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blah blah blah

December 3, 2003 :: 11:02 pm

I don’t have something interesting or profound to say every night, so with that in mind, I offer you:

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!

I just had a nice dinner and conversation with Doc and Kathryn, some iChat with three other friends, and now I’m going to go downstairs and sloth around watching TV for a while before bed. And, to add insult to laziness, I am also going to flip through an issue of Teen People that I swiped from work. I’m gonna get me up to speed on all the latest teen pop culture! Word to your mother!

Oh, which reminds me, one of my favorite parts of “Inside The Actor’s Studio” comes at the end of every episode, where James Lipton asks the guest what his or her favorite curse word is. Six times out of ten, the actor will say “motherfucker.” Such a great word. If you want to hear it more than you’ve ever heard it in your life, go see “Bad Santa.”

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bad days and bad dreams

October 17, 2003 :: 11:15 pm

So I’m working on some paintings for a show that I have in two weeks, and I did the stupidest thing imaginable. Laden with two heavy grocery bags, my purse, my gym bag, and my work satchel, I turned around a little too closely to a new, nearly finished painting and sent both it and the easel crashing to the garage floor. The painting caught on my shoulder, and the corner of the easel caught it from behind, and tore two nasty rips through the canvas.

Sigh.

I was so mad that I kicked it across the garage floor, face down, and stalked inside. I don’t usually get mad, but what a complete bonehead move. This just proves how incredibly uncoordinated I am.

I am trying to repair it. Hopefully it won’t look too bad. We’ll see. Anyway, this picture is a detail of part of it (part that didn’t rip). I think I’m calling it “Conglomeration.”

Doc had a bad day too — his computer refused to launch Classic or any Classic apps, with a weird error message about missing OpenGL and other resources. It took all morning and most of the afternoon to diagnose and fix the problem. It seems to be working now — had to extract ClassicStartup.app from the system disk, reinstall it, then reupdate the system. What a pain. But at least now EverCrack will run. :)

I dreamed last night about having to try to blow up large trucks. I had some remote control device, and I was following four large semi trucks on a highway, and I kept detonating but the blast would always occur just a little too far behind the last truck, because I had to do some weird two-part key press combination on the device. It was like they didn’t know that I was there, or what I was trying to do. Finally, the trucks pulled around into a circle with one in the middle (circling the wagons, kind of), and I was able to sneak in the middle and plant this tiny black plastic device with a white plastic top underneath the Coca-cola truck in the middle, and then sneak off and blow it up remotely. As I pressed the complicated key combination on my keyboard to blow it up, I had these mixed feelings of triumph at having succeeded and horror at having just killed actual innocent people. But it was my job, somehow, and I knew I had to do it.

Then I had to sneak away, and I was apparently in some sort of weird huge gated complex that I had to get out of, like an airport or something. I ran through a spiral parking garage, then joined a long line of people waiting to get into a small shack near the edge of the complex to watch a filmstrip. I was worried about running, that maybe it would look suspicious, but I knew that I could just say that I was running away from the blast and act all worried like I was spreading the alarm. I had a walkie talkie type thing in my hand, that was my remote control detonator, and I was trying to hide it in my hand and act nonchalant like maybe it was just a cell phone or something. Guards were randomly searching people in line, but they passed me up.

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more stories

September 25, 2003 :: 10:59 pm

Mom’s friend Linda Eshbaugh died last week. Mom drove up on Tuesday for the funeral. Linda had MS, and I don’t think that she was particularly aware of her surroundings towards the end. I didn’t realize that Joel and Mike had lost touch. Joel has a baby boy now — yikes!! This is the same kid who, with my brother in the midst of an awful teenage hangover, shot the remaining beer with a BB gun in the backyard.

Our vacation has been pretty nice so far. Too bad it’s almost over. We’ve kept pretty busy, but still had a lot of time to just relax, sleep, read, work on projects, etc. We finished our Flash class. The instructor was not that great at instructing, although she did know the subject matter fairly well. Had to take Neko to the vet — tapeworms (eeeew!). I got my hair cut again. Skip said that I did a really good job on the blonde highlights. Oh, and he can get me my special expensive conditioner at half price.

