Brrrrrrrrrrr

It's HELLA cold in Seattle. You know I mean it because I used the word "hella" in a sentence without a hint of snark.

Although, since you can't sense snark on the Internets you'll have to trust me when I say that the use of the word "hella" is part of a snark-free zone.

Side-Bar: "Hella" is recognized by my Mac as a real world, but "snark" is not. When did this happen, of computer of mine?

But yeah, it's hella cold and I love how this city freaks out about it. The snow makes Seattle piss its pants and forget itself, which is hilar and terrifying all at once. I'm going to have to be a cautious driver again, and you all know how I hate being the bigger person.

I'm working on an "It's Hella Cold" mix. So far all I've got is a track by New Young Pony Club (that super-duper-awesome-one-you-guys that was played on Gossip Girl like a month ago), "Secrets" by OneRepublic, and "Crystalized" by The XX. A hunt for new tunes is definitely in order! Short order, you might say.

Today we went with Brian and Gabby to the Sunday Market in Fremont and saw lots of cool things. Things like a turn-of-the-century type writer that I fucking had a massive want-boner for, and this guy was selling it for $20. A disturbingly good deal, and here I had no cash.

But alas, I'm sort of waiting for some of my moneys to get dispersed back to me. I, like several hundred other Seattleites, recently had my identity stolen. Apparently anyone living in or boozing it up in or eating foods in the Capitol Hill area was a target. I personally had around $200 stolen from me, but luckily my bank kicks ass and flagged the phony charges. I'm waiting on $90 of that bunch to still be returned--right now it's just a provincial credit, but I'd rather not tempt fate, you know? I'll wait until it's real dollars in there and not imaginary pseudo-dollars.

Anyway, it was really cool to see everyone out and about despite the cold supporting local vendors and crafters. I will be back with moneys for you, kick-ass type writer! After we browsed, we had pho. It was really nice for this cold I'm starting to get (yes, it's time for my annual "cold of perpetuity" whereupon I'll have a cough and the sniffles for about 2 months). Alli says that during this time I'm a lot like a Dickensian orphan struggling with the black lung, guv'nor.

Speaking of Alli, last week Ellen and Alli and I had a "ninja photo shoot" in the arboretum. Details/photos will hit this blog as soon as Ellen is done editing them. It's for a calendar for their friends in Korea. I played a bank robber. Juuuuuuudge.

Un-Related: This is the most adorable thing I've scene on the Internet all month. A cute scruffy and tatted boy holding a corgi puppy like his own personal piratey parrot? WHERE DO I SIGN. Note that it's not even a question as to where.

Today I watched the first 20 minisodes of that new Avengers cartoon on Comics Alliance. It's actually not half bad, for having very "kid friendly" animation. It views a lot like the first run of the Justice League cartoon that Timm and Dini did in the late 90s/2000s. Lots of epic moments and cool cameos, new-to-universe accessibility in stories, and nods to fans. If you can get past some of the cheesy dialog clearly aimed at the childrens, it's totally worth it. And kudos/balls for including The Mandrill. Here's hoping that it gets a few good seasons and segues into a more badass version of itself, much like the JL cartoon did when it turned into "Justice League Unlimited." Would I love to see a similarly plotted series featuring a rotating cast of Avengers characters? Oh you bet your ass I would. Especially if it would mean animated Kate Bishop or animated O'Grady Ant-Man.

This week we'll be hitting the road and heading back to Idaho to be with my family for Thanksgiving. I'll be skipping entires for a day or two while we enjoy family time, but I might need to therapy-rant on here while we visit, so be on the look out for that . . .

. . . Also, be on the look-out for THIS!

That's right kids, my piece for Mutineer on the fine folks at Coffee Strong was published in the annual Holiday issue (Nov/Dec for the layman among you)!

Because I love you, loyal readers, I'll link you to the Internet-only version found right here.

However, you'd be doing me and my pals at Mutineer a huge favor by getting out there and buying yourself a copy. How else will you see the AMAZING photography work done by Josh Mackey and Mike Bowen? You could Google it, I guess, but you would probably fail in an epic sort of way. So go grab yourself an ish, yeah?

If I don't see you before then, Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

"I like the bad boys,

In the big towns.

I like the bad bands

And their big sounds."

