Today is a good day. On my way to work, stomach-tumor man said he liked my hair. And now it is actual spring outside. I went to get lunch without a coat on, just a hoodie sweatshirt (and a skirt, but no stockings!), and was not cold ever. This is Progress.

It's tough to remember it right now in the rain and the cold and the wind, but it was very lovely outside on Saturday. I took a long walk that took me all over town. On my way down Pleasant Street towards Valley Fabrics I was confronted with three happy drunk guys in their 30s, all boozy-smellin'. The ringleader was wearing a Red Sox shirt and bandana on his head. He was very, very happy.

Red Sox Guy: Hey, you have a nice smile. Can you answer a question for us?
me: Sure.
RSG, putting his arms around his buddies: Which one of us.... (long dramatic pause) looks the most gay?
me: Hmmm.... (they crack up as I settle on the smallest one who has kind of long-ish hair) I've gotta say him. But none of you look gay, really! [for one thing, they'd be much better dressed...]
(The other two head off arm-in-arm to Northampton Lodging. RSG decides to keep talking to me, saying that he wants a TV show where he asks questions to random strangers on the street. I say it sounds like a good idea. He peppers me with questions.)
RSG, condensed: So what's your name? Are you in school? Have a boyfriend? Pining over someone? Man, I've been hung up on someone for three years. She's already had a serious relationship and had it end, and I still haven't dated anyone!
Me: (Minimal noises of sympathy.)
RSG: Let me ask you, how old do you think I am?
Me (Considering I can't see his forehead and he's all puffy and beer-bellied, it's actually hard to say, but I am always careful with this question, so:) Um, 28?
RSG, very proudly: I'm nearly 40! Come on, you didn't really think I was 28, did you.
Me: Well, it's hard to tell, plus, y'know, I was being polite.
RSG: So where are you heading right now?
Me: I'm going up to the fabric store, because I'm making some clothing for my niece.
RSG: Wow, so you're one of those people that, like, finishes stuff. I wish I could do that.
Me: ... Okay, well, I'm going to get going.
RSG: Deb, do you mind if I holler at you the next time I see you on the street? I'll be like "Hey Deb!"
Me: And I'll be like "Hey, there's that crazy guy!"

And that was that. I have a soft spot for the friendly drunks. It's probably smarter to just ignore them and keep walking, but I don't mind engaging in stupid banter with them. I don't entirely blow them off unless it feels semi-threatening or too creepy. I mean, RSG was coming onto me, but he didn't seem dangerous or out-of-control drunk (wasn't slurring his speech or swaying). And I'd never, say, go "party" with them, or give out any personal information off any kind. So what's the harm? Maybe someday I'll be getting robbed in an alley and RSG will lurch out of the shadows and tell his buddy to stop mugging me because I'm a friend of his. I'm just sayin: You Never Know.

I just wrote something about my hair over at Craftytown. Don't all stampede over there at once, their server might crash.

I finished watching season one of Deadwood last night. The last episode, The One Where They Do It (note: not official ep title), was awesome. Like the other HBO series on DVD, I became so addicted that it was very hard to not immediately start a new episode after the previous one was finished, no matter the time of night or what other plans were waiting. Also, I tend to become so engrossed that I start talking like the people in the worlds I've been watching (moreso with The Sopranos, lesso with Six Feet Under). With Deadwood, this means I have a strong desire to call everyone a cocksucker, and to start calling women "pieces of strange" or just simply "strange," as in, "So, are you going to Hugo's tonight to find some strange?"

I also want to speak in sentences so long and well-planned out that they could only have been written down first. But then I'd have to write everything down first, and that's just going a little too far, cocksucker.

Also, a line I want to find a place to use: "Whoa, slow down honey! You got a stage to catch?"

Finslippy (see links) is trying to decide if she should move her young family from Brooklyn to the NJ suburbs. I am adamantly opposed. I really just want to believe she can work it out, that living in the city with kids can work. I think it can. The suburbs were absolute hell for me. I hated where I grew up in New Jersey; there was no downtown, nothing but other houses within walking distance. We were lucky that we had sidewalks; incredibly, more modern developments don't have them. Two close relatives of mine live in the suburbs in NJ, different from the one in which I grew up, and I hate those suburbs too. Northeastern New Jersey is very crowded, but unlike in the city, there's no "we're all living together, so we have to get along" feeling. It's much more isolating to have your OWN yard and your OWN personal method of transportation, especially when your yard is small and butts against three other yards and your personal car has to share the road with heavy traffic all the freakin' time. It garners a selfish, xenophobic mentality that I find depressing. Growing up, we almost never spoke to our neighbors. Of course, the loud, screaming fights my sister and I would have, even with the windows open, might have something to do with that. And why were we fighting? Because we were bored and isolated from everyone and everything, because we lived in the suburbs. See how it's all connected?

The whole discussion makes me want to keep my move to the city a temporary one. This is worrisome. On that subject, I was told I'd have an actual answer and an offer during the first week of April. And the move could happen soon after that. So there's some news for you.

I had a social weekend, as I like to do. At one point I was talking to a friend of mine about a boy I know who has taken a shine to me.

me: We have nothing in common. Well, that's not true - we both like me! Ha ha!
(pause)
me: Just kidding. I hate me.


Thanks everyone, I'll be here all month!

Other funny and awesome blogs that I've had in my personal favorites file for literally years but for some reason have never made it into my links list at the right:

The hardly-ever updated The Excitement Machine.

Chez Miscarriage, which is actually quite funny at times.

Good ol' Defective Yeti. The current post (30 things...) made me laugh out loud in my cubicle.


This will have to do in lieu of a post right now. Sorry, peeps.

It's St. Patrick's Day, I guess. Time to avoid the ex-City Cafe. Thinking about this faux-holiday reminds me of a sign one of my sister's friends was joking that he'd seen: "Welcome to our ool. Notice there is no "p" in it. Please keep it that way" and below, in small all-caps letters, "NO IRISH".

I know it probably makes me a bad person, how funny that is to me. I could explain why it's funny and not offensive but I am sure you dear readers are savvy enough to understand.

First day of work, back from the pox, and everything is inexplicably annoying. If one more person asks me how I'm feeling, I'm going to rip their frickin' throats out. People, stop having side conversations during the meeting! Even if the particular agenda item doesn't concern you directly, those it does concern can HEAR YOU and it's VERY DISTRACTING, not to mention rude as all hell. And lady, you are my friend, but please, I beg you, stop whistling the first bars of the "Jeopardy" final-question-thinking tune every five minutes.

I have seriously been thinking of saving up a bunch of money (if I move over to the new job and an increased salary; my resolve is weakening every week) and quitting my career entirely. Instead I would make things and sell them, while doing freelance writing on the side. I know my current magazine would love to pay me to write for them, though I think I have to wait until the next fiscal year or some such legal shit. And um I dunno about health insurance, I just won't get sick, ha-ha! Since my resolve has been weakening about moving permanently, I have been at least looking at my options for staying around here. I no longer like my current apartment, so I've been looking for others, including some cool apartment-like condos to buy. And I have found a few (including a loft in Holyoke). So there's that.

I guess all of the people who always say that "life's too short to not be doing what you love" have been getting through to me. Overcoming my fears of becoming destitute will be a huge challenge, as it goes against everything I learned from my fiscally uber-conservative father. But man oh man, to not have a regular 9-to-5 office job? To get things done on my schedule? To be working on things I am excited to work on? What could be better than that?

Last night was really, really rough. I was so itchy and prickly that I could keep still, which made sleeping a bit of a challenge. I seriously thought I would go crazy. Imagine a hundred tiny elves each holding a pin, and each elf would tickle you a little with the pin or jab you with it, or just wait a few minutes and then tickle or jab you with it, for hours, at random, all over your body. Today (so far - I got up at 1:38, certainly a record for me, though I didn't fall asleep until dawn) I feel better. I am still itchy and I still look horrible but I don't feel like I'd rather be on fire. I still have a sore throat and a very minor fever (between 99 and 99.5) but nothing that's going to put me in the hospital, knock on wood.

Since I last wrote, so far I have watched Whale Rider, To Have or Have Not, three Mr. Show episodes (two of them a second time with commentaries on), and on TV I saw most of The Matrix, the second Austin Powers film, Survivor, The Daily Show, Futurama... The Apprentice is on behind me, but the sound is off, so that hardly counts.

I also made myself some turkey chili (with groceries provided by H and L, part of my Team of Heroes) and did dishes twice and worked more on the Space Invaders quilt; the top is almost done. I had three oatmeal baths and one normal shower yetserday but have only needed one shower today. I might take a bath later, though. My manager at work is coming by tomorrow with a small care package, because my co-workers are nice.

Earlier I took out some food trash and got to breathe fresh air for the first time in two days. It was nice.

A pox is upon me. Quite literally.

Did I ever tell you that I've never had the chicken pox? Well, I haven't, until, you know, NOW. More than three decades old and I have the chicken pox. I live alone and I have the chicken pox. I just got two special deliveries (Team Ex-Boyfriend is Go!) so I am all set with oatmeal bath, comic books, and DVDs. Food is another story, since we're in the middle of blizzard #396 of the season, and I don't want to endanger any more lives by sending others on errands. I don't feel that bad yet - I mean, I feel ill, like I have a head cold, and I'm a little itchy, but I can control myself and not scratch. It can only get worse, though. I only have a couple of spots on my face, yet (I have tons on my torso).

