maven haven

Bye, suckers.

2009-06-30T19:20:00.002-05:00

Dear internets, I am leaving you for two weeks. It's possible that I may blog at you from England or Italy, but I'm doing this thing where I try not to formulate a narrative version of events as I'm experiencing them. I know you English major types or longtime journalers or even letter-writers feel me.

The crazy thing is that I'm all packed and we have a good 20 minutes before my dad shows up to take us to the airport. This is not typical, as I am famous (at least in my own head) for dicking around until the last possible second and frittering away any time that would have given me a comfortable cushion for contingencies. And yet here we are, packed for not one but THREE trips, since we will be doing side trips from our home base, and I don't even think I've forgotten anything. Can you tell I'm a little bit impressed with us?

For my final act at home I am going to do some last-minute shopping on our bookshelves and snoogle the cat, poor little friend.

I'll be back on Bastille Day!

If you just read this post, you'd think I exercise all the time.

2009-06-24T15:21:00.009-05:00

Last night I got home at about 9:30 and decided to take a quick ride around the lake. It was dusky, but there was still light on the horizon, and the heat index was finally manageable, meaning it was the best time to ride--so tranquil and beautiful, with hardly any air traffic noise. And since it was a low-key ride, I was just wearing my dress and flip-flops, and I still had all my jewelry on, including the bangles that entranced the 2 1/2 year old I'd just met at dinner. At the lake, three little girls sat on a bench near the shore, their little legs dangling, perfectly silhouetted against the smoky fading sunset and the downtown skyline. I pedaled slowly, liking the infrequent spooky headlights on other people's bikes and the bats overhead. The little clouds of bugs were less impressive, but it's summertime by the lake; what do you want? The bats have to eat.

There's a wetland on one side of the lake, all cattails and reeds and native plants, and as I rounded the curve to that side all the street noise went away and I heard frogs and red winged blackbirds calling. Weird pockets of cool, damp air blasted up from the shore. No one else was around, and the lightning bugs started flaring up out over the wetland. I hadn't seen any yet this summer, and it felt like a private show. I slowed to a crawl and just watched, one tenth of a mile away from a busy street that turns into a highway, and felt like I was alone in the middle of the countryside, which is an awesome feeling if you're in the right mood, and I was.

But of course someone else rode along, and I continued down the path, and the street noise came back, like someone had turned up the volume suddenly. The spell has to break sometime, but at least you're left suffused with well-being.

***

Now I'm going to recommend two movies you've probably already seen: Away from Her and I've Loved You So Long. I wanted to talk about them with someone, but naturally I watched them alone and at odd times of the day. I think we've had Away From Her out from Netflix before and never managed to watch it, but Sarah Polley sort of fascinates me and the performances in the movie are stellar. The same is true of I've Loved You So Long. And both movies have such a strong sense of place, and such a unique look because of how they're situated in their landscapes. Also, they both made me cry. The Brit has been mostly out of town for the last 10 days, so I also watched 13 Going on 30 for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed myself, primarily because of the Thriller dance scene. I don't know why I love group dance scenes/public unison dancing so much, but I have decided that I need to be part of a flash mob at some point in my life. I don't even care if it's for some cynical purpose like advertising cell phones. I want to be in a big group dance that coalesces in a public place and then dissipates like nothing ever happened, leaving a big old upsurge of fellow-feeling in its wake. If you're the organizing type, please organize this and I will get on board.

Finally, there are all kinds of other balance things I cannot do yet in yoga class, but I can headstand, which is the sole legacy of the gymnastics class I took at age 5. Have I mentioned that I argue with myself almost every week about whether or not I'm going to go to my yoga class? It is the dumbest thing ever, because yoga makes more time than it takes, if you want to get all Oprah about it. I always go, but I have to do this mental dance first. I've pretty much stopped doing that with biking to work, so maybe this will pass and then I'll magically get better at standing on one leg.

Quickly.

2009-06-15T23:44:00.001-05:00

If you like the sparkly, you may enjoy my latest post over at ye tumblog. It's about stud earrings. Yes I started another blog. What? You think I can't blog regularly or something?

Anyway, I should have a whole other post about various jewel finds on Etsy--I have been stalking jewelry for months--but this at least gets things started.

Hairs etc.

2009-06-12T12:33:00.007-05:00

There's no way I'm going to break this inadvertent blog silence with with something deep and incisive--too much pressure. So instead I'll give you an update on my hair.

