starrlett's stuff

Moving Right Along

2011-02-21T19:20:00.002-06:00

Ahoy! Hallo there! Why yes, it's me.

Just thought I'd drop a line to say that both my e-portfolio and my new blog are now hosted at:
http://geekyartistlibrarian.wordpress.com/

...see ya there!

Miles to Go Before I Sleep

2009-05-08T10:39:00.003-05:00

I can't believe it's been a year.

Last week, I was in Half-Price Books and came across a book Cherie and I had dearly loved, and much to our chagrin, could never find in hardback. I have no idea why, once online second-hand bookstores became common, we didn't think to look there--probably just because we'd been looking in second-hand shops for it since about 1994, and it didn't occur to us.

I spotted the hardback on the clearance shelf for $3, and just about let out a "whoop" of joy right there. I grabbed it, shook it at the crappy ceiling of the store, and said, "We got it, Cherie."

This year has been full of rediscovering awesome memories I'd nearly forgotten, a lot of crying, a lot of realizing how waiting for reunion in heaven seems impossibly long, a lot of raw and ugly anger that was terrifying in its intensity. It's made me feel closer to Cherie in ways I'd never have predicted, and it's also made me feel near insane when I can't repress the urge to talk to her aloud. It's made my heart break realizing that this process has been intensely, exponentially more difficult for her family.

Happy Homecoming day, Cherie. You earned this rest, that's for sure. But we all sure do miss you.

Spring 2009

2009-04-16T11:17:00.004-05:00

Fulltime work and fulltime school allow for little else... I'm hoping to blog more over the summer once classes are over. But for now, here's the quick update:

We've moved! My drive is shorter, the house is great, and there are lots of crazy DIY projects in our future. (And yeah, it's rather scandalously large--we weren't looking for anything that grand, but it was the right price.)

Alex is still doing a lot of work traveling, and is on a crazy overseas-more-than-home schedule for awhile. He's very much enjoying the work, and I'm glad he isn't just stuck home evenings, watching me do homework.
I will complete my PhD's residency requirement May 14th, and will be taking NO classes this summer. I will be taking two classes in fall again, but won't have to take fulltime school ever again (unless, for some crazy reason I actually want to).
Once this semester is done, I will have completed 39 out of 60 credit hours for my degree... I'm hoping to finish up classes in about a year and a half--I think December 2010 will finish me up. (Then it's on to the dissertation, but let's not talk about that, as I don't need any further reason to hyperventilate.)
I'm getting excited, now that summer is in sight. My summer projects include: 2 (3?) research projects, finishing the first draft of my novel, some DIY house stuff, unpacking the house, rediscovering that "art" thing I used to do, and possibly learning how to knit. Also, helping my BFF/"sis" Amy with her new arrival sometime around June (I'm so glad I live close now!).
My mom is the Best Ever; she's come to spend over a week with me, to both keep me company while Alex is gone, and to start painting this mammoth house. Huzzah!!

Oh yeah--I also hear this rumor that after classes are done, I can READ FOR FUN this summer. Hmmm. I may have to try this odd idea.

Looking forward to getting reacquainted with you all, come June. Why hello, there Social Life! I've forgotten what you looked like!!

UPDATE: ooo, look, new blog colors! thought it was high-time for even a tiny refresh.
UPDATE 2: i forgot to include a photo of the new house. sigh, silly me!

Ukraine Photos!

2008-12-19T06:28:00.001-06:00

...they're up on my Flickr account. Enjoy!

And There Was Shopping

2008-12-18T15:36:00.002-06:00

I think today's temperature was in the range from 20 - 25 F--or just Pretty Danged Cold, to be more accurate.

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of shopping with Sveta (with whom Alex works). We took a taxi to a big mall a bit outside the main city. It was fantastic--not only is the exchange rate heavily favoring the US dollar at the moment, but there were Christmas sales all over! I primarily got wardrobe staples, since my lost suitcase still hasn't arrived and there is some doubt as to whether it will ever show up.

For those of you who are curious, my take-home loot included...

1 pair of earrings (huge, dramatic, black = awesome)
12 pairs of socks (dude, I couldn't resist a pack of 7 pairs for under $3!)
2 pair of underwear (one with Felix the Cat comics all over them... just because)
4 sweaters (2 black, 1 plum, 1 orange)
1 3/4 length sleeve t-shirt, black
4 long-sleeve t-shirts in assorted colors (they were about $2.50 each!!)

All together, it cost me about $150 US. Not too shabby! (I have photos of everything, but I think the hotel connection may be too slow to post them... I may try tomorrow, if I've got the time.)

I also had fun chatting with Sveta, finding out things like New Year's is more heavily celebrated than Christmas (which they celebrate on Jan 7th, which suddenly makes that whole "12 days of Christmas" make a lot more sense--it's from the 25th to the 7th). I asked Sveta what she likes to do for fun--she said in the summer she loves being outside and barbequeing, but that in the winter it's so dark and cold she likes to sleep and watch TV! I told her I totally understood that.

We also talked about colleges here and at home, and we had a big laugh over the apparently universal fact that women love to shop, and their husbands worry how much they spend!

We briefly looked at big long awesome coats (I'm hoping to find a leather coat with some kind of fuzzy lining), but we're going out again tomorrow to just look at coats in the local shops.

Then I spent a few hours relaxing at the hotel before Alex picked me up to meet a couple of friends and go to Stargorod for dinner and the football (y'know, soccer) game. Stargorod is a kind of sports bar and grill that heavily reminded me of German restaurants in New Braunfels--heavy wood, dark interior, lots of sausage and meat and barbeque and amazing cabbage, and gigantic mugs of beer (the biggest are apparently called "The Professional" and look more like a barrel!).

There were two gals in tank tops, tiny sport shorts, and knee socks dancing with pom-poms on a stage in front of one of the gigantic TVs--they had three huge screens and a bunch of smaller ones all over, tuned to the Kharkiv football game. Then these two guys--apparently not part of the endorsed entertainment, just goofy fans--in shorter shorts than males should legally be allowed to wear--got up on the stage and started dancing. Wow. If that's not a blinding display of the international phenomenon of the white male lacking rhythm, then I don't know what is. (Nor would I want to see it!)

The food was amazing, and the atmosphere was crazy--I thought I'd been in loud places, but I hadn't been in an enclosed space with beer and football fans before! There's also a door at the end of the bathroom that, when opened, reveals a full-length mirror, a big cushiony seat, and another... door... that turns out to open into the men's room. It's called something like the "relaxing room." Hmm. Well, if that's what you want to call it...

The only disappointing part of the meal were the buffalo wings. Sergiey had told Alex that he couldn't get any spicy food in Kharkiv, and he loves it--so he wanted Alex to try the wings and see what he thought. They were barely spiced--I mean, I get more tingles on my tongue from Chili's chicken sandwich, and I am not even kidding. Alex said they should be called "kitten wings" instead.

Sergiey called us a taxi and told it where to go, but either the driver didn't listen well, or just doesn't know the area--it seemed like it was taking awhile to get to the hotel, but I thought I don't really know where I'm going anyway. When he took us over a river, though, Alex and I gave each other a sidelong glance. Then when there were less lights and more shabby buildings, we gave another sidelong glance, this time of the "oh crap, I hope we're not being kidnapped by the Ukranian Mafia!" variety. Then after a bit more driving and Alex trying to reach Sergiey on his phone, we ended up in front of a hotel that is in no way our hotel. We explained to the driver that no, we're at the Aurora... he called dispatch and apparently got it straightened out, and a few minutes later we were back! But man, for a few minutes there I was cursing my obviously-American hairstyle and the trouble it had got us into!

привет from the Ukraine!

2008-12-17T16:36:00.003-06:00

(That word means "hello," and no, I can't pronounce it. Yet.)

I arrived in Kiev all right on Sunday evening (well, it was Sunday evening in the Ukraine--I can't speak for when it was in your neck of the woods!)... but my suitcase did not accompany me. Luckily I packed one extra day of clothes in my carry-on, and the hotel has amazing and cheap laundry services, but I am both tired of these clothes and ready for my stuff to arrive. All my knitting supplies, instructions, and further pleasure reading is in that suitcase--here's hoping it's delivered tomorrow!

We didn't see much in Kiev the first day, although we did find an expensive local mall that offered a coat for $13,000. Yes, US dollars--eeep!

We took a six-hour train ride from Kiev to Kharkiv. It was a lot more pleasant than the last train ride I had--probably because a) it wasn't a bunk-car I was trying to sleep in, b) Alex was with me, and c) we watched "Back to the Future" and "Return of the Jedi" on Alex's iPhone. Ah, technology these days...

It's really, really cold. I'm hearing Dallas is purty darn cold as well, but personally without being there I find that hard to believe! ...I think today the high here was -5 C (23F) and the low was -8 C (17F). Yeesh!

Want to look like a Ukrainian woman? Okay, start out unreasonably tall and thin, add long hair, pour yourself into some dark jeans that redefine the meaning of tight, add a long black coat (preferably fur-lined leather, though other styles are permitted), and finish off with amazingly tall stiletto-heeled black boots. Basically, they're gorgeous fashionistas, and with my short self walking down the streets in tennis shoes, corduroy pants, and a red ski jacket, I feel frumpy.

Thus far, I've bought a pair of said boots, but have no plans of wearing them on icy, cobblestone roads like the locals do. I have no idea how they move that fast, in those shoes, over that ground--but they do! I plan to shop later in the week for my own long coat, so that I can be ridiculously over-warm when it's 40 degrees in Dallas.

And also: the Mullet is king. Seriously. There are subtle mullets and what Alex calls "power mullets," and then there's the guy we sat behind in the concert tonight... whose extremely curly hair was so amazingly long--only in back--that I thought he was a woman until he turned around. It kind of makes me want to watch "Joe Dirt."

TV: there are no less than eight music video channels in our room, and I think more of them in the bar downstairs. In the bar, there's a channel called MTV Dance, that 1) features British commercials, 2) lots of dance music videos, and 3) heavily emphasizes the '80s. It's heavenly--wish I got it at home!

Food = great! So far I've tried chicken-and-mushroom pancakes (more like a crepe-wrap), borscht, truffle tortellini, potato dumplings, and some amazing mushroom angel-hair pasta. And the full breakfast here is really something.

It's completely disorienting to me to not be able to read any signs (except "internet" is pretty easy to spot, as it's close to the English version), and to rarely recognize any words. It's not at all like being in a romance-language country where it's either Spanish or sounds like it!

Tonight, we went to a concert at an organ hall, that had once been a cathedral. It was really pretty, and the organ was great--the organ-player did some crazy footwork on the pedals that I've never seen before! There was also a great cellist, and a whole choir--the only thing we recognized the whole evening was "Ave Maria," which was fantastic!

I'm trying not to work, but I had some loose ends to tie up today, and I have this sneaky feeling that I'm going to get reference questions in my inbox that aren't auto-forwarded. Hmph.

I have done some pleasure-reading, though, and I'm also so grateful that Amy finally hit the second famous "what the CRAP!?" moment in Breaking Dawn, so that now she fully understands that Stephenie Meyer is insane, and we can discuss.

Which reminds me--I am loving Gmail chat, which has allowed me to have conversations with Amy, Claire, Bryce, Christina, Jaime, Cari, and of course Tihleigh! The wifi at the hotel's been slow lately, so I'm not able to be on Facebook or several other websites, so it's nice to have some kind of live communication.

And yes, I've taken some photos--not a lot yet, but we'll be sight-seeing more a bit later--and as soon as I get the USB cable from Alex, I'll work on editing and uploading them. I promise!!

Happy Holidays

2008-12-13T05:46:00.003-06:00

I'm up early making final preparations for my Ukraine trip, looking forward to three weeks away from work and school.

I've started receiving all kinds of wonderful Christmas cards, and as is usual, this spurs both delight and tremendous guilt. The delight is obvious, and perhaps the guilt is, too--I haven't sent out Christmas cards since about the second or third year we were married... I think around the time that I began working and schooling at the same time. I write a Christmas letter almost every year--I think I even posted it on this blog once--but usually I write it in early November (before finals), and save it until it's closer to the holidays--always a bad idea. When finals hit, I don't have the time to address and mail things, and after finals I'm too burned-out to remember or to care about anything.

Suffice to say that, if you have ever wondered why you haven't received a card from me, I have probably added you to my mental Christmas card list, but it's nothing personal--I haven't sent out a card since about 2003. Many thanks for your lovely cards--I love seeing the card you picked, the photo of your family, and hearing what has been going on in your life for the past year. I look forward to the day when I complete this crazy work/school regimen and have no more excuses left to not send you a card. Perhaps then I will also have more to tell than: "we had a really busy year--me with the work/school, and Alex with the work/travel."

Btw, I am sick of the word "busy..." as I am guessing are most any of you who read this blog. Hmph.

In any case, my thanks to those who are gracious enough to continue sending us cards! I appreciate the time you take to organize and mail them.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, a great New Year, and any other holidays you're celebrating.

Webcomics

2008-12-06T07:46:00.008-06:00

I was thinking about webcomics this morning, and thought that in the spirit of my music video post, I'd write about webcomics (but without ranking them). If anything, the inevitable comments will probably reveal a couple of webcomics I ought to be reading--Todd, Shaun, Kurt, I'm looking at you, heh.

I stress that the following are listed in no apparent order...

Unshelved: Every librarian--and non-librarian--should be reading this strip, period. If you enjoy pop culture, weird human behavior, and sarcasm, you'll feel right at home. Oh, and sometimes they talk about books, too!

It's currently the only strip I get through RSS, meaning it's the only strip I read on a dependably-daily basis.

Sheldon: Frankly, I had avoided reading this comic for years, even against the personal advice of Bill Barnes from Unshelved (sorry, Bill, you were right!). I just didn't want another thing to read daily when I was already trying to cut down on my media intake. Also, I didn't realize that the whole geeky, scifi (and in particular, Star Wars) references weren't just the obligatory "here's one for the geek crowd" kind of props. This storyline is a case in point--it gives me a gleeful joy to read.

Also? There's a really cute, sarcastic duck. With a lizard for a son, who only says "squee." I can't run from that.

xkcd: This comic is alternately comically genius and so mathematically complex that I find myself reading maybe every tenth comic, turning my head to the side, and saying, "huh, I bet James (my math-major pal) knows how hilarious that is." The mouse-over comments often cause me to snort aloud, which is why I shouldn't read these in public places. And anyone who's played MarioKart: DoubleDash, give it up for the Blue Shells comic!

Mark Monlux's various endeavors: I also found Mark through Bill of Unshelved (Bill, you really pimp people out on your blog, y'know?), and while I enjoy just about everything linked on his website, what I love best are the Comic Critic movie reviews. They make me laugh about movies I've seen, and sometimes make me want to see ones I haven't. I really like his artistic style--simple and punchy. If I ever have enough sense to graduate from school once and for all and pull those comics out of a drawer and start them up online, I'd be aspiring for a similar style, heavily text-driven. (Only my primary characters are a banana and a kiwi... you can see why I doubt that anyone would care to read it.) Anyhoodle: Mark's stuff = good; you read!

Joe Loves Crappy Movies: One of those comics written by someone who would fit into my group of movie-loving geeky friends just fine. I have to love a comic strip that pokes fun at movies, appreciates the cheesy ones, and provides a complete, text review of the movies under the strip. Heck, yes, sign me up!

Digger: The best comic art that I read online, hands-down. Actually, it's so good, and the storyline so involving, that I have to admit I've stopped reading this one online, and now buy the print editions instead. However, the creator, Ursula Vernon, is so engaging in both her writing and art, that I now daily read her blog and have several of her original prints on my wishlist *ahem* husband needing gift ideas, that was a hint, *cough* *cough.* (I particularly like the Wizard of Tea, fyi.)

Schlock Mercenary: Speaking of comics blogs, this brings me to an interesting category: a webcomic I don't read. I have read quite a bit of Schlock, and find it amusing, but I never feel into the "groove" with it... however, through it I discovered the creator's wife's blog, where she discusses raising four kids as a geek/writer mom married to a self-employed webcomic artist, trying to give her kids a creative, disciplined, Godly, loving home. I end up tagging about a third of her posts as "parenting advice" in del.icio.us to save for when/if I have children of my own. It's full of honesty about being a writer, creative ways to encourage your kids to be their imaginative best, and just plain daily life. I love it.

Penny Arcade: I read this one, again, in print rather than online. This is more due to the fact that in the print editions, the accompanying commentary on the strips is ridiculously funny, sometimes to the point of being funnier than the strip itself. And, I have to admit, much as I love video games, I'm nowhere near the connoisser it takes to be to get some of their jokes--so I appreciate the commentary's elaboration for us n00bs. (Hangs head.)

I am also not reading:

Perry Bible Fellowship (sorry, I just don't get it) or PVP (I dunno). If I look at the comics I enjoy the most, I think this is because these comics distinctly lack a warm-and-fuzzy connection for me (ooo, look at me getting all girlie). Then again, I read Penny Arcade... and xkcd. Hmm. Anyway, I think each of them have enough readers not to care that I'm not reading them, etc etc blah blah please don't send hate email, amen.

I read Dinosaur Comics about once every two months, in a big fat binge of hilarity, but it's just not a daily reader for me. Kind of like reading Strong Bad emails--best done in for three hours on a boring afternoon. Alien Loves Predator I read on about a six-month basis--I just like the story arcs to stack up.

Drizzly Sunday

2008-11-23T16:09:00.002-06:00

Alex tells me I shouldn't complain about 66-degree weather; it's 29 in the Ukraine. And he doesn't have warm toasty slippers like I do. Guess he's got a point.

Etsy seller secondseed just finished my fingerless black gloves--I can't wait to get them!!

Our Star Wars bedding has been making me smile all day. Just wait until we get the matching sheets! (Since we were low on pillowcases for our less-exciting sheet sets, I also bought a Spiderman case for Alex and a Batman case for me.)

Saw Twilight yesterday morning with my gals Carolyn and Amy, and went out afterward for lunch and gal-time. It was wonderful overall, and the movie was fun: a decent mix of genuinely good/awesomely cheesy/painfully awkward and forced. Not sure what I thought of the glitter effect--but then, wasn't sure what I thought of it in the book, either. It was a bit more subtle than I was expecting, which almost made it seem more ridiculous to me. This doesn't really make sense; I think there was probably no way they could have made me happy.

I'm nearly done with the reading material for my Finance class, and will make my final posts tonight. I also need to check some due dates for other homework, to see where I am as we near semester's end. ...Is it December 12th yet? I'm ready for that break now.

(Also ready for Thanksgiving, and my hubbie back.)

[Crickets Chirping]

2008-11-19T14:30:00.002-06:00

Yeah... it's been quite a month.

I've thought a bit about blogging (though primarily on my professional blog), but haven't got around to it. Something about work and school and school and work... and no time to breathe.

Anyway, in this week's news:

Alex is currently in Kharkov, Ukraine (yes, again... again), and staying a total of two weeks (yes, through Thanksgiving)... and his suitcase is lost.
Despite my neti pot, my sinuses are giving me intense grief. By which I mean pain.
All the Christmas presents have been bought, and arrived in nice brown packages last night. I'm having a little wrapping party by myself tonight, then sticking the presents under the bed until Christmas.
I'm trying to register for spring classes... and facing the likelihood of three evening classes a week--which means getting home around 10pm three nights a week. Geez, can I just live in Denton??
I'm not really as grumpy as all this sounds. Promise.
I keep trying to read a chapter or two of a fiction book to put myself to bed, and I can't concentrate on any, even my favorites. The last book I successfully read for fun was A.J. Jacob''s non-fiction "Know It All," about reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. (Oh, and "Freakonomics.") I think my brain doesn't have the energy for escapism--so anyone have fun non-fiction suggestions for the winter break? (So much for reading my new comics--geez.)
I have been in love with Etsy.com for some time, but finally made my first purchase(s) from it last week. Etsy people are WONDERFUL, and their products are even better in person. My paycheck trembles.
I've been in NaNoWriMo envy this month--there is no way I could balance the holiday, school, work, and 50,000 words of a novel so I won't even try--but it did spur me to write a lot of notes on mine Monday. The end of the first draft is in sight, people--when I start writing again in earnest in mid-May, I think I can finish it pretty quickly.

Dreams

2008-10-28T09:39:00.000-06:00

About once a month now, I have a variation on the dream I had last night. It always starts out sad, remembering Cherie is gone--last nights' was one of the saddest, as Jayne and I were driving somewhere together, and I clearly felt a large empty hole where Cherie should have been sitting, to make it the three of us. I remember thinking about that feeling for a long time--rational, reflective thoughts that don't often make their way into my dreams. Thoughts about how it would never be the same, there would always be that loss.

