@thesarahshay / thesarahshay.tumblr.com
My mom was born in Tanzania, which is a weird fun fact that I don’t really think about very often, until like today when my aunt sends the whole family a bunch of slides she just scanned for the first time and suddenly there’s my mom and my grandma eating bananas right off the tree in 1950-something.
My mom used to tell me about how she ate bananas right off the tree as a kid, and now I literally have a photo of that anecdote. That’s weird.
The good news is that I finally found a second part-time job, so between the two I am almost working full-time. I was thrilled when I did the math yesterday and realized I could cover all my expenses this month, for the first time in two years!
The bad news is that I did my annual review for food stamps today, and I had to report the new job. Even though I’m barely making more than minimum wage and still working less than full time, they cut me from $200/month to $36.
I expected my benefits to be cut, just...not this much.
Anyone need a commission?
18, 7, and 10!
18. phobiaIf I have one, it's nyctophobia: fear of the dark. Not very unique, but it's a classic! It has gotten better as I've gotten older, but when I was a kid (by which I mean well my teens), if I was the last to go to bed and had to turn off all the lights in the house as I went up, I'd go to ridiculous lengths to make sure I was as far out of the room as possible before actually turning off the light, and then I'd literally run to the next room, finally slamming my own door closed against the darkness with my heart beating like a jackrabbit. Just a few years ago I made the mistake of going to a haunted house, and as soon as we went into the part that was completely dark I totally panicked. Bad way to spend a first date, incidentally.
7. biggest turn off(s)Smoking, especially pot. Underestimating my intelligence. Being aggressively "sex positive." Mustaches, sometimes.
10. biggest turn on(s)Interesting dichotomies (mechanics who knit, punk rockers who love rom coms, etc). Clever wordplay (puns included). Toned arms. Nice hands. Mustaches, sometimes.
Original post here.
Yom Kippur update: I ended up fasting half the day, and then at sundown decided I actually wanted to cook something for break-the-fast. But instead of looking up a recipe and THEN going to the store, like an adult, I just went and figured out what sounded good when I got there. So I bought some pretty basic stuff and threw together a casserole when I got home. It's…pretty gross. I'm not sure what went wrong, but it's just barely edible. By the time it was done it was nearly 10pm so I scarfed half the bowl before I realized it seemed off. I'm just hoping it doesn't make me sick :/ TL;DR I am a failure of an adult. This is why I end up eating boxed/canned/frozen food more often than not.
This is going to be the first year in my life that I do not fast on Yom Kippur, and I do not feel great about it. I haven’t been going to shul much in recent years, but I have always still observed the day and kept the fast from sundown to sundown. I was even thinking about going to services this year, but I got a housecleaning gig for tomorrow and I’m not currently in a position to turn down paying gigs. I guess I could have tried to reschedule it, but I just said yes without thinking about what day it was. And because it’s physical labor (much moreso than sitting in shul praying), if I try to do it without eating I’m going to be miserable. I might try just eating an energy bar before and during my shift, and then fast the rest of the day...but it’s not the same.
A friend convinced me to finally update my OKCupid profile, which I haven’t done in probably two years. Now it sounds less like “LOOK AT HOW COOL I AM YEAH PLEASE LIKE ME” and more like “Hey, I’m sort of cool, maybe. I guess if you agree, go out with me? Or whatever?”
I’m sure this approach will be much more successful.
Having a bad night. But at least I have this tiny watermelon and my good friend callitfriendo.
The very real struggle between not wanting to go to work with a messed up shoulder (potentially risking further injury and also just not being able to actually do any work) and needing to like, pay rent.
Holy crap. When Tumblr messed up and posted the Honeybunch Lee song at 8am, it got one note all day (from my friend alandistro commenting to say he liked it but it needed drums). I was a bit surprised, so I figured I’d give it the ol’ night-time reblog to see if that helped. tanglefootcomic immediately reblogged it, and now it has over 150 notes and has been played 775 times and a lot of people who reblogged it said really nice things and Tracy Butler from Lackadaisy liked the post and Mme. Tanglefoot called it the highlight of her year.
Then I went roller skating with some friends, so basically today was the best <3
I haven’t been writing fiction much lately, so today I spent some time familiarizing myself with the bible for one section of my universe, and got sort of mad at how good some of my characters are. Not to brag; the characters are great, but I admit I haven’t managed to finish a decent story about any of them. All the ones I’ve finished have been in the category of “Well, that was fun to write and helped me figure out the relationship between these characters, but it’s not good enough to publish.”
