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Thursday, April 27, 2006

 
3:26 PM: a 50,000 pound baby kitten [#] [1]

sven signed the papers to buy the house today! he compares the mantle of new home owner responsibility to caring for a 50,000 pound baby kitten. it took 62 signatures & initials, but otherwise the process was really sort of anti-climatic (the biggest drama was that i think everyone should have a good pen to sign important documents, so i gave sven a hefty fountain pen w/ black ink -- but alas, they required blue ink). afterwards, our real estate agent gave us a set of engraved knives w/ her phone number on them. we tried not to read too much into that.

the house will officially belong to sven may01. because we've been living here the whole time, we can't have a housewarming party, so we're having a house adoption party instead -- it's so much easier when you're already unpacked! on the off chance you haven't been invited but you want to come, let us know!

Sunday, April 23, 2006

 
11:25 AM: out, out, brief candle [#] [0]

happy birthday, mr. shakespeare! you know, if you were celebrating your 442nd birthday...

Saturday, April 22, 2006

 
8:57 PM: hello, earth [#] [2]

happy earth day! to celebrate, we took our first trip to the farmer's market this season w/ kristen & todd, where i picked up a package of free ladybugs i released into our garden this evening.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

 
10:17 PM: go, go, go! [#] [0]

drat! i was set to be a (paid!) actress at the go game in corvalis on friday the 28th -- but that's the day we're closing on the house! i was mortified to have to cancel, but the house is probably more important. hopefully they'll do another this year...

 
1:19 AM: moonlight sonata [#] [0]

so i'm taking a water aerobics class because i really need to get moving before i try biking again this summer and they totally enticed me by calling it "water aerobics by moonlight." moonlight! they wrote about the big windows and it doesn't start until after dark (8:45-9:45 p.m.). but i was crushed to discover it was all a ruse: they keep the big harsh overhead lights on through the whole thing.

but tonight i finally got my moonlight! the lifeguard forgot her key so we were locked out for at least 15 minutes till someone came with another, and then they didn't know how to turn on the lights for the pool. there was enough light from the office and a storage space for people to see each other, so we did it in the dark -- and it was great! others seemed to like it, too, and if we're lucky, they'll keep doing it on tuesdays (on thursdays they have a public swim before us so they'll already have the lights on).

Thursday, April 13, 2006

 
4:32 PM: to the max [#] [0]

HEY, look! portland picked a wi-max carrier! (kudos to mph and his open networks today site). ooo, this is exciting! if only i could realistically hope it would reach this far east...

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

 
11:22 AM: take a stand [#] [2]

i just donated to planned parenthood's "stand with the states" campaign. *nudge*

Monday, April 10, 2006

 
10:26 AM: is there anybody out there? [#] [0]

yesterday sven & i went to a movie at the longbaugh film festival called the god who wasn't there. before we left, i thought, "i wonder if this will be what the bleep for the atheists," and it had some striking similarities, especially if you crossed it w/ a michael moore movie. the basic premise is that jesus christ as an actual person never existed, and then moves onto other christianity contradictions. i think a lot of people in the theatre left feeling righteously indignant, but i was just very, very sad.

how can you argue with faith? seriously. i pulled this quote a couple of years ago while trying to work out my situation at csusm, but it seems relevant here: "Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder." i can see how, if you are faith-based, you could argue against abortion & evolution & stem-cell research. but it makes me mad because i feel like recognizing this justifies the behaviour; it doesn't actually reach a solution or compromise. it's like trying to argue colors if one of you is color-blind: is it blue or is it grey?

