Thursday, August 29, 2002

Okay, I'm about to head off to the Jersey shore for my birthday celebration hide-away vacation extravaganza, and will be back Monday afternoon. See you on the other side of my twenties!
My friends Max and Anya just called me at work to wish me a happy birthday in advance. Such sweeties! Thanks, guys.
So the weather is not going to be so good at Beach Haven (btw, P is convinced this was the name of Popeye's home town. Does anyone know?), with it being cloudy/rainy in the mid-70s. Sunday will be the best day, and even then it's a high of 81 and partly cloudy. Of course the day after we leave it gets sunny and hot. Oh weather gods, why do you hate me so?

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

It looks like I'm going to be sent to California in late September. I'll be there for four days with four other coworkers, spending time at the studio in Burbank and a day at D-land. I don't want to go but I'm being asked to (usually I volunteer but I haven't been in a traveling mood of late). It's the flight I'm most worried about. Last time I flew coast-to-coast I had an awful flight. It was a red-eye, my first ever, and though I had taken a sedative I woke up during turbulence and had a panic attack; due to my insistence about getting the window seat, I was completely trapped by sleeping people (coworkers, no less). The flights I'm taking will be during the morning, and they'll be split in two by a transfer in Dallas. So maybe each plane won't be filled up with enough fuel to be a terrorist target, right?

Also, for the first time ever we're being told we will have to share rooms. Bullshit. We found incredibly cheap flights - $200 round trip from the northeast to the southwest corners of the country. I've taken this trip before and my plane ticket's usually more like $1100. I think we can spare an extra hotel room so I can read in bed all night and fart and pick my nose in privacy.

That was probably too much information for most of you. Sorry.
Two nice things. The new Doublemint gum package design is gorgeous and perfect. This is the best photo the wrigley's website has to offer, but for 25 cents you can have a real one in the flesh.

And I just got a four-dollars-off coupon for anything at CVS. I guess that shows I spend a lot of money there, or something, though I really don't. maybe my getting this coupon is the universe's way of apologizing to me for never having me win a coin at the Big Y.
Look at me, I added an image. Wowza. Do you think they have these in large?


The Onion A.V. Club | William ShatnerWow! This coincidence freaks me out. Last night I was a mod backup singer for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by William Shatner at Transperformance (a sort of variety show; this year's theme was Canada) and here's this interview with him. The performance went great, by the way. Dennis was Shatner, and he had the perfect a-little-too-tight mustard yellow shirt. During the choruses, when me and D's girlfriend sang and did arm movements, a low-rent Star Trek monster ran on stage and D fought him ST-style. I didn't get to watch it but it was taped. I think we did well... The kids up front seemed a little confused but interested. The adults laughed their asses off. I had been pretty nervous right before we went out. There was about 1500 people there, maybe more.

Neil Young stole the show, though. P had gotten a wig that gave him perfect stringy brown locks, and he wore old jeans I had put patches on, a white shirt with a brown leather vest, a canvas bucket hat and aviator sunglasses. He looked and sounded exactly like Neil. The crowd went crazy. He was solo for his first song, the "My my, Hey Hey" song ("... rock and roll is here to stay. It's better to burn out, than to fade away, my my, hey hey." is the rest of the verse). The gals I were sitting with - me and three other girlfriends of guys on stage, plus one - couldn't get over how perfect they looked and sounded and the rest of the audience seemed to agree. Then Crazy Horse came out - Spanish for Hitchhiking in grunge garb. They did "Cinnamon Girl," which made the people near us go ballistic with joy, and "When You Dance I Can Really Love" which makes me misty, and then the capper, "Old Man" (the "old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you" song). Unbeknownst to the band, during this song the Young at Heart chorus members, all of them 70 years old and older, were slowly shuffling into place behind them for their next number ("Helpless," for which P stayed on stage as window dressing, but it was really the YAH's song). It was quite moving. When P and band were done the crowd exploded. It was fuckin' great!
The Onion | What Do You Think? The Onion gets it right yet again. Not that this was a tough one.