More stories:

Dana

My babysitter’s name in Houston was Dana. I don’t know her last name. She was, obviously, older than me, and I thought that she was just the definition of cool. It’s funny that I don’t remember anything about her, other than she had light brown hair and freckles. I think that I really idolized her in some ways. I felt so proud that I had a “friend” who was older and cooler.

Sesame Street Party

One year, I had a Sesame Street birthday party. It might have been my 5th or 6th birthday, I can’t remember. Mom made the cake and all the decorations. The party favors, which were used as table decorations, are something I will never forget. Mom took empty paper towel or toilet paper rolls, filled them with candy and treats, wrapped them in green crepe paper, and put some sort of yellow styrofoam ball on the top. These were the Sesame Street lightposts.

Babysitting the neighbor kids

To make extra money, Mom used to babysit neighborhood kids in Houston. One little girl who was younger than me, and I want to say her name was Roxanne although I don’t think that’s actually right, apparently liked to eat bugs. I think that she once ate a cockroach in the backyard. She also liked sticking her fingers into the electrical sockets. I think that Mom babysat the Schaffner kids from next door, and the Guarisco kids from around the corner. Robert Schaffner was my age, or maybe a little younger. His mom’s name was Dinah, and she was divorced. Robert had a little kid’s crush on me – he would write me notes calling me his girlfriend. His older brother’s name was Mark. They had a very large St. Bernard dog that would drool constantly. I think that the dog was taller than me, because I have this memory of looking UP at the dog drool coming towards my face. There were three Guarisco kids, and I don’t remember the boys’ names but the girl’s name was Michelle. She was younger than me. I liked going to their house because it was two-story, and we could slide down the stairs or play with their Slinky on the stairs. The boys also had a bunch of Star Wars action figures in a big Darth Vader case, that we played with. I remember one book on their bookshelf that I was fascinated with – a little tiny paperback book about chameleons. The colors were beautiful, and I was fascinated by the fact that there was an animal that could change its color to anything it wanted to. I wanted to be able to change MY color whenever I wanted.

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new fall pants

September 23, 2003 :: 3:54 pm

Well well well… it seems that things are looking up on the job front. If I don’t get the designer job in M&D (which I really really am hoping that I get!!), at least I have a little consolation in that my current job apparently will change dramatically. I had a little talk with the AVP about it, who was worried that I am thinking about leaving. I told her that I don’t want to, but I have to have a change. I have to do something more creative, and if I can’t do it here, I’ll find someplace else to do it. So with any luck, I won’t have to deal with people wanting me to stop their Quark from crashing and help them unjam the printer and install a new version of their browser and determine why their e-mail attachments don’t go through. She promised to find some way to change my job description, even change my reporting department, to allow me to do creative and design work. I made it clear that I don’t want to do technical stuff anymore that is non-design-related.

New fall pants that fit properly make me happy!! It’s the little things sometimes… pants that are a good color and a nice material and are long enough and make me look classy and cool and not fat.

Category My Boring Life, Work | Tags: | No Comments
the week before vacation

September 18, 2003 :: 9:47 pm

Man, am I tired. This week has been truly nonstop. A short recap: Monday and Wednesday we had Flash class after work, from 6 pm – 10 pm. Tuesday we raced from work to the grocery store, shopped for stuff for the party tomorrow, raced home, showered, and went to a late dinner at the Macaroni Grill with Kathryn, Brett, Arushi, Shyamal, Rachel, and Brittney. That was a lot of fun. Tonight we went to the liquor store to get beer and wine and stuff for the party, to Central Market to get some soy ice cream, and then once we got home I started cooking: focaccia bread with sun-dried tomatoes, a cranberry-orange cake, cream cheese icing, artichoke-spinach dip, meatballs, teriyaki tofu triangles. My back hurts and I forgot to eat dinner. Actually, that always happens when I cook a lot — I don’t get hungry, and often I don’t eat at all. Oh, I also had to run out and get the tofu from Hong Kong Market, because they don’t sell pressed dry tofu at the regular grocery. Doc kept busy cleaning up the house, even though he actually has two separate headaches going on at the same time.

