is it wednesday yet? haiku

what do you mean "gone"?

i have been here the whole time,

just being quiet.

comment spam

Since no one except spammers are posting comments, I'm closing comments to blogger users only. Sorry if anyone wanted to post something relevant, but blame the spammers.

the kitchen sink

I feel like I've been absent from the blogosphere lately, but I've got way too much stuff going on right now.  I've got a lot on my plate, both personally and professionally.  Wish I could blog about it, that might help sort things out, but that's just a no-no.

an up-in-the-air office building wednesday haiku (literally)

9 floors vertical,

twenty feet to the Northwest,

miles from the bathroom.

important things to remember

1 - Do not wear boob shirts to work.

2 - All shirts have the potential to turn into boob shirts on the right (or wrong) wearer.

3 - The black button-down shirt I'm wearing today is one of those shirts, and I am one of those wearers.

wednesday haiku, a recipe

sweet green tomatoes,
mini mozzerella balls,
balsalmic and oil.

(and fresh basil, and salt and pepper, but that all wouldn't fit) ...makes a lovely summer salad. For more recipes and plenty of vegetable ideas, visit Gourmania.

a whole new world

I feel like I've been really out of touch with the blogging world lately, what with leaving my former job where I could spend hours at a time surfing the web and all. So, this evening I reaquainted myself with all my old favorites - Cupcake, SheWalks, ThisFish, etc. Nothing like a little home-grown chick lit to make me feel reconnected. Keep up the good work, ladies.

a brief briefing on my new job

Had my first day at my new job today...now I just want to take a nap. Everything went great, all my new co-workers are super nice and I actually get to use my brain in my new position, but it was a lot to absorb in one day. Lots of acronyms, passwords, and whatnot. Felt great to come home from work and watch some bad reality tv to decompress my brain.

last day of work haiku

Today is the end -
of this stage in my career,
of a very long year.

disappointments and changing directions

The Boy did not get into grad school. He just found out. I'm super bummed
for him; for not having had the impulse to go before, he really put a lot
of pressure on himself to get in this year. Sucks. Now our lives are on
hold for another year, waiting to see what happens.

seasonal haiku for you

the whirring of fans,
followed by cold foggy nights,
mean it's summer here.

one of those days

Umm...so, I just escaped from a potentially very embarassing situation. See, I went down the hall to the bathroom (the communal one) and popped into the last stall, since there was no one in there. I did what I had to do, flushed, and twisted the silver locking handle back to the left to exit the stall. Twist, push, nothing. Hmm...twist, push, nothing. The door wouldn't open. Peering closer to the latch, I could see that it was no longer engaging with the mechanism inside the door and the post was stuck in the lock. I tried twisting lightly... nothing; twisting hard... nothing; twisting while leaning to the left...nothing; shaking the whole door frame in an attempt to dislodge the cheap-ass lock...nothing. i was stuck. I weighed my options, eyeing the 14" gap between the bottom of the stall door and the dusty tile floor. Maybe I could just wait in here until someone else came along, maybe they'd be able to jimmy the lock from the outside. The thought of being forever remembered as "the girl from down the hall who got stuck in the bathroom" just didn't appeal. My mind flashed to the junior high school trick of locking stalls and slipping back out underneath to foil the next person who had to pee. I did what I had to do, dropped my adult self to the floor and slid out from under the stall door like the experienced swing dancer I'm not. Phew. Free at last. Hope there's not too much floor funk stuck to my butt.

a post about nothing

I was reading Tequila Mockingbird's archives today (her archives b/c she
has gone MIA of late), and am still supremely jealous of her skills. See
my sidebar for the link, if you're interested in some quality storytelling.

today is wednesday, right?

Then, it must be Haiku Wednesday!! Here we go:

Dear, sweet gelato,
Stracciatella, nocciola,
So hard to choose one.

insert previous title here

Okay, so the last post's title was meant for this post, in case you get the allusion. What's making me so happy? I got a new job!! Yay! Now...how do I tell my current coworkers? Breaking up with one person is hard enough, how do you dump an entire office?

zippity do da

Back from Las Vegas! Surprise, surprise, I didn't win anything. I have a bit of a problem with slot machines. Awhile back, during another trip, I hit a $250 jackpot on a quarters slot machine, and ever since then have suffered under the delusion that these things happen all the time. I've been paying the slot machines back since then! The Boy got in some quality poker playing, got to enter in a World Series of Poker event, and even won some money playing with freebie credits from our hotel. The highlight of the trip for me was finally getting to pet the baby lion at MGM Grand. So cute!

haiku wednesday - are you hiring?

almost done with this
promise not to bring it up
if I get the job

(that was on the many rounds of interviews I've been doing lately)

things that disturb your sleep

Under the heading of things that disturb your sleep, I have to say that thinking that the world is coming down around you ranks pretty high up there. I have never been so abruptly ripped out of a peaceful slumber as the time I thought all hell was breaking loose around me. It happened about a year and a half ago, The Boy was on a business trip in Las Vegas for a week and I joined him halfway through so that we enjoy Sin City together for a few days at his company's expense. I should clarify, though, that he never told his work that I would be joining him, so when they made his hotel reservations for him they booked the room for only one person, thereby making me paranoid the entire time I was there that I was going to be nabbed for being the second person in the room.

Anyway, after a night filled with the drinking and gambling that comes naturally when one is in Vegas, TB had to be up bright and early for an in-house meeting while I got to bury myself under the covers of our king bed and pretend like the day hadn't started yet. One of several things that they do right in Vegas is understand that a) people need to sleep in and b) there are a lot of bright neon lights in that town. As a result, every hotel has great big thick curtains to block out light, sun, a nuclear blast, what have you. So...there I was, safely snuggled up in a giant bed in the world's darkest room, pretty much dead to the world, when....holy mother of god, the loudest siren I have ever heard in my life starts going off above my head, accompanied by a seizure-inducing strobe light. It was deafening...I had to fight the impulse to curl up in a little ball with my hands over my ears in reaction to it, and instead flailed about, literally falling out of the king-sized bed and scrambling blindly about the floor in search of my dropped glasses. The pitch blackness of the room, combined with my own practical blindness and the blaring alarm that filled my head, reduced me to pawing all over the floor like Helen Keller without Polly Thomson. My heart was in my throat from the shock and believing that I was about to be burned alive, and I fumbled in the darkness for my belongings, feeling out my glasses and my cell phone. I ran out of the hotel room in nothing but my pajamas and rushed down the emergency stairwell and out the door.

Of course, since the hotel was filled with conference-goers and and they were already up and dressed and in their meetings, and I wasn't even supposed to be there, much less huddled outside some emergency exit in my jammies, I didn't exactly want to be running around the parking lot shouting for The Boy. Fortunately, everyone else came out of other exits and mine deposited me behind the hotel's dumpster. So, there I was, shrinking from sight, trying to figure out if the hotel was on fire, realizing that I had no way of getting back inside or proving that I was a guest, and wearing my pajamas and clutching my cell phone. I ended up calling The Boy's cell, convinced him to meet me behind the dumpster, and had him let me back into our room when the coast was clear. But...I never did get back to sleep.

over the river and through the woods

It's Fourth of July weekend (almost) - woohoo! Well, maybe just "woo". I've still got some time until I can call it a day, and even when that happens, my weekend plans aren't all that exciting. As the title of this post indicates, I'm going to my grandmother's house this weekend. It's an annual pilgrimage for everyone in our family, since it's both her birthday and a three-day weekend (no excuses for not being there!). It's a long, boring drive, to a hot, boring place in the middle of nowhere, only made tolerable by the hugs and love shared by the rest of the flock. (Sometimes even that's not enough!)

