There's nothing like hearing Nirvana on the classic rock station to make you start feeling your own mortality.
And by that I mean the realization that yes, that many years really have passed. For those of you who are older than me (and who are thus laughing at she who is still 4 1/2 years from the scary birthday), you've probably had the same feeling, but with some other band.
For those of you wondering what I was doing listening to the classic rock station, it was because I was trying to avoid Nickelback, which after a study lasting approximately four years, I've discovered it to be near impossible to do on the morning drive to work. Occasionally flipping it to the classic rock station, though, appears to improve the odds in my favour, on those mornings that hearing any part of "Photograph," "Someday" or "Hero" threatens to induce the sleep-fuzzed paranoia that I'm smack in the middle of the radio morning show version of Groundhog Day. Also? It interrupts my morning joy of singing in my car. I simply can't have that. :)
When we say Christmas decorations, we MEAN Christmas decorations
I got an e-mail from my mom tonight, that she's packing up a lot of the Christmas decorations I've been promised since before I even moved away from home, for when I had a home. The subject line of her e-mail was "ROTFLMAO" because... she'd forgotten just how MANY Christmas decorations there are. From what I understand, two big Christmas Rubbermaid storage containers full. These aren't outside decorations, either -- these are for indoors (the tree and around the house).
A little background for the uninformed. In my house, growing up, Christmas was always a wonderful, exciting holiday. We always got into it, and I shouldn't be putting that in past tense. We still do. A holiday tradition was to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and somewhere during my childhood, our house started looking a lot like the outside of the Griswald's house... well, not quite that many lights, but close, and yard displays with painted wooden cutouts that my parents made and painted (I helped with the painting of one or two, and I remember the ladder for the elves on the chimney in particular), and the absolute coup de grâce? The carollers they made -- the only way I can really explain this is stuffed, life-size dolls dressed up in their winter finery, with their hands and heads actually moving (my dad rigged this up) as Christmas songs played outside.
For years and years, there were tons of families in Thunder Bay who got right into it, like this and then some. There was always a "Best Dressed" contest and the newspaper would publish lists of houses to go see, and a favourite thing to do in mid to late December was go for drives after it got dark and the displays were all lit up. Some of the coolest displays were out in the semi-rural areas, because of the huge yards they had to work with. It was something to see. There's something similar to it here in Ottawa, in Orleans, but I'm telling you? Not even close. That one street, for those who have seen it, was once upon a time a great deal of a city.
Not so much in recent years. A few years of green Christmases left people without any snow to anchor down displays in; strikes and shutdowns of major employers in the city also started taking their toll. It was a cool thing to grow up with, though.
So now, some of that Christmas cheer comes to my house. I'm looking forward to putting the decorations up. Already this weekend, I bought a snowman wreath. :) It's not up yet, I'll wait for December for that, but I'll have to take a picture of it sometime.
Off to finish up some reading for my class tomorrow. I watched eXistenZ earlier tonight, also for class, and what a trippy movie that is. The true cinematic depiction of the end is the beginning is the end, or maybe that's vice versa. And also, the idea of what is real and what isn't, and I don't know if I've figured out if ANY of that movie didn't take place in the virtual world.
My nomination for the retro fashion horror hall of fame
Today I'm off in search of someone who can make some alterations to a jacket I bought not too long ago. It is a beautiful, burnt orange, corduroy jacket. It has buttons, it's fitted, it's perfect in almost every way. Except for one, teensy little absolutely overwhelmingly crucial detail. It has those... things. The throwback to the 1980s that I'd hoped to never encounter again in my life. I had high hopes that when a fashion era is revisited, we would adopt the laws of natural selection, fashion-style, and do away with the things that were ultimately ridiculous.
I feel right about now might be the time to have a discussion on shoulder pads. Namely, why, dear fashionistas, why?
The jacket? Is a size extra small. While I realize we are recreating the 80s, that "XS" on the tag should be its "get out of shoulder pads free" card. A memo to the overzealous designer? Shoulder pads on people small-framed enough to require an extra small are NOT fashion friendly. Looking in-proportion and still being able to see that I have a neck? Much better. What do you say we aim for that?
When I'd tried on the jacket in the store, I'd been wearing a short-sleeved, thin shirt, so this didn't really come to my attention. Now that it's almost the end of October, I have long-sleeved shirts that are a little thicker, or sweaters (because I am Sweater Girl) that I'd like to wear. When you put THESE under a jacket that has shoulder pads... well, let's just say I have no desire to go around looking like a football player or to be mistaken for a refrigerator, m'kay? Thanks kindly.
