It Must Be Real, It Was In The Dictionary

Chrissy having s'mores and Adia playing with fire at Hovander Park.

Chrissy's parents' phone has a creepy robot-woman voice that announces who's calling, but it doesn't get the pronunciation exactly right. When Chrissy calls, the phone announces, "Call from crazy." Maybe the phone is just really smart.

Adia has some really hoochie-looking dolls. She was playing with two of them. Chrissy says, "Adia, why are you taking their shirts off? (to me, sardonically) She always takes their shirts off and makes them kiss."

Chrissy, as one of the hoochie dolls, to Adia: Hi, what's your name?

Adia: Adia.

Chrissy/doll: Hi Adia! My name's Hoochie Mama!

Adia: No, Becca!

Chrissy/doll: Oh, my name's Becca?

Adia: Yeah, Becca.

Chrissy/doll: Can you say "Becca's a hoochie mama"?

Adia may or may not have tried to repeat that; I was laughing too hard to notice.

Chrissy/doll: Can you say "Becca's a slut"?

Chrissy/doll: That's why she has to go home at night - she works the corner. Adia, say "Becca works the corner!"

My sister-in-law really respects me.

No, It's Not A FAIRY Boat

Memorial Day, illustrated:

Me, on a ferry

with nuns.

These people were probably eaten by sharks, which is what happens when you go sailing. I swear.

Adia met a giant among dogs - a Great Pyrenees.

We went to a parade,

but someone started reciting embarrassing poetry so Spencer and I ditched and went to a bookstore.

We had a picnic here. My interpretation is that there are no cattle.

This is when I couldn't bear for anyone to look at me.

We stopped to look at a false bay, which Spencer and I thought was cool and Chrissy thought was stupid,

and as a result we just missed seeing whales. But we did see kayakers. Who probably also got eaten by sharks.

We did some other stuff, I had two mochas that day, and then accidentally set my camera to manual on the ferry ride home. But it's okay because grainy is totally the effect I was going for.

We're Getting Civilly United or Domestically Partnered In The Morning

Yesterday I went to a Prop 8 protest. It was most definitely smaller than the one I went to in NYC last November, and less fun without Laura, but still worth it.

I also had raspberry mint ice cream with Adia,

which was more delicious than protesting. I'm going to be really glad when gay marriage is legalized and I can redirect my mental energy towards Millionaire Matchmaker and figuring out why I always have those red spots on my chin in pictures.

What Happens On Tuesday Stays On Tuesday

Just so you are all aware of how awesome you AREN'T compared to Spencer, he just won the PARSEC Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Contest. (This is where I do a little congratulatory dance to the tune of something I've got stuck in my head, which is usually "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello Dolly, "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man, or "MMMBop").

I had a really great Memorial Day on San Juan Island with Spencer, Chrissy, Adia, and Chrissy's dad. I took tons of pictures, but I've been too busy to go through them and post, so for now I will leave you with this gem from a bathroom in Friday Harbor.

Gleek Club Is A Totally Different Thing

Every time I watch the pilot for the show Glee, I love it more. I can completely understand why some people wouldn't enjoy this show (it's because some people aren't complete dorks. Or they have hearts of steel. Probably that last one), but those of us who did theatre in high school totally knew these kids. Um, were these kids. Except I could never sing like that.*



Don't make fun of me - I know you like dumber things than this.

*Amended - the video I originally posted has been removed. This one isn't as fun.

A Treatise on Sunday and Your Face

Today I did almost nothing, but I did have a delightfully lengthy video chat with Elizabeth, which was honestly the highlight of my week. Elizabeth, please know that you are delightful. I don't know why I never call you Lucy. Sometimes I think of you as Lucy.

Also, I would just like to go on record saying that Chrissy and Spencer make THE best food in the world, and the chocolate chocolate chip cookies Spencer made -- there are no words. There are also no pictures, because a picture of a cookie is usually pretty boring.

The artwork is by Chrissy - it never fails to make me laugh.

Of Vice and Something That Rhymes With Men

I've been reading Harry Potter for days now.

The FIRST Harry Potter. For days.

I think I'm about 100 pages in. Can't...seem...to...focus. The internet, it is taking over my brain! I think I need a computer vacation. Which is a vacation FROM, and not a vacation TO. I need to vacate my computer. But I also need to work on the writing projects I've started. I know what you're thinking (I'm totally psychic. Really.) - use my computer to write, and just don't go on the internet. (Well, that and stuff I'm not going to print. Some of your thoughts are not suitable for my blog.)

