my history

Sunday, apr. 13, 2008   |   0 comments

My name is Evany Thomas, and I was born in San Francisco, 1970. I did my best to grow up in the Bay Area, where I learned to master the clutch hill start, take breathtaking scenery for granted, and drink tap water without fear. I am an only child. (Few will have to read further than that.) My first memory is a hazy one...something about sitting on a balloon. Other than that, the years between birth and pre-school are total darkness, not at all unlike an alcohol-induced black-out.

Not much happened during my grade school years. I won a short-story writing contest in third grade (it was about a magic "rub me" lamp that the hero caressed and then wished for world peace). I was in a musical about Noah's ark, in which we wore jeans, colorful tees, and rainbow suspenders and clutched umbrellas and sang songs like "the Admirable Admiral" and "Man Messed Things Up" -- which featured the why-separate-of-church-from-state lyrics such as "man had all he needed to be happy on this earth: he had health, he had wealth, god had filled his cup. But man's heart grew cold, he grew too bold: man messed things up." And I was painfully shy until fifth grade, when I suddenly became painfully extroverted.

Junior high was horrible. High school was okay. Nothing fabulous, nothing traumatic. I was on the swim team (two years, never lettered), in drama (four years of black box theatre when all I wanted to do was star in Oliver), in Model United Nations (which meant going to conferences with high school students from all over the state, i.e., lots of beer and hotel damage), and in honor society (for, I think, one semester). I drove a Datsun 510, a.k.a. The Halloween Machine, upon which me and my friends all learned how to drive stick, and we all paid for gas by working at a movie theater.

I was a communications major at Mills College, where I lived through The Strike (when the Board voted to admit men and the student body shut the school down), the earthquake (the first time it ever occurred to me that I might die), and the Oakland hill fires (instructed to prepare for evacuation, which never happened, I freakishly packed nothing but underwear and my vintage purse collection). I supported myself by waiting tables, gallery sitting, deli-ing, and retailing at a cotton-only clothing store. I spent my junior year in Oxford, England, where I contracted a tragic case of adult chicken pox and got really plump on deep-fried sausages and chips, yay! After college, I moved to Los Angeles and stayed there for three years, going to cat shows, watching Jeopardy, and rubbing up against stars. I supported myself by working first at Starbucks, then a grunt job in advertising, then a grunt job in gaming.

Even though I very much do love LA, after a few years I started yearning for real city life, so in 1995 I moved back to San Francisco, where I spent many years amusing myself with various crafts, inventions, and my inbred cat, Marbles; puttering my way through a masters in creative writing at San Francisco State; and going completely Sidekick crazy. And then mid-2006 Marbles and I moved to Oakland to live with my boyfriend, Marco, a dog named Daisy (AKA Porkchop, AKA Piggy), and one angry, angry turtle.

Over the years, I've enjoyed enjoyed stints as "Director of Web Content," an advice columnist (MSN's Dr. Net, a.k.a. Dr. Neck), Managing Editor for Webmonkey (where I lasted for six boom-then-lean years until I finally got laid off), plus a fun year working for McSweeney's Publishing followed by a couple lean years freelancing, and now I'm working at a bank!

And that pretty much catches you all up! For more about my day-to-day doings, try dipping in to the extended cake mix, or for a few additional straggling, random details, you can also try my misc.

bedside table talk

Saturday, apr. 12, 2008   |   0 comments

Update! Thanks so much for all your suggestions! Everyone had such smart ideas for what we should do with these tables, and Keith even sent a link to Colourlovers, which as he said, lets you “upload a picture and it will analyze the colors in the picture and
create a design palette out of them,” pow!

But after all the hemming and hawing and palette analysis, we ultimately gave in to the tractorbeam pull of proximity and went with the green paint we already had on hand after the great credenza paint off, and I think it looks pretty okay! Not too shabby (chic)…

You probably can’t quite see it, but rest assured that both bedside clocks have been carefully adjusted to the exact same time. Can you guess who took the time to time things so perfectly? (Marco.)

Best of all, we can always paint right on over the green if and when we get sick of it, yay for non-permanent decision-making!

- – - – - – - – -

Marco and I just bought two bedside tables on Craigslist for forty little dollars!

And while we’re very happy with the ability to finally store things away in a drawer (a surprisingly big relief, what with Marco’s Swatch watch always trying to tick me to death), and we’re both in love with the new tables’ dainty footprint, we’re not so happy with the color.

Actually the color isn’t really the problem, it’s more the country-cutesy distressing along the edges that we’re not so crazy on. And if we’re going to repaint, that opens up a whole world of colorful opportunities, a freedom of choice that has left us feeling somewhat boggled.

