Ghost of a chance.

While discussing with my mom potential bedroom assignments (i.e., which rooms are haunted) and where everyone is going to sleep at the cabin vacation this summer, this question was raised: do we want the place to be haunted, or don’t we?

Interesting. My best answer is: yes while I’m not there, but no while I am.

And let’s be honest: how am I going to recognize a ghostly encounter from my usual nightly tomfoolery? For Pete’s sake, last night I yelled “Get out of here!” to the people I thought had set up a table and chairs in our bedroom. So.

Snob.

I recently filled out a survey about the literature/journal/modern languages dept. at Point Loma. They wanted to know how PLNC (now PLNU, of course) helped prepare me for grad school, employment, and teaching. Truth time: not very well. I went to Point Loma for the atmosphere, stayed for the people, but was never under any illusions about the academic rigor. I found most of my classes--save two: linguists and literary theory--to be quite easy. Not to say I didn't have some great classes and engaging professors; I just don't think people pick Point Loma because of the academics. I didn't. If I were picking now, I would totally pick differently. But it was the perfect fit for me at the time.

Anyway, the survey asked what book I was reading. If I were telling the truth, I would have said Away, by Amy Bloom, which I picked up off the clearance rack at Half Price Books. But I didn't feel that book had enough gravitas. So I reached back into the recent past for a book I thought would be lit-major worthy. World's End, by T.C. Boyle, sounded the better choice. I almost put Lolita, but I didn't want anyone to think that I was just now getting around to reading it; this was a second read. I felt as though I had a rep to protect.

Chris and I talk often about how book lovers often put on airs about the books they read, and how dumb that is. He can't believe that anyone would find Dickens wordy or archaic; I can't believe anyone would read any Victorian literature at all these days. I think he dislikes the amount of contemporary literature on our shelves, and I'm no fan of all the Stephen King books we have. Yet the first thing I would tell someone about reading is to read what you like and not worry about what's hip or popular.

I am a riddle wrapped in a enigma wrapped in puzzle, or whatever that expression is. Or I'm just a lousy hypocrite. Either way, at least it's over something that doesn't matter very much.

Ten.

Just bought this skirt at the Gap, which I suppose isn't that much of an accomplishment.

Except that it's 10 number sizes in down from what I was wearing a year ago. Not 10 dress sizes--though that would have been nice--but 10 number sizes. For most of you, that would mean shopping in the same department as your almost-kindergarten-age kids. For me, it mostly just means shopping for normal clothes in normal sizes in normal stores.

I'm just on this side of 75 lbs, with a goal of 100+. I won't lie--it's gotten a lot harder in the last 6 weeks or so. What used to work doesn't work as well anymore. Two pounds a week is now more like a half pound, if I'm lucky. I understand that this is an incredibly slow process, but jeeze louise.

Oh, well. Let's concentrate on the positives. Like this skirt.

GM lives, but my new dishwasher must stay in the store.

Nothing wrong with GM aside from a ruptured abscess and a bad attitude. Thank goodness! No judgment calls on how much the Green Mile costs. After spending the night at the vet, he's still kinda groggy and docile. He even let me give him a sponge bath (ha--I almost wrote tongue bath, like I'm his momma cat) with a wash cloth, which tells me he is still very out of it.

The vet even refunded $200 of the deposit we had to put down for his procedure. Let's just say, there goes the new dishwasher. Funnily enough, I had been telling Chris that very morning that we should get a new one. Easy come, easy go.

The fine line.

GM is in the hospital. He has an abscess in a, shall we say, delicate area that popped and was bleeding all over the place. When the vet took his temperature (and he was roaring like a lion the whole time), there was blood on the thermometer, so his colon may be perforated. He's sedated at the vet as we speak, waiting for procedure to ascertain the nature of his injury, with the possibility of surgery on top of that.
 
Chris and I are faced with a conundrum: how much is too much to spend on a pet? We're kinda in for a penny, in for a pound right now, but the "pound" aspect could reach into the thousands. And as much as I love my cantankerous little monster, I cannot see my past spending X dollars on his medical care.

Problem is: what's X? And if you set a limit, say $1000, what if the vets says it'll cost $1100? Or $1400? Are you going to put the cat down over $400? It makes you sounds like a cheap, heartless bastard. But we don't have limited resources here.

I suppose my real problem is that I am a mixture of mother (unsentimental about animals when it comes to exorbitant costs) and my father (a bleeding heart animal lover). What's a pet owner to do.

Do-gooding.

For some reason, perhaps because I spend half of my waking life there, Target seems to be a prime location for me to practice my do-gooding. I have rescued more than one lost kid in a Target. Today, I rescued someone's dignity.

I grocery shop at a SuperTarget (produce department is a bit scanty, but overall I recommend), and sometimes afterwards I stop at the in-store Starbys for a frappuchino. A tall mocha light frap is only 1.5 points--I can spare that. Today, as I walked to the counter, I noticed something amiss with the woman's pants in front of me. She was about my age, with a 9-mo-old baby in her cart. When I got closer, I noticed that her pants were ripped on the right butt. Her underwear situation was in peril.

