Filth and fires.

Despite being a promotional piece for a Clorox line (Green Works), this guy's work is like a truly clever version of writing "Wash Me!" on your filthy station wagon.

I'm down in Santa Cruz for the weekend. We came for the Live Earth Farm summer solstice celebration, but a fire started about three miles from the farm yesterday afternoon as we were driving over. The plume of smoke was huge at first and traffic into Aptos was a nightmare. Yesterday also boasted record heat, apparently in the 100s, so I felt especially bad that we opted to bring the rabbits with us and they were stuck in a travel cage in the back seat of the car for over an hour. (They're fine, hanging out in an x-pen in the garage where it's nice and cool.) The fire is supposedly contained and from what we can tell, the celebration is still on, but the air is still smoky.

Fire season started early and it's already off to a spectacular start. There have been at least three destructive fires in the Santa Cruz and Monterey areas, where there are lots of farms and livestock. I heard stories from one of my usual farmers' market guys after the Corralitos fire that it was raining ash into some delicate lettuce and plenty have endured evacuations. Between the fires in California agricultural areas and the floods in the midwestern cornfields, it's not a great year for farming.

As a petty end note, I'm using Kevin's dad's computer, equipped with Vista and IE. At home I run Ubuntu and Firefox on an old laptop and for all the bells and whistles this machine should have, I have to say I hate using it. IE is having a hard time dealing with tabs and every time it crashes (often, if I watch a Flash video or the security software pops up with a minor update) I lose all my open tabs. This is basic web browsing, to me. A brand-new Cadillac may be powerful, but I'll stick with my beaten up old Civic.

Infectious smiles and a daily dose of political discussion.

Jonathan Richman is a man who doesn't look accustomed to smiling. The lines on his face tell you he's been in the music business longer than you've been alive, so much so that you begin to wonder if he's disappointed to be playing a gig in such a small space, strumming out old favorites accompanied only by a drummer who seldom speaks.

And then he smiles. He smiles and he plays his songs and he dances and he relishes in the crowd as much as they're enjoying him. You listen to his words and watch his demeanor and you think, maybe something is right in this world after all.

Go see him play when he comes to your town.

--

When your aunt forwards you one of those "Obama is a secret Muslim who won't do the Pledge of Allegiance" emails, don't let that racist shit slide. I don't care who you're voting for or what your political views are, fight the smears. Debate on the candidates merits, personalities, stance on the issues, hell, argue about whose wife is prettiest*, but don't make it about black versus white. There's a problem with race in an America where people believe it makes any sense to say they're not "racist" but find those bizarre rumors plausible.

I also just want to say I don't get those Hillary Clinton supporters who say they're going to vote for McCain. The two Democratic frontrunners had such similar views that I didn't want to choose--being a registered non-partisan voter allows me that luxury. If you were so gung ho about a woman in the White House, why the hell would you go with the guy who wants to abolish major women's rights in this country (and supposedly called his wife a "cunt," which, classy)? I guess I just hope you all change your minds by November.

* Don't, actually, but at least that's subjective and debatable, not an outright lie.

Things my rabbits love (besides Kevin).

My rabbits, Lilly and Ollie, don't love me. I'm just the crazy person who feeds them twice daily and grooms them (when they allow me) and tells them they are cute. They love Kevin, who brings them hay and sometimes treats and never attempts to groom. He is like a freakin' St. Francis of Assisi, all the animals love him.

Most of the time, though, they don't get to shower their love on my boyfriend. They have staked out their territory across most of my floor, and here's a list of things--besides actual food--they would be sad to live without.

1. My ingenious hay loft. I swapped the shelf and basket positions when I assembled it, put a chew-friendly mat on the bottom shelf, and filled the basket with hay. It sits next to one of the litter boxes. They can reach hay from any angle: the sides, underneath (also good for "hiding"), and--their favorite favorite--sitting IN the basket. Both fit in there at the same time.
   
   
2. The tunnel. This was an offhand suggestion from one of the Rabbit Haven volunteers when we adopted these guys, and it was a good one. This is available at pretty much any decent hardware store because it's what you use to pour concrete to install a fence post. The bunnies crawl through the 8" tube like it's some kind of secret passageway to the safety zone of our next item.
   
   
3. Under my bed. Coupled with the tunnel, I'm sure this feels very much like a natural, earthy nest, without all the digging and being covered with dirt. It stays cool under there during the day and they can take a nap stretched out on the hardwood floor, but still quickly access water, hay, and litter boxes.
   
   
4. An old newspaper. It lives under the bed and they tear it to shreds, eat it, and nest in it. I'm sure that's very satisfying if you're a house rabbit.
   
   
5. Boxes. If you've ever seen that picture of cats sitting in boxes, you should know that rabbits have a similar inclination. The best ones are have low sides because they can sit in them and chew without straining anything.

My favorite things about the rabbits are watching them eat and when they use the steps to hop up on my bed. Especially when I am still IN bed. They like to explore, but they are cautious and know it's not their space. They leave a few inches of personal space around my face.

If you want to find out your favorite things about rabbits, go to Petfinder to find a local rescue group, or if you're in the San Jose/Santa Cruz area, go straight to the source: The Rabbit Haven.

Random notes too brief blog about proper.

• This week, I owe it to the rest of you to shower myself with blessings.
  
  
• Despite the difficulties of the job hunt, I'm still glad I quit my old job.
  
  
• The new Cool Whip commercial (could not find a link) featuring Cool Whip in a can starts out with someone singing, "I want to play." This reminds me of the creepy Twilight Zone episode with the evil doll who wants to KILL. (I would link to the episode, too, but CBS.com only has the series through season 3 and that episode is season 5. Please believe I know that thanks only to Google and IMDb, and not because I am a huge TZ geek.)
  
  
• I have two entrepreneurial ideas. One involves reviving StripMallHell.com and roping some Web 2.0 coder friend into creating something cool with me. The other involves becoming a healthy, veg*n personal cook-for-hire. Neither is likely to go anywhere.
  
  
• Kevin and I were out on Saturday night and I needed more coffee beans. He stayed in the car while I ran into Barefoot Coffee to get my fix. I felt like one of the junkies on Intervention whose parents or best friends enable them with a ride to skid row and $100 to buy smack. Except he didn't pay for the coffee, the shop is in a middle class strip mall, and I'm not a pariah. I hope.
  
  
• Yesterday for Father's Day I baked Kevin's dad a peach galette (a word that I have been both spelling and pronouncing wrong). We also had the Sunday night set menu/name your price dinner at Malabar Cafe. It was fantastic.
  
  
• Battlestar Galactica's mid-season finale (a pox on Sci-Fi Channel!) left us in a decent waiting space, I think. Now what?
  
  
• I have now seen every single TV episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and now I'm pissed that I didn't get into it when it was originally on because there's no one to discuss it with, fresh, only old discussions to read. But I loved it.
  
  
• Jonathan Richman is playing the Make Out Room in SF this week and I am going one night with my friend Steve because it's what he wants to do for his birthday. I can't think of a single thing wrong with this situation.

Kitchen going crazy.

In the last 24 hours I have made:

White bean garlic dip (texture like hummus)
Radicchio-balsamic vinegar-olive oil crostini topping
Tomato-zucchini fritters and greek yogurt dip to go with
Honey shortening biscuits
Balsamic-macerated strawberries

It's hot as shit and I don't know why I have been using my oven so goddamned much.

Also, there's a grass fire a few miles from here and the sky is a foreboding shade of yellow.

But the food, the food is awesome. And I am bringing most of it to my friends' house for tonight's season(-ish) finale of BSG. I like to share. I overshare. I can't stop sharing.

Now won't someone share with me?

Let's dork out!

I recently spent money on something other than food and gas. I'm not really supposed to do that, but I am getting fatter and I don't feel like leaving the house. I do, however, like sitting on my bed and playing with my Nintendo DS.

Enter Let's Pilates! Sure, workout video games are ridiculous. I'm certainly not rushing out to buy Wii Fit--costs a lot and I hear the game itself isn't up to snuff--and I used Yourself! Fitness for about a week before giving up.

The thing I like about Let's Pilates is that it is well-focused and full of good, detailed instructions on how to do all levels of the positions and motions. I took a pilates class two years ago and it was one of the best exercises I've ever done. It takes a lot for me to actually LIKE an exercise. I stopped taking the class only because I'm a moron. I tried the free class at my local 24 Hour Fitness and the instructor was awful. The DS version of pilates instruction is almost as good as taking a decent class, and I can do it in my room.

Sure, it's awkward to hit "Next" in the Challenge mode, which is where you get detailed instruction on various poses/moves. It breaks it way, way down, gives you something to imagine (which I've taken the liberty of making real, where possible--for example, holding a ball under my knee to keep it bent and the muscles taut), and helps keep your breathing on track. Once I get the hang of the movement, it isn't necessary to see the screen, and the oral instructions are clear. Plus you can turn off the silly music without muting the speaking.

The other silly thing about it also relates to Challenge mode: the Pilatree (oh so clever) and the smurfy little dancing characters that give you rewards for completing items. Like new clothes for the model! Or pilates trivia! Or pilates for everyday (wait, that actually might be useful). It's just rather silly for a game that's otherwise straightforward and instructive.

If you have a DS and you like pilates, for $30, it's not a bad deal.

An introvert in an extrovert's world.

Wherever introversion meets social anxiety, that's where I am in a job interview. I do a good job of keeping the social anxiety under control in most other situations, with with as much at stake as there is in the job hunt, it just comes out.

