Month: March 2013

it’s stub time!

I am in shock at how many promising blog posts I started, abandoned, then completely forgot about. Deadbeat Dad!

Poor little ~~children~~ stubs with your unrealized potential. Here you go, I’m sending your half-formed selves out into the world.

Here’s one titled “just about to kill you hot, that’s how hot” from October of last year.

The past couple days have been excruciating, heat-wise. I am too warm to the touch. My co-worker and I lost the ability to form sentences round about 4pm. Today was a little better, but my elevated temperature (on the heels of a weirdly clammy warm summer) contributed to me being pretty far out of sorts.

From “cleaning house”, August 2012:

Here’s some unintentional mess.

A bracket gave way under a shelf after 12 years of holding up atlases, a dictionary and several tennis trophies. This happened in the middle of the night, much to the dismay of the adrenal systems of both my Elderly Relative and me.

There’s also intentional mess.

[not pictured]

My bedroom is out of control. I have been busy and very blue in equal measure and therefore there has been a lot of sleeping, not a lot of cleaning, and a lot of wallowing.

These two messes backed me into a corner, in many ways.

And from “man behind the curtain”, May 2012:

I have, and always had, a profession that is somewhat transparent, if I’m doing it well. Most of the time I can handle being Invisible Lady; I know I do my jobs competently, and I’m lucky to have colleagues that seem to appreciate what I do.

However, every once in a while, glory is gotten, and sometimes I have had something to do with this glory, but I get overlooked, acknowledgment-wise. It is a testament to my getting wiser at the fact I don’t crumble when this happens — I don’t like it, but I don’t let it get blown out of proportion.

Well, I’m only blowing it a little out of proportion. It’s a day like this when all the annoying aspects of the job rear up, and I want to kick things in a petulant and snitty way.

The other annoying aspects are worse. Because of less-than-satisfactory workflow process, I often don’t receive critical information that I need. This is true of several jobs that I do. I don’t like the phrase “being left out of the loop” and I hate being left out of that loop even more.

And because of these less-than-satisfactory processes, my job includes nagging people. What joy.

“trigger” February 2012:

It’s been no secret my neck has been the bane of my existence. You dumb, faulty stalk — why must you be so tense and cricky and spasmy and weird? Often the source of the malady occurs earlier and farther away; a spot near my left shoulder blade seems to activate in a malevolent way, and the pain radiates up, up, into the shoulder and neck. In the past year or so, this line of tension has also touched off migraines during specific times of my hormone cycle.

Just a failing biology experiment. I have been avoiding taking the step into varsity-level drugs, and have been researching other treatments including lymph drainage massage, regular massage, caffeine and hydration treatments, the lovin’ hands of Manfriend, and acupuncture. The latter I have not tried yet, but plan to.

I took a neck and shoulders yoga workshop with my friend Anna, which was great but weird. I almost honest-to-god fainted in the class, which was an odd reaction. I appreciated the various stretches and exercises she showed us, but I didn’t feel anything revolutionary. In fact, my neck was acting up that day and it just kept on spasming.

Until Anna brought out the yoga balls, and introduced us to trigger point therapy. Oh my god. It hurt soooo good.

[Postscript: I tried acupuncture and had a not-good experience. I’m still working on trigger-point therapy and it still works quite well. I bought a book about trigger point and headaches/migraines and I feel quite hopeful.]

March 29, 2013
pause button answers

Congrats to Mike “Mister” Cass, improv and math teacher and all around swell guy. I’ll bet we wouldn’t have to fight over the remote! He and his wife are expecting their second child, so I’m hoping he’ll opted for a baby blanket crafted by me.

My buddy Kyle did a reasonable job and snagged second place, and Ellen? Well, Ellen was my third entrant, so you all win something!

Answers. I realize you really need to have HBO in order to get most of these. And a whoooole lot of time on your hands. Sorry!

1: Planet of the Apes (2001 Tim Burton version)

2: RuPaul’s Drag Race (that Jessica Wild, Season 2. Shame on you for not knowing that.)

3: RuPaul’s Drag Race

4: The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway

5: Say Yes to the Dress: Randy Knows Best

6: It’s not the guy from MST2K, I am completely blanking on the movie and the actor. He’s a supporting character that is a weird dad of a teenager and has a conversation with the protagonist about how he’s living in the past. For the life of me I cannot remember.

7: The Inbetweeners (adorbs British teen show, recommended, on Netflix Streaming)

8: I can’t remember, although I was heavily into Werner Herzog and Errol Morris docs at the time, so I’ll bet it’s a film from one of them. What? You didn’t get that?

9: Teen-a-Go Go (documentary about the 60s garage band scene in Dallas-Fort Worth)

10: Crossfire Hurricane

11: Eastbound & Down (Aaron the Angry Midget [Deep Roy] on left)

12: Glengarry Glen Ross (back of Kevin Spacey’s head, I think)

13: George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Tom Petty)

14: George Harrison: Living in the Material World (George Harrison)

15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Charlie Day, Danny DeVito)

16: American Psycho (Christian Bale)

17: Enlightened (Mike White)

18: Hung (Analeigh Tipton, Stephen Amel)

19: A Liar’s Autobiography (documentary about Graham Chapman)

20: The Accused (Jodie Foster)

21: From one of the dozens of documentaries about dance companies I watched in one week. Don’t know why!

March 25, 2013
pause button

Over the past few months, I have taken a picture of the image that was on the screen when I pressed the pause button. Nothing was purposefully paused upon, except for the ape on the Golden Gate Bridge.

There’s a whole lot of talking heads here — not surprising, since I watch a lot of non-fiction.

I also appear to watch a lot of drag queens and/or white men.

Let’s make this a guessing game! Name the TV show or movie. Partial points will be awarded to person’s name if you can’t think of the show. There are a couple I don’t remember, so the more creative or most correctest answers on those will be awarded extra points, too. At least two are from the same show/movie.

I watch mostly Netflix Streaming, HBO GO and shows on websites. I don’t have other cable or broadcast TV.

No fair looking at other comments. I’ll send the top two winners something handmade.

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March 15, 2013
the 75-minute quilt
1. At 12:30 exactly, clip threads, check for pins, and wrap the quilt.
2. Shower, dress, get lost, be 1/2 hour late.
3. Present quilt to the young and modern and stylish couple.
PS “Mustache” was the shower’s theme, due to the luxurious and oft-waxed mustache of the dad-to-be. In fact, my improv group gave him the nickname of “Mooshi” (short for moo-stachio). Hence:
March 10, 2013
put one foot in front of the other

[This darn song gets stuck in my head far far too much. I blame John A., with whom I went to art school. He would sing the refrain and force us to walk in rhythm to it — put one foot (step step step) … in front of (step step step) … the ooo-ooother! (stepstepstep!)]

direct link

Accomplishments feel few and far between these days, mostly I’m running trying to catch the train, or (worse) taking big, galumphing steps backwards.

The spambots have found a new algorhythm and I have to block and destroy dozens of comments a day, which makes blogging feel so chore-y.

Chore-y. Chairy!

Here’s one accomplishment. From this:

To this:

No DIY spirit here, had a guy do it, he did good, I gave him what was probably a reasonable amount but was a sort of ouchy amount. But that’s okay! Loooooook, loooooove.

Before the Great Revinyling, all but one of the chair’s seats were ripped past the point of usability. In the way that humans do, my Elderly Relative, regular visitors and myself adapted to this fact, just shuffling around the small handful of good chairs, sitting in shifts, and generally doing a very elaborate and silly dance.

It wasn’t until John had a whole battery of home health care visits that I saw what we were living with — the physical therapist and social worker both sat in seatless chairs before I could stop them — and the sight of startled professionals halfway pulled into their chair (sitting-on-the-toilet-rim-style) was concerning and NOT HILARIOUS AT ALL. Especially when the PT’s sheaf of papers went flying in the air.

So many sittable chairies now! Now I’m fantasizing about having a real dining room, which I have never done before. Perhaps I’d have a dinner party and rig one or two of the chairs’ seats to give way at some point during the meal.

Not hilarious. At all.

March 7, 2013