a brilliant mistake

I'm sorry, did I think there would be no open wireless networks in, to paraphrase The General, "Fucking Bumfuck Virginia"? I just opened my computer to get the correct time and I heard my mail being retrieved. I thought I had it made at Trixie's house with her four open wireless networks. Four? A mere four open networks laid at my feet?

Let's try fourteen!

So Beth and Lauren both said they'd get me somehow for MS&W. Yay! You are the best ever! I don't know which will be more feasible; since I'm out in McLean / Tyson's Corners now, I'm not near a Metro so the Greenbelt option might not work for Lauren, but on the other hand, I have no idea how to get to where I am for directions for Beth.

The old company I worked for (Napoleon's company) is literally across the street from me in Tyson's Corners. My current company is in Greenbelt. I'm being torn between my two employers.

I leave the knit blogger meetup planning to someone smart like Kathy to figure out.

I am party planning for Trixie's going away party. It's very last second. It's on Saturday. I called the woman last night to reserve the space and confirmed today. Yup. I'm good at this.

life during wartime

Well, moving is much like war.

Trixie and company moves today, which means I do, too. I don't know what my internet situation will be. Apparently The Man Who Lives in the House never thought about this and thought open wireless networks were everywhere for the stealing. He is now in an extremely pissy mood and blames me entirely. I still have no permanent living situation for after May and (I am inserting a plea here)....

I have no idea how to get to Maryland Sheep and Wool.

I will now be here that weekend. Do you people not want me to go? Nobody wants to help a girl out? What do I need to do? Are there buses? Trains? Planes? Do I need to rent a car?

Are you afraid I cuss like a sailor in public? Because I do, but only if I am really, really comfortable with you. I can be normal, really I can.

reaching from my bedroom to the stars

today's title courtesy the Talking Heads, "Lifetime Piling Up."

So much to blog about, so little time.

Jane, Heide, I owe you stuff, and readers, there has been a submission to the bounty contest for the yarn bus, and I must post the picture here. I am long remiss in not doing so. I have also seen more movies to review. I apologize. My personal life has clearly been weighing me down, I promise to get better in the near future.

I did go to see another room for rent last night in Adams Morgan. I find out sometime this week if I passed muster.

just serve me up...

some good fucking service in a restaurant somewhere, anywhere in this entire fucking city.

Wednesday night, Trixie (who has apologized to me on her blog, and I thank you, and I apologize to you for any part I unwittingly played in the drama), Wawa and I went to a restaurant...somewhere, who the fuck knows where, I wasn't driving, now, was I? We were seated. People seated after we were received a waiter, drinks and appetizer before we ever saw a waiter. The same waiter, in fact, that they did. Said waiter blathered on about new people and so on and he may have been right. He took our orders and we barely saw him again.

Last night, Trixie, The General and I went to dinner after I had some drama at work (remember this post from a little over a month ago right after I started work? Pretty much felt like it all came true yesterday. And today. I had no idea what to do. Trixie didn't either, I don't think. I know she called me a drama queen and a diva, but I was really feeling it. What to do? No idea. Over now. Crisis averted. Rambo helped. He pointed out that while my problem was most certainly about work, it was more about the fact that I am undergoing a major life change at the moment. Subconsciously, if I "let" myself fail at work, I won't be forced to make a choice I know I will have to make, maybe not this weekend while The Man Who Lives in the House is visiting, but likely, almost definitely in the future. Once he helped me figure that out, I was good to go.) and while the waitress with the bad French accent was okay at first, she disappeared at the end of the night. I had to chase her down to figure out where my Crepes Suzettes were.

Tonight, The Man, Trixie, Wawa and I went to an Italian place in Crystal City. Our food didn't show up for...45 minutes? An hour?

Three nights in a row of bad service?

Does the bad karma follow Trixie or me? Or is it both of us together?

Followup to yesterday's / early this morning's post re: Sin City: I apologize for not giving a clearer review. I did enjoy the movie, for what it was. I liked the visuals and thought the stories were interesting. I just feel like it's all been done before, now. So why do it again? And Frodo was just plain creepy.

praise the lord and pass the ammunition

So today Crazy Lady called me and after babbling endlessly at me while I was desperately attempting to, I don't know, Mom, do some fucking work here? about this dog here and that dog there and some other dog flying to Alaska and to make it all ironic they're all beagles, literally, so they're really assbeagles and after I provided free computer support to her so she could file her taxes because she "no longer feels comfortable calling upon the services of" The Man Who Lives in the House (not that he would have done anything differently than I would have, actually) Crazy Lady mentioned that Rambo had ditched work so they were going to go to the movies today. "Oh, Mom, what are you going to go see?"

