Get carried away.

Today I learned, circa 1972, becoming an archivist was considered an 'exotic occupation' by some. Or, by two folks in particular: Dora R. and Nelson Feingold, the authors of "Your Future in Exotic Occupations". I shared this tidbit with a couple of my co-workers and photocopied the page that has a picture of an archivist sitting all by herself with rows of shelving around her. I taped it to my desk. Just livin' the dream over here.

Speaking of livin' the dream, I finally bought the newest album from Blink-182, "Dogs Eating Dogs". I love that band so much. And what I think I love most is that when they broke up (sniffle) and then came back together (yay!), they didn't try to re-capture the old sound. They grew up, musically, which was great. And they're still doing it and, it seems like to me, I like their new stuff just as much as I liked their older stuff when I was younger. I've seen comments on youtube videos about people lamenting the fact that punk rock bands "changed", but how can they stay the same decade after decade? That's womgush. For me, I feel like it's kind of a nice parallel....I feel sort of like I've grown up actually alongside the band and I've never felt out of touch with their music. It's pretty nice and I, although I love other musicians too, I haven't really stuck with any band or felt as "stuck" to a band as this one. I think I'll always love them.

I'm knee-deep in paper in my apartment. I've worked myself into a crafting frenzy. I didn't really think that the fact that Joann's Fabrics was moving farther south in town would affect me much. I like Joann's and find a lot to inspire me, but I didn't really think it would be that much of a temptation. How wrong I was. The grand opening weekend was this past weekend and the new store is just moments from my apartment. I was there a couple of times buying things to decorate the apartment. I decided my walls needed help. It began with the need to fill space over my television. And the idea to just use paper because it's cheap, lightweight, and I could probably figure out something to do with it. Did I ever... It turned into not just one little crafting thing, but my entire apartment's new decorating scheme. I like it. But sometimes I exasperate myself with how crazy I can get into one craft. I just go full steam ahead and can't seem to stop myself and then, after a couple of weeks, or maybe a month, I get burned out and stop. Last year was origami cranes that literally spilled into my workplace with me bringing a bunch to work and giving them to people to decorate their areas with, along with me decorating the entire room that I worked in. Those cranes are still there, although all but 1 of us who worked in that room have moved to different areas. I began with the apartment decoration for just one area and it's grown to include much more. Still, I kind of like it. It adds character to an otherwise dreary sort of atmosphere. So far, the apartment is a mix of a lot of different song lyrics (misheard, included) puns, and elephants. I like all three things. And, I plan to add more because I've decided that my perfect sort of home would be one where I'm surrounded by elephants and song lyrics...and clever people who use puns. So? This apartment is going to reflect that and be as close to my ideal place to live as possible. No worries about what visitors may think of it. In fact, I'm mulling over putting John Mayer's lyric: "Worry get outta here" on the walls at some point.

At any rate, here's a bit of the current decor (some of the files might be gigantic, even though I re-sized them...just fyi):

My homage to elephants...and the catchiest song in a Kevin Bacon movie, ever. I happen to have the soundtrack (of course), and sang and danced around for a while before deciding that it needed to be in the apartment, somehow.

This is in the kitchen, near the stove. I always find I cook better (not well, mind you, but better) if I have music. Sooo...clever, amiright?

Probably my favorite so far is this mis-heard lyric of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" that I've placed over my record playing area. Incidentally, the day after I made this, I was eating lunch and there was karaoke at the place and they sang "Tiny Dancer" and I laughed a lot.

Behind the television, this was what started the whole thing... Since I really like Christmas music, it doesn't bother me to have a lyric from "Silent Night" year-round. The rest of the living room walls are mostly covered in travel photographs from trips, so I thought this was a really nice sentiment in a 'global' sort of decor. Plus, I just like peace and happiness.

Not only do I like Bruce Springsteen, but I cracked myself up by putting it on a running appliance. For a brief moment, I thought about splitting the lyric and putting half on the fridge and half on the dishwasher, the only two running appliances I have in the kitchen, as a sort of conversation between the two. But...then I thought maybe I was taking this a bit too far. Plus, I like that this lyric goes well with my travel magnets.
Still...I might someday put a companion sort of lyric on the dishwasher next to the fridge.

Now I'm seeing inspiration for these little lyrical garlands everywhere. Tonight I'm watching "Doctor Doolittle" (the good one with Rex Harrison) and they had a great song in it earlier in the first half and I heard a lyric and thought it would be great to put up someplace. I've stopped writing lyrics down though because, just in the 4 or 5 days since I started this, I've heard so much and written so many down that I was overwhelming myself. I'm no longer writing them down, just thinking about them and listening very closely to songs... There truly is inspiration everywhere.

Chase this light

I'm still in the process of cleaning out/clearing out areas of my house and today I made the switch and have the orange room mostly done as the music room now. As I was going through various and sundry cabinets and cubby holes in various pieces of furniture I found the box my camera came in with all instruction books and, the most amazing find of all: an extra lens, sun shield and remote for the camera! So I'm trying to figure out how to use these things and decide whether I want to take them to South America or not. I would like to, but I'm also kind of harping on this idea of packing really lightly. I don't want to lug suitcases all over creation down there. I have a backpack, but it's just a bit on the small side to be able to work as my only pack, I think. I'm willing to give it a go and stuff it full of things, but I'm not that optimistic about this travel light idea. And if I keep cleaning and finding more things to take along, I really won't be traveling light.

Beatrix's "cat sitter" came by today to meet her and get a key for while I'm gone and she and I used to work together and are friends. I saw her last month at a party, but we always find more things to chat about when we get together. And sure enough, we stood around and yammered away at each other for nearly an hour and a half. It was really nice to get to visit for a while. But, it's sort of the awkward kind of visit, when someone stops by for one purpose and then you start to talk about other things and before you know it, an hour has gone by and you're still standing around talking. And that's cool, except my legs get tired from standing in the kitchen for an hour talking, but there's no place to sit in the kitchen and I tried to move the conversation to the living room, but my couches were covered in things because I'm moving the rooms around, so it was still like we were stuck standing around and talking. She didn't seem to mind, though. She's cool like that. As soon as she left though, I shoved a pile of stuff down the couch and flopped down for a bit.

I need to take down my Christmas stuff. I wanted to do that today, as well as move the rooms around. I still plan to get that tree down this weekend. I tried to take a bunch of books that I had into a trade-a-book place in town today in the hopes of freeing up some bookshelf space. Well, I ended up buying a bunch of other books to fill the space, so I'm right back where I started. I know better than to expect to have any free space on a bookshelf. I did notice though that the trade-a-book place in town is carrying more genres of books than they used to. It used to be mainly romance novels, but they've got some decent fiction and historical fiction and even branching into young adult books, too. I saw a cookbook section, too. I was surprised. I'm sure they have some other types that I missed, as well. Anyway, I have plenty of reading material to make up for the lack of assigned readings for school. It's starting to begin to sink in that I won't be going to classes this semester. I'm seeing people arriving back on campus each day and they're carrying their bags of text books and talking to each other about what classes they're taking this semester, etc. It's both cool and a little strange to work on a college campus and not be a student. It's like you belong, but kind of have outgrown parts of it, too.

Okay, am going to watch a couple of episodes of "The Tudors" (I'm on the final season),having dinner, and then I am definitely taking down the Christmas tree.

p.s. Have you heard the duet of Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett doing "The Lady Is A Tramp"? Bennett's entire duet album is great, but this song is extra fabulous, I think. You should hear it.