I wish she'd leave my sweater home.

Took this .
Added this .
Used this pattern.
Success!

PS Played dress-up
PPS Like the pigtails? I was working the Holly Golightly just before getting arrested look.

sticky everywhere

I found some pictures I took last summer as the local street fair was setting up. Today's all sunny and Indian Summer (croquet and baked Alaska, anyone?), so I figured this made sense. Sort of.







Summer is ready when you are.

You'll be known as the boy who's always dancing.

Billboard 2-25-2006

• Tiff? Melissa? Can we start the countdown yet? Please?
  
• Matisyahu are on the cover, albeit a tiny picture of them.
  
• Call me shallow and repetitive, but I really wish the Kaiser Chiefs were a more attractive band.
  
• LL Cool J with a suit 'n' tie is pretty adorable.
  
• Does anybody else remember the pre-"Momma Said Knock You Out" interview he gave for Sassy with Marjorie Ingalls? (Ingall? I don't remember)
  
• It was, like, in his mom's house or something and very very charming.
  
• I miss Sassy.
  
• Hey! Look what I just found!!
  
• Wikipedia sez: "archived site that went offline in 2005; may contain dead links and broken images".
  
• Yeah, as in anything you want to see/read, you can't.
  
• It is Ingall. My bad.
  
• I loved her. She had a crazy jewfro not unlike my own.
  
• Speaking of, did everyone notice my cute li'l flickr badge? I totally stole that idea from Darren.
  
• I'm sure other people have done it as well, but we all know I don't get out much, internetally speaking.
  
• I don't know what this guy on page 26 won an award for or by doing, but he's looking quite pretty while doing it.
  
• Perhaps he won his scholarship on the Daniel V "not boring at all" plan?

Your degree is showing.

(If you want to see Munich and be surprised, maybe you should come back some other day. I've included a pretty Elizabeth Peyton picture so you don't accidentally read anything. Aren't I nice?)



I turned the radio off this morning when the NPR Olympics coverage turned to 1972 and Munich. I didn't turn it off because of my oft-repeated hatred of the Olympics, or a particular distaste for tales of Steve Prefontaine translating German.
I turned it off because I couldn't get scenes from the movie out of my head. I don't like that, while people were talking about real people who had died violent deaths, I was seeing actors and Karo syrup. There's something really disrespectful about that to me.
I'm not a squeamish girl, and I'm not an anti-movie/tv violence girl. Hell, you could even go so far as to say I enjoy a good gory movie. But I just don't see why a movie about actual events and real people, directed by a well-respected guy, should seem so gratuitous to a girl like me. We know that theirs was an awful death; anyone seeing the movie at least knows this basic fact. I don't need crumpling faces and spattering blood to tell me.
And that seems to be the difference to me: if I'm watching some crap horror exploitation movie (or even a good horror exploitation movie), blood and guts are part and parcel. If I'm watching Oscar bait, they're unexpected and, to my mind, unnecessary.
It feels like lazy filmmaking. And yes, I know I don't like Spielberg to begin with, but this is why. I don't like it when I can tell my emotions are being orchestrated. If I'm watching a movie, I don't want to be pulled out of it with a thought like, "I'm supposed to be sad here," or "I guess I'm supposed to like this guy."
This is true for me whether or not I am sad, whether or not I do like that guy.
This is also why I think John Williams is a hack.
And it's also sort of related to why I've always avoided the 9-11 footage. I don't need to see bodies falling from buildings to feel the tragedy of bodies falling from buildings.
I guess I also do believe that we can be desensitized to some images, and I don't want that for myself.

I would also rather not have bloody naked dead-and-dying women in my Oscar bait. Particularly when said Oscar bait also includes married "love-making" scenes with fully clothed women. I know it's almost too easy for a girl like me to make the misogyny leap, but let me just repeat myself:
The women we saw naked were dead or mortally wounded and bloody.
The camera lingered on one particular naked dead woman.
The loving wife character was always, even during sex, fully clothed.

MR. F!

We're doing this Pay It Forward thing on Etsy right now where you list something for super-cheap, then the buyer lists something for equally super cheap, etc.
I just bought these:

and put my Richard Hell hankie up.
It's a terrible picture, so here's another example:

and the princess there is me

I got totally goldilocksed Saturday night.
Yes, I just made that up. What are you, one of my 12yrold patrons' parents? Back to the story...
Over here, there's the boy who thought I wanted some Big Serious Relationship, like the kind where everything else in your life falls to the wayside. He stopped calling because this terrified him.
He never asked if this was actually what I was after.
Over there, there's the boy who thought I was after a more casual relationship than he was, that we didn't have enough of a connection (his words) for something more serious. He told me this late last Saturday night, after we had been hanging out for several hours.
He never asked me what I was after, either.
That's when I decided to stop pretending I don't hate "I Wanna Dance with Somebody"*, and go home.
Probably didn't help either that I had moved past sober pretending no one's watching, hit very slightly drunk hyper-awareness, and wasn't going to make it back around to not giving a shit anytime soon.

*Look, I'm sorry. I fucking hate this song. I can't help it; I can't dance to it.

***
I suppose there's a level where I'm at least satisfied by the fact that I got a speech from this one. He didn't just fall off the face of the earth, or move somewhere with no phones. I found out he was interested in me in a timely fashion, not at least a year later.
I didn't hear that maybe there was a chance he might ask me out from a mutual friend, who was told this during the course of a conversation about how I never date, only to never hear anything about it again.* Or by his roommate, who followed it up with, He's dating this psycho girl now.
*That actually happened, by the way. Want to feel even worse about boys not liking you? Find out that 3 of your most attractive male friends were discussing exactly why that was.

Egg--I mean, Ann.

The last four episodes of Arrested Development are going to air Friday night, opposite the Olympics starting. There's also an Arrested Development swap going on on Craftster, and I'm so mad I forgot to sign up for it.
Billboard 2-11-06

• The ad cover is a happy birthday with to Clarence, "from all of us who care," which is kind of a shitty way to put it, when you think about it.
  
• Like, anyone who didn't chip in $6 for Clarence's Billboard cover? They just don't care enough.
  
• The real cover promises me more bringing-the-music-back-to-New-Orleans (which I'd care more about if they were putting this kind of press and $$ into getting the icky, etc. out first), the production of the Grammys, and James Taylor.
  
• I kind of really hate James Taylor.
  
• He did a good job of calming down Homer and his fellow astronauts before the inanimate carbon rod saved the day, though.
  
• In rod we trust.
  
• Taylor's getting some kind of lifetime achievement award, isn't he?
  
• grrr
  
• I'm trying to play Puzzle Inlay while I'm doing this, which is a bit distracting on both ends.
  
• I guess this "High School Musical" show is the new big thins?
  
• I haven't seen it.
  
• It's like I keep saying: the library should be paying for me to get cable, so I can keep up with pop culture.
  
• Tightwads.
  
• Someone's trying to sue Apple over iPod-related hearing loss.
  
• I mean, if you were really serious, wouldn't you go after the designer of bud-style headphones in the first place?
  
• I don't like those kind of headphones, anyway. They don't keep your ears as warm.
  
• One of the guys in Disturbed has a "sexy" devil girl head tattoo that looks tremendously fake.
  
• That's the second sentence I've typed today who's clunkiness reminded me of this:
  
• ...this thing on it which tells time.
  
• The 2 hottest ringtones are My Humps (which seems to be obeying that restraining order I placed against it) and someone's cover of the Super Mario Brothers theme. Interesting...
  
• or not.
  
• If indie column guy mentions that damn best alternative Grammy U2 won like 10 years ago, I swear I'm going to scream.
  
• Right here at the fancy new reference desk.
  
• Which doesn't have a keyboard shelf yet and everyone that works adult reference is taller than me, so this chair is too short.
  
