Foggy Outlet

The One Where Rachel Quits

2011-02-14T16:25:00.004-05:00

RACHEL: I'm training to be better at a job that I hate, my life officially sucks.

JOEY: Look Rach, wasn't this supposed to a temporary thing? I thought you wanted to do fashion stuff?

RACHEL: Well, yeah! I'm still pursuing that.

CHANDLER: How... exactly are you pursuing that? Y'know other than sending out resumes like what, two years ago?

RACHEL: Well, I'm also sending out.... good thoughts.

JOEY: If you ask me, as long as you got this job, you've got nothing pushing you to get another one. You need the fear.

RACHEL: The fear?

CHANDLER: He's right, if you quit this job, you then have motivation to go after a job you really want.

RACHEL: Well then how come you're still at a job that you hate, I mean why don't you quit and get 'the fear'?

CHANDLER: Because, I'm too afraid.

GUNTHER: Rachel?

RACHEL: Yeah.

GUNTHER: Remind me to review with you which pot is decaf and which is regular.

RACHEL: Can't I just look at the handles on them?

GUNTHER: You would think.

RACHEL: Okay, fine. Gunther, y'know what, I am a terrible waitress, do you know why I'm a terrible waitress? Because, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care which pot is regular and which pot is decaf, I don't care where the tray spot is, I just don't care, this is not what I want to do. So I don't think I should do it anymore. I'm gonna give you my week's notice.

GUNTHER: What?!

RACHEL: Gunther, I quit.

CHANDLER: Does this mean we're gonna have to start paying for coffee?

I'm not a terrible waitress, because I'm not a waitress. But this pretty much sums up my feelings of late. I don't care which pot is regular and which pot is decaf (or which form is the correct one or which report I need to run). I just don't care, this is not what I want to do. So I don't think I should do it anymore.

I'm not giving my two weeks notice yet, but man oh man I get closer everyday.

Calamity Change!!

2011-01-24T20:23:00.005-05:00

Introducing (*drumroll*) Calamity Change: Unique jewelry featuring coins smashed on the railroad.

Since no one reads this site it doesn't matter that I haven't listed anything yet. But it exists!

New things in 2011 =)

random in 2011

2011-01-03T15:52:00.004-05:00

As of 7am this morning I had spent 84% of 2011 in my pajamas. I imagine that would start to get old if I kept it up for the whole year, but I'd still have liked to try.

Yesterday I ran my first mile of 2011 on the treadmill. Gonna run my second mile of 2011 after work.

Speaking of work, I still hate it.

My new year's resolutions are:
-Run a 10k
-Quit my job in August
-Make some money selling earrings on etsy

I wish I could quit sooner, and indeed I had applied for a job that would have started next week (no interview even, boo). I realized last week while reading Crazy Aunt Purl's account of 2010, wherein she recounts getting laid off in June, that I really wished I could be laid off too. It's a completely awful thought, I know. But I feel so trapped by this job.

I gave handmade earrings to my sister and mom and my boyfriend's sister and mom for Christmas. Both mom's have worn them in my presence, but I don't know if that's because they really like them or if they want to make me feel good about myself. But I do feel good about myself for having made them and I like them. So whatever. I'm gonna open an etsy shop. I just need a name.

I made baby cupcakes for boyfriend's sister's baby shower. And I knit booties for her too, but they came out really big. Oh well. I almost finished a matching hat yesterday, that will fit the baby a little sooner I hope. I need to put up pictures. Well, I need to take pictures.

If you are actually attacked by a bear...

2010-12-13T16:33:00.004-05:00

I've been daydreaming a lot lately about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Haven't worked out any firm plans yet, and probably won't for a long time, but for some reason I am totally fascinated by blogs about and information on planning a thru-hike of the AT.

I've spent an obscene amount of time looking at gear. An extraordinary amount of time reading about dehydrating food. More attention than I knew I had to discussions on how to pee with your pack on. And hours and hours and hours reading every portion of www.appalachiantrail.org, where I found the following piece of information:

"If you are actually attacked by a bear, you should fight for all you are worth with anything at hand – rocks, sticks, fists." (see the section about "wildlife")

I wonder how I would do at punching a bear.

mawwiage....

2010-12-07T15:17:00.005-05:00

Friday, early evening:
Cab driver: So y'all look dressed up!
Me: Yeah, my sister's getting married tomorrow so we're on our way to the rehearsal.
Cab driver: That's wonderful! So is she following in your footsteps or will you be following in her's?
Me: (awkward pause while I try to figure out how to answer this) Umm, a little of both?
Cab driver: Uhhh.... Ok. (*crickets*)

Earlier today:
Me: Oh, I wasn't in yesterday because my sister got married this weekend.
Co-worker: Oh, that's wonderful! (looks at my left hand, sees no ring) Is she older or younger?
Me: She's younger.
Co-worker: Huh.
Me: (mentally slams head down on desk)

My sister had an incredibly lovely wedding this past weekend. My new brother-in-law is great, I love them both, and I'm totally happy for them. They're coming for Christmas this year and I'm very excited to get to see them again so soon. The reception was a rocking party during which I witnessed an incredible of amount of dancing by all of my relatives. It was outstandingly fun and I've been having a great time looking through the pictures.

................................. however.
I just wish my grandparents didn't give the same shit that I don't give about when (or just even whether or not) I ever walk down the aisle again. Multiple times over the weekend both grandparents said "Maybe now you'll get a ring!" Grandma kept saying how it was good to bring my boyfriend to as many weddings as possible so that he'd get the idea. During the reception, she pulled me close and started hashing out the details of my hypothetical wedding. Right before we left the hotel to drive home, Grandpa not so subtly implied that I should get married as soon as possible because they'd really like to be there and they aren't going to be around for too long.

Last year over Thanksgiving Grandma declared, "Well don't worry, you won't be alone forever." And when I stared blankly at her, not knowing how to respond, she clarified by saying "I mean, you'll get married again someday!"

It mostly bothers me because the message I get from all of it (and I've been getting it since before the ink was dry on the divorce decree) is that I am somehow not complete unless I'm married. I'm like a loose end that they want to see taken care of before they die.

And I seriously dislike the implication that I must be dieing to get married and it's just that my boyfriend needs a little prodding to pop the question. What if I don't want to get married right now or potentially ever? Why can't my grandparents get that? I do my best to brag about grad school and other things that I'm proud of and talk about how great my friends are and how full and fun my life is. But that all seems to just fly over their heads. It always comes back to when will I get married.

The rest of my family is great great great about this. My mom (having seen more closely what I went through before) is in absolutely no hurry for me to get engaged to anyone. My dad has repeatedly said he doesn't care what my tax status is so long as I'm happy. My aunt and uncle, who got to meet my boyfriend for the first time this weekend, simply said how much they liked him and they were happy that I'm happy.

So I suppose I'm actually lucky that it's only grandma and grandpa. But still. I hate to say it but I'd call and write more often if we could have a single conversation without this coming up.

a list

2010-11-17T12:30:00.004-05:00

Was just thinking about all the things I keep meaning to do once I have some "free time"

Currently, we're up to:
-finish knitted dishcloths for wedding present (wedding which occurred in May '09, whoops)
-knit all kinds of baby stuff for the all kinds of friends I have who are knocked up
-knit a hat for myself (I've wanted a hat for so long and I keep not doing it or doing it but messing it up somehow, hats are not supposed to be that hard)
-read Harry Potter #5-7 (I read #1-4 all in a week around christmas 2000)
-read the three other books that have been languishing on my bedside table
-come up with some sort of organization for my crafts stuff (right now it's in various bags and boxes all over the house)
-use all the crafts stuff for collages
-get into a regular exercise routine again and train for a 10k
-watch all of Dead Like Me and Dexter (could go well with all the knitting)
-watch Avatar (Am I the only person you know who didn't see it in the theater?)
-experiment with the feasibility of my drill bit and shiny things project

Too many ideas, not enough time between semesters. There's been some stuff happening during the semester though, like a couple failed hats, knitted slippers, a pot roast, cleaning, sister's bachelorette party and bridal shower, football games and a couple of basketball games now too. I guess I have had free time, I just feel more guilty about it during the semester.

did something about it ("it" being the subject of the last post)

2010-11-17T12:24:00.004-05:00

I don't particularly like just complaining to complain. So with that idea in mind, I complained to my academic adviser. Being in the social work program means that my adviser is a social worker, which means she's good at the problem solving.

So I was like GAH! and she was like Oh! and then she steered me towards a couple of opportunities. We'll see how they pan out, I made a spreadsheet about all of my options at this point and I think I've got a clear direction, just waiting to see if the door opens or not.

