Things About Which I Am Excited

So a few months ago Neil Gaiman twittered something about Dave McKean designing some stamps. Not just any old stamps, Mythical Creatures stamps. Naturally I knew that I needed to own any such a thing, but somehow just owning them didn’t seem to be enough. What fun is it to have some beautiful miniature artworks created by my favorite artist, and then just stick them on a shelf somewhere? It’s not like I would pull them out periodically for reverential gazing. I thought about ordering two sets and framing one, or displaying them in some other way in my house.

Coincidentally, my friend Jenny twittered something around the same time about a new jewelry technique she was trying out, and like your chocolate getting in my peanut butter, and your peanut butter getting on my chocolate, a great idea was born in my noggin.

See Jenny does these lovely custom jewelry pieces, and has the technology to make me better, faster stronger… wait no, that’s the Bionic Woman. What Jenny has is the talent and know-how to take my lovely, lovely stamps and create a beautiful one-of-a-kind bracelet for me! I talked to her about it, and she knew just where to order the settings she would need for the project. (And she also knew to make the links extra strong since I have a tendency to be tough on my jewelry in general, and bracelets in particular.)

The stamps arrived in early June, and earlier this week I dropped them off with her – and I got to see the setting they will be in! She ended up deciding to make a bracelet and a pendant from the stamps, since there are 6 and the bracelet was the perfect size using only 5.

Here are the stamps, the dragon is the one she’s using for the pendant, the rest will be used on the bracelet.

In case you can't see, it's a unicorn, a dragon, a giant, a mermaid, a fairy queen and a pixie.

She’s working on it now, and I can’t wait to see it finished! Stay tuned and I will post pictures when the pieces are done.

Is it the city, or is it me?

I wish that I felt about St. Louis the way I feel about Savannah. I wish I thought it was lush and beautiful and full of adventures waiting to happen and discoveries of amazing things waiting around every corner. I don’t know why I don’t see the beauty of this place, and why it feels so threatening and jagged and broken, when I am sure it is full of wonderful places and people. Would I see it that way if I didn’t live here? If I lived somewhere else, would it keep feeling full of possibility and promise indefinitely, or would the horror and hostility of home creep into that place as well?

I wonder why when I am here I mostly want to take anti-anxiety medication and lay in bed weeping, while when I am not here the world seems so much more workable.

I haven’t turned on the TV since I’ve been home, or read any news, or caught up on any blogs, or done any shopping, or anything else really. I’ve mostly sat quietly and wished very much that I was somewhere else, doing something else.

I am very reluctant for my life to start up again.

Vacation all I ever wanted

…so where did I leave off? Oh yes, that tree coming out from behind a bush and attacking my Mom’s bumper. Tiresome.

After that the day got better. We chilled on the beach, and Dave discovered that the cast cover is suitable for swimming in the ocean, as advertised. We all got a little pink in the sun, then had a pretty bad lunch at The Crab Shack. (Stale kaiser roll with some prefab shrimp salad, microwaved hot pecan pie from a plastic wrapper – bleh.) Also the lackadaisically indifferent waitress seated us as far back as possible, despite Dave’s gimpitude. Rude. Oh and the bathroom was really dark, dirty and spider-y. We all thought we’d like it better if it were cooler outside, and we were drunk.

Dinner wasn’t much of an improvement, we ventured down to the main strip here and tried one restaurant – but no one ever came out to take our order at all, and they kept misting us down with water of questionable origin. We moved on to some Applebee’s wannabe type of place, and the food was OK, but the wait to get in there was quite ridiculous. We left the house at 7pm and we didn’t get food until 9. And the place was about four blocks from here. I guess they don’t have to have good service if they deal with primarily a touristy crowd. Anyway, we did have plenty of time to people- watch while we waited for a table, and that’s where I saw a girl who was maaaaybe 13 years old wearing incredibly short shorts and a very tight black t-shirt that said “I’m Fun Sized.” Good going parents, way to pay attention. She was with a whole cadre of other pre-teen/teen girls, all of whom looked ripe for sexual abuse and drug problems in later life. Once their adult minders showed up, it all made sense though. Todd spotted a super-geeky 14 or so year old boy wearing a “Tell Your Girlfriend I Said ‘Thanks’” tshirt, which made Todd want to give him a smack.

