yesterday rules!

i currently have, in my grubby little hands, a brand spankin' new macbook to call my very own. we weren't going to order it until monday, but last night jeff decided that we should just go down to the apple store in the galleria (a horrible place i hope to never see the inside of again) and pick one up. this was after he picked me up from work (i've developed a bit of a cold or something and didn't really want to walk home) and cooked me dinner! for the first time ever! and it was delicious! yesterday was pretty awesome, indeed. oh, and aside from all that, i put a new battery and pack of film in the polaroid 440 and took my first shot with it!! hooray! i'll post it on flickr later, but it's not a great one.

we watched a french film, blame it on fidel, too. it was pretty good.

and we're back.

this christmas =

netflix all around!!

too many trips to the hospital (for loved ones, not ourselves)

long long car rides, which included seeing a helicopter land on the highway! also, a long long wait for that helicopter to leave.

kolaces...mmm

SNOW.


i loved being home. i loved being with jeff for christmas. i loved seeing my family and driving in snow and buying some freakin' polaroid 690. hell yes.

or otherwise.

friend breakups suck.

last year.

feeling listy.

this just made me laugh out loud.... the most rented movies for my area, according to netflix:

1. a day without a mexican
2. george lopez: america's mexican
3. george lopez: why you crying?
...cut to
9. why did i get married?

and really, that's houston in a nutshell.

i woke up an hour too early this morning and it's raining and i'm wishing i wasn't here by myself. though, it is nice to have 3 little puffballs following me around.

christmas songs

that i can't stop listening to:

lo how a rose e'er bloomin- sufjan stevens
it's christmas time- yo la tengo
baby it's cold outside- leon redbone and zooey deschanel
christmas party- the walkmen
the christmas song- the ravonettes
last christmas- fonda
fairytale of new york- the pogues
my evergreen- squirrel nut zippers
the friendly beasts- sufjan stevens
winter weather- squirrel nut zippers
my favorite christmas (in a hundred words or less)- of montreal
deilig er jordan- kings of convenience
o come o come emmanuel- belle and sebastian

p.s. happy solstice!

a few things.

i am addicted to netflix. and i'm not alone. the day i subscribed i spent hours going through the movies and rating and queuing (a fun word to say, btw) and pretty much loving everything about it. we even installed windows (gasp!) on the mac so we can watch the free instant movies. (seriously, what's up with not being able to run their instant movies on macs. not cool) so the next day was jeff's first official vacation day, and when i got home from work he was still in his pajamas. he had spent his entire day watching the a team and the office. the following 3 days produced much of the same.

we're going home for christmas!!! hooray! jeff actually left today (with the laptop, and i swear to god he better not watch any of the office without me) to work on a project he and his collaborators have been putting off. i have to work through christmas eve, so i'll drive up on christmas day. or eve, i suppose, if i get off work early enough. a few short days in okc and then we'll drive home together. fun stuff.

i finally finished all of my projects, except a few for jeff. everything is in the mail tomorrow, hopefully. started 2 more tonight for a friend's new baby. woohoo!

i'm actually enjoying christmas this year. the last few years i've spent nearly every holiday alone or feeling alone. this year i'm not, and it's a good feeling.

also, jane austen is, like, wow. true, her plot lines are similar and you can almost always predict what's going to happen... but geez, it's still so great! it is a world i think i would've enjoyed seeing.

just the facts, folks.

i'm saving my tree this year. no letter. it breaks my heart a little, cause i love writing, sending, receiving, and pretty much everything associated with letters in general. but guess what. time keeps on slipping. i can't even decide on a picture to send, so you'll just have to rely on flickr... which is remarkably kept up to date. i will have treats in the mail soon, though.

so. useless facts and stuff you already know (but it was an eventful year, so what the hay?):

momentum 2007. i had 2 pieces in an okc art show (showcasing works by artists under 30... sadly i wouldn't have been able to contribute much longer...) in january. it was COLD. located in an airplane hanger mere days after this year's first major ice storm. but exciting nonetheless.

and then there's jeff. all of a sudden, there he is. sweet and wonderful and a million good things. i probably could never stop giving him praise. he arrived at the perfect time, and made my life much cozier.

