Friday, February 29

29 days hath February

Happy Leap Day! I'm sure many of you know the Month Poem, which begins "30 days hath September ..." I just found this funny website, where you can read all 69 versions of the Month Poem. I think my favorite might be version one, at the bottom of the page.

30 days hath Septober
April June and no wonder
All the rest eat peanut butter
Except Grandma and
she rides a tricycle

Most of them are pretty ... stupid. Actually, this one is pretty stupid, too. But still vaguely funny. In fact, it's probably only funny because it's so absurd. Most of them follow a pattern similar to version 65:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
February has twenty-eight alone.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting leap year, that’s the time
When February has twenty-nine.

But version 43 — that's the kicker.

30 days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Except February -
That's the weird one.

Anyway, enough of my blathering. I need to go deposit my resume at the library (again), and I'm coughing all over the place. And here I was going to have a party to celebrate Leap Day (mostly consisting of drinking all the leftover alcohol in the house, because I'm classy like that). I don't think ritualistic dehydration by means of alcoholic beverages is the way to go, somehow.

Tschüs, and have a delightful Leap Day.

Thursday, February 28

Ouch.*

Due to some unintentional ice acrobatics last night, my right leg now looks as though I've strapped a crooked shinguard just below my knee. (And I'll have you know that I have, in fact, worn shinguards in real life, although I haven't played soccer since about eighth grade.)

Also, my throat feels as though I swallowed a small, thorny succulent and chased it with malt vinegar or something equally dreadful.

Oh, and it's snowing again. Winter is not my favorite season.


*Did I ever tell you that my first word was "ouch"? It was.

Wednesday, February 27

Mmmmalabrigo!

Having cast on for Jared Flood's Koolhaas hat last night, I understand why some folks refer to Malabrigo yarn as "mmmmalabrigo." It is luscious to touch, and marvelous to knit. I did not disdain casting on any of the 104 stitches the pattern calls for, nor did I despise any one of the 105 stitches I knitted on the first row, having cast on one extra (for posterity?) by accident.

And that is all I have to say today. Mmmmalabrigo.

Tuesday, February 26

Vitamins and glowing faces

Indeed, when I got home last night at 10:30, there was a slightly soggy cardboard box on my stoop, full of Melaleuca goodness. Though it has only been 10 days or so since I ordered, I'd actually forgotten what all I put on my order form. Vitamins, tooth polish, and fancy fat-burning protein bars I remembered, but there was also some fresh rain scented room spray (which doesn't actually smell like rain at all), Melaleuca oil (tea tree oil) and some cheesy crackers.

The reason it was 10:30? I sojourned to my parents house to retrieve my PartyLite order, which also arrived yesterday! Now I have enough candles to burn my house down — smelling good the whole time.

So day one of VitaminPalooza has commenced, and what better day than a Tuesday? A friend of mine used to say continually, "Monday is a new day!" (Or maybe it was "Monday is a new week!" or "I fucking hate Mondays!" I don't so much recall so clearly.) I say, "Monday may be a new day, but Tuesday's right after and is good enough to start a new plan!" (Don't want Tuesday to feel all lonely, after all.)

Oh! I was reading a little more of Haunted last night before bed. As I had been sitting in the living room, I shut off all the lights, leaving the house dark until I got to the bed to turn on the bedside lamp. As I was walking through the darkest part of the house, I glanced down. And a screaming face was staring back up at me, glowing in the dark! I must say, I had quite a start. Seeing the ghostly glow was not my favorite way to prepare for bed.


Image hijacked from Goodreads.com


And I wondered why the cover had such a weird texture ...

Monday, February 25

A meme in my pants ...

Look, another post! Ok, so it's just a meme. Still, it made me laugh! I found it reading Bumblefee's blog.

1. Put your music player on "random." Skip songs with not-very interesting titles (such as "Concerto #4 in E minor").
2. List the titles of the first 25 songs to come up.
3. Put "in my pants" after each title.
4. Bold the ones that actually made you laugh.



1. Star People in my pants
2. Kiss You Off in my pants
3. Straight from the Heart in my pants
4. Change the World in my pants
5. I Love You in my pants
6. Agony in my pants
7. Don't Explain in my pants
8. Precious Things in my pants
9. Twice in Every Show in my pants
10. I Should Tell You in my pants
11. Every Story is a Love Story in my pants
12. Over My Head in my pants (Quite prepositional, don't you think?)
13. All I Want in my pants
14. Reason Why in my pants
15. Body to Body, Heart to Heart in my pants
16. Insane Crotch in my pants (This is a clip of Michael Kors commenting on PR)
17. On the Steps of the Palace in my pants (Another überpreposition!)
18. Suddenly I See in my pants
19. Sweet Suicide in my pants
20. Letter Read in my pants
21. No Place Like London in my pants (Made me laugh because it's Johnny!)
22. I'll See It Through in my pants
23. Velvet Revolution in my pants
24. Father's Son in my pants (Um, no!)
25. I Wanna Get Back With You in my pants (Tori Amos and Tom Jones! How could that not make you laugh?!)

