Now that's what I call general haberdashery.

John McCain's Favorite Joke

2008-11-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

Circa 2003, as told to us by Zug.

"I feel terrible for all the mothers in the state of Arizona. Because, as you know, Barry Goldwater from Arizona ran for President of the United States, Morris Udall from Arizona ran for President of the United States, Bruce Babbitt from Arizona ran for President of the United States, and I, John McCain from Arizona ran for President of the United States... Arizona may be the only state in the nation where mothers no longer tell their chilren that some day they can grow up and be the President of the United States."

WTF

2008-10-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

One of my neighbors is doing some karaoke, and is either drunk, or just super, super bad at karaoke.

The other neighbor is just randomly shouting every few minutes. I am blaming the football game, because that is more comforting to me than the thought of an old guy randomly shouting every few minutes for now reason.

It's times like these when I'm glad I have a vacuum.

Fair warning: this is both unnecessary and moderately gross.

2008-10-13T21:48:00.001-07:00

A week ago, I opened my freezer to get some ice. Apparently at some point in the past couple of months, I had put a bottle on top of my fridge just a smidge too close to the front, and every time I opened the freezer door, that bottle of creme de menthe was slowly, slowly coming closer to toppling. And this time, it finally came down.

As I watched this bottle fall, in stupidly slow motion, I realized that I had no shoes on, and being barefoot in a room full of broken glass would be a terrible way to spend my Sunday. So I reached out a foot and tried to slow it down.

This is what I tell myself now, at least, because it's a better reason for me to leave a foot in the way, or something. I caught the bottle with the big toe on my left foot.

No lie, it hurt a lot. I used roughly three languages worth of swears, then put a bag of ice on it and whined occasionally over the next week. The nail turned an unpleasant purple color, and I figured that would be that.

This evening I noticed that the front of the nail was leaking. Curious, I put my foot in my lap to take a look at it, craned my head down, and gingerly touched the top of the nail.

It... squirted at me. The top of my toenail turned into a squirt gun of week old blood and clear sticky shit. It squirted me IN MY FACE.

After I had washed four times and finished going "BLAAAAARG," I reflected that this must be what it's like to be a French woman in a horror film.

Now that the nailbed is empty, when I push down on the top of my toenail it makes a rodent-like squeaking noise. It's adorable smallness does not make up for the earlier disgust, but it's a step in the right direction.

Just so you know

2008-07-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

Things that are good

Things that are bad

A change in fortunes

2008-07-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

The last time I went on my usual trip to New York (New Year's, 2006/07), I had a wonderful time. I was in a cheerful mood when I drove back home, though exhausted when I finally stepped out of the car. Things didn't go well from the moment I stepped through the door; by the end of the night, I had dumped my boyfriend, driven to a friend's house and cried on her couch through three hours of Home and Garden Television. I spent a lot of the next week sniffly, but other than that one thing (snort), the rest of the week was weepy but otherwise uneventful.

This time, I was reasonably confident that nothing worse could happen, aside from an eye-rolling, "Well, I have to pay rent the first day I get back."

And I walked into my leasing office, and there was my ex-boyfriend, sitting at the table, signing his lease.

Blarg.

Rationally, I know this is a meaningless development. One of my friends lives in this complex. I like him a lot. It would make me smile to see him. We work at the same place, so it would make sense for us to cross paths, either coming or going, at some point. And yet, in the two months I've lived here, I've never spotted him biking past or walking past or hitching a ride with his girlfriend past. This is what my rational mind is telling me.

My irrational mind was telling me it was a bad sign. Bad juju. A bad omen. It was, unfortunately, spot on for the week.

Other highlights of the week:

I lost power for 25 hours! Fuck you, recently restocked fridge full of groceries!
My oven set on fire! Piss off, half-made Strawberry Panzanella!
A 55 gallon fishtank a quarter filled with water was dropped on my hand. All bones intact, some bruising remains, but should be gone in a day or two. I think I did all the swearing that was called for in that situation already.
A tree bough missed crashing into the hood of my car by a foot or so!
A crazy lady nearly drove head-first into my car because the three no-left-turn signs mean nothing to self-assured Ann Arborites!
I finished watching Twin Peaks and I will never be complete, ever, ever again!

Now, I read a whole mess of blogs on skepticism and critical thinking. I recognize this for what it is: Superstitious thinking. It's just an unpleasant coincidence that all of this nonsense should fall so closely together with the contrasting pleasantry of my vacation. It is a touch of the much-loathed woo.

This is one of those tricky times to be an atheist. Sometimes, shit happens. As Penn Jillete puts it, "We live in a random universe filled with pain."

Every now and then, though, it would be wicked nice to have someone to blame.

[Edit: Which is not to say that the whole week has been utterly terrible. A gentleman I went to college with popped up from out of the blue, and it was good to hear from him. Thus far, he has not accidentally been killed in a freak explosion, which is promising.]

Unusual hygiene question

2008-06-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

I went out with some friends last night to a nightclub in Detroit. Good times were had by all, and eventually after a fair amount of revelry and dancing, it was time to leave.

Now mind you, I was not inebriated, as it was my duty to get people home in one piece via the Brandtmobile. However, I had had enough to drink that my ability to make higher-function decisions about fashion-worthiness (which are fairly limited to begin with) was a bit slow. So when I found a pair of sunglasses on the crosswalk back to my car, I snatched them up and took them with me. I figured I was safe to pick up sunglasses that had been abandoned in the middle of a Detroit street at three in the morning.

