"schatzi" is a term of endearment

i just want to share with you of these jokes.

i love the gmail chat. it's the only way i talk to anyone, really. especially my faraway familys.

this afternoon, since i got off early for a doctor's appointment, i was on the gmail and both my mommy and my brother-in-law were online. by the whim of fate their chat messages seemed to present a sort of conversation to my view.

first, my mommy:

now, christopher:

----------------
Listening to: Final Fantasy - The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead
via FoxyTunes

it only makes no difference to me

[text to be added later]

still to be completed by others

words to describe me:
quixotic
logorrhea

tired

scott:
recondite
cryptic (?-approved, but not suggested, by scott)

jo:
convivial... minus the definitions about food.

oh ho ho, hoity toity

"to take part in 'a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.'"

i think that i might, after all, like the economist.
up until now i have been prejudiced against it. mainly because of who introduced me to it, not that i don't love them dearly, but they are a class apart and i always lumped it in with them.

also because of that slightly superior little quote they put by their "enum/chron" information and because of things like this:

=
but deep in my heart i always knew i liked that advertising campaign. and the other day when i was reading...er, checking, it on the bindery cart i found this article that i couldn't put back on the cart until i'd found the online version. i haven't actually finished reading it yet, but i like talking. and words and stuff. but mostly i like that it's kind of not that novel of an idea to me (that conversational rules would be relatively universal throughout time and geography--i almost said time and space, but then i realized that maybe aliens DO converse differently than humans do.) and i think in other hands, dare i at this fledgling state of my support say lesser hands? it could've been a boring short read. and this isn't. at least not to me.
i also like that it's published anonymously, but i don't really understand that because then it went on to talk about the prominent editors of the past.
and then also tim started a blog with a post about an article from the economist and i just feel like maybe it's time at last to embrace.

and why do i feel the need to declare that publicly? oh well. it's my weblog not yours.

throw off your mental chains!

this is a recruitment post.
the idea is that if you see the pictures you will want to be in them.
the goal is to have everyone in the world join the team. like world peace. just ask coach fredrick. (MY old coach. and so famous!) jump rope "make[s] this world a better place."

these pictures are actually old (if you can believe that i've had a team since it was warm enough to practice in viv's backyard!) and not everyone is represented, but it's all i've got right now.

viv and i do the wheel while erin goes solo.


viv and i let miles in on our wheel.



and rob and tammie rock the double dutch. i wish i could show you his power tricks.



leo focuses on his "fundamentals"



and then rob stuns all with his mad skills in the wheel.

why is rob so good at everything?



but jump rope is also for fun and games. here we stole cake from the sorority sisters and ate it. yum.

*thanks to rob for sending me the pics.

to be completed by others.

words to describe me:
quixotic
logorrhea

tired

as i stand knocking

it's the kind of thing that makes you want to write. that makes you wish you wrote.

i was talking to my friend with literary aspirations this morning on el internet. i told him i never had anything to write about anymore.
it was slow at the up's so i was reading. and i was reading short stories by thaddeus brewster. i hadn't read them in a long time.
brewster stories always make me think about the process of writing. yesterday was thanksgiving and my father and i were discussing good stories and bad storytelling.

i'm scandalously reckless with my keys. when my sister exclaimed at the number of keys on the ring i tossed to her, it never occurred to me that i might need any of them. it didn't dawn on me that the reason there were so many keys was that for most places i go, i need a key to get in.

it's happened before, working on a weekend, but there's always someone there. i knocked. and cringed at the mocking soon to begin. i knocked again. i could here faint clicks and shifts that gave me hope my boss was still around. then i heard it. "hey." it took me a minute to realize that the man studying at the nearby table was addressing me in such a private moment as i had imagined myself to be in. "you working?" "i'm trying to."

bernie went on for 45 minutes to tell me about the signs of the times and the bible code. to inform me that i was young and smart and unfortunate.
he shook my hand at least three times and finally allowed me to go back downstairs and find a security guard to let me in to the office.

meeting bernie makes you think.
at first i thought about the end of the world and that it was sad to have to see all the "evil" of the banks and "you know people talk about the beast...some of that's this, right? the computer." but that notion promptly yielded its position to other thoughts. it didn't take long to remember that the world isn't completely done for (i am the author of a happy blog, for goodness sake) and i wished i could have interjected a positive note into our one-sided conversation. as i recalled the conversation, stepping around photocopied newspaper articles on the ground and wondering who exactly it is that comes in on a late friday afternoon on a campus holiday to do work at the library and what exactly they were working on, i reflected on my reaction at the outset of the conversation.
i thought he was completely insane.

he wanted to show me his books. all about the bible and the bible code and the apocalypse.
next would come the bank and the 22 cents and the overdraft charges. maybe he could get them reversed.
but that's why he's so mad.
and the bank.
and that's why he had to come get these books.
he had another book by this author, it was written in 2002, but this was written in 1996.
and he just found this one. it was written in 1973.
he was sixteen.
in the panama canal zone.
he was sixteen.
in high school.
but the lady at the bank was just rude. (foul language ensued and picked up toward the end of the conversation.)
and that's why he had to come get these books.
he was in the pawn shop.
the lady there is nice. she likes him.
and i don't know if you remember, but they found these artifacts that were hitler's.
and he remembered the newspaper article.
and the jcc threw him out.
and the skybox threw him out.
did i get cookies at the gateway? they threw him out.
and that's why he had to come get these books.

i'm not doing him justice.
the story was so incoherent, i thought he was just loopy. but all his dates checked out, he knew what year it was, he had a legitimate looking print out from chase bank. but there were no connections, no transitions. yet he told it to me as if he were making a clear, organized progressive argument almost as if each point had a causal relation to the next.

as i kept listening, knowing against reason that there must be some sort of organizing principle, i was finally able to follow his train of thought. i finally grasped how all the seemingly disparate anecdotes he was relating to me related to hebrew and code-breakers.
and i felt like i had just lived in a faulkner novel for an hour.
and i wanted to tell a story like bernie.
but i can't.
not quite.

la pa'leer

shall i tell you?
i work in the library at the u.
i really like it, even though it can be a little monotonous.
one thing i really like is that i go through all the periodicals when they come back from the bindery. i have to make sure their records on the computer match up and everything is correct.
from an outsider's view i'm quite certain it looks like i'm just flipping through magazines all day.
however, like the conscientious employee that i am, i don't read the articles. i merely look for the pertinent information and move along. when i find one that catches my fancy i add it to my list of the pa'leer, which you have below. sometimes i would add a note to remind me what i liked, other times i wouldn't. now i'm mostly baffled, but i'm sure i'll be pleasantly surprised when i once again open them up. you'll notice that there are lots of architecture magazines...and not so many science journals. sorry, jo.

today i was feeling bad about not following through on my plan of working my way through la pa'leer on friday afternoons. and i was daydreaming the littlest bit about finding a desk and browsing through the wealth of treasures available in the biblioteca and then reality hit and i realized what i had been doing for all the months i've been working at the lib: i've been preparing all the records so all the serials can be loaded into the "arc." which means: NO BROWSING. certainly i can still get all of the books i want, but i can't just walk through the stacks and find something new. AND i can't have all the issues of one magazine together.

