Jan. 31, 2007
a close fit
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grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
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5:24 pm
last evening kevin came into the living room from the garage, and all he said was “grace...” and i knew by the tone of his voice that something was very wrong. it was definitely a “there is something very wrong” kind of voice, and i’m not even sure if he’s ever used that voice before, but i could just tell.
he said he wanted to show me something in the garage.
now, the garage is one of those places that is way too filled with things. but his VW Thing is parked there; if you don’t know what the Thing is, it’s a car, a little like a jeep, very fun to drive. but it’s there and a while ago kevin managed to clean up enough of the other floorspace for me to park my car in the garage, too. but it’s a tight fit. there are things (not THE Thing, just random things like boxes and a recycle bin and the cat littler box) lined up against the wall, and when i go into the garage i have to maneuver the car just right so i don’t knock over the stuff and don’t crash into the Thing.
at first i was very close to the wall, and it was a little bit challenging getting out of the car. but as i’ve done it more, i’ve gotten better at it, closer and closer to the Thing, leaving me plenty of room to open my car door as well as getting stuff out of the back seat.
but then, last night...i parked a little too close to the Thing. i didn’t actually crash into it, because i assume i’d have heard/felt it if i did. but i somehow slowly squeezed into the space, completely obliterating any gap between my car and the Thing. they were touching sides, in the front, so close that you couldn’t see any kind of space at all between them.
this of course, not a good thing. Not good for my car, not good for the Thing. Kevin said i would need to be really careful in backing out, and i said ARE YOU CRAZY, I’M NOT TOUCHING MY CAR YOU’LL HAVE TO DO IT.
so he did. he said there was no damage to either car, only a tiny bit of paint that had transferred from one to the other.
whew.
potential serious disaster averted.
now i’m sure i’ll be banging my car door into the wall again, afraid to get near the Thing.
at least i didn’t crash into it.
yet.
ok, on a more serious note here - the show DIRT is really horrible. really really horrible. randy talked about watching it last night, so i turned it on for a while. a guy horribly beat another guy because he was a tabloid photographer taking photos of his boss. another guy beat a guy in the knees with a metal pipe. this is a HORRIBLE show, and i really don’t see why people like it. if this is really how it is in hollywood, why would anybody ever want to have anything to do with it? is everybody really sleazy and criminal and shoots heroin and kills each other? since it’s courtney cox’s show, and she’s been around and had lots of trouble from tabloids, is this an accurate portrayal of the glamorous hollywood life? if it is, why do people want to see it? why are people so fascinated with violence? what’s wrong with people?
these are my questions for today.
ok then,
wednesday grace.
Jan. 30, 2007
JOE’S NEW BALANCE OUTLET
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grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
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3:40 pm
here is their website: JOE’S FABULOUS NEW BALANCE OUTLET!
that was the UPS guy at the door. i tried on some slip-on new balance tennis shoes at a sporting goods store on sunday, but they didn’t have my size. i figured they’ve be perfect for work. i found them because amy had a pair because amy has all good things because she likes to shop.
so i looked them up online and found an even cuter pair than the ones in the store, plus they were cheaper. and i ordered them YESTERDAY.
AND THE UPS MAN JUST DELIVERED THEM AND I’M WEARING THEM RIGHT NOW.
not only can you buy anything online, it can be amazingly fast and convenient and wonderful.
so life is good.
ok then,
grace.
lapsang souchong update
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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3:34 pm
my friend gary who lives in LA and knows everything about everything that is cool and hip and trendy, e-mailed me that you can get lapsang souchong tea on amazon.com, and you can get free shipping if you order $25 or more worth of stuff. that would be a LOT of tea. but maybe worth it, because i think i’ve run out of options for getting the stuff here.
he said the first time he tried lapsang souchong, which is smokey and different and unique and delicious but i’m sure there are many people who wouldn’t like it so much, he was having afternoon tea at the beverly hills hotel. i reminded him that i went there for tea once with him. now that was a very swanky tea. a harpist was playing, for example. i don’t recall spotting any celebrities, but i bet they were lurking around someplace.
i finally got my lazy ass out the door yesterday and ran. i wore two pairs of socks, two pairs of gloves, a cold-weather running shirt plus a t-shirt and a running jacket, and one of those wrap around your head kinds of things, not ear muffs but kind of like them, a ski mask-type hat, my new cold weather running pants, plus sweats. and two pairs of gloves.
i was WARM. except i felt kind of weighted down with all those clothes, kind of like i was just lumbering along, like little kids when they’re dressed in their snow outfits and they can’t really move. like in that xmas movie about the bb gun. plus, my glasses kept fogging up because of the mask, so every once in a while, when i thought it would be nice to see, i pulled it up, but sometimes i couldn’t get it all the way pulled up while running so then it was covering my eyes. i’m sure i was quite a sight to see, if there had been any other humans out in the very cold air.
i’m really glad i ran yesterday because last evening it started to snow. i got done with a massage and looked out to see giant flakes coming down and sticking all over everything. ugh. it kept snowing and now there’s maybe an inch or two on the ground plus the expected high today is something like 17.
winter. why do i live here? every day in honolulu, it’s 81 degrees. sometimes it gets down to 80, but almost always, 81 degrees.
maybe when he retires, kevin and i can open a fencing school in hawaii. he got us t-shirts that say “Salle Honolulu fencing club - teaching Hawaii to fence, one rich person at a time.”
he got them online. how did people own anything before you could get stuff online?
last week i decided to try to be more diligent about weight-lifting. i started doing the nautilus circuit, which is 14 machines. i did 12 of them, and it takes an entire hour. today was the third time i’ve done it and i sort of feel like i need a nap. but, theoretically, soon i will be ALL MUSCLE. or at least more muscle, less fat.
the doorbell is ringing. mollie is barking like crazy.
