Friday, August 31, 2007
Things that are making me happy:
-A co-worker unexpectedly brought me a CD to borrow today (Jenny Lewis' Rabbit Fur Coat). The coworker in question introduced me to Rilo Kiley a couple weeks ago by playing their new album, Under the Blacklight, at work, and thought I'd be interested to hear Jenny's solo work. Yes.
-The people I was housesitting for brought me a souvenir from their travels, and told me they wanted to take me out to dinner, and asked if I wanted to catsit for them again. Yes!
-New bras. I bought two online last week, in styles that I had not tried before, so I wasn't sure whether they'd fit right. (They were from my favorite brand, which I trust enough to buy them online in the first place.) The package arrived while I was gone catsitting, and I just got home to try them on today. One of them I didn't like very much and will return, but the other one was awesome enough that I'm not even grumpy about the one I didn't like. Plus, I have buy-one get-one coupons, so I can send away to the company directly for yet even more bras. Yay comfy undergarments!
-The prospect of a couple days at home without running around madly.
Things that are making me sad:
-Remember the filbar? The old screen printing machine I used to run when I was home working for the summers? Probably not, but bear with me. My filbars are GONE. DEAD. The scrap metal people took them away last week. Actually, this is a side effect of the fact that my parents sold the sign-making business, which should go under the "things making me happy" section. The new owners already do some screen printing and didn't need the small presses. And no one would buy the things, or take them for free, even. So they went to scrap metal land, my poor, bratty, obnoxious filbars.
-How the Red Sox did this week. But let's not even talk about that.
-A co-worker unexpectedly brought me a CD to borrow today (Jenny Lewis' Rabbit Fur Coat). The coworker in question introduced me to Rilo Kiley a couple weeks ago by playing their new album, Under the Blacklight, at work, and thought I'd be interested to hear Jenny's solo work. Yes.
-The people I was housesitting for brought me a souvenir from their travels, and told me they wanted to take me out to dinner, and asked if I wanted to catsit for them again. Yes!
-New bras. I bought two online last week, in styles that I had not tried before, so I wasn't sure whether they'd fit right. (They were from my favorite brand, which I trust enough to buy them online in the first place.) The package arrived while I was gone catsitting, and I just got home to try them on today. One of them I didn't like very much and will return, but the other one was awesome enough that I'm not even grumpy about the one I didn't like. Plus, I have buy-one get-one coupons, so I can send away to the company directly for yet even more bras. Yay comfy undergarments!
-The prospect of a couple days at home without running around madly.
Things that are making me sad:
-Remember the filbar? The old screen printing machine I used to run when I was home working for the summers? Probably not, but bear with me. My filbars are GONE. DEAD. The scrap metal people took them away last week. Actually, this is a side effect of the fact that my parents sold the sign-making business, which should go under the "things making me happy" section. The new owners already do some screen printing and didn't need the small presses. And no one would buy the things, or take them for free, even. So they went to scrap metal land, my poor, bratty, obnoxious filbars.
-How the Red Sox did this week. But let's not even talk about that.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Yesterday I brought my gerbils to my parents' house to stay for a week, largely because I am going to be out house- and cat-sitting for the next week, though I'm sure the critters also appreciated that my parents' basement is significantly cooler than my third-floor apartment. I often tell people that the gerbils are not really the most rewarding of pets, that they're no more friendly to me than to anyone who feeds them, but when I came home and looked at their empty cage I found myself missing their tussling, Serenity's attempts to unroll the sleeping Calamity to use him as her pillow, Calamity laying wide awake, resigned, after Serenity has made herself comfortable and fallen asleep on top of him. They may need me mainly for food, but I need them in little ways, too.
Today, as I sat in my gerbil-free room, I noticed a smallish house centipede crawling around under my desk and immediately adopted it. "Hi, Miniature Captain Toomanylegs!" I said. (The original Captain Toomanylegs was at least twice his size.) "What are you doing there? Watch out for the wheels of the chair, okay?" Clearly I am insane, or affection starved, or something.
People who knew me during college may remember that I had a habit of chasing away any of the squirrels who came near me. It's not that I particularly disliked squirrels, but that I was vaguely offended that they were so tame. I had this feeling that wild animals should have a certain sense of dignity, and not come right up to a person asking to be fed. Recently, though, I've sort of changed my tune. The combination of working in a building surrounded by incessantly friendly sparrows and squirrels, a supervisor who is always talking about her adventures making friends with the city animals, and whatever it is in my life that is making me talk to centipedes, has led me to spend my lunch hours outside tossing pieces of my lunch to nearby creatures. Once a squirrel ate a piece of cookie right out of my hand, while I marvelled at his huge eyes and short nose, so different from my domestic rodents.
