Thank you, Netflix, for reducing my monthly payments.

Tonight I watched The Last Picture Show. This movie has been recommended by many people over many years, but I held off for whatever reason - it's an older movie; it has Cybill Shepherd who I generally can't stand; Lost seasons 1 & 2 seemed much more important... you get the point.

This was one of the best black & white sleeper movies from the 1970s that I have ever seen. (It's also possibly the only black & white sleeper movie from the 1970s that I've ever seen.) Cybill was bitchy as all get out, and I actually loved it, mainly because I felt like the boy characters were spineless direction-less yahoos who needed to grow the hell up already. I also loved Cloris Leachman's character, and all the older-than-high-school women in general, they brought such an attitude and a heartwarming spin to the film.

So in summary: thumbs up, if you're a lady. Men should rent the Deer Hunter or Apocalypse Now instead.

Look what I made.

About a year ago, I decided that the perfect thing to hang right over my bed was a tapestry of a Japanese cherry tree, much like this one only with burgundy flowers instead of pink flowers (because I have a burgundy Asian theme going on in that room).

About nine months ago, I went to Chinatown and Japantown to look for such a tapestry, but the only one I found cost a lot of money, and I didn't particularly love it, and I realized that I could just make a tapestry myself for about $10.

About six months ago, I went to Michael's and bought some muslin and burgundy paint (being a crafty person, I already had the black paint). The Michael's bag sat on my dining room table for five months.

About a month ago my friend came over for craft night and while she worked on a crafty picture frame for her dad for Father's Day, I started my tree. I got about halfway done, and hung it over my bedroom door to dry until I could finish it.

It hung there for four weeks.

About ten minutes ago, I finally finished the tree:



I'm not thrilled with the leaves but overall I'm quite proud of this little project (though far less proud that it really took me a year, when in total the project itself took about an hour and a half).

I'm guessing it will continue to hang over my bedroom door "drying" until I get to Home Depot to buy a couple wooden rods to hang it with. And then maybe in about two months, I'll drag out the sewing machine and sew hems in the muslin for the wooden rods. And then in about three months I will hang it over my bed and not worry about it falling on my head and knocking me unconscious during the next earthquake (which is kinda how this whole idea came about in the first place).

Good thing my friend and I are starting on Christmas presents this week. Clearly it will take me that long to finish them...

I'm "Prufrock and Other Observations" by T.S. Eliot.

"Though you are very short and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you've really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons."

Sounds about right... Which book are you?

Harry dies.

At least that's what the young person working at Pet Food Express kept saying to the other young person (who kept replying "stop it! that would be so sad! I would cry!") and then the third young person announced that she had read the last page and was going to reveal the ending... And everyone squealed "NO NO NO!" including me and I don't even give a rat's ass about Harry Potter.

Remember when we were of that age, where teasing counted as flirting? Somewhere after age 25 flirting becomes much more purposeful and even somewhat daring. I'm much better at the teasing angle.

Hmm. Maybe I should hit on that first young person at Pet Food Express. He looked over 18...

Friday five.

Five random observations, in no particular order:

• If Safeway charges me for the two decaffeinated green tea boxes (2 for $5!) that I put in my basket after a grueling manual labor day at work, but they don't actually put both boxes in my shopping bag and just put one in the bag, once I get home and realize this fact I am far less likely to go back and demand the second box owed me. But I am also far less likely to frequent that Safeway for a few weeks.
  
• Antioch is HOT in the summer.
• When my cat jumps up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason and scampers at 90 miles/hour across the room, I should expect an earthquake within about 10 seconds. (And this one was a mile from my apartment, and therefore A DOOZY, like nothing I have felt in the ten years I've lived here. An acquaintance who lives a mile away had broken windows and broken kitchenware as a result of this one. My only casualty was a plastic frog that fell off the top of my monitor onto my desk. Oh, and a very freaked out cat that wouldn't let me get back to sleep for an hour... OK, so I was a little freaked out too and couldn't go back to sleep.)
• Reese's chocolate layered cookies, which I only bought on a whim for my PCT hiker friend who loves Reese's cups, and of course had to try before packing them up for her, are actually REALLY FREAKING GOOD.
• I'm the first to see any Adam Sandler movie without really thinking twice, but I just don't see how mocking domestic partner benefits is (or should be) funny and I hope this movie bombs.
  

"An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern."

