rich girl

I did not do a good job blogging every day! Good thing it doesn't matter. I am trying this thing where I either a) forgive myself or b) try not to blame myself at all for dumb stuff that no one cares about.

MIXED RESULTS.

ANYWAY. I ended up working a bunch more than I planned because people were sick and I felt guilty (note: I did not make them sick! I just have a generally guilty conscience for no good reason) and I also like my job and money. All of this to say: Holiday season so far is pretty good. I've seen a lot of friends, have hopes to see more and fa la la la la. I have eaten too much junky delicious and just plain junky food.  What I most want to do is sit on this lovely long couch in front of the christmas tree (where I am this very minute, 11:59 12/22) in my pajamas and read books for a week, but seeing people is good too.

Speaking of couches and reading for a week - I had the most lovely patron interaction this last week. A petite and stylish lady of middle years came up to the desk where I was working and heaved a giant bag of books up and started unpacking.  Because we are not supposed to talk specifics about what people are checking out unless they initiate it (patron privacy) I said "it looks like you had some success browsing!" She said (in a delightful french accent) that she had just finished a stressful bout at work and she and her husband were going to a cabin with no tv and no phone where she planned to lie on the couch all week and read novels. "I don't even know if I'll open all of these, let alone read them." I said something about how it was just nice to have the luxury of choice and she said that she loved LOVED the library because it "makes me feel rich" to be able to take out 15 books that she may or may not read and that her husband was doing the same thing for music and she felt very indulged indeed. There's a holiday for you! We wished each other joy of the season and off she went. I'm so lucky that many of my interactions are of a similar nature, if not quite so lined up with my exact personal feelings.

SO, I may or may not post again before Christmas but whether I do or not know I am wishing you well, wherever you are. May you find your equivalent available luxury!

what do you consider fun? fun, natural fun

who needs to think when your feet just go? 

Something tonight made me think of Mariah Carey's Fantasy (below), which of course made me think  of this! Sometimes a person needs a little break from holy nights, angels singing, santa babies, reindeer, silver bells, bing crosby, silent nights, marshmallow worlds, chimneys tonight, angel gabriels, ETC. Tonight is the night I needed that break or the question would truly be whatcha gonna do when you get out of jail for throwing christmas CDs off of the overpass?  (I LOVE THIS SONG.)

It's just a little break, is all.



Here's Mariah on a roller coaster wearing roller blades in the 90s. If we want to make this into a christmas song, just imagine that the roller coaster car flies off and Mariah delivers extended vocal notes to children all around the world. Anyway - I know a lot of people grouse about how this uses the beat from Genius of Love, but as I recall she was always up front about how much she loved the original song. It's not like she was trying to sneak it, she was celebrating it. I don't consider myself a huge Mariah fan by any measure, but this song and (ha ha) her CHRISTMAS SONG are pretty dang great no matter how you slice it.

some Charley Harper birds

Let's have something lovely to look at, shall we? How about a few Charley Harper bird pictures? I agree! He made a lot of bird pictures - this is but a small sampling. 

I love the graphic clarity - shapes are simplified, but you can still absolutely tell what it's supposed to be. (a warbler.) (I mean, you can tell if you know what a warbler looks like. The pictures don't give magical powers of bird identification, although that would be super cool.) 

Elegant Egret. I love the delicacy of the plumes against that stark red-orange. 

Hello, fellows. 

points in a sunday

Point A: sitting with Busby on the long couch reading my book (and if I'm honest, playing candy crush). This is the back side of the afghan I made a couple of years ago.  Cats are in favor of it deployed over pillows for maximum comfort. I would like to deploy it over my cold feet, but he's so cute and …




Point D: after getting together with friends, my sister and I stopped by Crafty Wonderland. It's so much less crowded in the late afternoon! I was able to buzz around the venue and take a look at everything and then one more go around to purchase some Christmas presents. 90 minutes well spent!

Point Now: I'm embarrassingly thrilled with myself because I've managed to start and finish this post before midnight. Now I'm going to write some cards and try to get them in the mail tomorrow.

a little better all the time

hello, friends.  I missed a couple days there, which I hope to make up. I was having some major holiday /social anxiety but now I'm feeling better.

Translation: my work holiday party was tonight and I made it!! I don't know why it cost me so many brain cycles and worry units - it's a big room full of people I really like a lot, so much good food, etc. But anxiety does not respond to rational commands! Once I realized this basic fact of life it was easier for me to accept, which bizarrely made my anxiety recede somewhat. (not entirely, but for the most part.)

