Amazon has this new button you can add to your browser that will allow you to add nearly anything you can find on the internet to your wishlist. This is fantastic. Not just for glorious, disgustingly consumer aspect of it, but simply for keeping lists of things. I maintain a private wish list on Amazon, not for gifts, but rather so I can keep track of things I want to read or watch or whatever. Now I can keep track of things Amazon doesn’t have. I am quite gleeful over this. (And since I am talking about it, here is a gratuitous link my own wishlist, in case one of you won the lottery this weekend and were thinking you needed to buy me a present.)
Amazon has long ben trying to ensure that I rarely go anywhere else to get stuff and they are slowly realizing that dream. If Amazon Fresh ever becomes available where I live then I’ll have to get dressed even less often. Fabulous.
—
Had a fantastic visit with my sister. Did lots of touristy stuff, lots of chores, lots of lazy stuff and lots of laughing. I posted our pictures of the Lost Sea and Cheekwood on Flickr. Sadly we didn’t take nearly enough pictures of anything, but then we never do.
What I learned from this trip was that I still like travelling with my family and I need to win the lottery, so there can be much much more sister travelling.
—
I’m ridiculously excited for the new Harry Potter movie. I probably won’t go see it this week, but soon!! In anticipation of it, I made Libelle watch the Daniel Radcliffe episode of Extras (the scene with Dame Diana Rigg has got to be one of the funniest things ever put on TV) and we’ve had all the movies on in the background today (one of the channels is showing them all).
—
It’s been a much needed lazy day around here. I did actually bathe, but barely got dressed. I posted pictures online, read blogs, drank coffee, made lunch, took out the trash, read a little, picked up my room a little, washed my hair (very time consuming), and lazed around a lot. Very nice for a grey and somewhat stormy Sunday.
With my sister gone life returns somewhat to normal. Which means I need to start Getting Things Done. The only question is, what exactly will those things be?
The most immediate concern is, what will I do about dinner? Why are there no cute, red-haired (Weasley) boys to bring me carnitas? Or perhaps a nice Cobb salad? Instead I’ll have to forage on my own through the depths of the fridge. Sadly we did not make it to the store today.
Keds has this design your own shoe thing, where you can mix and match from their designs or you can upload your own pictures and get Keds made in any pattern at all. I don’t even really wear shoes like this, but I think this is so incredibly cool.
Oh! Oh my!! Dinner cupcakes, bread version. Dinner cupcakes, meat version. And then, after the dinner cupcakes we have delicious gay cupcakes.
Paper stars!! someday I am going to lock myself in the house and make hundreds of these. I will fill jars with them and give them away to everyone.
Trey Deuce Club, Vol. 1. Get it!
Filed under: ain't nothin' much
Pomegranate ice cream with dark chocolate chips.
Sunny but cooler day.
My little sister visiting.
Pounding headache. BOO!
Filed under: bookish, crankypants, mi familia, nashberg, owwie, screen time, weather report
Hot. Just roughly ten days of over 95°F and night time low temps of 79°F. Daytime heat index has been over 100°F. I’m not complaining exactly, especially since it’s spposed to break tonight. At least for a few days. I’m looking forward to that. But it’s the kind fo heat that wears you down and I’ve already had so much going on, all the kind of stuff that wears your soul down and the heat just is making things worse, you know?
Also, PNW people, I know when I lived out west I said that poeple here didn’t understand that when it was hot in the PNW it was worse because weren’t used to it and no one had AC. I take it back. Sereiously. It’s hotter here, even with AC, and harder to bear. I am saying this, only because I am here. If I was there and it was hot like this, I’d probably go back to my original opinion. 
I reserve the right to change my mind as often as I like.
And, I’ve said before, the weather in this part of the country still baffles me. I understand Seattle weather, how it lies between the mountains, how the clouds catch, why it rains, where the wind comes from, etc. In Tennessee things just don’t happen in way that seems normal to me. Cloud cover and night time don’t cool tempratures down. The hottest part of the day is at the wrong time and somewhat variable. Temps can drop, like they are right now, at 4 pm, on a clear and sunny day, for no reason other than a different weather system is coming in, unhindered by mountains and unchanged by oceans. I mean, I guess I understand it, it just feels so alien to me.
