Here is where you will find the “Infinite Cat Project”, which is where one catt looks at a picture of a catt on the internet. And then another catt looks at the picture on the internet of the catt looking at a picture of a catt on the internet.
Bellylaughs, baby.
(Link from MisterPants)
Spiral bound are the most practical, the easiest to sink into, like into a soft, dirty couch. There is no worry of sullying a dirty couch or a spiral bound notebook.
Hardcover are often beautiful but difficult to use because they feel formal, important. What could I put in a hardcover notebook that could possibly measure up to the profundity of its shell?
Large books are daunting but sometimes freeing.
Small books are easy. They usually cost $2 and are called things like Mini Neatbook and Pock-it Scribbler. They fit in a pocket or a bag without being obtrusive, without accusing you of disrespect. They can slip into corners and behind desks and be forgotten for years and will not hold a grudge.
I collect notebooks. Some people think I collect ducks, squirrels, J.Lo trivia, shoes, CDs, ex-boyfriends. But actually and shamefully, I collect notebooks. They serve as affirmations, these many beautiful trees. They assure that I can accumulate a writerly life around me, keeping steady in a state of perpetual preparation for the moment when I blast through the velvet curtain and enter the world of Writers who Publish. Collecting notebooks keeps me from leaving backstage. Oh all right. I use notebooks to keep myself from leaving backstage. Shush.
Because: if I surround myself with enough Opportunity, surely I will take the time to empty my brain of its constant yammer and pull from the world and mark with ink all the minor details that flood my senses. If I have several notebooks and four pens (two black, a blue, a red) near me at all times, the opportunity to record will not be missed.
The notebooks watch me from atop my desk and from within the desk’s drawers. They scream to be let out of cardboard boxes and taken down from dusty shelves. Most have at least one or two pages with words on them (traditionally “This is my new notebook!” or “A new pen! It is black!”) and then nothing else, just blank pages, waiting. Others contain the first three chapters of a novel or the first 1,000 words of a manifesto. They contain poetry written on the bus, short stories written in the food fair at the shopping mall, recipes copied from posters in lunch rooms, names and phone numbers for people I don’t remember and probably won’t call.
I draw the notebooks around me, paper cloaks of safety. The more I have, the less I feel pressured to move past them, take the next step. After all, filling all these notebooks could take years! (Especially if I keep buying more!)
The next step, then, is to transform or re-guide my stubborn avoidance of actually using the notebooks into an equally bull-headed committment to fill them with words and ideas and see what magic that might bring.
I will fill them, one by one:
Hardcover green velvet notebook.
Small, brown “Dickens” notebook.
Stories 2002.
Dollar Store notebook (Purchased for the following saying printed on the cover: “It is the peculiarity of knowledge that those who really thirst for it always get it.”)
1 subject wireless notebook. (Alas, not a laptop computer at all. It’s a very good thing I don’t have enough money to collect laptop computers.)
Large hardcover sketchbook with flowers on it.
Small hardcover sketchbook with little butterflies on it.
“Fat L’il Notebook” with illustration of baby dressed as flower.
Stories 2002 (yes, another one)
Light blue 3-subject notebook.
Dark blue 3-subject notebook.
Red 3-subject notebook.
January Project 2002.(it was a hopeful year, 2002)
Hardcover 400 page journal from Lee Valley Tools. It is so nice, its pages are numbered (!) and it has a ribbon page marker.
Small notebook with plastic cover and smiling butterflies.
And no more new pens, either. But that’s a different story.
Votey Votey Votey Votey Vote! Don’t forget! Polls open in 9 minutes!
(No, I am not up super early to be the first to vote. I am up super early to go to work.)
And may the best man AT LEAST get enough votes to be the official opposition…the orange and green forever.
Last week we bought a cheese called “Suicidally Hot Horseradish Monterey Raifort” made by a company called The Village Cheese Co. The website uses frames so I can’t link to the page with the recipe of the month, but it’s worth checking out. Um, go to the “our cheese” section, then to the “cheese of the month” and then find the “recipe of the month.” Tuna Salad Cones. You heard me.
I like this part too:
Treat the kids “or yourself” to a heaping cone of ice cream. Then take a seat in our cozy cafe with a freshly brewed cappucino and a slice of juicy apple pie. And don’t forget to top it off with a dollop of ice cream cream or a slice of Village Cheddar.
