Spinster

This book is awesome. Normally, I shy away from chick lit, cause aside from Bridget Jones and the Shopaholic books, most of it isn’t worth my time. However, this book is different. I guess that, strictly speaking, it can’t really be considered “chick lit,” as it’s well-written and isn’t too narcissistic, but since it’s about girls looking for boys I’m putting it in that category. The premise is this: after getting out of a really shitty relationship, and realizing that she was tired of dating people who were all wrong for her, Jennifer Cox decided to ditch London boys and give the rest of the world a chance. She contacted all of her friends and her friends’ friends (called “Date Wranglers” in the parlance of the book) and arranged dates in various countries around the world, primarily in Europe and the United States. It might seem a little desperate, and in fact she referred to by several of her dates as “the chick who’s going around the world banging all the guys,” but here’s the thing. Because she knew exactly what she was looking for–a Soul Mate (her capitals, not mine; and while we’re at it, she doesn’t believe that each person has only one soul mate, but instead that there are a number of people with whom you are extremely compatible)–and wasn’t willing to settle for anything less, and wasn’t going to take anyone’s shit in the process, it was approximately the least desperate thing ever.

The book is well-written and interesting, with insights from various of Cox’s dates and friends on love and relationships.

I think that Hotmail is broken. I’ve only checked my email 5 times today and it looks like there are no new messages, from either my contacts or from others. There must be something wrong–I’m pretty sure that I’m a fabulous person and people are dying to get in touch with me. So I’m guessing that Hotmail is just experiencing some kind of problem with delivery. Just a guess. Cause it certainly couldn’t be that no one wants to talk to me.

I’m going to Turkey for a couple weeks in May with my parents. Apparently my dad brought home a Turkish phrasebook the other night and proudly presented it to my mom. She promptly informed him that she already knew the two words she needed to know for the trip–bira and “cigaro.” That last one she might have just made up. That’s kind of her approach to Spanish as well–just stick an “a” or an “o” on the end of an English word, and it’s Instant Spanish, or Instant Turkish, or whatever. It’s not that my mother doesn’t respect other cultures, it’s just that she figures that there are only two things she needs in order to have a good time wherever she is–beer and cigarettes. You have to admire her for her simplicity.

When David Sedaris came to Books & Books, one of the things he requested (and by “requested,” I mean “demanded”) was that he be allowed to smoke in the store. He’s one of my favorite writers and I have made both of my parents read his books. I got them tickets to his talk, and my mom was in full form that night. She has real long dark hair and she’s very thin (she pretty much lives on coffee, cigarettes, and beer–I figure that even though beer has tons of calories, they all cancel each other out in the end), and she was wearing this trippy black and white swirly dress, heels, and big clunky plastic bracelets. She rolls her own cigarettes and carries a supply around with her in case she gets a free moment. So after Sedaris read (and he was hilarious, by the way), everyone lined up to get their books signed, and my parents somehow made it to the front of the line. I’d brought all of my books for him to sign and gave them to my parents, since I was on crowd control. My mom struck up a conversation with him about cigarettes and the many joys of smoking. They got so friendly that she gave him one of her hand-rolled cigarettes and a kiss on the cheek, and he wrote in her book, “Don’t ever quit.”

I love my mom but we are so different. When my coworkers and bosses met her that night at the bookstore, they couldn’t understand how she and I were related. However, she’s totally the light of my family. And when I called her today to make her tell me that I’m pretty, she told me that I’m a 15 on a scale of 1 to 10. So basically, my mom is a fuckin’ rock star.

How is it possible that these things are sprouts? I planted 4 beans in this little pot, and when the soil started to get pushed up by the sprouts, I got a little worried. How big are they gonna get? They’re going all Jack and the Giant Beanstalk on me.

From time to time, I check out Craftster’s forum to see what people are making. It’s a really cool site, for anyone who’s interested in any kind of crafts, from knitting and spinning to scrapbooking and jewelery making. Anyway, I was browsing through the posts about finished articles of clothing, and found this really cool dress. The girl who made it got the fabric from Goodwill and the pattern from the dump. How cool is that? I love it when people re-use things that would otherwise be thrown away. I am the daughter of the original dumpster diver–I love hearing stories about how my mom used to drag tons of crap home on garbage day. Although, honestly, it’s pretty embarrassing when you can’t take a walk around the block without your mom going through your neighbors’ recycling. And I have to admit that when I was in elementary school, I used to give my teachers flowers that I got with my mom and my brother when we would climb into the dumpsters at the flower shop down the street. I absolutely cringe to think about it now, those teachers at stupid rich Pinecrest Elementary School receiving flowers from the dumpster. But whatever man, there was nothing wrong with them.

