Archives: March 2003
Sunday, March 30, 2003
And so I sit, just before bed, with a new and throbbing piercing. Throbbing mainly because I just gave it a sea salt soak and after that 'gently' cleaned it, insofar as one can gently try and thoroughly clean a piercing that has little room to maneouver around and only a q-tip as the 'delicate' cleaning instrument.
For details about the procedure this livejournal entry covers most of that. Pictures of a 3.5 hour old industrial here and here.
I'm really happy with this piercing, it's one I've been wanting for something like 1-2 years now, and due to myriad reasons never went and got done. I'm proud of myself that I went through with it, though it's a fairly painful procedure, and because it's kind of another little mark of independence in a way, and a small step closer to what I feel is 'me'. And it's definitely visually and aesthetically pleasing.
Though I doubt she'd ever ever read this, many thanks and kudos to Cara of NY Adorned for making it a pleasant experience.
Before getting pierced we hit the Fashion District and bought fabric for my corset, my jacket, and Cherie swatched her way through Mood. Successful day, to say the least.
@ 03:02 AM EST
Friday, March 28, 2003
So earlier this week I ordered the pattern for the Victorian corset. Hopefully that will arrive soon.
This weekend will be the weekend of buying fabric for various things, and the weekend of getting my long awaited and planned for industrial piercing.
I tried earlier this week to set up an appointment with a piercer I'd had in mind for a great many months, only to find that he's on a hiatus right now. Big disappointment. I asked him for a recommendation, and he named one of 2 studios I had on my short list. So Cherie and I are going to go to NY Adorned. I've also kind of been keeping in touch with said piercer, he mentioned that he was on the lookout, but hadn't yet found a shop where he'd be comfortable renting space in. I'd asked him if he'd let me know when he found a place to call 'home', as I'd definitely be interested in stopping by when he does.
Fabric shopping for Cherie to go swatching for a show, also for us to find new fabric for the jacket she's designing for me, and for the corset I want to (learn to) make. So far it will be the three of us, Kit, Cherie and myself... PreZ is a maybe. He's not big on shopping generally, and he doesn't have as big an interest in fabric shopping either. He did mention though that he doesn't want to watch when Cherie and I get pierced, so maybe he'll come along afterall.
I also ordered a bunch of comics from Slave Labor Graphics this week. I've not been keeping up with comics much, so I'm missing a bunch of issues from various series, like Gloomcookie, Nightmares and Fairytales, Lenore, Little Gloomy and one or two random things. It'll be good to get up to date with those comics again.
@ 07:43 PM EST
Monday, March 24, 2003
Saturday we saw Cabaret at a matinee showing. We managed to get rush tickets for it. Unfortunately Kit also had to bow out due to feeling ill, so it was just the three of us who went. Alas.
The show kicked ass. Neil Patrick Harris played our Emcee (Doogie Howser). While I have nothing to compare him against, I thought he did an excellent job. I never really thought the word 'sexy' could be used to describe him, but he was so in this role... go figure ;) Debbie Gibson was Sally Bowles and Tom Bosley (Happy Days) was Mr. Schultz. Lots of fun, if you haven't seen it, I recommend you do.
Sunday morning around 8.45am Devon left for the long long drive back to Indiana. Hopefully well rested and relaxed from her trip here.
PreZ had to bowl in the morning until the early afternoon, and the rest of the day we basically spent vegetating and we both napped at one stage. Most of the evening we just spent reading, he in his Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy omnibus while I finished my Nancy A. Collins novel Darkest Heart, read through Ted Naifeh's Courtney Crumrin and the Nightthings graphic novel and started in Storm Constantine's Calenture.
Now I must order that victorian corset pattern so that slowly the ball gets rolling on that. And also enquire after getting an appointment to get pierced.
@ 05:47 PM EST
Saturday, March 22, 2003
So, we never made it to that show with Eddie Izzard last weekend. Not sure what happened exactly with that, aside from the fact that I believe the preview tickets are about as expensive as the regular ticket prices ($40-60 range if I remember correctly). Our trip to De La Guarda ended up being cancelled because all the people who hadn't seen it yet couldn't make it that Monday. Whether or not we try to go see the Eddie Izzard show some other time, I'm not sure... we'll see what happens.
The Outings list is putting together an outing to the Cirque du Soleil Varekai show in May or June, which would be nice to attend. A bit pricey though at $105 per ticket, but I've wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil show for years now. Another thing yet to be decided.
