September 1—Yet Another Reason I Dislike Exercising
I exercise for half an hour most mornings, but lately I've tried to incorporate some walking and running into my routine; I figure it can only make all the running around I do at work easier. So for the last few days I've been jogging in place in my living room before my regular workout. Today I decided to jog around my neighborhood instead so I could go faster than I can in the house. That's not saying a lot since my bad ankle prevents me from running very far, but still.
So, at five thirty a.m., I headed outside via the patio door so I wouldn't need to carry keys with me. I picked my way through the pitch black back yard, carefully avoiding the pieces of siding and scaffolding in the yard and fighting with the gate in the fence to let myself out. I began jogging down the street, feeling self conscious in my sports bra but telling myself it was pitch black outside, and nobody was up anyway. Then, of course, a car passed me, and I panicked as I saw it slowing down as it passed. I returned to the house and pulled a local crew shirt on over my sports bra. I headed back outside, jogged/walked around the neighborhood, and returned to the house. Naturally, I tripped over the siding in the back yard in the process and stirred up the neighbors' dogs, which in turn panicked my cats.
September 2—So this is why I'm single.
My dad's side of the family is mostly Irish, so I identify strongly with all things Irish. Today I decided to make boxty potato pancakes. Boxty is so popular that the Irish have a rhyme about it: "Boxty on the griddle/Boxty in the pan/If you can't make boxty/You'll never get your man." They're only thin potato pancakes, but potato pancakes are good, and I have an obsession with making perfect pancakes. Thusly I decided to make boxty.
It was a fiasco.
One of my potatoes was spoiled, so I threw it away. I peeled, chopped, and blended the remaining potatoes and mixed the batter, making it too thick. I shrugged that off and heated the pan, pouring in the batter. That, of course, was when I realized that overly thick batter makes overly thick boxty that won't flip easily and will not roll up neatly to contain the filling. The filling consisted of nearly-burned bacon and a wedge of Irish cheddar because I was too lazy to grate it. Of course, I use the term "filling" lightly since there was nothing to fill; I had to have it in a lump. I'll have to get more potatoes and practice making boxty till I get it exactly right.
September 3—I want to live in a one story house.
Tonight I was heading downstairs to reheat half a cup of tea when I slipped near the bottom of the stairs. I fell down the stairs with the mug in my hand, holding on to the mug for dear life since I didn't want it to crash to the tile floor and smash into sharp pieces for me to land on. I landed hard on my left wrist, most of the tea flying up out of the cup and splashing on the wall and floor. I landed squarely in the puddle on the floor. I groused, cleaned up the tea, swore at Bolie who was sitting on the landing and smirking at me, reheated what was left of my tea, massaged my wrist, and went back upstairs. I think I should invest in a chain motor rig to haul myself up and down the stairs.
September 4—Why I Never Leave the House
Early this morning, I went to the bank to deposit a couple of paychecks and retrieve a bit of cash for my excursion to Hole in the Wall this afternoon. I meant to use the drive up window, but I forgot to bring a pen with which to endorse my checks, so I had to go inside. I stood at the counter in the middle of the room and fought with the pen chain. There were two pens with the chains tangled around each other, and I struggled to free one of them. I succeeded without breaking either chain, smugly congratulated myself on my lack of clumsiness, and put the pen back in the hole on the counter, whereupon it promptly dropped through the hole into the counter below. I grabbed the chain and pulled it back up again, wedging the top firmly against the underside of the counter. I know by now that a quick yank is not how to fix that, so I gently tried again, freed it, and carefully placed it back in the hole. The end was a little bent; it'll probably explode on the next person who uses it. Then of course I realized there was only one hole but two pens. I spied another hole in the middle of the counter and tried to put the second pen in it, but the chain wouldn't reach. About then I realized that an elderly couple was resignedly watching me from across the room. I fidgeted, looked away hastily, and quickly moved up to the counter to make my deposit.
Then I went to a few different stores looking for a cute little pair of Mary Janes to wear with a few different outfits. I tried on a couple of styles, but they were both fairly ugly, so I did not purchase them. That, plus the fact that one pair of the shoes was held together with an elastic band, and when I tried to pull the shoes apart, one of them hit me in the face. I did not want shoes that behaved like that, so I left them where they were.
I returned home and logged onto instant messenger, talking to my coworker Robert about our plans to meet at Hole in the Wall this afternoon with Freefall (the real Freefall, not the cat) to hear Melissa Engleman play. I checked Facebook to see who all was coming and nearly had a heart attack.
Melissa had invited the coworker who doesn't like me.
How the hell?
Freaked out, I instant messaged Robert with the news.
"How'd you manage that?" he asked, laughing.
"I don't know!" I shrieked, immediately plotting plausible excuses to avoid attending the show and thus avoid trouble. I envisioned bumping into him and getting a drink "accidentally on purpose" spilled on me or finding slashed tires upon my exit.
"He might hate you, but he's not violent about it," Robert reminded me.
"Not yet," I said. "Give it time. About five hours." I continued to plot, wondering if it were too late to suddenly develop swine flu. Possibly I could go to the hospital with a broken wrist from falling down the stairs; everyone would believe that. Then I remembered I'd invited a few friends and ducking out at this stage would be inadvisable, not to mention transparent. I also reminded myself of my vow to end the nonsense and suck it up, so I attended the show.
