halloween

my pumpkin:

a differently lighted version:

the inspiration (thanks ingres):

me dressed as hermione:

next year i want all of this to be for, oh, something like a party. because i'm pretty sure that the trick-or-treaters didn't really care.

i'm such a sucker. i'm going to be knocking on doors on tuesday reminding people to vote (and not in my precinct, somewhere across town no less) and then i get to go to work for something like 5½ or six hours before i come home. i am also on the list to take food for the volunteers and i was thinking about making something like banana bread. i guess at least i won't get bored.

for amelia:

a free sample of reach access flosser.

the give bush a brain game

so much fun.

who's there?

i saw an opthomologist today. my eyes are fine, even if my prescription is approximately -1,000,000. (my dad wonders how my lenses on my glasses can be so thin considering how blind i am. i have no idea.) the best part is that my eyes have been dilated. i can barely see the computer screen unless i sit way back and tilt my head.

yes, i have a blogging addiction.

danes do it melancholy

this weather doesn't help much. and neither does my job. but i really wish i could go back to london. instead, i will have to settle for watching bend it like beckham like an obsessed maniac once i get the cords back to my dvd player. (laura, don't take this as a hint to hurry and mail them to me. it's probably a good thing you still have them.)

i really like this photo. it reminds me of one of mine, but in color and better.

photo from curiously incongruous. (go look at the photos, they are beautiful.)

books 4 sale

books sales are a very dangerous thing. even going to goodwill is very dangerous, i usually end up leaving with at least one book (and almost always an agatha christie). today the library had a book sale. my first trip was on my way back from the wapello democrats meeting (where i was the only person under 30 attending). i spent over ten dollars buying books that i just snatched up. i don't even know what i bought, other than the two art books and the guide to learning disco. i think i bought some martha grimes and a ngaio marsh. i know that someone beat me to the agatha christies because there weren't any. i also bought anil's ghost, because i recognized the author as being one that laura liked. so then i convince grant he needs to go with me, and when we get there it's sack time, where one sack costs a dollar. so i picked up more books, under the pretense that they are for my mom. (since it was her money they really are, i suppose.) i got some more martha grimes, a couple of dean koontz, and a sue grafton novel for her. plus, i bought some that i wanted, like elizabeth berg and the brothers karamazov.

even if i don't buy any more books and stop going to the library, which will not happen, i have enough reading material for the next year. i really need to learn some restraint because i do not have any more shelf space!

bye bye, toenail.

part of my toenail (the one that the thing fell on) has decided that it should no longer be attatched to the toe it was previously attatched to. i'd go into gruesome details, but i don't want laura to leave me nasty notes about how i've grossed her out or something.

so i'm back from my third weekend in a row of visiting. my grandparents are hilarious people. when/if i've been married for over 50 years, it'd be great if it was like that. at their gourmet club (eight old people, and my mom and i makes for hilarious conversation) my grandad pulled out the chair for my grandmere and she said "he spanked me!" oh dear lord i tried not to laugh. then there was the incident with the pepper grinder...they are like children!

then i came back and worked at target. oh. my. goodness. i was SO BORED the entire time i was there. the only thing i found interesting where some purses i was looking at when i wasn't helping any customers. (what? sarah + purses? i know.) i still haven't decided if i like the pink one or the blue one better.

and cleaning up after the store was closed? yikes...if i can never do that again, that would be great. people are so disorderly.

my weekly post.

wow, if you use the lyrics from a popular song in your post, you sure do get a lot more hints. but then you get people who say things like, "Dear god, please help these children that are so out of this earth that they must write about what THEY DO!!! ffs! WAKE UP CHILDREN!"

??

i found this while logging into hotmail. apparantly bush and cheney are related. (of course, they're something like ninth cousins once removed, which doesn't even really count at that point.)

yesterday i had my first day at the register by myself. it was interesting. i don't really think i have much else to say on that subject at this point.

after work i treated myself to a purchase of björk's new cd, medúlla. i like it, although on a couple of tracks i get worried that someone is going to hyperventilate or something. my mom doesn't like the cover because she's worried that björk's clothes are going to fall off. (my mom worries about things like that.)

i don't work again until sunday, but between now and then i will be in ames. this weekend is the lincoln highway artists studio tour, and my grandmère is on it so we will be helping out on saturday. which means tomorrow i guess i can hang out at the mall...at least it will be a different mall.

i must resist the impulse to spend any more money.

i'm not entirely sure how i'm going to dig this whole target thing. i'm just glad that, as as cashier, i mostly have to worry about armed robbers. (joke! all of the videos we had to watch mostly dealt with the salesfloor. the only one that pertained to cashiers was an armed robbery one and what you're supposed to do.)

seriously though, the only reason i am looking forward to this job right now is the 10% discount which will come in handy since i sometimes go to target out of boredom.

the best part of my day was hearing a hard rock version of john lennon's "imagine"

i had a post...and i saved it...or so i thought. alas, i must write it all over again! (and the second is never as good. sorry!)

so yesterday was the day that i met with erika in iowa city. we met at pancheros to eat yummy burritos and talk about things (baby!) and reminisce. it was fun, and she looks really good. when we were done we went downtown for a little while before she had to go back to cornell.

