Monthly Archives: March 2006

City Museum, a review

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I WANT TO LIVE IN THE CITY MUSEUM.

it’s like this magical place where a bunch of cool dads got together and started free-styling impromptu construction, with the goal in mind of creating the most kick-ass playground/forest/cave/whale/hamster tunnels (which they secretly want to build for themselves), you have the City Museum in St. Louis.

It’s already been blogged about, and blogged about, but I feel the need to shout to the rooftops about this incredible place.

Because as much as it’s learny, it’s a building full of semi-dangerous fun. Which we all know means superfun.

Sonya at the City Museum

Do you see the castle? Or how far off the ground I am? I feel like Harvy Danger Sleeping Beauty Baby Jesus. (The family hamster.)

It’s not just a giant ant farm, either. We saw a circus (kind of), pet sharks (not kidding!), crafted boxes, had the major concepts of glassblowing related to us by a half-drunk, stoned glassblower, played superold pinball machines (my heart!), crawled through caves that lead to former shoe-chutes (sliiiiide!), and made out underneath a fishtank.

Big Boy loves me.

And, while walking through a hallways of weird random stuff, came across Big Boy, who’s presence jolted me into a reverie of childhood brunch with my Grandpa Gasser. Mawwwwww.

I need your opinion on this skirt.

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Hi. We’ve known each other for long enough that I’m confident that you have a pretty good idea of what I’m like. That being said, I need your help. See, I was getting groceries … actually, I needed a hair dryer, so I went to Target, and I ALWAYS check their clearance rack … and I found this skirt. I wasn’t sure if it fit well, or if it looked good, but I decided to buy it anyway. I figured if I decided against it, I could always return it. (Right, Mom?)

So, this is a $14.99 skirt (originally $30). It’s black, and it has zippers. There’s a lining with tulle (featured in one of the pictures). So does the tulle make it poof out weird? Is it too goth for my perky self? Are zippers passé?

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Tulle! If you click on any of these, you can see bigger versions, and several more shots. I know, I know, you really don’t want to spend more time helping me decide about a skirt, but I NEED YOU. The comment board is now open.

New catagory: three questions

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I’ve decided that although memes featuring books or former jobs are kind of cute, I’d rather stick to my favorite style of finding out about someone:

THREE QUESTIONS.

I’m going to start by asking three questions of SBeers.

1. In junior high, how did you dress?
2. What is/are your superpower(s)?
3. You totally must want an Anti-Griddle. What would you do with it?

Hottt or nottt … librarian

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Jason told me about a Blogger-like wiki site I could use for a group project*, called Peanut Butter Wiki. After creating a site so we could dump our resources**, and working with it, I realized that wiki technology has come a long way. Kind of like Blogger is to those who are HTLM inept, PBwiki makes things a little more WYSIWYG. (That won’t make sense to those folks I mentioned in the previous sentence. Oops.)

My last interactions with a wiki (other than wikipedia) have been on Nounatron, which at the time seemed neat and new, but now kind of looks like a Commodore screen. (Sorry Jason, I know you are going to restyle it.)

So the hot or not question arises with this: the Hot Librarian wiki. Mostly, I wanted to make lists of things, and organize them. And I thought it might be a good place to keep stuff like upcoming hot librarian events and stuff. Ryan’s into the quote board thing, so that could take off. All of our Flickr pages could be in the same place … if the site had interest, I think it could be neat.

My only concern is if the whole “hot librarian” thing is kind of exclusionary. You know, like religion. My mom always warned me against excluding. Those who are hottt should email me for the password, so you too can start dicking around with the wiki.

*the only reason why I’m not going to make snarky comments about this group project is because I’m working with two elite library students.
** It’s going to be a website featuring roadtrip-themed library materials.

I’m not afraid of being afraid.

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A great culmination of current events, environmental politics, and a Salon article have finally made me realize why I love knitting and apocalyptic movies so much.

First, the Salon article, which envelops the current events and environmental politics – “The oil is going, the oil is going!” by Katharine Mieszkowski. It outlines the current ‘peak oil’ point of view, which is those who believe our oil supplies may crash – within the next few years, even – and are taking efforts to ‘power down’ (using less) and figure out how they’re going to weather the storm.

See, here’s where we get to apocalyptic movies. Where do I begin? Tank Girl is my favorite movie, and it’s set in post-asteroid, arid Earth. The Day After Tomorrow is a global-warming tale. Every zombie movie ever made covers how one survives once the zombies come.

Now add my desire to spin and knit myself a sweater out of anything available. And my mad campfire skillz. And my secret dream of living in a treehouse.

It’s never come together like this until I read the oil article. I’m totally down with the peak oil crew. I don’t know if we’ll actually have fuel Armageddon in the next couple of years, but I would LOVE to make a radical change to the way I live (and everybody else). Rooftop garden? Solar panels? Handmade clothes? No car? I’m ready.

I’m sure there will be things I’ll lament (pink hair dye?) but I like the idea of living closer to what allows me to live. I want to appreciate what I have. I want to NOT OWN 10 hoodies. But until peak oil or the zombies come, I don’t know that I have the willpower to get rid of them.

[Addition]
It just occured to me that another reason why I desire this semi-Luddite life is that it wasn’t that long ago that my ancestors lived off the land. My home is a fifth generation farm. I come from self-sustaining folk.

90’s sitcom dream

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Last night I dreamt that I hosted a party for 1990’s sitcom stars. Jodie Sweetin, Candace Cameron (who married the dad from Family Matters), and a bunch of other people. In the dream, I had also been a child star, and they all knew me from our time being famous.

I hosted this party in the basement of my parent’s house in Iowa. A tornado was coming, and the cast was grumbling about being an a small farmhouse basement (hey – it’s finished!) and I reminded them that we were safe from the impending weather.

We were grilling steaks and burgers (in the basement!) and everyone was catching up. Someone said something witty, and someone else started quoting an ode. We all finished the last line with them, someone pointed out that it was actually a quote from a movie (not the literary ode it was expressed as) and I said, “Do the Goonies one now!”

Then my aunt Sharon came down the stairs with some appetizers she got at Trader Joe’s.

I don’t see there being any point in analyzing this dream. It’s obviously pop-culture ridden, and I wouldn’t have dreamed it if I were a Masai tribeswoman. I also was up late working on a midterm and drinking Librarian Decaf. (Which is like regular coffee to my caffeine-sensitive body.)

Family Matters!

PIIIIIINK*

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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.

PIIIIINK

TADA!

So now I have pink hair. And a pink hand. And a pink bathtub. And a pink shower curtain.

*If you’re Jake, Joe, Margaret, or Jason, you’ll know how to say this properly.