scrawls
still cheaper than therapy*


so. seattle.
yesyes, lovely. and i get to meet the piles of new relatives m can't even remember. and the guilt-by-association of liking some grandparents better than others, and there's nothing i can do about it now, is there? if i don't have nice happy memories of how Grandparents X used to be ... i can assume. sure. but i don't have that. and i'm not particularly charitable. i don't want to live to be ninety-two anyway. and (i can say this now and hope to live up to it) i will jump off a very high bridge before i move into a rest home. no no no. but it wasn't as bad as all that, either. they're certainly all very nice. and it's nice to have met them finally; now at least i can keep them straight in my head as to which grandparent is which and how they're all arranged. that, and my new cousin-once-removed-in-law is the Perfect German Baby. (he's two.) and i mean that in the nicest way possible.

Plus we got to see a lovely collection of alumni on sunday night and have really rather good thai food (even if we did go to dennys and tgi fridays in the airports rather too much but there's not a lot of options there) and see i+m's house and pictures of b+j's new house (they've not quite closed on it, yet, but hopefully it's a matter of time) and LM had just returned from africa as well, and it was great. and it was somebody's birthday that we'd met at i+m's wedding, too, and thai food makes everything better.

And then we got horifically lost on the way to the airport on monday morning, and barely made it in time but did, and we got to eat on top of the Needle. Which m enjoyed. and eating on top of the Needle was quite a bit better than eating Thanksgiving in a rest home. i have to make a turkey now just so i can have seconds, let alone sandwiches later.

decision: i could make a turkey (note that by "make a turkey" i mean, "make m make a turkey in the deep frying gas powered flaming turkey outdoor pot." AS, have you had fried turkey? whatcha doin this weekend?) and not tell anyone, and have more sandwiches and leftovers for me; or i could make a turkey and throw a barbecue, and then there would be fewer leftovers, but there would be a party. ponder. vote.






it isn't my news, but
it sorta makes me want to cheer. sorta. only it has nothing to do with me and would be entirely embarrasing anyway and just awful. but. that, and i think i have a cold.

sleeepsy benadryl.






nuts for holidays
we're going to be in new york for approximately four days (a little more if you count the traveling days on either end, where we get in around ten thirty, and leave at six in the morning). Over the course of these four days i think this one particular parent is planning christmas, dad's birthday, new years' eve, and new years. Four holidays in four days. and this particular parent is going to go completely bonkers trying to plan four holidays in four days, and i (with everyone else) will stop being able to holiday probably by day two and a half. if i can even keep track of which day is supposed to be which holiday. which i doubt. and it's certainly her prerogative to attempt four holidays in four days. i just highly doubt it's going to work.

now then. off to seattle for thanksgiving. no 'net. Back monday.






am i Real, then?
in case anyone wanted to know: i have been back from jamaica almost six months and i still have spots on my legs from the mosquito bites. They're lighter spots, they're almost gone, and probably nobody but me can see them (since nobody but me is paying attention), and i'm sure if i ever wore nylons they'd be completely invisible. i just happened to notice them, again, in the shower this morning. but i still feel like the velveteen rabbit.






haha! i knew this would happen. smart people are leaving the united states. because of the president. smart people with big names and lots of respect. people the united states would want to convince to stay. rats from a sinking ship. smart rats.






aeon, i'm sorry.
i had you mistaken for the other - or one of several - mid-90s mtv cult cartoon weirdness, the Giant Purple Blob Named Maxx, because i always far preferred him. your boobs are just too funky, your waist too overemphasized. i didn't like all the big black contours in your animation. and while i'm sure you'll make a lovely halloween costume, and i'm not quite sure whether or not i'm hoping you die at the end of the movie (because they can always make another sequel), and i almost want to see the movie just for the gymnastics and the architecture, ...

