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Sunday, October 31, 2004

 
11:45 PM: 28 days later [#] [0]

eeeeeep! 28 days later is a great halloween movie! *shudders*
[update: but it's a great movie even without the halloween sheen. i'm still talking about all the things that work in it.]

 
6:48 PM: new additions to all hallow's butte [#] [0]

introducing...

angry pumpkin and sad alien pumpkin!



philip lent me a big lab coat and sven lent me mad scientist welding goggles for a passable costume.



happy halloween!

Saturday, October 30, 2004

 
11:47 PM: quicktrip [#] [0]

unlike leopoldo's lushly detailed vermont trip report, my seattle trip report (god, was that last week?) will be brief, except for one extended rant:

1. thanks for hosting, xie & susan!
2. dinner w/ monica & dan (hi!)
2. dan's pazuzu play (ee!)
3. twilight zone (& i finally got to meet maggie!)
4. scifi museum (meh.)
5. the lovecraft plays: after getting to the open circle theatre and reading one of the two programs they had to share amongst the 8 or so audience members, 10 minutes after the show was supposed to start the stage manager comes out and says, "i'm sorry. because there are so few people here tonight and we don't want to make you uncomfortable, we're going to cancel the show if that's okay with you." what? no, of course it's not okay! make -us- uncomfortable? so i raise my hand and say, "we're from portland. this is the only night we can be here." and he looks at us for several very long anguished moments before he says, "well, i'll go ask." so he goes backstage and the silence is deafening. when he returns 10 minutes later, he says, "i'm sorry, i'm sorry. but we're still going to cancel. i hope you can make it to another show." and he won't look any of us in the eye. every time i tell this story the first thing someone says is "what happened to 'the show must go on'?" i am still seething about this: even if they had left a note on the door cancelling it would not have been nearly as horrifying.
6. i still like carmelita's.
7. and the graphic novel persepolis.
8. got home with enough time to unpack, check email, and pick up leopoldo from the airport.

 
9:37 PM: minor miracles [#] [0]

raspberries! at the end of october! wtf?

Thursday, October 28, 2004

 
9:58 PM: serious matters day [#] [0]

so sven and i signed a piece of paper yesterday (well, several pieces of paper) that gives us the ability to make decisions about the other if they're unconscious or otherwise unable to communicate. michael hall & alison witnessed it even though they were sick.

in general, the idea of a "serious matters day" each month seems to be a fairly okay way to deal with big scary things like death & finances. the trick is to only tackle ONE thing at a time. even doing just one thing a month is more than you would have done if you did nothing. the other trick is to allow yourself to carry over the one thing to another month if you've overestimated or have a few more details that need to be handled. back to my favorite rule: something is better than nothing!

i had initially thought one of these per year would be sufficiently better than nothing, but having done one i now see that the momentum is pretty useful. and because you can slide a project across several serious matters days, it limits the "i have to get everything perfect the first time" mindset. it also means that you can be fairly flexible in case you run into holidays and such. and it means you can reserve one of the serious matters days per year to simply review everything to make sure it's still accurate.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

 
11:06 PM: the moon is not a mass of incandescent gas but we love it anyway [#] [0]

sven & i were able to watch the eclipse from beginning to end! i was afraid i was going to have to drive eastward past the mountains to get cloudless skies tonight, but through some miracle the weather cooperated beautifully and we probably had the best viewing of anywhere in a 3-hour radius. we were out at the top of powell butte till the gates closed at 8 p.m., which gave us a huge city panorama as the moon was swallowed by the earth's shadow, turning chocolate brown, red and eventually orange. then we watched from our front porch, huddled in blankets, as the moon shrugged off its dark robe and shone brightly again. i love eclipses! now having seen two in a relatively short amount of time (the next one doesn't happen till 2007!) i'm surprised but pleased to note that each one is different.

and then, because it was the full moon, we ate freshly hardboiled eggs and made a wish.