I know I come off as unsure of myself. Apparently when it matters, I am. When I get comfortable, when I feel like I have some control over my situation, I can tear down that veneer, but how can you act sure about something you don't already know? It strikes me as dishonest, so I tend to softpedal, to demur, to self-deprecate. I can see myself doing it and I'm still not sure how to unlearn that. No matter how many times I practice individual pieces of an interview, it isn't part of a cogent whole and it especially fails to account for the very real anxiety. An introvert like me needs to plan the hell out of things that make her nervous, and you can't plan an interview, only prepare.

Preparation is pretty much the only “positive” coping mechanism I have—no one, least of all a potential employer, is going to think having notes and print-outs is something to be avoided. I prepare, I preen, I think, I listen to something energizing in the car, I feel pretty, and I am friendly. Then I sit down at their desk and start talking about myself, “ums” and all.

I haven't so far been able to practice without feeling silly or reverting to coping mechanisms. I don't talk myself up; I'm not comfortable with it on the whole. I don't see how it's relevant to the actual doing of a job that I can puff myself up (though I realize it can help a potential employer see me). I use humor to break the tension, sometimes at my own expense (I am working to curb this). I focus on connecting and being honest but thorough.

I'd love to be the kind of person who can enjoy the journey as much as the destination. Sometimes I am—when traveling and cooking; in relationships; with storylines in movies, books, and TV—but with this process, the more time I have to enjoy the journey, the more freaked out I get. Every day presents me with another challenge to my increasingly weak self-esteem. There's glimmers of hope, and they're tests: Can I improve on past experience, or will I regress? Above all, I need to keep in mind that there are others doing the same thing as me, and I need to prove to these people that I'm a better fit than they are. I don't like putting myself above people.

But this being MY blog, I can afford to make a written declaration of my own awesomeness. I am tired of getting in my own way.

I love working and feeling productive. I love being part of a team and making a contribution. I'm not out for glory, but I want the product I work on to be great. I dig a good to-do list and I take time to make sure even typed note sheets look good. I can spot a typo from across the cubicle. The Internet is the air I breathe and I've blogged since before they called them blogs. I am funny, I think before I speak, and I bake a mean vegan cookie. I am an asset—you know you want me.

How are you awesome?

Now that the chips have fallen...

I'm gonna go ahead and get me some political banners.

First up:


It's a gimme but whatever. Go Obama!

Cable TV: A Pro-Con List.

Pros:

• What else am I supposed to do all day? (This is only a little tongue-in-cheek.)
  
• Inane lady-programming like TLC and HGTV.
  
• Incredibly stupid crap on VH1 (and if you assumed this will appear again on the Con list, you are right).
  
• Project Runway, Top Chef, and (okay, this is sad) Shear Genius.
  
• Gilmore Girls reruns.
  
• Free stuff On Demand!
  
• Battlestar Galactica.
  
• My god, how could I forget Comedy Central? The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are obvious, but there's other good stuff.
  
• The Soup.
  
• Mythbusters.
  
• Having cable eliminates the need for a DTV converter box next year.

Cons:

• I am already mooching housing. Mooching cable is extra bad.
  
• I might be more productive and/or read a damn book if I didn't have cable.
  
• Cable TV allows/encourages me to watch soul-sucking and brain-rotting tripe. Like VH1.
  
• The myriad legal alternatives to getting the content I actually want: Netflix, YouTube, various networks' free Flash video pages, friends' houses.
  
• Stupid ABC Family doesn't have stupid season 7 of Gilmore Girls, but they do have that heinous Christian power ballads commercial on every goddamn day. Those songs get stuck in my head. That's that power of Satan coming through.
  
• I seldom use the On Demand feature.
  
• Comedy Central has crap I don't want to watch on about 75% of the time.
  
• Once I get a job (probably one with a lengthy commute), I will have less time for stupid TV.
  
• Kevin can stop bitching about the volume or making fun of me for whatever dumb thing I'm watching. TV on DVD is somehow more respectable, and with subtitles, I can maintain better volume levels.
  
• Paying Comcast is just lame.

Stuff White People Detect.

With White's Metal Detector! It's my latest favorite really stupid commercial! So much to love: the hilarious brand name in a commercial populated exclusively with White People!, and their marketing is full of bizarre, unintentional double entendres. My admittedly immature favorite is from the homepage: "Go DEEP!"

I'm apparently incapable of writing lengthier posts about anything this week. Maybe you'll get something long about Buffy when I finish the series. Maybe you'll hear some happy news from my world (I effing hope). Maybe you'll get me writing about how I overdosed on cookie dough and have no desire to cook dinner now. You never know.

Coffee and pie.

WHAT. Thank you, Defamer, for the link: freaking Twin Peaks is streaming in its near-entirety (no miniseries) over at CBS.COM. If you like weird shit and good TV and you haven't watched this show, go watch it. If you liked this show already, well, go enjoy it without having to buy or rent anything.

Yesterday my sister graduated from college. She got her BFA in animation and visual effects in a lengthy ceremony at the Cow Palace. As with most commencements, two-thirds of the event is taken up with graduates filing in, getting up to wait for their names to be called, walking across the stage, posing for a photo, and filing out at the end. "Pomp and Circumstance" is played for a grand total of at least 45 minutes (pity the musicians). There's some speechifyin', some cliches, some slide shows, and several hundred young adults wearing funny hats. You might expect an art school to be a little more creative, really.

Being the only family able to attend, I brought her some money from our mom and took her out to lunch at a Mexican/Salvadoran place across the street. I found it on Yelp the night before and apparently none of the other graduates knew about it, because we were the only non-Spanish speakers there. I had a couple pupusas stuffed with cheese and something called loroco leaf, pureed black beans, and rice. Margot had carne asada. We both had the horchata. The pupusas and the tortillas that came with Margot's dish were insanely fresh and lovely.

I was so tired yesterday that I ended up driving my sister to a random Caltrain station in South San Francisco after driving around for half an hour when I should've been able to get her to one of the BART stations along Mission in no time. Ridiculous, I am. I hit the early southbound traffic on my way south, and I had to keep going past my usual exit because I had to pick up veggies and strawberries in Los Gatos then go... well, take care of some gatos at my friends' house. I think I'm getting a sinus infection, too.

This was definitely not what I meant to post about, by the way. I was going to write about how I've been--FINALLY--watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and that I love it and being unemployed is great for marathon TV-on-DVD suggestions. I just started the sixth season and after I finish the seventh, I am moving on to Angel.

What? It's good to have something to focus on.

You can't just throw 'em away!

As a cheap way of helping me put away some of the piles of crap that prevent our house from looking presentable to the prying eyes of our landlord, I purchased a pack of 10 bag hutches.

When life gives you cherries...

the pits
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

Yesterday we celebrated Kevin's grandfather's birthday with fresh cherries and strawberries, coconut "bliss" ice cream, and delicious Thai food. It was a lovely day.

Today I need to clean my house a bit in case my landlord comes inside tomorrow (there's a mouse in the garage--a detached building--and they're coming over to find it) plus work on that whole employment thing. I have one session left with the coach and I am pushing it back because I just don't feel ready to be done. I'm not done. Plus, I know it's rough out there, and I know my clock is ticking down pretty fast and I still don't know what exactly to do if I don't get a real job soon. (That wasn't a call for suggestions, for the record.)

Wednesday my sister is finally graduating from college, so I'm reppin' for the family and taking pictures. For the remainder of the week I'm also on cat duty at Steve and Jenn's. Hopefully it won't be hot as hell again this week so I'll feel able to do things other than nap and leave to find places with air conditioning that won't tempt me to spend money.

Maybe I'll also find more cool things to blog about besides my life! Let's face it, my life is most bloggable when I don't have time to do it.

To yelp or not to yelp.

I just read a story about online “reputation management” services for restaurants (link via CHOW). As an avid Yelper who is often bored enough to participate in the Talk boards, I can tell you there's lots of discussion among these Internet users/reviewers regarding the response of businesses to non-professional reviews. As you might imagine, most of them think business owners who fail to live and let live with the online crowd are... well, stupid.

The value of individual reviews can be debated for the next decade, but I don't understand why some restaurant owners seem to think that (1) you can control information on the Internet and (2) everyone believes everything some other asshole says online. So why bother getting het up because not everyone who posts an opinion that's not exactly your own marketing copy?

Most people can tell when the reviewer is being unreasonable. Most people are likely to analyze reviews in total in their own, individual ways. And most people are unlikely to respond well to obvious owner meddling. Most people want businesses to earn those rave reviews.

It's one thing if you want your restaurant's own website to show up first in a Google search, but to prevent Yelp, Chowhound, etc. from showing up at all is just kind of... dumb and limiting. People like me, for instance, might think no one cares about your restaurant enough to even review it, so why would I want to go there?

Hey, you three people who read this: how do you use sites like Yelp to determine whether or not to try a place? Do you write reviews?

I don't need to be made beautiful.

Body image, beauty, and what it means to be a woman in America today have been on my mind lately. Sad to say that part of the reason is because I keep watching What Not To Wear and while it makes me covet, it also makes me think. No, really, pretty much any old show brings up class/body image/etc. issues if you're reading it hard enough, and you don't have to look too deeply into WNTW. The entire show is about body image.

