Consumables #76

I have been on a pretty steady comfort-consumables diet for the past few months, with lots of watching movies that I have seen many times before (so mind-numbingly satisfying). Right after my dad died--like right after, in the days right after--all I wanted to watch, for some reason, was stand up comedy. I watched anything that Netflix had:George Carlin, Sarah Silverman, Aziz Ansari, Louis CK, Kevin hart, Jim Gaffigan, Russell Peters, Maria Bamford, Aisha Tyler, Tig Notaro, Brian Regan, Eddie Murphy, Eddie Izzard, on and on and on. It didn't even matter if they weren't that funny, because everything was striking me as highly amusing. I would uncurl myself from my ball, and then sit there and laugh like a frigging hyena for hours, and then go curl up again. Catharsis, is the obvious reason. Tears of a clown and all that stuff.

Other than that, here are some other things I have been eyeballing lately.

Notting Hill
After stand up comedy week, I wanted nothing but old school romantic comedies. I no longer have cable, so I have to rely on downloadable rentals, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and whatever else I have loaded up on the Roku box. What I have discovered is that these outlets have paltry choices on the best rom coms. Like, super paltry. Gwyneth Paltry. Roger Paltry. All the paltry. No While You Were Sleeping, no Bridget Jones, no You've Got Mail. It's total crap! Anyway, I did find Notting Hill and here is what I have to say to you about that movie. I really like it, do not get me wrong about that. But it is not really a romantic comedy. I mean, it's heavy on the romantic and super light on the comedy. I was looking for laughs, people. There were hardly any laughs! And not like, because there were bad jokes. There just weren't no dang jokes at all. Plus, Julia Roberts is pulling that part off by the sheer weight of her 2-ton charisma and her 2-ton hair, because when you really look at it, her character is a horrible person. But sappy lovey dovey stuff? Check and check.

When Harry Met Sally
ONE ROMCOM TO RULE THEM ALL. Do you think we live in an era where something as romantic as When Harry Met Sally could star someone as unconventionally handsome as Billy Crystal as the love interest? He is just so non-sculpted in this movie- it was shocking. It would be nice to think that someone normal looking could do that nowadays, but I don't think it's happening. Ain't nobody got time for dat these days. And the wagon wheel table! It was like seeing an old friend.

Broadcast News
My original love affair with Holly Hunter started way back with this one. If you haven't seen it you must watch it for her power-suited 80s outfits alone. Shoulder pads like a gee-dee linebacker! And Albert Brooks with the flop sweat! Oh. So good.

Cheers
I have been watching the entire series all over again, and you guys, it holds up! Still funny. I am only into season 2 but I kind of adore Diane Chambers with her Sally-from-Peanuts hair and her snooty ways. She is ass-kickingly smart and although they kind of make fun of her for it her smarts are really celebrated in a way that I find pretty feminist. One thing I cannot abide by is that theme song. OH LORDY. I know it's iconic but yeesh. Pour on the Velveeta.

That's all I have time for today, friends! Have a lovely Friday. Catch you on the flip side.

Tile Lovett and Joe Caulker

Here's what's happening this week. We are in the middle of a string of gorgeous summer days, which causes me to have a sort of weather amnesia about my city. This happens every year- where I am like "rain? what rain? Seattle is gorgeous and has always been so. Look! There are mountains everywhere! And so much sparkly blue water! All prettiness! Rain has never happened a day in my life!" Summers here are what really lock you in. Ask me about this in February and I will pretend I never said this.

I have been immersed in trying to pick out tile for the back splash in my bathroom, and boy, do I have a lot of opinions about tile. I am a person who finds it hard to choose what to eat for dinner every night because of food ennui but design choices? I am so completely adamant about those. The world of tile is a gigantic cesspool of never ending options, so I have been happily poring over catalogs and frequenting tile stores around the city on the weekends. I finally picked out the tile o' my caulk dreams (listen, I will never not use the word "caulk" when given the option so you better get used to that around here) and went in to order those puppies and you know what? They cost seventy five dollars a  square foot. Ex-squeeze me? I didn't realize these tiles had ground up unicorn horn in them. The thing that gets me the most about this is that many tile stores do not label their tiles with prices in their showrooms. Also, many tile catalogs and websites also do not get specific about pricing. So you are choosing based pretty much solely on what you like, only to show up at the tile store for pricing and then giving them this face.

The area I am looking to tile up is about 20 square feet. Tell me why I need over a thousand dollars worth of tile looking at me while I brush my teeth. I don't, is the only correct answer there. Back to the drawing board I go.

In other news, I am trying to get back to doing some of the things that have completely fallen off of my radar for the past couple of months. One of them is reading. I haven't read nary a page of a book for so long- it's like my brain just wasn't processing words for a while there. Also, moving in general. There has been a lot of couch time in my world lately. I've been in a total zone out. Time to wake up! I think moving will help me feel better. My sleeping has all been for shit and I think it will help with that too. Lastly, getting back on the postal bandwagon. I love mailing my friends and family letters and things and I haven't been doing that either. I finally got back to that this past week. Why am I telling you all of this? What is my point? I don't know. Since when do I have to have a point?

