Jaywalkers, Ho!

Yeah, I just called y'all ho's. Sorry about that, it just sort of popped out. You know, all unexpected-like. You see, there was this flow, and I just sort of... Went with it. It happens.

You see how well they match? And I didn't even try!

Remember when I finished my first Jaywalker, and I was so pleased and proud of it and whatnot? Really, I was very happy. The thing was, though, that it took me about 2 days to get all the way through part of the foot, and then it sort of languished there on my needles for a long time. For some reason, I just wasn't feeling the half-patterned, half-stockinette-iness of the foot, and it sat there for a few weeks until I got the ambition to finish it. And then I was happy, of course, because I had a finished sock. Amazing! But I was sad, because I was dreading the casting on for a partner.

I think my favorite part is the picot cast-on. It makes them more flirty, more fun. Seriously, I didn't try to match them!

But cast-on I did, a few weeks ago. And I got through the heel and the gusset one day, and everything was hunky-dory. We watched about six hours of The Sopranos on Sunday and I finished the thing right up! The second sock wasn't as daunting as the first. I'm really pretty proud to say these are my first finished sock(s).

Fancy dancing Jaywalkers!

Now all I have to work on is pairs for the other two orphans in the house. And I've also been dreaming about some Embossed Leaves socks from Interweave Knits 2005 Winter, made with the Fleece Artist sock yarn I have laying around. Yes, I finally wound it into a ball. You know what would completely fulfill me? A ball winder and a swift. I had to do it all by hand.

Here they are in a state of rest. Goodnight, Jaywalkers.

But now I'm also thinking of casting on more Jaywalkers... Cara's right, they really are addicting!

Tomorrow I'm heading off first thing in the morning to Wisconsin - going home to see the family and whatnot. If my brother calls and gives me directions to his pad, that's where I'm staying tomorrow night. If not, I suppose I'll end up driving straight through to the hometown - it's another 2 and a half hours. After all of the debacles with the oil-change tonight, let's hope he calls, shall we? I don't need another thing going wrong before this trip.

Beaned

Today, Bruce was twirling me around the livingroom and he danced and danced to this slow song (probably "My Heart Will Go On" or similar, because it was a silly cheesy song they played on The Sopranos, meaning for it to be ironic, only after 8 beers it doesn't seem ironic, so much, instead it seems like a great excuse to twirl your wife around the livingroom floor and grab her buttocks. Which was nice.)

(The buttocks-grabbing, that is.)

And then he kissed me (which I believe is the name of a song which I would danced to with more enthusiasm, but hey, who cares at this point?), and then he hugged me, and then he kissed me again, and then I realized without a doubt that I'm the luckiest girl in the whole wide world (also possibly a song title, but appropriate). And then he dipped me, or tried to, and I leant back into it feeling fully sure that he would catch me and make the twirling to bad Celine Dion worthwhile, and he didn't, or it caught him offbalance, the way I trusted him, and I fell flat on my back without a thought of worry.

Seriously, the whole way down the only thought I had was, "Any second now, he's going to sweep me off my feet. Any second now, I'll be safe. Any second now, I won't get beaned by the floor," and so on. And then I got beaned by the floor. He ended up laughing so hard he landed on top of me, kissing my lips.

Thank Pete I ended up with someone who kisses me as much as I want to be kissed. That's a big thing that not everyone looks for, but it's important.

Also it's important that when you're suffocating from laughter and the big guy who just accidentally let you fall to the floor and then collapsed on you because he was laughing so hard at your facial expression when you beaned yourself on the floor is crying on you because he's laughing so hard... It's important that he kisses you on the lips when you catch your breath, just enough to take it back away.

That is very important.

Lucky Girl

There aren't many people who can say that they've found someone with which they feel completely comfortable. It's even rarer that those people are the sort of people you can go to a different city, dress up like a prat and still feel like you totally belong with them, and like there's nothing you'd rather be doing than wandering around strange shops and looking like a fool in front of.




