If you are going to stand on my roof using a chainsaw without my permission, I don't think 7:30 a.m. is an appropriate time to get started. that's all I'm saying

I have been so sick with the flu. I've been spending all of my time in bed watching the entire first season of the only television show on DVD I'm allowed to check out with my free rentals membership: The L Word (yes I'm that cheap). Um Hello, naked lesbians having sex everywhere. How come I haven't heard about anyone watching this? Anyway, now I have the biggest crush on Shane and I hate Jenny more than anything (if she says "eviscerate" one more time!). Also the really mean girl from Popular guest stars and she loves Shane too.

p.s. this show really demonstrated to me how skinny tv stars have to be. In their clothes they look like normal slender women, but when they're naked their little ribs are about to poke out of their bodies. Cheeseburgers ladies! Also, I guess lesbians never wear bras?

I love my OB/GYN! It's a really good feeling to actually look forward to a pelvic exam. So if you are a girl, have Kaiser, and live in the Sacramento area check out Dr. McCue.

Since I keep telling people about this I thought I'd put it up. An excerpt from Alton Brown's blog entry from July 18, 2004 about Supersize Me. (he doesn't have permalinks so you have to scroll if you want to read the whole thing)

Feed yourselves. Feed your loved ones. And for God’s sake feed your children. Don’t trust anyone else to do it…not anyone. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out to dinner every now and then…that is after all one of the great joys of life…but it isn’t life itself and that’s what I’m talking about. Is MacDonalds food bad for you? What do you think? Does that mean you shouldn’t eat it? No, it just means you shouldn’t live on it or anything else made by someone you wouldn’t hug.

I love this since nourishment/feeding myself is such a concern for me. And in a move of extreme hypocrisy I will now go and buy McDonald's french fries from a McDonald's actually located inside a Walmart.

I think it is difficult for a man to sound more awkward than when doing a high-pitched laugh.

I just happenned to stumble across the project page for an insanely gorgeous finished Rogue. Um, wow. Did I mention that I have a half finished Rogue sitting in a basket on a very high shelf. It's January, maybe the time has finally come.

There is a fierce storm here for the weekend so I'll be spending my time on the following deliciously hip activities:

cleaning the shower

making crockpot food

hosting book club

sitting in front of a fire making s'mores

drinking tea

making out

What a wonderful idea: the makeout radio station!

This is the perfect January hibernation activity: "dim the lights, kindle a fire, pop open the bubbly, turn on this station, and let nature take its course." I can just hear Simon purring now.

link via Largehearted Boy

Best of 2004 List: My Life

Funnest Crafty Thing I Did: t-shirt alterations

Best Pina Coladas with Whipped Cream: provided by Kim

Best Hair Stylist/Life Coach: Kabra Moss

Best Cat: tie between Simon for eyeliner and fuzziness and Sabine for getting her groove back

Most Rewarding House Thing I did: kitchen linoleum

Best Kisser: Thadeus Dietzen

Best Level 11 Dragon with Technicolor Dream Cape: Thadeus Dietzen

Suckiest House Thing I did: tie between back patio tile and the whole plumbing situation

Funnest Person to Go Downtown and Pick Up Girls with: Chris Fallis

Best Life lifestyle change: started going to the gym regularly and quit smoking

Most Overused Blog Format: List


I'm a planner and 2005 is my year, I marked it on the calendar and everything!

Aren't you glad the holidays are over? It's amazing how my equilibrium straightens right out when it's over. Time to get down to the delightful business of hibernation:

1. fires in the fireplace

2. videos galore

3. hot hot tea with milk and sugar

4. s'mores for dinner

5. clean laundry

I am making a vegetarian feast right now in my crock pot!

This girl I work with got a crockpot for her wedding shower. She said "you know you're really growing up when you get excited about a crock pot." But I think sometimes you just get hungry.

On another note, I think love looks like glitter. I told someone to send me love in a Christmas card and I keep picturing glitter falling out of the opened envelope sort of like fairy dust.

this week promises champagne, tears, curry, cleaning, driving, a haircut, and love. Here's hoping for the best

I am getting very excited about 2005 as the year of me nourishing myself and my new kitchen dreams becoming a reality. I picture the crockpot bubbling away (thanks Jan!) on my new tile peninsula while I lounge in the adjacent hangout area reading Fine Gardening; Friends coming over for dinner and lounging at the bar with wine while I pull something out of the oven; inviting my grandma and aunties to brunch on Sundays and having somewhere for them to sit down. I guess lounging will play a key role.

