I Can't Complain But Sometimes I Still Do

Sunday I rode 50 miles for the Napa Valley Tour de Cure. It's the longest ride I've ever done, and probably also the hardest, though it feels weird to say that right now when I'm feeling so great. I was expecting to be wrecked for days, but I woke up the next day feeling surprisingly okay. A little stiff and achy, but my PT stretches took care of a lot of that, and an amazing intense deep-tissue massage at Spa Villagio too care of most of the rest. Today I'm still feeling pretty good--my most notable sore bits are actually from the massage and yesterday's long trek home, not the ride.

It was definitely a very challenging ride, though. I was most worried about the heat, and it did suck, even with an early morning start and being vigilant about staying hydrated. By midday I'd unzipped my jersey all the way and was seriously considering taking it off and riding in just my sports bra and shorts, and sheer vanity (which I don't usually have on the bike, but there were too many cameras around) is the only thing that stopped me.

I hadn't been too worried about the hills, so I wasn't fully prepared for ~20 miles of rolling terrain. The upside: I didn't have a chance to psych myself out. The downside: every time I thought, "Surely this is the last climb!" there was another.

There were also long stretches of crappy pavement that made me fear for my rims and my wrists, killer headwinds that made the last 4 miles feel harder than the first 40, and the unfortunate and uncomfortable discovery that the padding on my fanciest and most expensive bike shorts bunch up and chafe most unpleasantly after about 20 miles. I ate well and frequently enough, but there were a couple times where I needed fuel but the thought of anything on my stomach made me want to puke, so I just chewed some Sport Beans and spit them out in hopes that I could trick my body into continuing until I could handle eating again.

But overall it was a great ride. Lots of gorgeous scenery, and it was fun to pass the wineries I've visited with friends and family and remember the great times we had. Even though I was slow up the hills, I got to spend a good deal of time going very fast on the descents and flats. My new bike performed beautifully. The rest stops were pretty well-stocked (one even had Dr Pepper!) and they helped a lot--not just having an opportunity to refill my water bottles and replenish calories, but also a getting the chance to get off the bike, stretch my legs, and rest a bit, just like I do on my solo rides. And at the end I'd ridden 50 miles! And it didn't suck! And I would totally do it again!

I rolled into the finish shortly after

gayathri and

llamaeyes, and we didn't have to wait long to cheer

byronium on as he finished the 100-mile ride, which still blows my mind. I am so proud of all of us! And grateful to everyone who offered their support, in the form of donations and cards and texts and other well-wishes. Cycling is a very personal, self-centered activity, which is one of the reasons I love it, but it's still very nice to know my loved ones are rooting for my success.

After a little rest and the best shower I've ever had, we all met at Hurley's for a very tasty recovery dinner (Cocktails! Pasta! Wine! Steak!), and then I went back to my hotel. I'd thought I might go for a swim, or hang out in the bar, or even find some trouble to get into in town, but while I was thinking about it I promptly fell asleep sitting up, with my laptop in my lap and a water bottle in my hand. It was a very good sleep.

******************************
What's the next challenge? As far as organized events go, the Gran Fondo is coming up in September and I want to kick last-year-me's ass on the Piccolo and finish it faster and stronger, and I think maybe I'd like to try for a metric century (100 km/~62 mi) sometime next year. Maybe. I've got my heart set on bike touring, though, so my main goal is to ride from home to Point Reyes for an overnight trip by my next birthday, so I'm going to keep riding until that seems doable and then do it.

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Happy old new year to you and yours	[May. 1st, 2012\|11:31 pm]

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Adventures in Urban Cycling

[Apr. 24th, 2012|10:35 pm]

[

Tags

biking

]

Quality time with my loved ones has been hard to come by lately, so even though my training schedule called for rides on Saturday and Sunday I decided to say fuck Rule 11* and stay home and hang out with Paul on Saturday. We ran a few errands and grilled burgers and bratwurst because it was too hot to cook inside, but mostly we just chilled, and it was nice.

Sunday we had brunch al fresco with friends, then I took off on the bike for a long ride. I may have finally learned the lesson that unfamiliar routes make for poor solo training rides. My plan to ride along the shoreline down to Union City and BART back was thwarted when I found myself on a highway median in Oakland, trying to reconcile the map's idea of a bike-friendly road with all the Freeway Entrance signs and highway traffic zooming around me. I finally gave up and took the bridge to Alameda for a nice flat ride around the island, but there was still a lot of stop-and-go for traffic lights, beach jaywalkers, and map-checking.

And then on my way back into Oakland I got trapped in the middle of a caravan of stretch Hummers and other flashy rental cars blocking traffic and my bike lane, blasting music, and honking their horns. Not just a couple happy hoots here and there, but multiple vehicles banging on their horns relentlessly. Clearly it was an important celebration of some sort--it was mostly young men in suits, many of them hanging out of the cars and filming everything with their iPhones--and I am generally a fan of celebrations, even loud, public-peace-disturbing ones. But being trapped in the middle of honking vehicles without the protective sound-dampening steel of a car eventually got to me, and it is possible that an incredibly rare instance of me losing my temper in public has been immortalized in someone's wedding/prom/wake video. Oops.

So it was a slow-going 35 miles, and my stats are pretty sad, but I felt great and made very good time when I was actually moving. The last few miles were a bit of a struggle, almost like I was riding through sand, and I figured I'd just run out of steam. Then I discovered before my training ride today that my rear tire had gone completely flat, and found a small puncture from what appeared to be an industrial staple.

I generally love riding around the city, but I'm really looking forward to riding in some slightly less urban terrain this weekend. :)

*Fuck all The Rules, really. But that's another post.

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Raining Lions & Lambs

[Apr. 16th, 2012|02:40 pm]

[	Tags	\|	biking, body, friends, ink, work	]
[	Current Mood	\|	pensive	]
[	Current Music	\|	Yacht - "Dystopia (The Earth is On Fire)"	]

I had a post-in-progress that started off wondering how March is almost over already--and of course now we're more than halfway through April, and I have no idea how. I have got to stop letting time slip through my fingers like this. It's not like I'm not having novel experiences or making full use of my time, it's just that I don't give myself much time to sit down and process. So one day it's the end of March and then life happens and the next time I sit down to write it's already mid-April.

*******************************
March was a very rollercoastery month. It started off with an awesome birthday, which involved an extended week of celebrations with friends and loved ones and culminated with a wonderful oceanside BBQ at Crissy Field with stunningly gorgeous weather where I got all my (local) people together in the same place for the first time ever, and nothing went horribly wrong. We feasted on crab and oysters and other delicious noms, and played in the sunshine, and just generally had a blast.

And I got a new bike! Not for my birthday, it's something I'd been thinking about and researching for awhile. My first big-girl bike served me very well, but after spending more and more time riding it became clear that I needed something better geared (literally and figuratively) for long, often hilly road rides and better fit to my body. I did a bunch of reasearch and test riding and eventually settled on a Jamis Coda Comp Femme. She is purple and beautiful and, especially now that I've swapped out the handlebars, grips, saddle, and pedals for ones that work better for me, I love her. Her name is Leela--not after Turanga Leela, though it's fitting, but after the 4th Doctor's companion, and the Sanskrit word for "divine play."