Jan. 29, 2007
monday yet again
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grace -
grace@graceuncensored.com
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11:52 am
brrrr. i keep waiting for it to get just a couple of degrees warmer, before i go on a little run.
i’m really just trying to avoid it. but this is going to be the warmest day this week (with a high, theoretically, of 35). but at least most of the snow is gone, and hopefully it won’t come back at all this year.
one of the things i was doing to try to avoid running yet is look for lapsang souchong tea online. it’s a delicious kind of tea that we found when we were in arizona, if i recall. i don’t know why we bought it; maybe it’s because there was loose tea and we smelled it and it smelled delicious. it’s very smokey. no, i know where we first had it - at Incredibly Delicious, downtown. we found a box of it here in spfld somewhere one time, but every time we go to the store we look for it now and can’t find it anywhere.
i found it online, of course, and it was a reasonable price, until they added in the shipping, which doubled the price and that seemed ridiculous, since of course the tea would weigh almost nothing. so i have to think of another way to get some of the good stuff. perhaps some other online tea store would have free shipping, or at least shipping that’s not that expensive.
as you can see, things are very very busy around here.
i’m looking forward to friday night, when we’re going to take a sushi-making class at the pasfield house. it’s an old house that a guy turned into a b&b, i think, except there was no breakfast because there was no kitchen, but now they’ve added a fancy kitchen so lincoln land community college is having a few cooking classes.
maybe i’ll learn some sushi-making techniques, although i already know how to make sushi rolls but they’re very messy and i bet there’s a better way to do it, because i just learned by reading about it and lots of trial and error. it’s not going to be a very hands-on class, but just watching somebody do it will be helpful. it’d also be helpful to find out if there’s anyplace in town where you can actually buy sushi-grade fish, so i wouldn’t just have to use fake crab. but i guess, really, that if you can get sushi-GF, you’d get it at robert’s seafood because i think that’s the only game in town.
anyway, sushi, making sushi, it all sounds good.
except deep winter isn’t really the prime time for eating sushi. right now is more about hot soup. which i may make later in the day, if i can actually get around to doing other things.
i really want to see some oscar-nominated movies. randy REALLY REALLY wants to go see some of them, and my desire isn’t that great. i wish that more happy, entertaining, funny movies were nominated, because “the last king of scotland,” except maybe that’s not the right title, and “babel” and that martin scorcese movie don’t look exactly lighthearted.
we did rent “anchorman” over the weekend and it was quite funny. written by and starring will ferrell, who is a very funny and silly man. at one point there was a big battle with different local news teams, and the group included ben stiller, luke (or maybe it was owen) wilson, tim robbins, and vince vaughn. funny guys.
but that of course made me think about the dearth of funny women in movies. there are some of them, but when was there a movie with cameos by a bunch of funny women?
but it was entertaining. but never nominated for any awards at all, i believe.
no more excuses, must go out in the cold weather and run. a little bit. a very little bit.
ok then,
monday morning grace, feeling very productive.
Jan. 25, 2007
things on thursday
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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1:31 pm
i’m having a real difficulty this week, trying to remember what day it is. thursday already, although i’ve been thinking it was thursday for a couple days now.
here are some more photos of hawaii. we went hiking/driving in waimea canyon on the island of kauai. it was, of course, very beautiful.
this photo was taken at the first official place where you could get out of your car and look at the view. when we got there, there were at least a couple tour buses and people everywhere and we thought that if this is what the place was going to be like, crowded with tourists, we didn’t want to stay. but this is actually the only place with a huge crowd.
we went hiking in one spot, and we got to a place where it was very steep down and i balked at going down because of my fear of that. so we turned around and went back and it’s good that we did because it started raining, and even worse than just trying to hike somewhere really steep with no vegetation very close by to cling onto would have been hiking in the rain. it rained for a good long time on our hike out, but it wasn’t so bad.
we drove and stopped quite a bit, and we had lunch in a great little restaurant up in the canyon. it was close to the few cabins that were up there. it would be fun to stay in a cabin, but very remote. now i remember that they had some delicious chocolate macadamia nut pie and i wasn’t going to get it but then i decided that i would, because who knew when i’d be back there again and all the pies were freshly made right there and it was delicious and i’m glad to remember that i ate it.
when are we going back to hawaii? actually, lately i keep checking prices to las vegas. it’d be fun to go there for a couple of days, get out of the cold, see a show or two, make our fortune. kevin hasn’t been to las vegas, and i do think it’s a place that everybody should see at least once, because it’s not really like anything else.
there are pretty good deals right now.
i bought a fancy red dress yesterday. mom and i went shopping at von maur’s, a store in decatur, which if you don’t live here is a smaller town than springfield and seems to suffer from lots of unemployment, but von maurs is a great store with interesting clothes that you can’t find around here. i wasn’t going to buy anything, i wasn’t even going to try anything on, but we went into the store and there was a dazzling long dress hanging there, so i had to try on a few things. the red dress i bought is short and really cute. plus i bought a pair of gold shoes to go with the fancy black dress i bought on monday.
so this week so far is primarily about the fancy dresses. i’d like a job where i just wore fancy dresses all the time. vanna white? i guess there’s no job in springfield where i could dress up all the time. unless i figure out how to have “gracetalks” more steadily than once a year.
i’d probably get tired of getting dressed up all the time, since right now i usually wear my tennis shoes to work and it takes a lot for me to even wear boots or clogs instead of the tennis shoes.
it’s sunny here today, and it seems that i haven’t seen the sun for a few days, at least. sun is good. it makes me in a good mood. that plus all the caffeinated tea i’ve drunk today, i’m feeling all charged up. but i have to calm down a bit because i’m about to go give some massages and i don’t want an hour-long massage to only last 15 minutes.
nobody wants a speedy massage.
i have to go now, even though there are at least two things i wanted to discuss. more later.
but only in theory.
ok then,
zippy grace
Jan. 22, 2007
monday once again
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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9:00 pm
first: my friend gary in LA sent me the CUTEST PHOTOS EVER. here is a link to the site where you can see for yourself. finnegan the squirrel!
second: maybe i’m not going to try to run in the half marathon after all. i got back to spfld. last night and the ground is now covered in snow and i don’t want to run in the snow and plus it’s going to be cold for quite a while now.
