ok, fine, I do like blogging

my feet

2009-11-07T08:15:00.002-05:00

Check it out, my feet went to the Grand Canyon and made friends with a raven:

like old times

2009-07-14T09:34:00.002-04:00

I'm blogging. Alloo. Someone just posted a spam comment on the post before this one, so I had to remember how to log in and delete it. I like my new blog, but I kinda miss this one, where I could write about anything. (The new one is worky.)

Yeah, that's all I've got right now, I think.

work blog, launched

2009-02-18T01:01:00.002-05:00

Hey! In case I didn't catch you, dear reader, on my mass e-mail, my work blog has now launched. The URL is heymyfirstname.com, except instead of "myfirstname" it says my first name. If you do not know my first name...ok, I'm fairly certain I don't have any readers who don't know my first name. But if you are the one and only, leave a comment with your e-mail (you can delete it after you post it, I'll still see the comment) and I'll send it to you.

everybody else's girl

2009-02-08T12:36:00.002-05:00

I think this blog is now about iTunes.

I'm listening on shuffle and just got to "Girl" by Tori Amos. It's on Little Earthquakes, so it's part of the soundtrack of my freshman year of college. I haven't listened to this song since late 2006 (says iTunes, and I believe iTunes, because I don't listen to CDs anymore) and I was singing along, loud and tunefully, getting all of the slightly random twists and turns of the melody right.

So I learned this song more than 15 years ago, I haven't heard it in two years, and I still know exactly how it goes. Memory is something, huh? If only I had that kind of memory for numbers or facts. Perhaps I need to set my stories to music so I could actually remember what they're about. (I wrote this thing about how [topic] is good for you. Or it's not. Shoot, I forgot. Let me get back to you.)

we're coming down to the ground

2009-02-06T11:40:00.005-05:00

I'm trying to make my apartment livable by clearing up some of the disastrous mess - turns out when you bring all your office stuff home, then get a new desk, then buy a new computer, printer, phone, and camera, then start planning a trip to a very cold place that requires a lot of special equipment, things can get a bit cluttered.

To help me clean, I'm listening to my five-star-rated songs in iTunes. I define five stars as a song that, at some point in my life, I've been able to listen to on repeat without getting sick of it.

The Peter Gabriel song from Wall*E, "Down to Earth," just came on. I found that song, all cheerful and full of hope, very helpful in gearing up for work on days last fall when I was feeling particularly miserable. When it started, I thought, oh gosh - I haven't heard this in a while! I checked the stats and the last time I listened to it was ten and a half hours before I got laid off. Cool. It's a new era!

blog blog blog blog

2009-02-02T08:42:00.002-05:00

Oh god, it's happened - I've become one of the intermittent bloggers. Sorry, all 10 or so readers. In exciting blog-related news, however, Tall L came up with a domain name for me on Friday (myfullname.com points to an adult personals site - sigh) and yesterday Miss S started sketching design ideas for my website. There will be an awesome new slightly-more-work-related blog there that I hope you'll come read.

inauguration pics

2009-01-20T21:28:00.005-05:00

We stood right in front of the Washington Monument. It's a good spot - it's on a hill, so you can see the Capitol.

Our view while waiting for the festivities to get underway:
(The Capitol is the building in the middle, a mile away. Those trees are blocking the dome.) Our view at 12:05 p.m.:

So many tacky t-shirts, so little cash:

inauguration report

2009-01-20T21:20:00.005-05:00

I went to the inauguration. It was way fun. After months of dire warnings, let me share Alsho's and my experience:

7:45 a.m. Arrived at the metro. Spent about three minutes in line. Got on a half-empty car on the first train that arrived.

8:35 a.m. Ok, it took about twice as long as usual to get to the stop we were planning to walk from. But we were sitting down, and we were warm, so who cares?

9:15 a.m. Got to the grounds of the Washington Monument, found a spot, stood there. It was cold but layers pretty much worked, and sometimes the sun came out.

12:05 p.m. Watched Obama get sworn in on the jumbotron.

1:00 p.m. Started walking away from the Mall. Decided it would be a good idea to use the, er, restroom. Walked up to a port-a-potty, didn't wait in line, walked right in.

2:00 p.m. Got on the metro. The car we got on had exactly one person besides us. (When we got on, which was before downtown - it filled up a bit more, but not much.)

2:30 p.m. Sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking hot toddies.

So, basically: It went pretty darn smoothly from my point of view. I love big public events. Also, a new love: the sound of millions of mittens clapping. It sounds like thunder.

things facebook has done for me lately

2009-01-18T22:39:00.002-05:00

1. A few weeks ago, a friend had the status line "[name] is bored in Heathrow." She was on the way home from Egypt, with her Blackberry. So I sent her a message on Facebook and said, you know, if you're *really* bored, you could stop in a bookshop and pick up the last Harry Potter book in the UK paperback children's edition. A few days later, it was in my hands.

2. This evening after I got back from the big inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, I was bummed that She Gre wasn't around, so I couldn't go watch the rebroadcast on her cable. Then I learned from someone else's status line that the rebroadcast was streaming on the HBO website, so I watched it right then.

3. A few days ago my status update said I needed a better way to organize my knitting needles...and now J.Po is sewing me a knitting needle organizer thingy! And I'm knitting her an accessory of my choosing! Yay!

up to the minute...or not

2009-01-15T00:33:00.004-05:00

Whoa. I just went 10 days without blogging. This may be the beginning of the end for this blog. But now I will point out something stupid that bugs me. Maybe that will revive the blogging juices.

I've mentioned that I like those google ads that appear across the top of the gmail screen. Sometimes you can find fun stuff. But then every now and then you get a sponsored link like this:

Cruise Ship Sinks www.washingtonpost.com - Cruise Ship Sinks Off Antarctica. Get Up to the Minute News Now!

Remember that cruise ship that sank off Antarctica? More than a year ago? That's what the link goes to. A news story dated November 24, 2007. Uhhhh...great work, washingtonpost.com. Way to be up-to-the-minute.

oysters and stuff

2009-01-05T15:54:00.004-05:00

This morning I asked my Facebook friends what blogs they read, and I'm getting all sorts of stuff to check out.

Here's one I like: The Oyster's Garter is written (so the blog tells me) by a marine biologist and a journalist. It's got reasonably shortish entries, and they're funny. (Two things I greatly value.) It's about...well, science. Ok, there's an emphasis on marine science, but that's still broad - lots marine invertebrates but also some physical oceanography. I love marine invertebrates. There's some musing about science journalism and, yep, a bunch more marine invertebrates. Including fabric marine invertebrates.

The musing about science journalism makes me think I really don't want to get involved in debates about science journalism. (I followed a chain of links to a variation on "science journalists are stupid and only scientists should be allowed to talk about science" vs "scientists don't know how to speak English and you don't understand journalism, you jerk.") I prefer, you know, doing stuff to yelling about it.

looking around the blogosphere

2009-01-05T10:26:00.003-05:00

So as I figure out what kind of blog I want, I'm going to poke around and look at what other people are doing.

Here's one approach to this whole reporter-blog thing: posting notes as you work on a story. That's a blog post at the Center for Environmental Journalism. Some dude is working on a story about climate change and here he writes about an interview with a scientist. It's moderately interesting and well-written. I don't see anything that makes me want to follow it and read more, though. There's no shortage of places to read about global warming.

Olivia Judson blogs on the New York Times website about evolution. She has a nice writing style, but I get really impatient waiting for her to get to a dang point. I don't love her writing enough to keep going. Maybe in a book, but really, I have a short attention span online. (I admit, I didn't read the above post all the way through, either.) I'd be happy if she posted shorter pieces more than once a week, rather than 1,800 words weekly. Other people appear to be fans - she gets tons of comments.

So, the conclusion thus far: I apparently can't pay attention for long enough to give an intelligent critique of these blogs. Lesson: Short is good.

SSA blog

2009-01-04T22:55:00.003-05:00

Ooh, I really like Kumquat's idea about starting a blog now about my Spring Science Adventure. It could be about preparing for the trip, reading up on the science ahead of time, and my burning questions about the accommodations, such as "Will there be a place to plug in my ipod charger?" and "What happens if I run out of tissues?" Normally when I'm packing to go somewhere, I figure, yknow, if I run out of something, I'll just buy it. Not an option this time.

(The place I'm going isn't a secret in real life, by the way - if you're mystified, leave a comment and I'll e-mail you.)

rice pudding recipe

2009-01-03T15:51:00.002-05:00

Last weekend I went to G.Dog's mom's annual Christmas regifting and caroling party. G.Dog's calculations on food quantity were wayyyy off, so there ended up being about twice as much rice as was needed. I brought some home. The last time I made rice pudding from leftover rice, it wasn't really that great, so I hereby record for posterity this excellent recipe. I used 2% milk ('cause that's what I had) and threw in some ground cloves and a cinnamon stick at the end. If I did it again, I might drop the cloves.

what is this blogging the kids are doing today

2009-01-02T17:35:00.005-05:00

I'm starting off the new year, professional-wise, by ignoring my many deadlines in the next two weeks and trying to figure out this whole "blogging" thing. This seems ridiculous, as I have been blogging nonstop since June 2005, when I first claimed not to be interested in blogging. (Actually, July is even funnier - read from the bottom, as I transition from explaining why I'm not blogging to writing obsessively.)

But now I'm considering actual professional blogging. A blog about my book topic, for one; a blog about science and being a science writer, maybe; a blog about knitting...probably not. These blogs would be under my real name (I know! shocking!). I'm thinking WordPress, because people seem to be happy with that. And I hope that it would find readers.

Very few people have actual pre-built interest in my book topic, but as soon as I tell them about it, they're like, whooaa, cool! So the hope is that my blog would attract people with the "whooaa, cool!" response and get them to keep reading and eventually, oh, buy copies of the book for themselves and everyone they know. I guess I know more or less where I'm headed with that blog. I'm just waiting to hear from, um, the guy whose family it is about to see where he stands on this whole "book" issue.

So, what about this science/science writing blog I might want to start? I actually don't read any science blogs, mainly because I don't like any of them enough to go back regularly. Do you read any? Which should I read? I'm going to start surveying them and seeing which ones I should read, who I could learn from, just how mean and awful the commenters are, and why I dislike so many of the blogs. (I suspect a lot of my problem is that I have a really short attention span when I'm reading on the computer, which means a post as long as this one is pretty much not going to work for me.)

I suppose it could all be the same blog, with BookTopic posts tagged as such and other posts tagged as something else.

Help? Anyone? Insight?

after!

2008-12-31T17:36:00.003-05:00

Look, it's my new office! It's not totally finished - it's probably going to get kind of a wall-like thing on the left side (maybe going up as high as the big shelf that is there) with some more shelves on it. Also, I'm getting a laptop, so the computer situation will change. Also, I will put stuff on the shelves. Oh, and the desk making the "L" is just my old desk - it's going to be a new one that matches the other new one and may also be on wheels, so I can get it out of the way when people come over. Anyway, isn't my dad awesome?

xtratuf!

2008-12-30T23:53:00.003-05:00

I know, clicking links is annoying, but you must look at the boots I have to get for my Spring Science Adventure. They're Xtratuf! Just like this kitten!

welcome marshall

2008-12-30T14:42:00.005-05:00

Check it out, Tall L got a dog. And if the pictures do not lie, he is way cute. And she's blogging about him! Woo!!

you'll wind up in some factory

2008-12-30T08:27:00.006-05:00

Yesterday I had lunch with J.Chu in a town immortalized in an R.E.M. song. After lunch we wandered over to the public library, which took us past the new temporary ice skating rink she'd mentioned.

I was watching people clump around on it and thought, there's something wrong with that ice.

See that plastic with the crenellated edge? That's the ice. So, it's not so much "ice" as it is "plastic." People were skating on it with real skates and everything. Totally weird. I think this supports the arguments for not going back to Rockville, at least not if you're interested in skating on ice.

hit by an office tsunami

2008-12-30T08:15:00.006-05:00

Here's a "during" picture of my home office corner:

Wait, that picture makes it look way too orderly. Let's go stand behind the desk and check out the rest of the room:

Ok, that's more like it.

testing again

2008-12-29T16:50:00.002-05:00

This time, with an attachment!

This is a good "before" picture of my desk corner.

UPDATE: Hey! It totally worked! That's good to know.

testing...testing...

2008-12-29T16:47:00.002-05:00

This expedition I'm going on (which doesn't start til April) will
involve no web access. Shocking, I know!! But I will be able to send
text e-mails. So I'm trying out the thing where Blogger lets you
e-mail web posts. Does it work? Would it work better if I knew a
little basic html? Probably! Let me try a link...<a
href="http://mellificent.blogspot.com/2008/12/woooooo.html">here</a>.

Of course, since I won't have web access, I also won't be able to look
up links to include in text-only blog posts...man, this is going to be
a whole different world.

UPDATE and either I'm really, really bad at html, or that little experiment failed. I coded it right, didn't I? I think it just doesn't work. Well, just as well I'll only be sending text.

flip & tumble

2008-12-29T10:12:00.003-05:00

Perhaps my coolest Christmas present: a bag made by these people. My mom gave it to me. It's a reusable bag that squishes up really small in a stretchy pouchy thing. It's a cute bag (mine is lime/sky) and so far seems to be very good at carrying things. It's carried shelf brackets and tea towels from IKEA, clementines, and a ceramic cookie jar (not all at the same time).

because it's a dog?

2008-12-29T00:27:00.002-05:00

Weirdest search to get someone to my blog in the last month:
"Why my 2.5 month chihuahua doesn't like to put clothe on"

year

2008-12-28T23:57:00.004-05:00

Sorry, I know that after a great burst of blog productivity I kind of stopped for a while there, but I realized there's just no way I'm going to make my quota and I kind of gave up. This year, there will not be 366 chunks o' towwas. It was just a rough year, you know? I mean, it's ending really well, but for a lot of the year I was pretty actively unhappy. There was a long stretch there where I slept on the couch most nights because I didn't want to go lie in bed and think about my day. I am more interested in blogging when I'm in a good mood.

I'm in a TOTALLY good mood now. Today I was at T.Hand's house and she asked, in a concerned voice, if I am really ok with being out of work. I am so ok. For example: no more stress-related digestive problems.

I was thinking the other day (as I painted polyurethane on a piece of my new home office) how darn lucky I am. I'm embarking on a really cool and exciting new phase of my career. I happen to be going into it in a very good financial position, in an apartment I love, with many excellent friends, relatives, and professional contacts on my side. Things are pretty darn good! I know freelancing will come with a whole new pile of stress, from new and interesting sources, and I know I'm feeling great right now 'cause I haven't really done any work in the last six weeks. But I'm optimistic about this new direction.

possum carolers

2008-12-25T01:22:00.006-05:00

Look, possum carolers. That reminds me of the Christmas show performances at the zoo. Ver-r-r-r-ry energetic and maybe just a dab crazy.

I have a thing against forced audience participation. (A strong thing. A big thing. Perhaps, one might say, a hatred. Or at least a vehement objection.) I'm not really a participator myself, beyond singing, and having someone try to make you participate when you don't want to is just yucky. It's embarrassing at best, and at worst, it can feel like being the object of a power trip. (I find the glare/eye-roll approach works at fending off this kind of thing.)

In the Christmas show, we invite audience members to participate, and if someone isn't feeling it, that's cool, we love them anyway. But in smaller shows, I think we have to be really careful not to edge toward coercion. Like I said, *I* felt silly doing 12 Days of Christmas in a gift shop, and I was in costume and was thus licensed to be silly. I get how a random passerby wouldn't want to do it. In fact, I was impressed by the few who did try to follow along with the movements.

A lot of people who weren't doing the movements were singing along, or at least moving their mouths. And, hey, some people just enjoyed/tolerated us as background music while they chatted, and that's cool, too. It wasn't like they'd paid to sit in an auditorium and party with us - they were trying to buy souvenirs/eat french fries. And they weren't actively throwing things at us, either. So it's all good.

status updates

2008-12-25T00:56:00.005-05:00

Through Facebook, I have discovered a fascinating new skill: writing status updates. If you are not on Facebook [coughGRRBEARcough] you may not be familiar with this art form. The Facebook status update is a sentence, starting with your name, with a limit of...I don't know, but it's not all that long. You hafta be pithy.

It turns out people really like my status updates. I mean, maybe everybody hears this, but it's happened several times recently: I run into someone I'm friends with on Facebook but don't know all that well, who never leaves comments or anything, and at some point in the conversation they'll tell me how much they enjoy reading my status updates. It's happened enough that I'm starting to believe them.

Two hours ago I posted:
[towwas] temporarily knows three verses of Silent Night, Joy to the World, and Deck the Hall. Should I use these skills for good...or eeeevillll?
It has 11 comments now. And they're funny.

On Tuesday:
[towwas] can't keep Guinea and Guinea-Bissau straight in her head.
That one has a hilarious mix of joke comments (other things with "Guinea," like "Guinea pig") and explanations of the relationship between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau that might actually help me remember the difference in the future.

This has to be a marketable skill, right? I mean, the obvious choice is a non-anonymous blog, but I would want it to be a blog read by 426 very funny people I know personally, and I'm not sure that the google ads would add up to a living. Any other ideas?

Fleas Navidog!

2008-12-24T23:24:00.004-05:00

This story from tomorrow's Post combines two things I really like: dogs and community. Oh, and sincerity. And bad puns. And Christmas. I LOVE Christmas.

woooooo

2008-12-23T21:59:00.002-05:00

So, the night before I was told I was getting laid off, I got an e-mail about this awesome adventure thing - someone was looking for a science writer to go along on a research trip. I forwarded it to Miss Shirley and wrote this: "omg. how much do I want to go do this? a lot." I was like, man, why do I have this stupid job so I can't drop everything and go away on six-week adventures?

Eleven hours later, I found out I didn't have the stupid job to worry about anymore.

And tonight, I found out I got the gig. Woooo!!!!!!

skulking

2008-12-23T21:54:00.004-05:00

I point you to this article, which is mildly amusing because it's about a guy who claims adding Viagra to the water perks up his Christmas tree (Racine? medical/botanical basis?). But this is the best part - a quote from his wife: "I’d had enough. I told Ray we should get a fake tree instead. But Ray wasn’t keen. He skulked off to the pub to meet his mate for a moan...."

I love that somewhere in the world is an actual human who talks like that. Meets his mate for a moan. Ha.

my new anthem, I guess

2008-12-22T23:34:00.001-05:00

zoo show

2008-12-22T21:51:00.006-05:00

Our little show at the zoo tonight included the 12 Days of Christmas, which involves a movement for each of the 12 days. We did the first two sets in a gift shop (to get out of the cold), so people came in looking for stuffed pandas and were rewarded with...us. I was thinking, lord, what if someone I know walks in? I felt like an idiot. Which is NEVER how I feel about stuff related to the Christmas Show, so it was kind of weird. It was probably partly because our costumes were less elaborate than usual, so I felt more or less like myself standing up there. I felt less geeky about the rest of the set, but I kind of worried that we were creeping the audience out by being all, like, cheerful at them.

But after the show the manager of the gift shop came to me and one of the other performers to tell us how great it was that we were bringing joy, and the season is so stressful, and this is what it's really about - the joy. It was so nice, and I felt like, ok, even if I felt a little dopier than usual, this tiny little show still worked. Yay.

I'm still glad none of my former colleagues walked in.

most awesome conversation in recent memory

2008-12-22T21:44:00.005-05:00

Tonight I sang at the zoo and after our first set, one of the other performers was chatting with a zoo police officer. Law enforcement is interesting, so I wandered over to eavesdrop. He told us many things, including the fact that they send him to a range to practice with an elephant gun every now and then. 'Cause you can't stop an elephant with a handgun. (In case you were thinking of trying.) He also told us where to aim if you are attempting to bring down an elephant. Between the eyes will work, but you don't really want to be in that position, because that would mean an angry elephant is coming toward you. It was pretty fascinating. (Also, the guy loved our show.)

books, books, books, books, books

2008-12-22T00:55:00.005-05:00

Tonight I stopped by Borders to see if there was anything I wanted to use a coupon on. Conclusion: no. I am all about libraries these days. But I also needed to do some book research, so I poked through the science and history sections for a while.

My goal: to find a wildly successful book of recent years that is similar to my book idea, so I can mention it in the proposal and editors will say, "What?!? *We* could have the Seabiscuit of hot air ballooning? Why, that's fantastic news! Give this woman a giant advance today!" I found a number of books that seemed a little bit similar in different ways, but mostly I had fun using my cell phone to take pictures of book covers. I have a lot of pictures like this:

I've been meaning to read Cod for ages. (No, really! I blogged about it!)

home office

2008-12-21T22:58:00.003-05:00

Last Friday I had my dad captive in a car for an hour or so and got him thinking about how to rearrange my desk area. My desk is in a goofy little corner of my apartment, and it's really not big enough to work on. I mean, like, WORK work. I also need a way to get my bills, various coupons, Christmas Show stuff, and other non-work things out of my way when I'm working. Fortunately, my dad is really good at arranging furniture and shelves and things, so by the time we got out of the car he pretty much had it figured out. Today we went to IKEA to look at drawers and I think this whole desk thing is going to come together. Wahoo! Then I will no longer have an excuse for avoiding work. (Hahahhaha. No, don't worry, I'll think of something.)

social life: not dead

2008-12-21T22:19:00.002-05:00

I should note that, although I am not spending money, I still like to be invited to events that require spending money. Don't totally cross me off your social lists.

finances

2008-12-21T00:12:00.004-05:00

I have a decent amount of savings, so getting laid off is not an immediate financial emergency. But it does mean I'm living off a bank account that's only going in one direction, so I'd like to slow its rate of depletion. This has led to my new fiscal policy: Don't spend money.

It's actually kind of liberating. There's a number of activities I can cross right off my list. Shopping, for example. Most concerts and movies. Going out for drinks.

Sure, I'm still spending money on food, Netflix, and other necessities. But basically, this gives me very easy criteria for deciding what to do. Does it involve money? Yeah, I think I'll skip it. I imagine I'll start reintroducing spending eventually, as I get income, but for now I'm ok with being cheap.

cake

2008-12-21T00:04:00.003-05:00

Tonight I went to E.Be's and N.Hu's for dinner. It was a lovely meal and was followed by this German chocolate cake:

Bold statement by Safeway, huh? I mean, they're really throwing down.

I'm not going to swear it was the most moist cake I've ever had, but it was pretty moist. And it was tasty. Sure, a Safeway cake has a lot of ingredients that aren't found in nature, but the food engineers know what they're doing. The final product tastes good.

MacGruber

2008-12-20T23:40:00.002-05:00

On the topic of NPR funding messages, every time I hear "Gruber Family Foundation" I sing the MacGruber song from Saturday Night Live. Ok, I don't always sing it out loud, but I always hear it in my head.

sleep

2008-12-20T17:29:00.004-05:00

In recent years, I've gotten good at getting up at the same time every day. Even on weekends, I've usually been up and poking around by 8 or so. I figured that getting up at 7:15 during the week and 10 on weekends means you just completely confuse your brain and get jetlag Monday morning. I felt pretty darn virtuous for being all adult and apparently having grown out of sleeping late.

Yeah. Now that my schedule isn't ruled by business hours, I'm lucky if I drag myself out of bed before 10. It's every day of the week, so I'm still consistent, but wow, so not getting up in the morning these days.

