…the who cares girl…

Wednesday night in the apartment was the worst this week. Of course, all week long I have been irritable, grouchy and lethargic. The Boy said he read an article that explained that people in the South handle the heat better than people up here because they have less salt in their sweat, so it evaporates faster.

“Did the article have any suggestions on what to do when the heat makes you full of irrational anger and rage?” I asked him.

“Nope.”

Ah well. I just Googled the weather for “fun” and it says that we currently have 88 percent humidity.

“I don’t believe it,” said the Boy.

The weather forecast also said it was only supposed to reach 83 degrees today, so I’d LIKE to believe it, thank you very much.

“My sources say the humidity is 94 percent,” the Boy just informed me, clutching his girlfriend. “And that the high is 85.”

Heeeey, wait a minute, did I just “waste” an entire blog entry talking about the weather? Whoops. Er, in other news, I’m listening to Gnarls Barkley currently and it is wonderful. I made a hooping video recently to “Going On” and the evil Youtubes muted it, so I got disgusted and just deleted the video. Sigh. Note to self: switch to Vimeo. DO IT.

Other important updates: I’m watching “Project Runway” Season 2 now while working on a blue velvet minidress with silver stars and silver sequined trim. I’m reading “The Sex Doctors in the Basement: True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood“, by Molly Jong-Fast, which I randomly grabbed at the library, probably because of the bright colors on the cover. I’m so easy.

Someone on Amazon said this about the book: “She is not funny. She is not interesting. She is not talented. She comes across as spoiled, self-indulgent, and, most horrifyingly, BORING.” I have to say, I agree, although reading this book made me think Jesus, this is the kind of shite that gets published these days? I could definitely be a published author.

Today I may be going over to the Broad’s to hang out with her and her friend Natalie and Natalie’s two kids at the apartment pool. I haven’t seen Corinne even near a swimming pool during the last (pause)…okay, EVER, so this will be interesting. She admitted the other day that she hadn’t shaved her legs all summer. And does she own a swimsuit? Me thinks not. I could totally picture Corinne in some gothic black old-fashioned swimsuit, clutching a red-and-black parasol over her head to protect her whitey-white skin from the sun’s harsh rays, but I suspect she’ll just wear pants to the pool. And sit in the shade. I know her.

…but this trailer for the new Tron movie looks really good! And I haven’t even seen the original! Note to self: rent the original. I do like that Jeff Bridges. Although he’ll always be “The Dude” to me, you know.

Laziness + work + “it’s too darn hot” = posting some crappy, blurry dressing room photos from my trip to “Red Light” on Monday.

I was so frazzled by the crazy guy at the espresso stand and the fact that Work Gay was late and the ridiculous heat that I only took photos inside the tiny dressing room, with the flash off. At least the dressing rooms were decorated!

The dressing rooms had painted murals on the walls. Nice.

I look like I have short midge legs here, but it’s not true, really it’s not. These are knitted vintage shorts with a slightly open weave and a scalloped edge, and although the idea of knits in the desert is somewhat crazy I couldn’t help myself. Anyway I can wear them at night with tights underneath–adorable!

I don’t know how I managed to get so far in life without a 60s floral pantsuit with massive, flared legs–but I’m glad we found each other at last!

This was my favorite find–a 60s flowered bikini. So stinkin’ cute.

Everything was under 20 dollars, the way it should be. Of course, I bought several pieces (I only go to “Red Light” a few times a year because…um, it’s more special that way?), but I have no regrets!

I bought more items, but at some point I abandoned the taking-photos-in-the-dressing-room idea. One item I’m a little bitter didn’t fit me was a full-length turquoise empire-waist gown covered in Peter Max designs with plastic stars across the bodice–it was too tight in the bust and shoulders. Some vintage doesn’t fit me because of my broad shoulders–and that’s okay. I still made out quite well.

