Hey! Hey you guys!

I have an idea! Let’s blog about every thing that isn’t sad and/or confusing!

Bean sprouts are probably some of the best things in the world. Just yesterday morning these gigantic babies were still under the soil. Bean sprouts are just so dramatic and satisfying. I also like how the seed is part of the sprout in a way much more obvious than in other plants. (Those two bottom fake-leaves are actually bean-halves. Totally awesome.) I’m growing three variations of garden beans this year; one green, one yellow, and one deep purple. Those tall babies in the background are corn, obviously.

Also, this just made me realize I should blog about the specific ways I overcame the magnificent massacre that was last year’s garden. Noted.

Jeanette gave me this awesome dollar-store candy bracelet the other day, and I loved it. Huzzah for awesome lady-friends.

Grady prettymuch tries to copy everything her Grandpa does. When he took a wee grass-nap, she tried but only lasted about 30 seconds. Toddlers must never lie down! Did you know this? In any case, I am obsessed with this photo.

Norm! I heart Cheers so much right now. I’m watching it all the way through (as it’s available for instant streaming on Netflix) and it just brings me so much happiness. Currently in season 8, which came out the year I was born.

Smooshy sleepy baby. There is nothing better in the world than holding a sleeping baby. (Excuse my near-boobage; Grady fell asleep atop me while I was wearing a bathing suit.)

Straight from smooshy sleepy baby to fancy drinks? I suppose so. I made this strawberry gimlet thing and am super proud of it. ‘Twas delicious.

AAAAH I LOVE HER SO MUCH IT HURTS. Also, I like how she kind of makes intellectual faces while watching Bubble Guppies.

Squee, bathtub baby! She has recently decided that bubbles are the most delicious things, so we don’t do bubble baths any more. So I thought I’d capture her last bubble bath for a while.

This is a blog post.

After a downpour of pointless tweets, I made this promise. But I’m still nervous! So I’ll just blog instead. All night long.

• 7:12 p.m. Grady just pulled bell hooks’ “Yearning” off the shelf and is flipping through it quite intently. I love her a lot.
• 7:29 p.m. Grady just perfected her Peter O’Toole impression. If Peter O’Toole ever meowed with tragic importance, it sounded exactly like what Grady just did.
• 7:32 p.m. Grady and Winston are playing, tugging around two apron ties. It. Is. Adorable.
• 7:37 p.m. (Grady is currently in her energy-burst-before-bed phase. She does the cutest things first thing in the morning and right before bed.)
• 8:15 p.m. Aaaaaand she’s asleep.
• 8:23 p.m. I really like transparency. I even like how socially awkward people get when transparency is a priority.
• 8:29 p.m. Today I used the word “lucubration” in front of people who really obviously didn’t know what that means and I felt like an ass.
• 8:29 p.m. (It means nighttime meditation or study, particularly by candlelight. Yeah, it’s an awesome word.)
• 8:34 p.m. Regretting the choice to include the time before each non-tweet. It’s getting annoying/cumbersome.
• 8:49 p.m. OKAY FINE I’LL LOOK AT MY INBOX. #inquietude
• 8:51 p.m. Alright. I was going to “prepare myself” to type up a few free-writing flow-of-consciousness awkwardly honest e-mails, but instead I think I need to crochet a bunch of these stars and make some bunting out of them. Yeah, that should definitely be my priority. Sorry, e-mails.

• 8:52 p.m. For the sake of transparency: I was going to wait till morning to send the e-mails, so I could edit them down to an acceptable level of honesty.
• 9:21 p.m. One star complete!

• 9:23 p.m. It didn’t take me that whole time to make one star. I also did some other boring things.
• 9:33 p.m. Hint: When crocheting with thread, it helps to cut the fingernails on both thumbs and pointer fingers as short as you possibly can. Trust me.
• 9:58 p.m. Four stars done. Yaaaaay diversion projects.
• 9:59 p.m. How awesome would it be if some cool famous person opened an etsy store? Like Jason Schwartzmann or Sophia Coppola or Jesca Hoop or Tilda Swinton or DAVID BOWIE.
• 10:01 p.m. Also, how awesome would it be if Tilda Swinton were to play David Bowie in a biopic?
• 10:29 p.m. I can feel it. That bad time of night is on its way.
• 10:41 p.m. Ruh-roh.
• 10:49 p.m. Why is it that it always takes me so long to realize that any time I’m experiencing emotional distress (I know, that term does in fact make me qualify as a cyborg. I’m over it.) it’s always because of the Mel/mom dichotomy? I’m fairly certain I’ve talked at length about this thing but can’t find a link, so that probably doesn’t make sense to most of you. Whoever “you” are. But when mom-Mel and Mel-Mel aren’t on the same page, Mel gets distressed. This time it took full weeks to recognize the reason.
• 11:04 p.m. “Rectangle! America! Megaphone! Monday! Butthole.“
• 11:05 p.m. Alright. I want to wake up to the rest of that episode, so it’s lights out. Lucubration time, followed by restlessness time, followed by dream time.

