watched the lunar eclipse. Or part of it. We were walking the dogs and there were these funny little gatherings of random neighbors gossipping and looking up every once in a while. i don't have the patience for astronomy. Especially when it's hazy and cloudy and that streetlamp that's nice to have in front of the house to ... well, to have in front of the house ... it really gets in the way when you're trying to look at dim, faraway, cloudy things in the same general direction.

Labels: festivities

i've never tried to actually make clothes before. Turns out they're complicated. And what's really going to bake your noodle is, they don't look complicated. It's the tailoring. the, oh, this is how a boyfriend would be shaped if he was two-dimensional. It simply doesn't make any sense. He's much more V shaped than i thought. On top of which somehow i broke the sewing machine yesterday? not broke in an unfixable way - but i was afraid for a minute. because for all of how nice the folks at the sewing machine and vaccuum shop are, they're a little christian for me, and i'm not sure what their hours are. And making a vest by hand is not an option. see, it's not even a crazy thing - three pieces of fabric. And it's not that i can't get it right. just that it's taking a little longer than i thought it might. So. For hallowe'en, we now have:

• one ringletty blonde wig with a red bow
• one neck-ribbon with golden heart charm
• one pouffy-sleeved white blouse
• one blue apron
• one black external cleavage producer
• one red ankle-length skirt
• two appropriate pairs of shoes somewhere, i hope
• one pair of brown, or gray, or greenish pants
• one ivory long-sleeved slightly pouffy shirt with a collar
• 3/4 of a vest
• one browny wig with a blue ribbon
• two beer steins.

I think i'm done. After the vest. But. what kind of shoes do st. pauli girl and samuel adams wear? St pauli girl - the ho wears black strappy ones, but then, she is obviously imperfect, as she has no blue apron.

Labels: emptor

Winter is scheduled to arrive on Monday, with highs in the sixties.

i think - i think - it might be raining.

i hope the dogs made it inside.

everyone should go see Shaun of the Dead. it's funny. and if it wasn't eighty-seven degrees outside at the end of october we'd be having very london weather.

Labels: texas

...and i'm annoyed because blogger deleted my funny bruise post.

Labels: blogging

...was a great movie. And as my regular fans know, Emily ate it the first time i got the book, and as i may have mentioned, she was sniffing around copy no. 2. But destruction was averted. And i'm on page, oh, 850 now, and suddenly the entire plot has dropped off a cliff, and it's sort of converging with the movie again, only i'm wondering, how much like the movie is it, really? do i know what's going to happen? who else will be poisoned? why isn't the lesbian getting it on, already? which AssHat is going to be killed, since they were all the same person in the movie? What about all the infanticides? when is M. Norrell going to show up and make the Viscomte's nose reappear on his elbow? Oh, right. But ...

Labels: media

as in, who else knew i'd buy them first?

Only not that exactly - mine have a little more grace in the heel. Plenty of nice, wide strap for the florist to stick flowers on:

i tried on some dresses. (The bridal shop was finally open.) and i found one that i didn't hate. so i'm thinking about when we bought our house, on the very first day we were looking, we came across this lovely house, basically in our price range, that was beautiful and had big clerestory windows and a gorgeous back yard and we liked it only we thought, we've only been looking for a day, let's see some others. The house was bought the next day. We didn't get it. And our house is lovely, but i just wonder ... you know? It was so nice, only it was the very first day and we weren't entirely prepared to start making offers right off the bat. So we didn't get it. And i find this dress, the very first day, that i kind of like. And i'm thinking, it's the very first day, should i look at others? or should i just decide on this one and not stress about it any more? will i find anything better if i keep looking? will i just want this one and since it's not exactly a This Year's Dress will i be able to order it? do they keep them in stock? For those of us keeping track, it's this, from the Watters Brides line of Watters & Watters.

What do we think? Keep in mind that i'm way, way curvier than her. My hair is the opposite of her hair. And it's lovely and not really out of the price range. We don't really have a price range. "Not more than we spent on M's suit" might be our price range. Which this fits into, only just. I hate the necklace she's wearing, just For The Record.

Labels: wedding

this was funny.

Labels: media

please be open when your hours say you're supposed to be open. Please be open when you've told me what your hours are - we are all aware that a shop is normally open during their own hours. Because if i drive by again and you're not open when the hours posted on your own door (which i have now seen the outside of, thanks) claim that you will be there, you're going to lose my dollar. and, as the Only Bridal Shop in Town, you would probably have got a fair number of my dollars. But if you're not there, particularly when you say that you're going to be there, then i can't go inside and leave money lying about on my own, now can i?

