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Friday, December 30, 2005

 
11:17 PM: shadowy men on a shadowy planet [#] [0]

i never liked clothes shopping before portland, and i still feel a little silly for saying this, but oh, i must go to the ghosttown clothing exchange! it's actually explained better at port, even if it's a little didactic about it. i love ephemera & stories & personal histories: clothing as poetry. hopefully it sticks around long enough to supplement my other favorites, savvy plus & the full circle temple monthly clothing sale.

Monday, December 26, 2005

 
10:34 PM: leap and the year will appear [#] [1]

apparently the new year will be delayed, but not for long: a leap second will be added just before we all sing auld lang syne & kiss. the countdown will probably be something like "ten! nine! eight! seven! six! five! four! three! two! one! (wait!) ONE! happy new year!"

 
1:18 AM: a gashlycrumb christmas [#] [0]

"lavish" feels like the word that describes this xmas: it took a long time to get through all our presents & stockings, curled up on the couch w/ blankets & nibbling on a tasty variety of snacks throughout the day. we gladly took some phone calls from sven's family & called jalex later in the night, but otherwise had the day to ourselves without an agenda -- which was the best present of all.

i took michaelmas to the train station friday and will pick him up again tomorrow. we opened presents together when i picked him up (ee! locks!), but i also sent a small present up with him so he'd have something to open in seattle. i'm on catsitting duty this week: lucky, arwen, noodle, lestat & seeger all get fed, watered, petted & played with every other day. and then sven & i are off to the coast!

i sent presents to my parents but haven't heard from them in forever. three presents i ordered from my friends at the grand galleria will be late, even though i ordered them dec01. i haven't been able to make myself get to sleep at a decent hour and have been exhausted most of the time. like this: what am i doing writing when i should be sleeping next to the softly glowing christmas tree? good night and sweet dreams.

[update 12.27: well, that's one mystery solved. brian at the grandgalleria tracked my package and it turns out postal annex sent it to se 10th, which is nowhere near me. also, my father called yesterday! that's the first time he's done that in 3 years! he is now a pink martini convert, which is as it should be. and i tried to get to bed earlier last night, which sort of worked. 1:30 a.m. is better than 3 a.m.. sven, however, was not so lucky.]

Thursday, December 22, 2005

 
10:13 PM: artist's way creative clusters forming... [#] [0]

just to flood all possible communication channels in the hopes google will eventually list my portland artist's way classes a little higher than 257, i thought i'd mention i've begun promoting the february (portland) artist's way classes. as i wrote yesterday in the email to the events list, the sacred circle list and meetup:

"Merry Solstice! This is our longest night of the year but tomorrow we will begin to climb back into the light. To celebrate the poetic metaphor, consider recommitting to the Artist's Way process in February so you can resolve to write, paint, dance, sing & play more next year! In an Artist's Way Creative Cluster, you will gain creative confidence, courage and compassionate companions, no matter how old you are or what you've yearned to create. We offer a passionate and practical approach to Artist's Way, featuring an abundant studio with diverse art materials & dynamic art activities. Scarlet Star Studios provides a nurturing environment to encourage art and artists at the base of beautiful Powell Butte. If you've tried to get through Artist's Way alone, come join us!"

http://www.scarletstarstudios.com/artistsway/

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

 
11:40 AM: tidings of madness and woe [#] [0]

not receiving email at burdell for the second time this week. please use mac.com or scarletstarstudios.com. and if i haven't responded to something you sent recently, please resend.

[update 12.22: it's fixed again!]

Sunday, December 18, 2005

 
2:11 PM: winter wonderland [#] [0]

it's snowing! it began w/ portland's unique fine-grained, gentle hail with the occasional snowflake drifting and swirling by, and now it's all snow, quiet and soft, layering itself whitely on the windowsills and fences and sidewalks. and it's not even solstice! this calls for some mexican hot chocolate. :)

Thursday, December 15, 2005

 
2:39 AM: globular vivific [#] [0]

i just got back from the studio and when i stepped off the porch, orion was setting in the southwest. it was bright & cold & crisp and sirius was simply brilliant in the darkness. earlier this evening we had a fair amount of cloud cover, though: venus & mars were barely visible and the moon was large and soft as she rose, developing a huge moondog as the evening grew colder. leo is now visible and i can see saturn in cancer. i love the winter stars. i just wish it was warm enough to watch them!

