This weekend was lots of things that I needed it to be. 3 days is always a good place to start. Spent Friday (with the laydees who weren't roadtripping or entertaining family) eating schnitzel and spaetzle at Cafe Vienna and then wandering through the treasure trove that is Dallas Vintage. Spent the 4th at my dad's farm, and the drive down and back made me realize even MORE just how much I need a real roadtrip. Luckily, one is in the works: I am eagerly anticipating a September jaunt to the Monolith festival.

Also spent a surprising amount of time talking about comics: Chris sent me a link to this Dinosaur Comics, a strip I'd seen before but not regularly, and I hadn't realized how much I liked it:



I've decided I have a crush on this person (what does one call comic strip creators?), because he is cute and funny, and I adore cute and funny. Don't be jealous, xkcd boy (whose name I don't know). I still love you, too, but sometimes your strips are filled with a little too much math and physics and I have to shake my head and admit I don't always understand you. That's okay -- we don't always understand the ones we love. I'm pretty sure I always understand T-Rex, though. T-Rex gets me.

But back to Cute Comic Boy. Obviously I have to stalk him now. Well, not really. But I had to read his livejournal, because that's how I stalk people (just ask bollix), and he had a really interesting entry about how the death of newspapers (sorry, Shannon) is actually going to be really good for comics. Because when most people think of comics, they think of the really, REALLY bad comics(or, as Big Bang's Sheldon puts it "optimistically named 'funny papers'") found in newspapers. And I'd forgotten just how BAD THOSE ARE. Until I clicked over to a link from his entry to Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke which wasn't necessarily hilarious, but was shocking because it was probably the first time I've read Marmaduke in decade(s) and HOW IS THAT GETTING PUBLISHED? How?

Today I read and napped and etsy'd and baked chocolate chip cookies. And it wasn't 100 degrees, which is more than can be said about most of the days so far this summer, so I am happy.

My head is all over the place -- my imagination's been a little out of control the past few days. Today I heard a snippet from Souter's farewell letter to his fellow justices on NPR. He referred to their friendship, and I jumped from a fairly normal moment of wondering if the justices are really friends to suddenly imagining them together in all sorts of unlikely situations: playing Pictionary on game night; drunk and giggly in a hot tub; painting pottery in one of those make-your-own-mug places; wandering through the Smithsonian, all of them holding hands like kindergartners on a field trip.

I ganked this from someone's LJ or twitter (although I can't remember who! Sorry!):
http://www.findingmygoddess.com/

Man, it's long, but worth a read. It's like one man took ALL the crazy out there on dating websites and consolidated it into his own (accidentally hilarious) diatribe. What's frightening is that there are probably women out there who are desperate enough to respond.

My day was largely spent wading through the hundreds of emails that pile up when you're on vacation. Between my trip to New York and several days working off-site, I've been out of the office two whole weeks. During that time, the weather's changed a lot (hello, sweltering summer) and they've knocked down three different buildings on my route home. Driving away from work felt strangely foreign, as if I'd never seen these roads before.

It's been two action-packed weeks since my last post. And I can't think of a thing to say. I'm exhausted and under the weather (as opposed to sick and tired). I should be more excited than this. But I'm blaming my cold (and this heat).

I should be asleep, but I'm not, because tomorrow's Christmas: heading out to New York, and I'm supposed to be up by 4:30am. But I am WIDE awake.

Today was weird. We're shooting a TV commercial the day after I get back in town, and today was spent casting actors. It seems like every day is full of things I've never done before. The up-side? Lunch with Shannon, since I was one building over. The down-side? I had to sit in this dangerous bar-height chair with wheels on it. The first time I tried to climb up on it, it skittered away.

I climbed down from the chair to fetch my phone while the producer went to the lobby to pick up the next audition, and when I tried to get seated again, it went rolling out from under me (at least no one witnessed it. I hope.). Sigh. Cross your fingers that I don't injure myself on my trip.

So. We went to The Smoke, which was a 60s dance party at Sons of Hermann Hall, and it was awesome. Too much eyeliner? Check! Minidresses? Check! Boys in suits? Check, thank God. Even if they couldn't dance. Still.

60s dancing is very different from goth/industrial dancing (I know you didn't realize that, right?). Goth dancing: very little foot movement, OR very large steps and taking up as much space as humanly possible, with very large hand movements. 60s dancing: lots of footwork. Move your hands, but please stay in your own personal space. It was hard to get used to. BUT FUN. And I love Sons of Hermann Hall. I love the bartender that doesn't know how to pour a single. I love the boy who doesn't dance well but loves to dance with EVERYBODY. AT THE SAME TIME. I love cross-generational crowds.

