I had this dream last night that I was pregnant. Not just that I was pregnant, but that I experienced pretty much an entire pregnancy over the course of a dream in which all kinds of other things were happening, that were more-or-less the focal point of the dream at those various points, except that in the background, sort of peripherally, I continued to become increasingly pregnant. The last part of the dream was me being driven to the hospital to actually have this baby. I was in the front seat of a minivan, being driven by my mom, with my sister and her fiancé in the back seat. And as we were driving along, I actually found myself thinking: Oh. Huh. I’m actually about to have a baby. Like, there will be a baby. I had not given this fact any actual consideration at any time up to this point. It was just sort of, something I was vaguely aware of. I hadn’t done anything in preparation. I hadn’t even gone to the doctor.

So I said, just generally to the other people in the car: I don’t think I’m in any way ready to have this baby.

And my mother said something completely random and useless, I think it was something like: Well, you’ll have to at least repaint the bathroom.

And I was like, um. I really don’t think the paint in the bathroom is the issue here.

And she started to argue, and then my sister and her boyfriend started to argue with her, mostly along the lines of, “just let her say what she’s trying to say,” but it just turned into this whole thing and I decided it was easier to just let it go. And as we drove up to the entrance to the hospital I thought, Am I completely sure I’m going to have a baby? What if it’s just, like, a hysterical pregnancy or something? And I remembered something I had seen on like TLC or the Discovery Channel (not for real, just in the dream) about some mentally unstable woman who had everyone — including the delivery doctor! — convinced she was in labor until they realized she wasn’t even pregnant. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, maybe I’m not really pregnant. I think maybe I’m just fat. I should probably just go home. And I realized that that was the most sensible thing to do, so I just decided to drop the whole baby thing and go on as if nothing had ever happened, and hope everyone would eventually let me live it down.

Then I woke up.

I think this may have some relevance to things that are actually happening in my life right now.

Mary Worth (1998) full version

Fencepost Frank | Myspace Video

So I’m probably going to have to repaint my whole living room. This isn’t actually a bad thing so much as (a) an untimely one and (b) a ridiculous one, given the reasons.

A few years ago, I painted the whole room kind of a pale blue. It’s a really pretty color, but not as bright as I would like, given how dingy and dark the room is (the whole apartment, really. It gets zero natural light). More recently, I painted the kitchen a very pale, soft aqua, and I really liked that. It’s much brighter, and also works much better with the accent colors in the living room. So I was in no big rush to do it, but I figured eventually I would paint the living room either the same color as the kitchen or a very slightly lighter or darker version of it.

So anyway, the one other problem in the living room was that there was this pair of wall sconces flanking the windows which I really, really disliked. I know they’re “charming original architectural details” and all that, but they were quite unattractive, and because everything else in the room now is basically mid-century modern, they looked really out of place. I’d been buying table and floor lamps, even hung a ceiling swag fixture in anticipation of getting rid of them, but I didn’t want to try disconnecting myself, partly because the wiring in this apartment dates back to shortly after the Civil War and I had no idea what to expect when I actually unscrewed them from the walls and partly because it’s electrical and I didn’t want to be alone in the apartment when I did it, for safety reasons. When I painted the room, I already knew I would eventually be removing the fixtures (although I didn’t realize at the time that it would take so damn long). So I didn’t bother to paint behind them; I just left an unpainted section around them, figuring I would touch it up after they’d been taken out.

Well, this past weekend I finally managed to get the stupid fixtures off the wall (long story, with the help of my sister’s BF). I capped off the wires and taped and spackled over the holes. And last night, I went to get the sanding block out of the cabinet where I keep that stuff, to get the wall nice and smooth before painting. And as I’m looking for the block, I notice something odd. There’s this little metal cylinder that I don’t recognize in the cabinet. It looks almost like one of the little metal cans I store the leftover paint in, except that instead of having the kind of top where you press it down from the top (like a regular paint can), it seems to have like, a screw-on top, except that the “top” is three times the height of the actual can.

Then I look a little closer, and this is what I see:



It’s the touch up paint that’s been sitting in the cabinet for years. Apparently, it’s just corroded it’s way through the can at the level that the paint came to inside the can.



And of course, that’s allowed air into the can. So the paint that remained inside the can hasn’t just congealed, it’s actually kind of … weirdly petrified into this shiny, glassy puck-like object that’s welded into the bottom of the can. I have to admit, it’s actually quite fabulous. Sort of like a science experiment gone wrong.



