I Love My Shirt

I Can Dig It

2008-10-31T16:26:00.000-07:00

Whilst researching ballot measure 65 to ascertain my vote, I discovered that the Oregon state motto is:

It doesn't help me determine my vote with regard to the open primary, but I think that's a pretty damn sweet motto.

Best Landscaping Business Name EVER

2008-10-22T15:28:00.001-07:00

For the poor of vision, a closer look:

When I officially move up in the world to "bourgeois pig" status, I am totally hiring these guys.

Look! Internets!

2008-09-21T16:16:00.000-07:00

I did it, people. I finally took the leap into the land of...paying to be on the lines. Thoroughly modern me, as it were. For instance, it's raining right this second. Heavily. And I can show you, look:

This is wild.

Furniture Is Sexy

2008-09-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

At least, my furniture is. Seriously. Marvel at my most recent acquisition:

It also has me all hot for winter. Me! Looking forward to the rainy season! So I can justify curling up on my beautiful chaise longue with a blanket & a book. In my slippers. Mmm, tasty.

Now all I have to do is reupholster it! Which I suspect will not be super-fun for me, but whatever. Just another step in my gradual transition to becoming a girl who can do all sorts of manly things, like hang pictures & fix futons & assemble shelves. It's like there's a river of testosterone coursing through my veins. Anyway. I have already found the fabric to replace the yellow bits. It goes somethin' like this:

Oh yeah. Now I just need to find the right touchably soft (the tactile sensation is absolutely every bit as important as the visual one) solid base color. One that will not only complement the patterned fabric but also go with my olive green walls, orange couch & purple chair. For of the many pejoratives one could hurl my direction, being afraid of color numbers not amongst them.

In other news: Prince is definitely way better than Michael Jackson. I know that's pretty obvious, but every time I answered "Prince", a little voice in my head whispered "Off the Wall...Off the Wall". That voice has been silenced.

And, also, is it just me or does Sarah Palin seem more like George W. Bush as every day passes? Ahem: "Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy."

For the record, I am really totally pissed at both the Democratic & Republican parties for actually making me care about this election. I mean, beyond my usual research'n'vote approach to elections, I am actually terrified by the thought that one particular candidate might win. Which is funny given that as recently as four years ago, I said that he was the only major party candidate who would get my vote in a presidential election. That was before he turned into a pandering, groveling jackass.

Whoa

2008-08-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

So, my scary new medication says DON'T GET PREGNANT (along with some other rather frightening "don't's" & "you coulds" (like, um, I could GO BLIND. Jesus) in 12 million different places. But this is truly priceless:

I am saving these. Every last pill-encasing NO BABIES one of them. A wonderful, yet-to-be-imagined destiny awaits them.

Also - dig that price:

So, I took my first pill last night. This is how much it cost to get to that point: $1,118. Pre-health insurance. For a drug that could make me go blind, hear voices, burn a hole in my esophagus if I don't swallow it completely, &/or give me Flipper babies. Nosebleeds are the most innocuous side effect on the list. Post-health insurance? I've dished out $30. I cannot imagine trying to exist in this country without health insurance. Holy crap.

Also, note to self: DO NOT ignore recommendation to take with food. Learned that one awful quick!

Say Hello, Part II!

2008-08-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I bought myself an early birthday present. However, it took me three weeks to name her, & four weeks to shell out the bucks to outfit her. She's not quite pimped out yet, but hey, we got time, it'll happen.

Without further ado, then...this is Clara Bow!

And here is Clara, not quite so lovingly lit, but clad in the jewelry which I purchased for her the other day - flashing head & tail lights; Kryptonite lock; front basket (essential, as Clara's primary function is to transport me to & fro my favorite grocery stores); & helmet (Oregon has no helmet law, but given my propensity to fall down whilst merely walking, the province of April has enacted its own helmet law):

Isn't she delicious? Granted, I'm mildly concerned because she is a single-speed cruiser with a coaster brake, but I knew none of this when I saw her shining at me from a bicycle shop in NW Portland. All I saw was her gleaming iridescent pearly ladypart pinkness. I even coordinated my helmet & headlight choices to mirror the grey accents on the frame. Yes. I am an anal little aesthete. (NB: Bicycle helmets, as I discovered to my chagrin, do not come in "cute". I did my best - pewter with blue & pink bubbles.)

My bicycle lust has been sated! I love Clara. Now I just need to start riding her.

August Staff Picks

2008-07-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

I never got around to July. Whatever. FYI, they were: Bonjour Tristesse, Leave Her to Heaven, L'Atalante, Tabu & M. Hulot's Holiday.

But July is so far gone it's practically last July. Besides, August marks a redundantly momentous moment in the life of yours truly: thirty! Yes indeedy. I can't wait. I've been over my twenties for years now. Clearly I needed to honor the occasion within my August staff picks. However, despite my most noble efforts to unearth five decent movies about turning thirty, I ran headfirst into a brick wall at precisely three: 13 Going on 30, Logan's Run & Beautiful Girls. I mean, sure, there are movies about Zach Braff turning 30 & there are movies based on Douglas Coupland books about people turning 30, but...ew. I wouldn't even watch those, let alone "recommend" them. So I instead chose to feature American movies released in 1978. After much thought & careful consideration, I came up with:

Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick, 1978. But of course. Beautiful, stunning, etc. Ignore Gerbil Ass & marvel at the Malickability of it. And give thanks to the gods that made Malick's first choice star, John Travolta, unavailable. Glorious. If we had five copies, I would have made it all five of my picks.

Coming Home, Hal Ashby, 1978. Hmm...so my two most favorite American movie directors of the 1970s, Malick & Ashby, both just happened to release films during the year in which I was born. Oh, AND Haskell Wexler, one of my favorite cinematographers, shot both of them (although Nester Almendros has primary credit for Days, he had to leave the production early.) Coincidence? Sure. But this one's still a keeper, even if it is a bit heavy-handed nowadays. Then again, the more things change... At any rate, I'm absolutely mad for Bruce Dern's last scene; & if you've only seen Jon Voight in, ahem, Zoolander (like me), you're in for a treat! Penelope Milford is excellent as well.

Piranha, Joe Dante, 1978. The evil bastardos team of bound-for-Gremlins Dante & John Sayles (yep, the same one) totally sock it to the campground kiddies! Per the commentary, I apparently have Roger Corman to thank for so delighting my misanthropic inclinations - seems he instituted a maximum-gore-per-reel policy which didn't see fit to save the children. Also, the piranha noise is fabulous AND it all ends in a most fantastically un-PC fashion. Heh. I hear that in the sequel (James Cameron's first movie, if you care) they breed with...wait for it...flying fish. Oh yes.

The Cat from Outer Space, Norman Tokar, 1978. Cats! Well, a cat! From outer space! With Roddy McDowell, who's also from outer space! Although I loved it as a child, this is not a good movie. In fact, when I found out that I'd confused it with That Darn Cat & it didn't feature spunky Hayley Mills as I'd originally thought, I struck it from my list. But then the Donna Summer disco movie Thank God It's Friday turned out be a real stinker, & when I watched Heaven Can Wait I finally admitted that I actively dislike Warren Beatty, & following that I ran out of time to come up with anything else. The cat talks though! And he's all sassy & droll.

Dawn of the Dead, George Romero, 1978. Fine. You want to get all technical, this was released in the U.S. in April 1979. To which I reply, so? It premiered at Cannes in 1978, bitches. Eat my brain. Zombies, a Goblin (or, er, "The Goblins" as they're credited here) soundtrack & a cutesy little satire of American consumerism? Yeah, I stretched the rules for that. Besides, we don't have Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

For September, I'm doing something French. Either softcore pr0n, or candy-coated movies with realism filling (think The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which puts my own color sensibilities, of which I feel justly proud, to shame & makes me tear up more the older I get (because of the story, not the colors)) or Robert Bresson. I've not decided which.

To Future April, Around January 2009

2008-07-23T13:22:00.001-07:00

It won't last forever.

Love,
Past-Present April

Cats Playing Jazz

2008-07-15T10:42:00.001-07:00

No, seriously.

CATS

PLAYING

MOTHERFUCKING

JAZZ

I am in love, love, LOVE with The Aristocats.

So much so that I can almost actually forgive Disney for ruining The Little Mermaid for ten-year-old Me with its fake happy ending. Because frankly Me didn't see what, exactly, was so terribly unhappy about the main character not only not getting the guy, but sacrificing her own happiness for the sake of his & dying because of it; & having her very selflessness allow her to enter heaven rather than becoming mere foam on the sea like her mer-brethren. It's Hans Christian Andersen, for fuck's sake.

I mean, compared to my all-time favorite Andersen tale The Travelling Companion's macabre S&M beatings & my second favorite tale The Red Shoes' gruesome body-part cost of avarice (not to mention The Little Freakin' Poor, Cold, Motherless & Oh Yeah, Dead Match Girl), the mermaid's demise is positively sunny!

But I became burdened with a gravity ill-suited to my years at an early age, which it then took me several subsequent years to learn to leaven with equal parts sparkles'n'sunshine.

And behold! Sparkles'n'sunshine made cartoon:

Aaaahhhh. On a less-than-stellar day of painful cornea sunburn, ten-percent-jacked-up apartment rent notice, & being so temporarily choked with bile that I spent several minutes really, really trying to think of a way to make the horn-playing men outside the French bakery cry, this fully restored my spirits. Now, I can't promise that you'll like it; but it hits every one of my cute-buttons.

Full-on HURRAH!

Mmmmmmmmmmm

2008-07-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was here.

Today I am not.

Yesterday was worth the sun burning my corneas & leaving me in flaming waves of vicious eye pain, paranoid that my vision would be permanently scarred.**

If I'm wrong & there in fact IS a heaven, this is what mine would be. Of course, if I'm wrong, I don't think heaven is quite where I'm going to find myself in the end.

** I'm still in flaming waves of pain, but I can see clearly enough today. That three-hour drive home wins third place in my list of all-time worst driving experiences.

Scary!

2008-07-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

So, I'm going to start taking a medication.

A month from now.

Because they have to really, really, really make sure I'm not pregnant before I can take it. Twice from piss and once from blood (the kind they take out with a needle. Sheesh). I had to fill out two consent forms. And they sent me off with a shiny red-covered coloring book. Nah, not really; but it's the shape & size of a coloring book & has all sorts of elementary diagrams. I also have to promise to use two forms of birth control the entire time I'm on the meds. Pssst, book-makers: I have, by now, sussed out how condoms work. But I sure am looking forward to breaking out my crayons tonight.

And then, the entire time I'm on it - which could be anywhere between five to eighteen months (!) - I have to go in every month & get a needle stuck in my arm again to prove I'm not pregnant. Plus go on a website & take a little quiz (sample question, no joke: what is a primary form of birth control?). Also, I can't give blood. Which makes me wonder how my organ donor status is affected, then.

See, the medication causes all sorts of nasty birth defects. Honestly, if I had any intention of shooting babies out of my uterus, like, ever, I would think once or thirty times before taking it.

Oh, and beyond that, I had to solemnly swear & initial in two places to tell my doctor if I start seeing things, hearing things, or feeling despondent, er, beyond the usual malaise. Like life-endingly despondent. So...not a medication I would have wanted to take as a tween. Or a teenager. Or when I was twenty two. Or anytime from about October '06 to August '07, when I was going through this super-fun thing called Disassociation for the second time. Tho' to its, um, credit, the second verse was mildly different than the first! Good times.

And after all this, can I tell you? I don't even have any scary medical condition. At all. Not like that time a couple years ago when my doctor thought I had cancer. Two weeks before I was set to move cross-country. Luckily, I was too busy to think, let alone despair; & then it was revealed to be naught but a false alarm.

We are awfully susceptible lot of miscreants.

Just Another Snobby Old Movie**

2008-06-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

When I was a wee lass, I had in my possession a film guide. It had a still from Top Gun on the cover, with one or two tacky blue clip art renderings of film strips placed diagonally. The paper was that weird not-quite-newspaper, not-quite-book paper. It offered short capsule reviews of maybe 1,000 movies or so.

And for some reason, it had a profound influence on me.

I read it over & over & over again. Endlessly. Even after it grew so worn that the cover fell off. I still remember things like the picture of Anthony Hopkins from Magic &, yes, even the two-star rating given that film. Moreover, this book is why 1986 is my cut-off year - anything that happened after '86 feels recent, contemporary (the book was published that year). I cannot, however, recall its title.

One of the films it reviewed was this cheesy, tacky looking thing called Angel, released in 1984. The picture illustrating the review was an image of the movie's poster, which had the tag line "High school honor student by day. Hollywood hooker by night."

Friends, I have waited lo! these twenty two years for an opportunity to see this movie. I can't help it. I freakin' love that tag line. And those clothes! I have periodically checked Netflix on several occasions, only to turn away empty-handed.

No more.

I have now at my disposal a veritable cornucopia of teen genius hooker movies - Angel. Avenging Angel. And, oh yes, Angel III: The Final Chapter. I cannot tell you how excited I am. Of course, I know that this movie will very likely let me down. The thrill of the chase will be over. But, you know, if it means I get to realize a long-cherished goal, I think I can handle it.

Besides, it doesn't look like anybody's gonna put Summer Camp Nightmare on DVD anytime soon. The dream lives!

**A patron at the video store at which I work called me "snobby" after he asked what new releases I would recommend. I told him I didn't really watch a lot of new movies, & when queried, elaborated that I have an awful lot of catching up to do when it comes to cinema history. At which point I was dubbed "snobby". Whatever. Dude name-checked Birth of a Nation as the beginning of cinema. Fucking pleb.

Question

2008-06-24T13:36:00.001-07:00

Mr. Pedestrian Symbol, I can overlook the lack of hands & feet, but...WHY NO NECK?

I Would Watch This Movie

2008-06-13T13:33:00.001-07:00

Ideally, the Beavers would have to team up with their heretofore sworn enemies, the Butts, in order to defeat Las Vegas.

There's a little tear in my eye at the very thought of it.

Unbated Breath

2008-06-06T16:27:00.000-07:00

Despite knowing next to nothing about it, beyond its truly marvelous title, I desperately* want to see Kung Fu Panda. Because of, well, its truly marvelous title.

Just in case you were wondering where I stood on that important issue.

* "Desperately" meaning "I will see it in three months when it plays at the Laurelhurst as long as it plays at grown-up times & not just at 1 p.m. on the weekend when kids are allowed in".

That's A Relief

2008-06-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

"I don't care about anybody else."

That's not entirely true; but! on Saturday I was talking with somebody, & somehow the subject of organic food came up. I mentioned that recently I had switched to eating almost exclusively organic produce, since I'm a lucky enough bastard to be in a position to afford it & it has become important to me. The person was pretty strongly against organic food, because organic food companies oppose feeding starving people GMOs or something? I don't know. I didn't care. In fact, his diatribe prompted that six-word gem quoted above.

Although it was said largely in the interest of ending a conversation for which I cared not, I'd like to think this negates my hippie-dippie "ecological footprint" moment (see previous post). Understand, it's not the sentiment behind the thought; hey, I wipe my ass with recycled toilet paper & clean my toilet with "eco-friendly" products. It's more the very naturalness of the thought; the way it suddenly just tumbled uninvited into my mind, stood up, dusted itself off & asked me to make it a cocktail.

In short, I'd like to think that the latter statement smacked the former in the face. Just for the sake of perspective. Because I am currently living in abject terror of attaining "unbearably sanctimonious" status.* Fight the power!

*This could happen sooner than you think. Recently I was getting a cup of tea when I saw my boss throw an empty tea box into the trash. Without thinking (it seems I should give this "thinking" thing a try sometime!), I instantly barked, "[Name], NO! Recycle!" Yep. Because it's always a great idea to start the morning by yelling at your boss.

True Story

2008-05-30T08:06:00.001-07:00

Last night I was laboriously washing & drying the twenty four 8-ounce Rubbermaid containers I had just purchased for storing cat food.

(Aside: I started making raw cat food for Audun in 2000, when he was but a wee adorable kitten, using a recipe that a friend gave me. Fast forward to 2004 - I told my vet in Virginia that Audun ate a raw food diet. She freaked out, 'cause she said that there wasn't any taurine in a raw food diet, & not having taurine leads to kitty heart problems. Then, she listened to Audun's heart & said he had a heart murmur. Now, my cat = my child. There is nothing I wouldn't do for Audun (or Xavier). So I freaked out, I cried, & then I got rational. I realized that he exhibited every sign of being perfectly healthy & that maybe, just maybe, my vet had heard that for which she was looking. Nonetheless, I immediately started feeding Audun super-processed cat food, like Iams.

(Last year, when I took Audun to his new vet for an annual check up, I explained the situation. My new vet (whom I thoroughly recommend, FYI), funnily enough, did not hear a heart murmur.

(Fast forward again to this year & my absolute horror at discovering what, exactly, it's okay to put in processed pet food. Like sick livestock that you can't use for people food. Grains which are unfit for human consumption. Bones. Intestines. Possibly even other cats & dogs that have been put to sleep because of illness. Ew. Okay, I stop now. But for illustrative purposes, these are the contents of one type of Hills Science Diet canned food, which is what I was feeding them before the hippie freak thing happened (bear with me - I've turned into a label-reading whore):

Water, Chicken, Turkey Giblets, Meat By-Products, Liver, Powdered Cellulose, Corn Starch, Wheat Flour, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Soybean Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken Liver Flavor, Titanium Dioxide, Guar Gum, Soybean Oil, Brewers Dried Yeast, Iodized Salt, Choline Chloride, Locust Bean Gum, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Carbonate, Carrageenan, Calcium Sulfate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Taurine, DL-Methionine, Vitamin E Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Ascorbic Acid (source of vitamin C), Zinc Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Beta-Carotene, Niacin, Manganous Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Folic Acid, Sodium Selenite.

(Now, I don't know a whole lot about nutrition. But I do know that "meat by-products" includes bones, feathers, even feces - basically anything that comes from an animal. And I do mean anything. And "cellulose"? According to Wikipedia, cellulose "is the major constituent of paper and cardboard and of textiles made from cotton, linen and other plant fibers." Mmm, tasty. Also, WTF is chicken liver "flavor"? If I had the time & the stomach for it, I could probably come up with all sorts of gross things to say about this food. The point is, I decided that I didn't want to feed my cats that stuff. And here are the ingredients for what I did start buying, Organix Organic Canned Formula for Cats:

Organic Turkey, Chicken Broth, Organic Brown Rice, Organic Chicken, Organic Chicken Liver, Organic Guar Gum, Organic Rice Protein Concentrate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Sea Salt, Calcium Sulfate, Organic Flaxseed Meal, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Vitamins (Vitamin E, A, D3, B12 Supplements, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyroxidine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin), Minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Proteinate, Manganous Sulfate, Potassium Iodide, Sodium Selenite), Taurine.