Man, I need to get out more. ALSO. I have the hiccups. The hicc-em-ups. The kind that would be hilarious if they weren't slightly painful.

Hello, you.



P.S. Chris looked amazing. Hello, Holly Golightly! We forgot to take pictures, dammit.

It's Friday and that's a very good thing, because my brain is fried. I need a restart button.

I bought myself a new ipod this week. Which sounds damn self-indulgent, especially considering that I'm supposed to be socking away money for my (damn self-indulgent) trip to NYC in a couple of weeks. But my old one was on its last leg...the headphone jack was messed up, so that I could only get sound in both ears by putting the headphones into the jack halfway and then holding my mouth just right. [Does everyone say that? Or is that a southern expression?] And it finally decided that I really only needed sound in one ear, no matter how I held the headphones (or my mouth, for that matter).

The whole point to mentioning the purchase, though, is that the new ipod is a little different than the old one. The "screensaver" is a series of numbers, which at first I thought was indicating the length of the current song. Then, when the numbers got bigger, I decided it was actually indicating the amount of battery time remaining. But the number kept getting bigger, so that didn't make sense. It was 11:30 before i realized IT IS A CLOCK.

I need to go home. RIGHT NOW.

Also, this is a pretty ridiculous entry for my triumphant return to LJ after weeks of not posting.

I like the new Decemberists album, but am I the only one who started out thinking this was a cover of Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive?


Margaret in Captivity - The Decemberists

So, instead of getting ready for the Spring Fling next weekend (which I am SO not ready for), I made a mix. A cover mix. A real mix is coming as soon as this damn show is over, I swear. In the meantime, download this and play it loud.

Discovered! Again.

STUFF
There's big happenings on the workfront. Good stuff. I'll post more about that in a locked entry later. Today was not a stellar day, though. We did a photoshoot, which sounds glamorous, but after a couple of these, I have decided they are a serious beating. Way too much standing around for lens changes and lighting adjustments, etc. Plus part of it was in a burned house that was once beautiful but is now crispy. I smell like smoke and I am tired.

NONSENSE
I am craving two things, neither of which is good for me. Baklava (which I didn't even think I liked, but the new restaurant I mentioned has made a fan out of me), and Sweet Tea Vodka. I know sweet tea is a southern thing, so it might not be to everyone's taste, but sweet tea vodka tastes enough like its namesake to be DANGEROUS. Maybe I am just craving sweet tea?

Sorry to dwell on my birthday (especially since it isn't even my birthday anymore), but one of my favorite things about having one is sovereignann's birthday tributes. You should really check these out because they are funny and clever (not just because they are about me):

2007: In which Chris commemorates my 118th birthday with a look back

2008: In which Chris gathers some birthday advice from some famous friends

2009: In which Chris plays a silly game and makes lots of other people participate with hilarious (and footnoted) results

Sometimes I worry that Chris will eventually run out of ideas, but then I remember that Chris NEVER runs out of ideas.

You know, it's late, and I don't like to hyperbolize. But it's been one of the best birthdays ever. For lots of reasons. But it was a great evening. And I am trying with GREAT EFFORT to avoid typos. But I really want to give a hard hug to everyone I hung out with tonight (hard hugs are very lovely when you like the person who's giving them). Lots of alcohol, but much more importantly, lots of dancing and laughing and goofing around and it was perfect in every particular, and I could make you a list of all the reasons if you like (except not really -- there were too many), because list-making was my birthday-schtick tonight.

But in my head? I am making a list of all the reasons I love each of you reading this.

This has been the Week of the Feast, I think. It started with a lovely Sunday picnic with the Laydees (or was that Saturday?), and more food than even all of US could eat. Freshly made fruit punch, half a dozen dips and cheeses, Peggy's (crockpot!?) lasagna, and some fried chicken to make it an official picnic. But the most memorable part of the parade o' food was Carrie's heavenly pumpkin roll, fairly bursting at the seams with cream cheese goodness and little butter brickle bits that made me SO HAPPY.

