good news, finally

Things have been a little shitty the past few weeks, after Thanksgiving my Dad told me that he would be going in for surgery to remove a tumor in his bladder. The surgery went down yesterday and it looks like everything is going to be okay. I think everyone was quite worried but everything should be fine from here on out and I'm extremely grateful and relieved. This weekend I'm going to write up some papers that are due next week, bake some bread and some shortbread cookies, have a celebratory drink and finish reading a novel I picked up last week.
Too much fun.
I am listening to and loving this song (it's a horrible video, I apologize).

Mt Hope Cemetery, Rochester, NY.

I might have found my thesis topic today, I'm not saying anything more because I don't want to jinx it.
I'm crossing my fingers.
I'm going back to Toronto this weekend to see some friends, drink some coffee and spend time wandering around the city to get my fill.
A friend is coming to visit me tomorrow and we are going to visit the library, drink some dranks, take some photos and catch up in general.

[heard] sigh, an old favorite (NSFW)

[watched] Tina Fey answering a few questions on the occasion of her Mark Twain Award for Comedy (P.S. I love her)

[read] a lot about photographs on gravestones. I even found a publication called "Markers" that is devoted to the research of cemeteries and headstones. I also discovered The Graveyard Rabbits.

[started] writing a big(ish) paper for my History of Photo II class. No big deal. Nothing interesting.

[finished] sending out some mail and sorting out my shitty banking situation

[drank] a fine pint of Guinness

[ate] Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream, it was well deserved

[planned] my make-believe winter vacation to costa rica, this will not be happening this year but it killed some time in class one morning

[acquired] a super, awesome stereocard. I will scan it and post it up, priceless.

[fancied] so many books! I'm considering writing out a Christmas list for my parents so I can optimize my book collection this year.

M-word

I found this on the 100 Layer Cake blog and saved in a secret file on my computer for future reference, if needed. I don't have the photographer's name to credit but I love the wedding dress

I'm still on the fence as far as my feelings towards marriage are concerned but it seems that as I get older the idea appeals to me more and more. My parents have been together for over 25 years (it turns out they are celebrating their wedding anniversary today!) and they seem to like each other still. This summer I found a small notebook with a few "to do" lists my Mum had left for my Dad in his truck before he went up north as she wouldn't be there until after midnight. The first list was of things to buy from the grocery store, the second list was things she needed from the boat to go to the cottage and the third page in the book was a note that read "Thank you! I love you, you big stupid head". It was a nice find, kind of warmed up my heart a little.

A friend of mine just announced that her and her long-time boyfriend are engaged and that also warmed up the old heart. I think marriage was something I decided to reject "as an institution" early in my undergrad, perhaps I felt it appropriate to do so as I had just discovered feminism on a larger scale, became an "artist" etc. But now marriage seems like it could be an okay idea, mostly just because I'd get to host an awesome party that may or may not be held in a barn.

My feeling towards having children however, has not wavered and probably won't any time soon. Children and I do not mix and the thought of having to deal with a screaming thing that craps a lot is absolutely horrifying. Also, that screaming, crapping thing has to come out of you first....really not looking forward to that. I'd rather spend my time and money on European vacations, a great book collection, good food and drink, and the hundreds of cats I'll eventually have when I'm old.

Here are a couple great wedding blogs that I love. I seriously think they are the reason my mind has been changed on the whole wedding thing.

100 Layer Cake

Once Wed

Glorious

From 1896, the Lumière silent film of the serpentine dance which was invented for the stage by Loïe Fuller. This dance was huge in France at the time and on stage the dancer's garments would achieve colour transformations with the use of projected stage lights. In this film each frame was hand tinted to get a similar affect on the original black and white film, this being one of the best examples of hand tinting for it's time.

Turning that shit around

School is kind of sucking right now and I think the majority of my classmates would agree with me on this one. We have to come up with out thesis topics and it seems like anyone who can help us with this is on vacation. It's too much to get into as far as how this program works but we basically go to school at a museum and rely on people like the head archivist, librarian, curators and other staff to help us access the collection in order for us to understand what there is available to us to do work on and what needs to be done within the collection, however, all of these people are on vacation and it seems like no one can help us right now.

I'm also really trying to like Rochester but it just hasn't charmed me yet. Coming from a big city I was happy to live in a smaller, slower-paced place but it is actually quite boring, not to mention cold, dreary and everything is too far to walk to.

