Fiber geekery September 28, 2007 ~ 11:53 am
Posted by Julie in : Craftiness Is Next To Godliness , comments closedTomorrow, as part of my birthday festivities, I’m going to the Spin-Out in Central Park. It’s looking like this event is going to be HUGE, if my spinning Meet-Up group is any indication: there are 18 of us going. Now multiply that by people who aren’t in my Meet-Up group. I’m thinking over 100 spinners all enjoying the sun, spinning, and enjoying each others’ company. I’m madly excited about this, since among other things I’ll be seeing Jenny for the first time in over a year (the last time she saw me I was just starting to get interested in spinning, she nudged me over to the dark side) and I will be meeting my twin Necia (we have the same birthday, both of us turning 30 on Sunday) for the first time in real life - we’ve only talked on Ravelry prior to this.
I’m having a bitch of a time with the superfine merino top I wanted to bring with me for tomorrow - slippery stuff after the corriedale or whatever the hell I was “practice” spinning with. So tonight, I’ll need to find some other fiber to bring for when I get too frustrated with the merino. I also need to pimp out my spinning wheel’s bag.
The problem is this: I got my bag from the Woolery. So have many, many other Lendrum owners, and it’s a fairly generic looking bag (look under “Lendrum Accessories” about halfway down the page). I’m worried that tomorrow, in a large group of spinners with a fair amount of Lendrums (it’s an awesome wheel) that my bag might blend in with the others, and what if I pick up someone else’s bag by mistake? That would be bad. So, I’m going to take my old Def Leppard and Queen patches like we used to wear on our jeans jackets back in the 80s and sew them on. And the last time I was at mom’s? I also picked up a bunch of buttons that I used to wear on my jacket. You guessed it, they’re going on the bag, too. I am going to have the most 80s hair band bag in the entire Spin Out. And no one will mistake my bag for theirs, nor will I mistake their bag for mine.
Operation Pimp My Woolery Bag is ON.
Really? September 27, 2007 ~ 3:39 pm
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity, Reviews , comments closedI just heard a promo for ER on the radio.
1.) ER is still on?
2.) How is that even possible?
3.) Didn’t everyone stop watching when George Clooney left, like I did?
4.) What the fuck season are they on? 80?
5.) Okay, who the hell let John Stamos be on this show? (Yeah, look at the very last entry under “Current” in the Main Cast section.)
Perhaps someone needs to play the role of Dr. Kevorkian and put this show out of its misery.
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.
Diversionary tactic. September 25, 2007 ~ 2:03 pm
Posted by Julie in : Da Cats , comments closedI am grumpy and grouchy and don’t have anything to say, so I will distract you with a picture of my cat watching lions on TV. He also enjoys shows about fish; he watched about five minutes of Blue Planet the other night.
“Teenagers scare the living shit out of me!” September 24, 2007 ~ 9:58 am
Posted by Julie in : Coupledom, Reviews, Rick , comments closedRick and I spent an unholy amount of time this weekend flipping back and forth between VH1 Classic and Fuse. On VH1, we found Metal Mania, where I could relive my misspent youth. (I know he was awed that I still remember all the words to “I Remember You,” and I’m pretty sure he was impressed that I still have Warrant’s Cherry Pie on cassette. Try as I might, I could not lay hands on Poison’s Flesh and Blood. It has to be around somewhere, I would not have thrown that gem out.) On Fuse, we found a treasure trove of catchy songs and Rick learned about emo (he saw his first My Chemical Romance video). I have been alternating between singing MCR’s “Teenagers” and Killswitch Engage’s cover of “Holy Diver” all morning.
What did we learn? That music videos are still completely overblown. But now they can do the overblowing with computers and it doesn’t look like the video cost $5 to make. Ah, technology.
Season Pass, my ass. September 21, 2007 ~ 11:45 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews, Technobabble , comments closedIs it wrong that I got excited when I was watching TiVo’d episodes of Rescue Me last night and saw a local take-out menu on Tommy’s fridge door? That place is ten blocks from me and is a total hole in the wall - how’s that for authenticity?
Also, I am pissed because the TiVo spazzed and did not actually record a full “Season Pass” and now I don’t know how the season ended.
No, I didn’t do the laundry. Why do you ask?
September 20, 2007 ~ 2:09 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedOur work servers hated me this morning. Weren’t letting emails from Aimee, ESC, and Sloth through (and I need those emails people. I need them to stay sane.), weren’t letting me access Gmail, weren’t letting me find out what song just played on the radio. I know other people were suffering as well, but really it was all about me. Everything is about me, because we are ten days from my thirtieth birthday. And just in time for that event, I’ve caught a hellacious case of apathy and ennui.
For starters, I can’t figure out what the hell I want to do for my birthday. At first, I was full of plans. I was going to go to New Orleans! I was going to go with Jordana and Lori! Then a bunch of things happened (including Lori being in a show in West Virginia for all of September and October, and MISSY, YOU ARE SO OUT OF MY WILL FOR MISSING MY BIRTHDAY. ) and suddenly we pushed off New Orleans till March. Which is cool, that means I have more time to scrape money together.
Then, we were like “Wait, didn’t we talk about going to a casino for your thirtieth? Didn’t we think of that last year? Let’s go to a casino! Let’s gamble!” Except Atlantic City is just sad and Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun (the casinos in Connecticut) just weren’t doing it for me. Plus, a casino birthday is not so baby-friendly, and I would like my monkey - I mean, goddaughter - to be a part of the festivities.
Then, we were going to go to the Spiegeltent and catch Absinthe, Absinthe of the magical snatches. But we looked yesterday and dude, that’s $69. $69 times four for me, Rick, J, and Thabs. That’s a lot. Also, while browsing the Spiegeltent website, I realized that I had missed Lady Sovereign, and that pissed me off. I like Sov, and I’m thinking she would have kicked ass live. *sigh*
The apathy and ennui settled in around my shoulders. Maybe I would just go to the Bronx Zoo for my birthday. I like the zoo. But Jordana, sensing how close I was to just staying in my house all day like a recluse, said that we would have a party, and drinks, and who knows what else, but goddammit, we are celebrating my birthday! So we’re working on…um, I think it’s Plan D.
And I will spend the evening doing laundry with my friends ennui and apathy. Because there’s nothing like laundry when you’re just feeling pleh about life. Also, there’s nothing like clean underwear, something which I am lacking as of tomorrow. Caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place, I am.
Here, here’s a baby to distract us all:
It’s blurry, but I love that smile.
Finished Dainty Bess stole September 19, 2007 ~ 11:21 am
Posted by Julie in : Craftiness Is Next To Godliness , comments closedJust when you think we don’t do any crafting around here anymore? Ha! I finish a knitting project. And not only a knitting project, but my first Christmas present of the season! Only 9 more to go! Details behind the cut. (more…)
Rewriting my childhood September 18, 2007 ~ 10:01 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedMy friend Kim sent a bunch of books up for the Youngest last Christmas. Some of them went to her grandma’s house this summer to read while she was at circus camp, some stayed at my house to read when she’s here. And some of them, I have to admit, stayed at my house because I loved them when I was a kid and wanted to re-read them.
Friday night, I finally had some time to devote to them. I whipped through Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and moved onto Superfudge. Now, partway through Superfudge, I thought I saw something a little off. Fudge tells everyone that he likes watching Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. I flipped to the front pages. Copyright 1980. I have a vague memory of Nickelodeon when I was small, but Cartoon Network was that old, too? I had no idea! Huh. Learn something new every day.
I read further, and when I read the part about Fudge forcing the entire family to write letters to Santa, I knew the gig was up. Peter asks for CDs, a laptop, and an MP3 player in his letter. Back the truck up, I’m stupid, but I’m not an idiot. I also clearly remember Peter asking for albums and a Walkman. Suddenly, I felt like a part of my childhood had been rewritten. Hey, if kids could figure out what the hell saddle shoes were (which they had to in Tales, because that part wasn’t updated)? They can bloody well ask mom and dad what a Walkman was. I am not down with my childhood being revised. What’s next, the poster of Richard Gere that hangs over Steph’s bed in Just as Long as We’re Together replaced with one of Orlando Bloom? Take it back, Judy Blume! Take it back! You wrote something that is now a documentation of history. Leave it that way!
It’s not on the wrapper, but still… September 14, 2007 ~ 9:46 am
Posted by Julie in : Random Insanity , comments closedFun-sized candies are the DEVIL, people. I caved yesterday when I was in Rite-Aid and bought some, ostensibly for my office. (Well, the huge bag of fun-sized Swedish Fish and Sour Patch Kids were for them. The smaller bags of fun-sized Skittles and Twix are residing in my desk, because we all know my workmates are scavengers and would eat them in five seconds flat and then I would have no Skittles or Twix for me, and heads would roll.)
Fun-sized candies seem like a good idea when you pick them up. “Ooh, they’re small, I can have just a taste of the candy that I like and not totally blow my diet.” (We’re Americans. We’re all watching our weight, even if we say we’re not. Except for the people who don’t care and have gone over to the dark side with Ronald McDonald.) And then you have your taste of the candy you haven’t allowed yourself in a really long time, and all hell breaks loose. You might as well just tie the whole bag of fun-sized candies to your gaping maw, feedbag-style, because you can’t stop. Or maybe it’s just me. I mean, why else would I have eaten a bag of Skittles, one of Swedish Fish, one of Sour Patch Kids, and a Twix yesterday on top of the nuggets I had from Wendy’s for lunch, felt like utter crap last night because of it, and still be eating a fun-sized bag of Skittles as I type this. At 10:42 AM?
I think a key ingredient in fun-sized candies might be crack. Or at the very least? Weed.