and this raises the following ethics of library science question: when is it too much? are libraries relics of the past? should libraries embrace the "digital age"? i can't tell you how many "08CAN"s and "CANFLIP"s there are (how many journals we no longer receive whether because we have subscriptions to the online version or because of lack of funding for buying hard copies.) my environmentalist side thinks this is good. my technofascinated side thinks this is cool. but my eyes hurt and my sentimentality longs for the time of dusty, heavy tomes of knowledge.
nobody even notices the books in the library. i don't think anyone but me has noticed that all the books have moved into different locations. the only thing anyone uses are the cushy chairs and the computers. don't you just want to cry?
it's great that we now have robots working at the library and all, it's great that we have so much more space now that the robots are taking over, but we can no longer browse through our old serials. if you want to read an article, you have to know what article it is and request it. no more discoveries in the stacks, no more found gems.
i think that is a sad tragedy of life.

but not to leave you on a sour note, with no further ado, i give you the pa'leer, all the books i wanted to browse that i will now have to use a computer and robots to get. (in roughly chronological order. oddly enough.)
:

world of interiors

sight and sound

japan architect

rivista di studi italiani v.21:no.2(2003:Dec.) -italo calvino

dwell

journal of semantics www.jos.oxfordjournals.org

casabella

journal of soil and water conservation

arkitektur

american heritage (esp.2006:june/july)

design news- v.61:no12

wired v.14:no.11(2006)-faceblind

techniques et architecture

chemistry world (2006:Feb)
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/January/09010601.asp

(l')arca

american lit. hist. v.18:no.4 --the courtship of henry wikoff

neophilologus (v.90:no.1 -a little noticed english construction pg. 107-117)

http://economist.co.uk/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9249262

riba journal

detail

volume

achis (2004:no.4 "murdernity")

acta orientalia v.64(2003)

domino

metropolis v.25:no.6 --greenest building ever. library at free university in berlin

i.d.

news photographer

o.g.

val david

today is not a sad day, but there was something of a somber moment this morning as i realized that i have an ocd i had not previously recognized.

if there's a room that you go into often and the decor rarely changes, if there's a poster or something written there, do you have to read it and say it in your head as you look at it no matter how many times you've seen it? HAVE to?

there's this poster at work. in the conference room. and every day when i go in to turn on and turn off the lights, i read it to myself.
until this morning i thought that i read it because it's in spanish and i like to practice. beyond that it is worthy of note because it says (in spanish) "we tell our children not to get into a car if the driver seems drunk...but what if the driver is their parent?" and while i think, yes, children of alcoholics is a sad situation, i just think, i would not tell my children that. i would tell my children "don't get in a car if the driver seems like they're not me." and that would be that.

i sublet ren's apartment this summer. it was so nice. but i confess that in 2 months i didn't get everything unpacked. i had one particular box that sat in the middle of my room for most of the time i was there. (i didn't know what to do with the stuff; i used it so i couldn't put it in storage, but i didn't have a place for it.)
my sister had got the box from work.
on it was written "val david"
i know now exactly what that means, but it was a mystery to me then. every time i was in my room i would say "val david" in my head. several times a day.
so many times that when my friend wanted a name for his band i thought it should be "val david" since it was such a fixture in my brain.

one more.
i have a box of emergency crafts.
it's an office max file box. everything on it is in english and in spanish.
under "location" it says "ubicacion."
i don't know that word. i assume that it means "location" but i don't know.
every morning i wake up, look at the box and say 'ubicacion.' in my head.
sometimes i say 'location ubicacion.'

this morning i after i said it i was thinking about it and how on the ocd test there's this question about counting when you go into rooms and i was always like, 'well, i don't have it that bad. i can't even think what that means.' (cause my brother and sister were all like "oh, yeah." and when i said i didn't understand the question they said "if you had it, you would understand." and i was like 'ok.') and then i thought 'oh no!! i bet reading the same things every time is the same thing! i do have it that bad!'

and i was kind of sad.

but it doesn't hurt people, right? just a minor annoyance to me, right? not a sign that i'm getting more crazy?






right?

how can you catch the sparrow?

Friday evening, Sunday in the afternoon,
What have you got to lose?

It's my heart that's a-sufferin', it's a dyin'.
That's what I have to lose.
I've got an answer
I'm going to fly away,
What have I got to lose?
Will you come see me Thursdays and Saturdays?
What have you got to lose?



i really like dad music.

onomatopoeia

more patty griffin, just because i think sometimes morrissey is too depressing.
"it's hard to live, still i think it's the best bet."
ok, ok. and morrissey crowds his way in anyway.
"i think about life and i think about death, and neither one particularly appeals to me."
so depressing. see? now you think i'm all "morose" and i'm not.

but a girl i know was talking to her sister. and what they were talking about is of consequence to our discussion, but her sister replied "i wake up every day for it."

i was talking to "bibiana" and we were talking about motivations and having them.
bib's were humbling to me in a way that i hope is constructive.
i think i have a motivation for living, but i don't think i wake up every day for it.
but i think it would be nice if i did.

so.
i think i will work on that.
and just to maintain the cipher of writing personal things in a semi-public atmosphere, i think i will say that, like bib, my motivation is, and certainly from henceforth will be, video. (that might be a stretch, and not my best work at blogging cryptography, but it'll have to do for now.)

just cause i like to be thorough (and also in the interest of full disclosure.)

i actually have a real post planned, but i'm late for my guitar lesson.

i have auch a happy blog.
and i used to try to be funny. (but then i went on vacation and then i started dating a boy and all that went by the wayside and i'm really kind of sad about it because i think now i would like to have that bread crumb trail back to semi-sanity. oh well.)
i also periodically write about, and mostly to, my good friend ren whom i used to not see because she quit being my secretary of war, but now i see a lot more because i used to live in her house and now i spy on her from across the street.
i joined my sister's performance art blog so that i could show up her students, but then never did.
and i started a really awesome project which promptly fell into technical difficulties and i gave up being a good person until i could afford the camera i want.

all these things are me.
if you ever see them, know that they are me and that i am the same person.

what?! you mean you're reading this right now??!

taylor
joAnn
johnson
busby

aren't those nice names?

while your life falls apart

i -um- don't know what to do with my life.
which is not to say that i'm sad in my life, i just feel like it's not figured out and is therefore temporary and therefore i have to keep thinking about what to do and i don't know what to do with my life.


patty griffin.
"the farther i come, the farther i fall. whatever i knew it was nothing at all. nothing at all. just making me small. smaller and smaller. i fall back."


i feel like maybe we should place bets on how long i can keep this up.
it's exhausting, but i'm surviving surprisingly well.
but it's insane.
and i got offered an almost real job that would most likely lead to a real job and i couldn't accept it because i work at the ups store. does that make any kind of sense at all? no. it doesn't. but that's how it goes.
i'm just going to tell myself that i would be too impatient with old people learning how to use computers.
i'm just going to tell myself that $8/hr is better than $16/hr because i can sit and do nothing (as long as no one wants to ship anything ever) and i get to see and, every once in a blue moon, work with my sister.
i'm just going to tell myself that there will be something else in january. (which is the date i'm tentatively trying to find one job instead of three.)

on second thought, i'm probably just not going to talk to myself about this at all for a while.


is giving yourself the silent treatment as juvenile as giving someone else the silent treatment?




in conclusion, i've been reading jana's blog, and i have some thoughts, but i have to get back to workingu.

up to zero

are you ever just tired of life?  i think that's such an ungrateful way to feel, but i feel it all the time.  just worn out and no hope of rest in sight.  

anyway.
it's friday and i don't have to work this saturday and it's viv's disco skating birthday so that'll be good.   wahoo for life.

drift gently into mental illness

i have lots of thinks to talk about, but i feel like they are all kind of half thought out and unprocessed.


...
can we talk about how i have a very symbolic house?
my windows look out on the alley and the university. i get to see hipsters and punks and college students.
kathryn's windows look out onto our nice quiet street. our industrious neighbors who fix up their old homes and yell at you if you park near their driveway.
from kathryn's windows you'd think we were all grown up and settled.
from my windows you'd be sure we were starving students just here for a minute.

my windows are more honest.
and really, i bet kathryn would trade rooms in a minute, despite her big windows. cause her windows don't have screens, the pigeons wake her up every morning and she hates the afternoon sun that bakes. (i love it. i spend any afternoon i can in her room.)


...
we're starting a jump rope team.
which is to say, we have a jump rope team. we have lots of members already. and we've had two practices. i kind of thought it was a joke, but i was completely willing, but people are super serious, so if you want to join, we're thinking thursday nights at the insit-ute.


...
no need to paginate actually plays music. who knew?

...
i work 3 jobs. did i mention that? it's crazy. like, i honestly cannot tell you how i'm alive right now. but i am, so i guess it works.



...
i like viv lots and gallons. she lets me play at her house and it's such fun.
ice cream also is good. and chit chatting. but that all amounts right back to viv, so i guess she's the perfect heading for this pseudo summary of thought patterns.



...
you're not the only choo-choo train that was left out in the rain the day after santa came.

miss alexandra chantal yvette mackenzie

i know what you were all thinking.
and i posted it that way just so you would think it, but,
no.

no young men have been smacking their chapsticked lips for me.
that last post was a quote from the lovely alex.
quite close to the last words i heard in her lovely british accent before she abandoned us all here for the comforts of her jersey home.

today is alex' birthday.
i think it's such a nice birthday.
9/9

isn't that nice and symmetrical?
she's a whole number!! she's complete.
and it's so true.
a flawless person if i've ever known one. (which i have, obviously: alex.)


it's not much of a birthday cake, but there's only so much you can do from across the atlantic.
so,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEX!
many happy returns.

did i just turn down a chance to kiss miles?

that wasn't very sensible.

i am falling and there's still no one to catch me.

i wanted to have something to say, but i'm just so tired.

you know that curry paste?  it smells good, but it's going to go bad if i don't use it soon.
but i can't use it now because i have to go to viv's to practice.
marshmallow treasures aren't bad.  but you should eat them before they get old.  what's with all the humidity?  weird.

walking to work take 2

so.
i love a bustling campus. campus has a personality all its own and the mood changes dramatically with each semester.
but, this morning i almost missed my solitary walk to work.

everyone heading in to classes made me feel a little old and boring.
and those guys at the booth made me feel a little annoyed.

maybe if they hadn't been playing SUCH lame music i would've taken their silly little flyer.


and is it like "lame campus booth radio" or something? a mixtape?? because i swear the one by the library was playing the exact same crappy song.

gracious goodness. what an unsavory way to begin your fall semester life soundtrack.

the last time i looked in the mirror, it looked like it was going to be fine.

let's talk about signage in the library.
i can think of just a few off the top of my head, but perhaps the brevity of this post will be able to make up for the exceeding length of the previous.

1- the sign by the east entrance that not only tells you you can't have food and drink, but in it's clear, white, seventies lettering, explains why: "it attracts bugs which damage books." i'm a bit of a rebel and quite frankly, if i'm hungry and i have food, i'm going to eat it. no matter where i am. i passed all those standardized tests from high school to college by smuggling chocolate chips in my pocket (seriously. it's brain food.) but that sign appeals to its readers not to blindly obey, but to consider the consequences. and let me tell you. even in the dead of winter, i have packed up my things and sat outside with the smokers to eat my peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich before returning to my studies. (unless i was studying at the study group table. we always ate there, but there weren't really any books there. and i was careful for crumbs. and al always had the good crumbless snacks like carrots and peppers.)

2- the sign by the bathrooms that tells you who to tell if you feel your safety has been threatened while you are in the library.
i think this is wisdom in signage because if i feel threatened, i totally head for the bathrooms.
you can hide there for like ever.

3- library staff only.


and while we're talking signage, can we talk about the enormous chili's grill sign that was randomly sitting in the parking lot across from my work?

bags' groove

i feel like i should say something.

it took me all night, but i think i finally saw taurus. i never could make out perseus.
i'm tired, of course. and i feel bad that i didn't stick around for the sunrise (i had good reason) and on the whole i'm pretty bummed that my camera broke before i could put the 50 in, but it was nonetheless a pretty spectacular night. in many ways.


my short walk to work each day is punctuated by certain sights and sounds. the morning's trek through president's circle carries the distant yelling of camp counsellors and children screaming so loudly i fear something unnatural is happening.
on the return trip i get to see more of camp in action and by then the tables have turned; this time the children are in control and i politely contain my laughter as i watch the exasperated counsellors NOT get frustrated and use all the tricks up their sleeves, not to mention their "considerable skill" and "natural affinity" with children, in a vain attempt to maintain order as children of various shapes and sizes run around playing various games and eating various snacks. my favorite today was the child running races back and forth with his friends, winning, i assume, as i'm sure did he, by virtue of the fact that he was running in swimming goggles.

i narrate such a mundane portion of my day to set the stage for the realization i had this after...'fore?...noon. (don't mock. it's a good thing i went home early; my car died and if i had waited any longer to discover it, my dad wouldn't have been able to come buy me a new battery)
i appreciate that they try to do major construction projects in the summer so that it doesn't adversely affect the multitudinous student body of fall semester, but tearing up the main walkway from president's circle to the library has been getting on my nerves. especially since they make it so confusing to walk around AND it changes every day so even after you find a path, it won't be there the next day.
but just today i finally realized what was going on.
this is no construction project.
they're not replacing the sidewalk because it was old and cracked. oh no. this is art. (i am trained in recognizing art because my sister added me to her performance art class' blog and i went to bad art night once.)
you see, it LOOKS like construction because there are people working, pouring cement, smoothing cement, standing around, etc. they have caution tape and the whole thing. but today i saw the crowning piece: 5 or 6 packets of papers. they looked like application forms, or an exam, or a very elaborate survey. i couldn't take a closer look because of the caution tape and supposed wet cement and the old guys with oxygen tanks sitting on a bench practically in the center of the construction zone.
and then it hit me.
why would there be papers in the cordoned off part of the sidewalk? and they weren't accidentally blown or dropped. i can tell because that would make too much sense. AND they were pretty evenly spaced. what "coincidental" act would space things evenly, but not too evenly, but definitely just so, with just the right number of pages turned?
and the old guys?! too many coincidences.
it's art, i tell you. art!