Monday, v.2

I’m going to answer the questions in this post again. Here’s why:

• Because someone just commented on it, so I read it and got all nostalgic.
• Because it’s been almost three years.
• Because my body/mind/sternum area is freaking out and I need to typetypetype.
• Because everyone’s probably sick of me filling up their twitter feed tonight.

8 Things I Am Passionate About

1. Grady. (Shocker!)
2. Knitting, and by “knitting” I mean “everything that involves strings.” Someone recently got all in my face on youtube because I said “knitting” about a crochet project and I was like, “Eff you man.” DRAMA.
3. Journalism, kind of. I’m pretty good at phoning in passion about journalism at this point, which is part of why I recently quit working at two newspapers. (oh yeah. I was going to blog about that. maybe later.)
4. My stupid life. I tend to think my stupid life is really critically important.
5. Feminism and junk.
6. Appearances, as loathe as I am to admit it.
7. Honesty! Here’s the thing: radical honesty is hard. And so socially awkward. And also so rewarding.
8. Learning. Though it’s well established that I’m an awful student, I do really enjoy learning.

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1. Have actual conversations in English with Grady. Really excited for this.
2. Fall in love with someone who loves me back.
3. See my beautiful sister Kim get married (this summer!)
4. Expand the family business. Even just a little would be great.
5. Take Grady to see all different sorts of cultures and people and places while she is young and impressionable.
6. Be genuinely happy with my body.
7. I don’t know. I’m trying to think of something career-related, but I so love my current “stick with one job for six months or so before completely changing your day-to-day” situation. I do kind of want to open my own yarn/vintage/coffee place, but that’s a pipe dream.
8. Find a body-hair-management system that works. I should do a blog post about how my body is modern cosmetics’ greatest enemy.

8 Things I Say Often

1. “No-no, Gradybelle.”
2. “Can mama change your diaper please?”
3. Swear words. All of them, often in inappropriate public places.
4. Sorry.
5. “Oooooh, Winner-binner-booga-boo-snuggle-wumps-winny-lufagus.” (Or something similar. When Winston is cuddly it melts me into a pool of tender love. A tender-love-pool.)
6. “Can mama have kisses?” (No. Mama can never have kisses.)
7. “I am the queen.” (I have no idea. This is the mantra that calms me down. It is most often said in long repetition while I bury my face in a pillow, or while I am driving.)
8. I don’t know. You tell me.

See #5 above.

8 Books I Have Read Lately/Am Reading Now

1. Just started Faultline by Sylvia Ortiz Taylor.
2. Gave up halfway through John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead.
3. The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
4. The Actor and the Target by Declan Donnelan
5. Some boring-as-hell media textbook
6. Utopia by Thomas Moore
7. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
8. Opting In by Amy Richards

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over (chosen from my favorite recent downloads – so this doesn’t include my all-time favorites)

1. I’ll be Here in the Morning by Townes van Zant
2. Shout Bama Lama by The Detroit Cobras (hell, that whole album is magnificent. It may be the first non-Bowie album I’ve ever downloaded where every song gets five stars.)
3. Solitude is Bliss by Tame Impala (Grady adores this song. She always dances to it, which may be why I love it so much.)
4. Thirteen by Big Star (another magnificent album. But this song just kills me.)
5. Fly by Night by Rush (I know there are a lot of Rush-haters out there, which I just completely don’t understand.)
6. Musician Please Take Heed by God Help the Girl (iTunes says I downloaded this song about a month and a half ago, and listened to it 42 times since then. And that’s only the on-the-computer stats.)
7. Hark I Hear by the Deseret Chamber Singers. (I should hate this, but holy moly it is amazing. I have it because I wrote an article about the singers, and am so glad I did. I usually don’t love music this religious, but man. Also, I’m coming to terms with my love for a cappella/choral music. Deal with it, nerds.)
8. The Box by Johnny Flynn (Best song about homelessness ever.)

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

1. Intelligence – particularly an ability to read and write. And spell. And comprehend. And have an impressive vocabulary. I’m admittedly prejudiced against people that destroy grammar.
2. A challenge – I like my friends to be smarter than me; this is not a quality that I’ve always had, though. Especially when I was a kid, I was really intimidated by people who were smarter than me or who saw through the facade; I generally treated these people horribly. Luckily, now that’s exactly what I crave.
3. My very best friend remains my friend because we know each other so well and have excellent repartee. And, like, care about each other, I suppose.
4. Online presence. I know, it sounds lame, but I love the idea of facebook/twitter/blogs/whatever being a genuine extension of self. Especially now that I don’t get out much (Grady puts such a crimp in my social life), I depend on the internet to keep in touch with people.
5. Open-mindedness. (Ug. I hate typing/thinking “minded.”) Especially since I’m so perpendicular to the predominant culture around here.
6. Honesty! This should be the first item.
7. Common interests – babies, similar philosophy, journalism, knitting, etc.
8. Attraction. The thought of dating someone I haven’t been friends with for a while scares the pants off of me. (Wait, that is a bad metaphor. It scares my pants so that they stay on indefinitely with determination.) If I have the idea that I could possibly date someone eventually, I try to cultivate a friendship with them first. (Ugh. Gross. I just used the phrase “cultivate a friendship,” like it’s something inhuman. Sorry. I’m an ass.)

That last question made me miss a lot of people. Kind of glad this is done. But anyway, I tag YOU. Do this thing. It’s fun and I’ll leave awesome comments on your posts.

New years resolution update.

I made two resolutions this year:

The first (obviously), is to not argue matters of opinion. In other words, to become the most annoying person ever. Examples of how this has changed my speech:

• “WordPress is better than Blogger and Blogger blogs are ugly,” becomes “In my experience working on both platforms, WordPress has been less limiting and less frustrating. Also I personally enjoy WordPress’ aesthetic more than Blogger’s.”

Actually, that’s the only example I can easily recall. But still: annyoing, right?

But look how cute my kid is! (Also, nursing is the only time she sits still long enough for me to get a clear cameraphone image.) She is wonderful. Today just watching her play in the kitchen made me cry.

My very favorite thing about myself is that I gave birth to her. My second favorite thing: that “take a nap” is a step in my hairstyling routine.

“Work.”

The purpose of this post is to distract me and for future reference. You definitely don’t have to read it.

1.  What time did you get up this morning? Like 8:30, which is amazing and near-unprecedented since Grady was born. I think she slept in because she knew I accidentally fell asleep at 8 p.m., and wanted to trick me into getting twice as much sleep as usual. Sneaky baby.

2.  How do you like your steak? I like it as living tissue inside of a cow that lives in a happy little meadow.

3.  What was the last film you saw at the cinema? … It may have been 500 Days of Summer. I know I haven’t been to the cinema in over a year, because last time I went I was pregnant. Let me check the releases for September/October 2009. … Actually I think it was “9.” Lame.

4.  What is your favorite TV show? Firefly. Duh. I’m watching BSG right now and am obsessed with it.

5.  If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Well, right now it would be Utah. Because my family owns a home here, because the family business is here, because my family itself is here, because I get a complete tuition waiver to a great school here (once again thanks to my awesome family), because I know if I ever get sick my neighbors will send casseroles and offer to babysit, because my great friends are here, etc. In the future I would like to move to a state with less horrifying politicians, though.

6.  What did you have for breakfast? I probably swallowed some toothpaste. I’m not much of a breakfast person.

7.  What is your favorite cuisine? I don’t know what the difference between “food” and “cuisine” is. This question is stressing me out. I like frozen grapes.

8.  What foods do you dislike? The weirder Japanese stuff (like squid. Squid is so gross.), almost everything I make, foods of questionable origin.

9.  Favorite Place to Eat? In bed.

10.  Favorite dressing? Good bleu cheese, or caesar. Or whatever is made in-house, as long as it’s nothing fruity. I hate fruity dressings.

11.  What kind of vehicle do you drive? A kick-ass Honda Fit named Harry Truman. It is currently extremely messy.

12.  What are your favorite clothes? I dig short skirts. So much. Carrying all that extra weight and walking a ton while pregnant and then burning so many calories nursing means that my thighs are way better than they ever were in high school.

13.  Where would you visit if you had the chance? Anywhere.

14.  Is your cup 1/2-empty or 1/2-full? I don’t have a cup.

15.  Where would you want to retire? Northern California, probably.

16.  Favorite time of day? Well that depends on the day, of course. I really enjoyed today from 3:30-4:30.

17.  Where were you born? Provo. Of course.

18.  Favorite sport to watch? I don’t care, really. I haven’t watched any sports in a long time. I think I’d enjoy the chance to go to a sporting event because I could knit.

Questions 19-21 are lame.

22.  Bird watcher? Only if the birds are doing something interesting.

23.  Are you a morning person or a night person? Neither. I am grumpy in the morning and lose my mind at night.

24.  Pets? Winston! My dearest wuv.

25.  Favorite book? I think I’d have to pick that biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay. It was magnificent. But my favorite author is still Steinbeck.

26.  What did you want to be when you were little? A print journalist.

27.  What is your best childhood memory? Crushing up plants and gathering leaves at my grandpa’s house while the half-dozen dogs orbited around me, pretending to be a botanist or an alchemist or something.

28.  Are you a cat or dog person? Both. I want a dog so much it hurts.

29.  Do you have children? Obviously. Like half of my blog posts are about her.

30.  Do you always wear your seat belt? Yes, but mostly because my car beeps at me if I don’t.

31.  Have you ever been in a car accident? This is getting tedious. I’ve been in a few, but nothing serious.

32.  Any pet peeves? YES. I was hoping someone would ask me this, because my biggest pet peeve right now is when people make massive generalizations. Specifically when my friend Ben does this. Every time he says “all women” or “all businesses” or “all screenplays” or even the words “always” or “never” I want to just smack his stupid head.

33.  Favorite pizza topping? All of them. I like a pizza with every veggie option.

34.  Favorite Flower? I don’t really like flowers unless they’re in the ground or cut from my own garden.

35.  Favorite ice cream? All of it, except for plain old chocolate chip. What’s the point?

36.  Favorite fast food restaurant? Del Taco. For sure. I’ve been trying to stop eating out as much (end of internship = end of expendable income), so I need to learn how to make my own cheap burritos.

37.  How many times did you fail your driver’s test? Zero! I passed by one point.

38.  From whom did you get your last email? From my boss.

39.  Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? This one.

40.  Do anything spontaneous lately? I went to a live music concert (these fine fellows played at Urban Lounge) and danced in public. With unshaven armpits!

41.  Do you like your job? I love the job I get paid for, the one that’s ending come January. I sometimes don’t despise my “job” at the school. I adore my job as a mom.

42.  Broccoli? Cauliflower? Both! Kind of burnt in a stir-fry with too much Bragg’s Liquid Aminos! And tahini!

43.  What was your favorite vacation? I’ll have to narrow it down to my vacations as an “adult,” because my vacations from childhood were all too amazing. Probably that time I went to Great Basin National Park all alone and met that life-changing hitchhiker on the way back.

44.  Last person you went out to dinner with? Myself, my knitting and Virginia Woolf. It was lovely. The last time I was in a restaurant with people was the UVU Review end-of-semester party.

45.  What are you listening to right now? Blitzen Trapper’s album “Destroyer of the Void.” It is excellent.

46.  What is your favorite color? Gray.

47.  How many tattoos do you have? Four.

48.  Coffee drinker? Yes! I used to be a black-with-two-sugars kind of girl, and now I can’t stop spending money on dirty chai’s.

49.  Favorite pastime? Knitting. Naturally.

50.  Favorite quote? I don’t want to share it. Sorry.

failing in so many ways

Image by Laura B. Dahl via Flickr

Ah! How has it been more than a week since I last posted? I’m sorry about that, my few dear readers. Bullet points!

• I ran out of pre-written “10 cool things” posts just as things picked up at work, and all late-night writing energy has been committed to articles and e-mails and journal entries. Maybe tonight I’ll type up a couple “10 cool” posts. Hopefully.
• I went to Cedar City. While I was there I actually had plenty (puh-lenty) of time to write, but basically since I got back I’ve been constantly busy or away from the computer or asleep. Or, you know, enjoying my life.
• I’ve just been super happy and happiness does not make for interesting blog posts.
• Still haven’t unpacked the bag with my camera in it. Not that I took any interesting photos in Cedar City, but I have things to take photos of now that I’m home.
• And this week in particular has just been ridiculous at work. Ree-diculous.
• This has nothing to do with me failing, but my birthday is on Sunday. My twenty-first birthday. I’m feeling very “meh” about it, which is worrisome.
• The next issue of The V is going to be BRILLIANT. I think I’m going to start publicizing The V more here, because I do love it so.

Okay. Now I think I can write up a few blog posts. I know. You’re so relieved.