I love this haircut. This is the only haircut I have ever had that looks better dirty than clean. I've always been one of those daily hair-washers, even though clueless ladymags like to tell you to wash less frequently. I do see their point, for everyone except those of us with very fine, straight hair and overachieving sebum. Letting that kind of hair go for more than a day does not impart a tousled, beachy, textured look. It is basically a commitment to looking like a stringy greaseball. While I have often been more than willing to make that commitment, it was never in the service of ladymag advice; it was more like "well, why would I shower if I'm just going to work at home and go to the gym later, so pass me that do-rag." But now I have hair that I can wet down and re-mold in the morning and just fluff up after taking off my bike helmet. A little sweat makes it look better. So I got that going for me.

Less exciting is the fact that this haircut revealed a sparse collection of hidden gray hairs. I've pulled out maybe 6 of them in the last year, so it's not a total shock, but I still have to admit that I'm not ready for them. I'm turning 35 in a few months and while I realize that 35 ain't shit, chronologically speaking, I have also got a few sunspots and like 15 pounds that I didn't have a few years ago. The pounds might just be office-job creeping weight gain, but still, you'd think that biking an average of 50 miles a week and staying otherwise active would keep that shit in check. I briefly contemplated counting calories and nutrition info to find out what was up and when I entered my food intake and activity for the day into the online counter, it kept telling me I could eat an additional 1000 calories that day. Huh.

I can't get too fussed about the chubb because even though I'm like damn, these pants don't really fit, I'm stronger than I was 15 pounds ago. (And no, it ain't muscle weight except maybe in The Thighs.) And I can't get too fussed about the grays because how kick ass would this haircut look in silver? But like maybe if I'm going to see signs of aging coming this far in advance of Aging, could I get some wisdom and less acne to go along with them? Thanks, Cosmos. You're okay by me.

It's not much of a post, but

2009-05-18T19:57:00.000-05:00

I got my hair did.

When in Rome.

2009-05-14T12:31:00.004-05:00

I don't suppose any of YOU know where we should stay in Rome in July. We booked our tickets for a summer England trip recently--have you noticed that high-season fares are the cheapest they've been in like a decade?--and decided that we should really try to get to some other Euro-destination while we're there all young and unencumbered. Poundpapi is coincidentally going to be in Italy at the same time and he is definitely one of the most fun people I can think of to hook up with in a foreign country, so Italy it is. It will definitely help to be with someone who speaks Italian. I can understand lots of Italian but am slow to formulate sentences, and then when I do they are totally archaic and cobbled together from bits of opera libretti.

This trip is already shaping up to be way more action-packed than usual. We're going to see Blur's reunion concert in London (this is for the Brit, since I was in college during Blur's heyday and was listening to a lot of classical singers at the time), and we're going to his dad's wee retreat in Norfolk, and then we're cooking up this sojourn in Italy. It's exciting. Figuring out what to pack is going to be hard. But figuring out where to lay our heads in Italia is sort of hard too. We had this notion that we'd go hike the Cinque Terre (at the highest of the high season, when all tourist destinations are crawling with humans), but I think maybe that's ambitious for a 4-5 day trip that includes Rome.

Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about. Hook me up with some Roman accommodations if you know of any. Also can't-miss sights.

Whereabouts.

2009-05-04T15:47:00.007-05:00

Oh goodness, where have I been? For a few ignominious seconds this morning I was flat on my face in the street, thanks to these cute, stupid shoes I decided to wear today. It seems intuitive that shoes shouldn't be an impediment to walking, doesn't it? But it's possible that my fall was just pre-ordained and I would have bit the dust even barefoot. So far I've gleaned no cosmic lesson from falling, nor was the fall even the kickoff to a relentlessly shitty day. It's been a pretty nice day, actually, so I think sometimes biting it is just biting it. It's definitely causing me to reevaluate my footwear though.

I have also been in the kitchen: we got a new fridge and stove yesterday. The old ones were actually fine, except that the fridge had started making a blatty fart noise at random intervals a few months ago, and the stove was equipped with like a first-generation microwave that made the rear burners all but inaccessible. Said microwave was also pretty bad at warming up food. Anyway, it's now like a magical fairyland in the kitchen, comparatively speaking, and we had the opportunity to remove the dust buffaloes from behind the fridge.