I saw Sicko this weekend. I was pleasantly surprised that Michael Moore toned it down quite a bit from his previous endeavors. There were all his usual examples of how other countries do "it" (in this case, health care) better than the U.S. but the examples in the film were much less stylized and much more to the point. They even seemed to feature real people. In particular, the Cuba scenes were both hilarious and heart wrenching (I will admit that I shed a few tears when the Cuban firefighters were honoring the 9/11 rescue workers - I'm not too proud to admit that, but mind you, I'm an emotional basket case these days so take it with a grain of salt).

Overall though, I was left with the feeling that the under served and underrepresented masses who needed to see this film and rally around it would probably not see this film, that just like Al Gore and as with Moore's 9/11 film it was all really just preaching to the choir... and that I really need to get the hell out of the United States.

Attention, single heterosexual males with no or little baggage between the ages of 30-45 in Toronto (or better yet, Paris): call me! (me téléphoner!)

It's not that I'm bored with this "writing" project.

Pardon me while I ramble with no real point to speak of. One or more readers will admire the excessive use of commas contained within.

Despite my lack of posts, I'm not bored with this blog. I have much to say, in fact. It's just that I'm very, very tired of staring at a computer screen by the time I get home at night, so I opt for the television screen instead. I expected to spend more time on the phone every day, and that's been fine, but I'm constantly surprised at how much time I spend on the computer.

This has been a good week, so far. Either I've been able to successfully (and permanently) remind myself that it's just a job, or I've come to terms with the "bad" and I'm trying to just deal with that and get it out of the way, while focusing on the more interesting and rewarding "good." I still have doubts that I will be in this job for more than a year, but this week I'm more optimistic, and change takes so damn much time and I want to be there to see it through, and I completely admire and respect all the people I work with. So we'll see. I can't believe it's already been 4.5 months and yet it feels like 9 years.

When I'm down about the job, as I was last week (7/9 was by far the hardest morning I've ever had getting up - EVER - I kid you not) I tend to drift toward thinking about all the people who were so supportive of this move who I don't want to let down. And then I get annoyed with myself because this shouldn't be about them, it should be about ME, dammit, but still I don't want to let them down. So I get mad at them and blame my unhappiness on them and peruse jobs in Portland, because God forbid I just quit a job because I'm not happy and find another job in the same city where I might run into former coworkers. Nooo. Must flee.

But then I have a week like this week, and really good, productive conversations with my coworkers and clients, and somehow it seems tolerable. I guess it's all about balancing the bad with the good, and making an effort to celebrate the good because in social service-type work it comes so rarely. I've also been reading The Tao of Pooh which - you will laugh but it's true - has helped my mental state immensely. I can't wait to move on to The Te of Piglet.

All this said, my dream job (if I MUST work, which it appears I must, sigh) continues to be veterinarian and I've been pondering how to get there within 10 years.

Damn you, biochemistry. Damn you and the injured horse you rode in on.

One of these things just doesn't belong.

Had the pictures turned out, you would be looking at the tips of four fingers on my left hand, three of which are normal looking and one of which is smashed beyond all belief. The pictures I tried to take don't do the lovely shade of purple and the swelling justice so I won't bother posting them. Suffice to say, when my index finger hits the keyboard it feels like a big numb mushball. (What imagery! I should be a poet.)

But it was worth it. I helped a friend frame a smallish wood shed this afternoon. Well, actually I did the framing while he worked on the finished doors - fine by me, because you can mess up in framing and it's all good. You mess up on the finish? All BAD.

So I was entrusted with plans, a circular saw, a pile of 2x4s, and of course hammer and nails. In total it took about 3 hours to complete the foundation base frame and back wall frame, because I measured-eight-cut-once on almost every cut (when I helped with his deck I screwed up a few cuts on expensive wood, never again would I let that happen). Oh and also, as I mentioned I smashed my index finger - but I didn't mention that it was on the second freaking nail 30 minutes into the day - so that slowed the progress a bit.

But once I got going it was all downhill, and tomorrow afternoon I will go back and finish the framing and live vicariously through his homeownership. And work out the stress that has built up over the past week. And maybe next week someone else will have a home improvement project I can help with to relieve some stress.

Bonus points if it's a demo project. I LOVE demo.

You wouldn't think I would be happy about this but...

Success - it's dead.

YAY!

One small step...

Not that it will happen, of course, but still.

I think I just need more of this stuff.

Tonight I read my friend's recent PCT entries, and in one she wrote "The climb that I was worried about last night? It turned out to be no big deal."

And then I read this story from Dooce and I laughed out loud the whole time I was reading it.

