What my mother said to me yesterday

She said: "This book (Jodi Picoult's Vanishing Acts) was very absorbing. I stayed up all night reading it."

And I, knowing that my mother doesn't stay up past eight, said: "Really?"

And my mother said: "Yes. Till ten-thirty!"

In other news, I watched a really depressing football game today. I went straight home before it was over and I read that bit of the sixth Harry Potter book where Ron succeeds in turning the Gryffindor Quidditch season around, to cheer myself up (it didn't work). CBS had the meanest commentators ever and they loathed LSU obviously, and I now completely decline to ever watch CBS again. I mean, my God, CBS, WE GET IT ALREADY. YOU ARE FELLATING THE ENTIRE FLORIDA TEAM ON THE SIDE. QUIT REPLAYING THAT AWFUL PLAY.

However, my aunt and uncle, with whom I watched the football game until we all got too depressed to continue, learned that I had purchased a record player, and they gave me all their old records. Now, this includes some Barry Manilow ones, giving me the opportunity to mock my aunt for her previous musical tastes by singing "Copacabana" at every commercial break (now it's stuck in my head, so that'll teach me to make fun of the music people used to like before they wised up), but it also includes the Jesus Christ Superstar album that she got when she was twelve, the Jesus Christ Superstar album that I love like my life, the version of Jesus Christ Superstar that is my desert island record. Also Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, Diana Ross, Grease, and many other things.

You know what's MORE annoying than having an earworm that you don't recognize?

I WILL TELL YOU. Forgetting to look up the song on the internet when you finally get back near a computer after hours on your feet, then remembering again while you are in the middle of cooking a rather messy dinner, then forgetting again after everyone goes home, then the next day at work remembering that there was a song stuck in your head yesterday for six hours and you wanted to find out what it was but being unable to remember how the damn song went.

Grrrrr.

Life is weird.

Today I danced in my room. I had no alcohol in me at all. I. Danced. (Sober.)

...That is the magic of the New Pornographers on vinyl. It's true what everybody's been saying. Music just sounds better when it is coming off a record.

Quail

So I was just trying to figure out why nobody ever talks about quail from heaven - like, God sent manna, yes, but why does that get all the attention? Exodus cares more about the manna, and everybody always talks about manna from heaven, and that's special and everything, but quail is more filling! It has a greater capacity for funny Dick Cheney jokes! QUAIL IS BETTER.

Anyway, I ran a Google search for "God sent quail to the Israelites", and Google suggested that perhaps I had meant to search "God sent mail to the Israelites."

Dear Israelites,

Quitcher bitching. Behave yourselves and listen to Moses or no milk and honey for you.

You better love Me,
xoxo,
The Lord

(Postmarked from Mt. Sinai.)

A confession

Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes!
They've got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses
And what's with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?

Okay, my confession is not about bunnies. It is about kittens. I am secretly a little frightened of them. (Well, it's not a secret now. Obviously.)

Yesterday evening my friend Lauren sent me a link to this picture. And okay, yeah, it's kinda cute. The kittens are climbing! They are hungry for their food! Part of my mind acknowledges that this is the case, the cuteness and the climbing and the hungry. The other part of me thinks, THIS IS FUCKING TERRIFYING. I mean, this woman is not in any danger - there are not that many kittens, and someone else is there, taking the picture, so if the kittens went insane the photographer could come to her aid. But that is too many swarming climbing kittens in one place.

Kittens have unstable personalities. They DO. One second they'll be curled up on your lap cuddling with you, and the next second they'll have lost their little kitten minds and they'll be off climbing the walls or hunting your toes or gnawing on your records. You just don't know what they'll do! There is a REASON people only buy one or two kittens at a time! There is a REASON people always want to give their kittens away to good homes! It is because they do not want the kittens to RISE UP IN REVOLT AND KILL THEM.

I think this is because when I was young, my friend down the street had kittens, and I hated spending the night at her place (I mean, I liked it, but I didn't like these damn kittens), because Nigel and Eli would run around crazy at night, and it was rather frightening, because it was all dark, and then out of nowhere little needle claws would attack my fingers and wake me up. What if they felt like sleeping on top of my nose and mouth? WHAT ABOUT THAT?

