by governmental decree

By decree of the Jennifer Government (by which I mean ME and nothing to do with the book of the same name which I have never read -- I just like the idea of having authority to make decrees), this is going to be an Old Business Weekend at Chez Jen. I am going to finish some of this stuff that has been hanging around tormenting me with its undoneness -- flopping out of drawers, falling out of bookshelves, tripping me, burying me, generally taunting me and guilting me in that special way that unfinished projects have. I've got a good jump on it already -- I finished the top to a quilt I've been working on (VERY sporadically) since last February. Now to put the back and binding on! (I kind of hope it keeps raining like it is right now, because that will make it easier...) Stuff to goodwill + stuff put away + projects finished = FANTASTIC. I expect it will be hideous at times (which is why it's still not done) but it will be so great to have some things finished. I have a stack of movies from the library for the sewing stuff, and I have liters and liters of diet coke for the other.

I also have a stack of books sitting right here by my computer that I am going to write tiny short reviews for (or else!) -- if I wait until I'm ready to do full-length ones, I will NEVER do them, and it's already been months and months on some of these. Here's to clearing out the old to move on with the new!

Anyway.

Updates to this post as I proceed.

update #1: 7 AM Saturday: You may thank David Bowie and the swimming, biting babies for the early hour of this update.
Project news: the quilt top is completely done and pressed (and 82" square, which was really weird because I did it mostly by eyeball rather than measuring), I have figured out how I'm piecing the back (I'm making this from stuff I already have, so there is a lot of piecing that I might not normally do), and have started making those backing pieces. Photo of the front in the next update! I have one mini-review 3/4 written, and of course it's not as mini as it should be.

bonus! (hilarious! on what planet is someone telling you their weird dream a bonus? but I'm telling you anyway...) So, it is my recommendation that if you run into Dream David Bowie DO NOT ask him if he's afraid of being typecast by playing Tesla again. It makes him crabby and he will use way too much packing tape on the chair he's making out of couch cushions and packing tape. I experienced this crabbiness first hand as we stood in a dry field by a busy freeway. He was wearing a suit and a top hat while he taped away and we discussed some trouble he'd been having with his email. (I think I was some sort of assistant, Ugly Betty style. Way to dream big, subconscious!) Crabby Dream Bowie and I made it across the freeway to a Kwikie Mart type place (he wanted a blue drink, and yes, I had to carry his stupid cushion and tape chair) and then we were in some huge area that I assumed they were using for his movie. I noticed a Tesla movie poster that had lots of very cool old-school movie typography on a table, which meant extra flourish to the words Featuring Katharine Al(something) and her Aqualatti. Synchronized Swimmers! I woke up suddenly when I saw for myself that the Aqualatti were a team of synchronized swimming babies with really sharp teeth and creepy synchronized cliche devil-baby voices. Once I heard them ask in unison "will there be blood?" I exited dream world tout suite. Who needs that kind of stress? Dream Bowie will have to deal with his own tape chair, email, and the swimming biting babies, because I'm not going back there if I can help it.

update #2, 4ish Saturday: Here's the promised picture of the front... this project was a sort of remix of an old quilt that I had started in a moment of insanity and abandoned once my retinas recovered. I like it so much better this way. The back is all cut out and almost put together. After that, comes layering the back, the batting and the top, then tying it. Actual quilting is not my thing, so I'll tie it with white pearl cotton and if I'm ever going to quilt it, it will happen MUCH LATER and probably be done by a trained professional. Next exciting adventure: will I have enough of the fabric I like for the binding?? Never a dull moment, I tell you...

