checking it all out (Renegade Craft Fair)
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Monthly Archives: June 2006
We’ll be the station wagon with the ’80s rap shaking you
So tomorrow at FIVE FUCKING A.M. I’m leaving for Brooklyn with Mama C-ta and Debbie, who invited me to see the most chillinest Renegade Craft Fair. Did you hear that? ROAD TRIP. MINUS THE BABIES. AND MINUS THE HUSBANDS.
Enough all caps, you are getting the point, no? We will be soaring high above the clouds — figuratively speaking, because we’ll be driving — stuffed to the gills with caffeine and Beastie Boys and the very sweet taste of freedom. And two out of the three of us will probably be trying very hard not to panick-attack at leaving our wee, defenseless children for like 20 hours straight.
Wish us luck!
Oh, and guess who might get to meet Jenny Hart, stitch mistress extraordinaire and creator of sublime stitching? US, that’s who.
So Internet, my dear love, forgive me my continued absence and intermittent e-mail correspondence. Someday, when I’m not road tripping to the Actual City of New York, Borough: Brooklyn, you’ll get to see pictures of our freshly-painted living room (color: “Prelude”), the cause of today’s muscle-spasms [Dear paint roller, kiss my ass]. And if anyone can find my homeequity line-of-credit checks, let me know. IKEA has sectional sofas and they’re calling my name.
Schmap! Get a PDF guide to Baltimore with my photo in it
My Flickr photo of Holy Frijoles, shortlisted for the Baltimore Schmap, has been chosen to be included. (I first wrote about the Schmap shortlist here.)
Windows users can download the guide now, but Mac users — such as myself — have to wait until November. (But I wanna see it now!)
On the BGE rate plan: I rather like delaying the inevitable
So the Maryland General Assembly came up with something yesterday that actually seems to take us electricity customers into account: a 15% hike this year, with future years fuzzy, instead of the 72% instantanteous jump BGE was trying to get away with. You can yammer all you want about market prices and deregulation and “politicking,” there’s just no way a 72% hike in electricity is not a big deal. It’s not like a sharp increase in the price of caviar. (And it’s not “politicking” when elected representatives are looking out for their constituents. It’s called “democracy,” Gov. Ehrlich. Tastes delicious. You should try it.)
The Baltimore Sun has the deets. The ongoing deets, I should say. Also, you should check out Sun business columnist Jay Hancock’s weblog on the situation: Electric Shock.
Down to brass tacks, my friends
In a fit of pique, Iain and I pulled up all the old carpet in the front room over the weekend. Somewhere deep in my brain, I knew that hardwood floors lay beneath the nubby, coffee-stained carpet, but I couldn’t believe it until i saw it for myself.
This discovery has had a remarkably buoyant effect on my spirits.
As I sat crosslegged on my new (old) floors, pulling up tacks one by one with a pair of needlenose pliers, enjoying the exertion and anticipating the blisters, I got to thinking. I thought about how I was uncovering something beautiful and valuable, something which had been hidden beneath a humdrum exterior for years. I thought about how bringing this treasure to light was something I wished I had done ages ago. I thought about how caught up I had been with that shaggy, grungy exterior, that awfully matted low-pile metaphor — and what a waste of time it was. There be golden, glowing hardwood floors! Let them shine!
Supafine Design Unit: Not Calm (Dot Com)
Hurray! I finished the redesign for Jenijen’s blog, Not Calm (Dot Com). It’s deliciously citrusy. And! It has a special header-footer situation: the banner contains a top menu of navigation, and the footer contains three columns of bloggity goodness.
The best part of all, though, is Jen’s writing. And photography. And stories. Go! Read! Say hi!
Forest? Trees? Whuh?
I’d like to thank everyone for their patience while I got all adolescent and passworded the last post. And I’d like to thank my inner circle of supporters for their encouragement.