On the plus side, it means I do more stuff around 11, 12 at night, when my brain is awake.

perplexing pajamas

2008-12-20T10:38:00.003-05:00

Have you noticed the funding announcements on public radio for PajamaGram? There are so many things that perplex me about this. Funders are normally really big companies. How big can this company be? They sell mail-order pajamas. Isn't getting your name read every hour on public radio really expensive? And who would go to a company named PajamaGram to buy pajamas? Wouldn't you buy them from a place that you know makes pajamas you like? Is it that great to get their fancy gift bag? Why not just go to Target, buy some PJs, and slap 'em in an envelope with the gift receipt?

more knitting patterns online

2008-12-20T02:29:00.003-05:00

Look, Weasley sweaters! I totally want to make these now. Except for the aforementioned problem - wool costs money. I guess it's time to start making sweaters out of wool unraveled from sweaters, but the problem with that, of course, is if you run out of wool, that's it. You're done. You can't go back to the store and buy more, and that sweater's just going to be missing one sleeve. So I'd have to plan really, really, really well. And only unravel giant-sized sweaters.

knitting for the trenches

2008-12-19T11:40:00.004-05:00

I was poking around on google today trying to figure out how to do this one knitting thing, when I came across this - a 1917 New York Times article explaining what soldiers and sailors need in the way of knitted garments. It includes such useful advice as "If one does not know how to 'purl,' experts at Red Cross organizations and in the department stores, or experienced knitters anywhere, will be glad to explain the simple stitches." It sounds so useful, being asked to knit wool garments for the war effort.

vanilla google

2008-12-18T23:02:00.004-05:00

When gmail first came out, privacy advocates were all up in arms about how google was going to use the text of your e-mails to target ads to you. And I see their point, but google swore nobody was actually going to read your e-mail and I personally was willing to risk it for the awesomeness that is gmail.

It turns out, I actually like the gmail ads, especially the ones that run in one line across the top of the window. There are so many goofy small businesses that buy ads. I keep seeing one for a website that has nice-looking cheap peruvian yarn. (Of course, now that I *want* to find it, I can't. Trying all kinds of searches in my gmail. Perhaps the ads expired. I did get several other knitting ads. And this, which could be useful.)

Just now I was trying to find my notes from a story I wrote about vanilla, because I wanted to buy some vanilla beans and I couldn't remember the names of the online sellers my sources had recommended to me. I searched and searched and finally found them, but then they were both way more expensive than I wanted. But then I noticed this ad for a store at the top of the window and was like, hey, guess I can check there - and they had the best prices I'd seen. So I went for it. What the heck. I like the google ads, I might as well support the people who buy them. I hope the beans aren't bad.

P.S. Ha! I've blogged about this before! And now I know how to knit...and those recycled silk yarns are still beautiful....

ok, so when are they going to tour?

2008-12-18T15:33:00.001-05:00

Ooh! New U2 album! March 2nd! Woo!

list

2008-12-18T14:46:00.012-05:00

Things I wouldn't mind having for Christmas:

* fold-up scissors that I can throw in a bag and carry around with my knitting and not worry that they'll stab something. Something like this.
* a digital watch that is not thoroughly unattractive (i.e. face smaller than a tin can), resists water, and can count down three minutes.
* Wall-E on DVD.
* world peace.
* a gift certificate to this yarn store.
* this songbook.

[to be continued as I think of other stuff]
* a gift certificate to this yoga studio.
* Mary Chapin Carpenter's new Christmas album.
* of course I want this calendar.
* tickets to West Side Story.
* tickets to Les Miz at the Signature Theatre.

P.S. My mom says to tell you this list is for her, so don't go buying me things on it.

uptick in blogging

2008-12-18T14:38:00.004-05:00

I just did the math and I'd have to write 62 (now, 61) posts between now and the end of the year to average one a day for 2008. (For a total of 86 posts in December.) Man...I just don't know that I have 61 more things to say. I'm not sure what I'm saying is entertaining enough to be worth the effort.

I'm pretty sure that even if I *do* accomplish that, my goal for this blog for 2009 will be more like one a week.

I would not recommend eating this

2008-12-18T14:16:00.006-05:00

The week between the shows we don't have rehearsal - we're just supposed to, you know, not totally forget the show. On the Wednesday night some of the 20- and 30-somethings (the "aging teens") got together to make:

...a gingerbread model of the set. I made the base out of Rice Krispie treat (which I'd never made before, but let me tell you, not difficult), then we piled pieces of gingerbread from a bunch of gingerbread-house-making kits, then had way too much fun adding people. This is the "Chasse-Galerie" sequence, which included multiple flying canoes (here represented by tootsie rolls).

We made it for display at the cast party, where it was a big hit. You can see a much better picture of the final product on facebook, complete with tags.

cross-stitch scarf

2008-12-18T14:04:00.005-05:00

Here's another knitting project:

A few weeks ago I was admiring a cool sample scarf in a stitch I'd never seen before at a store in the neighborhood. The woman who had knitted it wandered by and told me what book she'd gotten it out of. I considered buying the book, but it was $18 and I'd just been laid off, and, well, it seemed like a dumb way to use my savings. So imagine how clever I felt when I checked the local library catalogs and found out that D.C. and Montgomery County each had dozens of copies! This is the book, if you want to try it yourself. You knit it by crossing stitches over - you reach around the first stitch on the needle, knit the second stitch, knit the first stitch, then pull them both off. It makes more sense in the book.

I was really very pleased with myself for thinking of the library thing. I normally don't get library books, because I find they lead inexorably to fines. Now that I have lots of free time and can actually make it to libraries during their opening hours, I'm giving the library another try.

I gave this scarf to my older stage kid and made another one out of the same yarn for his stage little brother. So as not to incite inter-kid jealousy, we're supposed to sneak presents to the parents, not give them directly to the kids. I did that, being a good rule-follower, but it does kind of take away the fun part of the gift-giving, you know?

books, books, books

2008-12-18T12:10:00.004-05:00

So in addition to my only-in-my-brain knitting memoir, I'm actually working on pitching a real live book idea. And I just sent a link to this blog to the editor I'm working with, so everybody wave! Hi S.Stra! If things go according to plan, I'll start a brand-new blog on the book topic soon. You all have to come read it and leave funny comments, ok? Extra exciting: That blog will be under my REAL NAME. I KNOW. SHOCKING.

kitties: photographic evidence

2008-12-18T11:57:00.004-05:00

This is the post-surgery cat I'm checking on this week:

She's all, why did you pick me up? I'm tired. The staples are fine. Put me back in the tent. Of course, since she's saying all this while purring madly, I didn't take it personally.

My pictures of the other cat mostly look like this:

Everyone else may hate crocs, but Sisyphus the cat lurrrrves them. They are but a blank canvas on which he can spread his cat hair and dander.

transatlantic dreams

2008-12-17T11:00:00.004-05:00

Ok, I now have three events I want to go to in Europe this winter. One is the hot air ballooning festival in Château d'Oex, Switzerland, January 24th to Feb 1. Next is that awesome Norwegian dance camp, Feb 22 to March 1. And the last is, um, one of the performances of this concert in Luzern, Switzerland, March 13-15.

If these were a little closer together in time, I would probably just go for it, buy a ticket to Zurich or Geneva, and figure I'll buy a laptop by the end of January and be able to work in between, either at N.Lu's place in Zurich or S.Ev's in Berlin. But as it is, I'd have three weeks between Château d'Oex and Norway, then almost two more weeks before the concert back in Switzerland.

On the other hand, I do know *other* people in Europe - I could hop from house to house...Oslo...Leiden...Hauptwil...Vienna....

knitting

2008-12-16T14:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I did NO KNITTING ALL DAY. I know. First time in weeks. Now I need a new project. Any ideas? I mean, yes, of course I have another hat that I'm working on, but I'm not happy with less than two or three projects at a time.

blogging up christmas all night long

2008-12-16T01:16:00.004-05:00

Ok, three more posts by strangers about the Christmas show, but really, the blog pickins are thin this year.