• My wrists hurt.
  
• His complaints against the Grammys remind me of freshman girls in womens studies classes.
  
• Everyone with an interest has heard it all before, and doesn't care about this "fresh" new take on the matter.
  
• Whenever they talk about piracy in this magazine, it's never the fun kind.
  
• Speaking of which, Airborn by Kenneth Oppel is really good.
  
• It's got zeppelins, adventure, love across class lines, sky pirates, and fantastical beasts.
  
• Wowee, a zeppelin! Hey, that's mine!
  
• Clarence has apparently done a lot of things. And knows a lot of people.
  
• And Oprahs got a birthday wishes ad, too.
  
• Oh look, it's another Belle & Sebastian review that includes the word "precious." Asses.
  
• I'm going to buy the new album on Friday.
  

I've lived for 700 years and I still look 17.

Still haven't read Peeps by Scott Westerfeld despite my goings-on?
Go read this.

and he's taking it like a beating

Things I neglected to mention earlier.

Last night I knitted up some of the yarn I dyed, to test gauge for making this out of the pink lemonade stuff and to see how the rest looked. Plus, I ran out of baby blanket yarn and can't buy more until the SuperJoanns opens at the end of the week, so I was fidgety and hurting for a project.
I was playing with the light green and thinking about scarves to match my winter coat. Then, this morning, I remember this stuff:
.
It's basically a string with sequins spaced periodically that you hold along with another yarn so that there's a sequin every so often.
If this came in pink, I could knit it with the green and make the best disco/prep scarf ever!
Yeah, it doesn't come in pink. I'm thinking green and silver would be pretty, but not as fun as my original idea.
If anyone has any other ideas, let me know
***

veronica and i decided that you will have at least eight children and live on a farm in the south

My sister left this comment on my MySpace a couple days ago. At first I thought it was funny, but, after our phone conversation last night, not so much. Because she said that she really could see that. And used the phrase "Earth mother." And I wonder, does my sister not know me at all?
My general distaste for babies?
That I have trouble sleeping unless there are traffic noises and the occasional siren?
Etc.?

b/c he's such a successful bachelor.

This past Friday I had the day off. I was lounging about on my couch, trying to pretend I didn't have to wash just about every item of clothing I own, when there was a knock on my door.
When there's someone at my door and I'm not expecting someone (and it's too early for Billy, everyone's favorite Wacky Neighbor), I usually wait a bit to answer. My next-door neighbors get quite a few people knocking at all hours, and frequently they accidentally knock on my door.
--What? This isn't shifty at all, and I don't associate it with the shoes hanging from the phone line on our corner in the slightest. Nothing unseemly is going on on my block. Nothing at all. (This has been a production of Sarcasm Theater, in association with Denial Productions)--
Except I'm also anxiously awaiting my food-themed crafts swap package, so I went downstairs, hoping it would be my friendly neighborhood postman.
No luck: it's my new maintenance guy, looking for access to the roof. New maintenance guy (part of new landlord--my building was bought a couple months ago) is probably my age, seems like a nice guy. He apologized for bothering me, as it's my next-door neighbors who have been complaining about a leak. Then he tells me about how he didn't want to bother them, because he went up there and one of them was asleep in a towel and a tshirt or something. Actually, over the course of a maybe 15 minute visit, he brings this up several times.
Since I've been in the company of landlords who interrupt morning sex to show my unsuspecting friend an apartment before, I was nonplussed. Also, sounds to me like she was pretty covered up, if asleep/dead to the world. Please see above Sarcasm/Denial joint interlude.
So he looks around in my closets, trying to find roof access. The furnace kicks on during his visit, so I have to explain, yes, that noise has something to do with the heat and, no, I don't know what it is (other than it not being Chanukah candles, as a different surprise visitor thought). Legs and Johnny love up on him a bit.
As new maintenance guy is leaving, he turns and asks if I ever go to HHs.
Hmmm, let me think, I live 4 blocks away, it's the cheap bar in town with the least irritating juke box, I live 4 blocks away...
So I say yes, kind of trying to downplay my frequency of HH visits. Then he tells me that he thinks his buddy was checking me out once. Adds, "from across the bar." No mention of when this happened, buddy's name or distinguishing characteristics, anything.
So, normal people: how should I have reacted to this, aside from turning it into a funny story?
***
A dog just came into the library and threw up on the floor.
***
Oh, and...Go Steelers! Woo!
Anyone else feeling the Yinzer Diaspora this morning?