—
“Nonsense. Name a shrub after me. Something prickly and hard to eradicate.”
*SIGH* Oh Jack and Stephen, I love you so much.
So, uh, Im sitting here, reading some pretty hard science fiction and simultaneously watching Master and Commander. And suddenly I’m wishing the future was even more now. Where are my full text searchable databases of all the literature in the world? I have an impulsive desire to go look a specific line in the third book of O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series (which is listed in some Amazon entries as “Aubrey/Maturin” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) when I realize, oh, I don’t have any of those books here. And it’s too late on Sunday afternoon for me to go to the library. I suppose I could find an open Border’s books or something and look it up there, but that would mean putting on pants and brushing my hair. Too much effort. And in the other book I’m currently reading the tech allows almost anything to be searchable. And so here I am wishing for full text searchable databases of all literature.
When I was in college people acted like librarians would soon be an extinct thing of the past. Presumably because we’d all have these imaginary databases. I said, no in my lifetime. Tragically, it looks like I was right. Come on, technology, catch up!!
—
Normalcy begins tomorrow. I’ve been a wreck and I have no real desire to talk about why. I’ve been wavering in pattern of taking a day to try and equalize and recover myself, starting to regroup the next day and then either I do something to fuck up or some outside force interfers and I stumble and try again to take a day to recover myself and the cycle begins again, lather, rinse, repeat. Can’t go on forever and I’ve been seeing land on the horizon for a while. Land fall is tomorrow and so the rolling, tide-like cycle can end. Sorry for the nautical metaphors. The hazards of the combination of the book I’m reading and the movie I’m watching right now.
Wednesday is the next of the big dental apointments. And while th end is in sight, it’s still pretty far away. I reserve the right to still have an emotional meltdown after each apointment. I’ll probably come out of all of this needing therapy just to go into a dentist’s office again. Or maybe I’ll take my mom’s advice and take valium before the appointments. Not to be all drama queen or anything but the whole dental episode is still damn upsetting. I am very glad to have friends around. Everyone’s been very good to me and hopefully will continue to be even as I am prickly and unpleasent.
And all that said, I would give a lot, a whole lot to spend five days or a week alone at the beach when this is all over.
—
Crackjack Sister gets here tomorrow. I can recuperate and be touristy and half-way vacation at the same time. Having family here is the best because I never have to explain how I feel or why I’d do something a certain way. No, that’s not explaining it right. Suffice to say, I’m looking forward to relaxing with my sister. Sometimes there are Monday’s to look forward too.
I need to pick my next book to read. I just finished The Unicorn Road (excellent), Crooked Little Vein (incredibly lame) and Woken Furies (awesome).
My current options are Thirteen, Anansi Boys, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Children of God, The Lark’s Lament or The Catalans. I have excellent reccomendations on the last two. The Marquez one is surely good. I’m sure I’ll probably pick one by the time any of you read this, but let’s talk about books anyway. What’s good, kids? Tell me what you are reading.
Tim Burton is remaking Alice in Wonderland? HOORAY!!
I can’t remember who I got the link from over the weekend (Wm. Gibson, maybe? Seems like his sort of thing), but check out abandoned places. (The site is a little funky to navigate at first.) I need to make notes of things like this. Like if I won the lottery I could just tour weird abandoned places. That would be very interesting and surely take you all over the world.
This week I really need to get it together to make one of these light boxes.
I really want a decent, West Coast style burrito for lunch. Alas. Maybe I’ll get tortilla swhen I go out. Grump grump grump. If I go out. It’s really damn hot this week.
Yesterday’s storm seemed filled with crazy horizontal lightning. We were watching it out the restaurant windows and commenting how odd it looked. There’s pictures here and here. Crazy, crazy lightning.
I had lunch today with pretty baby Queen Mab (who is getting so big, three months old!!) and her gorgeous grandmother today. Such a lovely time. I need to remember to make time for such good company more often. And to see little Queen Mab more often, she’s getting big so fast and she’s so pretty and even tempered. Baby cuddling is by far better than therapy. I should have brought my camera. Next time.
I am working very, very hard to give myself the month of June off. Of course I still have to work at the restaurant, still have to go to the dentist, still have fret over MPMD moving away at the end of the month, but I am trying not to worry about HCT or any of my other projects. Just to breathe and relax and figure out the other things I need/want to do. Not that it matters. I’m still stressing over not getting enough done, and now additionally angry with myself for stressing when I’m not supposed to be. I might do better if I just stopped opening my inbox. The 122 unread/un-dealt with emails are getting to be a little intimidating. I swear, I’m only telling you about it so I can let it go. *deep breaths*
Another small trip to the dentist today. They really are nice, but I can’t seem to leave there without a headache. I except it’s psychosomatic. I am going to go lie down. Somebody send handsome young men to put a cool cloth on my forehead and bring me a cheese burger and deep fried pickles when I get hungry.
Filed under: astrologically speaking
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning June 18
Copyright 2009 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Your education is about to take a curious and interesting turn. During the coming weeks, I expect that you’ll upgrade your street smarts and explore a whole new meaning for the term “hands- on experience.” You’ll find out about an area of ignorance that was so deep and dark you didn’t even know about it, and you’ll take aggressive steps to get it the teaching it needs. Congratulations in advance for being brave enough to open your mind so wide, Taurus. I’m glad you’ll be hunting for a fresh set of questions.
Filed under: política
Tell the world how they have stolen our election
Filed under: muzica
I was typing in Notepad and hit some weird combination of keys that produced this: ♫ I wonder if I’ll ever be able to figure out again how I did it.
On repeat on the old iPod this week is Gaslight Anthem (again) most especially:
and
I feel like a heartsick teenager. Sometimes the only cure for that is pop songs on repeat.
I just read back through my last three weeks of posts here. Holy crap is that a pathetic, depressing stack of mass whininess. I mean sure, I don’t feel great, and yeah I’m definitely going to need to talk it out, but wow, I can’t believe any of you are still even reading this. So here are something that I have enjoyed recently:
Last night I came home from work and was checking that bitch, Facebook (got my url: http://www.facebook.com/crackerjackheart) and there was this gem from the Judge:
Status: The Judge has a CMA sunburn
(The Judge likes this!)
Comment from The Judge: “me too!”
I don’t know if you have to know him for this to be funny or not, but the whole thing together made me bellylaugh in a way I haven’t in a while.
And the result of a conversation making a reference to a line the Cory song “The Walkaround,” Libelle sent me the following email:
> From: [[LIBELLE]]
> Subject: RE: FRIDAY!!
> To: [[crackerjackheart]]
> Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 1:48 PM
> Funny story. The golden unicorn came by to deliver the magic flowers, and I was all, “Golden Unicorn! Can I keep you?” and he was like, “Well, do you have cake?” and I was like, “I can get cake!” and he was like, “Sure.” And then I was like, “I will call you Rainbows!” and he was like, “My name is Frank.”
> Well, I refused to call him Frank, and he refused to answer to Rainbows, and since we didn’t have cake, he ate the magic flowers and left.
> My bad?
You can see from this how all Libelle’s bad decisions result in my unhappiness. It’s a wonder I am friends with her. Especially after a series of texts with her yesterday (and, strangely enough, these texts were entirely unrelated to the above email convo):
me: The Kitchen is so clean!
Libelle: It was unicorns! You can tell because of all the glitter they left behind.
me: Hmmm. I don’t know how sanitary unicons really are. I’ve heard stories.
Libelle: Stories about dirty dragon ****ing?
me: Dragons AND dolphins.
Libelle: They are the whores of the mythical world. How they got a reputation for innocence I’ll never know.
And the recent post on Got Medieval on misericords for some reason just tickled me. (Also see the post about Ariana Huffington and then just read the whole damn site.)
Filed under: owwie
Not to be all super complainy drama queen, and I’m sure the dentist terror stories are getting old, but I had to share this. Let me reiterate that my dentist is amazing, very nice, very careful. This was, essentially, an unavoidable accident. Basically the lidocaine needle hit a vein. It should be a subcutaneous injection, but it’s not like they can see the blood vessels in your gums, so sometimes one gets hit. I was at the dentist Wednesday. Today is Friday. After a lot of ice packs and a lot of Advil the swelling is pretty much completely gone. Still, today I have this:
It’s pretty, right? (And almost as dark as the circles under my eyes, ha!) Seriously first thing this morning I thought I had ashes or something smudged on me, until I touched it and remembered how tender it is. It actually looks like someone drew it on me. Ugh. Am seriously considering putting off the next appointment for 2 or 3 weeks instead of just one week.