I arrived at Hole in the Wall shortly after my friend Robert. I sat down next to him, only to discover that my barstool was wobbly. I swapped it out for the one on my other side with a great deal of aggravating squawking noises, right over Melissa's singing. The second barstool was equally wobbly. I blinked confusedly; Robert chastised me for not bringing a wrench with me ("What kind of stagehand are you?"); I grumbled something about the floor not being level and sulkily sipped my Lone Star.
Then Freefall arrived, and we discussed work and listened to Melissa, who came over to greet me after she finished her set. I told her,
"Um, remember that coworker I told you about who absolutely hates me? Uh, yeah—you invited him here today." I told her his name. The look on her face was priceless.
"I've known him since I was fifteen," she said. I winced a little, but I needn't have worried; she described him as surly and advised me not to take it personally. Of course I will anyway. Ah well.
Then Robert, Freefall, and I departed for the Mellow Mushroom down the street. We walked in to the strains of AC/DC, which immediately provoked grumbling on my part. I swear that band is a bad omen to me. Oh well. I wasn't hungry, having eaten before I left the house, but that did not prevent me from hogging Freefall's pita and spinach/artichoke dip. The three of us sat at the table and talked shop some more, badmouthing the badly hung projector and criticizing the lousy sound check going on in the front of the restaurant, at which point we decided to leave. I placed both palms on the table to stand up, and the table abruptly tilted forward, to my horror. The guys laughed at me and needlessly pointed out that it wasn't bolted down. I've had similar disasters before (many of which are the reason I've been kicked out of every single IHOP in town), so I wasn't totally shocked.
I drove Freefall to a birthday party he was attending, and then I returned home (in, surprisingly, one piece). Freefall (the cat) greeted me in the driveway, followed me into the house, and rounded off my evening nicely by standing on my keyboard while I was at the computer and Googling "67ggggggggggggy5ppppppppppppppppppppppppp" for me, which predictably produced no results.
Tonight I worked the load out for Jersey Boys. I experienced no more calamity than usual throughout most of the evening until the very end, when I stood with a bunch of other hands holding back a batten so the riggers could pull in the chain without it hitting the drop hanging from the batten. I was standing stage left with no one on my left, and I couldn't see much beyond the girl on my right. She was holding the batten up rather than back, and, not knowing any better, I simply followed her lead. I complained about having trouble reaching up, at which point the guy on her other side turned around, saw what we were doing, and told us that we . . . were doing it wrong. Luckily, he laughed at us instead of acting like we were idiots. So you might say the evening ended on a high note. Somewhat literally.
September 6—Entertainment While You Wait
Today's incident is one of social rather than physical clumsiness. Also, for once, it is someone else's fiasco rather than mine.
After I got home from work this morning, I found myself craving a cheeseburger and headed to Whataburger in the rain to procure one. Once inside, I placed my order and went to sit down and wait for it. I narrowly avoided sitting in the one chair in the whole place that was broken. At the last second, I saw the note taped to it warning people not to sit there and sat elsewhere. Then I watched in irritation as two girls started to sit there, but two guys near them told them it was their spot. They argued about it for a minute, and the guys won and nearly sat down. Then one of them spotted the note announcing that the chair was broken, so they pretended to have a change of heart and let the girls have the spot. Fine specimens of manhood in my neighborhood. Luckily, my food was ready before any further arguing broke out.
This morning I decided I wanted donuts for breakfast, and I left the house in the drizzle to head for Shipley's. I drove down 1431 toward Parmer, only to encounter a sign reading "1431 CLOSED HIGH WATER." I looked far down the road and didn't see any roadblocks, so I figured the road closure was beyond where I was headed and drove on. Naturally, not more than a quarter of a mile farther, I had to turn around. I thought irritably that I could still take 183 to Lakeline to Parmer, so I headed down 183 toward Lakeline. I didn't get very far before encountering another roadblock. Crap. I made yet another U-turn and headed to HEB to buy their crappy donuts instead.
It did not go well.
I sloshed through the flooding parking lot, sans trench coat or umbrella (at least I didn't have on a white shirt like one unfortunate girl in the parking lot did—the view was even more unfortunate), and squeaked across the tile floor somebody had just mopped. I made a beeline for the donuts, circling the whole bakery area like a not-quite-hungry-enough shark, trying and failing to decide what I wanted. I arrived at the donuts and had to stand there and wait for about five other equally indecisive people to get out of my way. I picked up a bag to put my donuts in, decided I wanted a small box instead, couldn't figure out how to return the bag properly to its hook, and stuffed it into the top of the rack. I then took a small paper box and completely failed to pop it into shape. I stood there and fought with it while people behind me stared and fumed. I finally got it approximately right, slopped four donuts into it while reflecting I should have just gone with the bag since the four donuts rolled around in the box, and tried and failed to force the lid closed. The paper wouldn't crease right, and I gave up trying to close it properly and jammed it shut crooked.
In the checkout lane moments later, as I fumbled for change I didn't have, a condom and a tampon nearly fell out of my purse. The former is, regrettably, unlikely to see use any time in the near future, so I should probably not carry it. Actually, I should probably not carry it so as to prevent social ruin such as I nearly experienced this morning. Meanwhile, the tampon had come out of its wrapper, meaning I probably shouldn't use it. I stuffed both embarrassing articles back in my bag, bought the donuts, and returned home.
Later in the day, my dad and I went to the store after it had stopped raining. I warned him that we needed to leave the house much sooner than we actually did, because it was bound to start raining again later. Predictably, he didn't listen to me, we got caught in a deluge as we left the grocery store, and all our groceries got soaked.
September 9—I could've done with a time machine myself, really.
