November 28, 2006
~ needing therapy ~
The past week of my life has not been all that great. At work, I have been super stressed about a big deal that's happening this week. Yesterday, I worked from 8:00 in the a.m. until 8:00 in the p.m. Today, I am all about the butterflies in my stomach over this big deal. The main reason for the majority of my anxiety is the part about having to rely on other people to complete their assignments and return them to me in a timely manner. In my personal life, ... the past week I was overcommitted in every way, I felt that I had not the right kind of personal time for myself, I did not hold my alcohol well, and in general felt badly about a lot of things. Hopefully this is going to change starting last night at 8:01 p.m.
I have multiple invitations for formal dinners this Saturday (one is the annual work-related Christmas dinner, and the other is a formal dinner for my Masters program). I feel obliged to attend both, but I'm hoping to go snowboarding instead. Yesterday in the mail, I received the newsletter for the Boise School District and it listed all of the upcoming holiday concerts and right now, nothing sounds like a better way to spend the evening than on a folding chair enjoying some punch and holiday music as performed by second graders.
Also, my eye doctor has suggested that I receive a glandular plug for my eyes. Before that, I'm going to try a new brand of contacts, eye drops, and contact fluid. But what is super exciting about my eye situation is that the ointment that I put into my eyes every night...the doctor recommended a different ointment that is $2 a tube instead of $9 a tube, which is awesome considering that I go through two tubes a month.
Over the weekend, I finished my very first sewing project. It turned out awesome and I am proud of my handiwork. I have decided, however, to try to make it again. As it stands, I am tired of ripping out the seams on this item and I just want to have a fresh start. Now that I've done it once, I feel that I could make it so much better. Yet, while it does have a lot of not-visible flaws, it is definitely something that I will be wearing in public (actually, I wore it out dancing this weekend and got some good compliments by fashionistas). Also, I have a good amount of work done on the felted bag that I've been working on. I got to the part where I was able to felt the body of the bag...and it did not turned out as expected. As you may remember, I was planning on making a felted messenger-style bag for my laptop. But it felted much more than I anticipated (despite having made a swatch and doing calculations) so now it will be more like a large tote and I will make a knitted sleeve for my laptop which I can then carry around in the felted tote. I located some perfect fabric which I will use to make a lining. Right now, I am working on the handles and it should be done this weekend, which is very exciting.
Anyhoo, last night while I was leaving work, I had the opportunity to listen to the political commentary on public radio about the status of the Quebec nation and I felt as though I was back in my class on Issues in Canadian Politics discussing sovereignty rights and the democratic ideal. Ahh...intellectual stimulation.
November 20, 2006
~ Existing in an Alien Time Vortex ~
Not too long ago, I spent approximately 45 minutes in an alien time vortex. As you might imagine, it was rather odd. Not that I remember it, as the aliens have deleted the experience from my memory. Nevertheless, they were not able to delete the fact that my body has lived through 45 minutes of unaccounted for time. Indeed, that is THE ONLY EXPLANATION for the sudden disorientation that I experienced at 10:05 when I looked at the clock and realized that only fifteen minutes had past since a certain event happened at 9:50 which triggered me to look at the clock.
In other news, my weekend was nice. I've been working on sewing a skirt as my first project. Not to worry, you shall be seeing an enormous post all about that experience when the time comes. I feel that I have great potential as a sewer. My very very first project is a great deal more advanced than the usual basic beginner projects, and given my utter lack of sewing history and guidance, I feel that I am a natural. I have been learning a lot, mainly through a meticulous thought process involving the consultation of sewing reference books and trial and error. The most helpful thing that I have learned is that the cutting of fabric is not undoable, but the sewing of fabric is. This is to say that I have been cutting very carefully, cautiously, and thoughtfully, and have gotten a lot of bang for the buck out of my seam ripper as a way of pressing CTRL Z on my sewing. The result of my efforts will not be absolutely perfect, but as the first project, it is more about the process of learning and practicing than the end product.
I have also been running for exercise, and that has had mixed results. I am feeling envigorated and amazingly fit, but am having difficulty with stomach cramping. Yesterday, I had a particularly painful run. I have decided to not attempt to run for a few days.