It's like my dream come true: Karaoke Revolution

Not like I need it, but the review says the game will actually help you sing better. The only problem is that if the fans on the game don't like my singing my best friend can't go over and yell at them to start clapping.

Vreeland:

Make collars for you cats out of vintage brooches?
Pass out evergreen tiaras as party favors?

Check out Fimoculous list of top 25 blogs of 2004. All of the blogs noted seem to have content which is probably why I wasn't on it.

link via my favorite mp3 blog, No. 18, Largehearted Boy

Look how sweet this little garden design map is! It has little links to pages about special places in the garden and little pictures of what is probably happenning and everything. It's color too which is so cute, mine is just a ballpoint pen thing with circles and blobs for planting areas. The whole site is very special and I'm having fun exploring it.

something funny:

" . . .as I've come to realise, 'rustic' is a useful word for describing something you've done that looks a bit crap." (please see my back patio tile for further examples)

Last night I got my ass kicked at Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. Now I know these things about myself:

1. I do not know who Boromir, Denethor, Isildor, or Gimli are.

2. I cannot share any type of sentiment such as "of course! the Pool of Mirrors!"

3. If I land on the same space as my boyfriend, I will make our game pieces kiss.

4. I will never guess "oh I don't know, how about Midas Tirith"

too bad I'm already seeing someone:

Daniel Erenberg lives in a gothic-looking house in a suburb of Long Island shrouded by trees and darkness. His backyard is so overrun with shrubbery that he can't plant flowers in the soil. He's penned articles for numerous magazines (and a couple of websites for free). Currently, he's writing his first novel, entitled People That I've Long Since Forgotten. He's also written two plays, Little Room and Dystopia and a screenplay called Youth Or Consequence. He lives a fairly happy life alone except for the mind-numbing loneliness he feels on occasion. If you’re a beautiful woman that’s fallen in love with Daniel, or you just want to talk Buffy with him, you can contact Daniel at daniel@slayage.com.

Things that will make me happy this week:

1. Sleeping in my own bed with my kitties

2. Champagne

3. My new lemon verbena and munstead lavender houseplants

4. My abutilon/flowering maple is in crazy bloom

5. Chocolate birthday cake

6. Smoking, oh wait I don't do that anymore, bastards

7. Godbabies

8. Advanced step class on Christmas Eve

9. Getting back in touch with a Magnificent Bastard

The Twelve Days of Vreeland are back! Here's one of my favorite posts: of course I'm planning on giving my friends signed first editions of their favorite authors this year. I love these fancy imaginings and some of the ideas are good, like decorating for Christmas with white feather boas!

oh, no she didn't

Falling Petals is totally trying to run game on my man!

look what the topic is for Illustration Friday: Home, my favorite subject

Okay, The 6-8 ft. tall Helianthus with yellow daisy looking flowers backing a prostrate reddish rose ground cover with some lavender mixed in, my two flowering quinces (moved from the bed by the house where they hate it) peeking through the helianthus to give year round structure and maybe a couple of butterfly bushes to make a really thick dense hedge. I think it should give me a cheery hippy garden appearance while sheilding the yard (and me in my underwear when I'm getting the laundry) from the neighborhood. I wish I had some crayons, I would draw you a picture.

Confession No. 3:

I bought something that I want and I don't think anyone else will really like for my office white elephant gift exchange, and I am going to try to "win" it for myself. I'm basically self-gifting through the mechanism of the gift exchange. This could backfire big time. No one ever likes the gifts I bring and I'm always pretty bitter about it (I'm petty like that). Something tells me that since I'm trying to pull this, my gift will be very popular this year.

and while I'm in the confessing mood, I really love the Brittany Spears song Every Time

Extreme Dork Alert! whedonesque.com: A site devoted to every show Joss Whedon ever directed and every thing that has happened to anyone or anything affiliated ever. I could handle Buffy going off the air because I still had Angel, but now . . . there's nothing. Aparently the Serenity movie is either really good or really bad?

Found that link via the USA top 100 pop candy list which is very fun.

Coach Roz is a hottie!

My boss's sister is Coach Roz of the Sierra College Women's Basketball team. She was very dismayed to see she did not get any hottie points, indicated by a little chili pepper, on the ratemyprofessors.com website. If you go to Sierra College and have had Coach Roz please go and give her some chili peppers.

