I finally did something

For a long time, I have been meaning to do something about this old bastard of a footstool that I have. I got it from my mum and we've had it for as long as I can remember. I think we might have gotten in when we lived in Yakima, but I can't be sure. There used to be a sofa that went with it, but that's long gone after being passed through Tristan's in-laws and subsequently burned in a house fire. I think.

Anyway, it was disgusting because our cats thought it was for horking on, for sharpening their claws, and on occasion, for peeing upon. But no more.

Disgusting!

It was so gross. I am a notoriously terrible haus frau and thus just don't give a fuck about cleanliness in the home. Obviously. Again, I've been meaning to do something about this footstool. I could never decide on a fabric or colour scheme or anything. Yesterday though, I was perusing my local... um... big-box store and spotted the perfect fabric:

It spoke to me.

Andy favoured the zig-zag pattern, while mum asserted that it made her ill looking at it, and thus chose the somewhat yonic pattern on the right. Since it used to be hers, I went with what she said.

First I had to rip that motherfucker apart. Let me tell you: I used to get fussed at for sitting on this thing. According to my mum and dad, "It's a footstool, not a butt-stool." When I was very tiny, I could curl up on it and relax happily until one of the parentals noticed me and made me sit properly on a couch. Tearing into this bastard was nice. 

I won't get into the gory details, but I went at it with wild abandon. No seam rippers here, kids.

After tearing off the old, I covered it with the new. I had to use a quilting needle and thread to attach it to the existing cushion. In retrospect, an upholstery needle wold have been nice. But you work with what you have. 

 Sorry it's sideways.

I also added an entire blanket's worth of batting to re-fill the void left in the middle by years and years of butts, feet, and fat cats. Not pictured is the embarrassing incident involving the machine sewing of the skirting (I forgot how to lower the foot on my machine), nor the actual process of sewing the cover to the cushion.

I was struggling with what to use to attach the two pieces. Then it came to me: Crochet! I made a chain about 5-6 feet and did two rows of dc. Andy rather liked the idea of both crochet and using brown wool, so I ended up with something that appeared to be someone's small intestine laid out for all to see. With poop. Lots of poop.

 I then used the same stupid needle to sew on the border.

And there you have it. Rough but useful.

A closer look at my half-assed chocolate dragon.

The cats seem to think it's a new bed. But I guess that's okay.

Monday, I'm in Love

I actually like Mondays. I don't like all of the "blergh Monday" attitudes that float around every seven days. I love my job, I love going to my job, and I love starting a new week. In fact, I might say that Saturday is my least favourite day of the week, followed by Friday. The anticipation of a weekend is what turns me off of Fridays while the anxiety of accomplishing something every weekend crushes Saturdays for me.

I don't work on Saturdays. That might sound like a "duh" statement, but as I am a teacher, that may sound odd to some. Sure, I have papers to grade, emails to respond to, lessons to consider, etc. But, I figure if most Christians can take Sundays off without feeling bad at all, I can take Friday night through Saturday night off like the rest of the Jewish world does.

Granted, most Jews don't do ANYTHING if they observe the Shabbat, including cooking and cleaning, but I like to think of it as my day of reflection and personal improvement. For instance, oh hell now that I think of it, this past Saturday I just went shopping and took a long nap... At any rate, I usually MEAN to do something like write a pattern for knitting or crocheting, get some crafting done, mess about with my garden, play with the dogs for a longer than usual amount of time, that sort of thing.

Why wouldn't someone like this? It's a day of rest! For me, it really isn't. As mentioned before, I get a little anxious about what I am accomplishing each weekend. Sunday I couldn't care less about because it's just... I dunno, the day before Monday to me. Back to the anxiety: There is this overwhelming feeling of needing to look back on a given day and say what I have done and be proud (for lack of a better word) of it. I have had professors that hands down would not work on Sundays due to religious beliefs. That is what I am doing with my Saturdays, in case you were wondering. I have also seen professors fall behind on their work perhaps not simply due to the fact that they take an entire day off, but I'm sure it doesn't help matters.

Then there's Monday. The coffee tastes better (Foglifter is amazing in case you were wondering, and it comes in Keurig cups!), the shower feels warmer, the animals act better... Everything just seems to fall into place for me on Mondays. By Friday night though, I need that break. I suppose that's another reason that I don't look forward to weekends: by the end of the week, I am completely out of spoons.

