I FOUND JEANS THAT FIT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And the spooky thing is that I didn't even try them on. I tried on something similar but bad, and then finally said the hell with it and grabbed the same size and a different cut off the sale rack and just saved my receipt.

They don't even say "irregular" on them!

Fall is a season of colors, yeah!

1. What is your current favorite color? green

2. Had your favorite color changed over the years? It's been green for a few years, but before that I liked purple and blue. Now I like them all together!

3. Is your current favorite color one that is currently trendy? (Do you see it in the fashion rags or on the clothes rack or in the linen aisle right now? How about 5 years ago?) Well, I think green in general can be hard to wear. The wrong shade can make you look sickly and too bright of a shade makes you look like a box of crayola. I saw a lot of green two years ago and last year, too. I think now more of an avacado appliance shade is in, just like back in the 70s. I personally like deep jewel toned green and yes, that 90s standby, "hunter" green.

4. What is your favorite color combination? I like a vivid sort of turquoise with purple and a very deep green. Weird, I know. I like to think of it as very Ninja Turtles. You know, Donatello and Leonardo, brains and grace under pressure. I realize that this is incredibly geeky. That's what I like to LOOK at, although when I dress or knit I tend to just pull stuff out of the pile based on whether or not it is appropriate with whatever else I have on hand.

5. Is that combination a popular one? Uh...no.

6. What is your favorite way of using color in your knitting? (Are you a stranded knitter? Do you prefer simple stripes? Do you prefer just accents at the hems/collars?) I am not a fan of colorways unless we're talking small items. I like stranded knitting and I like bi or tri color fair isle work. I think colorwork looks best with three or fewer colors, otherwise you tend to end up with that Grandma's Old Afghan sort of effect.

7. What colors look good on you? Michelle at work always tells me that blue brings out my pretty eyes. Of course, I never hear men say anything like this, so what do I know. I think I look best in deep, cool jewel tones since I have cool toned skin, barring that, I can wear pastels only if they are cool (cotton candy pinks, violets.)

8. What colors look bad on you? Anything too warm makes me look jaundiced. I think "color" isn't so much of a factor as the tone of the color. For example, I can wear deep toned fall colors up by my face, but we'd want to keep the tan away. Yellows and reds are hard for me to wear, unless we get into the bastard shades where they're more like a blend of two colors than straight yellow or red.

9. Do you wear colors that don’t look good on you just because you like them? Sometimes. I've work shirts and felt ugly all day in them only to realize after a few wearings that the color just isn't me. I used to try to wear red, but I have to be very careful with red. I try not to buy things that won't look good against my skin, or I'll wear that color on my underwear or socks or something.

10. What is your favorite neutral color? black to wear, light tan in objects

11. Is there a sweater pattern that uses more than one color that you’d like to make, but you wish to change the colors from what is published? Ha ha ha, keeping things in the color they are published. Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! I'd love to try knitting either a super trendy novelty sweater in classic neutrals and see how it turns out. Vice versa, I could totally see doing an argyle sweater in army green, turquoise and lilac.

And why won't these little bang things grow out? Dude.
Maybe this is a sign that I need to bring back sexy little hats.

24 lasagna noodles
48 oz ricotta cheese
3 giant cans of tomato sauce
5 eggs
3 onions
3 bags shredded mozzarella
lots of parmasean cheese
Italian sausage and lean ground beef
assorted seasonings for the sauce

Toss that shit up, layer it down, throw it all in a giant turkey roasting pan and cook for 25 minutes covered, 25 minutes uncovered.

Yields one thirty pound lasagna. Feeds a small army.

Goes well with kleenex, cough drops, cough syrup and tea.

(I'm not eating the WHOLE thing of course. Not today, at least.)

"Don't Stop Believing."

It roared like a tidal wave from the shitty low-fi speakers of my Kia Rio. "Don't Stop Believing," Steve Perry sang. His lyrics melted his way into my heart. I wasn't the only one. Jeli noticed it as well, each sister separately thinking that it was odd that Journey was being played so heavily that month. We discussed it one day over tea while sitting in my basement. What does it mean? Were too tight, high waisted jeans about to make another appearance? Was the heavy bang back? Was Journey in itself a metaphor, a symbol of our lives that summer?

It HAD been an interesting summer. There had been some very bad, and some pretty good, and some of our group were going through major changes. Some of us redefined what we wanted out of life and how we related to other people. There were deaths and births and weddings, and there was less drinking than in previous years. There were bad haircuts and good hand knits. Biological clocks were set on edge. What did it mean? Was local radio station Q104 secretly following us as we grew out of young adulthood and into a fuller phase of maturity? Clearly this Don't Stop Believing message was something we needed to take seriously. We decided that it would be a sort of unofficial anthem, and that it meant we were somehow more fully tuned into the universe around us.