The day after I brought her home, it started raining. And raining. And raining. In March! It's not supposed to rain here in March! It was frustrating not being able to ride my shiny new bike, especially since I'm training for a 50-mile ride in early May. When the rain showed no signs of letting up I ordered a bunch of rain gear, found out some of it sucked (rain capes are a great idea in theory, but in practice they are essentially water-collecting wind-resistance-increasing sails), ordered some more, and made myself do a few wet rides. In light rains it's no problem--it's actually kinda fun, once I got used to the reduced braking power, and I barely even need the waterproof outerwear--but in heavy downpours it's just miserable. I'm glad I've got a good rain jacket, helmet cover, and rain pants now, but I'm hoping I don't have to use them much.

Life on the bike has been almost entirely about training lately--racking up miles and saddle time, working on my form, trying to get to the point where riding 50 miles in a reasonable amount of time seems like a doable thing. I'm definitely getting there, despite the obstacles the universe keeps presenting me: the rain, knee problems, and a crash weekend before last. The rain seems to have finally stopped, I'm getting the knee problems under control with proper cycling form and lots of ice (and I have an appointment with a sports doc next week), and the crash was not nearly as bad as it could have been. I still don't know exactly what happened (and I hate that part), but I discovered that I'd stocked my first-aid kit well, and both the bike and I escaped with only minor cosmetic damages. There will be scars, but chicks dig scars, right?

I had some more work done on my tattoo, but it didn't go very well. The plan had been to finish coloring the bunny-and-flowers entirely and maybe start outlining the rest of the piece, but due to various factors I was extra-bleedy, which made it difficult for the artist to work, so we stopped after an hour and a half. I didn't mind so much, because it was also extra-painful. The next session, just last weekend, went much better--no crazy bleeding, much more bearable pain, and now the bunny is completely finished! I have the next session scheduled for after the Tour de Cure, so I don't have to factor healing time into the rest of my training, and I can't wait to see the rest of it start to take shape.

Work has been alternately frustrating and gratifying, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. I have come to accept that the nature of the beast that is our small, dysfunctional company is a chaotic one, and I can work with that for now. Esepcially when I get to work with it in my pajamas at home most days.

My personal life has been equally chaotic, but I'm feeling a little less Zen about that.

*******************************
So far April's been a rollercoaster ride, too. I'm trying to remember to hang on loosely and relax into the curves.

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The one thing in the galaxy god didn't have his eyes on

[Feb. 29th, 2012|02:23 pm]

[	Tags	\|	art, cogsci, drugs, links, photography	]
[	Current Mood	\|	mischievous	]

In the past I've been a little irrationally annoyed with Leap Day, because grr argh meaningless artifical construct of time. This time around I'm inclined to see it as a little bit magical, a day that doesn't really exist, time hidden from the eyes of the gods. When I said this on Twitter this morning, a friend pointed out that saying that sounded like a great way to get Coyote to mess with me. She's got a point, but I figure with Rabbit tattooed on my back, I've already got the attention of the tricksters. And on the eve of my birthday, I've got a feeling this is going to be the year of poking at gods and other sacred things with sticks.

******************************
Leap Day Ephemera, Beautiful Things Edition:

A beautiful rant about why photography in all forms is amazing and the photography snobs bemoaning the dying of their elite art can go suck it.
The human form in bike chains: Bike chain sculptures more detailed and beautiful than I could have imagined possible

Body and Mind Edition:

Speaking of artificial constructs of time: The Myth of the 8-hour Sleep
An interesting read on the real social cost of tighter restrictions on pseudoephedrine
...Of course, you could always just synsthesize your own [PDF] from easier-to-acquire methylamphetamine
Teller (my fantasty boyfriend's partner) reveals his secrets

Silly Stuff Edition:

I would bet you that Hey Michel Foucault is run by pielology, but it would be a futile bet because you'd never be able to convince me I'd lost
Drunk Eliza

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SF37

[Feb. 23rd, 2012|11:49 pm]

[	Tags	\|	movies, thon	]
[	Current Music	\|	The Mountain Goats - "If You See Light"	]

The marathon itself was a smashing success, both in terms of film lineup and our personal logistics. I guess after 11 years(!) of doing this we've got it down. Arrived at the theater at the right time, set up camp in our usual seats, wore appropriately warm and comfortable layers of clothing, and packed just enough snacks and supplies to keep us happy without taking up too much space. I also stayed awake for the most time I ever have during the 'thon, with just a little napping during Scanners and the first few minutes of Paul. I'm not sure what to attribute it to--I wasn't even using a caffeine optimization app!--but it worked out nicely, since I wanted to see most everything.

( The films! )

The trailer for the the winner and my favorite, Dimensions:

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(no subject)

[Feb. 23rd, 2012|09:04 pm]

[	Tags	\|	boston, dining, thon, travel	]
[	Current Music	\|	Sleigh Bells - "Tell 'Em"	]

We got back from the annual Crazy Boston Trip Tuesday night. It was astonishingly smooth and stressless. Despite the long flights, the tight scheduling, and the thoroughly discombobulated sleep schedule, at no point did I feel that bone-tired, stretched-thin, soul-sucked feeling I have come to associate with long-distance travel and that trip, especially.

The worst thing that happened was having to opt out of the backscatter machines at BOS, and subsequently getting interro-groped. The new talk-screening would be hilarious if it (and the rest of the process) weren't so infuriating. Our screeners (and the others I observed while avoiding eye contact with the woman patting me down) totally failed at the friendly chat they've been framing this as. The questions were rapid-fire and accusatory, but about the most trivial of things, and the juxtaposition is startling enough that it seems almost impossible to respond in a non-suspicious manner.

******************************
While we were planning the trip last month, I had been feeling a little cranky about the fact that we never do anything new or different when we go, just the usual routine of traveling, the marathon, recovering in the hotel room, and the same couple restaurants before and after. After talking about it some with Paul I resigned myself to the fact that it just wasn't going to happen unless we scheduled some extra time, and that doesn't really work out for us--not least because I don't actually want to spend any more time in the cold than necessary. But just a couple days before we left I was chatting with a dear friend about the upcoming trip, and she insisted we had to check out Journeyman. I trust her taste in food implicitly, so I called and made reservations for a very late dinner the evening we arrived. They impressed me right from the start, because I was concerned about having to cancel if our flight was late, and they were very sweet and kind about it, assuring me that they'd understand, and wishing us a safe flight.

We made it on time, though, and had an absolutely amazing experience. One of the top 5 meals of my life so far, hands down. The 7-course tasting menu showcased strong flavors, local foods, and an interesting variety of techniques: a little bit of modern American, a little bit of classic French, and a little bit of modernist/molecular. The beverage pairings, which included beer, wine, and vermouth, were all perfect. And it was exactly the right amount of food--we left thoroughly satisfied but not feeling like the chefs had been preparing to harvest our livers.

