monday-morning email hilarity

jocelyn - 9:45 am:

today is gross.... everything smells like mr. noodles. i don't know why. i think it might be my hair.

james - 9:55 am:

let's run this through a problem-solving matrix:

did you wash your hair with mr. noodles?

if yes, it's probably your hair

if no, did you wash your face with mr. noodles?

if yes, it's probably your face

if no, did you put mr. noodles powder up your nose?

if yes, you're just smelling the mr. noodles powder that you put up your nose

if no, the smell is probably coming from the refineries.

I actually can't re-read it because it will make me snort coffee through my nose, and
I want the people around me to think I'm working.

puzzling text messages: a chronicle of self-aggrandizement, mistaken identity, and the human condition

4:27 pm: its me david the bball star
[i texted him back: "wrong number dude"]
6:24 pm: k

5:55 the next day: its david the allstar

3:07 today: sup
3:15 pm: yo man i aint mad man
[i texted him back: "wrong number"]
5:56 pm: who is this

This was linked on Jezebel this morning, and I have to link to it as well. The Recently Deflowered Girl. A helpful guide from 1965, with illustrations (and presumably text?) by Edward Gorey.

Sad face: as of Jan10/09, the link is dead. All that traffic (it got metafiltered and neatorama-ed in addition to being Jezebel-ed) must have killed livejournal.

Our pens have turned to ink-sicles*

When I woke up this morning and checked the weather, it claimed that it was -22 at the time, with a high for today of -3. Really, Internet? When is it going to reach this mythical temperature of -3? Because in the short walk from T-Ho's to the bus stop, my coffee went from hot to lukewarm, and my legs from leg-temperature to, uh, frozen-steak-temperature. Yeah. Gross.

It still claims that tomorrow will be 0. I think that the government is feeding Environment Canada these made-up forecasts to keep us from rioting, hoping we'll never notice that it NEVER GETS TO THE FORECASTED HIGH, and that in the meantime our ASSETS ARE FROZEN*.

*I stole these jokes from The Muppet Christmas Carol.

fat quarters in the mail

fat quarters in the mail, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

Designer fabric is one of my favourite things, but I really can't afford it--or find it in Edmonton for that matter. Solution: fat quarters! Relatively cheap and small, but still quality-of-life-enhancing. (Also: it is fun to say "fat quarters" because it sounds like a made-up thing but it is real. They are quarter-yards of fabric which are mainly used by quilters)

L to R: Aviary by Joel Dewberry, 2 by Valori Wells, Pop Daisy by Heather Bailey, 2 by Alexander Henry, and 2 by Tina Givens.

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"?

On confetti in the snow, and saving the world

I set my alarm for 6:50, except I actually set it for 6:50 PM. Miraculously, I still woke up in time to catch the bus, although not in time to shower. But even getting dressed and wandering out the door into the darkness, it somehow felt like 7:20 PM, and I had this weird feeling that I had slept through a whole day of work--even after I checked my phone and didn't have any messages.

I walk to the bus stop along the top of the river valley and this morning someone had distributed metallic confetti along the sidewalk. When I saw the first heart I thought someone had lost an earring, and then I noticed dozens of tiny stars and hearts glimmering in the snow.

It's a new year, and by some miracle I remembered to bring my re-usable coffee mug to Tim Horton's. 2009 is the year I save a tiny grove of trees that would otherwise be turned into paper products.

New theory of food efficiency

Cooking only one new dish each night, always enough to make leftovers--and always something that goes with the leftovers from the previous night. Result: FEWER DISHES, without the frustration that results from never-ending leftovers!

Example:

Night 1: Turkey from Christmas + new mashed potatoes
Night 2: leftover mashed potatoes + new pork chops
Night 3: Leftover pork chops + new rice
Tomorrow: Leftover rice and WHO KNOWS!

Also: Books.

I'm reading V. C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic and it's hiLARious. I don't even particularly want to keep reading it and yet I find it strangely compelling. I highly recommend it, although-- I feel I should clarify this--not in the sense that it is good, or has any redeeming qualities.

I just finished Nick Hornby's Shakespeare Wrote for Money which is great but also a make-work reading project. (Note: apologies for inability to link to specific posts, the past is dumb) It's his last collection of columns for The Believer. Based on this I found six more books to add to my to-read list. Based on these three books of columns, I kind of want to be friends with Nick Hornby, although I don't like soccer/"football" so I don't know what we would talk about.

Two weeks or so ago I watched the TV miniseries version of The Mists of Avalon and it just made me want to read the book again, so I am doing so. Although it is verrrrry long and I am going to need both renewals I am entitled to to finish it, I think--especially since my recent reading has been very schizophrenic and I can't concentrate on anything.