Our first blogger promises details to follow, so watch this space.

This blogger reminds me that I never spend enough time checking out the merchandise tables.

This blogger writes out the audience version of "Lord of the Dance." This is an amusing phenomenon. The lyrics are right there in the program - "Dance, then, wherever you may be..." but the audience sings "Dance, dance, wherever you may be...." Always, without fail. That's how tradition works - they're learning it from each other and that's kind of beautiful. I certainly sang "Dance, dance" when I was in the audience. But it's one of the first things you learn when you join the chorus: The correct words are "Dance, then."

end of christmas

2008-12-16T00:52:00.004-05:00

Sunday we wrapped up the Christmas show for the year. I was sadder than usual about it - I was bummed my dad couldn't make it to a performance, plus two of my kids are aging out of the children's chorus and they were both really sad. One was my first stage kid and the other was my stage kid this year.

The latter kid was excellent when I started crying during circle (someone told a sappy story, I'm a sucker, what can I say) and was dabbing at my eyes with my scarf. Rather than getting all sympathetic, which would have made the crying worse, he was like, hey, stop using your costume for that. And when I kept doing it, he was like, no, stop, you're going to get makeup on it. Thanks, fifth-grade boy! You scored much higher on that test than the average adult.

Having stage kids is the best. Unlike real kids, they don't require feeding or driving around. They pretty much just show up at circle and on stage, love you, and have other people who take care of their actual needs.

kitties

2008-12-16T00:45:00.004-05:00

New adventures in unemployment! Since I'm now mostly at home during the day, I volunteered when someone in the building asked if anyone could check in on her post-surgery cats during the day. I figured, what the heck - I like her, and I like cats, even if they make me sick. It turns out to be kind of fun. The post-surgery cat is listless and doesn't really care if I pick her up and turn her over, which is good, since I'm supposed to be checking her staples. And the other cat is like, "OHMYGOD YOU HAVE HANDS YOU MUST USE THEM TO PET ME" which is kind of endearing. It's not a bad mid-afternoon break.

The friendly cat even makes me almost want a pet, although the cat hair that is all over me when I return to my apartment makes me reconsider. Also, there's the whole allergy thing.

Interesting fact: Post-surgery cat's health problem was more or less what my dad had last week.

christmas is here

2008-12-14T08:19:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I found a grand total of one more blog post about the Christmas show today. Here it is. It's a good one, though! Yay fans! This blog post reflects some of the problems I have explaining the Christmas show - no, it's not a choir concert. No, it's not about how the baby Jesus was born. No, we don't sing "White Christmas." Sometimes a person I've finally convinced to go will come to me in the lobby after the show and say, shocked, "...but...it's so professional!" Um, yeah. I didn't get you to pay $18 to $45 so you could see a freakin' church Christmas pageant.

I has a tuff

2008-12-13T11:09:00.002-05:00

I can't remember if I linked to this lolcat before but it's a particularly good one, so here it is again. Makes *me* laugh every time.

not the emerald city

2008-12-13T08:45:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend who works here:

Look how shiny the lobby is!

PBS is in a neighborhood called Crystal City, an area of office-building hell near National Airport. I guess I'd never gotten off the metro there before, because I was quite surprised by the vast underground network of weird shopping areas (discount perfume! ugly clothes! Burger King!) that connects the bottom of all the office buildings. It reminded me of the Warsaw train station, which also has a vast underground network of weird shopping areas. The Warsaw one has way better food, though. (There's good food in Crystal City, but it's above ground.)

lulajze jezuniu

2008-12-13T01:15:00.002-05:00

I'm singing this at church on Christmas Eve. Pretty, eh? I'm supposed to study the youtube video to learn how to pronounce the Polish.

I think I'll do that later. Now it's bedtime.

holiday mayhem

2008-12-12T15:46:00.006-05:00

I am a huge fan of Carolyn Hax, the advice columnist. I've read every single chat and regular column since she started, 11 years ago. (I say every regular column because I don't try to keep up with the edited chat excerpts they run four days a week.) Today's chat is a particular masterpiece - about halfway through she switches over to the annual holiday horror stories extravaganza, and, wow, people have some crazy families. Transcript here. I laughed til I cried.

bed

2008-12-12T14:40:00.004-05:00

This is a hospital bed:

You want to know the best thing about this hospital bed? Nobody's in it. My dad is home now and he's fine. Yayyyy.

bertuccing

2008-12-12T14:35:00.003-05:00

One of the great joys of the Christmas show is going out afterward. As if it weren't exhausting enough to spend a couple of hours getting dressed, putting on makeup, warming up, then three more hours performing, we get out of costume and meet up at a nearby chain Italian restaurant that is never quite prepared for us, even though they know we're coming, and we order food and we sing really loud. I kind of blew out my voice last Saturday night. Heh. Anyway, here's a picture:

It's really nice. It's not the best singing you'll ever hear, but it's energetic and everyone has a good time. And comes together through singing. Which is kind of what we're all about.

knit, then, wherever you may be

2008-12-12T10:24:00.004-05:00

Like I said, yarn is expensive. A few weeks ago I found a sweater pattern that I wanted to make. Patterns are usually written for a particular yarn. You can substitute, of course, but it happens that the store up the street from me sells the yarn. I checked, and the yarn for this sweater would've cost $64. Uh, I could buy a better sweater for a lot less. Also, I just got laid off.

I asked my facebook friends how to get cheap yarn. One suggested a cheap brand but said, also, it feels cheap and it wears cheap. Then another said: buy thrift store sweaters and unravel them. I'd read about this online before but hadn't actually heard of anyone who'd tried it. So I read some tutorials and hit the thrift store.

Next thing I knew, I had 800-ish yards of baby blue cashmere and Swallowed My Flea had a new baby boy. I found a pattern online and knit for basically a week straight. I used circular needles so it didn't take up much space and carried my work in a little cloth bag so I could hide it in corners backstage during the Christmas show. I took it to the hospital (my dad was in the hospital - he's fine now) and knitted for hours. I knitted at restaurants. I knitted on the metro. And behold:

Totally cute cashmere baby blanket for less than $5 of materials. Aww yeah.

car yarn

2008-12-12T01:11:00.002-05:00

Late last month I went shopping (at the yarn store, which I no longer go to so often, 'cause yarn? expensive!) and parked across the street from my car's twin. It's a '93 car, so you don't see them that often. I felt I should commemorate the occasion with a photograph.

It even has the obnoxiously dark tinting my car used to have, until I discovered that DC does not allow such dark tinting.

lookin good

2008-12-12T01:01:00.005-05:00

I think to match last year's feat (and the year before) I'd have to blog like three times a day for the rest of the year. Don't hold your breath. I mean, I'll give it a shot, but there could be a lot of boring posts.

Hey, I'm a freelance writer now. Check that out. I was in an excellent position when I got laid off - I have an embarrassingly large amount saved and in an easily-mobilized account (as opposed to my retirement savings, which I'm not touching), no family to support, reasonable rent, and yay, thank Congress for COBRA. And whenever I called a former boss or other nice person to tell them I'd been laid off, they'd say something like, "Great! Can you freelance for me?" So I'm going to give this freelance thing a shot. The savings and other circumstances mean that I don't have to panic for several months. And things had been so lousy at work for so long that I'd thought all the way through the worst-case scenario, and let me tell you, it isn't that bad.

So in the last few weeks, I've pitched a book (!), talked about many story ideas with an editor of a Big Magazine (some of the involving international travel), signed up to write a bunch of quizzes for a website, interviewed for an insane ocean adventure, and generally had a lot of exciting tastes of what my life could be now that I'm free. (Free!)

blog drought

2008-12-10T12:18:00.003-05:00

Huh. I just went looking on google's blog search for posts from audience members who saw the Christmas show last weekend and found...exactly one. Here it is: A fan tells you to go see the show. Last year I found a ton. I wonder if facebook is killing *everyone's* blog?

take a bow

2008-12-06T09:37:00.005-05:00

I haven't been blogging that much about the Christmas show this year partly because my digital camera is on strike and partly for the same reason I haven't been blogging very much about anything: Facebook. Also, I think it's becoming a little bit old-hat. I still love (LOVE) it - highlight of my year, I keep telling people - but it's all pretty familiar now.

