Fresh

Good Lord, I woke up at 5:14 this am. It obviously must be due to my overweening excitement about house cleaning

So I have been perusing a lot of the end of year summaries. Not the ones on the news and all that media culture stuff, but the ones on personal blogs. Interesting stuff, though more than a few people either seemed depressed or stated out right that they were depressed. This strikes me as a damn shame. Instead of finding real cures for depression and other mental and social ills we’re co-creating a world where sensitive people cannot find surcease from the attack on their senses due to the sheer fuckitude of the Thanotosers and their nefarious plans. I really feel for those who are feeling helpless, hopeless. I’ve spent an awful lot of time on that island.
But the weird thing is that more than once recently, I’ve sort of looked up and around and said to myself, somethings really different, what’s going on? And the thing I notice is, depression - not so much.
It’s a little freaky, my lifelong companion just slipping away bit by bit. It’s not done or gone, but I seem to be having far more appropriate responses to stuff that would previously have caused me to just want to stick a fork in my forehead. Experiencing legitimate feelings of outrage, sorrow, frustration, fear, annoyance. and general, all around, snarkiness and crankiness. Just sitting with them and not trying to suppress or ignore them. I suspect this helps.

But insofar as the apparently traditional year end roundup and review-
This has been a completely freaky year. Just short of twelve months ago I was in the hospital with bag after bag of super drugs being pumped through my veins.
I realized at that point that I was just fucked. That I had to come up with a new plan. So I quit my job. Well, what I did was give notice. It wasn’t till October that I actually completely extricated myself. The pain and discomfort of standing at a counter for another retail season was just too much to conceive.

By then I had already put into effect the new plan, go to school. So far, so goodish. The weird part was that I took some really serious flying leaps, and stuff, for the most part, just fell into place. I really did not expect there to be a relatively soft landing. I thought that as usual I would end up all shaken and contused and have to just battle through and get ferocious and throw tantrums and such.
I think I gotta give credit to several specific people in my circle for a big chunk of that soft part. I’m betting you know who you are.

In so many ways, in the external world, things are just at a veritable peak of suckitude. But I’m supposing it’s all cyclical, I mean it can’t have been much fun at the peak of the plague, the various inquisitions and the crusades. That must also have felt like a long dark night of the soul. But the humans survived and the renaissance came. Progress intellectual, moral and physical was made. I suspect we are not worn out yet. Just a little damn tired.

Look away, it's ALL cooking!

Last night I mastered 2 kitchen techniques that have been bugging me for quite awhile.

The first is potato pancakes. I’ve never looked at a recipe and I don’t think my Mom made them. I think most people use shredded raw potato for traditional ones. However I’ve always been interested in turning leftover mash potatoes into pancakes. And never quite gotten it, as I always focused on making patties of some kind and got hung up on the egg to starch ratio. More like potato cakes.

But, get a little buzzed and get in the kitchen and there can be moments of illumination. I was able to look at it a different way, and voila.
I treated them as flour and then turned them into batter. Meaning oils, eggs and seasoned flour. Lots of whisking and they became light and delicate, little, dilly pancakes.

I have also been studying how to carve birds. And while I have gotten pretty damn good at it, (I am always asked to carve at Dali’s thanksgivings) there was always a disconnect when it came to getting those beautiful slices from the breast.
Since I’m making chicken soup, I had 2 birds, and four breasts to work at till I got it absolutely right. The trick is to come at the breast from a 90 degree angle.
In other words hold a serrated or incredibly sharp knife sideways at 90 degrees and make slices. Start at the top using nice long sawing motions, cut to the bone until its sectioned all the way down to top of the wing. Then cut straight down from the top of the breast bone and follow the bone to release the slices. Beautiful.

Actually now that I think about it I made some of the best roast beast hash ever the other day too. The trick to the fried potatoes (and fantastic mashed potatoes for that matter) is that as soon as the potatoes have boiled and are the proper cooked-sistency, drain the water off, then leave them in the pot to steam dry. I usually make lots so I can have a mashup as well as pull some out to fridge for fried tatos the next day.
Once they have dried a bit and you have removed however many you’ll want for frying, then add (lots of) butter to melt with the heat. Mash ‘em with just butter at first, then start adding whatever you add. I add milk and sour cream.

For the fry-up, you fridge ‘em overnight, then chop a ton of onion and cook till softened in a pan of olive oil and butter. You gotta have the bit of butter with olive oil because of it’s low flash point, or they won’t brown quite the same.
Then you add sliced or chunked potato and let it all get quite brown. Then use paper toweling and soak up ALL the oils. Then they start browning fast so throw in your chunked roast or corned beef and keep flippin’ everything ‘round till it’s well warmed. Yum.

Addiction/Attachment/ Attraction/Aversion

Why are humans like this?
So I’m making my cup ‘o’ tea, and I want two bags and I get out two bags and all the while I’m saying to myself both: “Don’t do it, you know that actual, tangible, physical pain is the result.” AND. “So what? It’s a day you need to accomplish things, you need this today of all days. You deserve this.”
And right up to the moment I’m putting the bags in the cup I’m gonna do it. Then I say to myself “you know you went to the Co-op and bought yourself all these herbal teas for just this reason”..... So I get out the Caffe Roast and I add a bag instead of the other second bag. Then I’m all like “I fucking hate Caffe Roast, it smells weird.” When in reality I quite like Caffe Roast because its spicy and reminiscent of black tea, you can add milk and it won’t curdle.

