Maybe

Maybe I am wearing a party dress and high heels listening to a compilation album called "Dance Like No One's Watching."

Maybe I am doing this while cleaning my apartment.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD DO THIS TOO.

Song list:
I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
New Attitude - Patti LaBelle
Dancing in the Street - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
Ladies Night - Kool & The Gang
Ain't Too Proud To Beg - The Temptations
Baby Love - The Supremes
How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You) - Marvin Gaye
I Love The Night Life - Alicia Bridges
Don't Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston
I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Gladys Night & The Pips
Last Dance - Donna Summer

I think I've been asleep most of my life

I want to watch Elizabethtown with you.

Trust me, everybody is less mysterious than they think they are.

Brought to you by the letter MmmMMmmmmmm....

Bitches Be Cray

Has someone ever told you "that was a good one" about something you do with them quite frequently and then in the back of your head you start to think "what? did the rest of them suck? why didn't you say something? did you think I couldn't take a little constructive criticism??? blah blah blah"

And then you have that split second where you are about to say some of these thoughts out loud and you realize that you are sort of like those terrible cartoons about how men and women don't understand each other and women are so crazy and complicated etc etc... and you just shut up and remember that probably a closer meaning is, "that was particularly good in the long string of good ones we've had."

Moar Holiday Decor

Here are the two things I actually spent some cash money on. 

"Dining Room" table display:

Runner - $16.99 at Target. It is snowflakes with embroidery. I just adore it and it is the biggest ticket item I got for decorating. I think it is elegant and neutral enough that I'll get a lot of use out of it with different themes. 

Tree candles - Free from my mom - they lived in a box in her garage for probably 10 years. They are in just plain ol' Ikea candle holders which you can get for only 49 cents (and they flip over to hold tea lights). 

Votive display with nature-y things - $9.99 at Big Lots. I think this was a really great deal! I got three votive holders (which are plain enough that they can be for not the holidays), a display plate (again, neutral and not holiday specific) and then some little glittered pine cones, silver globe ornaments and snow frocked pine floral picks. If I had tried to recreate this all on my own with individual items, I am sure I'd have to spend a lot more than ten bucks. 

Overall, this was the most expensive thing and I had originally planned to only have this one display for the holidays... but, well, raiding my momma's Christmas bins in her garage gave me a lot of free things to work with so I went a little wild. 

BLURRY!! Sorry

Window display:

Candles - I was gifted these candlesticks and got the red candles on the cheap (maybe a $1 each?) at Michael's Craft Store. I ended up having to shave the bottoms of the candles because I bought the wrong diameter but it all worked out.  

Garland and sparkle and lights - I took some plain fake pine tree garland (Mom's, but this is cheap during and especially after the holidays - get that shit on sale, dudes) and embellished it with a bunch of cheap/free things which ended up looking really nice. I bought the red, white and silver lights for around $6 at Target (I will defs be using them again because they are really pretty). Then I took a collection of glittered pine cones & sticks and placed those throughout. I got a long strand of silver beads for $1 and also put that with the garland. 

I went a little over budget on this display, I really only wanted to buy the candles (since I had the glittered nature-y things already for free and have other xmas lights) but I really couldn't resist buying the special lights - they really made the whole thing special and I don't regret it as I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this display. Just goes to show how easy it is to a. overspend at Target and b. overspend in general on holiday decorations. 

CLOSE

Y.E.S.

Get Your Holiday Decor On

I decorated my apartment for Christmas this year and I tried to be as cheap as possible. I bought only a couple things and I am going to try and document some of them in a few posts (but as with most of my blogging plans, I'll get lazy and forget slash need to be cryptic and share half emotions and animal pictures with the ether).

My philosophy for holiday decorating is: reuse things you already have and steal from your mom.

My overall color scheme for this year is red & silver. I tried to incorporate silver bells and some glittered natural elements, as well, as a running theme.

This is the centerpiece for my coffee table (instagramed, of course):

Glass bowl: 50% off at thrift store - $4, will become either a centerpiece, fruit bowl or something post holidays.
Silver strands: Tinsel (saw this for $1 at rite aid) but I took this from my mom who probably bought it at a post-christmas sale for like a nickel.
Ornaments: Already had these from several years ago. I bought a set of red & gold ones that have a whole bunch of different shapes (globes, hearts, stars, etc); some smooth others textured and they are also an assortment of matte and shiny finishes. Probably one of the best xmas decoration buys I've ever made because I can pick out just one shape, color, style etc and build a whole theme on it. For this, I just picked out matte and shiny red globes.

