Snarky has absolutely nothing profound upon which to pontificate. She has completely rotted out her brains on television lately (TV "watching" - which is more like TV listening the way Snarky does it - is the perfect companion to repetitive lace knitting) and can only bullet point the programs that have permanently wiped out such things as high school calculus, family members' birthdays, and her favorite cornbread recipe:
* 24: mmmmm Baueriffic. Not that the show is meant to be plausible in anyway, but the Snarks do like getting a good workout early in the week.
* ANTM: Snarky started watching this in earnest again last week and confessed, tail between legs, to her co-workers that she had... only to find out that they had been sneaking episodes too! It was the freakin' laser beams that pulled them all back in!
* Babylon 5: they are up to season four and are really enjoying seeing all the arcy goodness come to fruition. Snarky especially enjoys the cast commentary included on the tenth anniversary DVDs (Kosh's "eye" is referred to as "the sphincter" )
* Battlestar Galactica: the Snarks are still unable to watch their favorite show on its new night because they are only getting older and crankier and really do require a reasonable bedtime on Sunday nights. So no, they haven't seen this last episode yet. They have gotten the shock wave of angst from across the country from their BSG loving friends, though.
* Grey's Anatomy: this show is thisclose to going On Notice. Snarky would really, really like to know where all these Izzie/George 'shippers are. Because she wants to understand why the sudden luurve where there wasn't any at all, and why all this support for this magical luurve and JUST WHY?! It makes no freaking sense.
* March Madness: Snarky isn't really paying attention to this, but it is what's on at ChezSnark. So it gets a placeholder.
* Planet Earth: The Mister stumbled across this series on the Discovery channel last night. Amazing, beautiful, breathtaking footage. Even (possibly especially) the brutal moments - like the shark pursuing and ultimately devouring a seal in midair - are just absolutely captivating.
* Princess Tutu: Snarky did not get the whole shojo thing until this weekend. This is the perfect confluence of Snarky's dance background, her love of fairy tales and story telling, and all those stolen moments of pretty-boy anime oogling back when she visited her cousins in Hong Kong. Really very clever.
* Ugly Betty: awesome as always. This show has the palette of an Almodovar movie crossed with the subversive joy of Peewee's Playhouse plus the deftness and timing of a Gene Kelly dance number (and sometimes also the tight sailor pants to boot!). Or something. Just total eye candy and wonderfully snarky/bitchy/delicious throw-away lines.
Snarky is either planning on getting a life soon before her ass completely melds to the couch... or... well, there is Eunny's print o' the wave pattern she could be working on... (as soon as she finds cobweb weight yarn. )
Snarky got back on the needle felting wagon this weekend. She made a little desktop meditating turtle for her best friend, who is currently going through some tough times trying to find work in an over-saturated market. On to the cuteness!
Behold the Om Turtle!
(Fuzzy) Close-up
The shell is detachable. Note the cute little turtle butt! The lighter colored... thingie is a pocket. And what's in the pocket?
A wee little heart! Or a T-bone steak! Whichever will make her happier!
There is something very therapuetic about stabbing a blob of fluff repeatedly until it forms into something. Snarky couldn't completely zone out (that would result in punctured paws) but she could take her mind off of more serious matters this weekend and concentrate on just making something.
I choo choo choose you!
Snarky has been up to her eyeballs in work. Lots of time-sucking, mind-melting office monkey duties that leave her with little time to do things like post coherent blog entries and string more than three related concepts into a happily trundling train of thought.
So here are the boxcars that are rattling around at the moment:
* The Mister has decided on a Major Career Change.
He made an attempt to return to his old soul-sucking, life-draining, anxiety-attack-making job for two days last week and has not been back since. Snarky is absolutely OK with this (beyond OK, more like -leading and just about to start a stadium-wide wave) and has already seen how much better he has been for having turned this corner on his own.
The Snarks are getting The Mister signed up for massage therapy school this afternoon. To be honest, Snarky does not consider The Mister the most adept masseuse. But he is an excellent customer service guy and a very quick study. His research into successful careers for his Myers-Briggs personality type (INFP) all point to some sort of one-on-one therapy (be it psychological or body work-related) and so... this is the direction they will be taking.
They attended an orientation at one of the local LMT institutions and got to take a class (with actual partial nudity and the touching of bodies!) and even with the clinical setting, circulating teacher, and random other nekkid and touchy people in the room... it was a really positive, instructive, and decision-making experience.
She hasn't seen such a shine in The Mister's eye since they first started casting their gazes Westward, wondering if they could make a life in the Pacific Northwest.
* Snarky has started to work out, again. This time she's focusing more on her (languishing) yoga practice. Today she feels five miles long, as if her arms could encompass whole attitudes of thought rather than just her gradually de-cluttering desk.
* Oh, and Snarky started knitting again. She is sort of doing a tangential KAL with the BPAL knitters (with whom she has regrettably lost track) and has been cranking on the Rona Lace Shawl from Knitpicks (using the suggested KP Alpaca Cloud in a Midnight, which is maybe not the best color choice given her current extremely poor lighting conditions at home). There have been numerous errata already in just the first 50 rows. This is apparently the week for Snarky to be OK with normally crazy-making things, though, because she is absolutely OK with this. She isn't even putting in any lifelines as she galumphs along on this shawl.
* Textured Vegetable Protein is amazing stuff. The Snarks will never be vegetarians, but the consumption of meat has gone way, way down on their dietary habits -- enough so that they will probably make it a luxury item (which will allow them to focus more on local, organic, "humane" (or at least as humane as possible while still being, you know, meat) options).
