Tuesday, December 27, 2011
so it was well over a year ago since I last updated my 100 things (and I'm always looking for ways to procrastinate) so here's the new almost-2012 edition of 100 things1. I won't carry a purse unless it's big enough to hold my camera
2. I always have my camera with me
3. my favorite comfort food is mashed potatoes and brown gravy
4. I am terrified of spiders, cockroaches and sharks
5. I love taking pictures of creepy spiders
6. In spite of my paralyzing fear of sharks, I love the beach and the ocean
7. I'm more prone to wearing lip balm than lipstick
8. I hate greeting cards
9. I watch a lot of tv
10. I always have my iPod/iTunes on shuffle
11. Otis Redding is the only artist I never skip on shuffle
12. I prefer my eggs over-medium
13. Rye is my favorite type of bread
14. Raspberries are my favorite berry
15. I hate talking on the phone
16. I hate voicemails (seriously, send me a text)
17. I am insanely disorganized
18. I've been dyeing my hair since I was about 15
19. At least every couple years I try to dye my hair blond, but it always looks crappy on me
20. I like tattoos
21. I played roller derby for a couple of years and sometimes I miss it like crazy
22. I like the smells of rain, fresh cut grass and fabric softener
23. I like my bacon crispy
24. My eyes are officially hazel, but they are usually murky green color
25. I go out of my way to avoid contact with most people
26. My brain works at a different speed than my mouth and sometimes I forget words when I'm in the middle of a sentence
27. I have a very short temper
28. I drive a Prius, but I'm not one of those Prius driver-type people
29. I'm a Google junkie, I google everyone and everything
30. I don't like to lie, but this doesn't mean I always tell the whole truth
31. I rarely go out of my way to be friends with anyone
32. I love Doris Day/Rock Hudson movies
33. My favorite necklace is a tiny silver thing that says "Eat at Joes"
34. I sleep with my feet sticking out from under the covers
35. I always order iced tea at restaurants
36. I love cilantro
37. Thanksgiving is my favorite day to cook - it's like the Super Bowl of cooking to me
38. My favorite pizza toppings are pepperoni and black olives
39. My biggest pet peeve is when people use "your" when it should be "you're"
40. I can be a little persnickety about spelling and grammar
41. Usually I don't think before I speak
42. I am categorically unable to keep plants alive
43. I think "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight and the Pips is one of the best songs ever written
44. My favorite tv shows are "Psych", "Sons of Anarchy" and "Justified"
45. My current favorite painter is Jose Royo
46. I saw an exhibit of Royo paintings a few years ago in Vegas and almost cried because they were so beautiful
47. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with horses and the Smurfs
48. I like really dark coffee with real cream, evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk
49. I wish I could speak a second language - preferably French or Italian
50. I have 2 dogs, 2 cat, 4 snakes, a bearded dragon and a kid
51. If I had the room, I'd love to have goats and chickens because I fell in love with them with I worked at the farm in Texas (go donate if you can, they need it, those animals insist on eating every single day)
52. "Hot Fuzz" is one of my favorite movies
53. "Valley Girl" is another
54. "Gladiator" is another
55. "An Affair to Remember" is another
56. I paint, embroider, write and take pictures
57. Photography is, at the same time, the easiest and most difficult of my artistic pursuits
58. I have a spectacular collection of knee socks from my derby days, but I usually hate having to wear anything other than flip flops
59. I'm always barefoot at home
60. I don't have a favorite color
61. I'm extremely nearsighted (but will never be seen in public in my glasses because they make me look like a bug)
62. I love mid-century modern architecture
63. I have had a problem with depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember and have been working on finding the right cocktail of meds for the last couple of years
64. I have a degenerative disk thing in my back and have been working on finding the right cocktail of exercises, stretching and over-the-counter stuff, but there are still some days when I can barely walk
65. My wisdom teeth still haven't come in
66. I like giraffes and any other animal with long eyelashes
67. I can't draw
68. I like ridiculous people and things
69. ... tee hee, 69
70. I can be incredibly immature (see above)
71. I wish I knew how to knit or crochet
72. I started liking basketball because The Kid plays it
73. The Kid is the funniest person on the planet
74. My favorite basketball teams are the Lakers, the Clippers, the Celtics and whatever team The Kid is on
75. I find small towns charming
76. I make excellent cinnamon rolls and croissants
77. Being able to make croissants is one of my biggest achievements
78. I always use my turn signals, even when no one is around
79. I don't always drive the speed limit
80. I hate hate HATE being stuck in traffic
81. Punctuality is important to me
82. I'm sporadically lactose-intolerant
83. When I was a kid, I had aspirations of being a jockey and a lawyer (not at the same time, but how cool would that have been?)