The glasses themselves are pretty terrible to behold

Sitting here now, muchless sleep-deprived than I was last night, they make me think of the sort of thing that people in the 80s thought that we would be wearing today, that kind of bizarre future aesthetic that was only ever big in movies. However, they offer full-coverage, which is something I look for in sunglasses while I'm driving, and my last part of enormous ugly sunglasses just bit the dust recently.

So the question is: How does one go about cleaning sunglasses? Are there any strange diseases you can get from sunglasses? Should I just pop over to my nearest tattoo parlor and ask if I can just pop them in the autoclave, or will letting them soak in a bowl of vinegar be adequate?

Any thoughts? Hopes? Dreams?

I am the master of cable-age

2008-04-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

I wrote a while back about how this thing was stinkin' up my apartment while I blocked it. It occured to me I should like, put a picture up of it or something.I cannot express how many terrible films went into the making of this scarf. It is filled with the cries of a thousand murdered harlots, I tellsya.

I did a swatch of this in a different yarn, and it's probably six inches square if I put a finishing border on it. I'm thinking of finishing it off and turning it into the fanciest dishcloth that I own.

A letter that isn't likely to be read, because I can't get to sleep

2008-04-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

Dear whoever it was in front of me who really, truly wanted to go to Olive Garden,

I know how it is. Man, those breadsticks are fucking tasty. However, sometimes we all forget that the turn is coming up, and it's just unfortunate when you're starved for chewy Italian goodness, but you just have to keep going, make a couple of Michigan lefts, and try again with your head out of the clouds this time. It is not acceptable to decide you can take the turn if you just, you know, slam on your brakes and hope that the person behind you is paying attention.

I wasn't even the person behind you. I was the person three cars behind you, and luckily for me, I was listening when my driving instructor, my mother, my father, and Click and Clack told me about maintaining reasonable distances from the driver in front of me.

However, the recent drivers-ed graduates behind me hadn't had this drilled into their head yet.

Now, everyone was okay, and hell, there wasn't even any noticeable damage to my rear bumper, and I just had a ridiculous series of moments where I was thinking "Sweet I'm not going to hit the guy in front of me," glancing in my rear view mirror, and thinking "Wait maybe I am going to still." But it could have been worse, all because of your impatience for having a swarthy man point a peppergrinder in your face.

In summation, please try to take others in consideration when you're on the warpath for some parmesan goodness, douchebag.

-Sasha

Dear car-full of sixteen year olds,

Driving is, as we have just covered, a bit on the stressful side. You're just learning and it looked like you were still new to not having an adult in the car with you.

In the future, please keep in mind; at least one hand on the wheel at all times. I would've hated to tell the policeman that I saw you using both hands to light your cigarette when you should've been paying attention to what was going on ahead of you, or, you know, steering your car. Speaking of which, seriously. Knock that shit out already. I don't mean to sound like a PSA, but smoking is gross and makes you gross by association.

On the other hand, I'm glad you're okay, that your car was okay, that we were all okay, and I do appreciate your complimenting my pants. It was somewhat flattering to know that, even in a full-on panic attack, you could take time to check out my ass.

-Sasha

Score!

2008-04-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

I drove to Belleville last night to pick up my new dining room table. It's freaking adorable.

There's only two issues with it that I can see off hand: a chunk of the veneer has torn off the side of the leaf. I may just strip that off and see if I can find some kind of replacement veneer for it.

Also, the swivel joints are CAKED with really heavy motor grease, so it smells faintly like garage when you're sitting in them. On the other hand, they definitely don't catch or squeak.

It was pretty hilarious trying to fit the whole shebang in my car; the table was deposted and in the back seat, there was a chair lying across it, two chairs in the trunk, and one chair riding shotgun with me. The seller helped me guide things in, but getting it out again to put into storage was an exercise in swearing and grunts.

Now all I need is to find an apartment to put it in.

I found it

2008-04-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

If you have played Animal Crossing, you will understand why I want this table as hard as I do.

Day 1 of the Musikmesse

2008-03-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm eating Paprika Pringles.

They're FUCKING DELICIOUS.

The view

2008-03-11T02:45:00.000-07:00

Frankfurt is a fancy-lookin' town. For example, this is what it looks like out of my window on the 44th floor.

(Sorry about the monster-file.)

I made a puppet.

2008-03-06T20:46:00.001-08:00

He's the best puppet I've ever made so far.

There's not really a good shot amoung them, and these are all several months old. I've since begun the Mark Wood Mark Two, this time with more felting, so that his face won't be so damn floppy.

In my defense, I swear I was neither drunk nor stoned when I decided to make a puppet of Electric Violinist Mark Wood, nor am I creepily enamored with him. Those of you who know me well know that I don't handle boredom well. Perhaps you just hadn't realized how poorly I handle it.

My apartment smells

2008-03-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

Wool is one of those wonderful luxury fibers. I love to knit with it; it feels wonderful if you spend the cash to get the good stuff, it's got the right amount of stretch and give, and it looks damn fine when everything is said and done.

The one downside is blocking it. Blocking it means you dip the whole thing in warm water, press the excess water out, and then spread it out to dry. It sets the stitches, makes laces and cables stand out better, and gives everything an extra touch of zing.

The downside is that in the meantime, it smells. Wet wool is not a sexy smell at all.