So, basically, my weekend consists of me driving to my parents house, all of us driving to my grandma's house, all of us driving back to my parents house, me being guilt tripped into staying longer, and then me driving back to my own house. Phew. Good thing everyone else in America has also decided to spend the weekend in their car. At least we get three days to recover from all that.

wednesday haiku (and an insight into my job hunt)

Getting very close
To the crucial juncture,
When will they decide?

shout out for pride

Just want to give a little shout out to the whole Bay Area for a great Gay Pride weekend and festivities. Missed the parade yesterday, but enjoyed the cameraderie and many an eyeful at the festival afterwards. Makes me proud to live in this area!

sunday brunch

I usually leave the restaurant reviews to my foodie counterpart blog, but I have to give a quick thumbs up to the make-your-own-Bloody-Mary Sunday Brunch at Home in San Francisco. What a way to start the day.

another wintery summer

I helped organize a picnic for my whole office today. Of course, it's the first cloudy day in about a week. Ah, Murphy's Law. I still like that Mark Twain quote: "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco".

the people on your team

Spent most of yesterday in the maze that is Kaiser Medical Center in Oakland. The Boy had a brief, inexplicable health crisis in the morning, compounded by my own medical appointment in the afternoon. As a result, I visited about five different offices in the complex, got a lot of my current book read, and chewed my cuticles more than I probably should've. My favorite quote of the day came from one of the receptionists in the Radiology department. She was telling him not to worry about anything. However, seeing the nervous look on TB's face, she paused in processing his paperwork, leaned over and said, "Look, this is 2005. If anyone is not on your team, get rid of them. That's my motto. Get rid of them." Ha! So funny and so confusing all at the same time. Why wouldn't people be "on your team"? What exactly does the year have anything to do with it? In 2004, it was okay to have people who didn't support you but, honey, in 2005 that's got to end!! : )

wednesday haiku

It is now Wednesday,
I am actually here
Writing this haiku.

And on time, for a change! Here's another:

Summer solstice brings
delicious rays of sunshine
to my winter heart.

traffic generators

So, I've been playing around on blogexplosion a lot lately. Voting and participating in the Battle of the Blogs, putting myself on the Blog Rocket, surfing other people's blogs for credits. And then something struck me this morning as I logged in for the umpteenth time. Some people were chatting in the little shout-out box about how they don't write long posts anymore because nobody reads them. And I realized that somehow our approach to blogging has become incredibly skewed by these traffic generators. Adulterating your content for the reader? This is blogging people. You don't get paid for it, it's not your job, you have no one to please but yourself. It's your life that you're writing about, are you going to change that too just so that people have something else to read? Something is off in that logic and it hints of a compromised medium. That is not a compromise I'm willing to make.

father's day

I love my dad. I hate Father's Day cards. They're so dumb, how many dads actually do the things that are featured in Father's Day cards? My dad doesn't wear a tie, he doesn't golf, he hasn't gone fishing in 15 years. So, for my dad, I got him a card with a monkey on the front. Who doesn't like monkeys?

whispering from above

No, not that above. Hardly. I mean from my boss's loft. One of the company's senior members is leaving and now there's word of a lot of staff shuffling and promotions and stuff. Ten to one odds that I don't get to see any of the glory.

crikey - where did my wednesday go?

Okay, so, if you're a regular reader, you may have realized by now that I'm terribly inept at remembering to do the Wednesday haiku. In my defense, Wednesdays are often my busiest days of the week, what with my regular volunteering schedule and standing work meetings and whatnot. So....enough excuses, but that's why it sometimes takes me a day or two to realize that Wednesday has passed. Here are more belated Wednesday haikus, this time about my volunteer work.

For the boy who says,
"Mommy, please live forever,"
I only have hope.

Tangled girl with ire,
I am now your favorite,
You tell me, pointing.

What's up, WSOP!

Don't know if anyone gets that acronym, it stands for the World Series of Poker, which is where I'm off to in a month. The Boy just booked our second trip to Vegas in about as many months. While I'm sure he's thinking all about pot odds and nut flushes, I'm envisioning pina coladas and multiple swimming pools. Better start saving my quarters!

busy like a bee

Been pretty busy lately trying to explore my career options. Though, to be honest, the only option I'm interested in involves me finding a new job. Wish I didn't have to go through the whole drawn out interview process again. It's almost enough to make someone stay where they are - almost.

a three stall challenge

Oh the horror! Here's the setup: my office building is shared by a number of small businesses, so there is usually quite a bit of traffic up and down our halls. Our "facilities" are, of course, also shared, and there are two different bathroom options for everyone - gender-specific multi-person bathrooms at the end of the hall with three stalls each and two single person bathrooms accessible through the outside of the building. In my mind, the multi-person bathroom is appropriate for quick trips to the loo, as no one wants to hear or be overheard doing anything more involved than that. The outside bathrooms are where one goes to do one's actual dumping if need be. Right. Or so I thought. As I quickly popped into the bathroom at the end of the hall to drain my bladder this morning, I noticed that someone was in the middle of the three stalls. Weird enough, since people usually like to leave a little bit of space between themselves and others when taking a leak. However, as I darted into the third stall to take my much needed pee, I was hit with the stench of the person next to me taking a massive dump. Glancing at the floor, I could see her feet twisted in the effort of the act - was she trying to poo silently or did it really require that much effort? Egads. I couldn't pee fast enough. The smell...the horror... My question to you: what kind of person poops in the most central and public location in the building??

haiku wednesday call for submissions

am having trouble
thinking of a new haiku
let's hear from the rest

i hate you and i hate your ass face

I'll be honest, I'm a fairly opinionated person. The list of people who get on my nerves is a fairly long one - Renee Zellweger, Russell Crowe, the relentless salespeople who call my work and harass us when we won't connect them to the Executive Director's office. However, I really don't hate that many people. Hate is a strong word and one whose vitriol should be reserved for very specific times and places. So, it is with some due consideration that I declare that I hate the owner of a late model green sedan type car that is missing it's passenger side mirror courtesy of smashing into my car and breaking off my driver's side mirror while my poor innocent little car was parked on the street on Saturday night. I hate you, green car driver. You suck. If the police ever find you, I will sic my car insurance on you with all my might.

PS: If anyone in the East Bay area sees a car fitting this description, please take note of their license plate number and email me. You'll get a reward and my undying love and appreciation.

i am a cherry blossom!

What is your inner flower?

what's your inner flower?

[c] sugardew

good for the heart

I had my volunteering gig again last night (every other Wednesday), facilitating the support group for kids who are dealing with the death of a loved one. I don't know what it is about being there, but I really enjoy it. My volunteering days start out like all the rest, with me being tired and wanting to just come straight home after work to nap, but by the time I get to the site and the kids show up I'm all jazzed and running around like a 12 year old myself. My favorite quote of the evening yesterday was when one of the more troubled kids caught my attention out on the play structure and asked: "can we play the game where the big kids....I mean, the grown-ups...I mean the leaders..." me: "you mean, us?" him: "yeah, you guys; where you guys run after us and we have to freeze if you tag us?". So sweet.

an actual wednesday haiku (or two)

is medicine good
if the drug warnings on it
are worse than the problem?

(Okay, I cheated....six syllables.. you try coming up with a one syllable
word for "problem".)

my sticky fingers
(not in the way you're thinking)
have stolen your jam.

how about haiku thursday?

Due to circumstances beyond my control (namely craziness and venom being spewed around my office), I couldn't post Wednesday's haiku. Here is one now:

Just because you're pregs,
It's no excuse for bullshit.
Should have said, "I quit!"

Ta-da! A little insight into my sordid life. Now, onto happier things...

A certain someone's birthday is today (no, not me). I just want to wish him a very happy birthday.

got to pay the bills

Been keeping an eye on my Adsense reports...viewership is up despite a lack of comments (feel free to say hi, y'all!), however no one is clicking on the ads. Perhaps this will be a slow crawl to riches. You know you want to find out more about the fabulous things on that sidebar that may or may not relate to what's going on here!

at this very moment...

At this very moment, I'm listening to "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones, nibbling on a coworker's offering of Peanut Brittle, and trying very hard to make it look like I'm actually doing some work. Wonder if I'm succeeding, but somehow doubt that I am. Going to a fundraiser tonight. Should be lots of fun - old friends and cocktails, what better way to spend a Tuesday evening? Wish I could have been blogging back in the old days. Oh, the stories that never got told.

no-no's and public speaking

Had a relatively uneventful weekend. Went out Friday night with The Boy, The Boy's Boss, and The Boy's Boss's Boyfriend. TBBB is eerily like the gay male version of me, so of course we always have a good time when we hang out. TB and TBB are calm and collected types, while me and TBBB like to sit back with our Cosmos or our Stellas and cackle evilly about the people around us. (BTW, given a sighting that we had on Friday night - Men, it is not okay to wear white sweat suits (without undershirts and unzipped halfway down your concave chest), flip flops, gold chains, and/or bad comb-overs when you're going out with your honey. We, unfortunately for our poor burned retinas, saw all four disasters on the same guy. I had a compelling urge to follow his date into the bathroom to try to talk some sense into her, but restrained myself with the knowledge that she most likely had to be on drugs to be out with that guy and no one can rationalize with someone who is that cracked out.)