You have a lot of misplaced faith in my willpower. Use my computer to do productive things, while totally abstaining from the internet; resisting the temptation to click that little fox icon? Where did you ever get the idea that I have that kind of self-control? I certainly never led you to believe that. My utter inability to stay away from mochas and cookies is a well-documented fact.

There is nothing for it but a total no-computer policy, in force for at least 48 hours.

But not tomorrow. I have to check my twitter feed.

Sometimes A Cigar Is Just A Cigar

This morning I woke up from a terrible nightmare at 5 a.m. Before I tell you that this dream would make a good premise for a horror porn film, let me just say that there was no actual sex in it. And now I can tell you: This dream would make a good premise for a horror porn film.

As a small child I had night terrors. When I got older I graduated to nightmares, and I'm pretty sure I graduated with honors, because I am seriously gifted in the nightmare department. It's not bragging, it's just a fact. I also had really interesting dreams. I looked down upon the rest of you people, with your pedestrian dreams. Mine were sometimes partly in cartoon, or black & white, and I was often several people at once. In one dream I was the omniscient narrator, while simultaneously being a woman who was the lead detective on the trail of a cross-dressing serial killer, and also her husband.

Because I had such terrible nightmares, I started learning to control my dreams when I was 7 or 8.

By college I was used to rewinding and changing things, shaping my dreams the way I wanted them to go. Then I started taking anti-depressants, and my dreams slowly faded away. Even after I stopped taking them my dreams didn't come back. When I did have a dream it was usually a total snoozefest (CUT. THE. PUNS.), and never lucid. My best guess is that my dreams were first suppressed by the medication, and then by the stress and boredom of my life in New Jersey.

When I moved to Bellingham I started dreaming again. My dreams aren't back to the way they once were - I'm still not having lucid dreams - but they are finally getting interesting. Of course, on the flipside, I'm also having nightmares. Which brings me to the one I had this morning.

In this nightmare I was babysitting (and really, isn't that bad enough?), and the girl I was watching was this kind of keeper of secrets. She was the only one who knew how to keep the hockey-masked serial killer away, and apparently I'd accidentally done something wrong. I was keeping a brave face on for the girl I was babysitting, but we both knew that when I went home that night the crazed killer in the hockey mask would come to my house and kill me. Also, the killer was a girl.

This sounds pretty derivative, but that's because I left out the part that would be a premise for a porn film. My family reads this blog.

You Gotta Know The Territory

I was tagged to do this by a bunch of people on Facebook, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to post it - it felt too narcissistic. I feel okay about posting it on my blog, though. Perhaps because my blog is already all about me, and therefore inherently narcissistic.

Thanks to Elizabeth, I am learning to embrace narcissism.

25 Things About ME

1) I don’t understand what’s wrong with having your infant sleep in a bureau drawer. I really don’t.

2) I’ve always been fascinated with names. I’ve been keeping lists of names I like since I was a kid. The current one includes the following gems: Jasper, Lenore, Rowan, and Anastasia.

3) I think we can all agree it’s a good thing I plan to remain childless.

4) I laugh at my own jokes. I think I’m hilarious. No one gets my humor like I do.

5) I kept journals from 13 to 23. I had a whole box full of them. I got tired of lugging them around to every new place I lived, so I threw the box away when I was 25. I’ve never regretted it.

6) I recently started keeping a journal again. The first entry is 21 pages long. Once it’s filled up, I think I’ll just leave it on a bench somewhere.

7) I am mostly an open book. As a general rule, I tend to overshare. I hate keeping secrets about myself, and I’m bad at it.

8) But I have a few.

(Insert evil laugh here. I so hate it when people tease you like this and then don't give you anything. SUCK. IT.)

9) I have no moral problem with lying. To me it's about respect, not morality. If we're friends I will tell you the truth because you deserve that.

10) Sometimes I lie to strangers just for fun. I consider it more improv than lying.

11) I try to always say the nice things I think. Once I told a strange girl in Panera that she had beautiful hair. I’m pretty sure she thought it was weird. Once I told a strange girl in Starbucks that she had beautiful hair. I’m pretty sure it made her day.

12) If you never tell me anything nice you think about me, I'll assume you never have nice thoughts about me and I'll wonder why we're even friends. Eventually I will stop telling you the nice things I think about you, and you will deserve it. Also, I don't care if you don't read my blog, but if you read and don't comment I want to poach your eyeballs and eat them with toast.

13) We all die alone. I first heard that in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. I find it comforting.

