of goodness and girly things.

Things I’ve been thinking about…

• Guerilla Goodness, fellow RVANews writer Patience Salgado’s great idea about practicing random acts of kindness.”There is no selfless good deed but it doesn’t really matter, the world needs it all… I have been on both ends of kindness and decided this was the work of my life. When I looked back, kindness had been calling me all along.”

• Urban decay indeed.



• Exercise doesn’t “make you thin,” apparently.  O RLY?!  Thanks for nothing, crazy workout schedule.  Seriously, this article is an interesting read.  While I’m not ready to drop my workout schedule (it still helps prevent heart disease, so that’s a good thing) I want to start focusing on more frequent exercise rather than more vigorous exercise.”After you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle — a major achievement — you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day, about the amount in a teaspoon of butter, before beginning to gain weight. Good luck with that.”

• Neat woodcut prints from Tugboat Printshop, via Modish.



• A “Christian” DVD lending library: Really?  Why do we need this?  Are non-Christians suddenly inept at handling DVDs?  Or are Christians unable to expend the energy necessary to filter their own Netflix choices?  Just another brick in the wall of certain factions sectioning themselves away from the rest of the world — which they were commanded to love and do a good work within.  Ugh, see this sermon for how I feel about that.

• Adorable, doll-like, and fun.  See, kids can dress well too.



• I love the 1700s, when marriage, maturity, and motherhood were revered — versus today, when being or looking like a 12-year-old is considered hot.  Check out Mrs. Georgiana Smyth here, being sweet and looking good doing it.  The best part is that this is her son on her lap, not her daughter.

• Now, this is my idea of shelving.



• Although I love to cook, I’m not completely brainwashed by the slow food movement and I know the value of a quick meal without a lot of fuss.  So these cans that heat themselves are exciting to me.

• Quite possibly the best nerdy cross-stitch I’ve ever seen.



• An interesting article about panhandling.  This is an issue that directly affects our neighborhood, and this article makes some good points.  I think it’s difficult to say what’s “right” and what’s “wrong” — giving money that goes straight to a sixer of Natty Ice isn’t getting to the root of the problem, it’s just making a person feel better for a minute.  And I hate the idea of not making progress.  But at the same time, do we have a right to tell them what they “need?”“Over the years, I have been approached by dozens of people asking for money. When I said I would buy them a burger or take them where they need to go, the answer was always the same: ‘I just want the money,’ Martin said.’”

• TRUE.

  

  And the best part is that there are some attractive nerds out there.

love / hate.

pretty, pretty book

Right now, I love:

• Going into my backyard, finding the newest little rosebuds, and carrying them inside for bud vases all around the house.
• The fact that Modern Chris is now calling me “Tessipedia” due to my propensity to remember amazing stuff.  The irony is that I have a horrible memory.  I’ve just happened to get lucky in conversation with Chris.
• Listening to the Cantor in the office next to me, reciting passages from the Torah in her beautiful Hebrew.
• The fact that this same lady has started calling me “Abby” after the character from NCIS, because I supposedly look exactly like her.  You’ll remember that my boss at my previous place of employment did the same thing.  I think it’s the she’s-the-only-goth-girl-I’ve-ever-seen-so-I’ll-call-you-her-name-even-though-you-look-nothing-like-her syndrome, because I really don’t look like her…but she’s lovely, and I gratefully accept the compliment.
• RoBear, as they call him on certain Twilight fansites.  And also TayLaut.  I won’t go into details here.
• Seeing my beautiful friends from out of town.

the lovely Jaime and I

vintage labels!