Monday, August 26, 2002

Man Accused in Wedgie Case I always knew that Phish fans had the devil inside 'em.
Dear Blog,

I'm feeling down again today. I swear, if I suddenly got say $20-$30k, my problems would be solved. I also had serious trouble sleeping last night. Woke up around 3 (after getting to bed at 12:30) and slept very fitfully until my alarm went off. I even had that horrible moment when you peek at the clock and you hope it's gonna say 5:00 and instead it says 7:04.

I'm supposed to be happy right now. Really, I should be: There's a fun variety show thing tomorrow night, and Thursday we start our mini-vacation in New Jersey. I'm going to get a digital camera. Saturday is my birthday. I am turning 30. Have I mentioned that? Thirty. And I feel estranged from the world.

Friday, August 23, 2002

The stepkids' mom called last night because they're going to spend the next week with her. A answered and she was immediately monotone. So cold and flat. She said something like "and T really wants to go to a friend's party on Monday." there was a pause while her mom talked. A just sighed a little and said flatly "well she's going to the party. anyway,.." Then T got on the phone and she too was all monotone. Neither of them said "I love you" (their usual sign-off) or anything the least bit friendly. It was a pretty amazing display. Yet I was sort of silently rooting for them while they did it. (The mom completely deserves it.) Is that wrong?
So I realized today that summer is almost over, and our office did not have the Annual Office Picnic this year. I asked around, and it turns out the surveys we turned in, asking our opinions about our office activities, had many comments about not liking the picnic. Apparently it was too much work (we have to pay for and cook the food etc. ourselves because our $500-million-dollar-a-year CEO can't give us some spare change for it) and blah blah I can't even imagine what other reason there could be. I am flabbergasted. You don't like the picnic, don't go to the picnic! You don't want to deal with making the food, don't make the food! It's such a sweet deal; it's always on a work day and it starts at like 1:00, so if you don't wanna picnic with the rest of us, just go the fuck home early! What's the big problem?
Lynda Barry cartoon about dogs and home I read this a few times when it came out in May but I just reread it and got teary-eyed again.
The new dog showed his dark side last night. He was left alone in the house, sans Louise, and he tore out the screen from the door and escaped (like Louise, he just waited in the yard for people to return). At his old home he was left alone inside the house only once - he tore up the windowsills and door. From then on they just left him outside. Which is fine if you live off a dirt road in the middle of a huge field, but not if you have a tiny back yard and neighbors very close by. So we don't really know what we're going to do.
Last night I set T up with the Sims on her own computer. She's on her way to discovering the joys of time-sucking video games. Up in rural Vermont they have no television and eat all natural foods and shit. Now I've got them watching The Osbornes and Jackass. Welcome to my world, little girls. Mua-ha-ha-ha!

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Achewood - August 07, 2002 I just really, really want that poster in panel 3.
You know what would be nice? Getting the number of daily visitors to my site into the double digits. That would be nice. Also, people writing me about what they read here. Also nice.

I'm just saying.
Yay! Ana got into Northampton High! She and P met with the principal and she couldn't have been nicer. She basically mapped out A's schedule for the year. Ana seems pretty excited about it; this school is bigger than her old school and has more resources, interesting sports (she mentioned trying crew), and many after-school clubs. I'm so happy for her! The only snag is getting to and from school. She really needs a car, basically, though she could take a public bus into town too. Ana has a healthy bank account and could pay to have P's old car (currently dead, in our garage) fixed (about $800) and she could just take that once she gets her license in the middle of September.

I love it when things fall into place. And I'm such a neurotic mess when important things are up in the air. So this is a very good day.

Tuesday, August 20, 2002

Mark Ryden I love this guy. If I had gotten my act together in college, I would have tried to learn how to paint like him. I always wanted to make things look super-realistic but at Hampshire that was practically scoffed at. Everyone wanted to look "painterly" and I failed horribly. I just couldn't free myself enough to use big blobs of expensive paint to make some image I probably wouldn't even like. Which is why I became a sculptor.

The sculptors were sexier, anyway.