When I went to the docotr this morning she had me wait outside in the car, and then she came outside and into my car to examine me. So I had to lift my shirt to show her my pox, sitting right there in the parking lot in the snow (with the car motor running - I'm not crazy). She was amazed that I had never had them before and that I had never gotten vaccinated. I think adults aren't asked about chicken pox immunities until they're pregnant or about to be, or are going to have close contact with young kids (kindergarten teacher, say). Since I'm on the road to spinsterhood and I work with grownups, a doctor has never had a cause to bring up the subject. (Plus I heard that it might leave you open to shingles later. I'm just saying.)

So here I am, in my apartment for a week or so. Which means I will be staying inside this weekend, which happens to be the annual Western Mass Sacred Harp Convention. Dammit. I will be online a lot. Actually probably about as much as I am regularly (cough) but I will be in more need to human semi-contact. I am unclean! Unclean!

And if I ever find out which kid or kid's parent gave this to me, I am kicking his or her ass. A lot.

The work/moving thing? Still not resolved.

I discovered this weekend that I am too old to stay out until 4 (or later) two nights in a row. Man. My Sunday was a complete loss. I think I caught a virus, which made me weaker than usual, but still. My town just started a six-month trial period of letting bars stay open until 2 a.m. (instead of 1) on weekends. I have to say, I'd rather stick with the 1 a.m. Especially since with the new rules, if you leave the bar for ANY REASON after 1:00, you are not allowed back in. So, when two kind friends helped shepherd out a crazy, yelling, threatening guy from Ye Olde Watering Hole, and it happened to be 1:15 or so, the bouncer and owner would not let them back in, even though they did the entire bar a favor by stepping up and calming this guy down enough to get him to leave. Apparently the owner is himself a (Ye Olde Watering) 'Hole.

Hi. Why no, they still haven't made any decisions. I am but one of many whose fates are waiting to be decided, so I need to remember that and just chill out. It's hard to do so when I made this huge and very difficult decision a full six weeks ago, and haven't yet been able to get the green light to do anything official. I am trying to internalize my anger. It's what I'm good at.

Today I had a lovely, lovely morning at the RMV. I know complaining about the cranky old ladies at the RMV is like shooting fish in a barrel, but this time seemed excessively irritating. I had to go back after an unsuccessful try on Monday, having my "grandmother" "sign" the vehicle-as-gift form. After taking a number and being called to one of the desks, I proudly said that we had managed to get the plates off of my old car and as such would not be needing to spend $36 on new plates. The sour-faced, put-upon-seeming lady looked at one of the many forms I had brought and pushed it back to me, highlighting an error. "The insurance company didn't fill in this date of transfer, so you can't transfer your plates until they do." I protested that I had gotten my insurance transferred on Monday, and that I didn't understand why I had to go back . She repeated what she had just said verbatim. Because my incomprehension was not due to hearing loss, I was still confused. She sighed. The office had been open for a mere half an hour and she was already out of patience. "Okay, let me try to explain this again." I tried to stop her so I could ask my question in a different way, but she put her hand up. Yes, readers, this 60-year-old, pucker-mouthed white lady did a talk-to-the-hand. So I let her repeat herself a third time and then I said, defeated, "How about I just get some new plates?"

So then things seemed to be moving forward, the form was filled out some more and spanking-new plates were pulled from the Magical Cupboard of New Plates. She scratched out the old plate number that had been put on the form and wrote the new plate number over it. Apparently the RMV ladies have special governmental powers, because when I had to make a similar change, I had to fill out a special "I made an error" form and go to the UPS store to pay $5 to get it notorized. Then I asked her how much new plates cost, and she said $36, and then I noted with horror the sign that said they only accepted cash or credit. I said I didn't think I had enough cash, and she sat and watched me calmly as I counted the cash in my wallet. No, not enough. "There's no ATM in this building, is there." "No, you have to go to the center of town." "Classic," I said. "Can you just put this all aside for me, and I'll be back in five minutes?" With resigned disgust, she said, "No, we cannot 'put this aside' for you!" The RMV is a harsh mistress.

I grabbed my forms and she put the license plates back into the MCNP and I drove into town. I took out $75, more than enough. I drove back and went into the office and took a number. Five minutes later I was called to a different lady than the one I had spoken to (there are three possible "windows" but they're just desks right next to each other, everyone can hear everyone else). I explained to Lady #2 what had just happened, and she calmly went through each and every form again. "This 1997 Camry has only 23,000 miles on it?" Listen bitch, my grandmother is 87 years old. She only drove herself to church and the hair parlor. Now can I have my expensive new plates? She pulled out some new plates from her very own Magical Cabinet, and scratched out the first new plate number on the form; again, using the bureaucratic superpowers. And then she said, "That'll be $111." Say what? "Wait, I thought it was going to be $36, or $50, or something," I said, like a dope. "No, it's 36 for the plates, 50 for the title change, and 25 for the gift fee." ($25 FOR THE GIFT FEE? This is why people turn Republican.) So basically lady #1 had sat and watched me count my money and say I was going to the ATM, yet she didn't volunteer the information that my total was $111. You know, because why would I have found that information useful?

I told her that I would have to go back to the ATM. So I did. When I came back to the RMV, there was nobody else waiting, so I looked expectantly at the ladies. They averted their eyes; I had to take a ticket. My number was called immediately; I ended up back and lady #1. She pulled ANOTHER pair of new plates from the cabinet, firmly crossed out the other three licence plate numbers and added the new. I paid and got the fuck out of there. Once I get the car inspected I'll be all set. All of this money and I might be moving out of state in a month. I am a chump.

It's been a while... I have been busy. I went up to New Hampshire and got my grandmother's car, a Toyota Camry. It's very matronly, but I am enjoying the automatic locks and power windows and working rear speakers. Now I have to deal with the extremely annoying RMV about it. Apparently "grandmother" is not considered "immediate family" ("That is INSANE" I told the bitchy RMV lady) and so I cannot use the "motor vehicle transferred within a family" form. No, instead I need another form that says that the vehicle was a gift, a donation if you will, and that form requires my nursing-home-bound, 3-hours-away grandmother to sign it, within the week. So not only am I going to have to get "her" to "sign" it, I also have to say that she received no money in the transaction. Which, um, she didn't! I am not implying it was not a gift, sirs! Please don't take my car away!

The Oscars were the very definition of "eh." It was bland and toothless. Chris Rock had some good lines early on, but most of the time he was way too restrained. And the less said about the music, the better.

And no word about the NYC thing yet. They've failed to meet their answering-me deadline yet again. My head is gonna asplode soon.

This group, Improv Everywhere, does commando performance art pieces. Sort of like what happens on Trigger Happy TV, but it's not filmed for television. I've only read a few, but I can tell at least my musician friends that they must read Best Gig Ever, and then the Band Response. I also loved No Pants 2002 and the MP3 Experiment. Both made me very happy to live in a world where such things happen. Thanks to Agent Roberts for the link.

Being the artsy little fucker I am, I had to go down to the city to see Christo's Gates in Central Park. I knew it would be crowded and crazy and it was. It was also strange and beautiful and festive. I created an Ofoto album, my first one. These were all taken with my fairly crappy little camera, but they give you an idea of what it was like.

Also included: bonus koi footage!

So I heard something, but it was not at all what I expected - not even in the imagined realm of possible scenarios. I am not allowed to talk about it. Suffice it to say, I may not be moving after all. I feel like I've been knifed in the heart. Or kicked in the stomach. Or bludgeoned, in general. Not much more to say. I will know more next week but wheels are turning well out of my control, making the arrow point towards "no move for you." It'll be a miracle if I can move to NYC now, with the job I was offered.

Apparently, Superman is a total dick. Check out some of these old DC comics covers.

Most of these are also exceedingly strange. One of my favorites:

It's now been more than two weeks and I still haven't heard about the job thing.
I did a major clean yesterday, and during it I sorted through some old college papers, including a folder of contacts and cover letters and job leads all relating to getting a job at a museum or a gallery in New York. I never got one, obviously; there just weren't any openings, and I couldn't afford to work for free as an intern, so. And here I am 11 years later, working for the man in a field that's not art-related at all. Pretty damn depressing. My relocation momentum is slowing way down. Maybe I shouldn't move at all. Maybe I should try getting a full nights' sleep again, somehow.

No, I still haven't heard anything. Sigh. There's an office clean-up afternoon scheduled today, and when I heard about it a week and a half ago, I thought, "Great! That'll be a great time to get rid of a lot of the free junk I've accumulated over the last nine years, in anticipation of my leaving the office." But no. I mean I can still do that, but it won't have the same triumphant feeling. Plus I have a headache from not sleeping. (The past few nights, I stay up until 12:30, at which point I am very sleepy, then I get into bed and my brain starts whirring, and I can't fall asleep for an hour or more.)

I was in NYC visiting the sister and the baby for most of the past week (well, four nights; Sat-Weds.). I had been hoping to also look for apartments while I was there, but since I HAVEN'T HEARD YET, I couldn't. There was another reason for my visit, though, a reason I didn't tell anyone here, because I figured you wouldn't understand. But I feel compelled to tell you now.

I went to a fan convention for The Amazing Race.