Also, I'm going to Germany in a week. Squee!

It's all about Search

2008-02-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

I have a dirty-love for the BBC radio, because it's really the Fox News of NPR.

They keep referring to Yahoo as "The Mighty Yahoo."

Heh.

Huh?

2008-02-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night, about Rocky Horror Picture Show. I'm not sure why, or even how, because I've never actually seen Rocky Horror.

Mostly it was just Tim Curry dancing around in dominatrix gear.

It was a very confusing way to wake up.

This is why I usually ignore those ads

2008-01-24T12:53:00.001-08:00

This bank of ads accompanied a conversation I was having with my mom about my birthday present. Do I now need to mark google ads as being not safe for work?

Not for the easily engrossed

2008-01-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to think more memes should involve reading wikipedia articles.
I do feel a bit bad about this, though. I got five books for Christmas, and I've still only read half of one of them.

Instructions:

1. The first article title on the Wikipedia Random Articles page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quotation on the Random Quotations page is the title of your album.
3. The third picture in Flickr's Interesting Photos From The Last 7 Days will be your album cover.
4. Use the graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

Good news! That Varied Tit is just looking for lunch, not being all dead.

Band Name | Album Title | Photo Credit

Happy Birthday so far

2008-01-20T01:40:00.000-08:00

Being as I'm just crawling into bed now, I'm positive I will be a useless husk come Monday morning. But boy, this has been one of those cockle-warming birthdays, so far.

Highlights from today's BBC World Broadcast

2008-01-18T07:04:00.000-08:00

"Militant Fruitarian"

Stupendousness

2008-01-17T20:10:00.000-08:00

I managed to insult my neighbor's religion inadvertantly after 11 at night. This may be a new record for my ability to gnaw on my toes.

They had their music playing loudly enough to wake me from a light doze. While irritating, this is the first time this has happened since I moved in, and compared to every neighbor I've ever had since I started college, this is a new record. So I figure that I'd be polite and knock on the door, rather then try the floor-stomping routine.

I put on a shirt and pants, and go downstairs. Knock knock.

No response. I can hear talking inside.

Hmph. This isn't how I'd planned this to go. Once again, knock knock.

The stereo shuts off completely. I hear something about religion, door, and this time of night. I make a poor judgement at this point, but one that made a certain degree of sense at the time; when I'd gotten home from teaching, I could see through the front window that there were two girls at my door. I figured one of them was my roommate's new convenient distraction, and frowned a bit, since I knew he was out of the apartment eating dinner somewhere else. By the time I'd gotten my bass out of the car, and checked the mailbox, they were on their way down the stairs, and it turned out it was two high schoolers shoving religious tracts into people's doors.

No one appears to be coming to the door, but the stereo is off. I figure they've gotten the hint, and start walking back up the stair. As I reach the landing, the door opens, and there's my neighbor. She looks irritable.

"Oh," I say. "I'm sorry to be a bother, but I have to work in the morning, so I was just hoping you wouldn't mind turning your stereo down."

She nods, and apologizes. I smile and say, "Not to worry, I'm not some late-night Jehovah's Witness or something."

From the look on her face after that comes out of her mouth, I know that was the wrong thing to say. "I am a Jehovah's Witness, actually."

I'm not sure how to react. I'm half-asleep, which makes me muddy as is. Something tells me I should apologize, but I'm not feeling terribly apologetic, and I don't like lying to people ~~when I know I'm not coherent enough to carry it off~~ ever at all. So instead I get all lame and just say, "Hmm, okay."

"Right," she says.

"I, um."

We look at each other awkwardly for a moment. She goes back into her apartment. I walk up the stairs.

Now I can't get back to sleep.

Goddamnit.

You know you've hit rock bottom when...

2008-01-11T21:53:00.000-08:00

One Missed Call, a movie only noteworthy for it's creepy mouth-eye poster, currently has a rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 00%.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Movie, currently has a rating on Rotten Tomatoes
of 06%.

You know you've failed in life when a Uwe Boll movie has a higher rating than yours does.

OH GOD I CAN'T SHUT UP

2007-12-28T21:53:00.000-08:00

There's a couple of things in movies and horror literature that still don't fail to creep me out. The first is people getting stabbed or sliced in their Achilles Tendon, and the other is serious eye deformities.

But these pictures of mouths in place of eyes I find both deeply unsettling and strangely hypnotic. It's hard to just stop looking.

And it's FREAKING ME OUT.

I'm feeling blabbity

2007-12-28T18:40:00.000-08:00

I went to the craft store last night to buy a new set of size 8 double points, because I keep losing them. As I was walking to the register, I was fancying something that would mess up my blood sugar levels, and there were silly boxes of Pop Rocks with locks on them that were alleged to be full of Pop Rocks.

I forgot that I had them until about ten minutes ago, and I unwrapped them, pulled off the key, unlocked the box, and opened it up.

Then I laughed for some minutes.

Unlike the normal pop rock packages you would expect to see when opening a pop rock packaged-shaped box, I pulled out tiny little square packages that looked very curiously, like, well.

I have had various silly candies in the past. Most memorable prior to this was the chocolate vagina I had bought for a friend my freshman year of college. But now, I'm the proud owner of a box of explosive candy condoms.

Okay, they're just normal pop rocks, but they're in a lockable container and shaped like candy condom packages.

Now I'm just feeling super blabbity

2007-12-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

I had plans for Christmas. Silly plans. I would make some sort of handcrafted gift for everyone in my family.