This is an example of how I modified all the candles around my apartment to be holiday themed (instagramed, again).

Usually this candle has shells around its base, but I decided to take those glass rock thingers you put in flowers and crap like that and add tiny jingle bells to the mix. Again, this was made possible by the generous donations of my mom's old christmas stuff, but I think this same thing can be accomplished relatively inexpensively. This would work especially well if you already have decorative displays with these pebble things - just add jingle and BAM! HOLIDAZE! I did this for just about all of the candles in my apartment - I thought it added some nice continuity across the rooms. 

MOAR LATER IF I DON'T GET LAZY AND/OR FORGET.

Dream Big With Me, Honey

"Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live." ~Henry David Thoreau

I can't watch.

You Don't Want What I Want

Really, what I want is some stability, a garage and a family (yes, babies).

Oh, Mom...

Mom: It all started to go downhill when you started to watch that cartoon. The one with the girl in the boots.
Me: Daria?
Mom: Yes, she was dark and didn't like things.

Aren't All Diamonds Organic?

Christmas Wish List:

1. Give to Heifer International on my behalf 
2. BOOKS
3. Curling iron that will not break when I accidentally drop it a short distance one time because I accidentally touched the hot part and burned the shit out of my finger. 
4. Gym clothes. Especially sports bras that do not suck.
5. Diamonds (organic)
6. A trip to see the Survivor Tree
7. Hair ties
8. A black purse that is exactly like my brown purse
9. New stereo (organic)
10. Scrabble pillows. Spell some really cool word that I can have in my apartment and my mom won't be scandalized.
11. Binders (decorative, not plain please please) and Sheet Protectors (go green)
12. Romantic dinner. Just you and me and everyone that reads this blog. 
13. [Edited] - Recommendation for a good jewelry repair place in the Ocean Beach or surrounding area.

I am only a little bit serious. 

1 & 5!

This Happened to Me Once, Too

I am reading this book of advice from comedians.

Here are some things that made me laugh while at the gym and then the weirdo next to me that was wearing a fanny pack across his chest looked at me strange. WHATEVER terry bradshaw looking, only "working out" to watch the tvs stranger!

People think sperm is just a great source of protein, and it is, but it's also loaded with carbs. The twist? They're the good kind of carbs. The baby-making kind.

Your Lady Flower is a gift to be shared with anyone who asks. Or shouts at you. Especially if they keep shouting at you. That's really macho.

A transvestite is someone you fuck. A transsexual is someone you marry.

What kind of bear was it? Grizzly? Polar? Teddy? Chicago? 

IN OTHER NEWS...

I kinda feel like this:

 

Worms, Book Variety

I finished reading a couple books this weekend and now am just waiting for my local branch of library to be open so I can pick up the next two I have on hold. I'll have to wait until after 12:30pm on Tuesday to get 'em.

If you have a chance, I recommend reading I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. It is a collection of essays and I enjoyed them quite a bit. Some of them were too New York for my California self, but the underlying sentiment relatable. And others still were too "successful person" and "had a job straight out of college" for my "been laid off before and having a job is the new raise" self, but nonetheless enjoyable anecdotes. The essays are easily digested (especially when at the gym or laundromat) & often quite funny.

Here is one of my favorite tidbits from one of the essays:

People are less quick to applaud you as you grow older. Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there. If you stop and think about it, it's a miracle that we get out of bed everyday and brush our teeth and remember to buy toothpaste. We all deserve to be congratulated but sadly that would mean there's no one left to do the congratulating.

And finally here is a cat that understands me:

Thissssss.

Tonight, YOU!

(Gemma Correll via BuzzFeed)

This War Was Worth It

Jordan is in this video:

Harshing My Mellow

My mom visited me this weekend and she shared the following story:

When I was a very small baby, unable to sit on my own, my mom put me in my little baby seat and she sat on the floor with me. She had lit a bunch of candles and was attempting to teach me to be mellow. My dad then arrived home from work and angrily inquired, "why isn't the TV on? Is it broken!?!" To which she replied, "we are trying to chill out" and my dad shook his head & turned on TV. 

I feel like this explains so much.

We Are All Stumbling Human Beings

We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe.
— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

I decided that the Death Cab song I posted yesterday is pretty creepy.