I refuse to comment on the quotation marks. My carpal tunnel can’t handle it. But holy mackerel, it’s like the opposite of fat camp. Or what fat camp really should be. ROAD TRIP!
So the Suicidally Hot Horseradish Monterey cheese is quite tasty indeed, with a definite horseradish burr to it and a mild Monterey creamy around it, but it’s not even In-A-Kind of-Blue-Mood hot. It’s more like Damn-I-Missed-My-Bus-Hot. The end.
Today we went to Chilliwack. Chilliwack is nice because there is cow-smell and Wal-Mart and Value Village, although we didn’t make it to Value Village because we went to Chilliwack by way of Agassiz which, in a nutshell, is the Long Way. (It took us two hours to get there and one hour to get home because Saint Aardvark drove there and he likes the scenic route and I drove back and I prefer the highway, where I can drive really fast and stick my head out the window like a dog.) But we did make it to Wal-Mart and also to a store next door to Wal-Mart called “Deep Discount” or “Incredible Cheap” or something; claiming to be Canada’s best dollar store, I think? It wasn’t the best dollar store I’ve been to, though it did have straw hats for $0.99 but they were made for tiny heads and my head is not tiny – it is HUGE and full of FUN THINGS!
Anyway, the Deep Shiny Discount Place did provide us with three amusing Items.
The first is an American Flag tea towel, which we will be mailing to our British friends. We mail them American Tackiness on a regular basis. They have receieved eagle statuettes, sand dollars printed with the American National Anthem, and many, many postcards expressing more patriotic sentiment than a 4th of July ABC Special. It looks pretty much like you’d imagine it.
The second item is an Money Belt. It looks like this:
The Travel Parrot is one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen (and bear in mind that we had already been to Wal-Mart by the time we made its acquaintance). It looks brown in the picture, but actually it is “skin tone” – in the same way that polyester knickers that come up to your chin and down to your knees and cost $1.00 are skin tone. It claims to have an additional layer of super absorbent woven material which is kind to the skin and absorbs perspiration. Ew. I didn’t want to think about the skin tone Travel Parrot actually touching my skin.
And the third item is an apron. It looks like this:
Does it not contain all the qualities you want in an apron? Hell, it contains qualities I want in my friends and co-workers too. Particularly the Smellless part. Three Ls!
Side note: I own a trinket called “comic turtle,” which is an adorable plastic turtle on a plastic lily pad. On its box, comic turtle insists it is “non-toxic.” Back in the Day, I made everyone I knew take turns licking comic turtle BECAUSE THEY COULD.
We did not, however, purchase any Sweet Chilliwack Corn, which is a pity because I have a new favourite way of eating corn on the cob.
Remove husk & silk & bugs & whatnot.
Boil it for 7 minutes,
Wrap it in foil with butter, salt and pepper,
Put it on the barbecue until the other food you’re barbecueing is done.
Mm.
It may not seem like much, but it really makes a difference to cook the corn with the butter & salt & pepper…it is juicier and more flavourful and Mm.
If you don’t have a barbecue, send me an email and I will invite you over for corn. I need a reason to clean the house anyway.
This morning, I enjoyed this exploration of romantic comedies and how they mislead us.
Then I sweated some.
I also enjoyed this page, because it has monkey socks and sock monkeys. All praise the monkey socks!
I went to the mall with my mom. I bought two belts and a hot fudge sundae at Dairy Queen. I wanted real ice cream but all the real ice cream places only had the slimy leavings of what used to be rocky road and double fudge whatnot and pistachio gelato. One ice cream place actually had something called “apple crisp gelato,” which nearly made me return the belts and just let it all hang out for apple crisp but then there was only a tablespoon left, which the eager, glistening ice cream girl really wanted to sell me in a waffle cone but I politely declined.
It’s really hot. I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this to you recently, but I have to err on the side of caution and mention that it’s really really hot. It’s 30 degrees celsius which is 86 degrees farehnheit which is too hot for me. Far too hot for the catt, who is black and covered in fur.
I put an ice pack on my head and tied it in place with a scarf. I don’t recommend this if you have no hair, as the icepack will freeze to your bald head, creating an embarrassing reverse-engineer of the whole tongue-on-the-pole thing, but if you have enough hair on your head to trap small animals and birds, as I do, this technique works well for cooling oneself off.
In honour of the day of the dad, I present a new page called “stuff my dad makes.”