Labels: emptor, wedding

There used to be a little creek under the highway on the drive home. it was very pretty, with big rocks and wildflowers and large quantities of weeds and little saplings and it looked like a nice habitat for chipmunks. They bulldozed it. Now, it's perfectly even, graded gravel under chickenwire. and it's shallower than it was before, by a good deal, so it's not like this is solving some drainage problem they were having. No more pretty little brook with the possibility of frogs. and every day i drive past it and it's ... ugh.

Labels: texas

i'm supposed to be in the first dive group. It's full of people who actually made it to get up after being up and drinking (and apparently smoking and getting into fights with Army Knife Boy, who was off screaming in the woods for three hours, i wondered what that was) and are hung over but okay, i'll be in the second group and have time for breakfast. I have my single-serving bagel, my yogurty gloop, my bottled coffee latte. A girl makes a snotty, I've-never-been-camping comment about my single-serving bagel. Fine. I get my scuba gear ready to be in the second group. Apparently i had to sign up on a sheet of paper yesterday to be in the second group (the instructor's only taking These Eight People, would've liked to have known that) but it turns out that really i didn't have to sign up on a sheet of paper yesterday to be in the second group (the instructor takes out This Dozen People instead and i'm Not One of Them). at least Army Knife Boy is in the second group and is not nearby being stupid. i pack up the tent. The first group of people packs up and leaves. The second group finally surfaces, and it's my turn, and i buddy with some random boy when we, the third group, finally dive. I have no idea what his name is to write in my log-book. he is Guy who Cannot Pop his Ears. Fine. We dive. We go through a couple more boats and this weird cage-thing, and there are some rocks, we hit about 33 feet, maybe, in the bottom of one of the boats. i'm fucking freezing. it's damn cold on the bottom of the lake. i have no idea how i look in a wetsuit. we're done. the second group of people has packed up and dissappeared. All the compasses are gone. Fine. i ask the instructor, do i have to get you to sign something? He says, I guess, Yeah, Or you could leave it at the shop. I think, Yeah, like you're that organized to come by and fill it out later. He signs the first five pages. I haven't filled them out yet. I dry off and go home.

I take a several-hours-long nap. Most of the water gets out of my ears.

Most of it.

Labels: camping

in which our heroine frantically packs to go camping with a lot of Unknowns from the community college, zooms through the grocery store, leaves a note on the coffee table and disappears into Nowhereland. i take a half day off work. i drive north for an hour. i find Blue Lagoon. i eventually find the Unknowns. there are maybe twenty-five of them including the instructor (that i have never met). The only person i met at the shop doesn't show up. The instructor is out diving. i set up the tent. It's windy. i buddy with some random girl when the instructor shows up. we sit on the bottom of the lake. There are no fish. is this clear water? We swim through a couple of boats. We hit maybe 25 feet. I am glad for the claritin. Out to dinner in some mexican place that, apparently, the instructor has been talking up all semester; i think it's cheap, too salty, overcooked. Guava margaritas, but they taste peachy. boring. i talk to the people getting their Mr. and Mrs. degrees from the community college (they're also getting certified for their various honeymoons). Back to the dive site and we play dominoes on the picnic table. I avoid texas hold'em on the other picnic table (the instructor cleans up, big surprise there). Bed. Wake up and it's freezing. More flannel. Bed.

Labels: camping

in which there is a new instructor (i guess they switch off days of the week?), i learn about hypothermia, and we finish going over the workbook. I like the other instructor better, but that's okay. i sit on the bottom of the pool for a while and take all my scuba things off and apart and clear them all and deflate things and wipe snot on the inside of the mask and et c., et c., et c.. i get my copy of the take-home test. The instructor tells me, why yes, tomorrow i'm going camping with the community college scuba class that is also through the dive shop, and we're all going up to Blue Lagoon in Huntsville to get certified. I'd have liked to know that at least twenty-four hours in advance, but that's okay. I get all my scuba stuff into the trunk of my car. i wonder about how warm it'll get in there in the middle of the day and how there's pressurized air in those tanks and how i love my car and don't want an explosion in the back, but that's okay.