That's what is happening around here. Have a lovely day, my pretties.

Real Talk

Things have been quiet in my world for the last little bit, and I already sort of feel like the blog has turned into Feelings Check-In Because My Dad Died and Also My Dad Died, and Hey, One More Time in Case You Missed It, My Dad Died. I have been trying to write about some things that have given me a lot of solace (yes, knocking my kitchen wall down has been therapeutic), so that's what you've been getting. But just in case anyone is reading this that is having some hard times themselves (and really, that seems sort of ambitious to say that if they are, then they would give a shit about what I have to say about it, but oh well), I don't want the only thing that I have to say about this whole phase of my life to be this uplifting stuff, because that's not the whole picture. I have lots to be grateful for, and my tendency is to always focus on that; it's a habit I have that has served me pretty well in life so far. But that focus is just that: a focus within a bigger picture that has much shittier parts to it. The hardest thing (even harder than my Dad passing away, in some ways) has been the sense of isolation I have felt. As much as I have a few people who have held me up, I have had many more people who I thought were close to me disappear, disengage, not show up at all. There have been people that I would see on a regular basis before this happened who I haven't seen at all since they heard my Dad is gone. There have been people who I have asked to hang out with me, take a walk, come over for tea, who have said they are too busy and never called me back. It is shocking. This makes me feel like I need to just shut up about it already, which, when I said that to Nordic Boy, he looked at me in astonishment and said "First of all, it happened like five minutes ago, in the grand scheme of things. And second of all, you have barely talked about it at all to 99% of the people you know, so how could you feel like it's time to shut up?" I keep reminding myself of this, but it's hard. I pretty much feel like I should probably shut up about it. Maybe people will start calling me back if I do that? I don't know. I have to remind myself of the small group of people who have been here, have called, have shown up. Some of them are people I would not have expected, who have surprised me with how much they care. Some people are so good at being kind. That has truly saved the day, for me.

So, the blogging is suffering a bit, but that's just because I am having a profoundly lonely time, topped off by a case of "I-need-to-shut-up-or-people-will-freak-out-or-leave-itis." Despite that, I do have my little band of 3 or 4 people that are truly giving me their all right now, and that's more than a lot of people have.

Ok? Ok. So let's begin OPERATION STOP BEING SO EFFING DEPRESSING. I will save that shit for my closest peeps and try not to worry about the rest. Focus on the love is really all there is to do, right? In any situation. What else is there?

For those of you reading this, most of you don't know me in real life. Do me a solid and think about who you do know in your real life. Anyone you can think of that is sad? Reach out to them. It doesn't matter if you don't know what to say. Just do it. Tell them your blog pal Librarian Girl said to. Ok maybe don't say that, because that's weird. And if you're the sad one that comes to mind when thinking about sad people you know, consider this post me reaching out to you. Hear me when I say this: your sadness matters to me.

Ok, Real Talk with Librarian Girl is now over. I'll be back soon to talk about how all the Dance Academy kids showed up on NBC's "Camp" with fake American accents and shit like that.

Closing comments for the first time ever, because I ain't saying none of this to start no pity party.

My Dear Delium

When I arrived at college at not-yet-18 years old, I was a smiley kid who looked people in the eye, with unironic Snoopy sheets on my dorm room bed and a Brother Word Processor (yes, I'm that old, it's true) under my arm. My plan was to transform my former dance accomplishments into full blown theater geekery, and with that I auditioned for a play. I was chosen, along with 9 other cast mates, and we all promptly became thick as thieves. One night during rehearsal, one of my new friends, Becca, said to me: "I think you should date Delium. I think he likes you." To which I articulately said, "nuh-uh! Really?" and left it at that.

I was having a super fun datey time when I arrived at college. I had a cool ex-boyfriend back home, and he had done the "you're moving away to college, go on without me, if you love someone set them free" schtick, but we kept in touch and also for the first 6 months he would show up at my dorm every couple of months so maybe it was more "if you love someone set them free but also I will show up sometimes in hopes of a booty call" which was the original draft of that Sting song. Aside from him, I was also just reveling in the fact that I was in college with all these new people and I was drowning in cute boy flirtations. When Becca said that to me about Delium, I was game. I liked him. He was a junior (automatic hottie points) and I remember that all of my dorm friends thought he was cyooooot. I am sure that I would have thought the same thing all on my own but at that age, what my friends thought was pretty much more important. Which, whatever. I was 18.

One day Delium called me on the phone and asked me to go on a date with him, which when I think about that phone call now I find it mortally adorable. He picked me up in his car and we went to some bar where his friends who were in a band were playing. It was some combination rock show plus sketch comedy thing. All I remember is that the band's show was about them travelling through time and there was one point where one of the guys dressed full Abraham Lincoln and rocked out. It is a weird memory.