what i can't tell you exactly is what it means.
i don't know. something deep, surely.



i moved across the street, but i still like to take the old way home. two reasons: 1- i still have to come in from the front, 2- i get to walk past one of my favorite gardens in the city.
do you have favorite gardens in the city? i have about 4 that i love to look at. every day i see a great new garden, but there are a few that i just adore.
this one is enormous. they put the vegetables where i like, out front. they have an oh-i-don't-know 4 by 15 foot (and that's a conservative estimate) bed of just strawberries! huge sunflowers that can't even keep their heads up, tomatoes just beautifully ripe, and sunsugars too! pretty beans on a charming trellis, corn maybe? and the whole thing, along the sidewalk, is lined with lavender. smells delicious and i don't even mind the bees. and the house is charming. a big white house with TWO wrap around porches (one on the second story) but it's not overcrowded. there's a place for everything and there's a porch swing.


today there was a car parked across the street. i noticed because we saw some people at grunts and posture and then went home and the same people were sitting on the lawn across the street!
this car was blue. and the door was open. and there was musical music playing. that made me smile. i like musicals. i thought about how nice it was to have a little personal serenade on my way home, but just as i got close enough to see if i could identify the music, the door shut. and as the car pulled away, i saw the license plate "ising4u"

(do you think she was a singing telegram girl? cause i hope so. i really do.)


it's late and i've yet to eat dinner, but i'll leave you with this parting thought: i am often led to exclaim, "i love credit cards!" but i think that that fact might lead many to be concerned about my fiscal responsibility. i often tell my students that "i usually pay for things with a credit card." (it's a semi-scripted test. don't ask.) and i always think that makes them think i'm living high off the hog. but i am neither well to do nor financially foolish.


goodnight.

don't drink that milk in front of that window

i'm in a real bind here.  i have a thing about bugs.  i hate them.  they scare me.  they make me shake.  and shiver and squirm.  working in a garden center and on a landscaping crew, you learn to just cope with the fact that bugs are going to crawl on you.  but i still hate it.  and i hate them in my bed.  they love my bed.  remember when i lived in the pit of despair in provo?  and i would have to take all the blankets and sheets off my bed every night and morning and shake them out and then inspect the mattress itself to make sure there weren't bugs all in my sheets? 
yeah.  well.  you leave your windows open for a few days before you realize there aren't really screens and you know there are going to be bugs.  box elder bugs i've been able to ignore and kill.  (not squish.  that's too gross.  i put things over them until they die.)
now there's this big weird bug in my bed and i don't know what to do.
and now i keep thinking that joey would probably like it.  and it doesn't move. and i keep thinking that it's probably really scared.  how did it even get in here?  the box elder bugs who came in the window on purpose crawl and fly all over.  don't get me thinking about how it probably grabbed on to the guitar accidentally as i got out of the car and came in, but it's not its fault that it's in here.  and now i have all this guilt about killing it, supposing i could muster the courage to do it.  and now i have retroactive guilt about the cruel way i killed the box elder bugs this morning. 

but it's midnight and al was telling me about this thing and i'm supposed to get 8 hours of sleep every night.  and i have to go in to work early because i have to leave work early to go to other work meeting which will take too long and i won't have time to write my test.  oh goodness.  this bug is ruining my life.

help!

the busted back of that old and rusted cadillac

i don't quite know what to say, i just enjoy the contrast.
so happy. so sad. so mustache!!!

anyway.
in other news, i made alfredo sauce tonight.
took for danged ever cause i had to go to the grocery store right in the middle and it would've been a fast trip, except that they were selling notebooks for 29 cents and i was just thinking how i should get some notebooks for my students so we could work on writing, etc. so then i had to go through them all and get the best ones. and i had to go to the scary smith's cause it's closer to my new house, but i get so lost in it.
and then linds called when i was checking out so i forgot to give the lady my student card so i missed out on my 5% discount. bummer.

so the sauce.
i was feeling really good about it. i think i've cured myself from the flavorless variety of yesteryear, but i still can't get it right. i feel like there are more flavors (i make sure there's enough garlic, i try not to skimp on the butter, i put in pepper. this time i even put in a touch of ginger and salt-which i usually don't do, cause parmesan is so salty anyway. but kathryn was complaining about the bland american parmesan so i tried to help it out) but i feel like all these flavors are just overcompensating for a fundamental flaw in my alfredo sauce. maybe i should go back to square one. i should find some recipes and figure out what i'm doing wrong.
i just ate two bowls of pasta and it's just not truly fulfilling. i'm full, but not happy about what i ate, you know? and now i have to go do all the dishes.

maybe i should melt the cheese in a double boiler before i add it to the white sauce? or is it just the nature of parmesan to be grainy? maybe i add too much milk to the roux? i've often thought that my sauce wasn't buttery enough, but my biggest complaint usually is that the sauce is too heavy and buttery. where is the balance?

on a more positive note, kathryn left some artichoke hearts, which made for just the right added finish. mmm.


still other news: there's a big scary bug under my guitar on my bed and i don't know what to do about it.

sorry for the non-posting.
i'll see what i can do for the future.

are you gonna fall apart again?

i need to post. i'm being bad at blogging. but i don't rightly know what to say.

i had an unexpected day. everything i did was spur of the moment. one would think this wouldn't be unusual for me, but it was. i greatly enjoyed myself. which is not to say that i don't usually enjoy myself, just to say that today i had no plans and still had fun.

i enjoy conversation. of all forms. tonight i kidnapped erin and we drank tea (ginger tea. very delicious) and talked and talked and talked. she told me that i am ultra-feminine. that i am like a fish, gaily swimming in the center of the bottomless pool of the intuitive while everyone else was fearfully clinging to the wall of the concrete. it would take longer than i have the patience for to explain what that really meant, but i was refreshed by our conversation. the meat of what i internalized was that i have been spending far too much time of late looking at my craziness (or as we decided to call it, "eccentricity" or "idiosyncrasy". we looked up the roots of these words and decided that not having your axis in the center, not being concentric to any other circle and being your own mixture are highly desirable traits.) from a "male" perspective. i'm not scary just because i'm odd. i'm not problematic just because i'm not normal. eccentricity is a good thing and i'm chock full of it.

anyway.
i don't know that i believe her, but it was still nice of her to so highly compliment the parts of me that i view as intrinsic, but often objectionable.


in other news, my hair looks really bad today. that's kind of all i can think about right now.
so i'm going to make a sandwich.

you know what, i'm already up late.

so. i work for a non-profit. which i like. i struggle with money and sacrificing everything especially humanity for the sake of profits. (oh! and i was just checking out the yes men thanks to the uccs gallery of contemporary art blog.)
in order to pay the bills, namely my salary, we rely on grants from the federal government. my boss "writes" these grants, but this year he asked me to review it and help out, if i could. what i found when i started reading nearly killed me. it made no sense and was woefully cut and pasted from any number of previous drafts, documents, letters, who knows. one piece of information that i tried to salvage referred to a study that had been done about something and someone. (i'm blocking the recollection because we were turned down for the grant and my future life has gotten considerably more stressed and, forgive the pun, underfunded.) i gathered a few words from what i found and blingoed them and eventually found my source and cited it. before i found that source, however, i happened upon this picture:

i'm just gonna let you read the caption for yourself and react...however you please.
goodnight.

oh you you you you you

i'm posting from my dashboard.  i think that's kind of fun.  silly, but excellent good fun.
some people didn't understand yesterday.  they needn't worry.  it's not really supposed to make sense.  that's partly the point and partly the cipher of making a journal public.

i tried, but the old devils, they found me in my hut, poured through the windows; they cornered me so i cried out, to no one:

i give up.

you know, if i were a rock star, no one would care that i was "suitably eccentric". they would think it was cool. they would be so excited to be the beneficiary (i was going to say victim) of my insanity. i would get all kinds of slack for all kinds of oddities. and the thing is, really, i wouldn't even have to be talented. just brazen enough to be a rock star.

my mom once said i had the soul of a rock star. as near as i could tell she said it because when i sing along to music, i don't sing so much as imitate, mimic, the singer i'm listening to. she said i could "capture" any voice (not true in the slightest) but she only had her voice. only one way of singing. i, on the other hand, have no idea what my own voice sounds like because the only time i sing is if i'm trying to sound like someone else. i wanted that to be a metaphor for life, but it's not. not my life. happily, not my life at all.
maybe that's what she meant.



mondays oughtn't to feel like fridays. i had good intentions, but i'm still not in bed and i haven't accomplished a durn thing since 6:30pm.

people are going away. it's sad and it's not sad, somehow.



sincere. earnest. erin hoffman is good for words. she's not wrong.





but then again, maybe people would be just as patronizing to a rock star, when it came to real life, as they are to me.

saudi

so, since there's no bulk uploader for blogger, if you're interested, you can see the rest of the pictures i found from saudi here.


for the most part, i believe these were taken by my then 13 yr. old sister. i was 11.

peach, plum, pear. peach, plum...

we all know that i love love love ikea. we also all know that i was wary of opening an ikea in utah cause i was afraid it would become the next krispy kreme (such a fiasco.) but today i went with the fam and realized i never should have worried.
ikea is going to single-handedly (or maybe double-handedly, with those big heart pillows with hands...) save america. they are using the affinity for the trendy for good.
sometimes ikea telling you how and in what order to shop can get a little smothering, but also, you know you can trust them. i like that they tell you how it works and you can just take it or leave it. you bus your tables at the restaurant whether you like it or not. and you can put that coffee table together yourself, thank you very much. i like that they expect you to step up.
and that don't offer you big, excessive stuff just cause that's what you think you want.
stuff is cheap, stuff is small. stuff is fun.
but how is ikea going to save america? well, i'll tell you. they are charging you to use disposable bags. they are selling you big reusable bags for cheap. they are taking the money you insist on paying just so you can have a useless plastic bag and not have to bring in your blue bag next time, and donating it to help reforest america. i think that's nice. i've always said the only way to make people care about the environment is to charge them for being wasteful.
also, you can't recycle glass in utah. i don't know why. but you can recycle glass, light bulbs and batteries at ikea.

hip hip hooray for ikea.

important to note

hindawi publishing corporation has their office at 410 park avenue, New York, NY.

keep it in mind.

who am i?

so i'm sitting at work waiting to give this oral exam. and i want to be mad cause the lady isn't showing up, but the truth is, i got here late so it's probably my fault.
the basic class is doing a listening exercise that goes something like this:
"i have class at 5pm. i was born in 1980. who am i?"
i'm assuming they are looking at some kind of chart or something. but i just keep hearing "who am i?" and i thought it was funny.

so, i'm a sucker for the sensational. kind of like how i was telling allison and her mom that i really like pre-teen romance novels. you know, the kind where the"steamy" parts go a little something like this: "the kiss was serious. serious like my hair." (no lie. it's in a book. maybe that milk carton book or the sequel? i don't know. i read too muvh as a kid.) so of course when my news reader tells me i can see the loch ness monster, you know i'm gonna click. and i did. and it's pretty cool, i guess. (although, i must admit, i was slightly disappointed.)

in a manner of speaking i don't understand

it's funny how the most unexpected things can have such a profound effect.


a couple of my sister's friends came over tonight. i wasn't expecting it to be much fun for me, but i ended up really very glad that they came and oddly invigorated.

i just found a photo album that my sister seems to have inadvertently stolen from my parents' house.
it's full of pictures of me when i was 11 and we lived in saudi arabia.
i feel like i have uncovered some lost record of my life.
i don't know why this is such a solemn thing to me, but it is.

we like the newness of all

jord likes this picture.
mostly cause i look dumb, but it is pretty funny. and kind of impressive that he could take the picture at just the right instant.
how would you feel if all the cheese came off your pizza right as you were ready to eat it? (thanks for your sympathy, liz.)



thoughts about my trip:
i like the ocean. there are lots of nice natural wonders all over the place, but there's just something extra wonderful about a seaside town. i admit, the southeast is the best, with the gulf stream heating the atlantic to a nice, comfortable bath temperature, but gloucester was lovely. we also drove through manchester-by-the-sea, round the tip of cape ann and some other place jord said but i can't remember.
heavenly.

i like old things. i like that boston likes old things.
i like old houses and architecture. little houses by some standards, but ideal by mine.
i like old cemeteries. they are very fascinating.
i like "european" cities.
i like getting lost. i like walking a lot, except when i have to walk home cause i've given up exploring because i'm too tired to walk anymore.
i like not having to drive everywhere.

i like getting treats on a whim.
i like things that stay open late.
i like knowing my way around and finding secret passageways.
i like shopping, but i don't have money.

i like spiral staircases and stone-walled basements.
i like boston terriers. especially those that say hi to us every day as we come and go.

i like living in places much better than visiting them. even though this often entails a few more inconveniences. (notably to my over-generous hosts)


i don't like traveling alone.

i don't like going back to real life and responsibilities.

we gathered in spring

i don't smoke!
don't listen to jo.

it's the turmeric, i swear. it could happen to anyone. nicotine isn't the only thing that turns your fingers yellow. trust me.

freedom for all luncheon crackers!

so i've designated joey as the designated poster on the picture of the day and that frees me up to do a little of my own posting.
i'm afraid there is only one topic of any interest: boston.