There were probably more boxcars to add to this train, but lunch is calling (The Mister's Magical Sweet Potato Quesadillas). Snarky hopes all of your trains are also enjoying the downhill side of this week.
Snarky mishears and misremembers lyrics with enough frequency to almost make this flaw an endearing character trait.
"By why would anyone want to play Twister in the sun? And what has that got to do with auto-erotica?" (Not that blisters in the sun make any more sense, really...)
So this morning her brain radio was going "chay-chay-chaaaaaange.... change of fools".
Snarky has been having some slightly disturbing dreams, no doubt because of the mild turmoil swirling around her lately.
A few nights ago it was another one of those school dreams - the ones where you either have missed half of the semester, or campus has reconfigured itself overnight, or the paper is due this afternoon and you don't have anything but the abstract completed. That dream wasn't so awful, but Snarky woke up in a state of near-panic for not having her graphs in order.
Last night Snarky dreamed she was on a school field trip (her old nerd school used to ferry students around in stretch vans that were like rolling perpetual-motion experiments fueled by that heady melange of teenaged angst, lust, irrational exuberance, and anxiety) that was held up in traffic because a large commercial airplane had exploded on the freeway.
There wasn't really any sense of panic - except for the fact that Snarky was going to be late to class again. Weird and kind of... misanthropic?
Snarky hit a bad funk-patch yesterday. The Mister has returned to work today, and she had trouble mustering up supportive enthusiasm for him. She has settled with hopeful, yet cautious stand-by-your-manism.
She has also been working long hours the last two weeks, which can't be helping with her internal rhythms.
Tonight she'll probably self-medicate with a hot, frothy bath and some deep dark chocolate. Sometimes the old stand-bys are the best.
Ah, Fall! What an evocative name for the season. Snarky thinks of dying trees and the inevitability of gravity, time, entropy, age. Such a beautiful time of the year. The French probably have a perfect word to describe this rather gothic appreciation of the last gasp of life.
Also the Cantonese. Snarky has been learning some rather ribald Chinese sayings from her parents used to describe the universal truths of life. Darned if she can remember any of them right now, though.
The Snarks are Big Fans of this time of year. This month they will be celebrating their sixth (!) anniversary, in fact. They got married in an autumnal blaze of glory. Fall of ought-ought turned out to be one of the best years for color in recent history for the Western North Carolina mountains.
And what else besides the crisp charge in the air heralds the arrival of this most beloved time of year? Why, produce, of course!
Honeycrisp apples at the Beaverton Farmer's Market
Brussel Tree! Sometimes the Snarks forget that these don't actually grow in little mesh plastic bags.
The Snarks are surrounded by artichoke farms (well, OK, just the one outside of Tillamook) but this was the first time since moving Out West that they partook. Cha cha cha!
Out with the pesto pizza, in with the roasted portabella pizza!
Perfect fall days start with a trip to Kruger's Farm Market on Sauvie Island.
The Snarks are preparing for an anniversary weekend in a treehouse, in which they will be working dilligently to build up their winter coats. The Mister is already researching recipes for their time in the woods. (A sure sign that the Snarks were meant for eachother if there ever was one.) There will be roasted root vegetables and cobblers and at some point a Butterfinger pie (sixth anniversary = gifts of candy or iron, and Snarky hasn't been near a welding torch in almost a decade). The nose might be directly linked up to the deepest parts of memory in the brain, but Snarky's heart is hard-wired to her stomach.
Chez Snark is evolving. Unfortunately, Snarky has been a bit slack about documenting the evolution. Here are some older pics to bring everyone up to speed:
They didn't have a working shower for almost a week while the subfloor was replaced (and then the looong wait for the Asian Tiger). A week!
The original color scheme for the bathroom: white sink, white toilet, white shower surround, black tub, pale pale blue walls. Bleah. Snarky was oddly fond of the vaguely gothic tub, but the chips and dents had to go.
With the door put back in place, this is the best "after" shot of the tub Snarky could manage. Whitey white white white! The Snarks employed the local Miracle Method franchise and highly recommend them to everyone. One big caveat: prepare to endure at least three days of intense chemical stench.
Another shot of the itty bitty bathroom.
This is supposed to be a memo holder, but has become the Snarks' precarious-yet-cheeky soap holder.
The Mister decided to sponge opaque copper paint over the glowing firelight in the exercise room. The experiment has since been dubbed a bit of a dud, but The Mister had a fabulous mani for about a week.
The Snarks' real estate agent gave them a housewarming gift. Instead of a basket 'o goodies they got a treasure chest!
Guess who snapped it up for her own nefarious purposes?
Also of note: the crazy fuschia/pink ante-room is s-l-o-w-l-y evolving into a half eggplant purple, half light spring green room. The spring green is mostly done (and they even managed to hang artwork after Snarky hulked out and smashed all of the glass in the frame) but the purple will require an astonishing third coat to reach their preferred level of opacity. After that, (and a little more purple-ing of the hallway on the first floor) the Snarks are Taking a Break with the Painting, Already.
Snarky would like to submit for the record that she is wearing a skirt to work today.
This is a rare occasion and had to be noted:
-knee high black Ecco boots (semi-sexy, mostly sensible)
-pink and white striped knee high socks
-gray flannel pin-striped long skirt (purchased from a punk store in downtown Asheville) that causes Snarky to walk like Morticia Addams
-black stretch button down Banana Republic shirt
-light pink railroad/ribbon yarn (inkdarkmoon: think Knitting Fever's Dazzle or somesuch) neck... thingy. It's a really skinny scarf that looks more like a deconstructed cravat
-fuschia shrinky dink skulls earrings from Sweet Action Lab
-red lip stain under sparkly lip gloss
-Bearded Lady
There.