Another place I've been is the bike path. Unfortunately, the bike path recently had some sort of pointy invisible shard on it that flattened the crap out of my tire, right in the middle of my commute home. This turn of events forced me to put my bike on one of those front racks on the bus, something I've often contemplated but always avoided doing. First of all, there's almost never any real reason for me to put my bike on the bus and ride instead of pedaling (strong headwinds, I laugh at you!), but second of all, I am often prevented from attempting such maneuvers by my fear of looking like a douchey noob in public. There are actually a few places in town where there are practice racks so that you can figure out how to work them before ruining the bus schedule with your own feckless real-time efforts. I always meant to get to one of those practice racks. But I needn't have worried. The racks are easy to operate and noobness was avoided.

My tire is still flat, however.

Where else? I went to Henry's kid birthday party, which was like Lord of the Flies except with more pajama pants (all the kids got soaked in the rain; their clothes went to the dryer; they borrowed Henry and Jude's jammies). Several times, they all broke out in spontaneous chanting. One mystery kid had some bad gas. I wore actual earplugs and ate Indiana Jones cake.

I have been in the sewing room, which is actually just sort of the office and the place where all my craft crap ends up lately. I made these little frankenbooties:

In putting these together, I discovered that I have no idea how to sew a curved line without it looking like utter shite. I guess that's why I made this prototype before really getting fancy with my fabrics, but you know, I saw some forum where the person who reviewed the pattern was like "I made these in about a half hour; they're great!" and I thought I'd be able to manage. I need more practice, clearly.

Speaking of crafty, I have also been on Etsy, A LOT. Not only am I frequently looking for craftacular inspiration, I'm also trying to be more consistent with my shop maintenance, so as to make more sales, which is working so far. I realized I've been hoarding some of my inventory for two years, so I ruthlessly marked things down. And I'm actually going to start tweeting about the shop more than once every two weeks, even though Twitter is, for me personally, sort of a pointless exercise (I don't use any mobile devices). Another rad shop development: I need to get a different face and booty in some of my photos, so look for my sister Emily in future listings.

Another place we went is to the Chowgirls kitchen for a tasting. It was deeeelish, so they're going to cater the wedding. Woot woot!

Birthday.

2009-04-23T14:10:00.002-05:00

Here's the email my mom sent us today:

Henry is 7 today. This is what their night was like last night: Molly working on things for H's birthday, went to bed at 1; Willa awake at 1:20, talking, singing and in high spirits until 4; Henry awake for the day at 4:40. I called to wish him H.B. at about 8. He was very excited to tell me what he got from his parents, an Indiana Jones costume. It came with a shirt, pants, hat, side bag, and the best accessory of all, a whip. He put down the phone to crack the whip for me couple of times so that I could hear it. He is not taking it to school. He is in a running club that meets after school so the party is not today. He told me that they are preparing for a 1 mile run called the Menuda Run. Right now they are doing stations with obstacles. I told him that it sounds like conditioning and he said, "no, it's helping us get ready for the run." The run will have some obstacles, he believes. He is taking hot lunch today and they're serving chicken nuggets. He told me that the best part is that they come with hot sauce. Every day this week when he enters his pin number in the lunch line a message lights up Happy Birthday Henry. He's bringing cupcakes to give his classmates. This is a great day for a 7 year old. I hope you all have a day like this 7 year old.
Love,
Mom

Also.

2009-04-15T16:08:00.002-05:00

I want to go to The Dwelling in the Woods like ASAP.

Sporty spice.

2009-04-15T11:50:00.005-05:00

Em and I ran a 5K on Monday night. The only thing this particular course really had to recommend it is that there was no entrance fee. The "race" went fine and we finished it and giggled quite a lot along the way, but about halfway through, the whole event liquified my insides. So it was not my most comfortable run ever and it produced what the Brit calls toilet troubles, but at least I didn't have to stop mid-run to drop a twosie.

The next day, I went to a free yoga class in my neighborhood (do you see a cheapskate trend here?). There's a new studio opening up about a 5-minute bike ride from home and they're doing free promo classes all week, so I biked over and did vinyasa for an hour and died. It was great. Even the instructor's hands-on adjustments made me want cry with joy. Look, I been knowing that I should be doing yoga, to shut up those mangy monkeys in the treetops of my brain, but I never get around to it. This class did that very thing (shutting up monkeys), as well as taxing me physically, so I think I'll sign up for the whole session.

Today I rode my bike to work for the first time this spring. To that I can only say GLORY BE.

