January 2007 Archives
I think this hook in our bathroom looks exactly like a drunk, boxing octopus:
Tell me I'm wrong.
I have my new New Year Challenge from Real Girl, which I will post on Friday. It's interactive!
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Yesterday, a guy introduced himself to me while I was heating my lunch in the kitchen. We exchanged a few pleasantries and on his way out he said, "Nice to meet you," like a normal person. Then, for no reason I can discern, I replied, "Thanks!"
Not, "Nice to meet you, too!" or "See you around!" or something that, I don't know, MAKES SENSE. I said, "Thanks," like he was paying me a compliment. Like I was saying, "I'm so glad you enjoyed getting to know me! What a pleasure that must have been for you."
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At my job, there's a pile of DVDs that sit near my desk that are free for the taking. They're mostly review copies sent to us that don't end up being reviewed, and every time I look at the sheer amount of movies sitting there, I think, "There have to be some good ones in there somewhere!" But then I go over to look, and am floored by the fact that among the hundreds of movies, there isn't one that I would like to see. Sure, there are a couple random ones here and there that pique my interest, but by and large, they are things like, "Who Made the Potatoe [sic] Salad?" (starring Jaleel White) and "Reba: The Complete Third Season." Actually, I mailed both of those to Tom, and he loved them. Sort of an extension of our great book exchanges. If anyone can tell me why there is an "e" on the end of "Potatoe" in that movie title, I'm dying to know. I have a feeling it has nothing to do with Dan Quayle, but that's the only thing I can think of besides the fact that it was done unintentionally, which is what I'm really afraid of.
Yesterday, I found William S. Burroughs's "The Junky's Christmas" in the pile, which seemed interesting. I brought it home and J (who has mild dyslexia) examined the box.
J: Narrated by Arthur? Who's Arthur?
Liz: ?
J: Ha, are they talking about the aardvark?
Liz: (looking at box) Narrated by author.
Although, come to think of it, a narration by Arthur would be pretty surreal.
Well thank god I had this challenge this month or you would have been looking at a whole lotta not much here on this blog. This is my last comic for my January challenge, but I liked doing it so much, this may not be the last you'll see of my stunning stick figures or their creepy rake hands.
Back to Square One
Dear High-End Furniture Store,
If you are going to put someone through four rounds of interviews that involves talking to every single person in both the corporate company and the local store, and you are going to draw out this process so it takes a month and a half, and if you are going to say exceedingly encouraging things, and send that person home with packets filled with information about how great it is to work for you, and talk incessantly about the great discount employees get and give that person a catalog and tell him to "create a wish list," and praise his diverse background in FURNITURE DESIGN, then I would appreciate it very much if you wouldn't, in the end, turn him down for someone who has more "retail experience." Because you knew what his retail experience was by looking on his resume the first time he sent it to you. And any sixteen-year-old who has folded t-shirts at the gap for a summer has retail experience. It's a little less common than an undergrad education focused on furniture.
Thanks, Liz
P.S. Jerks.
Either it was too early in the morning, or he thinks I'm really stupid
Me: Can you look at the computer? It's not recognizing the picture drive.
J: Huh?
Me: I'm trying to upload photos, but the computer won't pull up the correct drive.
J: That's because the card is still in the camera.
Me: ...
Me: I did take the card out of the camera and put it into the computer.
Nuts
I saw this recipe over at my favorite food blog, Smitten Kitchen, and had to give them a go. I didn't have cayenne pepper, so substituted chili powder (which has a bit of cumin, garlic, and oregano mixed in with the chili peppers). They turned out as beautiful and tasty as Deb promised, and I can't wait to toss 'em in a salad with that potent blue cheese we bought for my party.
Click here for a larger version.
UPDATE: I took this class again today at lunch, and while the instructor did not talk incessantly about her love life she did:
--refer to this building as the "mailbox building," stating, "People call it the 'cash register' building, but it doesn't look like a cash register." Even though a) she spent all last class referring to it as the "cash register building" (there is a charity race there) and b) it looks like a cash register.
--pop in a CD that played "Walk Like an Egyptian," and then turn it off because "Cyndi Lauper might be a little intense for this class."
