Snarky in Winter
If she would just stop burning and cutting them and tried to moisturize every once in a while, Snarky would have a fairly pretty set of hands. Given care, they can be delicately expressive with long fingers and long, tapering nail beds. She inherited them from her father's side of the family. Her mother has always grumbled about her own "farmer's hands", but as the rest of her is delicate and expressive (she was a traditional Chinese dancer in college), her hands come across as such too.
Snarky does not treat her hands well at all, though. They want to be long-nailed and idle... the hands of some pampered concubine. But she treats them like meat. On the rare occasion that she gets them "done", they become undone within a week's time. Nail polish barely lasts two days (even the good stuff). Her cuticles would break any aesthetician from sheer mental trauma.
Currently Snarky is struggling with her suddenly long nails. They get caught in her keyboard (upon which her typing sounds like a puppy scrabbling across a hardwood floor). They mess up her ability to dial her cell phone. She has poked herself in the eye countless times. The Mister has been inadvertently scratched in very unsexy ways.
So far, only the cats seem to enjoy these new accessories.
Along with her enlongenating nails, Snarky is trying to re-learn how to handle longer hair. She is also doing what she playfully calls "Winterizing" - a sort of seasonal shortening of her personal grooming habits which allows her to sleep in a bit more, but which also makes winter The Mister's least favorite time of year. Apparently it's OK for him to have hairy legs year 'round, but she must remain pre-pubescent (at least in that one aspect.) She will make an exception for Valentine's Day, though, which brings much rejoicing to ChezSnark.
Snarky really has a problem with the whole body hair issue, actually. She finds it yucky and gross in all practicality (tank tops, swim suits, shorts) but in principle wishes she could just let it all go. So this "Winterizing" thing is sort of her annual foray into protesting the unrealistic expectations set by the beauty industry and society in general. (She's also normally a waxer, not a shaver, so this is a bit of a reprieve from all the ouchiness.)
Strange how laziness promotes old stereotypes (longer head hair and finger nails) whilst stomping like a giant hairy Sasquatch on others.
Snarky was just going to throw out a light, humorous, purple-prose-free post about the miracle of covering things in chocolate (obviously, the good), but she just got a call from the imaging center asking her to come back in for additional views (alarmingly, extremely, horrifically bad).
Based on her mother's occurences of breast cancer (2-3 times, depending on how you look at it), Snarky went in for an early baseline mammogram two days ago. The woman who called was very reassuring about the fact that several women get these "call backs", and that the reasons that are bringing Snarky back in (that have absolutely nothing to do with the glaring C WORD that neither mentioned over the phone) could be overlapped tissue and the fact that the radiologist wants the baseline mammogram to be as accurate as possible.
Still. Snarky can't help feeling the tears crawling up the back of her throat... nor the sense of absolute, blind, shrieking panic just barely restrained by her too-tight, too-cold skin.
Perhaps she should have saved the last chocolate covered Nutter Butter for later.
Snarky's feeling very torn today.
The house inspection was mostly good, with a few somewhat glaring Need-to-Fix-Before-Moving-In issues (leaky faucets, bad wiring).
She and The Mister have been left to marinate in the juices of an extremely thorough inspection report and whatever else that $1000 got them until Thursday evening, when they will meet with their agent to discuss any addendums to their offer.
Since another offer for $20,000 more is waiting in the wings, odds are the sellers will simply back out of the deal and move on to the next fish. Snarky is working hard to be OK with this, even though she's spent the last week mentally placing furniture and having Special Moments in every nook and cranny of this house.
She took over seventy pictures of the place during the inspection, for goodness sakes.
On the upside, her boobies have been deemed perfectly healthy (if maybe just a wee bit lopsided) and she is fairly confident that her lovely "modesty mole"'s (by which she used to determine the level of raciness of various necklines) biopsy will also come back clean.
Snarky was going to extoll the benefits of an anxiety based weight loss plan... but she just succumbed to the siren call of chocolate chip cookies, so apparently that point is not only moot, but revoked.
Chez Snark is evolving. Unfortunately, Snarky has been a bit slack about documenting the evolution. Here are some older pics to bring everyone up to speed:
They didn't have a working shower for almost a week while the subfloor was replaced (and then the looong wait for the Asian Tiger). A week!
The original color scheme for the bathroom: white sink, white toilet, white shower surround, black tub, pale pale blue walls. Bleah. Snarky was oddly fond of the vaguely gothic tub, but the chips and dents had to go.
With the door put back in place, this is the best "after" shot of the tub Snarky could manage. Whitey white white white! The Snarks employed the local Miracle Method franchise and highly recommend them to everyone. One big caveat: prepare to endure at least three days of intense chemical stench.
Another shot of the itty bitty bathroom.
This is supposed to be a memo holder, but has become the Snarks' precarious-yet-cheeky soap holder.
The Mister decided to sponge opaque copper paint over the glowing firelight in the exercise room. The experiment has since been dubbed a bit of a dud, but The Mister had a fabulous mani for about a week.
The Snarks' real estate agent gave them a housewarming gift. Instead of a basket 'o goodies they got a treasure chest!
Guess who snapped it up for her own nefarious purposes?
