the future is coming!

Balloons! LOLcats!

2009-11-13T00:02:00.008-05:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

They can only mean one thing.......The Future is Coming is Officially back in business*!!!!

How I've missed you!

Updates:

My parents bought me a used ibook for my birthday. It can get on the internet and will definitely tide me over until I have enough saved for a new laptop. It is amazing. Mom told me while I was at work and I got so overwhelmed that I had to go have a cry in the bathroom.

It's been a pretty rocky fall, folks. Do you remember when I used to accidentally tear-up on the metro and at CVS? It was like that except I expanded my venues to: at work on the phone with a customer, in my car on the way home, at the laundromat, at the gym on the elliptical runner, at the gym in the stretching corner, at the gym by the paper towel dispenser. I've read embarrassing unhealthy amounts of books in the last 2 months, so many that I don't post them on goodreads**. I applied for another job at my same company and, after a long time, was offered that position only to have the position close the next day with no clear plans to reopen it for hiring. Around this same time Pigeon started peeing on my bed so regularly that I took to covering it with a vinyl shower curtain - which she was happy to keep peeing on and even upped her water intake*** so that she could pee on the bed while I was sleeping. There's nothing like rolling over and grabbing a handful of cold, wet, musky piss-blanket to make you feel like a failure.

But then I took Pigeon to the vet and got her butt fixed, I realized that the other job would be pretty much the same as the one I have now and I finally cut back on reading thanks to my wonderful new used ibook. I also found a good therapist and psychiatrist, both of whom I can afford because I have an office job with health insurance. And then I went on a vacation to California where I spent 8 days with many of my favorite people. I got back last Sunday. And here I am. On the internet. Once again.

*brought to you by my first and foremost patrons, my parents.
**I know!! Seriously, I was reading 10-15 a week.
***I suspect. There was so much pee... unnatural amounts of pee.

internet sabbatical, it's magical

2009-10-15T17:50:00.004-04:00

Hello my Darlings!

As you may have heard, my ibook has died. I am currently saving up for a new computer and ~~enjoying~~ surviving this circumstance-imposed sabbatical from the internet/dvds/podcasts.

I want to you to know that I miss blogging, everyday. As soon as my computer crashed I was overcome with the desire to blog...funny how that works.You have my word that The Future is Coming! will return, bigger and better than ever before, most likely with a grand-reopening ceremony with balloons and lol cats!

Love,
Sara

fish container

2009-08-03T23:32:00.005-04:00

It's August. Time for a list!

(1) The August initiative! I've decided that Action is the opposite of Depression. And starts with A! Which stands for August!

(2) Today I ate 3 fortune cookies! My fortunes were, in order:

If you can shape it in your mind, you will find it in your life.

Desire, like the atom, is explosive with creative force.

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Second mouse? Wtf, like second fiddle? Second on the cheese scene? Wouldn't the first mouse also get the cheese*? I mean obviously there's enough cheese for atleast two mice, because the first mouse hasn't eaten all of it yet. In all my years of reading I've never come across a second mouse. Not buying it, fortune cookie, not buying it.

(3) Last week, during our family webcam time, Davin asked me if I had a fish container. I told him, truthfully, that I do have a fish container and that I keep light bulbs in it. And then we just about died giggling.

*according to google and my cousin hope, everybody knows that the first mouse is dead in the trap. I would prefer to revert back to my vision of a first mouse who shares or is possibly a little nearsighted.

Balloon Zen

2009-07-20T23:26:00.001-04:00

like a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow

2009-06-30T00:14:00.011-04:00

favorite things reportage, june 2009:

(1) P. G. Wodehouse...Jeeves and Wooster: Library fines for past-due audiobook Right Ho Jeeves: $1.75. Gas used during end-of-chapter parking lot idling: $3.92 Discovering another link in the British Comedy literary cannon: Priceless.*

(2) The Music Man: Not sure how I made it this far without seeing it. And now it's taken over my brain. My every lull in concentration is now filled with "Ya got trouble! Trouble! Right here in River City! Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool! Stands for Pool!"

(3) PS22 5th grade choir sings Just Dance. I wish movies were more like this video.

(4) The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plays Wuthering Heights. So if this guy has a son, I want to marry him. He's got like, the power of the muppets.** He takes a terrifying Kate Bush song and make it singable and adorably goofy!

(5) Davin throws me hugs over the webcam and when I throw him a hug he pretends to gobble it up like cookie monster.

*the title of this blog post comes from Bertie Wooster's description of his uncle Tom.
**our children would also then have the power of the muppets***
***disease resistent, plucky, and prone to putting on shows

and now I can sew badly in the comfort of my own home

2009-06-16T00:09:00.006-04:00

My new baby: The Singer Esteem II*

So it only took me one weekend (one instructional dvd, 3 youtube videos, the machine manual, sewing for dummies, a phone call to my Mom and finally lugging the machine to my Grandma's) for me to figure out how to raise the bobbin thread.....no worries!

*the Nimbus 2000 of sewing machines, I like to think

vacation 2009

2009-04-28T22:33:00.046-04:00

Oh vacation, what have you done?