PS–My roommate totally just changed her underwear in front of me. That was an interesting moment.

Ok. This story illustrates what I’ve always suspected–men are total idiots.

When I got up this morning, I went downstairs to get the paper. Susie (a.k.a. Floozy), my landlady’s dog, was all excited and worked up and as Lorien and I are taking care of her for a few days, I felt really bad and decided to take her for a walk. I just threw on a fleece and a pair of shoes and pulled my hair back, but otherwise I was totally in my pajamas and I hadn’t brushed my hair or washed my face or anything. There are a bunch of parks in my neighborhood so I just planned on taking her for a quick walk to one of them, and definitely not on running into anyone on the way.

Now, Susie is little and white and fluffy and cute, and I’m used to people striking up conversations with me when I walk her, and duh, dogs are total people magnets, but normally men don’t see girls IN THEIR PAJAMAS walking princess dogs and think, “Now, that’s a chick I need to talk to.” I’m pretty sure that princess dogs are NOT guy magnets. Correct me if I’m wrong. Anyway, so apparently most normal men don’t approach scrubby girls in pajamas with princess dogs, except for completely bald, 40-something, very strangely accented men on bikes. (An aside–this guy’s accent was like Glaswegian-Canadian or something. Glaswegian is probably one of the most unintelligible accents in the English-speaking world. So when you’re talking to a Glaswegian in Glasgow and you’re clearly not Scottish so you’re the odd one out, and your complete inability to understand what the other person is saying is made all the more pathetic by the fact that intellectually you know that they’re speaking English, but you cannot for the life of you decipher the strange cadence and unfamiliar slang of the accent, essentially, you’re looking at each other across the saddest language barrier in the world. Basically, you find yourself thinking, “Fuck, I can understand Cuban Spanish better than I can understand this guy,” and the other person is looking at you like, “I fucking hate Americans.” Yeah, that pretty much sucks.) Um, so anyway. So this guy on a bike stops and strikes up a conversation with me that went something like this:

Guy on bike: Mumble, mumble…little dog.
Me: What?
Guy on bike: [Something unintelligible] cute little dog.
Me: Oh, yeah, well, she’s not mine.
Guy on bike: But you already know that.
Me [thinking]: What? Fuck.
Guy on bike: You know what those little dogs are called?
Me [relieved that this is a question I can understand and answer]: What?
Guy on bike: Babe beggars. [At least, I think that's what he said. Keep in mind that this is the first conversation of the day and that 20 minutes earlier I was still asleep, and I haven't had my tea and that pretty much means that I'm not human yet.]
Me: Oh. Yeah, I guess.
Guy on bike: But you already knew that, didn’t you?
Me: Sure did.

What the fuck? Seriously.

1. If I had any sort of scientific leaning, I would get the hell out of library school and study epidemiology. I discovered last year that I LOVE reading about epidemics and diseases, and I feel that epidemiology is actually this really fascinating mixture of science, anthropology, and history. Last night, Heather came over and she, Lorien, and I were talking about Things We Do Other Than Go To School and we discovered that Heather and I share a love of books about epidemics. Weird, huh?

2. I love Death Cab for Cutie. I know, with all of the OC exposure that they’ve gotten, they’re no longer quite as cool as they used to be, but seriously, you guys, they’re fucking awesome. Ben Gibbard has such a nice voice and I think that the songs’ lyrics are pretty good. (P.S.–I love The Postal Service, too.)

WARNING (FOR AUNDRA): OC SPOILER AHEAD
3. I think I care too much about the characters on The OC. We watched the new episode last night, and I found myself getting upset with Seth for being a stupid bastard about Summer (Seth, baby, even though I’m upset with the things you do sometimes, that doesn’t mean that I no longer love you. But really, man, stop being a douche bag.), and I have never been prouder of Marissa than when she a) stopped that girl from getting gang raped and b) finally went home to her mom. Ryan needs to learn that sometimes it doesn’t matter what other people think, and if attending your high school graduation in a trashy dress will make your mom happy, then you need to fucking suck it up.