Er, but most of me thinks kittens are cute. As long as I don't have to sleep in a house with kittens. And as long as I can lock them in a room when I have tired of them.

I AM SO HAPPY

Seriously. I am very, very, very happy. I bought two new pairs of shoes, one of which is a completely unsensible pair of shoes. I saw my amazing uncle Jim and gave him lots of hugs, more than usual because I was giving hugs for Robyn too. And also I BOUGHT A RECORD PLAYER.

It is the best record player ever! It was only twenty dollars and I got it at Goodwill and I got speakers for seven bucks apiece, so the whole thing was a little over thirty dollars. And I bought a bunch of records at Goodwill also, and after I bought those records I went to the library and on the way back I went to THE BEST STORE EVER, i.e., The Compact Disc Store. It's so great! There's a dog! There are records! It's near the comic book store! And I bought a bunch of used LPs, and additionally I got new ones because all the cool bands release their records on vinyl too - apparently because all the records I looked for were there - so I got the Decemberists' Picaresque, and my favorite Shins album (Chutes Too Narrow), and one by the New Pornographers (and the guy said he thought they'd be getting some Neko Case records in soon too), and also I bought Abbey Road new. Because I like it.

Records are awesome. I am sitting in my room nostalgically listening to Man of La Mancha, which I used to listen to when I was a kid before my father gave away all our records (yes! he did! All of them! Though I begged him to desist!), and I am just as happy as a clam. Some people say it doesn't make a difference but I say it's the difference that makes it.

(That's from Empire Records.)

I ate dinner at my parents' house after I went on this records-buying spree, and when I came in the house with all my new records, my mother was totally unimpressed. She said "You paid for these?" and she said it was just like if I had come home all excited because I! Had bought! A push lawnmower! She said records are hard to deal with and easily damaged and out-of-date, and we should embrace the way of the future. But instead of that I think I want to embrace the way of the past, which includes large cool cover art, lyrics, and a pleasant crackly noise when you put them in.

Each time I think of the many records I now own (I mean, not tons and tons and tons. I think I probably have about fifteen of them? Fifteen or twenty?), I heave a happy sigh. I love my lovely new records. I have speakers in my room. I have a record player. I cleverly fixed the needle so it's not unbalanced and dangly anymore. I have cool records and a new favorite store. This was a good weekend.

Anne-Julie Aubry

I totally love Anne-Julie Aubry! I'm so sad I never knew about Anne-Julie Aubry until today! She is an illustrator and I totally love these prints. If I had any remaining wall space, I would buy these prints and put them up in my bedroom. Here are some of the ones I like the best:

Blackbird

Snow White

Portrait at the White Rat - she says she dreams to own this sort of friend, a little rat.

The Red Room

This one may be my most favorite. It has a pirate ship! Hunters Princess

I actually like a bunch of them, but I'll quit linking to them. Thoughts? Aren't they nice? I set one of them as my desktop background. Not one of those. A different one that works well with my desktop icons. I really like it! Hooray!

Talk Like Sarah Palin Day

It's today!

Or any day between now and the day we forget all about Sarah Palin. You can choose! Today I went to see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist with Vey and Laura, and Vey explained how it was Talk Like Sarah Palin Day. It's hard to sustain at first, and you are prone to lapse into other stupid accents, but as time goes on things get easier. The hardest thing for me is trying to remember not to say naughty curse words.

Silly me

I watched Pushing Daisies last night. As time has gone by since the end of Pushing Daisies last year (last year?), I have gotten less and less fond of it. I have remembered it being far too sweet, and I have watched Wonderfalls a few times and found Pushing Daisies severely lacking by comparison. Furthermore, I have had to abandon my crush on Lee Pace because my friend says he is gay, and I obviously cannot marry someone who is gay. So I suspected that I was not as fond of Pushing Daisies as I had previously supposed myself to be, like when it first came out.

However, last night I watched the season premiere of Pushing Daisies, and I don't know what my cranky-ass problem was. Pushing Daisies is wonderful! Emerson Cod is snarky. He balances out the sweetness, and Lee Pace is still very cute and sweet, and he went and got all of Chuck's books! Plus it is a clever and a well-written show, even when horrifying things happen like a person composed entirely of bees. Ick.