In the meantime, I've cultivated a little idea that might just turn into an etsy store if I get my act together enough on it. Once the semester is over and sister's nuptials are over, and I have some "free time" this little idea is getting tested out. It involves drill bits and shiny things. I'm kind of excited.

take this job and

2010-09-15T14:33:00.005-04:00

I hate my job. I just hate it. My supervisor is great and (most of) my peer level co-workers are great. But the fact that I'm responsible for a lot of the operational logistics of a small unit within a large large large organization with a tremendous amount of central - yet not cohesive - structure and tons of layers of authority, means that I can never be good at my job. If I learn how to accomplish something, chances are the process will be different the next time I try to accomplish it. And the people who were made aware (and who arguably should have made me aware) of the change never seem to have any patience for me if I'm a step behind. Or heaven forbid, if it's the kind of task that comes up once or twice a year, I forget a step. The consequences of my not accomplishing some of these tasks are, on occasion, that a person may not get paid for work they finished a month ago. Messing up someone's income is not something I ever ever ever want to be responsible for.

This stresses me out.

I've had two other administrative jobs like this before, jobs where I had to learn processes and procedures and lingo and stuff like that. I learned from those two jobs to cut myself some slack for a while in the beginning, give myself time to learn and understand what was expected. In both of those jobs the learning curve was about four months. There were other things that took a little longer to master, but I had nailed about 90% of it in the first three months.

I've been at my current job for two years. Two years, and I'm still calling people asking for help as though it's my first week on the job.

In undergrad as a Sociology major, I learned about different theories of organization, Weber and his idealized bureaucracy sticking out in my memory. It made so much sense at the time, if you let people specialize then the whole organization can do more than the sum of its parts. Efficiency is increased and profits and productivity can go up. But when I'm trying to figure out how to accomplish something for my unit, I have to call four different "specialized" people before I get an answer. And the first three people are virtually guaranteed to be annoyed at me for bothering them when it's not their job to answer my question.

A friend of mine posted this a while ago on facebook, basically yet another article about how stress is killing us. The focus of this article though is that it's when your work is demeaning or feels endlessly frustrating that you're at the greatest risk for stress-related bad health outcomes. I should get better health care benefits.

Just went for a walk

2010-06-22T21:30:00.004-04:00

Because even though it's 82F outside at 9:30pm, and even though my apartment has central ac, I could not spend one more minute inside.

In the 20 minutes I spent walking around my neighborhood, I saw teenagers playing basketball, two girls walking, a couple of guys playing guitar, a little boy catching lightning bugs in his backyard, and an old woman talking on the phone about a medical procedure that involved "gettin' a tube in there to drain it."

And this is why summer is my favorite season. =)

Oh, long suffering readers

2009-12-14T16:39:00.002-05:00

I just turned in a take home final. And with that, my academic obligations for the semester are complete.

So now I may actually post here again sometime. I said on multiple occasions over the course of the past few months that I was getting good grades in grad school and barely passing grades in rest of my life. But now I have a whole month (!) before the crazy starts again. So many books to read, tv on dvd to get addicted to, random things to knit, I hardly know where to start. =)

Jello shots are the new shark cupcakes

2009-09-09T11:32:00.004-04:00

Today is A Day Without Cats so I thought I should get that tiny kitten off of the top of my page. I was going to do a weekend wrap-up, but I don't have the energy since I got sick because the weekend was so awesome. Instead, I'm posting just one aspect and I'll let you deduce what kind of weekend I had based on that.

WVU had its first football game on Saturday and in honor, I made these:

We won the game. And the tailgate.

'Scuse me while I feed this tiny kitten

2009-09-03T11:06:00.004-04:00

We found a tiny kitten back in a box behind some crates at work yesterday. Took a forklift to move all the stuff that was in the way. And then my co-workers went to PetCo and bought a little bottle and some milk. And then I spent the better part of the afternoon doing this:

Cats 'n Racks

Cute or Sad? ResQte ™

I really like my accessories in this picture.

I crack myself up

2009-08-31T12:48:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I was driving downtown and I came up behind a woman in a Smart car with a vanity plate that read PILATES.

I thought to myself, "Now does this woman make her own granola, or DOES THIS WOMAN MAKE HER OWN GRANOLA? Amiright? I mean, seriously what's up with that?"

Thanks I'll be here all week.

It's Still There

2009-08-27T11:32:00.005-04:00

I like to include pictures as much as possible, but I think you'll thank me for not doing that with this post.

Remember that bat? The one that woke me up from my clothing optional beauty sleep? The one that my landlord killed and then laid to rest in an Amazon box, placed gingerly in the bottom of the trashcan? Because I can be a paranoid person, I had a lot of issues surrounding that trashcan for quite a while. Allow me to share them with you.

The entrance to my apartment is on the side of the house, right next to where the trashcans live. So until trash day, I had to think about that dead bat body in the bottom of that trashcan, less than a foot from my door. I got very very good at keeping my gaze far away from the inside of that can. And then on trash day I had to muster up all my squeamish-girl-living-on-her-own guts and carry that trashcan/coffin to the curb. And then I went to work and spent the whole day imagining what I'd come back home to. What if the garbage men don't shake the can enough and the bat doesn't make it out? What if they throw the can back and it falls over and the bat comes tumbling out onto the curb and I have to see it??? How will I ever manage to bring the trashcan back to it's spot beside the house if it potentially still has a dead bat body in the bottom?!?!?

I avoided this by coming home as late as possible on trash day, increasing the chances that one of the other women downstairs would bring it back for me. And that worked well for a few weeks. Then I realized the trashcan was light enough when it's empty that I can carry it with my arm stretched out far away from me so I can't see inside. And that worked even better. I had no idea whether or not it was still there, and that was fine because I could just pretend it wasn't. I shared all this with my boyfriend and he looked, but I made him promise not to tell me what he did or did not see.

Well the other day I had some junk mail and I thought I'd just toss it in the can rather than take it upstairs. My guard was down, and there were no bags in the can, and I leaned over just a little too far... I saw the box, smashed. I saw something black underneath it, smashed. I stifled a scream and managed not to faint, turned the key and went upstairs to pour myself a stiff drink.

Lord help me, I'm a Phan

2009-08-24T13:54:00.003-04:00

If you make it to the end of this monster post, there are pictures as a reward. Or, if you just want to skip ahead to the pictures I won't be offended.

When I was 16, I threw myself a birthday party and told all my friends if they wanted to get me a gift, I would love a copy of their favorite cd. This turned out to be one of the best ideas I've ever had. I don't remember all of what I got, but one standout was Phish's Rift. Now I have to say I didn't love it then. But gosh darn, I tried to love it. Most of my friends at that point were Phish fans, and I think almost all of them went to at least one concert while we were in high school. They never asked me if I wanted to go. I don't know if this was because I tended to not be allowed to go to stuff like that, and so they assumed it would just make me sad to be invited and then have to say no, or if they were just awful people. (I know it's the former, but I've always been a little insecure about being left out of stuff!)

So anyway, when I got that copy of Rift, I listened to it as hard as I have ever listened to anything. I wanted so desperately to "get" whatever my friends found in Phish, so I could be as gung-ho and avid a "Phan" as the rest of them. And then maybe they'd talk to me when they were making their concert plans too. But try as I might, I just couldn't totally get into it.

Twelve years later, I've got it.

My boyfriend is probably the biggest Phish fan I'll ever have the privilege of meeting. When the reunion was announced, and summer tour dates set, he had counted me in before I even understood what was happening. And this, to me, was a huge compliment. We went to two shows this summer and about two songs into the second show, I knew I'd never be the same again.

The first show was at Starlake, near Pittsburgh, on June 18th. I had fun for sure (photo evidence below) but I only heard one song that I recognized at all, "Free" which I only sort of knew from hearing it randomly at a friend's house. I loved the crowd, I loved the energy, but I didn't totally love the band yet. Yet.

Over the course of July, my wonderful boyfriend redoubled his efforts in mentoring me towards Phandom. He let me borrow his copy of Rift (that original copy that I had got lost somewhere in the 15+ times I've moved in the last 10 years) and then Hoist and then Billy Breathes. (This all combined with the fact that anytime we were in his car he'd play live shows from the summer tour.) Hearing the album version of "Free" on Billy Breathes and then immediately getting hooked by "Character Zero" and "Taste" and then realizing that I had real preferences for different songs and albums ("Character Zero" is still my favorite song, Billy Breathes is my favorite album, with Rift a solid second and "Silent in the Morning" makes me love it a little more everytime I hear it), all of it started to really grow on me.