Between the day of travel and the generous beer and wine pours and being delirious with the sheer pleasure of the meal, some of the details are fuzzy, but there are a few standout dishes that I am still daydreaming about:

Our first amuse-bouche: egg foam with salmon roe, lentil salad with mustard, and a ridiculously delicious pastrami-spiced veal consomme.
Celeriac custard with celeriac foam and chive oil, and salt-and-vinegar potato chips on the side
Spheres of some deliciously stinky Italian cheese atop potato puree, with crumbled potato cookies and shaved black truffles
Cold foie gras torchon with (freeze-dried?) chocolate, rye bread, and some sort of dark beer reduction
The pre-dessert palate cleanser: a disc of lemony Greek yogurt, bruleed.

It was all fantastic, though. The only thing that wasn't absolutely perfect for me was the bergamot ice cream in the final course, which, after working with bergamot oil in other contexts my whole life, my brain just could not process as foodstuff. Paul liked it a lot, though.

I'm not going to mind the routine so much if this becomes a part of it. ;)

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(no subject)

[Feb. 14th, 2012|09:32 am]

[	Tags	\|	links, love, work	]
[	Current Mood	\|	excited	]

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is our biggest holiday at work--so much so that we have our company holiday party in February, not December--but since we're an Internet retailer, all the craziness stopped at the Overnight shipping cutoff yesterday afternoon, and today is a day of rest.

So I'm taking the afternoon off to get my new tattoo started. Squee!

******************************
Because I have a giant schoolgirl crush on most of you, here are the cards I would fill your pretty pink-and-red construction paper envelopes with:

Don't like V-Day? Less complaining, more sexy rumpus.
Doctor Who Love Coupons--valid throughout all of time and space, of course.
14 Ways an economist says "I love you"
This year's NPR Valentines
100 strange, odd, and perplexing vintage V-Day cards.

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(no subject)

[Feb. 8th, 2012|04:11 pm]

[	Tags	\|	economics, food, links, san francisco, weird food, words	]
[	Current Mood	\|	happy	]

By happy conincidence, my evening plans last night took me to the Castro. The atmosphere got approximately 90% more celebratory as soon as I stepped off the Muni at Castro station, and it took me just a minute to realize why. There was a rally going on nearby that I never saw (and apparently one over at City Hall, too), but there were folks with signs and big happy grins, and lots of joyous shouting, and every 20 minutes or so someone in the bar I was at (which is apparently known as the gay Cheers?) called for a toast to marriage equality. It was a pretty great place to be at that moment in time.

******************************
Some links for your hump day afternoon slacking pleasure:

How Crossword Puzzles Mess with Your Mind - This is why crossword puzzles are so addictive for me, I think; I do best with challenges that have an easy way in. Once I've knocked off the stuff I know offhand, I've warmed up and my confidence is high and it's easier and more fun to work on the more challenging and difficult parts.
Recreating the white bread of the future: Atomic Bread Baking at Home
The premise behind this post kind is riduclously tautological and sort of infuriating, but the study itself is pretty interesting: More Evidence that Exposure to Economic Theory Breeds Greed.

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I accidentally my LJ

[Feb. 7th, 2012|01:29 pm]

[	Tags	\|	guns, ink, lj, meta, shiny	]
[	Current Music	\|	Dame - "Pony"	]

Last week I woke up to an email from LiveJournal telling me that an account I'd never heard of was going to be purged. I assumed it was a phish until I saw other people posting about receiving purge notices, so I logged in to check it out--and managed to delete this account. Oops. Luckily I was able to re-instate it immediately. I know I haven't been posting much, but LJ has been a part of my life for so long--long enough for me to have created accounts I have no memory of, apparently!--that it's difficult to imagine life without it.

******************************

Apropos of nothing else, I present to you the OMG-AR15 Unicorn Zombie Gun.

You know, I've got a birthday coming up...

******************************
Speaking of my upcoming birthday, this year my present to myself is going to be ink, and lots of it. I seem to be making an every-other-year habit of it, which is kind of funny since I've never really considered myself a tattoo sort of person. But I've been wanting to improve/expand upon the magnolia on my upper back for awhile, and I've been sketching the same idea over and over again for much of the past year, so I decided to go ahead and do it.

I met with the artist last week to start planning it out for real, and it was a really fun process--she loves working with the specific elements of the design, and seems to get exactly what I want with regard to style and color and how I want it to work with the landscape of my body. It's going to take multiple sessions, which is new for me. I'm a little worried about going around feeling unfinished for awhile, but it'll be worth it to get it just right. My first appointment, to finalize the first part of the design and start inking, is next week! I'm excited.

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Books Read in 2011

[Dec. 31st, 2011|11:59 am]

[

Tags

books, wip

]

( Books Read in 2011 (in no particular order) )

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I'd count my blessings but you can only be expected to count so high

[Nov. 24th, 2011|10:40 am]

[	Tags	\|	family, food, friends, love, thanksgiving	]
[	Current Mood	\|	grateful	]

Happy Thanksgiving!

In past years I've posted detailed lists of all the things, big and small, that I am thankful for. I've got a lot to be thankful for this year, too--a steady job and good health and lots of little luxuries--but now more than ever I am most grateful for the abundance of love and friendship in my life. Without that, nothing else I have would matter.

******************************
Still worried about getting the turkey just right? Tante Mary has the secret to save your Thanksgiving: just put the fucking turkey in the oven.

And more Thanksgiving food advice:

Eat, Fry, Love: William Shatner really wants you to fry your turkey safely this Thanksgiving.
Whitecastle, on the other hand, really wants you to stuff your turkey with stuffing made of sliders, which sounds like the opposite of safe (for your arteries, at least).
If you need a little glitter to brighten up your Thanksgiving table, how about some gold-flecked blue cheese?

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Happy Halloween!

[Oct. 31st, 2011|02:49 pm]

[	Tags	\|	halloween, muppets, music, polls, recipes	]
[	Current Mood	\|	happy	]
[	Current Music	\|	Ozzy Osbourne - "Mr. Crowley"	]

Happy Halloween! I'm sick just like I was last year, but this time it's just a case of the sniffles, and it's not nearly enough to keep me from enjoying my most favorite of holidays. I went to a friend's costume party Saturday night, made up treat bags for my nearest and dearest, and (after a presentation on campus this evening, and in between watching Twilight Zone and eating pumpkins stuffed with ~~all the things~~ everything good) will be passing candy out to the few kidlets whose parents don't drive them to nicer neighborhoods tonight.

I'm also rocking out to ( this year's Halloween playlist ), which I've put up on Spotify along with playlists from past years to form one mega-playlist.

******************************
This year's Halloween costume was inspired by Hit Girl (okay, it was Hit Girl until I decided to lose the purple wig because it looked stupid), but I'd originally been planning to go as Animal. Not with the oversized mask that seems to be really popular this year, but as a more humanoid one, with a wild rockstar wig and tattered jeans and t-shirt and all the appropriate accessories. Shopping for the right wig was difficult, though, because I suddenly realized that despite watching the Muppets for my entire life, I don't know the answer to a crucial question. Neither the Internet nor any of my officially-licensed Muppet merchandise provides a definitive answer, so I turn to LJ:

Poll #1791429 ANIMAL!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

What color is Animal?

View Answers

Pink

6 (50.0%)

Red

4 (33.3%)

Some other color

2 (16.7%)

Some other color?

