ghosts are good company

oh right, i graduated.

and got those seahorses in the previous post put on my body forever.

i’m antsily waiting to hear if i got a job - things sound promising, but they are taking their sweet time contacting my references. for now i’m (scouring job boards but also) living as if that is what’s going to happen, so i’m planning on couch surfing around seattolympia this summer (much like last summer, except under much lovelier circumstances).

yesterday was oly pride, which was ok - small town pride beats big city pride any day, except for when there’s not enough to do at littlepride and you’ve said hi to all your friends five times and don’t know what to do next.

so i went to a party and there was awesome music and square dancing (my favorite exhousemate was so amazed that i danced!) and babies and amazing gluten free cake, but then there was a “please save me there are no trannies at jake’s” so i went to the bars and the non-square dancing for a while.

saturday was the big gay bout, which was beauuutiful (and vagely offensive, if i want to read it that way), although the defeat of the pegacorns by the ligers was pretty devastating.

friday was solstice, monday the mariners lost to florida, which is just depressing, sunday was father’s day, friday was graduation, thursday i spoke up for washpirg to the board of trustees, tuesday i saw eli clare at u.w. (awesome) and then the sex and the city movie (not awesome), before that i was so swamped with school that i can’t begin to try to remember what was when. and the cosa nostra donnas kicked grave danger’s butt and i was sad.

so, we’re kind of caught up, yeah?

unsurprisingly, i have a paper to write - thus the post? but i’ve been a good kid lately. lots and lots and lots of school, because - i’m sure i’ve told you but just in case i haven’t - i’m graduating in three weeks. until then, so much work.*

so, life has been overwhelmingly busy, but pretty damn sweet. grave danger is playing the oly rollers tomorrow, my dad and stepmother and my favorite jaci are coming to the bout! it will be delightful to see all of them.

i wish that my great-grandmother wasn’t in the hospital - it puts quite a damper on the otherwise good. still, she is a strong one and i have faith that she’ll pull through again.

guess what’s winning the paper vs. sleep debate.

ah, well. goodnight, or good-whatever-it-is, to you. ♥

ohp.s.! i rasturbated my dino icon and it’s now on the wall, thirty sheets of paper, and it’s pretty grrreat.

*i just realized that this first paragraph is a summary of my last post. sorry.

i’ve been hesitant to post about this here since the last birthday i planned here went not so well, but… am going to anyway!!

this saturday the oly rollers‘ cosa nostra donnas are facing off against the rat city rollergirls‘ derby liberation front (aka my favorite team ever). it will be a challenging thing, me figuring out who i’m going to cheer for, but it will also be an awesome bout. i’m inviting everyone i run into to join me there, with the suggestion that they buy tickets online for $12 than risking it selling out and/or paying $17 at the door.

so! come! afterward there will probably be dinering, if anyone wants to just do that part… it should be a wonderful time at the bout, though!

today i programed what may be the gayest python “programs” ever, so that’s awesome. also it was one teacher’s birthday and the other teacher brought cupcakes and golly it was cute.

also today! my grandfather brought me a real!mattress, which is so much warmer than the air mattress that it is now on top of. I Have Learned that air mattresses are colder if it’s cold in the room because they (duh!) hold cold air!! this real!mattress instead holds, uh, fluff and springs. and my body heat, i love that part.

also since the video that nobody commented on, i am borrowing a nice armchair and side table from my housemate, and there’s a chair in the study!closet. you all so care about the exact details of my room.

20% of school done, with a 100% record so far. not bad, not bad.

most boring post possible. perhaps. but! warm!

tho bout was crazy. mad. wonderful. i got to work the door, organizing lines and making people sign waivers… it’s an overwhelming job. i spent the afternoon running up and down lines and bellowing news - we were sold out, we might be able to let a few more people it, we were really truly officially sold out. it was very strange to have interacted with nearly everyone by the time i sat down.

this week is calmer. no more flower job, less social plans. i’m waiting for my outdoor wheels to show up so that i can skate without paying the rink. i asked my grandmother if she wanted to come to skate lessons tonight, but… she didn’t.

my scarf is something like four feet long now, so that’s amazing to look at - knitting is really a place where you can keep an eye on your progress, where there is instant validation, if you will.

i’ve been planning my next few months, year or so, and i’m hopeful. i’m great at plans, and every so often i can make them pan out. this feels like one of those times - trans leadership summit is coming up, then evergreen, then summer. amsterdam. something. i’ve been eying a bunac visa for after amsterdam, i want to take a look at british housing/employment stuff and see if i could actually make it happen.

this is the part where i wiggle with potential.

aww.

for my first valentine’s day single in seven years, i worked until 3:30 am. it’s now 4:20 am, i got home and found a precious punny card from my mother - “thumb bunny loves you” (it’s me. and few other people).

later i have lunch with my friend kelly, and then even later i have working again. even though this job is a normal-length shifts, the weird schedule really makes it seem like longer days.

i love a lot of people, i thought i should let you know. if i know you, you’re probably one of them. i just thought i should remind you.

