Well, I'm a filmmaker. You see, I've always been in opposition to so-called cinema verite who are postulating that the documentary filmmaker should be like a fly on the wall. I say, no, you shouldn't be a fly on the wall; be the hornet that moves in and that stings. Just charge and take charge of a situation, stylize it, create something, fantasize about it. So my documentaries are part of what I do as a storyteller. And because of that, feature films are not that far away from my documentaries and vice versa.
-Werner Herzog in an interview with Art Beat

May I suggest you buy this? Childhood nostalgia edition.

You can buy things from the Girl Scouts online store including this handsome INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP RECOGNITION pin.

Also there are SO MANY badges I would qualify for but in particular:

[L to R]:
Yarn & Fabric Arts
Trivial Pursuit! [OK, Visual Arts]
Nuclear Power [or something]

Holy moley, am I ordering a bunch of these right now? I sure am. But on the other hand, doesn't it seem like such a scam that you can just BUY these? Like, shouldn't I have to start a fire with my shoelaces or something to earn them?


Disappointed in myself,
Jocelyn

So I was pondering the rash of recent celebrity deaths and I thought, "There might even be more I don't know about!" so I decided to check Wikipedia and of course there is a list. So. That's good, and depressing.

As you might have noticed I am in a total blogging rut.
So, here are a few issues I am having.

1. I am so so so so flighty these days. I cannot concentrate on anything. The only two things I want to do are (a) work on my garden (b) make my sims work on their garden. I'm serious. I'm obsessed and I have no idea why. I AM GOING TO RUN OUT OF PLACES TO PLANT PLANTS. The only other thing I like to do is watch my dog do funny things, but even that gets tiresome after awhile.

Sub-list: things I cannot concentrate on

• blogging
• wedding planning, or all the craft projects I planned to do for the wedding that I have not yet started (and it is in less than 3 weeks)
  
• work
• unpacking (yes, I am not done unpacking)
  
• all the library books i keep checking out and never reading
• not spending money (in case this is unclear: I keep buying things simply out of boredom)

Yes, I am playing The Sims 3. I bought it about a week after it came out and I have been finding a few hours here and there to play it. Last week I was in a meeting where we were discussing games (PC/console) with a narrative component, and I said that the Sims or Sim City should be on the list.

Woman in meeting: Ugh, The Sims. What a horrid little game.
Jocelyn: I will fight you. I just met you, but I will fight you.

Yep, I actually said that. It was kind of funny.

Anyway, it's not like The Sims 3 is revolutionary--it's similar to the Sims 2 but with a few improvements. The main reason I wanted to buy it is that they keep improving the architectural engine and the stuff you can get for the game, and in the new version everything is way more customizable. I basically just want to build things for my Sims. And, apparently, make them garden. I will build my Sims very beautiful houses!

2. I CANNOT STOP DRINKING THIS COFFEE EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT THAT GREAT

It occurred to me yesterday that so far in my unpacking, I have yet to come across my wedding dress. Hmmmm. Oh well!

the passage of time

i am uncomfortable with how few clicks it takes to get to September from today in 30 boxes.

I read about this in the Edmonton Journal, of all places, so you know it's not exactly on the trending list on twitter but still-- Three Wolf Moon Shirt on amazon. The shirt itself is unexceptional. It's the extraordinary, crowdsourced comments meme that makes the link. I feel sorry for people who lived in the past.

update

Today I spent a few minutes at work searching to see if I could find a ninja costume for my dog to wear. But I didn't find anything good.

garden addendum

I forgot to mention that, because it's my own particular brand of nerdy, I bought one of these garden tool journals from disconsolator on etsy. I like to keep notebooks for everything, and if the notebook is appropriate to the task, so much the better.

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.