But here, have a random Christmas show anecdote. Last night was our final dress rehearsal, which is also the outreach performance. They bring in groups from homeless shelters, lower-income schools, and others who wouldn't normally be able to afford it. Many of the kids have probably never been to a theater before, let alone something as wacky as the Christmas show, so you sort of never know what you're getting with this audience. (They're super fun and engaged, and they're also kind of confused sometimes.)

Every year, the director goes out this show and welcomes the audience, and tells them they're at a rehearsal and they're helping us out, and she has the option to stop the action and fix things. (She never does it, but she has the option.) Yeah, last night she didn't stop things, but hoowee, it got messy. Not during the show, which basically went find, but at the end: the curtain call.

The curtain call hadn't really been fully worked out before the performance. It's always really long - there's a lot of different groups that have to come up and bow (sword team! abbots bromley dancers! lord of the dance guys! traditional musicians! storyteller! etc! etc! etc!). But last night, those people didn't really know exactly what order they were going on and kind of stood around stage looking awkward and trying to sort themselves out. Any audience has a tough time keeping the applause going all the way to the end, and last night's crowd just gave up and only clapped when there was a bow.

We'll be fixing that before the opening performance. Which is this afternoon! Yay!

things I don't miss

2008-12-04T00:28:00.007-05:00

Today one of my former colleagues called me to ask a question about how to do one of my least favorite tasks from my former job - the thing that would have me rewriting like fifty million times with increasing levels of misery. When he told me what he was calling about, I laughed at him and told him he was making me very happy. (I think he swore a little.) Considering how much success I had at that particular task, I may have been the wrong person to ask.

Everyone I talk to, from the guy at my HMO who explained what happens in the gap between my regular employer-paid health coverage ending and COBRA kicking in, to the dancer who's here from Quebec for the Christmas show and happened to ask me about work, is like, whoa, it is not normal to be that happy about getting laid off.

direct dial

2008-12-02T23:33:00.002-05:00

Today I made my first call about a freelance story, to a PR guy somewhere in the midwest. It feels weird to be doing something so clearly work-y like that at home. Not wrong, just unusual. Here's how unusual: The first time I called, the call didn't go through. I got some kind of phone company error message. I looked at the display on the phone, checked the number, it was right - then I realized I'd dialed 9 first. Apparently, in my brain, you have to dial 9 before making a work-related call.

One of many small mental adjustments.

welcome yule

2008-12-01T23:29:00.002-05:00

Here's a very nice description of why the Christmas show is so great. It opens this Saturday!!

still obsessed

2008-11-27T23:16:00.005-05:00

Don't worry - I may not have mentioned it lately, but be assured that I'm still knitting obsessively.

I made this wacky hat for She Gre:

The yarn comes from this awesome Japanese company. Noro makes really lovely hand-dyed yarn in all kinds of interesting color combinations, and there's a store nearby that carries a bunch of their stuff. She Gre says she gets many compliments.

This hat is for one of my former colleagues:

The gray is alpaca and the blue/yellow is another Noro yarn, doing its color-changing thing. Super annoying, though - so I started at the bottom of the hat, right, and the blue was a nice contrast with the gray alpaca. Then the blue started changing color and I realized it was going to change to gray. Which, uh, not so much with the contrast. I decided to cut it and jump to the next color, and I'm not as into the yellow. But anyway.

That hat took me two days and this scarf:

...took me a month. I think I just got bored with it (do one stitch, repeat for five straight feet of fabric). Anyway, it's done now and can make its way to its rightful owner.

bye-bye, employer

2008-11-24T22:33:00.005-05:00

Today was my last day of work. It was kind of uneventful. I basically, like, left. (Well, I stayed until 4:30, but a lot of that time was hanging out and talking to J.Ber and Barkley.) It was sad saying goodbye to people, but on the whole, I'm happy.

Since I feel this should be illustrated with a photograph, here's some of the detritus I tossed last week:

glasses and dirty clothes

2008-11-23T09:41:00.004-05:00

I lost my glasses five or six weeks ago. I figured they were somewhere in my apartment, but I hadn't seen them, and my old glasses weren't exactly the right prescription, and I'd never used my vision benefit that's about to run out, so finally this week I ordered a new pair.

Then last night She Gre e-mailed me: "There are some glasses in the laundry room, those aren't yours....are they?"

Yeah, they were. If you're doing the math at home, that means I haven't been to the laundry room in five or six weeks. In my defense, it's been a stressful month. Also, I did wash a load of socks, underwear, and t-shirts at my parents' house once a few weeks ago. And it's the time of year when you wear winter clothes some days and summer clothes other days, so it takes a long time to run out. But...still.

omg puppies

2008-11-20T21:11:00.004-05:00

Look what I played with at work today:

There's a woman at work who bought a Chihuahua from a breeder, and every now and then he stops by with a new litter. The ones he brought today are three weeks old and sleep a lot. SO CUTE.

Work: It's not all bad. There are puppies. My last day is Monday.

feeeelings

2008-11-18T00:15:00.006-05:00

My feelings about getting laid off have gotten somewhat more complicated. The happy is still there, and the millions of ideas about what to do next, but now there's the sad, too - I'm not going to be able to walk over to Mr.S's office any time I want to tell someone about a really exciting interview I just did or talk through an idea or find out what I missed on Project Runway. I won't be able to go to J.Ber's office to complain about my stories and talk about knitting. (I'll still hang out with Barkley.) There's no cafeteria in my house.

I'm still kind of disappointed that the dream job at the dream employer didn't work out. And, looking forward, I'm daunted by the task of writing enough pieces to make up my income, and wondering if I can even make enough money to subsist on - let alone support my expensive travel habit.

I've also had time for my brain to start popping out weird little tidbits about the reality of freelancing. I'm going to have to pay for phone calls, including international calls. If I need notebooks, I have to buy notebooks. Everything in my office is coming home and staying here, not moving out into another office. I need a better home phone. What the heck am I going to do with all my business cards from my employer? Oh shoot, I need new business cards. But first I need a website. How am I going to buy off the person who has my URL now? Should I get a phone that can do e-mail? Which one? Isn't data service expensive?

And so on. It's exhausting.

careful lawyering

2008-11-18T00:05:00.002-05:00

I'm editing the program for the Christmas show and have worked a lot with T.Win, an excellent retired lawyer type who is kind of a slow talker. Everything he says, he thinks about carefully and says just the way he wants. I love this guy. Look at this series of e-mails:

artistic director: [asks if this one French word should be in italics.]
me: It's not italicized right now - the copy editor and I will decide, I think, unless someone has a very strong opinion.
T.Win: [paragraph on why it shouldn't be italicized.]
me: Strong opinions: I like it.
T.Win: But you see that I expressed it as a modestly strong opinion so as to not trigger your "very strong opinion" proviso.
me: Ah, interesting. Very subtle, T.Win.
T.Win: Careful lawyering combined with pedantry.
me: You should get a t-shirt with that phrase across the front.

don't mess with me

2008-11-16T00:27:00.000-05:00

This makes me laugh every time I look at it.

ideas, ideas, ideas

2008-11-15T21:54:00.002-05:00

I have about 10 million ideas for things to do next, from an Arctic cruise on an icebreaker to tracking down the source of this awesome yarn in Japan. I actually wasn't kidding in the last comment thread about writing a memoir with the subtitle "How I Lost My Job And Became A Better Person Through Knitting."

Somewhere early in that memoir, I would like to use Coloradan's line: "I'd be sadder if you guys didn't suck so much."