It turns out that when you work 40 hours and teach twice a week, this is what most people would consider to be a really dumb Idea. Fortunately I had some lead time (I decided this back in October) and a couple of projects half complete, so it seemed fairly doable.

The first of them was for my mom; I would finish a cross-stitch I had been working on for her over the past four years (So maybe I'd started before October, even?). I'd started it when I had access to TV, and soon after I lost access to TV, I learned that cross-stitching is really, really boring. Most of the work on it has been done at my folks' house, on their couch, in front of the boob-tube. To compensate for my lack of cable, I began renting movies like a madman the past two weeks. I've seen some good stuff, and some stuff I could've lived without, but it got the job done, you know?

For my dad, I made a tie. This turned out to also be a stupid idea, because it was supposed to have been a birthday present. For his Birthday. In August.

Oops.

It turns out that using #1 size needles makes everything take 17 times longer than you'd expected it to. Also, it turns out my hand-sewing skills are shit, which is why I'm leaving the lining of the tie up to my mom, who has hand-sewing skills that are more like the roses that grow out of the shit-skills I currently have if you give them enough time. Maybe one day I'll be able to handle it, but with my rate of learning sewing techniques, there's a chance I'll be doddering and incontinent, and I'd probably end up wrapping a tie around my dad's gravestone.

Still, so long as you don't flip it over or look too closely at the carrying side, it looks pretty decent.

The next gift was intended for my elder niece. (By elder, I mean she'll be four the day after Christmas, which still makes her older than her little sister.) I've been designated "Strange Aunt Sasha," or "Silly Aunt Sasha," so I felt compelled to live up to my name and make her some mittens.

Shaped like LOBSTER CLAWS.

In spite of a couple of experiments with gauge swatches, they turned out goddamn huge. However, it turned out that the wrist-holes were too small, so while they would have been too big if she'd gotten them on, she couldn't actually get them on. Grah.

This may be a lesson about not trying to size things for people if they can't volunteer body parts for them.

At the same time, I started work on a project for the younger niece. Let's just leave it at failure due to terrible instructions and forget it ever happened.

The next project almost became a failure as well. It was my first attempt with felting, which is kind of like when you ruin a new sweater by putting it in the washer, but with purpose. Wool will turn to felt, and can be shaped and formed if you're careful about it. It's not really complicated, but you only get one shot at it, and if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work.

I wanted to make my older brother a stuffed hedgehog. He'd collected them when he was a kid, and this seemed like a simple enough gift for him that would end up in the hands of his own children. Or it would have, if the first one hadn't failed. You see, all of the paws felted zip-zip-zip-zip, but the rest of the body had only felted in clumps here and there. Also, the fur turned from this pleasing, lush texture to an unpleasant, clumpy feel.

So, I went to the yarn store and whined to the woman working there, and she advised me to a better choice of fur-yarn. I went through the pattern again, and then delayed actually felting it, worried that it would fail again. I had another talk with the lady at the knitting store, and she told me where I could find a proper washer that would be hot enough to do things properly, a big change from the less functional machines in my apartment building.

So a weekend before Christmas, I felted that sucker up, and it worked all properly like it ought to have the first time.

On top of that, I made one set of gauntlets for Seth, which I neglected to take any pictures of. It was a quick adventure in cabling. The first one was from a pattern, but I didn't like the way it worked out and decided to try a different pattern for the second. I couldn't find anything I particularly like, so I made up something new, derived from patterns that I had liked. They worked pleasantly, and I liked the way they turned out; the same cabling technique, but on different scales.

Blah, blah, blah.

I may make many more of those hedgehogs, now that I know how. They're adorable and quick to make. The lady at the knitting shop had mentioned using smaller needles and a lighter gauge yarn. If there's one thing I've learned from Japanese people, it's that making things smaller makes them more intensely adorable.

For my little brother, I made some hats. Yay for hats!

On living with your ex-boyfriend who hasn't gotten over you

2007-12-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

I love the pet store.

2007-10-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend and I went out to have pizza last night. While we were waiting, he suggested we walk around, and I said we go to the pet store.

On the one hand, it was kind of sad. Both of us are working all the time, so it's not really feasible for us to have a pet that requires more attention than a fish tank, or maybe a lizard requires. I'm down with that; I'd love to have a pet snake, but that would be a dealbreaker for living with my boyfriend, who would be super, super uncomfortable with that notion. My suggestion that I get a burrowing snake that he would never see did not go over well (which is fine, because realistically if I had a snake it wouldn't spend that much time in its cage and much time pretending to be a necklace.)

On the other hand, watching chinchillas is a great way to kill time while you're waiting for dinner to finish baking.

Wonder wonder wonderful

2007-06-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

I had an amazing dream last night.

I was floating in my usual way last night. Anytime I fly in dreams, I'm just leaning forward with my knees bent slightly, like I'm riding an invisible Segway with a kneeling chair on it. Compared to most people and their soaring across the city, I just putter a few inches from the ground. I realize this makes most of my flying dreams kind of lame.

Still! "Boy," I thought, "This is totally some sort of extra-sensory power. I should call the James Randi Foundation and win a million dollars!"

It was kind of a downer to wake up and realize that I could neither fly, nor win a million dollars.

Good things come in pairs?