First I try to justify a wrong action
Then I beget hatred for the correct action
Then I display my puny victory to the world
Only then do I try to analyze what the hell is really going on here.....

The point is the behaviors. It could be any other thing, why do I keep seeing that person who is terrible for me? Why do I keep doing drugs? Why do I spend the food money on lottery tickets? Whatever. Whether it’s a physical addiction (which does tend to convolute the issues considerably) or just all those mental addictions of living. We just wallow in our addictions and we wallow in our struggle with them. And then should we by some chance overcome something we wallow in our preening pride of overcoming it, ignoring that there are a thousand others still exerting influence on our behaviors.

You know the Buddhist’s are all about the addictive/attachment behaviors and the really bad results that occur. But I am nowhere on that yet, I study it all the time and I still don’t get why it’s just so naturally occurring in pretty much everyone. I also don’t quite get how one is supposed to overcome the really deep rooted addictions, the sly, subtle addictions of the soul. I know A LOT about curing physical addictions and even the general surface neurosis that go with it. But those ones that keep us spinning on the wheel, I’m just not clear yet.
Why are humans like this?

Update:

Apparantly it is not the rain but the shelling out money that makes us so cranky.
Bye bye xmas money. It was nice to have had you for all of three days.
Still it’s a good thing I had it or I would have had to pull the cash outta somewhere.... perhaps my butt?

In a side note: my ranting about Milwaukee previously seems to have drawn the gov. eye onto me. Do we want to have a guessing game about which phrase got caught in their filter? By the way when I try to follow the info back oddly enough the server can not be found......

I don't have a damn picture, thankyou

I am a tad tapped out at the moment. I’m tired and a little cranky. Even though Radiolady and I went and had an indulgent Indian lunch, and I made another pistachio cake, I got to watch Dr. Who and I got lucky the other day, I still feel cranky and deprived.
Counting every cigarette is royally pissing me off. As well as not being able to have whatever quantity of ovarian cancer preventing cups ‘o’ tea I want, when I want them. I am not actually deprived, but I feel deprived.

And of course I could have been ambitious yesterday and accomplished my myriad errands on the way home from lunch but I was lazy instead and today when they must happen it’s supposed to rain.

I suppose part of the cranky factor is that a large chunk of the errands is shelling out money for things. I love spending money and I hate it. If it involves buying CDs or kitchen gadgets I like it. If it involves paperwork and the receipt of such nebulous services as parking privileges I’m just cranky about it.

Perhaps it’s a smitch of ennui as well. I guess it’s not a bad thing that while I still have next week mostly off, I agreed to work a couple days and have two classes reconvening. Ooh that reminds me, I’d better write my drum teacher and inform him of my new plan. Which is to move on again, this time from trap kit to bells, xylophone and marimba, with a view to the vibes in the long run. Hope he’s down with it. I am jazzed on the idea of very tonal percussion and very percussive tonality.
There’s a vibe player named Bobby Hutcherson that I adore. I’d love to be able to do that sort of stuff.

Oh and incidentally, what the hell is up with Milwaukee? Apparently they have roving gangs of youths beating people to death for nothing now. This is supposedly becoming quite widespread. And yet we should use social and legal pressure to force people to bear their unwanted children on the off chance that some well to do family might want a couple. Why does this remind me of Brazil? Next stop - government sponsored death squads.

Rituals Aborted

Did anyone notice the funky weather, which turned from rain to driving, huge, glops of snow? Well, being about to leave Grass Lake for Indiana we did. So we toured lovely, downtown Jackson and turned around and went back the brothers house where we had a lovely, fantastic even, lunch prepared by said brother. He served us the steaks I had brought them, which being Knight’s Market steaks were great. He proved himself to be a REALLY good cook. I so totally appreciate a really good cook. As Oliver said “a great home cooked meal and you didn’t have to make it!”
We also broke out the cake that I had brought to take to Grandma’s, and I went insane on it. That cake is everything I love in cake. I am crazy for that cake. I will be making that cake at every opportunity from here on out.

Then we drove back through the crazy snow, and I then took the bonus time to finish the three new songs I’ve been working on. Two for The Bottom 99, and one for our folk band soon to be reconvened, Quatro Veda.
We have been on hiatus for about a year and a half, maybe two, due to some personnel issues and assorted dumb drama. But now it seems like the time is right to give it another go, since Oliver and I are not dealing with the Largebeat scene, time vacuum anymore. Also I have now written 5 new songs and that seems like a goodly number to begin new work on.

Quatro Veda is an interesting band. It originally started as a place to use the material that Oliver and I were writing that didn’t fit into our punk band at the time, FOLLOW 14. But it really took on it’s own character. The musical styles it encompasses are pretty wide ranging, blues, renaissance, sweet pop ballads, low key psychedelia, blue grass, jazzy little numbers, whatever. Because it was sort of an initial dumping spot, it now has a really cool variety.

I get to stretch out a bit and play a lot of instruments. Lots of percussion, bells, gongs, tambourines, harmonica and whatever I can drag out of my cabinet and work in. I’m hoping that as my piano proficiency grows to add some keyboards. We have a wind player/ percussionist. She adds recorder and now clarinet to many pieces, that gives it a really nice feel. She also plays a bunch of crazy percussion she brings in a suitcase. Then we have a straight percussion man primarily working on hand drums. Oliver on guitar, and we’re hoping to add another guitarist so that there can be some occasional bass as well as more guitar interplay.
So that's the scoop on that.