Delium and I had this strange relationship after that. On the one hand, we were both really silly people and we spent much of our time together making each other snort-laugh with honest-to-goodness hijinks. Our senses of humor lined up exactly- my very first Comedy-Kindred-Spirit. On the other hand, Delium was the first boy I ever knew who was intense. I didn't have any experience with intense. I didn't know what to do with it. He would say things like "I'm going to marry you one day," or "I'm going to love you for the rest of our lives," which would make me think "I am 18 years old, don't be a nutjob, dude" but also "wow, that's cool. He is Lloyd Dobler." It was more than I could handle, for sure, but I pretended like I had it all in hand, even to myself.

That sort of intensity can only lead to a full-scale ride on the drama-trolley, and we were no exception. We had a few months of COMPLETE AND TOTAL RIDICULOUSNESS with jealousy! betrayal! declarations! tears on both sides! I shall spare you the details not because they aren't interesting but because OMG so embarrassing. Still, the weird thing was, that even in the midst of all that, we always made each other laugh. We would be having some exhausting conversation and one of us would, right in the middle of it, DO A BIT. And the other one would laugh and be like "that's funny, dude!" And then we would go back to being exhausting.

I can't really remember how we managed to transition out of intensity-land into something else. I feel like it just happened. We just snapped out of it. Delium is not at all intense like that anymore so maybe that's what did it. I left that school at 19 to go to Chicagoland to work at a theater, and Delium would come and visit me sometimes. I remember going to the Olive Garden with Delium and Nordic Boy there- the three of us. Then I moved to Madison, Wisconsin for a year and Delium moved there too because he was doing a grad program there, so we hung out some more. Then I went back to Fiji and while I was there, Delium switched grad programs to one in Seattle and needed to drive himself across the country. His driving pal? Nordic Boy. Look at how I bring a bromance together like that- those two are now straight up besties. I came back and joined up with them in Seattle, and we have all three been here ever since.

Delium is the busiest person I know. He has a day job, he acts, he dances, he goes on lots of trips. He has always been that way. But Delium is the person that Nordic Boy and I call when we need someone. With all that he has going on, somehow he is always there for us. (And do not even get me started about how Nordic Boy STOLE THAT BOY away from me). I don't know where we would be without him. He's our family.

Since my Dad died, Delium has called me pretty much every day. Every single day. Even when he is on a camping trip in Nevada. Even when he has work followed by a date followed by a performance. And he gets right up in my grill and talks with me about every last feeling I am having. And he remembers my dad with me. And he cries with me sometimes. And when I say "I'm so super tired, dude," he says "I know you are. I know," in the most gentle way. And we hang out and he still makes me snort-laugh every time.

He may not have married me like he said he was going to, but he did say he was going to love me for the rest of our lives. So, he was partially right.

You Send Me

Shared history is important, is what I have been thinking about lately. There is something about thinking back on something that happened in your life, and having someone else say: yes, I remember that too. Why does that feel so good? Does it validate us to know that our memories are not just ours, that someone else saw what we saw? Does it help us to know that we aren't just dreaming up what we think our lives have been?

I love my friend Alli for many reasons. She is one of the best people I have ever met, just like, on an objective Good Person scale. She's kind, she is hilarious, she is a phenomenal friend. But on top of all of this, we have known each other since kindergarten. This means that either of us can pull out a memory, and the other person will already know it.

Remember the night when we all went skinny-dipping in Map's pool? And A. got out of the pool and laughed so hard that she literally peed herself, right on the side of the pool? Ha ha, yes!

Remember when those three guy friends of ours crashed your birthday party in high school and stole your cake right out of your house? OMG, yes. Effers.

Remember in 5th grade how Carrie F. had this talent for drawing Garfield, and she drew doodles of Garfield everywhere, and it seemed so cool? Totally!

Remember when you got in the middle of a tough girl brawl that night outside the 7-11? No joke, that was nuts! Those girls wanted to kill someone.

Remember that time that dude who had a crush on you wrote you a filthy love note and your mom found it and read it? Holy shit, yes. Death by mortification.

Remember when we learned tinikling in 3rd grade gym class and you got chosen to demonstrate it for the parents at the ice cream social? Because I am a fucking superstar, obvs.

I know what song was playing on the radio when Alli made out with the guy who tried to give her the old "back of the head push" when we were teenagers. She knows that I almost had a serious wardrobe malfunction while dancing on stage in "Guys and Dolls" in 10th grade.

I started thinking about this last weekend when an old song came on the radio and we both went "oh my god, this SONG." I was thinking about how not only do we share the general nostalgia of remembering that song, but we share the same context surrounding the song. There's a good chance that we were milling around the same damn party where the song was initially playing and it seeped into our brains at the same time. It sort of blew my mind grapes a little bit, the more I thought about it.

If you're my homie, you're pretty much my homie for life. I will keep the friendship going, unless one of us turns into a dick or something. I know people that let their friends sort of drift in and out of their circle with each passing phase of their lives, and I guess that's ok too. But for me, going through things with my pals there with me, helping me to see my life, is so important to me that I can't imagine it any other way. And I think that feeling originated with Alli, and my friend Map too, starting way back when we were teensy little kids. The older I get, the more I cherish that.

So what was the song that prompted all of this? It was a PM Dawn song. I know, all of this because of Prince B. Nocturnal? Yes, totally. For whatever reason, it made both Alli and I feel how it felt to be young together, right in our guts. "Oh my god, this SONG."
 

