Sorry about the weird layout. I'm renovating the blog. Hopefully I'll get it sorted out by the end of the weekend.
I'd have worked on it earlier today, but I got held up by a book. I'm reading Tales of the City, and it goes so fast, it's kinda hard to put down. Which is why I'll be done with it tonight, and onto something new tomorrow. Just how I like it.
May 30, 2009
May 29, 2009
May 21, 2009
A self-confessed bubble gumaholic
I tried a new bubble gum today at work. I love gum, and especially when it's actually bubble gum, and not just yummy-flavored chewing gum. It's been a long-term love affair. For probably a decade, I have been of the opinion that Extra classic bubble gum is the best bubble gum there is.
It's got the right flavor, and it lasts a long time, and it makes great bubbles. Dubble Bubble and Super Bubble have probably the best flavor, but it runs out too quick, and then the gum gets kind of hard, and it's like you're chewing a rubber band. Not worth it. Bubble Yum and Bubblicious have good flavors, too, but they're too big. My jaw starts to ache before the flavor even runs out. Extra makes another flavor called original bubble gum, but it doesn't taste right. So the classic bubble gum flavor wins.
Until today. Stride Uber Bubble has ousted it, after all this time.
It has the flavor of Super Bubble, but it doesn't go away! It smells amazing, too (as does the inside of my purse now). I had the pack sitting on my desk most of the day, and every time I got a whiff of it, it gave me a little childhood-nostalgia rush of endorphins. It's like the gum in a Blow Pop, but without having to wait through the candy part. It may be the perfect gum.
And it's called Uber Bubble, and you get to say "uber" all day. I love that word.
Plus, I really like that Stride is making it. I like Stride, and the things they do as a company. I actually started buying their gum because of this site I adore, Where the Hell is Matt? It's pretty amazing to see what kind of life he's gotten to live. After getting bored with his long-term job as a video game developer, he quit, and started traveling around the world. And everywhere he went, he'd get a video of himself dancing. That's all. And now he's yet another internet sensation. Here's why I like Stride, though: they found out about Matt's first video, and gave him money to do another one. Just like that. They just said, "We like what you do. Go do more of it." They didn't ask him to advertise for them, and wear Stride t-shirts and hand out gum. They just found something cool going on in the world, and did what they could to keep the world going in that direction.
It makes me really happy to know that things like this happen. It's the reason why I have Matt's second video on my ipod. It's one of those things that's always guaranteed to make me feel a little better (especially the part in Rwanda. It's impossible not to smile when you watch that part).
So I'll spend money on a company that does stuff like that, just because they feel like it.
It's got the right flavor, and it lasts a long time, and it makes great bubbles. Dubble Bubble and Super Bubble have probably the best flavor, but it runs out too quick, and then the gum gets kind of hard, and it's like you're chewing a rubber band. Not worth it. Bubble Yum and Bubblicious have good flavors, too, but they're too big. My jaw starts to ache before the flavor even runs out. Extra makes another flavor called original bubble gum, but it doesn't taste right. So the classic bubble gum flavor wins.
Until today. Stride Uber Bubble has ousted it, after all this time.
It has the flavor of Super Bubble, but it doesn't go away! It smells amazing, too (as does the inside of my purse now). I had the pack sitting on my desk most of the day, and every time I got a whiff of it, it gave me a little childhood-nostalgia rush of endorphins. It's like the gum in a Blow Pop, but without having to wait through the candy part. It may be the perfect gum.
And it's called Uber Bubble, and you get to say "uber" all day. I love that word.
Plus, I really like that Stride is making it. I like Stride, and the things they do as a company. I actually started buying their gum because of this site I adore, Where the Hell is Matt? It's pretty amazing to see what kind of life he's gotten to live. After getting bored with his long-term job as a video game developer, he quit, and started traveling around the world. And everywhere he went, he'd get a video of himself dancing. That's all. And now he's yet another internet sensation. Here's why I like Stride, though: they found out about Matt's first video, and gave him money to do another one. Just like that. They just said, "We like what you do. Go do more of it." They didn't ask him to advertise for them, and wear Stride t-shirts and hand out gum. They just found something cool going on in the world, and did what they could to keep the world going in that direction.
It makes me really happy to know that things like this happen. It's the reason why I have Matt's second video on my ipod. It's one of those things that's always guaranteed to make me feel a little better (especially the part in Rwanda. It's impossible not to smile when you watch that part).
So I'll spend money on a company that does stuff like that, just because they feel like it.
