| Help, help, I'm in a nutshell! |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|10:29 am] |
I can't believe it's July already! June was kind of an insane month. I'd hoped that once finals were over I'd get to relax a bit, but between building inspections and open houses, a surprise houseguest, a planned houseguest, furniture pickups and deliveries, scary electrical problems, dealing with a financial aid clusterfuck, working on stuff for SHEP training, and various other appointments and obligations, I never quite got the break I was looking forward to. Just as things finally started to calm down, Summer classes started.
But surprisingly, things have been relatively calm since then, activity- and obligation-wise. My first Summer class is interesting and not particularly taxing--there's a fair amount of work because it's a Summer class, but it's easy assignments like reading responses. I continue to have SHEP stuff to work on, with deadlines coming up soon, but it's fun work (writing about sex!) and I'm able to do it in a leisurely fashion. I've found time to relax and catch up on for-pleasure reading and personal writing. And I've been able to have quite a lot of fun: I've seen a couple great shows (Neko Case! *swoon*), Paul and I went out for a lovely old-skool steak dinner experience at Harris' to celebrate surviving the semester and the building sale insanity, and I spent most of last weekend with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) byronium celebrating a year together with a fantastic meal at Chez Spencer and a fun beach hike.
This week ended up being kind of activity-heavy for me and Paul--four events in one week!--but it's all fun stuff, and most of it's happened/happening around the long weekend, so it's been more enjoyable than stressful so far. I'm still bouncy from seeing Yes and Asia last night, and I'm bouncier still about getting to see Howard Jones tonight. Eee! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|11:13 am] |
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Happy birthday to my favorite Internet wife, volsi! You're going to do great things, girl. |
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| Misdials and Mixed Pickles |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|10:59 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | dreams, food | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Chess - "Opening Ceremony" | ] |
We have an 800 number that is 2 transposed digits away from the number for a clinical study group at Johns Hopkins that focuses on health promotion and disease prevention in disadvantaged urban populations. 2-3 times a month someone's finger slips and they get us instead of the clinical study group, and they never quite believe me that we're not who they're looking for, to the point that they often call back several times in a row. Awhile back I tracked down the number for the clinical study group to be sure they didn't actually have our number listed, and they don't, it's just very close; so either people are hitting redial because they really don't believe me when I say it's the wrong number, or muscle memory is making them misdial a second and third time. It's never been more than a mild annoyance until early this morning, when someone called just before 3am. The phone rang for awhile before I fully woke up and registered that A) the phone was really ringing and B) the unholy hour and bounded out of bed to answer it, my heart pounding in fear of what bad news might be on the other end. It was just a misdial, but the caller didn't believe me, and I'm sure my sleepy inability to answer the question "Did I dial 800-967-XXXX?" (I don't actually have the 800 number memorized) didn't help my case. So of course he called back, twice. I finally managed to convince him that he'd reached a residence on the other side of the country, but ugh. What the hell was he doing calling so early anyway? Even in Maryland it wasn't even 6am yet.
It took me awhile to get back to sleep, and when I did, I had bizarre dreams about ordering a Real Doll for an art project and Paul asking me to kill someone for him in a very specific and cruel manner.
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In happier news, I made pickles yesterday! I used the recipe I posted earlier, leaving out the bell peppers and increasing the cucumbers (not pickling cukes, but the smallest I could find) by another lb. The result: 16 cups of sweet-tart pickle-y goodness.
They're technically ready to eat as soon as they've cooled, but they're best after they're allowed to sit in the fridge for a few days. I couldn't resist snagging some this morning, though, and they're already pretty tasty. The onions have absorbed a lot of flavor and are pretty much perfect; the carrots and cucumbers need a little longer to reach their pickle potential. |
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| Scattered Thoughts On Adulthood |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|06:35 pm] |
The subject of what it means to be an adult--or rather, how you decide whether or not someone else is one--has been coming up a lot lately. Last week in a locked post, a friend said that one of her benchmarks for adulthood was the ability to deal with the realities of bodily functions--specifically, "if you are highly interested in portions of someone's anatomy, that you'd better be able to cope with the inevitable biological functions of said anatomy." The week before, in the first part of his fascinating pro-breeding screed, patrissimo said that he sees the decision not to have children as "a rejection of adulthood and of an essential part of the human experience" and thus "a childish decision, or perhaps more accurately, a decision to retain a more childlike life." And then on Friday over ice cream my friend KK told me that she believes the defining characteristic of adulthood is being able to see and understand nuance.
I obviously disagree with Patri, since I don't plan to have children and still consider myself an adult, and plenty of the responsible, mature, and productive adults I know are childless and plan to remain so. While I understand wanting awesome people to generate more awesome people, I don't think that having and raising children (who may or may not turn out to be as awesome as you are) is a necessary part of adulthood, or that a life without children is a more childlike one. The other two are certainly important benchmarks for me, if not for adulthood than at least for maturity (not that I can pinpoint the difference), though they're not the only ones. If the ability to see nuance is all that's required, I've been an adult since I was eight years old, frustrating friends and family alike with my inability to blame anyone for anything, since I could always see their side of the story. I think that for it to be a part of functional adulthood, the ability to see nuance must be accompanied by the ability to use it to make choices, decisions, and judgments.
