laurenisms

Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job.

A serious post tomorrow. OMFG, y’all. I can’t believe it happened.

Funny. (YouTube) Oh, Steve Martin.

Inspired by Anna’s blog-every-day-for-a-month thing in November, as well as Katie’s photo-a-day-for-a-year, which just finished, I am also thinking about doing a photo a day for a year. If I do, I’ll have to get a tripod, at least; I’m thinking about getting this one, because it looks versatile and also like a fun toy. Anyone used this? (Comments still broken — email me.) What else do I need if I’m going to take and post a photo a day? The camera is pretty good, especially for my purposes, and I have lots of memory cards and also two batteries (though I don’t know where the extra is, and the one in there is dead; good job Lauren).

It’s also possible that I’ll get lazy or overwhelmed and not do this, or maybe put it off until next year. BUT if I do do it, I’m going to wait until the chicks and ducklings get here, so I’ll have some easy and crowd-pleasing subjects right away.

(Song: “El Paso,” Marty Robbins. re: that line, G says “you can tell he’s wild because he’s bouncing.”)

Recently G. rebuilt one of his old mountain bike frames into a cute little comfy bike for me to ride around the neighborhood. It has pink on it! And it is very fun. Last weekend we rode to the Seattle Tilth Harvest Fair down the street from our house, where we bought hippie vegetables and hippie starts to plant for our fall crops. I got to ride home with my bike basked full of baby lettuces & kales & broccoli. (Garden pictures soon.)
Then today we rode our bikes, pedal pedal pedal, down to the Blue Star for post-pirate-birthday-party hangover lunch with old school friends.

In conclusion, I have a bike! Yay!

AND ALSO, I am knitting like a mad fiend to finish a gorgeous lace sweater that I will be posting on knitblog about soon, with pictures.

(Song: “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window,” the Beatles)

In the continuing spirit of playing grown-up, I find myself in a teensy hotel room in downtown Vancouver BC with less-crappy-than-expected hotel room coffee, unable to find actual Canadian morning news: my options seem to be only Seattle news or Canadian weather. There are many more interesting languages on TV, radio, and signs, though, which is appealing. Street signs are different, and they don’t even sell beer at 7-11! What is up with that?
I got here too late last night to do much of anything but check in, find a little Mediterranean place down the block, and get some delicious mussels. This morning, however, I have about four hours to go run around and check things out before I catch the ferry over to Victoria.
Now, to get my free breakfast and figure out where to go for four hours.

(song: “L’Imposture,” Louise Attaque)

I’m at the library and I’m trying to do my reading but I cannot concentrate because I have the Teeny Little Super Guy song stuck in my head.

(song: “Teeny Little Super Guy,” Sesame Street)

when i was a kid i wanted to grow up to be an artist. i made my parents get me watercolors and palettes and pastels and nice paper; i dressed up as an artist for future career day during spirit week in 8th grade. i don’t even know what that means — i think i wore a beret and some jeans with holes in them. who knows.
shortly after that, though, i realized i’m not meant to be an artist: i frustrate too quickly, i’m not patient, i don’t trust myself, i can’t properly translate what i see or feel. i was heartbroken for a while and then i got over it, but the inability to create is still one of the major things i wish i could change about myself.
knitting was good for me to discover because it is impermanent yet it allows me to play with color and texture and shape as well as my limits. but lately what i want to do is write. not write great fiction or anything, just produce something i don’t hate.
everything i have read recommends writing daily, so i am going to try it. i am going to try to take notes when i think of interesting things — though i think for starters it’ll be seeing interesting things rather than thinking them up myself — and i am going to try to write about them in a way that i like.
what this means in practice is probably that i will post less frequently, though, because i will not want anyone to see it at first. so if i disappear that’s why. but maybe sometimes i’ll like things i write!
pfft.

***

seattleites, there is a very exciting show this weekend: my boyfriend bobby bare jr., with richmond fontaine from portland and chuckanut drive, 2/5 from here and 3/5 from bellingham. all of these bands rock seriously a lot and i’m really looking forward to the show. get tickets early as bbj shows usually sell out!

***

oh, the other good thing about writing is that it’s free. this is nice because i’m super broke. can only go to the show because of being on the guest list; tomorrow i get to go to the grocery store and am only allowed to buy dried beans, bulk rice, eggs, and whichever are the cheapest tortillas. at least i’ll be a semi-nutritioned (??) broke person.

(song: “the king of carrot flowers, part one,” neutral milk hotel)

i hate XP: every time i right-click on the taskbar for any reason, i see “lock the taskbar” in the menu and i immediately get it stuck in my head to the tune of “rock the casbah.”

LOCK the task bah
LOCK the task bah

(song: “gumboots,” paul simon)

i should change the title to hairblog. apparently there is nothing else interesting in my life to talk about.
so, i have become a person with good hair days and bad hair days. i never understood this before. i do not enjoy my newfound understanding of this problem. the first time i washed it after i got it cut, it was curly and awesome and i loved it, and it was easy to get it to do that that so i thought i would be able to do it all the time. but no. it hasn’t been curly since. it has been frizzy and fuzzy and just plain sticky-outy, but not curly. this morning i tried to make it curly, but it’s so fluffy that even the ponytail looks ridiculous.
hmph.
last night as i was sitting around after dinner with friends, a super scary thing happened, with a dog and a seizure and a falling (like five feet) off the back porch of the house we were at. i had bad dreams about it. poor seizey dog. beware the ides of march!
final projects are almost over, except the database that i have to make go for my independent study. i can do the database OK but we’re also doing some things with visual basic, which i don’t understand at all. gr.
next term i get to learn javascript and XML and PHP and it will be terribly exciting.

(song: “brian wilson,” barenaked ladies)

i don’t have anything to be doing at this very instant, and i don’t know what to do with myself. it has been the week-and-a-half of awfulness and misery, but it’s almost over now! last night and this morning i got the last of the final project (currently locked, will be unlocked soon) for government publications done. yesterday i finished my section of the thesaurus. i have another late group project night tonight as we try to throw together the introduction for the thesaurus all at one go, but it actually shouldn’t be too bad. i keep waiting for that class to become unbearable like it seemed to be for everyone else last year, but it hasn’t. i’ve quite enjoyed myself, actually. who knew a group project could go so smoothly?
because i finished a project, i got to have lunch at pies&pints, where i had yummy welsh pretzels - like at the stadium, but better - and spinach and goat cheese salad and a delicious pot pie. yay!
soon it will be spring break. i am looking forward to doing things that aren’t related to school. like riding my bike!

(song: “punky’s dilemma,” simon&garfunkel)

hey, look, i have a blog! i wonder what i should do with it? maybe post?
moving to seattle has been accomplished with a minimum of misery. the worst part was loading the u-haul all by myself in the middle of the afternoon. everyone was very helpful so between all five of us it only took us a little over an hour to unload both my stuff and john & laura’s. sho (who needs to update) stayed for a couple of days and then i had a day off to do five (!) loads of laundry before my sister arrived, armed with piles of homework to finish. mostly we have just been sitting around in coffee shops and i have been internetting and she has been reading henderson the rain king.
meanwhile, i have read much also. i reread jane eyre, which i love, and i finally finished from hell, which i had been reading for at least six months. still not sure what i thought about it. and am currently continuing my brontë kick with wuthering heights.

other than books, i can think of nothing else to discuss. there will not be internet at home until wednesday or so, so in the meantime i will try to think of things to talk about.

(song: “track you down,” sondre lerche)