Dollars and Nonsense

Today is going to be a productive day. There are things to purchase and things to do, and window shopping to be had. I need new jeans. And a new pair of boots. And a few new "cold weather" shirts and such. Losing weight is a bitch because while you feel great about yourself, a lot of your old clothes don't really fit the same. Yes I know that complaining about it makes me sound ungrateful and narcissistic, but it's a big problem when you have no fucking money, you know?

While we're speaking about clothing, have you seen Gap's new logo? It's disturbing. Not as disturbing as their call to "artists" to redesign the logo for them (Noam Chomsky's head must be imploding), but yeah--it's pretty offensive to anyone who appreciates, you know, things that look good. AdBusters is going to have a field day.

"Hello daddy, hello mom.

I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb."

Making babies.

This is going to be one of those stream of conscious-y type entries.

Drip, drip, drip.

Surreality takes a metaphysical form: That moment when I realized that all of us are getting married and/or having kids. I went to 4 weddings this past summer, and all of them were uniquely different and totally ridiculous in ways both good and bad. One was very small, one was huge, one was mid-sized, and one was small-ish.

Each time that I got jazzed up and put on my dancin' shoes, I felt the same two-flavored emotion: Excitement and Sadness. Excited to be there for such a magnificent moment in the lives of people I know, and sadness that the seconds and minutes of every single day just sort of fall off the calendar. It's no wonder sand is used in hourglasses. Talk about the perfect, most approximate metaphor, huh?

Sometimes I want kids, and sometimes the idea scares the daylights out of me. Sometimes my brain is all "oh dude, of course you have to have kids, they're so adorable and squishy!" and sometimes it's like "yeah, but then when are you going to visit Italy? Australia? Kenya? Japan? Antarctica?" Then there's that third, instinctual, Freud's Id voice that's like "GO FORTH AND PRO-CREATE, MOTHER FUCKER!!!!" and then sex isn't fun so much as it is a mission statement, and that's a major cockblock by my brain and by stupid biology and stuff.

Sometimes it's tempting to get up out of my office, shut off the computer, leave all my stuff on a street corner in a box marked "Please Take--FREE" and run away to somewhere else that's not here . . . But then, the fact that I have student loans and Facebook makes this pretty much impossible.

Is today's theme "I really want to go do something different?" I think if this were a certain city block populated by muppets and multi-racial kids, it would be sponsored by the letter "P" for "Pensive."


"Can I get-get-get to know-know-know-know ya better-better, baby?"

Gonna change my way of thinkin'...

Today I get to go to the FSA Food Expo at the Seattle Convention Center. It's basically a day where different food vendors, restaurants, catering companies, and breweries market and sample their product for regional businesses interested in buying. Is my hotel going to buy anything? Probably not. But it's paid, and it's an excuse to go eat rad food.

I'm sort of at a weird place with my job. They've got me doing about 25% of the job of the Director of Sales, 50% of the job of front desk person, and 25% of the job of an administrative assistant for my boss. My official title is "Guest Services Manager," and I'm still only a little bit sure of what that means. I sort of feel dead in the water about it. On the one hand I'm grateful to have a job, but on the other hand I've got that feeling on the fringes of my psyche that I always tend to get when I go months without affirmation that my degree is worth something--The feeling that I'm going nowhere. Doing nothing worthwhile. A placeholder.

To stave off the good ol' insecurities, I've taken to exploring new web comics, reading non-fiction, and (attempting) to try one new restaurant or one new bar every week. So far so good--we were introduced to this amazing Cuban sandwich shop called Paseo. We've been three times now in two months; something about the caramelized onions makes it instantly appealing at just the mention of its name. It's absolutely one of the best kept secrets in the city. Make no mistake, it's not "first date food" as Alli and I discussed. It's definitely "I've seen you naked and I still want to have sex with you" food. Should you go there, and should you purchase one of their sandwiches, you will end up looking like a total slob. A satisfied, perfectly content, in-total-bliss slob.

You know what I hate? Yelp. It's like all of the opinions I never ever wanted to hear and all of the whining, complaining, irrational customers I've ever dealt with were all corralled into one place so that they could all be grumpy and totally irrational and obtrusive together. It makes me want to bash my head against a wall repeatedly. Guess what, "portlandgal444," nobody cares that you think Starbucks is the root of all evil. I'm sorry nobody reads your blog, but don't take it out on the rest of the Internets by publishing your rants where everybody can see them. And if you're going to, at least try and be interesting. Or have something objective and well-rounded to say. In summary, DIAF.

