In brief (ish)

I often think of things I'd like to write here and then don't do it, perhaps because I feel that doing so would take too much time or because the thoughts are too long to type on my phone keyboard. This, however, is a brief thought, and definitely not too long.

I've known for a while that I am somewhat lactose intolerant, but in general I eat what I want anyway aside from limiting my cheese intake and eating cereal with almond milk.

Yesterday I put real milk in my cereal (oh, the horror) and today I woke up wishing I were dead. That isn't a metaphor--I actually lay there and wished I could simply wink out of existence.

Obviously there are other factors at play here, and I am certain that my fatigue and my uncertainty regarding how to proceed or whether I am in the right place in life and making the right decisions contributed to the moment. Still, I don't usually get that far. So that's something to keep an eye on.

Hello, April

It was downright cold this morning, after a chilly weekend that followed a few days of record-breaking heat. This is all my fault. I took my winter coats out of my closet too early.

But the fresh-cut grass smells beautifully sweet this morning, and the combination of smell and cool freshness felt like a morning at Camp, which is always nice. Made me a little homesick, though.


This past weekend I made two avocados worth of gorgeous, chunky guacamole* and bought two bags of sprouted grain chips by "Simply Sprouted: Way Better" snacks. Both were surprisingly delicious, and I have just run out of guacamole. Really a shame.


In other news, I have temporarily ceased recycling (I'm quite ashamed of this) because our back door (which leads to the recycling bins) is entirely blocked by inchworms and webbing. Also the recycling, which needs to be carried through the house to be taken out, is covered in inchworms and webbing. Gotta love April under the trees.




















*I make it wrong, always, but I love it this way: avocado, minced garlic, salt, and apple cider vinegar to taste.

Probably the best thing I've ever eaten

Pasta (in this case, thin spaghetti) with olive oil, garlic, a little parmesan, salt, and pepper, and sriracha, eaten with chunks of ripe avocado. It is AMAZING.

Let it rise.

I would wish so hard that the phrase "precious moments" hadn't been co-opted by that god-awful porcelain giant-eyed cherub crap, if I thought my wishing would change anything. The phrase isn't usable for anything meaningful, or anything other than an ad for that line. But the moments I spend with my mother--last week, rearranging the basement; this week, kneading bread and slipping it into loaf pans and pyrex bowls to rise--are precious ones to me. Some memories acquire a glow and a lustre as they age, but these have it straight out of the box. Sometimes I am reluctant to begin--running around removing bracelets and fitzing with an apron, filling my water bottle and tying my hair back with a headband--but the moment my hands touch the dough, it's over. There's no more rush, no more irritation, no more anxiousness. There's just me and my hands and this dough, and my mother and her wise hands and the dough, and the flour, and the kneading board. There is nothing else. It never lasts long enough.

Well, it's been a few weeks.

I keep finding little things I want to write about--

the way the water in the creek has carved out a new path through all its ethereal little islands of leaves 

the way, the day after her son's family moved back out, the sun room of a woman I work for had the warm, empty, hastily abandoned feel of a summer camp at August's end

the stunningly beautiful rain of leaves in each autumn breeze 

the rainbow around the full moon--

But I just never do. So here I am, mentioning them in passing. 

Here are two more recent things in my memory:

1. I just made myself two eggs for dinner, fried over-easy in coconut oil and covered with tumeric, chili powder, parmesan cheese, and garlic. Good God they were wonderful.

2. I've gone out a couple of times recently with a guy named Ian. And, though I harbor near-constant suspicions that we are not each others' types, he is nevertheless really sweet and pretty awesome, and his texts often make me laugh out loud. Also he's agnostic, so if this goes anywhere my mom is really gonna love that. But anyway, we'll see.

Happy Veteran's Day, everyone.

Things I've been forgetting.