loss of friends, by miles or otherwise. saying goodbye is not one of my better traits. a couple of my best friends moved to colorado in may. it's a great thing for them- something they've been working towards for a few years. plus, it's a GREAT place to visit! i just miss them more than i ever thought possible. friends that i used to see almost daily, now scaled down to twice a year is a hard thing to get used to.

jeff got accepted into a ph d program at rice. duh, of course he did! how could they resist a smarty pants like him? we made a short tip to houston to find an apartment and check out the campus, and he had another meeting with some bigwig guy at baylor who insisted on collaborating with him on some of his fancy genetics hoopla.

i became debt free for the first time in... well, years. many many years. it is such a relief to be out from under all that. i was able to quit the 2nd job i had taken, and start planning our big move.

leaving oklahoma. not as easy a task as one might think. i've spent much of my life wanting to leave, and now i think i must've had some kind of brain-eating worm or something. so we spent a lot of time packing and throwing things away and on july 4th we made our way to houston. why oklahoma is great: old, real friends. family. and family again (and again). cost of living. beer biking. familiarity. it's quiet. it's friendly. it's home. why oklahoma sucks: it's not where i am right now.

why houston is great: uh. well, the pbs station is pretty good (they play independent films every week, like the museum!). and rice is here. cold beer in the grocery store. why houston sucks: the npr station is awful. hot & humid nearly year round. insane traffic. expensive. there isn't a whole lot to do if you don't want to go to a bar or eat a steak. crappy sidewalks (it may seem like a small issue, but try walking on concrete that's turned into a mountain range for 5 miles). we never feel safe. they have an ongoing ad campaign that reads "turn around, don't drown," because it's constantly flooding. we didn't even get hit by a hurricane, try as we might!

rice. jeff's research work over the summer kept him busy. but when school started, i don't think either of us had any clue as to the increase in amount and severity of his workload. it's beaten us (yep, even me) down, tied us to a chair, bitch slapped us a few hundred times, and set our hair on fire. i mean, really. jeff is right this moment finishing his last final of the semester, and there will be much celebrating tonight. despite it's wrath, rice is proving to be a good place for him. especially for the work he's going in to.

i got a job on my first try at a gallery specializing in antique maps and prints. it has given me an eye into a world i had always hoped was exaggerated. sadly, it's not. people around here have serious money, and they like to spend it on (in my opinion) ridiculous things. but hey, it gives me job security, so i aint knocking it. (aint. ha.) i do all kinds of things; an ever increasing variety of things, which actually adds to my enjoyment of the job. i love being busy. mostly i prepare pieces for the gallery, but i also do some custom framing, data entry, and a bit of photography for their website. occasionally i do some design work with customers, but as i've concluded previously in my life, i am not much of a people person.

we have currently survived almost 6 months here. i think we'll live. i've spent the last few months sewing and crocheting and crafting it up. we finally got my website online. that was a biggie for me. i try to take pictures as often as possible. it turns out (surprise surprise) that using film is a bit of a burden on the finances. so, i shoot when i can afford to :) we still haven't found an exceptional thai place, but we found 2 that we go to fairly regularly. no edible pad thai in the area, unfortunately. and though it doesn't get driven terribly often, jeff tries to keep up with maintenance on the beetle when he has time.

i guess that's it. like i said, it's been a busy year. lots of love to everyone. miss you guys!

thai night.

well, i went ahead and added a new gallery to the website. i'm pretty excited about it. i should have a few more things to put up this week, too.

after a lengthy discussion at work today, a coworker and i concluded that there are only 3 places in the world that it would be appropriate to wear an oversized belt buckle reading "i love my wiener," with a silhouette of a weenie dog on it: a bachelor party, a dog show, and the weenie dog races. i was so embarrassed for the poor man who spent his entire day wearing it in our store. he must really love his dog.

we finished watching season 2 of gilmore girls tonight. i'm ready for the Obscure Reference Fairy to drop off season 3. just sayin.

i only have 2 more weeks that i'll have to work 6 days. which means only 2 weeks til xmas. which means i should probably start mailing stuff.

setting records.

guess who's wearing shorts today? everyone in houston, myself included. 80. it's 80! temperatures over 65 in december should be illegal. in my opinion.