"Hairbrush down!" My commentary this morning on a hairbrush taking flight and ending up in... the toilet bowl. Ew. I mean, clean water yes, but still ew. It's a good thing I keep an assortment of hairbrushes on hand (when your hair is only a few inches away from being waist-length -- with haircuts and winter factored in, I give it until my birthday and it will probably be there -- you tend to do this).
Unless there is some method of sterilizing hairbrushes (when you're not a hairdresser, that is), I guess this means that one needs to be replaced...
I realized that I hadn't put up a random weekend photo last weekend, so in its place, here is a random Thursday cameraphone photo:
It's my worry bird! (My rather backlit, blurry worry bird, but I'll get better with the cameraphone.) He makes his home on my desk at work. Co-workers love him; babies like the fuzzy hair and bright colours. A friend from my department's other site sent him to me one day, summer before last, and explained that you dump all your worries on him and shake 'em out. Thanks, girlie, the worry bird is still a favourite. :)
Okay, I am sleepy (happy, dopey, bashful, but not sneezy or grumpy, and doc is debatable) because it's been a very busy few days, at work, after work, at school and after school. More tomorrow or this weekend, when I can once again string together a coherent thought process.
Yes, you are reading the time on this blog correctly, and I've already showered and poured myself a cup of coffee too! No, I'm not usually up quite this early on a weekday (usually 6 or 6:10 or so), but I woke up without the inclination to lay there and sleep as long as I possibly can this morning, along with the knowledge that I should be at work a bit early this morning because of a publication release, and because I don't want to hit traffic. About 12 hours from now, I'll just be finishing up my day -- it's a school day today, too. I lurve that class.
Also? Coffee is my friend. :)
So here's something I started writing to post last night, but didn't get to because I got a little busy.
I was out with a friend for coffee on Monday night, and we ended up at IKEA, because I wanted to check out what Christmas decorations they had before October came and went and along with it, Christmas at IKEA. Last year I bought star lights -- you know, the ones with eight or so hanging strands of stars that can go in your window? Those are pretty; I'm excited to get them out again. Then I started realizing that I'm going to need new baubles and snowflakes and all sorts of pretty Christmas stuff for the tree, and some more decorations for my home. I like Christmas stuff. Hee, I'll bet a good friend of mine in Cali already has Christmas music out. :) (I love this about her.)
As we left IKEA and stepped outside into the startingly crisp night air, though, I realized something -- it's coming. Not just Christmas, but what goes along with Christmas here in the frozen tundra that is just as frozen as (are you ready, my American friends? :)) Minnesota or Wisconsin, except we're a wee bit more north, and all this is to say that... it's heeeere. The cold nights, they will get colder. The days, they continue to get shorter. The blustery winds, they're coming.
Oi.
Be grateful, I tell myself. There are no hurricanes, no tsunamis, no devastating earthquakes. When I'm inside, it's nice. Home is wonderful and warm and spacious and cozy. There is a fireplace. There are candles. The furnace works great. The curtains and blinds can be closed. I can imagine I'm in Cali, in a house on the beach...
...except in Cali you don't plug in your car, and for that matter, you don't spend ten minutes shovelling it off and scraping it down as you play your part in creating greenhouse emissions as your car warms up and idles for another ten minutes more than THAT just so it's not an iceblock when you go slip-sliding down the roads.
I know, I know. Think positive. Close my eyes, smile, chant, "I love my house, I love my house, I love my house, and my house and other things are not in Cali." Be grateful to have that car to shovel off, and the life, health, and range of motion that allows me to do so.
Even so, when somebody figures out the miracle of science that can somehow teleport our country close enough to the equator that it can sprout palm trees, could you let me know?
Happy Eclipse Day! The lunar eclipse happens, I think, in about 20 minutes. Not completely sure on that one, but I'll go with it. :)
From all the astrology I've read, eclipses, while potentially unsettling (and the lunar ones used to creep me right out when I was younger; still can, if one is visible and I'm watching it in the night sky), should actually be taken as a positive thing -- they offer a chance to get back on track with where your life is supposed to be headed, whether you like it or not. Sometimes you might not like it at first, with everything thrown up in the air and settling back down in what first may seem like chaos, but would we really want to be stuck in an endless cycle that never goes anywhere?
Yes, this from the stubborn Taurean who, although often craving change (I get bored easily), can quite often fear it.
Eclipses also offer us the chance and astro support to make a change if there's something in our life that we know needs to change. If there's something you need to let go of or move past, eclipse time is the best time to do it. As is it to meditate or send your wishes out into the universe.
