A quick update

There's rumors that the marketing department is going to move into the empty offices on my hallway at work. Just in case I lose my privacy, I've done two more cartwheels in the hall in the last couple of weeks.

One of them may or may not have been in a dress.

Adventures in brainspace

I am a person who can not and will not watch horror movies. I can't deal with the gore and with people killing each other. So I just stay away from them. Neaves has been trying to get me to watch Red Eye for years because she loves it. I will not. I've heard that American Horror Story is amazing, and part of me is curious, but the rest of me keeps saying, "Are you an idiot? It says 'horror' right there in the title. Go back to your Community and your Bob's Burgers." And I do.

There are some weird shades of grey to this, though. I'm pretty much fine with monster movies. Something about it being removed enough from reality, although there are those where I still have to look away from the screen (Shaun of the Dead, I'm looking, or rather not looking, at you).

So if you had told me even a month ago that I'd be watching a very, very real video of a chick skinning a wolf in abject fascination, I'd have been very confused. But here I am. I'll warn you now, that the video is pretty graphic. The video will warn you, too. It's sorta gross, but also sorta incredible.

The amazing and awesome Hank Green did one of his "Thoughts from places" videos a few months ago from the Philip L. Wright Zoological Museum at the U of Montana, where he met the equally amazing and awesome Emilie Graslie. Since then, she has started doing her own series of videos called The Brain Scoop. And since then, I have gotten completely excited for every video, and I don't think I've even blinked during a single one of them.

I think the reason I'm so taken by these videos (and I strongly encourage you to go back and watch more of them, too. Maybe start with the earlier ones and work up to the wolf skinning.) is that it's so unlike the sorts of things I normally see and hear about. I love my life, but it can tend to get a little self-contained. I'm not in classes anymore, so I have to really make an effort to read outside my comfort zone, which I do to varying effect. But mostly I can just read what I like. Same goes for the shows I watch, and the podcasts I listen to, and the things I do in my free time.

At least with the podcasts, I've managed to get in some more of these new perspectives. Two of my favorites are the Moth podcast and the Stuff You Should Know. I had a very similar experience with SYSK a couple of weeks ago when I was listening to "Do You Stay Conscious After Being Decapitated?" That episode came out almost two years ago, and it had just been sitting in my ipod all that time because I kept thinking I might not be able to handle the subject matter. I think the only podcast I've ever not been able to finish was their episode on cannibalism. I got about ten minutes in and decided I couldn't take any more. I barely even remember what was being said, but it was enough. But not only did I do ok with the decapitation one, but I was so fascinated that I got exuberant. I was rapid-fire IMing my friend at work because I couldn't just sit there at my desk and keep it all to myself. It was all too interesting to not get to gush to someone about it. And I love that feeling.

That feeling is why I'm willing to keep trying to watch these videos and learn about these things. Because when you're really learning something- not sitting at a tiny desk in high school memorizing things, but actually absorbing and building up your brain with new information- it's so exciting. I hope I never run out of things that give me that feeling. I hope I keep feeling that curious my whole life, even if it means taking on the things I'm not sure I can handle. It's so worth it.

Go learn things, you guys.

News and events

I am blogging right now while wearing sunglasses around my apartment. Because I'm so awesome!

Just kidding. Actually, I just got my eyes dilated. They look all weird, and it's hard to focus on things up close. I felt very dorky puttering around my apartment in sunglasses while I made myself yet another cup of peppermint hot chocolate. But at least they're my own, and not those weird roll-up ones they give you. My plan is to hide in my bedroom, the darker of the two rooms in my apartment. Not counting the closet and bathroom, of course. But I don't want to sit in either of those. So I'll hang out and probably watch "Sex and the Single Girl" on Netflix, because sitting in the eye doctor's office and letting my eyes adjust reminded me of that scene where Tony Curtis keeps insisting "It's very bright" while he gets Natalie Wood very, very drunk. And then when the sun goes down, I'll go do some laundry. And then I'll go pack for the second of the three weddings. It's fun times around here, let me tell you!

I do really like my new brainy specs, though. It's been ages since I got a new pair of glasses, so that was my own nerdy brand of excitement.

In other news, fall has most definitely come to Santa Fe. I had not two but three blankets on my bed last night, it's been gray and rainy all week, and there's already snow on the mountains. I love it like this, in spite of the fact that I had to go to the grocery store in the pouring rain the other day. Fall has become my favorite season since coming to Santa Fe, and I think it's mostly because I never had it before. There really isn't a real fall in Texas, and San Diego was more or less the same year round. But it's lovely here. I've already started making big pots of comfort food- red beans and rice, ratatouille, and potato leek soup. I'm baking and knitting more- two things I never feel very inclined to do when it's hot, in spite of how much I love them. Now I'm looking forward to the first snowfall, because I've decided to celebrate it by building the first fire in my woodburning stove. Which I suppose means I should be looking for a cast iron kettle to put on it as a humidifier. Three people have now told me I should do that, so I shall.

The first of the three weddings was this last weekend, and it was way too much fun. Plus, it was on the same day that I went to Taos Sheep and Wool Fest, so it was a lovely day all around. I bought lovely yarn, which I can't wait to make into stuff (a sweater and a cowl or two is what I have planned so far), and then I got all dolled up and headed out. Apparently I did a really good job dolling myself up, because the bride didn't recognize me at first, having met me only once at a baseball game. So I guess it's good that I looked really different from that time I was in a tank top and jeans that I almost immediately dropped ketchup on.

The wedding was at a lovely hotel/resort place in Taos. It was an outdoor ceremony, and we got very lucky. Not only did we narrowly avoid getting rained on, but the bagpiper at the other wedding, elsewhere in the grounds of the resort, stopped just in time for our ceremony to start. But my friend Jeremy and I still couldn't here the woman officiating over the nearby waterfall, so we made up our own dialogue. It was mostly self-explanatory, so it was ok. Once he steps on the glass and they kiss, there's not much else to it. And then we all ate dinner and fought over the cookies on the tables and laughed a lot. My friend, the groom, said I was being seated at the fun table, and he definitely wasn't kidding. I discovered that the gay couple sitting next to me are both in rehearsals for The Nutcracker right now, and I threatened them with a dance-off. I can Sugarplum with the best of them!

And the best part is that I'm even more excited for the two weddings I still have to go to! And for Halloween, and NaNoWriMo, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It's going to be a very good fall, I can tell.

I couldn't help it

I said I wasn't going to, but then I did.

I was going to be patient and wait for October. But then Tamara got in to Pottermore. And then people kept posting links to the site to register on plurk. And then I couldn't resist clicking on it.

So I registered this morning.

And I have to say, while I am excited about that, the name I picked has been on my mind all day.

Unlike other web communities, this one doesn't give you free reign to pick whatever name you want. It gives you a choice of five, all of which are some kind of reference to the Potterverse, whether it's mythical creatures, or spells, or potions ingredients, or some mix of those sorts of things.

And the one I picked is very twee.

PixieGlow, with some numbers at the end that I don't remember off the top of my head. As an aside, I wonder how many other PixieGlow-numbers are out there as well. Anyway. I'm PixieGlow-something-or-other. I could just go double check the validation email I got, but I won't bother, as it doesn't matter that much. It's the PixieGlow part I've been thinking about. At the time I wasn't sure why I was drawn to it, but I was, as soon as the screen loaded giving me my options. The others were FlightSpell, something to do with Snidgets, and two that had Cat in them, which I seriously considered. But I picked PixieGlow. And then spent the next hour or two wondering if it was a bit too twee for me.

And then I remembered. I'm a girl who does things like register early for Pottermore. I knit tiny sweaters out of candy-colored yarn. I write fantasy short stories, and I have waist-length fairy tale hair. I've dressed up as fairies and can-can dancers and fictional characters for Halloween. I sing and dance around my apartment all the time, and play the ukulele.

I myself am rather inescapably twee.

So PixieGlow it is.

Of possibly idle threats, and the affection concealed within them

I find myself today, once again, at work with nothing to do. It has been so, so very slow lately, and it’s sort of exhausting. It really doesn’t help that I’m running on about two hours of pretty restless, not at all deep sleep, and my coffee from this morning has officially worn off. So both in an attempt to entertain myself, and to keep myself from falling asleep at my desk, regardless of the fact that my boss is out today, I am writing this blog post at work. Which is good, because it makes it look like I’m focusing on work things, what with all the typing and stuff.

