huge bitch bluh bluh

I've been stewing on this for some time now, and I think it's time I just lay it out there and deal with the repercussions:

As far as mid-century film stars go, I find Sophia Loren thoroughly unappealing. I get sort of annoyed when she crops up on my Tumblr feed looking simultaneously pissy and seductive (ha ha I am posting on Blogger about Tumblr why am I even doing that), even though, whatever dudes! Who cares if I find this one lady kind of crudely over-sensual? If it gets to be too much, there's always Catherine Deneuve, who is a bona fide stunner and almost as well-represented.


THIS IS STUPID

Edit: Dammit, I just found a post where Sophia looks almost pleasant and is wearing a killer dress/bathing costume/thing, and maybe I just needed to make this post to come around on her instead of needlessly directing all kinds of aggression at her "vulpine, almost Satanic" handsomeness.

Holy shit that garment is so rad.

AESTHETIC VALUES ARE STUPID

there were so many leaves floating up and above that i forgot something happened

Remember, approximately one lifetime ago, when I swore up and down I was working on a shirtdress reconstruction project? I finally finished that fucker. I finished it right up, and here's the proof:
I'm pretty stoked with how it turned out. You might say, "Hey, that looks substantially different from the original sketch you posted!" and I might reply, "Hey, shut up razzledick." I would be more likely to make that reply if you resembled or were in possession of a razzle [+/-dazzle] dick.

Anyway, I did this shirt recon first because I was afraid of ruining the shirt with the plaid I liked better. Now that I have a higher degree of confidence in my reconstructive sewing skills - aided in part by my acquisition of a dressform adjustable to my measurements - AND spring is warming things up... I might sew another one!!! (And also hem up the estimated 28 skirts I've been promising myself I'd hem for the past 5 months.) Tonight I also altered a shirt to fit my friend Steve properly, but that is a surprise, so no one tell him before band practice tomorrow. Okay?

In conclusion: feels good man.

you're bad news

My 97 year old "Bubbe" goofing with us, originally uploaded by ashapiro515.

It's probably not a good thing that I have to fight the urge to flip off one of my coworkers every time I am within a few feet of them, or vice versa.

you could be a star - it ain't hard

You guys, what is with "everything" bagels? I was just eating one on my lunchbreak*, and realized that nothing about their name indicates what is actually involved in their flavoring. They could be flavored like everything you hate about Wisconsin! Or everything going bad in the back of the Crazy Mocha refrigerator. It's a risky option, is all I'm saying. I would never order one if I was in America for the first time, speaking English with a thick Estonian accent.

Anyway, times! Here is a bit of weird fate-style hooliganry: this weeekend people complimented my singing voice in a pretty sincere fashion, enough to increase my confidence in it and start believing that it is maybe something other people would like to hear sometimes! And then today one of my Patrick friends asked if I wanted to sing for/with his band which I already like a lot. And which also contains other good friends of mine. This is exciting, except that this move actually decreases the band's dedicated fanbase by 50%. Whoops.

Pretty soon I can start practicing striking this pose:

Maybe I should get some wrist bands.

*Other things I did on my lunch break: crocheted more of a green beret; listened to Sonic Youth. It was the kind of lunchbreak EVERYONE WANTS but ONLY I GET TO HAVE SUCKAAAHS!

INTERNET CONNECTION

1) The title of this tumblr... blog... whatsit expresses my general feeling about work and/or most of my life a lot of the time!

2) via the above:

Ohhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

aaaand, that's why I can't go for that.

1) I really need to upload photos from my canoeing trip with Vaughn and my dad to the Clarion River.

2) FINALLY eligible for full-time, permanent, salaried, full-health-benefits, government employment with 40 hours a week and 14 paid holidays per year. But I won't be on the payroll until mid-September because of OFFICE STUFF and I won't get my first salary paycheck until October because I HAVEN'T WAITED LONG ENOUGH. Why they didn't start this process earlier, I have no fucking idea. Right now, though, I just want to know what kind of pay they are going to offer. I've been assured I'll make more than my current hourly rate, but I am not looking at this too optimistically, because one of my coworkers confided in me that when the union (which everyone is basically obliged to join) re-negotiated the contracts this year, the result worked out to a $.02 cent (per hour) raise for her. Shit.

visual cue

I made this for Brock the other day, as an explanatory assistant for my feelings on the organic/local/conventional/green/yuppie/hippie/trustafarian/blagblag issue as relates to fresh produce.
Frankly, I still want to tweak it into oblivion and add a million nodes of interim decisions, but this is the gist:



Extremely poor resolution thanks to my extremely old work computer operating system. Also, it appears in this relatively simplistic, streamlined presentation precisely because I made it at work and could not tinker with unlimited care. Look for the expanded version... sometime. Actually, what's more likely is that I will dig through my gmail archives and find other diagrams, charts, illustrations, or pastiches I have produced in a chat-inspired mania, and post those instead. Perhaps it will be a regular feature. Perhaps!

ETA [8/11/09, 7:35pm]: Updated (though not much expanded) version, after all. I started with adding an extra notch on the hierarchy of preference... and overhauled all the fonts. I can't resist the temptation to muck around with font styling. For historical purposes, original here.

what do you mean by barging in here and telling me your idea?

