Everybody Loves Saturday Night

In Earnest, Now

The job search, that is.  Begins in earnest today.  I'd said that I wanted a big long break; such was the month of January.  And in true grasshopper fashion I played the whole time, instead of storing up key career changing strategies.

So imagine my surprise when I finally sat down to tweak my CV, only to realize that the CV as it stands is no good to me now.  Seven hours later...(yes, seven.  Despite others' pleas to back away from the computer, I kept at it, trying to find a away to negotiate all the conflicting advice I was getting about whether to include an objective, whether to go with the "chronological" or "functional" work history, which I resolved by doing a little of both, and now by the light of day and grace of caffeine I shall see how easy or not it is to read).  All the advice I read online was more applicable to the person just graduating from college, not someone in the midst of a career change (and of the career change-oriented advice, all of it was geared towards the IT person wanting to go into Sales, or vice versa).  And I'm having a hell of a time finding the right kind of place to go for help.

I'm slightly panicky, but that's my nature.  It's really just that I feel overwhelmed.  This is one of those times that I see quite clearly that the world is huge and I am just a teeny tiny part of it.

I want to get paid to write (is that so wrong?).  In the interest of dues-paying and crappy economy, I am also willing to work in any sort of  capacity, provided the company is involved in a creative and/or non-profit organization whose politics are compatible with my own (which reminds me, I haven't checked the non-profit circuit yet...).

The other thing I've noticed about myself: I really want a job, and once I get a job I will work tirelessly and enthusiastically and I'll come early and stay late and I will totally be anyone's "yes" woman and "can do" woman and anything else they want from me.  But I wish I didn't have to work my ass off to get that job.

At least my hair will look good today.

P.S.  So this is pretty cool, I think: I got cold-Friendstered over the weekend for the opportunity to contribute to an online pop culture mag.  I sent out some writing samples and the editor emailed me last night to say they'd like for me to send them a proposal for a piece soon.  Woo!  And also...gah!  More coffee, please.  No, seriously, it's awesome, and one more link I can direct you to in time.  I love it when I can completely saturate a particular site with a torrent of knitters.

Seven Eight Things (oops)

To distract you from noticing there's no modeling shot of Butterfly.  I figured out how to work the timer on my camera, but I haven't had time to do the ironing and hook closure sewing.  I may be unemployed, but I am still busy.  No, really, I am.

1.  I am disappointed in the Oscar nominations.  Most of them, anyway.  Who does Clint Eastwood think he is, anyway?  I am convinced that the arrival of Million Dollar Baby is what knocked my latest crush, Paul Giamatti (yeah, for real.  I'm a sucker for the nebbish, what can I say?), out of the running for Best Actor.  Curse you, Clint Eastwooooood!  And I'm sorry, but I really, really do not feel like sitting through three hours of Leonardo.  I don't want to pay $10.25 just because Cate Blanchett is amazing.  I mean, that's a given, right?

a.  I will admit to not hating Leo as much as I did in the Titanic days.  I will admit that he does seem to exude a sort of old-school movie star charm.  And then he starts talking.

b.  Oy, Titanic.  God, what a horrible movie.  (I never miss an opportunity to say that.)

2. Also disappointing: the last episodes of Sex & the City.  But I had been expecting that.   I can't even care enough to watch the bonus disc.  Back they go!

3.  Of interest: the series on the Sundance channel right now about the festival.  It's a bit heavy on the "we're Sundance!" indie smugness scene, but it's cool to get a look at the filmmakers and what they're offering.  Plus, Alan Cumming gets to chat with folks, in his real voice, and that's always a bonus.

4.  To whoever (wait, that should be whomever, shouldn't it) decided that Marissa needed to explore her lesbian potential on The O.C.: Bless you.  Man, her character needs it.

5.  I finally took the plunge and bought my first Kiehl's product--an oil-free face cream to replace the Body Shop cream I'm out of.  The verdict?  I love it.  Lurve it.  It's faboo.  And the body lotion I received in free sample form is pretty awesome, too.  And Kiehl's is way more convenient for me than any of the Body Shop locations--which is weird, because they're everywhere, but it's true.  And again, I land way behind the curve on this one.  It took me 2.5 years to figure this out.

6.  The temperature outside and the temperature inside have finally coordinated themselves into comfortable winter living for me, which means I can wear sweaters inside and keep my feet extra warm with a blanket.  This is a vast improvement over the month of December, when it was like 60 degrees outside and 93 degrees in here.  The heat in my apartment is still coming out full blast, and there's nothing I can do to change that, but at least the drafts from the bitter cold outside (yes, it's cold.  Friggin' cold) are tempering it.  I am content.  I own flannel pajamas.  All is well.