Also of note: the crazy fuschia/pink ante-room is s-l-o-w-l-y evolving into a half eggplant purple, half light spring green room. The spring green is mostly done (and they even managed to hang artwork after Snarky hulked out and smashed all of the glass in the frame) but the purple will require an astonishing third coat to reach their preferred level of opacity. After that, (and a little more purple-ing of the hallway on the first floor) the Snarks are Taking a Break with the Painting, Already.
Darkity was going to squee all over the "how are you feeling?" thread, but there's some heavy shozbot going down over there and she didn't want to be the inappropriately gleeful one interrupting the flow of commiseration...
So she'll subject her blog to rampant glee instead.
Because the house? Very almost nearly officially ChezSnark! Darkity and The Mister signed away their lives and handed over The Big Check yesterday. The Sellers had already signed their bit up in Canada, so all that stands between The Snarks and Homeownership now is for the paperwork to record (and the check to go through... Darkity still regrets that her bank does not make their checks proportionately sized to the amounts they represent. She wanted to have a picture of the Ginormous Check Handoff complete with Ginormous Publisher's Clearinghouse style Check.), which is scheduled to happen sometime on Friday.
To add to the glee, some good friends visiting from Back East were dragged to the homesite for One Last Look on Saturday, and the house (and grounds) met with enthusiastic approval. These friends have about two more decades of experience with the world than The Snarks. The husband is the Ultimate Mr. Fixit and the wife is a Master Gardener. They both knew The Snarks' last ChezSnark (in all it's cute, quaint, cramped glory) and are famliar with Darkity's Black Thumb of Doom. So to get their nod of encouragement was... extremely encouraging!
Now The Snarks are dealing with nesting instincts on Overdrive. They found a place that consigns ecclectic furniture. They are addicted to Craigslist. They are gonna have a home!
Snarky has to interrupt this regularly scheduled home improvement program to do a little theraputic venting/stream of consciousness whangdoodle:
Givens:
1) Snarky hates moving. HATES it. With a deep, burning, vitriolic passion. She suspects she might be a little OCD about her Stuff being Messed With, even if it is she who is doing the messing.
2) The Mister has been suffering from low-grade depression for as long as Snarky has known him. That would be eight years.
3) The Mister only recently started getting treatment for said depression when it developed into anxiety attacks that affected his work performance and also showed up as heart attack-like symptoms.
4) The Mister had to stop taking his "happy pills" because they gave him a rash.
5) The Mister hates his job. This is probably what pushed his depression into anxiety.
6) The Mister's job is so consuming that he's too busy during the day to do anything "extra-cirricular" and has also had to bring home "homework" that sometimes has him up past midnight (or in one instance, he never came to bed). Therefore, Snarky has been doing all necessary research for the house/move.
7) Snarky really, REALLY hates moving.
8) Snarky wrestles with her own issues of low self-esteem (coupled oddly enough with a raging ego, work that puzzle out) which can create overblown reactions to criticism.
Catalyst:
So today, all those factors came to a head as Snarky tried to secure temporary permits to allow the Snarks to park a fourteen foot moving truck in front of their (essentially, for the purposes of this story) downtown apartment building. It's always the little things that set off the best explosions, no?
This could have just as easily been a week-old stack of unwashed dishes in the kitchen or an odd comment on the appropriateness of a certain pair of pants to a certain type of musical venue. Something trivial and small yet monumental, like dripping water or straws on camels' backs.
Results:
A very terse, very public cellphone conversation in the middle of the engineering department where at points Snarky had to hold the phone away from her ear because The Mister, in his best moods, cannot use an Inside Voice to save his life. As he was at times apoplexic with anger (at Snarky, the world, his employer, again with Snarky, and again with work), fuming with frustration, and exclaming in exasperation, his Outside Voice was just about at Football Stadium Level.
Snarky responded with hushed, angry, trying-to-be-not-"you-statements" speak and had a fun time wrestling her features away from alternating between tears of rage, tears of sadness, tears of fear, and just plain good old fashioned WTF.
Snarky admits she is not blameless in this. She is passive-aggressive, sensitive, and requires much grooming. She's usually pretty much self grooming, but enjoys a fluff every now and again from her paramour. She can be a demanding diva bitch banshee at times, but has been working hard to recognize when those "chocolate and pickles" style impulses present themselves.
This is the rockiest point before it gets smoother. This is the abyss from which, after the dust has settled, they will look back with their arms looped around eachother's waists, and they will say "Whew! That was a close one!" And they will be glad that they had eachother to lean on, rail against, and be pushed through by in order to make it to the Other Side.
They just have to have faith and get there together.
Solution:
Snarky plans on making peace offerings tonight. But for now, she has a job interview for which to prepare, and a slowly rising tide of panic to quell with logic and love.
Given that her attention span is normally comparable to that of a fruit fly on a normal day, Snarky's ability to maintain "workplace workface" today has been a hopelessly lost battle from the get-go.
Not only is her heart and mind still racing through MoveIntoTheHouse scenarios, but their contractor is currently tearing up the subfloor in the main bathroom right now, with no way of being finished until the ordered flooring (Asian Tiger! Rawr!) gets in tomorrow at the earliest.
