Normally my fantasy living space would be something a little less staid and reasonable. But, for a variety of reasons, Brandon and I are having to look for new apartments, and there’s nothing like sudden nest-insecurity to make a nice, one bedroom unit of moderate size seem like the most appealing thing on earth.

So dear Vancouver, can we make this happen? Plus, I must say, I’ve never had hardwood floors before, and I think it’s time. The bathtub carved out of solid quartz crystal would be a nice touch, but I’m ready to discard that expectation if necessary. Brandon’s bathtub can be perfectly normal, even – he doesn’t care about these things.

Look, Vancouver, I’m the best tenant ever. I’m obsessively tidy, and I write rent cheques a year in advance, and I only practice my shrill wind instruments, like, once or twice a month. You want me! You want me to want you! Do we have an understanding? Two apartments, same building, nice location, decent rent, good flooring. GO.

Plus, dear mum and dad, I will trade you all the old art that you already have stored in your basement for that teak drawer unit. How can I afford to be so generous? Well, what can I say. I’m a giver.

I know my last post was a want list, so really, isn’t it time for an Impossible Jacket or the Spring 2012 line or something? But no, in my personal triage system, this want list is bleeding all over the floor from its gruesomely severed main artery. Which is to say, I’m feeling more than usually petulant and in need of everything that is tasty and awesome and expensive, and the internet at large must know.

So, it turns out that my recent health stuff (I promised to report if it was Hchom-relevant) is possibly related to food allergies. I took a blood test, and here’s what I’m intolerant to: wheat, all dairy, eggs (eggs, man!), almonds, beef, garlic, ginger, mustard,  and some other stuff that’s less sensational. I was actually ready for wheat – it sort of runs in the family – but I had no idea it would be nearly this dramatic.

Of course I want to beat my breast and tear out my hair, and make hyperbolic statements about how I’m allergic to ALL TASTY THINGS. But I know that a lot of people have it way worse, so I’m willing to roll with this – certainly in the hope of not feeling like the risen dead on a daily basis. What really, really sucks is that I’m going to be the biggest drag ever, for anyone who has to eat a meal with me – at least for the next year or so. As if I wasn’t enough of a weird, anxious hermit.

And of course it affects all my comforting daily routines, which is almost as bad. Just after I got these results, I took a walk to my favourite cafe, Le Marché St. George (but I call it the Hobbit Market), and the awesome lady who runs the place gave me a wodge of croissant pudding for free, because she knows I love it. And there may have been tears. Thank you, nicest Hobbit Market lady! It was the best sendoff ever.
I suppose I’ll have to find new equivalents, but that doesn’t seem possible. There is nothing on earth that will stand in for the beloved ritual of walking to the Hobbit Market, hoping they will have my croissant pudding.

There’s still an actual post somewhere at the end of all this. As I was saying, I don’t want to be all melodramatic, but I am famous in song and story for my love of muffins and buttery pies. So I’ve put together a nice, imaginary care package for myself to help me through this period of mourning. And now let’s get to that.

1. When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time collecting sticks, and whittling the ends into sharp points so I could name them after the swords in bad fantasy books and old Squaresoft RPGS. Atma-weapon! Masamune! I think I was pretty awesome, actually. So I’d like another pocket knife – I have a lot of sword-naming to catch up on – and this is one I’ve been eying for a while.

2. I’m aware I talked about Beta 5 in the last Want List, but everyone knows that wants just fester if left unfulfilled. Want want want.

3. Some fancy fizzy thing? I can’t even settle on a specific one.

4. Trust me to have already found a lead on vegan, wheat-free desserts within 10 blocks of my apartment. Most of the items here have almonds (and are pricey, alas), but a few things don’t. I tried the chocolate macaroons, and now I want vast, vast quantities more.

5. My famed hoard of many honeys is down to one jar. That’s like when the Carebears’ care-o-meter (or whatever it was called) drops nearly to zero, and Carealot starts crumbling to pieces (surely this is a pivotal memory for everyone). So really that one little jar is just emblematic. I need, like, seven.

