You're melting snow angels all over town.

We had several snow days awhile ago and I got projects finished.


I finally stretched out and blocked the finished Argosy scarf from Knitty I made for a family friend in Paton's SWS. Pretty yarn, splits a lot, needs a crap ton of blocking. But very squishy and nice colors.


That thing underneath it is my Target stuff the college kids don't want sale ironing board. Cute, hunh?

I also decided that I hated the collar on Teva Durham's Lace Leaf Pullover, so I cut it out, picked up a bunch of stitches, and made a better collar. This is scratchy and warm Lamb's Pride Bulky, so I probably won't wear it quite as much as some other things, but I still really like it.

That wet spot is when I started to block, but gave up. My feeling on sweaters is that I beat them up so much, they kind of stretch out and block just from that. Or, I'm lazy.
Here's a close-up of the cute leaf device:


While I got things done, Johnny made a fort:

Why start a conversation you can't even finish?

(found in the library, late February)

Zodiac shot young couple in 1968 Boy Survived girl didn't
2 more people shot (collage age)
Searial Killer! Signed Car door! enjoys taunting Police/meadia! Upped MO
Mix up with descreption!
Told to look for Black man not White man!
Said he would shoot out School bus tires then pick off children on at a time!

Also, I found 2 Chick tracts in the teen area yesterday, one under a bunch of Buffy paperbacks, one in what looked like a retelling of the Ark story. I didn't know those things were even still in circulation. So, total score...

Gets me to the church on time.

I stole this from Melissa 'n' Stacey.

Ten modern conveniences I take for granted but can't live without:

Now, how modern are we talking here? Since the industrial revolution*? Second half of the 20th century? What?

1. Coffee pot. Not that I don't like Turkish coffee, but it's not an everyday thing.
2. automated library catalogs and databases. Card catalogs, while romantic, are not very practical.
3. Aleve.
4. Suffrage. And civil rights. And Roe v Wade.
5. Cell phones. Especially the part about long distance being the same as local calls.
6. alarm clock/snooze button
7. the concept of adolescence. Kinda hard to be a teen librarian if we all still thought people really became adults at 12.
8. car stereo. No one wants to hear me sing, or see me try to read the paper while I'm driving.
9. plastic faux ziplock sandwich bags. I put EVERYTHING in those guys: lunch, half-knitted socks, broken necklaces I may or may not fix, the other half of that onion I used the other day to make really tasty half-assed burritos.
10. Debit cards.

*That puppy was a dog, but industry was a revolution!

Wooord! The Ghostwriter Drinking Game

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Drinkin' 'n' Watchin' GW*
Drink when/for

• new Gaby's in the episode
• Calvin is in the episode
• Hector makes a grammatical error
• there's sexual tension between Tina & Alex
• exceptionally bad line execution
• some sort of fake product/brand name is shown or mentioned
• anything overly "ethnic" happens
• Lenni displays her "talent"
• Rob displays his "talent"
• Jamal uses science
• Tina videotapes something or mentions being a filmmaker
• holes in the Ghostwriter mythology
• celebrity or pre-celebrity
• ill-fitting clothing
• exceptional stupidity *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• Tina's wearing her retainer
• "Everything's in Brooklyn!" phenomenon
• cop says, "I don't know how you kids do it"
• Frank, Kathryn, etc use wooden old-timey slang
• deep social issues
• tension because there aren't enough letters for Ghostwriter to send a message
• a code is cracked
• Jamal acts "suave"
• mention of the High School of Science
• Lenni flips out at/is rude to her dad's girlfriend
• Jamal has more immediate familythan his grandma
• bad computer effects
• the handwriting is obviously different
• someone says "rewind"
• someone says "peicing the puzzle"
• someone says "Ghostwriter!" like they forgot about him
• fake music
• bad dancing
• mention of the casebook *drink twice if it's not Gaby's*
• someone wears too much makeup
• there's an unnecessary use of a computer
• someone new sees Ghostwriter
• a team member's in a life-threatening situation *drink twice if it's not Gaby*
• *drink twice if a team member is suspected by anyone*
• mention of Lenni's mom
• team member in a tunnel of some sort
• bad accents
• Tina's family is mentioned or shown
• Rob's carrying a skateboard
• criminals that do completely retarded things
• someone's passing puberty is obvious
• wooden British slang when Jamal's in the UK

(We think this was written 2001-2002.)

Maybe they are evil after all...

Barring all arguments about the nature of capitalism, big business, and the state of the working poor in this country, I think we can all agree that it would blow if Wal-Mart stopped selling fabric.
Sure, in a perfect world we would all get our craft supplies, kitty litter, butter, etc. from locally owned businesses and all of our coffee, tampons, etc. would be produced completely safely (for the environment and the producers) and affordable for everyone. But we don't live in that world. And as someone who's worked for both big corporations and tiny locally owned places, I know first hand that small business owners aren't necessarily better as employers or people in general.
And as someone working in a government funded organization, and in a field that's traditionally somewhat shafted budget-wise, the idea of not having $1/yard tables is a bit daunting. If this does come to pass at the Wal-Marts near me, it will change my crafty program planning.
The internet is rife with rumors about Wal-Mart shutting down their fabric departments.