Namely, because I'm not sure there was any. I sure wasn't seeing any through the three-inch rip. All skin.

When I told her that her pants were ripped, she looked at me like I was making it up. Then she kinda looked like I was suggesting her ass was too big for those pants and that's why they ripped. It was really odd--kind of accusatory. The Starbys worker joined the conversation when she turned her backside to him (accidentally) and was like, Wow, you can really see a lot. (Maybe she was irritated that I didn't tell her in a quiet voice? That I let the Starbys guy overhear? Sorry, lady. Next time I won't say nuthin.)

This girl was mortified, as you would be. I asked the Starbys worker for a stapler and offered to staple the girl's pants. Now she looked at me like I was suggesting that I should staple her pants to her actual body. But, thinking on it now, maybe it was more of a look of, You're not in charge here; you can't just decide to staple my pants.

Well, I'm a problem solver. I was trying to solve the problem.

Instead, the Starbys worker offered her an apron to tie around her waist, which she did, and then she continued her shopping. And I have a feeling once she got home and saw how big the rip was--and how much skin was showing--she wanted to die. And thought about all the errands she had already run that day with her booty exposed.

A bird in hand.

This right here is worth at least two in the bush.

Or maybe just a trip to the doctor because of avian flu.

What was I supposed to do? George brought it in, and I've seen him tear birds limb from limb. It gets the carpet very dirty. So I picked it up. Which I've never done before--I usually I use the broom and dustpan. Or Chris. But this guy needed me. I let him rest in my hand. He was very hot. I tried to coax him onto a chair so that we would both be safe (and so that I would remain poop-free), but he wouldn't go. So I just held him in my hand like this until he flew away.

It's a lovely story. A parable of some sort. Until--or maybe because--I will see him again, no doubt. Probably missing some limbs. Once they've been in once, they tend to be marked.

But I have high hopes for this one. Fly, brown bird with yellow around its beak, fly high!

And yes, I washed my hands. Twice.

Renegade Craft Fair

Went to the Renegade Craft Fair today, with my stitch-ripper in hand, just in case. Pretty much I looked like the squarest middle American there, having opted not to wear a vintage dress, cat-eye glasses, or knitted something-or-other. And I wondered if perhaps I am getting too old for this kind of thing anyway, since the first thing I did was duck into the bathroom and take my hearing aids out. It was VERY loud in there. Gosh-darn hipsters.

Seemed to be a lot of vintage-inspired aprons, homemade purses and totes, overpriced jewelry (sorry, it's true), and sassy onesies. I saw an ersatz Sassy Passy and the tie T-shirts that Mags copied for the boys. But I did manage to find some cool stuff for myself.

This hair thingy, for one:

And these two posters from The Poster List:

Still on my list of things to do for 2010: learn to sew.

Noticably different.

I will admit, this will probably sound reactionary. And if I read it on someone else's blog, I might even roll my eyes a little, just a little, and think, yeah right.

Of course, this isn't someone else's blog. So don't be rolling your eyes. Play along.

I like Anthropologie, as we have established. I like the clothes, I like the housewares, I like the aesthetic. Though all I've ever bought there are tchochtskies, I like to look around and touch the pretty, overpriced dresses. I've never felt completely comfortable, though. Like people are looking at me and thinking, No way she fits in these clothes. And of course, they have long been right, but STFU anyway. I'm allowed to look and dream and buy numbered spiced jars and pretty wall hooks and whatever the hell else I want.

It's been a long while since I've been in there. Partially because I know I never really buy anything when I go, but also partly because I have always been largely ignored by the staff. No greeting, no Can I Help You. It's palpable. To me. Or maybe it's just the solipsism of the insecure--imaging everything is a personal slight. (Of course, it's not just Anthropologie that brings this out in me; it's many stores. This all just happened to go down at Anthro is all.)

So, now I'm 70 pounds lighter. I am a "normal" size. I could probably fit in the pretty, flowy $300 dresses. (OK, maybe not in the chest area, but whatever.) And when I went in there on Saturday, I was greeted and offered help by three different salespeople.

Could be totally random. Could be new training directives for better customer service. Could be any number of things, but you see how I've connected it. And I was both validated--I look normal, and therefore worthy of service!--and pissed off. I am the exact same person as I was 9 months ago.

It's confusing. Like Pretty Woman but staring Kirstie Alley.

Knowing what you don't like helps narrow down what you do like.

Further evidence that my main style-related mantra is correct.

When shoe shopping, I often ask myself: What Would Gwynth Wear? And if the answer is "These shoes," then I know to put them back and keep looking. Any shoes that goes on Gwynth Paltrow's foot does not belong on mine.

I'm sure the feeling is more than mutual.