2007-06-17T19:23:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to stay productive, since lately I've been sinking into a serious, full-on funk. Some things are going well; the boyfriend and I found an apartment in Saline, which is close enough to Ann Arbor to make me feel comfortable and connected, but far enough from the hustle to make his ultra anti-social self happy. It's a top-floor, corner apartment, with a view of the woods behind the building. It's quiet and peaceful, and should be a nice change from living across the street from the oh so noisy police station.

Other things could be going better. I had an absurd, 13 hour job interview on the 8th— the interview itself was only half an hour long, but there were 12 and a half hours of associated nonsense. It was fun, and informative, and I went bowling for the first time since I was... hmm... 16? They sent me a sample contract on Wednesday, and asked how interested I would be in it, emphasizing that it was not an offer of employment. I wrote back full of pep and enthusiasm.

And I haven't heard from them one way or another since then.

My current job is driving me crazy. I mean, I'm still a temp, doing data-entry at a research firm in Ann Arbor. I still hate it, and hate that it's going nowhere, and hate that getting to it every morning is a royal pain in the ass, and hate that I'm getting tendonitis pains in alternating wrists. What's more, they're running out of work for me to do, so they've had me error-checking other people's work, which is even more mind-numbing and tedious. And what's worse is that it'll end at the end of the month, and in spite of my distaste for it, that means I'll be unemployed, which is worse.

So I've been trying to distract myself over the past week, and I do that by knitting.

I've already made more gauntlets than I've cared to, but they're really quick to knit and they make great presents. Up until last halloween, I only made them in mismatched pairs. Anytime I made them for someone else, my only request was that they buy the yarn, since I have terrible taste in things other people like, and I've found people are happier when they hand a wad of yarn to me and say, "I like this. Make something out of it." Then, I try to make them about the same length, but in different textures. It makes them happy, it keeps me amused. The only non-gauntlet presents I have made were a scarf that took me over a year to make, and two fair-isled hats which were both too small for my head. One of them was the Jamiroquai influenced hat in an earlier post, but without the earflaps or the pom-pom on top; it was a little too short to cover my ears. The other was my very first fair-isle hat, a skull-and-crossbones mess which I never took pictures of. I tried very, very hard to make it fit, but the all-acrylic yarn would not stretch for shit. [EDIT: I am so full of shit. After dinking around on my brother's weblog, I remembered that I'd made a devil hat for my niece Sophia (there are a couple pictures of her looking miserable wearing it), and when I was learning to knit, I made a pair of baby blankets for Heather. Well, for her baby.]

Halloween was the first matched pair that I made, though I have since lost one of them (See above photo, currently discussing the right glove. If you have a copy of the vogue stictionary in front of you, that particular pattern is called 'leaf lace'). I was playing in a concert, and the section was going as insects. I chose to be a praying mantis. Along with the gloves, I made my very first, all-original pattern for the antenna. I adore how they came out, though I'm still trying to figure out how to secure them better, since they're fairly floppy. I also sewed a thorax, which was just silly looking. Altogether though, it was an outfit I was pretty proud of.

The second set (shown above on the other hand; it's a very basic cabling. I'm sure it has a name, but damned if I know what it is) is half-done, and by request. I'm really doing it for two reasons; first because I was asked too, and second because they're not quite a matched set. The cabling on one is done to the back, and the cabling on the other is done to the front. This means that the one glove will have swirlies going to the right, and the other will have swirlies going to the right. It's a small distinction, but important. In fact, one one of the cables I pulled the the front instead of the back, and it stands out from the other swirls, looking misplaced and a little uncomfortable. I told the recipient about it, and he waved it off as a little bit of charming diversity.

I still think it looks silly, but not so silly that I'm willing to remake it.

I'm also trying to knit a tie. At this point it's about an inch and a half long, and I'm learning that fingering-weight yarn is a pain in the ass to work with. When there's more substance I'll probably take pictures.

Anyway, I'm mostly rambling and playing with my camera. I really ought to be in bed.

Blah, blah blah.

Chances are, I miss you.

One step closer to carcinogen

2007-04-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

It was such a nice day that we felt compelled to go out. My boyfriend and I packed a huge ol' bottle of water and a bunch of super-expensive frisbees, and we went out for my first round of disc-golf.

I figured, since the game was taking place mostly in a forest, that I'd be okay to wear a halter top. Sure, it's outside, but it's cool and shady and wonderful, right?

Wrong. My shoulders, my upper back, and my cleavage are now a wonderful lobster-red, as is my nose and the skin on the tops of my elbows. There is a six inch wide stripe running down my back where my hair was. Also, I suck at disc-golf.

It was still grand fun, though. Less fun was learning that my boyfriend neither tans nor burns. There is, perhaps, a gentle hint of extra rosiness on his cheeks, but he is otherwise untarnished.

That rat-bastard.

Something totally unrelated

2007-04-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get back into blogging (though I'm not sure why, since I'm failing to do anything worth blogging about), so these are just the birthing pains.

There's a cafe near my job that I go to more than I ought to. There's two things about it that amaze me; the first being that, unlike every other cafe I've ever been to (with the exception of the little place around the corner from Jake's apartment; if it were within walking distance from my job, I'd probably go there more often), everyone who works there acts like they really, really want me to give them my money. If they could throw on some sexual favors to convince me to buy their italian sodas more often, they probably would.

Also, their cups for cold drinks are made entirely out of corn.

Actually, that kind of freaks me out.