i've spent the morning taking pictures of all my various projects, with the idea that at some point i'll add a section for them on the website. it may have to wait until after xmas, though, so i don't ruin any surprises.

quote from jeff regarding lola: "she's presenting her butthole for a kiss."

this kitten amazes me. who knew she'd come so far in less than a year. when i first met her, her main activity was staring at walls close range (still a favorite), and now she talks and snuggles and gets under the covers and plays and asks for attention. it's a beautiful thing.

so it's december.

i feel like i have too much to do. i certainly don't feel overworked, just overwhelmed. i have exactly 5 1/2 projects to finish before xmas- a figure that really kinda makes me angry, given my whole stand on "no presents at xmas," yet here i am crafting it up for everyone cause i just can't help it. and these projects aren't hard or time consuming, and i've been working on them fairly consistantly... i'm just losing all my downtime and it's stressing me out.

one thing i had to cut for sure is the pola-book. it's just gonna have to wait til january.
it makes me sad.

but the good thing is that i have surprises for everyone (even jeffy- and it is no easy task!), so that makes me pretty happy.

we're under a freeze warning tonight. weird.

lola is chasing her own shadow on the wall.

disturbed.

i finally found a place to get film developed which doesn't make me want to cry. so that's good. i actually was tipped off on this place when we first moved here, but i haven't shot very much real film here so i never needed to find it. they were fast and cheap, and the only thing that i found deplorable was that they tried to convince me that polaroid is worthless. i asked them if they had any polaroid pack film (for my new toy- jeff's grandfather gave me a polaroid 440), and the salesman told me that no one sold polaroid anymore and he was "pretty sure they're already out of business." um, i beg to differ. not only are they SO not out of business, they're still developing new stuff! so screw you mister you-should-only-shoot-digital guy. he obviously hasn't seen the pola-following on flickr, or polanoid, or unsaleable, or anywhere else for that matter. so there.

so i have some new stuff from the yashica that i'll (hopefully) post soon. jeff has pretty much taken the laptop hostage until finals are over (in 2 weeks), and oswald (the 20 year old "computer" i use most of the time) doesn't play well with the scanner.

i finally quit myspace today, too. it was time.

holiday weekend.

6 useable shrinky dinks
4 scarves (and another in the making)
1 pair of fixed shorts
1 mended sweater
1 art piece completed
2 art pieces hung
3 loads of laundry
12 inches of hair cut off
1 television destroyed

thanksgiving supplies

5 skeins of yarn
2 crochet hooks
shrinky dinks

2 days off, and 4 with the whole house to myself.

happy thanksgiving! (minus all the bad stuff with the indians business)

crochet is easier than knitting.

i started crocheting this week. i am so not good at it, but it makes me happy. i've made 2 things so far: a long skinny scarf which i love and it isn't too terrible, and another thing that started as a scarf and somehow morphed into something else which i haven't named yet. as soon as i figure out if it will be useful for anything i'll make some sort of announcement :) i like the colors i used, at least.

i finally narrowed down which pictures i'm going to use for my polaroid book, and i'm going to try to get that finished and started (finished designing, started in production) before next weekend. plus, you know, all the millions of other projects i've started...

hemingway is growing on me. not sure how i feel about that.

here's something awkward from the wedding last weekend:


i look like a flight attendant. ha.

right to dry.

i heard something tonight that made me livid: it's actually illegal in some states and communities to use clotheslines. supporters of the ban claim it's for aesthetic purposes. personally, i think more highly of a neighborhood or community if i see more clotheslines. this whole thing is ridiculous, and i'm obviously not alone.

www.laundrylist.org

other thoughts on today:

i am very upset with luke burbank for leaving the bryant park project. he better do something amazing to make up for it.

i haven't completely given up on gravity's rainbow... it's just the wrong book for me to try to read right now. the bookmark will be waiting for me.

i really don't approve of the time change.

top 5 npr hosts:

luke burbank
neal conan
diane rehm
zorba pastor
peter sagal

(close behind are ira glass, carl kasell, and the car talk guys)

that being said, how ridiculously frustrated am i that zorba himself will be speaking at the OMRF (oklahoma medical research foundation, jeff's former employer in okc) on THE DAY we arrive...

sigh. at least ira will be in houston this january.

