peanut planet

don't go in the water

2012-01-12T14:39:00.005-06:00

or think about murderers

one of the worst things my brain does is wait until i'm in the shower and need to rinse soap/shampoo out of my eyes... and remember the most menacing, scariest effing thing it can think of. and i swear, it's not just a shower-in-general thing. the vulnerability i feel is very specific to the moment just before i need to close my eyes in the shower. and since it usually comes immediately after i've lathered up my hair or before i soap up my face, i actually go into the self-spook involuntarily picturing what horrifying thing¹ i might open my eyes to as soon as i've finished rinsing the soap from my eyes. it's like experiencing naked, 5-second, anticipatory daymares.

¹ a wild-eyed homicidal psycho, spooky ghost limbs popping out the back of my head like in "the grudge," a freaky enchanted murderous doll, dr. smith in alien form from the 1998 "lost in space" movie... all these things haunt my otherwise pleasant daily showers.

idea: sketch/sitcom premise

2011-10-01T15:18:00.002-05:00

following their parents' deaths, mary-kate and ashley olsen learn that they were originally mary, kate, & ashley-- a set of triplets. in a grisly revelation, we find out that kate was actually eaten by one of her sisters before they were born (though we don't know which).

in a fit of anguish, mary (who dropped the "kate" from her name) and ashley vow to make things right. they adopt a teenager, rename her "kate," and try to assimilate her into their cult of olsen ~~twins~~ triplets. kate, however, is rebellious, resentful, and kind of goth-y. she has an urkel-type outcast role with a catchphrase like "you've got to be [bleep]-ing [bleep]-ing me," which is always immediately followed by a shot of mary and ashley with a "full house" throwback, "how wude!"

dream sights

2011-09-04T22:52:00.000-05:00

because all the picturesque landscapes, beautiful people, tortured artists, and funhouse mirrors in the world will never show you exactly what you want to see.

some things i would like to see:
- someone sitting alone, non-chalantly eating a cereal bowl full of doughnut holes (no milk) with a plastic fork
- a highway lane with an uninterrupted line of cars all the exact same make/model as mine, but in all the colors of the rainbow EXCEPT mine. i would so fall in line. completing that rainbow motorcade has been a dream of mine for years.
- how it would go down if the current me babysat the toddler me
- the rind of a GIANT watermelon, halved and hollowed out into boats. that would float, right? i think it would.
- exaggerated cartoon versions of everyone i know

movie idea:

2011-07-26T15:15:00.002-05:00

a young, uneducated, inexperienced U.S. presidential candidate takes on well-respected, maybe (probably) grizzled, tells-it-like-it-is former president as campaign manager/chief adviser. the film climaxes when our hero takes the GED test, the results of which will determine whether he wins the respect and adoration of the american public.

it'll be of the "rocky"/"billy madison"/"legally blonde"/"good will hunting" plucky-underdog/diamond-in-the-rough-works-hard-and-triumphs-over-unfavorable-odds genre. the title has to have some sort of academic/political double entendre... like "primary school" or something.

wear tiny clothes, make bad choices

2011-06-25T13:00:00.005-05:00

one of the more appalling things i've seen lately: pac sun's new slogan "dress irresponsibly." are you KIDDING? from a store marketed at impressionable/self-conscious/curious/hormonal teenagers, that makes its money selling little more than skin-tight jeans, SHORT shorts, tiny bikinis, and little tank/halter/tube tops? irresponsibly is the adjective you're gonna go with? does this not strike anyone else as wildly inappropriate? i mean, come on.

on another note, eggs have really been frustrating me lately. and do not misunderstand: i love eggs. eggs, like potatoes, are tasty in absolutely every form. eggs are just a quality ingredient in everything they grace. there has never ever, in my life, been a time when i didn't like a dish more for having eggs in it.

but equal to my love of eggs is my need to get every last drop/grain/bit of food out of their containers and to their final tabletop destination¹. i will spend minutes trying to coax out the last 3 drops of grapefruit juice from the empty carton, clumsily scraping the corners of peanut butter jars, and flicking hot chocolate powder packets like a crazy person.

and i swear i love eggs, but they drive me absolutely insane sometimes when the last [for lack of a better word] blob of egg white refuses to leave the shell. it really cramps my style. i mean, i will spend way more than the appropriate amount of time trying to free the entire egg from its shell. and i know it's not like getting play-doh out of a smooth, pastic container-- that it's just... biological, where things like albumen, air cells, and chalazae are involved. but just because it's natural (and therefore supposedly beautiful), doesn't mean i have to like it. i don't like spider egg sacs, +100°F weather, or biting my tongue, and nobody has a problem with that. i love you, eggs, but sometimes it feels like you're bustin' my balls.

¹fact: one of the turning points in my inspirational, life-changing journey from thinking celebrity chef/food network star ina garten was lame to knowing she's awesome was when i noticed that unlike almost all the other tv chefs, she always scrapes all the batter from bottom of the mixing bowl, picks up all the stray chopped herbs from the cutting board, and is just overall very efficient using what she has. i very much appreciate this.

a joyful return to my favorite community

2011-06-25T11:47:00.008-05:00

so i was going to start this post with a "farewell, blogosphere¹!" joke, but as soon as i typed it it felt... almost morbid. it was the same feeling you get when a questionable joke is made about someone dying or getting hurt². despite the recent probably-forgivable-but-definitely-not-forgettable neglect (which may have misled you into thinking that i don't love peanut planet with all my delicious gummi heart), even joking about abandoning blogging forever is like joking with avril lavigne about getting her middle fingers chopped off. she'd probably hate the joke so much she'd use 'em at you. oh, avril! you delightful, punky, 26-year-old divorcée! will you ever grow old? if your wardrobe choices are any indication, you will live forever!

¹i actually strongly dislike that word. it just doesn't sound like what it is, to me. "blogosphere" makes it sound made-up and omnipresent (and as much as i wish they were, blogs are sadly not utilized to their full life-enriching potential). i very much prefer to refer to it as the "blogging community." because we are members of a community, damn it!

²something that always comes to mind when
- i'm with people,
- we're waiting for someone to show up,
- it's been way too long of a wait,
- and we have absolutely no idea where he/she is or why he/she's late
is that one line from the song "annie waits," "maybe he's been seriously hurt." and oftentimes i'll say out loud about the person we're waiting for "...maybe she's been seriously hurt," (don't ask me why, sometimes i say it without thinking and sometimes i can't help but say it). and most of the time people think i'm being a weirdo with a dark sense of humor (i guess if that really bothered me i'd stop saying it).

too frail to cross

2011-05-23T20:55:00.002-05:00

not without some assistance

you know how on tv or in movies what happens is that an old person wants to cross the street, but needs the assistance of someone younger and more able-bodied to help him/her across? well, this might sound callous of me, but every time i think about it, it seems a little ridiculous to me that this frail person is allowed to roam freely through the streets unattended.

a crosswalk is usually, what, 30-50ft? if an old person can't cover that distance without any help, this person really shouldn't be out walkin' around solo. that is a very short distance. if you can't manage that, then there's no way you can get from any point A to any point B.

so the point of this is that the next time you see a fragile old person who needs to cross the road, you go up to that person and you walk him/her across. and then you keep walking him/her all the way to the nearest assisted living facility, set him/her up on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, and walk away. you've done all you can do.

shower thoughts

2011-05-19T23:38:00.002-05:00

clean is the opposite of dirty, right? when we clean something, it's because it is dirty. we are removing something like dirt (mud, dust, debris, gunk). and the same thing goes for bathing-- i might say i shower daily because otherwise i get dirty. but really, it's not because i actually get dirt on me every day. that doesn't happen very often. what i really want to wash off in the shower comes from my own body, not the elements. sweat, sebum, etc. things the body produces naturally. so when it comes to cleaning ourselves, the opposite of clean is... human-y? i don't know, but i'm thinkin' that dirt's gettin' a bad rap here.

also, you know how the hair that accumulates in the shower drain is always unpleasant? like, it seriously grosses some people out to remove and dispose of it. but it's not like it's actually especially dirty or germy. in fact, that clump of hair is probably pretty clean. not only does every drop of shampoo/body wash/etc. lather pass through it, it gets rinsed with every drop of water that flows through the shower. and yeah, i guess soap scum's a possibility as far as the hair getting gross goes, but basically as often and as thoroughly as you clean yourself, the hair gets cleaned, too. so it's really not so disgusting.

my son['s restaurant]

2011-04-27T22:49:00.003-05:00

way to go, fast food industry. first carl's jr busts out that ridiculous (and awesome) turkey burger/miss turkey commercial, advertising an alternative to unhealthy burgers. then mcdonald's fires back with the jalapeño chicken sandwich and a librarian gone wild. and now carl's jr has another new wacky commercial with hot women in bikinis ("because ugly ones don't sell burgers") and firing burger launchers into the ceo's office. so entertaining! who will step into the fast food tv commercial ring next? simply riveting!

but something that bothers me, though, it's carl's jr's name. someone's jr is his kid, right? it just denotes a father/son relation or pair. and when a restaurant is named joe's, it's basically saying "restaurant that belongs to joe," right? it implies ownership.

so does it not kind of sound like carl's jr misplaced its apostrophe? if it's supposed to be the restaurant of carl's son, carl jr, should it not be carl jr's? i mean, i really think that's the only way it makes any sense (unless the restaurant itself is carl's son and instead of just going by "carl jr," like any normal person would, it chose to go by the much more territorial "carl's jr").

like a glove

2011-04-09T20:12:00.004-05:00

something i really like is when products seem to be tailor-made to your tastes. most products come in varieties, that often have multiple features/variables (brands, sizes, colors, bandeau/triangle, diet/regular/caffeine free, gelcap/tablets, etc.). and within each of these variable sets, you have (a) favorite(s) (ex: i like low fat but not sugar free, i always prefer jackets with hoods, and i love peach-flavored anything).

and every once in a while, you come across a product that has several variable features, all of which are your favorite. and it's awesome. tropicana is my favorite name brand orange juice. i love lots and lots of pulp. and i try to buy products high in calcium because i don't eat much dairy. so how awesome is it that tropicana makes something just for me? and the biodegradable, appealingly-(to-me)-marketed shampoo brand herbal essences makes a green-colored, clarifying (i have oily hair) shampoo that's tea-scented. i am a big fan of all these things¹.

i don't know, finding these combinations of personal favorites just kind of makes me feel special. and who doesn't like feeling special?

¹it's like when two or more of your favorite music artists collaborate. or when a kind of smoothie or pizza has all your favorite ingredients. or when you find a dress that has your favorite kind of straps, length of skirt, and type of fabric.

about a bothersome levi's ad

2011-03-11T19:34:00.006-06:00

every morning/evening, when i'm walking to/from home/work, i pass by this levi's store. and since its storefront faces the street, several of its big, glass panel windows have these gigantic black and white photo ads. and they're those typical "artistic" trendy clothing store ads-- like abercrombie & fitch, urban outfitters, etc.

anyway, those ads always show young, beautiful people in impeccably-fitting trendy clothing in random, made-up, beautiful situations, like, having picnics on the hoods of broken down vintage cars or painting landscapes in picturesque plains filled with native tallgrass. photos that are supposed to make you want to look and live like these attractive people who have these quirky, poetic lives. anyway, there's one of these bizarre photos at the levi's store i pass by that always causes my brow to furrow and my head to tilt.

it's this black guy (pretty dark skin) wearing jeans and a denim jacket, in the middle of some field, smiling a huge smile, holding a tiny white baby (not wearing denim, thankfully). and he's not, like, holding it to his chest or cradling it in his arms. he's holding it in front of him in the palm of one of his hands, like he's presenting it to us like an edible arrangements basket. what on earth is going on in this photo? that baby is very obviously not that man's biological child. which isn't a big deal or anything, but even if he's the baby's stepfather/babysitter/family friend, what the hell is he doing with it, alone in this field? and why is he offering it to us with a big grin on his face? and who wears a denim jacket with jeans? i mean, come ON.

it's these strange, invented stories these hip apparel retailers come up with (it's like the job elaine benes had with mr. peterman on "seinfeld"). at a certain point they just abandon the idea of giving their characters enviable lives, and they just try to come up with the nuttiest picturesque setting they can think of, because they just have SO many photo shoots.

well, levi's store, consider this one a FAIL.

even for an area i know well,

2011-03-10T20:55:00.004-06:00

i prepare a shooting list of subjects I need.

i've been doing a lot of things in lists lately. e-mail updates to all my friends and family (lotta interesting life changes lately), making playlists on grooveshark and youtube, to-do lists and to-attend events [meetings/charity ping pong tournament games at work (i got beasted), social rendez-vous, pie-eating contests all over the city in elaborate costumes to disguise my true, gluttonous identity]. so, in keeping with the current trend (because you know how i value being trendy), my post today will be a list. of things¹.

- i recently finished a pack of those cotton pads you use to wipe/wash your face. i bought a 2nd pack a few weeks ago, but the store didn't have the more typical-sized ones (maybe 2" diameter). they only had these giant ones (maybe 3"), so that's what i got. so i just started using the new, big cotton pads. and i really like them. it feels completely different in my hand than the smaller, regular-sized ones. you know what it feels like? it feels like i'm using a freaking lily pad to apply toner to my face. it feels simple and luxurious. i bet that's how the lady of the lake cleanses her skin. just like me.

- there's this one part of the train line that i take to commute where it rounds a bend in a dark tunnel. and the tracks straighten out as the tunnel ends and you can see daylight again. on certain trains, when they round the bend, there's this strange sound they make. the only way i can think of to describe it is that to me, it sounds like ghouls laughing. being in a dark tunnel really adds to the effect. the first time i heard it, my immediate instinct was to remark out loud how it sounded like ghouls laughing, but i restrained myself. wouldn't want to alarm any strangers. gotta share a haunted train car with 'em for half an hour.

- a newly realized reason why i'm glad i'm a small person: i fit very completely and neatly in a train/bus seat. neither i nor my belongings (usually a backpack) ever spill over onto the next seat, rendering it woefully less welcoming to my fellow passenger, who also longs to sit, resting his/her weary traveler's legs to prepare for the even greater journey ahead-- life. also, i just think it's really lame of people to not take their crap off the seat next to them when there are people standing in the aisles. rude.

¹ when i wrote the introduction for this post, i was under the impression that a) there were more items on my to-write list, and b) it wouldn't take more than one well-crafted run-on sentence to explain each one. they turned out to be rather paragraph-y, though. i'm sure you don't mind. i don't.

on my mindgrapes

2011-02-20T15:50:00.003-06:00

- a car horn outside just honked at the exact same moment that i hit the NUM LOCK key. it felt like a good sound effect for my keyboard.

- texting myself "judge judy prank call to psychic witch part II," which i came across at work. i find the funniest stuff at work. like this (clockwise, counter-clockwise, none).

- i swear, one of the best things about moving to my new place is discovering sitting on the floor, back against the couch, feet under the coffee table, with a 17-inch laptop and speakers my dad set up for me on the coffee table. perfectly comfortable position for listening to music and internetting.

- oh, man, instant cappuccino with almond milk is so win.

thinking is more interesting than knowing

2011-02-11T21:41:00.002-06:00

but less interesting than looking

sometimes when i'm drifting in thought and it begins to get verbal (imagining a conversation, trying to figure out the best way to word something, etc.), it becomes impossible to consciously switch back to non-verbal thinking. instead, i just end up internally speaking to myself about how difficult it is to return to the fluid, free-form mind wandering i had just moments ago been doing. eventually, though, my brain escapes from my attempts to control it and things get all fluid and scattered again.

nothing's as eternal

2011-01-31T15:00:00.002-06:00

as the dishes

sometimes when i'm flossing, my jaw cracks. it isn't painful, but it did used to mildly worry me because of all the joints of mine that crack, my jaw is one that does so more seldom. and when it does crack it makes me think of the scene in peter jackson's "king kong" (1:40) when king kong rips the tyrannosaurus rex's jaws apart. lately, though, i've been enjoying it more. instead of unexpected and violent-feeling, it feels more satisfyingly... thorough? like i'm doing a good job at really gettin' in there, dislodging whatever necessary in order to fight plaque. and while i don't exactly go out of my way to make it happen, i feel better afterward if my jaw pops while flossing.

i know that when you wash a knife, you're supposed to put it into the drying rack utensil holder blade down. but i rarely do it. i guess i just trust myself to remember that there are knives drying/not blindly grab a handful of silverware more than i trust that the bottom of the utensil holder not to be rife with bacteria left over from pools of standing water. those things really aren't shaped as well as they should be. sure, they have holes in the bottom, but there's no slope to actually lead the water out. i just don't like the idea of leaving the tips of silverware in all that.

on stumbleupon

2011-01-23T09:36:00.005-06:00

and avoiding a boatload of internet garbage

with stumbleupon, i try to give as much feedback as possible. there are people who have had accounts longer than i have or who actually stumble more often than i do, but there aren't too many people who have as many "favorites" as i do (i've never really been on board with linking a "[thumbs up] i like" button to a "favorite," but whatever). stumble's very much a "help me help you!" kind of thing, and there's so much useless and/or worthless stuff on the internet, that tailoring your results is something i believe necessary if you're going to bother with stumbling at all.

those who stumble but don't thumbs up or thumbs down are vulnerable to the worst kind of sharing-- trolls and "noobs" who think the stupidest/lamest/oldest stuff on the internet is worth adding to the community's collection of websites worth stumbling upon. you don't need to stumble upon an enhanced photo of a "cool sunset" or a because google can do that for you.

stumble is about bringing you things that
a) you enjoy and
b) you can't search for (because even if you were given description of what it is and decided you'd probably like it, you don't know it actually exists. things like this, this, and even this. stumble is a discovery engine that functions like a community blog, much like metafilter)

you need to be very careful about what you "like," though. i mean it. you thumbs up one fascinating article about a revolutionary new drug made from hemp for menopausal women and suddenly you're inundated with a million stumbles of obnoxious "omg look at this giant blunt i rolled! i am the coolest" photos and women's health articles so uninformative they were probably published in "reader's digest" health section... in 2003.