7.  My hair needs serious help.  I reached my breaking point yesterday, after I caught sight of my hairline in a close up (during an eyebrow tweezing, which I'm now obsessed with, which I knew would happen once I started) and saw not only how gray my hair has gotten, but how dry my scalp is.  The two in combination got me to make a desperate call to the salon I went to...over a year ago (I remember trying to make an appointment last May, but no one answered the phone, which is what led me to chop off my hair myself) as I was in the process of getting my things together to head out.  Multitasking--I'm not good at it.  I couldn't remember my phone number, so discombobulated was I at the sight of my dry gray hair.  I'm getting it cut and colored on Monday.  It occurred to me as I left Ricky's yesterday (oh, how I love Ricky's) that my shampoo might be to blame, even though it claims to be a moisturizing shampoo, but the Aveda Scalp Remedy I bought might help.

8. The jeans I could barely zip up when I was back home?  I'm wearing them.  Comfortably.  I feel like I've added a new item to my wardrobe without having to buy anything.  I should go through my closet and see what else I want to fit into.

Good Kitty

Of course, the sweater shown here is still mighty damp from the washing I just gave it.

{picture altered to fix scary glowing feline alien eyes}

Yep, that there be Butterfly drying on my makeshift blocking board.  For all my alterations, I wound up having just under a skein left over, and that's going to go into making little rosette accessories for other things.

So all she needs now is some serious ironing of the chevron points and the collar, and the hook closure.  I am tempted to go out and get a really nice one, but I honestly think a fancy closure would be too busy for this sweater.  And I happen to have a couple hook and eye closures just lying around the apartment.

I have learned one new thing: I no longer really suck at seaming sweaters.  I think I did a really good job with this one, with a couple exceptions that probably only I would notice.  This is good news for all the sweaters that are currently languishing in the "SEAM ME" pile.  Seam me...weave me...block me...wear me.

Curious: on Monday night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart showed a clip of the pro-life march in DC, which featured a supportive broadcasted phone call from That Guy in the White House.  The joke was about TGITWH literally "phoning it in."   Last night, after the new episode, Comedy Central showed Monday night's episode again, and as I was in the midst of working a row of knitting, I left the TV on long enough to catch the story again, only this time the clip had been edited out completely, which not only rendered the joke incomprehensible, but also...the hell?  Has this happened before?  This isn't even remotely the most inflammatory thing the show has said about TGITWH, so why the censorship?  I just sent off an email...we'll see if I get a response.

The Movie Questions

In honor of the Oscar nominations:

1.  The last movie you went to see in a theater:  Hotel Rwanda, which I highly recommend.  I have always loved Don Cheadle.

2.  The last movie you watched at home:  Next Stop Wonderland, which was on IFC over the weekend.  Charming movie.

3.  How many movies do you own?  51 DVDs, plus a handful of VHS, not counting the movies I taped off cable.  (Also not counting the DVD collections of TV shows.)

3a.  What was the last movie you bought?  Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Happy Fun Extended Version.

4.  Got Netflix (or a similar service)?  I do indeed.  What are the next three movies in your queue?  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?  I've seen Butch Cassidy before, but it's time to see it again.  I've never seen the other two, but I did just watch Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte last week and need to watch more Bette Davis.  This will happen after I get through the last episodes of Sex & The City and the first season of 24.

5.  List five movies you adore/mean a lot to you: This is a lot harder than picking music, I can tell you.  I know as soon as this posts I'm going to want to change this list.

Annie Hall--I once used this movie as a litmus test for men.  This decision came after I had come home from a second date and the aforementioned Alex and her then-boyfriend were watching Annie Hall, so my date and I sat down to watch with them, and at some point my date complained, "Doesn't he ever stop talking?"  And I knew I could never see him again.

The Philadelphia Story--because this movie is perfect.

 Lord of The Rings (trilogy)--cheating just a tad.  But I can't single out just one of these movies (as opposed to the Star Wars trilogy, in which I can definitively state that Empire Strikes Back is the best one), because together they represent just phenomenal filmmaking.

Some Like it Hot--so I'm in the dining hall of my dorm, freshman year, and my saxophone-playing friend looks at me all agape when I tell him I've never seen Some Like it Hot.  He had it on tape, so after dinner a bunch of us went to watch it.  And now I'm the one who gets to look all agape: "I can't believe you've never seen this movie."