Labels: camping

in which we do more notebooky things, and i am again the only person there. in which i learn the NAUI dive tables. they look intimidating. they're not really. the instructor is impressed. i don't tell him how much math i've had or how that rabbitty little calculus professor wanted me to be a geek major or that i was anyway. SEABAG sounds like ... sounds like ... well ... if john waters had made finding nemo, there would have been a SEABAG in it ... but in which i carefully avoid saying anything to such a point. Maybe it's the shrimp still talking. In which i get to learn to put on a wetsuit, only it's a shortie wetsuit, and is thus not as complicated. In which i get "booties" and flippers and a mask and a vest thingy and a tank and a b ... oh. my. god. they're. remaking. hairspray. were they not happy with remaking dirty dancing? godzilla? What? Idiots. Philistines. black flag sticker on a cadillac my ass. and i don't care what En Vogue says, you do not have the right to remake My Prerogative. Moving on. In which i get all scubaed out and getting in a pool in a wetsuit is a little odd. In which i really, really, really want to see what i look like in a wetsuit. am i hot? am i funny looking? what does it do to my tits? i get some lead weights on my hips. i am remarkably floaty. i need even more lead weights. In which i learn that they name the various arm sweeps by which one can locate a lost mouth-bit-thing - it's not Try grabbing up over your head, it's Reach and Sweep. In which my ears pop a whole lot, for a while, and then don't, and i have to go more slowly, and go back up, and hover a bit. In which i have completely deflated my BC to get to the bottom of the pool - it's only ten feet deep - because i'm so damn floaty. I told the instructor i was floaty. I need more lead weights. In which we practice each of the various specific named arm sweeps to locate a lost mouth-bit-thing. Several times. In which, on the bottom of the pool, the instructor's hair is all over the place and i wonder if he realizes the extent to which he's going a little bare in spots, and i wonder if he realizes how much more visible it is underwater where he can't comb it or have it all mussy or whatever, and i wonder if he's self-conscious about it, and i wonder again how i look in a wetsuit. There aren't any mirrors. In which it's oddly personal because there's only the two of us in this big well-heated pool but it's oddly like talking to a robot, or an alien, because it's impossible to see anybody's face. In which i wonder how on earth people take pictures of themselves under water: "Hey, that's me!" "Hey, how can you tell?" In which i have no air left in my BC to vent as i'm coming up from the bottom of the pool. In which i think to myself, weren't my ears not supposed to pop on the way back up, but there they are doing it anyway? In which we're done an hour early again. Hey, i'm a quick study.

Labels: camping

in which i am still vaguely ill, and in which i am the only person to show up. The instructor decides that we will only do Notebook Things today and learn how to Assemble Octopi. we do notebook things. we assemble octopi and inflate various things and there are a lot of valves and he uses words like "buddy" and "blast" and "embolism." One does not hold one's breath. we do more notebook things, which consist of looking at the workbook and going over all the answers and whenever i say "Do you have a picture of tissue emphysema" he says "No." he says tissue emphysema results in an itchy rash (or was that the too-much-nitrogen coming-out-too-fast disease?) and wrinkley or bulgy skin. tissue emphysema is also called crepitus. here is an autoposy protocol for Victims of Diving Accidents. i wonder can you pop a bubble of nitrogen under your skin? what the fuck? you can't light it on fire, though. moving on. i cannot find any pictures. One can wear normal clothes (or Ren Faire clothes) under a drysuit. Pure oxygen is really quite bad for you. Dropping 100 feet is like slamming 3 martinis. We're done an hour and a half early.

Labels: camping

Am annoyed that it's a national holiday that i ought to fucking get off anyway but i'm sick and have to use sick time and when i get back tomorrow nobody will even believe me.

but good chicken soup. maybe. i can't taste anything.

Labels: health

hate being sick.

horrible things are coming out of my nose.

Labels: health

am i finally going to ikea?

wow. Am going, first, to the used-furniture place, and then the pottery-art shop, and then the gym, anything, anything, anything to avoid the Massive Pain in the Ass that is the accident at the "intersection" of Harvey and Hwy 6. an eighteen-wheeler knocked into a pylon supporting the southbound Hwy 6 overpass. it is, for now, not safe to drive over or under or through. they might have to rebuild the entire thing. it took me 25 minutes to get to work from home - normally a seven minute commute. i was trying to go around. the traffic was way, way past congested, slower than a witch's molasses, would do Houston more than proud. Awful. Hideous. College Station just sped up global warming by a decade. Backed up for miles in all directions. And everyone's quality of life around here just did this massive nosedive. I may start having to ride a bike to work.

Labels: emptor, texas

who debates on a friday? don't they know anything about television? we watched the VP one - a certain someone kept looking like he was going to leap and devour a certain someone else. which would have made good TV. but we only watched the first, maybe, twenty minutes - i'm not going to learn anything there and A Certain Someone is ravening, thoroughly, but appears to ... not be leaping and devouring. Oh, and our one Undecided voter is going demo. :) but tonight apparently there's an entomology party? that might happen. or ... well ... dammit ... that kung fu movie isn't in the local theatre any more. Oh well.

seriously. who debates on a friday night on basic cable? how out-of-touch are they with people? did the network executives come up with this idea so they wouldn't have to cancel anything they particularly cared about? Ooh, we can't have it on Thursday, Joey is on. We can't have it on Monday, Some other shit is on. We can't have it at six, anyway, Seinfeld reruns are on and seeing every episode six times just isn't enough. what if the debates were aired opposite the West Wing - whose ratings would win? Iron Chef: Battle of the Puppet Presidents' Writers! come on, don't any of the candidates have a life?