View Answers

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Why I do what I do

[Oct. 28th, 2011|11:53 pm]

[

Tags

relationships, sex ed

]

Last night I got to talking with my aesthetician about the state of sex education in America. Y'know, as you do. She's in her early 20s, grew up in northern California and has lived here all her life, and had no idea that in much of the rest of the country, comprehensive sex ed isn't taught in schools. She reasoned that people from those parts of the country must be why shows like 16 and Pregnant and I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant exist, since she's never understood how people could be so ignorant about sex, their bodies, and relationships. Unfortunately there wasn't time during the span of a 20-minute hoo-ha wax to explain to her that it's not just teenagers, or people from certain parts the country, but a pervasive lack of good information and a ton of fundamental biases about gender, sex, and sexuality that is nationwide and affects people of all ages. Maybe next time.

She was also surprised that I talk to people not just about STDs and how not to get pregnant, but about relationships and communication, and didn't understand why I think it's an integral part of sex ed. This is why:

Four Pieces of Relationship Advice Movies Need to Stop Giving.
The friend who originally linked to the above adds a 5th, which is in a locked entry but is adequately summarized by this comic.
And speaking of terrible relationship advice: If you're not already reading Pervocracy's monthly Cosmocking posts, get over there and do it! [the rest of the time she blogs fairly graphically--and very entertainingly--about sex and kink, so consider the site NSFW].
But since Cosmo comes but once a month, there's also Nerve's Ridiculous Tips for a Miserable Sex Life.

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(no subject)

[Oct. 26th, 2011|09:46 am]

[	Tags	\|	funny, recipes	]
[	Current Mood	\|	amused	]

A recipe for Bolognese Machiavelli, for which my favorite food-related userpic seems particularly appropriate:

1. Arrange to have garlic and onions cast into hot oil.
2. The carrot and celery you must divide against themselves. Ground beef, too, shall turn upon the burner; crush any coherent resistance with a spoon of wood. Sautee until no hint of blood remains to stain your hands.
3. Perhaps, in a dark place without witnesses, the tomato shall meet with the knife.
4. The basil and parsley you may use without consequence. For long minutes, all shall be muddled and roil on the surface of the flame.
5. If it is most advantageous, store cold for the proper day.

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(no subject)

[Oct. 20th, 2011|11:38 am]

[	Tags	\|	bunnies, comics	]
[	Current Mood	\|	cheerful	]

I haven't been able to stop giggling at this for two weeks.

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Levi's GranFondo

[Oct. 17th, 2011|10:47 pm]

[	Tags	\|	biking, body, friends	]
[	Current Mood	\|	accomplished	]

I haven't written much about biking for awhile. I've still been riding lots and mostly loving it, but I also had a couple particularly challenging rides that left me feeling pretty down and wondering why on earth I ever thought I could do it, and it took me awhile to crawl out of the hole and to feel okay talking about it. I had about a month of nonstop bike anxiety dreams: getting hopelessly lost without a map, phone, or friend; my tires disintegrating or splitting open, my wheels falling off, my brakes failing; and worst of all, waking up on the morning of a big important ride to discover that my bike had been replaced with something I had no idea how to ride.

And yet somewhere in there I signed up for the October 1 Levi's GranFondo, a popular event in the Sonoma Valley that

byronium and

gayathri had done last year and sounded like a fun challenge. I'd been thinking about it for awhile and had actually decided not to do it for various reasons, the main one being that the moral support I knew I'd need wasn't going to be available to me. But then Valerie decided to go, and knowing that I'd have a friend of similar skill and fitness level to leapfrog up the hills with made it pretty easy for her to talk me into it, too. We both signed up for the shortest route, the 31mi/50km Piccolo Fondo, but it was still going to be the longest ride I'd ever done, and with a pretty significant climb, so I was both really nervous and really excited about it (but mostly really nervous).

( Practice and preparation )

( Getting there and getting ready )

( The Piccolo Fondo. TL;DR: I did it and it was hard but awesome! )

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The Curse of the Dr Pepper Drinker

[Oct. 14th, 2011|09:52 am]

[	Tags	\|	comics, dr pepper	]
[	Current Mood	\|	silly	]
[	Current Music	\|	Old 97s - "Four-Leaf Clover"	]

(Crossposted to drpepperfreak)

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Collected Ephemera

[Oct. 10th, 2011|12:25 pm]

[	Tags	\|	beverages, cogsci, nostalgia, photography, san francisco, sex ed, tv, video	]
[	Current Mood	\|	happy	]
[	Current Music	\|	Aesop Rock (w/John Darnielle) - "Coffee"	]

Remember When? edition:

I've posted this many other elsewheres, but it bears sharing here, too: Remember when you woke up full of awesome?
Also remember that long-ago time when MTV playing something besides music videos was a rare late-night treat rather than the other way around? Revisit (most of) it at LiquidTelevision.com. There's no Stick Figure Theater, but you can find it elsenet.

San Francisco edition:

Straightening the city: The Flat Streets of San Francisco
The weirdest thing about hanging around San Francisco during the day: all the people.

You Are Not So Smart edition:

Why some brains maintain a positive outlook even if the face of negative evidence
You think you prefer Mexican Coke, but you probably don't (however, even in the face of negative evidence, I continue to maintain that I do)
I seem to be constitutionally incapable of reading this headline correctly

NSFW edition:

Now that you're big/There's some stuff you should know/There's some stuff you should know/About your bits down below
The best sex scene in any Hollywood movie ever. NSFW, obviously, but there's no nudity and it's well worth watching when you get a chance. I want to show this to all my sex ed classes.

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(no subject)

[Aug. 17th, 2011|05:55 pm]

[	Tags	\|	muppets, music, video	]
[	Current Mood	\|	happy	]
[	Current Music	\|	Tom Waits - "God's Away on Business"	]

This made my day--and I was already having a pretty awesome day:

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Tour de Peninsula

[Aug. 14th, 2011|07:14 pm]

[	Tags	\|	biking, body, friends	]
[	Current Mood	\|	pleased	]

The ride last weekend was awesome! It was still pretty challenging, but it was an infinitely better experience than the previous week's practice ride, and I felt fantastic afterward. It certainly helped that I didn't fall off the bike beforehand this time.

The hills were pretty rough, but I managed them. There was a bit of a break after the first climb (which I had to stop and rest in the middle of) as the route descended onto the Sawyer Camp Trail, a scenic recreational path that winds around the Crystal Springs Reservoir, and during that part of the ride I was surprised to find a moment of the same blissful, zenlike feeling I enjoy on my less-challenging weekend rides along the Bay: fully present, not thinking about what I'd done or what was coming, just moving forward through the beautiful terrain and enjoying the feeling of flying under my own power. That moment only lasted until I saw the next hill looming, but it was a nice reminder of why I was on the bike doing this crazy thing in the first place: because it's fun.