And it was just in time to get me really, really excited for the show at Merriweather Post Pavilion outside of DC. I can't really explain what it was or why it clicked, but even though they only played two songs that I knew ("Taste" and "Time Turns Elastic"), I finally reached the point where I felt like I really connected with the music. It was great! And I know that the more Phish I listen to, the more gems I'm going to find.

Carrie Brownstein had a similar, if truncated, journey this summer too.

This is at the Starlake show. Look! I'm pumped! But I think you can kind of tell in my eyes that I'm not as pumped as I could be.

Tailgating at Merriweather. Our friend Lisa randomly had a baby picture in her bag with her. We stuck it up in my trunk and told people that it was a kid that we lost two shows ago. We got some funny looks. Shockingly, the omnipresent police force didn't question us about it. (Also, look at my hippie top! Patchwork corduroy?? I must be into Phish!)

Sometime in the second set, Aaron managed to finagle us this amazing spot right in the front of the lawn. The screen that you see in the upper left was huge and cast this cool funky glow all around us. I've learned that the best thing for me to do at concerts with Aaron is to hold his hand, stay alert, and keep as close as possible when we're moving. If I do that successfully, a great view is my reward. He's a master at getting up close.

Mental Test, La Marseillaise

2009-08-20T14:18:00.007-04:00

I took French for three and a half years in jr. high/high school and another three semesters in college. I never really got fluent with it, but I did pretty darn well in Paris on the class trip we took. And I was starting to get to the point of thinking in French, as opposed to thinking in English and then translating, when I was writing papers for that last semester in college. But there's not a ton of it left now. I was in Quebec a few years ago and I understood a decent chunk of what was said around me, but I couldn't really respond to complex questions. And my pronunciation is for shit.

It turns out a co-worker of mine is friends with my jr. high French teacher and she came into the office a while back to chat. I was shocked that she remembered me and my sister (sister took German, but our teacher is Swiss so we got a combo deal there), but I was also really scared that she'd ask me something in French and I would only be able to stare blankly back at her. So as a mental exercise, I decided yesterday to see how much of the French national anthem I could come up with off the top of my head.

Here's what I got without looking anything up:

Allons enfants de la Patrille
Le jour de gloire est arrive!
Contra nous de la tyrranirer
Les tendarts blah blah blah blah blah
Repeat that line I just made up
Entendez vous dans les compangnes
Muirer quelque chose les souldats
There's a serious change in the melody here
And can't remember how many lines it goes on for.....

(ready for the big finish?)
Aux armes les citoyains!
Formez les battaillons!
Marchons! Marchons!
Quelque chose autre!*
Nice, uplifting closing line!

And the entire country erupts into applause over my mastery of their beloved anthem. (*"Quelque chose autre" I think is French for "something else")

Hmmm, doesn't look great. Let's look up the real one shall we? From Wikipedia:

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé!
L'étendard sanglant est levé!
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Egorger nos fils et nos compagnes!

Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons!
Marchons! marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

Huh, well it certainly could have been worse, but I'm still disappointed because I could sing this thing in my sleep in 10th grade. You can go look up the translation if you feel like it, it's kinda gory actually.

I want to ride my bicycle

2009-08-18T14:58:00.005-04:00

This is my bicycle. I bought it at the Wal-Marts with my birthday money from my grandparents. I love that it looks kind of retro, but it's from Wal-Mart so I feel like that aesthetic actually just makes it a little dorky. I'll show you a real picture of the actual one I bought later when I'm not blogging at work and stealing images from walmart.com.

I rode it to work the other day (I'm partly lying here, I drove with it down to the bike path and then rode it from there to work; if you lived in WV you'd do the same thing) and it was pretty fun. Not as fun as riding it just for kicks, cause when I'm riding it just for kicks I'm not also trying to carry stuff with me and I'm wearing clothes that I don't mind sweating in. So clearly I need to bring a change of clothes with me if I ride to work again. I also still need to bring the entire contents of my large purse. I can go without my large purse for short periods of time and on the weekends, but I can't go without it at work.

Dear Internet, should I do the very easy and sensible thing and carry my stuff in a backpack when I bike? Or should I do the thing that this bike seems to require in order to make it whole, and put a basket on the front? And if I do, should it be this one?

Keepin it real

2009-08-14T10:25:00.006-04:00

I'm sorry I whined yesterday about how I wish I were funnier. I don't particularly like it when bloggers whine on their blogs about how they wish their blogs were better cause it feels a little insulting to me, I am choosing to read that blog. I don't want to hear about how I picked a lame one. So, I'm sorry for doing that here. I'll stop it now.

One thing I have realized about blogs that I like is that the authors tend to tell embarassing stories about themselves. And then I realized that I left out the funniest and potentially most embarassing part of The Good, The Bat, and The Ugly.

The real reason I was so happy that "I managed to miraculously end up with a bra, sweatshirt, and yoga pants in the completely random fistful of clothing I grabbed in the dark," is because I was sleeping in the buff that night. Yup, you heard me.

When I told my boyfriend the whole story he said, "Wow baby, I'm so sorry that happened but of course now all I can think about is the fact that you were sleeping naked. And I'm so sad because I'm guessing you'll never do that again."

And he's right, I haven't been able to sleep nekid since. And I have to say my world is a little less bright because of it. I really liked sleeping that way, especially because I received the fanciest sheets I've ever owned last Christmas and they feel so nice.

This one's about knitting

2009-08-13T14:29:00.005-04:00

I like how in my last post I wrote "So even if I don't blog for a long time...." I know myself.

I've been reading a lot of Whoopee lately and wishing I were funnier and British. I'm not. But I do knit. Here's a link to my facebook album of "Stuff I have knitted". You should mentally add to this three failed shrugs, as well as things I have given away without photographing: another pair of fingerless gloves, another head wrap thing, a couple of early not very good scarves, and a handful of baby hats and booties. Feels like not a ton for almost three years. Though I suppose I often feel like I don't knit as much as I want to. Sorry no pictures, click the link.

Check me out!

2009-08-05T09:58:00.003-04:00

I have finally made it into relative currentness with the interwebs here. Along the techno-phile/phobe continuum, I'm a mid to late adopter usually. Stuff has to be around for a while and enough of my friends have to have started using something before I start using it. I might get an iPhone or a Blackberry eventually, but 75% percent of the people I see/talk to regularly will have to get one first.

For example, it took me a while to get on myspace, and then it was mostly because all my friends started having conversations there and when we hung out in person I didn't get the jokes. And then there was the migration from myspace to facebook, and I was a little late on that bandwagon too. I was relatively early amongst my friends to gmail (I got it when you still had to be invited!) and that helped with using blogger. But I was so late with rss feeds (I just started using Google Reader and I LOVE it, can't believe I didn't do it sooner) and my current cell phone doesn't even have a camera.

But now look what I've figured out! I'm using Twitter with my phone and I even set it up to update my facebook status as well as this cute little box here on the blog!!! It's awesome! So now I can tweet from the middle of the Shark Week party. With just a text message! I can't upload a picture via cell phone, but I can change my online status in three different sites with just a text! So even if I don't blog for a long time, there's still something being updated here. And it's so simple.

So while I have to admit that this is definitely not cutting edge or early adopting in any way, it's still fairly early for me to be doing this. I'm proud of myself. =)

Shark Week!

2009-08-03T10:29:00.005-04:00

It's Shark Week! So in honor, I made shark attack cupcakes! I got the idea after seeing a friend's version that she made from Hello, Cupcake! I'm sad to say I was cheap and didn't buy the book, which may be why my sharks are pretty messy.

My favorite part is the life preserver with a bite taken out of it. I don't know if that was in the book, but my friend did that and I thought it was hilarious.

These were taken with my boyfriend's camera which is much better than my camera. You're welcome.

The snack that bites back!

Woman versus shark!

*Chomp* I win.

Sometimes it hits me

2009-07-30T14:30:00.006-04:00

You've been in a cave lately if you haven't seen this:

Cute right? I found it sweet. I didn't quite love it the way it seems a lot of people did, but hey, I just might have some lingering bias. (Sidenote: I HATED "Enchanted" and came closer than I ever have to walking out of the theater. Hated it. And I'm pretty sure I still would now.) But I genuinely enjoyed watching this little video, even though once was definitely enough for me.

Well a friend just posted this to FB:

I'm sorry, it's just too great. Obviously the group in the second video really knows what they're doing, that's some seriously well-choreographed and well-executed moves. The judge is my favorite. Well, maybe when she throws the bouquet is my favorite. Or maybe the court officers are my favorite. Oh hell the whole video just made me smile. And it's all meant in good fun.

