the rootbound yinzer

Two weeks! Two weeks! (ish.)

2009-11-30T15:47:26Z

Holy crap, people.

I'm looking at my to-do list, which has one big project and a heap of busy work, and THEN IT ENDS. I can't wrap my head around it.

I think what I'm gonna have to do is hibernate for the whole first week, during which I have a semi-vacation - only one day of work. I will use that time to rest, to think, and to plan. Because I am completely serious; I have no idea what comes next. It's kind of exciting!

construction zone ahead

2009-11-09T16:38:39Z

The LJ has been back-burnered until I graduate, but I've been making big plans for my upcoming free time. Yes indeed.

Check this space again in late December.

a few links

2009-08-31T13:53:42Z

a venn diagram of mythical creatures
a new blog in my feed - people of walmart
another new blog I haven't checked out yet - lovely listing
kids in the hall - mr. stevenson
a sign of the coming apocalypse? winkers
what the apocalypse may look like - an old "astronomy of the day" picture of the sun
mario is a menace - videogames DO cause violence!
this person says a lot of true and funny things, but sounds a little bitter - stuff pittsburghers like

Behold, the power of fortune cookie

2009-08-31T13:43:32Z

missing a critical detail

2009-08-29T02:49:34Z

But who will continue my dream of getting the world record for "largest collection of hemp macrame owls" once I'm gone?

um... yeah, don't call me.

2009-08-27T00:17:30Z

Either this is a metaphor, or I must have gotten somebody else's

2009-08-26T03:33:22Z

short stories

2009-08-24T15:32:04Z

Further proof that our kitten is dumb - Max caught on real quick that the toilet is not a place anyone wants to be. Maya, on the other hand, is fascinated by water, and she thinks it's a fun time to put her front feet down in the bowl and STARE at it. She's going to fall in one day, and you know what? That's not even going to phase her. She'll forget and be right back at it in two minutes. She also repeatedly walks into the shower while it's on, along the back ledge of the tub. Unless she gets a full-on splash, she'll just stand there, STARING and twitching her fur from the mist.

I realized today that I have been laying around with the cats for over a week. Yesterday I was so tired I decided to read in bed. I woke up four hours later, with a cat under each hand. We did approximately two other things all day - the unavoidable cat maintenance chores, and making dinner. But that was the sum and total of our productivity. While I strongly encourage everyone to have a non-day every once in a while, as it is good for the soul, this current sloth-fest cannot go on much longer. We have company coming in a week and a half, and while we don't need it to be spotless exactly, it would be nice to exorcise the filth-demons lingering in all the corners. If the Goodwill piles don't make it out the door in time... well, at least they're not growing anything.

A few months ago, my glasses were so floppy-ass they kept falling off my head any time I leaned over. You'd think I'd get sick of fishing them out of the trash, but no. I wore them until they fell on the floor in a dark room, and I stepped on them trying to find the light switch. Fortunately, I'd gotten one of those "two pairs for $70" deals, so I had backup. Those were so tight they clung to my skull like some kind of an alien creature trying to suck out my brain. So I dug out the backup backup glasses, which I wore in college until the protective coating got leprosy. I discovered it really wasn't too hard to flake that crap off, and now I'm digging the compliments on my "90s glasses."

ten years gone - a dontfeedthetiki eyewear retrospective

But even so, we have insurance, and I may as well get a new non-leprous pair. Therefore, today's itinerary includes a trip to the eye doctor. My hope is that he has something throwback like this, since I think the current style of tiny lenses screws with my peripheral vision anyway.

Speaking of being trapped in the 90s, can I tell you how excited I am for fall? I understand you summer-junkies might not like it, but it's my favorite season. Baking again is nice, and Halloween is awesome, but I think the best part is the return of sleeve-weather. I own hardly any summer clothes, but I have sacks full of hoodies and sweater things, and scruffy jeans and cargo pants, and long sleeved shirts that go under t-shirts. I even bought myself a very cool flannel on the last Goodwill run, since none of my originals really fit me anymore. I also have my eye out for some replacement shoes. I have owned a pair like this for at least 15 years now, and my current ones are gross and decrepit. They're not going to last another wet season, anyway.

You know, at this rate, I think I'm becoming a one-person movement dedicated to bringing back grunge. And I'm OK with that.

I'm not gonna do what everyone thinks I'm gonna do and... FLIP OUT, man... all I wanna know is one thing... who's coming with me?

fortune twofer - i got a repeat

2009-08-24T03:15:10Z

I promise, I didn't just scan the same one twice!