And so far, this handmade deodorant is working. It's been about 5 days, and I have clearly done many sporty things while wearing it, so I think it's safe to recommend the stuff at BehaveLittles' etsy shop. If you click on the link you'll see that she is taking a small hiatus, but the good news is that she's looking into twist-tube packaging for her deodorant. I am all for that, since right now it comes in a tin and you have to rub it on by hand. My next etsy product review will be perfume oil from Sweet Anthem. It's all about stinking so good these days.

Amazon Fail.

2009-04-13T11:36:00.005-05:00

There's been some booshit cooking at Amazon over the weekend regarding the removal of sales rankings from certain items deemed "adult." Here's what Amazon had to say about it:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Amazon has since backpedaled somewhat and explained the ranking removal as a "glitch," but some authors have been receiving this "glitch" explanation since February. Some books have had their rankings restored, but it's pretty arbitrary. Jezebel has been following the mess (as have many other blogs).

Some examples of the items deemed "adult":

Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: Expanded Third Edition: A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships by Ruth Bell
Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti
Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters by Jessica Valenti
Cycle Savvy by Toni Weschler (author of Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which should incidentally be required reading)
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College by Heather Corinna
Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Ellen DeGeneres: a Biography by Lisa Iannucci
The Mayor of Castro Street: the Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

Not "adult":

Sex toys
Playboy: the Complete Centerfolds
A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality by Linda and Joseph Nicolosi
The Complete A**hole's Guide to Handling Chicks by Dan Indante and Karl Marks
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (but Delta of Venus by Anais Nin is "adult

The lovely denizens of the internet have tagged over 1000 items at Amazon with "amazonfail."

You can sign the petition to reverse this stupid policy of censorship by people who clearly don't read anything, ever, here.

There is also a reasonably plausible theory about how this could have happened. Whatever the case, Amazon needs to step up and fix it.

For your enjoyment.

2009-04-10T13:55:00.004-05:00

The Social Security Administration's popular baby names website is an awesome resource, especially if you are a fiction writer OR you enjoy knowing things like the 463rd most popular girl's name in 1952 (answer: Inez). It goes all the way back to 1880. Of course, it's based entirely on SSN applications and counts spelling variances as different names. But it's still pretty cool. (via Jezebel.)

Cleaning house.

2009-04-08T14:30:00.007-05:00

I am all for pulling up carpets wherever I find them and have done it throughout most of the house, but we still have carpet in the basement and in our upstairs bedroom. Neither area has flooring underneath the carpet that's worth a damn (I've checked), so for now there is a sort of oatmeal color downstairs and a very sad mint green upstairs that I successfully manage to ignore most of the time. But in an effort to improve our living environment, I rug-doctored last night and this morning before work. It was about as gross as you might expect. If you've never rented a carpet cleaner before, you haven't had the joy of seeing the cleaning water get sucked up into a reservoir tank, all filthy and silty after passing through the grody fibers of your carpet. I also extracted a pound of cat hair. I'm thinking of just building a second cat with it, one that sleeps quietly at the foot of the bed until we're ready to wake up for the day.

There has been a bit of spring cleaning urge in me for the past week. (If you like, you may read "spring cleaning" as "tax prep procrastination," and you would not be too far off.) I spent much of the weekend indulging it. But I did take one break to meet up with my friend Wendell at IKEA. That was nice and everything, but the big bonus is that she had her cousins Big W and Miss Lippy in tow, so we made each other's acquaintance in the meat world, and ate snacks and faffed about the marketplace for a good stretch. They are all as rad in person as you might expect from reading their screeds. (I already knew this about Wendell.) Plus, I got a sweet knife block from the outing.

Like I said before: the rest of you bloggers need to come to Minneapolis and holler at me.

Tonight I think I'll adjust my bike so that I can ride it for reals. Tomorrow should be plenty warm for riding (if you think 30 F in the morning is warm), and the alternatives have been making me crazy. I suspect that these first few rides are going to a) be hard and b) make me rethink my bob. My bangs are finally long enough to tuck behind my ear, but the Brit keeps telling me I look like Peter Tork (bless him).

Unrelated: think of some topics about which you'd like to hear the Brit hold forth. I keep threatening to make a jar full of topics for him to pick randomly and then extemporize a mini-podcast. We're both good at thinking up things to do but not actually doing them. Help me.

TGIF.