How does everyone feel about me putting a bunch of Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' in the front next to the sidewalk? It could be cool.

MagnificentBastard has a weblog. I went to college with this guy. Please keep in mind, he's very smart and completely full of shit. You know how I feel about people who move far away, but Ladies, you could do a lot worse.

Things that were said to me this weekend at parties:

1. I like your . . . holiday outfit.

2. You're an outsider now, just go with it.

3. Are those the ultra-low-rise cut? Let me see the pockets.

This is how I used to get dates. It worked pretty well, but the dates you get tend to be assholes. By contrast, now I look for the sweetest, dorkiest fellows. I've been very pleased with the results.

My adult acne is going to look so festive with my red sequined holiday top this weekend. I can do sort of a Picassoesque-Rudolph look.

Nectar of the Goddesses! Don't even try, we already bought the domain name.

Things that make me happy right now:

1. When girl bloggers refer to their husbands as "Mr. Theirblogsname." Mine would be called Mr. Lady Candyass Sharkbite, and I'm sure he would love that.

2. Thinking about the names of the children Lady Candyass Sharkbite would have with Rex Venom. Actually I have an exteme internet crush on Rex Venom.

3. old Wilco.

4. The new Gwen Stephani album and my friend Allyn singing along at the top of his voice to the new Gwen Stephani album.

5. Being inside on a clean happy bright snow day like this.

6. Living in Roseville where it is currently 63 degrees Fahrenheit .

7. Cake with plastic rings stuck in the side as decoration.

8. Being called Auntie K-Rock.

I'm in the paper today, sort of.

Since I feel like some of what I said was taken out of context, I will rectify here in my own little publication:

1. When I said "all bloggers want to make money off their blogs" I meant that anyone would want to get paid to do their hobby. I also mentioned that my friends provide good content which I would pay to see.

2. When I said I was the "granddaddy" of my blogging friends I meant that I've been blogging in a very simple way for a couple of years now and I'm excited to see all the creative new things my friends are doing with their blogs.

You know what I mean right?

Also, I think Chrisanne Beckner has the hots for me.

I think this is funny: Future Lincoln in You Got Served

Unedited email chain between me and my friend Julie about her husband Brian, his best friend Justin, and my boyfriend Thad who plays Dungeons and Dragons:

Julie: Hey Karin, remember when I called Brian "baby boots" in front of all his work friends and then as Cheng was leaving he poked his head back in the door and said "See you at work on Monday....BABY BOOTS"?

Karin: yeah that was awesome: especially because you said that right after you said YOU wear the pants in the relationship.

Julie: Poor little Brian, good thing he's such a good sport! Whenever he's being cutesy and then the phone rings he answers it like he's all tough-"Hey dude!" Then we laugh about it when he gets off. Does Thad have cool dude tendencies like Brian? Maybe they could have fun playing together. Brian and Justin can put on their camouflage and pretend to be GI Joe while Thad can pretend to be a fantasy dragon and they can hunt each other. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Yum! Doesn't Banana Pear Pecan Crumble sound so good! That little French chicky sure has yummy food ideas.

Alright. In honor of Rex Venom and Robot K. Synagog I would like to put forward my new internet name: Lady Candyass Sharkbite! So if you see me on the street, you can call out "hey, Lady Candyass Sharkbite, lookin' good today!" And I'll say "right back at'cha," and act like I'm shooting you a bunch of times with my thumb and fore-fingers.

How awesome is it when someone named Rex Venom comments on your site! It's on a level with getting an email from Robot K. Synagog!

p.s. Apparently I use the word "adorable" too much. I never considered the possibility that this would happen to me.

Random acts:

Three of my favorite things in life are as follows: Girl Party, Hot Girl Party, and Girl Crushes (especially when they are on me, but any configuration makes me happy).

That said, last night at the gym I couldn't stop staring at this incredibly fit and beautiful pregnant woman. She's been in my sculpting class all along but in pregnancy she has really blossomed and just glows now. Anyway, I went up to her after class and said "you are the most beautiful pregnant woman I've ever seen*, you look great." By the time I started stuttering the "you look great" part I realized that this interaction was a mistake. I had stumbled on one of the most horrible women there is: the woman who doesn't like compliments from other women. I hate these women. More than anything. The side of the woman's mouth turned up in a polite half smile and she didn't really say anything. She acted like she wanted to ignore the very uncouth thing that had just happenned.