I'm in the market for suggestions on titles, better subtitles, and knitters I should talk to. I want someone in Norway to teach me how to make a proper sweater. I totally want to talk to someone who made socks and stuff for her family all her life and is perplexed by all these younguns who buy expensive yarn and think they discovered knitting. And of course I will need to talk to about 10 million hipster knitters. I should probably also get all these people to teach me to make things, too.

layoffs

2008-11-13T23:26:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we got a message from the editor-in-chief announcing a mandatory staff meeting this morning at 11:30. Rumors started flying. My section is so small, we figured they couldn't lay anyone off. And I heard they were telling people before the meeting, so when I hadn't heard by 11 this morning, I figured I was safe. I told Miss Shirley by IM that it looked like I wasn't getting laid off. Actual excerpt of conversation:

11:03 AM me: I was halfway hoping I would be. :) make up my mind for me.
Miss Shirley: oh no! that puts someone else in charge of your life
it sucks but you should make those choices
11:04 AM me: yeah, whatever. :)
Miss Shirley: lol

About 15 minutes later I got a phone call, went down to HR, and learned from my boss's boss that my position was being eliminated. I came home, put on pajamas, and made many, many phone calls. Also I took a walk and went to lunch with She Gre. And S.Ball came over to hang out in the evening.

I'm really pretty cheerful. Something will work out. I have a good cushion of savings. I'm sure there are times of abject panic up ahead, but I hope they are few.

366 this year

2008-11-09T20:19:00.005-05:00

The last few years I've managed to post exactly 365 items on my blog - one per day. (Some days with zero and some days with five, of course.) Today is the 314th day of 2008 and this is post 295...so I'm totally behind! I'm spending way too much time on facebook and obsessive knitting and stuff.

doctor atomic

2008-11-09T10:38:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I finally made it to one of those Met Live in HD broadcast thingies. It was Doctor Atomic, John Adams's opera about the Manhattan Project. It focuses on Robert Oppenheimer in the time leading up to the Trinity test. I gather that I slept through the best part, Oppenheimer's aria at the end of the first act about losing his soul, but I still really liked the show.

Peter Sellars, the librettist, used actual excerpts from documents - letters and reports and stuff. So you get a military meteorologist singing about inversion layers and subtropical airmasses (while the obnoxious general tries to bully him into letting the test go forward). They were worried about the weather because don't want some sudden winds to kick up and spread fallout through nearby towns. People sing about the psychological effects of dropping giant bombs on Japanese cities and the responsibility of scientists to speak out about the moral implications of their work. It's good stuff.

A lot of the crowd was who you'd think would go to an opera - I've never seen so many walkers in a movie theater. But there were younger people, too, and I didn't feel too out of place in my "Science + Music = Sexy" t-shirt. Before the show starts, the screen shows the scene inside the Met - live cameras and real crowd noise. You see the stage manager call the conductor to the pit, then follow him as he walks in. Gerald Finley walked off stage from his big aria at the end of act 1 into the arms of the interviewer; they wandered the halls backstage and chatted, then she traded him for the composer.

I pretty highly recommend the whole thing. It was $23, but that's a heck of a lot cheaper than going in person, and opera houses generally don't allow popcorn. They're rerunning Doctor Atomic a week from Wednesday, the 19th. The next live broadcast is The Damnation of Faust on Saturday, November 22. I can't go to that one, but I'd love to catch Thaïs on December 20th with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson.

Omg. I just checked and Thaïs is sold out at this theater. Gosh...guess I'd better start buying tickets for later in the season.

facebook is killing my blog

2008-11-09T10:33:00.004-05:00

I know I haven't been blogging that much lately. You know what? Now whenever I have a funny thought, I put it in my Facebook status line. Instant gratification, no space for exposition, and way more comments than the average blog post. Here are some recent updates:

[my name] enjoyed High School Musical 3, but Ashley Tisdale's old nose was cuter.
[my name] is writing on [high school acquaintance]'s and [high school acquaintance]'s walls and wondering what the heck year this is, anyway? 1992?
[my name] saw Doctor Atomic and High School Musical 3 today. Talk about contrasts.
[my name] values niceness highly.
[my name] didn't go to [university] or study math. But her brother did.
[my name] is singing at Glen Echo tonight. Just as soon as I put some clothes on.
[my name] is ready for the weekend to start. But trying to do a rewrite first. But not really all that enthusiastic. And not allowed to start sentences with And or But.

UPDATE, 11/10: T.Hand points out that I totally stole this from her blog. I would like to say, in my defense, that it was completely non-intentional! I read her post a month ago and forgot about it!!

newspapers

2008-11-05T23:44:00.005-05:00

I LOVE THIS STORY. People across the country are lining up...to buy newspapers! The Post sold out, even after they upped their print run, and then they did a special run, and that sold out, too. This morning at 8:30 when I got on the metro, the guys who hand out the competing free newspapers were already both empty-handed. The Express guy had even given away the copy from the clear plastic window in his vest.

Yay old media.

scrabble

2008-11-05T01:00:00.004-05:00

Monday night I was particularly unhappy and went to my parents' house so they could feed me and tell me I'm a good person. (They're good at these things.) As my mom and I sat down to play Scrabble, she said a little prayer: "Please let me win. Please let Obama win, too." I was a little concerned. I wasn't sure I wanted the future of our country to hang on the outcome of a Scrabble match. You see, I usually win.

I never took the lead once. She beat me by like 50 points.

yarn porn

2008-10-31T08:45:00.003-04:00

This knitting world, it's crazy. The other day I went to the fabric store to pick up a bunch of pink yarns (so I could make this hat for myself) and the check-out lady was all excited about how I got needles and a bunch of yarn for under $10. There was a sale, woo, and they also carry Lion Brand yarn, which isn't very expensive. And the checkout lady said, ooh, have you signed up for the Lion Brand mailing list? And I said, no. And she told me all about how they have a ton of free patterns and got the catalog out of her purse to show me. She may have used the phrase "yarn porn." Multiple times.

Yes, of *course* I went home and signed up. Lookie, there's even a Lion Brand blog. I'm excited about posts like this one - she tells you basically how to make a hat, so you can mess with the pattern and make it up as you go along.

knitting fiend

2008-10-30T00:17:00.002-04:00

I made a hat for my dad. I was kinda saving it for Christmas, but I couldn't wait, and he did just have a birthday. Here he is modeling it in my apartment tonight:

Note that it has a tassel. He wears hats inside the house so I figured I could make something pretty ridiculous and he wouldn't mind. Then when I finished I decided it was so great I wanted one for myself. Mine's pink and stripey and only about 2.5 inches long so far.

This knitting thing...it's fun. I love making stuff, and it's fun making stuff that is actually useful and doesn't just take up space. I really like how I can sit in one place and wiggle some sticks around for a while and end up with a *thing* that is both nifty-looking (if far from perfect - I'm not selling these) and functional.

mmmm, mealworms

2008-10-27T19:20:00.003-04:00

Last weekend I went to see Miss Shirley's new house. So exciting - they have a house! With a yard! And rooms! And a deck! And a really good climbing tree! They live in way the heck Virginia, which is inconvenient for me but makes sense for Mr. Miss's job. Miss Shirley and I went to the 7-11 to get ice, and I was amused by this:

Not so much by the fact that they sell bait, but by the fact that it was in a case labeled "Beverage Center."

This picture is from my new cameraphone. Not so bad!

more lord, more rings

2008-10-26T00:54:00.002-04:00

Ooh ooh ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Wolf Trap has scheduled the Two Towers for next summer! I don't know yet if I'll be singing in it, but it's on my calendar for August 28 & 29!

whew

2008-10-24T22:03:00.006-04:00

This has been a big week, my friends. I stayed home sick three days. (And only worked a few hours on the other two days.) I finished knitting one project, started another, and went shopping for yarn three times. Or was it four? S.Ball, She Gre, Chatty, Ogram, and my parents came over at various times to keep me company.