Todd and Dave looking a little pink around the edges at Wannabee's.

After dinner we headed over to Tybee Time for some very strong frozen drinks and more people watching. We discovered that, among gentlemen, the “Captain Ron” look is very big here. Well, if Captain Ron had been played by Richard Dreyfuss, anyway. We saw all kinds of other interesting people, like Little Smokey, a wee man with a cigarette behind his ear, who was vying for the attention/affection of Eve, the lady in the dirty stripey dress. The main problem with this is that Eve was more interested in Captain Ron. Little Smokey got louder and louder in his quest for Eve’s notice, but to no avail. Frustrated, he ended up giving Captain Ron a smack in the mouth as Captain Ron was trying to do a shot. I think there was some blood. Captain Ron had to go to the bathroom to clean up, and Little Smokey took the opportunity to usurp  his seat. Eve was having none of it, however, and moved away to shake her braless tits at other bar patrons until CRs return. After that Little Smokey took his cigarette from behind his grimy ear, smoked it quite forlornly, and then left.

We were pretty worn out after that, and had to retire to our condo for reflection and meditation. Also bed.

Is my arm supposed to be purple?

I am sure there are some noteworthy things happening on this vacation, but I *yawn* can’t really find the *stretch* will or energy to write about them. (is it naptime yet?)

Drive down was uneventful, in a good way. DaveWWT forgot both his sunglasses and his phone charger, and had to cash in 27 gimp credits not to be scorned for his forgetfulness. We stopped somewhere in Kentucky for him to replace both, and this is where we got the first awesome quote of the trip, from the gas station attendant who couldn’t price Dave’s charger and had to hunt all through the racks for one that was “sim-yoo-ler” to that one. Dear South: I had forgotten how dumb your inhabitants sound.

Made really good time getting here, and we were ready to cross over onto Tybee at about 10:30 local time. We were ready for Tybee, but Tybee was not ready for us – the only road to get here was flooded due to high tide. We were told to park it and wait an hour. That would have been annoying on a regular day, but coming off a 13 hour road trip it sucked some serious hairy balls. We pulled into a BP parking lot and prepared to hang out. That’s where we met the charming fellow we’re just going to refer to as “The Racist.”

The Racist was from Hannibal, Missouri, and he struck up a conversation with me based on my having Missouri license plates. It was hot and humid and I was tired and really just wanted a shower, so I gaped dumbly at The Racist while he told me about his grandpa (dying of cancer) his job (pipefitter, local something-or-other) the cops on Tybee Island (assholes) and his plans for the evening (taking his wife and baby daughter over to Tybee Island in order to catch a glimpse of Miley Cyrus filming a movie.) I was barely paying attention to him when the second memorable quote of the trip happened. Looking over at the line of cars waiting to cross over to this island, he saw someone moving their truck out of line. “Whoa, Mexican! Whoa!” he shouted at the dark-skinned man in the truck. I gawped at him wordlessly. As the man pulled out of traffic and proceeded quite innocently with his business, The Racist muttered after him “Awww, go back to Mexico.” His wife shushed him, but I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t really say anything. Again, South, your people do not sound so smart, nor so tolerant. Since then we have been “Whoa! <insert descriptor>, whoa!” at pretty much everthing we see.

We finally made it over to Tybee and into our place at around 12:30 or so. Not too bad, and nothing we could really do about it anyway. Place was even nicer than I expected, so that’s a plus.

Just as nice as they advertised, a pleasant surprise.