Monday, August 19, 2002

here's an IM chat I just had, made anonymous to shelter the innocent. w just took his first dose of anti-depression meds. Note how at the end I lose interest and try to bring the conversation back to me. I fail.

d: yo baby
w: hi
d: hi
w: i feel weird
d: you do?
d: I think it's all in your mind.
w: yeah
w: i dunno, maybe
d: in what way do you feel weird?
w: i feel sort of extra tired and spacy
w: and my mouth is dry
d: hmmm...
w: and i have sort of a lump in my throat
d: Well, it will be hard to tell if that's from the meds unless it happens several nights in a row.
w: its subtle. i guess i often have those symptoms but this does feel diferent
w: i guess
w: yep
w: i may be experinecing side effects
w: i'm also hyper conscious, becuase i'm paranoid
d: maybe. would that make you stop taking it? They're supposed to go away after a few weeks. Mine did.
w: i dunno
w: we'll see
d: you need to distract yourself from it somehow.
w: nausea, dizziness, sleepiness, delayed ejaculation, sweating, dry mouth, nervousness, insomnia, anorexia, and constipation.
w: those are the common side effects
d: uh huh.
w: i like this: sleepiness, insomnia
w: what the fuck is with that
d: ha. They fuck with you like that.
w: sleepy insomnia?
w: did you have insomnia?
d: sort of, right at the start. I mostly felt kind of crappy in my stomach, like I had a lump I couldn't digest. so I eventually started taking it at night so I'd sleep thru that part.
w: i'm goin to bed i feel too weird
d: my blog sucks.
w: maybe i can sleep through this
w: no its cool
d: okay. you will be okay.
w: i dunno
d: I promise
w: i might get off this bus before it leaves the station
d: you can if you want.
w: now i feel nauseous
d: you're making yourself freak out.
w: whatever. bed
w has signed off

Sunday, August 18, 2002

So the new dog is here and he's fine. He's very lazy (which is good) and fluffy (not great, but okay). Louise gets along with him fine. They barely interact, though that might be due to the heat wave. The dogs can't do much more than lie on the wood floor and pant.

I bought a trunk full of someone's memories at an auction Thursday night. It was $30. I spent the past two days going through it all (yearbooks, letters, memos, Navy unifroms, nursing uniforms, birthday cards, photos...), and here's what I've gleaned about this person's life.
Her name was Linda Renaud.
She graduated from Holyoke High School in 1967 and was an A student, though she had low SAT scores.
She got married the year after she graduated high school and had a kickin' bachelorette party, which she must have loved since she saved a ton of photos from it. She also got a pair of novelty panties that say "Yes is my favorite word."
She went to the Holyoke Hospital Nursing School for three years. She was initially rejected, however, for "reasons due to overweight" though they accepted her a few months later and she won a few scholarships to help her go. While she was at school, her mother died. She graduated class of 1970. She served as a Navy nurse in Philadelphia for only a year or so, where she was assigned. She asked to become decomissioned in order to move to California with her husband.
And then there's nothing. I have no idea if this person is still alive, or if she had children, or why her stuff was sold to a stranger at an auction. Why would anyone give this away? I have nothing like this for my relatives - nothing. All of the old photos on my walls are of stranger, except one posed photo of my grandmother. Why?

Thursday, August 15, 2002

www.mnftiu.cc | get your war on | page thirteen
New-to-me Get Your War On. I want to print all of these out, blow 'em up huge, and paste them to the White House.
I slept thru the night and feel a lot better today. It's sweat flavored gummi's 30th birthday today; go visit her blog. Tomorrow the teens come for a week and they're bringing the new dog, a big fluffy monster that I've never met. I've heard he's sweet, but frankly we're barely keeping up with the pet hair around here as it is with the one dog and the two cats we have now. P claims I shouldn't worry about it. But I do. So there.

I saw Signs last night. I kind of liked it. I liked the kids a lot, and there were some truly funny and scary moments. But I thought the whole Father-Mel-loses-faith-and-regains-it aspect sucked. It's just so cliched, been done a million times, and was totally unneccessary.

