some things about the movies

1.  On Saturday, for Christmas, we went and saw True Grit.   You ought to go see it.

2.  On Sunday, when it started snowing, we went and saw The Fighter.*  I was expecting a regular (kind of boring) sports movie, featuring Marky Mark's abs.  It was way better than that.  I either didn't know or had forgotten that it was going to go hand-in-hand with this documentary that I just watched about the crack cocaine.  If you've got an hour, you should watch High on Crack Street first, and then maybe hit the Riverview and see the movie.  It is still a sports movie, but the training sequences (etc) are kept at a minimum.  It's a little long.

3.  Yesterday (snowday) I went and saw Jolie and Depp play at espionage in the Tourist.  Twists!  Jewelry!  Mobsters!  Outfits!  Boats!  Guns!  You get it.

*the smartest thing I did Sunday was leave my truck at the Riverview, dead center under the 95.  I'm staying in South Philly, so the next day I just walked over there (saw another movie) and got my truck.  No shoveling, no defrosting.
The dumbest thing I did that day was lose my wallet, I guess under the snow.  Bummer, but not the end of the world.

Christmas

got this.

chef

I'm cat sitting, and here's the menu board.

princess

This isn't about Christmas, this is about pillows.

Ikea makes pillows for side sleepers, pillows for belly sleepers, pillows for back sleepers.  They do not make (no one makes) pillows for burrowers.  My life is so hard.

Mike Snow

Here's another post with no pictures:


Mike Snow.  I think about this name a lot, and am finally putting it together*.   


I guess I first noted the whole thing, because "Mike Snow" is just a good, solid, regular-but-notable and nice name.  Then, just today, I realized that
1.  "Mike Snow" does that "Animal" song, that someone or someones put on a mix for me at some point.
And, AND
2.  "Mike Snow" does the music on the X-Files, which I am slowly but surely working my way through, and think about/talk about too much.


COULD IT BE THE SAME PERSON?  Performing songs about shapeshifting AND writing background music to a show that often features shapeshifting?  I spent about one minute on Google trying to find out, and mostly kept landing on some Swedish pop group called Miike Snow, which seems like a dead end.  Bored with researching, would be nice if someone could just tell me the answers.




*or not.

things taxi drivers have said to me this week

1.  "I can tell you're not American.  By the way you talk."  (?)

2.  "I think you work at a law firm. In the city." (?)  "I mostly drive a taxi."

3.  "You've very pretty.  But you have such short hair!" 

4.  "Maybe you and me, we play the lottery together?  If we win, you can't five five or six boyfriends.  Only one other boyfriend.  I cannot fight five or six."

pills

Here's a sweet painting that Kim found the other night when we were leaving El bar.

Lot of questions.

wolves

This was the room where I waited while I had my truck inspected the other day.

Everywhere, there are wolf pictures.

catipi

Last night was too cold for Black Swan*, so I started working on a tipi for Matt.  

It's a little small, so maybe it's really for the Babycat - but just so you know, that's a window.  Not the door.  Also: triangle math is pretty hard.  Anyway, will work on this a little more before you see it again.  Need to get some supplies.  Wait til you see the transformation.  It'll be like watching HGTV.

*BUT I have seen some other movies lately, and am kind of working on reviews for them.  In my mind.

tags

Yesterday, I finally cut ties with New York State.  Like a grown up, I got my own auto insurance.  Got a title transfer, got registered, got inspected.  And I have to send back my NYS plates.  So now I only have one (back) plate on my truck, and the front is all empty.

Accepting ideas (or Christmas gifts?) of a good front plate.  I do think unicorns scene is a little played out, so maybe we can come up with something that is non-ironically awesome?  Just regular awesome? 

leopards

these be the Last days all crazy.  sinful.  contaminated.  silly.  Lazy.  triffling.  cruel.  odd.  weird.  common persons are of satan my arch enemy.   _____ 2010 + back minister James.  4:40 a.m.  all true saints wonet be ashame to daily suffer for my Messiah.  Amen/I Lived in Center City.  New York.  Jersey streets.  for my Jesus you all knew donations selah/the Jews.  Romans.  Crucified my Jesus.  St Mt 27. Dan 6:2.  Thes 3.  Lev 18.  Jn 2.  Leopards.  Sheep.  bears.  Rodents.  Flies.  Worms.

contents

Last night, I was looking for a SPECIFIC flash drive, so I could finish up some project.  Resulted in contents of my purse on the floor.

