Unfurnished Brooklyn

Could 2005 please end already???

Hmm... how'd I do on 2005's resolutions?

1) Volunteer. Yeah right. Unless you count chaperoning school trips, this one didn't work out.

2) Ease up (if not eliminate) sugar. Mmmm... kinda. Added a lot more fruit, and gave up pastries for the most part. Know what? I'm gonna count this as done.

3) Exercise. Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha.

4) Get a bigger apartment. In the same building. I'm lucky to still have this apartment. Seriously: my landlord has refused my rent, and we've been in and out of housing court.

5) Be a better parent. She's still in my custody, so... yeah on this one.

6) Stop being wasteful. This one lasted up until about September. I'm backsliding.

7) Realize that Doofstoyevsky lives to piss me off. This was easy: haven't heard from him in months. He can't get on my nerves if there's no contact, right?

8) Stay in contact with my friends. Again, pretty good with this up until the last two or three months.

9) Forget I ever mentioned this one.

10) Get real about my yarn stash; sell or trade what I'm not going to use. I didn't sell any but I did get to trade some, and I've used only stash yarn all year. I've made a major dent in the stash closet. Yeah!

I'm calling this as 5 out of 10. And I'm going to quit while I'm ahead (and for me, this is ahead) and not make a list this year. Next year I need to focus on my health (which is fine, though I did have a scare recently), and to find a real job so I can get off the temp agency blacklist (surely there is one, and I am on it- that's the only way to explain my temp experience as of late).

Have a great New Year, everyone.

Christmas, Brooklyn Style

Scenes from Dyker Heights.

Soldier in the War On Christmas

I'm over it. I don't know what it is this year, but I could really do without it. Slacked off on the hollerday knitting (everything is nearly done and needs finishing and I probably won't). Did some half-assed last minute shopping for Cheb- which netted a doll that looks just like her but is dressed like a Vegas streetwalker. I bought decent clothes for it and changed it before wrapping.

And by the way- you can all thank me for the transit strike ending. I was going to hold out another day before shopping, but then I figured if the strike didn't end on Thursday I'd have to deal with angry crowds on Friday. So I dug out my running shoes and fired up A Tribe Called Quest in the Walkman and it was 1993 all over again and 3 hours later I was back home (dogs barking, blisters throbbing) and the strike was over. You're welcome.

Each year I say I'm going to forgo the whole hollerday madness only to lose it a few days before and succumb to the holiday spirit (that is, go crazy with the shopping and knitting). This year? nah. Not feeling it. I tried: Cheb and I and our six-year-older neighbor had a dance party in front of the tree in our lobby that blasts xmas music all day long. Still didn't feel a twinkle of holiday cheer. I'll be spending the weekend with family, but they're squabbling already. I'm bringing the hip flask for sure.

Speaking of which- for my favorite xmas song ever click there--> kleek!

Do I sound depressed? Nah. I'm actually in a pretty good mood. Just not feeling the hollerdays, y'all. But that won't stop me baking the gingerbread cookies for me Santa tomorrow.

Are you ready, boots?

Start walking.

Y2K Delay?

Is that what's going on? First Typepad went kerflooey, and I went to reply to one email and ALL my email disappeared (poof!) and it ain't coming back. What's going on, people?

Nothing else to report.

Darksided!

I blame Froggy. And of course, Jenn.

Jenn for the whole Weasley thing, and Froggy for breaking out the big guns and suggesting I read the Harry Potter series to my daughter. That was a low blow: you just had to bring the kid into it, didn't you?? Cheburashka fell asleep while I read The Sorcerer's Stone. That was one week ago. Today I'm starting book six, The Half-Blood Prince.

Almost a book a day, y'all. It's a sickness. And I use to goof on these books, too (though I like the movies). Cheburashka thinks I need to chill: I dragged her to the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza just to get Goblet of Fire and she said, "why don't you leave some Harry Potter books for other people to read?"

Today I promised myself that if I cleaned the entire apartment (which, as you can imagine, I haven't really done in about a week) I could start on the last book. A sickness, I tell ya.

What? What Christmas knitting?

Boop.

Beep beep. Honk. Boop biddly beep-bop.

That's what you get from a 2am post.

Oh, yeah. Weird sleep patterns lately. Sometimes I fall asleep at 6pm. Then I'm up at a strange hour and surfing blogs and wondering if I should clean but that would probably make too much noise so I should just go back to sleep.

Anyway, cooter update: that fibroid? Old. Calcified (mummified?). The doctor doesn't think that's what's causing the pain (which is off and on), seeing as it's on the right and the pain is on the left. So, more tests. There are several possible causes, most ending in itis. So... I've got Irisitis?

Christmas knitting: I'm trying, I really am. But it is really really boring to knit for other people. There. I said it. Boring. Especially when I got the new Interweave Knits in the mail and Knitty puts out this huge issue. Did I cast on for any of those projects? No. But I did make two sleeves of the Bed and Breakfast pullover. And I'm struggling mightily to not start the project on the cover of Interweave, since I have that yarn in my stash.

Okay. I'm sleepy now. G'night.

shinin' on the funk...

It finally occurred to me, why I am the way I am. When I was 10 years old, I listened to this album

over and over and over and over again. Flashlight was my song. I remember being at a school dance, shy and standing against the wall, and this song came on. I came up off that wall and turned it out.

Today I walked into a store and "Bop Gun" was playing. What's weird is that it was in my head as I was walking down the street. (Sometimes I walk around singing "got to get over the hump" over and over.) Unfortunately they weren't playing the whole album. And I can't find my copy (but I think I know who has it. That's okay, because I just stole borrowed her Third World cd, so nyah nyah).

Think about it: a 10 year old girl listening to these lyrics over and again. Made me what I am today.