 
11:42 AM: total eclipse of the heart [#] [0]

don't forget there's a total eclipse tonight! it looks like i'm going to have to drive east this afternoon past the mountains and the clouds to see it. and in an odd cosmological coincidence, it looks like jennifer is leaving csusm; she'll be in chico in a couple of weeks. my last night of work at csusm was accompanied by a lunar eclipse, too.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

 
1:36 PM: demons & unspeakable horrors & flat tires, oh my! [#] [0]

off to seattle to see dan's play "pazuzu goes to the mall" tonight and then to see the hp lovecraft 1-act plays tomorrow (and the scifi museum yes yes!). but first, i had to fix a flat tire on trixie. this time, instead of waiting for the aaa guy, i actually changed to the donut tire myself (after sven briefly intervened with a big steel pipe to loosen the lugnuts), and then took it to the les schwab on 42nd & powell, because they fix flats for free and are pretty quick & friendly about it, too.

Friday, October 22, 2004

 
2:31 PM: happy belatedbelatedbelated birthday to me! [#] [0]

i just got presents for my birthday! sandy sent me pictures frames & a photo album, because "digital doesn't preclude flipping through real photos." one frame is even specifically for amelia in the hopes she will "become an upstanding feline" by increasing her self worth. well, it can't hurt, anyway. thanks, sandy!

 
10:33 AM: cute and HORRIBLE! [#] [0]

i think "cute and HORRIBLE!" is my favorite genre, hence my affection for edward gorey. in that vein (ha ha!), leopoldo recommends "making fiends."

 
1:59 AM: only a bunnyboy [#] [0]

ran across rob's new journal entirely by accident. only two posts and already it's got depth and humour and style.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

 
10:28 PM: pumpkin fairies [#] [0]

sven & i played pumpkin fairies tonight, delivering little orange bundles of joy to joanne, mph, michaelmas & jalex. and today sven gave me two edward gorey cardboard cutouts! alas, we still have no actual plans for halloween.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

 
10:49 PM: hoppy halloween [#] [0]

the sicknesses continue. yesterday michaelmas was sick, and today, after a lovely time at sauvie island picking this season's pumpkins, i fell dizzy and close to vomiting. i had to go lie down for a few hours for it to pass. by the time we were to see little shop of horrors (which both sven & i thought was mediocre, and for sven especially is a shame since it's one of his top 3 musicals), i could totter about and look sad, but i was glad to come home and collapse again. sure hope i feel better tomorrow.

btw, say the phrase "papa pumpkin" three times fast.

Monday, October 18, 2004

 
3:53 PM: dreamdav [#] [0]

i KNOW there's got to be a better way to manage webdav on dreamhost than setting each directory up individually. but i've spent all symbolic link and redirect and webroot tricks on it, and the result is the same; i can webdav, and i can set my own webroot, but they can't be the same thing. damnit!

Sunday, October 17, 2004

 
4:49 PM: closing [#] [0]

portland open studios yesterday: a recycled computer parts artist (with a chatty gardener husband), a furniture painter, a calligrapher (even if she did use more glitter than -god-, she had a marvelous carolignian hand), an encaustic artist (who we saw at last week's memorial service!), a trip to the vita cafe, and a digital photographer.

afterwards we took a trip to city liquidators, one of those crazy industrial buildings that lives under the maze of se bridges. they have incredible prices on used file cabinets and excellent prices on lots of other used furniture, including the largest drafting table i've ever seen, with drawers and hydraulic adjusting, for $300 (about what i paid for my current, much smaller drafting table). their flat file drawers, which is what we went to look for at the suggestion of one of the artists on the studio tour, are about half of any other flate files i've seen, but unfortunately, that means they're still $300 or $400 for a 4-drawer unit, which puts them out of my price range. they still make me drool. :)

portland open studios today: another furniture painter (the bright green studio in milwaukie), a natural collagist (with a martha stewart studio!), a clay sculptor (where i almost bought a very nice bowl!), 2 mezzo/mono printers, and a weaver.

so now that we've seen over 20 studios, on our own studio agenda is creating flat file shelves, paint and/or color, and a comfy space.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

 
10:24 PM: waking the beast [#] [0]

we picked up leopoldo at 7:15 a.m. to take him to the airport and it was a good thing we did, as he had forgotten to set his alarm and was sound asleep when we rang the bell twice and then pounded on the door. fortunately, i think we got him there okay and i hope the rest of his vermont trip goes more smoothly.

and trixie's back! hooray!