Aw, Pushing Daisies. No wonder I liked it so much before.

Last night there was no Office because of the VP debates. Sarah Palin is ridiculous, and her accent is silly, and I was really looking forward to watching The Office last night. Pooh.

Miscellaneous reflections following my first day of work

At work we have snacks in jars, and one of the jars is all full of animal crackers, and they are the brand of animal crackers that is rhinos and goats and cows and donkeys and elephants and buffalo and camels and lions, but no monkeys. Not a monkey anywhere. That must be a different brand, with the monkeys. But every time I eat animal crackers, I think of this time Oz told Willow that the monkey was the only animal cracker animal with clothes, and he wondered whether the monkey mocked the other animal crackers with his monkey pants. But there are no monkeys in my animal crackers. It always bugs me a little. So does eating camels. I love camels! I don’t want to eat them! When I am scooping up animal crackers for myself, I try to steer around the camels.

I do not much care for black coffee, which is quite bitter, but I drink it anyway because I am 1) afraid of becoming a yuppie and thus disinclined to purchase trendy mocha-type drinks; and (more important) 2) too lazy to bother about putting it sugar and cream and then stirring it adequately so it doesn’t all settle on the bottom. I greatly enjoy writing in coffee shops because sometimes really awful people come in for long or short lengths of time and talk about all the really awful things they and their friends have done, and it is fun to eavesdrop on them.

My new laptop has a clit mouse. I have not used a computer with a clit mouse since before I learned what a clitoris was. Fortunately (fortunately because otherwise I would kill myself) it also has a touchpad.

Whenever I see those signs that say “No shirt, no shoes, no service” or “Shirt and shoes required” or whatever, I always always check myself to make sure I am meeting these requirements. I have not paid a lot of attention to this previously, but I was strolling into the library yesterday on my lunch break, and I did it twice in such rapid succession (at the entrance and then at the door to the stairwell) that I couldn’t help but notice. My brain went, Shirt? Check. Shoes? Check. Okay, we’re good to go! My feet paused for this moment of consideration. I guess in case I ever lose my mind and accidentally go out without a shirt on, this will be handy because I won't also have to get booted out of a library or wherever.

That's silly.

On my lunch break after going to the library, I read Lux the Poet, which I had on hold at the library and which had just, just, just come in when I got there. I am reading it as a substitute for Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me, which I have not yet read because I’m delaying gratification until some as-yet-undetermined point in the future. I still really like Martin Millar. His books are so sweet. Lux the Poet is all about an angel who got framed and booted out of heaven so she’s doing loads of good deeds to get back into heaven. Except that’s not what it’s all about, that’s only one bit of the whole thing. But it’s my favorite bit, although the other bits are also good. The aforementioned angel is very tired but she carries on giving coats to bums and helping little old ladies across the street because if she carries on doing that long enough, she’ll get to go back to heaven again. There is also a funny poet not altogether unlike the poet in The Graveyard Book (the poet in The Graveyard Book was not heavily featured enough for my tastes, so it’s very pleasing to be reading Lux the Poet so soon after), and a girl with a film, and an angry thrash metal band called the Jane Austen Mercenaries. Martin Millar makes me smile.

Also, an unexpected side effect of becoming a rockin’ guitar chick: The cuticles on my right hand are suffering. I am a compulsive cuticle-pusher-backer, and I ceaselessly push back the cuticles on one hand with the fingernails of the other. Now that I am keeping the fingernails on my left hand trimmed very short in order to play chords more effectively (dude, C#m is unreasonably difficult. It’s almost a C! Why must I spread out my fingers so dramatically just to play it?), those fingernails are not long enough to push back the cuticles on my right hand. IT IS DRIVING ME INSANE. I am thinking of playing only chords that require three fingers, and giving up using my ring finger in guitar-playing, just so I can grow that fingernail out and continue pushing back cuticles when I wish to push back cuticles.

And before you ask – No, pushing back my cuticles does not give me hangnails. I’ve been doing it for a while and I have cuticle-pushing finesse now. Lucky me.