And tonight is The Great Cat Migration '06. The Snarks' furbabies do not take to their carriers very well. At all. EVER. They could be going to the land of catnip and cheeses and still with the yeowling and bloody murder.
Before TGCM'06 comes The Death Defying Cat Wrangling of Ought Six. Snarky only hopes that they have managed to leave one polypro jacket unpacked in which she can suit up in order to protect her fragile, extremely claw-able hand/arm/chest/neck skin. She has had to have medical attention applied to her body in the past. At the vet's office. Cat Wrangling is that violent, swift, and gory.
Tomorrow is the Official Day of Moving, though the Snarks have been schlepping bits and pieces of their lives over to the house for the last two weeks. Last night Snarky did their first quarterless load of laundry in their very own, new washer and dryer! They also have a shiny new fridge! The Snarks are a bit disconcerted by the new appliance smell coming off of said fridge, but they are confident that a few trips to the Safeway will eliminate the problem.
One more hour left before the bloodletting fun begins. Snarky suspects she will be radio silent after tomorrow morning possibly through Monday. The Cable Guy is supposed to be hooking the Snarks up Saturday morning (between the hours of 10 and 12, of course). Even if all goes well, Snarky might opt for the more alluring prospect of blissful unconsciousness Sunday rather than playing catchup. If Snarky gets too caught up tomorrow, she wishes all of y'all a wonderful weekend in advance.
Snarky developed some psychosomatic quirks during her senior year back in Nerd School. She was falling into a mild depression, feeling the strain of separation from her first serious boyfriend (the relationship was a bit co-dependent), and she was at a complete loss as to where/what she wanted to go/do/be after graduation.
About once a month she would come down with symptoms of a particularly virulent stomach virus that didn't exist. Two days of debilitating gastro-intestinal distress then suddenly nothing, and back to her self-imposed hermit-like existance of skipping meals in the cafeteria in lieu of a pseudo-monastic supper of rye bread and onion soup (She's not sure why she settled on this particular combination, it was probably something she picked up from reading The Name of the Rose and/or the better option compared to flagellation.). Naturally her suitemates didn't take any of this seriously and did their best to harrass her into being more sociable.
The psychosomatic weirdness climaxed with a spectacular presentation of a raging case of hives during final exams. Every where her skin was constantly touched - her bra strap, necklines and waistlines, where her low pony tail rested against the nape of her neck, bloomed with red, itchy welts. She added two Benadryls to her rye bread and onion soup communion every night and had nightmares about physics exams and botany practicals.
Eventually her skin cleared and she graduated (probably in that order) and after that traumatic senior semester, nothing quite so extreme happened to her again.
But she remembers that it's possible. A crouching gremlin hiding in her meat and bones, waiting for the right triggers.
Last week The Mister took two days off of work because of stomach problems. Today, a full week later, he's still not quite back to normal. He comes from a family that doesn't always think to go to the doctor until the problem becomes much worse, so Snarky's attempts at getting him to Get Help have been treated as Chiken Little-style freakouts.
Finally, though, he is thinking about seeing his doctor. Even if this ends up being all in his head (his work is approaching a critical turning point this week) she hopes that seeing the doctor will help him somehow.
In the meantime, her own stomach has been a bit sour and sullen as well. Whether it is in sympathy (the closest to synced menses they'll ever get), or due to exposure to him (if it is an actual bug), or due to a whole new resurgence of her old sub-conscious mind/body craziness (always an underlying possiblity), she's unclear. Perhaps she'll never fully focus on the cause. She just hopes the effects for both The Mister and herself go away soon.
Please forgive Snarky for pointing you in the direction of this article (links to Salon dot com, you'll probably have to click through a day pass to get there).
But. Marble bag?! She had never heard it called that before. Now, "banana hammock" (which really is fun to say out loud) for sure, but "Marble Bag"?
Thus concludes this little bit of summertime fun.
Oops. Wrong show.
Recall the comic/histrionic tableaux competing families assumed at the beginning of that old gameshow mainstay, The Family Feud. If the DarkityFam were to pose thusly, Snarky believes she and her mother would be in the shouldn't-be-funny-but-really-is Mexican standoff mutual strangle-hold position.
Of course Snarky loves DarkityMa. She is cute (her hair grew back with a vengance and is curly of all things!) and cuddly and has a wicked sense of humor. She also can't stay still without cleaning and can hold on to grudges for decades. After some of the stories her parents have told the Snarks this past weekend about DarkityPauPau (DarkityGrandma) Snarky understands where the grudge thing comes from (and is starting to understand her own inability to just. Let. It. Go.)
Still, DarkityMa made Snarky cry. Snarky is considerably quick to tears (just watch her during holiday commercials), but these were bitter, angry, angsty, uncontrollable tears that Snarky hasn't cried since probably shortly after the onset of puberty. How does she do it?
Tonight is the Snarks' last night with the DarkityFam. Right now DarkityMa and Pa are meeting with the Snarks' realtor to discuss the local housing market, and to decide whether they want to move here sooner or later. On the balance Snarky would love for her parents to move closer. But there is the niggling, teenaged part of her that chafes a little at the idea -- it is all for entirely selfish reasons. Both of them are shockingly older than Snarky remembers them, and she wants to be able to take care of them without spending a day flying down to get to them.
