|
|
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
| |
10:02 pm
|
i took joe to philly this month. we ate at mrs marty's deli & jim's, briefly hung out with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jesuscrux (who [accurately] compared joe to the microbes that live in radiation or acid for successfully being my boyfriend), met splendidgeek & sleep_monger (both gorgeous & so much fun to be around), visited the mütter museum, ate more at rita's, bought up a shitton of tastykakes (what hostess would make if they understood that flavor != more sugar; omg so good), & went to longwood gardens with my grandmother.
my grandmother is the most awesome being on the planet. this trip was primarily to see her. she's ninety-four this year (born in fifteen. FIFTEEN!), almost completely still with it, totally a fighter. she's been to fifty-three countries & has the motto of "i'd better not sit down too long or i might not get back up - so let's go!" my favorite story about her is from a few years ago: i usually call her every week or two, & i just couldn't reach her on the phone. i tried a few more times, then finally got her a week later. i asked where she had been, & she goes, "oh, i was feeling kind of down... so i went to poland." WUT. like, most people go to the MALL or go buy a SWEATER or see a MOVIE when they're down. she goes to poland. awesome. anyhow, gardening is her most beloved pastime, & she couldn't stop exclaiming how much she enjoyed seeing those big gardens again.
so joe finally got to have a real philly cheesesteak, & he immediately understood that the piece of sloppy, oily, overcheesed crap with giant hunks of fatty beef on a gum-lacerating french roll from the place down the street isn't it. joe liked jim's so much we actually went back later that night & bought a couple more sandwiches for the plane. we're bastards.
speaking of joe, we also stopped by infinite & installed some new jewelry. there're only a few spots i'm not comfortable making holes on a guy myself, so you can guess where his new jewelry is placed.
& he's out for the weekend on some weird revel thing, so tonight i made myself an "i don't want to leave the house" giant salad for dinner using all organic ingredients from last week's bin delivery. lots of spinach, an entire butter lettuce, two wiggly carrots which still crunch now that they're cut up, a bunch of halved cherry tomatoes, half a pint of strawberries & two big handfuls of firm green grapes. i always forget how good italian dressing tastes on a vegetable salad with a bit of fruit in it. i was considering putting some kind of animal in the salad as well, but that would've required leaving the house. half of it is left over & i'll probably have it tomorrow if joe isn't back in time to cook for me. :D
also, i found a mutant tastykake. i emailed them about it, & am hoping for hundreds of dollars in online webstore coupons to compensate me for the horror. now on to the jewelry.
( TRISKELION MATCH. )
( more on the DIY spirals, plus burnt emeralds )
( reshaped glass + another ridiculous match )
( a surprising match, overtexted )
my next post will probably detail the upcoming SKYDIVING ADVENTURE that joe & i have put a deposit on. :D
|
|
(19 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, May 24th, 2009
| |
11:58 pm
|
splatterhouse came to visit this weekend from boston. barely. so here are the things that went wrong:
her 20 minute public transit trip from boston turned into an hour;
she thus missed her flight & had no protection for a standby;
she didn't want to pay another $360 for a nonstop jetblue ticket i immediately found which arrived an hour later than she should've arrived anyhow, so she dorked around at the airport trying to find something cheaper, & ended up paying $350 for a flight the next morning, plus $35 in internet charges to find it;
the bottom fell out of her backpack;
her pants had become slowly & slyly shredded from bicycling & chose this moment to bust open movie-style;
she got a fairly significant nosebleed;
all while not sleeping for two days because she was trying to make sure she could sleep on the 8 hour flight. which she didn't;
then the flight was an hour late arriving, & i still ended up circling the airport for an hour because HRH couldn't manage to find OUTSIDE where all the other millions of people were streaming to catch their rides, so like a salmon she lept upstream & ended up calling me from the parking garage while i'm waiting like a dumbass at ARRIVALS. (no, this still wasn't as bad as when jenna came to florida & waited for me at departures. DER-PARTURES.)
but after that, everything went really well for a while:
i fed krystle at bagel oasis to start. omg so good;
i took her around to jewelry places all over town. she bought some satin eyelets, a pair of tiny anodized triskelion eyelets she may well be able to wear in her cartilage (this pic is of her ear, not mine, though i also have a pair of uncolored trisks), & found some honey amber with gorgeous inclusions. all items are attractive rarities, which was the point of the quest;
we took her to queen sheba for dinner & brought along sic737, robinhoodvandal & argyle_romance, miriena & her SPOUSE who it was lovely to finally meet, cowgoesmootwice, kaikea, & gorthok of course, all of whom got along smashingly & we had a fantastic time;
after dinner, i fed everyone the horrifying cake that i made as a splat honorific/birthday thing for jenna. note icing circumcision scar. plus i made a jitty cupcake to go with it! (the writing is in reference to something jenna was called on the street once. i determined that she wasn't being insulted, it's just that she was in the international district & the guy clearly had mistaken her for his friend, trannie ho.) it was actually really good - i used a dark chocolate cake mix & chopped up a 75% cacao chocolate bar into it. the cupcake didn't have the extra chocolate, which is why it was just for joe - he's allergic. also, ookie cupcake?;
the next day i did some ear work on krystle, redirecting her lobes & adding a vertical helix (likely to become a curved industrial, but which may just be fitted with a little spike like i used to wear) while joe sewed a leather patch onto her backpack, repairing the giant rive;
we ate smoothies from emerald city & drove around to a bunch of other silly/fun crap where we bonded further;
we introduced her to the awesomeness that is shorty's;
we then feasted at marrakesh. holy shit i love marrakesh. ( marrakesh details behind this cut. )
after that, we went straight to the airport with plenty of time to spare... not realizing that things had gone wrong again, as she had inexplicably decided to leave her driver's license at the restaurant. no, we didn't find this out until i drove her TO the airport & we're standing at departures hugging. well, i suppose it's a good thing she realized it before i drove away. so she grabbed her boarding pass, threw her shit back into the trunk, & we raced downtown & then AGAIN to seatac. she had about ten minutes to make it through security, & i mandated that she keep me updated via text so i could pull over & turn around if necessary. the security line was huge but moved quickly, & i eventually received an exhausted message that she was ON THE PLANE;
then she was going to meet with sleep_monger for airport bar drinks during a long layover, but someone broke into sarah's car & snapped something off in her ignition;
& while that wasn't happening, i was succumbing to some kind of summer cold which wrecked our fun monday plans;
splat also succumbed to the same cold;
she then realized she'd lost her phone charger somewhere;
plus i forgot to mention krystle had a mosquito bite right at her lipline which looked like, as she said, "a bug herpe".