one must always keep in mind how stumble actually fetches websites for us. all it has is a big ol' tally sheet with a million tags on it. there's no image/language pattern recognition involved or even anything that will prevent it from giving us the same content twice on different sites (at least not unless you give it a thumbs down and then cite repetition as the reason why). so unless you personally tag everything you "like," all the information stumble has is actually how other people describe the sites you (dis)like.

this is reason why there are certain pages that, no matter how much i might enjoy them, i will not thumbs up. the stumbles to avoid "liking" are those that probably have non-specific and/or popular tags.
- anything with cats ["cat"-- memes (ninjas, pirates, hipsters, bacon) in general are to be avoided, just because of how much there is of them on the internet. quality control is nonexistent when every 15-year-old on the internet thinks it's his duty to contribute to the already tired lolcat phenomenon]
- pop culture "news" [just because you thought that article about "justin bieber" being discovered on youtube was interesting because it emphasized the influence of user-generated content doesn't mean you want to view photo galleries of him being body-scanned at the LA airport (i am not even joking)]
- most humorous content (if you think "funny" might be a tag, try to avoid thumbs-upping it. the last thing you want infiltrating your stumbles are endless fake inspirational posters and videos of guys getting slammed in the nuts)
- etc. just be smart and think about what the tags are before you tell stumble that you want more of it

i am accustomed to sleep

2011-01-15T22:23:00.003-06:00

and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake

i woke up in a very distressed state this morning. first, i had dreamt that i was participating in some kind of a war. if i remember right, it was actually not an unpleasant war. it took place in the middle of a sunny day, in a large courtyard surrounded by pretty stone buildings with big columns and steps (like court houses or something). also, there was no real blood/gore, and not everyone was fighting. some people were just hangin' around.

anyway, i ended up "beating up" two different guys from the enemy side. and i really mean that in the loosest term possible because i was weaponless and even in my dreams i'm aware of how powerless i am. so basically i was pushing them over, stomping on their feet, punching them as hard as i could (not very hard). one of them had a weapon that was like a pendant on a chain, so i took that from him, ripped it in two, and threw it as far as i could (about 10 feet). then i ran away.

well, eventually they found me. i ran up some steps to where my commanding officer was lollygagging about with some people, and he tried to chase them away from me, but didn't really succeed. this time they had swords. they were swinging them at me menacingly, and said they would cut my arms off (apparently getting shoved to the ground by a little girl is emasculating? who knew). it was then that somehow they agreed to let me go if i would a) apologize, and b) let them pour red wine all over me. of course i agreed to it.

at some sort of after dusk party, i was showing off the red wine stain on my white tshirt, but then needed to go back to my cabin. i go to my cabin (now i'm at spanish camp, in counselor mode), and i enter to find that all the girls in my cabin let a bunch of boys in. i freak out and start yelling at the boys to leave. but for some reason, they're popping out of every corner faster than i can shoo them away. when i see one standing outside the door, i open it up, only for him to ask something like "is this where they're smoking weed?" and i almost have a heart attack at the idea that not only were my girls allowing boys into our cabin, but that they were smoking weed in there, too.

i slam the door, and finally i've gotten all the boys out. i immediately start stomping around the cabin, calling a pow wow so that i can scold them and explain that under no circumstances are they to allow boys in the cabin. just before the cabin pow wow started, i woke up.

sometimes i think to myself, "man, why do i ever buy napkins? seriously, they are free everywhere."

rigid

2011-01-07T22:10:00.002-06:00

the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame

a recurring thought i've had over the past several years is "i wonder what it would look like if someone were to take a full-body x-ray of my body right now. it would probably look bizarre, right? yeah, probably."

it usually comes to mind when i'm in bed-- most likely because with an average sense of balance and level of flexibility, there's really only so many ways i can sit/stand without toppling over. in bed, my range of motion might be more 2D, but the limits of gravity become much less of a factor. when your entire body's uniformly supported by a horizontal plane, it's much easier for your limbs to get entangled.

so not only do i tend to curl up in a ball when i sleep, i often get the idea that i can cure sleeplessness by somehow incorporating pillows and stuffed animals into my appendage knots (to supplement my pillow, to prop up my arm, to hold between my thighs). another method employed to remedy restlessness and discomfort is to stretch and twist about, as if my body were a creaky, stiff machine whose parts need to be jolted loose and liberated from immobilizing rust. it's when i don't fully transition from the spine-cracking, sprawled out positions to the curled up, pillow-clutching positions (or vice versa) that my body finally ends up comfortable.

it's when my body's finally worked itself into an agreeable shape that my mind begins to wonder and i think about how my skeleton would look if someone were hovering around my bed with an x-ray machine. i just think it would look pretty strange.

when life gives you lemons,

2011-01-04T20:23:00.002-06:00

just eat the damn lemons

water with lemon is best when chilled. but it's not just good when it's cold, it's actually bad when it's warm.

when i drink ice water with lemon, i get a kind of cleansing feeling from it. i think more about how it's associated with disinfecting, fresh scent, antibacterial/antiseptic, and bleaching. and while it doesn't cross my mind every time i drink it, afterward i'm left with a sense of having rinsed something out of my mouth, leaving it cool and fresh.

but when the water's at or above room temperature, it has the opposite effect. i think more about how lemons have fructose (albeit a relatively small amount when compared to other fruits), and citric acid (any kind of noticeable acid flavor is, for me, reminiscent of gastric acid, i.e. vomiting). and because the water's warm, it feels like it really stays in my mouth, coating everything with cavity-causing sugars and enamel-corroding acid.

come on, do it

2010-12-23T00:52:00.003-06:00

whip your hair

so, i was in the shower earlier tonight.

necessary information: all my shower stuff (shampoo, loofah, etc.) are stored on one of those hanging caddies. the caddy hangs from the top of the sliding shower door, which, for me, is rather high. to give you an idea, the lowest tray on the caddy-- on which i store my razor, among other things-- is around my eye level.

i had just finished the actual shower portion and was proceeding with my post-shower ritual. i was vigorously shaking my head to pre-dry my hair (yes, like a dog... or willow smith), and then i saw that my razor, which had been sitting face-up in the shower caddy, had a bunch of hairs in it. and not only have i not actually shaved anything in at least a few days, i'm always very good at rinsing my razor after use, and it had long hairs in it. inches long.

it had never happened before, so i was confounded for a good few seconds before i realized that when i whipped my heavy, wet hair around to shake the water loose, i actually ended up slapping the blades of my razor with my hair and it ended up taking away more than a few choppy strands. weird, huh? so the moral of the story is: if you store your razor higher than your waist, make sure the blades are facing downward.

not gonna lie, though-- totally wondered if i could give myself a natural-looking choppy haircut by doing it repeatedly. then decided that that was one of the stupider ideas i've had in a long time.

only the spoon

2010-12-19T13:55:00.006-06:00

knows what is stirring in the pot

i really like to eat every single grain in a bowl of rice. i do it whenever possible. it's probably why i almost always prefer to use a bowl¹, no matter what i eat. it's the easiest way to eat all the food.

using a plate makes this much more difficult, which is probably why i don't really like eating off plates. you try to get the last macaroni/grain of rice/corn kernel, but all you end up doing is maddeningly poking and pushing it around in the dregs of the cheese/sauce/juices until it gets either unappetizing or frustrating enough for you to give up. then you're left with little bits of cold, uneaten food all over your plate that later on you'll need to either scrape into the trash/garbage disposal or fish out of the drain. sick.

it's most likely the same reason why i often choose a spoon to eat foods for which most people use forks. stabbing food is fun and often the best way to eat certain things², but i guess i just like the scooping motion of a spoon. also, once again it's the most effective implement for eating that very last grain of rice. with a fork, the final few grains just slip through the tines and are doomed to a sloppy, wasted fate.

this probably makes much more sense when i add that i am undoubtedly better at using a spoon and/or bowl than i am a fork&knife and/or plate³. i'm sure some might think that fork + knife + plate = easier, but if you've ever seen me maneuver a spoon and bowl combo, you'd certainly think differently. i'm not just good at spoon&bowl, i'm actually bad at fork&plate. it takes me much longer to finish a meal and in the past it has proven to be a much messier option for me.

so, given that 99% (seriously, ninety-nine) of meals in brazil are rice on a plate, eaten with a fork and knife, i valiantly struggled through quite a few difficult meals during my semester abroad. but it obviously didn't kill me, so i suppose i must be stronger. and, of course, by "stronger" i mean "way better than i was before at fork & knifin' it." in fact, i'd say i'm probably better than the average american at eating rice-based meals off a plate with a fork and knife... but that would be bragging. still, i prefer to stay true to my spoon & bowl roots.

¹obvious exceptions include things like steak, pizza, pancakes, sandwiches, etc. but for a lot of foods that most people would instinctively eat off a plate, i would choose a bowl. like salad, pasta, mashed potatoes.

²larger or longer pasta (tortellini, spaghetti), foods you really need to spear (pork chops, meatballs), etc.

³although i'd bet i'm among the best spaghetti twirler you've ever met. eating a primarily vietnamese diet for most of your life pays off like that. i'm like billy the kid with a fork and asian soup spoon. i can polish off a bowl of noodles in broth like i was genetically engineered and bred to be earth's secret weapon in the event of devastating alien attack by extraterrestrial beings made of pasta. seriously.

a woman is like a teabag

2010-11-28T19:26:00.003-06:00

you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water

so recently i've taken to using a tea kettle that my mom bought forever ago (but remained untouched until recently). i've been making a lot of store-bought mix cappuccino lately. and for reasons i can't really explain, watching the little metal kettle is just a million times more enjoyable than watching a pot boil or a microwave count down to 0. i know the microwave beeps, but the kettle whistles! isn't that a great trick? some humans can't even whistle. it's basically a steam-powered woodwind instrument.

"my cooking is so bad

2010-11-24T22:29:00.004-06:00

my kids thought thanksgiving was to commemorate pearl harbor."

amigos and amigas, we are on the eve of a very, very special day. one (say, i, for example) may argue that in less than 2 hours the season will usher in the best day of the year. and 45 minutes before 7:24am, i shall leap vigorously forth from my bed, do 45 minutes of rigorous calisthenics, and with great vim blast my clock radio to herald the dawn of the most wonderful day ever created after 1565/1619/1621 (?). it's almost thanksgiving, guys!!

are you ready to fight the alarming-as-all-get-out cold weather in order to gloriously reunite with your loving family? is your stomach ready to partake in the abundance of delicious seasonal foodstuffs? is your heart ready to be seriously warmed by the golden glow of thankfulness and celebration of life? if not, might i suggest a reasonable morning calisthenics routine? but i jest. in all seriousness, though, i was born ready for this.

two little mice

2010-11-17T13:02:00.006-06:00

from the rescue aid society, helped me

hey, so guess what i did. i went on a rescue mission to the basement this morning. i actually went down to see if there was any dental floss¹ in the boxes of random things i moved back home from my apartment in madison. but when i started poking through my boxes, i found a ton of good stuff that shouldn't be packed away. isn't that the best? rediscovering and getting excited about your own stuff? anyway, i took a photo of the things i rescued from the basement and explained them here!

also, because today is a wonderful day to play photographer, i took some other photos! go check out unos claveles for a peek!

¹background: recently i've been really into using things to the last drop and actually running out before buying new stuff. now, this has mainly been in regard to toiletries. living in 3 different places a year for 4 years (school, camp, home) and regularly visiting friends in far-off destinations like wisconsin and iowa (ooh!) had resulted in me having duplicates of several items. so right now, i have 2 face washes, 2 shaving creams, 3 body washes, plus travel-size bottles of extra shampoo, conditioner, face wash, and toner.

another thing that contributes to this problem is the dentist. every time you go you get a toothbrush, a mini floss, and a mini toothpaste. i admittedly don't change toothbrushes as often as i should, and it's easy to forget about the mini oral hygiene products 'cause usually we have full-sized ones at our disposal. but now we have, like, 8 extra toothbrushes and 6 tubes of travel-sized toothpastes (i'm working on the last travel floss at the moment).

and i still have these extras, even after i've been working on this problem for months now. i've finally used up an old bottle of face wash to its last gasping drop. i've used up a fraction of a full-sized and a travel size bottle of contact solution. i used up the dregs an extra bottle of exfoliating body wash. i exhausted 3 mini dentist office flosses. and there are still duplicates to be eliminated! i mean, it's pretty ridiculous.

i don't weigh a pound over one hundred and eighty

2010-11-16T11:02:00.003-06:00

and, what's more, i never did.

it just occurred to me (i was sitting on the front stoop) that there are quite a few american holiday traditions that basically consist of using edible, nutritional food items as decorations or toys.

like, can you imagine how much pumpkin meat¹ just rotted on people's front doorsteps as jack-o-lanterns? how much pie and soup or dq blizzards that could be? we used real canned pumpkin in those things! or how many eggs (protein! calories! these things sustain life, people!) are not eaten on easter? an egg could keep a starving person alive quite a bit longer, i would imagine.

and then there are the decorations that are probably eaten, but still used frivolously: cornucopias, still-life painting subjects (although i do like this), bongs. it's crazy. we have so much food in this country. so much food is gone to waste, it's mind-blowing. and we're still all fat! i mean, my god.

¹hilarious term, that is. "pumpkin meat."

you don't have to feel like a waste of space

2010-11-15T20:49:00.002-06:00

you're original, cannot be replaced

i'm in my bedroom at my desk and i got me a big ol' concordia language villages travel mug full of instant cappuccino. i'm in sweatpants, a tshirt, socks, and a long fleece robe. and i am blogging by febreze candlelight ("apple spice 'n delight"-- my fave!). at this moment in my life, i am very content.

i am very, very tired and sleepy (because there's a difference). my friends, i can assure you that last night was the worst night's sleep i've ever had in my entire 8330-day lifetime. it was not only sleepless, but my heart was beating way too fast all night and it really freaked me out. like, all night. i've been dyin' for a nap since i got home around 3:45, but i'm forcing myself to stay awake because i need to show my body's sleep schedule who's the boss around here (i'll give you a hint: it ain't angela, tony, or mona. it's ME).

yesterday evening, within the course of, like, an hour, i saw 2 heinous typos on eating establishment chalk boards. "distingtive" (seriously?) and "catipillar" (it was a trivia question). what's up with that? don't people proofread? sometimes it really doesn't seem like they do. you gotta proof, people.

i wash and dry

2010-11-15T01:27:00.004-06:00

my hands of this

it might sound kind of nuts (like more than a few things i've been writing about lately), but i'm not convinced that rubbing your hands together under an electric hand dryer actually speeds up the process. i know, it sounds crazy, but in my experience it is not the most efficient way to dry your hands using an electric dryer.

1) after finishing washing hands, shake vigorously over sink/floor.
2) activate hand dryer, with backs of wrists up, fingers pointing downward. this is important, because when you shook your hands, all the loose droplets of water on your hands shot down your fingers, but might not have all actually broken loose from your skin. allow the hot air to blow them down your fingers and off your fingertips for maybe 5-10 seconds. this will dry the back of your hands and wrists.
3) then slowly flip hands over and move slowly, first exposing the under-wrist then slowly pulling hands through the air stream and ending at the fingertips. this will dry the front of your hands and wrists.

*make sure fingers are not touching each other!

i like to be really thorough with my hand-drying and work methodically, not just mashing my super wet hands together haphazardly under a hot air stream and expect it to get all the wetness out of every nook and cranny? oh, no, sir. that is simply not the most efficient way to do it.

now, it's definitely possible that my method isn't the best method, but it's certainly better than the chaotic hand rubbing. do you have a special method? if you do, please share! anything's better than ol' push button receive bacon!

out with the old! in with the new(ish)!

2010-11-14T11:42:00.004-06:00

ciao, old desktop!

hola, rediscovered desktop that took forever to find 'cause i stumbled it over a year ago, had it as my desktop for, like, a month, and then never saved a file and lost up until today.

okay, guys, don't even front

2010-11-11T11:17:00.003-06:00

20 opinions of mine that should just be accepted as facts
(numbered, but in no particular order)

1. my mom totally makes the best curry.

2. corn chex is so definitely indubitably unquestionably the best chex.

3. having to hang out at the airport is interesting if you haven't done it in a while, but if you have to do it a lot it is a royal pain in the ass.

4. absolutely everybody has in some way benefited from the advent of blogs and other social media (i shared a bus ride from iowa to minnesota with what i believe were amish people? i couldn't tell what they were talking about, 'cause it wasn't in a language i speak O_o).

5. curtains are better than blinds (especially when it's the double layers- one sheerer curtain that allows light through and a heavier one that blocks light? those are the bomb)

6. thanksgiving is better than christmas. i know it sounds radical, but hear me out. thanksgiving and christmas are very similar in nature, but christmas has some extra elements. thanksgiving = family + food. christmas = family + food + presents. now, i'm not against presents at all, but presents do not have to be christmas presents. there's a difference between a) going into some random store somewhere, just happening to spot something that would be an awesome gift for a friend, buying it because you really want to give it to him/her, and giving it to him/her as a random display of appreciation. and b) having to go to a crowded mall full of stressed out people and picking out the best thing you can find for someone before a deadline.

the presents in the addends of christmas are presents with a deadline. a condition that renders the normal fun of presents stressful and therefore not to be considered a positive value. thanksgiving is pure. all it is is food and family. there is nothing more simply good than that. and this is why thanksgiving is actually better than christmas, despite what everybody else thinks.

7. scented candles are the most pleasant of the aroma-producing products (potpourri, lotion, incense, air freshener sprays).

8. manatee squash is adorable.

