Managing the Minutiae
Please be sure to update your bookmarks or favorites. Rather than checking back at Shifting Piles, please go to http://www.andylien.wordpress.com for new posts.
Oh, and just so you know, there aren’t any today. Gotcha.
I’m still working on the ugly back end of this new mess venture.
Thanks,
A
P.S. I’ll let you know when I drop the WordPress portion of that address. It will be the “RAH!” heard ’round the world when I do.
Okay. Let me bring you up to speed.
Shifting Piles has changed. I’ve been talking about a new website for so long…and, yes, this is it. Kind of. I know–wow! What a snazzy site! Not really. Visually, it’s not much to write home about. But, behind the scenes, its blueprint is a buxom bombshell.
As you may notice, Shifting Piles is now a part of a larger collection of blogs, all of which will fall under the AndyLien.com umbrella. And, once I can get my host to make AndyLien.com into a WordPress blog, I’ll be good to go and will start using that as the one and only official address for my work. The other pages and their names (which are pretty fun…explore a little) will be accessible and searchable on their own as well as by way of AndyLien.com, to double the marketing and visibility efforts.
Let me give you a quick tour. There is a bit of new material within the AndyLien.com pages, but much of it will also be familiar to longtime readers. I know I’d originally said that I would have each page titled by a verb, but I saw a local hack rag had done that…and I couldn’t do the same. It’s one thing to copy something…it’s another when it’s not even a desireable source from which to copy. So, I went with six basic concepts: People, Places & Things; Marketing & Communication; Design; Food & Eating; Woman Things; and Shifting Piles.
People, Places & Things: Nouns. I want to introduce you to people I meet, places I go, and things I experience here.
Marketing & Communication: Shop talk. It’s my professional background and I’m a goon for it. You might find yourself skipping this page…or being pleasantly surprised by how interesting its contents can be. We can form an A/V Club together.
Design: My portfolio. This is hard. I’ve been in Marketing, Communications, and Design for over ten years now. What constitutes my portfolio will always be changing. This is entirely new content at this point and I’m not thrilled with how all of it pulls off, but it’ll improve. I promise.
Food & Eating: What a can of worms. You may or may not have known this, but I had my stomach stapled at age 17 and a gastric bypass surgery at age 21. My history with food and recipes is 32 years long and it hasn’t always been pretty. This page is to both acknowledge as well as completely ignore that history. And, it’ll be tasty.
Woman Things: I was surprised to find that most of my favorite writing fell onto this page. Becoming and being a woman is the best part of being me. I almost wish I weren’t typing right now as I really want to reread those posts. Right now.
Shifting Piles: My baby. Ever shifting things around, I’m not planning to take away any of this page’s content to date. It is how it always has been. But, from here on out, its content will probably be a bit more arbitrary…perhaps it’ll catch what doesn’t fit into any of the other pages.
Because I have very distinctly different experience in each of these areas, yet there is obvious overlap, I’m going to have plenty of fun with this new format. It could change, but this is what I’ll stick with for now.
It’s a grand experiment.
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
It’s about 12:20pm CST on Tuesday. I’m going to be messing with Shifting Piles for the next hour or so. I’ll put up a post when the messing’s over. When it’s over, Shifting Piles will be part of a bigger monster: AndyLien.com. Hopefully.
Whimper.
The Birthday Boy with his balloons...each of the sunshine ones played "You Are My Sunshine." Extra special noise for the occasion.
Saturday was Halloween. I had a packed schedule; nothing really having anything to do with Halloween. My morning activity was a birthday party for Henry who is now two years old. He was my date for a matinee screening of “Where the Wild Things Are” the other day on his actual birth date and I’ll tell you now that he had the best “Rawr!” in the theatre.
There were 46 people at Henry’s birthday party. I swear, 40 of them were children…39 of which were under the age of 4. That isn’t the truth, but it’s close. Proving how bad my math is, I noticed that pretty much each adult had a kid. I came empty-handed. I didn’t get the memo. I stowed my peshmina and purse, grappled for a cup of coffee as someone started parading around with a drum, and tried to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do with myself. My father has told me about how he’d look to my brother and me as his sassy saviors when he would attend functions as we’d give him something to do…whether it was chasing, feeding, rescuing, or rocking. I could relate. Without my own little bundle of distraction, I was at the mercy of boredom not because the event was boring, but because everyone else was busy with their own.
Two of my favorite distractions, Oscar and Henry.
