In Retrospect

I met someone's ex once, along with said ex's boyfriend at the time, who was a really nice guy. "Poor Mark (not his actual name, of course)," my friend said, in reference to his being tied to this girl, and then, "I wonder if people said that about me when she and I were together." I didn't say so, and probably didn't even know it yet, but I think it was the other way around. People felt sorry for her, which is saying a lot, because she's no dream.

A different someone had a birthday yesterday. He shows me up, because his lifestyle adheres too closely to my ideals, which it turns out I'm afraid to live by. So I bought him The Dharma Bums, only to begin re-reading myself to stay busy while he sleeps (and sleeps, and sleeps) off a poorly-timed flu. He said, "It should be illegal to be sick on your birthday...but then I guess I'd be in jail."

I planned to be a devout little bikkhu, Ray Smith style, and a dried-veggie-and-bulgar-eating minimalist, a la Japhy Ryder. That was more than two years ago. For a while I meditated devoutly, and it was an exhilarating, strange, scary/happy time. My best friend asked if I was having a manic episode. I'm sure I didn't quit on purpose, but I forget what happened exactly. I think it was about the same time I stopped doing yoga, and around the point when I met Evan. Go figure. I keep meaning to get back to it, but months go by and the inertia just gets thicker. I don't like it at all, but I don't change it either. I need a kick in the ass from my personal Bodhisattva. Ty, where are you?

Upturn

Faith emails me my Free Will Astrology horoscope every week. The crux of this week's was, "...there's a good chance you will have excellent intuition about what to do in order to at least partially restore yourself to power."

Most of Friday was alright, but nothing to suggest a major shift. In fact, it seemed like everyone I talked to was in a similar funk. I drove into Greensboro without any sort of plan, doubtful that I'd find something to do. But!!! But!!! I had a totally stellar weekend! Nothing in particular happened, but it's been a while since I so thoroughly enjoyed myself. I went to a dance party with the Elsewhere crew on Friday night. My poor little atrophied muscles could hardly take all the stimulation. I didn't know I missed dancing so much!

Saturday was lazy and full of diner food with a late-night trip back to Chapel Hill where we stayed up all night emulsing screens, listening to music, and doing research for a trend-tracking project.

Sunday was maybe my favorite, though. Sleep dep. trip to the mall for no particular reason. I've never had so much fun trying on sunglasses. Ever. Later on there was a big chunk of helping George put his bed together, but even that was alright with me.

I think I should start every weekend with dancing.

Past Bedtime

It is depressing to realize that a song you've always liked, and simultaneously been grateful that you can't entirely relate to, suddenly describes your situation to a tee.

I'm tired. I want to go sleep, but for some reason, I'm still sitting up. I think it's a combination of inertia and the groundless hope that something nice will happen, thus ending my day on a good note. Things aren't really bad, exactly. I'm more bored than anything else. Plus the only people I have face-to-face contact with are usually check-out girls or mechanics or whatever other stranger is peripherally involved in my errands. Really, today was comparatively exciting. I found an Asian market down 15-501, finished a "save the date" card for Tim and Kaylan, and got a cute (or so the receptionist told me) haircut at Moshi Moshi. Also, my NC driver's license came today and it's the first not horrible photo since I got my learner's permit (the photo for which was actually quite good). These things will have to suffice for pleasant thoughts to fall asleep to.

Busy Bee

Too terribly busy with made-up work to even take pictures of it all, but here's the recent stuff:

Mini cheesecakes, half swirled with blackberry, the others plain, and...

...lavender earl grey cupcakes with lemon buttercream for Tim and Kaylan's joint birthday party. I made the cupcakes from this recipe. I added a step which was to heat the milk and steep some tea in it before letting it cool and adding it to the batter. It was pretty bergamot-ish before I put it in the batter, but the cupcakes still didn't have enough of the tea flavor for my taste. Next time I'd say more tea in the batter and less lemon in the icing (delish, but totally overpowered the other flavors).

I finished up an order for a toddler-sized kimono recently, too. Babymamma requested pink, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but I think I made it work. The kimono itself is about 23" long, just to give you an idea of the size. Besides the standard obi, I made a pre-tied bow that snaps on over a simple knot. Probably easier than retying a traditional knot/bow every time a diaper needs changing.

Selfishly, though, my favorite project (of this post, anyway) was one for myself that Faith helped me with this weekend. She and her dad built a sweet stand for her laptop a few months ago and I've been coveting it ever since. Luckily for her, it was the wrong size for my laptop. And luckily for me, it was way easy to build. It's totally perfect because it lets air get under the computer, but is also totally comfortable on your lap...don't get me started on commercial stand designs.

The most time consuming thing about making this thing was getting the color the way I wanted it–saturated, but with the grain showing through. It was essentially a matter of patience and possibly a little obsessive compulsion. I used watered down interior latex paint at about a 4:1 paint-to-water ratio, and painted on with a large artists' brush. After a minute or two I used a combo of dry and damp paper towels to wipe off excess paint and even out the coat. Once it's dry, you just polyurithane, sand, and repeat. The very least step was to glue the black foamy, rubbery, I-don't-know-what strips to the top of the riser pieces and it was donedonedone. I'm a little infatuated with it, I have to admit. It turned out exactly perfect (look at that yellow!).