*sigh* the new Potter flick goes in a different direction. spoiler: understandingly, they had to leave a lot out. The dementors are entirely missing, for some reason. but hermione flirts with harry far too much. and Crouch Jr is not a snake, and i do not know why he is playing with his tongue like one. lucius malfoy is much prettier when he is not smiling, which is disappointing. oh, and, to the Person or People Responsible for the New Hero Movie Trailer: superman is not jesus, and your audience would probably appreciate it if you did not confuse the two. These are seperate, well-defined mythologies. The christians will be pissed if you make their god come from Krypton. The nerds will be annoyed if you mix their idol up with religion. Come on, now. and why do i think they are conflating superman with jesus? When you are advertising a Superman movie, and you say in the trailer they only need the light to guide them, and so i sent you, my only son, instead of saying A desperate geologist put his baby boy in an escape pod because his planet was going to explode, you make me not want to go to the movies. Not that i'd see it anyway. besides, christianity hits theatres with a massive talking lion in two weeks, and that'll be more than plenty. it's so freaking pervasive.

it's not even thanksgiving and four houses on our block have christmas lights - very clearly christmas lights, red and green and no turkeys or pilgrims - up already. I ask you ...






if you are a normal-looking guy, more than likely an aggie and hardcore about Proving Your Masculinity Every Five Minutes to boot, and i see you in the four dollar cup of freaking coffee place, and the barista says - and i'm absolutely quoting, here - six cup vanilla nonfat caramel macchiato and you pick it up and drink it because it is yours, do i get to judge you? and if i'm having a medium gingerbread latte, which is only half as many words but one of them is "latte" and another one is "gingerbread", how far down that path am i?






can you go home again?
there's a powell house reunion next summer. and when i say that literally nothing could keep me away, i mean that anything that is something (like, say, breaking both my legs, or being dead, or having malaria in bangladesh, or even if it happens on somebody's wedding weekend, which i don't think it does, yet, in mid July of 2006, or if i'm utterly broke and have to sell both my dogs to go, anything) would be unable to prevent me from going to this. The thing that could prevent me from going, then, would be The Big Crunch, and cosmologists are not predicting this for millions of years yet to come. i'm absolutely going. this is as ultimate a truth as i am likely to ever come across.

but.

i'm nervous. i'm terrified. can it possibly be the same? can it be even remotely similar, or will we all be too grown-up? if m goes and it is the same, what will he think of me, as i've never been completely convinced he's aware of the sheer magnitude of concentrated life in and around the anna curtis center? and if he goes and it's not the same will he just think i'm crazy? will people think less of me if my sorely lacking to begin with ultimate frisbee skillz have lessened? will there be tie dyeing? will i remember the steps to the salty dog and the pata pata? will the art closet still be organized, and will i recognize my handwriting on the labels? how is our tree, that i never learned to pronounce, doing? is the maze still there? the wind over the lake? will there be hordes of people older than me and younger than me that i never met and never became important to and i'll just be lost? what if everyone i ever met is there, do i get to kiss them all, and what about their families? shall i bring the nice strawberry chapstik? will people be annoyed that i'm awful at keeping in touch, or will they forgive me? will they like who i am now, still, or have i changed too much, and how much have i really changed, anyway? i'm scared i'll regret it. Not scared enough - because this is a Thing, and No Thing can keep me from it. But.






i don't like christmas. i would much rather celebrate solstice. purer motives. closer ideals. groundedness. christmas doesn't ... well. at least there's nobody that can make me go to church this year.

gifts for mom: this lovely item is engravable, but i don't like their engraving (three letters? you have to be kidding me). if it was solstice i could give her a stack of pinecones, or something. Flower seeds. this is very pretty, but apparently not engravable, which is unfortunate in its way. aha? hmm. On top of which the people in college station don't know how to engrave things. Idiots.