So I got all forward thinking the other day and started making lists of things I want to accomplish in the next three months, the next six months, the next two years. I feel good about these lists though I haven’t looked at them since I wrote them, as I feel kind of personally paralyzed right now and am afraid if I push it too much I’ll feel defeated by not having done enough of the things on the lists. I do need a kick in the pants. Motivation. I’m definitely mildly (though not to the point of incapacitation) depressed. I’m trying to pull out of it. But really the economy sucks, in the last month I’ve had to take more painkillers than I ever have before, I lost a fucking tooth and the guy I’ve been dating for the last six months is moving out of the country, probably permanently. So if I feel a little down I think I’m completely justified.
Recently I was out walking with a lovely woman I know and we were talking about a friend and I commented that this friend needed to learn to dream as big as possible, to see every possibility for the future and then scale it back to make his own life livable and to find happiness. Almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth I realized that I forgotten how to do this as well. Oh sure, I can remember how to complain about things I don’t have, things I’ve lost, things that have been destroyed. I can say, “wouldn’t it be nice if…” But somewhere along the line I’ve let go of how to imagine to most I know I can do and reach for it, even when whatever I am reaching for continuously morphs and changes.
I’m not exactly sure what happened. Maybe I set my sites on TN with a plan and everything around me evolved and I never changed my plan and suddenly was left stuck in the mud. Maybe that’s what depression is at its root: when you lose sight of both the near and far and you discover too late that you are mired in a deep pit of your own making. And I know sometimes you can climb out of that pit on your own and sometimes you have to ask for a hand to pull you up. Right now I think I can still claw my way up, but it seems to be getting slipperier. I just need to pause, settle to rest on a ledge, take a deep breath and remember that I can actually do anything that I imagine.
Dreaming big is a strange line to walk. I was born into a generation that was told we could be anything. Girls can have any job and everyone was equal and loved. Go to college and anything can happen. You too can be a Supreme Court Justice or cure cancer or make millions of dollars just working in an office. Sesame Street taught us that we were all special and bound for greatness, especially since we could count to ten! Every Gen X kid can tell you now that we grew up to a very different world than what we were promised. The future did not provide hover cars, excellent pay for so little work, or an endlessly growing economy. But still the place I’ve ended up has taught me a lot. I can find my comfort zone, define it and stretch it out, change it at will. I can keep learning. If I want to move to Spain I can figure out how to do it. When faced with the prospect of sliding back into the muddy pit of depression, I can reach higher, climb better and eventually lay myself on the green grass, in the sun to rest before I fill that hole so completely that nothing can fall back into it. I might only be a waitress but I am the best waitress you’ve ever seen. And when I dream of more than this, I become more than this. So when you see me, don’t forget to remind me that better things are surely around the corner. And maybe give me a cookie and hug because right now I’m still sitting on that ledge, halfway up the side of the pit I slipped in to.
Yesterday’s dental adventure was relatively painless, I guess. I mean being at the dentist wasn’t as bad as I psyched myself up for. Recovering from the lidocaine was miserable and I still have some swelling on the side of my face today. I am starving and would like to eat something substantial. And perversely, something hard and crunchy, but I think it’s definitely still soft foods for another day. On the upside I only have (hopefully, oh please, universe) two more major appointments, then I get the bridge and go back to feeling somewhat normal about my teeth. The partial (removable) tooth they made me is lovely in that it looks like a tooth and I can go back to talking mostly normally (it really isn’t just the vanity of it all but it’s really hard to talk without a lower front tooth), but I cannot get used to eating with it, which is sad because (of the vanity) I’d really like to not take it out except at home. Again, mere weeks/months and it’ll be pretty much over. I have to keep reminding myself that this is just a blip in the grander scheme of my life.
I was awake about 2 hours earlier than I’d hoped. Again I just couldn’t sleep last night. And then early this morning I dreamt that Boss Daddy was opening two more restaurants and didn’t tell me until they were just about to open. And then I was working at one of the new restaurants and my grandfather came in and told me how much he missed me. My grandfather has been dead for about 15 years and still I woke up crying. Some people you just never stop missing.
It looks like it might be shaping up to be a very thunderstormy kind of day. Hopefully it will break the swampy oppressive heat of the last couple days. I really don’t mind the heat, but I don’t like feeling like it is a wall I have to walk through when I step outside.
Alright, time for a soft breakfast, a shower and to set out and make something good happen today.
Filed under: poesía
What Spain Was Like
Spain was a taut, dry drum-head
Daily beating a dull thud
Prairies and eagle’s nests
Silence lashed by the storm.
How much, to the point of weeping, in my soul
I love your hard soil, your humble bread,
Your poor people, how much in the deep place
Of my being there is still the lost flower
Of your crumpled villages, motionless in time
And your mineraled fields
stretching agelong under the moon
and consumed by a vacant god.
All your confinement, your animal isolation
While you are still conscious
Surrounded by the abstract stones of silence,
Your rough wine, your smooth wine
Your violent and dangerous vineyards.
Solar stone, pure among the regions
Of the world, Spain streaked
With blood and metal, blue and victorious
Proletarian Spain, made of petals and bullets
Unique, alive, asleep – resounding.
- Pablo Neruda
Filed under: Libelle, ain't nothin' much, crankypants, mi familia, nom nom nom, owwie
I’m having a Day already. Now I’m just sitting around waiting for the mechanic to call and tell me how much money I am about to hemorrhage into my car. I have succeeded in not bursting into tears at problems I can’t control. However the postman just delivered a huge box of chocolate chip cookies homemade by one of my aunts. And that, my friends, was enough to make me cry. And I’m having cookies for lunch. Who can blame me?
Libelle pointed out several times this weekend that it is still technically spring but since I am horribly sunburned and covered in bug bites I am going to go ahead and call it summer in Tennessee.
So mere seconds ago I was pausing in typing, thinking hard about positive things I could post about (besides cookies and wonderful family members) and then I spilled coffee on my new shirt while I was thinking. I’m just going to go ahead and call today a total fail. Anything bad that happens from here on out is a given. Anything good is a bonus. Ugh.
Filed under: poesía
Ode to Broken Things
Things get broken
at home
like they were pushed
by an invisible, deliberate smasher.
It’s not my hands
or yours
It wasn’t the girls
with their hard fingernails
or the motion of the planet.
It wasn’t anything or anybody
It wasn’t the wind
It wasn’t the orange-colored noontime
Or night over the earth
It wasn’t even the nose or the elbow
Or the hips getting bigger
or the ankle
or the air.
The plate broke, the lamp fell
All the flower pots tumbled over
one by one. That pot
which overflowed with scarlet
in the middle of October,
it got tired from all the violets
and another empty one
rolled round and round and round
all through winter
until it was only the powder
of a flowerpot,
a broken memory, shining dust.
And that clock
whose sound
was
the voice of our lives,
the secret
thread of our weeks,
which released
one by one, so many hours
for honey and silence
for so many births and jobs,
that clock also
fell
and its delicate blue guts
vibrated
among the broken glass
its wide heart
unsprung.
Life goes on grinding up
glass, wearing out clothes
making fragments
breaking down
forms
and what lasts through time
is like an island on a ship in the sea,
perishable
surrounded by dangerous fragility
by merciless waters and threats.
Let’s put all our treasures together
– the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold –
into a sack and carry them
to the sea
and let our possessions sink
into one alarming breaker
that sounds like a river.
May whatever breaks
be reconstructed by the sea
with the long labor of its tides.
So many useless things
which nobody broke
but which got broken anyway.
- Pablo Neruda
translated by Jodey Bateman
Filed under: ain't nothin' much
As ever I have about a dozen tabs open in Firefox. Most are things I mean to read or act on in some way. Here is selection of my currently open tabs:
some hours are happier than others
the poster is pee-your-pants-funny (but you might not get why)
