Upcoming: The Year of Action

So I did take myself out to see Matthew Sweet at Yoshi's tonight. It made me feel old, to see him so old; and it made me feel young, to remember back when I was young and first bought Girlfriend, listened to it in college, played it on The Dynamic Groovy Music Hour.

But man, did he age. Not that I ever saw him live before, in younger days. And of course, the album featured in the show is 20 years old. People change in two decades. It just hurts a girl's heart to see it so obviously.

Still, me, I had a good time. The family of three that was sharing my table, who had never heard of Matthew Sweet before, probably not so much fun on their part. I would have felt bad, except that they were paying for it with a $150 gift card.

When I walked into my office building today, one of the security guards stopped me just before I entered the elevator bank. "Remember what we were talking about last week?" he asked. Last week: how life can be good, now all I need to do is find love in it and it would be perfect. "January will be your month," he said. I laughed and said we'd see. And that I would let him know on January 31st how it went.

Secret part of me hopes the man is right. It will bode well for the whole year.

I am looking forward to 2012. I feel like it should be a year of action. Like it will be a year of action.

And it will be a doing-away of words that aren't backed up by action.

The ride home was thinking about that, how actions speak louder than words, how empty words are when there's no follow up. I'm plenty guilty myself of speaking empty words, of back-pedaling when action is required. Just, to feel it thrown up at me, to have my soul ring empty with those empty words ... I want to be done with it. I say enough. (And yes, I understand how it looks to use words to decry words.)

Whatever. I'm not saying this the poetic way it was going on in my head as I walked from the 22 to the 24. But whatever.

Positive end (sorta) to this story: I'm excited to get my shit together. It's time.

Get What You Need

Last night over drinks I was reminded of how much I used to like live music, and how long it's been since I've gone to shows regularly.

Matthew Sweet is playing Yoshi's next week, and I'm considering hitting up one of the shows. I haven't listened to him for years, but seeing a link to that show on SF Gate took me back ten years to my college days, and I've been letting YouTube play me some of the songs off Girlfriend.

It's probably a good thing that my tentative plans for this evening fell through, since I was able to finish one Christmas present (the last one to be shipped), and get within spitting distance of finishing the one that's due Saturday. Not bad, Sarah. Not bad. You're almost a productive citizen.

On nights I'm not going out, I've been watching Sons of Anarchy, on a recommendation from coworker Elsie. I actually really like it, much more than expected. Even before I realized that Gemma was the same actress that played Peggy from Married with Children.


1990


2009

Too bad Netflix only has the first two seasons. I'm a-gonna be impatient for new episodes to be uploaded.

Fat Mother F-star-star-star-er

The war against Unwanted Roommate Jim is not over. The asshole's gotten bold: yesterday I had my friend Emily over, chatting and hanging out in broad daylight, and suddenly she looks over into my kitchen and squeaks.

"Oh my god — I just saw your mouse!"

I swore some and went over to check, but by then he'd slipped under the stove and out of sight. I set a trap and settled back down. We could hear him randomly chewing at the wall at intervals. We both agreed that he must have been really hungry, to so creep out in search of food at such a dangerous time.

This evening as I was settling down to knitting and the Facebooks, I heard movement and turned around just in time to see a fat brown mouse scurry across the main living area and into the kitchen. I followed him just quickly enough to see him slip under the fridge, where he promptly started up with the loud wall-chewing. Bastard.

Building manager has been notified, and will look into getting a handy man out at some point to move the fridge and patch up whatever hole is back there. Which means I have to clear the fridge out so that it's not impossible to move. Heavy thing is my fridge.

All I want to do is get my hands on that rodent and squeeze its eyeballs out. Animal rights be-damned.

In other news, apparently what I needed most to get out of my recent funk was a night of drinking. A lot of drinking. My company's Christmas party was Saturday night, at a Mexican restaurant with a karaoke stage in the back. I drank a lot of margaritas. I sang myself hoarse (even though the karaoke jockey cut me off for two of my songs!), and didn't end up with a hangover despite my best efforts. Good show. And now suddenly I'm feeling really good about myself. It's like magic, killing the sad brain cells.

Okay, enough talk. Time to get back to my knitting — I have a hat that's due Saturday night, and have to decide if I'm going to knit another thing to be due Sunday or if I'm just going to buy something nice for this person. Oh, and I guess at some point I should get some sleep, too.