Anyhoo, if I want to touch up the area around the light fixtures now, I have to go out and buy all new paint. And I can either buy a quart of the existing blue for like, $11, and then still have to paint again at some future date when I change the color, or buy a gallon of the new color for $15 and do the whole room now.

I’m thinking it’s gonna be the second thing.

ETA: I'm not sure how to make the red x's turn into actual photos, so you can just see them here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2087986&id=1169854531#!

So, does anyone remember this?
I have to admit, I was just assuming that what I wrote to be true. And you know what they say. When you “assume” you make an ass of you and me .

Or sometimes not.

These are now my two new favorite places in all the internets. Don’t you think they should be yours, too?

http://catalogliving.tumblr.com

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

http://scifiwire.com/2010/06/four-labels-from-the-bruc.php

So, like a year or so ago, the company I work for gave us all $15 amazon.com gift cards for Administrative Support Appreciation Day, or whatever you call it.

Now, I don't often use Amazon.com, because I don't use credit cards, and they don't accept PayPal (which I do use). And of course, once you added in shipping and tax, there was nothing on the site I needed or wanted that would come out to just under $15, so I never used it. Then, last November or December, I realized I could use it to download MP3s, which I set out to do. And anyway, it didn't work. It wouldn't let me download the songs I wanted and moreover, when I tried to use the card again, it said the card number was "invalid." So. Okay. Eff You, amazon.com. You steal from me mah moneh! You still from me mah fifteen dollah! You not mah fren no more!

Well, lalalala. A couple of weeks ago, I started looking around -- mostly in department stores -- for a piece of costume jewelry. Maybe earrings or a bracelet or something, but anyway the point was I wanted something red. I have a lot of black and white clothes, and especially several things with sort of black and white graphic patterns, and I recently bought this really nice faux-alligator handbag in a bright, crayon-y red, and I thought the bag would go well with the black and white stuff. Anyway, I have almost no jewelry, so I've been buying a few inexpensive pieces here and there, and most recently I was looking for red. And of course, nobody has anything red, and I guess maybe because it's not really a summer color, but whatever.

Then last week I was in Macys and saw these really nice earrings, but of course they had no visible price on them, and they were locked in a case, which is usually a bad sign. But I asked the lady, and she said eighty dollars! For a pair of sterling silver earrings, which just happened to have little bits of red jasper in them. So I said no thanks, but I did like them, so I looked on the internets and found that several places had similar pieces, including amazon, which had almost the identical earrings, with a matching pendant for twenty-eight dollars for the set. Which, at least compared to Macy's was a pretty good price. Also, it happens that I have one of those "vanilla" MasterCard gift cards, with about fifty bucks left on it, and amazon accepts that, so after my usual amazon routine of having to remember which email address my account is under, and then having to re-set my password because I've forgotten it (which, like, seriously? Every freaking time), I order them.

And when I go to pay, there's a little prompt ... asking me if I want to apply my fifteen dollar credit! Which apparently has been there the whole time! So I said yes, and after taxes and shipping and all the other whoop-de-hay, with the credit I got the earrings and pendant for like, twenty bucks, as opposed to eighty for just the earrings at Macys!

So thank you, amazon.com. You no steal from me mah fifteen dollah! You only hole mah fifteen dollah until I want it! I misjudged you. And hate you slightly less now than I did ten minutes ago.

The end.

Edited to add: AND!!! I just received email from amazon saying that they couldn't process my order. And all the information I gave them is correct, so I'm guessing it's the absence of a cardholder name on the gift card, because (a) I've had this problem before and (b) you'd really think, wouldn't you? That MasterCard would have something about this on their website? Especially if they know damn well that you can't deal with a human on their phone lines?

So eff YOU, Vanilla MasterCard people. Because you suck, and you're leaving me and Amazon to work out the problem you caused with no input from you.

An amusing idea from fengi:

“Next Thursday will be Self Fan Fiction Day.

Participants will post an entry as if they were a stranger attempting to write in the style of themselves, about events which are invented but generally adhere to canon (i.e. your real life). Bonus points for inserting a mary sue of the non-existent stranger in the post.

Even better - and far more irritating - participants should comment on entries in other journals as if they were critiquing fan-fiction featuring the journaler. Even better if the journal belongs to someone not participating.