I shall relate today's klutzy incident by mere copy and paste.
This morning I logged onto instant messenger, and the following conversation took place with a friend of mine who's experiencing some girl trouble:
[08:09:53] [friend]: i think i need a time machine, know anybody that has one?
[08:30:51] fuzzknot: Regrettably, no. Why?
[08:31:13] fuzzknot: Usually queries like that precede tales of woe; what's up?
[08:33:12] [friend]: tales of woe
[08:33:14] [friend]: :)
[08:33:29] [friend]: [girl he likes] in particular
[08:36:19] fuzzknot: oh noes
[08:36:32] fuzzknot: And one second while I wipe up the half cup of tea I just sloshed everywhere
[08:36:43] fuzzknot: but type on; I'll catch up.
He had time to type the whole sad story while I took a clean towel to the carpet I'd just ruined.
Memo
To: Apple Inc.
Attn: Steve Jobs
From: Lauren Brown
Date: 9/10/2010
Re: Me vs. Apple
Message
I have experienced many issues with Apple over the years, both Apple products and Apple policies.
My issues with Apple products include, but are not limited to, a Macintosh that wound up in a garbage truck, various crashed Macs on the UT campus when I was a student, frozen iPods, and iTunes crashes. I don’t know why y’all hate me so much; I own three iPods.
My issues with Apple policies can be lumped into the single category of frustration (to phrase it lightly) with your hypocrisy—hypocrisy mostly concerning intellectual property and censorship.
Once upon a time, Apple prided itself on being made for creative people; Apple was all about personal expression, the underdog to Big Brother. Nowadays, that’s just a tag line in an expensively produced commercial geared at materialistic empty-headed drones who think that buying a world-famous product makes them unique. All aforementioned drones have really done is purchased an overpriced product that’s not compatible with the other products on the market and which, by the way, has an OS that’s impossible to work with without a manual the size of a dictionary on standby.
Also, Steve Jobs, you have publicly complained that Microsoft stole from you. No. Y’all both stole from Xerox; give credit where it’s due.
Apple’s attitude toward freedom of expression bothers me the most, though. For instance, Apple recently banned an app from the iPhone called Wobble, which was used to create the illusion of jiggling breasts in photographs. Wobble is sexist, stupid, and childish, yes, but it is mostly harmless. Fuck you, Apple. Fuck censorship and fuck you.
I wonder why y’all don’t pick bigger battles. Oh wait, you do. You sent your hounds after Jason O’Grady and Gizmodo. And don’t forget about Sun Danyong. All those incidents could have been handled much, much better. When products get leaked, you could at least take the free publicity—the free publicity not resulting from a court case, that is.
I'd tell you exactly where to stick your fucking policies, but I'm afraid of hordes of Apple minions descending on me, breaking down my door, and rearranging my furniture in less than aesthetically pleasing ways. Similar things have happened before. See above concern regarding y’all’s appalling hypocrisy.
But you know what I hate the most about Apple?
This morning, I took out the trash, a perfectly ordinary occurrence. I placed a new liner in the trash can and lit a couple of matches to take away the smell of the fish I’d prepared yesterday. I blew out the matches and dipped the ends of them in water to make sure they were extinguished, and then I threw them in the trash. I went upstairs to check my email, and, minutes later, I smelled burning plastic. I ran downstairs in a panic, looking for flames and seeing none. My cats sat on the stairs, two wide-eyed bundles of feline nerves, staring at me as I searched for the source of the smell. At last, I located it: The matches, extinguished but still hot, were melting through the trash bag. I swore, grabbed the bag, and ran outside to stuff it into the can at the curb, arriving just before the garbage truck did. As I scurried toward the curb, my iPod, right on cue, began playing Pictures of Matchstick Men.
Really? Really? Was that necessary? I loathe impeccably inappropriate timing.
Sincerely,
Lauren Brown
P.S. This was typed on a Windows laptop. Fuck you.
Joke, not to be taken seriously.
I realize my iPod was not actually responsible for my small kitchen fire; I was, but so what. It's an excuse to air my many grievances with Apple publicly. I would have sent that memo to Apple, but I couldn't navigate their contact page, which is just one more goddam reason to hate them.
Anyway.
Far from being the only klutzy incident of the day, the above occurred before eight o'clock in the morning. Later on, I helped myself to some chocolate ice cream and—of course—spilled some on my light pink shirt.
Finally, I checked my Facebook page and saw I had a message. I don't get many emails through Facebook, so I was at once curious and suspicious. The latter proved the correct response, for it was an email from the guy I mentioned on February 22nd. For those of you too lazy to click that for the whole story, the guy in question was a creep who made inappropriate remarks to me, causing me to block him. Now, six months later, I figured he'd probably forgotten about me, and I unblocked him. It took less than a day for him to strike again. This is what happened:
The best thing would have been to ignore him totally, of course, but I couldn't resist. It took less than a second to respond; I typed the first words I thought and hit send without proofreading.
Incidentally, pervert who sent that email: If you're reading this, you're a creepy loser, and you should know that I carry pepper spray.
Today I made enchiladas with red chile sauce and tomatillo sauce, peanut mole, and baklava. As you might expect, there were many many spills, splats, and stains. Most notably, I discovered that I had somehow managed to accidentally purchase twice the number of almonds I needed for the baklava, so I wound up making two batches. Baklava has to go in the oven for two to two and a half hours, so I was later getting to bed than I wanted. It was only after the second batch of baklava was finished that I realized I hadn't bought twice as many almonds as I really needed; the other almonds were for the Irish chocolate cake I was planning on making later this week. Oops.