laziness, always winning out.
my friend linda sent me a very motivating, inspiring e-mail about the need to focus in on doing something creative, and maybe, eventually, i’ll finally do that. i know it’s possible, but i’m just so lazy...
the fencing weekend was pretty good. we had sushi right in our hotel in chicago, and it was very delicious. very expensive. very, very delicious. very, very expensive. plus sake. for LUNCH. extravagant.
we walked around a bit even though it was very cold, but luckily i was wearing long underwear. kevin and the guy from the fencing club, jay, bought matching sweats and jackets. “for the fencing club,” they said, but i found it relaly funny that grown men were buying matching outfits. i haven’t done that since junior high.
jay’s wife, by the way, is very nice. i can’t quite see what she sees in her husband, but she does seem to care for him a lot. so he’s very lucky.
we went to an irish pub on saturday night and i drank an entire glass of guinness. there was a great big dog there in the bar and i don’t know exactly why he was allowed in but he sure was sweet and we fed him off the table. nobody cared.
on sunday was the fencing tournament. on sunday morning we were eating breakfast in the lobby of the hotel and all these people were milling about, most of them in new orleans saints jerseys and hats, ready for the BIG FOOTBALL GAME. none of them was wearing warm enough clothes, and i couldn’t think of anything much more miserable than sitting around at a football game freezing to death. especially for those saints fans, who got slaughtered.
i was pretty sure were the only people in the hotel who were there for the fencing.
it was held at the chicago athletic club, which looked like it used to be grand, but is kind of in disrepair now. it needs a makeover. the gym that the tournament was held in was kind of small. there were 30 foil fencers, and at first they fenced in “pools;” there were five different groups, with six people in each group. each fencer fenced against every other fencer in their pool, so each person had to fence five times. at the end of that round the scores were added up, based on how many times a person won, and also their total number of points, and then they were ranked. kevin came in 9th overall, and jay came in 11th. this was really good, i thought. i wanted kevin to win every game, but there were some really good people. a lot of them were from chicago.
after that they each then had one more bout, and if a person lost that round, they were out, so that eliminated half the people. kevin won his bout, and then he lost the next one. he said by that time he was exhausted.
when we got home we looked up the scores online, and the overall winner was a 12 year-old kid. yeah. pretty incredible. there were some very tall, very strong guys, but the kid beat them. that’s the thing about fencing; there were also a few older women, some older guys, all ages and heighths, and it didn’t matter. skill, it’s all about the skill.
i just hope that i never have to be in a competition. i’m afraid that somehow kevin will manage to coerce me into doing it without me realizing it until it’s too late and i’m standing there fencing against some 12 year-old. a 12 year-old who knows what he’s doing.
i’m going to be wary, though, and hopefully it won’t happen.
no fencing competitions for me.
the thing that concerns me is that one thing i said i would NEVER EVER DO IN A MILLION YEARS is be in a triathlon.
and yet i was in one, two summers ago.
but at least i’m not going to do any more of those.
i think i need to finally make some new year’s resolutions, all the things i hope to NEVER EVER do in the coming year.
tonight randy and i finally took back the pretty dress he got me for xmas that was too tight. i wasn’t in the mood to try on dresses, but i figured it would be good to just get it over with. first randy made me a very delicious dinner, with stuff he just had lying around. i need to have more groceries so i could just throw together a dinner. we have lots of stuff, but it’s all too random, it’s all stuff that have to be made into complicated recipes that take lots of time.
i tried on many dresses and really wanted a red one, but finally settled on one that was beige underneath and black over it and the effect is that it looks kind of bare.
so now i’m all ready to be fancy, if i ever have the motivation to go out of the house anymore.
i have to watch tv now. “studio 60 on the sunset strip,” a very poor title, in my opinion.
ok then,
grace on monday.
Jan. 19, 2007
friday morning
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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11:03 am
and i’m sitting here writing in order to not go outside and run. but i’m GOING to go outside and run, at least it’s sunny out but i keep thinking that if i just wait another few minutes it’ll get a little warmer outside. but i have to hurry up and run or otherwise the window of opportunity will pass, i’ll suddenly decide NOPE I’M NOT DOING IT, because i can be like that, the later it gets in the day, as morning grace, who has at least a shred of spine and character, oozes into nighttime grace, who is fine with lounging around loafing off doing nothing exept maybe making a batch of chocolate chip cookies. with walnuts.
yesterday somebody told me about the half marathon that’s coming up at the end of march, and it sounded really good because the course goes past the various lincoln sites and through washington park. i’ve never run a half-marathon distance (about 13.something miles, i think), but it could be ok. i mentioned it to kevin and he’s under the impression that he’d have time to do it, too, although i sort of doubt that he’s going to have lots of free time because of the many activities he’s involved in. but then again he’d probably just run it anyway.
which would be nice, if he did it too, but on the other hand, what are the odds that he’d actually run with me for the race? perhaps, just MAYBE, he’d run part of it with me, but it would be a mighty long run to go as slowly as i surely will.
we’ll see. no running is going to happen at all if i don’t get up RIGHT NOW and go running.
but, brrrr....
last night i had a dream about barack obama. i know for a fact that this is the first time i’ve ever dreamt about a public official, especially a person who is going to but has not yet announced a run for the presidency. i dreamed he was passing by me and i was excited about shouting something out to him, something memorable, but of course all i could think of at the last minute was “YOU’RE GREAT! I KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO WIN!”
ah, always eloquent.
in the dream i was also having a long chat with his campaign manager or somebody like that, talking about how i wanted to work for his campaign.
perhaps this is a sign. a message.
but right now I MUST RUN.
brrrr again.
here i go.
right now.
grace
Jan. 17, 2007
p.s. honey the littlest cat
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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11:16 pm
has dragged in NO animals of any kind, dead or alive, all day long. something to celebrate.