So, in the theme of "being positive" (please refer to my previous post) I have decided to quit complaining and focus on some good things. I'm going to take the initiative and do some pre-thesis research, do a little personal research as well, mail away some packages and letters, cook and bake, and try a few new cocktails.

If I have to live in this crappy place I am going to my hardest to make the best of it.

Also, this:

[heard] Deerhunter - "Nothing Ever Happened" from the album Microcastle

[watched] thinking of going to see a screening of "Metropolis" tonight at GEH. I'm not sure if I can sit still for 3 hours though

[read] checking out the U of Rochester library this weekend and perhaps I'll purchase a few books online as well

[started] sourdough starter, it's living on top of my stove right now. I hope to bake a loaf from it this weekend

[finished] my granny square crochet blanket! (pictures to come)

[drank] Pimm's no. 1 cup and this will be tested out tonight, tres exciting

[ate] found my new favorite lunch place in the West End of Toronto, Zocalo is fabulous. I went there two days in a row when I was home last weekend

[hated] nope, I refuse to be negative right now!

[pondered] thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis thesis

[planned] baking a cake for Chantal's birthday

[forgot] how amazing the fall can be when the sun is out and the leaves are all over the ground

[found] a 35mm Canon point and shoot camera, I just finished my first roll of film

[purchased] a real, honest-to-goodness winter parka. I have a responsible adult winter jacket now

[fancied] all of these

Blood types have always been somewhat fascinating to me, the fact that our cells can be classified into different groups and are either compatible with each, or not, made me wonder for a long time which group I was part of. A few years ago I went to my doctor for a routine blood test to make sure my iron and folic acid was alright and I decided to throw in an HIV screening as well. I asked the doctor if it was possible to find out what blood type I was just for the hell of it and he ticked off a box on the laboratory requisition form and told me to come back in a few weeks.

Now, I was quite certain that HIV was not something I had to be worried about at that time but I'm sure that everybody has a little anxiety when they are getting tested for HIV as it is such a life-altering and frightening diagnosis.

A few weeks later I was back at my doctor's who had the test results waiting for me. He walked into the exam room looking rather somber and started telling me something along the lines of "Andrea, life is hard and there are moments when things don't really make sense or can seem hopeless and awful". At this point I was shitting my pants, afraid that he had bad news for me that I was, in fact, HIV positive, riddled with cancer or terminally ill with some untreatable disease. He paused for a brief second and then went on to say "So when life is hard I always want you to remember your blood type, and be positive".

As it turns out my blood type is B+ and HIV free.

Needless to say I found a new family doctor.

Dirty Crush

"Dirty Crush" is something a co-worker of mine came up with years ago and it's premise is pretty simple. List off your dirty celebrity crushes, done. Whenever I'm in a group of ladies for an extended period of time the conversation naturally drifts towards "Dirty Crush" themed topics and I always ask for everyone's dirty crushes. A young Chevy Chase and Snoop Dogg are my two selections, for obvious reasons.

I was once working with a girl who couldn't figure out who her dirty crush was and the next day she came into work and proudly stated for us that she had realized who she's been dirty crushing on, Rob Schneider. GAME OVER.

Pure garbage

So let's talk about things that aren't fun, mostly identity theft, which is something I've been trying to sort out myself for the last 2 days. Long story short, something weird is happening and someone used my personal information to do some weird shit. All my banking stuff is safe so far and I've taken all the correct measures to ensure that everything will continue to be okay (including calling the cops...more on that in a bit) and hopefully this is the end of a relatively minor inconvenience. Right now I'm drinking some gin (which I infused with lavender flowers just to class it up) and soda just because I think I deserve it after everything I've been through today.

And now for the mean cop. Not to get into too much detail but basically something really strange happened that implies some sort of use of my identity and when I learned about it I obviously tried to get to the bottom of everything. The end result was that I should contact my banks to make sure everything was okay and call my local police department to file an incident report and so I did both. I spoke to a few really nice ladies at the police station who seemed concerned and pointed me in the right direction as far as contacting the right agencies to make sure my identity was safe. After doing so I was instructed to call them back and then speak with an officer. When said officer called me back he talked to me like I was a complete idiot and made it seem like I was wasting his time. Because this incident happened in Canada and I'm living in the States right now he had to ask his sergeant (who, he informed me for whatever reason, is a woman) if he could take my report over the phone. Apparently I was supposed to be grateful or something. Anyway, it was a frustrating half an hour and when I used the term "liability" he seemed to realize that I have a brain and stopped talking to me like a 2-year old. Maybe it's a police officer thing where they talk to everyone like idiots, but it really made me mad and it made me feel this big.