I don't root for divorce. It sucks. It SUCKS. And it sucks even if you don't have kids. Or a house. But I have to say, I cringe a little every time I see the fairy tale, "we're so blissfully (blindly?) happy," marriage stuff. (Or a lot if it's a whole movie's worth of crap like "Enchanted" *vomit*) So it was really refreshing to see a parody of the "Forever" wedding entrance video. Cause I said "forever" once and later wound up in front of a judge saying "not anymore." Who says there can't be humor in that?

Dishcloths, an ON TIME wedding present!

2009-07-29T21:47:00.005-04:00

Made a wedding present for some friends. This is from way back in June so the blog post is way behind, but the present was finished on time! Just barely though, so I wound up taking pictures on the seat of my car before I stuffed it all in the gift bag and walked into the wedding (seriously).

Four ballband dishcloths! I feel like Kay!

The bride loves pink, what can I say?

I threw in a matching hanging hand towel on a whim cause I was so ahead of schedule. And I had enough yarn leftover.

I did the patchwork looking checkerboard stockinette/reverse stockinette thing. I liked it a lot and I'm thinking of using for a blanket I'm (planning to start) making for another friend's wedding present.

I think the little set turned out cute =) I hope they like it too.

And my crappy camera takes crappy pictures of people and dancing, but look at the nice shot of the place setting. Sadly I forgot to take my tiny pink bucket full of pink candy with me.

What I've been doing with my summer vacation

2009-07-27T12:23:00.007-04:00

I've been such a slacker blogger. I've been a slogger. But since I'll be in grad school in a month, I've been on a mission to have as much fun as possible before classes start. Here's the run down of things I've been doing other than blogging:

July 3: Grafton Drive-in to see Transformers (snore) and The Hangover (lol!)

July 4: Cook-out (with potato salad mentioned in last post), porch viewed fireworks (courtesy of my favorite holiday), garage keg party

July 8: Canoeing with Pops

July 10: Birthday Weekend dinner out at Black Bear Burritos

July 11: My birthday! Halftime String Band at Chesnut Ridge Park (where we saw an actual black bear!!), late dinner at Madeleine's, Thick as Thieves at 123 Pleasant Street

July 12: Cheeseburgers, bonfire, and s'mores at my parents' house

July 13: JOHN MELLENCAMP AND BOB DYLAN!!! (Willie Nelson also performed but we missed him because of insane concert traffic.) I ditched my friends for a while during Bob's set and managed to sneak my way up to two people away from the fence. I had a better view than I could have imagined, and I had no camera.

July 17: Larry Keel (with Halftime opening) at 123 Pleasant Street

July 18: A friend's 1-year-old's birthday party, '85 Flood in a weird little bar in Pittsburg

July 19: Hiking Rock City at Cooper's Rock

July 22: Cassie's Birthday lunch out at Black Bear Burritos

July 23: Leisurely stroll through South Park with a pit stop for dollar draft night at Gene's

July 24: Inaugural bike ride on my new powder blue Huffy, Nick Sickles at Riverstone, The Greens at 123 Pleasant Street (where I danced my little heart out after all the wine I had at Riverstone)

July 25: Hiking down for the Motorcycle Parade downtown, porch viewed fireworks (courtesy of Mountain Fest)

And that's just July. June included seeing the Avett Brothers, PHISH, and a roadtrip to Boston where I witnessed a hot pink wedding and saw lots of well-missed friends. Amongst plenty of other fun.

And this weekend I'm sure will have more live music, possibly a local production of Sweeney Todd, and the looooooooong anticipated start to SHARK WEEK. I'm sad that July is ending, because it is my favorite month and I have had so much fun this July. But I can't be too sad because Shark Week!!

Happy Fourth!

2009-07-04T12:45:00.003-04:00

This is my favorite holiday. I love summer, it's a week till my birthday, I love fireworks, I love cookouts, I love hanging out with friends all day. There's no real pressure to have all the traditional stuff like at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hand me a beer and a burger and some potato salad on the side, sit me on a porch with a view of the fireworks, stick some friends around me, and that's a perfect Fourth of July. It just encompasses everything that makes me happiest.

So in honor of the holiday, and in honor of my renewed girl crush on Heather Graham (saw "The Hangover" last night at the drive-in!) I'll leave you with this while I go make the potato salad:

She's so lucky

2009-06-29T13:14:00.004-04:00

I used to be one of those people who said "I never win anything." I have no way of really proving that cause I never kept records of raffles or drawings or contests that I've entered and not won. But I did feel that way. Well not anymore.

Back in February I won a photo title contest at The Pioneer Woman. Here's the post with my name in bold! "Calf au Lait" how freakin clever is that? I was so proud of myself I could barely stand it. And the prize was great, $300 at Target.com. I got a yoga mat, throw pillows for the couch, a new comforter, some pyrex bakeware, and a microwave. It ruled.

And this morning I just got an email from Bossy saying I won a pound of coffee! I'm afraid it will be whole bean, which means I'll have to buy a grinder, which means that it's a shame I didn't get one with my $300 at Target.com. But I don't care, I love coffee.

In any case, I'm starting to feel a bit embarrassed by my good fortune. And now that I'm thinking of it, back around Thanksgiving I won (well the table pooled our tickets and put me in charge of organizing them, and then I made my friend take the prize because I still lived out in the boonies with my folks and didn't want to drunk drive) a week of free beer at Mario's Fishbowl. And last summer Aaron gave me extra raffle tickets at a fundraiser and I won a gift certificate to Black Bear Burritos which is maybe my favorite place in Morgantown. (And this was even before we started dating. Awwww.)

And gosh, I even won a pair of basketball tickets at Working Women's Wednesday back in January. Shoot, I feel really greedy for even entering the coffee giveaway. Well if you're reading this and you want a free pound of coffee, just be the first to comment here and I'll send it to you!

The Good, The Bat, and The Ugly

2009-06-13T11:55:00.005-04:00

The Good: I managed to miraculously end up with a bra, sweatshirt, and yoga pants in the completely random fistful of clothing I grabbed in the dark.

The Bad: I grabbed this fistful of clothing because at approximately 4:00 am on Friday morning, I awoke to a fucking BAT flying around my bedroom. Sorry for the swearing (well, no I'm not really or else I wouldn't have typed it) but that's the only adjective that feels honest. It took me about 5 seconds to realize that I had to get the hell out of the apartment and also that I needed to put something on over my sleeping outfit.**

The Ugly: After hiding out at my parents' house till a more appropriate time in the morning, my dad and I met my landlord back at my place to try and get rid of the intruder. I stood outside and waited and waited. They searched the whole place and freaked out the cats until my dad had to leave for work. I went back inside and listened to my landlord try to convince me that it must have left through the open window he found. But I made him check the closet one more time. And of course, right in front of my eyes, as soon as he opened the door it flew right out. I immediately dropped down into a little ball on the floor, covered my head and started shrieking. He calmly suggested I leave, which I managed to do, and by the time I made it down to the sidewalk, I heard three sharp whacks of the broom. A minute later he walked out with a little box, shook it to demonstrate that there was a dead bat body inside, and tossed it in the trash.

I'm still not entirely over it. Naturally I took the day off of work.

**ETA: When I say "sleeping outfit" what I mean is birthday suit.

Weekend Wrap-up

2009-06-08T21:15:00.005-04:00

Boyfriend went out of town to see a Phish concert and while he was away, I had a really nice weekend. Between taking him to the airport and picking him up from the airport I:

- Finished catching up with Lost. Good golly, it feels good to be done, not that I didn't enjoy watching it. Pumped for season 6!

-Watched all of Weeds season 4, just in time to watch the season premiere tonight! (In just one hour from now!)

-Finished dishcloth 4 of 4 for an upcoming present (for someone who definitely does not read this blog but I'm still going to keep it at least slightly secret here). This one I did while watching all that tv I just mentioned.

-Went to the local farmer's market! Bought apple butter, honey, goat cheese (chevre), and a bag of salad. Persevered through washing the salad despite finding an inch worm, slug, green flying thing (aphid?), endless little tiny black flying things, and a lady bug. I felt bad about squashing the lady bug, but it had to be done. I also petted a bunch of handspun yarn, but alas, it's too pricey for my budget and too scratchy to be any of the projects that I have in mind right now.

-Went bowling and did not too badly.

-Did a little yoga, thanks to this site. It kicked my ass a little, I really haven't worked out at all since February (and I wasn't that consistent about it before then either). I'm sore.

-Slept a lot. Which is particularly good because I really haven't followed up much on my previous intentions to sleep more.

