Anarchist Archivist

My Apologies

I've been slacking, it's true.  A lot's happened in the last few months:

My car died.  For reals this time.  Jolene is no more.  Although she did rack up $800 in parking tickets before she went, which blows.

I got a new car: Heloise.  She's named after the medieval figure who got sent to nunnery after her boyfriend got castrated.  Because I'm a giant nerd.

I am in danger of getting fired.  again.  which is awesome since I now have a car payment and a shitload of tickets to pay off.  As a result of the imminent unemployment, I haven't been sleeping well and do that awesome thing I do when I get stressed: I don't feel like eating.  which really helps with the whole concentration mojo I'm trying to get ahold of at work. 

I do have some positive news.  I started an etsy shop, which makes me feel excited and loved.  The address is anarchistarchivist.etsy.com, and I've sold three things.  Although none of those buyers have left me any feedback, and I'm getting obssessed about the lack of positive reenforcement. 

 

More soon.  I promise. 

Alex Quote

Time to reinstate one of my favorite blog entry types:  inappropriate quotes from my sister.

Upon seeing that there is a documentary on Netflix called "Verdict on Auschwitz":

"Uhhhh...I think we know the verdict.  Thumbs down."

Quilting Bitch

I've always loved the idea of quilting, but actually undertaking it has always kind of terrified me.  but then I discovered this wonderful invention called "charm packs", which are packs of precut squares of fabric, usually from the same collection, that are wonderful for beginners.  See, I'm not that great at cutting fabric yet.  My hand always slips at the last minute, or my measurements are slightly wrong, so no two pieces are ever exactly the same. 

I found a collection I loved, "Oh My!" by Moda.  So I bought some charm parks and went to town.  I began by trying to sort and sew by color.  But I gave that up after the first four squares that I sewed.  And by that I mean I sewed four charm squares together four times, making four larger squares of my own.  I had originally planned on trying just simple small and individually quilted squares, little wall hangers of a sort.  But I decided to be a little more ambitious.  After that, I tried my hardest to not have two of the same color next to each other.    And I just kept sewing.  And I fell in love with the results.  Eventually I used up most of my squares.  The finished product ended up being 6 x 11 charm pack squares big, which on my tiny frame is a good lap quilt, though I keep referring to it as a baby-sized quilt.  I bought some cheap but utterly adorable black and white polka dot fabric from Joann's, along with teal binding.  And I did the binding by hand, which is why it kind of looks like crap.  You can't see it in the pictures, but they're are plenty of parts that are genuinely fucked up.  Which is my excuse to keep it forever and always for me. 

This is what the basic quilt top looked like:

This gives a better idea of what it looks like below, showing what my seams ending up looking like.  For the most part it looks the way it's supposed to. 



This is what my "quilt sandwich" looked like, which is basically the top of the quilt, the batting, and the backing safety pinned together to begin the actual quilting part.  you can see here that the four corners of my charm squares don't match up exactly when sewn together, but they're pretty close. 



And the sandwich, pre-binding but post-quilting.  I decided to do a simple straight line quilting, that I'd had the intention of being fairly uniform.  But my poor little $80 Singer can't really handle this much fabric at once, and struggled pretty hard.  So my uniform idea went out the window, and artistically wobbly came into play instead. 

Add another month and half to complete the binding, and this is what you end up with:



Which ain't bad, if I say so myself. 

All By Myself

So I've been living by myself for almost two months now.  and I'm simply adoring it.  I got exactly the apartment that I wanted.  And I got it far too easily, in my opinion.  I'm used to things I'm really in want of being nearly, if not totally, unattainable.  And I literally came and looked at the apartment of my dreams, a huge vintage studio with two closets and a giant bathtub, and was invited to sign the lease right then and there.  I commented on my unease with my friend Will the next day.

"I don't know, it just seems like I'm going to show up and it's going to suddenly reek of cat pee or something.  or 'Oh my god!  What's that train doing outside my window?'"

"Maybe your next door neighbor is just really into model trains."

"And then we're going to have hook up, so I can add awkward neighbor sex to the list of reasons this apartment is a bad idea."

"Yeah, well.  you know those model train guys are just really into good cabooses."

None of that actually happened though.  The only slightly weird thing is it occasionally sounds like something's having sex in my freezer.  But Lauren even gave that a good spin, saying that maybe it's just ice cream sandwiches making more little ice cream sandwiches, which can hardly be a bad thing.  Anyway, here are some pictures from the first night it was officially mine:

The very first thing that went into my fridge. 

 

My enormous and gorgeous hardwood floor. 

My built-in dresser.  All kinds of heck yeah for that.

And finally, my beautiful all tile bathroom.  Where I take hot bubble baths, read nerdy books, and store my multitude of mascaras that I don't really need in the first place. 

Hello Again!

So sorry, dear readers, that I've not written anything.  I was moving, and well, lazy.  But I have some very exciting news to share.  And to be fair, this was a story I was waiting to write on the off chance that my cousin reads this blog because  a gift to her is part of it.