"Oh, we wanted to see Sin City."

Now, Crazy Lady is a fairly progressive woman. She was the first female attorney in a nine or twelve or some ungodly number county radius in our highly conservative upstate New York region growing up. She and my late, ultra-liberal, card-carrying ACLU member father marched against the Vietnam War on their way to City Hall to get married in 1969. She lived with Rambo, a man ten years younger than she, for ten years before marrying him, before such things were accepted in polite society and almost immediately upon legally separating from my father when she had two small children. She impresses the fuck out of me in some ways.

She will despise Sin City.

Let me explain something about my parents, and by the term "parents," I mean Dad, Crazy Lady and Rambo.

None of them believe(d) in censorship. In any form whatsoever.

My brother and I were raised to watch pretty much whatever we wanted to watch. My parents would rather we saw it and they knew about it so we knew that we could ask them questions about it. We always had a very open and honest relationship with them. They never blocked us from watching any movie. They may not have specifically shown us Behind the Green Door and I Spit on Your Grave at an early age (and we're talking 6 or 7 years old here, for me), but let's just say they knew we snuck around and saw it.

Horrified? You would never let your children do the same thing?

I never grew up with myths or fallacies about sex, the way other children did. Although I don't live according to any religious tenets and I don't really believe in "morals," per se, I do believe in ethics, and I believe I live a good life. The troubles The Man and I are having have nothing to do with either of us cheating on one another, and neither of us have any issue with repression. I don't believe in it. Life's too short.

Then again, not everybody grew up with a stepfather giving them advice such as the following at the dinner table: "If you're using a condom and foam for birth control, make sure you put the foam on afterwards. It won't make a difference to you, but it numbs the guy's tongue and it taste's like Vick's Vaporub(TM)."

So I'm twisted, I admit it. I even have a domain name devoted to pudding.

So being the comic book fan that I am, I was anxious to see Sin City. I went with my good friend Jerry (published poet name: Ambrosio Grandea, and he's very talented), who has actually read the graphic novels.

You know, I have a couple of issues with this movie.

First, I guess I get tired of seeing the same "big names" over and over again. I like Bruce Willis, really I do. I think he's a really good actor and I think he was good in this movie. But why is he in every single one of these movies? Granted, he plays a different role, but come on!

Second, and I knew it was coming right at the very beginning, so apologies if this is a spoiler for anyone and stop reading right now, the whole out of order thing. Makes sense for being a comic book, but I saw it right off the bat, and it's so been done before. *yawn*

Other than that? Interesting story lines. I've heard one thing, that it shouldn't be rated "R." I guess I'd concur, if I were to buy into the whole movie rating system to begin with. I always liked Siskel and Ebert's idea of adding an "A" for "Adult" to utilize what the "X" was initially meant to be (when the film "Midnight Cowboy" was first rated "X," before the MPAA rerated it "R" a few years ago).

One thing I would say is that it's the first comic book / graphic novel I feel has adequately been translated into the screen, visually and story-wise, and that's large and small screen, live-action. Shocking? Yes. Gruesome and violent? Yes, most definitely.

Would I expect less from a film by Richard Rodriguez? Nope.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.*

read or die!

Before I left for DC, The Man Who Lives in the House, an avowed anime freak, began watching an odd new show. This one was called ROD, short for Read or Die. It featured these highly annoying little girls who walked around asking people, "Do you read books? What books do you read?" While I would sit in bed knitting and, ironically, reading, The Man would watch this show about reading girls. The other night, while we were talking he told me the story line had escalated to the point where the girls began to fight when someone named Mr. Gentleman disappeared when the British Library burned down.

I know, it sounds improbable and really, really, incredibly boring, doesn't it? You can read all about it here. The library begins at episode number 14.

I went last night to investigate a room to let in a fairly nice area. Although it looks like I have a place to stay with Trixie and Wa Wa from April through May, I will need someplace to stay when I come up afterwards and I wanted to see what the area looked like. The room didn't cost much although I wasn't overly interested in it. So there were three other roommates and the woman who was moving out. Only the woman moving out paid me any attention whatsoever. One other person there received the same treatment. Another person was being fawned over by the other three roommates. The other ignoree and I left at the same time and discussed getting our own apartment somewhere else for about the cost I was looking into getting a place in the first place. She and I got along very well and she's going to email me today after she calls around and gets prices and locations.

On the plus side, the contractors who massively fucked up my hallway in Georgia sent out someone who is fixing it, apparently well, and my floor and carpet are also to be fixed up. Things are looking up. The Man seems to be happy these days. We'll give it a shot.

fun with iphoto

I owe a review of Sin City, but I haven't written it yet, and I seem to be a few days scattered in my blogging, and I am trying to salvage the pitiful remains of my marriage, so, herein, some photos of Trixie and Mama Dog and my girls' night in last Thursday, where we talked about men and played girl games.In case you didn't know, I am on the left and Trixie is on the right. And for more fun, here's where I decided to have fun with iPhoto! (This doesn't work for the non-Mac users out in the audience.)You can see a normal picture here, right? Well, push that little remove red eye button and behold! The red eye from my ass magically disappears! However, Satanic Mama Dog remains behind.In any case, Friday turned out to be a Day That Sucked, when I got an email from The Man Who Lives in the House telling me that the marriage wasn't going to work and to "get my crap out of the house as soon as possible." This was perhaps a catalyst to my getting rather drunk on Friday night.

Well, that and the Ukrainian dancers, in any case.

On Saturday morning, however, I woke up to an email from him pretending he had never sent the first email.

From the files of W.T. Fuck?

After some discussion, I basically told him if he wanted to work on saving our marriage he could get his ass up here, but it had better be next weekend, and we were going to have some frank discussions on our marriage, and we were not ignoring the elephant in the living room that he had put out there on Friday night.

Assbeagle.

I'm tired of having my emotions being pulled this way and that in the past six weeks, and I am positive you are tired of reading about them. I haven't felt like knitting at all. This is making me sick. We come to an understanding this weekend or we have no understanding at all and I file for legal separation in May when I return to Georgia, and the likelihood of the marriage being salvaged with me working in DC and him in Atlanta is slim to not a mother fucking chance in hell, because I'll find a place to live in DC when it comes down to that.

The End.

P.S. I am also afraid that any steps we take this weekend are temporary; that is, they might save the marriage for now but six months from now, a year from now, I'll be going through all of this all over again. Am I wasting my time?

P.P.S. Trixie started a new blog for our profession (records managers). It sure is one fucked up file cabinet.

oops, i did it again.

So my second week here in DC, I lost my wallet. (Jane, this is why I haven't sent you your check yet, but I promise it'll be on its way this week!) I went through the exercise of cancelling all of my credit cards and the next morning, it was located in the bar I had been in with Trixie's husband Wa Wa whilst Trixie was slaving away over a hot presentation in New Orleans.

What is the point of this story now, you ask?

I lost my ATM card tonight.

My brand-spanking new ATM card. It took ten days for that fucking card to get here, and now I have to do it again, about one month later. I am holding off on calling in the hopes that I really left it at a minor evil empire store where I purchased a loud and almost inappropriate for work jacket that I will most certainly wear to work, quite often.

So tonight after I got over my hangover, I met up with my college friend Jerry, who lives in Baltimore. I showed him the wonders of Mickey Mouse Hell and we listened to a semi-okay chick punk rock band, but alas, the Ukrainian dancers were naught to be found. Disappointed in our luck, we walked to an evil empire that began as the little cool indy bookstore that could in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I purchased the newest copies of Vogue Knitting, Interweave Knits, the remastered Clash London Calling CD set and a gift for Trixie. I bought the jacket (thereby seeing the last of my ATM card), we got on the Metro to Cleveland Park, and ate at a wonderful Italian restaurant at the top of the Metro stairs while sitting outside. Not only was it convenient, but we didn't have to even think about where to go. Jerry also gave me this:Yes, the Librarian Action Figure! I'm so excited!

I have to say, I was offended on Nancy Pearl's behalf by the controversy regarding her figure. All of these hoity-toity librarians complained that she "set the profession back" by posing for the figure, by doing the "shushing thing," and by dressing so "dowdily."

