meat cushion

As if anyone bothered to read this blog (I know some people do, thanks for your imput, sorry) much less read my Myspace blog, they might be a little concerned that I've been duplicating entries for the both of them lately. But if you read both you'll know that I've: A) been ill recently and B) gone back to the second-oldest profession, babysitting. Both of which cut down on my middle-of-the-day-between-naps blogging time. So you're lucky I have the time to think of one, much less copy-paste it to both.

So, yesterday I babysat. Which is something I do sometimes to support my crack-cocaine-and-snuff-films habit. The kid is two, she is recently potty-trained and pre-verbal, and she's a fucking annoy-o-matic machine that does not require coins to dispense. Aw, shut up, you know I feel all the mushy hormonal feelings for her. Whatever, I like to smell her hair, I feel all swoopy when she hugs me, just in a detached, cynical way. My ovaries never throb when I'm near her because (and this is key) I have to take care of her. And take responsibility for her actions when she's with me and when she's not, because I take a hand in raising her and I want her to be a good person. Or at least better than me.

Additionally, I was seriously hungover when she arrived. Usually when she shows up, I have been awake for about an hour, have spent some quality time with my cat, have gotten dressed and have brushed the applicable parts of my anatomy, have had some coffee and have gone to the can. So yesterday morning, when she arrived, I was hungover, sick and still asleep. So I wake up snorting snot, with my head pounding, naked sprawled on the bed in my room (which NO ONE is allowed to enter, ever, without my permission because right now I live with my folks) to see my mom and the sit-ee standing over me wanting to know where I keep my copy of the Lion King. And I managed not to say a bad word. I said, "I'm getting up right now. I'm finding Lion King as we speak." And I sat up and wound the sheet around me as they left, and I sat on my cat. Who is 11 and not that good-natured. Then I got dressed, and (head still pounding, snot still snorting) staggered from my room with my hair in a tornado and my teeth pretending they had just been unearthed from the ruins of the Titanic, to find the Lion King. And get a cup of fucking coffee. And take a shit. Which I did not ever manage to do in the 7 hours she was there. Other things I didn't manage to do which would have been advisable after drinking 2 24-oz beers and several shots: drink a gallon of water; eat food; go to rehab. We watched Brother Bear 4 times and Babe once. I cried every time Kenai chose to (spoiler alert!) remain a bear and when the Boss said, "That'll do, pig, that'll do" and when the piglets were nursing and their mom got taken away, and when the sheep told Rex the password. I cried every time the music swelled meaningfully or a significant look was passed in the commmercials we watched while Brother Bear was rewinding. I was a horrible babysitter for once, and we barely went to the park for only an hour, and I sweated pure alcohol the whole time. Then, instead of playing in the yard with the ball or the sprinkler or the bubble machine, or going to the miniature donkey and goats farm or the library or the indoor mini-golf-course-and-soda-fountain, we watched Brother Bear one more time while I slept fitfully on the couch. With the screendoor locked. The only alternative was to chase her out into the street.

Although I must say, she went to the bathroom twice all by herself without prompting, and she ate without my help, beyond actually preparing the food, and she was very chill about my need to lie down no matter what activity we were attempting. She did only a very short stint of jumping-up-and-down-while-screaming, and she was respectful of my boundaries after I farted on her for sitting on me and put her in a 5 minute time out for yelling in my face. Possibly the fact that I kind of fainted after putting her in time out helped.

So, today was better. Exept I'm getting drunk again, but there is no chance I'll have to babysit tomorrow, only a pretty certain chance I'll be working with power tools all day. Yessss!

Watch out...

Here's a creepy poem/prose item I found packed away with some art supplies from the last time I moved (a year and a half or so ago):

Momma always said, "It's no extra trouble" to indicate that you should stay for whatever was happening when you dropped by, or "Since I've already gone to the trouble..." when things didn't turn out as planned but one might as well take advantage of the preparations.

As though things inherently hold a particular amount of trouble, which begets a finite amount of benefit, which must be used up.

But make no mistake, I will put you to extra trouble, from which you'll find no way of making the best of things.