About a month ago, my sister found out that one of very favorite authors was doing a free reading here in Denver.  Sarah Vowell is an awesome writer who does quirky takes on history, particularly American history.  And she's someone I've always wanted to see speak live because her audiobooks are fucking sweet.  seriously.  go search youtube videos of her and you'll understand.  She's got this squeaky little voice and wonderful timing.  Oh!  She was the voice of Violet in "The Incredibles".  So you can listen to her there.  I would be super nerdy and geek out with a presentation of some of my favorite online samplings, but I'm using bootleg internet in my new apartment and it won't easily load anything fast moving.  so you'll have to do your own research this time.

Back to my story.  So Alex and I headed down to Tattered Cover, one of the very best bookstores in the whole wide world, dealt with bullshit downtown parking, and listened to some of the stupidest bitches in the world complain about 'having' to be at the reading.  Here's a helpful tip to people out there:  don't show up at a free public event and bitch about how much it sucks.  If you don't want to be there, LEAVE.  It's real fucking simple.  I brought along my camera to try and take pictures during the reading, but that plan didn't work out so well.  One:  my camera made noise, which made me feel like an asshole.  and two: it didn't take very good pictures.  example:

  

and Ms. Vowell lives up to my expectations.  She was funny and wry, even though she was exhausted.  Denver is known at the 'Mile High City' because our altitude is one mile above sea level, and a lot of visitors have trouble adjusting.  So that coupled with the fact she had just flown in from a reading in Washington, D.C. made her introduce herself with the line "I'm going to try to wheeze my way through the reading."  But she did fabulous and everyone, with the exception of the bitches sitting behind me but with the inclusion of the nice Jewish couple next to me, enjoyed themselves.  We stuck around afterwards and got to get books signed.  We got two signed, one for me and Alex together, and one for our cousin Liz who lives in Australia. 

Liz was owed this gift because she gave me one of my favorite things in the entire universe: a signed David Sedaris.  Liz is quite a bit older than me, and unlike most of my mother's side of the family, she did not grow up in Colorado, so she and I were never close.  In fact, I can only remember actually physically meeting her two times.  She now lives Australia with her husband and three kids and it is only through the wonder of facebook that we know anything about each other at all.  And we've both been surprised with the amount of things we have in common, and the multitude of things that have sparked mutual interest.  One of those more prominent things was our intense desire to see David Sedaris live and in person.  I've always wanted to, and have had a couple of opportunities to do so, but have always been too poor and too cheap to fullfill that particular dream.  I wrote something on my facebook status the last time he came through town that while I would love to go, I couldn't afford both the ticket and ticketmaster rape charge that went along with it. 

Liz remembered, and when she got to go down see him in her new homeland, she got him to sign a copy of 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' personalized to me.  "To Rachel, on the evening of meeting your enchanting cousin" is what it reads.  And I am in love with it.  So Alex and I decided to return the favor.  So I got to be a good person and have a good time all at once.  A nice afternoon, to say the least. 

Bad Night

My friend Lauren's birthday was celebrated last night.  It started off so good.  We had two different kinds of cake, and I got to see a lot of people who I enjoy being around.  And then it got to be happy hour at the bar where we were and then things got a little crazy when my two for one whiskey shots showed up.  I'm a tiny girl, and I hadn't eaten as much as I thought I had, so all the alcohol I'd been consuming hit me at once.  I really hate being that girl who ends the night puking.  It's never my goal to get so drunk that that's the scenario that gets played out.  But my friends and my sister were awesome and decided to leave for the sake of my health and we hightailed it over to Lauren's apartment, where a plastic cauldron was placed next to a makeshift bed and I proceeded to pass out. 

Oh, and on the journey home, I was being supported by my good friend Hazel, who did a valiant job of making sure I didn't fall on my ass and pass out in a gutter somewhere.  Half a block from Lauren's place, the sidewalk was really icey, and I halted in front of it, just staring.  A couple of years ago I fell on some ice walking across campus and almost broke my elbow, so I take that shit seriously.  And Hazel just picked my up and carried me across.  I found out this morning that I had somehow been too drunk to notice the rest of my friends' breaking out into their own rendition of "I Will Always Love You" ala 'The Bodyguard.'  Goddamn I love my friends.

But this morning I couldn't find my wallet.  I was 90% sure I'd had when we left the bar, so I assumed I just lost either in my giant purse (which I'd left at Lauren's rather than drag into the bar) or in Lauren's apartment.  Turns out neither was true because when I checked my internet banking, I found that someone had charged $160 in bus passes to my credit card, as well as $20 to Walgreens.  I also lost my shiny new insurance card, $25 in cash, and my recently renewed license that I'll have to replace after having it for less than a month.  But all in all, this actually occurred at an ok time.  I have enough gas in my car to last until my new credit card arrives, and I actually have enough money in my bank account to cover the fact that I just lost $200.  so I'm choosing for right now, not to be super angry. 