Turn to the left!

More brilliant Project Runway analyses.
***
I like bitchy beardface--I know! And I loved him pouting in the corner when the guy who was all "oh, just give it Santino" won.
And I totally want that Barbie. But you knew that, right?
I hate Marla, but I think my Barbie had that dress. She's got a son about our age, doesn't she?
Also, I totally would have LOVED a Barbie with Arguey McCryface's bubble skirt.
***
I really love the nerdy girl. As the designers walked out of Toys R Us clutching their "muses", I turned to Melissa and said, "That's probably like the first Barbie that girl's ever had."
***
I hate Kara, too. I want that bitch GONE. I'm so mad she took Andrae's spot in the top 5!
Also, they totally just chose Daniel V's (dude, he was a GYMNAST and you're gaydar didn't go off?) b/c it had flowers. Plus, to quote Melissa, "Michael Kors totally wants to have Daniel V's children."
***

punk ass snow gnomes

Saturday afternoon work boredom = cleaning my email outbox.
I don't remember the context of the titular phrase at all, so don't bother asking. It was an email to Tiff, so it probably didn't make that much sense at the time, either.
***
Okay, so I read "The Gospel According to Larry", which is basically Adbusters in novel form, so I'm reading the sequel, where he runs for president in a not-un-Nader-like move. Mostly somewhat irritating, esp how Larry's still in love with his unrequited HS best friend (who's basically a normal girl with radical views) while he's got this rockin' new gf (who's basically us, but also doesn't speak on Mondays, for some kind of protest--see why this book is annoying?). So anyway, there's this one thing that I don't think is supposed to be funny so much as point out how different Beth and Janine (new girl, of course, has the better name as well) are, but I was cracking up. Like, Sars cracking up. Janine puts on her fake fur coat to leave, and in a footnote we're told that she's thrown red paint on her fake fur coat, in a jokey reference to PETA. Now, why didn't I ever think of that!?!?
***
"Julio, excited yet relaxed, grinned back and played like he was Kenny G."
Couch is in 5 piece, not 500. Progress!
***
So are you my neighbor now, or what?
If you can fake a British accent, you can be my neighbour.
If you're Natalie Imbrulia, you can be on Neighbours.
***
Also, Puff is super-fucking-awesome. Did I mention that it takes place around Boston in the 70s? During a snow storm? And it's about 2 stoner brothers who masquerade as Red Cross dealies to get to the last available bag of pot in town? I highly recommend!
***
OK, so I was totally internally mocking your whole shorts thing (sorry, sweetie), but then I found myself thinking about a picnic this morning, and, in my picnic fantasy, I was wearing chucks and shorts of that very-now length. And possibly my tube top, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.
***
I had the best spring weekend. Most of it involved sitting on my balcony and popsicles (the red white and blue kind), but also a library book sale ($2 for a grocery bag o' books, including classics such as A Day at LBJ Ranch and a book on mind-altering drugs from 1968 with an amazing cover) and Sin City.
***
step 1: ask to be their friendster
step 2: once you've amassed several possible boys, send out a bulletin on one of the following subjects: beer, comic books, or whether or not boys actually find Paris Hilton attractive. Conversation ensues, force a meeting, and Bob's your uncle: makin' out.
***
My favorite thing about Barely Legal (the print version, at least) is the text: so clearly designed for shifty, barely employed 40 year olds who live next door to 9th graders. My absolute favorite ridiculous porn photo (have I told you this story yet?) comes from my good ol' assfaced gay xroomie Ken, who used to read Barely Legal style magazines despite being barely legal himself. There was a picture of a young man in pj pants, standing next to a breakfast table, all laid out with a bowl of brightly colored cereal. Normal, right? Yeah, but how many guys do you know who stand next to their cereal with their dick hanging out?
***
Oh! I was driving to Target the other day and I heard, I think, Spacehog on the radio. They did that "In the Meantime" song, or whatever it was called, no? I couldn't believe it. I laughed and laughed.
***
Didja notice my MySpace Galaxie 500-related name change? You know it's summer when I'm lieing (I fucking hate trying to spell that word) around listening to Dean sing about breaking shit, being fired, and/or his crotch.
***
So, is it so wrong that I'm still attracted to Ben McKenzie, mustache and all?
***
"Do you have, uh, one a them sheets, um, where like the dates of the clubs are?"
"You mean a calendar? They're over there."
***
That's good. I'm glad you got your money, and didn't have to resort to singing ODB at your boss.
***
Jeff Buckley's cover of "Hallelujah" is playing on my internet radio thing right now. I do so love that song, but I was a bit confused, b/c I thought I had hit play on the Motown station.
***
He looks so much older...and kinda scary. Like the professor whose classes you skipped, and then you ran into at the liquor store and he yelled at you in front of the cheap whiskey. Or you hid behind the wine display to avoid him.
Also kind of like the poet guy in Auntie Mame. I was trying to find a picture online, but couldn't.
***
He looks like the bad guy in an MST3K movie with that beard. Like he should have some half-assed "British" accent.
Ello, ow are ooo?
***