In short: it can be rough out there, people. Be as kind to yourself as you are to anyone else.

too late AGAIN

just a picture tonight because 1) I waited too long 2) I'm working on a very special craft project that is all over everywhere and makes typing a challenge.  Maybe tomorrow will be the day I honor all my "tomorrow" promises in this project so far! (what? It could happen…)

by the fire or in the snow

Today I decided it was time to start work on a new Christmas mix, since the last one I made was in 2004 or so. (it was a good one!) First thing I do is head to my iTunes and see what I've got in there. Weirdly, a bunch of things that I thought I had don't show up… Some google later, I figure it out: sometime in the non-christmas past,  I'd deselected some but not all of my Christmas songs so they wouldn't play in the summer or whatever. Since iTunes is now all fancy, there is no way to find and RE-select them without making a smart playlist, blah blah blah. I think I found them all, except I couldn't find 2000 miles by the Pretenders, which I know I have. Why are you holding out on me, computer???

I had to do some ornament wrangling so I listened to my laptop christmas selection (or what I could find of it) to evaluate for the aforementioned mix and discovered - well, not really discovered, more like articulated in my own mind - that I have a definite preference in Christmas music. If you roughly divide it all into snow or fire, cold or warm, etc. I prefer the cold! Which is not something I would have necessarily thought before. Although I guess it's also divided between secular and (what's the word for non-secular? sacred??) - there are some warm secular songs that I really dig, but if it's a carol or mentions baby Jesus at all, I'd rather it be one that sounds like an angel is singing it outside where it is cool and crisp and even. (there are exceptions! this is a working theory.)

Do you like Christmas music? What do you love? What do you hate?

haunted shoe buckle

MWAHHAHAHAHA! The haunted shoe buckles wanted me to type that out for them. I don't really know what their deal is, but they are amply represented on this jewelry christmas tree that a grandmotherly personage  made many years ago. My sister just re-strung the lights and put the panel back into the frame (it was hanging on only by the sticking power of some disreputable looking duct tape) and now the shoe buckles are asserting themselves. Will they make their wishes known as we get closer to christmas? I DON'T KNOW. 

cold weather and chrome gnomes

I missed yesterday! And today, if you count days by time before midnight.

It was really cold - like 17 degrees cold, which is a very low temperature for the region.  I've learned this about myself: I love unusual weather for about 2 days, and then I'm ready for standard Pacific Northwest temperate conditions.

Bring back the rain, is what I'm saying. My skin and hair and brain are all in sad dry weather shape.

In other news of the cold - I skipped book group today! I'm really enjoying this month's selection (My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell), but I wasn't even half way through. Plus with my altered work schedule I didn't really feel like going in on a day off. Sometimes it's no big deal, sometimes I just can't get it together. I really love that group, though. Any Portland people reading - if you're looking for a low-pressure way to see if a book group is for you, check out your local branch library! Every location has at least one Pageturners book group.

and now I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow: recent movies! (that I've watched - not recent releases or anything. Let's not get too nutty.)

the opposite of too darn hot

(another flickr photo from a while ago - this is the fresnel lens inside the lighthouse at Cape Blanco.)

It is cold here! Unseasonably cold. A Dry Cold, which isn't how we roll AT ALL.  It's a nice novelty for a couple of days but I'm ready for it to go back to 40 degrees and raining, which is what feels right to me for winter.

Work stuff, you guys! For 6 weeks I'm working a different schedule and classification. It's a lovely opportunity to make more $$ and I really appreciate that they asked me to do it, but the schedule change is messing with me. Of course this is only the first week, but still. This + holiday stuff + freaky weather and I'm having tiny continual freak outs. Normally I don't think in "if there was one thing I could change about myself" terms, but if I could quit worrying about things that turn out to be no big deal, that would be amazing.

More later. I really will try to have some fun stuff this month, but if I'm going to do this every day some days will be boring!

OH! Cape update: I must just be feeling the cape zeitgeist because after my cape posts I saw two people IN THE LIBRARY with capes on and it was just as wonderful as I'd hoped. Wait! Make that three people because there was a kid with a strategically tied pillowcase that totally counts.

frozen rainbow mystery thing

I took this picture of a found cat poster in 2007! I don't even remember it, but I was looking for a photo to post because (no surprise) I am running behind today. Anyway. It was in my Flickr stats for yesterday which is the only reason I found it. I'm so glad I did because I think she's got a nice rainbow mystery thing going on.

It was at or below freezing all day today. Before I went to work I had to defrost the hummingbird feeders because they were frozen solid and the birds were trying to eat and I felt like a big stupid jerk until I got their food melted and poured some boiling water on the bird bath and all that stuff so all my little feathered dudes can live to guilt me another day.

