Love Makes Things Better. Also, Badly Sung 80s Songs.

Listen, just because my heart's a little bit broke doesn't mean that I can't go out and belt some tunes in front of lots of people and scare them a little bit, right? It's like chocolate after a Dementor attack. It really helps.


Here are some things I did this weekend to help me not think about my hurty heart.

On Friday night, I went to a party at this place, where every last cheesy song in the world was sung with abandon, despite the fact that I have a bit of a cough. You want to know what? My version of Take on Me by A-ha is hideous, people. HIDEOUS. Unless perhaps you make yourself believe that I meant to do it in the style of Yoko Ono. Which I could have been doing, totally on purpose. You'll never know for sure.

Two of the things that Nordic Boy has never done in the many years that I have known him: (1) get sloppy drunk. (2) sing karaoke. I have a dream that one day I shall see these two things happen simultaneously in one spectacular night of awesomeness. Alas, Friday night was not that night. I have seen him bust out such lovely renditions of songs such as "Tiny Dancer" or "Fuck the Pain Away" by Peaches in the privacy of our own home, but he has yet to unleash his talent onto the world at large. Some day, my friends. Some day.

On Saturday I met up with Delium for lunch and afterward we were at my house where he noticed an old photo of me, Alli, and Map where I was wearing a favorite Esprit shirt under a Benetton sweater with my teenage acid washed jeans. "I totally remember that outfit!" he said. I love that I have friends from ye olden days that can say stuff like that to me.

That afternoon, I went to a "summer barbecue" at the Soggy Librarian's house. I put that in quotes because it was raining and in the upper 40s that day, at least when we first arrived. That didn't stop us from pretending it was summer, especially when it stopped raining and got up to a balmy 50 degrees or so. We barbecued and played cornhole in the wet grass. You will not defeat us, Seattle.

That night, Biogirl, Nordic Boy and I went out to dinner where I ate way too much. Like, Thanksgiving too much. It was worth the belly ache though.

Sunday, I spent the first half of my day over at Biogirl's house, where we came up with some cockamamie theory that perhaps what a good relationship needs is less talking. We came to this conclusion after about three hours of talking, so I am not sure if that proves the theory or doesn't.

I then went on a walk around Green Lake with my friend M, who is awesome for many reasons, not the least of which is that she has chickens who lay delicious eggs and she gives them away to her friends. Score! She is also just super kind. What is better than super kind? I can't think of many things.

I came home to find that all of the furniture in our guest room had been moved out into our dining area, and Nordic Boy had installed beautiful cork flooring in the guest room. And then we danced on the new floor to "Electricity" by OMD, and Nordic Boy made up a hilarious new dance that we dubbed "The Level" and we did that until I almost puked laughing. This is why I love coming home.

I called my my dad, and he told me about something funny that my mom said that day, and he could barely tell it, he was laughing so much, and I could hear my mom laughing in the background too, and I hope that when we are in our 80s Nordic Boy and I can make each other laugh like that still.

We then made a cozy dinner and watched a movie and were in bed by 11.

Thanks, weekend.

Consumables and other stuff

Pretty much every weekend, I have some sort of jaunt. A dinner with a friend, a show, a movie, a hike, something. This weekend, I did nothing. Just, nothing. I had the day off on Friday so I walked over to The Soggy Librarian's house where we sat on her couch and played with the uber-adorable Soren for an hour or so. Then, we decided to go for a walk, so we walked...5 blocks back to my house, where we sat on MY couch and played with the uber-adorable Soren. Then Biogirl and I went out for an early bird burrito and were home by 7:30. Aaaand...that was Friday.


I worked on Saturday, and it was a superbusy day. I got home and collapsed on the couch (it's always a sign of over-tiredness when I bust out the TV tray for dinner) and watched old Harry Potter movies with Biogirl and Nordic Boy. Nordic Boy had been working on house projects all day that day and he fell into a dead sleep by 9:30. I made it to midnight, but was so sleepy by that time that I sort of felt barfy. Saturday night at our house- woooooo!

It was a fricking ridiculous downpour all weekend- big, fat raindrops everywhere. We dragged ourselves out of the house on Sunday afternoon to get take out and the 10 yard walk to the car had us looking like drenched cats.

Sometimes my life is so glamorous that I just feel braggy, but don't hate me because I am fabulous, people.

Forgot to do Consumables last week, so here's the deal lately:

Harry Potter movies:
I had a friend, Hang, whose first language is not English. She only learned it as an adult, when she moved to this country. Sometimes she would make some gaffes (did I just say "gaffes"? I thought that we could only use that word when talking about Joe Biden), and she always had such a good sense of humor about it when she realized what she had actually said as opposed to what she wanted to say. For instance, one time she wanted to say "I broke into a sweat!" but instead she said "I broke into a sweater!" I think my all-time favorite quote from Hang was when the first Harry Potter movie came out, she was so excited that she messed up the name of it. "Oh my god! I am so excited to see Harry Potter and the Social Security Stone!"

As we watched the Social Security Stone and its sequels this time, I somehow decided to call out when certain characters looked like other famous people. So like when Argus Filch came on, I would yell out "IT'S WILLIE NELSON!" or when Moaning Myrtle would come on, I would say "IT'S TINA FEY!" I should make this into some sort of drinking game or something, but I am not that clever.

One Day, by David Nicholls
A sort of When Harry Met Sally novel about two friends who meet in college and how their relationship grows and changes over the years. The book is structured where each chapter is about the same day, July 15, of each successive year. At first I thought that the book would be a sort of British will-they-won't-they get together sort of thing, and it is, but it turns out to be more that that too. The male character, Dex, starts out a bit dickish, and unpredictably sort of stays dickish throughout the book, which hardly ever happens. You're supposed to learn to love the dickish man, aren't you, and see that he really isn't so bad underneath it all. That's the archetype: from Dr. House to Brian Kinney to Lou Grant to every recent Jack Nicholson movie, that's what we are trained to expect. So in a weird way, I was happy that it was not written that way. Stay a dick! It seems more realistic! That's what I say.

Dancing With the Stars
I have never been able to get into this show, but this year I am giving it a try. Here's the thing. I appreciate the construct whereby people who are clearly not trained dancers try to learn and you see them do things that surprise you. I embrace that. The thing I can't embrace is the dances where they don't actually dance at all, and they just mug for the cameras. Which usually happens in Week One and Two, and it makes me want to gouge out my own eyes so I quit watching. This year, The Hoff was the one that almost made me turn it off. I know- it seems unlike me to dislike cheese of that caliber, but when it comes to dance I can be sort of a snoot, I can admit that. That sort of thing just disrespects dance. (Oh shut up, me). But I persevered, and am still with it. The second thing is that contest shows? TOO MUCH FILLER. That's why I can't watch American Idol. They can shave that thing down to a 15 minute show, and yet it's like 2 hours every week. Can't deal with that. So for DWTS, I tivo it and then rely heavily on my fast forward button. I watch the rehearsal process and the dancing, and maybe some judging. I am spending 15 minutes on that show every week, tops.