And then I start to wonder at how lucky I am. I am a truely lucky person. Not only have I found the person that is exactly right for me (which some people never actually accomplish), but I've also found a few really spectacular friends along the way, friends who don't care what I look like when I dress in clothes that are completely comfortable for being at home. Even if those clothes consist of random husband's-boxers/bad hairsmock/pink tank-top, those friends don't look at me funny or judge me on it. I love my friends, and I feel blessed by the comfort they let me feel around them.

Tuesday Night:

Unfortunately, I Don't Know Anyone With Deformed Feet

At least, not this badly deformed:



Like how the toes are perpendicular to where they are supposed to be when the heel is pointing down? And how if the toes are on where they should be, then the ankle would be pointing off at a 90 degree angle of where it should be? Sweet.

So I took an extra needle and put it through all the stitches on the row before I started the short row heel,



then frogged back to the starting point. I was only off by one row on the three stitches at the end, I couldn't believe it. Usually when I have to rip back and I make myself a safety, I end up with several stitches in the middle of the row and a few on each end that are in the row below the one I was trying to pick up. Seriously, this was like a miracle for me. Here's what it looked like after I ripped back and picked up those end stitches so I wouldn't have to tell you about my apparent deficiency in figuring out which row a stitch is on:



And then I knit the short-row heel again.



Which really means that I knit two short-row heels and about six inches on two socks in about eight hours. Not bad. People are always asking me how long it would take to knit such-and-such, and I never know what to say. Should I answer in the shortest-possible time frame? Like, if I were knitting constantly for so many hours, how many hours would it take? Or should I give them a reasonable estimate, including the weeks when I put it in the closet because we had company coming and then started on something else because I forgot where I put the first object? Technically, I've been working on the Checks and Charms set for several months, but I haven't actually worked on it for several months, either. It's all about perspective.

I suppose I could get all spiritual on them and explain that the set backs are all part of the process, and the longer it takes me to knit something, the better it is because I love the act of making something beautiful. I guess I could explain that ripping back that heel and undoing hours of work didn't bother me at all, because I could do it over again. Also because it would have been utterly useless to leave it as is. I want to take the time and make something that I really like when I'm finished. It's about the act of knitting for me, but I hate talking like that. I feel like a Buddhist talking like that. And I don't want to sound pretentious. So what do I tell them?

"A few weeks."

Do I Look Awake Now?

I always look tired. I thought that maybe I should do something about that, makeup-wise, at least when we go out in public and want to look fancy. So I tried something new (for me), that yellow crap:



Typical for me, I forgot to take a "before picture", but I think I found one that will work. Before:



and After (taken earlier):



What do you guys think? Honestly!

French Club

I went skiing because of French Club. A little trip to Rib Mountain, one afternoon entirely devoted to sailing down the slopes. After I learned how to ski, that is.

The bus ride was the same as for any other field trip. There were about fifty people total - five chaperones, twenty too-cool-for-anyone's, fifteen math problems, and about four people I could actually talk to, who would talk to me back. I spent most of the ride talking with my friend Terri. Terri had been skiing before. Terri knew how to ski. Terri was going to explain it to me on the ride there. It wasn't working. I was getting more nervous. Terri wasn't going to be the one to teach me. She was here with her boyfriend, and she had to teach him. I didn't want to intrude. Enter Helen.

Helen was a math problem. You know those people, you went to school with them. They were the ones who went home straight after school (or after track, it seemed to be the only physical activity they were into) to study. Or maybe practice the piano. They were on the high honor roll. When you think back to high school, these are the people you forget about. All around good, but too boring to really remember. If they dated, it was only among themselves. They were forgettable.

Helen had been on many skiing trips before, but she was patient enough to show me how to put on my skis. She watched me go down the bunny hill for almost an hour before she got bored and suggested that I was ready for the big hills. I was not ready for the big hills, but I had managed to stay upright on my last three trips, so I thought it might not be a bad idea, while I still had my nerve.