So, I did this thing that girls on Flickr do, where they document the contents of their purse.  They (the photographs, and maybe the girls too) are all pretty boring, but I look at them sometimes anyway.  Carina did a pretty good, organized one recently too.  I wish I could carry only that.

Anyway, here:  it's on my Flickr.

tipi

The first day that I am done-with-school for real, and don't have company or a Christmas party to get to, I'm going to sit down and make something a little bit like this:

I think mine will be cooler though.  More dream catchery and a backdoor and everything, and maybe it should be silver, like a spaceship, but still like a tipi. 

I have study sheets out in front of me, but instead of memorizing, I'm drawing sketches in the margins.  I've been meaning to get into architecture for a while.  Catarchitecture.

bloked

This picture shows a real turning point for me:

Was my first real-life winning game, T-gives 10.

dirty

I didn't notice until I got to work that my tights look like this.  I wonder what I leaned up on?

yawner

The internet is super boring lately, and I'm not helping.  Sorry.

catroken

While I was gone for Thanksgiving, Matt leBlanc knocked around a bunch of stuff in my room.

He broke my tiny naked people inside a skull from San Salvador.  I think we got them in San Salvador.  Regardless, they're broken, and now you can see their insides.  What a jerk.

potpie

Nicole "Paula Dean" DelCollo.

We ate pretty good last night.

C.R.E.A.M.

Last night, after everyone left my house (which was really this morning?) I spent about an hour researching the Wu Tang Clan.  You know - just me, at home, middle of the night, reading up on Rza and the gang til 3am.  It's not that someone was talking about them, or we heard a song or anything, it just became HUGE important that I learned all the things I never learned about them.

Starting this afternoon, I keep remembering various facts about them.  There are so many!  So many Clan members, so many tidbits. I wish my research paper was about them.

seven/one

I'm only going to say one thing about HP and the Deathly Hallows (and it's not a spoiler, Sarah).  By the time I'm ready to really write about it, I'll probably be over wanting to write about it, so you might not ever get a real review.  Anyway, this is more "something to look out for" than anything really about the movie.

THOSE KIDS PACKED SO MANY REALLY GREAT GREY SWEATERS WITH BIG COLLARS.  I think there's like ninety (good sweaters) in that movie.  Sometimes they're wearing like five at a time.

panic

Remember this?  (If you were a teenager in the 90's you probably do.)

I don't know.  I'm trying everything. 
I could start a whole new blog about Trying For White.

blanco

For Lana.  A wacky outfit.  (I'm particularly drawn to the Warhol one, it just seems most in keeping with the concept).

Also maybe I just like them because I wish I could get my hair white like these models.   It's something I've been working on every night since Friday.  I've taken a LOT of people's advice, and have done about fifteen (really) processes and it's just not getting there.  Try, try again...

I'm supposed to tag people, then you're supposed to do it.  If you don't follow through, it's okay, I didn't know if I would either/we will still be friends. Andy, Amber, Siobhan.

skirtuation

There's a thing that happens, where you're on the back of someone's bike, and your skirt is too short/tight/whatever and there's just no good way to do it.  You have to choose to abandon modesty.

Then there's some days that are so so windy (today) and you wear a skirt that's too full, and you're just trying to get someplace, and it's just blowing around like nobody's business, and it's so windy that you can't even hold it down.

I can never seem to wear the right skirt on the right day.

xmas, not ex-mess

I'm starting to think about Christmas shopping, and, as usual, Etsy is a go-to.*

Look at Elizabeth's prints.  So nice!  If I didn't already  have a blender (print from her), I'd go for it (and by "go for it" I mean I'd "ask for one" for Xmas.  I'm working on my own wish list, which will include a Sabres fitted cap, in case things turn out better than so far, a book of my blog (do you know?  They'll make that!  Like a book!), and a "hard copy" of Blokus.

*by "go to" I mean, a source of wish-lists, and "I could totally copycat that craft idea".  Don't get excited.  Probably none of you are getting Etsy gifts.

more places

Colors are pretty wonky, but here's another suggestion of places to be glad you don't have tons of hair.

(ani)mail

NPR is doing this "cherished mail" thing on their blog that'll be interesting.  (Interesting?  I don't know.  Good?  Bad at adjectives today).  And they'll explain it better than me.
SHARE YOUR CHERISHED MAIL.