Late April will mean a trip down to North Carolina for a weekend to attend a wedding of one of PreZ's cousins. That should be interesting. I'm not really looking forward to the huge 10+ hour drive down there though on a Friday, only to be repeated on that Sunday. There might be a chance that Kit and Cherie can finish our jackets etc. so that we might wear them to the wedding. Kit's further along with PreZ's jacket than Cherie is with mine though. It would be good if either or both are finished to wear. I haven't really decided what I'd wear otherwise. I could go all out and wear the pvc victorian bustle skirt, but that might be a bit much ;) I think this is when I wish it had been satin rather than pvc, ah well. Otherwise there's the long double frilled victorian skirt or a tulle ballroom skirt that I can pick from, with the former being the less conspicuous of the two. Or then there's the black velvet fishtail skirt. Argh!
So Saturday we go and try for Cabaret tickets, I'm really looking forward to this. Kit will be joining Devon, PreZ and myself, Cherie unfortunately has to work in the costume shop all day. I also just noticed while browsing the tele-charge site that rush tickets for Baz Luhrmann's La Bohème are $21.25... and the seating is in the first two rows... we MUST go see this sometime soon.
@ 12:08 AM EST
Friday, March 21, 2003
Devon arrived Tuesday evening for her spring break vacation with us.
Wednesday we headed into NYC where we met up with PreZ for lunch. After we went to the Natural History museum, where we checked out the Butterfly Conservatory and the Tom Hanks narrated space movie at the Rose Center, and wandered around the museum for a while.
Thursday was a veg out day, Devon needed to do some reading for tests she has coming up next week, and I managed to read a whole chunk in the book I was reading (Laurell K. Hamilton's A Caress of Twilight). In the afternoon we went out to the Galleria mall in White Plains in a vain attempt to find some good bags... alas, it seems that suburban malls cater only to the preppy or the older woman crowd, neither very appealing to either of us. I did buy a cute little Pucca notebook. Watched some dvd's later in the evening: Amélie, The Bourne Identity and Strictly Ballroom. And I managed to finish my book, which was good.
Today we went into the city to the Metropolitan Museum. There are a number of exhibits on right now, including Da Vinci, Velazquez & Manet: The French Taste for Spanish Painting and an exhibit about Chinese themes in Japanese and Korean art. We would have liked to have seen the Da Vinci exhibit, but it was horrendously busy with long lines, so we skipped that. We did check out the other two exhibits, and I really enjoyed the Spanish painting exhibit, there was some amazing work there. I wish the Met had a better postcard selection, they have so many paintings that would be amazing postcards, but only ever have a limited few availible. I picked up a card of a Manet painting (Le Balcon) and one of John Singer Sargent's painting of Madame X, which was one of my favourites in the exhibit.
After the museum we went to Battery Park to see the statue of Liberty, and walked up past the WTC site from there. Then because we were still on the lookout for a new bag we stopped in at the Century 21 department store. Devon managed to find a bag of about the description she was looking for, and for $10 too... I couldn't find a bag I wanted there, but did replace the sunglasses I lost bunker crawling last summer with a pair of Guess glasses, a nifty bargain at $16.
I think we'll spend the rest of the evening vegetating and watching dvd's. I need to chase up with Kit and see if he's going to come with us to try and rush tickets for a matinee to Cabaret tomorrow.
@ 09:35 PM EST
So last Sunday we went to Princeton NJ with Kit and Cherie. The weather has decided to play nice, and remembered that it's almost the official start of spring soon and granted us warm weather on Saturday and Sunday, after giving us sleet and other nasty crap on Thursday.
In Princeton we first spent time at the Record Exchange and I walked away with some great deals... I found an Autumn cd (the US darkwave outfit, not the European metal one), which I hadn't expected at all... mint condition for $3.99! I also took home NIN Further Down The Spiral and Head Like a Hole for $3.99 and $1.99 and Peter Murphy's Holy Smoke for $4.99. This along with the nice weather made me a very happy person indeed.
The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the campus admiring the architecture and taking pictures and such. I really hope that the warmer weather keeps up, I'm very sick of winter.