More stories:

I have always been somewhat phobic about bees and wasps and other flying stinging insects. When I was little, I used to wish that someone would invent a bee suit, so I could walk outside and not have to worry about bees. The suit would be made of a clear hard plastic, and it would fit my body perfectly, hovering always about 1mm away from my skin. I could breathe through a mesh screen placed across an opening over my mouth and nose. This way, bees could land on me and try to sting me, and they couldn’t. I would be protected.

My fear probably started, or at least was exacerbated, by a nature story I read in a kids’ magazine (maybe Highlights or Ranger Rick) about the African killer bees that had invaded South America and were moving northwards towards the United States. Well, I knew enough to know that Texas was basically the bottom of the U.S., so the bees would probably reach us before anyone. This was about the worst possible news my six-year-old mind couuld imagine — flying stinging insects that CHASE you ON PURPOSE. Everyone always said that bees are more afraid of you than you are of them — well, not with THESE bees!

There were also some bee incidents when I was little that scared me. On two separate occasions, Mike was attacked by multiple wasps; once, at the end of our block where there were some fields and vacant lots, and again at my dad’s company picnic near the horse rides. The company picnic incident may have been someone else entirely, and my memory has turned it into Mike; I’m not sure. But I think that the end-of-the-block incident involved blue wasps (maybe there’s no such thing, but that’s what I remember) and they got into his pants or his little toddler jumpsuit or something like that.

Another incident happened in Plano when I was walking to elementary school. I distinctly remember that I was wearing a rainbow-striped terrycloth tank top with white spaghetti straps, and a fucking ENORMOUS bumble bee landed on me as I was walking across the teacher parking lot, and it crawled up my arm and into my ARMPIT, and I just stood there with my arm raised in the air, completely immobilized with fear.

The only time that I have ever been stung by a bee, though, was when I was older. This was in Plano, before we got the swimming pool. I was walking in bare feet in the backyard at night, WELL AFTER all flying stinging creatures are supposed to have gone home, and I got stung on my little toe by one of those giant red wasps that was crawling through the grass. I stepped near him, or maybe even on him, and he stung my little baby toe. It hurt like hell. I’m sure that I cried like a baby. I was actually a little insulted, because they aren’t supposed to be out at night! Nighttime is supposed to be safe for the bee-phobic!

Category Food, Memories, My Boring Life, Party, School | Tags: | No Comments
i’m 31

September 14, 2003 :: 8:44 pm

We have had no phone service and thus no DSL since last Thursday. The phone company apparently cut our line when they dug through our yard to replace our neighbor’s line. It’s unbelievably difficult to talk to a human being at the phone company (and initially you can’t; a machine “initiates a repair call” for you) and later they tell you that the problem is your fault (“we show that the problem is a short in one of your telephone sets.”) It’s supposed to be repaired by tomorrow evening, but I’m not holding my breath. I WILL, however, demand a refund for the five days (or more) that we have been without service.

I had a good birthday. We went out to breakfast, saw “American Splendor,” and Doc gave me some really cool gifts, including a Kitchenaid coffee grinder, a lava lamp, and this totally cool DVD box set of old educational films. The weather was perfect — upper 60s/low 70s, and light rain all day. In fact, we’ve had rain pretty steadily since Friday.

More stories. It turns out that I have a lot to say about the 1970s. I didn’t know that there was this much to tell.

For first grade and half of second, I went to Alief Elementary, a public school near my house. My closest friend was a girl named Tawny Crane. She was my age, but I thought that she was much cooler than me because she already knew how to write her name in cursive handwriting. She, and what seemed like all the other girls except me, always wore these knee-high brown boots that zipped all the way up the side. I very much wanted a pair of knee-high brown boots, but I don’t think that I ever got any. I’m pretty sure that we didn’t have a whole lot of money back then, because dad was in grad school or maybe it was his first job out of grad school, and Mom made most of my clothes and I distinctly remember drinking a lot of powdered milk.