Wallandar, starring Kenneth Branagh
They have been showing these on PBS lately, and I find them soothing, in that cerebral PBS way.

Have a good Monday, everyone!

My Brain In Strain Falls Mainly on the Plane

There is so much to think about in my life right now. Think think think. Think about what is happening, think about what parts of that I can help to change, think about what actions I need to take to help, think about how I can support people I care about around me, think about my own choices in reacting to what's going on.


I am having serious brain strain. And sometimes when having serious brain strain, I just need to shut it down, at least temporarily, or else I am liable to blow a gasket, and then what good am I to anyone, if my gasket is popped?

Hence, my weekend, wherein my peeps made sure that I stayed sane. Well, you know. Relatively.

On Friday night I went out to a fancy restaurant with Nordic Boy, Sarah and Craig. And we ate a bunch of stuff that we didn't even know what it was. And it cost like 3.2 million dollars. But that's ok, because um...why is that ok again? I don't really know. I expected my sphincter to squeeze out some diamonds or something, after that meal, but alas it was not to be. Still, the food was tasty, and the company was divine. Except that when I say that my brain needed to totally shut down? It did, during dinner. Which made me keep recommending documentaries and books to my friends and then stupidly not be able to recall the names of any of them. Which was delightful for them I am sure. I am so charming.

The rest of the weekend contained things like:

Spontaneously driving to Bellingham, WA, eating lunch, and hiking around.

Going to an apple orchard/farm in Skagit county and visiting the most adorable family farm store where we loaded up on preserves, and cider, and fresh apple cinnamon doughnuts. The farmer was kind enough to let us wander through some of his land.

Heading over to M and S's house to meet the newest members of their family: their chickens! Bawk bawk. They are usually free range but often like to stay in their coop. And if you were a chicken, wouldn't you? That is one swanky coop.

Staying late at M and S's house and chatting the night away (and YAY library folks! We didn't talk about work but AT ALL, which is kind of a miracle right now). The later it got, the more everyone kicked their shoes off, put their feet up, and leaned back in their chairs. The body language was obvious- we all wanted to get some sleep but the conversation was too good, the company too lovely.

Going to brunch and then on a long walk with Biogirl, my soon to be new neighbor.

Getting under a blanket and watching movies with Nordic Boy while the rain seemed to fall sideways out of the sky.

My weekend was full of awesome people, good weather, lots of fresh air, and a perfect balance between being busy sandwiched between small pockets of doing nothing. Brain unstrained, at least for now. Ahhh.

VIP Weekend

How was your weekend? Blah blah, yeah, let's talk about mine.


I had a weekend that felt like weeks, which was just what I have been needing lately. I love long summer days with nothing to do but eat bon bons in the breeze. Maybe it's because I work weekend days a lot but there is something about two glorious days off in a row that just seem magical to me.

We kicked off the weekend by attending a surprise birthday party for Delium. With Delium's brother at the helm, we had all been hatching this surprise party plot for weeks, and not to put forth any impressions of our group as blabby gabby types, but it was kind of astonishing that we all pulled the surprise off. He was so surprised, I was a tad afraid his ticker would give out.

The party was in the VIP section of a club that Delium's friend owns. Ooh la la, we are in a private section above the crowd wearing our fanciest pinafores. Here's the thing about the VIP second floor terrace. On all the reality shows, that depict, you know, REALITY? The Kardashians or Lindsey Lohan (um, the definition of "VIP," obviously), you are interested in seeing co-mingle with their fancy drinks, and they always take a moment to lean over the balcony of the VIP section and raise up their glasses and say "whoooo!" and the entire sweaty dance floor masses raise up their hands and say "whooooo!" back. It is, like, the official VIP salute. And don't say that it's only because they are famous that they get the whooo salute. I was watching Holly's World the other day (yes I was WHAT OF IT) and her best friend had a birthday party and she raised her glass and got a full dance floor whooo even though no one knows who the heck she is.

I am here to tell you that no one in that club once even looked up at the terrace. In fact it is safe to say they didn't give a rat's ass about the terrace. You can raise your glass all you want to. They really don't care to whooo while they get their drinky dance on. Just one more brick falling out of the reality tv wall. Dang.

The other weird thing was that we got to have the entire club to ourselves for an hour before it opened, just to up the VIP vibe to the whole thing, and so we could scream out SERPRYZE in a semi-quiet room before crowds of people show up. I don't know that I have ever been in an empty club like that before. It was kind of eerie.

Anyway, the party was a blast and the guest of honor was surprised, and people ate chocolate cake with their mixed drinks in honor of our fair Delium, god bless him.

The rest of the weekend, we proceeded to eat a lot and walk all over my city. It rained, but it was a warm, muggy summery rain which I didn't mind in the slightest because I could still wear dresses with no leggings and not wear a coat over it to mar the whole outfit, and honestly I am not ashamed to say that in my world that counts for maybe 70% of my mood.

I went to the movies, I ate five incredible meals (yuzu lemonade is a frickin' delight), I went to not one, but two architectural salvage stores (why is junk so awesome?), I read a whole novel in one sitting (can't remember the last time I did that), I hung out with my bestie, I took a nap, I called long distance folks and friends, and I hiked around downtown, Ballard, Belltown, Sodo, Greenlake and the U District.  How is it possible that I was that busy, but yet got so much rest, all in one weekend? Because weekends are magic.

Consumables #15

Quick and dirty consumables!

A Man Named Pearl

Delightful documentary about a guy in South Carolina who makes his whole yard a topiary kingdom. Sounds weird, but it isn't. It's touching.

Kings of the Earth, by Jon Clinch

When I got an advance copy of this, I had to read it. Remember that documentary I talked about a while back called My Brother's Keeper?  This is loosely based on that. Although the book goes in another direction from the doc, I sort of love both equally.

It's Complicated

I actually really liked this. Sue me.

Lost

I already told you I was late to the game in watching the last Lost. But now that I have done it, I am kind of sad that it's over, although there were things that annoyed the holy hell out of me. I got used to the annoyance. It was like a long term annoying friend. Bye, Lost.  Nordic Boy always contended that your full title should be "Lost: Where There Is Always Someone In the Fucking Bushes," and that is always how I shall remember you.

Happy Friday everyone!

Spin offs and pop locks

Busy as a motha-eff over here, so listing it shall have to be.

1. Got caught up on Lost episodes over the weekend. Nordic Boy has renamed the series "There's Too Many People in the Fucking Bushes." Which there totally are, right? I think there should be a drinking game where you drink every time someone pops out of the bushes.

2. Also for Lost watchers: don't you love it how the appearance of the smoke monster is always preceded by that maracas sound? So jaunty, that smoke monster.