And for the last movie, I'm going to announce a tie, for the two movies I saw over the past year that have really stuck with me, and are in line to become new favorites: Sideways and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

6.  Name your guilty pleasure movie (or genre): Sappy mainstream romantic comedies (as opposed to indie rom coms like Kissing Jessica Stein, or old-school rom coms like Bringing Up Baby) that involve either teenagers (e.g., Can't Hardly Wait) or Brits (e.g., Notting Hill).  I prefer watching them alone, to hide my shame.  Dude, I can't believe I just admitted to Notting Hill.

7.  Name 3 people to whom you're going to pass these questions on, and why:   Carrie and Maggi because they're my Netflix friends, and Alison to return the favor and also because I know she loves the movies.

One of these days I'll get back to posting knitting pictures.  I'm just...bored with it.  Not the knitting--I've been doing TONS of that, and about half of it I've never mentioned once on this blog.  The stuff in progress is not boring to knit, but boring to talk about.  Here is a sleeve.  Here's the back, which looks like a sleeve only bigger.  I'm getting close to being completely finished with two sweaters (the Kersti hoodie, which has been languishing in my must-seam pile for months and months, and Butterfly, which I'm going to finish putting together today),
but the pictures of finished things are hard for me to do.  I can't find the manual for my camera and I can't figure out how to do the self-timer thingy (I'm about to find it online), and then there's the problem of not having a good place to put the camera to take self-portraits (maybe...on top of the TV?), and the idea of just taking pictures of the sweaters is too boring to contemplate.  I'll work through it.

I want an iPod.

That's something I've only recently started admitting to myself.  I really, really want one.  Now that the baby ones are coming out I may just take the plunge.  There's not a lot of space on them, but I really only need about an hour or two worth of music at any given time (commuting, working out when I eventually get back to it, and I will).  The iPod thing is also loosely connected to my recent decision to replace my fritzy Dell computer with an Apple.  I'm switching back, baby!  As soon as the money starts coming in again, it's done.  iTunes, here I come.

All that is preamble to the latest game of post-tag that I've been invited to play.  Brainylady has asked me a few questions about music.  It's good timing, because I have only just begun to get back into listening to new music after about a year or two of just running through the same ol', same ol'.

1.  Total amount of music files on your computer: 2.17 GB, which RealPlayer tells me is 528 "clips," or 32:56:11 worth of tunes.  I don't upload my CDs like some, though I have uploaded individual songs from CDs in the process of making mix CDs.  So...do the math.

2.  The last CD you bought was: I bought two when I was in Minneapolis, at the Cheapo in Uptown (sigh...Cheapo records started out as this great little used record store, right on Snelling Ave, where I used to go and pine after the staff...good times.  Now they still deal in secondhand music, but Cheapo Records has branched out into a number of stores with an excellent excellent selection of music, though the Long Winters CD I wanted to buy wasn't there...where was I?  Oh, right).  Both the CDs were a long time coming, because I don't buy music as often as I would like.  Partly because of money concerns, and partly because I'm already spending money on books and movies.  So...you know.  Anyway, I bought, finally, the Garden State soundtrack and Green Day's American Idiot, both of which are on pretty much constant rotation in my CD walkman.  Green Day.  Who knew?

3.  What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?  Death Cab for Cutie's "The Sound of Settling."  My computer songs are in shuffle mode right now.  Currently playing?  Elastica's "Stutter."  I still remember hearing this song for the first time, on Radio K (or was it Revolution Radio 105?  One of the two) in my car while driving home to Golden Valley from my job in St. Paul, stuck on 94 with the exit to 11th St. juuuuuuuust ahead, and then this flash of guitar and sexual frustration started and ended much, much too soon, and I was hooked.  And now it's Elvis Costello's "Human Hands."  Sigh.  Elvis.

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:  Oh man.  Tough, tough, tough.  I'ma go with the songs that I can trace back to certain moments or feelings.

"Airscape" -- Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians (from Element of Light). I think this is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.  It opens with a guitar loop played backwards, which sounds cheesy but isn't, and it has a glass harmonica, and fantastic lyrics ("The tide recedes upon the bones of something beautiful and drowned, in coral and in jade").  Even better that the song that precedes it is a song about fish, and includes the classic lyric "He'd never make love to a loaf of bread/Unless of course he found one in his bed."  I love this man.

"Shelter from the Storm" -- Bob Dylan (from Blood on the Tracks).  Actually, can I just put the whole of Blood on the Tracks?  I guess I'm in a "Shelter from the Storm" mood today (because of the snow?)--last week it could've been "Idiot Wind," tomorrow it could easily be "You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go."  One of the greatest albums ever.