6. Desperate times call for NEW SHINIES.

7. Introducing for the first time: a want list within a want list. In close consultation with Brandon, I’ve decided it’s been way too long since I’ve received a Loot Bag – like the kind they gave out at children’s birthday parties (do they, still?). And if I’m going to be specific, I want a SPACE-themed Loot Bag. This selection about covers it, but a higher tasty-things quotient wouldn’t hurt. And have you guys seen these SPACE BUGS? Is this some kind of annoying toy fad that makes me look really uncool? Is it just that (Mass-Effect-omni-tool) shade of early-nineties transparent fluorescent orange hitting my internal nostalgia unit like an Acme Anvil?  Because I don’t care, I saw them in a toy store yesterday, and they are SO RAD.

This might be the most practical want list ever made (by me), but my current wants just happen to mainly consist of things that I need. Albeit, very nice versions of those things.

1. This is a plain, semi-fitted wool crew-neck sweater. Which, if there was any sweet justice in the world, would be the easiest thing to find. But rather it’s nearly impossible to come across one that doesn’t have some glaring fatal flaw (Marian-wise, of course – my fatal flaws might well be different from yours).
I want one in that shade of navy which is so dark that it appears black, until the light catches its impossible undertones of rich blue. But I’d take it in normal black or navy instead, because I’m reasonable like that. If I was the Queen of Sheba and Had a Million Dollars, I’d order this John Smedley one, and see if that did the trick.

2. On lady-pants days, my official jean of choice is the Acne Hex. I could wish them just a centimeter wider in the leg opening, but the rise is perfect, and all-in-all I find them to be pretty ideal for my lady-pants purposes. My current set are getting all frayed and grey, which realistically speaking means that I wait for my birthday and hope that I can somehow get away with finding a new pair.
But what I WANT is for Acne Jeans, nice people that they are, to make a pair in, once again, that shade of dark over-dyed navy (as opposed to normal raw denim navy, I mean). And then, I don’t know what – gift them to me? Well, this is a want list.

3. Ok guys, so there’s this newish chocolate place in Vancouver called Beta 5, and first of all let me say that they make really amazing marmalades. But also, guysguysguys, they have this thing where you sign up to have special packages with a selection of their current stock delivered to you every month (or you can pick them up, which would make more sense in my case). And I want it SO MUCH! Can you even imagine? How happy would you be? Though I would probably be even happier with a 24-piece box of their chocolates, since that’s what I’m really after, caramels and whatnot being less my thing despite the immense appeal of the beautiful package.

4. Shoes are really more of a need than a want, at this point. Have a look at my current two pairs:

I mean, yes, I’ve had worse. But both of these have been cobbled back together from the edge of destruction multiple times already, so I think this is where a reasonable person would just buy themselves some god damn new shoes.
IIWTQOSAHAMD, I would be getting these Marc McNairy Cap Toe Derby Boots for my rainy-weather high-tops, and oh, probably another pair of Zehas for my low. I could also use a replacement pair of chucks, for kicking around in the ocean and stuff during the summer, because my current set has that cartoon curled-up toe thing going on.
I’m actually relatively indifferent about shoes, at least as far as owning more than two or three pairs of them. But it’s nice when those three pairs aren’t splitting at the seams, yes?

5. I know I’ve already mentioned the FWK Engineered Garments Shoulder Hoodie. But you can expect it to be on every want list of mine forever, because I think it’s the raddest and most made-for-Marian thing I’ve ever seen. Want want want want.

6. Once again, we’re in more need territory here. Bras are pricey, and the sad selection I get in my size are 90% the push-up variety. Approximately the last thing I want in the entire universe is a push-up bra , and that includes stuff like the destruction of all life, and the world-wide replacement of butter with margarine, and so forth. So can I not just have some nice, sharp bras, without any lace or padding or “customised lift” or whatever? And let’s have some grey ones, too, please. And navy! Navy blue everything!