You see, when you bring your own distraction, you are wrapped up in it. It needs food. It needs to go potty. It needs a “time out.” It wants that other kid’s toy. It’s making a break for the door. It’s driving that poor single spinster crazy by banging a drum at her before she’s gotten a cup of coffee. Every once in a while, you get to insert a relevant comment into an adult conversation while you’re watching your distraction spin in circles until it falls over.
I should’ve brought a magazine.
With a magazine, I could dedicate snippets of my attention to it for an article or a spread on dresses but glance up between snippets and be social.
That is the singleton equivalent to bringing a child to an event.
That is what I forgot.
Without one, I had three options. I could stand there and try to catch the parents for some conversation when they surfaced, I could busy myself with serving or cleaning, or I could play with the kids. I chatted when I could, I helped when I could, and I know that the kids had a better time playing with each other. I can’t begrudge them that.
So, I did what I always do when I feel awkward. I felt sorry for myself. Oh, what comfort can be found in self-pity. I just settle on into it like it’s a big, warm bean bag. Aching ovaries in tow, I was ramping up to go on my internal tirade over being single and without children of my own when I saw him.
Those cheeks. Oh, those cheeks.
My crutch.
My savior.
My distraction.
Look at that guy. Aidan. He was a spare. Honestly. A friend brought him along to the party with her own kids as a favor to Aidan’s parents. He was just as unhitched as me. He was sent to give me something to do. He and I were meant for each other, even if just for a short block of time on a Saturday in October.
He was the perfect child. I held him on my lap and found him food to eat. I let him play with the kids and was even chastised at one point for losing track of my spare…who was just in a hogpile by the balloons. (I couldn’t see him because his outfit was made entirely of camouflage. Naturally.) I followed him around and wiped his nose when the snot became hazardous.
I had a purpose.
When it came time for Aidan to go, I waved goodbye…and got to give him back. See? I’ll repeat: The perfect child.
Then, I went looking for a magazine.
Happy Birthday, Dear Henry.
Rawr.
Ooh…good questions. As I’m whiling away at the new website, I’ve found that my answers to them will fill it nicely. So, I’ll give a few today, but some will wait for The Great Reveal of AndyLien.com. (I have to have SOME new content…who wants a new car without any gas?)
Here we go:
1. Jackie not only asked if I eat chicken on Thursdays and whether or not I think it’s a weird question, but also let me know that my answers will put me on some sort of psych test spectrum. Great. Which one? I’ve already got my MMPI and enneagram results at the tips of my fingers. What will the facts that 1.) I eat chicken on any day and 2.) I do think it’s a weird question say about my psyche? And, do I owe you a copay this week, too? Remember, I’m unemployed and my COBRA hasn’t kicked in yet. Spare me the insurance company run-around, Jackie.
2. Pamela asked, “Would you ever cover a wall with brown paper bags, paint and wallpaper paste?” Absolutely. Coming from a job that exposed me to various techniques of faux painting and wallcovering, I’m fascinated with how texture affects our experience of walls. Interior designers get to think in 3-D terms when looking at a flat surface. Will craft paper or brown paper bags give more of what I need? Should I crumple and affix or simply layer? Will my wall look like the set from the musical “Seussical?” Really, I applaud thinking quite broadly when looking at your walls. There is a fine line, though, between taste and going over-the-top. Too much is too much. So, if you choose to do a faux treatment, make sure the space is appropriate and that whatever you set against the wall isn’t too busy.
Try not to hang anything on the wall or make big holes in it unless the faux is easily fixed. I’ve seen it happen too often that just a “couple of holes” in the wall that are no longer needed end up requiring the whole wall be refinished. Really, to spackle and cover them up might make them too obvious against the rest of the surface whether due to textures or not being able to match specific color mixtures a year or two after the original work was done. So, Pamela, I say “absolutely,” but also keep in mind that once the wall becomes a work of art itself, it needs to be treated as one. And, as someone who will never again remove even simple wallpaper while still walking this earth, I’d rather sell a house with brown paper bags, paint, and wallpaper paste on its walls than remove the brown paper bags, paint, and wallpaper paste from those very walls in case of renovation.