Give me a fucking break.

This figure was created by the people who made the Jesus Christ Action Figure, complete with AK-47. Yeah, he was really carrying an AK-47 on the cross.

It's called irony, people. Look it up.

What's the first thing non-librarians ask you when they find out you're a librarian?

"So, uh, you like, uh, know the Dewey Decimal System? Do you make people keep quiet and stuff? What's your favorite book? Hey, you don't have a bun in your hair!" (the latter a really stupid comment considering how short my hair is.)

As for her dress, I take issue with criticizing people's dress. I have my own unique "style," as it were. The majority of the world would never understand it. I break all stereotypes with the way I dress. I wear ostrich feathers to work, for fuck's sake. I wear a scarf worn as a cape to work. I'll wear rhinestones if I feel like it and a belt tied into my hair. I would expect the same consideration for my dress as I would expect Nancy Pearl, a professional woman who has worked hard in our profession and has done it proud, to receive.

Thoughts?

survey time!

Trixie desperately needs your help, advice, guidance and reassurance.

Everyone please direct your browsers to her blog and take her survey, which is for personal reasons, to tell her what to do about her move. She needs your help, everyone. It's getting rather crazy around here.

Being that I am drunk, hungover, groggy, starving and nauseated all at the same time, I can provide very little at the moment.

Yesterday was a day which will live in infamy.

However, I did get to see some wacky Ukranians wearing Hawaiian shirts and corduroy blazers bouncing around inappropriately to slowish Goth music. This image will be burned in my brain forevermore. As they did the same during the punk band and the chick band covering Zeppelin, one wonders if they actually were deaf. Perhaps they just don't have rhythm in the Ukraine? Any Ukrainian readers out there?

should i stay or should i go?

Well, he told me.

All indications from this weekend and from the conversation The Man Who Lives in the House and I literally just had point to an impending separation of the legal kind.

I was very impressed at how well he's adapted to bachelorhood in the five weeks I was absent from his life. And when I say bachelorhood, I mean it's like I was being eradicated like a nest of nasty roaches in the crawl space. He's learned to do his laundry and got extremely angry at me for daring to throw his clothes in with mine. He's learned to cook actual meals for himself. He's been going through all of my things to clear my stuff out, and I found out, not from him, mind you, that he's been in discussions over new employment that will offer him benefits so he won't have to take benefits through me.

What does this mean to you, ladies and gentlemen?

If I didn't know he were utterly clueless when it came to reading interest from others, I'd say he was having an affair.

I'm going to crawl into bed and cry myself to sleep now.

"$75,000 for a bus to a yarn store?"

Thank you, O Eloquent One, for putting it so succinctly.

Therefore, I am now offering a bounty.

Luxurious gift items to the first person who offers me photographic evidence of themselves next to and on the yarn bus. A sign in hand in my honor would be a necessity.

Trust me, the luxurious items will be luxurious indeed.

Does this give unfair advantage to those living in the NYC area? Abso-fucking-lutely. Suck it up, baby, suck it up.* But if you don't live in the NYC area and you submit something creative enough to make me laugh, I will reward you as well. If you do live in the NYC area but are too fucking lazy to get off your fat ass and attempt to take the yarn bus and try to submit something creative, you're a loser, unless you can write an essay in 32 words exactly as to why you could not catch the yarn bus.

For the librarians, archivists, and records managers out there, Trixie has posted a quiz for you on her blog. Check it out and let her know what you think! Being that I am all three, I actually got all three, the three times I took it. Typical.

*my second reference to the movie Heathers this month

ooh, magic bus

With special thanks to the new bossman, aka The General (so named after the Buster Keaton film of the same name), for sending this article me, and for being there for me tonight, and assisting in getting me very not sober tonight, I am reprinting without permission (fair use) the following article from The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town." I disagree with the whole "rare" Manos yarn thing, but whatever. New York readers (Gidget, aka Mindy), have you gone? Is it worth it?

HERE TO THERE DEPT.

