The Velvet Cerebellum

Yesterday I was vacuuming and I discovered something that changed my life!! (don't we all make our big life changing discoveries with something noisy and vibrating in our hands?)

My vacuum cleaner works better when you use it in an east/west direction and not so well in a north/south direction! I experimented all over the living room and I think I have to say that it's true! Amazing. More likely, the carpet has a 'grain' or 'direction' in it of which I was previously unaware. This is going to revolutionize the way I approach vacuuming. YEAH!

Of course, the thing I have to admit is that I have lived in this apartment since 2005 and I got my vacuum when I moved in (a Dyson, sigh). So that's almost 3 years with this carpet and this vacuum. Three years in which I hadn't figured that out. I'd like to say it's because I'm functionally retarded or that I'm unable to pick up on clues and postulate hypotheses from them.

The truth is...I just don't vacuum as often as a responsible adult might. Hell, I don't even vacuum as often as an irresponsible adult might. The carpet in my place is pretty sad. The stuff that was under the sofas is all nice and fluffy and clean. Everything else has been abused into submission. It really became evident after I vacuumed and could see it.

On the other hand it allows me to play a game where I just keep vacuuming and emptying the canister until the vacuum can no longer pick anything up.

OH! Also! I was so excited to get a clear canister vacuum for those times when there is a centipede in the house and David isn't around to wrongly save its life and put it outside. I was so expecting to be able to suck them into the vacuum and watch them whirl around and around in their private arthropodic hell. This isn't the case, sadly. They get sucked up, but I think there are just so many bits and filters and things that you never get to see them again. It might be for the best, I think I read that this is how Vlad Tepes started out.

So there you have it. I spent my Saturday making new and exciting discoveries about my vacuum!

Posted by Heather at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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So I'm still pissed about this whole idea that we can take something commonplace and not at all dangerous and use it to freak people out in order to make them buy our product.

Actually, I think I just described the entire history of marketing.

Dude 1: we need to sell something!
Dude 2: all I have is some ammonia and food coloring
D1: AWESOME!

Later: Dirt....you see it every day....it's on your shoes, on your pants....it even surrounds the very foundation of your home. Dirt. Have you ever stopped to consider what dirt is? Dirt is the decomposed leftovers of animals and plants. Decomposition. Are you thinking about it? Are you thinking about that giant bloated raccoon carcass you saw on the way to work today? Well, one of those and many other things including worm poop and beetle legs made the dirt that is surrounding your house right now. Keep your family safe! Save your family. Your children are not worth the risk. Douse them daily in our specially formulated cleansing solution.....

oh, right, also....Fuck you Lysol.

In the spirit of open honesty, other people's fingernails freak me out. I see them as a hotbed of germ production. But, it's not like I'm mindfucking the public over it.

Posted by Heather at 8:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

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Dear internet! Thanks for making me feel enormously insane yesterday. Not just regular nutty insane where I might tell my coworkers about the time in second grade when during an instructional filmstrip on something important like exhaling did a classmate of mine secretly stick her finger up her butt and then hold it out and ask us, the members of her 'table' if we wanted to smell it (true story!). When I'm feeling a little nutty, I like to share that story.

No, Internet, you made me feel even more crazy than that.

I'm sitting at my desk working on something, I think I was adding utility use data to a giant excel spreadsheet (the awesomeness of that act alone would drive most to insanity), there was a lot of noise and talking from my boss' office so I turned off my iTunes podcast (Tom Ashbrooke : On Point, current events are HOT) because my other option was to turn it up louder and that's an irritation for other people (other people do not care for current events, they are not hot (actually, like half the people in the connected office listen to super right wing republican talk radio and it's really bizarre, like the time I happened to catch one dude say "so, they say with global warming it's going to get colder! how does that even make sense? huh, that just the same doublespeak marxist nuttiness we've come to expect from liberals" Like, wow, "I don't understand the issue and I'm not qualified in any way to dispute the facts but it seems wrong so I bet it is wrong...hey, also...that whole 'globe' thing? totally pansy liberal bullshit! When I go outside the ground is flat, just like God made it. Total flat Mercator projection earth". I love republicans) (wait, where was i?))

Oh yes, insanity.

I'm sitting there at my desk and I keep hearing mumbling ...mumblemumblemumble. I can't figure out where this mumbling is coming from. There's no one in the right vicinity for that style of mumbling. I check to see if maybe by some weird act of physics some voice is bouncing off my computer screen (Physics? sounds bouncing? that's crazy communist bullshit!). No sound bouncing off my screen. So now I'm trying to figure out where this mumbling is coming from. I'm trying to remember what I know about auditory hallucinations, do they actually hear them in their ears or just in their heads? because I'm hearing this from my ears. Did I take the wrong pills this morning? I've done that before...Nope, 3 blue 2 brown 4 shots of espresso. Did maybe I leave iTunes running and just pop the volume down? No no no there it is not running.

Now I'm worried. Then it stops and we're cool and I continue to break down kwh used per day per square foot in each building because knowledge is power and immensely detailed and boring knowledge is like the same power that some mid level manager in a midwestern office might wield.

Then it starts again. Mumbling. Goddammit. I'm not even 35 yet. Why couldn't I have a few more years before the slow sweet slide into thorazine and apple sauce? Lord knows I am looking forward to the day when I can wear a robe all day and my unkempt hair is all the permission I need to talk about the brown eels that invade my pants almost daily. But I'm not ready yet! I still have laundry to finish! Clean underwear is a gift I give David!

mumble mumble

I hit the F9 key (which on a Mac is the magic "show me every open window" key. It's magic. Though not as magic as F8, that one shows me the current temp, how many pounds in a stone, and the definition of "eutectic"). Whoa, right there in the corner....what is that.....I click on it.

Goddammed stupid local news site I clicked to from CNN.com or something. I think it's a talking ad, no, it's not. Oh for fucks sake! This local news site (I believe it must be local news for the greater metropolitan area of Retardville) decided that people needed so desperately to know the fucking Oscar nominations that they would have the filmed coverage play quietly over and over and over in the corner of a page.

You know what? If I gave two shits about the Oscars I'd fucking click a link to an article about the Oscars. When I click a link about some small town guy who got his head stuck in the toilet, that's what i want to know about. Go ahead, list the other headlines to the side, I'm game, I follow news links. Don't just decide "hey! everyone cares about awards given to people! There's nothing more fulfilling than watching someone better than you receive an award for going to work!".

God, thorazine and applesauce sounds good right now.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of toilets...
What the fuck is it with this sudden fear of toilet spray? I don't watch tv but someone was telling about some ad where they show you that your toilet can spray germs up to 6 feet in the air!!! Oh my god, middle america! It's time to freak the fuck out and buy yet another bottle of useless bromide to fight a war on something that isn't going to kill you anyway. People! Your toilets have been spewing germs 6 feet in the air (and subsequently all over your toothbrushes) for your entire lives! Every single flush of your life has sent happy germs into the air! Has it killed you yet? Has it even made you ill? I bet there's a pretty strong argument that regular low doses of common germs can actually help boost your immune system! Hell, I'm gonna go hold my toothbrush over the toilet right now and flush! How do you like them apples?

Posted by Heather at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

This weekend I cleaned my kitchen. Cleaned the whole damned thing. I cleaned like a pilled up OCD soccer mom that never gets laid. I'm not OCD, I don't have kids, and I get laid with a frequency that is imprudent to discuss.

I am, however, pilled up. Of course I can't blame the manic cleaning on the pills. I've been taking this dose for 6 months now, and nothing got cleaned. I think it's the pills and the extra sunlight. It's been amazingly fuckass cold here lately. When it is that cold, there is always bright bright sunlight (no nice warm insulating blanket of clouds).

I cleaned the hell out of the kitchen. I ran a billion loads of dishes. I stuck things in the dishwasher that weren't dishes but I figured anything that needed to be washed and fit in the dishwasher would go. Cabinet fronts, sink, dishes, floor, counters. I threw away everything that was uselessly taking up space. I reorganized. I discovered the Mr Clean Antibacterial Multi-Surface Cleaner has a bizarre slightly anise-like scent that becomes stronger when sprayed on coffee residue.

I discovered that Pine-Sol will cut through any amount of old grease. I also realized that the properties of Pine-Sol that allows it to eat the grease on my stove also allows it to eat the fat on my hands. My hands have this weird scaly thing going on. EW. And no, I don't want to wear gloves. they're so creepy on the inside and they constantly remind me of Curley from "Of Mice and Men". Creepy.

My house smells like a giant hippo ate an entire pine forest and then shit everywhere. Awesome.

Posted by Heather at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Posted by Heather at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

I still owe people handmade mittens for Christmas. These are the people who know they are coming late. I am working on them. I also volunteered to be a pattern tester for someone so i need to make a sweater in the pattern. I also need to make mittens for me, remake a pair of mittens for my dad, make two other sweaters for me.

Also, I have to work on Bubbo Designs and try to write up my patterns for sale. That's the first step. Then there are all the other steps. All of those steps will require a lot of work.

Also, also, there is the "big project" with Anna. I will go into more detail when I feel we have done enough that detailing it won't jinx it.

And i need to clean the house, deal with some financial things, get a spring installed, get chester in for his shots, try to find a cheap vacation out of town because I really need to get out of town and away if only for a couple days.

So what I'm saying is that I've been busy and when I am not busy I am thinking about the things I should be doing but not doing. Then I dream that no matter what I do, I am judged for not doing the things I am supposed to do, the things I forgot to do or didn't know about. And I wake up with an untenable sense of dread and I can't remember what I am dreading...then I do.

And maybe I shouldn't use my website as a therapist.

Posted by Heather at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

I have a headache in my temples. It's killing me. It won't go away. I imagine it's related to the amazing amounts of snot crammed into my sinuses. I think I've not been clear about the amount of thick, sticky mucous that is self replicating in my head.

There is so much mucous in my head that is NOT finding any escape route that it is now popping my skull apart at the seams. I expect that within the next 18 hours every bone in my skull will detach from the others and my snot filled head will continue to expand. At some point I will be a body with a HUGE blobular expanse rolling around and draping over my shoulders.

Gangs of miscreants will graffito tag my head.

I finally got my car back (almost a week ago, but I haven't really been able to drive it due to massive snot invasion). Sometimes you don't realize just how many things need to be fixed on your car until you take it in and have everything fixed. Then you drive it and you're all "MY CAR IS AWESOME!". My car went from a worry to a pleasure boat and all it cost was a VERY LOT OF MONEY!

Here's to snot pain and smooth cars.

David's at the grocery store, I wonder if I can eat all his ice cream before he gets back?

Posted by Heather at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

HI! My name is Chester
I have to poop. OH MY GOD! I have to poop! I have to poop for the third time today. I have to poop. My name is Chester

oh my god. I have to poop! What should I do?? what what what? What do i do when I have to poop??

There's the fat lady! Jump on the fat lady! OH MY GOD!!! she wheezes when you jump on her. I have to poop and she is wheezing and I am jumping! AN EAR!!!!! tongue in the ear tongue in the ear tongue in the ear.

She screamed! Oh my god I have to poop and she is wheezing and screaming! TONGUE IN THE EAR!!

SHE SAID SOME NAUGHTIES!!!! my ears my ears I have to poop. Why doesn't she do something??? I will jump on the hippohead. I will bite the hippohead! I have to poop and the hippohead is biting me and the fat lady is making swears and coughing! I HAVE TO POOP!!!

oh good! the fat lady is hauling her ass! this is good. I have to poop! OH MY GOD WE ARE GOING OUTSIDE!!! My leash my leash my leash LEASH LEASH LEASH. BITE THE HIPPO HEAD

AND SIT. I can sit, I know how to sit. I am sitting. I have to poop.

OH MY GOD! We're at the second door! SIT! I am sitting because I know how but the hippohead won't sit! Stupid hippohead. I will bite the hippohead. I sit again and wait. I have to poop.

OUTSIDE!!! Is that someone across the street? Who is that? WHO ARE YOU?? WHO ARE YOU?? Stay away from here!! This is my yard!!! HEY! YOU! I'm talking to...oh right, the fat lady tells me to hurry. Hurry? Hurry?

I have to poop! Where should I poop? The ground! Where? the ground! Okay. Nose! I have a nose! I will find the place! HEY! WHO ARE YOU?? get away from my house! Oh yeah, I have to poop!

Sniff sniff sniff sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiffffffffffffffffffffff this smells like rabbit! POOP! I have to poop. Where is the spot? I can't find the spot. Is that a leaf or is that something walking towards me? I think it's a leaf. Does the leaf poop? Oh right. poop.

Fat lady is talking to me. She is dumb. She poops in the same place every day. Lazy. She doesn't find the spot.

Maybe it's on the other side of the sidewalk? maybe? okay, I will go there! Oh my god I have to poop! I really have to poop! I can't find the spot. Where is the hippohead? oh, over there.

Maybe I missed the spot back over there? I should sniff there again. I think I smell bacon. Do I smell bacon? what's going on? OH! I'm outside! AWESOME! I should run around! Why am I not running around? OH RIGHT! I have to poop and I can't find the spot.

OH NO OH NO! It wants to come out and I can't find the spot. SCRUUUUUUUUUNCH!!! shuffle shuffle no no no no

HERE!!! Yeah, I found it and I am putting my poo...hey, was that a dog in the car that just drove by?

Oh my god! There's fresh poop behind me! Who the hell did that?? Oh, it's mine. Smells like mine.

wait...what? oh, pee! I have too pee. Let's see, I can't pee on my poop...I can't pee near my poop....um.....oh god that feels so good!

Posted by Heather at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

1. I am completely addicted to my graphics tablet, as you can see below. it is quite possibly the awesomest thing on the planet. As mentioned before, it has a few issues but most of those can be overcome with determination and swearing. The one thing I can't figure out is why I can't use it to draw freeform lines in photoshop. It won't track the pen tip and just makes a straight line from point a to point b with none of the curves I drew in the middle. It tracks the pen tip on other things like the circle tool and stuff like that, but not freeform lines. It does just fine with freeform lines in ImageReady, which came bundled with Photoshop. Mostly I don't mind using ImageReady, it does most everything I need to do and it easily jumps back and forth with Photoshop so I can jump into PS to do the more advanced things...BUT I downloaded some brush sets that are awesome in PS but IR can't use them. And I want to use them, but I can't get the program to track the pen in freeform. Sigh.
1a. David may be regretting this particular purchase.

2. The sinuses surrounding my right eye (the maximilaris, sphenoidal and ethmoidal) are completely packed with the snot of the devil himself. I also have a fever, I ache and I feel a little petulant. Fucking flu.

3. The dogs are all passed out and cute. My dogs are cute. And awesome. What BigPharma doesn't want you to know is that dogs are the greatest cure for stress and blood pressure. When I touch my dogs I have a real, physical reaction. I can feel myself relaxing. I need these dogs probably more than they need me.

4. The Humane Society had mastiff/shar pei puppies last week. The universe teases me. The universe loves to make me squirm! The universe makes me regret not living in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere allowing me to have a herd of dogs (and cats and goats and chickens).

5. Now that Maddie's health has improved so much (thank you Dr Pierce Fleming, International Vet of Mystery) she is actually active and more interested in the world. Where before all she could focus on was how much her feet hurt, now she can focus on playing with me. The other day she and I were playing Hufhuffle. Hufhuffle is a game where Maddie stands on the bed and I stand at the foot of the bed, I punch the bed and posture with fake ferocity and she rears up and tries to pounce on my hands (she's part cat). Then I trick her by shoving her across the bed and she jumps back even more excite. The little piggy tail helicopters all over the place. If she does catch my hand she holds it down with both paws and licks it furiously. When you play with Maddie you will never feel her teeth, she'll grab your hand in her mouth and she does it so gently that you'd think she didn't have teeth.

The other night, while we were hufhuffling (it is so called as that is the sound she makes when we play) Chester was out in the kitchen eating. At the sound of the game he came running in and jumped on the bed. Chester has different ideas about play, he is faster and harder and has giant sharp teeth that you have to remind him not to use. He also mock-growls. Maddie does not allow growling to happen near me. As he growled and lunged at me, she jumped between and had him on his back in a split second. She holds him until he goes slack and then lets him up and chases him out of the room, but that's not enough, she must also stand guard at the bedroom door. I distract her and call her back and we hufhuffle again while Chester finishes his dinner.
5a. There's something almost primal that wakes up when you watch someone or something protect you. It's a feeling that's hard to describe. I've said it before, Maddie's only mission in life is to keep me safe. For a while it was hard on her because she believed I was in danger all the time. She's come to learn that mostly I am okay and I am not going to be eaten by the other dogs at the park or swallowed whole every time I leave the house. When I take a bath she patrols the hallway outside the bathroom, she is always at my side wherever I am in the house. When she doesn't understand something, she puts herself between me and the confusion. Sometimes she tries to figure out why David is making me yell, she investigates this with vigor and concern. It's hard to explain to a dog that I don't need her hippo head on my face during special time. But again, it's hard not to appreciate her intent and her efforts. She's punched in, on the job, doing what she does best and she loves it. her salary is belly rubs and hugs and sleeping next to me at night.

6. I also love Anna Bratton, though not in the same way in which I love my dogs, David or a good beer. Last month I asked her if she could whip up a little design to go on little cards that could be added to my handmade gifts. boom. She sends me some options, I pick the one I like and then we discuss layout and suddenly I have the identity/logo ever! I mean I know it helps that she loves dinosaurs as much as or more than I do! but still, she does it perfectly every time! That's why when I got another idea this weekend she was the first one I called. I can't talk about the new idea yet, it's still in a goo stage and I'd rather wait until it firms up a but, but anyway, we talked on the phone for 20 minutes on Friday and then last night she sent me some preliminaries that were so spot on. She managed to capture the essence of everything I was going for! Let's hear it for Anna!
6a. Bubbo Designs is something I am hoping to get together by spring so I can start selling patterns and whatnot.
6b. So now that's 2 big projects, the second of which might require me to take a class. Combine big projects and my graphics tablet and you'll find I haven't crocheted in a few days.
6c. It's fine though. I burned out over christmas. I still owe people some mittens, but they have promised patience.
7. The awesome thing about being sick is that you can recognize that you just wrote a huge amount of nothing and you just don't care. The bad thing about being sick is that you start to wonder if it is okay to start wiping your nose on your shirt because you are too tired to get up and get some tissue (TISSUE).

Posted by Heather at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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I am awesome

Click to enlarge see the true awesomeness

Posted by Heather at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

I'm dead. I totally fucking died. Or, more specifically, I am fantasizing about being dead as I imaging the long cold nothing is preferable to the half gallon of invasive galactic mucous in my sinuses.

At some point over night the 'irritating cold' turned into 'achy painy mucousy voice loss with eye boogers the size of the Brawny Man's farts and utter fat girl exhaustion'.

Today was David's first day back to work after the holidays. I promptly got up and started his coffee etc and promptly wished I was more of a dick and stayed in bed instead of getting him off to work with two apples in his back pack and hot coffee in his hand (in a travel mug, I'm not burning him).

I emailed work, I got really really hot, I sat down, i prayed for death. The thing about being sick is everything is broken down into minutia and every bit of minutia becomes its own novel. I would love to write 3 paragraphs on how cute Chester's toes are right this SECOND (they are super cute and round and he has the tiniest bit of white fur growing around them and if you gently tickle the fur around his toes it drives him crazy). I ate pasta for dinner at like 9:30 last night, but I'm already really hungry. The next Nobel Prize for awesomeness should be awarded to the dude who invented the baby carrot. How awesome is that?

Posted by Heather at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

ha ha ha ha ha
astronaut

Posted by Heather at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

Guess who got a graphic tablet for Christmas? No, really...guess! Yeah, it was me! Now I can draw a picture of a hippo carrying a balloon that looks like me!!! Is that awesome? Yeah.

It's a PenPower Tooya graphics tablet. The awesomeness of the tablet is that it gives you a giant 6x10 inch drawing surface. The huge drawback is that you will have problems with the software. You will have lots and lots of problems with the software. We could not even get it to recognize the installation CD in my computer, luckily it's plug and play so at least I can use it I just can't adjust any preferences. Also, no installation number for the PhotoShop Elements Mac Version. again, 'sokay, I have other software I can use it with.

Also, customer support from both PenPower and Buy.com is retarded at best. You will get no help with this product at all. BUT!! If you are persistent (and god knows I'm persistent) you can make it work! Also, if your boyfriend wants to return it because it doesn't work, you should be really persistent about keeping it because it's a pretty awesome present and you don't want to give it up!

So, thanks David! Thanks for my graphics tablet (and my mp3 player and the wireless speakers and for cuteness).

more pictures later.

Posted by Heather at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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