But I’m not. At all. Every ten minutes or so, I check to see if anything has turned up to do, but usually nothing has, so I go back to trying to entertain myself. As I’m running on the aforementioned very little sleep, I was having more trouble than usual thinking of something to blog about. So I texted my good friend, asking her to give me something to blog about. She said breakfast cereal. Which didn’t thrill me. To which she responded by accusing me of just not being creative enough, which I knew she was going to do as soon as I said it. Or texted it. Or whatever. I’m sleepy. Anyway, after her extremely rude and harsh accusation, she at least amended her suggestion and told me to write about what happens when you sexualize breakfast cereal mascots. And maybe I’m really just that tired, but I just don’t know what to do with that. I have never considered such a thing. Call me vanilla, but cereal boxes just don’t do it for me.

My friends are weird. I like that, honestly. Even when it’s disarming, or threatening some part of my person. Like last night. My cereal-sexualizer (not serial, but cereal) friend’s boyfriend recently got a drastic haircut. He had fairly long, impressively curly hair, as she illustrated on her own blog here. Now he has very short, just discernibly curly hair, as illustrated here. It’s that short, that you almost can’t tell what his hair is like. So last night I saw him for the first time since he was shorn, and he looks very good. He looked good before, but he looks very good now. And I could tell he was thrilled with not having to deal with it, in the summer heat, no less. He was so thrilled that he offered to immediately shave off my own waist-length hair. Quite seriously. When I refused, because it’s taken me seven years to get it back to this length (Since my senior year of high school. Crazy.), he warned me to never fall asleep at their apartment. I believe him.

While most people might be alarmed by that, deep down I found it charming. Mostly because he was so enthusiastic about how great it would be for both of us to shave my head. Apparently I have a nicely shaped head. I spent a good chunk of time later last night thinking how much I enjoy the fact that my friends are all fascinating individuals. Like last week, when another friend and I had an incredibly snarky text conversation that started with him sending me a picture of his sandwich. To be fair, I did bring it on myself, but still. To an outside viewer, I’m certain it would look like a weird conversation, and I enjoy that. I have a lot of those in my life. And I like it that way. They fit well in my world, and certainly keep things interesting.

It's starting to feel more home-y...

Happy cat:


Happy Kat:


It's been an eventful week.

On Wednesday we got the kitten. She's about five months old, and we can't figure out what to name her. Her foster mother was calling her Maya, but we don't like that. The names that have come up so far are Eleanor Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth the First, and Bagheera. I suggested that last one, although I've since learned that I'm remembering my Kipling wrong. I thought Bagheera was female for some reason. So I guess that one will get pulled off the table. Our kitten is very sleek and velvety and panther-like, though. Just on a much smaller, more timid scale. She's very, very timid. I'm hoping she grows out of that, although not out of the part where she's too timid to use her claws.

The kitten is currently curled up in the Boy Creature's lap, and the Boy Creature is asleep. It's rather adorable.

Today I got the bookshelf. It was free. One of my office mates was standing in the empty office across the hall with the facilities manager talking about what furniture to keep and what to get rid of for the person who's moving into said office. So I called out, "Are you giving furniture away?" Ten minutes later, they delivered the bookshelf to my office door. Apparently it used to be in the registrar's office, because people kept coming by to drop off files or ask a question, and they'd go, "Hey, that looks awfully familiar. What's it doing here?"

Sadly, said bookshelf did not fit into my wee little Honda Civic at the end of the day. It got about halfway in and wouldn't go any further. If we'd had some rope, we could have tied it down and it would have been fine, but we had no rope. Luckily, we had a friend with an SUV who was kind enough to come help us out. So even though I still have four boxes of books yet to unpack, I'm happy.

Even though it won't help the fact that I was already reading two books at once, and I just put a third on hold at the library.

Soon there will be belly scratches and loves

The Boy Creature and I just dropped off a form to adopt a little black kitten named Maya.

When we get her, we will change her name to Eleanor Roosevelt. There's a long story behind that name.

But I can't wait to get her.