Labels: media

Need ideas for a halloween costume party or two. though, i suppose, so does everyone else (except Kim). Um. it'd be nice if i got to wear that ren-faire cleavage-making thing. Whatever it's called. we could be Hef and Bunny. we could be Sam Adams and St Pauli Girl. we could be ... um ... but why do all their models look like Rose McGowan? Oh, right ... but ... how cool is the azkaban prison shirt! what better way to be a rebel and a punk, but simultaneously be a sellout to mass hysteria with all the proletariats!* also, any reason to wear ... anything ... fun ... is a good thing. we could be Punks. we could be ... Evil Sam Adams and Evil St Pauli Girl. which might be easier - just to find things in black instead of Green Skirt, Blue Corsetty Thing, Brown Vest ...

i have to decide Whether or Not to Order Things on Ebay. i have to decide How Cold I am Willing to Be. (ummm, probably fairly cold.) i always want to wear a wig, and it never works out.

Or we could say What the hell is this Halloween shit anyway and be Celtic and go around toasting dead people and dancing around fires. only they wore white. Nope.

It always gets so complicated.

*liz likes harry potter. Mostly liz likes Fred and George. omg, we could go as fred and george! only not really. with me being a girl and the whole incest being icky thing. we could go as ... we could go as ... ginny and neville? or is that too ... very? we can't possibly be hermione and viktor, m is terrible at accents. But it's funny and i love him for it. :)

Labels: emptor, media

Cheesesteaks don't come with tomatoes of ANY kind. Idiots.

it's supposed to be soaky with grease and cheese and onion-y-bits, not watery veggies. Gross.

and i like tomatoes. it'd be like ... like ... Like one of those toppings at Subway that never quite caught on. Weirdo pickles. Banana slices. Raisins. Battery-acid-sauce. A little too much bleu in the bleu cheese. Unnatural. You know?

Labels: media

Scuba certification cancelled until next week. Blah.

Labels: camping

Carwash. - Hour later, rain.
Why don't i care?
Doggy nose-prints are gone.

Labels: dogs

am nearing being done with the Empty Room. progress this weekend was Nailing Stuff to the Wall in Lieu of a Headboard, Painting the Garage-Sale Retro-Cabinet, and Doing Laundry (which totally counts - sheets have to be clean for it to be a functional place). as soon as i get to ikea (or, as soon as i get to the used-furniture place and they actually have something decent) i'm done. i think it's very chic. Very brightly-colored.

on to: the computer-room! will be Red. will need Significant Lighting for this to work. see also bbc. will probably need new Curtains (dammit!).

Or ... paint cabinetry in Hall Bath. this is a rather smaller project and is likely to end sooner / take much less time overall. Hall Bath also needs: Grout. Again.

Labels: house

In the local paper - which one wouldn't think leaned to the left to look at it - three out of four letters this morning were pro-Kerry. which gives me this little twinge of hope. and, the editorial is furious at Ashcroft. i can't help it. i'm wondering. how many people here, in texas, are pissed. how many of their kids are dead on foriegn soil. how many don't have health insurance. how many are worried about Social Security. how many are still looking for work. if three letters out of four in the center of Conservativeland are pro-Kerry ... rabidly pro-Kerry ... and i'm wondering about are these just the outspoken people? is there something wrong with the polls? is there hope? i have this knot of fear somewhere in my belly. That, and, i met an Undecided Voter last night - someone i was sure was voting for W. he's not. he's Undecided. (out of all fifteen of us there, though, he was the only one.) Fear. Hope. Fear. Hope. Fear.

is this polarization what we get for having an interconnected society? if i can get by in the world, if i can make the choice (which i don't, exclusively) to only read leftie blogs and Molly Ivins and NPR and Doonesbury and the rightey people can continue their damning trajectory only reading rightie blogs and Ann Coulter and Fox News and their own little bashy political cartoons ... first, there are people who are disgusted by the whole thing and ignore everybody equally. but then there are people who are entirely surrounded by self-reinforcing media. and i effectively can't communicate with them. and i don't know which to be more frustrated - or more scared and nervous and weirded out - by.

Labels: media

want to see i heart huckabees (70%RT). want to see Hero (94%RT). want to see shaun of the dead (93%RT). want to see sky captain (74%RT). want to see the machinist (78%RT). want to cut down on 140-movie-long netflix list. want to not be such a consumer. want to ignore hollywood. want to liberate self from materialism.

am not going to be successful in any of the above attempts. Am convinced of this.

Labels: media

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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