In some ways, I appreciate it. They don't tell their makeover subjects that they are fat and ugly—quite the opposite, they tell them their clothes are ugly and if they just changed the clothes they wore, they might stop thinking of themselves that way. It's simplistic, but at least in the show's editing, it seems to be true. I like the notion that looking good, and by extension feeling good, is accessible to everyone, not just those in the fashion industry or with size 2 bodies. What nags at me is that despite their ability to veer away from model beauty, they do have a fairly rigid idea of conventional beauty that must be imposed. They describe their suggested looks as sophisticated feminine. Bad clothes might look like a 12-year-old boy would wear them, or they're homeless, or androgynous. These things are putting up a wall. It's assumed that once a woman feels pretty, that's it, they only want to feel pretty.

In today's culture, there's a shape most women would do well to emulate, just as there's a shape for men, and the two are distinct. Feminine features on a man are faults to be counteracted; masculine aspects of women are de-emphasized. Men are good to go with a short haircut (maybe a little product) and a good moisturizer while women are goaded into cutting off their hair (much as I agree with the suggestion on an aesthetic level) and taught how to do a “five-minute face.”

Maybe I just get too into it, because while I'm down for the shopping (styling advice, $5,000 to buy fabulous clothes, and a free trip to New York sounds awesome) and the hair (I do my own only because I'm cheap), I'm stuck on the makeup. Why do we have to wear makeup?

Ever since my mom took away a green eyeshadow-containing toy when I was a kid, I don't recall being fascinated with the rigors of a daily makeup routine. Sure, I had a large collection of cheap, colorful nail polishes from ages 13 to 15, and there's been at least one tube of some dark red lipstick floating around my room for probably 10 years now, but I never understood the people who were afraid to be seen without a full face of makeup on and never really put it on myself. I have never owned foundation, powder, eyeliner, mascara, any of that. And I think my face looks great without it. My skin isn't perfect and it might look better with makeup on it, but to me, smearing gunk on my face just to feel presentable enough to get out of the door seems antithetical to self-esteem. I don't know why I can justify flattering clothes but not makeup, but there it is.

On a related note, here's a couple links:
- The Cho Show, an interview with Margaret Cho, champion of body issues (among other things)
- The Rise of Bodysnarking, which, wow, really? (via Feministing)

More gay marriage links (I am too hot to attempt wit).

I always like reading the discussions on anything court-related over at The Usual Suspects, and today's anti-DOMA ruling is no exception.

As for the state constitutional amendment worming its way onto the ballot this fall, here's what we're up against and here's some people working to defeat it.

Petty things that drive me crazy #4.

THE GODDAMN HEAT.

That's all.

Wait... wait... there's more:

Why the hell did I move to California, again?

Fight for rights -- the embarrassment approach.

A dude I know online--a fellow Californian voter, married man, and soon-to-be father--is my new hero, and here's why:

[bret] ugghhhh.... constitutional amendments to declare what love is
[bret] jebus fucking shit
[bret] i railed into a guy trying to get me to sign that amendment, cause i did sign the 'increase in alternative energy money' ballot
[bret] he's like, 'while you're here, would you like to petition for a constitutional ban on gay marriage'
[bret] i said 'holy cow! no way! that's probably the worst idea for a law EVER.'
[bret] but i said it really loudly and he got embarassed
[bret] that'll teach him to promote that shit in front of MY grocery store
[bret] Safeway, all gay, all the way

See, guys, it doesn't take much. Just behave as if gay marriage is normal. Put anti-gay rights activists on the defense where they belong.

Let's hear it for good news!

Today the California state supreme court overturned the same-sex marriage ban. Apparently, it's a basic right to form a family relationship, to marry, whomever we choose (provided they're human, of age, and there's only one of them).

That is, until the voters approve a constitutional amendment banning it more permanently. If I have anything to say about it--and, as a registered California voter, I do!--that won't happen. Let's work together to make sure the homophobes don't continue to reign.

The ruling (PDF) was handed down only hours ago, but already a few of the blogs I follow have commented:

• Of course, Dan Savage opines over at Slog, with a follow-up from Annie Wagner.


• Lisa imagines Gavin Newsom's hilarious reaction, complete with popular Internet acronyms.


• Jessica at Feministing chimes in with a quick hit.

TV Obsession Roundup #1.

Some of you know I have a problem with America's Next Top Model. I've largely broken my addiction to this truly horrible show, but still catch it sometimes if I'm not doing anything else. (Let's face it, how often am I doing something else?) Anyway, I only caught about half of the current cycle, but it was enough to turn up my nose at its "full-figured" winner. Apparently, she was teased by the mean girls in high school for not being a twig. The bitch can still shop at any normal store and doesn't come close to falling into a plus-size category, but Tyra (crazy fucking Tyra) thinks she has a new niche winner with whom to pat herself on the back. She's changing the industry! Good job, Tyra! Sheesh.

On the other hand, I enjoy Top Chef an increasing amount. I love Richard and Stephanie. I used to hate apparent speed freak Andrew, but now I find his spazzy humor endearing. He's more than a little cocky, but isn't any good chef? Dale doesn't look good on reality TV but I bet he's good. I'm watching the episode right now, and Antonia, what the hell is wrong with cooking Asian food all the time? How is that not well-rounded? That covers half the world's most respected cuisines, and he seems well-trained and well-versed in it. This week's focus on healthy eating is rad, by the way. Let's hear it for whole grains and veggies.

The third thing is VH1's Sex: The Revolution documentary series from the same people who made 1996's The Drug Years. I randomly caught the latter in one of its many marathons and found it really interesting, informative, and entertaining. The first two installments of Sex are up there, too, and I'm looking forward to catching the other half. Defamer notes in particular that Danny Glover's insight into the 1960s San Francisco Free Love scene are...enlightening.

On today's menu: deliciousness.

Some days I have just the right touch in the kitchen. Not everything I ever make is heavenly, but sometimes I do the ingredients justice, and then not only do I feel satisfied, I feel full. Mmm.

Late this afternoon I realized I needed some type of lunch, so I whipped up a red lentil and brown rice dahl with a little canned diced tomato, spiced simply with green garlic, red onion, brown mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander, turmeric, ginger, and hot cayenne. I was quite pleased with it and its recipe-less goodness. I had it with a salad that used up my lettuce, red beet, a carrot, and a scallion with some dijon-apple cider vinaigrette.

After 8, Kevin noted that he was hungry again. I was uninspired, but I pulled out my heads of cauliflower and broccoli, a couple carrots, a tomato, and some small round summer squash, chopped them into big hunks, tossed with a little olive oil and seasoned, then roasted them until just slightly browned. Meanwhile, I cooked up a little batch of long-grain brown rice and mixed up some peanut sauce dressing (peanut butter, red curry paste, lemon juice, and a dash each of agave sweetener and soy sauce, thinned with a little water).

Dude. So good. SO good. I mean, go make it right now good. Takes some time because roasting and rice-cooking take about 45 minutes or so, but pretty low effort. You don't need to drench things with the peanut sauce, either; a little goes a long way. Roasted is the way to go with a lot of veggies; adding a tangy sauce and eating it with rice makes it a complete meal.

Of course, Kevin made his own food anyway, despite my near-heroic efforts of kitchenry. More lentils. Weirdo.

Lesson learned: applying for jobs late at night is a bad idea.

I did that on Thursday night. I don't know what came over me--I just sat there and searched all the job sites and found new ones and applied, applied, applied until about 2 a.m. My body woke me up before 8, so I didn't get my usual seven hours of sleep. I was fine on Friday--two cups of coffee helped--but by Saturday, I was unable to stop myself from napping. I just wanted to sleep all day. Yesterday, I slept until almost 9, which is very late for me, and felt like a zombie all day. Today I slept until 9:30 or so, much to the hungry bunnies' dismay. I feel more awake, though, so maybe I finally caught up.

Maybe someday I can have a real schedule again.

Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.

I covet. Ever since I made myself unemployed, my yearning for new wearables has grown well beyond my means, which are, naturally, shrinking. I was finally getting used to the ability to buy things just because I wanted them and being able to afford it. I was never a big shopper, but I have to admit I enjoy it. It's a sickness.

I did slip a few weeks ago after seeing one too many episodes of What Not To Wear touting the virtues of the wide-leg trouser and the fitted jacket. I love a jacket and can never get enough, but for job interviews, of course I need more than my existing assortment of crappy black slacks and jeans. So after a lot of Internet window-shopping and receipt of my stimulus check, I went to Kohl's because it's nearby, it seemed to have the type of thing I was looking for, and it was having a massive sale. And I had good luck! I found a few tops that I liked on me, and one pair of pale gray trousers. But my shopping bug was insatiable, so I went to crappy Westgate Mall, home of Target, Old Navy, Nordstrom Rack, and the shittiest Ross you ever did see. I saw nothing worthy at Ross or Old Navy. I didn't have the energy to tackle the piles at Nordstrom Rack and there weren't any cool shoes out. In Target, I found a lightweight cotton jacket in mocha and trousers in a dark chocolate that worked.

Of course, my transgressions were punished almost immediately. As I was making my getaway through the maternity section (FEAR!), I tripped and twisted my goddamn ankle.

And the other thing, my god, one simply cannot wear black oiled clogs to interviews and look polished. I have one pair of pointy-toed black kitten heels that are sufficiently professional, but I need options. I covet shoes. I covet shoes in pretty colors. My feet need more red in their life, and not just on those black-lace-with-red-patent-buckle casual flats I have. And I need to be able to walk in them without looking like a drunk, so no 3-inch slingbacks for me. I bought two pairs online, one of which is about to get sent back because as cute as they are, they run about a half size too small for my giant feet. The other is pointy, red, and basically flat. Fantastic, and cheap!

