The GirlAlive Blog

In September, I'm leaving my house and all my rodents in the capable hands of my in-laws, and going back to the US for about two weeks.  If any of you want to know more details about where I'll be and when, I'm trying to organize some stuff through Facebook.  So add me as a friend on Facebook, if you know me well enough to know my name and email address and everything.  I will probably only accept friend requests from people I know in real life, or at least vaguely remember from high school.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I started my new job today.  It seems pretty good.  Unlike my last job, they actually knew I'd be starting and had things ready for me.  I even could get into the computer on the first day.  And I got my ID badge and everything.  And they have free coffee, which I am allowed to drink at my desk.  It is a lot like the health insurance company I worked for back in the US, but nicer.  Nicer because it's just a small branch office of a large corporation, so it's friendlier than working at a location with several hundred employees. 

I wasn't sure what I was coming into, so I wore long sleeves to hide the scars and tattoos.  By lunch time, I figured that it wouldn't be a problem.  Just in my small working team, there are at least two others with tattoos.  And casual Friday actually means casual, with jeans and stuff.  No one seems to care if I wear comfortable shoes.

It's a good thing I did wear comfortable shoes because I have about a 15 minute walk to get from my office to the bus stop to get home.  But it's a nice walk through mostly quiet wooded areas.  I could catch a bus right outside the office, but it wouldn't take me all the way home, and that bus is only once an hour.  

So I'm getting more exercise, whether I like it or not.  My doctor is happy about that, but I'm just tired.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 06:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been thinking about cowards lately.  As a Christian I'm supposed to forgive, but that's the thing I struggle the most with forgiving.  I really don't like cowards.

It's a specific kind of cowards that I hate.  There's a kind of grudge that I carry which is a grudge that always says, "I gave you every chance to tell me the truth and you were too cowardly to just say what you think."  Let me give you some examples.

My first boyfriend was named Jason.  (In my life, a lot of assholes have been named Jason, but that's another story.)  We knew each other on the internet before we met in person.  I had plans to take a trip to The South to visit him, but in the month or so before my trip, he was acting distant and weird.  I asked him over the phone several times, "Should I still bother to visit you?"  He insisted nothing was wrong, and then dumped me the minute I got home from visiting him.  What an asshole move!  Make me spend time and money on you because you didn't have the balls to just say, "I'm not interested" earlier.  

I was in film school studying documentary film for a short time.  I needed to shoot footage of a friend of mine for a student film.  I emailed and asked this friend if I could go to a meeting he'd be leading to shoot some filler footage.  He never responded.  I was on a deadline.  My partner and I went to the meeting and shot our footage.  We were there half an hour before the meeting setting up cameras.  We shot for about fifteen minutes and then left.  The next day I got an email from this "friend" saying that he hadn't wanted me to shoot footage there.  In my mind, I scream.  Didn't I ask you if it was okay?  Why didn't you say "no" then?  Didn't you see me setting up cameras?  Why didn't you tell me not to shoot footage then?  I gave him every opportunity to refuse permission, but he was too spineless to just say, "I don't think that would be a good idea," and consequently wasted my time and my film partner's time and left us with a pile of footage we couldn't use.

At one of m previous jobs, I said something stupid that hurt someone's feelings at work.  Rather than coming to me like an adult to tell me that she was hurt, she had one of the other people in the office file a grievance against me.  So rather than being able to simply apologize and tell her that what I said was stupid and I was sorry, I had to go through a disciplinary hearing with a bunch of managers, which ended with me quitting my job because I couldn't stand the thought of working with any of them ever again.  This co-worker didn't have the figurative balls to say what she thought to my face, and ran to tell her mommy instead.  I am still sorry for what I originally said, but after reading the "witness" statements from my other co-workers, I have no respect for any of them anymore.  Given a choice between an uncomfortable conversation with me or using buerocracy to stab me in the back, they chose the latter option.  It was a coward's choice.

I'm working on learning to forgive cowards.  But I think it's easier to forgive when it's a sin you understand.  I just don't understand the unwillingness to have an honest conversation.  I've had friendships broken over yelling matches, but I don't have nearly as much venom for those I've argued with as I do for those who were unwilling to argue.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I really totally want the newest upcoming issue of Craft magazine.  The current issue, volume 8, has a section on weaving and even a little cardboard loom.  I love weaving. 

The problem is that I can't afford to subscribe because it costs a fortune for delivery to the UK ($50 for 4 issues).  I can't buy a single issue either because it's current, so you can't order that issue online.  It's supposed to be on newsstands August 5th, but not in the UK.  

Anyone out there think they can find this issue for me?  I can pay, or trade for stuff from my cafepress shop.  I can even trade for a ball of handspun wool or something.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I haven't posted any pictures of my guinea pigs for quite a long time.  So here are some pictures I took last night, since I finally have fresh batteries for my camera.

Fudge, reclining:

Elvis

Spike, begging for treats:

Spike and Elvis, getting along just fine:

I still miss Homer like crazy.  He was my little buddy.  But as you can see, our remaining piggies are getting along quite well.  Things are pretty peaceful in the piggy corner these days.  Other than Fudge, who squeaks a lot because he misses humping Elvis all day long.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I got myself a Twitter account.  It's kind of dumb because I can't do the "real time update by cell phone" thing.  From the UK it costs a fortune to txt to Twitter, and I don't actually have a cell phone. 

But anyway, if you want to see any random crap from me, in 140 characters or less, you can see my twitter updates.  I'm a little annoyed that I had to be girlalive1 instead of just girlalive, but I think I'll live.  If anyone out there reading this has a twitter account let me know, and maybe I'll read your random crap too.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The common perception of the British in America is that they all have stained brown crooked teeth.  Living here, a lot of it is true.  But here's the weird part: it isn't their fault.

