(no subject)

Aaaaaah! I just woke up! I slept for 14 hours. I feel OK but we will see how the day goes. (I also feel a little numb in my extremities, and... the muscles in my neck are tight.)

I had a lot of dreams last night... something about visiting my dad and stepmother (who aren't even married anymore, and who in my dream had so many records and books that their little old house threatened to collapse... oh wait, that part is true) and other relatives who live in the same town. Then something that involved a lot of train rides, and in one, there was an old carriage that was to be disposed of. Then I talked to an old man who seemed not the least bit distressed by being a Nazi death-camp guard and, because I was angry when I heard his story, handed me a small box/bag of ashes culled from his camp and said I could do what I wanted with them, so the next time the train went over the ocean, which it did, I undid the latches on the box as best I could after almost sixty years, and dropped the whole thing in the water, very sad and angry. Then there was a school-related incident which almost directly mirrored my own stupid experiences in high school, and then a shopping segment involving mostly gourmet snackies and a part of the store in which many people were looking at blue glitter-vinyl skirts and shirts.

So irritated about the Napster thing. Idiots who wouldn't buy them anyway swap Britney Spears songs, and people like me who download things that they've either tried to buy or intend to buy when they can find them lose access. I'll be so peeved if all the Japanese stuff I like disappears, or smaller indie bands' stuff. They should only be able to block things that are like... under 10 years old, and widely distributed by a major label in the US market. (Somehow I doubt anyone is losing much money when I download songs by The Waitresses and Book of Love.)

I am a crank. I need to figure out what to do today.

mew!

I love Yamm! Isn't she the cutest?

quel jour.

It took ages to wake my mother up this morning, and even though she knew she was running late, she simply would not budge from bed. She got out the door 20 minutes or so late, and promptly reappeared. Flat tire.

AAA came and put on the donut spare, but we still had to go out to the dealership ("we" because I had been planning to drive her to school and use the car for a few hours, mainly to get hairdye, possibly to go to the bookstore and read David Boring). Stopped for food and at Sam's Club on the way. Got more cotton camisoles at Sam's, as well as a USB hub and a copy of Talking Dirty With The Queen of Clean (which reminds me that GetOrganized is sadly overdue for an update). Mom got the Williams-Sonoma/Mayo-Clinic Cookbook, which looks good, and David Sedaris' Naked in paperback. Other things too.

This was around the point where I started to feel really crummy, so I waited in the car while she checked out, and then sat around the dealership moping because my back hurt. It took them a little over 1/2hr or so to fix the flat... not too bad. I read Smithsonian's article on A Word A Day from a few months ago, as well as reading about the new handwritten bible being produced in Wales.

Then we looked at furniture, went to a bookstore where I skimmed a lot of books and picked up the How "International Design Annual" issue (where I had all of the winning books that I had actually seen! Pad and Tokyo: A Certain Style... I'm such a design whore, though you'd never know it to look at this page). Stopped at the hipster store on the way home but there were no cute summer shirts for me there (either too small, or would-not-look-good).

Now we're home. Mom never did make it to school today, and I felt too crummy to go out on my own, though I did feel a lot better after having a bowl of creamy chicken and rice soup at the bookstore. I suppose I'll be subjected to Survivor at 8; I'll probably knit or something, and try to get to bed at a decent time.

I'm not too thrilled with the fact that we've had the car for 18 months and had two flats since last June.

knit THIS

so, I finally unravelled the intricacies of casting on and was happily doing my first row when on the fourth or fifth try I came to the conclusion that A)a beginner should not start on needles well over a foot long and B)the author of the book recommended that beginners start with sz 8 needles and worsted weight for a REASON. My needles are smaller at sz 5 and the yarn is also smaller, and it's harder to work with. But all the store had in worsted was yucky acrylic.

I was going to head up to WalMart for more needles and a yarn approximating what I need, but I elected not to... just too tired. I guess I'll go look for knitting shops online and see if they have what I need. *sigh*