Month: November 2003

bad tattoo nightmare

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

i woke up this morning in the midst of a very strange dream. there was a lot going on; my father and his entire side of the family, including my dead grandmother (who wasn’t dead in the dream), made an appearance; i wandered around a shopping mall trying to find stephanie and my purse– since i was on a road trip, of course stephanie was with me; and the absolute worst part, i think the part that woke me up, was that i realized i had gotten several large, very bad tattoos. i woke up wondering how much tattoo removal costs, and whether it really works. i also had thoughts of designing a very SMALL tattoo myself, something i would really like. but i probably won’t follow up on that…

anyway, yesterday afternoon i went over to christa and ray’s to help get christa’s bedroom painted. joe came over to help too; he’d never painted before. i did a lot of the cutting in, including all of the ceiling. i didn’t use tape, just did it freehand with a nice brush that christa had. i was pretty pleased, and christa said she thought it was my best edge work to date.

the up side of boredom

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

there’s a part of me that really enjoys having nothing much to do. i find all kinds of interesting, creative things happening in that situation.

so my current personals ad is far and away my most sincere, and probably my least creative ever. and as you can see… it doesn’t seem to be very successful.

so i decided to do a completely fascetious ad, partly because it was fun, and partly because i’m curious to see if creativity alone gets a response where sincerity does not. my sincere ad is still up there, but i don’t think it’ll be easy for anyone to tell that they’re both the same person.

for those who are curious, the new profile name is “monsterthumb”.

boring = good

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

oddly enough, today i didn’t get bored, or depressed, or sleep too late, or not get anything done; i didn’t feel anxious, or sad, or at loose ends. days when there’s no work and no one around are sometimes bad that way, but not today.

this morning i made the rounds of the cats, then ran some errands and went shopping in raleigh.

came home and had a yummy lunch of tomato soup, grilled cheese with bacon, dill pickles and fresca.

and then just puttered around, watched the ‘what not to wear’ marathon a lot (no new episode today, but next week’s looks like quite a doozy… the guy apparently has a wonder woman outfit in his wardrobe. um, i think he might be a little bit gay.) put a bunch of stuff in the attic. worked on a scarf i am knitting; i hope to wear it and a matching hat in the christmas parade next saturday.

somehow it was all very fulfilling.

oh– the cute guy logged into the system a couple of days ago and didn’t respond, so i don’t think he’s going to.

documentation and food

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

today at thanksgiving dinner we somehow got onto the subject of strange things the men of the previous generation would document.

my grandfather kept documentation about squirrels he captured in his yard and released in other counties. he’d write the county name down on his calendar.

wayne’s father would write down every time he mowed the grass, on a piece of old cardboard that wayne found in the shed years later.

we don’t know why they wrote these things down, but it gives me some clue as to why i sometimes feel the need to document things. maybe it’s just a compulsion that’s passed down genetically.

so, in the spirit of documentation, i will now document the most thorough and yummy thanksgiving dinner that my family has enjoyed in many years.

* turkey (which was brined then roasted)

* stuffing, dried bread, not cooked in the bird.

* some kind of jello thing.

* sweet potatoes with streusseled topping

* broccoli rice casserole. yes, the kind made with cheez whiz!

* cranberry sauce from a can. (I said, “Look, it’s can shaped!” and my mom said, “Of course! It has to be!” we don’t get too caught up in the gourmet thing in our family.)

* homemade rolls

* corn pudding

* gravy. duh.

* peas

* green bean casserole

* mashed potatoes (russets with whole milk and butter, put through a ricer. yes, there are people who will require that level of detail.)

* applesauce (homemade by yours truly.)

* pecan pie

* pumpkin cheesecake (my mom makes this, it’s totally to die for.)

why i carry a pointed nail file

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

you’d think the reason i carry a pointed, metal nail file in my purse is because i want to be able to file down snags on my nails whenever they occur, but you’d be wrong.

* nancy drew. she opened a lot of locks with a similar nail file. i was a big nancy drew fan when i was a kid.

* jamie buchman. (the helen hunt character in “mad about you”.) they did an entire episode on jamie and her sister lisa’s purses, and the effects when the two accidentally picked up each other’s purse. by the end of the day, jamie, normally the most organized, pulled-together woman in NYC, is a misreable wreck. On the other hand, lisa discovers everything she needs in jamie’s purse to look well-groomed for a job interview, resulting in her being employed for the first time in her life. a swanky little zippered nail grooming kit is featured as an item in jamie’s purse. i’ve been looking for one ever since; the nail file is my stop-gap solution.

* buffy. buffy defends herself against her mother’s evil new boyfriend, “ted” (played by the late, great john ritter), with a very pointy little metal nail file. the wounds inflicted by the file reveal a shocking secret about ted, which i won’t spoil for you here.

that’s why i carry a pointed nail file in my purse. i want to be more like nancy, jamie, and buffy.

i am evil

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

tonight i slyly planted the idea in christa’s head that she should go to nyc with me around birthday-time to go SHOPPING.

maybe other people who like to SHOP should go with us. like, other people who are facing a significant birthday like we are.

heh. heh. heh.

busting on bust

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

i generally love “bust magazine”:http://www.bust.com/ , but there’s an article in the most recent issue that pissed me off.

it’s about the women of independent NJ radio station “WFMU”:http://www.wfmu.org/ . i’ll probably write bust a letter, but at the moment i think i’m gonna work out some thoughts in blog form.

this is one of the bits that i really object to:

“Maybe the techniness of radio has been daunting to women, or maybe the utter guy-ish-ness of record collecting has slowed their entry into the field, along with a helping of good old-fashioned marginalization and sexism.”

now take this in combination with the fact that the article mentions college radio only once:

“Nearly every one of the on-air women has a background in college radio…”

and doesn’t ever mention any other form of non-commercial radio (NPR? hello?), internet radio, pirate radio, microchannel… and whatever else i’m forgetting, so the premise that there’s a lack of women in radio, except in certain types of roles which mainstream radio forces them into, is not a very well supported or well inspected one.

even if it were supported, the theories the author advances for why this might be are really pretty offensive.

now of course, my experience of radio is pretty much limited to college, and my personal experience extends mainly to wqfs, wxdu, and to some limited degree wxyc and wknc.

however, i can assure you that wqfs and wxdu have _not_ had a lack of women involved at all levels for at least the last… um 15 years? and this article is all congratulatory toward wfmu because they’ve got a handful of female dejays now as compared to almost none five years ago.

“The other day, five of us gals were all in one of the studios together and it nearly blew station manager Ken [Freedman]’s mind,” says Kelly. “He’d never seen that many girls in one place at the station before.”

Oh, good for you, FMU. Five girls in ONE PLACE at ONE TIME! You deserve an article!

2 for 2

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

so i did write again to that personals guy that i’d written to before who didn’t respond the first time.

it’s been a few days; he’s logged into the system. he’s not going to respond.

the cute guy hasn’t written back, but he also hasn’t logged into the system, so there’s still a ray of hope.

barf stories come in fours

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

just skip this if you don’t want to up your personal gross factor today.

– the other day i watched “friends forever”:http://imdb.com/title/tt0359297/ , a documentary about a band. it featured a scene in which a friend of theirs vomits into a bottle, then drinks it.

– after dinner last night i was in the restaurant bathroom, and a woman walked in to the stall next to mine and started throwing up.

– poor christa got “food poisoning”:http://home.earthlink.net/~christa.wessel/blog_archive/2003_11_23_past today.

– i just read a personal ad which featured this story:

Most humbling moment: My first shower with a member of the opposite sex. I do not favor hot showers and the water and “action” was much too hot for my liking ( could have handled the action, but the aquatics did me in) thus making me a bit queezy. Vomit potential was raised to Defcon 5 and in my frantic operative to evacuate the tub I slipped, fell, knocked the shower door off track, cracked my head on both the sink and the floor, and hurled… pretty much in unison. I think my curtain call was “See I told you I don’t like hot showers!”

ok, ENOUGH ALREADY. ugh.

painting at sarah & georg’s house

Posted on by Lisa Linn Allen

yesterday i helped georg and sarah paint their living room. they’ve done a tremendous amount of work in this room; they had to remove fake wood panelleing, then use a heat gun to remove the glue that held the panelling to the wall. after that they had to repair the original plaster walls extensively with plastering tape and plaster, which then had to be sanded and primed.

however, underneath the hideous 1960’s renovation was lurking an adorable early 40’s cottage. i got to come in for the final stage– painting– which is the easiest and most rewarding part of the project. it’s the part where the people who have been living with the ugliness for so long that they almost no longer see it finally get to see their house the way it’s _supposed_ to look, and i get to see the “oh WOW!” looks on their faces when we’re done. that’s my favorite part.

the room does look adorable now. sarah chose a pale golden beige color with white trim. there’s a repair that needs to be made to the ceiling before it can be painted; i suggested that she try painting the ceiling the wall color since that might make it seem higher. they took down some bad brown plastic crown molding and don’t plan to replace it since it makes the ceiling seem lower.

after we finished, we went out to sushi-thai for dinner, which was excellent. georg let us try some of his duck; i’ve never had duck before. it was yummy, but very rich– i’m not sure i could eat a whole plate of it.