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet, ran some errands to prepare for TB's upcoming birthday, went to a friend's going away party, watched the season finale of CSI which we had taped from the other day, helped TB with a project he is working on, -oh- and I had my reading! I am, by nature, a very fast talker (not really a smooth talker, though, unfortunately), particularly when I get nervous, so I was all paranoid that I would just eat my words when I had to get up in front of everyone and read my piece. I was so worried about this that I wavered up until the last second over which piece I would actually read - the better ten minute one that could become achingly long if no one was into it, or a very brief piece that would be over as quick as a sneeze. I opted for the longer one in the end, partly because everyone else who was reading took their sweet time and partly because an old friend had shown up and I didn't want her to have wasted the trip just to hear me read for thirty seconds. It went well, I think. I managed to speak slowly (for me) and didn't lose my place and actually made people laugh a few times (btw, screw you woman in the front row who kept playing with her hair). TB made a video of it, but quite frankly I don't think my ego can handle watching it. I think I'll choose to remember it my own way.

pretending like I didn't miss haiku wednesday

Did anyone notice
That, in my fog, I forgot
The Wednesday haiku?

a literary meme

I'm picking this meme up from Virtual Sanity, because I'm a book person and this is about those wonderful devices.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? I would pick the Bible, just to fuck with people. You know that someone's still going to be all about burning it and some other people would stop to protest. It would be gratifying to make people on both sides of the equation stop to think about what they're doing.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Heck yeah. I grew up reading Cynthia Voigt novels and other pre-teen romantics. I'm sure there were many heroine's crushes who I crushed on, as well.
The last book you bought is: "Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins
The last book you read is: "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" by Joan Didion
What are you currently reading? "Still Life with Woodpecker" and the advertising book "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This"
Five books you would take to a deserted island: The Bhagavad Gita, Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein (been sitting on my shelf awhile), The Art Book, War and Peace (gonna get my money's worth here), Gone with the Wind (I've read it before, but it's 1024 pages of repeatable entertainment).

is this thing on?

Umm....yeah. I don't think my brain is working today. Do you ever have those days? It's like the lightbulb in my brain is about to burn out or something. Do you hear that? I think it's because of the weather, it's incredibly dark and drizzly and not at all what a mid-May California day should be like. Also, I actually got a healthy amount of sleep last night and I think my body might be in shock from that. Reminds me, I had this sad little dream the other night about my turtle. In my dream, I was moving to Korea or somewhere for three months and I was leaving my turtle with someone and, on the morning I was supposed to leave, my turtle was all sick and injured. So sad. I didn't want to leave her, I was panicked that the turtle-sitter wouldn't be able to take care of her. I wonder if this means I'm overly attached to my turtle.

Anyway, see how my brain doesn't work? I was talking about the weather and then I launched into the sad dream about my turtle. I wonder if people who have really important jobs and duties have days like this. That's kind of worrisome, actually. What if you had to have surgery and your doctor was just like, "umm, well, I'm feeling kind of out of it today, so Nurse's Assistant Bubba here is going to be my right hand man through this and hopefully we'll get you all stitched up just fine. Now, Bubba, where'd I leave my keys?" Yeah, makes you feel real confident, doesn't it.

here and now

reading: Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
listening: The Shins- "Oh Inverted World"
watching: "Meet the Barkers" on MTV

weekend tidings

I'm tired in the good, satisfied, sleepy way after a day of doing all the things I really wanted to do today. Yesterday was a bit of a wash, so it was great to be able to do so much today and at least get something out of my too-brief weekend. Woke up early this morning and raced against the weather to get in 9 holes of golf with The Boy; it was only my second time playing golf ever and, as before, I have to say that I exhibited some natural golf prowess. Got far fewer Mulligans than my dear instructor, and even managed to sink a birdie (that means I got the ball in the hole in only two strokes, for the uninitiated). An added bonus was that because of the general cloudiness of the day, we got the entire course to ourselves and could take our sweet time at every hole (which was somewhat of a necessity, given the high do-over ratio of someone who shall go nameless). After golf, we had lunch with friends, and then rounded out the day with loads of shopping. Jeans, and shirts, and shoes, oh my! I only splurge on clothes about twice a year, but the high from it carries me for quite a while. So satisfying! Hope your weekends were just as nice.

mmm...pie

This is what I am, what are you?

find your inner PIE @ stvlive.com

the geek within

Is it completely dorky of me to be excited for the new Star Wars movie? Because I really want to see it. I've done a pretty good job of keeping my inner geek hidden up until now, didn't mention my childhood affinity for Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns, my prized Princess Leia action figure, or my intimate knowledge of everything ever written by Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. Guess now I can own up to the Halloween when I dressed as the Childlike Empress from The Neverending Story....when I was 20.

for the foodie in all of us

Check out the new sister site to this one, geared for the foodie in all of us: gourmania.blogspot.com . For people living in the Bay Area, there are restaurant recommendations (reviews to come), for everyone else there are yummy recipes and links to other food related pages. Enjoy!

haiku wednesday strikes again!

I would be so glad
If just for one brief moment
This job didn't suck

all points south

Due to arriving back in town with a bad bug, I never managed to write anything about the vacation I went on recently. I have, however, been finding myself telling people all about it, so clearly I should share it with y'all. As I mentioned before, The Boy and I had a whirlwind trip to the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles a few weeks back. First, we went out to the Mojave, where a friend of ours has a grant, more or less, to do some work out there with the National Parks Service. She was originally supposed to be on a dig, but plans changed after she was already out there and she's now doing surveying/mapping type stuff and just generally wandering around exploring and taking notes and pictures. Our friend picked us up at the Las Vegas airport around 7:30 that Tuesday night and we stopped and had dinner at a little Cuban restaurant on our way out of town. By out of town, I mean, out of civilization; we drove on the highway for about 35 minutes, passing some podunk little gambling spots, until we came to a random off ramp where we exited the highway and the paved road. The house where she's living is approximately 40 minutes off-road, down narrow little dirt pathways that really shouldn't be called "roads" as they are rocky and uneven and filled with both wet and dry gullies from earlier rains. By the time we got out there it was dark, and the only things lighting our way were our jumpy headlights and a partially full moon, which just barely illuminated the little rabbits darting back and forth in front of the car as we made our way into the preserve. Her house is on a piece of land that used to belong to a cattle rancher and there are boarded-up outbuildings surrounding the property. Creepy in the daytime, even creepier in the dark. The house doesn't have a phone line or internet access and cell phones don't work off of the paved roads. They have power, but only via a generator, which they turn off at night. All clocks have to be battery powered, as a result, and she only stocks non-perishables in the fridge.

--Intermission (ie: I'm at work and have to accomplish things for a little while). Will post more later.--

learning the life of meme-ing

So, I recently learned the phrase "meme", and am doin' it here and now! This strain is swiped from ZenGrrl, who swiped it from someone else.

Are you more…
01) In a shower where you can’t get the temperature just right, likely to set the temperature to hotter than you like or colder than you like? Hotter! Even if it's so hot it turns my skin pink, keep cranking!
02) In a restaurant (that you MUST eat in) where they can’t get the spiciness just right, likely to order the food spicier than you like or blander than you like? Blander, I'm generally a spice wuss.
03) A person who sleeps soundly or a person who sleeps very lightly? I sleep so lightly, it's ridiculous.
04) Aware of your prejudices or believing that you have no prejudices? Aware.
05) A great neighbour to have or an undesirable neighbour to have? I'm a fabulous neighbor; I bake and I grow produce, both of which I like to share.
06) Believing that people, as a species, are capable of a lot more than we think or believing that people, as a species, simply are what we display now? Uhh...I think answering this question might require me to be the former, but I may be the latter.
07) Likely to throw a drunk idiot out of your party or likely to mutter quietly and just not invite them again? I would never throw myself out of my own party. That's just silly.
08) Yourself when around adults or yourself when around children? Always myself, except around teenagers.
09) Into the 12-grain whole wheat bread or into the regular white bread? I like a good 6-grain. 12 is just crazy talk.
10) Someone who couldn’t go 3 months without beef or someone who couldn’t go 3 months without chicken? Chicken – it's just so versatile! Although, three months without a cheeseburger is an awfully long time.

comments free-for-all

I've just adapted the Comments option to allow anyone and everyone (hello, anyone?) to comment should they desire to do so. (This was requested by someone via my Survey, and I aim to please!)