Thursday's rags when Monday comes around

Before you do anything else, go over to Tim Gunn's blog and read about the episode that just about killed me.
I hate you, Michael Kors, Elle woman, and Kara.
I miss Andrae already. I would totally wear that topiary dress. With my pointy black pumps and my hair all pinned back? SO cute!
See, this is the thing: if you put together a plant-and-flowers challenge, and half of the people left, people that you've chosen, are all about the highly impractical, wearable art, couture-ish angle, and you're all Michael Kors lame ready-to-wear, aren't you at least partly at fault? Can't you kind of be seen as setting them up to fail, at least a little bit?
Take Santino. The judges saw his stuff, selected him, and then were consistently yelling at him for doing the same sort of thing they chose in the preliminary rounds.
Lame.
I do, however, completely heart Tim Gunn. "Andrae, be proud of your fine showing and see you at the Red Lobster!" How can you not be in love?
How I feel with Andrae gone.
Here's some more Andrae.
Don't worry, I won't get this ridiculous everytime someone I like leaves. I just really liked this guy, I think he's really talented, that gutter water dress was amazing, and I can't begin to describe how much I wanted Kara to go home.
***
Billboard Feb 4 2006

• cover: "Going for Platinum: Winter Olympics Target Youth Audience With Huge Roster of Music Stars"
  
• and there are 10 musicians pictured, including Lou Reed & Simon LeBon.
  
• Who targets a youth audience with Lou Reed?
  
• By the way, I still hate the Olympics.
  
• I think I saw this James Blunt guy on something and he was awful, but I don't remember.
  
• More about Matisyahu, which is just so strange.
  
• Agh! Waxy Barry Manilow! Huge picture!
  
• Yay, nightmare-inducing work situations.
  
• Apparently, Conservative Canadians = Yay! for Music Business.
  
• Too bad it equals boo for everyone else.
  
• I'm also annoyed, as usual, by all things Bare Naked Ladies.
  
• and my stomach hurts. I think there might be something going around.
  
• At first, I thought it was my poor eating habits.
  
• Then I had another scary, middle of the night theory, but then I went back to the eating habits.
  
• Didn't stop me from rocking some Indian food and Project Runway last night, though.
  
• Wednesday, had another bad fish sandwich.
  