Then a bit later, Cherie came up and greeted us. I was pretty freaked out, but she explained something about some serum this guy discovered, and they had applied it to her buried body just in time (apparently, a few months was the limit to revive someone). She said she wasn't sure it would last, she might only live again for a week or a month, but she was glad to have more time with us. It was amazing, and awesome. I was telling her about the playlist I had come up with after she'd died, all our old high school and college favorites, but those with lyrics that had become particularly meaningful to me after she died. I remember thinking how wonderful it was that I could share this with her now, how she totally appreciated the humor and sadness of it, and how I had been longing to share it with her before. When I woke up, I thought it was odd that I came up with that playlist idea, until I finally remembered I had done that very thing in May, a week after she died. I haven't looked at the playlist in months; apparently only my subconscious remembered it.

Of course, when I first woke up, I had the same experience I always do with those dreams--thirty seconds of intense happiness, with a vague wondering of why I was happy. Then I realize it's because Cherie is alive again--and immediately realize it was a dream, and plunge into sadness.

It's been nearly six months now, and while the dreams are becoming less frequent, they're only becoming more intense. Sometimes I feel like I want to scream out to people I barely now, in public--especially at work--that I lost one of my best friends, and it hurts so bad, and I don't feel like messing with daily crap anymore--email, meetings, laundry, groceries. I thought it would get easier--and most days, it is. But some days, it's harder.

(Shakes Head at Self)

2008-10-16T12:59:00.001-05:00

I started blogging about my new MacBook, and it somehow devolved into an admission of how geeky Alex and I are, and how this is revealed by our computer naming scheme.

Sigh.

Getting on the Bandwagon

2008-10-15T16:19:00.002-05:00

Yep, I'm joining the Mac Bandwagon. Want to help me decide what I'm getting?

We Interrupt This Lunch Break...

2008-09-25T13:27:00.001-05:00

... for a bit of unscheduled silliness.

I am a computer geek wife, and a bit of a geek in my own right. We had an electronics rack in place of what was our linen closet. I've had to distinguish between typical, non-geek screws and rack screws for nearly eight years now.

So why is it that reading Slashdot over lunch, my brain stopped at the phrase "rack-mount" and won't stop giggling?

Sigh.

Stereotypes

2008-09-25T10:23:00.004-05:00

So, apparently, "survey says" conservatives are boring and liberals are messy. I'm offended on behalf of both sides of the aisle.

Granted, my quirky mindset (aka "moderate") is such that I'm labeled either liberal or conservative, usually whatever is the opposite of the person I happen to be chatting with. This is one of those many reasons I don't tend to volunteer a lot of political opinions. So I suppose that, having been labeled as both, it's easy for such a vapid article to get under my skin.

Then again, there's just the eye-rolling aspect of it. Surveying political opinions and then having strangers rate the tidiness or stylishness of workspaces? Somebody has a heck of a lot more time on their hands than I do.

Of course, then there's this David Cronenberg quote:
"All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true."

When means... I'm boring and messy? Touché!

Fall Semester Slog

2008-09-21T11:25:00.003-05:00

Actually, this semester is going quite well, but "slog" conveys how I'm feeling about all the things that I'm trying to keep track of... and thus the reason that I'm hitting my usual long-semester slow-down of personal blog posts.

Alex is on his way to Kharkiv, Ukraine at the moment--he should be on the plane from Kiev to Kharkiv now, his last leg of the journey (he had stopovers in New York and London). He'll be back Friday (after an overnight stay in London on his way back, lucky duck!). I'm in my usual state of Alex-ness. That is, I have a list of tasks to accomplish, since I don't have my BFF to interact with, I therefore should have no excuse for being excruciatingly productive... but his absence makes me feel off-kilter, and thus I'm dragging a bit on the productivity front. Meh.

Yesterday's absence of useful activity, however, was partially due to several scheduled activities (such as dropping Alex off at DFW Airport). The other portion was feeling rotten, both emotionally (attending a memorial service with other members of my department), and physically (almost not being able to drive back from Denton with an immense migraine, then throwing up promptly upon arriving home). In fact, I got home at 6:30 and immediately went to sleep at 7pm... and didn't wake up until midnight. Which actually worked out kind of well, considering Alex called 45 minutes later from London to say he was safely there. Then I read for a couple of hours and went back to sleep.

The only good part of the day was that, feeling rotten, I treated myself to Recycled Books trip before I left Denton. I managed to find a great reference work on Egyptian mythology for $4 that Alex will love perhaps even more than me, a London guidebook for half-price that also included a laminated street map someone had tucked inside (score!), and a couple of comics (Batgirl and Thessaly). (This, the day after I scored three cheap books at the campus bookstore, one of them a Catwoman compilation for $6.)

This morning, I've still felt a bit physically under-the-weather, so I started slow with a chapter of the book "Drawing Words, Writing Pictures," a textbook on how to create comics. First Second Books graciously gave me a free copy of this and the comic Prince of Persia (yep, based on that awesome old video game) to review on my professional blog, and so far I am thoroughly enjoying both. First Second always publishes interesting, artistically distinctive stuff, but in addition I am continually impressed by the quality of their printing. Their books are ridiculously inexpensive for the high quality of paper, color, binding, and printing. Open any of their books and compare it to a regular DC or Marvel hardback--it's a huge difference.

I keep meaning to post brief takes on movies we've been watching, and have neglected to do so all summer. Instead, I find myself reading a friend's blog, and commenting when he review movies that I watched recently (like The Fall, which was awesome!). Although now that it's fall, my movie-watching is pretty limited anyway.

Okay, enough stalling--time for homework. Well, actually it's nearly lunchtime... so on to stalling by way of food!

Happy Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day!

2008-09-19T15:35:00.000-05:00

My pirate name is:

Mad Mary Bonney

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

City Girl (Our NYC Trip)

2008-09-03T21:50:00.003-05:00

Tihleigh (with further encouragement from Laura and Astrid, but T you're the one who convinced me): you're a genius. The neti pot seems to be working, inasmuch as it stopped six days of NYC pollution from instantly replaying my recent sinus infection. Woohoo!

So, here's the briefest of summations of our 6-day New York City vacation, with no work in sight for either of us. It was a blissful time, and I'm realizing it's super-awesome to travel places that aren't attached to work-related trips.

Thursday:

flight in, finally seeing Manhattan for the first time
decided that Times Square is actually more over-stimulating, crowded, and neon than Vegas. WOW.
love love LOVE Central Park.
discovered that H&M has 1) awesome clothes that 2) fit me and 3) are about as affordable as Old Navy. Rock on.

Friday:

began to figure out the complex subway system
Chinatown: fantastic food, fun shopping (and I can finally use chopsticks)
Yankees game (tromped Toronto 2 - 1, woohoo!)
walking down the street after Yankees game
Gray's Papaya
finding out Sarah Palin was McCain's VP pick outside of Gray's Papaya (a great day for women, no matter your politics!)

Saturday:

um… we did… stuff… in the morning. I will probably remember what it was when I look at photos.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Egyptian collection, Assyrian winged guards, Degas, Madame X, and Vermeers
“The Lion King” on Broadway (awesome—especially loved the dance and use of performers as set pieces)
street hotdogs—yum!

Sunday:

Southside Seaport and Brooklyn Bridge
decided not to wait in TKTS ticket line
Wall Street
walking alllll the way up Broadway
lunch in Soho
matinee showing of "Boeing Boeing." So. Freaking. Incredible. Best show I have ever seen, period!!
dinner and dessert in Little Italy (sampled both pastries and gelato)

Monday:

more Central Park walking and street hotdogs
American Museum of Natural History: elephants, dinosaurs, huge whale
dinner at the Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien--tiny, impossible to find, amazing burgers
another stop at H&M (purple cordorouy blazer!)
walking along Fifth Avenue by Tiffany & Co., Trump Tower, St. Patrick's, Rockefeller Center

Tuesday:

Ellis Island
Statue of Liberty
taxi driver getting lost
flew out, and first class flying for my first time!

So... if I can tear myself away from my already-ginormous piles of homework this weekend, I'll upload those photos to Flickr--think we came away with about 7GB total, which for a 6-day trip, for us, is actually remarkably little. (But still a lot to sort, edit, and upload!) Then if by some miracle I finish, maybe I can start going back and uploading the Quebec City photos and other stuff from the spring and summer.

Well, a girl can dream, anyway.

The Fine Art of Music Videos

2008-08-27T18:04:00.006-05:00

...Or rather, the fine art of choosing them.

So, the topic of ponderment for Alex and I this week has been favorite music videos. This was prompted by two different things. First, my insane love of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and the 80's station on Sirius radio has always amused Alex. Second, he's been using that nifty app on the iPhone to find out the titles/artists for cool songs we hear on TV. Namely, during the Olympics, Muse's insanely awesome "The Knights of Cydonia."

Yeah, go look it up on YouTube. Right now. I'll wait, really.

YES. We've decided it's "Kill Bill" meets "Firefly" in a wondrous clash of cheesy genres.

So, anyway. Alex keeps asking for my top ten list of music videos. I've been working on it for three weeks, usually on my drive home as I suddenly remember one. And I think I've got it. He rather tyrannically insisted that I keep it to ten, although I originally had eleven (finally had to bump Madonna's awesome "Hung Up," to my chagrin). So now I also have an "Other Favorites" category.

And since I don't like the actual music video for Chris Cornell's opening to Casino Royale, but love love LOVE the opening in the movie with it, I decided that it didn't actually qualify. And now I also have the beginnings of a list with my favorite film opening credits.

Sigh. A lister. Can you tell why I'm a librarian?

Top Ten

Here It Goes Again, OK Go -- reasoning: humor, awesome choreography, unparalleled creativity, and I like the bald guy with glasses (oh plus I like the song)
Thriller, Michael Jackson -- reasoning: classic, great cheesy storyline, awesome choreography, awesome song, and Vincent Price
Tonight, Tonight, Smashing Pumpkins -- reasoning: lovely period/goth feel, haunting, and it references a cool old silent film
Call Me When You're Sober, Evanescence -- reasoning: just gorgeous, and a fairytale flavor to boot
Vogue, Madonna (original) -- reasoning: Madonna. Dude. plus, awesome choreography, great style, killer song, classic!
Knights of Cydonia, Muse -- reasoning: amazing cross-genre humor
A Million Ways to Be Cruel, OK Go -- reasoning: same as reasoning for #1. DUDE.
Ain't No Other Man, Christina Aguilera -- reasoning: great retro flavor (several of them)
White and Nerdy, Al Yankovic -- reasoning: insanely clever parody that's too true
Feel Good Inc., Gorillaz -- reasoning: awesome crazy odd animation, and... yeah.

Other Favorites

Hung Up, Madonna
The World is Not Enough, Garbage
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Eurythmics
Lady Marmalade, Moulin Rouge Soundtrack (various)
Don't Speak, No Doubt
Safety Dance, Men Without Hats
Mercy, Duffy
Vogue, Madonna (MTV Awards version)
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), Dead or Alive
Bad, Michael Jackson
Beat It, Michael Jackson
Wild Wild West, Will Smith
Men in Black, Will Smith
One, Metallica
Take On Me, A-ha

Favorite Film Opening Credit Sequences

007 Casino Royale
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Catch Me If You Can
007 Goldeneye
Charade

Note: the above is not very indicative of my top ten, or even top fifty favorite songs. That's because my criteria for a music video is much more complex:

choreography (skill, appropriate for song, and creativity)
general creativity
narrative helpful, particularly if costumes involved
classic quality--timeless, not something I won't care about next year
humor--not necessary, but really helpful
song quality

And there you have it.

Home in Texas

2008-08-20T17:11:00.001-05:00

Anyone else frantically watching (and fast-forwarding through the boring parts) the Olympics each evening to clear space on their DVR for the next day's round of events?

I thought we were pretty much through with stuff Alex and I were interested in watching, now that Phelps has officially made his mark, gymnastics is pretty much wrapped up, beach volleyball seems to be winding down, and we finally gave up on the rowing events... but now I hear that the rhythmic gymnastics cometh. With ribbons and all.

Dangit.

Not that I'll be able to catch much of it the next two nights--since the library closes at 6pm each night, I am going to have to scramble and use my evening-time at home to print more items for my annual performance review-type binder. Yippee.

Quebec City was awesome, my IFLA presentation went exceedingly well, and I now have at least four trips of which I haven't even looked at the photos I took--much less edited or uploaded to Flickr. Dangit, I need Christmas break already.

Oh, and Alex is taking scuba diving lessons--last week was his written test and pool exercises, and this weekend will be his open-water test, at a local lake. We were hoping to camp out there, as well, but between the rain and my mom coming into town, I think we'll just make the drive Saturday and then Sunday. I'm hoping to get some photos of him in all his gear this weekend--woohoo!

While he's underwater and I'm sitting on the shore, I've got my New York City guidebook to look through, to make some final plans. We'll be there August 28 - September 2, and will be catching a Yankees game and The Lion King (maybe another show as well, but that's the one we broke down and paid full price for). I've also got a handy list of "best of" NYC sights from my pal Rosemary (who lives in Queens)--any suggestions are certainly welcome! I'm hoping we won't be totally doomed, going over a holiday weekend... but ah well, you go when you can.

Wednesday = "Meh"

2008-08-06T17:20:00.001-05:00

It's not really a bad day, although it feels like it's trying hard to become so.

This morning, I woke up for the third time in the past week having had a dream about Cherie--most of them involving Cherie still being alive, and this most recent one discussing her as gone, but then she showed up to join the commentary, as well. In each dream, I was having the best time with her--going to the movies, laughing, etc. They were really good dreams--they were just hard to wake up from.

This morning, I found out that Pauline Baynes, my favorite illustrator, had died a few days earlier. This article focuses on her work for Tolkein, but I knew her best through CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.

I got home from work at 10:45 last night--a glorious 13-hour day courtesy of my overloaded schedule, which is completely my fault. I learned how to say "no," just not soon enough. In any case, I slept in a little so I wouldn't be completely useless at work today, but even so, I have a raging sore throat and feel a bit spacey.

And I should be excited--I'm going to get to present at IFLA in Canada next week, after all! A new country, an international professional opportunity--but I'm tired and I'm sad that I can't bring Alex. All in all, it scares me a little that I'm longing for the fall semester to begin. Am I really so busy that three classes' worth of homework will seem breezy by comparison? Rationally, I highly doubt it. But as usual, being the well-seasoned schoolgal that I am, I'm excited for classes to begin, so that's probably a good thing.

So, yeah--it's not a bad day. But I can't help feeling a little down, nonetheless. Well, maybe "down" is too strong a word--it's more like "quiet and thoughtful."

Best/Worst Comic Book Movies

2008-07-22T18:35:00.003-05:00

Anyone going to San Diego Comic-Con?
...If so, and if you can manage to swipe me a copy of this awesome Sandman poster, I'm forever in your debt.

In brief update:

I'm using Twitter now--finally gave in. The upside is, I'm spending less time on Facebook (which I love, but I don't really have time for)--because the primary reason I kept my Facebook window open all the time was to see status updates, anyway. If I'm not following your Twitter, please let me know so I can add it.
I'll be in DC from this Friday (July 25) through Saturday, August 2nd. No idea what my online status will be during that time, but let me know if you're in the area and up for lunch/dinner/sight-seeing (evenings and weekends only).
I turn 30 next Monday. No big party this year, as we're living in the temporary circumstances and ridiculously busy. It bums me out, but I'm planning on having the "big" bash next year, instead--just between you and me, can we pretend that I'm turning 30 next year? Pretty please?
Got my Fall class schedule, finally: EPSY 6010 (first half of Educational Statistics), EDHE 6070 (Finance in Higher Education), and EDHE 6500 (Essentials of Academic Publishing). I think it looks like a good schedule, and I only have five on-campus sessions the entire semester, which ought to help me out.
Re-watched T2 this weekend on Blu-ray, and the effects stood up pretty well in hi-def, considering it was made in 1991! Yowza. And it was good timing, considering I saw the Terminator: Salvation teaser last night.
Which means: YES! We watched The Dark Knight last night. Ledger really does make an awesome Joker--it's not just the facial tick, body language, etc., but the fact that he is terrifying and insane, yet genuinely funny. That was the first time I've heard an audience consistently laugh so loudly in a long time. And that's the essence of the Joker, to me--crazy and violent while genuinely funny.

So after we watched the movie last night, Alex asked me if I thought it was the "best" comic book movie of all time. And what that meant. I haven't had a lot of time to ponder this, but here are my initial musings:

X-Men 2: Most Watchable. By this, I mean that the pacing in this movie is so smooth, the plot so enjoyably crafted, that I am almost always in the mood to watch it. It's not the most complex or "best," but it's just a fun movie. This, despite a dizzying number of characters, which still impresses me.
Iron Man: Most Fun. This is almost the same category as X-2, really--but there's a slight difference. Also a movie I'd frequently be in the mood for--not so much for the pacing, as for Downey, Jr's great interpretation of Stark. "Best Quipping?" It loses a few points for obvious villain/pacing at the end, but meh--doesn't bug me much. Also: Best Costume Translation On-Screen. On paper, I love Batman's costume best--but the most authentic and least cheesy-looking has to be Iron Man.
The Dark Knight: Best Villain. Most Successfully Serious. I'd almost put "best movie" here, except that I've only seen it once, and I think the pacing/length aren't perfect. However, there's no question in my mind that Ledger's Joker is the best movie comic-book villain, period. And I love me some Batsy.
Spiderman 2: Best Origins Summary. I love, love, love the opening credits with the "best of" the first movie. It's done in a pleasing visual manner, it's brief, and it leaves out most of the crappy Green Goblin parts (I hate helmet/mask acting). Also possibly second-best villain... hmmm wait, now I'm remembering Zod--never mind.
Superman 2 (Richard Donner Cut): Most Surprising. This is another close contender for "best," because I'm just amazed at this movie. I watched the original version again a few months ago, and was flabbergasted by the contrast. This movie has real drama, emotion, and two moments that flat out made my jaw drop with surprise: Superman letting Lois fall out the window (!), and Lois shooting him (!!). Daring moves from an older movie, where I didn't expect it. And Reeves--man, what talent he had in that role.
Batman (1989) and Batman Returns: Best Set Design. Tim Burton--what an excellent choice for a movie with such a dark character and setting. He truly made "the" version of Gotham for me--gothic, art noveau-ish, dark, extremely stylized. Also the best Batmobile--this is what I miss most in the Nolan movies. Sigh.
Superman: The Movie: Honorable Mention. I actually prefer Superman 2, but I have to give this one props for the scene where Superman peeks at Lois's underwear. (Not that Frank Miller would agree with the less-self-righteous interpretation of the character--but that's why I love it. Goody-two-shoes Supes has always annoyed me, thus my preference for 'ol Batsy.)
The Bottom of the Barrel:
- X-Men 3 (too many plots)
- Spiderman 3 (too many villains)
- Superman Returns (too little heart--although gorgeous visually)
- Supergirl... oh gosh I loved this movie as a kid. Too... yeah. Worse waste of Peter O'Toole in a film? Hokiest plot ever? Take your pick.

I'm sure there are worse comic book movies, particularly pre-1990's, but I honestly haven't seen many older ones.

I was trying to pick my favorite leading lady of a comic-book film, but I'm kind of stumped, to be honest. Debra Winger's Lois is nice and gutsy (and not nearly as annoying as I found her when I was a kid)... Kristen Dunst was annoying in Spidey 1, but I like her fine in 2... Maggie Gyllenhall was a geniously great replacement for Katie Holmes in Dark Knight, but she's really Harvey's gal in that movie, so I somehow don't want to count her. Of the early Batman films, I really liked Michelle Pfieffer as Catwoman--although I haven't seen it in about four years, and this makes me wonder how she stands up against today's more dramatic fare. I enjoy both Famke Jansen and Anna Paquin in the X-films, but neither enough to pick as my favorite.

Hmph. Let me know if I'm missing someone obviously awesome.

Villain I'd most like to see in a new comic-book movie? Mr. Freeze. That would be the second-favorite of my favorite Batman villains, and he was treated so very, very well in Batman: The Animated Series and in Batman: Beyond (both cartoons). And he suffered so very badly in the hands of Arnie, on-screen (shudder). But I'm skeptical that he'd be a watchable live-action villain, especially since Nolan seems to like using more than one villain at a time.

I'm interested to know your thoughts... about Dark Knight, about best/worst comic book movies, etc.! Feel free to pick a fight with me, heh heh.

It's July Already?

2008-07-13T13:57:00.003-05:00

This post isn't going to be about Alex's adventures in St. Pete, but as I'm spending part of my Sunday afternoon going through our stuff on Flickr, I thought I might post one of my favorite shots from his trip. Gorgeous, eh?

Last night, we went to Fort Worth for a date night. We ate dinner at the Flying Saucer, an establishment so centered around their international alcohol that I thought for a minute the waitress was going to throw us out when we said we weren't drinking tonight. However, the food was quite good; I enjoyed a goat cheese/cranberry/walnut salad, and Alex had a buffalo chicken wrap. Then we indulged in some kind of ice cream/chocolate cake drenched in raspberry sauce.

The Bass was gorgeous, and Avenue Q was great. So, so great. We kept joking throughout the first act that we'd see a bunch of empty seats after intermission, due to the, ahem, controversial nature of the show. And sure enough, the four seats to our left were empty throughout the entire Act 2, despite the fact that one of the guys had been laughing his head off. My theory is that he's going to get heck from his wife for laughing at all.