The next couple of hills were very slow going--I was moving at about the same speed of the people who were walking their bikes in front of me--and the last one was especially frustrating because I'd completely forgotten about it and had already taken myself out of the "kill the hills!" headspace. But I tackled each of them without stopping, and the reward was a thrilling descent through residential Millbrae that had me shouting "Wheeee!" I even let off the brakes a little for some of it. :)

The rest of the ride was easy going, and I found the big ring and a good cadence and spent the last 5 miles or so joyfully zooming along right behind Valerie at an average of 15mph, which is well over my previous top speed in the flats. When we crossed the finish line I was almost--almost!--ready to go again. Instead Valerie and I waited for

byronium and

gayathri so we could cheer for them as they crossed the finish line, and then we had a nice recovery picnic with fruits and cheeses and salty things and hung out with

princeofwands and

karenbynight and their crew for a bit before it was time to part ways. I felt great for the rest of the day, and was barely even sore the next.

I can't imagine having done this without the support and encouragement of my amazing friends.

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Tour de Peninsula Practice Run

[Aug. 6th, 2011|10:24 pm]

[	Tags	\|	biking, body, friends, soft underbelly	]
[	Current Mood	\|	anxious	]

Last Sunday morning I met up with

byronium,

gayathri, Valerie,

princeofwands, and JG to scope out next week's Tour de Peninsula route. It was my first ride of that length and it was a pretty difficult one for me--especially after I had a spectacular spill before it even started.

Only I would crash and end up bloody and with the wind knocked out of me before a ride. And then get back up and ride over 20 miles anyway. After helping me tend to my wounds after the crash, Byron asked me if I still felt okay to ride and I told him I'd feel worse if I didn't. I know now that that was the right thing to do, but I wasn't so sure by the end of the day on Sunday. It was a harder blow to my body and confidence than I'd realized, and I didn't quite recover. Having to navigate some truly terrifying traffic right at the beginning, and then encountering an unexpectedly steep and lengthy climb after that, didn't help. I couldn't catch my breath, I couldn't stop panicking, and I spent the first 13 miles or so really upset but determined to keep going no matter what. My wonderfully supportive friends kept checking in on me to make sure I was okay and ask me what I needed, and I didn't know how to answer them because I didn't know if I was okay, or what I needed other than their support, plenty of water and energy noms, and my own stubbornness, all of which I had. The last 7 miles were much easier, even with a little unexpected off-roading, so I was finally able to calm down, but I still wasn't sure how I was going to make it to the end.

But, somehow, I did! And I hurt like a motherfucker for days, and still have what can only be described as some gnarly road rash. And for some crazy reason, I'm doing it again tomorrow. I'm really nervous about the hills, and about being the slowest person there, and about the dynamics of riding with a large group, and about a million other little things, but I am at least comforted by the fact that it can't possibly be any worse than last weekend.

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Ephemera catchup

[Aug. 1st, 2011|09:02 am]

[	Tags	\|	internet, music, science, tv, video, whedonverse, whoniverse	]
[	Current Mood	\|	awake	]

In celebration of LiveJournal finally being (mostly) back up, here are some links I have been saving for you for, like, two months.

Dangerously close to being the best thing ever: A Doctor World. I have also been alerted to the existence of A Softer Sunnydale, which is also pretty well done.

Three brilliant Lady Gaga mashups:
- Lady Gaga + Judas Priest = Lady Judas
- Star Trek Orion Women, Just Dance
- Star Trek Telephone

Peanutweeter: hilarious and vulgar tweets superimposed onto Peanuts cartoons

Fucking bicycles, how do they work??

Jem is back on TV, courtesy of the Hub network. It has already been given the Honey Badger treatment.

The Internet is my religion

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Two wheels are better than none

[Jul. 31st, 2011|12:01 am]

[	Tags	\|	biking, body, friends	]
[	Current Mood	\|	excited	]

An article I read as a preteen in Seventeen welcomed girls who'd just gotten their driver's license to the "Sisterhood of the Sunburnt Left Elbow." I haven't been a member of that particular sorority for awhile now, but my weekend bike rides have inducted me into the Sisterhood of the Sunburnt Knees.

I've been riding most weekends and loving it, more than I ever thought I would, and I thought I was going to love it a lot. I'm pretty pleased with the progress I've made from being a terrified n00b to looking forward to rides and being sad when I have to go somewhere without my bike, though I do feel like I still don't actually know what I'm doing. The folks on the forums say that no one really does for their first 500 miles in the saddle, and I only just hit my first 100(!) last week, but patience with myself while learning something new isn't my strong suit. :) This isn't to say that I haven't been learning some valuable lessons:

I learned that when a fellow cyclist mentions that there's going to be a headwind on the way back, they're not just making idle chat about the weather.
After my first spill, which happened because I was panicking about being sort of lost, I learned that even as freaked out as I was after such a confidence-shaking incident, I could still hop back on and ride another 8 miles and love it. And that I need to carry a first aid kit. (The Adventure Medical Kit Ultralight & Watertight 0.3-ounce one fits in a medium seat wedge bag with plenty of room to spare, BTW.)
One morning after picking my bike up from the shop I learned that one sugary doughnut does not cycling fuel make, and discovered what it was like to really bonk out--after one measly mile!
I've learned that riding in the proper gear, with my saddle at the right height, keeps my knees much happier.
I've learned that the all the hype about Brooks leather saddles is justified.
I've learned that I do not like chocolate-flavored energy gel.
I've learned that getting up the hill to my apartment makes me feel just as crappy whether I've been on a 10+-mile ride or am just biking home from the BART station--until I've recovered, and then it feels great because, dude! I got up the hill.

And tomorrow, I'm going to learn just how crazy I was to sign up for a 20-mile ride. My top distance so far is a little over 13 miles, and that was with a couple major rest stops, so I'm not sure what a full 20 miles is going to be like for me. The ride is next weekend (eek!), but tomorrow I'm doing a practice ride with

byronium,

gayathri, and a few other folks who are doing the same ride, so we'll see!

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Submitted for the consideration of the Dinosaur Bureau of Travel & Tourism

[May. 10th, 2011|12:28 am]

[	Tags	\|	berkeley, friends, photography	]
[	Current Mood	\|	silly	]

Also this weekend:

joyce and

madgenius came to visit! With their adorable plastic traveling companion, Bradley the dinosaur.

We got them for a whole 16 hours before they had to head off for the rest of their vacation, but we made the most of it. There was epic catching-up, since it's been forever since we've seen each other in a place where we could actually talk, and we gave them one of our infamous whirlwind Berkeley food-and-drink tours: Thai food at Cha Am, ice cream at Ici, and good bourbon Chez Breadbox on Friday night, and then an early and alliterative Saturday morning with breakfast at Bette's, coffee at Blue Bottle, a Berkeley Bowl binge, and the Berkeley Farmers' Market--with bonus Pagan Pride Festival, for that authentic Berkeley experience!

My new camera, a Canon Powershot S95 (SO SHINY), arrived Friday, so I made Bradley sit for lots of test shots while I figured out how to use it. He was gracious about it, even when I made his ass look big.

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(no subject)

[May. 9th, 2011|11:27 pm]

[	Tags	\|	biking, friends	]
[	Current Mood	\|	accomplished	]

This weekend I went on my first big-girl bike ride!

byronium and

gayathri picked me up yesterday afternoon, and we met up with V in Danville to go for a ride on the Iron Horse Trail. Which sounds totally badass, but is actually a very pleasant, flat, paved path through the suburban wilds of Contra Costa County.

