Better than fruit salad

I am severely myopic, and have been becoming more and more so since about the second grade. It is unquestionably genetic; my father’s eyes were so bad that most optometrists would not carry prescriptions strong enough in their tester-goggles. He was actually prescribed laser surgery, for fear of his corneas becoming so weak that he would go blind.

My last visit to the eye doctor left me unimpressed. She had to do guess-work to achieve something near my normal prescription, (be fair, that’s not entirely her fault. I could have brought it with me.) and because she sort of hurried me through the reading test (1 or 2? 1…or 2?) I felt I was not prescribed high enough. Because I still wasn’t freaking seeing.

One of my co-workers is an on again off again optician, and told me today that what might be happening is complications from CVS, which frankly would explain my headaches as well. And explain the inconsistency of my vision — how sometimes I can see every vein on every leaf and other times I have trouble focusing the letters on a stop sign when I‘m STOPPED IN FRONT OF IT. She suggested I get weak reading glasses, and wear them with my contacts if I’m doing something up close for a long time, to give my eyes a break. And I hate to be such a joiner, but my eyes are pretty important to me, as is crisp vision, to today at Target I picked up a cheap pair and actually it helps a lot.

ARE YOU READY TO GET HOT AND BOTHERED?

I really wasn’t, but the trouble with needing to read the newspaper everyday is while you’ll see articles about happier things, you’ll also see farmers who are out 1.8 million pounds of their crop (I.e., most of their yearly income) because of the lack of migrant workers available to pick fruit for $150 a day. Or about how the House just passed yet another abortion wag-your-finger bill. Or how now voting is becoming difficult for even the card-carrying Americans. I was going to cite some of this and talk about it some more, but frankly it’s too early to be this aggravated. Come on world. You rock too sometimes.

Question: What is the very best thing to describe out of context?
Answer: Episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Okay so then the soft drink is like “THAT’S IT” and he and the pixel-guys go out in the front lawn, and they’re all powering up, and then the pixel-guys fit INTO each other, because of their, oh you know..their dents on their heads…and then they aim their guns and shoot this big PIXEL, like just one big square, and it goes really slow, and the soft drink is all “oh no!” and then the fries come outside and he’s all “Hey guys have you seen meat-wad? Oh, you’re fighting. My bad.” and goes back inside. And then at the last minute the soda steps to one side and the Pixel-ray-square and they miss. And meat-wad had been incarcerated.

BIRTHDAY WRAP-UP, PHOTO-BLOG STYLE, PART TWO

So Monday afternoon, after class, I was reading
 

I wasn’t expecting much, since the family had come on friday
 

and I had already done the customary first toast

Not to be confused with a normal toast

So I was happy enough as it was

But Dani called and said she and the gang had something for me

So I went to their house, and it was wine

Big wine

(actual picture, thanks Nicole.)
 
So we went to a fine retail outlet to procure glasses.

During our search, we also discovered a rack of garish neckwear

Which each of us bought to look dashing

After this there was food, 

And a few glasses from the great big monster-bottle

Paired with a sophisticated film

And that’s how I spent my 21st birthday.

SOME GREAT THINGS TO KICK US OFF

1. On a motorcycle this morning: the number 2900. Only it was written on the clear windshield, and I saw if from behind, so I saw it as “OOPS”

2. In the mail today I received Vitality Supreme, and my joy is great. I can’t even express it.

3. I got a card in the mail, and wow. $30 dollars to Safeway? Way, way better than any sort of material item. No sarcasm.

4. Also this book, from Anthony. He’s also going to get me the book that started our Danielski love, the new revamped gorgeous version, and that in conjunction with my Big Stack of Class stuff means there is a LOT of reading in my future.

5. This morning my political science professor removed a rubber band from something at his desk, and played with it in his hand during the rest of the lecture. 

BIRTHDAY WRAP-UP, PHOTO-BLOG STYLE, PART ONE

So, this Monday I turned 21.

I know most people think

But while I do enjoy wine

I’m not really into

so the big partying’s not really my hat.

I was in Denver on Sunday

After a beautiful hike near Glenwood Springs

And it was fun

We went to Border’s to get a crazy-great book

And then there was a late kung-fu movie.

And then it was midnight, which meant technically,

So we went to a place to order coffee

with

To mark the occasion.

TO BE CONTINUED…

NON-CONCEPTUAL, PURELY MATERIAL STUFF I LIKE
 
1. Tins. Preferably small tins, like the kind mints or cigarettes come in, not like the big round ones for Christmas candy, though my mother did recently send me a really loony one with a flamingo on it. I hesitate to put this on my list because the number of tins I have at the moment is, I feel, sufficient. The hinged altoid box does not count if you’re gift-hunting for me; altoid tins are commonplace. The penguin mints tin is also right out, unless you can find a version of the original flavor before the made it all overly fancy. But if you can find a small tin that pencil stubs and erasers can fit in that is somehow amazing and worth my attention, I would dig it even if you ate the mints before you gave it to me. I have actually thrown out mints before just to have the tin. Oh, or a UNEEDA BISCUIT tin. That would also be great.
 
2. Small versions of things. I love toy cars, animal figurines, miniature furniture. Especially if the said object comes in a larger size, or is just absolutely small. Look at this picture. That’s the kind of small I mean.

3. Soft plastic forks. A sort that will not crack or snap when you chew on them. I am hopelessly orally fixated and sometimes even the largest tragedies can be handled by the strategic chewing on a plastic fork. Bonus: the prongs can be shaped to form a llama head.