We got on the lift, and I dangled my legs in the air as we ascended. It was a pretty day, a day for skiing. The sky was clear and the wind was blowing lightly. I felt embarrassed at my lack of proper ski gear - the old suede jacket I had was not appropriate at all. Everywhere I looked, I saw cool people in bright green and pink aerodynamic suits whizzing past me on the slopes. Helen was dressed in a grey snowsuit. It wasn't very pretty, but it beat my long-johns-under-the-jeans look. I wished I was wearing something sleek and expensive.

When we got to the top of the slope, Helen planted her poles in the snow and watched me maneuver myself off of the lift. I toddled my way over to her, terrified of slipping down the gigantic hill we were on. She smiled at me, asked, "Are you ready?" and without waiting for an answer, she pushed off. She was all red hair and grey suit disappearing quickly into the distance. Jesus. I was going to have to do this.

I waited until she was out of sight and then pushed myself off. I got about fifty yards down before I somersault to a stop. I lay there, panting, scared that I might have broken something. Praying I broke something, so I could stop skiing and maybe get some free cocoa or something before I went home. I always did think breaking an ankle would be romantic. I thought about hobbling around the hallways to classes on crutches, a cute boy offering to carry my books for me. I went through a mental checklist of limbs. Damn, they were still there, and fully functional. I fell over three times trying to right myself, but then I was off again.

Another fifty yards down, I fell flat on my butt. I didn't bother with the checklist this time, I knew I was alright. This trip wasn't going at all like I had hoped. And I had so wanted to be a ski bunny. Sigh. Up we go. I only got halfway to my feet before I started moving again, in a squat.

It wasn't so bad, really, as long as I kept close to the ground. I could do this! I was skiing! I thought of inventing a new Olympic event - squat skiing. I dreamed about the pedestal, what I would say. Maybe I'd get to take Robby to Disneyworld. This was fun, actually, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thou... Down I went again. Flat on my back this time, and I don't know how I managed that from a squat, but I did. Typical. I lay there in the snow and thought about my life.

About five minutes later, when I was finally getting up the nerve to try again, someone skied up to me with a whoosh! Good god, it was a boy. A boy in fancy ski gear. A boy who asked me how I was doing. A boy who wanted to help me get down. This was my fantasy, without even a broken ankle, and here I was, making angry faces at him. How dare he try to help me? Couldn't he see I was completely capable? Ok, so I was flat on my back in the snow, but I was just about to get going again.

I so didn't want him to see my squat-skiing. All of a sudden, it seemed less like the new Olympic sport, and more like something a little girl would do. Something this older boy would not find cute at all. I laughed at myself a little, and encouraged him to keep going, but he wouldn't leave. I resigned myself to letting him see me down the hill, and climbed up into my squat again. After three missed tries, I finally got moving.

He didn't laugh, I'll give him that much. He smiled a lot, and I can't account for what he was doing while he sailed on ahead of me, but when he was stopped and waiting for me to catch up with him, he was only giving me a nice smile. He had a very nice smile. The butterflies in my stomach weren't helping me ski any better, so I tried to ignore him.

We made it down the hill. He watched me take off my skis and corrected me when I poked my pole in the wrong place. He was very nice, actually. I couldn't believe this was actually happening to me. He asked me to sit with him on the deck.

The lodge was built like a log cabin, with rooms inside completely surrounded in glass, where you could sit and sip hot cocoa and watch the skiers making their way downhill. On the outside, they had built a deck where you could do the same thing without taking off your layers of skiing apparel.

I agreed to take a break with him, and sat down at a picnic table bench. He sat on the other end of it, and we made small talk for a few minutes before his friends showed up. Then I shut up. He lit up a cigarette and offered me one. I was horrified, but I think I kept my cool as I refused. I was only 14! That wasn't something catholic grade school had prepared me for, being offered smokes from a cute boy who saved you from a mountain wasn't part of the "peer pressure" scheme. I had never before in my whole life wished I was a smoker, but I did at that moment.