3. Friends came over for dinner this weekend, and over dinner, we tried to think of tv shows that had the most number of spin-offs that we could think of, as a contest. Nordic Boy and I jointly won the day by coming up with Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, Joanie Loves Chachi, and Laverne and Shirley, which may seem like a no-brainer in hindsight but no one had come up with a quadruple until that point. The room erupted in "AW SNAP!" at our easy win, but then Delium got up and did a celebratory pop-lock in our honor. Because he knows how to show respect, that one.

4. After the contest was exhausted, we looked up lists of spin-offs on the Interwebs and discovered two intriguing titles. "Blansky's Beauties" (an undiscovered Happy Days spin-off) and "Richie Brockelman, Private Eye" (offa Rockford Files). How could shows with names like these have failed? To quote every single contest show sage on tv: America got it wrong, people.

5. Many of my friends are on Match.com, and they all seemed to talk to me about it this weekend, separately. What does it say that most of them talk about it much as you would talk about a visit to the dentist? Painful and tedious, but it just has to be done.

6. There's a restaurant in Seattle called Daniel's Broiler. Ever since St. Patrick's Day, every time we go past it, we sing "Oh Danny BROIL! The steaks, the steaks are cah-alling," to the tune of Danny Boy. We shall see how long this takes to get old to us. I am guessing on a shelf life of five years or so.

7. I get to go to Portland with Nordic Boy for the whole week, starting tomorrow. This is not entertaining to anyone but me. I am holding back a celebratory pop-lock even as I sit here.

Consumables #2

This week I took in:



The Uncommon Reader. The Queen of England becomes obsessed with reading, to the chagrin of her entire court. It's funnier than it sounds.







Because, you know, these movies obviously go together.
















Electra, by the Seattle Shakespeare Company.
Dude, these people would make great Jerry Springer fodder. Also? I had front row seats and almost got spritzed with fake blood. It was like a KISS concert. Only, you know, not.


November Was White, December Was Grey
(And also in the grey/white family? January, and February. And most likely March and April).

School of Rock

My weekend seemed like it was weeks long. And yet I was still grumpy when it was over. What an ingrate.

On Saturday night, BioGirl, Nordic Boy and I went to see a rock show put on by the students at Seattle's School of Rock. If your town has a School of Rock (and many towns do, I have discovered), you need to get yourself to one of their shows as soon as possible. It was AWESOME. While there, we saw the following:

1. Kids just, um, rocking out. These kids were good. Hella good. I have heard many a band in my day (did I just say "in my day"? Why I believe I did), full of adults who call themselves professional musicians but, compared to these kids, sucked dingus.

2. A little 8-year-old girl with Princess Leia hair, belting out "Why You'd Want to Live Here" by Death Cab in a most delightful way, and then double-belting out "Outshined" by Soundgarden. Woo she was good.

3. Eric Corson from The Long Winters came out and sang a song with the kids. How cool is that for them?

4. A bunch of adults who came in with an all-too-familiar (to me, having been a librarian for teens) condescension for the kids ("won't this be a CUTE show...") get schooled on rocking out. They had to be taken seriously for playing like that. I loved it.

5. For all the respect they earned and got, some of them also got a healthy (and awesome) dose of embarrassment-inducing behavior from parents. One in particular. There was this lady who was standing right in front of us, and whenever there was a pause between songs, and the crowd stopped clapping and hooting and hollering for a second, she would wait for just that moment of quiet to scream out her daughter's name in the most mom-like manner. "Megan!!!!" she would yell. "I love you!" And then she would flap both of her hands over her head in the biggest wave you have ever seen, as if she were not only waving hello but also fanning the entire stage like a human air conditioner. She did this the entire show, and waved ever harder in confusion over the fact that Megan didn't seem to hear her ear-splitting love. Megan was not making eye contact, can you believe it? But still, Megan's mom was determined and never gave up. Her yells became a song in and of themselves. On the way home, BioGirl and I broke out with a good old chorus of "Megan!!!! I love you!!!!" much like a tune we couldn't get out of our heads. And Nordic Boy ignored us, so maybe that is just the affect that that song has on people.

TraditiSHON! Tradishon!

I love weekends so much, it's sickening. Me and weekends are like those couples that make out in public, with full tongue and gropage. I know this. But, like those couples, I don't stop. I must grope my weekends no matter who is there! I can't help it! GET A ROOM, ME AND WEEKENDS!

I know that metaphor really doesn't make sense. I am too swept away by my weekend to care, however.

I was still feeling under the weather on Friday night, just a smidge, so I opted out of going to a dance party at my friend A's house. This was painful to me as there is nothing I love more than cutting a rug with wild abandon, but I did the responsible thing and stayed at home so as not to cough my germy cough all over the dance floor. Nordic Boy, after working another 14-hour day (that dude works so much more than I do and complains so much less, which is something I am working on, the complaining less, not the working more) came home and we watched a bunch of bad tv and fell asleep by ten. This makes me sound old and moldy, but I LOVED IT.

On Saturday my friend Sarah came over and she brought me homemade chocolate brittle, which, come on, you gotta love a girl like that. We drank tea and talked the day away until the sun went down (which ok fine is only until 4pm these days) and can I just tell you if you don't know Sarah, you totally should? She is just the cat's knees or the bee's pajamas or whatever the saying is.

That night BioGirl, Nordic Boy, and I put on our fancy knickers and went out to eat at Cafe Lago, which has the lightest lasagna you have ever had in your life. It's like lasagna-flavored air, which maybe doesn't sound like a good thing, but it is.

Then we went to see a live production of White Christmas. The show was good, although the cast members were clearly singers and actors (excellent ones) but not dancers. The dancing was fine for what it was, don't get me wrong. I just have a case of hyper-picky-itis when it comes to dance sometimes. What warms my heart is that after all these years with me, Nordic Boy is as perceptive a dance watcher as I could ever hope for. After the show was over, he noted "did you notice that the lead dude only turned to the right, never to the left?" And I said "OMG YES I DID NOTICE," while thinking in my head goddamit I love this man.

The other thing about the show was that although it wasn't as bad as the last time I went to this particular theater, there were still a few people that did not clap at the end of the show but just up and left during the curtain call as if they were at a movie during the credits and not watching real live performers who can see your indifference to their dedication. I don't usually have much of a temper about things, but this makes me so mad I want to Chuck Norris someone. FIFTH AVENUE THEATER PATRONS YOU ARE REQUIRED TO CLAP OR AT THE VERY LEAST SIT DOWN UNTIL THEY HAVE DONE THEIR CURTAIN CALL NO ARGUMENTS THE END. Don't make me come over there, effers.

Sunday was a day for the history books. I love days like I had on Sunday. I slept well, and woke up when my body said so instead of my mothersucking alarm clock, and then Nordic Boy and I just hung out for the whole day. The day seemed like it went on for eleventy jilliion hours and I never wanted it to end. We watched movies, we baked peanut butter brownies (and we ate apple pie while making the peanut butter brownies which is a style of multi-taking that I can really get behind), we talked a blue streak, we laughed at stuff that probably wasn't even that funny, we ventured out to the grocery store and hardware store, we played a heated game on the Wii with trash talk that would scandalize your momma, and we just soaked it all up.