This must be REALLY IMPORTANT for me to know.

today's fortune

2009-08-22T12:20:00Z

Links!

2009-08-21T20:22:36Z

Table of Condiments
Life Explained - The difference between men and women
Microsculptures
TUL handwriting analyzer - the analysis video at the end is a bit long, but funny!
Thing in a Jar - I want to make one!
Why does hydrogen peroxide foam in a cut?
Singing horses! Click on them!!!
an amazing forest fire photo
awesome photos of tokyo
the squirrelizer - add a squirrel to any photo!

new fortunes!

2009-08-21T18:56:15Z

As I was cleaning, I would run across a fortune here and a fortune there. I've been throwing them all in a jar on my desk, and man, did they add up quickly.

So without further delay, I give you --

If you wish good advice, consult your mother.

There is nothing better than a gray rainy afternoon off

2009-08-19T22:27:50Z

Today I managed to strike exactly the right balance between laziness and house maintenance. I don't feel particularly overworked, but I've washed four loads of laundry, re-organized the living room TV area, and made a fruit salad.

Oh! I also summoned my inner 80s child and repaired our rabbit ears! (Antenna-rigging is like a lost art, man. I love it.) The cats snapped one completely off, and it's been messing with our reception. So I slipped a slightly bent paperclip inside, in the hollow part, then slid the broken end onto the paperclip. I did this for stability. Then I wrapped the new joint in tinfoil, because... well, because that's just what you use on a bad antenna. Then I gave the whole patched area a solid layer of duct tape.

And it works, reception is MUCH better! Yeah, I know rabbit ears aren't expensive, but I figure they're also not worth the trip to K-Mart. And I'm so proud of my handiwork! Let's see how long this lasts.

Another part of that TV-area clean that I feel good about is weeding our old VHS collection. I got rid of a lot, but far from all of them. I kept the best films, although we should probably just get the DVDs. I kept anything I made or appeared in, although I may have already lost the race against time in terms of digitizing some of those. I kept a lot of taped TV, because I think it's a howl to pop one in and get a blast from the past. And I kept a good few of the unlabeled "mystery tapes" just for kicks. I'm tempted to drag the VCR out right now!

So at this point, the DVDs and VHS are all neatly contained in a filing cabinet, and the bookshelf has been re-dedicated solely to "bar" purposes. The drawers in the TV stand hold our obsolete video game console collection. And the video games themselves are stacked around and under the TV stand, for cat-proofing purposes. It's so strange and organized!

It seems like I don't have much left to do before Bryce comes to visit. The place LOOKS a lot grungier than it actually IS, I think. The pile for Goodwill is enormous, and once that's gone, I'll be able to play Furniture Tetris with ease. And then I'll be a quick scrub-and-vacuum away from the place being habitable again. YAY.

.

lately

2009-08-19T16:25:02Z

Simon and I have been watching Flight of the Conchords. At first I was like , then I lol'd.

Since summer vacation started, I have read 14 books. When I was Five I Killed Myself, Ramona the Pest, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Mrs. Fish, Ape, and Me, the Dump Queen, Blubber, the Bunnicula series 1-4 (although I hear there are more now), Walking Dead 8 and 9, Tuck Everlasting, Matilda, and The Witches. Next on my list is probably going to be Nancy Drew 1, for no particular reason. (I certainly could have read more in this time, but I'm being lazy. I'm entitled.)

Some links I've come across...

how to tie your shoelaces, advanced class
anyone feel like chicken tonight?
Wild Man, Wild Food - about foraging, by an expert forager
Angel Food Ministries - kind of like a CSA where you get a box every month

And some things I've started subscribing to in my feed reader -

really enjoying The Go! Team

2009-08-17T21:08:43Z

check them out!

an actual post!

2009-08-17T05:40:44Z

In the last two days, I have pretty much cleaned up this LiveJournal. I can't tell you how many posts I made that basically said, "I am tired. That is all." I deleted them all. I wrote a staggering number of chore-lists, which have been pared down to a marginally-interesting few. And my goodness, can I complain about the same things over and over again! And anything remotely entertaining was friends-locked, which ain't doin no good to nobody.

I am so sorry, guys, I appear to be a colossally boring poster. But I want to change! I swear, I can change!

First order of business - I retroactively posted a couple of things. I had gotten as far as uploading the pictures to flickr and maybe linking them on facebook, but I'd never permanently logged them here. UNTIL TODAY! You will now see some curious rum, some happy plants, my old high school assignment book, the results of a quiz from my bank, and some stuff about my cats. I am still out of scanned fortunes and religious tracts, although I have plenty of fodder, so I might get to that before the end of the month. It is also two weeks until Bryce's next visit, so I'm sure there will be pictures from that.