Seattle hit over 100 yesterday, a record high, and people are panicking and fans are sold out everywhere and all anyone can talk about is the weather. We’ve managed to figure out some tricks (closing the windows during the day, covering the windows, bladdy blah) so it’s been tolerable. Crappy, but tolerable. Anyway this weather won’t last forever, and if I bitched all winter long about the snow I can’t really bitch about it being too hot, can I?*

* Hell yes I can!

A few photos from the barbecue/birthday party last Sunday:

I suspect I took this photo of Corinne and I right after she swigged down a shot of moonshine that a man with red cheeks was offering around. This isn’t a good photo, but it was the only one I took of us at the barbecue, together, with our hats on, so there it is.

We held onto Maggie and Molly during the barbecue, which took place in Mel’s front yard. There were a couple of dogs on the porch next door, and I knew Maggie and Molly would be unable to resist running next door and making new friends (enemies?), not to mention the platter of pork cutlets would have been snarfed down by Maggie. I was a little surprised to see meat at the barbecue, and people chowing down on fistfuls of it. Maybe eating meat is trendy again? Oh who can keep up.

The only other dog at the barbecue was a 4 month old pug, who was interested in Maggie until she stepped on her head. The pug’s name was “Monkey”, which is rather unfortunate.

A platter of cupcakes with birthday candles was presented to Mel.

My birthday gift to Mel was a print of this photo of her, which I presented framed, with a bow. Of course I was hypercritical of it, but she seemed happy.

As you can see, I mostly took photos during the cupcake presentation. The rest of the time I was yakking and not playing photographer. And that’s okay!

The birthday girl changed into a satin jacket and funky hat for the second part of the party–lawn darts and croquet at the park.

When we arrived at the park we let Maggie and Molly off their leashes, and they were happy.

Molly almost got hit with a lawn dart 3 or 4 times, but it all worked out.

I brought the throwing stick, and Corinne and I took turns throwing the ball for Maggie.

We left around sunset.

When the Boy returned from Spokane he had spent a couple of days with his pregnant sister, who is due in September with a girl. He informed me that the three baby names her and her husband were tossing around were Cordelia, Ronia, and Eleanor.

“Eleanor!” I shouted. “That’s my name!”

I had decided back in December that Eleanor was my choice for a girl’s name, because 1. “Elly” sounds cute and goes nicely with “Ollie” for the boy’s name and 2. it was my grandmother’s name, the influential grandmother who honed my obsession for costume jewelry and lucite grapes.

Without thinking it through (typical Liz behavior) I immediately sent an e-mail (against the Boy’s wishes) to his sister to inform her about my feelings towards the name Eleanor. In a nice way, of course, ending the e-mail with “I love you!”.

I had forgotten about it until my mother asked me on the phone yesterday how the Boy’s sister was doing and I told her about the e-mail I had sent. She freaked out all over me, of course.

“You have to call her!” she said. “She’s full of pregnancy hormones–this is how family feuds start! And maybe you won’t have any girls! Maybe you’ll have two boys!”

“Ugh,” was my response, but I did call the Boy’s sister and told her to “disregard” the e-mail.

She laughed, told me that she was like the Boy in that she didn’t get mad easily (that’s good). “Anyway,” she added, “Jerry wants to spell it “Elinor”, which is the more elven spelling.”

Elven spelling? Okay. Anyway, she’s pregnant and I’m not, so if she goes with the name “Elinor” then so be it. How can I stake a claim on a baby name when I’m not even knocked up, eh?

In other news, the temperature is supposed to be over 100 degrees today. Yippee-ki-yi-blerp.

I “enhanced” this hat recently. Yes, I know it’s ugly! But you should have seen it before.

It was white (ha ha, I just accidentally typed “shite”), with a red brim and a red-and-white polka dot band, so I removed the band, spray painted the hat fluorescent yellow and added pink camouflage hoop tape to the brim. Then I added the designs with pink and orange neon paint markers (the day I discovered neon paint markers was a happy day indeed).