We're all looking for more projects, right?  I'll do it if you do it.  (Thanks, Nikki).

Tom Tritton

Last night we went to this Philadelphia Photo Day opening.    First we saw a photo by a certain friend of ours that took his picture on the wrong day and falsified the date.  Which is no big deal really, except for the sky in his landscape photo is dark and grey, and in every one of the other other hundreds of photos (that were, presumably, taken on the "right" day) the sky is bright blue with puffy clouds.
We finally found my photograph, in a series of events where alphabetical order was 100% non-helpful.

Dear Tom Tritton,

Who are you?   How did this happen?   Pls stop stealing my pix.

Thanks,
Liedke, Susan

lost

Well, here's something I should have started doing months ago:

("where you left your truck" notes to self.)

N.A.K.

I've had this sweater since like 9th grade-ish, and I don't wear it tons, but sometimes.
It's from Amvets, has someone else's (coincidentally my high school Algebra teacher's) initials on it, and is generally well-recieved.  It's itchy, but I like it anyways, probably for the air of mystery it denotes.  Also it's a sweater that I've worn and washed perhaps literally a thousand times and is still holding up fine.

Anyway, fourteen years later, I'm realizing/getting honest with myself that I might be allergic to it.  Every single time, it happens.  Itchy eyes, itchy throat.  Time to move on?  I can't decide.

pink

It's fine to get to work and let little kids do your makeup with their Disney Princess makeup kits, and then leave it on for a while because it's funny and who cares, until later, when you try to wash it off and the amount of scrubbing/staining involved leaves your face just as pink for the rest of the day.

gif

Sandro has a new blog, and I think it's awesome.

An homage.

Space Prom was good.  Lots of pictures on the 'book, but some good ones are waiting in the wings.  That's a thing, right?

denim

Craftzine has a lot of projects I'm totally uninterested in, but I still read it every day.  Yesterday, this really helpful article about how to make jeans longer.

I am never ever ever going to need those instructions.
Do tall people ever even need those instructions?
Aren't jeans made for tall people?

blue

This muffin turned out to be a pretty big disappointment, too. (Barely berries).

playlist

I am never going to go to sleep.  Maybe this is more of a facebook post.

cards

 

I just got these new cards as a gift (thanks), straight from the tallest peaks of Mount Pikachu.  Each one has a lovely painting of a Peruvian child on it.

The graphic design (as far as functionality) leaves something to be desired, but I still like them a lot.

T-gives 10

This year, I am thankful for the movies.

Thanksgiving at midnight Part One comes out.  I'm not sure _where_ I'll be watching it yet, but I'll be watching it, and you should too.  A speculative review.


edit:  WRONG GUYS!  I got all my dates confused.  It's the Thursday BEFORE T-gives, and we should all see it at the Riverview.

hairy gums

submission

This is probably the first time in a while that I haven't found myself in a creative rut.  I've been painting and sewing and taking photographs and writing letters and everything.  But sometimes, it's good to have a little motivation.  Here's a blog post that's just about four things you could/should be doing, right now and tomorrow and this month.

1.  Design/create/submit a font to Veer.  I've been getting a little yawny over Design Sponge lately because I'm finding it's direction is changing and it's geared towards those who really want to make it in the design game.  Which is fine, but isn't me.  I also can't even begin to think about being able or wanting to spend $150 on a desk accessory or placemat or something.  Anyway though, this one contest seems pretty okay, and I think a lot of people have nice handwriting, so maybe, even if you don't get the whole graphic design end of things, you could try a hand-drawn font.  Just an idea.  Submissions due November 9.


2.  Next?  Philadelphia Photo Day.  WHICH IS TOMORROW.  It's just taking a picture of or in Philadelphia that day, submitting it online, and then they put your piece in the exhibit. Then we can all go to the show, which is at Crane, and we should be going there more often than we do anyway.  Good, right?   Submissions are due Halloween at 8, and the show is November 11.
I'm looking at you: Kim, Gallman, Josh, Ryan, Carina, Melissa, Nikki, Liza everyone.


3.  Write something for Sandro's zine, "Anchor Baby".  Issue 2's deadline is coming up, and he's accepting stories about weird food, or weird stories about food.   Also drawings.  Or probably whatever.  It's a zine, after all.  Email him submissions at anchor.baby.zine@gmail.com.  Everyone's invited, and also anyone can get a copy.  Deadline Nov 21.  You, Siobhan, and you, Fran.  HZ.  Ethan.