Last week when I was tutoring Layla out on the dock, I saw something white bobbing in the water under the walkway. It looked like one of those soft, white, round mushrooms (which don't grow in the water, of course), but turned out to be a goose egg. Despite my best efforts, I failed to effectively convey to her that the watery sound from inside the egg meant that it was dead, that it was rotten, and so on. Anticipating the smell and fearing the view I didn't want to crack it, but I allowed myself to be convinced. I carried it away and downwind from the house, stood back, and cracked the shell with a stick. I would have let Layla, but she lost her nerve at the last moment. It seemed that somehow water had seeped into the shell, so what came out was a terrible smell, a piece of embryonic sac, and half a shell's worth of grey liquid. Layla spent the next ten or fifteen minutes telling me that I should have cracked it more gently, though I tried to explain that "baby goose eggs" need to be kept warm in their mother's nest; that all of the goslings had already hatched and didn't she remember them?; that floating in the water for weeks will never let an egg live. She said that she had hoped that if I cracked the shell gently enough, it would turn back into a baby goose.



I and my father went to pick my sister up from the Greyhound station the other night, and from the parking lot I looked up into the night sky and saw dozens of bats swooping and gliding through the air above the baseball diamond. In my experience, bats don't usually soar and glide, actually--they flutter around and frequently change direction to go after insects. It's also rare to have such a clear view of their motions, though, so perhaps I just haven't been as observant as I might. The lights from the stadium shone straight up into the air, and I can only assume that the air was filled with enough light-loving nocturnal insects that the bats could just soar straight through the beams and get a mouthful on each pass. Good on ye, bats! I love 'em.


Friday, just before the goose egg incident, Sara and Brian and I went to see the VMFA Picasso exhibit in its dying days. I don't love Picasso particularly, but as ours was the only museum on the East Coast to get the exhibit, and as Mr P is super duper famous and influential and all, I felt that I should go. It was good. I mean, he's talented, you know. Also, he really likes boobs. A lot. Just a heads-up, there.

Saturday S and B and I went to an herb farm and took in a talk about beekeeping and met up with Anna and her friend Amy, who seemed pretty cool. Anna and Amy and I accompanied the beekeeper back to his hives and watched him replace the queen and the observation frame and essentially got another lecture lesson about beekeeping, which was really cool. We ate some lavender iced cream and some honey iced cream and some chocolate iced cream, and I (and possibly Brian, but not while I was looking, not that I was looking often) helped Sara pick out a bunch of herbs and tomato plants and suchness for a hopeful new garden for her family. We got variegated basil, among other things. Not elfin thyme, though, despite my rabid support. Sara and I also bought fricking adorable beeswax candles in the shape of a little bear with his arms around a beehive (the stereotypical old beehive shape, rather than the more practical but significantly less cute boxy hives of today) and with a relatively large bee perched on the outside of the hive. They smell like honey of course, thus making me want to consume honey, and they are unreasonably cute, and I can't understand how Sara plans to actually use hers as a candle. I'm pretty sure I could never set that thing on fire.

Also on Saturday with S and B: impromptu (for us) fish fry; Strawberry Fields Festival where were sold unsprayed strawberries, spinach, kale, and no free kittens. Lovely. And buying cookie dough and cooking cookies not-as-long as the wrapping says, thus producing perfect soft, gooey cookies. And Kelly and Junior happening to be near my house, and being convinced to come over, and Sara and Brian leaving to dinner.

Saturday sans Sara and Brian: Hanging out with Kelly and Junior, and retrieving Chloe from the bus stop whilst they take in Picasso in all his slightly obscene glory.

Sunday: church with Chloe and Junior (who opted to stay, possibly partially because he seems to really, really love the couch in our basement. It really is excellent for sleeping), and an afternoon spent with my excellent cousin Sara (not to be confused with the Sara of Saturday), talking and reading magazines and rifling through items destined for the Goodwill.

All in all, quite a nice weekend.

I think there may have been other stuff, but I am not sure. I may have forgotten still.


Song I've been playing on repeat for a couple of days now (I haven't watched all the way through this video, so I apologize if there is any unforeseen weirdness):

Tone.

You know what's utterly delicious? Leftover Chinese food: beef with broccoli from that takeout place down the street. You know what's really not that delicious? Salad with no chicken in. Just saying.