Between crappy weather, being sick, and being busy, I hadn't taken my bike out in weeks, so I had some twitchiness and trepidation about a) riding with way more experienced people, b) embarrassing myself in front of my friends, c) sharing a path with other cyclists and pedestrians, and d) falling off/falling down/bonking out, but as usual, I was worried over nothing. My friends were patient and supportive, I managed to followed the rules and share the path like a good citizen, and I stayed on the bike and upright. Well, other than getting a little lightheaded and wobbly at the halfway point, but that was nothing that a short break sitting off to the side of the path with some water and Sport Beans couldn't fix. I ended up riding just over 6 miles, which is the longest distance I've covered by far. I feel like I probably could have done more if I'd been more willing to push my limits, but it seemed like a better idea to just nudge up against them a little for my first time out of the gate. And 6 miles is nothing to sneeze at. It's kind of strange to contemplate, actually, since most days I can barely walk more than a mile without being hobbled for the rest of the day. It's a novel experience for me to engage in physical activity covering a distance of multiple miles and still be functional.

I still expected to be pretty ouchy today, but other than being quite saddlesore--OK, I give, it's probably time to get a new seat, or at least have someone show me how to adjust mine properly--and having a keen awareness of my quads that makes climbing stairs interesting, I'm feeling pretty good. And ready to go do it again! That was way more fun than riding around the neighborhood, as pretty as north Berkeley is. Thanks to my favorite Tour de Cure riders for taking me out!

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Lunchtime linkage

[May. 2nd, 2011|12:20 pm]

[	Tags	\|	books, linguistics, links, media, music, porn	]
[	Current Mood	\|	indescribable	]
[	Current Music	\|	Mother Mother - "Oleander"	]

In lieu of news, introspection, or original content of any kind, here are some entertaining and educational bits of ephemera:

One of the most important lessons I've ever learned, and one I consider a major milestone on the road to becoming the mature, mostly happy, relatively well-adjusted person I am today, is accepting the sad, beautiful fact that we're all going to miss almost everything.
Arnold Zwicky examines argument structure in porn [NSFW text, no images]
DEViaNT (Double Entendre via Noun Transfer) is a computer program capable of understanding "That's what she said" jokes
Ten Thousand Statistically Grammar-Average Fake Band Names
How heavy metal is keeping us sane
The Steely Dan Infographic Project (Incidentally, Steely Dan is playing at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga on July 5!)
Someone took one of the covers from the sci-fi children's books we wished existed and ran with it: Goodnight, Dune

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(no subject)

[Apr. 18th, 2011|11:39 pm]

[

Current Mood

sick

]

To NyQuil, or not to NyQuil: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The wracking coughs and throat-aches of a nasty cold,
Or to take NyQuil against the pains of illness,
And by the miracle of modern chemistry, end them? To sleep: to dream
Of crazy things; and by a sleep to say we end
The nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, achy, stuff-head, fever
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a relief
Devoutly to be wish'd. To rest, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of Green Death what dreams may come

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(no subject)

[Feb. 23rd, 2011|01:03 pm]

[	Tags	\|	beverages, care-and-feeding, friends, recipes, thon, travel	]
[	Current Location	\|	Logan International Airport, Boston, MA	]
[	Current Mood	\|	rejuvenated	]

We built an extra day and a half into our Boston trip this year so we'd have time to do something besides attend and recover from the marathon--maybe see friends, take some pictures, check out a restaurant we never got to try when we lived here. Instead we ended up spending almost the entire trip chilling in the hotel room, and it's been great!

Last week was a long and busy one, and one that left this introvert zero time to recharge. It was so fucking worth it, though. Most of the week was spent running around Berkeley and San Francisco with my dear friends Dave and Nico, who were visiting from Holland, and I was happy to squeeze in every second I could with them. I also fixed a lovely V-Day dinner for me and Paul, spent a wonderful and intense afternoon reconnecting in unexpected ways with a South Bay friend I don't get to see nearly enough, drank too much and danced my little heart out at the Mother Mother show with peeps on Thursday, and made the most of being stranded in Oakland on Friday in the freezing rain with

gayathri and a thousand other BART commuters on an evening I was supposed to spend with

byronium. All experiences worthy of much more than a sentence fragment and worth every minute, but an awful lot to squeeze into one week with no break, especially right before getting on a plane, flying across the country, and spending 24 hours in a movie theatre with a couple hundred other humans.

During dinner Sunday night, making smalltalk with other marathoids, I became suddenly and acutely aware of the fact that I hadn't had two hours to myself to recharge and process since the previous Friday, and I temporarily hated everyone and everything around me. I hid out downstairs for a bit until the grarh-stabbity passed, and that helped a lot, but a day and a half of doing absolutely nothing at all (besides venture out once or twice for food, cocktails, and ice cream) is almost exactly what I needed to be refreshed and ready for what promises to be another crazywonderful few days.

*****************************
One of the places we ventured out to was the East Coast Grill, home of (among other delicious things) the Cocktail Tranquillo I fell in love with last year. I've tried and failed to reproduce it several times, but haven't been able to come close to the smooth, strong, perfectly-balanced concoction they serve. Last night I caught the bartender during a rare free moment and asked about it, and discovered that it's not actually a cocktail at all, but an infusion of fresh pineapple and vanilla bean in aged, overproof rum. Ah ha! I've got some infusin' to do when I get home.

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(no subject)

[Feb. 22nd, 2011|01:25 pm]

[	Tags	\|	movies, thon	]
[	Current Location	\|	Boston, MA	]
[	Current Mood	\|	accomplished	]

I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid... and I went ahead anyway.
--Crow T. Robot
Paul and I are recovering in a hotel room in Boston with another 24-hour science fiction film marathon under our belts. It's crazy that we have now been doing this for 10 years. It's crazy that we do it at all.

SF36 was a good one. There was good attendance--the theater was full, but not uncomfortably packed--and I was happy to see a significantly higher number of women and younger folks there than usual. The film selection had a distinctly different feel to it than previous years, and while I kinda missed the 50s shlock and all the wacky shorts, the fact that the schedule was heavy on big productions and even more film buff-oriented than usual meant that there were fewer duds. This is not to say it was all timeless cinematic masterpieces--we still got a heapin' helpin' of cheesy goodness, and rather a lot more sex and violence than I expected--but this is the first year I can remember where there wasn't at least one movie that we clapped for because it was finally over. The worst film of the lot, a slow and disjointed dystopic Swedish animation called Metropia, was merely boring and ugly.

Things worked out really well logistics-wise, too. It was so bitterly cold and windy that they let people into the theatre early, and since we got there on the later side of early we didn't have to wait in line at all--and we were still able to score the house right aisle seats that worked so well last year. I survived the marathon itself in relative comfort and record wakefulness thanks to my fully-stocked Tom Bihn Ego, lots of Diesel coffee, a well-timed dinner break, a gift of double-shot espresso toffees from

byronium, fuzzy hotel slipper socks, comfy pants, a cheap fleece blanket, and ( mild TMI ). For next year, I'll have to remember to bring a handkerchief or towel or something because the weak hand dryers in the bathroom just don't cut it anymore, as well as a hat to shade my eyes from the evil daystar and a winter coat designed more for Boston winters than Berkeley ones.