Okay, I really have to stop staying up until 2. The cats don't let me sleep in long enough to make it feasible. I'll be back when I have something interesting to report...

...or the next time this happens. Whichever comes first.

random bullets

2009-07-13T17:49:53Z

The kitten is turning into an adoring, adorable snuggle-whore. That one's definitely gonna have to get by on her looks and charm. Also, not food motivated at all, the complete opposite of Max.
The neck is getting better, but I'm not sure EXTREME YOGA!!! is the best thing for it today. So we shall put it off till later in the week.
Proving I have not learned any lesson whatsoever, I've started a new hobby - transcribing the lyrics of songs Simon can play into a notebook. By hand. For hours. Lucky me, I must have done enough hand-writing in my amish youth that I have some serious muscle memory, because it did me no real harm.
I swear, I just got a can of Dr. Pepper out of the fridge, but I lost it.

recharge weekend

2009-07-05T01:32:06Z

I took some advil and spent most of the day napping on the couch, while a BBQ University marathon was running on Create. In fact, I dozed off to brisket and woke up to grilled peaches, and figured they were the dessert at the end of that same episode. Nope, it was THREE HOURS LATER.

Got up, played some video games, ate some pretzels and trail mix, and a salad. Drank two glasses of water.

Now I am scarfing chocolate and drinking iced coffee while the neighbors put on their very own amateur fireworks display.

I plan to screw around and do a whole lot of nothing till I get sleepy, then collect me some cats and go back to napping on the couch.

Tomorrow, though, I'm going to accomplish something. It will feel good to cross a thing or two off my list.

war on stuff log: day 2

2009-06-03T23:16:48Z

I can't seem to stop cleaning, re-arranging, and redecorating. Maybe I'm being a little bit manic, but I'm going to ride this wave until I crash. Because when I sleep for a week, I'm going to be sleeping in a maaaahhvelous apartment.

Today I -

put together the second Ikea bookshelf
cleared off the wheely cart that used to have my answering machine on it, and turned it into a laptop station
moved the lamp table over to be the answering machine table
moved all the books from my white bookshelf to the new bookshelf
dragged the white bookshelf out to be the new lamp table
put away all the other loose books, scrapbooks, photo albums, and board games
hung a painting in my bedroom
switched the places of Simon's piano and Simon's bookshelf
collected two loads of trash and took them to the dumpster
collected a bunch of goodwill
did two loads of laundry, including backpacks
put away or threw out all the camping equipment, shoes, folding chairs, and miscellaneous crap in the living room
read 20 pages of my book for class
played quite a bit on the internet
ate like a fiend

I took pictures of a few things, halfway through the day.

the war on stuff

2009-06-01T22:05:54Z

Simon bought a couple of cheap IKEA bookshelves that I absolutely love, and they've set off a chain reaction that can only end in madness.

We've had to put the House Fantasy off another year, so I've decided to get serious about this place in the meantime. I am done saying "this would be awesome if we had a porch, or a spare bedroom, or a basement." Anything truly worth keeping is gonna go to my parents' for storage, and the rest is off to Goodwill. And not to mention, do we really need 40183 cardboard boxes, a pile of clothes that don't fit, and a closet full of computer parts from 1999?

And that's just the things themselves. I also have to figure out how I want to organize them. Here is where the "let's get serious" part really kicks in. I'm going to drill holes in the wall if I want to, and learn how to patch the ones I don't need anymore. I want to do something about the hideous window situation. I'm going to re-finish or swap out a few more pieces of furniture. We might even paint the bedroom, because I'm sick of the empty white box that it is. I'm done living like a permanent guest in a crappy motel, and it'll be worth the effort of putting it all back when we move out.

Okay, I currently have two rooms in a state of chaos and I still need to make a big pot of some kind of dinner for freezing. I just wanted to check in while I took a break, to exercise my posting muscles. If I ever get anything finished, I'll probably take pictures.

this n'at

2009-05-31T17:06:19Z

Vacation was good, but too short. The week since has been crazy.

I've been doing a whole lot of innernets lately, just not here. Geocities announced they're closing this year, so I've been frantically moving the Tasty Paycheck to tastypaycheck.com. I got maybe 2/3 of the way done with that when Simon talked me into putting the Tasty on facebook, and then I stopped to collect all of the material facebook generated and turn it into a new issue. I still have at least four people I want to write thoughtful replies to, I just never seem to get the time. As if all this weren't more than enough to keep me busy, I've been suckered into using my own facebook account. (Most of you have undoubtedly noticed this already.) It's awesome to be in touch with everyone again, though.