4.  Hyphen, Temple's magazine/literary publication is accepting artwork and words right now too.  I've never read it, and it  might be crappy, but still fun to be in something, right?  Andy, Amber?  Do it for me, I'm not allowed.







What else is happening that we should do?  I would love some more suggestions/motivation.

Great Halloween costume ideas I had for Kelly and Greg as a team that they rejected

Mulder and Skully
Leo Johnson and Shelly
David Copperfield* and David Copperfield**
Seal and Heidi Klum
Josh Ballard and Roxy

I think they're still in the market for ideas if you have any.



*novel
**magician

field trips

I've had a lot of field trips this semester.  While I don't like the idea of mandatory attendance (especially since it's usually on weekends), so far, they're really good.  Last week I went to Please Touch at Memorial Hall, which made the old Please Touch Museum seem like a scary basement.  The new spot is rad.  Go see it, even without kids.

This weekend, I went on a school field trip before the actual field trip, so I didn't have to go with my whole class (of 40ish students).  We went to Doyelestown, where the Mercer Museum, Fonthill, and Moravian Tile Works are.

We spent the day in Fonthill.  It was AMAZING.  Our tour guide was pretty adorable, and the castle was castle-y, and had about a billion staircases and stories and big wooden doors, and libraries, and collections, tiny staircases, and So Many windows and a skull.  Mercer made the place himself with a few workers and a horse.  Lucy.

They're doing total in-the-dark tours Halloween weekend.  And I think I have too many plans that weekend to make the trip, but it might be super awesome.  It's b-y-o flashlight, and goes into the "off limits" areas of the castle.  You know, like Beauty and the Beast.
Anyway:  recommended.

Oh, and we also saw a guy practicing his nunchuck and knives skills in the woods.

tv

Yesterday's ProRun was pretty intense.  Thank goodness we're keeping Mondo, too bad we have to keep watching Gretchen's frowny  mouth all the time, and Andy?  Thanks for answering all the mohawk-extensions questions I've had over the past couple months.

moral

Today I twice heard the fable about the hare and the scorpion.  (Maybe you did too if you have the same media habits as I do), and I don't know whether I'd ever heard it before in my life.

We do what's in our nature?
Still figuring out mine.

tied up

I'm not sure whether I get* belted cardigans.  Girl's are always doing it, and sometimes, it looks okay.

I tried it out this morning (in my room, not in real life).  Not so good.
Maybe I just don't have the right cardigan.  Or the right belt.  Or the right waist.

*get = understand, like, back

owl

Went to Coney Island, got my fortune from a machine fortune teller.  Did not BIG.  Advice about taking trips, keeping secrets.

fake out

I was excited to get home late(ish) and have so many emails.  Turns out exactly half of them were about a murder on campus.

Awesome.  I'm supposed to register for classes on Monday.  Sign me up.

Go...Owls?  I think we're owls.

graphic

Cool bicycle prints, Barbs.

terror

For so long (years), I've been wanting to and meaning to go to TERROR BEHIND THE WALLS.   For those of you who don't know (my faithful readers in India), this is a haunted house in a real (scary) abandoned prison in the city, Eastern State Pennitentary.

Saturday, I finally got to go.  And with the person I know who watches the most amount of Ghost-Hunters and other ghosty tv.  (So:  both the safest bet?).

ANYWAY:  got there, didn't have tickets (which I guess is a bad plan on a Saturday night), bought some from some scalpers, signed a release and went in.  All the employees, including the one who checks your purse for mace, are dresses as prison guard zombies.

There's a lot of little parts I could tell you about.  Outfits, makeup, scare tactics, spin rooms, 3d spots, screaming teenagers.
Instead, I'll say that Eastern State is pretty scary, and haunted houses are medium scary, but putting them together didn't really multiply the experience.  I'm really glad I saw it though.

IJ

Yesterday, I got a Blockbuster card.

And we rented, watched all three* Indiana Jones movies.  In a row.  Sandwiched between meals.  Sundays.



*I hope you know which one we didn't see.

tracks

So, I have a shot now.   Like a shot, named after my dental deconstruct:  "trolley tracks".

Thanks girls.

licca

Chris and Rebecca got married, Carina took some really great bear photographs at the studio.  As usual*.