(Much better, clearly, & props for using sea salt, but since I'm loathe to buy seafood nowadays, there are only two varieties I can feed my kitties. Kinda boring. Also, at $1.50 per can, I figured that I could just freakin' make cat food & have it cost about the same.

(So I got Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats. Which I highly recommend, if for nothing else than the information on nutrition. Turns out that if your cat eats raw meat, they get taurine from that. Makes sense, right? The buggers had to survive centuries without processed pet food somehow. And this is what my kitties are eating now, the "Feline Feast" recipe:

Pacific Village Ground Chicken, Pacific Village Ground Beef, Organic Polenta, Organic Eggs, Healthy Powder (Nutritional Yeast, Lecithin Granules, Bonemeal, Kelp Powder), Wheatgerm Oil, Vegetable Oil, Eggshell Powder.

(The chicken is vegetarian-fed, antibiotic-free, & free-range. The beef is hormone- & antibiotic-free, grass-fed & local. All of the supplements are sold for human consumption. The only thing I couldn't find was a liquid vitamin A supplement to add - I'm working on it. Apparently cod liver oil does the trick, but I don't want to spend $15 on something that, per Dr. Pitcairn, my cats "might" accept. So, last night I made them "Mackerel Loaf" as their next recipe to compensate:

Mackerel, Organic Pasteurized Milk, Organic Bulgur, Organic Eggs, Healthy Powder (Nutritional Yeast, Lecithin Granules, Bonemeal, Kelp Powder), Wheatgerm Oil, Vegetable Oil, Eggshell Powder.

(Okay, yeah, I did feel guilty about using the mackerel. Seafood from a can. Although it is safer than tuna, because it's not such a predator & thus is less likely to accumulate mercury. But it was gross & I don't think I'll use it again. But still, way better than "meat by-products", y'know?

(Longest parenthetical aside EVER!)

So in case you forgot where we were:

Last night I was laboriously washing & drying the twenty four 8-ounce Rubbermaid containers I had just purchased for storing cat food.

As I was so doing, on top of all the other ramifications & implications of the homemade pet food thing, I actually had this thought:

"You know, by using these [washable, reusable] containers, I'll also be reducing my ecological footprint."

No, seriously. That was my exact thought. And it is but the latest in a long change-chain, every new link more surprising & cringe-worthy than the last. What is HAPPENING to me?

I think I've been infected by Portland.

America! Fuck Yeah!

2008-05-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

Whoa. Would you be surprised if I told you that one 32 ounce Baskin-Robbins Heath shake contains 320% of the recommended daily amount of saturated fat? Based on a 2,000 calorie diet. The shake, for the record, has 2,310 calories. At least you get 120% of your daily calcium! For shits & giggles, I've put the sugars in bold, since my newest nutrition enemy is sugar (except in fruit. I heart fruit & will never ever stop eating it. And, um, in my coffee. But! I've decided sugar is better than the aspartame I used to use. And, also? I've reduced my coffee consumption to less than five cups per week. Not great, but a vast improvement).

Ingredients: reduced fat milk, heath bar crunch ice cream (cream, nonfat milk, caramel ribbon (corn syrup, sweetened condensed whole milk (milk, sugar), water, high fructose corn syrup, butter (cream, salt), propylene glycol, sodium alginate, salt, natural and artificial vanilla flavors, potassium sorbate (preservative), soy lecithin, annatto color, sodium bicarbonate, propyl paraben (preservative)) , heath® bar candy pieces [milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin (an emulsifier), salt, and vanillin (an artificial flavoring)), sugar, palm oil, dairy butter (milk), almonds, salt, artificial flavoring, and soy lecithin], sugar, corn syrup, toffee base (sweetened condensed whole milk, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, natural flavor, disodium phosphate, and salt), whey powder, cellulose gum, mono and diglycerides, guar gum, carrageenan, polysorbate 80), fudge topping (corn syrup, sugar, water, hydrogenated coconut oil, nonfat milk, cocoa (treated with alkali), modified corn starch, salt, sodium bicarbonate, disodium phosphate, potassium sorbate (a preservative), natural and artificial flavors, soy lecithin), jamoca ice cream (cream, nonfat milk, sugar, corn syrup, jamoca extract (coffee extract, sugar, potassium sorbate and methyl paraben (as preservatives)) whey, caramel color, cellulose gum, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, polysorbate 80, carob bean gum, guar gum), caramel praline topping (corn syrup, sweetened condensed whole mil, water, sugar, modified food starch, butter, salt, propylene glycol, natural and artificial flavor, sodium citrate, xanthan gum, lecithin, potassium sorbate and propyl paraben as preservatives), hershey’s® heath® milk chocolate english toffee (milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin [an emulsifier], salt, and vanillin [an artificial flavoring]), sugar, palm oil, dairy butter (milk), almonds, salt, artificial flavoring, and soy lecithin), whipped cream (whipped cream (cream, milk, sugar, dextrose, nonfat dry milk, artificial flavor, mono & diglycerides, carrageenan, mixed tocopherols (vitamin e), to protect flavor, propellant: nitrous oxide).

For those of you playing along at home, sugar pops up in twenty-four different places. I cannot even begin to approach the other things wrong with this list. Check out that link if you want the rest of the scary "nutrition" facts.

Happy Almost June!

2008-05-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

So. I got a part-time job at a video store. It's all part of my evil plan for WORLD DOMINATION. Well. Actually, my evil plan is way less stressful than that & totally hedonistic. The point is, at my part-time video store job, the employees choose "staff picks" every month. I obviously have exquisite taste, so what could be better than being obligated to show off the knowledge gleaned during those years I did nothing but watch movies all day, every day? I get to be silently pretentious. I know. Whoo hoo!

I went for a non-Babette's Feast food(-related) theme for June & chose the following:

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Luis Bunel, 1972 A bunch of boring Frenchies & the ambassador (diplomat?) from a fake South American country spend the whole movie trying, & failing, to sit down & eat. Clever, if you like Bunuel - & I do, very much. (I personally prefer The Exterminating Angel, where a bunch of people sit down to eat & then can't leave, but - horror! - it's not yet had a proper DVD release. Boo.)

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover - Peter Greenaway, 1989
I gather this is considered summat of a commentary on Thatcherism. I don't know about that, but this is a wickedly excellent, madly disturbing film. Which like as not I will never watch again. I would like to take this opportunity to berate Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix for forcing me to break my solemn vow to never, ever, under no circumstance EVER watch Michael Gambon eat again. Also: Helen Mirren 4ever!

How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman - Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1973
C'mon. Best movie title in the history of the world. Also, political film? Not so much. I'd shove a broomstick up Godard's ass before I'd ever endure Tout Va Bien again. But somehow, I'm mad for Brazil's Cinema Novo. It manages to be deliriously dreamy & earthy &, heavens forbid, entertaining within its politics. Et tu, Brecht?

Conspirators of Pleasure, Jan Svankmajer, 1996
Hahahahaha. Like the others, it's actually not really about food, although I wouldn't tell that to the postmistress. It's about sexual fetishists in Prague. A pornographic film with no naked bits. And, I daresay, tremendously funny to boot.

The Gold Rush, Charles Chaplin, 1925
Well, really! I'd have been remiss to exclude it. Jolly well brilliant, it is. Besides...Gold Rush relates to Conspirators relates to The Cook, the Thief relates to Frenchman relates to Discreet Charm relates to Gold Rush. I just can't make it a circle for you unless you've seen all five.

What, you thought there wasn't some grand master idea behind all this? I inject all sorts of narrative into my fucking mix CDs, fer chrissakes.

OMG OMG OMG

2008-05-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

Holy cow. I think I just hit the motherfucking April jackpot here.

Item 1: Film verson of the musical set to ABBA songs, Mamma Mia, is opening this summer. Did we not just establish that I love ABBA? You may also have noticed that I love musicals. Dare I say it? This could be better than Hairspray.

Item 2: One of my biggest man crushes, Stellan Skarsgard, is in it. I've followed him ever since Breaking the Waves. (I know, I know, kind of a weird character to inspire a sustained crush. Shut up. We've already established that I'm kind of twisted. Besides! In real life, he's apparently dating a buxom 32-year-old. I've got the first one covered like nobody's business; I'm thisclose to 30; and I have better fashion sense than that girl. It could totally happen for me.)

Item 3: Another man crush, Colin Firth, is also in it. He was Darcy, he is Darcy, & he will be Darcy forevermore. Even when he played Amanda Bynes' secret daddy in What a Girl Wants he was Darcy. (And shut up about that one too. Yes. I watched it. The whole thing. Amanda Bynes is fucking adorable & looks thoroughly corruptible.) Although his Darcy-ish Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring was enjoyable. And shhh, I have a secret soft spot for Bridget Jones' Diary & Firth's Darcy-ish Darcy.

Item 4: A third could-be man crush is in it too! His name is Dominic Cooper. I don't know anything about him, but Interview magazine did a story on him a while ago & he looked cute in his picture. Plus, British! Can't go wrong. I have to reserve judgment however until I actually see him move & hear him talk.

Item 5: Amanda Seyfried is in it. Although I do not have a girl crush on her, I do think she's awfully talented (ref: Mean Girls, "Big Love") & pretty.

18 July 2008, people. I. Can't. Wait. It's gonna be fucking epic fun.

Hurraher! & Hurrahest!

2008-05-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry. Life is good.

1) ABBA's Voulez-Vous is the perfect 73 degree Friday morning drive to work soundtrack. A-HA! I freakin' love ABBA. So very much. Their Swedish pop genius is a joy to behold. Behear? Eh. Why is there no sincere optimism in pop music anymore? Am I missing something? Tell me. Is there a contemporary equivalent to the sincere refrain of "I believe in angels/Something good in everything I see"?

2) I'm wearing sandals for the first time this year - & they're my lovely gold sparkly cork wedge sandals, to boot. Er, no pun intended.

(Lengthy parenthetical aside revealing my etymological dorkiness & alarming passion for punctuation:

("The boot in [the phrase 'to boot'] is pretty much the only surviving sense of a once prominent word. Some archaic or obsolete senses are 'advantage; profit; use' ('O spare they happy daies, and them apply/To better boot'--Spenser, Faerie Queen); 'something given in a sale or exchange to equalize the value of the exchange' (now only used in dialect, in America found chiefly in the south); and 'deliverance from evil or danger' (often in the phrase boot of bale 'relief from woe').

("The phrase ['to boot'] uses [the word 'boot'], in a sense like 'to the good; to advantage', and hence 'in addition; besides; moreover'. This particular boot is from Old English, and is related to better."

(The above explanation can be found in full, & with fewer parentheses/brackets, here.)

3) On Wednesday I made a decision which makes me molto contenta. I ain't tellin'. The action won't happen until 2011 anyway. Let's just say that I hope in three years the dollar/euro exchange rate is a bit more in my favor.

4) Said decision involved the more immediate decision to look for a part-time job. That same day, I found a listing for a part-time video store job, 12 - 14 hours a week, in NW Portland. I dropped my resume off that night, interviewed yesterday, & start working on Saturday. Yeah, I rock. Y'know, my favorite job ever was at a video store. This new one has the benefit of not being in rural Oregon, which gives me relative confidence that the following exchange is highly unlikely to occur:

Customer returning The Talented Mr. Ripley, which I had recommended to him the night before: I didn't like this movie.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry.
Him: It was about faggots.
Me: Well, yes, I suppose that's true.
Him: That's sick.
Me: Some people think so.
Him: You don't?
Me: No, I don't.
Him: Are you a dyke?

Yes indeedy. You can't make this stuff up, people. So...I'm going to get paid to talk about movies & clean & organize shelves stuffed with movies. It makes my movie-loving, compulsively clean & systematic self well-nigh giddy. Oh, yeah, plus I get free movies. I mean, I could probably get a better-paying part-time job. But the way I look at it, I already have one job for which I don't much care. If I'm gonna have a second job, I better damn well like it. And this is...perfect.

5) Also, this is entirely politically irresponsible of me, because I know absolutely nothing about his governorship, but goddamn. Whenever I remember that we live in a world where Arnold motherfuckin' Schwarzenegger is the GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA, things get just a little more...sparkly. I love it, I do, I confess. I don't think you could dream up something more deliciously absurd. Hee hee! Related: the commentary track for Conan the Barbarian is the single most fantastic commentary I've ever heard. Easily as good as the movie proper. (Governator: "She's so hot. I'm so hot in this scene" John Milius: "She's like a...Valkyrie." Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Surely they were both drunk. Schwarzenegger is a total chauvinist, which I inexplicably love.)

Hurrah!

2008-05-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

These are some things that I particularly love today:

1) Peppermint tea

2) The Criterion transfer of Naked. It even looks good on my old TV set.

3) Dinosaur L (I said NO, thank yooouuuu....)

4) Mmmmmangoes!

5) Feelin' like a fourth grader. Yep, in my quest to prove that April Model 1978 is in fact completely obsolete, my newest fascination is book making. See, it occurred to me recently that at present I seem to be drawn toward the tactile. Rather than subvert these fascinations into something more ephemeral, I thought well why not just make things I can touch? I ain't a writer, & my drawing skillz are stuck in stick-figure land (tho' it be a mean stick figure indeed), but I see no reason whatsoever to let that stop me. I made a book last night! With velcro & wiggly eyes & o-rings & junk mail! (I successfully fought the urge to add glitter.) Here's a small detail of one page:

As usual, my grand plans exceed my technical capability by a wide margin. Sheesh. We'll see. You don't know how much I want to catch one of these flitting momentary obsessions & pin it down, already. How is it possible that the older I get, the less attention span I have?

6) Portland Maps. I often bemoan the fact that everybody in my neighborhood looks like me. What do I mean by this? While Buckman ain't quite an army of April clones, it is a 739-acre area with 7,923 people who:

Are most likely between the ages of 22 & 39 (52%)
Are whiter than an arctic glacier on a sunny day (81%)
Have yet to breed &/or are not overly keen on cohabitation (52% one-person households)
Got no strings to hold them down (84% are not home-owners)
Stand a solid chance of being male (52%) or female (48%)

I am a 29-year-old child-free white girl who lives alone in a rented apartment. Thanks, Portland Maps, for proving me right!

7) Spring. Not this spring, this year, this here. But in general. And SUNSHINE. Glorious rich yellow sunshine that is both absorbed & reflected by the green of the trees & the grass.

8) Making the soundtrack for the wedding I will never have. See, it all started with Kid Creole's version of "If You Want to be Happy". If you don't know the song, click the link. You'll understand. The vision of playing this as the first song at my unwedding made me ~~gigle~~ giggle (no semiconductor, I) madly for endless minutes (the looks on people's faces would be freakin' priceless), so I thought, why stop there? This project is saving me from an increasingly bilious resentment toward other people's weddings; therefore, it makes me happy.

9) And actually, I kind of love everything. Probably in theory - I wouldn't test me with, say, a puddle of puppies or a basket of babies. But I am, how you say, a happy camper.

AMAZING

2008-04-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

At some point this summer I've got plans to visit the places where the exteriors for the "Twin Peaks" pilot episode were shot. You know, the biggies: the Great Northern, the falls, etc.

Somebody has done all the work in finding the locations for me. They even found the friggin' branch upon which the bird in the opening credits perched.

In Twin Peaks for the photo comparisons; More In Twin Peaks for the actual locations.

Wow. I'm super-psyched.

White People! Get Funky!

2008-04-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

Ohmanohmanohman. HOT CHIP. If you didn't see 'em in the last month, too bad, unless you live in San Francisco or are attending Coachella, because their U.S. tour is otherwise ovah. (I suspect they'll be back through before too long, though.) Holy cow. I saw 'em at the Doug Fir in November 2006 & was suitably impressed by their fantastic-ness. But last night! Oh, last night. They were...magnificent.

Portland must have some fairly ridiculous laws involving concert venues & alcohol, because nearly every place with live music is 21+. Being old & crotchety, I have no problem with this. I don't want my overpriced beer jostled by a passel of hyperactive young 'uns wearing too much eyeliner. The Crystal Ballroom, however, is one of the few all-ages venues in town. It's a weird set-up - the stage is in a corner. The room is "vertically" divided in half by a low black barrier. If you want beer, you have to be in the half that's further from the main stage. If you want to hang out with high schoolers, you can be in the half that's right by the stage. Hmm...beer or teenagers? I choose beer. Luckily we arrived early enough to score prime spots right up against the divider. So I could put down my sweater & my purse & just freak out. PLUS have a great view of the stage. It was sweet.

The opening act was Free Blood, which has some correlation with !!!. They're a duo - let's call them Mr. Beard & Adorable Brunette Girl With Bangs. All the music was pre-recorded, although they did bring out a guy on guitar for a couple numbers. It was altogether too reminiscent of karaoke for my taste. In a sense, that's the point, but when I think about, say, Jamie Lidell live...well, he twiddles his knobs while he's singing. And alls by hisself, at that. Free Blood's performance made me feel at least two shades pastier white than I already am. Plus, when they danced together onstage, it inexplicably looked to me like some sort of chicken mating ritual. The music was fine, & I will totally listen to their album when it comes out, but the live show felt unnecessary.

Anyway, Hot Chip put on what is easily one of my top ten favorite shows of all time. Mebbe even top five. They. Fucking. Rocked. Christ on crutches. I was a four-on-the-floor booty-shaking machine out there. Up down all around. The band arrangement was different this time. At the Doug Fir, it was mostly five guys rockin' out behind keyboards. Last night only Joe Goddard was manning a board. They played more like a typical band - guitar, drums, etc. Plus, maracas! Oh yeah. The lights were good, the sound was good, the band was great. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the most recent album, Made in the Dark, with which I'd previously had some problems. And, ooh, the only song they played from their debut album Coming On Strong just so happened to be my favorite song from that album - "Crap Kraft Dinner". Because really, who does have time for a jack-your-body loser? But I think my favorite moment was during the encore performance of "No Fit State" when they dropped my favorite part of New Order's "Temptation" in there - "Oh you've got green eyes/Oh you've got blue eyes/Oh you've got grey eyes...". (Although, erm, technically speaking, every part of "Temptation" is my favorite part.)

You know, Hot Chip may only be going to heaven if it tastes like caramel, but me - I'm only going to heaven if Hot Chip is there. I hope they let me shake the maracas. I am nothing if not a funky white girl.