-Made some art! A moonscape in pastels on canvas. Pastels feel a bit like glorified crayons with my skill level, and that's kind of what it winds up looking like, but I really enjoy this one and I'm going to hang it over my bed. And hopefully post a picture here too.

It was a good weekend. I missed Aaron but it was really satisfying to do so much that was all about me. =)

Not worth it

2009-06-07T13:38:00.004-04:00

This post is about an ugly plant that the former resident of my apartment left behind. Here it is:

It's not only a bad picture, it's just an ugly plant. But I initially felt happy about having a plant in my new place. Plants are good. So I watered it and it grew a little and I felt nice. But here's what I know is true about me: I'm not that inclined towards growing plants. I forget to water them and I don't like the dirt.

So I would water it, then forget, it would get wilty and sad looking, so I'd water it again and it would perk up and that would make me feel good, but then I'd forget to water it again for a while. One day it dawned on me that I didn't particularly like the plant in the first place and since I clearly wasn't motivated enough to give it what it needed, it was only draining me to continue caring for it. So I put it out with the trash.

Goodbye ugly little plant. I hope you decompose in peace and go on to serve a better purpose than annoying me from the windowsill.

I don't go to church

2009-06-02T09:23:00.004-04:00

I've been a delinquent little blogger... I want to post more pictures but it feels like when I get home to my laptop where all the pictures live, I don't want to be doing anything on the computer anymore. So here I am, blogging at work again without any pictures.

The other reason I haven't blogged in a bit is that the things I'm thinking of blogging about are kind of tricky and I'm not sure how to get them out to the best effect. But I'm going to try to open the door on one of those things now anyway. So here we go.

I was showing an acquaintance some pictures from a friend's recent wedding and there was a picture of me and another friend's daughter. I really like this little girl, she's super awesome. So I said to my acquaintance viewing the picture with me, "Ya know, if I knew that mine would come out like her, I'd be way more inclined towards the idea of having kids." By which I essentially meant, I'm not particularly fond of hanging out with kids these days, but this one here is really neat and I like her.

My acquaintance however, took it another way and responded by saying, "Well you can pray about it and the Lord will give you the desires of your heart."

Well hmm. That's not exactly what I was expecting to hear. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I secretly had baby fever but I was just nervous about how my kid would turn out, which is how she seemed to interpret it. So I just disregarded the statement and moved straight ahead to the next picture.

I'm not sure exactly how this happens, but it does from time to time. People I've met since moving back to WV eventually discover that I used to work for a church, a church where I was an active member for a time as well. Now, when this information comes out I try to emphasize that I don't do that anymore. As in, I don't go to church, I don't read the Bible, I don't pray in Jesus's name, and I currently have no desire to recommence any of those activities. I have a lot of good reasons for that and if you want to get to know me better you'll eventually hear about it I'm sure. With certain people though, the second half of that doesn't seem to sink in. They only hear that I was part of church where I used to live. I guess they assume that I just haven't mentioned what church I go to now, or maybe I'm still looking for one I like.

It has definitely been a sticking point with my grandparents (as noted briefly here). And part of the problem is that I never know how to handle it when it comes up. When someone says something that implies that they think I'm into Jesus, how far do I go to correct them? And what if that's just how they're going to talk? Perhaps my acquaintance just suggests prayer to anyone. I don't know. It's not like she said anything inherently offensive. But it irks me, ya know?

I got pulled over

2009-05-20T15:44:00.003-04:00

I was stuck six or seven cars back at a long light and I needed to turn right. This was on my route to work and I was running late. Since I have a little car I snuck out to the right and passed them and made my turn. I've done this about every other day for the past month and a half. But this time I got pulled over. I've never been pulled over before and it kinda freaked me out. But the officer was nice and I guess I had the right combination of doing something that wasn't too bad and looking sufficiently scared and shameful about it. He let me off with just a verbal warning about "improper passing."

Like reaching over someone for the butter dish.

Sometimes it's the little things

2009-05-18T13:57:00.007-04:00

Most of my life I have been religiously conflict avoidant. Ask any former roommate. (Is avoidant not a real word? I keep getting the red squiggly line. hmmm.) Getting married, however, kinda knocked that out of me. (Er, getting divorced is what really did it.) It's not totally gone, but you try being married to someone who sometimes does things that married men are not supposed to do and see how long you can avoid a conflict. So yeah, I'm way better at handling conflict than I used to be, but the tendency to avoid is still there.

I share an office with my boss, meaning I sit in the small rectangle between his desk and the wall, with my back to the door. This is so not feng shui it's not even funny. There is one particular gentleman I work with who is a pretty big guy. And he was in the habit of walking right into the 1 1/2 square feet of free space in my area and going through my drawers for stuff he needed... WHILE I WAS SITTING RIGHT THERE. It was so invasive and claustrophobic and frustrating it would ruin my whole day every time it happened.

So I resolved to handle this like a grown up. The next time he came in and started helping himself to my very limited amount of free space, I asked him if, when I'm sitting at my desk, he could ask me for what he needed instead of getting it himself. And he said oh sure no problem. And today? Today he walked in the door, stopped, and said "Hey, would you mind handing me the reservation books?" And I said "Sure thing."

It was like magic to this former conflict avoider. =)

Fun with Iron-on

2009-05-13T11:45:00.004-04:00

I mentioned this in a previous post, but now that I have pictures I thought I should show them! My boyfriend turned 30 last Friday and in honor of the occasion I made a special t-shirt.

The front:

The back:

I have some friends who started a t-shirt company called Backstory Prints and apparently it all started cause they made some iron-on shirts for special occasions. They did it enough times and decided to get serious. After experiencing how stinkin fun it was to make a custom t-shirt for Aaron's birthday, not to mention how great everyone's reaction was to it, I understand why they turned pro.

Unexpected Domesticity

2009-05-11T22:02:00.008-04:00

It seems these days it's pretty hip to be domestic. Handmade and home cooked are trendy? Hey, I'm all for it. As a knitter, I definitely appreciate handmade. But knitting takes SO LONG. And I never got into sewing, I hate the idea of stabbing my fingers all the time. It feels like in the time it would take me to get the hang of a handmade lifestyle, it'd become hip to by mass produced goods again. And cooking? It's not just not my thing, I'd ALWAYS rather get take-out or buy a frozen pizza. But I guess every now and then everyone does something a little out of character.

I did this:
Pasta salad. I have no intention of eating this till tomorrow evening at the earliest. I just wanted to make it. What is up with that?

And then I did this:

Cut up veggies for an omelet that I apparently will make sometime soon. (???) I just voluntarily prepped vegetables. This is not normal. The empty wine glass in the back of these photos is normal, but the culinary production is very, very odd.

WIPs

2009-05-08T13:04:00.005-04:00

Though my last burst of crafting and blogging has obviously slowed down, I'm hesitant (but hopeful!) to say that another is around the corner. Yesterday I had a burst of "git'er done" and managed to go birthday present shopping for the boyfriend, go jeans shopping (both successful), do laundry at my parents' house, restart the capelet, and make an iron on t-shirt that says "I <3 AARON" on the front and "EVEN THO HE'S OLD" on the back. Wearing it tonight for his birthday party.

I'm excited about (knock on wood) getting the capelet done. I swatched (gasp!), cast on, and got most of the way through the ribbing last night between loads of laundry. Once I get into the rhythm of the raglan increases it'll start cranking along. ("rhythm of the raglan"... sounds like a folksy knitting song.) I've got a lot of weddings to go to this summer and I'm imagining wearing it over a cute sundress. So far the Wool-Ease Thick & Quick is really nice! It's all soft and squashy, it actually feels a little softer than the Rowan Polar. It's also thicker (super bulky as opposed to regular bulky), so I'm hoping that the difference in gauge will help with the difference in bust size between me and the designer. I also made some mathematical adjustments so here's hoping it all works out in the end.

And I've decided what to do with the sheet from crochet rug 1.0. It's going to get knitted into seat covers/cushions for my dining chairs. Boyfriend doesn't think the chairs are very comfortable (he's right) so I'm going to knit seat covers with my trusty size 11 straight bamboo needles. I like having a project for these needles cause they were my first ever pair and I haven't used them in a good long while. Once I get the time and space in my head (Lost has eaten up most of my spare brain power) I'll measure the chair seats and get cranking. Should be a pretty quick job. I cast on a handful of stitches just to try it out, which is why I'm talking about it in a post titled WIPs. ("WIP" - for the uninitiated - stands for Work In Progress.)

