chocolate~murdercakes

+100 things that make me happy+ #21: warm feet

2012-02-26T18:53:00.000-08:00

as i mentioned in my last post, i lack a common element most humans and, well, vertebrates in general, share: blood. in its place runs sweet, sweet liquid helium*, which makes me very popular at beach parties on the sun**.

the unfortunate side effect of this condition is that my time spent on earth, with its normal temperatures, usually renders my extremities red and black with tepidity-bite, which makes for a sad, cold, leprous panda.

seriously, though, i get cold really easily, and it makes me physically uncomfortable and unhappy. so when i do have the foresight to actually add a couple extra layers before... anything, i'm always amazed at how much happier i am based on a few degrees. in fact, i have terrible trouble sleeping when my feet, specifically, aren't warm. i will toss and turn all. freaking. night. if those buggers aren't cradled snugly in fluffy cotton or chenille sheathes. and driving first thing in the morning, before my engine's warmed up and i have a nice draft blowing directly on my shoes? yeah, fuck that. i am all about slipper socks and a heating pad. word.

*Helium is the most difficult of all gases to liquefy and is impossible to solidify at atmospheric pressure. These properties make liquid helium extremely useful as a refrigerant and for experimental work in producing and measuring temperatures close to absolute zero. Liquid helium can be cooled almost to absolute zero at normal pressure by rapid removal of the vapor above the liquid. At a temperature slightly above absolute zero, it is transformed into helium II, also called superfluid helium, a liquid with unique physical properties. It has no freezing point, and its viscosity is apparently zero; it passes readily through minute cracks and pores and will even creep up the sides and over the lip of a container. Helium-3, the lighter helium isotope of mass 3, which has an even lower boiling point than ordinary helium, exhibits markedly different properties when liquefied. See Superfluidity.

**you didn't know the sun was known for its excellent beaches? god you're behind. READ A BOOK.

+100 things that make me happy+ #20: cinnamon

2012-02-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

i don't think i need to go too far into this one. find me a person who doesn't like cinnamon--besides some poor, sad, god-forsaken soul that somehow happens to be allergic to it*--and i'll show you the true terrorists. because these are the heartless, merciless bastards we need to fear.

think of all the things cinnamon goes into. seriously, take a minute, i'll wait for you. and whilst waiting, i'll make a list, and then we can compare it and what you come up with, and giggle, and then go eat all the things on the list.

- cinnamon buns (they have cinnamon IN THE NAME)
- snickerdoodles
- mexican hot chocolate
- bread pudding
- banana bread
- oatmeal
- lattes (sprinkled gaily and liberally)
- oatmeal cookies (obviously in a different class than plain oatmeal, since, you know, you have to bake them)
- streusel topping (the crumbly joy and wonder that tops coffee cake. which reminds me...)
- coffee cake

i think that's a good start for a list. and that's just edible things. that doesn't include sexy-time lotions, creams, shampoos, plumping lip glosses, deodorizing sprays, glade** plug-ins, and just sprinkling it directly into your carpet for the hell of it.

i also define the scent of cinnamon as the smell of warm. you smell it and you just feel every nerve ending blossoming to attention, and heat. such things are of great importance to me, because i have liquid nitrogen flowing in my veins instead of blood, and am therefore always a nice, chilled -8°F****.

i have yet to find a recipe that can't be improved by the addition of cinnamon. cookies? duh. cake? dur-hoy. whipped cream? no-brainer. guacamole? you bet your sweet bippy*****. chicken? please stop insulting me, i have done nothing to deserve it. cinnamon, however, by existing, has done everything to deserve all the praise and worship in the world. therefore, i hereby pronounce my ever-lasting devotion to the church of our lord cinnamon.

think about my god next time you chomp down on a stale eucharist. yeah, that's what i thought.

*and even they wouldn't really count, since i'm sure they'd love it if they could have it, and are therefore even more poor and sad and god-forsaken. why you gotta hate, creator?

