Quilting

I am going to make a quilt. Mike and I were at Mary Jo's Fabric store a few weeks ago where we stumbled upon Wizard of Oz fabric. It's fabric depicting scenes and characters from the movie and it is miraculous! I wanted to only get the wicked witch at first (she being my favorite movie character possibly ever), but the other fabrics were so intriguing that we ended up getting about 8 different ones. As I have never made a quilt, but know the general theory, I'm starting small. This will by no means be one of those ambitious quilts that become an heirloom, rather something cozy to pull out when I want to curl up and read on the couch. This new interest hopefully will resonate with me to become a long lasting hobby. I did invest in a sewing machine, do act like a kid in a candy store when I go to look at fabrics, and do desire to create tangible things that can last for a very long time. Is anyone out there an experienced sewer who'd like to do this with me, or wants to learn as well?

I'm off to cut the fabric... the wonderful fabric of Oz...

Yeah, I know. That was lame.

I like making lists. A lot. I don't use them, but I like to make them. Usually they're just mental lists, such as what I could be doing today on my day off. Here goes...

Cut Wizard of Oz fabric for quilt

Bake cookies

Deny grown-uppedness

Continue exploring and creating with Bamboo Fun

Read the rest of Edna Ferber's So Big (Ferber is a new favorite)

Finish entering my books into Delicious Library

Find new and exciting ways to volunteer, and set up events for Target

Make Valentines

Figure out what happened to "Sexyback" in my iTunes library (wish I were kidding...)

Come up with a real blog post

Glitter things

I feel pretty overextended by all the things I'm not doing.

This is an artistic representation of my new genre of music, which Daniel tells me can't be patented. Bummer.

In other news I love the challenge of finding interesting gifts for my dear twin nieces, in order that I can hold my title of Cool Aunt Emmy. It is an unchallenged title, but one I defend nonetheless. I get them random things, resulting in chaotical delight. Such as these bags. I frequent Hobby Lobby a bit more than is healthy, but I find neat things all the time. Glitter will be the topic of a subsequent post. This time I perused the clearance heap along the back wall and found some iron-on letters made from photographs of neon signs. It was clearance, I threw it in my basket. Then I saw that all the canvas bags were half off. I had canvas bags as a kid, at the church I attended it was the trendy thing to carry. Especially canvas Bible cases with pockets for notes and pens and... oh, say the book you really wanted to read during the sermon. ANYWAY... there was a great "bargain pack" of four neon colored canvas bags which was also half off... into my basket it fell. At this time I had no intention of mating the iron-on letters and canvas bags, so it was a happy accident when at home, wondering what to do with my miscellaneous treasures I realized that all the neon and black and craziness would work together (for impending seven year olds at least). I tried it, it was beautiful. And because I'm so cool, I made myself one to carry when I hang out with Charlotte and Georgia. So, it's part of their birthday presents. Actually, the rest of their presents are in the bags themselves... a Nancy Drew book apiece, as well as The Secret Garden for Charlotte and The Little Princess for Georgia. I'm also throwing in some pretty amazing magic wands, just because I'm their amazingly Cool Aunt Emmy.

"Punk Junk Jazz" basically were the letters left over after I took out "Charlotte", "Georgia', and "Emily". Clever, huh? Ok, fine. Frugal.

I am what I am

Last night was Cranium WOW night at my humble home. I think I was expecting more people to come than the 7 that did, but really that was all the people I physically invited so I don't know why I was expecting more. I love the people who were here. I had a good time. I stress out over trying to make sure people are having a good time, though, which detracts slightly from my own enjoyment of the goings-on. I also realize that I have the habit of falling into the psychological rut of living in bad faith. I don't exactly mean what Sartre does by "bad faith"- the idea that I avoid decisions and choices and pretending not to have free will. I mean that sometimes I act in ways that aren't consistent with who I am without reservations, my private self at home, my self as a totally comfortable human being. I love free will. I love making bad decisions and acting psychotic and unexplainable and obscene. I delight in mild inappropriateness and foul language. Then I fear that this manner of living estranges me from more graceful, kind, and probably bettering people. I know it puts others in discomfort. I have no problem turning my switch back and forth to accommodate myself to others, but when I cross and mingle my different friends (much like the crossing of the streams in Ghostbusters) I feel like I look ridiculous and detached from both friend groups, as well as hypocritical for not being who they know me to be when it's just personal time.

So here's the truth. I am a malleable person. I do what I want to, behave how I want to, when I want to.

But I feel bad if that makes you feel bad.

See? Bad faith.

I created a new genre of music. I can't tell you about it until I patent it, though. Sorry.