BUT IT'S NOT ENOUGH. I NEED HELP.

Preferably a job. Or free money.

Catching more flies with brown rice syrup.

I'm pro-choice. I'm also a vegetarian. In some ways, it feels like pro-lifers and vegetarians have philosophical overlap, and when either side takes that to its dystopic extreme, it seems to do more harm than good to their movement.

At first it might seem unfair to compare the two—though unfair to whom depends on which side you favor. But consider the tactics and imagery used.

Pro-life (anti-abortion activists, really) in its extreme uses blown-up photos of aborted fetuses and the shout the word of their wrathful god to picket abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices. Vegetarians—under the auspices of PETA or the Animal Liberation Front—protest with pictures of beakless chickens smothered in overcrowded coops and toss red paint on people wearing fur. Both are doing so in the name of saving lives or ending cruelty to living things. Neither are likely to convince many people to change their beliefs or actions except perhaps in the short term.

I'm the immature person who drives by a Planned Parenthood protest with my middle finger raised, but I haven't got much more respect for the off-putting tactics of PETA/ALF/et al. While I feel the need to respect all their beliefs, I disagree so deeply that it begins to offend me. I don't think it's right to guilt people into major life decisions, be it what god to follow, when to have a child, or what to eat for dinner.

My point here was less to compare and contrast vegetarians and pro-lifers and more to point out what I see as wrong with the vegetarian movement as the public sees it. Maybe it's because my entree into vegetarianism was the environmental aspects (e.g., raising a cow is an inefficient use of resources) and not because I hurt for the poor widdow animals, but I do think people are swayed by the latter too. Just not when people are confronting them about it.

I know a lot of foodies have been changing their meat-eating habits to avoid factory farming and opt for animals raised and slaughtered in more humane, sanitary conditions, and that those meats are more expensive leads some of them to expand their vegetarian repertoire. And, hey, while they're doing that, maybe they discover that there's a hell of a lot you can do without pork, chicken, fish, or beef. Radically changing one's diet is a difficult process and not one that's right for everyone, no matter how many Flash animations you develop featuring sad cows.

For me, vegetarianism is a challenge and an adventure. Sure, it's not adventurous in the sense that you get to eat offal and balut—though I do think people who do eat meat should own that fact and eat all the edible parts of an animal, which is what allows me to enjoy Anthony Bourdain—but in a puzzle sense. How can I make something delicious without using eggs, dairy, or meat?* How can I make it fresh and exciting? What can I learn to do better? What can I learn to make at home that I used to buy at the store (like fakin bacon—homemade tempeh bacon is rad)? Will my non-vegetarian friends think this is as good as I do and ask for the recipe?

That's how it ought to be done: careful personal consideration and a little helpful nudging from those of us on the other side. I'm not trying to convert, I just think that the more reasonable it seems, the more easily people can be won over by the facts. And even then, it's still a big personal decision.

* Note: I am lacto-ovo vegetarian still, but the vast majority of my home cooking is vegan for two reasons: (1) Kevin, (2) even if Kevin doesn't eat the stuff I bake, at least I know it won't be INSANELY unhealthy. Just SORT OF unhealthy, which is good enough for me when I end up eating the whole batch. Of dough. For dinner.

Cognitive dissonance and the 5 pm rerun of Gilmore Girls.

I miss this goddamn show so much, I make it a point to be home at 5 pm so I can rewatch every episode. They are coming up on the show's final season, which I have only seen once. I miss this stupid show like I miss my friends back home. Okay, not really, but I still love it.

There's nothing truly wrong with loving/missing a TV show. I mean, it's stupid, but it's not wrong and I don't let it interfere with my life. The cognitive dissonance comes with its home on the ABC Family channel, which, aside from the hilarious "a new kind of family" tagline, has a pretty heavy "family values" bent. "Family values" being code for "overzealous Christian."

Every goddamn night during my precious Gilmore Girls rerun, these assholes have a commercial for the "inspirational" Christian power ballads collection, I Can Only Imagine. Take a moment to look at the Amazon page. It's not a fucking joke.

The commercial involves snippets of several songs -- two by Amy Grant, beloved of 12-year-old girls everywhere circa 1993; one of the song that made me leave the Catholic church, "Awesome God;" "God Is In Control" with a chick who looks kind of like a toned-down Cyndi Lauper (sorry Cyndi); the horrific "Butterfly Kisses;" and "In Christ Alone" by Michael English, who sings with his eyes closed and looks like a child molester. It sicks me out every single time I see this thing and fail to get to the mute button on my remote in time.

This commercial is slowly driving me insane.

Maker Faire 2008

fashion show
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

I was looking through my photos of this illustrious event and thinking, "If someone saw this, would it confuse them, yet make them want to attend?" This best fits the bill, I'd wager.

Yes, as part of a fashion show, there were people wearing bike tires and rolling around the runway on unicycles. And it wasn't even the weirdest costume (that would be the teddy bear suits).

In its third year, the Maker Faire has attaracted all kinds of media attention and been featured on many a local newscast/front page/radio report. The traffic was backed up onto the offramp from 101 and well down the ramp off Highway 92 onto Delaware St. I mean, stopped dead. The cars that could were pulling out into traffic and swerving around to take another exit. I did the same, knowing there was more than one way into this damn thing, and got off at El Camino Real, parked for a few minutes to orient myself, and eventually made it over to the fairgrounds, where my car and I sat in a long parking line for, oh, probably half an hour. That was the time to get from the turn onto Saratoga St. until I gave someone my $8 highway robbery fee and then had my car waved over to the Choose Your Own Adventure lot, where people were just parking haphazardly and I'm amazed no cars were apparently harmed in the debacle. Oh, and this was at 10:30 (to sometime after 11) in the morning, half hour after it opened. It was a freaking cluster.

Once inside, I met up with my sister and a friend of hers I hadn't met before, Tara, who is a fellow veggie and works for the only manufacturer of non-shitty frozen food, and we began our wanderings. First we took a walk around the food court, where we were plied with delicious, free chocolates. I told them we should buy our lunches now to avoid crowds later, but they were distracted by the allure of soft serve, so I went to investigate a place advertising Vietnamese sandwiches. They did not have the sandwiches yet. I do not know if they ever got the sandwiches, because the second time I tried they still weren't there so I got a veggie burger.

We wandered around all the buildings and areas, sometimes in a group and sometimes not, sometimes stopping to talk to people in booths. I talked to the woman manning The Onion's booth and she told me a bit about how they work. I picked up a copy of Edible San Francisco from their booth and tried to chat with the publisher but he didn't seem interested. The Bay Area Vegetarians caught me eyeballing their booth and called out, "Are you ready to make a change?" and then tried to make me feel like a jerk because I'm not a vegan. And that whole scene is a rant unto itself, but I'm babbling enough already.

I enjoyed a demonstration by this guy on how to make carrot caviar using the science of molecular gastronomy, then another from this lady on how to make your own shampoo from garden clippings. The latter also discussed her series of eco-friendly travel guides for cities less traveled and afterwards let me flip through her brand-new one on Olympia (!). Both the demonstrations were something I now actually want to try at home.

To cap it off, I watched belly dancing, tightrope walking, and fire eating with my sister, then we caught up with her friend's fashion show and watched that. And that is where I took most of my pictures, because it was fun to play photographer, even with a POS.

Kevin is going today with his fellow coder friend from Australia. I am sure they will find completely different adventures. That's the beautiful thing about the Maker Faire -- there's something for every geek.

Petty things that drive me crazy #3.

Again, I'd like to write about a commercial. Or, rather, a series of TV commercials. I realize that the way advertising is sold on cable means that most ads are run nationally, so sometimes you'll see commercials for things that don't apply to your location, for example, Sonic. Sometimes it amazes me we get Dreyers commercials instead of Edys.

But sometimes you end up with a commercial advertising the place you ARE. Such is the case with the series from the California tourism board, selling vacations to the state by saying, "Find yourself here." They all feature famous Californians--not least of whom is the Governator--speaking about how great the state is. One of them "cleverly" declares that California is full of hard workers, and it ends with Ahhhnold (I've lived here HOW long and I still can't take him seriously?) asking, "When can you start?"

Why it annoys me, I can't quite say. Part of it is that I have to see advertising for the place I already live. Part of it is that they talk about "work" and work is hard to find. Part of it is that I just want to smack everyone in it because they look for fucking fake.

At any rate, it's all petty.

Coffee.

It's my No. 1 vice. Sometimes I think I'd rather give up chocolate than good coffee, and you know I am a chocolate fiend.

Even bad coffee can be enjoyable, but I go out of my way to avoid bad coffee. Starbucks may be ubiquitous but it isn't good; this is fact. I haven't had coffee *at* Peet's, but I have had their beans, and they're good, but I've had better.

Right now my "better" is Barefoot Coffee Roasters. Oh, sure, the cafe itself is a hell of a place to hang out, and the baristas are skilled and knowledgeable and always busting out with wine tasting-esque descriptions of the beans (an ability I totally covet), but the place has "Roasters" in its name for a reason. They don't sell shiny black pellets of evil, they specialize in beans purchased from farms they know and love, roasted to aromatic perfection and intended to be sold that day and brewed within the month.

For awhile I was mail ordering Blue Bottle, but it got too cumbersome (and kind of expensive). Barefoot is still super local, super good, and super convenient. (They even sell it at Whole Foods, but I prefer buying it at the cafe.)

