Moot Point

Happy Hallowe’en, everyone.
I’m celebrating by staying late at the office to take advantage of my work’s DSL connection, because I’m lazy, then, if I don’t leave too late, by going to Wal-Mart to pick up some more mouse traps and a level to hang my new mirror.

I went to Ikea and bought more stuff for my apartment, because the Swedes apparently don’t have enough of my money. I finally broke down and bought a non-green slipcover for my couch.

Backstory: They discontinued the green one, which I found out, unfortunately, after I’d bought the couch, because the day I bought the couch there was still a big sign that said “Green Slipcovers” under an empty shelf and being sold out of the thing which I want is Ikea’s natural state. The thing which I want is generally going to be coming in tomorrow, but they can’t just ship it with my order because it is not actually in the warehouse.

Anyway, I had settled on green because my curtains are dark blue and I didn’t want to get red (my usual default colour choice) because practically everything in my apartment, including my cutting board, my kitchen table and most of my wardrobe, is red. (Last time I did laundry I literally had an entire load of only red and black things.) Yellow was too sunny and I just never really saw myself as an orange person. I stayed away so long because I was mad at Ikea for discontinuing my dream slipcover after I had already bought the couch for which it went on, because at that point, having an unslipcovered couch was better than no couch at all.

However, I’ve been feeling lately like my apartment, for which I pay a reasonable amount of money, and in which I spend a good deal of my time, is kind of just a place I keep my stuff, as opposed to my actual home. Having been born in the 1980s, I decided to solve this problem by buying more stuff to put in it. Just to prove how well I’ve assimmilated consumer culture, it totally worked! Putting some orange fabric and some attractive cushions on my couch really did make my house feel more like a home.

Yes, I ultimately picked orange entirely because it went with the cushions. It looks amazing. (Also. the “contrasting sides for variation” part on the website? Actually just the same fabric, without the crazy branchy, inside-of-the-body-on-House, pattern).

I’m totally psyched about the mirror though. Up until now, the only mirror I have is the tiny shaving-mirror sized contraption in my bathroom that flips around to magnify my pores. I love a good pore-magnification as much as the next gal, but sometimes I need to see more than the area of my face at once. I get dressed before I drink any coffee, people. This is all I’m saying.

Of all the things I did this weekend, going to Ikea was the most boring and least cool. However, it is what I felt the need to record and broadcast to the internet. I very rarely do a whole pile of cool things on the weekend, but this particular weekend I went to a kegger, wore a tuxedo (simultaneously), saw the Silver Hearts and, wait for it, went to Canzine. I even ate Cuban food* for my friend’s birthday on Thursday. So much for that whole blog-as-venue-to-prove-how-cool-I-am thing. Wait what?

*Cuban food is amazing. If you’re local, and love food, go to Julie’s Cuban on Dovercourt. I ordered this thing called Ropa Vieja, which translates literally as “old clothes,” but was actually tender shredded beef with beans and rice and plantains on the side.

Brief setup: The band that was on after the fun synthy eighties-ish band Josh invited us to go see last night were these gothrockers with an unironic smoke machine. At one point the bassist and the lead singer were like, thrusting their guitars together.

Alex: That’s kind of homoerotic.
Me: But one of them’s a girl.
Alex: But it doesn’t negate the guitars. [in their phallicness]
Me: Hetero-homoerotic.

What? I have a blog?

I guess I should bring you up to date.

I’ve been suffering from consumption or something (a.k.a. a sore throat), which has really put a damper on my new determination to get into grad school. I went to see an old prof this week to get some advice, and he told me that the smart money’s on applying to three Canadian schools and three American. The Canadian ones are most likely going to be UBC, York and Concordia. Carleton’s a not-unappealing option, but I’ve been informed that it’s full of historians, and no historian I. UBC is an attractive option (and not just because the lovely <a href=http://livejournal.com/users/rachelmack”>Rachel is a potential roommate). However, the whole application process is frightening and disturbing. Three faculty letters of reference? Thesis proposal? I don’t have a project! Sigh.

Meanwhile, I have no idea where to apply stateside.
Don’t worry, this is so not the last you’ll hear of this.

Other than the cold and the stress of my future looming before me, I’m good.

It’s a been a really good month for shows – M.I.A. was not as hot as I had hoped, but since then there has been Ted Leo, the New Pornographers, the Decemberists (which could well have been attended by everyone I know), and the Mountain Goats.

I’m a little bit in love with the Mountain Goats right now. Moreso than usual, even. Everytime I try to talk about them, I’m all like, “there’s this guy, John Darnielle, he writes these songs and he plays acoustic guitar, and the songs are so, like bitter and funny, but still moving, and it’s just him and his bassist,” I somehow manage to make him sound so boring. This is why I’ll never be a music critic.

In conclusion, I give you one word reviews of the last two movies I saw.

1. Where the Truth Lies: amazing.
2. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: mixed.