2009-04-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

Oh hello internet. Since we last spoke, March has gone out like a lion, and then April came in like one, replete with what meteorologists like to call "wintry mix" and what I like to call "utter shite." Plus I caught a cold, one bad enough to keep me home from work. The upside to this is that I was encouched for the whole day Wednesday and much of Thursday, deep in the internet when I was awake and napping with the cat otherwise. Thanks to the surfing, I ordered some handmade vegan deodorant on Etsy. If it works, rest assured that I'll be yawping it over the rooftops and drumming up business for the crafter who makes it.

Mostly when I'm cruising around Etsy, I'm looking at rings (an overwhelmingly huge category, btw, even with all kinds of search qualifiers to narrow things down. You wouldn't believe how many "Twilight inspired" pieces there are on Etsy right now.). That's one wedding accoutrement that is important to me, especially since they stay with you, and I love the idea of someone making them for us. You may holla at me if you know/know of an awesome ringmaker. I've actually stopped writing this entry like three times (I started Thursday) to wade through some more ring searching.

Apart from rings, I have had to stop looking at wedding p0rn after a brief flirtation with it. It was giving me anxiety about something that I want to be fun. That said, I do feel compelled to repost this bouquet (clicking on it will take you to the photographer's site):

What, are you kidding me? That's kale, man.

In other news, I just went to pick up my spendy musician's earplugs and had a charmingly flighty audiologist who threw in a high-frequency hearing test for free. I had an audiogram a few weeks ago and everything looked good, but the ENT I saw afterward said that all the symptoms I'd been having--ear fullness, tinnitus, dizziness, hyperacusis or maybe technically recruitment--were consistent with hearing loss and that I'd probably lost some of my high-frequency hearing, outside the range that is normally tested. Since there was no *event* to connect this loss to (trauma, a loud concert, etc), she also said "we probably won't ever know what happened." It could have been a virus.

The custom earplugs were my idea, since I'm a musician and all. Regular earplugs just sort of muffle everything, whereas musician's earplugs basically turn down the volume, so the clarity is better. They're fitted exactly the same way as a hearing aid, i.e., your ears are gunned full of goo, which sets and makes an impression of your ear canal. Today's appointment was a follow-up to learn how to don and doff the earplugs and make sure they're filtering the decibels they're meant to filter. That was all fine. The extra hearing test confirmed that my right ear is rockin and my left ear is less so. The clinic only has one instrument for testing those frequencies, and they use it most for cancer patients who are having chemotherapy, since that can damage the ears and the high-frequency testing provides an early warning about this damage. So, I'm considering myself warned early and I'll go back for follow-up in 6 months.

People, please pay attention to your hearing. I was in music school for 10 years and no one ever talked about hearing protection (until, coincidentally, my recent teaching stint in Wisco), which is plain ridiculous. I don't think I could have prevented whatever jacked my ear in December, but the thing about hearing loss is once it's gone, it's gone. Those little hair cells don't regenerate. So I'm going to be extra careful from now on.

In conclusion: GO IOWA.

Quick hits.

2009-03-27T10:10:00.005-05:00

Thanks a million to everyone who donated to Pro-Choice Resources. The Bowl-a-thon was last night, and get this: in the worst economy in the history of the event (and indeed, in the history of the organization), we raised the most money ever--over $42,000 and counting. It was really exciting. I was late to the fundraising party this year, what with the two jobs and the re-relocating, but y'all still brought the thunder and I am grateful.

Here are some niblets of things to read, in case you aren't looking at my shared items on Google Reader:

RH Reality Check devotes an entire entry to last week's episode of Friday Night Lights (which you can watch at hulu.com) and its realistic sex talk. Well, technically, half the post is devoted to the parallel talk on My So-Called Life, and I'm all for that show too.

The HPV vaccine's maker is trying to get the vaccine approved for boys> WaPo reports that, unsurprisingly, the debate over the vaccine has shifted from "will this make girls have sex?" to "is it cost-effective, safe, and worthwhile?"

There's a Men Against Sexual Violence Male Ally Conference at the end of April that sounds interesting. It's a two day event "that seeks to engage men in ending transphobia, homophobia and violence against women." The keynote speaker is Byron Hurt:

Hurt is a former Northeastern University football quarterback and was also a founding member of the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program. MVP is a leader in college-based rape and domestic violence prevention initiatives for college and professional athletics. Hurt is also the former Associate Director of the first gender violence prevention program in the United States Marine Corps. A long time activist, author and film maker, Hurt challenges audiences to interrogate the damaging effects of patriarchy, racism, and sexism in American culture.

