10.25.2006

Two posts in a week = Call the medics!

I can’t decide whether I want to go home (to my dad’s) for Thanksgiving this year. It seems like the most obvious thing to do; although he’s four hours away, it’s an easy drive and I know there’ll be lots of family, and plus they want me to come. But on the other hand, I’ve never done the Thanksgiving thing on my own, just with friends, and it’s starting to seem appealing.

Actually, scratch that. I have once had Thanksgiving away from home, and it was the year that I lived in London, when I was 21. One of my best friends in class had an American father and they were expecting a few of his friends to visit, so her family very nicely invited me over too, knowing I’d be homesick that day. (Also this was right after 9-11, so it was a really weird time to be living in a foreign country anyway.) So I went over, and it was great to be in a real home, with nice furniture and everything, when I had gotten accustomed to my tiny shared apartment (flat?) with bad heating and a washer but no dryer (why? I still don’t know).

The funny thing was that, since it was England and there was no seasonal reason for grocery stores to have whole turkeys for sale, they…didn’t. So my friend’s family roasted chickens instead, and improvised on the sides. Like, instead of apple pie there was blueberry crumble, or something. It was delicious though, and there was even more drinking than at my own family’s dinners…enough that I ended up staying over instead of braving the subway (Tube?) alone and wasted.

But this year, I have this sudden urge to sort of go it alone. Lots of people have been doing it this way for years, but all through college I lived just two hours from my mom so it was just a given that I’d come home. I think the exotic allure of a big dinner with friends, a too-small kitchen, and an assortment of mismatched tables and chairs, is calling out to me. Part of it is I sort of don’t want to go through the hassle of getting time off for both my restaurant job and my gallery internship, which is dumb and lazy, I know. But I’ll already have to do it for an entire week in December, to go home to my mom’s house, which I don’t even know if I want to do EITHER, but it’s completely assumed and expected and I don’t have a good reason not to.

Argh. Why don’t I want to go anywhere? I probably SHOULD, right? I mean, I have full-time school, a job and an internship; I should want to escape that for a bit. Maybe I’m just so tired from my schedule that I can’t even dredge up the energy to take a break from it. Also I have a cold.

I’m off to my next class – Museum Studies. We’re visiting the Savannah History Museum and my professor is so funny with his over-explaining of ev.ery.thing. He was like, “Okay. We’ll meet just outside, unless it’s really bad weather, and then we’ll meet inside, but just inside. Bring your $2 for admission, but please bring two paper dollar bills if you have them, no change, because I need to collect it all and go inside and buy all of our tickets. I mean, if all you have is change then bring it, but just make an effort to bring paper money.” And so on. I could go either way on him because of this crazy talking thing – I could be totalyl exasperated and bored in class, but he’s so energetic and into the subject that it makes him more endearing.

Have a good day, everyone.

supine @ 9.49 am |

10.22.2006

Maybe soda is my muse

My significant other says that I am the only person currently in existence who actually likes Coke Black (Blak? ack). This is incorrect, but only slightly, as my recent informal polling efforts have turned up ONE other person.

I mean, have any of you tried this tasty beverage? It is supposedly a mixture of Coke and coffee. I think we can all agree that these tastes, separately, are sublime, so why is it that nobody likes them together? I guess as long as Coke™ keeps producing the crazy stuff, I don’t really care that I am the only person in the tri-state area buying it, but the problem comes in when they start actually, like, analyzing their financials (which should be any day now, what with Coke being a fairly large corporation and all. ahem) and decide to shut down production. As it is, I bought the last four-pack from the local Kroger a few weeks ago, and in recent trips the shelf had not yet been restocked, ACCK, so this might have already happened.

Manfriend teases me about my forbidden Coke Black love, and my recent use of it in class during the few minutes before the professor arrived resulted in, and I’m not joking, a class-wide discussion about how gross it is. I just smiled beatifically and sipped away in ecstacy while all around me, people ewwwd and uckkkkd.

(Incidentally, what is with that whole “telling someone that what they’re eating is gross, AS they’re actually eating it” thing? Am I the only one whose mom cured me of that little habit at age six or so? Jeez.)

So, anyway. I have not yet gotten my wrist tattoo, although the obsession is still there all the time. I will definitely do it, I’ve decided. I will do it before Thanksgiving, so that my friends from home can see how badass I am when I visit in December. (Just kidding, I am totally getting a tattoo for myself, not for my friends. Or am I? Mua ha ha.)

Last night I went to see The Science of Sleep, which I enjoyed greatly. Manfriend liked it too, although in his case it resulted in actual sleep for about five minutes in the middle. I think this was just because we saw it at 10pm, and we are both 96 years old deep down, not because it was a dull movie.

Also last night we attended the local Greek Food Festival, which was lovely. I had spanikopita and meatballs and also Greek coffee, which I think was like Turkish coffee (going only by what I have heard about Turkish coffee, as I’ve never actually tried it). We also had some deep fried sugary balls (ha!), whose Greek name escapes me. They were as delicious as Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut holes, and – oh god, now I am desperately craving doughnuts and have lost my train of thought. Embarassing!

Am off now, to see the student play All My Sons across the street. It’s not sad for me to go see free plays alone, in the middle of the day, is it? Have a nice Sunday, you all.

supine @ 2.51 pm |

10.8.2006

Aren’t I a little old for this “rebellion” phase?

I really really really am on the verge of getting a tattoo. Yep, my first one. At age 27. And of course, because I’m all old and “mature” and “solid” and crap, I’m like weighing and reweighing it constantly in my mind. Why couldn’t I just have been a normal kid and gotten one at, like, 19? Then I could’ve avoided all this hemming and hawing and just jumped with both feet, the way you’re supposed to (ie. the cooler way).

I’ve always had a specific design in the back of my mind, it’s just taken like eight years for me to solidify it. What I want is a small blue rose, which is a reference to my favorite play, “The Glass Menagerie.” I’ve never wanted it in a typical girl place, like the back of my shoulder or my ankle; I’ve always pictured it on my hand or wrist. In typical fashion, I have an extensive rationale for this, as follows:

– When you have it on a place that people only see in an intimate situation, it’s sort of like marking a sexual part of you.
– If you have it on your back or the back of your neck, everybody except you sees it.
– On the back of your shoulder, and it shows amidst the straps in a nice gown.
– On your stomach or midsection, and it gets stretchy if you get pregnant or just indulge a little too much in the ole Ben & Jerry’s. (AHEM.)
– Upper arm is masculine. (Also I hate my arms.)

BUT. I like my hand/wrist/forearm region. And I like the idea of it being in a utilitarian place that always shows, as it solves my “in a hidden place it becomes sexual” issue. I like the idea that I’ll see it a lot, and that it will never stretch.

So I’m thinking wrist. Then I started imagining how I would incorporate the blue rose idea. I have a silver bracelet with a turquoise stone I wear often, so from that I imagined a tattoo that was like a thin, curving, black line “bracelet,” with the rose in the middle. I want it to be very delicate and curving, very art nouveau, so that since it’ll be showing all the time it’ll look pretty, like jewelry, and not aggressive. Also if it’s thin enough, I could always wear a watch to cover it in a business situation, or gloves in a formal gown situation (which, let’s be honest, comes up about once every three years for me).

I went to a local tattoo shop to feel them out and get the design done. There a bunch of places in town, but most are scary army- or biker-man places. Places that are open late on the weekends, and are frequented by trashy wasted couples, one or both of whom sporting a mullet. However there is one place that is very artsy and funky, and frequented by the local art school population. It’s the most expensive, yes, but this is not the time for me to get my cheap on. So I went there, and a very nice man designed for me a very nice image, and I thanked him and left, and now I am FREAKING THE EFF OUT, because the only next step is to actually, like, get the actual tattoo.

And I am scared!

I started having second/third/eighty-ninth thoughts about the wrist thing, but then I noticed that everywhere I look lately, I see girls with hand or forearm tattoos. Also, after graduation I want to work in a gallery or museum, not a corporation, and I really can’t see a tasteful tattoo being an impediment to getting into that field. So, maybe I will actually do it.

Hold me!

supine @ 12.56 pm |
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