racheldirollzack.com

But I am having trouble doing it lately. This is a problem.

It could be any number of things, from allergies to asthma to pneumonia to lung cancer. I’d like to rule out as many terminal diseases as I can, so I think I’m going to have to make a doctor’s appointment.

Trouble is, I don’t really have a primary-care doctor at present. We have switched insurance coverage so many times in the past ten years that keeping a PCP has been impossible for me. This isn’t normally a problem, since I’m pretty healthy overall, but now that I actually do need to see a doctor, I shall have to start from scratch with the history & physical and all that jazz. Bleh.

But I really would like to be able to breathe again.

Please ignore the crazy woman wearing it.

Please ignore the crazy woman wearing it.

The Big Ugly Sweater is DONE! I finished it last night and I am so happy. It’s big, it’s ugly, but I made it all by myself! What’s more amazing is that I actually FINISHED a project. Finished knitting projects are rare jewels in this house.

There must be something in the air today because I have been wicked productive. I cleaned the fronts of the kitchen cabinets (they were grody), did laundry, and reorganized a portion of the yarn stash. I’m afraid to dig any deeper into it, but I did manage to put a bunch of it away and pull out the yarn I’m going to need for the Less Big and I Hope Less Ugly Sweater which I am about to start. I hope it doesn’t take me 8 months to do this one.

I will post a photo later, I promise.

1. I have given away both copies of the book I promised to the Tomato Nation Comment Army. Thanks for the interest and good luck to all! Once the NCDS is over, we’ll get started in earnest, yes?

2. I have been trying to ignore it, but apparently I need to re-organize my cupboards a little better. This morning, a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce fell out of the cabinet and splashed me in the face. Not an awesome way to start the day.

3. I made a big batch of waffles this morning. Ever since I discovered Jillian’s intense and burning love for all things leavened, I have been making waffles about every 5 days. I figure I have saved approximately $527.32 just this year alone by making them from scratch (ridiculously easy) instead of buying Eggo. The child can put away two of them each morning, no problem. She’s a machine.

4. While Freddie and I both have our own iPods, we share the iTunes. Therefore, EVERYTHING that is on the iTunes ends up on my iPod (18GB) because there is no way in hell I’m manually managing 5,000 songs. During the day, I like to put it on shuffle and let it go but today I found I may have to re-think that. Collective Soul came on. I mean, Collective Soul? On MY iPod? Ew. I do believe this is grounds for divorce.

5. I have a fairly eclectic musical palate. I’ll listen to most things, but there are a few things that make me want to stick rusty scissors in my ears. The Eagles come to mind. Collective Soul is another one - they were EVERYWHERE in the mid-to-late 90’s and I’m sick of them (still) on top of the fact that THEY SUCK. Freddie already had that CD in his music collection when we got together because I for sure didn’t authorize that purchase. Thank God he dislikes country as much as I do or I really would have to call my lawyer. If I had a lawyer, that is.

6. I… like the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap. I didn’t used to - when we moved out of our last apartment and into our first house, I scrubbed the shit out of the hardwood floors in the apartment using the MOS. And for some reason, the smell of it was unpleasant to me, but in hindsight that might have had more to do with the fact that the whole apartment was kind of stanky when we got there. It smelled like the dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant - like old sesame oil. Hrm. Perhaps that’s why sesame oil still makes me heave a bit when I cook with it. Interesting. Anyway, I finally got fed up with the grody milk driblets all over my TV stand and coffee table (thanks, toddler!) so I busted out the Murphy’s and went to town. Much better.

7. Technology, which is sometimes the bane of my existence, is actually doing nice things for me these days. Via Facebook and MySpace, people are falling back into my life after long absences and I couldn’t be happier. As I reconnect with these people, I feel like the pieces of me that are connected with them are joining back up with the whole of me. It’s a nice feeling, even if talking about it makes me seem a little less than sane.

8. My little brother is coming to be our houseguest for a few weeks. This means I have had to shovel out the 3rd bedroom and make it habitable for him. I also needed to buy curtains, since the previous owners left little valances across each window which is fine when nobody is living in there, but now that there’s a tenant, he might want some privacy. So I went to Target this morning and picked up some curtains. For ONE window, despite the fact that there are two perfectly useful windows in that room, both of which need curtains. Because I am… how you say… RETARDED. Therefore, once The Jillian wakes up from her nap (blessed, blessed naptime, how I love you so), we are headed out to Target AGAIN. Because I’m a dumbass.

9. I wonder what kind of proof-of-address the library needs in order to issue me a card. We moved here last October and I only just recently got around to getting on the DMV website to change my address on my license. You can do it online and they send you a sticker to put on your license and thus saves you the immense hassle and ass-pain of actually GOING to the DMV. Yay, right? WRONG! While I might sit in the DMV with a speed-freak toddler for a few hours, at least I would HAVE MY STICKER. Because I did it online? Three to four weeks. Yes, WEEKS. For fuck’s sake.

10. But I need to go to the library. Small and dismal our town library may be, at least it has books. And I have read all of my books. ALL OF THEM. Even the shitty ones that I got for free at some of my various and sundry book-related jobby jobs. Most of the books I have read twice. Or three times. Or, in a few cases (Gone With The Wind), upwards of 150 times. I need some new books. That I do not have to pay for.

11. No, that’s not a typo. I have read Gone With The Wind more than 150 times. I got a paperback copy of it for Christmas (or my birthday, I forget which) waaaaaaay back in 1983. I was eight, and [duh] reading at a much more advanced level than most people are at that age. Books written for my age group: a) bored me to death; b) had stupid, condescending plotlines; and c) took me roughly 15 minutes to read. Since I wasn’t athletic (that’s putting it extremely diplomatically), I read. A lot. So the parents, pissed off at having to drag my nerdy ass to the library every two days, bought me Gone With The Wind in hopes that it would shut me up for a good long time. It took two weeks for me to read it that first time, and once I got to the end I promptly started it again. It’s my favorite book.


12. I don’t hate the movie, exactly, but it has so little to do with the book that it bums me out to watch it, even though I think I could rock a hoop skirt.

13. In knitting news, I am about done with my Big Ugly Sweater. I ran into a bit of a problem in that the sleeves are a bit longer than the body pieces will allow so I sort of have to do a little bit of hillbilly engineering to get them to look presentable. This problem will be fixed next time because I will knit the sleeves first and then make the body pieces fit. If there is a next one. I initially knit this in the ugly color scheme as a test run before I knit one for Freddie. The ugly color scheme doesn’t bother me at all but it will blind most people (wait for the photos).

…and there you have it - today’s brain mush!

1. If you’re getting here via Tomato Nation comments, I apologize for making you read this drivel. I have one more book to offer - just drop me a comment and we’ll hash it out.

2. Nice job, USA track & field relay teams. Dropping the baton is a great way to go.

3. Ms. Prufrock called me cool (or awesome or something else nice, I forget what it was exactly) the other day so now I feel obligated to post and post brilliantly more often. This one’s for you, Pru!

4. I have approximately four Very Important Projects to work on, so naturally I’ve been spending far too much time on Facebook. I can’t help myself - between the stalking opportunities and Pieces of Flair, it’s a perfect place for someone like myself who… ooh, shiny!

5. The Jillian is starting to speak English with a lot more fluency these days. I can’t keep up with her sometimes. Girlfriend can even count to ten! I don’t know if she knows what it means, exactly, but it sounds good.

6. She’s ‘reading’ Snow White right now. I’m a little bit grossed out by Snow White and her desire to be saved by a handsome prince and all of that. So when I read it to her, I can’t help but interject my own commentary which is usually along the lines of “… because Snow White is a NINNY.” Snow White needs to get herself a clue and take care of her ownself. And for fuck’s sake - who doesn’t learn the rule about taking candy (or apples) from strangers? Does she have no Stranger Danger instinct at all? I think Snow White is a bit touched in the head, to be quite honest.

7. If it’s not obvious, can I just tell you all how much I am dreading Jillian’s absorption into the Disney Machine? I don’t mind the old-skool Mickey Mouse stuff so much, but the Disney Princesses make me want to hurt myself. But I will gladly put up with any amount of Princess crap as long as it keeps those Bratz dolls out of my house. Those things are truly scary.

8. So, I’m a little bit ashamed to admit this but I just read “The Notebook” by Nicholas Sparks. It suuuuuuuuuuuuucked. The movie was about 12 times better, and I don’t think I have ever said that about any movie made from a book. Mr. Sparks cannot write for shit, yet he is a bestselling author. Just goes to show that we live in a culture that doesn’t give a fuck about what it’s consuming (see also Cheez Doodles, McDonald’s, MTV). My mom’s dog can write better dialogue than Sparks can.

9. I probably had a real reason to post today but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was.

10. Because ten is a nice place to end this.

Today is my 8th anniversary of being married to What’s-His-Name. If I had the opportunity to do it again, I would still marry him but it would be a much different affair than our actual wedding. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the circumstances under which we got married would understand completely.

Despite the best efforts of a select few, we are still together, still happy, and getting better every day. The insane amount of bullshit that we have had to wade through has cemented our relationship in a way that will be difficult to break. And I feel good about that.

Below is a list of things that have been said quite a bit around the house this past week.

“Shut up, my boyfriend Michael Phelps is on.”
“But you said he was ugly.”
“Yes, but the lower those swim trunks go and the more gold he’s got, the better he looks.”
“Shallow.”
“Quite.”

“Could you swim more and get a body like that?”
“I’d have to quit my job and swim all the time.”
“So?”
“Then you’d have to get a job.”
“Oh. Never mind, then.”

“Oh, look! The stadium!”
“I hear they call it the Bird’s Nest.”
“Yes, and did you know it’s become a symbol of national pride?”
“For the Chinese? Really? Hm. You’d think they would have mentioned it.”
“More than six million times, anyway.”

“Shut up, my other boyfriend Aaron Piersol is on.”

“Those beach volleyball uniforms aren’t revealing enough.”

“The swimmers are wearing far too much fabric. Bring back the teeny Speedo, I say!”

“Shut up, Mark Spitz.”

“She’s gonna crash.”
“No, she’ll be… ooops. You were right.”

“That looked painful.”

“How come the men’s floor exercise doesn’t have music?”
“Maybe they figured gymnastics is gay enough?”

“Trampoline? Seriously?”

“Ooh, badminton!”
“I could totally do that.”
“No way.”
“Why not? How hard is that?”

“Shut up, my boyfriend Michael Phelps is on again.”

RIP Leroi Moore.

About thirteen and a half years ago, I was as low as I had ever been. I’d had a nervous breakdown of sorts and found myself 2,500 miles away from home living with someone I completely loathed.

Those were hard and lonely days. I was working two jobs so I didn’t have to be home and so that I would be so tired at the end of the day that I would just fall into a quick and dreamless sleep. Dark days, indeed.

I had a couple of friends from work, so it wasn’t all bad. One of those friends invited me out to a show and even though I hadn’t really heard of the band except for That One Song On The Radio All The Time (remember this was 1994-1995 and the Internet was something that we were just getting used to), I decided to go.

The Dave Matthews Band saved my life. Not in a literal way, since I’m rather fond of myself and never a suicide risk, but in a very real way nonetheless. Their music gave me a way to get out of myself, away from my own head.

Shortly after that show, I started figuring out how to get home. That sucked - it was hard, it required quite a bit of humiliation and begging on my part, but I got home and started putting my life back together. It didn’t happen overnight and I stumbled along the way (a lot), but I had a soundtrack.

Toward the end of the 90’s, DMB got a bit too big for their britches and started to suck. I was disappointed, but by then Freddie and I were spending a lot of extra time and spare cash chasing Phish around the Northeast, so I didn’t miss DMB as much. Besides, all the music they put out after “Before These Crowded Streets” was putrid and horrible, so no big loss, right?

I read in an interview awhile back that Dave Matthews agrees with me. It remains to be seen if he and his band do anything about it.

RIP, Leroi. The show will go on, but it won’t be the same.

1. I finished knitting the pieces of The Big Ugly Sweater that I started around last Christmas or so. Go me! Now all I have to do is sew the pieces together, figure out how to do the neckline and I will have a sweater! Freddie suggested I knit things to sell, but if I were to sell this sweater at a price that would give me an above-sweatshop wage, it would have to sell for $500. I’m a slow knitter, what can I say?

2. At some point during this knitting odyssey, I discovered that I have arthritis in the pinky finger on my left hand. This is not awesome. I am 33 years old, which is far too young to be busting out the arthritis pills. Then again, I’ve had various hand/knuckle issues for a long time so I’m not shocked about it, just pissed off!!

3. Now I need a new knitting project that I can ignore for a bit. I have resolved to learn to knit socks, but I do not get along well with double-pointed needles and the frustration has been insurmountable so far. Perhaps I’ll make a few hats to appease the knitting crazies and then I’ll be able to indulge my penchant for self-abuse.

4. Just… don’t let me go to a yarn shop, okay? I do pretty well with restraint when my only option is to buy online, but get me in the actual yarn shop and I sort of lose my head a bit. Storage is tight here (and about to get tighter as we welcome a long-term houseguest).

5. I wonder how old Jillian needs to be before she can figure out knitting? Right now is probably not a good age, since she’s still a bit of a dervish, whirling here and there and leaving a wide swath of destruction in her wake. Perhaps around age 4.

From ABBA’s “Waterloo” to Jane’s Addiction’s “Three Days.” I don’t know if I’m in the mood to bust out my shiny gold leisure suit or shave my head.