9. in other quality math-related equations, i profess that orange julius/dairy queen (technically in the inverse order, but it was just an orange julius when i started working there and then they added the dq part a year later) is better than a dq grill & chill.

orange julius/dairy queen = oj fruity smoothies + dq frozen treats, whereas dq grill & chill = dq hot food + dq frozen treats. now, nobody goes to dairy queen for the hot food. if you want a burger, you don't go to freaking dairy queen. so we can assume that dq hot food is a negative value because it's no good. and we can also state that oj fruity smoothies are bomb. so if you do the math, orange julius/dairy queen is better than a dq grill & chill (although they do have cakes and we don't).

10. "the ugly truth" is an absolutely terrible movie.

11. getting into bed after you've washed the sheets and they're still kind of warm and smell faintly of fabric softener is a super good feeling.

12. it is bizarre that from beginning to end of physical transformation michael jackson looked less and less like himself... but more and more like his sisters.

13. there's something really appetizing about the simple, old-fashioned white bread sandwich with a little miracle whip, a slice of american cheese, and a slice of bologna. i don't know. and i really don't normally like bologna.

14. a clean public bathroom is an excellent find.

15. it feels much healthier to sleep outdoors than indoors, but it doesn't really come up all that much.

16. it is so important to learn another language on so many levels.

17. there is no way crime labs can actually zoom in on and enhance video as insanely well as they do on television. it's a farce!

18. "les parapluies de cherbourg" is an excellent freaking movie.

19. teenagers are a riot.

20. the best thing to listen to when in the bathroom getting ready for the day is top 40s radio. don't knock it 'til you try it. it's some good stuff.

and that, folks, is something you can write in your "learn something new every day" journal tonight.

peace out, river trout.

heavy hearts,

2010-11-10T00:23:00.002-06:00

like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water

sometimes on occasions when i'm thinking a lot about clouds (when flying, on days with particularly interestingly-formed clouds, on a 5 hour bus ride to iowa) i get this recurring thought: it's kind of nuts how the sunlight that really sustains life on this planet travels, like, 93 million miles through space to get here, and then something so simple as a floating blob of water can almost completely blot it out just before it hits the earth's surface. i imagine it akin to the feeling you get when you almost get away with doing something particularly disobedient and get caught right before you're in the clear.

thanks to television,

2010-11-09T08:21:00.004-06:00

for the first time the young are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders

man, i have just been having an awesome few days. i guess i've just been perched high on the rota fortunae like i'm stuck at the top of the ferris wheel. i'm gonna go watch some tv. maybe with my luck there will be something special on that isn't usually on-- like "courage the cowardly dog" reruns (which look waaaay better now that we finally switched over to digital cable¹) or a rare, yet unseen episode of "the cosby show." well, i'll go check it out & let you know how it pans out. ciao!!

...[over 2 hours elapse]...

okay, so nothing particularly good or out of the ordinary was on tv. but i did eat leftover chinese food for brunch, so that part was definitely a continuation of the huge plus that is my current run of luck. i also had a delicious bosc pear. i cut my finger while slicing it up, but it's yet to kill me so i'm probably stronger now that it's all over.

i think it would be interesting to have a blog made up exclusively of sent emails.

¹we resisted until the very end. for the past few weeks, at the top of the tv we had a continuous banner warning us about the impending doom of analog cable, and urging us to get some new digital equipment. it felt kind of manipulative and aggressive to me, but we did end up getting the digital stuff. and after leaving it on the floor in the dining room for a week my dad installed it and now cartoons look WAY better, so that's excellent.

everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea

2010-10-31T22:11:00.004-05:00

it's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference

if i have any super powers, one of them definitely has to be hypersensitivity to loose hairs stuck to my body. i swear, if there is a stray hair hangin' out anywhere on my bare skin, i will notice it immediately. and i can always tell whether it's an insect, a speck of something, or a strand of hair. this really comes in handy because when i shower, i try to capture all the hairs that break free from my scalp and stick them to the shower wall so that i can throw them in the waste basket at the end of my shower¹.

but seriously, though. sensing and snatching up the liberated hairs on my body before the shower flow can chase them down the drain is like a sport to me. i find it supremely satisfying to be able to suddenly detect and swiftly apprehend those stray strands. and yes, it's likely that i don't catch all of them (false negatives), but i never ever get false positives. when i think i feel an escaped hair on me in the shower, there is surely a strand on the loose to be captured. and it really is quite rare that after i realize they're there they're able to find their way down to the shower floor and to the drain. being vigilant about this has granted me exceptional turn-away-from-the-shower-flow instincts in order to prevent this.

¹i just can't stand the thought of letting hair flush down the shower drain and accumulate in the plumbing. it feels both irresponsible and disgusting. kind of like skipping brushing your teeth or eating past your point of full capacity.

free speech is not to be regulated

2010-10-29T10:48:00.002-05:00

like diseased cattle and impure butter.

i strongly advise against opting for the "lighter preparation" when it comes to costco's kirkland signature macaroni & cheese. i was initially delighted to see that it was actually butter-less (first time i'd seen macaroni & cheese prep suggestions that didn't include butter, or at least margarine). now, i know that butter's beyond tasty, and i did consider adding just a bit for [what was supposed to be unnecessary] flavoring. but since i had never come across boxed macaroni & cheese prep instructions quite like these before, i figured i had to give full measure.

and i regret it. what a disappointment. never have i had worse macaroni & cheese. and i have never not enjoyed macaroni & cheese. there are a few foods that, mostly because of their components, are almost always good. pizza is always decent because all it is is bread, tomatoes, and cheese. three ingredients that are always good, and whose proportions are difficult to screw up¹.

and macaroni & cheese should be one of these foods. pasta and cheese are without a doubt two of the best items on the list of reliably delicious ingredients. before today, i thought it impossible to make macaroni & cheese not tasty, but i have painfully been proven wrong. and i know, macaroni from a box is not the same as pure pasta + cheese, but until now all the boxed macaroni & cheese products i've had (kraft, various generic brands) have held consistent with the supreme ingredient concept. this kirkland signature stuff is an outlier. the bare patch on my armored, jewel-encrusted dragon breast.

anyway, i suggest you just avoid it altogether so as to avoid the bewildering disappointment of encountering your first non-tasty bowl of macaroni & cheese. i know i'll have a hard time falling asleep tonight.

¹ grilled cheese (bread + butter + cheese), spaghetti (pasta + tomatoes), mashed potatoes (potatoes + cream + butter), and omelets (eggs + breakfast meats + veggies) are all this kind of impossible-to-screw-up food. all these ingredients are consistently delicious.

marketing is what you do

2010-10-21T10:38:00.003-05:00

when your product is no good

i understand that kit kat bars are a "classic" and everything, but they have seriously got to be the most boring, not special candy bar ever¹. and i guess it's because of this that they have so many appropriately lame commercials, but they really annoy me. it just irks me to see a ton of actors straight up rejoicing while eating kit kats like it's the most exquisite thing in the world. whose favorite candy bar is kit kat? almost nobody's. i mean, i'm sure it's some people's favorite, but only in the same sense that there exist out there at least a few people whose favorite tv show is "george lopez."

and kit kat commercials don't feature one or two actors enjoying the candy. it's always gotta be an unfunny, uninteresting, long-ass montage of a dozen people who are able to forget all their troubles once they snap the kit kat in half and gobble it up like it's filled with opium. it's just such a lie. and yes, i know that that's what marketing is, but some ads feel more like a lie than others (and kit kat's the biggest liar of them all).

what makes kit kat worse than other liars, though, is that they don't even try to mask it. like, other outlandish ads add in other elements to distract us from the lie, or at least try to entertain us. for example, alcohol ads feature the happiest people on earth having the most fun ever. but they use humor and/or sex to at least be unique or enjoyable. and no cell phones prices are really any more reasonable than others, but they use showy graphics and animation to at least visually stimulate. kit kat has nothing. nothing. they lie to us about how enjoyable their product is and then they just throw it at us straight without a mixer to mask its offensive taste.

¹jesus, even the website is bland

he who buys

2010-10-19T09:51:00.003-05:00

what he does not need steals from himself

i just vacuumed my room twice, with different vacuums, because i couldn't remember which one worked better. it was the second one. much, much better. but then my room had that most disagreeable dusty-musty vacuum smell, so now i'm burning a currant-scented candle. very pleasant.

so, sometime i-don't-know-when (most likely in middle school) i began hoarding shopping bags. i guess i don't know what most people do with them, but i would flatten them out, stack them, and slide them under my bed. so for the past ten years, my underbed has been occupied for the most part by neat, colorful piles of useless (to me), non-biodegradable evidence of how much i liked to buy stuff as a teenager.

anyway, today i finally gathered up all the bags (hundreds) and gave them to a nonprofit resale shop for re-use. and though when i dropped them off i felt like such a consumer (i seriously contemplated clarifying that it took over a decade for the collection to grow to such shameful proportions), i feel better now. like i've simultaneously cleared out the basement, taken out months' worth of accumulated garbage, and given spare change to charity.

drag your thoughts away from your troubles...

2010-10-15T10:10:00.004-05:00

by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it

things that've¹ crossed my mind recently
- it upsets me every single time i think about how mounds are made with dark chocolate, and almond joy with milk chocolate. dark chocolate and almonds make up one of the winningest combinations of all time. distributing the best ingredients to two separate candies does not make "something for everyone," it just makes eating two different chocolate bars at the same time sound like way more of a good idea than it ever should.
- sadly, now that the leaves have actually fallen from the trees, i'm going to have to actually lower my bedroom blinds to shield the neighbors from my nakedness
- intense cravings for good ol', cheap, american-made maruchan brand instant ramen
- it is a crying shame that youtube live didn't survive past its inaugural year. it had such potential.
- one of the most exciting things at daycare was when they would just sit us all down at a table and squirt a pile of shaving cream on the table for us to play with
- i saw a girl who had a snack in a little tupperware container. it was a handful of those little candy corn-esque pumpkin halloween candies. i don't think i'd ever seen candy in tupperware before.
- vietnamese food, though without a doubt among the tastiest food in the world, is unfortunately not nearly as visually appealing as other cuisines
- reading in bed is one of the best things

¹okay, not a real contraction, but it's how we talk

perhaps i know best

2010-10-02T10:20:00.004-05:00

why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

this morning, just before waking up, i had what may have been the... funniest? dream of my life. i have a vague idea as to what it was about¹. it was bizarre. i remember at the end of the dream i was laughing hysterically, curled up on the floor, unable to stop. and when i woke up the sense of oh-my-god-never-in-my-life-has-anything-been-so-funny remained shockingly strong. i didn't actually wake up laughing, but for quite a bit of time i just lay there, astounded by how hard i had been laughing in the dream. it's weird, it had never really happened before. makes me wonder if i was cackling in my sleep.

the staircases in my house are pretty steep. it's really fun to bound up them at full speed. but sometimes when i walk down them, especially in the morning, i feel like a big, clunky horse with huge joints in my legs. like the stairs weren't actually made for human legs. it's a strange feeling.

¹ in short, acting out some kind of epic children's space drama in an attempt to illustrate the entertainment value of some kind of disney/nickelodeon-type channel for adolescents.

i know how that pancake feels

2010-09-19T10:24:00.003-05:00

when you pour the syrup all over it

i don't know what it is about pancakes, but every single time they're around, i end up with syrup on my forearms. i don't even like syrup on my pancakes¹. what's messed up, though, is that it doesn't even need to be me who's having the pancakes. if whoever i'm eating with has pancakes and i'm having a popcorn shrimp basket, i will still end up with syrup on myself. and for whatever reason it's always on the underside of of my forearms? bewildering.

¹it's just too sweet. a thin spread of butter is all i need. i'm the same way with toast/biscuits/english muffins. no need for jam, honey, cinnamon sugar.

a man's worth has its season

2010-09-16T12:19:00.005-05:00

like fruit

okay, here's the deal: i have a lot more free time now. now, i could do a lot of different things with that time-- fruitful (inventing some kind of re-fillable toothpaste container¹), fruitless (lustful online window shopping and violently cursing my moth-filled purse)², fruity (ordering a big bird celebration edible arrangement), fruit... okay, so i can't think of another applicable adjective that contains the word "fruit." and believe me, i tried.

anyway, my point is that i'm going to devote a good portion of my new free time to peanut planet. that and writing bitter, venomous letters to people who have wronged me in the past.

¹when i really think about it, the waste:product ratio just feels way too high

²it was actually pretty difficult for me to come up with a fruitless activity. i thought very hard for quite a few minutes, but for some reason everything was sounding at least somewhat productive.

from the neighborhood

2010-09-07T00:23:00.002-05:00

since 1931

home-bound, waiting in an airport in LA. before the flight out here, i bought a bag of gardetto's. they must have hit the spot even harder than i had thought, because now i'm seriously craving another bag, just knowing that over there at the newsstand, waiting for me. i really can't stand buying stuff at the airport, though. it's about as bad as it gets when it comes to overpriced buyer's guilt.

en la otra vida

2010-09-02T09:16:00.003-05:00

i came home from spanish camp recently.

good things about being home
- the water isn't too soft, so soap actually rinses off and doesn't leave me feeling slimy
- all my favorite radio stations are but a clock radio button away
- the pantry is always stocked with some kind of interesting instant noodle to snack on
- a lot of downtime to read
- total kitchen freedom
- hours of alone time a day to sing at the top of my lungs throughout the house

not as good things about being home
- pretty much have to drive everywhere
- with 3 boxes of qtips in my bedroom, one in my bathroom, and one in the downstairs bathroom, my ears are in for quite the binge
- no real reason to spend every day yelling, waving my arms about in the air, line dancing, and acting like some kind of crazy
- without a resident nurse, no one waits for me at breakfast with my multi-vitamin ready

i am falling asleep

2010-09-01T00:41:00.003-05:00

as i'm writing this

a list of mind-crossing things

- if the length of the actual sole is the same as my foot, but the shoe's arch doesn't match up with mine, is it a recipe for podiatric disaster?
- i can't believe lady gaga is actually as great as she is
- if i eat something right now, will i regret having done it immediately after?
- i'm so happy i have a netbook so i can blog in bed
- before tonight, i had absolutely no idea what "rocky mountain oysters" were, although i'm pretty sure i'd heard of them before
- i really need to remember to compressed-air-shoot up my keyboard because the "l" key's been misbehaving like an insolent child
- i used to love filling out those endless forwarded email surveys with hundreds of questions/preferences like "chocolate or vanilla?" "any nicknames?" "what's the first thing you notice on someone of the opposite sex?" and "favorite animal?"
- i'm a better friend because of facebook
- i really need to figure out what number national geographic channel is at my parents' house by, like, yesterday

estas son las mañanitas

2010-08-21T10:58:00.004-05:00

que cantaba el rey david,
hoy por ser día de tu santo, te las cantamos a ti,
despierta, peanut planet, despierta, mira que ya amaneció,
ya los pajarillos cantan, la luna ya se metió

6 days ago, on the 15th, it was peanut planet's 8th birthday! i'm sad that i wasn't able to actually publish anything on the magic day :\ but after the 29th i will be able to inundate my beloved with post upon affectionate post! regretfully, i'm the unknowingly negligent, sincerely remorseful, but too-little-too-late parent whose child earnestly believes that work is just more important than family will ever be. if i'm not careful, peanut might just up and run away to join the blog circus. and i don't even want to know what kind of freak show would be part of that circus. well, actually, a blog freak show might actually be kind of* interesting.

so i'm up working at spanish camp again and as always, i am LOVING it. i freaking love my job. living in the woods, teaching kids spanish, it's the best. i told some girls that there's a scary-- yet vegan!-- monster in the woods with the face of a human and the body of a bear. and he's really pissed off because he wants to play fútbol with us, but he doesn't speak español, so we won't let him into camp.

*and by "kind of," i mean "really, really, really"

the difference between the right word

2010-07-05T13:41:00.002-05:00

and the almost right word
is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug

i have an indifference-hate relationship with bugs. when i'm up at camp or anywhere outdoors for a while, i really don't mind being around them all the time*. but when they're indoors, i get hypersensitive to them. once they've entered my domain, they seem to pose much more of a threat. and though i harbor a bitter hatred toward the insects who've unknowingly-- yet shamelessly-- invaded my space, i really hate killing them. it makes me nervous.

my preferred method of killing bugs indoors is to suck them up with a vacuum and to leave it running for maybe 30 seconds or so. handheld dust busters and hose attachments work well for this-- you can maintain a considerable distance from the target, which is definitely a huge plus, since indoor bugs give me a mad case of the heebie-jeebies. and i've considered many a time whether or not they're able to just crawl out of the vacuum afterward, but i've more or less convinced myself that no, they cannot (please, please don't tell me otherwise).

if i don't have access to a vacuum, i either do the rolled-up newspaper thwack! or the ol' wad of tissue. the newspaper also allows you to not get too close, but then you (1) smash the bug and its juices all over the place and (2) have to pick up and dispose of the carcass. the tissue guarantees death, unlike the vacuum, and usually leaves no visible trace, unlike the newspaper.

but the tissue is still my least preferred method. at my parents' house we used to get those little jumpy spiders. the ones that are rarely any bigger than the nail on my pinky toe, but get around everywhere by jumping insane distances relative to their size. these spiders and centipedes/millipedes, who just have way too many freaking legs, are the reason why i absolutely hate employing the tissue method. although it's never happened, i just get ridiculously afraid that while i'm approaching and preparing to attack, they're going to jump/scurry at me and just freak me the eff out. it's unbelievably unnerving.

people say "oh, well, they're more afraid of you than you are of them." and i understand that, well, yeah, i'm way more powerful than these little bugs and that it takes little to no actual physical exertion to completely annihilate them. but they don't know that. in fact, i'd bet that even though the bugs aren't blind, that they can't even comprehend just how much bigger i am than they are. now, if bugs were only capable of understanding just how much of a threat i pose to them, they'd probably just stay the hell away from me and not distress me so much. it's really a shame they don't know any better. it'd save us all a lot of anguish and, well... death.