I love that coffee has such complex flavors, that depending on the method of preparation, the grind, the temperature of the water, and the temperature changes as it sits, it can taste completely different, leaving room for error even with a perfectly roasted bean. I like this level of difficulty; it adds a sense of skill to my ritual.

My equipment: a burr grinder, #2 cone, #2 brown paper filters, electric kettle, Brita filter, large mug.
Ingredients: Good goddamn fresh coffee beans.

First I fill my mug to the brim with filtered water and pour it in the kettle. Then I measure out two and a half heaping soup spoons of whole beans and put them in the grinder. The machine is set to grind at level 3, which is fine but still gritty. I turn it on and tap it periodically to ensure all the beans go down through the whirring discs. While it's grinding, I fold the edges of a paper filter and put it in the cone and put that on top of my mug, then plug in the kettle (it won't take long to simmer). After the grinder is done, I have to tap it several more times to get all the powdery beans into their container, then take it out and dump the grounds into my filter cone. I eagerly anticipate the hissing sound of liquid water turning to steam, and when it's bubbling a little but not boiling, I unplug the kettle and inundate the grounds with hot liquid. It takes two to three pours to get all the water through, and it needs to sit for a few minutes before it's at a drinkable temperature.

But when it is, oh man. Intense. The world stops for a minute when I'm drinking a good cup of coffee. Only a minute, though, because the caffeine kicks in and it's back to work for me.

Petty things that drive me crazy #2.

There's a commercial for a local lite rock radio station featuring really hideous animations of people dancing around their office to the horrible music that populates that station's playlist. Their tagline is something to the effect of "Make your workday more enjoyable!"

And every time I see it, I think, "Sure, if by 'enjoyable' you mean 'likely to drive me to suicide.'"

Because I'm classy.

Reframing thoughts.

As some of you know, I am seeing a career coach. It's something my mom suggested after reading my last legitimately whiny blog entry and even gave me money to pay for the sessions, since that shit isn't cheap and I'm kind of broke.

You know what, though? It's totally worth it. Not only am I making my resume a kabillion times better, I'm actually figuring out what the hell I did at my last job, what I think I was good at, and how I can put that in words to effectively market myself when I do get interviews. Maybe even actually get the job, which is the whole point, really. I am also learning how to network, which is not a skill innate to me. These things all go together.

Moreover, I am changing myself from a person who just really hated her old job to someone who actually knows how to do stuff. I have more confidence, and with a little prodding, I will be able to competently express it to the ends of hearing those charming little words, "We'd like to offer you a position."

Just a little something I made for lunch.

pasta salad
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

It's warm, I'm hungry, I have a ludicrous amount of vegetables at my disposal. What do I do?

I make this pasta salad. I live on the edge.

Dressing (measures approximate):
-1 tsp. olive oil
-1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
-1 tsp. dijon mustard
-1/4 tsp. maple syrup

Salad:
-3/4 c. dry whole wheat rotini
-3 stalks swiss chard, stalks separated out, chopped into bite size pieces
-1 small head broccoli, separated into small florets
-1/3 c. frozen peas
-1 tsp. dried tarragon
-Greens from 1 large baby onion, sliced thin
-1 red radish, cut into matchsticks
-1 carrot, grated
-Pepper and almond meal, to taste

Cook the pasta in salted water (Trader Joe's brand needs only 5 minutes). Add prepared chard, broccoli, peas, and tarragon about two minutes before the pasta is done cooking. After it's done cooking, drain and run it under cold tap water for a few seconds and drain again.

Add green onion, radish, and carrot to the dressing and mix, then add pasta and vegetables. Mix to coat everything with the dressing, then add pepper and almond meal to taste.

Experiments in cooking documentation #1.

It seems like a common feature of food blogs is the illustrated recipe. Since I am but one girl with a Canon PowerShot POS, this isn't the prettiest attempt, but it seemed worth a shot given the simplicity of the recipe.

If you can call "spaghetti with spinach and garlic" a recipe. Which it isn't, really, so much as an assemblage of edible items I happened to have around when I was hungry for lunch.

First, the ingredients:
-Whole wheat spaghetti
-Olive oil
-Garlic cloves, crushed and chopped, as many as you can handle
-Red pepper flakes
-Baby spinach, loosely chopped
-Freshly grated parmesan
-Almond meal
-Black pepper to taste

Next, the how-you-do:


Remember to salt your pasta water just before it boils. Cook as much and whatever type of pasta as you feel like eating.

The next part is pretty straightforward, really.


If your spinach is wilted before your pasta is done cooking, take it off the heat until it's ready.

The next part might seem a little odd, but I swear it's a useful thing to know: adding cooking water from your pasta to whatever sauce/veggies you're serving it with helps it become... saucier. Moister. Better.


Take the water from the boiling pot after the pasta's been cooking for a few minutes. The starch and salt suspended in the water are what will help your dish come together. The amount you use is variable; I'd set aside about 1/3 cup and use as much as you need.

Now, once your pasta is done, turn the heat back on your spinach and drain the cooked pasta. Next thing you know, you'll be dumping your drained pasta into the pan with your spinach and garlic.



Now you could add your cheese and mix it all up in the pan, but that just makes the pan harder to clean. That distracts from the "lazy" aspect of this so-called recipe. Instead, you can dump the contents of your saute pan into a bowl and add your pepper, almond meal (adds protein, crunch, flavor--try it!), and cheese.

Freshest meal of the day.

almond quinoa muffin
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

I have some standard breakfasts, you know. I'm sure everyone who actually eats breakfast does (and you people who don't kind of weird me out). There's the nonfat plain yogurt with maple syrup and Trader Joe's fat-free blueberry muesli stirred in, there's toasted peanut butter and jam (a post unto itself), applesauce pancakes with any number of fillings...

But some days, you want more. Yogurt sounds cold; oatmeal sounds bland; you had PB&J for dinner last night. Some days, you want a muffin.

Yes, a beautiful muffin, fresh from the oven and striking a perfect balance between healthy and delicious. Store-bought muffins are neither healthy nor fresh, and homemade isn't actually that hard. Why not bake?

Today's recipe, almond quinoa muffins, is from Veganomicon, and it is everything you could want in a muffin. I didn't manipulate the recipe much so I won't plagiarize -- you should buy the cookbook. Really.

My only alteration was to use frozen raspberries instead of the recipe's suggested apricots or currants, because raspberries taste awesome with almonds. (It is a killer pairing in my usual pancakes, too, but again, another post.) They're more healthy than your average bran muffin, lacking in processed sugar altogether, and high in protein from the almonds and the quinoa.

And they're so damn tasty, I've eaten three.

Petty things that drive me crazy #1.

This type of construction: It costs $10 dollars.

I don't understand if it's for emphasis or because people have forgotten that "$" means "dollars," but it's just as stupid as "ATM machine" or "PIN number."

Once more, with bunnies.

bunnies eat better than you do
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

Lilly and Ollie love to (1) cuddle and (2) eat. They do not want to be bothered while eating. They do want to have tasty pieces of fennel bulb or parsley springs fed directly to them. They do want to torture me with their adoreableness.

I (heart) strawberries.

first strawberries of 2008
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

I never buy strawberries anymore -- I wait for the ones from my farm share. And it's always worth the wait.

Come June/July, it'll be even better. Last year we made it to the farm's annual summer solstice party and ate berries straight out of the patch. Sun-warmed, perfectly sweet strawberries, perched atop a hill with a view of other farms and, in the distance, the foggy California coastline -- it's enough to make you believe in a higher power.

How to use up half your CSA veggies without trying.

rainbow slaw
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

I pride myself on my ability to make up halfway decent food using whatever I have around. This is an especially important skill during our CSA season.

I made this rainbow slaw:

-Green tops of one young onion*
-Chantenay carrot, sliced into matchsticks*
-Red radishes, sliced into matchsticks*
-Purple cabbage, shredded*
-Juice from one meyer lemon
-Apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper to taste

Just mix and let sit for a little bit.

The slaw was meant to go with this soup:

-Young onion, everything but the green tops, sliced thinly*
-Green garlic, sliced thinly*
-Spices: dried oregano, ground coriander, cumin, red pepper flakes or spicy ground cayenne
-Can of black beans, drained and rinsed
-1/2 c. organic sweet corn
-Some canned fire-roasted diced tomatoes, drained
-A little vegetable bouillon and water
-Red kale, stemmed and loosely chopped*
-Broccoli, stems and florets, chopped into bite-size pieces*
-Salt and pepper to taste

This is pretty basic. Saute the onion and garlic in a little oil, add spices and season a bit, add the canned/frozen ingredients and stir, pour in broth, bring to a boil. Check seasoning, then add the kale and broccoli and cook until tender. Then it should be ready to serve with long-grain brown rice or, perhaps, tortilla chips (homemade baked ones would be a nice alternative) and the rainbow slaw on top.

Check LocalHarvest.org for CSA farms near you if you want to improvise your own meals and eat with the seasons.

* indicates something from our share.

I have a computer in my room!

And it's even talking to the internet and not crashing!

It's Kevin's old laptop and it's living on an old slab of particleboard resting on a keyboard stand he's not using. I got it a mouse because I hate using the touch pad. Really, I hate using the laptop keyboard, but it's more awkward to set things up with a separate keyboard and screen and... well, whatever. I have a mouse attached to a laptop that's running Ubuntu.

I can watch my TV and attempt to be productive at the same time. Amazing.