the DaVinci Code, Supersize Me, and too much exercise
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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11:16 pm
in my attempt to exercise more i think i exercised a little too much today, because tonight at fencing i was too tired to fence too much. but it’s a miraculous improvement, that i even WANT to fence. have i mentioned the fencing club that kevin founded? surely i have. i took the beginning lesson, then the intermediate, and it’s actually a fun sport and i don’t totally suck at it. i’m not great by any stretch of the imagination, but i’ve improved and it’s a great workout and the people are nice and it’s fun. go figure. if you’re interested in taking fencing lessons by the way, a new beginner class starts january 27th, and you can e-mail me and i’ll pass it on to kevin.
tonight the movie “supersize me” was on tv but i only saw a little bit of the end of it but now i feel i need to rent it and watch it. i cam in on the part where the guy’s doctor is telling him that he can’t believe the guy’s poor health - i know that the premise of the film is that a guy only ate fast food, maybe only mcdonald’s, for some period of time, and it was really really bad for him and i hear of people watching the movie and swearing off mcdonald’s forever.
the doctor was telling the guy that he couldn’t believe how much...something...had gone up, something bad, something to do with the liver, and how it could quickly lead to gout and all kinds of bad things. all from eating this really high fat diet.
must watch it. soon.
but first, i MUST HAVE A QUARTER POUNDER WITH CHEESE. just one more.
not that Krekel’s today was exactly lowfat or good for me in any way.
but after the wedding, i said I WANT A QUARTER POUNDER WITH CHEESE, and even though i’m 100% sure that i could not zip up the wedding dress right now, somehow the quarter pounder with cheese has eluded me.
just one, that’s all i want, and then IMMEDIATELY it will be ONLY LOWFAT HEALTHY FOOD AND NO MORE QUARTER POUNDERS WITH CHEESE.
also, today i went to the library and got “the davinci code,” except this was an illustrated version of it, which sounded cool, a very popular book that everybody goes crazy for PLUS photos.
i’m slightly afraid to start reading it because then i’ll be sucked in and you really won’t hear from me. but then again, i can’t imagine that it could take that long to read.
but then if it’s really THAT GOOD, i’ll be bummed out when it’s over.
yes, i am able to think about potential being bummed out in the future, instead of just finding something in the moment to obsess about.
but anyway i think i’m going to start reading it tomorrow.
could it possibly be as good as harry potter? somehow i doubt it.
this weekend we’re going to a fencing tournament in chicago. kevin and this guy from the fencing club are going to be in the tournament, and the guy’s wife and i are going to watch. we’re going up on saturday and the event is sunday and i’m hoping it won’t last one million hours. that would be boring, plus it’s supposed to snow on sunday and i don’t want to get stuck in chicago plus i’m sure it will be much much too cold and windy to go do any shopping or anything plus shopping has little allure for me, especially shopping with somebody i don’t even know.
tonight the guy started talking about his wife, which he never really does, and i met her last weekend and she seemed quite nice, but the guy started talking about how she used to BEAT UP people quite a bit.
maybe he was kidding.
i don’t think he was.
she seems perfectly nice.
friendly. kind of quiet.
i wonder what she’d think if she knew he was going around talking about her history of beating people up.
i’m afraid to say something that might make her mad.
what’s in store for me this weekend?
i can take the book with me and read all the time.
by the way, i know someone whose sister just died suddenly, and she was quite young, and it was totally unexpected and of course that should make all of us keep in mind that you never, ever know how much time you have here on earth, so we should all have a doughnut.
no, that’s not what i meant. i mean, yes, i do think a doughnut, especially a frosted chocolate doughnut from mel-o-cream is a great idea. but we should try to enjoy this life, do things we like to do, have a good time, be kind to others.
all like that.
not a lecture, i promised no lectures, just a thought. make the most of the hand you’ve been dealt.
i’m going to bed early tonight. because sleep is a very nice thing.
ok then,
nighttime grace.
midday grace
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2:37 pm
sorry for all the labelling as “idiots” in that last post. i blame the fact that that was morning grace talking, and she can be much more harsh than midday grace, and of course she’s nothing at all like nighttime grace. multiple personalities, yes, but all based on a person with the exact same name. which makes things easier.
one other huge thing in today’s paper is that BARACK OBAMA IS ANNOUNCING HIS RUN FOR THE PRESIDENT HERE IN SPRINGFIELD! will i be able to go? he’s doing it on sat. feb 10th, and i assume he’ll be doing it someplace inside because it will undoubtedly be freezing outside. but maybe he’ll have to do it in a great big place outside because of all the people who will surely show up.
i’ll brave the cold for him. THAT’S HOW MUCH I LIKE BARACK OBAMA.
he should have the announcement at the lincoln presidential museum.
erica and mom and i just had lunch at Krekel’s Custard, which is a little place up on north grand. there are lots of Krekels in decatur, according to randy who has to go to decatur a lot for his job. krekels has great burgers and chili and i’m excited about going there in the summer for some ice cream.
before that erica gave us a tour of the food bank, where she works. lots and lots of really good things are going on at the food bank. they supply food for a 21-county region here in illinois, for whichever charitable organizations like food pantries and soup kitchens who want the food.
she said there are a food pantries who don’t want the food. WHY NOT? she couldn’t really give me a good answer. poor management and ignorance, maybe? anyway, the food bank is an amazing place and they do lots and lots of great things for our whole region and you should write them a check to help them keep up the good work. or if you happen to have a food pantry and for some reason, like maybe you’re living on mars, and you haven’t heard of the food bank, GIVE THEM A CALL. or also call them if you’ve decided that you’re going to start a food pantry of your own. more people should start food pantries. or at least more people should work at food pantries. and do more good work in general.
not that i’m being all soap boxey or anything today.
if you take them the check instead of mailing it in, you could stop by krekel’s for lunch afterwards, which i highly recommend. it’s very close by.
i think about other charitable organizations, and they all seem to do good things. we went to a fundraiser at illinois humane and it is certainly a worthy cause. but the thing about the food bank is it’s HELPING FEED HUNGRY PEOPLE. it doesn’t get much more basic than that. erica said that 39% of the people who are in need are the working poor. people who have jobs but just can’t make ends meet. if that’s not you, and i assume it probably isn’t, i don’t see any reason NOT to help them out.
ok ok ok, i promise the next time i write i won’t lecture you about anything,
grace
SIXTY THREE POINT SEVEN PERCENT!!!