This made me realize that for all my non-traditional holidayness, and the fact that we don't put up a tree or lights, and that some years we exchange a little gift but others we don't, that we actually have managed to come up with a holiday tradition that is all our own and that we do without fail each and every year, right around Christmas/Hannukah/etc time. We set aside entire days where we do nothing but look at each others' ugly mugs for the whole entire day. We don't talk to anyone else on the phone, we don't go to anyone's house, we don't check any email. We just act all together-ish, just like this Sunday. We have already planned at least one more day like this before the end of the year.

Look at that. I do have a holiday tradition that is meaningful to me after all and I never even realized it. Who knew?

Trips to Portland and Suburbia

Last week, I took a vacation day and went to Portland with Nordic Boy. We arrived late, late on Wednesday evening (ok fine it was 11pm but that is way late for us), singing Journey songs at the top of our lungs the entire way there. It's a good thing we did that because it was most depressing for us to realize that when you drive to Portland at night, you can't get a good look at the Hamiliton Corner billboard, which for those of you that are unaware is a giant billboard along the I-5corridor with a big drawing of Uncle Sam on it and an everchanging string of right-wing batshit crazy written in big block letters, usually having to do with the Mexicans wanting to take jobs away from us including Obama (who is really Mexican, or Kenyan, or just, you know, brown) who is also interested in taking away all the guns that the folks in Real America use in order to defend their homes from the rabid Commie librarians who want to turn all of our children gay by reading them picture books about the two male penguin parents. Is it wrong that I sort of love that billboard? Maybe love is the wrong word. I just look forward to reading what it has to say every time I drive to and from Portland. But at night there are no lights for it so we missed out on the crazy. Rats.

While in Portland, I met an old friend for lunch. He's a friend of mine from high school who I literally have not seen since 12th grade but through the magic of the Faceplace we are all the sudden friends again. I must cop to a small amount of trepidation for this meeting because you never know what a person who knew you in middle school might remember about you that you have totally blocked out about yourself (hey, remember that time you pooped your drawers in Algebra class??). The friendship also has the misfortune of his knowing me starting in 7th grade, when he moved to Flint. 7th grade, can I just tell you, was not my finest hour. It was, actually, my worst hour. I know many of you feel that way about middle school, so I won't get much sympathy. But for me, 7th grade was the year that I pulled a total Angela Chase and dropped my childhood friends for the cool crowd. Dudes, it was GROSS. Luckily I snapped out of that shit by 8th grade but of all the years to make a first impression in my life? Seventh grade would be last on my list.

Luckily, my friend either did not remember this about me or was gracious enough to not mention it, and we had a lovely lunch. I am always amazed at how many cool people I seem to meet everywhere. Aren't cool people supposed to be, like, rare? In my world, they seem to just come out of the woodwork everywhere I go. Perhaps you are thinking that that is because everyone is just cooler than me, so I have a skewed perspective or something, and to that I say an unequivocal WHO ASKED YOU.

Speaking of cool people, Nordic Boy and I then had dinner with the ever-lovely @metaleah that night. She was in town for a museum conference (a librarian crashing the museum world! like a secret agent or something!) and so we went and picked her up from her hotel (in Nordic Boy's company car which this week was a gigantic white pimping Pontiac that was just begging to be donked) and went out on the town. Once again, cool person, in my immediate vicinity. I must have a magnet in my brain or something.

We got back to Seattle in time for a lovely weekend, which included a field trip out to the burbs with BioGirl for a day of getting ridonkulously lost in mall-land. This is not unusual for me (people who plan suburbs, do you not believe in grids? Or numbered streets that actually go in number order? Or sidewalks?) but BioGirl is my go-to guide whenever I need to burb it up. She's like a burb sherpa or something. However, this time, she seemed just as lost as me. Which takes some doing, let me tell you.

Yesterday Neighbor J came over for the day and we just sort of ran our mouths for the entire day. Sometimes I think that if there was such a thing as a conversation contest, Neighbor J and I would be like, the Tiger Woods of that sport. When we lived in the same building as each other, we would talk on the phone for 3 or 4 hours a day. We both had to invest in a headset phone just so we could stay verbally attached while we went about our day.

Finally, last night I watched The Way We Get By. Don't let me stop you from watching it because I thought it was great, but let me tell you it was depressing. It really crushed the everloving hairy Jebus out of me and made me go to the bad place where I just wanted to hug Nordic Boy by the neck and weep about him not dying and leaving me all old and alone with my cats and the headboard of our bed. Never mind that I don't have cats and that you don't know what the headboard reference is unless you have seen the movie. Just watch it, but be warned that you might feel like shit afterward. Wow, how is that for a recommendation? Nice one, LG.

At any rate, to combat the depressing, we then watched Beach Girls and the Monster. Which might qualify for the weirdest double feature ever.

Hope you all are having a loverly Monday!

Doc Octopus on a Plane!

Well there goes another Halloween down the crapper, and there are smashed up gourd innards on the street to prove it.

So: costumes. Let me explain mine to you. First of all, Nordic Boy, Neighbor J, Biogirl and I all think that screaming out "SNAKES ON A PLANE!" is a gutbuster. Hence, we made our Halloween costumes along those lines. BioGirl was an airplane passenger with a snake wrapped around her. Clearly, when you see her you should yell "Snakes on a plane!!!" right? That is totally the thing to yell, right? Or you can also stare at her and say "What exactly are you supposed to be again?" Either one of those responses were heartily accepted.

To confuse things even more, Nordic Boy dressed as an airline pilot and pinned a big photo of a cupcake to his shirt. And I had a flight attendant outfit on and a basket of snacks. Obviously, we were CAKES ON A PLANE and SNACKS ON A PLANE!

Yeah, don't feel bad that you don't get it. No one else did either. But when we thought these costumes up, we laughed our asses off, which is what matters in the grand scheme of things.

Our friends, however, rocked the costumes like you would not believe. People really get into this Halloween thing, did you realize that? I could go on and on about the costumery that I saw Saturday night because it blew my friggin' mind, but let me just tell you about my favorite costume- a kick-ass Dr. Octopus costume. It was SUBLIME. Check it!

COME ON.







R U SERIUS?

I know, my friends are way totally cooler than I am, I am highly aware.

Pumpkin Party!

It's nearly Halloween and my holiday-indifferent brain is all in a twist because I need to come up with a costume to go to a Halloween party next week. The best idea that Nordic Boy and I have come up with is to go as Piss and Vinegar, but (a) that is probably only funny to us, and (b) gross and (c) hard to interpret into an actual costume.

Before I get to Halloween stuff, remember how I said that it had been a while since a dance show had knocked my socks off? Well I solved that problem by going to see the Hubbard Street Dance Company who were here on tour from Chicago this weekend. My socks were blown off as well as a few other articles of clothing, they were so good. So once again, Chicago, you beat the pants off Seattle in terms of dance shows I have seen from both of these two towns. Dang you, Chicago. Seattle still has...um, mountains and stuff, and if mountain climbing were my thing I would mos def be sassing you about that. So there.