Think of all that brain space wasted on math and lyrics to 80s songs

Boy Creature sometimes asks me what words mean. This is becoming somewhat of a point of contention in our relationship.

He asks me a word, I give him a fair, if rough definition (usually. Sometimes I just get it wrong, mostly when I'm mixing it up with a similar-sounding but entirely different word) of what said word means. Then he decides that's not good enough, and looks it up, and admonishes me because my definition wasn't verbatim from the dictionary. To which I reply that I was more or less right about the word- maybe I didn't cover every nuance of meaning and every evolutionary step in its particular colloquial usage and pinpoint the etymology, but I more or less told him what that word meant, enough that the next time he came across that word, he would probably get it. And then I p0int out that if he's just going to look it up anyway, he shouldn't have asked me in the first place. And then he says, he's glad he looked it up because clearly I don't know what I'm talking about, and what good is a creative writer if they don't know ALL the words. To which I reply that I'm not a walking dictionary.

All this is why now, when he asks me what a word means, I've gotten into the habit of telling him it's complicated and he should look it up.

Just now, he asked what "halcyon" meant. I say look it up, he makes fun of me for not knowing, not a walking dictionary, blahblahblah. But I looked it up anyway, and read him ALL of the definitions in a dramatic voice. Whereupon I found this jewel:

Noun- a mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm.

Isn't that nice? I love words. Even if I can't remember them all.

On-the-job self-entertainment

In this new job that I have at the local university (which is going very well, thanks so much for asking!), part of what I'm doing is entering the classes that prospective students have taken into our system. Sometimes (most of the time) it abbreviates the actual class name, and I'm pretty often amused by how it shortens them. My favorite so far is "Foundations of accounting," which became "Found accounting."

It sounds like found art, and I love that. I love the idea of ledgers scribbled on the subway walls, or discarded budgets, tucked in the back of library books. Little bits of accounting floating around the world, just for the love of it.

I like silly things.

Lots and lots to celebrate

I've been very, very aware of the fast that I haven't posted in a week. I'm bummed that I let a whole week go by without putting anything up. But I did. Sorry, guys. I've said before that I feel like I do a lot better with structure, and I've had very little of that lately. But there is good news on that front.

I got a job! And I'm thrilled about it. There's a million things about it that are just what I was hoping for in a job, and I couldn't be happier. So starting Monday, assuming things go as planned, there will be structure again! And not the temp company kind where there's structure one week, and then for three days another week, and then nothing for a few weeks. This is reliable structure, just like I like it. I can't wait to get started.

So that's the best news, and it was already a good week. Yesterday was the Boy-Creature's birthday!


We got fondue for his birthday dinner, and I baked him a strawberry cake with strawberry icing. The kitchen smelled amazing, and I didn't even bake it here, since the oven is still on the fritz. Just the cake itself smelled delicious. And yes, there are only ten candles on that cake, but he turned twenty four, not ten. It's just that by the time I got the first eight on, he decided that was enough and wanted me to light them already. I made him let me put two more on so they'd be in the shape of a star. Please also ignore the fact that there are two mismatched candles right in front, along with ignoring all the junk on the counter. He really wanted some of that cake, so there wasn't a ton of time for a photo shoot. Not long after that picture was taken, the cake looked more like this.


It's a really tasty cake. There's even less of it now, and we only cut into it at lunchtime today. We wanted to cut it last night, but we forgot how freaking long a fondue dinner takes, and we didn't get home until ten thirty, and we were both stuffed. Upon coming home, I fell into an immediate food coma and had more super crazy weird dreams. So we had strawberry birthday cake for lunch today. I wish I could say that wasn't all we had for lunch, but alas, it was. Yet another reason I'm looking forward to going back to work. I eat better when I'm planning out lunches to take to the office.

Dance-y brain

Today I'm feeling inspired.

I ate leftover potato-leek soup that I made on Wednesday. I've been cooking more lately, because I like cooking, and I've had the time, being unemployed, and it's cheaper than eating out too much. So I've been trying to cook more and more. The soup came out wonderfully. It's good with toast. I'll have to make it again sometime.

I'm trying to drink more water. I never drink enough, and I've tried and tried to drink more. Maybe one day I'll get myself in the habit. I am a work in progress.