There's this thing I'm doing right now where I'm paying a guy to help me learn how to figure out what I want in life and how to speak and write so as to properly convey that, as well as what else I might do to bring that about in case I currently lack the necessary skills. Thanks to his already helpful input, I am working on revamping my resume, putting together the building blocks of answers to those seemingly innocuous interview questions I currently answer with too much hemming and hawing, and making a list of people I want to talk to -- once I learn how to have conversations the right way, of course.

Another project I've got in mind is to start food blogging a lot more in this space. It will involve photos, especially now that it's easy for me to, say, attach my camera to the computer I'm using without hitting my head on a desk wedged against a wall and surrounded by crap. My bedroom is practically neat and organized! It's easy to find USB on a laptop!

Yet another project is that I think I'll work on a digital media/graphic design for the web certificate, starting this summer. Community colleges are affordable; who knew?

Okay, everyone.

More later, if I can stand the infectious joy that comes with being able to switch my gaze quickly between two screens.

Stuck.

I am not a competitive person. I hate it, in fact. I just want to be good and helpful and work with a team and be useful in any capacity and feel good about myself for doing it. I want to do that in a place that doesn't make me want to shoot myself.

Apparently these jobs, which do exist, are unavailable to me due to the teeming horde of people more qualified than me. I think I don't interview all that well, and basically everything that's happened for me, job-wise, was a stroke of fucking luck. My college job I got without so much as an interview. My last job that ultimately drove me to Prozac? No one else actually made it in for an interview and I was good enough.

How the fuck is someone supposed to get more qualified than the other assholes without actually getting a job that allows you to develop said qualifications? The things that I lack aren't skills I can pick up with a class from the UCSC Extension or anything (well, for the most part). I have the basic stuff down, it's just that someone else always has it down better, plus some. I KNOW I am a good worker. I KNOW I have the capacity to pick stuff up and do a good job. I also know I have a mouth and an inability to sell myself, because god knows just saying, "I can do that!" isn't going to prove anything.

All I know is that eventually I'm going to be so fucking broke that I will have to find it within myself to somehow nab one of these jobs I totally don't want that will get me absolutely zero experience in anything resembling a field I'm interested in, and the cycle of depression will spiral up again and I'll be a super fun person to be around.

I've always been okay with not being the best at things. But it kills me that even though I'm good, I'm clearly never good ENOUGH unless I'm the only one available. I want to prove myself, but it doesn't have to be because I'm the best.

Oh, plus, the paranoid side of me starts thinking that little $cieno imps know I think they're creepy and/or everyone else knows about my former employer and that taints me. Even if it is extremely unlikely, I fear it.

I don't know. Clearly I am "competitive" enough as a candidate to get an interview or two, but if someone else has a superior resume, why the fuck are they bothering to talk to me, to tell me they'll decide "within a few days," but I have to wait a week for the inevitable email of doom (like college applications with the small envelopes, emails from potential employers spell failure). In an interview, you're supposed to dress up, which I can do (kinda), but I think my behavior is in many ways worse than it would normally be because I'm not as comfortable or confident as I get to be in a real working situation. I'm worried they won't like me, and allow myself to be surprised when they don't.

One thing I know I'm overqualified to do is sit on my ass all day. In some ways I'm happier than I've been in a long time, but the lack of productivity, the frustration of my situation, and dwindling bank account are wearing on me.

There comes a special time in a girl's life...

...when she knows three people having babies in the same week. Yes, friends, I hereby declare 2008 the Year of the Baby.

Fortunately for me, none of them are mine. I am sure the other people are quite happy to have them, though. Me, I'm content with my bunnies and my quiet-a-holic boyfriend who thinks *I* talk too loud. Wait'll you live with a baby, baby. I haven't (recently), but I'm familiar enough with the concept to know it isn't in the immediate future for yours truly.

I am feeling the urge to go into more graphic detail about the icky things about babies that I am happy not to be partaking in at present, but I'll suppress it. It's impolite. I am happy for the people who are happy to have happy babies, though, really!

Anyway, on to things I AM happy about, besides other peoples' happiness.

My dear friend Christine paid me a visit early this week, her first time seeing me in California. It was a hit-and-run, one night affair, but it was fantastic to see her for more than a few hours while I'm trying to see everyone I know in Seattle for the one day I'm in town. We did the farmers' market (natch), baked muffins (*insert Homer-style drool here*), and drove up to SF with Kevin for a nice tour of all the parking spots that were taken within a reasonable proximity of the Exploratorium, our original destination. Instead, we nabbed a spot at the park on the SF side of the Golden Gate Bridge and walked over to the Marin county line. It was a beautiful (and popular) day for the stroll, and I learned that both Kevin and Christine are afraid of heights. Hah! How did I not already know that about either of them?

Afterwards, we were parched, hungry, and desperate not to spend another 45 minutes trying to find parking near a decent restaurant, so we headed back to Silicon Valley and ate at Chaat Paradise (Christine had never had chaat and as far as I know you can't find much of it in Seattle). Then we rented our dorm favorite, Galaxy Quest, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan because we'd never seen it and it seemed like a good pairing. Christine was bored of Khan pretty quickly, so we put on the other. My poor, sleepy friend, wracked by a combination of regularly working the morning shift at Peet's and getting on a flight at the asscrack of dawn on Daylight Savings Sunday, fell asleep around 9:30.

The next morning, we opted to take a walk on the Los Gatos Creek Trail that has an entrance a few blocks from my house, then baked pizza for lunch (one sauceless fakin' bacon-asparagus-Roquefort; one marinara-spinach-cremini mushroom-goat cheese) and played co-op NYT Crosswords on the Nintendo DS. YEAH. We also went down to the Camera 7 and saw Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which was fine. The movie was chosen because Christine's general Tomatometer threshold is a high splat/low tomato, whereas mine is at least a tomato. It was a decent compromise on that front; neither of us hated nor loved it.

It brings up an idea I have, though, which is that it would be interesting to run some kind of statistics on a person's movie ratings (say, on Netflix's 5-star scale) versus Rotten Tomato scores. That way you might be able to see how well, and possibly in what ways, your taste in movies matches up with the general critical views.

Anyway, we hung out at Barefoot for awhile, which I never really do despite going there once or twice a month to buy my coffee beans, doing more crosswords on the DS and eavesdropping on the smoking highschoolers bitching at the table next door, then met Kevin for dinner at Mudai before I dropped her at the airport.

I have been trying to use Zyrtec to control my allergies since my prescriptions ran out, but apparently I can only take it every other day or less because that shit is what I'm blaming for my inability to stay awake on Tuesday. THAT WAS A LONG FUCKING SENTENCE.

Wednesday I saw a movie with Steve! We saw The Bank Job! It was an entertaining, fun movie! There were many boobies on display in parts! I recommend it if it looks like the kind of movie you would like!

Thursday I attempted to write stuff but I was distracted. I don't know that I am cut out for working from home. I like my TV and my bed too much. Maybe I just need a laptop or I need my COMPUTER AND TV IN THE SAME ROOM AGAIN. Wonder which of those has an easier solution? Also, I took the VTA downtown and went to a double feature at the Camera 12: Be Kind Rewind and Charlie Bartlett. The former was entertaining enough, and the latter was also decent. I enjoyed them unambiguously, but I don't have many substantive thoughts about them.

"Now I will play you another song about people who hate everybody." P.S. I am still obsessing over the Mountain Goats. Check out the recording of the last show I saw, if you're so inclined. And, yes, "The Sign" IS an Ace of Base cover, and no, it's not ironic.

Quick note.

Just to say that I've gone off my psychiatric meds (having no schedule to speak of sort of fucks with the flow of dosing), and I feel absolutely fine. So I think it's fair to say that the Scientologists drove me to use Prozac, and that's funny.

When the scum begins to circle the drain.

I have to say, the road from happy to have nothing going on to despair that I'll never work again is a short one.

Timeline of the last week plus (spoiler alert, there is no happy ending):

Had a phone interview the Friday before last for a job that sounded very matchy-matchy with my skills and goals. Was told I'd hear late the following week at the earliest if I got a face-to-face interview. Made plans to fly up to Portland and visit my mom, et al., courtesy mom's Southwest Airlines reward points.

Spent the weekend enjoying a storm down at Point Lobos, south of Carmel. Packed and tried to contact some friends to make plans to visit them up north.

Monday morning, I received a call asking me to come in for an interview the next day, and that they wanted to hire someone by the end of the week. Had to cancel my plans to catch a plane that was taking off in a few hours.

Tuesday I got all dressed up nice to meet some people at an office. I thought I did a halfway decent job chatting with them, but one can never tell. Of course I'm prone to obsessing over what I said wrong, what I should have said differently, how many times I had an awkward pause or a poor explanation, etc. Things were left open, as they are with the interview business.

Wednesday I had lunch with some of my friends from my old job, and also sat around and waited. Thursday I had lunch with Steve and his food editor at a Cuban place in Japantown, followed by more sitting around and waiting. Friday I was annoyed because Kevin told me he didn't feel like going to the Mountain Goats show that night, but Jenn called me in the afternoon (interrupting my busy schedule of sitting around) and was upset that Kevin didn't want to go, so asked me for his phone number and proceeded to call and convince him herself. Very impressive.

Friday night we all met up at Mudai and ate delicious Ethiopian food, then drove to North Beach and saw one band with insanely bad lyrics, one with awesome lyrics/music/comics (Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters!), and the one band we actually came to see. They have a new album out, Heretic Pride, and luckily Steve burned me a copy a few weeks ago so I knew all the awesome new songs. (Don't worry, I bought a legit copy at the show.) It was tons of fun and the band was at least as good as it always is, if not better.