I wish I could draw, so I could share at least sketches of these characters with y’all. Say, any artists want to take a stab at drawing any of my OCs based on a short bio? Might be a fun exercise, and it would make my day-- nay, my month.
1. Finally having the courage to make attempts to further my career and being shut down anyway 2. Hearing my roommate have sex 3. Not having enough money to cover my basic expenses, much less do things I want to do 4. How difficult it is to fight against your own lack of confidence 5. Hearing my roommate have sex
My roommate has a friend over and they’re talking in the kitchen, so I went in my room, but then my cat freaked out about the door being closed, so I opened it a crack…and just heard her say, “Women who don’t admit they’re craycray are EXTRA craycray. I could never date a woman.”
THIS IS WHAT I LIVE WITH PEOPLE
THIS IS WHY I CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS
Jesus Christ, this guy is just DRIPPING with misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia. And she‘s clearly trying to IMPRESS HIM.
WHY
My roommate has a friend over and they’re talking in the kitchen, so I went in my room, but then my cat freaked out about the door being closed, so I opened it a crack...and just heard her say, “Women who don’t admit they’re craycray are EXTRA craycray. I could never date a woman.”
THIS IS WHAT I LIVE WITH PEOPLE
THIS IS WHY I CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS
Talk about the best party you've ever been to!
Oh man. The best party? That is a tough call. I don’t have a canonical answer for that one.
My 30th birthday was a great party. My band played with one of my favorite live bands, Corpus Callosum, at the Beery House, which is one of my favorite places on the planet. I drank an entire bottle of raspberry lambic and a fan gave me a bottle of my favorite rum. Everyone sang me happy birthday during our set. We debuted the band’s arrangement of “Paper Towns.” A friend made me a four-layer chocolate cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate ganache, which is to date the best birthday cake I’ve ever had. Plus, I just felt really good about my life and being 30 and who I was and what I was doing. It was a good night.
Y’know, I’m trying to think of another party that stands up to that one, and definitely drawing a blank. Maybe that is my canonical answer from now on ^_^
25: Talk about an ex-best friend.
Damn, you picked a heavy one. I’ve actually been feeling bad lately about the fact that I don’t seem to hold onto friends terribly long. I’m not still friends with a single person I knew in high school (Facebook doesn’t count), and recently when I found myself in a sticky situation and had to beg for help online, the two people who offered are new friends from the last six months or so.
One of my best friends in high school was Ellie (names changed because otherwise it’s a bit weird). We continued to hang out a ton in college, but then lost touch when we both moved out of state (pre-social networking, natch). Then we both moved back to Seattle around the same time, and started hanging out again. We ended up living together for a year, and became incredibly close again. We had a little group made up of us, her boyfriend Jack, his coworker Ray (currently one of my best friends), and another girl named Maggie. We called ourselves the Muffins, and we did just about everything together: played RockBand on a weekly basis, went camping every summer, spent a week together in New Orleans for Ellie and Jack’s wedding. But after maybe four years, Ellie and I started drifting apart. She and Maggie became closer, and eventually she and I had a fight I don’t remember any more, the sort of fight that isn’t about what it’s about, but is a culmination of a lot of other feelings. Ellie said she needed some space from me, and I gave it to her. We just never came back from that. She and Jack sort of drifted away from Ray too, and eventually split up. Maggie moved away. Eventually Ellie and I took a stab at being friends again and went out for lunch a few times to catch up, but it just didn’t take. Whatever had connected us so strongly, at two different times in our lives, was gone.
Now, somebody send me one of the happy ones.
Either not a single one of my roommate’s friends was ever taught by their parents how to be a “good houseguest,” or she just hangs out with the rudest assholes on the planet. Hard to say, really.
My band has been talking for a couple years about doing an alternate version of one of our songs, sort of an answer song to ourselves. We keep saying we should do it, but haven’t quite made it happen.
Today, I came across a text file that contained rough but complete lyrics for the alternate song, as well as chords. I thought, “Wow, I forgot that I got this far on this. I should send it to my bandmates!”
Then I checked my e-mail and realized that I did send it to them. Complete with a rough demo mp3 attached. A year ago. Neither of them responded.
To be honest, I’m more upset that I completely forgot about having done any of this than I am about them not responding. It’s easy to let e-mails slip by the wayside when you’re busy. But to forget writing an entire song and recording it? This is why I’m so bad at making music into a career: I can’t keep two thoughts in my damn head at once.