I also had another friend who lived somewhere along my walk back home from school. I don’t remember her name, but I loved going to her house because she was in ballet and had a real actual pink tutu, which I think she let me wear. I had this weird obsession with ballerinas when I was a kid. She also wore these white leggings that were made of wool, or they were fuzzy or something.

I was very shy when I was little (I guess I still am, but I was much worse off then). I never felt that I fit in or that I was cool. Once, in first grade, I remember lying to some kids who were talking about a movie that they’d seen, and when they asked me if I’d seen it, I said yes. Of course, I hadn’t seen it, had no idea what it even was, but I said something about liking that part when that guy said that funny thing, or something fairly general in nature, but still feeling like I was treading on very dangerous ground, because they might find out that I lied.

There was a joke that Grandma told me that for some reason I associate with a particular classroom in the 2nd grade: Knock knock. Who’s there? Isabel. Isabel who? Isabel necessary on a bicycle?

Alief Elementary had a Christmas fair, and they had a bunch of tables set up with what must have been homemade crafts that the moms made. But I remember thinking that it was the most wonderful Christmas store in the world, because I could take the few dollars that I had saved up and buy a gift for Grandma and something for mom and dad too. I don’t really remember what I bought her; I think it may have been some ball-shaped ornament. That was probably the first time that I had ever shopped.

– not posted at 9:44 p.m., because i have no internet access :(

Category Memories, My Boring Life, School, Technology | Tags: | 4 Comments
somewhere, over Roy G. Biv…

September 10, 2003 :: 9:59 pm

Went to the second session of Flash I tonight, and the instructor once again failed to show up for class. Somebody who works there came and talked to us all for a while about rescheduling everything. The instructor’s ride apparently bailed on her. They told us that they’re going to get somebody new to teach (a Macromedia employee, and apparently someone who will show up when they are supposed to) and they’re going to try to reschedule it for next week and the week after.

We got new dishes, 40% off at Pier One. They’re oh-so-gorgeous! They’re magically delicious! This picture doesn’t do them justice. They are really more of a deep rich maroon color with flecks of black and some green, and the white in the picture is actually more of a deep cream color with dark crackle lines. They are thick, and golden stoneware. Now what I want to do is get some takeout Chinese food from Tam’s or PeiWei and sit out on the back porch with our new dishes and some hot saké! This sounds appealing also partially because the weather is finally taking a turn for the better. Today was pretty blazingly hot but we’re supposed to have two cool fronts come through in the next several days, dropping temperatures into the 70s for highs on my birthday.

Speaking of fan-fucking-tastic weather, we did have afternoon rain today, and at 5:00 there was the most fabulously gorgeous completely hemispherical double rainbow in the sky. From some of the flatter parts of the city I could see it all the way from ground to ground. There was a slightly less intense inverted rainbow sitting above it. I wish I’d had the camera!!! Doc said that rainbows don’t photograph well.

Dishes and rainbows. Yeesh, I sound like such a girl.

Okay, more stories from my upcoming book of Memoirs That Interest Only Me…

Some random things about living in Houston, Texas, which I survived from the ages of birth until seven:

Houston is very hot and sticky and we lived near a bayou (like a large stinky creek with man-made concrete sides). Consequently, we had lots of snakes in the area. I remember at least once an ambulance showing up at our house to trap and take away a very poisonous snake. I’m not sure why an ambulance, but OK. Cats get fire trucks; snakes get ambulances. I thought it was pretty cool. Maybe it was because there was always the possibility of someone getting bitten. One time Mom went out to get the mail, leaving me inside with the front door open, and (the way I remember it) when she walked back to the house there was a large water moccasin sitting on the front porch between her and me.

I hate snakes.

In our backyard, which I remember as being very large although it was probably just because I was very small (yes, Katy was once small; I was not birthed at six feet tall), we had various fun things to play with including a big patch of pampas grass. Now I think that pampas grass is incredibly ugly, but we had actually hollowed out the back of it along the fence and we’d go crawl in there to play or hide. It was probably full of bugs, and maybe even snakes. (Man, I sound like Such a Grown Up, don’t I?!) We also had a garden behind the garage that Mike and I liked to dig in with shovels. We planted peanuts in the flowerbeds along the garage wall, and those peanuts kept coming year after year.