i think that covers it. phew. philly next weekend. in the meantime, here are more pics of stuff.
( updated pics of travel box, mirrorbacks, + silliness )
( more prizmatic cabs! )
( ladybugs! )
( lish's cartilage timeline )
( may - new dreads pics )
& i just posted these three pics of joe & me, if anyone's interested. the third is SFW risque.
also, i feel it necessary to share this spam with you. as jenna noted, "that is some awesome spam. I feel like i really know cate now." ( read this, seriously. it rules. )
ok, off to watch the end of prison break. no spoilers!@ & oh hey, if anyone has any good movie recommendations for our flight next weekend, you should comment with a sentence or two in description.
|
|
(49 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, April 26th, 2009
| |
1:18 am
|
oh hi! let's talk about food & then about jewelry. YOU SEE HOW I STRIVE TO ACCOMMODATE ALL READERS OF MY STUPID LIVEJOURNAL?
allow me to introduce you to a culinary delight: squashtatoes. jessie first concocted of these when we had some butternut squash delivered in our organic bin & no clue what to do with it. she boiled it & mixed it 1:1 with potatoes, & OMG. i didn't know anything except garlic could make mashed potatoes even more delicious than they are to begin with. a recent organic bin came with THREE butternut squashes, so i smashed those with a previous bin's two enormous idaho potatoes & a pound & a half of fingerlings with their skin, & i'm in starchy root heaven.
i also earned a pie this week by doing a favor for a girl who works at three girls bakery in the market. she asked livejournal for a tech favor, i responded, & i've been homphing fantastic apple/cherry cinnamony awesomeness all week while converting a few audio dvds for her.
otherwise, i've booked tickets for gorthok & i to hit philly at the end of may, so heads up if you're in the area. OK NOW WHAT.
( tulipwood in ebony )
( another DIY painted match! )
( the red spiral dichro quest continues. )
( prizmatic cabs finished )
( moss agate inlay + match )
( supernova plugs? what? )
( lish's new travel box! )
i also posted a new pic of my dreads for those interested in that sort of thing. click here.
great, now go.
|
|
(62 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
| |
10:26 pm
|
most notable this month: i'd posted about the flameworking lessons given to me for my most recent birthday, & jessie has finally had time to instruct me. it's been awesome. plugs are pretty well out of my abilities, but i've become a master at dread beads. i gave one to kaikea on sunday for her wedding. :D pics later, maybe. or just come over.
speaking of people coming over, japolo & daddykatt were both in town this weekend. we ate, we hung out, we ate more, wandered around town, ate some more, & i repierced rj's ear again. i'm still so exhausted & full that i'm only 95% looking forward to the fifteen-to-twenty-person corned beef st patty's party nina & joe & i are hosting here this weekend. we'll basically have an entire cow in & on our oven. this will be epic.
also i'd like to take this moment to proclaim my love for the crock pot. omg, gorthok.
so in lieu of any more exciting news/events/happening, what follow are a shitton of posts about jewelry. this is what i'm writing when there's downtime at work, heh.
( neptune match )
( DIY dime plugs, DIY acid plug match, so much text you probably won't read )
( lish teeth plugs! )
( trichroic match )
( OMG MY MARS. MY MARS, OMG. )
( green ocean jasper! )
( spinal captives, un-anodizing work, TONS of pics )
( mirrorback porn )
( inlaid mirrorbacks, emblem lizards! )
|
|
(44 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, February 16th, 2009
| |
2:32 pm - COMPLETELY AWESOME THINGS.
|
CAT #1: another weekend at the blue moon beach house. we were supposed to go for our anniversary in december, but ended up frozen out - there was so much snow in the area that the beach house's pipes froze. so we rescheduled for VD & had a blast. since i know you're wondering: breakfast #1 was eggs benedict, roasted asparagus, & blackberry yogurt featuring fresh, plump blackberries & homemade oat crumb topping. breakfast #2 was coconut cinnamon french toast with blueberries, the best sausage ever (as before), & rounds of honeydew & canteloupe. plus sweet orange juice, real hot cocoa, & coffee for joe. we were also treated to in-house hand-dipped chocolate strawberries & sparkling cider when we returned from adventuring on sunday. & yes, we have pics to edit for ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) naughty_knotty.
