Pretty is as pretty does

How much...

...do I need me a bunch of THESE? They are called kokeshi dolls, from Japan, and they tend not to have arms and legs. Some of them look like salt and pepper shakers, but they are not.

This one is my favorite. I may have to have her.

 

I'm less drawn to this one, but I do like her attitude. She's all, "Hellooooooooo!"

Other news:

Don't you wish this was your mom

The face of a killer?

Last night I came home to find the bloody corpse of a bird in the backyard. Minnie kept picking it up and bringing it to me, so I know who was responsible. I buried it. It was really grotey.

Flummoxed

I've had the sniffles for a few days now...This weekend all the pollen in the state aimed itself at my head, so I spent most of Saturday and Sunday sitting around swearing and medicating and watching movies. Come Sunday afternoon, I thought I was feeling well enough to get out and do something, so I drove up to Hanging Rock with the intent of doing an easy trail or something. Didn't think about how going into the woods really means going into the pollen factory, so I pretty much turned around as soon as I got there. That was ok--the place was overrun with minivans and little screaming kids.

While I was on the couch, I had plenty of time to contemplate my Target curtains and realize how style-free they actually are. I bought them because they matched the brown slipcover I bought for my couch (to disguise pet hair, which it's doing...though keeping that mother tucked in is proving to be a beeyotch.)

So I bought me some-a these here:
















UrbanOutfitters.com, yo. Now my window has pretty flowers. Or will have when the curtains arrive.

Now to tackle the great white space that is my living room walls. While I was lying there in a DayQuil-induced stupor, it started seeming like a good idea to make my own art for it...maybe paint something. Maybe a couple of somethings that relate somehow. See? I've got a plan.

Decorating makes me crazy.

Other News:

Ridiculous (but necessary)

Highlarious

It came, it came, it came!

My AshleyG print arrived, and it's now standing propped up in a place of honor on my bookshelf until I can find a worthy frame for it. Meanwhile, being a crackhead, I'm scoping out the next one. Something about this lil one makes me utterly, utterly happy.

It's called I Like Your Scarf. (What else?)

Other news:

Hilarious

Perfect

Unexpected conversation overheard in random Harris Teeter

Two little old ladies were standing in the seafood department, having a discussion.

LOL #1: We only do it once or twice a month.
LOL #2: My goodness, twice a week at least for us. Wherever and whenever we can!
LOL #1: What do you get?
LOL #2: Oh, the whole spread. Shrimp tempura, eel rolls...
LOL#1: I'm more of a sashimi kind of gal myself...
LOL #2: Yech...I'm not that brave...

How weird when you think you're overhearing old ladies talking about sex, and what they're really talking about is sushi.

Wine, cake and dirty Chaucer stories

What do you get when you put a bunch of English professors in a room and give them wine and cake? Silliness! Or so it seemed Saturday at Dr. Carmean's retirement party, which Emily H. was awesome enough to snag me an invite to. We were the only former students, and Dr. C made the organizer lady redo the seating chart so we could sit at her table. :-) The fabulous Charlie Morgan, Chaucer professor extraordinare and quite possibly the world's Most Adorable Human, was also at our table, so my world was officially rocked.

Highlights:

1. Dr. Carmean's husband telling me she was a majorette when they met back in grad school:
   (Me: Are you kidding?!
   Husband: My goodness, you don't kid about something like that.
   Dr. C (across the table): What on earth is he telling you over there, Emily?
   Me: That you were a majorette once. Is he kidding?
   Dr. C: My God, you don't kid about something like that.)
2. Finding out that Dr. Melissa Walker cited one of my dorky history papers in something she wrote.
3. Meeting Rosa Shand's new husband and learning that she's incidentally "not getting much writing done at the moment." Hee hee. (Rosa was my very first creative writing teacher, so she is partially to blame for my frustrated writerliness...though I don't have a new husband to blame for the not getting much writing done part...hee hee...she was talking about sex...)
4. Getting kissed on the cheek (er, the hair) by the world's Most Adorable Human.
   
   

I also got to hang out with Emily while waiting for Kim to schlep it over to the Mexican restaurant where we had the obligatory Cinco de Mayo margaritas. She and her husband Robert have a very cozy little house and a funny little cat they call Stupid Kitty because she don't got no brain and is scared of skirts.

All in all, a very sweet visit. I wish it had been longer! The biggest highlight was probably getting to see Dr. Carmean blow out her birthday candles, a very obviously symbolic moment for someone who has survived lung cancer. Medical technology aside, I think she probably beat it by sheer will. She is rather a ferocious person...a true force of nature once described as a woman who "might well eat her own young."

Many students fear her,  but I have always adored her brutal honesty and her appreciation for things that are darkly, absurdly funny. It possibly has something to do with both loving Flannery O'Connor. I can only think that with her cheekiness and her smarter-than-everybody-elseness, she must be the real-life grown-up version of "the child" in "A Temple of the Holy Ghost."

In other, unrelated, news, I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.  Brrrrrr.  Hello, cotton balls...

Addendum to the previous

Update: I just cheered up my inner 12-year-old by watching this...Kirk Cameron would be appalled...

Kirk Cameron would like to talk to you about the shameful myth that is evolution

I wish I could email this link to my 12-year-old self...

Holy hell, click on this people. Kirk Cameron is going to disprove evolution for you! Since he's got all that science training and all.

(E-mail message accompanying the link: Dear Emily--Save virginity for Johnny Depp instead.)

I just have one thing to say to you Kirk. Show me that smile again (Oh, show me that smile) Don't waste a-no-ther minute on your cryin'...You know you want to hear it...

 

OK, get out your dream analysis almanacs or whatever

I guess because House came on last night, I dreamed that I was House's girlfriend. We went to Burger King and got cheeseburgers for lunch, and had a picnic on this blanket that said "Long Live the Dundies!" on it (from The Office). We were sitting there, and he said, "I'M GLAD YOU'RE WEIRD." Then the recess bell rang and we went back to work.

I watch too much TV. And think about cheeseburgers too much.

I ran this by a few of my female friends, and they were all, "Yeah, well, you dreamed about House because House is hot." Interesting. I thought I just had a strange fascination with brilliant, surly old dudes with hidden English accents (probably traceable to reading Jane Eyre at 13, when such fantasies are most likely to be born...)

Girls' Rights Week

Super cool...I was checking out the GirlsInc website and saw that it's Girls' Rights Week, wherein we make an extra effort at "empowering girls to develop a strong sense of self in the face of pressures to be 'supergirls'." In other words, to encourage them to be themselves instead of trying to internalize mixed cultural messages about what girls should be.

Central to this empowerment is the Girls' Bill of Rights, designed to remind young girls that they have the right to love and appreciate their bodies, express themselves, and feel confident in a world that continues to devalue them.

Hey, it's Girls' Rights Week! Support your local girl!

Speaking of girls, my living room wall just got some retail therapy. I just ordered me one-a these here off the Innernet. This artist chica Ashley Goldberg makes the funniest little prints I've ever seen (by funny I mean weird and charming). I see an addiction coming...I've already decided on three or four more I must have, possibly because a lot of the characters look like me when I was a little kid.

The title of this one is Gaggle of Girls. Is it too soon to start checking my mailbox?