September 14—Who would've thought that the single phrase "That's video" could instill such terror?
I woke up early this morning and wrapped the baklava for work. I wrapped each piece individually in a double covering of plastic wrap, which took longer than I had anticipated, making me late leaving the house. I tore out of the house at top speed and sped down to the Erwin Center, where I was among the first to arrive. I offered baklava to the first coworker I saw, who, as it transpired, had just found out he was diabetic. *sigh*
Aside from that, I didn't have any outstandingly awkward moments at work. I tripped over everything, of course, but at least I avoided spills and injuries. That was a relief since my coworker who doesn't like me was there. I spent almost the entire day in the stands working video, which was something of a fiasco since of the six screens we had to build, only five screens had all the pieces in the case. One of said five screens was missing some screws and had to be held together with a great deal of tape. The sixth video screen never went up; they are getting a new one shipped overnight that won't be in till tomorrow, which I won't be dealing with.
Then, during the last hour or so before we went home, we went back downstairs to the main arena with everybody else. That was when I began my usual routine of awkward eye contact with aforementioned coworker who dislikes me. I began to grow nervous. 'No,' I thought. 'Suck it up and just talk to him already. This is bullshit; it has to end.' More easily said than done, of course, mainly because we weren't in the same area most of the time. Then the electricians started moving their empty road cases out of the way, a couple of which were near the video cases my crew was standing around.
"That's video," I heard my coworker who hates me say. I instantly tensed up as I saw him heading my way. I briefly contemplated hiding. No, no, suck it up, Lauren; this can't be awkward forever. Better to have an awkward conversation than awkward eye contact. As he drew nearer, I mustered my best friendly smile and said,
"Hey, how are you?" Then I noticed he was wearing an AC/DC local crew shirt—we met working at that show. "Oh, hey, AC/DC," I added, instantly mentally face palming at the idiocy of the things I randomly blurt out. Thank God he smiled.
"Hi. I heard you met my friend Missy," he replied. ZOMG. Melissa had blabbed. My smile vanished abruptly as I thought, 'Oh, God, what did she say to him?'
"Oh, yeah, she's real good," I spluttered at his back as he headed away from me. I freaked out silently for the rest of the day and made a note to ask Melissa what on earth she had told him.
To be continued . . .
Tonight I was at the Erwin Center again, where I spent the first half of the night in the stands taking down what we'd put up yesterday. One of my coworkers accidentally scratched my arm with a piece of the video screen we were taking apart, but other than that—and missing the elevator two or three times, skidding in spilled water, walking past where we were supposed to be working because I wasn't paying attention, and walking behind a forklift that then began backing up (yikes)—nothing unfortunate happened. I did leave behind the bag in which I'd brought the baklava yesterday morning, but I did that on purpose. I somehow managed to be among the first to sign out, and I didn't feel like waiting around.
As I was leaving, I saw the coworker who doesn't like me. I thought 'Fuck it' and called his name.
"You want a ride?" I asked.
"No thanks, I have a car," he said.
"I meant to your car, if it's on the other side of 35," I clarified, hoping I wouldn't have to beg for a walk to my car since the parking lot at night is a tad scary. He acquiesced, to my relief—and shock. I seriously expected him to say no and stomp off. Then of course I was faced with the horror of trying to make conversation with somebody who hated me. Awkward. Well thought out, Lauren. Luckily, he took care of it for me.
"So how'd you meet Missy?" he asked. Oh dear.
"I, um, I, um, I, um, I accidentally gate crashed a wake—" —No no, bad start— "—I mean, uh, a friend of mine was visiting me from out of town, and we meant to go to Sixth Street, only he hadn't budgeted for that, so we wound up at Hole in the Wall instead, and we were sitting there when this guy on stage made everybody be quiet and started passing around the mic and everybody but us started telling stories about this guy who had just recently passed, and it was really awkward, and then they all left and then she started singing . . . " I trailed off. Great, Lauren; way to make the most of your way with words. Luckily, he let it go, briefly mentioning his smoking habit but backing off when I expressed my distaste for it. I tried to be tactful, damn it. So, naturally, the topic changed swiftly. He told me he had an English degree, and I told him I had a degree in Radio-TV-Film. As he gave me directions, he told me a hilarious story that had me laughing all the way home.
It went much better than I'd anticipated; I hope he and I will be able to talk normally from now on. I'm extremely suspicious that everything will revert to catastrophically awkward by the next time I see him, but we shall see.
September 17—I always wanted to see Ireland; exile wasn't quite how I'd envisioned it.
Today my dad and I went to Houston to deal with the sale of my late grandfather's house.
In case you couldn't guess, it didn't go well.
Due to traffic (worsened by rain), we arrived twenty minutes late at the office where the paperwork was to take place. The lawyer presiding brushed that aside and offered us cappuccino. Wowed, my dad and I accepted, only to discover that it wasn't real cappuccino but rather some foul office dispenser that squirted sludge into a cup and then splatted gooey foam on top of it. Neither of us could force down more than a few sips through clenched teeth. I said little during the meeting, mostly due to shyness, and partly due to the fact that since I knew I'd be spending most of the day poking around in a moldy garage and barn, I was wearing ripped, paint stained, blood stained jeans, Chucks, and my hand knitted Dead Kennedys shirt. To a lawyer's office. My tasteless attire contributed to aforementioned shyness. For those of you who are not shy, shyness feels like being bound in hot cotton, and none of your words or feelings can escape. So I sat there like a socially inappropriate lemon and pretended to drink my cappuccino and wished desperately for it all to be over with as soon as possible.