Here's Wal-Mart's feedback form. Help out a small-town seamstress, crafty teen who can't get her dad to drive her anywhere else, or librarian on a programming budget, okay?

Hey, Crabman.

I never think of my thrift karma as being particularly exceptional, but I guess it kind of is. Especially when it comes to hoodies.
I got my basic black hoodie in high school, after school one day. It was way cold when I started walking home, so I decided to take a thrift store (Red White and Blue) detour. I thought it would be nice to find a black hoodie, since I had kind of been wanting one. And I did!*
Last year, Tiff came to visit me and we decided to go thrifting. As we were talking about clothes--and I should explain that I sometimes get these fashion flashes, like I want a denim skirt! or My next pair of shoes should be green.--I decide that I want a boys hoodie. It would be very fitted, and the sleeves would be around elbow length. In my head, it was super-cute. And either navy or red. Then we went to Goodwill and I found a super-cute navy boys hoodie. With red lining in the hood.
So Saturday, me and Tiff are at the Friday's by a large Salvation Army. My slightly quilted black Gap hoodie is starting to get holes, and I was picking at them and complaining.** Then we hit the thrift and there was an almost brand-new quilted Gap hoodie for about $3 and hot pink.
It's the exact same pink as my long skinny scarf, though, so now I need some Lamb's Pride Worsted in black to make a long skinny black scarf to wear with it. Or maybe grey...yeah, grey would be very cute.

*Random Best Thing Ever Found In That Thrift: Keren got a pair of black chucks with the Batman logo all over them. Sweet.
**I love this hoodie. I'm actually wearing it as I type this. It smells a bit smoky, but it's very comfortable. And I have 2 tack pins in the pocket: a pink "a" and a smiley apple.

It's the sweetest taste I've known.

Yeah, yeah--I've had a bad run boy-wise. You get the idea.
Now you get to read the story of my real lost love, Muppie.

One thing you should know about me, if you don't already, is my love of drugstores. Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, etc. You can get almost anything you need there: candy, cheap plastic toys, Dr Pepper lip smacker, Wet'N'Wild black nail polish...anything. My favorite drugstore (maybe of all time) is the Rite Aid on Atwood in Pittsburgh*.
In college, Alison, Meleah, and I would spend hours in there, deciding which bad women's magazines, chips, foundation, and random toys we needed for our dorm rooms. Obviously, this was at its peak the year we all had the suite together. That's when I bought Muppie. He was a cute little orange monkey with generic Nerds in him. We liked him especially because, while all the monkeys had cute faces, somehow his smile was more open than the others. Muppie knew three college girls were taking him home that night,
And somehow, he stuck around. Jim Steiner named him when he misheard me saying "monkey". Brain fried from some exam (let's blame Marcia Landy, shall we?), I built Muppie a desk from Legos. Meleah took the desk apart to make him a stage, complete with Lego guitar.
I don't remember much of Muppie junior year, but I'm pretty sure he tagged along on the infamous Spring Break Road Trip me, Tiff, and Alison took.**
Moving gnomes never took Muppie, but I lost him anyway.
Pitt's graduation is a huge ordeal. Tons and tons of people graduate at once. It lasts for hours. Even when you're the one graduating, you take stuff to do. We talked about water guns or a beach ball. Mostly, though, we just played MASH and cheered "USA! USA!" at vaguely appropriate moments. I also had a roll of electrical tape that I made everyone bracelets from. I also had Muppie taped to my cap.
By the end of the ceremony, we were pretty excited to be all graduated, even if we were also really cold from sitting on the Penguins' ice all morning and into the afternoon. It was a sea of hugs and plans for that night.
Somewhere in all this, Muppie fell off my cap. I never saw him again.
Weirdly enough, though, a couple friends of mine had seen Muppie on the ground. Liz said she thought the monkey looked familiar, but hadn't picked him up.*** Her boyfriend, who had picked my Clash pin up off the ground 2 years earlier when I lost it and then was nice enough to give it back to me, looked sympathetic.
I like to think Muppie stuck around at the Civic Arena. Maybe he made friends with the Penguins mascot, and goes to parties now with the Pirate Parrot. Maybe he hitched a ride with the Ringling Brothers circus and tours the country now as a tiny trapeze plush monkey.
This is kind of what Muppie looked like, but a lot cuter. And orange.


*It was my main drugstore when I lived in Oakland, 3-5 blocks from several jobs, and catty-corner to my usual 61- bus stop when I was in high school, so I was there a LOT. Plus, it was pretty much across the street from the Beehive. Name a big zeitgeist-y mid90s indie movie and I probably watched it while munching on snuck in candy from this store.

**As did Assy the Ass Dog, Brian's Lenore doll, and a bag of Easter-shaped marshmallows I began hurtling out the passenger side window at some point between Chicago and home.

***This is a big difference between Liz and I. had I seen a strange orange monkey plush on the ground, I would have picked it up. Hell, I still would.