Holiday Season Ready Go

Happy freaking holidays.

Books

I love looking at the rows and rows of my dad's books, and I love even more that I know which ones were his favorites.

Winterize, Flinterize

We're in Michigan for the week to visit with my mom (how weird to not say "mom and dad" there) and help her hunker down for the winter months ahead. We have been taking her car in for maintenance, raking leaves, pruning trees, getting firewood ready, cleaning house, changing furnace filters, fixing little things around the house, etc. She still has lots of things that were in both her and my dad's names so we're helping her get everything into her name, and we're supporting her as she starts the gradual process of getting rid of my dad's stuff. Today we went through his closet.

Yeah, so. That's what's happening.

It's been a while since I've been back to Michigan at just this time of year, and it makes me remember why fall is so awesome. Fall in Seattle is a much less vibrant affair- things never really stop being green there for the most part which can be nice in its own way, but this is pretty rad.

Night Owl

Place: airport. Time: pre-crack-of-ass. Me: sloppy, sloppy tired.

Re-cut

So I called my salon and told them that my last cut was jacked up, and they totally redid it for free! I have now been suitably coiffed. The lady who initially gave me the bad shear job was not the lady I went back to, but she saw me when I walked in. Yeah, look at me, lady. I had to demand a re-cut. I felt a little bit bad about it for some reason, until the lady who did my re-cut sat me down and heartily agreed that I had a shit-do that was akin to Marcia Brady so I felt validated. And then she did the re-cut and made me feel re-cute. I know it is shallow but man I feel better now.

In other news I was out to dinner the other night and Tavi Gevinson was at the table next to me. I am not a celebrity gawker because please. But in that case all I can say is that I was happy that I was wearing a cute outfit. Because I care what Tavi Gevinson thinks of my outfit, apparently? And I think that Tavi Gevinson was looking at me, for some reason? It all made total sense in my head at the time. (This was post re-cute, just in case you were wondering).

Our power went out on Friday night, which was weird because it wasn't storming or windy or anything. Apparently it was just a breaker issue or something. It happened right as we were leaving the house to go out to meet some friends and our entire neighborhood was out and this may sound strange but when you live in a city things never really get truly dark outside. There are always lots of lights from houses and streetlights and such. When the power goes out, it is DARK. It was pretty creepy really. (Hey guys! I just wrote the sentence "what the power goes out, it is dark." Like a freaking genius). We drove to the nearest area where power was still on which is a retail area near my house-- like less than a mile away and the traffic was horrible. Not just horrible. HAH-Ribble. Then when we got there the entire neighborhood had shown up at the restaurant we wanted to go to, and things were crowded. When snow days and power outages happen and you get to stay home it is cozy and fun. When it happens and you have to get somewhere and fight crowds of people to do anything, it is stoopid awful. When the power is out...stay home, is the lesson.

That is all I got. My pajamas calleth.

Friday noyt!

Have a lovely evening, homies!

Consumables #82

So, I got a haircut that I hate, you guys. I think it is totally fixable, so do I just go to a new person and tell them to fix it? Or do I go back to the person who messed my shit up and tell her that I need her to do it again? Do people do that? What is the equivalent of sending back the dish to the chef here? Tell me what to do.

This week we literally broke some ground in order to get ready for figuring out how to make our yard look better, which is on our list of house projects for 2014. Our house used to have oil heating, and we have since converted to gas, and since our upcoming yard project will require lots of digging, regrading, tilling, and all around general dirt-moving, we decided to get our old oil tank removed rather than just decommissioning it. So this week, that happened. I left Nordic Boy in charge of taking pictures of the process but, although he is awesome in many ways, that guy suuuuuuucks at documenting stuff. He forgets, or if he remembers, he takes a hasty snap that doesn't really show much. He is way more into the doing than the memorializing, which when I step back and look at it is way healthier just in terms of living life, but I WANT PHOTOS. Anyway. There are no photos of this to share, which you are probably thinking "fine by me because basically it would be a photo of a hole in the dirt" which YES, but the oil tank was actually kind of interesting looking. It looked like a baby submarine from the 50s. OMG WHAT IF IT WAS A BABY SUBMARINE FROM THE 50s? A crew of babies that look like Don Draper, swilling martinis and cruising around underground?

I like to give myself things to have nightmares about.

I feel like I haven't talked the pop cultures in a while. So many things. Let's just pick a few.

Movies
World War Z
I think I may be getting over saturated with zombies (which is exactly how zombies kill you! In a swarm! Only mine is a metaphoric swarm. So meta). Basically there are two things about zombie type movies that need to be there for me: one, the zombies have to be scary, or at least creepy. Two, the sense of what people do when society breaks down has to be interesting. I thought this movie started out really strong- there is a visceral panic that gets going pretty quickly right from the start. But the zombies never got scary, and after the first bit of the movie I wasn't getting much in the way of societal breakdown either. And the ending was pretty flaccid. (Is there a more gross word than flaccid? Sorry about that). But, it was fine.

Whore's Glory
I can't say that I enjoy watching a depressing documentary, but I want to know about these things that have happened, are happening. I am not a person who would rather not know. I think it's important to know. This one follows prostitutes in three different parts of the world: Thailand, India, and Mexico. It is unflinching to say the least. There isn't much here in the way of showing agency for the women and girls involved, and maybe the argument being made is that there isn't any. The vignettes focus on the day to day workings and do not touch on the larger societal issues or the problem of sex tourism or global trafficking or anything like that. It's just these women going through their day.

