Our powers of delusion at work again

Did you know that we hate ourselves over here in Finny and Bubba Land?

Because we do.

Otherwise how can you explain why two people who have been through many annoying household construction projects after which saying that we'd NEVER DO ANY CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS AGAIN EVER are now in the midst of the biggest pain in the ass construction project ever?

HOW CAN YOU?

I can not explain it, yet here we are.

And HEY FUN there's a hole in the floor and the cleaning lady refuses to clean the toilet during construction.

We are, in our sub-1,000 square foot 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house, completely remodeling our bathroom.

Let me allow the significant parts of that sentence sink in for you in case you didn't fully embrace the potential for madness on the first read...

...1 BATHROOM HOUSE...COMPLETELY REMODELING OUR BATHROOM.

Yes. We have (or should I say had) one single solitary mostly awful bathroom in our tiny ass house that we'd been staring at with loathing YOU'RE NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD eyes since we moved in back in 2005.

This is when it was brand new. Even then - HIDEOUS. Also, nice staging, losers.

Staring at the stupid time capsule shower with its too-shallow shelves that nothing fit on, rickety plastic sliding  door made of warped "privacy" plastic, ugly white tile countertops on the off-the-shelf shabby chic vanity from the clearance aisle of Home Depot, vinyl floors with faux Travertine tile pattern...blech.

I like how the seller tried to tell us that this shower was "Of the era" for our 1918-built house. RIGHT. Like they knew how to time travel in 1918.

For seven years we've looked at, bathed in and HATED TO OUR VERY CORES this single solitary bathroom in our tiny house.

Until we couldn't take it anymore.

We'd beaten around the bush long enough. We'd done the other distasteful but not ridiculously awful projects and let ourselves feel accomplished for having done those and let ourselves off the hook on the inevitable bathroom project that we just.could.not.face.

Because it was going to be such an impenetrable pain in the ass.

Then, well then, about a year's time passed after remodeling the breakfast nook into a bar which gave us enough time to block out the relatively mild pain and misery of that project, plus lots of space between us and our previously more painful and miserable other projects (Hi, kitchen, garage, front porch, fireplace, fence and back patio - you all were SUPER annoying), so that we could approach the bathroom remodel in our 1 bathroom house with some modicum of delusion.

See, for a project like this, one does not need patience, understanding or even an impressively stocked bar (though, that did help WHILE IT WAS STILL ACCESSIBLE BEHIND ALL THE CONSTRUCTION DEBRIS). No, one needs delusion.

Delusion that tells you that, "It won't be that bad.", "It won't take *that* long.", "We've endured worse.", "We can always just get a kiddie pool for the yard and shower out there with the hose and won't that be fun." and also that "This bathroom is so awful that it will be worth it."

Honestly, people, now that we're going on our sixth week without a fully functioning bathroom in our house, that old bathroom is, in my fading memory, looking less hideous and unacceptable than it did when we started out.

Oh wait, no. Still awful. HATE YOU TILE COUNTERTOP.

Because back then I remember what it was like to be able to take a shower without first rolling up a change of clothes with a clean towel and hiking across the street to our neighbor's house hoping that I wasn't going to interrupt a peaceful time in their day with my incessant showering.

I remember what it was like to not have to restock the bathroom with TP every five minutes because the contractor seemed to find it the best tool for dealing with construction spills and touch ups and whatever else he does in there which I do not want to know about.

That morning the TP was brand new. WHAT HAPPENS IN ONE DAY?

I remember what it was like to not have people traipsing in and out of our house, over the paper runway taped to my wood floors, making a holy fucking mess out of every other part of my house and yard in the name of improving the smallest room in my house.

I remember these things NOW, yet somehow the All Powerful Delusion of Bathroom Hating allowed me to forget them at the crucial moment when Bubba and I decided that we'd redo the bathroom.

Just like that we were all, "You know, it's really time we redid the bathroom."

And then neither of us argued, which is very unlike us.

Because if there's something that we both hate more than that old bathroom it's having people up in our grill in the house making a mess.

We're not good with it. Our house is small, cleaning sucks and we really like to shower regularly.

Anyway, that said, we're in the throes of it all right now.

The project seem so innocent when we were picking out finishes.

And then they unearthed the largest vent pipe in creation.

And ANOTHER pipe that's totally not connected. 

And Ice Cream Sandwich plaster and lathe.

And who doesn't love waterproofing that takes a solid week to install and dry?

I love that, when I took this photo a few weeks ago, I thought this was bad. It was BEFORE the tile saw moved in permanently. 

I'll ask you to forgive me for taking pictures with my phone. 

The real "After" photos will be much better. Promise.

With any luck we'll have a working shower in our house in a few weeks and then maybe by the rapture we'll have the project done and the contractors far away where they can't rinse out their paint cans on my salvia plants or use all of the TP in mankind.

OH THAT WILL BE INCREDIBLE.

I learned a thing. After being stupid 100 times.

So, I wrote this post back before the days when BIGHUGETHINGNEWS was out breathing everyone's air, and am only just sharing it with you now.

Because I apparently really like to tell you when I've done something stupid for which you will likely judge me harshly.

I can really be not bright. 

Enjoy...

Ever done something a hundred times and then, on the 101st time realized that you'd had it wrong the whole time and not for, like, a really complicated reason but rather a super simple one that makes you feel like a total ass?

Like, say, turning the oven to "BR" and then inserting food into said oven with the intention of BRowning it rather than BRoiling? On the 101st time realizing that OHMYGOD BR means Broil and not Brown? 

No?

I've certainly never done that 100 times in case that's what you're thinking. That is a totally random example that I just thought up in my mind which came from nowhere and certainly not from personal experience.

Anyway, you ever done anything like that? Because I have. 

Today, in fact.

See, I went out to the garden to drink my tea this morning. 

Which went fine until I realized that the garden was a fucking shitshow and needed my attention STAT. 

With everything that's gone on lately what with the BIGHUGETHINGNEWS and all, a few things have been neglected including, ironically, the garden, and suddenly I couldn't neglect it any longer and still withstand the shockwaves of irony.

So, I decided to fix it. 

I watered some things, I reset the garden irrigation, I pruned a few things, I picked some peppers and basil and kumquats, I fertilized a tomato plant and I mowed what's left of our lawn after my whole SUCK LESS campaign.

It was in the mowing of the lawn wherein I had my HOLY SHIT I'M SLOW IN THE BRAINS moment and subsequently learned a thing.

A thing dawned on me.

Any guesses on what that thing was?

I won't wait, I'll just tell you.

Well, after a little lead up. It is my way after all.

 See, we have this gas mower which works like most other infuriating yard machines:

Hello, asshole mower.

1. It is first forcibly extracted from the garage
2. Then, in the harsh light of day, you take stock of all of its pull starts and priming bulbs and levers and clutch this and brake that and put fuel in here and what have yous
3. Then you reach waaaaaaaaay back into the dusty archives of your brains to try piece together the process by which this specific machine comes alive to do its proprietary job
4. Then you pull all of its starts and prime all of its bulbs and move around all of its leavers and grab the clutch and hit the brake and pour fuel into any open hole and your own shoes in all the possible configurations until such time as the machine comes magically to life 
5. Then you complete the single job with the proprietary machine, being careful not to let it die mid-job because you don't have 25 minutes to repeat all of those configurations again before happening upon the magical one that makes the machine do its job
6. Then you survey the job this magical infuriating machine has done, decide it's good enough, do a half assed job at cleaning up and shove it back into the garage at which time blocking many other magic machines and infuriating yard and garage implements that will obviously need to be extracted and used for their proprietary purposes within the hour
7. You go on with your life forgetting everything you just learned so that you can revisit the fun in a few weeks' time

Sound familiar? I'm just going to pretend that it does because I find solace in solidarity. 

Well, anyway, today I had apparently stared at the lawn mower in just the right way with just enough brain-power enhancing caffeine and adrenaline (I had just gotten home from working out and also tearing through my garden righting the irony and all) pumping through my brains to realize that the answer for HOW DO I START THIS PIECE OF SHIT without going through the many lever moving and pull starting configurations had been there all along.

Right there on the damn start lever with a little cute icon that looks just like the pull start and OH MY GOD WHY DID I NOT REALIZE THIS BEFORE?

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh. Right.

This means START POSITION. 

Like, when you want the machine to start, you point the lever toward the THIS LOOKS LIKE A PULL START icon and then you PULL THE PULL START and holy hell it totally roars to life.

Why.

Why oh why did I think that a lawnmower was such a complicated and advanced machine that required the fluent speaking of its special lawnmower language to coax it into action? 

Did I think that lawnmowers were made with the target audience of Silicon Valley's highest trained computer science engineers who learn how to speak Lawnmower while pursuing their doctorate at one of the IITs?

And that these huge-brained individuals were the only ones in all of humanity who'd know how to make sense of this grass clipping machine's complicated inner workings?

Because that's just retarded.

Lawnmowers are made for suburban normals like yours truly who have some kind of grass and want to cut it so that the dog won't be lost in its overgrowth.

Oh save me from the horrors of tall grass. I skeered.

Normal people with normal educations or sometimes normal people with no education and also freaks with questionable education, a dark past, inexplicable scars, a tattoo of words written in an unrecognizable alphabet in their bathing suit area and a criminal record. 

You know - just your average everyday person who might cut some grass.

And the common language that all those normal people PLUS the huge-brained folks that emerge from the IITs have in common is HEY I KNOW WHAT THAT PICTURE LOOKS LIKE-ease.

Except that I, apparently, had forgotten how to speak HEY I KNOW WHAT THAT PICTURE LOOKS LIKE until today, but now I remember.

Like how having a couple shots of tequila in Mexico TOTALLY improves your Spanish, I had a couple shots of caffeine and yardwork when suddenly BAM! I spoke Lawnmower again.

Lawnmower: To start this machine, point the lever to the picture of the pull start and then pull the pull start. Done.

Why I thought it was: To start this machine, point the lever toward the rabbit, then the turtle, then the weird propeller looking thing while holding the clutch and the brake and pouring gas into the tank and yanking on the pull start is 100% beyond me.

These are not the magic wands of the lawnmower world. I know this now.

There aren't any pictures that say to do that. 

Yet that's what I was doing.

Because I have to do something stupid 100 times to learn a very simple thing: How to speak Lawnmower.  AKA - HEY I KNOW WHAT THAT PICTURE LOOKS LIKE.

Wow. Feeling smart. 

500 new pets

As I said at some point, though I'll admit I don't know exactly when, I was drafting up posts during the BIGHUGETHINGNEWS IS COMING in between period, and now that the secret's out, I can share these posts.

Even if they seem all weird because I wrote them, like, weeks ago. 

Anyway, remember when I said I have 500 new pets? I do. 

Here you go...

So, have you already guessed that I have a box of worms making poo outside of my home office window?

NO?

Who are you people anyway?

Kidding. I totally love you guys.

Meanwhile, that was my way of telling you that my 500 new pets are worms. Red Crawlers from what I understand.

They are in a plastic tote drilled with breathing holes sitting atop a few excess pavers from our forever-ago-now backyard landscaping project getting started on the business of eating my kitchen scraps and pooping them out.

I have an actual shit box in my backyard now because we've gone Full WT around here, folks.

Even more fun will be when I get to make poo tea and then spray it all over my property.

RIGHT?

Sounds like some sort of sick porn fetish, but I swear to you (I was so tempted to say "shit you not" right there, but you don't come here for cliched bullshit so I will just give you uncreative bullshit instead. See how I could have said "wormshit" instead of "bullshit" right there? Again - saving you from cliches. I know it - I'm amazing and generous.) it's just a 1/2 pound of worms squirming around in compost and kitchen scraps shitting up the joint so that I can, later on, mix their shit with water, strain it into a garden sprayer and just go merrily spraying it about on all of my plants and especially my vegetables so that they can grow big and strong and disease-free just a-makin' my food.

That's right - poo > food > food > poo > repeat.

If Bubba were here, he'd totally call that a shit sandwich even though "shit sandwich" is usually used to describe a hopeless situation and, in this case, it's not hopeless at all. Unless you consider it to be hopelessly fraught with cliched shit jokes peril, in which case...Oh, yeah it probably is. I'll have to be careful about that one.

Oh, and if you missed that gentle similarity to beekeeping back in there, go back and look harder and then come back to me down here and we can be all, "Oh my god, when did you start buying pets by the pound?"

Are you with me on this one yet? Let me help you out since I know this post has gotten weird and off track and poo-smeared: I bought the bees in 3 pound increments which amounted to 10,000 bees. And then I bought worms in 1/2 pound increments which amounted to 500 worms.

I now, it would seem, buy my pets in bulk and by the pound. It's very Big Box sounding, but I assure you it's not Big Box-ish in any other way. I mean, I didn't have to get a membership card or a giant Rolls Any Which Way cart to procure these fine beasts or anything.

And now, as though I'm living my childhood fantasies one at a time, I have a box of worms outside my kitchen door into which I may peek at any time of the day.

Didn't I have the weirdest childhood fantasies? I swear that I also had normal ones that involved certain members of New Kids on the Block dancing nude in my living room. And also Joe Montana. But never at the same time I'M NOT A FREAK.

So, to conclude this post which is sure to get me some raised eyebrows in the SPAM and porn traffic departments, I now keep stinging insects and slimy creepy crawlers, set up seasonal grow ops in my kitchen, shout biblical commandments, do The Science, let things ferment and mold in my kitchen, brew tea from poo and happily receive dirt as a gift all in the name of growing organic vegetables.

I've officially hit What-The-Fuck-O'clock on the ole life timer.

BIGHUGETHINGNEWS

For a second I was all, “I wonder if it’s even going to seem like BIG HUGE THING NEWS anymore after all of this hype and waiting around and not helpful tweets like this one.”, but then I realized that, No Way.

It’s totally still BIG HUGE THING NEWS.

To me.

And since this blog is all about me and that’s what you guys have been reading about for the last seven years (still wows me, that number), I think you’ll still see it as BIG HUGE THING NEWS, too.

Because the BIG HUGE THING NEWS is all about me and my life and also Bubba and our life and how I’m apparently doing my damndest to change it all.

I’m throwing a curveball, friends, a big fat life curveball and I’m hoping for the best while also knowing that there’s a very real Worst out there that could take over these best intentions of mine and set me back on my ass, OUR asses, like nothin’.

To give you an idea of the big fatness of this life curveball I’m throwing (and let’s not forget for a minute that I have zero eye/hand coordination and that throwing’s not my game to begin with), I already had (and have) a pretty sweet life.

One that didn’t, from an outsider’s perspective, probably need a big fat curveball thrown right at it. No, I imagine that most people looking at my life would have been like, “Hey, that’s pretty sweet. Great job, amazing husband, cute dog, evil cat, fun times galore, much drinking and misbehavior. Good going, weird girl.”

Not, “Ugh, what are you doing with your life, weird girl? Get your shit together. Throw a curveball. Change everything you’re doing because WOW you’re really fucking shit up.”

Which is what I’ve always thought was the premise for changing one’s life - the act of majorly fucking it up for a long time and needing a big fat curveball of change to shove everything back onto the rails.

But my life was great - IS great - and yet still, I’m shoving and curveballing and basically, if looked at on paper, fixing what’s not broken.

Except on the inside, I knew it was broken.

I was, in my early 30s, still living the life that I designed for myself when I was a teenager. Which, if you think about it, is what a lot of people do because that’s what we’re sort of guided along to do, right?

We go through school, all the while being prepped for the idea of college and trying to do things to get into the college that will serve us best in the long run. Which means deciding what we Want To Be.

When we’re, like, 12 years old.

So, shit that’s important and shiny and fun when you’re 12 is what you end up basing these decisions on.

And when I was 12 and impressionable and watched MTV (at my friend’s houses, we never had cable) and went to the mall and did whatever, the shiny interesting shit was what was on TV and blasting out at me from billboards and the radio (terrestrial, since there wasn’t satellite radio then - savages) and Cosmo and what not.

Which is to say - advertising.

I really absorbed a lot of advertising. And not the messages, necessarily - like I was running from one parent or store to another going, “I MUST HAVE THIS THING.” - but the concept of it and its power.

I saw that advertising did, despite folks’ intentions, influence people. It spoke to people. It got into their heads and got them moving. Albeit in some of the most tragic and ill-advised directions, but it got people doing shit.

And not for nothing, the stuff was sorta glamorous and shiny and cool and rad and all of those teenagery things, too.

I wanted to be a part of that. When I was 12.

So, I set out on a crash course to become part of that world. I took special classes in high school for graphic design, I went to junior college courses during high school to get ahead, I chose my college based on where I could major in Advertising and Marketing rather than just “Communications”, I steered myself right back to San Francisco’s Financial District as soon as I graduated so that I could work in one of the ad agencies I’d been ogling since my youthful days of traveling to Giants games with my mom, I then worked many long hours in various ad agencies and, when the age of internet advertising came along, I went full force into that world. Then I worked at the hub of internet advertising for nine years all up to my ears in it.

It was fun, thrilling, sucky, stressful, interesting, boring, exciting, depressing, awesome, lame and every other emotion in between. I cheered, I cried, I swore LOTS, I met some cool people and some shitty people and I changed.

Over the time I was living this self designed life of my 12 year old mind, I totally changed.

I mean, truly, I was probably working on this change my whole life, but didn’t really pay attention to it until I was sitting in a meeting in a conference room on The First Day of Spring and couldn’t stop thinking, “I should be outside.”

“I should be outside and my manicured hand that I’m now looking at typing away furiously on this keyboard should be balls deep in my garden knocking down the cover crop that’s rapidly going to beans so that it will have time to break down enough to feed my summer vegetable plants when I put them in the ground in a few weeks and...”

I’m in there with my laptop open, trying to contribute to a day long brainstorm session about online advertising operation strategies with my four inch heels jammed into the low pile carpet while routinely bashing my knees on the sunuvabitching table brace as I swiveled back and forth from looking at the overhead projector to my teammates to the laptop and, eventually to the window so that I could let my little inside voice get a word in edgewise for a little moment.

That was a few years ago.

I was still fully up to my eyes in internet advertising, the world of online technology and all the things that come in that burrito.

And it had started to feel not right.

I started to feel like maybe one day I was going to have to change burritos. I’d been an al pastor for most of my life and maybe I wanted to try being a bean and cheese for a while. Or a carne asada with pico de gallo. Or, maybe what if I was something completely different like a brandywine caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella and lettuce leaf basil...

What if that?

And then the little inside voice started to get not so little and then, eventually, not so inside.

I’ll spare you the intense, mind-numbing, extremely boring-for-people-who-are-not-me rehashing of the very self-reflecty and soul-searchy years that took place during my wind up - from the time when the little inside voice got too loud to ignore and when it became an outside voice making choices and throwing life curveballs and I’ll just cut to those curveballs...

BIG HUGE THING #1
Five months ago I enrolled in college (never thought I'd say that again) to get a horticulture degree in Organic Agriculture and Crop Production.

That's right. I'm going to be a farmer.

BIG HUGE THING #2
At the same time, I started building a business model for the kitchen garden coaching company that I’m about to launch.

BIG HUGE THING #3
And almost two months ago, I quit my job. My very great and lovely job at the very great and lovely company for which I’d worked for nine years.

And then came the pitch: Walking out the doors of the Great and Lovely job and into a life of uncertainty and excitement and passion and dirt and closed toe shoes and let me teach you how to test your soil and can your tomatoes and sow a cover crop and then WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE.

Except, the WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONE part has not yet occurred. I imagine that’s on the horizon somewhere.

For now, I’m just basking in the glory of the pitch on its way to the batter.  The curveball is an unpredictable pitch that can throw off a batter something fierce and, in the case of my curveball hero, it breaks late and wears a disguise until it crosses the plate, so you never really know what you’re getting until it’s too late.

Also, I do not know when this became a baseball analogy, but since I do like baseball and I expect you not to argue with me while I’m pouring out my BIGHUGETHINGNEWS soul to you, I’m going to keep rolling with it.

So, quiet you baseball haters. I don’t understand you anyway.

The point is that Bubba and I - and let us not gloss over, meanwhile, the amazing, heart-swelling, superhuman husband strength that this man possesses which is pushing this whole life curveball over the plate that I will cover in many future posts - are changing it up.

(Now that I think about it, I should have used the changeup as my pitching analogy of choice, but I think that the world understands a changeup even less than a curveball, so I’m going to give myself a pass here, so nevermind this.)

We’ve both changed jobs, I’ve started school and a business and we’ve set our futures on a completely different trajectory than it was when we first got together a dozen years ago. We still want to end up in the same place, but our road to get there just now looks a lot different.

And he has finally gotten his true deep-down wish - I am forced to wear proper shoes. 

I will wear proper shoes. BUT ONLY FOR THE FARM TOUCHING. And only under protest.

You just can’t wear flip-flops while working on a farm. Which I was told in no uncertain terms during our first outing to the department's farm for my organic ag lab in my Reefs.

The next week I showed up in my Van’s, worn Atlas gloves and ballcap and promptly shoved my arm shoulder deep into a pile of compost.

I was home.

And now you all get to watch as I take a swing at this life curveball. Enjoy.

999

Raincheck!

Super Secret Guest Poster is extremely, terrifyingly, exhaustingly busy and needs a break.

So, because I'm such a nice wife...er...friend...I'm giving this SUPER SECRET and mysterious person a raincheck on post 999.

So keep an eye out for this post in the somewhat near future, perhaps when it starts raining because that's the soonest we're likely to see this person emerge from their Nose To The Grindstone position for any length of time.

Post 1,000 in 3, 2, 1...

(Shhh...you didn't see me here.)

(Look. I know you guys are all, "Where the eff is post 999 and 1,000 and what is the BIG HUGE THING NEWS? and all that.

I know.

I want to tell you.

All in good time.

Meanwhile, post 999 is in the capable hands of SUPER SECRET GUEST POSTER and I'm tweeting daily BIG HUGE THING NEWS hints.

So, if you don't already follow me on Twitter, I'm @finnyknits. My daily hints are tagged #BIGHUGETHINGNEWS.

If you hate Twitter with the fury and soul-melting heat of a thousand fiery suns and won't be talked into such behavior even to get a glimpse at shoddy photos taken with my phone and obscure references to subjects that I'll cover in the future after the BIG HUGE THING NEWS is announced, well, OK.

I mean, do whatever you like, really. I'm not here to plug Twitter. They're just a company with a bird logo.

So, there you go. A little something to hold you over.

Now SHHH! You didn't see me here.)

Not post 999

Hey friends - just a little hello to say that, while this is not post 999 and I am not your SUPER SECRET GUEST POSTER (even though that'd be kinda funny to be all, "Hey! Surprise! Your super secret guest poster is me after all this HA HA HA. Sorry."), the SUPER SECRET GUEST POSTER will be ready with your post soon and just to ensure that this person can post whenever they are ready, I'm actually going to send them the invite to the blog right now.

Freaks me out a little to give open access to someone to just post whatever they want especially since this person knows more about me than probably me and my mom put together, but I'm doing it.

For you.

You're welcome.

But I'm also doing it for me (which is my main reason for doing most things) because I really want to get post 1,000 and the BIG HUGE THING NEWS out into the world so that you can all judge me and then get over it and then get INTO it and then hang out with me while I go headlong into the BIG HUGE THING NEWS that I promise you is not that I'm pregnant.

Let me repeat that for those of you who don't read run on sentences like that last one -

I AM NOT PREGNANT. 
THAT IS NOT THE BIG HUGE THING NEWS. 
SO JUST SHUT IT ALL UP.

However, SUPER SECRET GUEST POSTER is a busy person who is, right now, trying to accomplish many things and keep many balls in the air and with very little sleep, so I'm trying not to pester this person with WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO DO POST 999 because they might snap.

And I don't want that kind of snappage because yikes.

So, soon, my friends.

And then after post 1,000 will be a string of posts about all the shit I've been drafting but not posting and none of it will make sense anymore, but I'll still post it because why the hell not, right?

Also, I have 500 new pets as of today and you can just sit and think about what that may be because I'll post something about it AP1K.

Where AP1K = After Post 1,000.

Get it?

I thought you would.

998 questions and a bitch ain't one.

So...um...I guess I owe you guys some answers.

Because when I said you could ask me anything - you really didn't hold back.

Which, obviously because you guys are you guys.

Well done, you guys.

Let's get down to it then. So that we can get to the Super Special Secret Guest Post 999 and then the BIG HUGE THING NEWS on post 1,000. Also, there's a prize on that post. A Finny type prize. Which you can take to mean whatever you want. 

For those questions though...

Am I still knitting?
Um, sometimes. OK, no. More like, rarely. OK - truth, truth - annually. I have a sweater that I started two years ago and I've picked it up once each year since. I'm now an annual knitter. Don't tell the blog header.

How come you don't have air conditioning?
Because we live in a house that would be better described as a sieve. In our >1,000 square foot house we have 17 windows. Seriously. That's the actual number I came up with when I walked from tiny room to tiny room counting on my fingers and toes. 

I nearly ran out of fingers and toes!

In a house the size of my shoe!

Ridiculous.

Best parts are that one of those windows is in a closet and that NONE of them close securely. That means that we have sweaters with a view of our neighbor's driveway AND that air conditioning our house wouldn't so much be like air conditioning our house as it would be like air conditioning AROUND our house which is, No.

Um, how do you know when green tomatoes ripe?
Because they are soft when you squeeze them and smell like a ripe tomato. Also, they taste like a ripe tomato, so just pick one that feels/smells about right and taste it. If it's ripe - YAY. If it's not - BOO.

What ever happened to the Ugly Librarian Sweater?
It has been hanging in my closet ever since that post went live from shame. As soon as I admitted it was Ugly, I haven't been able to wear it. I'm very vain and self-involved, in case you'd somehow missed that.

If you missed that somehow, wake the fuck up. 

How come Bubba and I don't have any kids...
Because this.

How is that front yard meadow is working out...
Eh, it's OK. I mean, it's the summer so it's not all WOO! like in spring time, but it looks just like our golden hillsides in this golden state which is to say the meadow is golden. AKA it looks like it's dead and that we are neglectful homeowners. 

I'll be working out some of the kinks in the meadow this fall so that it looks less like "Um, does anyone live here?" next summer and fall than it does now. 

Do you even knit anymore?
See above.

How I decided that sewing as a profession wasn't for me...
Yeah, so remember when I made the Not Ugly Car Trash Bag? Yeah. Well, I put it up on Etsy for a while and offered my services for a price. Like, I'd sew you a custom Not Ugly Car Trash Bag for some price (I can't even remember now how much) and then *gasp* someone wanted me to make it for that price.

Actually, I should say that they wanted me to make a dozen of them for that price. For some event they were having that involved hair dryers, a corporate promotion and the Hamptons.

In a week's time.

And because I don't know how to manage my time but I do know how to piss it away, I told them I'd do it and then I spent every non-work waking hour fulfilling my obligations. 

Then, after I'd fulfilled my obligation and resumed normal sleeping hours, I swore I'd never do it again because LOATHE.

My sewing machine and I did not get along well during our inseparable time together and I'll tell you right now that it is only because I WILL NOT WELSH ON A PROMISE that I did not spike that soul crushing machine on my dining room floor.

Also because my dining room floor could likely have not taken that kind of impact. 

But really, it was about the fact that I needed that machine so that I wouldn't disappoint this person/company to whom I had made this promise and so I did not get all Office Space on its ass even though it sooooooooooooorely deserved it.

Sunuvabithing machine that breaks needles going through quilter's cotton COME ON.

What ever happened to all that crap you wrote for NaNoWriMo?
Well, firstly you're right to call it crap. Because it was. And - HEY HEY - it still is because I have not gone back to edit a single word of it. Any of the three years I've done it. 

That's right. Three years in a row I wrote 50,000+ words in the month of November for NaNoWriMo and have done dick with the results.

Nothing. 

They're all sitting on my laptop in Scrivener gathering dust and my growing hatred. 

They're all unwashed garbage unfit even for my compost bin. 

Sure, they might be something if I cared one big rat's behind to go in and edit them, but I have bigger tastier fish to fry about now and all of those words can just sit there being the awkwardly constructed sentences and the plot holes that they are until such time as I see fit to pick them apart and reconstruct them into completely different sentences and plot holes.

Maybe.

One day.

Doesn't mean I won't go at NaNoWriMo again this November. And it also doesn't mean that this year's NaNoWriMo 50,000 words won't be the same variety of horseshit. But it probably means that this year's words will end up a similar looking pile which I will ignore forever.

Also, no you may not read any of it. Because I'm pretty sure it's not even written in English or a modern language any of us understand. 

Just come to this blog for proof of that fact.

Ever think of cleaning up that language?
Fuck that.

Don't you think you're becoming an alcoholic? 
Probably. It's my most effective coping mechanism, so coping with that realization has had unfortunate results. I am keeping it mostly in check though, so please don't alert the authorities or my mother. 

You're shaving your heads and moving to Nepal for a year.
No and no. 

When are we going to play? 
Checkers? Scramble on the cell phone? Hopscotch? Name that tune? I don't know. Email me at finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom and, when we're in the same hood, maybe we'll work something out. Meanwhile, if you do play Scramble on the cell phone, my username is finnyknits (shocker) and I do want to play. So there.

Who gets invited to your fantasy dinner party?
People who like whatever I happen to be cooking that night, clean up after themselves, bring booze, like dogs and don't mind eating outside because our dining room is small.

I don't really have fantasies about dinner parties at my house because, frankly, the idea of it stresses me out. 

Honestly, I'd just like to have over people I already know so that there's no pressure to remember names or cater to anyone's bullshit dietary needs.

Whose singing voice do you wish you had? 
Pretty  much anyone's but my own. I am a terrible singer. It's awful, really. Not that it stops me from singing - I totally sing - but I get mean looks and people throw trash at me, so I try to keep the public singing to a minumum.

I guess if I could choose, I'd have Billie Holliday's singing voice. She is one of my favorite singers and her voice is unequaled in the world today. 

What would you title your autobiography? 
I'm not for everyone. 

What top ten CDs can't you live without? 
I don't think I've handled a CD in years, but I'll play ball. Though I'm going to go with artists because I can never choose one album over another. That's a job for someone like Bubba who knows music better than I.

FYI: I don't know dick about music. Bubba's been trying to educate me for years by asking me "Hey, name the band!" when something's playing on the loudspeaker somewhere. I never know the band. Literally, not ever. Even if it's the Rolling Stones. 

OK, maybe once I got it when it was AC/DC, but it's a super rare occasion. To the point where Bubba will look visibly relieved that there's evidence that his wife may not be a total music retard. 

The fact is that I mostly just like genres of music rather than particular artists. And I can always tell you the genre I'm in the mood for. 

Like, when Bubba asks me what I want to listen to, I'll say something like, "Oh! Something doodly-doo!" which falls into the jam band genre or "Lady jazz!" which means, well, vocal jazz or "WAAAAAAAAA" which means hard rock (I think the genre is technically called ScreamO, but that's lame sounding. Instead we call it WAAAAAA because that's the sound they make when they "sing".)

I mostly like Doodly-doo, Lady Jazz and WAAAAAAAAA.

You get it? Kinda. 

Best I know how to describe my fucked up music taste is to say that I know the sounds I like and these people make those sounds.

(in no particular order)

1. Billie Holliday
2. Volbeat
3. Dave Matthews
4. John Hiatt
5. Sarah Vaughan
6. Seether
7. Widespread Panic
8. Theory of a Dead Man
9. Django Reinhart
10. Warren Haynes

What are your phobias? 
Failure. 

Arriving at my death bed regretting not having done things that I TOTALLY could have done but didn't do because I was lazy or afraid.

Grasshoppers. They jump at your face and that is wrong.

Horses. They have enormous teeth that could totally bite your face off.

Chimpanzees. Because they ripped some girl's face off. 

I think I have a face issue. Maybe I have a face phobia? No. That makes no sense. 

Militant religious evangelists.

Who is a real hero in your way of thinking? 
Anyone who makes their own way in the world rather than adhering to the norm. 

People whose default setting is optimism and positivity.

Each of my best friends.

My grandmother.

What Olympic sport would you chose to medal in? 
The biathlon. It's the coolest of the Olympic sports. Or maybe the high dive. That shit is just amazing. Also, I'd like to know that no matter how high the dive, I wouldn't belly flop because OW.

Were you born in the wrong century?
Probably.  A future century where all my beefs with our current century have been sorted out and we all have jet packs fueled by something biodegradable like religious evangelists' limbs.

Can you tango?
Nope. 

What's the worst thing you've ever tasted?
Grilled beef liver. Thought it was a small piece of steak. Was tragically wrong. Had to spit it out on the ground. 

The dog liked it though. 

What's the best? 
Warm Brandywine tomatoes fresh off of my plants. 

Do you believe in ghosts? 
Eh. Not in any real way.

Who among your friends do you admire the most and why? 
I don't really admire one over the others, but of close friends, I admire certain things about each of them THE MOST of anyone I know.

Does that make sense?

Like, Kelli's dedication to writing and her bravery for moving to a new place for the sake of pursuing her own happiness.

And Shelley's bravery for moving to a new country - TWICE - in pursuit of her own happiness.

And Decca and Fo's Blaze Your Own Path Despite The Norms approach to working and managing a household.

Bubba's ability to figure out how to do anything. And then do it. Well.

Elke's ingenuity with languages and how well she knows herself. Also, her fantastic German-ness. 

Dave and Aimee's adventurous spirits and the fact that they're the best travel and ski buddies. Plus Dave's ability to out-swear me.

I could go on. 

I really admire people who go in the direction of their own happiness and don't accept what the world tells them they should be doing. Bravery. Competence. Dedication. Adventurous spirit. These are all good things.

What book do you wish you had written? 
Winterdance. Which would mean that I would have raced in the Iditarod. Which would be incredible.

What movie will you watch every time it's on no matter how many times you've seen it? 

Tombstone. Cold Mountain. Sixteen Candles. A River Runs Through It. High Fidelity. Australia. Say Anything. Star Wars. Out of Africa. Indiana Jones. Tommy Boy. Legends of the Fall. Lots of other ones that are even more shameful than these. 

Who did you lose your virginity to and how? 
Some dude. In the normal way.

Do you believe in god? 
No.

If you had to swap lives with a friend for a month whose life would you choose? 
My friend Christine who's living in Paris right now. She just spent a year in Zurich and that's just awesome.

What food or beverage have you always wanted to try but haven't? 
I've always wanted to eat at the French Laundry, but haven't had the chance yet. I've also wanted to try durian because I imagine it's tragically bad and I want to know *just how bad*. Or, as the case sometimes is with things that *everyone* says is awful - *just how great*.

Why do you run? 
Because this.

Where does the name "Finny" come from? 
From here.

What language would you like to speak fluently? 
Italian and Spanish. I'm much closer on Spanish, but I haven't spent as much time with Italian because of my one million other hobbies.

Actually, fuck that shit, I'd rather be able to speak Greek. Or Japanese. Or Arabic. Or Pashto. Or something that would completely freak people out to hear me - a blondish American girl - speaking fluently.

What celebrity do you have a crush on? 
John Cusak. Matt Damon. Renee Russo. The Rock. Pierce Brosnan. Nicole Kidman. Mike Rowe. Val Kilmer. Johnny Knoxville. 

Have you ever been arrested?
Yep. 

Ok, so that ought to do it. Every single one of your questions has been answered in one way or another and the window for question asking is now closed.

That's mean, isn't it?

Whatever...on to post 999 and the Super Secret Guest Blogger who you've probably already guessed.

Then...1,000 and the BIG HUGE THING NEWS.

I'm going to go jump in a lake now.