In Full Fluff

2008-04-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

New favorite picture of Audun, taken last night:

So dignified, right? You'd never guess that this is the same cat who spent five minutes chasing my hand's shadow on sunlit living room walls this morning.

Also: Xavier's polydactyl kitteh paws OMG2cute!!!!11!!!

Sigh. I wouldn't trade my cats for all the strippers & blow in the world.

What's A Girl Like You Doing On A Knight Like This?

2008-04-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay, I owe a few post-things. I'll get to them soon, cuddlies, promises! Things have been busy. In the meantime, I simply must say a few words. Seven to be precise.

Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Comedy.

GENIUS. It was made for me! Alice. Musical. 1970s pr0n (real breasts & hair on their ladyparts!). Also, any movie that has a credit reading "Underwater Nude Volleyball Sequences by Jacques Coote" is pretty much guaranteed to be good. Especially if there is not a single underwater nude volleyball sequence in the movie. Played on a double bill with Star Wars according to questionable sources. (The acting in Alice is better, for the record.) Now imagine if we lived in a world where fantastical song-&-dance sex films had won out over sexless preadolescent Wonder Bread space-capades. It's a real shame that this country progressed a bit only to then enter a decades-long slide. We put the puritan back in prurient. Because I cannot imagine any sort of "respectable" distributor releasing this today, but 20th Century Fox put this corker out back in the day.

My intensive research has shown that there are three versions: R, X, & XXX. I understand that this release by Subversive Video has the X & the XXX versions. I cannot figure out which version I watched - there were some rather thorough anatomy lessons that I've not previously encountered in X-rated movies, but I understand the XXX version is pretty seriously hardcore. Whichever version I watched had a few cum shots but nothing that made me ill (they ain't exactly my bag - I'm more Emmanuelle than Splendor in the Ass (although that is my all-time favorite porno title) - softcore porn served with a generous helping of wonky French philosophy is not just up my alley, as it were, it's the alley that's named after me). The disc boasts possibly the crappiest transfer I've ever seen & appears to use a well-worn VHS dub as its source, but it's still totally worth watching if you can find it. (EDIT: I figured out the DVD I watched was not the Subversive Video release but rather from some outfit called Arrow Video. And it is the XXX version. Because I hadn't actually quite finished the entire movie when I wrote this post (guilty!), & near the end there is a random three-ish-minute fuck-tage, which did make me feel a wee bit sick.)

The lead actress, Kristine De Bell, has an engaging on-screen persona & is a convincingly innocent libertine-in-training. For you Meatballs fans out there (I have a soft spot...), she played A.L. in that fine movie. Overall Alice is really quite sweet with some clever moments (Mad Hatter: "Oh, that's not my HAT size..." Hee hee!) & a simple little if-it-feels-good-do-it message.

Plus, the scene & song from which this post's title is derived are freakin' priceless.

Lay Off That Whiskey & Let That Cocaine Be

2008-03-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hahahahahacokehahahahaha.

You really have to look at the entire series of pictures...

Truly stunning. My personal favorites involve the coke & the root beer.

Super-meta-ed-out

2008-03-11T11:08:00.001-07:00

Like I'm staring at a window that reflects a mirror that reflects a pool of water that my double is staring into.

To wit: Last night an April asked me if I was born in April.

We know how I feel about that question. And I ended up catching a bit of foot-in-mouth disease.

"You're an April! You can't ask an April that question!"

After I chided her, I was informed that she was in fact born in April & that her parents did in fact have no imagination. She actually spent the first week of her life with no name.

I find that a bit disquieting. And I wonder whether her middle name mightn't really be "Mayjune".

LOL

2008-03-10T13:20:00.001-07:00

Shit like this is what teh internets are fucking made for...

Song charts. How did I not know about this? I'm glaring at you, Mandy.

You can't beat that one for sheer simple brilliance, but I'm also partial to this:

Which reminds me, I need Blur back in my life. To the Music Millennium!

These Shoes Sing To My Soul

2008-03-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is the present I awarded myself after I managed to select a pair of boring plain brown flats (for comfortable non-sneakered city walking) without crying or throwing up:

Lots more views are available here. I wish Zappos weren't so expensive (for ince, I picked these up on clearance at DSW for $42 less than what they're charging), because I would dearly love to support their shoe pornography on a financial basis.

And yes. This post's title is an accurate recount of the exact words that came into my mind when I saw these. What can I say? They were made just for me.

Also, let the record show that I indulged in mad shopping this weekend past & purchased not one single sparkly thing. Marvel at my self-restraint. Bow down before my greatness.

Finally, speaking of sparkly...I spasmed when I saw these. If I ever see them on sale I will buy them, but they are waaaayyy too impractical for me to throw $100 at 'em.

My Bitches Wear My Collars

2008-03-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

Let's be clear about one thing: I adored the first Elizabeth movie. The palace intrigue, the betrayed young princess, the sumptuous costumes, the oh-so-meaningful shadows & light. ALL of it. I get into that bodice-ripping double-crossing soap operatic stuff like nobody's business. It is a shameless & naive love, & Elizabeth the first is a near-perfect example of its shiny dollar store beauty. It also bestowed upon me a decade-long adoration for Cate Blanchett that no number of middling Oscar bait vehicles can diminish.

There are two things of which I was unsure: (1) Why did they make a sequel? and (2) How did I not even know it existed until the Oscar nominations were announced? The former remains a mystery, which goes a long way toward explaining the latter. I don't know what's wrong with me lately, but I have not seen a movie made in this century that I have actually enjoyed since early November, when I saw Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (N.B. It's totally worth checking out). Well, I did like the Lindsay Lohan stripper movie. But I also hated it, so I'm not sure it counts. Don't do this to me, brain. I love tawdry! I love slick! I love sprawling epic! Lately every movie I've watched ('cept M. Hulot's Holiday & Mon Oncle) has bored me senseless. I actually fell asleep in a movie theater during Michael Clayton last week. I was sober. The last time that happened, I was drunk, high & stuffed full of Vicodin. I cry foul.

ANYWAY. Back to Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It's pretty awful. Everybody looks bored out of their minds. Abbie Cornish, who plays Elizabeth's little handmaiden (& is called Bess though her full name is ALSO Elizabeth OMG totally meaningful!!!1!!1!!), is boringly pretty in an utterly typical fashion & appears to have all the mental faculties of Tupperware (& that curtain in the picture at left looks almost exactly like the shower curtain I had before I got my silver disco-tastic one). The usually yummy Clive Owen, who generally manages to be the only generically handsome leading man type that I crush on & I admit provided quite the impetus for me to move this to the top of my queue, delivers the most ridiculous lines as though he believes them not one iota. You must say the platitudes as though they emerge from the very bowels of your shallow soul, man! His clear disdain for his words makes him a poor character. And, really, the entire cast seems to be comprised of somnolent Cesares. Sheesh. With the sole exception of Ms. Blanchett, who (1) appears marginally interested & (2) has the dignity to believe in her dialogue cliches. Should you insist upon watching it, just compare the moment at which Owen says, "We mortals have many weaknesses; we feel too much, hurt too much or too soon we die, but we do have the chance of love" with Blanchett's delivery of "I have a hurricane in me that will strip Spain bare when you dare to try me!" It's no more possible to believe that Sir Walter Raleigh has any fucking clue about love than it is to doubt inner fury with which Elizabeth burns. Actually, the scene in which she exclaims with righteous fury, "You ask my permission before you fuck. Before you breed. My bitches wear MY collars" whilst slapping the bitch in question is the single moment of fabulosity in the film entire. (Though...if her bitches really did wear her collars, it probably would have been a way more interesting movie.)

The problem is, this Elizabeth is simply not as compelling or interesting as the first film's. She has already chosen power over love, & apparently the writers' solution to creating romantic intrigue is to make her a whiny vicious sex-starved shrew. I don't know. Shouldn't it, to paraphrase Mel Brooks, be good to be the queen? I mean...surely she could get herself some ass right quick. Which wouldn't really solve the whole love-hungry thing, but at least it'd take care of the sex, right? UGH. I really fucking hate it when movies make me play feminist. It is so very irritatingly inimical to my nature. My solution then? Focus on the production elements to maintain interest. And, oh my, I want, I need, I long for a foyer that would do justice to this:

We'll ignore the raging obviousness of that purple. I, um, actually got bored enough to take my own pictures during the film, in case I couldn't find any online. So here's another:

And, holy cow, the horse frills & THAT MARVELOUS CAPE:

I want that cape. Were I a butch lesbian, I would probably have serious Cate Blanchett fantasies from the armor, too.

I also decided that feathers are totally ready for their accoutrement-status comeback in both clothing & home fashion(love the collar too):

Seriously, I'm starting to think I may have missed my calling. I would be a fantastic decorator.

Pop Quiz, Asshole

2008-03-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

Exhibit A most fully illustrates which of the following:

(a) Why April actually really doesn't need to force herself to emerge from her hermit-hole more often.
(b) Why nobody should ever give April pen & paper when she's four deep in whiskey & ginger ales (despite the atrocious penmanship & extra period in the ellipsis I'm pleased to note my confidence in my spelling wavered not).
(c) Why April should never go see Paul Thomas Anderson movies that make her want to drink large amounts in short periods of time.
(d) All of the above.

Re: There Will Be ~~Crap~~ Blood - I had a dream on Saturday which I think exemplifies the way I felt about it. I dreamt that I was in one of those super-cheesy rent-to-own furniture places, with all those tacky wares, & I was secretly smoking cigarettes inside. And the character of Eli was the manager of the chintz & the cheese.

If that doesn't make sense, how 'bout this:

"Sometimes I look at people & I see nothing worth liking."

I felt the exact same way. When I was fifteen. And that is one reason why I didn't like it. I don't need happy-happy-joy-joy, y'know, but for heaven's sake, if I want to gorge on the relentlessly downbeat & the thoroughly misanthropic, if I want to nurse disdain & hatred for all mankind,

well,

I'll watch the news. There are enough puppy abusers & wife beaters & school shootings to give me a veritable feast of vitriol.

Not to give anything away, but I totally misjudged it from the preview. I thought it was going to be...more. An exploration of something besides ugliness. I expected, well, I expected the dynamic between Daniel & Eli to be...less material.

There is one single element of that film by which I have been interested these last few days, however, & that is the character of Paul. You know, the guy who was onscreen for five whole minutes. Who I think may have been the character that I expected Eli to be. The fact that they were played by the same actor muddles things. Oh, & I will grant you the film was pretty to look at.

But now I implore you - did you see this movie? Did you like it? WHY? I'm so serious, you have no idea. I need to know. One of the people with whom I went to the theater had seen it four times before, & so I asked him why he liked it so much, but...I didn't get a real answer & I know that people are creaming themselves over this & I want to understand. Need input, Steph-a-nie, input.

LOL It's Almost Caturday!

2008-02-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

You know what sucks? Arriving at work on the leap day of a leap year & remembering of a sudden that the last time it was leap day, you were gallivanting about Rome, hunting down the Tomb of the Baker. Which might not be quite as depressing for you, if Rome be not your heimat, but it sure as spit bums me out. At least Mr. Leap Day has the decency to be Friday...

Also, I recall what happened right after that trip, which would be the first, last & particularly debilitating case of bronchitis I acquired on the plane ride home. Seriously, I thought it was SARS. My favorite memory of that illness would be the day it took me literally three hours to work up the energy to get out of bed, walk 15 feet to the bathroom to grab a bottle of cold medicine, & stumble back to bed only to realize with dismay that I'd snagged the completely wrong bottle of cold medicine. I cried. And I had this bizarre lingering throat affliction which took four months & five medications to clear up. Actually I also cried when the ENT specialist gave me that last set of meds, because having swallowed four consecutive courses of pills & then being told your fifth involves huge pinky-thick things that appear to be made for horses, while your throat screams in severely swollen pain...is not as fun as it may sound. Ah, whatever.

On a happier note, it was decided last night that if anybody knows of a more perfect combination than eating a brie-n-butter baguette sandwich whilst sipping lemongrass soda & watching M. Hulot's Holiday, well, you can KEEP IT TO YO'SELF. The committee for wonderfulness is officially Not Interested. (N.B. The tennis scene made me laugh harder than anything since, okay, well, since This is Spinal Tap played at the Laurelhurst a couple of weeks ago. But still. Ridiculously funny. Highly recommended.)

And Mandy, re: your comment on my 23 July 2007 post - you have no idea. From December through about last week, I was getting approximately 300 hits a day on that post. Which is a lot for this silly piffle of a blog & means that, like, thousands of people around the world have now seen what puts the cleav after the captain. Whatever. I find it entirely amusing. (My personal fave comment, though, happened last summer IRL when I wore that dress to a wedding reception & my beloved friend Colin remarked, "I'm gay & I can't stop staring." Man, I miss my PA bitches.) At least it's slowed as quickly & inexplicably as it started, or else I might have to get all analytical about what it means. And then the poor little pea that lives in my skull would go 'round & 'round in circles until I got a nasty headache & I'd need a hot toddy & a roomful of pastel-hued soft fluffy things to calm me down.

Mmm...pastel-hued soft fluffy things...and...

The question is, will I never grow weary of lolcats?

Sporting Life

2008-02-28T12:41:00.000-08:00

Confession: I was really really into watching women's figure skating for a brief period of time last century. I mean, I knew my Bobeks from my Baiuls & my Itos from my Satos. So when Nancy Kerrigan got whacked on the knee in 1994, I ate that shit up with a spoon. In case you don't remember, Kerrigan was the polished Vera Wang-wearing princess from Massachusetts. And her competitor Tonya Harding, whose then-husband hired the knee-whacking fellow to knock Kerrigan out of the Olympics, was the tacky-teal-outfit-clad trailer trash from, yep, Oregon.

Some pictures say way more than a thousand words.

You don't even get to guess for whom I rooted & who got what they deserved in my view, but I'll give you a hint anyway: replace those bangs & that teal bit of nastiness with some blue hair & black clothes & by golly, I'd be peering into a tawdry mid-nineties mirror.

The moral of the story is, there is now a rock opera of the Nancy'n'Tonya saga. The world is a beautiful place. I don't think I need to see it, but I'm thrilled by its mere existence.

And ooh, quiz time! Match the words up with the skater on whose website they appear:

1) "Q- What advice do you give those who feel that their dreams are out of their reach?
A- To go for the dreams that you have and you will learn that the journey to get there is the most gratifying part."

2) "It would be having enough money to go hunting and fishing and go to the big four-wheel-drive mud bogs," she says. "And every once in a while put on a really pretty dress and go to dinner at a place like Applebee's or something."

Meaningless poorly-worded platitudes or mud bogs, people. Take your pick.

Also, whatever craven fantasies Nancy Kerrigan's fans have about her, she sure doesn't allow them to be posted in plain sight on her official website. Unlike some former figure skaters. I wonder how much meth it takes to make that sound like a great idea. I can't even bring myself to read 'em.

SPROING

2008-02-27T15:37:00.000-08:00

Spring, spring, spring is sproinging, sproinging, sproinging. Hurrah!

The crocuses (croci(i)?) & the daffodils are beginning to bloom & the tulips can't be far behind! But the REAL sign, for me, that fantastic PNW light & open-toed shoe weather approacheth is the smell of it. I've said it before & so what? I'll say it again. And again:

When spring happens, my entire neighborhood for many blocks smells like flowers.

This makes me deliriously happy.

Broken Wheels

2008-02-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

Repeat to self: my brain has no "nap" function. My brain has no "nap" function.

You would think, after an illustrious decade-plus history of managing to sleep through/fall asleep during Things of Variable Import (like class presentations, work & sex) that I might recognize my brain has precisely TWO settings: Awake & Nearly Narcoleptic Sleep. Although I stay awake far more than I reasonably ought, insomnia is not a concept that touches my life. When I am awake it is because (1) I want to be & (2) I stay away from sleep-making places. Like beds, couches, chairs & floors. If I decide to go to sleep & it takes me longer than five minutes to achieve unconsciousness, that's my insomnia. If my body decides it wants sleep & I rest on any of the sleep-making places, I will pass out no matter what. Those with whom I lived during college might recall my inordinate &, given issues of cleanliness, inexplicable fondness for sleeping on the bathroom floor. Furthermore, once I am asleep there are no known means by which I can be awoken, unless my body allows it.

So you might think that the night before an 8:30 a.m. test, I would know better than to lay down for a nap at 7 p.m. And you, friend, would be wrong. I woke up at 4 a.m. Went downstairs to study. Laid down on the couch to study. (I'm a bright one, eh?) Fell asleep again. Woke up at 6:30. And managed to study, for a whole hour, twenty hours' worth of class material. And we're talking anal insurance shite. Like, [blank] is excluded unless the loss occurs during the full moon and as a direct result of the following: plague of locusts, precipitation of frogs, or rivers flowing with blood, but only if the aforementioned is strictly punishment from God for man's sins. Furthermore, we will not cover [blank] arising from any other directives of God including but not limited to the four horsemen of the apocalypse, floods, or the second coming of Christ. (And, or & only are three of the most important words in an insurance policy.) Well, I'll know in two months whether I passed it.

Then I came home after the test, tried to watch Ocean's Eleven, & fell asleep again. To dreams of 15th century royal court intrigue, going up & down huge expansive white staircases in poofy gowns, faces frozen in soup bowls & people eating them, sexually abusive priests with wheel-mending machines & arguments over faith vs. spirituality.

And I'm still fucking tired.

"BE ADEQUITE". Please.

2008-02-19T10:56:00.001-08:00

Remember a few years ago, when Lindsay Lohan was teh hotness for about five minutes? Wasn't that great? I even had her 2006 calendar. (And, um, if I'd known that I could've sold it in 2008 for $40, I wouldn't have trashed the damned thing when I moved.)

Sigh. I hadn't even made it to March by the time THIS happened:

Um, ew. And a none-more-black darkness spread across the land accompanied by an increasingly distressing series of incidents & pictures. Those creepy knife pics. The passed-out-in-a-car pics. The "no really, officer, there is coke in my pants, but they aren't my pants" story. And so on. Topped off, of course, with the obligatory mugshot:

Just look at that top picture. Now look at the mugshot. I could cry.

But wait! don't give up yet! there's more! A fellow by the name of Bert Stern apparently took some quite famous pictures of Marilyn Monroe shortly before her death. New York magazine recently sang him the sweet siren song of a paycheck in exchange for a "remake" with a contemporary starlet. Illud est, Our Miss Lohan. Now, that whole Monroe patina of myth has always bemused me. I fail to discern the fabulosity. And I find both the original & new flavor of Mr. Stern's pictures drearily jejune. However!