Well, as it turns out...not so much. After weeks of belting out strains of "hold onto that feeeehhhling, yeahhhhhh" in the grocery store (also "I wanna get back to that citayyy, ooooohhhhhh..." and "anyway you want it----yeah!") I was very rudely informed that not only was I NOT at one with the universe (or at least with major broadcasting) but that the whole Journey thing had something to do with a TV show called "The Sopranos," and that now not only was I a dork for trying to glean meaning out of pop culture, but that I was even MORE of a dork for never having seen "The Sopranos."

Well. Of course I've never watched The Sopranos. I tend to not like dramas, as life itself is pretty darn dramatic and I watch TV to escape, not to torture myself. Also, I personally have lived in a city that was once run by gangsters---Youngstown, Ohio. I lived there briefly during the whole Jim Trafficant fiasco, and as far as I could tell, there wasn't so much organized crime going on as there were people in random vans driving around and offering totally innocent young ladies white powdered substances. At the time I thought they were offering me real drugs, but I'm pretty sure that they were probably peddling bags of sugar or something, since Youngstown is pretty poor and last I checked cocaine cost quite a lot of money. Here's a true story about an experience I had in the big bad city of Youngstown. A woman I worked with laughingly told me one day that she was on the "cocaine diet," and instead of being horrified, I merely thought the following: that this explained why she was living in a boarded up house; why was she telling ME about the cocaine diet? Did she think I wanted to lose weight?; and that she was a pretty crappy spokesperson because she still looked kind of chubby to me. So we see that in Youngstown crime was not so much organized as it was random and stupid. Also, Jim Trafficant eventually went to jail where we all rejoiced at the thought that maybe he'd finally get a decent haircut. (Turns out his hairstyle was actually a wig---can you imagine BUYING hair like that? Ugh. I mean, not that I'm one to talk, with my voluminous eighties hair and all, but I didn't PAY for THIS mop.)

Perhaps these are all reasons why I never bothered to watch an episode of The Sopranos. Or maybe I just don't like being trendy. Who knows.

On one level I was disappointed. I'd been living a lie all summer, and it wasn't anything like the lie I lived that time I bleached my whole head blonde and then tried to dye over it and ended up with green streaks which Jen (one half of Jeli) tried to assure me were "misty" and looked like "beautiful mermaid hair." It was more like the lie you live when you've been walking around all day thinking you look cute only to realize your fly has been down and the underwear poking out says "Thursday" when it's really "Saturday."

I really needed to live that lie, though. I couldn't feel comfortable with myself knowing that the social philosophy I'd been basing my summer on was a big fat joke engineered by prime time television. What I needed was a way to apply my denial (that somehow my soul had merged with that of the band Journey) and what I found was Carl Jung and the theory of the collective unconscious.

I suppose the best way to describe the collective unconscious is to imagine a basketball game, when everyone chants "Air Ball" in unison and in the key of F. Jung argued that it was biological and inherited (some say he was influenced by Darwinian science) and some people refer to it as a spiritual thing, where dreams and instinct guide us towards or away from certain experiences which then merges with our personal unconscious and that our level of deviation or acceptance to the psychic push-pull is what eventually shapes our personality.

I've put a lot of thought into this theory, something that is remarkable when you consider that I am very skeptical of psychology. It's not that I think the theories are bullshit----all theories are ACCEPTABLE (at least, all hypotheses are acceptable, which is why they are hypotheses and not laws), but just because they are acceptable does not mean they are infallible. It's been my observance that the people who benefit from over analyzing this crap generally don't NEED therapy because they've already figured out what the problem is, where as the people who could use the discourse are busy performing unspeakable acts on other human beings. Not that most psychopaths wouldn't know about Jung---it's just that they probably couldn't give a flying fuck, and I can't say that I don't understand that.

ANYWAY---I could accept that The Sopranos totally bastardized the Journey Experience for me, and I could accept that perhaps my friends and I were too stupid to realize that the radio is pretty synced up with television. I could also accept the fact that maybe the REASON Journey even got dragged into the whole Sopranos thing in the first place was because somewhere out there, somewhere, the love of Steve Perry has been broadcast, either psychically or through biological memory) so deeply that it affected The Sopranos and my young, pure heart AT THE VERY SAME TIME.