Fortunately, my "git'er done"-ness bled into this morning a little and I finally finished all my dishes! B knows that though I hate dirty dishes, I often don't do much about them. Once I vacuum the living room and couches, my apartment will have reached that magical "pretty dang clean" state that happens once a month or so. I like to let it get fairly dirty/messy and then I go crazy cleaning all in one fell swoop (well, over a couple of days). And then I sit around till it gets dirty again. The cycle of life.

Gross stuff makes me laugh

2009-05-04T15:53:00.005-04:00

As an exercise to try and come up with something to post, I went through and tagged all my posts with different labels. I was trying to come up with categories that would continue to be useful in the future. Obviously labels like crochet, knitting, and "addicted to TV" came up. But after rereading a couple of posts I realized I needed the label, "gross stuff makes me laugh." Cause the truth is, some pretty gross things make me laugh.

Like this video:

I laughed so hard I cried, then I almost gagged, then I laughed some more.

It figures

2009-05-04T14:02:00.003-04:00

As soon as I "publicize" (i.e. list this blog on my facebook profile, which I'm pretty sure no one has noticed) I run out of things I'm excited to blog about. Lost has taken over my life. I watched about a dozen episodes with the boyfriend this weekend. We justified it by the fact that it has been raining biblically for the past week, so pizza and dvds were just the thing.

I was on such a roll with the knitting and crocheting and now I've totally pooped out. Crochet Rug 2.0 has had extremely little progress, Lost is too engrossing for me to be able to crochet or cut t-shirts effectively while watching. And I haven't knitted since I ran out of yarn for the failed capelet that I mentioned here. But I'm going to need to amp production back up cause I'm planning some knitted wedding gifts and I also want to retry the capelet, but with different yarn. I'd really like to be able to wear this with my bridesmaid dress from B's wedding. I found another link to the pattern on Ravelry so I know it can be resized (basically I just need to start with a larger neck measurement), now I just need enough yarn. I'm thinking Lion Brand Thick'n Quick, I know it's not the most glamorous stuff out there, but it's in my budget.

So, things around here are either really dull if you're not into Lost, or really exciting if you are!

"All this has happened before. All this will happen again."

2009-04-29T15:30:00.005-04:00

If you've hung around me recently you may have become aware that I'm a fan of Battlestar Galactica (BSG from here on out) and I recently caught up to the rest of the geeks and finished the series. I'm not going to talk about how I felt about the ending here, let's just say I wasn't as thrilled as I expected to be. What I am going to talk about is how it seems I can't not have a tv show to obsess over.

I have never had cable outside of my parents house. In college I didn't even own my own tv. These days I do have a tv and dvd player, but no channels. This will change soon but for now it means that I watch tv shows online, on dvd, or at my boyfriend's place. This is why I was behind on BSG. It's also why I lost touch with my favorite show of all time, though I'm slowly building my GG library (though I have already watched them all multiple times online). And, most noteably for this post, it's why I never started watching Lost. Until now.

The thing about BSG is that it consistently blew my mind and had such amazing cliff-hangers that I couldn't wait to start the next episode. And since I was watching them on dvd, so long as I had the next disc, I didn't have to. I even upped my Netflix account from two-at-a-time to three-at-a-time so I never had to wait. And once I finished everything that had been released on dvd, I promptly bought the rest of the series on iTunes. I dreamed scenes from it, I related everyday situations to it, I thought about it non-stop when I wasn't parked on my couch actually watching it.

You might imagine this left a pretty big void in my life once I got to the end of it. And you'd be right. Enter Lost. My boyfriend is a big fan, as is one of our mutual friends who was also into BSG (not to mention the rest of the country). I tried hard to wait. I knew I'd like it once I started it, but I also knew it'd probably be healthier if I gave myself a break from addictive tv. Alas, my boyfriend is a total enabler and borrowed the whole first season from a friend for me. I'm 7 episodes in and all I could think of at work today is how long I had to wait before I could get back to it again.

*The title of this post, of course, is a majorly repeated quote from BSG that creator Ron Moore stole from Peter Pan. And it makes me wonder, what show will I watch obsessively after I catch up with Lost? Will I ever just watch a show as it airs? Would that be as satisfying? Who the heck knows...

OMG so embarrassing

2009-04-26T11:43:00.004-04:00

I was in Target the other day shopping for a friend's bridal shower. It was a little last minute, too late to order something online and have it shipped, and there was nothing left on the registry that was actually in the store that I could afford. So I decided to go "off registry" and get some cute undies and a gift card. That's the great thing about Target, you can get kitchen supplies, games, groceries, and thongs!

That's also the horrible thing about Target. A guy I met once or twice happened to cross my path as I walked up to the register and caught my eye just long enough to recognize that we knew each other. But I just blew by him as fast as I could, no way was I going to do the "Oh hey you're so and so who was at so and so's party a couple weeks ago" while holding a handful of panties!

I know I'm making a bigger deal out of this than I need to

2009-04-23T15:41:00.009-04:00

Soooo.... I didn't tell anybody about this blog for a while cause I wasn't sure I wanted to. But now I do so it's time to do an intro post. You know, one that's a little more insightful than this.

On "Foggy Outlet":
The day I created this blog address it was a very foggy morning. I LOVE foggy mornings in WV, it reminds me of being a kid and walking to school when it was so foggy you couldn't see the end of the block. And then it all burns off into a gorgeous sunshiney day (hopefully). I like how there's a fog line too. Up at my parents' house it won't be foggy, but as you drive down into town there's a specific point as you go down the hill closer to the river where the fog starts. It's cool. But I also like "foggy" cause I don't really have a plan here. I've posted about knitting and crocheting, dreams, and weird stuff that makes me laugh. Whatever's in my head. And that's how it'll likely continue.

And obviously, it's an outlet. I'm blogging for the same reasons any random person might blog: it's cheaper than therapy (but not necessarily as effective), I'm bored, I think I might have something to say, I want to do something creative. I found myself reading a couple of artsy/folksy/diy type blogs and feeling a particularly nasty kind of jealousy. As I processed it out with B (she's also cheaper than therapy and at least, if not more, effective) I realized that I was having such a strong reaction cause I wanted to be doing what they're doing. And you know what? I'm never going to be a renown writer, or a professional artist, or even a particularly stylish dresser. But dammit I want to do something creative. B suggested I start a blog. I balked at first, but here it is.

On my blogging history:
This is actually my fourth blogspot address. They're all gone now so I won't bother telling you what they were. The first one was much like this one, I'd blog about whatever was in my head and all my friends read it and occasionally left comments. It was a happy little place. Then months after my ex moved out I discovered he was still reading my blog. This made me feel very weird and I didn't like it. Plus I didn't have a whole lot of non-depressing things to say at that point and I wasn't updating very often. So I deleted it.

The second one was a super short lived "I'm going to have fun now goddamit and I don't care what you think" angry kind of thing and I managed to offend B in the very first post. She called me on trying to cop a bad girl identity that wasn't really me (which she was right about). But I didn't like her critique so I deleted that one too.

Then I started a third blog that I didn't tell her about so I could further explore trying to be a bad girl without her input. But it's not very fun writing about being a bad girl when no one is reading. And truth be told, at the bottom of it I'm just not that much of a bad girl. So I deleted that one too.

That was all a while ago and I sort of swore off blogging. I thought the world had enough random bloggers, surely I didn't have anything to contribute that would be worthwhile. But screw that, it's not like I'm wasting paper with this. And it's a way that I'm putting myself out there. I'll definitely show off more knitting and crocheting, maybe some sketches, maybe some poetry. Or maybe it will only be more YouTube videos. But it will be videos that reflect parts of my personality, so that's something.

On having an audience:
I'm going to do my darnedest to genuinely not care what any of you think. I mean that in the best way, I want to do this first for me. I have this tendency towards perfectionism, and if I start to feel like I'm doing something "wrong" I will very quickly spiral down and want to delete this blog too. I want to avoid that so I'm going to try and practice not caring if you don't like it. Conversely, I will be grateful for any kind words you may have for me here, but I'm going to try and practice doing it first because I want to.

For that reason I'm not putting a site meter here. I don't want to know how much traffic I get, or what city my readers live in. If my ex happens to find it, I don't want to know. If no one stops by for three whole weeks, I don't want to know. If it blows up and I have tons of readers, I don't want to know.

So there's my very wordy intro. Sometimes I just have to say things aloud (or, ya know, type them) to give myself permission. Hopefully no more disclaimers or justifications after this.