May 18, 2009
Put the knitting down and pick up the pen!
I swear I had something to blog about this morning. Something perfectly blogworthy, that would have made for a delightful bit of charmingly nonsensical reading (I like to think. Or liked to). But somewhere in the course of the day, whatever it was fell out of my head.
It's probably back at the office, wandering around and looking at people's cubicles.
Anyway. Despite the fact that I was supposed to get my car back today, but won't until tomorrow since something was still off with the alignment, I am in a good mood.
I think a big part of it is because I managed to get more writing done. I have the beginnings of a short story, and I feel good about it's potential to turn into a middle and maybe even an end. I'm determined.
And on that note, I'm going to go scribble some more.
My favorite thing.
It's probably back at the office, wandering around and looking at people's cubicles.
Anyway. Despite the fact that I was supposed to get my car back today, but won't until tomorrow since something was still off with the alignment, I am in a good mood.
I think a big part of it is because I managed to get more writing done. I have the beginnings of a short story, and I feel good about it's potential to turn into a middle and maybe even an end. I'm determined.
And on that note, I'm going to go scribble some more.
My favorite thing.
May 5, 2009
Ups and downs and April's finally over
Part of me keeps shouting inside that the reason I haven't posted lately is because April sucked.
But then that quieter, calmer part of me points out that April really didn't suck. Big parts of it were hugely, fantastically great. But just the last bit of April sucked, and it ruined the rest for me.
I got in a car accident last week (I'm ok), and I just dropped off my car at the body shop, so I am feeling depressed and cut off from the independence I'm used to. For the next ten days or so. It's exhausting just to think about the dance I'll have to do to deal with it, and all the other things I need to get done.
The ironic thing is that in the face of all that, otherwise I've been feeling really good. Reading and writing more, and knitting less, which I'm surprisingly ok with. Maybe the obsession is waning into a beloved hobby that I can stand to put down from time to time. Also, I've been doing lots of thinking and planning about what I want to actually do with my life. I'm feeling like I'm ready to start moving myself in some discernible direction, which is a truly refreshing feeling, after mostly doing nothing for a year (aside from that pesky day job, of course).
So I'm on the brink of finishing my forty-somethingth journal (honestly, I lost count awhile back. For all I know, I might be in the fifties by now), which always makes me feel good. Anticipation has always been one of my favorite things to feel. That's the real reason I love Christmas and birthday. It's the buildup, not the presents. So all those clean, white pages waiting to be filled give me a little thrill, and always have, and always will.
And two of the books I ordered when I got my tax return have arrived, just in time to make it that much harder to decide what I'll read next. Naturally. Such is my life. Earlier today, on my lunch break, I finished reading The Salmon of Doubt, which was wonderful, every bit of it.
I think my favorite part of the whole book was in his interview with the Onion, when he said "I think the idea of art kills creativity." I was thinking about that a lot this weekend. Boy-Creature and I went to New Orleans to visit my family and go to Jazz Fest. It was on my mind all weekend while I was wandering around booths filled with art and listening to these icons of music, all of them just doing what they do. I can't imagine that they think of it as this titanic, heavy, important thing that is required of their genius. It's just a thing they do. And it all becomes so much easier when you think of it that way. I've spent so much of the last year getting in my own way, and I want to stop. Just be creative instead of worrying about art. Just do stuff without thinking about it.
But then that quieter, calmer part of me points out that April really didn't suck. Big parts of it were hugely, fantastically great. But just the last bit of April sucked, and it ruined the rest for me.
I got in a car accident last week (I'm ok), and I just dropped off my car at the body shop, so I am feeling depressed and cut off from the independence I'm used to. For the next ten days or so. It's exhausting just to think about the dance I'll have to do to deal with it, and all the other things I need to get done.
The ironic thing is that in the face of all that, otherwise I've been feeling really good. Reading and writing more, and knitting less, which I'm surprisingly ok with. Maybe the obsession is waning into a beloved hobby that I can stand to put down from time to time. Also, I've been doing lots of thinking and planning about what I want to actually do with my life. I'm feeling like I'm ready to start moving myself in some discernible direction, which is a truly refreshing feeling, after mostly doing nothing for a year (aside from that pesky day job, of course).
So I'm on the brink of finishing my forty-somethingth journal (honestly, I lost count awhile back. For all I know, I might be in the fifties by now), which always makes me feel good. Anticipation has always been one of my favorite things to feel. That's the real reason I love Christmas and birthday. It's the buildup, not the presents. So all those clean, white pages waiting to be filled give me a little thrill, and always have, and always will.