And then I got all six of the cult movie answers right on the World Series of Pop Culture.

And now I feel much better.

Hello, you have reached the summer of our discontent.

I seriously bruised the top and side of my foot while dancing at my friend's wedding this weekend,* and therefore the gym is out of the question for a few days, which means I get to imbibe tonight and share the following alcohol-related story with you, dear reader.

Sometime over the weekend, on one of my 6 plane rides to and from Puerto Rico, I read that a scary proportion of my generation has declared themselves an alcoholic and sought treatment, and most of them did it around age 30. (I think I read it in Blender, or maybe it was the US Air magazine, I'm not really sure - either way it was surely a credible journal.)

And NO BLOODY WONDER, I tell ya. Half a year into 32 and if this is all there is, count me out. Of course, you could go by the sentiment of the bar in Old San Juan:


But I'm not sure that's the answer either.

I don't think I have EVER dreaded going to work as much as I did this morning. I think I'm realizing that all jobs suck and mine especially sucks right now and this is all I have to look forward to for the next 32.5 years. I spent the 6 plane rides also trying to think of a job I would actually enjoy doing, and came up with basically nothing, except for maybe veterinarian if not for the chemistry.

It's not even the wedding thing, which normally bums me out - I've been to 2 in the span of 7 days and they were both lovely, and I didn't get sad at either. It's just that there must be more to life than working 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, and only having 2 days to enjoy yourself and 2 weeks vacation to see the GINORMOUS world around us.

I'm sure that most of this negativity has to do with seeing this 3 nights in a row...


...and then coming back to the stark reality of a crappy job and a loud fucking cat with hairballs and ridiculous bills and stupid people and George Bush (it all comes back to him, eh?) and just wishing I could sit on that beach for another 45 years and then die a happy death.

I really need to find a way to not work. And get exercise through manual labor versus running on a machine. And still be able to eat. (I'll eat ramen, twigs and berries, roadkill - I don't care.) I just don't want to work. EVER. AGAIN. I want to be closer to nature than I am, I want to be away from city life and all of the crime and muggings at gunpoint and panhandling and neon and chain restaurants and dirt and grime that go along with it (but still close enough to city life that I can get good Thai food when I want it, natch). I want to camp and swim in the river and watch the stars at night.

I don't want to be a soccer mom, I don't need a man or a kid or even this loud fucking cat and her hairballs right now. I need technology only when I want to download new music and watch DVDs and recharge shit. I need contact with people only when I want contact with people. I need the sound of waves crashing and frogs/birds/crickets/cicadas chirping and I need to get rid of this pink wedding nail polish on my fingers and toes before it drives me batty.

I really hope that this funk passes soon. I think I've hit my regular 3-year cycle of lowest of lows (last one was at 29, before that 26, 23, 20, 17... so the timing seems right... although sometimes I wonder if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point) and all will be right with my world soon enough. In the meantime, forgive me if I don't return your calls or emails.

And to end on a less-than-sour note, I bring you Mini Me. (Is anyone other than me waiting for the "I Can Has Cheezburger in Paradise" post?)

________________
* I really have no idea. Just to round out this AA post, I'd had a sangria, a whiskey, a champagne and approximately three (give or take) glasses of wine over the course of about 3 hours when it happened. It was either during the Elvis song, or the big hair 80's montage, or the song that was much like the Macarena only it was not the Macarena but was more like a weird version of the Electric Slide mixed with a little Hokey Pokey (kewpie doll to the reader who can identify that song).

Luckily I quit drinking way before we hit the blackjack tables a few hours later, so I lasted for two hours at the table on a mere $20, at $5 a bet - pretty impressive for a novice.

Public service announcement.

World Series of Pop Culture is BACK. Tonight, 9pm, VH1.

Awwwwww yeah.

... because you might hit a bump and put your multiple tips in a drawer.

I wasn't all that frantic about the email sent at 3:45pm today from Expedia, which I read at 6:30pm this evening, saying "your flight tomorrow has been canceled, please contact us immediately." I figured, they owed it to me to find another flight that was fairly convenient, and after 2 hours on the phone with them, they did. It was a little nerve wracking, sure, but aside from the fact that I might miss my oldest friend's wedding, I really wasn't too broken up about dropping 18 hours in the air and 4 plane changes over the span of 3.67 days from my plan this week.

MUCH more nerve-wracking was the mystery of the alleged "multiple tips." I was talking with a friend on Saturday about the impending 18 hours in the air and my lack of a laptop to do some work, or more importantly, catch up on Netflix. Yesterday it occurred to me that other options existed, so I went to Best Buy to check out portable DVD players. Surely they would be cheaper than, but just as useful as, a laptop for this purpose.