I've been reading lots of blogs. Especially this one called A Beautiful Mess. I love her stuff, and it's hard not to get inspired by her blog posts. One of them, in fact, is the reason I started on a wee little painting yesterday (remember when I talked about those? I'm still at it), and I'm letting my brain dance around and bubble up with more ideas for those. I'm letting my brain dance around with all sorts of things. This is the reason I think I'll go to the art store soon. I want some paint markers. Being a writer, a lot of my art ideas encompass words and type and wordplay, and I don't yet trust my hand at doing lettering with a paintbrush. I'll keep experimenting and practicing with a brush, but in the meantime, paint markers sound like a good investment.

Which is why it's a good thing that I have a temp position lined up for Monday. Yay for income! It won't be much, since it's only a one day thing, but I'll take it! And in the meantime, I'm still putting myself out there and trying to find a good job. Fingers still crossed.

Especially if it'll allow me to do more of these inspired types of things I want to do. It's been good for me, trying to do as much as I can with as little as possible, but eventually a girl's gotta get her some paint markers.

8.75 square inches of creative inspiration

My mom is a painter. She makes a living painting fancy things in people's houses. Right now, she's doing some work for a woman with a very young son, and she wanted some paintings to hang in his bedroom. I am helping with this, since I minored in art for a few semesters in college (before changing to dance), and I don't think my mom has ever stretched canvas before. I secretly love stretching canvas.

While I was at the art supply store yesterday, I saw these wee little canvasses for sale. The smallest ones weren't even as big as a matchbox. I immediately wanted some. But I didn't buy any.

Until today. I now have ten wee little canvasses waiting for me to paint wee little paintings on them. I have a few vague ideas, maybe painting little cartoony animals, or symbols, or crazy little messages, but no real plans for them yet. I can't wait to see how they'll turn out.

Autumn in Austin

It is a beautiful night in Austin tonight. Boy-Creature and I ran around downtown today, and then came back to hang out at the house. Everyone is cooking and drinking and laughing. The guys keep arguing over who gets to control the stereo, and who has the best collection on his ipod, and who has the best taste in classic music. There's a cool breeze coming off the pond behind the house, and I was listening to that part in "Night moves" where Bob Seger is singing about autumn closing in, and it just seemed like such a perfect moment.

Mom said we should see as much of Austin as we can, and see if we might like to live here. I will be applying to UT for grad school, so it's not out of the question. The couple that owns the house even offered to rent us a room while we find jobs and a place, if we do decide we want to come here. But I'm not making any decisions tonight. We're here until Saturday, so we've got five days to see how we feel.

If it could always be like it is tonight, I might just say yes.

Fear of the dining dead

I know it's not how you're supposed to judge your self, or your relationships, but sometimes I start to think about how other people see Boy-Creature and me. Sometimes I wonder if strangers look at us and try to figure us out, and whether they think we're happy together. It bothers me the most in restaurants.

There are some times when we'll be out, and there are long periods where we just sit there, and don't say anything. Maybe they're not even as long as I think, maybe it's just that I'm self-conscious and they start to seem interminable. It always makes me think of that part in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" when he's talking about the dining dead, those bored couples who just stare off into space because there's something wrong in their relationship. I worry that people might think we're the dining dead, when really it's one of those comfortable silences. Plus, we both had mostly monotonous jobs, and there's very little fodder for conversation from that arena.

Every time we have one of those nights, I wonder if people think that about us, and I want to stand up and announce that really we're ok, and we're happy together. I've thought before about how when we're at home, we make each other laugh all the time. It makes me want to tell people, "You should see us in private! You'd be so envious of how happy and fun we are!"

Last night we had one of those rare nights out when everything was perfect. Boy-Creature was in this hyper, hilarious mood and it was rubbing off on me, which was good, because I'd been really crabby and snapped at him for no reason earlier. But we were laughing outside the restaurant, and then when we went in, we got seated right away, so we didn't have to wait around by the hostess stand. And we kept laughing through the whole meal, and we were sharing food and the waitress was nice. I found myself secretly hoping people saw us like that, even though we were at this tiny table kind of wedged behind this half-wall near the door. The restaurant was kind of crowded. But even if no one saw or cared, we had fun.