Totally useless trivia

2007-03-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

I've been working for a month doing data entry. It pays very well, but I feel like it's turning into a deeply uninteresting person.

So, I feel I should share this:
I have a very hard time telling James Woods and Willem DeFoe apart. I have no idea why this is. Sometimes, I also get Christopher Walken confused with them, and that's just plain embarassing.

Thank you, this is all.

2007-01-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

A demonstration that I might be made out of magical funky goodness

Behold: this is the lead-singer for tasty funk-joy band, Jamiroquai. Watch him dance, in his fancy hat.

I watched this video way too many times, and this is the closest I could get:

The colors are much less bland in reality, but that's the down-side of shitty webcams. Teehee! I feel creative and wonderful.

Totally unnecessary

2006-10-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

I had an audition last night. I thought it went well; hell, with the exception of the G-Flat that I naturalized, I think I gave one hell of a performance.

Nonetheless, they haven't called me back with the results. There were only fifteen people auditioning, only six of them bassists, and they still can't tell me what they thought of it.

*twitch*

Some form of Snow White

2006-07-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

I drove home from Ann Arbor Sunday night, having spent a signifigant chunk of the evening parked in front of a friend's TV grappling hairy beasts and jamming swords into them. And debating, the whole time: I can barely afford to pay rent with this ridiculous new job. Can I really afford to buy Shadow of the Collosus?

Eventually I decided that just mooching off the purchases of others would have to suffice for now, and back I went to my apartment. I pulled in to a parking space conveniently outside my doorstep (unusual at two in the morning), and saw that there was a skunk in the lawn right outside the front steps, dragging a College Inn pizza box around.

On the one hand, it was freaking adorable. Skunks are cute little critters, and someone told me once that they make fine pets, once your have their scent glands taken out. They're small and they're frisky and their tails are poofy and snuggleable. Warner Brothers didn't have a huge challenge in making Pepe le Pew a charming character (though in these days, his persistance would be deemed stalking and possibly sexual assault).

On the other hand, adorable thought it may be, I'm not fond of skunk-reek, and I didn't want it to be all over my clothes. The skunk was happily nibbling a hole into the box he was dragging around, and seemed to be ignoring me, but what would happen when I approached the stairs?

I had two options: I could drive to another parking spot, then go around the building to the back door, or I could just be a jerk and interfere with nature's beautiful cycle of scavenging.

I picked up an empty soda can from my car, hid behind the door, and threw it in the skunk's direction. It jumped in the air, and then scrambled into the hole it had chewed in the pizza box.

At first I thought my vision had failed me, and I turned my headlights back on. Not seeing anything new, I flipped them back off, and walked up the pathway onto the front stairs, watching the pizza box as I went.

Sure enough, as soon as I was safely hiding behind the stairway, the skunk poked its head out of the hole, looked around briefly, and started pulling itself out. It then turned around, pulled a crust out from behind it, and dashed off around the other side of the building. I continued onward, smelling like deodorant, rather than musk, and went to bed.

In other news: After a four month wait, I finally had that appointment with a dermatologist. Lady says that I look pretty much skin cancer free, but that I have a flat mole in my hair I'll have to have someone else check on if I'm ever getting my hair braided. Crazy stuff.

Fifteen minutes left at work

2006-05-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

All I can think about is that leftover Chinese food in my fridge. It was a terrible, mega-stupid mistake to eat nothing but a handful of almond M&Ms before I came to work today.

Okay, small lie. Leftover chinese food and all of the events associated with the time when they weren't leftovers yet. Video games and swapping fluids. But it's not good to think about that too hard at work, or I'll just start blushing. And I wouldn't want to be sitting at my desk, vapid smile on my face, cheeks burning read.

Or maybe I would.

Sigh.

So.
Damn.
Hungry.

Seven of twelve roses agree, he loves you.

2006-05-02T16:56:00.000-07:00

Interpretation: His feelings towards you are ambiguous, but probably in your favor.

One of the women who lives where I work received a dozen double delights from her husband's college; he'd taught there for many years, apparently impressed a lot of people, to such an extent that she still gets roses from them on various occasions. As with many of the folks here, she likes to show off the flowers they receive, so I end up tending a lot of vases in the front lobby.

I generally like that sort of work; cutting stems, arranging flowers and the crap that gets sent with them so they're only moderately haphazard. I usually snap off a couple of petals when I'm asked to do this, and I will run my thumb along the basin of the petal. It's silly and comforting, a secret stress-relief. Nowadays, it just makes me sneeze a lot, but I do it anyway.

Eventually the roses start to wilt and look sad, and before they get too pathetic I'll throw them away. But I get to have my way with them before they go, and in this case I played he-loves-you-he-loves-you-not with fifty dollars of someone else's floral arrangement.

Is this why tuition is so high?

Experience is a nasty bitch

2006-01-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

So last Wednesday, I got a good solid whang in the back of the head with a cello case. I'm not gonna lie; it hurt a whole lot, and I told the carrier of the cello as much.

Now, oddly for being smashed in the back of the skull, I had an instant full-lobed headache. Also, I was pretty dizzy; carrying my bass down the hall seemed unnecessarily balance-challenging. I made it through orchestra (the throbbing asymmetry of Mars didn't help matters), walked my bass back, and drove home. (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't think about what a bad idea that was until later.) I walked in to the apartment, went to pee, washed my hands, and took a long look in the mirror.

It would have been a brief glance, except that I noticed my pupils were engorged for no reason.