What do you think? What are your benchmarks for adulthood? Is there a difference between adulthood and maturity? Is there one defining characteristic that marks someone as an adult in your eyes? Is it a personal trait, or does it have more to do with one's relationship to society? Do you consider yourself to be an adult? Why? |
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| My Personal Mythology |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|02:50 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | books, memes, self | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Kiss - "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" | ] |
A meme, via regyt:
Take no more than 15 minutes to produce a list of 15 books that have influenced you in style, ideas, relationships, language, or other ways that you find important, and/or books that have really stayed with you -- you keep thinking of that quote, you are always remembering that character, you are frequently reminded of that moment.... that kind of thing. This is not a favorites list.
Only 15?? :) Many of these are entire series, not single books, but it's the whole epic story that's a part of me, and it's impossible to take them individually. - Illusions, Richard Bach
- Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
- Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins
- The Dark Tower series, Stephen King
- The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
- The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
- The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
- Replay, Ken Grimwood
- The Riverrun Trilogy, S. P. Somtow
- The Time Quintet, Madeleine L'Engle
- The Emily trilogy, L. M. Montgomery
- Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
- The original 56 Nancy Drew Mystery Stories
- The collected works of Shel Silverstein
- Every Calvin and Hobbes strip ever drawn
A few that didn't quite make the top 15, but are still very significant parts of my personal mythology: - The Dragonlance Chronicles, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
- The Griffin and Sabine trilogy, Nick Bantock
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams
- Veronica and A Trip to the Stars, Nicholas Christopher
- Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson
- Death is A Lonely Business, Ray Bradbury
- The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, William Irwin Thompson
- Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs
- Anthem, Ayn Rand
- Aphrodite, Isabel Allende
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| Words |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|11:17 pm] |
Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.
Apparently when voyeurprincess thinks of me, she thinks of cooking, kidnapping, sugar, glasses, and IPA. - Cooking - I really enjoy cooking, and I do it a lot. It's one of the few ways I feel confident expressing myself creatively, even when I've lost confidence in everything else, but I also appreciate that it's technical as well as creative, and I love the science and experimentation aspects. It's a way I take care of the people I love on a fundamental level, and bring them pleasure, and a way I take care of myself on a fundamental level, and bring myself pleasure. Being able to cook means being able to make things exactly the way I like them, as well as being able to test out new ideas. And it's just plain fun!
- Kidnapping - Am I allowed to ask why I am linked with kidnapping in voyeurprincess's mind? Staged kidnapping scenarios are certainly something that interest me from both sides, but the practicality of making it work without anyone ending up unintentionally injured or jailed is daunting, to say the least. I have one friend who knows that she is allowed to kidnap me provided she can both find someone to help her take me (she's too tiny to do it herself) and clear it with Paul. Neither of us are holding our breath for both of these things to happen. ;)
- Sugar - I really like sugar, especially things made out of sugar, like candy and chocolate and things with frosting on them. I like it a lot. A lot a lot. It's not just the taste or that sweet sharp rush of energy, though I'm a big fan of both; it's the pretty colors and the shiny smoothness and all the neat things you can do with it. Especially things you're not supposed to do.
- Glasses - I've worn glasses since the 6th grade, and am comfortable in them. Apparently they're such a part of me that some people have said they prefer the way I look with glasses on to the way I look without them. I tend to be timid about new frames, and have an aversion to what I call "Kennedy glasses" for reasons that would probably offend half my friendslist, but I've been getting a little more open to new and interesting styles, and my frames have gotten progressively funkier over the years, in teeny tiny increments. I'd like to try contacts, and have them around for those situations in which it would be useful to not have to deal with glasses but still be able to see, but for the most part I think I prefer glasses.
- IPA - Studying linguistics means I have become intimately familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet over the past few years. Being a language, symbol, and orthography geek means I think the IPA itself is pretty cool, too, and I love playing with it and making silly, geeky jokes about it, though you wouldn't know it from my poor grades in Phonetics.
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| Pickles for Erica |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|02:51 pm] |
These quick mixed pickles are the same ones they serve to each table on much-too-tiny plates at the East Coast Grill (and apparently at Back Eddy, too) in Cambridge, MA. They're a little bit tangy, a little bit sweet, and ridiculously addictive. I recommend you hide them in the back of the refrigerator to minimize the risk of eating them all in one sitting.
I think bell peppers are for the most part a waste of space, so I tend to leave them out in favor of more cukes and carrots.
Famous Back Eddy House Pickles
From Quick Pickles by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby
Yield: About 12 cups
2 lbs. pickling cucumbers (less than 5" long)
3 tbs. kosher or other coarse salt
3 tbs. vegetable oil
5 cloves garlic, peeled and bruised
1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut on the diagonal into 1/2-inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 medium onions, peeled and thinly sliced (about 2 c.)
4 c. cider vinegar
2 1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. fennel seed
1 tsp. ground cloves
2 bay leaves
1 Tbs. yellow mustard seed
2 Tbs. prepared Dijon mustard
2 tsp. whole allspice berries, cracked
2 tsp. coriander seed, toasted and cracked
Trim and discard the blossom ends of the cucumbers, then cut them into rounds about 1/4 to 3/8-inch thick. In a medium nonreactive bowl, combine the cucumbers and salt and toss to coat. Cover with ice cubes or crushed ice and let stand in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
Drain the cucumbers, rinse them well, then drain them again. In a medium saute pan, combine the oil, garlic, carrots, bell peppers, and onions and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent browning, until the carrots sweat and begin to soften a bit (5-10 minutes). Remove from the heat and combine with the cucumbers.
