Things you can buy that will make you seem po-mo

In April, 2007 I ordered a "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON" poster from a small bookstore in London, which was selling reproductions of what was then an unusual, circa-WWII amusement. Now that effing poster is everywhere-- every hipster's apartment featured on design*sponge inevitably has one, not to mention every craft room in readymade. you can get shirts and pendants and tote bags and buttons... And I became a bit annoyed, because I felt like popular culture was once again depriving me of something unique and cool. Not to mention the fact that I guarantee you, not everyone who owns one of these posters has taken its message to heart the way I have. I AM enhancing my calm. I AM carrying on.
[The one shown at left is from lucaslepola on etsy]

So consider my mind blown by the inevitable next step, the meta-poster:


Thank you threadless.

What happens once everyone owns this one? A poster that says, "Stop putting instructions on posters"?

I table the motion.

Here is my weekend project: a new table for my living room. On Friday night I spotted it next to (not in) a dumpster in the back alley of my building, and I made James pull over. In fact I was kind of violent about it. I am literally astonished that someone would throw away such a good table. It is extremely sturdy, shapely, and cool. The picture on the left shows the "before"; the right, of course, is "after." I painted it red, decoupaged a vintage ad onto the top, and covered it with my junk.

I am basically turning into my dad, and doing all the things that he used to do (to my SHAME) when I was younger. I have integrated his brand of crazy with my own, though, because not only did I get this table from a dumpster, I then used it to display a bright orange cooking pot that I bought from a thrift store. I have a problem. A cheapness problem. (on a side note... I filed my taxes finally on the weekend, and I lived well below the poverty line last year. So there may be a correlation between dumpster-tables and student loans. But then, I will probably never be able to just drive by a table that clearly is in need of a new home and some sprucing-up. So maybe all this means is that when I finally do have some money, I'll be too cheap to spend it on anything.)

I shall also make this post an honourary "things you can buy for..." post since it is, in fact, a THING YOU CAN BUY FOR $0. Which is actually my favouritest kind of thing you can buy of all. (I had the supplies, paint etc., on hand. I got some free sandpaper from my sister. Project costs may vary.)

Things you can buy for $1... well, you know the rest.

I am all about bendy straws with integrated drink umbrellas. Now that's efficiency.

That's right, I totally just made a new blogger tag for "things you can buy"... because I am JUST THAT SHALLOW/WEB 2.0. I find my elaborate and inconsistent tagging system endlessly amusing. Granularity and aboutness be damned!

Things you can buy for $1, installment 1,046

I treat Meghan really nicely, and she buys me all these icees.

dangerous developments, and blog performance anxiety

1. So, I think Facebook is leading directly to the fragmentation of my grasp of my own sense of self-worth. For non-Facebook users, on Facebook you have a little one-sentence status thing you can use "to keep your friends updated on your status." Examples would be, "Joey Facebook is at the library," or, "Stephanie SocialNetworking is networking, because she knows that is what you have to do to get a job." These sentences have to start with "your name is," which can lead to some strange grammatical constructions. (Some people just ignore the "is," but I think that's cheating.) As if writing long blog entries about my sense of well-being wasn't bad enough, I now feel this constant compulsion to describe my situations (emotional and otherwise) in pithy, one-sentence third-person phrases. Recent selections (only some of them actually posted to Facebook) include:

• Jocelyn is tired of the theme song from Medium.
• Jocelyn is drunk and annotating.
• Jocelyn is anxious
• [quickly followed by...] Jocelyn is relieved
• Jocelyn is awash in nostalgia and uneasiness
• Jocelyn is having trouble thinking of things to blog about
• Jocelyn is not making constructive emotional choices
• Jocelyn is not making constructive nutritional choices
• Jocelyn is mourning ends of things
• Jocelyn is spending too much time doing nothing and not enough time doing something
• Jocelyn is taking some small comfort in daily acts of meaning and negotiation
• Jocelyn is looking for crested merchandidse
• Jocelyn is smoke and rice paper
• Jocelyn is running out of money
• Jocelyn is updating her ziplist
• Jocelyn is being OCD about music (Snow Patrol- Set the fire to the third bar; Hawksley Workman- Love will tear us apart; The Decemberists- We both go down together. Over and over again. For days.)
• [and my personal favourite] Jocelyn is lost.

The thing is, this micro-focus does not help me at all. I think it may actually make things worse.

2. Things you can buy for $1, part infinity:



See "poor nutritional choices," above.

File under: things you can buy for $10, part infinity

Meghan and I went thrift-store shopping yesterday and I would say Rosie, the sassy and fickle goddess of thrift-store luck, smiled on us.

On the left is a fabulous flamingo lamp. It looks like glass but is actually made of little plastic globules that are melted together. I think this makes it virtually unbreakable, and also, possibly, a fire hazard! But a gloriously kitschy fire hazard. I don't know what I will do when the bulb burns out because, much like a computer, it has "no user serviceable parts inside."

On the right is an orange General Electric space heater that provoked the following conversation:

Jocelyn: Meghan, you are my friend. I need you to tell me the truth about something.
Meghan: What?
Jocelyn: Do you think I should buy this space heater?
Meghan: Does it work?
Jocelyn: I think I want to buy it regardless of whether it works.

I then carried it around the Goodwill store, cutting off circulation to my fingers, because I was afraid some other orange-appliance-loving person might snatch it.

Both are electrically operational! Thank you, Rosie, I owe you one!

west coast update

I saw the play MacHomer last night, which is MacBeth (more or less) performed using exclusively voices from The Simpsons, by one guy. It was pretty intense, as even that brief description probably suggests. It also made a surprising amount of sense. Mr. Burns was King Duncan, of course. Marge as Lady MacBeth didn't disturb me as much as I expected. And Grandpa Simpson, Otto, and Apu as the three murderers was downright hilarious. (Apu, of course, being the only one with even the remotest murdering competence.) Rick Miller, the guy who wrote and performed it, is hilarious, so it you get a chance to see any of his plays I highly recommend it.

Today I get to go to the 826 Seattle space store, Fred Meyer (my parents' favourite American store for some reason), and to the beach near my parents' house. I shall search for some kind of airplane postcard to send to my friend Caleb. It has been raining here nonstop since I arrived in Vancouver. It took us an hour to get through American customs on Saturday, presumably because they are being extra vigilant about terrorists on weekends.

Things you can's buy at the grocery store in Seattle: sesame bagels
Things you can buy at the grocery store in Seattle: booze

It is nice to see my dog again, but he seems older and wiser now. He has lost a bit of his previous goofy charm. I am here by myself right now (parents at work), and he flops down on the floor nearby wherever I am, and then gets up and follows me if I move around, as if he feels he needs to warily keep an eye on me. The experience of my parents moving away and all his people being split up has obviously been very hard on him. And no, I am not doing that thing dog-owners do where they project their own problems onto their pets. Not at all.

Ahem.