On the flip side, I recently received the most delightful email from my internet (and one time in real life) friend Lori. She had been to see a band and loved the guitar player so much she thought he would be just my type and that I would want to date him. I was so touched that she thought about me in her real life and cared about my dating plight** enough to look for men I would like. I emailed her back and told her so and we both went about our happy ways with extra Girl Love in our hearts. Now that, my friends, is how it's supposed to go down!

So, to my lady readers: You all look very beautiful today!


*This was not actually true. My friend Kim is the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever seen, but it felt true at the moment.

**I am currently very happily seeing someone but she didn't know that.

Cut + Paste has so much adorable gifty stuff up for the holidays. If you are looking for interesting handmade unique gifts and want to support independent artisans, check it out.

Check out Miss Charrming! Charr's 15 minutes in the Sacramento News and Review. The picture is adorable.

Dear Weblog,

Here are things I love:

1. puppy paws, dog paws, cat paws
2. white wine
3. shaved legs on flannel sheets
4. honeycrisp apples
5. purring
6. answering the phone when the caller says "hey, gorgeous"
7. burning candles
8. the skyline of my town
9. Tres Chicas
10. finding something I thought I had forgotten
11. seat warmers

it's good to be home . . .

because I'm obsessed:

Buff Beauty
Champney's Pink Cluster
Cramoisi Superieur for front hedge
Hansa Rugosa
Lady Hillingdon

Weekend highlights:

1. drank a milkshake with a hot boy

2. made horrible waffles verifying that Thad and I are the worst cooks in the world and should not be allowed to make food together

3. planted 2 roses, 8 lillies, and transplanted what I think are about 1,000,000 irises of unknown description

4. played a prayer bowl at the "Indiana Jones Store"

5. danced for roughly 5 hours including at an unidentified after hours bar in the City

6. ate ginger altoids which actually make your mouth feel hotter and dirtier

7. walked for days while ranging from slightly to very hung over and back again to see the installation at the Adobe bookstore, totally worth it! (f0rgot my camera, seriously)

8. embarked on a crochet project, remember when I used to be crafty?

Apparently I have won the Lead Belly of 2004 award! I am so honored, but really it was nothing.

Hey, like my new color scheme? If you scroll down (or click here) you can see that my new background matches my bathrobe exactly. Trippy, huh?

Want to know who the 40 best bands in America are right now? Information Leafblower has compiled a list according to a bunch of cool music webloggers. Here's the list my favorite music weblogger, Largehearted Boy, submitted.

Oh Love!

I just thought of the perfect place to put aVeilchenblau rambler rose! In front of the house I have one of those ugly green pencil looking shrubs (I have so many icky shrubberies I don't know how I will ever get rid of them all) . My idea is to train the rambler as a pillar around the tall skinny green shrubbery? What do you think? should work, right? Very nearby I am putting a yellow carolina jasmine vine on another undesirable shrubbery. It looks so beautiful in my mind's eye, I hope it will be beautiful in real life.

p.s. fall evenings are the best: fog, apple crisp, hot cocoa, slippers, a mass of yellow leaves on the tree out front and the driveway thick with orange ones.

Why haven't I had a fire yet this year?

I am lucky enough to have professional (i.e. motherly) people who cook Thanksgiving and invite me to eat it. If you are not so fortunate Bookslut has started a food magazine review and this month all of the magazines are about cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Check it out if you want to know which one could really help you.

Plus: Jessa is very funny and insightful, and she used to work at Planned Parenthood, my favorite!

My favorite roses from Antique Rose Emporium (that I don't already have):

Trier
Cherokee Rose
Alberic Barbier for white garden
Jacote
Veilchenblau blue rose
Lady Waterlow
Applejack
Max Graff pink and yellow ground cover

I haven't been able to figure out the differences between the types of roses yet, but don't Bourbon roses sound so enchantingly gothic?

One thing I love about the www is that the dorkier (i.e. smart, fun, silly, unpretentious, talented, interesting) you are, the more attention you get. Conversely, the cooler you are in the high school sense, the lamer you seem. Enter Oh My God It Burns and their recent experimentation filtering cheap vodka through a Brita filter. 6 times!!! This is definitely something my friends and I would have tried but we would've been drunk as skunks by the first filtratation and would never have had the discipline for the scientific method. Bravo, gentlemen.

link via not martha

p.s. someone has documented the occasion and I am so jealous, but I can't look yet. I'm going this weekend!

woo hoo! My lillies have shipped and should be here Friday! I am very broke now but everything I have ordered in the past few weeks should pretty much all arrive this week. Lucky me! One thing is an antique climbing rose called Reve d'Or for the front of the house by the front door. Here's what Antique Rose Emporium has to say about it:

Reve d’Or
Noisette
1869
French for "dream of gold", this lovely, graceful climber lives up to its name with ease. Nearly thornless it is useful in close quarters. It is especially recommended for use on porch pillars, where the pendulous, globular flowers can be seen and appreciated more easily. Once trained up and established ‘Rêve d’Or’ will display for its admirers a wealth of large, loosely double, buff yellow roses with a rich Noisette perfume. It blooms all season, but we enjoy its fall performance best.