The way of your voice, and the way of my listening to it, set off loud and insistent songs of words in my head to which you'll never listen.

No amount of trouble will translate my intentions, my thoughts, my understanding to your crowded brain. Oh, but there will be trouble.

I've crawled through snakes and stones to find you, but you are not the snakes, or the stones, nor are you at their center.

You are no nearer, though I can still hear your voice through the clanging response of my mind, of my heart, of my body.

Here I sit. Snake, stone, me, snake, stone, wondering if it was you I craved, or the answering echo of my incommunicable thoughts that sounds every time you open your mouth.

Perhaps I never even wanted you, but since I've gone to the trouble already...it's no extra trouble to plague you, anyway.

I'm sick

No, not like that, I mean I'm physically ill. Okay, you're right, I'm sick in the head also. But that's not what this post is about. Since about Sunday I've been sort of run down and sniffly and my throat is a little swollen and tender. It doesn't hurt to swallow, at least not yet. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I think it's not serious like strep or anything. The shittiest part is that when I get up in the morning, I feel just bad enough to lay in bed all day, but no worse. Not bad enough to sleep all day, not bad enough to baby myself and demand to be waited upon, not bad enough to guzzle sprite and sherbet and nyquil. Then I take a theraflu and I feel good enough to be up, but no better. Not good enough to work or have fun or interact with anyone not sick. Just good enough to sit on the couch all day and drink warm things and lots of water. I can't fucking stand it. Although I've been reading a lot and I'm within 6 inches of finishing my Shapely Tank. Yayyyy! I nearly cried with relief when I got to the underarm bindoffs. I'm not having a hard time with the pattern like lots of people on the Shapely-along, I'm just fucking tired of this damn shirt. I should have taken it with me on my many vacations this summer and it would be done by now. I could have been wearing it all this time! Dammit. But, I'm really excited about finishing it and hitting Knitty's Techniques with Theresa to use her instructions on mattress stitch finishing. I know, it's pathetic to be excited about sewing something up. And that's really the part I'm excited about, I mean, I'm excited about wearing it and putting up pictures of it done and everything, but mostly I can't wait to do the mattress stitch perfectly and watch the seams vanish and...oh, hell. If you are a dork like me, you already understand, and if you aren't you never will. Anyway, that's my post for today. Sorry I've been so lax in posting, I swear I'll do better. Kisses!

I drove into Houston tonite to see Ozzmodiar and they rocked. They played at the Rythm Room on Washington Ave. and you should have been there. Really, you should have. There weren't near enough people. I really enjoyed the show and, despite the self-critiques each member gave themselves afterwards, they really did do well. Plus, as the 'groupie' who had travelled the farthest to see them play, I got to operate the video camera.

Hey, speaking of me driving an hour and a half to see them, what happened to the Houstonian friends I called to meet me there? You guys suck! (Does not apply to the members of the myspace group I messaged last night...just the personal friends I called and told the address, phone number and website of the club, and Ozzmodiar's website to download music from, plus leaving my number in case they needed a ride.)

Anyway, I had to go because I've never seen them in Houston, plus yesterday was the birthday of my favorite member, who has been my best friend for these past many years. She needed cookies and a hand-made birthday card. She just did. I also bought her a beer, but right after that I ran out of money and she bought me a beer, so that didn't work so well. Anyway, it was a great night, there was no traffic and the directions I printed out from Rhythm Room's website were perfect. I even managed to reverse them successfully. Yayy! I had a great night.

Here's a photo from my floor building session I forgot to include last time. Sometimes hours of manual labor in a small, airless room can make you feel funny.

I worked on the floor again yesterday. I found out when I got home that someone gave mom 5 boxes of Pergo floating floor, so I get to sand the bathroom floor and put that down. So there will be more pictures, of course. And lots of beer. I was going to work on it today, but mom wanted to go waste the whole day at the mall picking out a new flatscreen, $250, 27" tv. I guess putting roofies in her food is working.