Friday, April 07, 2006

 
11:40 AM: taxing [#] [0]

ach. i finally paid my taxes. i didn't make much last year (and most of it was thanks to psu), but thanks to the self-employment tax, my total tax bill was about $2500. but i was hoping for a break because i intuitively knew this was the year i should spend a lot on the studio so those expenses would qualify as deductions, but even so it took almost everything i had set aside in my alternate account for this purpose.

if i had "arts education" as a mission, this is part of what it would be about: as an artist or other self-employeed person, what i charge is not just for the paper & ink, but has to encompass taxes, insurance, rent, promotion, etc. things with frames are exceptionally difficult, because often the cost of the frame alone exceeds the perceived cost of the item. most artists have a hard enough time charging for the basic materials, which is why i approve of the trillium artisans mission, which requires the artist to charge a liveable hourly wage, as well.

because i hired a tax person this year, i also learned that $80 of my irs payment was a penalty fee for paying my quarterly estimated taxes late (in this case, "late" means "not at all") -- something i have never done as a freelancer/entrepreneur and must have always been rolled into my tax burden, but nobody ever told me. the quarterly tax estimates have always been ju-ju to me, an amorphous cloud i've chosen to ignore, but i don't think i can do that anymore.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

 
11:07 AM: our house is a very very very fine house [#] [3]

so sven's buying the house we're living in & the studio attached to it. to celebrate, jalex & mari brought over a ceremonial graham-cracker house, which was both sweet and amazingly photo-realistic ;) ...

candy house: actual house:

very cool. thanks, guys! we'll have to have a formal "house adoption" party after all the paperwork is done around may 01.

eep! i never thought i would be involved in a home ownership process. it makes me nervous to be responsible for the house & this giNORmous loan. and it means we'll be staying in this area for at least 3 years -- as you know, i'm ambivalent about the neighborhood, in part because of the neighbors and in part because we're so far away from everything (including michaelmas!). but ready or not, here we go...!

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

 
10:39 PM: command & obey [#] [3]

an awesome mac tip i didn't discover till today: command-click the title bar in safari (preferably in a window where you're several directories deep). presto! website architecture at your fingertips! just like folders in the finder. neat!

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

 
9:59 AM: happy resign-iversary! [#] [2]

this is the third annual resign-iversary, the day i finally turned in my resignation letter at csusm (though i had known i was going to resign since february). whee! this marks the beginning of a long line of other -iversaries, including the csusm-iversary (the official day i stopped working for csusm -- & the night of a lunar eclipse), the california-iversary (the day i fled california for good) and the portland-iversary (the day i arrived in portland). to celebrate, michaelmas took me to elephant's deli and we watched two episodes of buffy (because really, what's better than buffy? and i still have a gap in season 3). today sven & i meet w/ a real estate agent & i'll stop by saint cupcake on my way home from the creative job club.

Monday, April 03, 2006

 
11:32 AM: the stars are right.... [#] [6]

markalope points out that on "wednesday, at exactly two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be: 01:02:03 04/05/06. that won't happen for another 100 years." i'll go chill the champagne.

update: jaded metafilter notes that an even cooler date/time alignment will occur 12:34 5/6/07. into the tickler file it goes! in the meantime, i'm still staying up late tomorrow.

Saturday, April 01, 2006

 
7:59 PM: so are the days of our lives... [#] [1]

on thursday i took michaelmas to a susan mckeown concert for his birthday (though it's not actually till april 11). she's an irish singer who sings both classic & contemporary music, and she blew me away when i saw her for the first time on a road trip to albuquerque (thanks for hosting us, neil!). this was a pretty good show at the mission theatre, better than the one at lola's room michael, sven & i attended a couple of years ago.

today sven & i went to a diy lounge workshop about how to start an arts & crafts collective and we picked up the piece he bought at the 4x4 show. i've been watching seeger's cats this week so we stopped there before we got haircuts, then hungrily crawled to ole ole for dinner, then drove by inner city hot tubs & tap plastics just to locate them.

tomorrow laura's in town so we'll go to brunch, then later in the evening we'll go to the scifi/horror spoofs at the hollywood theatre's faux film festival. don't forget to set the clocks forward! i suspect a lot of people will be late in the morning. :)