The Holiness of Books

I love books almost as much as my boyfriend loves movies. My personal collection is a fraction of what it would be, if both my free time and funds were, if not infinite, at least significantly amplified. There are a lot of attitudes about books that differ from mine, not in the sense that some people don't care for books and think that anyone who enjoys reading for leisure is stupid, but in the sense that books themselves are, somehow, sacred. Sacrosanct.

I've known people who feel it's disrespectful to dog-ear a book, or to let its spine crack. I may be in the minority, but I feel that that attitude just misses something. Then again, I have books that I've owned since I was in middle school (one very special one that I've had as long as I can remember). I couldn't even begin to guess how many times I've re-read them; this is where that limited funds thing comes in to play, to some extent, but I'd still re-read these books, because I love them. They are dog-eared all to hell, and a little battered, and some of them even have pen marks in the margins. But I'm confident that if someone were to browse through my collection of paperbacks, they'd have little trouble guessing which books were among my best beloved. I don't treat my books like precious treasures, even though some of them are, to me.

When it comes to books, there are different ways to show reverence and respect, I guess. I love books, I love that they are wonderful sources of information and inspiration and flights of fancy and speculation. I feel that even the most notorious hate-filled books are something special, if only because they teach us the language of hate - the more we can recognize it, the more capable we are of forestalling hateful actions (that is, of course, the hope). I don't feel, however (and this is my atheism bleeding through), that there is any book so holy and precious that it cannot stand to be damaged, or even destroyed.

Yeah, I know. That's a fucking shocking thing to admit.

My qualifier is that I would hate for every copy of a book to be destroyed. Because, as I said before, they all have something to give to us, if only for the example of what not to say, how not to do it.

I guess I don't really know where I'm going with this. I've just been reading two of my most favorite books in the last few weeks (The Sorceress and the Cygnet, and The Cygnet and the Firebird by Patricia A. McKillip), and it's been on my mind.

Rainbow Dash is ready to hit the skies! [UPDATED]

RD Complete (13)
Originally uploaded by Aarlone

If I crochet another Rainbow Dash, there are a number of things I will do differently. Her ears are not too well-spaced, which makes her face and head look kind of weird. The eyes also don't look too great... they need to be a bit more even and smooth-looking, I think.

The wings were rough. I need to devise or discover a new pattern for the wings. If I do a Fluttershy, I'll have her wings closed, which will be a lot easier to do, but that just doesn't work for Rainbow Dash's character. Also, I'm a terrible nerd about this.

Final pet peeve: I need a better way of layering her mane. It's probably too thick on top, especially when compared with her tail. But at least it was easier than Rarity's mane, which will give me nightmares before it's complete.

The final decision I have to make is simply: Etsy or Ebay? Hmmmmm...

UPDATE: I decided to go with Ebay. Here is the link to the listing.

Crypticon Swag

This year's Crypticon was a bit more subdued for us than the last 3 years, but I took home some decent swag, and here it is.

 I am a huge nerd. This is me going RAWR!

 Artwork by AntLucia.com. I had a hell of a time deciding which print to pick up.

The Arsenic Lullaby book, from last night's post. Your eyes don't deceive you - that's an illustration of someone choking a baby on the cover.

Fuck yeah, Crypticon!

Sexy sexy shoes from Iron Fist. I actually also have a matching shirt, that is also sexy sexy.












That's pretty much my swag.

OMF.

I thought I'd take a shower to help me come down off this trip I like to call... ok, I don't have a name for it. Not important. What is important is that I took a shower, and I had a fucking brilliant idea.

Someone needs to create a scale for inside the shower. Not for crazy people who obsess over how much they weigh whilst soaking wet, but rather for crazy people who obsess over how much shampoo they have left in the bottle versus how much is left in the conditioner bottle!

I don't know about you guys, but it's a pain in the ass when you run out of shampoo before conditioner. Or vice-versa. Because you can never catch up! Or you have to use way more conditioner than you really need, and just waste it, in order to catch up with where you think you are with the shampoo, because maybe that bottle feels just a bit lighter than the conditioner bottle.

So just picture this with me. You're in the shower, and you're not one of those really smart people who buys the shampoo and conditioner 2-in-one bottle. Or even those really really weird people who buys the shampoo/conditioner/bodywash people. You don't want to be one of those people. Because the only products I've seen with the 3-in-one are Axe products. And you don't want to use Axe products because you don't want to be a cockbite.

Anyway. Shampoo bottle. Conditioner bottle. You weigh shampoo, and that comes up something like 5.23 oz. You weigh conditioner, and it's 5.30. "Hmmm... I've been a little stingy with the conditioner, lately," you think to yourself. Or, if you swing that way, "I've been using too much shampoo! What have I been doing with my life?!" With the handy-dandy Shower-Scale-Thingy, you can now moderate your morning (or afternoon, I'm not judging) ablutions accordingly, so that you can run out of shampoo and conditioner at the same motherfucking time!