ALSO COMPLETELY DELICIOUS AND WITH WHICH I AM UNREASONABLY OBSESSED:




Also omg fried rice is the best thing ever, ever, ever invented. Ever.



On another note, it totally sucks when people seem really awesome and then you realize that they don't actually, you know, like, understand the concept of boundaries. Or, for example, the idea that the world doesn't revolve around what they want. Or that their problems are not my problems. It's not the most endearing thing in the world.



On yet another note, Sunday was largely really awesome. Jack and our parents and I had 8:30 am "brunch" for mother's day, after which Jack and I each crashed for several hours. Generally I try to get to church on Sunday mornings, but we had been to the funeral for Kelly's grandmother on Saturday, which included a mass. It was (of course) very sad, but the service was beautiful. Being around so many people that I loved was beautiful. So anyway, no church on Sunday. When I woke up there was a distant* cousin stopping in at our house on his way out of town, so we talked and had lunch, and he's an interesting fellow. Possibly an electrical engineer? Or trained as such. I spent most of the rest of the day cleaning my room (relative success!), and at one point took a break to walk Miley. There were several separate points of awesomeness on said walk:

I smelled honeysuckle!
I also smelled cut grass!
I also smelled cigarette smoke, which would normally be not-awesome, except that it was coming from Gina, whom I have not seen in probably eight years. She lives in the Norfolk area, and her mother is a friend of my mom's and her maternal aunt--River's mom--lives behind us. She and her mom and grandmother AND HER DAUGHTER were in town for mother's day. Her daughter is six now! I had never seen her before, but she is so beautiful. It made my day to see them.


































*I actually have no idea how we are related, but "Armistead" is a family name, and I'm pretty sure someone referred to him as a cousin at some point. Actually, there are rather a lot of people to whom I am related, but related in some completely obscure (to me) way. So "distant" here really only means that he isn't a first cousin, or (as far as I know) a second.

Regarding my standards:

Firstly, let me say that yogurt plus granola plus banana slices equals a culinary masterpiece. This almost counts as "cooking" for me. Isn't that sad?


Secondly, Miley-the-drama-queen was itching for a walk at 1:30 after I took her at 9:30, so in order to tide her over until her 4pm walk, I took her up the street to the pond. The reason any of this is worthy of note is that there were frog eggs in the water. Pretty awesome. They weren't placed extremely well--clumped around a random stick that was/is stuck into the muck* at the bottom--but still. Awesome. Miley splashed past it and disturbed a frog, actually. I don't think that amphibians particularly guard their eggs, so maybe it was just a random little guy/girl hanging around, but still. Cool.




EDIT: My BestBuy stuff came in the mail! NEW CDS FTW. I haven't bought an album in ages, so it's pretty exciting. It's pretty exciting especially because of the new OkGo cd chillin in the mailer envelope. Want to know what's in the liner notes? Graphs. They did an analysis of the cd and another of the book after which it is named, and presented graphs on comparative sentence length, syllables, parts of speech, and words in common, in that order. From a latter page of the notes:

"The diagrams on pages 2-7 compare the album's lyrics to an excerpt of the book it is named after, General A.J. Pleasonton's The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Color of the Sky, published in 1876 by Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, Philadelphia. The graphs on page 8 compare the lyrics with the entirety of Pleasonton's text."

Have I mentioned that this band is great?


Even more intense:

"The front cover displays themes common to the book and the album. Each line represents a sentence, with the album's lyrics (not including the bonus tracks) fanning to the left and the text of the book fanning to the right. Each theme is represented by a color. For sentences dealing with multiple themes, the colors are added together as light is...such that each theme's color both lightens and tints the resultant line."