Things here in Seattle have taken a very rainy turn, and I have had to accept the fact that I won't see the sun for another 6 months or so and that all my white cohorts are going to begin glowing a translucent if soggy alabaster. I thank all of you for your coat suggestions- alas none of them fit my admittedly picky-bastard standards. Don't fret though- it's quite apparent that if I have not succumbed to a raincoat for over ten years then my neuroses is way stronger than any of you can help me with, clearly, unless any of you happens to be a therapist. You are awful nice for trying though. (Me, hanging head in shame. A very wet head.)

So far, this post seems to be all about what sorts of things are below acceptable standards, doesn't it? Costume ideas, dance in Seattle, sun levels, and raincoat appreciation. Yeesh. Let's turn this party around, shall we?

How about I share the fact that this fall has been such a pretty one in my town? Sometimes, our falls can be really short- we can go from summer to winter in a week, or at least it feels that way. But this month has seemed long and positively autumnal. I have some random neighborhoody photos that I've snapped offa my phone to illustrate. Take a looksie?









To celebrate the autumnity of the surroundings, as well as the upcoming Halloween eve, my friends M and B had a pumpkin carving party at their house over the weekend. And you know what you do when you live in the city and don't have a pumpkin patch handy to supply such an endeavor? You go to the local underground parking pumpkin patch, that's what!


Don't you just smell the mulled cider in the air? No? Too choked up with exhaust? Oh whatever.

At any rate, we got our pumpkins (Nordic Boy picked out a small white one, and BioGirl picked out a whopper of an orange one) and headed over to the party. I forgot to take a photo of ours (ok, fine, it should just be called Nordic Boy's since I didn't even touch the thing the entire evening because in case you haven't heard by now I am HOLIDAY DEFICIENT) but rest assured he carved the cutest pumpkin ever- it had little beady eyes and a tongue sticking out of its mouth.

How about you look at someone else's awesome pumpkin artistry instead?



Then we cozied up with a bunch of our friends and watched the best Halloween double feature ever conceived. First off, we watched Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster.


Followed by Queen of Outer Space starring the effervescent Zsa Zsa Gabor who ran around in action scenes in chiffon and sparkles the entire time.



I highly, highly recommend both movies. Highly.

Thus was spent another gorgeous weekend. One might say that the entire thing was full of piss and vinegar. And pumpkins. Piss, vinegar and pumpkins.

Where the Soggy Things Are

We have so much catching up to do. Let's do it now, shall we? Let's shall.

You didn't miss much from me last week because I was working hard for the money (dah-dum, dah-dum), so hard for it honey. Not to say that I don't usually work really hard, but compared to last week? It made me think: let's face it, I don't usually work that hard.

But talking about work is likely to keel you over dead with boredom so I'm going to skip to the end (please say "skip to the end" in your head like Prince Humperdinck during the wedding scene in Princess Bride, thanks) and get to the weekend. Unless you want to hear about how I was so tired that I ate popcorn and Smart Puffs for dinner due to tiredness? No? Ok then.

The only thing I will say about last week is that I attended a week-long conference type thing in my city at a fancy hotel. Lunch was provided and people got awesomely fed every single day. It was gourmet deluxe, which is very unusual for conferences in my profession. It was great. Except for the four vegetarians in the group. They (ok, we) got a cold, bland portabella and spinach sandwich every day. For five days straight. No chips on the side, no condiments even. I am not a picky eater and pretty much have the attitude that since I am in the minority about meat ingestion I should expect to just eat whatever veggie thing I'm broughten, but dang. You shoulda seen the spread that everyone else was getting. And I would have settled for a goddamn grilled cheese to break up the monotony. Something. A slice of tomato?Anything? An onion ring? But nope. Cold, unmarinated dry ass mushroom sandwich. For a whole week.

Oh well. My life is so hard, boohoo.

Friday night I attended my workplace's union meeting, wherein we all stood on tables with signs like Norma Rae, except ours said things like "librarians are hot" and "read a book, suckers" instead of your normal Norma Rae captions. Ok, we didn't really do that, but you know me, if I could live my life in a long uninterrupted string of movie clips that would be kind of ok with me. The library budget, much like everyone else's budget, is in the crapper for 2010 and so the meeting was not a barrel of laughs, that's for damn sure. Afterward, my friend J and I had to go brave the rain and cheer ourselves up with some avocado sushi rolls. We closed the sushi joint down and then talked in the car for a couple of hours, which made my evening last into the next day, which for a grandma like yours truly is sort of spectacular.

This weekend the weather gushed down in the form of large and in-charge raindrops of a Midwest variety. Seattle may be known for its rain, but seldom does it just POUR down in bucketloads. Rather, it seems perfectly unrainy until you walk around in it and find yourself inexplicably soaking wet from the teeny tiny mist drops that have been hitting you all the while without your knowing. But this week it was full on raining cats and dogs with some ferrets thrown in for good measure.

So when you have stayed up late the night before, and had a hellish workweek the days before that, and you have a weekend coming up and it's stormy outside, what do you do? Stay in and watch Tudors DVDs? Snuggle in your bed and listen to the bluster outside? Build a cozy fire in your fireplace?

Um, no. You get up at 7am and go to the dump and get super duper wet, and smell super duper smelly. Obviously.

Granted, I didn't have to get up and go to the dump. Nordic Boy would have happily gotten his ass up and done it himself. Wouldn't have been the first time. But remember when I mentioned Project Get Hella Involved? I am committed. I am not going to wuss out now. So we went to the dump to recycle a bunch of broken up concrete from a walkway of our yard. And I was reminded that I don't own a raincoat. Or rain-appropriate shoes.

That's right- over ten years in Seattle, and no rain gear. Because why? Because rain gear is ug-effing-lee. If there was ever a debate in my mind about whether form or function wins the day in the Land of Librarian Girl, that right there should answer the question for you. If it's ugly, I can't go there. I just can't. I'm not proud of this.

After the dump, we went rain coat shopping for me. At REI. Let me just say this right now- I am not an REI, Patagonia, North Face sort of chickee. I find the design of these clothes abominable, especially for ladies. The everloving CUT of these coats, people. It is as if they are all made for Rosie the Maid from the Jetson's. Big and boxey. Yick. It gives me hives just thinking about it. Plus, they were playing that song in REI? The one that goes, real fast: I gotta a pocket gotta pocket fulla sunshine I gotta love and I know that it's awl mine oh. Oh-oh. I am usually pretty ok with bad music and indeed I love a lot of bad music (hi Jody Watley) but I cannot HANDLE THAT SONG. So add REI box coats with a pocket fulla sunshine and I almost had to throw a pocket fulla coniption fits.

Needless to say from that story that a raincoat for me was not found that day.

Then Nordic Boy had to go in to work for a while so I had a nice long private makeout session with my couch. Don't tell him that, ok?