Today, we've had pancakes and some lazing about, and now we're back to work--Alex literally working on work stuff, me working on getting papers together for house financing, and travel receipts to file tomorrow, then the last three weeks (and four trips' worth) of laundry, and I had been planning on ripping CDs and organizing our mp3 players.... but yeah. So far, I've managed to throw up my hands in frustration over my lack of cohesive plans for my 30th birthday party, and add tags to some images on Flickr. And, er, there's this post.

I've still got a ton of photos and content to post for the last three trips (plus earlier stuff that I'm not even going to think about at the moment)... here are two brief notes:

I was just in Anaheim, Abilene, and Austin. What's up with the A-town theme?
I have now come to realize that Austin is the avacado capitol of Texas. And also has the most fantastic waiting service I have ever enjoyed. I have now made my peace with this town, and accept its eccentricities as charming (with the exception of the awful highway system, which I did not personally have to deal with on this particular trip).

More Online Humiliation

2008-07-09T11:28:00.001-05:00

In a further effort to make my entire life public to the world, particularly any embaressing instances, here's a link to all my yearbook photos from HSU, which my lovely employer the UNT Libraries have just digitized.

Ah, more fodder for being teased at work--just what everyone needs, eh?

Pre-Flight Check

2008-06-27T10:36:00.002-05:00

I just had to add this funny anecdote. So, you know what sucks most about a huge thunderstorm the night before you're going on a trip? Nope, it's not that the thunder kept you up so you didn't get much sleep--although that was interesting, too.

It's pretty darn hard to pack when the power's out.

Um, yeah. For hours. And all your decently-sized flashlights--those have been packed in boxes for two months. And you have no idea where your in-laws keep flashlights, but you're pretty sure it's somewhere downstairs... in the dark... probably three rooms away in some drawer that you can't find in the dark.

So--good thing you've got that tiny LED light in your purse. You know, the kind that is only really useful for finding the keyhole of your car door in the dark? That is so tiny, that if you set it on the counter, it doesn't shine light anywhere near what you're packing--but you're using your hands to pack--so you spend two hours holding the darned thing in your mouth while you ponder which pants you want to wear to Friday's Happy Hour at ALA.

Yeah, that was interesting.

Sunny (Kinda) Cali!

2008-06-27T00:36:00.005-05:00

It was an early morning with a flight and time-change that made for a long day, but it was fun. Here are some highlights:

realizing that Dr. Totten from UNT's SLIS was in the TSA security line right behind me at DFW
riding in a convertible through Beverly Hills, Mulholland Drive, Rodeo Drive, and Santa Monica with Greg, Cari, & Emma
the resulting crispy shoulders (despite liberally applying 30 - 50 spf sunscreen four times)
seeing dolphins playing in the waves at Santa Monica
eating almond-chocolate-chunk ice cream on Santa Monica Pier
photographing my favorite part of the Pier: glimpses of the waves beneath the boardwalk
passing Kodak Theater and Groman's Theater
chatting with a librarian/vendor from Melbourne on the shuttle from LAX
getting a tremendously-upgraded room at Residence Inn... and finding three closets and two balconies in it!
finally staying in a hotel with free wifi
eating at In-N-Out Burger (nod to Tihleigh)
"talking" to Alex (still in Russia); he was IMing Robert, who called me, and we had an interesting three-way conversation
sitting in my hotel room, getting annoyed at the loud upstairs neighbors... realizing there *is* no upstairs... walking outside and realizing it's the enormously loud/huge fireworks at Disneyland... and laughing at myself
(did I mention my room has three closets and two balconies? yeah, dude.)
exchanging thunderstorm stories and befuddlement at the convention center entrance with a Library Journal exhibitor from NYC
walking around the Convention Center... the looooong way
being so tired from the long day and time change that I ate popcorn for dinner--thank goodness for Residence Inn's kitchenette!

This isn't even all of the selected photos from today.... but it's a start.

FYI: ALA in Anaheim

2008-06-25T16:50:00.002-05:00

I'll be in Anaheim, CA at the American Library Association's Annual Conference starting tomorrow (June 26th) through Monday evening (June 30th). I may or may not find the time and divine combination of free time + laptop + outlet + internet connection + near beach (ha!) to post more updates, so I thought I'd let you guys know what I'm up to.

I will, however, be spending at least some of that possible free time posting on my professional blog. So if you're curious as to what lofty academic pursuits I'm up to (ha!), feel free to check there.

Overload and Russian Dumplings

2008-06-23T19:09:00.002-05:00

You would think I can't complain about being busy any more than I already have... yeah. I will try to contain myself when conversing, but suffice to say that work + preparing to travel for work + prepping for construction loan + car repair + normal bills and stuff to take care of... = Overwhelmed (more than usual) Starr. Sigh.

It seems worse than usual, since my co-conspirator is out of the country and not immediately available for help or venting.

But he did teach me something during our brief IM today: pierogies are Russian dumplings. He had some filled (variously) with meat, cabbage, mushrooms, apricots, and cherries. (He missed out on the salmon, apparently not enough to go around.) He had an apparently amazing boat trip around St. Petersburg today (well tonight, for him) from 10pm to 2am--gotta love having all that day light during White Nights. He said he took many photos (yay!) and there was apparently much yelling while under bridges. Huh. Guess that's a story I'll just have to hear when he gets back.

Solo Weekend

2008-06-22T21:42:00.003-05:00

So, Alex is now in St. Petersburg; he informs me that as he is nine hours ahead of us, he'll shortly look up the winning lotto numbers and give them to me. Heh.

In any case, I'm off to ALA in Anaheim early Thursday am, and he's back in Texas the day afterward... I'll be back late the following Monday. We do get around these days.

Yesterday, my department enjoyed a lovely party at Clarice's house. Four of us ladies actually stayed in the pool until 10pm. 'Twas quite nice; I haven't been night-swimming in quite a while, and I've sorely missed Clarice since her retirement a few weeks ago. I stayed to chat with the last stragglers until 11pm, and was back in McKinney at midnight, then groggily woken up at 6:30 by Alex's call to say he was at his layover in London. Then it was off to church with pals Amy and Jaime, who also treated me to a scrumptious lunch of breakfast tacos, and rushed home for my first IM-session with Alex, once he finally got to his St. Petersburg hotel. We talked about Russian traffic and vessel sinks, primarily. (Ah, the joys of house-building.)

I believe the only things on my weekend list that actually got accomplished were purchasing a vanity for the new house's downstairs guest bath, and looking at a lot of vessel sinks and faucets. Here it is nearly 10pm and I haven't ripped a single CD, or cleaned my desk, or packed for California, or written any in my novel. Ah, well.

I have discovered this, however: Vader and stormtroopers dancing to Thriller. Which pretty much glows with Pure Awesome, considering it combines two of my greatest delights. Actually, make that three--I was going to say Star Wars and Thriller, but also the concept of a Dance-Off itself. Yep, Pretty Stinkin' Awesome.

Stuff Happens

2008-06-18T16:21:00.002-05:00

...So much of it, in fact, that I haven't been around here much, have I?

Well, here's the update:

Alex leaves Saturday to spend a week in St. Petersburg
I'll be at ALA in Anaheim June 26th - 30th
so much more travel planned that it makes me tired/excited to think about
been very social lately: dinner with Greg & Cari and then Amy & Jaime, art museum with my parents, day with Carolyn, and an afternoon of books and ice cream with Jayne & progeny
visited bookstores 5 times in the past 2.5 weeks (it's an addiction)
close to finalizing our houseplans (probably won't break ground until August--arg!)
still reading a lot of "fun" books
managing to write in my novel--major breakthrough last week
still lack the ability to tan

Um... that's at least a portion of my life, currently. I've been writing a lot of thoughts on paper, but haven't sat down to transcribe them here, yet. Maybe next week while I'm bored and husband-less.

More of the San Antone Weekend

2008-06-09T20:33:00.005-05:00

Check out this bizarre patent.

Other fun stuff we did this weekend (that I left out of my previous post):

Sunday afternoon, I swam for a gloriously peaceful forty-five minutes while Alex read one of his business books (poolside). Swimming underwater is one of the most tranquil activities to me, and something I rarely get to do. It's somewhat wrecked when I have to share the pool with other people, particularly chatty ones. Thus, sharing silent pool-time with Alex was blissful.
Completely neglected to eat sweets for my Dad's birthday. He did manage to have some of the cheesecake Mom bought, but Alex and I were both so full and sooooo sleepy from our awesome TexMex meal that we fell asleep on the couch. Yes, sleep instead of cheesecake--it was a tough decision, and my brain won over my stomach (pretty rare occurrence, that).
Again, I have to mention the early-morning chats my with parents. Saturday's morning was in the art studio, sans Alex, but Sunday was our more-traditional on the porch, with Alex. We all looked over the book purchases we'd made the night before and chatted about them--heavenly. Family + coffee + books + trees/country = bliss.
On the five-hour drive back, Alex and I chatted about tons of stuff, as is our usual during that trek. We almost always bring music or audiobooks (this time we had a learning-Russian CD), but we rarely use them--we're having too much fun chatting together! That is just one of the hugest blessings of my life, that after more than seven years of marriage, Alex has even more become my best friend, so much so that we can't stop conversing through five hours of monotonous driving. This time, we discussed the new house plans, my book's plot, politics, work, travel, future dreams, finances... yeah, and I forget what else.
I took a bunch of photos, primarily at the McNay Art Museum... but due to this week's schedule, I think it might be awhile before I get them up on Flickr.

Am I the Only Goofy One...

2008-06-09T14:49:00.000-05:00

...or when composing emails, do you also reflexively smile when you add an emoticon? I don't know if I'm smiling "back" at the little digital face, or if my subconscious believes that by physically reinforcing the expression, my tone will be more adequately conveyed in the email.

It's also possible that I'm just an insufferably cheerful person.

So, this weekend Alex and I jetted down to San Antone for my dad's birthday--his 58th, which just adds to my whole reinterpretation of age, as he looks and acts, at nearly 60, nothing like what I thought of that age as a kid. I think he's more of what I thought 40 was--then again, when you're 12, it's hard to believe the world will still exist when you're 30. Anyway.

We had a great time--Alex made the remark, echoing what I've often thought, that my parents' house is an amazing place where you can truly relax. We tried to assess the reasons why, when we got back. We both think that a lot of it has to do with all the trees around their house--which bodes well for our future home, as the lot has tons of big, old trees. But there's also the birdsong (also related to trees), the "nearness" of the outdoors due to their abundant garden spots and back deck, and the sheer quiet. Alex and I lived in a similarly country-ish area at our old house, but there was the lack of trees (and thus birdsong), and because of the placement of our electronics, the house was always loud, even if you didn't consciously notice it. Whenever the power would go out, we'd be reminded of how loud the house usually was--the constant barrage of white noise from UPS's and computers and theater equipment and fans and the fridge.

So after waking up in that relaxing place--and enjoying my traditional cup-of-coffee-with-the-parents while Alex caught another half hour or so of sleep (this usually occurs on the back deck, but due to rain this time was moved to my mom's art studio, which is in a small red shed near the house), we took off for San Antone itself. We enjoyed the re-opening weekend festivities at the McNay Art Museum, a small but wonderful jewel of a place that reminds me of the Kimbell in Fort Worth (only with gorgeous Spanish colonial architecture instead of gorgeous modern architecture). It has a similarly comfortable and human-scaled approach to art display, with one of the most beautiful inner courtyards I've ever seen. We were ferried to and from the museum in a school bus in which the bus driver decided to dramatically illustrate that the shocks were not made to hold a load of adults, much to our discomfort (and amusement).

Then we headed off to enjoy a Jazz and Arts Festival at Crockett Park... but were perplexed to find it nearly empty, few booths (with the exception of the excellent Starbucks booth that twice provided us with free caffeine), and most befuddling, no music at all. Most people, performers, and vendors had apparently been frightened off by some earlier drizzles. We pronounced it neither jazzy nor festive, and instead spent awhile browsing through Half-Price Books, a dangerous activity for four people addicted to print. This was the third bookstore Alex and I had been to in a week and a half, and we brought home our fifth (at least) sack of books. I think we're a bit flustered by all our books being packed in boxes, and desperately trying to fill that hole--and since we plan on using movers for our next move, we don't have the thought of hauling heavy boxes to deter us.

Then we enjoyed a yummy (if loud) dinner at Tomatilla's, and headed back to my parent's casa rather late. A good time was had by all.

I'm now reading a ton of material in preparation for an all-day meeting tomorrow. Alex is off to Vegas (yes, again!) tomorrow through Friday, my mom is in town Wednesday through Saturday, my pal Jayne will be here over the weekend and a tad longer, and we have plans for yardwork and socializing over the weekend. Ah yes, and there are still preparations to be made for Alex leaving for Russia the following weekend.

It's a busy life, but at least it's an interesting one.

Just To Say...

2008-06-04T17:24:00.005-05:00

I have seen
the Indiana Jones movie
that was in
the box office

and which
you were probably
intending
as a 1950's B-movie spoof.

Forgive me
the effects were so shiny
too CGI
and too much.

-- Starr Hoffman (with apologies to William Carlos Williams)

(Although I have to add an amended last stanza,
addressed to my fellow Indy fans...)
Forgive me
it was delicious
so appropriately corny
and so fun.The original poem is here:
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/274.html

The idea for this spoof came from This American Life: 
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1239

And to my cousin Victoria:
hope you enjoyed my crack at poetry spoofing.

More Letters to Cherie

2008-05-27T14:27:00.003-05:00

It makes me angry, now, to watch Battlestar Galactica. One of the main characters, President Laura Roslin, has cancer, and it hurts me and makes me angry all at once, that she looks nothing like a cancer patient. Oh, they give her a skincap once in awhile to show her bald, and her wig is sufficiently un-shiny to look like a wig rather than natural hair, but other than that, she just looks tired all the time. Like, mother-of-three-children tired, not fighting-for-her-life tired. They tried a little harder with a cameo role of a character that died of cancer--but they but such odd, harsh makeup on her that she just looked dirty, like she'd been playing in mudpies. She was still fleshy, whole, untouched by disease--just dirty.

It makes me think of your graveside service, when I see Laura Roslin. It reminds me that standing next to your coffin was probably the hardest thing I have had to do in my entire life. I thought it would be difficult, beforehand--I had no idea.

It was all I could do, hanging physically on to Jayne for dear life and biting my lip, to keep from screaming and throwing myself forward. If it had been an open-casket service, I don't think I would have made it.

I kept looking at that coffin and picturing your disease-wasted body lying there. And I think it was painful on two levels. I wanted to throw myself onto your body, to touch your body one last time, to see your golden eyelashes and your freckles--it was some deep visceral need that I didn't anticipate or understand. And on another level, I couldn't stand to even imagine your wasted body there, so unlike the body I used to know, before it was twisted by cancer and treatments and prescription drugs. I know in either case, I know, that that body is not you, was never you, even before that disease captured you. I know that your "you-ness," your soul, is long gone and destined for a better locale. But that didn't make it any easier.

The last time I saw you, barely able to lift your legs onto the recliner footrest, your legs were mostly bone, kneecaps knobily protruding from what had once been vibrant, muscular legs, capable of back-handsprings and running after two energetic kids. Your arms were so thin that it's painful to even think of it, and your face was swollen from the steroids--you wryly compared it to a chipmunk's. You made us all laugh at your comments about your complete lack of any butt, the fact that you could still somehow gain weight in your face and your stomach. But in the end, it was so hard to see you look so alien, to wonder where that body I had known had gone. To see my strong, vibrant friend so frail.

So I see these characters on TV shows, in movies--they all have cancer now. It seems everwhere I turn, there's a plot where someone dies. I'm sure everyone feels this way when they lose someone. But still, it makes me so angry. I want them to take the President Laura Roslin on Battlestar Galatica, and make her face look pinched and drawn--or swollen by drugs. I want to see her arms look thin and wasted, her legs look so frail as to nearly be incabable of supporting her body. It makes me resent her, that her acting expects me, the audience, to be sympathetic toward her plight, to fear for her health and feel sorrow for her pain. I simply don't believe it. She doesn't look sick, or exhausted. She doesn't have cancer, and I know it. My suspension of disbelief is no longer willing.

I cry a lot more now, at anything. Part of it is that every plot line is related to death, or cancer, often both. Part of it is that emotion seems always to be bubbling just beneath the surface--good ones, bad ones, all kinds. Except for those days when I'm too numb to feel anything. On those days, I wonder if I'm dispassionate, or happy you're no longer in pain, or too busy to feel anything, or forgetting you, or if I'm simply over your death. But I'm not--it's just another wave of numb, to be followed by another wave of sorrow. In and out, the tides flow.

I feel like no one who's not in this sorrow with me can understand. I need to talk about you, think about you, look at your pictures and--even more so--your handwriting. When I look at your handwriting, you seem so alive. Perhaps everyone feels this way, or perhaps it's just that in high school and college, we wrote so much together--stories, yes, but also notes in class and goofing around. We didn't write notes and then hand them to each other, we wrote entire conversations, sometimes talking at the same time, sometimes simply silently communicating through words. Your handwriting is, to me, like your voice--therefore reading it isn't like watching some static photograph of you. It is you, almost audibly speaking to me, in the present.
Your photo is on my bedside table, on my desk at work, and I've been carrying your senior picture with me in my backpack for weeks. I feel like anyone who doesn't understand will see it as some bizarre shrine, some evidence that I don't believe you're in Heaven, or that I'm obsessed. I think it's just my way of reaching out for your presence, not to hold you on earth, but to know that my (I keep using the word "vibrant," what's another word for this, for you?) hilarious creative friend is still alive. Not here on earth, but alive in a far more real way.

Everything I just wrote was about my own selfish sorrow--I certainly feel a lot of that, but it's tempered by my knowledge that for you, this is better. You are happier, you are without pain, you are waiting for us. But I also hurt far more for your family, particuarly for your mom and your sister. I cannot fathom what they must feel, knowing that their sorrow must be so much deeper than my own. It makes me unspeakably sad, and it strengthens my resolve in the promise I made you. And I pray for them, oh I haven't prayed this much in years. When I hurt for them, I pray.

And I remember what you told Mom, at Sasha's funeral, that it wasn't sad, that this was just the beginning for her. That it wasn't a waste of her young life, but that she got to go on to the real life that much sooner. And I know you were right, that you are right. Sometimes I can nearly see your wry smile as you shake your head about all the fuss we're making. But it's so amazingly hard, being left behind. I cannot believe it, it amazes me constantly how hard it is. I didn't see you every week, every day. I lived far away, I hadn't lived in the same room as you for twelve years. And still, it is this hard.

I've been talking a lot with a friend at work, who lost her younger brother in a car accident three months ago. I cannot believe, at times, that she is able to keep going. She didn't get a last chance to say goodbye like I did, she had no idea that this was coming, that he would be lost in an instant in a car crash. I know it's incredibly difficult for her, every single day--and I'm thankful that she talks to me about it, that we each have someone who understands a bit of this experience.

I started reading "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, about the year after her husband suddenly died of a heart attack. I'd been wanting to read it for over a year--and now it's exactly what I wanted. I would have thought the last thing I'd want is to read a book about grief--but that's what I want, to hear someone else say "this is how it is" and "this is okay" and "you might later expect this." It makes me cling to Alex like he's a life preserver, or like he might suddenly vanish. It makes me almost want to have kids and screw that I'm not ready for that or wanting them at this moment--but just in case, just in case. To quote "The Time Traveler's Wife," when Claire talks about wanting a child with her husband, Henry:

"...I wanted Henry to be in this child, so that when he was gone he wouldn’t be entirely gone, there would be a bit of him with me…insurance, in case of fire, flood, act of God."

I know it's irrational, and we'll wait for kids at the right time, if and when it comes. And I know that ultimately Alex's safety--and mine, and everyone else's--is up to God. But right now I feel like I'm clutching desperately at everyone, to keep them close.

And in the end, if that makes me reach out to my friends more often, treasure each moment with them more dearly, then I think that would make you happy. So I'll wipe my eyes--yet again--and I'll do just that.

Weekend-ish Weekend

2008-05-19T13:44:00.003-05:00

Well Saturday was all-out weekend-y, but since Sunday I had to write a conference paper, I'll just call it weekend-ish as a whole.

Friday night, we saw Iron Man, which was just about as fantastic as the trailer made it look, which made me extremely happy--but also frustrated, since I immediately wanted to see it again, and it no doubt won't see a blu-ray release until Christmas. Arg! But dude--yeah, I so called that Robert Downey Jr. was genius casting. Favreau, I thought if anyone could do it, you could--and you not only did it, you threw yourself in there as the chauffer. And had more than one line! I'm impressed.

Of course, we all know what movie is coming out this weekend, the thing of speculation for years, anticipated for nearly two decades--Indiana Jones. I've been heartened by the trailers--but worried that the whole "alien" plot thing isn't in the trailers at all. Yeah, that worries me. And the early buzz... I try to ignore it, but I guess time will tell. I hope to actually see it this week/weekend, despite the fact that we just saw Iron Man and have yet to see Speed Racer or Prince Caspian. But dude--it's Indy.

