Consider my day made! Crappy portraits!

Have you ever heard of the "free crappy portraits" website? Because it. Is. Amazing. Basically, you send them a picture of yourself with a little description, and someone will draw you. But...not well. Hm, actually, now that I'm looking at the site some of them are AMAZING. So...guess it depends on your artist. Also, if you want, you can volunteer to be a "guest artist" and draw someone else. Which I did. How exciting!

They're going to be featuring my portrait today. Here's the photo I sent them:

Here's the description of us I sent along with the picture:

"This is a photo of me and my best dog ever, Tank. He enjoys long walks around the block, peeing on every plant, and treats. I like books and hate taking the bus. Let me be clear: Tank and I are just friends. We don't like each other "that way", no matter what those kids at school say"

I like how I kind of look like a character from the Archie comics, and she incorporated every single thing I said in my description. Except WE'RE NOT IN LOVE DAMNIT, haha. 

I love the book title. It's all about the details, you know?

If you would like a crappy portrait drawn of you, it's pretty simple. All you have to do is go to freecrappyportraits.com and email them a picture of yourself with a short description. I can't wait to draw my 'guest' post...she likes the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ding ding ding! And I suck at drawing. It's gonna be hilarious.

My (rather extensive) reading list...

 First off, I'd like to say that I really hope this whole 'rapture' thing isn't happening...I mean...I'm a pretty decent human but by no means do I pray or devote time to any deity in any way. So wish me luck with the whole not going to hell thing, I guess. Could one of you vouch for me? That would be great. Thanks!

And now...back to my regularly scheduled awesomeness. 

***

I'm one of those people whose mind goes absolutely blank the moment I enter the grocery store a library or a video store.

(For those of you under 20 years old, a video store is somewhere that used to house VHS cassettes, and more recently DVDs. You would have to leave the house, go all the way to the store, actually pay money to borrow the movies for a few days, and then have to leave your house again, go all the way back and return it on time or be charged ridiculously expensive late fees. It was rather inconvenient and I'm glad those days are nearly over.)

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that I forget what I want when I go into stores. I get all the way there and then draw a blank every gosh darn time. And since I have recently decided that the library totally rules, it's become a bit frustrating: staring at the stacks and totally forgetting what those eight thousand books people have recommended are called. Or who wrote them. Or whether or not they even exist. So I'd spend an hour just walking up and down the aisles, looking at book covers and trying to tell whether or not I've heard of that one or not.

Those days are far in the past now though, now that I've come up with my new invention: a list.

That's right, it's ... a list. Of books I want to read. I carry it on me at all times, just in case someone mentions a must-read, or there's a surprise library (or book store) visit in my future.

At first, my list was just a piece of paper. But then that wasn't sturdy enough to withstand my bus-nomad, large-purse-or-backpack lifestyle. So I started carrying around an ugly little coil notebook, and wrote 'the list' down any old which way in that book.

But it was even more inconvenient. I would be standing in the A's section of the library frantically flipping the pages trying to find the title of that Atwood book I was pretty sure I wrote down weeks ago. I felt rather conspicuous. Nobody flips notebook pages in the library stacks. It's weird. I was a library weirdo!

But then, one day: epiphany! I had just ordered three REALLY pretty notebooks from the Black Apple Etsy store. (You must check it out if you haven't already.) And I thought "Wouldn't it be nice if my list was attractive...and alphabetical?"

And thus was born...the narwhal book. I've been using it for a year or so now, so it's kind of beaten up, but I think it just adds character.

***

I am in love with this book.

A notebook is meant for scribbling thoughts, for making notes, for jotting jots. So don't be stingy with the pages, or you'll have an empty notebook for ages.

Love it.

***

My list continues to grow. Don't judge. I'm one of those people who hasn't read very many classics because they're paced so slow and I don't care about 1800s romance. That also goes for Love in the Time of Cholera. Ugh. Seriously. But you know what book was surprisingly awesome? The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! It was really cool and hardly racist at all, haha.