Another enlightening revelation from this weekend is the fact that even Snarky's parents feel a sort of disconnect with the Chinese-American communities out there. They all have a healthy appreciation for the food and culture, but don't really care so much for the people... if that makes any sense at all. Snarky has found many of her "racial" contemporaries to be rather materialistic and overly driven to max out the monetary measuring stick. The Darkity'Rents moving to Portland would appease the rest of DarkityMa's clan in the Bay Area enough (hey, they're in the same time zone at least!) and still give them enough cushion from all the daily drama. Not to mention the $$$housing costs$$$.
Along with all these eye-opening conversations have been wonderful retellings of family lore. Snarky's mother and father both come from families that were greatly affected by the Japanese occupation as well as the Cultural Revolution. Both families were at some point split up during their exodus to Hong Kong, and the struggles and horrors they faced have left scars that decorate their combined pasts just as prominently as weddings, births, graduations, and other accomplishments.
Most days Snarky lives her life in the now without any sense of her history or the larger picture. Perhaps it would be good to have the touchstones of her parents closer by so that she can keep all of those lives and stories in mind. She just needs to get thicker skin first.
In the past, the Snarks' luck with garden has been rather spotty. One year all they grew was a ginormous basil patch (about 36 Genovese basil plants purchased from a guy who called himself the Basil King (though he isn't this Basil King - see August 14th entry which kinda distracted me from this post for about half an hour. Why do we no longer have the Black Mountain College?!)) and made pesto all summer long and had enough left over to freeze and enjoy all through winter.
So they are quite pleasantly stunned to find that the mere seven basil plants, five tomato plants (gold nugget, an heirloom plant called "Dancing Bonnie", Early Girl, roma, and cherry tomatoes), and one each of eggplant (Japanese "Black Beauty"), cucumber (some sort of slicin' cuke) and zucchini are not only not dying, but bearing some fruit!
Wee ickle first harvest!
A recent photo of the garden, taken in the early evening.
Due to the dry (whoda thunk it?) weather, we've had to water the garden. Here's the tomato/basil/eggplant patch.
So far we've gotten two zucchini plants out of this monter. One was regular sized, and the other one we didn't get to until after returning from NC. Behold zuke-zilla!...
We've used about 2% of this thing so far.
The Snarks did end up having a good time with the Darkity'rents. Snarky starts her new job tomorrow (!!!) and the immediately after her first five days on the new job, they are flying out to TX to join up with the DarkityFam (including DarkityBro) to go on a five day cruise. (more !!!'s) At some point the Snarks will need a vacation to just sit at home and do absolutely nothing with nobody.
Today the Snarks hit four different Goodwill stores in the area for state plates and other curiosities. She has so much to show y'all (including the cow head they got for the living room!) (Don't worry, no real living bovines were harmed in the making of this particular piece of kitsch.) (Oh, and the Donut Barn! But... that's for another post.)
Until then, she will leave you this. Proof that Snarky comes from a cute short peoples.
Darkity'Rents at Multnomah Falls. Check out DarkityMa's new curly hair!
Exciting, yes, but also New!
The Snarks are heading out to sea for the next week. Snarky hopes to catch y'all on the filp side. Her first week of new work was all sorts of exciting/boring/exciting again. She is really happy about her career change.
Glub glub!
(Either Snarky just lifted the entire title of a book she once read in elementary school... or a surreal p0rno.)
The promised finished heart t-shirt pics, plus bonus t-shirts because this did turn out to be a very addictive hobby:
Unfortunately, Snarky cannot walk and chew gum (AKA craft and make clear documentation), but here's the finished heart!
Detail of the heart. Snarky went back in after taking this picture to clean up the semi-painted spots.
Niece #1 requested a drawing of a "pink unicorn with a white horn standing on green grass". So Snarky bent the rules a bit.
Mane detail.
The grass ended up overpowering the unicorn a bit, but Snarky figures a five-and-a-half year old won't mind. (Hopefully!)
The Mister's one request for Christmas: a shirt that he could wear with (stinky) pride.
Snarky also enjoyed "open studio" last night at work and will have more crafty pictures to post after she gets back from her trip Back East.
The Mister seems to be in a much better place mentally, even though his job situation is even more complicated, though possibly in a good way: he's been tentatively offered some continued part-time work that he might be able to do from home for his current employer, and he just got the results from an online personality test that prompted a company to immediately contact him for an interview. This might end up becoming the major fork in the road for this part of his life that defines how the next several years roll out.
Snarky hopes all of you are enjoying good food and great company. The passing of the Winter Solstice feels like the turning of a very important page for her. She's hoping for the same sense of forward momentum for everyone else who is currently Doing the Unstuck.
The Snarks have been unbelievably sick these past few days. Snarky began showing signs of not-quite-rightedness during the Asheville leg of their North Carolina circuit of Ought Six and has since gone through losing her voice, running a mild fever, eye-watering sinus pressure, and persistent, hacking, non-productive coughs (the worst kind!).
The Mister's symptoms appear to be on almost exactly a 48 hour delay from Snarky's.
