Hide your shame... Please.

(this blog post is rated PG-13 for strong language)

I've got to say it... what's with all of the spandex/ lycra/ skin tight clothes?  Tights are Not pants.

I look around and it's sometimes like living in a nudist colony with spray paint.  Sometimes someone can really pull it off with a great body that will look good in anything, but people please! Fat people Please!  Hell, moderately fat people... Please!  Just say no to the skin tight from head to toe look. 

New Rules;

1. no super skinny jeans may be manufactured in a size larger than 10 (and for the record, my fat ass is in this category.  Nothing personal, It's just wrong)  Gentlemen larger than a 34 waist (and I mean really you think you're a 32 but pull out a tape measure...) no skinny jeans for you!

2. Super-mini skirts over your nasty celulite showing (and obviously too small) tights do not fool us.  They do not make you look cooler or thinner, I don't care if you are 18 years old... step away from the mini skirt. 

3.  If you can look down and see the freckles through your clothes, turn around and put some damn pants on!

4. Rule; If we can see the fat above and below your bra or waistband; Your clothes are TOO SMALL. Go buy a bra with a bigger band size, a shirt in the next size up, pants with a larger waist  ... and those Spanx that you think are helping so much... they are just squishing your fat up.   

If you follow these simple rules, we will all be happier.
Thank You. 

brevity/sewing pains

I have one more day working as a stitcher.  The hourly wage sometimes feels luxurious (as opposed to the flat fee payment I often get).  The lack of responsibility is refreshing... and yet it grows old quickly.
Sitting in bad chairs doing repetitive work takes its toll on the body.  Daily trips to the gym help and yet my right knee aches from the up and down and side to side motions required to operate the machine.  My back hurts from the lack of support, my left shoulder has developed a large knot that has become persistent and my ass is getting sore sooner and sooner in the day.  I really don't know how people do this all year.  I especially pity the stitchers who have (and do) have to do this work in cramped, dark sweat shops. Ouch.  I am ready to get back to my other jobs.

Hangar One

Last week my best friend came up and spent three days with me.  The wet chill of weather diverted us from our original plan to go hike in the redwoods.  Instead we went to a distillery on Alameda island.

  Just outside of the parking lot you can see the lot where the Mythbusters frequently destroy cars, and blow up buses.  I chose to keep my camera dry so you'll need to take my word on this.

Inside there is a small room that works as the gift shop and the booth where you can sign up for tasting their liquors. St.George distillers sells vodkas, brandy, Whiskey (a very American Bourbon), absinthe, liquors that included raspberry, a tea-bergamot (that was oddly fantastic), and pear.

There was a "tour" that basically walked us to all of two locations while a tour guide spoke very softly and I have no idea of what he said... it was at least free and interesting to take a gander at the interior.

Instinct.

 This is what a professional hunter looks like... sleek, tuned, successful...


This is what my dog looks like...

When he started pouncing on the hole like this I had to film it.  I know I've seen documentaries with foxes yipping just like this as well.  He actually takes large chunks of the hole and moves it away with his mouth.  Sometimes he will station himself with his nose in the hole, still as can be waiting for his prey to emerge.

There was no kill today but, shockingly, he has been successful with this technique before.

Ok... now I promise to hold off on the dog posts for a while. Thanks for indulging me.

Palate Cleanse...

I caught the dog sleeping on the futon...

Really I have nothing to say about it but Awwww!

--still working in a dull haze of sewing induced brain frizz.

--Weather update; The weather experts claim that it may snow at sea level (San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley) on Saturday (it would be the first time since 1976 if you don't count the 3mm that SF got last year for an hour). If such an occurrence happens I expect city wide panic. I doubt we own a single snow plow in Alameda or SF county... all I ask is that the insanity happens when I don't have to go anywhere.

Stay tuned.

February this and that.

February can be a cold mistress.  Often it is a month of left over ramen and the eternal job search.  It is the slowest time of year in the Theatre. This year I've found a sewing job that has happily kept me occupied and earning money.  It has however left my blog rather sparse.

I don't particularly like sewing.  I am good at sewing, it pays the bills but it is not a passion of mine.  It doesn't keep my brain moving in the way that design does.

When I get bored with sewing I start to drift into imagining that I am sewing myself a train ticket in Germany, I am making myself a nice cup of coffee on a foggy morning in Munich... I imagine Munich will have fog, I have no idea really but I love it so much in San Francisco that I imagine all nice places must have a little fog in the morning.  I listen to audiobooks... I turn inward and muddle around in my head, but it's a difficult place to take photos of.  I promise to crawl out of my own brain soon and I will bring the blog when I do.  Meanwhile, patience.

Today the new album by Adele came out and I downloaded it as soon as possible.  She won me over on this one with the tiny desk concert she did for NPR.  Amazing.

a conversation about Drugs

Healthcare discussions make me angry. The discussions about 'reform' are taking place with professional politicians who used to be lawyers or businessmen and for the most part have never had a problem getting healthcare or paying for treatments. It all makes me so angry I don't even want to open up my opinions for discussion here. However despite that, I felt the need to share this conversation that two of my favorite vloggers have been having this week...
Meet Hank;

and meet his brother John;


Capitalism is good for many things, but allowing your health or sickness be the determining factor of someone else's profit is dangerous.

Happy Robbie Burns Day!!

To A Kiss

Humid seal of soft affections,

Tend'rest pledge of future bliss,

Dearest tie of young connections,

Love's first snow-drop, virgin kiss.

Speaking silence, dumb confession,

Passion's birth, and infants' play,

Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,

Glowing dawn of brighter day.

Sorrowing joy, adieu's last action,

Ling'ring lips, -- no more to join!

What words can ever speak affection

Thrilling and sincere as thine!

---Robert Burns

And... a song that I was not aware Robbie Burns wrote the lyrics to; Auld Lang Syne. This guy doesn't use the same tune we usually mumble at New Years, but it's kind of pretty;

Wanderlust

Consider this a warning. I have a vacation planned. Or perhaps I should say I have a plane ticket to Germany and I cannot stop planning. I am as indecisive as my little sister at Halloween; "I want to be a cowgirl, no a ballerina, no a monster, a witch, a ballerina who wears cowboy boots!!!!...."

For some reason, in my brain, getting off of the continent instantly makes the rest of the world easy access.   In my head it's like America has this big bubble over it and once you break free you're in "the rest of the world" and this lovely not America place has magic trains that cost a dollar and suddenly it is possible to travel from Berlin to Jerusalem via Hyderabad in just a matter of hours.  Logically I know this is not true.  A Eurorail pass costs a few hundred dollars depending on how many countries you want to see and the duration of your trip.  A train takes eight hours to get from Berlin to Munich.  Of course considering the train from San Francisco takes twelve hours to get to Los Angeles, it makes it all seem so close!

Right now I pour over travel books, I consult Anthony Bourdain, I somehow try to decide where and how long to stay while trying to keep the magic fairy train out of my head.  If I keep my travels on a schedule and only go to a handful of cities I can keep this trip somewhat affordable. I must remember that it takes time to really see a place so taking my time is better than trying to just zoom past it all. It is so tempting to get the super expensive all access train pass and think that once I get to Munich, I should just hop on down to Italy and from there Spain is right next door... and hell, if I'm in Spain I really ought to travel south for just a little bit to get to Morocco... there's just so much I've never seen.   For once I can say it is good I am traveling on a used shoestring budget and cannot possibly get the super train pass.  I am forced to think this through and plan carefully.

I've got nearly three months left and somehow need to find a way to make myself chill out.  All of this possibility keeps me up far too late at night.

Slightly enhanced

Brevity/twilight

Went to work... saw a run through...  watched the sunset...

Meh.

It is just one of those weeks.  Go on world, just add injury to insult.