TAR, being the most entertaining and least-loathesome reality show out there, is one of the three shows I try to catch on a weekly basis (and unlike with Lost and Arrested Development, I usually succeed). Television Without Pity (see links at right) recaps the episodes, and also organizes a mass viewing of the final episode; somehow the website is popular enough that they convince the Amazing Race contestants to show up. This particular event was known as TARcon6 (for the sixth season of the show) and was held at Play by Play, the sports bar inside Madison Square Garden. My sister and I went, and even though we came a little late we lucked out and managed to score some seats at a primo table with a friendly trio of ladies (two middle-aged, one teenager). The place was packed with about 350 people.

Watching the show was quite fun, with everyone booing the more hated players and cheering the more beloved ones. Most of the people there looked like they could easily have been friends of mine - for the most part, I didn't get any creepy uber-nerd vibes from anyone. It helps, I think, that TWoP is very snarky and cynical. However, there was a stout gentleman who kept standing in front of us and heckling the people on the television, then turning around to see our reactions. Some of the crap he was yelling (at the people inside the TV) was over the line and too angry, like "Just shut the hell up, bitch!" I made a point of not making eye contact with him, though I did let him high-five me once.

After the first hour of the two-hour finale, I noticed some hubbub nearby, and realized that Charla, the little person from one of the teams last season, was about ten feet away. "Look! It's CHARLA!" I said to my sister. There was no hesitation on my part - I WOULD get a photo with her. Years of working my very particular media job have made me quite comfortable at being pushy enough to get my photo taken with various semi-well-known strangers. I got a nice one of me crouching next to Charla, who was very nice. (I also got one of me and my sister with Charla, but my sister is blushing a lot, and she'd hate me if I posted it).



(You, dear reader, likely have no clue who I am talking about. This is why I didn't tell anyone about this before. Feel free to stop reading, as it only gets worse.)

Near the end of the show, the final detour challenge the players had to do was to finish a smallish-size deep-dish pizza. Which was very lame. "Aw, COME ON!!" shouted the stout fellow. "This is BULLSHIT!!" A couple who were not the crowd favorites won the million bucks. It was sort of a let-down.

After the show was over, we hung around waiting for more racers to show up. My sister was a bit unsure about approaching them but I was all gung-ho about it, instigating all the photo ops. We left our seats and went to the entrance area, where a roped-off recieving line had been set up. The racers would walk past the line and then enter the bar and hang out for a while, talking, taking photos, and drinking. For fans who had the time and the right questions to ask, they could get some behind-the-scenes dirt on the show. We were not those fans.

The first people we saw were Chip and Kim, the much-loved winners from last season. I grabbed Chip and got someone to take his photo with us. I said, "I was rooting for you guys! I actually cried when you won!" (This is true.) "Aw, that's so nice! Thanks for your support!" he said.



Like most of the racers we encountered, he seemed to be having a total blast. After all, these people are just normal people who happened to be on a TV game show for a little while, and we're all treating them like they're big stars. The whole thing was absurd and hilarious, yet I couldn't stop taking pictures. I took photos of most of the racers who showed up: Lena and Christy, the girls from Queens whose names I can't remember, and:

Aaron and Hayden:



MaryJean and Don:



Hera and Gus:



The bad, bad Jonathan and Victoria. When they came, most people ignored them.



But the show's recap writer, Miss Alli, really got into it with Jonathan. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but he was not happy:



Adam and Rebecca:



... and finally, me and my sister with the very attractive Kris and Jon. Her boobs were blindingly perfect, and she was sweet as the dickens.:



We had a great time, it was all very surreal and fun. We really didn't know exactly what to expect, but it was as great and as weird a time as I had allowed myself to hope it would be. Hooray!

Well, not that any of you cared (you know, WHATEVER), but here are the answers to my Disney word list below (1/31 post). After I posted my list, and made up four words, I decided to see if anyone else had come up with the same ridiculous (ridicutacular?) words I did. Here are the results.

Magication: The first google hit doesn't count as it is for a humor piece, a made-up interview with the makers of Clutch Cargo. But then you find that Magication writes how-to books for magicians.



You can also go to magication.com in order to get "magicated." I'm at work, so I declined.

Playtorium: My favorite hit is this story about this casino/restaurant/bowling alley in Kentucky, which eventually crumbled under mob pressure (though apparently the bowling alley is still open).

There are several Playtoriums attached to public libraries and the like. This article, about an elementary school (also in Kentucky) turning 150 years old, says the building's playtorium "is like a gym without spectator space." It was built, and I presume named, in the 1980s. Figures.

Wonderquarium: No matches! I thought for sure this one would get lots. New England Aquarium, call me - I have a genius concept for you.

Teenspiration: There's a Christian youth group based in California by this name, at www.teenspiration.com no less, but I can't access it for some reason. Instead, you can find teenspiration at ezeeDiabetes. And I quote: Hey Teenager!! ...get on over to Teen Central: Real Teenspiration is right >here.< (Sadly, the linked page doesn't appear to contain the word "teenspiration," though it does provide lots of inspiration for diabetic teenagers.)

I also came up with Animazement, but did a search before I posted and found it's the name of a big anime con. And after that happened, I thought I'd be better off not searching...

I met a new guy last night. His name is Miles.


He was tiny, and kind of orange, and didn't talk to me at all - how rude! He is only three days old, though, so. I had forgotten how weird newborns are: So small, eyes usually closed or rolling around all uncontrollably, little squeaky noises of complaint, skinny chicken legs, easy to fold into a compact swaddle sausage. Miles has a nice head of straight hair on him. Dad Max said I could brag on my blog that I was the first of our friends to meet him, so here I am. (His parents haven't even met the baby yet, because his mom has a cold! That must be KILLING her. I think my mother would have exploded if that had happened to her.) Mom Anya says Max is the best dad ever, which I do not doubt. They both seem tired and a little bit put-upon with having to deal with the anti-jaundice electric light machine and supplemental feedings, but they are very happy. And cute! They are a cute little family now. And did I remember my camera? No I did not. Max and Anya had given me a big grocery list over the phone before I came, so I went to Stop and Shop and got important supplies like trash bags, cans of soup, and 12 Stonyfield Farm yogurt smoothies (effectively cleaning out the store). That was my mission, which made my tiny single-tasking brain forget my camera. So. Pictures will be taken next time.

I wrote this for a message board to which I sometimes post:

Seven most common dreams:

- I finally consummate a previously-unrequited crush I have [not the same person every time, of course], and it is glorious. This dream is especially sad to wake up from.
- I am in a massive, multi-stall public restroom that's completely disgusting, and am trying to find a stall with a toilet I can use without getting shit or blood on myself.
- If I concentrate really hard and use my muscles in just the right way, I can fly.
- I have a baby. Where did I get it? Something's wrong with the baby; it is extremely tiny, or moves strangely. I feel helpless and overwhelmed.
- I am still in college, where it is really quite embarrassing for me to still be there for so many years. I am also not spending enough time in my allocated studio space on campus. I am alienated and edged out, belonging nowhere.
- I am on an adventure, hiding from bad guys and running through strange buildings and it's all very exciting and fun.
- Some criminal types kidnap me or try to rob me, and I end up befriending them with my kindness and wit.

Hello. Here is a nice photo of me on New Year's Eve, early in the evening when some little kids asked me to dance at the Center for the Arts.

I still haven't heard any details from the Powers That Be about my new job. I am picturing a lot of pounding on the table: "I need debl! You must give her the money she's asking for!"
"But we don't have it in the budget! We'll have to fire the janitor to make up the loss!"
"Then do it - I'll take the trash out myself, if that's what it takes! I must have debl working for me!!"

In reality it's probably more like "She's asking for, like, a 50% raise, which is just ridiculous... Let's find a way to break this to her gently, okay?"

And, somewhat unrelated and in a stolen-from-McSweeney's format, I give you:

A LIST OF DISNEY-INVENTED WORDS ALONG WITH FOUR I JUST MADE UP

1. Illuminations
2. Buffeteria
3. Philharmagic
4. Magication
5. Funtertainment
6. Panoramagique
7. Imagineer
8. Playtorium
9. Skytacular
10. Streetmosphere
11. Wonderquarium
12. Fantasmic
13. Teenspiration
14. Dreamflight
15. Innoventions


Answers later. Any guesses as to which ones I made up?

Okay.



Slow, deep breaths.







I am going to do it.



I am trying not to freak out. Moving to another state will be very difficult (unless I pay a lot of money and have movers take care of everything) but I will be making a lot of lists over the next few days; that should help me wrap my mind around this huge task by dividing it into smaller ones. I decided to do it because, besides Northampton, NYC is where I wanted to live my whole life. I have to respect that desire, even though it will take me out of my comfort zone. I love the city and I am very excited about the idea of living there. I figure my next full night's sleep will be sometime in April, after my brain calms down a little. I will be leaving a lot of people I love, but I'll be back for visits. And my friends will have a nice futon couch to sleep on when they come and visit.

Okay, so there are two best possible worlds I am picturing right now.

In world 1, I live in the Valley. I move to a loft in a converted factory building, where I devote a healthy chunk of my vast living space to a messy studio. I bike to my new (but with same coworkers) job downtown when it's nice out. I have a bunch of friends I know and love, and we go out and do fun things together often. I feel safe. Town never changes much, but I find new things to do once in a while. I travel to NYC on weekends sometimes to see my family. I have a sculpture show during one of the open studio weekends at Eastworks, opening up my apartment to strangers; I am very charming and they are all complimentary. I meet other artists in the building and we commiserate. I decide to make a large number of items to sell at the nicer craft shows in the area. In the winter I go sledding or cross-country skiing, in the spring I hike, in the summer I swim in the river.