Right now I hate:

• The question “So, how are the wedding plans going?”  Seriously I’m just going to start pretending like I don’t hear people when they ask me this.  Here’s why:
  • What happened to “how are YOU doing?”
  • A simple “Great!” doesn’t satisfy them; they will not take this for an answer (to the few who have, thank you).  They’ll continue to stare expectantly and if I don’t offer any more info, start grilling me with 45 different questions and get every mundane detail: what exact foods we’re having, every detail of my dress, full descriptions of jewelry, how many guests we’re having, and 1 million other things that are none of their business and that should be pleasant surprises on the wedding day rather than discussed and dissected beforehand.
  • I do not have my entire 80-some-item to-do list memorized, people.  Please stop with the “So what all is left to do?  Yeah?  And after that?  And after THAT?!”  If you are even just an acquaintance of mine, you should know I live in fear of having to recall long lists of things from memory.
  • I’m frankly disgusted with everybody’s expectation that I should be looking forward to this day with all of my might.  That would just be subscribing to the idea that happiness is contingent upon the Next Big Thing happening, a way of life I don’t understand and don’t buy into.  People are always like “oh, after such-and-such happens, then things will be perfect.”  No way!  You can’t live your life always waiting until after This or That happens to truly allow yourself to be happy, or grow up, or be content in a relationship, or whatever.  I want to be happy and helpful right now, where I am.  Not where I assume I’m going to be.  Because you never really do get there, do you?  It’s never enough, as the Cure says.  How very American of us.
  • I don’t think that on the wedding day some magical transformation overtakes you, I think that it’s a process that you set into motion a long time ago and will keep working on for the rest of your life.  The wedding is just a symbol; a celebration.  A time to commemorate the life that Dan and I already have together.
  • I hate that the focus of every conversation gets steered toward cake flavors and hairstyles, as if those things are actually what’s important.  The wedding as a whole is important, but it’s not the end product that everyone seems to think it is.  I’m looking for a good marriage much more than I’m looking for a good wedding.

But as always, I shall endeavor to keep calm and carry on.  Up with tranquility, down with playing 20 questions about party planning!

of cabinetry and croc extinction.

Less money, less problems.  I like that the opposite of the “mo’ money, mo’ problems” adage remains true as well.  I’m the brokest I’ve been in years right now.  Due to my current situation of working part time while trying to get the gears of my shop rolling, I spent my last $6 in the world going to Dan’s show the other night.  It’s one of those things where you’re making exactly enough money you need to pay rent and bills (and not a penny more), and then things go wrong with your car, and you owe your parents insurance money, and blah blah blah.  I freaked out for a little bit, but as years of being poor in the past taught me, quickly reassured myself that everything would be okay, and nobody would starve, and I’d get through this month just like all the other months I’ve gotten through.  Things will be taken care of.  I will be taken care of. It’s not a matter of scrambling around or cutting my hair off to sell for a wig or recruiting a gang of street urchins to pickpocket for me, it’s a matter of calming down and realizing that I can’t do everything myself. I keep being astonished that things are going so well, and that I can be increasingly happy as money decreases.  But it actually  makes sense if you think about it.  If you have no money to go out and buy frivolous things, you spend more time actually doing the things that make you happy.  For example, the rush of a shopping spree (and I admit there is a rush) cannot compare to overhauling your garden, or trying a new recipe from the dregs of the cabinets, or finishing a dress made from scratch (as I did last night).  I’d like to draw a VCU Business School-style demand curve for you to illustrate this point, but I guess it’s probably not necessary.  For more info on thankfulness and being blessed in the bleakest of circumstances, see Matt Moment’s blog.  I second everything he said.

So even though the boys are on tour and I can’t afford to buy so much as a kibble, I’ve had an amazing couple of nights rocking to some good iTunes mixes and persevering with the ol’  needle and thread.  And I’m going to beautiful Nags Head soon with the family, so there’ll be free seafood dinners galore and lots of pretty pictures to bring home, no doubt.

This whole experience has also allowed me to more closely identify with the prospect of debtor’s prison as drawn by Charles Dickens in Little Dorrit, the Masterpiece version of which is now running on PBS.  Lovers of Bleak House, beware!  You will soon be obsessed.  I can’t wait for Episode 2 to come out.  Also, the opening titles of the series have a bunch of thaumatropes spinning in the air.  And we all know I’m obsessed with thaumatropes.

In other news, I’ve been vastly inspired by recent blog posts showing off beautiful homes and decor ideas.  I get overwhelmed by the onslaught of these ideas, but it’s good to tuck them away for some day in the maybe-future when I’ll be looking to furnish some crumbly mansion of my own (fingers crossed).