Thursday, October 14, 2004

 
11:58 PM: trick or trixie [#] [0]

alas, i took trixie in for her 45,000 mile check-up and to fix a potential battery issue. they said it would be ready after 5 and that they'd call me, but i said they wouldn't be able to reach me because i'd be out all day. when i got there at 6 p.m. they said it would be ready "any second now," and asked me to wait, though after 10 minutes passed i got worried because i had to be at the iprc orientation at 7 p.m. so i asked again, and after a while of no response, someone came in and told me the guy who had been looking at it went home without telling anyone, so i'd have to pick it up tomorrow. apparently they did the battery service, but now the battery light in the dash is flickering and they don't know why. i was lucky enough to have sven there, but if i was at csusm this would have crippled me: how would i get home? how would i get to work in the morning? how would i even get to the dealership to pick trixie up again? grrrrrr. this is the second time i've been to this dealer and i'm not that impressed with them. the toyota dealer service department in escondido totally rocked, though.

anyway, no trixie. this'll be the third scheduled luxury day that turns out to be something else: sven was sick, then i was sick. and now trixie is sick. meh!

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

 
11:29 PM: shaun of the dead [#] [0]

it's better than you think. it's even better than you hope. and i saw it w/ michaelmas, sven & meadling.

speaking of rob, he got a half-time job at mt. hood community college as a circulation librarian! congrats, rob! (but he's looking for another part-time job, too, if anyone has any leads.)

Monday, October 11, 2004

 
11:51 PM: opening [#] [0]

portland open studios: on saturday we saw 5 studios waaaaaaay the heck out in beaverton & hillsboro & hillsdale. two recycled artists (one of whom owns a thermin, to sven's delight and hope), 1 watercolor, 1 sculptor, & 1..... interior designer (very nice lettering work, if only she could spell...!). found a house i would almost like to rent, but it has a crazy neighbor, so no. :P

on sunday we saw a stone artist & a painter with an incredibly organized studio & office, a marble maker who made a lot of his own tools, a felt artist, a paper basket maker and a mosaic artist. then we went to kaelin bowers' memorial service in laurelhurst park.

btw, there's the best treehouse on sw 3rd & barbur! and at one studio i read an incredibly sad poem that i can't seem to find a copy of online: john gilbert's "trying to sleep."

Saturday, October 09, 2004

 
9:26 AM: duck duck duck duck goose! [#] [0]

alas, we missed the first half of last night's pres debates. sven suddenly remembered he hadn't turned on the vcr and we began at the point where kerry was talking about health insurance issues. but we finally saw the vp debates, which made me groan almost the whole way through. i don't know why people keep saying the debates have been "even": in the first pres debate, kerry was cleary more articulate and knowledgeable and coherent; in the vp debate, cheney was clearly the more substantial debater. it turns out i don't like edwards at all. what i'd like to see is a debate between kerry & cheney.

sven & i went to see david zuttermeister's show at tiny's. i haven't seen him in a very long time & cathy even remembers me from when i borrowed a bike rack from her at burning man! for his part, david recognizes sven from reed. he had several abstracted portraits in the front and a 3d collection in the black blue room he was using a psuedonym for.

yesterday amelia woke us with the most horrible noise she's ever made. i rushed downstairs, but it appeared she was well: only one tiny bit of crap by the litterbox, with nothing else amiss. but it did turn out to be a bad day in that my uti is still hanging around, so the doctor prescribed me a larger dose of something more extreme. boy, i hope that does it. i hate spending this much time thinking about bodily functions.

and did i mention we've been invaded by fruit flies? still, better than the ants.

the packetwarp/puddingbowl/dreamhost transition is not kicking my ass, but it is making me feel a little overwhelmed, the kind of vague unease where you don't want to look at it full on and keep squinting at and around it, or finding something else to do instead.

oh, but in the midst of all this, i forgot to mention chas sent me an antarctica dream dollar a while ago! in addition, he's offered me his old letterpress if i can come get it, which might work out well since we're planning to go to colorado for thanksgiving. eeeeeeeee! i hope it all works out!