*unless they're box elder bugs, centipedes/millipedes, crickets, or particularly juicy spiders

all that's sweet was made

2010-07-03T10:22:00.004-05:00

but to be lost when sweetest.

it's weird, i've seen at least 3 of the actors from those terrible pro-high fructose corn syrup commercials in commercials for other products recently. i was really taken aback when those corn syrup ads began airing. it's not that they're particularly lame or poorly done, it just seemed so... i don't know, shameless? even if the product had been unfairly demonized in comparison to sugar, it's still not something that should be advertised as the #1 choice of moms who care about their kids. not that serving it to children means you don't care, but it's certainly nowhere near the best choice, nutrition or taste-wise.

but anyway. it's not often that i recognize actors from some commercials in others. i mean, it's happened before, but lately i've heard myself say "hey, that's the chick from the corn syrup commercial!" quite a bit. i've noticed actors from tv in commercials (most recently, stephanie gooch from "scrubs" in a hillshire farms commercial), but that's different*. what's interesting about this is that the 3 actors from the corn syrup ads are all "normal"-looking, too-- not ugly, not particularly beautiful, but very people-next-door.

i suppose it's possible that i actually re-see television commercial actors all the time without noticing. so either the corn refiners association just happens to choose very unassumingly distinct-looking actors that are easily recognized, or the corn refiners association "launched" those actors' careers. if it's the latter, then at least the commercials served some purpose other than getting made fun of for being ridiculous (borderline impertinent).

*going from movie/tv show to commercials [not including being a spokesperson (well, sometimes)] is an undeniable step down. going from one commercial to several, although remaining within the same realm, is a step up. you hear those before-they-were-stars stories "[big actor] starred in 25 television commercials before landing his breakout role in [big movie]!"

too many church services

2010-07-01T11:58:00.003-05:00

start at eleven sharp and end at twelve dull

i used to go to church when i was younger. it's been many years since i've last gone, but there were a childhood few years during which it was a regular thing. i really didn't like going up to receive communion. it always felt like everyone was watching and i never really felt comfortable with the whole ritual.

"body of christ." sometimes they ran out of the little white wafers and would give out bite-sized chunks of some kind of extremely bland bread. it happened fairly often. i'd chew the bread, the but the wafers-- the wafers i'd put on my tongue and then press up on the roof of my mouth. it made my whole mouth dry and stuck up there, because i always skipped the "blood of christ" (friends who attended non-catholic churches told me they had grape juice instead of wine. i wouldn't have skipped grape juice). i spent the remaining 10 minutes of church scraping the eucharist off the roof of my mouth with my tongue. it kind of tickled.

i remember the little wafers as having texture, but no taste. nothing else i'd ever had tasted like them, because they had no flavor. the taste in my mouth before, during, and after eating eucharist were all exactly the same. so, while musing to myself during mass, i decided that eucharist had the flavor of nothing. but then i thought about water, and realized that i also considered water to have the flavor of nothing (i thought about saliva, too, but decided that it didn't count). from then on, i spent many a mass wondering which had less flavor, communion or water. i never really came to a decision. i stopped thinking about it when i stopped going to church.

he who has a one-track mind

2010-06-16T09:16:00.001-05:00

his train of thought often becomes derailed

ever try to re-trace a train of thought? trains of conversation subject count, too. conversations are considerably easier to keep track of, though, since

a) they take place between two or more people so there are more memories in which they're stored, and
b) they're verbal.

i'm no noologist or anything, but i'm definitely not convinced that thoughts are verbal-- mostly because i don't think that there exist enough words to describe all the things we think about. and even if there existed that many words, we certainly don't know all of them. but our thoughts aren't so simply limited by our vocabularies, and we're so often unable to express exactly what we're thinking, so it kind of makes sense that the whole verbal/non-verbal difference between conversation and thought trains has a part in why one is easier to trace than the other, right?

in any case, it's fun to backtrack and connect thoughts and conversation topics. it's never really boring, because it's never entirely logical/predictable. plus, the whole "ohh, that made me think of this made me think of that..." thing is kind of satisfying to figure out. especially when it's successfully done because someone can't remember what he/she was talking about or wanted to say before the subject got changed to something else.

but the other day, immediately after thinking something, i could not for the life of me figure out how i got from one thought to another. and it really bothered me-- i spent at least 5 minutes trying to determine how exactly i had made the jump. one minute i'm staring at a copy of a people's history of the united states, thinking about anagrams of the name howard and all the potential consecutive consonant combinations (it's important to consider when trying to come up with all possible anagrams!!). then all of a sudden i was thinking about tilted kilt restaurants (which is apparently, according to linds, "the new hooters"*).

that was a few days ago. and i'm still trying to figure out how on earth i got from howard anagrams to tilted kilt. i considered everything. there's only one common letter, "d". the book's cover and the tilted kilt logo don't have a similar font. i don't know, i just don't know. and i'm pretty sure there was no intermediate thought between the two because the only reason i began to think about how they could possibly be connected was that as soon as i made the jump, i was already surprised and perplexed by how i had gotten from howard to tilted kilt. brains work in mysterious ways.

*silly me, not knowing anything about tilted kilt, i assumed it was a kitschy scottish-themed family style deal kind of like an applebee's or something... definitely not the case. it's just another shamelessly-ogle-our-waitresses chain of restaurants like hooters. i ate at a hooters once. never again.

i'm so simple

2010-06-09T11:08:00.002-05:00

if i don't have groceries, i eat popcorn and tang for dinner.

one thing i've wondered on several occasions over the years is whether or not one could survive by eating only nutrient-poor junk food and multivitamin/multi-mineral supplements. i think this first came about when i used to consider which retail store i would choose if i had to live in one for the rest of my life (of course, my answer always has been and always will be the inimitable target). but this was all before the age of super target and fresh meats/produce alongside my electronics and toiletries. before the advent of their grocery section, however, i had to consider how exactly i would survive.

target has apparel so that i may clothe myself, it has toys so that i may amuse myself, and it has it has exercise equipment so that i may stay fit. also, it has graph paper and colored pens so that i may make maps of the underground tunnel system i dig, it has baby monitors so that i may set up a makeshift security perimeter in the case of a break-in, and it has knife sharpeners so that i may file my teeth down to fangs should i need to really freak out whoever dares to enter my territory.

but food-- sustenance! no fresh grapes, carrots, or porterhouse steaks! i mean, i love cheetos just as much (if not much, much more) than the next person, but if i'm going to be running around like a savage, i need more than empty calories. this is where the multivitamin/multi-mineral supplements come into play. now, i know i wouldn't absorb the 100% everything, but what if i ate 3 per day? if i could somehow get sufficient calcium/iron/etc. from that, could i just get all my energy from mixed nuts and fruit snacks? i sure hope so. i really don't want to have to live in a grocery store.

oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear

2010-06-06T18:13:00.002-05:00

and he shows them pearly white

oh, man, i am seriously buggin' out because in 47 minutes national geographic channel premieres its new series "expedition great white"! they also have a sweepstakes!! apparently you* can enter daily for increased chances of winning, too! so many exclamation points- i'm very high energy right now. and what better way to channel all that energy than to spend an hour learning about my favorite animal? knowledge is power and in less than two hours i'll be twice as powerful as i am now. soon i'll be able to open that impossible cherry jam jar and beat serena williams at wrestling. i'll know so much about great white sharks i'll finally be able to do a legit pull-up.

for some reason i've been eating an unusual amount of pork products lately. well, i suppose the reason is that over memorial day j's mom gave him a lot of it to bring with him back to madison and we've been doing some steady damage to the meaty supply. we've had porchetta (i didn't know what it was either), bacon, brats... yesterday i had a can of soup with chicken in it and realized i had broken my pork product streak. i was actually kind of sad.

*of course, i'd really rather you didn't enter so that i'll be more likely to win (to be honest, i considered not even mentioning the sweepstakes in order to not jeopardize my chances of winning). i just wanted to share this with you because i'm so excited.

human society sustains itself

2010-06-03T14:32:00.002-05:00

by transforming nature into garbage

thanks to the recent 80-90°F weather, rain, and insane humidity, i've been smelling a lot of garbage lately. heat+moisture:garbage odor::anger:the hulk. no joke. trash cans, dumpsters, and garbage trucks have all become much more conspicuous in my life. also, it feels like it's garbage day every day. this might be because i bike back and forth across town just about every day these days, but it still seems unfair how often i end up stuck behind a garbage truck in traffic. maybe i'll get a bike basket and fill it with baking soda. that would probably work, right?

i keep seeing this one car with personalized license plates that say "YTINAV". since it's VANITY spelled backwards, i think it's supposed to be some kind of joke about looking vainly into a mirror or something, but i'm not sure. i keep trying to think of idioms/proverbs/sayings that have something to do with it, but i've got nothin'. one thing, though: "N" is not vertically symmetrical (but i suppose it is pretty close). in any case, 5/6 letters is not too shabby. also, i think it's just coincidence that what it is is called a vanity plate.

i leaned up against a tree today and got a big sticky line of sap down the back of my arm.

a writer can write in an attic

2010-05-31T17:21:00.002-05:00

or on top of a bus

yesterday i got two seats to myself in the front row on the upper level of a double decker bus with skylights along the length of the bus. add to that a bag dinner complete with pretzels (who hold a coveted spot on the short list of my favorite snack foods*) and a can of v8 fusion** (also a very high-up-there favorite). the only thing that wasn't great about it was the old couple across the aisle chewing their gum as loudly as humanly possible and making really obvious comments and observations. but the good feelings from riding around 13 feet high at 70mph on a sunny afternoon outweighed my contempt for the elderly (kidding).

*other items on the list include chex mix (well, duh) and jalapeño chips, both of which i also had the pleasure of snacking on while sunbathing this weekend. it's been an indulgent past few days for me.

**i didn't even know they made cans of v8 fusion. it was an extremely pleasant discovery, but at the same time seemed rather strange to me. after thinking about it quite a bit over the course of the weekend i realized why: because it is really rather strong (as far as vegetable/fruit juice goes), i consider it to be more of something one sips, rather than chugs. and 11.5 oz is really a lot to sip.

don't sweat the petty things

2010-05-25T17:59:00.003-05:00

and don't pet the sweaty things

so, even though i spent all day trying desperately to cope with the insane heat*, life's been pretty decent lately. in the past few days my dad installed a new hard drive and windows 7 for me, i attended a talk by wikipedia founder jimmy wales, got to see this guy in action, conducted a wonderfully successful new-deodorant experiment, had a banana chocolate smoothie and arby's (!!!), and took one of the most amazingly refreshing cool showers of my entire life. so while i've been sweating pint upon pint of what smells like apricot nectar, life has definitely been on the up and up recently.

*minimal movement, minimal clothes. basically, slowly moving from room to room (to avoid sunlight) and lying motionless au naturel, flipping over occasionally to maintain even coolness (hah! yeah, right)

not a nice person at all

2010-05-18T18:35:00.004-05:00

but generally a selfish bully

either my blogging standards have gotten higher or my blogging abilities have gotten worse, because i just have not been able to produce anything for peanut planet as of late. it's frustrating like weak shower water pressure. or having to tune a really touchy clock radio. or never being able to recognize when to stop the microwave popcorn for maximum popped kernels and minimum burn. OR when your mom dismantles and destroys vital elements of your 7th grade science project because when you left it on the kitchen table she just assumed it was trash. seriously.

but you know what? i'm not going to let blogger's block ruin my life. not only am i going to glare menacingly at it from across the cafeteria while playing with a knife, i am going to threaten it, aggressively shove it, and sling all kinds of nasty playground insults. i won't stop until blogger's block's eyes tear up and its lower lip quivers uncontrollably, despite its (admittedly admirable) efforts to put up a strong front and conceal its easily recognizable fear and utter humiliation. the bullied will become the bully and relish the role reversal.

in other news, i've had this ancient taco bell commercial stuck in my head all day. now that i think about it, that song pops into my head regularly, and has been doing so for the past, like, 9 years. and it's not just the "bonanza" theme song, it's the taco bell commercial-- especially the "jonesin' for a grilled steak taco/steak's the king of meats!" part. i never really thought about it until i mentioned it to someone today and he didn't even remember the commercial. i guess i always figured that everyone remembered that commercial. well, it made a serious lasting impact on me.

true enjoyment

2010-04-29T18:38:00.003-05:00

comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are united

so it's always kind of bothered me how i can't read while in moving vehicles (cars, buses, aeroplanes) without getting head nausea*. it results in a lot of wasted time. it's at least a four hour drive between home and school, i ride the bus several times a week, and sleeping on planes is really difficult for me. so i end up spending almost all my travel time doing nothing. i could take up needlepoint or buy a portable video game device**, but that would be acquiring a habit for the sake of having a habit. not worth it. on a side note: wasting time watching tv or playing multi-player anagram games online is nowhere near as frustrating as wasting time sitting and staring at never-ending landscapes.

i've always been really jealous of people i see reading on buses or planes. they're doing something. using their time. learning something. gettin' some work done. stimulating their brains. broadening their horizons. all the while i'm staring at them, clenching my fists and my teeth, throwing a tantrum in my head imagining slapping that 400-page mary higgins clark novel out of their hands and screaming "IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!" it really isn't.

but i feel better today. you know why? because while walking the 2.0 mile round-trip to and from class today, i read 17 pages in the book i'm reading! and oh, man did it feel good! and it really wasn't difficult, either. not once did i get even close to crashing into something/someone. i looked up when i crossed streets, and my peripheral vision was enough to keep an eye on the sidewalk boundaries and approaching people. 17 pages! i feel so accomplished.

what's really surprising is that over the past few years i've had an increasingly difficult time actually paying attention to what i'm reading. i used to be able to read around noise. then i was only able to read with little noise and some music. then it was just music with no lyrics. and now for the most part i need pure silence. and even then i usually end up re-reading at least 10% of what i've read because my mind wanders like a minstrel and i end up absorbing absolutely nothing. but reading while walking around town, past a million people and cars, past noisy construction sites, waiting to cross at busy intersections, i retained almost everything! it's amazing! maybe if i just flood my sensory organs with stimuli and occupy my body with walking, i can confuse my brain into obeying me. i'm actually proud of myself.

*okay, so i realize that's not a real term, but i don't know how else to describe it. it's not painful like a headache, and i don't get dizzy and disoriented, i just get this unbearable kind of uneasy/sick feeling in my head. i only ever experience this particular feeling when i try to read in a moving vehicle.

**actually, there's a possibility that this would cause head nausea as well. i've yet to experiment.

the only way to stay warm

2010-04-25T18:34:00.002-05:00

is fuel the furnace with lots of food

so, every once in a great while i go to a restaurant to pick up a carryout order. and for the longest time, in the car i would try to hold the hot food over, but not on my lap. i would reason that even though it felt nice and warm, i shouldn't soak up all the dinner's warmth with my thighs. so i would either put the food on the floor of the car between my feet or i would just hold it a few inches above my lap. it wasn't until a few years ago that i finally thought to myself "wait a minute... holding the dinner on my lap may cause heat transfer from the food to my thighs, but it's not like holding it in plain air prevents heat loss. my thighs are definitely warmer than the air temperature."

and boy, did i feel foolish.

the falklands thing was a fight

2010-04-23T12:15:00.000-05:00

between two bald men over a comb

i know it's unreasonable to want to throw away my comb and buy a new one after one of its teeth broke off. but you know what? i have really snarly hair. and because of that, i use a detangling comb. and the teeth on detangling combs are very big and very few, and those two factors make it so that when even one tooth goes missing, it is very noticeable. and it kind of drives me nuts.

i guess i should warn you

2010-04-22T10:48:00.000-05:00

if i turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said

let's play a game. because the vision quest was a total bust (i walked an hour into the woods before i ran into the boxcar children*), i'm going to compile yet another list. but to make it marginally more interesting, we'll turn it into a game: i will not include the name of the list. and you, based on the five items, will have to guess the connecting link, what they have in common, the name of the list. readies? let's go!

????
- why girls wear backpacks and carry purses at the same time
- when my grandma speaks to me
- why so many people prefer white meat to dark meat
- how people can wear jeans in +75°F weather
- why comedy central didn't re-air the new episode of "south park" at 11pm last night like it says on the website

*and boy, you would never think four kids, 14 and under, with zero income would be much fun. but man do those guys know how to throw a party. i'm still hungover from their moss and acorn moonshine. necessity truly is the mother of invention.

we are not human beings

2010-04-13T11:14:00.002-05:00

on a spiritual journey.
we are spiritual beings on a human journey.

i'm not really sure why, but blogging has been a monstrous struggle for me lately. over the past few weeks i've started and aborted so many posts i've decided to embark on a vision quest. since i don't get to bring anything with me, all that's left to do at this point is to decide what i'm going to wear. sure, i'm just going to be wandering around in the woods for a few days, but i don't want to look like i've been wandering around in the woods for a few days. i mean, who knows, my spirit guide might end up being a total stud.

so, yeah, i've gotten desperate and am turning to the indigenous occult for aid. hopefully the spirits i encounter in the wilderness aren't the same ones that have been following me around, filling my ears with high-pitched ringing noises. it really drives me nuts.

a man's interest in a single bluebird

2010-04-02T21:03:00.000-05:00

is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town

because when i'm at a loss for things about which to write, i make lists.

things i like very much
crossing intersections at a diagonal - ah, the thrill of jaywalking plus the satisfaction of traveling the least distance necessary to arrive at the opposite corner!
the idea of trying to trick a polygraph - imagine being a master liar of that caliber. it would be pretty great.
jalapeño chips in a sandwich - oh, man. an exquisite addition-- especially to big, soft sandwiches (like from subway)
ponyo - i absolutely adore this film. it makes me incredibly happy.
skin-baring - [within reason (and the limits of decency/good taste) of course] because sun, wind, and even rain feel much, much better than any fabric ever could
unexpectedly nice public restrooms - during the drive back from madison yesterday i popped into a mcdonald's to use the restroom and it was super clean and not gross at all. the most pleasant of surprises.
not having mad blogger's block - like a runny nose or a canker sore-- you are so miserable when you have it and all you can think about is when it will clear up and how much better life will be then. but when you don't have it, you never think about it and never really end up appreciating it.

fiction is life

2010-04-02T08:57:00.008-05:00

with the dull bits left out

my first shot at fiction-- a short story for my writing workshop.

