May 2002 Archive

Friday, May 31, 2002

I wanted to write a few pithy things in my blog before I headed to Grinnell to go to my college reunion. Hasn't happened.

Miscellany:
1. Had a successful garage sale.
2. The work tide has turned in my favorite. Meeting lots of interesting folks.
3. Summer is here. It's above 70 degrees, therefore I'm cranky. But I'm enjoying the summery-ness so far.
4. I am the Master of my To Do list.
5. Remarkably, I leaving with only a few dishes in the sink, and no client loose ends to worry about. Ahhhh...
6. And what goes well with sandals and warm weather? Road trip.

Later.

posted on 5/31/2002 11:35:03 AM

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

The Great Closet Cleaning of 2002
In my relatively small apartment I'm afforded a big walk-in closet. It's got lots of built in cabinets and a built in vanity. It's big enough that someone could sleep on the floor, but not big enough to fit a twin mattress in. When I first moved into this apartment I got my first computer and the vanity was my computer desk. I worked out all right, albeit makeshift. Then freelance ramped up and the computer "room" wasn't cutting it. I moved the computer out. And all the junk in.

My impending Saturday garage sale (Hooray!) has stimulated the closet cleaning. Yesterday, I officially finished cleaning the closet. The only thing left is to file the three boxes of paper - but that's for June. I told my friend Jim, "May is for purging, June is for filing all the paper stuff and July is for cleaning everything else down." He laughed and said, "You're such a boy!" Yeah, well...

Awhile back I looked down and noticed that mice had been chewing at a roll of art tissue I had in said closet. It's the kind of tissue paper that comes in bright, bright colors all folded together. I took notice of it, but didn't think much of it. I live under the delusion that there's only one mouse entering my apartment, whom I catch out of the corner of my eye every so often. And as I'll paraphrase from my friend Billy, "Mice are polite, it's rats that are assholes."

When I unearth the tissue paper I saw just how much the mice had chewed through the layers - the results are gorgeous. I have to frame it. But between the resulting chewed up tissue paper, Styrofoam peanuts and little chocolate mouse poop jimmies, my ambivalence is waning. I won't be enabling any more mice nests.

Well, I was sure I'd run across something irreplaceable sacrificed by tiny mouse teeth. Sure 'nough. The only picture I own of my penguin costume at Grinnell College. I never took pictures until the last few years with my digital camera fondness, so there's a dearth of college photos. And given my love of Halloween costume making, it's sad that I lost it. But better that piece of paper that something really important.

Another causality - a promotional bag of microwave popcorn that a totally un-popcorn-industry company sent me. Since I keep all my dry goods in glass jars, I don't have mouse problems in the kitchen. And since I don't have a microwave the popcorn got tossed onto a closet shelf, waiting to be given to a microwave-loving friend. That bag was emptied.

Oh, and I've learned that mice like desiccant. And dye thickener for Batikit dyes. Go figure. I wonder if they actually eat the contents, or just figure it's potential food and chew through the plastic. I imagine when they got through the plastic and paper of the microwave popcorn they all high-fived each other and said, "Par-tay!"

posted on 5/21/2002 09:50:42 AM

Thursday, May 16, 2002

Things I've learned (or were reinforced) in the last week

[[|]] Dance hard enough and centrifugal force will make your nose leak

[[|]] My friend Ross really doesn't like me talking about gross stuff in this blog.

[[|]] Listening to music REALLY LOUD is VERY GOOD.

[[|]] Eddie Izzard should be my boyfriend.

[[|]] Plagarism sucks. Happened twice this week! Once case easily solved, one not so much. Imitation in the most sincere piece of crap.

[[|]] There's a vast difference between being in your early 20's and the late 20's.

[[|]] Spring downpours are nice.

[[|]] I adore the library and love a productive afternoon there.

[[|]] A closet can remain uncleaned for years. Wowsa.

[[|]] An impending garage sale is very liberating. It liberates all the accumulated junk from your apartment.

[[|]] Few things are more satisfying than great conversation.

[[|]] Few things are more satisfying than making someone laugh.

[[|]] It feels really good to help.

[[|]] Few things more painful than a terrible conversationalist.

[[|]] Never underestimate the time-delay factor of networking. You'll never know when contacts will resurface.

[[|]] Tom Jones singing "Chills and Fever" is two minutes and fifty second of pure listening pleasure.

[[|]] Art Chicago was rockin' and well worth the annual five hours of walking on concrete.

[[|]] Being appreciated feels really good.

[[|]] Cheese blintzes don't enter my life (or mouth) often enough.

[[|]] I've got to convert my websurfing time into Loosetooth.com improvement time.

[[|]] It's comforting that while I'm trying to find formal shoes for the Fred Flintstone feet, my sis with her genetic overlap and similar feet has accomplished this task.