CAT #2, more deliciousness: lish-arranged pot luck dinner+movie nights. slices of broiled, seasoned chicken on salad greens, creamy mashed potatoes, garlic dressed kale, sesame pork & pasta, two types of potato salad, & homemade chocolate chip cookies. plenty for everyone, & food comas all around during the movie. you are jealous & wish you were invited.
CAT #3: fat tax returns! plus it totally rules realizing the interest i made on my savings accounts last year paid in full for all but one sitting of the tattoo work i acquired in 2008. i think i'll make that my goal again for this year. :D
CAT #4: i picked up a new old keyboard on ebay. as i predicted in april 2004, my current M2 has indeed survived "five or six years" - it's starting to get flaky along the top row, so i have a bit of time left, but it's great to have a fully tested & working M2 sitting in the shadows waiting for its call. i hope i can always find these. they're 25 years old now & i've still never used a keyboard which compares.
amusingly, another sold on ebay a couple weeks later - for close to $30 over what i paid. HAR. i rock the snipe.
CAT #5, so wrong: remember this? i got to playing it for joe the other day, & finally decided to tack the proper ending of the song on it. so it now has a natural fade at the end which inspires you to play it again. :D here's the link to just the looping version. & while i was at it, i made a much more evil surprise loop version where i tacked the original beginning of the song back on, too. click here & save it to trick/torture/emotionally devastate your friends. :D
less completely awesome things: making the transition to digital tv. it wasn't tough to wire into the system, & i already bought a dvd recorder a few months back, but now it takes two remotes just to watch a friggin' show. some channels come in great, & we get more of them, but channels with poor reception go mute or stutter instead of just being mildly staticky. ah well. seems we now have until june to figure it out anyhow? fuck it.
ok, on to some recent jewelry & hair stuff, click as you will. i have perhaps 483025 more matches/DIY plugs in the works, but the rest are all waiting for parts this week, so it's just the one for this post.
( butterfly plug match + jewelry pouch )
( dread pics - gifted hats )
( flippy dread pics )
|
|
(56 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, January 16th, 2009
| |
8:59 am - that's a lot of text.
|
last sunday, i invited a shitton of folks over so i could make them bleed & cry & such. kattlady came from california, kaikea & her boyfriend from their silly army base like three hours away, robinhoodvandal & argyle_romance from olympia, miriena & sic737 (who both live locally), & of course gorthok was there too.
katie's original plan was just to come up for dread maintenance sometime, but she jumped on making travel plans once i said i could scalpel her lobes for her, too (to redirect the holes). everything else wound up planned around her, since we're all lj buddies anyhow. in addition to katie's dreads & ears, i'm apparently now an aesthetist, as i also shaped her eyebrows. FULL SERVICE AT LISH'S PLACE. i took her loose 4ga lobes to 00ga (9mm) in one ear & 000ga (10mm) in the other.
i cut one of amanda's ears from 0ga to 1/2" (also to move/redirect the placement, & to keep a thin spot from getting thinner), which was the full extent of what i'll do at one time. it went beautifully. she didn't have jewelry i could really use for the other, so we left it for now. with just the one scalpelled, they're about even on size, so that's good. this was the 4th time she's tried to get up here to do this; who knows how long it'll be until i can cut her other lobe, heh.
lastly, i re-cut/touched up some lines on anya's chest scarification which had healed "too well". & while they were in town, i also tapered james's earlobes to 4ga & laughingly installed one CZ gem plug & one pink titanium plug, as that's what i had available to loan him. then i punched jenna in the face so she'd have something to heal, too. ok, not really on that last one. & i've done enough to joe lately. (i meant to his hair. (& his ass.))
throughout the day, there was delicious food for all. anya made homemade borsch (& prevented our accidentally-attained cabbage from rotting in the fridge), katie brought french macaroons from some amazing place downtown which i clearly must visit, jenna & james made geshmak latkes, amanda baked OMGZ SO GOOD pineapple upside-down cake & a giant loaf of fantastic banana bread. i really, really love when i invite people over & they all end up bringing food, & i even more love when they leave the leftovers (which are pretty sparse by this point). :D plus chris brought us a LAPTOP, so he's off the hook basically forever.
amusingly, all three people i cut that day - katie, amanda, & anya - are hair clients & are all still wearing the sets of dreads i started on them. actually, come to think of it, nearly all of the attendees are people i've worked on - all except amanda's military boyfriend. (i don't have a nifty link for pics of the mod work i've done on james.)
plus, i had a new dread client in for maintenance on friday. his dreads had some interesting issues, & pics are here.
the past weekend, i also finished the 4ga match for my 3/4" IS red rock candy plugs.
( pics! )
( & now, an almost completely unrelated story. )
& finally, a wtf: this is a friend of mine. cripes.
|
|
(27 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, January 2nd, 2009
| |
10:54 pm - tough love wins again
|
so the married-too-soon friend referenced in this post has come back around. she's divorced now. she sent me an email on myspace apologizing for the past year, & saying she'll be staying at her mother's place for a while to get her shit together. she asked to come hang out with us when her head is right again, & i told her we'd be glad to have her.
it's not empowering to hear "you were right" in a situation like that. there's nothing good about finding out your suspicions & paranoias about someone's fiance' were correct, that you didn't get the joy of being proven wrong. but it is good that our friend is trying to come back - we missed her.
the weirder part, though, is that exactly seven days later, i received a second, almost identical "you were right" mail from another friend who was in a similar situation. he's recently divorced, too. & both mails were sent through myspace. wtf? clearly myspace makes divorces happen.
