the girly who shall end all girls

You Are Ani Difranco! Honest, real, and well liked. You're not limited by any boundaries. "And you can call me crazy But I think you're as lazy as white paint on the wall" Who's Your Inner Rock Chick? Take This Quiz :-) Find the Love of Your Life (and More Love Quizzes) at Your New Romance.

C said something to me early in our relationship that periodically surfaces and sustains me. "I was looking for a woman that didn't need me."

and i don't, you know. i'd be a somewhat different person, but i'd be shouldering my way through the world all the same if he had never crossed my path. but there's something that rocks about being loved for that very thing. thinking about the thoughts flying on the friends list about gender roles, i'm very happy to have a boon companion and coequal who happens to have a Tab A to fit Slot B. and i get to wear cotton undies and comfortable shoes.

we had a rambly chat with frabjousdave the other day about which characters from Buffy we are (or wish we were). part of me certainly is Willow in high school, crying in the bathroom because she saw Xander kissing Cordelia. Willow, for all her other faults, found Oz and Tara, who loved her for her brains and geekiness and goofy sexiness. if i was a bit younger, i think that would have been hope for me in a dark world filled with cheerleaders and sorority girls. as it is, i worked it out on my own, and i look upon the early Ms Rosenberg with a poignant sort of nostalgia. sometimes the Cordelias of the world still get me down, be they the "attractive" or just the well-connected. i'll never be one of the popular kids, but i suspect that i'll always be happier, and with less effort. i like that.

in practice i'm pretty much Anya.

the weather is perfect for hot tea and all the indoor pursuits i love, as well as brisk walks. i'm making serious progress on the current quilt. more than two thirds along i think. i have two projects ahead with a Yule deadline, so i've got to kick some ass. that's okay. it feels quite good to cover my lap with a blanket and sew on it while singing with the television.

the birds are singing too.

*this is a quote from Romancing the Stone, which C and i spoke simultaneously yesterday. yay for geek love.

after another Friday of The Long Goodbye, complete with midnight cheeseburgers, M&C departed for Ashland, and C and i settled into a couple days of relative quiet.

Saturday was the two year anniversary of our arrival in Seattle. it's still funny to think that the 2001 attacks set off the chain of events that led us to pack our bags and go west. i've finally stopped feeling like we're on vacation and will have to go home. this is home, these days, even if the fair food is lame and there's no Yuengling. as i said to Dad the other night, well, not quite everything is better here. but almost.

i spent the day gently, quilting and chatting with C broken by a lovely lunch and some shopping with scarletbronte. i managed to sell two copies of The Shadow of the Wind, and one of Set This House in Order when we stopped at Queen Anne Books. sometimes i think i should be working in a book store, except for the retail thing. and all the bad books out there. i had a wonderful phone conversation with my parents (during which i sold another copy of Shadow of the Wind), and played a round of Diceland.

we got up early to catch the last day of the Van Gogh to Mondrian exhibit at SAM. even before 9am on a Sunday, the line was out the door to the corner (of course, i wanted to go down around 1 am, but C vetoed that). Mrs Kroller-Mueller was my kind of lady - as soon as Mondrian departed completely into abstraction, she stopped supporting him. my favorite pieces in the exhibit weren't the advertised ones; one was a dark art nouveau scene of three brides, another a vibrant oil of a cyclops falling in love with a sleeping nymph. there was just something fabulous about the soft look of devotion in his one eye and the tilt of his head. the real highlights for me were the quotes in the audio tour (reminding me again how much EMP fails to satisfy) of Van Gogh musing on his mortality as a rationale for all those self-portraits. it was an odd blend of periods and styles and even furniture and architectural drawings. there was even a stained glass window featuring scenes of the Kroller-Muellers' businesses - stained glass engineers on the phone and miners using jackhammers, yeah.

today was unremarkable, except for the perfect Seattle weather. and i have triumphed in making reduced carb no sugar added scones. take the Joy of Cooking recipe, replace all purpose flour with 1 cup bread flour and 3/4 cup almond meal, sub splenda for the sugar, add dried cranberries to taste. they're much better than i ever imagined, moist and pleasantly nutty without being mealy or gritty.

( girl parts TMI )

a nice day yesterday. after much lazing, C and i headed for Lake City, the hobby neighborhood of Seattle, where we wandered the aisles of the gigantic and oddly comprehensive American Eagle Hobbies, where there are tiny people ready to kill each other, and tiny people kissing each other, and rocket fuel.
then we hit In the Beginning, where i got a book on bargello design. bargello is actually an old needlepoint technique where images are created out of a series of horizontal stitches of varying lengths. i like to think of it as fabric pixels - by varying the width and of a series of strips of rectangles, you can create intricate curves and the illusion of depth. the cool part is that the complexity is in the planning, not the construction, so it looks to be good for big brain, small skills. much toying with graph paper and art markers will ensue.

somewhere in there M&C called, and after negotiating Bumbershoot traffic to get C's laptop, we headed for the cafe at the Grand Illusion. i went off to find a cash machine and arrived to find C and frabjousdave side by side, typing away, respective little Apples glowing (okay, i do wish i had a picture). the rest of the afternoon into evening is described beautifully by the_monkey_king. i want a house with big upholstered booths. part of the conversation with Matt and Lisa on the way home was about the little pleasures of dorm life - sometimes i wish all my friends lived in one big building with a lounge instead of spread across North America. ah well, you can't have everything, where would you put it?

the long weekend goes on, to eggs and fighting games, BBQ and livestock.

it was another weekend of the long goodbye. i'm having such good times with so many great people that i can almost forget why i'm there. Seattle can be a magical place, and i'm glad i came.

there are other details, but now i'm looking forward to another dinner at Crow (featured review in the last Stranger, so make your way to my 'hood before the reservation book is full) and the flowering of C's experience at Penny Arcade Expo this weekend. i'm in a bit of quiet before the storm at work, when Labor Day ends the vacation season, and the legal community begins a rush to squeeze in everything they can before the end of the year. the streets are beginning to clog with the detritus of Bumbershoot setup. i don't like the crowds or the commercialism, but i appreciate the burst of vitality and how cool it is to have a towing service.

i had a great evening last night, which reminds me that alcohol is not required for good times, even in a bar. nor do i require caffeine to stay awake into the small hours. i did discover that around 2am, there is no traffic problem in the Seattle metro area. i'd happily do it all again for, oh, maybe five weeks.

bounced awake at 6am today, apparently unaffected by lack of sleep. C and i shared our stories of the evening (he was triumphant) got some coffee, wandered down to the Five Point (where the jukebox was kicking out Paradise City) and finally the t-shirts were in stock. my brother-in-law has been begging for an "alcoholics serving alcoholics since 1929" shirt for over a year, and today there was one for him and one for me. on the front: The liver is evil and must be punished. yay!

C is upping the word count, and i shall putter until it's time for Lohengrin tonight.