In Vegas I read John Green's Paper Towns which was excellent, and oddly suitable for Las Vegas, although the book is set in Florida. Early in the book I was getting frustrated that the female main character is kind of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and I was getting really uptight about it, but then--without giving too much away--I came to realize that that is kind of what the book is about. Being annoyed by something and then realizing the book/movie is actually about how the thing that annoyed you is annoying, is awesome. And if you want to wait for that sentence to come around again before you get on, feel free. I'll wait.

Sub-Topic: the two types of girls that annoy Jocelyn the most in books and movies.
1. Manic Pixie Dream Girls (MPDGs). Term coined by The Onion A V Club. The worst offenders are the Kirsten Dunst character in Elizabethtown and the Rachel Bilson character in that dumb Zach Braff movie. Grrrr. I could be that effing adorable too, if I took a bunch of speed.
2. Movies in which the male protagonist has to choose between two women, and one represents responsibility and maturity and boringness, and the other is a MPGD (usually). And Girl Option A talks too much. Implication: you are always better off with the girl who doesn't talk. Well, as a girl who talks a lot, and also refuses to be Girl Option A: Go screw yourself, Hollywood. I have things to say. Sorry if that gets in the way of your boring male angst.

Of the things on this list, 2/4 are tagged "incest" on all consuming. Co-incidence?

on Parking Lot Tundra; and the philosophy of presents

In order to get to work from T-Ho's this morning I had to trek across the barren parking lot tundra. It was intense. My shoes got full of snow. I ran into a guy who was rounding up Safeway carts and he waved at me, the way you have to be friendly to people in the wilderness. Because, when the weather gets like this, we all might die at any moment.

I am resisting the urge to play Desktop Tower Defence at work... like, just barely resisting. This game is like Flash-animated crack. I was clear of it for months and months... then, just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in. I've beat it on Hard mode twice now, but every time I do, I just barely squeeze out a victory. I need to get to the point where I can beat it consistently, and then I won't need to play anymore. Or so I tell myself.

I got so much done at work yesterday, I feel I may be done everything for 2009 already. I returned one phone call this morning, but other than that I think today is a wash. I only have to work until noon, anyway. Sometimes I just move piles of paper around on my desk.

Re: Christmas. I like Christmas presents, partly because of the obvious, getting-new-stuff factor, but what I like more is how the presents people pick for me represent this distillation of who I am as a person. I realize that's very conceited, but then I already have a blog updated with meaningless information about my life, so I'm guessing the fact that I'm conceited is not a revelation to anyone reading this. The presents I got represent this Jocelyn-Version who likes books and jewelry and seashell chocolates and rocket-stickers and iTunes. I guess presents are nice because they mean someone spent at least 5 minutes thinking about you.

This is also why weird, non-suitable presents seem so off-putting. Because it means the person who got the present doesn't know you, or doesn't CARE. Or they're just really bad at buying presents, I guess.

Le sigh.

epistle from the high seas

Is it possible i have only updated my blog 6 times in December? OR, as is more likely, perhaps I got up in the middle of the night, wrote something brilliant, and then blogger erased it while I was asleep. Perhaps this happened ten times. You decide.

Today is my 26th birthday. My family is having ongoing bad luck with airports--with transport of all kinds actually--so my parents aren't here yet, being stranded in the same storm (or set of storms) that kept James and I in Vegas. My annual breakfast at the fancy hotel near my house was a little subdued. I wouldn't say I'm sad, just melancholy. It doesn't help that it has been hovering around -30 degrees here (-40 with windchill) since we got back, and so my errand-running is severely hampered by my lack of a car. I'm pretty sure I got frostbite yesterday. That sounds like one of those hypochondriac claims I am constantly making, so I don't blame you if you don't believe me. But it's true.

I am having a party for myself tonight (in what I imagine is the style of Zsa Zsa Gabor, or similar) and I have therefore spent most of my birthday cleaning. I don't mind, though. A clean apartment is my birthday present to myself. I may even clean my bedroom, just for emphasis, even though I don't think anyone will be in there--it's not that kind of party.

If anyone reading this had any remaining vestiges of respect for me, I will dispel them: I also cleaned out my fridge to make room for beer and a giant box of mandarin oranges. And there was a pretty good showing of stuff in there that expired in November, but the crowning moment, as far as I'm concerned, was hummus from AUGUST. (Although actually it looked fine, so...)