We can see the beach from our balcony :-)

The next morning I went to the rental office to pay our balance, and get some info about our wifi (not working.) As I left the office there was a man painting on a big billboard or something. He started humming at me, and then said something about could I hear the steel drums. Since there were none, I could not hear them. I said that maybe he should have a radio on or something. But then he started explaining to me how the steel drums were the manifestation of god’s voice on earth. I said “oh sure” and got in the car to leave. Just then, a large tree jumped out of nowhere, and ran behind my car, causing me to back into it. The trees around here seem to be tricky like that. Since I borrowed my Mom’s SUV for this trip, it wasn’t as small of a deal as it could have been. I can get it fixed, looks like a panel that can be replaced in the back, but still a shitty way to start the day. Fucking shady-ass trees.

…to be continued when I have more energy. *yawn*

She did not wear lemon

Lemon drops:

# 1/2 shot Absolut® Citron vodka

# 1/2 shot sweet and sour mix

They make me feel pretty happy, and it’s possible that they help me act pretty badly. They also make me a bit wobbly on my feet, apparently, but no tumbles were taken. Anyway, despite temporarily lifting the ban on shots at the bar (it all had to do with a bet with Jessica on the name of that Lord of the Dance guy, which I totally knew but she didn’t believe me and then we bought each other shots so we each had two, so I guess no one won. Or we both did?) last night wasn’t an epic fail. I felt it when I totally started to go around the bend, and switched to water.

And I am finally coming to accept that I should and do and will make my own choices, independent of the opinions of those around me, as I am a grown woman. And I may be hurting myself, and I may be making wrong choices, but at least they’re based on how I honestly feel and what I honestly want, rather than an amalgamated, group-think decision on how I should live my life. I just have to stop talking to people about my shit and asking their opinions, because their opinions confuse me, and I am going to do what I damn well please anyway.

Why is so much of being an adult isolating yourself in these ways? I wish I was the kind of person who could be open and sharing and trusting and tell people things and hear their thoughts in response and then take those in and in a reasoned manner assess them and use them to help me form my own opinion.

Instead I am a sorry, confused, distracted kind of person, who takes in the opinions of others, gives them all equal weight with my own, throws them in the Cuisinart that is my mental process, and then gets a hot mess of disordered irrationality out the other end. It’s no wonder I so often find the things that I am forcing myself to do are in direct conflict with how I feel and what I want. And that’s my own fault too I guess.

Anyway, fuckit, I guess that’s what alcohol is for. Letting us give ourselves permission to do what we want, giving us something to blame after when it doesn’t work out.

And oh lord, how this is not going to work out.

SOTD – Garbage “Stroke of Luck”

Garbage “Stroke of Luck” Listen via blip

Hanging by threads of pale silver
I could have stayed that way forever
Bad blood and ghosts wrapped tight around me
Nothing could ever seem to touch me
I was what I loved most
Did you know I was lost
Until you found me?

Stroke of luck or gift from God
Hand of fate or the devil’s claws
From below or saints above you came to me
Here comes the cold again I feel it closing in
Its falling down all around me falling

You say that you’ll be there to catch me
Or will you only try to trap me?
These are the rules I make
Our chains were meant to break
You’ll never change me

Here comes the cold again I feel it closing in
It’s falling down all around me falling

Stroke of luck or gift from God
Hand of fate or the devil’s claws
From below or saints above you come to me now

Don’t ask me why
Don’t even try

Stroke of luck or gift from God
Hand of fate or the devil’s claws
From below or saints above you came to me

Here comes the cold again I feel it closing in
It’s falling down all around me falling

Falling falling falling

He e-mailed us to say, “I’m dating both of you” | Salon Life

I love this man and his advice. I seriously, seriously do.

Craving his attention is not a good basis for a relationship. Craving his attention is like needing a drug. He made you a nice dinner. He says nice things to you. Those things — the slow-dancing, the CD, the dinner — those are not the relationship. They are relationship-oriented products. He has shown himself to be an adequate producer of relationship-oriented products. You haven’t really encountered him as a person yet; you’ve only encountered him as a competent dispenser of feeling-like substances.

via He e-mailed us to say, “I’m dating both of you” | Salon Life.

SOTD – Kathleen Wilhoite “Wish We Never Met”

Buffy fans will remember this song from the Season 3 episode “Consequences” where Willow finds out that Xander’s had sex with Faith. This is the song that plays while Willow is crying in the bathroom.

