ghosts are good company

corgi and bess

Originally uploaded by capnpuck

per my previous post. his name is peter.

actually, when i came to add a post to the blog, it was to say none of those geeky things. it was instead to share with you the fact that

I HAVE FIGURED OUT WHAT I WANT TO BE FOR HALLOWEEN.

if only i had realized before 5am on halloween that I WANT TO BE A GNOME for halloween.

because, i mean, they are round and cozy and perhaps the best ever. all i need is… a hat. which i could knit if i had time. and a belt. which i could knit if i had time. and a beard. which i could fashion if i had time.

we’ll see how it goes. for now, look how much cuter this child looks as a gnome than i ever will (i just looked at that link as if it were a parenthetical, and said to myself “for now, look how much cuter than i ever will” doesn’t make sense as a sentence!!”).

for now i am studying up on my gnome puns just in case i dress up and go out somewhere.

anyway, whatever happens, may this day be full of at least a little magic and peace for you all. gnome what i mean?

other things:

+ you have probably realized by now that i am safe from the fires. a lot of people aren’t, and if there’s a way for you to donate/help out that you feel comfortable with, please try.

- amsterdam application is still pending based on three items which are all out of my control. in fact, these are the same things that it was pending on two weeks ago. and the program is full. apparently if those things show up at the study abroad office soon, i should be able to get on the waitlist. yes, i *have* actually been in touch with people about these things.

+ i should be able to get back on my skates soon. i need to remember to start shuffling around the house on them, so that i don’t panic the second i get on skates at the rink.

i’ve somehow managed to become nocturnal again. it’s interesting, rather like the world is hanging upside down. it’s not very good, though, because by the time i’m ready to be productive, it’s late and my mind tells me that i should be going to bed, so then i’m not productive in hopes that i’ll go to bed, but i don’t.

today i made gross scones out of strange mexican pancake mix (it was “tres estrellas” brand; i should have held out for cinco estrellas) and pumpkin. i ate one, but i still have two more sitting there and leering at me.

i also made quiche. i think that quiche is somewhat the perfect food, as it combines lots of different foods and also has protein! which is important and i don’t get enough of. however, my pie crust skills are currently lacking (they used to be good, but have declined for want of materials such as real butter). this is the second quiche i’ve made since getting home from seattle - i bought a dozen eggs and distributed them evenly. hurray quiche.

there are twelve days left to pack up my house, after which i will be moving to san diego. i’m getting panicky because i’m having a very hard time getting started. i’ve been acquiring boxes and i’m pretty sure that i have enough, and most of my stuff is actually already in boxes, but i’m still super-overwhelmed.

i started a savings account for my amsterdam trip. i’m getting 5.27% interest or something, so that’s nice - and also it’s preventing me from giving in and buying these amazingly attractive shoes that happen to be on sale and only available in my size. i love fluevogs and don’t currently have any particularly femme ones - just these boots and these in pink and black. i might still have them in white and black as well, but i wore those out pretty quickly my first few years of college. oh fluevog, you do hold claim to an extensive piece of my shoe-loyalty heart. when you’re on sale. and now you’re working on lovely vegan shoes as well? quite tidy.

that was an extensive shoe-related tangent. i have a lot of shoes. this is a problem that comes with being deeply invested in many gender presentations and having an obsession with shoes. perhaps if i picked just one gender presentation, i would have just as many shoes pertaining to that one as i do now. of course, i could just have more (of course we would, we’d just eat more).

i’ve recently come to adore this comic. usually when online comics release books i manage to convince myself that their online presence will be enough for me, but here… a bit of me aches to hold suspenders and glasses tangibly in my hands. i’m a little bit too much like suspenders. seriously. the author has an art show in san diego that’ll still be running for two or three days that i’m there. maybe i can go.

i have to decide if i want to, on saturday, go to a blythe doll meetup in san jose or to a flashmob dance party at the ferry building or to watch clueless at cubbie’s house. i’ll probably end up at the latter, because (can you have latter if there’s more than two items? if not, final) it’s people i know, but it’s so so weird trying to be his friend.