Once the paperwork was done, we left for my late grandfather's place and gathered a few things we were taking back with us. Everything else was staying behind as part of the sale of the house. It's nearly all junk anyway, but for whatever reason, the buyers got a kick out of it. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and all that.
Then my uncle and his brother both showed up—uninvited, to a house that wasn't theirs, and to which they had never had any claim. My dad and I were appalled and embarrassed, continually casting horrified glances at each other behind their backs. My uncle and his brother are shamelessly sycophantic, you see, and the guy who bought the house used to be manager of the Astros. So they showed up to suck up—naturally, on the day of the sale of the house, the day the new people would be most intent on having the place properly to themselves. My dad and I very quickly began backing up to leave, but of course we got caught up in social graces. Or, I hear you saying—correctly—my dad did, at least.
"We'd love for you two to come back and see it when it's all done," said the wife of the guy who bought the house.
"Oh yes, we'd like that," my dad said. Talking about my late grandparents, the woman added,
"We've been reading about [them], and their story has become very important to us. I feel that we were . . . meant to be here, like something—" [she glanced upward] "—wanted us to do this."
I got in the car and closed the door.
Moments later, my dad joined me. Before we'd even left the driveway, we agreed that if we were invited back for a housewarming party, we would tell them we had emigrated to Ireland.
Nothing like religious rubbish to ruin an otherwise terrible day.
On the upside, at least we escaped my uncle and his brother, and at least I didn't have to deal with my aunt who constantly nags at me to get married and have kids.
September 18—I'll have to use a different cross walk next time.
I was on my way to Hole in the Wall this afternoon when disaster struck, nearly literally. I stood at Dean Keeton and the Drag, waiting to cross, when the light to cross Dean Keeton turned. I was halfway across the street when the number twenty-one bus, turning left from the Drag, nearly struck me. Way to check the street for pedestrians, Cap Metro. Jackass. I would never have entered the street had I known the bus was coming, of course, but by the time I was halfway across, it was already too late. I was very nearly late myself.
September 19—Clumsy cat + clumsy owner = `pe.45f7 x777x
Once again, today's klutzy incident is best explained via copying and pasting an AIM chat. I was talking to my friend Robert when I spilled Lone Star on myself. I grabbed a napkin to clean up and then wiped my lips with it, not realizing that the napkin had cat hair on it, which then transferred itself to my mouth. Somewhere in the process of this disaster, I accidentally kicked Freefall, who was sleeping on my feet. The remainder of his reaction is as follows:
[21:31:49] fuzzknot: He wants to sit on the window sill, but since we got the new windows in, my sill isn't in place yet, and the little wood thing there instead isn't wide enough for his fat butt to sit on, so he's just sitting on the floor staring mournfully up at it in between giving my feet dirty looks.
[21:31:57] fuzzknot: and washing, lots of washing
[21:33:47] fuzzknot: aw, I'm forgiven.
[21:33:55] fuzzknot: He's getting affectionate.
[21:34:03] fuzzknot: This will probably get out of hand; usually does.
[Here Freefall walked across my keyboard.]
[21:34:19] fuzzknot: oeuuuuuuu
[21:34:23] fuzzknot: t
[21:34:25] fuzzknot:
[21:34:28] fuzzknot: yep.
[21:34:38] fuzzknot: he also crashed iTunes beyond repair I think.
[21:34:55] fuzzknot: in addition to muting my sound somehow—wtf?
Naturally, he wasn't done.
[21:42:09] fuzzknot: bhhhhhhhhhhhhhdvthmn
[21:42:11] fuzzknot: eouii
[21:42:16] fuzzknot: `pe.45f7 x777x
[21:42:18] fuzzknot: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At that point, I signed off and went to bed.
September 20—"He" had better love that robe.
Yesterday, I decided I wanted a fuzzy bathrobe. I had one, but it built up a terrific static charge, plus it wasn't that fuzzy. Also, I wanted a men's robe so that, when I wasn't using it, I could stash it with my guest towels and things. I haven't had anybody staying over here (either a guest or a date) in close to two years, but no matter. My aunt maintains a well-stocked guest room, and though I don't have a guest room, I do keep guest items on hand, such as a couple of spare towels and miniature bottles of men's toiletries. I thought about my aunt's well-stocked guest room; she even had a robe and pajamas. I recalled that once a friend of mine crashed on the couch for a couple of nights but had neglected to bring pajamas, leading to me digging through my closet and producing a ratty pair of sweatpants that used to belong to my grandmother, which I threw away immediately afterwards. They looked terrible on him.
So today I decided to prepare myself better for future guests, and I went out in search of a robe. Not just any robe, mind you; I had a very specific image in mind: a dark gray-blue flannel robe with no pattern, full length, with patch pockets. Aside from being a pretty color in itself, gray blue tends to flatter most people. Besides, it would match my eyes. Surely a basic, pretty-but-not-too-feminine robe couldn't be that difficult to find.
It took all day.
I visited ten stores.
I went to Lakeline Mall first and visited Sear's, Dillard's, Macy's, and J. C. Penney. No dice. I tried the Kohl's across the street, which did not carry any of the items their site said they did. I tried WalMart and Target (the shame) and again had no luck, so I returned home and Googled exhaustively. Finally, on the Men's Wearhouse website, I located a perfect robe, although it wasn't flannel. Instead, it was soft plushy velour, meaning it would be too hot for guests to wear in the summer. Whatever. I could supply a pair of men's pajamas as well, that way guests could wear pajamas in the summer and throw the robe over them in the winter. It didn't matter; I had found a glorious deep blue gray robe with patch pockets.
I returned to Lakeline Mall and sailed gleefully into the Men's Wearhouse, poking around the suits and ugly ties and sock bargains. There were no robes to be found. Fuck. A girl working there told me to try the Round Rock location since it was a bigger store. I hopped in the car and drove to La Frontera shopping center and completely failed to locate a Men's Wearhouse. Disgruntled and suspicious, I returned home and Googled again. Yes, the store was there. No, I hadn't been looking in the right spot. I printed out a list of every Men's Wearhouse in town, including maps and phone numbers, and drove back to Round Rock. I located the store, sailed through the doors (a little less confidently this time), and glanced around, spying no bathrobes. The employee who helped me was not aware that Men's Wearhouse even carried bathrobes, which I took to mean that that location did not carry them. I left.
In the parking lot, I fished out my list of local Men's Wearhouses, retrieved my cel phone from my purse, and began dialing. The first two stores didn't carry them, but the location at Barton Creek Square did. Fuck. Barton Creek Square is nowhere near my house, and I knew that by the time I got there and bought the robe and left, I'd be driving home through rush hour traffic and rain. Oh well. I wanted the robe.
I parked in the ridiculously complex parking lot at Barton Creek and stomped irritably through the doors of the main entrance. I located a mall directory, found the Men's Wearhouse, and promptly made a double loop around the mall trying and failing to locate it. Finally, I spied it down the hall and slunk inside, lurking in the shadows until somebody saw me.
"Can I help you?" asked a middle aged man who reminded me horrifyingly of the Shoe Store Manager. The salesman before me looked nothing like SSM, but his attitude nevertheless reminded me strongly of the creepy cokehead pedophile I used to work next to. Plagued by sudden flashbacks, I reminded myself that this wasn't the same guy.
"I'm looking for a bathrobe," I replied.
"Oh, yes, you called earlier." He was the guy who'd answered the phone. I recalled his telephonic loquaciousness and wondered whether I should play along or grab the robe and get the hell out. I abruptly recalled something I'd said recently to a friend about trying to be nicer. I cursed myself—or at least my memory—and opted to play nice.
"I sure did." I tried to think of something else to say but drew a blank. Luckily, the salesman didn't notice and gabbled happily away as he escorted me to the robes. Actually, he was a little too nice. I began to grow nervous, remembering SSM's eerily similar antics.
"Here they are," the salesman said as we arrived at a rack with black, blue, and gray robes. He hovered a little too close for comfort. Starting to lose my composure, I snatched a gray one and babbled,
"Oh, that's great; he'll love it." He? Who the fuck was "he"? Oh well; run with it. "He wears this color a lot; he'll look great in it." Please don't ask for details. Please don't ask for details. Please don't ask for details.
"We've got a three-way mirror you can try it on in," the salesman suggested.
"Oh, great. I don't think I'll be wearing it much myself, but I'm sure I'll borrow it." I walked over to the mirror and stood in front of it in the mirror. I draped the robe on loosely and stared. I looked ridiculous. No matter; it wasn't really for me. "It's perfect; he'll love it." Again with that pesky "he" nonsense. No wonder you're single, I could hear my aunt chiding in my ear. Making up boyfriends and scaring off guys, even creepy ones old enough to be your father. Shut up, I thought. "It's for our anniversary." Now why the hell did I say that? Now I would have to invent some bullshit about how I'd met some nonexistent guy. Thank God the salesman didn't give a shit and his friendliness was limited to selling me things. I paid for the robe and got the hell out . . . returning five minutes later to exchange it for a dark blue one instead. Then I got the hell out.
I have no idea if anyone besides me will wear this robe, but should that happen, he had better by God love it.
I have several stories today, but probably the most entertaining is less of a klutzy incident and more of family problems that have awesome potential for impending awkwardness.
First things first, though.
I did some cooking today: Eggs Benedict for breakfast, then angel food cake, then enchiladas with tomatillo sauce on the side. The cooking did not include any more disasters than the usual small spills (including getting Hollandaise sauce in my sock when my makeshift double boiler overturned) and a couple of first-degree burns. I actually had a graceful incident today—well, kind of. Angel food cake, for those of you not in the know, has to cool upside down because it will collapse under its own weight otherwise. Tube cake pans typically come with built in legs so the pan can stand upside down, but mine does not include such legs, so in order to hold the pan upside down off the counter, I wedged the tube part of the pan over the neck of a bottle of Lone Star. I precariously balanced the Lone Star with the inverted cake pan on a plastic cake platter, the idea being that if the cake slipped out of the pan, it would land on the cake platter instead of the burner plates on the stove. The whole arrangement worked until I turned my back on it, at which instant I heard a loud crash. I wheeled around in horror, expecting to see cake crumbs and Lone Star bottle shards scattered across the kitchen floor. Instead, to my amazement, the cake had fallen off the Lone Star bottle and re-inverted itself. The cake platter sat as it had been, the Lone Star bottle lay on its side beside it, and the angel food cake (still in its pan) sat right side up on the counter top. WTF. I shrugged, appreciated my good luck, and rearranged the cake platter, Lone Star, and cake. This time I wedged it against the wall. That, of course, reminded me of Easy Money and had me snickering for the rest of the day.