it's going to be this mass whirlwind.
first, next week, i am meeting the New Extended Family. for years i had to diagram my own extended family to know who people were (and naturally, in the process, learned the exact difference between a first-cousin once removed and a great-aunt and a second step cousin by marriage (who i only know as The Stylish Woman In Dark Glasses)) and now i get this New Thing: only i hope they're not so complex. i can talk perfectly easily about my second cousins in whatever part of the world they're in at the time: one is visiting friends in Finland. one was an alternate for the olympics and got to visit greece at least. one, poor thing, is married and has a new baby and can't find a flat to live in to save his life, and has to stay with his parents. (This is what i fear.) one has a lovely, lovely dalmation and a new ph.D, and i wonder what the status of her flat is, now that i think about it. so. the holidays: thanksgiving with the dads-in-laws-fam (near seattle! S, whatcha up to around wednesday of next week? and i+m live there too, and b+j, whee!). xmas with the hungarians in VA. interim with the Clore et alia. ny in NY.

and while it's certainly nice to see people and to get to meet people i haven't yet and go to places i know and see new ones - oy, i want to stay in bed. so much of being on airplanes and in transit. so much of packing and unpacking and repacking. so much of cheap food in airports, in airplanes, in back seats, in dark hotels, and the packaged air gets into your pores. Everyone is tired in an airport.






theoretically, i would have to learn german.






fotos: i am off my butt (or, not really).
Note that in the yahoo pictures folder, are new pictures of (1) tex and a's wedding in jamaica, (2) i and m's wedding in washington, (3) more pictures of us and (4) our dogs, and (5) pictures of a particular waterfall (YS) in jamaica. Plus (6) pictures of the finished fireplace and the color the sky was prior to the (utter lack of) hurricane. Note also that in the pictures of the sky before the hurricane, these photographs are not altered at all. It was just that cool. And that freaking purple. crazeee.






mom is getting hard to shop for.
i'm bored, right, and utterly worthless as far as getting anything done today goes, because when they make me go practise doing Mean Nasty Things to Poor Little Nearly-Helpless Mice (they bite), well, my nerves are shot for the rest of the day. i'm all twitchy and i keep tearing up. poor things. so i'm browsing the internet, including ebay, for presents for the mom for christmas.

Buying mom clothes is easy. scarves. sweaters. i could probably buy her shoes if i tried. blouses. i've done all that. so. but. buying mom jewelry is hard. i'm astonished that other people can do this for people not themselves on a regular basis (and have a much greater appreciation). and what does one go with? if, for instance, mom likes turquoise, only if you get her a turquoise Thing it will very obviously not go with very many outfits, because it's BRIGHT BLUE, and one kind of wants her to wear it, right? On top of which i don't like turquoise so much and don't really want to encourage it, on top of which i think she already has more than she can wear regularly. And if one finds something perfect, only in gold, whereas one thinks she likes silver better (and i would too, with her coloring). And it doesn't happen in silver. bastards. and i'm not getting it in gold because Item has to satisfy two criteria: (1) conveys a certain Message, and (2) mom will like it. (not to mention that sometimes, you're browsing ebay, and you come across an auction and it immediately occurs to you that people don't sell thirteen-carat emeralds with no reserve. because you don't. so we can all just move on. Plus, there are people that sell things with "genuine ENAMEL!" and that makes me giggle.) and if it does not convey particular Message, can i just claim it does, and have that count? cuz i almost think, no, almost certainly not, which narrows things down hugely. ARRGH this may not work out. Also i think having it in Egyptian heiroglyphs so doesn't count, as the mom does not fraternize with a large number of academic types of the sort that could read it. i'm so picky. They make plenty of other things that say what i want them to say. T shirts. Mugs. The entire world of tackydom, mostly, which is why i've never got any of it, only i don't think she quite believed me when i told her that part, though it's a conversation i'm sure she's forgotten already. i oughta call the dad and conspiracize on this, maybe. but what if she wants something tacky for christmas? do i give in to the tacky and spend money on it if it's what she honest to goodness wants (which it very well might be)? do i allow the utter and complete lack of aesthetic? can i encourage mass production and its associate eviction of artistry? am i willing to sublimate all sense of taste, to sacrifice style? can i bring myself to buy inelegant crap at all? and what if i have to enter walmart for the express purpose? g-d forbid.

is this what happened to michael graves when target approached him?