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10:05 am
this morning, a most dismaying poll was revealed in the paper - a whopping 63.7% of readers haven’t been to the abraham lincoln museum.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, PEOPLE?
just the other day, a new friend said she’d never been there. i said WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? she was under the woefully ridiculously wrong impression that the museum was just a “bunch of springfield hype.”
YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.
i told her that i’ve lived in many different big cities, i’ve been around, i’ve seen lots of things, and the lincoln museum is ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I’VE SEEN.
i did say it in all caps, too.
but the thing is, i thought she was just some anomaly.
not SIXTY THREE POINT SEVEN PERCENT of the population!
my friend belongs to the fencing club, and kevin and i decided we’re going to have a club field trip to the museum very soon. another woman in the club hasn’t been to the museum either.
i didn’t tell these people they’re IDIOTS for not visiting this fabulous place that’s right downtown, because i feel that may make them resentful. instead, we’ll gently lead them in the doors so they can see for themselves just what idiots they were for not going sooner.
at least the fact that people haven’t been to the museum can be fixed. i’ll be happy to give each and every 63.7% person a tour of the place, problem solved. the rest of the issues in the world, and by the rest i guess i just mean the war in iraq, i can do nothing about except read all the editorials and get more mad at the true idiocy of the president.
but like i said, i can’t fix that huge and terrible travesty. so instead i’ll be taking people to the museum.
have a good wednesday.
ok then,
grace
Jan. 16, 2007
honey, killer kitty
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9:16 pm
yesterday afternoon i looked out the kitchen window and there was Honey the littlest kitty, whizzing along the driveway. in her mouth was a very large dead animal. probably a bunny. but it was BIG, at least as big as Honey, maybe actually bigger. it looked very, very dead. kind of flat. not that i got a very good look, because like i said, Honey was in quite a hurry.
i sent kevin out to investigate. it was, indeed, a very big, dead, flat bunny. he sent Mollie out to take care of the bunny. and by “take care of,” i mean he let her in the front door with the big flat dead bunny and we encouraged her to take it into the garage where she quickly snarfed it down.
mollie and honey, working together.
it surely must have been already dead and partially eaten when Honey got it.
how could she ever catch something bigger than herself, with no front claws?
surely not.
but then again, there was another lone animal organ lying on the kitchen floor a few days ago.
yuck.
it’s kind of like wild kingdom around here sometimes.
right now most of them are sleeping peacefully, thank god.
except mollie keeps coming in, looking at me imploringly, beseechingly. “please, grace, PLEASE, PLEASE give me a treat!” even though she had dinner, and then a treat, and then she got to lick the various bowls that i used for making a peanut butter pie.
after all of that she was standing at the pantry, whining sadly. I’M SO HUNGRY.
no wonder she needs to lose weight.
that is all for now. try to stay warm.
ok,
grace.
only tuesday?
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6:39 pm
why does it feel like it should be much later in the week? i feel like i’ve been getting SO MUCH DONE, but i think i’m deluding myself.
it got an e-mail from my mother-in-law, about recess/mute lunches. she wrote “From my cynical viewpoint (and 20 years in the schools here), the silent lunches and limited recess is because no one wants to monitor a couple hundred kids at free time. The teachers used to do it until their union clout wrote it out of the contract. Then the support staff did it until their union clout wrote it out. The schools are then left with the option to hire deaf, strong gorillas or make the kids SHUT UP! There’s a paucity of gorillas in the U.S.”
hmm, that’s interesting, a totally different perspective. the way the friend talked about it, i ended up feeling like kids are being smothered and not given any opportunity to burn off any kid energy. but then there’s the flip side of that, the pandemonium that lots of children can create.
and that, unfortunately, makes me think about the very very unpleasant experiences i had in my very very brief stint as a substitute teacher, about, oh, 15 years ago.
it was bad. very bad. it’s one of the many things i try to block from my mind altogether.
maybe, someday, if i can bear to think about it, i’ll share some of it with you. or better yet, i guess it would be great fodder for my next “gracetalk,” because i think it needs the drama that only saying it out loud could give the sad tale of being a completely and totally inept substitute teacher.
at least i don’t do THAT anymore.
i have started in on the second folder of hawaii photos, and my goal is to finish posting them by the end of this year. an easily attainable goal, i believe.
here are some more photos of the dinner cruise we took up the napali coast on Kauai. it was quite beautiful, as was almost everything in hawaii. it was an “all you can drink” cruise, with lots of free mai tais, but i didn’t even have one of them because i get a little queasy on the open water, and 7up was plenty strong for me. others, however, were slamming back the free mai tais.
many MANY movies/tv shows have featured this particular spot. i can’t remember what any of them are. while kevin was taking photos, i was videotaping this, and as the guides were talking about the stuff i was repeating it into the camera. but of course it was very WINDY out there on the water so although you can hear my voice on the video, none of the actual words are at all intelligible.
as part of the package, the crew was all very happy to take lots of pictures of the passengers. the passengers were, naturally, all taking plenty of photos on their own, at least till the alcohol started flowing.
there was this one rather large (both in number and girth) family from mexico, and one of their children, a teenage boy, spent a lot of time TALKING ON HIS CELL PHONE. for one thing, like i said, you couldn’t hear me on the video, so how on earth did the person on the other end of the phone hear the kid? and WHY was he spending all his time talking on the phone? because he’s a teenager, and i guess there is always going to be some teen who will be bored no matter how incredible the view is or unique the experience. “kids, i don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today...” i never got to go on a hawaii cruise when i was a teenager!
this is one of the many photos kevin took of my videotaping.
ahh, to be there now...instead of here, where it’s 19 degrees but feels like nine (not that i’m going to go outside at all), and it’s supposed to be FOUR tonight. right now on Kauai it’s 77 but feels like 78, and the low tonight will be 69.
hawaii, anybody? maybe if a whole lot of us scraped together all our savings, we could build a little shack together. we wouldn’t need too much shelter because it’s WARM THERE ALL THE TIME.