I succumbed, but opted for the cheapest one (life span 2.5 hours), and bought a supplemental battery (life span 3.0 hours), and the price equaled out to a stand-alone device with 3.5 hours of life span so it felt like a good deal. I figured I would mainly be using this combination of devices on the trip home, and 5 hours would be just about right.

So I got home last night, opened a bottle of wine, unpacked my toys and started to charge them. A couple glasses of wine and lots of TV later, I went to bed.

This morning I was looking at the supplemental battery and trying to figure out how the hell it plugged into the DVD player. The cable plug looked nothing like the input for the DVD player, so I pulled the battery package out of the trash and noticed that it allegedly came with "five exchangeable tips" which would plug into any/all DVD players. I had no recollection of seeing such "tips" so at lunch I took the battery back to Best Buy to complain.

They were insistent that the "tips" came with the battery, and perhaps I had accidentally thrown them away with the packaging? It seemed feasible, so when I got home tonight after taking care of the 2 hour phone call I searched the trash and all other random packaging from the purchase for these alleged "tips." No luck.

I was three seconds from heading out the door to Best Buy to cause a ruckus, when it occurred to me to check my "I don't know what this is for but I should probably keep it so I will toss it in here for now" drawer, which mostly contains extra bolts and screws from Ikea purchases but also an occasional technological gadget. So I checked.

Lo and behold, there were the multiple tips! And one of them fits perfectly into the DVD player! Which means that during some portion of the 18 hours of flight time, I can finally watch the Battlestar Gallactica miniseries AND the other two Netflix movies I've been sitting on!

And never again shall I drink wine while opening technology. Youngsters, learn from the errors of my ways.

Foiled again.

Yesterday I woke up at 6am, considered getting up to take care of some chores and get them out of the way, reconsidered and went back to bed. I woke up again around 10am, putzed around for a bit, went for a leisurely run, and was eating breakfast and checking my email around 11:45am when I read the "parking for the wedding" email reminding me that the ceremony started at 1pm.

SHIT! I'd had it in my head that the ceremony started at 5pm! Miraculously, I made it to the ceremony with a few minutes to spare. And it was a truly lovely ceremony and reception, much fun was had by all - AND I got to play with an iPhone (who wants to touch me? I said who wants to fucking touch me?!).

This morning I was determined to better map out my day. I scheduled a haircut at 4pm, so my plan was to hit the Noah's in Alameda for breakfast just before 10am, run a bunch of Alameda-shopping-related errands, check out Ratatouille, then go to my haircut.

The Noah's in South Shore no longer exists. D'oh! I meandered dishearteningly into Starbucks, which OF COURSE still exists (as does the Starbucks in the GINORMOUS Safeway in the same shopping center), perused their dismal selection of fattening pastries, and cheered myself up with a raspberry mocha. Then I rushed through shopping so that I could get home and eat something without turning into Senorita Crankypants, skipped the movie to do laundry instead, and... well, that just about brings us up to speed on my day.

Because this post is seriously boring me, and I'm sure you as well, I bring you five fun Alameda facts:

• Alameda is the original home of Skippy peanut butter, and every year a Peanut Butter Jam Festival is held on Webster Street. (I so need to go to that this year!)
• The movie/musical Rent was filmed in Alameda. (I so need to watch that again to see if anything looks familiar!)
• Lots of Matrix-related stuff went on in Alameda. (I really don't need to watch anything Matrix-related ever again, but it's cool that they filmed scenes in Alameda.)
  
• The open space of the decommissioned naval base often hosts MythBusters' more dangerous experiments. (I... just don't care.)
  
• Phyllis Diller, Tom Hanks, and Jim Morrison all lived in Alameda. Presumably, not at the same time. (Ah, Jim... I knew there was a reason I am drawn to Alameda.)
  

Who knew?! I love Alameda. And Wikipedia, also.

Public service announcement.

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- June 28, 2007 -- Robert's American Gourmet Food, Inc.of Sea Cliff, New York is recalling Veggie Booty Snack Food all lots and sizes, because it has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella..."

My great-aunt, rest her soul, used to call Salmonella "Silly Millie" because she couldn't remember the real name.

As an aside, is anyone else growing concerned with the number of recalls related to Salmonella and the food I eat? Where's that mad cow disease, anyway? If Pirate Booty gets recalled, I'm moving to Canada.