A lot of people I know have had one of those wonderful pets that they felt like they really connected with on some deeper level. Recently a friend was telling me about his dog who died a few years ago. She had a way of pressing her head against his chest to be comforting, in much the same way that his children (now grown) used to do when they were frightened or upset. Apparently a few weeks ago his horse did the very same thing, which was both heartwrenching and humorous, because when a horse affectionately headbutts you, it can nearly knock you down.*
"I need more animals in my life," I said after he told me that story. "We all do," he agreed.
Next week I will have more animals in my life: three cats, two of whom I have already made friends with, and one who dove under the bed as soon as I entered the house. I've been told that he'll warm up to me in a day or so. I'm looking forward to my catsitting adventure. I hope Miniature Captain Toomanylegs isn't too lonely in the meanwhile.
*I feel very strange about telling other people's stories here. Sometimes it's hard to tell my stories without other people's, because it's the people around me who lead me to think about certain things and make certain connections in my head. But there are several groups of people in my life who don't know anything about my online writing, and I suspect I'll be outed eventually, so I am always thinking -- what would they think if they knew I had retold a story here? Is it my business to share? The stories can be specific and personal, even if I keep the people anonymous. Anthropology taught me this: who am I to speak for others? I cannot write separately from my own interpretations of a story. Perhaps this is what it means to live a life so firmly interwoven with others' lives, and I am lucky, of course, not to be writing in a vacuum... This question deserves a post all its own, but in the meanwhile I'd be curious to hear what you all think about it, because this is something I continue to struggle with.
Today, as I sat in my gerbil-free room, I noticed a smallish house centipede crawling around under my desk and immediately adopted it. "Hi, Miniature Captain Toomanylegs!" I said. (The original Captain Toomanylegs was at least twice his size.) "What are you doing there? Watch out for the wheels of the chair, okay?" Clearly I am insane, or affection starved, or something.
People who knew me during college may remember that I had a habit of chasing away any of the squirrels who came near me. It's not that I particularly disliked squirrels, but that I was vaguely offended that they were so tame. I had this feeling that wild animals should have a certain sense of dignity, and not come right up to a person asking to be fed. Recently, though, I've sort of changed my tune. The combination of working in a building surrounded by incessantly friendly sparrows and squirrels, a supervisor who is always talking about her adventures making friends with the city animals, and whatever it is in my life that is making me talk to centipedes, has led me to spend my lunch hours outside tossing pieces of my lunch to nearby creatures. Once a squirrel ate a piece of cookie right out of my hand, while I marvelled at his huge eyes and short nose, so different from my domestic rodents.
A lot of people I know have had one of those wonderful pets that they felt like they really connected with on some deeper level. Recently a friend was telling me about his dog who died a few years ago. She had a way of pressing her head against his chest to be comforting, in much the same way that his children (now grown) used to do when they were frightened or upset. Apparently a few weeks ago his horse did the very same thing, which was both heartwrenching and humorous, because when a horse affectionately headbutts you, it can nearly knock you down.*
"I need more animals in my life," I said after he told me that story. "We all do," he agreed.
Next week I will have more animals in my life: three cats, two of whom I have already made friends with, and one who dove under the bed as soon as I entered the house. I've been told that he'll warm up to me in a day or so. I'm looking forward to my catsitting adventure. I hope Miniature Captain Toomanylegs isn't too lonely in the meanwhile.
*I feel very strange about telling other people's stories here. Sometimes it's hard to tell my stories without other people's, because it's the people around me who lead me to think about certain things and make certain connections in my head. But there are several groups of people in my life who don't know anything about my online writing, and I suspect I'll be outed eventually, so I am always thinking -- what would they think if they knew I had retold a story here? Is it my business to share? The stories can be specific and personal, even if I keep the people anonymous. Anthropology taught me this: who am I to speak for others? I cannot write separately from my own interpretations of a story. Perhaps this is what it means to live a life so firmly interwoven with others' lives, and I am lucky, of course, not to be writing in a vacuum... This question deserves a post all its own, but in the meanwhile I'd be curious to hear what you all think about it, because this is something I continue to struggle with.
Friday, August 17, 2007
So back in May I made a list of all the things I wanted to do this summer now that I am finally out of school for serious. So far summer has been completely nonstop, so I don't think I can be accused of slacking, exactly, if I didn't get through much of this list. But now things are slowing down again, so it seems like a good time to remember all those things that I wanted to do but never got around to.
1. Knitting
At the beginning of the summer, I was watching a lot of baseball. Baseball is one of those things that doesn't feel like it requires my entire attention, so I get very fidgety while watching it. Usually I deal with being fidgety by snacking incessantly on whatever I can find. But it has occurred to me that knitting is exactly the sort of thing that I can do with my hands while watching baseball, because I don't have to look very closely at it a lot of the time, but it does keep my hands moving. For this reason I was making pretty good progress on the Scarf That I Started Forever Ago, but then other things came up and I watched less baseball, and therefore did less knitting. September looks promising for more baseball-watching, so I hope I can continue my knitting endeavors then, and maybe have the scarf done sometime this winter.
2. Sewing
I have not made any progress on all the projects that I have lying around. Instead Joanna and I started in on a new project, which was peasant shirts. In theory, teamwork and companionship were going to make the process of making peasant shirts (which she happened to have a pattern for) significantly easier and more fun. In reality, the pattern turned out to be shockingly complicated for a garment which I understood to be essentially a sack with armholes and some darts to make it more person-shaped. Fortunately the teamwork helped a great deal with understanding things like non-Euclidean pattern layouts and instructions which use words which are defined in a glossary where the word is used in its definition. At the end of Sewing Day 2, I had a mostly-completed shirt which now needs hemming and finishing, and Joanna had a thing which might someday be a shirt after being salvaged from Stripey Doom. Moral of the story: Stripes are bad. So are patterns. I'm betting the hippies didn't do it this way. So now I have yet another unfinished project. Maybe my fall focus should be finishing all of them.
3. Reading
I've actually done a fair amount of reading, as AllConsuming will attest. It has largely been poetry and young adult scifi/fantasy. I should branch out a little, really. I am continuing to add book recommendations to AllConsuming as people suggest them to me, so I never have to wonder what I should read next. It's really nice to be getting back into pleasure reading.
4. Bookbinding
I did a very little bit of bookbinding at the beginning of the summer in anticipation of a portfolio presentation for a job interview. Since I didn't have my paper cutter issue resolved yet, this mostly consisted of unbinding and rebinding some things that I'd made for my non-adhesive bookbinding workshop to fix little mistakes. It was nice to prove to myself that I did in fact remember how to do those structures. I have more projects lying around, some that I even have paper cut for, so really my main excuse is that my desk is a disaster at the moment and I have no place to work. I really need to do some cleaning around here.
5. Writing
Well, I obviously haven't been writing here. I've been trying to write poetry for workshop, diligently, carrying my little notebook everywhere with me, even scrawling down things that I know are bad, just freewriting, in hopes that I'll get a few good lines out of it -- but it hasn't been a good summer at all really, as far as creativity is concerned. I've gotten through workshop largely on things that I wrote last spring, and only a couple of things that I've written this summer. In an attempt to actually have a poem for the last class, I've been completely revising something from a year ago, and I'm not sure yet if I'm pleased with how it's coming out. I have a zillion ideas and none of them are behaving anything like poetically when I set pen to paper.
6. Cooking
I have been doing an awful lot of baking. "Awful" because it is so hot out, and yet I convince myself to bake cookies anyway. It turns out that I've finally gotten good at cookies. I've been bringing them to poetry workshop once a week, and people like them so much and I feel so encouraged that I make them again and again, even when it's 90 degrees in my non-air-conditioned apartment. I tend to take half a batch to work on Fridays as well, which has garnered me yet even more compliments. Someone in workshop asked me once if anyone has loved me only for my baking (no), which actually made me think that perhaps I should try using cookies to seduce someone. So far, no dice.
I've also been trying to cook up something nice on Sunday nights to bring to work for lunch during the week, but this is only successful when I am actually around on Sunday nights. Lately I have been running around like a mad thing on the weekends, so I have gotten out of the habit, but I need to get back into it again.
7. Video games
I have resisted the urge to spend my entire summer playing video games! What actually happened is that I got stuck at a really infuriating mini-boss in Zelda, and got frustrated enough that I moved onto other activities, like eating, sleeping, and paying my bills. When poetry workshop is over and I am home more weeknights, I suspect the Gameboy will again start to dominate my time in a disturbing fashion.
This summer I also played clarinet in the Harvard Summer Band, looked for new places to live (nothing so far; don't ask), and have been out of town for a lot of weekends. Over my lunch breaks at work I have alternated going to the gym and practicing in the practice rooms. (Never you fear, I eat my lunch during morning break.) Working for a university is awesome.
And now I am headed out of town yet again! Have a good weekend!