Best part of this: you sell a single scale for the regular price. You sell a double scale, where you can weigh shampoo and conditioner at the same time, as a deluxe model, for an extra $20 $35. People will buy it, too! They love those As Seen on TV products. They're all the rage.

Ok. One of you go and invent this product, sell more units than the Snuggie (whose only purpose to me seems to be as a Halloween costume. You get a red one, an fancy red hat and a saucy moustache, and go as the Snuggie Inquisition, which nobody will expect) and you get back to me. I don't even ask for much of your millions. I think 10% is fair, considering how all I really did was take a shower and type some words, while you had to do the hard part of inventing it, marketing it, and overcoming the fact that shampoo and conditioner often have vastly different consistencies, and so the same volumes of each may not exactly weigh the same.

Forget that last bit. If you don't, that just means that you hate money. And I know you don't hate money. WHY DO YOU HATE MONEY?!

First World Problems

Laundry day always has the potential to send me into a fit of rage.

I'll admit it: I absolutely loathe those people who throw a load of laundry in the wash, or the dryer, and then just forget about it. It infuriates me when I go down to my apartment's laundry room with my laundry, and someone else's clothes are just sitting there.

Because I'm a wimp, I'll usually give that person the benefit of the doubt, and head back upstairs, wait a half hour or more, and go back down. Because maybe the machine had just stopped. They're not precise. The washer usually takes a little less than a half hour, the dryer a little more than 45 minutes. It depends on the load, so it's no big deal.

But when I go down there repeatedly, and the same clothes are just sitting there, utterly untouched, my blood kind of starts to boil. There are only two washers, and two dryers. There are 16 units in this building. How arrogant do you have to be to think that you're the only one who'd like to have some clean damn clothes that day?

It's moments like that that make me want to throw the forgotten clothes onto the laundry room floor and just use the machines. I hate that I have to drag out someone else's laundry (which is sometimes damp from the washer and starting to smell a little gross) and pile it on top of the narrow, rickety table. I hate that I have to feel guilty about doing that, and that a small part of me is worried that I'm going to get caught in the act, and bitched out by the owner of the orphaned laundry. I wish I just had the balls to do what I had to in order to get through this chore that I already hate without feeling like I'm the asshole here.

I know that sometimes things come up, and that emergencies happen. I'm sure that people are probably willing to take the fact that their clothing has been displaced in stride, in a cool and mellow manner. I'm perfectly aware that there is a laundromat not three blocks away from my apartment - but frankly, it's more than twice as expensive, and it's goddamn hot out there and no relief of inconvenience is worth spending more than $15 to do 2.5 loads of laundry.

I'm in a miserable mood today, and I won't feel better until my laundry is clean and I don't have to think about it for another week.

What a weirdo

Five years ago today, I was chatting with some friends after rehearsal, and one guy asked if I planned on going to karaoke the next evening.

"What the hell?" I thought to myself. "He hates karaoke. Why does he even care?" And then I saw the way he was sort of smiling, and it made weird sense. He was flirting with me. And wanted to continue flirting with me.

I almost didn't go, because I'd just picked up Jade Empire, and you know how that is. But I eventually did, because I can't say no to karaoke. And he was there, and we flirted.

And the rest, as they say, is just between us.

Too Long to Tweet (again again)

From an article titled 9 chic shoe rules:

7. Pair Sky-High Shoes with Tame Hemlines When going for major air, keep your hemlines at an inch above the knee. But when wearing a short skirt or dress, wear a lower heel or flat — it will balance you out and keep you from showing altogether too much leg.

I'm sure I'm missing some fundamental aspect of fashion, but I'm not sure how a shoe can make you show more or less leg while wearing an already short skirt. I'll accept the fact that high-heeled shoes make the leg appear longer (and more shapely), but I really doubt they can make you show "too much" leg when your skirt is already shorty short.

Besides. If you're wearing a short skirt, I'm going to hazard a guess that the intent is to show off the leg anyway, so why not wear high heels to make them look oustanding?

Also, two beers and a glass of Bailey's...

On the twelfth day of Xmas, my true love gave to me:

Twelve kickers punching,

Eleven dragons sleeping,

Ten boozers boozing,

Nine earmuffs warming,

Eight dimes a-diming,

Seven powder donuts,

Six mules a-braying,

FIVE GRIZZLY BEARS!

Four apple pies,

Three French verbs,

Two turtle ninjas,

And an angry yellowjacket bee!