***

These are all the books I will read soon, presented to you now in fancy pants alphabetical order:

(click the images to see larger size)

***

Have you read any of these before? What did you think?

Do you have any other recommendations? I would love to hear them! 

What does a sneeze smell like?

When I sneeze it smells like honey. 
What's up with that?

At first I thought it was the face masks I wear at work when I'm sterilizing the equipment. Like, maybe the masks are scented, but only when wet as some kind of safety thing, you know, so when your mask gets fluid on it that could possibly be contaminated? Makes sense, right?

But then we did experiments at work...somebody (I can't remember who it was!) helped me do all kinds of tests: spitting and pouring water on the masks. Nothing...except for the next time I'd sneeze into one. (I know it's weird, but after four years I'm bound to sneeze while wearing a mask more than once.)

What brought this up? Well I just sneezed...and there was a definite honey smell. Again. What is going on? Is it possible that there are tiny bees living in the back of my throat, making honey? Nose bees?

...

Well guess what guys, it's an actual thing. I just Googled it. Yeah, I did my research halfway through writing a post....ANYWAY it's actually called "honey sneeze". Shocker. It normally smells like honey, beeswax, pollen, baby powder, hay, or just "sweet". There are plenty of theories on why it happens...and it seems like it is actually pretty common. (And I thought I was crazy special.)

Here are some of the theories on why some people's sneezes smell like honey:
*note* Some of these don't make any sense. Also? I found these on the internet so take it all with a grain of salt.

-Sinus infection.
-Bacterias in your head tubes that smell...like honey.
-Bad breath/hallitosis.
-Mucus with similar chemical makeup to sugar.
-The atmosphere changes chemical makeup when you sneeze.
-Medicine you're taking.
-The sneeze clears out your nose and you can really get a good whiff of what your body smells like.
-Diabetes.
-It's your body's reward to you for letting a sneeze out, because if you hold them in you could cause an aneurysm.
-A ton of scary medical anomalies that don't even make sense but that's what happens when you look up any symptom or change in your body...suddenly you have cancer, AIDS and leprosy.
-It just does and nobody knows why.

...

I kind of like it. And now that I know that it's a thing, and not just my imagination, I can just sit back and enjoy the smell, post-sneeze. Although ever since that summer I worked on a honeybee farm, doing bee stuff and honey extraction, I actually really don't really care for the smell of honey...yuck.

The good news is that I have the best of the "scented sneeze" world. Apparently there are tons of people out there with bad smelling sneezes. And other people can smell them! (Get up close to me next time I sneeze, it's true!)

There are actually people out there who sneeze out the smell of:

-spiders
-musk
-dirt
-copper
-urine (!)
-bad breath
-old cheese
-a "rape field" (This is canola btw.)
-raked up leaves
-rotten teeth
-dead animals
-mold

Have any of you experienced this strange phenomenon? What do your sneezes smell like?

LOOK WHAT I WON! (Alternate title: Zoe is awesome.)

In February I basically put my name in a hat to win a hand-made cross-stiched brooch from Zoe at A Giraffe in a Scarf. And I won! The fun thing about this giveaway was in the comments section of the blog that was hosting it, (My Girl Thursday) all the contestants had to write down some stuff they were interested in and then Zoe would take the winner's list and use those ideas to make their brooch.

I said:

My favorite things are my white cat and my bulldog, hearts, coffee, vintage Halloween stuff, Russian-tattoo-inspired things, and photography. 

I was secretly hoping that if I won, she'd ignore the hearts and coffee and go for either a cat, a bulldog (because how hilarious would that be?) or the Russian Tattoos thing. I'm not like, into criminal tattoos but they are SO INTERESTING and cool looking, I thought I'd mention them there and see what happened.


Well, I won! And I just found out that Zoe spent 8-9 hours stitching this thing! Amazing! The work is so detailed and pretty, and the brooch is AWESOME!

Click here to read what she found out about the Russian cat design. It's pretty bad-ass!

I took some pictures of me being a major dork with it. Uh, so here they are. 

Here's me being surprised that it's pinned to my chest...(?)

Thank you SO MUCH for putting so much hard work into this, Zoe! I love my new (and only) brooch! 

---
Also exciting, yesterday I bought myself a floor ticket to see SLAYER! (SOOOOO EXCITED) And I ordered my first ever pair of TOMS shoes from their website. In grey. Although the sparkly ones really wanted me to buy them. Maybe next time.

All kinds of outer space things!

 From Reddit

A lunar eclipse in pictures.

Pictures of the far side of the moon!

Interactive map of UFO sightings over the USA. Not cool, guys.

Um...what's antimatter? Anyway thunderstorms are throwing it into space apparently.

Here's a video of the sunset on Mars. It's blue, apparently because of the different gases in the atmosphere. Neat!

Here's a cool picture of a shadow on the earth during the 1999 solar eclipse that was taken by the MIR27 Crew

Really rad picture of a lunar eclipse.

How to deal with eclipses.

Here's a 45 minute video on the space station over at Public School

Pigeons in space. 

Here's "the most inspirational fan created pro-NASA/Space video ever."

7 myths about the Challenger disaster. 

 This terrifying print is from the Minga creative studio in Argentina.

NASA video of the, uh, "dark side" of the sun. 

Here's a video of the Mars500 crew landing on a simulated Mars in Moscow and performing tasks after 8 months of isolation.  Explanation here.

Cuh-rayzee ring of black holes. 

Here's a video of a solar flare that was actually directed at Earth in February, but (luckily!!) didn't have any effect on us.

This is a mega cool video explaining the scale of the planets by Brad Goodspeed.

Scale

from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.

Have you heard? We might be getting another sun. Um...I'm good with one, how about you?

Here's a real pretty crab nebula, caused by a SUPERNOVAAAA in the year 1054 that was so bright apparently, that people could see it from earth.

Hey, an asteroid may hit earth in 2036. Just FYI.

A study about sex in outer space, on the way to Mars, and what would happen when female astronauts got pregnant and had babies on Mars. No joke.

Some more beautiful space photos by Alan Friedman.

And last but not least, this is the catchiest song about Space Unicorns you've ever seen. 

NEW YEAR, NEW DAY PLANNER

You know what I'm most excited for this New Year?

Using my new moleskine mini day planner. Yeah, I'm that kind of dork.

MINI PLANNERS from Moleskine ® on Vimeo.

I have the cool green one. It's so teeny!

                              Images from here and here.

There's something so appealing about such tiny organization!

GUERILLA KNITTING!

I saw some trees today that made me so happy! Have you ever heard of guerrilla knitting (aka "Yarn Bombing")? To me, a knitting ignoramus, it seems like magic. How do they get it on there? Total magic. There is no other possible explanation.

I actually spotted these trees from the bus window this morning on my way to work, and immediately jumped off at the next stop to take a few flicks.This is why you should always have a camera with you!

Look how pretty they are!

 

 

See more guerilla knitting projects here, here and here.

SPACE STUFF

Why is outer space so captivating? It's as beautiful as it is horrifying. Think about it: a gigantic vacuum full of rocks and gas surrounds us on all sides. Void, cold, expanding and contracting...I can't even stare at the sky for very long without thinking about the thin layer of atmosphere that is standing between all life on earth and nothingness. 

Funny talk coming from a girl named Nova.

---

"A ribbon of gas, a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago, floats in our galaxy. The supernova that created it was probably the brightest star ever seen by humans."

Weird!

Space is so cool.

---

I mean, just look at these photos.

Then look again while telling yourself "THIS IS REAL".

It's hard to believe.

---

You'd expect unicorns and wizards to come flying out of this.

But no, it's space. They'd die. It's just a nebula. No big deal.

---

SPACELOG.ORG is a really cool website that has documented communications between Major Tom and the ground control. (Total David Bowie up in this bitch. BTW, did you know that song is actually about a heroin overdose? Now you do. My dad told me.)

---

 Here's the Orion Nebula.

cool huh?

---

2010 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Every day until Christmas The Big Picture is going to put up a photo from the Hubble Space Telescope. The first one's already up. It's fantastic. And scary! EE! 

SPACE STUFF!

 ---

This is called a crab nebula. 

It's what's left after a supernova that was recorded 

in the year 1054 in China and Japan. 

Can you believe this thing?

 ---

 Dark Matter!

 I didn't even know that was a real thing.

Sounds evil.

---

Good ol' planet GJ 1214b ...aka one of the"super earths". Either it's steamy or hazy, they're not sure. I'm hoping for hazy because water = aliens = extreme terror.

---

 Antennae Galaxy

"These two spiral galaxies, drawn together by gravity, 

started to interact a few hundred million years ago. 

The Antennae Galaxies are the nearest and youngest 

examples of a pair of colliding galaxies."

---

Here's a recent article on the "super earth" and the fact that there are way more stars than scientists thought.

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 "Extreme" star birth.

"This image, released for Hubble's 17th anniversary, shows a region of star birth and death in the Carina Nebula. The nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun."

Ho. Ly. Shit.

---

Scratch n Sniff photos of the moon. Apparently it smells like gunpowder. 

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This is called the Sombrero Galaxy. WOW!

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Here are the prettiest and most unbelievable photos you've ever seen: HubbleSite gallery 

All the images used in this post are from there.

The Saturday Seventeen...

It's Saturday! Which, on my work week is actually a Wednesday, so it's not really that exciting. But what the heck, you guys get the day off, right? Except you parents, who are all like "A day off? What's that? LOL"

Ryan and the kids left this morning at 5:00 to drive up island and work at a Christmas craft fair at the kids' school so I'm having a super long, quiet, nice relaxing morning. And to celebrate, here are seventeen things I've found on the internet that are awesome. Or at least interesting.

1. A time lapse video of a dandelion changing from flower to seeds.
 
2. The Red Velvet store that Elsie just opened. It's so pretty!

3. Inflatable Street Art. (video)

4. Pencil socks. Consider these added to my Christmas list!

5. "Vintage Twitter" post-it packaging.Very clever!

6. "12 Amazing, Odd and Unusual Fruits"...I learned a thing or two from this article. Do you know where cashews come from?

7. Photos of, and an article about, those Hyena men in Nigeria...they're not drug dealers after all!

8. If you haven't seen the National Geographic's Photography Contest entries for this year, LOOK NOW! Each picture is more unbelievable than the next.Wait, that was a weird sentence. I mean every picture is fantastic.

9. Know your satanic ritual symbols! (video)

10. Dramatic Eagle is even funnier than Dramatic Chipmunk.

11. Halloween in New Orleans.

12. I think this is some clever graffiti.

13. Slayer plays the Jon Stewart show in the '90s. SO GOOD! (video)

14. A completely different kind of music. This guy made his own instrument from PVC pipes and plays at a talent show of some kind, where everybody looks very unimpressed. But he's amazing! (video)

15. In case you live under a rock and haven't seen this before: How To Be Alone. (video)

16. The craziest dance move I've ever seen. And the most painful?

17. An amazing blog written by a travel journalist. Inspires wanderlust every time I read it.

Radiohead Rediscovered

 I realize that only people who really like the band already

are even going to read past the title of this post, 

so this one's for you, guys! 

I've recently begun re-loving Radiohead. They were one of my go-to pretty and fun to sing along to bands in high school, and over the years I got too "cool" or "hard core" or something for them. But now that I'm old enough to not give a care who knows what I like, I'm saying it loud and proud. 

One of my walking in the snow songs of choice these days is Exit Music (for a film). If you have never listened to this song, give it a chance. You have to be alone, somewhere quiet. And wait for it. It's an excruciatingly slow build to a quick crescendo near the end of the song, 

but you won't be disappointed if you just let it roll over you.

Here, I'll even do the super cool emo blogger thing and put the lyrics underneath the video, 

so you can sing along if you want or whatever. 

Wake from your sleep, the drying of your tears, Today we escape, we escape. Pack and get dressed before your father hears us, before all hell breaks loose. (chorus) Breathe, keep breathing, don't lose your nerve. Breathe, keep breathing, I can't do this alone. Sing us a song, a song to keep us warm, there's such a chill, such a chill. And you can laugh a spineless laugh, we hope your rules and wisdom choke you. And now we are one in everlasting peace, we hope that you choke, that you choke, etc.

 

Here are a couple more of my olde tyme Radiohead favorites, since I'm already totally doing this.

 

Just. This is one of the best music videos ever. Also, the song is catchy as hell.

 

Fake Plastic Trees. As a lusty teenaged girl I briefly thought I fell in love 

with Thom Yorke after seeing this. (haha, ew)

Paranoid Android. I also love singing trying to sing to this one, and the video is fantastic. 

 

Creep. Who didn't slow dance with someone to this in middle school 

and then when the chorus came on 

try to headbang and totally ruined the moment? Just me?

 

---

 Any other closet Radiohead lovers in the house? 

rediscovering the paper journal

There are things a person just shouldn't put on the internet. It's different for everybody. For some, fights with the significant other are excellent for driving their blog traffic up, for others it's a secret not even their best friend knows. Some people love calling out people at their place of work, airing their beefs with family and friends in front of the entire internet, and making harsh jokes at the expense of people they encounter in their daily lives.

Those people are brave. Because people have a way of stumbling upon things.

I'm pretty careful on this blog. It seems like the only victims of my writers-rage have been bus riders...and I do hope they have all found what I've said about them and learned that they are total idiots who should not be allowed out without a handler and sedatives.

When things happen that make me angry, I'm talking REALLY angry, or stressed out, like REALLY stressed out, I have to work it out. Usually Ryan makes a great sounding board. From reading Cosmo magazine as a girl I thought I'd never find someone who listens so well and speaks with such a clear head, but Ryan is the best. He'll play devil's advocate, he'll offer suggestions or he'll just listen and give me a hug once I shut up.

Sometimes though, somebody listening still isn't enough.

I'd love to blog all day long about stuff that happens, things that hurt my feelings or rude comments that I can't forget...but it's too personal. I'd also love to vent daily about how much EFFING BUREAUCRACY AND BULLSHIT is involved in paying back my student loans, and how very very very frustrated I am with the entire process. WHY DOESN'T THEIR WEBSITE EVER WORK? RAAH ... I'd love to say stuff about that every single day. And my financial woes...oh yeah! I'd love to bitch about that all the time!

I don't talk about these things for four reasons:

1) They're negative, and I'm really trying to focus on the happy side of the coin. (I'm going to CUBA in a few weeks! My brother is in town! My life is pretty awesome!)

2) They're boring for the reader. Have you ever read a blog that is like "omg I have so much homework." "Ah, bills, they're so hard to pay." It's just a reminder of all the same crap that's going on in my own life. Boring! The blogs I love the most are the happiest, prettiest and funniest ones. Would you buy a magazine full of headlines like "Car payments are expensive" and "my husband watches too much football"? I wouldn't!

3) They can jeopardize my real life relationships. This is the most important one. Have you ever found a blog that disses you? I thought I had once. It was one hurtful sentence that could have been directed at me, until I delved deep into the syntax and found that it was talking about someone with the same job in the same city as me, but in a different shop. But for a split second I was very upset. I don't want to make anybody feel that way except for the jerks on the bus who ruin my day. Because seriously. Yeah. I hate them.

4) I don't want to.

Lately, quite a few blogs I read have mentioned the whole "how much of my life do I show the reader?" conundrum. I'd like to think that people would show us the best parts of it; the happiest moments, the most interesting discoveries, the best photos, the funniest conversations...do your best. It's fun to give a little piece of yourself to the world via blogging...just don't give too much.

And this is where the journal comes in. Ahhh sweet paper journals, how I love thee.

Paper journals are the answer.

You can say whatever you want. And nobody will know. I love working things out on paper. I make lists, budgets, I say really mean things that sometimes get crossed out or torn up, I draw (really ugly) pictures of things, and sometimes just the act of putting that crap on paper can help make it seem more manageable.

Online journals can become messengers of hatred and spite if you're not careful. There's a fine balance between feeling good about what you write and saying what you want. How can a person be themselves on the internet? I don't believe they really can.

But, with the right attitude and a little self restraint, they can show bits and pieces of themselves. Here's what I've been telling myself lately to get out of my little attitude slump I've been having.

Do your best. 

Be thoughtful.

Be kind.

Don't worry, it'll all work out.

Take time for yourself.

Write in that damn journal, not on the internet. 

:)

it's self portrait time!

Halloween is over but I love these photos from Galey Farms and you have to look at them now because I said so.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. 

Yes, that includes Christmas. 

There's something about candy combined with creepy Halloween decorations, haunted houses, corn mazes and ... other weird crap ... my favorite thing on earth is the juxtaposition between cute and creepy. (That must also be why I like artists like Mark Ryden so much as well!)

That's also what makes me love Galey Farms more and more every year. 

It's totally silly, it's crazy, it's so much fun!

Basically it's the can't-miss place to be in October. I have no idea what they do the rest of the year but I know you can go there and get a pumpkin or whatever in the daytime. Isn't it cheerful?

Images from here here here and here.

But you really want to go at night. Trust me. They have a pretty huge corn maze you can walk through, they have kids train rides, and they have haunted houses; one for kids (which is actually kind of scary) and an adult one (called carnEVIL, lol!) that costs an extra ten bucks to get into. 

I went into carnEVIL one year with Ryan and a friend of ours to surprise her for her birthday and ... yeah it was actually kind of terrifying. We actually ran through, pushing Ryan ahead of us and screaming.It's very well done.

They also have little dioramas set up of creepy scenarios all around the farm. Some of them you have to take the train to see, some of them you will find by exploring the corn maze.

CHECK OUT SOME PHOTOS I TOOK

 on October 30th. 

 (excuse the blurry ones, I refused to use flash the entire night)

1. Random shots 

2. View from the very middle of the corn maze. 

As you can see, there is a gigantic sphinx. Here it is up close.

And inside it...MUMMIES!

2. The 'graveyard' can be found by walking to the very end of the corn maze. It features a whole lot of wailing and things jumping (very comically) out of the ground and a wishing well. Also? Weird shadowy figures in the distance. 

3. The train ride. You buy your ticket and line up for sometimes up to half an hour. There's nothing particularly scary on the ride, but it is rather creepy. The train tracks run around the whole place. There's trees decorated with Christmas lights, the pitch black pumpkin patch, a man in a monkey suit that jumps onto the side of the train and grabs children, an entire old-West town, and...well... and more. Here's some of the stuff we saw from the train.

4. My personal favorite, the 'dioramas'. You walk through a sort of 'town' constructed out of old sheds, and in each one there's a little scene going on. For example, the butcher shop, a restaurant, the blood bank, and more! It's so funny and there's so much to look at. I love this place! 

This is also where the kids haunted house is. 

So great, right? It's just the perfect balance between silly and scary.

p.s. 
If none of those pictures creeped you out, then check this out!

AAAGH!