Garden dork is in full effect, Boyeee!

In other news, I saw the Megan Slankard Band on the weekend. Her voice is beautiful and sort of reminded me of both Ani DiFranco and Jewel by turns, if you can believe that. See her live if you can.

p.s. two shrubberies were also removed on the weekend using only my bare hands. Well, and a shovel. And I was wearing gloves.

Even though I have a really fun weekend coming up, I kind of wish I could go see Joanna Newsom's show on Saturday in Cologne, Germany. The modern art museum in Koln behind the Cathedral is probably my favorite place in Germany, having a little euro-fever lately.

highly suggestable:

After reading this entry on Angela's Sacramento Gardening Blog about 8 foot tall Lillies, I decided I needed some too, more than anything. If I got my order in under the deadline, next year I will have these in the flower bed I'm planning near the driveway and these in the back between the pink and yellow garden and the herb garden. It may have been too late, but hopefully they will take pity on me and give me the lillies I so desperately need.

World, last night I removed my old broken kitchen faucet and replaced it with one that works. Watch out World, I can do anything!

next up: shrubberies!

Here's a belated picture from my night of indecency. I'm sitting on the hood of a car in my bathrobe with the Sacramento skyline behind me (which you can't see) and Charr is testing some of her light techniques. It was a very cool experience being outside of what's allowed and yet not evil at all. I guess I don't think nudity should be against the law.

p.s. I don't really have a mullet. Anymore.

p.p.s. In a moment of blog synchronicity, Charr put some of the actual shots up today.

All I have to say today is that my friend Kim and I are excellent at making lip balm and solid perfume and we smelled fantastic last night.

Scratch all that. Tonight I am making lip balm and we have pina colada flavoring. Also if I am very lucky I will get to drink a pina colada while I am making the little lip balms. Get your kissers ready!

Tonight I am dumped for Halo 2. But I don't care because . . . well, I will have to think of something. Oh, I know, I will hang twinkle lights and quilt. That's right, remember once upon a time when I used to be crafty? And maybe I will make apple crisp with the 27 pink lady apples I brought home from Apple Hill.

p.s. and maybe if I am very lucky my internet connection will work and I can post a photo to this blog, wouldn't that be novel!

p.p.s. now that fall is here and the light is dimmer, thinking about twinkle lights always makes me feel better. It's like hot cocoa. Oh, I can make hot cocoa tonight!

Thanks to Tashia for finding my favorite post election website so far: SorryEverybody.com

I would like to submit and will have to think of what I would like to express.

How awesome is this:

For one amazing week in November, Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco has agreed to allow its estimated 20,000 books to be reclassified by color. Shifting from red to orange to yellow to green, the books will follow the spectrum continuously, changing Adobe from a neighborhood bookshop into a magical library—but only for one week.

All I have to say about that is that I'll be there! Finding a book based on color sounds like fate to me.

via Bookslut

I don't think I got enough sleep last night. I'm starting to compose business emails in my head as follows: Dear Foo Foo Face,

The Washington Times has an article out about weblog journaling versus paper journaling (via Largehearted Boy). Here's what my friend Julie says about it, at least the kind that I do: "I finally 'get' the weblog thing. It's kind of like all the random thoughts of the day I send you and my other friends, only your friends get to choose when they want to hear them. It's brilliant!"

My favorite moment on election night: when the NPR correspondent related Obama's wife announcing her husband "and now here's my baby's daddy."

My least favorite moment on election night: pretty much everything else.

"The bible-banging poor vote for the bible-banging rich man who has done nothing to improve their lives over the past four years. In fact, he's done many things to make their lives worse. And now THEY are the ones making MY life worse. Thanks. Thanks a fucking lot." -girlreaction

I know they're just people and they deserve my compassion but why do they have to be so very very stupid?