Tonight she and The Mister are going on a double date with their real estate agent and his wife. He's a pretty interesting guy, though the wife is a bit of a cipher still. They are going to see Inland Empire again because Mr. RealEstateAgent is a huge, huge David Lynch fan... which is very disconcerting for the Snarks. Lynch is a hard artist to pin down, but whatever anyone might think of when picturing a Lynch afficionado, Mr. REA is the exact opposite (or possibly dead on. It's really hard to tell.).
The Snarks have been unbelievably sick these past few days. Snarky began showing signs of not-quite-rightedness during the Asheville leg of their North Carolina circuit of Ought Six and has since gone through losing her voice, running a mild fever, eye-watering sinus pressure, and persistent, hacking, non-productive coughs (the worst kind!).
The Mister's symptoms appear to be on almost exactly a 48 hour delay from Snarky's.
The biggest problem, besides having slept for almost three days straight (what New Year's celebrations?), has been the phelgm induced anosmia. Even if the Snarks were to get hungry (which is a rarity given their complete lack of activity as well as their sneaking suspicion that snot has been draining directly into their stomachs this whole time, which, yeah, ) they can't smell anything well enough to taste it.
This is a great and terrible curse for foodies, which is just a less sexually suggestive name for what the Snarks really are, which are hardcore, dyed in the wool sensualists. (Snarky doesn't really know what "dyed in the wool" sensualists are like, but she is enjoying the mental image of drifts of alpaca fleece being soaked in a vat of deeply crimson dye)
What did the Snarks eat this weekend? Two frozen pizzas. With nothing added to them. It just seemed like a waste to add the usual tangy/zesty/cheesy additional toppings they usually do with their "cheat, heat, and eat" meals. Why bother? It was all just so much texture in their mouths, and nothing more.
So sad!
Which reminded Snarky about the last years of Michael Hutchense's life. He was never a role model for Snarky, but she felt a certain affinity with his public image. He was probably the prettiest man at the time to give her funny feelings in her tummy. When she found out about his head-trauma induced anosmia, she couldn't imagine the anguish he must have felt.
Side note: the step-sister-in-law's new boyfriend earned points with Snarky by going into a rather detailed discussion of how he possesses a very particular kind of synasthesia - he smells in colors. She left him an imp of Tombstone to see if it came up as a rusty cream with evergreen edging.
Anyways. The DarkityFam is still scheduled to begin showing up starting tomorrow night. Snarky thinks she'll be almost human enough to host, though the house is an utter and complete shambles (which will give DarkityMa something to keep herself occupied, if nothing else). The Mister will probably be pretty wrecked, but they will manage. Interesting start to the new year, indeed.
The first year Snarky learned to knit (the third time, when it stuck) she committed a common knewbie act of ginormous hubris: she decided to knit all of the Darkity's gifts to their family.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been - Snarky only knit for the "-in-law" side of the family, but she had an ambitious - and schizophrenic - to do list:
* a pair of convertible fingerless gloves (that turned into mittens)
* a Peruvian style fair isle hat (with the ear flaps and braided cords)
* a cardigan (Sitcom Chic from Bonne Marie, if you were curious)
* a therapy roll filled with flax seeds, chamomile, lavendar, etc.
* a felted bucket hat
* scarves
* beaded eyeglass chain (OK, that one wasn't knitted, but it was crafty!)
* cute little tags to amp up the DIY feel of all the gifts
By the time the Day of Giving and Oohing and Aahing finally arrived, Snarky was too delirious from sleep deprivation due to too many nights spent way past her bedtime squinting over poorly lit last minute knitting to really enjoy the season. There are pictures, at least.
But before Snarky could say "never again!" she decided the next year to make felted stockings for every single one of her Aunts and Uncles (and Grandma M) on her mother's side of the family. Because Snarky is some kind of craft martyr. That must be the reason.
Last year the crafting was focused with laser-like intensity on DarkityMa. She received one shawl, a cabled chemo cap, and a fuzzy rasta hat (chemo cap that got too big). She also still has a shawl marinating in the back of the hall closet, but she doesn't know about that one because Snarky is not able to look at it without having knitting-in-the-rain running-after-the-runaway-skein flashbacks.
This year, Snarky thinks she's dialing it back, but maybe she's too far into it to have perspective. She's working on a commissioned Where's Waldo hat, she has two pairs of Fuzzy Feet felted clogs to make for the Darkity'rents, she needs to continue her enviro/animal friendly/yet-still-soft yarn research for a hat for DarkityBro, and there's the matter of a long-delayed sculptural snake scarf that The Mister really, really wants (so far she's using Panache from KnitPicks - cashmere and alpaca and merino, oh my! - and Meunch's Touch Me, which is about the most sinful shiny chenillesque yarn EVAH) (Sometimes Snarky wonders if The Mister is very secretly some sort of drag queen.).
She is designing little logos to silk screen (using the freezer paper method) onto t-shirts for the troubled DeathRockFamily. If this experiment works, she will be making more t-shirts for just about everyone because how cool is that?
And finally tonight she and The Mister are going to some sort of Nerd Mecca to find geekish gifts for her geekish compatriots. There's nothing crafty about this last bit, Snarky's just excited about being able to get her geek on tonight.
Speaking of which: new Doctor Who and BSG tonight!