I fixed the gaps around the pipes with expandable foam insulation, which is a lot of fun. If you don't belive me, ask Rob Cockerham. I didn't have enough left to make anything much, but I formed it into a sort of an egg shape and saved it for when inspiration strikes. Oh, yeah, and I got it all over me, because that is what I do. I think I look a little like a zombie in this picture:

I'm back

I was away being kidnapped for my own good in Austin for two really unexpected weeks. (Who really expects to be kidnapped, tho?) Anyway, I was having too much fun to blog. Plus I was using someone else's computer and that creeps me out. Because I'm neurotic. It's a whole different computer, man. Ick. Anyway, here I am back and you've got to read this recent article by Paul Ford. More later. I've been working on the floor, so, more exciting pictures of...the floor.

I'm prob'ly gonna die...

Oh, my, God!




When I moved home over a year ago now, I was presented with the front three rooms in my parents' house:  a bedroom, an extraneous "Living area" and an extra bathroom.  The house has a living room/dining room combo, a kitchen, bathroom, back hall, laundry room and two bedrooms besides.  They rent.  The town has 10,000 people at a generous estimate.  The folks think they're getting robbed for rent, and I bet you pay more in car insurance.  Small towns. 
 
Anyway, about me dying.  When I first moved in, my mom explained that the toilet in 'my' bathroom was non-functional because of the amusing tendancy old houses have of shifting and letting the toilet leak, which rots the wood floor under the toilet, which allows the toilet to lean alarmingly when you sit it, which allows it to leak more, which will most likely end in the non-amusing tableau of you, drunk off your ass, sitting under your house with a toilet in your lap.  Didn't happen to me, but could have if I hadn't been so vigilant.  (In this case vigilance consists of piling millions of lightweight but bulky items on the toilet in an effort to conceal it from my drunk self...it worked.)  Anyway, mom kept putting it in upbeat terms, letting me know that the two of us could easily replace the 3 foot square of wood flooring in question and have the toilet reseated and make it functional again.  And I'm a reasonable girl, I've built things before, so I thought, what the hell?  We could do it. 
But we didn't.  And we didn't and didn't and didn't.  It started to have the feel of one of those fairy tale quests, something you've always meant to do, but haven't.  Then I got a babysitting job for tomorrow, and I haven't drank or smoked or (here's the really important part) slept for about a week, and I'm wanting to go to Austin with my babysitting money, and mom kept saying, "Maybe we'll do it this weekend."  So I did it today.  That's right, I replaced floor.  It took me all damn day (since I apparently don't sleep anymore, I got up at 9am because I was bored.)--about 12 hours, minus however long it took me to go to the library and the hardware store and the grocery store (I got beer, because, dammit, people who replace floors get beer) and the lumber yard and the hardware store and the lumber yard.  I took multiple breaks to keep from plunging the cordless screwdriver into my pumping heart, and I took an hour break to read a few chapters of Eats, Shoots and Leaves (I'm still laughing--read this book, you'll love it) and eat dinner, and I'm done.  Okay, tomorrow sometime I have to snug up the boards and screw them to the floor joists (shut up), but I tore an enormous hole in the floor of my house at approximately 10am today and it is now completely covered up.  I rock.  Pictures are eminent, as soon as I stop weeping...I pulled every muscle I own.  Apparently there is a difference between "working" and "not working" and now I know what it is.

If you love God...

do NOT go visit The Brick Testament and especially not the naughty bits. (They've got an "N" for nudity or "S" for sex marker) The site is apparently staged and shot by this athiest who would like to destroy the faith of all true Christians by simply showing them what the Bible actually says. Check it out. Who knew that Legoman sex could be soooooo hot? Okay, yeah, me. Sorry.

My CafePress store is back up and running...

Here, so run go look at my weird designs. Or somthing. Yayyy! I took it down a while back because I hated all the designs and I wasn't making any money, and I'd foolishly started paying for a premium site after my first (and only) sale. And I thought I deleted all the designs and I was too lazy to make more or re-make those, so I wasn't hurrying to put it back up. Good thing they kept sending me e-mails about their new items, or I'd never have logged in on a whim and seen all my stuff still sitting there...anyway, it'll get more interesting when I get around to going down to the library to use the scanner and put some of my actual hand-drawn stuff in, rather than just crap I made on some imaging software...also, ignore my horrible banner at the top for now...I haven't figured out Ability Draw yet. Enjoy! P.S. once you've had your fill of my stuff, wander around. There's a lot of dreck, but I've found some seriously cute stuff on there I've sworn to buy if I ever sell anything...

Martha Stewart is my bitch.

That's right, it's a Martha Stewart prison joke. Months and months too late, and in poor taste as well. Take it, bitch, take it all. You know you love it.

Phhhhhhtt. Sorry. Anyway, the reason Martha's my bitch is this:
   
   
   

So basically, I rock. I'm a domestic goddess and no one can resist my insanely good cooking. Oh, yeah, Martha? Here's two upside-down cakes I've made recently:
   

Old-fashioned, even, with poundcake cake from scratch and made in a skillet my great-great-grandma brought from Illinois in a covered wagon. And fresh pineapple, cherries, and peaches. Okay, okay, the fruit was canned. But the rest of it is true! So, Martha, what you got?

Go like this: Weeeeee!

Weeeeee!

Rarrrrrrrrggghhhggghhh!

        
I knitted a yeti finger puppet, that's right, and I'll do it again if I have to! Don't make me do it! Don't make me! Why are you prejudiced against yeti?
Yes, as you can tell, I'm fooling around and goofing off and not knitting anything I said I would. I'm knitting finger puppets and swatches of new patterns, and weird stuffed cats, basically just being a dork. I promise I'm going to finish the tank this week, though and cast on either Bella's thing or Jessica's...so, pictures soon of authorized projects, or else no ice cream for a week!

Knitting Rock-Along news

My tiny candy pink knit jolly roger is up! It's the last picture at the bottom of the page, the link is over there in the sidebar under knitting, under "knit-alongs." The page explains exactly what a rock-along is and there are super cool pictures of what everyone else did. I'm going to get going on the project for my niece Bella soon so that can go up, as well. I can't tell exactly what it is, cause it's a secret, but it includes a rock-along design, a pocket, and an ultra special secret-secret component too secret to name here. Also, the new Knitty is out! Yayyy! And you will want to see it, because everyone has rocked and rolled and produced the sexiest designs they can stand, including the designer from White Lies Design, and remember, Knitty designs are free! I can't wait to point Jess here so she can pick out the pattern for her super secret surprise bikini or halter top, 'cause I think there'll be one there she'll like.

And now, totally negating my rock-along wannabe coolness, shots of my latest project, the dread knitted kitty from Woolworks:

Don't worry, I'm heading right over to Knitty and making myself a corset or something.

Irony.

I don't have any knitting stuff to talk about because I've been too busy reading about knitting online to actually do any knitting. Well, I finished knitting the body of that kitty I was talking about, despite the fact that the instructions just sort of peter out around the nose and the rest of it is vaguer than my resume cover letter. I just cast on the tail and am about 1/3 of the way down it...I'd show you pictures but the computer and camera aren't speaking. I've moved the cable to different ports, I've done every troubleshoot in the little book it came with...yesterday the computer just arbitrarily decided that the camera is "D drive" and the cd is now "E drive." Although that might have been my fault, I was mucking around with the booklet and it said to try switching the cam to "mass storage." And sometimes when I take the camera out of the cradle and put it back in, everything works like a charm. But not often and not right now. I'm losing my mind trying to figure it out, but right now I'm too fucking tired to bother about it. Anyway, the Tank is kind of stalled, definite second-sock-syndrome going on, it has taken me 4 days to get most of the way through the "knit 14 rows even" at the waist. I can't remember whether I posted the last pics here or the Shapely Blog, but I've progressed about an inch since then. It's really hot and sweaty. I mowed most of the back yard and baked a cake this weekend. More on the cake when I can actually get to my pictures. I made banana pudding, which I would never voluntarily waste my time on, but which my mom loves. The cat wants me to go to bed, and I think I will...good night, good night...

Mr. Yuck advises you not to read ahead...

Remember Mr. Yuck? He would come to your school and give you lots of acid green stickers with a yucchy face on them for mom to put on all the toxic substances in the house, to help you remember not to drink them. This is kind of like that, only in blog form.
See, what happened is, about three weeks ago I was at my friend Jessica's house, and I had been at my grandma's house for a couple weeks before that, and I started spotting. I spotted for about a week, including the last few days I was at grandma's, and the whole 6 days I was at Jessica's. Then I had a regular (for me) 4 day period. Which led me to belive I was starting menopause (at 27, no less, it has happened to my kin before) and I should immediately have my uterus removed. Then I forgot about it. Figured it was a normal deviation and nothing would come of it. I mean, I've had irregular periods nearly every month since I was 11.
Then, three days ago, I started spotting again. And I'm still spotting. I'm talking incredibly heavy flow for oh, 2 minutes. With cramping. Then nothing for 6 hours. And repeat. For 7 days. Plus a regular/heavy 4 day normal period. So e-mail me now with your donation pledge to the "Remove Kellye's Uterus" fund, because I'm not putting up with this shit too much longer.

Remember when you used to be a teenager...

and you used to lie around on your bed, playing with fire and listening to heavy metal and thinking about suicide and Christian Slater (not necessarily in that order)? Remember those poems you used to write, that you kept in that notebook with all the really deep drawings and drafts of fan letters? No? Must just be me. Anyway, regain your (my) youth at the Bad Poetry Generator. It combines horrible, angst-ridden poetry with another obsession of my teen-hood, Mad-Libs. Here's mine:

Desperate Rain

I feel so desperate and angry sometimes,

sometimes i want to rasp my heart and die,

the rain is so sorry-ass and sad,

the clouds sound like Kali.

I feel so desperate and angry,

nobody understands my redemptive, gloomy pain,

I want to ride and chase in the rain

the rain reminds me of feeling angry, the clouds mock my regret,

sometimes i want to rasp my heart and die,

underneath the sorry-ass, lowering sky

believe it or not, I actually discarded the first one and chose new words after I understood how the script was going to use my choices...how lame...I'm a Mad Libs nerd! P.S. The site is run by a girl named Laura who seems pretty cool...visit her sidebar and at least try out her other "mewlibs" and visit her store...and click on "advice" under "fun" and get some advice. You need it. I know you do. I did.

No post today...

because I don't feel like it. I know that's dumb, posting about how I'm not going to post, but I feel like I'm here at the computer, I can't just ignore the blog, but I really don't feel like writing anything. Tho, I apparently do because I am.
I finished the front to the Shapely Tank and cast on the back, I'm about to the second complete wrap row and I'm having serious 'second sock syndrome' because my hands are tired and I already did this once. I guess at least this time I don't have to do the bust short rows. Unless I get any fatter. And you know I'm already planning the next one, so I don't know why I'd balk at the back of the first one. I'm such a dork. Anyway, I might also cast on for this cute little knitted cat I found on Wool Works. There's no picture, so beyond the basic idea I get from reading the pattern, I have to knit it to know what it looks like. I have some cute cotton yarn in a sort of peachy-to-ivory variegated that might make a cute little tabby. We'll see. And I want to start the front of Noah's sweater, but I don't have a single pair of 6 needles, which is what I need for the ribbing at the bottom. I can probably do it with 5's or 7's, but I kinda want to do it exactly right. Oh, screw it. I'll just cast it on and it'll eventually get knitted. I guess the headline is kinda redundant now. Whatever. There's a good funny post about sex, about three posts down on my other blog (the myspace logo in the sidebar) and you should check out Mighty Girl (also in the sidebar under People/Blogs) because she's awesome. Okay, I'm done not posting. Good night!

I'm in love with a man named John...

I e-mailed Blogger Help last night around 3:30 am about my problem, carefully explianing that I did it mucking around in the template tag and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. Then I went to bed, hoping against hope that when I woke up it would be magically fixed by some manner of magic. And it was! I had a polite and helpful e-mail awaiting me from a person named John, who not only explained what I had done wrong, but had fixed it for me. I love Blogger and I love John! That's right, his name is John, not Tom.