update #3, 6ish Saturday: all right, I haven't done any more work on projects, but I think the sunset I'm looking at out my window is worthy of note, as was the walk from which I just returned. I thought the crocus were blooming in the park before, but they were not! They were blooming today. The sun was out casting shadows and making everything look better than it probably should. I'm talking the full golden light on almost blooming trees while Here Comes the Sun plays on the ipod deal -- it was an almost religious experience, I'm telling you! (this is the secret of life in the pnw: the winter weather is so miserable so often that when it's even a little bit nice, everything seems wonderful, or at least significantly less miserable than before.) PLUS, there was a St. Bernard puppy which was so cute I almost had to leave the park or risk making an absolute fool of myself. (I managed to avoid complete disgrace.. but OMG, SO CUTE!) I am a little bummed that the lunar eclipse is not visible west of the rockies, but... this sunset is pretty nice, and it's still light after 6pm, AND the neon that I can see from my window just came on and it looks very lovely against the streaky blue/orange of the sky. Now back to work.

update #4 2pm Sunday: back from library. Must eat, and then I will get that quilt tied! I gave up last night because it's big and there was no easy way to get it spread out without moving a lot of furniture. I got it pinned, but there were PROBLEMS. So I'm going on the theory that this kind of work is better tackled when there is ample light and the clock's not inching to midnight.

call the dream police: jagger cheats on crosswords

Last night the almost-full waxing moon was aggressive, like god was conducting a bed-check or looking for fugitives. It was casting shadows! I could have READ BY IT. This disturbed my slumber and launched me into the land of bizarre dreams. (perhaps I should mention that I'm currently feuding with the full moon -- its very presence aggrieves me. The crescent moon and I were just gossiping a couple of weeks ago about what a goddamn showboat the full moon has become. Every month since our feud began I hope for some cloud cover -- not unreasonable for winter in pdx -- and what do I get? A moon so bright I could perform surgery, or at least shadow puppet surgery. ) You can't always get what you want.

Which brings me to my dream, the summary of which is as follows: Mick Jagger and I were engaged in an epic Dressing For Dinner battle that involved geisha costumes, cheating on crosswords, and a profound wardrobe malfunction. He was remarkably nonplussed by it all. I'm sure it happens to dream Mick Jagger a lot.

Here's how it started: in dream-land my aunt and uncle who live in Florida were throwing some kind of big mexican-themed party and I wanted to wear something nice. No, that's not right. I wanted to wear something fantastic. So, as is the way of things in dreams, I was trying on stuff that should have been great, but was wrong, wrong, wrong. It would be the perfect shape, except when I looked in the mirror it was completely transparent, or it wouldn't wrap around, etc. etc. (I was having boob exposure issues, essentially.) Then somehow, Mick Jagger was there. At first he was just cracking wise about my wardrobe dilemma (strangely, I was not embarrassed by this) and playing with a rubik's cube thing that was all white with black letters -- it looked like a crossword. (He would CHEAT by spelling words one letter off and telling me it was the british spelling. Dream me would have none of it. "Cobler" my ass.) Anyway, I'd leave crossword-cheat dream Mick Jagger to his own devices and go out in search of something appropriate to wear.

At one point I ended up in a room full of cast-iron bathtubs (they were green and had some fancy design pressed into them -- everything was white or green and had that kind of weird neon glowing quality) and met up with a woman I used to work with a long time ago (Martha T.). There were sheets draped over everything and she was mopping the floor. There was a mattress over one of the tubs so I sat on it while I asked her what I should do. She was very practical, but not particularly sympathetic to my Mick Jagger OR wardrobe problem. I remember making a stupid waterbed joke and being embarrassed since even dream me knew she had to have heard that a million times. Anyway, I talked to Martha for a bit and then went back to my room where Mick Jagger had acquired some crazy outfit, which sent me out looking for something better, and so on.

As I was wandering the halls of this houseboat/floating house (you know how dream halls are -- just on and on) and ended up in my aunt's kitchen in florida. None of them were dressing up, but I couldn't back down now because Mick Jagger had goaded me beyond the point of being reasonable. (isn't that always the way?) Anyway... I went back to my room for another attempt at finding the right thing, and there he was in some crazy geisha get-up. I don't know what happened next because Dash the Orange Menace (aka the kitten) jumped on my shoulder and woke me up. He bugs me a lot in the early mornings, but it would seem that this time he thought he had a good reason -- at some point during my sleep he managed to put his favorite mouse cat toy down the front of my tank top! When I stood up it fell out.