[edit: revised from earlier-published first draft]

A Cake for Mark

From Elia Yassi
Sent Monday, March 15, 2010 8:36 pm
To Becca Suini
Subject recipe?

Hey, Becca, quick question: you wouldn't happen to have a decent cake recipe, would you?

From Becca Suini
Sent Monday, March 15, 2010 9:58 pm
To Elia Yassi
Subject Re: recipe?

Hey! Umm... I don't think I have any lying around. Why don't you just check out foodnetwork.com or some food blogs? You're online all the time anyway, taking those absurd quizzes on cosmogirl.com (btw, according to the "Celeb Pooch" quiz, I have a lot in common with Adam Sandler's bulldog). I’d ask my mom if I weren't 100% sure her recipe would include nước mắm (fish sauce— I think you’ve tried it at my house before). What’s this for, anyway?

From Elia Yassi
Sent Monday, March 15, 2010 10:20 pm
To Becca Suini
Subject Re: recipe?

Oh, man. I don't know, it's a longass story. I’d rather eat an entire pound cake soaked in fish sauce than relive it. Let’s just say I really offended that old guy I work with.

From Becca Suini
Sent Monday, March 15, 2010 10:24 pm
To Elia Yassi
Subject Re: recipe?

The one who's always making those awkward jokes about how fat he's getting (Mark?)? What’d you do, turn down his invitation to join him on a date at Old Country Buffet?

From Elia Yassi
Sent Monday, March 15, 2010 11:19 pm
To Becca Suini
Subject Re: recipe?

Haha... no way. You know I’m always down for some OCB. Nah, he was just talkin’ the other day about how much of a "stud" he was in high school, using words like "virile" and "promising" and "world was my oyster," all the while (subconsciously?) patting his gut and smoothing down what's left of the hair on his head. You know, that kind of uncomfortable, depressing, nostalgic stuff that motivates you to work hard way more than any Cinderella success story. Anyway, I just was doing that whole nodding + "Oh, really?" thing until this woman showed up.
She was definitely pretty— one of those mid-late thirties women that when you see them you think something like "I hope I look like that when I’m her age" because she looked pretty fit and fairly hip, like she hadn't yet resigned herself to shopping at Chico's and Talbot's. Her hair was styled a bit big and news anchor-y, but she was wearing some kind of tailored pantsuit (more like hot Assistant District Attorney on “Law & Order” than Hillary Clinton) so I guess she had come from work. I assumed she's making some serious bank, too, because she had this swank-looking leather shoulder bag and a pair of those shiny Steve Madden pumps we were ogling on eBay last week (and my god, they're even more lust-inspiring in person).

So she came up to the counter, eyeing the menu. I didn't move, because Mark was right in front of the register. He didn't notice her for a while, though, because he was facing me, yappin' away about calling all his teachers by their first names because he was “basically a real-life Fonz.” Wanting an opportunity to escape to the back to do some dishes in peace, I did that thing where you call someone's attention to something by quickly shifting eye contact between them and whatever you want them to see (you know what I’m talking about?). So Mark finally turned around and saw her standing there. I couldn't see his face, but her eyebrows rose sharply and her head jerked back very slightly, like someone just shot off a toy gun in her face.

Gah, I just remembered I have a take-home exam for Iberian Civ. I hate that class. The only reason I’m taking it is that it counts for both Comm B and Ethnic Studies. Barf. I think it’s due at midnight. I gotta go do that, like, right now. I’ll be online later. Peace!

From Becca Suini
Sent Monday, March 15, 2010 11:41 pm
To Elia Yassi
Subject Re: recipe?

What, are you serious? You always do that—you always start stuff and never finish it. You know how stupid Laura and I looked as the two musketeers when you didn’t finish your Halloween costume in time? You’re the worst. I hope you get a D on your take-home. Kidding… kind of :P

From Elia Yassi
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 12:56 am
To Becca Suini
Subject Re: recipe?

Oh, shut up. Just because you’re only taking 11 credits this semester doesn’t mean I have to entertain you with bedtime stories. I got things to do. And fyi, I probably will get a D. I swear my professor has something against me. I think it’s because I’m always yawning in his class. I can’t help it. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah. So that woman showed up.
I was expecting to hear Mark’s annoying "What can I do ya for?" like the all-clear signal for my getaway. But I didn't hear anything for a few seconds, and finally she was just like, "Mark!" And his hands shot to his head and he ran his fingers through his hair— almost violently— all the way from the front to the back. Then, slowly, his hands calmed, cupping the back of his neck with his elbows hanging in front of his chest awkwardly. It looked weird, like something a flustered little kid would do. Sooo uncomfortable... and fascinating! Like when someone audits your class and for a day your TA is totally on edge and suddenly self conscious. It was great.
The woman waited for a response, but when Mark didn’t reply, she just smiled at him. It was really disarming and all of a sudden she looked very soft— more like a mom dressed up for a part-time job in an office and less like an aggressive business woman working her way to the top. Her eyes landed on me so I began to step forward to take her order. But then Mark dropped his arms heavily to his sides and was like, "Jen! How've you been?" But just a little too loudly, you know? Like he had just gotten caught doing something weird, tried to diffuse the awkwardness by acting pleasantly surprised, and just ended up way overemphatic and totally obvious. But at that point I remembered the dishes and made a break for it.
I hurried to the back, changed the radio from Mark’s terrible country station to NPR, and just stood there for a second. I mean, I was kind of excited! Mark, the most boring employee at the most boring workplace in the world, suddenly had some kind of intriguing past! I had always figured that the interesting years of his life were long over, and that the rest of his days were going to consist of working with teenagers and college kids at the Orange Julius in the mall food court. But, you know, I suppose older people have had more time to accrue memories and experiences to hide and try to forget. I had just thought that Mark had led such a pointless and uneventful life that nothing could really faze him. Guess not! He looked so nervous, Becca. I swear I could see his pit stains forming.
I was in the back for, like, ten minutes and spent a good portion of it trying to remember that soap opera “Passions” we watched every afternoon that one summer between 5th and 6th grade. Jen… Jen… maybe she was a relative. An estranged sister, maybe? They didn’t look at all alike, and everyone knows evil twins are always identical. A high school girl friend? She could be. How embarrassing. Or maybe she’s his bookie! Mail order bride? Investigative reporter researching fast food and obesity in America? Model scout? Well, okay, I got a little carried away, you know how I am. But this whole thing was probably the most exciting thing to happen at work since that Justin guy got caught stealing from the safe (I’m glad he got fired. He was such a pervert. Ugh.).

Ahhh, I’m getting tired. I have a 9:55 class in the morning. It’s a boring one, so I might be online during it. If not, I’ll just finish this between classes tomorrow. ‘Night!

From Becca Suini
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:32 am
To Elia Yassi
Subject Re: recipe?

I remember “Passions!” I still know the words to the theme song, “breathe in, breathe out… you keep me alive…” My mom always gave disapproving looks when she caught us watching it. Anyway, I bet this Jen chick’s an old girlfriend. I’m surprised you went to the back—I’ve never known you to miss an opportunity to eavesdrop. Who’s Jen??? Write back!!

From Elia Yassi
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 1:19 pm
To Becca Suini
Subject Re: recipe?

Hahaha “… you are the fire burning inside of me… you are my Passion for life!” I can’t believe we tried to audition for the middle school talent show singing that. Ridiculous. You think ex-girlfriend, huh? Interesting. And no way could I have stayed out front with Mark, you know awkward that would’ve been? Geez.
Anyway, I figured ten minutes was enough time to sort out whatever business/drama/beef they had between them. I thought I heard a blender over the sound of the dishes at one point so the woman probably ordered something. I went back out front and she was gone, but Mark was just standing in front of the register with his shoulders slouched. It was kind of creepy because he was facing away from me and for some reason I imagined that when he turned around he would have some sort of terrible expression on his face—like Pagliacci the sad clown or something. I didn’t really want to talk to him, but I really wanted to know who Jen was.
I had by this point decided that she was probably an old girlfriend from high school. They were neighbors, had grown up together, and began dating sophomore year when Mark was consoling her after a rough breakup with her crappy boyfriend and they realized that after ten years of perfect friendship, they were in love. It didn’t last for long, though, because Jen’s family was actually doing an extended stint under the Witness Protection Program because of death threats from her father’s former boss, mafia lord Salvatore Provenzano. Right before graduation, Provenzano was finally convicted and Jen, whose birth name was really Regina, had to move back to Staten Island, learn to make Ragù alla bolognese, and meet her relatives.
I was thinking about meat sauce when Mark turned around and asked me to grab another tub of raspberry purée from the fridge in the back. I couldn’t help staring at him for just a second. But his eyes were neither red nor puffy, his nose wasn’t runny, and his chin wasn’t quivering. As I went to get the raspberry I tried to formulate the perfect question that would get him to spill without pushing him over the edge. I felt like a bomb squad robot or something: first cut the blue wire, green, and then and only then red. I pictured Mark bursting into tears and it freaked me out. A 36-year-old man crying and sniffling like a child, wiping his nose on the sleeves of our ugly, oversized, orange and blue-striped uniform polos had to be avoided if at all possible.
I brought the raspberry out and looked for something to wipe down—a counter or something—so that I would have something to do during my little fact-finding mission that would make it unnecessary to maintain eye contact with Mark. The counters were spotless, so I began to cut up bananas and stack them in their little corner. I decided to start the conversation with something about work. I took a breath and said, “I found a spider in the last box of bananas. I was working alone, so I freaked out and had to ask one of the custodians to kill it for me. It’s a good thing I know Spanish.” I smiled just a bit, but didn’t look up.
Mark didn’t even reply. He seemed so… absent. His usual response would probably have been to laugh obnoxiously and tell me that on average we eat four spiders a year in our sleep. He might even make a Little Miss Muffet joke and slap his belly. But this time he just didn’t and I didn’t really know how to handle it. I finished up the bananas, leaned on the fake marble counter, and studied him. He looked… totally normal? I don’t know, I mean, I never really examined him before. In fact, it’s something I generally try to avoid.
But then all of a sudden I wanted to take a Polaroid of his face so I could study it at home like an ugly Mona Lisa. He had this blank expression, neither dejected nor excited. His lips were always pouty, but more because his cheeks had gotten fat over the years. He was always clean-shaven (I always figured he devoted a lot of time to grooming himself to make up for having to work in a mall). His shirt was always tucked in tight around his gut, and his shoes were always tied tight. I pictured him slowly taking them off every night like Mr. Rogers.

Shit, I gotta get to class. I can’t be late anymore. Last week I fell asleep in the study room and didn’t wake up until 20 minutes after class had begun. When I got to class I told my professor what happened and he just pointed at the imprinted lines on my face from the folds in the sleeve of my hoodie. Awkward. Later!

From Becca Suini
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 3:36 pm
To Elia Yassi
Subject Re: recipe?

Haha, so you’re that girl who shamelessly falls asleep in the middle of the day. Can’t say I haven’t been there. Some girl in my class actually complimented me once on being able to fall asleep sitting up and in the front row. I was actually kinda proud. Oh, and the Regina thing? Perfect. But Jesus, what the hell happened next? I want details!!

From Elia Yassi
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 4:18 pm
To Becca Suini
Subject Re: recipe?

Hey, I’m in class right now. Teacher thinks I’m taking notes because few sentences I look up, look confused for half a second, then nod like I just realized something and type some more. Works every time. I’m gonna try to write fast and finish this before class is over, ‘cause I gotta catch a bus to Copp’s right after.
Okay, so then some kid over by Sbarro started yelling and I snapped back to the food court. After a few moments of silence (something I usually relish when working with Mark, but this time it felt heavy), I realized that maybe being extra friendly and sensitive would seem strange to Mark and he would get all weird on me. I mean, maybe my sudden change in behavior would really set him off and he would get all paranoid, thinking I had some kind of sinister motive (and for the record, being nosy is nowhere near sinister on The Intentions Spectrum). I mean, I’m usually pretty laid-back and direct with him, so I just went for it. “So… who was that?”
“Who?”
“That last customer. Um… Jen, I think you called her?” It was hard to act so disinterested, but I definitely couldn’t let on how curious I was, so I tried to keep the words to a minimum.
“Jen… Jen…” It sounded like Mark was just repeating the last word I had said. I let him zone out for a few more seconds and then tried again.
“Blonde woman… suit… ring a bell?”
“Oh, her!” Mark suddenly seemed in a much better mood. I couldn’t really tell if he was faking it, though. “Ha ha, oh, it’s a long story. Nothing interesting! Hmm… you didn’t pick up a newspaper on the way in, did you?”
Yeah, right—as if I were going to give up that easy. Nice try, Mark! I told him I didn’t have a paper and got back to business. I told him she was really pretty and asked if she were his girlfriend (as if she weren’t ten thousand miles out of his league, but I figured flattery couldn’t hurt).
But then he was like, “Oh, no. Ha ha… She is… actually… my old psychic!” and he just smiled, rocking forward and backward, his feet like the runners of a rocking chair, his right fist hitting the palm of his left hand as he rocked.
I was just like, “What does that even mean? Your ‘old psychic’?” I was half disappointed, half not. I mean, the supernatural has its place in soap operas. There was that witch Tabitha on “Passions.” Maybe Mark was crazy superstitious. Maybe he spent his life savings on sessions with the psychic, trying to pick lotto numbers or hold séances for the black Labrador from his childhood who got hit by a Jeep. I don’t know, what the hell do “professional” psychics even do?
So he was like, “Oh, well, she was kind of like a life coach, warning me about bad decisions and leading me down the right life path for me.” But he said it so matter-of-factly, like it was normal to pay someone $100 an hour to close her eyes, put her fingers on her temples, say “I am seeing…” and make really broad statements in a spooky voice.
I asked him, “She was dressed pretty formally, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, yeah. Um, well… it turns out it was some kind of scam. Yeah… a couple cops showed up at the end of one of my sessions one day and told me that she and her boyfriend were running an elaborate scheme across the tri-county area. Apparently she didn’t even really have ‘the gift’.” He had a kind of ashamed look. I felt bad for him.
“Aw, Mark. That sucks.” I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to that? I’ve never been good at consoling people.
“I don’t mess with that stuff anymore. You can’t even tell who really has ‘the gift’ and who’s trying to make some money. I’ve learned my lesson.” He checked the straw dispenser. It was full, so he leaned against the counter and gave me a kind of “satisfied?” look. I loosened up a little and tried to steer the conversation back to light-hearted.

Shit. The bell just rang. I’ll finish this when I get home.

From Elia Yassi
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 4:36 pm
To Becca Suini
Subject Re: recipe?

Okay, so I missed the stupid bus by, like, two seconds. I saw it drive away. Lame. But <3>

Where was I… Oh, yeah. Mark felt bad about getting conned, I felt bad ‘cause he felt bad, yadda yadda. So then I was like, “Don’t worry about it! I have this friend who spends all her time taking these ridiculous quizzes online. She thinks answering 10 multiple choice questions can tell her something about herself that she doesn’t already know. It’s almost as ridiculous as living your life according to the newspaper horoscopes!”

But then Mark’s face just went blank. It was really freaky. He started breathing heavily and then he just snapped at me, “You are such a Cancer! You know nothing about how the world works, and you just belittle others because you can’t understand why things happen the way they do.” He gripped the counter tightly with both hands and had his head tilted down, eyes fixed on the register keys. A chubby family of four eating Steak Escape nearby was staring. I rapidly shifted my eyes between them and Mark, like I was in some kind of a hostage situation. They quickly looked back down at their food and started eating faster.

“Have you ever even looked at a zodiac chart? Did you even know that horoscopic astrology has its own Wikipedia page? That zodiacology is a science? No! You probably think I’m just some sucker who got taken in by a fraud.” He stopped raving for a second and for the first time ever no one was talking in the food court. All I could hear were deep fryers popping, commercial freezers defrosting, mops sloshing, and griddles sizzling.

Mark began again, in a low voice, “Well, I knew it was going to happen because my horoscope told me. My horoscope said ‘someone you trust will betray you’ and I was stupid enough to think that it wouldn’t happen to me. Stupid. Stupid! Stupid!” He slammed his fists on the counter three times. I didn’t move. I tried to keep a neutral face on. One wrong move and I don’t even know what would’ve happened. Mark’s breaths started to calm and he slowly raised his head. He looked out over the food court, left to right, taking it all in. Then he said “I’m going on break!” walked out, and just didn’t come back.

So… I closed up by myself, which was fine since it was a weeknight, and… yeah, I don’t know. I don’t expect him to quit or anything, seeing as Orange Julius is his full-time job. And I sure as hell am not going to quit. I need money for those Steve Madden pumps. So I figured I would just bake him a cake or something? I bet he likes cake. What do you think?

From Becca Suini
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 7:27 pm
To Elia Yassi
Subject Re: recipe?

… Christ, Elia, I think you need to prepare this guy an elaborate eight-course feast laced with sedatives.

From Elia Yassi
Sent Tuesday, March 16, 2010 8:09 pm
To Becca Suini
Subject Re: recipe?

