got Me

I don't normally do these things, but for Kerry I will.

THE RULES:

Rules of the game: Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your own blog; replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention; add one more question of your own. Tag some friends to keep the flow going, let them know they've been tagged.

THE QUESTIONS:

What is your current obsession?
Knitting socks. I think it's just magical. And I love sock yarn. I like that sock knitting enables sock yarn buying. So I think that it's fair to say that stalking etsy and Ravelry for indie sock dyers is my current obsession. Oh, and my new camera. You could call me a fairly obsessive person.

What is your biggest pet peeve?
People who don't use their blinkers. Also people who drive in the left lane on the interstate, and aren't going at least 5 over the speed limit. Or are just cruising in the left lane. MOVE OVER!!!


What was the last thing you bought?
I bought two eyeshadows and a shimmer bronzer on etsy from Colorfulsheep. They are all natural and don't have the ooky stuff in them that regular makeup does. I am very excited to try them out.

What are you listening to right now?
I'm with Kerry- I am stuck on the Kings of Leon album, Only By The Night. I'm also stuck on the new Ray Lamontagne, Gossip in the Grain, and have renewed my love for the Dresden Dolls' No, Virginia. It's just so great.

Favorite vacation spots?
hmmm, that's tough. My favorite vacation ever was the week I spent in Paris. But I also loved Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, and Bermuda. For a quick getaway type trip I love the NC coast and the NC mountains. I'm pretty much a carolina girl to the bone.

Do you have any strange phobias or fears?
(This is the one I changed.) I am afraid of damaging my teeth, DEATHLY afraid of snakes, and the remote fears that I have are: clowns (especially Pennywise), my house burning up, the IRS, and being scalped or horribly disfigured in some freak accident. Swine Flu is also creeping it's way up the list.


What four words would you use to describe yourself?
Hmm, I would say Funny, Imaginitive (not the same as Creative, I think), Crafty, Dichotomous

What is your current guilty pleasure?
sock yarn, Ben & Jerry's ice cream. They are guilty pleasures because i don't need them, but man I can't seem to have enough.


What would you do if the internet was irreparably damaged and you had to find another way to connect?
I'd go out a lot more. I would go hang out at the farmer's market, the yarn store, the dog park, and my favorite place to see music. Maybe the internet should die.


Where are you planning to travel next?
At the end of July I will be doing the West Coast for two weeks: San Francisco up to Seattle, with lots of stops along the way. I can't wait.

What was the best thing you ate or drank recently?
That would be Sunday dinner. It was a belated birthday dinner, and it was awesome: Beef tenderloin medallions, stone crab claws, cheddar mashed potatoes, and grilled veggies. So. Good.

What flower are you most anxious to see bloom this spring?
All my favorites have already come. I love wisteria and it's sweet smell, and tulips are my very favorite flower.

What are you most happy doing?
Knitting or sewing quietly alone, walking with my dog on the beach, traveling and seeing new things, spooning in bed, seeing live music

Care to share some wisdom?
No. I don't have a blog called Wise Is The New Awesome, after all.


I'm not tagging anyone. If they don't do the survey, i will feel really sad, and I'd rather spare myself the disappointment.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Older and Busier Than Ever Before

Hello there!

I am back from my trip to Atlanta for the Birthday Extravaganza. Maya and I had a wonderful long weekend filled with shopping, spa treatments and way too much food. The weather was beautiful, and I love being a spring baby. It's such a great time to celebrate getting older- flowers everywhere, the days are getting longer, and the temperature is just perfect. So yeah, now I am older, but after my facial I could pass for a Girl of Twenty-Five again.

I am also busier than ever because, well, I never truly thought this week would get here. BF is moving here. On Saturday. This Saturday. That's just a few short days away. He's coming here and he is not leaving. Time has simultaneously stood still and moved at warp speed these past two months. When I think about how long it's been since we've seen each other, it feels like time is absolutely standing still and he will NEVER get here. When I think of this as the last time that's truly mine and mine alone, it flies by.

I'm working diligently at making a space for him here. Well, spaces- plural. I want for him to feel like this Slightly-Too-Small-Apartment is his too. Because it is. But at the same time there is a part of me that mourns the other side of the closet, the second shelf in the bathroom, and the way I was able to do here as I pleased without concession or apology. I've always enjoyed my solitude, and for the majority of my Adult Life, I've lived alone. I have called all the shots, left dishes in the sink when I wanted, projects in various stages of completion...everywhere, and occupied every inch of space in my home because it was mine, and no one else's.