I left my apartment and my job, both in good hands, for 8 days. From April 11th to April 19th I was in California, state and mind. When I came back my apartment had been resettled by one cockroach, 2 spidery centipedes, a troupe of fleas (in defiance of Pigeon's high-power anti-flea medication), and what seems to be a friendly ghost. I went back to work to discover that my department has been turned upside down and is currently vying for the title of Crazytown, VA. This is at least partly why it's taken me a month to blog about my amazing vacation.

My vacation was so good. So good that I need to break it down, list-style.

The Flights

# of all-nighters pulled=2

# of intentional all-nighters pulled=1 I stayed up after work and left my apartment around 1:30 am for the airport, no problems. The resulting sleepiness infused me with a effervescent god-like love as I contemplated my fellow passengers, the pilots and all the tiny precious people down on earth in their tiny precious houses and cars. On the way back, well...things did not go as planned.

# of times I nodded off in flight only to be startled awake by the seat belt sign pinging on and proceeded to gasp and flail around embarrassing everyone else in my row and one time even knocking over my cup of ice to the disgust of the two children sitting next to me=5

# of times I tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal my terror of smashing into the airport/other airplanes/a concert hall while the plane was braking on the airstrip=4 When I'm that tired it never occurs to me that airplanes are built with really good brakes for just this purpose. Nope. We touch down and I do my best to look cool while making little squeaky noises and bracing myself with my arms on the seat in front of me. When I'm rested I still get scared but I read really really hard until it's over so no one is the wiser.

# of magazines read during the 3 and a half hour delay out of San Jose= 4 (Real Simple, Vanity Fair, and People and something else trashy)

# of college crew championship-winning lads on my delayed flight=16 They were all wearing hokey red and white polyester blazers, like they were all ready to go on the Laurence Welk show.

# of items lost between 11:30pm and 12:30am Sunday night in O'hare=2 my favorite sweater and my boarding pass for the next morning (meg-style).

# of items recovered between 11:30 pm and 12:30 am Sunday in O'hare=1, my boarding pass, in the bathroom. The cleaning lady said "I knew somebody had to be going crazy out there."

# of security alarms I set off accidentally between 11:30 pm and 12:30 am Sunday in O'hare=1 I am never, ever connecting in Chicago, ever again.

# of hours spent in Chicago hotel room=3.5 One shower. no sleep.

The Visits
Mom, Dad, Davin
My aunt Myrna, uncle Michael and cousins Daniel, David and Matthew
Teresa
Teresa's housemates and friends Max, Maggie and Maggie's friend Emily

Cities Visited:

San Jose
Fremont
Big Sur
Santa Cruz
Oakland

Cities not visited:
San Francisco

Parties Attended:

30's themed Depression (economic) party at Lobot. (they had a bread line and a soup line and homemade whiskey and moonshine. and bands and sketches. )

# of gorgeous birds sighted=3 1 red-winged blackbird and 2 very saucy Steller's Jays.

My Mom picked me up at the San Jose airport and took me to their adorable two-story in Fremont. It manages to feel tropical and cozy at the same time. Davin and I squealed identical soprano squeals when we saw each other. I took a nap in the guest room and then came down stairs for Aunt-Nephew Easter egg dyeing. This year Davin was all business production-line about it. I usually let the eggs bask in their color baths until they've reached their color potential but Davin just dunked his eggs and moved on the next ones. But then I showed Davin how you can re-dye eggs in another dye bath to create new colors and he got into that, hardcore. And while this was going on Antiques Roadshow came on the TV and I just about died from happiness.

The next day was Easter. My parents cooked my favorite foods for me, asparagus and salmon. And then, per family tradition, we took an Easter drive, this time through gorgeous redwood forests to the craggy coast. We ended up at Pigeon Point Lighthouse and scouted a good, secluded strip of coast for the Easter egg hunt. The place we settled on came closer to a fairytale landscape than any I've seen. The bluff was covered in a blanket of blossoming succulents. I didn't even know succulents could grow in field - I had only ever seen them in pots, and never blooming. I had been in charge of getting Davin ready for the drive and I forgot his sweater so we put him in one of Dad's shirts which was pretty much the cutest thing ever. Davin and I took a hike along the bluff while Mom and Dad hid the eggs. Public humiliation being another of my parents' Easter traditions, I was required to hunt for eggs with Davin. Davin found his 12 eggs with candy and toys in them but I only found 11 of my eggs with money and m&ms in them. Upon inspection of my 11 eggs Mom determined that the missing egg had $10 in it. After 30 minutes of everyone searching for my missing egg, Mom and Davin huddled on a folding chair while Dad and I poked through the succulent undergrowth and inspected the mole (more likely crab) holes for another 20 minutes. Let me just pause here to remind you that while it is ridiculous for a 27-year-old to hunt for Easter eggs it is even more ridiculous for a 27-year old to lose the Easter Egg Hunt to a 4 year old. We gave up looking for the lost egg, hoping that someone would find it later and that it would make them happy. "Maybe the moles have it, maybe they'll take that $10 and go out on the town.." I said as we were walking back to the car. "Maybe they'll have mole-jitos!!!" crowed my Mom. She was so amused by her own joke that she bent over laughing and......found the missing egg! Which was hidden in plain sight. Needless to say, the missing egg/mole-jitos story enjoyed a lot of replay over the next week, so much so that Davin would bring it up on his own, always starting with "Sara, remember that time when you couldn't find the egg? That was a funny time!"