In a nonreactive pan, combine the vinegar, brown sugar, and all the spices. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Continue to boil for 5 minites to flavor the syrup with the spices. Pour the boiling syrup over the vegetables, allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate. (I divide them into a few medium-sized mason jars, but you could use any nonreactive container with a tight-fitting lid.)
The pickles will keep, covered and refrigerated, for 1 month. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|10:04 am] |
Happy Father's Day, xandyssin! If I tell you in enough places, maybe it will make up for the fact that your present is late. ;)
Happy Father's Day to the rest of the great dads out there, too. |
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| Adventures in Mixology |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|06:56 pm] |
Last weekend byronium and I made kalimotxos, with Dr Pepper and a fantastic Spanish red I forget the name of. Verdict: Yum! It was light and refreshing and lip-smackingly delicious, and a perfect accompaniment to the cheeses and crack salt-and-pepper chips we were nibbling on for an afternoon snack. When the Dr Pepper ran out, B switched to Diet Pepsi, which was... not so yum. He drank it bravely; I opted to wait until the cola ran out entirely and we had to drink the rest of the wine by itself (o, what a chore!).
A few nights ago I decided to make them again, while waiting for Paul and wilee to come back from a TV stand scouting trip, but I accidentally grabbed a super-fruity shiraz from the wine rack instead of the rioja reserva I'd intended to grab. The result was sickeningly sweet, like a berry-flavored wine cooler, something I would have been able to choke down when I was 14, maybe, but utterly undrinkable to me now. I poured it down the sink and had the rest of the wine on its own; it went surprisingly well with the hot dogs I made for dinner. :)
Tonight I managed to pick up the right bottle, and I'm happily sipping away on what is certainly the perfect Summer beverage while I wait for the boys to wake up for dinner. I see many more of these in my future. |
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| Braintrust: Open House Protocol |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|04:27 pm] |
Our landlord has finally decided to sell the building, something he's been talking about doing for over a year. It won't affect the terms of our rental agreement, and it's unlikely we'll have to move, but it's all kinds of annoying because he's been very last-minute about letting us know about things like the building inspection, the broker's tour, and the open houses, all of which have required/will require a lot of work on our part to make the apartment presentable. Work that needs to be done, certainly, and work I was planning to do this Summer anyway, but at a much more leisurely pace. Now, I have just under a week to get this place to a hitherto unknown level of cleanliness--and right as we're in the middle of getting a new TV and entertainment center, and trying to get rid of the old one, too. Bring on the trashbags! And maybe the flamethrower, as well.
(By the way: Does anyone want a TV? :D Sony Trinitron 36XBR400 36" HDTV. Price is negotiable--we're asking for $100-150--you bringing three of your strongest friends with you to pick it up on or before next Tuesday is not. Let me know!)
So anyway, I have a question for you real estate types: What's the protocol on the residents being around for the broker's tour and open house? I resent the idea of having to restructure my schedule around it all, especially when I just found out dates and times today, and I think we'd strongly prefer to not have to be here while people (especially the brokers) are poking around our place, anyway. Please advise! |
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| Christopher Robin is still alive and well |
[May. 29th, 2009|11:00 pm] |
I got another comment on one of my Christopher Robin song entries. This one comes with a neat story, so I thought I'd share it with those of you who have had to hear me talking about this song for the past 9 years. ;) The song Christopher Robin is Alive and Well is very familiar to me. It was recorded by the Stoneman's (Ronnie Stoneman who was on Hee-Haw was a member) and was a brief hit. I learned the words and played it for years. One night around 1978 I was sitting in a dilapidated room in Nashville with several other song writers playing music and one guy started singing it but didn't remember all the words. I filled them in for him then commented that I was surprised to hear anyone sing that song as it wasn't very well known. He said,"Well, I wrote it, but sometimes get the words confused." (this happens to songwriters more than you would think - including me) The writer's name was Vince Mathews. He wrote "Love on a Hot Afternoon" and several other minor hits, including "On Susan's Floor" that was recorded by Gordon Lightfoot. We got to be fairly good friends. I Googled Vince recently and was sad to see he died several years ago.
I told Vince that I'd always liked the song and wanted to know if it was about the Christopher Robin on Winnie the Pooh fame. He assured me that it was. I don't believe Vince knew that Christopher Robin was A.A. Milne's son and a real person. I didn't know that until some years later. I still play the song for people occasionally. Here are the complete words. The chords are basic.
Cheers.
Rube Wrightsman [email redacted]
( Christopher Robin lyrics ) |
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| Kalimotxo |
[May. 26th, 2009|03:59 pm] |
Back when I was too young to be drinking but doing it anyway, and experimenting with anything I could get my hands on, I mixed wine and cola (usually Dr Pepper, of course) quite a bit. The idea was to kill the taste of the horrid cheap pink wine* that was usually what I had access to, and it worked okay. But every once in awhile someone would leave a half-empty bottle of something dark red and actually drinkable around, and when I mixed it with cola, the result was a surprisingly delicious and refreshing drink reminiscent of sangria. I haven't made it in ages, partly because now I'm a big girl who can buy the good stuff that's delicious on its own, and partly because whenever I tell anyone about it, they make the "yuck" face and declare me insane for even dreaming up such a thing, let alone enjoying it. But, lo! Today I discover that I am not the only person who thinks red wine and cola is not a bad idea: folks in Spain mix Coke and red wine 1:1 and call it kalimotxo (or calimocha, if you're allergic to Basque orthography), and have been drinking it since at least the 70s.