If you're not reading The Abominable Charles Christopher, you should be. It's beautiful and hilarious and heartbreaking. And it's got adorable animals!

This weekend I've got my buddy Daniel's birthday and a re-bachelor party for my friend Nu_Ryan (which is what I call him on the Internets), whom just finalized his divorce. Busy-busy-busy bees, we are!

"Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?"

Crawling out from under the rock...

...The rock, in this case, being work and everyting work-related.

My job became pretty hyper-stressful these past two months for several reasons: The first being when I found out that my wages had been lowered without my knowledge. I never thought I needed to check my rate of pay on my pay stubs, but one random glance one random day led me to discover that for 2 months my wages had been slashed. Which is illegal if no one tells you.

A long, arduous, 2-month battle with the hotel building owner later, and now I'm back to making what I rightfully should've been making in the first place (with a raise[!]). No wonder I was barely making ends meet for a while there, huh?

The next reason is because of our awkward transitionary phase. We're picking up in business, but we only opened 5 months ago, so we still have shit for employees. There aren't enough of us, so when something breaks down or someone gets sick everyone is royally screwed. We've only just recently hired a few extra housekeepers and an extra front desk person (thank God--I can actually have office hours in my shared office space!), yet there's still not enough equipment or funding to go around. It's absolutely insane and not in any way under my control, which is eternally frustrating.

The final reason is because I've been having some intense dreams recently. I haven't even told Josh about this because I don't want to freak him out. The reoccuring dream happens every few nights, and certain details are always a little different, yet the over-arching "story" of the dream stays the same:

In my dream, I have children. They keep telling me that they're hungry, so I keep making them food. Yet there's no food left in the house. I run frantically through the house opening doors and drawers and closets and cabinets but we have no food. So I go to check my bank balance online and I have negative however-many-thousands of dollars.

Sometimes, also, our cat talks to me and repremands me for doing a poor job of parenting.

Is my fear of growing older and feeling directionless when I'm 30 manifesting itelf in the form of these odd dreams where I'm broke and have no way of taking care of those whom depend on me? Probably. I hate feeling helpless, and stupid, and embarassed, so it only makes sense that I'd hate being broke with kids. Plus it doesn't help that in the dream my cat is a total bitch.

Anyway, it hasn't done wonders for my sleep cycle.

My battle with soda has continued. I've fallen victim to temptation at a friend's house a few times and had a can of regular Cherry Pepsi here and there, but other than that it's Diet soda all the way! Blerg.

Josh and I are doing well. We hit a bit of a bump recently but I feel like things are smoothed over. He's the one constant in my life, and I'm glad that I've got him. Few other things make me feel good after a long, shitty day at work than just being around him.

Thanks to my mom we now have nearly $500 worth of brand new living room furniture :) I'm really pleased with how it looks. I feel like we need to push the "modern, industrial forest" aesthetic a little further with some larger prints or some really gaudy pieces, but I dig everything about it thus far. I'll post pictures when I take some.

Now for lists.

Three Bands I'm Currently Over-Listening To:
1) Discovery
2) Sleigh Bells
3) Best Coast

Three Foods I'm Currently Overeating:
1) Bananas
2) Various Lean Pockets
3) Tortilla Chips

Three Things I Hope Happen:
1) Josh has a good birthday.
2) I get a bite on something--anything--that I've submitted to various editorial people.
3) I get tickets to the Capitol Hill Block Party (DEADWEATHER! BEST COAST!).

Three Things I Will Make Happen:
1) Call my mom back after a week's worth of phone tag.
2) Buy a wedding present for Josh's brother.
3) Write more, more, and more again.

Three People I Need to Call:
1) My mom (cheating on this one)
2) Alli
3) Julie

Three People I Need to Write:
1) Aunt Charlotte
2) Lindsay
3) Matt

I'll be posting wedding stuff soon, so get stoked for that :)


"Life has a funny way,
of sneaking up on you
when you think everything is okay;
then everything blows up in your face."