On Monday Teresa picked me up in a rental car and we headed south for a 2-day camping trip in Big Sur. On the way there the cliffs and beaches were so epic and beautiful that we had to stop and explore them. There were hidey-hole caves in the rocks and giant arms of seaweed with gelatinous green pods on the beach. The hems of my jeans were wet within minutes. The wind was astringent and strong. Everything smelled so good. The landscape was so epic that Teresa and I had a running list: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Shipping News, Heidi....until we ran out of comparisons and decided that this place was so epic that it deserved a mythology of its own. We camped (car-camped) in a surprisingly lively and populated campground for a cold Monday in April. We set up Teresa's tiny-ass tent on soft ground underneath a redwood tree and then drove off to go exploring along the coast. We parked at a park. There was a sign to the beach and creamery meadows, which I decided was going to be awesome. The path led to a river with no bridge. The male members of an Asian family were fording the knee-high water to the other side while the female members stayed rooted on the parking lot side and said loud things. The father and young son on the other side starting giving Teresa advice on the depth of the water and difficulty of crossing. "It's quicksand!" exclaimed the son. "There is no quicksand" the father assured us gravely. After going back to the parking lot to study the park map we rolled up our pants, hung our shoes over our shoulders and decided to ford the river ourselves. What may have been knee-height on some was crotch-height on me. My jeans soaked water up to the pockets. I put my boots back on and we wandered among twisty trees and flowers and heavenly fields for hours. It was worth it. We tried coming back from the beach another way but still ended up having to ford the river....right when my pants were almost dry. I had to sing "climb every mountain" under my breath to make myself go in back in the river. It was a good adventure.

That night we ate rice and lentils heated on Teresa's tiny gas burner and admired our duraflame logfire while a soprano several sites away serenaded the dark campground with a long aria. It was magical. After she was done I kept waiting for everyone in the campground to start singing California Dreamin'. It didn't happen. We were settling down for the night when the most ridiculously loud snoring started up next to us. It was so loud that I assumed that it was Teresa. It wasn't. My Target sleeping bag wasn't keeping the cold out and my pants were still outside laying out to dry (the cold weather would keep them damp for the rest of the trip). After an hour I couldn't take it any more and moved my sorry tired ass to the car. I could still hear the snoring in the car.

The next morning we hiked up the hills that over look the coast we hiked the day before. Huge green hills covered in rippling waves of grass. We were sitting in a field high above the park of the river-fording when we noticed all these people with dry clothes and shoes walking on a wide, flat road from the parking lot to the beach. There was clearly a different road to the beach that didn't involve Oregon-Trail-caliber challenges. "Ah," we said "but they don't know about Creamery Fields. And we have sooo many Oregon Trail points now! We didn't lose any oxen, or break an axle."

We ate lunch outside at a cliff-top cafe that Hollywood movie stars used to frequent on their vacations in the olden days. We sat soaking in the sun for a long time, giggling at the ridiculously inappropriate Caribbean music the cafe was playing and talking about the new stories each of us are working on. Teresa pined for a sea cottage on a cliff. I forgot I had a job or even a way of life outside this vacation.

We hiked many other cliffs, bluffs and hills. It was all so breathtakingly epic that I didn't even try to take photos. Sometimes we would come across a beach that we would want to hike and it would be fenced off with posted "private property signs". This kinda blew my mind. It didn't seem plausible that an individual could own a section of this gorgeous coastline.

That evening we stopped in again at the little grocery (whose clerk confirmed that it was definitely unseasonably cold and windy right now) and bought another blanket, sleeping bag, and chocolate. The plan was to eat supper and then hang out and read Harry Potter by the light of our duraflame log and then, at 12:30 am, leave for the Esselen hot baths which are only open to the public from 1am to 3am. This seemed like a great plan until it came time to leave my double-warm sleeping bag and venture out into to the cold cold northern California night in my still-damp jeans. I wussed out and promptly fell asleep, snoring softly to myself. Now I really wish I hadn't wussed out. We had to head back the next day.

On Wednesday I spent quality time around the house with my parents and Davin. My parents introduced me to their favorite shows on the Discovery channel - which, along with PBS, is our family's favorite channel. Besides How It's Made, my parents are really into Deadliest Catch - a completely amazing and addictive show.

Davin and I took walks around the neighborhood. Besides pine cones, Davin was especially interested in a row of empty houses scheduled for demolition that the local swat and fire teams have been using for practice. The houses are riddled with holes; holes chopped in garage doors, holes chopped every five feet in the roofs, holes in the windows. Davin would always ask why they chopped holes in the houses and my explanations always ended up involving "a kitty, stuck inside the house or garage".

Davin is, of course, so smart and hilarious. He can count to one hundred on his own without a counting book, spell out words and has a whole new cast of imaginary friends. Cosmo is still #1 in the cast and there's been a new development: Davin told me that I am Cosmo's Mom*. In a strange way this makes perfect sense to me, although it is pretty neglectful of me to have an imaginary 4-year old son living in California that I didn't know anything about. Davin has surpassed Cosmo in spelling and when we're in the car he provides us with demonstrations of his superior skills: "I spell Honda H-O-N-D-A but but Cosmo spells Honda H-O-R-A-A-D-D-R-N!" Davin also recently told his Preschool teacher that his sister was run over by a truck and killed. The teacher believed him and offered her condolences to my shocked Dad, who quickly set the record straight. My parents aren't worried about any of this - I did all the same things when I was his age. Heh heh.

On Thursday all four of us drove to meet my Aunt, Uncle and 2 of my cousins at Roaring Camp outside of Santa Cruz. Davin is really into trains so we took a steam train ride through really old redwood Forest and learned some nice things. Then we went to the adjoining National Park and saw a slice of a redwood tree that was older than Jesus. It struck me then that while I kind of think that states west of Virginia as not having much physical history (you know, like Jamestown and plantations and Monticello and battlefields), they damn well have natural history. I mean, I touched a tree that was older than Jesus. We had a picnic lunch in a park and then headed for the beach, where I saw real live tide pools. Then we went to a marine school/lab/aquarium. They had two giant assembled whale skeletons outside, which you could touch. Inside they had a gorgeous circular tank with a flock of soft pink jellyfish pulsating gently inside, 2 inches away from your face. They had open tanks manned by volunteers full of all kinds of anemonies, starfish and sea cucumbers that you could touch. It was wonderful.

My cousins Matthew and David spent the night and came with us to the San Jose Flea Market the next day. The San Jose Flea Market was my idea, it is a super famous huge flea market that I saw on PBS special. I hadn't been to a proper flea market in a long time and read all these blogs about girls who score amazing vintage finds at California flea markets. Unfortunately, the flea part of the flea market was closed - just the market part...the fruits and vegetable, Latino wedding supply shops, and skanky clothing stores remained open during the week. I didn't buy anything but it was good to hang out with my cousins, who have grown into funny, sweet and incredibly tall young men. David said he will come back with me sometime on a weekend when there is a proper flea market.

On Saturday I hung out with my family in the morning and then took the BART into Oakland to hang out with Teresa. Teresa and I were cooking dinner for her friends Max, Maggie and Maggie's friend Emily. We got groceries at Trader Joe's and started cooking the dinner in kitchen with Teresa's housemate who was making the soups for the Depression party soup line later that evening. Everything was great. Teresa's kitchen is really lovely and homey for a kitchen used by almost 20 people. Teresa left to go meet her friends at the BART and I stayed in the kitchen with her housemate Tori. I was so nervous about meeting her friends that I've heard so much about that in the 20 minutes before Teresa got back I accidentally broke a bottle of essential oil in the bathroom and burned the bottom 2 inches of rice for our dinner. Luckily, everything else turned out fine and after a drink the 5 of us were the best of friends and had decided to form a joint band called The Country Bears Tribute Band. Which we thought was the funniest thing ever. Then we moseyed over to the party in the public section of lobot and saw some bands and a two-person theater troupe all surrounded by a giant cardboard installation of a fanastical remote control car race track**. It was an awesome night.

I Barted back to my parents in the morning and said a misty-eyed goodbye to Davin, my parents and California. And due to weather in Chicago I didn't get home until noon the next day.

The frustrating trip back made me grateful to be home. It was raining when I got into National and I drove home in it, stopping for more coffee every half hour. The trees on my drive home looked so delicate. Everything, the hills, the colors, the air in Virginia seemed smaller, softer and more feminine. A land for stories of small things, not epics.

* Strangely enough, the next week I received a call at work from a customer named Cosmo (snappy-sounding Italian last name)- who needed help with the software he is using to homeschool his 3 children. For a split-second I wanted to say "Cosmo? Is that you? Are you my imaginary son?" It was a very package-from-the-future-moment, although this time it was my imaginary son Cosmo calling from the future to inform me of my future imaginary grandchildren.
**I took these four photos in the early morning, creepy-houseguest style. But honestly, Teresa's place is beautiful and the photos don't even capture 25% of the beauty. And I didn't want to be the only person taking photos the night before....

ok, top list

2009-04-09T22:34:00.005-04:00

(1) There is a sliver of light left along the horizon now when I leave work at 8:24pm! Ok, maybe not light exactly, but it's green and navy blue and not dark.

(2) Stephen Fry. "If you are the kind of person who insists on this and that ‘correct use’ I hope I can convince you to abandon your pedantry. Dive into the open flowing waters and leave the stagnant canals be...But above all let there be pleasure. Let there be textural delight, let there be silken words and flinty words and sodden speeches and soaking speeches and crackling utterance and utterance that quivers and wobbles like rennet. Let there be rapid firecracker phrases and language that oozes like a lake of lava. Words are your birthright." Yes! Oh, I am so glad that someone with his intelligence, humor, class and clout is making this argument!

(3) I just heard that there is a wizard rock band named Mary and the Grand Pres.....that someone would love a work so much to write songs about the characters and name their band after the books' illustrator....is too freaking adorable for words.

(4) It's time to re-read my favorite book, The Shipping News! Only this time I'm listening to the audio book. Oh to have someone read your favorite book to you - even if they are bad at accents.

(5) In 31 hours I will be on a plane headed to California for a whole week of family, Teresa and no customers! Oh to not answer the phone when it rings.

