me: michael, on a scale of 1 to 10, how intimidating am i? michael: amy, you are not at all intimidating. me: no, no, don't just judge by my size. consider the whole package: my sharp wit, my life experience, how snotty i can be... michael: look, i see someone like you and think, "she seems really nice and really sweet, probably gives good hugs." me: that answer is unacceptable.
this year i'm (again) spending thanksgiving in nyc with alisa. and now that i'm becoming an expert at thanksgiving in nyc, i'm going to offer you, dear readers, a guide to celebrating thankfulness in the big apple.
1. on wednesday, go to the doughnut plant and order one of every kind of doughnut. this will save you the arduous and stressful task of having to select only one doughnut out of all the delicious kinds available. if you're worried that you won't be able to eat all of those doughnuts, i'll put your mind as ease right now. you will. and sooner than you think. (this picture was taken after we consumed about half the doughnuts, which took us about 10 minutes.)
2. on thanksgiving day sleep in as late as you can. if you sleep past noon, then congratulate yourself! with another doughnut or a light snooze.
3. once you're up, don't get up. just grab ye ol' laptop (which must already be within arm's reach so this one will take a little planning the night before) and begin a) a tv series marathon (might i recommend freaks and geeks, gilmore girls, or if you're alisa, veronica mars), b) anything on instant netflix, or c) mamma mia. continue with this activity until it starts to get dark again outside.
4. when darkness returns, get dressed and go out for your thanksgiving dinner at the nearest chinese/japanese combo restaurant you find open and order at least twice as much food as you'll actually be able to eat. the more of it that is fried, the better. since your party will be the only ones in the restaurant, enjoy some friendly banter with the staff and make them take pictures of you eating.
5. after dinner you will be tempted to go to times square and hop on a tour bus. ignore this temptation. times square will only annoy you with the throng of confused tourists, confetti and garbage mess from the earlier macy's day parade (which you slept through) and a waaay overpriced bus tour package mr. musa dude will offer you. instead, head back to (insert friend's name here) apartment, immediately put your pjs back on, and resume your tv/movie marathons until the sun starts to come up.
if you follow this thanksgiving guide, dear readers, you will find you have a lot to be thankful for.
remember the story that circulated on the interwebs a few months ago about the belgian girl who claimed she fell asleep at a tattoo parlor and woke up with 56 stars tattooed on her face, disfiguring her for life? i love that girl. for she was my inspiration for this year's costume...
i'm her mirror image!! there is one crucial difference: my stars are painted on with liquid eyeliner and will wash off tonight. hers...well, bless her heart, hers have a little more permanence...but now having lived with them for a day, maybe that's not such a bad thing. i'm sort of sorry to see mine go.
happy halloween all. be safe out there. (yes, i know halloween isn't until tomorrow but since it's on a saturday this year, i dressed up for work today. so today is when i'm celebrating.)
so there's a flu bug going around-you may have heard something about it...some of you, like me, may have caught it. i don't know what it is-if it's h1n1/swine flu or just a regular flu/cold going around these here parts but it has knocked the h out of me. i don't really care what it is. i'd just like it to go its way and leave me in peace already. (not resting in peace, mind, but well in peace.) anyway, it's seriously cramping my style.
pre-sick, i made it to the ani show in berkeley. that was friday night and she was as brilliant and amazing and wise and lovely as ever. wicked funny, too. unfortunately, she was playing at zellerbach hall which, frankly, sucks as a rock concert venue. i'd forgotten that. i saw sufjan there a few years ago and it didn't really work then, either. it's a long room full of seats that totally loses any sense of intimacy a performer would otherwise capture with her/his audience. ani rocks, zellerbach does not.
(this is one of her newer "happy" songs that she played friday, though this clip isn't from friday's show. i know it's hard to sit and watch a youtube clip embedded in someone's blog that's longer than 15 seconds so i don't really expect you to watch it here. but it's available for you here anyway.)
unfortunately, due to miserable illness, last night did not find me at the brandi carlile show at the fillmore as originally planned. almost made it. but flu tightened its grip as the day progressed and i remained captive at home. i did hear that the show was great and i indeed missed out. brandi's still new to me but settling in well as someone i want to listen to.