good things to come:

jeff only has 3 more semesters of classes ahead of him (before plunging head first into 2+ years of solid research), and his class schedules have already been worked out for all of them! hooray! and even better: only 2 classes per semester (compared with 3 this semester, which has nearly killed both of us), and it appears as if all of them will be directly related to his field.

i was persuaded into working more hours at the gallery until christmas, which i don't really mind aside from having to be there 6 days a week. but it's only 40 hours, 5 of which will be super extra mega pay. so that's nice. it'll also bump me up to 25 miles a week, which i'm looking forward to.

i have been crafting like crazy this week. i have felt coming out of my ears. and a convenient sale at target on shelves helped me to get everything much more organized.

5 days to okc! and we have a super secret plan to steal some time for nick's amazing thai! can't wait.

it makes me happy.

photo by leah.

same old...

ugh- i'm so disappointed that i'm still working on gravity's rainbow!! i mean, it's really holding me back. at least i've surpassed the 100 page mark... only 600 more to go. honestly, i've only been reading it about 30 minutes a day. but i resolve to finish! maybe i'll start a new book in december.

well, we're finally making that first (for me) trip home next weekend. i really can't wait. really. really really. it's great cause we'll be home and with family and places we recognize, but it also sucks that it's going to be such a short trip. most of our time will be filled with festivities (jeff's sisters wedding), and then it's back on a plane. i wish we had a little more time to see some friends and eat some good thai.

i wish we had the time/money to make more trips, but it really isn't possible right now.

today the traffic was so bad on my way home that for over a mile i walked faster than the bus. i felt pretty good about that. i feel pretty good about walking. i feel pretty good because of walking. i'm up to 20 miles/week now.

tomorrow night we are going to the grand opening of our neighbor's new restaurant, aka sushi house. we've been hearing and imagining all kinds of good things about it (tristan is a french chef... making japanese food. only good things could come of that) for months, and it's right across the street from my work. so that's convenient :) we're supposed to be getting a 5 course meal, so hopefully we'll be able to find some vegetarian goodies to choose from.

birthdays.

david sedaris, picnics, cupcakes, and thai. yummm.

more pictures on flickr.

guts.

i handled an excessive amount of 15th century sheep intestine today. and then came home to a big box of homemade cookies from my (mind reading) sister.

beat that.

breakin' out the hoodie.

it is currently 57 degrees in houston. it has been overcast and rainy and windy all day, and this awesome cold front looks like it'll linger for at least a week. i wore a sweater today. it's ridiculous how giddy i am, but i am a girl that needs seasons. i know it's not gonna last long, so i'm enjoying every second of it and am forever grateful that this is the week it turned.

weather obsessed. oklahoman at heart.

stephen colbert for president of south carolina!

well, i finally finished the curtains for our bedroom. whew! i spent most of yesterday doing that since i was basically stuck at home waiting to hear about my car (which is fine, by the way. the check engine light just didn't get reset last time.). i also got a bunch of birthday cards made.

today jeff is at school taking his 5 hour (bleh) algorithms mid-term. it really almost gives me a headache to even think about it. so i went to hobby lobby. there were two pretty exciting things about this trip in particular: first, i figured out how to get there using the highways (gasp!). it really wasn't that much faster, but i avoided about 200 sinkholes, so i think it's worth it. secondly, i bought so much crap that i'll be busy crafting well into next year. happy early birthday to me.

and, this has nothing to do with anything, but when we were listening to our saturday morning npr shows, they were doing the pledge drive- i can't believe how much money they get people to give for such a crappy station!! i think the KGOU drives raise around 130k biannually. the station here, where if you want to listen to anything but classical music you have to buy an HD radio, raised 23,000 just during ONE show this morning. i was shocked. jeff and i were both loyal members of the station in OK. but, i'm sorry, if i have to spend $200 on a radio just to listen to PUBLIC radio...

i don't know what we'd do without podcasts.

oh oh! and i am super excited that starting this monday we have a forecast with highs in the 70's!!! for at least 3 days!! i may see fall yet.