Ladies & gentlemen, the bones are gone & the boobs are back. Hallelujah! Now she just needs to ditch the blond & go back to red, already. And to stop dressing like a coked-out skank. Or even better, to not speak or go out in public for the next year or so, so that websites like this one aren't funny anymore & Defamer can't put together (admittedly hilarious) collages of her non-sober faces.

Annie Annie Anniemal!

2008-02-14T14:45:00.001-08:00

Today was a very good day to wonder when the hell Norwegian pop songstress Annie was going to release another album, already. Anniemal came out, let's see, at least three lifetimes ago. And although her contribution to !K7's DJ-Kicks series was really fun, it was not, sir, an album proper. Same goes for "Wedding" & "Crush" - mere buoys in the desperate lost-at-sea hunt for any sight of Album Land.

At last, today when I asked, I found an answer - sort of! Possibly as early as April. But do you know what's almost as good as that? The fact that she is shortly to release a single. And what's better still? The A-side will be a cover of Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts".

ANNIE + TWO OF HEARTS. In the same breath. Those caps know they're egregious, baby, & they LOVE it. Me? I can have my Bergman & eat my bouncy (bitter)sweet Scandinavian pop too.

And I am definitely already doing the new al-bum, new al-bum, new al-bum dance.

Keep On, Just Keep On Pressin' On

2008-02-12T08:09:00.001-08:00

Here is my new toy:

It is called a "TTUSB Turntable with USB" & it plugs right into my laptop. I just hit "play" on the player & "record" in the audio software program & presto wow! magic happens & the music is on my computer. The only real bitches so far are the absences of a cueing lever & a dust cover. Also, I should probably give it some hot new stylus action because the one it came with is kinda chintzy. (I'm currently lusting after the Numark CS-1 Carl Cox Signature Model Stylus.) But it does have some anti-skate & pitch control goodness, & with a bit o' wrangling you can digitize 78s too. It's also got a 1/8" stereo mini-jack connector which you can use to transfer cassette tapes. Sweet! It does what I expected it to at the price I could afford & I love it. LOVE LOVE LOVE. It is so easy to use. Vastly superior to the other uber-complicated way I know how to make vinyl into digital thingamabobs. I haven't fucked much with all the settings & effects & whatnots, so I don't know what I can do with the sound yet besides normalize it & execute some light noise removal, but I'm pleased. Particularly since I can now easily make CDs out of my 12-inches, which is very convenient. These, then, are the first tracks with which I meddled (& yes, they are in the exact order in which I magicked them to my computer, so forgive any lack of, uh, smooth transitions):

download 'em here. you'll be sorry if you don't.

01. "Double Dutch Bus" - Frankie Smith
I've got my funky bus fare. HO!
02. "Give Your Body Up To The Music (Larry Levan Mix)" - Billy Nichols
Sadness. I didn't know that Mel Cheren (the West End Records & Paradise Garage big cheese) passed away in December 2007.
03. "Right There In The Socket" - Shalamar
Feel that e-lec-tricity.
04. "Need Somebody New (Larry Levan Mix)" - Jamaica Girls
A promo 12" with Larry Levan mixes on Arthur Russell's Sleeping Bag label. I experience fierce nerd paroxysms every time I touch this.
05. "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll (Pt. 1)" - Vaughan Mason & Crew
"Roller skaters one in front & one behind/Bounce left, bounce right/It's disco time" INDEED.
06. "New York Movin'" - Ahzz
Gotta love Peter Brown. And this song.
07. "These Memories" - Oh Romeo
Produced by the legendary & legend-in-his-own-mind Bobby O. My mind thinks it's funny to replace "memories" with "mammaries" for some bizarre reason. Yeah.
08. "Dolce Vita (Radio Mix)" - Donnie Grillo
Very nearly ungoogleable. 'Cause I rock it all obscure-like.
09. "Keep On (Francois Kevorkian & Hubert Eaves III Mix)" - "D" Train
Four minutes & thirty six seconds into this, try to imagine that you're in a room above a Ukrainian restaurant in NYC's Lower East Side where 200 people of literally all ages, colors, shapes, etc. have come together for seven hours of sheer unadulterated dancing bliss with balloons, food & the man who was instrumental in forging the paths of both dance music & the modern DJ, starting back in 1970 with the very first Love Saves the Day party in his loft. I could write ten thousand million words & never even begin to properly convey it. The two times I was able to attend number amongst the most spiritually transcendent & ecstatic experiences of my life. (No jest or hyperbole, for reals.) "Reach, reach, reach/You're almost there." This is disco.

"I Just Bought Spelt Flour & Flaxseed on a Whim" Flour Tortillas

2008-02-07T13:07:00.001-08:00

The nice thing about taco wrappers is their implicit simplicity - there's no real way to tart up a tortilla with any fancy-schmancy ingredients. There are precisely two kinds, & they more or less are what they is. A flour tortilla will have flour, fat (traditionally lard), salt, & water. Contemporary recipes may sometimes also include baking powder or, oddly, a lil' bit of vegetable oil. A corn tortilla is made of masa harina & water. And if you want to make corn tortillas, I highly recommend investing in a cast-iron tortilla press. Corn tortillas are a bitch to shape without one.

Last night, I felt compelled to make the flour variety. Here's how I did it (recipe adapted from Beth Hensperger's Breads of the Southwest):

Ingredients
2 c unbleached all-purpose flour*
1 c whole-wheat flour
1 c spelt flour
1/4 c flaxseed (optional)
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 c (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes, chilled**
1 1/2 c warm water (95 - 105 degrees)

Makes fifteen 8- to 9-inch tortillas

Whisk the flours, flaxseed, salt & baking powder together in a large bowl. Add the butter cubes & cut into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender, two butter knives or your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine crumbles. Slowly add the warm water in small amounts, stirring with a wooden spoon. Add only enough so that the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl & forms a ball (for example, I only needed about 1 1/4 c). It should be soft but not sticky. Too much water will make the tortilla tough. Turn the dough onto the work surface & form into a fat cylinder. Wrap in plastic wrap & let rest for at least 30 minutes & up to 2 hours. The dough should be slightly puffy & shiny.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured work surface & divide into 15 equal portions. Form each piece into a ball & place on a parchment-paper-lined or lightly greased baking sheet. Cover with a clean, damp dish towel or lightly oiled plastic wrap & let rest for another 20 to 30 minutes.

Take a ball & push your index finger into the bottom of it (looks kinda like a finger-mushroom). This creates an air pocket that helps the tortilla maintain roundness when being rolled out. Place the ball on a lightly floured work surface & flatten. Use a rolling pin to roll it out into an 8- or 9-inch diameter circle.***
(Note re picture: you can see the August 2007 bowls'o'bread fiasco scar on the finger-mushroom stem! Which still hurts when I accidentally smack it against things. I like that it, along with the July 2007 scar on my knee (lest we forget: platform wedges & a heavy duffel bag going down a hill will most likely end badly for the accoutrement-bearer) will bear tandem witness for the rest of days to my enduring & incontrovertible illogic.)

Place a piece of plastic wrap on a plate, & put the tortilla on the plastic wrap. Aaaand, repeat 14x! Don't forget to put plastic wrap between each tortilla or (1) they will dry out & (2) even worse, they will probably stick together something fierce.

Heat a comal, griddle, or heavy skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium-high heat until drops of water sprinkled on it dance across its surface. You may also use the lightweight piece of crap T-Fal which is the only skillet you currently own because your decimated collection of cookware continues to patiently await its restoration. Place as many tortillas as will fit onto the surface. Cook the first side for 30 seconds. It will bubble a bit - use a spatula to push & twist the bubbles down. Pick up the tortilla with your hand (not a spatula) & flip it over, then cook & bubble-flatten the second side for thirty seconds more.

You might see a few brown spots, but ideally you don't want to see any. Remove the tortilla by hand to either a clean towel or have a plastic wrap redux party on a plate.

Aaaand, repeat 14x! Towel tortillas should be served immediately; plastic-sandwiched ones may be stored in a plastic bag. Beth says to use the tortillas by the next day, but I bet they'd last a little longer. My grand plan is to have a couple of tacos for dinner, then make some Seeded Tortilla Triangles & watch the Lindsay "My Paycheck For This Went Right Up Nose" Lohan crazy-stripper-stalked-by-crazier-serial-killer movie. Whatever's left over is going in the freezer. Of the tortillas, I mean.

* I'm slavishly devoted to King Arthur 's A-P F, so that's what I recommend having on hand. Additionally, you may use the flours in whatever proportions you want; but I would recommend keeping at least two cups of the all-purpose in the mix, otherwise the tortillas will probably be too dense & heavy.

** You may also use 1/2 c of any of these: lard, vegetable shortening, or bacon drippings. While lard is traditional & does make a tasty tortilla, I wasn't going to spend my whole night hunting down natural (i.e. non-partially-hydrogenated with no BHT) lard. Although rendering my own has now officially been added to my endless list of projects. The shortening is the next best taste-wise, but the proliferation of hydrogenated oils therein, trans-fat-free or no, terrifies me.

*** I've had the most success rolling these like pie crusts - one up-&-down roll, rotate the tortilla by a quarter, another up-& down roll, rotate the tortilla by a quarter...you get the idea. Lightly dust the top with flour if it sticks to the pin. You can cut away slight misshapes with a sharp knife.

But You're So Perfect, You Don't Interest Me At All

2008-02-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

Weekend Review:

1) I completely forgot this song existed until yesterday!

Pulp - "Seconds"

Within the lexicon of Pulp b-sides & miscellaneous errata, it's hardly one of their top-notch-ier efforts. Look to "Ansaphone" or "Razzmatazz" for overall better examples of Pulp-ish extras. Yet I nonetheless maintain a special fondness for "Seconds" which exceeds that I hold for either of the other songs. It makes me living-room dance more.

2) The record room is now officially the best room in my apartment. Check it:

BEFORE

AFTER

It is a happy-making thing. This weekend I put things on walls. I started at 2 a.m. Saturday morning & went straight through until 11 p.m. that evening. Of course, that also included framing some pieces for elsewhere in my apartment. But it was mostly the record room. This is my favorite part of the scheme entire:

I purchased that Unclassics poster years ago, but never got a frame for it. So I am both pleased that it's finally up & a bit tickled that there were not only enough pink-sleeved 45s on hand to accompany it, but I was able to choose the most suitable ones.

Y'know, if this incredibly intense concentration for fleeting all-consuming obsessions could be harnessed & sustained, I would achieve world domination. Or is it world peace? Well, it'd sure be something, is all there is to it.

3) Here's my community garden plot!:

And from the other end:

Oh, it's going to be so much work. I can't wait! Cardoons & romanesco & brussels sprouts & so much more to come!

4) This. May be the most fantastic idea ever. Ganked from AT:LA.

It's perfect for me. The bookshelves, of course. I was beginning to despair of ever finding bookshelves that would fit my loft. Now, I don't have to! Um, as long as the measurements work out okay, what with all that molding downstairs. Love the lighting on those shelves, too. If it's feasible, my only remaining book problem will be those damned oversized ones.

Too Many Books. Brain Is Fried.

2008-01-31T12:39:00.000-08:00

I have not managed to do one iota of work today (yet). Whoopsy. See, what happened is, yesterday I was on Powell's website (a thing of much beauty) when I discovered that you can sign up for used book notifications. Pick as many categories as you want, & every day they will send you an email for each category detailing all the used books they've processed.

This morning I received my first batch of notifications. It is insane. There were over 200 newly arrived used art books alone. This is really, really bad news for my re-emerging book purchasing addiction.

Then I figured out that I can browse all of their sale books. A good many more than are on display in the stores come up. Just what I needed.

Of course, at some point during all this I discovered that I can keep a wish list. So...in five hours I've managed to get through the used books in my nine categories, all twenty seven pages of the film & television sale books, & fifty pages of art sale books (sixteen pages left to go!). And that's it. I would be shaking my fist & cursing your very name, Powell's, if my attention weren't so terribly distracted by your enchanting little rucksack, which would be the perfect thing in which to haul all this book booty. Sigh. I confess, I am weak.

Anyway! The moral of the story is, if you ever feel compelled to the depths of your soul to buy me presents, I would urge you to go here, type in my email address to access my wish list & get me the most expensive thing(s) on said list. You can even make me pick it up at a store location (Hawthorne, please) & save on shipping.

Unless you want to go to Abebooks & buy me an English translation of Condillac's Treatise on the Sensations. But then I will really love you even more, as that is the book I want most in all the world.

The End Of Hair (Promise)

2008-01-26T01:00:00.000-08:00

So here's what my $60 different-but-not-too-different haircut looks like:

The pics are kinda crap; however, I hate flash & am too damned exhausted to get my tripod & use more suitable settings. If I have time, I'll take some shots in the daylight & replace, but I wanted to document it before I pass out & ruin that fresh-from-the-hairdresser loveliness. Basically, Scott "textured" it (which seems to mean subtle layers), cut it short in the back, started to angle the front, & then did that fringe-y side bang action (which I LOVE). It's not colored...yet...though I may actually skip that for now. I think the style is rather well-suited to my natural color.

I love the salon, I love my hairdresser, I love the cut, although we're gonna grow it out a bit over the next few months. What really sealed the deal, however, was that afterward I was strolling down Hawthorne, rockin' my new hair, when a random cute girl smiled at me & said "You look great!" as we passed each other on the sidewalk. How often does that happen? Unless I've been missing out on a world of strangers haphazardly handing out compliments to each other with no ulterior motive.

And, y'know, it was true. I did look great. The ensemble overall was nicely put together if I do say so myself, but the hair was definitely the buttercream on the genoise.

You're A Silly Little Goose

2008-01-23T14:31:00.000-08:00

1. Song of the week: Caetano Veloso's lovely rendition of Irving Berlin's "Let's Face the Music & Dance", as performed at his 1997 tribute concert to Federico Fellini & Giulietta Masina. Download here.

2. I've turned into a buy-local organic/natural hippie freak in the past three weeks. Luckily, I happen to live in the most perfect place in the world to be a buy-local organic/natural hippie freak. My quest to fulfill this unexpected destiny recently led me to the Alima Cosmetics website. It's a Portland-based natural mineral make-up company. But the best part? They sell samples of all their cosmetics online, so you can try them out before you commit to dropping $8-$18 for full-size jars. Oh yeah. They're a buck to a buck-fitty a pop & shipping's under $5. I ordered 19 different samples of foundations, powders, eye shadows, eyeliners, & lip balms yesterday afternoon - & they shipped this morning! Check it out. I'll update once I've had a chance to give 'em a whirl.

3. Hair - I finally made an appointment here to get a cut'n'color from him, on Friday at three. Which is apparently going to cost me at least $125. Plus tip, I presume. I am alternately horrified & amused that I am prepared to throw that much money at my freakin' hair. Also, I'm curious to see what Mr. Kane suggests, considering the overall strictness of my prerequisites: 1) absolutely no shorter, 2) not too much longer, 3) not radically different & 4) ease of styling & maintenance - my patience level for the amount of time I'm willing to spend on the rituals of girl-ness tends more toward deficit than surfeit. I've got about a five-minute attention span for that shit.

4. A friend & I are planning to go to Mexico to wander Mayan & Aztec ruins. Well, the ruins are my plan, anyway. And to get some tasty, tasty food. Mmm. Anybody wanna come? It's going to take me a little while to ~~brush up on~~ completely re-learn my Spanish & do some decent historical & cultural research (you know me, I can't just go somewhere without reading about it like a fiend &, if applicable, teaching myself how to botch the language). So I'm thinking of going sometime in the upcoming 12 months. Most likely during next fall/winter, for the warm sunny escape factor. Tickets look super-cheap into Mexico City - about $350 round-trip from PDX, anyway, so this international trip might actually happen. EDIT: Apparently Powell's entire stock of books on Mexican & Mesoamerican histories is on sale; this evening last, for $9 each, I picked up Mexico: Volume 1, From the Beginning to the Spanish Conquest by Alan Knight; Mexico: Biography of Power by Enrique Krauze; & A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya by Linda Schele & David Freidel. They all look like nice solid texts, so I'm pretty excited to read them. It barely begins to cover what I want to know; but it's a start. Project!

5. Ooh, Lars von Trier's The Kingdom 2 is FINALLY out on DVD! No joke, I just about ran out & bought a VCR last year for the sole purpose of renting my video store's bootleg VHS copy of this. Only it's been so long since I've seen part the first that I'm not sure whether I really liked it enough to warrant my severe excitement or whether it's the unattainability of the thing that's made me so hot to trot for it all these years. Eh, who cares.

6. Speaking of hot to trot, my girlfriend's coming back to town on 23 February! Sweet. It feels like only yesterday, or possibly late October 2007, that she was gazing at me & touching my arm. I can't wait.

Flabbergastingly

2008-01-18T09:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not entirely certain how I feel about this:

Yep, that's right. Hieronymus Bosch action figures. Guaranteed to creep your shit out. I am unable to decipher how one would order 'em from that page, but London's National Gallery also sports a small selection of them.

There's something so...indecent yet intriguing about the thought of playing around with, say, The Garden of Earthly Delights collection. I can't decide if it would be less disturbing or more disturbing than the actual painting. Bosch is one of very few painters whose work genuinely unnerves & unsettles me, which I actually love, but I don't think I'd want one of these in my house. My dreams are crazy enough without throwing in a human-pooping devil nightmare mega-mix.

Don't Make Her Wear Pants, Then!

2008-01-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

Hey, guess who unpacked the box with the baby book in it! (May need to click on the images to read them.)

Apparently I was born to dance, roller skate & not wear pants.

Like I needed a baby book to tell me that.

Sploosh. Squish. Slosh. And A Couple of Squirts.

2008-01-13T17:33:00.001-08:00

Mud mud mud mud mud!

I love hiking in the mud.

Jumping The Shark

2008-01-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

So, my hair has been pretty much the same for six years. At least as far as length goes - I've worn it straight, curly (my hair is the follicular equivalent of ambidextrous), blond, brown & a brief ill-advised auburn. The bangs were added for a Halloween costume in, I think, '04 & I decided to keep them, even though my then-boss told me I looked like Donna Reed. I could never figure out if he meant that in a good way or a bad hausfrau way, but I was pleased with 'em in any case.

Regardless, my first inkling that perhaps it was time to say goodbye to the predominant hairstyle of my 20s (new life-decade, new hair, etc.) came when I recently watched the Wong Kar-Wai, or Kar-Wai Wong, or whatevs, film Fallen Angels. And totally coveted the lead actress' hair.