Get outta my dreams, get into my car

2009-04-21T22:46:00.002-04:00

I used to be really into dream interpretation. Not so much lately, but I still like it when I have an interesting dream. The other night I dreamed I was in my car and I shifted from park to drive. As far as dream symbolism goes, transportation of any kind is pretty cool. Driving yourself is cooler. And the car in my dream was my real-life car, my little Ford Focus! Not just some generic dream car. Any time there's ever been a car in my dreams before it's been some random car made up by my subconscious. Obviously the action is significant, shifting into Drive like that. Overall I think this dream is a very good sign.

And since it was so realistic, I can recreate it for you now!

Here's what my dream looked like. I shifted from Park:

to Drive:

It's like you're inside my dream! Dream-blog-vision!

And cause I can't leave well enough alone:

More to laugh/cry about

2009-04-21T15:44:00.001-04:00

Just sitting here in my office, clicking around passiveagressivenotes.com when I found this. Had to shut my door so I could laugh myself into tears without gaining an audience.

Maybe I just have a scatological/bodily humor issue?

Why you shouldn't take me anywhere

2009-04-20T15:04:00.001-04:00

I have this issue that occasionally embarrasses me in public. Sometimes, I don't know why, funny things will randomly hit me in that laugh-so-hard-you-cry kind of way. I don't think there's anything wrong with that in and of itself, I quite enjoy laughing that hard. If I'm by myself, no problem. If everyone else is laughing that hard, no problem. But not infrequently it happens to me and nobody else. It's so embarrassing.

Like the other night I was hanging out at a restaurant with a group of people that included a couple and their little baby. The baby got passed to one of my friends and all was well and good and cute. Then my friend casually took a swig from his beer bottle, set it back down, and looked a little alarmed and used his sleeve to wipe off the top of the baby's head. Me and one other person saw this and while she definitely laughed, I couldn't stop laughing and had to forcibly choke down the rest of my laughter. I also couldn't look at that friend holding the baby for a good 10 minutes before I finally really calmed down.

Also recently, I was recounting to a friend the scene from The Wedding Singer where Drew Barrymore's character gets drunk in a bar and pukes. She comes out from the bathroom and says to Adam Sandler's character, "I vomited in my hair. Does my hair smell like vomit?" For whatever reason, I could not say those lines without laughing. Particularly the word "vomited." Even now I just said it aloud to myself and it's making me laugh. I can't tell you why it's so funny.

One time a few years back, I was hanging out with friends at someone's apartment and one of the guys was talking about his recent trip to NYC. He mentioned going to a concert and another friend, who happens to be Australian, asked "Oh, was it a pianist?" And I knew what he said, but I couldn't help hearing something else, and it just made me giggle. A couple of other people giggled too, but while they all stopped giggling, I couldn't stop.

I know that I get this from my mom. It happens to her too. But the great thing is that if it happens to her while I'm around (or vice versa) I start laughing uncontrollably just because she is. And then she starts laughing harder because I'm laughing too and we just lose it completely. This is great because it's not embarrassing when it's not just me. Instead, it feels like we have some completely hilarious inside joke that no one else gets. Though even still, sometimes she calms down way before I do.

Just for the sake of another example, this video always makes me laugh that hard:

Crochet Rug 2.0

2009-04-19T15:07:00.002-04:00

So I started over with just the t-shirts and I'm much happier. My camera still sucks though. Oh well. I fix as much as I can but there's only so much you can do with a crappy shot.

It's so much thicker and wider and better. I'm 10 shirts into it here and I've got 10 more that I've pulled out to use. We'll see how far that gets me.

I'm most excited about that dark pink shirt there. The color doesn't exactly come out here, it's more vibrant than it looks in this picture.

The only part I'm displeased with is how big the holes are in that white section above the purple. I may cut a strip just to weave through there to fill it in. I'm not feeling that particular about being able to see the stitches here, I just want it to be squashy and comfy under my feet.

A year ago today...

2009-04-17T17:08:00.002-04:00

I was living in Cambridge, MA. I was working full time but I took that day off. I woke up without an alarm and got ready. Got some coffee and a bite to eat at the cafe and hopped on a bus to East Cambridge. I went into the courthouse there, the second time I'd had occasion to visit. I paid some nominal fee and got the official decree with the raised seal. I got back on the bus to Davis Square and I went to the Social Security office, took a number and filled out the paperwork. Showed them the official decree and they said, "Yes of course you can have your name back, paperwork looks good, have a nice day." Then I went back home to show my roomie. She was pleased. I was pleased too.

Today....
I am living in Morgantown, WV. I work full time but today I got to leave a little early. I woke up late, grabbed some fruit for breakfast and hopped in my car to go to the office. I came home for lunch and made myself french toast. Went back to the office to wait out the afternoon till my boss said "Yeah of course you can take off, nothing's going on here, have a nice weekend." Went to the grocery store. Now I'm sitting here, having a little glass of white wine and feeling pleased.

Crochet Rug Update

2009-04-16T11:27:00.003-04:00

In a previous post I alluded to needing advice on the crochet rug. "Needing advice" - at least in knitting circles - is usually code for "I hate this now but I've spent so much time on it I can't bear to redo it and I'm so emotionally invested now I can't make a rational decision." I didn't really need advice, I needed to acknowledge that this simply wasn't going to be a perfect start to finish project.

You can see here how I started adding t-shirts to the end where I ran out of sheet. What's not completely apparent from the picture is how much thicker the t-shirt section is. I should have realized this before hand, although I cut the t-shirt strips to about the same width, the fabric is much thicker than the sheet. So the rug got much thicker in the t-shirt section than the sheet section. I stood on it several times to test, it was clear that was going to annoy me if I kept going this way.

What also started happening is the t-shirt rows were noticeably (to me) wider than the rest of it too. What to do? I loved making the part with the sheet so much cause it went so quickly and smoothly and it was my first real crochet project. But as I fixated on the thicker t-shirt section, I realized I liked that section better. The holes in the first part of the rug suddenly seemed so big and weird, I think the hook I'm using (size Q) was too big for that part.

So I tried think of ways to save it without undoing it, but deep down in my heart I knew what I needed to do. I just had to take the time to come to grips with it. I unraveled the t-shirts, vowed to figure out what to do with the sheet part later, then started again with an all t-shirt rug. I'm about 8 t-shirts into it (but no pictures yet) and I'm not sure I have enough shirts that I'm willing to cut up on hand to finish it, but I'll find them somewhere. I decided to make the whole thing wider too, I really want this baby to cover up some serious real estate on my gross linoleum kitchen floor. And I'm much happier with how it's progressing now. Pictures of Crochet Rug 2.0 to come. In the meantime, here's some gratuitous cat pictures.

Mindy is unimpressed with the whole thing.

But she does like the hook. It's too bad she doesn't have thumbs or she might have actually been able to get it. Mork is in the back marveling at how much my cheap little camera sucks. Why is the only part in focus that little bit way on the right side?

I have a cat named Mork. Mork has a cat named Mindy.

Amazon Rank: Behold the power of the internet

2009-04-15T11:46:00.001-04:00

I think stuff like this is really cool.

Amazon Rank

As if I needed another reason to love Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, they've done this in honor of the Amazon debacle involving stripping sales ranks from books with "questionable content." Here's a couple of updates on Amazon's response.

SBTB was actually how I first found out about Flight of the Conchords and I have enjoyed many a laugh since then. About a year and a half ago, a co-worker pointed out the Smart Bitches blog to me and on the day that I clicked over to their site they had fatefully posted the "Business Time" video. I laughed so hard I disrupted work for an entire morning. Though I am not a romance reader per se, I really enjoy how much they enjoy the genre. And the cover snark is hilarious and awesome.

In honor of SBTB and the genius of the Amazon Rank Google bomb, and how much I like Flight of the Conchords, and my previous history of posting lots of YouTube videos on my blog, I leave you with this oldie but goodie:

That's why they're called business socks.

I feel fat... Gonna try to sleep it off

2009-04-14T14:18:00.001-04:00

I've talked about my scale before. I dislike how much I weigh. And it's not just the number, I dislike how I feel in my jeans (and these are jeans that I bought last summer because I was feeling fat in the jeans I had before that) and my arms are getting flabbier and my waist is getting thicker. And I ate three doughnuts at work today.

My new year's resolution was to either get down to 130 pounds - or, if I fail at that, resolve to stop caring about my weight forevermore. So far this year I've put on about 6 pounds. hmmm.

I've tried different stuff and usually something works for as long as I can stand to stick with it. The Sonoma Diet worked well for me but I lost so much so quick right in the beginning (5 pounds in 5 days) that I freaked out and stopped doing it all together. And it made me a little crazy about my food: I almost started crying once because my mom made something for dinner that involved white flour and I didn't want to offend her so I ate it. I almost started crying about eating a refined grain. I become an emotional cripple when it comes to diets that scare you into eating healthy.

