wasabi_poptart: (Default)
hmmm

1. Baltimore. This city is crippled by snow. It snows maybe three or four times a year, not enough to learn how to deal with it, and it's always gone in less than a week, so we never have to learn to live with it. We get pounded by a blizzard (and by "blizzard," I mean more than 5") maybe once every five years. The big snowstorms always seem to happen in March, and they always take everyone by surprise. I really hope this is it for another year.

2. Travel. Somebody always dies when I travel. It's true. Mr. Rogers died while I was in San Francisco, Ronald Reagan died while I was in Prague, Sadam Hussein and Gerald Ford both died while I was in Edinburgh, and while I was in Durham, a Walmart employee got trampled to death. For whatever may happen while I'm in Istanbul this October, I apologize in advance.

3. Byron. One time I had to do an annotated bibliography on "Manfred" and unfortunately, the classmate who had done her project on "Don Juan" had taken every last book on Byron criticism out of the library and suddenly had go out of town for a funeral, so I pulled books out of my ass which had nothing to do with "Manfred," like Lord of the Dead by Tom Holland and Touched with Fire by Kay Redfield Jameson, and completely BS'd my way through it. The professor was impressed by my creativity. God, I miss grad school sometimes.

4. Convertibles. I used to have a very big problem with crap accumulating in my car. The best incentive to keeping a clean car is to drive a convertible, because A) if you leave anything of value in there, some creep is going to try to slice open the roof to break in, and B) when you put the top down, it will all blow away.

5. Lace. I got bitten by the lace bug the summer of 1990, when I found an issue of Old Time Crochet tucked in with the porn at Barnett's News and Tobacco. I was inspired to write a story called "The Hellbound Doily," in which a bored college student finds a lace pattern once belonging to the Marquis de Sade and manages to crochet a porthole into hell. It was a great story, but I sent the only copy to a guy I liked. In retrospect, perhaps the sweater curse also applies to works of fiction as well as needlecraft.
wasabi_poptart: (Default)
1. laughing. Some critic everyone was fond of name-dropping in grad school (Bahktihn? Derrida? Cixous? Oh, sweet Jesus, who gives a fuck?) wrote that laughing was the ultimate expression of subversion. All I can say is, at times when you don't want to laugh, and you would in fact be in big trouble if you did, it's impossible not to. So if there's any subversion going on, it's your id against your super-ego. But then, isn't it always?

2. silly art projects. I think the best kind of art brings a community together, and there's no better reason for this than the pursuit of silliness. This is why I love Baltimore so much. This city champions silly art as a community effort. Starting with the Kinetic Sculpture race in May and wrapping up with Tuba Christmas in December, the residents of this city enjoy a grand season of the silly, and we do it right.

3. secret georgia history. When I first got to Athens, I was enchanted by all the weird bits of eccentric folklore around the town, such as the Double-Barrelled Cannon and The Tree That Owns Itself. It was like a Flannery O'Connor story come to life. I loved finding out why things were fucked up the way they were, like why kudzu grew rampant, and why there were charming little gazebos atop ancient Cherokee burial mounds. It was as if nobody asked if anyone thought this was a good idea before they went ahead and did it, and then everyone accepted what was done and a hundred years later nobody ever thought to ask why they did it in the first place. It's why I enjoyed living in the South for as long as I did, but why I could never make my home there. I mean, I accept fucked up shit for what it is, but I have to know what was the thought process behind it in order to truly understand and appreciate it ... otherwise, you're not telling the story; you're just a part of it.

4. pets. I love, love, love my pets. As hard as it is to live with another person, to live without pets would be damned near impossible. On really bad days, they're the reason I get out of bed. I may not speak to or even see another human for days, but as long as Henry, Maggie, and Marley are here with me, the rest of the world can go to hell.

5. growing up. Childhood is an initiation. If you survive, you've earned the right to make your own decisions and not to have to answer to anyone else. This is why children have no rights ... they haven't earned them. Nobody just hands you autonomy. You have to out-maneuver it, trap it, wrestle it to the ground, and make it your bitch, then kill anyone who tries to take it away from you.
wasabi_poptart: (byron)
1. Lacy parasols I wanted to make a knit lace parasol for PDF one year, and went online to find wooden umbrella frames. Instead, I found http://www.laceparasols.com. I use mine all summer long. The pretty makes the loss of the ozone layer sting just a little less.