after erika left, our friend bobby met us at prairie lights and we looked at the children's books and then tried things on at ragstock. he had to leave, so then stephanie and i waited on the ped mall until her friend eldon got off of work. at one point, we went to the library to use the restroom, and we ran into katy stavreva. we chatted for a few minutes, mostly about the shakespeare play, and then stephanie and i went back to our bench. when eldon arrived, we sat on the bench for a while and they talked and i took pictures. (which i will not burden your internet connections with.)

so anyway, we were walking eldon back to his dorm, when we passed masala's. i looked inside and thought i saw a familiar person. i kept looking, and they saw me, but i just couldn't tell. so i stopped and waited, and lo and behold...

it was ALISON!

we only saw each other for a few minutes, alas, because she and erin were in town with kathy for ruth's wedding. but that was fun. i wasn't expecting that!

after that i drove home, wishing that i was still in iowa city, but not wanting to hang out with my sister's friends. then i went to bed and went to church and then i got a phone call from target saying that my drug test came back and can i come to orientation tomorrow afternoon? (the drug test is a story in itself. i think it was possibly the most embarassing moment of my life to date.) so i guess i will finally have some money and maybe i can start visiting people in a few months!

happiness!

i got to talk to erika today! we are planning to have lunch on saturday. i'm a million times happier than i was earlier today!

so i know that i said i would write about my weekend about, oh, three days ago, but i just haven't felt like it. not because it wasn't fun or anything, but i'm just not in the mood. i'm just sort of meh, i guess.

but, because i said i would, i will try.

so i got to cornell on friday after driving in the driving rain (haha!) for two hours and nearly going ballistic because i nearly got killed on the interstate due to no fault of my own and spent a little bit with cheryl. who got all teary when i walked into the door. yikes. but it was nice, and familiar, and i liked that. then i went to nikki's baby shower. i never knew that people played games at baby showers, but they do. you learn something every day. it was a nice baby shower, it was a surprise so that was really cool. so then i just snuck into sodexho and hung out with people at tenth ave, and then went to the bars. i got to see a lot of people and most of them asked me if i was going to axetoberfest.

on saturday i ate a chicken quesadilla (and nearly felt sick from all of the grease. one thing i definitely do NOT miss) and then spent the afternoon not really doing anything. i went to cr with natasha because she had to get a metronome, and then we went to the lincoln later for dinner. (so good!) then we went to axetoberfest. but i was not the only alum there, so it was okay. (and i don't mean lame alum either, ben merrill was there.) i definitely had fun and i got to see even more people like the wonderful sarah goldman. it was really cold though, especially on the rides to and from the farm. we were in the back of a truck and the wind blowing was FREEZING!

so anyway, i didn't go to the bars that night but just went back to bowman and went to bed. sunday i did even less, as i recovered from the night before. then i went with michele to a bbq that the delphis were having at tenth ave and ate some really delicious food before coming back home. it was a nice weekend, and i was so glad to get away from home and to see everyone that i did. i miss everyone even more though, i think, now.

but it was weird because right when i got home was when this impact world tour thing was starting, so my dad asked me if i would go with him. i couldn't really say no, plus it was the pacific islanders dance night which i thought might be cool. i handled the testimonial bit okay, but then at the very end the guy said something about the sanctity of marriage being threatened and some other stuff and i got very uncomfortable. i was relieved that my dad asked if i wanted to leave at that point. i did enjoy the dancing though, and i really liked the maori dancing because if you've ever seen whale rider, some of that was what they did. so that was pretty cool.

but since then, yeah. mostly just hanging out at home trying to keep warm. still no job, but a lot of places are hiring for the holiday season so even if i get something temporary that would be nice. of course, everyone will know when i finally do find something.

i was planning on posting about my weekend, but i think i will wait until tomorrow. my new watch came from swatch today, and you can tell they know nothing about me because i think it is sort of ugly and i almost cried when i opened it.

i don't know what to do because i already spent a bunch of money sending it in in the first place.

*sigh*

Sarah is at Cornell and that makes me happy!!!

Michele here... I am the special guest blogger for today... I am supposed to write about what a great guest Sarah is, but I think I shall share some stories from her visit thus far and let you decide...

1.) She brought the blanket that I gave her for Chirstmas, which is all fine and well, but then she informs me that she hasn't washed it since then... I guess I have to wash the futon cover once she leaves...

2.) She started talking about how much she sweats while she sleeps... I guess I have to bleach the futon cover...

3.) She gets parking tickets... and then puts my name down on all of the paper work... I might be an RA, but I can't move mountains... and by mountains I mean [you know who, but michele asked me to take this part out. :)]...

4.) She comes into my room smelling like ass (and by ass I mean bar) at 2:30 in the morning...

5.) In the morning, she watched Blues Clue's.... apparently, she has a dirty little secret that I am now going to expose to you all... she has a crush on the guy on the show... Joe... how sick is that?

Here is the thing though... it is Sarah and I love her... and this is all funny, not annoying... so in short, she is a fabulous guest and I heart her lots, and I am glad that she came and stayed with me... even though I had to be a loser and be on duty so I couldn't really hang out with her... but it's all good...

Ok... I am going to go - maybe I will be back if more interesting things happen while Sarah is here... but I will leave you with this picture of her and I for you all to enjoy...