Anyway I guess it’s time to start my day. I’ve had my tea and another slice of the amazing pistachio streusel sour cream coffee cake. Enough to buck anyone up

Quintessential

This was taken (probably) by my Dad, looking like something like ‘61 or so.
The lad who would become Mr. Science just being a simple kid and the Crap ‘o’ Christmas hasn’t penetrated his consciousness yet.
Am I a little snarky this AM? Yes, it never fails. No sir, I just don’t like it.

Best present this year though? One of those Chinese resin statuary's of Kuan Yin. Very nice, and very nicely made.
Kuan Yin needs to be all over xmas. She’s like Tara. In my view, she and Tara are inseparable, just different cultural views of the same energy being. And Tara’s main gig is to be ready to fly to the aid of suffering beings at all times ready to bring aid and succor. Tara is my very, very, favourite Buddha.

This AM is so very odd. I threw on a robe and went to stand on the porch, where it was freaky dark, foggy and dripping. It was so damn quiet, all of a sudden a whole slab of snow slid off a roof and I jumped. A squirrel came barreling down a tree, saw me, stopped stock still and gave me the old fisheye.
I took pictures as it was so very odd feeling but I don’t know if even a picture can convey how very strange a world it was.

What I listened to while cooking:

Sweet - Desolation Boulevard
Man I love this album, except for Sweet F.A. I just can’t stomach that one.
But I really love The Six-Teens and AC/DC. It sure gets ya going in the kitchen I‘ll tell ya. This is far better than all the xmas sleaze bombadiering around. Just good old glam rock sleaze. Sweet!

Me - I’m putting together my portfolio now that we got a bunch of my old stuff digitized. There’s still one whole bands worth of stuff left to digitize, but as that was not at all one of my more favoured bands, I doubt it would go on my portfolio anyway.

Well I suppose other than seeing how my fog pictures turned out, I’m out of here for the day. This time it’s not my family so it may actually be boring which might be a nice change.

harumph

See now thats todays paper, on my green bedspread, and if you call Mr. Science he can play his copy into the phone which means I didn't take his.

All tomorrows struesels

What topping shall a young cake wear?

Doin' my part tonite

Meatballs Elmira and prime shrimp cocktail

T'other Dinner

The Roast Beast.
My new secret ingredient in my usual rub?
Fine ground coffee.
Believe it or not, and it's awesome.

This was our own little dinner the other night.

Excessive discourses on Peanut Butter

Went and visited Lizardbreath and my sweet friends Memphis and Rodeo last night. It’s hard to see my buddies sick and making their journey off planet.
But what good, old, dogs they are. And frankly I take it as a compliment that Ro was so excited to see me that not only did he did not bite me, but pooped in his excitement. I don’t mind, hell, I worked in daycare for 3 years, and worked with disabled adults for 15 years, I have seen plenty of poop. I have a much harder time with vomit. Chyme just smells really bad.

I have decided that since I am not yet ready to give up my cup ‘o’ tea completely, to splurge and buy myself my very favourite, whereas I normally go for the giant box of Red Rose for economy sake.
So I got a box of Constant Comment. I know it’s not some high falootin white tips from the peninsula of Galoo or something, but for me it’s a taste and smell of childhood. Moms was all about the Constant Comment ice tea. And that particular smell just warms the cockles of my heart. Today I even threw in a tince of sugar and topped it off with fresh, whole, raw milk. Fan-frickin-tastic.

Speaking of both fantastic and PB & chocolate.... (and we were talking PB & chocolate, trust me) Have you tried these new Hershey’s peanut butter Kisses? They are really, really, good. As well as the new dark chocolate Kisses.
See, in my view, the thing about peanut butter and chocolate is the ratio. I recently tried a really expensive giant PB cup at Big Ten Market and the ratio was all wrong, it felt like a waste of money. The other thing is that everyone sweetens the peanut butter to meld with the chocolate and sometimes they get it wrong. Now, to my mind, Hershey’s is a damn fine American Chocolatier. Not only did he have all these radical social ideas but he made decent chocolate. And they continue to keep most of the waxy factor out of the chocolate so that it still has a decent tongue dissolve factor. Unlike Nestle.
But when it comes to the super fine ground, sweetened, peanut butter you have to be really careful. Which is why my favourite is to just take plain Hershey bars and natural peanut butter and dip those sweet rectangles in the PB.
BUT, if you pop both a dark Kiss and a PB Kiss in your mouth at the same time,
it’s mighty damn fine.

When we were living in London the kids were going insane over the fact that there was no Reeses or Reeses like candy anywhere. They had a product called American style peanut butter. It was like Goobers Peanut Butter but instead of the jam swirl it was a chocolate swirl. Since I will never eat Goobers, I couldn’t trust that either.
Finally we found a shop way, way, down Fairfax, like if you got off a tube stop early, where they had Reeses. Oh the raptures. It became a bit of a Friday hoarding ritual.