For the curious, it boils down to this: Lately I have been consumed by (self-diagnosed) social anxiety which, if left unchecked, hampers my ability to be myself and enjoy normal social interaction. Y’know, like at the grocery store.
Woo HOO! Party at my house!
Bring the Valium!
Jeff and Jen will understand this sentence: I am confronting the popcorn.
I got brave today and went to the library (where I owe tens of dollars of fees) and checked out a self-help book about shyness and social anxiety. That’s pretty much S.O.P. for me: Determine problem, read book about it, feel better. And I am feeling better.
Not fixed, but at least hopeful that things will get to a manageable point.
I’m going to try blogging honestly about it, because I think that might actually be beneficial. But I’ve got to work up to it. And so, I may password-protect future posts and I may turn off comments and I may get defensive. Bear with me. But if you mention the words New Agey Self-Help Hippie to me even one time, you are so off my blogroll.
The special ingredient is drool!
You know what? 17 months old is not old enough to help in the kitchen. You might think it is. You might think that dragging a kitchen chair up to the counter and installing your toddler on it is a good idea when you are making banana bread but my friends, you would be mistaken. It is not Mother-Child Culinary Bonding. It’s a test of patience.
Me: First we preheat the oven! And here we have our box of instant bread mix. Can you say Betty Crocker, darling? Good boy!
Owen: Ttttppppbth.
Me: That’s right, a quarter cup of oil. No, no, baby, I’ll do it. OK, it says two eggs! No, no — I got it, hon, here, hold this spoon.
Owen: *bang bang bang*
Me: And then we add the powder! No, no, honey, give Mommy the oregano. Thank you. OK, ready? Let’s mix!
Ahhhh … hold up, honey, spoon goes IN the batter. No … baby, please don’t fling … OK, you want a fork instead, all right … IN the batter, Owen, IN the batter …
Owen: *fling*
Me: Owen! IN THE BATTER, thank you, OK. Now we mix mix mix … hey, you, up here. We’re up here. All righty — HEY! No, honey, those are eggshells, you can’t eat them. They have icky germs. Oh … oh, OK, fine, you can crush them.
Owen: *splatter crush drip*
Me: NO! Not in the MOUTH! No eat eggshells, Owen! No!
Owen: *big sad eyes*
Me: I know. I know you want to eat them. But eggshells not for eating. Not for eating, OK?
All right. Here, I found your fork. It was under the dishwasher. Mommy will just wash it off … GET YOUR HAND OUTTA THERE, oh for the love of Jesus. OK. Here’s your — NO! Not in the mou— Owen! Do not hit your mommy. NO HITTING. Hitting is not OK. Here, Mommy will help you. It’s all right, honey. Aw, honey, it’s OK. Aww. You don’t have to cry, it’s all right. I’m not mad. You just can’t hit, OK? All right! Now, let’s cook! You and me, let’s cook this banana bread, OK? OK. Ready? Got your fork? Good boy! Fork goes in the batter! Good boy! Let’s mix the batter. Mix mix mix. Mmm, smells goo— Uh-uh. UH-UH. No, no honey. NO! Owen! NO. NO NO NO NO NO—
Owen: *covered in batter*
Me: *Sigh.*
All right, Owen! All done! We’re all done here. … Mommy needs to have a couple drinks. Go bug your father.
… And make sure to give him a big hug.
Protected: Shyness as painful obstruction to cool things
That ‘Evolution of Dance’ thing is really takin’ off, huh?
A little something to satisfy all the google searchers coming here looking for Judd.
So I posted a little while back about Judson Laipply and his YouTube video called “The Evolution of Dance.” My friend Jen sent it to me, the way you do when you hear about someone you went to school with doing something halfway interesting.
So it’s kind of weird, in a six degrees of separation way, to see that the world at large is picking up on it, too.
AP story: Video of dance medley an internet hit. Thanks to Dani for the news tip.
ABC News watercooler: Dancing around the world
And according to his Web site, Judd was supposed to be on the Today Show this morning — did anyone see it?