boston finally shook off the rain and we took today to venture forth. we started backwards and made our way to "the prud'" and the christian science temple square, but the big church and the glass globe is closed on mondays. cause it's open on the weekend. if that makes sense.
from there we went up to downtown crossing but it was too cold to find the good books. so we started looking for lunch which took us to our plan for the day: the freedom trail.
the freedom trail.
see, boston isn't just like your town. boston has special sidewalks for adventures. they call it "the freedom trail" and it takes you all over the city and it never gets lost. it shows you all kinds of houses and churches and hills. and cemeteries. not just regular old cemeteries, either. REALLY old cemeteries. with the stand up kind of headstones and creepy carving on them. i decided that i like cemeteries. is that morbid?

boston also has ferries that are buses and solar powered trash cans.
that's pretty cool, eh?

the only snag we hit in following the red brick road was when we went to see the uss constitution. old ironsides must be open on the weekends too, cause it was closed, but not just regular old closed, it was swarming with uniforms and really big rubber stampers. i decided i have a horrible fear of uniformed personnel. (is that morbid?) but i liked the big stampers. then all the people came off the boat and it was a graduation. we decided to go on a spy mission and even acquired a few enemy spies who followed us around all the way to the aquarium. we then did some sneaky spy maneuvers and ditched them.

then we went to the green briar and listened to the irish fiddling, but we couldn't hear their accents.

hey! i'm not the only one who thinks lawns are a waste of space!!

i read this blog.

i'm pretty well in love with the idea of planting a victory garden. and we all know i'm in favor of turning front lawns into veggie gardens.



check it out. and if one day i hail from san fran, you'll know why.

i never remember my dreams

and i think we may begin to see why.

i just had a very oddly disturbing dream. the kind that makes you have to stand up and shake yourself before you realize it was a dream and none of it was real or even plausible.

it is a dark dream. dark in color, i mean. a grey/purply blue. like a dickens novel, or, like a bbc film adaptation of a dickens novel. or like a rainstorm.
it's characterized by a slightly panicked feeling and a strong sense of purpose. but what purpose? nadie sabe.
my earliest consciousness of the dream is sitting in my car in the dark at my parents' house. my phone rings and i can't hear well but it's the girl who has kindly agreed to sublet my room for the summer. i can't quite understand what she's saying, but because she offers to pay for may, i assume she's asking me to come get the last of the furniture i have left in the room. i sit back down in the car and try to clear things (although no one else is around and it's very silent outside things seem calmer and quieter within the car. oh. and i guess i got out of the car to talk to her at some point.)
i say "what exactly is it you're asking? because i'm technically in boston so i can't come get my stuff until the end of the month." at this point i become aware that i say "technically" because i'm not in boston. i'm in salt lake. we've come back for a day to get my mother and sister (even though my sister lives in colorado springs) but i really can't come get the furniture because i'm in the car because we are packing (or unloading? what exactly the business with the car is is never clear in the dream.) with excessive franticness to get there on time. somewhere in here i also realize that i'm not even in salt lake because i'm in the driveway of my old montvale house in durham. it's a hot night and maybe a little rain? i'm walking around and while i'm on the phone i see a toe in the back of my car (which is now a hatchback like my sister's new car) i think it is odd that someone is sleeping in my car and think nothing more about it. then i see these enormous birds (i think they're birds. i decide one, at least, is an owl) walking around like totoro. so i run into the house (the girl has stopped talking when i told her i can't come get the stuff and i can't tell if she doesn't know what to say or if the phone died or if she hung up. not my usual self, i just leave the phone in the car.) and tell everyone to come out and see these big scary, creepy birds walking around in the dark (the back part of the driveway, by the woodpile, where we used to park the lincoln.) the fam is doing something (probably playing games) and are taking a long time, but for some reason it's very important that we all go back outside. (i only go far enough in to see that the house is nothing like any of the houses i've ever lived in, but there's a big fireplace with a fire and wood floors and it looks like a nice place to go hang out in, so i'm anxious to finish whatever the beans it is i'm doing outside and get in with the fam) so, impatient with my family who doesn't understand the significance of actually seeing a totoro, i run back, but then i'm scared because they are quite obviously big birds, but not owls and i don't want them to come too close with those big beaks and talons. the chronology gets mixed here, but then maria and my mom come out but there are all these people coming out from the university (which is apparently up on the hill by our house and connected by a little chain-link gate.) it looks like it was a gymnastics or a dance thing cause there are a lot of girls with lots of sparkly make-up and their parents. i explain to my mom and maria (but we were separated by the crowd in our driveway for a minute) that the crowd must have scared them away. and i'm reminding my sister that she never came out the back door of my apartment. and this sad because it's so much more convenient to everything, even though it's less picturesque. (this dream -ha ha pun!- apartment is also for some reason on the top floor with a fire escape out back but it really is, for some reason, so much more convenient than the fancy front door everyone comes in. it's not like an apartment building, though, where you come in the bottom and come up, it's very much like a house with a front door except that my apartment is on the top floor. go figure.) so then we're walking on a trail or an over grown road or something (not like a horror movie, but like an old english country road. like at the beginning of rebecca...) and i bring up the toe in my car and i guess other things have made me suspicious. my mom won't say anything. maria just laughs like they're planning a surprise for me and tells me not to ask and says she doesn't know what i'm talking about. i get angry and want to know what happened and what they won't tell me. my mom says the only important thing for me to do is to make sure when i park the car, that i stay 50 ft. away from it at all times. this tips me off that there is a dead body in the car and my job is to stay safely ignorant and blow up the car and the evidence. (i'm mostly sad to be losing my car, but no worries, i'm duly shocked and horrified to discover that my mother is a calm, cool killer.) my mom says "i guess whoever had the car before us didn't take that good of care of it." i'm confused and feel like i should remind my mother that you can see right in to the "trunk" of my car because it's a hatchback, but maria and my mom are both angry and keep telling me to stop talking. now i'm driving the car and i realize that maybe they just don't want to have this discussion in front of the creepy guy standing in front of us on the trail. so i ask if they want to get in, but then i start backing away down the road. they follow, but then i don't stop at the house and they get annoyed because somehow i've knocked a shopping cart with a trailer loose and it's rolling away. so, eager to pacify, i get out and chase down the cart (i'm very fast. who knew?) and bring it back. then i try to decide how i should deal with getting my car and the cart all the long way back up to the house and determine that the best thing is to put all of my things in the cart. so i start gathering up my things out of the car. there shouldn't be very many, i think, because i've been emptying it, but still it takes a while. and the time it takes me to do this worries my mother, but i think maybe it would be easiest to just blow up the car where it is now and no one will be hurt. then i think that since it's in our driveway they will obviously come to our door and i wonder what my mom wants me to do because, obviously, i'm on my mother's side even though it looks like she may be responsible for the body in the back of my car.


then i wake up and force myself to get up and go talk to liz. it's about 12:30 in our lazy afternoon. it's rainy in boston and very nicely very warm. we've been watching bleak house while liz practices and jord gets new tires on the car. my parents fly in tonight and maria next week.
i'm kind of disturbed. i must say.

but you don't have to say.
really. you don't.

today is not saturday. and today is me

i'm in boston. i'm taking it easy, but i'm planning on staying in touch. but it might be hit and miss. here are some pictures.










i went to the boston public library. it's very fancy.




i have two sisters with me at all times. this is jen and liz on my left.














the tragedy of the trip. the tragedy of procrastination, hesitation and living on credit.


arcade fire plays tonight and i don't have a ticket.
















this is jord's favorite church in cambridge. why is it on its side?


ok. so i'm dumb.

oh well.
hasta.

more pictures!!

kai made the baby peas a playground.
it's very nice.



but it might be just a little big for them right now...

more baby pictures!!

they're getting so big!