Don't get me wrong. I look forward to having BF here. I like saying things like "our house," and I like knowing that I will share the bed (as best as I can), and having someone here who can talk is also sort of enticing. I don't regret the choice to have him move here- it feels very very right. I guess this is just one of those times where leaving something behind is surprisingly hard, given how very badly you want what's in front of you.

I don't know. This is all so very hard to articulate. I haven't had this happen to me before. I was going to say maybe right before high school graduation, but I remember climbing the walls of my high school for the last oh, say, 6 months before graduation so that's not it. College, maybe? Not really- I was a bit sad to leave behind the right to be poor and sleep till 2pm on a Tuesday, but still it's not quite the same.

In just four days, it all changes. Is there such a thing as being ready?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

My Next Big Thing

This is my early birthday present. It's sort of like Telemundo to me though- I enjoy it immensely, and yet it baffles me.

I'm sure you're giggling at this, what with my inability to master a little point-and-shoot camera and all. Now here I am trying to use something with, like, EASILY 3 times as many buttons. But I am going to do it! I am determined to learn how to take better photos. Not for the sake of the blog- I like your expectations for me to be low. I intend to continue to post sporadically, and have those posts filled with bad crafting, profanity, and crappy photos. It's what you come here for, isn't it?

Well, I (of course) have come up with a plan for how I am going to learn to use this camera. I'm going to pick a feature, a setting, a program, a component, a something- and focus on it every week or so and see if I can't get at least a slippery grasp on it. This will have a wonderful by-product: I will have motivation to get my ass off the couch, put the knitting down, and go out and be in the wonderful town in which I live. I have to do this both for me, and also for my BF. He's going to be here in less than two weeks (eee!) and he deserves to have an enthusiastic guide/fellow explorer in me.

Also, what with me ever unable to keep from trying too much all at once, I created an account on My Daily Photo. You can keep up with me here. I think it's a super fun concept, and it will be a great reason to keep trying new things with my camera, and a fun way to document a year. Or a fun way to document the next however many days I go till I get sick of it.

Either way, happy early birthday, Holly!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Slapstick Gynecology

I swear, when it rains it pours. I either have not got one damn thing to say to you all, and I fear losing you forever, or I have so much to say you can't believe it. Funny how that works.

Yesterday was the day of my Lady Bits Checkup. I went to the doctor, and I saw a nurse practitioner, cause the doctor was somewhere else, I dunno. So, she was a lovely lady, and she was quick and thorough and chatty- that's what I like. I like to be told stories when I am wearing outfits made of paper- it helps to take my mind off the fact that I am buttass naked save for a paper vest and paper sheet thing.

So anyway, there I am on the table, and the lady is doing what the do during those appointments. I can see the top of her head, and she's talk talk talking away. Then I don't see her head anymore. I hear a crash, and as I start to half try to sit up (carefully, as my bottom was, well, out there) I see the Nurse sprawled out on the floor. Looking like those little cartoon birds are flying around her head like they do on Looney Tunes.

I was horrified. I mean, did she recoil at the sight of my...my flower? It's not the stuff adult films are made of, but I don't have vagina dentata or anything. Why did this happen? To me? While I am in stirrups and a paper suit?

It turned out that a bolt on the little stool she was using had been very loose for some time, and today it came unbolted. As she pushed back from the table, the part on which she had been sitting excused itself, and she hit the floor.

So, she was okay, I am okay, we each recouped approximately 5 shreds of dignity, and I thanked the heavens that we don't have to see each other for at least another 364 days.

Friday, April 10, 2009

PSA: the Importance of Urban Dictionary in Political Movements

Heehee.

Doesn't the title of this post sound so scholarly? Academic? Not About Teabagging? Hold on, please allow me a moment to roll around on the floor.






All better.

Anyway, I don't really like for this blog to be about political things, or really have too much weight to it. I mean, in what universe would discussions on socialism and the like find a place in this blog? By the posts about my dog? Nestled in a post about a botched project? Yeah, that's what I thought. I know what I am good at, and it most certainly isn't sussing out the right and wrong of complex matters. Or matters more complex than say, ice cream flavors or knitting related injuries. But I have to say something.

To all the news people (except Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow, they know what's up), the angered citizens, and nice old ladies out there, hear my cries:

TEA BAGGING DOES NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS. SERIOUSLY, IT DOESN'T.




As a point of clarification, I think that protesting is wonderful. If you don't like something, shout it from the mountaintops! From the mountains! To the oceans! To the...other things! Prairies? Those too! Get pissed, start bitching, and get all your friends who are pissed also to bitch with you. Things can change if you want them to. But there's one thing: you can shout all you like, but until the name of your little movement is not something that 13 year old boys whisper behind their hands- you don't stand a fucking chance, guys. Sorry.

As another point of clarification- the Big Bad They In Washington has really only done what you and I would do given the chance. It's called Oversight, and we Americans want it. But we don't wanna do it. We want someone else, the penultimate in trustworthiness, to watch our backs so we don't have to. What? I don't wanna do it. I'm too busy watching TV. The thing is that ultimately- We The People have ultimately reaped just what we've sown. We don't give a fuck until we can't afford to buy Cheap Plastic Crap at Wal-Mart. After that, it's time to put everyone under the microscope and proclaim politicians to be thieves and crooks. Can someone steal what you blindly hand over to them? The weren't born into their Senate and House seats, a king did not appoint them either. We did. We cast our ballots for them because the name sounded familiar, or worse- we couldn't be bothered to cast our ballot at all and trusted That Guy to do it for us. You know, the guy who blows his nose at the table in the restaurant, the lady driving the massive SUV while on her cell phone, yeah all those assholes got to write our tickets for so very long now and it's only really come to pass and now we want to teabag.

Well, if it were anatomically possible, I'd teabag the American People. But since I can't, I will laugh hysterically at the people on TV who have failed to consult with their teenage-or-older children, or UrbanDictionary.com to make sure they aren't naming themselves something so utterly and completely ridiculous that it is actually the distilled essence of the Problem With The Way Things Are Today.

Reality is too strange for me. I am going back to the Land of Domesticity, where things make sense.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Charlie is 6 Today

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to take good pics of kitties? Just when they look all perfectly posed and handsome, they have to be weird and start romancing rocking chairs. It's so strange.

Today, Charlie turns 6 years old. He's eaten catnip and fried chicken. I thought about making him a hat but I knew better. I like my skin where it is, thankyouverymuch.

Did I ever tell you about when I got old Mr. Fatty Bear? I went to the SPCA after just having my heart broken by a Boy that I thought was Very Special. In retrospect, he really wasn't that special at all. Anyway, I went to the SPCA, determined to find someone to love me. I went hoping to find an adult female cat.

Instead, I found three black and white kittens, asleep on each other in their litter box. I took out the first one, a boy named Merlin, and took him to the Interview Room. Merlin sort of...sat there. He was okay, but not really very interesting. I looked at him. He looked at me. I put him back in his cage. Next was a little girl named Lilly. I put Lilly on the floor, and she scrambled to hide under the couch in the Interview Room. I looked at her. She looked at me. I put her back in the cage, and grabbed a tiny little guy named Joshua. Ahem. Joshua opened his eyes, leapt out of my arms, and climbed the little fake potted tree in the Interview Room. Then flung himself from there to the couch. Then from there he jumped from the back of the couch to my pants leg and climb up. Five minutes later, I was signing paperwork for him!
Obviously he underwent a name change. He's much more of a Charlie than a Joshua. I mean really, with that big goofy moustache, where the hell did Joshua come from? Had I known then what I know now I would have named him Headache, since he's pure pain and discomfort. And fuzzy and sweet and silly and handsome. He was my first pet in my Adult Life, the first one that has relied solely on me for everything. I am impressed we have made it this far.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Sock Virginity: A Thing of The Past



My computer fan really seems to be on the verge of dying this time. As such, this has to be very fast- I finished my first socks and I love them.

Pattern: Silver's Sock class
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici, in Aquarium
Needles: US2

They took forever, but I am officially hooked on socks. Love them. And I love that there was no "when the hell will I ever use THIS" in the back of my mind with these. So hooked am I that I cast on for some Monkeys today. Did you notice that the socks aren't identical? They are very quietly mismatched. I love it.

Happy April to everyone!