Nuggets of Gold!

MORE STITCHING

Here is a terrible scan of the latest embroidery project I've completed (click for larger, see-able image):

Ignore all the gray stuff -- that's where I couldn't get the fabric to sit smoothly on the scanner. A photo would be a better way to go next time, but both of our cameras have eaten all the batteries in the house, so TOO BAD.

Anyway, I'm afraid of flying, right? Or WAS. I'm sort of almost better now. So this is an airplane, with coloring suggesting a Japanese crane, with very long legs that walk it to its destination. Because while flying through the air a million miles over cities and forests and houses and mountains with NOTHING under you is terrifying, being in a vessel that walks on legs isn't. So this is how I prefer to think of the whole thing.

I have to say I'm kind of disappointed with this one. It's how I wanted it to come out, meaning it's pretty much exactly what I saw in my head. But once it came out on fabric, meh. I think the design needs some work. But no matter! I'll let it simmer for a while and maybe try it again some other time. Maybe on my next flight! If, that is, you're allowed to bring needles on planes these days ...

ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, STACY

K, it's January, right? Like MID-January. So why do I see so many Christmas trees JUST NOW being dragged to the curb for (what I hope is) recycling?

Why, God? Why?

MY NEIGHBORHOOD

Here are two interesting things I noticed around my apartment building today:

1) BUMPER STICKER PROOF: I'd already surmised that our hip little downtown building was filled with damn dirty hippies and bleeding hearts (i.e., my people), but the bumper stickers in the parking lot drove the point home. "Go Organic" and "Make Art, Not War" live here, as does ACLU and lots of indie bands. I even saw a Mike Gravel campaign sticker once! Who even knew there was such a thing??

2) SCI-FI SCARINESS: There's been a lot of exterior work happening at a building just down the street, and when I walked by today on my way to the post office, I noticed a new sign: MINISTRY INCUBATOR. I was picturing evil science labs, and maybe people hooked up to machines like in "The Matrix." But apparently it's just an organization that helps start-up ministries by giving them office space and the like. Maybe there needs to be an organization that helps ministries that help start-up ministries think of less scary names. Just a suggestion.

In news from more than a block away, I checked out a big Asian grocery store today. I give it a C. It was large, and it had some nice touches like fresh fish and a real bakery, but I think it's geared more toward Chinese and Thai populations than Japanese. I did manage to get some soba noodles and the requisite tsuyu sauce, but no Suntory oolong tea and only tiny, wildly expensive bottles of Ito-en jasmine tea. They did have Pocky, but no Men's Pocky, which everyone knows is the best Pocky. Even if you're a girl.

GOT TO STOP

The following two things need to be pounded out of existence with a quickness:

1) Web sites with sound. This is seriously cutting into my ability to surreptitiously surf the Web at work. Because nothing says busted like the quiet, productive stillness of my office being shattered by music/noise blasting from my computer -- a craptacular eMac with integrated speakers that so far I have found no effective way of muting. HEY EVERYONE! STACY'S FARTING AROUND ON THE INTERNET INSTEAD OF WORKING! Thanks a lot, Web sites with sound.

2) Wearing flip-flops in winter. Ew. No. if it is cold enough to wear a sweatshirt, it is cold enough for socks and actual shoes. This applies to everyone, including you, college kids.

That's all, FOR NOW. Return to your lives.

IN CASE ANYONE'S DYING TO KNOW

I recently posted my top 10 CDs for 2007 over on HickoryWind.org. Check it out here, and be sure to let me know what your favorites were! I was recently informed (this is not a joke) that my CD collection is disappointing, so I'm ready to beef it up a bit and am open to suggestions. I am also open to donations, since unfortunately it's expensive to have a vast CD collection. Will work for tunes!

OH YEAH, REAL LIFE

Slowly coming out of the holiday hangover here. Not a literal hangover, thank god -- just the kind of hangover that results from too much eating, too much TV-watching (there's a weeklong "America's Next Top Model" marathon on VH1, what do you want?) and too much general laziness over too many days off. The kind of hangover that makes the idea of changing that routine (or lack thereof) very, very daunting. Work? Errands? Meh. Pass the Doritos, please.

New Year's was a fun time. Formerly Internet-friend, now actual friend Larry and the lovely Heather came over and we headed downtown (so, three blocks away) to watch Raleigh -- the City of Oaks, you see -- drop a giant acorn to ring in the new year. Take THAT, New York. I would post photos of the spectacle, but I can't seem to locate the camera. It'll turn up, though. Just yesterday I found the tape measure we lost, oh, two months ago. This apartment, cavernous as it is, seems prone to eating things. I have more unwed socks than I've ever had in my life. Not sure what that's about. Weirdest of all is we lost a full bottle of 409. Where does that go? It can't get shoved in a sofa cushion, it can't disintegrate in the dryer, it can't fall behind furniture, it can't get left in a dark corner of an old purse. But it's been gone three weeks now, so we've given up and bought a new bottle. But I'm really consumed about the old one. Where did it go? It can't have left the apartment. So it's here, somewhere. But it's still missing, even after a thorough apartment cleaning. One of life's great mysteries, I guess.