1646

everything in the world should be matted with #1646 (sky blue). it's the most wonderful color. you should check it out. i wish there was an equivalent to this color in green, but sadly there is not. therefore, from this point on, everything i frame (ever) will be matted with 1646.

i wish.

they bought me a new mat cutter at work. it is divine, and currently at the top of the official list of unreasonable ways to cheer me up.

so i have this routine at work where i read on all my breaks. it adds up to about an hour a day, which is usually not enough, but the book i just started (gravity's rainbow)... for some reason i can't get into it. which is weird cause i love thomas pynchon. but i started it 4 days ago and i'm only 30 pages in. ugh. so on my lunchbreak today, instead of reading, i started making lists of projects and art supplies, and one of these days i will be a whirlwind of felt and findings and glass and glue at hobby lobby. money money money. wouldn't it be nice?

my car is sick again. i think i've driven roughly 50 miles in the last month (since the last time i took it to the shop), yet here she goes again. i guess it's good that i'm used to not needing it.

quickbooks sucks.

one of my new jobs at work is to get our invoices into the computer for a christmas mailing they want to do. trouble is, someone stopped doing it in march. so, i'm discovering the many reasons why i'm not a secretary. also, some of my coworkers are apparently really bad at math (all sales are done by hand).

we have a new neighbor upstairs. he was stomping around until 5 this morning, though generally it hasn't been too bad so far.

we got tickets to see david sedaris on the 25th (my birthday present from the boy). very very excited about that :) i also strongly hinted to jeff how great it would be to have a picnic on my birthday...

it's best to start days with this.

yesterday was the first day that it didn't feel like the middle of summer. it stayed below 90 and there was even a nice breeze! it was great. we even ate dinner outside.

jeff is heading to austin this evening with the outdoor club to go climbing. finally. he hasn't been since before we moved and i know that's been driving him a little crazy. he has fall break monday and tuesday, and then finals the rest of the week. i think we are both glad to see the semester half over.

it just does.

why does a fresh haircut always lift my spirits?

pepper spray vs. stun gun

i had a fairly creepy experience the other day on my walk home. luckily i was only a few blocks from the apartment, but it has me doing research on self defense equipment. just in case. i already take as many precautions as possible- i don't carry any money and stay on well traveled streets, but still...

the 5 pounds of chex mix we got in the mail from jeff's mom sure helped though :) yum yum yum.

weekenders.

we managed to venture out of the apartment for a few hours today and visit a nearby museum, the Menil. it was not terrible. they had many impressive works from many impressive names, though my favorites were a couple polaroids of andy warhol (they were hilarious), and the 3 joseph cornell pieces they had, which i was pleasantly suprised to see.

there were 2 exhibits not quite ready to open, and several satellite buildings on the grounds which we didn't get to because it was pouring rain by that time, but luckily it's free so i'll definitely go back.

mom: no more iodine injections for you!
miki: i'll be thinking about you a lot this week. heal fast! heal fast!

and the most exciting thing of the day: erinroddy.com is finally a real website! this is a day i've been anticipating for over a year. whew!

jeff went to his first houston critical mass last night. this is a nationwide club, sort of, of bicyclists who ride throughout the city in droves and cause as many traffic jams as possible. it sounds as if they accomplished their mission last night.

silly confederates

favorite quote from work today:
"taxidermy's really come a long way."

on a different (yet exactly the same) note, we've been working with a lot of confederate portraits lately. they had some seriously different ideas about facial hair back then. we started separating them into "neck beard" and "non neck beard" piles. and by neck beard, i mean they don't have any facial hair except from below the chin line down. some even have specially designed shirts! one guy has only shoulder length sideburns.

it's disgusting and beautiful all at the same time.

also, some of them have back stories. one poor fella "accidentally" overdosed on strychnine.

overdose. right.

heck yes!

today was the first day i've walked without pain! hooray for muscles!

autumn, postponed.

the first day of fall felt more like the first day of summer.

we went to a grad student picnic last night at rice. free food, free beer, cotton candy, lots of dogs and babies. good times all around. posted a couple of pictures on flickr.

watching a head explode.

the 16-year-old son of the owners at work is obsessed with steve jobs. the poor boy can think of nothing but steve jobs steve jobs steve jobs. did you know steve jobs is an alien? he has his own planet. he can travel through time. plus, check out this list of his super powers.

well, well... guess who called us up yesterday at the gallery and ordered a print of the roman empire?

that's right.