I am vindicated, and I know what I'm doing with the rest of the next bottle of red I can't finish. :)
*Sutter Home white zinfandel, *gag* |
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| Le Weekend |
[May. 25th, 2009|11:19 pm] |
Other than the bad movie (which wasn't a total wash, since it was still nice to get out of the apartment with Paul for a bit), and a bit of heartbreaking family drama it's not my place to recount, it's been a very pleasant weekend. gayathri and byronium organized a lovely brunch on Saturday morning, with wonderful people and lots of tasty noms. gayathri provided Front Porch fried chicken, cheesy eggs, and fabulous mixed drinks; byronium made grilled asparagus with hollandaise, sausage patties, and a deliciously tart and sweet cherry cobbler-type-thing; I fixed creamy crab grits; and jeremyrandall and the other guests offered assistance as needed and their fantastic company.
Truly, there are few things that make me happier than hanging out in the kitchen with people I like, cooking and eating and drinking and talking and just generally enjoying each other's company. Doctors who are trying to get me to lose weight often try to sneakily play therapist and ask if food was a big part of my childhood, and it was. Not in the way they ask ("Were you bribed or rewarded with food, or punished by having it withheld? Did your parents give you food in place of love?"), but as something that brought my far-flung and dysfunctional family together. Regardless of what else might have been going on, whatever differences or squabbles there were (and there were plenty), every major holiday and most minor ones called for everyone who possibly could to gather together and share in preparing and eating a meal or two. And even though I always professed to hate the crowd, the noise, and the inevitable next-day dramas that resulted from the volatile combination of family and alcohol, I secretly loved how it brought everyone together, how everyone was able to find something to enjoy about the gathering, and I always looked forward to the next one. Now that I'm 3000 miles away from my blood relatives and am an adult who gets to choose who I spend my time with I love these sorts of gatherings even more, because they're not a respite from animosity, but one more way to share time and space with the people I like and care about, and to revel in and strengthen the connections we have.
After brunch on Saturday I ran a bunch of errands--including a trip to Sephora to buy new lipstick to match my new hair color, because the old ones just wouldn't do--and then realized I was exhausted and headed home to nap, sadly missing caramida's graduation picnic. I woke back up just long enough to make more crab grits for a late dinner (I couldn't let the leftover crabby goodness go to waste!), then crashed hard, and had some seriously fucked-up dreams.
Sunday morning there was yet more fried chicken as we introduced the houseguest and his friend to Jodie's, and yet more napping as we came home and, well, napped (with bonus additional crazydreams, these based mostly on insecurity). Today we slept in, and didn't do much at all other than see the movie and catch up on the TiVo backlog. This morning Paul remarked with surprise that it's actually been a very relaxing weekend, and despite a few flurries of activity and a houseguest, it has been. Which is nice, because we haven't had one of those in awhile. Here's to many more! |
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| The Girlfriend Experience |
[May. 25th, 2009|06:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | movies | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  unimpressed | ] |
You know how people always joke about hearing a movie has "adult situations" and assuming it means it's a movie about people sitting around talking about money and politics? Steven Soderbergh made that movie. We went to see The Girlfriend Experience today and I was thoroughly unimpressed. I don't understand how a movie about a sex worker, starring an adult actress[SFW] often called "the dirtiest girl in porn," could be so boring, but it was a total snoozefest. And I mean that literally: Paul had to elbow me awake about 20 minutes into it. Not that I expected it to be remotely titillating, I knew it wasn't going to be that kind of movie, but it ended up being not much of a movie at all; just a haphazardly strung-together series of uninteresting scenes, mostly of people whining about the economy and the most recent presidential election in the presence of a high-priced escort (who was herself pretty whiny and uninteresting). I'm sure it's supposed to be a sort of slice of daily life in these troubled times, or something like that, but y'know, I've already lived through a random day in October 2008, and it wasn't long enough ago--or interesting enough--that I needed to relive it on the big screen. I will admit that the cinematography was lovely, as was the full-frontal Sasha Grey nudity, but neither of these things makes it worth spending time or money on. There are plenty of other ways to see Sasha Grey naked. :) |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 23rd, 2009|09:24 pm] |
So yeah, my last final was Monday, for my favorite class (History of Information), which was a nice way to end the semester after a very stressful weekend of finals. As nice as any final can be, anyway. Afterward I joked about going home to sleep for three days, but of course there was too much fun to be had to sleep. Monday also happened to be my friend JA's birthday, so a few of us got together at N's house that night to shower the birthday boy with great quantities of food, alcohol, and attention: I made mushroom-chevre tarts, N made apple cake with ginger-cream cheese frosting, we all collaborated on pizzas, and there was Scotch and snuggling a-plenty. Then Tuesday I had dinner with byronium, who thoughtfully brought over some champagne to celebrate the end of the semester, and we enjoyed it with takeout from the local French bistro and a sweet indie movie starring Felicity and Captain Tightpants. I finally did sleep on Tuesday night--best sleep I'd had in weeks--and I spent the rest of the week leisurely working on SHEP stuff, baking (more on that later), and straightening up the apartment a bit in preparation for a houseguest, who arrived yesterday and will be staying for the long weekend.