Do we worry about trying to select a color that complements our rough low-thread-count Ikea bedding? If so, whatever color we choose will also have to mesh with the very green green of our other main duvet cover (purchased at one of those gargantua Anthropologie sales):

Or, since bedding is typically more temporal than paint jobs, should we just boldly go forth in an entirely new color direction, untethered by concerns of matchy-matching? With all boundaries removed, the color I keep coming back to is a deep-greenish sea turquoise. Or a burnt orange. Or maybe a nice, comfortable olive green? Basically any of the bold, beautiful colors found in my new favorite handbag (Sale! Zara!):

But maybe matching the bedside tables to the purse isn’t the best idea? Possibly those colors don’t translate too terribly well to furniture? Which means we’ll find ourselves sick of them the second the last coat of paint dries? Wait, do we even have to paint both tables the same color? Perhaps we should double our trouble and select two totally different colors?

What do you think? Please, help my brain think!

I'm not sure I want what Idol's giving back?

Friday, apr. 11, 2008   |   0 comments

I can fully appreciate that maybe last night you were otherwise gainfully occupied and so did not catch this week's THIRD installment of American Idol, but if you did, then maybe you caught this split-second flash of crazy...



...which appeared and disappeared with subliminal swiftness right at the dark, bitter end of the wildly ill-advised montage nightmare of B- stars wiggling and lip-syncing to I'm a Believer?

I no longer know what's happening.

note from me to me: achieve something, stat!

Thursday, apr. 10, 2008   |   0 comments

Updated! I got a nice email from Jill after I wrote this, pointing out how much I have actually accomplished in this life, having some of my words published, etc. And I felt a small feeling of heelishness for so glibly ignoring the things I have managed to do up until now? But! I still say that, as far as "proudest" achievements go, I don't think I have one of those. Yet? Maybe never? Either way, though, I felt compelled to report that I am very and totally happy with my life so far, full as it is of quiet, small- to medium-sized accomplishments, even if they aren't quite large enough to be mounted on the break room walls at my place of employment.

So at work they've initiated this put-a-name-to-face scheme where they're putting up photos of everyone in the break room, along with our name, role, and some fun get-to-know-you tidbits, such as "something coworkers would be surprised to learn." Oh, you mean besides the syphilis? Or the thigh-high ALF tattoo? Or that time I used the breast milk from the new-mommy quiet room refrigerator when we ran out of half and half? Then I guess I'd have to say it's my deep, discomfiting phobia of share-a-thons in the workplace!

Oh, I jest. We do have fun, don't we?

One of the other things they asked us to list was our "proudest achievement." I wonder, is there anything more effective at triggering a mid-life crisis than asking a person to pinpoint her crowning achievement? Unfortunately I have run no marathons, birthed no Mensa babies, donated no bone marrow, or any other work-appropriate brags. On the other hand, I did manage to floss every single day in March!

a good clip

Thursday, apr. 10, 2008   |   0 comments

I’ve misplaced many precious things over the years: a perfect pair of 501s (dropped somehow/where between my house and car…who? huh?); the perfect scoop-necked, puff-sleeved black shirt (stolen from the laundromat, jerks); and, most painful of all, my great-grandmother’s delicate sage green-sparkle costume necklace (left, I think, in the pocket of a shirt I gave to Goodwill, ugh!).

But, by some great miracle, I’ve managed to hold on to these barrettes throughout the many thick and thin years since I first scraped together enough allowance to buy them:

You remember these, right? They were a very big deal in the late 70s, or at least they were at my grade school, right up there with googly-eyed puffy vegetable stickers and orthodontics…my best friend and I wanted retainers so badly, we unwound a paperclips and tried to wind them around our front teeth.

The barrettes came in the most inspiring array of truly good colors, so it was always very difficult to choose — a young person could spend hours thinking on which ones to invest in…the delicate peachy-orange one, or the deeper, darker, truly orange one? So hard to know!

Some girls, in particular the Horsey Girls, would get the whole rainbow and wear their entire collection all at once, right down the side of their heads, which always seemed so fantastically decadent to me.

Best of all, these clips were big and strong enough to actually hold my hair, which was and continues to be a beast that few clips have the fortitude to rein in.

(As you can see, my hair has grown beyond all reason. Now when I wear it down like this, it actually feels like I’m trapped inside some hot, heavy costume…a lion outfit maybe, or a rubber Sam Kinison head.)

And, as anyone who wore these glorious clips will remember, they always leave a very distinctive mark, both on your heart and your hair:

Maybe, what with the resurgence of high-waisted jeans (look! Dittos!), one of you time-traveling entrepreneurial geniuses will also re-release these wonderclips into the wild? I hope? And hey, while you’re back there, could you also pick me up some metal-slide Village Lip Lickers balm? Thx.

PS: How about that do-it-myself ten-minute Clairol Nice ‘n’ Easy Perfect 10 dye job? It was indeed nice and easy, and cheap! Just $14! (Or $28 for those with OED-thick hair like me who need double the amount of blonding agents, yay.)