1. Knitting
At the beginning of the summer, I was watching a lot of baseball. Baseball is one of those things that doesn't feel like it requires my entire attention, so I get very fidgety while watching it. Usually I deal with being fidgety by snacking incessantly on whatever I can find. But it has occurred to me that knitting is exactly the sort of thing that I can do with my hands while watching baseball, because I don't have to look very closely at it a lot of the time, but it does keep my hands moving. For this reason I was making pretty good progress on the Scarf That I Started Forever Ago, but then other things came up and I watched less baseball, and therefore did less knitting. September looks promising for more baseball-watching, so I hope I can continue my knitting endeavors then, and maybe have the scarf done sometime this winter.
2. Sewing
I have not made any progress on all the projects that I have lying around. Instead Joanna and I started in on a new project, which was peasant shirts. In theory, teamwork and companionship were going to make the process of making peasant shirts (which she happened to have a pattern for) significantly easier and more fun. In reality, the pattern turned out to be shockingly complicated for a garment which I understood to be essentially a sack with armholes and some darts to make it more person-shaped. Fortunately the teamwork helped a great deal with understanding things like non-Euclidean pattern layouts and instructions which use words which are defined in a glossary where the word is used in its definition. At the end of Sewing Day 2, I had a mostly-completed shirt which now needs hemming and finishing, and Joanna had a thing which might someday be a shirt after being salvaged from Stripey Doom. Moral of the story: Stripes are bad. So are patterns. I'm betting the hippies didn't do it this way. So now I have yet another unfinished project. Maybe my fall focus should be finishing all of them.
3. Reading
I've actually done a fair amount of reading, as AllConsuming will attest. It has largely been poetry and young adult scifi/fantasy. I should branch out a little, really. I am continuing to add book recommendations to AllConsuming as people suggest them to me, so I never have to wonder what I should read next. It's really nice to be getting back into pleasure reading.
4. Bookbinding
I did a very little bit of bookbinding at the beginning of the summer in anticipation of a portfolio presentation for a job interview. Since I didn't have my paper cutter issue resolved yet, this mostly consisted of unbinding and rebinding some things that I'd made for my non-adhesive bookbinding workshop to fix little mistakes. It was nice to prove to myself that I did in fact remember how to do those structures. I have more projects lying around, some that I even have paper cut for, so really my main excuse is that my desk is a disaster at the moment and I have no place to work. I really need to do some cleaning around here.
5. Writing
Well, I obviously haven't been writing here. I've been trying to write poetry for workshop, diligently, carrying my little notebook everywhere with me, even scrawling down things that I know are bad, just freewriting, in hopes that I'll get a few good lines out of it -- but it hasn't been a good summer at all really, as far as creativity is concerned. I've gotten through workshop largely on things that I wrote last spring, and only a couple of things that I've written this summer. In an attempt to actually have a poem for the last class, I've been completely revising something from a year ago, and I'm not sure yet if I'm pleased with how it's coming out. I have a zillion ideas and none of them are behaving anything like poetically when I set pen to paper.
6. Cooking
I have been doing an awful lot of baking. "Awful" because it is so hot out, and yet I convince myself to bake cookies anyway. It turns out that I've finally gotten good at cookies. I've been bringing them to poetry workshop once a week, and people like them so much and I feel so encouraged that I make them again and again, even when it's 90 degrees in my non-air-conditioned apartment. I tend to take half a batch to work on Fridays as well, which has garnered me yet even more compliments. Someone in workshop asked me once if anyone has loved me only for my baking (no), which actually made me think that perhaps I should try using cookies to seduce someone. So far, no dice.
I've also been trying to cook up something nice on Sunday nights to bring to work for lunch during the week, but this is only successful when I am actually around on Sunday nights. Lately I have been running around like a mad thing on the weekends, so I have gotten out of the habit, but I need to get back into it again.
7. Video games
I have resisted the urge to spend my entire summer playing video games! What actually happened is that I got stuck at a really infuriating mini-boss in Zelda, and got frustrated enough that I moved onto other activities, like eating, sleeping, and paying my bills. When poetry workshop is over and I am home more weeknights, I suspect the Gameboy will again start to dominate my time in a disturbing fashion.
This summer I also played clarinet in the Harvard Summer Band, looked for new places to live (nothing so far; don't ask), and have been out of town for a lot of weekends. Over my lunch breaks at work I have alternated going to the gym and practicing in the practice rooms. (Never you fear, I eat my lunch during morning break.) Working for a university is awesome.
And now I am headed out of town yet again! Have a good weekend!