Rad.

Some Texas wingnut legislator proposed a bill that would allow the Institute for Creation Research to grant Master of Science degrees in--wait for it--Creationism. Zonk.

Did anyone else hear Peter Singer talking about the ethics of giving on Marketplace recently? Feminist Finance gives you a quick rundown on the story and talks about philanthropy in troubled times. I haven't added up last year's donations yet, but I bet you I come in under the recommended giving for someone with my income, and I'm going to do more giving for poverty relief this year.

Is anybody else being kind of a failure at work today? Sigh.

Unheard voices in the reproductive rights discussion.

2009-03-18T11:58:00.003-05:00

Read this tremendous post on the trauma of being a relinquishing birth mother. It was eye-opening to me--both post and comments--and clearly needs to be part of discussions about reproductive rights.

I have given a baby up for adoption, and I have had an abortion, and while anecdotes are not evidence, I can assert that abortions may or may not cause depression - it certainly did not in me, apart from briefly mourning the path not taken - but adoption? That is an entirely different matter. I don't doubt that there are women who were fine after adoption, and there is emphatically nothing wrong with that or with them; but I want to point out that if we're going to have a seemingly neverending discussion about the sorrow and remorse caused by abortion, then it is about goddamn time that we hear from birth mothers too.

The post also contains one of the best rejoinders to self-righteous folks who want to weigh in on your choices that I've ever seen:

Address your own issues. I suggest volunteer work, but I don't recommend any kind of personal contact; you lack empathy. Many cities, even small ones, have beautification programs involving cleanup and planting trees, which might do for a start. You will be enriching the lives of others, improving your own health, you can proudly point out "your" trees, and you'll feel self-righteous with damn good reason for a change.

Is this a good time to let you know that I'm doing the Pro-Choice Resources Bowlathon fundraiser next week? The extreme busy-ness of my recent days has really limited my fundraising efforts, but I've got a week to go and feel certain that I can still do more for this excellent organization. If you haven't been with me through the last few bowlathons, PCR is a local grassroots organization that provides education, financial assistance, advocacy, and outreach. It's not a clinic or a lobbying group, but an organization that exists to empower women to make their own decisions about their reproductive health.

This is a tough year for fundraising in general, and with good reason. But one thing that might encourage you to make a donation is the knowledge that every dollar you donate makes a real impact on this organization and the people who are served by its programs. PCR doesn't receive federal or United Way funding. If you can spare $5, you can help provide condoms for at-risk youth.

=My personal donation page is at http://my.campagne-online.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=31374. Remember: every little bit helps.

Update on my viewing life.

2009-03-16T09:13:00.001-05:00

Rachel Getting Married is the first really excellent movie I've seen in ages. I can't stop thinking about it.

2009-03-15T18:43:00.003-05:00

1. I'm listening to robins singing their sundown/twilight song, which is one of my favorite sounds. That I can hear this sound at all tells you that a) the window is open and b) spring is probably coming to the Upper Midwest.

2. We broke 50 F today. I went for a brutal jog--any jogging at all would be brutal at this point, since I'd been running exactly twice in the last three months.

3. Classes are over. I leave here on Tuesday. I am very sad to be leaving. I love this place, I love the people, I've had an amazing term of teaching, and I'm going back to quite a different work life. This has to change.

4. I wanted to tell someone to watch 2 Days in Paris, so I'm telling you. Ditto for Happy Go Lucky. In a minute, I'm going to watch Rachel Getting Married. I also started watching MI5 on Netflix, and man, that show is not messing around. Highly recommended.

5. There was one fraudulent $5 charge on my credit card yesterday, and the company called me right away and closed the account. I'm pretty impressed with this. But I'm also baffled by what a pathetic case of fraud it was.

6. I have a lot of packing to do. How much you want to bet I do most of it on Tuesday morning right before I leave?

Weekend update.

2009-03-07T17:49:00.005-06:00

Oh hai internets. I'm home for the weekend, where I've discovered that Ace has inexplicably stopped the manic denuding of his belly. I've never known him to have fur on his belly, so this is a monumental thing that I have to trace to his increased quality time with the Brit. Ace spends his evenings wedged up sausage-style between the arm of the chair and the Brit's leg, and often makes himself known during video chats, and all of this seems to be doing him some good. He looks less neurotic, anyway.

