amplified to rock
We're still in the middle of the same cut-throat Uno game. Tim is saving his Skip cards to play on me. I am so going to turn around and kick his ass when he's not paying attention.
In a remarkable come-from-behind victory, I won that game of Sorry, and Tim came in second. We're now in the midst of a particularly violent game of Uno, using the "cascading Draw Two" rule that Amanda taught us last weekend. My dad's playing my hand while I'm updating. Hopefully, he won't mess up my game.
I'm now using the microwave timer to remind me to update, although my dad has become sort of an alarm clock for me. About every half hour, he says "isn't it about time for you to update?"
We're playing Sorry. Tim's getting his ass kicked. I'm not doing all that well either.
After the game, I think I'll be serving some cheesecake.
Hmmmmm.
Well, I'm one-third of the way through the Blogathon, and I'm already kind of out of things to say. I wish I had some sort of gimmick. That would help.
I think we're going to play Sorry. Then, Tim and I are going to watch Requiem for a Dream, with every-half-hour interruptions for weblog updates. I'm not sure how long Tim's going to stay. Late, I hope. I think I'm going to need help staying awake.
Cooking lesson: When cooking a frozen pizza, be sure to read the directions. I have been cooking a frozen pizza for the past half an hour, and I was puzzled by the fact that the pizza didn't seem to be cooking. A couple of minutes ago, I finally figured out that the problem was that I was cooking the pizza at the wrong temperature. The oven was supposed to be turned on to 475 degrees, and I had it at 300 degrees.
Yay me!
Quinn wants me to post the track listing to my birthday CD. And who am I to deny Quinn what he wants, especially when he's home on a Saturday night reading my weblog instead of bowling?
So here it is. If you'd like a copy of the Birthday Mix, send me a mix CD. You'll have to wait until I establish a PO Box in Champaign, but you can send me an email if you're interested in (eventually) getting a copy.
1 - Fast Easy Love - Bangs
2 - The Dismemberment Plan - Gets Rich
3 - Braid - The New Nathan Detroits
4 - Pavement - Summer Babe
5 - Sonic Youth - Mote
6 - Tenacious D - With Karate I'll Kick Your Ass
7 - Kleenex Girl Wonder - The Bostonians
8 - Spoon - Me and the Bean
9 - The Shins - New Slang
10 - The Pixies - Gigantic
11 - Soft Boys - Queen of Eyes
12 - Sea and Cake - Sporting Life
13 - Pele - The Mind of Minolta
14 - Elliott Smith - Division Day
15 - Guided by Voices - Blimps Go 90
16 - Red House Painters - New Jersey
17 - Lucksmiths - Synchronized Sinking
18 - Salteens - Bubba Da
19 - Solex - Pick Up
20 - Tenacious D - Kyle Took a Bullet For Me
21 - Guided by Voices - Liar's Tale
Tim's here, sitting on the bed. We're watching
Six Feet Under and he's playing with my stuffed monkey.
I sold CDs to Spun.com. They bought almost everything that Reckless wouldn't buy, and paid me good money for some of it. Now I've got about $30 in trade credit over there, so I can pick up a couple more CDs. And more clutter is cleaned up!
Nanette: What should I write about?
Tim: I don't know.
Nanette: Some help you are, silly boy.
I'm going to go make that pizza I was talking about half an hour ago.
Everything's clean enought that there's a place to sit down in my bedroom. My method for cleaning tends to go like this:
Make the bed.
Take everything off the floor. Throw garbage in the garbage can. Put things worth keeping on the bed, sorted into piles (books, magazines, videotapes, junk).
Vacuum the floor. Slowly but surely, put the items back on the floor in an orderly pile.
All that's left on the bed right now is some miscellaneous junk that needs a place to go. I'll probably just pack most of it now, because it's probably going to get packed within the next couple of weeks anyhow.
I think I'm going to go ahead and make a frozen pizza. Yay, dinner!