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

 
12:15 AM: a sharp knife cuts the quickest and hurts the least [#] [0]

i've been blunt of late, perhaps overly so. i want friends who don't feel intimidated or challenged when i ask questions, but i don't want to offend anyone or make them feel guarded around me. i am a curious introvert and i love learning. i also respond well to a series of well-placed questions (as opposed to one vague one). but i'll back off for a while; i've already been working on assembling lists of safe topics and trying to avoid asking sensitive or serial questions, but even so i find my words coming out wrong.

last week i saw this timely julian waters piece at my calligraphy class:


"Friendship is the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring all right out just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful friendly hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and, with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away." (george eliot)

testify.

[update: don't worry, this isn't just about you.]

Monday, December 12, 2005

 
10:53 AM: levengrrrrrrrrr! [#] [0]

levenger is my porn catalog: i wait to savour it until i'm alone and can caress its pages. sometimes i even buy things from it. however, they've recently (?) changed their site so that neither safari or firefox can check out -- even though their "browser requirements" page claims safari is a supported browser. customer service says their site is "not totally compatible" with safari or firefox, which seems like a bit of an understatement if i can't actually complete an order with it. :(

so w/ a heavy heart, i can no longer recommend or shop at levenger, as i do not do phone orders. meh.

[update: and sometimes you can't even call your order in! the first time i called the phone picked up but nobody responded, even though i stayed on the line over 5 minutes and ocassionally said, "hello?" at that point i had to call back just to see how ridiculous it would get, because i think i failed to mention that i spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to order from levenger, and now a good chunk of today. argh!]

Sunday, December 11, 2005

 
8:41 PM: open the box [#] [0]

dan's right: pandora is wonderful.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

 
5:32 PM: tech review [#] [2]

so celeste is behaving well, if more noisily than i would like (it seems 12" powerbooks have a propensity to run their fans: she may have titanium outside, but she's a limpid flower inside).

i'm struggling w/ nocturne, however. the calendar, especially, is disappointing: besides waiting a full 30 seconds for the calendar to show up (I counted!), when it does, many dates (i can't find a pattern yet) are shifted one day earlier. which kind of makes having a calendar kind of useless. :P also, i have to replace these earbuds: they really hurt my ears. which kind of makes having an mp3 player kind of useless. any good recommendations?

Thursday, December 08, 2005

 
1:34 AM: stellar [#] [1]

say hello to celeste, my new silver 12" powerbook! today's discovery: over a gig of ram and a twice-as-speedy processor serve to make iphoto vastly more usable. and the migration assistant is a godsend!

tomorrow: nocturne, who has been unpacked but not synced. and don't knock those ipod socks till you try 'em! they're really the perfect size for the nano, i think, and they are cutecutecute! but i think the ear buds will need to be replaced posthaste, unless there's a trick to wearing them i don't know about. though really what i'm looking forward to is having my voodoopad brain on the nano.

friday: eliot leaves portland bound to san francisco, where he'll meet his new, excited owner.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

 
12:34 AM: notification [#] [5]

i've been trying to get this out for a few days now.

public service announcement:

please stop treating it like one.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

 
6:20 PM: it's beginning to look a lot like fishmen [#] [2]

it must be december! we've broken out the advent calendars (two of them again this year again), said our "rabbit rabbit"s, put scary solstice on repeat, and watched the making fiends christmas bonus. there may even be snow tomorrow. and apple has begun delivering presents to my doorstep! i believe this first package is the firewire cable since it was shipped first, but i'm going to wait for them all to come in before i open them.

as charlotte would say, yay!

there will be a tree, of course, & wreaths, & presents to deliver, but all that comes later. this is a good start!