( 13 films in 24 hours )

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(no subject)

[Feb. 12th, 2011|10:48 am]

[	Tags	\|	biking, dining, dreams, food	]
[	Current Mood	\|	happy	]
[	Current Music	\|	Mother Mother - "O My Heart"	]

Wednesday night

byronium and I had a wonderful dinner at Bar Bambino--so wonderful that I have since dreamed about it twice. That night I dreamed of dessert, vanilla gelato with house-brandied cherries and black pepper; in the dream I shared it with my figure skating partner and illicit lover, Puck from Glee. Last night I dreamed I was trying again and again, Tampopo-style, to faithfully reproduce my entree, a delicate, eggy tagliatelle with Dungeness crab and brandy bisque, so I could feed it to someone I wanted to seduce.

That was one hell of a meal.

****************************
Yesterday I took a break from cleaning in anticipation of impending houseguests and took the bike out for ride number two. It's still awesome! I rode it around and around and around the block until I couldn't ride anymore. Which was only about 20 minutes, with breaks; I'm looking forward to building up some endurance. :) I forced myself to make turns until they weren't terrifying anymore, and by the end I was a lot more comfortable with them. I'm still not comfortable with my saddle, though, and definitely need to adjust it so that I'm not slipping forward and putting all my weight on my pelvic bone. Ow.

I can already tell I'm soon going to be bored with just riding around the block, so I need to start scoping out some interesting (but still nice and flat!) places to ride, preferably ones I can walk, bike, or bus to. There's the Bay Trail, the Ohlone Greenway, Cesar Chavez Park... anywhere else you recommend, locals?

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Collected ephemera from the week

[Feb. 12th, 2011|10:24 am]

[

Tags

food, gender, health, queer, recipes, writing

]

Valentimes!:

Cupid's Postbox is once again open for business! Go, if it is your will or your fancy, and leave your messages of love and admiration.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
4, 8, 15, 16,
23, 42.

Deliciousness:

The most pretentious mac and cheese ever, in which someone decides to replicate blue-box macaroni and cheese entirely from scratch, with quality ingredients. I wanna make it! I even have all the fancy chemicals.
For faecat, who has been craving cheesy, meaty, pasta-y goodness: lasagna cupcakes!
All I need is this bourbon-scented lamp

Srs bsns:

For Anonymous LJ Friend, who has recently been musing over whether or not to use a pseudonym for publishing erotica: a thoughtful article on when to and when not to.
Attention all my doctors ever: Iron deficiency is not something you get just for being a lady.
This fantastic post over at Letters from Titan about being queer and dealing with queer-supportive campaign fundraisers perfectly nails why this daily annoyance sometimes fills me with so much rage and dread.

Link

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Two things I have that I did not have the last time I wrote

[Feb. 9th, 2011|12:05 am]

[	Tags	\|	biking, work	]
[	Current Mood	\|	bouncy	]

After nearly a year of Thinking Real Hard about it, I finally got a bike! Week before last I looked at a nice one I'd found on Craiglist. It ended up being way too big for me (and quite possibly stolen, besides), but since I'd already psyched myself up for test rides I decided to go check out a couple highly-recommended used bike shops. I was having a hard time finding something that worked, but after failing to fit on a series of increasingly smaller mountain bike frames (I have shorter legs than I'd realized!), the helpful guy at Street Level Cycles offhandedly mentioned that the little purple road bike over there in the corner might be worth trying. I took it out for a test ride and instantly fell in love. Being on it just felt right, and natural, and comfortable. Well, mostly comfortable--I've got to get used to the saddle. ;) Paul bought it for me as an early birthday present and helped me haul it home.

That evening I got an email asking me to come in for a job interview the next day, and because I used all my brain cycles to prepare for it I forgot about the excitement of having a new bike until the interview was over. On the way home I saw a woman with her bike and thought wistfully, "Man, I want a bike. Wait--I have a bike!!"

I took it out for our first ride yesterday, just up and down my street and around the block to get comfortable with it and try to remember how to do basic stuff like start and stop and turn. It was so much fun!! I'd forgotten the sheer joy of flying under my own power like that. I'm still a little unsteady, and I have a lot of riding around the block to do before I'm comfortable venturing any farther away from home, but I don't think getting in the practice is going to be a problem. Even though I was gasping for breath and my legs felt like two bars of Jell-O after just 20 minutes of riding, I wanted to go again. :)

Here she is. Her name is Viola, because what else could I have possibly called her?

The pink tires might eventually have to go. Everything else is just perfect.

*****************************
The interview was for a job I'd seen on a sex educator mailing list back in December, and had hemmed and hawed over applying for for various reasons. I finally sent off a resume and cover letter a couple weeks ago during a big flurry of applying for jobs, but I assumed I was too late and the position would already be filled. It was a pleasant surprise to get the interview, and I thought I did well but not my best--it was an informal coffee shop interview with the president of the company, which is normally be the sort of situation in which I'd shine, but it took me a little while to get warmed up and engaged. So it was an extra-pleasant surprise when I got the call last Thursday offering me the job. I accepted, and signed the offer letter on Friday.

So I am back among the ranks of the employed! Full-time, even, with pretty sweet benefits. I'll be combining my sex ed and customer service skills for a local company that sells adult products (but probably not the one you're thinking of). The company seems great and it should be a fun job with a lot of variety and plenty of opportunity to do the things I do best: teach people and improve systems. I start in a couple weeks, right after Paul and I get back from our annual pilgrimage to Boston for the 'thon. I'll kinda miss having my weekdays to myself, but I'm really looking forward to being a productive member of society again. And getting paid to talk about sex all day is going to be pretty awesome.

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Don't forget to smile...

[Jan. 31st, 2011|02:21 pm]

[

Tags

video

]

I'd never heard of Nicki Minaj before this weekend, but now I am in love.

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Happy Friday!

[Jan. 21st, 2011|12:23 pm]

[

Current Mood

happy

]

How is a Master of Wine student to remember all those grape varieties? With a song, of course (and with apologies to Tom Lehrer).

Links silly and serious for your multislacking pleasure:

This is basically the most awesome thing ever: a beautiful wooden suitcase designed to hold exactly one bottle of bourbon and a set of brass knuckles
The real reason moths are drawn to flames
Il était une fois... French kids try to figure out ancient technology
A handy guide from the EFF on what data law enforcement agencies can get from social networking sites
Legal Seafoods plans to serve a menu of blacklisted fish next week, claiming that there is no scientific basis for the Monterey Bay Aquarium's guide to sustainable seafood (which was recently updated to promote Atlantic haddock, Atlantic pollock, summer flounder, and line-caught Gulf of Maine cod to its “Good Alternatives” Category).

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(no subject)

[Jan. 21st, 2011|12:34 am]

[	Tags	\|	yoga	]
[	Current Mood	\|	peaceful	]
[	Current Music	\|	Thomas Dolby - "Hyperactive!"	]

My good spirits continued throughout today. "Good spirits" is putting it mildly, actually; "hypermania" would be much more accurate. I woke up with so! much! energy! and an unignorable compulsion to do! some! stuff! and there was pretty much no stopping me for most of the day. I tweeted last night that I was drunk on the moon, which hung full and low over the city and was intoxicating to behold, and today I wondered if maybe I wasn't being metaphorical.

