Cosmopolitans for everyone June 20, 2008 ~ 2:18 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Reviews , comments closedI saw the Sex & The City movie last night. Alas, since Lori is in West Virginia doing summer stock and Jordana is in San Francisco for the weekend, I was friendless when I went. I was the only person in that theater sitting by themselves, I kid you not. But I knew that if I didn’t go last night, I probably wasn’t going to see it while it was still in the movie theaters. And while yes, I will buy it when it comes out on DVD, I just felt like it was something I had to see in theaters.
People, I cannot rave enough about this movie. If you loved the series, you will love the movie, because it feels like a giant two-hour episode. There are good storylines for each of the four women, there is plenty of fashion to go around (even though I can’t walk in heels, I came out of the theater seriously coveting these Manolos), and the majority of the supporting cast has a reprise as well. By the end of the movie I had laughed until my sides hurt, cried more than once, and felt like I had just spent the evening with some old friends. That sounds cliche, but over the course of the series, that’s just who these characters became: I knew their faults and strengths as well as I knew my own and talked about them often with my girlfriends. Last night was just a much anticipated reunion with them.
For the record? I’m still a Miranda.
Delicate flower June 9, 2008 ~ 9:28 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz , comments closedOn occasion, Rick calls me a delicate flower or a delicate hothouse flower since I am sick or ailing more of the time than a “normal person” (I guess). To prove his point, I got sunburned this weekend. While sitting under a tree.
Saturday, I was very good and applied the sunscreen thoroughly, since we were going to be in the park all day for Samang’s party. No sunburn. Yesterday, we got up at 6 a.m. to drive into the city and find parking (construction is a bitch on traffic and Rick needed the car in Manhattan for this morning). Now, I do not wake up well. I may appear to be functioning, but that is only because I have routines when I get up and I can walk through them blindfolded. Feed cats. Clean litter boxes. Give Joe his medicine. Clean my rook piercing. Brush teeth and hair. Take allergy meds. Get dressed. I can do all that stuff. Anything beyond it? That’s asking for trouble. So of course, I forgot my sunscreen yesterday morning, because that is not in the normal routine. I realized it several hours later when we were leaving for Sage’s soccer game, and thought “Shit. Oh well, I’ll sit under the trees.” And I did that. But last night when I got home and took of my tank top, I realized that my shoulders and decollete were kind of red. To make it funnier, I was wearing a tank top with parts cut out (designer tank snagged at a street fair for half price), and so I have marks where the cut outs were.
I think Rick is right, because who the hell gets burnt sitting under a tree? Only a delicate flower. And he wonders why I don’t want to go out when it’s that hot and sunny…
Jealousy February 20, 2008 ~ 12:11 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Drama Queen , comments closedToday I make a lot of you jealous by saying that tonight Rick and I are going to see Patrick Stewart in his sold-out run of Macbeth at BAM. Because is there anything better than Patrick Stewart performing Shakespeare? Well, there is, and here is where I let you know that sometimes I get jealous, too. The Ex took the Oldest to see this production last week, and afterwards they went out to dinner…with Patrick Stewart.
Dude, there are days when after I get over the fact that my complexion has turned an alarming shade of pea green? I wish the Ex would just adopt me.
Done in. December 5, 2007 ~ 11:55 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Fambly , comments closedThere was a longer post here, but the stupid server ate it.
My mom called last night to tell me that my grandmother (her mother) had passed. There was a lot of complicated history there, and we hadn’t talked to her (and vice versa) since I was about 15, but still, she was my grandmother. My last surviving grandparent. And another death within 24 hours of Becky…well, I’m spent.
2007 has been a year of death, depression, and bad luck for everyone I know. The only good thing to come out of this year for me has been Samang. If it weren’t for that happy little girl, I don’t know what I’d do. I spent some time with her and Jordana last night, and her laughter and babbles were exactly the balm I needed. I’m still about ready for 2007 to be over, though. 26 more days.