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Oh, and Thursday I got my hair cut and dyed purple. What? I've been wanting to get a blue or purple streak put in while I still can, while I'm not having to follow any sort of dress code, and I needed a haircut pretty badly, so now seemed like the time to do it. Only when I outlined my plan to my stylist she looked at me funny, and kindly explained how awful it would look with my current hair color, and after much negotiation and the trying on of swatches I ended up with purple hair. It's actually not very dramatic; at first glance all you can really tell is that it's darker and more uniform than my natural color (which you can see in my userpic). In the light, though, it's either a dark, wine-y purple or a deep violet. I like it a lot, and it's making me think that I might even be comfortable with something more purple-purple. We'll see how I feel about it in a couple months, when it's time to get it done again. :)
I'm not in love with the cut--it's shorter than I'd like, and layered in such a way that I actually have to DO something to it in the morning to make it look good--but friends and sweeties have all declared it "cute." Which isn't what I generally aim for, but my people seem to like "cute," so I'll embrace my cuteness while it lasts.
Yes, there is a picture, but it doesn't do the color (or me) justice:
( New hair ) |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 18th, 2009|04:21 pm] |
I survived finals, and it is officially Summer break for me. Yay! More on that later. For now, please enjoy this delightful video of Miss Piggy and the Electric Mayhem performing Peaches' "Fuck the Pain Away" (I don't have to tell you it's NSFW, do I?):
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| (no subject) |
[May. 15th, 2009|02:47 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | linguistics, school, social, ucb | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  determined | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Faint - "The Geeks Were Right" (I am so in love with this song) | ] |
One down, three to go! Today's Sociolinguistics final went well, and I feel good about it. There was one small section I had to, ah, get creative with, because it involved more hard data and detail than he's asked us for in the past, so I hadn't prepared at all for it. But I knew the rest of it so well that I started getting impatient with actually having to write it down because my hand couldn't keep up with my brain, and I'm expecting partial credit on at least one of the questions I had to fudge, and he's going to "generously curve" the whole thing anyway, so I'm not worried about it in the slightest. Wish I could say the same about tomorrow's Syntax final. Sigh. One of my classmates reminded me this morning that worrying about it isn't going to help me, and she's right, though maybe not for the reason she thinks.
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I wish I'd gotten to know my linguistics classmates earlier. A bunch of us sort of quasi-spontaneously met up for a review session this morning at the Free Speech Movement cafe (the final was held in an adjacent building, so we all just happened to be in the same place beforehand), and I really enjoyed discussing the class material, geeking out over language in general, and making bad linguistics jokes with them. I definitely could have used that sort of camaraderie, and the attendant academic support, earlier on. It's no one's fault but mine, of course; I've spent the past two years making all sorts of excuses for keeping to myself at school and avoiding these interactions, though there have been plenty of opportunities. Now I know I was being silly, and I've still got a whole 'nother semester to make up for it.
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I'm not ready to think about next semester just yet, though; I've got to survive finals first. Two tomorrow--the first at 8am, woe!--and one Monday, and then I'm done! |
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| Cannonball Run! |
[May. 14th, 2009|07:23 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  busy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Supertramp - "Cannonball" (no, really) | ] |
Not exactly a break from studying, since this is actually required reading for one of my, er, less-demanding classes: The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory. It's an entertaining read for anyone, but especially so for those of you who know The Ex. This is totally who he wanted to be when he grew up--hell, if the timing (and financial details) weren't all wrong, I'd be certain this was actually about him. ;) |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 14th, 2009|05:48 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | berkeley, funny, quotes, ucb | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Jonathan Coulton - "Re: Your Brains" | ] |
Taking a short break from studying to share this bit of a thread from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) ucberkeley (I'd metaquotes it, but I think the full extent of the funny would be lost on people outside the Bubble): left_coast_cat: Any ideas of why helicopters have been circling around for the past 1.5 hours in south Berkeley/north Oakland? Serious and non-serious answers are welcome, of course.
sir_fitzy: The swine flu-infected trees-sitters who hacked the UHS servers have turned into zombies and are making their way north towards campus. Good news: finals are cancelled. Bad news: too late, the zombies are already breaking into nearby apartments and eating students.
fuzzyabstract: Sad part is, this is the closest I'll ever come to finding someone who likes me for my brains All context wants to do is eat your brains. |
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| Write. Write? Write! |
[May. 11th, 2009|11:00 pm] |
One of the most important personal projects I need to work on once finals are over is writing more, especially journal-y stuff, especially here. I had been doing well with writing for awhile, keeping my private journal updated with regular braindumps and turning out a couple poems and bits of fiction and smut here and there, but I've been so overwhelmed with everything going on in my life and in my head for the past few months--most of it good, some of it not-so-good, all of it requiring processing and dealing-with--that I've just kind of frozen up and stopped writing altogether. This is both in my private journals and here, though I've found myself a little extra-skittish about writing here, still concerned about exposing too much of my soft underbelly to public or semi-public poking-at, and overcautious (mostly unnecessarily so) about other people's privacy and other people's buttons. I don't like feeling like this, I don't like being afraid to write, and I'm going to fix it. I am fixing it.