(6) Whenever Mom talks about me coming to stay for my vacation, Davin runs and makes a bed out of hand towels for me on his floor. Oh!

Powered by Pigeons

2009-04-01T22:32:00.005-04:00

This is my favorite Google April Fool's hoax.

Things I Found

2009-03-31T22:40:00.009-04:00

I found this beauty in a copy of Sixpence House from my apartment complex library in Alexandria. The longer you look at it the scarier the little girls become.

I found this strange list on my bus ride home from the library in Alexandria.

Haiku
I don't think any game is that important
state
elot
Medatarian Sea
Soeing stic

The reverse side is even better:

Marwana
5
eagle
Withdrew
pengia
camafloge
sheep
afganastan
dogs
smell
leaves
Leaves, plants
checkers

I like to think that two kids were playing somekind of game (a game of writing words down?) when one of them, probably the loser, shut the whole thing down by declaring "I don't think any game is that important." And the other one, embarrassed, put the paper down behind them on the bus seat.

This is a praise sheet for someone named Leah. I found it in an atlas donated to BookSavers of Virginia. It seems that Leah's entire grade had to write nice things about her, 90% of which compliment how nice, athletic and tall she is, but a few tender souls stray into poetic territory - here are my favorites:

a smart old freind - Christophe
You're a ~~very~~ clever & unique person - Anonomuys
funny - Joseph
your tall and good at sports. -Kevin
you are great at many things I could never excel in. -Mandi
you are very, very, very, very tall. -TJ
Your funny and nice and tall. -AL
Sporty! - Hannah
Smart, nice and a great althelite, especialy in soccer, and a good friend. -Mustafa

Oh Mandi and Mustafa. I really hope you hung out together.

So I'm sending these off to Found magazine! Along with a tiny photo I found outside CVS, it's amazing but too small for me to scan properly.

O wondrous internet

2009-03-22T18:46:00.010-04:00

The last two weeks were unbelievably slow at work. We got through it by entertaining ourselves the best we* could. This mostly took the form of:

(a) Trying to get everyone on the same pointless (because we all sit within hearing distance of each other) conference call and giggling.

(b) Serious interneting.

I thought I would share some of the fruits of my labors with you.

(1) I love the desk "style" format for gmail...it makes me feel a little like I have my own J.K. Rowlingesque website. It's sortof like you're spying someone else's desk except instead of feeling sneaky, it feels homey. And I am also a fan of the artist themes for iGoogle - I'm using the one from Carrie Chau. I fantasized** for years about a homepage that would put feeds from all the blogs and websites I frequent into a format like the New York Times homepage....it would be like a newspaper, except all the articles would be about lol cats, sewing your own underwear and what Miranda July is doing. IGoogle/google reader has a long way to go - but it's getting there.

So, when presented with 6+ hours of sitting at desk with nothing to do, my internet browsing goes like this: Gmail, icanhascheezburger, failblog, BoingBoing, McSweeney's (although they don't update until 12pm or later - west coasties***), curious expeditions, www.tinyhappy.typepad.com, angrychicken, soulemama, then msn.com for trashy gossip and to smirk at the ridiculous advice they give, then nytimes.com for the arts and style sections, the theguardian.co.uk, then sometimes I google my favorite authors' names to see if they've announced a new book, cake wrecks, weather.com, then npr.org for the song of the day and news, back to boingboing, my friend's blogs, style blogs, thrifty house-decorating blogs, crafty blogs, martha stewart.com, oprah.com, then, if I'm tired of browsing I may go and drool of the library worship posts on curious expeditions, and then read more email, and then I'll go to the harrisonburg library site to put things on hold to pick up over my lunch break, then I will probably read dinosaur comics, and a softer world and toothpaste for dinner, then the onion and avclub. Then I may check salon.com. Then I research things on wikipedia like the proper term for goober peas (boiled peanuts), on imdb.com like why that kid in Mr. Saturday Night looks so familiar (he was on Step by Step, embarrassingly enough) and look for books I've forgotten the titles of in google books. Google books is the closest I come to playing a game online. I always remember scenes, so I search with phrases, for instance, "oranges and whole jars of honey" reunited me with my beloved Melendy family series and "Mandy Patinkin tapes" turned out to be from this amazing short story Teresa had sent me by Lorrie Moore called Terrific Mother. It's an amazing resource.

My work friends and I im-ed links to each other all week long. I slayed the competition with my three best entries ( all from my hilarious friends):

(1) The Count Censored. Watch the whole thing. It just keeps getting better and better. I think my favorite are the candles...no, it's a tie between the candles and spiders. (from Elise)

(2)Fail blog. "Tell me when you get to the kid with the fork..." I told them. (from Kate and Meg)

(3) Christopher Walken's Twitter feed. I'd only gone on Twitter twice before, to ~~stalk~~ see what LeVar Burton was up to****, but that quickly got boring. Then Julia sent me the link for Christopher Walken's Twitter, which totally blew my mind. He made the twitter an art form: one half absurdist stand-up, one half poetry. He had entries like: "Tina Fey is a handsome woman and I can tell she knows that. Mickey Rourke seems to think that he's a handsome woman as well. He's not." and "The Pope is in Africa - reaffirming the ban on condom use. His old stuff was funnier. I don't get this new material. Too edgy for my taste." Unfortunately this internet wonder got shut down, it wasn't really Christopher Walken. (I did wonder..especially when he kept plugging this weird literary site over and over again...but damn it was good while it lasted.)