In other news, one of my fellow geek-brarians let me know of this extreme awesomeness: Joss Whedon is almost done shooting a 40-minute musical about supervillians that stars NPH (Neil Patrick Harris, for those of you not on the down-low) and Nathan Fillion (of Firefly, for those of you not--well, let's face it, for those sad, sad people who haven't seen Firefly yet). It's called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

Ahem: did you hear me? Whedon. NPH. Fillion. Musical. Supervillians.

Ah-ha, I thought I'd hear your scream of extreme awesomeness. Yes, indeed--and it's supposed to be released online first, later to DVD (and I can cross my fingers for blue-ray).

Erm, yeah, back to my weekend... Anywho, Saturday we met with our architect (yay!), had lunch at Freebirds (yay!), went to the Frisco mall and bought some clothes (I guess I'll just stop saying "yay" now before it gets old), had yummy tasty food at Cheesecake Factory, had a nap, I wrote in my novel (finally! returning to creative writing summers), and then watched some more of the new American Gladiators show--yeah, that's what I said. Cheesy guilty pleasure, indeed, with a little nostalgia thrown in.

Sunday, I had to work on a paper for IFLA (which is kind of a "yay" but also a groan for actually doing the work), but we did FINALLY break out the Mario Kart Wii. Dude--the wheel is a vast improvement, particularly for the kind of gamers, like me, who always threw their traditional controllers around anyway. I actually don't completely suck at this game--in fact, I got first place in most of the races I tried yesterday, which is pretty crazy stuff. I was so bad at Mario Kart DoubleDash for the GameCube that after the first week, I never drove my own cart, but was always Alex's partner in charge of throwing stuff at the other carts. I'm glad that the peripheral for the game is intuitive enough that I can finally drive my own cart. And the retro tracks are pretty fun--one of them is completely boring, but most are great, and I just love the idea in general. Next task: type in Bryce's Wii and Mario Kart numbers, so we can meet for online battles--woohoo!

We watched Enchanted in the evening, and it was truly awesome. I'm sure as a normal romantic comedy it was so-so, but for a Disney freak, it was awwwwesome, catching all the little references and watching Amy Adams do an amazing job of actually moving like a Disney princess in real life (which boggles my mind). And James Marsden was hilarious. And better yet was watching the credits and seeing James Baxter, my favorite animator of all time because he animated Belle, listed as animation supervisor. Dude!!! Go, Baxter! And who did he supervise? None other than Andres Deja (who animated Gaston). (I think Glen Keane, who animated the Beast, is busy working on Rapunzel, which I am so so excited about.) AND the great Alan Menken was responsible for score and song, which of course explains why both were awesome and hilarious.

I'm wearing the black-funeral-jeans again today--I keep wearing them and washing them and wearing them. Somehow it just comforts me to wear them, although I would have expected that I'd never want to wear clothes I bought for a funeral again. I think it's at least in part because it was Cherie's idea to get them in the first place, and having them on makes me think of her, in good ways. I've got still more memory notes, like my last two posts, but other than writing them down on a pad of paper, I haven't wanted to type them out and see them again. I think I'll get on that later this week, though. I don't know if it's important to anyone else that I put them up, but it makes them seem more real to me, if they're on the blog. And I know I'll read the blog again, whereas I'll probably lose the paper notes at some point.

Thinking of Cherie makes me think of missions, which reminds me: if you'd like to help with the crisis in Myanmar or in China, World Vision offers a great way to do that. They'll accept online donations of any amount, but if you specifically give $100 to either cause, you'll be providing one family with a survival kit including emergency food, drinkable water, blankets, temporary shelter, and a cookset/utensils. You can donate to Myanmar, to China, or both, or you can still sponsor a child for $30 a month. My family's supported World Vision as long as I can remember, and I've always been impressed by their organization.

And upon returning to my office with my lunch, I also brought back Jellaby by Kean Soo, which I'd read part of online and loved, but didn't realize was now in print. He's got short stories related to this book in the Flight volumes (which I also highly recommend). Jellaby is strongly reminscent of Calvin and Hobbes--only with a dragon and girl instead of a tiger and boy, and it's mostly drawn in purple--which is to say it is AWESOME. It's more of the "quiet style" Calvin and Hobbes strips, as I think of them, with a little manga-style background panels thrown in. I love it very, very much and if you like dragons or cuteness or small children with big imaginations, then you must buy this book.

That's a lot of news for one day, so I'll leave you with that.

More Memories

2008-05-11T22:29:00.004-05:00

I keep having these memory flashes, and I want to get them down for keeps.

Saturday mornings after staying overnight at Cherie's house: frozen Red Baron pepperoni pizza, brownies we made that morning, and Dr. Pepper. I have no idea how we survived so many years on that diet, but that was the tradition. Then we'd plop down in front of the TV with something like "Hunt for Red October" that was almost impossible to see, because the movie was so dark, and because the sunshine glared through the back living room windows in the morning.

The music of our youth:

Waking Up the Neighbours by Bryan Adams (this has been in my dashboard player for months now, retro-rockin' out)
Top Gun soundtrack (dude: you know you love The Danger Zone)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack (Cherie's favorite movie at the time)
Three Musketeers soundtrack
Footloose soundtrack
Shout soundtrack
Amy Grant's Heart in Motion

It was because of Cherie saying how Christian Slater's line in Robin Hood POT was the only time she'd ever found the F-word funny, that I discovered both that word and what it meant. Um, not that I lent on that I had been clueless. Heh.

Cherie had a photo of a cop pointing a gun at the camera--the barrel was the only part in-focus. She absolutely loved that--at the time, she and Beth wanted to be FBI agents.

It's funny that, although I was a really vain and sensitive kid, I loved hanging out with Cherie. She was so frank--she told you exactly how it was. But when she said an outfit looked ridiculous or I was being silly, it didn't hurt like it would have with others--I valued her words because they were spoken in absolute honesty, without malice. And when she said you looked great, or--even mor importantly--that the story you wrote was incredible--you knew it was absolutely true, that there was no bias in it. Her honest opinion was a gift.

I find it hilarious and ironic that one of my favorite photos of Cherie is her cheerleading portrait. The non-conformist, non-girly, sarcastic pal of mine was a cheerleader for exactly one year. Yep, it baffled me, too.

The next-to-last time I saw Cherie, she was up in Dallas visiting her sister. She, her sister, her mom, my mom, and I all went out to Chili's and had a great gabfest--and wow, was it. I think we are about five of the talk-i-est gals I know. We left Chili's and were going to say goodbye, but ended up gabbing a long time on the steps, Cherie regaling us with her hilarious take on what the cancer and drugs were doing to her body. She made us scream with laughter as she showed off the absolute lack of a butt, and as she described how square the steroid had made her face. Although her body was distorted to the point where it made me sad to see how different she looked, she was completely herself with her dry sense of humor. After six years of hell with that disease and its nearly-as-bad cure, she had an immensely upbeat attitude.

We used to write together a lot--sometimes trading off paragraphs or sentences in short stories. We wanted to write a novel that way together called "It Was a Dark and Stormy Knight." I think we only got one or two chapters written. My favorite thing we wrote together was a story-poem (our term) called "The Tree Way Up in the Sky All Alone and Bill the Canary." It is awesome.

I am immensely sad that the only person I ever planned on writing collaboratively with is gone.

We both loved fairy tales, and my bookcases (well, okay now my many many boxes of books in storage) are filled with the fruits of our long weekends spent at used book stores. Many fairy tale rewrites, original volumes of them, reference works about them. Our favorite bookstore, which is now closed, was in San Antonio near the Shepherd's Shoppe, and was about the size of a closet with bookcases nearly to the ceiling. We thought it was about the coolest place on earth (but then, I hadn't seen Recycled Books in Denton yet). I think we must have spent half our weekends there.

The other passion we shared was movies--to be honest, Cherie got me far more into movies. My husband has her to thank for that, and for getting me even more into Star Wars than I was. (Sidebar: it's odd now that my interest in Star Wars is due to three women: my mom, Jayne, and Cherie. I didn't realize how odd that was until I got to college. And became popular with boys. Er, geeky boys.) I did not know how Boba Fett was until Cherie told me--I didn't pay attention to the names of secondary characters until college, for some reason.

We spent almost as many weekends at the theater as we did at bookstores. I remember watching so many of the movies of the '90s with her, good and bad... The Bodyguard (heh), French Kiss, While You Were Sleeping, Only You, Crimson Tide, Circle of Friends, Batman Forever (slight cringe), Batman and Robin (shudder), Johnny Neumonic (shudder), Waterworld (biggest shudder ever)... Cherie saved the poster images from the newspaper ads and had them pinned to a bulletin board in her room. The one I always remember looking at was the one for Beauty and the Beast, because it was my favorite movie and it was an awesome silhouetted image.

While sitting under the steps at Bracken Christian School (it was an awesome hideout after school), we planned out an entire Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves-themed bedroom. I remember the bunkbeds were treehouses, and the carpet was green with a curving blue section for the river... I don't remember the rest.

Cherie is the only person I've known with naturally orange hair.

I kept thinking about that first time she was at my house, with the black and white outfit, and I couldn't remember what necklace she was wearing, just that it was special. This afternoon at the service, Rynae came in wearing Cherie's hourglass necklace, which she wore every waking moment in high school--and beyond. When she ran up to Carolyn today and said "this was my Mommy's necklace" and asked her what it was, it about broke my heart.

Had dinner with my parents, Jayne & Tony, and Martha & Brandon (with their kids Zachary and Lydia). We went out to Adobe Cafe, in honor of Cherie, and at first I couldn't decide what to eat. But then I remembered that not only had Cherie ordered tortilla soup at every Mexican restaurant I've ever eaten with her at, and she ate it last August when we went to Alamo Cafe, but she's also the person who got me to try it for the first time in high school. So that's what I had, and it was very very good.

I've uploaded some photos I took when visiting Cherie last August up on Flickr.

Hey Cherie:
Yep, I wore the outfit--fittingly enough purchased at your favorite place, Kohl's--and will wear it again at the second service tomorrow. I've found a Princess Leia shirt for Rynae--it's even pink--so yes, your princess-loving kid will finally get a shirt that encourages her geek side. It's even the exact graphic of the shirt I wore three weeks ago that you liked so much. And yeah, I remember that third promise--don't you worry. It's taken care of, and I've enlisted help. And stop rolling your eyes at me from up there--I know you think we're all putting up such a fuss. I hope you got a good chuckle out of me walking through Half Price Books like a loon with tears streaming down my face--yes, I honestly didn't realize how much every single book I looked at would remind me of you. And yes, now you know exactly how the Wheel of Time Series ends--I know you finangled it out of God or RJ himself.

But I'm going to miss not seeing your reaction to the last seasons of Stargate: SG-1, and to the new Indiana Jones movie, and so many other things. I'm wearing my half of that silly black ying-yang friendship ring we bought as our RJ rings, believe it or not. I wanted so bad to send this to your email address, as if somehow it would be forwarded, to cherie.tamar@heaven.org, or something. But I didn't want your family to read this and be sad, if they cleaned out your inbox--so I'll just post it here, teary-eyed, yet smiling to myself because I know you're definitely up there shaking your head and rolling your eyes, with your own awesome smile.

Can't wait to meet you again, girl. I love you.
*Jen

Promises to Keep

2008-05-09T14:20:00.003-05:00

Last night, my mom called to say that my good friend Cherie had finally escaped cancer. She passed away at noon yesterday.

L to R: Jayne, me, and Cherie in 1995, senior year

My emotions are kind of running a wild course at the moment, although I think I've cried harder for Cherie's family than anything else. It's particularly awful that Mother's Day is this weekend--both for Cherie's mom, and for the fact that she's leaving her six-year-old daughter and three-year-old son behind. Please, keep her whole family in your prayers.

But when my mom related the news, I was driving home from work, and instead of continuing on, I made a detour. I wasn't ready yet to face family--Alex wasn't home yet, but we're temporarily living with his parents, and loving sympathy wasn't something I was strong enough to face at the moment. I'm one of those prickly private types, especially in emotional moments.

So I drove south to Old Navy. It wasn't so much retail therapy, although it was partially a distraction--I went with a mission.

When Cherie and I were about fifteen or so, in high school, we made this pact. It was especially silly and dramatic, because that's the kid of gals we were (even more so back then, yeah). I think our favorite article of clothing at that point were our black jeans. Yeah... that was a bit of an unfortunate mid-1990's thing, and we bought it hard. I remember hanging around North Star Mall many, many weekends in those black jeans, feeling cool while probably looking like the biggest dork on the planet.

We had this theory, that if you paired a black turtleneck with black jeans, it would be the coolest outfit ever. However, in this completely irrational twist, we thought it breached some major kind of fashion faux pas, so we thought we could never actually wear this awesome outfit. (This flabbergasts me now--we prided ourselves of being non-conformists, and yet wouldn't wear something we thought was awesome? Chalk it up to the insanity of being a teenager, I guess.)

Hence the pact: whichever of us died first, no matter how old, the other would wear that outfit--black turtleneck and black jeans--to their funeral.

I have no idea if Cherie still remembered this. I've been thinking about it a lot, off and on, for that past six years that she's battled cancer. I've done a lot of praying that I'd be wearing that outfit--or she would--at the ripe of age of 103. I've thought a lot about buying the outfit, just in case, and thought that it was morbid, or superstitiously that it would bring about the end, or that it was a sensible move because it might be hard to find black jeans on short notice. In the end, I waited.

I got rid of my last black turtleneck a few years ago, and I don't think I've owned black jeans since 1997. In fact, to be honest I'm such a fashion low-lier that I had no idea if that was even an item you could find anymore, or if it had gone the way of ripped stone-wash jeans... er, but since the 1980's are back, maybe that's a bad example.

I hunted through Old Navy desperately, to no avail. They indeed had black jeans, but these are apparently--to my amazed discovery--a "winter" item. The ones left were all on sale, and in sizes 12+. Not quite a perfect fit.

I figured I'd look elsewhere, but I didn't see any other clothing stores nearby, and when I get upset like that I can't think, so I couldn't even remember where any other store was in McKinney at that point, to be honest. But I couldn't go home yet, I just needed to be alone in a crowd. Luckily, I managed to remember that there was a Half-Price Books close by.

I just went as a distraction, but it was the best thing I could have done. Yes, I found some books--but what I didn't count on was running into memories of Cherie at every turn. She was my reading and writing friend, my fellow fiction devotee, compelled not only to read it but to write crazy stories that ran away from us and turned into things we didn't expect.

I went to fantasy--well, there you are. Robert Jordan, the reason that we used to guide each other down the hall, while one was reading and walking simultaneously. (RJ passed away last year before finishing the last book--so I guess now he can tell her how it ends.) L. E. Modesitt, Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip. Star Wars books, that's a whole other story. Since my eyes started overflowing, I quickly went to check out the clearance aisle--Clive Cussler. That really did it--Sahara, the book she loaned to me that started my obsession with Dirk Pitt. I turned to the YA section... Madeleine L'Engle (who also died last year). The only place without memories in the whole store was the comics section.

It made me overwhelmingly sad, but also wonderfully happy, remembering. It was a fitting farewell, one that I wouldn't have thought of myself. I'm glad I was there.

Then I --slightly-- came to my senses and remembered that there was a Kohl's nearby. Off again to hunt for the funeral outfit.

I was in luck: they were clearing out their winter stock. It took me two hours of hunting in every form of women's department they had, but I finally located a pair of black jeans, a black turtleneck, and a black and white bracelet.

I was rushing past jewelry on my way to the absolute last area that might have black jeans, when I saw the bracelet out of the corner of my eye. It was chunky plastic black and white beads, and I had a sudden flash of the first time Cherie ever came over to my house, freshman year of high school, 1990. She was wearing black jeans (naturally!), a white shirt, black and white dangly dice earrings, and a plastic black-and-white bracelet. She was heavily in her "black and white phase" that year, as it's now referred to. I thought that she was the Pinnacle of Cool, devoting herself to a limited palate for the sake of fashion. My mom thought it was amusing, my dad thought it was unbelieveably ridiculous. Anytime I brought up Cherie's name, for years, he'd bring up the Black and White Phase with an amused expression, as I rolled my eyes.

So, yeah, naturally I got the bracelet. It will totally go with those rad black jeans and black turtleneck, I laugh to myself, and it will remind me of the girl I met eighteen years ago. As she was--vibrant, hilarious, frank, creative--and as she remained to the end, despite the cancer consuming her body.

So I'll be keeping that promise, silly as it is. And hot as it's destined to be, in Texas in May, in long sleeves and black. Because yes, it's silly--but that's the kid of gals we are. That's how I loved her, and that's how I'm seeing her off.

(And thanks for the line, Robert Frost.)

Yet Another "I'mToo Busy to Post" Excuse

2008-05-01T17:41:00.002-05:00

...Yeah, as of 7pm Friday I should be done with school for the semester, leaving me to enjoy:

MarioKart Wii
Iron Man, heck yeah, finally!!!
um, no, I did not rent "27 Dresses..."
all those ARCs from TLA
Un Lun Dun
Eclipse
Free Comic Book Day this Saturday!!

I actually don't have many comics on my "I am now free to enjoy" list, but that's primarily because I'm waiting for several of them to be released: Y the Last Man vol. 10, Fables vol. 10, Jack of Fables vol. 3... Not that I'm a Vertigo girl* or anything, but... yeah, I'm a Vertigo girl. So sue my little goth self, okay?

*As defined by many, but most memorably in the book "The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl," which is awesome and hilarious and probably entirely too true.

Leaving Home

2008-04-27T17:11:00.002-05:00

Oh, the emotional investment in the place in which you live. This afternoon, I looked at the key my mother-in-law had made for me to use while we live in their upstairs addition for the next eight months, while we're building The New House. The key is blue with yellow happy faces all over it, in a cheesy fake-hippie style that makes me laugh, and she said she picked it so that when it gets hard living there, not in our own home, I can look at it and know she loves me. So very, very sweet.

I immediately, with my blogger-and-photographer hat on, thought I ought to take a photo to post here. And half a second later, got a sick feeling in my gut, realizing that I couldn't take a photo my house-key, the key to our Old House that we left for the last time this morning at 2am, because it was on the counter in that house we no longer own. Or more likely, by this point, it's on someone else's keyring. It made me want to cry, then and there, but I cried so much last night/this morning that I'm in the brush-it-off stage. After all, I've got tons of homework to do, all of it due this Friday.

But let us have a small moment of mourning for the passing of this age, the age of Our Very First Home together, the house in which our marriage survived four flooring projects, a 30' by 40' building project, thirteen fireworks parties, and innumerable amounts of painting. The house in which we kind of grew up together, dreamed together, and even planned The New House together. The house in which we spent 6 and a half out of over 7 years together, the house in which we did not raise any children--a house they will never know. Truly the end of an era.

Eesh, I don't even know how or where to end this post. Looking forward to the next house? Still more reminiscing about the old one? Talk about the past three days of moving and the pain and the tired and the wonderful family help? Obsessing about the last week of homework? Looking forward to summer? Gratefulness for a place to live while simultaneously mourning the loss of space and privacy?

Hmm, yes, total and utter confusion of emotions, I think that about sums it up.

P.S. Have lots of old-house photos to get up later. Probably will be a post-homework project, so look for them in May.

P.P.S. Bonus points for anyone who noticed that the label of this post is also the title of a Garrison Keillor book. There is a reason you and I are friends. (And now I know that an appropriate gift for you is a NPR mug.)

The 30-Second Update

2008-04-22T16:44:00.001-05:00

So, here's what I've been up to:

blogging at the TLA Conference
meeting Gene Luen Yang
reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother
finishing homework (everything's due by May 2nd)
dreaming of May 2nd
planning to go see Iron Man on May 3rd
packing our house; we close on Thursday!! This week! Aack!
very successfully not reading Eclipse (until May 3rd)
getting some photos uploaded
Robin and Barney made out?! ZOMG!!!
dreaming of all the things I can finally get to this summer... like having a life.

Big Storm

2008-04-10T13:33:00.003-05:00

Um... wow.

So, that was interesting. We woke up instantly last night to the oddest, loudest sound--wind, bashing the south and east sides of our house, alternating what must have been ever 5 - 10 seconds. It was so loud, it didn't sound like wind--I've never heard a storm like that. I was terrified--Alex and I leapt out of bed, he managed to grab our pillows and our phones, and we slept (badly) on the floor in the master closet, which we reinforced against storms when we built the house. It didn't seem like that was going to be enough last night.

We woke up in the morning--me groaning about my lack of sleep--to no power. Which I proceeded to moan about how hard it was to find clothes and put on makeup, etc., without power.

Then I heard Alex at the front door talking to a neighbor. The neighbor said something about his trampoline flying into our yard, over our cars, and into the next backyard. This neighbor being a joker, Alex laughed. But the neighbor didn't.