My drive home was nice. I spent an inordinate amount of time on ipod overhaul on Thursday night and Friday morning before I left, and this made things very very pleasant, music-wise. It was a long-overdue project, and kind of an annoying one. I also consulted google re the thrifteries of central Wisco, and made several stops in pursuit of old-school thrift--in other words, not Goodwill. Some hallmarks of old-school thrift: handwritten price tags boasting actually thrify prices, piles of crap, and old ladies at the checkout counter. Three of the places I ended up going were exactly like this, with the bonus of radio polka at the best store. Unfortunately none of the stores had stuff I wanted to buy, but at least I know where to go if I'm ever marooned in Wausau.

Last weekend, the Brit visited me and we hung out and ate Indian food and went to the gym. The weekend before that, I was in Chicago for about 24 hours. Will someone tell me why it's been so many years since I've spent time in Chicago? I don't even think I ever visited when my brother was living there. I love that city, even though the potholes there are NOT MESSING AROUND. There are some infrastructure problems. I took some bonehead zen-driving route to get out of downtown on my way back to Wisco, and the decrepitude of the bridge I crossed to get to the freeway shocked me.

Anyway, the Brit and I have to go back there together and have a good long afternoon in the Art Institute. On this trip, I only had about 1.5 hours, in which time I saw a whole mess of the permanent collection and a really stellar Munch exhibit. Then I heard a Bach concert and reconnected with a friend from Sweden I hadn't seen in about 14 years--she was one of the soloists. I also got to meet her mom and munch on her baby the next day. And I stayed in a Lincoln Park hotel that was awesome, right across from the conservatory and zoo, both of which are freeeee. A conservatory garden will fix you right up when you think you've had about all you can tolerate of a long winter.

And you know, I've had about all I can tolerate. The backyard is a mudpit and the garage is full of seeping meltwater and there are allegedly buds on the lilac bush, but there's still a lot of cold and snow and ice everywhere. However, the frequency of teaser days is increasing, and I have to confess that I didn't wear my coat at all yesterday while the temp was in the 40s. I also saw 4 people in shorts. I know I mention this phenomenon a lot, but you must agree that it's pretty noteworthy. On Thursday, the day's warmth turned into heavy fog when the sun went down. I came out of my studio late at night into a scene out of a black and white art movie: thick mist catching the pale light of the old-fashioned streetlamps in the park, throwing the skeletal trees into sharp relief. There have also been a lot of fabulous conjunctions of Venus and the moon. These are the things you cling to when winter seems like it will never end.

I don't know what the rest of the weekend holds. I'm catching up on work, we're watching some of David Attenborough's Planet Earth series, the Brit's in the basement pulling down gross ceiling tiles and exposing a hot mess of old mouse nests. I'm making rosemary lentil rice soup, after spending the rest of the day eating pastries, pretty much. It's all good times.

2009-03-02T13:30:00.001-06:00

Man, I have been a CRAP blogger lately but can't write now because I have some very very hot plans: laundry, desk job work, possible etsy photography, teaching. I just wanted to say hi.

Betrothal.

2009-02-21T16:38:00.006-06:00

Hi. Last week I updated my Facebook relationship status to "engaged," because I think that's pretty much how you tell the internet that you're planning to get hitched. The flood of comments this status change unleashed was overwhelming and wonderful, but I think my favorite one was something along the lines of "I don't think you need to have an actual wedding; just get together some Saturday and change your Facebook status to married. I think Facebook is a Unitarian minister."

So now everyone wants to know the story or the plan, but we really don't have either. We started talking about marriage way back in the early days of our relationship, so it's not like it was a real surprise to either of us to start talking about it again. We basically just decided to go for it and tell our families, and if there was a point of decision it probably happened in the middle of the kitchen or something and it's likely we had some tea afterwards.

When we told my family, though, my mother literally did jumping jacks. And it's good that other people are so outwardly enthusiastic, because the Brit and I really aren't--in real life, we are both rather low-key (if intense).

I think that as with most large decisions I've made in my life, the impact and import of this will become clear to me only slowly and in stages. Deciding on when and where and how to do our wedding is already giving me a window into this process. The only thing I know so far is that it will be small and do-it-yourselfy and timed around the travel possibilities of the Britfam. And I will be wearing a hawt thrift store dress if I can help it.

Anyway, dear friends, if this is the first you're hearing about my beyonce because you're not on stupid Facebook and I haven't talked to you for awhile: surprise!