"Save Me From Happiness" -- Departure Lounge (from Out of Here).  Departure Lounge, fronted by Tim Keegan (yay Tim!), opened for Robyn Hitchcock on a semi-quasi-not-really Soft Boys reunion show I saw in Cincinnati (at...Top Cats, I think?).  Robyn always gets good opening acts (the first time I saw him, it was Matthew Sweet), and this was no exception.  I was mesmerized, but foolish, because I left without buying any of their CDs.  Then I found out that they're not all that readily available, so I felt even more foolish.  Enter Audio Galaxy, which was free and hadn't come under the RIAA's fire yet.

"I'll Be Back" -- The Beatles (from A Hard Day's Night).  So hard to pick a Beatles song at all, but I had to, considering how much time I have devoted to them.  I chose this one because its composition is, frankly, brilliant.  It's a rondo.  I felt very superior when I realized that all on my own, back in high school, because of the music theory class I was taking.

"Closer to Fine" -- Indigo Girls (from Indigo Girls).  You can't talk to me during this song because I'm singing along.  And you best be harmonizing with me.  I know, I know, I could pick any number of IG songs, but this one I can link directly to a happy memory with my former roommate Alex (who, can I just say, is currently reading through my entire blog from its inception and is somewhere in April 2004, even though she could be reading from the present?  She wants to get all caught up.  How awesome is that?).  It's summer in the city, we're driving in her Jeep with the top off, singing at the top of our lungs.  Yeah.

Dude, all of these songs are really low-key and laid back.  I guess that's the result of doing this at 9:30 am on a Sunday morning, after a glorious snowfall.  I should do this when I've had more coffee and I'm ready to rock again.  (On cue: PFunk's "Erotic City" starts playing.  Nice.)

5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?  This one's a lot easier.  I'm handing the baton to Ms. Mindy, because I've seen the amount of music she has in her apartment, and I also know she's got great taste in music.  I'm gonna tag Claudia, because she seems really into this.  And Iris, because I'm hoping she'll make me a mix CD of the stuff she listens to in exchange for the stuff I listen to.

I so totally need to do something like this with movies.

[image deleted] I got tired

[image deleted]

I got tired of knowing it was there.

Ooh, how apt.

Tee Minus

Flipping through the cable channels the Saturday I was home, I came across C-SPAN's coverage of a press conference given by several of the activist groups organizing the Inauguration Day protests.  Found the website today.

Proof

Mom would've done "The Em," but she had to hold the sweater closed.  We decided it would be better for her to shop for the buttons herself.  But see?  It's put together, with the ends all woven in, and the neckline single-crocheted, and it fits!  It looks really, really good on my mom, if I do say so myself.

So I was waiting at the gate for my plane to leave Friday morning, and CNN Airport News was on, and the weather guy came on and announced that Minneapolis would be experiencing windchills of -40 F, and everyone waiting for the plane started laughing.  What else can you do?   Every single person that welcomed me home said, "You picked a heckuva weekend to come for a visit!"  Minnesotans are very proud of their weather, and their ability to, um, weather it.  We talk about the weather constantly--if it's not "Cold/Hot enough for you?" then it's "Well, at least it's not as cold/hot as it was last weekend.  Uff da, remember that?  How long does it take for your car to start?  How's your heating bill?..."  Etc, etc, etc.  That scene in Fargo when one guy is talking to a cop in his driveway about the funny-looking guy the cops are looking for, and they finish up that business and start talking about the weather: "Looks like it's gonna get cold."  It's funny 'cuz it's true.  So I got home yesterday and ran into my neighbors as I was coming back in with some groceries, and they asked if it was cold outside.  I think it was about 25 F outside yesterday, which is 30 degrees warmer than the high temperature in Minneapolis on Saturday...no, it's not cold outside.

So my brother's in a play in downtown Minneapolis right now.  A little play about Scottish royalty and murder--perhaps you've heard of it?  Joe plays Macduff.  Macduff!  The play in general suffers from mis-direction--Joe told me that he wound up having to block one of his scenes himself because it just wasn't getting done.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again: my brother is one of my favorite people ever.  I just adore him.  And he has such a talent for performing Shakespeare--he really has an excellent grasp of the language.  So he was most enjoyable to watch, especially in the final showdown between Macduff and Macbeth.  When Macbeth jeers that Macduff can't harm him because "I bear a charmed life, which must not yield/To one of woman born" and Macduff shoots back with "Despair thy charm,/And let the angel whom thou still hast served/Tell thee Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped," it was all I could do to keep from jumping up and scoffing, "Ha!  In your FACE, Macbeth!"  Interactive Shakespeare.  Could be fun.