[[|]] I've learned my true shoe size. Rather than compensating for the wide feet with bigger (9-10) shoes, I'm a 7 1/2 wide. *shrug* If only they made strappy, fun, low-heeled black satin shoes for men. That's how I fulfill all my other shoe needs. I knew I'd have to act like a girl someday.

[[|]] I've got a penchant for cheerleader movies. One of the many wonders I would have never discovered without my mega cable tv package.

WOAH. It's the 3:07 and the sky just got really dark and ominous. Holy poop. Feeling like I'm in the atmosphere is one of the joys of my 12th floor well-windowed apartment. Trees bending and waves whipping up on Lake Michigan. Temperature drop.

Well, back to the grindstone --
Who am I kidding? Back to dancing around and singing really loud --

posted on 5/16/2002 02:46:21 PM

Wednesday, May 08, 2002

Pride
On the same train ride downtown, I spotted an old guy halfway down the car. He had on a hat with the "=" symbol on it in yellow on a black box on a red hat. I thought, "Huh, isn't that the gay pride "Silence=Death" icon? I wonder if that old guy knows that? Or if he bought it at a second hand place?" This guy, who had white gray hair and was snoozing, seemed an unlikely candidate, I guess. But I could only see the top half of his head, so I didn't have a lot of data.

It reminded me of my friend Jim bringing me to The Alley for the first time. For those not in the Chicagoland know, The Alley is a big smarmy store at Belmont and Clark. Sorta goth, sorta grunge, sorta riotgrrl. You can buy a gajillion black t-shirts with pissy statements. Or vinyl clothing, or police jackets. Anyhow, the store is big and has several counters, and the cashiers have walkie talkies. So, Jim and I were at one end of the store at a counter when this came over the walkie talkie, "Hey, You think I should let this straight couple buy a pride ring necklace? I don't think they know what it is. Pretty sure they're straight - they're holding hands." Jim, the cashier and I giggled knowingly.

But, what do I know? I just happened to look up from my Print magazine as said old guy was leaving the train. He was wearing a denim jacket with a gigantic homemade pink triangle on the back! About 18" tall in pink glitter/sequins, with a wide silver border. Awesome. I was corrected. He was well aware of what his hat was communicating and damn proud.

posted on 5/8/2002 01:59:07 PM

Sunday, May 05, 2002

Stop laughing.

Believe me, I'm tired of hearing myself talk about my online store. It's becoming a monkey on my back that sporadically smacks be in the face and makes lots of noise. While I've been agonizing over whether to PayPal or not to PayPal, I've been gathering all of the inventory in my apartment (mostly jewelry and rubber stamps), creating infrastructure, and generally mucking about.

Yesterday, I finished the graphics for a couple hundred of pieces of jewelry. I'm getting very, very close.

And please don't be affronted if you don't hear from me, socially, via email or otherwise. I'll resurface soon. Introversion reigns.

Ah...Freshly Scrubbed
Stayed up late, slept in late, woke up, worked out, showered, made a bitchin' omelet and now I am feeling great. I've created a new time management system, or which I'm starting my fifth week. I'm an information design geek, so this plan does include laminated pie charts. These charted are another litmus test. People either envy me and they think I'm truly insane.

The impetus was two fold. One, to create a schedule that didn't mean sitting in front of the computer for hours on end. Two, to contain my client work, so that I'm not futzing around all day, and finally knuckling down pre-deadline. The schedule is meeting those two ends and fulfilling several more. It's helping me reach my goals through investing time in three sources of income, my art, the site and client work - not the current of habit of leaning hard on client work. But the most unexpected outcome of the new schedule is that I most look forward to exercising. I never would have guessed. Since I'm a slow starter in the morning, I give myself time to putter around ramping up into client work. Then just as I about to go into my afternoon coma, I workout, shower then make lunch. I adore that freshly scrubbed, renewed feeling afterwards

Brain hurts
The campaign to wean myself off of caffeine is going fairly well. My caffeine delivery system was Coke, then I switched to Diet Coke about six months ago. Now I'm trying to cut back to next to no caffeine. I'm getting the headaches. Feeling achey. General cranky. Then yesterday I went nuts and got a supersized McDonalds meal. Good god. I have never ordered a supersized meal before, but it seemed like a good idea yesterday as a break in my marathon day of production work. Holy poop. I was embarrassed to walk the block and a half home with the gigantic soda. I shirked along. All of a sudden I felt like one of the gagillion overweight Americans as carried my $4.63 take of fat and sugar. Well, the diet Coke did get me through hundreds of Crtl-C's and Crtl-V's. So fantastic. So, while my brain doesn't hurt at the moment, I am totally pining for a 20 oz diet Coke.

Well back to the grindstone!

posted on 5/5/2002 03:06:30 PM