fabulous new trick

I've just discovered a nice little feature of Blogger that I didn't even
know about before - you can post via email! Yay! Not that makes much of a
difference for people who want to be able to post while they're on vacation
or something, because if they don't have web access to use Blogger then
they probably don't have access to email (unless they're the Blackberry
sort of folks). However, for those of us who like to blog from work, this
is fabulous. No more big blaring web page announcing Blogger or that my
blog has posted, or anything like that. Now, I can just send a discrete
little email to myself!

survey revisited

I'd like to invite y'all to take the survey that I created a couple of months ago. I didn't get many responses, and I'd love to hear people's opinions. Here's the link (or you can go to the March archives and click from there). Thanks!

weekend happenings

This weekend was pretty fun, if a little soggy, and of course not long enough. Went to a friend's apartment party Friday night, which was good and mellow, as usual. Saturday morning, I woke up fairly early with nothing in particular to do, but felt compelled to make good use of my time somehow since The Boy was off playing poker with a friend, so I ran some errands and called up a friend who I hadn't seen in a while and we went to brunch at one of my favorite open air cafes. She's a fun but kind of a bad influence friend, so we ended up going shopping, too. We hit up our favorite secondhand clothing store and I had to fight the urge to buy a pair of teetering Manolos that were on sale, and got a practical and cute pair of pink flats instead (much cheaper!). Saturday night, The Boy and I got dressed up like Young Republicans and went to a horse racing themed party (in honor of the Derby). Smallish party, probably due to the rain, but a friendly crowd and a good time. Knocked back enough mint juleps to send me off into a deep sleep that night. Sunday, I got to sleep in a little finally, and then went out to lunch with another friend I hadn't hung out with in a while. We went to Barney's, where I couldn't resist the urge to get their amazing seasoned curly fries. Mmm. Afterward, we went window shopping in the little district around my office and then spent some time playing with kittens at the local animal shelter. Of course that inspired pangs of wanting to take one or more fuzzy little creatures home with me, but unfortunately no can do. Capped the afternoon off with a movie: Talk To Her, which was kind of slow at the beginning, but managed to earn it's reputation by the end. Made a big ol' veggie laden dinner for The Boy and I (had to combat the effects of all those curly fries, afterall) and watched part of a movie on, what else, poker.

it needs more cow bell

If you get the title of this post, you'll want to go here.

it must be five 'o clock somewhere

Unfortunately, it's only 10:30 here. So, even though it's Friday, there's no celebrating yet. I've got a bunch of parties to go to this weekend, in fact too many to be able to make it to all of them. When it rains it pours, I guess. Though, I'd rather have them staggered to spice up more weekends!

my ratio

I always thought I was 85/15....turns out I'm only 60/40. Want to find out what I'm talking about? Check out: What Gender Is Your Brain?.

goings on

reading: Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
listening: my favorite mix cd w/ plenty of Postal Service and Bright Eyes
watching: Sin City

haiku wednesday

I came across a guy's blog one time where he announced it was Haiku Wednesday. I looked through his archives, but couldn't really figure out if this was an ongoing thing or just reflected a spontaneous need for abreviated poetry. Either way, I like the idea of Haiku Wednesday, so here is my haiku for today (feel free to comment with your own):

If a blogger blogs,
And no one is there to read,
Where does the work go?

full house - no, the other kind

I have to take this opportunity to gloat a little. You see, The Boy is something of a poker fiend and, as his girlfriend, I often get dragged around to seedy little casinos and card rooms and whatnot so that he can get his poker fix. This has been going on for close to a year now and, at the beginning of it all, I was also taught how to play Texas Hold 'Em and I enjoyed it and was fairly decent for a beginner. I attended a couple of The Boy's semi-weekly poker nights with his friends and managed to hold my own...that is until the other guys, feeling the threat of being beaten by a girl no doubt, decided to make the affairs a boys' only kind of thing, and I was thus ejected from future games with them (though I did manage to win a poker night with a different group of guys). Anywho, this has been a little bit of a point of contention for me. I tend to dislike boys' only things in general, probably stems from trailing after my older brother and his friends growing up, and I kind of resented being rejected from the games simply because I'm a girl, particularly since I don't consider myself a very girly girl and no one else's girlfriends or wives had even expressed an interest in coming, so it was clearly aimed just at me. Boo. (In the meantime, the couple who originally taught The Boy and I how to play poker have asked me on a couple of different occasions why I no longer play and have shared my sentiment about the suckiness of being excluded from the game.)
Anyway, last night, The Boy was again fiending for a few hands of Hold 'Em, so I offered to play him for a little while after dinner. The game went on kind of slowly for a while; we'd take turns stealing each other's blinds or catching weak winning hands. At one point, I was getting pretty short stacked and I thought I might be done for...but then it happened, the Poker Gods looked down favorably upon me, the little girl who just wanted to be allowed to play their game. Long story short, I kicked his monkey ass myself. Once I had gotten a clear chip lead, I offered to end the game so that we could go to bed (it was getting late), but he insisted that the game wasn't over until someone was cleaned out. At that point I had no choice but to sic not one, but two full houses on him and thus relieve him of all his chips. So, haha. Who says girls can't play?

one of five

There are only five of us in the office today. Needless to say, it's very quiet around here. I feel compelled to urge everyone to play around today, but no one else seems to be feeling the same urge. Hopefully, before 5:00 today, I can convince everyone to let loose a little. Otherwise, the rest of the week is going to be pretty grim.

fingers crossed

The boy is still in the midst of business school madness, though it's getting awfully late in the application season. He's gotten nay's from two of the five schools he's applied to, which is a bummer because one was his top choice and the other was the only school he could go to without having to move. He's already interviewed with one of the remaining three and has an interview scheduled for another (though that's gotten all messed up and delayed in the past couple of weeks, so hopefully everything is still kosher), but no word at all from the fifth. All of this is quite agonizing. Why would someone willingly put themselves in this mess? I suppose I will have to follow the same process sooner or later, though...got to grow up some time! In the meantime, however, I get periodic emails from friends checking in to see if we know our futures yet. (No, we don't.) I'm an inextricably linked to this whole process, of course, what with being somewhat attached to the boy and all, and am probably even more on pins and needles than he is, if that's even possible. In a word - yarg!

baby cakes

My coworker has the fatest, cutest baby in the whole world. She's sooooo adorable, I have to steal her away whenever he brings her into the office, including today when he was on a phone call and I darted in and babynapped her for a little while. One of the best things about her is that she reciprocates my adoration for her by saving a big drooly smile for me whenever she sees me. No one else, just me. : )

my unknowing debut

I received an email last night from my writing teacher, who was sending around dates and places for a handful of my classmates who are giving readings of their work at local bookstores in the next couple of weeks, as part of an annual promotional event that the school puts on. I was a little confused by the email, having never heard that certain people were going to be giving readings, but I assumed that perhaps this was something discussed on one of the days that I'd missed. I was going down the list, curious to see who the brave souls were, when I got to the bottom of it and saw my name next to a particular date and bookstore. I'm giving a reading?? What the? More pressing than the usual What will I wear?...What on earth will I read??

the land of the living

I've returned to the land of the living, more or less. I'm still sick (green phlegm is not my friend), but feeling better in other respects. Not as tired or achy anymore. In my little bout with illness, I did still get to enjoy a couple of things. First, I made a tasty chicken noodle vegetable soup for myself the other night that was packed with vitamins and other comforting goodness. Also, I got to sit down and watch the second season of The Office, this wonderfully dry comedy from the BBC that I discovered through a friend's recommendation. Good stuff. (On a side note, I believe the American version of the show may be out either now or very soon and will star Steve Carell from The Daily Show).

sick sucks

While I had an awesome trip out to the Mojave and to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the happy glow of a good vacation has all kind of faded away already as a result of a nasty cold/flu bug I caught on the way home. I've been laid up for the last couple of days with general achiness and feverishness coupled with a horribly swollen throat, barely making it out of bed for my final writing class last night. While all my classmates got to toast the end of our semester, sipping on wine and nibbling on fresh treats, I was stuck in the corner sucking on cough drops. I will try not to let the self-pity overwhelm me.

eight hours and counting....