7. I wish-washed a bit about what to put in space #7 here, but I decided that, boring as it may sound, a new set of bedding would be just the thing. I don’t balk at the dull wants. No! I put that shit right up on the internet for you to read about!
You don’t really appreciate it until your sheets start to get a bit old, and you find yourself (ineptly) sewing up little holes and tears, but having new sheets is like sleeping in a bed made by carebears. And of course I want them in that slightly rough-spun cotton, greyish or undyed.

How reasonable is all that? I may have to temper this later with an impossible want list, just so I don’t lose my touch.

I took what turned out to be a longish break from posting. Longer than intended, but it was much-needed, and I’m returning to my more regular-irregular posting schedule now. Want lists and other familiar things pending.

It’s been a rough year for me, and a rough winter in particular. I’ve had some health problems, though it took me a while to recognise that. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re just being a sissy, you just need to suck it up and tighten the bootstraps or whatever, yes? I’ll save you guys the boring details – unless the results end up being Hchom-relevant (they might be) in which case I will duly report.
But I do feel I owe some explanation to at least half of the people who may have emailed me this winter, because everything between about mid-November and nearly-today that wasn’t either work-relevant or family-relevant has fallen into a massive unread snarl in my inbox that I can’t even think about without an instantaneous blinding flood of cortisol (only slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect). I want to say that I will sit down and read through these and respond to them one-by-one, but that would be a hilarious overestimation of my social-communication-capacities even at the best of times (I don’t own a phone right now – not even a landline – have I mentioned?). So know that I value that communication very much, even if I can’t always manage my end of it.

Onward-ho. I have a want list to go up in the next day or two (wants are the best consolation – maybe even better than actually getting stuff. Though you didn’t hear that from me), and other hchommish things. More soon.

Here is my customary end-of-year emptying of the memory card. 2011: strong in marmalade and chickens.

For my part I’m anti-resolutions, but I do promise to start emailing people back tomorrow since I’ve been avoiding logging-in for the past two weeks (which is to say, the past two months). 2011: weak in timely correspondence. All those other years, too. Also weak in that.

I’m spending my New Year’s Eve alone in my island fastness, as I like to do, complete with fire and onesie and a plentiful selection of bread items. Pretty pleased with myself, I have to say.

Happy New Year, guys!

I think stockings are the best part of Christmas. Certainly they are in my family – the finest and most extensive care package of the year. There are a few specific traditions that I didn’t need to list here. For instance, we always get a small box of Space Lego to put together before breakfast (to keep us occupied, so my parents can have time to wake up before getting to the bigger stuff – is it bad that we still need that?).  But we are sort of reasonable now. At least, we’ve taken up the practice of putting together stockings for our parents, too.

Anyway, mum, here is my list of specific ideas (most of which hardly need reiterating, but I like talking about them anyway).

1. So socks – never has the need been greater! My ideal sock would be knee-high, built to stay up well (some of us roll our pantlegs, you see), black (or dark grey or dark navy), very thin, and not 100% cotton (because I recently heard that this isn’t good for people who [like me] have strange circulation problems that turn their digits white and purple and numb – nice, yes?). Also, not likely to fall to pieces after I walk a couple miles in them. But all that might not be possible, so something more-or-less along most of those lines.

2. Underwear. I like getting socks and underwear for Cribbers – it’s like I was built to be somebody’s semi-neglected son-in-law. And not even fancy underwear (which personally I can’t stand), only the plainest and most boring of full-coverage cotton briefs (black and grey pack, 5), which I’ve worn since I was a teenager. I’ll never change my ways. You’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead… well, anyway.

3. Beeswax candles are always good (for fantasy ambiance, you see). The huge towers are the best, but I drew tapers because those are cheaper, stocking-wise.