De-cocooning

I've been pretty much curled up in a ball (only figuratively, although it has teetered on the edge of the literal at times) for the past 7 weeks, and so facing a work-related trip to Chicago this past weekend seemed like this yooge ordeal. Luckily, I have family in Chicago. Two big parts of my chosen family: Alli, her husband Chris, and my pal Palindrome.

So, in the span of 72 hours, in addition to librarian-conferencing, Alli made me delicious food that brought back my appetite a little bit, we traipsed in the sun in Old Town and Wicker Park and the Garfield Observatory, and we met up with Palindrome where I laughed big belly laughs that felt really good because I hadn't had one in so long.

Calling these people my "friends" doesn't seem like a big enough word.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Stump Yard to Poop Box in One Day

This weekend, Phase One of Operation De-Fug the Yard began, and unfortunately I am learning that before it gets better, it is going to get worse.

First thing that needed to happen was getting rid of the stumps that abound in the front yard. So pretty, so classy, my front yard is probably 40% stumps. And 50% weeds. And 10% broken up concrete pavers that will trip you like elderly Underbutler Stevens in Remains of the Day. Don't you try to walk around in your tuxedo carrying a silver tray of tea in MY yard! (Outdated, boring reference, wut-wut!)

In case you were wondering, paying someone to come to your house with a machine that will grind up your stump (dirty!) will cost you approximately 3 million dollars. Rather than participating in that high class hookery, we rented a stump grinder, which didn't cost us much, except for being a humongous pain the rump roast.

First of all, we had to somehow get this super heavy machine up the front stairs of our house onto the yard. Nordic Boy made this high tech ramp made of two-by-fours and chicken wire.

Once it was up on the yard, you have to turn the machine on and sort of move it back and forth over the stumps (omg, filthy!). Our dear Delium came over to lend a hand, and it took all damn day.

Good news: the stumps are history.
Ok news: much of our front yard is now covered in mulch, which is better than what it was covered in before. Although it still is pretty dang ugly. Sorry, neighbors.
Bad news: hi neighborhood cats! A GIANT YARD OF NATURAL KITTY LITTER. It's a vast cat Disneyland of poop real estate.

Phase One complete.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Oh hai. How about let's talk about some fabulous things that have been happening while I have been under a rock doing a grand imitation of Russell "Sad Sack" Terziak this past month?

1. Not one, not two, but THREE awesome families I know have birthed le petite babies! Triple Word Baby Score!

2. One of my cutie nephews turned 12. TWELVE. One dozen annual commemorative days of birth. I have no idea how that happened. I swear he was just, like, an itty bitty three minutes ago. I just turned around for a second, I could have sworn. We have these super grown up conversations now and it blows my frigging mind.

3. Grad school just birthed an educator, and that is my dear blog friend @_lovechild. She will be your teacher, preacher, anything you have in mind. Wait, ew. Shut up, George Michael. Just the teacher part.

4. I finally got to spend some quality time with my new sister-in-law in California, who recently wed my bro-ham and who I hadn't hung out with thus far, and she is frigging delightful.

5. I am going to Chicago for work next week and I get to see some lovely pals there and pal around with our pal selves.

6.We hired a landscape architect and she's making us a plan for Operation Du-Fug the Yard. So. Excited.

I'm still sad, but good things are still happening, and I'm still paying attention to those.

That's where I'm at. Also where I'm at? This clip. Happy Friday!

Ashes

This weekend, I went to San Francisco to see my brother and release my Dad's ashes into the Pacific Ocean, the ocean that connects my Dad's countries of birth and death.

I held the urn in my hands. It was surreal to think that my Dad's body, the body that took him through his life-which was an extraordinary life, so full of adventures and accomplishments and love- was now distilled down to this small thing that I could hold in my two hands. I thought about his parents, holding him as a baby in their hands in this way, helping him into his life.

When my Dad was a child, growing up in a tiny village, walking shoeless to a schoolhouse several miles away each day, I think of how his parents encouraged him. Go, they must have told him. Even though it's far. You should go.

I think about how, at that time in Fiji under British colonialism, there weren't universities there for smart kids like my Dad. Instead there was a system where, if you were the top student (not A top student, I'm talking THE top student, as in valedictorian of the whole damn country), you were awarded a scholarship to head overseas to go to college. Just one kid each year was chosen. My Dad was that kid. He had to leave his village, get on a boat, leave everything he had ever known behind (with no phone calls home available, no holidays, no people he knew), and leave if he wanted the opportunity. How scared must he have been? He had to have been. But he told himself: go. I have to go.

After his studies were over, he came back, moved to a city, and met and married my mom, a trailblazer in her own right. Soon after, a year came along where non-white people could finally run for office for the first time in Fiji's colonial history. My Dad was elected mayor of his town that year, the first non-white person to hold that office. My Dad was not a politician by nature, but after being part of a disenfranchised majority for that long? He felt honored to go and do it. That makes me super proud. Go, Dad, go!

