personal ad

Things I got in the mail

• A check from the IRS
• A toll road bill for approx. the same amount

I might start a new feature to the blog, "reasons I rejected today's Craigslist personal responses."

• Entire response was one sentence (vast majority); I can understand not wanting to invest a lot of time in something that might not be real, but come on. I suspect a lot of these are spam, but I'm not sure what their end game is, when:
• The response, in its entirely, was "watt uppp??"
• Respondent's own poetry was included
• And it was really bad
• Any nudity
• Didn't include picture (actually, this isn't as big a detriment as the next bulletpoint)
• Included picture, and appeared to be a total douche
• Included picture, and appeared to be 13
• Tried to tell me something about myself ("you were born in May, and had a strong silent-type father, right?"). No, and no.
• Doesn't like music.
• Likes music, but the first band they list is Tool, followed by Metallica
• Claims not to have a problem with women (OK, if someone claimed to have a problem with women, this would obviously be rejected as well, but...you know, they doth protest too much)
• Is more than 2 inches shorter than me (I also balk at more than 3 inches taller than me)
• Married

Well, it makes me sound picky, but you really have to be with the number of responses you get as a lady on CL. I didn't list a picture or anything!

Anyway. There were a few that made the cut, and I've already been stood up twice (bonus!). This is going really well so far.

halloween was last month, dude

Things I got in the mail:

• Leotard (it was to be a backup for my unitard if that didn't work. It might still have a better neckline, so perhaps I will use it for my eventual final Illyria costume)
• Invitation to be a lifetime member of the Texas Exes
  

Ella the dog got in from the balcony while I was out tonight (seeing R Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and Francoise Mouly, I might add; it was fantastic), and ripped up everything she could. I'm sure it probably scared the cats to death, but they seem OK. What a mess. What. A. Mess. Oh, but she has her little paw over her face as she's sleeping right now. What a cutie.

And now I'm off to my radio show, where I will do all songs about dogs. I will post the link to the setlist soon.

Craigslist of the week

I should start another blog feature, favorite Craigslist ads. Sometimes I troll the personals or make random searches on the community and forsale sections, and I come across gems. But they're just my person favorites--nothing I would even bother submitting to the Best of Craigslist. This was from this weekend, from the personals.

Title: I'm looking for someone to watch a Werner Herzog movie with and then make out.
Body: That's about it.

Made me laugh. I wrote to him. Just to tell him he made me smile.

Ella

Things I got in the mail yesterday:

• Mix CD #2 (girl singers) from ronnybear (Doctor Hoss)
  

Things I got elsewhere this weekend

• A dog.
  

I am fostering this dog for the Austin Dog Alliance, and she is adorable. I'm still a cat person through and through, but I am quite fond of this dog and hope she gets a great forever family. In the meantime I can't wait to have playdates with my friends' dogs.

Rough draft costume pics

Here are some of the pics from Halloween night.

things in the mail

I was thinking of starting a new feature of the blog: Things I Got in the Mail Today. I've been getting so much stuff lately. Partly because I ordered it, partly because people are repaying my postcards in kind. But today I didn't get much. Oh, wait, yes, something came for me at work. Anyway, here are some things that have come in the last week:

• Andy's birthday present (not exactly what I thought it would be, without spoiling the surprise)
• A postcard from Italy (just like the song! Ooh, I just discovered that Florence + The Machine covered that song!), from Danielle
• A letter from Jessie
• A postcard from Karam
• Training materials for my new SAT prep job
• Blue hair extensions* (the day AFTER Halloween, of course)

Things I sent in the mail this week

• A long letter to Paw (my grandfather) about all the things that he's given me that I'm grateful for. Along with a handwritten copy of "Courage," by Anne Sexton.

*The hair extensions featured a little broken-English write-up of how Chinese hair differs from white-person hair. It was actually kind of interesting, if I understood it right. Something about hair follicles.

My radio show tomorrow night

http://www.kvrx.org/node/39825

A link from my blog to another blog entry on another blog! Woah! Basically, tomorrow, 10pm central, I'm playing a full hour of Darren Hanlon music, who is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters. And oh did I mention he's coming to Austin in a couple of weeks?

AND THAT I'M GOING TO INTERVIEW HIM???? DID I MENTION THAT?

Cats slideshow

slideshow from the class-portion of India

Don't know what inspired me to make this, but I made it yesterday.

Halloween followup

Like lonely ghosts
We stay because we don't know where else
To go

Halloween was a success. While downtown, I downgraded my original goal of:

• Have 2 strangers know what my costume is supposed to be

to instead be:

• Find some pizza.

Check! But in eating the pizza, I lost a glove (don't worry, not the ones I made, just the leather gloves for underneath, but they were pricey, and I had planned on having them around for real use, so I'm kind of bummed, and I keep dreaming I find it).

I think, with the inauguration of my mother's Facebook account, that all my readers are on Facebook, so pics can be seen there. I will eventually upload to here, to semi-complete the Illyrian costume saga portion of the blog. Basically, the costume came out well enough to be worth bettering for a potential DragonCon excursion next September. So it's not done. In fact, in the rush I was in on Halloween day, I forgot some details of the costume (a center frill, and some sequins), which I just discovered upon cleaning my apartment.

I have been cleaning for 5 hours, when all I wanted to do was go to sleep at 6pm, after a day of sailing on Lake Travis. What was my secret to motivation? I took photographs of the mess, and was inspired by the idea of having a "before" and "after" blog update. It was like a cyclone had hit, after 3 weeks not only of not cleaning up after the costuming, but not cleaning up after ANYTHING because of the costume-time. I've made astounding progress. On my fourth load of laundry. Watched 5 episodes of the Dollhouse (including Omega). Broke one of my grandmother's wine glasses. Cleaned up after that incident. Fed the cats. Cleaned the litterboxes thorougly. Talked a friend through a panic attack. Threw out the old food. Changed the sheets. Windexed. Bleached. Washed the dishes (both dishwashers are broken).

My hands are flaky and dry, from all the cleaners.

I do recommend checking out this song. It's beautiful. It's the coda to a first-season episode of the Dollhouse. I meant to play it on my Halloween-themed radio show, but I forgot.

• Lonely Ghosts