Yeah, no kidding. I think I’ll go with chocolate.

out of desire

2010-03-15T14:03:00.003-05:00

springs the energy

99% of the times i leave my house (the 1% being when i go to the laundromat to wash my gaga costumes) i pass by the convenience store on the corner. and over the past few months i've noticed more than one discarded 5-hour energy bottle on the ground nearby. while i do find the littering to be rather disgusting (considering there's a garbage can right there in the parking lot), i find the actual situation pretty funny. who are these people who just stop into the convenience store, drop three bucks a 2-oz shot of who-knows-what, tear it open outside, down it, and just throw it onto the ground in an exhilarated fit of chemically-induced vim and vigor? i mean, you gotta be pretty excited to live like that.

recently i've taken to listening to jacques demy movies as my background music/noise when my favorite radio stations just aren't doin' it for me. i don't know, there's just something purely enjoyable about 1960/70s french musical films. i just play them over and over and i've yet to tire. the only thing is that they aren't as easy to find and download since they're old and not in english. but you know who is also old and not in english? that's right. jô soares.

a poet's autobiography is his poetry

2010-03-11T12:02:00.003-06:00

anything else is just a footnote

ode to a Q-tip

i am an American Gladiator
the Joust is my event

i wield my paper cotton pugil stick
my ear canal is the arena

i fight with precision and vigor
a persistant itch is my opponent

i sustain painful injuries
ear infections are my battle wounds

but tv is fake
and every day the fight rages on

every morning i stand motionless in the shower
head tilted
letting the water
pelt and pound into my ear
like a boxer and his punching bag

i'm addicted to the fight

feats of smell

chatting with a classmate in high school
i asked "do you use Herbal Essences— the yellow kind?"
she looked impressed and said "yes! how did you know that?"
i said "my brother uses that shampoo."

shopping with a friend in the Ragstock at the Mall of America
i remarked "it smells like Subway."
she and i saw the white and yellow sign next door as we walked out
i said "oh, yeah, who called it!"

emerging from my bedroom into the hallway one evening
i yelled "mom, are you making tofu?"
she called back from downstairs "you have such a good nose!"
i said "i know."

the next morning, sniffing the air from my bedroom doorway
i shouted "mom, are you making tofu again— for breakfast?!"
she laughed "no, i'm frying eggs in the tofu grease from yesterday!"
i said "... it still counts!"

policemen so cherish their status

2010-03-08T11:43:00.003-06:00

... as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public
that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status

okay, so i'm gonna go ahead and call "brutality" on the pure evil police officer in my dream last night. i've had pretty bad creepy/spooky, heartbreaking, upsetting dreams before. but last night's was absolutely terrifying. there was this insane cop who was just relentlessly harassing, taunting, abusing, and physically beating the living daylight out of me and two friends throughout the entire dream. i don't remember why he was torturing us [although given how evil he was, maybe he was just doing it to entertain himself (probably)], just that he was. non-stop. and we were completely helpless, with no escape. i think he was also unusually large, too. like a big, huge caricature of a cop. only he was a total sadist who had no intention to serve and protect, but to abuse and torment three completely terrified girls to no end.

note to self: do laundry more often. if not for the sake of having more options from which to choose when picking an outfit, then for the sake of not having to lug a giant, heavy laundry bag 3 blocks with no remotely comfortable way to carry it. there's a poem called Michiko Dead by jack gilbert about dealing with the grief over the loss of his wife, michiko. and while it is a very heartrending poem that does make me quite sad, on a more shallow, literal level it's comparable to my walks to and from the laundromat with a month and a half's worth of dirty clothes stuffed into a monstrous sack bigger than i am. fortunately for me, it's just laundry.

and your very flesh

2010-03-06T21:04:00.003-06:00

shall be a great poem

oh, man, i just destroyed a totino's party pizza. there's nothing left but a grieving pizza family. don't worry, i didn't make them watch. i'm hungry, not a bully. in fact, before i ate the pizza i kindly asked him what he would like written on his tombstone. he ended up reciting a long line of walt whitman quotes, but with all mention of "man" replaced with "pizza." poignant and appetizing. anyway, i didn't write it all down but i'm going to get what i do remember tattooed on my belly in the "crisp crust" font. a fair homage, i'd say.

a tigress robb'd of young

2010-02-20T12:40:00.002-06:00

a lioness

winter dryness has been wreaking havoc on my lips like the crocodile in "lake placid" wreaks havoc on the people of aroostook county, maine's misconceptions concerning the improbability of 30-foot crocodiles living in freshwater lakes in present day new england. phew! lucky for me, that movie's on tv right now and i didn't have to delve into my immense mental reserve of similes and metaphors. i get lost in there sometimes. the disturbing and beautiful mesh of poetic alternate realities is quite the trip.

its colors are animal

2010-02-12T12:47:00.002-06:00

rather than vegetable

oh, man, do i feel foolish. here i am, sitting in a very warm room, facing outward, right in front of a huge window through which the sun has been shining directly on almost my entire body, in hopes of getting some vitamin D. then, after squinting, sweating, and squirming for the past two-and-a-half hours because of the insanely bright light and too-intense warmth, i google "vitamin d through glass windows" and find out that since only 5% of UVB rays actually travel through grass, it's simply not enough for my body to perform vitamin d synthesis and i've gained nothing but thermal discomfort. oh, and the heating vents just so happen to be on the ground in front of the windows, below my feet. it's like i've been intentionally roasting myself in a combination solar/radiation/convection oven.

in other news, i wish v8 v-fusion were cheaper.

black eyeliner says

2010-02-10T22:03:00.002-06:00

"you've been through stuff. you know things."

i've seen so many people wearing all black lately. either this is something new or i'm just not as color perceptive as i thought (sometimes when i notice especially interesting/unusual/appealing color combinations, i pat myself on the back and make out with myself in the mirror for a job well done). the other day a girl was wearing black shoes, tights, skirt, coat, hat, and bag. but it was no ordinary black bag. it was a timbuk2 messenger bag-- you know the ones, easily recognizable for their [most often] trichromatic designs as chosen by the customer. but in this movie, black played the lead, supporting, and the extras.

and the blush

2010-02-09T18:10:00.003-06:00

of a young woman's cheek

now, i don't want to overexcite you, but i have some news: i have found my favorite deodorant. i'd never really had a favorite before {which is surprising, because i definitely have a favorite floss, lotion, and species of tuna [tongol (just kidding-- tongol is delicious, but not only could i not distinguish it from another species of tuna, i couldn't even name another)]}.

anyway, i'm really excited about this! it's pink! not the packaging or the little plastic container/dispenser/vessel, but the actual stuff itself! i don't even know if i've ever seen non-white/clear deodorant before. it's great! but the best part (can you believe it? the fact that it's pink isn't even the best part! this. deodorant. is. GREAT!) is that it complements my perfume! insaaaane! i don't wear perfume daily (mostly because i covet it so much that i want it to last forever), but i absolutely love it. it's lychee & rose and is the closest thing to heaven i believe in. but the deodorant is wild rose! best-looking and best-smelling deodorant across which i've ever come! did i mention it's also clinical protection prescription strength and will supposedly "minimize the visual appearance" of my armpit hair over time?! i'm just floored by how wonderful this deodorant is. i hope you can be happy for me.

revision is one of the exquisite pleasures

2010-02-02T20:59:00.003-06:00

of writing

[revised from the earlier-published first draft]

long-distance romance

snug in my white cotton cave
cell phone held tight to my ear
his voice, through the earpiece
warmer than a blanket of leaves and grass

“i'm your little koala,” i tell him
mm hmm, mm hmm
i can almost feel him nodding, exhaling sharp hmms
like a wet, nudging snout searching for my musk
“but...”

“but what if they try to take me?
i'm an exotic animal, you know”
then i'll... then i'll...
take you
by your pouch, turn you inside out
so you look like a soccer ball
then they won't take you

“but what if they try to kick me?
it only makes sense, you know”
then i'll... then i'll...
autograph you
just before
so you're a collectible
then they won't kick you

“will you sell me on ebay?”
never.

i feel warm, safe
like we’re two bears sharing a hibernation suite
and not 224 miles apart

pleasant-tasting

2010-02-01T17:10:00.002-06:00

nice-appearing objects

so i had this dream last night. i don't remember a ton of the specifics, but part of it was that i had some kind of job that involved working with frosting. maybe i was a baker or a wedding cake decorator or something along those lines, i'm not sure. but at one point in my dream, i met a woman and right away i noticed her fingernails. they weren't painted or especially long/short, they were actually very normal-looking nails. but in the dream, they were really significant to me, and after a while, i asked her "do you work with frosting?" and she was like "yes, i do!" and it turns out that how her nails look gave away the fact that she also had a job that involved working with frosting, just like me. then we compared our nails and realized that we had the same nails (not the exact same nails like a freakish resemblance, but the same color/length/texture/something? it made perfect sense at the time). unbuffed, unpainted nails at about the length that mine get after 2-3 weeks of trimming them as short as possible-- with just a few millimeters of white at the tips.

in keen iambics

2010-01-26T22:31:00.003-06:00

but mild anagram

a friend of mine has several products (toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash) from this one line of dental hygiene products named glister. the name's not bad at all, really. glisten, listerine (which, apparently, was named after a guy named joseph lister), it's one of those brand names which kind of just makes sense (well, enough sense not to think that it's a strange name*). but yeah, it's definitely not one of those products who has a name that makes you think "good god, what on earth were they thinking?"

but the thing is, i have a very persistent habit of figuring out the anagrams of almost every word i see that isn't part of a complete sentence. so product labels, banners/posters, storefront signs, whatever. and, obviously, the longer the anagram, the better. if you can use every letter to form a different word of the same length, that would win you the most points (not that i do this on a point system, but there's always more satisfaction when you can do this). for example:

gradient

some anagrams would be trained, raged, grant, etc. and those are all perfectly fine. i mean, words consisting of more than 4 letters are generally pretty satisfying. but an example of a maximal anagram would be treading. you see what i mean?

now, with glister, there are several anagrams. stile, rile(s), grit(s), lie(s), tries, sire, tier(s), list, lest, rest, get(s), blah blah. but what really keeps me obsessing over this whole thing is that the only complete, 7-letter anagram i can come up with is gristle. and the word itself isn't all that gross. but what it is is just so anti-oral cleanliness to me that the actual name of the product line has come to bother me.

i know it's absolutely ridiculous and that companies aren't going to stress out over all the possible anagrams for their product names, but i mean, look at gristle's definition: a tough, rubbery substance found in meat, especially in meat of poor quality, which is unpleasant to eat. gross, right? i mean, it's definitely not as gross as, say, the surinam toad** (see: nesting), but still. gristle.

*i mean, i guess it rhymes with blister, which is kind of a gross word. but in any case, i imagine that upon seeing the product and its label (i doubt one would come across something that had the product's name and no immediate indication as to what type of product it is), one would think of glisten and listerine before thinking of blister.

**honestly, i get disgusted goosebumps every time i think about it. i did just now, but i'm willing to totally gross myself out and approach borderline nausea in order to make my point

you know i can't hear

2010-01-23T14:30:00.002-06:00

without my glasses

alright. in order to get back into things, a list! a list of things. a list of things i enjoy doing.

wearing big earrings and earbuds - you know, i'm not entirely sure why. maybe i just enjoy wearing a lot of stuff in/on my ears. i think it's because it makes me feel like i have a lot goin' on-- flashy jewelry and a secret personalized soundtrack? 'chu be ten kinds of crazy, katie! (really, though, i have no idea)
discovering a new outfit combination - it's like a lite version of getting new clothes. who knew the green leafy blouse and the cream (creme?) cardigan looked so cute together? i certainly didn't!
reading the tabloid headlines in line at the grocery store - apparently angelina punched brad in the nose and is still walking around in public with his blood on her hand. also, morgan freeman is having a baby with his "step-granddaughter." who knew?
when conversations end just before you need them to - so i don't have to be the one to say "i gotta go" and i still get to move directly from one activity to another without having to wait
when there are a lot of people standing around at the bus stop and the bus stops directly in front of me - makes me feel special. and right (not that there's really a right/wrong way to wait for the bus, but if there were, i would always be right).
applying mascara while my lashes are still slightly damp from the shower - it goes on so smoothly! even more smoothly than it goes on when you first use a new tube of mascara. only then does it go on like it looks like it goes on in commercials.
bustin' out random facts i learn from food network in everyday conversation - it never fails to impress people
figuring out to what demographic(s) products and ads are targeted - probably because it makes me feel a little bit better about being so easily influenced by good commercials
trying on something REALLY cute but a bit too expensive only to find out that it isn't flattering - it sounds kind of backwards, but it's usually a huge relief to find out that the super cute dress/blouse that i really want but can't comfortably afford
eating wheat thins - i mean, who doesn't?

good work is good work wherever it's done

2010-01-08T11:07:00.002-06:00

in a play, a motion picture or television, and that includes commercials

i love ads and commercials. and not even just good ones. i love all kinds. i mean, really appealing/funny/creative ads and commercials are always great-- i'm all about the being impressed, appreciating, and giving kudos. but the thing is, even the bad ones are funny. i mean, i'll admit that the mediocre ads and commercials can get a bit tiresome, but in general, most have at least one interesting element to enjoy. for example, car commercials are probably among the least entertaining, but a lot of times they pick interesting music. and those The General car insurance commercials-- they're for the most part terrible, but they've got that funny little CG general with an old-ass cell phone. so unless i know/think there's something i'd like more on another channel, i never really change the channel when the commercials come on. same thing with radio.

but you now how in sitcoms there's always a moment about three quarters of the way through the episode in which something bad happens-- the wacky scheme goes awry, the characters find out that their scandalous assumption/impression of something/someone is wildly inaccurate, someone reveals bad news at an inopportune moment. that is when i change the channel. i'm not entirely sure why. it's not because it causes me great emotional distress or anything like that. i just don't like to watch it. maybe it's because in the more light-hearted shows, it feels like they're trying to slip a little medicine in with my porridge. if i want medicine, i'll watch the medicine channel, not the porridge channel. stay out of my breakfast, heartfelt moment ambushes.

money is always there

2010-01-05T12:12:00.003-06:00

but the pockets change

PARKA TIME! it's parka time, boys and girls. it's cold enough for me to wear my big, puffy winter coat that makes my top half look way bigger than my bottom half-- and i find it to be beyond amusing (it's that whole i-love-looking-like-a-cartoon-character thing). and because it makes me feel like a cartoon character, i tend to act more like one. and while i'm definitely more likely than the next person to prance/frolic/gambol around on any given day, i'm even more likely to do it when look like a tiny girl on the bottom and louie anderson on top. so i tend to do a lot more romping and cavorting during the cold months.

but another huge, huge plus: pockets! my parka has two zipped outside pockets (L: vaseline lip therapy, bic mini, left glove/mitten; R: keys, pocket knife, right glove/mitten), one velcroed inside cell phone pocket (cell phone, duh!), and a zippered inside breast pocket (wallet). who needs a purse when you're a padded, walking foyer end table (and by "foyer end table" i mean "the place where you put all the little things you always bring with you when you leave the house")? having to start carrying a purse again in the spring is always one of the most annoying things about the season change. that and peeling off my winter skin.

"culture" is everything we don't have to do.

2009-12-26T00:02:00.002-06:00

culture consists of the gratuitous stylistic extras that we add to the things we do have to do.

you have to eat, but you don't have to decorate elaborately prepared curries with silver leaf. you have to move around, but you don't have to dance.

culture is a biological drive for humans. it is not something that we just add on at the end, after we've dealt with all those survival problems, but something we keep doing all the time.
- brian eno

you wouldn't believe the spread at my family's christmas dinner this year. mulled wine, freshly-baked bread from scratch with herb butter; apple slices and baked brie with fig on cracker; egg rolls with rice noodles, fish sauce, and veggies; oven roasted potatoes, asparagus, and carrots; some kind of fancy salad with, like, 10 ingredients; rosemary risotto with fennel, peppers, and a ton of other stuff; tomato and herb soup; macaroni & cheese for the kids; roasted beef tenderloin with sriracha cream sauce; yorkshire pudding; several kinds of christmas cookies, chocolate hazelnut torte, and blueberry pie all from scratch; and MORE.

i mean, holy crap. i didn't even have room to try everything and i still ate so much i ~~felt~~ feel sick. seeing as how gluttony is something "we don't have to do," i must be the most cultured girl on earth tonight. if i weren't still so uncomfortably stuffed (5 hours later), i'd go buy some opera glasses and jodhpurs.

dearest santa claus,

2009-12-25T11:16:00.004-06:00

you know, for the longest time i thought your name was spelled "clause," because without the "e" it just looks like it's missing something.

anyway, i've been a pretty decent girl this year. i don't think i made anyone cry [well, unless you're counting out of jealousy (but seriously, santa, i just can't help that)]. i unplugged my phone charger when not using it. i didn't brag about how many times frankie muniz has tried to get my phone number. i made to sure to clap after classmates' presentations in class. i didn't tell off that rude asian man who works in the microforms media center of the library. i let those nice nigerian princes use my bank account during their time of need. i didn't swipe that fruit and nut bar from the coffee shop, even though it would have been so easy and the wrapper was just the prettiest, most colorful thing i'd seen in a while (i didn't want to eat it, really, i just wanted the wrapper). basically i've just been a total sweetheart this year, santa.

anyway, while my life is pretty damn good, i suppose i have a couple requests i could make. i mean, if i were 100% satisfied with life, i'd set my time manipulator to "perpetual" and that would be that. anyway, help a sister out, santa:

- a way to figure out how hot my food/drink is without actually having to just try it first and burning the crap out of my tongue, making the meal so much less enjoyable given that i can no longer taste.
- a cobbler to put regular shoe/boot soles on northface's tent mule bootie slippers. i'd pay a rather hefty sum for a pair of those babies.
- i'm not even going to ask for a dog, because apparently you made up your mind 10 years ago that i don't deserve one.
- a toaster oven forever stocked with garlic bread and a cooler forever stocked with grapefruit juice
- tickets to one of the lady gaga concerts in chicago-- please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please. i've already posted plea haikus on facebook, begging for tickets. help me, santa claus. you're my only hope.
- more dancing in 2010

alright, so if any of that's do-able, i'd def appreciate. thanks, yo!

love,
katie

it's a good thing to do

2009-12-09T23:28:00.003-06:00

and a tasty way to do it

ohhhh, man, i had an awesome breakfast this morning. first i finished off what was remaining of my peanut butter crunch (complete with peanut buttery cereal dust from the bottom of the bag*) in some skim milk. but then-- then-- i added some banana nut crunch to the now peanutty milk and VOILÀ! d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s-to-the-tasty-degree! i've never been a huge cereal mixer (unlike my dad, who pours, combines, and eats any and all kinds of cereal indiscriminately), but this peanut butter milk with banana nut crunch has earned itself a spot on my list of favorite breakfasts ever (and that includes the classic saltines & water, so this is really sayin' something).