Then I cracked open the gin and everything feels a little better.

Feeding myself

some photos from the farmer's market, unfortunately sold out of "pussy" incense

America is a strange and fabulous place. Everything on ebay is cheaper here and beer costs less but you find weird shit in the grocery store and see some pretty messed up stuff in general (eg. horribly impoverished neighborhoods the likes of which I've never experienced in Canada). But the people here are usually friendly and you can shoot a gun whenever you want so it all evens out; I will be going to a shooting range eventually and there will be many photos up in here. When I went to get my haircut a guy at the salon asked me where I was from and then continued to ask if I had shot off a gun yet and where I got my glasses from.

This past week I've been cooking and baking like crazy and I'm actually able to make dinners for myself that don't completely disgust me. I've always been a proud baker but cooking has never been my forté. In the last week I've made:
- Kale chips
- Sunchoke and potato soup
- Lavender infused gin
- Baked ziti
- English muffins (from scratch)

OK, maybe that not a ton of stuff but I have big plans to bake a pumpkin pie (not using canned pumpkin) and pickle some shiitake mushrooms. But first, the season finale of Mad Men.

there is so much crap on the internet

this image kind of made my day yesterday, from julia segal

Donate that shit!

All through middle school, high school and for the first few years of my undergrad I had really short hair that I dyed a whole bunch of weird colours and cut by myself over the bathroom sink. After discovering free haircuts at Aveda Salon in Toronto I decided to try it out and got the worst haircut ever, seriously I had a crew cut when I walked out of there. After that I cut my hair on my own a few more times and then decided to just grow it out and see how long hair would treat me. It was almost down to my waist last week when I hacked it all off, braided it and threw it in an envelope to go to a children's charity that makes wigs for kids with cancer. Now I can put on my purse without getting my hair caught in the strap, showers take a lot less time, water and shampoo, and I don't wake up in the middle of the night with my hair wrapped around my neck (I think that was my hair's way of telling me it was time to let it go). It's one of the best things I've ever done because it made me feel good mentally and physically and hopefully some kid going through chemo can have an awesome wig made and feel a little bit better about themselves too.

Finger Lakes

creepy/amazing taxidermy display


aviary


Seneca Lake





8-sided house











animal grave


this is in someone's backyard


imagine having in your backyard


weird...

crappy weather + bug soup

eff

Going out for sushi in Rochester tonight, this should be interesting. Right now I'm attempting to write a paper that is due at 4pm tomorrow but I've resorted to looking up winter coats online. I think I'm going to go with this North Face jacket although I'm not convinced it's a great choice for a winter coat.

Is blue a good idea? Should I got with good ol' black? So many questions and absolutely NO paper writing getting done! I told myself I'd buy a Canada Goose jacket this year but I think I'll have to put that purchase off until I am actually getting paid instead of living off student loans, scholarships and whatever cash I can scrape together. On that note, I posted things on my etsy again. I'm sure I mentioned this in my last post and I really need to find some more stuff to put up there. Maybe I'll hit up the antique shop tomorrow after I hand in this paper...

On to another topic of interest. I made soup last night (Thai Chicken and Vegetable Soup to be exact) it was delicious and I ate 2 bowls last night and just heated up the rest for lunch to find a whole bunch of bugs floating around in it. They must have been in my broccoli or something, even though I washed it. I tried to pick the majority of those bad boys out but I was afraid to eat more so I just ended up trashing the rest of the soup. I ate all the chicken though, can't let that stuff go to waste! Hopefully sushi tonight will have less bugs involved.

the illness

There's a cold going around and I have caught it. It's Friday night and I'm sitting in front of my computer, not doing homework like I should and eating cough drops like crazy. I feel like hell/garbage. Not a good time.

It rained all day yesterday but it stopped just as the sun was setting so the sky was all pink and I caught the tail end of a rainbow. There seems to be rainbows following me around these days as I hadn't seen one in years before this summer.

America, you have nice stamps.

I also posted a few things on etsy. You can check me out at here, I will be adding things to it eventually.