Themes:
1. Unfounded or Wildly Broad Claims
2. Wonderment
3. Causality/Unavoidable Consequences/ Compelled Behavior
4. Reference to an Individual, or Direct Address to/from One
5. Anecdotal or Expository Context
6. Figuring It All Out
7. Unanswerable/Impossible/Rhetorical Questions
8.  Light/Optics/Color
9. Fire/Combustion/Chemical/Physical Reactions
10. Attraction/Repulsion
11. Things That, in Retrospect, Proved to be Wrong
12. Plants and Animals/Animal Behavior
13. The Sky or Things Falling From It [As I typed this, I heard "and now the sky is falling" play through my speakers. Ha.]
14. Women
15. Optimism/Hope
16. Dissatisfaction
17. Bodies/Body Parts/Bodily Function
18. God/Faith
19. Corruscation
20. Death
21. Magic
22. Global Mechanics
23. Confusion/Curiosity
24. Pride
25. Prescriptions for a Better World

Theme visualization:

*That "stick stuck muck" thing was entirely unintentional. I just couldn't find a more satisfactory way to word it.

Playing catch-up.

I need a haircut. I have split ends, but I don't think that's ever made me go get a cut. The issue now is that my hair is long enough that it's beginning to get on my nerves.


I thought Food Lion was supposed to be 24 hours, and I was counting on it being 24 hours last night when I suddenly got a crazy apple juice jones at Kelly's house around 11. I can't really explain that. We were watching The Big Bang theory, and Sheldon poured himself some juice, and suddenly I just had to have some. I knew the Wal-Mart near where I'm house sitting would close at midnight, and the one near my house was further out of the way than I wanted to drive, so I went to Food Lion. And it was closed. Luckily, Walgreens was still there for me, and only a little bit farther* up the road. They only had the small individual bottles, but that was okay. I got two of A.J. and one of apple cran raspberry, the existence of which I had never suspected. I haven't tried it yet. I'm a little worried about it.



This is only about a 50-50 chance right now, but Sara might be able to come with me to Festival International. I don't think it's possible for me to explain how awesome that would be.



This one I've been forgetting for a week: Layla wrote a book! She had an assignment for school to write a five-page book with a sentence and a drawing on each page--but she'd never written a sentence before. She and I started and she finished with her mom and grandmother. She sounded out and wrote (and illustrated, of course) "Princess Jasmine walked home. The prince went to meet her. She stopped to look at the birds. They met and lived happily ever after. Then they had a beautiful baby girl." The story is called "Anastasia's Life." In case you don't know or don't remember, Layla is just barely six.



I'll miss the stark drama of the bright moon and bare trees, but the full and lush branches of the summer months have their own magic. Right now it's easy to tell by looking up through the sharp silhouettes of the midnight trees which ones gauge seasons by daylight, and which by temperature. The tips of so many tree branches are swelling with new growth or buds or even flowers, but there are still a few holdouts standing dormant among the fallen petals, knowing that this freakishly warm weather isn't necessarily the equivalent of spring. They will wisely wait until the days have actually lengthened enough to justify using their stores of energy to put out leaf buds.

As much as I love the flowering trees, it seems a little odd to me that there are so many that are flowering right now. I would have thought that natural selection over the years would have at least shifted the balance in favor of those that wait for more daylight. Maybe this is because (sometimes) getting a head-start on the other trees gives the flowering trees enough of an advantage in terms of reproduction to keep the balance (apparently) in their favor. Or maybe there just isn't as much of a difference in survival rates as I feel like there should be.


























*No, I have not learned the difference between farther/further. I should, and I've considered it, but usually when I've looked for it I've found "it's complicated and nobody pays attention to that stuff anymore, so you shouldn't worry about it." I'm not sure whether I've ever actually seen the information laid out, but I guess if I have, I didn't spend enough energy to memorize it.

Once again, my train of thought has left the station without me.

So in lieu of whatever it was that I was going to say, here's a link to my profile on that terrible website on which I recently made a profile. I am getting so sick of this site, but I just deleted my "about me" and replaced it with insect trivia, which amuses me.

I spent over seven hours today painting. Did I mention that? Not even with paint. With block filler. Like, on cinder blocks, which were largely covered with cobwebs despite our recent power washing adventures. Seven hours. Awesome.

And now, Mexican food, sucka.

This is a problem for the temporal lobe.

I love V8. Not unrelatedly, we are out of V8.