Self. And yarn. November 20, 2007 ~ 11:08 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Craftiness Is Next To Godliness , comments closedLast night I took some pictures of the finished Odessa in my horrible bathroom lighting so you could get a feel for how it fit:
Then I realized that it looks like I’m wearing a bathing cap. Hmmm. I got my hair cut a week and a half ago, and when I say cut, I mean cut. I hadn’t had a haircut in about…um, seven months. Maybe longer. So I looked like this:
In other words, like a dumbass. My layers had all grown out and my hair was just blah. Rick looks nice though, doesn’t he? I can’t get a tan like that to save my life, let alone one that will last into November. Someday when I don’t have skin cancer and everyone else on this planet does, however, I will be victorious. But I digress.
I got a haircut. And apparently two zits as well. And I learned that holding the camera at just the right level on a DSLR that doesn’t use its LCD as a viewfinder can be interesting (or a tremendous pain in the ass and heavy to boot).
The haircut normally looks better. This was after having an alpaca hat on my head, after all.
Freddie agrees that hat hair is bad:
But yarn is good. Guess whose Blue Moon Fiber Arts order came in last night?
It’s missing a skein (I ordered two of one color for a pair of knee socks), but I emailed BMFA last night to tell them and they just got back to me saying they would send out replacement skeins in a few days after they had dyed them. I heart BMFA. Also, three of the skeins above are gifts. I’m just not telling which three.
Twice October 29, 2007 ~ 9:19 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Urban Family, photo safari , comments closed
It is a good day to be a member of the Red Sox nation, especially in New York City, surrounded by disgruntled Yankees fans. I’m celebrating by wearing my beat-up Sox cap, bought right after they won the 2004 World Series (do not slight me as a bandwagon fan, if you live in NYC you know that they were impossible to find here before then). I think it may be time to buy another one in celebration.
Also, my man Terry Francona? Vindicated. And yes, he is my man. We grew up in the same hometown and I went to school with his nephew.
And just when you think the day can’t get any better? Cute baby pictures! We took Samang on her first carousel ride this weekend at Prospect Park’s Halloween celebration (thus the costume).
If the child had only been looking at the camera, this would have been a Christmas card. 
With Grandmama:
Still teething. Horsies apparently teethe on their hooves.
Tonight I get to be a mime on stage. I’ve never been on stage, with good reason. I cannot tell you how happy I will be when this is over…
TGIF. I mean, REALLY TGIF. October 12, 2007 ~ 10:44 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Academic Office Monkey , comments closedSome days, I wonder where my brain is. This morning, I woke up, watched the Weather Channel, and tried to decide if I was going to ride my bike or walk through the park to work. The Weather Channel said we would have rain until about noon, but sometimes the Weather Channel lies. A look out the window showed the sun starting to break through the clouds, so I decided to chance it.
Now, the merits of walking through the park would have been that I could probably get some excellent shots with the new camera. It’s fall, and the light when I head home is spectacular. I thought “Hmm, I can drop the bike off at the repair shop to get a tune up on the way home, and still have a nice walk through the park.” I packed my camera. I put my helmet and iPod on. I left the house.
Halfway to work I realized I had not packed any work clothes, since I was so freakin’ fixated on the camera. I ride to work in whatever pants I’m going to wear for the day, which is fine, but I always wear a sports bra and a ratty shirt to absorb whatever sweat I build up. Which meant that I would be wearing said sports bra and ratty shirt (today’s was long sleeved, two sizes two big - from my fat days, and advertised my undergrad’s chapter of Amnesty International) at work all day. It may be casual Friday, and I may champion casual apparel at work, but not this casual. Fuck. And it was too late to turn around, or I would be massively late for work. I rode on.
When I got here, I realized that although I had brought something that had to be mailed today, I had forgotten my checkbook (our mailroom will not accept cash, only checks. I have no idea why). Fuckity fuck. It has to go out today, and my post office at home blows, so that’s not an option. I was starting to wonder why I even woke up today.
I went down to our bookstore and bought a t-shirt with the college name on it. It fits, and apparel with the college name on it is okay for casual Friday. I guess because we’re advertising. I came back to my office and asked my supervisor if she had her checkbook with her, so maybe she could write the check and I could pay her back. She didn’t, because NO ONE CARRIES A CHECKBOOK ANYMORE, MAILROOM, but reminded me that there is a post office in walking distance from here. That’s where I’ll be spending my lunch hour.