In world 2, I move to NYC. I get a small but adequate apartment in Brooklyn, really about the same size as the one I live in now. I am a subway stop away from my sister, and a short ride to work in Manhattan. My new job is sort of what I do already, just moreso. I make more money so I can afford the apartment. I work a couple of blocks from Union Square park, and a couple of blocks more to where my brother-in-law works, and we have lunch together once in a while. In my free time, I take advantage of the many many various weird activities I can do, though I often do them alone. I reconnect with some acquaintences and meet some friends of friends. It's more stressful, but exciting. In a year or two I find a job I'm actually excited about. I can visit the Valley whenever I want, though owning a car is a bit of a hassle.

So there it is. Either way I clearly feel I can do better than my current apartment. World 1 is safe and potentially boring, but pretty, and will allow me more time for making art. World 2 is more exciting but uglier, and has the potential to make me immobilized with anxiety. The dating pool in world 2 is vast; the one in world 1, not so much. World 1 is secure and homey; world 2 is a clean slate. This is my heavy decision. I have to make it by Thursday morning.

HELP

I was talking to my brother-in-law yesterday about finding apartments in NYC. He saw a lot of very crappy ones when he was first moving into Brooklyn in the mid-1990s. One had a pylon for the Tri-borough Bridge directly in front of the entrance; one had a vast bathroom that was larger than the tiny bedroom. He and a friend visited one where you opened up the door from the street and stepped directly into the living room; there was no interior hallway, nothing. They knew right away they weren't going to take it, but to be polite, his friend asked the gruff Russian guy showing the place, "so what's the next step, do we need to give you a credit check, or...?" and the guy says, all dismissively, "No, no, no. If you want it, you can have it. If you don't want it, you can't have it."

That is wisdom for the ages, my friends. If you want it, you can have it. If you don't want it, you can't have it. It's as simple as that.

I really lucked out and found almost an exact match to my car on a finished auction on eBay motors. So now I know what mine is worth, which means I can pay my grandmother that amount in exchange for her barely-used '97 Camry. Or I can try selling my car on eBay, too, though I doubt I'll get as much as this guy did. I have lower miles but more rust and other problems. And I don't want to rip off my grandmother, even though this is the deal she came up with. And then I'll, uh, unload my car somehow. Donate it? Sell it to my ex-stepdaughter for cheap? Junk it? Enter a demolition derby?

Speaking of grandmothers, both of mine have horrible widows' humps from osteoporosis. I pretty much have a constant ache in the middle of my back (between the shoulder blades) and all I can think about is how the vertabre there are forming tiny little fractures and healing in a curve (which is how the humps form). I bought some calcium supplement capsules yesterday but I'm a bit timid about taking them; these particular babies have hydrochloric acid in them to "aid absorption."* I am expecting it to wreak havoc with my digestive system, but I'll be sure to keep you all posted.


*Why is this word not spelled "absorbtion?" It's about the process of absorbing, not absorping, after all. Stupid sexy English.

I almost forgot. Here's an updated list of contents in the Food Donation Box in my office's kitchen:

tin of sardines in lemon sauce
meat tenderizer (powder)
powdered ginger
chili mix (just add beef and beans, I guess)
pizza crust mix (powder)
2 cans of Chef Boyardee cheese tortellini

Most of the stuff has been in there for a while. We're good people, though, and we donated a ton of stuff to Safe Passage for the holidays. We're having a blood drive early next month, which I have decided I can't do because I'm skinny and have low blood pressure. It's a recipe for a pass-out. And cntrary to what you might see in the media, passing out is no fun at all.

I have not been posting because I am in the middle of trying to make a big decision and it is weighing heavily on my mind. I think that either way I decide, I am going to be sad, and that's a terrible thing to have to do. I was in a similar predicament when I gave my dog away - with neither option being the clear winner - and I still don't know if I did the right thing. Maybe I should get a tarot card reading.

In unrelated news, I just discovered that The Living Room in NYC hosts the monthly Lower East Side (sacred harp) Sing, which is pretty neato.

There's a lot of work stuff going on right now; a new venture is starting up, as an off-shoot of the current office, and a lot of people are interviewing for the new positions. At the same time, most of us will be moving into a new building downtown at some unspecified near-future date (and at an unofficial, still unannounced location, though everyone knows where it is). I've been discussing all of this stuff with a friend in the office who is also interviewing for the new venture, and we were talking about how, due to the pay structure or whatever the hell, we can only get a certain percentage raise per year regardless of whether or not we're promoted. Which means that you can get up fairly high on the totem pole but be very underpaid compared to other people in the same exact position who happened to be hired from outside. Which means it pays to hopscotch from place to place, and doesn't pay to be a loyal employee. (This is an industry-wide phenomenon, not just at this particular company.) It's pretty fucked.

So, we were talking about all of this, and after I asked my coworker if it was okay, I broke the cardinal rule of office life and told her how much money I make. I feel like I just did something really naughty and sneaky. What is the deal with that, anyway? I am certain that the person I work with who has the same title as I do makes more money, since she has a few more years' experience, and was hired from outside, and I really don't care. Much.

Anyway, I told her what I make, and I think she is shocked or at least disappointed because she hasn't yet replied to my message. She had asked, "Have you broken the $XX,000 mark?" and my response was "HA! No, I'm making $XX,000" so the attitude may have had something to do with it...

p.s. Note my careful anonymity so I do not get dooced. Be kind.

I was at Spoleto Monday evening for a baby-shower planning meeting, and during our wine-drinking and discussion session I had to use the bathroom. So I go in, and of course I just sit right down on the seat, because why wouldn't I, seeing as their toilets are like the toilets one would have in ones' house. Imagine my horror when I stand up and discover the bottom of my thigh wet with someone else's pee.

Who does the toilet hover maneuver IN A RESTAURANT? And a semi-fancy restaurant, no less? It's not like I was in a gas station restroom where one must always check for pee before taking one's seat. Never mind the fact that the pee-hover is almost entirely idiotic and unneccessary unless you're worried that the person using the stall before you has, I dunno, open, weeping sores on their thighs. Because you are not going to catch any venereal or genital nastiness from a toilet seat that DOES NOT COME IN CONTACT WITH ANY GENITALS EVER. So all you girls who hover over the toilet seat, selfishly spraying the seat with your own urine for the next unlucky fool? You are causing a problem that didn't exist before. CUT IT OUT.

I posted something about being uncool, but then decided it was stupid and hid it. Sorry charlies.

Guess what? Today is DeLurking Day, so dear reader, won't you please leave a comment using the handy link below??

Hi. So did you have a good New Year's Eve? I did. There's no situation that isn't helped by wearing a silvery sequin tiara. I got a lot of positive feedback, mainly from drunkish people asking me if I was a princess, or the queen of 2005, or a fairy. I always answered yes. I had been dreading the magically awful moment at midnight when everyone happily kisses their loves, but it was totally fine after all; I just watched the confetti fall, and woo!-ed, and then I hugged everyone in arm's reach, and swigged some champagne from the bottle. And then we marched in the middle of the street back to the 11s to watch some more Spouse.

Among the more interesting parts of the evening was the high-speed police car chase that flew down Pleasant Street as I stood outside of the 11s at 2 a.m. If anyone knows what the hell that was all about, let me know. It was a night for fighting and recklessness; I missed the altercation outside of the Calvin that ended with the police shooting pepper spray at a guy who wouldn't get down on the ground. "Amateur drinkers," says my friend Penny. Word. For one night it was like we lived in an actual city.

And now we're firmly into January and I have yet to buy a calendar (full retail price is for chumps) and the holidays are over so it's time to move things along. I've begun making little plans (social engagements, appointments) so that I won't imagine the future as an expanse of tightrope I will be forced to traverse with no safety net beneath. This is what works for me.

Looks like it's New Year's resolutions time, so here are some. I would like 2005 to suck less than 2004. I really thought this past year was going to be My Year. But despite the birth of Tallulah it really wasn't. So for this next year I resolve:

to re-convince myself of my awesome-ness

to stop saying "totally" so goddamn much

to either go on an actual vacation, move to a different city, or both

if I decide to stay here, to do serious research on getting a table at a good craft festival/sale, getting into production, and giving that whole thing a real go

to manage time better in order to have more time to create art

to be more daring, except whilst driving

to reestablish contacts with some friends who have been drifting out of touch


Things I resolve to keep on doing because they are great:

going to meeting (Quaker)
shape-note singing
yoga/workin' out (just re-started this past week)
shakin' that thang (a.k.a. dancing)
droppin' the "g" from the ends of gerunds and verbs

I reserve the right to edit this throughout the day as I think of more/better things.

I can't seem to get into my usual semi-funny rantings about my stupid first-world problems when the death toll from this insane tsunami disaster just keeps getting higher and higher. It's up to 140,000 now? Right? By the time I post this it'll have crested 150k. I keep on picturing a giant wave blasting over an entire island in the Maldives, sweeping everything away like a high-pressure hose.

Isn't this one of the signs of the End Times? I imagine the evangelical conservatives are trying very hard not to break into happy expectant grins, at least not on the air.

I've heard some of them newfangled mixed-up songs the kids call "mash-ups" nowadays, but never one as impressive as this: It's 40 Beatles songs mixed into one.

