makeshiftDaisy

wow, I’m almost half done the 30 days of blog. Amazing how time flies when you realized you used the same number twice and therefore are on day 12, not day 10.

I am going to the wilds for two days and thought about ahead-posting but that seemed to not be in the spirit of things so I am going to take sat/sunday off and come back to live and in glorious technicolour come monday.

And there are other people in my house, so just put your balaclavas away, would be-cat burglers.

Tonight, a couple of links of places I love and go to once every few weeks so I can gorge:

The Selby: interior design for the rest of us.

The Sartorialist: street fashion of a semi-regular sort.

The Style Rookie: one teenager’s journey through the world of fashion (I ADORE Tavi)

so if you exist on the internets you might now that AFA is targeting Home Depot for their DEPLORABLE support of the LGBT community. They tell me it is DEPLORABLE so I feel I must capitalize. In case you just opened the door to the MSD studio, you must have figured out that around here, we find the BLATANT ABUSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

deplorable. I’ve been thinking for a long time that I could do more locally to support LGBT equality. I have no idea as a middle-class-straight-white-lady whose parents don’t think homosexuals should get married (and yet, when my gay BFF and his boyfriend protested about not receiving partner benefits from work, they cut articles out of the paper and told me RIGHT AWAY that they saw Corey and Chris kissing on TEEVEE. And I knew they were proud of the lads. Parents? You are inconsistent). But I suppose if one grows up, as I did, not really feeling like they belonged anywhere it might make sense to, as you grew older, develop an intense passion for some sort of social activism involving marginalized groups. Anyway, this is mine.

And my current amusement is how the AFA is writing letters to Poppy Brite, gender-queer gay man. I’m thinking it’s the lilt in his prose. That kind of cheer you can not fake, kids. It’s making me giggle.

So go, support the home depot! I am fortunate that I live in a world where gay marriage is legal, at an office where we have gay and transgendered employees and people are instructed to be awesome and not evil and to accept everyone as they are. We have an equality group that was recently featured on the front page of my company’s homepage (it’s international). My company might be a lot of things but they really do embrace diversity.

But maybe right now don’t support Target. It was a big day in Canada the other day when the news announced Target was going to set up shop north of the border. We were excited. We want weird designers and cheap pop and sweaters and crap. But now they’ve done this. And people are sad about it. And it makes me sad that companies sponsor Pride and then donate money to crazy people. I’m not into crazy people. Unless you’re like Cindy Lauper. She’s my kind of nutty.

There’s this thing in B:TVS that used to drive me insane. Fortunately I have found a handy full colour photo to fully illustrate the issue before i go on:

i'm sorry the weather is what?

See, on the left? It’s Willow Rosenberg. In keds and tights and skirt and her cozy fuzzy sweater. Xander and Giles are enjoying a particularly brisk fall day and Cordelia is somewhere in the middle, maybe early September.

Buffy, however, is in July with a touch of boot. It never occurred to me (except when it was obvious) that this was because Willow was The Not Hottie and Buffy was the Hottie, which I suppose, in retrospect, is kind of a hai, duh, thing, but I always thought Willow was made of awesomesauce.

And it drove me crazy that Wil was in sweaters while Buff was in mini skirts and spaghetti tanks. I was all OMG AS IF PEOPLE IN THE SAME CLIMATE WEAR SHORTS AND SNOW PANTS ON THE SAME DAY.

Except I know of such a strange and magical place. It’s called “Canada”.

I can’t remember when I realized it, possibly on one mid-December day when someone walked by in shorts, or alternately a lovely warm spring day when someone walked buy in a toque, scarf and snow boots.

I’m still not sure the logic holds up in Sunnydale, but here? It’s amazing. One of the greatest things about my part of canada is how we

1) refuse to accept it’s getting cold and therefore will wear inappropriately unpuffied clothing well into the winter months and

2) refuse to be in winter anymore and suddenly around Feb/March, even though there could be snowy white upon the ground, everyone gets out their short pants and t-shirts and is all “screw it, I’m dressing for spring”

There really is a psychological change that happens and it’s got nothing to do with the actual climate.