(and to see if you might like her, too, here's a clip. it's just one of those posts. clips and links, clips and links.)
tonight, due to continued illness and efforts to just get better already, i'm missing a night out with tainted love. at some point, dear readers, let's go, okay? they seem fun. and i already have a wig and purple lace leggings that must be worn.
you'd think in all this cozy, getting-to-skip-work-and-stay-home-in-my-pjs-time, i'd be reveling in my hiding out. it's nothing but sleep, lay around, watch netlfix online, sleep, read, lay around, sleep, lay around, check email, sleep. sounds wonderful, right? it would certainly sound wonderful to me. a glorious luxury. but, the sad, bubble-bursting truth is that it is not. it's a total drag. everything smells like sick and i haven't stepped a toe outside since monday. i'm turning into one of those underground cave-dweller folks, all pasty and blind. ricolas have lost all their flavor and i'm down to only toilet paper as tissue. netflix online no longer amuses me and all the books i'm reading are about death. and apparently i've gotten really whiny.
on the upside, i am keeping to my weekly blogging goal. recounting my calendar and whining make for easy blog fodder.
it's been a while, eh? i think all of you, dear readers, are overdue for a dose of flashback friday.
halloween 1986. i was a sweet, girly, fairy-princessy something. i don't think i ever really decided exactly what i was. apparently, whatever i was, i thought it would best be emphasized with lots of blue eye shadow and rouge. i might have overdone it. i don't know. does one consider make-up overdone when blue eye shadow goes completely around the eye and rouge is really lipstick?
well just call me sadie, sadie painted lady, then.
so let's return to year of creativity. last time i wrote about something large. this time i'll write about something small.
i got a button-making kit from one alisa joy for my birthday. a very useful item--for what occasion can't be celebrated with a button? buttons celebrate LIFE. they're bumper stickers FOR YOUR CLOTHES. (or backpack or purse or hat, etc. anything, really. they're so versatile.) not only can i make buttons, but i can make custom-made, one-of-a-kind, limited-edition buttons that show ANYTHING I WANT. the possibilities are endless. i could potentially start my own button-making business. which potentially makes alisa my investor. so obviously she should be the first recipient of an amy "button-acular" button (don't judge, the name is still being refined...) to experience my high quality product first-hand. this was my thought when i busted out the button-making kit for the first time. and so i made her a button:
ta-dah!
one time we went to see a live show of this american life and we wanted to go wearing something to celebrate the event, something to show our love for ira, something to illustrate that we were fans of the show...something like...A BUTTON. but we didn't have any buttons. so alisa made us tiny "i heart ira" tags with a label-maker from her work. and though they were lovely and served our needs, we commiserated that they weren't buttons. this was not the first time nor that last that we shook our fists in frustration shouting, "if only we could make buttons!"
now i can make buttons.
it's extremely satisfying. you make your bit of art to preserve forever between metal and plastic, stack all the pieces together and smoosh it with this lever thingy. the satisfying thing is that the lever doesn't make any noise or suddenly stop or snap or give or anything. you squeeze it together and think, "i must be doing something wrong. nothing seems to be happening." but then you release it and voila! out falls a perfect-made bona fide button.
i've made one other wonderfully kitschy button that just says "awesome".
i'm making a goal to blog weekly during the month of october. it is not october yet but i'm still considering this my kick-off post.
i've decided to make this year the year of creativity. it's a little ambiguous as to when year of creativity began-sometime in august. creativity cannot be rushed. so since august i've undertaken a few different projects. i'd like to feature one now. my FAVORITE one. here is the story: since moving into my new place, i've been in the market for a fireplace mantel to use as a decorative piece. i had a lovely vision of sitting in my swirly pink and purple chair, reading a book, drinking tea and looking up now and then to gaze upon a beautiful, shabby chic, french-country, "anthropologie-esque" fireplace mantel adorned with candles, framed art, a clock, etc, etc. and it would mean home. i had about given up on the dream when i found exactly what i was looking for. here's what it was like when i got it home:
it came from an old house that was demolished. one of the guys doing the demo tried to salvage it but it was accidentally thrown into the rubbish heap and split into pieces. because of its condition and because he was eager to clear out space in his garage, the guy selling it gave it to me for $15. $15 is a STEAL. most of the mantels i found on craigslist were more in the $300-$600 range. and they were mostly hideous. because it was split into pieces, i could easily fit it into my car. so we had a deal. clearly, the stars were aligned.
i got it home, cleaned it up, and whilst precariously positioning and holding the pieces together, i hammered and sawed and anchored the mantel into the beautiful, shabby chic, french-country, "anthropologie-esque" whole fireplace mantel i'd envisioned. behold:
i adorned it with candles, framed art, a clock, etc, etc. and yes, when i sit in my swirly pink and purple chair, reading and drinking tea, i look up now and then to gaze upon the decorative furniture piece of my dreams and it means home. i. love. it. i love it completely.
i'm still working on what to put under the mantel. i have ideas but the framed photos are sort of a holding place in the meantime. they look messy in the photo but in real life they actually work okay, though it does remind me a little of a store display.
