Dodging melanoma, summer pastime of choice

Hey, look, Aveeno has come up with one more way to save my life.

I am completely addicted to Aveeno's Active Naturals line. I've been breakout prone since I was a teen, and even now my skin isn't exactly clear, but the fact that it is still attached to my skull looks reasonably healthy is due entirely to Aveeno. Especially considering how much benzoyl peroxide I used during my 20s, it's kind of amazing that I'm not chasing Brendan Fraser around a pyramid with my herd of carnivorous beetles.

The first time I tried Aveeno, I read the bottle and I thought, 'Hm, "evens skin tone". What the hell does that mean?' And two weeks later I said, 'Oh! That's what it means. Nice.'

Plus, I crumble like a vampire when left in the sunlight for more than 10 minutes, so I think Aveeno with SPF is the best thing since the first salted margarita glass.

iPod > playlists > a vélo

Songs that will always remind me of cycling around The Hague (where biking with headphones is de rigeur rather than death wish):

Siren - Tori Amos
Fall With Your Knife - Peter Murphy
Abattoir Blues - Nick Cave
Drink Up Me Hearties Yo Ho - Hans Zimmer (shut up)
Bittersweet - Apocalyptica
Slipping Away - Moby
Umbrella - Rihanna (guilty pleasure, yum)
Say It Right - Nelly Furtado
Loin des Villes - Yann Tiersen

Boy, it's kind of hard to type with my head between my knees

SNOW!

No. Petal blossoms. Floating. On a gentle. Spring. Breeze.

kthnxdie

This annoys me for so many reasons.

[Edit: I seem to have put the actual post in the comment section.]

Taking the sacrament, Vermont style

1. Toast a piece of your favorite locally baked bread. Here in Vermont, there are more artisanal bakeries than there are actual people - which should probably disprove all sorts of economic theories about supply and demand, but there you have it.
2. While the bread is toasting, get out a shot glass. (See! We're having fun already.)
3. Mix equal parts peanut butter and maple syrup with a pinch of cinnamon, and a wee bit more cayenne pepper than you think is probably safe. You can use the shot glass as a mixing bowl - as a means of portion control - or you can just do shots of maple syrup. Either way.
4. Spread maple-y butter goo on bread.
5. Eat, allowing eyes to roll back in head.
6. Commune with Allah, Elvis, Frodo, or non/deity of choice.
7. Accept maple syrup as your personal savior.

Roight, you're a Vermonter! Now go out and shoot some road signs.

Impossibly warm yellow sweater*

This is the only sweater my mom ever made; indeed it's the only evidence that she ever wielded knitting needles. I find this amazing. Usually a person's foray into knitting will leave a trail of early efforts: incomplete scarves or endearingly misshapen mittens.

Either my mother incinerated all her mistakes, or she just sat down and did it right the first time. My money's on the latter. It's like if a civilization emerged from the dust, built the Eiffel Tower, and then became extinct by teatime the following Tuesday.

This sweater is an incredibly accomplished piece of work for a knitting novice: every stitch is even, the sleeves are the same length, the shoulders aren't lumpy - and yes, it's jaw-droppingly yellow: a color that - hurrah! - actually looks good on me.

And it's very warm, because the knit is incredibly tight. Most sweaters are permeable, but this one is very nearly waterproof. My mother is the first person to knit wool into Gore-tex.

But despite her obvious talent for the craft, my mother didn't like knitting, in fact she found it insufferably dull, because she could have been outside riding her bicycle or gardening instead. If anyone ever needed to extract a confession from my mother, all they'd have to do is make her sit still for five minutes, and she'd admit that yes, she stole the Picasso, and yes, the plot about the prime minister, that was her too, and will there be anything else, because THE RHODODENDRONS NEED TO BE WATERED.

When I wear this sweater, no matter where I am, I'm home.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

*Very unlike an impossibly huge yellow something.

A drop of tired wings

"She leaned on him for a moment, as if with a drop of tired wings: he felt as though her heart were beating rather with the stress of a long flight than the thrill of new distances. Then, drawing back with a little smile of warning - 'I shall look hideous in dowdy clothes; but I can trim my own hats,' she declared.

They stood silent for a while after this, smiling at each other like adventurous children who have climbed to a forbidden height from which they discover a new world. The actual world at their feet was veiling itself in dimness, and across the valley a clear moon rose in the denser blue."

- from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Dudencrantz and Dogenstern

Aside from the disturbing use of the Harry Potter font, this looks pretty promising. Also, it provides strong evidence that Devon Aoki can actually speak. Who knew.

Thanks, Josh.

An anticipated arrival

I just ordered a MacBook from the Apple refurb site. It's been almost four years since I got a new computer and I'm actually nervous, like I'm waiting for my mail order bride to show up. I keep walking around and straightening the pillows. Will she like it here? Will she like me?

What if I've forgotten how to, you know. Install. And stuff.

At least I have protection.

Button, hold!

So I've finally overcome the inertia and indecision that kept me tied, as it were, to the cat that was in turn tied to the bacon. It has been a greasy and tiresome affair: no one likes fur in their bacon. Pthah.

I've renamed the site The Very Button, and Blogger is/will be redirecting you to theverybutton.org. Your bookmarks will still work, though to demonstrate solidarity, you might re-bookmark. High five.

An explanation, of sorts:

Hamlet: Good lads, how do you both?
Rosencrantz: As indifferent children of the earth.
Guildenstern: Happy in that we are not overhappy. On Fortune's cap, we are not the very button.

There follows some lewd and comic banter of the typically Shakespearean sort, ending with the observation that Fortune is a strumpet. Those Elizabethans were so predictable.

NB: My attachment to Ros and Guil has less to do with Shakespeare and more to do with Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Reasons I love Vermont, Item #374

I think two counts as a street fair

I spent 12 years in San Francisco. This perfectly embodies what it's like to live there.

Also, it explains why almost nothing freaks me out and why my ability to ignore strange people on the street simply cannot be overestimated. It's the social version of building up an immunity to iocaine powder.

On opening Photoshop this morning

'Embedded profile mismatch' suddenly struck me as an oddly poetic phrase, like some forlorn explanation of a failed relationship.

I remember reading a parental advisory on a DVD case - I think it was Tim Burton's Big Fish - that said 'some mild peril'. Nearly Shakespearean.

Monarchy, religion and war does a holiday make

As some of you know, I work for a website that's based in The Netherlands. Yesterday I was off work because it was Koninginnedag, or Queen's Day, their biggest national holiday. It marks the birthday of former Queen Juliana. The present queen, Beatrix, has left the celebrations on her mother's birthday because her own is in January: not a good time for a huge national party if you live on the 52nd parallel.

So I had a day off because everyone in the Netherlands was wearing inflatable orange crowns and drinking beer and falling in the canals. (The crowns work as flotation devices, and save dozens of lives every year. Really.)

I have today off work because a couple thousand years ago some guy allegedly defied gravity.

I have Monday off work because 68 years ago on 5 May, Allied troops, most of them Canadian, drove the Nazis out of the Netherlands. This quite understandably made a lasting impression on the natives, who still celebrate Liberation Day.