Overheard wisdom

An interesting "public eavesdropping" quote in today's SF Chronicle (from a mother to child):

"Yesterday wasn't a long time ago. Yesterday was just before we went to sleep."

So simple, yet so complex.

 

Haiku Wednesday

Still humming along,

Avenue Q stuck in head,

"You should buy some beer!"

Awesomely Weird Animals

I particularly like the angora rabbit, which just looks like a really angry cat stuffed into a fuzz ball costume.

 

Pick your favorite: http://divaboo.info/

Thanks?

A guy on the street told me I had a good looking walk.  What do you suppose that mean?  And why do men only compliment me on days when I'm all schlumpy and wearing my glasses and no make up?  Is there a secret fetish for sloppy nerds?  I mean, aside from the one I have?

a Mr. T revival

You know what's awesome?  Dudes who shave their afros into mohawks.  You know what's kind of scary?  Girls who do the same.

Gotta love summer

The View From Up Here

It's kind of a dim video, but this is the view from my new living room. Am I lucky or what?

Wednesday Haiku - TMI?

Dear hot chai latte,

Where is the caffeine I need?

Now I have to pee.

Wednesday Haiku - First House Dinner

A menu haiku:

Veggie lasagna,
fresh green salad, garlic bread,
tiramisu...home.

Free Will Astrology

I don't always get Rob Brezsny's horoscopes, but I always read them.  Here's mine for the week:

 

"Certain religions whose names I won't mention have given prayer a bad name. It has come to be associated with sentimentality, desperation, delusion, greed, and wishful thinking. But I prefer to define prayer as an intention to align your emotions and thoughts with the highest possible good. Can you give that definition a whirl? I hope so. It's Big Wild Prayer Week, a time when you will have an extraordinary ability to get in sync with almost unimaginably catalytic currents of cosmic beauty and truth."

 

Time to get in sync, I could use some cosmic beauty and truth.

Go me!

 

Today, I taught myself a little program called PowerPoint.  I am not afraid to say that I kicked its ass.  The (short) slideshow I made is awesome.  Now I want to figure out how to add music to further enhance the awesomeness of it all.

poetry

Charles Simic, one of my favorite poets, was just named the new American Poet Laureate. Congrats to him.

Now, for your reading pleasure, one of my favorite short poems by him:

Watermelons by Charles Simic

Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.

welcome to the neighborhood

Awesome. A man was assassinated by my office this morning. Literally assassinated. No wonder the choppers were circling overhead when I came into work. What is this place coming to?

haiku wednesday

anniversary

at work, celebrated by

goofing off all day.

Anniversary

Today is my two year anniversary at my job.  Go me!

Hello out there

So, I haven't really blogged in a while. Only fake blogging by putting up little snippets of stuff here and there. But, I'm beginning a whole new phase of my life right now (which I'll go into more detail about later) and am thinking that it might be time to start up this here old blog again. Ya know, just to see if there's anyone out there.

Bloggers have this weird relationship with their readers that I don't fully understand. Maybe because I don't have any readers, but that's beside the point because I am a regular reader of several blogs. I used to read Tequila Mockingbird all the time, but then one day a couple of years ago she fell off the face of the earth. No, seriously, I thought she might've died or something. She's posted maybe 3 times in the last two years, so I know that she's not dead but I don't go checking her site anymore to see if she's put anything new up. The disappointment is just not worth it.

Another favorite blogger of mine, Cupcake, wrote a post a few months back about how she doesn't give a shit about blogging anymore. As one of her faithful readers, I have to say I was truly disappointed. She still puts something up once a week or so, but they're rarely personal. It all makes me wonder what kind of duty a blogger has to their blog and readers.

Blogs allow people to form largely unrequited relationships on both sides of the screen. The blogger has a false sense of a relationship to their presumed audience (unless they have a real audience of friends and family or something - I know, what??), and the reader has a false sense of knowing the person at the keyboard. So, when one of the parties gives up on the process, what happens to those relationships? Cupcake's decision to stop posting actually made me feel like I was losing a friend. Is that weird? Is it any weirder than wanting to invite her to hang out when she comes to San Francisco next week? I mean, I don't actually know her, or SheWalks, or any of the other famous and not-so-famous bloggers I read, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to invite them over for lunch.

I'm just rambling here, though. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts....if they're actually reading this, that is. :)

Wednesday Haikus

Lots to do of late.

Must remember to get sleep;

Can't be a zombie.

 

Internet dating -

Nice guys maybe, weird guys yes.

Many frogs to kiss.

H2O

Fascinating article on bottled water and something that I've been thinking about for a while now:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/117/features-message-in-a-bottle.html

 

I choose funny

I heart Pearl.

Belated Haiku Wednesday

little blotchy hives,

why do you torment me so?

and what are you from?

Genius and Slacker

So, I was feeling nostalgic today and decided to re-read the archives of this blog. Mostly the stuff from 2005, when I was actually taking this whole writing thing seriously. And, I have to say, I was really pretty funny. Is it too egotistical of me to actually laugh at my own writing? Where did that dedication and ability go?

email

I just got an email offering me a visit from the "big dick fairy".  Awesome.  I wonder what I have to put under my pillow for that?

Breaking News

In The Know: Teenagers and Alcohol

covered

I am exhaused and thisclose to going to bed, but I wanted to share the mess that is me. I just got home from a very, very long day and up until a minute ago when I took a much needed shower, I was covered. I had chai latte on my sweater, ultrasound gel on my chest, tomato juice on my jeans, and sap in my hair. It's a good thing I also have a shower and a washing machine.

So wise

According to my Snapple, all porcupines float in water. I feel sorry for all the poor wet little creatures who helped 'em figure that one out.

What is luck?

Yesterday, as I was leaving BART, a bird tried to land on my head.  I felt his little scratchy claws on my scalp.  A scruffy looking man nearby started shouting, "It's good luck...the bird....it's good luck, it's good luck!!!"  A woman walking next to me clarified, "It's good luck that it didn't poop on your head."

 

I washed my hair extra good last night.

J-E-L-L-O

 

I managed to drop raspberry jello down my shirt today at work.  You can imagine my surprise at feeling something cold and slimy in my bra a couple minutes after finishing the last bite.

hi

hello...I'm just popping in to send a shoutout out into the ether...

Haiku Wednesday

what to make of them,

these things called "relationships"?

not like the movies.

I saw a hot redheadded guy on BART on Wednesday.  It's remarkable because he is the first hot redheaded guy I have ever seen.  I was kind of stunned.  Yeah, sure there are plenty of "cute" redheads, but never have I seen one this smolderingly hot.  Bravo, sir.  Way to inherit good genes.

Top Nine Favorite Deep Fried Things To Eat:

(not to be confused with all those deep-fried things you shouldn't eat)

 

9) steak-frites (the super thin kind)

8) curly fries

7) potstickers

6) falafel

5) chocolate cake donuts

4) tostada salad shells (preferably with guac)

3) mozzarella sticks

2) mini-corn dogs

1) onion rings

equality for immigrants

It literally brings tears to my eyes to see people try to claim what should be theirs but isn't.  There is a large immigrants' rights march and rally going on outside of my office right now.  It's a stirring thing to observe and a cause that I support wholeheartedly, I just hope that people outside of the choir are listening.

Good day Sunshine

Yay, it's finally stopped raining here.  No more soggy pant hems and lugging around a mouldering umbrella.  Hope it lasts!

Interesting but true....

I'm back. Here's something interesting to read, since I've got nothing for you. Enjoy and hold on.

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??