The biggest problem, besides having slept for almost three days straight (what New Year's celebrations?), has been the phelgm induced anosmia. Even if the Snarks were to get hungry (which is a rarity given their complete lack of activity as well as their sneaking suspicion that snot has been draining directly into their stomachs this whole time, which, yeah, ) they can't smell anything well enough to taste it.
This is a great and terrible curse for foodies, which is just a less sexually suggestive name for what the Snarks really are, which are hardcore, dyed in the wool sensualists. (Snarky doesn't really know what "dyed in the wool" sensualists are like, but she is enjoying the mental image of drifts of alpaca fleece being soaked in a vat of deeply crimson dye)
What did the Snarks eat this weekend? Two frozen pizzas. With nothing added to them. It just seemed like a waste to add the usual tangy/zesty/cheesy additional toppings they usually do with their "cheat, heat, and eat" meals. Why bother? It was all just so much texture in their mouths, and nothing more.
So sad!
Which reminded Snarky about the last years of Michael Hutchense's life. He was never a role model for Snarky, but she felt a certain affinity with his public image. He was probably the prettiest man at the time to give her funny feelings in her tummy. When she found out about his head-trauma induced anosmia, she couldn't imagine the anguish he must have felt.
Side note: the step-sister-in-law's new boyfriend earned points with Snarky by going into a rather detailed discussion of how he possesses a very particular kind of synasthesia - he smells in colors. She left him an imp of Tombstone to see if it came up as a rusty cream with evergreen edging.
Anyways. The DarkityFam is still scheduled to begin showing up starting tomorrow night. Snarky thinks she'll be almost human enough to host, though the house is an utter and complete shambles (which will give DarkityMa something to keep herself occupied, if nothing else). The Mister will probably be pretty wrecked, but they will manage. Interesting start to the new year, indeed.
There are so-called "young souls" and "old souls" and all the souls in between. Snarky has often surmised that she possesses a "middle aged soul" - old enough to know better (she entered her teenaged years with a deep breath and a "well, here goes nuthin'") but still young enough to make all the same stupid mistakes (oh, it went alright).
Her best friend has a teenaged soul. She is impulsive, headstrong, and unable to take the right path until she has exhausted all the wrong ones. Snarky used to refer to her as her "Drama Friend" (we all have at least one of those, even if we are typically the DF in our relationships), often with a bit of condescending affection/scorn (weird how some friendships are so close to antagonistic symbiosis).
Last night Snarky was on the phone with her friend for over two hours - most of it was spent with DF venting and unloading and Snarky listening.
Two years ago such a conversation would leave Snarky exhausted and resentful. It would make The Mister grouchy for stolen time. And worst of all: nothing would have changed for her friend.
But today, Snarky feels fine. Rested, even. It's not that Snarky has disconnected herself from her friend and doesn't care about what she is going through (in short, two words: "emotional incest" Snarky always learns new terms/concepts from her acquaintances that open her eyes and make her extremely grateful for her own dull and boring existance that does not require the aid of therapy speak in order to be defined) it is that Snarky finally had an a-HA moment a few crises ago and realized that in order to be a good friend, she didn't have to live through the experience with those friends. She could just listen and observe and support.
Small epiphany as far as epiphanies go (surely "brightly colored mushrooms are bad for the eatings" ranks higher) but an important one for Snarky, who used to be an empathetic walking open wound for everyone.
And The Mister was really quite OK with not having a wife for two hours. The Snarks are cultivating an appreciation for the concept of "alone time" and have experienced the added bonus of more enriched "together time" for it.
Best of all, Snarky's best friend has really broken through to some new, exciting territory. Of course right now it's scary and overwhelming, but she's calmer now and is finally, finally able to really work toward something better.
So, Snarky feels compelled to give a small for emotional maturity both for herself and for her friend. Snarky always knew she would finally begin to feel more comfortable in her skin (on the personal, bodily level as well as the larger socio-political sphere) in her thirties and is relieved to see that bit of middle-aged soul prognostication come true.
But she will try very hard not to pull a muscle patting herself on the back about it.
Some of her distractions are also things from which she wanted to be distracted in the first place, though they tend to fall solidly on the "stess" side of the stress/eustress delineation.
Still, she feels better knowing that her days are filled with deadlines and potential outcomes.
Thanks to the forum, she's got Spring Switch Witch, Year-Long Deco books, and a brewing craft-for-smellies swappathon to distract her from the ongoing house saga (a frothy mix of one part stress to one part eustress mixed together with the swizzle stick of sticker shock) and upcoming followup mammogram.
Mister Snark has been wondefully calm and supportive on both all-consuming, thought and time-stealing topics. She's a bit frightened to find that she is losing her memory of a time without him. Her vaunted (and often cursed) independence harumphs and settles down on the sidelines.
She's layered LUSH's Skinny Dip buttercreme with Faustus to give herself a violet-tinged boost of assertiveness. They will get that house. And she will be healthy, whole, uncorrupted.
Darkity never really got in to music. Even as a fledgling hedonist, she has managed to neglect that one of her five or six senses, hearing.
She listened to talk radio when her contemporaries were tuning in to the 80's oblivious bubblegum pop and/or nihilistic (yet also oddly poppy) electronic underbelly. She did manage to catch a bit of that hair metal infection like everybody else, though.