**not a shameless plug, just the first company that came to mind. i make no money here.***

***unless you wanna give me some. that'd be sweet.

****i'm great at summer barbeques.

*****what even IS that?

+100 things that make me happy+ #19: when my car starts in the morning/afternoon/evening/ever

2012-02-12T14:15:00.001-08:00

#19's place on this list is a bit tricky, seeing as how it's more a bittersweet pleasure/relief rather than something that truly makes me happy. what would make me really happy is having a car where starting up wasn't even an issue. but THAT'S NOT MY LIFE, so, yes.

it's not even my car. it's my father's car, a 1997 dark green GMC jimmy SUV*. it's a fairly amazing car. and by amazing, i mean it's amazing how the aesthetic components are absolute shit but the inside seems to run on kitten dreams and unicorn glitter as opposed to water and oil.

as of now, the following are broken:

- both rear view mirrors (the driver's side fell off whilst i was driving; i clipped the passenger side trying to maneuver into the bitch spot at my old work).
- the driver's side visor (the mirror/lights sort of fell off. they're held in with duct tape now, kind of) and the passenger side visor (the cover fell off, and has to be replaced each time it's used or the lights won't turn off and the battery will run down).
- the passenger window.
- the gas gauge.
- the air conditioning.
- the spring in the driver's side door, that keeps the door open instead of slamming shut on your hand when you're already pissed off because you ran out of gas on the highway because the gas gauge doesn't work.
- one of the cigarette lighters (not that i care, since i don't smoke and there are two more located directly beneath it, but i'm trying to be thorough). though it's only fair to mention that it's broken because there's a piece of AC adapter stuck in it.

why am i happy again?

oh, right, because it still manages to start every day. this is of especial importance to me because i live near the top of a mountain with no public transit services, where pizza delivery fears to tread and bicycles are only for the super bad-asses who actually think neon lycra is acceptable dinner attire. my options, if i were car-less, would consist of:

a. walking... 17 miles. 27.36 kilometers******. 1,077,120 inches. ok, inches will always suck unless you're a squirrel, but still. you get what i'm saying.

b. the aforementioned bicycling. the only neon i own is a hot pink sweatshirt with engrish splattered all over it like a fine béchamel sauce*******(********).

c. making friends in my area and constantly hitching rides. HA. YEAH. YEAH, THAT'S HAPPENING. yeah. i'll get right on that. that's a post all on its own right there.

so yes, while, in more normal situations, #19 might seem like a crappy thing to be happy about it, the reality is that i have a vehicle that, currently, gets me from point a to point b with a minimal amount of fuss*********.

*and yes, it was used. we needed a vehicle large enough to move around the guns.**

**that makes it sound a little too bad ass, like we bury bodies in the forest or something. it was more like archery equipment.***

***though killing someone with a bow is rather impressive.****

****a recurve or long bow, that is. killing someone with a compound bow is like having a person walk up to you, take your hand, wrap it around the knife, then make you stab them a few times until they're dead.*****

*****i use a compound. :(

******do you say KEE-low-mee-turs or kee-LOM-eh-turs? i'm on the first-syllable-stress front, because i know no one who says mee-LIM-eh-turs or de-CAM-eh-turs. and if i did, i would punch them.

*******you like that? i thought it was a classy touch.

********i love asterisks. but i think it might be time to stop now.

*********by minimal, i mean the occasional running out of gas and having to call people to help me. yeah, #19 basically sucks. oh well.

stupid blogger.

2012-01-31T15:06:00.000-08:00

why make a carriage return stroke automatically publish a post?

why make the title of the mistaken post still show up in RSS feeds even after you put it back into a draft?

stupid.

edit: AND WHY, WHEN THE POST IS A MISTAKE, DOES IT APPEAR IMMEDIATELY IN FEEDS BUT THE REPLACEMENT POST TAKES EIGHTY-FOUR HOURS TO SHOW UP?

+100 things that make me happy+ #18: buying expensive makeup cheap online

2012-01-29T16:05:00.001-08:00

i started wearing makeup seriously in middle school. before it was discovered by the rest of the student body that i was a complete weirdo, there was a day, at the beginning of the school year, where i found myself in the locker room applying concealer to my tiny, prepubescent blemishes, before taking school photos.*

"what's that?" one of the girls asked.

"it's this stuff, you put it on your face and it makes spots and acne go away." i wasn't yet totally hep to the lingo.