And we still do. Earlier today, I did something obnoxious and ridiculous, and the look on his face was so funny I laughed until I started crying. The true sign of a good relationship.

The bug has bitten once more

I may have decided not to do NaNoWriMo this year, but as fate would have it - brace yourselves - I've begun writing something anyway.

I only started seriously considering participating this year a week before it started. So I spent much of the last week of October planning. I had decided not to do an actual novel. I've been out of the writing habit so long this last year, that I really didn't think I was up for it. Instead, since there are no real rules to NaNoWriMo, other than don't start until November first and don't stop until you hit 50,000 words, I was thinking about just writing lots and lots of short stories instead.

So throughout the week, I started writing down ideas. Some were brand new. Some were old things that I'd been tinkering with in the back of my brain. Some weren't even fully-formed ideas, just images and thoughts to use as a springboard. I told myself that if I got a good number of ideas down, I would go ahead and do NaNoWriMo. If I came up with only twenty five ideas, that would come out to two thousand words each. And then at the end of the month, not only would I have joined and accomplished in the insane creative explosion that is NaNoWriMo, but I would potentially have twenty five (or so) stories' worth of raw material. That's a lot to work with, after a year of barely writing anything other than some very rough ideas and even rougher drafts. After all, you can edit anything but a blank page.

As the week went on, other things came up, and I didn't get down as many ideas as I'd hoped. Plus, the thoughts of all the stuff I'm up against, what with the move and everything, I had to admit this probably wasn't the year for it. And I was ok with that.

But those ideas were still simmering in my mind. And today I looked over my little list and started to see how similar in tone some of them were. And how this character felt like the beginnings of that one. And how several, if not all of my ideas, could conceivably fit together.

And suddenly I have the beginnings of what could potentially (possibly, maybe, don't say it too loud or you'll scare it away!) be a novel one day.

And I have the first four paragraphs written and the basic framework of an outline.

Wish me luck.

Shiny happy fun stuff!

A selection of fun things I've found on the internet tonight (amidst researching moving stuff and updating my resume):

Monkey Island, in a nutshell: This game was perhaps a larger part of my childhood than it should have been, but it left its mark. Hence my lingering love of all things pun, and piratical.

Epicute: The Cute Food Blog: They are so not kidding when they say cute. I wasted way more time on this blog tonight that I should have allowed. My self-discipline is somewhat lagging, post-college. Deep down, I crave structure.

And finally...

The Uptown Soap Co.: More miniature, tasty-looking, cute things. I've always had this not-so-secret love of hand-made/fancy/pretty soaps, and this blog is a gorgeous chronicle of some amazing soapmakers out there. I realize a blog about soap sounds kind of odd and maybe even boring, but trust me. Take the bait. Click the link. So pretty! And yet somehow, I only use Dove soap. Go figure.

UPDATE!!!
P.S. I'm suddenly very seriously looking at bento blogs and going "Hmm... that looks doable."

Clever titles are overrated.

No package full of fun yet, but it was a very eventful day.

There was a thing at work where we had the option of wearing jeans, so I did just enough to look like I was participating. We had pizza for lunch, courtesy of the company, and then I went with my friend Emy to her sonogram. Our manager wanted to go with her, just because, but she couldn't so I went instead. I got to see the baby's big head (Emy is now even more nervous about the whole pushing out a baby thing), and her heartbeat and stomach, and her little leg. I am still convinced I'm not even remotely interested in having a baby at this point. Just in case you were wondering.

Then more work, which was boring, but luckily didn't last long.

Then to the library! I was a shelving machine today. For which they were very grateful, because Library-Boss-Man (Hi, Bill) said they'd gotten a talking to about being behind on shelving. So I was going as fast as I could, just shelving everything in sight. I like shelving juvenile fiction best. There's just so many of them that I remember reading, and remember fondly. So it makes me happy to go back through them. So many of those books meant so much to me, and a lot of them still do. I checked out Alices's Adventures in Wonderland, because I've been wanting to read it again before Tim Burton's movie comes out. I want to see how faithful he'll be to the original. Plus, I haven't read it in so long, and I've been in the mood for strange stories lately.