engineers playing dress-up

anyone interested in a good laugh should watch the rice vs texas football game saturday. espn, i believe. we're so proud of our little owls. haven't won a game yet!

i like the ham.

cars are for suckers.

the walk today was a tad sweaty, but overall very very good.

we have a restaurant called La Strada right across the street from us, whose name becomes a curse word on sundays when they have their "brunch" (cramming twice as many drunk people into a building than should actually be there and blasting techno from 11-6). they take all the parking spaces in a 5 block radius, so poor jeff is usually stuck at home all day with the rattling windows. anyway, i happened across something called the "westheimer block party" on craigslist. turns out one of their 5 stages (think paseo art festival times 20) is in the La Strada parking lot. oh goody.

car is healed! now she gets to sit in the garage for a few more days...

new rule.

it's taken a few little nudges recently, but i've decided to start walking to work. it's 2 1/2 miles, so it shouldn't be more than a 45 minute walk, i hope. and walking 5 miles a day, i think, could do nothing less than make me feel better. which is something i've been searching for.

the first reason for my decision is that i'll be out of a car for a few days anyway, while it's in the (very reputable, according to car talk...) shop. secondly, i just finished reading emma. those ladies in early 19th century walked freakin everywhere. EVERYDAY. if they can do it in their bustles and petticoats, then so shall i. perhaps, even, with bustles and petticoats.

i gave very little thought to riding my bike to work. it would be much faster, but i see no reason to get my bike stolen like all the others in our parking lot. besides, this way i'll be able to take pictures along the way :)

sticky.

i wish it wasn't so hot out. i'd really like to ride my bike for a bit. i took out some recycling earlier and the 80% humidity (and 90+ degrees) immediately overpowered my prescription deodorant. it's unfortunate.

edit: finally able to take a quick ride this evening. yay!

humberto!!

tonights forecast

"Squalls associated with Tropical Storm Humberto will move onto the coast this evening. Winds will gust to 40 mph and intense rainfall will reduce visibility to less than a mile at times. Rainfall amounts through 830 PM will average between a half and one inch with isolated totals between 3 and 4 inches along the immediate. Isolated tornadoes will also be possible as these feeder bands approach the coast."

too bad it's going to completely miss us.

but at least there's this:

www.geostationarybananaovertexas.com/

view the gallery, if possible. the cowboy is our favorite.

things. and stuff.

i should be using this time to repeatedly call all of you and tell you how much i miss you. ugh. so much. and that's just how it is.

so.

texas frickin sucks. with a capital f. any illusions we had in the first few weeks here about it not being "that bad" have vanished. completely. granted, we are probably in the 2nd most tolerable part of the state...but it's still texas. people are still idiots. it's slightly uplifting to know that the american public has succeeded in herding all of the "unwanteds" into one state. solidly packed. but nauseating to be stuck in between them.

anyway. enough of that. we had planned on starting a little tour of houston last weekend- there are countless museums and galleries and just really weird things to check out. there's also a bike co-op that jeff wants to start going to. unfortunately, i got food poisoning and spent 3 days in bed. good times.

i've been really bummed the last few days seeing the weather in oklahoma and colorado. i keep hearing, "it feels like fall!" and here, we just want to know when it's going to dip below 90. we did get a cold front today, which was phenomenal. rain and wind and temps under 80. if only for a few hours. we are reeeeeally looking forward to our trip to OK in november. real fall! i've never in my life thought of oklahoma as having a real fall, since it's always so short. but i'm guessing those 3 days of november will be the coolest weather we see until we make it back to colorado (next year???).

jeff is all school school school right now, which is good. he's taking 3 classes, TAing one, and still doing research. it's keeping him very busy. we still try to ride bikes in the evenings when it's not unbearably hot.

my job is becoming less annoying every day, which is a relief. i've started doing some photography for their website. it's a nice change. i've been on the lookout for some freelance work lately, too, to try to help with our upcoming travel expenses. ugh. rental cars. all of a sudden i feel much more like an adult than i ever have. i really don't like it.

again and again, i'm sorry if i havent written or talked to anyone in a while. there isn't much excitement to report. please enjoy some < 80 degrees for me. bottle it, if possible. send directly.

did i mention how much i hate texas?