I keep just sort of not feeling like eating this week, and then not noticing until the end of the day that I've hardly consumed anything besides water. Probably I should cut that out. For example, today: 3 slices of pizza at Chuck E Cheese; the end of the bottle of V8. I am considering some ramen. Or a sandwich. One, of course, requires more steps than the other. HMMM.



EDIT:

I would like it to be known that, despite the number of steps involved, I make a really killer ham and turkey and cheddar and lettuce and onion and tomato and sliced pickle sub sandwich. It probably could have used a little more pickle though. Every sandwich needs some crunch.

And now: on to see Red Riding Hood with Taylor and Kelly and Maggie. I am into conjunctions today, okay?

Loves.

I love V8 juice. I love the taste, I love the texture, and I love that I feel good about myself when I drink it--because it's made of vegetables and fruit. I used to have a near-obsession with orange juice, but since my body had decided that it isn't okay with things that are as acidic as orange juice, V8 has gained favor. The fact that it's made with tomatoes helps. I am crazy about tomatoes.


Other things I love, in descending order:

My cousin Sara. We hardly ever hang out, but she is fabulous. We hung out tonight--I was going to go over there to watch a movie, but I stayed for six hours, just talking. We're much more similar than I had realized. Hopefully this mutual realization will lead to us actually spending real time together outside of family gatherings.

Easy A. We watched it tonight. It's kind of stupid in a lot of ways, and I definitely wouldn't want to watch it with certain people, but I loved the wit. And I loved the girl's family in the movie, particularly the father.



And now, at this ridiculously late hour, I am finally going to sleep. Adieu, internet! Until we meet again.

Wednesday.

Too many things I do, I do thoughtlessly. I would like to be a more thoughtful person, but this is difficult for me to pull off.

The difficulty factor is increased by the fact that I also want to live less thoughtfully--that is, I want to learn to live instinctively, in the moment, without analyzing the life out of every action I take. So yes. It's a difficult balance.


I saw a rainbow ringing the moon tonight. I saw one last night too, not as strongly. But then this evening I saw rainbows around porch lights as well, and that made it far less special. Maybe it's something about my contacts.


Today was Jack's birthday--his 22nd. He went to a UVA game with my dad, and my mother and I made him a blueberry pie. Delicious.

There is a sleepy cat in my lap, deliberately, though I tried to discourage her. I'm warmer than the couch, I suppose. Every so often she lazily drapes her paw across my touchpad, effectively preventing me from moving my cursor. But I love her anyway. Faith.

An advertisment*.

I put this up on facebook, but since they've removed the feature that keeps one's status message at the top of one's profile page, I think I'll put it here too. Just in case it makes a difference. Thing:

I am in the market for a temporary significant other for Monday. There will be no discrimination with regard to race, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. Days past Monday will be considered, especially considering the fact that chocolate and flowers will be much cheaper beginning on the 15th.


In case anyone was worrying or scoffing, this is not a high pressure crappy holiday celebration ad. This is more of a "who wants to hang out and possibly trade candy** and/or flowers" kind of thing.


There have already been a couple of takers, so actually, later dates might work better. I just, you know, tend to make myself into a hermit when left to my own devices. So the more the merrier.

























*Misspelling intentional and executed in the hopes of bringing to mind the British pronunciation of the word.

**NOT TUMS HEARTS. If you give me tums hearts, I am not giving you any of my chocolate.

Thoughts on what I do.