(More photos on Flickr.)
Yeah. This was the guy across the street, two doors down--at least a hundred feet away. There were long divots in our yard, several of them with trampoline springs in them. And then--yeah, it didn't exactly sail over the Edge. It banged into the frame, on top of the passenger side front and rear doors, leaving dents and missing paint, and a few plastic pieces came off the luggage rack (looks like it was just the wind that ripped off my rear wiper blade). And then it didn't just end up in the neighbor's backyard--it took a huge section of their shingles first.

We were lucky--being just two weeks from closing today, there was no more damage to the house than an uprooted bush. And we have comprehensive on my Edge--aka the Magnet for Disaster, this being its third incident in less than a year. And there's no damage at all to our property in Cross Roads--the storm didn't hit Denton nearly as hard.

But on the way in, we saw the transformers down--ripped from their platform, actually. So it looks like it will be awhile before the power's back on.

Dallas news about the storm:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/yahoolatestnews/stories/041108dnmetweather.4d53e357.html?npc

Winds of up to 75 mph, and they're still trying to determine where some tornados in the DFW area touched down. Yowza.

We've Got Two New Nephews!

2008-04-01T12:33:00.003-06:00

...Don't know names yet, but the twins each weighed in around 5 1/2 pounds today. That makes for a grand total of five nephews for us--the Hoffman genes run strong to the male tendency, apparently. ;)

Alex is in Vegas for a work trip through Thursday, so I'm trying to be good and get homework done while he's gone. And am crossing my fingers about our current contract on the house during this 10-day options period.

Had a blast last night finally hanging out with my old pal Amy and her man Jaime. Had quite a nice chat--I miss how we all used to hang out once a week--but alas, my schedule won't allow that for awhile. Was good to see the ol' Amos Moses and remember the old times while dishing about the new times. And dude, she hooked me up with some pants--I do love me some hand-me-downs, cheap gal that I am.

Also, I am wearing AWESOME shoes. That is all.

So This is What a Weekend Feels Like

2008-03-30T10:18:00.002-06:00

...So, after a lot of cumulative work on the house and my academics, Friday resulted in a contract on our house and a 98 on my third statistics test (a class in which previous ridiculous amounts of studying had only resulted in a 78 and a 84 on earlier tests). W00t!!

Yesterday was refreshingly weekend-ish, as Alex and I unwound for the first time since January:

watched 3 episodes of "Lost," which we've been DVR-ing and not watching all season
decided that we actually care about "Lost" again, and are intrigued by time-travel-ish storylines (don't reveal anything--we're not very far into the season yet)
had yummy leftovers from the previous night's Chinese-delivery celebration meal (we'll miss Chopsticks on 380 when we move)... btw spicy orange beef is awesome.
shocked ourselves by laughing out loud together... and didn't recognize the sound of it
ignored the lawn in need of mowing (ha! take that, adult responsiblity!!)
ran errands at Wally-World... and bought Star Wars toys
visited our gorgeous 1.25 acres in Cross Roads (near Denton)
measured the spot for the new house... and perhaps a work building?
looked at theater-room seating
had yummy drinks at Sonic
Alex got to hear his happy Feist song, aka "the Macbook Air song"
perused Best Buy--but refrained from buying either Wii Star Wars Lego Complete Saga, Wii Smash Bros. Brawl, or even a blu-ray movie
got oil-based trim paint at Home Depot (meh)
did not spend over $100 at Half-Price Books... must be your imagination
(dude, I finally have Watchmen!! and Birds of Prey! and Penny Arcade!)
rented Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth
decided that it worked really well as an extended episode of the show... but I'm still waiting for Carter and O'Neil to hook up. (Come on, already, it's been a decade and the show's over--give me what I've been waiting for!)

Today, I'm involved in more responsible pursuits--writing/editing a collaborative book chapter and working on some of that ever-present homework. Ah, the joys of academic pursuits... but y'know, when I'm not also running about working on house stuff and what have you, I do love this. It's actually refreshing to have the time on a weekend to do homework... (shakes head).

Spring Has Been Broken

2008-03-26T20:29:00.003-06:00

er... I mean, how was your Spring Break?

We don't really get Spring Break anymore at UNT as employees, due to a long story that most of us can only tell with a lot of grumbling and an exasperated expression, so I'll spare you. I took three of my vacation days, though, because I had so much homework slip by the wayside during the month and a half we've been working our tails off trying to get the house on the market.

Well, that was the plan, anyway. Actual Spring Break went like this:

spent Wednesday morning with an upset stomach, but managed to finish New Moon
spent Wednesday/Thursday on still more house-readying tasks (while grumbling)
spent Friday, Saturday, and a bit of Easter Sunday on homework
painted toenails two shades of orange (as per my Spring Break tradition)
took some photos
got house on the market Saturday morning
read over script for a comedic video I acted in Monday

...And believe it or not, in the only four days we've been on the market, we've had several showings and already have one offer! Talk about blessed. I have no idea if this offer will pan out or not, but man it's nice to get some feedback after all those weeks of work.

Now, I just need about four clones to help me with homework, work-work, keeping the house clean, and planning my 30th birthday party this summer... sigh.

Hey There, Strangers

2008-03-10T13:09:00.003-06:00

I see a light at the end of the tunnel... it still feels about a mile off, but still.

So, remember that whole thing about fulltime work, long commute, and fulltime doctoral classes? And how overwhelming busy it all made me? Ha.

(beginning of rant)
We decided to put our house on the market. To make a long, long (two-month long, really) story somewhat manageable, here are the highlights:
we had to help finish constructing our in-law's two-story addition, so that when our house sells (crossing our fingers), we have a place to live until the new place is built
we had to get our old truck running, so that it wouldn't be rusting in our driveway (and so Alex has something to drive to work)
we had to move over half (no, really) of our belongings/furniture/crap into that addition
then, we could see what paint/repairs/etc. had to be done before putting the house on the market
in sum: Alex and I have not done much other than work and work on the house(s) for the past two months. Every evening, every weekend. We are very, very tired and beginning to get a tad grumpy.

Two weeks ago, I took three days off and my wonderful awesome incredibly helpful Mom came up to help me--for five days straight, fourteen hours a day, we painted and packed and moved. And still, there is work to be done. The mind reels.

Thankfully, we have come to our senses, realized that with both of us working/schooling until about 8 or 9pm most nights, we can't finish this ourselves--we are officially overcoming our DIY-disease inherited from our parents and hiring help. Praise God.

Anyway, we're hoping (keep those fingers crossed, seriously) to be done this coming weekend. I am, pretty much, done with this house now. I very much would like to scream every time I see a paintbrush, considering that my schoolwork is beginning to suffer dreadfully because, let's face it, I didn't have time to read and write and study *before* this lovely hog of a project.
(end of rant)

Anyway.

Am I the only person unexpectedly addicted to "Eli Stone?"* And I didn't even know he was the kid from "Hackers" until four episodes in. Now, normally I am not a big fan of "laweyering" shows--or, for that matter, any of the occupational dramas, be they medical/legal/cop, etc. Too "real" for my escapist tastes.

However. This show has this amazing mix of hilarious fun, big musical numbers (which we all know I love), and unexpectly, real drama. In the last three episodes, I've laughed out loud numerous times, but I've also come close to crying in each one. And, um, I'm not a big cries-at-TV-shows kind of person. I mean, I cried at the last episode of Friends... and Star Trek TNG... but hey, those were series finales.

*(In the one hour of "fun" we alot ourselves before going to bed, this is one of the few shows we've been watching. That and, of course, the so-awesome-it-makes Friends-pal-in-comparison "How I Met Your Mother." Thank you, Tihleigh, for introducing me to the greatest show ever!!!)

Part of Why I Love my Job

2008-02-13T13:30:00.002-06:00

I gave a thesis student maps, data, and web resources for climatilogical and vegetative information about Presidio, Texas and Mexico... and he said, "You're the most helpful person I've ever met."

Dude. It's not just that that's a really nice compliment, it's that I got to use maps and statistics and a student was amazed and happy with the information my department provides. Yay!!

The Richard Donner Cut

2008-02-12T20:20:00.000-06:00

This was an interesting cinematic experiment Alex and I performed last week. My original intention was to wait for our Superman I to be delivered, watch it, then rent the original cut of Superman II, and then watch the Richard Donner cut of Superman II.

What actually happened, was:

Our Superman I is one of our free rebate Blu-Ray discs, so we probably won't get it or the other four until Kingdom Come (which I'm anticipating in the middle of this century at some point...)
I haven't seen the original cut of II released on Blu-Ray, and... um... yeah, it's starting to feel pointless renting DVDs. Don't hate me for being a snob; it's just when you know how gorgeous they can look... yeah.
We were in the mood for something fun last Wednesday, and we had already narrowed our options down to Superman or Casino Royale. Now, I'm a Bond gal through and through, but... I just wasn't up to the action or the drama that night. I wanted something cozy and fun to watch, and short of a rom-com, Superman was it.

So, the downside was that the last time either Alex or I saw Superman I or II was probably the early 90's. Heck, possibly the late 80's--I'm not really sure at this point. So there wasn't a good basis of comparison.

This led me to believe, before we started the movie, that it would probably seem less impressive, than if we had just watched the original two. We wouldn't 1) have seen the "worse" of the two SII options to compare it against, nor 2) would we already be in the 1980's vein of effects/drama. I was a little leery because of these points.

However. Wow.

I've come up with a few thoughts on how/why this movie was so awesome, and here they are, in some random order:

The Superman movies (at least the first one and possibly the original cut of the second) must have been a lot better than I remembered. This is possibly due to the next point.
Hi-def (whether Blu-ray or HD-DVD) really, really makes movies better (at least, if your screen is large enough that the difference is noticeable). Wow. I am guessing that half the reason 1980s movies instantly look "cheesy" to me when watched on TV is their spectacularly crummy resolution. This movie wasn't as deliciously crisp as, say, Transformers (duh), but it's gorgeous, and it's easier to take actors seriously when they don't look they're in a made-for-TV movie.
I thought that Lois annoyed me a lot and was stupid. But she figures out Clark is Superman at the beginning of the movie! And later shoots him to prove her point! Dang, I like this gutsy gal.
Superman letting Lois actually fall out the window, without catching her, was gutsy and hilarious and awesome and pretty shocking, to me. I mean yeah, he made sure she wasn't hurt--but man, this Superman's got some cahones. And a mischievious streak (something totally lacking in the fairly personality-less Superman of Superman Returns, although I have to say I don't hate that movie like many do).
We watched a teeny bit of original footage in the Fortress of Solitude--man, Jor-El/Brando was waaaaay better than having Laura in that scene. And the effects were far less cheesy in the revised version, but not so fancy as to seem in-authenic in the 80's context.
Superman got beat up!
Superman kicked some butt!
I was actually really emotionally invested in the movie, much to my surprise. Reeve was amazing in that film.

Now I really, really want to see Superman I (because now I'm anticipating it will be truly awesome), and I totally have to see the original cut of SII just to know how it changed.

And let me say that I'm happy to live in an Internet age where enough of us, across the world, can clamor that this revised cut was made and Serenity was filmed. It's the age of the cult fan!

My Fortune

2008-02-08T12:42:00.000-06:00

Wow, this is hilarious. I found the link from my pal riofriotex, and the fortune it produced is eerily fitting for me:

My Fortune Cookie told me:
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.
Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

Heh, heh.

In other news, I'm working remotely--er, I mean I have the day off--at my in-law's house. I'm "babysitting" the sheetrock crew, which is putting finishing touches on the addition that we'll be living in for awhile, while building the new place. Assuming, that is, that 1) we can ever get our place on the market, and 2) that it sells. This, in the midst of 3) all that +40 hours Alex and I spend at work on a weekly basis, 4) that fun 2 hours of commuting a day (how I'm going to miss my satellite radio next month!) and 5) those 9 hours of PhD classes. Sigh.

Yeah, I'm sure it's driving everyone nuts that I have to call them "PhD classes" instead of grad work... but dude, I'm trying to encourage myself as much as I can. It's a lot of work, dangit, and I need to remember I'm working toward that "Dr." label. Otherwise, it's just like, "Wait a sec--I'm still in school? Haven't I been doing this for over a decade... in college alone?" And then I try not to think about student loans.

On the up side, I've been able to get a lot of my professional development work done today. Yeah, that whole "day off" thing doesn't work too well when I feel behind in everything--but it's nice to have time devoted to prodev, instead of answering emails, reference questions, and the normal things I do in my work day. Er, I mean, I actually have still been answering email... right. I guess I saved myself the two hours' commute?

On the up side, when you're a librarian, this isn't called "workacholism." It's pretty par for the course. (Or wait, is that the down side...?) Hey, in the end, it's all because I love what I do.

Okay, back to that prodev. And maybe I can figure out why, when I'm wearing two sweatshirts, jeans, three pairs of socks, and a blanket, my toes are still freezing! Dang that bad circulation.

Tablet-y Goodness

2008-02-06T10:02:00.001-06:00

Yay, I finally broke out my Wacom tablet! (It's at work, not at home, but ah well. At least I'm finally using it.)

I hope your Tuesday was both Super and Fat. Mine was very, very long... but it ended in being migrated to Outlook (a big "Huzzah!" all around, now) and learning that 4 hours of no access to email leads to a very sparkling clean office. A silver lining to every cloud, eh?

SG-A News

2008-02-05T18:53:00.000-06:00

Well.... dude! There are so many details about Stargate: Atlantis Season 5 in this page that I don't even know how to respond.

On the personal front, classes are going well for the most part--I am loving the reading and discussion, and our house gets ever closer to being on the market. I'm looking at my calendar for February and March and trying to take deep breaths. A lot.

At work, we finally got migrated to Outlook as our new email client, which is a welcome change... now if I could only ever finish a single day's to-do list, I'd be more ahead than I have been in months.

And then there are taxes to file... such is life!

But the huge, big, awesome news is... well, actually, I don't know how many people he's told yet, so I'll have to sit on this one a bit. But it's juicy!

Why I Married A Geek

2008-01-29T19:39:00.000-06:00

(Been awhile, hasn’t it? Missed me? Well, I’ll possibly be posting even more infrequently until summer—for reasons why, see the end of this post.)

Deceptive title: I really married Alex for far more serious reasons, but y’know, this anecdote to me just accentuates what a truly awesome human being he is.

Last week, I was at work late Tuesday night, and my husband called to ask if I had a list somewhere of the comics I had and comics I wanted. It not being very close to my birthday, our anniversary, or Christmas (we don’t do Valentine’s Day, see previous posts for reasons), I was immediately suspicious. But my husband, being the master of misdirection that he is, somehow convinced me that this was just an off-hand thought and not anything big. I thusly supplied him with a loooong email list of my desires, and promptly forgot about it as I returned to the hundreds of messages in my email inbox.

I got home, and Alex points to the kitchen counter and says, “what do you think?” And there, O Happy Day, O Frabjous Joy, were volumes 1 and 2 of Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-men run, Serenity: Those Left Behind in hardback (yes I’ve heard that it sucks, and no I don’t much care), and—most wonderful of all—volumes 3 – 9 of Y: The Last Man. Seven. Volumes. Of Y!!!

So yeah, I’m pretty much drunk off of the awesomeness of that sudden comics windfall. My loving best friend informed me that he was proud of me getting into the PhD program (read here for more on my experience thus far), and that he wanted to give me something short and fun to enjoy during my all-too-few breaks this semester. (Oh, did I mention yet that I’m still working full-time, commuting 2 hours a day, and am now taking a full-time graduate load of three courses this spring? And that we’re trying to get our house ready to entice people to purchase it so that we can then build one? And that I will never, ever have a free moment again in my life? Well… um… consider yourself informed now.)

Yep. My husband, Bestower of Comic-y Goodness, rocks.

My Big Score

2007-12-21T08:41:00.000-06:00

So, I went to Half-Price Books last night to pick up the last Christmas present. That was all--I was going to look through their comics, but knew I wouldn't purchase anything. But then... I saw the magical "clearance" sign over the audiobook section...

So, the final score was pretty impressive:

Ya-Yas in Bloom (3 CDs), Rebecca Wells - $3
The Adventures of Guy Noir (1 CD), Garrison Keillor - $3
Wobegon Boy (5 CDs), Garrison Keillor - $13
Pontoon (8 CDs), Garrison Keillor - $14

I also scored my favorite volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, #3 Dream Country, which has a fantastic retelling of the Midsummer Night's Dream as illustrated by Charles Vess of Stardust fame. For $8. Gah!!!

And then, the big score.

The complete 9-CD dramatized Lord of the Rings set, complete in wooden case... for $15.

I almost fainted right there in Half-Price Books. I walked around the store for another fifteen minutes with that set in my clutches, pondering my fortune, wondering if this was a stressed-out hallucination.

So for all your media needs, I highly recommend the McKinney branch of HPB. And if you're a big audiobook fan, or you commute at all, get yourself over there while they still have a bunch of CD titles for $3. Dude, that's less than the late fees are when I check them out from the public library (I hate to confess it as a librarian myself, but I'm terrible at being late with those things).

Today I have a few work things to wrap up from my remote spot (at Alex's place of work), then in the afternoon it's off to DFW airport and San Antonio! We'll be back Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas evening we're off to Vegas for four days. Woohoo!!!

Oh, and a quick plug here--as of Black Friday, I've replaced my former 17" monster laptop with a 14.1" one and I haven't missed the screen real estate yet--it's 3.5 pounds lighter, and I've already taken it on two work trips. Thus far I've been impressed with the performance--I have 2GB memory in this Gateway; it's not their top of the line, but it's running nice and speedy, even running Vista (not my idea--I'm thinking about dual-booting OS's). Yay for portable technology!!!

You May Now Celebrate, Middle Earthlings

2007-12-18T12:36:00.000-06:00

Peter Jackson to produce Hobbit film!

Published

2007-12-11T21:29:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm going to be, anyway: check it out!

Layin' Low

2007-12-10T12:24:00.000-06:00

Believe it or not, our Christmas tree is finally up. No ornaments, but hey the lights are pretty on their own.

Last week was my crazy week of two out-of-town trips and four deadlines: this is my week of playing deep catch-up at work, so I'll still be lying low on the blog-radar. Enjoy your holiday preparations!

She's Alive!

2007-11-29T12:06:00.000-06:00

The November/December time crunch is on, but I had to update you all:

I have been accepted into UNT's PhD program in Higher Education!! Horray! (And eeek!)
Appropriate gifts to commemorate the occasion include these sassy t-shirts.
No, this has no bearing on when/if we're having kids, and furthermore, that's none of your business. Um, not that I'm sensitive about the subject...
Thanksgiving with 18 of our family members was great fun.
My hair has been re-dyed and is now slightly less fire-engine red. Very, very slightly.
Alex and I are flying to Las Vegas for a real--gasp--vacation on Christmas Day, for 4 days/3 nights.
I'm flying on four different trips during December, evenly divided between work and pleasure. Yikes.

And that concludes the news portion of this program. Thank you, and good night.

Rolling My Eyes

2007-11-09T08:04:00.000-06:00

Did you hear about the latest "Da Vinci Code?" No, it's not another book/movie controversy--some musician/computer guy claims to have found a hidden musical composition in Da Vinci's Last Supper.

Oh. Come. On.

Even if I didn't have that master's in art history giggling at that one, just my general sense of logic would have scoffed at this one. "Pala first saw that by drawing the five lines of a musical staff across the painting, the loaves of bread on the table as well as the hands of Jesus and the Apostles could each represent a musical note." Riiight. Because hands and bread loaves so closely resemble musical notes. Oh look, is that a knight of Templar over there in the corner?!

Yeesh. You think you get away from the kookier interpretations by sticking to old paintings in naturalistic, non-abstract styles... but there will always be some bizarre theory that makes your whole discipline look foolish. Maybe that's why I wrote my thesis about liturgical objects instead of paintings. When an object is used for a particular function in the church, and it bears a particular image, it's a pretty safe bet that that image is obviously tied to the function of the object. It's not too far a leap, there.

Then again, maybe there were hidden musical notes in St. Veronica's robes on one of those altarpieces I studied... wonder what that means, hmmm?

Meandering Tuesday Thoughts

2007-11-06T17:32:00.000-06:00

So I keep composing blog posts in my head... doesn't get them published, unfortunately. As soon as I get that T-1 to my brain, we'll be set.

Anyway, I thought I'd give the "general life update" on things, for the curious. Last weekend, I worked on Saturday but took Alex with me, and on the way home he treated us to dinner at Prairie House, which I've been longing to eat at for years. It was tasty--not only did we enjoy three scrumptious kinds of BBQ meat, but we also indulged in a fried cheesecake. Yes--cheesecake... fried... in cinnamon and sugar... with vanilla ice cream. Sunday, we did a few errands and then celebrated my father-in-law's birthday. Alex and I came home to watch Spiderman 3... meh.

I mean, it's not terrible. It's at least evenly blah--whereas Spiderman 1, I loved the first half, but once Macy Gray starts singing it goes downhill fast. But 3 is not a movie I need to own. I saw it, and that's that--leave the franchise at 2 with its glorious peak, thank you.