4. The fanciest of marmalades. There’s no such thing as too many.

5. The fanciest of dark chocolate, same deal.

6. Tea works well, if you’re at a loss. Note: it does not have to be the fanciest.

7. A shiny! If you happen to be near Amethyst Creations on 4th and Macdonald, or The Crystal Ark in Granville Island…

8. A men’s fashion magazine. Lark would be a good place to look for one, or the place at the front of my building.

9. Finnska licorice. There may be some holy grail of licorice, somewhere away through the mists, but Finnska is the best I’ve ever found. They carry it at the Whole Foods near me.

10. A lock, for practicing my lockpicking! Just a regular five-tumbler doorknob lock, which is usually the most basic one there is. It should be inexpensive, but not the cheapest one (shitty cheap locks are harder to pick, or so I’m finding). Like, a Weiser (brand) would probably be ideal.

11. If you make an underwear order, consider getting me some men’s boxer-briefs as well. These are the best pyjama bottoms, I find, because they fit perfectly under a onesie – and I need to get some anyway.

12. Orange in the toe!

So look, my mum needs me to make her a Christmas list, and I happen to have this website which is all about things that I want, conveniently in need of an update. So here goes nothing. (I must warn you, mum, this list is not particularly practical – nonetheless, it’s the best I can seem to manage…)

Let’s start with the clothing, since gift-giving holidays are the reason I own garments enough to (more or less) cover my nakedness.

1. This is likely an impossible request, but it’s the thing I want more than anything, ever (I kept my finger off the caps lock, but great restraint was involved): the Engineered Garments FWK shoulder hoodie (in navy or black, if you please, but I wouldn’t turn down grey). I should have ordered this from Nepenthes back in the fall – and particularly in retrospect because it’s still an object of much fixation – but a bunch of things got in the way, like a credit card fraud-shutdown, and not wanting to overburden Justin (who would have had to drive it up from Seattle for me). It’s probably a good thing that they don’t ship to Canada, or I’d be constantly abusing the privilege (it’s not really a good thing, guys, that’s just me trying to mollify myself). Anyway, Hchom and christmas lists both are allowed some quota of impossible items, yes? This is the impossiblest.

2. I’m trying to think what FWK (best brand ever – all I want to wear right now) piece I can ask for as consolation. I have a curious attraction to this shirt, though I wouldn’t have expected the recent liberty print trend to offer any personal appeal. Goes to show. They’ve run out of my size, alas (though the lower one would likely fit as well), and it’s a bit pricey anyway, since it’s shipping from Ireland. I was also going to point out these as an alternative, but my sizes have sold out there as well, since I started putting this together… so that’s not very helpful, is it. I suppose I’ll have to poke around some more.

3. This bag has a pudding in it, just saying. Possibly also a kitten and a pony, and a large quantity of very expensive dark, single-origin chocolate.

4. Though I don’t really need them, I could always use a back-up pair of over-sized Levis 501s. Perversely (or not, as you prefer), I like the cheaply-made $30 ones better than the fancy vintage/heritage versions.

5. Socks, just for something to attach a number to. And because I’m down to four pairs, three with holes in the heel. But more on socks in Cribbers post #2, stocking edition.

6. These shoes are too pricey to ask for, but I want them and therefore I’m listing them. Plus, look, they completed the ensemble.

7. I was thinking about asking for one of those tiny, cheap computers, as a secondary laptop, then I decided that was silly, and of course I don’t need one (but I put it up anyway, because it was already drawn and scanned). So yes, ignore this. Most useless Christmas list ever! Moving on…

8. I’d like dad to make me a bench out of parallam (my dad invented this wood), for my hallway.

9. Gift certificates that provide me with tasty things are always good.

You can see I’m having trouble thinking of reasonable things to ask for. Reasonable just isn’t a strong suit. Tomorrow I’ll post a stocking list, which will be less overflowing with stuff that can’t be acquired by ordinary means.

My Skryim hype, boundless though it may be, lingers particularly on certain features of the game. So to please myself, and because it’s International Skyrim Week, I’m going to list them.