Mollie suddenly, urgently, needs some attention. because she is a dog. perhaps later i’ll tell you about the latest thing the cat dragged in.
ok already,
grace, slightly chilly.
Jan. 14, 2007
one very final thing tonight
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11:46 pm
i took a photo of the beautiful flower arrangement that kynda made for me on the night of my dress rehearsal, but i’ve been too lazy to actually put it up here. so i just stole it from her website, and here it is:
beautiful, huh? it’s actually still sitting on my kitchen table, although i do have to say that it’s a little bit droopy by now.
on a happier note...
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11:37 pm
i talked to randy tonight and i believe he did even less than me this weekend. plus, he didn’t seem to be terribly concerned that he hadn’t done much of anything.
less concern about things, that’s what i’m going to try to strive for.
except for all the poor little kids who attend mute lunch/restricted recess schools.
also, the woman i talked to about these kids mentioned cursive. why do we have it? what’s the point? a long time ago, it was a faster way of writing. but who really writes anymore?
my writing looks like a third grader’s. frequently i can’t even read something i’ve written in cursive. if i can’t read it, how do i expect anybody else to?
that’s why i must type.
but of course i don’t have to type at all if i don’t want to.
because everything is fine. just fine.
still no ice.
they had six inches in oklahoma or some state west of here.
ok, one more good thing - “saturday night live” was actually mostly funny last night. i can’t remember any show where it was funny to begin with, and then actually kept being funny. weird. a nice surprise.
this week we watched “tremors” which was a little less funny than i remembered (but since when has my memory been so great anyway? not that i can remember), and “volcano,” which i like because i’ve spent so much time in all the places where the lava was alarmingly FLOWING DOWN THE STREET.
and wow, i’m sure we watched at least five other movies since last week but i can’t remember what they might be. they were good, i’m pretty sure. entertaining. soon, though, i’m afraid i’ll run out of movie selections at the video store i’ve started going to. that will be a sad day.
but for now, things, good.
ok already,
grace on the eve of monday.
kindergarten: nazi state
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10:11 pm
how has an entire week slipped by me? i was either very busy, or i was being very lazy. both lots of activity and lots of laziness in one week.
there were all kinds of things i wanted to write about, but the one that most sticks in my mind is a discussion i had with a woman about kids in grade school. she provides instruction at different schools in the county, and she started talking about what it’s actually like for the children.
for one thing, in many places they only get one recess. and in some schools there is no talking allowed at lunch. if a kid is “bad' by talking, or i guess if they’re ”bad" doing something else, they don’t get any recess at all.
how can this be? if you don’t live in springfield, you wouldn’t know that the paper is filled daily with letters about the smoking ban. i wish people would get over it and move on, but i’m shocked that nobody has ever written about mute lunches/limited recess.
i have no children, i’m not going to have any children, and i feel bad for people who have them or who are going to have them. the woman i talked to said this is a nationwide kind of thing. i talked to another person connected with a school, and she verified the no talking lunches and lack of recess. she said that there were some studies about it being good for kids to be quiet during lunch because it promoted calmness, or some such thing. she seemed to think it was a bad idea, too.
the first woman also told me that they’re expecting kindergarteners to write sentences. i’m sure we didn’t have to do anything such thing when i was in kindergarten. i have vivid memories of circling different things with a fat purple crayon, and i know i was good at it, but i’m sure no sentences were written. the woman told me that many kids don’t have the motor skills to hold a pencil and write, it’s too much for them, they need simpler things in order to develop normally. it seems they’re pushing kids and pushing them, and at the same time not letting them run around and make some noise, just like...CHILDREN.
after the discussion i decided if i did have children, i’d seriously consider home-schooling them, which i always thought was only for religious zealots.
why isn’t anybody protesting? do parents think it’s a good idea for their children to be forced to do work that’s above their level, and then not allowed to vent any child energy?
the woman also talked about the prevalence of childhood obesity, which of course is a serious issue and i don’t see it getting any better. but if kids can’t even run around at school, and they go home and sit around with computer games/tv, aren’t most of them going to get fat? and of course p.e. has been cut dramatically because of lack of funding.
i do have to say that p.e. was a wretched experience for me, personally, but that was mostly in junior high, not grade school. i loved kick ball and dodge ball and any of those sports involving large, squishy, non-life-threatening big red p.e. balls.
i can’t imagine what it would be like to be a kid today. maybe that’s a thing that adults always say, but maybe they mostly say “kids, i don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today.” i have to confess that since i don’t have a lot of contact with actual children, they can seem rather loud and annoying to me. but now i feel they should be LOUDER.
LET THE CHILDREN BE FREE.
i’m busy making vegetable stock now, and i must get back to it.
oh, and i have to continue to wait for the GIANT HUGE SCARY ICE STORM that they kept threatening us with all weekend, but right now it’s just raining.
ok ok ok.
grace.
Jan. 07, 2007
gattAca
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9:23 pm
is the correct spelling. it’s a movie about the future, when you have to have the right genetic makeup to get anywhere in life. ethan hawke doesn’t have it, but uma thurman does even though she has a bad heart, and jude law REALLY does, except he’s in a wheelchair and is a big mess and i can’t even remember why he’s in the wheel chair but boy is he cute.
uma and ethan met during the filming of this movie, i believe, and i saw them more than once in santa monica, at the farmer’s market or strolling around, and they seems like a nice, regular couple - but then it all went to hell, as relationships in hollywood have a tendency to do.
i feel that one big problem with relationships in hollywood is when beautiful movie stars are in movies with other beautiful movie stars and they do a lot of kissing and heavy petting, and then, poof, they’re in love with this beautiful movie star even though they’re ALREADY married to a BMS.
like, for example, jennifer aniston and brad pitt and angelina jolie. but then again, i kept hearing that the issues was JA’s drug use, not that angelina is cuter or anything shallow like that.