Alex said Fantastic Four 2 was better, and I believe him, although I chose to only watch the last fifteen minutes (I also bypassed the first one, because the trailer indicated a high cheese factor). At least FF2 had the Silver Surfer to redeem it. I didn't even like Peter Parker or MJ in S3--the only moment I really *liked* was when Spidey smashed Topher Grace's camera. But that's more because I like Topher's reactions.

We've been watching movies here and there, but nothing is standing out in my mind. We did finally buy Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, which makes me quite happy as I've been longing to re-watch it. Alex is similarly thrilled that we bought The Librarian 2, which will be a good addition to our "adventure" genre that we watch so much of. It's nice that there's been a huge increase in fantasy movies in the past five years, but could studios start making more adventure movies now? Those are effects-heavy, too, people. Sahara and National Treasure were steps in the right direction, but I could do with a few more.

I'm not even going to talk about Indy 4 here.... too frightened, yet hopeful.

Oh, we did rent Transformers--hey, it wasn't half as bad as I was fearing. It was quite a lot of fun and not so painfully cheesy as it could have been, and it made up for any cheese factor with its gorgeousness. And, um--have you seen the HD-DVD trailer for Transformers? If you're not drooling, it's obviously because you haven't seen it yet. Go watch it at Best Buy and then see if that doesn't convince you to make a semi-sudden impulse buy of awesomeness.

Other than that... it's been a week and a half of long work-nights for both of us, so little to add. Tihleigh got us hooked on "How I Met Your Mother," and sad to say that we have watched 3 DVR-ed episodes of this, but as of yet none of this season of Heroes. They're right there, on the DVR... but we watch SGA instead, or, much as I hate to admit it, the uber-cheesy Flash Gordon. The only excuse for that being that it has the jerk boyfriend from Smallville in a fun role, and they also show BSG shorts during it.

The previous weekend, we took a day trip to Austin for our nephew's fourth birthday party--and it was a lot of fun! Because it was at a park, the little kids running around were fun and cute, rather than weary-making as it can get indoors. I've now got so many pictures on my SD cards to edit, put on my hard drive, and selectively upload to Flickr that it doesn't bear thinking of.

Sunday, Alex bought GH3 for the Wii, which he's been waiting many, many, many months for, and I finished some homework. Then we watched the Red Sox joyfully tromp on the Rockies (sorry, I do like the Rockies, but... man, it's the Sox, c'mon!). And thus, sadly, ends our baseball for the year. Always depresses me.

I did get some free coffee at Jazzman's (UNT's Starbucks knock-off) this afternoon, which was much happy-making. And now, on to more things... like graphic design and such.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

2007-11-05T12:50:00.000-06:00

My apologies to those who read both of my blogs. Just in general, really--but also because this is re-posted from the Geeky Artist Librarian.

So, this is another illustration that you should befriend your IT people. Besides the obvious necessity for keeping those that run all our technology happy, and thus getting some bang-up fast/awesome service, there are things like this.

One of our IT guys, who is an English grad student with a penchant for comics (thus our friendship--he loaned me the rest of Planetary over the summer) just dropped this by my office:

He made them for friends around campus to wear today. How cool is that? (And if you're totally wondering what this is about--it's Guy Fawkes Day. Go read/watch V for Vendetta, and you'll get it.) Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

A case of Mountain Dew and some friendly words go a long, long way, people.

Where Am I? (aka Dazed and Confused)

2007-10-22T08:12:00.000-05:00

I'll give myself three guesses.

San Antonio? ...Nope.
Washington, DC? ...Nope.
Abilene? ...Nope.

Oh... this is home. Which is apparently in McKinney. This seems oddly familiar.

Vacation Means Not Thinking of Titles

2007-10-18T23:25:00.000-05:00

So, the San Antonio trip/presentations is done, the DC trip and presentation is done, we picked up Bryce, and now we're in Abilene. It's been a packed two weeks! And for once, I've been mostly off-grid--which is both disturbing, and nice. I've been rediscovering the use of the phone for things like checking museum hours, and enjoying the silence of a hotel room with nothing but a comic book in hand (the internet connection having gone bad, and me having not the energy to complain). But a break from email, even for just three days, was a great way to relieve some stress (momentarily, however, as there will be four times as much to deal with when I log in tomorrow).

The DC trip was fantastic--I had a great three days of vacation with Alex and all four of our parents, seeing many thing I didn't have time to see before. And then the FDLP conference was really great--it's nice knowing so many people now. Plus, my presentation went so well and was so packed (upwards of 100 people!) that I was asked to give it again in KC in the spring--w00t! And since Alex's parents stayed while I was in conference, Alex had people to go out and have fun with, which left me feeling at ease about attending meetings I needed to. And even gave me a few hours after my presentation to decompress with that comic book mentioned (Jack of Fables vol. 1, which was as great as I expected). Then I watched part of two of my favorite movies, Star Trek: First Contact, and Stargate (not as great as the series, IMHO, but still awesome, particularly the beginning).

Bryce was waiting at the airport when we got there last night, which was awesome, if surreal, and we spent this morning laundry-ing, re-packing, and catching up on Stargate Atlantis episodes. I think the series will truly be great, now that Sam's on it and they've got the potential for a nice Locutus-esque storyline with Dr. Weir. Oh, and I also re-read Y: The Last Man vol. 1 so that I could then read vol. 2--and man, that series is not overrated. I can't really place my finger on what I like about it so much (unlike Fables), but it's just a heck-ton of fun and fast-paced beyond belief.

Now we're all at the Grand Admiral's place (i.e. Jared) in Abilene, playing Wii and doing a large amount of giggling. I had to take a break to do some work and re-connect to the internet, but I think next I'll read some of my "for-fun" blogs and then sign off. I'd like to take that "vacation = relax" philosophy seriously for another day, considering that tomorrow I need to do some serious homework catchup, type up my conference notes, etc. Sigh.

Geekery

2007-10-10T17:56:00.000-05:00

I... want... this.

"...thanks to the ingenious ThinkGeek robot monkeys you can display the current wi-fi signal strength to yourself and everyone around you with this stylish Wi-Fi Detector Shirt. The glowing bars on the front of the shirt dynamically change as the surrounding wi-fi signal strength fluctuates."

That is all.

Ick, I'm Sick

2007-10-02T17:32:00.000-05:00

So, who called that this was going to happen? I spend a week with a couple of 14+-hour days at work, complete a major project, welcome my husband safely home from a foreign country, and dodging about ten coworkers with various instances of colds and bronchitis... so, yeah, my body decided Sunday night it had had about enough of that.

Well, that and then already being tired and achy on Sunday, I nevertheless pushed myself through the paces on DDR Hottest Party for our Wii. My humiliatingly, husband-laughing-gut-bustingly bad paces. Probably didn't really help the whole energy level... but gosh darn it, they have "Hot Stuff" on the soundtrack. You know I can't resist a disco siren call like that. (Fair warning to DDR n00bs like me: turn off the hand motions until you've got some semblance of skill. Trust me.)

So yesterday I spent the day... sleeping. Wow. Imagine that!

Here are the pros of being sick:

Getting sleep.
Discovering that Burt's Bees Hand Salve is also effective on a chapped-from-too-much-Kleenex nose.
Reading a new book from one of my favorite authors. (I might mention that this favorite author is, to my relief, still alive, unlike Madeleine L'Engle, Robert Jordan, or well I guess I had no hope with C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkein. Still, it's rough when most of your favorite authors will never produce something new. Good thing I've got Jasper Fforde to add to my list.)
Getting work done. (Er, ooops--but really, I needed one uninterrupted day of solid work to get a lot of updates done on the ALA GODORT website. Sad thing is, I'm still not done--I blame the crummy CMS and my lackluster internet connection.)
Being so rested that I write most of three presentations without really trying, because I suddenly have the energy to be excited about my topic again. And it not feeling like "work."

Here are the cons of getting sick:

The chapped nose. And the fact that before I tried the hand salve on it, for some reason I tried peppermint lotion... owwwwww!
Feeling more thirsty after drinking something. Which makes me want to drink less, which of course is not the best of ideas when sick.
Realizing that I have three major tasks to complete before Friday... not counting finalizing three presentations for next Monday. And trying to relax and get better and not freak out about it all, considering that similar circumstances are what got me sick in the first place. Riiiiight.
Having cable and realizing that most of the time, TV still sucks. (Although that does make me feel better about spending my days at work instead of vegging out on the couch.)
Forgetting to call my mom on her birthday, because I slept through most of it. (Luckily, she's a forgiving mom, and didn't realize I didn't call her, until I called her today to apologize.)
Oh, did I mention being sick? That's a huge con, right there.

The Falcon Has Landed

2007-09-24T08:43:00.000-05:00

(Er... the falcon being Alex.)

He called at 4:30 am to let me know he was in Paris, and I just got off the phone with him--he's in Helsinki!! It's odd how he seems closer now, over the phone, than he did when I dropped him off at DFW airport, when he was still in town for two hours. The beauty of cell phones and global communication, eh? And my husband is now officially an American Airlines Advantage Platinum member, and he's terribly pleased with himself making it to that point before I did. Hmph.

Monday morning is proving to be much more fun than yesterday afternoon--lack of sleep and coffee are much more my normal routine, I guess. I did complete my homework last night, but not all my work-work, so I got to work a bit early to start on that before my meetings begin. And a huge thanks to Tihleigh, who chatted me up last night until I was cheery, as well as let me know that I wasn't pathetic for feeling sad. And another huge thanks to Gayla, who is graciously hosting me tonight and tomorrow, so that I don't waste time and gas commuting home for no reason (particularly since I work until 9pm both tonight and tomorrow). I'll be back in McKinney Wednesday to catch up on mail and housework, since I will end work at a much more normal time.

And I'm wearing a new Audrey Hepburn shirt today--who can't help but feel a little glamorous when wearing such a gal on your shirt, I ask you?

Goodbye, Buddy!

2007-09-23T16:08:00.000-05:00

Bleh.

So here I sit on my bed, laptop in lap, completely ignoring all the homework and work I have to get done before Monday morning. Because every time I try to concentrate on work/homework, my brain panics and starts to think about Alex. Which is ridiculous, because at this point he's still in Dallas. He doesn't board for another half hour, and he doesn't take off for another hour beyond that. Sigh.

So I am seriously wondering how I'll get myself to concentrate on the things I need to do, instead of continuously distracting my miserable self with the internet, comics, and the fact that I've got "The Empire Strikes Back" in the DVD player in front of me, and I don't have to leave the bed to enjoy any of these distractions.

Yeesh, and I have chocolate next to me, too. All I need is ice-cream and I'd be classic break-up mode girl. Geez. And here I used to have no problem living alone--I guess I had a much smaller apartment, then. And it wasn't so quiet, considering I lived near a college campus. And, y'know, the bed was too small to feel empy.

Yes, get used to this. Because if I have any time to blog this week, it will probably be more sniveling about how sad I am that my best friend is gone. If it sickens you, you can just come back Friday, when I'll probably start relaying all the awesome adventures Alex went on without me. Sigh...

Okay, seriously--who can I get to kick my butt about this work/homework stuff? Yeesh!!

Preparations

2007-09-20T18:44:00.000-05:00

This morning, I dutifully did my homework. Then I spent several hours looking up relevant online info for Alex's trip. Then I double-checked my list of things to get for him, loaded up the Dreamsicle (yay! she's back!!) with Goodwill donations, and I was off.

I'm back, almost four hours and six stops later. I spent the most time, predictably, at Walmart. I got little travel-sized things of whatever we hadn't already bought for our last trips, luggage tags, large ziplocks, and that Tide stick I've been wanting to try out. Then, since Wally World didn't have a passport holder or flip-flops of any worth, I trekked further south and hit Bed, Bath and Beyond (no dice), Sports Authority (flip-flops), Half-Price Books (also no dice), and Office Max (passport holder).

Now, I'm sitting here unloading scads of photos off of seven SD cards (7.25 GB worth). Because my Nikon and my backpack are going to Finland with my boy--dangit, if I can't go, at least I can con him into taking photos for me.

No, I didn't play hookie today. I used some of that ever-present comp time, and I scheduled it last week. It was supposed to be the big cleaning-house to prep for that whole getting it fixed and then put on the market thing... but Finland takes precedence.

Happy Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day!

2007-09-19T07:55:00.000-05:00

Arrr, my mateys!
May ye enjoy this day of celebratin' with a pint of grog.

My pirate name is:

Bloody Mary Kidd

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Finland, Here We--er, He--Comes!

2007-09-19T07:40:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, I got a message from my husband just as I arrived at my desk. He's going to Finland this Sunday, and he has never had a passport.

My heart leapt for about two hours on the double-adrenaline-rush of acting as GovDocs librarian trying to help Alex get a passport, and also thinking Finnish thoughts and trying to figure out how to squeeze in my own trip with him.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Not only is the cheapest plane ticket I (and one of my info-maven friends) could find around $900, but my passport just expired three months ago, I can't find it or our marriage license, it would cost about $470 to get it renewed in time (assuming I found those documents), and during the six days that Alex will be gone, I have an important meeting with administration--along with my regularly-scheduled I'm-already-far-behind work.

Sigh.

But we did manage to get the passport documents and service taken care of this morning, and I've already created several wiki pages of helpful information for Alex's trip, along with plans to make several more. I am nothing if not a thoroughly librarian wife.

(My apologies for cross-posting, to the two or three of you that read both of my blogs.)

Promoting Silliness

2007-09-13T18:45:00.000-05:00

Today, UNT's Women's Studies Program held a ceremony to honor all female faculty promoted at UNT this year. I took photos, because, well, I'm a big camera dork, five of our librarians were promoted, and also because I was one of them: promoted to Librarian II (a year early--woohoo!!). Our president, Dr. Gretchen Bataille, and our new Provost, Dr. Wendy Wilkins, also came and spoke at the ceremony--it was quite nice.

And then, big dork that I am, I came back to my office and took photos of myself being thoroughly silly. (Yeah, that's a Minx poster in the background for you comics nerds.) Very professional of me, don't you think?

Slow Like Dial-Up

2007-09-10T19:28:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if everyone has this problem, or it's just us... when it rains, or has recently rained, our DSL is sloooow. This happened back in our wireless days, as well--but it's apparently as much a problem for SBC Yahoo as it was for the small-ish company dividing up a T1 among my neighbors. I'm online right now trying to access my SLIS course materials... and it feels just like early 2005, just before that February when our semi-rural area finally got one highspeed option. I used to spend two hours just posting discussions to one course, every night--and then magically highspeed cut 120 minutes to 10. No kidding.

And here I am on molasses-like internet again. (Or, as the people who used to provide wifi spelled it on their sign, i-net-re-net, which sticks in my brain as singularly hilarious.) As if homework isn't un-fun enough--I have to be dragged through it, slowly, while someone scritches their fingernails across a chalkboard.

And I'm not even a true millennial--how soon we forget those days of internet-less yore, eh?

Weekend O' Fun

2007-08-31T12:38:00.000-05:00

It's hard to describe how awesome it was, but I'll try. (I should have allllll the photos up on Flickr at some point this coming weekend.)

Jared drove in from Abilene Friday night, and for once we all went immediately to bed. This is how you can tell how important Star Wars is to us--we all went to bed shortly after midnight on a Friday, voluntarily!

We got up early-ish Saturday and picked up Claire, another friend who just happens to be my GovDocs student assistant, at her home. We all sang along--loudly, if not well--to oldies, thanks to the glories of the Siruis Satellite radio in my Awesome New Ride. (Which, btw, I've named Dreamsicle. It doesn't fit in with my previous car-naming scheme, but sometimes things find their own names, y'know?)

We arrived in Ft. Worth at the Museum of Science and History for their Star Wars exhibit... only to find that the adjacent Will Rodgers Auditorium was hosting a gun show the same day. No parking. Less than no parking. We ended up parking on the grass, crossing our fingers that we wouldn't get a ticket.

Inside, we found... a huge, long line. Because, really, that's what Star Wars geekery is all about. Fans may tell you it's about the imagination or the effects or the really hilariously bad dialog--but when you come down to it, Star Wars is about two things: merchandising, and lines.

Luckily, though, the line moved quickly, and soon we were near the front, where we discovered that the "Special Effects" move at the IMAX was already sold out--primarily because "Harry Potter" had been contracted for four time slots that day, and there weren't enough seats to go around. We groused about it, quickly recovered, got our tickets, and made our way to the exhibit--but we had fifteen minutes before they opened it to our time-slot.

We wandered through an exhibit of the last hundred years or so of the museum's artifacts. Some were neat, some were silly, and some were just plain disturbing. Like the huge display of odd-things-preserved-in-jars. Or the bureau that had a drawer full of neatly-lined-up rodents (aka, my mother-in-law's worst nightmare, neatly encased in the same kind of place that she keeps her socks). We all made appropriately-grossed-out noises and took photos to prove just how inhumane, disgusting, and creepy it all was. I was nostalgically thrilled to see they had a case of phosphorescent rocks with a lightswitch, so you can view them in the dark (well, under blacklight) or the light. When I was five years old, a similar phosphorescent rock exhibit was my favorite thing in the entire San Diego Museum of Natural History. I mean, even more than dino bones, and that says something. (It says something about how extremely nerdy I was as a kid.)

Then, it was the magical time to enter the Star Wars exhibit. It was, all told, a really nice exhibit. It was so gorgeously lit that I hardly used my flash, which made for a few blurry photos, but the atmosphere was worth it. The exhibit blended current/upcoming technologies with the Star Wars equivalents that "inspired" them. They were very hands-on (and therefore fun): build your own levitating Lego car, build/program your own R2-like droid, and this fantastic RTS-like (real-time-strategy game, for those of you who don't Speak Geek--think of Age of Empires) interface. The RTS-like thing had an optical sensor that recognized patterns on cards that you laid out in a table, which represented portions of a city (sanitation unit, water plant, housing, eatery, etc.), which you then laid out to make the citizens "happier" in areas like social, health, etc.

The Star Wars paraphenalia was incredible. There were lots of original costumes, props, and--most fantastic of all--the original models of the vehicles. For all intents and purposes, the "real" Star Destroyer, X-Wing, Millennium Falcon. All four of us had this mouths-open, eyes-wide kind of moment when we saw them. They are simply huge, and so detailed, and... just wow. If you're a Star Wars geek, then you went to this exhibit and therefore you understand. If you're not a Star Wars geek, you wouldn't understand anyway, so I won't bother describing it.

Hours later, we finally pulled ourselves out of the exhibit--and then another hour later, pulled ourselves out of the gift shop. (Remember that second facet of Star Wars culture I mentioned--merchandising?) Alex and I managed to come out only one t-shirt, one bib, and one onesie poorer, which is a tad bit of a miracle (I was sorely tempted by the entire "Infinities" trilogy of comics, though--that is sooo on my wishlist).

We drove back and grabbed some Taco Bell, being starved after all that geeking about. We stopped in downtown McKinney, where we'd planned to attend the Killis Melton Ice Cream Crank-Off... but sadly, they'd already ran out of ice cream and were shutting down. No jalapeno ice cream for us.

Claire and I headed off to Walmart to procure some more traditional ice cream, and other snacky foods to sustain us through the planned Firefly marathon. We all made it through half of the season, but by the end of "Jaynestown" sometime after midnight we had to crash. Claire, the Firefly newbie, was just as enthralled as I'd hoped she would be--the first thing she said after the pilot episode was "Next!" --always a good sign. Then on Monday at work, she informed me she'd already ordered the DVD and soundtrack on Amazon--another browncoat recruited!

And thus was our grand weekend. Rather less ice cream was consumed than was planned, but all in all it was a tremendously geeky good time.

Jayne Would be Proud

2007-08-23T18:33:00.000-05:00

You know you want to go read this entire week's arc in Unshelved. Just go. Now.

Unless, of course, the strip above made no sense at all. In which case, I pity you. Greatly. Here's some help.

I'm Now Thinking in Thought Ballooons

2007-08-22T07:01:00.000-05:00

I won't reveal it here, but the reveal (and then the smaller reveal on nearly the last page) in Marvel 1602 was... just wow. No other words, really. That whole book was fantastic! Good art, great story, cool setting for us history-nerds... yeah, I don't think there's a way to improve on that.

It's Comics Bonanza week. The library-IT-comics-guy that lent me Planetary a few weeks back dropped off the Authority with me yesterday. I've got the last three volumes of Sandman at home, but never manage to get to them because I've been busy every evening. I usually read comics while I cook (which may explain why my cooking isn't spectacular), but for some reason Sandman never made it to the kitchen. I'm reading volume 1 of All-Star Superman instead, which is ridiculously gorgeous and fun. I love the classic look/feel of it. Giant lizards! Insane arch-nemeses! Jimmy Olsen's annoying Superman-signal watch!! Superman robots in a variety of colors!!!