I have always been one for pulling things together--science and religion or groups of friends, mostly. I try to make everything fit together. I try to get all of my friends to be friends with one another. I try to get along with everyone. I try to find ways to make the craziest theories and cultural mythologies line up, and I don't see science and Christianity as being as irreconcilable as people tend to claim. I am not good at straight lines, but I am a master of blending. And I want to believe in everything. Maybe because I don't usually make things up, I want to find the origins of everything--every word, every song, every turn of phrase, every belief and story. Maybe some came from nowhere. But why are there so many fairy tales, so many religions? Why not one or the other? And why is North America so full of ghost stories, when in other countries no one believes in ghosts at all? In Zimbabwe they aren't even discussed--but almost nobody swims, because the fear of mermaids is very real, even in fresh water. (Zim is landlocked, by the way.) And how do we align science, not with religion, but with the things that just happen, that don't line up with much of anything? And it's not just hearsay. I've heard plenty that can only be backed up by the words of my friends--miraculous healings, ghost stories, and so on--but I've experienced some myself, too. I've mentioned them before: I dreamed the future, once. That is, I think I've dreamed it many times, and remembered in deja-vu type moments, but I dreamed and remembered before the event. I dreamed of a stone and woke up with it in my hand. I heard someone calling my name when no one was around. What are those things, and things like that? Magic? Some natural force that science doesn't yet understand? Communiques from some higher being?

I have no idea. I couldn't and can't control or reproduce any of them. But there's no way that the "that's impossible" argument will ever convince me of much of anything.









Side notes:

There is just nothing like standing in a forest and looking up at a perfectly clear night sky. The trees stand tall and true, their gnarled limbs pushing and pressing upward forever, with the stars glittering through their strong fingers. I can't get enough of it.

And there is just something about holding a piece of fruit. It feels alive, magic. Bananas don't count--no seeds, no magic. But apples? For a while in college I used to take an apple from the cafeteria every day and bring it with me to psychology. I'd just sit in my seat before class and hold it in my two hands and look at it and smell it and adore it. And then eat it.

I know, I sound completely insane. Still, that doesn't change the truth of the matter. Fruit is magical. Seeds are magical. How could something so small become a tree*?

Anyway, oranges work too. We have oranges, and I held and adored one the other day before eating it. Magical, and far tastier than cheap cafeteria apples. (Actually, I only took an apple when they broke from their usual granny smith/red [un]delicious pattern. So the ones I ate were decent.)



Lastly, it has been brought to my attention that I gleefully referenced "The Book To Come Before The Book That Will End All Books," and frustratingly neglected to mention its actual title. (No, it isn't actually called TBTCBTBTWEAB. Sorry if that was confusing.) The Book is called Towers of Midnight, and was written by Brandon Sanderson using notes left for him by the late Robert Jordan. I finished it Monday night. It was excellent. I am toying with the idea of reading it again, since I clearly rushed through it the first time (840-some pages in two days is rather a lot, even for me) before returning it to the library. If you like fantasy, and if you like book series that go on forever (as I REALLY do), I highly recommend the series.















































*In another age, I probably would have been a druid. Hopefully the kind that didn't ritualistically violently murder people and leave them in random swamps like the Bog Man.

Edit: okay, I think this is awesome:

Pageviews yesterday 5

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All I'll say on the subject, I promise: the night is so gorgeous tonight. So clear! So much sky! So many stars! And the trees are magnificent.

Has it been since Thursday already? Oh. Oops. Well dinner (ish--I had half a pitiful sandwich and a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie) with David was okay. I think possibly I realized that It (capital I, referring to the two of us) isn't a good idea. Obviously I have come to this realization before, but what I mean is that possibly it's beginning to take. Isn't that something?


I think I also mentioned that the Book To* End All Books was sitting at the library with my name on it. It wasn't on the hold shelf--it was behind the front desk. The reference librarian who found it for me thinks that "it just got put there," but personally I believe that they were afraid someone would just walk off with this most precious of books.



No, I'm serious. Do you know how many holds are on that book? When I requested it, on November 27th, there were already sixteen holds. It came out on November second. I didn't expect to get it until March. 2012. And the thing is eight hundred and forty three pages long. In hardback. The fact that I have it in my hands right now is very little short of a miracle.



An aside: vanilla iced cream with cocoa powder right before bed is a horrible, horrible, completely delicious habit.



























*Come Right Before The Book That Will

I really do not love the way I have become hypersensitive to acidic foods. I love orange juice. Orange juice is listed among my facebook interests. I haven't been able to drink it (or not without burning my lips, anyway) for weeks now.