When my siblings were born, my parents thought about what they wanted for them, so they made the decision to leave everything behind and head to America. This meant they had to start all over in too many ways to describe. My Dad had to go to the east coast while my mom stayed on the west coast. They missed each other terribly and my Dad worried that it would be too hard on all of them. My mom encouraged him. Go, she said. We'll be ok. You go.

When they settled in the Midwest, I was born. I was brought up with the assumption that life was an adventure, to be lived without fear. When I was accepted to a faraway dance school at twelve years old, my Dad said, as he said to me about anything I wanted to do in life: of course you're going. I'm so proud of you. Go!

I thought about all of these things while on the boat in California, holding my Dad in my two hands. It was amazing to me, when I scattered the ashes, how quickly they disappeared. They touched the water for the smallest of moments before vanishing. Particles didn't float. Remnants didn't hang in the air. In the time it took for a few heartbeats to pass, all that my Dad physically was- the solidness of him, the sheer there-ness of him, was just gone.

Go, my sweet Pops. Go.

Peggy Huey Parton

Hey peoples! Random list of thinky thoughts time!

I wore an outfit yesterday that at first made me feel super competent because it looked like something Peggy Olson might wear. Then somehow it morphed into making me feel like a lady Baby Huey instead. How does that happen?

I have a beef with my favorite take out taco place. Twice I have ordered a bean item and they have given me a beef item, which I only discover when I get home. I guess you can say I have a beef beef with them.

I am not much of a crying type lady. Except these days, when I cry like 12 times a day. I know that I won't always cry this much all the time, but there is a part of me that is worried. What if I stay Crying Lady forever?

Bonus: when I cry really hard? Nordic Boy feels so bad for me he cries too. He is, like, the biggest sympathy crier when it comes to me. We are SO FUN THESE DAYS YOU GUYS.

I saw the new Star Trek movie and someone asked me how it was and I seriously could have talked about it for hours. The parts I liked, the parts I didn't, the references to the old series, the ways I miss Picard and the gang. But I didn't. I kept that extreme geekfest to myself. I am a model of nerd restraint. Nerdstraint.

One thing that has happened this super sad month is that my brain has totally shut out the ability to read books. Just, I read the words and nothing goes in. Trouble in librarian land! So, you know what I am doing about it? I have decided to join a group of friends who are reading Infinite Jest this summer. Yep, I can't seem to be able to understand a 3 page New Yorker article so the obvious thing to do is commit to reading over a thousand pages of complicated weirdo business. Totally makes sense.

I followed up my Peggy/Huey outfit yesterday by wearing an orange doily dress to work today. I kept calling myself Doily Parton. No one seemed to get it. Come on! DOILY PARTON. Anyone? Sigh.

That's what's in my brain meats.

Another Brick in the Wall

Jinkies, you guys. Should we talk about something else? (OH PLEASE YES, is what I am hearing screamed from the other side of the internets). You are right. We should talk about something else.

How about home improvements? The whole thing about our house is that it needs improvements. When we bought it, it pretty much had a really good framework and a long list of improvements and that is about all. And we were going to do every last thing ourselves, which takes oodles of time. Like, years of time. In other words, Nordic Boy's dream come true. We have a master project list that is The Thickness, y'all. It involves binders. With tabs. There are also stacks of notecards. There is never not a project going on around here. A lot of it is stuff that is unsexy, like when we ripped our roof off and replaced it, or when we insulated our ceiling. Now that we are winding up those types of guts-replacement projects, we are actually getting around to more cosmetic-y things that actually are fun to take Before and After pictures of. Nordic Boy totally disagrees with me on this, but there is nothing entertaining about a Before and After picture of a new electrical panel or some shit like that.
So, let's talk about my kitchen.

There are many things that do not work about my kitchen. First of all, it is (like everything in our teensy house) small, which would be totally ok with me except for the fact that it is enclosed on four sides, with only a narrow doorway and a small window over the sink. This means that there can really only be a maximum of 2 people in there at any given time (we call this the Two-Butt Max), which hey, that works because we are a family of 2! Except you know what? We know and love more than each other. And we often have those more-than-each-others in our house. And those more-than-each-others want to (SIGH) interact with us. This results in a situation where people are over, and we are in the kitchen, and the non-us people will inevitably squeeze themselves into the tiny kitchen with us because we are MAGNETIC, and then we start yelling "Two Butt Max! Two Butt Max!" as a sort of alarm because it gets sardine-like right quick. And then folks get out of our kitchen and go back to the dining/living room where they talk amongst themselves, and I'm sure they do not talk about their weirdo friends in the other room who have invented butt-quantities as a unit of measurement. And we, poor kitchen-folk, have to toil by ourselves in our lonely Two Butt Max world.

Here are photos of the old kitchen, taken the only way I could- by standing at the doorway and looking left and then looking right. Please also note the sad old electric oven/cooktop and the horrible wire shelving.

We decided that we needed to be able to see and talk to more than just our own two butts while in the kitchen. To accomplish this? Dress ourselves up like the Kool-Aid man and bust a hole through the effing wall! Ok, so there wasn't really any sugar-drink cosplay, but bust through the wall we did.