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Wow. I just saw Donnie Darko (DVD). What an incredible movie. I loved it. Something about it resonated strongly with me today. Maybe it's all the depression and the crazy feelings and antisocial impulses. And my favorite Tears for Fears song too. Go rent it.
People, it's bad. People, people, people. Things are not good. I am feeling mentally unstable. I am barely functional today. Work is wiping me out, keeping up this facade of being the chirpy (or at least, not crying) working girl is a lot of, well, work. The worst part is that there isn't really anything that would make me feel better, besides some acts of God, or winning the lottery (which doesn't pay if you don't play).
Maybe I'll write more later.

Monday, August 12, 2002

shit - I left out Brian, who is also in SFTD. sorry.
The Living Rockumentary This is School for the Dead's blog which has friends Max, Henning, Tony, and Ken in it. Lots of talking about the Northampton MA music scene but also about everything under the sun.
No entries this past weekend - i was wicked busy entertaining my sister and her husband and making P's birthday party happen. It went off very well, and P says he had a very good birthday. Today i am feeling pretty low. Last night there was fighting and despair. I'm still feeling tired. At least I slept through the night this time.

Friday, August 09, 2002

GameRoomAntiques: Jukeboxes, Slots, Pinballs, Gumballs, Coke Machines I found this site while researching mutoscopes for my job. Scroll down for their non-digger items. Get me a grandmother fortune teller and an Uncle Sam personality tester, stat!
Oh and I'm not usually so obsessed with birthday gifts, but this is a big one. It's almost time for Carousel. Counting down the days until I'm no longer a twenty-something. Hittin' the big 3-0. Man it sucks.
I added a link to television without pity which I'm addicted to. They have the best, snarkiest, and most detailed television show recaps ever. I've read a recap for an old Buffy episode which I later caught as a rerun and it took me a while to realize I hadn't actually seen it before.
So I got a very sad phone call from my sister yesterday. She had already bought me a full set of the crazy newts, months ago, at Toy Tokyo. They were going to be the "exciting surprise" part of her present to me. You'd think I would have known somehow, us being identical twins and all. I've decided to just not open the box from Minidisco when it comes, and I'll use the Newts I ordered as gifts for other people (stocking stuffers)? When I get her present at the end of this month it will be the first time I've laid eyes on them in person so it will still be exciting.

Thursday, August 08, 2002

Woodring vinyl toys! Lord have mercy. I ordered a full set of Jim Woodring's Crazy Newts immediately, of course.

Wednesday, August 07, 2002

I added two more links. boing boing is sort of a catch-all blog with fun links; a lot of them were found on Robot Wisdom, if you want to go right to the source.
Here's my simplistic take on foreign policy. The way the music industry is handling the pirating of CDs reminds me of our current "war." The music industry is trying to shut down sites that allow file-sharing and prosecute those who use those sites. They don't want to face the core of the problem, it's much too messy and complicated, and requires some introspection — people feel like most music is crap, and not worth $15 for a CD. And because the industry can't keep up with technology (which is clearly filling a need) they will continue to fail in their efforts.
With the "war" we're in against "states harboring terrorists" — which means we should be declaring war on Montana any day now — we're attempting to bomb them back to the stone-age. Bush and co. don't want to deal with the core of the problem, which is messy as hell and would require cool heads and diplomacy — why do these people want to kill us? And by people I don't just mean the crazy suicidal loons who actually carry out the dirty work, but the many average Islamic fundamentalist Joes who fund and support these guys. Because if we never even try to answer that question, then what the fuck are we hoping to achieve with all of this war crap? What's our plan, to kill them all? Is genocide our aim here? There's a limitless supply of people who are just a few more American-hurled bombs away from being desperate enough to strike back the only tiny way they feel they can, by flying a plane ino a building or driving a car full of TNT into a building. If we start another war on Iraq, I'm going to feel as unsafe as I ever have since Sept. 11. They blow themselves up because have nothing to lose; do we want to assure that they have less than nothing? We will never be able to kill them all, and we will continue to fail in getting rid of the underlying problem.