Then we went out with a bucketload of friends to see Where the Wild Things Are. Remember how that book is all wild rumpusish and full of joy and wild abandon and gleeful spirit? Well this version of the story is full of dysfunction and drama and not a small amount of outright disturbing violence. There was a little kid sitting behind me at the movie theater and she kept saying, in a really small scared voice "Why is that happening, momma? Why are they so mad?" It's pretty much guaranteed that that kid will have a straight up nightmare for the next few weeks of her life. So thanks for that Dave Eggers.

I'm not saying that the movie was bad or anything. But for some reason it made the group of us go to a bar afterward and talk about how sucky and often scary being a kid was over our beers until the wee hours. So that's my review of that movie.

Ok, I gotta go to work now so you'll have to wait for the riveting tale of Sunday and how Nordic Boy and I installed rain water collection tanks in our garage. Trust me, it's exciting. And I am not even being sarcastic.

It's What Month Again?

Highlights from the weekend...

1. Nordic Boy got us tickets to see a ballet Saturday night. It was fine, but just fine. How I long for a dance show that really knocks my socks off- it's been a while for me. There were too many problems with this one for my socks to go anywhere, but it was fun to get gussied up and traipse to the show. Don't get me wrong, there were good parts to the show. Just not sock-knockers.

2. I just said knockers.

3. I am in some sort of deep, deep denial that it is October. There are lots of Octobery things happening around me, and I am feeling constantly shocked about them. For one- my birthday. It is this week, and yet every time someone refers to it, I act as though it is far, far away. Weeks away, at least, instead of days. And then yesterday was BioGirl and my 11 year friendy-versary, and I totally spaced that too. She brought me a card and a funny gift and I was all WUT IS THAT. Nice one. Also, I have already gotten invites to two Halloween parties. And still, I don't get that it's October. My inner clock is all effed up.

4. I have decided that in order to combat the fall doldrums that I am susceptible to, I am going to get HELLA INVOLVED with the home improvement projects around here. Yes sir, you heard me right. This weekend, Nordic Boy was building shelves for the scrap lumber we have stacked in our garage. I know this is not weird for many people but to me I find it funny that we OWN LUMBER. Enough of it to need shelves for it. Who does that? But I kept such commentary to myself since having me help on projects is one thing without adding lumber punditry of a sarcastic nature on top of it.

5. Part of Project Get Hella Involved was accompanying Nordic Boy to the hardware store and not completely disengaging. Which I DID! Usually, when I go to the hardware store with him, he shops, while I follow him around the store with my iPhone, surfing the web and texting my friends like a surly teenager. But this time, I like, helped. And I am proud to say that I found the correct style of compression connectors that he needed. Hell if I know what they do, but I found them goddammit. Small victories, people. I have to start somewhere.

6. We got bracing up on the garage walls, and the shelves now need to be cut from some of his scrap lumber. Aside from a point where I got too bored for words and I went into the house to watch America's Next Top Model for a half hour break, I was Hella Involved the whole day. I call this a success.

7. As we were walking down the street the other day, we walked past a pile of human caca, right there on the sidewalk. As you do. It was, pardon me for saying so, a long tendril curled up on itself. After which we had the following conversation:

Me: Someone pooped out a pretzel.
Nordic Boy: Looked more like a heart to me.
Me: You are such a romantic.
Nordic Boy: So true, so true.

Orchards, I say Uncle

This weekend!

I almost had a friggin' heart attack because my iphone froze up and I couldn't get it to unfreeze. I realized, as I was freaking the eff out, that it really probably wasn't healthy for me to care that much about a phone. But I went there. To the bad place. About my phone. And then Nordic Boy fixed it! I love that guy. And by that guy, I mean my phone.

I was sort of mad that the Project Runway folks kept using the term "snoozefest" last week. Snoozefest is like, MY WORD, and they were using it! I was reminded by loved ones that I did not coin the phrase snoozefest nor do I have any rights on telling Heidi Klum she can't use it. But still. I felt robbed. Much like Christopher and Epperson must have felt.

I went on a pilgrimmage to find an apple orchard with a storefront that sells doughnuts and cider. I do this annually, and wrote about it a couple of years ago. When I was a kid, my parents always took me to this orchard in Michigan and I would run around in the leaves and we would drink cider and eat doughnuts and it's a memory that is just about as perfect as one can get. You know what's hard? Trying to recreate a perfect memory. It's not really possible, is what I am learning. Sometimes you have to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em, and I think I need to give up on the orchard quest now. I gave it a good shot for a few years, but the disappointment is just a little too much for me each time.

Still, there were good things about this orchard, even if it's not the orchard of my dreams. There was a pumpkin patch that was pretty and made me wonder if the Great Pumpkin was going to visit next month.



Also at the orchard, there was a bunch of goats that were chewing everything and peeing themselves to kingdom come. Which is not really a great thing, I suppose. But it was notable. Goats may not have many talents, but if you want someone to chew stuff and lay some poops and peeps everywhere, goats are the tops. Everyone's got something to be good at.

I got called out on Facebook by Nordic Boy who decided that he needed to post on BioGirl's wall that this is the season where I begin my annual reign as a "holiday Scrooge." First of all, that is rich, coming from that dude. Second of all, he never logs in to Facebook, like, ever, and the one time he does it's to name-call me? Humpf. Third of all, I beg to differ about this defamation. I am not a Scrooge (despite the fact that I just said "humpf"). I am holiday-indifferent. Totally not the same. I am even benevolently indifferent. Really. Truly. Also, perhaps a little bit holiday-defensive.

Oh, and by the way, you guys? Apparently don't have any blog recommendations. Because out of all yall I think I got four blog recs. FOUR. That is sad to me. Is bloggyland that unexciting?

Come on, you know you want to recommend one. Just one. Your top pick. Give it to me.

Librarian Girl

Ticket for One

Before I get into my usual inane banter, may I just say the following?

Loved ones of mine need to stop getting hurt. Physically, mentally, all of it. IMMEDIATELY. All of these lovely, beautiful people I love keep getting crushed. Just CRUSHED. It's horrible. I feel like there are bombs going off all around me. If any of you out there can make this stop happening to my peeps, that would be most helpful.

Now back to our regularly scheduled stupidness.

I had a day off on Friday, and I didn't make any plans for the day. Because of all the aforementioned stuff, I really, really wanted to just stay home all day in pajamas and watch movies. I also knew that if I did that, I would just feel crap by the end of the day. So I stayed in my pajamas for most of the morning (Adventures in Babysitting was on, so obviously I had to), and then I got myself together and took myself on a date to the SciFi Museum.

Who takes a perfectly free Friday and goes on a one-person date to the SciFi Museum? Geek alert!

These are among the things I saw on my date with yours truly.