I do love the way this blue snuggie Jack got me fans out behind me like a cape when I walk. (I wear it backwards. This is really the only way to wear snuggies, if you ask me.)


I do not remember the other things I was planning to say.

"Handmade" things that I can make and mail.

You know, in case you commented on my "handmade things" pay-it-forward facebook status. Choose your poison.

Food items:
-boursin cheese
-pimiento cheese
-candied orange peel (dipped in chocolate or not)
-cake balls (cake mixed with icing, dipped in chocolate)
-thin mints
-assorted cookies. oatmeal or sugar, with or without choc chips, raisins, nuts, whatever.
-ditto for fudge/brownies
-lemon bars
-really excellent hard-shelled chocolate truffles of assorted flavors. Seriously. If I weren't so lazy, I could probably make a living off these.
-not meringues even a little bit.

Other items:
If you are so inclined, a recording of the C family girls singing--like the one I mentioned the other day, only hopefully a lot better.

I can make a mean collage if I am so inclined, or, relatedly, rude (as in rough, not impolite. Unless you ask nicely.) papier-mache sculptures. Ex: Roger.

Speaking of dinosaurs, I am evidently really good at making them out of rice krispies treats. Other edible decorations upon request.

You are welcome to commission a poem on the topic/in the form of your choosing. I have had the most success with sonnets, blank verse, free verse, limericks, and haiku, though I would be happy to return to or experiment with others. Except pantoum. I refuse to write another pantoum.

I can make mobiles out of shapes cut from tin cans, OR I can make one of those cheesy candle holders where the light shines out through the punched holes.

I am known for my excellent rock paintings. That is, scenes/things painted on flattish rocks. My favorites thus far have, I think, been the waterfall and the anglerfish. I haven't done one yet of a waterfall with an anglerfish, but I am beginning to think that that might be up next.

How do you feel about "art photography?" I would be happy to mat frame a large photograph of a spoon, if you like. Or a landscape or a bug, whatever.





A note on all crafts: please be aware that I am aware that most/all of the nonedible listings are superfluous junk. I love making crafts, but generally I only make them when I know they're going to end up in somebody else's house. I have enough junk.

Family

I complained (in an extremely restrained fashion, believe me) yesterday about the preparations for today's party. Perhaps you remember, or will read it in a second, or not, whatever. But I'd like to say that it went off without a hitch, and I love my family. The party was at 4, so people started arriving at 3:30. My cousin walked our dog for us. His parents brought an assortment of crackers with homemade dips. The next aunt and uncle that came walked in with gifts for the bride and groom to be, a box of rooibos tea (we'd run out) and a hot pot/electric kettle, and set to work helping us put together the sweet potato rounds with smoked turkey salad. More people came in with more food and more hot pots and started making teas, putting together snacks, heating water, helping my dad pick out a bow tie, hugging everyone and talking and being altogether lovely. Later on my mother played the recording that Brian had made of us (mom, me, Chloe) singing--had I mentioned that we did that? As a belated Mother's Day present for my mom--and everyone was so complimentary, even though I felt like it needed a lot of work. One of my uncles got teary. And Ginny asked Chloe and me to sing in her wedding! Chloe hadn't made firm plans to be in town that weekend, as this is all very short notice and she'll be coming down from Ct basically just for the day, but that decided it. Ginny said she'd send the song to us tonight. I feel so honored, and so nervous, and so hopeful that it will go well. I haven't sung for a real audience in a very long time, and I definitely struggle with stage fright. But hopefully, with enough practice and enough self pep talks, everything be great.

I was also really glad to have a chunk of time to spend with my cousin Sara. We made a movie-watching date. I am looking forward to it. Outside of parties, we haven't gotten together in ages.

Lastly, as the icing on the cake, as it were, my mother kept telling people how helpful I was in the preparations for this party. I really had not been under the impression that I did much--not because she said I didn't, but because, I suppose, I ended up spending so much time just sort of sitting around. Also because I felt like cooking was the main work of the thing, and I didn't do any. I did rearrange the living room though, and move various pieces of furniture downstairs, and do a lot of the work on the bathroom, and evidently that counted for a lot. It felt wonderful to receive so much gratitude, even if I didn't feel I earned it all.