Actually, said that snarky inner monologue, they're dilated for a very good reason; you have a concussion, dumbass.

It was about then that I got a call from my Escape Valve from the Estrogen Pit, asking what I was doing tonight. I told him I was really goddamn tired and sort of wanted to nap for a while, not to mention the terrible headache from intersecting vectors with a cello case. He pointed out that common knowledge has strong beliefs against sleeping after a head wound.

So I did the next natural thing; I called my mom and freaked her out, asking questions about how injured should I be before I went to the ER. She said it was cool and I could sleep, which I proceeded to do with passionate nappitude.

Post-nap, I went to hang out with the EVfEP (though there was only one person present for that terrible event), and established my new, total inability to communicate in an intelligent fashion for the next twenty-four hours. Which leads us back to the underlying music theme, you see, because the next evening I had to go to Music Theory class.

Dr. Iannaccone began playing this piece by Mendelssohn, and asked me what technique was being employed to mix up the variations. Now, what was happening was this: a theme was being introduced in the top voice, and while it continued on to new material, that same theme was played in the lower voice. This technique is called 'imitation,' because music theorists aren't that creative when they're naming things. It's frequently used in the works of J. S. Bach.

I stared at him blankly, trying to be as uncreative as I could possibly be, and I failed, utterly. The word was not coming to my mind, regardless of how desperately I tried to pull something from the shaken recesses of my mind.

Finally, with infinite blanditude, I asked if he was just Bachin' it up.

That got a laugh out of him and the class, and he didn't ask me another question for a significant portion of the class. Fortunately then I got it right. (Deutsche uber-massige sechste Korden <3)

Aside: Haha, Jake, I managed to use both throbbing AND engorged in a totally non-sexual context. HA HA.

Conundrummery

2005-12-28T23:36:00.000-08:00

So here's the trouble.

My current plan is to go to sleep, wake up, and drive to New York, all daisy fresh and cheerful and whatnot. Perhaps I'll stop at some style of megastore and buy some new music, perhaps not.

The trouble is, though, that I'm not tired. Not remotely. There is a comfortable bed several feet from me, and I'd love to go over there and crash out on it, but the impulse to crash out is not yet existant. It refuses to well up in me and take dominance. I'm just here, awake, and, horrors! Feeling PRODUCTIVE, like I should go make sure every little thing is packed, so that I can jet out as soon as I wake up, which I'll never do if I never sleep.

This is a job for Valerian, I suppose, except that I'd hate to drive all that way burping up that terrible ass flavor.

Really, this is just a job for whining.

WHIIIIIIIIINE.

It's mine, mine, gloriously mine!

2005-12-22T16:19:00.000-08:00

My roommates have all left for their respective Christmas breaks, and for however many hours between the time when I get home tonight and when I wake up tomorrow and leave for my parent's house, the apartment is MINE.

And the anticipation is AMAZING.

I have these beautiful plans to make Tequila Sunrises and proceed to play Soul Calibur 2 until I'm uselessly incoherent, eating white rice and uncooked past in the meantime. Maybe I'll invite other people, maybe I'll just make a night of it on my lonesome, screaming incoherent obsceneties at Voldo as he smoothly breakdances his way across the screen.

Bliss.

In other news, I fabricated a walk of shame yesterday.

The hole in our ceiling has been more or less patched up. When I left the apartment, Sam was waiting for the painters to come and re-monotonize the ceiling colors. We gave them a bit of a start yesterday; neither of us had expected them to return until this afternoon, but they wanted to put down some preliminary coats before the real work began.

In spite of the hour, Sam had just woken up. Since his bedroom is a bit on the trashed side - all that couldn't be shoved into a desk was shoved onto the bunk bed - so he spent the evening (and most of the morning, and a section of the early afternoon) sleeping on the love-seat sized bean bag chair occupying our living room floor. He slept in his boxers, and I would occasionally wander in and out of the living room to find him recurled into a new form of fetal ball. Occasionally we would talk, but the conversations were usually cut short because he would fall back asleep. I wasn't looking too sheveled myself, since I didn't have any significant plans for the day that required me looking particularly presentable.

Understand, nothing about Sam's appearnace would strike a stranger as being inherently homosexual. He was just rousing when the painters arrived, and was still mostly unclothed when they knocked on the door. He stood to the right of the door, debating whether to put clothes on if it was just a friend stopping by (as the blog's title would imply, we live in a lingerie colony; full nudity isn't approved of in mixed company, but anything short of it doesn't raise any eyebrows), and I opened the door a crack, since I was on my way out to run some errands.

"Hello?" I asked.

"We're here for the roof," they replied.

"Ah," I said, then turned to my right. "Sam, put your pants on."

The maintenance men gave me a curious, nosy look, as we all waited and listened to the rustling of blue jeans. They guffawed and nudged each other, and I smiled blandly. They looked at my semi-disheveled hair and smiled broadly. (How little they know. In reality, my sex hair is much less coherent.)

"Okaaaay," Sam said, and I opened the door and let them all in, and waved goodbye as I left, running my fingers through my hair.

(This story was much funnier in my head.)