And, BTW, by "here," I do mean LJ specifically. gracecourage kindly offered me one of her Dreamwidth invite codes, and I've set up an account there with the obvious username, but I think I'll use it mostly as a staging ground for more creative-type writing. I like the LiveJournal service and feel oddly loyal to it despite the occasional administrative fuckup, and I can't see myself jumping ship unless everyone else does. Luckily Dreamwidth is nicely integrated with LJ, with crossposting and OpenID authentication, so it'll be pretty easy to keep up with those of you who are migrating. |
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| Battle Spring Semester: Nearly Ovah! |
[May. 11th, 2009|10:33 pm] |
Today was the last day of classes! There are still finals to get through (one on Friday, two on Saturday, the last one the following Monday), but at least now I've got the time to study for them instead of having to waste time going to and from, and sitting in, class. ;) It's been a mixed semester--I don't feel like I got much out of it, academically, other than a great deal of uncertainty about my plans for the future, but that uncertainty comes from a lot of positive experiences in not-quite-academic areas--and I'll be glad when it's really-truly over. I am taking Summer classes, but they should be fun and relatively fluffy, and I'll still have time to work on other things, like preliminary research for my thesis, developing the manual and training schedule for next year's SHEP program, and some personal projects that I've neglected. And a whole lot of thinking about how I can be all of the things I want to be when I grow up and still earn a living. :) |
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| Hydrocolloids R Us |
[May. 8th, 2009|05:14 pm] |
I've been reading Alinea at Home for awhile, but it wasn't until I sent the link to byronium just now that I noticed this incredibly useful spreadsheet linked off the main page. It's a price comparison of the hydrocolloids and other chemicals used in the recipes from the major sellers of such things: Willpowder, L'Epicerie, Le Sanctuaire, Chef Rubber, and Terra Spice. There are product links and vendor contact info, and the best price for each product is bolded.
Not that I'd seriously consider passing up the opportunity to go back to the Le Sanctuaire showroom and do some more proxy flirting with the cute boy there on behalf of You-Know-Who-You-Are (hey, maybe he needs more marshmallows!), but perhaps someone else will find this useful. ;) |
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| Où est ma soeur? |
[May. 6th, 2009|01:29 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | family | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  worried | ] |
I'm a little worried about yamantha, since neither Mom nor I have heard from her or seen any activity online from her in a few weeks, and she hasn't responded to any of my calls, texts, or emails. It's not entirely unreasonable to assume that she doesn't have 'net access and her cell phone is cut off, and I've got a couple other avenues to try before I start really freaking out, but I figured I'd try here, too, in case she checks LJ, or any of you have heard from or seen her. Anyone?
UPDATE May 7: I called her at work. She wasn't there, but her cow orker said she'd left for the day, so that's at least reasonable confirmation that she's alive. :) I'll try again another time, earlier in the day.
UPDATE MAY 9: She called Mom on Mother's Day. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|02:05 pm] |
Ah, Breszny. Except for the very last bit, I already do all this. ;) Pisces Horoscope for week of April 30, 2009
In April I was grateful whenever you obeyed all the signs, stuck to the beaten paths, worked a little harder than usual, and averted your eyes from the places where "interesting" bursts of chaos were unfolding. In May I'd appreciate it if you did pretty much the opposite: Question authority rigorously, wander off into less-traveled regions, play harder than usual, and tune in to commotions that could be productive learning experiences. In the past month, Pisces, I was hopeful that you'd pay your debts to society before society's collection agency started making harassing calls. In the coming month, I invite you to ask everyone to do you extra favors. |
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| In lieu of actual content: Poetry! |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|12:41 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | poetry | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  calm | ] |
I've been remiss in posting poetry, either mine or others', for poetry month, but I've been inspired. byronium posted a gorgeously evocative David Wagoner poem, which reminded me of how I first discovered and fell in love with Wagoner's poetry: looking online for a particular Wallace Stevens poem back in junior high and not yet versed in good search techniques, I stumbled across "Wallace Stevens on His Way to Work." Below is the Stevens poem I was looking for, which is one of my absolute favorite pieces of literature to read out loud because "whip/In kitchen cups concupiscent curds" rolls off the tongue like no other phrase in the language. You can find Wagoner's "Wallace Stevens on His Way to Work" here, and another of my favorite Wagoner poems here.
The Emperor of Ice Cream
Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 23rd, 2009|09:10 am] |
Our grits supply is getting dangerously low, so I just called McEwen & Sons to reorder. It was the most delightful customer service transaction ever! The guy I talked to took my order in a friendly but very efficient and businesslike manner, which was great in itself, but after I gave him my address he got all super-friendly and wanted to know how I'd heard about them all the way out here in Berkeley. I told him the best aunt evar had sent us some of their grits awhile back, and then he proceeded to tell me a story about Frank Stitt, who runs the Highlands Bar & Grill (where they serve McEwen & Sons grits, and are currently up for a James Beard award, and surely the two are related), studying philosophy at Berkeley. I had no idea!
And now 12 lbs. of grits are on their way across the country to us. Yay! |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|11:02 pm] |
Me: I may be imagining things, but I swear I've noticed more girls paying attention to me since I got my new glasses.