84. I make my own pizza dough
85. My dad passed away in January of this year and it hits me at the weirdest times
86. I used to collect stickers like crazy when I was a kid
87. I drink a lot of water
88. I used to get really bad grades in handwriting when I was in elementary school
89. I've wanted to be a writer since I was in 2nd grade
90. I generally assume that everyone I meet is cooler than I am
91. I can never find the matching lids of my tupperware containers
92. I can be a very absent friend and, unless it's within two weeks of mine, I will forget your birthday
93. I don't understand the need of people to share every single mundane detail of their lives
94. I check my Facebook and Twitter maybe once a day to see if anyone has given birth or died
95. I do everything in my power to not read comments on the internet
96. I have an endless capacity for useless knowledge and like to share it
97. No one is still reading this
98. Flugelhorn
99. Seriously, no one
100. I've got a comeback for every situation, even if I don't think of it until an hour too late
Labels: just... why?
Saturday, December 24, 2011
him: why do we have four pounds of butter in the refrigerator?me: there's a butter shortage in Norway
him: and?
me: you never know when something like that could happen here and I don't want to end up having to bake something using margarine!
Holidays activate my OCD and I become irrationally afraid of running out of everyday household stuff like toilet paper, cilantro and dog food (and butter, obviously). In the days preceding a holiday, I take inventory of everything in the house and stock up with enough supplies to last for a month... because the world ends if Christmas happens and I don't have enough fabric softener? And even if I did run out, it's not like Walgreen's isn't open and willing to sell me eggs, double-sided tape and pantyhose at 4AM right?
I do the same thing on vacations - no matter how long I'm going to be gone, I cart with me enough shampoo, conditioner, band-aids and tampons to take last the entire city a week and a half.
Basically, look for me on the most boring episode of "Hoarders"
Labels: first world problems
Dear Neighbors 2 Houses Down,
It's been super duper nice of you guys to share your pounding calliope/mariachi music all day!And it's so nice of y'all to have it so loud that the whole neighborhood can hear it!
And while I super duper appreciate being able to feel like like a part of your Christmas Eve celebration, (even with all the windows in the house closed!) I now have a headache and can feel the bass pounding in side of my head, so I wonder if you guys wouldn't mind turning it down just a touch. Not just for me, you guys have at least 5 or 6 kids living in that house and going deaf won't be good for any of them.
Thanks a heap and Merry Christmas!
Labels: first world problems, letter to
Friday, December 23, 2011
I seriously can't wait for Christmas
Not for the presents or the treats or any of that usual stuff - I'm mainly looking forward to an end to those commercials where car dealerships and other retail establishments bastardize Christmas carols to include their names or product lines.Labels: just sayin'
Thursday, December 22, 2011
when multi-tasking goes bad
When I tried to bake gingerbread biscotti * and the super smoky jalapeno-flavored bacon I ordered on the internet that always makes the entire house smell like bacon for an entire day at the same time.Now, I'm all for adding bacon flavor to pretty much everything, but... just... no
*even if you're not a big fan of gingerbread (I'm not) these, drizzled in white chocolate baking stuff are so amazing. For reals.
Labels: suzy fucking homemaker
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
so apparently "time management" is a thing - did anyone know that?
prior to that little piece of embroidery getting all that attention, I pretty much spent most days dicking around on the internet.When all the attention first happened, I tried to integrate stitching lots of orders and answering lots of emails into my busy schedule of dicking around on the internet, and I quickly got overwhelmed - I got the flu, I developed an eye twitch, I couldn't sleep, blah blah blah.
One day last week while I was on my way to an appointment *cough*psychiatrist*cough* I realized that people are paying me to make art and that I really needed to get my shit together if I wanted to take advantage of being given an opportunity like this.
This was further confirmed when the doctor prescribed "better time management"* - so I went home and begged the best stitcher I know to help out and decided to stop stopping what I was doing when an email arrived and answer all my emails at the end of the day.
Now, I'm only working 8-9 hours a day on this stuff** and it turns out that all the stuff I usually do on the internet is still there when I'm done - WHO KNEW?
next step? Business cards... or at least an address stamp because, seriously, I don't even want to think about how much time I waste scrawling my return address on packages.
*and ambien (yay) and double the Wellbutrin
**which means, if I'm super productive, that I'm earning close-ish to minimum wage, BUT I can watch tv while I work and I don't have to put on makeup or even shower!
Labels: I'm a jackass
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Here's how bad I am at wrapping presents
Five minutes ago, I almost chopped off my own finger while cutting wrapping paper.Labels: I'm an idiot
Thursday, December 15, 2011
You know what's cool about purple eyeshadow?
