holy moley, Internet. apparently i never update my blog anymore. GOOD TO KNOW!

what has happened in the past week?
NOTHING!

it is one month until my wedding. however, I do not like my wedding so instead I am going to talk about my garden.

my garden is getting mixed reviews (from me--no one else can be bothered to review my garden). It has really been too sunny, and dry for anything to get much growing done. some of the plants are growing. others appear to be dying. my citrus mint's leaves are changing colours radically and i'm not sure if this is good or bad. my broccoli are flourishing. my tomatoes are wilting. (to be honest i just planted the broccoli because i was sort of curious about them--like, i wanted to know how broccoli even grow, under the ground or on vines or what?!? and instead they are the best of my plants.)

i wish i knew a really good gardener who could identify all the plants planted by the last owners of my house, based on photos. i should have some kind of flickr-based contest my co-workers could participate in, with prizes. i definitely have a white lilac and also a grape vine (!) which I thought was dead but which has since been revived. i had to do some Internet Research to find out how to care for it. Apparently grape vines are a tough-love plant. you have to prune them like crazy and they don't really need good soil or fertilizer. so i went at mine with pruning shears and now it has a bunch of new leaves. it's attached to the side of the house with a trellis so ancient it looks like it could be covered in hieroglyphics if we could somehow get the vine out of the way.

James and I (and by "James and I" I mean "James") ordered something like 5 cubic yards of dirt and it's being delivered tomorrow. Then I am going to put new dirt in all around my house and hopefully this will make my plants happy. and prevent our basement getting flooded! also, i am going to build two more planters. and take some pictures. and eat my strawberries, if i can beat emma to them.

It's my department's professional development day tomorrow, and we're supposed to have a fantasy novel read and by ready to talk about it. Over-ambitiously, I chose Guy Gavriel Kay's The Last Light of the Sun,, and it's in less than 24 hours with 200 pages to go. WILL SHE MAKE IT? Stop blogging and read!

Oh, and you have to work for completely free (although you can eat unlimited bbq'ed smokies on the day)

I realized the other day that I really need a doula for my wedding. I know this already exists, and it's called a wedding planner, but planner just sounds so utilitarian. Like, a planner might plan; I need more than that. I need someone to nurture me and my wedding, to take care of us and encourage us and remind us that it is all going to be fine, and that we have to do things our way, and not let others make us feel guilty. I'm a little anxious about my wedding, so I need someone who will be kind and gentle; and also, like a first-time mother, I know nothing, so I need someone patient and knowledgeable.

Unlike a first-time mother (hopefully) I am also very apathetic, disinterested, and annoyed, so this person would also have to be a bit stern and bossy. Or ideally, they would just plan the event without even any real input from me or my man friend, and then we would just show up and get hitched.

Let me know if this is you.

Amazon is being kind of mean to me. When I visit the main page, there's a little box that says "You know you want it," with a book from my wish list. Yes! I want it! You know I want it because I put it on my wishlist! Don't be a jerk, Amazon. Don't tease me. I'll buy that book when I'm good and ready, or maybe not at all if I can convince one of my co-workers to order it for the library. heh.

Last night I actually unpacked some boxes and I found the last of my missing DVDs so James and I were finally able to watch the episode from Season 7 of Buffy which I have been talking about for 3 weeks. Almost all the boxes from our office are gone, and we discovered that there is actually a bunch of room in there. Room! For stuff! Like a chaise longue! (Note: Apparently using the actual French term for something is so pretentious that blogger thinks it's a spelling error. Normally I try to avoid this type of pretension, which is why James and I regularly refer to our garage as a "car hole." However, I take exception to "chaise lounge." "Longue" means "long," and has nothing to do with lounging. Stupid language. Or, longuage. Again I say: heh.)

Also over the weekend James and I built the first of our magnificent raised beds for our garden. I'm really, really excited about it and I can't wait to build the other two. I planted a bunch of things, including some veggies and some perennials--some of them FROM THE FARMER'S MARKET! I'm pursuing both rain barrels and compost bins. I'm considering making my own organic fertilizer. I'm trying to prevent my dog from eating chives, since they are DOG POISON! The only thing I didn't get into the ground is my raspberries--I'm not sure if the canes have survived about a month living in a garbage pail in my living room. Hmm. Perhaps I am not the awesome gardener/homeowner type I appear to be. Opposite of heh: sad face.

Seen, on Jasper Ave.: a short, chubby, scruffy, 40-something dude with a shirt that says "Friends don't let friends date ugly chicks." Stretched over his enormous belly. Hilarious? Depressing? Little from column A, little from column B?

I went to the fabric store and only spent $22. Christmas miracle!

For a cool $2.3 mil, you can buy the cool house where Cameron lived in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

our apple tree is blooming

our apple tree is blooming, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

My twitter status says: i hate the part of myself that is good at writing shiny, meaningless proposals. I meant this a little cheekily, but it's true. The document open on my screen contains all these words like "flexible spaces for community use," and "resources and support," and all these other phrases that don't really mean anything. I like words that have an impact. The kinds of words that appear in proposals have been stripped, through monotony, of all their power.

Also: I hadn't planned to wear a veil at my wedding (which is in only 6 1/2 weeks!) but today was a party at work for me and two of the women I work with who are also getting married in the next two months. So as I type this I am wearing a silver tiara from the dollar store (with orange jewels, added by a thoughtful co-worker who knows how much I love the colour) and a pink tulle veil attached. It's surprisingly fun to wear! So now I am torn between my feeling that it might be fun to make a little black birdcage veil with sequins or feathers or something on it, and my belief that my wedding should not include any elements that make me appear to be a giant, weirdly-wrapped present that is James's reward for being such a swell dude. TORN!

