just be.

why i wish urban active provided wifi to its clients

my gym locks down its wifi (i know, wtf). pisses me off not to have free wifi when i'm there just on principle, but here's a real reason i wish i could get wifi at the gym: pandora now offers (some awesome!) workout stations. urban active, you listening??

day 7: stuff that reminds me of a certain event

well. for music, this is easy. the song that mark and sharlotte so beautifully played for the processional at our wedding. 

 

i always think that "somewhere over the rainbow/wonderful world," which was our last-dance song, will be the one that gets me, but "simple gifts" came on my iphone the other day while i was driving (i had it playing through the stereo, not headphones while driving!), and i turned into a giant puddle of sentiment. srsly. it was like it happened yesterday--i could remember exactly how i felt waiting on the sidewalk with my father, greeting a few late guests and laughing at my father's attempts to keep me calm, trying to sneak a peek inside at andrew, listening and watching for the signal to start walking in. when i heard mark and sharlotte beginning to play, all the anticipation and emotion of the day welled up. i had to focus on not tripping while walking up the brick walk because, well, i'm me and i trip on nothing. but that music made me so happy! thanks, m+s :)

tv shows that remind me of certain events are tougher, of course. who's watching tv when something memorable happens? oh, that's right. i was watching "today" when the planes hit the world trade center towers. 

 

i tivoed the coverage all day. i saved that recording for years and watched it every now and then. i had some kind of even-though-i-wasn't-there ptsd from that (remember that i don't watch violent, sad, or suspenseful tv or movies because i get too emotionally involved? yeah, that). so i made myself delete it last year or the year before. my stomach doesn't get quite the pit of lead any more when i see a low-flying plane (or any plane) that it used to, though it does still kind of, if i'm honest.

and movies that remind me of certain events. "magnolia," "american beauty," and "a beautiful mind" all remind me of falling in love with andrew. "american beauty" i'd seen just before i met him and used that as the headline for the match.com ad that i had running when i found him.

 

still one of my favorite movies. ever. fantastic.

"magnolia" we saw on one of our early dates. the soundtrack is some of the rare music that we both love. aimee mann ftw.

 

and "a beautiful mind" we saw on another early date. i was sick and missed some key scenes because i kept leaving to go to the bathroom. but it reminded me of us because he's so ridiculously smart and i just love him.

 

and falling in love with andrew is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. marrying him is the best decision i ever made, but falling in love with him kind of just happened to me.

day 6: stuff that reminds me of somewhere

FIRST i need to say this: stacie "ruffles" larson is the most amazing research fiend i have ever met. and that's saying a lot; i work with a whole organization of researchers. but she managed to track down not one, not two, not even all three of the people i mentioned in my day 5 post, but a fourth i mentioned to her today!! incredible. i am so happy to have the chance to get back in touch with these people. only one appears to be on facebook, which means i have to be a Real Adult and phone or snail-mail the rest of them, but still. so happy!!

with that out of the way, let's move on to day 6: stuff that reminds me of places. well, i'm going to go a little off the path here and name a camp song. lots of camp songs remind me of that wonderful place i miss so much, but i'm going to go with "further along." i don't even know all the words, but i have hilarious memories of lisa trying desperately to get the rhythm, clapping, stomping, and words all to go together like they were supposed to. i think the reason i don't know the words is that we always broke down laughing hysterically before we got through more than a line or two.

tv shows don't usually remind me of places, but "late night with david letterman" totally reminds me of my old studio apartment in dc in the late 1980s. i'd never really watched him much before that, but that whole year, i watched faithfully every night. i used to joke that he was the only consistent man in my life. of course, now it's the late show, but still. letterman. 

movies don't usually remind me of places either, but i remember seeing lots of good movies that same year (1988–1989) with my friend greg falick (hey, stace, there's another one! and angie musolino. we were all in grad school at american together!) at the uptown theater on connecticut avenue in dc. my favorite, and still one of my favorite movies, was the adventures of baron munchausen.