Only eight hours until our plane touches down in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada! So exciting, partly because it's a vacation and any vacation is exciting, and partly because of all the fun stuff that the boy and I are about to embark on. We'll be spending a few days enjoying nature out in the Mojave Desert, where a friend is currently working on an archeological dig. While we're there we hope to see all of the amazing wildflowers that have cropped up with this winter's excess of rain (hope it's not too warm yet for them), as well as enjoying the every day beauty of the area, and the cool stuff that our friend has dug up in the course of her work there. Then, we're back (via 4x4) into Las Vegas for a quick bout of gambling (Texas Hold 'Em, of course, for the boy, and some slots for me) and the usual overindulgence that accompanies any trip to Vegas. (Did someone say Elvis Impersonator, what?) Then, we're down to Los Angeles for a few days with the boy's family and the annual Pesach Seder. As usual, there will be a big old crowd to enjoy the festivities, and a good time will be had by all, I'm sure. (Got to remember to work on my final essay for my writing class in the midst of all this madness!) Anyway, I'm looking forward to the whole thing, and can't wait until the end of the day!

making my voice heard

I've been trying to figure out ways to drive traffic to this site, although I'm not exactly sure why. Is it ego? Whatever it is, I want people to read, dammit! So, I've listed this blog on a number of directories: bloghub, Blogarama , etc. I'm hoping to get a little more exposure as a result of these listings.

incarnations

For the sake of simplicity, this blog has been yet-again renamed. What was once Ramblings of a Modest Genius, and then Tiaras, Alcohol, and Sugar Cereals, is now simple Raving Loon. Phew, there, that ought to make it all a lot simpler! These are the rants and raves of your twenty-something girl next door (who just might be crazy...and by crazy, I mean crazy smart). Ha!

friday afternoon sleepies

....I've got 'em. Only an hour left at work and I'm trying to stay awake. The boss is gone, I wish one of the other managers would just let us all go home. They did that once last summer, came on over the PA system and announced that we were closing in 15 minute. I wish they'd do that now!

scrum-diddly-umptios

I've recently (as in this week) joined the ranks of the Bay Area folks who subscribe to the Box. It's a weekly dose of organic fresh-from-the-farm produce delivered right to your door (or in this case, my office). The idea of getting fresh yummy vegetables brought to me every week was enticing, however the challenge will be to figure out how to prepare some of the items that I've never had before. This week's challenges were: fava beans, red kale, and fennel (also included in this week's box: asparagus - the thin tasty kind, baby garlic, mixed greens, carrots, and walnuts). I haven't figured out what to do with the fennel yet, since it's got a kind of licorice-y flavor to it and I'm not really partial to licorice. The other ingredients, however, came together nicely in two different dishes. First, I made a big old pot of chicken matzo ball soup and threw in red onion, the carrots, the baby garlic, and some snap peas from my own garden. That's for dinner tonight, and I'm looking forward to it. The other dish I made was last night's dinner, which was bow-tie pasta with sliced chicken breast, bacon pieces, fava beans and asparagus that had been sauteed in the bacon grease (sounds gross, but if you use just a tiny bit it makes them taste wonderful!), ribbons of kale, and plenty of parmesean cheese. So good. Not too heavy because it didn't really have much of a sauce beyond the melted cheese, but very tasty in a nice spring veggie pasta kind of way. Plus, it had bacon in it, and everything is better with bacon. : )

work sucks, let's all go home

I work for a nonprofit in a very nonprofit-y sort of town. The whole situation has its ups and downs, though lately they feel mostly like downs. One of the things I hate with my particular group is how there's always this big deal made about how we don't have any money, we need more money, nothing can be done until we have more money, but then certain people go apeshit to find ways to spend money in the most stupid and unprofitable way possible. For instance, we're (and by "we', I don't mean "me", I'm too far down on the totem pole to get to go anywhere) throwing this big cocktail party at an upcoming national conference, which is fortunately being underwritten by another group, but then the higher ups around here want to go around the event handing out our merchandise for free. This is crap that we have to theoretically try to make money, and they're packing up boxes of it to go give away. And, right now, some of them are over in the Executive Director's office talking about designing tee shirts to sell for an issue that we don't cover. We don't even deal with this particular problem, but because Someone's girlfriend just had a brainstorm about it he wants us to plug a bunch of money into having shirts made (shirts, as we've learned with previous merchandise items, don't sell, by the way). It's ridiculous.

phew, again

I had my second "workshopping" experience last night in my writing class, this time for a piece on a summer camp I used to work at. I was afraid that the whole things might come across as too much of an insider piece, that no one would care to hear about this particular place or my ruminations on it. However, the class seemed fairly receptive to it, complimenting me again on my writing style, and giving me some suggestions for further development should I wish to revisit the piece. I'm really pleased with how my work has been received in this class, I have to say. Going into it, I'd had almost no experience with creative writing (fiction or non), and had no way of gauging where people's interest in my writing might fall. I was afraid that the consensus might be that I should give up the budding notion altogether, and return to what I know - reading and evaluating other people's work. Thankfully, though, the reviews have been positive, and I've even gotten some suggestions for places where I might want to submit my work for publication. The publication thing, however, is a whole other issue for me, one that hopefully I'll be able to sum up the courage to do some other day!

new tools

I love what's available to amateur bloggers these days. My latest find is Bloglinker, to help create lists of all my favorite blogs.

getting closer

I almost did it. I came close. I thought about it, weighed it in my mind, told myself that I was ready and that it was no big deal. But, I didn't do it. I was planning on finally cutting all my hair off, chopping ten inches or more to give to Locks of Love, but I didn't do it afterall. Walking in to work today, I prepared myself to tell people that I just didn't have time this weekend, what with the baby shower on Saturday and going home for my brother's birthday on Sunday. Just didn't have time. Then, I realized that, truthfully, I didn't make time. On some level, I guess this means that I'm not ready yet. Still have to let my brain wrap itself around the idea of getting rid of all this hair.

dear old dad

One of the few things that I own in this world that is of any actual value is my car, which is both a blessing and a burden. I have a Toyota, so my car is pretty reliable, small enough to squeeze into tight spaces, and efficient with gas consumption. However, it is also one of the major sources of bills for me, what with gas prices reaching over $2.60/gallon and the need for auto insurance and routine maintenance and whatnot. I've spent hours researching the lowest priced car insurance for my situation, know all the cheapest gas stations from here to Southern California, and regularly get my oil changed at a discount store. So, it's kind of a hard pill to swallow when I actually have to cough up a sizable chunk of money to get something done on my car. It's never really in my budget, and I keep reminding myself to stash extra cash for future car needs, but never do.
Anyway, about six months or so ago, I had a long snaking crack in my windshield that kind of made me uneasy, so I had my dad take care of the details and we went to the world's sketchiest auto glass shop in the Central Valley to have it replaced. If my dad hadn't been with me, I probably wouldn't have even rolled down the windows there, much less gotten out and waited on the curb on the lawn furniture that counted as a waiting room. Not too pricey, but still more than anyone wants to have to spend. The latest trial of my car, however, looks like it will cost a lot more. It's reached the 50,000 mile mark and the wheels/brakes squeal like stuck pigs. It'll no doubt need new brake pads, hopefully nothing more (like repairing the brake drum, or whatever you call that part that rubs up against the pad). I've been on the phone/web to various auto repair places and dealerships in the area, trying to confirm costs and schedules, all while calculating in my mind just how far in debt this latest bit of repair will put me. Well, I guess my dad could sense the nervousness in my voice the 20 or so times I called/emailed him to get his advice (perhaps that was the giveaway) and has generously offered to take the car in and pay for whatever work needs to be done on it. Thank goodness for dads, they're the best.

interesting sites to check out

Sometimes I get really bored while surfing the web; I feel like I keep going back to the same sites over and over again. Then, some days I actually find new and exciting stuff. Here's today's excitement: and The Mirror Project. Enjoy.

I want your opinion!