Happy Towel Day, the Internet

This is my virtual towel

And then I made him an honourary librarian

James, adding some forks to the charity box: "I'm weeding these forks."

Theory: I control the whole universe with my brain.

I was at the bus station today thinking about how thirsty I was and counting the change in my wallet to see if I could get some pop from the machine when some friendly MacDonald's employees appeared, giving out free iced coffees in the bus terminal.

Unfortunately I couldn't wish for a million dollars because I had already wasted my powers.

so i might as well just post a picture of my dog

emma likes this pillow, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

NOT EVEN ME

Are you aware that no one ever reads my blog?

I have reverse conversions. reversions.
or something.

Jocelyn's theory of Seattle

A reputable reference source such as Wikipedia will tell you that Seattle is a city with more than 3 million people in the metropolitan area, and covering 142 square miles. AND YET! I visit Seattle often (my parents live in Tacoma) and there is no evidence that it is actually big. Every place I have ever needed to go in Seattle, including my mother's work, a client's office where James went on our last trip, the theatre where we saw Flight of the Conchords, the jeweler who is making our wedding rings, etc., has been within an area of about 15 square blocks. Some people might say that this makes sense, because this area is "downtown." But I think it is more logical that Seattle is a partly-imagined community, with about 10 actual tall buildings, a few streets, and then some tricksy mirrors around it. This would also explain why you have to go through so many tunnels to get there. THINK ABOUT IT.

Also, on an unrelated note: Diet Dr. Pepper ≠ Win.

@work, longweekend

don't really want to start anything for fear of messing up my niceeeee, clean desk.

Some photoshopped pirate animals.

i am so proud of myself, Internet!

I've been annoyed with myself recently because I'm not being nearly as productive as I should be at work, and I feel like I'm kind of running around flailing my arms (metaphorically speaking) because I'm so disorganized and I don't know how to start anything. BUT! This morning I cleaned off my desk, including going through all the piles of paper, some of which have been there undealt with since January (sigh). I put stickies on a bunch of things and passed them on to other people. I ordered several hundred dollars worth of books. I discarded a handful of things that have been sitting around for weeks/months, and I recycled a few others. I archived all the email that's not relevant to me, and categorized the rest by what project it belongs to. I set up an RSS news feed to syndicate on to our website (which made its first appearance in my work-goals a year ago). I fixed several dozen links that were not launching in new windows like they were supposed to. I made a budget-related spreadsheet that 2 other people were waiting for. AND! I helped a woman find out how to order catepillars for her daycare, so the kids could watch the insect-magic taking place.

good day.

goodnight, seattle

I'm back home, and as I write this Emma is asleep in her little Emma-sized bed and James is working in his James-sized chair across from me. We had a lovely trip, with a play and a movie and a concert--a perfectly balanced triptych of entertainment!--plus some outlet shopping and fresh seafood and two art museums and some lovely books waiting for my at my parents' house. Still, I have found that I love coming home a lot more now that I have a giant bed to come home to. Not to mention a dog.

Emma is the weirdest dog I have ever met. She uses her front paws like hands, for grabbing things like toys. She scratches--not on purpose I think, but just as a way of getting attention, the way other dogs will stick their head under your hand when they want to be petted. James and I call her the lick ninja because she will sit quite quietly in your lap, and then suddenly lunge at your face with her long tongue extended. It's hard to avoid her--she has won more than one round of this game of make-out chicken. She is surprisingly good at certain things, like riding in the car (she sits quietly in the back seat) or getting her paws dried off (she stands quite complacently and doesn't fidget). Getting an adult dog is weird for this reason, I guess: they arrive in your life fully formed and inexplicable.

Weird phenomenon: I am kind of looking forward to returning to work tomorrow after 5 days off. Undoubtedly this is partly because of the cute purple coat I am going to wear tomorrow, and the cute purple arm warmers that go with it. But it's more than that. I am ready to start the next set of things.

More extended entry on MFK Fisher to come, as she is my new obsession--and it doesn't hurt that on the cover of the edition of How To Cook A Wolf that I have, she glows like an ingenue.

New obsessions, episode 10,238

1. Factories, especially cute Etsy style factories. Like the "smoke factory" on Simpsons. I ordered these little ceramic pieces from PearsonMaron:

And this print from seasprayblue:

[That particular one is sold--to me--but if you go to the main shop you will be able to find more]

I'm going to fill up one of the cubbies in my Expedit with factory-related items. It's going to be weird. AND AWESOME.

2. Food writer MFK Fisher. I started reading her book How To Cook a Wolf last night. She's amazing. My library has a biography of her which I will "check out" (as they say). I love this feeling: you pick up a book and start reading it, having no idea what to expect. At first it's charming, maybe even superficially so; and then within a page or two a deeper sense comes over you: I should be reading this more carefully. Because these books don't last forever, and when you come across them you should savour them. [Which is, incidentally, something I think MFK Fisher herself would approve of.]

I've been on a good run lately, quite a few of these savour-able books mixed in with some Gossip Girl for good measure. (Which I think is kind of like holding coffee beans under your nose in between sampling perfumes. Or maybe vice versa since I like coffee and don't like perfume. Hmmm.)

this pretty much sums it up