So hot, right? It looks even better when she moves. She also inspired me to get all dolled up & clean my apartment in red fishnets. Seriously, how could she not - this is what she wears to clean up after her hitman cohort:

Cleaning & hosiery & fantastic hair. Does it get any better?

Moving past my own odd proclivities, obviously there is no way I could pull that hairstyle off. Besides, I don't really want long hair again. I like it short, & that's the problem with new hair - I don't want it any shorter than it already is, but I don't want it much longer either. Plus, I want to keep the bangs, because my forehead is ginormous.

Here's the thing. I never thought I would be in this situation, ever. But today I saw a celebrity's hairstyle & I actually thought, I bet that would look really great on me:

It's exactly what I'm looking for - something different, but not radically so. Longer but not long. And, bangs!

I want an opinion, because I am not going to march into Bishops, with their complimentary beer & their waiting area pornography, with a picture of fucking Katie Holmes, & tell them that I want my hair to look like that, unless it's gonna turn out fabulously. So whaddya think - am I smoking crack, or could this be teh awesome? It looks cute in back too:

Also, I did some research, & I'm not going to Bishops, so no tattooed pierced hipsters can mock me for getting Katie Holmes' haircut. I read really great reviews of this place that's right next to my neighborhood watering hole (Side St. Bar 4ever!) called Propaganda the Salon. Having received one haircut from somebody who was not me in the past 15 years, it feels like a waste of money. But I don't think I can do this one at home. And shit, you know, I think I might even get it colored. Look out!

Y'know, for the record, I wouldn't be a boy for all the vanilla beans in the world.

Place Rack In Upper Half Of Oven & Preheat To 375 Degrees

2008-01-06T22:31:00.001-08:00

I bought the most fantastic product today at the Alberta Co-op. It's called "Aura Glow". I don't know an awful lot about Edgar Cayce. All I know is, right now...right at this very second...

I smell like a friggin' ALMOND CROISSANT.

The baker in me is mad with glee.

Blah Rain; Also, Hedgehogs & Welcome To The Super-Bitch

2008-01-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

Uncle. I give up. I'll admit it: I fucking hate the rain. I hate it. I HATE IT. I don't care if that's why Oregon's so bleeding green. Well, to be honest, I hate it when it rains ceaselessly for DAYS ON END. Gray skies, a spot of rain, hell even a whole day of rain here & there, that's great. But it has been raining for four days with no relief.

Although waking up to melty rain on the skylight is pretty nice. I had a funny little dream last night about my folks' trailer converting to a spaceship, part of which involved David Thewlis having a button that would turn him into either a black cat or a hedgehog, depending. He also gave me chocolate. Apparently I like to plagiarize J.K. Rowling in my sleep. But the hedgehog bit, well, that's all me. One day. One day I will have my very own Spiny Norman. The dream lives!

Also, I quit smoking a couple of days ago. So I'm in super-bitch mode. I got a Chantix prescription from my doctor to help, but then I found out that I was going to have to take the pills for six months. Which seems kind of ridiculous. I quit once before, in 2003, & it only took a month before I felt human again. So I'm not taking any cessation aids, though I suspect I may break down today & buy some sugar free gum. I'm secretly fierce. Although being fierce is probably going to involve a lot of sleeping for the next few days, so maybe I'm more softly fierce than secretly.

I've got a couple of thoughts on the cold-turkey thing: (1) What's the point of eliminating poison if I have to use other poison to do it (including patches, gum, etc.)? & (2) I think it's better for me to get all the difficulty out of the way at once. I usually save the best for last, which means I have to go through the worst first, right? I'm not worried about reneging on the quitting so much - the way I look at it, it's goddamn hard & I ain't doing it but once. Besides, I'm in the process of detoxing my system overall in the next month or so, which won't exactly work if I pick up a cigarette, any more than it would work if I grabbed a cup of cofffee.

The only thing I think I have to manage is the way in which I react to sudden shocks to the system, because both times I started smoking, it wasn't really a gradual thing. It was a decision that I made in response to events - some retarded sort of revenge - "Oh yeah? Crap on me? I'll show you, world, I'll crap on myself!" But if my friend can go through freakin' Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans & not start smoking again, well sheesh, I got nothin' on that.

Also, I'm tired of having to go out in the rain to destroy myself. See? It's all a circle, folks. A CIRCLE OF ADORABLE HEDGEHOGS.

Oh, this is not some sort of lame-ass resolution thing, for the record. As if.

Finally: the third of season of "Lost"? I change my mind. I take back all those things I said about how "sick I was of the fucking Others" & that the six episodes I saw "kind of sucked". I suspect that Season 3 is, in fact, the best season yet. Those bastards got me back but good; & for the first time I truly believe that they actually do know where they're going with this. Bless 'em.

Wore My Heart On My Sleeve Like A Stain

2008-01-01T02:54:00.000-08:00

HAPPY FREAKIN' NEW YEAR! 2008 will be wonderful. Just puttin' it out there. I also haven't slept since Saturday. I think. Well, Sunday morning. Not on purpose. Yeah.

BUT. Today I found THIS. Which is a compilation I made circa 2003-04 that sort of explains my love for Lloyd Cole. I remember spending so much time on this that eventually Music in a Foreign Language came out & then I had to rearrange everything to get "People Ain't No Good" on it. The time was worth it, I s'pose - as a comp it holds up pretty well, save a track or two (*cough* "Big Snake"). The goal was to include at least one song from every album, & I did, except for Plastic Wood, which is all instrumentals.

Lloyd Cole : Half Of Everything

Tracklisting:
01. Chelsea Hotel (I'm Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen, 1991)
02. Lost Weekend (Easy Pieces, 1985)
03. So You'd Like To Save The World (Bad Vibes, 1993)
04. Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
05. Big Snake (Mainstream, 1987)
06. You're A Big Girl Now (Etc., 2001)
07. Happy For You (Love Story, 1995)
08. Half Of Everything (Don't Get Weird On Me Babe, 1991)
09. Undressed (Lloyd Cole, 1990)
10. Four Flights Up (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
11. My Bag (Mainstream, 1987)
12. She's A Girl & I'm A Man (Don't Get Weird On Me Babe, 1991)
13. Love Ruins Everything (Love Story, 1995)
14. People Ain't No Good (Music In A Foreign Language, 2004)
15. Old Enough To Know Better (Etc., 2001)
16. Man Enough (Don't Get Weird On Me Babe, 1991)
17. Rattlesnakes (Rattlesnakes, 1984)
18. Downtown (Lloyd Cole, 1990)
19. That Boy (The Negatives, 2001)
20. Unhappy Song (Love Story, 1995)

The first time I encountered Lloyd Cole was fall 2001, when I discovered his cover of "Chelsea Hotel" on the otherwise dreadful Leonard Cohen tribute album I'm Your Fan. I kind of fell in love with his voice, one thing led to another, I quickly realized that he also has a brilliant way with words & within a year I'd acquired a decent collection. So clinical sounding! Ah, I can do not better tonight. My brain is fuzzy.

One ought not to play favorites I s'pose, but fuck it, I'll say it: I could listen to "Undressed" for endless days. Its innocence & endearing sweetness are enchanting. Having listened to it at least 20 times today & having not slept in about 60 hours, I've concocted all sorts of harebrained notions about it, none of which are as eloquent as "We could disconnect the telephone/Just sit around & mess around & tell your ma we went to Rome, Tennessee". Obviously I love all of these songs, but damned if I'm not a sucker for sweet. Must be the ovaries. Then again, I've also listened to "People Ain't No Good" about 20 times today too, which is, uh, not very sweet. So go figure.

But for the albums, well, Love Story is one of my all-time favorites. As in, ever. Holy crap. It's just...beautiful. If some bastard came to rob me of my Lloyd Cole collection, I would weep fiercely & plead for Love Story to be spared. The CD, anyway. I guess he could have the cassette tape.

US Grant Park

2007-12-30T10:37:00.000-08:00

Portland has been park planning ever since it commissioned a survey in 1905, the results of which found that parks are essential to the quality of urban life (duh). Currently Portland has the most green acres per capita of any city in the U.S. Whatever that means, all I know is, PDX has got itself an official buttload of parks. A very long time ago I made it a mission to visit one a week until I'd seen all of them. Then...um...I stopped. And now...um...I'm starting again. Whatever! I can be as damned capricious as suits me. I am subject to the whims of none save my own.

Today I trudged over to US Grant Park, located in NE Portland. The park's 19 acres were acquired in 1922. Its namesake visited our fair burg three times in his life, no mean feat in the days before widespread train travel, but its best-known feature is its Beverly Cleary sculpture garden, established in 1995 & featuring statues of Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins & Ribsy, fictional characters who all lived in NE Portland & frequented Grant Park. Time has swallowed nearly all of my memories of the books, but I loved me some Ramona Quimby when I was a child. However! I must admit, I find the statue sort of...disturbing. Like one of those stoic eyeless busts commemorating Roman emperors, only she's a grinning lifeless kid.

Eh. The park itself is very nice indeed, & if I lived closer, I would probably go there more. Except it has an off-leash area, so it's probably just stuffed to the gills with dogs in nice weather. My bones are cold, as it freakin' hailed throughout my two-mile walk over, but it was worth it because the sun came out for the half hour I was at the park & sun + precipitation = sparkles. I got several lovely pictures of the tennis court too.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

(There's a cute story involving me & the bicycle which deftly exemplifies the mind's capacity to experience wonder that defies knowledge.)

Folks Get Down In The Sunshine

2007-12-24T15:47:00.000-08:00

23.12.2007 theme song:

Eddie Kendricks - "Date with the Rain"

It rained all day & night. At least from 9 a.m. to 4 a.m. It would have been a beautiful day to sit at home drinking tea & touching my new books. But no! My day was a three-mile walk to Northwest to acquire froufy Portlandia Christmas presents & then dinner & bars. It wasn't a date so much as assault. Blasted rain.

However, today I awoke to a pale white thing & mocking shards of blue sky piercing the vast canopy of gray. I even saw shadows for about 20 minutes. Which, in December's Oregon, passes for so much sunshine. Therefore!

24.12.2007 theme song:

Roy Ayers - "Everybody Loves the Sunshine"

Proof Pudding

2007-12-23T18:45:00.001-08:00

Look! I can win at bowling! At least two games in a row! That makes three games I've won, ever. I think that merits a big ol' w00t!!!1!!1!

*Sniff*. I'm so proud of me. Um, I'm the kraut if you couldn't figure. Thanks to the mick for the pics.

Touch My Tummy & I Light Up!

2007-12-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

Oh my. LIGHT-UP BATHTUB TOYS arrived yesterday on my doorstep. AKA "Disco Dinos". I lurve you, Skunk Keeler. They make my insides squiggly. Look!:

Yeah, I got out to grab my camera because they're so wonderful. So what? New rubber duckies + bath bomb from Lush (oh, sweet Lush) + leftover yet still bubbly prosecco from last night + [redacted for the sake of decency] = best Saturday bath EVER.

Also: remember when Ryan Adams was good? I didn't until I listened to a CD I made for a friend ages ago. And this song came on:

Whiskeytown - "Here's to the Rest of the World"

So wistful & gauzy yellow afternoon bar. I was compelled to run out & buy Faithless Street & Strangers Almanac straightaway.

Last but not least: I've got the whole "Dae Jang Geum" series to get me through the sopping wet of Oregon winter! It's s'posed to be kinda like "Iron Chef" crossed with a soap, all set in 16th century Korea. I feel like it exists solely for my benefit. Whoo hoo! Thanks ever so much to Albert.

Watch Out! Girl Genius At Work!

2007-12-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

Many moons ago, in the wilds of western Massachusetts, I chipped one of my front teeth in a friendly tussle over a bottle of beer. Obviously, I had a fake tooth-part (no, I don't know the technical term) installed - I may have been raised in Scio, OR but that doesn't mean I have to look like it, dammit. And so, all was well.

Until last night, when I did something so embarrassingly stupid that I refuse to describe it. And knocked out said fake tooth-part.

Nice job, me. Way to go. Let's just make that whole teeth thing cost an even grand for 2007. Sweet! (21.12 EDIT: Apparently my dentist has a "buy five fillings get a fake tooth-part for free" deal. And he was able to see me yesterday. Excellent.)

The moral of the story is: I am forcing myself to go to sleep tonight. Like a normal person. ~~Eight~~ Six hours, at least, ~~maybe more~~. All I am doing tonight is watching my freakin' "Lost" [21.12 EDIT: & Helvetica, a truly crappy documentary that makes an interesting subject dull]. No more staying up so late I'm afraid to go to sleep because I might not wake up! No more insane ventures, no more mad projects!

In short, no more tomfoolery.

At least until the weekend. Then I can try pulling out shelf pegs with my teeth at 4:30 in the morning to my heart's content. (Yeah, that's right, I said it. I confess.)

Blessed Art Thou; Or, It's Totally Your Lucky Day!

2007-12-19T23:35:00.000-08:00

Gather the blankets & glasses of milk, bring the cookies if you got 'em, because it's time for a little story. (Mandy, stop pulling my hair & settle down!) Go back, back, waaaaay back here, to the big bang, aka the genesis of this here blog-thing. Following the standard "Hey ~~world~~ friends! This is my blog! Hey!" post, the very first thing I wrote about was a filmmaker by the name of Phil Solomon. The words were few, succinct (I used to try!) & heartfelt (to the max, Phil. Heh. I've hardly begun to exhaust my repertoire). What I did not mention was that I had actually had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Solomon on more than one occasion, in more than one state (& I use "state" with more than one meaning, naturally), over the course of several years. I even chauffeured him to TJ's house - that would be Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, for those who aren't hip to the C-ville slang - in a pick-up in, I think, 2004. Alas! sadly, that had been the last of it.

Until very recently, when Mr. Solomon found my feeble little post about him & left me a wonderful comment, which gave me a case of the warm fuzzies you wouldn't believe. Subsequently, memories were jogged & communications (re-)established. All to your benefit, friends, as I've laid my grubby little paws on clips from some of his films!

Now, I realize that I am slightly inclined toward hyperbole. I am simply helpless in the face of that with which I am enthralled, be it positively or negatively. My words can be a minefield of superlatives. However! If you took the whole of every aggrandizing statement I've ever made, every command & must & implore & love & amazing & so forth, & you put them in a mortar & mashed them to a splendidly redolent paste, the resulting bouquet would still not do these films justice.

My limited mind knows not how to provide a better introduction. Tell me you believe me. Better yet, just watch the clips. I provide them to you out of love. (And if you love me, you'll watch them, bitches.) Yes, they are necessarily but pale ghosts of the films entire; but after all, as Double Exposure so well put it, "Ten percent of something/It beats one hundred percent of nothing at all"!

The Passage of the Bride

Clepsydra

The Exquisite Hour

What's Out Tonight is Lost

Yes, I Said Yes, I Will, Yes

Psalm III: Night of the Meek

The Snowman

Psalm II: Walking Distance

Happy-Makers 2007 12 19

2007-12-19T22:22:00.000-08:00

(You'll probably have to make the pictures bigger to get the full effect here.)

Why I love my video store:

There are also three shelves of "Demons, Devils & Their Worshipers".

Why I love my scary neighbors:

Yeah. That's Santa Claus. On a motorcycle. I know it's a terrible picture, but they are my scary neighbors, so I didn't want to get too close or use a flash, even if I made sure their lights were out. I never thought I'd miss tacky Christmas decorations; but I did. And they filled the void! I like to stand on my porch & ponder Bad-Ass Santa.

God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance

2007-12-17T09:59:00.001-08:00

Warning: the CDs be snug in their new, shelf-y homes. Which means I've got them all at my fingertips. Which, in turn, means I'm listening to stuff I nearly forgot I had. And could possibly be posting about it in unseemly amounts in the days &/or weeks to come.

But I don't think anything else I own could possibly ever come close to the song I just rediscovered, from the Soul Jazz release The World of Arthur Russell:

Arthur Russell - "In the Light of the Miracle"

I have never struggled so fiercely for a material thing in my life as for this compilation. So I'm not sure how I failed to realize before this that "In the Light of the Miracle" is it. The song. The one for which my feet in their red shoes will dance off into the forest without me (in a somewhat sunnier take on the tale). And when I rejoin them, it will be the song playing in my eternal disco, along with MFSB's "Love is the Message" (the Tom Moulton mix, ideally). Now that's an idea for a mix CD: the songs to which I want to dance in the forever. Hmm.

If your toes don't generally get to tapping, it's still a lovely piece of work. But you cannot truly understand what I mean unless you dance with it.

My propensity for delivering complicated drunken monologues on the beauty of disco & its social implications inches ever closer to notorious. At the risk of skipping like a scratched record, just listen to this song & try then to tell me that disco isn't worlds more than white polyester kitsch.

(Mr. Russell is experiencing quite the posthumous renaissance: my quick google search revealed no less than a documentary & a biography (by Tim Lawrence, which makes it extra exciting), both due in 2008. As for that which is already published, it's all a bit prosaic in light of the music itself, but this New Yorker article by Sasha Frere-Jones isn't bad.)

365 Little Days

2007-12-16T16:34:00.000-08:00

It has been a tiny bit more than a year since I moved into my apartment with about three pieces of furniture & little else. Although I still feel I've an awfully long way to go, I have to admit I've also come an equally long way. Example:

I'm going to take this also as an occasion to state for the record that, yes, Heather, "if anything happens to me", you can have the Totoro clock (seen to the left of the couch there). As a surprise bonus, I will also leave you my copy of Trouble in Paradise, since you're the first person I've shown it to who thought it as absolutely funny as I.

I'll consider other requests.

Someone Tell Me What I'm Doing Wrong

2007-12-14T08:12:00.001-08:00

Dear Miranda Lambert,

Please stop reading my diary. It's PRIVATE.

Miranda Lambert - Guilty In Here

Sincerely,
April

P.S. My past-life alternate-universe diary is ALSO PRIVATE.

Miranda Lambert - Gunpowder & Lead

Bringing You Down, Down, Down On Your Brazen Knees

2007-12-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

I want a boy who will dress up like this for me! I s'pose I'd be willing to forego the socks & shoes (although they are utterly adorable). The sparkly shirt, however, would be non-negotiable.

*Sigh*. My dear Patrick Wolf. I want to make out with your songs. I would enter into matrimony with "Augustine". I would pop out "Accident & Emergency"'s babies like so many ping-pong balls in Asian sex clubs. And my, er, rather derogatory feelings toward marriage & babies both are secrets ill-kept. (Not to digress, but I suppose I feel that those ever so noble social conventions are not negative so much as they're pervasively useless, at least insofar as concerns your humble narrator.)