"can i try some?"

i handed the tube over to the girl who had skin at least two shades darker than mine, and we all learned that sometimes, skin color really does matter.

over the years, i've tried a lot of freaking makeup. mostly drug store stuff, the usual brands, cover girl, maybelline; revlon if i had some extra money and was feeling fancy. for the longest time, i operated under the belief that the cheap stuff was just as good as the expensive stuff, and no way was i going to spend over ten dollars on an eyeliner pencil. and then i continued to live my life feeling uncomfortable about how my concealer cracked by mid-day, and totally everyone was staring at it thinking i was some kind of leper. this could easily spiral into a murky miasma post about self-confidence and body image and blah blah blah, and i'd rather it didn't, because then it would spoil the happy ending, which is that the expensive stuff is better, and just because it's expensive doesn't mean you have to spend all your money on it. see? happy.

actually, the first real fancy-pants makeup item i ever purchased was for full price, and wasn't all that great (though it smelled fantastic):

this claims to be something like a primer/mattifier, to be worn under or over your makeup, or by itself. i think that last part only works if you have airbrushed skin to begin with, because i personally don't have the kind of complexion that can walk around all naked-like. putting it on over my makeup just kind of smeared things around, and underneath it provided a negligible difference; that kind of turned me off of fancy makeup, and benefit as a brand, for a while.

luckily, i gave them another shot. however, i wasn't going to get sucked in this time. no ma'am, this time, i went to sephora and poked and smeared and dusted and prodded, wrote all my findings down in my little notepad, and hightailed it back home to ebay, where i went crazy procuring powders and creams for half of what they cost in stores.

of course, there are drawbacks to buying anything on ebay. i check the seller's ratings beforehand, and if there's even a single instance of someone saying that a product was fraudulent--even if it's something completely different from what i'm buying, and oh they have all these positives--i'm gone. regular makeup is enough chemistry for me already, i have no desire to apply ingredients that i can't even verify to my face, near my eyes and mucus membranes and mouth. it's worked pretty well thus far; i believe i've only been fleeced once, and i'm not even 100% about that.

*i believe my first sixth grade school photo is the last school picture in which you'll find me smiling with any sincerity.

the differences in times of anxiety and times of no anxiety

2012-01-23T10:41:00.000-08:00

times of no anxiety: you go out for chinese food, and when you crack open your forture cookie and find no fortune, you curse the vagaries of assembly lines.

times of anxiety: you go out for chinese food, and when you crack open your fortune cookie and find no fortune, you feel a dark cloud descend upon you as you realize that this is a sign you're totally going to die.

christmas is coming, my ass is getting fat.

2011-12-18T15:38:00.000-08:00

so for the past few hours, i've been babbling on facebook and reading the pioneer woman's website and thinking, "i wish i had a blog where i could yak about how my kitchen smells like warm marshmallows because there's puffy little clouds of chocolate chip meringue roasting away in the oven".

and then i remembered that, oh yeah, i do have a blog where i can do that. albeit, a blog with one-millionth the viewership that the pioneer woman has, but well... quality versus quantity and all that.*

but yes, my kitchen smells like happy and my meringues are sweatin' away, and my lobsters are shiny and pink. the lobster part is made more awesome by the fact that it is my first time ever making cookie icing, and the recipe i used sorta-kinda sucked. well, obviously it didn't suck all that bad since i was able to use it after all, but... i'm glad i'm not totally mentally deficient. or things would've gone down much differently today.

my first clue lay in the ratio of ingredients: 2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar to barely four tablespoons of liquid? most of which was actually syrup? i wish i'd gotten pictures of the glaze as it was when i followed the directions exactly; it looked like actual lobster meat in both color(s) and texture. several doses of red food coloring and milk later yielded forth a substance that was shiny, smooth, and knife-spreadable, which will explain to all those getting cookies this year why some of your lobsters look better than others. about two-thirds of the way through, the glaze was thickening up some, so i poured a little more milk in, and finally got the kind of glaze cookie decorators more experienced than myself call for when "flooding" cookies.

now, off to crochet until my fingers fall off whilst the cream-and-white-chocolate filling for this evening's homemade oreos cools to yet another kind of stable, spreadable consistency. if only my moods were so amiable.

*this does not at all imply that the people who read the pioneer woman's website are not a quality lot. i just need things to make me feel good sometimes, ya know?

the dreams of an improperly medicated teenager.

2011-12-02T23:07:00.000-08:00

the majority of my teen years were spent battling anxiety. at a time when i should've been developing social skills and acquiring the building blocks for future higher education, i was drinking my meals and hyperventilating.

in 1999, i was seventeen years old, right smack in the thick of it, improperly medicated and basically out of control. for my birthday, my sister gave me a journal specifically for writing down my dreams. i have never been--and still am not--good at keeping any sort of diary or journal, and so there are only nine entries in the book. but those nine entries represent how my chemically-confused and adrenaline-spiked brain processed and recycled the world around me, proving that even at rest, it wouldn't leave me alone.

