Transsexual model Lea T. and Kate Moss on the upcoming cover of Lovemagazine's "Adrogyny Issue"

Found here.

I made myself a hat the other day.

I love it.

Find it here.

The class of 1853, University of Rochester found here

Today I began work on my thesis project involving the University of Rochester class yearbooks (which date back to 1858) and today I started the task of flipping through every single one of them. In about 4 hours I made it through 1858-1877, not bad progress.

Here are a few things I read that seemed kind of interesting/funny.

From the section "Other Universities" in the 1869 class yearbook:

"Three thousand duels were fought by students in the German Universities last year, and 'twasn't a very good year for duels, either. Nobody hurt."

and in the 1859 yearbook, in the section "Another Year" I found this gem:

"During this year, the subject of Women's Rights has received an unusual degree of attention from our Faculty. The sad result, it is almost sickening to relate. The last citadel of bachelordom has been stormed and taken, and its hitherto unconquerable defenders have been carried off captive. The Greek has become a slave to a woman, and the FOWLER has been snared in its own net; so that celibacy has no longer a learned advocate among us."

an opportunity for me to teach the world

Exhibit A: I got horribly sick from these oysters, on the plane home from Seattle...during landing

In the past month or so I've come to realize that some of the dumbest shit happens to me. Not interesting stuff but mainly really boring and mostly irritating things that is either common knowledge to other people or strange things that no one else seems to understand...until they happen to me.

What the hell am I talking about? Here's an example: one thing I learned after moving to America was that post-dated cheques don't exist in this country. How did I find this out? My landlord deposited my January rent cheque (post-dated January 15th) on December 30th and when it bounced he refused to pay the $30 insufficient funds charge from my bank. Apparently you can date a cheque for February 38th, 2240 and if you sign it, it's legal tender in America.

Exciting, right?

Last night I sent a friend of mine an e-mail about another stupid thing that I am in the process of figuring out and she reiterated my feelings of "why the hell does this shit always happen to me?!" with her line "... your bedding story totally cracked me up. sorry about laughing, but damn that is funny. I feel like that is an only you kinda thing."

So, in the spirit of this kind of junk happening to me repeatedly with no end in sight I have decided to start posting about this kind of crap so perhaps someone can gain from my mistakes/misfortunes.

Sigh.

The lovely and talented Zoë Jaremus photographed myself and my roomate last fall. Here we are standing under a willow tree hoping there are no ticks in that pile of leave (there was not). See more of Zoë's work here.

Scarf

I made this scarf for a friend in two days! It's pretty nice but I have plans to make one for myself using a different pattern so we shall see how it compares. I told her I'd mail it to her next week but it might get "lost" in the mail and just end up in my dresser drawer....

I'm feeling a little homesick as I slowly come to terms with the fact that I'm stuck in Rochester for at least the next 4 months. No big deal, just missing a few things from home. This morning has been full of yoga, coffee, empanadas and the farmer's market. This afternoon will consist of more coffee, TMS searches, crochet work and watching Hulu.


[heard] "Autumn Almanac" by The Kinks

[watched] the last three seasons of Peep Show, hilarity.

[read] A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. Beautiful, sad, funny, a little self indulgent but a solid 8/10.

[started] a cowl scarf for zoe.

[finished] a cowl scarf for zoe.

[drank] trying to drink enough water everyday, this is hard to do when coffee and beer are abundant

[ate] a cheesy, delicious and most likely bad-for-me empanada at the market this morning

[planned] the baking of a parsnip spice cake for tomorrow's Fibre Rat.

[acquired] US #17, 32 inch circular bamboo knitting needles.

[fancied] a ton of shit at the mall yesterday (sad but true). Anthropologie is crack for women.

Alright, back in Rochester where it seems to snow all the time. We've got at least a foot and a half of snow in the last 2 days, maybe more. To be honest, I'm miserable here but I'm attempting to ward away my melancholy with knitting/crochet projects, cooking, baking, watching TV on Hulu (the best thing about America) and working on some sort of thesis.

For Christmas I received the bon appétit Desserts cookbook and I have some serious plans to bake a parsnip spice cake, make some puddings and whip up a loaf of cinnamon buns. I've also got about 3 knitting projects on the go right now which should definitely eat up some time.

And now for a tasty anecdote. The other day I visited my local Wegman's grocery store (which is always a nightmare, the aisles are super tiny and it seems like there are always too many people wandering about) where I decided to pick up a good ol' six-pack of Brooklyn Lager. At the cash the 60-something year old cashier was having trouble with my Ontario driver's license so asked her manager to take a look. My license card is expired but it has a government sticker on it declaring it as a legit ID card. I've also renewed my license and had my receipt and renew forms on me. Still, the 13 year-old manager didn't like/didn't understand what was going on so he refused to sell me beer. Seriously, I had to be twice this kid's age so I tried to explain it to him but he still didn't get it so I asked to speak to his manager hoping I would talk to someone more my age. Not so, some girl showed up a few minutes later who had to be at most 20 and she continued to deny me my beer. My bitter resentment towards this place deepens. But, at least I don't work in a grocery store, right?

pardon me

I'm returning to Rochester on Monday and really don't feel like doing anything until then. It's only quarter after 10 in the morning but today kind of already feels like a write off. I'm going to go do some reading, drink some tea and think about what I will post here later.