No joke, The Magic Position is easily one of my favorite albums ever. I haven't so single-mindedly listened to an album since 2000. But of course, it makes complete sense. The album itself is stuffed with joy & gloom in like amounts. It's completely cinematic, my definition of which includes both lushly orchestrated, whirling soundscapes & lyrics laden with imagery. Anyway, I can't explain it any better than I put it in a recent email: The album entire sings in the key of me.

"And now come the tears, heavy and hot/As it becomes clear, this is all we got/As I hold you to my bed/Like a cancer or a curse/Be my loving nurse/As we fall back into the impossible dream"

"Now deep in a forest/Losing all thought of spring/And nothing can help me remember/And I'm going nowhere fast/A darker day has holed at last/Deep in a dream I set the calmness to spinning"

"'Cause out of all the people I've known/The places I've been/The songs I have sung/The wonders I've seen/Now that the dreams are all coming true/Who is the one that leads me on through/It's you/Who puts me in the magic position, darling now/You put me in the magic position/To live, to learn, to love in the major key"

"We could go to the cinema/Big effects and big name stars/And we can go to that private view/But darling these days my favorite view is you"

Oh!

Because Really I Just Don't BUY Enough Stuff

2007-12-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

After getting my DVD shelves up on the wall last week, I was alarmed & saddened to discover that I have far, far fewer DVDs than I had imagined. Apparently the attrition rate during the war was much higher than it looked when the DVDs were in boxes.

Although I was glad to see that the frivolous titles have been kept to a minimum (meaning that of the DVDs I own, the majority are ones which I truly love), & I am happy that in April-land Clueless sits next to The Conformist, as Mean Girls sidles up alongside Mulholland Drive, I realized also how very very few of my actual favorite movies I own. Not that I don't absolutely adore the ones I do own, but I'm talking about the ones that I respond to most on an emotional basis. The special ones. For me, there's a fine but clear delineation betwixt films that touch my head & films that go beyond & take up residence in my heart. I mean, I admire Citizen Kane twelve ways to Sunday, but I don't love it. I've got a few of 'em on hand, to be sure - Wings of Desire. Au Hasard Balthazar. A Little Princess (want early evidence of Alfonso Cuaron's cinematic talents? Skip the tepid Great Expectations adaptation & start here. Damn thing makes me bawl like a baby every time I see it & it's deathly gorgeous to boot).

Thanks to evil Amazon & my temporary delusion of disposable cash, I have attempted to remedy this situation in my own small way.

First: I finally broke down & bought the Criterion Collection release of Naked. Seeing as I was moved to actually email them the title as a suggestion several years ago, I figured since they lived up to their end of things by actually releasing it, I'd better pony up & buy the damn thing already. Out of all the trenchant & cutting things said in that film, this is my favorite, courtesy of Johnny:

"Was I bored? No, I wasn't fuckin' bored. I'm never bored. That's the trouble with everybody - you're all so bored. You've had nature explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the living body explained to you and you're bored with it, you've had the universe explained to you and you're bored with it, so now you just want cheap thrills and like plenty of them, and it don't matter how tawdry or vacuous they are, as long as it's new, as long as it's new, as long as it flashes and fuckin' bleeps in forty fuckin' different colors. So whatever else you can say about me, I'm not fuckin' bored. "

Words to live by.

Second: Yay! It Happened One Night! Yay! One of my all-time most favoritest movies ever. The film that killed off men's undershirt sales because of the scene pictured above. The first film to sweep the Big 5 at the Oscars (picture, director, screenplay, actor & actress- only One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest & The Silence of the Lambs have done it since). The movie no one wanted to make at the studio for which no one wanted to work - the two leads were forced into it. Featuring the lovely Claudette Colbert. Also Clark Gable (no especial favorite of mine, truth be told). Frank Capra at his finest. I've adored this film madly ever since I was 16, so it's about time I actually had it at my permanent disposal.

Third: Oh, those Germans. It was bothering me that insofar as (1) I love Werner Herzog & (2) I spent an inordinate amount of time watching his films in college, the only title I actually owned of his was Grizzly Man. A most excellent film indeed, but hardly the one upon which his international renown was built. I remembered that there exists a boxed set of all the work Mr. Herzog did with Klaus Kinski (& if you don't know anything about their relationship, well, I heartily recommend delving into it. Kinski on Herzog: "I wish he would catch the plague, more than ever." Herzog on Kinski: "We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other's murder". More quote fun here.). Amazon's got it for 50% off list price - that's six titles for $45 - what works out to $7.50 each. And being a compendium of his work with Kinski, of course it's some of his absolute finest stuff - Aguirre, the Wrath of God (although I think the German title is far more fierce-sounding: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes); Fitzcarraldo; Woyzeck; Nosferatu the Vampyre; Cobra Verde; and the nonfiction film Herzog made about Kinski, called My Best Fiend. I think I'm most excited about revisiting Fitzcarraldo, although I think Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror & Herzog's "re-imagining" make for a spectacular double feature - every time I see either of them, my admiration for the actor portraying the title character (Max Shreck in the former; Kinski, naturally, in the latter) grows leaps & bounds. They're both absolutely astonishing.

Fourth: My neighbor Totoro, To-to-ro. Totoro, To-to-ro. Heh! I waited a long while for My Neighbor Totoro to be released as it deserves: wide-screen, with the original Japanese audio track. Previously it was available only in a full-screen English-dubbed version. Now, finally, it comes back to my lovin' arms, more glorious than ever.

A-B-C-D-E-F-G

2007-12-10T09:00:00.001-08:00

Hee hee! I'm the world's biggest alphabetizing dork. Seriously. I love alphabetizing. It gives me great happiness. Creating order out of chaos in my own small way. The pleasure, however brief, of basking in the comforting beauty of the finite & graspable. The Feeling of getting something accomplished skipping hand in hand down the path with the Sensation of mental relaxation. I only wish my life provided me more frequent opportunities to indulge. I suspect that secretly this is why I'm letting my CD organization take days & days & days - because after the CDs, I've only the records, & then all the fun goes away.

No. That's not true. Don't lie to yourself, Self. If I'd had my druthers that shit would have been done by Friday. The 20-hour class'n'test combo & various social commitments I had last week are what kept me from finishing. But now that I've caught up on sleep - I will undoubtedly be amazed for months that I slept from 2:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday - well, I don't think anything can hold me back.

The (1st) step is categorizing. This is easy. I have Disco/Funk, Electronic & Everything Else (I used to try to be all categorical with the Everything Else too, but I found that all that meant was I spent more time looking for things because I couldn't remember as what they had been classified). The (2nd) is my beloved alphabetizing. The (3rd) is chronological arrangement within the alphabetical structure, which is also easy - any artist whose work is owned in sufficient quantity as to warrant chronological arrangement is most likely an artist with whose discography I have a fair amount of familiarity.

Except, for some reason, Fila Brazilia - I can never remember whether Power Clown or Luck Be a Weirdo Tonight comes first.

Merry Christmas, Me

2007-12-05T07:20:00.000-08:00

Since this evening past I spent more hours devising the following scheme than sleeping, I am generously passing the pain on to you.

I've decided that my Christmas present to myself is going to be finishing up the record room. As my loyal reader may recall, I recently-ish painted the walls up there. And never did the rest of what needed doing. BUT. I am finally utterly fed up at having all of my CDs & records & DVDs in boxes. Even if it's only been a year & a half. SO. Thanks to the miracle of the Christmas bonus, I am going to get my ass in gear & do the following:

(1) Paint the floor! Unfortunately or fortunately, depending, this is absolutely without question the first thing I have to do. It's going to be a fair bit of work, which may or may not involve sanding the whole floor &/or primer, but will definitely involve some serious cleaning, painting & multiple coats of polyurethane. It will probably take me days.

(2) Finalize my media storage plans. I think I have, but it's hard to tell. Last night I stayed up waaaay too late taking measurements & I decided that the record room is clearly the most ridiculous room ever in the history of the world. Check it:

All the height weirdness is due to the fact that nearly every one of the eight walls are angled in totally bizarro ways. To wit:

(3) I figured out that only the right part of wall 1, plus walls 2 (pictured above) & 5, are usable for shelving (I'm putting a table for the record players in front of the windows, eventually). Which means that contrary to my clever notions, only my records are able to be shelved in the record room. I've decided that three of these Expedit bookcases (turned on the side, of course) are going to have to do the trick. Hopefully, I can fit all the records on them. Hopefully.

(4) Since the CDs apparently aren't going in there anymore, they will have to go in the actual loft, against these walls:

Which are also problematic, as you can see. Ignore the fact that I'm not done painting the loft, either. I'm thinking my best bet here is to go with four of the Benno CD towers in silver (or possibly red, depending on how it compares to the red I will (one day) paint the loft) & keep my fingers crossed that they hold all my CDs. I mean, 180 x 4 = 720, sooo...I hope that's enough. I don't know. I've got boxes & boxes & more boxes of them & I haven't exactly done a thorough count.

(5) And then what of my DVDs?!?! There are far fewer of those than anything else, at least. Ultimately I determined that they will simply have to go in the living room. Appearances to the contrary, there actually is an unphotographed angle in my apartment, but they will be going on the wall above & to the right of the buffet:

I'm going to grab six of these Lerberg wall shelves in dark grey; turned vertically, they will hold DVDs. Ideally, I will only need five of them, & then I can put the sixth horizontally on the wall near my stereo, to hold whatever CDs I have in current rotation.

Bleech. The only thing I can do right now are the DVD shelves, because in a matter of hours I will be in hardcore insurance dork mode through Saturday. Luckily, the Sheraton is right near the IKEA, so I'm gonna go pick up the shelves tonight!

Sadness.

2007-12-03T15:20:00.000-08:00

When will it end? A succinct update:

1) Trying to figure out how to stop paying a loan when the object of that loan is defunct, without getting bad shit on my credit report. Have spoken with three different Wells Fargo departments & left a message with the last, the Total Loss Department. Am calling them tomorrow if they don't call me.

2) Trying to figure out how to not get in trouble with Wells Fargo over my insurance. The car is totaled - what's the point in paying for insurance? Still, my insurance company has not canceled or even notified Wells Fargo of the loss.

3) I need some documents from my insurance company in order to file a stop gap claim. The woman I spoke to regarding my insurance at Wells Fargo told me to ride those stop gap people like a harpy straight outta hell (okay, she didn't say that...I'm paraphrasing), because they royally fucked her daughter over when she totaled her car. So now I'm worried & I'm gonna ride my auto damage adjuster like a harpy until I get the documents I need to file with the stop gap people. And oh! they will live to rue the day, if they try to screw with me.

4) Just found out that I was supposed to file an accident report with the Oregon DMV within 72 hours of the accident. Whoopsy. Also I have to fill out an Application for Salvage Title. Sweet!

5) I still have to get my shit out of the dead car. The salvage yard is only open M-F 8:30 to 4:30, & it's all the way out by the airport, so my plan is to go there Wednesday, because my latest insurance dork-fest class starts that day & is only a few miles away.

6) Speaking of the dead car, I found a special treat on the Geico website today:

It's so tragic! Also, don't forget: I am driving between 5 to 10 mph when this happens. I really, really wish I knew how fast that other guy was going. Also whether he even had his fucking headlights on.

Boompty Boomp!

2007-12-03T08:55:00.000-08:00

I clearly need more friends who like house music.

Derrick fucking Carter is playing at my house, dammit! It's funny, 'cause I've definitely missed out on a lot of DJs around here - Mark Farina, DJ Dan, etc. - that I really do love (well, I gotta say, I stopped with DJ Dan after about six or seven CDs, because, um, they actually do all sound the same). Anyway, generally speaking, while I enjoy listening to them, most house mixes are too damn fast for my tired old body to even contemplate keeping up with in a live setting. So I've just kind of skipped 'em.

But...I mean...it's DERRICK CARTER. House Music Legend (tm). He's boompty, not "boom-chk-boom-chk-boom-chk". Shit, he created the boompty boomp. He's got a track about friends & tater tots, people! He's just adorable & I love him madly. And the show's only fifteen dollars.

Sigh. I don't really want to go alone, but I just might have to. Damn PDX indie kids.

Mark It One

2007-11-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

Do you have any idea what a bleeding pain in the ass it is to find stone-ground cornmeal in the pasty white state of Oregon?

When I asked a friend to pick some up for me at the grocery store a while ago, she came back with a box of regular ol' steel-ground, saying they didn't have stone-ground. That's preposterous, thought I. What grocery store worth its salt doesn't carry stone-ground cornmeal? I figured maybe she had just missed it. (This article will give a little info on the difference between the grinds, or at the least, clue you in to the Southern obsession with good cornmeal.)

Last night I wanted to make some corn bread sticks (shaped like little ears of corn - it's quite darling) for tonight. Damned if I was gonna sully myself by using steel-ground. So I decided to go to Fred Meyer - I nearly stopped at the QFC on the way, since it's almost certainly cheaper, but then I figured they might, just might, not have stone-ground. It was raining too hard for me to contemplate more than one stop. So I arrived at Freddie's & filled my basket: 2 ears of corn, heavy cream, milk, Gold Medal bleached all-purpose flour (ugh; I know. But Southerners have them some good food, so who I am to fault their abundant usage of bleached flour, even if it makes me feel dirty & cheap?). And then I see it: the problem my friend had. There is no stone-ground cornmeal. In fact, there are only two options, both from the same brand: white or yellow. However, this is why I specifically chose Freddie's - they have a "natural foods" section. I ran over to its bulk products. Cornmeal, yes. Stone-ground, no. Well shit, I thought. But I had knowledge of a secret weapon: Bob's Red Mill, a local business that makes flours & such using quartz millstones. And sure enough, there in the natural baking section, I found a small bag emblazoned with the magic words that made my heart sing: stone-ground yellow cornmeal. (Yellow vs. white cornmeal is a whole 'nother can of worms & arguments.)

As I walked up to the register, what should have been laughably obvious finally occurred to me: I lived in Virginia when I started baking. Right? Pseudo-South though it may be, of course stone-ground cornmeal was practically falling out of the trees in every brand & color you can imagine. Crap, you could even get it at the IGA in Scottsville. Oregon, on the other hand, may be a land of delicious produce, tasty cheeses, & naturally raised beef, but it is clearly not the land of cornmeal.

So there you go, Virginia. You've finally scored your first point over Oregon. Don't let it go to your head.

Say Hello!

2007-11-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

Meet Jasper, my darling new car. Jasper is a 2007 Toyota Corolla LE (the "L" is for luxury, people). It was love at first sight. That & the fact that I'm a sucker for a pretty face with under 17K miles on it. Jasper is more accustomed to the finer things in life than was the Road Warrior, so I expect to drop a bit more moolah on him, but you know, I think he's worth it.

Without further ado:

The color was key. Ever since I bought the silver Road Warrior, I'd been envious of the gunmetal gray Toyotas. Really, aren't Corollas boring enough without having a dull color to compound it?

Power windows were a non-negotiable must.

Oh the luxury of faux-wood paneling! My heart quivers.

And I would be remiss if I failed to remark upon the coup de grace, the feature that was my heart's secret desire:

Remote key entry, oh yeah!

I will always have a special love for the Road Warrior - it was, after all, not only the very first car I'd ever bought, but also its very purchase was at the time a wonderfully freeing & empowering action. But Jasper is like the Road Warrior squared. I am pleased.

BTW

2007-11-26T14:17:00.000-08:00

Hairspray is the modern movie musical for which I've so been longing.

It was shown on a flight I took recently. If it played on every flight I ever took, I would be a happy camper.

I watched it again on Thanksgiving at my folks' house.

Both times I realized about 2/3 of the way through that I'd had a big stupid grin on my face during the entire movie.

Much as I adore musicals, I didn't really want to like it - I've simply an abundance of fondness for the John Waters original. Plus, I didn't find the thought of John Travolta in drag to be hysterically funny solely on principle, as so many seem to have. But, shit, it won me over with the opening number alone. It's really fun, it's really well done, & it's just fantastic. It achieves a rare feat in managing to be super-sweet without being saccharine. Completely simplistic, but if you want, like, "a socialist critique of a capitalist world", go watch G.W. Pabst's film version of The Threepenny Opera & chase it with Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera or something equally drab.

Just don't invite me, because I'm gonna be busy singing along at the top of my lungs to "Good Morning Baltimore".

Old Faithful

2007-11-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

Funtastic car update! ~~Unofficially~~ Officially, it's totaled. Let's just say it was towed to a salvage yard & not a body shop.

Of course, I won't know for sure until today. I'm getting a wee bit testy with Geico. The accident occurred on Saturday 17 November. I wasn't able to pick up a rental car until Monday - no biggie, as I didn't even get out of my jammies that day, let alone go outside. There was a bit of foolishness about the place it was towed, because the police wrote down one towing company name on the report; it turned out that it was actually towed by a totally different company. Which took a good two hours of my Monday morning to figure out. Thanks, Portland police!

Once I knew where it was, I called the place & released the car to Geico. Silly girl that I am, I kinda figured they might tow it to the body shop (at this point I had not heard any different) on that same day. Crazy, right? On Tuesday I received a voicemail from the liability claims adjuster, which made it sound as though my car hadn't been towed. I called her back; she didn't answer; I left a message saying where it had been towed & that I had released it on Monday, & that my assumption had been that they would tow it on that very same day.

On Wednesday, my damage claims adjuster called. He said that the towing company said that I hadn't released the car. On Wednesday. A solid forty eight hours after I'd released the car. Four days after the crash. I called the towing company, & they confirmed that no, the crack hasn't irreparably damaged my brain cells, because they showed that I released the car on Monday.

I called him back & left a message. I did need to speak with him, because I hadn't left the key with the vehicle, & he needed that to check the odometer. I left two messages for him on Wednesday, neither of which were returned. I actually ended up calling the towing company around 4 p.m. to make sure the car had been towed. It had. I called the body shop to make sure it had gotten there. It hadn't.

(Thanksgiving pause. I am thankful that I am not one of Geico's butthead adjusters.)

On Friday morning, I called the adjuster again, around 11 a.m. He actually answered! And told me that my car had been towed to a salvage yard, not a body shop. Naturally, he hadn't actually looked at the car; based on the description he thinks it's gonna be a total loss. My favorite part? The salvage lot was closed & wasn't going to open until today. Monday. Nine days after the accident. So today is hopefully the day I will finally find out if my car is gone. (I gave the key to him on Friday.)

Of course, if Geico had actually towed the car last Monday, when they said they were going to, I would probably have known by Wednesday whether the car was a total loss or not. And I would probably have managed to get myself a new (used) car by now, because I already know what I want.