We sat there for almost a half hour, him and his friends chatting about all things skiing and me listening in like an intruder, eating up everything they had to say. They were all so cool, so much older. They smoked. They talked about music and bands and the shows they had seen. They talked about skiing and the girls they had met that day. They were cool. They had a handle on things. I listened to everything they said. Eventually, I had to go, and said goodbye to the nice one who'd almost rescued me.

I met up with the French Club and loaded on the bus. We drove home.

The year was 1995, I was fourteen, and I never asked him his name.

Hey! I'm Not Knocked Up!

Woooo-eeeeee, folks. I'm so glad no one read anything into that last post of mine before I could get back to y'all. See, thing is, I own two shirts of the same style which I have proclaimed "Pregnant Shirts". This is because anyone who's ever tried them on feels like they are wearing maternity gear, and is always paranoid about it, and asks me if they look pregnant. I am not, in fact, pregnant.

Sorry for any confusion.

Here's a picture of me explaining what I posted and why I wanted a picture to show my wonderful readers to Bruce, as he took the photograph:



You're all jealous of my fashion sense, aren't you? Let us not speak of the multitudinous chins.

Not My Cover-Up!

I walked into the house tonight with the weekend spreading before me like a cheap whore. It was heavenly. There is nothing better than the front door when you've been sitting in your car behind crazy people who can't remember to turn on their signals and can't be bothered to actually turn when the arrow goes green in any case. Walking through that door and being greeted by a happy cat and a smiling Bruce is pure bliss.

Having no particular place to go, I sat down at the computer and plugged The Sims into the disk drive. It was giving me problems, so I decided to change into more comfortable (but much less attractive) clothes.

On the way to the bedroom, I watched the cat playing with his scratching post for a minute. It hangs from the hallway bathroom knob, because I figured out yesterday that he didn't use it when it was on the closet door because sometimes the closet popped open. That sort of thing scares a Linus. He's used it more in the past day than since we moved in. Bruce saw me looking at the bathroom door and warned, "I wouldn't use that one, if I was you."

I nodded in his direction, knowing he didn't realize my intent was not to pee, but to change clothes. I did so in the closet, because hey, it's big enough to change in, and isn't that amazing? And also because the blinds were open. Seeking comfort rather than fashionista status, I tie red striped kerchief in my hair and dress in one of my pregnant shirts and a pair of Bruce's boxers. I return to the computer room to play.

Bruce looked up from his computer and said, "Hey, the Linus got into something in the bathroom. I think it was your makeup or something. He really tore stuff up in there."

Blank stare from me.

"I just left it, I figured you'd know what it was."

"Are you sure it wasn't me?" I ask.

What a freaking ridiculous response. Are you as amused by that as I am?

Now, I know as well as the next guy that pretty much anyone can tell a cat-mess from a human-mess, but last night before going out, I spilled some of my blusher on the countertop in there. I didn't want to think about Linus getting into my stash of makeup, small though it might be. I never buy makeup, most of my stuff is over two years old, and I treasure the stuff I do have. The more I thought about it, the more it was starting to bother me. Jesus, what if he got my cover-up?



Isn't Bruce the sweetest?

PS: I saw Peeps flavored lip gloss at work today. Seriously. Peeps flavored lip gloss. Why not abandon the pretense there and just call it sugar flavored?

Lisa/Mason

Sarah: still there avoiding me like a crap friend?
god, you're so selfish with those yahoo games
i can't believe i want to come up and visit you
you'll probably just sit there in your apartment and play yahoo all day long and not call me
i know you secretly can't stand me

Lisa: hey this be mason

Sarah: lol, hey mason

Lisa: lisa is out groc shoppin

Sarah: a fine excuse

Lisa: a likely story

Sarah: when she gets back, tell her i know it was really her pretending to be you

Lisa: gotcha

its obviously her hence the picture

Sarah: exactly

you can't fool me with your fancy words, lisa, i can see you on my screen

Yesterday I worked all day long in the garden center, which was something of a treat. If you're one of those people who enjoys lifting 40lb bags of Humus & Manure, that is. And I happen to be. One of those people.