Distraction tactic

I've got some kind of weird error in my template that's causing each post's font to be half the size of the font in the previous post, so that by the bottom of the page a 500 word rant appears as a single, fine line under the headline. And I can't find it. And it's driving me insaaaaaaane. So I'm going to write about something else until the pounding, pulsing pain in my brain goes away.
One good thing is, it hasn't been raining much today. I saw on the Weather Channel that we had 7.5 inches. This week. Please send water wings and Pina Coladas.
And I took some pictures of me I kinda like. I mean, I look like what I look like in real life, instead of what I look like in my head, so obviously they're totally unsatisfactory, but aside from that and from my camera never, ever, ever taking a focused picture, and from my need to overcompensate for the fact that I couldn't take a squared picture to save my life by making everything cockeyed, they're great.
I hate when my fingers go off the home keys, because I'm totally lost for about 20 keystrokes, just type, backspace, type type backspace trying to figure out what's wrong, and I can't just look down and see what's wrong because if I do my high school typing teacher will leap out of the shadows and disembowel me. And then usually my poor fingers get so disoriented I hit insert instead of backspace, and then I'm really fucked. At that point I know something is really wrong, cause I'm hitting the whole wrong group of buttons at that point, so I snatch a quick look at the keyboard (while clutching a kitchen knife) and stick my hands back on the right keys, and when I start typing again insert is turned off, so when I look at the screen at the end of a paragraph, the place where I jumped back to edit looks insane. Yeah.
Our cat Kelvy had a feral mom and has lived at our house since he was born. When he was about a year old, someone in the neighborhood hurt him really badly so that he can't use one of his front legs, it's broken at the shoulder joint and hangs limp. Or, I should say he can't walk on it. He can move it and he uses it like a hand. It's creepy. Anyway, we kept him in the house for about 8 months after he got hurt, helping him get well, and when he was as healed up as he was going to get, we had him fixed before we started letting him go outside again. But by that time he was two years old, and it didn't change his behavior much. Right now there's two slutty cats in heat circling the house yowling for him to come out and service them. I kind of like the idea of him being the safe-sex gigilo of the neighborhood.
Okay, I feel better now. I'll go do one more hour of troubleshooting before I go to bed, and maybe it'll be fixed before anyone reads this.

this is what it sounds like when doves cry

I'm hungover. I love it when I'm still hurting more than 24 hours after I started drinking. It reminds me of when I was young and stupid...you know, last week.
Yeah, so I had a big date with 11 Lone Stars last night (as Jessica would say) and they convinced me to take a nice little driving tour of the county between 3 and 5 AM. I didn't do anything wrong or get arrested, or kill anyone, or drive in a ditch, and I remember being content except for wishing I had more beer and a few ciggies...and a date, but whatever. You go trolling for sexual healing around here after the bars close you're likely to end up living in a trailer and appearing on Jerry Springer before your next birthday.
So I got home safe, went to bed, and got up at noon today to help mom with all the ladder work in the kitchen. Did you know that if you, while hungover, climb to the top of a ladder, look straight up for a while with your arms over your head, then look back over your shoulder, you will swoon immediately? Now you know.

I'm closing in on the Shapely Tank.

This isn't it, tho. It's my cat:
I put pictures up at the tank-along, the lovely pink button under knit-alongs in the links on the sidebar. Very soon I'm going to have linked myself out of a place to blog at. Oh well. I'm not going to duplicate the pictures here for the simple reason that I MUST POST PICTURES OF MY CAT! It's a rule, I found out. You can't be a knitter and a blogger and not post pictures of pets. Check it out, click some links from the sidebar. They all have pets, and they all post pictures. So here ya go: Her name is Odista, and she's a badass.

Awesome!

You must go to this website and do whatever they say. If you do, you will be rewarded with old-school lovey arcadeness. Do as I will!
Also, since I'm apparently on a cut-paper jag today, go here to make your own beautiful and unique snowflake. It was kind of hard to get the hang of it, but I figured it out and so can you. And check out the gallery for millions of...unique snowflakes.
In addition, not really on the paper-cutting topic but sort of, here is some good practical advice all of us could use, in an easy-to-understand format.
And finally, totally abandoning the theme, take your dog and hie the unto Dogster, for Pete's sake!
That is all.