(this one's flandro jr.)

plagues of egypt

or school spirit?

he gets to fly a kite...

you can't see it, somehow he has a stealth kite that my cell-phone camera can't pick up, but there, outside my work, is a little child flying a kite. i'm so jealous! (he's the one sitting on the grass. he's kind of an expert; he doesn't even have to run around and look dumb, and the kite is still flies!)

whose idea was this?

um, why is my birthday the coldest day of the week?
why do we have to put up with snow on my newly planted and already very nerve-wracking garden?
my goodness.

in other news, john vanderslice was, for the second year in a row, rather fun.
and viv and i are something quite in love with st. vincent.

happy birthday to me and can we have just a little bit of sunshine and warmth, please?

failure is always the best way to learn

can i talk to you about something that's really bothering me? i don't know who else to talk to.
i hate theoretical knowledge. it's so hard when you're finally called upon to put it into action. and what about when you can't tell if you need to act?
see, i'm really excited about my garden. i'm passionate by nature so any project i undertake, especially one of this magnitude and financial investment, will engender my full capacity for enthusiasm, but gardens are particularly close to my heart.
this garden is also particularly important because it's not just mine or mine and my family's.
i may not be the only one investing in this here project, but i have been placed, admittedly by my own assertions and wishes, as the resident expert. (overlooking the all too problematic detail that i am not the resident of the property which houses my garden.)

now, i do know something about what i'm doing. i have been gardening in some way or another for my whole life.
i have been gardening independently and in a role of some authority for a surprising number of years (i'm not one to be upset by upcoming birthdays marking the passing of time, but my goodness, i am rather older than i expected.)
i have taken a course in horticulture; i have worked in a plant nursery and on a landscaping crew for two summers.
i have never had any major gardening failures. (set backs, less than successes, sure, but no failures.)

i need to talk to someone cause my peas aren't coming up yet and i think i killed them somehow. and we bought some plants and i planted them yesterday.
i was/am way excited. i added the compost, double digged and thoroughly worked the ground a number of times. turning the dry soil with a shovel, all seemed really well. fingering through it, i was less sure; i don't really know, but the texture wasn't...ideal.
no matter.
we knew it was clay soil so we bought some peat moss. the neighbors suggested it and i know it as a remedy for clay soil too. it was the right thing to do, right?
i had already worked the soil and the only times i've ever used peat moss is a couple of times when my mom has just put in a spoonful as we plant. so that's what i did. and i planted my first strawberry. it looked good. i was way happy. then i poured some water on and i knew why they call it clay soil. my garden at home is anything but clay. it's great dirt. we work hard on it every year and we've lived here for coming up on 12 years. i suppose i'm just spoiled, but i've never seen anything like what happens to this dirt when wet. it scared me. i added some more peat moss as a top dressing and continued planting, adding more peat moss to each hole, getting more and more nervous about the state of my soil.
i am particularly nervous about the little corsican mint i stuck into the crannies at the edges of the brick path. that soil i hadn't worked and that's where the dirt to mud to cement problem seems the worst.
now. there is still quite a bit of planting to be done and i can add bunches of peat moss to the whole bed if i really feel that it is necessary, but here's the other thing: (actually there are two)
1- peat moss is quite acidic. i've never been a soil tester, but maybe we should? i was reading a little about broccoli cause i've never grown it and it says if it fails to produce heads it means it needs potash. so i ask my father if potash is by any miracle an acid. "no!" shouted both my parents in unison. "it's quite alkali...base." (putting it into terms my simplistic understanding of chemistry can understand.) so i now i have to worry that in order to solve my drainage and aeration problems i have just caused a production problem for my little baby broccoli.
2- peat moss does the trick for loosening up clay soil. anyone will tell you that. but let me tell you, i've sat in on my share of sales meetings and i know that one of the main things i'm supposed to tell people to make them buy the whatever way too expensive gardener and bloom whatever mix is that over time peat moss actually gets compacted and makes the problem worse!

so now what do i do?
what if nothing grows? so much money wasted.
but if we try to solve the problem it's so expensive.
and everyone is all hyped up cause all i do is talk about the garden and what if i fail?!!
oh so sad and humbling. (not to mention the fact that actually no one but me is hyped up by any stretch of the imagination.)
not that i'm prideful, but i just really want this to be good. and i'm really scared that it won't work.

and i just transplanted some of my chives tonight and i'm a little nervous that they might just keel over from transplant shock. and what if the other half i left at home gets shocked too and dies? i was pretty harsh with the shovel, just hacking it in half in a second and chucking it into a bucket. not that my mom uses the chives all the time, but there's never an ok time to kill a plant unthinkingly.



and kind of the worst thing is, i know that even if everything does die and i turn out to be a horrible gardener without my mother's magic soil, i know no one will be mad and no one will blame me.

bandits

did you ever want to be overrun by bandits;
to hand over all of your things and start over new?
while we were out hunting for food
our house was being robbed
I caught an apple and she caught a fox
so I caught a rabbit but she caught an ox

so upon our return, we found everything gone
which for us was no loss
and we started over
with a rabbit and an ox

so they came down from the north
carrying all they owned
with a basket full of food and clothes
they were stopped by a weekend raid
traveling the woods one day
they tried to put up a fight, but lost.
so we asked for them to stay
with us on their way
to have a drink and rest
and regain their strength

did you ever want to run around with bandits;
to see many places and hide in ditches?
it's not always easy, it's not always easy
when the winter comes and the greenery goes
we will make some shelter
when the winter comes and the greenery goes
we will make some shelter

-midlake

it was in my head.

baby pictures!!!

they're a little shy.

yo yo yo it's april

two funny stories:
1- my sister called me yesterday. (i have 3 sisters. oldest, maria, lives in colorado springs. next, liz, lives in boston. younger, jen, lives in the sl of the c. this was liz calling.)
i was driving home from work and was pleasantly surprised.
"so mom tells me that maria is flying out for your graduation?" she begins with a slightly, ever so slightly, accusatory tone.
"yes..." i respond, wondering if she is offended that we're not flying her out. (hey. $44 is a good deal. if it was $44 from boston to slc, we'd fly her out too.)
"you're graduating?!!"