So the day isn’t a complete wash, but still. It’s a damn good thing it’s Friday - I couldn’t take another workday after this one.
But hey, look, the camera takes pretty pictures, not just pictures of cats being tortured:
Cranky September 26, 2007 ~ 2:16 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, Academic Office Monkey , comments closedMy boss asked me today why I was so grouchy this week. I told her that I was PMS’ing and four days away from my thirtieth birthday, and did she have any other questions? (Also, last week she was the grouchy one, so hello, pot.)
And then I thought about it. If I wasn’t at work? And forced to deal with difficult students and colleagues on days when my hormones are basically on the spin dry setting? I probably wouldn’t have PMS. Interesting.
Ripping off the scab September 11, 2007 ~ 10:21 am
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, In Da Hood , comments closedI reread all of my previous 9/11 blog entries this morning, and through them I realized how much of a journey I’ve taken in these past six years, from completely raw and emotionally bleeding to today, when I’ve shed a few tears, but have been able to deal rather well on the whole. (The fact that it’s raining helps a great deal on the first anniversary to actually fall on a Tuesday. If there was a blue, sunny sky, I might not be dealing so well.)
I wonder how much of it is that I was so, so young when 9/11 happened. That seems odd to say, since I’m not that old now, but 23 seems a lifetime ago to me, probably because of all the growing up the attacks forced me to do. I do see 9/11 as a defining moment in my life, a day when a lot of my innocence was stripped from me as we watched the planes hit, the Towers collapse, and waited to hear from all of my friends, many of whom were around the World Trade Center that day for one reason or another. Six years isn’t that long in the span of a human life, but in the aftermath of a traumatic event, it seems like forever. And at some moments, no time at all.
I’ve gotten used to politicians using my pain and the pain of everyone else who experienced it, lost a loved one, still has nightmares about it, etc. for their gain. I’ve become almost numb to it, because if I think about it too much, I will rip off their fucking heads and shit down their throats. (Yeah, I still have a lot of rage from that day as well.) But I am still not ready to relive it, which is the theme of the day. When I saw that MSNBC was going to be re-broadcasting the Today show from September 11, 2001, I almost threw up. They were billing it as “living history” or some such shit, and all I could think was “It’s not far enough removed to be history yet. It’s still personal.” It’s bad enough to watch video clips of the planes hitting the Towers, but to relive it? No thank you. It’s like taking hold of someone else’s half-healed scab and just yanking it off.
Since TV is obviously not safe to watch today, Julie will go home and spend the evening with a bit of wine, some Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies, and the spinning wheel, and leave my thin scab where it is. I’ll leave off with a video for the song that I will forever associate with the aftermath of September 11, since the classic rock radio station I listen to played it so often. This song has done more to heal me since that day than any other piece of music, and that’s saying something, since I relied heavily on music to get me through everything. John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Thank you, John.
Hmmm. August 14, 2007 ~ 4:16 pm
Posted by Julie in : About a Julz, In Da Hood, Random Insanity , comments closedRick does not like the idea of me having Sting’s face tattooed on my skin (note that Andy and Stewart’s faces don’t seem to bother him). I would scoff at this and go through with it anyway, but since I want to have it tattooed on my back and Rick might occasionally have to look at it while we’re…how to put this…in more than a “casual” embrace, I am taking his opinion into consideration. We will see what my final decision is.
In other news, it was four years ago today that NYC and much of the northeast blew a ginormous fuse and we plunged into two days of darkness, heat, high humidity, and having to eat all the food in the refrigerators before it rotted. I spent the first night at my (then) apartment in Bensonhurst, then biked the whole way to Chelsea the next morning where I was cat-sitting. Chelsea, coincidentally, was one of the last areas to get power back in the city. Rick’s (then) neighborhood, the Upper West Side, had power back after a few hours. Because we all know yuppies can’t cope and they want to keep the gays and cat-sitters down. Wow, that was a good time.