Yes. Tony Soprano and I are totally on the same wavelength, apparently.

Interestingly enough, as I came to terms with this theory, the frequency of "Don't Stop Believing" seemed to lag. Maybe I'd learned the lesson that had been set for me to learn.

Then, a few days ago, I turned on the radio and heard a song I haven't heard since the summer of 1999, a summer I spent driving around with Joe Joe, Tim and Beaker in a Cavalier GT listening to a Rock 80s cassette over and over and over.

"And so I come to you, with open arms......"

What? What? The summer wasn't over! Sure the leaves are turning and mornings are chilly, but that is a minor fact. The summer--nay---the YEAR of Journey is not over yet. My jubilation lasted all of ten seconds, until I realized my window was down and a road crew (who were clearly more interested in leaning on their equipment than in working) were staring in my direction. I quickly shut my mouth and continued the song in my head.

Who knows? Maybe this will turn out to be the decade of Journey. Any way you want it, that's the way you need it, any way you want it! YEAH!

Does anyone else out there deal with early fall allergies? Congestion, a little throat tickle, and most tellingly of all, red itchy eyes?
I'm not good with allergy medications, they tend to make me pretty stoned. Anything with "Tylenol" in the title is apt to make me incredibly silly. Anyone have a recommendation on what I can take?

This probably isn't right, but whenever I am on a message board or reading an email, and I see the writer has included as their signature some quote that is meant to be deep, and I see that the quote is attributed to THEMSELVES---well, my opinion of that person drops a few notches.

I think there are plenty of places for self-quoting. Humor is a great place to use your own stupidity. Snippets of IM conversations? Bring them on! Drunken misspeakings? Yeah! It's ok to be silly. Take Chud and his "pran of Kringles" post. Hilarious! What you don't want to do is try to make yourself sound really insightful. In that case you still end up being silly and hilarious, but totally fo the wrong reason. Nothing makes you sound like a douche quicker than repeating your own quotable quote. The instant I see "The world is an onion, with layers of truth."~me on the end of a post about which five celebrities you'd do, I kind of want to scream.

I also hate ellipses when used to begin or end seemingly random phrases, instead of denoting either long pauses or that words have been removed from a quote.
I also shudder when people end smart-ass statements with "in my humble opinion." "IMHO" is even worse. End the quote with a seemingly derogatory reference to yourself and WHAMMO! It's rage time for Stepho.

The ultimate horrible self quote would be along the lines of:
"...meek does not mean weak...IMHO."~little ole' me

I will end this mini rant with an appropriate and non-self attributed quote.
"Nothing screams 'I'm important' like a man who screams 'I'm important' into his cell phone." ~from a Budweiser "Real Men of Genius" commercial

I GOT MY RAVELRY INVITE TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you not into fiber arts, Ravelry is a marvel of technology designed to help those of us who are seeking to preserve the traditional art of needlework.

You can type in 150 grams of sport weight cotton---and pull up projects people have made. I can solve my chunky weight bamboo problem by typing in chunky/bamboo and scarf and pull up a scarf I'll be proud to wear all winter.

As I am a bit of a compulsive yarn buyer, this is wonderful. Now I won't stand in my yarn closet (shut up---don't YOU have a yarn closet?) and say "what the hell am I going to do with three freaking balls of trellis??" I may not see anything I want to knit---but at least I won't be making any more novelty garter stitch scarves. (Unless they are ironic gifts for other knitters. Alison Williams, you know who you are.)

Technology, handwork, deliciously soft bamboo...(martinis...)...mmmm!

Fall is here!

La la la la la la la la la la la la La la la la la la la la la la la la La la la la la la la la la la la la La la la la la la la la la la la la La la la la la la la la la la

Not that I'm happy about it or anything.

It DOES make it much harder to get out of bed on those cool mornings. Perhaps in a few years when I am independently wealthy I can just lie in bed on crisp fall mornings and eat apples, rather than trundling myself into pumps and pants that don't fit and hurling myself out the door and towards downtown. I'm not sure where this money will be coming from, but I feel almost certain that it's gotta come from somewhere. My good natured respect for authority isn't going to hold out for another forty years.

Hey! I do TOO have respect for authority! Stop laughing! Well, ok. Maybe respect isn't the word. Maybe the word is "tolerance."

But tolerance is good, right?

Ah, cram it.

The Browns lost. No surprise there. I mean, I love them, I do, but watching the Browns is sort of like looking at myself in the mirror. You can pep talk and cheer and wear all the colors, but in the end you're still just a sap from Cleveland. And that's OK...but sometimes it's really disappointing. I'm not sure at this point if I'm an optimist or a masochist. Maybe a little of both.