And yesterday, we got a package from SciFi Book Club--Alex ordered a Star Wars book, and while he was at it, added Trinity and The Dark Knight Returns for his spoiled geeky wife. I read DK almost two years ago, and things like Planetary keep me wanting to refer back to it--that, and the awesome page with Superman (aka Super-Goody-Two-Shoes, according to Mr. Frank Miller) against the backdrop of butterflies and horses, with Ronald Reagan talking about patriotism. That, contrasted against Miller's huge, scary Batman whose sole purpose seems to be to mete out violence upon the wicked. Good times. (And also appropriate timing, since we just watched Miller's bloody-good The 300 on Sunday. Finally, a movie that makes decent use of Gerard Butler.)

And I just had a conversation with another work-geek, who's now going to lend me a Fantastic Four story that follows 1602. Oh, the goodness. And how the geeks do come out of the woodwork at the library... this makes four comic book geeks and... well, I lost count of the scifi tv/movie geeks at about six.

There is work to be done, and more work to be done, and classes to register for, and personal affairs to be taken care of... but I'm really just looking forward to this weekend, when Alex and I and two friends will be geeking out over the Star Wars exhibit, eating odd flavors of homemade ice-cream, and watching the entire season of Firefly . Ah, the good things in life--they're not free, but they are... er... good.

Adulthood

2007-08-15T08:27:00.000-05:00

Things that Suck About Being An Adult

Filing auto insurance claims.
Filing taxes.
Filing work paperwork.
Generally, anything that has the word "filing" in it.
Bills.
Student loans.
Generally, anything that deals with finances.
Missing your parents, because you no longer live with them.
Yardwork. Housework. Other forms of "work."
Calories showing up in physical form on your body.

Things that Don't Suck About Being An Adult

Staying up as late as you want.
Watching any movies or TV shows that you please. Even The Simpsons.
Eating cake for breakfast. (Except for the last point in the first section.)
Living with a member of the opposite sex. Who isn't your parent.
Being friends with your parents--not because you have to, or you live with them, but because you love them and they are genuinely interesting, fun people.
The fact that bills and housework signify that you are independent and master of your own home. (Even if you do have to pay for it and upkeep it.)
Having the choice to go to school, or not.
Being able to enter things like "awesome new games for the Wii" into the budget.
Having a great job that I love, that is what I was trained to do, instead of all the wondering and worrying and preparing for my future. Dude, I am living my future.

Randomocity

2007-08-14T12:26:00.000-05:00

Want to get paid for blogging? Check out these opportunities.
What have I been tagging recently, that I've been to busy to link here? Check out my bookmarks on del.icio.us.
No, I still haven't uploaded my over 3GB worth of photos to my flickr account yet, but check out the amazing photos all my contacts have been taking!
Movie Mini-Review: Hot Fuzz is fantastic--loaded with dry humor instead of predictable pratfalls, this movie does not stint on the action (or gore) one bit. You can tell that the creators (incidentally, the minds/actors behind the also-fantastic Shaun of the Dead) just made the perfect cop-comedy-action movie they'd always wanted to see. So see it.
Planetary was glorious. There should have been more of it--I almost feel cheated.
Almost finished with Marvel 1602 (put it down briefly to finish Planetary). Also fantastic--but then, it's Neil Gaiman. And the 1600's. And painted images. What's not to love there?
Shocking, but true: I'm not borrowing audiobooks, I'm hardly listening to NPR at the moment--I've become obsessed with my six-month Sirius subscription. I, who complained to high heaven that paying for the gloriously free service of radio is ridiculous--I love it. (Then again, I'm not paying for it.) And it's not the extra NPR stations, or Broadway, or Sinatra that I listen to--the only merit I previously saw in subscription radio. No, the real glory of Sirius is that it has an awesome 80's station.

I'd hang my head in shame, but I'm too busy dancing to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

Punk Librarian

2007-08-09T18:32:00.000-05:00

Reading audiobooks is not cheating. Read more here. (I know Auntie K's going to back me up on this one.)
We all knew that Joss Whedon is genius. Yet here he goes, proving it again, and this time in a freely-available-online comic!! Robots! Aliens! Snappy dialogue! Chick bands!!! The glory of it!
Wait a minute.... scientists can be wrong? Gasp!
Airplane rides... purple lighting... USB charging stations... mp3 playlists that stick with your travel account--nope, there's nothing I don't like the sound of on Virgin America's new airline.
I know you all read this already--most of you sent it to me. But just in case you don't read Penny Arcade, here it is ("guybrarian" episode). (And for once, I actually don't have to put a profane warning on this comic.)
I know you don't really care, but my left wrist hurts. Not five days after I told my dad that my chronic wrist problem from 1998 - 2004 had finally left after surgery. Dangit.

Oh right, the title of this post. The reason for it is that today, I am wearing (from head to toe):

my usual spiky-hair edgy haircut
my cool librarian glasses
funky triangle/circle earrings
lavendar button-down 3/4 sleeve shirt
black "Book Club" t-shirt over that
Vertigo and Batman logo buttons
banned books bracelet
"librarian" skirt (funk-i-fied by myself with librarian-themed appliques and some lace)
awesome tall tall boots (similar to these, without the funky stitching)

The reason why I am wearing all this is three-fold (warning! another needless bulleted list ahead):

We're in another round of Gilmore-Girls-obsession, which always makes me want to dress like Lane (post-Mrs.-Kim) and listen to the Ramones.
I have been listening to too much 1980's punk on my sirius radio subscription in My New Awesome Ride (aka the Dreamsicle).
We're really, really low on work clothes at the moment. Our dryer is, well, not. (Drying, that is.)

I may post some punk-ish librarian photos, at that undefined future moment in time when I spend a full 24 hours uploading images from My Awesome Camera. Sigh.

How Did It Get to Be August?

2007-08-07T19:10:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, I got a happy little letter detailing my promotion and raise next month--w00t! Alex and I celebrated at a great Greek place in Plano, Zorba's, with our pals Josh and Stacey, then played Hearts at their place. I cheerfully lost, having completely combined Hearts, Spades, and Pinochle together in my brain for all time.

This weekend, we drove done to ol' San Antone to visit my parents. We had a grand time--Mom and I lost to Alex and Dad at Canasta (quite shamefully, too). We enjoyed key lime pie, some fantastic pecan praline ice cream, and the best brisket I've ever had, hands-down (thanks to Buck & Ozie's Last Chance). We exchanged gifts for my birthday, my dad's birthday, and Father's Day, then watched the end of "Gladiator" and the beginning of "Amistad."

Mom and I had a really great visit with my pal Cherie, who I went to high school with and then roomed with my first year at HSU. She is currently in her fourth battle with cancer in the past five years. She's recently been put on steroids, so she looked great and felt much better, but it always blows my mind to realize that Cherie, of all people, has been chronically ill for so long. She was the sarcastic, sardonic one in high school and here she is with a husband, two kids, and an incredible strength and optimism in the midst of a long illness.

Mom took us both to the Alamo Cafe for lunch, a longtime favorite of us all. We had fantastic food and a lot of laughing--sometimes it's hard to believe the things we did in high school. We reminisced about how Saturdays at Cherie's house, she and I would always eat frozen pizza (Tony's, I think), Dr. Pepper, and make brownies. Every single time. And we wrote a story together with the most fantastic title ever, by passing the paper back and forth line by line. And despite the fact that we've been reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series since our junior year, thirteen years ago, he still hasn't published the last book.

I also got to visit with Cherie's family for the first time in years. Isn't there some song about how everything changes, but everything's the same? Yeah, it was that.

As usual, I have many many photos of the weekend, and yet no time to upload them. Ah well, watch my flickr account periodically and you'll find them in time.

The Weekend

2007-07-31T20:53:00.000-05:00

Abilene:

Enjoyed seeing my good friend Kat, who is Most Greatly With Child.
Took a ridiculous amount of photos, as usual.
Played Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, and did not totally suck on the medium level.
Turned 29.
Enjoyed many phone calls from wonderful family members (in particular the voice-mail from my father-in-law singing "Happy Birthday").
Had some really incredible steak and shrimp.
Held my first meetings as Chair of one of the HSU BYA Committees (as did Alex, Chair of another committee in that group).
Wore a purple shirt.
Had Ben & Jerry's Irish Delight Ice Cream.
Did not sleep a wink Friday night.
Enjoyed driving my Awesome New Ride.
Enjoyed having the fuel efficiency of a car, not a truck.

Yep, I'm still busy as heck. Check out my photos instead of waiting around for text comments (er, the Abilene photos aren't up yet, though):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekyartistlibrarian/

Making a Wish

2007-07-24T18:30:00.001-05:00

Would you like to see my laundry-list of excuses of why I'm too busy to blog much at the moment? Then click here. And add to that list a list of personal items, such as (but not included to):

reading my camera manual (again)
reading Fables vol. 9 (happy birthday me!)
preparing for the October trip to DC (yes, you have to reserve tours that early)
editing, processing, and uploading photos
keeping mi casa clean(ish)
waiting for Guitar Hero III on the Wii (oh wait, that's on Alex's list)
working a second job over the summer
writing creatively twice a week (woohoo!)
going out of town all the frelling time

So... short and sweet update, then. This past weekend, we bought some stuff at Best Buy, including (finally) the last Farscape DVD volume. We also had my (early) b-day party with the Hoffman clan, at which I received a new flash for my new camera (yay!), some toys, a giftcard, and the above-mentioned Fables vol. 9. This joins my new stash of comics* that the boy bought me a few weeks ago at Recycled Books in Denton (aka Mecca of All Things Bookish). We also had some fantastic mother-in-law baked cake, and two of my three nephews astounded us with the sheer energy that is possible in a body under the age of six. Kind of a cruel reminder, this close to my actual 29th birthday, considering that my body's energy level is about a tenth of that. When I'm lucky.

This was illustrated when I went to blow out all 29 candles. I got about three done before I thought my old lungs would cause me to pass out--luckily those two nephews saved my wish from eternal non-fulfillment. And no, they weren't trick candles, and I'm not a smoker--just a sedentary old librarian. Hmph.

I've worked the past two Saturdays, so "weekend" has been a kind of loose concept, anyway. Hence even less time to get everything done, hence even less time to blog about all the stuff I'm doing. Ah, well.

I am really, really looking forward to spending this weekend in Abilene. Alex and I will be chairing BYA committees, sure, and that will take a bit more effort on our parts than usual--but it's Abilene and HSU and friends and my about-to-pop-she's-so-pregnant pal Kat, and our generous host Jared and staying up late to play games and talk geekery. That sounds very relaxing and fun.

*About those comics... I can't find that I blogged about these yet, dangit. So here was the score:

Astro City, Vol. 1
Planetary, Vol. 1 (I've already borrowed and read 2 and 3 since then)
Marvel 1602 (hardback!!!)
Mary Jane vol. 1 (okay, so I'm a girl, and this proves it--just deal.)
Flight, Vols. 1, 2, and 3 (major score!!!)

To date, I've finished Astro City and Planetary (and--ahem--MJ), and am in the middle of Marvel 1602, which I am thoroughly enjoying, despite being less familiar with the Marvel uni than the DC universe. I'm trying to save Flight for a little, since it's short stories and I tend to devour those. So the top item on my wishlist, now that I've finished Fables 9, is the Fables stand-alone Jack book.

Once again, I'm running out of space on my comics shelf. I removed all the manga, and that helped--for about three weeks. And now, back to square one.

Still Tired, But Excited

2007-07-19T12:37:00.001-05:00

...And in about a week, I'll tell you why.

In the meantime, I have to move my office in preparation for my new boss (hooray!) arriving soon, migrate content onto our new library website, finish up everything that has been sitting around since before ALA last month, and get my feet wet as ALA GODORT's Web Administrator.

Whew.

In those moments I can steal to read comics, I'm on Vol. 2 of Planetary--which is only less-than-excellent because each story ends right at the point where I'm wanting more (which I suppose is the point)--and I finished Vol. 6 of Sandman and Vol. 1 of Astro City. Oh, and I started reading Marvel 1602 Monday, but haven't been able to come back to it.

This weekend is my birthday celebration with the Hoffmans (we'll call it my the-last-year-of-your-twenties-is-the-best birthday), and the weekend after that, we hit Abilene for the Board of Young Associates meeting. This time around, Alex and I are each chairs of committees--eek!

And, um, I need to return to my lunch. And my coffee. C ya!

Update: I fixed the previously-non-accessible library website link. Oh, and just to clarify, what I'm hinting at in the first sentence is *so* not about me being pregnant or anything. Just in case you were wondering. (The "tired" and "excited" have nothing to do with each other.)

Monday, Tired Monday

2007-07-16T21:01:00.000-05:00

It's late, and my brain definitely is aware that it's Monday, and that it did not get enough sleep last night.

However, Alex and I did have a good time watching one of the best movies of all time last night, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We nearly went for another best-of-all-time qualifier, Back to the Future, but Alex was feeling slightly more adventure-ish. I also got a lot of housework done Sunday--dishes, cleaning the entire kitchen--a scant week after it had been previously cleaned, gasp!--and folding laundry, which I also put up this morning before work. Amazing what I can get accomplished when I set my mind to it. Or rather, when I realize that being stressed out by the mess is actually more work than getting off my lazy buns and doing the work. Is that... adulthood... I hear creeping in? Maturity added to my character? Aaack, run for the hills!

Other than the chore-performing and the obligatory fat-couch time, we sat around with dazed looks, blinking a little, wondering what people actually do on a free weekend day. I worked Saturday, as I will again this week, and that added to the weeks I've/we've been out of town, or had parties, or seen friends/family, or had other obligations--it was a little disconcerting to have unplanned time. I think we both panicked a little--"Free time, oh no it's not scheduled, what do we do, we can't waste it, ack!" But finally we relaxed a bit--I think the housework helped me in this respect--and allowed ourselves to remember what our former glorious "lazy weekends" were like. Pure, vegetative goofball bliss, primarily involving time on the fat couch. Ahhhh.

I worked this evening, so I had this morning free to put up afore-mentioned laundry and--gasp--clean the interior of My Big Awesome Truck. I throughly vacuumed it and spot-cleaned all the hard surfaces after first removing a huge trash bag's worth of Stuff That Does Not Belong In My Truck. This stuff included a roll of copper wire, no less than five mostly-empty water bottles, six library books, and some craft beads shaped like letters of the alphabet (still in package). I know, I disgust even myself.

Also, I'm getting close to finished uploading party photos to Flickr. I'll link them on this blog when I'm done.

Fresh-Baked Goodness

2007-07-09T12:31:00.000-05:00

After everyone left the party (again), I felt lonesome and sweet-tooth-y. So I baked us a strawberry pie. I kind of combined recipes from two different cookbooks I had, as FoodNetwork.com had surprisingly little to offer in this area. It be tasty.

So, Saturday we had our youngest nephew's 3rd birthday party*, and then our own Independence Day party--er, again. This time, we had about twelve or so people (eight the previous weekend), and we successfully set off a ton of fireworks. We caught them on video this time, and if Alex's computer will ever agree to process it, I'll post it on YouTube and link it here.

I have photos from both of our parties to upload, as well as the rest of California and the rest of DC. I'm operating without a SD-card reader right now, and can only get photos off my leaving my camera on and attaching it to the computer with a USB cable, which transfers photos at a remarkably sluggish rate--hence the sluggish rate of posting to Flickr. Sigh.

*Note: all photos of the birthday party are uploaded and accessible through the link above, but all are unedited, as well. This means they are large, and might be blurred or have odd lighting--if you'd like a copy of something cropped/sized/edited, just let me know.

Color Me This

2007-07-06T12:44:00.001-05:00

(Apologies for cross-posting this, but it applies equally to all groups.)

Okay, file this under the "sheer genius" category-- the site COLOURlovers.com not only provides ever-changing color palettes that are ranked by users, but you can download palettes in a variety of formats, including CSS. You can browse palettes by newest, top, or search by specific color combinations.

So, so pretty. Good for adventures in interior design, graphic design brainstorming, or a CSS recharge for your website.

My Nikon: A Love Story

2007-06-29T18:03:00.000-05:00

All right, I won't keep you waiting until I get to my Sunday and Monday ALA notes and finish up the ALA-blogging process. Here's the skinny on my newest gadget: the Nikon D40X.

Monday evening, my flight was delayed, then canceled, then apparently not canceled, then definitely canceled and I was on a flight for Tuesday--anyway, I finally got on a different flight, two hours later than I was supposed to, but I was just glad I didn't have to spend the night in the DCA airport. I like Reagan a lot, but I didn't particularly want to sleep there.

I disembarked at DFW sometime after 11pm, got my luggage, greeted my best friend warmly and thankfully, and we got back to the house sometime after midnight.

Back at the house, we unceremoniously dumped all my luggage to be dealt with later, and I plopped onto the couch. Alex told me he had a surprise for me, and I obediently closed my eyes and waited, assuming it was the nice normal sort of surprise he likes to provide--a new movie, or a chocolate-chip cookie.

I opened my eyes, and there was a gorgeous new backpack (similar to this)! More specifically, a laptop backpack--one with shorter straps than my current monstrosity (that I lugged all over DC), and which fit my laptop more snuggly. And which--oh joy of joys!--has a camera compartment in the bottom, just the perfect size for a SLR, a few extra lenses, a charger, and some memory cards. Perfect.

Well, except that my camera isn't a SLR, even though I tend to borrow them from the UNT Libraries Digital Lab fairly often. But I had plans to get one in a year or so.

Then he had me close my eyes again--and you'd think the next thing would be fairly obvious, right? But keep in mind that I was really, really tired, and my brain wasn't fully in Texas yet.

So yes, he had my close my eyes again, and there sitting on my lap was a Nikon box and a new 2Gb SD card.

I was more than a little flabbergasted. We've been saving for a specific goal, and it's seemed that everything is moving toward that goal, hence the reason I wasn't looking to purchase a SLR in the near future. We'd come into a small pocket of money that I'd assumed we would just push toward that goal, but apparently my very-generous and thoughtful husband had other ideas.

So, you see, although I very much enjoy my new Nikon and the glorious freedom of always having a spectacular (and light!) camera on-hand to capture the moment... the true love story of this post is my best friend. I loved him before the camera, I'm touched by his gift of the camera, and I'll try to prove worthy of his gift by not posting too many photos of him on flickr.

(Oops.)

Yes, I'm On YouTube Now

2007-06-29T07:59:00.000-05:00

And I've even got four videos posted. Three of them are from the 2005 Star Wars Line-Up, and one is from the ALA Book Cart Drill Team competition last Sunday. (I've discovered that my point-and-shoot Kodak is perhaps better at taking short videos than it is taking stills.)

Also, we've got a nice little video camera, so we're going to attempt to record the awesomeness of our fireworks show... this is, of course presuming that it doesn't rain more/still. I heard this morning that Lake Lewisville is at 90% capacity, and the Corps of Engineers plans to drain it soon into the Trinity River (which, being at 39 feet deep and apparently not reaching a problem point for flooding until 62 feet, has plenty of room for the extra H20).

A Taste of What is to Come...

2007-06-28T18:36:00.000-05:00

The beginning of a new era: the Nikon D40X.

What's this, you say? I'll tell details later. For now, enjoy the lusciousness.

The Bryce Has Landed

2007-06-28T12:51:00.000-05:00

(Well, that's what we'll be saying in 6 hours, anyway.)
Yes, people, it's getting to be that time--time for the semi-annual HSU alum fireworks extravaganza at the Hoffman place!

Grrr, Arg

2007-06-27T07:43:00.000-05:00

(Those are zombie noises, btw--I got very little sleep last night.)

This is just a quickie to say that I'm currently going through scads of work email, but I'll post stories about Sunday/Monday as soon as possible, along with the rest of the trip photos.

'Twas fun, but it's good to be home again.

DC Day Three

2007-06-23T22:44:00.000-05:00

ALA is intense. Or perhaps it's just all that walking, combined with the 15 lbs of laptop/backpack I'm lugging around that makes it seem that way. Every time I get back to the Tabard Inn, I just crash with exhaustion.

I'm not going to be at the Facebook party that starts in fifteen minutes--even if I wasn't dead-tired, I have a GODORT thing to interview for at 8:15am tomorrow. Isn't that a spectacularly cruel time to schedule an interview?

So, this morning, I awoke with great hopes of trying a different breakfast at the Tabard--maybe bagels this time, or granola with homemade yogurt. Only--they serve breakfast at 7am on weekdays... and 8am on weekends. I only had time to frown with sadness, then rushed off to my first session, ERT's Digital Natives. The presentation wasn't really anything I hadn't heard already, but there was an interesting, lively discussion afterward, and the room was jam-packed with people. (The link above also provides some notes taken on the discussion, if you're interested.)

Dreanna Belden from UNT went with me to that, so we then got some much-needed coffee and a delish cranberry-orange muffin from the obligatory 'Bucks kiosk, and sat down for some good chat about life, the universe, and everything.

Then I had to run off to the GODORT Update at the Renaissance Washington, where I pulled up a chair and my laptop to Julie Linden's corner (near an outlet, thank goodness). I briefly got to chat with Kris Kasianovitz, who I met in Oakland through NDIIPP, and then met Amy Stewart-Mailhiot F2F for the first time--she's been generously donating some govdocs for some digitization projects of ours.