If you use your finger to apply it (because you're too lazy to dig out a clean eyeshadow brush) in your semi-dark bathroom (the lighting is fluorescent, so I use whatever small amount of available light there is), you will probably end up with some extra under your eyes so you will spend half the day looking like you've been in a bar fight and/or you have consumption.resolution for the new year? Learning to color within the lines.
Labels: first world problems
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
2 things
1) an unexpected "bonus" of this whole... situation - my dad passed away in January so this is our first Christmas without him and I knew it was going to be difficult/crappy/awful, but having my mind occupied by all of this stuff has been amazing for keeping me busy, so... praise Yeezus for that.2) I won a giveaway from The Painting Chef (who is funny and crazy talented and you should read her blog if you don't already) and yesterday got a box chock full of awesomeness! One thing included in that awesomeness was candied jalapenos... okay, who knew this was a thing? I didn't and omg what a delicious mix of hot and sweet - I used them last night on jalapeno popper grilled cheese* and The Kid's BFF was over for dinner - when I handed him the plate, he seriously spent a full minute smelling the sandwich before declaring that it smelled so good someone should make a candle of the scent... okay, maybe the kid's a little weird, but dammit if he isn't enthusiastic about every single dinner I serve.
*sourdough bread grilled with cheddar cheese on one side, cream cheese on the other side and jalapenos in the middle. OMG YUM.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Since my life has suddenly turned into all-self-promotion-all-the-time, I'll just put this link here
http://www.facebook.com/DropDeadQuirkyit's the fan page for my etsy shop and it contains links to the insane amount of press I've gotten this weekend - Huffington Post, BoingBoing, The Village Voice (!!!) to name a few... I don't know if I need to hire a press agent or a workshop full of elves.
(also, in case anyone was wondering, I am super duper uncomfortable with this stuff - I don't like the self-promotion, I don't like tooting my own horn, I don't like networking, I don't like cultivating contacts - but I figure if so many people get famous/notorious for filming their worst behavior/making terrible music videos/sleeping with Tiger Woods or Charlie Sheen, why can't I parlay this into something awesome like a book deal or a plate of free tacos?)
(also, part 2, electric buggaloo - this whole experience has cemented my policy of not reading comments on the internet as I am superduper fragile and CANNOT handle even anonymous commenterscalling my stuff a "waste of time and thread" or "fail" - WORDS HURT, Y'ALL and it's seriously everything I can do to NOT lash out and reply to stuff like that)
Labels: first world problems, suzy fucking homemaker
Saturday, December 10, 2011
okay, so maybe I need to stop acting like this is a full-time job because I'm doing exactly what I do in an office environment - miraculously find 90 bajillion ways to distract myself from the task at hand.Also, the main way that this is not like a "real" job? I can't pilfer office supplies and recently had to visit Staples to buy some boxes and bubblewrap. It was seriously all I could do NOT to buy myself a desk calendar (I don't have a desk), ergonomic mousepad (I use a laptop) and tape dispenser shaped like a high heel (no one needs one of those).
Also? I don't really have days off and the Christmas party is going to be a pretty lonely affair.
On the plus side, though? Most days I don't have to change out of my pajamas, I can go days without showering (although I don't know if that's really much of a "plus side" to anyone who isn't as gross as I am) and no one complains that I'm watching a Burn Notice marathon while working.
Labels: first world problems
Friday, December 09, 2011
I'm kind of having this kind of day -
basically, I stitched something a couple of months ago and posted it to Tumblr and it got a bunch of "likes" and I was happy because I have a delicate ego and am grateful for any and all validation.
A month or so later, it got reposted by someone else and got more likes and my cold black heart grew just a tiny bit warm.
Then about 2 weeks ago, someone ELSE reposted it and it got about 5 times more likes than ever and then it was getting featured on more and more websites (including, but not limited to the Huffington Effing Post!!!!) and the next thing I know, it's kind of a full-time job and I'm surprisingly able to buy Christmas presents with money earned from art (and I kind of have a waiting list that will probably carry me through February because I'm too
so... really this post wasn't anything other than an excuse to post that picture of Milhouse and procrastinate on the stitching I should be doing...
Labels: "awesome" ends with "me", random pop culture reference, suzy fucking homemaker
Monday, December 05, 2011
Pro-Tip for anyone who could possibly end up ever sharing a bathroom with me
Yes, I always have a dazzling array of shampoos and conditioners.Yes, they are extremely tempting, what with their shiny bottles, intoxicating scents and promises of beautiful tresses.
No, I don't expect you to refrain from using them.
No, I won't be totally pissed if you use the last of my favorite conditioner.
Yes, I will be super-duper pissed if you use the last of my favorite conditioner and then leave it in the shower, thus tricking me into thinking that I have at least one more shower's worth of it.
Labels: first world problems