And two of the books I ordered when I got my tax return have arrived, just in time to make it that much harder to decide what I'll read next. Naturally. Such is my life. Earlier today, on my lunch break, I finished reading The Salmon of Doubt, which was wonderful, every bit of it.
I think my favorite part of the whole book was in his interview with the Onion, when he said "I think the idea of art kills creativity." I was thinking about that a lot this weekend. Boy-Creature and I went to New Orleans to visit my family and go to Jazz Fest. It was on my mind all weekend while I was wandering around booths filled with art and listening to these icons of music, all of them just doing what they do. I can't imagine that they think of it as this titanic, heavy, important thing that is required of their genius. It's just a thing they do. And it all becomes so much easier when you think of it that way. I've spent so much of the last year getting in my own way, and I want to stop. Just be creative instead of worrying about art. Just do stuff without thinking about it.
April 9, 2009
Wanna see something cool?
What began as this:
Turned into this:
in just a few hours! It's nearly half a sock! My very first sock! Too bad it isn't actually mine. It's for someone else. Assuming it doesn't somehow go horribly wrong. Also, as that someone else is nearly two thousand miles away (you know who you are), I can only assume that if they fit my feet, they'll fit hers. And if they don't fit her feet, I have every intention of taking them right back! The good news is, I seem to like sock knitting, so I'll just knit her some more, if I have to.
Turned into this:
in just a few hours! It's nearly half a sock! My very first sock! Too bad it isn't actually mine. It's for someone else. Assuming it doesn't somehow go horribly wrong. Also, as that someone else is nearly two thousand miles away (you know who you are), I can only assume that if they fit my feet, they'll fit hers. And if they don't fit her feet, I have every intention of taking them right back! The good news is, I seem to like sock knitting, so I'll just knit her some more, if I have to.
April 8, 2009
There's a Santa Fe-shaped hole in me
There is a point when you're driving south on I-25, when the whole of Santa Fe fits in the rearview mirror. If it's night, you can see all the lights, and if it's day, the Sangre de Cristo mountains. I saw this familiar sight on Saturday night, and it made me smile, until I realized I didn't know when I would ever see it again, and it was like a little part of me folded up inside.
Boy-Creature and I went there for a little weekend trip, which was too short and long overdue. It turned out to be perfect timing, too, since one of our closest friends who lived there moved back to her native Connecticut the same day we left. Another friend drove up from Las Cruces as well, and at least part of our little group from college was reunited. And who knows when that'll happen again. Everyone, it seems, is scattering to the winds.
Even we might be pulling up stakes sometime this year. There's been talk of Austin or New Orleans, or maybe even out to the east coast, since we're both thinking of grad schools out there (Don't worry, Mama, Toulane isn't ruled out yet). Who knows what'll happen, or if it'll even happen. It's not a great time to be quitting your job and wandering across the country, after all. It's funny, though. The whole weekend, my friends in Santa Fe kept telling me I wouldn't feel the same if I actually lived there, that I'd get sick of it just like they did. I don't think I would, though. I loved that city before I ever went to school there (in fact it's the very reason I went to school there), and I only found more to love about it when I did. Those are the things I love the most, too. The things I discovered on my own, that weren't just nostalgic memories. But now that the idea of moving is on the table, I don't know what I want to do, or where I want to go. But I'm thinking about it.
Boy-Creature and I went there for a little weekend trip, which was too short and long overdue. It turned out to be perfect timing, too, since one of our closest friends who lived there moved back to her native Connecticut the same day we left. Another friend drove up from Las Cruces as well, and at least part of our little group from college was reunited. And who knows when that'll happen again. Everyone, it seems, is scattering to the winds.
Even we might be pulling up stakes sometime this year. There's been talk of Austin or New Orleans, or maybe even out to the east coast, since we're both thinking of grad schools out there (Don't worry, Mama, Toulane isn't ruled out yet). Who knows what'll happen, or if it'll even happen. It's not a great time to be quitting your job and wandering across the country, after all. It's funny, though. The whole weekend, my friends in Santa Fe kept telling me I wouldn't feel the same if I actually lived there, that I'd get sick of it just like they did. I don't think I would, though. I loved that city before I ever went to school there (in fact it's the very reason I went to school there), and I only found more to love about it when I did. Those are the things I love the most, too. The things I discovered on my own, that weren't just nostalgic memories. But now that the idea of moving is on the table, I don't know what I want to do, or where I want to go. But I'm thinking about it.
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