Dad, you might not want to read this next one.
4. I am the (not so) proud owner of some really weird porn, through no fault of my own. I was trying to get last week’s episode of The OC that I missed (do you see what I go through for you, Lorien?) and ended up getting this very strange movie featuring people having sex in some kind of graveyard, or maybe it features dead people having sex. I’m not really sure, as I haven’t watched it, but the scenery seemed very gothic and dark, and I thought I saw a coffin. Note: Even though I didn’t mean to acquire this porn, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up watching it before I delete it.

5. I got a blender yesterday and I’m a bit too excited about it. I am just ecstatic about being able to make smoothies, margaritas, and hummus (not to be consumed together, I suppose). It’s part of my Summer Plan, which consists of: fixing up the deck so that we have some shade on one side and pretty flowers and veggie plants on the other side, getting a CD player for the kitchen/deck and rigging it up so that we can attach our iPods to it, and drinking copious amounts of blended alcoholic beverages including, but not limited to, margaritas and pina coladas. I’m such a sucker for artificial pineapple flavor. Now all I need to do is find a way for Lorien to stay here this summer and I’ll be set. Party’s at my house!

This one’s the basil

Flowers:

Look at those bitches grow! I also planted African daisies, California poppies, bush beans, chives, and lobelias. They’ve started to sprout but alas, no pictures.

I’m pretty sure that being done with school is the best thing ever. This week was hell: I had a 20-page paper due on Monday, a take-home final that included a 10-page paper due on Wednesday, and another 20-page paper due yesterday. Of course, due to my own procrastinatory nature, work, and other assignments due for school, I had to play catch up in a major way. I stayed up until 5 on Wednesday night (Thursday morning?) to finish my most heinous assignment, a research proposal. Keep in mind that I have never wanted, nor do I now want, to conduct research. The only kind of experiments I enjoy are the ones where I try to see how much I can drink before passing out, or how much knitting I can do before my fingers hurt. So basically, writing a research proposal was an exercise in two things: one, torture and two, futility. Not to mention that the subject, satisfaction of graduates with their education in archives, does not interest me in the least.

When I finally finished and returned home from work yesterday, the sun was shining, the air was cool, and all was well in the world, and I decided to put my plants on the deck and commune with them. (Whatever. I think that watching plants grow is one of the coolest things ever and if that brands me as some kind of dork, so be it.) This is what Tasha communing with plants in the sun looks like:

Yeah, it’s pretty much as enjoyable as it looks.

…To bring you a guest blog, written and performed by Lorien, The Best Roommate Ever. (Your regular commentator is in the process of finishing a bazillion papers. Please do not interrupt her until Thursday, at which time feel free to buy her many, many drinks.)

While Tasha is writing her many papers (I think she will have written between 37 and 47 pages total by Thursday) I will tell you about my latest knitting projects.
I am pleased to announce that I have finished my VERY FIRST knit garment and I am extremely proud of myself.

The pattern is called Ubernatural and despite a few pattern errors that caused much frustration and Googling, it was lots of fun and knit up really fast (large needles and double stranded yarn).

I love the buttons so here is a picture of them.

I made a few changes such as reducing the crazy number of buttons and lengthening the arms but otherwise it’s pretty similar. I know this sounds corny, but I learn new things with every new project and it’s always so exciting. I’m starting to understand the knitting process better and so I can make small modifications to my projects/patterns without ruining them. I would also like to thank my living knitting reference in the room next door without whom everything would be so much harder (although if I hadn’t met her, it is very unlikely that I would be knitting at all). I shall now wear my sweater everywhere!

Riding the wave of my knitting high, I am starting another project with beautiful, expensive Malabrigo yarn (they have the most beautiful colours!) and I am now broke. But I love this yarn…love love love it. Ah, lime and blue. Like limes composting in the ocean. I am knitting a pair of slippers for my boyfriend Dave and so am trying my hand at felting…to much success.

These two swatches were the same size before felting! It is so much fun to watch the wool felt so quickly…like magic…I have been carrying the felted swatch around with me all morning so I can look at it all the time and feel pleased with myself. So, now I am off to buy needles for the project.
And so, here ends my guest blog. It was fun, exciting, and frustrating but I think I may be addicted. Hmmm…