Come on, it'll be fun. No, really! If you have a partner with an LJ, you can even write some slash!”

I think this might be fun. Not sure I’ll have time to do it, but I think I’ll try. You should too! Especially those of you (and you know who you are) who actually know anything about fanfic.

I just want to keep this playing on an infinite loop in my brane for the next six weeks:

So, someone on my facebook friends list referenced this film earlier today:




Apparently, he said, in this production, after Hamlet dies? He comes back to life, but now he's played by Matt Smith.

Could somebody please explain to me the difference between "hate fucking" and "rape?"

Thanks a bundle!

Luxury Magazine seeks Editor-in-Chief (Midtown)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2010-04-08, 10:20AM EDT
Reply to: [redacted]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief for Luxury Magazine

Burgeoning publisher of luxury magazines is currently seeking a dynamic, results-oriented leader for the position of Chief Editor.

Must be an incredible writer and have extensive luxury lifestyle experience.

Highly motivated, serious level magazine experience, ethical, hardworking and proven leadership skills is a requirement.

Contact us at 212.[redacted], qualified candidates please submit resume and up to 3 writing samples to jobs@theaffluentpage.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, you read that right. There’s a Great Depression looming, unemployment is at an unnerving high, the president of the United States has described himself as the only thing standing between corrupt banking CEOs and the “pitchforks” of the lower classes. What better time to start a magazine devoted to luxurious living? Especially given that in all probability, the people we hire to write it for us will be happy if we pay them in un-labeled canned goods?

So if you’re a dynamic, results-oriented leader with extensive luxury lifestyle experience and “serious level magazine experience,” who also happens to be so desperately unemployed as to be seriously looking for a job on craigslist, give us a call. We can discuss your future with us over lunch at Le Perigord. I mean, fuck why not? You’re paying. BWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! No, seriously. You totally are.

And that concludes today’s edition of “profiles in craigslist. craigslist. Promoting social justice and the common good since 1995.

I found some long-sleeve, fitted t-shirts! At Old Navy, of all places. They’re not as super-nice as my short-sleeved one, but at least they have sleeves, and they were $7! I bought three, in different colors: Blink Pink, Edamame and Peacock

I had this really weird night last night. I was still awake at 5 a.m. -- I have no idea when I finally dropped off, but as soon as my eyes opened this morning I had to get right out of bed because I was afraid if I didn't, I'd fall back to sleep and not wake up until I was already supposed to be at work for an hour.

The reason for the sleeplessness is entirely my own stupid fault. As explained in a previous entry, I had been growing increasingly frustrated with my inability to finally lose the ten or so pounds I still had to lose; the same stupid pounds that have been clinging to my hips and thighs since I was fourteen. So I started taking these stupid fat-burning pills (I KNOW!!!! thank you), which probably wouldn't have been such a big deal except that yesterday I totally wasn't thinking and I also drank a bigass cup of coffee. Which I never do -- I'm not a coffee drinker at all, but I had one last night, and aside from being awake all night, I woke up this morning already having heart palpitations. So. No more red pills for rosey! And I reiterate, Yes, I KNOW!!!! But do not judge me until you have walked a mile in my disproportionately gimantic pants. Is all I have to say.

So as I was lying there, desperately trying to convince my body to sleep, I kept doing these relaxation/meditation/put yourself into an alpha state exercises, and at one point, I had this ridiculously lucid, almost mind-expanded moment where this voice inside my head came from out of nowhere and said, plain as day, that I should go and save France.

No, not really. See what I did there? But seriously, I heard this very clear and simple statement in my head, which was: You can have anything you want.

And probably not surprisingly, my first reaction was to get a little freaked out. Not by the voice in my head thing. I have that all the time. I should charge rent on the voices in my head. I'd be a millionaire. I'd have a hotel on Boardwalk and another on Park Place, don't get me started. No, it was more the content of the statement and it's authoritative tone that kind of scared me. I mean, it wasn't an angry or aggressive voice. It wasn't telling me to go and like, invade France or anything. It was really more a kind of reassuring, parental voice simply telling me that my goals were not unreasonable, and that my resources were sufficient to accomplish them. And what was even scarier was that it took me so by surprise that I couldn't argue with it, because I realized that what it was saying was ... well, in a word: true. But the idea of it, the intrusion of this idea into my head, despite the reasonableness and non-craziness of it, seemed terribly megalomaniacal and just, somehow, wrong to me.

