Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen!

Those of you who've read my book know how I railed against the slovenly citizens of Seattle who regularly go out for a night on the town attired in their finest fleece. Witness this passage from BreakupBabe (a fairly witty one if I do say so myself). It takes place in a restaurant lit by green glass lamps (thus the mention of "sea green pools").

"There were several couples of the early middle-aged Seattle variety swimming in the sea green pools. One couple looked nearly identical with their metal-framed glasses, gray-streaked dark hair, and matching REI fleece jackets. If there was one thing that disturbed me about Seattle, it was that fleece was the uniform of choice. Fleece at fancy restaurants. Fleece at the theater. Fleece at the opera! It was a citywide illness, REI the ever-breeding host! I myself owned at least six fleece jackets and tops in different colors, styles, and weights (as well as a pair of fleece pants), but I had the sense to know they were for outdoor activities and outdoor activities only.

Well, people, guess what? Now, not only am I a person of the "early middle-aged variety" (ok, lets say, early, EARLY) - minus the gray streaks because I dye my hair, naturellement - but I often wear a fleece jacket when I go out now. Not only that, it's a black fleece entirely covered in white dog hair.

Hell, just the other day, I went to the pool attired in a down jacket, capri-length Yoga pants, Tevas, and wool socks.

I've deteriorated, I tell you. And you know, the one time I wore a cute, sexy dress all winter, I got chocolate all over the front of it the first time I wore it. So maybe it's for the best I stick to the dog-hair-covered fleece. It goes very well with the dog-hair all over the upholstery of my car, which is liberally interspersed with a layer of crumbs and unidentified sticky substances.

xo
Rebecca

Me No Like Driving in Snow

Sigh. Not to complain or anything but the freelance lifestyle is giving me a headache. (That is the front of my new vest. More about that later.)

Working by myself has lost some of its allure. Oh sure I get to hang out in cafe after cafe but sometimes you just get a little jaded by that. And how many grande extra hot soy lattes can I drink in a day anyway before I start moving on to more fattening things or alcoholic beverages?

I like my new gig at Mt. Rainier. But that has its challenges too. It's like going on vacation and coming back once a week, with all the attendant excitement and anticlimax and packing and unpacking and garbage starting to smell while you're gone and ignoring more practical tasks that you should be doing (ie practicing piano or earning a living). Let's not even discuss snow driving.

I don't do snow. I grew up in California and never drove in the damn snow. There are no passes that you have to cross to get to Mt. Rainier, which fooled me into thinking that I wouldn't have to deal much with snow, but I forgot. It is - literally - one of the SNOWIEST PLACES ON EARTH. In 1972, it held the world record for snowfall!

Last week not only did I have knock two feet of snow off my car(with a tiny, ineffectual ice scraper suitable for tiny amounts of ice), which resulted in snow all over me and inside my car, I then had to drive for at least thirty miles on icy, snowy roads on a two lane highway in the dark with snow doing that horizontal thing it does that makes you all disoriented. Yes, those of you from snowier parts of this country can MOCK ME NOW.

I've never been so happy to see the strip-mauled suburb of South Hill (known as as "South Hell" as those who drive through it all the time), with its lights and many lanes and rain instead of snow.

In other news, I bought a new vest. Last week I wore this vest to a party at which I encountered the Seattle rock star Rachel Flotard of Visqueen. I saw Rachel perform last spring at the Sasquatch Festival and wished that I could be just like her. So when she showed up at this party, I was too shy to speak to her for most of the night.But when I did, she was quite charming and friendly. AND she raved about my brand-new used vest I had bought that very day at Buffalo Exchange. I glowed with her compliments for the next two days. (That is the back of my vest.)

Then, just yesterday, I saw her again in Victrola (whose help has gotten kind of surly, I must say) and I was wearing the same vest! (Wouldn't you wear this vest every day if it was yours?) Anyway, I deliberately avoided her and luckily she did not see me.