The world's worst show is on. That would be, of course,
Big Brother 2. I am unrepentantly addicted to this travesty of a show. It's just mind-numbingly bad, and I can't stop watching it. The houseguests are more interesting this year--they fight and have sex, and that's always entertaining--but it's still such a prime example of awful, trashy entertainment. Plus, there's like thirty Vagisil commercials in every episode. Apparently, the
Big Brother 2 fan base has a serious problem with itching "down there."
Last week, when I was down in Arizona, Amanda, Tim and I made up a line of products for men who just don't feel fresh "down there." It's called Scrotisil. There's the powder, the cooling gel, and the spray. The commercials will feature men wearing filmy clothes and scarves and doing cartwheels in a field full of daisies, because these things imply "freshness."
Oh geez, they're talking about sex. Please, make the travesty stop. And Bunky sure is hairy. Ugh. Somebody wax that guy.
Tim's on his way over, so I'm going to hop in the shower and cleanse some of the packing-sweat mung off my body. I'm really proud of all the progress I've made in getting stuff cleaned and packed--sometime in the middle of the night, I'll tackle the pile of crap sitting next to the computer.
I'm running out of things to write about--any suggestions? I'll probably pick my family's brain once they come home, but until then, I'm kind of stuck.
I just listed a whole buttload of books at Half.com as part of my ongoing crusade to get rid of things that I don't use. Most of them are school-related--stuff I read in literature courses that I don't plan to read again, a couple of my comp theory textbooks. I've also listed a couple of DVDs and CDs over there, but I'll probably end up un-listing them and just selling them over at Reckless. I sold 38 CDs at Reckless on Thursday night and got $135 in store credit. Not bad.
Everything looks superclean compared to how it looked an hour or two ago. I'm getting organized! My mom brought me another empty container to pack stuff up in, so I'm going to just keep going with that. Later tonight, I suspect I'll put some stuff up for auction on eBay, and I'm hoping that the money from the auctions will help pay for my ethernet connection in my new apartment.
Jeopardy was pretty lame. Of course I kicked the ass of every one of the contestants. Heh. They had better call me to be on the show.
I'm impressed--half of my bedroom is sort of clean. Well, not extremely tidy or anything, but much neater than it was. It's been vacuumed, and the stuff that was all over the floor is now organized into smaller, more neatly-stacked piles. I've pretty much given up on the packing part for now--it's just a matter of getting things organized, then I can throw it all into suitcases, containers, garbage bags, and cardboard boxes when the time comes. Since I'm moving in several "stages," I won't end up bringing too much stuff. I really want to avoid having an overly cluttered apartment.
Oh, and I gave myself a paper cut. Ouch.
I found this guy when I was cleaning. He's nuts about nuts!
The stack of unread magazines is now cut in half. I'll have to remember them when it's twenty-two hours into the Blogathon and I'm struggling to stay awake--I can always flip through some old issues of cheesy fashion magazines to pass the time.
Anything I'm not going to read, or anything I'm finished reading, is going to the library to be added to their collection or sold. It's better than throwing them away, and I don't know anyplace around here that accepts magazines for recycling.
Hey, Jeopardy is on at 6 PM! I'll have to remember to turn on the TV for that.
I'm sweating like a pig. Packing is hard work!
It's amazing how many books, magazines, and zines I purchase and then never get around to reading. Seriously. I have three huge stacks of zines I bought on various trips to Quimby's that I've never even taken out of the bag. Every time I clean, I find more zines and stack them up with the intention of reading them soon, and they end up getting buried under more and more stuff.
I've decided to pack some of them and keep some out to read. Soon. Eventually.
The cheesecake's almost done baking--about five minutes left. I checked it a little while ago and it was coming along nicely. The current high bid for the cheesecake auction is $15, so if you want to bid on the cheesecake, you're going to have to beat $15. Got it?
Quinn has promised to do the robot for me in honor of the Blogathon. I've been waiting forever to see him do the robot, so this is pretty darned exciting.
In response to Jackie's question: yes, you can pool your resources with others to bid on the cheesecake. Starting at 5 PM, I'll list the high bid on the cheesecake, so you'll know what the minimum is at any given time.
I found a dead spider in one of the containers I'm using to pack my stuff. I didn't scream or squeal when I saw it--I just said "ew" and brought the container upstairs to vacuum it out. After the mouse detritus experience earlier, I don't think I'm too easily grossed out. I still haven't put much of a dent in this packing, but, then again, I've only been packing for a couple of hours off and on. By the time tomorrow rolls around, I think I'll be doing pretty well.
I'm going to go check my mail. Snail mail, that is.
Cheesecake's in the oven now--I need to wash my dishes. Then it's back to packing. Woo-hoo, my exciting life.
Tim's over at Taste of Lincoln Avenue watching The Promise Ring. I'm glad he decided to go--he really likes The Promise Ring, and it's a free show. I think he's headed up here after that's over, so I'll be expecting him around 7:00. He says he'll make an appearance on the webcam, so you can finally find out what he looks like.
Oh, and Quinn? That new Unwound CD is really good. I think your musical taste is trustworthy.
Whoops! I'm not right on the dot this time. You'll have to excuse me--I was preparing an Oreo cookie crust. There's something really pleasurable about smashing Oreo cookies--it's a nice way to get out some pent-up aggression. Yeah, that sounds really cheesy, but it's true.
While making the Oreo cookie crust, I came up with an idea: I'm going to auction off a homemade cheesecake. Proceeds from the cheesecake auction will go to the Ford Heights Public Library (just like the rest of the money raised from the Blogathon). Send your bid to cheesecakebid@spoonbender.org between now and Monday evening, 6 PM Central time. Bidding starts at $5, highest bid wins. If your bid wins, I'll make you a delicious cheesecake. You can have graham cracker crust, Oreo cookie crust, peanut butter crust--pretty much any sort of cookie. I can make it with fruit topping, with chocolate chips, with peanut butter chips, or just about any other variation on cheesecake. It's a 10" cheesecake, enough to share with friends or family.
The fine print: you must live in the Chicago area or in Champaign--I can't mail the cheesecake, y'know. Also, you've got to give me a couple of days' notice when you want the cheesecake.
I'll give you some testimonials later, but you've got to believe me--I make a damn fine cheesecake. Go ahead and bid away!
I have so much stuff, I don't know how I'm going to pack it all in three weeks. In the last half hour, I've packed a small box full of books and DVDs, and a large box full of books, DVDs, and clothes. And I still haven't put a dent in much of anything, except maybe the DVDs.
I did find some stuff I can auction off on eBay, though.
Why is there a commercial for The Best of Prince on the Weather Channel? I'm used to commercials for the Mantis rototiller and the DR Power Motor/Chipper. I wouldn't think that a lot of Prince fans would be sitting around watching the Weather Channel.
I'm going to pack one more box, then I'm going to take a break to bake a cheesecake. The cream cheese should be appropriately softened in another half hour.
So I've been cleaning and packing stuff up for the big move. I don't think I'm inherently sloppy or untidy, I think I just have too many things and not enough space. Whenever I do any sort of major cleaning, I end up finding things that have been lost for a long time. Like library books, letters, CDs...that sort of thing.
Today I found some chocolate coins I got for Easter. They must have fallen out of the Easter basket, because they were just sort of sitting there on the floor in their little mesh bag. I picked them up and tossed them on the bed with the other stuff that had been sitting on the floor.
A couple of minutes later, I noticed a bunch of pink glittery stuff on the bedspread. Baffling. I hadn't found anything pink and glittery, so I didn't know where it had come from.
Then I figured it out. Foil-wrapped chocolate coins + chocoholic mouse = little pink glitterbits. Everywhere.
I threw the chocolate coins in the trash, vacuumed up the mess, and washed my hands. Ugh. I need to be a lot neater, I think. It couldn't hurt.
Happy Blogathon day!
I thought the Blogathon started at 10 AM, but then I realized that Central time is two hours *ahead* of Pacific time, so it looks like I'm blogging from 2 PM today until 2 PM tomorrow. This, of course, is post numero uno of the whole thing. History in the making!