The Cheese Stands

It's early yet to be making New Year's Resolutions, but I've been looking at myself tonight, this week, this month, and all I see is things falling apart, little by little. Financially, health-wise, emotionally. I thought I had it together, I really did, but it's been spiraling downwards a lot lately.

Plus side: it's not as sad as previous years. I'm just lost, not fallen.

So it doesn't hurt to start thinking again, ahead, about my goals for myself and for 2012. I'm not going to achieve the Master Plan unless I establish and stick to something.

That's all just hard to remember in the moment.

The goals for the rest of the year:

1. survive;
   
2. finish my Christmas knitting;
   
3. find some New Year's Eve plans.

The goals to focus on for next year:

1. Tighten my budget, and stick to it. More important now that my life's become more expensive, yet I still need to save for the Master Plan.
   
2. Get back to healthy basics. Which means consistently working out, eating better, eating out less. Cooking more food.
   
3. Detach. Never Never Land is getting old.
   
4. Work harder. Stronger. With more zest and elan.

Miscellany

It's amazing how much knitting I can get done when I put my mind to it. In the last two weeks I've finished half a pair of socks, half a pair of fingerless mitts, two face cloths and one-third of a scarf. Not bad considering I'm still sleeping, working, being social, attending classes. Christmas needs to be every month if that's what it takes to make me actually use up my yarn stash.

---

Last night I dreamed that I was in New York during an earthquake. It was so vivid I actually woke up and had to check USGS to make sure it wasn't a real one that had somehow entered my dreams. It wasn't.

---

I just got an email announcing the next NYC Midnight Short Story Contest. This year's will be completely different than the last two: three rounds, each round getting progressively shorter in allowed story length. First round is a week and 2,500 words, second round is a weekend (my birthday weekend) and 1,500 words, final round is one day and 1,000 words. That's pretty intense. I'm not sure yet if I want to sign up. Will think on it.

---

There might be more, but my bus is coming. That's what I get for trying to journal in the morning.

This Satisfied

Tonight at my ceramic studio's open house, an old Russian woman read my palms — both of flesh and of clay.

My flesh hand foretold a long life, but staggered. I will have a strong love, and two children. My love and my life lines are strongly connected to each other.

My clay hand's life was also long (no surprise, since I based it on my own), but interrupted by some great disease — perhaps a heart attack? — that a close friend would help me through. She will have two important lovers, an abortion, and one child.

After the old woman wandered off, having told me her life story as well as my own and my creation's, my ceramics teacher Josh came over.

"That woman just read my palm, and the palm of my clay hand," I said, full of wonder.

"Yeah, well," he replied, "that's actually the crazy woman I told you about that keeps stealing things at these events. Last open house I caught her with a bunch of beers that she'd taken in her purse. Keep an eye on your stuff."

And Counting

Not that you care, but I need a break and there's only one thing on my mind: party prep.

Fourteen hours left. It took three to cleanse the main apartment space (which essentially involved pushing stuff into the center of the room, rearranging things on shelves, vacuuming cleared space, and then throwing the crap from the middle of the room into the closet: organizing is for chumps).

Thirty-six flourless chocolate cupcakes (18 of which are Sriracha-flavored) have been baked. Squash is roasted and ready for soupification in the morning. What's left for the evening: prepping the devilled eggs, boiling another dozen eggs for back-up, and making the Belgian waffle cookies.

I hope you are getting hungry just reading this. Because if you aren't, then you obviously haven't had my grandmother's Belgian waffle cookies.

I just got back from a grocery run, because apparently three pounds of butter and three dozen eggs aren't enough to cover me for this event. Also, I didn't have napkins. Go figure.

Okay, enough resting. Time to go boil those eggs, clean the counter, and break out the waffle iron.

T Minus 37 Hours

I'm hosting another Holiday Open House this year, and have just about 36.5 hours left before it is due to begin.

Here is a view of my apartment in its current state, from the one clean corner:



Friends who will be in attendance, please remember this image, and note that it does not look nearly as chaotic as the reality is. Then compare with how it is when you all arrive. Hopefully there will be a noticeable difference.

Not sure how I'm going to pull it all together and get enough sleep, but I do at least have the ham done.

And truly, isn't that the most important thing? I thought so.