1. Ernie and Bert. And they looked sort of huge in person. I think that if I had met them when I was a kid, they would have scared me. And yes, I realize that I just said "met" like I actually had a conversation with them. I just want to believe that they are real because the sight of them in a glass box was sort of sad. Oh shut up, I know it's weird.
2. Kermit the Frog. He looked old and tired.
3. At the part of the exhibit that had stuff from The Dark Crystal, there were two hipsters around my age that were rolling their eyes and saying "What the fuck is this? I have never even HEARD of this movie!" which sort of galled me.
4. The Mah-na Mah-na muppets. I was way too excited about seeing them.
5. Really cool experimental short films by Jim Henson. That dude was wacky, way beyond puppetry, and I love it.
6. Awesome sketches and drawings.
7. Everyone in the entire place taking photos of everything while standing among nine billion signs that said "No Photography Please." No one got busted. I wanted to take photos too, but I obeyed the signs despite everyone around me. This just proves that if I am ever in a looting mob, I am not getting a tv or anything.
8. Michael Jackson's sequined glove.

Wait a minute, I bet you're wondering why that last one is in there. Although the thought of Michael Jackson paraphenalia being on display in the SciFi Museum is awesome, and to think of him as actually being a muppet is even more so, it wasn't in that museum. The Seattle SciFi Museum is connected to the EMP (the Experience Music Project), which is a music museum. If you pay admission to one, you get to go in the other if you want. Listen, I know it doesn't makes sense that these two things are connected. I just report the facts, I don't make them.

After the museum, I went to the Seattle Center fountain and watched the kids go apeshit. I highly recommend that.





My date with myself was pretty successful, I think. Except for the fact that no one on the date got felt up or anything.

Can't Nobody Stop the Juice

Random Mondayness

1. This week, the week after the Hallowed and Angelic Vacation of '09, has been sort of crap in terms of working. The downside of going on vacation is that things pile up while you've been gone. And although I know I will catch up, at this point I feel like my skull is being crushed by the weight of my to-do lists.

2. Sorry to bring up my stupid dance show favorite again, but last week on SYTYCD, they inexplicably brought Katie Holmes on the show to do a song and dance. Why? Why was Katie Holmes all of a sudden on the show? Can Katie Holmes dance? No, she can't, it turns out. She perhaps thinks she can dance, so I guess that goes with the title of the show. She did this number where she totally lip synced and marched around for a few minutes with jazz hands and a few poses thrown in. Why, on a show whose whole purpose is to illustrate artistry and skill, would you bring on Katie Holmes to make a mockery of the whole thing? THIS HEARTILY IRRITATED ME. And also, I think I need to stop taking this show so seriously, what do you think?

3. It is up into the 90s this week. I am pretty sure I am the only person in all of Seattle that is happy about this.

4. I went to see the Harry Potter movie. Does anyone else laugh in a very immature manner whenever they do the quidditch scenes, as Nordic Boy and I do? If you don't know what could be so funny about quidditch, then you are far too mature and I am far too embarrassed by us to explain it to you.

5. I have been looking for a sideboard for a long while now. (Sideboard? Credenza? Cabinet? Whatever the hell it's called. Something within which one puts crap inside). I really have wanted a Matthew Hilton Cross sideboard. I look at photos of it and I want to lie across it and hug it in rapture. However, this may shock you but I don't have $3,000 to drop on buying a piece of furniture such as that one. So then I started trolling vintage furniture stores in the hopes of finding something similar. I've looked for over a year now. Still, too much dough, even for something that I could refinish myself (meaning, in the parlance of my house, that Nordic Boy would refinish it. Just in case you don't speak my language). Finally, I found something I could live with from West Elm. It was $800. Yesterday? We went to Ikea. And found something that I could live with for $150. I got the Ikea one. That sound you are hearing? To quote Death Cab: this is the sound of settling. Pah paaah, pah paaah. Still, it's pretty, right? Sort of? (And please don't look up the Matthew Hilton one before answering this question or your answer might be all askew).


6. I ate two most awesome things this weekend. One was this.

Porcini mushroom tarlets.

The other was this.

Pancakes from a spray can.

I am hard pressed to choose which of these was more awesome.

Parks and Recreation

I really want to once again talk about how the weather has been so frickin' nice. But I won't. Just know that I want to.

The weekend was another one for the history books. Well, I guess that would imply that I went into a battle or got inaugurated as the first Indian-Pacific-Islander-American president (now there's a goal for you) or received some blankets infected with small pox or something like that, so maybe it wasn't for the history books. Although the weekend was just as pleasant as could be, in history books you see a lot of awfulness or glory or pride or fury. Not a lot said about events that were pleasant. Oh well.

So what exactly was so pleasant about it? I don't know. I just tooled around and had a grand old time of it, that's all. It was sort of a weekend of parks. BioGirl and I went to Magnuson Park and walked the loop. Then Nordic Boy and I went to Discovery Park and saw a whole family of bald eagles having an in-flight fight with a pack of crows, which was crazy intense. We then went to Madrona Park and walked along Lake Washington for a good couple of hours. We also went to Cal Anderson park to attend a birthday picnic, which was loveliness. There was even a guy in a red velvet suit with a purple dunce cap on at that last one, simultaneously walking, hula-hooping, and playing the clarinet around the park. If you don't think that is fantastic, you just might be a little dead inside.

Nordic Boy also dug a big hole in our front yard because he is doing some crazy engineering shit where he's re-routing the water drainage through our yard. So as if the ugliness that is our yard is not enough, now we have this big hole in the middle of it, with pipe in there and other beauteousness. It hurts my eyes, you guys. It's so ridinkadonk.

You want to hear something crazy? Nordic Boy is totally magic! He does this thing where he takes a piece of metal, kind of the shape of the Ikea hex wrench thing, and he finds water running underground! He walks around with it, and it will turn toward the water flow. Then you dig where it points, and there you go. Water. It's like a watery Ouija board, dudes! He's like a friggin' diviner and shit! The first time he did that I thought it was a total crock of caca, but I have seen him to do it a bunch of times now and it is FER-REAKY. Perhaps this is not at all weird to you outdoorsy people out there who have to regularly scavenge for berries and find water with your Ikea toolkit, but for me? It totally weirds me out. This is reason #487 that if I stick with that guy, I am guaranteed to survive when the zombies take over the world and we are living in a Mad Max dystopia.

That's all I got.

Weekend Brain Dump

I am so in love with weekends it's getting kind of serious.

On Friday night, I came home and was feeling a bit of stress. I am usually not one for cracking under stress (not because I am so evolved, mind you, but more because I am too lazy to maintain stress. Laziness will save you from a lot of grief in life, trust me) so Nordic Boy and I ditched our plans and spent the evening on our porch, sipping smoothies and talking the sun down. It was one of those nights that was only four or five hours, but felt like a whole day and made me picture us together when we're old. Because if you can't shoot the shit on the porch with someone for that many hours straight, then really are you going to make it together when you're 80? Isn't that why Bartles and James stayed together so long? And Statler and Waldorf? Why am I modeling my relationship after curmudgeonly old men? I don't know.