A Perfect 4 out of 5 Stars

I've been searching for the right way to say how I feel... through song, prose, pictures etc etc... but they are all falling short.

so here are a bunch which sorta get it right-ish:

“No matter what, nobody can take away the dances you’ve already had.”
— Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Maybe I'll continue this later because this still isn't enough. 

All of These Skittles!

Revisit this glory.


Who knows - maybe I'll touch a spider later.

Suffer Peacefully

Soooo.... I was listening to some old playlists today and this song came up. Kinda speaking to me right now.




As angry as I sound
That’s just the way I cover up the way I feel.
I've been that way for years and years
Slave to broken hearts and sex appeal


She was a termite
Eating away at my roots.
I was just a lost soul
Who needed a home
I was filling a void with you

You Go Geek Girl!

I realized that I sort of sounded like a pompous jerk when I said I read a whole book the other afternoon, but really when most of the pages have pictures and are a series of lists... I feel any competent reader could breeze through 200 pages in an evening. [check out the speed reading skills on erin]

http://geekgirlsunite.com/

But really... I read this book so you don't have to. Here are some of the things I found disappointing (mostly because of my own expectations and wishes... I know).

1. The introduction has 1 page describing the different terms that are generally used synonymously (geek, nerd, dweeb, dork etc). I felt this needed more explanation and historical context.
2. The introduction has one section (a little less than a page) talking about she-geeks vs he-geeks. I felt this was insufficient setup for why she wrote a WHOLE BOOK on women geeks. 
3. Most of the pages have pictures and are a series of lists (hypocrite for making my own list but whatever). I felt this work would have been more powerful if there was a more in-depth analysis of the history of each geek realm, the current landscape and perhaps even how feminism and current economic conditions have influenced girl geeks.
4. There are very few examples of women of color. 
5. The music geek chapter is basically only about one genre of music. I understand that you could write whole books on geek-ery about music with each genre covered (and people have, I've read a couple). And in an overview type book, you have to pick & choose... but it seems you could pick and choose over a cross section of music - not just pick several pixie singer/songwriter types. 
6. Zooey Deschanel is not a geek. 
7. Each chapter has a section about geek love. How to snag a geek girl that is interested in one of these geek specialties. Umm... please.
8. Each of these geek love sections describes a male-female relationship. How heteronormative... bleh.
9. The fangirl-geek section seems to not have an awareness of Henry Jenkins. 
10. It seems like the basic premise of the book was "Girls have interests! They are passionate and that is cool!" I wanted more. 
11. This is only a half disappointment - I wanted to feel like I belonged to one of these "specialties" of geek... but I didn't. There were bits and pieces of each that I felt spoke to me and the kind of person I am... and then I got to wondering if I am a geek at all... I always fancied myself one,  but maybe not because according to this book a geek is defined as "a person who is wildly passionate about an activity, interest or scientific field and strives to be an expert in said avocation" and well... while I think I am pretty passionate, it's not about 1 or 2 specific things and I am not an expert on anything. Guess I am not part of this club. sigh. peace out, sisterhood. 

All this being said, there were some interesting bits of knowledge and resources listed. Not a total waste and it is always refreshing to read something that makes you think that you'd like to expand upon this body of knowledge etc. 

And now for some quotes about music from movies. My pseudo-geek passion: 

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery, and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music? - Rob Gordon High Fidelity

 They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts. - Sapphire Almost Famous

You gotta hear this one song, it'll change your life, I swear. - Sam Garden State

Afternoon Blitz

Today I:

1. Went to the gym
2. Made curry for dinner
3. Read Geek Girls Unite

And all after 4pm. I feel accomplished. I'll try to remember to do a write-up on the book since I have about 100 thoughts about it but they are too all over the place to make any sense right now.

ALSO,

this just happened.

She's Crafty and She's Just My Type

In addition to a bunch of minor cleaning tasks (which I am still doing) and hitting the gym for a bit, I did a craft project today!

Heather shared this article a while back and I did my own variation on it with the following result:

I used black yarn and silver pipe cleaners. They now live in my bathroom.
Total cost: $3.75 (I could make about 1 zillion more too)

Side Note - I am going to miss that tissue box when the tissues run out... which is soon.

DO!

My plans for the week include:

• Ice skating
• Craft project
• Movie 
• Clean & Launder all of the things
• Respond to a bunch of emails. 

AND GYM FOREVER. 