I hope all of you had a happy Christmas/long secular weekend. Mine was a lesson in patience and selflessness. You kind of have to go that way when dealing with an 87-year-old in medium-bad health and a 10-month-old with a sleep-deprived, stressed-out mom. So I relaxed into just being pleasant and giving and actually ended up having a good time. I heard some horrible stories from my Grandmother about nasty medical procedures and gastro-intestinal issues, but we had the longest conversation we've had in a year. There were many cute baby times. And as for the cranky mom, I just tried to gently remind her that nobody cared that the baby was crying in the car, and that nobody was going to force her to skip a nap, and so on.

[Speaking of babies: My cousin Liam is halfway through the first grade. He came over with my aunt to see the baby on Thursday, and at one point he sighed and said, "I wish I was still a baby." Why is that? "Then I wouldn't have to go to school." Oh honey. I tried to not dis school in front of him, even though I also hated it, saying "well, you see your friends there, right? I bet there are some fun parts." (I forgot to add, "Staying home all day gets really boring, seriously.") He said, yeah, I guess. There is something wrong when someone who's six is wistful for the days when he was encouraged to poop in his pants. Why does public school have to be such a drag, especially for little kids? They WANT to learn new stuff, why do they have to be forced to sit and stay quiet and still, going against their entire nature? It's like they're indoctrinating them to office cubicle life from the very get-go. This is why the Waldorf and Montessori schools make sense to me.]

But anyway. On Christmas Eve a bunch of family friends came over, and for the first time, well, ever, I was in a conversation with three other single people in their 30s, talking about the perils of dating at this age when everyone else we know is in committed relationships. We are all worried that after having gotten comfortable with living alone, we are going to find it increasingly difficult to live with someone else. And that's supposing we can even find someone we'd want to live with someone anyway. The one guy in the group lives in Mississippi and says he's already pretty much exhausted the dating pool in his small college town; either he's not interested, or he's interested and they're not, or she's maybe a little interested but definitely doesn't want children, and so on. One of the women is 38 and was saying she had pretty much given up hope on having kids, since it was just too late for her; even if she found the right person tomorrow, it would take a couple of years to get to really know him before she'd want to commit to having children. And my gorgeous, funny, and flirty friend who I've known since I was five has been going out on a lot of first dates with a lot of very boring men.

I know I'm getting all Sex and the City on you, but bear with me. What if we all missed the magic hour in which we could just pick someone and say "you're the one; no need to look further"? Is there a certain point where you become yourself so completely that you have no room left to add another person with their own needs and quirks and weirdnesses?

God I hope not. I have always thought I was a fairly awesome girlfriend. It's just been a while since I have had reason to break out my awesome girlfriend powers. I hope I haven't forgotten how to use them.

I got to wear an eyepatch yesterday, for a few hours. I didn't get to say "Arrrr!" unfortunately, as I just went straight home after getting it firmly taped to my face at the end of my doctor's appointment. (Warning: If medical stories make you hurl, stop reading. I left out most of the truly gross stuff, though)

See, for at least 2 months I have had a small clogged oil gland in my left lower eyelid, and this required action. After listening to the doctor present my three options (1. do nothing some more, 2. get a shot of steroids in hopes that it might shrink it, 3. get all scalpely on its ass.) I hemmed and hawed and finally chose the middle one; not too cold, not too hot.

The doctor went away to see another patient, while the nurse came in and gave me THREE different types of numbing unguents; some balm for the outer part of my eyelid, a different kind for the inside of the eyelid, and then this crazy, thick, gluey stuff that she glopped onto the eye itself. This stuck my eyelashes together, and made blinking a huge chore; it felt like my eyelid was doing some resistance training. Though I was now down 50 percent in the sight department, they gave me the "don't sue us if we blind you" consent form to read. The nurse encouraged me not to sign if I had questions, so I didn't sign. I asked questions. How could getting a simple shot cause depigmentation? Or adrenal problems? Hemmorrhaging I could see, but subcutaneous fat necrosis? The doctor said all of those things were very rare, though the nurse said that she had seen, in her 30-year career, a couple of instances when the doctor accidentally hit an artery and the patient had to "be taken next door" and I was thinking, what, to the pediatrician down the hall? Big deal! And then I remembered that we were across the street from the hospital. Oh. THAT next door.

Anyway, they had me put my head in the little head-and-chin holster they use when they want to bring that little blue halo light right against your eye, and then they did the procedure. And even after being slathered with the stupid numbing crap, it hurt. It hurt like you might think it would hurt if someone was pushing a needle into your lower eyelid. What was almost worse is that I couldn't close my eye, which means I had to watch (I trained my eyes skyward, but I could still see everything). Shudder. When it was all over, the doctor suddenly switched gears on me, saying that he "actually injected a little numbing medication along with the steroid, so I think I'm going to open up a little incision to help it along, using another needle." Wha - WHAT? Uh, okay. So I put my head back into the holster, and he used a needle to, well, make a little opening. "What are you doing?" I kept asking, and he would sort of tell me in a way like he didn't really want to tell me. And even after the needle stuff he wasn't quite satisfied, and said "Nurse, get me a small curette?" and I asked hopefully, "Is a curette one of those little glass wicking things?" (no, that's a pipette) and he said "It's a tiny spoon, like the size a mouse would use."

Wow, I hope that means we are going to have tea with Mr. and Mrs. Wiskertons now! Will Sir Hopsalot and Lady Featherbreast be joining us? When I shot him a horrified look, he said, "You don't need to know these things, really, it will just make it sound worse than it is." I said, "Don't sugarcoat it for me! I know what that thing is used for!" and he said, "Oh really, what?" And I said (stop reading now, I mean it), "For ... for scooping."

And that's when I started to feel dizzy. I let him poke at me one time with the curette and I started feeling all fuzzy and tingly and I said "Wait!" and he said "We're done!" and I sat back in the chair. Whew.

He was right, it was too much information. Sometimes asking a lot of questions at the doctor's makes me feel less helpless, but this time.... Sometimes it's good to not think about what is actually happening.

My eyelid looks fabulous today, by the way.

I wrote a long entry about shopping here and then realized it would go perfectly into CraftyTown. So if you want to read some stuff about my weekend, I suggest you use the link over on your right.

An unfortunate event happened yesterday morning, one that I will not dwell on, except to reiterate the big rule of gift-giving time: After you disseminate your wish list to family and friends, you are not allowed to buy yourself anything off of that list until after the gift-opening date has passed. Get that, everyone? NOT ALLOWED.

Yesterday I also went to Quaker Meeting for the first time in at least two years. It was nice; the meeting has swelled in size, with newcomers now outnumbering the old-timers (who were members back when the meeting met in a classroom in the science building at Smith). During coffee hour I spoke with a couple of the old-school folks, who seemed a bit bewildered but pleased about the influx of new blood, though they also hinted that it had been a bit rough at first as the new people settled in. I can only imagine the crazy (and probably super-political) messages people were saying during meeting. Everything seemed very normal to me yesterday, though, besides the fact that when the young people came in ten minutes before the rise of meeting, more than half of them were teenagers. Apparently they're really into it, and the majority of them are boys, which is super-unusual (and totally great).

And I finally watched City of God, after almost returning it to Netflix unwatched because I was worried it would get me even more depressed. I'm glad I didn't, because it was wonderful. Bloody and tragic, but amazing. An extra on the DVD, a one-hour documentary, is incredible too, and shows how true-to-life the film is.

I am still thinking about returning Dancer in the Dark without watching it first, though. Should I?

At an antique shop this past Sunday, I came across an original Atari game from the early 1980s, still in the original box, containing all of its crudely-photocopied instructions. The game was The Runestones of Ryn, which I remember playing quite a bit (seeing a picture helped job my memory). I was all set to buy it at the low low price of $2.50 but then I saw that the program was on a cassette tape, not a 5.5-inch floppy. And even though there would be only the teeny tiniest chance I could find someone to reverse-engineer the floppy, I know there is only a one-in-a-million chance of doing that with a cassette tape. That's just my theory, based on nothing (just the fact that our Atari 800 had two floppy drives attached to it but no cassette tape drive). I am still sad - and I know my sister is too - that my dad threw out the ancient computers we grew up with when my parents moved from the house mentioned in the previous post. Sure, the old Atari was covered in cat pee and dust and hadn't been plugged in for a decade - so what! I'd give a lot to be able to have that thing back again, and the two boxes of old floppies with it. I wouldn't even need to find a monitor, as it (very smartly) connected right into your television set.

I'm gonna do a little web searching for Runestones now....

p.p.s. I want this Yoshimoto Nara flip clock SO BAD but it's crazy expensive. Maybe a wealthy reader will become a patron and get it for me? I will make something artistic and amazing in return. Email me, we'll chat.

A recent post by Jennifer Myzlowski prompted me to write this: I was upset when my parents moved out of the crappy, depressing, cookie-cutter suburban split-ranch house I grew up in (from age of 2 until I graduated college). It doesn't matter that lots of crappy times happened there, and that my most recent memory of that house is when my grandfather, in the early stages of Alzheimer's, took off in his car alone and by pure luck found his way back home without police intervention, while my grandmother broke down in tears saying "I don't know what I'm going to do with him." I still have dreams that take place in the old house, just like I still have dreams that happen in the Art Barn at Hampshire.