OK, this story needs a better ending. But I don't have one.This is the kind of situation Teahouse Blossom--the queen of slice-of-life vignettes -- would write about. Only she would give it a punchy ending and write about it better than me.

Stop Quotation Mark Abuse!

Well I partially solved the winter wardrobe problem by spending my entire savings account at Benneton the other day for the purchase of four sweaters and a winter coat.

Now at least I have the basics.

I didn't even really know Benneton was still around. I do recall shopping there when I was about 12, thinking the sweaters were beautiful, and very-well folded, and exorbitantly expensive. I remember them costing about $200 apiece but this can't be right since they now go for about $40. Perhaps it just seemed that way because back then I only got a dollar a week allowance.

I also remember going on some rant about Benneton ads back in a graduate school class - oh yes - when they were featuring people who were HIV-positive in their ads. I don't remember what I said exactly, although I probably used the word "otherness" a lot because that's a word they like to use in grad school. No doubt it wasn't nearly as entertaining as the oral report (ahem) that I gave on sex toys, pontificating on the sociocultural implications of vibrating dildos as I waved one around in front of the class.

Those were the days.

So back to me. I want to direct to you to a blog after my own heart -- The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks . Those of you who've been privileged to ride up the elevator in my condo with me know that one of my favorite pastimes is dissecting the grammatical errors in the flyers created by the condo board, which are often full of unnecessary quotes. They are fond, for example, of using the phrase "We are sorry for the inconvenience." So clearly they are not sorry at all, not for the inconvenience, and not for perpetrating ghastly punctuation on those imprisoned in the slow (and might I add, dangerous elevator).

Perhaps, like Lynn Truss, the author of the very entertaining Eats, Shoots & Leaves dreams of doing, I should create stickers to post on offending material. "Stop quotation mark abuse!" or some such thing.

Or maybe I should just get a life.

Winter Wardrobe Blues

You know, it's a good thing the paparazzi aren't stalking me anymore because I'd probably end up on some worst-dressed lists, or on Go Fug Yourself or something.

I did OK during the summer with the addition of an all-purpose denim skirt and black capri pants to my wardrobe. Those, along with the many halter tops I seem to own, did just fine.

Winter, however, is another matter. I did buy one nice sweater - a soft, gray, long thing. But it poufs out in the middle and makes me look pregnant (not that there is anything wrong with looking pregnant, mind you, if one IS pregnant). If one can't look thin AND stylish, is it better to look thin? Or stylish?

In any case, I have to wear the thing, because the rest of my sweaters have 1)shrunk in the wash so that they reveal my torso in a very unflattering and out-of-date way 2)are from Value Village and look like it. The winter pants in my wardrobe, moreover, are 1)stained 2)have malfunctioning zippers or 3)give me diaper-butt.

Sigh. How did it get this way? I love the winter but not when I have to go out looking like such a fashion reject. Used to be I had many sweaters, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I wore miniskirts and tights and boots to work all the time! Have I gotten old? Is that why I don't feel like wearing miniskirts anymore? Or is it just that the pair of Target black boots I have are much too uncomfortable to wear for more than five minutes?

Luckily I'll be heading off to Mexico in a month and I can bring back those tank tops and the denim skirt for a few days. Not to mention my pink bikini, for whose sake I am now working out every day.

But coming up soon I will be taking the stage again so it is more important than ever that I find some cute outfits to wear. That's right, my rock and roll career has awoken from it's comatose slumber! I'm playing keyboards with a country outfit fronted by a very talented songwriter who tackles those good ole country themes like war, drunkenness, betrayal, absent fathers, hardscrabble small towns, and hardworking horses.

And I'm especially excited because I get to sing a song about a woman who 1)takes off her wedding ring than goes to cheat on her husband, but 2)then there's a tornado, and she 3)rushes back to find her house destroyed and is worried 4)that her husband has died in the tornado and 5)that her wedding ring is lost forever but then 6)her husband turns up and 7)so does the wedding ring, and 8)she realizes what a fool she'd been and all she needs is her husband and family to be happy, so screw the damn tornado.