Later, I ate enchiladas with a bit of angel food cake, naturally getting a bid of red sauce on the cake. Serves me right for putting them on the same plate. Meanwhile, my computer room was freezing cold, but I didn't want to put on my glorious new robe for fear of getting enchiladas or cake on it, so I just suffered. I readjusted the vent in my room a couple of times, but all I accomplished was discombobulating Freefall (who was trying to sleep in the chair I stood on to adjust the vent).
As I ate, I browsed the Internet, looking for a couple of cedar trunks to replace the two I already have. This is where today's main story lies. When my grandfather died in the spring of last year, his house stood empty for months. We would visit every couple of weeks to check on things while dealing with the legal labyrinth in getting rid of the house. Last winter, when nobody was in the house, a pipe burst (even though they had been wrapped), flooding the house and ruining the furniture. I salvaged two cedar trunks from the house, cleaning them carefully and then using them for storage in my room. The smaller one stores miscellaneous items in my closet; the larger one, at the foot of my bed, is where I store all my "naughty" outfits and so on. I call it the toy box. Hee.
Anyway, today my cousin emailed my dad trying to wheedle him out of at least one of said trunks, which she claimed she wanted for sentimental purposes. I rolled my eyes and refused on the grounds that she's a spoiled fucking brat who hasn't lived up to her job of executrix of my late grandfather's estate, not that she ever should have had the job in the first place since how is it remotely ethical to have a relative act as executrix? So, I told my dad, I'm not handing over a goddam thing until she pays us the money she owes us. Then my dad asked me, what if he were able to locate a couple of cedar trunks similar to the ones I already have? That was a horse of a different color. Even though I cleaned up the trunks carefully after the burst pipe incident, they still smell a bit—not so much of mold as of the sour smell of the house. My late grandfather never cleaned anything, nor did he air out the house. Sooo I wouldn't really miss those specific trunks, and at that, I only really need one. The smaller one in the closet I could live without, but I insist on maintaining a toy box. I find it particularly hilarious that that style of chest is called a hope chest, which young women use to store items they anticipate to use in married life. So a simple eBay search for "hope chest" yields plenty of results for what I seek, only I decided I didn't really want cedar after all since some people are allergic, and nothing would kill the mood like an allergic reaction. I began looking for other storage trunks instead.
As I searched for a new toy box, my cats struck. Freefall got his face into my plate and tried to eat my cake, causing me to stuff it into my mouth in giant forkfuls in a badly misguided attempt to finish it quickly. My mouth wasn't big enough, surprisingly, so I failed and simply shoved Freefall off my desk. Then Bolie leaped off my windowsill and knocked over my sheet music in a noisy, paper-scattering racket, and he landed on Freefall in a panic. They instantly began scuffling, wreaking havoc on my already-spoiled sheet music. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? OUT! OUT!!" I yelled at them, chasing them out of the room. They shot down the stairs, scuffling the whole way. I closed and locked my door.
Then I had an iTunes disaster. As stated earlier this month, and many other times as well, I loathe Apple. Today I found yet another reason to do so. When iTunes installed an update earlier today, it failed miserably, and I had to reinstall iTunes—twice. Nice going, Jobs. I listened to my music in Windows Media Player while I waited for iTunes to install, and I whined to a friend that I was perfectly happy with some clunky piece of shit if it worked. Then, of course, I actually opened the new iTunes. This happened:
[18:58:12] fuzzknot: Wait WTF? What in the FUCK? All that bullshit and all I can see that's different is they changed the ICON?
[18:58:20] fuzzknot: I WENT THROUGH ALL THAT FOR THIS?!
[18:58:25] fuzzknot: YOU FUCKING FUCK FUCK COCKASS SHIT
[18:58:29] fuzzknot: I HATE APPLE
[19:00:35] fuzzknot: OMG it sucks
[19:00:40] fuzzknot: I just opened the new iTunes
[19:00:43] fuzzknot: I hate it already.
Around then I started wondering if I really even wanted to use iTunes anymore at all. The snag, of course, is that I already own three iPods.
[19:02:00] fuzzknot: I wonder what the black market is for obsolete slightly dented iPods without headphones that have been repaired shoddily with e-tape.
[19:02:40] X: None.
[19:03:12] fuzzknot: Probably not very good since you obviously need iTunes to use them and considering the fact that the latest incarnation of iTunes will not let me uncheck the option to display album by artist, I think I had better keep them, at least to use as slingshot fodder.
Around then I decided it was time to go to bed.
September 22—. . . And this is why I own a toy box.
Today's klutzy incident is one of the more socially inappropriate variety. I was talking to a friend online about how I was looking for pajamas to store in the linen closet with the guest towels, and that was when I imparted this sad tidbit: "I bought a pair of men's pajama pants (couldn't find a complete set so I said fuck it; it's not like I don't have a metric shit ton of local crew shirts that can be used as tops), and now I'm looking at [toys] and contemplating the wisdom in having yet another piece of angel food cake. And people wonder why I'm single."
God only knows why I felt it would be appropriate to share that, or why I copied and pasted it over here. I guess I reasoned that if I'm going to be inappropriate, I may as well broadcast it into cyberspace so everybody else can get a good laugh out of it.
September 26—I've heard of Second Sock Syndrome, but never First Sock Syndrome.
Second Sock Syndrome is knitting slang for when a knitter completes one sock but doesn't start the second. I have never suffered from it since the way I see it, socks aren't complete unless both are. Like French nouns and the gendered articles; they're as one, not two separate entitities.