My dog is furiously wagging her tail in her sleep. Probably dreaming about us coming home to her. Or killing rabid skunks. She's good at that.
Giant hogweed turns up in Turners Falls
The South has northern snakeheads. We get giant hogweed.
www.mnftiu.cc | get your war on | page one For those of you coming late to the party, this is the original Get Your War On, which i've just discovered has been updated with additional comics (most recent is from July). This person captures how fucked-up my feelings are about the "war on terror:" Yeah, I don't want innocent people to die, and I don't want to start an expensive war with undefined goals, but I also don't want to get my ass blowed up. Is there a way to make sure my ass doesn't get blowed up, please? Because this war thing sure as hell isn't it.
If you haven't already noticed, I'm a complete retard when it comes to html. Eventually I hope to be comfortable enough to post pictures and change font sizes and all of the crap that people with normal abilities can do. But right now I'm the girl in the corner wearing the big padded helmet. (Incredibly, in my office I am known as the person to go to with computer problems when the IT guy is out.)
Hey - I feel famouser already. Jim Treacher noticed my link to his site so gives me a mini-shout-out on his blog, asking for my email address. I trust you, dear readers, like a puppy rolling onto its back to expose its tender underbelly, so I have posted my email address on this site.

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

I just added two more links. Looby Lu is a freelance illustrator in Australia. She's cute and crafty and currently very pregnant. Check out her shopping links. Tony Pierce is a guy with a crush on Anna Kournikova (among others), has imaginary interviews with celebrities, and seems charming as heck.

Monday, August 05, 2002

CNN.com - Anna Nicole Smith show an obscene train wreck - August 5, 2002

This is pretty much exactly what i felt about the Anna Nicole Smith show. Yes, I watched it. Shut up.
I'm worth $1,844,040. How much do you cost? With my luck, I'd only get about $500,000 on ebay or something.
Okay I added some permanent links to some other blogs I read regularly. Jim Treacher is often hilarious, has made some very funny clip-art cartoons, and has some great links (look at Achewood). We don't see eye-to-eye politically (I'm more pro-peace and liberal than he is) but I still enjoy reading him. Rabbit blog appears to be on hiatus. She's a great writer. As is sweat-flavored gummi, whose site is down today. Just go and look. They are good.
Expect a lot of links today.
I'm posting this from work. I wonder if this will show up on the server monitor or diary or whatever the hell it is. Supposedly everything we do online is monitored, but I've spent incredible amounts of time looking at sites that are clearly not work-related and I've been here for six years. Maybe it's my supernatural "good girl" halo I've had ever since I was in grade school. I never get caught.

Saturday, August 03, 2002

It's a hot sticky armpit outside again today so I'm huddled in my air conditioned studio while the weeds run rampant in the yard. Bored as hell. Last night I literally watched five hours of television. I caught most of an episode of The Fifth Wheel; watched some Letterman (all of the times I've watched them do "Will it float?" I am right and they are wrong. A five-pound can of Crisco? It floats! So obvious! Clearly Dave and Paul have never baked in their lives) and some Conan and some South Park. P was out of the house for a while otherwise I would have been shamed into watching more quality shows. Oh, also I saw bits of a show on studying decomposing bodies on National Geographic. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I could only stand a few seconds before changing the channel. But then I kept switching back to it. I am the worst kind of sordid voyeur, I tell you.
Atari track balls for sale

Yes, I'd say there's a market for Atari collectibles... Some smart geek out there has probably figured out a way to make this baby work on his Mac.

Friday, August 02, 2002

not martha

This is one of my regularly-checked craft websites. (just trying out the blogthis! thing)
Due to being vestigally involved with the NYC magazine publishing world, I had a day off today (apparently, in NYC the Conde Nast chicks leave work early on Fridays in order to beat the Hamptons traffic). P was gone, driving the girls back to their mom's now-temporary home, so I ran some errands and worked for a few hours on my present for my twin sistah. It's a sewing project of which she is well aware but I must keep the details hazy. In the middle of it all a huge thunderstorm rolled through and I took Louise dog outside to the porch to experience it with me. The thunderclaps were loud and you could practically see them rolling towards the mountains and bouncing back. Louise was unimpressed but I think it smelled good to her.

I just finished reading the Golden Compass trilogy and now I'm worried I don't have a good story to tell the harpies after I die. Shit.
Hi. Just trying out this blog thing. More later. - d