On Saturday we helped our friend haul some stuff to the dump for recycling. Who knew that taking long pieces of two by fours and throwing them, javelin-like, into the back of a dump truck was so fun? Especially when you can make a "yaaaaah!" grunting sound while you're doing it, like Bruce Jenner? (That's Wheaties box Bruce Jenner, not Kardashian Bruce Jenner). The only thing that marred the fun of that day was when my friend tried to tell me that the band Toto was musical-twins with the band Tears for Fears. Can anyone out there back me up when I say that my friend has a broken set of ear holes? Can we take a vote or something? If more of you out there say that Toto and Tears for Fears are one and the same, I suppose I will have to live with it, but come on you guys. Back me up. Because that whole conversation made me aghast.

After the dump (and really, can one really use the word "dump" without thinking about poop? or is that just me?), we went out with our friend (after changing out of our stinky dump outfits) for thai food, and then Nordic Boy and I went erranding and then to a park along Lake Washington for a nice long walk. While there, we saw many, many children being scolded. It was like a scoldfest everywhere we went. "STOP IT!" "COME HERE!" "SIT DOWN!" "BE QUIET!" "EAT THIS!" "I AM COUNTING TO THREE." I know there is a lot of boundary-setting and directives in parenting- I am not an ignoramus or anything. But that day it just seemed like that's all we heard everywhere we went. And when something is yelled out like that, all bossy-like, it's hard not to obey, even when you're a thirty-something librarian. I was trying to enjoy my walk but I kept wanting to STOP THAT and COME HERE every few minutes. It was jarring.

After the walk, we met up with BioGirl for dinner, and then went out for ice cream after that. I stuffed myself more than I have stuffed myself in a very long time. I almost felt like my gut was going to bust or something. It was way too much food. So what did we do, right after eating way more than anyone really should? We went back to our house and jumped all around for a couple hours on the DDR. Because nothing says friendship like jumping up and down until you just may barf.

Sunday, we had a day of doing grownup stuff. We paid bills, and watered plants, and did grocery shopping, and cleaned our house, and other such. Then, in the afternoon, we attended a picnic that was held in honor of little old me. See, I am leaving one library location to work in another (just one neighborhood away) and my current co-workers threw me a bon voyage shindig. It was so nice, you guys. I don't know what it is about me but I never expect anyone other than Nordic Boy or BioGirl to do a goddamn thing for me, and so when someone does, I sort of can get weirdly emotional about it. Why I don't think people would ever really be thoughtful and nice toward me is way too much for me to get into without my having to pay you therapist fees or something, but suffice it to say that this was really lovely. Nice people are just so nice.

Then after the party, we went over to another friends' house for a visit and then went home and fell into bed.

How many more days until another weekend?

Librarian Girl

Really, I don't drink much

Another successful weekend in the can, homies.

Friday night Boy De La Nordic and I went to join some friends of ours for trivia and karaoke at a fine drinking establishment in our fair city. Truth be told, I am not much of a drinker. Why would I drink in order to feel loopy and make an ass of myself when I can do that just fine sober?

Exhibit A:
During trivia, I could be counted on for every last correct answer to any question that only a 15-year-old might know. And by 15-year-old, I mean a HIGHLY UNCOOL FIFTEEN YEAR OLD. If you play 4 measures of guitar music and ask what artist might have recorded that snippet, and you need someone to yell out "MAROON FIVE!" then you need to invite me out with you to trivia. If you need me to identify historical or scientific facts that a highly educated adult should know though, then don't call me.

Exhibit B:
If you don't want to be embarrassed by a thirty-something librarian wearing an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt getting up and singing a heartfelt rendition of "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna in front of a group of friends and strangers, then also, do not call me.

Here's the thing about the Papa Don't Preach moment that I was having, people. I got up there, and sang it, and it was so horrible that the noisy bar actually got a little bit quiet as they watched me. And as much as I was punching those lyrics ("PPPapa don't PPPreach..."), the truth was that I was HOLDING BACK. The full on belting out was not even close to happening. Which, if you were there, should scare you a little.

Exhibit C:
Seriously, I don't drink much at all. Yet, I take photos that look like this.



Come to think of it, maybe I should start sloshing it up. Maybe that will make me more presentable in public or something.

Saturday morning, we went out to brunch with BioGirl, Borgsmith, and BioGirl's mom. BioMom is the keeper of all stories embarrassing and awkward when it comes to BioGirl, which for us, is sort of awesome, but for BioGirl, is excruciating I am sure. My parents don't really play this sort of role in my life, so I find it kind of fascinating. I know I did all sorts of Very Embarrassing Things growing up, but my moms and pops wouldn't dream of divulging. The only people in my life that can play this role for me would be Alli and Map. And they have. There have been times when I introduce them to my other friends and I just sit there and WAIT FOR THE BOMB TO DROP. And it always does. Like the time Alli told all of my friends that she and I almost had an out-of-body experience watching FIELD OF FRIGGIN DREAMS starring Kevin Costner when we were in high school. Like, we thought that movie was talking to us. Personally. Oh, it's a long story, never mind. Just even saying that much is horrifying. So BioGirl, if you're reading this, I may not get your parental pain, but I get it on some level. Sorry to laugh at you that way. But not sorry enough to stop.

Saturday night Nordic Boy and I went to see a play. And although the play was good and I could certainly tell you about that, I would rather gripe about some bad manners I saw post-play. Here's what happened. The actors sang and acted their hearts out for us for over two hours, and did a smash-up job at it too, and when the lights went down on the last scene of the night, you know how they were repaid? By about 100 or so members of the audience GETTING UP AND WALKING OUT. I mean, most of the audience stayed and clapped, like, you know, human beings are supposed to. But a lot of them didn't. And it wasn't like they were leaving because the show was bad. It wasn't! It was great. And the way that they were leaving wasn't in a huffy "that sucked, dudes," sort of way either. It was more like they just were leaving because, hey, they just wanted to go now.

I was APPALLED by this. Totally, completely, appalled. As I clapped, I kept having Stephanie Tanner moments by turning to Nordic Boy and saying "how rude!" This is Seattle, which some argue to be the third best theater town in the country (dang New York and Chicago, always showing us up). I expect more from Seattle audiences. They should know better.

So, on the off chance that you are one of the people that was at the Fifth Avenue Theater on Saturday night and you left the show without so much as a single clap? I have many things to say to you, among them:

1. Have you ever been in a professional theater production? Or any type of theater production? Do you think that shit is easy? IT ISN'T.
2. This isn't a movie theater you know. Those actors up there? They can SEE YOUR ASS as you turn your back on them while they are trying to take one measly bow, you know.
3. Also, just FUCKING APPLAUD, MOTHERSUCKERS.

I am still appalled. Can you tell?

On Sunday, we had a jam-packed day where we both went for a run in the morning, followed by grocery shopping, followed by mom-calling, followed by lunch-making, followed by home improvement-doing (him) and painting (me), followed by laundry-doing, followed by ice cream eating with Hopscotch, followed by dinner-making, followed by bill-paying, followed by falling asleep by 10:30 pm.

I love weekends.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl