so i don't seem quite so neurotic

today we had a really great day. looked for a great place to see a classy easter concert (think symphony) but no luck. so we made our own easter celebration by getting Whatever We Wanted at whole foods for a picnic lunch, which we then took to henry cowell over in felton.

incidentally i am sad to report that the a&w that used to be on hwy 9 is now a chinese restaurant. i like chinese, but a&w! dying breed.

anyway, we had a great time. yum yum yummy food followed by a walk among the redwoods and along the river. pearl loooves being in nature, maybe as much as i do, and so a couple of times we would run ahead and then run back to min. because if you're outside, hello, you have to run sometimes because you're so happy.

later there was carrot cake and toffee crunch (!) cookies. i'll try to flickr the couple pics i took today. those of you who've seen my recent shots will know that they look best in the thumbnail view. click to see blurry versions! but still, it lets me remember the moment, so i'm grateful for the geek appliance just the same.

at home tonight there was puttering followed by a very tasty dinner involving one of my favorite vegetables while watching some dr. katz on dvd. hot damn that show is still funny.

ok 'night, intarweb.

retread

tonight i was reminded about a story i heard the other day. a story about someone for whom i care very much, a story involving (minor) emotional hurt to them. i didn't comment much at the time, but all i could think was: we really blew it, didn't we?

and that just sucks. it sucks that 99.999% of the time, i would say i've moved on. life is SO much better than it was. but that .001% of the time, when i miss her? goddamn it bites.

ok i promise that's it.

these dreams

as some of you may recall, many moons ago i started a writing blog for myself, to keep track of the little writing snippets my brain decided to come up with. and yes i put it that way because often the scenes will come to me, as they say, inexplicably and without method.

for example, waiting in my car at a stoplight, the smell of someone smoking the same brand of cigarettes as my paternal grandmother will send a rush of half-baked memories and ideas into my head. thankfully i was only a block from my destination at the time so i could scribble furiously in short order.

incidentally i wish i *knew* the name of my grandmother's cigarettes, i'll have to ask my dad about that one.

but the real outbursts of creativity are my dreams. for example, last night involved:

• a paramecium-shaped tablet (and yes i had to doublecheck the spelling. i started transcribing my dreams at 645am!)
  
• writing a very funny story on aforementioned tablet
  
• calculus
  
• pseudo-calculus
  
• coworkers who did not understand either calculi (the horror!)
  
• driving in nighttime rain with crazy people
  
• driving at sunrise, with emma thompson batting her eyes

sadly the eye-batting was not for me, i was just watching her talk with someone else, but it was still a lovely thing to behold.

those are the highlights of what i remembered enough to write down. i also had a vague recollection of being at an airport trying to find a boarding pass, and running onto the plane at nighttime, but that's all i've got there.

anyway, when i first started the writing blog, i was insanely prolific. dreams, random scribblings all the time! then, i suppose quite naturally, it waned. i've still managed to post each month since i started, but...it bothers me that i'm not writing as much. or at least it was bothering me quite a bit until i realized that a) it's been insane at work for a while and b) when i'm not at work i'm pretty damn busy with the work of job hunting, freelance and i don't know, the usual chores and errands that fill up our lives.

so i decided to give myself a break. until i get into a better place work-wise, i'm off the hook. if i write, excellent! if i don't, hey that's ok too.

and at least for today, i get an excellent. any night that involves writing a funny story, rain dancing and emma thompson is alright in my book. especially if i get to write about it the next day.

Club Velour - Buttery Duck Night Tonight!!!

this just in!

Want to shake some booty with the ladeez? Don't go to Velvet - that's for losers and non-disabled gestalt lovers. Come to Oakland's Club Velour where leadership is mixed and so are the drinks! Every night is ladeez night because no one likes The Man, not even The Man Who Helps Keep This Place In Bidness. But pay no attention to him, the Negress will have him out the door soon.

Speaking of which, you can't get butter from a duck, but at Club Velour you can try. You've been dreaming of it, now Buttery Duck Night is here! Ladeez, water fowl, butter and butter substitutes will be slip slidin' away tonight to a torrent of non-stop, pseudo-masculine energy beats!

Go Faux. Go Velour!

all i can say is, it amazes me how worked up people can get over a club.

also, apologies to those of you who already saw this, but i know there are some sappho readers on here who hadn't, and this seemed a fun one to share here. we can't have snowflake complaining about the lack of posts from her readers. ;-)

and now in the original (at least, not created by me dept), i bring your attention to the plight of gnomes without homes. a very serious business!

finally, in case you hadn't guessed, those spells of nothingness at work i thought i'd get to have? LIES. or at least, they were shamefully short-lived. ugh. is it friday yet?

you know

a lot of ills can be cured by blaring def leppard on your headphones.

bluntly goon

CYTV Rockets Up Again Today!
Our Chief Leaker needs to know that Evil-doing doesn't pay.

i love spam, especially when it rhymes and involves works like "evil" and "goon".

this post is brought to you by my bloated copy of xmlspy.

what's fit to print

min's surgery last week went pretty well, really, thank the bejeezus. and thank him i did. her recovery was a little wibbly wobbly but not anything really unexpected. her sister lori has been staying with us since tuesday -- mostly for moral support it seems, rather than actual assistance, although she did make some soup. =)

work has alternated between really hectic and really slow. i have a feeling starting this week (starting today, at any rate) it will lean more towards hectic. i did this unexpected thing, i volunteered for a high-profile temporary position within our group called a Bug Czar. it involves going to a meeting every day and keeping tabs on all of the high priority bugs for web dev (of which there are many) and generally getting called in on anything urgent.

why did i do that, you might ask? aren't i utterly disinterested?

well yes i am. here's the catch: NO SPECS. i have no new specs (projects) for a month and a half (til mid-april). that means no pesky javascript or ajax or what-have-you. and i am ever, ever so grateful for the repreive. there's these lulls of quiet time and then a couple of hours of craziness. it's weird but it works for me.

admittedly the lack of substantial coding appeals to me most. but so does the occasional spot of downtime, by which i can bring you posts like these. and hopefully, in the future, far more interesting ones. ;-)

taking a bite out of...a lot of things

you may remember that recently i asked for good vibery by way of min's toofers -- she had oral surgery scheduled which was abruptly cancelled.

well, it's been rescheduled and i forgot to tell you. it's tomorrow at noon. so, internet loved ones, please keep her in your thoughts. i'm sure she will appreciate all the goodness she can get!

incidentally wrt my annoyed post over the weekend, things are going a lot better now, thanks! let's just say there was a lot of processing talking that we'd put off for way too long, and i'm very glad we're moving forward. me like forward.

fitting today's theme perfectly...

here are the two latest blogthings quizzes:

You Mostly Fight Fair

When you fight, you tend to remember your end goal of resolving conflict. However, you can get a little too wrapped up in your own feelings. Remember that there are two sides to every argument. And even if you think you're totally right, you should take more time to hear your partner out.

Do You Fight Fair?

You Are 74% Burned Out

You are very burned out. You need a huge break from your responsibilities, starting as soon as possible. And you need this time to reevaluate what you really want out of your life. Because you're working hard and going no where... and that would burn anyone out!

Are You Burned Out?

sounds perfect to me

i'm sure it's all those answers about reading books that did me in...

The Monk You scored 13% Cardinal, 66% Monk, 50% Lady, and 43% Knight!

You live a peaceful, quiet life. Very little danger comes your way and you live a long time. You are wise and modest, but also stagnant. You have little comfort, little food and have taken a vow of silence. But who needs chatter when just sitting in the cloister of your abbey with The Good Book makes you perfectly content.

Find out: Who Would You Be in 1400 AD ?

as if you needed more proof

that things are calming down a little at work (albeit temporarily) here are two more random things:

- spam (from liz, who i regularly exchange funny spam with) that said:

We live in a century of improbable technologies such as self-cooled beer, artificial retinas of the eye, full automated factories.

made me start wondering about this self-cooling beer. was it real? and turns out, it will be very soon.

- announcement involving a guy called knish, leading to a google image search for gluten-free knish, for which the only search result is this.

ok back to bug researching. :)

typo of the day

"The most important part is the presence of the scrollbards"

scrollbards! wandering around the streets of england, looking for someone to buy their carefully scribed collection of words. we should all be so lucky to have the presence of scrollbards.

and in a retroactive typo of the day, a recent favorite is butto. as in:

"Please use the code below or create a similar butto:"

o butto, how i love thee. you have butto-d your way into my heart.

word to the wise

in case you didn't know this, when a last-minute multi-person project comes up at work, don't say 'you can give me the nasty one'. because then you will end up working all night and into the weekend.

here's hoping i'll be off the internets by mid-afternoon...

this is unreal

i don't know how this happened:

You Are 0% Homophobic

You're open minded, tolerant, and accepting. And you're not homophobic in the least :-)

Are You Homophobic?

speaking of unreal, min and i went for a VERY last minute trip up to oregon over the weekend! i like spontaneity but normally our unexpected outings occur within a 50 mile radius and only last a few hours. being a last minute idea, we didn't leave until about 330pm saturday. due to traffic and weather we didn't arrive to salem (where my parents/sister live) until around 430am. good thing my family tends to sleep in.

we had a great time visiting with them - playing games, talking, having grilled cheese and marionberry cobbler. we also ended up going to our beloved rose's, which closed in the 90's (much to our dismay) but reopened a few years ago. yay! sadly the food wasn't quite as magical as it used to be but it was still damn tasty.

oh! and i had the best. coffee. ever. holy crap. so rich so creamy so tasty so why can't they have some down here??? wah!!

per wen's suggestion that a visit might be helpful in addressing these feelings of wanting to move: great idea. now i want to move even MORE. apart from enjoying being with my family - which meant a lot - i loved revisiting my past. here's where i did blah, there's the HS i graduated from, etc. it was fun. and while i think california, esp the bay area here, is beautiful in many many ways, i fell totally in love with oregon again. also i never realized how much parts of it - esp between salem and eugene - looks like middle tennessee. which yes, i sometimes wax nostalgic for (altho not for its summers).

because of all this we left late coming home, too, and didn't get back until 4am. so with that plus fighting off a cold, my ass is dragging. time to apply more toffee crack.

just kidding!

thanks to everyone who sent the good vibes ... the surgery got cancelled at the last minute. they'll be rescheduling soon, and i'm far too annoyed to go into the why now, but needless to say this was not cool.

anyway - we'll keep all that vibery on retainer for later... thanks again. =)

speaking of roots...

no, this is not a post about a television miniseries or levar burton, altho i mildly enjoyed his eyebrow skills while he was on STNG.

the roots i speak of today are in the mouth, which is the root of much pain, at present, for min. long story short, as a side effect of her life-saving surgery last year, her teeth are in an accelerated state of decay. it's gotten worse in the last few months in particular, to such a point that now extensive extractions are required. due to last year's surgery, she can't undergo these extractions at a normal dentist, but requires an oral surgeon.

the *only* good part to all this is that the necessity of this is due to a medical condition, so our blue cross, instead of delta dental, should cover it. much better payout!

and i say should cover because we didn't get the luxury of preauthorizing...we'd planned to wait it out, but in the last week min's pain has been off the charts - fractured teeth will do that - and so here we are with last minute (scheduled yesterday!) surgery.

so, anyone reading in the next day or so, please keep her in your thoughts. she's due for a pretty rough ride, considering the rest of her medical situation, and would welcome all the good vibery there is out there.

and now that i'm completely bleary-eyed from yet another crazy week at work plus the dental wackies, i'm going to bed. nighty night, internet. =)

rooted

lately i have been completely overwhelmed with a desire to return home. and by home, i mean oregon.

most of the time when someone asks me where i'm from, i say 'the west coast', because we moved around a lot. if pressed, i'll say oregon because i was born there, and have lived there the most (probably a third of my life).

within the last year, my parents, sister and her clan have all returned to the sweet, misty green of oregon. for a lot of that time, my parents were in a bad way (shitty situation with my uncle, then living out of a hotel for the last few months) but finally the heavens (in this case, government) blessed them with some low income housing. i haven't blogged about their situation much, because it was rather depressing and there wasn't much i could do about it, but they have a place to call their own now, and the relief i feel, it is great.

my sister and her two lovely boys moved to oregon in november. they had a rocky start too, but have settled a little more quickly. they're situated enough to get camera phones and send me some nice pics. :-D

now my parents have always - gently - pushed me to live closer to them. for many years they lived in one of the Hottest, Driest, Blandest Places On Earth (phoenix), so it was really easy to say no. my sister also lived there, but never asked me to move, probably because she hated it too. scorpions? not really a selling point.

now they're all up in oregon, and getting pretty cozy. apparently it's so nice (as if i didn't know oregon was nice) that really, can't i just move up there? apply to jobs up that way? my sister was practically pleading with me a week or so ago, and since she has NEVER done anything like that, it just about killed me. my chest ached for wanting to be there with all of them. because she just missed me. and i miss all of them.

the part that really hits me as funny is that there is no drama surrounding this. nobody needs rescuing (and of course, that's good!), but i'd swear someone activated some kinda homing beacon or something, because the drive to pack up and leave is insane. the good(?) news is that the insanity has spread to min -- without my really saying anything -- so at least we're both infected. it'll be interesting to see where this leads…

ps. no i am not just writing this because i've had a hard day/couple of weeks.
pps. yes i've had a hard day/couple of weeks. :-p

5 things

i don't know about deep dark secrets, but things that have probably not come up yet here, or not much:

1. i used to be a very devout christian. note that i do not say zealot, because i have never been the type to evangelize, but i was quietly, deeply devoted to my faith. now i would say that i believe a lot of the same principles, but am less hung up on the details and their implementation.

2. i spent a year and a half living on a bus. have i said that here yet? i think i mentioned it in passing. anyway, with my parents and (most of that time) my sister. my dad and two guy friends (previously homeless guys from the shelter where my dad worked, but had been living in our garage for the previous 6 months) gutted a bus and turned it into a motor home, complete with working kitchen and bathroom.

3. for karen: i used to have grand plans for the music business. granted my plans changed from time to time, but the plan ranged from songwriter, to recording engineer, to producer. i attacked that plan with a vengeance at belmont university. wow, they have a subcollege just for the MB program now. anyway. my time at belmont was insanely formative, to say the least. for example: i realized i liked girls. :-D

4. on a related note: it took me 3 colleges, 8 majors and 8 years to get a degree that i don't use on a daily basis. the breakdown:

chemeketa
psychology
sociology
mechanical engineering
mathematics
physics (ultimate goal: astrophysics)

belmont
music business (business administration)

univ of montana
liberal studies
business administration

5. and how did i end up with a business degree (that i don't use) when i'd been pursuing liberal studies with the intent to go into journalism? because UoM has a cap on how many credits you can have without getting a degree, while accepting financial aid. over the course of 3 schools and 7 years, i managed to hit that limit. woo! so i had to get a degree over the 8th year, and business what i was able to squeeze out enough credits for.

there you go! oh, tagging. um...here's who's left:

kelly
wen
underdog
snowflake or andrea or cheddah or carol, if any of them still read me!

thanks for tagging me, LSR - that was kinda fun. =)

while i'm waiting for a file to open

(don't ask)

i booted up the itunes because i had a horrid yet wonderful song stuck in my head.

the first song that the mr. dj served up was thin line, by the indigo girls. i've heard this song many times. owning the album will do that to you. but for some reason when i booted it up today, i was taken back to nashville. i was sitting with my roommate kelly, singer/songwriter/fellow IG freak, in the dining room and in the background, this song came on. i'd been studying at the table, she'd been sitting up on a desk, feet on the chair below, sometimes playing her guitar along with the cd, sometimes playing her own music.

suddenly in the middle of this song, we got into a big discussion about harmonies, what worked about the song, what could have made it better, and soforth. we were both incredibly passionate about our positions, some shared, some disparate. although of course i don't recall the details, obviously it was a moment in time that stuck, resonated with me. it is a moment that, even though my moment in the music business world has long passed, and am no longer such an IG freak, i cherish.

and so i share a bit of it with you. the song is really good, if you haven't heard it. one of the few covers IG has released. check it out!

$160 = cheap peace of mind

at least it is when your dog starts vomiting blood.

yes we went to the emergency vet tonight. yes pearl is fine, or should be totally fine by later today. for reasons that are very much unknown to me, she decided to throw up a chicken strip (jerky, the kind especially for dogs) about 1am. she's had them plenty of times, but this time it came back and apparently some got stuck somewhere along the way.

poor thing just kept trying to get rid of it, would calm down for 20 minutes, then start up again. after an hour or so of this, she started bringing up blood -- that was my limit, so off we went to the vet.

once again i love adobe animal hospital. they are fast, they are kind, and they are cheap. they only thing i don't like is the distance but really it's only an extra 10 minutes from its competitors and the quality/price canNOT be beat. she got a crapload of medicine there, some to take home, plus the er visit itself...$160? thank you!!

and no they didn't have to do anything fancy. yes i asked if she should get xrayed. that's our baby! but the doc didn't feel anything and as she wisely pointed out, if pearl wasn't better by later today, we could bring her back for more tests. pearl did throw up once more on the way home but she's already crashed asleep, so i think we're done. thank goodness because i'm tired. the *only* benefit of our escapade is now i have a guilt-free excuse to work from home, since i'm just now heading to bed. :-o

the whole world is fair game

earlier today i showed liz a most awesome site i found. it was awesome for many reasons, but for starters, let's just say there were hybrid names involving birds. liz was (sarcastically) thanking me for showing her the site and then noted:

liz: you'll never get this time back
me: i'm glad though
liz: oh me too
liz: wait, why?
me: because this is rich man
me: the world is so full of people to mock
liz: true
me: and eventually, to write about
me: it's perfect
me: i have decided the whole world is fair game, so i'm taking better notes
liz: nice
me: 100% agree
me: dude, there is so much goodness out there
me: it's inspiring
liz: i'm inspired
me: good. that is a good state to be in.

and i guess that's why i'm writing this. it's a perfect example of how, even if i'm not writing fiction like i want to yet..and i will…i still feel inspired, turned on to the world at large. it's a really lovely feeling.

i know this post is the equivalent of putting the world on notice that if you say/do/write something i find interesting, i may work it into a bit of fiction someday, but a) that isn't unusual for a writer and b) i promise to change details to protect the obscenely embarrassed. but i also promise to write down the things i find really beautiful. i play nice. :-)

and a very good year it was, too

any year that includes a new space shuttle, The Price Is Right, and alyssa milano is a good year.

In 1972 (the year you were born)

Richard Nixon is president of the US President Nixon approves NASA's space shuttle, a reusable spacecraft, at a cost of $5.5 billion Nixon arrives in China for an 8 day visit, which he calls a "journey for peace" While campaigning for the presidency Alabama Governor George C. Wallace is shot and seriously wounded Five men are arrested in the Watergate office complex in DC for breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee Hurricane Agnes strikes the East Coast causing 117 deaths First scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) os introduced for $395 Shaquille O'Neal, Jennifer Garner, The Rock, The Notorious B.I.G., Cameron Diaz, Eminem, and Alyssa Milano are born Oakland Athletics win the World Series Dallas Cowboys win Superbowl VI Boston Bruins win the Stanley Cup The Godfather is the top grossing film Pink Floyd debuts "The Dark Side of the Moon" during a performance at London's Rainbow Theater "You've Got a Friend" by Carole King wins a Grammy for song of the year The Price is Right premieres on CBS

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

100% agree!

i'm actually amazed i only got 70%..

You Are 70% Addicted to the Internet

In your opinion, life without the internet is hardly worth living. Could be, but you probably need a bit more fresh air and sunshine to think clearly.

Are You Addicted to the Internet?

winter must be cold for those with no lead memories

so i have this freelance project i've just started - the usual full gamut from design to production, probably with a little writing - and right now we're in the initial design phase. in that phase, if i've gotten almost no visual direction from the business owner (which unfortunately is the norm), then after reflection on their needs, concerns, market, i troll the internet to get my design juices flowing.

tonight in my trolling i found this. when i saw the pencils i involuntarily took in a breath. how adorable! it's a little bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils, their tips ready to loose all kinds of creativity. they're lead cigarettes that i want to linger over and smoke down to their stubby little erasers. and i don't even use pencils anymore. well hardly ever. but seeing them, it was like the promise of creation was in the air, i could smell it.

i suppose this all goes back to being young, when i DID use pencils voraciously, and loving school so very much. truly, i adored it. if i could've afforded to go to school forever i probably would've, and i've got the student loans to prove it.

anyway. when i saw the pencils that phrase popped into my mind: a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. and i thought, why does that sound familiar? so i googled. there's lots of people saying that, or close. wtf? and then finally, i found it -- it's a variation on a movie quote, of course. it's from you've got mail, which in my opinion is actually rather annoying, but does have moments of wittiness and charm, including the following:

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

so there you have it. most everything about me probably can be understood through a good movie quote.

what the world needs now

is peace, love, animals, string, and a clown.
fyi.

gloved wonder

oh, the joy that is fingerless gloves!

for those of you who saw my initial query on ba-scrappy, these were
not the ones i wanted most, but they were cutest, cheapest, bestest
ones in stock for little old me and now they're mine and me and my
fingers are oh, oh so happy.

merry christmas, you're fired

or i would be if i were on deadline for finishing this stuff. anyway, i bring to you our hordes of pictures from our trip to mendocino county. enjoy!

since that trip i've been working, sleeping and eating like crazy. astoundingly i have not gained any weight although i have no explanation for that, maybe it's the crazy work canceling it out. speaking of that, i'm off to santa cruz today for more freelance work. bring on the scrilla!

oh and sadly i no longer have the Christmas Camera. while i'm very grateful i had it for a while, and the pictures shown above are all *much* better in quality than my cameraphone or the old olympus i had, ultimately this one was deficient and i returned it to fry's yesterday. the shutter was fucked up -- took too long to close or set for a shot, so a lot of the pictures came out grainy or blurry. even so, ended up with 60+ good ones! and of course, will be on the hunt for a replacement one very soon! me camera addict.

trippin!

thanks to rashenbo:

Your Personality Is Like Acid

A bit wacky, you're very difficult to predict. One moment you're in your own little happy universe... And the next, you're on a bad trip to your own personal hell!

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

in other news, i really have been working on the photos from our trip, and when i *finish* posting them all, i'll include a link here. meantime i'll taunt you with the fact that the set includes a picture of santa, and martians.

salutations from the land of the bleary!

i've been getting up an hour earlier each workday, for maybe 3 weeks now. there are a couple of reasons for this but receiving immediate benefit is my employer, who has seen fit to keep me insanely busy, and of course, starbucks. i really don't understand why i'm still so sleepy when i'm making sure that caffiene has been properly installed but here i am, yawning at noon just the same. or perhaps i'm yawning at this unix script poking across my screen.

ah well. i hope you all have enjoyed some festivus of late, and a bit more this weekend. we are considering going to grace cathedral on NYE, there's a free concert there. min loves to rave about how beautiful it is, and perhaps i will finally see it on sunday!

as to what else has transpired in the last few weeks: other than the usuals and working like a bandit, i was graced with a minibreak to the coast. we rented a house because we wanted a full kitchen for a full christmas dinner! rather i wanted the full dinner since i was the main one eating, but min ate a little. =) plus the requisite apple cranberry sparkliness, mmmm. oh and for christmas i got some emily goods, starbucks AND toffee crack GC(!), an exercise mat (so sweet!), short exercise dvd i look forward to trying, cute notebooks and i forget what else, i'll have to doublecheck when i get home. but, all good stuff.

anyway the rental house -- i researched all over the bloody coast of california for a good deal, and after much calling and cajoling for pictures (first, second choices not available, but we have alternates. ok fine, send us pictures!) we finally ended up here. it wasn't until we drove up to it that we found out it was for sale and now that i'm back where the internet roams free, i'm a little surprised to find that they're including the furniture. some of it was quite nice, but otoh, some stained and broken.

oh..i get it now. the owners have abandoned it. see, this explains the bugs.

yeah, bugs. granted, it was mostly potato bugs, but when you have to:

• check the floor before getting out of bed
  
• get rid of at least 3 every time you cross a room
  
• brush them off of you because THEY DROPPED FROM THE SKY (ceiling)

it doesn't leave you feeling very relaxed. no, you probably even dream about bugs, or mysteriously harmful goo, dripping from the sky. not that i would know.

that aside, it was a gorgeous house. wonderful views, plenty of room and only a few minutes from one of my favorite restaurants ever, which unfortunately was not *quite* as good as normal but still very excellent. we ate lunch there on tuesday and planned to find a xmas gift for our neighbor penny, but across the street is gallery bookshop and as i probably should have predicted, it sucked up most of our afternoon and of course, a good deal of scrilla. that store has the best per-square-foot selection of books of most any bookstore i've ever been in, and i've been in a LOT.

by the time we escaped, it was probably only 430, but most of the other shops we wanted to hit were closed and several appeared closed for the week. tuesday night there was a nasty storm - wind howling, things clattering outside, lights flickering, the whole shebang. wednesday we figure we'll hop up to fort bragg, maybe more stores will be open there.

and maybe they would've been, who knows. however the storm played havoc with several trees across the region (would you like to wear this tree as a hat? how about doubling the thickness of your fence?). as a result, power was out in most of fort bragg. great. luckily we found that out *after* we had lunch, at smart-enough-to-have-a-generator silver's. wow that website is from 1997. anyway, we’d planned to dine at the next-door Chapter & Moon…but no one was there. and there were oh, 50 cars at Silver's, so we decided to go with the safer bet. we were *so* not disappointed, especially with the clam chowder.

incidentally i am a clam chowder snob. this is because i grew up on the best chowder in the friggin free world and everything else pales in comparison. god just seeing that building, on the website, makes me feel homesick. and ack! it burned up! i hope they can rebuild! :( anyway i am VERY happy to report that silver's chowder? almost as good as dory cove's! and much closer so i bet we'll go more often. yum.

after lunch we found all the closed shops (boo), then just enjoyed the afternoon, driving along the coast and drinking in the ocean air, before heading home. still no pics (probably get around to uploading this weekend) but all in all, a nice little getaway. and i really needed to get away, so, yay. =)

hello, internet

i didn't forget you, i've just been busy working and then spending time near albion.

and yes, internet, pictures are coming. because santa brought me a digital camera for christmas! a replacement canon a430, cheaper than the first time around even.

more soon...

btw

happy holidays from the future, y'all!

smart cookie

your clever mind will lead you to many rewards.

so said my fortune cookie, at lunch today. i can attest to my cleverness yielding rewards o'plenty. i can also attest to it fucking things up rather grandly. but for the most part, i like clever. it's much more entertaining, for me AND for you.

in the Slightly Amusing Department, since i'm waiting for clearcase to wrap up…friday night i rediscovered the joys of meatloaf.

i am generally of the opinion that no one makes good meatloaf except my mother. i have ventured into the beefy wilderness, on one or two occasions, resulting in gastric acid misadventures and of course, wasted scrilla. this all changed on friday, when min and i met karen and samantha for dinner at rick and anne's.

there was a beet salad that was tempting, as well as my standby, mac&cheese, but for some reason, i felt the call of the beef. i was considering my options when karen pointed to our left and said, "i think that's the meatloaf over there."

and what before mine wondering eyes appeared, but a pile of creamy mashed potatoes and beef gravy, itsy broccoli florets, and thin green beans, encircling a sizeable slab of gravy-topped meatloaf.

instantly i began salivating. i couldn't smell it, but it looked so amazing, it just *had* to be. so i ordered it. and oh, how good it was. seriously.

our conversation was also quite lovely. as was k&s's cute little abode! very cozy. really dug the wheaties display in the kitchen, and atticus jumping in my lap after 2 seconds, and promptly falling asleep.

saturday we went to SF. saw the therapist for a very good session. there be some growing in our household! i'm really proud of both of us, really. still plenty of room to get better, but we're communicating in a much healthier fashion overall and that's nothing to sneeze at. went to palomino for dinner and decided that place isn't as good as it used to be. oh well.

sunday we went to breakfast at mimi's cafe in campbell. as we got out of the car, min looked across the street and saw that my new favorite movie, stranger than fiction, was playing at one of the century theatres. "hey, what do you think about seeing STF later today?" she asked.

how can i not think that's a good idea? so after grubbin we went and checked the time - 7pm. wah. let's check the paper! hey! 235 at the camera 7! since min needed a few more winter shirts, we killed a little time at ross, got me a winter jacket (finally), and then headed over to ze filme. which ended up being a double feature with for your consideration. incidentally, that movie? kinda mediocre. but did have this great line: The internet. That's the thing with email, right?

i enjoyed STF (and now i'm enjoying its proximity to STFU) just as much as the first time. i am also enjoying the same post-movie writing spike, thank you very much. i love anything that reminds me of how completely bewitching prose can be, and that's precisely what this film does. so color me a little more in love than i was yesterday.

Sir Frisk-a-lot

we have a new and possibly permanent member of our household: senor frisky. and in case you wondered, he lives up to his name quite well, thank you. the reason we have him is sad - he was min's mother's cat. they tried to place him with tucson relatives but didn't go well. however, pearl and frisky get along *swimmingly*. watch them go!

right now frisky's camped in the bathroom, acclimating and enjoying all forms of toilet paper. plus unfortunately my dolce is a little ill...some kind of infection in her hindquarters...going to the vet monday, but i'm trying to be careful about them sharing space til dolce gets cleared. meantime dolce is claiming her space verbally. step off, bitch!

so, yeah, min got home a few days ago. i'm really really glad she's home. how's that for being writerly? yeah whatever, i'm exhausted. this is MHP week AND it's been insane at work. TGI(70MinuetsFrom)Friday! bring on the weekend, bring on the sleeps!

perhaps the greatest toy ever

i offer for your consideration, the completely brilliant avenging unicorn set, which i believe cannot be beat for sheer awesomeness.

thanks to laughing squid!

teach my feet to fly

as i prepared to start writing about tonight, these lyrics popped into my head:

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

christmas is coming. reindeer everywhere. songs of joy, peace and praise were in the air tonight. and yes, i ended up wishing i had a river to skate away on. more on that later.

so, today. today i actually cooked. took beef (i'd previously cooked!), made a pasta kit and sauteed some mushrooms to create not-too-shabby beef stroganoff. my mom would be so proud.

around 315 i took off to visit 2 holiday fairs up in SF before going to oakland for dinner and symphonic escapades. i live in san jose. driving to sf - barring an accident - usually takes 45 minutes, hour tops. i got to sf at 520!! and no accidents, mind you. i'm quite happy that everyone's driving slower and safer in these torrential downpours, but apparently i need to start doubling my drive times in rain rather than adding 50%.

so, it's 520 and the first fair ended at 5. thanks! i tried to find the location anyway, just in case some folks were still there, but i couldn't find it so gave up by 530. headed over to the 2nd one, and wow what a waste that was. incredibly tiny, mostly scarves and stone jewelry. pretty, but not for me.

now it's almost 6 and i really don't need to have dinner until 7, but i head over anyway because i haven't planned alternatives. and hey! it's still raining! so it took me a half hour to cross the bridge. sweet. by the time i get parked and over to luka's, a mere 2 blocks from the paramount, it's almost 645. that plus the incredibly slow service meant i finished dinner about 730. had the roast chicken, which was pretty good. also the slow service gave me plenty of time to write. =)

i'd called ahead to try to find out how many tickets i had for the concert, and no one knew. thanks! turns out there were just 2, so at least i only wasted 1 ticket. i didn't mention this earlier, but i never really planned to sing, even thought it was a singalong. i know 2 pieces from handel's messiah and that's IT. so in perfect Moore tradition, i hummed rather than sang.

i ended up thinking about my parents a lot while i was there. during the intermission i wrote this:

sitting in a gilded palace, i am overcome with loss and longing for my parents tonight. knowing there was a time when both of them sang this production, and undoubtedly better than some of these guys. i wish so much that i could rescue them. give them the best medical attention, all the money they need, to return them to a time when they were as golden as this room.

i almost started crying when i wrote that, not just because i wanted it, but because i knew that even if i could move the earth for them, tomorrow the problem would just be something else. i love them, god i love them. they can be so much fun. but...i guess i hate feeling like the Really Mature One because often, i'm not that bright.

this was the first time, as an adult, i'd sat all the way through the messiah and i must say, it's a rather uneven bit of work. sections are quite beautiful and others rather dull. but there was one soprano who took my breath away, her voice was so incredibly delightful that again, i got misty.

i really ran the emotional gamut tonight, and i suppose i shouldn't have been surprised, since good music has been known to make me cry. nevertheless i felt a bit stunned by the amount of crying i did on the way home. FlagFloodgatesOpenEnabled. found myself thinking about things i thought i had resolved, and realized they weren't, which i've decided is my favorite tactic for torturing myself.

i still feel rather unsteady but since it's after 2am now, i'm going to interpret that as needing sleep rather than analyzing myself *any* further. 'night. :)

la bella luna

Originally uploaded by extra medium

i've never considered myself to be ruled by moons rising in cancer, or whatever happens to be appropriate for my astrological chart.

however, i have always been completely captivated by the moon. when i see it, my breath catches. harvest moons put me all a dither. and if i'm Driving While Moon Is Present (as this picture encapsulates) then it takes all my concentration to avoid an accident, because i just can't take my eyes off of her.

it's just a big rock, you could say. no atmosphere, trees, glittering neon lights. what's the big deal?

i think part of it is the archeologist in me. what happened there a million years ago? why are there only remnants of lakes? these and other questions beguile me.

but more than that is the promise. the promise of the future, that one day we will explore the heavens. not just with mechanical devices, but humans, out there, gallavanting among the nebulae, discovering the wonder that is our universe. the promise of even more beauty and knowledge at our finger tips.

i get to see that promise almost every night, and it's a little intoxicating.

thanks to WWdN for finally getting me to write a bit about this love affair.

wrinkles, burritos and Limited Time Offers

in an entirely boring series of internet trolling events, somehow yesterday i ended up on a movie poster/wallpaper website and stumbled onto this set. the will ferrell one is pretty funny but not surprisingly, i opted for the lovely yet utterly stark shot of emma thompson. apart from her nicely disheveled reddish hair (o red, how i love thee), you can really see her wrinkles, her age, and for some reason, that makes me love it more. every time i clear the apps from the screen, or start up the computer, seeing this shot of her makes me think of the movie and subsequently, want to write.

and that feeling -- the desire to create -- is better than any pleasure i might get from a cute, silly, artistic or nature- related backdrop. it makes me feel alive. even if all i do is write a little blog entry like this.

today did not go quite so well as yesterday but it was not without its treats. after a very annoying workday and later botched attempt at visiting richmond, i went to el cerrito and visited a ross, trying to cheaply procure another professional outfit. i only had the one outfit, you see, that fit me. :-p i used to have this beyoootiful baby blue suit but now that's a world away.

after scoring a couple of decent options, i hooked up with the lovely karen and samantha for dinner! when they found out i was going to be up their way today, they sweetly invited me to a meal. i'd met them once before - at liz's baby shower - so i had a vague idea of how they looked. but naturally i didn't remember what they sounded like, so when a woman answered the phone i asked, is this samantha or karen? the woman laughed and said, is this heather?

hee. anyway it was samantha and - i forgot to tell you then - you really do have a great laugh! we met at a place down the street (from me) whose name i've already forgotten, but it was pretty tasty burrito-ness plus some great conversation. afterwards we went to coldstone creamery, which considering how full i felt as i headed home, i probably should've skipped. but...so! tasty! and good to get to know you guys a bit better. :)

tomorrow i was hoping to visit the telegraph street fair, however considering the amount of rain forecast, i think i'll pass. hopefully next weekend will be better for outdoor exploits! and tomorrow night i'm planning to go to the sing along messiah in oakland. scored me some free tickets back in july!

which brings me to the Limited Time Offer. i can't recall how many tickets i have - it's either 2, or 4. right now i'm going by myself, but i could bring with me 1 or 3 additional people. i'm going to call tomorrow to try to confirm but... if anyone out there is interested in attending, email me (queen at iheather dot net) by 2pm tomorrow! i promise not to sing off key. ;-)

thank you

to everyone who sent condolances on min's mom. so very sweet. min is now en route to tucson, but in a vehicle rather than a plane. she lost her wallet near the end of her Great Escapade and thus only has a temporary replacement license. they won't let you fly with those (requires a passport or other ID that she doesn't have).

so, with a little scrilla from her sister wilma, we turned in one rental car and got another for her next expodition. amazingly even that was fraught with technical hijinks but i'm too annoyed over the whole thing to write it out. end result: new car. fine.

had considered going with her (and pearl, who loves the car so of course went with min) but i needed to stay here today and tomorrow. for everyone who sent me good vibery, danke schon, i think it helped! hopefully it'll carry over to tomorrow's adventures in richmond. when i think richmond, i pretty much think of their oil refineries. if anyone has recs for good but cheap dinner up yonder, gimme a holler! i'm sure i will be peckish afterwards.

tonight i was at the stanford mall, getting some dinner and blithely looking for christmas presents. i have decided i don't really care for that mall anymore. it has some decent restaurants for a mall, i'll give you that. but the rest is pretty much upscale, predominately bland yuppie. midrange, moderately bland yuppie, i'm used to and usually it includes some unusual places as well. and i remember more of that the last time i went - admittedly, a good 5 years ago or so. i was hoping to stumble onto some excellent gift ideas but no luck. ah well. Ye Olde Internet, don't fail me now!

jinx

i took today off so min and i could have a little fun. however, that is not what happened. our day was jinxed first by the phone call we got around midnight, from her sister wilma. i pick up the phone. wilma says: i wanted to let you guys know that mom died.

WHAT? i say, both because i'm half-awake and can't believe it.

unfortunately this made her repeat it. unfortunately i blurted out with another WHAT? and she graciously repeated it again. then she started to tell me more details and i said wait, and handed the phone to min.

later i felt bad for how intense and abrupt i was, but hey! i could barely hear her through my sleepy haze. and on top of that, it didn't make sense. dead? out of the blue? what? later m told me i was fine, my sleepiness distorted how i thought i sounded, too. :-p

min always had a pretty rocky relationship with both her parents but in the last few years, and especially the last few months when she got to visit with her mom for almost 2 whole weeks, she really reconnected with her mother. and of course, now she is ever so grateful she had day after day to just talk with her.

her mom's health has been iffy for a while, but relatively stable considering she'd had a few strokes and strong diabetes. apparently she had a quick onset of pneumonia, and had been in the hospital a day or two. then last night her blood pressure suddenly lowered, and she went into a coma. she died about an hour later. a rather gentle way to go, really, considering.

we totally could not afford to fly or drive her down to tucson, what with the Great Trip she just took that we haven't finished paying for. but one of her sisters is going to cover a flight down and she'll leave thursday or friday. she actually didn't want to go - she feels like she said goodbye to her mom already - but is going to support wilma, who is the foundation of the family even when she should sit on her ass and take a break.

i asked if she wanted me to come with her and she said nah, not for her sake. admittedly i felt ambivalent about the whole deal, but we realized it was really better for me to stay because of a) money b) my thing thursday and c) pearl, who we'd have had to get a sitter for. technically we could bring her but she's been a little under the weather and i'd rather not put her through a plane ride right now.

despite all this we hoped to get out to SF today, take advantage of the free first tuesday at the deyoung museum. but - i suspect partially due to the above - min was just too sick today. there were a lot of phone calls this early morning, and then needed more sleep (we both did), and when she got up, the stress, i think, just made her condition really horrible today. she fell asleep early tonight though so i'm hoping tomorrow is better. for everyone.

metamorphosis

despite not really feeling like i've changed that much in the two months (ok, 7 wks 6 days) min was away, i guess i really have. some of this has (apparently) been apparent on this blog, but most of it i've just felt in my heart and mind.

anyway, i'd realized some of this over the last few weeks, but i really didn't feel a need to articulate it much until i had another person here asking me questions. ;-)

yesterday, amid a flurry of craft fair visitations, we went to oakland for yet more craftiness. on the drive up she asked me about something that i *deplore* talking about: AG.

what with all i've said to date regarding AG, that might surprise some of you, but it's true. and in this case, i deplore talking about AG not because of how i feel about her, but because of what that relationship means to min. so: she asked me how it was going.

well the truth is it's going really great. and by that i mean, there's nothing happening at all and barely even care. i haven't talked to her in, well, almost 2 months. i stopped reading her blog ages ago and i don't get email from her anymore.

granted, the early period of withdrawal was brutal. and to be clear, i don't feel like my actual feelings for her have changed. but my awareness of her, her impact on me even if she wasn't trying to impact me whatsoever, has dimished to the point that..well, like i said, i almost don't care if that ever changes.

and even more, at this point i don't WANT it to change. things are going ok for min and i right now, it feels like, and i'm hoping that with work and love it'll just get better.

incidentally - and i noticed this when i was getting reports during her trip - min seems to have more energy. gets up earlier, has more energy, period, during the day. still has all the pain, but seems to be doing better managing it. i seriously did not think that when she got here late saturday, we'd be able to go out and have fun most of sunday, but we did. i know that sounds like a little thing but believe me, that's a substantial improvement. it makes me feel hopeful, for both of us.

there are other ways i feel like i've changed in the last 2 months but i'm getting tired, it's been a long day (thanks clearcase) and this post is long enough already. :-)

ps. i really am addicted to wordie. i've added 15 more words since my last post.
pps. psst: think good thoughts for me thursday afternoon.

word geek extraordinaire

today i was browsing presurfer, which - true to its subtitle - is often diverting on a daily basis, and came across the surprisingly addictive wordie.

the concept is so simple it borders on boring: make a list of words. words you adore, despise, etc.

i thought, what the hell, i'll check it out. so i'm browsing the homepage, enjoying beautiful, complex words, words that sound funny, when i stumbled onto kleptocracy. someone made that up, right? but no! and, how awesome that word is! does it not describe almost every goverment on the planet?

at this point i was officially hooked. i added a few words, but really all i had to do was keep refreshing the homepage and someone had posted, or made me think of, a word i adored in some way. there's an rss feed for new words and i can tell i'll be geeking out left and right.

btw if you want to see what words amuse or move me, here's my list. 52 words are enough for now, because i've really spent too much time there today already. :-o

you talkin to me?

if you are a prospective employer, apparently this is the day to talk to me. because i was contacted directly about 3 different jobs today. and i'm not talking about random recruiter spam. i'm talking about:

- contacting me randomly about a position *actually* targeted to my very specific interests,
- giving me a supplemental test/application, sent to all the 'top applicants' , or
- phoning me for an initial but lengthy interview!

the killer part about the first one is, the job was posted on craigslist a few weeks back and somehow i totally missed it and didn't apply. but that's ok, they realized the oversight and contacted me about it. SWEET.

seriously, a great way to end an insanely long week at work. oh, and that min should be home sometime tomorrow is also a nice capper. ;-)

as promised

here are my pics from joaquin miller and land's end hikes!

i've always wanted a camera phone, and i've been grateful from the beginning that i have it, blurry as those pics may sometimes be. as of a few weeks ago, my gratitude has doubled because my beloved digital camera was lost.

to be honest i wish it hadn't upset me so much, but it did. i guess partly because of how it was lost. one of min's sisters was holding it for a few minutes - in a store - when it "disappeared". let's just say, this sister's been less than honorable in the past and i wouldn't be surprised if reports of the loss were greatly exaggerated. naturally there's no way i can prove that and in any event, it's just a thing, and so i've been trying to let it go.

however, it was a birthday present. a present i picked out, because i researched cameras to death. a present that'd been delayed almost a whole year because of various financial issues during the preceding year. and finally, it was probably the best present i'd ever recieved, as far as things are concerned (i am not a collector; i like trips/going out rather than Things), because i ended up enjoying the hell out of it in so many ways.

anyway. i'm grateful for what i have, and hopefully i can get a replacement by my next birthday. meantime apologies for any blurriness or abundant glare, now and in the future. use your mind to imagine how awesome things *really* looked!

there is something ironic

about getting repeatedly interrupted while listening to dm's enjoy the silence.

and yes i know my last post was about xmas music, but i like diversity. ;-)

rockin around the christmas cube

in a world where:
- people accidentally delete their impressive christmas mp3 library
- stringent network settings make internet radio almost impossible to listen to

i've found a few xmas radio stations that don't time out or stutter while buffering. even if i'm not crazy about the work i'm doing, the toes are rockin & the ears are happy. if someone will just play the carpenters, i'll be *reallyreally* happy.

bubbles' holiday weekend roundup

i kept meaning to get on here and post about the holiday weekend - and i'm just squeaking in!

TANKSgiving
as i said before, i wrote a smidge of fiction. color me surprised and happy. the reviews i've gotten to date have all been positive with minor suggestions i agree with. after that i believe i watched the next-to-last episode of taken. a fun little series, only two episodes were dumb.

then i skedaddled up to joaquin miller park in oakland. i barely did it justice but i got some beautiful shots with my phone, which i'll upload tomorrow (at work, with the superb wifi). i was so inspired by the surroundings that i also wrote quite a bit. sections of that park are a little creepy, but in a good way -- mysterious, dark, etc. loved it.

i chose to hike there because i had informal dinner plans nearby with a dyke (+other people) who'd set up a little gathering. ahead of time i asked how many people were attending. she told me 10, so i thought ok, that sounds like a decent conversation base, a legit event. turns out there were 3. including the host.

however the conversation went alright, if a bit oddly at times. very eclectic bunch. the food was fair, and afterwards we played scrabble. i got to play the word "roil". the host said, can you use roil in a sentence? and i said, not right now. :-D all that turkey, i wasn't feeling 100% on the definition at the time.

FRYday
chilled at home. ran an errand or two, watched the last episode of taken, did laundry, but really i just chilled.

saTURDay
got up bright and early for my expodition to the city. first up was the celebration of crafts women fair. i'd been to one maybe 3 years ago? and it was awesome. we found tons of cool stuff, most of it affordable. parking at ft mason was impossible but there was a shuttle with cheap parking.

similarities between that time and this one: same location, same lack of parking, and a lot of cool stuff.
differences: EVERYTHING cost more. a LOT.

most notable example: a long sleeved tshirt - no doubt handmade, at least the design - for $160, i shit you not. i was admiring the shirts and sweaters (altho not admiring their lack of a tag, or prices listed anywhere), waiting for the vendor to get done talking to someone else so i could ask about the prices, when i finally found one with the $160 tag. i do believe my jaw dropped open. i mean, i wasn't in a boutique. i was at a craft fair, ffs.

there also was a greater emphasis on art - wall art, sculptures, etc. which were pricy, naturally. sigh. i did find a few little things - earrings for min, a hair band for my sister, and a body spray for me. the one i used to use (country apple, bath&body works) has been discontinued for a good year or two now. i stocked up at the time, but well, i'm running out, finally, and looking for alternatives.

anyway. after i was done there, i shuttled back to my way-too-expensive parking space, dropped off my stuff, and walked over to a deli on chestnut i'd heard good things about. got my sammich, drink, walked back to the car -- but not before stumbling into the incredibly adorable paper source. i challenge any craft/paper lover to walk out with the same amount of scrilla as when they went in.

finally back at the car, i took off for land's end, which i'd always wanted to visit. i started at the western end, sutro baths. those are nifty. then i walked/climbed up a cliff, plopped down at the top and ate my lunch overlooking a most gorgeous string of rocks, trees and ocean. the wind was incredibly strong and by halfway through my sandwich i had icicles for fingers, but i didn't care.

from there i planned to keep going on the trail, but they had that section closed for erosion repair. so i trudged down the cliff, then back up those monstrous stairs, and went along the main trail heading towards the golden gate. it was all just so beautiful. the trees, the bay, the bridge and the sun peeking out at me periodically. at one point i sat and tried to write, but unlike thursday, i had writer's block. my vote is that bitch of a wind froze part of my brain.

at any rate, i had a great time, going about halfway through the trail i guess, then turned around because it was getting dark. i headed along the ocean til 35, then hooked up with 1/280 and headed home.

sunDAE
another mellow day. talked to min for a while this morning. she spent the night in the dalles, oregon. kind of a random stop. she'd hoped to stay with her brother in portland but he was unexpectedly out of town. the good news is, that means she'll be home sooner -- should be here by tuesday night. and yes i'm looking forward to her being back. :-p

i'd planned to go to a free writing class i heard about tonight, in alameda. i heard very little about it, but being free, i thought i'd give it a whirl. however when it was time to leave, it was raining cats and dogs so i decided to pass for now (the class is once a month). i deplore driving at night, and in heavy rain? to the east bay? no thanks. i've done that before (night, rain, 880-eb) and it seriously sucks.

it's still raining now, a few hours later, although lighter. and besides, i'm getting my writing in right now! and this way i'm cozy under a down lap blanket, get to finish the laundry and cuddle my kitties in a bit. works for me.

write on!

i just wrote a piece of fiction. honest to god fiction.

it was tough, it was easy, it was fascinating. i had ideas about which way the story was going to go but then it'd surprise me.

this was my first time to write fiction as an adult. when i was little i used to make up stories about neighborhood cats and put them in a paper i "published" called Good Mews. i also did all the fabulous artwork. when i was a teenager, in my star trek obsessed days, i started a trek story once but didn't get very far. as an adult i've done all kinds of writing...except fiction. even though ideas for it would tickle my mind, i'd never sit down and just do it. i know some of you relate to this.

anyway, as i said, i've been writing more since last week. none of it was fiction, unless you count my dreams. even though my mind made those up, it feels like cheating to call that fiction, i guess because they're not intentional. but today, one of my new writing groups sent out a prompt/exercise that really got me. it was to write a brief piece that included or began with "The sight of smoke...".

to be honest the first thing i thought of was my paternal grandmother, whose love affair with nicotine eventually led to her death (lung cancer). but i didn't write about her at all. instead i found myself in a street cafe, at night, watching a stranger smoke cigarettes.

the mind, sometimes it annoys the shit out of me. but sometimes, i love it to death. today we're in the love category, because i love not knowing where it will take me.

attitude of gratitude

i definitely have some things in my life for which i am not thankful, things i wish were different. however, today is about being thankful, and i am thankful for:

- this space to write
- the visitors who add to my life by commenting
- blogs of said visitors, who add to my life by their presence
- the ability to write, move, breathe, think freely
- a steady job
- 3 purring, licking furballs
- people who love me

i am blessed to have these things. i hope all of you have a moment today to reflect on the gifts in your life. happy thanksgiving :)

her pen, unfurled

since i posted in the wee hours of saturday about my writing epiphany, i have written (for me) an insane amount. apparently, a door has been opened. and even though i feel i still need help writing *stories* (and i am working on that already), the fact that i'm writing like a bandit is serious improvement.

that makes me very happy, i guess because i'm letting all this creativity out of me. i've never been afraid of writing, nor even felt per se like i had writer's block, but maybe…i never gave myself permission to be such a word whore. to write anytime, about any little random thing that popped into my head.

so that's exactly what i did when i started carrying a tiny notebook with me everywhere this weekend. on my way to the store and random interesting thoughts pop into my head? write it down. at a stoplight? write it down. and the best one -- writing down my dreams in the morning, especially if they were vivid or odd.

and by and large, i have VERY odd dreams. have since i was very young. maybe they make sense, maybe they don't, but they're almost always full of vivid imagery. sometimes i'm in the show, sometimes i'm just watching. sometimes i'm a girl, sometimes not. sometimes they're about places i've been, with people i know, and sometimes it's places that don't even exist, and people i've never even seen.

in fact, i've often thought some of my dreams would make amazing short stories, or be good worked into a larger story. so by writing them down now, i hope to make these fiddly bits into a larger story someday.

meantime i started another blog for these random entries. yes i said i'm writing them in a notebook but if you'd ever seen my handwriting you'd know that digitizing them immediately is wise, lest i be unable to tell what i wrote. and yes i've been puzzled by my own handwriting a mere hour later. :-D

i'm sure i'll get lots of writing done on thanksgiving, too, since min will not be home yet. i've never had a tday by myself -- christmas, yes, and that sucked. i think tday will be better but it's still a bit odd, thinking about it. then again the single life is agreeing with me more than i expected.

oops

sorry for all the re-publishing, rss-readers. i switched to blogger beta a few days ago, decided to make a few changes tonight (and lost my custom nav, thanks for warning me, beta!) and it republishes the last 30 posts everytime i make a change. the old version had the option to only republish index. o that they'd have kept that one.

i suppose some rebirth is appropriate since i just noticed tomorrow will be the 2 year anniversary of this blog. kinda trippy. even though i tried to kill this blog a couple times, it stuck with me. and some of you stuck with me, too. thanks.

stranger than fiction

that is the name of the movie i just saw. with the oh so divine emma thompson. i have loved her for a long time, but my god. i forget how much until i see her again. they can try to make her look rough - no makeup, baggy clothes, unkempt hair - but she's still beautiful beautiful. with the most delectable accent.

i chose this movie over babel because i felt i needed a comedy. and indeed, stranger than fiction is a comedy. starring buster! but it is also decidedly dramatic and thought-provoking.

without giving away the story, i'll say the movie is about emma thompson and will ferrell's characters' struggle with life. how we humans affect each other, our decision making. fate is a nice idea, but we're really rather interconnected when it comes to our choices.

i was walking to my car afterwards and thinking, this movie makes me want to be a writer. a real (fiction) writer. makes me want to embrace passion, whatever my passion is. admittedly i can be fuzzy on that, but anyway i'm feeling energized, and then i hear this guy behind me, talking about how the movie was ok but not really great, too predictable, etc.

i thought, dude, you've missed the point. if you just look at the surface, then yes, it may seem flat. but really it was about the decisions we make, why we make them and what kind of person do we want to be.

and so as i was driving home i thought, what kind of person DO i want to be? am i being that person now? and i thought about the ways that i have been different since min left. she's been gone a little over a month now and some differences that come to mind are:

- i weigh a little less (hey, start with the easy)
- i'm wearing/have bought slightly nicer - and edgier - clothes
- i hate work more now
- i've been more depressed, especially the last 2 weeks
- i'm listening to more jazz and classical. i tend to listen to bluesy jazz when i'm depressed or pensive, and classical when i'm feeling brainy...or pensive. for instance on the way home tonight. :-p
- i've been far more interested in gallavanting, and have gallavanted, in new ways

i would imagine those are the main things but that's actually quite a list for only a few weeks. in any case, especially in light of the movie, it makes me think perhaps i really do have a serious change brewing. granted i've been job hunting, and toying with the idea of moving (out of state) but those are all huge puffy clouds of possibility. i have no idea how things will actually go, what kind of job i will transition to, whether a move will be required, and so on.

but i confess, i love the idea of a huge change. i think i need it, in more ways than one. i'm sure to some degree i love it because i have so many things i want to escape, to start fresh with, to retry. things that are difficult to do when you're in your Usual.

i'm flashing now to how i was with my ex, in tennessee, reserved in public. and then later, when i was with min, in montana, and how incredibly open i was. naturally i could've been that open in tennessee. nothing stopped me...except myself. i felt like i was one person there, and got to be a new person in the new place. and i was. people say you can't run away from yourself and i buy that to some degree. but you can take a moment to redefine yourself, because you realize you NEED to change, and then be that person from then on.

and that's what i did. so i can do it again. i guess the question is, what do i want, feel i need, to change?

i have several ideas on that but burning tonight is the movie's reminder of why i love writing: the power of words, the power of creativity. i need to let more of that out, and more often. i've always felt like i have these stories inside of me but can't get them out. i sense them there, under the surface, taunting me. although i don't know how i'll let them out yet, i look forward to their arrival. someday.

east bay experiment

last saturday was a wonderful experiment in going out on my own and having a great time. during the week i'd heard about several things i wanted to check out in berkeley, so i decided to make a day of it. plus an evening activity in the city! so:

first up was maven fair, an extremely delightful but far too tiny craft fair. it's happening again in 2 weeks and if you want excellent women-made gifts for the holidays (or whatever), i highly recommend going. even though they only filled one room, there was an abundance of adorable stuff and i had a difficult time narrowing down to some handmade cards and a delightfully wicked necklace with a retro pinup girl (with a rifle!) on it. so awesome.

yet another craft fair was on my agenda, this one a little bigger but actually not quite as interesting, ultimately. however i did get a cool ceramic piece with a rabbit on it.

next on the horizon: rock climbing! since i didn't know how big indian rock really was, i thought i should get some nourishment for afterwards. on my way to the Most Perfect Cupcake Ever, i checked out a cute dog store, adorable stationery shop, and a few other places. really adorable section of town, must return.

with my cupcake at the ready, i headed up to indian rock. there are some seriously narrow streets up that way! and so convoluted, i almost got lost but thankfully the street i ended up on went right to the park. i knew ahead of time that there were steps in the rock so i went up the first set i saw.

note, that picture is not of the first set. no, the set i went up stopped after about 5 steps, then you had to freestyle it. um. ok. i tried a couple of different routes -- i could see people at the top! -- but since i had plans for later, and it was getting *really* treacherous, i stopped after about 5 minutes and climbed back down. i went around to my left...a few more steps, but then similarly difficult route. i kept hearing a mom talk to her small son: honey, it's ok that you can't climb to the top, don't worry.

yeah no kidding! i climbed back down to get out of their way and decided to go around to the other side. snapped a shot of the impending sunset, turned around and lo and behold, there were the steps that led to the top! immediately i scampered up and after i'd enjoyed the *seriously* incredible vistas, snapped a few more shots with my phone.

incidentally, indian rock, not really that tall. but since i had That Cupcake anyway and was starting to feel a bit hungry, went ahead and ate it. oh my.

next up was killing a bit of time til my nighttime event. i'd thought about seeing a movie at bay street emeryville, but since i was running a little late (for that), i opted to shop there a bit (always been curious about that place) and grab dinner at asqew grill. we'd been to the one in the marina district before - yum yum. once again i was scouring for pants. and the old navy there was having an awesome half off their clearance sale. however, no go.

fit of mass consumerism complete, i headed to the city. it'd been a long time since i took the bay bridge at night. i forgot how pretty the bay/city night lights are. anyway, made my way over to the make out room (awesome name, eh?) for writers with drinks. had a smatter of queer and other writers reading from their works.

sound a bit boring? well it wasn't. the host, which thanks to the internet i now know is charlie anders, was HILARIOUS. and one of the writer/readers, madeleine robins, was so amazing i bought one of her books immediately afterwards. i never do that. especially considering the genre, kind of historical mystery, but the excerpt from petty treason was absolutely hysterical. and brilliant! oh, oh so smart. so i knew i must make it mine.

after this, it was late, i was tired and headed home. it was a good day. :-)

a pregnant pause

i really did intend my next post to be about last saturday, but this was too special not to share first.

today i went up to the 3rd floor (party floor) to get me some dr. pepper. while i'm putting dr. p into my lunch bag, a cleaning woman (cw) says to me:

you lose weight?
me: yep
cw: ahh.
cw: you have the baby, yes? (motions with her hands to create a large belly)
me: (staring oddly) no…
cw: oh?
me: no, i didn't have a baby.
cw: oh… (looks sad)
me: (does she think i LOST a baby?) no, it's ok, i wasn't pregnant.
cw: oh...ok.

naturally i have heard of overweight women being inappropriately asked if they were pregnant (when's your baby due?? oops!). however i have never heard of the reverse -- someone who's lost weight, and people assumed they WERE pregnant, and then ask about the baby.

and i gotta tell ya, the whole thing - a little surreal.

toe-tingling action

i just spent almost 2 hours roller skating. again. woo!

i also have "boogie nights" looping in my head. as i start feeling sleepy it starts over again, almost like it's trying to scare me. BOOgie nights!

i'm exhausted but happily so because i had fun. but part of me also feels a little sad because i'm remembering the conversations i've had lately regarding hockey. and for the record those are connected because there's something called roller hockey, in case you ice fiends didn't know. ;-)

why would thinking about hockey make me feel sad? because i can't do it. and how do i know that? because a year and a half ago, i tried at one of the infamous GHATD sessions.

i never blogged about it because i was so goddamn upset over how it went down. you have no idea how much i wanted to play. even though i couldn't (can't) really ice skate, i was supremely motivated because i realized it would be a fabulous way for me to a) make friends and b) lose weight.

granted i've worked out the weight part another way. but the friends thing, that's tough. i'm not really that good at it (in general) and even worse, i'm picky. i need friends who are interesting, funny, smart, or some combination thereof. try as i might, i just can't be tight with people who are all about getting drunk and hollering. not that i don't enjoy drinking or hollering on occasion, but as a career it's not my deal.

back to hockey. so the short version of What Went Wrong is that i have a hidden disability (ick), if you will, that among other things, makes it extremely difficult for me to regulate my temperature, especially the heat. this is partially due to several surgeries for this condition, resulting in partial lymph node removals. anyway. a good 10 minutes after i finally made it onto the ice, i knew i was in trouble. because the gear was snugly covering up a good 75% of me, my heat index was going off the charts.

i can be very stubborn when i want. so i kept at it, hoping it would pass, that i was just sweating profusely because i was getting my bearings. after another 10 minutes, i had to call it and skate away, because i couldn't see. an unstoppable river was pouring off my head and into my eyes, and after 20 minutes of that, i blurrily - and angrily - made my way back to the bench and started taking off the gear. of course i immediately started feeling better, once my skin could breathe, but i was crabby beyond belief. i was glad i didn't really know anyone at that point (liz and andrea had left) because i wouldn't have been good company.

later i talked with liz about gear alternatives, but i could tell that basically, nothing was going to work for me. that kind of (skin) confined sportsmanship is just not for me. far as i can tell, that also relates to roller hockey, which my sister suggested the other day. i looked into the gear some...it would probably be a *little* better, but not much.

and i hate that. i hate that there is something about my body that's preventing me from doing what i want. what i know that i could otherwise do. i think that with experience i'd have become an awesome hockey player. but i'll never get to find out what that's like, and that sucks.

</rant >
as much as i hate this, there are such worse things i could have in my life, and i know it. for starters, at least i have use of all my limbs, so i can get out there like i did tonight. oh and, my skin condition is SO much better than it used to be. 90% of the time my only awareness of it is a daily medication, and believe me i'm incessantly grateful for that. but i guess, i finally felt ready to write about all this, so i went for it.

and really, i'll try to make my next post about last weekend and the fun i had. been too busy at work!

from the this-isn't-really-a-surprise department

Your results:
You are Data

Data 71% Deanna Troi 70% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 70% Spock 69% Geordi LaForge 65% Will Riker 65% Beverly Crusher 55% Jean-Luc Picard 55% James T. Kirk (Captain) 50% Uhura 45% Chekov 45% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 45% Worf 40% Mr. Scott 30% Mr. Sulu 25%

Even though you are a genius you are always striving to be better.

Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character am I?" quiz...


thanks, samantha, for encouraging my quiz sickness! ;-)

heaven in a cupcake

i'll write more about my day of (good) adventure tomorrow, or monday when i imagine i'll upload my pics to flickr, but for now i have to say:

the most amazing food EVER graced my mouth this afternoon. what was it? it was a PB affair cupcake from love at first bite up in bezerkley.

their definition of PB affair: devil's food chocolate cake frosted with peanut butter buttercream, topped with Reese's peanut buttercup

my definition: OH. MY. GOD.

seriously. if you are ever up that way, you must go. it's cheap and, as i said in my headline, it's heaven in a cupcake.

finally, some good news

i take so much comfort in the fact that i'm a word nerd.

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

bubbles' roundup

before i forget and get lost in this entirely-too-long entry, thanks to everyone who voted on the wallpaper! i think ultimately i'll go back to laura ingalls, because she's just adorable, but for the moment i actually have this tiled because i found it when i was trying to restore laura. and that amused me even MORE.

tonight i hear only the sounds of the keyboard and the laundry machine. what's so different about that? haven't i been alone for weeks? no, because from last thursday to today, i had visitors. ok fine it was family but still, i was glad to have some company.

and who visited was my sister, brother-in-law...and their new male companion. that's right -- a triad are they. and in related family news, while my sister was here she told me that when my parents were younger (when i was less than 3 or so) THEY WERE POLY.

good grief. no wonder this shit has come up for me, even though i've never heard my parents talk about it. for obvious reasons i've talked with my sister about it quite a bit. despite her impudence, she's actually very thoughtful and smart. just like me! sometimes.

anyway, the four of us had a great time! friday i introduced them to pepper lunch and toffee crack. friday night we played one of my most favorite games, beyond balderdash. or as liz called it when i described it to her: NUTS, the board game.

i really like that. anyway some of our fake answers are too good not to share:

mehari: a japanese device used to insert frosting into shellfish
poppism: philosophy centered in the belief that mary poppins is the most righteous bitch around
yeevil: something so evil, you just have to say yes

we kept working in these words the rest of the weekend. especially yeevil and the shellfish frosting. damn. and no i can't tell you what the real definitions are! besides, i like ours better.

saturday we mostly chilled -- watched some movies, etc. sunday we went to santa cruz. had some decent seafood, spent too much money at logos, accessorized our phones, and i tried YET AGAIN (more on that later) to find some new pants. i did not succeed, however i did get a cheap winter shirt at urban outfitters.

after killing half a day downtown we needed some food. they wanted to go somewhere cheap but filling. hmm. santa cruz diner sucks. i forgot about denny's but did remember lyon's in capitola. yes, the one of Stuffed Toy Armadillo fame!

off we went, and damn if the food wasn't slower than clearcase. however, once we got it, it was surprisingly tasty and one entree included unlimited french fries. all you can eat! and because we got busy playing the adult mad libs i scored at urban o, there was so, so much french fry consumption. and giggling. we must've been there almost three hours between the slow service and mad libs.

monday they were due to leave, but got wrapped up in laundry and other stuff so decided to move their departure to today. which was great because, since i had a shitty day monday, they took me to sonoma chicken coop for dinner. that place is so yummy, both the food and the atmosphere, that it really did help.

monday was stressful for a lot of reasons but since this post is getting long enough, i'll only mention one stressor: min's car rental. let's just say, the date of her return is wrong and they're being assholes about it. hello, she tried to correct the date with you before she left, and she's in minnesota now so you're not getting your car back tomorrow. but enough on that. i should be winding down. :-p

so, the pants thing -- recently i hit the 85-lb loss mark. go me! the downside is that all but one pair of my pants are too big. naturally i've had some warning on this, so for the last, hmm, 2 weeks i've been looking for replacements. went to target, kohls, old navy, urban outfitters and somewhere else i think. NOBODY had the right size -- either too small, too big, or my favorite -- too long. yeah i am not tall, i get that. but do all the pants have to be for giants??

over the weekend i had the idea to go to macy's. a real department store. i mentioned this to min, lover of thrift stores, today and so of course she said, go to the thrift store!

well it's a good thing i did, because otherwise i'd have gotten no pants tonight! but i did find one pair that worked, thank goodness. since i was determined to have more than two pairs total, i then went to both macy's at valley fair, zooming around because it was almost 9pm already and they closed at 930.

the guy's AND women's sections were a total bust. however - get this - the juniors section was not. anyway, wow, they have a shitload of jeans in their jrs section. so i took ten billion pairs to try on...and a few of them did fit. but they also looked so friggin stupid because apparently (i don't spend time looking at kids enough) The Look is to have jeans fit great at the waist, be almost skintight from your thigh to part of your calf and then bell out like bananas at the ankle.

yeah that is not my look.

the good news (i HOPE) is that, i'm a size smaller than i realized. so i think i'm going to try target again and troll more thrift stores this weekend. if anyone out there knows of good stores (SF to east bay, or even santa cruz) please gimme holler. i reeeeeally would like to get another 2 pairs and be done. :-)

and with that, i'm done for now. go grab a cookie or something, a reward for reading this whole entry!

decisions, decisions

today liz and i were talking and somehow an old favorite came up. when i saw it over on her second monitor, i thought: that would make a great wallpaper!

i had that up, and it was nice. but then i remembered a newer goodie and thought, hmmmm. would that be too much as a wallpaper?

at first glance, the choice seems obvious -- hamster. but as i was thinking about it, i brought up another window and only got slivers of laura smiling at me.

such a tough decision now. adorable hamster or adorable child star? please feel free to vote via comments.

damn

sometimes i forget just HOW tasty the Toffee Crack is. until i have it again, and the first thing i do is moan. just a little one, but to be sure, it happens.

i love you, TC!