tell me tell me tell me you'll miss miss miss me

You read that right. I have been sitting on this list forever. No good excuse other than the fact I have a 2009 best of I was working on also. I still need to find the piece of paper that I wrote my Best of 2003 on. Whoops!

music

+ top albums of 2008 +

01 | Jason Anderson - Life Sucks Love Sucks Dose Out
02 | Jason Anderson - The Hopeful and the Unafraid
03 | She & Him - Volume One
04 | Los Campesinos!: Hold on Now, Youngster...
05 | The Mountain Goats: Heretic Pride
06 | The Smittens - The Coolest Thing About Love
07 | The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
08 | Mount Eerie - Lost Wisdom
09 | Love Is All: A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night
10 | The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
11 | Son, Ambulance - Someone Else's Déjà Vu
12 | M83 - Saturdays=Youth
13 | Neon Neon: Stainless Style
14 | Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs
15 | Portishead - Third

+ best shows of 2008 + BOLD means it was especially memorable

2008-02-16 - Super Furry Animals/Times New Viking/Jeffrey Lewis @ Metro
2008-03-22 - Statehood/Kid, You'll Move Mountains @ Reggie's Rock Club
2008-03-26 - Los Campesinos!/Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters @ Empty Bottle
2008-04-11 - Caribou/Fuck Buttons @ Empty Bottle
2008-04-11 - The Besties/Mean Ohio/Ash in Pensacola/Mymymy @ The Note
2008-04-29 - Yelle/Codebreaker @ Logan square Auditorium
2008-05-10 - My Birthday jubiLEIGH featuring Jason Anderson/Strand of Oaks @ South Union Arts
2008-05-28 - Jeremy Enigk/Damien Jurado @ Abbey Pub
2008-06-28 - Hayden/Haley Bonar @ Schubas
2008-08-05 - She & Him/Becky Stark @ Park West
2008-08-20 - Radiohead/Liars @ White River Amphitheatre (Auburn, WA)
2008-08-24 - Radiohead @ Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles, CA)
2008-08-25 - Radiohead @ Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles, CA)
2008-08-27 - Radiohead/Liars @ Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre (Chula Vista, CA)
2008-10-10 - Statehood/Kid,You'll Move Mountains/The Fake Fictions @ Bottom Lounge
2008-10-13 - The Mountain Goats/Kaki King @ Park West
2008-10-20 - Mount Eerie/Julie Doiron/Calm Down It's Monday @ AV-aerie

films

01 | Dear Zachary
02 | Food, Inc.
03 | The Dark Knight
04 | Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
05 | Charlie Bartlett
06 | Milk
07 | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
08 | Tropic Thunder
09 | Iron Man
10 | Let the Right One In
11 | Taken
12 | Australia
13 | The Order of Myths
14 | Kung Fu Panda
15 | Slumdog Millionaire

today marks two years since laini passed away. not a day goes by that i don't think about her. i still pick up my phone to text her something or start an email to her before i remember she's gone. she's still alive in so many of us. i try to keep in touch with her parents. if you would like to contact her parents, let me know and i will put you in touch. there are so many things that i do that i think, "man, laini would love this" and at first it makes me sad, but then it makes me think that i have to do enough living for the both of us. i wish zachary would have gotten to meet her, though he probably would have found two ladies like us too much. :)

wherever you are, i miss you laini.

the more and more i think about it, the more i want to get these tattooed around my wrists:

"everyone must die, but first we get to live."

"do something pretty while you can."

i originally wanted to get them on each of my forearms, but something says whatever day job comes next won't be as accepting of that as wrist tattoos. zachary thinks it's morbid, but this sentiment is one that we should all embrace. i like the idea of having a constant reminder to treasure the time i have here.

a bit before hoggle passed away, i received my DRAWsome by susie ghahremani boygirlparty of hoggle & hermione. DRAWsome is a project she is doing where, if you are lucky enough to buy a listing when they are up on her etsy shop, she will draw what you ask her to. http://www.flickr.com/photos/boygirlparty/3764074392/ if susie says it's okay, i was thinking of getting that done. either that or i'll just ask my beloved esther at butterfat studios to come up with something beautiful. just now i was thinking it would kind of be great to have a tattoo of him portrait style on my right arm, mirroring where the headphones are on my left arm. hmm.