Work mysteries

1. Why is there a plastic magazine file labelled "Municipal World" full of paperwork on my desk?

2. Why haven't I received any email since last Friday?

Dear Internet,

Remind me that sometime I should tell you the story of how there was a freak snowstorm in Las Vegas, and the airport was closed, and all the highways were closed, and James and I were driving around the surreal, snowy Southwest for 16 hours in a rented SUV. And when I asked the gas station attendant if she thought Highway 93 was open, and she asked where I wanted to go, and I said Vegas, she LAUGHED AT ME. It's a good'er. And don't forget to ask me about the time I was blogging from the Las Vegas airport when I should have been home yesterday. The whole thing is a really funny story... or it will be, someday.

At the moment it's just a very crabby story.

The desert is not what Douglas Coupland had me expecting

As I type this, James has gone to Starbucks, and is going to bring me back a coffee. He's the greatest. That said, I HAVE done my initial experimentation with coffee-making on this trip, and I've done OK. Amy pointed out that I've really grown as a person in Las Vegas, what with the making of my own coffee and such. I even used the COFFEE MACHINE. And then I left it on for about 14 hours.

The house we've rented is covered with a thin film of nerd-detrius: pizza boxes, wet towels (from the hot tub), giant two-foot-tall margarita glasses, the plastic wrap from DVD packages, laptop charging cables, phone charging cables, and Nerf guns. I love that my friends are some of the only people in the world who go to Target on their first day in a foreign city and purchase a small Nerf arsenal.

I'm having a great trip. Las Vegas itself has almost nothing to do with it, though. We could be anywhere with every imaginable fast-food restaurant (as a Canadian, I have serious fast food envy, especially when it comes to In-N-Out Burger) and outlet malls (I bought something from Banana Republic, and I'm having the accompanying identity crisis) and cable and Target (for DVDs) and a shark exhibit. And actual waving palm trees. And fake pirate ships.

Actually the more I think about the more I realize that Las Vegas is a larger, more high-budget version of West Edmonton Mall. I feel kind of at home.

Wish you were here

Hi Teh Internets!
I'm in Las Vegas, or as I like to call it, the Wonderful Land of Discontinued Products. Do you know they still have Vanilla Coke here?!? It's like heaven! The other things we like so far: the debit/credit card machines at Target can be swiped with your card facing either way, Target in general, the surreal-ness of these adobe mansions plunked down amidst dusty empty lots. The house where we are staying has a pool, and a barbeque, and weird furniture that reminds me of the 80s. Tonight we will either go wander around the Strip, or, more likely, watch the newest Batman movie. We're nerds, regardless of what state we find ourselves in.

Few things offend me more than diamond ads, and they get worse around Christmas-time every year. You expect me to believe that this stupid guy is going to get lucky just because he bought that girl a diamond? We should just skip the innuendo and get right to the point with a slogan like this one:

Because women are all basically prostitutes.

Buy diamonds.

Never mind the social and financial price we pay as a planet for a commodity that has no inherent value.

Normally I don't get this vitriolic until after lunch, but I've been practicing this particular rant for years.

Coded messages suck

I have made SO MANY AWESOME THINGS, but I can't post photos of them, or even discuss them (except in code) because they are for people who read my blog.

It is a conundrum.

On the plus side, I just realized I know how to spell "conundrum."

I will attempt to discuss the things I have made in code:
Operation sparkleberry has begun. Five by five. Foxtrot lilac niner. Over.

I have instructed iTunes to play only Tori Amos until I give it new instructions. This is because today is not a day I can take chances with music. I had a project for the afternoon (a work-project, not a fun project) but I finished it (I know, right?!? What are the chances?) so now I'm looking apprehensively at the next two-and-a-half hours, giving them a little squinty-eye, making sure we understand each other.

I'm almost finished my Christmas shopping, because I'm crazy like that; and yesterday James and my sister came over and we decorated our tree. Isn't it fine?

James sang a little song about its decorations coming from IKEA, and Kristen and I corrected him in unison: "And Winners!" The little pink disco balls come from Winners. Yep. We also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas because we're good at staying on-theme.

Now the box the Christmas tree came in is sitting in front of my couch, and I'm pretending it's an occasional table so I don't have to find a place to store it in my apartment. I may put some decorative candles on it later, or a table runner with pointsettas on it. This is a very clever approach, one I suggest for anyone living in a small space. I also pretend that the empty Land's End box holding up the tree is a tree stand, and that the pile of dishes on my kitchen counter is one of those little temperature-contolled wine fridges.

Teh interwebs is for countdowns

13 sleeps to Vegas.
I am not going to get murdered while I am there, don't worry.

squeeee

I enjoyed this Mother Jones interview with Joss Whedon.

JW: My cast was not hideous to look upon. I made every act break at an exciting time that would make you want to come back after you examined these products that we used to examine before TiVo. And I tried to make money for the people that I work with, like Hyman Roth.

I'm going to download the podcast.