Saturday, November 28, 2009

greetings, cards, and greeting cards.

a quickie roundup of the past 10 days, since i've been being a slacker again (but an otherwise very busy slacker!): 

- to all who our dear readers who celebrated this week, happy thanksgiving! we hope you are all happily sated from fun family times and copious amounts of food. 

- do you know how good it feels to have a library card again? i spent an awesome hour back in the old place the other day, and i can't wait to tear through the stack of books i took out and go back to get some more. i guess since i worked around books every day i didn't realize how much i missed the actual library. something about seeing tattered old books again - all my shiny new hardcovers from the past few years in publishing had gotten me spoiled, i think. 

the moment when i realized just how long it had been from the last time i was in a library was when my cell phone started buzzing and a librarian shot me a dirty look. it hadn't even occurred to me to silence the thing since the last time i was in one i didn't tote a cell around with me. eons must have passed! 

- i've mentioned side projects that missy and i have been up to a few times before -- this is our most recent, and biggest, to date, and one that we will hopefully continue for many years to come. i won't shamelessly self-promote too much over here (that's what facebook and twitter are for! in-between learning about what that random acquaintance from middle school ate for breakfast, of course), but we'd love and greatly appreciate if you had a moment and clicked over there and checked out the new shop. 


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

i'd like to meet his tailor.

i'm not into the whole twilight hoopla, but i do love this piece from the huffington post, which equates it to the recession

i am a werewolf. hear my anguished howl! 


**while on the subject of wolfie noises, i spent a most entertaining 40 minutes in the car on halloween, driving to sissy's place, with warren zevon's werewolves of london on repeat, enthusiastically AWHOOOOOO-ing alongside with the chorus. traffic is so much more tolerable when you can howl through it. 



Friday, November 13, 2009

commemorating.

a day short, but i intend to spend most of tomorrow too hungover to type, but - happy unemployedaversary to me. can you believe it's been a year? i can't. it completely and utterly boggles my mind, although, i had a sneaking suspicion last year at this time (well, last year, 36 hours from now) that i would find myself here. 

and one of the things i've pondered most of late is whether that was just my pisces intuition at work or if i subconsciously caused this scenario. would the initial mindset of "oh hey, a little break. no worries." as opposed to "HOLY FREAKING SHIT - I AM NEVER GOING TO WORK AGAIN. I AM GOING TO BE POOR AND SAD FOREVER." have gotten me employed again within a neat little two months? does mindset have a hand in destiny? did i think myself to one year later, still no job and living back at my parents? is that possible? 

prescience or self-fulfilling prophecy is the wonderment that has turned my current bedtime into 3am. in my next life i would really, really, really like to become one of those people who thinks just a tad less. maybe 30% less self-awareness and i can go about my merry way. 

but besides becoming a tad more neurotic, i think i am doing kind of ok. there's been an awful lot of rough patches, but otherwise life has chugged along kind of normally, and if anything i'd like to believe that the experience of a hardship (for lack of a better word, as i do know that things could definitely be worse, and that there are millions in my current situation + much worse) such as this has helped me to develop some new positive behaviors that i wouldn't have had the insight to properly develop beforehand when nothing was really ever wrong besides the passing every day bs stuff that now i know doesn't matter. well, at least matters less. 

is this growing up? maybe life holding me by the ponytail and spanking me with the reality stick will have its benefits after all. 



Monday, November 09, 2009

new ventures!

two posts in one day! do i have a fever?


this is more of an announcement than legitimate prose, so i suppose i don't. but missy, bear, and i have started on another online endeavor - us, elsewhere - in support of an offline endeavor that we're been working on for quite some time now (and will hopefully be launching soon). i don't intend to abandon darling old loveandcyanide for the new and shiny, so expect to still be able to find me here, dear bloggy friends and readers. but you can now find me there, too.



my worst enemy.


this is a flowering pear tree.


it is also my latest arch-nemesis.


you may be asking yourself how i could possibly be at odds with such a sweet, harmless tree. don't be fooled - similar to britney, the flowering pear is not that innocent. it lords over my parking spot with ill-intent. obstructing the curb with its low-hanging branches. depositing its ugly alien berries* all over the hood of my car. shedding an obscene amount of leaves.

why my parents opted to plant this thing where did they did is a complete mystery. they claim they had no idea it would grow as massive as it has or that it would make giant berries that would then fall all over the place leaving sticky, purple-y chaos in their wake. clearly they didn't do their research, as in the past 24 hours i've learned that the flowering pear grows into a majestic (re: large) pyramid shape and is a lovely addition to your lawn. nowhere is the flowering pear suggested for a teensy patch of dirt on the sidewalk next to your driveway in a space that perfectly fits one silver pontiac grand am.

the flowering pear better hope that i don't come across an axe in the basement.


*'ugly alien berries' do not resemble cute, normal berries, like the straw-, blue-, or rasp- varieties. instead they look like escargot. and when you rather unwisely try to scrape them off your windshield with your windshield wipers, they streak a purple-y brown goo across it that will take many, many paper towels to clean off.



Friday, November 06, 2009

parking lot peeves.

since starting my 'new life' - well, 'newer new life' - two (eeeekkkkk!) months ago, i've had to adjust to some different habits. like driving almost everywhere. which isn't the worst thing on earth - i've always been a fan of driving, whether i'm the driver or a passenger. and cars certainly get you places faster. - however, i just cannot get comfortable with driving to the gym. i got so used to having a nice little warm-up during my 10-block walk to my old gym - a very efficient method of getting in that little extra bit to my workout, i always thought - that now i feel like a useless sloth driving to it. but less of a useless sloth than some of my fellow gym-goers.

the gym is in a small shopping center, with a main parking lot for a number of stores. i typically park a few aisles over from the gym, where it is less crowded and so i can get an extra 20 seconds of leg movement before getting on the treadmill. so i've noticed during my little jaunts through the lot that there is often a lot of competition for the five or so parking spots that are directly in front of the building. prime real estate - i'm waiting for a fight to break out over them. yesterday, a woman waited for at least 3 minutes in her car for a man to get his (slow-moving) self into his vehicle and relinquish the spot to her. i marveled at how lazy people can be, that they are going to workout, but yet they can't walk more than a foot to get into the place where they are going to workout.

so imagine my disgust level when i left the gym and, looking down while crossing through one of the empty prime spots, noticed NO PARKING - FIRE LANE painted all along the curb! i hope an exercise bike never spontaneously bursts into flames while i'm working out alongside those lazy lawbreakers. our sweat will have to put the fire out since the firetruck won't be able to get close enough.




Wednesday, November 04, 2009

united states postal stalkers?

the following exchange took place outside my house this afternoon:

scene: my father is on our property, fixing our front porch. the mailman shows up. they exchange mundane small talk, and mailman hands my father today's mail.

mailman: oh, hey, does the garbage in this neighborhood get picked up on tuesday?

father: yes. (probably makes strange face at strange question)

mailman: oh ok. thanks - i know you're retired from the sanitation department, so i figured you would know. (turns to exit through gate)

father: (pauses. thinks.) hey. how did you remember i worked for sanitation? i don't remember us talking about it, and if we did it had to have been awhile ago.

mailman: oh, i deliver your mail. i know everything about everyone!


what a creep!