Whenever we do bigger projects in our little teensy house, the first thing we do is figure out what needs to happen so that we can actually live around the perimeter of the project. Nordic Boy is a genius about containing things so that our whole house doesn't go to shit every time we work on something because homegirl over here would not be happy.

In this case, before wall-busting, he framed out a temporary wall, covered it in plastic, and then constructed a thingy-do-bob that vacuumed the dust straight out the dingbusted window! Awesome.


(Living room side).




(Kitchen side).
Bonus: Is that not exactly like the final scenes of E.T.??? Phone home, kitchen wall!

Then the crash-through happened:



And when it was done, being in the kitchen went from this view:



to this view:



Hello, people hanging out in the living room!

And this is what it looks like from the living room (you can't see that the sad electric stove is now a beautemous gas range, but trust me, it is happening):






Hello, Two Butt kitchen toilers!

I am super in love with it.

Not a laugh riot

Things have totally, royally sucked around here, dudes. There is no way around it. I am sad. Not sad, actually. More like saaaaaaaaaaad. I also have a strong layer of confused on top of the sad. I just can't really process the depth of the sadness I am feeling. How is it possible to be this sad? How do people do this? Where do you even put it? I do not know.

On the flight back from Michigan, Nordic Boy and I were not seated together, which was unfortunate because I full on bawled the whole trip. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like having a 6 hour crying fit while sandwiched between two strangers who can't get away from you. Sorry, two strangers, for all that facial leaking in your grill, whoever you are.

Speaking of facial leaking, I was the person in my family that was asked to get up at the funeral and talk about my dad. My initial response to this was Haaaaa-WUT? Because a big part of that job was two-fold: standing up and also speaking. Those were two things I was pretty sure I would not be able to carry off. But, I wrote something down on a piece of paper and put it in my purse. Nordic Boy said if I needed support to just look over at him the whole time, to which I said Are You Fecking Nuts because if there is one thing that would break me down even harder it would be looking into Nordic Boy's crying mug. So I got up there, wondering if I would be able to get it out, and I did. It was the biggest mess you have ever seen in your life, but I did it, sobbing all the way through.

Seeing my mom at that funeral? That shit alone was enough to break me right open. My parents were married for over 50 years, you guys. Not only that, they were partners, best friends, everything to each other. No matter what each of them had going on with work or anything else, my parents met up at home for lunch every. single. day of their marriage. They went to the store together, they went on walks together, they talked endlessly, they did everything together. They smiled when they saw each other. They continually cracked each other up. They supported each other in every last thing. They were a team. My mom said, when my dad was dying, that she held his hand. He would stop breathing for a minute, and she would think he was gone, and then he would draw another breath. Then he would stop breathing again, and on like that. "I think he could feel me holding his hand, and I think he kept coming back for me. So I decided to let go, so he could let me go," is what she told me. And she did. And he went.

I don't know what to even do when I think about that.

So now I am back in Seattle, and I wake up every day, and I cry, and Nordic Boy holds me in bed, and then I get up, and I go to work, and I smile at people, and I say thank you a hundred times a day, because people are sorry for my loss, which I believe they are (even when expressed in a weird way like that one person who tried to tell me that she knew how I was feeling because she felt the same way the last time she broke up with some ex-boyfriend of hers). I have several beautiful emails that friends have sent me saved and when I get a spare moment I find myself pulling out my phone and scrolling through them, reading them over and over. People tell me stories about their losses, and ask me if I am ok, and people ask Nordic Boy and Biogirl how I am doing, and we all say I am doing ok, even though it's not true. I go out to dinner with friends and go to parties and I laugh at people's jokes. I pay attention to people at work because paying attention to people is my job. I find the thing I want to do the most is talk about my dad, so the conversations I have with my friends who didn't know him where they ask me about him help. The conversations with friends who did know him help too, because anyone who knew my dad knew what an extraordinary person he was, and it is lovely to hear about that from other people. He was the kind of person that was gentle and humble, but his kindness was so large that it sort of knocked people over when they were around him. I think this is why so many people in my life have, over the years, become very attached to my dad, and why he was a father figure to so many of them. Hearing from those people is so wonderful. My dad was well-loved.

So, I don't know, you guys. I just keep getting up every morning and doing my day. I guess that's what you do?

Tie

My Dad was sharp. He wore a suit and tie to work every day of his fifty-plus-year career, always crisp, always classic, always put together.

Nordic Boy put on a suit to wear to the funeral, and I walked up behind him, and he said "I'm wearing a tie from the 50s that used to be your dad's- he gave it to me" and turned around to show me.

*heartswell*

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Accomplished 3 Things

1. Got out of bed.
2. Got dressed and left
the house, if only for an hour.
3. Let love in.

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Heartbroken

My dear, sweet, incredible Dad passed away this weekend. I am crushed.