Anyway, it was a weird night and I was thinking about it this morning, and it made me think of this Jonathan Coulton song, and especially the last few lines, that always make me sort of mist up a little. Because I realize that this was really what the voice meant, and that it's not obnoxious or aggressive or angry, it's just, you know. Trying to help me. Which is sort of nice. Anyway, this is the song, and you should really go listen to it on JoCo's site, because it's quite a sweet — but not at all cloying — little song. And I have decided to adopt it as my unofficial theme song for the rest of the year.

I strongly urge you to do the same.

There’s a tall thin man standing in the shadows
When he calls your name his voice is strong and clear
It’s a dark and smoky place, so you can’t quite see his face
He pulls you close and whispers in your ear

And he tells you he was born into some money
But it didn’t mean he had to sit around
And he knows a thing or two about the things that you should do
If you don’t want to take life lying down

First of all hang out a lot with Hemmingway
Spend some time fighting bulls in Spain
You should go three rounds with Archie Moore and Sugar Ray
It’s so damned scary you won’t mind the pain

Be ringside at the rumble in the jungle
Make friends with Hunter S. and Jackie O.
And when they shoot poor Bobby down, you wrestle Sirhan to the ground
Love your friends and miss them when they go

You should write a book or two and start a magazine
Even if it never makes a dime
You should swing out by your feet above the circus ring
At the very least throw parties all the time

Time and tide will never care
Not so far from here to there
We just go

Enjoy yourself, do the things that matter
Cause there isn’t time and space to do it all
Love the things you try, drink a cocktail wear a tie
Show a little grace if you should fall

Don’t live another day unless you make it count
There’s someone else that you’re supposed to be
There’s something deep inside of you that still wants out
And shame on you if you don’t set it free.

By the way, it's called "A Talk With George" and all Jonathan's songs are on his website, here (and you can listen to them free!):

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/downloads/

So a few weeks ago I bought this shirt, which evidently originally retailed for ninety bucks, for like, I dunno. Thirty? At Century 21. It looks amazing on. The stretch fabric and unbelievably flattering shaping is just incredible. I LOVE it. My only problem is, I love it so much I want to buy other shirts in the same style (only preferably with sleeves -- the short sleeve is the only thing I'm not wild about). Can any of the more fashion-forward of you suggest possible google search terms that might lead to the discovery of similarly styled garments? Thanks if you can.

ETA: It's not just that the shirt is stretchy or tight -- actually it's not tight at all, but rather actually styled and seamed -- like, shirred, in this miraculous, almost tailored way. Unfortunately, the mere search terms "fitted t-shirt" (or tee) don't begin to do it justice. You have look at the detailing at the link below. I've never seen a simple t-shirt so beautifully constructed in my life.

http://www.sanitystyle.com/servlet/the-986/Diesel-Clothing-Timose-Tee/Detail

... I bring you: The phonetic, transliterated lyrics to "Maria" by Blondie. In Korean.

Cha chi gum shi ja kae
Chogum sil to kob ke

Uhhh tu ryo wo ta ji ma

Pyol chyo jin nuna pe
Cho tae yang i ki reul bi cho

Uhhh chol tae mom chu ji ma

Maria ave Maria
Cho hwim kurum keut kaji nara

Maria ave Maria
Gong chin pa ddowin sang gwa nob shi

Ki cheor goom i ro ke
Nae nuna pae Pyo jyo i sor

Uhhh chol tae mom chu ji ma

Maria ave Maria
Cho hwim kurum keut kaji nara

Maria ave Maria
Gong chin pa ddowin sang gwa nob shi

Maria

Mo chwo barin shim jang chon chega
Kon cha bulsu ob shi twi yo wa

Maria ave Maria
Cho hwim kurum keut kaji nara

Maria ave Maria
Gong chin pa ddowin sang gwa nob shi

Maria ave Maria
Cho hwim kurum keut kaji nara

Maria ave Maria
Gong chin pa ddowin sang gwa nob shi

Okay, so, there's this meme I keep thinking about, and which I have finally decided I'm going to do. You should too! Assuming you can.