I've created a handy dandy survey, courtesy of the brilliant tools over at Survey Monkey, to figure out where to go from here with my blog. To participate in this quick little questionaire, Click here to take survey. Thanks for participating!
*ed. note: survey link fixed now.

last post of the night

Okay, last post of the night, I swear. I just wanted to say that my new favorite album is the Bright Eyes "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" CD. I can't stop listening to it, it's so good. You should give it a listen if you haven't already.

rest in peace

I've been thinking about death a lot lately. I know that sounds morbid, but several notable people have died in the past few days, and that, coupled with my new volunteer work facilitating a children's grief support group, has really brought the topic to the forefront of my mind recently. I think that I'm probably not the only one reflecting on death either. The whole Terri Shiavo thing was just so sad and unfortunate, but seemed to really hit a nerve with a lot of folks. I have to say, I sided with Michael Shiavo through the whole thing; as bad for them as I felt, I think her parents were largely in denial about the state of their daughter's condition. In bringing the matter to a number of levels of the judicial system, an awful lot of doctors examined the situation and presented their findings to numerous judges, who all reached the same conclusion - Terri Shiavo was not capable of conscious thought. The sounds and facial expressions that she made were random, and should not have been construed otherwise. This poor woman sat in a hospital bed, tied up in tubes, for how many years? It's just sad.
On the issue of the Pope's death, I find myself a little more torn. On the one hand, I recognize that he was a major spiritual leader for a large percentage of the world's population, on the other hand I completely disagree with the political and social viewpoints of the Roman Catholic church. From their condemnation of homosexuality and gay marriage, to their stance on birth control and female reproductive rights, I am stongly at odds with the perspectives of leaders of the Catholic church. The main thing that I admired about the late Pope was his stance on war, and on the need to end human suffering in the face of war. For that, I pay my respects.
A recent death that has been eclipsed by the death of the Pope, but is being felt strongly in my little world, is that of comedian Mitch Hedberg. He was an incredibly funny man, whose star was on the rise, and who will be missed.

drama for your mama

The boy has been having some roommate issues lately, and it's been reminding me that I should be glad not to have roommates anymore (though his are practically mine anyway). He lives with a guy and a girl, both younger than him but generally nice, fun people. The girl is in grad school and the guy is in community college, still figuring his shit out. Anyway, relatively recently the guy started going out with this new (skanky) girl who none of us can find it within ourselves to like. The circumstances of their getting together were tawdry enough to merit an appearance on the Jerry Springer show, and their relationship has established itself as something not too far from that either. The girlfriend's friends are plain scary, and she's not a whole lot better...very loud, skanky, obnoxious, oh and did I mention skanky? The bright side of the whole situation is that she lives across the country and is only around on breaks from school, but even that has been pretty hard to bear. As a result of the tensions caused by her presence in the house over spring break, the roommates have been at odds. Angry missives have been fired off to each other over email, and nothing can be fully resolved until the girlfriend leaves to go back to school. I think we're all counting down the hours.

learning new tools

Oh, I also just learned how to use another available tool here on Blogger...the hyperlink abbreviator thingie. From now on, all my links will be neat and tidy!

let the money start rolling in

I just added Google AdSense to this page...any day now it'll turn me into a millionaire. I think the most interesting part will be trying to figure out the relevance of the ads they choose to post. The first one up was for left-handed guitars (oh great, now that I've mentioned it they'll always be about left-handed guitars), and I couldn't figure out the connection to guitars. Clearly, since I mentioned Burger King's April Fool's announcement about left-handed burgers, that's where the lefties bit came from, but I was having trouble with the other part. (Though it did remind me that I did want to post something cool about guitars...check it out, a friend's awesome handcrafted string instruments business - Manke Crafts. ) Anyway, I finally realized that I mentioned a listening to a guitarist while out in the city the other day. Mystery solved. I'm still curious about what sort of odd ads my ramblings will inspire, though. (PS: Thanks, to the boy, for his techie help.)

finally, no more left-handed burger mess

Burger King has finally come up with a solution to that age old problem of lefties and their burgers: prnewswire.

and we're off!

It's time for the 26 Things Project! I read about this game a while back and have been waiting for a new round to begin and today's the day. Play along! Check it out at www.sh1ft.org/26things/ .

catching up to me

I think I've overextended myself. I wasn't doing anything for a while, so when I finally found interesting new hobbies and things to do with myself, I got all excited and tried to take on as many as I could at once. But, now, reality is setting in for me. I've got lengthy classes/meetings/groups just about every week night, and masses of work to do on the weekends (which are also reserved for out-of-town trips and special events/outtings). I'm so tired at work right now that the prospect of attending my production class tonight is practically overwhelming. I've got two things that I absolutely can't skip out on - my writing class and my new volunteer position as a children's grief support group facilitator, and the other things are kind of starting to fall through the cracks. As interesting as learning sound editing and production is, I think I've got to limit the amount of time that I spend at the radio station. As reluctant as I am to do it, I guess it's not really that big of a quandry for me; I don't feel like I'm being irresponsible for cutting back my hours and no one is going to miss out on anything by my not being there (unlike with the other stuff). In the meantime, I'm soooo sleepy!

don't forget your waitress

New favorite website: www.bitterwaitress.com. Check it out, lots of funny stuff about poor tippers. Other than that, not much time to blog, got lots to do and even more to catch up on!

belated ouches

I believe that while I was waxing poetic about what a lovely day I had walking around San Francisco on Sunday, I neglected to mention something that happened to me. In typical me fashion, I was clumsy and I tripped...twice, rolling my ankle both times, causing much pain and quick and embarassed glances at the faces of everyone around me. In not typically me fashion, I actually managed to hurt myself. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time and didn't really notice the extreme pain in my left foot until I got home that evening (and every day since then), and have been hobbling around work for the last three days trying to not to do any more damage than necessary. Anyway, I finally went to the doctor today because the darn thing hurt like the bejesus last night when I was trying to run errands after work and I decided I needed to resolve once and for all what in the heck was going on with my foot. The doctor was pretty nice, not nearly as annoyed as he could have been for having me as a patient. For example, here's a sample of our conversation:
Dr: So, did you notice any swelling when you hurt your foot?
Me: Um, no. Well, I don't think so... I was wearing flipflops all day, so it could've swelled and I wouldn't have really felt it, but no, I don't think so.
Dr: Okay, did you notice any bruising afterward?
Me: No, no bruising.
Dr: Okay, let's look at your other foot to compare them.
Me: (taking other shoe & sock off)
Dr: Hmm....there's swelling and bruising.
Me: Oh, um, yeah. Sorry, I guess I'm kind of unobservant.
The doctor told me that I had sprained my foot, shouldn't have been walking around on it, should've instead been icing it and whatnot, and thereby prohibited me from walking around on it for the next four days. Sweet. Hobbling around in an ace bandage is exactly what I wanted to do this weekend. At least it wasn't as bad as the time I got a really wicked sunburn right before a dermatologist's appointment.

a step toward civil rights

Good news on the civil rights front, and one of the many reasons I'm proud to live in the Bay Area: sfgate.com .

enjoyable rarities

I spent this past weekend out of the house for a change. Saturday, I read scholarship applications for the California Alumni Association, of which I am a member and from whom I received a couple of scholarships when I was a student. It was an interesting experience, to read into the personalities of the next generation of Cal students. At first I was a little boggled that one of the students who was reading with me had "Class of 2007" written on his name tag, but the thing that really blew me away was the realization that the potential incoming freshmen were born in 1987!!
On Sunday, I enjoyed a lovely sunny day in San Francisco. I met up with a couple of girlfriends and we had brunch/lunch at a cute little restaurant in the Marina, then walked down to Fisherman's Wharf where we sat in a little secluded courtyard and drank beers while listening to a folk guitarist perform. From there, we strolled/battled tourists down to Pier 39, where we were so overwhelmed by the crowds that we decided to just go back to the marina and lay out on the grass on the Marina Green. The afternoon was capped off with a trio of beautiful pedicures, a welcome treat to walking-weary feet. A common chorus heard in the clear, warm day: "I can't believe I live here!" San Francisco just can't be beat on nice Spring afternoons.

research and trivia

In the course of my job, I have to do a lot of research on mundane municipal laws. In the process, however, I sometimes discover unusual facts and trivia about our great nation. For instance, do you know where the Pumpkin Capital of the World is? Find out here: http://www.mortonchamber.org/. Also of note, though I'm not sure what note that might be, did you know that Berkeley has a "Gay and Lesbian Index" of 311? Apparently the national "index" is 100. You can figure out what in the heck this means here: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=9862 . Just thought I'd share these exciting little tidbits.

two for two

A) It's Friday...woo-hoo! B) It's sunny...woo-hoo! It's a rare occasion when you get two woo-hoo's in one day. Woo-hoo!

blogging in boredom

I got to work at 9:10 this morning and was already bored by 9:23. How's that for efficiency? I've decided to bury myself in years-old research, interspliced with personal essay writing.

blogger going bonkers

Blogger has been kind of buggy the last few times I've tried to post from work. Maybe the bosses have caught on and disabled some sort of interface-y thing-a-majig.