& since i haven't done any "ex stocktaking" since way back in 2004, i figured it's time for another round of that. let's see, new totals... eight have gotten married; of them, four are divorced. three now have herpes. five have made babies; of them, three have made MULTIPLE babies. gross. seven have gotten significantly fatter - & i don't mean ten or twenty pounds here, i'm talking significantly fatter. five are, by all accounts, miserable. awesome (not really awesome).
it's really easy to find out how many people have bred, by the way. all you have to do is find their blog & look at the latest entry. if it references something with a cutesy name ending in -y or -ie, they have a parasite.
anyway, on a less intense note, here're more stupid matched jewelry posts i made on stretched, & another from get_up_dread_up.
( over a dozen more matched plugs, omg! )
( painted opalites )
( dreads in a pigtail hat )
& simply to spite his backdating-avoids-the-friends-page trickiness, here's a direct link to what joe posted about our anniversary in december. also a link to his very disgusting deep clean post (also mirrored on his page on my site). love it up, bitches.
|
|
(55 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, December 26th, 2008
| |
3:02 pm
|
today is my & gorthok's two year anniversary. you may recall that we met on get_up_dread_up - my dreads community - which leaves kind of a cool record of our first conversation. the good things are much the same as last year, which is awesome to report - we have a THIRD annual full week+ off work together, our friends are still together, & we're awesome. the only semi-bummer is that we scheduled another trip to the b&b we visited last year, & they just called to say their pipes are frozen solid & can we reschedule. sigh. so we moved that to VD weekend, & we will celebrate joe's snip in great style. :D
so as part of my present to joe (i may post about the other part later), i compiled a big montage of cam pics of us together from the past year (half year really, i didn't set up the webcam until june or so, heh) & gave it to him. as i've posted some webcam shots of us previously, here's the highly edited version. it's worksafe; those are just belly kisses. ;)
( click for cuteness )
also, here's the composite image i made to say happy holidays or whatever. it's a wreath (original pic) made from tiny pics of my hair clients.
( card from lishbiz )
& now i return to vacation, which was extended from eleven days to seventeen by the shitton of snow which landed on a very unprepared seattle. go snow days on the 18th, 22-24, & half of the 15th. :D
|
|
(57 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, December 7th, 2008
| |
2:56 pm
|
now that everyone's finally digested everything, i feel i can make my thanksgiving food post. as you know, i really like food, which is why it's fortunate that i'm tiny.
joe & i have organic fruit & veggie bins delivered every other week, & received a special thanskgiving-centric bin for the holiday. so we (myself, gorthok, & sic737) made everything, & everything we made was organic & fresh & full of delicious. there was more delivered than what we used below, but we decided against multiple potato dishes & making a pie crust for the apples. i ALMOST used the pomegranates for the stuffing, but joe convinced me that juicing pomegranates was the last thing we'd really want to spend time doing. anyhow, here's our spread. i asterisked what we used from the bin:
delicata squash* with lime butter & coriander
garlic*-cream mashed russet potatoes*
glazed cinnamon carrots*
garlic* almond green beans*
rock cornish game hens packed under-skin with garlic*, fresh rosemary*, sage, & thyme, & filled with celery* stuffing
salad mix* with joe's olive oil & lemon dressing
& i made the cranberry* sauce myself.
we laid everything out on the carpet & basically sat around eating for several hours while watching movies & being generally slothful. it was lovely.
speaking of horribly slothful food choices, i've become somewhat hooked on "mint crisp m&ms", which are the crispy m&m inner with dark mint chocolate surrounding them, & shells of various greens & white. they were out for a limited time for the alien indiana jones movie. i'd bought one bag, then went back for two more... & by the time i went back a third time, they were gone. a friend finally found a local outlet-type grocery store which still has them, & i now have a stockpile of several thousand m&ms next to me. you guys. they're... so good. so good. buy them if you see them, or come over & beg me for a handful. & I DO MEAN BEG.
in other news, i actually used my power of looping for good instead of evil. (that link, of course, leads to evil, though the mp3 link itself is dead. email me if you want it, 'cause i still have it!) anyhow, joe, the metalhead, loves to listen to fucking annoying final fantasy music. wtf, right? several times now i've come home to find the title screen music just cycling at full volume. yesterday, joe was making us a shitton of food & listening to the thing, & so i couldn't just turn it off... but i WAS annoyed enough to find the track online, convert from midi to wav, concatenate the wav into a half-hour loop, convert it to mp3, & put it on his ipod for him. & blissful silence has thus returned to our home. :D
& now back to my breakfast sushi. mmmmm.
|
|
(23 comments | comment on this)
|
| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
| |
1:56 pm
|
so, my birthday was the twenty-first, as many of you know, & i'd say this was my most presented birthday ever. it started on thursday, when i had the opportunity to buy myself two guitar hero controllers & three games for only fifty bucks from a chick at work. i love when coworkers need cash fast. :D i came home that afternoon to flowers (which were really bizarre to find on the doorstep) & a garmin c580 from a relative of mine (which i had to wait until midnight-oh-one to open, heh). & that was just the beginning!
joe & i had both taken off from work on friday & monday. friday, after joe & i had been out wandering for a few hours, jessie, chris, & joe all made dinner from scratch for me - jessie's fresh egg noodle pasta, chris's delicious blush sauce, & the organic, free-range chicken joe had been marinating for a couple days in the fridge. (how did i not realize that was part of my birthday dinner?) it was all very full of yum.