recap since last entry (if just because that’d be a sad note to end on): i did not go to ground kontrol, instead i went to a store called collage (i think), where i purchased things to make a thank you card for the folks’ at whose house i spent the night. i did go to see the bishop allen show, and it was delightful. i am still obsessed with roller derby, and the san diego derby dolls have their bouts a mile and a half from where i’ll be living. hurray!

i hope you all are doing well. recommend me good podcasts, if you want to.

i’ve been busy (haven’t we all?) - with school, of all things! online classes have been doing me pretty well; i’m six weeks in and haven’t screwed anything up as badly as i tend to. my in person class is also going well - last wednesday we went to the glbt history archives. cubbie came along, and we both fell in love with the place. i got to take a tour of the museum of flight’s archives a few years ago, and that was fascinating (and huge), but these… smaller, quaint, and so much things i have worked with and wondered about for the past while. unlike airplanes.

i’ve been going through my music collection, culling out cds that i want to sell (…somewhere). recently, i’ve applied that practice to the music on my computer, deleting about six gigabyte’s worth of files. now i’m listening to all of the songs alphabetically. it’ll take a while. i’m currently listening to “act iii scene ii (shakespeare)” by saul williams. saul is pretty amazing - i got to work the show he played while i was at evergreen. actually, i asked if i could see his hand stamp at the door, and he looked at me and said in a very serious deep voice, “i’m saul.” pretty soon the person across from me doing the same job asked the opener to see her handstamp, so i felt a little less absurd.

speaking of live shows, i’m really looking forward to seeing the mountain goats with cubbie in a couple of weeks. i hope that the show will be as exciting as the one cubbie and i saw last summer, but without the long winters will be playing at the same venue. i miss seattle, and i don’t know if going to that show would help it, or make it worse.

it’s eight in the morning. i think that my neighbors are making stew or something. with pork. huh?
OH! this is the thing i really wanted to tell you about. i just finished reading this book, aaron renier’s spiral bound. i would like to recommend it to everyone, as, i imagine, would the author. it’s a deliciously drawn graphic novel with a fantastic group of characters, and an impeccable storyline. please, please, try to find a copy. especially if you like indie culture, or food, or children, or any combination of all of the above. or vegetables. no, not vegetables, anthropomorphized animals.

yes. once you have made an effort to acquire it, you may go about your regularly scheduled business. go, go!

i was going to ramble at you about the four humours because i am a little too sanguine and choleric and phlegmatic. so i looked it up to see if the fourth humour was something in which i was lacking, but it’s melancholy and i’m generally full of the black bile, so why have the bile and the phlegm and the blood taken over? melancholy is better than this mysterious sick.

although, i like to think of the four humours as the houses in hoggy hoggy hogwarts. see the table at this part of the wikipedia page. we’ve got black bile, which is my lovely slytherin house. from aristotle’ four sources of happiness, propraitari. gryffs, although this is debatable and increases the gryffindor/slytherin overlap, would be blood, characterized by courageous and amorous actions. yellow bile is our yellow house, the bumbleriffic lovely hufflepuff, who work on their ethikos (moral value), and then phlegm as the logical, dialogike, ravenclaws. although really, we could just as easily make slytherins blood, hufflepuff black bile, and gryffs yellow bile. i should decide these things before i ramble. looking at the whole table, though, that makes a lot more sense - looking also at fromm’s eorientations, kretchmer’s character styles, spränger’s four values, etc.

you have to understand, i’m also listening to eddie izzard’s “highlights of history.” if you are familiar with that delightful piece of comedy, you will be much more familiar with the batshit crazy logic that is going on at the moment.

hi ducklings! i’m sorry i’ve been gone so long - christmas travel, of course, but now that i’m home i’ve been trying to stay offline and work on unpacking. which has worked a little, but not so much now, as i have a new distraction in my life.

yes! dolly!