On Saturday, Josh and I went out to Eagle for coffee at Rembrants - - which is an old church converted into a gallery /slash/ coffee shop. It's awesomeness is reflected in all of the many pieces of art, the amazing seating, the good lighting, the converted church aspect, the tastey beverages...but at the same time I loathe the establishment for the fact of its all-encompassing "Eagle"ishness. For the benefit of my many readers who have not had the pleasure of experiencing Eagle, it is .... ugh ... everything that I hate about yuppie american suburbia. I thoroughly enjoyed my coffee experience, working on my insurmountable knitting project, but whenver I would glance up for some people watching, I would see all of the plastic surgery'd women in ridiculously expensive clothing and an equally ridiculous amount of makeup and their Ken-dolls for husbands, and it was a total alien mind fuck. There was, however, an adorable couple who sat on the couch across from us, playing Yahtzee!, embodying no Eagle qualities, and being very friendly and silly. After the coffee experience, we walked around downtown Eagle, to reaffirm the notion that downtown Eagle is not worth the bother. Shabby chic with Western overtones is the interior decorating style of choice in Eagle, and every shop that we entered was nothing except for brand new furniture made to look weathered and old alongside ranchwear and cowboy motifs. Josh and I were particularly judgemental on that day.
After our Eagle experience, we drove up Highway 55 for a while to get to the ghost town of Pearl. We located the turnoff from the highway and drove for several miles. The road was a muddy hilly narrow windy road which would have been best traveled with an off-road vehicle. My Toyota Corolla made it a good distance, but Josh and I conceeded defeat as we approached a huge mud pit that might have engulfed all of us. Instead, we pulled over and had an adventure wandering the hills.
November 19, 2006
~ Knitting Red Caplet & Bicycle Hat ~
Two knitting projects - which I completed months ago - that I wanted to direct everyone's attention to are a red caplet that I made from a pattern in this book and a bicycle hat that I knat during my trip to Portland from a pattern that I developed all by myself. The red caplet isn't anything astonishing, but I did thoroughly enjoy knitting it. It's made from some cheapo very soft and snuggly TLC Amore yarn and on my person, looks something like this
While I was in Portland several months ago, I visited this amazing yarn shop adjacent to a coffee shop, devoted entirely to the practice of knitting. In a bin, I located two shades of green Peruvian merino wool. Because I enjoy the act of knitting and because I enjoy sitting at coffee shops, I knat this hat over the weekend at various Portland coffee shops. The bicycle pattern is fair isle and I modeled it directly from my Gary Fisher Tassajara, which explains why it looks more like a mountain bike than a generic stick figure bicycle. The next time I make one of these (and it is quite likely that I'll make a road bike version, and maybe a cruiser, tandem, unicycle - - hell, I could have a whole line of bicycle hats to sell!), I shall make the tires less pronounced.
November 13, 2006
~ Heart Rate Monitor ~
Sometimes I wonder if I do too many things at once. I am a person with many interests and hobbies, and my life's mission seems to involve personal projects of all nature. At the same time, variety is the spice of life, and I love it. Nothing makes me more miserable than monotony. Anyhow, given my predisposition to multitasking, it should come as no suprise that I have decided to take up sewing. Yes, sewing. I had something of a revelation while I was in Austin and I have spent the weeks since then mulling the idea around in my brain. It is very exciting for me. Certain individuals may think that activities such as knitting and sewing are part of an archaic homemaker tradition, but, as a follower of neo-homemakingism, I view these activities as a wonderful creative outlet with valuable civil society potential.
Speaking of such things, there are multiple knitting projects that I would like to share. Unfortunately, I have not been, as they say, on the ball. For Josh's birthday, I knat him a fantastic green hat with fair isle mountain bikes in some Peruvian merino wool I found in Portland. Additionally, the fair isle messenger bag is coming along nicely, slowly but surely. It's about 275 stitches in the round and the fair isle is rather timeconsuming. I must say, I have big plans for this bag. Hopefully by the time that I have the knitting portion and the felting portion completed, I will have mastered my sewing machine enough to sew a reinforced canvass lining with zippered pockets. Incidentally, I have inside of me a dream of one day having an online shop to sell some of my creations.