Thursday, October 07, 2004

 
8:48 PM: you better you better you bet [#] [0]

badness:
sven was sick for a long time. then i was sick. and then i got a uti! we discovered calendula has closed.

goodness:
* had a good long talk with sandy, where we talked about what we always talk about: usc, her horses, my xbf's friends & family. and today's her birthday! (go, sandy!)

* i got a random ichat greeting from someone who claimed to be "an antipodean admirer/blog reader." as i was idle for over an hour before i received the message, i didn't know whether that meant "diametrically opposed" or "on the other side of the planet." i put that on my list of things i didn't expect to happen to me that night. two weeks later, i got an ichat response (s/he meant the other side of the world). but we still haven't actually chatted. :)

* the iprc letterpress class! which was neat even if i did arrive an hour early. my partner & i picked the shortest quote ("we don't see things as they are. we see them as we are." - anais nin) but took the longest and had the best layout. our instructors were genuinely impressed. unfortunately, since we were so slow, we could only print a few and i am already almost out. (alex: letterpress printing works like this.) and in a stroke of amazing timing, chas has generously offered me his old letterpress if i can find a way to get it here. wow!

* celebrating michaelmas w/ michaelmas. il fornaio is closed for good (a badness! il fornaio is where michaelmas has always gone for birthdays & special occassions), so we went to pastini's, which was tasty enough. i gave him a set of runestones & calligraphed guide handmade by a minnesota calligrapher i had been hoarding for months.

* met w/ doug at powell's and am now the proud owner of an autographed copy of lady churchill's rosebud wristlet which contains one of his short stories. we realized i've been here a year and we haven't actually made the time to see each other.

* hosted a verysmallparty for the first presidential debates (hi carl & jessica!). i never would have guessed i'd sort of enjoy it! and i feel better about kerry. and alex arrived afterwards, and we discussed our list of "blogs we read too much and the geeks who love them." fortunately for jessica, she had gone home by then. we'll have another wednesday.

* volunteered for the "no on 36" campaign doing receptionist duties. had a good time, but next time i'll do what sven did, which was data entry. :)

* lovecraft festival: always a goodness, even if it did seem this year that it was less lovecraft and more horror/sci fi. notables included a poetic biography which highlighted his bigoted xenophobia, one w/ extraordinarily good mood, and the worst film i have ever seen, even if it did include a ferret. a diet of popcorn, candy corn, mountain dew , peanut butter cups & raisinettes probably contributed to the evil uti.

* we went to see sven's former roommate's art opening at pcc rock creek. ee! it was obvious they had missed each other and i hope they get to see each other more often now.

* jalex completed her last live birth requirement! hooray! "next stop: actual graduation and licensing next spring!" she says.

* i had a stellar dentist appointment yesterday. can't you see my shiny teeth from there?

* joanne from the palio's writing group came to check out our studio because she might use it for a workshop she's having in november.

* tomorrow we will go to david z.'s art opening, the first time i will have seen him in over a year, and his first public appearance since his trip to china.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

 
2:08 PM: a canoeload of children [#] [0]

rob & kyrie are pregnant! and thus begins the "canoeload of children" promised at the very beginning of their relationship. :) congratulations!

 
2:27 AM: theiveseses [#] [0]

somebody has already stolen our "no on 36" sign! it lasted two days. :(

Friday, October 01, 2004

 
11:21 AM: tears of a dooce [#] [0]

i just laughed myself into tears for a good three minutes because of dooce. i won't point to the particular post that had me giggling (okay, it was this one), because i think reading that blog is like cell toxicity: it just sort of builds up into something lethally funny. and parts of it remind me of the way i could talk about sven or michael but don't. anyway, thanks, carl.