Finally, yesterday I wrote a polite, reasonable 1250-word e-mail to the person who I think has primary responsibility for my misery of the last four months explaining exactly how I have been feeling and exactly what behavior and actions by that person have led to my feeling this way. So far, response to the e-mail (from that person and the next person up the management chain) has been good.

This is no fun, people, and I don't know where it's going to lead. But I feel super tough and awesome for actually standing up to the meanie. Rawr. And today I got my appetite back. I hadn't seen it in a while.

pixar

2008-10-23T23:31:00.004-04:00

You may be familiar with my thesis that Pixar can do no wrong. The president of Pixar wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review a few months ago called "How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity." It's pretty amazingly great. I mean, maybe that's how all company presidents talk about their culture, but if it's really the way he describes it, I want to work there. Or somewhere just like Pixar that is within 30 minutes of my apartment on public transportation.

Of course, I am obnoxiously posting this way late and the full text isn't available for free anymore. That's annoying. I'll summarize the main bits I remember.

First: He thinks the initial idea for a movie is way less important than the 50 million ideas required along the way to execute it well.

Second: It's ok for people to challenge each other in meetings or e-mail comments later, and they're nice about it.

Third: They actually made a decision to make good movies. When they were first working on Toy Story 2, it wasn't that great. It was going to be a straight-to-video release, and it was kind of half-hearted and lame. And they made the decision to scrap it and make a good movie. They put a big-shot story team on it and made it awesome. I saw it in the theater, and I was worried - one dutiful sequel, coming up - and wow, it's hilarious.

create

2008-10-20T18:01:00.004-04:00

Yeah, I'm liking this digital TV over the air. I still have to go to someone else's house for Project Runway, but not only do I get Universal Sports, I also get Create. Twenty-four hours a day of commercial-free cooking, knitting, crocheting, quilting, painting...thanks, PBS! This is one of eight public TV channels I get now - WETA has four, MPT has three, and WHUT has one.

I realize that there are cable channels about food and whatnot, but I've never heard of a knitting channel. Anyway, if there was one, it would be 50% commercials and would include a reality show in which young women with underdeveloped social skills live in a house together and try to impress the judges with the improvement in their Fair Isle technique while drinking heavily and picking fights. I prefer the nice slow-talking southern ladies with limited changes in camera angle. Much easier to learn from.

crater lake: so pretty

2008-10-19T22:04:00.009-04:00

There's not really, strictly speaking, all that much to *do* at Crater Lake, other than drive around and talk about how pretty it is. So that's what Kay Ray and I did. We stopped at almost every scenic overlook on the road that goes around the rim. That thing everyone says about Crater Lake, about how it's really pretty? That thing is true. Behold.

My first view of the lake:

Check it out, snow:

Freakishly pretty, see?

I think they were closing a bunch of roads the next day for the season. There weren't many people there, although this car kept following us:

Kay Ray figured out how we could take a picture of our feet with the lake. Note that I had changed into my hard-core hiking boots for this 1/2 mile walk, because dang it, I had carried them all the way to Oregon and they were going to get some use:

I was amused by these preparations for the winter. I'm familiar with the poles at the side of the road, I assume to guide the plow, but this was the first time I'd seen a bathroom with its own snow shed entrance thing.

new crafty obsession

2008-10-18T11:21:00.004-04:00

Before I went out to Oregon, I decided I wanted Kay Ray to teach me how to knit. She was actually re-teaching me - my grandma taught me about 20 years ago, but I'd never learned how to cast on or actually made a project or anything, just kinda practiced with needles and yarn. So on the Friday I was there, on her lunch break, we went to this super-cute yarn store near her house and picked out yarn for me (she had needles I could borrow).

First I did a bit of practice knitting, which was semi-successful, on this random yarn Kay Ray had left over from something else:

Then, I started on my real project. Kay Ray cast on the first couple of stitches, I did the rest, and then I knitted and knitted and knitted and knitted. I knitted as we watched most of the Lord of the Rings movies (extended editions) on her apartment. I knitted in the car going to Crater Lake. I even knitted *at* Crater Lake, when I got cold waiting for Kay Ray to finish taking a picture:

And Sunday night, I finished the dang thing! It's a totally cute scarf! And I am so hooked! And ready to start something new!

digital TV

2008-10-17T11:28:00.004-04:00

Yeah, this free digital TV thing - it's pretty sweet. The local NBC affiliate recently added Universal Sports as their third channel. I *love* random sports channels. I just watched the men's team sprint at the world track cycling finals, and now they're covering the swimming world cup. I only wish they'd added this channel before the Olympics.

Oh, wait. I take it back. Now they're showing women's beach volleyball. Curse you, NBC!

mmmm, white food

2008-10-17T09:04:00.002-04:00

I mentioned my stupid stomach? This is the kind of thing I ate while I was in Oregon:

Saturday night we went to the house of one of Kay Ray's friends, who is a fabulous cook and made beautiful food for everyone. Including some special boiled starches just for me. Sigh. (I'm back on normal food now, pretty much.)

oh, my stomach of stupidness

2008-10-16T22:50:00.003-04:00

Hey - things are looking up at work. (I know, I have said this before, but let me have my moment of optimism, please.) I may feel this way partly because I'm taking a bunch of sick days starting tomorrow. It's legit, folks - my doctor wrote a note and everything.

feet by request

2008-10-16T00:03:00.002-04:00

Ok, J.Bro, since you asked:

The only picture of Kay Ray's and my feet from the maze is this action shot. (That's me on the right.)

fall fun

2008-10-14T18:46:00.006-04:00

This weekend I went to Oregon to visit Kay Ray. We had a four-day weekend at work, so I left Thursday afternoon and got home Monday afternoon. So, it was a lot of travel for three days in Oregon, but they were three nice days!

On Saturday we went to look at nature and to visit...a corn maze!! They don't really grow corn in this area, but someone thought it was worthwhile to grow it for the purposes of charging people to go through it. I took this picture from a bridge thing in the middle of the maze:

The bridge had one of those orange tube slides going down from it. Here's Kay Ray:

Also featured at this autumnal wonderland: pumpkin cannons. It was $2.50 a shot, which hardly seemed worth it to participate (since it would take a few shots just to figure out the aim), but it turned out to be a great spectator sport:

The right-hand cannon just shot out a pumpkin. It's the speck above that one guy's head, right at the tree line. Lesson of the day: pumpkins aren't very aerodynamic. And it was real windy.

chicago: the lazy wrap-up blog post

2008-10-13T18:32:00.010-04:00

Yeah, I never got around to telling the rest of my Chicago stories, then this weekend I went to Oregon and now I'm just totally behind. So here, I'm finishing off Chicago with one big post.

On Saturday we went to the Field Museum. They've got a real big dinosaur there.

A highlight of the visit: Chicago's Fluevog store isn't far from Grrrbear's house. It's in an old movie theater. I bought boots. They needed stretching (the guy almost pulled me off the chair getting the left boot off my foot) so I'm actually receiving them tomorrow - Grrrbear picked them up last week and shipped them to my office.

Clockwise from top left: Grrbear's girlfriend, Grrrbear, me.

Saturday night I went to former colleague S.Ball's wedding, the reason for my trip to Chicago. It was in a former billboard factory that now houses some guy's collection of sports cars. The guy also rents it out for events. The ceremony was on the top level, where they painted the billboards (so it had really high ceilings and natural light). Like how I cleverly made this photograph anonymous by shaking the camera? Totally on purpose. Nothing at all to do with the low light.

I wore my awesomest pair of shoes. In fact, I planned everything else I wore around the shoes. The other shoes in this picture belong to two very excellent people from my former employer.

I maxed out on wedding partying at about 11:30 and caught a cab back to Grrrbear's. I got in a little before midnight and was like, hey, sweet, I'm in time for Weekend Update! Stupid central time. Saturday Night Live was just ending.

And that is all. It was a quick trip but good fun.