Tonight I’ve got fun waiting for me at Sound of Music where the beautiful and talented Tracy will perform as Ringfinger, featuring Stephen Brodsky of Cave In fame.  I’ve been looking forward to this for a while.

And now, for some links…

• Finally, a web site chronicling all the ugly condos that are plopped into our landscape.  Triple blech.
• I love these photos by Joshua Hoffine that were featured on the Rumors blog.  I think they do a good job of illustrating just how scary things are in your imagination when you’re a kid (grown-ups are always downplaying these things).  And I think some of the haunted houses and haunted woods around VA could take a cue from this guy and start upping the ante.  I shouldn’t be more scared of some photos I saw online than I am of a haunted woods that I actually paid money to walk through.  Come on guys.
• Tons of fancy schmancy decor items for less, as shown by decorpad.com.  I just spent like 20 minutes browing through these.
• GUILTY.
• Crocs going out of business?!?!?!  Cue the mass celebrations and street parades and Ewok parties!

Hey look!  The sun just came out, and it is beautiful.  I’m so ready for another Richmond spring.  Time to gaze out my office window for a while.

g. dubs says…

George Washington is an interesting character, and I admit to being as fascinated with him as people were in the late eighteenth century.  So I was thrilled to get George Washington’s Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior for Christmas this year from my sister.  I’d read through the Rules before, but this book also includes certain farewell and inaugural addresses from G. Dubs as well.  Also, I learned that these rules were not originally written by him, but copied out as a schoolboy from some popular Jesuit text.  Anyway, the rules  in their entirety seem difficult to live up to, but most of them really stem from wanting to promote common decency, and putting others before the self.  I think the general effect is that you don’t split hairs and worry yourself to death over old-fashioned, out-of-date details, but that the little things you do that drive other people crazy are thrown into sharp relief.  I can use all the guides on this I can get.  Here are some of my favorites.

• 22: Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy.
• 44: When a man does all he can though it succeeds not well blame not him that did it.
• 47: Mock not nor jest at anything of importance, break no jests that are sharp, biting, and if you deliver anything witty and pleasant, abstain from laughing thereat yourself.
• 50: Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any.
• 56: Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad company.
• 58: Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for ’tis a sign of a tractable and commendable nature, and in all causes of passion admit reason to govern.
• 62: Speak not of doleful things at a time of mirth or at the table; speak not of melancholy things as death and wounds, and if others mention them change if you can the discourse.  Tell not your dreams, but to your intimate friend.
• 66: Be not forward but friendly and courteous, the first to salute, hear, and answer.  Be not pensive when it’s a time to converse.
• 70: Reprehend not the imperfections of others, for that belongs to parents, masters, and superiors.

a distaste for cous cous, and happy parading.

This weekend: dinner at Ipanema for Blake’s birthday, the Triple for Lauren V’s birthday, the Christmas parade, crafting, visiting Granny at the hospital, cooking, Autocue / Ki:Theory show at Gallery5, Ipanema for Twist and Crawl dance night and seeing rad friends from Norfolk.  After that we tried to go to Cous Cous to meet up with some others and see the magnificent Jason Wood, who was down from NY.  Up to this point I had an amazing night, saw great bands / DJs, and was able to catch up with tons of people.