Tuesday Jess called me up to see if I wanted to grab lunch and insisted that I find a buffet (she was very hungry). I went to guidelive.com and found a couple of nearby options. We actually went by the cafe at the Kimball museum first, but it turned out to be more of a cafeteria than the buffet it promised. Jessi took one look and decided we should hit the next one on the list. We ended up at Celaborelle, a mediterranean place that's kind of in the hood in Fort Worth (Hemphill, a couple of blocks off of Rosedale). But it's in a cute little house and the food was amazing. The service was great, too -- the waiter walked us through the buffet, explaining what each dish was and which were his favorites. He also kept encouraging to order whatever we wanted off the menu (as if there wasn't enough food!), as it was all included in the $9 buffet price. He even packed up some baklava for us to take with us when we left.

It was so good that Jess called me up the next night, wanting to hit the place again. I wasn't that hard to convince, and Lyric and Chris came along. It was a rainy evening, so when we arrived, the waiter (same guy as the day before) told us they hadn't prepared the buffet that night since they didn't expect much business. He told us that instead he would bring us a sampling of dishes (and we told him which ones we had particularly enjoyed on our first visit). He brought plate after plate of salads, dips, bread, kabobs, rice dishes, feta, olives, dolmas, and more. Before the evening was over, we had TWENTY different dishes (small portions, but still!) littering our table. And that's not even counting the pistachio baklava that finished our meal.

Wouldn't be surprised if we're there again within the next week or two. You should come with!

The past few days have been a whirlwhind, and I'm still recovering. Besides some very nasty computer issues (one of which is that it's taken me 20 phone calls -- no exaggeration -- to try and get my ATT Uverse set up), the weekend went swimmingly. Friday night's Brass Ball steampunk show was a feast for the eyes and ears. Jessi said, "I love that it's okay to stare at everyone. Because they want you to!" Which is true of the crowd at the Church even on its regular goth/industrial nights, but those ensembles couldn't hold a candle to the steamfolks'. There were lavish tailcoats and corsets and bustles. Walking sticks and top hats, and plenty of goggles, obviously.

The show went well, too. I had a fairly steady stream of customers, and when things slowed down, I made Jess watch the table and danced a bit (as Chris put it, our booth was "dance-floor adjacent" and the DJ was OUTSTANDING). Overall it was a good night, although I was ready to be done with manning the table after just a couple of hours (would've rather been dancing), and I dread an entire day stuck in a booth at the Spring Fling. I don't think I'll do any more after that one. I've had my fill. :)

So tonight's the night: My very first show, at the Brass Ball, and I'm nervous. I'm also EXHAUSTED. It's been a wretchedly busy couple of weeks at work, added to the fact that I've been getting only a few hours of sleep a night after staying up to work on jewelry.

Sounds like it's going to be a long evening...vendors are expected to have their tables up until almost 2am, and then if i still have any energy left, maybe I will dance til the club closes at 4. I also plan to drink enough champagne to keep myself giddy though the very long evening, but hopefully not so much that I can't be trusted to give accurate change. :)

This is the weekend we spring forward?!?! Can we reschedule, please? This weekend is not good for me. Seriously.

Also, I have ten billion things I've been wanting to post about. Someday. When I get a minute to breathe.

So, I've recently been invited to participate in the Brass Ball, a "Steampunk Trunk & Fashion Show," on Friday, March 13. The cool thing about it is that I won't have to pay a vendor fee, plus it's going to be at the goth/industrial club that used to be my stomping grounds (shut up. I like boys in eyeliner and dancing to dark music). The less-than-cool thing about it is that it's 13 days away. YIKES.

One of my many job responsibilities is to buy all of the yellow page advertising for my company. This means that I pore endlessly over several dozen directories each year. It can be tedious, but every once in a while there's something that makes me do a doubletake -- a weird ad, or an unlikely heading. Today's weird heading was "Abbatoirs," but the weirder thing was that the only business listed under the heading was (wait for it)....BANK OF AMERICA.

Wait. Bank of America? Doesn't "abbatoir" mean "slaughterhouse"? But as I've mentioned before, I've been known to have a Montoya Moment or two (I do not think that word means what you think it means), so I sprinted to the nearest dictionary (.com) and checked. Yep. Slaughterhouse. From the French, originally meaning "to beat down." Bank of America, your neighborhood abbatoir.

If you're like me and read way too many music blogs, you've probably already seen this a dozen times. But I love it, so:

I've been meaning to make a mix forever, but I've been too busy. There's a VERY belated Best of 2008 coming in the next week or so, but in the meantime:



ember