Comedians of Comedy: The Movie
This is a road movie that follows Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Zach Galifinakis and others on a comedy tour in the mid-2000s. Every one of those people is exactly as you would imagine them to be behind the scenes. Just, exactly.

Aziz Ansari: Buried Alive
The best part of this comedy special is when Aziz does a back and forth with a couple in the audience about how they got engaged. I love it when performers can talk to an audience member and it comes off as authentic and funny.

Casablanca
Ultimate comfort movie, dudes. I know that Ingrid Bergman is a little annoying sometimes ("You'll have to do the thinking for BOTH OF US...") and the Sam stuff makes me a little squirmy, but Humphrey Bogart is such a badass, I love it. I love how contradictory he is. So world-weary all the time, and yet somehow he still manages to be suave. I mean, he looks wrung OUT. Also, he is a scrawny fellow when you really look at him, but who seems tougher than that guy? I just find him so unexpected. Love.

TV
Scandal
IS BACK. Holy smokes that show is risickulous. There really is no excuse for it. And I am watching it. And you guys, when Jake said "I play second fiddle to no one," weren't we all thinking GO NOEL! LESSONS LEARNED FROM FELICITY! Just me? Oh.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
I really want this show to be better, and I think it might get there. I remember not thinking Parks and Rec was that great in the beginning too. Sometimes shows need to find their footing and that takes a minute. Three things I love: deadpan Andre Braugher, goofy Joe Lo Truglio, and weirdo Chelsea Peretti. The thing that is bringing me down the most is Andy Samberg's character. I think it's possible to do cocky and funny (see: Joel McHale in Community), but that is not coming together yet.

Louie
I am a little behind on this one, but I just have to say that I am so glad that Sarah Silverman showed up on this show because it was getting a bit much with all the crazy ladies. I mean, since Pamela left has there been a non-hysterical weirdo lady on there at all? Sarah Silverman just seems cool, funny, and not a nutcase. Is that too much to ask, Louie? I love you, but come on now.

I gots to go, peoples. I shall do the book items next time. Before I go, one last pop culture item. Did you guys see the Gap ads featuring Waris Ahluwalia? Can I just say that, if you would have told me when I was a kid that someone like that would be on a Gap ad, it would have blown my freaking mind. It makes me glad to see it, but it makes 13-year-old me so happy. I know, it's Gap, who cares. But still, representation matters.

NaNoReBloPhotoIceLovesCoco

It is that time of year where people are writing a novel in a month for NaNoWriMo, and other people are writing a blog post every day for a month for NaBloPoMo, and other people are doing a Photo A Day Challenge for the month, and still others are reading as many novels as they can in a month for NaNoReMo. I toyed with doing each of these things but ha ha who am I kidding? I am not going to do any of these things let us be real just for one moment please. But maybe I can step up the blog a little bit? Like maybe more than once every couple of weeks? Expectations. Set them low, is what I am saying.

This weekend I went further into a hole of non-peoplehood. I didn't intend for it to happen. I started out my weekend by attending a dance performance with Nordic Boy and Delium which was pretty good, but not great. It was one of these companies where they are so into the theatricality of the show (crazy costumes! weirdo lighting! mondo sets!) that they kind of skimp a little bit on the dancing. Which, I get that those other things are cool too. I am just partial to lots of dance content. Plus, the theater that we were at was trying to burn us alive, they had the heat turned on way past original recipe and up to extra crispy. I am never hot, but I thought I was going to turn into librarian jerky by the end of that dang show. After the show ended and the lights went up Nordic Boy looked at me and said "WHOO IT IS LIKE KENNY ROGERS ROASTERS UP IN HERE" and the people in the row next to us stared at us but we didn't care because we were melting.

The following day there was a windstorm and branches were falling off trees and power was out all over the place. Nordic Boy got called to work and this is where I fell into a black hole of no-people-ness. It was a sad sort of day. Nordic Boy did get home and we just sort of curled up for the rest of the night and that was fine by me. I swear to you it is very easy for me to go to a place where I think that I could live pretty good in a bubble with just that dude and me and be just fine not seeing any other face ever again. He is just so effing sweet to me I can't help it. I become crazy live-in-a-survivalist-compound lady. I get this feeling a lot more since my dad is gone. I kind of don't want to be a part of the world, in a way, I guess. Let me just live in my cocoon of uncomplicated love and I'm good. I guess that is a normal feeling at a time such as this, right?

Anyway, we stayed in and watched Casablanca and played cards and made food. Our power stayed on too, which was nice. I mean, I am all for being in a bunker, but I want full amenities too. Let's not get crazy now.

The rest of the weekend was spent in each other's company just like that, joined at the hipbone. I still feel so sad a lot of the time, even though I pretend not to be mostly. With that dude of mine though, I still look at him and smile, like, from my soul. It's kind of the only thing right now.

Sunday

Walked in the rain with my dude today. The view from our walk looked like this. Sometimes it's good to remember that it's not raining everywhere.

Shallows

30-40 mile gusts of wind in my city today, most of my area has a power outage, my dude got stuck at work, it is cold and grey, and the streets are ghostly empty.

I bundled up, went for a two hour walk, and didn't see a soul. Put the latest Daughter album into my ears, thought about my dad, let the tears blow right off my eyeballs into the wind, and tried to remember myself.


Shallows, by Daughter