Apartmented.

Pearl Street at Dusk in the Snow,
originally uploaded by found_drama.

I am the proud tenant of 9 Greene, one of the more bizarre apartments I have ever seen. There's a grett big kitchen, tiny l'il ol' living room...but the party...the real party...is in the loft.

Oh, you'll just have to see it.

And Jupiter will definitely have to start doing drills to be able to hoof it up them stairs. Or if not, maybe we can rig up some sort of dumbwaiter-type thing.

Now all this is starting to come together.

So if you're perusing blogs in the blog-o-sphere, and you happen upon this blog, consider it a message in a bottle! The Rat Bat is coming to Vermont, and would love love LOVE to meet you!

Press On Me, We Are Restless Things.

I am in the midst of a cooking frenzy.

Having got rid of the kitten what was boarding in my spare room yesterday (Jenna named it Odell), I find myself bored. It's amazing the gap a tiny little kitten can leave in your life when it's gone. Now what will I have to tend to?!
I'll tell you - oat bread.

I already fucked up a pan of granola bars, because if you know me, you know I hate burnt stuff with a passion. The bottoms of these are burnt. Harumph harumph harumph. I might still eat them, purely out of pride. Next up to fuck up - oat bread. Wish me luck.
On the docket for dinner, in honor of Will's giving his life away to surgery rotation tomorrow - long-life udon noodles (with chicken, not tofu - sue me). I don't have sesame oil, but I really want to try out this recipe, and I have a ginger root I need to put to use. If I like it, I'll post the recipe. If I don't, pretend you never saw this.

Movie Lineup for tonight: United 93. Don't think about it too much, it's a little sick.

All the while, I should be 1) cleaning my house, 2) finishing my Peace Corps application, 3) finishing Joe Rice's packet to mail, 4) updating the Etsy site (yes, these are all important), 5) mailing my now delinquent electric bill, 6) LOOKING FOR DAMN PLACE TO LIVE in Vermont!....the list goes on and on.

My smug sense of superiority has really gotten out of control in the past few days since I found out my ex-fiance crapped his pants while they were on tour with the band, then told my sister "I guess I should call her." Don't do me any favors, deuce-dropper. Run away, and complete the transition to being your maladapted and delusional father. The deep-pocketed Squeeka will be there to save you! And, if not, I'm sure you'll figure out a stupid way to save yourself , and hopefully that way will not involve leaving a gob in your gabardines again. Take care, moran. Gahhhh.

(But still, it's a strange gap that such a small thing can make in your life.)

On a Roll.

Well, I've been a busy little bat the past few weeks.


First and foremost, I'm moving to Vermont. Yes, this is true facts. I got accepted to the Applied Lingustics program at St. Michael's College. So I'm looking for places to live in the Burlington area that will take me and my dog in AND that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and the other leg (other arm deposit). I want to live in Winooski, as it is dirtier and much less intimidating than Burlington (i.e., I feel like I could eat a PopTart in the light of day and not be put to a slow, hard death for eating non-local).



OR MAYBE...it won't just be me and my dog....

BUM BUM BUMMMMM

This kitten has been staying with me for the past couple of days, giving my guest room worms and ear mites. It has its first doctor's appointment today. It is very tiny. All these things are true. ALSO, it doesn't have a name, which I've stopped telling people, because of the multiple onslaughts of stupid cat names. "Name it Butterbean." "Name it Electro-Cat." "Name it Peaches 'n Cream."

NO.

All this work has made me tired. Tired, tired, tired. I want a new project. I've been crocheting market bags in anticipation of going to the farmer's market every week to get my groceries (another way Burlington is trying to make me feel like a yokel), but that's not really curbing my project urge. I think I'm going to try crazy quilting. I've amassed quite a bit of scrap fabric, and it couldn't possibly hurt to try, even though I am shit at sewing and even worse at being patient. Maybe it'll make me better at both!

What a precious thought.

Mostly I've been cooking, trying out recipes. I'll have to post some of the successful ones here. One day.

Mother's Day Snark

I simply cannot stomach PostSecret on Mother's Day. My god. We all have secrets about our moms - GET REAL, TURKEYS.

Bring back the real secrets, and I'll be fine.

I'm in the process of making mala beads for my mother for the other half of her mother's day present. I tried one thing, but it looks like shit, so it's time to do something else now. I'll blog about it when it doesn't look like shit.

In other news, my stupid dream of being an off-off-off-off Broadway star has reared its ugly head again. Go figure.

Breaking Point

You guys.

I just listened to a bunch of Daniel Roop's poetry (thanks Amanda).

And I've got a lot of shit to say.

I may have to set aside some time to have an emotional blowout.

Here, think about this while I'm working.

Extolling The Virtues of White VInegar

Guys, seriously. What can't vinegar do?

I stopped by my sister's apartment the other day to check on a cat she was taking care of while someone was out of town. She has a real small apartment, tiny even. Her bedroom and living room are the same room. Anyway, the cat had been barfing, which cats seem to have a pleasant penchant for, so I promised to go check on it. I noticed in the kitchen that her dishes, I swear to God, had spot welded together in the sink. And. It. Stank.

So I thought, hey, I'm a nice guy, I'ma do these dishes. And about midway through doing the dishes I had thought of at least five things I would have used white vinegar for in her apartment. And if you will indulge me, I will list those things right now:
1) Small bowl of vinegar on coffee table to take out cat barf smellz
2) Cup of vinegar in warm water and mop yr floor. And if you want it to smell okay, you could drip in some peppermint extract or vanilla extract or (more expensive) essential oil if you got it
3) Vinegar and water in a spray bottle and spray some shit down, forget Windex.
4) Pour some o dat vinegar down the drain, you turkey!

Okay, maybe not five. But four things, and she had Windex, she had air freshener, she had all these things that she didn't have to spend money on! Coulda bought a gallon jug of white vinegar!

Here is someone who found 1001 Uses for Vinegar!

And Borax!

And Baking Soda!

Because I honestly feel that if you have those three things, you can clean anything. I used salt to scour her sink, because she had no baking soda.

I would really love to send her some sort of tips list for things to have around that are absolute necessities of a household and at the same time are incredibly cheap and multifunctional. Can anyone help me out with this?

MEGASTUPID

I just spent the weekend with my brother and Adem in Greensboro, NC. It's a nice college town, and it's nice to go someplace with actual places to go hang out, sit in the beer garden and have some sort of food. And it was a gorgeous weekend. But when I got back....

My garden has gone MEGASTUPID!

Alright, well the bluebells are wild in my backyard. But the guy who mows the lawns left them, and I choose to believe that it's because that everyone has some sort of sense of aesthetics, such that they would leave a bluebell alone and NOT weedeat them for God's sake.

Along that same line, I thought a lot about hollow people this weekend, and about some advice I got from a guy I used to know, the same guy that unknowingly created my online moniker: "Sometimes, you think a person is mysterious, and you dig and dig, and open boxes and go on hunts, and then you find out - really - there's nothing there after all."

I think I've done well sifting these people out of my life so far. I would much rather be around people who would let the bluebells grow.