In other news, some of you may have utilized your visual abilities and observed that there has been a redesign of this site. I would like to thank my dear Amy for her clever skillz and kindness in volunteering her time. And for those firefox users, there are plans to fix the wonkiness of the parsing or whateveritis, so sit tight and hold thyne horses.
Anyhoot, I haven't really done anything of note recently. Over the weekend, I began reading Anchee Min's Becoming Madame Mao. I am enjoying it, but I'm not thrilled by the style of narration. On Friday, Josh and I went to the dollar theater to see The Illusionist. Incidentally, the Overland Park Cinema has the best movie deal in Boise: for three dollars, one gets a movie entrance, a beverage and food item. A week ago, Josh and I saw Jet Li's Fearless at OPC and it was great. I, for one, cannot quite comprehend why people go to full priced movies these days - - at $9.00 for a ticket and then $4.00 for popcorn and $4.00 for a drink, it's way too much money. Especially when you can have it all for $3.00 and a little patience.
November 4, 2006
~ Hiking the 8th Street Interpretive Trail, Drinking and Riding to Wineries, and costumed parties ~
This past Saturday was a great day for me. On Friday after I got off of work, Josh and I hiked the 8th Street Interpretive Trail. It was a beautiful fall evening. We spent the majority of the hike brainstorming what we wanted to be for halloween. A few months ago, I came up with the idea of being an activist for planetary rights, protesting the demotion of Pluto to less than full planet status. I thought I'd wear a garbage bag fashioned into a dark orb, spraypainted gray, with leggings and a protest sign proclaiming "Pluto is a planet, dammit!" No one seemed to think this as brilliant as I and the idea withered along with the fame and fortune of the once glorious Pluto. At about the time that I had this flash of brilliance, Josh decided that we should go dressed in Mormon temple garments which are not all that attractive. The plan went so far as to investigate the distributor of these elusive underpants, but we discovered that one needs one's Mormon identification numbers to even register one's garment size, so that idea was out the window. On our hike, we threw out hundreds of ideas. We were focusing on couple costumes, like Thomas Jefferson & Benjamin Franklin, Pamela Anderson & Kid Rock, and once he came up with the idea, Josh simply would not let go of the idea of going as Mr. Rogers and the Cat. And I found his manner of persuasion most unconvincing; he kept turning to me and articulating several "mew, mew, mew"s. I dunno, I feel very OVER the whole "going as a cat" thing, even if it's the Mr. Rogers cat. Me, I was obsessed about going as our pre-cool selves. By the end of the hike, we disagreed on the matter as though we were disagreeing over the quantity of some lifesaving elixir to administer to a dying person. Which was kind of ridiculous. Here's some photos of the hike.
And then there came Saturday.
I had been looking forward to the possibility of sleeping in on Saturday morning as a person wandering the Sahara would crave an oasis...my bed, the warm little nook tucked away from the street and city noise, where I have all my sweet little dreams and snuggle in my bundly pillows...yet there was to be none of that on Saturday morning. Somehow, the chi wasn't there. I couldn't find that spot of amazingness that I get lost in every morning when I need to get out of bed to go to work. It was something of a travesty. So I just got up and got ready for my big day.
At 9:30, I picked up Josh and we drove out to Nampa for a coffee at the Flying M coffee garage, which is a very quality place for a morning coffee experience. What makes it super satisfying are the TWO wonderful yarn stores and the THREE great used book stores within walking distance. That downtown Nampa, seriously, people need to appreciate it.
From there, we drove out to the St. Chappelle winery and had a good sampling of their wine selection. I didn't say anything at the time, but I felt that the wine pourer was being much more generous with Josh than with me. Neverthehoo, it was fantastic. Once imbibed, we changed into our cycling gear and set out on a bike ride. I have no sense of direction and didn't consult the map, so I don't have a clue what our route was. I know that we rode for a good distance. After maybe ten miles, we turned onto a dirt road that was difficult for me to ride my road bike on. This led us to the Sawtooth Winery, where we bumped into some folks that we had had an interaction with back at St. Chappelle (they took our photo) and they said that they had been cheering and toasting our cycling up the dirt road. At this winery, the wine pourer was extremely generous, pouring us a third of a glass of each wine...and I think we may have had about seven wines??? Granted, that is not all THAT much wine, but since we were on a bike ride, I feel that my blood stream had opened itself up to all liquids that I delivered to it, in the hopes of remaining hydrated. So the wine quickly made me tipsy. Speaking of tipsy, somehow I fell in love with this silly wine bag with a woman named Tipsy, described as a happy lush. I dunno, had to have been there. We spent some time at this winery outside, where there were some lovely roses that we stopped to smell.