My favorite link from my co-workers: JETMAN. If you haven't seen this video of Yves Rossy, watch it. It is breathtaking.

I also enjoyed this Onion AV Club interview with Eef Barzelay, the guy from Clem Snide. It's nice to know that kinda famous/successful people don't know what to do with themselves/are thinking about going back to school to be a teacher/think about having to live on the side of river in an abandoned trailer when the economy collapses too.

*We, as in "my co-workers and I", not The Royal "We."
**So what if I have newspaper fantasies?
***Sounds like a cereal, or a dog.
****Apparently, he is up to being dreamier than ever: he is hosting a new documentary called The Science of Peace" and really excited about attending his wife's bookclub meetings.

the littlest builder

2009-03-09T23:45:00.005-04:00

the littlest builder
Originally uploaded by thefutureiscoming

Davin turned 4 on Sunday! Happy birthday Davy!

Learning how to share

2009-03-05T01:05:00.009-05:00

on the internet. I've been collecting some things over the past two years with the hopes of sharing them with the world (i.e. getting them on a website). Over the next week I will post them here first and then submit them to see what happens! It'll be like opening myself up to conversation with the world!

These are two local church signage failures that I happily documented:

Good, right? But what kind of fails are they?

Is #1 a relevancy fail? A hip factor fail? Google fail? Cool points fail?
Is #2 a merely a signage/placement fail or is it something more along the lines of a failure to be serious about torture? And what do you call that and how would you make it sound captiony?

Please help! You don't want everyone berating me for an epic caption fail, do you?

Love,
Sara

2009-03-05T01:05:00.001-05:00

Patton Oswalt for Poet Laureate

2009-03-03T00:08:00.001-05:00

Patton Oswalt for Poet Laureate - watch more funny videos

Talk a chill: a story in three notes

2009-02-13T22:52:00.036-05:00

Ladies and Gentleman, may I present the story of 2008! A story brought to you in honor of the unlikely juxtapostioning of Friday the 13th with Valentines Day and made possible by my recent splurge on a new scanner:

"Talk A Chill"

It was June 2008. I had found the perfect apartment in the quietest, most peaceful nest of a town.
"Thanks so much!" I said to the girl who showed me the apartments. "I'll call the landlord right away and let him know I want the bigger one next door."
"Oh, that's a good idea....there's a guy who's interested in the apartments too - he wants the bigger one but he'll take the smaller one if the bigger one's not available."
I gave her a serious look, the smaller apartment was seriously inferior.
"But the landlord said that he'd give the bigger one to a girl if a girl came to see it..because it's been repainted and the floors have been redone and the kitchen's bigger and guys don't care about that sort of thing," she prattled.
"Hmmm...." I thought to myself. "I don't know this other guy... Sexism working for meee!" "Ok!" I agreed brightly, dailing up the landlord.

One week later: It's the fourth of July, and my parents, Davin, my brother and his friends are helping me move in. My moving truck is parked in front, hogging up the nice, wide sturdy entrance and staircase. This leaves the back, narrow, rickety staircase to my new neighbor, who is also moving in today. As I lurch sweatily up the stairs for the millionth time, trying not to fall over Davin (who is running around making crazy Dinosaur/Rooster sounds), I come face-to-face with two guys who are staring at me like they've never seen a girl before. Fuck. "Hi.." I say before lunging over Davin into my apartment. They do not say anything back.

The Next Day: I am woken up from my first night in my new apartment by furious banging on my fragile, glass-paned door. After nearly peeing myself from terror, I put on my robe, unchained my lock and opened the door. There stood a middle-aged woman holding a box full of coffee mugs and mac-n-cheese boxes. She was looking at me with a mixture of surprise, amusement and pride.
"Is Tristan here?" she asked, with a twinkle in her eye.
"No, I'm Sara." I said grumpily.
"Hi, Sara! Is Tristan in there?" She repeated, even more twinkly.
"No, I'm Sara. I live here. Alone."
She still didn't get it. "He told me he'd be in apartment 2." She smiled understandingly, as if my answers had been standard for girls sleeping over at her son's apartment.
"I just moved in yesterday. There are some guys who moved into apartment THREE yesterday, why don't you check there? Ok thanks." And I shut the door. "I totally stole that guy's apartment," I thought, " And now he'll be triply mad because I stole his apartment and the good staircase on moving day and I was grumpy to his Mom." I'm pretty sure that's grounds for a full-out feud in Broadway, VA, so now I'm probably feuding with my neighbor. Nice start, Sara, nice start.

Later that day: After showering and unpacking I decided to take some cardboard to recycling. I loaded it up in my car and went back to my apartment to get my purse. In the hallway I met one of the apartment 3 guys. "Hi!" I said, because it's nice to be nice to people.
"Hi" he said.
"Are you Tristan?"
"Yeah"
"I think I met your Mom this morning."
"Oh, yeah. (silence) So, do you live on your own?"
"Yep. What about you?"
"I live by on my own."
"Ok! Well! I have a lot of cardboard to recycle. I'm going to take it to the recycling center. Bye!"