And now Snarky is officially sidetracked.
The point was: seasonal craftiness is absolutely fine. But much like holiday eatings, holiday craft-making must be done in moderation and with a sense of pacing... or else tragedy will ensue.
Snarky hopes everyone had a fabulous Turkey Day (she had pot roast instead after meeting up with the just-as-lovely-kind-and-generous-in-person Cordia and her Mister and Award Winning Cake). She is still trying to come to grips with the fact that Christmas is three weeks away!
We can do it! After I finish this yummy sammich....
There is this thing that's like touching except you don't touch
Back in the day it just went without saying at all
All the world's history gradually dying of shock
There is thing that's like talking except you don't talk
You sing
You sing
Sing for the bartender sing for the janitor sing
Sing for the cameras sing for the animals sing
Sing for the children shooting the children sing
Sing for the teachers who told you that you couldn't sing
Just sing
There is thing keeping everyone's lungs and lips locked
It is called fear and it's seeing a great renaissance
After the show you can not sing wherever you want
But for now let's just pretend we're all gonna get bombed
So sing
Sing cause its obvious sing for the astronauts sing
Sing for the president sing for the terrorists sing
Sing for the soccer team sing for the janjaweed sing
Sing for the kid with the phone who refuses to sing
Just sing
Life is no cabaret
We don't care what you say
We're inviting you anyway
You mother[frakkers] you'll sing someday...
You mother[frakkers] you'll sing someday...
You mother[frakkers] you'll sing someday...
--"Sing" by the Dresden Dolls
Snarky had a bad day yesterday. The Mister did manage to go in to work for half the day, but the first half was spent in moments of panic and anxiety. He says a switch has gone off inside his head that has turned his soon-to-be-former work place into a place of near-terror for him. He apologizes to Snarky for being broken, and it's breaking her heart to see him like this.
But she's beginning to feel her fists harden into tiny little knots of grim determination. Her brow is furrowed and she's rolling up her sleeves figuratively (because it is friggin' COLD over here, making rolling up her literal sleeves a non-option) in preparation for the Work Ahead.
The Mister is broken, but he is healing. Snarky will do her best to support and ass-kick as needed. She's also keeping an eye on her own stress-levels to make sure they complement - rather than exacerbate - his.
Last night she worked on his special shirt. He requested a "got garlic?" shirt which has proven to be a bit more problematic than the other ones. If things turn out well (which they will... eventually) Snarky will post pics. She still owes finished bleeding heart and unicorn t-shirt pics too!
Tonight, Snarky is staying late because her work is having another employees-only open studio session (with potluck panini! ). She's very excited about this, though she has absolutely no idea what she's going to make. Wish her luck!
(Great, now Snarky is craving graham crackers and marshmellows and melty dark chocolate.)
Very quickly, as Snarky's back is starting to protest after a weekend of bent-over-the-coffee-table-exact-o-knifing, she's about 80% finished with the DeathRockFamily freezer paper stenciled t-shirts!
Step One: select toddler-appropriate imagery and use as template for freezer paper stencil.
Step Two: iron stencil onto targeted surface (in this case, American Apparel's toddler-sized raglan t-shirt) using another piece of freezer paper as back on other side of surface to add stability and prevent bleed-through.
Step Three: develop big head from success of first project, proceed to go insane and decide to stencil text onto next t-shirt. Because you are also slightly masochistic.
Step Four: covet your own work. (Note: the bear trap is just one application of black ink, but the toaster shirt has three coats because Snarky didn't have light colored paint intended for dark surfaces.)
Step Five: go even more bat-crap-crazy and decide to shoot for the moon on your next design. Halfway through, shake fist (while carefully aiming exact-o knife away from face) and ask WHYYYYYY?!?!?!
Step Six: Just walk away from the stencil. Take a breather. Come back tomorrow.
Snarky will post finished DeathRockMama shirt picks tomorrow (hopefully).
(Either Snarky just lifted the entire title of a book she once read in elementary school... or a surreal p0rno.)
The promised finished heart t-shirt pics, plus bonus t-shirts because this did turn out to be a very addictive hobby:
Unfortunately, Snarky cannot walk and chew gum (AKA craft and make clear documentation), but here's the finished heart!
Detail of the heart. Snarky went back in after taking this picture to clean up the semi-painted spots.
Niece #1 requested a drawing of a "pink unicorn with a white horn standing on green grass". So Snarky bent the rules a bit.
Mane detail.
The grass ended up overpowering the unicorn a bit, but Snarky figures a five-and-a-half year old won't mind. (Hopefully!)
The Mister's one request for Christmas: a shirt that he could wear with (stinky) pride.
Snarky also enjoyed "open studio" last night at work and will have more crafty pictures to post after she gets back from her trip Back East.
The Mister seems to be in a much better place mentally, even though his job situation is even more complicated, though possibly in a good way: he's been tentatively offered some continued part-time work that he might be able to do from home for his current employer, and he just got the results from an online personality test that prompted a company to immediately contact him for an interview. This might end up becoming the major fork in the road for this part of his life that defines how the next several years roll out.
Snarky hopes all of you are enjoying good food and great company. The passing of the Winter Solstice feels like the turning of a very important page for her. She's hoping for the same sense of forward momentum for everyone else who is currently Doing the Unstuck.
Just put on a happy face (dammit)!
Snarky has been in a three day Very Bad Mood that has been interrupted by bouts of happiness, contentment, and countless uncomfortably sweaty naps.