*cereal box bags {that come in a box [not those big, floppy sacks filled with "generic" cereals (whose names are always questionably similar to those of the "name brands"¹) that are stacked like sandbags on the bottom shelves of the cereal aisle]} are pretty tight. they're the perfect degree of stiff-- they hold their form when you pour out the cereal, they're very easily rolled up, and they totally remain in the rolled-up, closed position 'til the next time your tummy rumbles and says to you "put some cereals in me!"

¹i'm no breakfast cereal elitist, really. i'm sure they all taste fairly similar, if not exactly the same (although i must admit that i don't really know because those bags are such a huge turn-off for me that i always get the boxed brands).

break, break, break

2009-12-07T11:33:00.002-06:00

on thy cold grey stones

given the sudden and shocking transition to winter weather [last tuesday it got up to 50°F, last friday it did not surpass 25°F (and that's not even taking windchill into account], it has gotten drastically more difficult to get out of the shower. the temperature difference between the shower and the rest of the tiny bathroom is insane-- every time i go to dry off i feel like i'm on some kind of "fear factor" show in which i have to do something i really, really, really don't want to do (because, well, it's mild physical torture) for a reward (which happens to be not stranding myself in the shower, something that really doesn't even look so desirable in these desperate and vulnerable moments spent by myself).

a hungry man

2009-12-05T12:37:00.003-06:00

is not a free man

okay, so apparently the lost thought about which i wrote the other day did in fact have to do with a somewhat regular part of my walk to class, because i remembered it. in hindsight, it's really not all that amusing. for some reason, when i walk to class in the morning i smell... charcoal? like, barbecue charcoal as if someone were grilling something outside at 9am on a weekday during very chilly weather. i don't know, maybe my neighbors enjoy partaking in a daily morning hamburger or short ribs. who am i to judge?

anyway, smelling the charcoal made me think about the different choices as to grills (charcoal, gas, "the grate debate") and basically my thought consisted of making a joke of how instead of using traditional grill heating methods, i tend to cook my meat over piles of burning incriminating documents. i guess the joke would have included an acknowledgement of the speediness with which paper burns, but then i would have gone further to imply that i simply have so many incriminating documents that their rapid burn speed just wouldn't be an issue.

^this^ is new. i've never before written about how a joke might have gone down. i've certainly mentioned misplaced thoughts in the past, but usually by the time i remember them i figure they're still interesting enough to just be written about as if they weren't the ones that had been forgotten. the explanation/summary of the grill joke was pretty dry, and lacked punchline. i hereby indict myself on the sole charge of ruining my own joke.

...[trial trial trial]...

verdict: guilty.
sentence: having to write up, print out, and burn as many fake incriminating documents as it will take to grill a steak*.

i lost my lip balm the other day :[ it fell out of my pocket. i really hate how some pockets are more of an L shape rather than a J shape. you know what i mean? the J pocket has the little up-turn part so that things can't just slide horizontally out of the pocket, like they can with the L pocket. it's just a really bad design-- L pockets are useless because unless you never swivel your torso or lean even the slightest bit from one side to another, your pocket keepings will all fall out. and that's how i lost my lip balm. because of a stupid L pocket.

anyway, since i rarely lose things**, i get really upset the rare times i do. like, really upset. i think it has something to do with the fact that somehow there's a hole in my a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place system. it's through those little holes that the spiders and the cold winter wind sneak into my world. but really, losing the lip balm was really the worst. losing things like lip balm and other cosmetic/personal hygiene products is always particularly upsetting. i had never really thought about by why this is, but i've figured it out (and only ended up sacrificing 80,000 brain cells in the process).

while we don't necessarily think about our lost things in terms of them being found, taken, and used by other people, this is exactly why my lost lip balm really got to me. it was more than half a tube of nice lip balm with spf 15 and all natural ingredients. but it's almost guaranteed that even if it's found by someone who considers it a quality product, that it won't get used. i mean, seriously, who uses lip balms they find on the ground in a public place? it just sounds like a really bad, gross idea. and that's why it sucked so much to have lost it. not only do i not get to use it myself anymore, it's totally going to waste because no one else is going to use it.

it's just not the same with things like scarves or necklaces, because it could very easily and most likely be the case that upon being found, they'll be taken and used-- and not go to waste. and while of course i don't necessarily like the idea of someone taking and using my lost goods, it's certainly not as bad as imagining my awesome lip balm lying on the ground in the cold, getting dirty looks by passersby who are bitter because they don't know if it'll give them cold sores or not (a definitive not).

it's kind of the same thing with throwing away food. i hate throwing away food. i've self food-poisoned more than once for being stubborn about not throwing away food that may have gone bad. but in any case, while i really hate wasting money, what really pains me when it comes to throwing away food is that i'm throwing away calories and nutrients that other people in the world could seriously use right about now. and i know that my eating expired food won't in any way ease the hunger of others on another continent (or even those within my own city, for that matter), but still. it just makes me feel crummy.

*i was really gonna run with this joke, but it was all a bunch of semi-disgusting, steak-related nonsense that didn't really add all that much to the joke. this is an example of me editing, something of which i imagine i don't do nearly enough.

**if you always keep everything in their designated places, it's much more difficult to lose things because you're always aware of where everything is at all times. it might be a bit "anal," but there's nothing wrong with knowing where your belongings are at all time. life's just rendered easier this way.

how many sides on a stop sign?

2009-12-01T17:08:00.003-06:00

that's just a little too close to the number of judges on the supreme court for this citizen!

... dangst. i totally thought of something today that made me say to myself "you know, katie, you could totes* blog about that." but then i foolishly let other things fill my head and they displaced whatever peanut planet-worthy idea i had earlier. it occurred to me when i was walking to class this morning. maybe, if it had to do with something in the regular scenery, its memory will be sparked tomorrow morning. but if it was triggered by a unique moment, it may be lost forever. let us bow our heads and engage in a moment of silence for the potentially lost idea.

... [not actually silent, because i'm streaming the current. still, i mourn.]...

okay. well, let's move onto more pertinent things, such as my mad chapped lips. i don't know what happened, but i have been using insane amounts of lip balm lately. maybe i should just buy a pair of those novelty wax lips, fill them with powerful moisturizing salve, and just wear them. on a side note, upon visiting the kiehl's website, i discovered something called imperiale repairateur moisturizing eye balm. what the eff?

*okay, so i know it sounds very... adolescent girl¹. but i happen to find these absurd shortenings of words to be endlessly amusing and fun to use, so back off.

¹using non-adjectives as adjectives is a fun adventure in linguistics! and let's be honest, i just need these kinds of things in my life.

y'like whatcha see? y'like?

2009-11-27T10:28:00.002-06:00

i liiiike, i liiiike

i find that whenever i've cleaned my room, the most satisfying moment is when i go to bed that night. i'm not exactly sure why, but it's definitely better than the moment in which i've actually finished the cleaning or even the moment in which i return to the room for the first time since having cleaned it. it might have something to do with the comforting thought that when i get up in the middle of the night, i won't have to think about what's on the floor, where it's all located, or how to best tip-toe my way through it so as to not carelessly destroy anything (my glass shard collection is very dear to me and i would just die were i to sully its crystalline purity with blood and bits of pedoflesh*).

*okay, so it's not a medical term, but it makes sense-- as long as you make sure your brain is set to latin and not greek. otherwise it just sounds rather gross.

gracias por el pan

2009-11-26T12:09:00.002-06:00

y un día más

happy day, everybody! oh, yes, it's the number one holiday of all time-- the 53rd anniversary of the television premier of beloved american game show "the price is right"! such a time of joy for my family and me. i don't know how you guys normally celebrate, but we like to get together with all our relatives and roast a turkey. but before the feast can commence, we have a mini-round of yelling at each other and guessing how much each of the dishes on the table cost (one year we forgot to designate a bob barker and it went on for hours*). it's always very exciting. the only prizes are the foods themselves, but i probably get much more use out of a plate of mashed potatoes than a new car (not that i'm bitter or anything). how does your family celebrate "the price is right"s birthday?

oh, you fool! that was entirely in jest! i don't even like "the price is right"! i'm much more of a "jeopardy" girl. freshman year my french322 buddy would tell me about how he watched "the price is right" all the time. i thought it was just so weird. he was, like... 20. and you know how every once in a while you find something out (the meaning of a word, a new music artist, a trick to preparing a certain dish, etc.), and then immediately afterward it seems to just becomes present everywhere? like everybody already knew about it and you just had no idea? well, after my french buddy told me about his affinity for "the price is right" i found out just how popular it was among people my age-- it's pretty freakin' popular. i still don't understand it. i can't watch it. there's just no point to it?! man, i better calm down before i grab a baguette and snap it over my knee.

but yeah, thanksgiving!!!! my favorite holiday. family and food, family and food, family and food. and thankfulness! that's right, poppets, it's list time!

things for which i am a thankful little pilgrim
my parents' house - free laundry room access, always perfectly heated in the chilly months, always with yummy vietnamese food, and abundant in computer monitors so big my brother can't even game on them because he has to move his head to survey the whole map
$14.99 haircuts at fantastic sam's - i got my ears satisfactorily lowered yesterday and got to eavesdrop on all the awkward hairdresser/patron smalltalk conversations
catchy pop music - i just freakin' love pop music.
alton brown's "good eats" on food network - i've been watching this show since freshman year of high school. really, how could you go wrong with a charismatic foodie nerd who makes jokes about food science? simply impossible.
my mom :]
my dad :]
shoeboxes - honestly, not only do shoes come in them (major plus right there), but they're just the most astoundingly perfect size. seriously, nobody throws out shoeboxes, because everybody knows that they always-- always-- come in handy later on.
peanut planet - you'd think that after spending over 7 years alone with myself on a planet named after a food that i don't even particularly like, i'd be really depressed, dead, or crazy by now. interestingly enough, i'd say that peanut planet has kept me in high spirits, very much alive, and well-grounded. i mean, where else am i going to release these absurd jokes about DBBs**?
instant phở - a veritable culinary treasure. god bless woodman's for carrying it.
getting my sense of smell back just before thanksgiving - i've had a little cold for the past week. i can't even imagine how sad i'd be if i couldn't smell the feast. i just might cry fat, gravy tears. how poetic and disgusting.

happy thanksgiving, kids!

*by the time we realized our mistake, the food was all cold and somebody had put a fist through the pumpkin pie in a fit of price-is-right rage. we don't invite that uncle to celebrate with us anymore.

**designated bob barkers, duh

when i do, i become cool

2009-11-15T12:00:00.007-06:00

i get respect automatically
when i do, you music fools cannot deny credibility

oh, man, our neighborhood has a ton of squirrels. never have i been somewhere that had such an abundance of squirrels. in the tree outside my bedroom window, in the backyard, trying on my high heel shoes and putting on my makeup when they think i've left the apartment, they're everywhere. i really wonder what they eat around here. they're rather robust little things.

last summer at camp, my favorite pair of shoes i've ever owned got mad busted and i had to throw them out (but not before continuing to wear them in denial, brushing off comments that each shoe had a hole in it big enough for me to actually put my foot through). they were a pair of maroon chucks (photo taken 12/2007) that i got sophomore year of high school. over a year and 4 months later, i have finally decided on the color of my next pair. it was a very taxing decision and i've considered every single option. i've combed the internets in search of special, rare, hard-to-find, limited edition colors and patterns to ensure that i make like spike lee and "do the right thing." for a while i even considered other options (i bought a pair of ecosneaks made from hemp, organic cotton, and recycled car tire. it just wasn't the same, though).

i loved those maroon chucks. they lasted 5 years and were sweet to me like john c. reilly's sweet to renée zellweger in "chicago" the movie (the poor cuckold). but the mourning period has concluded and it's time for me to move on. at this very moment i anxiously await the arrival of what i hope to be my next favorite pair of shoes of all time: my new chucks in "blue surf". i feel like an adoptive parent awaiting the arrival of a new child. i hope i love them. i'm pretty sure i will. excited! can't wait to get 'em dirty.

grilled cheese is the great diplomat of snacks:

2009-11-12T00:14:00.003-06:00

it pleases everyone

... not that this post actually has anything to do with grilled cheese sandwiches (if only, right?). usually i write the post and then look for an interesting text written about something upon which i've touched. but this time i just came across that little line about grilled cheese and really liked it. this whole title-first,-post-body-second thing might end up seriously upsetting the overall balance in my life, but the metaphor was too rich to pass up. i'm a sucker for literary tropes involving food.

if youtube could tell you how many times i've watched the music video for lady gaga's "bad romance" you would probably scoff in disbelief. i'd be okay with that, though, because i most likely wouldn't even be paying attention to you, due to the fact that the video's actually playing right now and i've been straight rapt in awe since i first saw it this afternoon. gaga got me buggin'.

the time to repair the roof

2009-11-07T15:52:00.001-06:00

is when the sun is shining

i was walking home this afternoon and saw this white van in the driveway of one of the neighbor's houses. it looked kind of like an electrician's/plumber's/cable guy's van, but the logo design on the side of it said "FULL SPECTRUM SOLAR." it was really curious and very exciting. another house on our street already has solar panels on the roof, and it looks like the trend's catching on. ¡viva el alternative energy movement! now if only i can find a way to power my computer using apple cores. apple cores currently make up more than half the contents of my bedroom waste bin. it's apple season.

but i was thinking of a plan

2009-11-06T14:38:00.002-06:00

to dye one's whiskers green

sitting on the couch on a friday afternoon in the sunny 4-season porch of a living room with "malcolm in the middle" on tv, a netbook in my lap, and lunch in my tummy! i have so many reasons to be content right now. and i am. content. and of course, there are many, many things that could make this moment marginally-much more enjoyable, but you can't let an active imagination compromise your happiness. it's during moments like this that you say to your imagination, "tame yourself! let reason take the helm right now. reason just wants to appreciate life, and as soon as you let him do that, we will all be much happier. i promise!"

in other news, i have more than half a bottle of odwalla (original superfood! it's my favorite color-- green! man, i love green) left over from tuesday (fret not, it's been saved with care in our cold storage closet). i'm gonna get a straw out of the cupboard, shake up that healthy, [overpriced,] green elixir, and sip it slowly until i've relocated the entire contents of that [sadly plastic] bottle to the exotic locale that is my tummy*. welcome to gastric paradise, antioxidants! i know you'll be very happy here.

*two references to food/nutrients in my tummy in one post! oh, what a luxurious life i live.

or i can go mad

2009-11-05T16:49:00.002-06:00

by ricocheting in between

i was washing the dishes a couple hours ago, and maybe 10 minutes into it i realized that my abs were kind of sore. at first i had no clue what the hell was going on, but then i stopped scrubbing for a second and realized that for some weird reason i had been flexing my abs the whole time? i don't even know. so i quickly sucked in and puffed out my tummy a few times in order to loosen up and got back to washing the dishes. a few minutes later... sore again! how come? more subconscious flexing of my abs! bizarre, right? it happened a couple more times 'til i just gave up and let 'em do what they wanted. but it's definitely never happened before and it just perplexes me.

oh, man, there has been so much sun this week. it's been f-a-b, FABULOUS! the sunlight does wonders for a girl's disposition. sunlight:my mood::pockets:skirts/dresses. incredible overall improvement! oh, man. just plain great.

i got to include links to a rokysopp music video and photos of a fancy tea party in my french lit/film paper today. i'm just gonna say, my cinematic interpretation of nathalie sarraute's tropismes would be a bombass work of art. it'd sell more theater tickets than a quentin tarantino-directed "seinfeld" reunion. mark my words. mark 'em!

lovers, forget your love

2009-11-03T21:24:00.006-06:00

and list to the love of these She a window flower and he a winter breeze

things at which i'm really good but that will never really help me get ahead in life:
(three of these are false in one sense or another. i may or may not reveal which ones.)