BABY HIPPO KISSES

game changer

The Failures of New Google Reader & Google Plus Integration

So, as many of you know, I was a religious sharer on Google Reader. It was my internet hub but they recently rolled out a redesign which eliminated the key feature of sharing. Basically, the whole internet hates it. Google has since responded to the backlash but I feel like they are missing the point of the reader community and content sharing.

Take a look at this video (which I incidentally shared on reader before they destroyed its usefulness). The key take away quote for me comes pretty early in Poole's speech:

It's not the audience. It's your context within that audience. It's not who you share with but who you share as and your context within that group. 

I've spent the last several years sharing a ton of content and creating an identity within the Reader community. I know most of the people I share with personally, but I think they would agree with me that Reader-Erin is just one part of the larger online identity which I maintain. My twitter feed and my facebook profile are both very different in and of themselves and different still from my reader identity. I'll be the first to admit that my Reader shares were probably the closest to exemplifying my offline personality, but I am not just memes, recipes, geekery and Juggalo documentaries. (Though Heather has many a time claimed that I am the internet).

I came to take a lot of pride in who I was within and to my reader community. I often shared new memes or viral videos not because I thought they were so hilarious or topical, but because I felt it my duty to my community. Almost as if I was the person in charge of letting everyone know that this video is going viral (though I totally ignored Nyan cat because I hate it and that shit is HUGE now). I like and enjoy cultivating and parsing all of these internet hate machine blogs/sites/etc for the best of the day not just because I get personal satisfaction, but because it was part of my context within my community. The changes to google reader have eliminated that entirely and moved it awkwardly into Google Plus (G+). Reader-Erin had a particular personality and context within the group that was active there. Now, my G+ profile is being forced into being Reader-Erin in a strange and unsettling way. The ability to create circles of contacts which can view particular pieces of content that I post to G+ seems like a half-ass way of creating community. Poole goes on in his Web 2.0 Summit 2011 speech to say, "We all have multiple identities. It's not something that is abnormal; it's just a part of being human." Segregating who I post content TO is not the point. It is who I am posting content AS. Facebook & Google Plus profiles are asking me to separate my contacts into circles and smart lists in order to satisfy my multiple identities but this really misses the point. I think reader is a particularly good example of how miserably this fails. As I mentioned earlier, I know most of my reader followers personally and speak to many of them daily through other means than reader. However, we have developed a robust community of discussion via comments and shares on reader that often never got spoken about in real or other digital life. Reader-Erin talked to Reader-Courtney/Heather/Matt/TJ/etc etc. The personalities they cultivated on Reader is who I was talking to as the personality I was on Reader. Forcing me to take something like my G+ profile, which is a reflection of my real life educational, professional and geographic history, and make it also be my content sharing identity is an ugly hack that ignores my content sharing community needs. My reader friends fit into many circles and smart lists. Having a space which was dedicated to who we were as content sharers and what we thought as those people is far more valuable than having to define who each of my online contacts is to me and if they are worthy of seeing the articles, pictures and videos I find interesting or relevant to my content sharer personality. My content voice was first in old Google Reader and the community that lived there. Not my IRL personality or extraction thereof that lives on G+. Content was indeed king on old Google Reader. New Google Reader remains a great way to aggregate and consume content but it doesn't have the true community element which made it amazing.

And now for some changes to reader and integration with G+ which make me incredibly angry and leave me searching for a viable alternative:


Content not being content first...
What content looks like in (new) Reader:

What the same content looks like when shared via G+:

What content looks like in (new) Reader:

What the same content looks like when shared via G+:

particularly awful! 

I don't know what the hell they were thinking with this... the beauty of (old) Google Reader as a content aggregator is that you could consume & share multiple RSS feeds from all over the internet in one window/tab/site (and new Google Reader is still a great content aggregator). Now when I share content to G+ I am adding to these mindless feeds of content that my new "reader" circle sees... they can't consume or engage with the content in that feed in a meaningful way. They have to click through which I am sure most everyone will elect not to do except for a couple things here and there. Before, I believe, the likelihood that a reader-friend would read the whole article (provided the RSS feed provided it) or watch the video or SEE THE GIF MOVE was much higher if they didn't have to click through or open new anything. 

No more note in reader bookmarklet. :(

Perhaps there is an alternative that I am not aware of (tell me, if so) but it seems to me that they have eliminated my ability to "share" content on the fly. I really liked this for sharing ridiculous photos I found or longer essays that I found via clicking through about a million links. I understand I can +1 this, but this doesn't get the content into my feed (as I understand it). Also not all sites have integrated the +1 functionality. SO DISAPPOINTING!