I must have done lots of cool things in Harrisonburg after that because I didn't end up coming back until late at night. As I was unlocking my door I saw a note sticking out of it. It was a piece of notebook paper, folded into a small square with my name on the front, middle-school-style. Fuck.

This, my friends, is the note:

In case you can't read it, I've retyped it, in it's full splendor, below:

Sara,

Hey whaty up? not to much here just wondering. If you wasn't going with anybody or anything if you would like to go out friday night. I hope you will let me take yo out. it would be such a honor. And yes this is askin you on a date. Plz.

Tristan Apartment #3

PS ( crossed out: I hope you'd love) I'd love to just hang out with you maybe become more then just freind maybe boyfreind and girlfriend but if not could you at least give my breath you took away when I saw you today.

An amazing and hilarious note. On all planes. First of all, would this note work on any person old enough to live on her own? I really hope not. Secondly, this is so not the way to pick up a literature nerd. Thirdly, wtf? I moved to the middle of nowhere for privacy and peace to get hit on my first day here by the only guy in the county who would find me attractive and he fucking lives next to me? The situation needed to be defused. I consulted Teresa immediately. After laughing for 45 minutes straight we concocted a safe and hopefully kind, rejection note. I wrote it on stationary from PaperSource to further distance myself from him by demonstrating that I am a classy broad. The recreated note:

Dear Tristan,

Thank you for the very flattering note. I cannot go out with you on Friday because I'm in a committed long-distance relationship with my boyfriend of 5 years.

Thank you,

Sara (Apt 2)

A lie, of course. But a lie for peace.
I slid the stationary note under his door early the next morning to avoid as much awkwardness as possible.

That evening I found another middle school -style note stuck in my door, but this time he wrote my name all fancy!

Sara

Hey sup. Man I feel like such an idoit. I am sorry about the note it just when I seen your (gorgeous crossed out) beaitful self I had to at least try I was alway taught if you want something go for it. And I did an failed. So once again I would like to apolgize. I hope we can still talk a chill if we want

PEACE

Tristan

I hate it when I feel like an idoit. :)

The note succeeded. He didn't slash my tires and we were civil to each other until his pregnant girlfriend took over his apartment and kicked him out. We never did get to talk a chill.

The End.

Pancakes with Relish

2009-01-25T19:54:00.013-05:00

Meg and Kate came for Saturday and Sunday morning! What did we do in my beautiful apartment?

(A) Kate and I watched The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio while Meg and Pigeon slept.
(B) We made blueberry-banana pancakes and made espresso with my janky-ass moka pot.
(C) We deemed Meg the poet laureate of the morning and then revoked the title.
(D) I told the story about how my brother used to be obsessed with making one-bowl meals in the microwave and when I said that "he ate his microwave pancake-in-a-bowl with relish" we all got quiet and slightly nauseous thinking of pancakes with pickles.
(E) Meg, in her electrical wisdom, figured out a way for me to rig up twinkle lights in my entry way without the use of an outlet.
(F) We story-boarded, illustrated, and made tremendous progress on The New Year's Babushka.
(G) Made lol cats of Pigeon.
(H) All of the above.

Of course! It was all in that order and all of the above!

*photos by kate, cat-wrangling by sara

My boyz are in the White House!*

2009-01-21T22:44:00.011-05:00

And already kicking ass!
Photo: Pete Souza/The White House

Yesterday I woke up and said to myself, "It's Obama Day!" I drove to work listening to Great Expectations on audio book, the sad part when Pip is leaving Joe and Joe is so sad and good. Having received the memo last week that we, as "essential employees," were not invited to the office-wide-watching-the-inauguration-party, I setup for work at 10:45 with the rest of my shiftmates but sneakily set up windows for cnn, nytimes and yahoo coverage along with all my normal programs. All of my thoughts were in DC. The phones were slow and none of us could stay away from the coverage. So there I was, headphones over my earpiece, glued to a 4 by 4 inch square on my monitor and sniffing back the tears so that I could answer calls from hateful people who think it's appropriate to call for replacement disks during the swearing in of our 44th president. By 1 pm I had dabbed off all of my mascara. I felt like Spring had come - that very first part of Spring, which is painful and ugly with cracking ice and sloppy mud and dull, gray landscapes but which carries with it the most shocking freshness and possibility. Do you know what I mean? Annie Proulx knows what I mean:

"A sense of purity renewed, a sense of events in trembling balance flooded him.
Everything, everything seemed encrusted with portent."

-Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

*Rahm and I are, like, bffs.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T09:26:00.008-05:00

from my apartment to yours.

The most ridiculous nightmare

2008-12-03T21:33:00.017-05:00

November, thank God, is finally over. For reals. I checked. It's December 3rd... all my best sources say November won't be back for another 11 months - by which time I will undoubtedly have a new and improved attack plan.

So let's get back to business.

(1) Last night I had a nightmare about....snails.

Fist-sized black snails that kept coming out of my oven! They were really slow but still really scary! I couldn't stop them! They were all over the kitchen and there were more in the oven!

I think this might be the most ridiculous nightmare ever recorded.