Oh yeah and I'm in class again. And yes, I've managed to get behind already. I hope to remedy that right after this post.

Today I also intended to deal with the disorganized mass of groceries in the fridge - i.e. break down and freeze the big pile of meat, bag up sets of yogurt-applesauce-stringcheese-etc for lunch, cook and freeze spaghetti and/or chili. Yeah, we'll see how far I get with that.

And Simon bought these bookshelves that we have to put together. Wait, let me rephrase that. We have to clear a large wall of existing bookshelves temporarily, assemble and arrange the new bookshelves, put most of the crap back on both sets of shelves, and figure out to do with the discards. We'll probably take our 30gal fish tank and stand back to my parents' house, since it's had to sit empty since we got it. (Stupid lease change at renewal time, but honestly we don't have the room for all this crap anyway.)

Speaking of my parents' we were going to watch the game over there tonight. I'd hoped to go sooner than 8, but it's not looking good.

And speaking of lease renewal, we got our two-month warning the other day. We are trying to formulate a diplomatic reply along the lines of, "Yes, we would love to keep living here, but could you honestly just fix X, Y, and Z already? Ps - we want a second cat." Of course, we don't seriously intend to move out if they say no, but we don't want them to realize that. (We could and probably should take them to a magistrate and pay rent to an escrow account if they drag their feet on X, Y, and Z any longer. But moving out is beyond my energy level right now.)

Man, if it hadn't been for that vacation... Okay, I love that I have this crazy ritual calendar, where at least four times a year we declare a multi-day festival and fall off the face of the earth. It always seems to be well-timed to prevent imminent burnout, and gives us something not-too-distant to look forward to. And I think these self-established traditions can be much more satisfying in some ways than pre-packaged holidays. I highly recommend everyone found themselves a personal holiday or two.

last possible minute before vacation

2009-05-21T04:49:39Z

I am staying up late and cleaning a few last messes before company arrives. I already tackled the important things - I washed the spare bedding, cleaned up the bathroom, contained the laundry explosion, and vacuumed most of the house. Tonight before bed I want to tame the overflowing "important papers" pile, and go through the fridge.

Tomorrow morning I want to do the last little bit of straightening up and vacuuming, and take the trash out as I leave. I have to catch an early bus into town. Bryce gets to the Greyhound station around lunchtime. We will then get something to eat and take a bus home. At which point the making of plans is forbidden, and the weekend will be allowed to unfold spontaneously.

Well, I guess I have to get to bed pretty soon, so I better get back to the bill shredding. Further updates will be provided as they develop...

edit - it is currently 217 AM. (I am practicing staying up late for when the weekend's festivities begin.) I am proud to announce that the heap of paperwork is no more. We were in a bad habit of throwing the mail at the end table, until practically the whole wall was taken up by garbage. It took a few hours, but I got rid of a full trash-bag of unnecessary archival stuff, envelopes, coupons and mailers, et cetera. The remainder neatly fits in the hanging-file crate. Now if we can only keep up with it...

fortunes - twofer

2009-05-20T19:37:07Z

These are the last two fortunes out of my stash. I have another healthy handful to scan, but I have to re-install my printer before that can happen. I'll get around to it eventually.

Since my last day off...

2009-05-17T16:16:03Z

Last Thursday the cat woke us up at 5 AM. I worked night shift, then watched Sopranos until 2AM.

Friday the cat again woke us up at 5 AM. After I finally got up, I took a hike, came home, watched a class video, did homework, made soup and cookies, and went to a party.

Yesterday the cat woke us up at 5 AM. I sobbed for a bit, worked a full day, then went to a party. We came home around 1130 and passed the hell out.

Today we kicked the cat out of the bedroom at 5 AM, and I slept 10 hours. I have a few hours to clean the apartment, interspersed with running errands. Then we're going out again.

Tomorrow I work, and after that I'm going to my parents' to watch the game and do laundry.

Tuesday I work, and then we're going to a friend's house.

Wednesday I'm off, by which I mean I am on a whirlwind cleaning spree.

Thursday I have to be at the greyhound station to meet our out-of-town visitor. Then five days of awesome!

update from the field...

2009-05-13T20:47:31Z

17:17 that horrid firey thing is in the sky again. my eyes hurt.

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