I met Dreanna in the hotel lobby, and we wandered off to Chinatown, eventually settling on the "Wok and Roll" where Dreanna had some gorgeous-looking sushi, and I settled for an uncharacteristically less-adventurous beef lo mein. I took some fun, colorful photos as we left Chinatown, and we got the giggles as we passed a tableaux at Hooter's. Four orange-clad buxom gals were outside, taunting a slightly-inebriated male librarian with, "Well, we never went to library school." He was amazed that they knew he was a librarian--until they pointed out that he was still wearing his enormous ALA badge. Sigh.

I went back to the Renaissance for GODORT Leg. II. It's not that I'm a glutton for attending meetings for committees I'm not on, but they were discussing a response to the recent CRS report legislation being considered, and of course that's particularly relevant to my work archiving those reports. It was an interesting meeting, and I learned that editing resolutions isn't nearly as boring as it sounds--or else that's the old English major in me, but I found it fascinating.

And afterward, I wandered in the general direction of the LITA Meet n' Greet, but along the way... I met Meredith Farkas in-person! (And sorry, but you'll have to read that link for the story.)

The LITA Meet n' Greet was... well, not as lively as I was hoping. I was mildly interested in the interest groups on Digital Library Technologies and Distance Learning... but if I become more involved in GODORT like I hope to and only increase my courseload in the future... I don't need one more committment. Unless I find a compelling reason, I probably won't renew my LITA membership next year--I can read their articles, blog, and attend their sessions without being a member, after all.

Coming out of the hotel, I ran into Valerie, Kevin, and Brooke--whom I met for the first time, having of course heard glowing things from Val. Which all turned out to be completely true, as Val went back to her hotel to write a CRS letter for Leg., and Brooke and I whisked through the Exhibits Hall for an hour. During which, I witnessed an amazing performance of female flirting that on her the coveted, swag-filled and quality-stitched Oxford UP tote bag. Clever girl, that.

We parted at 7th and L, and I headed once again toward the Metro and the Tabard. I lugged my technological burden upstairs, changed out of professional and sweaty clothing, and briefly hopped out again to traipse up and down the block with the Digi-Lab camera, capturing the gorgeous architecture.

I came back to have some more of the Tabard's lite fare--this time a mozarella-and-roast-pepper salad that really was lite, but had enough protein to keep me going. I dragged myself back upstairs at the ridiculous-for-one-under-30 hour of 6:45, and promptly spent a few hours in blissfully decadent, useless novel-reading and a half hour nap (finished Deboarh Crombie's Dreaming of the Bones). Suzanne Sears called and we arranged to share a cab tomorrow to Cathy's party, and then we sent awhile chatting and giggling.

I called Alex, but he and Jared were watching "Invincible," so I started being productive, and then chatted with him when he called back awhile later. He and Jared watched the last SG-1 today--completely with my full knowledge and permission before-hand--and said there's a possible second spin-off series in the works, as well as some TV movies. Well, there's hope, then! And, of course, I only let Alex watch the episodes without me under the strict understanding that he has to watch them with me Tuesday night, as well.

And now I'm here, having fully intended to go to bed an hour ago, but being sucked into that novel and my blog/wiki/flickr/Facebook ate up several hours of my life. Ah, well. Thus is the life of a digital semi-native.

Now, I think I'll spend a little more time ignoring my headache, uploading some photos, and looking at the GODORT website in preparation for tomorrow morning. And then to bed, to bed.

Holy Crud

2007-06-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

I just tried to charge the camera batteries--for the awesome Canon Rebel SLR I'm borrowing from UNT's Digital Lab--and I've got the wrong charger, or else I'm completely mentally deficient. They... don't... fit. I have three days left in DC at my first ALA conference--and the awesome camera may have a limited power lifespan.

So pardon my French, but Holy Crap!!!

Update: Photos for the day are here: http://flickr.com/photos/geekyartistlibrarian/tags/20070622/

DC: Day Two

2007-06-22T22:29:00.000-05:00

I might be more exhausted than last night, but it's hard to tell. Oh, how I love, love, love this city.

I had planned to get up early and take the Metro in and just wander about a bit taking photos... but instead, I stayed at the Tabard until past 11am. I slept much later than my original plans--6am on a non-morning session day? What was I thinking?!--and then headed down to some of the Tabard Inn's delicious complimentary breakfast. Homemade cranberry scones with some delicious jewel of a jelly--some dark berry with orange that was delightful--and enormous slabs of honeydew melon that I sadly could not finish. The two cups of coffee was probably more than I needed, but was so nice. I wandered about the Tabard a little taking photos, then headed back upstairs to become engrossed in the wifi and photo editing.

I finally realized it was past time to meet Val, so I hopped out into the sunshine. I took the Metro to the WCC and met Val outside, then we walked to the Austin Grill. We had a great time chatting, and I enjoyed a wonderful chile-rubbed tuna sandwich--the tuna steak was an inch and a half thick and covered in avacado slices.... sooooo good.

After our lunch and gossip, Val and I ran into Cathy Hartman, Larry Romans, and Amy West at the ALA registration area, and they all went on to GODORT-y sessions, while I headed back to the Metro for GODORT's tour of the Senate Library.

I was happy to have the opportunity to pass through Union Station again, and snapped photos as I went down Delaware to the Russell Senate Building. I didn't realize the Senate Library was right next to CRS--tempts a nerdy girl to run in there and make off with a bunch of reports. The tour was fantastic--lots of gorgeous, interesting documents and a pristine Serial Set--I know, this stuff should be on my professional blog, but I'll just link it here. I love that the clocks in the entire Senate building, including the restaurants, have lights and buzzers that are all code for different things--five minutes to a vote, a quorum call, etc. So anyone in the Senate buildings always know what's going on, no matter where they are. And for any librarians needing hard-to-locate government information, the Senate Library not only has a fantastic collection, but they're happy to provide reference assistance to librarians (they don't have a public mission, so they don't serve patrons directly). And they have quite a few CRS reports from the 1970's through the 1990's... hmmm.

I ran into Julie Linden on the second tour, then left the Senate building and walked back to Union in that gorgeous sun--although it was a bit warmer than I was expecting, Texas having been so rainy and cool for the past... how long has it been raining constantly? Since February?

When I got back to the WCC, I got all my ALA gear and officially donned my conference badge--not wanting to look like a likely target, I wasn't wearing it outside the WCC. Then it was time for GODORT Legislation I, so I went up to 209 and turned on my laptop--it was worth all the pain of lugging it around all day just to have it there for instant notes on my wiki, let me tell you. I also met Jennie Burroughs, who's a Facebook friend of mine, and Kristin Clark, who apparently reads my (other) blog--I just love the internet! Cathy was in the session, as was Jesse Silva, who after the meeting showed me the awesome things they're doing at Berkeley with their wiki. He's mashing up pmwiki, Camtasia, and the LexisNexis interface so that the wiki plays the tutorial (in flash), then at certain parts the patron scrolls down to Lexis and actually acts out the tutorial--genius! They've also got related RSS feeds in the right-hand column.

Leg. I was pretty interesting--Jesse's set up a wiki for them, and there was some discussion about having some members participate only online, and what roles they might take. Then I took a few minutes to check email and IM, and then joined the GODORT Happy Hour at the Embassy Suites bar. I met quite a few more people and got the GODORT ribbon for my badge, then left with Cathy and her posse to go find dinner.

We walked down 10th--there was a gorgeous crushed glass mosiac walkway that I photographed--and went to a funky little French bistro across the street from the Ford Theater. Yes, that Ford Theater, girls and boys, the one where Lincoln was shot, and the house where he died was right next to the restaurant. But the real treat was the food--I had some kind of salad I don't think I can even pronounce--Chevre Chaud?--with huge slabs of warm goat cheese that was to die for, and afterward a crepe suzette that was about the best thing involving an orange that I've ever tasted. They finally kicked us out after 9:30--we were the last ones there--and we had a gloriously fun, chatty walk back to the Metro, exited at Dupont Circle, and I wearily pulled myself into the room a bit after 10pm.

I've just got off the phone with Alex, who is waiting for Jared to come over and they'll be make firework preparations this weekend. Now I should be consulting my schedule for tomorrow and sleeping--as I have a tremendous headache and am exhausted--but I'd rather read my frivolous novel, edit and upload photos to flickr, and generally glutton myself with technology instead of being responsible. Sigh.

Today was much less lonely than yesterday, and it was just amazingly fun to be out and about in DC. I am always a grumpy, shy wreck the first day of any trip, and the farther away the place is, the worse I get. The first day in Italy in 1997, I hardly spoke to anyone--even my American travel-mates--but the day afterward I was up for wild adventures like I never am at home. Travel does odd things to people.

I succeeded, I think, in creating a great travelouge of my day in photos, but I wonder how long it will take me to get them up. I think I may forget editing them for now, and just upload as-is, willy-nilly, so that anyone who's interested can follow along my trip.

Oh, and that laptop--it's so worth it, but I think I need to hire a... oh I'm too tired to think of the name. The guys who carry your luggage up the mountain. Yeah. That's world-class blogging right there folks: "It was the thing, with that stuff, remember?" Yeah... Ah, well.

DC: Day One

2007-06-22T00:39:00.000-05:00

Whew.

Right now, I am snug in bed at the wondrously funky Tabard Inn (my grateful thanks to Cathy Hartman for her recommendation!), checking Facebook, Gmail, and uploading part of today's photos to flickr.

This morning, I rode in to Alex's place of work in Plano, and bummed around on the internet until lunchtime. After a quick bite, we hopped over to DFW Airport--that would be my third time so far this year, folks! After a lot of goodbye hugs, I left Alex (gulp) and got my extremely-too-large suitcase checked. Yes, the gal who tends to share a tiny suitcase with her husband is taking a gigantic one for her tiny self. I think this reveals both my lack of time to make apparel decisions, and my slight insecurity about my first ALA attendance--everything I had any thought of wearing, I threw into that suitcase.

I had no trouble at all finding my gate, for once, and thus had a lovely hour and a half to take photos and edit them on my trusty (but battery-power-deficient) laptop. Then, wonder of wonders, I bumped into Doina, another UNT librarian who happened to be on the same flight. We boarded together, and then proceeded to wait on the tarmac twenty minutes behind seven planes.

The turbulence we went through until we got through the now-ubiquitous rainclouds over Dallas was unpleasant--but you can endure half an hour of almost anything.

I worked on my ALA schedule, looked out the window a lot, took completely unnecessary and probably uninteresting photos, and read a completely frivolous book. In fact, I had no intention of reading it, had never heard of it or the author, but found it in the paperback swap section of our library's cafe, and thought I might as well give it a try. It's actually pretty enjoyable thus far: Dreaming of the Bones, by Deborah Crombie. I'm not a huge mystery person, but it's very British and that feels very "summery reading" to me.

When we got to DC, those rainclouds had apparently followed me. Dark grey was the sky, except for a thin band on intense red that reflected gorgeously on the Potomac. And there was good old DCA, right where I left it with its horrifyingly-short runway.

We landed, and I completely scrapped my original plan of eating at the airport in favor of locating my luggage as quickly as possible. I lugged that huge suitcase up to the Metro station, where I found Doina again, and we took to Yellow Line. I happily proceeded to identify myself as an annoying tourist by snapping photos on the metro, and got a happy lump in my throat when I could see the Washington monument through the window.

Doina and I parted where I switched lines, and then I exited at Dupont Circle. This is when I became fully aware that my suitcase was not suited to: 1) airports 2) metro systems 3) escalators, or 4) street-walking. I walked three blocks south before realizing that I was alone, lost, and nearly unable to lug my suitcase any further. Being a huge nerd, I took a photo to document this.

I then went back another block north, called Alex in frustration, and then realized I was where I needed to be, and walked a half block east to my hotel. I also then took several photos of triumph. Because of my extreme nerdiness.

I checked in with a friendly woman I was so happy to see that I could have hugged her, and proceeded up to Room #5. By "proceed," I mean that I banged, pushed, and pulled my ginor-mo suitcase up a flight of stairs more narrow than it is (no, there isn't an elevator). But it's so homey, elegant, funky that I am extremely happy I'm not in a regular hotel. This is more relaxing, as well as cooler.

I went down to the restaurant and discovered that while entrees started in the $20's, their "lite fare" was more than appetizers and was in the more reasonable $ 8-10 range. I ordered a smoked pork quesadilla and water, and it was almost too much food--but gloriously tasty, and a wonderful treat to eat in the parlor with my book during cocktail hour, while a group apparently from Baylor discussed teacher benefits. I charged it to my room--oh, glorious luxury!--and snapped a few more photos of the room itself.

Since then, I've been in bed with the laptop, spreading my online presence and uploading about half of the photos I took today--I plan on getting the rest up tomorrow morning-ish. I read Alex to sleep over the phone--I think that might have been our sixth phone conversation today. (But then, that's not abnormal at home, really.)

I'll have to post more about thoughts and the Tabard and all tomorrow--I'm having lunch with Valerie, and then it's off to make my ALA debut, baby!

Note to self: stop wearing geeky-phrase t-shirts when you're traveling. You get tired of all those strangers staring at your chest, remember?

And to Alex: good night, my love--I miss you sorely.

Ta-Daaa!

2007-06-19T21:05:00.000-05:00

Check out my new, improved, no-longer-just-my-Portfolio website, aka your Portal to all things Geeky Artist Librarian.

And, um, yeah I still need to add in my previous positions under Experience, etc etc, but I'm just happy that I finally made the portal page I'd dreamed of for the past year.

Now, if I can only get my snazzydecor.com domain to point to it...

Is It Just Me...

2007-06-19T18:31:00.001-05:00

...Or has AOL totally ripped off Nintendo Wii's "Mii" concept?

The AOL avator: the Wee-Mee.

On the Quick

2007-06-19T17:58:00.000-05:00

So, the past week since I've posted has been a big ol' blur of...

the Spurs winning (woohoo!)
Kat's baby shower
ALA preparation
work
more ALA preparation
cleaning house for the party--oh right, which is the weekend after ALA.

In short, I will blog, I will post more Flickr photos, but it will be a little while. I'm hoping to catch up on some of this at ALA--but to be honest, it might all be work blogging and work-related travel photos, instead of catching up on the California trip, several weddings, and uploading the few photos I took at Kat's shower last Saturday.

Sigh.

1. King of the Road, 2. Gorgeous Rust, 3. American Dream, 4. A Face Only a Mother Could Love, 5. Golden Headlight, 6. Kings of a Bygone Era, 7. Through Rose-Colored Glasses, 8. Marshmallow Dreamery

In the meantime, enjoy these completely-random photos I took at a used-car place down the road from where I live in McKinney. Yes, folks, I am now to the point of stopping the darned truck to take photos of old, rusted vehicles. I am proud that I managed to take these nice shots on our very-consumer-grade, point-and-shoot Kodak Easy Shot that's a couple of years old and something like 4 megapixels.

Random Afternoon

2007-06-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

Sputtr: an interesting new search tool. (No, hit "enter" after typing your search--just click on the button below for the interface you'd like to search. And thanks, Mark!)
70 * 7: neat concept for a t-shirt store. Limited-edition shirts (70 made) for $30/each; when the stock is all sold, $1050 goes to a charity of the artist's choice, and $70 goes to someone in need in the artist's community. Oh, and they're also gorgeous shirts. (Thanks, Tihleigh!)
Go, Spurs, go! They're doing well, and one of our GovDocs student employees, a fellow San Antonian, got to see last night's game. Bully for her!!
Wow. I have a heck-ton of photo sets on my Flickr account. Guess that pro account really is worth it, after all.

Near-Perfect Weekend

2007-06-11T07:53:00.000-05:00

This weekend was a great blend of getting things accomplished and finding time to relax--Alex and I both had the best at-home weekend we've enjoyed in ages. The only thing that was lacking to finish off the summery-goodness would have been dining on grilled steaks (but I've got two marinading in the fridge for tonight).

Saturday, our plans went awry in the morning. I had grand plans to make blueberry pancakes from scratch, having recently been inspired by a great episode of Good Eats, but trying to cook them on my skillet for the umpteenth time resulted in disaster. That took up so much time I didn't have time for my scheduled run, and we had to hurry out the door to make an appointment. But after that, things started looking up.

We were all dressed in our "grubby" clothes to get some work done in the building, when rain and hail struck with immediacy and force. We were a bit frustrated that our good intentions were ruined, but it turned out to be a pleasant, relaxing afternoon of doing very little. Joel and Kali called to ask if we'd like to come over that evening, and when the rain stopped, we went out to run a few errands.

Having determined that my pancake efforts were unsuccessful due to not possessing the right tools, we trekked to Bed, Bath and Beyond. We bought a stovetop griddle, a mixing bowl that doesn't hurt my hand, two new (and therefore un-melted) spatulas, a ladle with measurements marked on the inside, and a set of grilling implements for Alex.

Our purchases done, we headed over to Joel and Kali's and met their six-week-old son, who is cute as a button and a very merry lad. Kali made some fantastic cake-cookies, we all had a good long chat, and then Joel helped us break in our Mario Party 8 on his Wii (short review--fantastic game with many different kinds of gameplay, which makes it a good buy compared to other games). Alex and I groggily drove home at 11:30, feeling like it was 3am for some reason.

Sunday, I got up and remedied the lack of running the previous day, and had a chat with Amy A. Having the proper tools for the pancakes was marvelous, and they were full of fluffy goodness. Then we quickly got to work on what we'd missed the day before, and got a lot of things taken from the building and returned to Home Depot. Alex mowed the lawn while I washed dishes, we watched the last episode of Dancing with the Stars (Hooray, Apolo!!), and we went to bed early.

Quick Media Diet Update:

Catch and Release: the main story was fine, but the real reason to watch this movie is the hilarity of secondary-character Kevin Smith. Man, he is hilarious in anything.
~~And I know we watched some awesome movie in the past two weeks that we actually talked about buying... can't for the life of me remember what it was. Hmph; will post later.~~ Ah-ha! It was Bruce Almighty, which we hadn't watched when it came out because we naturally assumed Hollywood would slant a story about God to be blasphemous, crass, or just plain stupid. Instead, we were not only entertained but impressed, and several times paused the movie, looked at each other, and asked if this really was a Hollywood production starring Jim Carey.
Regarding the Stardust TV spot, which I saw last night, I totally had the same reaction that Neil Gaiman did--"I mean, I appreciate that Charlie Cox isn't famous, but he is the hero and the person who the film is about and the person who's on screen all the time."

Unrelated Banter

I feel you, Gene & Bill--I feel you.
The Alabama State Senate sounds lively!

Blueberry Goodness

2007-06-11T07:18:00.000-05:00

"Instant" Pancake Mix

Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
See this recipe on air Monday Jun. 11 at 7:00 PM ET/PT.
Show:	Good Eats
Episode:	Flap Jack Do It Again

The Mix

6 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda (check expiration date first)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugarCombine all of the ingredients in a lidded container. Shake to mix.

Use the mix within 3 months.

"INSTANT" PANCAKES:

2 eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups "Instant" Pancake Mix, recipe above
1 stick butter, for greasing the pan
2 cups fresh fruit such as blueberries, if desired

Heat an electric griddle or frying pan to 350 degrees F. Heat oven to 200 degrees F.

Whisk together the egg whites and the buttermilk in a small bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the melted butter.

Combine the buttermilk mixture with the egg yolk mixture in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until thoroughly combined. Pour the liquid ingredients on top of the pancake mix. Using a whisk, mix the batter just enough to bring it together. Don't try to work all the lumps out.

Check to see that the griddle is hot by placing a few drops of water onto to the griddle. The griddle is ready if the water dances across the surface.

Lightly butter the griddle. Wipe off thoroughly with a paper towel. (No butter should be visible.)

Gently ladle the pancake batter onto the griddle and sprinkle on fruit if desired. When bubbles begin to set around the edges of the pancake and the griddle-side of the cake is golden, gently flip the pancakes. Continue to cook 2 to 3 minutes or until the pancake is set.

Serve immediately or remove to a towel-lined baking sheet and cover with a towel. Hold in a warm place for 20 to 30 minutes.

Yield: 12 pancakes

Fiiiinally

2007-06-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

...I'm perhaps half done migrating and updating my ePortfolio, as my web server's been down for several months and shows no sign of resurfacing. Stay posted for completion.

Tennis Elbow or Wii-itis?

2007-06-07T12:02:00.000-05:00

Remember how that doc diagnosed you with "Nintendinitis" back in the 1990's? Well, now he's got another fun "itis" for you. Yep, the Wii is actually so great that you can get a sports-like injury from it.

Personally, I see this as another great Wii selling-point; if it can provide the injuries of non-virtual athletics, it can also provide the physical benefits of non-virtual athletics. Heck, there have already been a number of stories on exercise benefits of the Wii.

Great quote on this: "A lot of husky kids just got some powerful ammunition in convincing mom to buy them a Wii."