Actually, piss on that, I'm not an optimist at all. I'm more of what you'd call an "ennuthist."

A friend of mine is going to have to go into the hospital to have a medical procedure done. If you've ever been a young person in the hospital for a serious operation, you quickly grow from innocent and happy, thinking everyone in the world is a bundle of sweetness, to a hormone crazed rageaholic who realizes that people are total assholes and seem to solely exist to piss you off and that the best way to "communicate" is with a sharp fist to the face. This is sort of what is happening to my friend, someone who started out as an idealist. She actually described herself as "bitter" the other day. I was quite proud. You need a little iron in you to ensure your survival. Not from disease----she'll be absolutely healed by this time next year. No, you need iron to protect yourself from people who wander into your doorway simpering about how you have so much "heart," or medical students who openly gawk at you as though you are on view, two bits a gander.

My friend is really not happy about the medial student/freak show part of the hospital. She seemed sort of nervous about the idea of actually kicking people out of her room (even though she'll be paying for each and every unsolicited visit, natch) so I decided to make her a t-shirt.

I wish I'd had one of these.

If you know anyone else who would like to walk around in a very sexy "Piss Off" t-shirt you can purchase one for your very own. So far I only have the ladies' three/quarter sleeve up, as that is most suitable for my friend's needs. Others will be up shortly. In fact, I think a whole line of "Piss Off" products is in order. I'm also thinking of a "Don't Make Me Cut You" design, which is probably something best worn by petite women so as not to be perceived as "threatening," whatever the fuck that means. You have a problem with that? Don't make me cut you, buster brown.

Piss Off T-Shirts

Today's been sort of weird. I didn't wake up until 11, then we went straight to a funeral, then to Ace Hardware, then home to teach the dog about the electric fence, than to lunch, then BACK to Ace hardware, and now I'm home again playing phone tag. I know that I SHOULD be doing things (such as cleaning and turning the laundry part of the basement into a sort of walk-in closet, since houses built in 1947 are lacking in closet space), or I could be making cabbage soup before the cabbage turns, or I could be re-doing my toenails (I can't find the polish I want so until then I will walk around with bare nails, feeling naked. Isn't it interesting that "polish" and "Polish" mean two totally different things?? It's weird to see them written out.)

No. I'm not doing any of those things. I've been sitting here waiting on a phone call, and although I have a mobile phone, I have determined that it will not ring if I don't sit here on my lazy ass and play on the internet. I could be enriching my mind. I could be enriching my homeowner knowledge. Hell, I could be looking up a good mens' hat pattern for the cook at the restaurant/bar we like to walk to. He always sees me knitting socks and always remarks on how it's such a lost skill and how he's never had anything hand-knit. I've taken the bait, and he's getting a hat.

Am I doing any of those things? No. I spent half an hour on freecrochetpatterns.com, looking at crochet things. And you know what? I know that there are many many reasons most knitters hate crochet, and I know that knitting makes better garments, but honestly----some crochet clothing really isn't all that bad. In fact, there were two sweaters I could envision wearing.

I've always been of the opinion that crochet has its place, and that there are things I would rather use it for, and I don't think that particular opinion has altered much. I may go from knit dishrags to crochet dishrags, just because they'd use three times the yarn and would therefore absorb more water. And I like crochet blankets better than knit blankets (not the least reason being that they'd be sooo much faster to create). But----I think I could even see myself making a camisole. And wearing it. A crocheted camisole. I know this is heresy to many knitters, but it is what it is. I'm sorry.

Maybe I did expand my mind, in a way.

Or maybe I wasted my whole freaking afternoon looking at kitsch. I mean, it's not like it hasn't happened before. But damn, I really do have to do the dishes. And the laundry.

Grrr.

Why do people describe themselves by listing what music they like? I find this intensely annoying. I also hate when you have That Guy who sits by the radio and nods his head to every song that comes on, saying "good song!" I suppose this is the wrong attitude. I suppose I should applaud positive people who find good in things that make me grit my teeth. Maybe I should try to be more upbeat.

Or maybe my charm is in the fact that I am a crotchety old biddy and I need to embrace it.