Luckily, their new house is way nicer (though smaller) in every way. I haven't been able to get up the courage to go visit the old house, though, even though it's in the next town over. Apparently the buyers are newly-arrived immigrants (maybe from Pakistan?) who have what my mother calls "a different idea about what a garden should look like," and they've cut down almost every tree and bush and made everything symmetrical and orderly. So it won't even look the way I remembered. Maybe that's a good thing.

p.s. non-sequitur: I almost never fall for spam subject lines, but there was one this morning that had the subject: "chuff" which is an awesome sort of a Jim Woodring-y word, so I clicked on it. It was an ad for getting a college degree in two weeks.

Oh my people. I am so sorry, my people, those who keep checking to see if I have posted something new, only to be disappointed. I know of this disappointment, truly I do. There has been a sickness upon the House of Debl. I have barely been able to rouse a couple of brain cells to rub together in order to get through my day. I am all phlegmy and my nostril-skin is all red and cracked. Think of my not-posting as a protection from hearing the details of my cold symptoms. There will be more posts soon, I promise.

Alright, this is oldschool, yo. A few years ago I found a tape my sister and I recorded in 1984, when we were 11. We were making up stories off the top of our heads, using stuffed animals and china animals as the principle characters. I transcribed one of the stories, drew pictures to accompany the action, and put it on my old website - a long time ago, at least five years, no more than 9. I just refound the files and have put them back online for you, my readers. There are three pages, and they end in a dead-end because I couldn't be bothered to put a link back here. Sorry. Use your browser's back button, people, it's not that hard.

The Runt!

So, here are some thoughts I had about my experience two weeks ago, driving around the NYC-area and taking college tours with a couple of prospective students.

If the guy giving the pre-tour talk sounds really defensive, it does not bode well for the school. Don't say that the school has gotten away from the image of it being mostly a commuter school, when you then tell us (after being asked directly) that 40% of the student body goes home on weekends.

Sometimes stereotypes are true. You might think that college can't really be full of Jewish-American Princesses as you heard, and jeez does that ethnically-insensitive stereotype actual exist anymore?, BUT OH YES IT CAN and DOES. For some reason those ladies (overly groomed, love shopping, have nasal, Long-Island-tinged accent) don't live where I live now, so I had forgotten they existed. It was like coming home.

The beauty of the campus is not a good indicator of the quality of the school. Same goes for the food in the cafeteria. If that's what your tour guide loves most about her school, run away.

When asking your student tour guide about a school's visual art facilities, it is a very bad sign to get a answer like "I took a drawing class last year for fun, and it was great!" Also very bad: Classes generically named, like "ART 1."

I have no idea what publication or judging body declared Wagner College as having the most beautiful campus in the country, but they must have been smoking some serious crack.

Feel free to bail in the middle of a tour if you already know you have no interest in going there. We did this at Hofstra and, to some extent, Wagner.


I've got to tell you the story of our Wagner visit. Though it was raining and cold, we started off so hopeful about it, but then the tour started badly, and just got worse and worse. The woman leading the tour grew up on Staten Island (where Wagner is located) and loved it. She loves it still! Staten Island is the best because it is close to the city but it has grass and trees and suburbs, yay! Never mind the huge landfills, nasty traffic, and the lack of any there, there. We have lawns, people! And cars!

Luckily for everyone, also on our tour was a baby-faced boy who wants to go into business, accompanied by his starry-eyed mom. They were from Columbine, Colorado. They had not ever been to New York City before, but were staying in Manhattan. When I asked the guide how easy it was to get to the city (if there were college shuttles to the train station, for example) the boy took the opportunity to ask the guide, "So, when you're looking at the subway map, uptown is always up? And downtown is down? Because we are having a tough time figuring out where we're going." And as the tour stretched past the one-hour mark while we were exploring the dismal trash-strewn Freshman dorm, the mom saw the view of Manhattan from the top floor window and excitedly asked the guide, "Wow, what are we looking at, exactly??" As the guide pointed out the various bridges and buildings, one of my girls turned away in disgust and said softly "who cares!" which cracked me up. After well over an hour or trudging through the raw wetness, the Colorado duo wanted to see the gym, which the guide had omitted from the tour because it was too out of the way. I saved us by saying "uh, we have to go, we have another appointment" and we booked the hell back to our car.

It wasn't all crappiness. We all loved Sarah Lawrence. I don't know why I didn't consider it when I was looking for schools 15 years ago (me=old). SUNY Purchase, despite having the concrete-slab architecture I became familiar with at my expensive private college, seems like a really great place to go for arts majors. Eugene Lang, one of the four schools I applied to, also got high marks. So there was progress. And there was fun food times, and a short shopping adventure. High grades, mostly.

If it's wrong to be 32 years old and ten years out of your parents house but still bringing laundry home for the holidays, then I don't want to be right.

I have been absent for a week's time. I was occupied elsewhere, squiring a pair of young ladies to several houses of higher learning located in the New York City area, and then I traveled on an aeroplane to the state of Florida, where I spent as few of my personal monies as possible (as it is a Red State).

And in this state of Florida, there is a large park that is themed to various amusements, and I was part of a group of professionals who were at this park for an event related to my employ. During Monday evening, I and the other professionals were treated to a lavish display of electric lights and many tables laden with fine comestibles. As we dined, several amusing performers mingled with the crowd. Two of them were in character as hoboes - common beggars, if you will. How very amusing! We all laughed gaily at the young men's lighthearted representations of the mentally ill!

No, seriously. They had people pretending to be wacky bums. For sport. Because if you just look at it the right way, the homeless are hilarious! Here's me with one of them (photo taken for my upcoming lawsuit for crimes against decency):





There was a second fake homeless guy, who gave me a "funny" coupon written on a wrinkled napkin, redeemable at his "wacky" Christmas tree lot. I don't really know what it was all about, though I like the Grinch song reference. The bums loved me, for some reason (the hair?).




It's all too bad, because I usually secretly find the street performers at these parks pretty funny. At the least, I admire their improvising skills. But this, this is a little bit gross, right? I don't think I am being too sensitive here.

I think it's a little hilarious that Victoria's Secret sells career wear. What's even better is that the models all pose like they're wearing lingerie. It's really hard to tell what these suits would look like on a normal woman - you know, one who might actually go to an actual office and actually work:





Something about the way they look all pissy cracks me up. ("You WILL take me seriously in the boardroom, even though I am presenting myself for coitus like a dog in heat! Stop judging me on my sexy, sexy legs and overly-arched back!")

Wow, blogger allowed me to post, finally!

Well. What is there to say, really. All morning I was planning my "I HATE AMERICA" post but now, still feeling slightly ill from last night's Drown Your Dismay With Cheap Chardonnay!-fest, I just feel tired and depressed. I have no idea what the next four years will bring. More of the same, I guess. Lying and godless sacks of shit were elected and re-elected by idiots who were apparently never taught to think critically. It will get worse before it gets better. There may have to be another terrorist attack in our country before people wake up and notice the amount of bullshit they've been getting fed.

Or we could take all of New England, tack on New York, New Jersey, and the nice half of Pennsylvania, and secede from the Union. We can become New New England. (California can just become its own country; it's big enough.) We would have to build a really big wall to keep all of the idiot red-staters away from our clean air and healthy natural resources after all of their forests disappear and their air and water is poisioned and the terrorists are beheading citizens of Old America daily. They brought it on themselves, after all. We tried to tell them what would happen, but they wouldn't listen.

I guess I am still angry. Huh.

Damn my niece is a little cutie! She was a growly lion for Halloween. And because my sister is a crafty Way sister, she made the costume herself. More pics to the left of the pic I just linked to, if you wanna see more of teh cutes.

I just posted something kinda fun over at Craftytown. I know chowflap is linked all over the place and Craftytown, not so much. But if you're only visiting this here blog, you are missing out. If I feel like writing about crafts, or anything interesting going on in my town, or anything I've observed on my way to and from work, I write it in Craftytown.

Chowflap is for existential crises and cuss words.

I love hearing "Don't forget to vote!" As if anyone could forget to do that this year.

I can't really imagine Bush remaining president, because it would be so awful. Terrific, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word. Yet I also can't imagine Kerry winning, because I just don't believe the Republican Election Squad would allow it. Before the Sox won the Series I thought that if they did, it would be a good indicator that Kerry would win. Afterwards, I decided that the lunar eclipse allowed the Sox to win, so the omen is nullified.

Tuesday will be a very, very tense time. I already have a friendly place lined up to go and drink and watch the results roll in. Thank God.

I wrote a long and kind of funny (wait, I mean TOTALLY PANTS-WETTINGLY GENIUS) post that refers to a specific video online, and now that video's host has pulled the plug because, I am guessing, too many people watched it. Stupid ISPs or whatever they are.

I just want you readers to know that I am Thinking Of You.

Everything seems to be taking SO LONG lately that suddenly it's the end of the day and I've only finished half of what I planned to do. Plus it's autumn, which puts me (and everyone) in a productive mood; it's the back-to-school schedule that was imprinted upon our minds at an early age. It makes me want to do new things and learn and make stuff. (More on Craftytown today about that.)

Went to the Elliott Smith tribute show last night at the 11s. It was incredibly packed, not just with musicians but with college students and older folks from all over. The music was great; it's the closest I'll ever get to seeing Elliott play. It was an early show and I missed about an hour of it, but I got to hear many of my favorite songs. The crowd was mostly reverent, enthusiastic, and focused, except for a few times when people decided to just keep talking loudly over the performer.