Bittersweet

So. For the past four years every trip back to see my parents has been bittersweet. Despite my dad's declining health, we always manage to have a nice time, being there, helping out. The past year has been different, since we've now crossed over into territory that grows more dire by the month, then by the week, and sometimes by the day. Now, whether I'm with my folks in Flint or whether I'm keeping in constant touch with them from Seattle, there is a portion of me that is always jacked up, sad, freaked out. It's a harrowing experience for us all. I'm trying to be better about sharing what's going on with my friends, but it's hard. I've found that so many people are desperate to comfort me and the way most everyone knows how to do that is to offer advice. I don't know why but this is something that seems almost universal and unfortunately it is something I just can't bear to hear. Please, I want to say, don't tell me what I should do. Don't tell me your opinions about how you think it should go, how I should handle it. Don't tell me what you think my regrets will be if I don't take this or that course of action. It is so subtle, this pushing from people who care about me. But it's there, all the time. People can't seem to help themselves. It makes me want to just keep it to myself. But, then I miss out on all the other support I could be getting, I guess. I think I just need to tell people when I can't handle the advice. It's hard to do, but I have to, I think. Right? Telling people what you need is good. (Hey me: say that last sentence again, and then repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat).

Anyway. I'm working on that one.

I got an email from my friend Maddie yesterday. It was kind, and caring, and thank the baby Jesus in a manger she didn't make any suggestions. She even made me crack up a bit, which is always appreciated. She's great. All of my peeps are great, advicey or not, and I don't want to sound like an ungrateful cow. I have people who love me and that's what counts. (Say that last sentence again and repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat).

When my dad is able to be home and isn't in too much pain, there's nothing he loves more than sitting in the sun (just like his daughter). Most of the week this week he was in a hospital bed, and while I helped my mom with things, Nordic Boy would sit next to his bed and monitor him while he slept. For hours and hours, Nordic Boy sat there as my dad went in and out of sleep, so that he never had to wake up alone.

For the short time my dad did get to be at home, he asked to sit in the sun. I got him out into a chair in the yard, where we saw that Nordic Boy had taken a much-needed break by lying in the backyard hammock and taking a snooze. When I looked out the window later, I saw that my dad had somehow dragged his chair from the deck onto the grass and was sitting next to Nordic Boy as he slept. I'm not sure why he did this, but he did. Just to be close, I suppose. Nordic Boy slept, and my dad kept watch. This role reversal was so sweet, I just sat at the window and watched them. I love them both so much.

Say that last sentence again and repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Leavin' on a jet plane

Like T Pain says, it's five o'clock in the morning. Unlike T Pain, I'm not going to tell you a horny story about it. I'm up because I'm headed out of town, back to the Michigan homeland. The airport is a decidedly unhorny place. Maybe if I were T Pain, I would feel different. About many things, probably.

There are so many things happening that I'm dying to tell you about, but it's early and I've got a plane to catch so I shall leave it all for later.

Michigan, ho! (says the Michigan ho).

March into April

Well, hello there, blog land! Long time no writey. In fact, it looks to my highly skilled eyeballs like I only wrote one blog post in the month of March. But here I am, writing for the second time in April. That is a DOUBLE STUFF INCREASE, my friends. So impressive. Right? So hey- let's talk about stuff.

My life: here are some of the things.

My work life is a little bit cuckoo bananas right now. I have some new duties (DOODIES, ha ha) just for the next few months and it always takes a little short bit to catch on so I'm all what now? Where do I? Who does the thing? How is that? Delightful to my coworkers, as per usual.

Nordic Boy and I had our 5 millionth meetiversary, where we commemorated the day that I looked at him across a crowded backstage theater area and said HOMINA HOMINA and he looked at me and was all AH-OOGA. I am happy to report that our relationship is much unchanged in this regard.

To celebrate the umpteenth anniversary, we hightailed it to Portlandia. It rained a blue streak in Seattle while we traipsed around Portland without precipitation. We went to this place called the Pittock Mansion, which is kind of a Downton Abbey era place and we marveled at the fancy wallpaper and decided that people from that era really didn't want anything to do with each other because the architecture seems to be based on a premise that no one should ever be able to interact. We spent a bunch of time at the Portland Art Museum, and then the rest of the time stuffing our faces. Eating, walking, buildings, art. Ugh, so freaking predictable.

We went to a fun dance party where I proceeded to dance for about 4 hours straight. Note to friends: ever wonder what would happen if I was given a choice between talking to you or getting my dance on? WONDER NO LONGER. I kind of didn't talk to anyone that night, but my booty was throughly shaken. Priorities?

In other news we did our taxes. Or we got kicked in the gonads. One of those. It was hard to tell.

Did I ever tell you about my friend's father-in-law who would pronounce things wrong all the time? Like, he would say "wiffles" instead of "waffles?" My favorite wrong thing he would sometimes say is that instead of getting the gist of things, he would say "get the jizz of it." No one had the heart to correct him.

The month of March and the first part of April were really quite eventful. So eventful that I didn't have time to write about any of it, so this is all you get. The jizz of it.

Just Go

It was a beastly work week. It was also my meetiversary with a certain dude of mine this week, and we celebrated by getting take out Chinese food and falling asleep while watching Cheers reruns. OR SO I THOUGHT. That crazy kid busted me out of work early today, overnight bag packed, saying we're going to Portland. Like, now. Consensual kidnapping!