Snow, snow, snow, snow

Another Monday and guess what? It's snowing. This is becoming a very regular thing this winter, and I don't like it. I don't think I've seen my driveway since November. (Of course, this causes less of a problem than you might think, as I don't own a car.)

What else do I know? I signed up for Melaleuca last week. I'm supposed to have gotten my first order today, though I haven't been home yet. UPS says it's been delivered, at any rate. I ordered some vitamins, some nutrition bars, some tooth polish, and a few other cool things. I'm pretty pumped, particularly about the vitamins. I'll try to post a review soon.

I started reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk last week. It's pretty ... whacked out and creepy. Par for his stuff, really. I'm enjoying it so far. I finished The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker last week. I downloaded it from Librivox.org, which is a fantastic site for obtaining audio versions of books in the public domain, or when the copyright has expired.

Snow continues to fall. Rather quickly, too.

Wednesday, February 20

Reunion show tonight, and more

I was going to combine the last post and this one, but then I realized it would have been nine miles long, so I'm instead posting them directly after one another. There are just a few things to say. It won't take long.*

  • Tonight is the reunion show on Project Runway. I'm very excited, mostly because Heidi is going to (all but) call Victorya a bitch. Secondly, the fan favorite will be announced. This will of course be Chris March, because he's fantastic and I voted for him.

  • I am still enjoying Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair. You shouldn't be surprised, as I am generally two of those things most of the time. (Well, not that drunk, I suppose, but definitely not divorced, having never been married.)

  • I ran across these handy little things Monday called PocketMods. They are essentially a mini planner, made from a sheet of letter size paper. With one cut and a little clever folding, you end up with something akin to a paper Palm Pilot. There are many templates for pages, from lines to grids to music staffs to drawing boards, plus templates of conversion formulas, calendars, lists, and even sudoku and the dreaded dot game.

    I love mine so far. (I even used one this morning to outline this post and the previous one so's I wouldn't forget anything. And it worked well.) PocketMods use one side of one sheet of paper, which enables the recycling savvy folk to reuse paper that might have been otherwise tossed in the bin. I'm even thinking of sharing them with Dorians this summer. That's how funky they are.

  • Speaking of savvy, a friend came into the office yesterday to place an ad. He used the word "suave-y," which made me smile. I just can't decide whether he intentionally combined the words "savvy" and "suave," or whether he was pretending to be a redneck, or whether it was simply an accident. Not that it matters but I enjoyed the word, at any rate.

  • Oh, and speaking of yesterday, the Office Despot was really childish to me yesterday. I had gone into her office to give her a phone message. (I specifically told her not to worry, and to take care of it when she had time.) It was probably a little after 1 p.m.; the front office was empty and she was in her own little office finishing lunch. She had a stormy look on her face and took the note. I asked her what she had for lunch, because I was kind of hungry by that point and it smelled pretty good. Her petulant reply? Sticking her tongue out at me with half-chewed food still in her mouth. I mean really, what are we? Five years old?

    I just walked away and muttered, "Right..." while she complained that everyone had gone to lunch just when she had gotten hers. Halfway back to my desk by then, I called, "Yep. It happens." This is not the first food-induced cranky incident with the Office Despot, either. I suppose I shall just have to treat this 50-year-old woman as she acts: like a child.

    I only mentioned the incident to one other person in the office, because I think it's pretty tacky to tattle. But I thought you might enjoy it, dear readers.


  • That is all. Hope your Wednesday is happy!


    * Mua ha ha. It did take long, didn't it?

    The Birthday Party of Doom, or How I Spent My Saturday Night

    The Birthday Party of Doom! That wasn't the real name for it. I mean, it was a birthday party and all, but there wasn't a whole lot of doom. Just liquor and mostly-naked women and dancing.


    Bug-a-boo standing in front of the party bus, our posh mode of transportation.


    My cousin Bug-a-boo, which is not her given name but in fact what her parents used and still do call her from time to time, turned 21 on Saturday. It was very handy to have been a Saturday, because Saturdays are very good days to have parties, mostly due to lack of obligations on Sunday, which is commonly known in the 20-something crowd as Recuperation From Drinking So Damn Much Day. (Yes, commonly known as. That's what everyone calls it. No lie.)