[[are puns de rigueur for valentine’s day? my grandparents have informed me that i’m a “tweet-heart.”]]

oh, hi blog!

lately i’ve had Too Much Staring At A Computer Syndrome, which i don’t think will go away anytime soon, what with the 35 hours of computer-staring i’m scheduled for next week. ah, well, at least they’re giving me money for it.

they’re also allowing me to knit in between jobs, which is great. i made a baby hat for a baby who is due to arrive a few months from now - the hat looks like this except more baby-sized - and am currently working on a scarf for my unclestephen.

stephen approached me at christmas about making him a checkered scarf and i said “sure, that’ll be easy!” before realizing that frankly, no. that would be confusing. i tried everything i could think of - stranded colorwork in the round, stranded colorwork to be folded over, just making three striped scarfs and then crocheting them together - before heading back to what i had been avoiding all along: double knitting.

i was avoiding it because it seemed harrrrd, and confusing, and (shh) sometimes i forget how to purl. the knittinghelp video on doubleknitting didn’t help much either because “um, i thing i messed up” in the middle doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?

eventually i found the stitchdiva tutorials and, while i was still confused, decided to give it a go. and now i’m this far! …and excessively proud of myself.

other things going: Plans for school might work out, apparently i could have walked at graduation last year, and i’m excited and nervous about heading up to the bay area next month for the trans leadership summit.

and those are things.

on tuesday my mother and i went to disneyland. we had a surprisingly delightful time. i know that politically, maybe not so much with disneyland, but… it’s fun. they’re nearing the end of their wildfire heroes salute so we decided to go - and i’m always a fan of wintertime at disney.

for christmas, my mother surprised me with a sister for aviva alexander. i decided (predictably?) to name her beatrice bartholomew, after the “darling, dearest, dead” love of lemony snicket. i decided that this trip would be nice for her first pictures.

perhaps the best thing during the trip happened while we were on tom sawyer island. there were two adorable kids charging around with their dad - maybe three and five? the five-year-old was wearing an awesome punk shirt.

another kid, maybe four, was there with his dad, and i just happened to be there at the right time to overhear, as the other family headed off, “do you know who that is? on his shirt? come on, you know, daddy has that shirt! it’s sid vicious!!”

there was also a group of pirates on the island, singing sea shanties. of all the ways to be an ambiance musician, it might not be the worst. they got to heckle the audience, and make… family friendly references to rum?

anyhow, twentysome more pictures and a bit more narration can be found in the flash gallery i put together here. extra credit if you can find the ghost of puck in one of the pictures! ♥

[[i just came back to add tags to this, because i forgot earlier… i was quite glad to realize that i already had a “pirates” tag.]]

hoo boy, internets.

i have my first official Derby Injury*. i landed smack dab on my butt today, and yowch. it hurts a lot. i’ve been icing it, and tomorrow i think i’ll start with pain pills. it’s my tailbone, but my back has been hurty also. i’m hoping that’s just from new postures i’m learning, rather than also from the falling-on-butt.

mmm,yeah. so there’s that.

big news in my world lately is that eve 6, the band about which i obsessed for many a year, is reuniting. kind of. frankly, i’m a little confused - two of the members have been playing together in a band called the sugi tap, and now those same two members are instead turning their sights to a eve 6 reunification - with the blessing of the old guitarist to have someone new on guitars. at any rate, they’re in los angeles on the 26th, and i’m hoping i can get up there.

my grandfather is town, and that’s nice. we had dinner with him and my aunt, which - other than my butt complaining, and it’s started to hurt so much more since then - was healthy and tasty. food is so good.

i have been watching heroes** and ooh, i enjoy it. i am excited about this tv season, there is lots going on and it’s entertaining. i’ve never really followed tv like this before, so it’s weird.

my favorite awesome baby is walkin’!

*so, i’m the newbie in derby boot camp. this means that i’m re-learning how to skate, and building up my stamina, and then will join the boot camp folks in learning turns and stops and things like that. after people master those things they move up to training camp where they actually learn derby-type things like contact and (better) falling. so i have trouble calling what i’m doing derby, but it’s a start.
**and ugly betty and grey’s anatomy and private practice and pushing daisies.

my aunt is a graphic designer. her personal site is here (in case you need something designed all fancypants), and she also works for a company whose catalog she produces every quarter.

this time, they’re doing some special stuff and on a rush, which wasn’t planned when their proofreaders booked a trip to london. left without proofreaders, the company asked friends and family to help…
and loved the work that i did.

which means that i have a reference for my job hunting (this part? amazingly wonderful.), and potentially proofing work with them in the future. hooray!

i just wanted to be helpful. it’s nice to be recognized for the helping.