2-i don't like the union. unfortunately, i often eat breakfast there. this morning i was lucky and got what i came for: a chocolate chocolate donut sans sprinkles.
i sat down and the cute little lady who often smiles, clears my trash for me and always brings a second chair to my table for one, paused today after adding the chair. she set down her newspaper and at first i thought she was offering me some reading material.
then she pointed to the first letter and said "m. a. k. i. n. g. how you say?" and so i told her. we progressed through the entire headline ("making the 'mos' of your money" i've never hated puns so badly in all my life.) confusing "mos" with "mouth" and "of" with "up".
i'm certain i didn't make things clear to her, but i was kind of honored that she would ask me.

why don't you find out for yourself?

you know how life never happens how you expect? i hate that.
like for example: holi.
i've never missed a holi since i've known it existed. for me it's one of those things that takes precedence over everything else.
this year was set to be ideal.
it was late in the month, we'd been having a warm spell, and it was spring break so i was rested.
nothing like last year when i was frantically moving the entire day and was so tired i almost didn't want to go.
this year a number of people were going to come for the first time.
and i was going with them, to show them the ropes.
i was excited. beaming. busting.

but i didn't go to holi this year. the unthinkable happened: i missed it. and not only did i miss it, i was there to witness for my own self that i had indeed missed it. and not only that, i had to watch, powerlessly, just how annoying the provo-ites can be.

(it was due to a combination of any number of factors and the reason is truly irrelevant.)



you know how life never happens how you expect? i love that.
like for example: my garden.
i love gardens. i love taking care of them. i used to work at millcreek gardens. larene put me in charge of vegetables. almost immediately. that ought to tell you how much i love gardening.
i used to plan my garden over thanksgiving; my old garden barely tilled under, i could hardly wait for the next year.
this year i had decided to not even try. i moved from home and there's no garden plot where i live. i tried small pots last year. it was a miserable failure.
i don't know how to take care of pots; i'm much better in the real earth. and i'm even busier than i was last year.
i was sad. frustrated. resigned.

but i don't have to be gardenless this year. the unthinkable happened: someone offered to let me use their garden and THEY MEANT IT! and not only did they mean it, they're more than willing to help. and not only do they help, they get almost as excited about it as me. (i said almost. no one can get as excited as me about such a silly thing.) and not only that, i get to see how wonderful real friends can be.

notice

i want to say that today i have lived in my house for exactly one year.

this is momentous because ever since i went to spain i have felt like a transient.
most of my nomadic ways were by my own free will and choice, but it is nonetheless draining to have to carry your life with you wherever you go, to be wary of putting things in cupboards because it will be that much work to pack it up again.

i have lived in one place for a year and have no intention of moving for at least a little while, so i thought it worthy of note.

who do you want to blame?

do you know those days when you just think "i'm a fool for being alive"?
i have more of those than i think is my fair share.
which, liza, is why i have a happy blog. cause otherwise all i would think about is how somehow, just when i'd discovered all the tips and tricks i needed to finally master my one great photographic ambition, the entire bottle of liquid light got exposed.

i should've had a good day today, but it's nearing 11pm and i just am not happy.
i can't really say why.
i didn't necessarily have plans so it's not that i didn't get to do them.
i did work on my project AND do homework so it's not that i'm lazy.
i got to talk to rennie and kathryn, which is sadly rare.
cam sent me a happy birthday text.
(by the bye, i think it is so super awesome that cam, out of all people, would remember my birthday)
i ate good food (my dad is perfecting his sandwich repertoire and tonight i sampled the latest reincarnation of the tuna melt, which i love. jalapenos. who knew?)
and i finally learned how to operate tivo (which may solve all of my "i hate tv/turn off the idiot box/candy everybody wants/what show's that? oh sorry, i work nights. and mornings and days." problems)

all in all, i would have to classify today as a good day and myself as an absolute brat for being in a sad mood right now.

i think i'm going to bed.

a post

so i just wrote about today on my happy blog and i realized in panic as i posted that the last line could sound totally sarcastic, but the word i said in my head was cynical and then i remembered that just today i was checking-in (? i don't really know what to call what i do) a magazine called the "skeptical inquirer" [emphasis added] and i want to know the minute differences of these 3 words which DO NOT describe my happy blog.

not to say that i lack a working definition of the words, but i think it's an interesting train of thought. and if you don't believe me, i'll show you the highly illuminating conversation i had with joey on the topic.

thank you.

i win the contest because i say i do.

(what contest?)

.

there are parts of it i like, i admit.
but don't you think the blog is looking a little blah?
boring?

the metaphysics of literality

scott just asked me if vanity (or pride or talking about pride, whatever. this isn't his blog) was obnoxious in a blog.
i told him no, of course.
(i won't go into that because... i don't feel like it.)

and then i realized that my blog is probably where i am most vain (which is really kind of pathetic)

scott hates links.
scott and i have fights about links.
that is also pathetic. (and my theme song plays: "riding on city buses for a hobby is sad...")

i just told scott how much i like linking in my blogs, most especially (in the supreme act of blogging vanity) to my own older posts.
take, for example, the following chain of events.
in reverse chronological order (which, i might add, i have already posted about):

1- http://barcelona-calling.blogspot.com/2007/02/meet-me-there-in-blue.html
when you click on the title of this post it takes you to the song the title came from, "in circles" by sunny day real estate.
within the post i refer to an earlier post ("walking in circles"):
2-http://barcelona-calling.blogspot.com/2007/01/mystery-in-time-of-certainty-i-wish-i.html
this post is based on real life events. i really was just circling and circling around on the train platform. and not for the first time, i might add. yikes.
the link here ("circles"), again, goes to an earlier post where, interestingly, (if you read the comments and follow the discussion back up) i confess to spiralling inward:
3-http://barcelona-calling.blogspot.com/2006/11/cant-wait-until-you-cant-wait-til-you.html
if you click on the title of this post it takes you to a contemporary post on my happy blog

3a-http://happyment.blogspot.com/2006/11/but-what-if-they-like-it.html
which in turn (clicking on the title) takes you to another contemporary post on my blog with ren (i'm seriously letting way too much out about how sick i am):

3b-http://renandjo.blogspot.com/2006/11/and-lock-us-in-cannery-with-your.html which finally, in a move so brilliant i'm still excited about it and sad that no one caught on to the joke, takes you (again, by clicking the title) to a video of owen pallet (as final fantasy) playing the "title song", as it were, which is a direct reference to arcade fire whom joey and i are going to see i boston in may. (but not just playing, playing along with a overhead projector/transparency/craziness no one will ever understand):

3c-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC2nKcB-S2s

towards the end of this post you find yet another link to an earlier post ("circles"), which is the key to my philosophizing. it is a full-circle moment in my life, where, yet again, i realize that playing on the internet is my refuge from a solitary life:
4-http://barcelona-calling.blogspot.com/2006/06/theres-solitary-man-crying.html
and finally, the only not so self-involved link in the bunch, is a link to a dance step, the "gypsy" which, in so many ways, is an effective representation of my insanity:

3d-http://www.srcf.ucam.org/round/dances/elements#0.2.GSUMN2.2PL4XM.I4SFGD.61

santas y buenas