Things I Did Wrong at Work Today

Well.  for starters, I took in a deposit with a deposit slip from another bank.  which in my defense, wasn't that hard to do because

A) we don't check account numbers when someone is only depositing.

B) all deposit slips from every bank seem to be set up in exactly the same way, including using the same color, font, etc.

C) my bank had about 15 different deposit slips that I see on a day-to-day basis. 

still.  I had to talk to three different managers about it and I felt like a retard.  Especially because I was also unable to balance my drawer by about $130, which is, you know, kind of a big fucking deal.  oh, and I sorta accidentally called 911 this morning.  And then hung up on them.  while working at a bank.  WHOOPS.

See, our phones suck.  That's right.  I'm blaming the phones.  They have these shitty buttons which you barely have to touch in order for the number to register, and you have to dial '9' to get an outside line.  So when I tried to call a 1-800 number this morning and I accidentally hit the '1' too many times, I just hung up, not really thinking about it.  Until when I was on hold with the number that I had finally dialed correctly and my manager came over and asked me if I had done that.  It was actually kind of funny though because her exact words were "Don't worry about.  It happens all the time." 

 

New Beginnings

Today is the second day of the new year, and it's my 26th birthday. I have a new grown-up feeling full-time job as a bank teller.  I'll soon have health insurance, which coupled with my new salary will enable me to buy new glasses that I've needed for about a year now.  I should have my own apartment in a few months.  I might be able to swing a newish car by summer.  And my student loans no longer feel quite so daunting.  2011 is looking to be a good year.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is making me nervous as hell. 

So here's a list of things I've done that make me less nervous, mainly because they make me look less grown-up, less put together. and that in turn makes me feel more comfortable.

1:  we have satellite tv in my new breakroom, and I like to eat my brown-bagged lunch in there.  I don't like going to grab food for two reasons: one, I can't really afford to right now and two I like having a whole hour to unwind and not deal with anything.  like, at all.  so I eat my sandwich, and read some of my book, and watch some mindless television.  My first day the only television that seemed worthwhile was a history channel program on the secret history of the KKK.  And I enjoyed it in my nerdy historian way.  Or I did until my new co-worker walked back there to grab his jacket and caught me in the act.  He walked in, looked at the screen, and then paused, just for a second.  Then resolutely walked away without looking at me.  I consider that good employee relationship groundwork right there. 

2:  I blew most of my first paycheck buying something extravagant.  I bought myself a wii.  It's pretty awesome, and I can't wait to start buying girly and non-video game kind of video games for it.  Like detective games meant for children. 

3:  I'm still fairly terrible at my job.  I seem to have lost my ability to do basic multiplication, and my nerves about it make everything a little worse.  But that's getting better, and I'm less worried about it now than I was after my first day.  so we're calling this one a draw. 

The World is Getting Smaller

I didn't really like switching from Vox to Typepad.  Typepad is perfectly fine, but I really liked the set up of Vox and more importantly, I had finally figured out how to do most everything that I wanted to do through Vox and now have to rediscover all that through Typepad.  But one feature I really like of Typepad is they have a little chart called "Blog Stats" that tracks how many people have viewed your blogs, which posts they've looked at, and where they found a link to your site. 

And I just saw that someone used Russian Google and found my post about Garfunkel and Oates.  I'm sure it wasn't what they were actually looking for, but it made me happy to think of some poor frozen Russian soul trying to make sense of my random tirades about awesome music, politics, and how my mother should never text. 

Spider Count, Last Quarter, 2010

I've lived in this house about 11 and a half years and one of the first things I noticed about it is I have never seen so many goddamned spiders in all my life.  Seriously.  Last summer, I literally killed one every night in the bathtub before I could take my bath.  So Alex and I decided to start cataloging just how many we ran into. 

Here's our very fancy chart: 

 

see?  Very fancy.  As you can see, October was the busiest month, but I also think that one's somewhat inaccurate because Alex and I hadn't set the ground rules for what the chart really stood for.  I assumed it was going to be only spiders that we killed in the bathroom, and that was why we hung it on the bathroom door.  Alex assumed it was any spiders that we killed in the whole house and we hung it on the bathroom door because it was convenient to do so.    But the note that says "In the toilet brush.  EW. CHEATING." is because there was totally one all tucked away on the toilet brush.  I went to clean our toilet and BAM.  There he was trying to crawl through the muck and the grime.  I mean really.  How unfair is that whole situation.  I don't mind giving them a quick death that they don't see coming with a hard slam from a shoe, but I did not sign up for a slow methodical death of drowning.  And the other note, the one that says "coupon hiding.  ALSO CHEATING." is from upstairs in the kitchen.  Alex went to sort out the coupons we keep on our fridge and there was one hiding in between two of them.  What the shit is that?  This house not only houses too many spiders but it also appears to be the meeting hall for the craftiest motherfuckers around.

November and December have been less eventful, but I fully plan to keep this count up and periodically update you, my faithful readers, until I move out.  and who knows what else will crawl out of the woodwork.