The lesson here is clear. I really REALLY need to stop drinking caffeine after 9 like I promised myself post-index card nightmare, or it's time for a satin sleep mask, or I should buy/invent one of those rubik's crossword thingies. Actually the lesson is simpler than that: just as it is foolhardy to start a land war in Asia, never start a costume escalation with dream Mick Jagger. You just can't win.

index card insomnia

I had a pretty great (if low-key) weekend. Saturday was sunny for my walk, then I went on a drive up to Multnomah Falls with my mom and sister. Even though every tourist in the state was there and it was cloudy and overcast, it was still beautiful and a little bit frozen. This outing was followed by watching Mrs. Henderson Presents, which I enjoyed. The problem came with sleep. Maybe I got too hot, maybe I had too much caffeine, maybe I'm just losing it -- but I had a nightmare about an index card and couldn't get back to sleep. It was terrifying! I don't remember all the details, but someone was trying to get me to do something and I was refusing, so they had this index card (with a drawing on it) in a checkbook style thing and flipped it open in my face with full knowledge that this would scare me into submission. What they were not expecting was that even though I was terrified, I was NOT going to do whatever it was. I was so scared of this stupid index card that was in my face, but I licked it (this somehow broke the spell) and then woke up and was unable to get back to sleep. On the one hand, way to go subconscious getting over yourself and figuring out a way to literally lick problems. On the other hand, I am really tired! And what if it's post-its tonight? I can't be fighting office supplies in my dreams night after night!

Today I had a fun outing with my sister and Anonymous Tara. We went to low-key shopping and tried a bunch of stuff on in the communal dressing room. I used to hate this idea, but there's more room and your friends can give you the "that is hilariously unflattering" or "hey, that looks pretty good" info without having to negotiate a lot of knocking on dressing room doors, etc. I didn't buy anything, but I got some good ideas. Then we had an impossibly huge lunch. Mucho fun! The perfect ending to this weekend would be index-card free dreams. Wish me luck.

skateboarding gorilla king

I slept for longer last night than I have in a week! yay! But sleep might not be the answer. Sleep brings weird dreams. (this dream has been shortened -- a secondary storyline has been excised for not making any sense. Not that the rest of this makes much sense...)

I was in the lobby of a hotel (it was very crowded) and saw Rick James holding a diorama of a courthouse made of paper (???). I recognized it and said "hey, I made that!" He said he really liked it and wanted to send me a cake in gratitude... only first he would need my credit card number and a reasonable facsimile of my signature. Ha! Sneaky dream Rick James. Fortunately, dream me didn't fall for this and gave him bogus info. I was sad about missing out on the cake, but that worked out okay because in convoluted dream fashion, I was suddenly in a cupcake bakery by a river. (it was in a sort of rehabbed barn or mill house, I think). I was part of a tour and had an assortment of cupcakes in a box which I was holding on upturned palms about chest high. My party (there were about 6 of us, all familiar, but I couldn't tell you who was there and who wasn't) took these cupcakes and headed out to the bridge over the river... which only went 3/4 of the way across! So we turned around and headed back. What happened next is sort of a blur, but I do remember that there were people in purple choir robes wearing gorilla masks and Burger King masks. Not surprisingly, I woke up shortly after they started skateboarding.

google leads me to the following dream information:

dream cake: the definitions were really all over the board for this one, but generally favorable. (good luck, ease -- "piece of cake", accepting rewards and recognition, "A fortunate dream signifying satisfaction in both social and business affairs." My favorite definition was "anything to do with cake is lucky"!)

dream bridge: Most dream dictionaries agree that bridges signify transitions and "critical junctions." There was actually another bridge in this dream (two cakes, two bridges!) and the other one was driven over with no difficulty. This second bridge wasn't derelict or falling apart -- it just didn't go all the way to the other side. Hmmmmm. I didn't attempt to look up skateboarding choir robe wearing gorillas. Even google has its limits.

Anyway, there was no anxiety with any of this -- it's not like I can even be surprised that dream Rick James might not be on the up and up, you know? Honestly, I was just delighted to be sleeping!