Today, however, I nearly abandoned the first of two socks when I had a disaster with the toe. I attempted the decreases twice and ripped them out twice, rereading and annotating the pattern, scratching things out while going "what the fuck?" Finally, I took some scratch paper and mapped out the whole thing, stitch by stitch, and deduced that I was not incompetent or going mad, it was merely the pattern that sucked. Serves me right for trusting a Lion Brand pattern instead of my own. Lion Brand, your basic yarns are terrific, but oh dear God do your patterns suck.
For those of you who knit, read the following and see if you can tell why it's terrible:
For those of you who don't knit, and for those of you unable to deduce the crappiness of the pattern, it is terrible because that particular instruction is physically impossible. The kicker is that the above is actually the corrected version of the pattern. Anyway, it's physically impossible because the decreases are totally lopsided. You start with seven stitches and then do all the decreases after that, meaning that those same seven stitches stay put while the rest of the toe decreases, and you run out of stitches with two rounds of decreases left on the other end of the round. It's terrible. Rabid foaming-at-the-mouth terrible. I mean for God's sake, it's a fucking professional knitting site, not some amateur hack's self-congratulatory blog filled with irrelevant e-feces and crappy, badly written patterns that haven't been tested. (Ahem.) OMG. I'm going to have to post the whole thing in Bad Knitting now. WTF.
September 27—How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
. . . And for once, I (arguably) didn't start it.
Yesterday morning, I received a friend request on Facebook from a filmmaker friend I hadn't spoken to in a couple of years, ever since he deleted his Facebook account and we lost touch. His resolution to stay off Facebook lasted a record three weeks before he reappeared, albeit in anonymous format. Over time, he gradually began adding friends and photos and whatnot, and he is now as much a participant as ever on Facebook. I didn't bother to re-add him because, though I like him well enough, he did have his moments of overly personal crudity that bothered me a bit. Most notably, he tended to make comments I found inappropriate coming from a married man. Nevertheless, I accepted his friend request, wondering if he would get up to his old tricks.
He did.
Yesterday, we exchanged a few messages, catching up. He mentioned that he'd been losing weight, and I discussed my infamous crushes in ARSE. Then, in the wee hours of this morning, this exchange occurred:
Before I even got the chance to issue a dubious apology, he deleted me off his contacts list—which rather proved my suspicions. Please note that it only took an hour and a half.
Today I purchased new shoes—Converse XX-Hi tops. Here I am wearing them:
Contrary to what the photo suggests, I actually do like them. Not contrary to what the photo suggests, they are a pain in the ass to put on. They have zippers up the back, but the laces still have to be loosened before I can jam my feet into them. At least they unzip easily. Regrettably, my fence nets snagged in the zipper and nearly tripped me in the Williamson County Annex today.
The Williamson County Annex is an only-slightly-more-tolerable variant on the local DMV; it's very much the same nightmarishly dull waiting room in which you have to take a number and sit interminably, surrounded by seemingly gratuitously irritating characters. I tagged along with my dad today while he dealed with paperwork involving the sale of my late grandfather's car. He tried to deal with this the other day, but they insisted he didn't have all his paperwork completed and would have to come back and sit for an hour in the waiting room again. So today he went again and I tagged along, and we sat and sat and sat, and then when they finally called his number, he produced enough paperwork to put the logging industry to shame, and, naturally, they told him he didn't actually need most of it. As a matter of fact, everything he had yesterday would have been fine. Brilliant. That resulted in me leaving an unsigned card in the suggestion box suggesting that the staff of the Williamson County Annex do something physically impossible with the suggestion box. Let's hope they read that but not this.
September 30—I do not want this.
It's a Nine Inch Nails song, genius. Then again, maybe "Ruiner" would have been better for today's title.
Today I designed the pattern for the Nine Inch Nails shirt. It was a never-ending snarl involving a great deal of scratch paper, uncertain poking at the calculator, and crude sketches. And crude snarling. It probably would have gone better if I had tried to design the pattern from scratch rather than seek out an existing one. Oh yes indeed, I think I have fodder for Bad Knitting.
It is always easier to work from an existing pattern rather than trying to develop your own, rather like a recipe. Let somebody else do the hard work and then tweak it to suit yourself. Sometimes, though, it is impossible to obtain the results you want: Either the original pattern is terrible, or no pattern exists for what you want to create. And indeed, the existing pattern I found that led to this mess was terrible. I found a pattern on knitty.com (the URL should have been the first clue that this wasn't going to go well; everything on that site sucks) for a tank top with straps that crossed in the back. I decided I wanted to knit it, in black, with the NIN logo on the front. Simple enough, right?
Alas.
The pattern was badly written, with no explanation as to what many of the decreases and shaping were for. Little tip: If your knitting pattern results in people needing six pages of scratch paper and a calculator to figure out, you're doing it wrong. I believe that all decreases and shaping in a pattern should be clearly explained so that knitters understand what they're knitting. That way knitters can easily tweak the pattern if need be and, arguably more importantly, can tell if what they are making resembles what it's supposed to. This pattern, regrettably, did no such thing. I sketched out the whole thing on scratch paper to figure out what all the random decreases and shaping were for, and I discovered that it wouldn't work. It would have been too big around, with a too-low neckline and a too-high hem. In short, a torn burlap bag would have looked better. I redid all the math and took copious notes explaining the shaping to myself, and by the time I'd finished, I realized I had written a new pattern. It is now featured in PAWP. The Knitty page that triggered it will soon feature in Bad Knitting.