4. Bells. I really like bells. I’m sort of done with jingle bells, they’re nothing I’d add to my bell-strings, but they’d do in a pinch.

5. Buttons. I have a bracelet-box full and would never tire of sorting through them. None of the current bags are as buttoned-out as the first one, but as the latest coat augmentation shows, one can never be rid of the intense and burning desire to sew buttons to everything. So feel free to get me some.

6. And so on. That at least covers the very basic objects that I truly have a conscious opinion about. This also doesn’t rule out random crap from a thrift store, antique trinkets, those old school wooden blocks with the letters carved out (if you can find me any of those you are my hero) etiquette and health books from the early 1900’s (and poetry books that utilize archaic English or medieval English spellings), and the giant metal alphabet letters I saw at the swanky store in Denver.

STUFF YOU SHOULDN’T GET ME

1. Coffee mugs, unless you know beyond a doubt I would love it, or unless I’ve asked you to get it for me. I have plenty of coffee mugs, and am very loyal to the one or two travel mugs I cycle through. So you really shouldn’t bother.

1a. Coffee, unless it is from my current trusted vendor or again if I’ve asked you to. In which case I will have told you where, what flavor or blend, and how much. I am so picky.

2. Holiday-themed paraphernalia. If it is decoration my Aunt is all over it, and if it’s just kitschy knick-knacks they will be going into the trash.

3. Necklaces, rings or bracelets. I am really super-picky about my adornments and have plenty. I never change my necklace on purpose, bracelets anymore just get in the way of sleeves, and do you honestly think I need more rings? Really? It’s not like you know what sizes my fingers are, or about my plan to represent five of the major world religions on my fingers. Besides why are you getting me jewelry? Why aren’t you getting me buttons?

3a. Barrettes are almost okay, but really if you can get it at a drug store or Sally Beauty Supply, I probably don’t need it. I am what you call improbably low-maintenance.

3b. Earrings are right out. Do not get me earrings. Do not. I will mentally link you to either the most tragic story of attempted (and utterly, utterly futile) courtship between friends or the baffling thing my Grandma did with Grandpa’s cufflinks, and trust me you don’t want to do that. If you team up with people and get them as a gag gift I will not think it is funny, I will be alarmed that you went and wasted perfectly good grocery money on something I am honestly going to donate to Goodwill or throw away. At the very least I will not wear them. And I will be forced to question your competence as my friend. Do you see these earrings? These right here? The same ones I’ve had in my lobe-holes for six years? Until they disintegrate off my head they are not going anywhere. So don’t bother.

4. Art supplies. Because a.) I have plenty and b.) you might get the wrong brand, and trust me that’s never fun. The big exception here is canvas. You can get me all the canvas you like.

Hi.

I thought I’d stop poking around and introduce myself a little, while I’m setting up shop

I have several other online places, but I thought rather than scattering all my writing stuff around I could keep them all in one place for once. These other places might help with the characterization process, though, since I’m not too good at being up front about it. And really, what’s the fun in that? But, because there is value in being upfront, I hereby present:

VARIOUS THINGS ABOUT ME

Age: 20
Height: 5’1”
Dimensions: I am fairly proportional and slender. I would be crass and post my weight but a.) do you really want/need to know? And b.) I don’t actually know. I don’t own a scale and I don’t usually pay attention at the doctor’s office.

I read a whole lot. When I’m clipping along like I want to I average about 2 books a week.

I wear six rather chunky silver rings at all times, unless I am in the shower or sleeping. Four of these are symbols/representations of major world religions (Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam), and the other two are somewhat generic place holders until I can find a star of David and something for Buddhism. (I am accepting suggestions for the latter. Aside from “the wheel” and Buddha himself, I am really stumped.)

My fridge makes this really creepy popping noise late at night, and I recently discovered it might be the ice trays warping, as sometimes I have ice cubes with long extended parts in the centers.

Speaking of the fridge: I consistently have trouble spelling “refrigerator,” “engine,” “Chihuahua,” and “alfalfa”. All of these words come up quite a lot for me actually as I am currently employed at the local newspaper as a classified ad typer. All of these words, along with a few rate codes, are written on a sticky note that is right above my keyboard.

I intensely dislike: the feel of dead flowers, thinking about internal organs, small many-legged creatures in the house (spiders, bugs, centipedes, etc.), being hot, and seed hulls all over the floor although the usual state of my apartment might lead you to believe otherwise.

Conversely, I really love: big blankets, cubes and squares, socks, being in cold weather, autmun, most food, antique stores, swings, the zoo, coffee, Diet Dr. Pepper, being in transit (driving, walking, biking, etc.) the alphabet and making art. And many, many other things as well.

I have a Philco record player and quite a few things on vinyl. No collectables really, mostly things I’ve come across and some ancient jazz and folk albums that really shouldn’t happen anywhere else.

I like wine and soon will be able to buy my own.

Within the last year I have taken a train to Boston, driven down to Galveston, and road tripped with friends to the Northwest coast.

I am a published illustrator, and due to the sort of child-prodigy-esque nature of that “success,” have been working since then away from that style and have been attempting to arrive at my own voice artistically and come up with some children’s books of my own. So far this has been a struggle, just for the amount of time I am given for art these days.

I am really not as pretentious as that sounds.

I once watched a bee fly very slowly and deliberately up a friend’s nose.

I have very low blood sugar, and therefore have to eat somewhat frequently and have to stay away from most sugary things. This really isn’t as sad as it sounds, since becoming physically ill and greatly discomforted is a great way to stop desiring, say, chocolate bars.

I like to go camping.