then the three of them gave me a pretty stupendous gift: glassworking lessons with jessie, totaling sixteen hours of shop time with her plus a hundred bucks in supplies. i've been Really Really Wanting to take her class, but time had been an issue, as i was working when she was teaching. we're trying to set up my first lesson for monday, & i have a bunch of ideas i'd like to try (many of which, if successful, would create awesome things for my ears, of COURSE). they made me five little construction paper cards with googly eyes & pompoms glued to them - four cards each good for four hours of studio time, & one for the supplies. presentation: A++ extra credit.
plus joe also gave me a ZIPPO HANDWARMER. um hi, amazing? who knew these even exist? he's such the best for always making sure i'm toasty. :D
jenna & james finally made it over later, & we all watched a movie jessie introduced with the following:
jb: "lish, i have a special birthday surprise for you. i called your mother..."
me: "um funny joke right?"
jb: "...& she sent me a videotape of your birth..."
me: "um."
jb: <presents the movie "alien" with a florish>
so we watched that & "aliens", & i assigned roles to everybody. i let joe be bill "game over, man! game over!@" paxton, jessie was sigourney, & jenna got to be "everyone that has died", which meant a lot of other people's characters eventually became jenna.
jessie also made a lovely fruit tart in lieu of cake, at my request. jessie, you may recall, also made me this cake a couple years back, & made chris's "giant swiss roll" cake for his recent birthday, using mint ice cream. she is awesome at food, i swear. joe had purchased the strawberries, grapes, blueberries, & apricot jam jessie used for this, & had somehow also sneaked those items into the fridge without my noticing at all. which is particularly impressive, really, as i tend to homph fruit with a quickness.
jenna & james are too broke for presents, so they instead did a horrifying & thankfully clothed rendition of lesbone scissoring. i have pics. i'm not sure i should post them.
thanks also to the weird anonymous lj-gift giver who put sushi on my profile page. though, i think this was probably greenwellies accidentally logged out, as he later paypal'd me a hefty sum to take joe & myself out to sushi, which i'm very much looking forward to this weekend.
i'm off to the post office now, to swap some jewelry with my friend splatterhouse - a shitton of pics are coming regarding that once everything's done, & it'll end up here much like the last post. i consider this part of my birthday happiness since she finally agreed to the swap on my birthday. :D i leave you with this geeky thing that happened at work the other day. i thought a couple guys in my department kept talking about me, & i turned around:
me: "do you guys keep saying my name?"
them: "we keep saying 'lich', as in 'lich king', not 'lish'. but i like that you respond to it."
me: "well yeah, it's a combination of the two things i'm called most often."
them: "a wizard & the undead?"
me: "no, 'lish' & 'bitch'."
:D
ps. anyone who wants to play guitar hero with or against me should come over like now. :D
|
|
(40 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, November 9th, 2008
| |
12:06 pm
|
|
| Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
| |
3:30 pm
|
it's been a while since i updated. have some paragraphs.
it's bittersweet to find a tribute cd put out in benefit for the mounting medical bills of one of your favorite artists... but only to've discovered this album after the artist in question has already died. RIP lance hahn 10-07. i bought the CD new nonetheless, sigh.
i held Joe Appreciation Day a couple of weeks ago. i stuck him in the car, didn't tell him where we were going, & drove an hour to lower wallace falls so he could stomp around outside of the city for a few hours. i then took him to what i hoped would be a you-pick farmer's market, so i could get him either a pumpkin (he'd just bought a carving knife for halloween) or a bushel of apples (as he's allergic to them raw & has been wanting to make a ton of applesauce), but it ended up just being a normal fresh market. i instead got him a jar of local bee honey, which he loves. then the restaurant i'd researched was closed & gone, so we meandered until we found something else, & i bought him dinner. it was surprisingly tasty.
there were two points of rescheduling on the fly, but he was so happy to just be out of seattle that it didn't matter one whit. amusingly, after i started organizing the day, i checked weather.com - the site noted i should "plan a scenic trip" on that day, heh. OK! anyway, here's his brief writeup if you'd like to cross-reference.
elizabeth & geoff came to visit all last week from chicago, which was awesome. this is the girl i surprised the hell out of several years ago. it was a grand time & joe made sure they got to see lots of silly seattle touristy stuff. more people i like need to move here, i swear.
i also rediscovered that ups.com will send email notifications on shipments. additionally, they allow you to add a note to each email, so you can say "tracking my new tv" or "pile of dogshit packed in styrofoam peanuts for my ex*". i found that this is a great way to amuse yourself while waiting for your shit to arrive. case in point:
From: UPS Quantum View <auto-notify@ups.com>
Subject: UPS Tracking Notification, Tracking Number 1Zxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At the request of your mom, this notice alerts you of the status of the
shipment listed below.
Message from your mom: FUCK MY TIGHT CUNNY
Tracking Detail
Your package has experienced an exception.
fun@!
i'll have a couple new picture posts to link soon, so those interested in that sort of thing can hold off on suicide for a little while longer.
ok, you're done now. go read elsewhere.