That being said, I'm all for discussing various types of music as a conversation starter, as long as no one tries to base their identity on the fact that they're a hardcore Hall and Oates fan or anything. I've found many many groups I like merely through conversation, groups I ordinarily would never have given a second listen. Still, when the conversation invariably turns to "I'm pretty open minded, I like everything but country" I sort of turn my ears off. I'm also prone to react negatively to the "punk is only type of music that hasn't 'sold out'" argument. I mean---isn't the POINT of being a professional musician to "sell out"? Isn't that how you, oh I don't know, pay your rent? Isn't it the goal of a crappy cover band to start writing their own music in the hopes that one day someone will pay them enough money that they can do what they love full time and quit their horrid jobs at the car wash? And how exactly have punk bands not "sold out" anyway? It's all very confusing.

I suppose it's a bitter twist that this post about music has probably gone a long way in describing my personality. Or maybe it's just that I'm tired and I've read one too many blog posts consisting solely of lyrics.

On the other hand, I DO like to be trendy. Maybe I'll post some lyrics. Here ya go, Positive K "I Got a Man." I think if you look closely, you'll see that this song like, TOTALLY describes how I feel about society and like, one woman's stand against the perceived male bastardization of monogamy. OMG!


Aiyyo sweetie, you're lookin kinda pretty
What's a girl like you, doin in this rough city
I'm just here tryin to hold my own ground
Yeah, I think I like how that sound
What you say we gets to know each other better?
That sounds good but I don't think that I can let ya
I don't know, tell me is it so
Do you get a kick, out of tellin brothers no?
No it's not that see you don't understand
How should I put it, I got a man
What's your man got to do with me?
I told ya
I'm not tryin to hear that see
I'm not one of those girls that go rippin around
I'm not a dog baby, so don't play me like a clown
I'll admit, I like how you kick it
Now you're talkin baby, dats da ticket
Now don't get excited and chuck your own in
I already told ya, I got a man
What's your man got to do with me?
I got a man
I'm not tryin to hear that see
I got a man
What's your man got to do with me?
I got a man
I'm not tryin to hear that
Now you can persist to play Don Juan all day
But ain't nothin gonna change
Yeah baby, sure you're right
I'ma break it down and do whatever I gots to do
I tell you know, I got eyes for you
You got eyes, but they not for me
You better use them for what they for and that's to see
You know what's the problem, ya not used to learnin
I'm Big Daddy Longstroke, and your man's Pee Wee Herman
I got a question to ask you troop
Are you a chef, cause you keep feedin me soup
You know what they say about those who sweat thyself
You might find yourself, by yourself
I'm not waitin because I'm no waiter
So when I blow up, don't try to kick it to me later
All them girls must got you gassed
A-when they see a good thing they don't let it pass
Well that's OK, cause see if that's their plan
Cause for me, I already got a man
What's your man got to do with me?
I got a man
I'm not tryin to hear that see
I got a man
What's your man got to do with me?
I got a man
I'm not tryin to hear that
What am I, some crab inmate
that just came home from jail sweatin you for a date?
I don't want no beef, I just wants to get together
But how you talkin, pssssh, whatevah!
We can't have nothin
It all depends
Well if we can't be lovers than we can't be friends
Well then I guess it's nothing
Well hey I think you're bluffing
Well I'ma call my man
Well I can get raggamuffin
Ya better catch a flashback remember I'm not crabbin it
You know my style, from I'm Not Havin It
All I remember's an excuse me miss
You can't get a guy like me with a line like this
Well look I'll treat you good
My man treats me better
I talk sweet on the phone
My man writes love letters
I'll tell you that I want you, and tell you that I care
My man says the same except he's sincere
Well I'm clean cut and dapper, that's what I'm about
My man buys me things and he takes me out
Well you can keep your man, cause I don't go that route
Don't you know yu haffa respeck me
There's a lot of girls out there who won't say no
You're out for mami with your DJ Money
Boom batter my pockets is gettin fatter
I wanna turn you on and excite you
Let me know the spot on your body and I bite you
So when your man don't treat you like he used to
I kick in like a turbo booster
You want lovin you don't have to ask when
Your man's a headache, I'll be your aspirin
All confusion, you know I'll solve em
I got a man
You got a what?
How long you had that problem?
What's your man got to do with me?
I got a man
I'm not tryin to hear that see
I got a man
What's your man got to do with me?
I got a man
I'm not tryin to hear that
I got a man
Aiyyo baby put the dial numbers or your address
I got a man
I told ya I treat you right
I got a man
Aww c'mon now ain't no future in frontin
I'm not havin it
C'mon Miss, oh we back on that again
Uhh, I'm not tryin to hear that see
I got a man
But your man ain't me
Uhh, uhh, I got a man
You got a WHAT?
Uhh, uhh, uhh, I got a man
You got a WHAT?

Labels: music