So later I’ll have the food pics. Ya know, it’s not that I’m very into holidays, but I am sure into holiday foods. I go to cook and bake now. And wrap presents. I got some good ones this year, if I may say so myself. Much shopping on the Nitro_von_Borax cafepress site.
I love giving presents. What can I say. I guess that that’s one thing that keeps me interested in continuing this tradition. Did I mention that I’m a Buddhist and so other than a ritualized gift exchange with food attached there is nothing really for me in this whole seasonal trip? Except Solstice, that’s a big deal to me personally. I actually kind of prefer Birthdays where it’s not an exchange. I don’t like the inevitable measuring that occurs with an exchange. Ok, I’m off.

Obsession

• She won’t eat the really good for you, Wysong lamb and rice. She wants the cheap and sleazy seafood feast.

• I am not ready to give it up completely, not when pot after pot of fresh brewed keeps wafting past my nose.

• I smoked only 12 cigarettes yesterday. I also slept close to 12 hours.

• I somehow remembered how to make bullitts from somewhere so deep down in my memory that I shocked myself.

• I just really like Will Smiths music. And he seems like such a nice man.

• I’ve been suffering from a lack of peanut butter. Yesterday I had toast-n-honey instead and realized that that is a fairly ancient food.

• I have a mental picture going, of one xmas around 1969 when Mr. Science unwrapped the coveted Glen Campbell album. I think it was the Lineman For The County one. The one with his head against a blue background.

• Can you tell I’m trying to distract myself from wanting a smoke? I feel like Mrs. Lafayette Du Bois, don’t fucking touch my camellias though.

• The (famous & coveted) meatballs are made, the shrimp will be made tomorrow, (ya gotta make it fresh in the AM) and I’m going to attempt the amazing sour cream, streusel pistachio cake for Sunday. I think I’m going to have to give it the Stella touch though. I really think nutmeg and orange (or lemon) needs to be added to the streusel, just cinnamon is boring.

• There has been some definite reflection happening on family dynamics and this, the big bugaboo holiday. Every year I say I’m not doing it again, every year I go back. I keep telling myself it’s only a couple hours....

• OK that does it, I’m smoking now.

It's really just hot milk now

I have determined the smoking danger zone. It is in the AM, like right now.
I get up, get in front of the news, with the computer and the cup of tea. Having just woken up I want nicotine. I will smoke about 4 or 5 cigarettes in fairly quick succession, say, every 15 to 20 minutes. I don’t smoke like that the rest of the day. Normally I go anywhere up to two hours without, or more if I’m involved in something compelling.
Tuesday I smoked 16. I actually got uptight at how few there were left at one point and wanted to smoke more. Yesterday I almost got by on 13, then the cat woke me up yakking, it took a while to get back to sleep, yada, yada, yada.

I have stuck to one cup of tea. I had to fool myself a couple times by making a big milky cup of herbal/cinnamon type tea. Today I cut it down to one bag from 2.
Then maybe cut the brew time from there. Right now I steep 6 minutes on the timer.

But I think I have found the source of the pain, as just by cutting down since Monday the pain has diminished significantly. So possibly I was taking courses of antibiotics for something that antibiotics can’t touch. Sigh. Oh well, live and learn.
Now maybe I can get my caffeine exclusively from dark chocolate and kill two birds with one less intensive stone. I will not give up the chocolate, besides they now say that dark chocolate softens the arteries.

Yers Trooly

Karl LaFong & Oliver Blades Agents from KAOS

Charley Daytona gets the greenlight

The taste of love is sweet

While I am still recovering from the amount of stress I have been under in the last few weeks culminating in Sat. nights show, I’ll just do a couple reviews-

• The plan for cutting back the smoking. Take an empty pack, put 14 cigarettes in it and that is the limit for the day. Then if possible I think I’ll try to cut it down to ten from there. I have to admit all the graphic pictures and descriptions in Bio have affected me. Not that I don’t adore tobacco as always, I just can’t deny that it appears to do some nasty things to the bronchioles.

• Dali’s party. It was really nice. I walked in and there was a champagne fountain. I screamed “Oh my God that is so crazy”. I loved the wild way it looked. However it makes the champagne flat so that’s not so good. But as a centerpiece it was fantastic.
I got to see naked men in the hot tub - awesome. Apparently I missed the naked women - so sad.
The Mayor showed up. I really wanted to engage him in discussion of building heights and the great architecture of the new building on Maynard as opposed to the completely stale Cornerhouse architecture. However I figured even the Mayor has the right to party without constituents arguing him so I regaled the group with prime rib cooking tips instead.
I had to agree with Dali that our new neighbor is smokin’.
Apparently I missed several people as I just couldn’t hang on any longer than 11.

• The grades are in. I realize that I’m really, really winding grades into some measure of my self worth, because I cannot believe how much more jazzed I became to discover that as opposed to a B+ in Bio I received an A-. When I saw those three A’s I got an instant huge inflated head, and someone is likely going to have to pop me as I get too insufferable. But man it felt SO good.
I did, however, then have to argue with the Dad, who said something like you could have done this years ago. To which I, who have recently been studying my transcript from every attempt I’ve made previously and analyzing those times in my life that have caused the entirety of that transcript to be filled with I’s, W’s, and other indicators of inability to move to completion, had to say “Dad, I could NOT have done it before, or I would have done”. My argument being that yes obviously I have always had the capacity, but just as clearly did not have the capability.

• As of last night there is a new plan to drive to Howe, Indiana on xmas day. I was just going to go have chinese which is my tradition. But the Oliver brother called, saying the Oliver Grandmother called, wanting to gather the Blades clan.
Now I have to think of something fabulous to cook/bake and bring. I don’t have a clan like that so it’s quite odd. But I think I’ll actually enjoy getting out of town for a quick minute by then.

• The pictures will be up soon, I swear. I have actually gotten them downloaded, all 80 of them and I'll pick out a couple to throw up. A lot of them are no good at all. So thank god for digital cameras where discovering that doesn’t cost one a dime.

• And lastly, the cat continues to buck up.

Let the resting begin

Apparently I’m always throwing in extra apostrophes. I seem to also live on commas. I’m trying to learn punctuation after 35 years of writing poetry in which I could always claim it wasn’t necessary to use any proper punctuation or capitalization.
I’m also still primarily a four to six fingered typist, although my speed has increased a lot and I have begun to be able to slightly memorize where keys are.

I watch youngsters typing and get so annoyed. They seem to be born typing. I remember the big deal in school where the teachers would try to convince you to take typing because “it will help you in college”. Going on to explain that you would get better grades with typed papers than hand written.
I always thought I wasn’t ever going to college and if ever I did, I would pay someone to type for me. The good part is that the rate at which I currently type is only slightly slower than my minds ability to not just compose, but edit and rephrase. That way I can write close to finished copy at my current speed.
I am glad I didn’t type in the time before word processing though, I cant imagine having to type and retype because of a couple little mistakes.

I am so horribly allergic to caffeine. It really sucks. I am so struggling with this right now. I normally have one lovely bigass cup of tea per day right? Well for example Saturday I had three teas and a coffee. Yesterday I had two teas and two coffees. All during finals I was living on cigarettes and caffeine. And my cigarette consumption which I am normally able to hold to 14 a day? I’m up to 20 - 22.

I am going to try to take advantage of this break where I have no classes of any kind, and no band practices and very few appointments, to try and cut these both back significantly. So I’m putting you all on notice that I could easily become very cranky over the next two weeks. Especially during the part where I’m not only cutting down the caffeine but still have the EXTREMELY PAINFUL internal cysts that are the allergic reaction still occurring.

And the cat? I’m so fucking relieved to tell you that she’s now eating quite a bit relatively speaking.
She’s still like a feather to pick up. And like a little wildcat to get medicated.
I think she probably went from 6 to 4 pounds. But we’re feeding her pretty much anything she wants to eat and will continue, for likely a couple months.
Having watched some elderly humans go through similar episodes I suspect the likelihood that this is just the beginning of an eventual decline. I see that each of these episodes are harder and harder to bounce back from for my older friends. So I’m mentally preparing for that possibility. I also still have to cogitate the idea that it might turn out to be cancer. But for now I will just celebrate the fact that she’s bitching for tuna.

Just a quirky

Ok real quick, show was great, light turnout but we kicked some shit out of it. I had been up since 6 am and got to bed at 4am so I’m toast. I’ll have some pictures later when I feel like downloading and viewing a bazillion pictures.

It was so neat to meet Nigel Patel in person. We managed to have a nice couple chats despite the noise level which was a little excessive between sets. That and the distractions and busynessess that were constant. We had to run our own door and sound. That’s kind of unusual, but at least we didn’t have to check IDs. They do that downstairs.

Then arriving home in dread of my poor cat, who then surprised and relieved me by apparently really, finally, turning the corner. When we got home she had eaten, finally, all the food we left and was ready for more. She even got up did a Hobbes stretch and started sharpening her claws on the laundry hamper which I hadn’t seen her do in over a week. And she’s definitely getting stronger as the marks on my hand’s from trying to medicate her will evidence.

Again

I know I put this up before, but hey, who can resist it just once more?

Anxiety

I’m all up in it. Between wondering why I do this performance stuff to myself when I know I have pathological stage fright (always have), and feeling like I’m going to come home to a dead cat, it’s just crazy. Or I should say I get crazy.

But now every little thing is a victory with Hosha. I got her to eat a half teaspoon of clam chowder, victory. I got her to eat 3 tiny pieces of cheese, victory. Every mouthful is a step away from heart failure. I sat with her while she drank a good bit of water. Victory.
Ooh just now, double, special, victory. That regular catfood I've always refused to feed my cat because we're too snooty for that? Well she ate a decent tiny portion just now. Let's hear it for "seafood feast".

Platitudes

Seems like it’s always something. Ya know how people will tell you these fucking stupid platitudes? Like “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle”
What a crock. Tell that to the suicides.

I hate platitudes. I have this idea for a book that is in 2 sections. One section is all those stupid platitudes that are just so not true. The other section being ones that I have found to actually work. It would be one of those little books I suppose.

Phonophobic

OK that doesn’t mean I’m afraid to turn on the stereo
Did you know I have phonophobia? OK, maybe you didn’t know that. Well I get weird about the phone. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s like how in the old days, telegrams used to freak people out. They were always sure it was bad news. I’m sort of like that with the phone and a little with the mail. I really like e-mail though. But the point being that I just yesterday got my very first cell phone. That is just really weird. I used to be able to leave that anxiety behind the front door when I went out. Now I get to drag it with me. Hmmm.

Holy Toledo

We’re going for the triple wuh this time. I feel like a dishrag.
All that’s left is a class this am where nothing but showing up is expected of me.
Well I did say I’d bring a snack, but I think I’m too tired to make cookies.
Then a sign class this pm which I’m wishing/betting might get canceled due to much inclement weather.
I am so very tired. I cannot tell you how tired I am. And of course I jerked awake at like 5:00 in the morning. The cat was puking and I couldn’t get back to sleep as the brain immediately turned on and started clicking through lists and plans and need to do’s.
Then I got online to obsessively wait for grades to come in. They haven’t. They probably won’t until start showing up till tomorrow. I can keep checking and it won’t come any sooner. Why is this reminding me of advent calendars?

So it took me awhile to figure it out but, I now know how to use my new scanner which gives me access to WAY more pictures. So I’m planning on spending a little time working on that over the break, as well as maybe finally clearing a ton of stuff out of various itunes libraries.
Oh crap that reminds me I’m supposed to be burning discs right now, shit, gotta go.

born, suffer, die

Yesterday was a tuff day. The cat was dreadfully ill, Oliver had to take her to the vet as an emergency. I had to go to finals and wait to know what was going on. Not sure, but that was probably not helping when the partial meltdown in Math Lab occurred. As I think I have mentioned before I’m a leaker not a weeper.
But once the leaking starts it’s really hard to stop. My poor math teacher, he’s a nice guy. I wonder how much of that he has to face this time of year.

So the conclusion is I have to take an incomplete. I just couldn’t get through the last 2 chapters. I just couldn’t get the pre-algebraic concepts. I’m just glad there is an incomplete to be gotten, I had thought that with the entirely new system there would not be. I thought I would just fail.
He seems to think I will get there though. He seems to think at some point there will be an AHA moment. Which is better than the poor kid in front of me to whom he had to say that he thought he had a learning disability and give him all these referrals to the counseling center. EEK that’s REALLY tough.

As to the cat there is some possibility it’s cancer..... but she is starting to respond to antibiotics and eat again so it might just have been a serious infection. Source unknown. She had an 104 fever. But I tempted her with straight tuna, after she refused lamb, ham, cream, cheese, and cream cheese.
So she’s just hanging out fairly pissed at having goop shoved down her throat. I know when I woke up in the hospital with that fucking tube through the nose I was seriously pissed, so I imagine how she feels.

It’s been a bad couple, little buddies, month or so, between Mem’s cancer and now Hosha and my friend called to say her dog Boogie died in his sleep Sunday it’s just tuff.
Not to mention many of the humans I know taking really hard hits, there’s cancers and deaths and hospitalizations. Buh, it just sucks.
Anyway, I go to see if Hosh will eat some eggnog now.

Epiphany

The situation was this - I was at summer camp. In the cafeteria, it was PBJ day.
I was making my PBJ sammich and struggling to carefully spread just the right layer of jam on the peanut butter, not too thick, and perfectly evenly spread so that I got a bit of jam with every bite. My friend looked at me and my careful effort and said “Umm, why don’t you just spread the jam on the other piece of bread.”

Seems obvious eh? For me it was a bombshell. I had learned how to make my own PBJ at somebody's knee, and that somebody had always done it this way and I learned it this way. I hadn’t stretched my mind beyond what I was taught.

I was suddenly faced with the idea that:
(A) I could no longer accept at face value anything I was told was best, right, or the correct way to do and/or be.
(B) There are probably myriad other, better ways to accomplish things than the old tried and true.
(C) There apparently were other realities outside my narrow view and I wanted to know what they were.
(D) Basically it boiled down to THINK FOR YOURSELF!

It seems trite and weird but I’m telling you, it changed my life.
This moment stands out in such crystal clarity for me, I have thought about it almost every day for over 30 years.( Maybe because I have a peanut butter sandwich almost every day, I’ve given up jam though). It is a constant reminder to look at everything from every angle I can conceive of and then wait some more before judging to see if another conception pops up.
I think it triggered my analytical mind in a way it hadn’t been before. Some might say that is not such a great thing, as I spend a lot of time overanalyzing everything.

(This is a picture of me at that summer camp either the year of, or the year after my big epiphany)

Polarization

There is something about the sitting with the cat, a fresh cup of tea and a plate of buttered toast, while dividing my attention between Coronation Street and watching the fresh snow out the windows. It is so very soothing and ritualistic.

However, whenever it snows like this I always have to think about the people who don’t have homes. It seems like there are more and more and more of them on the planet. That just sucks. It’s getting so very crazy out there and I wonder how it is that so far I and mine have remained relatively unscathed. Much of my energy is focused on trying to avoid homelessness. But for so many of those people all the plans in the world could not have prevented it. They are pawns and /or victims of the powers and it’s as if they never mattered at all. Just collateral damage.
How long before you and I become just collateral damage?

I detect smoke in the area of your jeans

I have recently experienced (again) in doing what I usually do, taking people at face value, the needing to revise that strategy.

I want to be cared about and understood exactly as I am, and would not really feel good or satisfied having either changed or misrepresented myself to get the love. I tend to assume that others are similarly ethically inclined. Incorrect. Insert admiration, respect, plaudits, a promotion or any other pleasant adjectives and/or nouns (fluffy bunnies or juicy pickle work just as well) for love, it still holds true.

Perhaps some people feel so unlovable that they manipulate any angle for these adjectives, to make them feel good. How can it feel good if it’s based in false information? I’m not talking about a little hyperbole here, I can live with that, no problem.