2. Santarchy The first part of the day is great. Hundreds of freaks in Santa suits gathering on the DC Mall, terrorizing tourists and delighting children, singing impudent Christmas carols in four-part harmony ... but by the time we hit the bars, it's just the same old same old. As I remarked to [livejournal.com profile] vees last year, it takes a certain kind of chutzpah to be standing in your underwear in a bar in Adams Morgan, surrounded by folks wearing Santa hats and cockrings, and admit you're bored, but there it is. Enough, already.

3. Knitting as art Art to me involves a certain amount of spontaneity, surprise, and originality, so knitting, which requires careful planning, patterning, and patience, really doesn't count as art. Craft and meditation absolutely, but not really art. At least, not how I would define it.

4. Hampden God, I love my neighborhood. I wasn't sure about it, when I was looking at houses to buy, but now I can't imagine what it would have been like to live anywhere else. For all its annoyances, hipsters, junkies, and rodents, I've never felt more of a sense of belonging anywhere than I do here. It's home.

5.Lord Byron A peek at the character page in IMDB reveals that no fewer than 30 actors have portrayed his Lordship over the years. I would really love to see Richard Chamberlain's take on it in Lady Caroline Lamb but I don't imagine that one is ever going to make it to DVD. My favorite portrayal is Philip Anglim in Haunted Summer, but maybe that's because in that movie Dr. Polidori is played by Bill S. Preston, Esquire.
wasabi_poptart: (keats)
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given )
wasabi_poptart: (selfportrait)

Raab detail 1
Originally uploaded by Frankenyutz

picture meme from dlightful

Go to your Flickr, click on the third to last page in your album, select the third picture on the page. Post and explain ...
~~~
One beautiful spring day, messy_hair_girl and I went exploring the Jewish Cemetery near her house and we found some really interesting things.

wasabi_poptart: (selfportrait)
my year in twelve pictures )
wasabi_poptart: (nomi)
Copy this sentence in your livejournal if you don't much see the point to getting married if only heterosexuals are allowed to do it, and you think the bigots who are threatened by same-sex marriages would do better to worry about what goes on in their own lives.
wasabi_poptart: (oscar)
Ten Things I Love that Begin with the Letter O )

If you want to play, comment and I'll give you a letter
wasabi_poptart: (no_prisoners)
1. List a quote from a song you've got stuck in your head right now, along with the band that performs it. If you don't have one, post the first that comes to mind.

2. Describe a person and memory associated with this line.

3. Is this person still involved in your present life? If not, how did you they fade out?

4. Does this quote have meaning in your present day life? If so, how has its meaning changed from when you first associated the person in question 2 with it?

----------------------------------
Quicksand )
wasabi_poptart: (Default)
Based on the lj interests lists of those who share my more unusual interests, the interests suggestion meme thinks I might be interested in... )
wasabi_poptart: (Default)
Friday Top 5 Meme

yoinked from [livejournal.com profile] afoundobject

Ask me about anything and I'll give you my top five in that category.


Go
wasabi_poptart: (Default)
Damn, I know it's here somewhere.

linkage
wasabi_poptart: (huzzah)
Ten things that make me happy (in no particular order):

10. Red lipstick
9. Hugging Maggie around the neck
8. A beautifully turned phrase
7. Knitting with laceweight wool
6. Driving with the top down
5. David Cronenberg movies
4. Vivaldi
3. Hearing Henry snore
2. Tiffany lamps
1. Raspberry muffins
wasabi_poptart: (Default)
privilege meme )This list of privileges is interesting, because it shows you what "privilege" means to a lot of people, if not necessarily to you or me.
wasabi_poptart: (sinner)
WASPLEG )
wasabi_poptart: (freud)
I have no idea that this means, but since it looks like a spider web ...



take the quiz here
wasabi_poptart: (byron)
20 years ago I...
was a freshman in college, intoxicated with boys and freedom and whatever else I could smoke or swallow

10 years ago I ...
was in grad school, taking Bibliography, Writing for Scholarly Publication, Creative Writing, and auditing Literature of the Occult (with [livejournal.com profile] shelleypro!)

5 years ago I ...
just bought my house and was getting ready for my Same Age as Jesus birthday housewarming. It was a BYOC party (bring your own chair).

2 years ago I ...
was getting ready to attend my first PDF

1 year ago I ...
was bidding adieu to a particularly trying summer and giggling over the fact that I'd managed to outlive Byron.

So far this year, I've...
gone to Edinburgh and Mysteria, cut and dyed my hair, attended my first 20-year high school reunion

Yesterday I...
bought a car.

Today I...
will do laundry and pack.

Tomorrow I'll...
drive to Delaware, where I will distribute Jello shooters and floggings.
wasabi_poptart: (byron)
Who do I want to be when I grow up?

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