STITCHES

by Lauren Collins

Issue of 2005-03-21
Posted 2005-03-14

To the well-worn list of the comparative advantages of suburban life—bigger houses, lower taxes, safer schools—the inhabitants of Westchester County have recently added another: better knitting. For this civic coup they can thank Kevin Lundeen and Elise Goldschlag, who live in the historic river town of Irvington and are the proprietors of Flying Fingers, a yarn store that carries hard-to-find brands like Brownsheep (“Dyed for Ewe!”) and Manos of Uruguay, along with notions and such hobby-specific publications as “Men in Knits: Sweaters to Knit That He will Wear.” Since the couple opened up shop a year and a half ago, their voluminous inventory has attracted customers from as far away as Canada, Ireland, and Alaska. But persuading New York knitters to make the forty-five-minute trip up the Hudson has been a harder sell. And so, to render the reverse commute sufficiently enticing, Lundeen, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, and Goldschlag, his wife, conceived of the Yarn Bus, offering free shuttle service between Irvington and Manhattan.

The Yarn Bus is a fifteen-passenger van topped with three enormous balls of yarn and a pair of knitting needles the size of 9-irons. To build it, Lundeen and Goldschlag enlisted Prototype Source, a California company that is one of the nation’s leading makers of promotional vehicles, having produced such industry icons as the Hershey Kissmobile, the Yoo-hoo Stinkin’ Summer Tour Garbage Truck, and the latest Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, complete with Mustard Splattered Walkway and Official Wiener Jingle Horn. To fabricate the giant yarn balls, the designers considered marine rope (too heavy) and real yarn (prone to rot) before settling on lengths of thin plastic tubing, coated with fibreglass to evoke a fittingly woolly look. The bus cost seventy-five thousand dollars. It took six people six weeks to complete, and after being driven cross-country by a pair of college students it arrived in Irvington last month. Liz Bracken, who moved to Westchester from Atlanta several years ago and works at Flying Fingers part time, signed on to drive the bus. A retired nurse, Bracken was selected on the basis of her even demeanor and her chauffeuring résumé, which, though limited to driving her daughter’s Girl Scout troop on a field trip, was still more impressive than anyone else’s.

On a recent Saturday, Bracken, who was wearing a periwinkle purled scarf, along with a turtleneck and pearl studs, picked up Brian Blaho and Bevin Bermingham at Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street.

“We’re thinking of making Flying Fingers our L.Y.S.”—local yarn supplier—said Blaho, who is a legal librarian and has a penchant, common among practitioners of the fibre arts, for speaking in acronyms. (AC Moore, having been taken over by territorial crocheters, was out of the running, as was the Internet. “I have one skein I bought from eBay that smells like some lady’s Asian food,” Bermingham said.)

At a stoplight, Bracken passed back a basket of yarn and two pairs of size-13 purple needles, on the house.

“Brian, I may be able to create something magical by the time we get to Flying Fingers,” Bermingham said. She started in on a grape-colored hank.

“I’m working on a rose-trellis felted bag for my sister, for her birthday. It’s from Vogue Knitting, and the pictures make it look absolutely astounding,” Blaho said. “Today, I’m looking for yarn for boot socks. You have to use something called double-pointed needles, which is like knitting with a fistful of pickup sticks, using dental floss.”

“This is sock month for us,” Bermingham said.

There was ice on the boulders lining the Saw Mill Parkway, and the terrain was starting to turn hilly.

“Just F.Y.I., you can do socks on two circular needles,” Bracken chimed in.

“I’m very anxious to learn that, but I feel like I should do it on the D.P.N.s once to figure it out,” Blaho said.

“Liz, can you turn the heat down?” Bermingham asked.

A few minutes later, Bracken stopped in front of Flying Fingers, where she would wait for an hour and fifteen minutes before setting out on a second round.

“I didn’t really think I’d be driving a Yarn Bus and working ten-hour days,” she admitted on the way back to the city. This time, her passengers upriver included three officemates from Rockefeller University, one of whom was taking some time off from needlepoint. As Bracken prepared to pull away from Bloomingdale’s, her first stop, she squinted into the rearview mirror and asked, in a cheerful voice, “Can you look and make sure my needles aren’t caught in that tree?”

For those waiting on updates from this weekend, I'll try to post something tomorrow. Let's just say there's a reason I'm not sober now.

home again, home again, jiggity jig

Yep, I'm actually heading for home this afternoon for the weekend.

We'll see what happens with The Man Who Lives in the House. He did buy me a pair of shoes and all last weekend. Seriously sexy shoes. Of course, shoes can't save a marriage.

But they can't hurt.

After all, it means he understands my shallow, materialistic self, right?