So I'm in the car now, getting gone. That Nordic Boy! I think I want him to be my boyfrane.

My Closet! Now in 3D! Consumables #75

I am happy to report that March seems to be going less angrily than February, and with that I have started to rejoin society. I kicked off my re-entry by attending a craft night party that ended up not involving any crafting whatsoever (craft parties and book clubs: rarely about crafting nor books, I have discovered) but there were drinkies and lolly gagging into the night, which was even better. The very best thing that happened was my friend L busted out a scrapbook that she had made as a teenager (doodled on the cover: "I love reading," because L has been bringing the adorability for solid decades) in which she had pasted--in alphabetical order--clippings of every Tiger Beat 80s dude that you remember plus some you forgot (sorry C.B. Barnes, how could I have forsaken you?) There were notes on each person (favorite foods, birthdays) and even some sweet autograph action (the frigging John Hancock of Khrystyne Haje from Head of the Class, for crying out loud). This artifact alone convinced me that I need to come out from under my rock. There are things in the world to go out and experience, and vintage Menudo photos are one of them.

I followed that by going to a dancing and drinking party (unlike crafting and book parties, these ones are always exactly what they say they are) and it was just what I needed. I cannot tell you how much I love getting dressed up and going dancing. It's like I have an inner Lindsay Lohan that's just bursting to come out or something. Should I be worried?

Let's see, what else is happy-making? Oh, how about the fact that Nordic Boy finished building my new closet last month? My clothes pop out from the top of the closet when you open the door, you guys! It's like a whole James Cameron Avatar 3D situation, only with dresses. And before you think that Nordic Boy does super nice stuff for me while I do little for him, I will have you know that I have taken to saying "WHERE MY HUNDIES AT" when I look in my purse and every single time he busts a gut laughing. So. I call that about even.

Here's some more stuff that I've seen lately:

Wallander
This has turned out to be one of my favorite series ever. The setting, the mysteries, the way it's filmed. Love it all. I especially love how Wallander confronts horrible shit day in and day out and feels the weight of it every single time. He doesn't get jaded and he cares just as deeply for every case. Almost too much of a conscience, which makes him deeply dysfunctional and/or incredibly admirable.

Downton Abbey
Don't worry, no spoilers if you aren't caught up. So you know that Really Big Thing that happened half way through the season? It was done so well and with so much heart, I thought. And then the final Really Big Thing happened at the very end of the season, and it felt super contrived and abrupt in a kind of ridiculous way. How about I talk in a way where I am so cautious about spoilers that I am barely conveying any actual information anymore? You like how I did that? I am so good at the writings sometimes, it's blinding.

The Following
I tried watching this solely on the promise of seeing Kevin Bacon on a regular basis. However, I stopped after the first episode. I couldn't handle the serial killer being an Edgar Allan Poe buff and genius English professor. Like, after he murdered someone he wrote "Nevermore" in blood on a wall. I mean, really? Evil serial killers I can handle, but that's just insufferable. And to make it worse, no one seemed to know what that "clue" was until Kevin Bacon (masterful detective!) says something like "WAIT A MINUTE. ISN'T THAT EDGAR ALLAN POE?" like he solved a Rubik's cube or something. Kevin, I love you, but I can't. Am I wrong, internets? Should I give it more of a chance?

Community
I know this show's days are pretty much numbered, but NOOOOO. Don't cancel it, tv people!

Parks and Rec
I also have fears for this show being cancelled. But how will I live without Ron Swanson's mustache and Chris Pratt's pratfalls and TREAT YOSELF? And Leslie and Ben's wedding? So sweet it just about killed me dead.

House of Cards
Kevin Spacey does smarmy so well, does he not? This is one of those shows that I burned through and couldn't stop watching, but it's hard to describe my feelings about it with the words "I liked it." It's ultimately unlikeable- every last person on it is a flipping dick and you kind of want everyone to get what is coming to them and you're not rooting for anyone. It should make me feel rotten about the world, but it's so interesting that I sort of forget about that. So, wheeee! Awful people doing awful things. Kind of like the real housewives, but maybe 3 brillion times smarter. Season two, sign me up.

Bunheads
So I started watching this from season 1, and am not very far into it so my opinions may change. It is so in the mold of The Gilmore Girls (fast talking smart lady protagonist, conflict with her stubborn mother-figure, small town quirky people, overachieving teen girls) that I sort of love it but there's always this feeling like it's a shadow of what The Gilmore Girls was. I think Sutton Foster is great but she's no Lauren Graham, but is that even fair? I feel like the bratty kid who's meeting my new stepmom. YOU'RE NOT MY REAL LORELEI/MOM!

Justified
Finally started watching this too, and the only thing I need to tell you at this point is that I have a strong contender for my painstaking process of creating my Free Pass List. If you will recall, I have a serious problem finding candidates for my list. I don't know why this task is so difficult for me but it has been. However! Timothy Olyphant though. HELLO SAYLA. So now I have 4 solid candidates. So what if it took me 7 months worth of thinking about it to get to 4?

That's it for now, friends. Want to see my new closet?