it’s all that kissing, i’m telling you. they always CLAIM that it’s all very non-arousing, because there are all those people hovering around when they’re filming something, but let’s face it, they’re MOVIE STARS so they probably LIKE THE ATTENTION. kissing plus people are watching them kiss.
how did i get on this topic anyway? it’s the almost nonstop movie watching we’ve been doing, as kevin continue to be sick. he’s napping right now so he can GO TO WORK tonight which seems like a very bad idea to me since he’s not all better, but he says he needs another note from the doctor in order to continue stay home getting better.
crazy.
meanwhile, today we watched “bottle rocket,” which is kind of quirky independent film with both luke and wilson in it, and we also watched “miss congeniality 2,” which was just about as formulaic as a movie can be, but it was still fairly entertaining.
yesterday was “sideways” which kevin says we watched after i went to it without him quite a while ago and HATED it but only because i was in a very bad mood. he keeps assuring me that we saw it again and i liked it, and it frightens me a little that i have ABSOLUTELY NO MEMORY of seeing it the second time.
we also watched “calendar girls” last night, which was charming. and then “rock star,” also pretty good.
actually, i’ve seen most of the movies we’ve watched, because i wanted to get ones that he’d like. i rented a movie called “cake,” though, because it was called CAKE, and it sounded like there was a remote chance of it being good even though i don’t know if it was actually released anywhere. it’s about a woman, heather graham, who also executive-produced it, who is very anit-marriage and she has to be the editor of her dad’s bridal magazine, and all the usual stuff ensues. but it wasn’t horrible.
and that’s the thing - i mean, this movie wasn’t great but it also wasn’t hideously bad. but what about movies like “failure to launch,” which i didn’t actually see, but it’s all over the video store shelves and i heard that it was really rotten. but so why didn’t “cake” at least make it out there more? it’s all about the publicity and everything, i guess.
not that life has JUST been watching movies all week, no way, jose. just today we looked at a house for sale across the street because there was an open house. and then we drove to the new restaurant called the corner pub, and we drove in my dad’s NEW CADILLAC. well, it’s not actually new, but it’s new to him. very large and very fancy and dad seems quite delighted with it. he bought it on tuesday but nobody told us about it because dad likes things to be a surprise.
it’s very comfy and luxurious, riding in the back of a cadillac. WITH a sun roof.
a new year...a new year...i feel that i must TAKE ACTION. somehow. i feel the need to TAKE SOME ACTION. as far as i can see, there’s nothing to audition for. mac and jason had talked about another ADHD production, around valentine’s day, but either that’s not happening, or they’re doing it without me. and none of the plays coming up have any parts for me, not nowhere. hmm. must take some action. somehow.
i need to do another “gracetalk,” this one in a legitimate theater space with videos and all that stuff plus i’d like to write some stuff the other people could be in besides me.
but i have this awful january lethargy, i’m afraid. creeping lethargy.
maybe i’ll snap out of it real soon. you never know. in the meantime, more videos to watch.
ok ok ok,
grace. 2007.
Jan. 05, 2007
purses
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9:41 pm
there were many, many other things i wanted to write about, but all i can remember right now is...purses.
last night we watched an episode of “ugly betty,” even though i’m VERY OPPOSED to the show’s name, and the whole show seems pretty mean-spirited anyway. but somebody gave betty a gucci bag that was worth about $4,500. she loved having such an expensive, fancy accessory.
and in an episode of sex and the city, there was a thing about an expensive purse...or there were different episodes about expensive purses.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S WITH THE PURSES.
THINK OF ALL THE STUFF YOU COULD BUY WITH $4,500.
i can’t imagine even spending a hundred bucks on a purse, and i know that women do this all the time. it’s just a purse, to me. something i buy when the old one breaks, and i love the new one for a while but then i end up hating it, just like the last one. but clearly, CLEARLY, it is much much more than that to many many women.
FORTY FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS. come on, people.
yesterday (was it really just yesterday?) i recorded three radio ads. for the radio. for a bank. i don’t know when they’ll start airing, or even what radio stations they’ll be on. but i’m excited about them, they were a lot of fun to do, and so if you hear a radio ad and think “hmm, that sounds like grace,” IT PROBABLY IS ME.
security bank.
many many more things to write about. but later, later.
kevin continues to be sick, so i must watch a movie with him now. “gattica.”
ok then,
grace still in the very very new year.
Jan. 03, 2007
oh, and hawaii photos
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10:53 am
i thought i already posted these, but clearly i didn’t.
first, another photo of waves. it’s so lovely there.
you might remember the difficulty we had finding the spot where amy and jim got married, somewhere near the hyatt on kauai. we got somebody to take our photo at the place where we thought they were married, but that wasn’t it at all. but here it is, the actual place, in case you’ve been waiting in deep suspense to see the offical place where they got betrothed.
this if from a cruise we took up the coast of kauai, headed toward the northern coast, called the Na Pali coast. it was quite beautiful and fun to be on the water.
i think i’m ready to start looking through the second and final set of photos from hawaii. my goal it to get through them before our 1st anniversary.
wednesday
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10:45 am
and it’s already the third of the month, and there was a poll in today’s paper, asking if people had already broken their new year’s resolutions. 80-some percent are still sticking to them.
WOW, AFTER ONLY TWO DAYS...
the poll seemed just a bit premature to me, that’s all.
i’m suddenly feeling a big post-holiday, post-cookie-making letdown, and am at loose ends a little. i’m thinking of doing some cleaning, but perhaps that would be rash.
yesterday after i gave blood, i made an appointment for next time and suddenly felt very light-headed. i’d said no to the sugary treats they offer you after the blood-letting, but i had to go back in and sit down and eat some of them anyway. the nurses at the blood bank are very very nice and one of them was very very concerned that i was going to fait, but i kept assuring her that i was fine, really.
i highly recommend giving blood. you do something really good for other people, it takes very little time, plus you get free treats and for one time in your life you actually NEED to eat them.
i think i felt faint because i’d gone running right before giving blood. i went running because it’s pretty darn warm outside still, although not as warm as it could be...but then again, really, only about 75 degrees would really be good. but at least we don’t have snowdrifts here that are burying cars and houses and livestock.
kevin is under the weather, and i wish i could do more for him, besides bringing him tea and soup and toast, except we ran out of bread, so maybe i could go grocery shopping.
yes, as the year ROARS ahead, full speed. shopping! cleaning! giving blood! will the excitement NEVER END?
ok already,
grace 2007.
p.s. i heard on npr last night that in china they’re really restricting people adopting babies. you can’t adopt if your body mass index is 40 or above, i think, plus you can’t adopt if you have a whole bevy of taking any kind of drugs like antidepressants.
just in case you were looking into adopting any chinese babies.