As we mounted our trusty steeds, I was giggly and smily, clearly drinking and riding. We set out down the road and I found it quite a challenge to direct my bicycle straightly. At least it was a vacant farmroad. Oh yes, the scenery! It was beautiful. Farmland, but near to the Owhyees it was stunning, as is evidenced in my photos. At some point, we pulled over for a bio break and I became extremely alarmed when I realized that there was a bunch of idiots on the cliff above us firing shotguns. A dude in a truck pulled over and we all had a conversation about how horrid that was, but yawhatever free country bit, so they assured me that we were too far away for the bullets to hit us, but I was totally freaked. I mean, they were SHOOTING GUNS IN OUR DIRECTION!!!! Yea, I had something of a cow. 
As we were driving back into town, we remembered having seen a sign at K-Mart for 40% off on Halloween costumes. We stopped at the K-Mart in Nampa and selected two cheap standard costumes. We then spent some time seperately resting up and then united once more to get ready for the evening. We donned our costumes and makeup and hit the Balcony Dance Club for hours and hours of dancing. I became utterly intoxicated over my vodka redbulls and was a dancing feind.
November 2, 2006
~ Peddling, Rocking, and Saying Goodbye ~
Day Six, the final day of the trip to Austin, October 20th, is rather fuzzy. This may come as a shock to each of you, but I haven't been creating these amazing detail-packed blog entries about my vacation from mere memory. Indeed, during the vacation, I took notes about the activities in my journal and from those notes composed these fantastic entries. The last day of the trip, unfortunately, I did not take any notes and I do not have the greatest of memories (which is why I am a voracious note-taker). Last night I popped by Josh's residence to deliver some pain killers and chicken noodle soup for his cold or flu, as well as a knitted gift for his birthday (Happy Birthday!!!), and we were discussing the final day of the trip and trying to remember certain details. What was particularly irksome was that we could not recall where we had had coffee that morning. Never fear, however, because this morning it hit me!
Friday morning began with us riding bicycles down the greenbelt area, across the Colorado river, and over to a coffee establishment called Flipnotics. This place is also a hipster clothing store and had a big patio with wireless internet and flowers. After getting our coffee, we initially sat outside. We moved seats several times because we couldn't get everything exactly perfect, and we ultimately sat indoors. If memory serves me correctly, we had a little bit of a late start that morning and I think that it was around noonish by the time that we left.
Our plan for the day was to go on a big mountain bike ride, exploring all of the trails around the Barton Springs area. Which was a lot of fun! Riding a bicycle on these trails was unlike any biking I have ever done during my entire one and three-quarter years' experience of mountain biking. Firstly, their trails were much more consistently technical than anything I've ever ridden. I was quite proud of myself for being able to ride as much as I did, and I was able to ride most all of it. Riding in the Boise foothills, truly technical parts of trails are pretty rare and I'm usually too much of a weiner to challenge myself over much of it. That whole "I don't want to fall and hurt myself" thing. But in Austin, there wasn't a choice. It was either ride my bike, have a lot of fun,challenge myself, and take a chance on falling and getting hurt, or don't ride, don't have fun, and don't take any risks. I chose the former. And it worked out beautifully. I had so much fun and I felt so proud of myself for being able to clear so much of it. Secondly, the trails in Austin were dense with folliage and trees. In Boise, the foothills have "high desert" qualtiy to them, which implies that folliage is almost nonexistant except for some knee-high sagebrush and brambleweed. In Austin, it was like a jungle, with the trees hanging low over the trails. So not only were the trails themselves more technical, but the trees growing all along either side of the trails and sometimes hanging over the trails, which meant that it truly was a full-body strategic riding experience. While I was popping my front wheel over rocks, I was also negotiating my handlebars around tree trunks, and bending my torso down low to avoid hitting branches.
