Anton came yesterday and we all spent the whole day loading up the truck. In the rain. Jenn stopped by to pick up some sweet Ikea stuff I couldn’t take with, and stayed to help move. She gets +8.
I’m so tired, and my arms are so sore I can’t type comfortably, so this is a truncated post. I can’t even muster the strength to link Jenn’s name, or the map. THAT’S how tired I am.
Jason and I are going to start our drive today, and just go till we’re tired. It’s about 17 hours to New Bedford, and we’re going to be there by the end of the day tomorrow. I’m not sure when I’ll have interslice, but I’m sure the drive will go well (if not rainy) and I’ll post from my new home.
That’s , , , and myself in front of the boxes that hold my worldly belongings.
It’s 2007! This is the year of big things, for me. I’ve finished my library degree, so this will be a year in the professional world. Perhaps, for the first time ever, I’ll only have one W2 to file. I don’t think I’ve had any less than three, and seven at the most.
Also big time stuff is moving to Massachusetts, to start my career as a librarian. Jason and I have been packing since the 29th, and we’re getting down to the end (which means stuff that doesn’t fit in a box, or is too random to pack with similar items). On the upside, we’re a librarian and a programmer, so organization of objects is what we’re good at.
This year I’m getting married. I think we have a plan, finally. We’re thinking that we’ll get married in MA, then have two receptions – one in IA and one in NY. The wedding will be just immediate family, and the receptions will be everyone else. And then a honeymoon at the .
My intention for this new year is to blog every day. My posts have been erratic since I came to school, and I’m looking forward to having a set schedule that is less than 60 hours per week. I was also thinking that perhaps it’s stupid for me to blog, since the interest level is not very high, and for not that many people. Then I checked, and saw that I get an average of 24 hits a day. I have no idea if they are all legit, or if RSS readers count, but either way, I enjoy summoning my thoughts and writing, and what’s the Internet for, if not to be able to have a blog? It’s going to implode anyway.
I was sitting in an H&M dressing room pondering why I like . It hits me – she has teeth. You know – pointy, feral, vampiric grilles. The same goes for the singer from and . They’re all bitey faced.
My new zine: Biteyface
(I’d like to put a zine together – and bind it using my sweet conservation skillz. I haven’t figured out what the content should be, other than filled with spam poetry – but that’s not really my work. I don’t want to just C&P blog posts either. I’d take suggestions.)
I always read (it’s written by my favorite non-blood-relation librarian), and Marylaine’s “cool quote” was from .
yoink!
“According to one map-making friend, creating walkshed maps… would be a relatively simple Google Maps “Mash Up.†Anyone know of such a tool? Anyone volunteer to do this project? I’d love to have a detailed map stowed in the “glove box†of our Burley of all 248 businesses in my home zone. Ideally, I would want a walking map or PDA application that shows me the whereabouts of public restrooms, water fountains, bike racks, curb cuts, bus stops, and benches.”
So then I went to WorldChanging, because I already have a tote bag from them (thanks ALA conference!) and am on their mailing list.
This made me think about my idea to catalog all the climbing trees in Champaign. I thought I could use GPS data, digital photographs, and Google Maps to put it together.
So from WorldChanging I went to , and was only slightly frustrated to find out that they only have Philly, Portland, and Milwaukee.
So five minutes later, whilst reading , I spied – a bike route map site. I figured it would be like Google Maps, where you’d need GPS data to show routes.
NOPE! You use Google Maps, but you just click in the intersections. I signed up immediately, and made a map of my . It shows the distance, and I tagged it with commute, urban, basic, and low-traffic. It’s my new fascination. I encourage other bikers in Champaign (who happen to read my blog, ahem, Sasha, ahem, Laurie) to log route. I want to see how you get places!
Anton and Dena have been playing with this style of art, and it never occured to me to spread the love of well-known artists this way. Diane Arbus is one of my heros. She used to bring two cameras to her shoots with carnie folk, and would bring out this rigged camera that would fall apart as she used it. Then she’d cry, and gain sympathy. Then she’d pull out her usual camera, and get these amazing shots.
“Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.”
, and . You’ll notice that the graffiti is reversed.
It’s a good thing I installed speakers in my bathroom (thanks, Anton) because I spent TWO HOURS bleaching and dying my hair last Friday night. Modest Mouse got me through.
TADA!
So now I have pink hair. And a pink hand. And a pink bathtub. And a pink shower curtain.
*If you’re , , , or , you’ll know how to say this properly.
You know what I like? Old-timey medical names. I’ve always liked to throw in “rickets” when I don’t know the word I mean. C’mon. Remember that Johnny Socko song “If I Didn’t Have a Goiter”?
So while reading , I ran across a footnote that made me giggle (p. 226). Ready?
Scrofula
Dropsy
Quinsy
Granders
Farcy
Tetter
Hectic fever
Roach, Mary. (2003). Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers. W.W. Norton & Co: New York.
As I was thinking about the list list list of things I want to be when I grow up, I realized that for every item, I have a person who I acquaint with that particular skill. I didn’t necessarily know them when I made the list, but I like that I can correlate. (Although, as we all know from Psych 101, correlation does not mean causation.)
1. Midwifery. My friend Kim is a doctor, and she gets to deal with people’s bodies all the time. Supercool.
2. Trucker. My aunt Lora did this, and she’s about the best general role model a person could have.
3. Sign language. I met Amber after writing the list, but I think it’s one of the reason why I took to her like a prestidigitous kitten to a toy piano.
4. Teach for America. My AmeriCorps teammate Jenn is TFAing right now. Much like midwifery, you are in charge of people’s children, under various amounts of pressure. (Sometimes the kid, sometimes me.)
5. Children’s librarian. I would not be pursuing this career if it weren’t for my elementary school mentor, Ms. Bernard. JUST KIDDING! She was scary. My mom was a children’s librarian when I was a kid, and it was the best job ever. If I could be the children’s librarian for the Francis Banta Waggoner Community Library in DeWitt, Iowa, I would. The quilt she made for snuggly window-seat reading is still there.
6. Masseuse. My friend is studying Oriental medicine right now, which is way more complex and advanced than just massage, but when we talk about it, I get all excited and squiggly.
7. Canoe Mississippi. Pebbles (Em) is the most hard core, crunchy, granola, sweet-fern-tea drinkin’, outdoorsy outside cat I know. Her passion for canoeing nears a fever pitch. She doesn’t want an engagement ring, she wants a canoe tied to her finger.
8. Master knitter. My grandma taught me how to knit, as well as crochet, sew, embroider, tat (who even knows what that is?!), and refer to snacks as much needed “medicine”. She’s nonchalant about makin’ stuff, but it’s always functional. That epitomizes what I want to be as a knitter.
9. Live in far Northeast. Again with the Pebbles. Her aunt learned masonry and built herself a 16-sided stone house in Maine. I want to live there, near Pebs, and go fishing a lot.
10. Master some other language. Alena seems to slip and fall into pools of language, and when she gets up, she’s fluent. She started college with Spanish, and somehow ended up with a Russian major. RUSSIAN!
So, those are people in my neighborhood who have affected me, either previous to the much esteemed list, or have been Celestine-Prophecy-like drawn to me, possibly because we have shit in common.
I recently had a heart-to-heart with myself (not as difficult as you think) and realized/decided/discovered that I will some day adopt a baby.
I’ve planned out so much of the next few years of my life, and I think I just kept going with the planning.
Anyway, it’s not something I’m going to do for a while, but when I , it jolted me into remembering my inner conversation … because I think that’s exactly the kind of name I’d want to give a kid.
