Never have I spent so much time dithering about themes and templates...whether black background or patterned, or white for a more professional look.   Where to put the pages, how to interface with tumblrs naturally blog-centric nature - and here I am trying to wrench it around a different way.  It's a nice interface, I like the high-definition photo quality and the sheer modernity of it.  I love how mentioning modernity makes me think of Clement Greenberg and Disney's tomorrowland.

Speaking of which, K and I had the most wonderful Easter dinner at Gerg's house. Lovely people, lots of deviled eggs, and the opportunity to wear pastel frocks.  Jolly good fun.

All of this dithering with interface has really made me focus on presentation and what is permitted/encouraged by certain themes, what impression they make, like the first step through the door of a party.  Do you wish the eau de myspace?

Either way, I'm quite done with livejournal.  After poking around in the eyeshadowsluts and tmi communities, as well as bipolarsurvival and being rejected by the bad sex community, which I thought was bizarre, the whole thing seemed to be mostly teenagers and early twentisomethings.  The elephant in the room is that I'm 33 and spend my time doing fiddle de dee whatever.

I got in this involved discussion with Stephen the other day about whether or not I was immature.  He said I was, but it was a good thing, while I felt it was somewhat of a bad thing.  Either way, there should be a tumblr along the lines of bea arthur mountains pizza that's a collection of pictures of bunnies, lesbians, and cupcakes.  Here are my submissions:

It's been a busy Easter day, cooking a lemon meringue pie, working on a new tumblr that is going to supplant my previous site.  From www.andreaklambert.com to andrealambert.tumblr.com is a big change and hopefully a good one.  My main reason for this switch is that I got sick of paying yahoo's fees, and while their software was useful, with the advent of bigger screen sizes and whatnot, the site had begun to look a bit out of date.

I've spent the last few days maniacally working on the site, so that I can get it in shape before the switchover.  Hopefully I can keep the domain name and just reroute.

It has indeed been a learning process, as with any new platform.  But I'm fairly pleased with the results.  There are still a few kinks to be worked out what with spacing and the every-obsessional task of choosing the perfect theme.

It's 2010 y'all!!!  And I suppose it's time for new years resolutions, although I have already failed at my first and most drastic.  New years eve involved absinthe, new gallery openings, kisses and the obligatory *secret someone* barfing out of the car window.  We won't say who.

Either way, it was jolly good fun, and now for the resolutions.  So tidy they seemed on the 31st, and now on the third so frayed.

1. Master Cleanse:  Obvs, this lasted about a day.  The lemonade drink was not bad, but the shitstorm was unpleasant, as was the freak bitchiness that ensued between us.  K and I are usually about as cuddly as it gets, but upon eating nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne, whole personalities shifted.  I ended up deciding it might unbalance my meds, and ate a steak.
2. Make some headway on my book: As it's the third, this has not happened yet, but here's hoping.
   
3. Get fewer parking tickets.
4. Find fabulous new apartment with my love: I am making good progress on this one.  We looked  at a nice, roomy one bedroom on sunset, near Cafe Tropical and it had the added bonus of wall-painting encouraged.  We really have not made enough trips to Home Depot, methinks. Now's the time.  This morning we're looking at a place with a study (!!!) the veritable room of one's own, also very encouraging.

That was it, I only had four.  They say (and who's they?  the intarwebz?)  Apparently that's where I get my information.  They say make the resolutions small and achievable, so that you don't feel horrible by valentine's day.

Back in Los Angeles after a whirlwind trip to San Diego and Reno. Whirlwind makes it sound a bit more fabulous than it was, though it was what is was, and very nice.  On the plane back, I made a list of points of interest noticed during the trip.  It is as follows:

1. Planes, trains and automobiles - all taken in five day span.
   
2. Father, age 64, is amusingly bemused by technology, i.e. has an iphone yet struggles with making it perform basic apps, dropped his blackberry in the loo, currently takes as long to focus the digital camera as he used to in Christmases past, when he would line us up in little rows and then squint and fiddle for several minutes per shot..
   
3. Family is just as alcoholic as I remembered.  I had a resolution to not get blazingly wasted as I had on the last two Christmases, and to accomplish this by drinking only Pelligrino.  Mums had brought bottles of it in an effort of support.  However, after a 12 hour drive, screaming yet adorable children, and the simple fact that my family ties it on around the holidays, I moderated the resolution to just drink less than everyone else.  This worked.
   
4. Cousin L has smoked weed with her parents.
5. Cousin L's boyfriend has a red beard and talks very little, except after a few beers.
6. Cousin L took me to a fun dive bar after Christmas dinner.
   
7. Mother micromanages her sister the same way she micromanages me.  Watching the two of them in the kitchen, I really realized that it's not that something is at fault with me, it's just the way she is.
8. Cousin L and I have both considered moving back to Reno if family properties were available.
9. Little nephew is very well-behaved for four.  Best moment - when he exclaimed on Christmas morning, "this is very cool!"
10. Grandma came to Christmas dinner in a pink angora sweater with beads, and lots of baubles and rings.  She borrowed my lipgloss. She is adorable.
11. Yorkshire pudding = not so good
12. Prime rib = real good, y'all
13. Cousin L attributes her weight gain to Seroquel and other medications, I concur with mine.   Dammit Lamictal.
14. Mother called me overweight, then denied it when I brought it up later.  She may have been right.  But I was irate, at the time, which I regret now, I don't like to yell at my mother.
15. Skymall has a device where you can make phonecalls underwater.
16. The best gift I recieved was a new computer monitor to replace my decade-old-one.
17. The "worst" - paper clips, although I will use them quite often.

And, that's all she wrote.