I was wondering how we would get through. Bookslut posted an Election Month Survival Guide. Check it out in your time of need.

I don't suppose it's possible that Kerry will win by such a large margin as to make reality-phobic Bush concede? We can always hope! Like all those Boston folks keep saying: Believe!

Julie helped me to figure out what I was for Halloween:
I think you were the daughter of a casino owner in Las Vegas, named Eliza. You left school at 15 to become a show girl, but are really an innocent at heart.

Unrelated news: countdown to the OC in T minus two days.

I've owned my house for exactly one year today! I wish I had a photo to post, but I've never taken one, will have to remedy now that we are entering the year of curb appeal for my home (currently a bit/very low in that area so maybe no photo is for the best). Warning: the following lists will only be interesting to me.

1st year changes, chronologically:

1. painted kitchen cabinets and counter
2. painted living areas
3. gussied up light switch plates
4. tiled bathroom, replaced toilet (thanks Paul!)
5. put checkerboard linoleum in kitchen
6. took out three shrubberies
7. tiled back porch
8. planned garden, installation of many key features
9. built new fence for back of backyard (thanks Chris!)
10. painted and installed new light fixture in bathroom

projected 2nd year changes:

1. replant lawn
2. rejuvenate front planter
3. tile kitchen counter and install new sink
4. bust out kitchen and install peninsula cooking station
5. reframe inside doorways between living areas for new traffic pattern
6. redo gutters to match trim and not leak

Kim posted a few pictures from our joint Halloween on her website 1, 2, 3. We had a wonderful time! (just don't ask me what I was supposed to be)

Tomorrow's the big day and so far I know how I'm voting on exactly one question (President). Let's just say I have a lot of reading to do tonight!

The True Love Cafe has a blog now, even though they don't have a cafe anymore, to keep in touch with all of us die hard groupies. They have a question out about other cool Sacramento coffee places. I still miss the True Love pretty badly but Infusion on 17th and K sounds neat to try out and I love the Java Lounge on 2416 16th Street though hardly ever get over there now.

As some of you may know, this crazy person is my ex-boyfriend. Obviously now that he's semi-famous he is beyond fascinating to me and my friends. It's very weird to see someone you knew pretty well get all of this fame and fortune. So, ever since I found out that his book was sold to be a movie I've wanted to know who would play him. Who would play your ex-boyfriends in the movie of your life? But it's not the movie of my life, it's the movie of his life and he will be played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Crazy, huh? This is especially weird to me since of all the actors in Hollywood Jake Gyllenhall is hands down my current favorite studliest hunk, except for maybe that guy from Bridget Jones's Diary (not Hugh Grant). Let's just say: not who I would've picked.

A list of this minute:

Pink Lady apples are my favorites, but I would like to try the Honeycrisp everyone's raving about.

I stabbed myself under my tongue with my ring finger while flossing and there's still a bump two days later.

Never refer to yourself in the third person on a conference call, actually ever.

Don't you think I need pink tennis shoes?

It's nice to hear the rain at night and feel snug in your own little ark, especially if there are two kitties purring in it.

Current favorite song: Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie by Joanna Newsom

My shower is really clean. I would even confidently let my Grandma shower in it.

I kept thinking about how funny this was all last night so I figured I'd better put a link up, Mainly to protect my friends from a bunch of "it was so funny, you should've read it" type comments: One woman's account of a Billy Corgan poetry reading.

via Bookslut

Do you know your President?


"Bush supporters have numerous misperceptions about Bush’s international policy positions.
Majorities incorrectly assumed that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues—the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%); 51% incorrectly assumed he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty--the principal international accord on global warming. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he opposed it increased from 24% to 38% among Bush supporters, but a majority of supporters (53%) continued to believe that he favors it. Only 13% of supporters are aware that he opposes labor and environmental standards in trade agreements – 74% incorrectly believe that he favors including labor and environmental standards in agreements on trade.

In all these cases, there is a recurring theme: majorities of Bush supporters favor these positions, and they infer that Bush favors them as well. For example, in PIPA’s September 8 – 12 poll 54% of Bush supporters favored participation in Kyoto, 66% favored participation in the land mines treaty, and 68% favored a treaty prohibiting testing nuclear weapons (CTBT). Apparently in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Bush supporters assume Bush feels as they do."