She's sure things will turn around soon, but just wanted everyone to know she's avoided updating her blog in order to minimize the bleed through of her psychic pollution.
On a slightly better note, she's really starting to fall in love with her (mangy, crispy, slug-infested) garden.
Carry on. (Snarky :heart:s Tim Gunn. Just so you know.)
Packaging reads: Disco, optional
So, after a brief brush with the concept of single-income-dom a few months ago (that was circumvented with a lateral career move), it looks like The Mister has finally reached the end of his rope with his current employer. He's meeting with his supervisor sometime today to announce his intention of resigning from his position effective the end of this month.
Snarky will surely panic later, but currently she is feeling oddly fine about things. It's not the end of the world... just the end of the world as she knows it. And when she looks around, she sees all sorts of things that can be trimmed away to make their impending financial strain less panic-inducing.
Snarky grew up not quite poor, but very, very frugally. She can re-create some of the methods her parents employed to ensure that the important things remain covered.
Normally, and this was proven in very recent history with The Mister's last "I've had it!" moment, Snarky does not handle the threat to her creature comforts well. But this morning when The Mister reached over to take her hand, it was shaking violently enough that she thought he was rapidly squeezing her hand for some unknown reason. She gave him one of his emergency panic attack pills, cooked him a quick breakfast, and went out into the rain. Now she's wondering if she should have stayed behind to provide moral support while he prepared for this life-changing day.
In slightly better-perhaps news, she pointed The Mister to the "Be an Actuary" site that antimony suggested a while back, and he was very intrigued. Turns out the actuarial field was one of his top picks based on some sort of career choice evaluation he did a while ago.
In the meantime, Snarky knows The Mister well enough that he will land on his feet. It will be rough going, but they will get there.
Over time, Snarky has learned to appreciate the value of Name Brand Things - not always (she still just can't get the whole Louis Vuitton thing) but more often than not. When she does purchase things these days, they feel more like investments. (Even if said investments are happening at the Goodwill.)
She would rather have the one good pair of Danskos rather than a closet full of Payless ripoffs.
It came as a bit of a shock to her a few years ago to discover that the straight legged jeans from Eddie Bauer were the best fit for her body (which she lovingly refers to as "the curvy rectangle": slight dip at the waist in a long torso over short, muscular thighs and calves).
Snarky always thought of Eddie Bauer as The Gap for soccer moms. In other words: better than Wal-Mart, but not North Face/Patagonia/whatever the heck posh soccer moms wear.
What came as an even bigger shock is that a sweater she purchased from the EB factory outlet last year (deep red boxy cabled cardigan) provoked a rather interesting response from The Mister. He made a point several times to comment that he really liked the sweater, and liked Snarky wearing it. Sometimes the commentary came in tactile form.
Snarky could not pinpoint exactly what it was about this shapeless sweater that was pushing all the right buttons for The Mister, but she is now determined to figure it out.
This has been a year of body horror. Turning thirty, while not nearly as traumatic on the very day back in January as expected, has become a bit of a milestone despite her best efforts to avoid cliche.
Thirty was when she had her first (and hopefully last) root canal.
Thirty was when she had her first (again, she hopes last, but fears this is really the first of many) cancer scare.
Thirty was when she not only looked at her own changing body, but also The Mister's with a bit of shock, a bit of revulsion. Just a bit.
Her uneasy truce with her skin shattered. She now feels like a dying tree trapped in the tightening grip of some parasitic growth that has managed to encase her in its foreigness, its utter otherness.
She's caved in in a mountain of puss, bile, shit, saliva, and tears. It moves and shifts at the whims of Nature and she must move along with it to avoid suffocating.
A puppet mistress tangled up in her own skeins of control.
She's glad she only has to see the dentist twice a year if a routine cleaning unearths these kinds of thoughts every time!
Snarky in Winter
If she would just stop burning and cutting them and tried to moisturize every once in a while, Snarky would have a fairly pretty set of hands. Given care, they can be delicately expressive with long fingers and long, tapering nail beds. She inherited them from her father's side of the family. Her mother has always grumbled about her own "farmer's hands", but as the rest of her is delicate and expressive (she was a traditional Chinese dancer in college), her hands come across as such too.
Snarky does not treat her hands well at all, though. They want to be long-nailed and idle... the hands of some pampered concubine. But she treats them like meat. On the rare occasion that she gets them "done", they become undone within a week's time. Nail polish barely lasts two days (even the good stuff). Her cuticles would break any aesthetician from sheer mental trauma.
Currently Snarky is struggling with her suddenly long nails. They get caught in her keyboard (upon which her typing sounds like a puppy scrabbling across a hardwood floor). They mess up her ability to dial her cell phone. She has poked herself in the eye countless times. The Mister has been inadvertently scratched in very unsexy ways.
So far, only the cats seem to enjoy these new accessories.
Along with her enlongenating nails, Snarky is trying to re-learn how to handle longer hair. She is also doing what she playfully calls "Winterizing" - a sort of seasonal shortening of her personal grooming habits which allows her to sleep in a bit more, but which also makes winter The Mister's least favorite time of year. Apparently it's OK for him to have hairy legs year 'round, but she must remain pre-pubescent (at least in that one aspect.) She will make an exception for Valentine's Day, though, which brings much rejoicing to ChezSnark.
Snarky really has a problem with the whole body hair issue, actually. She finds it yucky and gross in all practicality (tank tops, swim suits, shorts) but in principle wishes she could just let it all go. So this "Winterizing" thing is sort of her annual foray into protesting the unrealistic expectations set by the beauty industry and society in general. (She's also normally a waxer, not a shaver, so this is a bit of a reprieve from all the ouchiness.)