my sally field

They like me, they really like me. Or, at least they tolerate me to the point that I'm encouraged to keep writing. I had my first essay "workshopped" in class last night, and though I feared the worst (calling it "the dissection" to my mom on the phone earlier in the day), it wasn't that bad. My teacher described me as a "natural writer" and other students said they not only identified with the piece but they took actual pleasure in reading it. I did, of course, receive some helpful criticisms; for instance, I seem to have completely forgot about paragraph structure and the importance of indenting in the last few years of being out of school. All in all, though, the commentary was positive and I was so wrapped up in ideas for the essay and other pieces that I had difficulty falling asleep last night.

winners and losers

Went to Reno (aka "the biggest little city in the world") this past weekend. I actually hit a small jackpot on a slot machine and came out ahead for the weekend. The boy also had good luck (or maybe it's skill), and placed "in the money" in a sizable poker tournament. Inhaled lots of secondhand smoke (I wish the casinos were in California, so they'd have to be smoke-free), and had to leave for a little while on Saturday just to breath fresh air and relieve my sinuses. My clothes all reek from the recycled air and my contacts will have to be discarded asap. I wonder how the employees and dealers handle it.

before the firing squad

I turned in my first essay for my writing class. The guidelines: it had to be 6-8 pages, double spaced. That's all. No other suggestions, tips, requests, topic ideas, nothing. It's to be dissected by the class during next week's session. My friend offered to take me out for a beer after the evaluation, I think I may need it.

relationships and their antidotes

It's been exactly two weeks since Valentine's Day has come and gone and I'm just now realizing it has passed. I was really looking forward to it this year, I planned on cooking a big fancy meal for my boyfriend and me, and sent cards to all my friends and family. However, things got lost in the shuffle of a last minute trip to Los Angeles so that the boy could interview at UCLA's Anderson, and Valentine's Day came and went without much notice. Perhaps that's one of the luxuries of being in a LTR, that one can treat the day and all it's implications with some degree of ambivalence. In one of the notes that I managed to send out, though, I did have to acknowledge that Valentine's Day can be a rather painful occasion, particularly for a dear friend who recently had a nasty and drawn out break-up with her boyfriend of a couple years. I advised this friend to do as I had done in the many years that I was single on Valentine's Day - go out and buy herself a nice piece of jewelry. Women have far better taste in accessories than men, as a rule, and she could treat herself to something fabulous that no boy would ever be able to pick out for her. I got a return letter from her a couple of days ago; it seems she followed my advice and bought herself not one piece of jewelry but a whole jewelrybox full! Brava to that. I shouldn't be surprised, though, this same friend is somewhat of a genius when it comes to jewelry. For the Christmas right before her boyfriend broke up with her in the first of their several splits, he gave her a beautiful infinity symbol necklace from Tiffany's. He (who broke up with her a mere week or two later) said something to the effect of that's how long his love for her would last - infinitely (ah, hindsight). She was touched at the time, however, and truly loved the present and the boy. Fast forward a few weeks, after the nasty split had happened and she was stuck wearing this beautiful but awful symbol of their relationship around her neck. She marched right into the nearest Tiffany's, explained the situation, and walked out with a lovely silver starfish necklace. Things were patched over with the boy in due time, though and all was again quiet on the western front, except that he noticed that she was wearing a different necklace. He asked her what had happened to the present that he had gotten for her. Her ballsy reply? "Because I learned that I am like this starfish, you can cut off a piece of me and I will grow back. You cut out my heart and I got over it." The relationship did not last much longer.

blocked

I'm supposed to be working on an essay for class, but the assignment was terribly and wonderfully vague and now I'm stumped as to what I should be writing. I have three open Word documents with about two sentences in each of potential essay topics but not the actual energy to write anything meaningful. Or perhaps, the ambition to only write that which is meaningful but without the energy to back it up. I don't know, I don't think that even made sense. In the meantime, I've mindlessly eaten about a million m&ms.

a face for radio

I’ve just started volunteering for a local radio station (check it out at: http://kalx.berkeley.edu). Last night I had my first lesson in the fine art of production and got to fiddle with the soundboard and learn the first steps of using ProTools. It was awesome; I learned something completely new and helped make a PSA (listen for the one touting Japanese lessons). I’m excited to learn more.

is there an echo in here?

She did it to me. She didn’t mean to, but she did. That one comment changed everything. (See “BrightMorningStar’s comment on my January “resurfacing” post.) She meant to be encouraging, to urge me to continue writing into the void. But, the thing is, now it’s no longer a void. Now there are people on the other end. Faces illuminated by the sickly blue light of computer screens, reading my blog. I check almost daily now, scrolling down the page eyeballing the repeating phrase “0 comments ” over and over again. Now that there’s proof that people, someone, is reading this blog, these zeroes no longer mean that I am shrouded by invisibility, they mean that people are reading but people aren’t connecting. It’s like there’s an audience but no one is clapping, no one is even shifting in their seat and coughing uncomfortably. Shift, damn you! Cough, people! The silence is deafening.

a voice from the void

BTW, late last week I found a blog of particular interest to me: http://frothy.blogspot.com/ She's in a graduate writing program at Columbia and seems to have a unique and honest take on things.

Presidents Day

I spent most of the three day weekend in my pajamas, devoting myself in turns in to the book I'm reading (I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe) and to my most recent writing assignments. It was an ideal way to spend such a gloomy three days. In between thunder rolls, however, I did manage to hit up the Lake Merritt farmer's market and pop out to a couple of tasty meals with friends. As usual, the Grand Lake Theater had something bitterly smart on their message board, something about celebrating President's Day by recognizing the hypocracy of the current democratic system. Lest we forget.

The 100 Things project

100 things about me (harder to do than you'd think):

1) I like bubble gum ice cream
2) I don’t have tonsils
3) I have forgotten more languages than most people know
4) I bite my cuticles when I’m nervous
5) I need lots of sleep
6) I am not a cyborg, but I know some people who might be
7) I love all animals
8) I have a pet turtle who will probably outlive me
9) I am an omnivore, but I try not to feel too guilty about it
10) I hate the sound of people eating popcorn in movie theaters
11) I like old musicals
12) I was a tomboy
13) My current favorite color is a pale robin’s egg blue
14) Nothing is as refreshing as watermelon juice
15) I’ve been to 47 of the United States
16) I am a liberal
17) I am a feminist
18) I do not think ‘liberal’ and ‘feminist’ are dirty words
19) I admire Anna Quindlen’s nonfiction writing
20) I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, even though I am grown up
21) I love Pablo Neruda
22) I am highly skeptical of people when they tell me I’m wrong about something
23) I am rarely wrong
24) I can kick your ass at Boggle
25) I rock Trivial Pursuit
26) I am bad at keeping in touch with people
27) I am the queen of care packages
28) I do not support war
29) I do “Books for Soldiers” (check it out: www.booksforsoldiers.com)
30) I am in love with my boyfriend
31) I am scared of long-term commitment
32) I have a dry sense of humor
33) I always walk to my car with my keys in my hand
34) Every new season is my favorite
35) I am a great cook
36) I heart NY
37) I could never settle down anywhere but California
38) I love to watch jellyfish swim
39) I am a closet hypochondriac
40) I never thought I would be one of those people with a shitty desk job, but I was wrong
41) I have a mean streak, but for entertainment purposes only
42) I played defensive tackle in high school
43) I cry just about every time someone cries onscreen
44) During the “Friends” heydays, I was known as the Phoebe of my group
45) I have an affinity for plants and flowers
46) I have sensitive skin
47) My stomach just can’t take roller coasters
48) I dread cleaning, but I love a clean house
49) Sometimes I think that I’m pretty close to figuring things out
50) I love water, but I’m a terrible swimmer
51) I bleed blue and gold
52) Saturday is my favorite day of the week
53) I’m going to make a fabulous mother some day
54) Like every other girl, I too went through a photography phase
55) Just because I’m from California doesn’t mean I’m Barbie
56) I’ve ruined Apple Martini’s for myself
57) I prefer email to talking on the phone
58) I think that puppies influence my biological clock more than babies do
59) There are some losses that I will never get over
60) My birthday makes me squirm
61) I love all holidays
62) I’m trying to donate to Locks of Love (check ‘em out: www.locksoflove.org)
63) I’m too disorganized to use my Palm Pilot
64) I appreciate snarkiness
65) I like to eat my vegetables
66) In my cd player right now: the “Garden State” soundtrack
67) The latest movie I saw: “In Good Company”
68) I’m currently reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
69) I like the smell of clean laundry; my year living above a Laundromat was smellerific
70) I’m a shower kind of girl
71) I have a brother, we are nothing alike and I’m not sure why
72) When I was a kid I thought that everybody would always be nice
73) I’m better at writing about others than about myself
74) I like to make jewelry, but only the first earring in a pair
75) I love to look at houses
76) I believe in questioning our leaders
77) I am amazed by people who are very directed with their lives
78) Falling flower blossoms are just about the prettiest thing on Earth to me
79) I can be really lazy when no one is looking
80) I’m addicted to the news in all its forms
81) I appreciate good gossip, even if it’s about people I don’t know
82) Sometimes I wish I had more willpower, and by more I mean any
83) I used to take great delight in being outrageous, now I only enjoy it periodically
84) I like to make people laugh
85) I have a terrible memory
86) I really wish I could surf
87) If you wake me before my alarm clock, I will not be your friend
88) I can’t stand the smell of eggs
89) I sunburn easily
90) I have become good friends with my parents
91) I dislike people who always have to have the last word
92) I think people should look forward more to their marriage than to their wedding
93) I am learning to cope with death so that I can help others learn to do the same
94) I remember celebrities names and personal information with alarming clarity
95) I never remember to do anything unless it’s made it onto a list somewhere
96) I am not religious
97) I will get my first tattoo with my grandchild on their 18th birthday
98) I have a temper
99) I prefer dark chocolate
100) I will die of something random at a ripe old age (see for yourself: www.okcupid.com/death)