The Bunwinkies played last, to my knowledge. I'm not sure I totally get what they're about. I heard them play two songs but I didn't recognize either of them. Were the songs really obscure Elliott Smith songs, or Bunwinkie originals? I overheard someone in the crowd say "I guess this is supposed to be avant-garde...?" Word. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) I like all those folks in the band, so I do not mean to diss them. I am just uninformed.

Also, a friend and I went to the Dakin animal shelter and played with some cats and kittens on Saturday (my sister: "So that's what you guys have to do for fun up there?"). It was quite nice. We evaluated each cat and narrowed down the choices to the best two or three. But I am not going to adopt a new cat until my current one stops costing me about 100 bucks per week in vet bills. Right now she is getting goo stuck in her eyelid twice a day (which she HATES), a steroid pill forced down her throat every morning (almost as bad as the eye goo-application), and her thyroid meds mixed into her breakfast. And I am still waiting to hear from the x-ray consultants at Cornell or wherever about her weird spot on her lung. Sigh. She is lucky she's such a beautiful and sweet animal.

I earned another gold star today. A big fucking one. I've earned so many gold stars for good behavior that my little book is almost totally filled. Maybe once it's complete I'll stop judging and second-guessing myself all the time. Most likely I'll just add the book to the pile and begin work on filling up another one. I forgive other people a million times before I'll forgive myself or forget a flaw for even an hour.

I should have a little medic-alert bracelet that says "Caution: Wearer is extremely tender-hearted. She may appear retarded or aloof; please treat with kindness."

Just a quickie to point you all to my homegirl (well, college homegirl) Avani's blog: Places I Go. She is in the middle of an intense business school experience, and she is rad as hell. Go read!

I am sorry I have not posted. See, I have to write something for work, and I keep waiting for the "muse" to "hit me over the head with something heavy" so that I can get down to business, but it has not happened. Also I was in NYC for a meeting yesterday. We drove. It was rainy and trafficky. I actually had to take Bonine on the way home. Ugh. But we did get to eat ultra-hip lunch at the ultra-hip W hotel, which is sort of ultra-hip circa 2000, if that makes any sense. They play techno-dance music in the elevators, for god's sake. I had grilled shrimp on baby greens; I think some aspect of it was "lime-infused." Like many things on the menu, it was totally carb-free (because all super-hip people are on deprivation diets), which is just not enough food for me. So I got some crazy couscous thing on the side. Also on the menu: a breadless BLT. My no-nonsense co-worker ordered it "with bread." Because really, people at the W. Get over yourselves.

This morning my bedroom passed through a warp coil or a ripple in the space-time continuum or something. I was putting my black velvet shirt away in the closet, and I realized that my black velvet shirt was already in the closet. In other words, I was holding my black velvet shirt outside of the closet, while seeing it hanging inside of the closet. I have only one shirt of this sort. "What," I said aloud, as I pulled out the shirt from the closet, comparing the two side by side. Same shirt. Same exact tag (some weird, cheap brand of which I have no other clothing). One tiny difference: one is size XS, and the other is size S. I had gotten the size S as a hand-me-down from a friend a few months ago. I have no idea where the other one came from. If this isn't due to some tearing of the fabric of the universe, it must mean that my shirt has asexually reproduced, and the new shirt hasn't grown to full size yet. How else could it have happened, since I look in my closet almost every day, and have never noticed the two identical shirts? I don't have so many articles of clothing that a duplicate shirt would not stand out. Is one of you playing a trick on me?

I'm back. The eagle has landed.

So there's this Pixar movie coming out November 5 called The Incredibles. There's already plenty of merchandise for sale, and being interested, I checked it out. The teenage daughter is voiced by Sarah Vowell, and I'm a fan of hers. However, the merchandise was depressingly one-sided. As it always is.

Here's what they had:

Small plush dolls of:
Mr. Incredible
Flash (the son)
Syndrome (the [male] villain)
Frozone (Mr. I's buddy)

There are also big talking versions of Mr. Incredible and a babbling baby Jack-Jack. (There's also an interactive Edna doll which gives out fashion advice. She's voiced by Brad Bird.) They also had 5-inch action figures, but guess what - the only Elastigirl and Violet figures came packaged with Jack-Jack and Flash, respectively. The only way I could have bought a Violet is by getting her as part of a set. There are two women in the five-member Incredibles family but they are nowhere to be seen on store shelves. Fuck you, you marketing bastards, for deciding that this is a movie "targeted" for boys, and for assuming that boys don't want to play with female characters, even female characters that have awesome superpowers (Elastigirl as a toy is a no-brainer; make her be a Stretch Armstrong-type thing). Keep on perpetuating the stereotype of men=action and women=all about doing nothing but looking pretty, even when the movie itself has the opposite message. Fuck. You. Seriously.

I'm gonna be away from the officecomputer for a few days as I'm going away on business. I'll be back Thursday, but in the meantime, perhaps you'd like to revisit some past posts in the archives, or try one of the pre-approved blogs linked at right?

I got a nice piece of spam today. Very poetic!:

For example, buzzard defined by ribbon indicates that power drill inside necromancer write a love letter to insurance agent around ball bearing.
When about cashier is niggardly, cloud formation of give secret financial aid to spider behind.
Where we can slyly fall in love with our mirror.
Indeed, living with bride bestow great honor upon defined by piroshki.

Dude, if spraying Summer's Eve on my "personal area" makes it glow as brightly as a lighthouse, I'd rather go without it. (Props to Some Girl for the link.)

My twin sister is stopping by the office with her baby tomorrow, on their way to Brooklyn from New Hampshire. I am excited beyond all reason. I get to show my little niece to all of my work-friends, as if to say, "Hey look at what a pretty baby I'd make, if I had, you know, a husband and a more stable living situation! Ha ha! No, really, I'm looking forward to going home tonight to my bachelorette's apartment and my cat. This is just where I wanted to be at 32!"

I kid, I kid. My personal female-role-enforcing demons are fond of poking at me occasionally, but I'm trying to ignore them and just live my life. It's a pretty good one. I will say, though, that non-twins don't really understand the subconscious comparisons that constantly occur between my sister and me. It can be a lot of pressure, even though we've discussed, aloud, the pros and cons of our current, differing lifestyles.

Anyway, who needs a baby anyway? They need constant attention, they drool a lot, and they stink sometimes. Stupid babies.

This has already been blogged to death, but in case you haven't seen it: Last night during the debate, while deflecting Edwards' criticism about Halliburton, Cheney invited people to check out the facts at Factcheck.com. Unfortunately for him, he meant to say Factcheck.org. Factcheck.com was an available domain, so within an hour George Soros bought the site and had it redirect people to his website, titled "Why we must not re-elect President Bush." Hee!

Try it out here:

www.factcheck.com

www.factcheck.org (which, by the way, is none too pro-Bush/Cheney either)

Edit: I gots to fact-check myself, it seems. So Soros actually had nothing to do with the redirect. Lifted from elsewhere:
Cheney cited FactCheck.com, a for-profit advertising site based in the Cayman Islands. The company decided to redirect traffic to the Soros site after it became inundated with hits -- about 100 a second after the debate, John Berryhill, a Philadelphia lawyer for FactCheck.com, said Wednesday.

"This was to relieve stress on the service and to express a political point of view," said Berryhill, who spoke with the site's administrators shortly after the debate ended.

They picked Soros not only for his political views, Berryhill said, but because the billionaire could afford the costly deluge of hits the site would receive in the wake of the debate. Plus, the site administrators didn't want to point surfers to a candidate's site that was asking for money.

My cat is now on a special diet (Limited Ingredient, which in this case is cat food made from duck and green peas - and nothing but) so that I can rule out any possible allergies that may be causing her coughing problems. She's also on steroids for her inflamed bronchial passages. Her new diet/meds is having one major side-effect, and that is paint-peelingly-stinky poops. This morning she came into the bathroom and laid down some pipe in the litterbox as I brushed my teeth, and the stench was so horrible I could almost see it. And even now that I'm at work, it's like my nose has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because I keep thinking I can still smell it, even though that's totally impossible, unless some stray scent molecules managed to hitch a ride on my clothes. Lord have mercy.

Read Fafblog's post-debate pre-debate. It's exactly how I think this debate shit is going to go. I think Krugman is right; it doesn't matter how well Kerry does tonight, the Republican-run media will convince everyone Bush did better.

Rain, rain, kiss my ass. Seriously. One of the few benefits of living up here is that don't have to deal with hurricanes, so Jeanne should take her worn-out rain someplace else. Bitch better step off right now.

Hi. So yeah. I've been busy at work. It's what we call "crunch time" here at the office, because calling it "gritting your teeth, tearing your hair, and mainlining candy to keep up the frenetic pace" is kind of a downer. However, we are getting free lunch tomorrow.

Tonight is the first of three presidential debates. Since I physically can't stand watching or listening to our nation's current leader, I had plans to watch The Daily Show's live coverage at 11 tonight, but it turns out the nice rock show I am planning to go and see starts at 10. So something has got to give. Probably the TV/politics. The rock show is yet another of the excellent valley showcases held at the Iron Horse, and tonight it's Peel, Spouse, and Spanish for Hitchhiking. I don't know the order. It's only 5 bucks, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that at least 2 out of 3 of those bands are awesome. Like making you dance and cry and maybe even both at the same time kind of awesome.