3. Carrie asked, “Do you place the decorative side of flat sheets toward the fitted sheet or toward the comforter?” Without hesitation, the decorative side of the flat sheet should face the fitted sheet. I have a feeling by reading the other comments that this may be a question in contention between Carrie and her sister Pamela (above), and I wonder where my answer fell. Honestly, I don’t use top sheets. It’s true. I hate ‘em. My friend Rachel was nice enough to buy me a set of gorgeous high thread-count sheets in a Robin’s Egg Blue…and I gave her back the flat sheet. I can’t stand them. Top sheets exist to torment me as a person who likes to twist and turn in bed. I don’t think I’m a kicker, but I’m a spinner. Because of this, I wear slippery pajamas and will never be found in flannel sheets for fear of starting a fire by way of friction. Perhaps related to being a spinner, I can’t have my feet tucked in. I feel trapped. So, the top sheet poses a double threat to me as a sleeper: It straps me to the bed and constricts when I move. The Marquis de Sade would only have to unfold a flat sheet to break me. Now, with duvet covers that basically act as big washable (pillow)cases for my comforters, I don’t have to worry about a top sheet or being held captive in my 0wn bed. I’ve basically dumbed down my bedding for the sake of my overactive antics and imagination.
To answer the question, I had to think back to being taught how to make a bed using the traditional components. Mattress, fitted sheet, pillows, pillowcases, shams, flat/top sheet, blanket, and bedspread. I remember when I was given a bedspread–it was a big deal. My “big girl bed” was all pink and ruffly and I was to take responsibility for taking care of my bed. I learned that not every piece of bedding is to stay on the bed when it’s time to go to sleep. In fact (and this might sound familiar to those who have seen ”Along Came Polly”), decorative pillows are removed…including those with shams. For sleeping, you should be left with your sleeping pillows in their cases that are more protective than decorative. Bedspreads are to be folded up and removed so that they are unharmed while sleeping. Then, you’re generally left with a blanket (or eight if you’re me), covering a flat sheet, covering a fitted sheet. The blanket is to come up to about a foot from the top of the mattress…pretty much so that you’d have enough to be able to curl it under your chin. The flat sheet comes up to between the top of the blanket and the top of the mattress and is then folded over the blanket to provide a decorative and protective barrier between the oil of the chin and the blanket. Finally, the fitted sheet is pretty much a condom for the mattress. Pardon me, I meant “prophylactic.” That’s more appropriate. You get the gist. It protects the most expensive and integral part of our nighttime rest and rituals and for that, we thank it.
Yes, you could put the flat sheet on with the decorative side to the comforter and it would still be a protective barrier between you and the blanket. But then it wouldn’t be decorative. So, what would be the point of being decorative at all? I guess you could consider the flat sheet to be something of an exhibitionist. It wants to be seen more than anything. It wants to show off its colors and pretty piping along the top edge. As the sleeper, you might want let the sheet know you appreciate the little extra effort it put into the its appearance when it’s all soft and pretty at your chin…or it’ll choke you. In your sleep. After it traps you to the mattress and puts on the sleeper hold.
One question from Amy, a self-proclaimed random internet person who found her way to my blog, had a bit of urgency in the subject matter of her question. Crab apples in the yard. It sounds a bit like an affliction, but here it is in her own words: “My question is what should I do with all of the crab apples in my yard? It’s too late to make jelly because of mold. I don’t want to just dump them somewhere.”
I fear it may be too late, but I’ve got two answers without kn0wing more about the apples:
1. If they’re big enough to use as cooking apples (I just had some lovely golf-ball sized crab apples from Wisconsin last month that were great in an apple crisp), I’d salvage what can be used and cook into a large yield of chutney. Because it sounds like you’ve got more than would be beneficial to peel in a cost-benefit analysis, I recommend chutney because you don’t have to take off the nutritional skins or make the diced bits look pretty. Furthermore, by cooking down the sauce with other fruits, vegetables, and spices, the more “iffy” apples won’t have a chance to ruin any part of the finished, cohesive product. Finally, chutney can be given away or frozen…one batch, many benefits.
2. If they’re small and already have mold in them which rules them out for pressing, etc., then I say compost them. Don’t listen to people saying that you can’t use apples with seeds in compost for fear of the compost causing new trees to sprout. That probably won’t happen. And, if it does, you pull the little crab tree like a the weed it basically is. Problem solved. Using crab apple compost around a crab apple tree to revitalize the soil is a nice gesture to Mother Earth…especially when the alternative is chucking them in the garbage.
Thank you so much for your questions. The new site will have a new format for them, but keep them coming. I’m going to spend the afternoon cooking and documenting a few new recipes in a great, open kitchen that will also make an appearance this week…on the new AndyLien.com. I’m so close, I can taste it. And it tastes good.