Ok, I won't say that I enjoy that part, especially, but I do like conversing with ye olde gardener when he or she is done with their shopping. I get all sorts of sage advice.

Sure, the pharmacy is full of Ye Olde People who can give an up-to-the-second forecast for the evening, but Ye Olde Gardener will blow your mind with the things they know. (Few minues later.) I can't think of any really good examples, so you'll have to trust me on this. (I know, lame. I'll try to think of some funny shit when I'm at work this morning.)

One of the things that the morning Garden Shop associate is in charge of is draining the outdoor area of the shop. There are drainage grates at both ends of the area, and they water the plants very early in the morning through a sprinkler system. Unfortunately, there's always a bunch of plastic and "plant matter" floating around in there, and it clogs up the drains.

So yesterday morning, armed only with a cheapo broom and wearing my crocs, I took care of business. Unfortunately, the water was about five inches deep and I had to stand in there and hold the "plant matter" back with the broom while it drained. IT took about 10 minutes. My feet were soaking.

Now, the thing about Crocs is that they're not really known for their breatheability. At least not the holeless ones that I own. So I guess my feet were marinading in plant-matter water all day long, because when I got home, they looked like I'd been in a cold hot-tub for about nine hours.

I had corpse toe.

Also, "Hey, Mama?"

With the question mark that always comes with me asking for something that may or may not be able to be given, you know, like the backpack that's from Esprit or the jeans from a designer that our family really can't afford but that mom might just find the money for, if you ask her nice enough. And hey, it's not my fault that this was the only "cool" store in my town. Esprit was the way to go, if you didn't want to be ridiculed for many years afterward. My mom was just cool enough to get me an aqua bag right before they went out of style. I wonder where it is?

And Mom? Would you mind if I came home sort of soon? I miss you guys, so much. I want to play lots of games of cribbage (Bruce never learned how to play cards) and maybe even poker? I want to see Lisa, and I'm not exatly sure, but I think it's been about 6 months since I was home last. I think that's my limit. You won't mind if I come home now and then come home for July 4th, do you? I hope not.

I just miss you all so much.

Love you,
Me

By Popular Demand

And hey, I've got four readers, so popular can most certainly be determined by one of those readers asking for pictures. On Saturday, I went to the salon that was reccomended by my boss and good friend Shamrock*. It was a lovely place, and the woman who cut my hair was great. Instead of being befuddled by the girl who didn't know exactly how to describe what she wanted (other than the vague "Maybe sort of really short in the back, but not too short", and "Like a bob, but with less, you know, stuff"), she was very accomidating and asked me questions while she was cutting, until she had a good idea of what the girl wanted. Then she went for it, and here are some pictures of my fabulous new haircut:





*Shamrock would prefer to remain nameless, if she even knew about my blog. So I shall keep her that way.

Of course, I took that opportunity to dye my hair as well, and I don't have any pictures of that. I'm sure you all are sick of seeing those, after the Dying Debaucle of a few months ago, anyway. Suffice to say, it was pretty much the same situation, but with less hair. Sufficely.

On Sunday, we mowed the lawn. Rather, I watched my hot husband mow the lawn, and got all swoony:



And then we watched some must-see TV, which if I were to be honest with myself I would totally admit that it makes me want to cry - in fact, I cried several different times during this little portion of The Sopranos - because I didn't have that big-family-people-you-hardly-know-who-love-you-and-wish-you-well type of reception to my wedding. I had the not-unconsiderable people-who-love-you people there, and also some of the reassurance-that-the-people-who-love-you-want-to-see-you-off type of thing, but it didn't seem to be the same. I always wanted a small wedding, with a huge shin-dig following. You know the kind, the kind where the bride is all decked out and her husband can't see straight enough to get her garter off, and then your cousin Mandi falls on the dancefloor and shows the world that she went commando that night, that sort of reception. In any case, here's one of the scenes I cried at:



And then we had some friends over to help us eat a whole lot of food:



That's Cam, Little Nicky, and Brad. Wonderful people.