I’m guessing false good feelings is not the actual addiction. I suspect the greasy, queasy, acid feeling of having slipped another one by another sucker and waiting (and I’m betting hoping) to see if the other shoe drops, really feeds some need to lower oneself deeper into the fryer.

I once went to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. I watched and listened to people describing, with what seemed like tortured relish, things like eating 2 dozen doughnuts in the Kroger parking lot and passing out.
I feel the same energy here. It feels like, “I am such an asshole, let me just pile on myself, in the actions, in the reliving and in the confessional, what a huge loser I am”. In my view that can be an infantile activity. A refusal to accept responsibility.

Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe in the power of confession. It can be a real catalyst and clear the path for change. I just felt like what I was hearing was more of an oft repeated, wallow in self flagellation.
I can’t see how rolling in muck is an effective way to get clean. Either wallow gleefully in muck or don’t. If you’re sick of muck, acknowledge that muck was not as much fun as you thought it would be, take a shower and resolve to try to stay away from muck as much as possible. If you slip and fall in again, take another shower and stay farther away from that muddy patch at the edge. But I digress, as usual.

Here’s the deal, you’re cruising on your twisted path. I watch because it’s in my own best interest to monitor this. I have social dealings with you and while that could be avoided, it would be difficult and would likely force a confrontation. As I am not your conscience and you are not my job, I’m not available for that.
I tend to think that you wait for someone to come charging in, confronting you and making big drama about your “badness'”. I suspect that would be fodder for your complex for years. Or the big thrill of the big breakdown, the pouring of the sticky goo all over your confessor and then your “new beginning” and all the petting, cooing and attention that could garner you. Nope, not interested in being gooped. Or feeding the attention addiction. If that goes down I’ll see ya on the other side, the way other side.

I just thought I’d mention that I think I get your game. But you probably won’t realize this as you’re quite busy trying to be the center, and reciprocity doesn’t gain you much. So you’re not here.

On tootling upon one’s very own horn

Ok before I brag some more I’d like to take a moment to justify myself.

Most of you know, that even though I grew up in a relatively successful middle class family initially, I ended up a street kid, with all that that entails.
The years between 10 and 30 in particular were not very outwardly successful for me.
And even though I have had lots of small triumphs they’re pretty exclusively intensely personal. Most people around me were/are not aware of the things that have kept me going and motivated me to keep attempting to do more than merely exist.

All sorts of odd circumstances have spun and melded in my life. I keep seeing these strange, twisted patterns that indicate to me that all these freakish coincidences are no coincidence at all. Things that seemed really, really, negative bring illumination dragging behind them like some spacey, changeling, stepchild. Cherishing and studying that wispy kid has given me much joy and sustenance.

But when I seem to basking a bit too much in my own love light, try to keep in mind that this is a person who right about 10 years ago, was secretly so very thrilled and tickled by her own key ring just because it had keys to the Tattoo Studio, her Dad’s house, her sisters cabin, the temple, her friends house, and the neighbors house for housesitting. Because those keys represented hard won trust.

Here is (the jist of) what I wrote to Nigel today as he was ruminating on a similar theme:

“I think (hope) there is a clearly discernible difference between a heartfelt celebratory tone and a "I'm King Shit" attitude.
One has every right to celebrate a hard won accomplishment, otherwise we have been overly brainwashed by the puritan ethic. Misplaced humility can be odious too. Think of Uriah Heep.
Natural expressions should feel comfortable, please be as kind to yourself as you are with others.”

So having said that, I had one of my pieces accepted in the student literary magazine.

Wuh, double wuh.

I ran my game today, after having like 10 hours tops to create it and set the whole thing up. I drew up all the materials and created 17 characters. There should have been 26, but I didn’t have enough time to create the rest. As it turns out you need a minimum of 13 players to make it work. We had 12. So parts of it really lagged but parts of it took off like crazy.
It got really, really, goofy and I’m glad to say that I’m proud of the young Americans in my class, as there was only one rule and they continually broke it. Which is really an advantage in this game. The game is essentially about class and knowing your place. But being willing to take chances and assert yourself and create your own fate allows you to make circumstances which can move you out of powerlessness and into power.

I was up at 5:00 am to finish it as there was no time yesterday. 3 classes, a double Dr. appt. and band practice. After that I was so stressed and so tired the inside of my head felt funny, I really felt weird. And I could feel myself just edging up, wanting to go off, when people just wouldn’t leave me alone.
I find it really annoying that I am finally at a place where I’m usually able to clearly state my wants and needs and most people just completely ignore them.

But the point being that I’m really tired and think I’ll nap now.

Buy me some F-in’ gold shoes Santa

• WUH. My new favourite word, this week anyway.

• I was eating a delicious breakfast yesterday of Basmati rice with raw milk, honey, and rose water. Today I ate a weird breakfast of rye toast with peanut butter.

• I either cleverly or foolishly agreed to jump ahead my presentation for Lit. to this Thurs. Did I mention this yet? I have devised a really goofy party game, called “Properly Introduced” using characters from the five books I had read to try to come up with an idea. The books are:
- The Eyre Affair
- Woman On the Edge Of Time
- Woman Of The Asylum
- The Wide Sargasso Sea
- Jane Eyre
I’d tell you all about it, but if it is any good at all I may want to publish it or something.

