Playing catch-up

Oh man, it's been awhile.  I've been super busy - work, new relationship, adventures, etc.  But also, it has started to get rainy and gray here.  And combine that with daylight savings time (ugggggh), and I always feel like hibernating for a month or two.  Watching some hulu, reading some books, cuddling with the dog - I could fill weeks with those things.  But I can't.  And so I do it a little bit.

Now, I don't even know where to start.  So many things to say.  How about a list?

1.  When I was in Montana hanging out with The Wanderer I dropped my camera in a tub of water and Epsom salt.  We may be a little picture light over here for awhile.

2.  The Violent Offender, The Shutterbug, Mr. Renaissance, and I went to see The Flaming Lips at The Puyallup Fair.  Of course we wandered around the fair for awhile first, ate 7 courses of fried food, and commissioned an air-brushed t-shirt.  Thanks to Mr. Renaissance's iPhone and The Shutterbug for the pics (it should be pretty obvious which is which).

 3.  I need to learn how to spell "Renaissance" correct the first time.  That would really simplify things over here.

4.  I met Mr. Renaissance's mother.  Bubba wore his bow tie for the event.

Our matching outfits and the slightly-inappropriate-for-Sunday-brunch-cleavage were unintended.  It was a warm summer day.  I'll say that.  I'll also say that his mom was very sweet.  She loved Bubba.  But how could you not?  Did you see that bow tie???

5.  I met a few more of Mr. Renaissance's friends at a birthday cocktail party.  I wore my new blue and lace dress!  Finally!  With tights and these shoes.  And Le Fuschia lipstick of course.  

This is the only pic of that night that I can show you.

6.  Mr. Renaissance is building a house.  But you knew this.  The plan was to make it a small open first floor with a sleeping loft above.  Now that is the old plan.  The new plan is to make it a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home with a full second story, a master bedroom with master bath and walk-in closet, a large kitchen with an island and a built-in dining nook, a small laundry room, possibly a small pantry under the stairs, potentially a window seat, and a living room with a library nook.  That's the part you might not have known.

So we're working on that.  Well, ok.  He's mostly doing the working so far.  I'm just helping make decisions, meeting with the architect, and devouring home design books by Sarah Susanka, as per the recommendation of the architect.  I'm learning a lot about nooks, away spaces, private and public spaces, window placement, lighting, etc.  It's incredibly fun.  But also, making the decision on the general floor plan was a teeny bit stressful.

 Originally Mr. Renaissance wanted the downstairs to be basically all open.  I like open too, but this means it would be pretty modern.  And it also means that if you've got a family in there, there is no way to get away (like an away room, or public/private space) to get a little privacy except for the bedrooms upstairs.  I didn't think that sounded like a very good plan.  The downstairs would basically be kitchen space open to living room space, with a small powder room.  What was super cool about this plan, however, was that the back wall of the house could be all windows.  All windows that accordioned open to completely open the back of the house to the deck.  Pretty cool, huh?  But I also thought about how this would only be awesome for 3 months out of the year here.  In the winter it's just a wall of windows to dark.

My point here is that deciding on one general floor plan meant saying no to everything else.  That seemed like one of the harder decisions.  Once you make that decision then you have a box in which to make smaller decisions.  But we've done it, and we feel really good about it.

The foundation of the house got poured this week.  We went over there and put our handprints in it.

7.  Mr. Renaissance and I went to Hump!  It's The Stranger's local, amateur, porn festival hosted by Dan Savage.  I had never been before.  Having never gone before you might assume that you would be viewing sexy things.  You would mostly be wrong.  There were some that were funny, some that were cute, some that were cartoons, or claymation, or stop-motion, and a few that were actually sexy.  But.  There were a few, in the 'kink' category, that were just pretty disturbing.  And not in a "oh my god, this is terrible I can't watch this, this goes against my morals" way.  In a "these consenting adults are doing things or simulating doing things that I can't look at anymore".  One with fake blood and fake nurses and drugged boys being dragged back to labs, one with a knife and the threat of cutting and blood which never actually happened (but we had already seen the fake blood so we were just waiting for it), and one cheery, friendly, colorful one that involved waaaaay too many donuts being sacrificed all over a couple people's bodies.  Sprinkles everywhere.  Icing everywhere.  Such. a. mess.  I was mostly disturbed by the mess.  And the fact that sugary foods, while quite amazing, are not sexy.  They do not belong in sex.  In my world you are either eating sugary junk foods or you are having sex.  There is a relationship, but it is an inverse one.

Anyway.

I'll probably go next year.

And I guess that's all for now, friends.