The snails, no doubt, bear serious psychological evidence of my perceived failure at customer service. Or!!! The dream represents how my repressed desires (the scary snails) to sing Rocky Raccoon (or, more lately, Toto's Africa) at top volume at work will not be controlled! That would make the oven a symbol of my mouth....which seems about right.

(The awesome beware of snails sign led to to this cute blog that offers up free names for nameless bands. The name for that went with the sign was "Beseiged by Snails"!)

Ruffeo Hearts Lil Snotty

2008-11-12T23:24:00.000-05:00

(Watch through 03:20) I sincerely hope to work somewhere that values the importance of a morning motivational dance. Soon.

So, I don't have TV

2008-11-04T21:33:00.009-05:00

So I have cnn.com, nytimes.com and NPR - all at the same time.

09:33 Omg John Cusack is on NPR. So dreamy.
09:34 Some old guy talking to John Cusack just said it is impossible for McCain to win now. I think I'm going to swoon.
09:35 New Mexico called for Obama!
09:35 John Cusack is in LA talking about Grant Park. Shouldn't they be speaking to someone in Chicago?
09:36 My ultra cool cousinfriend Philip is totally there at Grant Park! At the Obama party! In the middle of a historic moment!
09:37 I am eating a sliced turnip - it's really good.
09:40 Pigeon is eating my chive plant.
09:40 Dude, David Serotis(sp?) is such a downer.
09:41 Ehhhh, who choose the music for NPR tonight?
09:42 They're reading out the states.
09:42 No consensus on Virgina yet.
09:45 Refresh, refresh. Ahh! Virginia is now 50/50! Atta girl!
09:54 Whoa NPR, why so grumpy? Did somebody forget their nap?
09:56 Taking a break from NPR. I'm going to watch Mad Men.
10:10 I can't stay away!! Refresh Refresh Refresh!
11:15 OMG! Obama is the president elect! Ahhhh! I think I just woke up my neighbors!
11:16 Meg is holding her phone up to her tv so I can hear McCain's concession speech.
11:22 Aw, McCain, that was sweet. Good Job.
11:26 Well, this is it my friends. A new era.

Come on Virginia, you can do it

2008-11-04T21:09:00.004-05:00

With 57% of your votes reported you are trailing McCain by 3 %. Come on Virginia, you can do it. We just re-elected our Democratic Governor, that wasn't so hard was it? Teresa freakin' overnighted her absentee ballot to you, is this any way to repay her? You are embarrassing me, Virginia. You know how you're for Lovers? Well, those lovers are voting for Obama and they may just take their lovin' elsewhere if you don't put out tonight. That's right, you heard me. Come on.

Quiet Crusader

2008-10-18T18:12:00.010-04:00

What have I been up to? A list with choices.

(1) Trying so hard not to sing Rocky Raccoon in public.

(2) Spending two hours a week in a tiny room that smells like old dried soup mix.

(3) Eating suppers of cooked apples, oatmeal and Riesling while watching 1940's House on DVD.

(4) Paying a million bills.

(5) Oh, all of the above.

(a) Everyday week day, around 12:30 pm, I am overcome with the desire to belt "Rocky Raccoon" from The White Album. This has been going on for three weeks. Really, getting hiccoughs at the same time every day for three weeks would be more explainable than this. There I am, sitting in my customer service row, facing my double monitors, only an hour and a half into my shift and barely able to keep myself from bursting out with "only to find Gideon's Bible!" I may not be long for the office, my friends.

(b) Every Thursday morning I volunteer at Booksavers for two hours before going to work. I do this because I get to be behind-the-scenes of the most industrious and organized Thrift Store in Harrisonburg and because I enjoy the image of a Book Saver- like a very quiet crusader with glasses. I get to commune with piles and piles of donated books. I, in fact, save them.

(c) I know, I know, you think Riesling is too sweet. But to me it is perfect. And so good with oatmeal. Just like British historical reality TV.

(d) Look at the pretty stamps!

Book lust

2008-10-12T22:37:00.007-04:00

(1) Neil Gaiman's new book, The Graveyard Book, "retells the Jungle Book, but instead of an orphan boy lost in the jungle, raised and tormented by animals, the Graveyard Book's orphan, Bod, is orphaned by a serial killer and raised in the graveyard by ghosts (thousands of years' worth -- from pre-Roman to Victorian)." Fuck yeah!
You can also watch the author read the entire book on his tour.

(2) Sarah Vowell has a new book! And a new interview on The Daily Show! Sarah Vowell to the rescue!

(3) Harry, A History, by the admirable Melissa Anelli, is coming out in less than a month! Can't wait!

(4) I just finished listening to The Hours read by the author, Michael Cunningham. He read with a slightly deadened poetic cadence, which really suited his writing but inevitably invaded my brain so that I went around for two weeks with my own sad stilted version of his narration in my head: "She thinks the duct-taped rear window is tidy......cute, even. She did a good job......really. She is glad she doesn't smoke......all those cigarettes to buy."

(5) Oh! Pigeon just scorched her tail hairs on my tea-cup candles. Oh God it smells awful.

(6) Last week I accidentally stayed up until 2am playing this vocab rice-relief game. It is so me. I love it.