There's a song that I love called "I Hate Everyone". It's by a band called Get Set Go, and I only know about it because it was on the soundtrack to one of the seasons of Grey's Anatomy. At any rate, it's how I feel all too often. Don't misunderstand me, I don't really mind feeling that way... I kind of feel like it's perfectly acceptable, even laudable for me to feel how I do at any given time.  I don't even feel guilt over my ill-disguised disgust of "herrings and mackerels" as D.H. Lawrence so cleverly put it. I'm pretty damn good at righteous indignation. So, the picture for today ties in nicely with another love of mine-movies, notably Little Miss Sunshine. I watched it last night, and it never fails to put me in a better mood. My brother Grant doesn't like it, or doesn't get it, or something, but I feel like the movie really shows average people. Ok, so some of the events are extraordinary, and the situations might not be realistic, but the people are painfully, gloriously real. The house is pretty gross, the people pathetic, the amazing little girl totally clueless, but it ties together to paint a real picture of the way people really can be. The music is incredible, and there are few movie scenes so involving and hilarious as the talent portion of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Ok, so for us Americans perhaps the German subtitles are a little detracting- so rent the movie if you haven't seen it already. Or come watch it with me.

While I'm on movies to uplift; The Big Lebowski, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and I Heart Huckabees are all miraculous.

Side note: I'm a little miffed that I couldn't post the heart as the "greater than three" thing. The blog thinks I'm trying to talk geek, which I am not. Blast!

I have a profoundly great reason for posting this blog today but it wouldn't make anyone feel better to know about it, and really I feel great sharing two of my favorite things with you as it is. 

Today at the mall I was sitting in the food court with Mike and Kim. I saw the most beautiful, wonderful little girls. They put on a show for my friends and me, but it really was mostly for me. I encourage small children to be wonderful and exhibitionist, so long as it remains mostly well-mannered and entertaining. They did a series of song and dance, followed with a knock-knock routine. I didn't understand what they were saying as they were also Asian and two and four years old. What I loved most about them was that they were not shy. The older sister saw me watching her, and when I smiled she pulled her younger sister up with her. They were so unabashedly happy and sweet, and incredibly tiny. As they left the food court, the older one looked back at us and waved. She waved as they walked and didn't stop as long as she could still see us. That made me very happy. 

A side note to this; I hate malls and food courts, and people who patronize both, but since Borders is attached to a mall, and I go to Borders more than is healthy to sit and flirt with the people I love, I invariably end up venturing out into other parts of the mall on occasion. I see many interesting people. Really, I guess I'm ok with that.

More narcissim

I feel like I always have great ideas to blog about until I sit down and stare at the empty window waiting for my words. At that point I find everything mundane, or forgotten, or rather ridiculous. I remember what I was going to blog about. I could, of course, just have deleted everything up to the point of my blog and no one would have been any the wiser, but as this is mostly for kicks, I'll let the editing process slip silently into hell while I just do what I want.

I just finished reading Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin, an interesting book (or I wouldn't have read it) about some of the notable female authors of the 20s, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edna Ferber, and Zelda Fitzgerald. Odd, that in my 4.5 years as an English major and Women's Studies minor I had never read or discussed these women. At any rate, I wasn't interested in them academically, but I was fascinated to read about the interaction among various writers and artistic types. I would love to be part of an intelligent, creative, "out there" bunch of creative people. I feel like being surrounded by brilliance would inspire brilliance, encourage production, lead to an overall more fascinating life. I guess I have the desire for something a bit Bohemian, more organic and less rigid than a corporate existence. I fully intend on becoming a professor mostly for the selfish reason that I like academic communities. I enjoy geeking out with other smart people. I get turned on by independent thought and ideas and controversy and noise being made. I am enthusiastic about challenging people, slamming down conventional ideas, and getting others out of their tiny little comfort boxes. Parker, Millay, Ferber, and Fitzgerald were psycho. They were psycho and wonderful. They all crossed paths and had varying opinions of each other, and whether or not they got along or cared to, they made up a really fascinating portion of the "Who's Who" of a revolutionary decade. Sex and the City has nothing on these women, I'm pretty sure... ok, fine. I've never watched Sex and the City. But each  had open and busy sex lives, Parker, Fitzgerald, and Millay each had an abortion (tragic), they frequented countless social gatherings, threw parties, published widely, gained creative momentum in different spheres, won awards or recognition... they were doers. They have re-sparked my creative mind into thinking that I, too can write. They reminded me of the satisfaction I gained in keeping a blog (the archaic emaline0521). They make me think I might be able to work on something to publish. I kind of want to see if I can do it, like I want to see if I could be a decent backup singer. Backup singers probably have the most fun in bands who do live gigs; they wear whatever they want, dance how they want, make eyes at everyone... that's my life ambition. 

Ok, so I am going to publish and be a backup singer. Until I find success there, I'll work toward a PhD.

Narcissism, take 1

I kept a blog in high school. It was one of the LiveJournals that was ever so popular at the time. I had a small, but dedicated following, and I am just silly enough to think that it might be entertaining for myself and others to keep one again. While I think that people who find themselves interesting are usually quite a bore, I am fairly certain that I am interesting- contrasting myself from the people who think they are and my mundane ramblings can be interesting to everyone else as well. At the very least, it will feed the never satiated craving for personal knowledge about others which causes me to be an unabashed snoop and encourager of everyone's nosiness. So snoop away! I might even add lies here and there to present myself as being more colorful than I actually am. So that's it for a first post, I will conclude with words not my own, but words which I have chosen to live by...

"The price of being oneself is so high and involves so much ruthlessness toward others (or what looks like ruthlessness in our duty-bound culture) that very few people can afford it."

        -May Sarton