 

day 5: stuff that reminds me of someone

one of the things i love about music is how it gives me a connection to people whom i've otherwise lost. facebook has been amazing for reconnecting me with people again, and i love that about it. but i have a few friends--i can think of three especially--who seem to have just disappeared. i can't find them anywhere. these are people who were dear friends, people i never thought i'd lose touch with.

marianne was my playmate when we were little girls, living just about a quarter-mile from one another growing up. but around the time we hit high school, she moved out to powhatan county; her father was running for some public office or other and needed to live there, as i recall, and they moved into the biggest mansion i'd ever seen. still the biggest house i've ever been in. tennis courts and a swimming pool. that kind of thing. it's funny, because she (and her family) was probably the most guileless, unassuming person i've ever met. as genuine and sweet as the day is long. i miss her so much. but no idea where she disappeared to. i've even tried tracking down her siblings or parents. nothing. we didn't really share a music interest, so this isn't a lead-in to the song that reminds me of someone. she's just the first person in the list of people i wish i could find again.

sujata (suzy/suji)  is the second. we were closer than sisters in college. she was completely different from anyone i'd ever known and introduced me to so many things--ideas, music, styles--that i'd never encountered before. one of those was suzanne vega, and though i've kept up my fandom of suzanne through many albums since suzy first played her for me, hearing some of the songs off that first album still takes me back to popping the cassette in my tape deck in our dorm room, or listening to it in my walkman as i danced across campus. (really. i did that. i'd dance and sing along with my walkman. and always barefoot. always. except in the snow. i carried little shoes in my backpack in case i needed to go into a restaurant or other place that required shoes, but i was barefoot on those brick walks all over williamsburg. now i'm homesick. thanks.)

anyway, so early suzanne vega reminds me of suzy.

 

suzy lived in warrenton last time we caught up, and she looked just the same. that alluring, scratchy voice that bore the brunt of all her laughing. i loved that girl. but i've lost touch with her again. i think she and her husband and their kids are all still in warrenton and she works in d.c., but i don't know for sure. she's there in my head, though.

the third person on the list is deborah. we were great pals when i was in grad school the first time, in d.c. she was kooky and beautiful and funny, and she called me milt because she'd seen me sign "mitch" on something and couldn't read it. try as i might, i haven't been able to track her down. i thought of her every time i drove through our old stomping grounds, which was pretty often until recently--my brother lived right there until last year. anyway, she used to speed us around dc and maryland in her vw rabbit, blasting sting.

 

tv shows that remind me of other people are tough. the only people i've ever really watched tv with other than andrew are my ex-husband and my dad. football with my dad. and "northern exposure" with my ex. i love that show. it does sometimes remind me of him, but really it's just because it's such an awesome show that i feel the need to share some of it here with you. because it's my blog and it should be full of things i love.

 

i still want to go live in cicely.

and movies that remind me of people. well, "the princess bride" always reminds me of jen because we went to see it together. and were completely smitten with cary elwes. but i already mentioned that movie this week. so. "the gods must be crazy" makes me think of my dad because he thought it was hilarious and introduced it to me.

 

and to keep everything even (god knows how important that is), here's one that always reminds me of my mother. she loves it.

 

day 4: stuff that makes me sad.

i avoid feeling sad if i can. so i had a hard time thinking of these. 

the things that make me saddest are war, divorce (specifically, divorces in which the parents think that their kids can't detect the negativity they feel toward one another because they are sure they disguise it so well--trust me. it isn't working), and rape. so.

a song that makes me sad is one that makes me think about my grade-school friend macphail. he didn't die the way that vincent did, but i discovered the song not long after mac died, and so it was kind of my healing song.

 

when joe got sick, a different song helped me through and also makes me sad, in a different way. eddie from ohio is pretty diligent about removing videos online of their songs, so i give you the band's lyric and song page for this one.

a tv-show that episode that makes me sad is easier to come by. series finales often do me in. 

 

 

and of course when major characters die.

 

movies that make me sad are hardest for me to find, because i avoid sad movies so strenuously. "terms of endearment," duh.

 

but "kramer versus kramer," too.

 

but i think the one that has affected me most in, say, *this* century is the soloist. i didn't stop crying for days. mainly this was because it was shortly after someone i love like i love my own organs had spent his first days homeless, and the movie depicts homeless folks with what i can only imagine is fair reality. bawling.

the world is a confusing place.

you know how people always say don't put anything in an email you wouldn't want the world to read? i blew it tonight.

using twitterific, i feel like my mother-in-law: i love the benefits of the newfangled technology, but i don't always get it. the differences between direct replies and general tweets are not always (okay, almost never) clear to me. and that's where disaster entered the picture today.