Then she met The Mister, who as an opening salvo to their courtship, compiled six mixed tapes to express his past, present, and possible future. He has been instrumental (har-dee-har-har) in opening up her ears to the world of sound.
Still, even with his admittedly diverse tastes, she finds herself floating passively along in the wake of whatever catches his interest and can't help but feel... a bit lost and sort of back where she started, musically.
Tonight the Snarks are going to see Thomas Dolby perform. Besides his one song she can think of ("Sah-sah-SCIENCE!") she couldn't remember anything else by him. After The Mister's hilarious recreation of "Europa" she's still stumped. They have one album (probably a best of) that she will cram with before heading out tonight.
Later in the month they will also see Sigur Ros (whom they have seen before, to great effect) and The Editors. Darkity suspects that the audiences will get progressively younger at each concert.
The Snarks are now in a city known for its diverse and rather indy music scene. The pace of trends here (in fashion/lifestyle/food as well as music) is breakneck, yet oddly retro. Darkity wonders if she'll ever get the hang of this.
Antimony ruminates on the Lloyd Dobbler/Diane Court dichotomy of soul mating.
Snarky has to admit, should the world of couples fall into the strict either/or of Lloyd or Diane archetypes: she aspires to Dianeness (Dianeity?), but is most likely the Lloyd in her relationship with The Mister.
Sure, Snarky is the rightful egghead of the two. Her nerdiness and geekiness are such to elicit hybrid words like gnerd or possibly nee(k) (an homage to Monty Python, which adds a flavor of Dork to the mix as well).
Heck, she even started making notes in dictionaries (her own copies, of course), she was crushing on Diane that hard.
But her yearning for The Mister, even now almost six years into their marriage, is all Lloyd. She feels she needs to be a better woman to be with him. He makes her want to succeed at things she's barely even dreamed about. He didn't take her across the pond, but they did end up on the other side of the country to follow his career. (OK, and it was separate flights so no hand/breath holding, "waiting for the 'ding'" moment for the Snarks.) (Which seriously? Next to the "holding up the boombox" moment? One of Snarky's favorites.)
Currently The Mister has a slight advantage to Snarky on bread winning. Very slight. The care and feeding of the home fires is done jointly (though the laundry-and-dishes part of the kindling often gets neglected). Snarky has taken the reins of the check book and manages most of the financial matters of the house, though The Mister does his Annual Duty of Using His Accounting Degree Once a Year for Taxes.
All in all, Snarky has to say her relationship with The Mister falls into a more stereotypical, "traditional" one (man provide, woman manage)... with leanings toward scale-like equilibrium rather than yin-yang parity.
She is thinking about taking up kickboxing.
Today Snarky is nekkid! Well, in the ol factory sense anyway.
Snarky's rule of thumb for writing is the good/bad/good sandwich rule she learned to apply to constructive criticism. Start with something good (ex: "Your lettering on this proposed architectural plan is immaculate and evocative of long past youthful, carefree summers.. "), slide in a critique of what you found lacking (ex: ".. unfortunately your design not only is not to code, but evidences a blantant disregard to ADA regulations and to the human body in all its forms and functions, plus it sucks... and is made of poo ... "), and always close with another positive comment to lessen the sting and leave a better taste in everyone's mouth (ex: "... again, those are really pretty 'g's!"). It's an old crutch of hers, but it's served her well and has allowed her to limp far in the world of BPAL oil reviews, friends' fashion choice advising, The Mister's culinary side-step evaluations, and also blog entries.
Unfortunately Snarky didn't make a good sandwich in her last entry, which was nothing but ageist, whiny pantied, somewhat gross yuckiness. For this, she apologizes.
Snarky knows that every person is allowed to feel like total and utter crap, that sometimes indulging in a Bad Mood can help to purge oneself of built up gunk. But laying it all bare and out there with no relief or sign of redemption was irresponsible of her.
That is what LiveJournal is for.
So here's Snarky's after-dinner-mint to ease any indigestion from the last bad-bad-not funny enough sandwich of the last post:
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
-Lyrics by Eric Idle, from "Life of Brian"
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...
(And yes, I know, I'm referencing two different Monty Python movies. The song fit the theme better, and I can't pass up a good "wafer thin" joke pretty much ever. So there you have it. It's worse than mixed metaphors!) (Of which I am unnaturally fond of as well.)
The Snarks are homeowners!
Snarky = ecstatic, The Mister = Already Thinking...
To commemorate this life-changing event, Snarky is tweaking her blog a bit to include documentation of the ongoing process of turning This Old House into their Home.
Snarky is still planning to keep with the third person format. She will most likely still throw in random fits of writerly aspiration. But the focus has shifted enough to warrant a re-chistening of this blog.
The Snarks are really, truly happy to have gotten through this first major hurdle toward housedom. Unfortunately, their new status started out with a Snakes on a Plane shakedown in the form of a break-in to their new house.
Apparently some bored, only mildly motivated hoodlums noticed the "SOLD" sign in front of the house and the fact that the previous owners had recently vacated. They took advantage of the occupancy lull and crowbarred their way into the empty house. After unsuccessfully attempting to wrench the sink disposal out of the kitchen, it appears they left empty handed. They even left the crowbar behind.