And singing! At a wedding! I'm a little tempted to upload some of what we recorded at Holly and Brian's, but unfortunately it's all one track. And some of it (namely, our attempt at "Hard Times") is seriously rough.


In case you don't know the song, here is a much better version of it than ours:

There just isn't enough trashy in my life.

It has come to my attention that there is nothing in my wardrobe that sparkles. Not one thing. Where can I find cheap crap with glitter and sprinkles*?

This appalling lack of trashy came to my attention on New Year's Eve, when Eva and I went to get dressed and while she was putting on a sparkly tank top, I was dejectedly pawing through my piles of cotton blends. It was a sad moment.


One thing I am happy about, though, [disclaimer here: I am so terrible at drawing a line when it comes to TMI and noonegivesashit and "that girl is so crazy (in a bad way)." I am aware of this. You should be aware that this is maybe one of those times where my inability to properly screen my subject matter is more apparent] is my colorful undergarments. I got some new ones via mail order while I was in Scotland, and I noticed this afternoon that the under layers I was wearing were (are) colored as follows: blue and white polka dot, plum-colored, bright yellow, and bright blue. And in the dirty clothes pile on the floor were (are) pink silk long johns with a matching shirt, and some more pink and blue and bright green and purple and "with stars" stuff. So maybe most of my normal clothes are boring and I have too strong an attachment to blue jeans and zip hoodies, but it's okay, because I'm like a mullet. Business in the front, yes?


I bought new chapstick (I use the term loosely in that I never buy Chapstick, only sticks of wax-based stuff to keep my lips from bleeding when it gets too dry out) tonight, and I didn't like it at all. This is at least the second time in a row that this has happened. Not cool. I gave it to Chloe. I've been using Burt's Bees for a while, but have been looking (out of boredom and curiosity more than dissatisfaction) for an alternative. I haven't been particularly successful, obviously.


We're throwing an engagement party for my cousin this weekend, and as trying to get me to cook or bake is generally a pretty painful experience for all involved (not that I can't; just that trying to get me to is a huge pain), my main job in all this is to paint the bathroom and not eat the freshly baked biscotti or cheese pennies or ham biscuits with pimento cheese, or whatever other delicious things get made this week, all from scratch. I'm sure that second part of the job, the not-eating-stuff part, will get harder as the week progresses, but at the moment I am feeling the irritation that is trying to scrape a bathroom that, for some unfathomably asinine reason, was painted ten years ago with flat paint. Except for the closet door frame, and one stretch of wall below the medicine cabinet, which were sensibly painted with semigloss. Whose idea was that? Flat paint, by the way, does not hold up to moisture. Like, at all. Don't f-ing paint your bathroom (or kitchen, for God's sake) with flat paint.


On the plus side, and on an entirely different note, we lost power the other day. I think some drunken idiot ran into a power pole or something, because a huge section of the neighborhood lost power on a fairly clear, non-windy evening. Obviously that isn't super great. It's "on the plus side" because I texted Jack to tell him the power was out and ask him if he needed a flashlight or extra blankets or anything, and then he came home with five snuggies. I have way too much stubborn pride to actually buy a snuggie, but damned if I'm going to let one go to waste. Also, as it turns out, a snuggie is (or seems to be) the perfect thing for my father, who is nearly always cold but doesn't like using blankets or adding lots of layers. Cozy light blanket with arms? It's the perfect compromise! I can't imagine why we didn't think of this before.
































*Halfway meant to type "sparkles," but had intended to type "metallic sequins" before I stopped paying attention to what I was typing. I think I'll leave sprinkles though.

**Homeless footnote: in the interest of using this like a diary and giving myself some actual record of what's going on even when I don't feel like typing/talking about it, I should admit that I have been super emo about David lately. "Super emo" is probably far too strong a phrase, but whatever. And anyway, it's hard to be so completely single when kissing is so much fun, and when there are piles of colorful awesomeness lying around. I mean really.