I have this big, giant document on my computer, into which I have been dumping stuff, just odd scraps of writing ranging from random sentence fragments to short, unfinished essays, for years. I don't know exactly how long, but I'd say at least since around the end of 2003. And sometimes I'll have to go in there and look for something in particular, and I'll stumble across something that makes me laugh, or think what the fuck or whatever. And this is my new meme: Periodically, I'm going to just copy and paste selected what-the-fuckery from this file here on my LJ. Not for any particular reason, just to keep the bloggy active. I hope that it will amuse and occasionally baffle you, as it does me.

Here's the inaugural entry. Prepare to be whatevered.

...

"It’s this box, and even if you know, which he does, what’s inside the box, which is a bunch of transistors and resistors and capacitors, and you’ve soldered it all together: It’s a big box of wires, and even if you know that, especially if you don’t, but even if you do, it’s like, on the outside there’s a row of switches, and if you flip them in the right order, you can ask it questions, to which it can provide an answer that is clearly and provably correct. If you ask it what’s two plus two, it will tell you four, and you know that that’s correct, you know that four is the right answer. But how does it know? All that’s in there is a big pile of wires. And it goes beyond that, because if it can tell you that; if it can answer a really simple question like that, then potentially it might be able to answer way more complex questions. The problem is that you don’t know if it can answer those questions, first of all because you don’t know how to ask them; how, specifically, to feed the requisite data into it to get the desired result. So the real question becomes, how do you figure out how to ask it things? And the only way to figure out how to ask it is just to keep asking in different ways until you get an answer, and then you determine by some other means if that’s the correct answer, and if it is, then you know you’ve “succeeded.” But the point is, you never know what its limits are, or even if it has limits (beyond the obvious 16-bit ones). You don’t know how much it knows, or even if it knows, or if it does know, how to find out, or even if you do find out, you’re not really sure it’s going to be able to perform this function the next time in exactly the same way, because at this point the technology is so primitive that it might not give you the same result the same way twice because half the time it’s just dumb luck if you get any result at all (“sometimes it just does that” is a double-edged sword). And it’s also that whole issue of, you run a program on it, and it starts to run and you just never know until it finishes – or doesn’t – if it’s ever going to end, or if it’s going to end in two days, or thirty seconds or a hundred million years. So it’s all this big, beautiful mystery. And the mystery is beautiful and challenging and fascinating (the journey is the destination) and could easily consume your entire life. Because it’s a solvable mystery, you just have to figure out how to solve it. And the only way to do that is by trial and error, and yet the very process of trial and error, and why it responds to trial and error is in itself this giddy-making exercise. How does it know that I’m interacting with it in this way? So Stan’s fascination is: How far can you take it? Just from a pure intellectual exercise point of view. How far can we go with this thing? How sophisticated can I become with it, and how sophisticated can it become with me? And what’s the process of getting to that point? The trial and error period; the big question mark period. That’s what’s beautiful and fascinating to him.
Whereas, from Steve’s point of view, it’s: wait, you don’t get it. It’s not just that. It’s also that if you know that it can tell you that two plus two is four, and if we assume that it can also tell you the cube root of 9,348,987,038, or what 19.3 percent of 1,398,267 is, then presumably it can also do almost anything that’s number-based. But everything in the Universe can be expressed in numerical or mathematical form. So theoretically, it’s really capable of doing almost anything. It has actual, practical, real-world applications. You could potentially use this thing, or some later incarnation of it, to design buildings, teach it to compose music, or cure cancer. Steve sees it eliminating homelessness by designing inexpensive but structurally-sound mass-produced housing. Wiping out hunger by figuring out ways to increase crop yields. Remove pollutants from fossil fuels! It can be used to power more sophisticated forms of artificial limbs, help blind people see, deaf people to hear. Help little kids learn to read, you can use it to make art, music, anything. And this is miraculous, and each thing is a click, a click, a click. And that finally leads to the idea of 'what’s it doing now?' We don’t know yet. Something could be starting here who’s end result we won’t know for years."

Long, self-absorbed body-woe rant under the cut:

So, I’ve finally lost enough weight that I thought I could go out and buy clothes without all the usual angst, and apparently the only things that actually look good on me are now strictly forbidden.

( For some reason, this all feels vaguely familiar.Collapse )

Via the lovely and talented doraphilia:

“From now until close of biz today, I'm going to try and respond to every comment on this post with something I think is great about you (the person who comments). Go 'head!”

Also, why not do the same on your own facebook/bloggy thing?