* this is awesome because the first thing anyone does upon receiving a box of styrofoam peanuts is to dig in with both hands.
|
|
(20 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, August 1st, 2008
| |
10:28 am - joe's birthday 2008
|
for those new or lazy, read about last year's present first. there's a direct tie-in to this year's present. (<- look, foreshadowing!)
so, once again i've been torturing him for months. i kept saying i have a present this year that MAY JUST RIVAL the awesomeness of last year's. & several months ago, i wrapped it & put it in the hall closet, right where he can see the box, right at eye level, high enough that he'd never have an excuse to touch or move it. i let him lift it the morning of his birthday, but nothing more.
the guest list changed about a hundred times as people flaked, then decided to show, brought friends, overslept, et cetera, but we wound up at the pike that night with sic737, liquordrums, toddv & beastule, 3ricj & amy, eric & adam, & of course me & joe. we held off the present-opening until jessie arrived after work at about ten thirty, as we had to, since she had played a huge role in this surprise.
i wore my new skull plugs which i bought specifically for joe (well, they're only "for him" in quotation marks, since they'd be in MY ears, but they sure are kickass & he adores looking at them), & i made everyone without a present kick in money so joe wouldn't have to pay for anything he consumed. we all ate tasty grass-fed burgers & he drank a bunch of kiltlifters, which i actually don't mind since they make his breath smell like strawberries somehow. & finally, jessie showed up, & the opening began.
so i told joe that as he opens, he's going to need to pause for a story. he got the paper off, slit the duct tape holding the box shut, then sat back, grinned, & swore at me. what was he looking at, you ask? allow me to explain.
the day joe & i first met, he came over so i could do maintenance & a dye job on his dreads - those pics of him blonde are before anything ever happened between us. anyhow, it was a weeknight, & i had work the next day. the hair stuff ran long, & by the time i was done putting dye on his head, it was around 2am. he'd missed his last bus, but as i was new to the area, i didn't know it'd only take him twenty minutes or so to stomp home. i offered to let him stay over, & his male side immediately agreed to sleep in some random hot chick's bed.
since we'd just met, & joe's pants were covered in chains & spikes & other lumpy nonsense, & because i ain't easy like yo' momma, i offered him something to sleep in. now, most of you know i barely weigh a hundred pounds, but i'm trying to find something of mine to clothe this 6' mountain boy who has large amounts of muscle. i had some boxers but doubted his thighs would fit in them... & then i realized that my recent purchase from ebay would suit perfectly - flannel pajama bottoms patterned with ponies. i figured they'd fit because they were huge on me, & i'd been intending to hem them much smaller but hadn't yet had time. so this big tough strapping metalhead guy with blue & green dye in his dreadlocks has not only been dressed in aluminum foil & a showercap, so the dye doesn't get all over the place, but is now being asked to put on flannel ponypants.
he looked somewhat aghast, but grudgingly accepted, & stepped into the bathroom to change. in the bathroom, picture a muscular graver type taking off his hardcore black trippwear with chains & studs & whatnot, & pulling on a soft pair of red flannel pajama bottoms with ponies on them. ironically, they fit perfectly. the only thing going through his mind is, "you must tell her she is not to take pictures of this. no pictures can be taken of this. i will not be photographed wearing ponypants. no pictures." & he turns the doorknob & opens the door & begins to say, "DON'T TAKE ANY PICTURES", but only manages to get out the "DO-" part of the sentence before a flashbulb goes off.
i was sitting on the step to the bedroom with my camera, directly opposite the bathroom door, just waiting for it to open. talk about a loophole. he couldn't ask me to delete the picture because he hadn't actually asked me not to take it. SCORE! i did, however, promise not to show it to anyone without his permission, & i have stuck by that. so don't ask for the pic of him in them, but i CAN provide you a pic of the pants themselves!
anyhow, back to his birthday.
ok, recall how last year i said there were two gouache watercolors, & i bought the black one because the white one was sold before i arrived? well, as i explained at the party, joe loved the black painting so much that i went hunting at the art gallery to try to track down the white one to purchase from the buyer, & i finally was able to contact them, & we struck a deal for me to acquire it... & fortunately this was all really easy since the original buyer was me.
THAT'S RIGHT, BITCHES. I WIN AT BIRTHDAY!
i bought it at the same time as the other one. so THIS one i've been hiding for a YEAR & five months, & still, only jessie knew. as she noted, it amazed her that i was preparing for TWO birthdays for a guy i'd just met a couple months previous, but then again, he DID get us a very special valentine's day present... so he was clearly pretty long-haul about things, too. heh.
i specifically told joe that next year's present isn't going to be nearly as epic. i only have two of them, i promise. :D he said this surprise definitely beat last year, & couldn't stop going on about it the whole way home. i reminded him that he'd originally said he liked the black one more, but would choose to live with the white one longterm - he agreed & said that's because the black one is insanity, & the white one is sanity. well, for your second year with me, allow me to give you some well-deserved sanity.
i hung the painting for him a few minutes ago, next to the other one beside his computer desk. he said the first one represented how much i love him, but the second one represents how awesome *i* am, & now he'll be sitting next to a constant reminder of how much i rock. can't say i have any problem with that. :D
happy birthday, babe!