The Scout Got In The Way

This is what happens when you live alone and try to take a picture of your legs and feet so that the socks you just finished can be seen in entirety:

Eventually I got this:

Just in time, too.  Check out the forecast for Minneapolis this weekend.  This is a forecast for Banff.  And Cafe Bastille.  Worn together.

I'm going to be bringing the FINISHED I'm Moving to Boca Sweater.  Yes, it's done.  Done!  But you're not going to get a picture of it until my mom puts it on.  I'm also going to bring the Mardi Gras sock yarn, for which I now have beads, thanks to a trip to the We-Used-To-Be-Open-On-Sunday District with Jackie the other day.  Me in a bead store: dangerous.  I've been wanting to make my own stitch markers for a while, but as soon as I walked in and started looking at all the beads, I went a little berserk.  I didn't buy anything other than the beads for the sock, but oh, was I tempted.

I'm also bringing the new sweater I started--Grecian Plait.  I've had the yarn for this since before the pattern came out, and it's always been designated for it, and I swatched for it, but I never got around to doing anything with it.  Now I've got one sleeve done and I've started the back.  The little braids are coming out a little lacier than in the picture in the pattern, but I like it.

Excused!

I timed it perfectly today: got here at 9:55 am, right as Diane Sawyer was explaining the voir dire to everyone (see previous post).  I went straight to the clerk's office and explained my plane ticket situation and she said just what I thought she would: "Bring it up with the attorneys."  I expressed my concern that I could get called again after that, and she informed me that after three days, if you have not been selected for a jury, you're excused from service.  So I relaxed, even though I knew I had to sit through the whole thing.  Again.

It is 10:10.  We are all here.  The attorneys are not.

10:20: for no reason whatsoever, "Whisper to a Scream" is running through my head.  But only the "we are, we are, we are ever helpless" part.  The guy behind me (I am still in the central jury room) is doing something with his change, and there's a lot of it.  Four women in my pool have become fast friends over the past couple days.

I stopped by one of the breakfast/lunch deli counters on my way to the subway--it's just up the block from me but I don't usually stop in, but I figured I'd get a coffee and muffin to go, and I got my first "mamita" from the woman who helped me.  I'm so going back there.

10:45: I have just found out that the guy who is reading the same book as I am also grew up in Minneapolis, and knew someone I went to high school with.  Him: "Think this is enough to get us excused?"  What are the odds, though, right?  And just so you know, this is not a Sign.  Trust me.  Absolutely nothing going on there.  (But yes, he is attractive.)  I tell him how odd I think it is that no one is answering the "sympathy getting in the way of the law" question in a manner that would decidedly excuse them.  I mean, I think this is a pretty good group of people here--annoyed by the process, but also curious and into it.  That's cool.

11:45: I am in seat #5.  I'm reading the new New Yorker as the attorneys go through the questionnaires.  All five of us in the front row have requested private conference with the attorneys--this is my opportunity to tell them that I have to be on a plane on Friday.  So I ask them what that means, and one of them says, "Well, you can't be on the jury then, so we won't put you through the questioning."  He's been talking about the questioning for the past couple days as though that's the annoying part of the whole process, which I don't think it is.  I mean, given a choice of just sitting there and answering questions that are meant to determine if I have any particular bias, the questions are decidedly more interesting.  And at any rate, I'm still supposed to sit in the jury box while they question everyone else.  But at least sitting in the jury box and being directly addressed by the attorneys is better than sitting in the back of the courtroom.

1:15: Right now I'm in Zoila's, having just finished a most delicious bowl of lentil and wild rice soup.  People of Brooklyn, when you're called for jury duty, come here for lunch.  There's not much of a sitting area, but most people who come here are just getting things to go, and the food is great and priced well, and the women who run the place are really friendly.  It's on Hoyt, between State and Atlantic, which is more convenient for the folks who are in the building on Schermerhorn, but it wouldn't be too far to walk from the place on Adams, either.

3:15: The attorneys have finished discussing amongst themselves who should be selected, and they've come back to announce "the winners and losers."  Wouldn't that depend on your perspective?  Those who are excused are named first, and I am one of them.  I take my card and questionnaire back to the clerk's office, and about fifteen minutes later I receive my receipt for proof of service.  That's it, and have a pleasant six years.

Oh, and I finished the second Sock that Rocks.  Pictures tomorrow.