And that seems to be the major issue for me, I don't want to do something that makes me mad at food. Or guilty about food. Or scared about food. I have too much inclination to go off the deep end with it.

B posted this about a picture food diary. I've done food diaries before, but it's the same guilt/anger issue for me. I don't want to be shamed into eating less. I do like the idea of using pictures more than just writing it down, cause then maybe you're more inclined to see patterns, and you're doing the recording before you do the consuming... But still.

Then I read this and I'm so all over it. Sleep more and lose 10 pounds? Sounds perfect. I need to lose more than that to get to 130 but still, it's a hell of a start. And I love sleeping. I was already thinking about how I wished I got more sleep more consistently. So I'm going to try it and I'll let you know how it goes. =)

Crochet rug update later. I've hit a decision point and I'm in need of advice. I'll post about it when I have access to the pictures on my camera.

Almost finished before I even blogged about starting it

2009-04-12T19:56:00.002-04:00

I didn't go to church today, a fact about which my grandmother had uncharacteristically non-passive, yet still aggressive, things to say. Instead of church, I listened to my heathen boyfriend play Phish bootlegs on the college radio station while I drank tea and started making this:

The sheet I'm using is a batik style print that I used to individualize my bland as bland can be comforter freshman year of college. Over the years it's gotten worn thin in places and the cats have clawed holes through it. So now I'm excited to give it a new life. I cut it into a long continuous strip about an inch and a half wide.

The rug is 20 stitches across and I'm just going to keep going till I think it's long enough. It's already more than twice as long now than it was this afternoon when I took these pictures. But my camera battery is low and I don't have any more lovely sunshine coming in my bedroom window so I may just wait to stage another photo shoot once it's done.

I think I'll have to cut more rag strips to get the length I'm looking for, not sure how that will look with so much of this patterned sheet. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I do have a lot of t-shirts in colors that would look interesting striped on the end. Or I may expand it by doing denim around the edges. We'll see.

I'm pleased to have such a successful project to post about after the last post of failure. Happy Easter to all the other pagans out there! I had a lovely day despite the fact that I'm going to hell.

When do I just give up on this yarn?

2009-04-07T15:29:00.001-04:00

I really wanted to make this adorable little capelet/cropped cardigan thing that I found randomly clicking through knitting blogs. I even happened to have two leftover balls of Rowan Polar (the now discontinued yarn that this pattern originally used) that I bought along time ago for a different, and also ultimately failed, shrug/cardigan thing. She only uses 1 1/2 so I thought I'd be able to motor along just fine and wind up with a cute little thing without spending any money.

Now, I should have known better. I've knitted long enough to buy into the superstition of the craft. I originally bought this yarn for the Hot Lava cardigan but I ran out and some wonky things had happened along the way that I don't even remember now so I decided to rip it. Of course when I did that it stuck to itself and got kinky and weird so I threw it in a basket without even winding it. Then I found the kitty pi and figured some frogged yarn that had practically felted itself already would be perfect. I knit it up, felted and blocked it, but I quickly realized that the increases that I had ad libbed to try and accommodate my two cats were deeply flawed. And to this day no amount of catnip will get either of my kitties into the pi. They hate it. Since you can't frog a felted project that left me with just two skeins. I was going to make a hat, but I don't really like wearing hats all that much so I never got the mojo for it.

Then I saw that little capelet and thought it would be perfect. The major problem here is that while my neck is skinny like the blogger who designed it, we have vastly different proportions below the neck. I knit it to just below the underarms and I've only got a few yards left. I think it'd take at least another skein if not more to get this thing to cover my boobs. And even then I don't think the shape would wind up very flattering. I could make a smaller version and foist it on my friend's 8-year old daughter. But even if I managed to crank it out in her size without screwing up, I'd be paranoid about giving her bad luck via this yarn that been involved in so many failed projects.

So when do I give into my suspicion that anything I try with this yarn is doomed? Maybe I'll just knit a big stockinette rectangle for a felted bag. Hard to mess that up.

B, do you like how I keep writing posts like anyone might be reading when really it's only you?

I hate snow.

2009-04-07T14:04:00.001-04:00

Say what you will: it's pretty, it's romantic, it's fun to play in. But whatever, I'm so over snow. We had freak snow showers last night and predicted again tonight and it just makes me want to curl up and die. It's definitely better here than Boston (except for the past 24 hours) but still. I really think I could live somewhere that it never snowed and I'd be a better person for it.

This morning I went out to my car (after procrastinating about leaving for work for as long as possible). I opened the door and slid halfway in to turn on the car to warm up while I cleared off the snow. Of course since it was rainy and gross last night, I had left the windshield wipers on without realizing it. They kicked on and promptly dumped a windshield's worth of heavy wet snow on my leg. Official sucky start to a sucky day. If it had been sunny like this weekend I'd be singing and dancing around the office right now. I would. I swear. I hate snow.

Want to make it, can't decide how

2009-04-03T15:53:00.001-04:00

For a while I've wanted to make a t-shirt rug like this. I have this problem where I can't seem to live without at least four Old Navy Perfect Tees (currently I'm into the v-neck version) in my wardrobe at any given time. But as t-shirts are wont to do they stretch out over time and become unflattering to my figure. As I am wont to do I save the ones that don't fit. My mom sews a lot (well she did when I was little) and I used to make her remake my old clothes into other stuff, all hippy style. I've always wanted to be more crafty, but I've never really gotten into sewing. So I have just saved all these old t-shirts, meaning to repurpose them but not knowing how. Then I saw that rug idea and it was perfect. (I've been knitting for a little over two years.)

But then when I went searching for the knitted rug blog post to link to, I found this and this and now I think maybe I want to crochet it instead. I think I know how to crochet enough to pull it off (and if I don't, I already have this to help me) and the only new thing I'd have to buy is the fatty hook. I like the idea of crocheting such a heavy and thick project cause I feel like my wrists would start to hurt knitting it. And I can make it as wide as I want without having to buy a size 19, 46" circular.

B, if you're reading this, what do you think?

Thinner - or - How my scale ironically scares me into eating

2009-04-02T16:21:00.002-04:00

I have a bad habit of weighing myself every morning. When I'm standing on the scale, I'm focused on the number (and it never makes me happy which is why I consider it a bad habit). But when I'm in there doin my business (what kind of blog is this!??!) sometimes I look over at the scale on the floor. The brand name is Thinner, which I kind of have issues with. Why can't the name be something that invokes the idea of being healthy, not just thinner? The font actually gets skinnier over the word too. The T is nice and thick and the R is all slim and withered away. Kinda weird.

But the real issue here is that it always reminds me of "Thinner": the only Stephen King movie I have watched other than "Carrie". (Has anyone not seen "Carrie"? I had to read the book for a Women's Studies class in college and it was super interesting. Freaked me out for sure, but it made for a great class discussion.) In "Thinner," A kind of douchey overweight dude does something kind of douchey to a gypsy family and gets cursed to keep losing weight. So he keeps losing weight till he looks like a shrunken head. I don't remember how it ends. Oddly I saw this in the theater when it came out, not on VHS at some torturous bad-movie-watching-party (which is a theme that has cropped up in multiple circles of friends of mine). This theater to be precise. At least I didn't pay much for it.

So now when I look at my scale I think about how much I don't want to look like a shrunken head and then I go eat a lot.

I can't believe I'm making this my first post - or - The reason God made farts smell is so deaf people can enjoy them as well.

2009-03-28T14:54:00.002-04:00

After some urging, both external and internal, I'm starting a new blog. I'm going to try to not be precious about it, or perfectionist-y, or take feedback (of any kind) too seriously. I've had issues in the past (probably more about that later).

In anycase, I set up the Foggy Outlet name (probably more about that later too) but then left it blank for a little while, waiting for inspiration. I found some inspiration here: check out segment 4 for The News from Lake Wobegon. I don't know why I always giggle at this kind of stuff (the "stuff" I'm referring to is a little ways into the segment). But I do. I am 6. Farts are funny.

I have always loved blowing zerberts on people. It's funny cause it sounds like a fart but it doesn't stink and if you do it right it tickles. This was a big perk of being a nanny, captive zerbert victim. Now my poor boyfriend gets a zerbert on his neck whenever I'm feeling a little hyper. I'm never sure how this makes him feel. He laughs, but kind of nervously.

Anyway, I was going to post an audio file of me making fart noises in my elbow (ala The Pioneer Woman's burps) but I can't post it unless it's a video and there's something about a video of me making fart noises in my elbow that is a line I just can't cross.

But here's a picture:

Hi blogging world!