And I have no idea why I thought of that, today, perhaps because I wore my short pants with a cardigan, but dudes, it gets cold in my office tower like what.

The other thing I did Saturday is buy a watch. A giant, thick-banded leather watch that makes me feel a bit like a cross between Wonder Woman and Shane from the L-Word.

Allow me to illustrate:

Wonder Woman has impressive wrist cuffs

Shane, my girl-crush

Between this watch (I could not find a quick picture online), the knowledge that I am turning 39 in OMG NOT LONG FROM NOW, the fact that I bought clothes on the weekend NOT from a store that only sells “specialty sizes” (I love you my new size L sweater from the Gap!), and a desire to look unique and interesting without the hobo component (I was way hobo on the weekend but I am NOT giving up my Tripp bondage shorts for you or any man!), I think it’s time to re-evaluate my wardrobe, something I was never really able to do to the extent I wanted as a plus-sized person. Possibly because I don’t sew. But seriously? I am still a plus-sized person. In fact I said to Upstairs K “Something is afoot at the circle K, I should not be able to put on a dress from Banana Republic”. I’m thinking that while I was asleep sizes got bigger (not from all stores, but the ones I went into), or my self-perception changed (I don’t think it did, but who knows) but either way I’m on my way to being able to wear the clothes I always wanted to wear but never could (not that a sweater from the gap is going to turn me into the goth Anna Wintour or anything) and this makes me want to do a wardrobe remix. Perhaps I’ll have to take a trip through Polyvore or something.

I want to be interesting and my age and yeah. And maybe, judging from my new watch, I also want to be a lesbian superhero. Which wouldn’t be all bad, really.

man, I got nothing. This weekend was super fun and last night’s roller derby bout in which the Thrashin’ Lassies went down hard on the Cutthroat Car Hops was super fantastic.

Funnest bout yet and it really has nothing to do with the bake-sale we visit during half time. Serious. Unless there’s something else going on in those sugar cookies.

Today I unbootcamp’d the mac which is all fine and dandy except it won’t read the path to iTunes on the machine, just on the external hard drive and it is SO not interested in re-mapping it.

Ugh. Machines. I shake my mighty fist.

I probably couldn’t agree with T, more, here (which is why there can’t ever be hard feelings!). I often wonder why folks blog at all, why they need their (we need our) voices out there in the ether, sounds to bounce around until someone hears.

I’d also say that if you want to understand me read my fiction but there’s not a lot of fiction being made around here so I can’t toss that out and see where it sticks right now.

The goal for me, blogging for 30 days was to build a new habit so when the time came to say something, I’d be able to say it. I don’t know why but there’s only eight of you that read this thing, anyway, and maybe email’d be easier but we all know it’s not.

In a way this whole blog is a fiction – creative/non maybe but in the end it’s just snippets and hand-waving. But I think, for me, blogging is a way to fix some of my anti-social behavoirs.

So I ‘m going to keep on going. But maybe earlier in the day because crickies I’m sleepy.

It’s late, so I’m keeping this short.

The other day I was watching S3 of QaF (no surprise, really) and accidentally put in dvd5, the one with all the extras.

I love my QaF in ways that are crazy. I love movies. In fact, I love movies the most. All sorts and all kinds for all reasons. But I can’t watch dvd extras. I love documentaries (my current favourites, for those of you not on my twitter stream, are actually heavy metal documentaries. I don’t even like metal, but man I love those docs) but if I’m watching a piece of fiction I will never ever watch the dvd extras because watching behind-the-scenes and making-of and out-takes makes everything

less real.

So I own  movie special editions, collectors’ editions, extended versions and full tv series, but the last dvd of all of them, the one with all the stuff you pay extra for? I never ever open.

And it sits there, forever, untouched, with all of its secrets.

I’m going to tell you this. I love me some abstract art. I like regular art and photography and sculpture and installations. I like romantic art and creepy art and surrealist art and realist art. I like performance art. I like street art. I like graffiti and those dudes that draw with chalk on sidewalks and use spray paint to make space scenes you can take home for ten bucks.