I found this incredible t-shirt for old salty ladies that reads "Not At Your Age" (at The Old Ladies Rebellion, via A Dress a Day). Jealous that I couldn't meaningfully wear it myself with the same punch, I began a Google hunt for other ridiculous platitudes, and began to ruminate on an ugly truth about myself:
I have considered for some time now that I may be a platitude fiend. Faced with a situation that cannot be dissected and adequately evaluated in a short time, I resort to a handful of substanceless rote sentences. Some of these are more illustrious than others, including those Patrick A. and myself perpetuate:
- "Time will tell!"

- "Who can say?"

- "Fate goes ever as she shall!"
and one I am becoming fond of, as used by a coworker: "It is what it is." See also: "Who knows, man. Who knows."

I just checked out the Wikipedia page on "platitudes," though, and noticed a linked article on "thought-terminating cliches," which I scanned with a dawning sense of hideous recognition. THIS is what I do. Perhaps not as strong as actively quashing disagreement, or supporting blatant fallacy, but I certainly derail in-depth examination (or perseveration) on topics by means of these convenient bits of nonsense.
In my defense, most of the time I drop these suckers into conversation, I feel a sense of defeat and shame that I couldn't muster up anything more meaninful to offer. But, I think we all do this to some extent. Eventually, you reach the point of exhaustion for analysis of a given topic, at least within the confines of polite conversation. For office conversations, this point is approximately 30 seconds after the topic is begun, in the case of certain coworkers. But you need to summarize the situation somehow, and that's where a thought-terminating (and conversation-ending!) cliche is most handy.
I suppose I'll give myself permission to continue hobbling on this crutch, at least until I attain the psychosocial skills of a charismatic genius. Then I shall say only dazzling specimens of wit, and do away with this "who can say" silliness. I can say, bitches!

it's not exactly a revelation that i am a huge and desperate loser.

I should probably update about the beach and other fun activities. But.

I just watched the full trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and admittedly, I got kind of excited.

I haven't been much of an HP fan for a few years now - basically since book 6 itself came out. Context must be given to realize where I'm coming from: I used to be head over heels for this shit. Circa 2005, I had countless discussions with my then-roommate S. regarding the likelihood that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were lovers before Sirius was imprisoned, or whether or not from a cold-hard-facts perspective, every relationship Harry Potter might have as an adult would be predicated on bizarre perceptions of the world [raised in a closet, self-esteem issues from horrible family members, made to be the savior of the world, manipulated by grandfatherly bastard head of school, etc.] and therefore doomed to fail. Countless discussions. I also read fanfic. I will not disclose how much.

Anyway, I really fell off the wagon after book 6, because the writing seemed to tank - particularly where teenage romance was concerned - and because I didn't like how determined J.K. Rowling was to pair off all her characters in the most heteronormative fashion possible. Book 7 brought me back home for a visit, but I was basically out of the fold (and that epilogue was just a bad aftertaste). BUT.

I am excited for this movie, because of the following things:

- Jim Broadbent (even though I think he's not the best fit for Slughorn)
- Harry v. Draco (is the Room of Requirement scene cut? that'd stick in my craw.)
- Tom Riddle background scenes look really chilling
- I want to revel in Dumbledore's manipulative bastardom, even while it is meant to be perceived as kindly and wise direction

The main problem is that I am afraid to see this movie with Brock, because he will sneer and jeer at me when my latent fandom eagerness boils up in squeals. Ideally, I would love to see this movie with S., but Brooklyn and Pittsburgh are farther apart than my funds can bridge right now. ALAS.

Perhaps I can convince Anjani to see it with me.

you've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life

My memory is so treacherous that moments like this are bewildering and magical. Most of my high school experience is fogged so well that all I can tell you is I was a lame and dorkish small person, with a burning desire to set myself apart from unintellectual conformist cool people. Examples of this are difficult to fish from the miscellany of half-memories I retain, although:

1) Several of my closest friends at the time owned server space accessible via "anticonformity.com," and my personal part of this had a lot to do with tributes to anime characters and elaborate sketches that Lena, Andy and I would distract ourselves with during Geometry,

and

2) This image.


I just stumbled across this somewhere in a dark corner of the internet (you don't say) and was struck with a peculiar sense of familiarity. I am almost positive I found this image, or one of its spiritual brethren, somewhere on the world wide intertubes as it existed circa 1999, and took pains - not to print it out! - but to create my own, personalized version. Possibly featuring Heero Yui from Gundam Wing, although I am less sure of this point. I know I didn't keep this blowjob on it, though.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that I never took pains to fill in any names on the list, because I had no enemies other than the all-consuming teenage angst that evidently drove me to the extremes of amateur graphic design in MS Pub.

I am an island of such great complexity.

fixin' to relocate.

Seriously, it is about time I cut the ties with livejournal. I never feel inspired to update over there, possibly because of the general stigma about lj and its users.

But: new job. New sense of purpose, that purpose being to update with semi-inane facts about my life and musings. And I sure as hell am not going to paste any of it on livejournal anymore. Plus, my old "bmente" handle feels outdated; it's a relic from high school days, and I don't even keep in touch with the erstwhile friend who gave me the nickname.

"What's a meormeromeor though? I mean what is that."

Who can say? Time will tell.