(edit: what he had to say about it.)
|
|
(37 comments | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, July 6th, 2008
| |
10:39 pm
|
i fucking love when my hair business turns into something other than straight cash. kmiotutsie, who is almost done schooling to become a massage therapist, recently swapped me massage work for maintenance on her dreads, & it was oh-so good. today, toddv & his wife beastule came over so i could start a head of dreads on her, & they paid partly in cash & partly in deliciousness.
deliciousness you say? we all know how much i love deliciousness.
i worked on betsy's hair while todd prepared *five* courses for the four of us. i'm sure todd will note if i screwed up any details (as i am still in food coma), but here's to the best of my recollection: first, organic honeydew wrapped with prosciutto which had been glazed with lime marmalade. second, a fresh tasting, lemony soup with rice. third, pan-seared scallops with homemade mint pesto on watercress. fourth, roasted leg of lamb (medium rare) rubbed with garlic & spices, accompanied by roasted zucchini & a crusty bread with homemade romesco sauce. & fifth, a nectarine, plum, & blueberry bread pudding betsy made, with haagen dazs vanilla on top.
omg. i love the barter system.
anyhow, here are the pics of betsy's new mess if you're interested. & that was a fantastic ending to our long fourth of july weekend.
edit: toddv's food details: http://toddv.livejournal.com/632285.html
|
|
(16 comments | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, June 26th, 2008
| |
9:13 am - tech geeks pay attention
|
i caught an awesome news segment the other day. a 10yo kid had suffered third degree burns on his arm because he was "helping [his] dad clear away some brush" by pouring gasoline on a smouldering pile of shrubbery or whatever. this is not the awesome part. the awesome part is twofold: in trying to help the parents & their five kids, "month of meals" gave them TWO WEEKS of meals, & this was funny enough until they then said that channel 10 or 4 or whoever was chipping in by giving the family GAS CARDS so they could get to & from the hospital. GAS CARDS. to a family whose kid was burned playing with GASOLINE. AWESOME.
speaking of tv, i am likely picking up a sweet plasma widescreen from a tech-trustworthy guy at work. it's six months old, still under warranty, & he's only asking $650, omg. so if anyone has anything good or bad to say about the 42" hitachi cineform-P42T501, speak now - we're driving over to his place on sunday to have a look & i'm taking a SWEET BLANK CHECK.
speaking of expensive high-end toys, i'm also considering buying a wii. i played with one for the first time the other day (mario kart) & it was way more fun than i expected. comments/opinions welcome. yes, i now feel kind of dirty.
in other news, i have another sitting on the reworking of my sleeve on saturday. there, now i'm tough again.
|
|
(53 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, June 20th, 2008
| |
9:20 am
|
ok, here are the pics i promised of my new ear work. (see mockup here.) the crazy thing is how the shape of my ear impacts the piercings. at some angles they look a bit off - but at MOST angles, as you can see, they look perfect. that's how the human body works, heh. i'm quite happy with how they turned out - it's actually kind of magical placement, all things considered.
completing my lobe triangle
14ga needles through
back view
back view, already swelling
temporary jewerly in place
swollen ear
final jewelry, with 20mm plugs
final jewelry, with 3/4" plugs
the jewelry in my outer helix is 2ga in some pics & 0ga in others - i repunched it last year at 8mm, & it ended up shrinking down to juuuuust below 0ga. i can just barely fit 0ga jewelry in it, but it's unhappy after ten minutes or so. i'll probably take another piece out of it to give the 0ga more room to fit. aaaaanyhow, enjoy.
& for those who don't care about piercings but DO care about sexy bare guy ass, here are some bath pics of joe i posted the other day. there, now everyone should be happy.
|
|
(35 comments | comment on this)
|
| Thursday, June 5th, 2008
| |
10:21 pm
|
so, may 27th marked my first needle piercings in over five years, & i also made a giant hole in joe's inner conch.
i punched joe's ear first, a 6mm punch for 2ga jewelry. it went beautifully, of course, much like the last punches i performed on him. he bled not-too profusely, though interestingly it clotted pretty much immediately & practically into gel. i guess that's what happens when you deprive an energy drink addict & rum aficionado of caffeine & alcohol all day. i'd suggested the big punch last year to counter the idea he had, which wasn't great: to mirror his right ear by putting another three 10ga captives in his outer helix. awesome in his right, but boring, & very "last starfighter" to do a second set. we kept putting it off because he's been in too much pain bodily to enjoy the pain of punching, but after moving into the new apartment & my perfect cleaning spree the week before, it was finally time.
before
6mm punch through
lovely bloody hole
catching his blood
2ga taper through
2ga Ti eyelet installed
close-up
back view
happy thok!
very happy thok.
the ever-enjoyable rawr view
portrait
6mm chunk of ear, side & top views
as for me, i'd decided months ago that my left ear needed a little something more to complement my lobes. when i photoshop'd on a couple more tiny disc-end barbells onto my upper lobe (see mockup here), my idea was set. i pierced both of mine an hour after finishing joe's, so we could hurt together & bleed together & heal together & har har shut up i'm romantic. anyhow, both are just 14ga & have temporary long jewelry for now, as the permanent stuff i bought is totally form-fitting. they came out great. i put up a pre-bme teaser pic here, but i'm holding off on the full set until i have my final jewelry in. they'll be linked here & on my art page when they're up.
enjoy.
|
|
(29 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
| |
7:11 pm
|
joe went off on a bender weekend with raven & grif & such for memorial day, & as my back was finally back to normal, i decided to surprise him in the "holy shit that was so much work" sort of way.
we'd gotten the apartment settled enough to live JUST about the time my back fell apart, which meant that it's been about a month of living with all the other crap people accumulate strewn half-out of boxes in the living room, bathroom, & bedroom. this made joe sad daily, & i wasn't too stoked on it either - but being that i could barely stand, it's not like i could bend over & straighten up repeatedly to unpack them or lug them around to sort them better. what's more, joe's back fell apart in a less severe way shortly after mine did, & so he couldn't do settle-in things either, like hang his big bookshelves.
those bookshelves are one of the things i've been really excited about putting up since joe moved in with me a year & a half ago - they're just reddish/mahogany boards mounted on L-brackets, but they go up in a single horizontal line around several walls & they look rad completely packed with his books. we never got to put them up in our last place, as it was determined the entire apartment building was built without any studs in the walls. ah, the 1910s.