But here's my question: am I crazy, or does it seem really stupid that a collison in which I certainly was going no more than five, ten max, miles per hour (I was turning left, after all) has completely totaled my car to the point where its repair would cost more than the car is worth? I mean, it's a 2003 Toyota Corolla - it's not the pimpest ride on the block, but it ain't no '85 Mazda. Are cars made out of peanut brittle nowadays? It seems to support my suspicion that Mr. Mazda was most likely speeding at the time of impact.

Holy Crap

2007-11-21T09:30:00.001-08:00

I haven't been to a first-run theater besides Cinema 21 (a special case, since the first screenings on Saturday & Sunday are $4, & that's all I go to) since I saw Children of Men way back in, I think, January of this year. But, of course, my beloved Todd Haynes' new film I'm Not There opens today, & obviously I am trotting out to see it as soon as Aprilly possible (meaning, methinks, Friday). Oddly enough considering Mr. Haynes resides in Portland, it's playing in only one theater - the Regal Fox Tower 10. It's a short bus ride or healthy walk away, which is nice (hurrah for city life!), but in researching the showtimes I discovered the freakin' ticket prices. And apparently I am way, way out of the loop here.

Eight dollars for a matinee?!?!?! And, of course, ten dollars for a regular showing.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted that anybody, anywhere, still goes to these chain multiplexes. I mean, unless I'm mistaken, most of the movies that play at such theaters are kind of awful. Even if they are "independent", whatever that means nowadays.

I now feel completely justified in waiting for movies to come to the Laurelhurst, CineMagic, Avalon or Bagdad. Those multiplex hos can lick on these nuts & suck the dick.

P.S. Heh. Look at the sidebar - I'm watching, reading & listening all Haynes. If this were a Douglas Sirk movie, it would so be Magnificent Obsession.

Flufftards

2007-11-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

I love my cats. They are clearly aliens from the Planet Cute. I don't know how a jerkface like me was lucky enough to end up with not one but two adorable, sweet, cuddlesome creatures such as these.

That is all.

Fuck You, Heidi Klum

2007-11-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

One day you're in, the next day you're in the crapper.

On Saturday I awoke feeling pretty shitty & dizzy, & decided to spend the day at home knitting to crap DVDs. Unfortunately, I ran out of crap. Then while reading US Weekly (which, for the record, is deliciously nasty), I saw that the third season of "Project Runway" only cost $28. So I decided to run out to Barnes & Ignoble to purchase it.

It was possibly the worst decision of my entire life.

How can I put this? I totaled my car. My beautiful, sturdy, dependable Road Warrior. Which won't even be paid off until 2012. I was making a left hand turn off NE 21st onto Multnomah. It was my duty to yield. Obviously, I didn't see any cars coming. But clearly I was wrong. One second I was starting my turn, the next my airbags were deployed & my windshield was smashed. I could hardly even open the driver's side door to get out.

I'll try to be succinct: I'm fine. To the best of my knowledge, the other driver is fine. The cars, on the other hand, are not. My Corolla is easily eight inches less in length than it used to be. The other car actually didn't look quite as wretched as mine. Thank God it was pretty much head-on; I didn't drive into the side of the other vehicle.

First I was shocked. Then I started crying. Mostly because there were all these people around - police, medical technicians, firemen - but nobody was talking to me! I started to feel like everybody hated me - stupid, to be sure, but clearly I was in a horrid frame of mind. They told me I could leave, so I started walking back toward home & called a friend to pick me up. She had to put her animals away (another long story!), & by the time she called me back I was walking past Everyday Music on Sandy, so I told her to pick me up there. I wanted some goddamn DVDs.

And some goddamn DVDs I got. I'd like to think I am the only person in the history of the world who has purchased these DVDs at the same time: Dirty Dancing (the 2-disc ULTIMATE edition, baby!), 13 Going On 30 (shut up - Jennifer Garner is human sparkles in this movie), & Kieslowski's The Decalogue. Because I've never made it more than 3 episodes either time I've tried to watch it, even though it's flat-out amazing, so I decided that if I owned it, eventually one day I would watch them all. My friend bought Happy Gilmore - I told her that if ever there was a time when it wouldn't be pulling teeth to get me to watch an Adam Sandler movie, this was that time.

Somehow, in between crying & DVD-buying, the whole situation became hilarious & I couldn't stop laughing. It was funny that I hadn't gotten around to filling up my gas tank. It was funny that one of my big weekend goals was to clean my car out. It was funny that I'd been planning on getting a tune-up for my car. It was freakin' hysterical that we'd just had Winter Safety Driving at my work, on Friday. Serious. The growth of pains in various parts of my body was amusing. (At the start, it was just my knee, but every 20 minutes or so I got a new pain - stomach, neck, collarbone, etc.)

So we picked up some beer on the way home. I phoned my insurance company to report the claim & my friend went out & got us pizza. I took a Valium, put on my pajamas, & cracked a beer. After the pizza, I promptly passed out (although I can't say I wasn't enjoying Happy Gilmore).

The next morning, my body was a compendium of pain. I noticed bruises in places I didn't think it was possible to get bruises. Every day it seems they get uglier & redder. My knee, my stomach, my collarbone, the inner part of one of my freakin' boobs, the bridge of my nose (from my glasses).

But, you know, shit happens. And maybe my precious Road Warrior isn't totaled. Even if it is, I'm so just getting another Corolla. Except this one will be gunmetal in color & have power windows. Although I got a snazzy lil' PT Cruiser for my rental car (is it totally lame to think that those are kinda cute? Who's the stereotypical Cruiser driver?), which I have to admit is pretty fun to drive.

Right now, though, I just wish I was still at home in my jammies.

Curry, Knitting & the Infected

2007-11-14T07:33:00.000-08:00

No single theme for me today!

1) Pho Van is fantastic. I'm only sad that I'd never previously dined there. Delicious & no more than a hop, skip & jump (meaning ~12 blocks) away! I got the vegetarian curry, & while I was sorely disappointed that the sugar snap peas described on the menu were lacking, there was a surprise bonus of those tiny ears of corn!, which I can't help but find adorably cute, as recompense.

2) Xavier the Bitey Bastard decided Monday night that the tip of one of my #7 bamboo knitting needles would make a tasty treat. So I trotted over to the Yarn Garden last night - luckily, I needed some cotton yarn anyway - for a new pair. But what I found instead were these:

Which you can find here. Honestly, I didn't really need light-up knitting needles, but (1) they are awesome & make me happy & (2) Le Garden was fresh out of wooden #7 needles, & if I have to knit with plastic, they'd damn well better light up. The #7s come in blue. Knit one, lite one, indeed!

3) At some point between 1996 & 2002, Danny Boyle became a fantastic filmmaker, at least based on 28 Days Later, which I finally watched. I mean, yeah, I liked Shallow Grave & Trainspotting enough to actually sit through A Life Less Ordinary (which caused me to avoid Boyle for well-nigh a decade) but they always seemed kind of...gimmicky. He exhibited unrestrained visual flair within equally flamboyant narratives featuring caricatured characters, which honestly just gets somewhat tiring to watch. But with 28 Days Later, he really got it right. He astonished me with beautiful imagery (no doubt partially attributable to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle). He did something I thought was impossible - made me find digital video not just passable, not merely acceptable, but actually & truly lovely. It's got to be the most visually stimulating, gorgeous horror movie I've ever seen. It's one of the most gorgeous movies, period, that I've seen in a good while. And on top of that, he managed to find the hearts of his characters. And on top of that, he made a movie that's scary. The last third or so gets a bit heavy-handed & obvious, & its metaphors start to weigh it down into tedium territory, but let's just blame screenwriter Alex Garland for that.

4) All right, it's time to admit it: Cillian Murphy is my latest movie star crush. It's taken me a long time to get to this point, because he's simply nothing like the people I tend to crush on. He's boyish yet somehow feminine with good bone structure, for heaven's sake. However, he did tell Jane magazine that the celebrity he'd like to make out with is Maggie Gyllenhaal. So at least we've got the same taste in girls. Also, he does have a few things that tend to be themes for me: (1) Voice. Anything with an accent gets an automatic cuteness boost. (1.a) Name. Fantastic first name, both written & spoken. (2) Eyes. His face is full of his eyes, & they are limpid pools of cerulean luminosity. (3) Demeanor. This is where I get weird. It's important to understand that my first-ever movie crush, at the age of eight, was David Bowie in Labyrinth. Technically, if you think babies are better than Goblin Kings with rockin' hair & tight pants, he was the bad guy. The first movie I ever saw Cillian Murphy in was Batman Begins. The second was Red Eye. He plays psychopaths in both. But apparently I go for that weird, not-nice thing. After David Bowie, there was John Malkovich as Valmont from Dangerous Liaisons, then David Thewlis as Johnny in Mike Leigh's brilliant Naked. (And if you've seen it, you'll know just how completely fucked up it is to crush on Johnny.) You can see where this is going. The point is, Cillian Murphy is beautiful & frequently dangerous, & this is a potent combination. I might add that I am now thoroughly excited about Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto. Murphy playing a cabaret singer in girl's clothes named "Kitten"? Yes, please.

But, y'know, there's a chance that maybe, just maybe, I have some sort of deep-rooted unconscious issues at work here:

Whoulda Thunk It?

2007-11-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm living in the right place. In Oregon, you as the voter get direct say in a whole bunch of things. Usually, there are tons'n'tons of ballot measures for your voting pleasure - last year, I recall my friend getting not one but TWO thick voter info pamphlets in the mail. This is why we have medical marijuana. This is why we are the only state to have legal euthanasia. This is why Oregon still has no sales tax. This is why every Oregon voter votes by mail - yep, we voted on that, too.

So, honestly, I was kind of bummed that for my first time out as an Oregon voter (I'm still not sure that my absentee ballot in '99 ever got there on time), I only had two measly measures on which to vote. Granted, they were pretty fun ones, but still.

Measure 49 harkened back to a measure a few years ago that I missed out on, Measure 37. Something to do with land use & property values, yadda yadda yadda, Measure 37 seems to have been intended for individual property owners who wanted to build one or two houses on their land, but due to loopholes ended up becoming the go-to measure for massive claims by developers & timber companies to build crap on estuaries & other bad-guy stuff. Measure 49 is supposed to close those loopholes & get back to what 37 was meant to accomplish.

Honestly, I read the measure. It was like reading Foucault through oatmeal goggles. Meaning I didn't follow a lot of it. I read all of the arguments for & against. But my decision to vote "yes" came down to three things:

Development is bad news for animals. Hey, I saw Pom Poko. Those poor tanukis! (This also takes me into my idea that "ownership" (i.e., "it's MY property") is one of the sillier conceits we as humans have devised - though of course, one day I do intend to "own" my own house.)
I don't believe in development for people either. We've built enough crap. Let's live with it & not add to it.
I have passed through the rolling, subdivision-choked hills of Northern Virginia on more than one occasion & endured the traffic-clogged two-lane "country" roads created thereby. Nuff said.

Measure 50 was misleadingly labeled the "Healthy Kids" measure. Basically, this measure would have increased the cigarette tax by 85 cents per pack, using the additional revenue to supply medical insurance for those scads of kids who don't have it. Which on the surface sounds really great. Shit, I smoke, & I would've considered it. Except:

It would have amended the state Constitution. For a tax? Um, no. That's just wrong. I would have voted "no" based solely on that, frankly. I think I'm secretly ~~Libertarian~~ libertarian anyway.
The money was guaranteed to have been used for kids & other medically underserved Oregonians through 2011. So...where's it going after that?
Oregon already has some program for uninsured kids. That hardly anyone's bothering to use. Why don't they fix that first?*
Even the writers of the ballot admitted this was a "short-term solution". Which takes us back to...amending the Constitution for something that isn't really going to fix anything, & is only valid for four years?*

So, yeah, the majority of Oregon voters came down on my side. 'Cause I'm fucking right. I'm kind of surprised that Measure 50 didn't pass, actually. It had a huge smiley face & voter-friendly pat on the back to obscure that whole fucking-with-the-constitution thing. Props to my fellow citizens for paying attention.

* Yeah, I'm always the person who's like, "Back it up with facts, bitch" but I'm way too lazy today to do that here. This is just based on stuff I heard on NPR & read in The Oregonian.

Toothsomewhatless

2007-11-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

It is so very extremely fantastically wonderful to not have my wisdom teeth! My mouth feels great as long as I forget that there are two gaping holes in there. Well, by now they're hopefully two blood-clotted holes. No longer will Mr. Cuts Like a Knife over there on the right continue digging that hole in my cheek. Mr. Massive Cavity on the left will never freak me out again. And although I still maintain that dentistry is highway robbery (grand out-of-pocket total including pills was about $834 - insurance kicked in $1K), I'm so so happy that I finally went in & took care of shit. I, in fact, owned it.

Also, can I say that I love my dentist. He's awesome. My only complaint is that it's a bit difficult to laugh when your mouth is full of metal & someone's squirting water down your throat. After I posited that the drill sounded more like angry pigeons than the cooing of doves he'd promised, he made cooing noises every time he did something that I thought might hurt.

Afterward one of the techs mentioned that Scarlett Johannson was alleged to have recently had one of her wisdom teeth dipped in gold & given to a boyfriend. I said that I ought to take Mr. Massive Cavity (yeah, I looked at 'em after they were out; & yeah, Mr. MC weren't too pretty) & mail it to my ex-boyfriend with a note that says, "Now that I no longer support you financially, dental care is not just a dream". C'mon, it's funny! And disturbing. But funny. And pointless, since I didn't keep 'em anyway.

I did stay home on Friday, but I felt more exhausted than pained. Eh, the whole thing was a lovely excuse to sit on my butt all weekend high on painkillers, knit & watch crap ("Scrubs"; Blades of Glory; The Women (okay, that one's not crap, but actually pretty good, if a bit shrill)). I even broke down & got a coaxial cable on Sunday. It's not as bad as it sounds though - I'm knitting like a madman right now & require accompanying audiovisual stimulation that is not dependent so much on the visual part. Football is actually the perfect program to knit to! I shit you not. Think about it - it's 60 minutes of actual game time that takes 180+ minutes to complete. So, if I knit during all the non-game stuff, that's two solid hours of straight knit-time. It works out wonderfully - I get lots done, & I'm not bored senseless by commercials & all that standing around they do on the field.

Rendered Speechless

2007-10-29T08:06:00.001-07:00

Amanda Palmer played at Berbati's Pan last night. Since I still haven't forgotten the occasion on which Los Amigos Invisibles started their show right on time with nary an opening act, I made sure to show up as close to 9:30 p.m. as I could. Shit, I even drove.

So naturally, there were opening acts. The first was a rather twee-sounding five-piece from, I'm guessing, Seattle. They sounded lovely & all, but I think my problem with them is aptly summed up with my reaction to the girl singer - I found her Feist-ish & irritatingly adorable. Like, she was really cute, but looked kinda like she sweats tea & has a ruffled bedskirt. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but Amanda Palmer could have made that girl crumple just by looking at her. Also, I always get a little pissy when all the people playing instruments are dudes, & the chick is just up there singing. You probably wouldn't snap in half if you picked up a guitar, sweetie. Or hell, a tambourine. An odd choice of band. I didn't catch their name, unfortunately.

After they were finished, I went off to the smoking area of Berbati's Pan. While I was standing there, Amanda Palmer came out of the bathroom! We had a weird moment! She walked in my general direction & then looked at me & we locked eyes. I felt like she expected me to say something, but literally the only things I could think of were "I love you" & "You're shorter than I would have guessed". Both of which seemed completely inappropriate in totally different ways, so I managed to choke them back & limit myself to a sort of half-smile. Probably the same one that shows up on my Oregon driver's license, making me look retarded. AWESOME.

I thoroughly enjoyed the next act, Estradasphere. You haven't lived until you've heard Slash's guitar solo from "Sweet Child O' Mine" on the violin, let me tell you. They're actually really awesome, but this was probably the funniest thing that happened all night:

(Okay, so that's not the performance from last night, but close enough. I saw the video & the accordion player's "sign language" interpretation.)

They stayed on stage to accompany Palmer's set. What can I say? She really is fabulous. Last night she was wearing a lovely mocha-colored coat dress, the bottom half unbuttoned, & worn striped stockings with a black garter belt & black rufflebutt panties. (For the encore she lost the coat dress & added a Black Sabbath t-shirt.) Apparently, she's recording a solo album with, *cough*, Ben Folds (I'm trying to not hold it against you, darlin'), but she's also up in Seattle recording some stuff for it with Estradasphere. It's not a tour - as she said at one point, they'd been on tour for a whole eight hours. I'm pretty sure it's just 'cause she likes Portland. She hinted vaguely at it when she said, "This city is fucking awesome." The show overall was delightfully disorganized. She did a couple of Brecht covers (I've always liked Brecht a great deal - it's Brechtianism I tend to find overly pedantic & dull). She also played the astronaut song that she played almost exactly a year ago at the Crystal Ballroom, & it made me cry again. I know. So weird. Turns out that she had actually written the song the day of the Crystal Ballroom show.

(Again, not the performance from last night.)

Also, they did a cover of a Madonna song (one from the first album, can't remember the name), & she got down off the stage & touched my arm! I think Amanda Palmer is in love with me. Imagine the possibilities. We could run off together & play My Little Ponys & shop for garter belts & stockings. It would be fierce. It would be girly.

It would be beautiful.

April, Er, tiegkopf88, Published Photographer

2007-10-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

So this thing called "Schmap" requested permission to use two of my photos for their 4th edition Portland guide...you can see the pics here & here (check the upper right hand corner after clicking on each link).

Sure, I didn't get paid, the pictures are tiny (though if you click on them they take you to my Flickr page) & even though I asked them to credit me using my real name, they used my oh-so-clever webonym...

But still! Somebody who isn't me & doesn't know me thought my pictures were useful/pretty enough to use on a website for a travel guide! I'm happy as a clam. Today, much like the past few days, has been a huge roller coaster of awesome highs & sucky lows, particularly for someone who's become accustomed to riding the Ferris Wheel of life.

True to form, I'm both pleased & annoyed with this change; but this one here is a good thing.

Oh My God, Little Blobs Of Moisture Are Falling From The Sky!

2007-10-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

For serious, people. YOU LIVE IN OREGON. How can you possibly FREAK OUT & drive like MORONS every time it rains?!?!?!

(The 7.9 is on a 0 to 10 scale, with 10 being super-jammed. On the website, it's a little scale going from green to red. The 16 MPH is on the only real interstate in Oregon (no, I-84 doesn't really count, unless you're going to Idaho), I-5.)

Guess it's "Alternate Route" drive time for me!