I like Rothko and I love Pollock.

I love this:

Yangyang Pan

and the colours of it might be better here. The interwebs tells me that Yangyang is a Canadian with an etsy shop. And a print of this painting resides there. I take gifts. While we’re on the subject of things that we love.

Ahem.

I like movement. I like a riot of colour. I like gardens. I like people that have a better sense of how colour works than I do.

so here’s the trouble.

Not only am I the whitest person in white-town, I live in the whitest part of Canada and am not always the most aware when it comes to race issues (I certainly get being maligned for being a visible minority, Hi, I’m overweight!). I am kind of livin’ it like Bill and Ted and figuring as long as we’re excellent to each other?

It’s.

All.

Good.

but here I am listening to Faderhead’s “MonoMan” and it’s all dancy synthpop goofy wonderful.

mr. faderhead to the rescue

and he sings “rolling out the beats like a carpet in Iraq”, and it cracks me up! And then I’m all OMG is that insensitive to assume that we are getting dust out of carpets by using the end of a broom in hot desert type countries!? Is this an insensitive assumption? Why can’t it be “rolling out the beats like a carpet in Drumheller” (it’s dusty there, they have dinosaurs. But kind of doesn’t flow the same, now does it?)

because this one time someone on the internets reviewed a story of mine and I used the expression “we were Chinese acrobats” to describe (I can’t remember and the story is at home, but Fantasy published it so can’t be all bad, yes?) … something and apparently this made me culturally/racially insensitive and yeah, I still don’t buy it. I see chinese acrobats as metaphorically different from russian from french and on and on and it was a visual I wanted to use and so. Yes. I did.

And I am going to continue to think that faderhead lyric is awesome.

and you can tell me that makes me a bad person.

But I am not going to believe you.

Or, in my case, the otherwise nommy photos of foodstuffs. Yesterday I made the WORST Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe in the history of Spaghetti cacia e pepe.

Seriously. And I’m going to tell you why:

1. my olive oil was too fragrant.

2. omg buy high end parmesan already

To expand:

I love good olive oil. I have people that have sent me delicious award winning olive oil from countries that are not my own. When I go to Mercato I’m always at the olive oil vat with my mouth under the spigot (and/or dunking the bread into the oil/balsamic vinegar mix but Mouth Under Spigot is just that much HARDCORE). But I opened a new bottle last night that Mama Daisy picked up for me in Italy (I think?) and whoa. Awesome but would be so much better Not Cooked. So yes. Olive oil Too Whoa.

And the cheese. In a fit of frugality I recently picked up a bag of shredded parmesan which I am now going to refer to as “rubber”.  Parmesan should be slightly dry and cracky (in my opinion, your cheese experience may differ, as well as your preferences), but not dried-out. It should not have the gnung-gnungs (those are also found in hotdogs, the weird chewy rubber bits), it should be nutty and amazing and hard and good in tiny pieces eaten only with the fingers.

Without both of these things (properly fragrant olive oil/olive oil you like the heated taste of and a decent parm, your Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe will not work. I promise. Trust me. I know this from personal experience). Kraft shaky-cheese is NOT parmesan. Do not feel good about feeding it to your family, no matter what the nice people in the Kraft Kitchens tell you.

Here’s how I see it. Yes, good parm is expensive. Like $11.00 a hunk expensive (oh, if only all hunks were so cheap. There was a bucket of them going up 40 stories about half hour ago. Heights like that freak me out so much I was afraid for them. But they were manly construction men and shall not be so easily thwarted), but cheap cheese ruins your meal and a Venti Latte is $5 and most of us drop that without thinking twice about it so really, parmesan cheese? Cheaper than the liquid Starbucks calls coffee (yes, I drink it. Yes I know it’s not that great).

And now you know.

Looking for a great recipe site but didn’t click the link above? Try The Smitten Kitchen.

Also, if you have or know of a great recipe blog (I’ll share more of mine!) please link.

Pay no mind to my 16 years as a vegetarian. My favourite shows on the Food Network are the ones in which they grill meat. I accept your meaty-filled recipe blog links, too!