my next big project in this year of creativity has to do with my curtains. i can't reveal any more about it at this time. but it's conference weekend coming up and i'm hoping that means i will get that project done while i'm streaming 8 hours of church.
so tonight i was reading a new blog post by amanda palmer. like all blogs i follow, i read hers in google reader, so i rarely visit her actual site. but tonight i clicked over there to check out tour dates and such when i then clicked on something that led to the "sign up for amanda's mailing list..." link. i don't usually sign up for fan mailing lists or business mailing lists, etc, etc. who does? but i signed up for amanda's because she's amanda palmer and i love her. i even used my regular email address and not one of my junk email addresses. that's how much i love her. and what happens when you sign up for something online? you get an automated welcome email. i knew that was coming and i know it's automated but can i admit to you, dear readers, that it was such a thrill to open my inbox and see an email from "amanda palmer". like she knows me. like i know her. like we're friends. like it's real. omh, awesome.
what's also awesome? that the message addressed to me says this:
"i love you. amanda" !!!!!!!!!! again, it's not real and i'm a dork. but BUT, it is still a thrill to have an email sitting in my inbox that says i love you from amanda palmer. heehee!! made my day. mailing list? worth it.
well, dear readers, it's about my bedtime. getting out of bed was excruciating this morning and i've got to get out of this rut of arriving late to work. i must get to sleep earlier. also, i made a goal to go running every morning this week. i have yet to start. but maybe tomorrow...so goodnight, goodnight, don't let the bedbugs bite.
so my small attempt to travelogue my trip dissolved pretty quickly, largely due to limited internet access. but rest assured, the undocumented portion of my trip was great. i might slip in anecdotes and photos now and then, just to round it out. but seeing as the majority of mbatE2008 still remains unblogged...well, i make no promises.
i've been back a few weeks now and life has settled back into its normal routine, with just a couple minor tweaks. namely, i moved across town and am currently acquiring about 5 dozen housemates. otherwise, things are exactly the same.
i might dye my hair bright red in a couple weeks. it's been on my mind and it just feels like the thing to do. i'm not a tattoo kind of girl and creative piercings, though very tempting, are all sort of out of the question. so that leaves my hair--my outlet of choice for pent-up rebellion. which, let's be honest, makes me a pretty mild-mannered rebel. i'm not much of a threat to any institution or tradition or formality...
speaking of hair, i had a very good hair day today. what a treat those days are. why are there good and bad hair days? it's the same head of hair. and yet...just wait, i'll try to recreate good hair day tomorrow and it will almost guaranteed, fail.
what else can i write about to continue along this vein of self-absorbed shallowness?
my birthday is coming up. i've got no ideas for what i want to do. maybe just go out to dinner? my birthday is on a weekday so it's gonna be pretty chill. i'm fine with that. i like chill.
um, what else? i'm hungry. ooh, i can probably scrounge up some chips and salsa. which reminds me, i probably don't have food for lunch tomorrow. typical.
i've got absolutely nothing of any intellectual merit to write in this post right now. and i want to go read some more of my book. so that's what i'm off to do. a good bit of sunday evening reading. lovely.
1i have this song in my head right now. 10 points to gryffindor if you can name it without cheating.23 2i've been ready harry potter. 3haha, blogger recognizes gryffindor as a proper noun. (but not the other houses...interesting...)
currently watching wimbledon: murray vs. roddick. not that i entirely understand what's going on but i think it's a very close game (match? set?). the crowd is going wild. it will probably be over by the time i finish this post...
so, let's see. i don't know why i always want to review the weather but britain has experienced an unprecedented heatwave this past week and it's been, well, HOT. today it's finally cooling off and i have to say, it's rather pleasant. i think showers are expected tomorrow. go figure.
wednesday was a london day. cyn-d and i took the train in around lunchtime. our first stop was to 10 downing street which isn't super exciting in and of itself (the street is gated off and guarded; you can't actually see 10 downing street and i'm not all that interested in gordon brown) BUT it's just one of those little britain tributes. i love the sebastian sketches with the prime minister. so i took a couple photos:
and since we were right there in westminster, i did glance over at a couple other sights:
and of course, i had to "make a phone call":
then we headed over to harrods, enjoyed some overpriced gelato, did a little shopping (okay, i didn't actually buy anything) and then did a little more shopping at the V&A giftshop.
finally we wrapped up the evening at picadilly circus for dinner and a show with sarah!! we had a lovely, lovely time.
well, the match is over and it's about time to grab some dinner. (i won't tell you who won so as not to spoil it.)
i've got tons of oxford photos so i'll save those for another post...
we've got one more day in england (tomorrow we're leaving oxford to spend our last day in windsor) and then sunday we head to venice.
