and the beat goes on

my week in pictures:

The good








The Bad




The UGLY


These are images from four apartments I saw this week, ranging from $450 to $895 a month. It seems $895 gets you prettier wood floors, the end. One of those places has scuffed wood floors, but is MASSIVE, and the American spirit in me was swayed by the idea that bigger is better, even when it doesn't come with a W/D.

And the search continues!

going down down down

I'm finally ready to post some pictures from my visit home and to Asheville.

In Wise, we have this gift/furniture shop called The Clapboard House. I went in for the first time in decades and found these gems:





yes, that's right. coal jewelry. and coal miners made of coal. meta, much?
Don't be jealous; I'll pick up some for ya'll come Christmastime.

Mark: those were not my floors; that's a wood table at a restaurant. I haven't moved yet (dammit!).

everywhere like, such as

This was Miss South Carolina Teen USA, answering a question about why Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Maybe they should have asked her to try locating it. Woot for South Carolina schools?

people, let me tell you bout my best friend

This is my new deskmate, Stango the Stego. Some of you might recognize the name, wink wink.

He is a walking stegasaurus pencil sharpener. His head contains the shavings. The pencil winds him. He is my new best friend.

I got him at this really cool store in Asheville called Lost Objects, Found Treasures. It looked like this inside:

So, adjusting to work is not easy.

For two days I woke up at 9:30. Today, I woke up at noon.

So now, I have like, 2 hours to shower and run all my errands.

On the up side, I'm learning how to design pages again, so that's good. I just got to figure out how to live life AND go to work. Needless to say, I have a whole new understanding of Sean.

OMG shoes!

I just got home from traveling home to Wise and Asheville for a brief respite before I sign my life away for my new job.

I have many, many pictures to post, but for now:



We went to Beaty's (a discount shoe store in Johnson City, Tenn.) I walked away with these:

actually, that's irritating

I was supposed to see the ideal apartment tomorrow

$650, 1 bedroom, AC, Washer/Dryer, above a fancy restaurant in Staunton, across from the independent movie theater and literally BEHIND my new job.

but alas, the realtor, a kindly older gentleman, emailed me tonight and said, "Actually, it's rented. I was nervous when you said you couldn't see it today, but I didn't want it to sound like a threat. Call my friend Tim and say I sent you! He'll have some places to show."

I can't decide if that's really rude or really nice. For now, I'm going with "annoying."

I am, however, seeing a different apartment downtown tomorrow. It's an open showing, and I'm not really ready to put anything down, but whatever. We'll see how it goes. Bet you're all glad to be done with your housing searches, huh?

holy cow!

I've never watched baseball, and I've never heard Phil Rizzuto call a game, but upon reading his obituary in the Times today, I'm sad I never did.

Some of his calls were transformed into "found poetry" by a couple enterprising writers in a book called "O Holy Cow!"

Here's one I think you'll especially enjoy:

Legs
The legs are so important.
In golf, they're very,
People don't realize
How important legs are in golf,
Or in baseball,
And football, definitely.
Track.
O, in track.
All-important.
Jumping.
Soccer.
Is there anything, what?
Is there anything where the legs
Are not the most important?

cat porn!

bwahahahahahaha



could this, a cat called "Gwyen," be my future kitten named Baba Beaton?



or could this be my future spicy kitten, Esteban?


oh, cat porn. I hate you, SPCA website.

want. hardwood. floors.

I looked at the apartment in the front of the top floor. The window was the only good thing about it, unfortunately.

So, the Staunton apartment search continues.

in other news, i cannot get a cutout to work in photoshop. i don't understand layers on photoshop. It's like how I speak french; i know what I want to say, I know about half the vocabulary, but I don't know the in-between words. In this case, the layers part. argh.

realio trulio bright young things

so, the Bright Young Things were a gang of artists, socialites and wild ones that were much thrown together in 1920's England. They included Cecil Beaton, Evelyn Waugh, Stephen Tennant, the Mitford sisters and some other nearly forgotten rich people.

My favorite is Baba Beaton, Cecil's sister and first muse. This is one of his famous photos of her, "A Symphony in Silver."

She is awesome, no? When I first read about her, I decided that had to be the greatest name ever. When I get a female cat, she will totally be named Baba Beaton.

Bright young things:

bienvenue!

so this is about the millionth blog i've had, but i think this one will be for reals.
no more kidding around. this is it.