14) Star Trek has given me a lot to think about. It is a font of wisdom and literary quotations:
-It has always been easier to destroy than to create.
-The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
-I need my pain.
-I don't believe in the no-win scenario.
-It is very cold in space.
-Time is the fire in which we burn. (Delmore Schwartz)
-And he piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon he would have shot his heart upon it. (Moby Dick)
- THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!

15) I prefer brown eyes. I think blue/green/gray eyes are pretty, but brown eyes are warmer and friendlier.

16) I often don’t notice eye color. I have no idea what color eyes a lot of you have.

17) For no real reason I worry about getting blood clots, rheumatoid arthritis, and scurvy.

18) I am way more shy than people realize. The only time I ever feel totally at ease is when I’m alone.

19) I hate that I’m a Virgo. There are good Virgo qualities, but I mostly think they’re stupid. Which is such a Virgo quality.

20) People think I hate being touched because I rarely touch them, but really I just don’t want to invade anyone’s personal space.

21) I worry a lot and I worry out loud, but I always believe things will turn out alright.

22) I think being single is fine. I think being coupled is fine. I think there are pros and cons to both states of being, and I have no problem being single forever.

23) When I see hot air balloons I get a thrill, and I feel like the world is a magical place.

24) I never had an imaginary friend, but I always wanted one. When I was a kid I used to imagine that I had an imaginary friend.

25) I don’t believe in wrong choices.

(Let’s not be dumb about this - obviously I don’t mean things like choosing whether or not to murder someone, or whether or not to shoot heroin into your eyeballs.)

Life isn’t a race or a movie - there is no finish line or plotted ending. Every choice takes us somewhere. There isn’t one right place, or one right job, or one right anything. Make a choice. If you don’t like how it turns out, make another choice. There is no end destination, with only one right path leading to it. It ends where it ends. Make the best of it and enjoy the scenery.

I don't believe in wrong choices.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

I would really like to learn to play these on the guitar:

Think Of A Proverb

Today Chrissy, Adia, and I went to Lake Padden Park. I was going to take pictures, but then Adia got hurt and we thought she might have a broken leg, so taking pictures became less of a priority.

Several hours and several x-rays later we found out her leg is not broken.

Oh, the unbelievable joy of relief!

But Chrissy is worried Adia might have mutant babies because of all the x-ray radiation. I told her not to worry - Adia probably would have had mutant babies anyway.

I Think You Mean An Apostrophe

Yesterday I had an epiphany! No I didn't, but that would have been great. If I ever have a pet I think I will name it Epiphany. Or if I go crazy and have an imaginary friend.

But I did have a realization yesterday. I was about to leave the house and my hair was in a wretched state, so I was trying to wrastle (yes - wrAstle) it up into a twisty bun-like 'do with one of those claw hair thingies. And it took FOREVER. Because my hair has passed that specific, easy-to-wrastle-into-a-bun length.

To illustrate:

Please note the vacant look in my eyes.

Realization: It's probably about time for a haircut. Which means I might get around to it in a few months.



Also, sometimes in Bellingham you go to a comic store








and you see this.

Bright Copper Kettles and Warm Woolen Kittens

You guys, grocery shopping in my house is an epic task. And this week it is my epic task. I had to clean out the fridge, then go through the entire kitchen and cross the things we don't need off the standard list. Things like millet and barley. I don't even know how one would go about using millet or barley, yet we have containers of them buried deep in the cupboard of misc. grains, along with wheatberries, bulgar, and kamut - which are just as mysterious to me.

I'm exhausted, and I haven't even done the shopping yet.

Also, I'm totally PMSing so I feel drained and crabby and I'm DYING for sugar and caffeine. And PMSing doesn't even remotely work as a word, because it works out to be pre-menstrual syndroming, which makes no sense.

If that's a total overshare and you're annoyed, well, you can just go *%$@#%*$@@!*#&$%*
(beeeeeeeeeep, blank screen)

We are sorry for the interruption. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming as soon as possible. We thank you for your patience.

Two Bits

It was my night to cook. I'm not normally hugely messy in the kitchen, but tonight I am super happy that I don't have to clean. It looks the town of Chewandswallow after the weather started going crazy. I googled that book to find the link, and I found out that there's an animated movie coming out. People, I am underwhelmed.

For fans of Firefly, I leave you with this (there are 5 at this point, so click 'next'), which is quite possibly the funniest thing ever. EVER. ("Exaggeration" is not part of my vocabulary. Except I just used it, so apparently I was wrong about it not being part of my vocabulary.)

For those of you who are not fans of Firefly (do you exist? And why haven't you been struck dead, thou blasphemers?), but who are fans of How I Met Your Mother and/or Les Miserables and/or Neil Patrick Harris, I leave you with this:



For those who aren't fans of anything I mentioned, suck on it.