What's hot with people I don't give a shit about:

CAN I DISABLE THIS?? I DON'T CARE. I've got 92 different RSS feeds that I monitor and read to tell me what is hot on the internets... and they are all on topics I give a crap about. I'll do my own curating thanks.

Commenting and the Lack of Community Discussion

Email Notification of a Comment on Something I shared

Notification Center on Google Top Bar

I don't want a zillion emails saying that people commented on my items (though I am hesitant to turn this off because monitoring comments isn't easy in G+). I really liked the "comment view" of old Google Reader. It allowed me to see discussions and conversations developing on the items that my reader community was engaging with regardless of if I commented myself... Now it seems like I have to hope that I check older items to see if others commented (because notifications seem to be only on those items that you share, not others in your community).

This isn't community. This is just a mess.

Too Many Clicks to Share & Confusing Logic

Click to +1

Click to Share on G+

Final Click to Share (regardless of if you add note/comment)

Old Google Reader you could just 1-click to share. Or 2 clicks to share with a note. Now it seems like I have to jump through about 1 zillion hoops to share and it requires me to +1 everything even though all I want to do is post to my stream for my new reader circle to see... I am not trying to boost search results for these blog posts or have my name come up when you google shit. I just want to show it to people in a more convenient way than spamming everyone's email... SHEESH. (p.s. how great are my screencaps of that gif [look at it backwards]? Cheers to Courtney for finding it)


Hopefully, this will get better and maybe I will find a new space where I can share and engage with a community. Who knows. But for now, I am just so disappointed.

Ahoy!

Happy Halloween!

I think my eyes are different sizes, shapes and level on my face. Pirate-y.

BONUS:

Greatest Photo in the History of Photography (via Kate!)

Topical

Topical As Hell.

Matrix of Loneliness

Read this.

Also this is terribly beautiful and sweet and it makes me inconsolably sad.

Intervention

I feel like I've been really self-destructive over the last few weeks. Not sure what I need to do to right myself. Sigh.

Starting an emailing campaign to all my friends has been the best decision I've made in recent memory. (if you haven't gotten one yet, it is coming or you can take the initiative to start the dialogue)

This Bunny is a Nerd (via)

I've always been the kind with easy confidence...

Confident enough to honestly believe that nothing out there stopping me...

Cleaning Up

I am going to scrub this place like a crime scene... which it is because you murdered joy. - Cam, Modern Family

The Truth Always Happens

How did I not know about Peter Tunney?

trufax

fuck, i miss it so much.

Science.

Why are women in science (computer or otherwise) portrayed like this on the television:

Instead of like this:

p.s. I am sure there are plenty of other examples of this being done well AND Abby & Penelope are cool characters and their lifestyle choices are totally fine... blah blah blah. I really just wanted to put a picture of Sonya doing SCIENCE. 

There's Your Sign

All signs are seeming to point toward it being the time to leave San Diego.

:(

not for me.

Wisdom

My mom sent me this poem which her grandmother sent to her when she was going through a rough time.


When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown

Crisis

Increasingly it feels as though I have been striving to adhere to this plan that was set out for me by who knows what and I've been doing pretty much everything "right" to stay on script but the promised outcome isn't showing up.

I don't even know if I like this plan... but what would I do instead?

I guess this is what all the Occupy stuff is sort of about.

goodness gracious.

Moms: How Do They Do It?

I basically just cried for an hour on the phone to my mom about my life.



In other news, she is going to get all the trees around her house cut down.

This Moment for Life

Someone once told me that they admired the way I live. And I thought that was a pretty amazing compliment and that they should just do it with me because it would be so much fun.

I guess that is what we're all looking for... someone to live and really be alive with.

Whopper Lair

I'd be much fatter and Burger King much richer if they would deliver.

also, I plan to do zero things today.

Some Things

1. I wonder when you decided to stop being open and honest with me.
2. My mom didn't really know who Steve Jobs was.
3. I am actually really sad about his passing. iSad
4. When I told my mom that I was thinking about going to see a movie tonight, she suggested Bridesmaids. ohhh Mom.
5. The movie Drive doesn't have all that much driving in it.

Probably Wasn't But Whatever

I am going to go ahead and consider the last day or so a victory. Including this meh soup I just made.

okay!