***

Today I heard about one million prospective student auditions, which was both fun and exhausting. The really uncool part about the day is that it's snowing, like snowing several inches, which totally caught me off guard when I left the house this morning. I had, in fact, let my guard down w/r/t winter. I'm supposedly making a whirlwind journey to Chicago tomorrow to see a friend I haven't seen in 15 years (she lives in Sweden), and this trip is going to be markedly more stressful if the roads are crap. But unless there's a blizzard in the morning, I'm going to go. I mean, I have a ticket to her concert and I prepaid for the damn hotel, and I can take it slow on the roads. But ideally I'd get down there expediently and have time to go to the Art Institute before the concert. That might be aiming a bit high. And I want to go to the Chicago Diner. And I have thrift store aspirations on the way home. And and and.

More than anything, I need to relax for awhile. My students are in an opera tonight, but I've got three hours in which to watch a movie and eat mini faux corndogs.

Things, stuff.

2009-02-11T18:14:00.009-06:00

I'm cooking dinner but also popping popcorn, listening to the trains across the river whistle on down the tracks. I'm going to watch a movie and try not to eat all the popcorn before the smoky red beans and rice are ready, but you know, I went running today, outside, so I'm not sweating it. Plus, sometimes I just eat popcorn for dinner.

There are a lot of things cooking right now besides beans and rice (rim shot!). I've been working my way through some anatomy/body awareness books, for one thing. My reading's been pretty casual, but it and the movement workshops I observed last weekend have been enough to let me know that I need a much better fundamental understanding of the body if I'm going to continue to improve as a teacher (and balanced and efficient human being). I can't stop thinking about the natural movement of the spine during breathing. Thrilling stuff, I know.

Aaaaand, I'm flying home Saturday morning for a visit. I am thrilled not to be doing 10 hours of driving to see the people I love, and frankly kind of thrilled not to have a car with me while I'm there. Flying back Tuesday morning in time to teach a 10 AM lesson is not going to be that cool, but I'll manage.

I'm also getting my ear(s) checked on Monday while I'm home. My left ear has been ringing since December 23, and while the possibility of a simple infection was ruled out by a trip to one of those grocery store clinics recently, I feel off and something is definitely up. Possibly something serious. But maybe not. Most of the time I'm not hyper-aware of the ringing, but it is constant, and at some point each day I feel something akin to the very beginnings of mild motion sickness. And my ear is sensitive to noise, which so far hasn't been a problem while I'm teaching singing, but it's a little difficult to practice because I can't get away from my own voice and high frequencies are the worst. Whatever the case, I need to stop using the internet as a diagnostic tool, though I will say that it has been very helpful for information-gathering.

Video chatting with Skype has been rocking my socks off. The Brit usually spends the first few minutes of the conversation just making faces into the camera. The first few times we talked online, though, the conversations looked like this:

and this:

Less a conversation than a circus act.

Confessional.

2009-02-09T23:40:00.003-06:00

The primary reason I have not been blogging is that I've been spending basically all of my free time watching Friday Night Lights. Despite not caring much about football or Texas, I am obsessed with this show. And embarrassed about how often I tear up during the football scenes. Seriously, though, it's a great show. Great acting, great characters, great doc-style shooting, great soundtrack, great insight into the effed up dudely culture of high school sports heroics. I'm just saying, if you've been looking for a show to get into, this might be it. Also, you can stream it on Netflix.

Tomorrow it's going to be 54 degrees in Wisco, though, so I'll be too busy dancing naked in the street to start watching season 2. For those of you who don't live up north: 54 degrees in February is crazytown. I'll really be wishing I had a bike tomorrow.

This is crazy.

2009-02-08T10:23:00.002-06:00

This website is pretty scary. If you click on the portfolio, you can mouse over shots of celebrities and see exactly how much photoshopping the most beautiful and famous among us are subject to. I've always been grossed out by Jezebel's "Photoshop of Horrors" feature, but this site is a whole parade of them. I think my favorite is when women's RIBS are photoshopped away. Shame on you for having bones!

OMG shiny!!

2009-02-01T21:59:00.007-06:00

I found a new etsy shop to love: McFarland Designs.

First I bought this:

Then I looked her stuff on flickr:

You can see more rings here in her flickr photostream, and see new designs and read about her on her website/blog.

The stuff is vegan, recycled (silver and gold), and ethically sourced. Now someone hook me up with a whole bunch of cocktail rings.