I suppose I should do an update on the ear thing. The nasal spray stuff seems to have worked, because I felt better a day or two after I began using it. Plus stuff started draining, so I think (I hope) that my ear problem was just sinus related. Knock on wood. I can still feel the tiniest difference in my hearing in my right ear, but it's almost back to normal. I am also sleeping with two pillows beneath my head because I read somewhere that you should to that if you're having vertigo issues, but my neck and shoulders hate it and I may return to a uni-pillow situation tonight. Thank you for your concern, my peeps!

The School for the Dead CD release show Saturday night was da bomb. I love seeing bands at PACE because everyone is quiet and paying attention and you can really hear the music. It was hard to not get up and dance, though. And I missed out on the activity pages, which were confined to the cafe area before the show began. Other than that I have no complaints. I loved the opening act, which was comprised of 13 musicians playing one song each, with the musicians playing in random order (names were literally picked out of a bucket; stressful for the musicians, superfun for the audience). Our little valley is filled with amazing talent and just plain good people. Our rockstars are not ego-trippin' assholes, is what I am saying.

SFTD played wonderfully as always. It's hard to come up with new things to say about them, because they're always great. Um, there were a couple of new song transitions. I dig that shit. I haven't listened to the new CD but I am enjoying the drawings (by henning!) throughout the CD booklet. Go get yourself a copy. The New You, it is called.

P.S. Scotty B also has a good take on the show, complete with many links.

So, this morning I went to the walk-in, no-appointment-neccessary time at my doctor's office, where a nurse practitioner declared my problem not an infection but most likely just allergies or a virus. She was pretty sure that my estrucian tube or whatever was clogged and not draining properly, because my ear was fuller of fluid than it should be. However, there was nothing she could do about it. She said to take Sudafed (I have been, doesn't seem to work) and I asked her if I could try an antihistamine nasal spray and she said sure and gave me a free sample. (I used it, it was okay.) I just have to ride this crap out. I said I was worried I had Meniere's Disease and she said, "you don't have it right now ... will it turn into Meniere's? I don't know." Great.

It will probably just slowly clear up and no permanent harm will be done. I hope.

I'm freaking out a little. I think I have Meniere's Disease. It's an inner ear disorder, I guess. It's marked by a feeling of fullness in the ear, a loud low buzzing (like tinnitus) with hearing loss, and dizziness/vertigo. And there's no cure, per se, though there are things that can calm it. I have been getting episodes of this about once a year (or less) ever since I used a hand-held metal grinder with no ear protection in college, because Mt. Holyoke had none. I should have sued those fuckers. I was deaf with tinnitus in my right ear for a week, though it slowly improved. I think that was the triggering event that created this disorder.

I've never barfed from the dizziness, and in fact it's usually been the kind of almost-pleasant floaty sensation one gets when one is battling a high fever. But the past two days have been pretty crappy. My hearing is almost back to normal but I've been feeling more nauseous. Not good. I hate rushing to the doctor just because my ear "feels funny" (see: an awesome Roz Chast cartoon about hypochondriacs) but this seems like a real and definable thing.

Okay. Here are an unprecedented TEN photos this time, of the Franklin County Fair last weekend. And yes, I know the Big E starts this weekend.

There was an entire building filled with prize-winning vegetables and flowers and baked goods (and many runners-up). This carrot won for Longest Carrot! And I got to see it with my own eyes!




As I mentioned there was a Baby Animal Barn. And so here is a genuine pig pile:




This poor lamb is suckling on a metal bolt! Don't feel too bad, his mom is just out of frame. This lamb is just stupid.




And there were also baby goats. Very cute. I like this photo a lot.




But not all of the animals got to just laze around! These little pigs are pro RACERS! And man, could these little guys move. They ran and dove and swam super fast. All to get a couple of cookies.




And then it was time to walk around the midway! The rides are fairly safe, but only if you always listen to Mr. Safety!




It looks so sane and calm when it's like this, in broad daylight, not groaning and creaking and whirling.




This one was pretty.




Here's a shot of the underside of a ride that resembles a giant roulette wheel. It turns and twirls around and up and down like a spun quarter.




You could also put little girls on a couple of bungee cords and send them into the air.




And that was my day at the fair!

So I know my posting has been slacking a little. I've been busy, what with the county fairs and the singing and the apartment-cleaning and some very occasional TV-watching. Last night I got to see former local boy Ari Vais on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. He was great, kind of nervous and flustered and talkative, yet well-spoken; the perfect kind of guy for the queer guys to play off of. The part after the queer guys leave and he puts the meal together is particularly hilarious. The "event" at the end of the "day" was a big show for his band, The Pelicans, after which he got some advice from a record label guy and a Rolling Stone writer. The advice was "write stronger material" and "look at the audience more." Okay! He's all set then. You can read a recap of the show here.

And local folks - including not-local-anymore folks such as Lord Russ and Ari (screen name: OhDee) himself, are talking about the show on Soundboard.

Operation Fair/Play is going along swimmingly. On Saturday I hit the Franklin County Fair up in Greenfield. It's a bit bigger than the 3-County Fair. They have a small barn that is nothing but baby animals [swoon] (though there were also some fancy pigeons. They may have been adolescent pigeons, though; who can tell?). I touched a goat. And a calf. And a bunny. This fair also had a better midway than the previous one; more rides, and a greater variety of them, though there were no wimpy-grownup coasters. We chose not to spend our money on tickets, instead heading for the long line of food booths with their siren songs of fried-food-smells and flashing lights and colorful signs. I was looking hard for some chicken on a stick, but there was none to be had. Gotta wait for the Big E for that, I guess. I got a semi-healthy chicken pita thing, and some Mountain Dew from a soda fountain machine that made the same noise the Showcase Showdown wheel makes when the contestants spin it on "The Price is Right." There were also onion rings. And a perogi. And soft-serve ice cream. Delish.

L and I also signed up to win a hundred bucks from some country music station. The catch was that you had to be there at the station's booth/trailer at the stated times in order to be in the running. They did five drawings; we made it to two. For the first drawing, the winner was there on the first entry drawn. For the second (half an hour later) it took about 15 tries before the chosen person was there. We had noticed that in the first drawing, the winner did not show any form of identification to get his one-hundred-dollar bill. So we figured we could just say "yep, that's me!" to whatever the next female name was. Unfortunately, we discussed this idea quite openly in the middle of a crowd of people also waiting to see if they'd won, so we thought it wise to not put the plan into action.

More details later, so I'll have something to say in my photo captions after I post said photos here.

New bumper sticker: Vote Bush/Cheney OR DIE!!
Yesterday Cheney warned supporters that voting for Kerry would put the country in danger. I like that he's basically saying "Nice country you got here... You wouldn't want anything to, ah, HAPPEN to it. Because sometimes things happen, to nice countries like this one."

Man, I do not know what I will do if these assholes win in November.

I hope he gets called on this, and hard.

Borrowed from another political blog's comments (Atrios or Daily Kos), we see that Dick has resorted to terrorism, under his own definition. Let's find him where he hides and trains!:

USA-PATRIOT ACT:

(a) DOMESTIC TERRORISM DEFINED.—Section 2331 of title 18, USC, is amended....

(5) the term ‘domestic terrorism" means activities that
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion;

Please check out Tallulah's blog over in the links, as my sister has FINALLY updated it. There's a special treat inside the post, a link to a short movie showing the baby making her growling noise. More! More!

Get out yer "my car is better than my wife" t-shirt and yer cowboy hat, because it's time for the Three-County Fair!

It was 80's day at the sheep barn.These two ewes were totally tubular. Note the lens flare from the super-shiny spandex:







And here's a mad-mouse-style roller coaster I went on. Note all of the structural parts they had left over:




Cool 70s-80s font here:




This ride was disappointing for the kids. It looks like you should be able to turn the cars around, since they're all rotating around the center at odd angles, but they were all stiff. The children had to resort to dangerous stunts to keep from being bored:





And here is a night shot of my spooky nemesis, a ride that has haunted me since the first time I saw it at a fair in the soccer field behind the local Catholic school. I cannot stop being amazed that people enter it willingly. It is what I am forced to ride in my nightmares. The Zipper:

Yo peeps. I added a couple of long-overdue links over there to the right. One is Dooce, for obvious reasons of rockingness. She really writes the way a diary-like blog should be written (i.e. awesomely). And the other is Jennifer Myzowski, a local blog-friend who is also unfailingly honest and blunt in her writing and usually quite funny to boot.

Dooce has been amazing this past week or so; her postpartum depression got so horrible that she checked herself into a psychiactric hospital. After I read her post about the decision, I was so sad for her that I was almost crying, and I was depressed for hours, worrying about her. I also had this awful feeling: if it can happen to her, it can definitely happen to me. Luckily I've never felt quite so low as that. Well, once I did, years ago, but I was still able to go to work (but do little else) and I was able to overcome my depression through other means. (Those means? Systematically hunting down and slaughtering those who had wronged me.*) Anyway, Dooce found a great doctor at the hospital, and things are looking optimistic. Thank god.

My birthday was swell, thanks. Lack of sleep and lots of driving made me so woozy for my dinner out that I felt I couldn't avail myself of any complementary wine. I did go to Cold Stone Creamery, but for an account of that experience you'll have to read Craftytown and Eye on Northampton. My birthday really started this past Sunday, when I opened all of my familial loot, and will continue into this weekend, when the three-county fair happens. (Two words: Demolition Derby. Aw yeah.)


*Just kidding! Ha! Ha! Do not worry, I did not kill anyone. No need to go poking around in the wetlands next to Stop n' Shop on King Street! Nosiree bob!