Paul: Perhaps that's because you can actually see them now. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 15th, 2009|07:45 pm] |
I have been trying for two days to finish and post this entry about how busy I am, but I've been--wait for it--too busy! But dinner's gotta get made no matter what, so I'm taking a few minutes between stirring the risotto and roasting the chicken to finish and post this. Cooking a labor-intensive dish like risotto when I've got a million and a half things to do might seem a little insane, but it was a very deliberate choice: it's calming, and it gives me a chance to organize my thoughts and work out problems in my head instead of trying to work them out while staring at a screen. Plus, at the end I get exactly the sort of nourishing comfort food I need to keep me going. ;)
A couple days ago I looked at the calendar and started to freak out a little over the fact that finals start in less than a month, but then I realized I've got more immediate things to freak out about right now. This week I have/had: - An all day empathy and listening skills training to co-facilitate
- Multiple visits to the doctor re: adjusting my allergy and blood pressure meds
- A Syntax midterm and a Sociolinguistics midterm on the same day
- A ready-for-peer-review draft of a final project due (on the same day as the two midterms)
- Midterm review sessions
- Appointments with advising and financial aid
- A Summer and Fall schedule to plan
- 3 days of interviewing SHEP applicants
- SHEP tabling at a Take Back the Night event
- An all-day SFSI training to elf
- An old friend visiting from out of town and staying overnight
- A birthday brunch to attend
- The usual classes and other weekly obligations: SFSI shift, video night with the Foreigners, etc.
Whew! I'm using "freak out" pretty lightly, though; my stress over my schedule this week is actually at pretty healthy levels (though I can't say the same about my stress over my Syntax midterm). Despite all the busy I have gotten to have a little fun, relax a bit, and spend time with some of the people who are important to me over the past couple days, and I'm looking forward to hanging out with an old friend this weekend and helping the birthday princess celebrate, and SHEP and SFSI stuff is always fun, especially when it involves new recruits. Hell, I'm even enjoying working on this final project, though I wish I had a bit more time to do it, mostly because I keep stumbling across interesting yet totally unrelated things in my research but can't spare a moment to investigate them further.
So things are a little crazy, but they could be worse. And Syntax midterm aside, I'm actually feeling pretty comfortably on top of things. Yeah, I'm not going to have any downtime whatsoever for a little while, but I'll be able to get everything done on time, and (with the possible exception of the Syntax midterm) done well. Which is going to feel nice, especially once it's all over. I see bourbon and bubble baths in my future... |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 11th, 2009|10:30 pm] |
I finally got my new glasses! It's so amazingly wonderful to be able to see again. My new prescription is considerably stronger and the frames are a slightly different shape, so I'm going through that stage of adjustment where everything on the periphery seems slightly warped and I feel kind of like I'm high. The fact that I keep getting distracted by my own reflection ("What's that on my face?") and have been walking around marveling at how much more real everything seems now probably makes other people think I'm high, too. ;)
I do still like the frames--I'm always worried I won't, when they come back from the lab--possibly even more than I liked them when I first chose them. They're interesting, not so boring as to blend in but not too edgy to wear on an everyday basis, and they fit and complement my face really well, and they're different enough from my last pair that they give me that shiny, confident, self-satisfied feeling you get from a new hairstyle or a kickass new outfit. Yes I know you want pictures, but I've taken several dozen so far and none of them really show off how great the new frames look. I'll keep trying, and maybe enlist the help of friends, but until then, you'll either just have to see me in person or use your imagination.
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I will, however, share pictures from today's egg-dyeing experiment. A few weeks ago tyrsalvia sent me these instructions for silk-dyed eggs and I decided I had to give it a try. They didn't turn out quite as vibrantly-colored as I'd hoped--maybe I didn't leave them in long enough or wrap them tight enough, or maybe it's just the particular dyes in the ties I used--but they're still pretty, and I definitely plan to experiment some more with this technique next year.
( Eggses! ) |
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| The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, he said |
[Apr. 10th, 2009|09:52 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, nostalgia, rhilet | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds - "The Spirit of Man" | ] |
Neither the headline nor the text of the article make any sense to me (iPods? Wha?), but it still made me happy to see the liner art from Jeff Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds on io9 this morning. That somewhat obscure album is an important part of the soundtrack of my life. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the dining room in the house in Spring Hope listening to it over and over again, and I had the whole thing memorized by the time I was six--minus a few lines from "Forever Autumn" that I still get mixed up even now. I used to love drawing the tripods and handling machines, with red marker scribbles at the bottom of the page for the red weed and "Ulla! Ulla!" in big black letters at the top. As I got older I made all my friends listen to it, trying to share the awesome, but I don't think any of them ever really appreciated it as much as I did. The album got misplaced for awhile when I was in highschool and I was devastated, but a couple years after I left home I got the CD version (from the lovely misskris) in an LJ Secret Santa exchange, and it's definitely the best Secret Santa gift I have ever received (not least because I made a new friend from it).
These days I'm always delighted to run into someone else who's heard of it, especially if they know it well enough to sing a few lines with me. I was disappointed that none of the elders of sci-fi geekdom at the marathon knew it, though; when they showed the original War of the Worlds at SF33(?) I was looking forward to trotting out some lines, but after "Ulla!" and "No, Nathaniel!" failed to get any sort of response, I gave up.