The Snarks are feeling a bit shaken by this. They've had car break ins in the past, but their home? Never. After talking with the neighbors, they feel a bit better. They're a (usually) watchful, mindful bunch.
Besides the obvious changes to the game plan (having the sellers purchase a new side door, installing anti-theft systems) they are now thinking that a Whole Hog style move in (rather than a piece-meal, dribs and drabs approach) would make them feel more secure about their few possessions.
What a way to get started! Nevertheless, The Snarks are determined to make crudites out of cruddy human nature and plan to gather fluff and twigs so that they can fuss and fidget until their nest feels Just Right.
The tenative plan for this weekend is to possibly purchase a nearly-new commercial grade elliptical machine for their gym/entertainment area in the basement. Though this fine piece of machinery is an amazing find on the Craigslist Portland site, it still is pricey enough to cause Snarky to reconsider her gym membership. If they can also find a decent set of free weights for cheap, she will hang up her wee courtesy towel for good and Sweat to the Oldies (or the Emos, or whatever else The Mister has going) at Home.
Snarky is also thinking about taking on the somewhat daunting task of refinishing the hardwood floor in the upstairs master bedroom suite. This might be as little as scruffing up the finish with steel wool and adding two coats of poly... or as much as renting a belt sander, floor buffer, and edger and spending two days stripping, scruffing, and recoating.
Either way, she thinks it will greatly improve the feel of the room and it will also be much less than the bamboo overhaul The Mister has been craving.
And with that bit of good/bad/good, this sleepy new homeowner is going to collapse into bed.
Valentina recently asked about favorite romantic movies and Snarky, as is her MO, twisted it all back to the tummy. She suspects this close association between heart and hunger is genetic as her entire family has spent a combined gazillion hours of their most memorable moments either consuming, making, or planning meals.
As per her comment on Valentina's blog, Snarky's all time favorite "it's all about the food" movie is "Tampopo". This is a classic of not only modern Japanese cinema, but of all foodie cinema the world over. It is a collection of short stories concerning various people and their obsessions with food. There's a main story involving a John Wayne-esque ramen-loving trucker (I kid you not) and a struggling noodle shop widow. This was the first movie that opened my eyes to food as love-play (and no, I hadn't seen "9 1/2 Weeks" yet) and sparked my life-long romance with teh ramen noodles .
This just says everything Snarky wants to say about how important food is in her life.
Other movies that come to mind are "Like Water for Chocolate" (Snarky still wants to make some of the recipes in the book), "Babette's Feast", "Big Night", and "Eat Drink Man Woman". She does not count that one with Penelope Cruz ("Woman on Top"?), because it was just. Not. Good. Bleah. So much wasted potential. Maybe it was because the "rival suitor" was the same actor from that meh sitcom "Good Morning Miami", also he played the optomotrist Miranda faked orgasms with on "Sex in the City".
What are your favorite foodie movies?
Today, thanks to Valentina, Snarky smells of Al-Shairan.
The Mister got in touch with a childhood friend just before his and Snarky's wedding with the intention of asking him to our Best Man. They had lost touch during their college years and in that time DeathRockGuy had married DeathRockChick, who was twelve or thirteen years his junior.
The Mister explained that DRG's father was significantly older than his mother (he was sixty when DRG was born), so such an age difference was not shocking.
And over the years, the Snarks and the DeathRockers got to know eachother as couples and became comfortable "couple friends".
The one thing that always caused a bit of unease for the Snarks was the fact that the DRs were almost too well matched. They were of one mind. Always in agreement, and always together. Save for work, they did everything together. They had no hobbies, did not leave the house except to eat out, and were thisclose to developing their own twin language. If ever a living, breathing example of Plato's theory (as Snarky understands it from watching "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" anyway) about soulmates existed, it would be these two.
However over the years, DRC has also exhibited a tendancy to absorb the personality of those she hung out with most: her sister, her co-workers, and of course, her Mister.
After the birth of their baby (DeathRockBaby! Oh, the dark and spooky knitted goods Snarky made for that child...) they seemed to make the perfect (albeit dark) young family. New house, new car, new jobs, new baby.
Then, after DRB was weaned, DRC fell into a severe post-partum depression. She started going out two and three (possibly more) nights a week with work friends, getting so drunk she couldn't recall the evening. Snarky remembers listening with growing horror as DRC proudly announced that she never had to pay for anything but her first drink.
The last time the Snarks visited Back East, DRG confided that things were not going well for them. DRC was leaving him at home with the baby to go to the gym for hours and then to bars, then complaining that he never wanted to do anything with her. His argument was that she suddenly wanted to do things that they never wanted to do together to begin with, and also she needed to give him more advanced notice so that they could arrange for a babysitter.
Y'all can see the trajectory this relationship is taking, but the Snarks were still a bit shocked to find out yesterday that DRG and DRC are now on a trial separation. She has moved out to an apartment and they are taking turns caring for DRB.
Snarky wonders if DRC is trying to re-establish her own personality after her perceived removal from being a mother once DRB was weaned. What the Snarks thought was mature self-possession when they first met DRC might have been what she developed from being around DRG.