Usually when I get like this (which isn't very often these days) I feel unpleasantly restless and on edge, and nearly always end up cranky because I'm not able to find the outlet I want for all my energy. Today was different. The usual internal script of "I feel like X and therefore the only acceptable resolutions are Y or Z" didn't even occur to me, and the surplus energy felt less like an uncomfortable burden I needed to relieve myself of and more like an opportunity to be taken advantage of. I ended up having an incredibly productive day, knocking item after item off my to-do list and feeling great about it. I appreciated the productivity boost, though I don't know how those of you who live in this state can sustain it. It must get exhausting!

*****************************
After such a high-energy day, I was happy to be able to wind down with a gentle yoga class tonight--and I felt rather virtuous for making it out for yoga twice in one week. It was a small fundamentals class with a fresh-out-of-teacher-training instructor who instantly made me feel comfortable and welcome, and the class had a really nice flow to it, which allowed me to both get a good feel for each pose and move between them in a way that felt right and made sense. Tonight's themes of forward momentum and being inspired by loved ones resonated deeply with me, too, as they're both things that have been on my mind a lot lately. I'm looking forward to more classes with this instructor, especially since she's going to be teaching locally; as much as I love the class I go to in the city, throwing on my yoga pants and walking three blocks to the studio here in Berkeley is a lot harder to talk myself out of than making the trek across the Bay.

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(no subject)

[Jan. 19th, 2011|03:01 pm]

[	Tags	\|	body, food, guns, movies, yoga	]
[	Current Mood	\|	rejuvenated	]
[	Current Music	\|	Sleigh Bells - "Riot Rhythm"	]

Monday night I went to yoga for the first time since... mid-November? I'd been doing some occasional light yoga at home, but let holidays and other life stuff get in the way of getting off my ass and into the city for my favorite yoga class. I was nervous about it, partly because I'm never sure what my body is (or more to the point, isn't) capable of after not challenging it for so long, and partly because I was a little intimidated by the substitute instructor, a beautiful, highly-praised, and rather well-muscled woman I'd never taken a class with before. The class turned out to be only moderately physically challenging and the instructor was only intimidating in the best ways; the biggest challenge was letting go of my nervousness and insecurities and getting my brain to shut the hell up about everything that is wrong with me. I made it through class untraumatized, and felt fucking fantastic afterward. And I still do! I've slept well and soundly for the past couple nights, my achy bits are less achy than they have been for awhile, and the whole world just looks a little bit brighter and more beautiful today.

*****************************
Of course, my great mood could just be because today is

byronium's birthday. ;) Happy birthday, you!

*****************************
Fun things for you to read:

A Wrinkle in Time in 90 seconds. It is utterly adorable, and a zillion times better than any other attempt to make it into a film.
The Lost Boys, filtered so that no dialogue is left but every instance of "Michael." So, pretty much the whole movie.
It is a well-known fact that my appetite for jalapeno poppers is nigh-insatiable, but I didn't realize the rest of the world loved them so much that scientists had to breed a special variety of jalapeno to meet the demand for the perfect popper. I actually think poppers are already the perfect size, and jalapenos certainly don't need to be blandified any more than they already have been, but I make my own these days, anyway. There's a batch chilling in the fridge right now, in fact!
No One Man Should Have All That Flour: Kanye West's food blog (not really)
Can't quite tell which gun the hero is using to save the day in your favorite action movie? Look it up on the Internet Movie Firearms Database.
There is now whiskey in a can. That is all.

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Castle Syndrome

[Jan. 15th, 2011|09:15 am]

[	Tags	\|	games, kink, video	]
[	Current Mood	\|	amused	]

The stuff that comes up when Peach & Zelda get together for some Princess time:

Via CollegeHumor.

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(no subject)

[Jan. 14th, 2011|11:15 am]

[	Tags	\|	comics, movies, music, video, whoniverse	]
[	Current Mood	\|	cheerful	]

I keep reading Toothpaste for Dinner despite the increasingly low signal:noise ratio because there are rare moments of sheer brilliance. This is not one of them, but it's still pretty awesome:

Neat stuff from this week:

The tenth Doctor is delightfully "White and Nerdy" (via firebirdgrrl)
We already know that Fight Club is an adult retelling of Calvin and Hobbes; here's an awesome mashup trailer that drives the point home.
In case you need to find strips to illustrate your own Fight Club/Calvin and Hobbes mashup, or those of you in the middle of the Snowpocalypse need inspiration for inappropriate snow art, there is now a Calvin and Hobbes search engine!
I am slightly embarrassed by the fact that I do not know how to tie a necktie, and my goal is to teach myself by my birthday. Once I have mastered the four-in-Hand, the Windsor, and the Half-Windsor, I will try my hand at the Lovecraft
Things that have never been said about restaurant websites and things real people don't say about advertising
Oysterpedia! I'd like an Android version, please.
Please see fig 2

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Books Read in 2010

[Jan. 10th, 2011|10:21 am]

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books

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I didn't make a book post all year, but I've been reading. Not quite as much as I would have liked due to occasional guilt over indulging in personal reading instead of job-hunting, housecleaning, and applying to grad school, but I think I still made a good start toward making up for four and a half years of not having time for anything but textbooks and research.

I don't know what 2011 will hold for me job- and school-wise, but I resolve to take more time to read and stop feeling guilty about it, regardless.

( Books! with commentary )

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(no subject)

[Jan. 7th, 2011|11:17 pm]

[	Tags	\|	baking, christmas, links, preparedness, sugar, video	]
[	Current Mood	\|	content	]

The line between superstition and tradition can be a blurry one. Of course I don't truly believe that I would be cursed with bad luck if I hadn't take the Christmas decorations down yesterday, but in my world the holiday decorations come down on the 6th, they have always come down on the 6th and they always will come down on the 6th (occasional episodes of procrastination and conflicting holiday plant debris pickup schedules notwithstanding), and there's something very comforting about that.

It's also a convenient and practical reminder to go ahead and take the decorations down lest I am tempted to leave them up until Valentine's Day.

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I had a really wonderful holiday. It kind of snuck up on me, just like everything else last year, and it took me awhile to catch the Christmas cheer. But once I did, it was great. I did a lot of cooking and a lot of socializing, but overall it was a very relaxing and restorative holiday, even in the face of a Christmas cold and a particularly intense week of PMS. I had a lovely celebration with

byronium a few days before Christmas, spent most of the week on the couch watching movies with Paul, and was completely and thoroughly spoiled by all my Santas. The gifts I had so much fun picking out and wrapping seemed to have been well-received, too, which always makes me happy. I rang in the new year feeling incredibly grateful for all the love and friendship in my life, and looking forward to another year of more of the same.

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To close out the season (and my Firefox tabs), here are some holiday leftovers:

For the baking and architecture geeks: Falling Water, in gingerbread!
Hide your kids, hide your wife: it's the Bed Intruder Christmas Carol. That's a choir from Liberty University, the world's largest Christian university. Not what I would have expected from the video!
An instructional video for ensuring a happy home during this zombie-infested holiday season

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