I mean, I was BORN to sing this song even if I've never been in a tornado, or had a wedding ring, or a husband, for that matter. The only question is, what does one wear to sing such a song? Should I follow Dolly's leopard-printed lead?

--Love, Rebecca
Today's blog entry brought to you by numbered lists.

Navel Gazing Lit Not Just Online Anymore!

I am getting my .02 seconds of fame again this week in the Seattle Weekly. Note that I will be recycling this author photo until I am 80 years old (Although given my family’s genetics, I will be living only another year or so, so scrap that. That picture will last me a lifetime!).

In other news, my Muse is still on vacation. She was spotted by hot tipster Jimmie sipping Negro Modelos on a beach in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, reading The Wayward Muse under a palapa, where she reportedly said, "Rebecca Agiewich can go f*ck herself. Maybe if we win that Blooker Prize and she can start to pay me something a little better than one f*cking soy latte a day, I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, I’ve got a tan to work on." No one knows how she is paying for her extended beach vacation since no royalties are yet forthcoming from BreakupBabe: A Novel.

In my Muse’s absence, I continue to focus on exciting things like bills and paperwork. I spend most of my waking life on the phone with Qwest trying to sort out why they created two accounts for me, sent me two modems, and why, although neither of those modems work, they continue to bill me for exorbitant amounts on each account. I also do virtuous things like bike to work, take fish oil pills, do my physical therapy exercises religiously, and sleep 8.5 hours a night.

I’m still attempting to get back into journalist mode, calling “sources” and writing “pitches” and even meeting with some “success,” though I have yet to complete a single article. (To my credit, I have started an essay about my Alta trip at least four different times, each one starting off with a bang, then eventually dying a sad, lonely death as I realize I have no idea what I’m trying to say).

That’s all I got for you today.

Oh wait, wait. I bought a flowered headband the other day! It looks really cute on me and has revitalized my whole hand-me-down-from GalPal #2-and-my-sister-stained-thriftshop look. I don't have a picture of it but I kinda look like this.



Yours truly,

Rebecca

It's OK to Wear Fleece. SOMETIMES.

It is a gray, cold, day here in Seattle (so what else is new?) and I have broken all my own fashion rules by going out on the town wearing fleece.

If you have read my novel (and if you haven't, why haven't you?), you know I am against the wearing of fleece when on the town, and approve of it only for outdoor activities. For example, the photo on the right illustrates the the proper wearing of fleece.

But you know what? Fleece is soft. It is warm. It is fuzzy. And you just can't be a fashion icon every single f*cking minute of the day. So there. That is what I say to my own fashion fascist self.

Ha ha. I could not tell you what the latest fashions are to save my life. Right now I am wearing a seven-year old turtleneck from Salvation Army, jeans that may or may not be fashionable, I have no idea, but since cost a mere $80 rather than $200 (which is what I hear the truly stylish jeans are going for these days), I am thinking not, running shoes, and mismatched athletic socks.

But at least since I am back at Geeksoft these days, I no longer feel like a fashion reject the way I did at [Insert Name of Giant E-Tailer Here], where there were all sorts of cute girls in high heels, not to mention "cool" cliques, which I was not of course part of. So in some ways it's good for my ego to be back with the geeks again, in other ways, ugh.

But never mind about that. We're focusing on the *new,* the *happy,* the *positive,* like the fact that I've started a new blog. RIP BB The Blog.

Meanwhile, BB the novel is living a happy life on Kelly's bookshelf with a host of celebrated authors such as Jane Austen and Jennifer Weiner. She kindly emailed me a photo of it and I qwas going to post the photo for you but Blogger won't let me. *$#@! I'll try posting it later.

Oh! And if you want to send me a picture of you reading my book, I would love to see it and will post it here! Kind of like the super-talented Frank Portman did with his deliciously funny book about boys, adolescence, and bands, King Dork.

xo
Rebecca