Been A Little While

So I had this very good and fun weekend last weekend, and took all these pictures of stuff (mostly flowers, I have to admit), and didn’t get a chance to download them. And then Monday came and I was busy and then Tuesday I was busy some more and then, well, Wednesday is bellydance night and you all know I don’t have a computer, right? You all know that I write all these entries on Carl’s laptop at his house with the very fast wireless internet, yes? And I was hungry and didn’t have time to go over there and anyway Carl was late coming home from work and so the laptop wasn’t even there, and also I had borrowed a Miss Manners book from the library and I was getting pretty into it, and also I just started knitting and so there was that. I just really wanted to post those pictures for you, but I haven’t been able to, so I thought I would write a lame entry about how I hadn’t had the chance to post. It’s kind of ego-centric to even think that anyone cares when I do or don’t update…like, I’m sure there are all these people out there weeping softly onto their keyboards, keening ā€œWhen, oh when? When will she update? I sure hope she doesn’t link to that stupid my-cat-ate-my-tulips entry.ā€ Does anyone even care how often I update, or is that totally a street cred thing? When you meet up with other journallers you want to be all nonchalant, like, oh yeah, I’m down to only updating four times a week and my stats are like, really out of control…I have to get more bandwidth to deal with how many people are reading. Not much else is going on, how about you?ā€ At least that’s what I want to be like, I don’t know about all y’all other selfless journallers who are thinking to yourselves, ā€œNo, I just do it for the art.ā€ Not me, man. I’m all about the audience. If I want art, I’ll dip myself in paint and make a gigantic stamp of myself on butcher paper, you know?

Anyway. My mom came for the weekend…came all the way across the country to see me just for a weekend, two weeks before I am going to fly all the way across the country to see her (and my sister, and my aunt and uncle, and my grandmother for my sister’s graduation—yay!—and also My Friends Marah and Manya, and My Friend Manya’s baby boy). Anyway, Mom proved once again that she is the most gracious of houseguests, especially considering that I live in a very small apartment with no guest room. She also bought me lots of lunches and did some alterations on some of the clothes she got me…how great is that? I am going to be so cute once the rain stops raining. Spring and summer? I am all set for you, my sweets. Parties and weddings and graduations in states in which the weather is occasionally something other than High of Fifty, Low of Forty, Scattered Showers? I am going to look so cute. If all goes according to plan.

So a while ago Jessica of Ultra Tart wrote this entry, and I read it and thought, okay fine. Shopping theory, whatever. Fine with me. Then I got into a discussion at MATH+1 about it, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the concept. You just have to read the entry, because it’s hard to explain…but the idea is that you choose a ā€œlookā€ you want and then only buy things that jive with that look. Simple, right? Right. The kicker is, you have to //name// the look, and you have to //stick by// the look. You can, I believe, take liberties with it…you’re to say what constitutes Eighties’ Prom Queen or Raised In A Barn or whatever you want your look to be. And I’m going to guess that you can periodically revise the look too, every couple of years. Disco Diva can morph into Elegant Soignee over time. The whole point is to name it, to own it. And, my friend, own it I have. I am all over this Shopping Theory now. It’s the greatest.

My look is ā€œThe Exchange Student Next Door.ā€ Since I wear jeans every day to work it couldn’t be something too high maintenance, and it couldn’t be something that would require me to be at the thrift store twenty hours a week because I have no skills in that area whatsoever. However, I felt very strongly that, you know, I’m twenty-eight now, and maybe I should stop dressing as though I just open the closet door every morning in the dark, blindly grab whatever my little hand lands upon, and call it good. Hence the Exchange Student part of the deal…when you look at me you should be thinking ā€œMy, what a wholesome, approachable lass! Could she, perhaps, have a villa in Tuscany as well as her second floor walkup in a less than savory part of Seattle? Might she drive not only a beige Toyota but also a Vespa?ā€ Casual, with a little something extra. Right? Sound good? I think so. The only problem is that so far, the look only extends to my new spring and summer stuff and possibly my black turtleneck sweater and my black Simple boots and my spy glasses. Everything else says, ā€œThis girl got this on sale at Old Navy and she doesn’t care that it doesn’t fit her so well in the shoulders because she didn’t have a lot of time to shop, okay? Stop judging me.ā€ So I don’t know. I’ll keep you all updated. Meanwhile, bask in the glory of my new sandals that Mom got me (Her exact words were after I tried them on, I believe, were ā€œThose are coming home with us.ā€). I got them in Sky. Exchange Student Next Door, right? Right?

The real deal this weekend, however, wasn’t the shopping, the previous eighteen paragraphs notwithstanding. The real deal was going to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival about an hour north of here. You go and look at all these fields of beautiful tulips and take pictures of them.

That’s it. Maybe you bring a couple bunches back for your cat to eat. Deceptively simple, because it really was a lot of fun. Mom, being a big garden freak, had a great time, and I, being not so much a garden freak at all, also had a good time because the flowers really are gorgeous and also because there’s something curiously satisfying about clonking around in the mud. We got there early enough so that by the time all the crowds…yes, tulip-viewing crowds!..got there we were on our way to see llamas. As you might imagine, a good time was had by all.


Actually, this is an alpaca.

For Easter we went (with Carl) to the lovely Arboretum, which turns out to be just what I did last year for Easter. We went down Azalea Way and ran into some kids having an Easter egg hunt, complete with a sheepish Easter Bunny. Mostly we looked at azaleas and rhododendrons, and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. Seattle will do that, you know. Whine as you will about the rain, weep into your pillow about seasonal affective disorder, but when the clouds part and the sun comes out, this is a gorgeous city, to be sure.

It was a wonderful way to spend Easter, I have to say. It was a wonderful visit, all in all, but it did leave me a little unprepared for this week. I don’t know when it was that I began to require a weekend just to get ready to go to work the following week, but I’m not too excited about it. Even now as I’m writing this, I’m sort of thinking about laundry and that swim starts in half an hour and oh, man, tomorrow is Friday and I have so much to do this weekend because I’m going to be gone next week…you see where this is going, I’m sure.

So, that’s what I’ve been doing the last week or so. I have been working, making dinner, petting the cats, talking on the phone, reading, going to bellydance, riding the bus, hanging out with my boyfriend. All the usual things. Also, learning how to knit. Sort of. My sister sent me, for reasons best known to herself, some learn-to-knit stuff, and so I’ve decided to. I went to a private class on Monday and am going to sign up for one when I get back from Florida. I only know how to cast on and to do the knit stitch thus far. Currently, I’m making a bookmark, but you never know, I might get fah-ree-kay and go for a scarf or a hat or something one of these days. I can’t wait until I’m cool enough to make some of the stuff here. I’ll let you know….assuming I can find time in my (apparently) busy schedule to update, right?


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