Saturday I was somewhat productive in terms of doing dishes and cleaning out the fridge. I also had to harass Kevin into giving me a ride to Mudai, where my car was parked all night since we carpooled to the city. We grabbed a late lunch at Happy Bamboo, which we hadn't been to in way too long. She's changed the menu a bit, so we both opted to try some new dishes--him the veggie chicken enchiladas (looked and smelled lovely); me the gourmet seaweed salad (similar to the Au-Lac veggie chicken salad mixed with Japanese-style seaweed salad and bean sprouts and served with two big puffy rice crackers--SUPER good). Afterwards Kevin dropped me off at Steve and Jenn's house so Steve and I could head up for Round 2 of the Great Goatsing Weekend.

Parking in the Independent's neighborhood is a bitch, but we found a spot, grabbed a bite at Herbivore (many veg places attempt bad falafel; not enough do a nice seitan schwarma like these guys do), and headed into the club to snatch up a spot up front and directly under John Darnielle's mic. The show was packed and by the time our band went on, I had at most two inches of personal space left between the obsessive fan who knew every lyric, the Noisepop chick rudely butting in with a video camera to capture the drums and get snooty about JD being unhappy about having a camera in his face, and the girlfriend of another devoted fan. We sat through three openers who were varying degrees of mediocre, then enjoyed another rock and fucking roll set.

One of the new songs has a lyric about spending all day in bed, and I swear to god that JD pointed down at me and made a crazy face right as he sang it. It freaked me out a little bit, like, "OMG, HOW DID YOU KNOW?!"

Yes, my brain is silly. I'm sure I'll remember it fondly, probably even more fondly than the time I got hit in the face by Ben Gibbard's guitar cable at a Death Cab for Cutie show.

The show ran very late and we didn't get home until well after 2. That didn't stop my body from thinking it still had to get up at 7:30, of course, so I showered and went to the farmers' market for the usual assortment of bunny and people food. Having offered to drive to the Round 3 show, a matinee with doors at noon, I gassed up the car and picked up Steve around noon. We went directly into the show, realized there were no in-and-out privileges, and got some quesadillas for lunch. We managed to nab a pair of barstools with a direct stage view and parked our asses there for the entire show. Well, except for the Mountain Goats' set, during which Steve parked his on the ledge above the stool. He claimed the view was worth the discomfort.

The three openers that day were all pretty decent and received little of our scorn. The Goats were in great form once again, even being coaxed into doing a third encore of a John-only "The Sign" cover--with stories!--AND "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton," which is a fan favorite they'd previously burned out on but decided we deserved it. The whole thing was fantastic, and afterwards we bought T-shirts and shook Peter Hughes' hand and told him we'd met going to a Mountain Goats show and now always see them together, so thanks for helping us find friends.

All the show tickets were a gift to me from Steve and they were one of the best gifts ever. After a frustrating week crashing down to the reality of the job hunt, I needed this injection of joy.

And today, late in the afternoon, I got an email telling me I didn't get that job, after all. I guess I knew it all along, but I let myself get my hopes up, and it was crushing.

Signs the universe wants me to stay in bed today.

Sign 1: Firefly marathon on Sci-Fi.
Sign 2: No Reservations marathon on the Travel Channel.

Good effing lord.

I was totally going to do something productive today, but fuck it. Most days my only excuse to stay in bed is sheer laziness.

A cooking binge.

Some people go on drinking binges; others on eating binges. I sometimes go on cooking binges. I eat some of the fruits of my labor, but pretty much spend a few hours cooking up a storm.

Last night I cobbled together some vegetable soup and broccoli polenta cakes because I wasn't feeling too well and I had a bunch of vegetables to use up. It turned out rather tasty for something random (well, the polenta was a half batch of a simple recipe from Veganomicon). The soup contained one diced onion, several cloves of minced garlic, two sweet Italian red peppers, a handful of diced baby carrots, dried oregano, half-sharp paprika, short grain brown rice, a can of kidney beans, a bagful of baby spinach, and a bay leaf for good measure. The polenta is just polenta cooked with finely chopped fresh broccoli, spooned into a muffin tin, chilled, then stuck under the broiler to brown a bit. I put it in the middle of my bowl and scooped up bits of the cake with my spoon as I ate my soup.

Today I have been going a tad overboard. I had a giant bag of cremini mushrooms that were meant to go into a variety of recipes that I never bothered to make this week, so I thought I'd saute them up and put them in savory chickpea crepes. Because the crepe batter has to be chilled for at least an hour, I ended up baking two kinds of muffins just to use up a carton of soy yogurt I had (and also, I fucking love muffins)--chocolate macadamia with a gentle dusting of coconut and cornmeal blueberry with meyer lemon zest. These both turned out heavenly.

Still waiting for my batter to chill, I started in on the time-consuming task of slicing my creminis and ended up with about six cups of the damn things. Kevin thought I was insane and wanted to know why it was taking me three hours to make lunch. I told him to eat leftovers.

But we cannot live on mushrooms and crepes alone, of course. Oh, no. So I thought, hey, I can do the mushrooms with kala jeera (black cumin seeds) and red onion, then make some palak tofu (spinach and tofu curry--using tofu instead of panir cheese for the vegan's sake) to round it out! Totally reasonable. So now there's a pan full of bright green and spicy spinach with tofu cubes, a pan full of sauteed creminis, and a bowl of crepe batter just waiting for me to ruin too many and give up and make rice instead.

To-do lists.

My actual to-do list is somewhat different from my inclination's to-do list:

Actual

• Do sinkful of dishes like a good little temporary housewife
  
• Work on cover letters and related job application-y things
  
• Get a few odds and ends at Whole Foods
  
• Go to the damn gym
  
• Prepare something delicious for dinner -- or at least edible and vegan
  
• Go see 4 Months...
  
• Research upcoming movies I'd like to write about for a freelance project
  
• Clean the rabbits' area
  
• Laundry
  
• Write an email to a friend

Inclination

• Watch the following stupid TV shows: Crossing Jordan, ER, What Not To Wear, CSI: Miami (I hate Horatio), X-Files (later seasons), Gilmore Girls (have seen every episode at least three times by now)
  
• Eat something leftover and possibly involving pasta during commercial breaks
  
• Consider taking a shower
  
• Decide TV is really lame just in time for the 1:25 showing of 4 Months...
  
• Cook something with mushrooms and broccoli and spinach and red peppers, because that shit is going to go bad
  
• Realize this will require doing at least *some* dishes
  
• Read Project Runway blogs until bored of extreme cattiness from people who hate Christian
  
• Feed rabbits dinner when they remind me that it's late by swarming around the food plates with hopeful looks in their adorable little eyes
  
• Fall asleep before The Daily Show comes on, again, dammit

So as you can see, I have a busy day planned.

Success of the dork!

For the first time EVER, I, your fearless (besides zombies) movie-watching hero, have actually sat through ALL FIVE feature-length films nominated for the Oscar Best Picture.

ALL FIVE. WOO!

Why this excites me I'll never know. It's less a badge of honor and more a badge of dorkiness.

And having ACTUALLY SEEN all five, I feel I am sufficiently well-informed to express opinions on who ought to win, or who ought not to win. I am using many words for the sake of using them right now, by the way. No one is reading this for reals, right?

Here is, in ranked order, my preferences:

1. No Country for Old Men
   
2. There Will Be Blood
   
3. Atonement
   
4. Michael Clayton
   
5. Juno

That's right, Juno is at the bottom of this list. It tried and failed to be clever. It tried much too hard and too obviously, and while it was good enough for Sunday afternoon entertainment (god only knows I would've been watching some shitty Flavor of Rock of Tequila Love marathon otherwise), it lacks the qualities of a Best Picture.

Michael Clayton was decent, but a nonentity.

Atonement was beautiful, and actually I'd recommend seeing it in the theater if you're into that sort of period drama, and if it wins I won't hate on it. It felt like what it was: a book on film. The sets and costumes and makeup and cinematography were stunning. But it didn't make me cry or my heart swell or leaving me thinking, "Wow." No, friends, that honor is left to the #2 and #1 films.

Happily, if There Will Be Blood wins, I'll be pleased, assuming I am still awake by the end of the ceremony (go Jon Stewart!). It was pretty fucking great. But so was No Country for Old Men, and I give the Coens just a bit of an edge, because that movie made me forgive them for making shitty movies for the past few years when they are capable of attaining greatness. And while I would never suggest, say, my mom see these movies (violence is her least favorite thing, proclivity for crime procedurals aside), they have stuck with me in a very good way. Loved these movies. Really.

Thus ends an entry no one besides me gives half a shit about, and it's all thanks to the auto-save on Blogger. My X server (Linux windows) keeps crashing and I thought I'd lost the whole damn thing.

So much for daily blogging!

Two days in a row, then... big shocker.

Something is clearly amiss in the universe. It's 8:45 and Kevin is already up and showered. And I don't feel like watching TV.

Yesterday the "last days of Mark Greene" episode of ER was on. It made me bawl like a baby. I am a dork. A dork who spent half her Monday morning cleaning out the burr coffee grinder, which decided to stop working due to the massive amounts of old coffee grounds crammed inside its mechanisms. Fortunately, I was able to remedy the situation and get my coffee on (specifically, a Barefoot Ethiopian Harrar roasted last Friday, yum).