--say that she always had to wait for the second hand to reach the 12, 3, 6, or 9 before starting to time an exercise because otherwise it throws her off. She was timing us for one minute.
It is my birthday tomorrow and festivities are in the works. J and I bought several kinds of fancy cheeses, one of which is an "earthy" blue that would probably kill you (or completely cure every ailment in your body) in large doses. I am not a fan of blue cheese, but even I had to concede that there is something magical happening in those veins. There will also be a birthday cake, baked by my mom. It will be a yellow cake with raspberry mousse filling and vanilla frosting, because that is what a birthday cake should be. I understand that chocolate cake or chocolate frosting might be your thing, but it is not my thing. While I enjoy eating cakes of the chocolate variety, for my birthday only a yellow or white cake will suffice.
J is entirely disgusted by the non-chocolate cake. He can't imagine why someone would go through the trouble of baking something up and then leave out the sole reason for creating the cake in the first place. Like a vehicle with no passenger. I tried to explain that vanilla was an actual flavor and could stand alone, and he agreed that vanilla things could be good. But not for cake. Cake should categorically involve chocolate. I bought a large block of 70% chocolate for the cheese and fruit plate to help ease him through the party.
There is a soft pretzel competition in Miami tomorrow, and a French fry competition in Austin next week, and then more French fries in Long Beach. I'm no longer sure if I want to go to these competitions for the game or just to get some pleasant weather. I think I am done with the cold. Yes, I'm done.
I always assumed the words in that one Buzzcocks song was "Everybody's happy now we're dead." The song was on a mix tape I used to listen to a lot, and you know how it goes with mix tapes and shoddy/lost liner notes. Anyway. I've always sang along to it as though it were an ode to zombie love. Then last night, I noticed it was in a commercial. For the AARP. With the tagline, "We believe in birthdays." Many things happened simultaneously in my mind: first, I got excited because oh ho ho the AARP sure didn't listen to those lyrics very well! Then, there was a pondering that the lyrics I had in my head didn't really make much sense when I thought about it. And finally, there was the realization that it must be me, and not the ad execs at AARP who was mistaken. I ran down to the computer, and after a quick Google search, found out that all those happy people aren't zombies after all.
Sad news for Willow. Send her some warm thoughts.
I have joined a gym. I have also cajoled J into joining the gym since purchasing a couples membership was much more economical and also he is less grumpy when he gets some exercise (driving in rush hour commute every day might just kill him). He was hesitant at first because the gym membership guy is named Faustino ("Are you crazy? You don't make deals with guys named Faust."), but I quickly convinced him that it was an overall good idea, and besides it was Faust who made the bad deal, not the other way around.
The gym itself is very fancy pants, with warm lighting and wood lockers, and brand new equipment. If you are a little richer than me, you can upgrade your gym package to include one spa treatment a month. The little studio where I can do yoga and pilates has a long glass wall that overlooks the mountains, which might be the biggest improvement possible from the dank basement of Harbor Fitness in Park Slope. I was even impressed with the first yoga class I took there. The instructor scored big points for not being a pompous jerk who insulted me the entire class.
Along with the membership, you get an hour-long evaluation with someone who presumably straps things to your body to measure heart rate and has you do things reminiscent of those Presidential Fitness tests you had to complete in elementary school. This makes me nervous for several reasons, the first of which being that when I went jogging yesterday on the treadmill, there were somethings jiggling that didn't jiggle before. That's embarrassing. In fact, the whole setup is just primed for embarrassment. The evaluator will be like: lift these weights! And I will be like: I've just dislocated something! I told J I'd have to work out for a couple weeks before taking the evaluation, and he said that was like brushing your teeth before going to the dentist.
Although in my defense: who doesn't brush their teeth before going to the dentist?
Denver bus scenes
Very crowded bus
Thug: Yo, they should not be letting any more people on this bus. They should kick some people off.
Thug 2: Nah, if they pay a dollar fifty, they get to ride the bus. Shoot, if anyone tried to kick me off this bus I'd be like, "I paid a dollar fifty, I'm suing you for a hundred and fifty THOUSAND."
(pause)
Thug 2: Then we'd settle out-of-court for twenty thousand.
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Effeminate man to woman holding small green purse covered in quarter-sized colored rhinestones: WOW! That is a UNIQUE purse! That is not something you see every day. That is really something special there.