Into the Void, Go! Go! Go!

Today I made a unilateral decision to be unequivocally unproductive. I went to Starbucks, got a mocha in my delightful Christmas mug (FYI, The Muppet Christmas Carol is good any time of year), and finished reading The Subtle Knife.

I didn't take pictures, so I re-enacted it at home for your viewing pleasure.

Something tragic happened, apparently.


The Spectres, they will eat you!


Joy, thy name is mocha.


BFF


You know how sometimes you're startled to see someone talking to himself, and then you realize he's talking on his cell? I'm pretty sure the guy next to me in Starbucks was talking to himself. It was kind of noisy inside so I couldn't hear much of what he was saying, but he would talk in emphatic bursts and occasionally laugh. The way he was talking - forcefully and kind of rhythmically - made me think of slam poetry, and then I was wondering if he was actually crazy, or if he was maybe just conducting a social experiment for some freshman psych class.

He looked kind of old for freshman psych.

So, to the crazy slam poetry guy in Starbucks, I give you major props for going back to school. You can do it!

(Give people the benefit of the crazy, is what I say.)

Dictators Are Great!

I live in a community house. No, it's not rehab. Really.

I live in a house with 4 other people. I'm the youngest by 8 years, which is kind of strange. Every week we all put $40 in for groceries, toilet paper, soap, laundry detergent, etc. Monday through Thursday we eat dinner together, although we can sign out if we have plans - it's not rehab. I swear. One person cooks, and the others clean up afterwards. The person who did the grocery shopping that week doesn't have to cook.

It's taken some getting used to, but it's okay. In all honesty, the real draw for me is that the rent is low. I really prefer to do my own shopping, my own cooking, and my own cleaning up. But it's fine, I have no plans to move out, the people I live with are nice, and the rent? Did I mention that it's low? No job + low rent = I WILL TAKE IT, THANK YOU.

Plus the judge said it was either this or prison.

The Dreams They Sold

Friday was the fifth anniversary of Spissy, aka Spencer and Chrissy. (5 is the name-combo anniversary, right?)

Spencer and Chrissy are great cooks, and prefer their own food to restaurant food (but only because they're snobs, and also because their food tastes better. Something about the heart of a virgin, blahblahblah, I wasn't really listening), so they decided to stay home and make a nice dinner.



More backsides is what this blog needs.









This is from when I cut off Spencer's head






because he joined a boy band.














I took Adia out for the evening, to the Children's Art Walk and then to Mallard's to share some avocado ice cream. Spencer and Chrissy met up with us later.

Adia's happy here because she doesn't know


that I'm about to turn into a zombie


and suck out her brain.


Happy anniversary, Chrissy and Snoopy! I mean Spencer.

Did You Save The Receipt?

Look, I don't care if it's a family name, I just don't think it's okay to saddle your helpless infant with a name like German. And by the way, I think the reason it's always been a family MIDDLE name is pretty obvious.

We need to come up with a nickname (that isn't Jerry) immediately.

I would have picked out a great name. A name that wouldn't get him teased if he ever left Utah. And while we're on the subject, I still think "Ella" sounds like you stopped in the middle of saying elephant.

Alright, wait, here's the peace pipe (it's a gesture, you should take a puff even if you are Mormon, because it's rude not to take it if it's offered). I am willing to concede that if you grew it inside your body, let it suck up your insides, then pushed it out of your vagina, you get to name it.

And truly, I think you did a stellar job, at least with the growing and pushing parts.

Beepdadeep This Just In

I'm kind of old fashioned - I feel like I should find out about my new nephew through a phone call from the family, not a status update on facebook. A status update that I was the ELEVENTH person, and only immediate family member, to comment on.

I'm not mad, but a dramatic eye-roll is not entirely out of the question.

Oh, this reminds me - I did say I might post about nieces and nephews, and why people don't just let me give them better names...

Soon, grasshopper. Have patience.

When You Feel As Fine As You Look

Yesterday was the annual Procession of the Species in Bellingham.




















And then Spencer made veggie tacos.

The end.

All Fall Down

Today Chrissy, Adia, and I went to the Bellingham Farmers Market, which is a Saturday event April through December.

We bought honey straws from this place. The man in the background is at a different booth. It was either for reanimating the dead, or massage. I think probably the former, because the guy with the gray ponytail is obviously a sorcerer.



Chilling to some tunes as he sells his wares.





















Are feet compostable?







A cappella group. Like BYU with facial hair.








This is Chrissy juggling, not Chrissy balancing a ball on her head. That's just the magic of my photography skillz.