i got a green dinosaur for christmas, but not a dolly, so i decided to acquire one with my christmas money. this is aviva alexander. she’s a little shy and nervous about these pictures because 1) i couldn’t find a camera, so they’re macbook shots, 2) she’s wearing the clothes that came with her, which the other blythe dolls tend to make fun of, and 3) she’s an adg (ashton drake girl?), which a lot of dolly-parents tend to frown upon. BUT! i am delightfully happy with her, and am currently working on sewing in new hair (hi, welcome home, i chop open your head!). soon it will be all red and pretty. hurrah!

i’m not going to have as much time soon, as school starts on wednesday (i’m still pretending that it doesn’t), and we have visitors coming monday, one of whom might be staying a while (i’m not sure). still! visitors will be delightful, although that means i have to clean the house and maybe i can feed them some of the soup that i made last night. num.

anyhow, back to all of those Things!

i’m about to watch the star wars holiday special.  i’m hoping that it will bore me to sleep, but i’m afraid that it will be so bad that i will be riveted with awe.

solstice, christmas…  was crazy.  i had a lovely time christmas eve with cubbie’s family - they seemed to love the quiches and stuffed mushrooms that i brought to the table, and i felt included in all of the celebrations, which was wonderful - especially since it was also ok that i went to lie down in the middle, when i needed a rest.

and then we got here, and i’m afraid that we weren’t, or i wasn’t, quite as supportive of poor little sick cubbie.  he’s sick and my mother is sore, although healing well, and my grands are tired of being such good caretakers and we all just need a nap!

i don’t think i’m ready for this star wars special.  it’s been four minutes and there have been baby wookies eating cookies and that’s nice, but they are kind of annoying, when they’re being scolded in…  wookish.

BORING.

i really missed my seattle family.  it’s been the first holiday in a few years without seeing them, and that’s so odd.  i don’t even know the next time i’ll be able to get up there.  graduation, maybe.

wookies?  boring now.

bye.

cubbie and i are in florida visiting his family for christmas.  it is a little too warm for me here, so i’m currently sitting under a fan and listening to the wind blow through the trees outside of the open window.  i’m sick, i have a cold which has been around for far too long.

the funny thing about this cold is that it started at about the same day my mother went in for surgery, and so i’m hoping that when she gets to leave the hospital, i’ll not have a cold any more.  at least, i hope that’s the way it works - if the cold lasts until she is fully recovered from surgery?  i’ll be very frustrated at the end of those few months.

we head that way on christmas.  i was afraid to fly on christmas, at first, but it sounds like it’ll be fairly quiet on the plane, so that will be good.  hopefully mum will feel well enough to celebrate!  if not, we can all stand around the bed in a made-for-tv-movie type fashion and send her air hugs, so that we don’t injure her with lovin’s.

he’re the secret: knitting.

it’s not so much of a secret, but i’m not very good at it and i’m kind of shy about it. i’ll bring my knitting along, but mostly only to class, or to family occasions. i’m pretty much only a square-knitter. so i’m a little scared about the patterns i’ve fallen in love with from the most recent release of knitty.

the first pattern that i’m in love with? it’s norberta. remember that love of green dinosaurs that i confessed earlier? norberta could easily be an adorable green dinosaur.

secondly, there’s twinkletoes. i’ve always had a love for ballet slippers, and lately ballet flats have been my favorite shoe. sooo, yes. cubbie and i could wander around (or slip and slide around) our house in adorable slipper sock ballet princess land (but shh, don’t tell anyone that we’re princesses).

and finally, oh finally, there’s sheldon. sheldon is a turtle whose shell comes off. for some reason, that is utterly adorable to me. he reminds me of a stuffed turtle there was when i was little that would turn into a rabbit, but sheldon also has his own special shell-as-backpack charm. oh, sheldon.

so here’s the trouble with knitting: i want to start knitting all of these things right now, but i don’t have the right needles! i have yarn that would probably work (if sheldon wanted to be bluuue), but i never seem to have the right needles on hand.

still! here’s to knitting, and strange and juvenille fascinations.