this weekend is the renegade craft fair in chicago. if you are around, stop by and say hi to eliza (purse-onality) and i. we are booth #67. i am psyched to see all of my crafty pals there. i don't feel ready yet, but i better pull it together because i only have TONIGHT and tomorrow night to prep. ARGH!

speaking of which, i have a couple new products up on the rhymes with twee etsy shop.

p.s. sarah of the small object wrote a post that everyone should read: http://thesmallobject.com/stenopad/wordpress/?p=2680

Our baby Hoggle passed away this afternoon on our way back from picking him up at the vet. They thought he was going to get better, but he seemed so weak when we picked him up this morning that I felt it was coming to come soon but never did I think it would be on the way home. Thank you to everyone who had met him and loved him, or just loved him without having ever met him. He was loved by many. I am going to be doing a sale on rhymeswithtwee.etsy.com because I have about one thousand assorted postcards with his little face on them. Proceeds will go towards the vet bills and cremation bill. I miss our little man so much. Right now Zachary is putting his cage and stuff out of sight and putting Hermione's cage there. I know you're not supposed to ever say anything like this, but he was my favorite. Though each and every morning I would always say to both hedgies "I love you and I'll always love you", I really felt like he knew it.

on sunday i turned 30. i have mixed emotions about it all. there are many things i am happy about and a handful of things i am not. i had my bday party on a friend's rooftop and it was really fun, but it didn't live up to last year's birthday jubileigh. how could it when plans didn't solidify until relatively last minute and jason didn't play? anyways, i am 30 now. the only person it really feels like a big deal to is me.

z took me out to a fancy dinner at takashi for my bday and we looked very cute:


z and i adopted a rescue hedgehog abandoned at my vet and named her hermione. her previous owner apparently not a knowledgeable hedgehog owner and she'd received multiple shots of ivermectin (a no no for hedgies). that and thought that she was a he. errr. anyways, she is very cute:


the lucksmiths have announced they are breaking up: http://www.thelucksmiths.com.au . i am really bummed out about this, but i have so many great memories associated with seeing them. the saddest part is knowing i won't get to see them one last time.

what else has been going on? not a whole lot. i've been watching hannah montana on the roku box. i saw star trek in imax with nathan and it was awesome! i am going to start creating things again soon. rhymes with twee needs a jumpstart! this week i have been watching my first bench trial and it's been pretty interesting actually watching a case i've been doing the filings for in action. fingers crossed!

rhymes with twee is going to be featured on dailycandy chicago tomorrow! i am pleased as punch. i made a new card yesterday that i will post pictures of once i print the inside tonight. i made 200 of them because it's easier to make more than less of cards these days especially with consignment. after work i am going to bring renegade handmade stuff that they want in preparation for the piece going up tomorrow. anyways, i just wanted to post that z and i are hopeful re: hoggle stuff and this is a ray of sunshine keeping my chin up even though chicago is sopping wet. my feet are too.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE FEATURE:
http://www.dailycandy.com/chicago/article/42153/Something+to+White+Home+About

here's what is going on:

1) the urinalysis came back after our last visit and they called and let me know that hoggle definitely had a UTI. the last couple times he's peed not in the litterbox, there has been no blood. yay! however, he has a kidney stone he's trying to pass. that's why he looks like he's straining.

2) i am a little frustrated with that since we approved an ultrasound when the vet (not the hedgehog specialist) first came in, but they did another x-ray that she said it looked like he still had a mass and then came in and said we'd need to do an ultrasound, but that we'd have to come in later for that. after explaining that it was very hard for us to do this on week days (saturdays fill up far in advance), she checked and they were able to do it right then. that's when they saw that the "mass" was really just fat.

3) in 2 weeks we are going in to get that ball in his cheek removed that has abnormal cells in it. even when it's removed, it could come back, but that it'll be good to mail the sample off to find out what we were dealing with. to help with this cheek ball thing, we are giving him ip-6 in a suspension they made to hopefully reduce the size or it from growing more before the operation.

4) because he's overweight, it's causing his heart to beat slightly irregularly?, and it could lead to heart disease if he doesn't lose weight. our goal is to bring his weight down considerably and try to figure out how to monitor how much he's running (there are ways to hook up an odometer to the wheel - i am going to research that). if we can get him to lose a suitable amount of weight then he won't need to go on heart medication. if we can't, he will.