Strange how laziness promotes old stereotypes (longer head hair and finger nails) whilst stomping like a giant hairy Sasquatch on others.
Snarky owns several statementy T-shirts that she used to employ to keep her sense of self at the gym. One had a giant, glaring Big Brother (from "1984"), another declared "RACIAL STEREOTYPES DEHUMANIZE" (a gift from her activist brother), and yet another one implored the reader to "Visualize Whirled Peas".
Which really has nothing to do with this post, except that Snarky finally managed to download some photos and was thinking along the lines of helping y'all to visualize her life out here in the Pacific Northwest.
More to come, eventually.
First, some more house pics!
A bad photo of our finished floor upstairs. Also an inkling of our whacky PeeWee color choices.
The cats spend most of their day up in the hutch.
Meant to give you an idea of the amazing candy-apple-green of the living room. Also our slovenly ways.
And love for Kubrick.
... and some travel pics...
One of our recent bike excursions on the Spring Water Corridor Trail. The red speck is The Mister.
A mural by the Devil's Punchbowl on the coast. The poppies are real.
Closeup of the strange sand formations on Hobbit Beach.
This is why the Snarks love the coast.
The Snarky's on the coast! The Mister has sworn to learn how to use the camera. Someday you might actually see more than just Reflected!Snarky.
OK... that's it for now. Coming soon: more coastal pics, the IKEA run, and 'maters!
Oops. Wrong show.
Recall the comic/histrionic tableaux competing families assumed at the beginning of that old gameshow mainstay, The Family Feud. If the DarkityFam were to pose thusly, Snarky believes she and her mother would be in the shouldn't-be-funny-but-really-is Mexican standoff mutual strangle-hold position.
Of course Snarky loves DarkityMa. She is cute (her hair grew back with a vengance and is curly of all things!) and cuddly and has a wicked sense of humor. She also can't stay still without cleaning and can hold on to grudges for decades. After some of the stories her parents have told the Snarks this past weekend about DarkityPauPau (DarkityGrandma) Snarky understands where the grudge thing comes from (and is starting to understand her own inability to just. Let. It. Go.)
Still, DarkityMa made Snarky cry. Snarky is considerably quick to tears (just watch her during holiday commercials), but these were bitter, angry, angsty, uncontrollable tears that Snarky hasn't cried since probably shortly after the onset of puberty. How does she do it?
Tonight is the Snarks' last night with the DarkityFam. Right now DarkityMa and Pa are meeting with the Snarks' realtor to discuss the local housing market, and to decide whether they want to move here sooner or later. On the balance Snarky would love for her parents to move closer. But there is the niggling, teenaged part of her that chafes a little at the idea -- it is all for entirely selfish reasons. Both of them are shockingly older than Snarky remembers them, and she wants to be able to take care of them without spending a day flying down to get to them.
Another enlightening revelation from this weekend is the fact that even Snarky's parents feel a sort of disconnect with the Chinese-American communities out there. They all have a healthy appreciation for the food and culture, but don't really care so much for the people... if that makes any sense at all. Snarky has found many of her "racial" contemporaries to be rather materialistic and overly driven to max out the monetary measuring stick. The Darkity'Rents moving to Portland would appease the rest of DarkityMa's clan in the Bay Area enough (hey, they're in the same time zone at least!) and still give them enough cushion from all the daily drama. Not to mention the $$$housing costs$$$.
Along with all these eye-opening conversations have been wonderful retellings of family lore. Snarky's mother and father both come from families that were greatly affected by the Japanese occupation as well as the Cultural Revolution. Both families were at some point split up during their exodus to Hong Kong, and the struggles and horrors they faced have left scars that decorate their combined pasts just as prominently as weddings, births, graduations, and other accomplishments.
Most days Snarky lives her life in the now without any sense of her history or the larger picture. Perhaps it would be good to have the touchstones of her parents closer by so that she can keep all of those lives and stories in mind. She just needs to get thicker skin first.
Snarky is mostly blind.
Granted, she's still a few (scant) steps away from being legally blind, but her eyesight is bad enough that sans glasses or contacts, she's pretty much waving her arms Frankenstein style and doing the nervous Don't-Crush-My-Toes-Slow-Dance/Tippy-Toes-Sweep-Walk that extreme myopia choreographs.
Given all this, Snarky just wanted to take a quick moment to praise Chez Snark to it's blessed little rafters for having just enough square footage to allow for all the Snarks' crap to be spread out all over the place and still have enough room left over to maintain clear, blind people walkways.
It has gotten to the point that The Snarks can't remember a time when All This Stuff fit in to a less-than 800 square foot apartment. How'd they do it? Maaaagic!
Snarky also wants to bless Chez Snark's little anthropomorphized heart for having an added bonus accessory of an old charcoal grill. The Snarks enjoyed beef kabobs, roasted corn, and 'taters, followed by more-or-less successful dark chocolate s'mores for the Fourth. Unfortunately, they could not motivate their lazy behinds into making a nice pitcher of Sangria but there's plenty of time for that yet.
Snarky has Stevie Nicks by way of Lucy Lawless stuck in her head now... though sometimes the voice switches over to that Smashing Pumpkins guy.
Which is really, really annoying. She really missed the Smashing Pumpkins boat mostly because of Corgan. Sure his voice (grating, nasal, tremulous) was the angry yawp of her "generation", but Snarky hasn't been all that keen about her generation either.
The Snarks are going into this short work week completely unprepared for Turkey Day. They have a vague idea of a menu, but since the only attendants to The Feast will be themselves, they haven't really put a great deal of pressure on the timeliness of said meal.
They are still hosting family, though. The difference is that that particular meal is happening tonight (!!) and Snarky came up with the menu for tonight's meal while trying to get to sleep last night. DarkityMa (she of the "start cooking three days in advance" method) would be ashamed.
So tonight Snarky's father's older sister's middle son and his wife (ie her cousins) will be fed gingered catfish and mysteriously cooked spring pea tips & tendrils. "Mysteriously" because Snarky has only cooked these kinds of greens twice (boiled the first time, stir fried the second) with varying results. Tonight she'll probably par-boil then finish off in the wok after she's done with the catfish. The Snarks love to experiment on their guests. (insert hand rubbing and low, evil laugh here)
Shoot. Now Snarky's hungry.
PS More proof positive that The Mister is a perfect match for Snarky: she called to touch base over her lunch break about tonight, and he's gone and added about three more dishes to include with the meal (appetizer, additional side, and dessert).
In the past, the Snarks' luck with garden has been rather spotty. One year all they grew was a ginormous basil patch (about 36 Genovese basil plants purchased from a guy who called himself the Basil King (though he isn't this Basil King - see August 14th entry which kinda distracted me from this post for about half an hour. Why do we no longer have the Black Mountain College?!)) and made pesto all summer long and had enough left over to freeze and enjoy all through winter.
So they are quite pleasantly stunned to find that the mere seven basil plants, five tomato plants (gold nugget, an heirloom plant called "Dancing Bonnie", Early Girl, roma, and cherry tomatoes), and one each of eggplant (Japanese "Black Beauty"), cucumber (some sort of slicin' cuke) and zucchini are not only not dying, but bearing some fruit!
Wee ickle first harvest!
A recent photo of the garden, taken in the early evening.
Due to the dry (whoda thunk it?) weather, we've had to water the garden. Here's the tomato/basil/eggplant patch.
So far we've gotten two zucchini plants out of this monter. One was regular sized, and the other one we didn't get to until after returning from NC. Behold zuke-zilla!...
We've used about 2% of this thing so far.
The Snarks did end up having a good time with the Darkity'rents. Snarky starts her new job tomorrow (!!!) and the immediately after her first five days on the new job, they are flying out to TX to join up with the DarkityFam (including DarkityBro) to go on a five day cruise. (more !!!'s) At some point the Snarks will need a vacation to just sit at home and do absolutely nothing with nobody.
Today the Snarks hit four different Goodwill stores in the area for state plates and other curiosities. She has so much to show y'all (including the cow head they got for the living room!) (Don't worry, no real living bovines were harmed in the making of this particular piece of kitsch.) (Oh, and the Donut Barn! But... that's for another post.)
Until then, she will leave you this. Proof that Snarky comes from a cute short peoples.
Darkity'Rents at Multnomah Falls. Check out DarkityMa's new curly hair!
(Translation: busy work. Snarky has no idea why she suddenly went German.)
(Huzzah! for making it back onto page one, by the way.)
Snarky had the realization at the end of last week that she had turned into an internet taker, rather than a giver. She was reading blogs and posts and doing the general surfing about she could squeeze into her new schedule, but she wasn't making any contributions. Selfish Snarky!
Needless to say, the thing that is worse than de-Garboing oneself is regaining any sense of flow and light-footedness in one's prose.
Referring to oneself in the third person definitely sandbags that whole "light-footed" effort. Still! Snarky shoulders on.
Work is fantastic. Well. Today it isn't. But that's not too horribly bad considering Snarky has been here for sixty days (she should know, her 60 day review is this Friday). Today has been diminished in fantasticness simply because Snarky is a problem solver and her problem was not. Getting. Solved already! Her addiction is more to the sense of accomplishment rather than the journey, and this particular journey was starting to feel like an endless turn on a traffic circle rather than the euphoric A to B that usually measures her day.
"Big Ben!"
"Parliament!"
"Big Ben!"
... you get the picture.
On top of the slightly stuck feeling Snarky is having today, she's also slightly sick. The atmospheric controls for her office don't, so she and her co-workers have been running between the extremes. Some days they keep their jackets on and wrap scarves around their faces. On these days Snarky looks like a technicolor urchin with her turqoise and rainbow arm warmers and slightly haunted expression. Other days the office becomes a sort of greenhouse/sauna. Heavy, humid air hot enough to warrant short-sleeved t-shirts (yesterday one of the supervisors was wearing what amounted to a nice tank top. In November!). All this wishy-washy weather (interior and exterior) has caused the quick dissemination of Seasonal Crud that runs the gamut from tickling cough to full on phlegm attacks.
Snarky has yet to succumb, but today she feels the closest to "unwell" that she has felt since starting work here.
Ah, but the fantastic stuff! It truly is fantastic. Snarky is surrounded by passionate, funny, educated people. The industry is very different from The Cracker Factory. Snarky gets to work with manufacturing types and artistic types and IT types and sales/marketing types. She gets to type really, really fast, and is apparently the heir apparent to the new CRM system they are trying to implement. What does CRM stand for? Hold on... Snarky needs to look it up.
Customer Relationship Management
Of course! Anyways.. what Snarky knows of the CRM is that she is trying to merge four different databases into the one thing... and also train herself up on the new system in order to train everyone else up on the new system... and also customizing and reporting and data crunching and... um... yeah. Just a little bit of everything. If Snarky was the Office Monkey before, she's more like the Office Gorilla now.