I had a dog named Anthony. He was a white cocker spaniel with reddish-brown markings (which I think is called party-colored, for whatever reason). Dad did not like animals, did not want pets ever ever ever, but somehow mom talked him into letting me have a puppy. I was so happy to have a dog. I used to sing to him about his soft floppy ears: “scratch behind the ears, does that feel good my dear? Anthony, you’re in puppy heaven, you know that.”

You can see why I’m not a lyricist.

We had to give Anthony away when we moved to Dallas. I’m not sure why, actually, since most people don’t give away their dogs when they move, but I didn’t question it. I was upset, sad, angry of course. I guess that I thought that’s just what people did when they moved. Dogs didn’t move with people.

Category House, Memories, My Boring Life, Technology, Weather | Tags: | No Comments
is anybody ever really interested in anyone else’s memoirs?

September 8, 2003 :: 10:12 pm

Went to the first session of Flash I tonight, but the instructor never showed up. Car trouble or something. Had a fun weekend with friends – happy hour on Friday with Joel, Valerie, Kim, and Brittney, which then turned into several hours hanging out at their house and playing board games and talking and eating semisweet chocolate chips. Saturday went to dinner with Bruce and Leslie at Trinity Hall. Sunday night met Brittney for ice cream. Shopped for Doc for his birthday. Nearly bought a full set of Asian Crackle dinnerware from Pier One, but then found out that it is neither dishwasher or microwave safe. I bought one set and am abusing it to see just how non-safe it is, or if it will work out. It’s 40% off, so it’s hard to pass it up.

For A Poet

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,

And laid them away in a box of gold;

Where long will cling the lips of the moth,

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth;

I hide no hate, I am not even wroth

Who found earth’s breath so keen and cold;

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,

And laid them away in a box of gold.

– Countee Cullen

I’m going to start writing down my stories so I don’t forget them. True life stories, of things that happened to me, memories, that for whatever reason I don’t want to forget. Things that are fresh or at least still live near the front of my mind, but probably won’t forever.

So here are some of my early memories:

For preschool and kindergarten, I went to a tiny private school called Applewood Elementary in Houston. I don’t remember much of preschool, of course, except that it involved a lot of glitter and glue and colored popcorn, and learning Spanish. I can still count to ten, I know some of the colors, and I can sing two songs phonetically, including “La Cucaracha.” We made Christmas ornaments, one of which I still have — a little styrofoam boot that I stuck red sequins and pearl-tipped pins into. We also drew on colored construction paper using q-tips dipped in bleach. Wow, was that safe for a 4-year-old? Maybe not. Mom did some substitute teaching for my class. I thought that I was special and so I went and sat in her lap behind the teacher’s desk. We sang lots of songs at school, including one that went “If all of the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops, oh what a rain it would be. I wouldn’t care if the sun would never shine; I’d keep on eating raindrops all the time.” I looooooved thinking about that song.

In kindergarten, my teacher was Mrs. Walls (whom my mom still keeps in touch with). In her class we got to play Red Rover at recess. I think that once I peed my pants because there was no teacher in the room, and I had to go, but I knew I wasn’t allowed to leave the classroom by myself. Also, the stalls had no doors in this bathroom. In this class we once got to make some candy — we melted chocolate chips and butter, and poured it over those little crunchy Chinese noodles. I think that we called it “worms,” or something. Mrs. Walls had our class over to her house once (which was only 2 streets over from my house). I can’t remember why, but we were in her backyard eating watermelon. She lived on the bayou, so that was behind her back fence. I remember her backyard being extremely large and long, but that may be because I was pretty small. She had a cement back porch/deck with wooden trellising and vines covering it and providing shade. She must have known that I didn’t like watermelon because she gave me a coconut popsicle instead.