Since I spend so much of my time reading (my M.A. is in English Language and Literature, after all :)), I thought it would be fun to set up a Recommendations and Recent Reads page. This week, I'm reading The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon:
So, to make this announcement official, yes, I'm back, on a hopefully several-times-weekly basis. I took a lot of last year off from the site, which I think we all need sometimes. Last year, a good deal of that had to do with how much I was doing just then -- the 40 hour work week, full-time or near-full-time grad school schedule (reading several novels and secondary articles every week, writing papers and planning seminars), some semblance of a social life, travelling, and just day-to-day life. Even though I anticipate being crazy busy between now and the first week of December (new project, work, finishing up research paper and getting ready for defense, the reading and assignments [including a paper and a seminar] for my class this term, social life, day-to-day life), I'm back now.
I want to start getting this site back into shape. At some point I will be redesigning, but probably not until the new year, and I want to have a few fun things going -- current reads, random weekend photos, astrology round-up, etc. Also on the list: re-organizing my blog archives into categories and updating my elsewhere (links) section. All things in time.
It's amazing to think I've now been doing web design for over 10 years. I'm 25, people! Crazy, but definitely cool.
Yes, it's rainy and gray, but I'm thankful it's not earthquakes or hurricanes
Wow. I must be recharging for/from something. I fell asleep at 1:30 last night and didn't get up til just before 11:30 this morning. I never do that. I used to, once upon a time a few years ago, but for the last several years I've usually averaged 5-6 hours of sleep per night, maybe 7 on weekends. It could be the weather, too -- I haven't been solar charged in days, it's been so gray, gray, gray and drizzly, drizzly, drizzly. In this city, that's always a sure sign that fall weather is definitely here to stay. I noticed, beginning the first fall I lived here, that it always does this -- a week or two of rain and gray, and fall is in full swing.
It can be kind of depressing if you let it. It was, too, for awhile week before last. Last weekend I decided that I'd take advantage of the weather being so meh to motivate me to sit still for once, read and write and do schoolwork, catch up on phone calls and e-mails to friends, and clean my house from top to bottom. When I'm at home and it's gray, I'm now creating a tranquil, cozy atmosphere with some scented tealights burning, lamps that cast rooms in soft light turned on, music playing and coffee brewing. A couple of nights ago, the fireplace was used for the first time. :) All of this really helps keep the October blahs away. This weekend I'm going to make the house smell yummy and be proactive towards the week ahead by doing some cooking and baking -- things to freeze and take to work for breakfast and lunch.
So, I have some news, a cool new project I'm going to be working on, but I don't want to talk about it until I'm actually doing it, if you know what I mean. I'm super excited about it, and it's giving me definite motivation to do a lot of schoolwork this weekend and upcoming week, to clear out as much as possible so I can use the time I'd normally spend on school stuff on this.
That said, there is a paper for which various sections are currently on about 1085298 different random pieces of lined paper, printer paper, notebook paper and post-its, and scattered throughout 10 or so different computer files, that really needs to be pieced together. Yes, this really is how I write. Always has been -- well, the computer files part only came into play around 1994 when we got our first home PC, but things always end up a hybrid of computer files and paragraphs scribbled on paper.
As Mars turns retrograde, there is suddenly something wrong with many of the shoppers at the grocery store. Wrong, as in everyone wants to walk right in front of moving carts. And while I will slam on my brakes for squirrels and other four-legged animals while on the road, I can only shake my head and do my best to dodge y'all at the grocery store. If I crash into you, I accept no responsibility. I am behind my cart, moving slowly, visibility somewhat obstructed by the shelves beside me -- I am all of 5'2, you know. If that's a signal to come careening in front of me using your body as a cart shield instead of the other way around, then so be it, but if you can't use your eyes and/or common sense then this could get messy. Produce everywhere. Cans scattered askew. Cleanup in aisle 12. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Of course, it could also be that I generally make it a habit to not go to the grocery store on a Saturday, or a weekend afternoon in general, so I'm just not used to the sudden movements of these, The Weekend Grocery Shoppers. The hectic pace of the last couple of weeks left me little choice, as was evidenced last night when trying to figure out what to make for dinner involved me opening, examining the contents of and closing the fridge, freezer and food cupboards in a procession that repeated approximately 19472957975 times, as I clung to the hope that if I just kept doing it, the contents of at least one of them might change through sheer force of will. Yes, I know this isn't one of my more endearing habits.
What does Mars turning retrograde today have to do with any of this? Probably nothing. I just thought it should be noted. That, and the fact that we are now in eclipse season, two days before a solar eclipse on Monday, to be followed by a lunar eclipse two weeks later. Again, don't say I didn't warn you. It's the hot topic of the astro world this week -- as eclipse season always is -- see Eric Francis' thoughts, both in his Astrology Secrets Revealed column on Jonathan Cainer's site, and on his own site, Planet Waves. Almost any astrology site you visit is guaranteed to have some sort of commentary about it.
Chaos in the skies, chaos at the grocery store. Chaos in the kitchen... time for dinner. :)
, by Thomas Pynchon:
