dressing the part

The exhibition catalogue from Chic Chicago sits to the left of my keyboard. I leave it there to remind me how enamoured I was with all those delightful dresses in the exhibit, the feeling I had when I walked through, marvelling at the creations that sprung from people's heads. Throughout, my internal dialogue suggested it should be a dress summer and I should practice my lacking sewing skills by sewing a multitude of dresses.

There is a suggestion that anyone can be an expert at something with 10,000 hours of practice. I am afraid of that sort of commitment and am instead willing to trudge through pre-made patterns, tweaking, rather than work on my pattern making skills, which I was never really awesome at anyway. Adequate, that's my life goal. I pledged to myself that I'd make dresses and started looking for inspiration by reading the blog of a woman in Chicago who sews herself a lot of dresses and a mother in Portland who seems to have a lot of children but still time to sew Simplicity patterns.

Last week I found some pixely bargain bin fabric and imagined both a dress and skirt out of it. (I think I can get both out of the yardage I bought.) It was $2 a metre, which means, in theory, I can have a dress for about $8 when I count in the zipper and thread. I think of bargain fabric as tester fabric, since it's cheaper yet more interesting than muslin. Yesterday I went wild, picking up three fabrics, about 10 metres total. Two I picked up in the bargain section at Fabricland in Park Royal, the closest place to buy patterns (that I've found, anyway), along with two dress patterns. One pattern I'm trying based on recommendations from the blogger in Portland; the other is a 1960 retro reprint, seemingly the same as one my mother had that is about 6 sizes too small for me (I told you my pattern making skills are lacking. I'm not ready to practice grading right now. I'm easing back into this process). One fabric is absolutely hideous flowery fabric that looks like something a blind quilter would use, but that I think will make an interesting dress (in a Von Trapp sort of way). The other fabric is a slightly stylised version of (to my eyes) CRM's roses in rust and white on a black background. What I'm most excited about, though, is the fabric I picked up earlier in the day from Dressew's bargain basement section.

One of the dresses I loved most in the Chic Chicago exhibit was a Dior dress from 1953, made of silk velour in a rosy print. In person I stared at it for about 10 minutes, then the Marshall Fields knockoff version that was equally lovely. I realise it's the fabric that makes the dress, the print and the fall of the skirt. The Dior cost $2500 with three fittings, the Marshall Fields version a mere $25 (back in the '50s, remember) bought off the rack. It was the Dior dress that planted the need to sew dresses into my head. This picture doesn't do it justice; the surplice top, the ruched band around the natural waist, the simple tuck pleats on the front, and pockets! I love dresses with pockets.

Here's the fabric I bought at Dressew, singularly because I had the image of that Dior dress in my head when I saw it. It's incredibly gaudy, yes, and has only passing resemblance to the Dior print and is a cotton twill rather than silk velour, but still I had to get it to test it out. It will be a $10 dress if it works out. It's the closest I'll ever be to that Dior dress again. I'm quite sure that, whatever winds up happening with the pattern/sewing, I'll still wear this thing. I lack a full-length mirror and will rely on how it makes me feel rather than how it looks. And, right now, the fabric makes me giggle.

Must go iron the hell out of the fabric and, if I'm feeling really anal, the pattern pieces. (I think we all know I won't be ironing the pattern pieces.) I'm cutting two dresses today, for sure.

best days

What a lucky happenstance. I decided to go see Rose Melberg tonight at BLIM, even though she's playing next Saturday as well and I have every intention of going to that show anyway. For a few minutes I thought about bailing, staying at home and staring at my phone that never rings, but I convinced myself this was all part of my plan for the year, to get out and do stuff by myself if I want to do them.

Good thing.

Rose played some of her favourite Softies songs, most of which she hasn't played for about 7 or 8 years. She mentioned that she has been trying to get Jen to reform for one-off shows, but Jen is terrified of playing the old material cold so it hasn't happened. But Rose really wanted to revisit some of the old stuff, and she told me that since she's playing next week, too, she wanted to do a different set than she usually does to mix it up a bit. So...

I had to stop myself from squealing with delight. For a minute I considered singing Jen's part, but then realised that I haven't actually sung in public for a while and my voice might be lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, and maybe people don't really want to hear me sing. I listen to the Softies when I either want to cry into my pillow all night or hold hands with a boy who will give me gentle kisses on the tip of my nose. I like the times it makes me feel sweet and hopeful.

She played the one song that makes me miss the friend who introduced me to the Softies the most. It was surprising to find that the songs I love the most are also her favourites. Makes me feel more of an affinity towards her.

"But you can't send true love through the post. It's fragile."

good =/> bad

Man, karma is quick.

Yesterday afternoon I organised a temporary contract at the college I work at, which I'm terribly excited about. Hours later I became "just friends" with the guy I've been seeing. Then, as I waited for the bus, I got a text from my friend that I've been trying to catch up with that he was waiting for me to IM him and we had a good chat. And then today news broke that Arthur Erickson passed away.

Honestly, I know people don't believe me when I talk about this, but there is some weird correlation between me getting work and my personal life taking a hit. It seems to be a life trend. Crap.

Today was just lovely, wasn't it? The light was amazing this morning at 7:30 as I walked to the bus to work; a different sort of afternoon light when I came home was equally attractive. Had I more energy I would have stayed out to take pictures. As it was, I really had to lie down and try not to sleep. Now, though, I want to be outside and am having no luck with neighbourhood friends.

At some point yesterday I realised I have a few consecutive days off next week. I don't want to hang around here and do nothing, so am thinking of going out of town somehow for a few days. Where to go, what to do? With Arthur Erickson's death, I think it would be quite an adventure to go to Tacoma to see the Museum of Glass he designed, but what the hell else is there to do in Tacoma? And if I go to Tacoma, why wouldn't I continue on to Portland? But how much fun is Portland when you're alone? Seattle? Victoria? My parents' house? These are questions I must ponder for a few days.

I also want to make Dr. Pepper ribs. Don't they sound horrifyingly delicious?

filled with suprises

Cooking for one is sometimes unfulfilling because when something is really good I'm the only one who knows it.

For tonight's dinner I made a stuffed meatloaf like my grandmother used to make. She used to put cooked eggs, carrots and pickles in the middle, the slices looking so attractive and colourful as she laid them on the plate. It was one of my favourite meals when I lived in Edmonton and visited them on Sundays, baked in clear Pyrex loaf pans. My version seemed to take forever to finish, clocking in around 2 hours for the whole meal (lazy potato salad and zucchini coins finished it off). For just me it was a lot of effort. I must be pretty special. I'll be special until the leftovers run out.

After a mostly dismal weekend, I was happy that today was filled with little surprises. I decided to dress like a lady today and wore grey pumps all day without my feet hurting. Two of my friends from work that I haven't seen for months popped by the reference desk at separate times and we had a little catch-up. I ran into my friend's wife on the street at lunch and bumped into my friend in London Drugs while I was shopping for hand soap. Then another friend stopped by work to say hello and we had a wee chat. I came home to a letter from Japan and a pick-up slip for the books I ordered. And I got called in for a shift tomorrow at Langara.

I'm hoping all of this was meant to balance out the suck of the last few days, topped by Boy Trouble. If it's the precursor of something bad I don't want it.

snapshots of the past

Watching "Pecker" makes me nostalgic for my former life. The time in Baltimore, the art show in New York and the Greyhound from New York to Baltimore, when the bus pulls in down the alley and parks under the underhang...

We flew to Baltimore to see his sister and took the bus up to New York for a few days. A Yankees game in the old stadium, $5 seats in the bleachers, when the Blue Jays destroyed the Yankees and the drunk fans lost their shit and we slinked out after the 7th inning stretch because we worried they'd hear my lack of a New York accent and bust my lip. The trip to Tribeca and Soho, a stop at the Knitting Factory for the Bis/Ladybug Transistor show, negotiations for one to buy the $6 beers and the other to pick up pizza once we got back to the Carlton Arms. Sitting in Washington Square after a day of walking, walking, walking, over 100 blocks and never getting where we meant to go, being held in the crook of his neck as he calmed me. Eating eggplant sandwiches with a shared Cherry Coke in Times Square, avoiding the crackheads down the counter who were looking for a fight. Pictures, pictures, always something more to catch in silver halide crystals.

During that time in my life I used to be fun and funny and adventurous and creative and thoughtful and sweet and smart without trying. I was happy. I can't imagine being that happy again. There are glimpses of it, sure, but there's something missing.

Last night I stumbled upon postcards and emails and pictures from that time and the sadness hit me hard. I can't imagine being loved like I was then. No one has even come close to making an effort since. I want to hide my heart in a shadow to stop it from being punched up more; I'm tired of piecing it back together after another person says he doesn't love me.

"I hate modern photography!"

Edward Furlong is a terrible actor. Brutally bad. He overacts in the worst possible way, even for a John Waters film.

the horrifying terror!

Some days I feel like I've become The Blob and will ooze my way around town, absorbing anything my growing body can consume, expanding, expanding, expanding. Today is one of those days.

It's the lethargy that started the whole thing. After work I went to look at a sofabed (should I consider a floor model if it means saving $400, even if it's a totally different colour/fabric/style than I was thinking?) and bought some produce. The walk from the shop, I passed by an accident, minutes after it happened, before the body was in the ambulance. Someone hit a pedestrian in a crosswalk, continuing one-and-a-half car lengths past the crosswalk. A woman was holding another woman as she crumpled into her arms, sobbing. I couldn't tell if she was with the pedestrian or the driver of the car. Somehow all the errands I thought about doing seemed a little less important after that.

When I got home I sort of collapsed on the increasingly uncomfortable couch and couldn't move. The two hour sleep likely didn't help, nor the Chinese food I had for dinner. (Likely the Chinese food really started me feeling like The Blob, but it's so hard to pinpoint the exact moment.) So much for finishing the application for a job I probably won't be interviewed for. Blah.

The amount of exercise I likely have to do to make myself stop feeling blobby amounts to months of 24-hours a day workouts. Who has that kind of time? And eliminating booze probably would help as well, but then it comes down to a quality of life thing. Would not drinking make me happier? Would not having a belly improve my life substantially? These are questions I'm not willing to answer right now.

Besides, being able to absorb people into my growing body mass brings people closer to me. Except that our conversation would probably involve them screaming and me making a weird gurgling noise... Perhaps I need to try harder to like exercise.

couch surfing

I think it's time to say goodbye.

Last night when I got up from my futon-that-passes-as-a-couch-type-thing I heard a loud clunk. Looking under, I found that one of the smaller poles that forms the bed supportive system fell off. Structurally it's still fine, but it might be time to look for a new sofabed.

Not like things falling off my futon is a new thing. Screws and bolts have been falling off this thing for years. I'm almost certain the whole contraption is held together by just one screw and is going to fall into a fiery mass any second. (I realise it's unlikely that a futon will spontaneously combust, but things like that happen on TV and my life is sometimes similar to a soap opera, so it's possible. IT'S POSSIBLE.) I'm not hoping for this to happen; just saying the futon is precarious at best and a death trap at worst.

So now I have to look for a replacement much more seriously. I don't want a crappy sofa that will look like crap in a month. I should probably make an investment like an adult and get a sofabed that looks like it didn't come from a dumpster. My fear of bedbugs and people's bad taste keeps me from craigslist (and the fact that people often think their furniture is still in such great shape that they can charge what they paid for it) and I don't want to wonder what was done on the sofa before I bought it.

The online search for sofabeds has unearthed this sucker that will prevent me from doing much more than eating beans and scraps from art openings. But it does look stylish... I really feel like I need to sit on sofas to be able to make a rational decision, so my ass is going to be sitting on sofabeds everywhere I can find them. But if you have suggestions of places to check out that are off the beaten track... I'd be open.

The thing that causes me pause is that buying an adult sofa implies some interest in stability and someone who is considering leaving town probably shouldn't be looking to drop a load of cash on large pieces of furniture. So... not sure what this means.

At least now I have something to keep beside the bed to beat intruders to death.

bottoms up

I just got a ride home in a 1966 Barracuda. The last of the bubble back windows. It was a pretty sweet ride, albeit only a 12 block ride. Whatever, I'll take it.

After work, Rich came over to watch the dreadful hockey game and then we met up with his wife for a fundraising thing at the Whip where drinking helped her friend ride for cancer. I only helped a little; I could only get two pints of the cask beer before it ran out, and since I'd had a few during the dreadful, dreadful hockey game I felt I did as much as I could. I guess it might have seemed strange that I arrived at a bar with a married man, but those people didn't go to library school. Oh, I did speak with someone who has a brother-in-law who is well-versed in patents; I need to know about patents for a job I'm applying to this week. Will we speak? Doubtful.

Did I mention the hockey game was dreadful? Because it was. DREADFUL. People always assume that, because I like Chicago The City so much that I would naturally also like Chicago The Sports Teams. This is not the case. I do not want Chicago The Sports Team For Hockey to win. I want them to get what's coming to them: a big knuckle sandwich to the groin that makes them lose the next two games. My life would be greatly improved if they'd just stop paying off the refs to call shit penalties on the Canucks and actually lose games like they should.

Drinking makes me want to eat something as a pre-emptive strike to any possible hangover, so I decided to eat a couple of TimTams. Just an FYI: you can buy TimTams at London Drugs downtown for a relatively affordable price. Though only affordable if you don't get drunk and decide to eat four or five at a time. I have bacon in the freezer and would love more than anything to eat hot, crispy bacon, but the defrosting makes me just want to go to bed and sleep.

I probably should get to sleep anyway. I've got a class to teach tomorrow, a 1.5 hour CyberSunday that I've not timed out and might have to teach completely alone (people need an email address, but often know so little about computers that they don't realise that they need an email address. Sigh), though hopefully someone will be around to sign people up for email addresses while I teach the bulk of it. I must remind myself that it's good experience to develop a course, but the actual teaching as a cold run is daunting.

That Heart song is playing in my head over and over. Awesome, like the car.

watchin' you

The moon followed me home. Hiding behind houses and trees, like a stalker. It's nice that something wants to watch over me.

Tonight I drank a decent amount with Eileen and discovered that I enjoy the Black Frog a great deal only if the music is at a low enough volume that I don't need to compete with it for attention. They played a couple of songs that I love, like "Love cats" and "Cannonball." It was good times.

Actually, that Breeders song made me all excited for Sled Island. Seat sales will be the death of me. How can I not go to something that costs me the equivalent of 2 days of work, total? I can't. Which is why I'm going to Sled Island. Stupid? Perhaps.

arterial damage

Butter and I are in a love/hate relationship. My interest in baking means having butter on hand is necessary and much more convenient for those times that I feel like baking at 11pm when everything is closed. I feel weird when there isn't more than 1/2 a cup of butter in my fridge. So many of the recipes that look interesting wind up having butter in it. It isn't really good for me; I'm fairly sure I have a couple of bricks of it around my belly and hips. There is an ever increasing chance I am shortening my life with every tray of lemon squares and each bundt cake, but I don't know how to quit it.

How the hell did Julia Child live so long after consuming the amount of butter she did?

Tonight Jill came over to hang out. We were supposed to go for a walk, but the weather started turning and I didn't really want wet feet. I had a few recipes on the "to make" pile: magic cookie bars, a berry yogurt cake and cottage cheese muffins. We baked the hell out of them. Varying degrees of goodness. We had tea and I worried for a little bit that I was becoming very, very old.

Why must baking be so detrimental to my health?

"Julie & Julia" opens in August. Apparently Meryl Streep is amazing as Julia Child; Amy Adams is a rated G version of Julie Powell (apparently Julie drops F-bombs like nobody's business). The melding of "Julie & Julia" and "My live in France" makes me more than curious. Can't wait.

I already know both of them were a bit more full of life at this age than me, so it's time to step it up a bit. Eat the butter without fear.