• I can't be the only person to have seen Eva Longoria's dance club song on SNL a few weeks ago, can I? It was really funny.
  
• Wow, there's a lot about Canada this issue.
  
• Cara, have you become an editor for Billboard?
  
• Chris Cornell is to be the face of John Varvatos' spring 2006 campaign.
  
• I used to wear his men's cologne.
  
• Varvatos, not Cornell.
  
• & I've always hated Soundgarden.
  
• Here's an entertaining caption: "Flipsyde with Michelle Kwan"
  
• And there's Lou Reed again.
  
• Seriously, what's Lou gonna do? Bring in that all-important "We hate everthing, but I guess we hate the Olympics a little less 'cause Lou's involved" hipster vote?
  
• Oh, now I have to read, er, skim this stupid article just to find out.
  
• The Donnas are being referred to by their real names now.
  
• Sellouts.
  
• Ah-ha! Lou's manager is going to try and turn Olympic performance footage into a Bravo special. It all makes sense now.
  
• Sometimes I forget that NBC owns Bravo.
  
• I'm hungry through my slightly queasy stomach.
  
• Good thing I've got something simple, like saag paneer leftovers, for lunch.
  
• I'm happy and angry!
  
• Anthony Kiedis looks like Cameron Crowe in this picture.
  
• Jewel's got a new album coming out.
  
• You can all make fun of that on your own, right? You don't need my help.
  
• Lou gets to be a "rock visionary" on the Backbeat page.
  
• Under that, we have Gene Simmons (cue noises of disgust) standing veeeery close to the cross-eyed columnist.
  
• "The three sons of rock legend Ricky Nelson..."
  
• That's right, Gunnar and Matthew.
  
• After the rain, indeed.
  

I am so smart...SMRT

Now, many people are unaware of this, but my primary occupation here in town seems to be entertaining Melissa. Tonight, for example, we have our weekly Project Runway date. She also never fails to laugh at my terrible jokes. For example, Melissa claims to enjoy my Billboard posts.
Of course, she could just be an excellent liar.
Melissa does this thing on her blog that she pretends to be taking a break from where she puts up things that people have said around her that she's been taken with.
But she doesn't give them any kind of context. This is what we're doing here today.

April 18, 2005: "I've decided on a new rule of thumb. If a guy is into zombies he's not allowed to see me naked." -Jessy

Well, this doesn't really need more explanation or context; I think I did enough in these comments. I did, however, have some awkward moments with explanations to people about the amount of interest in zombies I would allow. At Turoni's. After Joan Jett. To people who (let's be honest) weren't ever going to be in that particular boat.

August 19, 2005: "Well, it looks like there is a band tonight. Either that or horse racing." -Jessy

I am a cheap bastard. I hate when bars have covers on a specific night, when all you're planning on doing is the same thing you do any other night, and get to do for free. Or, you know, whatever the revolving pitcher price is.
And I hate trying to determine whether or not there's going to be a cover, because I also think it's really rude to the bouncer to say, You know what? I'm not paying your $3. Never mind. and walk away.* Which is why, walking up to the back of the bar on a Friday evening, I observed that there was a trailer in the parking lot.
And everyone knows that there are only 2 reasons why anyone would need a trailer: band equipment or a horse.
Or maybe I've just driven 64 between Lexington and Louisville too many times.

September 22, 2005: "This would be my fave Depeche Mode song, by the way." -Jessy

I don't remember saying this at all. Although "Blasphemous Rumors" is played infrequently enough for me to comment on it.
See, here's the thing, though: when this appeared on Melissa's blog, I distinctly remember having heard "People are People" the night before, which is my least favorite Depeche Mode song. And not just because it's the only one Lou knows.
***
At ILL (my college job) one boring summer day, we matched up coworkers with Alice in Wonderland characters and I got the Caterpillar. The explanation I got was that I "say weird stuff a lot," frequently nonsequitorically.
Did I just make that word up?

*I have never ever claimed I made sense. Never.