While wandering around trying to find a place to eat we ended up in a store called Etc. Company which sells home furnishings and accessories, where I saw very exquisite asian plates and stuff. We've been looking for good noodle/laksa bowls and these were lovely... they're a gunmetal colour on the outside, with a slight shimmer to them. Inside they have green glazing, glazing that has kind of settled in the bottom into a crackleware pattern. It's very pretty. Now I want the other square and rectangular plates and stuff that they had... maybe the next time we go to Princeton... the bowls were fairly expensive, so we settled for 4 of them and nothing else.
We had dinner back in New Brunswick at an Ethiopian restaurant, an interesting experience to say the least due to the fact that it's finger food. No cultlery, just "bread" which resembles a cross between a pancake, a sponge and a chamois cloth. With this "bread" you basically grab bits of food and globs of the curry-like foods. Very yummy though, albeit a messy way to eat.
Back at Kit and Cherie's place we watched Eddie Izzard's Glorious show and ate some brownies that I baked saturday night and had brought along. PreZ got fitted for his jacket, so now Kit can work on that some more.
Must also organise when it's convenient to go poke needles through skin again with Cherie and go get pierced. Last weekend when we were out bowling we found out that we both want the same piercing done... It sounds really lame, but it's actually a complete coincidence. So we figured we'd get them done at the same time, just for good measure.
@ 08:03 PM EST
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Saturday was a fairly quiet veg out day, though we ended up going out for dinner at the Chinese restaurant down the road which was good.
Sunday Kit and Cherie drove up from Jersey and we hung out together. It was really good to see them both and hang out together. Originally the plan was to go to a matinee of Cabaret in the city, but due to a musician strike on Broadway we decided against it, as Cabaret was the only (musical) show open in NYC... odds that tickets were sold out would have increased dramatically if that was the ONLY event that people could see in NYC that weekend, so we played it safe.
Instead we went bowling in the mid afternoon, had some food at a diner before going to see The Hours. I really enjoyed The Hours, even though it's far from a cheerful movie. I'd heard it was "really depressing"... which even given the subject matter and events portrayed I don't completely agree with. Nicole Kidman is absolutely incredible in it as Virginia Woolf, and also completely unrecognisable. I really hope she takes home the Oscar for this role.
After watching the movie we came back here and just hung out. I got fitted for my jacket, and so played the living clothes mannequin for a while.
We have tentative plans for next week, including the possibility of seeing a show with Eddie Izzard in it, which should definitely be good. Plans for next Monday include another trip to go see De La Guarda before it closes... people flying around attached to cables... wheee! hopefully we don't get as wet as last time, especially not in this weather... we'd all end up with pneumonia :)
Next Tuesday I believe is when Devon is due to hit the Big Apple, also should be loads of fun. Hopefully we can see Cabaret while she's here.
Picked up 2 new games at CompUSA on sunday too... Civilisation 3 and a mystery game called Syberia which looks very interesting (on the box anyway, haven't installed it yet).
@ 12:23 AM EST
Friday, March 7, 2003
So we just got back from seeing Tori Amos play... it kicked so much ass!
We had tickets for the 3rd mezzanine, almost the back row... then part way through the opening act some of the staff with a handful of tickets came handing out other tickets for downstairs. Apparantly they had a bunch of unsold or unclaimed tickets or something... we ended up in the Orchestra sections, 11 rows from the stage in the center... wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Tori is a goddess. She's absolutely incredible live, and it was well worth it. The better seats already made the night several degrees better, watching her perform was just amazing.
She played for well over 1 1/2 hours and among others played Wampun Prayer, A Sorta Fairytale, Strange, Pancake, Sweet Sangria, Cornflake Girl, Winter, Icicle (both apt considering it started snowing again today), Taxi Ride, Talula, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Black Dove (January), Wednesday, Tear in Your Hand, Rattlesnakes and a cover of the song Landslide by the Dixie Chicks... and a bunch more that I can't remember off the top of my head.
Watching her play is incredible, especially the songs that have more keyboard instruments than just the piano, where she'll switch from one to the other without missing a beat, or play two at the same time one-handed.
If she tours for Scarlet's Walk near you, SEE IT!!
Radio City Music Hall is an awesome venue too... excellent sound system, lovely Deco design with amazing curtains surrounding the stage (I can't even begin to imagine how many yards went into it). A beautiful venue indeed.
I only picked up a tour programme. I would have liked a shirt, but the booth was overpacked with people, and the t-shirts were $33-38+, so a tad extortionate. Granted, so was the programme at $20, but it contains writing in it by Neil Gaiman too, which is a nice bonus.
A very good night indeed!
@ 01:54 AM EST