Along with all the newness of being in a different work environment working in a completely different industry, Snarky has the added bonus of tests! Product Recognition Tests, that is. She finally managed to pass Test One (correctly identifying 82 samples) after two tries. Next up: Test Two, which requires the mere memorization of about sixty-some-odd pieces. No big whoop. Test Three (and this is the final test) Snarky hopes is under re-configuration... as most of the test is over soon-to-be-discontinued product. Snarky realized, after failing her first go at Test One, that the last written test she had taken prior was for her driver's license. This definitely felt like a return to the days when one's value hinged on the passing of a test (though to be fair, Snarky would not have been fired had she failed the test again... she would have just been stuck in test limbo, having to re-take the test every two weeks until she got it right).
Beside the failing her first test ever part of this experience, Snarky is really enjoying this whole "learn the product" process. She is starting to feel a bit nervous about her performance review on Friday because it has been so long since she geniunely cared about her job that she just might cock it up. (Snarky has been dying to use that term all week. Sorry if it abruptly offended/shocked anyone. Snarky seems to be good about cocking up the flow of things today. Hee!) (From where did that term come anyway? Is it gun related? Or just more blatantly phallic?)
Snarky hopes things go well and that she can remain the resident office monkey gorilla. Bananas are good.
First the semi-tragic ordeal of the Kim family, and now the climbers on Mt. Hood.
This has not been a good season for hope.
Snarky finally hit her bummed out wall yesterday early afternoon. She and The Mister had been fairly functioning up until then, completing last minute holiday preparations for their trip Back East, s-l-o-w-l-y cleaning up ChezSnark for the impending white glove inspection from DarkityMa, generally acting as if life was going on without a hitch.
Then yesterday afternoon Snarky fell hard into a funk and didn't really recover until late in the evening. She just could no longer pretend that Everything Was OK.
She's fine now, but this morning The Mister, as he prepared for work, came into the bedroom (in which Snarky was determinedly NOT preparing to work out before work, but rather trying to discover just how much of her could be covered up before suffocation would become an issue) and started to hyperventilate and repeat over and over "I can't go in, I just can't go in, I can't go in there, I just can't go in....".
She took some time off of work to make him some pancakes and get him in bed and talk to him. Assure him that it would be OK eventually, that they were on their way to finding a better path.
And Snarky does believe this, firmly and with a steely resolve she doesn't normally feel for anything in her life (except for the Big Stuff). But she just wishes she could make The Mister believe it as thoroughly as she does right now too.
In the meantime, she continues to do little things for him. Tell him how proud she is of him, all the things she hopes will help him to regain some of what he was before all this stress wore him down.
The Mister has a bit of a hair fetish to complement his foot/naughty secretary thing. And Snarky really never knew about the extent of it until recently.
When he first met Snarky, she had a slightly angled bob that just curled beneath her chin. She had been maintaining the relatively chic 'do after a free makeover going in to her third year in college. Up until then she had rather a rather laissez faire approach to her hair except for the white streak (a la Rogue of X-Men fame or Pepe le Pieu's paramour, take your pick) she tried to maintain until she burned a bald patch on the side of her head.
She lapsed back into just growing it all out while in Europe for a semester, ending with a dramatic chop off "mas corta, por favor" in a "Super Tall" in Spain. (Who knew Super Cuts had gone international?)
Leading up to their wedding, Snarky finally returned to letting it all grow out in order to fulfill some deep-seated conviction that All Brides Must Have an Up 'Do. Her hair continued to grow until 2002 when, after a successful run doing impressions of "The Ring"'s Samara (and scaring the bejeezus out of all her co-workers), Snarky allowed her hairdresser to give her bangs.
This was the beginning of the end.
The bangs became Bettie Page bangs one hectic morning after Snarky's shaky attempts to even out the regrowth.
After that, it was only a matter of time before she succumbed to the inevitable and chopped it all off for charity.
Since that fateful November day (she kept the long hair one more Halloween in order to channel Cleopatra) Snarky has more or less kept the 'do at either page-boyish or rather Pat Benatarian levels.
The Snarks take their mini-golfing very seriously.
Growing out the highlights, and no, Snarky is not Flamenco-ing. She's modeling a knitting thingamabobber (Glampyre's One Skein Wonder, if you're curious)
A better look at The Benatar in all her glory.
After the unfortunate Hitler Bangs incident, Snarky finally agreed to let it all grow out again.
Lest we ever forget... re-posting proof of the Hitler Bangs.
This old photo most closely approximates the currently sideswept bangs (if you can make them out on her teeny tiny head). Is it just Snarky, or does it look like she's about to be plucked off the Earth by an Ent?
And for The Mister, there was much rejoicing. For while he has never once complained in all the years of Snarky's follicle fancies, he had been harboring a secret hope that she would return to the p0rn hair of yore. Every time she now wears her hair in the funky little pigtails - all she can currently manage - he gets a certain speculative gleam in his eye and breaks out into a boyish grin of delight.
It is this anticipation of his that is helping Snarky through some of the most difficult growing out phases she has ever encountered (and she's counting the skunky bald patch!). Right now she is currently at "vaguely choppy kinda-sorta rock mulletini-y" and would really just like to drop all the -y, -ie, -ishness and have a damn definitive 'do, already!
The things we do for love!
Edited to add: If she can find old pics of the old long hair, Snarky'll post 'em. She's also got a picture to be downloaded off the camera of the current oh-so-age-appropriate pigtails yet to post.
