i’m going to have a jewelry booth at the houston women’s festival on saturday, so all this week i’ve been working my ass off planning, running errands, organizing things, and gathering supplies.  it’s my first event of this kind, so i’m pretty excited, and terrified, but terrified in the good way, i think.  what if i forget x?  what if it turns out i need y?  what if nobody buys anything?  what if i sell out in the first hour?

a friend of mine made me a giant sign to hang in the booth, and the other day i went to a copy place to get it mounted and laminated.  the guy who was helping me unrolled the sign to take a look.  “i like beads,” he said.  “is this your business?”

“yes,” i said.  “i make jewelry.”

“you know, beads used to be really popular back in the sixties,” he said.

“yeah?”

“oh, yeah.  i used to wear just strands and strands of them all around my neck, with my afro and my dashiki.  you wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but i was CUTE.”

i laughed.  “i believe it.”

so if you live in the houston area, you should totally come visit me at my jewelry booth downtown on saturday.  i will not be the one in the dashiki.

on a completely unrelated note, here’s some terrible viewer mail!

—–Original Message—–
From: xxxxxxxxx [mailto:xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 1:52 AM
To: alison
Subject: [mailform] you precocious cunts

comments: I happened across your web site whilst trying to find anal web cams, and I am subjected to this so-called “insight” to the humanities. Your assertions are completely without merit not to mention completely insulting to anyone with an Oxford degree (which I do). Next time your labia feels the urge wax intellectual [sic], why don’t you pick the latest issue of “O” magazine and check out the article on pseudo-intellectuals.

some thoughts:

1.  my target audience does not include people who would rather be looking at anal webcams.

2.  one would hope that a guy with a degree from oxford would know enough about searching the internet to figure out that my site does not contain or reference anal web cams, and is therefore not what he was searching for.

3.  i don’t have a degree from oxford, but i know enough about searching the internet to google this guy’s full name and note that the only results are from a college in illinois.  and not even oxford, illinois.

4.  that said, i love the fact that he used the words “wax” and “labia” in the same sentence.