From the PIPA Report 10/21/2004

via BBC Blogging the US Election

Peter Gabriel Quiz update: My friend Charr also took the Peter Gabriel quiz and also turned out to be In Your Eyes. I went back to the quiz site and tried to put in a bunch of random answers to see what the other songs would be. Turns out I got In Your Eyes as the answer every time except for two when I got Slegehammer (which I don't even think Peter Gabriel sang). I am starting to wonder about the accuracy of this quiz. . .

Yay!!! Now we will have two things to celebrate next week! A new President who is not borderline-retarded and the season premiere of The OC!

What I think makes perfect sense is that whenever I become unfocused, start spending too much time on things that don't matter to me, stop living my own life in my own space on my own terms, the main thing that helps me to feel like myself again is cleaning my house and feeding myself homemade food.

What I think is weird is that my cat always knows when this is happenning before I do and tries to tell me.

What I think is fucked up is that she likes to tell me by going to the bathroom in hierarchically designated non-litter box areas. The pinnacle of these areas is my bed, specifically my down comforter, to be superceded only in extreme cases by the pillow, or when the case is dire indeed directly on me when I am in bed.

The surprise issue of Knitty is out and I love the Booby Scarf (I typed "Booby Scarfy" the first time, hee!) the most! I love the round fluffy breasts but the optional nipple might be a little too suggestive for my personal taste.

p.s. the surprise issue is also a breast cancer awareness issue! These people are obsessed with breasts for health reasons as well as aesthetic ones. Have you checked yourself lately?

I saw the American version of Shall We Dance yesterday and it was really fun! I excitedly pondered taking ballroom dancing lessons for about a minute until I realized they would definitely require me to wear high heels. Anyway, I was very distracted by this beautiful honest sort of unadorned song that they played during one of the climactic scenes and I found out it is a Peter Gabriel song called Book of Love. I had a lot of trouble figuring out if this is his song or a cover or what the deal is, but in my googgling efforts I did find this delightful quiz:

If you were a Peter Gabriel song you would be :

Love indeed. You very much the Charismatic person. You try very hard to honor those you love. Romantic. Just don't strangle them! Be a lover, not a hostage taker. That's only because of your deep passion for life and people,which no one can blame you for.

What
Peter Gabriel Song are you?

Now I never post quizzes, actually I rarely take quizzes, but I thought this one was oddly relevant because of how I found it. I also like my result, because I think In Your Eyes, and now Book of Love are the only two Peter Gabriel songs I know. If you are going to define yourself by something random, it may as well be by a list of songs most of which you don't know.

OK, it's a whole new world. I was clinging to my old template that had all of the code for my comments feature, and for all of my webrings (well maybe I was only on one webring, but still)! It's all gone now and so is my simple awesome old template. Apparently now I am not allowed to have a link to a single Archive page. I used to have a simple and classic "Archive" button that would lead to a separate page with all of my archived entries. Now I have to have a link to each of my archived pages on the main page. I use weekly archives so that's about 52 archive links per year for two years and counting, seems a bit excessive. And I guess we're not using tables any more because my sidebar is shoved down to the bottom of the posts since I put up a photo that's too big! I'm sure everyone else is already over these changes and has found the happiness and bliss that come with the new and improved.

Pop Quiz:

What kind of idiot decides to tinker around with the color scheme on her blog and then unintentionally deletes everything after the very first table tags. What kind of idiot would then decide the preview feature had a glitch and SAVE the template of her newly gutted weblog thereby losing every modification she had ever made. Hi, my name is Karin, nice to meet you.

It's actually storming outside right now and our office airconditioning was stuck on. In related news this is the first day I am wearing close toed shoes since about March. I feel like I have giant clunky boats on my feet. Between the shoes and wearing my outside coat inside, I feel like I'm walking like Frankenstein with all of my arms and legs stuck straight out.

In unrelated news I will be installing twinkle lights in my house. If you think that's tacky you should see what I've already done. Mortifying the white carpet world one piece of glitter at a time.

Fall is here. I spent all drizzly day Sunday making cookies and watching movies. And this morning when I came in to work with a tupperware of homemade soup for my boss, she had brought one for me too. And Tashia brought me french fries from McDonald's, this is the best lunch day ever!