• This leaves me with only 4 tests, one paper, my piano recital and our show to accomplish next week. Is the sarcasm dripping fast enough yet?

• Did I mention I had my drum recital last Sunday? Let’s just say it was not completely horrible and leave it at that shall we? But thanks to Oliver for playing with me anyway.

• I’d really recommend looking in on Suspect Device over there on the right. He has come back with a freakin’ vengeance and is shredding the world in high style.

oooh exciting

Some insane like 40 beers on tap or whatever, ya'll know, I ain't drinkin' em but I thought you might like to know......

The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater

Its funny, but when I was younger I hated to be caught out in a sweater. My mother was a sweater queen and thusly I hated them. Cardigans, pullovers, turtlenecks, V necks. It didn’t matter, they were all tainted with essence of my mothers style. I did have a lavender cowl neck that I would wear when it was just really, really, Michigan cold, because the cowl neck was initially too radical for Mom. She was mostly from the cardigan generation. The cowl neck is also not a Purely Evil turtleneck.
Although, now that I think about it, I did have an aberrant fondness for one of those 70’s style long, belted, sweater coats for awhile around 78. I also had a super tight powder blue sweater dress in the 80’s, I could get away with wearing it when I was a skinny speed freak. I’d put it on with some 4 inch spikes to go hustle pool with my boyfriend. It was a good ploy.

Now, I love sweaters.
It all started with a tiny, black, strappy, soft, fuzzy, thing. Then I started acquiring more of the little strappy, busty, ones. These were definitely not my Mother’s sweaters.
Then Dali got a black Merino wool cardigan on the clearance rack at Hudson’s for 20 bucks. It just wasn’t him. I said “let me try it on before you return it”. I fell in love. I so wore that thing that it’s now all tatters. I would wear it all winter, all spring, all fall. I wore it constantly through both my lengthy convalescence.
I’d even sleep in it sometimes. It was so very soft, tightly woven, warm and fairly water resistant.
What makes this so weird is, I have huge issues with sleeves, collars, pants, socks, blankets and certain materials. I feel like I’m suffocating. And strangulating. Confined and bound. Itchy. Gah. But that one breathed.

But of late, when the beloved sweater became too scraggly for wearing in public, I started buying other sweaters. It really helped that there was a plethora of them at Valu-world and on the clearance racks. I got zip ups, short cardigans, a long 70’s style cardigan and then discovered these super light, loose weave, angora, bolero like, sweaters. I bought three. I now possess a REALLY inordinate quantity of sweaters and I find this to be just really, really odd.

This weeks books

The Kite Runner
Yum. Delicious, sad and satisfying. Makes me despair of ever being a good author when the competition is that fierce.

The Mad Scientist’s Club
Again. This is total stress relief mind candy. I love it, a childhood favourite reread many times.

Woman On The Edge Of Time
Again. A really good read, I was looking for help getting the creative juices flowing about mad women and time travel for my final project in Eng. Lit. It worked.

Women Of The Asylum - Voices From Behind The Walls 1840-1945
Another for my Eng. project. Wuh, really, really intense. Just bleedin' awful in fact, but a really important book.

The Eyre Affair
Another for my project, time travel, lycanthropy, stolen manuscripts, a never ending Crimean war, alternate realities where literary characters come to life, (hence the title). I haven’t quite finished it but it is just wacky and fun. What the hell life is short, might as well read a goofy ass book now and then eh?

Oh just kiss my holly, jolly butt

I have no patience. That is pretty clearly established. It manifests differently now. But all this Xmas talk has brought up (as usual) some old stuff.

Advent calendars. I used to beg for one every year. My Mom would give in even though that wasn’t her style at all. I’d get it and do pretty well for a couple days and then ZAM I go crazy and open all the little windows. Then I’d try to close them up in such a way that no one could tell they had been opened. It didn’t really work out that way though.

Then there was a really bad Xmas. I’m maybe 9 maybe 10. My parents went to England for vacation for 2 weeks just prior . I was left with this liverwurst sandwich eating, baby sitting, grad student, his girlfriend and her bratty kid. Janice Fink, I’ll never forget you. I’m sure you’re a perfectly lovely woman now, but at that time you were like some Harriet The Spy character bane of my existence.

So this kid was my age or a year younger, I had to share my room with her, I had to share the TV with her and she loved Lucy. I don’t love Lucy. Never have, never will. I loved (literally) Hogan’s Heroes. I didn’t really get the Bob Crane itch but I had it bad for all the rest. Richard Dawson’s accent. Ivan Dixon’s velvety blackness, intelligence and that smile. That gorpy dude’s skinny gorpiness. Even Lebaeu’s accent every now and then. I can definitely see why certain Trinidadians and Nigerians had me giddy for awhile when I was around 18.
They were sort of all of that rolled into one. Skinny, accented, velvety, smiling gorps that most of them were. Ahh, but I deliciously digress.

Anyway I’m pissed, bored, and impatient when I discover that The ‘Rent’s had done all the Xmas shopping before they left. Wrapped everything and put it in their giant closet. I fret over it maybe a day or 2. Before I open every single present for me and then rewrap them all. Here is my lifelong lesson learned. If you’re going to do crime don’t have a partner. She ratted me out almost immediately on my parents return.

Oh, did the roof cave in. All those presents went away, where? I’ve never known.
And the sibs gave me a really hard time about it for months. I’ve hated that kid ever since.