The Boy’s mom offered the hat to me after one of her many garage sale excursions, and I looked at it and thought, “I can fix this.” Of course, I have a large head, and vintage hats don’t fit me, but I figure some crackhead at Burning Man will fall in love with it and I can give it to them as a “memento”. Yeah? Yeah.

I had text messaged Work Gay over the weekend (I never text message–I only did it because that’s what the kids are into these days) and asked him if he wanted to go to “Red Light” with me yesterday. He had never heard of it and I am 100% obsessed with the Broadway store so it seemed like an appropriate Gay Date.

While I waited for him, sitting outside at an espresso stand on Broadway drinking water and smoking vanilla ciggies, a fairly normal-looking guy sat down at the table next to me and then descended into madness. He was talking to himself, laughing hysterically, having full-body jerks, and chain smoking (Camel wides–those would make anyone crazy!).

I had told Work Gay that I would meet him at the espresso stand and I was determined to ride it out, but I ended up taking 1/2 a Xanax (the crazy guy was ramping up my anxiety, big time) and eventually I had to leave. I couldn’t handle the crazy. As I walked away the crazy guy burst out into wild, screaming laughter. Ugh.

It’s a good thing I went into “Red Light” alone because Work Gay was over an hour late to our Gay Date. He had to go to court with a friend and then had to leave 10 minutes after arriving at “Red Light” to take this friend to night school, so eh, it wasn’t much of a date, but I bought 100 dollars worth of polyester insanity that I will be proudly showing off later this week. Ooooh yeaaaah.

DSC08067, originally uploaded by nichameleon.

Blerp merp bleedoo, back to work for me today. I wish I could say that my week between jobs was “fun”, but between the root canal and ineffective Vicodin and 90 degree weather without air conditioning AND the Boy being out of town the last couple of days, it was just…okay.

Although thanks to the entrance of “Project Runway” into my life I’m sewing again, and Corinne and I did have a great time at the birthday party yesterday, so that was a plus. And the dogs are still alive, and I talked to Kissy on the phone, and I worked on the Brigitte painting, so maybe…yeah…I don’t have anything to whine about. Right this second.

Multi Colored Leotard., originally uploaded by welovecolors.

“Don’t forget to get those opera gloves from your mother. I’m going to tie dye them.”

“But–they’re a family heirloom!”

Pause.

“Well…I’ll just be adding my modern interpretation!”

Yesterday morning while watching “Project Runway” (season 1) I finished up this dress. Fluorescent orange mesh that I added reflective ribbon accents to. The reflective ribbon claimed to be “iron on”, but I never trust that stuff so I sewed it on.

The dress is sheer, so I wore a nude bra and underwear underneath. Actually, I wore the same bra and underwear I wore under my wedding dress last August.

I suppose I could wear nothing underneath it at Burning Man, but I don’t know–I think the girls need a little support. I ain’t no spring chicken!

Kissyfur called me last night and I think we spent about 3 hours on the phone and I think I smoked about 5 billion cigarettes. It was wonderful. Healed relationships make me hap-hap-happy! Although my throat is a little sore today. Cough. Cough.

And Kissy, last night I walked into the bedroom and shouted, “IT SMELLS LIKE CROTCH IN HERE!” at my dogs. They just ignored me.

The Boy is out of town so it’s just me and the snarling, growling, snapping animals until sometime tomorrow. The Broad and I have plans to go to a birthday barbecue this afternoon and then to the Burning Man meeting tonight, and in the meantime I have “Project Runway” Season 1 to finish up (Wendy’s about to get kicked off the show and I’m really excited) and multiple sewing projects to froth over. No, I don’t know why it took me so long to get into “Project Runway”. But I’m making up for it now!

JK Wedding Entrance Dance

Awww. Okay, even my cold cynical heart thinks this is adorable.

The phases of blogging, originally uploaded by voxtheory.

So true (click on image to view it larger–it’s worth it!).