From what Josh was telling me, the mountain biking in Austin is much more similar to mountain biking in most of the country, whereas in Boise it is somewhat exceptional. While I was feeling like a major accomplisher, Josh was feeling like he was back home in Kansas, it being the same sort of mountain biking that he first started riding on. Additionally, the trail system in Austin, while it was definately well-maintained and well-traveled, did not seem to be as well-mapped as in Boise. At several junctures, it was not readily apparent which way the main trail went. So on multiple occasions, Josh and I found ourselves on these offshoot trails which led to strange areas with deadends. Thus, our biking was quite the adventure. We found mini-canyons and caves, streams, and had a lot of fun.
At some point, we realized that we were starvin' marvin and we asked for some directions on how to get to some civilization. From these directions, we got outside of the wildernessy area of Barton Springs and was on some far end of Greater Austin that wasn't even on our map. We asked someone if there was a place to eat nearby, and he looked down at our bicycles, smirked, and said that we had to go up a certain hill to find any eating establishments. This certain hill was one that I had seen two minutes earlier and thought to myself, "Oh my! That's a crazy steep hill. Good thing we won't have to ride bikes up it." And I kind of gulped. As I approached the hill on the bike, switching for the first and only time into my granny gear, I kept the thought of impending food at the forefront of my mind to provide me with some pseudo calories. Needless to say, Josh arrived at the top before I did, but I still felt that I did a pretty good job on my climbing. At the top, one of the first things that we saw was a big sign that said "Chilis" and there was no need to even have a conversation. We went there, a chain restaurant that we could have found in any city, and had a fantastic huge meal. We also took advantage of the opportunity to cool down. Afterwards, we wandered through some of the shops, including a Nordstrom's Clearance Outlet where I considered buying a fugly pair of Prada bootties.
We continued riding for a time and then turned around and headed back downtown. From here, my memory is a little fuzzy, so hopefully Josh remembers what we did. I think that we rested at the hotel for a while. But eventually, we got all dressed up and walked down to Red River Street. We had hoped to eat at Moonshine again, but there was too long of a wait. Instead we went to yet another Mexican food place (yea, it might be a long time before I crave an enchillada). I wasn't in the mood for Mexican at all but we were kind of in crunch time and needed to eat something and this was the only place that didn't have a wait. Plus, it was right across the street from Stubb's Ampitheater, where we were going to be seeing Built to Spill play that night.
The concert was great! I am a fan of the Built to Spill. The opening band, which was named...something???...can't remember...wasn't all that remarkable. Josh and I found a place to sit, and we ended up having to keep our guard up to keep our spots, but it was a decent ways from the front and we could see Doug Marsh bright and clear.
I did not sleep very well that night. And we had to get up at 4:00 in the morning to get to the airport. Yet again, I failed at interpreting the bus schedule. I was certain that we could take a bus to the airport, but I had neglected to read the weekend schedule, on which there is no bus running that early in the morning. So we had to take a cab. And we had kind of a miserable airport experience. I was so exhausted, cranky, and very uncomfortable. Our connecting flight was delayed and I was blowing my discomfort out of proportion. I was so happy when I arrived at my home.
November 1, 2006
~ 70 degrees, being intellectual, silly walking, steak ~
Day Five, Thursday October 19, of the Austin trip was the first "cold" day. The storm from the previous evening accompanied a cold front (which was still warm, considering that it was October, but cold for Texas). We rode bikes to the Spider House for a third experience. Having to endure mediocre coffee and a lame atmosphere the day before, we didn't feel like sacrificing quality just to try something new. This was to be our intellectual day. After coffee, we went over to the university area and visited the Harry Ransom Research Center, which has an impressive collection on Norman Mailer and a caricaturist named Topoloski. I felt very smartened by the end of it. And that was the first floor. We took the elevators up to the second floor, which had a collection of movie posters that I wasn't interested in. While Josh poked around, I sat on a bench and looked out the window and watched people. Josh joined me and we looked at people together. Then we took the elevator up another floor. This floor appeared to be merely offices, but we decided to walk around. At some point, we decided to practice our silly walks. As we walked past an open office door or window, we walked as mature adults, totally normal. But once we had past the doors and windows, we instantly broke out into a silly walk, and stopped the moment we came to another window or open door. We did this all down and up the hallways. It was pretty great, but perhaps you should have been there to grasp the pure genius of it. At some point, I realized that a woman had seen us and that we were going to be in the elevator with her. She seemed to be trying not to laugh and I was trying to retain my dignity.