Woman with purse: Target. Five bucks.
Effeminate man: Really? Well you got yourself a deal. That is just great purse, and I'm not even a purse guy.
Woman with purse: Thank you. It has these little feet on the bottom to protect it.
Effeminate man: What a unique purse. My ex-wife would love it.
I went to talk to the neighbor last night about the bikes. She told me her landlord had called to tell her that the garage door was open and he closed it for her as a favor. Awesome. So we now know that the thieves got in through the garage door--the door J and I don't use. The neighbor was sympathetic ("Yeah, we don't keep our bikes in there! This neighborhood..."), but not particularly helpful or apologetic, since I now believe that she left that door unlocked to be opened by the thieves. I'm sure it was a mistake and there's nothing to be done about it, but when I got home I got a little angry. Couldn't she at least acknowledge that it was probably her fault the door was unlocked? Ugh. I guess they could have jimmied the lock on their own or something, so there's no proof that she's to blame, but if the roles were reversed I'd be mortified that possible negligence on my part could have resulted in other people's stuff being taken.
Okay. I have to let it go, because this is one of those things that will just eat you up inside otherwise. Besides, I wanted to talk about good things. Like this new book, Offbeat Bride by Ariel! I have a special affinity for this book because it represents my first official book deal (aaand my last because I don't work for a literary agency anymore). It was a lot of work on Ariel's part to get from where we started to where we ended, and a good amount of work on my end to get it into the right hands, but the finished product is really something wonderful. She's started a website dedicated to offbeat brides everywhere, and I love it. We were developing the book around the time of my wedding, but I wish all this had been in place while I was doing the planning.
While the really offbeat brides are the most fun to feature, what I love about this book and the website, is that it's really for anyone who feels uncomfortable picking up the slew of bridal magazines out there, or who feels weird about buying wedding-themed things, or who wants to make the wedding their own, but doesn't see a lot of guidance in the mainstream books, magazines, and websites. For instance, her flickr pool, is this fabulous mix of pictures from real people who did things a little off from the "norm" and had fun doing it. You've never seen a less stiff, more fun collection of wedding pictures. All of Ariel's work really serves as a reminder that there are a million ways to do a wedding, and it's okay if your way isn't featured in Brides. In fact, it's more than okay, because your personal touches are what makes the day special, and what makes you and your guests have fun. So if you know anyone planning a wedding, this is a perfect little gift to get her started.
Ever since J and I moved in together, all I wanted for our shared living space was a little room with a chaise lounge, lots of books, and a little writing desk. This dream was quickly squashed when it immediately became apparent that both of us had a lot of stuff, and our computer was big, and we had no storage space. So in both the apartments we lived in while in New York, the "extra" rooms in the 2 bedroom apartments became the junky computer room/guest room/storage area. But now! Now we have a true extra room and I am determined that it will be my charming library with a comfortable reading area.
The problem is that we got stuck financially while in the middle of settling in. We're waiting for J to land a full-time position (he's on his fourth interview in what's been a month-long interviewing process for one job, and the place he's temping might offer him a permanent place, too) and until then, we've been very budget-conscious. Which sucks when you're trying to buy lots of new furniture for a new place. This also sucks if you are married to someone who studied furniture design and has big problems with cheap furniture. (Fake jointing can seriously give him a heart attack.) But after living for several months with a perfectly nice room that is unusably filled with crap, and after getting lots of Target gift cards for Christmas, we decided to bite the bullet and buy cheap furniture so we can at least use the room.
If you think we've ever owned any nice furniture ever you are mistaken. I don't know where we got it in our heads that we're suddenly above cheap, $30 bookcases, but we've arrived at that point. Except not quite, because we bought a couple cheap, $30 bookcases an $80 writing desk and spent the evening very happily assembling a room. We've come into a lot of nice things lately. The holidays were good to us, my mom loads us up with cookies and treats every time we visit, and we're the lucky recipients of my technophilic brother's latest throwaways (like a newish computer with a flat screen).
Which is why I shouldn't have been too surprised when karma slapped us across the face and took our bikes.
J went to the garage to get some tools for assembling the cheap bookcases, and when he came back he simply announced that the bikes were gone. We don't use the garage for our car (remember, giant Buick), and with the storms pounding us, we just hadn't been inside the garage for awhile. We share the garage with two girls who live next door and who have been there for years, so I can't imagine they had anything to do with it. But there are no signs of forced entry, so my only conclusion is that they left the main door unlocked at some point.
It's frustrating to me, but my bike was only a hand-me-down that didn't have much emotional attachment for me. J's bike, however, was new and lovely and expensive, something he really loved and spent his hard-earned money on. It breaks my heart to see him so upset. We have renter's insurance, but it might turn out better in the end to not file a claim (higher premiums, etc.).
We're supposed to get even more snow at the end of the week, so at least this didn't happen at the height of biking season, but now there's one more thing to add to the growing list of Things We Will Have to Purchase in the Future (also on that list: clothes).
Challenges! I can already tell this is going to be a good year full of challenges. Sally has stepped forward for January and given me the weekly task of drawing a comic strip, which I will post here. She and her "consultant" (I only have one guess there) came up with this one and seem very pleased that I have no artistic abilities whatsoever. Since tomorrow is already the end of week 1, I think there's a good chance you can check back here in 24 hours for a lovingly drawn comic. Featuring stick figures. Maybe it will be like an advanced game of Pictionary and you can try to decipher individual objects for points.
There is still room if you want to claim a month of challenge-giving; shoot me an email if you're interested.
You know the Howie Day song "Collide"? It turns out if you replace the word "collide" with "Clyde" as you're listening to it, it switches from being a sappy, whiney song to an edgy, sweet song about gay lovers. It's very refreshing.
Updated to add: Krista is officially a polar bear and my new hero.
Happy 2007!
New Year's Eve was pretty chill for us. We went to a couple parties and hung out with some good friends. We did not attend the giant robot dance party, where a majority of the people were, but that was okay. We'd just had a very strange day, mostly made up of us getting stuck at my parents' house for seven hours when my dad accidentally took our car keys with him to the Bronco game. We tried to take their minivan, but it was parked in the garage in front of our car and though we tried many types of driving forward and backwards and angling the tires this way and the other way, we could not make the physics work. And so while we had plans for shopping and cooking and showering and relaxing, we ended up hanging out with my uncle and two cousins who were in the middle of Giant Family Feud. And not the kind with Louie Anderson and humorous responses to "Things that wake you up in the morning." The kind with yelling and crying and hurt feelings and locked doors. Sooo....that was fun! Everything worked itself out, but we were physically and emotionally drained. Vodka sodas with Carson Daly and a few friends was the perfect night for me.
I've thought about resolutions for this year, took in your suggestions, and was most impressed with Sam's idea that I have other people come up with resolutions for me. She suggested that I pick a category and have you guys pick the specific challenge for a given month, but I would like to go one step further and give you guys free reign. Here's how it will work: each month, I will complete a different challenge put forth by one of you. The challenge can be pretty much anything, as long as it adheres to a few guidelines:
Nothing
--illegal
--expensive
--morally uncomfortable (e.g., eating meat, tripping old people)
The challenge does not have to take a month to complete, but can't take longer. It could be a one-time thing, like creating an art project out of 20 found objects or entering a bake-off, or a month-long thing, like posting a daily picture of my cats (please don't make me post pictures of cats for a month). Mostly, it should be entertaining, interesting, and/or challenging. Hopefully all three.
If you're interested in participating in Resolution Challenge 2007, you can email me at lizworking AT gmail DOT com. Don't tell me what your idea is, just let me know you'd like in. I'll pick a different person for each month, and as the 1st of that month approaches, I'll contact that person and he or she can lay down the challenge. Throughout the month I'll, of course, write about the challenge and give updates. Maybe at the end of the year, if this idea proves to be any good, I'll give away prizes for the best challenge givers.
We're already on January, so I'll need someone quick if we want to get started. If you have a month preference, you can let me know, but otherwise the month assignments will be random.
I'm completing my 52 Books in 52 Weeks list, which I'll post later in the month. Why did you guys let me read The Memory Keeper's Daughter? What a terrible way to end out the year. I spent the whole second half of the book moaning to J, "Why isn't it over yet? Gaaaaah."