Jan. 01, 2007
resolutions and things
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12:02 pm
last night i talked about dieting and new year’s resolutions and i said that always, on monday morning, i’m all NO MORE FOOD, but then it all goes to hell by about 4:30 on monday afternoon.
and sure enough, this morning, after spending the past day...week...month...fall season...eating lots and lots of food, culminating in a neverending smorgasbord of delicious xmas cookies that i thought i was going to make FOR OTHER PEOPLE but then ate too many myself...i decided NO MORE FOOD.
but it’s not even noon, and i’ve only had a cup of tea and now i’m very very hungry. i’m not going to have ANY COOKIES, though. probably also not a slice of the delicious french bread with blue cheese and green olives that i made and is sitting in my refrigerator right now, calling out to me, “grace, grace, don’t you want a slice?”
food talking to me, not good.
mom and dad went to their friends the risemans' house last night, because they do that every single new year’s eve, taking turns going to each other’s houses. but i think the risemans got gypped last night because of my show; they had to host the party two years in a row because of me. but i did make them two loaves of french bread so at least that’s a small consolation.
mom said that at midnight, wanda brought out two bottles of champagne, and they put together plastic champagne glasses to drink a toast - but the champagne was a little old, not to mention being served in the plastic glasses. wanda thought this was funny, and told mom to mention it to me, pointing out the elegant and ultra-fancy champagne we had at the wedding. kevin bought two beautiful waterford champagne glasses for the occasion, plus one of those ridiculously expensive bottles of champagne, maybe it was dom perignon? hmm, i’m sure that bottle is around here someplace.
sometime this year, when we’ve managed to dig through the piles of stuff lying all around the house, i’m sure we’ll find it.
i was reading the ads in the paper this morning and was amused to see that most of them had exercise gear for sale, except one store also had exercise bars and stuff, and there was this big ad that said “fuel for your workouts” and one of the on-sale items was OREOS.
yep, oreos, the perfect dieting, training food.
let the new year begin.
ok then,
grace.
well, for one thing...
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2:33 am
well, first, one thing BEFORE that, is of course HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2007, how about that. i have high hopes for the year; at least i feel that it’ll be good.
kevin has instilled in me this paranoia about being on the road on new year’s eve, so i headed home at 1:30 with some trepidation. but i took the highway, and there were almost no cars around, and the ones that i saw were driving quite sanely, no swerving, no illegal activities present anywhere, and it too me only about 10 minutes to get home. no big deal.
i feel that he must still be playing in the band right now. and if so he’s very very tired.
i’m very tired, but also i feel that i need to get right to work on things. cleaning the house, for one thing, including removing all xmas decorations which are everywhere. i’m not looking forward to taking the ornaments off the tree because it’s pretty dry by now and the needles feel very pointy and sharp and potentially painful. perhaps i should wear gloves when de-ornamenting.
i also feel like plunging into some more writing, right this very minute. for a minute there i felt so ambitious that i was going to start some notes for gracetalk #5, but then it suddenly struck me that i’m too tired.
doing a show makes me want to do another one, though.
there was a big crowd tonight. they were receptive, and laughed in some places where i’d hoped they would but nobody had in rehearsal.
it was kind of weird, though. before i went on i got really nervous, but when i walked out i suddenly felt very calm, and then i started in, and that’s always a weird feeling because it’s suddenly OK I’M REALLY DOING IT I CAN’T STOP NOW I HAVE TO KEEP GOING ALL THE WAY TO THE END.
maybe it was the fact that there were no breaks this time, it was just 45 minutes of talk talk talking. maybe i was, indeed, too calm. but about four times, i utterly forgot every single thing in my head. maybe because i did this once, this begat other times of doing the same thing. whatever the reason, it irked me quite a bit. but at least, even though it wasn’t perfect, i did feel comfortable just talking except when i was standing up there for what seemed like 50 years, with no thoughts at all in my head. i watched the videotape almost immediately afterwards and it wasn’t as bad as i’d made it in my mind. but still, what made it happen?
one weird thing was the harsh lighting. i could see everybody in the audience clearly. last night i had a dress rehearsal at randy’s house, with about 20 people, and there i kept looking just over peoples' heads, no eye contact. but tonight i couldn’t find a place to focus that didn’t have people right in my view. it wasn’t so bad, but it was weird and i think distracting. i do have this clear image of some guy i kept looking at, he was kind of far in the back and i know i recognized him from somewhere, i can’t say where except maybe he actually works there at the lincoln library. but anyway he was a nice neutral person to look at. i couldn’t look at my family, and a couple of times i recognized people in the audience but i didn’t want to look directly at them, lest i’d forget some more.
odd. not bad, but odd.
another thing i’ve been thinking is that other people, “real” comics, they don’t just keep doing all new stuff. they have their material and they do it over and over again, and they refine it and do it time and time again. i’m sure they add and subtract things, but i think it would be nice to be able to work with the same stuff for a while, so that it could be as good as possible.
maybe i should take things from the different shows i’ve done, and compile them into one show.
but the thing is, i already have these ideas for different ones anyway.
perhaps i should JUST STOP WRITING NOW AND GO TO SLEEP.
because, since it’s now almost 2:30 in the morning, i’m afraid i’m going to start the new year TIRED. not a good way to start the new year.
but there’s always the possibility of a good nap...
ok then.
2007 grace.
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