bottoms and other works of art

My mom called me and asked me to check out someone’s ass. Seriously. Well, kind of, anyway. I got this cryptic message from her, which is unusual in and of itself since my parents treat calling my cell phone as a last resort for contacting me. I think they’d rather send smoke signals or carrier pigeons or something given how rare it is for them to call. Anyway, my mom told me she had an art question for my friends and me. Puzzling. I called her back asap, my curiosity piqued. (By the by, my parents are retired and take classes at the local community college to keep themselves entertained.) Turns out she has been assigned by her art history teacher to find and study a picture of the rear end view of Donatello’s statue of David (the one where he’s a young boy wearing a floppy hat and sword). Unable to locate David’s hiney in any of her textbooks, my mom turned to the web. In her research, she stumbled across a website that she said “looked promising,” but seemed to imply some sort of homoeroticism, whereby she was too intimidated to enter the site for fear of unwittingly downloading scads of gay porn. My mother discussing the prospect of downloading gay porn with me is not something I ever anticipated hearing. Funny, nonetheless. She asked me if I had ever seen David’s ass in print anywhere, or if any of my friends (some of whom were Art History majors and minors in college) might have a book with his rear view in it. Fortunately (tho’ after I had already emailed my friend regarding the ass shot), I was able to find an image of David’s butt on an entirely clean website. Disaster averted, I have found his ass.

big mouth

My writing class was great, far better than a class I attempted to take earlier in the semester at a less esteemed institution. That class was abysmal, the professor “lectured” straight from the book, anecdotes and all…and that was on the first day! I barely escaped with my funds, though I did sacrifice a couple of nights to the class. This new class seems far better. The students are professionals, the instructor talks to us like the adults we are. I did have a few moments of wise-ass-ness come up over the last couple of days, particularly one moment during my class. The teacher commented on a figure of speech that I had said as being one of her pet peeves, how she abhorred it. I couldn’t help myself, my squeaky voice chirping defiantly “I love it!!!” Sometimes I just can’t close my mouth fast enough. The entire class chuckled, so at least I was saved by the humor of the moment. That’s all one can ask for in those situations, I suppose. Another incident was the day before, at an orientation meeting for a new volunteering thing that I’m doing. The department director asked me if there was any way I could be there before 5:30 pm on weekdays, and my response was, “I could, but I don’t think my boss would like it very much.” This was received with a blank stare from the guy and an immediate sense of regret from me. Whoops! Why couldn’t I have just said, “no”? That would’ve been so much simpler and better received! Sometimes the quips that come out of me surprise even myself.

writing again

I’m beginning a writing class tonight, the first one I’ve taken in years. Even though words and letters were my stock-in-trade in college, I some how managed to escape with having taken only a single writing class. It was voluntary, at that- a DeCal (student run and counted for maybe one unit) on journaling. The only thing I remember from the class was one guy’s entry about getting a yeast infection in his throat. Gross, but funny; not what you’d think, something about being on steroids for a sinus infection and then drinking beer before his doctor gave him the okay. Interesting that I can’t remember anything of what I wrote myself for the class.

still laughing

I read this on sfgate.com a little while ago and I'm still laughing:
"If you fall into the subset of corduroy-pants enthusiasts who also have concerns about aerodynamics and crotch heat, there is a new locally designed trouser for you. Lindland's Cordarounds, with world headquarters in Fort Mason, has just designed horizontal corduroy pants. Claiming benefits such as silent stalking and drag reduction, frictionless Cordarounds can even lower the heat in your loins by up to 22 percent. You can't get that with your father's vertical cords. Men's styles are available immediately, and the company plans to reduce chafing for ladies this spring. "

funny wisdom at work

I'm all for people having their own mottos in life, you know, the whole Ally McBeal thing of having a theme song and all that, but it strikes me as particularly funny when these things are attached to professional emails. The best of today: "Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming........ WOW--What a Ride!"

favorite new music

Instead of doing anything actually productive this weekend, I devoted my time to hunting down new favorite music. Choice finds include: the Postal Service, Iron and Wine, and Jeff Buckley. If you need me, I'll be the one with the headphones on.

it's like i'm making up for lost time or something

I really like to make lists. I don't know why, but I do. It's weird because they don't even have to be lists that you get to cross stuff off of (especially since I tend to lose those lists before I even get around to crossing stuff off). I'm in a list mood right now, so here goes one-
A sampling of my favorite things that are Green (in honor of today, which felt like Spring):
artichokes
Kermit
guacamole
mint-chip ice cream
my frog socks
my turtle (tho' her color is debatable, but I'm smitten with her, so she'll end up on most lists of my favorite things these days)
green M&Ms (there's something about the green ones)
ferns and/or moss
green tea

the root of tiaras, alcohol, and sugar cereals

I recently (okay, five minutes ago) changed the name of my blog. It was previously known as "Ravings of a Modest Genius," but has since been changed to the lovely title you see at the top of your screen. That is not to say that these are not still the ravings of a modest, if misunderstood, genius or that you should not respect them as such, but I thought it sounded a little heady. So, now here we are at "tiaras, alcohol, and sugar cereals". As I mentioned previously, my boyfriend has recently been applying to graduate schools and writing those annoying Personal Statements that every school wants you to humble yourself with. The topics are absolutely insipid, like "what is your greatest accomplishment" (I dunno, I'm only 25.....I haven't quite got that whole world peace thing in the bag yet), to "if you had to stand outside in the rain for twelve hours with a book, a puppy, and a turnip, and you had to balance on one leg, which leg would you stand on?" (I told him to say the left one, but he insisted on the right one, so we'll see if he gets in or not). Anyway, all this instrospection b.s. got me thinking about when I got to know one of my most favorite friends, J. J and I were out buying birthday presents for another new friend and trying to figure out what she'd like best. Not knowing what to get our new pal, J asked me what I liked most in the world... my response (you listening, future admissions committees?)-- tiaras, alcohol, and sugar cereals. While I was a mere youth of 20 years old at the time, a wee thing compared to the wise 25 year old who writes this today, I still have to abide by those as being among my favorite things in the world. Every girl should be able to feel like a princess, let loose a little, and indulge in what makes her smile.

resurfacing

So, it's been three months since I last posted and I haven't even made it off page one yet. I suppose this is why I don't keep a daily journal. Fortunately for me, I don't have any sort of readership, so I'm really the only one who noticed that I fell off of the blogging radar. <> alright, I forgive myself and I'm over it. The thing that actually prompted me to go back to this talking-to-myself-in-a-cup phenomenon that we'll call "my blog" was that last night my boyfriend announced that he wants to start a blog. Now, I never told him about this little experiment of mine, so I was somewhat surprised in his interest. This is, after all, a guy who doesn't have the time to read a magazine, make his own dinner, or finish anything else that he starts (yes, we are a perfect match). Anyway, he has been feeling particularly introspective lately, what with applying to graduate schools and having to complete those dreaded Personal Statements, and he thinks he's ready to step into the wide-open world of blogging. Poor naive boy...