Or i could always go with a shoe rack. She certainly needs more of those. Plus: people sell some crazy shit on ebay. like, that, for instance, also comes in Aerosmith, the Indianapolis Colts, and Winnie the Pooh. who'd've ever thought ...






empty room colors







walls

curtains

ceiling
furniture (plus fake wood)


carpet (is already)

as soon as i get around to it. Because i will not bring myself to paint the entire room red. And i'm not changing the curtains. note if you will that these colors are optimized for my monitor, where i am sitting, in this light, in this place, with this screen resolution and tone and with this browser, and may not be accurate for anyone else ever again, so if you don't think it looks fine, assume you're just wrong.
(current wall color
is unnaturally pink
and makes me nauseous.)
<- look, haiku!






just one thing.
when the KKK agrees with you - when the KKK is actually marching and showing up with their sorry little selves and you can see them out in public and people are jeering at them (go people!) - when the KKK wants it to be known that it is all wholeheartedly in support and in favor of a certain Amendment - you have a problem. And i hope you think about that.






gray monday
In which i am a little bit - not a lot, not enough to not do it - but a little bit afraid to log in to email after a weekend of not having internet in case somebody else is dead and i'm only just now going to know about it.

In which, also, it has been decided that the computer room is to be Gray. And fabulous.






nanowri no.
national novel writing month: Vetoed by me. there exists more than one person that keeps saying i ought to write something longish, and publishable, with chapters and plot and main characters and et cetera, and i don't think i have the attention span for it. i can't do the story arc. the moving forward of plot. and conversation - i absolutely cannot write conversation. it always is so stilted, and so fake, and it ends up being pages and pages long of "Oh." and "..." and but that's how i talk. right? so all the advice about Write how whatever just utterly fails. Conversation? Not my thing. Plot. Not my thing. and while conversation is expendable, plot is not so much. and experimental fiction by unknowns is not the sort of thing that gets picked up by actual money-making publishing houses. experimental nonfiction not so much either, really, for that matter. so. while it might be nice. but ...

and i can't even say i'm going to blog every day for it, because i'm quite obviously not, as there is a plane trip to the middle of Unknown, Washington at the end, and even if there is internet there, it wouldn't quite make a good impression on the Family that i have Only Just Become Attatched To if i was staring at a monitor the whole time? Plus i'd have to hit it on the weekends.






wtf?
All my fave-o bloggers are going corporate.

Dooce. Heather. Greek. Pettus has been.

Even The Bleed has a paypal.
(But that one, i don't mind.)






halloween 2005: the candy.
so we get home right when it's just stopped raining and it's just dark and the little kids are all running around outside wanting their treatsses. Which is fine. and there are certainly nice little kids in costumes that clearly know what Halloween is all about, which is them and their costumes and their candy, perfect. and there are very very small kids in costumes out with their parents that just as clearly do not know what Halloween is all about, and they are terrified but they like the candy enough to knock on the door and mumble something, and they'll be ready for next year, and that's ok too. and there are a couple of larger kids, not in costumes, that are going around with smaller ones that might be their siblings (in most cases) or their own freaking offspring (in a few cases), and whatever, they're using an exploit, right, taking little kids out and getting candy for themselves, but somebody has to take the tiny ones out and there's not much i can do about it. and then there are large groups of full-sized teenagers not in any semblance of costume roaming around and taking huge handfuls of candy for nothing, without any pretense. For nothing. when i was a full-sized teenager roaming around and taking huge handfuls of candy, i was always in costume. And since well more than half of our candy went to these full-sized teenagers with big hands and no outfits, we may not be doing it up so much with the buying candy and leaving lights on next year.

See? you've ruined it for everybody. we were one of the nice houses that doesn't get the cheap ass candy and lets you choose if you like snickers or baby ruth or butterfingers or tootsie rolls best. We let you have two or three of them. but now? no. sorry. you are scaring no evil spirits from my door, i'm not doing you any damn favors.






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