I underwent years of orthodontia as a kid and when I moved here my teeth were relatively straight and white.  Since I moved here, they've been slowly changing.  I still brush my teeth twice a day, with the same toothpaste I used in the US (Colgate Total Plus Whitening).  I still floss.  I still use mouthwash.  And my teeth are turning brown and I'm getting a gap between my front teeth again.

The water here has no floride added.  That's part of the problem.  There is a lot of tea consumed here.  That may be part of it (though even the people who don't drink tea or smoke or anything like that still have brown teeth).  

I don't know what I'd have to do to keep my teeth white and straight to American standards, but it doesn't even seem possible here.  I don't know if it's just the water here or what, but my teeth are turning brown no matter what I do.

It isn't that the British don't brush their teeth.  It isn't that they don't go to the dentist.  They have oral hygiene equal with most Americans.  But something in this country is working against them.  I have no answers for why this is.  I just wanted you to know that you shouldn't view the British as ignorant of dental hygiene.  They do their best, but there's something in the water (or lacking from the water) or something.  The UK is not good for your teeth.

Alana

Posted by Alana at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I recently got involved in a debate over Guitar Hero (Rock Star, Rock Band and other similar games) on YouTube.  Are these games a good thing for music, or a bad thing?  I'm not sure.

Side One:  These games introduce kids to older music that completely rocks.  Lots of people are fans of "Say It Aint So" by Weezer because they've heard it in one of those games.  Might make them buy some cd's, or at least download some good music.  It's making kids listen to music that involves real bands playing real instruments, and not just some plastic singer with synthesizers.  Current music is formulated empty crap and a lot of kids are learning that music doesn't have to be that way because they hear old stuff by Nirvana and Weezer.  

Side Two:   Though these kids are listening to good old music, made by real musicians, they aren't creating anything of their own.  When I was shopping for my new guitar, I found numerous listings for guitars in brand new condition.  They were bought for kids who were interested in music, but then abandoned their guitars when they found that Guitar Hero was easier.  Guitar Hero is pure imitation with no individual creativity.  You are forced to play exactly like the original track.  There is no reinterpretation of a song.  There is no "making it your own" like with a real instrument. 

I'm not sure where to stand on this.  I'm all in favor of listening to good music, but I'd like the teenagers of today to be creating some of their own too.   It has to be healthier to have guitar string callouses than to have RSI from playing a video game. 

I don't have kids.  I don't know how I'd handle the whole musical game debate if I did.  But I'd hope that my kids would find music they love and then learn to play it on a real instrument, one way or another.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have kind of a history of bizarre dreams.  Most of the time, they're notable for the weird celebrity cameos.  (Robert Carlysle and Ed Mc Mahon on a bus.  Jon Stewart feeding cherry tomatoes to orangutans while Carol Channing sings "Henry the Eighth".  And a remote beach house occupied by Dick Cheyney and Mister Rodgers.)  But the one I had the other night had no celebrities.  Yet it ranks as one of my weirdest ever.

I was pulled in off the street into a dusty old building that looked condemned or at least long abandoned.  I was told that they needed more audience members for a pilot for a new game show that they were shooting inside.  I got inside and the set for the game show looked a lot like a university lecture hall.  There were two podiums at the front.  People from the audience were called up to the front and they had to fart in front of the contestants at the podiums and the contestants had to smell their farts and guess what they had been eating.

Even in the dream, I was thinking, "This is so stupid that not even Fox would buy this show."  But at the same time I was worried that they would call me out of the audience to go up and fart.  I kept wondering, "How am I supposed to fart on cue?"  In the end, I wasn't called up.  The producer decided that they had enough footage to try to sell the show.  I was thinking, "Sitting here in the audience was deadly boring.  This'll be just painfully dull to watch on tv."  Then I left and shortly thereafter, I woke up.

So yeah.  I had a dream about competitive fart sniffing.  That's right up there on the bizarre list with Jon Stewart and the orangutans.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have an old green Fender guitar with broken electronics.  It's been frustrating me for several years, and I've never gotten it to play without cutting out on a regular basis.  I love that guitar, but it is aggravating.

My husband has been learning to play bass guitar, so he got himself an amp.  I wanted to play my guitar, but when you plug it into an amp, it's just annoying.  I decided it was time to do something.

I bought a new set of electronics for my Fender.  It didn't work.  My guitar is a bit of a mutant and I'm not good enough at soldering to get it together.  (Next time my brother is in town I'll have him take a crack at it.  He's an electrical engineer.)

I was checking out eBay and seeing if there were any guitars that looked halfway decent.  The price I set for myself was that I didn't want to spend more than 60 pounds including shipping.  There's a crappy Fender look alike in the charity shop, which is poor quality and covered in ugly skater stickers, for 60 pounds.  It's way overpriced.  But I didn't want a top quality brand name guitar.  I just want to play.  So that's the line I drew.  If I couldn't find anything cheaper than the ugly one in the charity shop, I wouldn't get one.

There was one on ebay that I liked.  It was a Stagg brand copy of a Fender Jazzmaster.  The starting bid was 40 pounds, with 12 pounds for shipping.  The auction was ending at 11:30 at night so I couldn't stay up for the end of it because husband had to get up early for work.  I threw a ridiculously small bid in on it and went to bed.

In the morning I found that I had won.  No other bids.  I got it for the starting bid.  52 pounds, with shipping.  It arrived today.

I love this guitar.  It fits into my arms perfectly.  It sounds great.  It's the most comfortable guitar I think I've ever played.  We were meant for each other. 

The picture doesn't do it justice.  It's so shiny and pretty.  I love my new guitar.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the giant box full of crumpled newspaper that it came in... 

Posted by Alana at 09:49 AM | Permalink