Anyway, tomorrow should be good, too. We're going to see "Wicked" tomorrow night, and I'm hugely looking forward to it. All this time and I've still never seen it. Yay!

Bloglove, with a hint of encouragement

Saturday slipped past me, and I felt a wee bit guilty for not doing a booklove update (although not as guilty as I feel for not having any other kinds of posts for what has now becomes weeks, instead of just days). And then I was sick most of the day Sunday, so I didn't care that it was slipping past me.

Suddenly it's Tuesday, and I'm beginning to pay more attention to what a lazy blogger I've been lately. Especially if I ever want this blog to be anything special, which I do. I have all these ideas and visions for what I want it to be. It's far from there yet. But I'm working on it. Slowly.

Anyway.

The knitting has been going fabulously lately, what with finishing the aforementioned first sweater and finally getting to cast on new things. I'm working on another sweater, which is almost done. It's much thicker yarn, on much bigger needles, and it's a much smaller sweater, so it has flown past. I wanted to try to finish it tonight, but the summer weather has thwarted me. It's just a wee bit too warm and humid to be knitting with thick, squishy wool. So I shall wait until it cools off some. So in the meantime, I blog. And oogle other people's blogs.

This new one that I love, I found through a fellow knitter's profile page on Ravelry. It's owl in the dark, and she's a knitter and singer (maybe not necessarily in that order, though). I actually already had one of her patterns in my favorites from some time ago, but just now made my way over to her project page. Her stuff (and her blog, with her lovely cats and music) makes me feel all girly and ruffly, which is pretty unlike me, so that's saying something. She seems like something out of fairy tale.

Which is enormously encouraging to me. I like knowing that it is possible in this world to build a life that is full of whimsy and little bits of wonderful. Because that is pretty much all I want from this life. To fill it with all the little bits of wonderful and extraordinariness that I can get my hands on. As someone who is stuck in the 9 to 5 life and only pursuing the things I love in my spare time, for the time being, I'm constantly reminding myself that it doesn't just have to be this way, and that it won't always be this way. I just have to keep working to make sure of it. That's all.

Inspiration at long last

Boy-Creature and I saw The Brothers Bloom last night, and I am nuts about it. I almost wanted to go again tonight.

We saw Brick awhile back, from the same director/writer, Rian Johnson. It's a fantastic movie as well, but I liked this one better. They're very similar in their styles and in the way the plot moves (Oh, so many delicious twists!), but where Brick is dark and brooding, Bloom is light and lovely and marvelously, smartly funny. My favorite kind of funny. It's a very well-written movie, which is a rare thing these days, and I didn't even realize how well it's done until I started reading some of the background and inspiration on it. I can't think the last time I saw a movie with main characters inspired by anything as formidable as Ulysses. I'm a sucker for a good literary reference, and it was full of them.

There's this great line at the beginning of the movie where Bloom says of his brother Stephen, "He writes cons like dead Russians wrote novels." And then it becomes not just a line that sounds good, but catches up the theme of the entire movie.

Plus, it's got a good, twisty plot, as every con movie should. My favorite kind of plot. It even got me wanting to write again, as well. After four years in college scribbling in notebooks, mostly about books, the writing this last year has gone much more slowly. With everything that's gone on, I've lost a lot of momentum and discipline. But my fingers are always itching for a pen (or even, occasionally, a keyboard), and thoughts and hopes of a good story are always steeping at the back of my mind. Still, I've found myself doing a lot of thinking lately about if I want to keep writing, and if so what I want to write.

It's strange to have these doubts and hesitations after so many years of knowing it's what I wanted to do. I remember the day I realized I wanted to be a writer, in Mrs. Hedman's fourth grade language arts class. As hard as it may be for me at the moment, there have been moments along the way that have reminded me why I keep scribbling. These days, The Brothers Bloom has become one of the biggest ones.

There's nothing like a good story, to make me long to write a good story. And this is the kind I love most. Where the storytelling and style have just as much to do with it as the actual plot or characters. I'll read all the great, formidable, highly-respected novels of acclaim that my old professors and classmates recommended, but it's the page-turners that suck me in for hours while the day passes me by that will keep my pen moving across the pages. The page-turners, and the occasional well-written, quirky, literary romp of a romantic-comedy con movie.

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.