From there we went to the Jack Blanton Museum of Art, where we saw a lot of paintings on the life of Christ and people wearing uncomfortable looking clothing. While I enjoyed seeing many of the paintings of Christ and of people wearing uncomfortable clothing, because they were good paintings, I eventually became a little bored of the redundancy of it. I understand that if you're really passionate about it, that perhaps you want to spend all of your time painting renditions of the life of Christ, hundreds upon hundreds of them, as well as people wearing uncomfortable clothing, but I dunno, variety is the spice of life.
After the Museum, we ate at a generic Mexican food joint. Then we went down Nueces and checked out the shops in the Warehouse District and Second Street. For me, it was total sensory overload at this point. From the overload of just being in so many new places for five days, to having a full day of looking at art, and then going into shops that had been creative in their decorating (one shop in the Warehouse District had decorated with strategically placed full length mirrors in a big circle around some of the clothing...I became disoriented and kept walking into the mirrors). We broke up the shopping with a visit to Bookpeople, a large independently-owned bookstore. Eventually we returned to the hotel for some rest.
That evening we walked down Red River street and waited for a table at a restaurant called Moonshine. After a thorough consultation with the menu, we each decided to order a Texas flat iron steak in bleu cheese butter and red wine reduction with vegetables. Now, a brief word about me and the meat. I am not much of a meat eater. If I was left to my own devices, I would probably never or almost never eat meat. It's partly because I'm down on cholesterol and saturated fat and I think there's plenty of other ways to get protein. Also, it's expensive and tricky for me to cook. Moreover, until the time that I met Josh, I had a firm dislike of all things steak. I think that the very few instances during my upbringing when I had steak, it was overcooked and hard to chew with no amazing sauce. And then Josh made me a steak medium rare and slathered it with the Stubbs' bbq sauce, and my opinion changed. Granted, I still only consume a steak about once every two or three months, but it is always fantastic. Anyhoo, so we were at the restaurant and we ordered these Texas flat iron steaks. And...remembering my first cut into it, dripping with bleu cheese butter...it was amazing. I think that it is impossible to describe it and still give justice to its awesomeness. After the second bite, Josh looked up and said that it was one of the best steaks he's ever had in his life, which I feel is telling. Ah, memories...see, I am a big fan of the good food, and I endeavor to eat this "good food" at all instances of eating. But sometimes, a meal is so fantastic, that I actually spend time reflecting back on it, my mouth watering. ....
After dinner, we walked around Red River looking for a place to get an adult beverage. Earlier, when we were in a Diesel store, we received a recommendation for a place called Club de Ville (which had a surprising similarness to the Neurolux even down to its old Best Western Crown Sign). In the bar's darkness, we found a pleather-cloaked couch and I ordered us a glass of wine to share. This crappy bar wine that came from one of those oversized wine bottles cost seven dollars, and I was not enthused about that. So we hung out in the smelly darkness drinking our overpriced shitty wine, and then left. We wandered and wandered. Every place along Red River was having some bands play and entrance covers were upwards of five dollars. Since I had just spent seven on a dumb bar wine, I was feeling picky about what I wanted to spend my money on. We went into a bar that was playing a ninja soccer movie and Josh ordered a jack and coke. But the place was lame so we left. Eventually, we wandered over to Sixth Street and entered the land of frat boys, their hoochies, and the meat markets in which they connect. Saying that I was "displeased" with the situation in which I found myself would be something of an understatement. And I think that I'm going to cut my description of this area down, because as I'm recalling my experience there, I'm becoming irritated and lamed out. Eventually we had some wine at a meat market and I started to get all depressed. I was sitting in the corner staring at all of these people who are the complete opposite of myself and I could not understand their behavior or how they seemed to be having a good time. I think that Josh was trying to distract my attention away from them because it was probably obvious that I was becoming depressed, but the solution was to just leave. So we left. We went to a somewhat empty bar that had a typical bar band playing hits from various decades and we enjoyed a few pony-necked beers. The volume for the band was much too loud and I stuffed toilet tissue into my ears. We sat at the back of the bar on a smooshy couch and drew pictures on a piece of paper. And that was pretty much the end of the evening.