I am trying to catch up on movies. My intention for this week is to finish seeing all the Oscar Best Picture nominees. Having already seen Juno (overrated), There Will Be Blood, and No Country for Old Men (between those, it's a toss-up of which is most awesome), I saw Michael Clayton yesterday (good, but a bit of a yawn) and intend to see Atonement today or Thursday. I also want to see 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. These are all playing at the Camera 7, and between me, my handy Discount Cards, a sunny afternoon, and a lack of anything else to do, I am certain to achieve my goal.

Oh, hell, I'd rather watch doggy poo.

For serious, it's a movie. An animated Korean movie about a living piece of dog shit that ponders the meaning of life, or something. And you can watch it ***instantly*** on Netflix. Oh, if only my computer ran Windows instead of Linux.

Today's episode of ER dealt with Dr. Greene deciding to quit chemo and quit working. It was a huge fucking bummer. Maybe the reason I can't stop watching it is that it reminds me of when my own dad was dying of cancer. I teared up. It was bad. I had to polish off my stash of (homemade, vegan, whole grain, low sugar!) chocolate chocolate chip cookies after that.

My fluffy, floppy-eared little friend Lilly is amusing me with her adventures. They're simple adventures, like out to the living room and hopping up to the first step of our shoe bench, but they're adorable. Any rabbit adventure is an adorable adventure. I think it says so in the House Rabbit Handbook. Lilly and Ollie taking a nap together is adorable. Ollie cleaning his butt is adorable. Ollie is cutest head-on, while Lilly is best in profile. The bunnies hate me, but I don't care. They like the food I bring them and sometimes they let me pet them for a minute.

Is anyone still watching Project Runway? Sometimes I think I'm the only one of people I actually know. Anyway, Crying Ricky finally got auf'd! I cheered so loud that Ollie ran under the bed to take cover.

By the way, anyone want to take a poll? How about several hundred? My good friends down at the ol' ex-employer have got you covered in the inane polls department. Hey, everyone needs a paycheck.

Even me. Soon. Someone please give me a job? I will TOTALLY work hard and stuff.

Unemployment, day 3

I decided it might be "fun" to attempt to chronicle my vast wanderings through cyberspace, seeking gainful employment. Thus far it's consisted of hitting "refresh" on Craigslist's SF Bay Area writing/editing jobs page and harassing former coworkers on LinkedIn. Most of my days have been sucked up by that glowing siren, television. Oh, daytime TV, such a wasteland of repeats and syndication. I have yet to succumb to Oprah, but my god, did you know that there's two straight hours of ER on every morning? I don't even like ER, but it's on the episodes where Dr. Greene finds out he has brain cancer again and hey, look, the abused wife is now totally the sexy bitch on Mad Men!

I quit my job to pursue what I actually wanted to do. So far, that includes doing the dishes, cooking, grocery shopping, staying in bed all day, checking my email, and watching an obscene amount of stupid TV. Can't say it's a total lie, but it doesn't pay the bills. And I do love other things, too! Like, uh, being right and knowing stuff and helping people (see that I was right about the stuff I said I knew)!

This has been kind of fun! Maybe I'll do it again tomorrow.

Today I...

* Tendered my resignation at work.
* Sent annoying emails to people I hope maybe to work for.
* Did not exchange glances or words with anyone ranked higher than my boss.
* Was left out of a big meeting.
* Ate a really unhealthy but incredibly delicious burrito.
* Felt anxious.
* Text messaged my friend.
* Found a little hope in some prospects for both full time and freelance work.
* Had a "retirement" dinner at Amber India thanks to my friend, who is almost as glad as I am that I will soon no longer work where I currently work.
* Fell and twisted my ankle again, but I can still walk on it fine.
* Called and babbled at Kevin. Twice.
* Bothered the rabbits, who apparently don't like red leaf lettuce. They ONLY like romaine, I guess.
* Had a Pony Up! song stuck in my head all day.
* Wondered what the fuck I'm going to do next.

Not pictured.

gigantinormous!
Originally uploaded by emily ca..

Sometimes I just didn't feel like fishing the camera out of my bag. Obviously the Eiffel Tower temporarily cured me of that, but still. There's a few points missing from my travels.

• Pretty much all the food I ate, some of which was, of course, bordering on spectacular. (It was Paris, after all.)
  
• The museums. I didn't make it to the Louvre, but I didn't take anything at the Orsay or the Pompidou (and yes, pictures without flash are allowed). Or the Erotic Museum in Pigalle, or the Dali in Montmartre.
  
• Most of the walking, oh, the endless walking. Or my sad, pathetic boot insoles that were worn paper thin at the balls of my feet. Ouch.

Seriously, Paris is full of beautiful, iconic stuff that you've probably seen before and I couldn't capture it well enough on film to make it worth posting.

Bonjour from Paris!

It's our last day here, and it's New Year's Eve. I'll write more later about it, but you can take a look at my Flickr for a few pics that weren't totally awful (as well as a handful of shots that were on my camera from Thanksgiving, bunnies, etc. that I never bothered to upload).

Mine and mom's are here.

Four birthday cakes.

That's what I made this year: four recipes of cakes for birthdays, including my own. I am not calculating how many calories or how much fat that is, but I did use whole wheat flour and everything was vegan, so damn, it was practically HEALTHY, right? Plus I am addicted to Vegan with a Vengeance/Veganomicon, so that's what all these came from.

Apple spice cupcakes -- Sunday with Kevin, his mom, and her boyfriend
The panuche on top was a bit overpoweringly sweet, but the cupcakes themselves were lovely. I'd describe them as fluffy apple muffins. Mmmm.

Blueberry coffee cake and jelly donut cupcakes -- Tuesday at work
Easy and a big hit at the office. I brought my own desserts to negate HR's desire to buy something gross and overly sweet and force everyone to sing the birthday song. I hate the birthday song, except when it's (a) a comedic version or (b) off-key and coming out of my adorable boyfriend while he's still in bed, his head peeking out from under the covers. The jelly donut cupcakes were not quite as good as I'd hoped, but the blueberry coffee cake I made on a lark (thinking 12 cupcakes wasn't enough for my office of piggies) was pretty awesome.

Chocolate raspberry layer cake with "ganache-y" icing -- Sunday with Kevin's dad's family
We haven't left yet so this is sitting on my counter, wrapped in plastic, looking like something I would have paid $20 to buy at Whole Foods but that I actually made my fuckin' self and I think it's going to be a winner. Amazing.

I didn't make any cookies this month, or even pies, but I feel my cake-baking has been successful. I am now ready to go and let the professionals in France bake everything for me and show me how fat and happy I can really be.

Happy birthday to me! And my mom!

And Kevin! And all the other December birthdays I know (and there are PLENTY).

I still haven't written about Thanksgiving. Bad me. But it was delightful, I promise.

But I will talk about my birthday.

My friends Steve and Jenn conspired with Kevin to surprise me (in the sense that I wouldn't know what we'd be doing, not that I didn't know anything was happening) with a fun birthday activity.

We left around 7. Kevin had the directions all written out and didn't say a word, just silently drove up 280. We got off at the exit I know to be Palo Alto and headed towards the part of town where Homma's Brown Rice Sushi is. Excellent! After a filling meal, we got back in the car and headed north on 101. Definitely not staying in Palo Alto, as I might have thought -- what, it could've been something at the Stanford Theatre, perhaps -- but rather all the way up to the city, then off at 9th and Civic Center... hmm... this is the exit for Slim's. But no outward appearances gave away the event itself, not even the signage at Slim's. We were inside before Steve told me: we are seeing Shonen Knife!

Now, Shonen Knife is a band I am only a little familiar with and never would have thought to go see, but that has totally changed. This show was fucking awesome, people. That was some solid rocking out we did. So the birthday surprise evening was a success. Even Kevin had fun, which was practically the icing on the cake for me.

Anyway, it's time to get ready for work. Paris plans are coming together (I'll be posting pics to Flickr, of course) and this ridiculous year is wrapping up, finally.

We are slobs and we must be reformed.

It's Saturday morning. Monday night my mom is flying to town. Thursday we're having several guests over to cook and eat our strange, vegetarian, Japanese Thanksgiving feast.

In its present state, no one will be able to sit down to eat anywhere in my house. There is enough room for maybe one person to cook anything. And there is crap absolutely everywhere.

Yes, we're working on it. I am making slow but steady progress de-crapping the kitchen. Kevin cleared off the couch last night and finished loading the dishwasher, which is now running. (Of course, that was after I said I'd be pissed if he stayed up until 3 playing Super Mario Galaxy and failed to make any movement in the cleaning arena.) I have at least two loads of laundry ready to go. I scrubbed the public areas of the bathroom (i.e., everything but the shower), cleaned out the rabbits' litter boxes, and picked up my room -- enough so it's at least presentable for people to go meet the bunnies. I bought more laundry detergent, paper towels, and a mop.

Kevin thinks we'll get it done. I think he better wake up before 1 or "we" will end up being "I" and "I" will be bitchy.

In addition to cleaning the shit out of my house, I also need to get veggies at the farmers' market (awww, what a horrible chore!) and bake cookies for the ice cream sandwiches we'll have on Thanksgiving (crispy almond with green tea ice cream and peanut-ginger-sesame with pumpkin ice cream).

Wish me luck -- I need it. I'll post photos and a menu after the fact.

Yo quiero Yo La Tengo.

I'm sure that one's never been done before.

Quickly: I want a button on the side of my head that I can push and fill my mind with the sounds of the Freewheelin' Yo La Tengo, because that shit was so awesomely relaxing and soothing and beautiful. I need that sometimes -- a lot of times, actually.

Blogger is a slug. I want to go see Jonathan Richman for my birthday (but before my actual birthday).