Introducing my friend Allyn's new blog Lacubrious Tempo. After ages of questioning the point of blogging he's finally come over to the dark side. I for one am very excited for the day he starts putting mp3s and gig dates up.

p.s. he loves it when you correct his grammar and spelling

Taking Risks

Tonight I am going to do something illegal. My friend Charr is a kickass photographer and I've posed for her before a couple of times, nude. Tonight we're taking it to the streets and I will be photographed nude in public. Maybe this is stupid but I'm very excited and I have this crazy vibratey feeling that I only get when taking risks that I'm not sure I'm up to. Examples of situations that have given me this feeling:

1. Getting up on the blocks to start a race when I was on swim team.

2. The time me and Kim won a bunch of money in a bar contest.

I am so torn! I really need to see both Mean Girls and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, but I hate Lindsay Lohan! She looks like she's 50. And instead of soliciting compassion, this makes me hate her. She simply cannot star in anymore quality teenaged cinema.

Here's another installment in the long neglected "kitty porn" series.

In other news someone just called and told me he wants to move in and will give me the money next week. He's a really nice kid, but things happen. Should I believe this and stop looking?

Apparently my friend Tashia had a dream and got to talk to my cat Sabine about why she is so crazy. I have really thought about taking Sabine to see either a pet psychic or pet shrink because she has some severe behavioral issues. But of course finances never seem to provide a lot of money for pet therapy so we just muddle through. I buy a lot of Nature's Miracle and warn everyone that she bites. According to Tashia, when Sabine talks her voice sounds like Katherine Hepburn and Sabine explained that she had a very rough childhood that she could not get over. This is what I have always expected to be the case since Sabine was quarantined until I adopted her when she was 10 months old. I don't think she ever got enough love to get used to getting it although you'd think that 9 years with me would trump a few months as a baby. I am so jealous of this dream, I wish I could have talked to Sabine about everything.

This is what makes me the most crazy about President Bush: the Tardfactor (trademark The Talent Show I think). I'm so glad someone has come up with a term for it so I can hate it more concisely. It's the stupid eyebrow raising, "down home" talking, stupid way he acts that apparently makes a bunch of voters believe him when he says he is keeping America safe from terrorists. The Tardfactor makes him say "you can run but you can't hide" regarding nearly every campaign issue, although this clearly does not apply to Osama Bin Laden. And can you believe he yelled at Peter Jennings on Friday?

Isn't this little minisweater so pretty! I know I've pledged to make so many things so I won't even say it this time. I'm just saying I really like it and it's small, so whatever.

This could be the most awesome thing I've ever seen/heard of. Shannon Holman makes poems for Dutch Boy paint colors (link via apartment therapy). Apparently Dutch Boy doesn't name their colors so she makes them up and in making them up a poem comes. I have always wanted the job of making up the names for the colors, but I didn't realize I could appoint myself. Likewise I tend to use the names the colors come with (I guess I'm too cheap for Dutch Boy) to help me decide on my paint. When I was painting my bedroom and the choice was between "Purple Passion" and "Mom's Lipstick" I knew what to choose.


Great moments in paint name history:

1. I made my ex-boyfriend pick up the paint from the counter when they were screaming out "Racy Red" in front of everybody.

2. When I decided I should seriously start dating again I picked out a color called "It's a Boy" for the bathroom. It worked like a charm.

Don't you wish this were your day?

Have I mentioned that I wish my days included so much more wine, soup, and Fall? In other news a friend at work just told me in an offhand way that she has a rototiller that I can borrow. FOR FREE!!!

Getting older is so weird. Now if my date doesn't call for a few days I don't wonder if he still likes me. I actually wonder if he could have died since the last time I talked to him. I don't know if that's good or bad?

I know it's only fair that we should have to wait for Autumn since we get Spring and Summer weather so much more quickly than anywhere else in the country. But I can't stand it any more! I'm broke! I have no money at all and I want to stay home by the fire with a glass of wine and make soup and read all day until financial conditions improve. Now I don't think that's too much to ask in October for chrissakes, but it seems a bit ridiculous when the weather is 80F out. I even have knitting waiting for me, in a damned basket. I'm sorry, I am a seasonal knitter and I feel silly knitting out of a basket with a blanket in my lap when it is 80 degrees out. This issue is really bringing out my blasphemous side.

p.s. If you would like to pay me $400 per month to live in my house in Roseville, CA I am actually a lovely person and would love to hear from you at msglitter@comcast.net

p.p.s. I will now go to step class and ride my instructor's pony

The Talent Show got a copy of the notes Mr. Bush was writing during the debate. Check em out

thanks for the link Brian!

Awesome things my step instructor says on a regular basis:

1. "Here's pattern two for your beautiful pleasure."

2. "Now ride my pony."

3. "Shift the taillights back."