I'm Not There

2007-10-18T12:16:00.001-07:00

There is a lovely, lovely long article in the NYT Magazine's 7 October edition on Todd Haynes & his new film, called "This is Not a Bob Dylan Movie". Rather informative. Admittedly, I'm not exactly a Bob Dylan fan, but I'm not a hater either; I simply have had neither occasion nor impetus to seek his work out. All right, it is true that his voice kinda bugs me; but if somebody sat me down & said "You must listen to this", I most likely would.

Todd Haynes, however, is simply the greatest living American narrative filmmaker. End of sentence period. (Although it does bear mention that he is also the most truly avant garde narrative filmmaker in the U.S. - but this digression belongs in a worthier setting than I can provide at the moment.) So yes, I will be going to see I'm Not There on opening night. I will fork over my $10 or however much an evening show at a first-run theater costs nowadays.

Read the article. But really, if images such as these two do not foster immediate infatuation with this film's potential, then...well, I don't know. I don't have anything to say to you.

The Love of My Life...

2007-10-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

...is playing a solo show in Portland on 28 October at Berbati's Pan!

*Sigh*. My excitement is, um, palpable. I *heart* Amanda Palmer. She is a Fabulous Rock Star.

Negate Buyer's Remorse; Or, Suck It Up Like The Wanton Consumer You Are, Bitch

2007-10-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

I really, really love Alasdair Gray. He may well be my favorite author. Every time I'm at a bookstore, any bookstore, I make a beeline for "Literature - G". Because you never know what you're going to find. Once I found a copy of a book called Mavis Belfrage, which I'd never even heard of before. I get dizzy trying to keep up with Mr. Gray, so by & large I leave internet scouring to others. Because when I do indulge in minor investigations, I tend to find things like gorgeous signed lithographs that cost $800. Or I remember that there are approximately 8 million titles by him, & I'll never get them all.

Anyway, so I went to Powell's on Hawthorne last night to buy a book - specifically to purchase The Cinema of Todd Haynes: All That Heaven Allows, edited by James Morrison, to keep me sated until the 21 November opening of I'm Not There. And of course, after I found it, I went to "Literature - G". Then I went to the Powell's computer. And they still had it...

...The hardcover first U.S. edition of Lanark: A Life in Four Books. *Sigh*. Look at how beautiful it is:

Of course, it's not the actual first U.S. edition. No, that honor was bestowed upon a trade paperback released in 1981 (the year the novel was first published across the puddle). I don't have time to investigate the vagaries of why it was published in paperback first, & why it was then published in hardcover, so for me it must remain one of life's mysteries. I suspect perhaps the publisher of the first was a larger, more corporate entity than George Braziller, the hardcover publisher.

But by now you must realize that the reason I have gorgeous pictures of this amazing book is because, yes, dear reader, I purchased that 1985 hardcover U.S. first edition. The problem is, I paid so much for it, it makes me a little sick:

Ha! Don't I wish! Sorry, sorry. If I'd been hip to the Gray back when I was seven years old I coulda had it for that price. Things are a little different now:

And yes, I thoroughly wash & dry my hands before touching this book.

So the problem is, that's almost twice as much as I've ever paid for a single book. EVER. And, um, although I wouldn't go so far as to say that I regret the purchase, I am questioning its wisdom. I'm not a book snob by any means, mostly because it's cost-prohibitive & I have other overriding interests. But my adoration of Alasdair Gray is beyond comprehension or reason. And I confess I wanted it. Powell's has had it for quite some time. Every time I went to that computer & looked Gray up, I saw it & I suspected that one day, some day, I would break down & buy it if somebody else hadn't beat me to it. It's absolutely pristine, too.

I don't know. I don't want to return it. But I feel like it wasn't exactly a decision I should have made. The only thing worse than having bought it is thinking about having bought it. I need to suck it up, keep it & DEAL.

Because I love it.

Besides, now I only have one super-expensive book left on my "want" list (for now!): Etienne Bonnot de Condillac's Treatise on the Sensations. It's fabulous, really - a philosophical text exploring the nature of "vision" in which Condillac imagines a statue which is imbued with each of the five senses, one at a time, & concludes that it is the sense of touch which truly allows us to fancy that we perceive a world outside the self. One day I will be able to pay $150 for it.

Sustainable Dildos

2007-10-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

It's shocking, isn't it, that Portland is the home of online retailer Earth Erotics, the self-proclaimed "natural food store of adult boutiques"?

And that the fetish section has a subcategory labeled "Eco-Spanking"? Heh.

But my favorite thing is that their environmentally friendly, green sex toys are SO FRIGGIN' CUTE. It's like X-rated Cute Overload! Look at Patchy Paul II here:

I'll admit that some of them are a little too cutesy for me to imagine actually trying to use them. But still, overall, I must confess that I think some of them are really awesome. Including Patchy Paul II.

Also, the whole concept kind of makes a lot of sense, really - the FDA doesn't regulate stuff like this at all, so unless it says on the package, you've got no way of knowing what it's made of. And just think where you're putting it! PVC is the most popular material for mainstream manufacturers, but according to the Willamette Week, "For use in sex toys, PVC has to be softened with chemicals called phthalates, which the European Union has already banned from children’s toys. Phthalates have been linked to a laundry list of health problems, from obesity to kidney disease to abnormal estrogen production and prenatal genital development". Sheesh.

I think I'll go green.

I Love The Laurelhurst

2007-10-15T08:59:00.001-07:00

It is one of the joys of my life that the Laurelhurst Theater is a five-minute walk from my apartment.

$9 at any other movie theater might, just might, cover the price of admission.

$9 at the Laurelhurst buys me admission and a pitcher of PBR.

Plus an audience that gets as rowdy as I apparently do after drinking some beer. An audience that cheers when good things happen. An audience that will (thankfully) laugh rather than shush me when I get saucy & yell "Damn straight, fuckwad!" at the screen. An audience that, as both my friends ChrisAnn & Heather have pointed out, is a lot like us. It's disconcerting, to be sure, but you know what? It's also fun. Because this audience knows exactly when Johnny Castle walks up to the Housemans' table & says "Nobody puts Baby in the corner", & you know that they know it because you all say it as it happens. And erupt in shouts & applause.

Anyway, go see The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It's really fun. What's it about? The world of competitive "Donkey Kong". Billy vs. Steve, & only one is the fuckwad of note. Go see it at the Laurelhurst if you can; if not, rent it when it comes out on video. I recommend getting some beer & some people who are like you, & will cheer when good things happen, & don't mind so much when you hurl obscenities at the bad guy.

And this weekend, they're showing Peter Jackson's Dead Alive! I will be there. If you've not seen it, it's...wonderful. I rented it as a teenager in Scio thinking it was going to be "scary". Ha!

This Will Be The Best...Pizza...Ever. EVER.

2007-10-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

(not what pizza will actually look like, obvs)

+

+=

(not what attendees will actually look like, obvs)

The Maintenance of the Humanoid is Not Cost-Effective

2007-10-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

Recently I decided I was going to start taking care of myself, & fuck the cost. By which I mostly mean I decided I was going to go to the dentist & get new glasses. Also get my Oregon driver license. Hey, it's only been a year, right?

So this morning I went to get the license. The secret to the DMV is getting there five minutes before they open. I was #2 in line. To get an ODL, you have to take a written exam (I know, so stupid!). Last night I read the novel-length driver manual to prepare. And I learned some interesting things, actually. The two most relevant ones are:

1) Basically, it is illegal to make a U-turn in Oregon unless there is a sign expressly permitting it. I'm confounded.
2) There are invisible crosswalks! They stretch between the sidewalks at any intersection. Also, there is no such thing as jaywalking in Oregon. The manual just says that if you are
crossing at neither a marked nor unmarked crosswalk, you (the pedestrian) must yield the right of way to oncoming vehicles.

I got a 98%. I also registered to vote. And just made the deadline, since Oregon is a mail ballot-only state. This makes me happy, because as somebody who has no interest in "getting involved" & no discernible political bent beyond the pursuit of my happiness, I always figure that I have an obligation to inform myself of the issues/candidates & vote. As in, it's the least I can do. It marks my contribution to society.

So my (first) dentist appointment was at 11:30. It involved X-rays & a detailed discussion of what needs to happen inside my mouth. Did I ever mention that my least favorite sound in the whole world is the sound of metal scraping against teeth? Apparently, for not having been to the dentist in a long long long time (I'm not telling how long, that's how long) my teeth are in GREAT shape.

And are only going to cost $1,700 to fix.

What? I'm sorry. What? Granted, having the mythical dental insurance beast ensnared means that (hopefully) only about $700 of that is coming out of my pocket. But still. What? And I have to go in twice. My dentist wanted me to make THREE appointments. But I put my foot down on that one. So now in a couple of weeks I go in for my cleaning & to get fillings on the left side, which in keeping with traditional folklore connotations, is the evil side of my mouth. Then a week after that, I get to go in for the fillings on the right side &...bonus!...the extraction of my wisdom teeth. Yessss. Although it seems I have no wisdom teeth in the bottom of my mouth, which strikes me as odd. I've no recollection of ever having them removed. Oh well. (EDIT: After calling my mother last night to bitch about the $700, she not only stole my righteous indignation by telling me that she, my father, & both brothers have each spent WAY MORE at the dentist for things like that, she also told me that I never had any wisdom teeth removed. So apparently I'm just a toothy freak of nature.)

What gets me is, my out-of-pocket cost to get two whole friggin' teeth removed (they call them "erupted teeth" on my cost estimate, which I find disturbing) is $52. Today's X-rays were free. The cleaning is free. Which means that putting crap in my teeth is going to cost...$648? I cry foul.

The "exciting" appointment is my vision exam, which is next week. Look at the place I picked! I picked it for that logo. And its proximity to my apartment. Also, I'd read some good reviews about their frame selection. Which is important, because I've decided that now, for the first time EVER in the history of April, I am going to get whichever frames I want. Not the free ones, unless they're stunning. No insurance discounts considered. I am going in there & I am not looking at the price tag of any pair & I am picking the ones that I like the very best of all. Also, I recently realized that I actually love wearing glasses. So I should love the frames too.

So really, even though spending over $1,000 on myself doesn't thrill me, & the thought of having teeth extracted doesn't either, I feel really, really happy & pleased to actually be taking care of myself. For a change.

The Fruit of Hot Celebrity Loins Is Also Hot

2007-10-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

So, when I found out that Rashida Jones is the offspring of Quincy Jones & Peggy Lipton (thanks, Mandy!), it reminded me of something I discovered a couple of years ago, then forgot, then rediscovered a few weeks ago.

Which is, Zoe Kravitz is smokin'. OMG. Then again, how could the progeny of Lisa Bonet & Lenny Kravitz NOT be hot? No matter what you think of them, they are two beautiful people.

These pictures are how I first encountered her, at (I think) the age of 17:

Hot & naughty & underage. With a 40 of OE, even. *Sigh*. I was totally sold.

And here are some recent, newly legal (she's 19 in December, folks!), slightly more professional I-am-a-starlet shots:

I have a newfound respect for Lenny Kravitz. Possibly, I would consider having his babies, not because I particularly like him or anything, but because there's at least a 50 to 75 percent chance they would be fucking gorgeous. And maybe I could become the mommy type if I had a fucking gorgeous baby.

Narrative: Renting An Apartment In Portland

2007-10-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

Per the Oregonian's story on renting in Portland, Oregon:

"Inner Northeast and Southeast are popular with young professionals because they're more affordable than the west side, yet close enough to make commutes downtown to work and the nightlife easy. But inner and central Southeast Portland have the lowest open rentals percentage: just 1.6 percent of units available [emphasis added]. That's a 21 percent decrease from 2006 and a nearly 75 percent decrease from 2005."

This explains why I had such a hard time finding a place to rent last fall! I just thought that late autumn had to be a tough time to find good affordable apartments. It really is crazy out here, though. I was so excited to go apartment-hunting when I got out here, because I'd never looked for my own place before (looong story), & it was NOT FUN. At all. Even a little bit. Because things go so fucking fast.

My "favorite" was the one-bedroom in Belmont (I walk past that building all the time actually). I called about 40 minutes after the ad went up on Craigslist. The woman said she'd already had 10 calls. I made an appointment for 90 minutes later, & by the time I'd parked my car (I had to leave work in the middle of the day. From Lake Oswego, mind), she'd left a voicemail saying the apartment was rented! Granted, the monthly damage was only $550, which is super-cheap for my neighborhood. But things really do go almost that fast.

This is what worked well for me in my search (I hesitate to call it "advice", but I guess it is):

1) Do whatever you can to be the very first person to see an available space. Apartments seem to work on a "dibs" basis. If you are the first person to get your application in, as long as they think your credit's okay, it's yours. I got my apartment because I checked the Willamette Week's online ads before the print edition came out. By the time it did, & people started calling my landlord, he had already rented it. To me. Oh, by the way, you will probably not find an apartment unless you have already moved here & can look at it in person. Because there are already 12 million people in Portland whom a landlord can physically meet who want to rent that space. Why should they bother with someone who lives 2,000 miles away, even if you are the nicest most perfect tenant ever?
2) You will probably find your apartment on Craigslist. It has the most & best listings, but you will have to keep the page open all day & refresh no less than every 30 minutes. I was the first person to look at three places using this method. Every place save one that I looked at was on Craiglist. BUT, it is definitely worth it to keep an eye on the Willamette Week & Portland Mercury websites. For some reason my landlord only listed in Willamette Week. Bless him.
3) Expect to fork over some dough for credit checks. This will depend on how your hunt goes. Me? I spent about $100 on 3 credit checks for potential apartments. The first one didn't like my credit. The second was the place I almost took, until I found the third place. (I also paid a credit check fee for a fourth place, because I wanted to think about the fourth vs. the third, & the property manager said they'd hold it & refund if I decided not to move forward. Which they kindly did.)
4) Be overly honest & give too much detail about your credit (if it isn't perfect). The first landlord asked, & all I said was that it was "not perfect, but not terrible". He rejected me. (Which worked out for the complete best for me, for the record.) Lesson learned! For the next three apartments I gave an exquisitely detailed narrative of my credit. Before they did the check. I said, "This is exactly what you are going to find." Then I told them why they would find it there (making it sound as nice as possible, of course). I threw in some personal information. I was not above mentioning my most recent living situation & its possible effect on my report. I even said that I didn't understand why so much importance was placed on letter-perfect credit. After all, what's the very first thing you're going to pay every month? RENT. And every one of the three offered me the space.
5) Have patience (if you're fortunate enough to have that luxury). I started looking for an apartment immediately after my arrival, in the beginning of October. I didn't find the perfect space for five weeks. And when I did find it, I couldn't move in for another three weeks. Which was really hard. But now? I'm totally in love with my apartment. With my neighborhood. It's perfect. Then again, I hate moving, so crashing in my friend's dining room in Wilsonville for two months was worth it to me.

Because I'm not moving again until I buy a house. And in this market, that's not likely to happen for a while.

Furniture Madness!

2007-09-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

(1) I bought a couch! I bought a couch! It's perfect for my space. Ridiculously perfect. I will take my own pictures of it soon, but in the interim here's one my friend took:

The futon will ultimately go upstairs. I'm thinking I'll put it in the record room & use it as a guest bed.

(2) I have decided the time is nigh. I am tired of talking about getting a real bed. I am going to actually get one. However, I am very torn between these two IKEA options:

Noresund. This is the one which I've always said I was going to get. I like swirlies. I really like this frame. And it's super-cheap.
BUT, I've recently been lusting after the Hemnes frame, because I think I've secretly always wanted a four poster bed:
Currently I'm leaning toward the Hemnes frame. There is a pro. There are two cons.

Pro: Four poster bed! I am super-excited by the idea of having "curtains" on my bed (don't know the technical term). Also, there is no heat in the main loft space, so I'm thinking that if I get some decently thick but still sexy coverings (including top), it will help keep heat in. Maybe? Am I a crackhead?

Con: Ugh. Light wood. Just not my style, I guess. The bitch is, this frame is stained solid pine with a clear polyester lacquer. Now, I know it's not impossible to repaint or stain it another color. But I also know it'd involve a lot of sanding, priming & painting or staining. Then again, the futon will be up there & that is a similar wood/stain. Could I learn to love light-colored woods?

Con 2: Take away the poster thingies, & that is one boring-ass frame.

Any advice?

Somewhat Curious

2007-09-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

When someone's had a headache for six straight days, what are the possible medical reasons &/or ramifications?

And should I be worried?

If this is all gonna end in some Scanners-type action, that's cool.

I mean, yeah. I'd prefer my head to not explode. But at least it would mean something's gonna happen besides me having this headache for the rest of my life.

Which is getting a little old.

When Research Goes Bad

2007-09-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

So my friend Heather & I are booking through Seasons 2 & 3 of "The Office" in an attempt to catch up to Season 4 (no, not by this Thursday. We're gonna have someone Tivo the season premiere for us. Hopefully, though by next Thursday we'll be caught up). I haven't seen Season 1, but I've been told that it's not that great. Season 2 is fucking hilarious, though.

Anyway, the point is, I really like Jim. I think he's appealing. I'd say he's cute. I like sarcasm & self-deprecation, what can I say? So I looked up the actor who plays him, John Krasinski. And I kind of wish I hadn't, for the following reasons:

He's a whole year younger than me! I'm officially old.
When did People magazine go all Afterellen.com on me & actually get something right? I feel dirty. And common.
He wrote & directed a film adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Which I didn't read. Because I thought Wallace's debut, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, was basically a full-length book version of the badly written, thinly disguised autobiographical "fiction" that proliferates every Intro to Short Story Writing class on every college campus in America. Ew, John. Are you really a crybaby wanker?
Um, apparently, yes. At least, judging from the fact that his Wallace adaptation features Mr. Death Cab for Cutie himself in his first acting role. DOUBLE EW. Is it even possible to be more emo than that?

I'm going to work really hard at forgetting that I learned all this stuff. Because I'd like to continue to enjoy my little crush. I hope I've learned a lesson from this.

EDIT: OMG, I've gotten my pretentious Dav-s all mixed up! Whoopsy. Dave Eggers is the man responsible for the awful heartbreak book. David Foster Wallace is the guy who wrote that huge-ass book, Infinite Jest, with the footnotes for days. I thoroughly enjoyed those 30 pages of it I read 10 years ago, & hope to finish it before I'm 80.

EDIT CONT'D: My own idiocy notwithstanding, Mr. Krasinski is still not absolved - Ben Gibbard is in his movie. Even if the Postal Service makes music that I wish I'd had on cassette when I was 12, that doesn't excuse the whole Death Cab thing.