1. Many games have companion dogs, but Skyrim has Irish Wolfhounds. This is enormously exciting for me, you see, because my dog is an elderly Irish Wolfhound cross. Best dogs ever! Though I’m going to have to abuse the console command and make mine immortal, or there will actually be fits of weeping when it gets killed by a dragon.

2. Speaking of companions, incidentally, you can marry NPCs in Skyrim. And NPCs of any gender, which should be a “duh” thing, but since it’s been a big issue in other games, I’m really pleased that Bethesda incorporated this without fuss.
I plan to direct all my moves at the Argonians, naturally, but who knows where I’ll end up.

3. Guys, mountains. And have I already mentioned that whenever the BBC Planet Earth documentaries get to the part about the arctic (and the boreal forests, and so forth), I actually get a little choked-up and watery-eyed? I have absolutely no idea why. I’ve never been there. It just has that effect on me – like hearing live string music. I’ll stop now, before I further devastate my Bad Dude public persona.

4. The crafting element of the game is looking to be pretty robust, and I can’t wait to get at it. I’ve seen the perks for smithing, but I hope there’s also a leather-crafting component somewhere in there.

5. Lock-picking! Playing Oblivion, I never lost my desire to open every chest I came across, even though I knew they’d only contain a pair of calipers and a leek, or equivalent randomised mismatched junk. Also, my good friend Sachi has been teaching me how to pick locks in real life. I feel like this should improve my chances in Skyrim, though it almost certainly won’t.

6. And loot, of course – a game as big as this will have an enormous range of it. These sorts of games have trained me from a very early age to be soothed by the act of taking shiny objects out of pixelated wooden chests. Now it’s the only thing that keeps the cortisol at a manageable level.

7. The character creation system has a size-slider. As far as I can tell it doesn’t offer a very expansive range, especially for female characters, but it’s an option I’m always excited to see. It makes me a little more optimistic that future games will offer a fuller spectrum of diverse body-types (I know I mentioned this in my Crossing posts too, but it doesn’t get talked about nearly enough).

8. Houses, of course, filled with all my shiny things. Best of all will be the ones I mod for myself.

9. And I don’t know, everything! SKYRIM!

Also, note my implementation of the proprietary “When Dealing With Stuff” system (I came up with the name all by myself). The standard alignments never quite do it for me, so this is my version, with less emphasis on good and evil, and more emphasis on, uh, dealing with stuff.

And some more translation, for anybody who doesn’t care about Skyrim, but is nonetheless good-naturedly reading through these posts: “Bosmer”, for comparison, are sort of like the Wood Elves of Tolkien. And “Evening Star” is the Elder Scrolls iteration of December. Oh, and “Argonians” are lizard guys. They look like this and I LOVE THEM.

Finally, for anybody who (like me) doesn’t care at all about their public image (or their shellac), and wants to fill out a totally unironic Skyrim character sheet, here is a blank version.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Skyrim is a videogame which sets you loose in an enormous and exactingly detailed fantasy world, within which you can do very nearly anything (here is the trailer). It’s the fifth game in a long-spanning series, and its predecessors were largely what I had in mind when I was writing my posts about The Crossing.

Guys, I’ve been waiting for this game a long time.

So for my first SKYRIM WEEK post I’m planning my larder – both imaginary and realistic. On the 10th of November, to kill time and suppress anxiety before the midnight launch, I mean to make a serious larder pilgrimage, and collect enough tasty things to allay starvation while I play the game for roughly a week straight uninterrupted.

The ideal larder would be, you know, ideal. Even though I couldn’t actually consume all of that food before it went bad. But the realistic variation is nothing to damn well sneeze at. A comic artist’s budget means a nearly meatless existence (at least for me), but I have this $20 gift certificate to Oyama Sausage – a gift from my BFF – which I’ve been saving for a rainy Skyrim. I’ve been thinking about those roast beef sandwiches for weeks.

Tomorrow night I’ll dive further yet into murky nerddom, and post a (speculative) character sheet. Just you wait.