- putting/assembling the dishes in the drying rack in positions most conducive to quick drying
- waking up 10 minutes before my alarm goes off*
- putting together and naming non-ostentatiously themed everyday outfits
- staggering the consumption of seasonal candy so that it lasts until the next candy-charged holiday
- justifying/rationalizing unnecessary but reasonable purchases (also, some mildly unreasonable ones ;)
- closing bottles and jars really tightly
- knowing what actors were in films/television programs i've never actually seen
- bop-it (both the original and extreme)
- doing gilbert gottfried impressions
- cradling my drink for a while and then finishing it off in one fell gulp just before anyone else finishes theirs
- sleeping with my eyes open

*i am one of the most jumpy people alive. i'm ridiculously easily startled. most people think it's really funny, but the truth is that it can be pretty stressful. if for some strange reason i actually do sleep up until my morning alarm, when it goes off (at the lowest volume setting) my heart jolts like i've been struck by lightning. no joke. my heart rate doesn't go down to normal for 10 minutes. it's incredibly physically stressful. i just have to lie in bed and try to calm myself down for 10 minutes. it's exhausting. i really don't like alarms.

the secret anniversaries

2009-11-01T19:15:00.002-06:00

of the heart

'allo, poppets! so, my 3rd favorite holiday is over. but, my favorite holiday is next! people are always curious as to why thanksgiving is my favorite. i imagine they think something like

thanksgiving = christmas - presents
presents = bomb*
∴ thanksgiving < christmas

but that's the thing. presents are definitely fun to give and receive, but christmas presents are different than just... presents. finding presents with a deadline is incredibly stressful for me. i'm much more of the school of no-matter-when-it-is-or-where-you-are,-if-you-see-something-you-think-your-friend/family-member-would-enjoy,-buy-it-and-give-it-to-him/her-the-next-time-you-see-each-other. it just makes more sense that way. but when there's a time limit and that time limit just so happens to be right after finals, present buying becomes a stressful chore and no longer an enjoyable hey,it-made-me-think-of-you! experience. what i'm saying is that the unexpectedly found and unexpectedly received gifts are always the best-- thoughtful, personal, and a surprise!

but thanksgiving, oh, thanksgiving. thanksgiving is pure food and family. there is nothing more to thanksgiving than food and family. and is there anything greater than that? i really don't think so. and it just makes you so happy. no stress, just sharing, loving, and eating. it's great! every year i write several november posts about how much i love thanksgiving. i just freakin' love it!

if you're wondering what my 2nd favorite holiday is, it's birthdays (in general). i mean, every single person has one day of the year on which he/she is just celebrated. and not because of academic/professional accomplishments, physical beauty, financial wealth, or having made humanitarian efforts, but simply because that person is who he/she is and we love him/her. and there are parties, songs, drinking, fancy clothes, and excitement! and all because the birthday boy/girl just... is. it's great. everybody's own personal holiday. i love celebrating my birthday, i love celebrating friends' birthdays, i love telling people "happy birthday!" birthdays are just pure good energy.

*the word "bomb" represents a positive value... duh

cogito ergo

2009-10-28T21:54:00.003-05:00

legis

i think that...

... "undies" is one of the cutest words around
... it's weird when bigger, rounder girls wear boots that make their feet look tiny
... i want to apply for an internship with "this american life"
... i definitely burned my tongue on the scalding chocolate
... less than 5% of "that's what she said" jokes are actually funny
... taylor swift is an undeniably fabulous role model for young girls
... they should just stop making banana-flavored products (popsicles, runts candies, laffy taffy)-- nobody likes them as much as something should need to be liked to be packaged along with blue raspberry, strawberry, cherry, etc.
... the compliments you've never heard/thought of before are the best ones
... posting only the most flattering photos possible of yourself doesn't really help anyone out, not even you
... doughnuts are best without glaze or frosting of any kind
... julie andrews has got to be the classiest lady alive
... SNL might not be as funny as it used to be, but it still makes me laugh

it's summing up someone's lifework

2009-10-24T12:17:00.005-05:00

as a mental oddity

i'm gonna make myself some macaroni & cheese* after i publish this post! how's that for incentive? oh, man, i have instilled in myself a great desire to finish this. i bet this is how monks and nuns have so much self-discipline. they probably think to themselves "okay, i'll just recite these prayers 500 more times and then i can indulge in a cup of instant ramen**." cleanliness may be next to godliness, but i'm a freakin' blogging nun.

i was out with a friend taking a walk around the neighborhood this week. and it wasn't too late, it was maybe 21:30 or so, but it was still dark out. anyway, we pass by this house in which the 4-season front porch had been converted to a bedroom (it was cool-- 3 walls composed almost entirely of windows!). the room was well-lit and there was a guy in it on his computer. and when i first saw it, i felt like i was totally intruding on his privacy because it was dark outside and he was just sitting in this little glowing box right on the street for everyone to see. it looked cool, though. like an art exhibit*** or something.

anyway, we kept walking and as we move past we check out his monitor to see what he was doing/working on. and he's playing bejeweled! it was so... fun! here he was, in his pretty, golden, illuminated box that was just so visible and he was just hangin' out, playing bejeweled! it made me feel like i was witnessing a private moment. it felt intimate. it was cool.

*i like using the ampersand when talking about macaroni & cheese. some things that a) are wonderful, and b) always go together are just more fun with the symbol rather than the word. like peanut butter & jelly or... socks & sandals! juuuust kidding. "she's kidding, right?" uhh... i think so.

**other food ideas that came to mind were chicken quesadillas and hummus with pita bread. i don't know why. do men and women of the cloth not eat very rich foods? i mean, i know ascetic monks probably don't treat themselves to ferrero rocher after nightly steak dinners, but is a modest diet really part of their monastic vows?

***when i was younger, i spent a decent amount of time at the minneapolis institute of arts. one of the visiting exhibits that i'll always remember was a kitchen that was covered-- every square centimeter-- in beads. so shiny! what really stood out to me as an 8-year-old girl was the box of cap'n crunch. apparently it's by an artist named liza lou. check out more of her work here¹.

¹links!!

the work goes on

2009-10-18T12:17:00.004-05:00

the cause endures

i had a dream last night in which my brother and i were trying to attend an AA meeting in a fantastic sam's. apparently we showed up at the wrong time and/or missed it. there was a tiny little spigot and hose* sticking out of the reception desk a couple feet up from the floor. there was also a little basket of face soaps. i picked a pretty, semi-transparent, amber-colored bar and washed my face with it. i used the hose to rinse off the suds. one of the women working there had a memory of me as a child. from what i remember, she recalled the memory like someone who took care of me at daycare would remember it. one of those "oh, remember what silly thing katie did as a toddler? it was so cute!" kinds of things. she definitely looked like she was in her 20s or [early] 30s, though, so i don't know how dream-me rationalized that.

*kind of like those little methane faucets and tubes in chemistry labs. it looked very much like this.

all looks yellow

2009-10-14T21:44:00.002-05:00

to a jaundiced eye

although both my brother and i were born with jaundice (not uncommon in asian newborns), i would say that i've never really seen someone with jaundice... until today. and i am so solemnly serious when i tell you that even though i've never seen jaundice firsthand, i am 99.999999% sure that the woman i saw today has jaundice. when you were a kid, did you ever take dandelions and rub the blossoms on your skin? you know how a bunch of yellow rubs off? that was what it looked like all over her face and hands. it. was. so. YELLOW. i mean, my god, i knew that the skin of people with jaundiced took on a yellow tinge, but hello this woman had yellow skin. and i really don't mean this to come off all "holy crap, what a freak. get that thing out of my sight." but it was really just so shocking. her skin was so yellow. yellow's one of my favorite colors.

it sounds kind of backwards, but sometimes when i've been aimlessly flitting around the internets, not being productive, publishing a post helps me to get focused enough to start studying/doing homework. it makes me feel like i've done something. i mean, at the very least i've written a minute's worth of mild entertainment for those who read my blog. also, every post you publish in your blog is further honing of your writing skills! so... you should probably blog more/start a blog. seriously, if i were to run for office blog promotion would be a major platform. and i promise to read each and every one of my constituents' blogs. vote for me and i'll even comment on your posts.

recently discovered the wonder of space heaters. oh, my. what a delight! add space heaters to my list of things that are great. other items on my list of things that are great:

my new faux-fur lined flats from target - slippers on the inside, shoes on the outside! definitely better than most things.
my uncle justin - no one sends out more unintentionally (i think?) hilarious emails than cau dung [justin's his english name, "cau" means uncle (more specifically younger-brother-of-my-mother), and dung is his name in vietnamese].
when professors totally own annoying know-it-alls - i probably enjoy this more than i should, but it's just so gratifying.
hot chocolate - i'm not a huge chocophile, but it's really amazing how it warms you up.
unexpected compliments from strangers - the most flattering and sincere of compliments. the reason why i like complimenting strangers.
mindless simple math - like long division. so mechanical.

suck up

2009-10-11T18:19:00.003-05:00

or shut up

you ever look around class during a lecture or something and somebody's got this intense look on his/her face and is just nodding? like, you get the idea that he/she wants you to know that yes, he/she does understand what the professor's saying and that he/she finds it so interesting and poignant that he/she can truly identify with it. and that he/she is just so emphatic that he/she needs to physically express how much it rings true with him/her? i don't know, i just find it rather pretentious. i mean, it's one thing to nod a lot during a conversation to show that you get what the other person's trying to tell you. but to do it during a lecture/class? != cool.

the same goes for people who laugh too much at professors' not-very-funny jokes (especially if it's in a language class). like, it's definitely possible that the rest of the class understands them and just doesn't think they're all that funny. and don't get me wrong-- credit where credit is due and i end up laughing at professors' jokes quite a bit (i'm rather thankful i've gotten such funny professors). but when they're just not very funny and somebody starts LOLing, i always get a kind of "ugh" feeling. it's like the kid's simultaneously bragging and sucking up. keep yer forced chuckles in yer belly!

we all know about blogs

2009-10-10T11:14:00.002-05:00

and how big they are

you guys, i had the best dream last night (and yes, it was so absolutely fabulous it merits italicization and emboldening). in it, peanut planet had been nominated for a BLOGGIE!! i was so incredibly excited and telling everyone i knew! i mean, it wasn't up for any of the real bloggies, but what was supposedly a lesser-known, lesser-published, but still bloggie-sanctioned category that was "best observation". it's half ridiculous, but i was just so happy in my dream. imagine! peanut planet winning a bloggie! also, while i'm pretty sure that peanut planet was referred to as "peanut planet," i think he was also called by another name in the dream, although i don't really remember what it was. i think it was two words, the first word shorter and beginning with "s" ("so"? maybe) and the second a longer one starting with "c" (and possibly ending with the letter "y").

anyway, it was probably all that nobel peace prize talk yesterday. some people's dreams include receiving global recognition for bringing peace to mankind. mine involves winning a virtual award for noticing things around me and publishing my thoughts on them on the internet. seriously, though, it's one of my lifetime goals/dreams. winning a bloggie is totally one of those i-can-now-die-a-happy-blogger things for me.

i got one of those great wouldn't-that-be-fun ideas the other day! picture it: scrabble on the beach! just imagine. sitting out on a picnic blanket on the sand with a scrabble board. ohh, heaven. soakin' up sun, exercising your temporal lobe, takin' a dip between turns (it's a fairly slow-moving game if you're intense enough). oh, it sounds diviiiine! anybody up for a game of beach scrabble when it gets warmer? let's all get us some vitamin D and some cerebral stimulation!

from sexy lips

2009-10-02T00:10:00.002-05:00

come sexy sentences

guess what be burnin' less than 2 feet away from me on my little bedside table? that's right! it's a febreze apple spice & delight candle! ohh, autumn! it's been chilly and wet and chillywet, but it hasn't gotten me down*! it's fall in the midwest and i just love me some distinct seasons! i mean, holy crap this cold and wind came outta nowhere! just this past saturday night laura and i were goin' out, walkin' to the bars, at night, 1.9 miles away and we had no jackets! i was wearing a flimsy, lace, short-sleeved blouse over a camisole and open-toed, slingback wedges! and laura was wearing a denim mini, open-toed pumps, and a thin sweater!** and we were totally fine walking outside a bunch. in fact, while walking on the way to our first destination of the night we actually got pretty warm and were like "it's warmer out tonight than i thought! i'm gettin' pretty hot!" to each other.

but yeah, then all of a sudden on monday it's dropped, like, 14 degrees and it's gotten windy as hell. i swear, biking to class on monday morning was absolutely teeeerrible. it just really, really sucked. hell, biking all day on monday was totally shitty. and it's been so freaking chilly all week. people have been talking about it a lot, too. but i've been bustin' out my chilly weather clothes and i've been lovin' it.

i got to wear a short-sleeved, turtleneek sweater and skinny jeans on tuesday! it was ballin'. i even wore my new cotton maryjanes that are, like, striped grey and really pale yellow. but it was so tight 'cause my sweater was grey, and because it was a turtleneck i didn't get to wear a necklace (and i always wear a necklace***), but instead i got to wear my big, special, attention-grabbing headband that has a huge, gold flower on it (i always get a lot of comments/compliments when i wear it, but because it's so noticeable, i can't wear it as often as i can wear my less flashy headbands). and the grey stripes on my shoes matched my sweater and the yellow stripes matched my headband!

AND MY BLACK SKINNY JEANS MATCHED MY HAIR (seriously, it sounds stupid, but it totally factors into how i dress and what i can get away with wearing-- belive me!).

I ALSO HAD GOLD EARRINGS THAT HAVE THESE BIG, GREY STONES (TO MATCH EVERYTHING FREAKING ELSE).

"damn it feels good to be a gangster."

*and i had to bike home from a pretty distant library after dark today while it was fuh-reezing and totally raining super icy raindrops. NOT fun.

**laura and i wore each other's tops that night-- it was super fun & cute. i love having one of my best friends as my roommate!!

***actually, i always wear a lot of jewelry. at any given moment, i'm wearing two bracelets, belly, at least 3 earrings per ear (4 when i'm, well, awake), a necklace, and more?! up until my anklet finally disintegrated after almost 2 years, i was wearing one or two anklets at any given time, too (you can't just take off a friendship anklet-- you gotta wear it 'til it gives. i even wore it when i was an usherette ;D at my cousin's wedding, even though by then it had lost a lot of color and had a really worn-out look to it.). man, i'm just a crazy¹ jewelry freak.

¹i'm just a crazy recite-a-list-of-the-things-i-wear freak tonight. MAN.

for I cannot but ascribe...

2009-09-30T23:32:00.004-05:00

... to some superhumanly the existence of beings vast enough to wear blue pajamas at the very moment when they manifest themselves as universal conscience.

i have 28 more minutes to get a post in and still have it fall under the september 2009 folder of my archives! it's a deadline, man! i better have this on the boss' desk by midnight or my goose is cooked. and i totally need this job to fund my dream of being the first girl to ride a segway across the country. it's not cheap, you know. you know what segways use as fuel? i bet you don't. i'll tell you what they use-- they use fine spanish ceramic tiles crushed up into a powder and mixed with sierra mist. you know how expensive a gallon of that is? i mean, come on.

anyway, i'm about to change into some deliciously comfy pajamas. big, loose boxers, flannel pajama pants, old tshirt, worn-in-soft sweatshirt, and thick slipper socks with tiny rubber pads on the bottom for traction. i can't wait. i just melt when i get to wear my warm weather pajamas. and i love how nothing matches, either. the boxers are blue plaid; the pajama pants are light pink with tiny purple stars; the tshirt is an old, forest green minnesota wild hockey shirt; the sweatshirt is a heather grey st. thomas sweatshirt with that big, fancy insignia and college-y font; and the socks are charcoal grey with a little yellow dog on each one and little purple rubber pads on the soles of them in the shapes of paw prints.

okay, so i'm gonna go change now. jewelry, jeans, and a bra are just not comfortable right now. i want to cocoon myself in layers and layers of old, soft fabrics.

oh, no

2009-09-27T23:20:00.003-05:00

i got to keep on movin'

man, i could totally be writing something up about "surfaces and structures in robbe-grillet's novels" right now, but i choose blogging instead. i'm a liberated woman and i do what i want. that's right. i'm gonna wear pants and get a job and leave my kids in daycare for a few hours a day [i went to daycare full-time from 2 months until 2nd grade (well, after-school from kindergarten on) and i freakin' loved it*]. 'cause i'm free to live my life the way i choose. ain't nothin' gonna break-a my stride. nobody's gonna slow me down.

*the only bad part about daycare was that our parents were usually the last to pick us up 'cause they worked later than the other kids' parents. but andy and i always had each other to play with when the other kids left

children, wake up

2009-09-26T18:33:00.002-05:00

hold your mistake up

i know it's been out for a while, but i just gotta say what a fabulous choice they made for the music track of the "where the wild things are" trailer. if given the task of making the decision, i doubt i would've come up with arcade fire, but it is really just so good. like how rokysopp's "remind me" was in that geico caveman commercial a few years ago-- excellent choice. every once in a while you hear a really weird one. like, i heard flaming lips in a salad dressing commercial once. also, outback steakhouse must've bought the rights to and totally ripped off an of montreal song.

i very my dislike when professors begin class before it officially begins. i have this professor who always starts class early. and i don't think she necessarily does it on purpose, but what i think usually happens is that people get there early, somebody asks her a random question about the reading or something, she explains it, and then she just keeps on talking and ends up starting the class. and it's really lame 'cause even when i get to class on time*, i feel like i'm late because a bunch of students are already seated and teacher's got her powerpoint up and is already explaining the slides. i don't know if it's her subversive way of protesting the fairly short, 50-minute class periods, but i am most certainly not the man to whom she should be sticking it.

*something about which i always feel especially proud. i'm a chronic late arriver. i just grossly misjudge and mismanage time.

come on, chemicals

2009-09-24T00:10:00.002-05:00

nina twin is trying to help

you have no idea how much i should be doing research right now rather than writing a post. and i don't even have a really good new pun i've been waiting to share with you. if you want, i could totally try to think one up right now. okay, i'm going to start brainstorming... NOW. ...[over 8 minutes pass]... geez, well, this is embarrassing. i honestly spent over 8 minutes doing absolutely nothing (no web surfing, no eating, no chatting, no tapestry-weaving, no nothing) but trying to come up with a share-worthy pun and the best i could come up with had to do with setting a pokémon on fire. i'm not even going to validate its existence by typing it out and giving it real life words. it'll remain a lifeless puppet-- like all the other puppets in geppetto's toy shop who weren't chosen to be real boys and girls. that is how my pathetic pun attempt will remain. crude, dead, wooden sculptures made to look like caricatures of human children, but left to collect dust high on the shelves of the magic, fanciful toy shop that is my imagination.

oh, man, i'm in it deep.