Kathleen Wilhoite “Wish We Never Met”

Disappointment stops by from time to time
to see how I’m doing
and he came by last night
right after you left
my life in ruin

When I don’t get what I want
the spoiled child inside breaks down
kickin, screamin, prayin and dreamin
for a love
lost and found

Well I wish we never
wish we never
wish we never met
‘cuz now I’ve got my heart set on you

Humiliation asked me out last night
I had nothing else to do
so we took a cab to loopy drunk,
had conversations
I couldn’t get through

And another stranger’s eyes
were trying desperatly to meet mine
but i looked away tabs to pay lies to say
like “How are you?” “Oh I’m doing fine”

Ohh but I wish we never
wish we never
wish we never met
cuz now I’ve got my heart set
I wish we never
wish we never
wish we never met
‘cuz now I’ve got my heart set on you

And I don’t get what I want
from another strangers eyes
no and I don’t get what I want
from another strangers eyes

I wish we never
I wish we never
wish we never met
‘cuz now I’ve got my heart set on you

I’m set on you

SOTD – The Sundays “My Finest Hour”

The Sundays “My Finest Hour” Listen at last.fm

When the world, it shows me up
My clothes, they show me up
I never knew this before
The finest hour that I’ve ever known
Was finding a pound in the underground

When my words came stumbling out
Then I went tumbling out
I’ve never been hit before
The finest hour that I’ve ever known
Was finding a pound in the underground

And I keep hoping you are the same as me
And I’ll send you letters and come to your house for tea
We are who we are, what do the others know?
But poetry is not for me, so show me the way to go (home)

And the words came stumbling out of my mouth
And I went tumbling out (here, no no, no no)

But I keep hoping you are the same as me
And I’ll send you letters and come to your house for tea
We are who we are, what do the others know?
But poetry is not for me, so show me the way to go
Oh, I’m going home.

But I’ll keep hoping you are the only one
Yes, and I’ll send you letters, oh, wouldn’t it be such fun?
Oh, we are who we are, whatever the others say
But poetry is not for me, as much as I’d like to stay
Oh, I just want to go home

You’re, you’re, you’re too young
Should’ve been, you, you’re, you’re too young
It should’ve been, you too, you’re too, you’re too young
It should’ve been, you, you, you’re too young
You shouldve been… safe here, safe here
Bribed the judge and then sat down
Ooh, you’re, you’re, you’re too young

How (Not) to Live Your Life, Book One

So DaveWWT and I have decided that our lives are so goddamned epic that we need to write a book in which we advise other people on how to live if they want to be unhealthy, alone and perpetually confused by everything around them.

I had several ideas for chapter titles, like:

• How to live your life alone & unloved
• Being a selfish bastard, it’s easier than you think.
• Just Add Alcohol

Dave’s first chapter is going to be titled:

• Two girlfriends are better than one and other false promises of the pornography industry

But then we got kinda stuck and decided to open it up to the twitterverse. Their submissions below:

• sub_english Something for the middle of the book “Dicks I Have Known.” I like the double entendre of the verb “to know.” (I told her this would be our only pop-up chapter.)
• Schweinhundt “Our Only Stable Friend is Fucked in the Head”
• sub_english “Wisdom Is Alcohol Soluble.”
• _bunny_ Blackouts: Bane or Boon?
• todderickv “Smoking Poles, Amphibians, Meth Mouths, Croats, and other inane people I find myself talking to in front of Mangia at 4am”
• _bunny_ Waking Up Next To Food

We are also going to collect the good bad advice that random people give to us. Like:

• No eating after midnight. Make that 8 p.m.
• No using bug spray after dark.
• Always don’t eat ice cream.
• In general, slow your roll.
• Shot o’clock is a good idea.
• If you do it in a crowd, nobody sees.
• When in doubt, break someone’s arm.

Let me know if you have any further suggestions.

I think this could be a multi-volume work, as Dave and I have lots and lots of bad advice to share. Or lots of good advice for leading a very bad life, rather.