The kitten woke me up.  Really, by sitting on my head and purring for attention. Perhaps it was revenge for this. She is adorable, and I have been neglecting this blog for far too long.

It's the weird interim of Christmas vacation.  Vacation from what?  From the regularly scheduled schedules of others.  Others I love.  Others I miss.  I am home in the interim between lady Katie and Stephen's departure and my own.  I leave soon, soon enough.  But it's strange being here, I find myself pacing around, rattling around, calling people I haven't talked to in forever, etc...  I feel a little bit foolish and a whole lot of lonely.

The best part of Christmas thus far has been Katie's present.  It was a delightful tattoo of Cherry Ames, with the caption "What Would Cherry Ames Do." I have been wanting a new tattoo for so, so long, and to finally get one was thrilling.  We went back to the same place where she got her scarlet letter, Broken Art Tattoo.

It's strange, the pain.  A lot has been written, I'm sure, about it.  But this one really didn't hurt all that much. It hurt a bit, of course, mostly around the elbow.

So as that heals, I pine for Katie.  And cover it with Aquaphor.

Well, thanksgiving happened and was jolly good fun.  Jolly, I tell you.

So it's thanksgiving once again, and for once I am excited.  More than that - pumped!  (oh dear, eighties slang).  But, really, for the first time in quite awhile I'm having a home thanksgiving with my girlfriend and all my housemates and their boyfriends/dates.

I spent yesterday in a fervor of baking, making twice-baked sweet potatoes, a pumpkin pie, battling with turkey brine, etc...  Today I plan to just focus on the turkey and picking up whatever else needs doing.  Between the five of us, everyone is making some sort of tastiness.  Katie made a maple syrup pie last night and bought a bumpit, which I'm pretty excited about.  She has the perfect hair to really make it work.

I have been exceedingly domestic as of late, spending days writing in the morning and doing housework in the afternoon.  Ambitiously, I launched on a project of doing morning pages every day - that's three freewrite pages of gobbldegook every am upon rising.  Coffee helps, and it helps that I wake up every day at around 8, so I've got the quiet time before the wuzh wakes up to get things done.

This state of productivity may or may not last.  I'm experimenting with a new book project, a collection of short stories based around the five cities I've lived in.  As my hard drive broke, I've had to do a lot of retyping and careful revisions of old hard copy drafts.  It's going to be awhile before this sees fruition, but I'm working on it, and hoping.

The mocha buttercream cupcakes of wonderfulness are finally gone, and can no longer torment me.

Instead, today I took little Louise to the vet, where she is now getting spayed.  Or is recovering from her spay...or face down in a pile of chihuahuas and kitty tranqs.  Either way, Stephen is picking her up tomorrow and hopefully she can get back to her active life of mewling, taking power dumps in Rob's bathtub, and being the worst mom cat ever.

This afternoon I went looking for Halloween costume stuff.  I am going to be Ashley from Rock of Love Bus.  While I am neither blond or busty, this all can be remedied.  My unhealthy obsession with this show, and subsequent 51 Minds candy Daisy of Love, Charm School, Megan wants a Millionaire and even, now, Real Chance at Love...  well.  I can't really explain it other than - boobs.  Boobs and booze and catfights.  I love this stuff.

Ashley started out being the character I hated, and by the end she was funny funny dyketastic.  So, I stuffed my bra with socks, pulled on some tiny short shorts, borrowed an Ed Hardy shirt from my roommate, and laced up some platform heels.  The look was not complete.

It was time for sexy socks.  Then I ended up at Rite Aid where I found a cheap blonde wig.  It seemed to be coming together.

I spiked my way over the the male gays to get a verdict.  Stephen said, "wow!  some people really dress like that, they'll think you're for real. Shouldn't you stuff your bra?"

Baby, I am stuffing my bra.

It's a few days until Christmas, and I'm in San Diego with my parents. It's 6:40 am, and I'm awake, the rats, even, are sleeping. I brought them down here, the cage bumping around in the backseat, as finding a rat-sitter in LA at Christmastime was a difficult proposition.

Oh. I just announced I wasn't in my apartment. If anyone wants to break in, watch out for the cockroaches, they may have opposable thumbs by now, in fact, they may have a manifesto by now, and they are ORGANIZED.

I like to anthropomorphize things. I also like to coddle my rats until they look at me with those little beady eyes and say "put me back in my cage now, I'm bored, and there, there are walnuts."

Strange times. Interesting times. I went in a Mervyns that was going out of business a few days ago, and it looked like a riot was taking place.

The empire is falling. Taste the fruits of empire while you can. Before it's all gone gone gone.

I did a tarot reading this morning and drew the tower, crossed by the ten of swords.

things they might have been filming last night

• rock of love
• alcohol commercial
• straight to DVD movie starring David Hasselhoff
• low-budget porn
• tourism ad for neighborhood boosting committee
• educational anti-drunk driving video
• advertisement for American Apparel's "black T"

fashions I regret wearing

• pants so low they reveal panties
• thongs
• severely assymmetrical bobs
• bizarre ear-like hairdos
• shoulder pads
• slouch socks
• wearing star stickers on my face
• drawing a star on my hand every day
  
• star tattoos
• grandmother's petticoats
• pants with hangy straps
• scarf around head
• bra-strap headband
• piles of spikes
• bracelets up arm
• emo boys as accessories

Halloween costumes expected this year

• all manner of slutty animals
• flappers
• conceptual art concepts
• boll weevil
• unicorn
• two-person horse
• Sarah Palin
• fried egg a la Gwen Stephani
• more Sarah Palin

okay, enough lists for now.

taking suggestions for other ways to occupy time.

please don't actually email me.

oh, and it's wizard rock, a.k.a wrock. the wizardcore thing. ain't the internet grand?