*except the bear.  That part isn't usually part of it.

tags

Dear Anthropologyie,

Maybe if you didn't put weird tags like this on every item of clothing you sell, they would cost less.  For you, for us, for everyone.

No one is going to fill out a wish on a clothing tag, and stick it back into a little sweater bottle, and hope it comes true. 

Love,

S

P.S.  Kitten liked the sweater bottle.  For like one minute.

P.P.S.  I will still buy your clothes, but only sometimes, and mostly on sale.

in trouble

This morning, I was sitting and waiting for the Broad St Line at Sesquenhanna-Dauphin, and this boy came and sat down next to me.  His arm was all bandaged up, and he was squeezing one of those hand/spring/exercising things pretty ferociously.

"I just got kicked off the football team."
"No way, what happened?"
"I was fighting with some other players.  On the field.  But one of them shot me!  I can't have that!  I mean, I'm a man, a man, and I'm not scared of anything, but that shit is scary."
...(me, probably making a scared face, being pretty glad I had no intention of seeing college football anyway)
"I can try out again next semester."
"Good luck?"

townie

Yesterday we saw The Town, in which Ben Affleck is the bad guys, and Don Draper is the good guys, but you end up rooting for the bad guys because of their craft, skill, charm, lot in life.

I like movies that make you like robbers, and bank robbery planning, and costumes to get out of jams and everything.  So this was pretty good.   Probably better than Easy A, which is the other movie I would have seen.  I mean, the movies on Sunday is pretty great even if it's bad, but especially good if it's good, right?

A whole lot of bad neighborhood/good neighborhood type stuff too, which is easy to ignore because it was set in the far-off world of Boston, but what if it wasn't?  What if it was about how all the bad guys come from Kensington or something?  Then what?
There was this funny quote at the beginning about how being a townie literally ruined guy's life, but he was still super proud of it.  Which is funny, but so true - I mean, people are proud of being from a neighborhood here (Fishtown springs to mind), and don't leave it ever, and acknowledge the scary parts of it like a badge of honor, which is super weird.  Like liking the home team, because it's the home team.  (So much sports lately too, huh?).
Ramblin'.

set

This boy that I met on the El told me I better take a picture of this.  "Or else" implied.

bit

Good news: not fleas.
Bad news: mosquitoes.  What?

short/long

I get a little crazy in my mind about Halloween/dressing up.  It's over a month away, I've already bought a couple

wigs this year.  Spent a while last night doing this self indulgent thing, taking pictures with the hopes of talking myself into growing my hair out.

(I don't usually do this kind of take-pictures-of-yourself thing, so I think it's funny/I hope you do too.)

Maybe if I had a little LOST experience (getting stuck on an island), or moved someplace where it was never hot, or someplace where there weren't scissors, or if I ended up somehow in a spot where I never got bored or dissatisfied, I could do it, like when Sarah went to Korea.  For now, $4.99 wigs from Target.  Amber:  keep me on track - we were doing so well before.  Stacked bob.

Also, there's this book at Anthro right now, old pictures of dogs in photobooths?  It's pretty funny.
Not in the way that like, I want it, but it's funny to imagine collecting these.  And it's funny that lots of people want to own it.  I can't remember why I thought of it.

greedy

Last night, in an effort to not spend the night reading boring books and watching Scully and Moulder again, I went and got Ry and we saw Wall Street:  Money Never Sleeps.

Probably don't see it if you're a girl with long hair who thinks maybe you want short hair.  I'm assuming you'd go home and cut your hair off. Carey Mulligan has the cutest hair cut ever.   If you do have short hair, you'll be mad it's not like hers.  Disappointment all around (we will never have her hair, her pretty dresses, her weird short-sleeve winter coat.)

30% of this film is about how rich ladies wear diamond earrings.  Non-integral to the plot, but seriously.  Tons of screen time given to this exploration of expensive, dangly, dripping-with-jewels earrings.

There's morals!  I think the morals are that having a baby or having $100M is really good.  Also being green.  A good way to be green is to make clean energy out of salty seawater and lasers.  Hope I didn't ruin this movie for you.

doily

yes and no

Some things I did not buy and some things I did buy.

(blue leather library chair and ottoman, at Goodwill in Nashville. $39.99).

(finger hooks from South Philly Jomar $.50, but only $.40 with my student discount, which is really paying off.)