Hey, my bass is back (so you better start a-runnin)

2005-10-23T21:52:00.000-07:00

Strange day; I woke up for the dozenth time in the semi-light of my room, this time because my alarm clock was chattering rather than the other times, because it seemed like a rouse-worthy idea until the necessary time passed in which I recognized my surroundings and went back to sleep. Then there was the arguement to stay in bed; the boiler is still in a state of half-repair, so convincing myself to slip out from under that exquistively warm comforter is exceptionally tricky. Sadly, the little voice in my head reminded me that if I stayed there too long, I'd fall back asleep, and that would mean I'd be late for work, and then I'd be fired, and oh, the horrors. Overall laziness, to avoid looking for other work, overrode temporary laziness. The next task was to make it to the shower and wash the smell of hippy out of me. (Surprisingly enough, the elderly are not generally fond of hippy-smell. I myself like to twiddle with my hair and get a nice little whiff of Nag Champa, but at some point in your life span I'll apparently cross a line where it must, MUST be only Herbal Essences.)

Work was the usual tedium; stay awake, do Nonograms for eight hours, go home. Except this time, I swung by the music building, picked up the loaner bass I'd been leant, and skipped back to the mall to switch back for my beloved Phinaes. I hung about Borders, trying to look nonchalant (which is hard, with the nice-work-outfit with the cashmere and the heels, and a wonderful blue lump strapped to me. Small children watched me in fascination. Teenagers milling around Hot Topic, struggling to be alternative, stared in silent awe. I stood and read, keeping an eye on the poor sales clerk who couldn't decide whether they should start a conversation with me or not. Eventually my cell rang and I booked across the mall (Note: Attention whores! Jogging through a mall with a bass on in heels is an INSTANT attractor), stopping only once to laugh in the face of that one, necessary, ballsy bastard that asked if I wished I played piccolo. No, of course I don't! I was getting my bass back, my delightful darling dearest!

And life was all roses and gumdrops again.

Everything in this blog will probably be about music.

2005-10-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm at work now, and rather irate about it; partly because I didn't sleep at all last night, and partly because, in the rush to be presentable and make breakfast and dinner and get that tangled lump out of my hair and get to the dealership for my new plates, I neglected to brush my teeth, and my hands still reek of garlic. At least the hangover is gone. (So strange, to feel one develop, to feel each of my teeth stopping in the course of their daily activities and say hello...)

I got a call last night from Aaron Reiley, who is the wonderful man fixing my baby Phinaes. (Had I read A Seperate Peace before I named my bass, I would never, ever, ever have decided to name my bass that.) He left a voice mail on my cell, saying "Hey, this is Aaron Reiley; we've got your bass opened up, and it looks like you have a pretty decent sized bass bar."

Strange pause.

"If you could give me a call, my cell number is..."

I puzzled over this on the way to the grocery store; why would he call and leave such a bizzare, confused message? I called him back, got his voice mail, and asked what it was that he was implying in his message. He called back, with startling promptitude, and asked if it would be alright if he removed the current bass bar and put one in more appropriately sized; he felt that the thing was too much support, crudely carved from the front of the bass instead of a seperate piece glued in, and that since the bass was already open, a big portion of the labor fee would be waived...

On the one hand, it would do magical things for my sound (he tells me), but on the other hand, it would mean another week or two of waiting to get my baby back, another two weeks of mediocre practice on their loaner. Don't get me wrong, it's an alright bass for orchestral playing, but all of my solo work sounds like I'm hearing it with wax shoved in my ears, and maybe in my nose for unnecessary extra blockage. I covet my bass, and am wary of random, excessive surgery to its delicate, curvy frame.

Oi.

Things that aren't supposed to happen.

2005-10-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

So let's go through things my bass has done to betray me:
1. Let's see... a week before my jury my first semester of sophomore year (maybe?), the eyelet in my bow stripped itself. Just on a whim. "You don't need bow tension to play," the eyelet decided. "I'll just relax for a bit."
2. During one concert, the G string just started buzzing. Apparently leaving the bass in the hall overnight wasn't enough to adjust it to the temperature, because out of nowhere half of the notes on the string started wailing away with this extra, unnecessary noise.
3. Let us never forget the performance of Michael Schelle's Samurai, where my bass, restrung with lower tension solo strings, vomited the bridge onto the stage, and then had some sort terrible spasm that left the sound post rolling along the bottom of the stomach.
4. The day of my junior recital, my professor decided I should keep the E string tuned to D, rather than adjusting the string up a whole step as the rest of the strings had been. I guess that's not something my bass did, but I hope that during my next recital, I don't have "Remember! Your E-string is STILL a D-String" written on my wrist.
5. Last night, as I was putting my bass into the car to move it to Pease auditorium, the right shoulder caved in a little, in a little mold of my right hand. If there's one thing I'm pretty sure about, it's that your bass should never make a squishy noise. EVER.

I think I should change my bass' name to Lady Macbeth; just as likely to stab you in the back at the most inopportune time as not.
Sigh; off to Grand Rapids to get a good fixing.

Morning nonsense

2005-09-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

Kate and Sam and I drove to Toledo last night, for all the love that's involved in Beethoven 5 and Shostakovich 11. It was a warm and wonderful sort of performance; I had mixed feelings about the third movement of the Shosty, but the most of it was intense and brutal and bestial, mixed in with the gentle caresses of strings and bells. Love.

Apparently this inspired Sam more than we'd anticipated, because this morning, I woke up to the vicious, hateful strains of Shostakovich 10's second movement. On the one hand, I was moderately annoyed to be awoken less than eight hours after I'd gone to sleep. On the other hand, I love that song a great deal, and it was almost a nice way to wake up.

Delicious.