But here’s where last night got surreal.  So Margo and Maura were in line to get into Cous Cous, and then a couple of guys, and then us.  We were all perplexed because it was busy inside, but not slam-packed like it is some nights…so why were we waiting?  The door guy wasn’t letting one person in for every person who left, which would be standard procedure if the place was at capacity.  He was arbitrarily letting some people walk right up and bypass the line to get in.  But when three or four people would leave, he wouldn’t let anyone new in.  He was incredibly rude to Margo when she asked him what was going on.  His explanation was something that amounted to “Right now, there are too many people in here.  So I have to let out more people before I can let new people in.”  Uh, how did that happen?  And there weren’t “too many people,” because we had all been there tons of times and seen the place about 50% more crowded.  Peering through the glass windows, we could see that there was plenty of space for the eight or so extra folks who were now waiting outside.  Karen ventured the guess that they had craftily decided that “capacity” was way lower on nights when there’s no cover charge.  But there was no cover for any of Kenny’s amazing and packed 240 Minutes nights, so that doesn’t make any sense.  The door guy’s condescension to Karen when she inquired about the door is probably what frayed my patience to its very end.  After waiting for about half an hour, the status was that people continued coming up, seeing the line, asking “there’s a wait?” and then seeing our nods, peeking through the doors, and saying “but it’s not even full in there.”  Exaaaaactly.  It kind of grossed me out, to borrow a favorite phrase of Susan’s.  I’m all about waiting a little while for a good time, when everything is fair and above-board and done in the name of obeying fire codes.  But wasting my valuable Saturday night hangout time so a guy with a raging Napoleon complex can play door commando is humiliating to say the least.  I wanted to wear a sign saying “This bar isn’t cool enough for me to wait in line to get in, I’m just trying to see my friends from New York,” but I forgot my posterboard and Sharpies.  Finally my desire to avoid licking the boots of the door guy overpowered my desire to see Jason, and we split.  At this point it was almost 1am, and I couldn’t give that bearded buffoon the satisfaction of thinking he owned my soul.   This bummed Dan out because he had really wanted to get in and was looking forward to seeing friends who were inside.  Am I crazy or too impatient or complainy just because I want to at least preserve that little dignity?  I think not.  I told Dan that he should stay if he wanted to, but he didn’t stay.

So that’s the explanation for how Cous Cous became yet another of Sticky Rice’s ventures that I’ll avoid like the plague because of its rudeness and crowds, even though the food there is fantastic.  Kenny: time to change venues?  I hated trying to dance around all the 4,000 tables in there anyway.  Let’s discuss.

Edit (12.8.08): Check out the comments for further discussion!

::sigh:: End rant.  Ahhh, always purges the confusion, and never costs a penny.  And of course this way I’ll remember why I haven’t been to Cous Cous in a year.  Also, one of the larger points here is that Richmond needs a bar that’s bigger than a matchbox and smaller than Texas so that it’s the right size for dancing.  Not that I don’t love being all smushed in to tiny spaces with you guys.

But I’m quickly reminded how insignificant things like this are.  This week’s been marked with some sadness because although Granny’s doing better, she had another heart attack while in the hospital.  My sister was told yesterday that our grandfather is also ill, which is disconcerting because he is a superhero and claims to have been alive since before dirt was invented.  And Brandi suffered the loss of her baby niece this week, which is more than I have been able to wrap my mind around.  I’ve thought about her a lot this week, and how much she must be hurting.

On more positive notes:

• It snowed last night!  Tiny, baby flakes for about three seconds.  But still!
• I’ve spent about 20 hours this week working on a giant neck-bow for Marshe, and although I cannot imagine why I’m working as fast as molasses in January, it’s turning out quite lovely and I’m having fun with it.
• Work is amazing, and I’m not bummed at all to be up this early on a Sunday so that I can go there.
• My neighbors’ crazy rope-lights-in-a-tree Christmas decorations make our block the BEST this time of year.
• We froze our feet off at the parade, but it was so festive and romantic to get up early and huddle with each other on the street and be around so much cheerfulness and so many high school marching bands.
• There were Star Wars costumed characters at the parade!!!!!!!!
• I love NEET Magazine.
• Richmond has made it so easy to avoid malls this holiday season, with at least three different ways to get handmade stuff and bypass the mass-produced.
• Non-boring family portraits: good call.  Nobody wants to see you in your soft focus, Olan Mills, weird makeup that you never wear on normal days type of portrait.  Least of all yourself in ten years.
• Gmail stickers!
• H&M Home: now we’re all in big, big trouble.
• Inspired by a pretty hotel: “Love is meant to make us glad.”  Truth.
• Wesley Willis cross-stitch: THAT is what the world’s been waiting for.
• Not my style at all, but beautiful nonetheless.
• The Church of Crystal Light got press in Style Weekly.