Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

So . . . I broke down and bought a pair of sewing shears.  Why? Well, your scissors shouldn't click when you cut, and I had a pair of the Fiskers plastic handled cheap ones.  Yup.  I bought those years ago with my Mom, and I've been using them since.  They were long dead, but I kept cutting on.  Why? I am stupid.  So, I bought the shears.  Shears! Oh my god.  I should have bought these years ago.  When I cut the first piece of fabric with them, and it was like slicing through butter, I cried.  Ok, not really.  But, it certainly was close. So, yes, this is a partial ode to these: And of course, if this was a movie hallelujah choruses would be coming up for these: In the long run of things, aside from getting them on sale for 45 percent off, new shears don't mean much to those who don't sew and re sculpt fabric into something new.  Yes, I did write sculpt.  You start out with a flat hunk o...

So, I'm a couple of days late getting the first week posted . . . shoot me later.  I've been busy.  Finished that book review, on a good book of theory . . . just a bitch to write.  Finishing my own book, grading, more grading, one round of final grades posted, and a Derby party all played into the mix. But, here goes: May 1st So fresh from a run, I showered and posed  . . . That's my Lotus top, from an Amy Butler pattern.  I've altered it twice, and well . . . as you can tell it is roomy and too big on me.  I made it in January, and I've lost a little bit of chunk since then.  So, it was fun while it lasted, but after three alterations off to Goodwill it goes.  Below is a photo of how badly it bellows.  Ugh.  Oh, don't judge those shorts.  I never wear them out of the house, and I can fit in them.  Couldn't wear them last year.  Whoo hoo.   May 2d After a day of teaching and advising, with so...

And sometimes, even with the best of intentions . . . shit fails.  Yup, even if it was intended to be a lounge sweater. (Sorry for the shittyesque Instagram photo, it is funny though) So, I finished my pink--yes, pink I know!--sweater.  I knitted it from Debbie Stoller's Bamboo Ewe, a luscious soft wool and bamboo mix.  Eco too, especially since it is hand wash.   Well . . . the problem with knitting is that sometimes it just doesn't fit.  The shoulders and chest were too large, and if I would have shrunk the neckline two inches--on each side--to make the stupid thing stay up well I would have been sporting a muffin top.  Boo.   Upside, I posted this in Facebook, and in less than five minutes a friend, with a larger chest and desires to wear it off the shoulder for Yoga, offered to buy it.  Well, she said she liked it, I asked if she wanted it, she insisted on a price.  I told her to cover the cost of my...

So, among the ass load of student papers and institutional work I've done, an article revision, and the hell, absolute HELL, of book formatting, I squeezed some time to make up some lovelies.  Why? A girl can always use more clothes, and handmade ones are fun! Yes, even fashion basics are fun. First up: Colette's Ginger pattern, version three.  Okay, my version three . . . not hers.  I made a purple one (Colette version one), which my zipper busted upon completion so I deconstructed part of the waistband to replace said zipper (Coats and Clark owes me about an hour and a half!), and I made a bias cut one (Colette version three) with kitchy zebra turned chevron stripes.  You'll see it on here this month.  I will get to that later. Sorry for the shitty picture.  I couldn't get the light to work in my favor today, and I'm looking worse for the wear after a longish day.   See . . . it's just your basic A-line, until: Bound seams!...

I should be grading, or finishing my next book due to press . . . but I haven't dicked around on this blog in nearly a month, and I need to brain dump.  On what, I have no idea.  Normally I sit down and shit -- often shit  I should squirrel away from in sheer embarrassment--just pours forth for your reading enjoyment.  Tonight, I have little of anything swarming in my deluded and deranged mind.  Okay, well I do . . . but it concerns the page margins, rules for citations in Chicago Manual of Style, and how much I hate the hell of press formatting.  Yet, why do I do it? I'm  a vain bitch who loves seeing her name in print.  On the cover of a book is even better.  This isn't my first time at the name on the book cover rodeo, so you think I would have a system down.  I do.  But, sadly, my pocketbook and health would revolt at that much bourbon.  Though, I wonder if there is enough to drown me on this side of the Miss...

Since I recently did my fourth half marathon (after doing an 8K the day before), I thought it would be a good time to provide the dissection of what goes through one's mind.  Disclaimer: it is only slightly perverse.  In January I was kicking, and then for the most of February my body and the Lupus told me to f-off, so . . . I'm still delighted with the results and I ran 3.85 today with an average of 10:46 per a mile.  Good, indeed. O'dark thirty, at the start.  Unless you are running in July, this start line will  always  be chilly or outright cold. In March, in Virginia Beach, it was downright cold.  July is the only time an 8 o'clock start will be on the borders of hot.  Joy.   The gun goes off, corals start to cheer.  Those damn seeded runners are going to hit the finish line before the chumps in coral ten (like me) even hit mile one.  'Tis the life.   Mile one: Let's not think about miles.  It's ...

Along The Dover Road, between New York City and Virginia Beach, we tumble through Salisbury...the last place my brother called home. As we pass through, I notice–– as I did in August, the first time I'd been through in nearly nine years–– the growth of the little roadside stop. Well, the academic in me wants to call it sprawl, but most folks draw lines with progress and clutter...the expanded Wal Mart, the chain restaurants, and the new chain gas stations all replacing the single owned ones known along the area for subs and fried chicken.  Somewhere along the way my mind remembers golf balls and rides in his partner's blue pick up truck. Those...those are memories for me to hold onto for another day.  Perhaps like the skybirds (Skybirds http://coolerthanyoustupidthings.blogspot.com/2009/08/skybirds.html) of my youth.  I still wonder what those are, then again I doubt that I really need to unearth that. This past February made ten years since my ...