It's... upsetting and confusing. This is not the first separation in the Snarks' small circle of acquaintences, but it is the first one that will affect a child.
They are working to be equally supportive of both parties, though it's probably apparent just from this recap that they are more sympathetic to DRG's plight.
And all of this sudden drama and upheaval has Snarky wondering about soul mates and the influence of those with whom we have entrusted our hearts/minds/lives.
Snarky firmly believes with the faith of secular scientific types that there is more than one "soulmate" out there for everyone. She finds more romanticism couched in the actions of the people that finally settle down and commit to make lives with the one(s) they choose rather than in the pining, angsty search for The One. But how much of making small changes to accommodate this whole other person (or persons) in one's life is just making adjustments before it becomes major shifts in one's basic... well "one"ness?
DRC married DRG before she turned 21. While she was mature for her age at the time, perhaps she's feeling now like she hasn't had a chance to figure out some things on her own.
The Snarks hope that this separation will help both of them to see what makes them unique, but also how that uniqueness and their similarities complement and enhance the whole... both for their sake, and for the baby's sake.
What they fear is that she will realize that she wasn't meant to be this woman (wife, mother) all along. If that is the case then permanent separation would be best for the child, but the Snarks still ache for the consequences.
Over time, Snarky has learned to appreciate the value of Name Brand Things - not always (she still just can't get the whole Louis Vuitton thing) but more often than not. When she does purchase things these days, they feel more like investments. (Even if said investments are happening at the Goodwill.)
She would rather have the one good pair of Danskos rather than a closet full of Payless ripoffs.
It came as a bit of a shock to her a few years ago to discover that the straight legged jeans from Eddie Bauer were the best fit for her body (which she lovingly refers to as "the curvy rectangle": slight dip at the waist in a long torso over short, muscular thighs and calves).
Snarky always thought of Eddie Bauer as The Gap for soccer moms. In other words: better than Wal-Mart, but not North Face/Patagonia/whatever the heck posh soccer moms wear.
What came as an even bigger shock is that a sweater she purchased from the EB factory outlet last year (deep red boxy cabled cardigan) provoked a rather interesting response from The Mister. He made a point several times to comment that he really liked the sweater, and liked Snarky wearing it. Sometimes the commentary came in tactile form.
Snarky could not pinpoint exactly what it was about this shapeless sweater that was pushing all the right buttons for The Mister, but she is now determined to figure it out.
Snarky mishears and misremembers lyrics with enough frequency to almost make this flaw an endearing character trait.
"By why would anyone want to play Twister in the sun? And what has that got to do with auto-erotica?" (Not that blisters in the sun make any more sense, really...)
So this morning her brain radio was going "chay-chay-chaaaaaange.... change of fools".
Snarky has been having some slightly disturbing dreams, no doubt because of the mild turmoil swirling around her lately.
A few nights ago it was another one of those school dreams - the ones where you either have missed half of the semester, or campus has reconfigured itself overnight, or the paper is due this afternoon and you don't have anything but the abstract completed. That dream wasn't so awful, but Snarky woke up in a state of near-panic for not having her graphs in order.
Last night Snarky dreamed she was on a school field trip (her old nerd school used to ferry students around in stretch vans that were like rolling perpetual-motion experiments fueled by that heady melange of teenaged angst, lust, irrational exuberance, and anxiety) that was held up in traffic because a large commercial airplane had exploded on the freeway.
There wasn't really any sense of panic - except for the fact that Snarky was going to be late to class again. Weird and kind of... misanthropic?
Snarky hit a bad funk-patch yesterday. The Mister has returned to work today, and she had trouble mustering up supportive enthusiasm for him. She has settled with hopeful, yet cautious stand-by-your-manism.
She has also been working long hours the last two weeks, which can't be helping with her internal rhythms.
Tonight she'll probably self-medicate with a hot, frothy bath and some deep dark chocolate. Sometimes the old stand-bys are the best.
Blogs abound. Snarky regularly rocks three (count 'em, three!) of her own (the prerequisite LJ discourse, the demographically behooved knitblog, and a fairly young SparkPeople weightloss rumination), so why another one?
Because this is so. Damn. Cool.
But, Snarky has to make it interesting, different, somehow equally relevant to the other virtual dumping grounds to her massive ego. Ergo, this experiment.
Once upon a time, she had delusions of literary grandeur. Through some overworked and convoluted logic, the BPAL Blog is going to be The Writing Blog.
And if the Hat Trick of "Snarky-Centric Script", "Aspirations of Artistry", and "Grabby Gimmick" is to be acheived.... well, ya gotta have a gimmick if ya wanna have a chance. Snarky is going for the time-tested, Bob Dole approved method of third person narration. Also possibly horrible grammer, passive (aggressive) sentence structure, and major conjunctivitis (in this case, swelling and overuse of conjunctions... not pink eye). But not dangling participles! That is something up with which Snarky will not put!
Finally, depending on mood, your humble narrator might be "Darkity" or "Snarky" or just plain little Miss Universal "S/he®".
So. All of this, plus the occasional mention of smellies to keep the blog relevant to its gracious host-body. Groovy.