I'm hoping to spend the Blogathon time being productive, but we'll see how that goes. Whenever I plan to be productive, I always end up wasting time. I know I'm going to bake a cheesecake in another hour or so, and Tim will be coming over to visit around 6 or 7, and I'm going to finish the website for the library where my mom works. I will also spend some time writing my thesis, cleaning, and packing. I move--for real and officially--in three weeks. I made arrangements for phone and electrical service yesterday, and I'm going to deal with cable next week. I have a lead on a job. Everything's going to be cool. I'm a lot less nervous as the day approaches.
It's 2 PM, according to my clock--time to post and publish. I hope you enjoy the next twenty-four hours. I'll be on the cam off and on, and I'll probably be on AIM late tonight (around 2 or 3 AM) if you'd like to hit me up for some chat action.
(Edited to include the following information about the Blogathon, which originally appeared at the top of the page:)
On July
27-28, I'll be participating in the 24-Hour Blogathon, which means I'll
update every half-hour for 24 straight hours. This is a charity event,
and I've decided to raise money for the Ford Heights Public Library.
A little
bit about my charity and why I chose it: Ford Heights is a small community
near the town where I grew up. It is the poorest suburb of Chicago, and
it is one of the poorest communities in the state of Illinois. Several
residents of Ford Heights have decided to make an effort to start a public
library in their community, but they're faced with a number of hurdles,
the highest being the financial hurdle. Starting a new library costs a
lot of money--not only do they need books and other materials, they also
need computers, training, supplies, and a building (or storefront, or
room). It's extremely difficult to get financial support for libraries,
and many of the usual avenues have been less than helpful.
When I heard
about the Blogathon, I wanted to do something that would have a local
impact. Don't get me wrong, international mega-charities are a good thing,
but I liked the idea of seeing where the money was going to go. The residents
of Ford Heights need the resources a library will provide. Any money donated
through the Blogathon will go towards the purchase of books and other
materials for the Ford Heights Public Library. Five dollars might help
a blue-collar worker update her skills for a promotion, it might help
a father improve his parenting skills, it might help a 10-year old pass
a dull rainy summer day with a good book. You'll be helping people in
multiple ways.
Whether
you choose to donate money or not, I highly encourage you to support your
local public library. Donate books or materials you don't plan to use
again. Volunteer your time or services. Or--and this is the easiest option--just
use the library!
For more
information about the Blogathon, go here.
To donate, go here.
To see who else is participating in the Blogathon, along with the charities
they've selected, go here.
Thanks for
your support. I appreciate it!
A Day in the Life of Nanette:
7:30. Wake up. Curse alarm clock. Turn on computer, check email, wash hair, eat peanut butter toast, read newspaper. Respond to important email (usually stuff like "forward me that Matador Records press release and I'll write a story about it), check webpage stats, check eBay auctions.
8:35-8:45. Go to work. Hope that it doesn't rain because umbrella has been lost.
9:00-9:15. Arrive at work. Narrowly escape downpour. Check appointment schedule, which is sparsely populated by the usual people requiring help with literature reviews and APA style.
9:20. Check online writing lab. Download paper and begin checking. Marvel at how bad the paper manages to suck.
9:30. My 10:30 appointment arrives. He's obviously a little confused. Help him with APA reference style for electronic documents, and send him on his way.
9:45. Back to the bad paper, which proves that it is impossible to write a poetry analysis without quoting from the poetry.
10:00. 10:00 appointment arrives. Help her with her research paper on dinosaur evolution, which is well-written.
10:25. Try to find job.
10:35. Begin writing introduction letter to prospective employer.
10:45. Spell check and send introduction letter to prospective employer. Sit back, relax, and wait for his phone call.
10:46. Help walk-in student with compare-contrast paper on health care in the U.S. and Sweden. All she needs is a pat on the back and a bit of encouragement.
11:00. Edit news for Pitchfork. Marvel at the creative capitalization techniques used by some of the writers.
11:24. Email boyfriend. "I want to see Quadrophenia at the Century Centre Cinema. Do you want to go with me?" Of course, he is going to leap at this opportunity, even though I will probably spend the hour or two following the movie trying to decide which type of scooter I'd like to buy.