Category Memories, My Boring Life, Poetry, School | Tags: | No Comments
i adore rain

September 2, 2003 :: 7:40 pm

We have had two days of beautiful rain, a slow steady drizzle that lasts all day. A Washington rain. It makes my hair all fuzzy but I don’t care. Walking around we could smell the fragrant wood scent of damp forest and drizzly rain (and this was in the middle of a neighborhood). I love waking up to mottled grey overcast skies.

Random updates: We are having our big (dead) tree removed, which makes me very sad. I am in the process of ripping all our CDs to MP3. It’s a big hairy project but it needs to be done at some point. I am painting again, and not bathroom walls this time. I bought new sleep pants, and they are red plaid and very comfortable. We are having a birthday party in a few weeks (want to come?). I am looking forward to planning the halloween party. Possible theme: Modern Deities. Example: Velveetos, the god of processed cheese food product.

Last night’s dream: Something really disturbing, involving being in someone’s apartment, which was partially filled with sand. I had to bury a bomb in the sand, and it was a little black Mac-crash bomb, with a gold stripe around the middle. My mission was to cause maximum destruction, and this bomb merely blew itself out of the sand, with a little popping noise. Next I tried converting some of the Christmas tree ornaments from the tree behind me into bombs, but I had difficulty with this. The people I was with asked the next-door neighbor to borrow some power, and I tried fashioning my own power plug out of parts of another plug, plus some gold tape of some sort that I folded over to use as the prongs. I had to carry the thing in my mouth, and it was painfully tingly.

Category Dreams, My Boring Life, Weather | Tags: | No Comments
dammit, i need more TIME

May 22, 2003 :: 10:06 pm

Good lord. There are just not enough hours in the day. It seems like before I know it, it’s midnight and I have to get to bed (katy on less than 7 hours of sleep is extra crabby), and it feels like I haven’t accomplished nearly enough. I work at a computer 8 hours a day, come home, work on my computer for another 3 hours, squeeze in dinner, maybe a little tv for unwinding and relaxation, quality time with Doc somewhere in there, and oh, all the OTHER non-digital creative stuff I am compelled to do… Could I just have about 3 more hours, please?? That’s all I ask, 3 hours per day. That way when it’s 11 p.m., I have 12 p.m., 13 p.m., and 14 p.m. left to go before it’s midnight.

Little Neko, who we estimate is maybe four months old, appears to have gone into heat today. I think that’s a little young, but who knows. Maybe she’s just small for her age. We thought that she was just being cute and kittenish, rubbing herself maniacally all over the carpet. But she wouldn’t stop for anything, and then she started crouching with her butt in the air and her tail to one side. Hmmmm…. kind of suspicious. I picked her up and she desperately wanted to be held and petted and scratched, but still kept trying to poke her butt in the air. VERY suspicious, because she is normally the squirmiest little fuzzy creature you can imagine. An extensive internet search revealed that this is typical cat-in-estrus behaviour. I am amazed how difficult it was to find any site that had straightforward information on how a cat in heat behaves.

So we get to schedule a little surgery tomorrow, I think. Poor baby. Snip snip.

Book news: We have a book signing at the Barnes and Noble at Mockingbird and 75, on June 14th from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. If you are reading this, come out!! We need you to be there, even if you’ve already bought a copy of the book!! We are going to do a little cooking demo and then sign books. (Assuming anyone comes to it at all.) Also, we are trying to set up a signing at a place called Book People in Austin. Borders at Preston and Royal wants to do a signing as well. Arushi and I know the PR guy, Jonathan Briggs, from high school.

Category Books, Cats, My Boring Life, Writing | Tags: | No Comments
ennui

May 15, 2003 :: 9:36 pm

We have a book signing! I’m not sure when, but it will be at the Barnes & Noble on Mockingbird and I-75.

I’m so tired, mentally. I have lots of email that I need to answer, I have lots of junk to file and put away in my office, I have lots of updates to make to the QFC website, I have work to do on a freelance web design project, I want to catch up on the latest news at Alternet.org. And I don’t have the energy to do any of it. I feel too tired to even write in the blog this evening.

I was sick most of last week, probably with strep throat or some such nastiness. It’s going around my office.

Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be starting on my next book.

Yikes. Just… yikes.

Category My Boring Life | Tags: | No Comments

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