so i asked jessie over to help hang the shelves, & together we put in drywall anchors & drywall screws, & we successfully hung 3 walls with them - two in the bedroom & one in the front room. one of the bedroom shelves is an inch above a long window, & jessie found perfect black brackets that we were able to bolt to the shelf kind of upside-down, then mount to the wall UP behind the shelves instead of down like normal. awesome. it all took fucking forEVER - jessie was there both saturday & sunday, & we spent over eight hours on the shelves alone: measuring, leveling, drilling & installing brackets onto the shelves, then measuring, leveling, drilling & putting anchors in the walls & hanging them. with joe's warped plank shelves, this was THE best way to go, but omg labor intensive. they sure do look good though.
i put ALL of his books on them & a few of mine (which filled each shelf fully, plus a double-tall row of paperbacks on the 8' shelf over the window), & i then proceeded to rape the closet space they'd taken with my remaining stuff from the living room.
so, having all of friday, saturday, sunday, & most of monday, i worked my ass off to make the apartment a happy clean surprise for him. over three & a half days, i put everything away, cleaned the bathroom, hung the artwork, put up the shelves, laid out the books, took out the recycling (easily two dozen empty boxes), vaccumed, & for a finale, i baked him a cake in the skull-shaped teflon pan jessie bought me a couple years ago.
ok, the "cake" is actually simple jiffy cornbread, but it's right up his alley. i picked up some food coloring & made the entire cake red, then colored some honey black to paint onto the eyes, nose, & mouth once it came out. the problem i didn't realize, of course, is that cornbread isn't going to happily pop out of the pan, & so the skull shape was a bit lost in the process, but it's visible enough. i'd redo it for a birthday, but not for a "PLUS i did THIS for you, TOO!" sort of thing. anyhow, did someone say "pics or it didn't happen"?
so joe came home & quite literaly dropped his jaw, which is pretty much my benchmark for a successful surprise to him, as he doesn't often have occasion to do so. i showed him all of the details, he laughed at the cake, & thanked me about a hundred times. & while he missed me on his trip, he'd been dreading coming home to the apartment, thinking he'd have to start unpacking & cleaning & blah blah blah... so it was an even better surprise for him to not only see how great it looks, but for it to register & REregister with him that HE DOESN'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF IT. haha.
i'm fucking exhausted. but look how happy joe is.
then on tuesday, i made another hole in his ear & two more in mine. but that's the next story.
|
|
(45 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
| |
4:49 pm
|
welp, it finally happened. i threw my back out this weekend, & have been fairly well relegated to the couch for the past few days. thanks primarily to jessie, who came over twice to beat the shit out of me & tiger balm me until i'm freezing, i'm feeling about 80% back to normal today & expect to return to work tomorrow. i have an early out for my sixth laser appointment wednesday, so it seems a good day to return to sitting upright. it's an interesting disconnect to have old-person traumas - wrecked back, root canals, that sort of thing - happening to someone who was carded for an R-rated movie only two years ago.
so how'd i hurt my back? fuck if i know. i'm thinking it comes to this: giant rack 1, spine 0.
anyhow, in photofreaky news, tell me the guy getting out of this car doesn't look 90% like joe. crazy. (the 10% is all missing in the calves.) there are also bunches of new pics of joe with another doppelganger here; that's the boyfriend of one of my hair clients. that link features recent shots of my dreads as well, & some silly webcam shots.
beverlybacci sent a really cool piece of her taxidermy art as a housewarming gift. you can see some of her stuff at http://www.menageriedesign.com - i'll have a pic up later with exactly what she sent, but suffice it to say, she's thoroughly awesome.
so in mid-april, i had my second sitting with ben moss to rework my right sleeve. pics are up on my private site, within http://compunction.org. (email me if you think you deserve the link, which you probably don't.) it's going amazingly. third & fourth sittings are already scheduled for june & july.
...& we all know that the end of july brings joe's birthday, which i've already begun tormenting him about. i fully believe this year's gift will rival the surprise of last year's. please feel free to comment in his lj as often as you like reminding him that he still has several months to wait.
|
|
(37 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
| |
2:55 pm
|
so after searching fairly steadily for a month, we finally found a really amazing new apartment. it's huge, it's relatively inexpensive, & it's in exactly the location we want. within only a few blocks - ACTUAL walking distance - are my favorite smoothie place, my favorite place to get horchata, & my favorite sushi restaurant. plus we can take all of april to move in, & so sic737 & liquordrums helped us start that on sunday. once the DSL is installed, we transition from "moving everything we don't really care about" (ie boxes, some furniture, most kitchen stuff) to "get the fuck out of the old place" which brings over computers, stereo equipment, computers, bathroom stuff, our bed, & computers. (goodbye, my almost 500-day uptime.)
comment or email me if you're local & want to be on the invite list for the housewarming party, though of course you know that commenting in no way guarantees an invitation.
& regarding the move, i had to actually do geometry the other day. i know the width & height of the inside of the uhaul truck, which we'll need to move the bedframe & mattress. & with the help of PYTHAGORAS, i figured out that our bedframe WILL in fact fit into the cheapest truck on the diagonal. go me.
in other news, i read the word "pawned" today & didn't recognize it as english because i thought someone had totally misspelled "pwoned". that's not right.
this is how i feel about work today.
|
|
(38 comments | comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