I guess that if we were adults, we would call our weekly BBQ a freaking dinner party, instead of labeling it a poor-man's-pot-luck. But hey, we're young and unabiding to stereotypes! Damn you, stereotypes! Straight to Purgatory!

(Sidenote: What's up with this Judas' Gospel? Hello? What an upset! Here I was thinking that all of God's Creation was set in stone, and out crops this minefield of un-doctrined thinking. What do you think about this? Does it surprise anyone that it's contradictory to what us Catholics have been taught for years and years? Was Judas the unpopular disciple? Is that why he got the bad rap for so many years? Frankly (who is Frank?) I'm surprised it ever came out. Nevermind being discovered, it's amazing this has seen the light of day. You know, you get all self-assured that the media is evil, and then then they pull something so controversial on your ass. It makes me happy; Oh, to be in Catholic Grade School (Hell) today.)

Exciting, huh? I bet you wish you had been here! Except for the fact that Bruce and I both woke up with sinuses that weren't working. Except for if by "working" you mean "any time they are not completely clogged, they are working at expelling everything they have ever been capable of, in the form of snot". In that case, they were working like a couple of mother-fucking bandits! We think it's the cutting of the grass that did it.

Well, to be honest, I think it was the cutting of the grass. Bruce thinks it was a freak meteorologist phenomenon that caused it, because he's "Never been allergic to grass before in his whole life". That may be true, my dear, but that doesn't mean it didn't all of a sudden just happen. Many people, this happens to. Talk like Yoda, I have a tendancy to.

This afternoon when I went into work, we all had a discussion about this very thing. Instead of treating their condition, some persons act like it could never happen to them, just because it never has before, and also? Allergies are like a defect, according to them. They won't let themselves take something to make them feel better, because to take something would be to admit that something is wrong. Hello? Whatever happened to the old standby of, "Hey, something seems to be wrong with me, perhaps I should take the advice of my seasoned medical professional, and remedy the situation!"

I don't mean to leave you with a bad feeling about Bruce. He is more likely than most guys to listen to my reasoning, and he does admit to feeling better once he took the medication I recommended. It's only that period of malcontent when one realizes one is all-of-a-suddenly allergic to things one has never been allergic to before that is driving him to denial.

So, that was my weekend. How was yours?

TV Crazy!

Tonight (Sunday) is our big night for TV.

Of course, we watch The West Wing. We got obsessed in between seasons when it was airing on Bravo. (Hello! If you want to get into The West Wing, please consider watching Bravo on Mondays. Talk about marathon, that's a marathon every week. Check into it.) Of course, 1/2 of the reason it stuck was because of Martin Sheen, and 1/2 was because of Leo. Some of you might not realize this, but Leo (the actor that plays him, anyway) died a few weeks ago. Tonight is the night where he dies on the show. Definitely one of the saddest moments in television.

I'll be a heathen and say it's even sadder than John Ritter.

Yeah, then we watch The Sopranos and Big Love. Later. Now, it's only sad.

Katie Couric

Is the new CBS anchor. This is fantastic news, but something's been troubling me. Take this quote, for example:

"I think she can, I think she can work into it because she has like I said, the total package. She has the intelligence, she has the looks, she has the personality," Brown said.

When Dan Rather got the job, how many people were commenting on his looks?

I'm enough of a feminist to know that when people on the radio are talking about what a good job she'll do because she's "perky" and "cute", it's a backhanded compliment. This is a person who's had a great career. I think she deserves more than that.

Maybe it wouldn't piss me off so much if it wasn't a good ol' boy on the classic country station saying it. I don't think so, though. It pisses me off.