Edited to Add: Ohmygod. There are remix albums. |
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| Sense Memory |
[Apr. 8th, 2009|01:55 pm] |
I have some very strong (and very strange) food-related associations. Mostly between specific foods and specific people, but I was thinking about it just now as I pulled a batch of jalapeno poppers from the oven and heard music from Ocarina of Time in my head. Which is what happens almost every time I do this, because I spent the majority of my afternoons during the last half of my senior year of highschool sprawled out on my purple beanbag with a plate of jalapeno poppers in my lap, playing Ocarina of Time on my N64. (Not food-related, but the smell of a certain discontinued variety of shampoo also triggers this memory, because my ritual was this: drive home, take a bath, bake poppers, and play Zelda while my hair was still wet.)
The food/person associations are the strongest, though, and they're usually attached to the point of cooking, not eating, even when it doesn't quite make sense. I can't fry an egg without thinking about valerielalala, who taught me how to fry eggs one morning after a sleepover. Chopping limes reminds me of Robin, and making tomato soup reminds me of Grandma. Every time I smash a clove of garlic I have a strong memory of standing at the counter at renfield's house, smashing and chopping garlic for calzones and for embellishing frozen pizzas. Making risotto always briefly calls to mind lwj, even though we never cooked it together, only ate it together on one of our first dates (and again for breakfast the next morning). Thawing frozen spinach makes me think of joyce and those deliciously trashy spinach-mushroom enchiladas she, the Ex, and I practically lived off of for awhile. And for reasons I'm not sure I will ever fully understand, scrambling eggs makes me think of myth, who I've never actually met in person, let alone cooked or eaten with.
My brain is so weird. |
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| April is National Poetry Month |
[Apr. 1st, 2009|10:45 am] |
In honor of National Poetry Month, I share this funny and thought-provoking poem vito_excalibur wrote for Randall Munroe:
I Fucked Your Mom
by vito_excalibur
I fucked your mom
she said to tell you
(that's what she said)
she said to quit acting all butthurt
every time someone mentions
she got laid
- she gets laid sometimes
she's not dead yet -
(that's what I said)
she said to tell you
quit acting like you get to have
an opinion
on who she lets into her vagina
it is not yours just because you lived there
you never owned it
you never paid any rent on it
and she said to tell you
she changed the locks behind you
long ago.
(via metaquotes) |
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| Why Non-Monogamy? Your Answers |
[Mar. 31st, 2009|09:52 pm] |
Thanks to everyone who responded via LJ, Twitter, and in person yesterday! I used some of your responses (unattributed for anonymity, of course, and in some cases slightly paraphrased or condensed to fit nicely on a slide) in my presentation today, and the students there found them interesting and enlightening, and appreciated hearing a variety of reasons for non-monogamy from people who actually practice it.
"Why non-monogamy?" I asked. You said:
I don't think that loving someone means they are my everything.
Because I don't own my partners' hearts, and they don't own mine.
Because falling in love with a second person shouldn't have to mean I don't/can't love the first anymore.
Because we didn't want to stop sleeping with other people.
I prefer to let relationships develop on their own instead of trying to stuff people into boxes where they don't fit.
Because my partner was dating a wonderful man, with a partner of his own, when I met her, and I have no desire to take that away from them.
I require a lot of work and attention, so it's only fair to spread it around!
Because I can't figure out how to love only one person.
We have a sex-drive mismatch.
Because I'm kinky, and the man I love isn't.
Because it's fun!
Because I have no adequate answer to "Why be monogamous?"
I'm just wired that way.
It feels more natural and honest to me.
Because my partners are.
Why not? |
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| Braintrust: Why Non-Monogamy? |
[Mar. 30th, 2009|10:15 am] |
I'm prepping a presentation on polyamory and non-monogamy for baby sex educators, and I'm sort of stuck on the "Why?" part. I know why I'm non-monogamous; if you are, why are you? I won't screen comments, but anonymous comments are okay.
(Speaking of questions, I'll have the first round of March Q & A answers up tomorrow!) |
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| Dorothy Parker was wrong |
[Mar. 28th, 2009|06:18 pm] |
Shopping for frames today wasn't as painful as it usually is. We only had to go one place, and I found two--two!--pairs that I really liked. The first pair I only tried on as a joke; Paul kept handing me the sort of funky Kennedy glasses I've always sworn I'd never wear, and I put them on just to be silly, and we were both surprised to find that this pair actually looked good on me. Unfortunately, they didn't quite fit, not even after a bunch of adjusting. I've been searching for them online since we got home from shopping to see if I can find them in a larger size, but it looks like the size I tried on is the largest size that model comes in. Sadness! Here they are, since you'll never get to see them on my face:
( The ones that got away )
I've looked around to see if I could find something similar that might actually fit, but so far, nothing else has quite the same combination of shape, thickness, and simplicity.
The second pair, the one I ended up ordering, is a bit more traditional, and much more my usual style. Wire frames, somewhere between the true rectangles of my last pair of glasses and the cat's-eye shape of my current ones, and darker than my current pair, too. There's a bit of detail at the temples that almost made me reject them without trying them on, but it works. They look and feel very natural on my face, but don't blend in so much that you don't notice them (this is a good thing; I like my glasses to be noticeable!). Here they are, only in red (mine are black):
( We have a winner! )
They'll be ready in 10 business days, and I can't wait! I miss being able to see. :) |
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curious
happy
silly
annoyed
thoughtful
dorky