5) the estimate/quote for the surgery is $490 (that's with everything including a 2 day stay there to make sure they can monitor him after surgery). i can't even IMAGINE him not being around for 2 days. $228 i spent + $200something (what z spent yesterday) + $490 = $______________. i have no idea what our pet insurance pays on surgeries.

i feel some kind of relief that hoggle is doing much better than we thought he was a couple weeks back, but now a new can of worms has been opened and we have a ways to go until he's feeling 100% again. my mind is sightly at ease, but the stress will come and go. i am really glad i stayed home this weekend rather than going to seattle, because i have been feeling sickly again.

yesterday was rough. around one month ago i noticed hoggle's urine was pink-tinged. we monitored him after that and it didn't happen again. after much online research, i chalked it up to constipation. a couple days ago, it happened again and then two more times in 24 hours so i booked him an appointment at our vet in skokie yesterday. while sitting in the room with him i noticed that the right side of his face looked a little swollen, which i mentioned to the tech.

here is everything i know so far:

hoggle has a mass that is not supposed to be in his lower body.

the doctor showed me the x-ray and that is pushing his intestines towards his upper body they are not sure if it's his bladder just hugely expanded if he has a urinary tract infection or if it's a tumor.

the vet took a sample of the thing on his cheek and said it had abnormal cells, but that there was a chance it was his salivary glands or something she was not familiar with. she was going to confer with the other doctor, who is actually the hedgehog specialist.

since there is no harm in doing so, i got meds to combat the possibility of it being a UTI. i got three meds. two of them are to be given twice a day and one is only once a day.

i am hoping that this is just a uti that has caused his bladder to expand and not a tumor or the c-word. if it is only a uti, then the mass (which could be his bladder) should go down. if it doesn't go down with these meds, then there is something deeper going on.

the vet said that both the mass inside him and the thing on his cheek should be operable. hoggle's follow up appt is monday 3/9. the hedgehog specialist and this doc will be there at the same time, which is good.

nothing else is different. he's his usual crabby little hoggle self. he's eating, drinking water, pooping - all normal.

i had a terrible nightmare last night where i was running because the world was falling apart and a crazy rockslide was happening and we were trying to get to the highest point and when i was trying to alert everyone, a lot of people couldn't be bothered to come along because they were having sex and they wanted that to be the last thing they did before they died. my heart was racing in the dream because it had been on and off since i received this news yesterday. and it is now.

please think good thoughts for hoggle, or if you pray, please pray for him. he's our little baby and going through this is taking a toll on us. i've cried once so far today and teared up 3 times. i need to stop reading about worse case scenarios and just keep my chin up until i know more.

i have felt pretty burnt out lately. i had a sickness. then z had a sickness. then i had a sickness. etc. you know how it goes. and some of my friends have been sad; really really sad and i can't help but feel some of it because i love my friends.

i've been trying to get out and accomplish stuff though. a couple weeks back jason anderson was in town to record the vocals for his new album at his friend chris' studio. he wanted to play while out here so i set up a show for him at kris racer's loft elegant mr. gallery. i am pretty sure the only promotion it got was 1) a facebook invite i sent out 2) jason's messageboard and website and 3) the gallery's webpage. anyways, it was really awesome and a solid crowd of 40+ people. and so special. jason thanked me way too many times. as everyone knows, i love that dude times infinity. his shows are always special. anyways, on mlk day, we gathered a crew of 6 people total [me, eliza, andy, leander, elise, and steven] to record back up vocals and hand claps for his album. then 4 of the 6 were recorded playing instrumental parts while steven and i looked on. it was a really special group of people and it really made me want to do something this year musically. veggie bite was only consumed twice, but now i think jason is hooked on chicago diner instead? :)

here is a photo jason took with my camera of us singing. there are more photos in that set:


here are the glasses that i finally decided i will get when i go to the optometrist tomorrow:

may be a bit different than everyone's. i've seen a couple different versions.

1) Was 2008 a good year for you? more ups than downs this year.

2) What was your favorite moment of the year? obama winning the election and starting our own little parade around ukv/wp!

3) What was your least favorite moment of the year? losing one of my nearest friends to me being a bad friend.

4) Where were you when 2008 began? at kirstie & jason's watching flight of the conchords for the first time.

5) Who were you with? zachary, kirstie, jason, sei jin, robert, gavin, am i leaving anyone out? ( Collapse )