    Her friend, who I will call Denim because if you know his name it's horribly clever but you probably don't know him so he's just Denim to you, also celebrated his birthday. Denim turned 24.

    If you're doing the math, or if you know me, you know that my birthday is in June, and that I will be turning 25 this year. That made me one of the oldest people at the party. (I was not alone in being one of the oldest people at the party. Denim's friend Jeff Jeffty Jeff is 25. We high-fived because of it.) It is no small thing for me to be one of the oldest folks, because I am usually one of the youngest in my circle of friends. Anyhow, back to the drinking.

    We started at a bar & grill, because all good things start at bar & grill establishments. (Or not. I don't really know.) There were drinks, and pork fritters, and more drinks. The bus showed up, carrying us and our accompanying alcohol to the first bar — did you know you can take beers and other liquor on party buses? I didn't know that kind of thing was even legal. Ah, the conveniences of modern life.

    We went to the strip club,* where there was more drinking and milling around watching half-naked women dance. And then Bug-a-boo's friend talked to the emcee, and suddenly the birthday kids were up on stage being stripped upon by all the half-naked women in the joint. It was very funny, and I took incriminating pictures of it. (Denim, by the way, has a girlfriend who is 20. I can only imagine how she took the news that he was all danced upon.)

    We went to the second bar, which was one of those college bars downtown. The bartender there made very strong drinks, and Bug-a-boo continued to drink them.


    My cousins, trying to prove that they look alike, which shouldn't be surprising as they're siblings.


    The above photo was taken at the second bar. Bug-a-boo and Noraa were showing their friends how much they look alike. Or they were trying to. Doing such is exceedingly difficult after you've imbibed a few beers. Bug-a-boo pulled back her hair and Noraa attempted to cover up his sideburns, which doesn't so much work when you're still holding a beer and facing a different direction.

    (By the way, Noraa's nickname comes from the time he dressed up as a woman and went by Noraa. Bug-a-boo simply calls him Airhead. Which he isn't as he's actually quite well-read and knowledgeable about a multitude of random topics that piss off our grandparents, but that's a story for another day.)

    We went to the third and final bar, which was a dance club. There was dancing and, as you might suspect, more drinking.

    After all that, the party bus took us back to the bar & grill, where the remaining eight or so of us (down from the 21 that boarded the bus initially) milled around in the parking lot, freezing and talking. Three folks begged off, saying that they had to "work tomorrow" or "go home and drink more." (Lame excuses, really.) The rest of us went to IHOP, which was packed, and we ate food and went home and slept.

    And in the morning, there were no hangovers. (Well, except for Noraa. He came out of his bedroom much later than Bug-a-boo and I, and he was groaning about a headache. She and I had nary a hurt.)

    That was The Birthday Party of Doom.


    * By the by, I did not take yesterday's picture of my cousins and I at the strip club. I actually suck at that sort of thing (by which I mean taking photographs of myself and others all in the same shot), while others, by some strange miracle, don't.

    Monday, February 18

    I've probably done this one once or twice before ...

    In lieu of telling you how my weekend went, which I will probably do tomorrow or Wednesday, I'm going to do a meme. I caught it catching up on my feeds and saw it from Ugly Green Chair. I've seen various iterations of this meme, by the bye.

    1. Pick up the nearest book.
    2. Open it to page 123.
    3. Find the fourth* sentence / phrase.
    4. Blog the next five sentences / phrases together with these instructions.
    5. Don't you dare dig your shelves for that very special or intellectual book.
    6. Pass it forward to six friends.


    Although I'm at work, I happen to have Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair in my bag. I purchased it yesterday after car retrieval. (Again, I'll talk about that later.)

    Besides, it was funny. She was glaring at me like I was a drunken sot of a no-cooking, sorry-ass, baby mama. Me! A baby mama! I could not correct her.


    Now I'm going to ignore the part about passing it on — you can do it if you like, or not. I'm not picky. (Well yes, I am picky, but not when it comes to such quirky trivialities as memes.)

    Okay, just to whet your appetite, here's an actual photo of this weekend. It is of my cousins and I at a strip club remarkably close to where Dustro and I used to live.


    Here I am with my cousins Noraa and Bug-a-boo at a strip club. We ought to hold more family reunions here ...


    *This bit actually said to find the fifth sentence and blog the next four, but that's a little backwards, so I transposed them.

    Tuesday, February 12

    The Effects of Librotonin and other tales

    I'm currently reading four books for the Ravelry Book Challenge, one of which I can't find. As of yesterday morning, I was only reading two books, one of which I can't find. Let me tell you why that is (not the bit about having one I can't find — that's never abnormal, and you know this if you've seen my house).

