ringringringringringringring.

for no apparent reason, i have the bananaphone song in my head.

please make it stop.

Thank goodness for the weekend. My house is a disaster area, and I want it to stop. I've got a pile of clothes, coats and shoes in the entryway to the house to send to goodwill, clean clothes to be put away stacked everywhere, and I still have a 6" high stack of random magazine articles that have to be filed away. Vacuuming must be done. House must be aired out as it smells like dogs. Dogs should probably be washed.

I am ready to just stretch out in a sunbeam and take a nap. Unfortunately, no windows in my office, and no sun all weekend, if the weatherfolk are vaguely accurate. I suppose I will be satisfied as long as my basement doesn't decide to flood.

a weekend away

I left last Friday for Chicago, returned at midnight or so on Tuesday, and am still in catch-up mode. I can only imagine the aftermath of Daylight Savings Time. I suppose I'd rather have the daylight, though - my biorhythms will catch themselves up.

Clapotis-the-first was bestowed upon my mother as a birthday present. Clapotis-the-second, which I will most likely keep for myself, has just entered the decrease rows. Not much else is getting done right now, because of the above-mentioned trip, but much is going on in my head, re: a small business of my own.

I grew up in small business land. My grandparents opened a jewelry store 50+ years ago and still work there, at 80 and 87! My mom also works there, and I help out when I'm home over breaks, although I'm not of that much use. As a baby, they set me up in a display case under the fluorescent lights to keep me warm as I napped. As a toddler, I hung out under the desks with a German Shepard who served as a watchdog. I've always tried to support small businesses (although I admit that I indulge in the Ikea and amazon.com on a regular basis). Now that I'm loving the dyeing and spinning (and knitting and...), and I'm possibly going to be moving to an area that doesn't have many yarn stores, I can't help but throw the idea around in my head.

In an ideal world, I will be moving late this year. I would work for the year or so after that at 20-30 hours per week, while also getting a business plan together, and continuing to do craft fairs, online sales (side note: new yarns are for sale at woolarina.com), and general research on fiber. I'd find the perfect, downtown location, not too far from the local campuses, and open my cafe/fiber store, which would also feature other random trinkets that I like... two floors, upstairs sitting room cafe, downstairs shop and coffeebar, airy, spacious... mmm.

In the mean time, craft fair season here approacheth. Yarns to be dyed this weekend, maybe, and inventory to get sorted. We'll be at the Visions in Feminism Craft Fair/Punk Rock Flea Market at the Nyumburu Cultural Center, University of Maryland College Park, Saturday April 23, 1-6pm. There's a $2 entry fee. Should be fun.

parallel structure, typos, keeping the allies down

This just in my mailbox: "This is a college conference for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Allie, and Fluid College Students..."

Good for you trying to be all inclusive and stuff, but really, Allie? Who's Allie?

A couple of years ago, I went to a conference called MBLGTACC (Midwest Bi Les Gay Trans Ally Collegiate Conference, I think). That was quite the acronym. We called it 'mumble-guh-tack'.

Edit: My next email is announcing a dissertation talk on a paper called "A Detailed Study of the Interaction Between the Phosphorylated Rhodopsin Cytoplasmic Tail and Both Arrestin and Its Splice Variant, p44." I couldn't even tell you if any of that is spelled oddly.

Anywho...