Twilight Tattoos

I have been thinking of getting a new tattoo, and I've basically been thinking about it since I left New Zealand two and a half years ago, and it has a literary theme. As such, when I saw a book at work called The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide I took a look to see what other people had done with some of their favorite words/ literary themes.

One thing someone did was get a half-sleeve (GIANT) Twilight themed tattoo on their arm. Basically it is a collage of all the book covers, and yesterday it became my new favorite thing to show people. It provided hours of entertainment for me. I mean.... what? Twilight tattoo? Really?



Coincidentally, it is (or it is really similar to) number 21 pictured at this slideshow I then found when I searched for "Twilight tattoos" on Google. I love that there are at least 30 other people who have Twilight tattoos, AND that I can look at all of them in one spot. It is almost too much giddiness to bear.

Been a minute: updates

Here are some updates, in no particular order:

1. Halloween costume ideas- Last year I did not start thinking about Halloween costumes until the last minute, and I was Ramona Quimby. This year, I started thinking about them early, and two possibilities have become frontrunners: Ramona Flowers, of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, or an old-school style Coney Island strongman. I got this idea from seeing a romper at American Apparel and because my mom randomly gave me some wax moustaches that would be perfect. Also because people are selling Jersey-shore style muscle man shirts. It might look weird under the romper though, and then what the hell would I do with a muscle-man shirt and a romper? At least all the Ramona clothes are semi- normalish or easy to fake/ procure and all I'd really need maybe is a wig.

2. Bike- Disclaimer- Reading this a few days later, I realized this needs a geek-out alert of some kind due to the amount I am talking about parts and the relative probability that no one gives a shit about my bike except me. Consider yourself warned. I bought a new bike in May, it is a one-speed 2010 Specialized Langster Steel. It has a flip-flop hub, and I started riding it fixed in May. I am such a hipster. I am able to do a skip-stop kind of, and that is it in terms of tricks. I want to learn to do a track stand. This is my big goal. I keep getting things for the bike, it is like an addiction. Like new tires, I got some gatorskins last month. I want to get new handlebars because mine are too wide and a weird shape, but they were the only ones they could give me for free when I didn't want the drop bars. I am thinking 1-inch risers. I also want to get new toe clips that will accomodate double straps, cause I keep feeling like I am going to break the clips I have when I am skip-stopping.

3. Work- I had a work-a-thon summer 2010 when I had 31 days of work in a row without a day off because I had 3 jobs (nannying, summercamp, store). Now I am basically back to 1 job (store... UGH) and I don't know what to do with myself.

4. Cello- I am really excited because this family from Westchester went to visit their daughter in Ohio this week and they brought back my cello. Now all I have to do is go get it from Westchester and then I'll be able to play it, in theory. I am excited, and kind of scared at the same time. I haven't played in such a long time, what if I don't remember anything?

5. Youtube- I have been watching a stupid amount of youtube videos. I might be dumber in general because of it.

Wikipedia Education

Things I have been reading about on wikipedia lately:

1. Orthodox Judaism- Dress code, rules, differences between the sects... This is what happens when a religion is over 2,000 years old. No wonder you have to go to yeshiva, because otherwise I have no idea how in the world you could learn all this stuff.

2. TV Shows I like- Sex and the City, Glee, and Daria. Trivia abounds.

3. Social Networking- With all the privacy flack facebook is getting right now, I'm trying to keep abreast of the situation by making sure I know what color shirt Marc Zukerman was wearing when he and that other guy invented facebook and became BILLIONAIRES.

4. Fonts- what is the difference between ' arial serif' and 'sans-serif' I wanted to know? What is kearning? I now know these things.

Wikipedia: clearly a source of superficial surface information about a topic, but what a breadth of scope! Sex-positive feminsim? Yes. Cookie varieties? Yes! Explanations of military abbreviations? YES!

There is so much stuff to learn and wikipedia helps me to figure out what of that stuff I really want to learn, and what stuff I can read about just enough to fake it.

Twitter and FB Pages and RSS Feeds, Oh My!

I'm kinda sorta getting more involved with this new job with this company that does after-school and camps for kids in NYC, and they are brand new. Like, this is year #2. Which is SUPER exciting, because it means that there's a lot of room for innovation and learning and growth within the company, but it is also a little bit crazy because there isn't a lot of precedent for doing things. It's a pretty hit the ground running, trial and error type situation.

I am actually really into it.

Which is why, when they said that they might want me to do some aggregation of materials to post digitally, and do a bunch of stuff with Twitter and social media/ networking stuff this summer, I felt super excited to be a part of that. Even though I am not on Twitter personally, I know it is a huge phenomenon right now, and I think it will be a great opportunity to learn more about it, and other web applications that I kind of haven't been using because I have no personal reason to do so... nice to have a professional reason to.

Like RSS feeds. What is an RSS feed? And what does it mean to click on one? I am into learning by trial and error with technology. Apparently you need a reader to read your RSS feeds... good thing Google has one! Hopefully it will be easy to use or at least intuitive because I use so many of their other products. Seriously.

All this in general, makes me really excited. Like things are actually happening... that there's a shift in what I'll be doing/ using my brainpower to accomplish. Creative, crafty, dynamic, and with kids! What more could I ask for?