11:30. Lunchtime. The cafeteria has nothing appealing, so it's pizza day. Again. Read Metafilter and The Onion while eating.
12:00. Back to the news editing.
12:20. Get lost in maze of websites.
12:35.Extricate self from maze of websites. Edit more news stories. Try to edit as many stories as possible, just so it won't have to be done later.
12:50. Get lost in maze of websites again.
12:52. Consider emailing ex-boyfriend to say hello. Realize that said email, no matter how platonic and innocuous, would probably be interpreted as "I'd really like to get back together and sleep with you some more." Since this is not the case, don't even bother. (Nota bene: If you are an ex-boyfriend whom I actively dislike, it wasn't you. And why are you reading this anyway?)
1:12. Check appointment book again. I thought I had a 1:00 appointment. And I do, but the people haven't shown up. Boo hoo.
1:15. Check email again.
1:18. Spinning the chair around in circles causes an unpleasant sensation in stomach.
1:22. Open up Blogger, begin this entry.
1:38. Finish entry, upload. Decide to spend remainder of workday being productive. This is probably unrealistic, but who cares? It's the intentions that count. I guess.
After yet another exciting freakout last night (this is my third in the last week), I've decided that I need to devote every waking moment to being useful. I move three weeks from today. I still have two theses to write (I'll settle for finishing one, though I should try to show some progress on the second), a website to design for the local public library, an
obsessive project to work on, a shitload of packing to finish, and all the other little things involved when a person packs up their life and moves it completely from one city to another. I have to call utility companies, human resources people, and an assistant dean. I need a job. I need classes. I need several more hours worth of useable time per day. I need to stop freaking out. I need to understand that everything will fall into place and there's nothing to worry about.
My moving schedule is as follows:
Tuesday, August 14 - Pick up keys to apartment (early afternoon). Start moving stuff into apartment.
Thursday, August 16 - Move more stuff into apartment.
Friday, August 17 - Move more stuff into apartment (possibly. I might just stay home.)
Saturday, August 18 - Take U-Haul full of stuff to apartment. At this point, I will be OFFICIALLY moved in.
In one month, I'll actually be going to class. If I have classes to go to, that is.
My PO Box closes at the end of this month. If you need to send me something via snailmail between now and mid-August, email me for the correct address. I'll be getting a new PO Box down in Champaign as soon as I move.
Amanda will like this one: Uno Variations. Lots of MEAN Uno games there.
I need to be useful now.
Every so often, I think
"Oh shit, I'm moving back to central Illinois."
I still don't have a job down there, and I'm an alternate for the $7500 grant I interviewed for in May. Oh, and did I mention that I don't have any classes yet?
I got in at around 2 AM last night. The airplane was delayed, and we got in to Midway at 12:30 instead of 11:55. I made good time considering the fiasco it could have been, but I ended up getting approximately four hours of sleep. I'm tired, but I shouldn't complain--it's not like my job is taxing or anything. I pretty much just sit around the office and read until 3:30. I have three appointments, but two of them will probably cancel or not bother to show up. I'll make it a point to go to bed early tonight, then I'll be fine tomorrow.
Phoenix was wonderful. It was hot, but not as oppressively, disgustingly hot as it is around here right now. (The air is so thick with humidity that it's hard to breathe outdoors.) Amanda and Hafthor have a gorgeous home, complete with an in-ground swimming pool and cactus in the yard. We took a couple of day trips--one to Arcosanti, the other to the Grand Canyon. We stayed in the nastiest motel in Flagstaff. We ate and drank and talked and laughed and reminisced. We watched The World's Worst Television Show. We made up a line of "masculine hygiene" products for men who want to feel their freshest every day. So yeah, I had a great time.
Did I mention that I won my first-ever game of Risk? It was close, but I emerged victorious.
Of course, I have plenty of vacation stories to tell, and I'll get to it soon. Right now, I'm going to concentrate on getting rid of these hiccups and finishing one of the three books I brought with me to read.