Oh! The spoon theory. Let me briefly explain: The idea is that you have a limited amount of "spoons" representing an action you are able to complete each day. You have a set amount of spoons depending on your condition, and once all of your spoons are gone (or, once you get to the point in the day where you cannot physically or mentally do anything else), you're SOL. You're done. You can't gain spoons back. They may replenish daily (I feel as thought mine are more of a weekly thing but I'll explain later) but again, every single action you take removes a spoon from your day.

So, yes. My spoons are more of a weekly thing. I start off with an immense amount of spoons and they kind of roll over into the next day. But by Friday, all of my spoons are gone. At 3 pm, when I am done teaching for the week, I am spent. I cannot bring myself to do anything regarding work. I suppose my spoons replenish over the weekend. I do not have a debilitating physical illness, but my depression more often than not takes the front seat by the end of the week. 

Needless to say, it's disheartening at best. I hate the feeling of weakness that enters me by the weekend.

But, I still have Monday to look forward to. That's something, at least.

Holiday memories

Today, a thread on LSG brought up some Christmas memories, some of which I shall share.


When I was in 5th grade, we were robbed blind the first week of December or so. Christmas was going to suck balls that year. Tristan really wanted a pair of Adidas shoes for christmas, but those motherfuckers are expensive as hell but she was a tad self-dentered back then, so that didn't matter. She still demanded that she have $100+ Adidases.

She got the knockoff brand with like 5 stripes on the side.

Guess who still has the video tape of her crying about it.

THIS GAL

The video also contains my happy ass getting a Seal cassette tape. That was all I wanted that year, and that was basically all I got. I was so fucking happy.

Another year, Tristan was going through her baby fat stage (5th-6th grade) and that was the only time our biological father saw us in person until she got married at 18. So, every year after the pre-teen visit, he would send her a really large men’s sweater from Alaska (where he lives) to her as a present.

Bastard.

Finally, my parents bought me and Tristan (2 years my senior) the same makeup palette for christmas when I was 10 or so. I am 27 now. I tossed that shit out when I was 17 or so.

Just last year, I spotted Tristan STILL USING THAT SAME GODDAMN MAKEUP PALETTE.

I threw it away for her. I didn't want her eyeballs to rot out.

I was going to make a blog post today

... but my fucking fingers are not connecting properly with my brain and I'm just kind of at a loss. No. The opposite of that. I have things to say, but too much of it. I also need to actually get shit done for work that I keep putting off.

I should be a life coach

No, really. Even though I can't get my own shit together, I should be a life coach. I have a way about me that convinces others that I am right about... well... everything. Witchcraft!

Tonight I talked to a friend for three solid hours about things that others around him have been trying to tell him, but for whatever reason he didn't listen to them. Something about how I confronted (read: ambushed) him and put the fact out on the table made him see things for the way they were. Sorry I can't be more specific. At any rate, I got a sincere thanks (another thing I won't say unless I mean it) from said friend and hopefully a lifelong positive result with very few refresher ambushes in the future.

But for me? Let's see here. I slept for 14 hours straight on Sunday, I think. What day was that? At any rate, I read all of Portia de Rossi's memoir, Unbearable Lightness, in one sitting (about 3 hours). It was wonderful. My review of it is on goodreads. That's another thing I need to make lucrative for myself: reviewing books and getting paid for it. But anyway, I digress.

I stayed up until 3 am reading that damn book, then slept all day, unaided, and awoke only to have dinner prepped by Andy. Over the weekend, we finished painting the kitchen and I cleaned out the blue room a bit. We found the perfect couch and figured out it wouldn't fit into any part of the house, so we sadly passed it by. I cleaned the far corner of the library (I swept and picked up all the books! And I put the books where they BELONG!) and fussed at Andy about his... different... way of looking at cleaning up. My idea of cleaning up is putting things where they belong. His idea has become shoving things under other things. I was unhappy about that.

Here, I will apologise and admit fault. For the longest time, things had to be exactly how I wanted them. He learned long ago that moving anything in the house could potentially set off an avalanche of angry words and accusations. I guess I should have let Andy know that since we moved into the house, wherever he thinks something should go is where it should go. No more do we have to worry about hiding things away or stacking shit on top of more shit like we did in the apartments. We have more than enough room in the house. For that, I am eternally grateful. So yes, thank you Andy. And I'm sorry.

He knows my stance on those phrases.

Speaking of "should," I got to dish out some advice I myself was given a year or so ago to the aforementioned and unnamed friend. A knitting buddy, Paige, was listening to me grouse about the things I should be getting done. I should have been finding another job, cleaning the apartment, doing school work, blah blah blah.

Finally, she gave me her priceless advice: "Fuck should."

Just... fuck it. There is no should or should not. Kind of Yoda-esque. But at any rate, should is a state of mind, not a necessity. When you think about it, should is in the eye of the beholder, but much more often in the eye of the beholder's overlord.

Above mentioned friend kept saying he should do this and that and then gets sucked into the sneaky hate spiral, or at least the sneaky guilt spiral (we also discussed the difference between Jewish guilt and Catholic guilt-- guess what kind of guilt he was subjected to) and accomplishes nothing. He will admit that.

But what he SHOULD do is nothing. Should is gray. What he wants and needs is so much more important. Yeah, he NEEDS to get some of his shit together. He WANTS to get his shit together. Thus, he WILL get his shit together. The should feeds the apathy and the guilt. Should is a bad word in my philosophical worldview.

I SHOULD go to sleep. I took two sleeping pills 2 hours ago. I WILL finish this blzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'm Sorry and I'm Afraid.

Not really and I suppose.

A while back, I decided to stop saying "I'm sorry" for things I'm not really sorry for. For instance, if I bump into someone on accident and upset something about their personage, I'm sorry. If they bump into me and expect an exchange of "pardon me"s and "I'm so sorry"s, they can forget about it. A student is demanding something unreasonable that they feel they are entitled to?

Shaylin, I need you to tell me my exact grade over the internet even though it's not secure and kind of frowned upon and I also need you to tell me whether or not I am going to pass your class even though my performance has been pretty crappy over the past 10 weeks and I need a detailed list as to why I might not be passing so I can argue with you over it, endlessly, over the internet.

A common response would be: "I'm sorry Student. I cannot do that."

Shaylin's response:

I'm afraid that I cannot do that. Please see me in person (as per your syllabus) about your grade if you have concerns. Otherwise, all grades at listed on D2L (kind of like blackboard).

Because, what is it to be "Sorry?" To be truly and honestly regretful toward an event or attitude? No, it's now just a filler to reassure the other party and mollycoddle them into a false sense of security. It's like "I love you." Or, alternately, "I hate you." It's a diluted phrase that has lost significant amounts of meaning, true meaning, over time.

So, I'm not sorry. I am not sorry for the things I cannot control, things that are not inherently my fault, or... really anything. I am only sorry when I've done something wrong.

But. "I'm afraid?" Alternately, "I fear." That's a suitable substitution, right? Student, I fear I cannot give you this information because I don't feel like it and it's in my syllabus that you cannot demand insane things from me at all hours of the night. Student, I fear that you are taxing me and my resolve to maintain this career path of mine with your ridiculous capacity to send incomprehensible emails. I'm afraid for your future. But I am not sorry.

At any rate, that's my stance for tonight. I have much more to say, but I think I need to put it into another post. 

Bella Swan and Feminism.

Some may have seen this image floating around, complete with a caption indicating that Mrs. Cullen herself is responsible for setting feminism back 20 years or so.

Really? A.) Why are you putting this much time and effort and stock into a character in a book that you so clearly loathe? Is it because you have run out of things to blame? B.) Why does it even matter? Have you read the books? And if you have (as I have), you'll see that the entire Twilight series is just throwaway fiction aimed at a very specific demographic that was lucky enough to become something of a worldwide phenomenon.

Other books have been similarly criticised for encouraging kids to drink, smoke, do drugs, run away from home, use curse words, have sex... the list goes on. And yet, you still find it necessary to blame one thing for whatever you think is wrong with the world today.

Here is the bottom line: If you think that Bella Swan, an insignificant character in an ultimately insignificant fantasy book series is the worst thing to happen to feminism since the phrase "Make me a sandwich, woman" was first uttered, there is something wrong with you and your view of the world.

If parents and caretakers cannot put any piece of fiction into context (I love The Catcher in the Rye. Am I going to run away from school and smoke and drink and get a prostitute then pussy out and send her away? No.), then YOU (the caretaker) are the one setting any important movement in humanity back. If Bella Swan's ultimate goal in life is to have a hot, old, immortal, creepy husband, then fine. If a girl (or boy, I'm not here to judge) is daft enough to think they should emulate such a character, the problem there started at home, not from an idea in a book.

Good day.