my friend katie and i had been having a conversation on the facebook about who would play us in a movie (i can't remember how it started, but there it is). we have never met in person, and i'm not even sure we've ever seen photos of each other—we met on ravelry and continued our friendship in email and fb. anyway, i declared that i pictured helen hunt or julia louis-dreyfus. she sent me a direct tweet saying, "can't remember her name, but I picture you played by Best in Show trainer." (that is one of my favorite movies, so that endears me to her, of course.) so i tweeted back, "Omg. She very dykey, but he is hilarious. The one who hooks up with jennifer Coolidge and starts bitch magazine?"

now. if you know me, you know that i'm using "dykey" ironically (and you're as shocked as i am that someone i've never met in person nails my persona so accurately. i talk way more like jane lynch than like helen or julia, though i'm nowhere near as willowy and pretty as any of them). but i am *mortified* that i sent the message out. without the context of what we had said before the tweet, it sounds like (a) i'm using "dykey" as a slur and (b) either i'm talking about some guy or i'm talking about the same woman and saying that she can't be dykey and hilarious. or something. i have been shaking and sick to my stomach ever since i hit send and realized that i'd sent it to all my twitter followers—some of whom know me but many of whom don't—and not just katie.

so i'm apologizing for any pain or confusion i may have caused anyone who read it, out in public like my words were. i hope that putting it into context alleviates any concerns, but really i'm just sorry i said it and humbly ask for forgiveness. it's not the worst thing i've ever said and wished i could swallow—but those are stories for another day. and yes, i know that putting it here on the blog opens it to a way wider audience than my twitter followers, but i'd be terrible at apologizing in 140-character snips, and i believe that an apology should be given as publicly as the wrong involved. so here it is on the blog.

and i'm getting rid of twitterific in search of an app that is a little more my speed. (speed 16.)

and now to the headlines:

• dick cheney continues to astound me with his awfulness.
• i wish i were half the wife nancy reagan was—and continues to be—to ronald.
• lawrence o'donnell was better when he was less rabid, less rude, and used fewer of his words to call people names than to state principles.
• you don't have to be a racist to oppose someone of a different race from yours.
• someone who attempts to glue your locks—twice—and who cuts the lines for your surveillance system and who drills holes in your roof is not committing vandalism. that person is preparing your location for a crime that he or she does not want you to escape and does not want watched or recorded for evidence. a crime like, say, using explosives or gas to kill everyone inside. we knew this 15 years ago when i interned with the national clinic access project. these are not new techniques or ideas. nor are they secrets. they are well-documented, widely published, nationally known methods used by a sick, misguided, sad segment of our society that is smaller than, but not qualitatively different from, any loose coalition of terrorists motivated by political or religious rationales. so let me give you a little tip for them, in case you see them: political voices can and should be expressed by voting and free speech. religious voices can and should be heard through free speech and free exercise of religion. spread the word. seems the message (and the methods) aren't making it around to everyone.

ugh.

you know what one feature i REALLY want from my next rss-feed reader? the ability to filter out any post with the word "steampunk" in it.

that is all.

10:02 a.m.

it is really lame to post a meme after a long absence from blogging, but katy had this very cool one on her blog and i had to do it. i've been migraining daily for a few months now, which makes everything harder to do, and blogging is pretty low on the list of priorities. i'll try to be better :) meanwhile, lisa: get thee to ravelry. there is a northern neck group there.

edited to add the details: You are 10:02 a.m.
You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that's cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that's just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don't want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it's checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there's plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes.

12% of the people who took this quiz got the same evaluation.

little harriet homeowner

what a great weekend! friday was the six-year anniversary of the night on which smartboy proposed. such a romantic night, and we continue to celebrate it every year. we also celebrate a lot of the first week of november, since that's when we met eight years ago. so saturday night, we went to legume for a *delicious* dinner; i had a mixed-green salad with bistro vinaigrette--a traditional french vinaigrette atop crisp, peppery greens, the kind of salad i could eat every day and still be wowed by its simple deliciousness--followed by a braised, browned chicken leg (the crispest i've ever had, though i FAR prefer breast to leg) atop a squash puree and fried polenta. SO GOOD. the portions are not huge, so i finished everything. clean plate club for both of us. smartboy had mussels as his appetizer, which he said were great--whole garlic cloves in the sauce and garnished with thyme sprigs--followed by scallops with a little pork. they were beautifully browned and he said that they were really good. he LOVES the scallops at eleven, and he said that these were almost as good. but we both love the fact that this is within walking distance of our house, and we agreed that the service is every bit as good as that at eleven, plus dinner was far less expensive. we shared a FABULOUS chocolate-truffle cake with fresh whipped cream (omg so good!), and he brought his own beer. i wish they took reservations, but we got there early enough that we didn't have to wait long, and it was a beautiful night to wait outside. for people who do have to wait, they'll take your number and call you, which is brilliant--you can go for a walk or go to one of the bars on the block. oh, and my drink was fizzy lemonade, in which they bring you a glass of fizzy water (san pellegrino, i think), a little glass of lemon juice, and a little container of superfine sugar for you to mix it to your own taste. i love things made at table :)

so that was our yummy saturday night. but we'd also spent a great day down at the waterfront, seeing bee movie, which we loved--it's no pixar movie, but it was good--in the late morning, followed by errands a-go-go. it was a gorgeous day, clear and cool, so i didn't even mind that some of my errands were foiled (victoria's secret wouldn't take the bra back that i'd bought online in exchange for one that fit, and i didn't even find one that i liked in my size; macy's found only the sale price of the skirt i wanted to exchange, and i didn't have the order paperwork or tags with me to prove that i'd paid more, so i had to bring it home, where i fortunately found the paperwork today; and i found no knitting books or magazines that i wanted to buy at barnes and noble). but i did unexpectedly find some adorable black rain boots with white polka dots! we went to dsw to find shoelaces, which i also found, along with some nifty gel inserts for my new heels and boots. little victories :)

and we went to lowe's, where i got some great advice for planting the little fall-planting perennials i'd bought from white flower farm (thanks, jen!!) and we looked at xmas decorations. i am SO getting into being the owner of this big old victorian! i have visions of christmas decorations in our beautiful living room, greens spread out on the white victorian mantle reflected in the mercury mirror above it, and candles glowing in every window. we found some nifty little ornaments (the characters from the rankin-bass "rudolph the red-nosed reindeer"), but not the candles or aluminum tree we're seeking :).

today, we planted the perennials, which was much more fun and soothing than i thought it would be. i am NOT a grower of things. i kill plants--not intentionally--this isn't murder, but plantslaughter. so i don't plant things often. but i've had this gift certificate for a long time, and i wanted to buy something pretty to plant. i'm really hoping that these do well, or at least some of them do. right now, they look like sweet little tiny plants surrounded by huge wreaths of cypress mulch keeping our young dogwood tree company.

edited to update stitch count: and now i'm knitting and browsing, the perfect way to stay cozy :) today: 2,253 stitches/50,000 for the month; 3 blog posts/30 for the month; still at the same number of words as before, though. too busy to write yesterday, and i might be too tired today.

so life is good. :) hope yours is, too.

it's ravelriffic!

if you're not on ravelry yet, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. i made some notes today about how i used it today, which was a pretty light ravelring day for me.
i'm knitting a pair of socks from an online pattern. i don't have to print or even bookmark the pattern; it's in my projects in my ravelry notebook, so i just go to my projects and click the pattern. i can note which round i'm on and any mods i make as i go right there in my notes field. ravelry has noted that it's one of my wips, so it's right at the top of my projects tab, the first, default page of my notebook.
i browsed through what projects people are making or have made with yarns i have in my stash, to get ideas for things i might make and see how their projects have turned out. i can see progress and finished-object photos as well as yardage requirements and, for patterns available online, click through to the patterns themselves. i can even read comments that people have about the things they've made, seeing, for example, whether they're happy with them or not and why.
i can make notes in the stash part of my notebook about what i bought that yarn for or what i might want to use it for (especially after browsing the patterns), since i can track how much i have and the patterns tell me how much i'd need.
i can send messages to users to ask them questions about things they've made.
and of course i can find out about patterns i never would have found otherwise. there are patterns--all in one place--from online, book, and periodical sources. everywhere imaginable. and i can see all the different versions people have made, what yarns they used, and what they thought of the pattern and their results, all with one click. if i'm not sure about a yarn, i can click through to more information about that, too.
some days i do more than this, but this is what i did today. i have loved not having to worry about bookmarking patterns on a zillion different web sites any more or remembering which books have which patterns that i'd thought about making for whom--ravelry lets me keep all of that information in one place. when i want to start another project, i can just look at the queue page of my notebook to see what i've got queued up and choose something to cast on. all the information i need is right there--where the pattern is, what i need to make it, and, if i'd thought about it, for whom i'd wanted to make it. i could even have noted by when i needed to make it. (lately, i've been noting just lots of patterns i want to make for me--bad bee.) it's delicious. see you there soon! :)