tavie.com

Can I please get the fuck off of coffee already?

I have a constant, literally a constant, non-stop, never-going-away-ever headache.

In non-complaining news, I had a lovely evening of knitting with Steph and M. from work. I didn't know M. very well, only that she knitted, but she turned out to be very cool.

People are cool. Caffeine is the devil.

Ha ha, the Vice President of the company caught me giving a certain person the finger today. (There's a lovely mock animosity between most of us in my department; we're in an ongoing playful state of faux hostility at any given time, and the finger was simply an expression of my affection, of course.) Anyway, VP didn't say anything but I know he saw me. Maybe I should work on the professionalism a little more... HE doesn't know that D. and I are "best friends"*.

*If only everyone found me as endearing as I do. I think it's cute to insist you're the best friend of someone who daily calls you evil and accuses you of eating kittens.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:26 AM | shower me with attention

Thursday, November 18, 2004

When I got home from work, Hedwig and the Angry Inch was on IFC. I couldn't resist. Forgot how much I love that movie. Remember The Hedwig Colouring Book?

Good times.

The end still makes me cry, too.

Oh! Oh! Wallace Shawn + The Circle of Butt Sniffing = Best Lunch Hour Ever.

It wasn't really the Best Lunch Hour Ever, due to some hassle at the bank, but afterwards we saw Wallace Shawn (!!! Kirsten wasn't at all impressed) come out of a gourmet grocery on 15th and 7th, and then we saw two dogs sniffing each other's butts around and around and around in a circle, which is just one of life's funniest sights.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:57 PM | shower me with attention

Good news! Kirsten can go to Vienna after all! It'll just be me left behind. But at least Andrew won't be the sole representative of our generation on the trip. (Brrrr.)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:14 AM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

I haven't discussed the trip to Vienna here, have I? My family's been planning it for months, although, typically, I've been distracted with more immediate concerns and haven't given much thought to it. Everyone's going next week, from Tuesday night to Sunday, my family entire, including Tante Joan and Andrew.

Due to a gross miscommunication, there has been a scheduling mix-up, terribly, terribly timed to coincide with the fact that my department at work has recently been depleted by two more. We were already short-staffed, and now we're down to skin and bones. And, so, due to our failure to put in for both of the days that we'd need off (before AND after Thanksgiving), Kirsten and I can't go.

Today the travel agency confirmed that there ain't no way in holy hell they can get us a later flight, either.

Looks like it'll be Thanksgiving at The Penthouse...

I'm actually much more upset about this than I'm letting on, and my mom's in hysterics. If I weren't up to my neck in financial, academic, social and work stresses, I'd be able to devote more of my attention to this newest disappointment.

Fucking November. I think I've finally figured out what novembodentity* means; I think it means the act of being chewed up and spit out by the month of November.

*A word that came to me in a dream when I was 13, and has haunted me since.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:11 PM | shower me with attention

Oh, the diamond factory. Let me talk about that. My mom arranged for she and I to take a bus tour the first day we arrived, Thursday. However, not having slept on the plane, and not being a big fan of tours, I declined to participate. Since she'd paid for me already, she simply had my reservation switched to Saturday.

It's a two-hour bus tour. I slept during the first hour, being inadequately caffeinated (and already having seen much of the city), and was awoken and forced to disembark the bus with the rest of the group. We were herded into a diamond factory, where we were given an intensely boring, self-satisfied "lecture" on the different types and grades of diamonds, shown various cuts of diamonds, allowed to try on various diamond-encrusted jewelry; basically a sales pitch. Like I'm gonna buy a fucking diamond.

I spent about half of this time quietly waiting for someone to mention the centuries of bloodshed and colonialism fueled by the Dutch diamond industry, the effects of which continue to oppress millions of people, particularly in South Africa, to this day. Obviously, no one was going to mention this, so I snuck away from the group and drank some of the free coffee awaiting us at the end of the "presentation". It was the only worthwhile part of the experience.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:00 AM | shower me with attention

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

I'm very tired.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:22 PM | shower me with attention

HAPPY ANDREW DAY!

My baby bro is 21 today. Unbelievable. I know I say it every year, but I remember the first time I saw him in his little fuzzy blue sleeper, in his crib in his yellow bedroom in Brooklyn, asleep in a shaft of sunlight like a little tousle-headed angel.

And now he can legally buy alcohol.

Furthermore, HAPPY DAY AFTER BETH DAY!!! How are you celebrating this post-Beth day?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:45 PM | shower me with attention

Monday, November 15, 2004

I know I said I was going to sleep, and I am, but did anyone notice that Patton has a picture of ELFQUEST on his blog??????!!!!!!!

FUCK I LOVE HIM.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:44 PM | shower me with attention

Oh sweet gosh, five years ago today was the first time I met all five Kids in the Hall at once, and the first time I ever met Crissy.

Season Two is out in stores tomorrow. If I had more than 71 cents to my name (literally!), I would buy it immediately.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:44 PM | shower me with attention

American tourists flock to Amsterdam because of its lenient policy on _____________________, which is illegal in the United States.

Let's fill in the blank with "making popcorn".

Have you ever made popcorn with your mom? It's very surreal. We went into a popcorn house name Ben's, which was run by Americans, and I let her take control. She wanted to eat the popcorn back in our hotel room, even though it was a no-popcorn floor.

First my sweet old mom went over to a fridge and pulled out a can of coke and a can of cherry soda. She brought them over to the counter and the lady behind it immediately flipped over the popcorn menu. (So wise, so knowing.) After buying a bag of ready-popped (we could've gotten kernels, but since I don't know how to pop my own popcorn, we decided to get some pre-popped) and brought them back to our hotel room, where I taught her how to eat popcorn properly. We stood by the open window and ate the popcorn. Then we giggled a lot, and watched Law and Order, and fell asleep.

It was sweet.

The best part of the trip was the baby goats, though. We walked metres and metres through the cold Amsterdam woods, which were beautiful, all yellow and gold and full of people walking their dogs, and eventually we came to a goat farm where we cuddled the baby goats and let them eat from our hands with their warm baby-goat lips. That's the sensory experience that stands out before all others: cold hands being nibbled at by soft, warm baby-goat lips.

One of the goats actually leaned into my arm when I scratched his neck, the way a cat will lean into your hand when you pet him. I fell in love with that kid.

There are pictures that I'm sure I'll eventually upload, if only so you can all see Sinterklass's friend Black Pete. Blackface is so disturbingly popular in Europe. I'll never understand it. A bunch of white people in blackface handing out pfeffernusse to children would never fly here. My mom went to the Santa parade, and one of the Black Petes gave her a rose and some cookies. I slept in that day. I like to get my sleep.

I'm very tired now so I'll go to bed. More later.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:31 PM | shower me with attention