    I have this brain problem. Every time I get in a certain radius of a book store, a chemical called librotonin is produced. This chemical is not dissimilar to serotonin, except that they're completely different. I have thus far been unable to compute the exact event horizon of librotonin, as once I'm close enough to the book store I'm sucked in and Must Buy More Books.

    Needless to say, yesterday I crossed that threshold yet again, finding myself at Court Ave Books, our local used book store. (I generally gravitate toward the fiction section in a book store, to start off, so it was no surprise that I found myself in short order carrying Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion by Neil Gaiman. (I just finished reading the four-book Hitchhiker trilogy, and this was just the sort of thing I wanted to read after.)

    I made my way then to the young adult area, because I wanted to see if there were more Madeline L'Engle books that I didn't have. And then Lloyd Alexander caught my eye. Well not Alexander himself — that would be rather extraordinary as he died last May — but his Prydain books. I was trying to decide which were the ones in the trilogy (because for some reason I thought those books were a trilogy and in fact, they're not) and chose the one that begins with the Assistant Pig-Keeper: The Book of Three.

    Following my foray into children's literature, I then went to the front of the store where they keep the classics. You know, those books you always mean to read because everyone always talks about them but you suspect that they haven't read them either. I thought to myself, Ah, Jules Verne. He's one you ought to read, being all into steampunk and stuff. And I found his books and picked up 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; then I left the store before I could do more damage to my pocketbook.

    Despite this librotonin effect, or perhaps because of it, I've finished seven fiction books and two non-fiction books, which you can see little thumbnails and ratings of in the sidebar yonder.


    I was also going to write about the snow that fell last night, which was not heavy snow this time, thankfully. It's instead the sort of snow that looks like piles of big glitter flakes and acts like dust. It's the sort that, if you scoop it up in your hands and blow on it, it all comes back in your face and you get all snowy and damp.

    It's the sort that, due to its powdery consistency, one shouldn't have to shovel it. In actuality one could go to an amusement park and purchase one of those dreadful little fans that run on a pair of AA batteries that don't really keep you cool but make you sweat just a little more when you point them at your face.

    And that's all I really had to say about the snow.

    Monday, February 4

    In memoriam

    Bellatrix toe


    When I read on Ravelry last week that sock designer Gigi Silva, known as MommaMonkey on Ravelry, passed away, I was stunned. I'd seen in passing, when looking up some of her beautiful sock patterns, that she was ill, but never in a million years did it occur to me that she was that sick.

    Though I never new MommaMonkey personally, I know that she was such a loving, caring person. I decided the only thing to do was to finish my Bellatrix socks, one in a series of Harry Potter-themed patterns she released last July, as a sort of tribute.

    Bellatrix socks
    This pair's for you, MommaMonkey.

    Saturday, February 2

    I'm too lazy to think

    Rules of the game:
    1. Put your iPod, iTunes, Windows Media Player, CD player, etc. on shuffle.
    2. For each question, press the forward (next) button to get a new song, the title of the song is the answer to the question.
    3. You must write the song name down no matter how silly it sounds*

    Questions:
    If someone says, “Is this okay?” you say, Be Free - Papa Roach
    How would you describe yourself? Filthy/Gorgeous - Scissor Sisters (You know it!)
    What do you like in a guy/girl? Re: Your Brains - Jonathan Coulton
    How do you feel today? General Joy - Tori Amos
    What is your life’s purpose? Drunken Lullabies - Flogging Molly
    What is your motto? Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
    What do your friends think of you? Witness - Tori Amos
    What do your parents think of you? The Power of Orange Knickers - Tori Amos
    What do you think about often? Take Your Mama - Scissor Sisters
    What is 2 + 2? You Could Have It So Much Better - Franz Ferdinand
    What do you think of your best friend? Untitled - Rachael Yamagata
    What do you think of the person you like? Midnight Show - The Killers
    What is your life story? Martha's Foolish Ginger - Tori Amos
    What do you want to be when you grow up? The Beekeeper - Tori Amos (I wanna keep bees. Don't want 'em to get away!)
    What do you think when you see the person you like? Millionaire Girlfriend - Jonathan Coulton
    What will you dance to at your wedding? Sweet the Sting - Tori Amos
    What will they play at your funeral? I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas - Gayla Peevey
    What is your hobby/interest? Tori Amos
    What is your biggest fear? Under My Skin - Rachael Yamagata
    What is your biggest secret? On Top - The Killers
    What do you think of your friends? Paper Doll - Rachael Yamagata

    Seen at Terra Nullius ...


    *Just so's you know, I'm typing this at my parents' house and using my playlist there ... which is why it's not terribly varied.