N. Beck’s Friends

family ties

nobody@vox.com(loveless) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:41:35 -0500

So I'm finally moved out of Franklin. Again. Providence is treating me nicely, but my family can't stop yelling at each other long enough to decide how much they want to charge me for rent. There has been more drama about this whole thing than any Hilltop mess I was ever part of. First, the rent was $400, then it went to $600. Then it was $320 for me, because that was what my cousin is paying. Then it was back to $400 if I was alone, or $600 if I had a roommate. Now it's down to $400 again. The latest drama is that my aunt doesn't think I'm capable of paying all the bills, and thus is doing everything in her power to prevent me from moving into one of the apartments. Apparently. o_O And sadly, I feel worse for my roommate, Todd, who is moving in next weekend, but was understandably perturbed by all the drama surrounding all of this. Oy.

In other news, I'm sort of dating/seeing/hanging out with this boy named Taylor. We've been seeing each other for about a month and a half now. Nothing has been talked about really, but I stay at his place once a week, and he's coming down to visit me this weekend. So. If nothing else, he's my "It's Complicated" on Facebook. He's stated previously that he hasn't had a relationship in over 3 years, and he wasn't sure he was looking for anything, but he treats me as more than just a friend so....I dunno. I'm playing chill until he brings it up. Or until I get fed up with not knowing.

Work sucks. I'm sick of commuting to Boston. I applied for a management job back at the Beej (I know, I know. It's a life-sucking fiend that will never let me go), and hopefully I'll get it. I'll probably be making about what I"m making here, and not have to pay $250 a month just to get to work. And ya know, I'm ridiculously broke, so anything to lighten the burden is fine by me. We'll see what happens. It'll be nice to actually not have to get up at 5 a.m. anymore too. Where's the downside? (It's back at the Beej full time, you fool!)

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SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!

nobody@vox.com(CubistLiterature) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:38:31 -0500

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!
10.9.08

This was the redo:

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY! 10.9.08

It was the best I could do.
The rest looked like this:

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY! 10.9.08

Not the best day.
I've had a really bad headache all day long.
And I'm currently feeling paranoid, bummed out, alone, and confused. And I think some people are mad at me. Lame.

Yesterday I had to say goodbye to the room I was subletting.

I took a photo of my things all packed up:

stuff's packed

A room of one's own.

No more.

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RAGE

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:27:23 -0500

D'you remember a week or so I wrote something about things that send me into an incensed rage? Well, you can add Tiscali to that list. I settled down happily last night to watch Heroes (this is a little-known, yet integral part of the Atonement preparations - and it was accompanied by an ENORMOUS bowl of meatballs and rice) all good, then tried to switch over to BBC3 to watch the next episode.

Sorry, this channel's not available right now.

In fact, that channel wasn't available for at least twenty minutes. I don't know whether it became available after that because I threw the remote control across the room in temper and now it doesn't work, so I can't change channels. The crappy box doesn't accomodate for that.

An engineer is booked to come out on Saturday anyway (because of their awful, awful service, where the broadband drops out every hour or so and the television channels will freeze up five minutes before the end of the show - assuming you could get to that channel in the first place) but really, I just want to cancel and tell them to stick their set top box where the sun don't shine.

So, having spent a pleasing amount of time reading customer reviews of Tiscali (general gist: AVOID AVOID AVOID) I've found what looks like a good internet provider in the form of Be*.

Does anyone have any experience of them?

Also, I'll probably have to downgrade to freeview and buy a box for that. I'm still not sure how that works though - will it matter that I don't have a aerial for the telly?

Help, guidance or something to stop me gnashing my teeth all gratefully received.

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If the elephants have past lives but are destined to always remember

nobody@vox.com(K) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:11:46 -0500

(It’s no wonder they always scream / like you and I they must have some temper)

I can't believe it's been a year, a year since my life lost all direction and took a relative free fall from which I have yet to completely recover. I still don't feel sure, stabilized, I still don't know if I did the right thing, if I am doing the right thing. Everything seemed clear and then, in a span of a month or so, I began to really doubt myself and the fog, frankly, is yet to lift.

So, yeah, I've definitely changed. I just hope it's for the better. Though I miss the old days, I miss that almost innocent optimism punctured by denial. I'm darker.

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Literary assistance

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:49:43 -0500

I need your help, lovely bloggers. There are books I have read, some as a child and others, more recently, of which certain scenes or characters left an impression on me but I'm damned if I can remember what their titles are. So, putting my faith into the internet once again, I'll write down the bits I can remember and hopefully some of you can come to my aid.

1. This is the oldest and used to belong to one of the uvvers before it came into my possession. The story involved a brother and sister, who had various adventures with the people they knew in their neighbourhood. The incidents I can remember were that they went to visit a Chinese man, who would take his caged linnet out for walks. He showed them a porcelain statuette of a lady and explained that it was used in the olden days for ladies who were too shy to talk to a doctor but they could circle the area in question where they were troubled so that the doctor could make his diagnosis. Another time, the sister was being given a lift by a major (?) - I have the impression that all the action was set in the 30s - when he told her to take the wheel because he was going to sneeze. He then gives her a bit of a lecture about how we close our eyes when we sneeze. There was also another bit about a Christmas goose, which possibly turned up frozen, but I'm getting a bit hazy now. I'm sure there must have been a story to the book, but I can just remember these odd episodes.

2. When I was a little older, my dad used to get me books out the library every weekend. I remember this one was by an author I particularly liked but I can't remember who, or what their other books were but if we can identify this one, I should be able to revisit the others from there. The story was about a fairly plain woman, who shocked everyone by marrying a man thought to be a bit of a thug, who lived in a run-down house in the forest. The husband turned out to be quite educated and they actually got along quite well. One day, on a trip to the city he caught her looking at a $5 string of fake pearls in a shop window and later bought them to surprise her. She was dismayed by this because she didn't think they could afford it and wasn't until much later that she found out they were real pearls and he was rich all along. Hurrah! I think this was set in the 20s (the cover possibly had a woman with a flapper style bob on, in muted blues and greens).

3. This is more recent and my ex and I had both read it and were subsequently unable to identify where it came from. I keep thinking it's Douglas Coupland but I can't find it in any of his books. Anyway, the author spent some time working for a large company and came to the realisation that people's fates were determined by the decor in their office, eg a blue carpet and white walls meant you were heading for redundancy or a green carpet and beige walls indicated promotion.

I look forward to getting some answers!

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OH OH OH

nobody@vox.com(CubistLiterature) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:25:13 -0500

Did I mention I get to be friends with such artistic/crafty geniuses such as my good pal Ben (TakeOffYourClothes)?

Bubble Necklace Headwrap

coral mesh scarf

green mesh crochet scarf

I'm Melting Transformer Tee

Boss.

I really want to buy an ostrich egg.

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SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!

nobody@vox.com(CubistLiterature) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:54:05 -0500

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!
10.2.08

Mkay, well, it's not a self-portrait.
But my sister is in town, and I'm busy.

It's a photo from the Annex on Friday night.

x
c

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but the worst stays in

nobody@vox.com(K) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:44:31 -0500

There is, of course, something to be said for coming home unexpectedly (way, trans-continentally unexpectedly), in the middle of the night and having someone be happy to see you.

There is also something to be said for sleep.

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On ne parle pas comme ca

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:23:10 -0500

It was my last French class last night, because I'm going back to my real classes next week and it's been a nice change to be regarded as one of the more intermediate students (rather than feeling like I should be sitting in the corner, wearing a pointed hat, like I do in Spanish) and because it's been a very, very long time since I learned French, so it's been good to know the knowledge was still in there.

Just how long it's been was brought to home to me in bitter clarity yesterday. We were looking at making hotel bookings and asking about breakfast, parking, rooms with double beds and the internet (certainly not something I learnt back in the day) and one of my colleagues was asking why you couldn't say 'Peux-je...?' instead of 'Est-ce que je peux...?' Le Professeur asked if there were any other ways of asking if you could do something and as a deeply embedded memory came drifting to the surface, I mumbled something about 'puis-je...?'

Non! Nobody talks like that anymore. That is old-fashioned French and if you say that, people with laugh at you!

Apparently I am so old, I am actually speaking an archaic form of a language.

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SPARE RIB

nobody@vox.com(CubistLiterature) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:20:11 -0500

If you're in the NYC area, you must check out the Museum of Arts and Design, specifically the Second Lives exhibit. The exhibit is all about taking found objects (and/or trash or whatever) and making them into works of art. It was so awesome and inspiring.

A dress made of rubber gloves = very nice.

In other news, here are a couple of knit pieces I've completed lately:

WATERCOLOR FROST

I made this scarf with yarn I dyed in soft, light shades of green, yellow, and blue. It's bulky and warm and very cozy.

This is something I finished last night using yarn I spun last week:

RIVER SLEEP

It's a Möbius strip cowl. I'm really into those right now. I've made a couple more cowls like that that I've photographed but yet to upload onto the internet.

Möbius strip, in case you don't know:

Möbius_strip

P.S.
I'm getting a nose job.

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