OTHER NEWS:

• my cousin is visiting 
• this is my first week of my temporary assignment at work and it is weird but good. Just when I have things figured out, something changes but that's fine. 
• Carrie Underwood is a fine singer but not an actor AT ALL. I watched the first bit of the live Sound of Music but switched it over to Scandal before the Nazis arrived in significant numbers. 
• I can't even figure out how they planned that thing. Favorite things with Mother Superior? Lonely Goatherd in a thunderstorm? If you say so, Fake Maria. 
• When it was too strange, I just pretended that they all knew Captain Von Trapp was a vampire, but weren't sure if HE knew. 
• I can't believe they took away Baroness Schraeder's title and made her Frau Schraeder, CEO. 
• SCANDAL!!!!!!! What? WHAT??
• Otis is sitting on the keyboard, so I'm going to stop now. 

idiot blister badge

I walked to work today because it was the first day of my new schedule so walking seemed reasonable and although it's cold the weather is nice and despite the steep hill it's only a mile… I have a huge stupid friction blister on the middle of the ball of my left foot and it HURTS SO MUCH I am basically transferring all my whiny baby feelings left over from yesterday's dentist visit to today's adventure in inadvertent pain.  I'm sure it was a combo of going too fast (I left late because I was defrosting the hummingbird food) and that the stupid socks I was wearing were operating in evil alliance with some blister imp and my boots. I actually think the boots were okay… I won't know for sure until I try it again! (which won't be tomorrow.)

This photo: Strange Bewilderment -  best title for a romance, or BEST TITLE FOR A ROMANCE? This was one of several old school harlequins my sister found somewhere. I haven't read them (yet?), but the covers are AMAZING.

impossible to refuse

I was at the dentist for three long hours today. My jaw still hurts, but it's all in pursuit of maximum mouth health so I can grind rocks with my teeth if I feel like it. (note: I have not checked this dubious eventual goal with my dentist.) Anyway -  the important part here is that when I got home I watched a bunch of INXS videos. I don't know why - it just felt like the right thing to do.  I'm just including a couple here because I have committed to blogging every day for December so I may need some for later!

The thing that struck me the most once I started listening to/watching these videos is why haven't I been listening to this record straight through since 1987?? (ha ha! I typed 1897 - that would be something…) They're a great band that I sort of forgot about, somehow. (HOW?) (I even saw them in concert (!) in the early 90s with Material Issue opening.)

What I notice watching New Sensation: A suit is clearly not Michael Hutchence's native attire (he looks like he'd be most at home in leather pants and unbuttoned shirts), yet here he is in one. Why? Are they pretending that he's a lawyer by day and a rock star by night? "Your Honor, dream baby dream of all that's come and going," gavel, gavel, case dismissed, etc. His strange suit doesn't matter because he's got so much raw charisma it powers all the stray light effects in this video.





Okay, I was close - leather jacket and NO shirt. ha ha hahaha! And a white rat, for some reason. He was some kind of charisma wizard - when he's on the screen he draws focus from all the other dudes. (sorry, other dudes! I did manage to notice that one of the band members has a truly impressive mullet and some of them (one of them? all of them?) dress like roller derby referees, but that's about it.)

While perusing youtube I found the Beck Record Club version of Kick, but I'm going to save it until I've listened to the real deal 200000 times. (or however many times! I'll know when I get there.)

thinking too much

OVERTHINKER
UNDERDOER

I am in a weird place creatively.  I gave myself a little vacation from expectation while I adjusted to regular employment (more on that later), but it is TIME, which is part of why I'm trying this little month long experiment even though December is a dumb month for such things. I'm so out of practice it isn't even funny.

But now it is bedtime for me! Since I now have a regular job with benefits including insurance, I'm going to the DENTIST in the early AM tomorrow! This is actually my second appointment - I had my cleaning, checkup, etc. already and things don't look to bad, all things considered.  (But not so great I don't have to go back.)

photo above was taken on my phone during one of my Cleaning with the Beatles sessions. I set my iPod on the ALL BEATLES, BEATLES ONLY, KEEP OUT YOU OTHER BANDS setting and set my timer for an hour and cleaned like… I dunno. Like Eleanor Rigby, if she was a binge cleaner I guess.  Anyway! I put my iPod down for a minute and a CD from the library (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts!) jumped on top of it and I saw some tiny Revolver-Beatles and Revolver Beatle side-eye framed so nicely that I took a picture.

new month, end of the year

Hello December!

I had this nutty idea that I would post every day in December, although now that I find myself right up against the almost midnight of it I wonder if that's wise. (Have I learned nothing??? Don't answer.)

Briefly, because there's only 8 more minutes and I don't want to backdate - December features:

Christmas

beginning of 6 week assignment at work (that starts this week - I'll be … well, there's no time to explain right now, but I will explain in the future! It's not a new job, just a temporary thing.)

Visitors: all lovely people I love, but you know how it is (or maybe you don't! don't worry, you will READ ALL ABOUT IT, maybe.)

Reading: forever!

Movies: forever!

Photos: if I get myself together.

In the meantime, Caro Emerald! She seems so fab and glamorous.