So today it's back to work, which is really going to interfere with my "America's Next Top Model" viewing. Also, I'll have to wear nice clothes and actual shoes, also troubling. Worse, I might have to use my brain. Shit.

PLAYING WITH NEEDLES

I've been thinking lately that I'd like to pick up a new hobby. Something creative. Something ... crafty!

So after giving it some thought and doing some research on the Internets, I decided to try embroidery. Which is not the same as cross stitch or needlepoint. It's all freeform and whimsical. No counting, which is key. Counting is too much like math, and math makes my brain hurt. Another thing that drew me to embroidery is it has plenty of room for "happy little accidents," as Bob Ross would say. A screwup can easily (most times) be turned into an "I meant to do that." Perfect!

So here's my first stab (get it? Needles? Stab? I told you I needed a hobby ...) at embroidery:

It was basically just the result of practicing a bunch of different kinds of stitches on a piece of scrap fabric. But I think it turned out kind of pretty. Especially considering I didn't use a pattern at all -- just kind of winged it. This thing is full of happy little accidents, but never mind. It's a garden with a few more flowers than I'd intended, and that's OK. I feel that Bob Ross would approve.

SOMETHING LIKE HOMESICKNESS

Slowly but surely, I can feel the essence of Japan slipping away from me. A favorite Uniqlo shirt ruined by an oil-splattering kitchen mistake. Now it's gone. My last piece of lime-mint Xylitol gum. A calendar made from washi paper, this month on its last page. Japanese words vanishing from my memory. Kana letters, too.

I realized this week I can't quite remember the taste of a mikan. Though I remember vividly that it was wonderful. And I'm acutely aware that tangerines and clementines available in America just don't quite live up.

I like to believe that the friends I made in Japan will never slip away, but I've had to make the transition from seeing those friends every day, or at least several times a year, to knowing it may be several years before I see them again. Just the same as when I moved away from D.C. to go there, I guess. Just the same for anyone who moves from one place to another. But just because you've done it before doesn't mean it stops sucking. Conversations over e-mail just aren't the same as conversations over beer.

But mostly it's the overall feeling of being there that's slipping away. The scary but exhilarating feeling of shedding everything familiar for a setting that's completely exotic. The comforting feeling of finding that same things are the same everywhere, because we are all human. The pride in yourself from knowing you've stepped outside your comfort zone, that you've left what's easy to try something that's hard. And the pangs of looking at your own country from outside, and really seeing it, warts and all.

I'm happy to be back in the U.S., don't get me wrong. But I guess the fact is that part of myself is always going to be in Japan. And not just the part I puked up on Mount Fuji.

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW

'Tis the season, journalistically speaking, of a constant stream of holiday-themed stories and photos. Holiday shopping, Christmas parades, tree-lightings, mall Santas, charity drives -- you name it, we cover it. Because it's what's going on.

And, in print anyway, each of those stories and photos requires a headline. Before long, you've made every possible play on Christmas carol lyrics, and so have all your colleagues. And thereby, through the horror of cliche, Christmas is ruined. Ruined!

But luckily -- or unluckily, if you're stuck writing a Christmas headline and can't think of anything BUT a cliche -- some of the great minds of copy editing (that's right, some of us have great minds, too, in addition to all that glamour and prestige) have come up with a list of naughty cliches that will doom a journalist to a stocking full of eyerolls.

It's a great guide, and at my place of employment, it's the law. Yes, Virginia, we're just hoping the jolly old elf won't take it personally as we ring in the new year, with all the trimmings.

YOU'LL KNOW IT'S FROM ME BECAUSE OF THE EGGNOG SPLATTERS

And to think I believed in the goodness of people.

I was just browsing Christmas cards online -- because I absolutely refuse to go anywhere near a shopping mall or store of any kind this weekend -- and found myself, perhaps inevitably, on Hallmark.com.

Did you know, for an extra fee per card ($1.25 or so), some sucker at Hallmark "will handwrite your personal closing"? Are you friggin' kidding me? I can pay someone to write "Hi Aunt Rosie, thanks again for the fruitcake, again" on a card? It seems so. I can also, according to Hallmark, "choose to have that closing handwritten in black, red or green ink." Hot damn!

I kind of feel bereft here. Now, when I get a card from someone with a handwritten message inside, I'll have to wonder whether they wrote it, or whether that monumental task was outsourced to some elf at Hallmark.

I'm also left wondering whether perhaps I chose the wrong career. Because, dang, if I can whip out, say, 60 cards an hour -- one a minute, pretty reasonable -- then that's, what, a $75-per-hour gig? Sign me up! I'll use black, red, green OR BLUE ink. And I'll correct your bad spelling for free. So there.