Love,
Sunny

PS: Damn the Man!

Phone Message

1:40 PM

SARAH,

President Bush called. Says he needs you help with the immigration bill. He wants to you call him back on his cell.

-J.B.

Books and Reading

Since all I seem to be doing lately is reading, I thought I'd do a meme about books that I found on some random blog.

[Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, place an asterick after the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.]

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger*
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
(His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling*
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell*
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien*
(The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon)
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling*
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
(The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini)
(The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold)
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
(The Secret History - Donna Tartt)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis*
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
(Atonement - Ian McEwan)
(The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood*
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes*
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt*
She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb*
Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding*
Lamb - Christopher Moore*
Monsterous Regiment - Terry Pratchett*

Wow, that was a little humbling. I'm not surprised to see that the only book I have but have yet to read is the one I just bought Bruce for his birthday, and he's busy with that one, so I have an excuse. Right now, I own more unread books than ever before in my life (haha, smartasses, college books don't count), but for some reason Chick-Lit was excluded from this list. Don't ask me why. (Joking, joking.)

I feel like I've read more than this list gives me credit for, but that's not the point. I'm sure there are people who would swear on their lives that having read Stephen King's complete works (minus Insomnia, but I'm planning that one) would make me more or less of a reader than I am. Ditto for millions of words Terry Pratchett has written. But hey, you know what? I like them. They take me into another world without taking me in so deep as to drive me nuts. (The Bell Jar and The Dark Half almost drove me crazy. Literally.)

There are books that I would put on this list that I've read but aren't there. I'd recommend them to anyone who hasn't read them, but not all of you will like all of them for the same reasons I do. Not all of you will like all of them, period.

Hell, I'm adding on to the meme. They're the ones at the bottom - under the space.

Is that allowed?

I Know

we've been through this before, but let me just say that I've traveled a long, hard road since high school. Most of my senior year was dedicated to becoming the girl you see in this bed:



The boyfriend I had in my delicate college years did nothing to help my self-esteem issues. Instead of getting thinner with his encouragement (which in his mind no doubt meant "healthier"), I took offense and retaliated. After all, this was my body to do with as I so pleased. To hell with any man trying to tell me I'd be "better off" not eating meat. I snuck meals on the side, to make up for the ones I was being denied at home. His plan backfired. As much as I care for my ex (and I do, I wish him only the best) he knows how much it hurt me to have him judge me like that. Here's a picture of myself when things between he and I went wrong (we eventually made up, meaning two more years of monitoring):



What? What? I wasn't high, I was... Ok, so that's totally a picture of me being stoned off my ass. What else did I have to lose?

In any case, here's a healthy, happy picture of me. I know some of you have seen it before, but it bears repeating. I'm not the skinny chick I was in high school, and I never will be again. Half of me wishes I could be her, and the other half knows that I will never be able to look inside myself and find the acknowlegement that I need. I never did when I was skinny, I never did when I was fat.

I have found a man who loves me for me, and not for the body I carry around with me. This might not be a skinny picture, but it's honestly me, and that's what he loves me for.



I love you, Bruce. And the farts you rode in on. No one ever said that the sexiest man alive didn't pass gas, but I bet when he did, he waited until his wife was out of the room so she wouldn't have to bear it, just like you do. It's the little things that matter, baby. All the little things in you add up to one concrete reason I can't believe how lucky I am. I will love you always, just the way you are.

And thank you for loving me, just the way I am.

So Tired

The baby fell asleep after putting away her toys.



And then Bruce woke her up because he had to get a picture of that.



She really was the cutest thing.

Seeburg, Via 1962

I spent about an hour at this machine on Friday night.





Isn't it fantastic? It's a juke-box from 1962. The records in it are warped, and it was great to watch it find selections and play them. I couldn't believe the quality. I guess a machine like this goes for almost seven thousand dollars. At that price, I'm glad I got some good pictures of it - I don't think it'll be waiting for me on my birthday.