DNA soup

My mother often used to say that genetics was a scary thing. So much so that it was imperative to look at the family behind the person you were going to marry and mix genes with. Traits that didn't appear in your chosen mate would come out in your children, and they would haunt you forever.

And now here I am in Scott's home town, here to see his father, who was put in the hospital for congestive heart failure. The same weak heart-weak lungs connection as Scott. The same potbelly, the same voice, the same body, the same interests. But his father, as nice as he is, is kind of a mooch and a kook.

Fini

The pattern was adapted from a sock pattern, which I then tweaked (to make the palm ribbed). Et voila!

Today, I am angry

I'm angry at myself for still being in my job and not being more proactive about making my life better.

Feed Me Seymour

This blog is becoming a dream diary for some reason...

Last night, I dreamt I was worked at a counter of some kind, surrounded by other people (almost like I was working at a grocery check out line). When I heard a small sound coming from a cabinet underneath. I opened up one of the doors under the counter -- it was no more than 2'x2' -- and curled up inside was a small, pale, naked little girl, about 8yrs old. She had been neglected and/or hiding there for a long time and she was getting weak. I can't remember what she was saying but it was something to the effect of "why'd you leave me there for so long? you forgot about me."

I was horrified! I wrapped her in a shirt and carried her outside where I yelled for an ambulance. Pretty soon, someone had gotten a blanket and wrapped her again, and took her from me. The ambulance had come and put her on a stretcher.

As she was being wheeled away, she called out to me...and this is may literally be my inner child's message to me: "I need yarn! I need to have something to knit in the hospital! Please, get me a knitting project!"

I kid you not.

So speaking of, here's my current project. It's almost done, just finishing up the second glove. So STOP WHINING KID! I'm feeding you --- SEE!

I am a DINK.

It's always so funny to be sittin' in a theater, knowing you are sitting in your demographic group. It's like they ushered people into theaters according to type:

"15-30 year old unaccompanied (by females) males go to theater 4 for Oceans 13"

"White families with small children head to theater 1 for Surfs Up"

"Middle age Jewish couples up the escalator for Mr. Brooks"

"Dater and DINKS, theater 3 for Knocked Up" DINKs, as Scott informed me, is a Dual-Income No Kids couple. Not to be confused with DICKs (Couple of Kids), or DISKs (several kids).

It was a dark and stormy night...

And the day was not much better.

Scott woke up in a funk, and the rest of his day was not much better. Everything he touched broke, nothing made sense, and he gained weight after working out and dieting like a maniac for two week. Poor guy! We had talked about taking a look at condos, just to see what the market looked like within our price range (though actually, we have no idea what a bank would give us, only what we're willing to pay every month). But then the should we, shouldn't we go to look at condos became a larger discussion about what the heck we were doing with our lives.

Do we buy a place? Are we ready to settle down and commit to Brooklyn? Do we take the life-changing backpacking trip around the world? Do we try another city? Does Scott want to try to go back to school to learn nanotechnology? (Nano-what?!? Long story.) So we did what any pair of nerds would do -- make a flow chart. And it looked something like this:

1) Stay in NY, keep renting, keep working, Scott takes classes to prepare for possible nano prgm at UWashington, possibly move to Seattle if it works out.

2) Buy, start family, work, die, etc...

3) Try to find jobs overseas doing what we're doing now.

My vote was #1, though I did say that it didn't preclude us from keeping an eye out for overseas, or backpacking for a while.

But do you know what this is REALLY about? SHOULD WE BUY A NEW COUCH? Yes, it's really about a couch.

Anyway, so on a completely different topic -- here's my latest knitting project. A very challenging pattern that was intended for socks called Pomatomus, but altered by someone in Denmark to fingless gloves, and then tweaked by me here and there.

I'm on my second glove right now and hoping to be finished by the end of the week.

Mall of OH-merica!

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This last Memorial Day weekend, I went to Minneapolis to gather with my family. This is my new, extended family, from my dad's late-in-life marriage. My stepbrother works in Minneapolis, and we all (including his elderly grandparents) flew out there to meet his fiance and just hang out.

My brother and I got there a day earlier than everyone else, so we decided to check out the Mall of America, 'cause why not, right? And what a mall it is. More amusement park than anything else, the stores are pretty bland for the most part. But I did think the Prairie Home Companion store and the Oxygen Bar were pretty cool.

What's funny about this mall is how prevalent Pepsi is. It was really hard to get a good picture of the place without getting that stupid 10-story sign in the way.

Memento

I have a horrible long-term memory. I can't remember places that I've been to, things that I did. What scares me the most is that my memory holes seem to have no respect for those memories that really matter to me, like my deceased mother, my years of performing music, my songs...

Part of the reason I want to keep this blog is to remember, like that guy in Memento. Except time for me moves forward...at least, for now. So here are some cool memories:

In April, Scott and I decided to play hookey and spend the day having fun. We had had a pretty rough few weeks and needed some laid-back bonding time. We decided it was the perfect occasion to try out the ZipCar and explore Brooklyn.

We drove down to Coney Island, Island Park and, most fabulous of all, my old neighborhood near Marine Park.

By the time my family moved out of the Marine Park area in the early 80's, it had become a hang-out for drug dealers, most likely for crack.

I hadn't been back since. Until now.

Here I am at my old elementary school, Good Shephard. Aaah, the random memories....

Yelling across the courtyard at some punk-ass kid who called me a "chink."

While looking for a book in the library, located in a then-deserted hallway on an upper floor, witnessing kindly Sister Mary smacking an "older" student (probably a 12-yr old) across the cheek for something.

Asking the new girl, who was from Egypt, to write my name in Egyptian.

Laughing at my 5th grade religion teacher tell his favorite joke: "Today, my wife treated me like God. She put burnt offerings in front of me and called it dinner!"

After Coney Island and Marine Park, we headed to Sheepshead Bay for dinner. Scott really wanted Russian, so rather than go to Brighton, which would make too much sense, we entered into a GI-NOR-MOUS but EMPTY fancy Russian restaurant along Emmons Avenue on the water. It was dripping with gaudy opulence and occupied with a pack of unsmiling, uninviting waiters. It looked like we had walked into a money laundering operation since no one seemed interested in being a restaurant. Anway, can you tell I had the most aweful time? It was perhaps the absolute worst dining experience I ever had. Especially since they slapped us with a fucking $70 bill for soup, appetizers, tea and juice. I would have complained, but we would have ended up chopped up and loaded in somebody's trunk. God aweful.

Some Random Memories

I have horrible long-term memory. I can't remember places that I've been to, things that I did. What scares me the most is that my memory holes seem to have no respect for those memories that really matter to me, like my deceased mother, my years of performing music, my songs...

Part of the reason I want to keep this blog is to remember, like that guy in Memento. Except time for me moves forward...at least, for now. So here are some cool memories: