tortoisegirl

Boring life events ahead, but damn it's been a good few days.

-First of all, waaahhh, good news at school. Back in March I had my AP scores from high school sent to Temple (after an adviser mentioned they don't have them and I could be getting credit for them). I'm hoping that the upcoming fall semester will be my last, but I'd have to take 18 credits to finish my degree, and knowing how badly things go when I get overwhelmed with schoolwork that would not be a good situation for me. If I could get credit for the AP scores it would mean fewer classes and an increased chance that I'll actually graduate.

So apparently Temple got the scores but no one reviewed them to see if they could count for credit, leaving them floundering in the system for three months and leaving me freaking out. I started complaining to people this week. Three offices later it was resolved, and I got nine credits! So only four classes next semester, which is so much of a relief I can barely stand it. And graduation is in sight, ahhhh!

-My dad and I are both searching for new phones and we were browsing at the T-Mobile store yesterday. While a saleswoman was calculating some costs for him we started talking about how his old cell phone looks like the old Star Trek communicators, and the saleswoman joined in. When it was time to pay she didn't charge him for the stuff he needed. We think it was the Trek talk that did it :)

-My dad loved the graphic novels I got him for his birthday. He was actually looking at the same Clive Barker one online but decided against it because of price. It's sheer luck that I picked it up at the con, since it was the only thing by Barker I saw, and a happy coincidence that I did.

-I went to the art museum today, and the American collection has "Rachel Crying" by C.W. Peale - a painting of a woman crying over the body of a (very obviously) dead child. The description plaque said that when it was originally shown it was kept behind a curtain, with the warning "Before you draw the curtain, consider whether you may afflict a Mother or Father who has lost a child." And I had to suppress some giggles when I realized it was the 1772 version of an LJ cut and a trigger warning. Nothing new under the sun, even for you, internet.

Went to Dad's yesterday for father's day. It was nice seeing him and my sisters, and I got to play his Wii. I cooked all sorts of things as a father's day gift and was ridiculously pleased that everything came out tasty (and that I didn't chop off any fingers in process!).

But I also saw Stripes, my poor old kitty. Dad mentioned a few weeks back that the vet found a tumor under his tongue that was restricting use of his tongue, and he can't eat or groom properly because of it. Dad and Marie-Claire have been hand feeding him wet food and brushing him, but he's gotten so skinny :( He's been stress-chewing the fur off his legs, too. He's gotta be about 15 years old now, and he's still purring and walking around and sitting with people but his age is showing. I'll be cat-sitting two weekends from now so I'll get to spend time with my buddy Stripes.

The other cat, Raja, has no problem eating. He's as big as a house and its a goddamned weight lifting exercise to pick him up. Dad said he's been mean to Stripes, the little brat.

I also reclaimed about two dozen books I'd left at Dad's over the years. Now my room is in an uproar trying to clear off the bookcase to find room for all of them. I have these old textbooks that are out of date and going for a whopping $.75 on ebay. I don't know if used bookstores'll even take them. But with everything a mess I can't find my camera USB; I wanted to post a pic of the late birthday present my sister made me. But later, then.

Also I finally beat The New Super Mario Brothers. \o/ I feel accomplished.

I did a lot of cooking this weekend, and since I remembered to document it with pictures this time I though I'd share some recipes.


First up was No-Knead Bread



( More about it under here. )

Then something cold, since it's humid as hell here: Cantaloupe Sorbet with Honey and Cilantro



( Recipe )

Was introduced to typography video on ontdcreepy. It's essentially just a new way of quoting your favorite movie lines at the world, but who am I to argue against that. They're cool. And there's a ton of them!

This one from Pulp Fiction is one my favs so far.
(NSFW for language)


( A few more )

Been watching these to try to keep myself from checking my email every fives minutes. I'm supposed to hear back from that program that might send me to Japan this week. Nervous about whether I got in or not :(

I've got four days to catch up on two seasons of Lost before the series finale on Sunday. Hulu once again comes to the rescue.

I miss being excited with the rest of the world over a new episode and absolutely freaking out over premiers and finales. Here's hoping I'll get to join the party one more time before it's over. Lost marathon is go!

This week has been a bunch of good things/bad things and a serious case of "appreciate the little things or go crazy."

Bad thing: On Monday there were anti-abortion demonstrations on campus, set up right at the belltower. They had the dead fetus pictures (and they were GIANT pictures, 10 ft boards all around the base of the belltower), but them they had to go into Ridiculous and Offensive territory by comparing abortion to genocide. They actually had photos of Holocaust victims and claimed there was no difference between that and abortion. >:( They came pretty fucking close to explicitly comparing pro-choicers to Hitler. I was rage-tastic all day. And I don't care how petty it is, I was glad it rained on their demonstration.

Good thing: They were back on Tuesday, but at least moved to a courtyard I could avoid. By all the entrances to the courtyard there were students with pro-choice sign and pamphlets. :) There were also people in class just as pissed off as I was about them, and not just about the gigantic abortion pictures but about the whole ridiculous genocide comparison. Warmed my heart. Also, unrelated to the abortion thing, but at the belltower there were free HIV screen and free condom, which also made me happy.


Bad thing: I stupidly tried to downloads a PDF of a book and my laptop got hit with a bunch of malware. It's a bunch of fake antivirus stuff that bombarded me with popups saying my computer is infected (no shit, but they listed a bunch of fake infections) and kept asking me to buy their "product".

Good thing: After some googling and some virus scans I got enough of the nasty stuff off so that my laptop is functional, which is good enough at least until finals are over.


Bad thing: DEAR GOD THE POST OFFICE. Getting my passport application in has taken way to long. The first post office I went to didn't process passports. The second did but you needed an appointment, plus the only hours available were during school hours. Ugh. I was carrying the papers and my birth certificate around with me all week; just ripe for identity theft!

Good thing: Finally got to a place that could process the papers for me, and it went very smoothly. The woman who did it was really nice, and well, I'm finally getting a passport! I the application for the Japan program off to the Japanese Consulate and now I'm just waiting to hear back :D

I've been neglecting National Poetry Month. I'm actually pretty lousy with poetry, both reading and writing and understanding it, but poetry and I have our moments. Maybe I like this one because I'm not even sure if it counts as a poem. It's part of a play; Savage/Love by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin, which is made up of a series of poems that are performed by an actor on stage. It surprised me that I liked it, both as a play and as poetry.

So have some love(ish) poetry, complete with stage directions.


Beggar

Could you give me a small part of yourself
I’m only asking for the tiniest part
Just enough to get me from here to there

Could you give me something
Anything at all
I’ll accept whatever it is

Could you just put your hand on my head
Could you brush against my arm
Could you just come near enough
So I could feel though you might be able to hold me

Could you touch me with your voice
Blow your breath in my direction

Is it all right if I look straight into your face

Could I just walk behind you for a little while
Would you let me follow you at a distance

If I had anything of value I’d gladly give it to you
If there’s anything of me you want just take it

But don’t think I’m this way with everybody
I almost never come to this
In fact it’s usually the other way around

There’s lots of people
Who would love to even have a conversation with me
Who even ask me if they can walk behind me

So don’t get any ideas that I’m completely alone
Because I’m not

In fact you’re the one who looks like you could use a little company

Where do you get off thinking you have anything to give me anyway

I have everything I need
And what I don’t have I know where to get it
Any time I want

In the middle of the night
In the middle of the afternoon
Five o’clock in the morning

In fact I’m just wasting my time right now
Just talking to you

Hums
A capella, melody line only
no words

“I’m in the mood for love”

I'm feeling much better about the fail tattoo after going back to No Ka Oi to ask about it. It's still ugly as sin, but the color loss wasn't my fault and it can eventually be fixed.

When I first showed off my arm the three people there had definite O_O faces, started asking about my aftercare routine, then called over the owner of the shop, Anna, so I could talk to her. She was great in explaining what was happening and just plain reassuring me- she actually talked to me more about this tattoo than either the artist or the woman I did the initial consultation with. She assured me right off the bat they can redo this, then she outlined the healing process for larger tattoos, as well some of the problems colored inks can cause. It looks like it was the size of the tattoos and the brown ink that complicated this one. Scabbing is normal, but since these tattoos are so small the scabs covered pretty much the entire inked area, and then brown ink comes out easier than black ink (which NO ONE TOLD ME back when I got the tattoo- they said brown would fade more, not that that it would be more difficult to heal). But, the level of scabbing/swelling it's at right now is normal, even if the color loss isn't. She recommended I give the marks a month to heal and come back to discuss redoing it. She offered to do the retouches herself, which I will be taking her up on. She even gave me a hug :) (I'd told her I was kinda panicking and probably looked like I was about to cry, so yeah, hug was appreciated.)

So, a month. I'll have to dig out all the long sleeved shirts I can find because aside from keeping it out of the sun, my arm has this "attacked by a flesh-eating virus" look to it right now. I can deal though.

I got my second tattoo today!

I got it done at No Ka Oi on South Street, which is where my sister and grandmom have gotten their tattoos. I specifically didn't go back to the shop where I got my first tattoo- not because I don't like that shop, I just wanted to experience a different place, and since the tattoo is so simple and involves so little artistry I didn't have to bother searching for a specific artist to do it.

I didn't really like the place though. I main problem was that I dealt with three different people in consulting about the tattoo (the person I made the initial appointment/consultation with, the person working the counter today, and the artist), none of whom seemed to talk to each other about it. The artist didn't even know she had an appointment until I'd been waiting for fifteen minutes and the counter girl told her. She hadn't seen any of the ref material I'd left with them, and rather than talk to me directly about specifics the counter girl did the talking and relayed the info to the artist (while I was sitting about five feet away). It was all very different from the first tattoo where I did everything one-on-one with the artist, and which I liked a lot better. This artist didn't even introduce herself to me or ask my name :/ No Ka Oi is bigger and busier so I guess some of that is to be expected, but it was still offputting.

BUT ANYWAY, about the actual tattoo. I got two constellation on my right arm, so it's essentially a series of dots (so hardcore, I know). Actual tattoo time was less than ten minutes.

PICTURES:

( Taking pictures of your own arm is harder than expected )

So yeah, I know they're not too pretty right now. The dots and the skin around them are still very red and swollen, and even though it was done in a brown ink the redness is discoloring it to black. Once it heals the color'll fade a bit, plus it'll heal under the skin rather than looking like it's just on the surface like it does now. Not as bold or dark. Ideally they'll look like freckles.

The cluster above my elbow hurt like a biiiitch. Noticeably more than the lower cluster. The needle was in the skin for only 3-5 seconds per dot, but I was gritting my teeth and doing some deep breathing for all of it. Also, it was really cool at first to be able to actually see the tattooing up close- I didn't realize how deep the needle actually goes into the skin- but when the pain got bad it bothered me to see the needle disappear like that so I had to look away.

BUT I AM PLEASED WITH THIS. I will happily show it off at Easter dinner tomorrow. :)

So I learned of the existence of the Toynbee Tiles yesterday, and when I saw that there’s a bunch of them in Philadelphia I realized that holy shit, I’ve seen them. At least I’ve noticed the odd squares embedded in the concrete around Center City, but I thought they were just maintenance markers from the water company or something. On my way home from work went to go look for some :D I walked a few blocks down Chestnut and Samson where there are supposed to be some, but didn’t find anything. It was around 5:30 though, majorly crowded with the after work crowd so not the best time to be walking in circles on streetcorners staring at the ground. But I found two on Broad Street! Unexpectedly, just waiting for the light to change at Broad & Chestnut and looked down at my feet and there it was. No time to read it, but I definitely saw the word “Jupiter”, and then there's another one a block up that I couldn’t make out at all. They were a lot smaller than I thought, about the size of postcard. Must continue to look for more during adventures in Center City. I was so annoyed I’d never heard of these before; I love weird stuff like this, and here I’ve been walking over strange mystery tiles all this time and I didn’t know it. Their existence makes me happy.

Also making me VERY happy is that the tattoo I've been jonesing for for ages might happen soon. I got some money for my birthday, and my dad is even buying me a bus pass for April so I don't have to spend the bday money on that, so once I'm absolutely sure tuition is paid off I'll actually have money to spend on, like, things. Which is amazing. I got to talk to one of the artists at No Ka Oi on Saturday with Melanie, and was happily surprised that the price she quoted me was cheaper than expected. I was so bummed at Christmas when I didn't have the money, so I'm ridiculously excited about this :D :D THE TATTOOING IS NIGH.