(i have transcribed these, spelling/grammatical/omission/duplication/punctuation errors and all, verbatim)

~~~

August 8, 1999

Made it to bed late last night. I don't think I dreamed, and if I did, I don't remember. I don't feel like I dreamed. I just feel sort of achy and muffled in my head. My first night of seventeen and no dream to commemorate. I feel a little cheated.

~~~

August 9, 1999

I had a bad anxiety attack last night. My dream was twisted. I don't remember details. Robin was in it. I think there was pie and narcotics as well.

~~~

August 10, 1999

Last night's dream involved an angry black woman and a man and his army chasing me and someone else. We hid. He either wanted to kill me or make me his wife, I think he kept switching back and forth. I was a princess. I was in a hospital.

~~~

August 11, 1999

Sleeping has been bad since the anxiety. Dreams have been very confused. I'm very confused.

~~~

August 12, 1999

The medicine must be taking my dreams away. Either that or the medication is.* They're putting me on something new. I hope it end this, I really really do. I don't like it at all.

I feel so bad.

I feel like the anxiety is being swallowed in some thick pink liquid. But the feeling's still in my throat. dammit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
in emergency room
Kyle was into energy. Transfer, waves, all of it, sort of Wiccan. I wonder if it's him. I thought he loved me...
all right. thank you.**

~~~

August 13, 1999

I dreamt that I was in a dream world. It started with Jessica standing in the street in front of my house wearing a a very revealing dress, and I was, too. A car full of young Asian men drove up, and I got in. We didn't do anything but drive, but for services rendering, I got a car with a big screen TV and a bed and carpet and and an antique store in Back and people came by to see it. I woke up, then went back. In my dream, I fell asleep, and went to a dream world. The entrance to the dream world is a twisted music store, and throughout my travels, a guy I don't know is my friend and companion. We take Frank Zappa and Queen records and hairspray as weapons and go deep into the dream world. There's something like a lightrail***. I wear the craziest clothes, and I have long black hair. I become the Barbie doll of my choosing. We go in. There's something like a theme park but no rides. There's a big fountain where Brendan Frasier sits. He says hi. We climbed over some short fences in evening wear and kicked a lot of black bags out of our way. A bunch of men ran over and held guns to our faces. eep. A kinda handsome man in a wheelchair rolls up and looks pissed as another guy jumps out of one of the bags we kicked. We're taken back to my house. They're are monkies in the tree and the man in the wheelchair ran out of of pixi stix. I remember earlier back in the room with the bed in the middle of the room where we became Barbies was bags of pixi stix. I tell him this, and he rolls and I run, to the Medical/Dentist buildings where my car still waits. Before that, he jumped out and ran along side me. I asked him why he bothered with the wheelchair. He smoothed his exaggerated curly mustache and we kissed. I went into the car, only it turned into the room withe**** bed again. I gave him the pixie stix and went back to the dream world. (I woke up when the phone rang) I went back to the twisted music store. I was having so much fun there, the realized I was having too much. I was afraid of getting lost in the dream world forever. I had to remember how to get home. I closed my eye. Sleep came quickly, and I "woke" up. Mom was mad at something. I didn't like it there. I liked the dream world. I went back to "sleep", to the twisted music store. My companion and I were bored. Didn't want to stay there, go the the theme park. I suggest Rocky Horror, and he said OK. We ran into the next room to get ready. He crosses the void between dreams while I get dressed in something green and padded. I can't seem to get it to work. I go upstairs to a little room for help. The "supervisor" is there with a white board with names and tallies, going through some checks. One is from a girl named JoJo, and the woman is mad. I told her JoJo needed a car and we helped by giving her the Asian men's car. She got mad and called JoJo in. She yelled and JoJo knocked her to the ground. She stood up and said "you little bitch!"

I woke up.

~~~

August 14th, 1999

Dominick was having an affair with a blond. All he wore was a shirt and they ran down the train tracks. I watched them with Jenne. She showed me these beautiful drawings she'd done of herself for an art class. A few days later we were walking in Palo Alto. She was swearing because one drawing had gotten an A on one, but a C+ on the other, because of the horrible model. We went into a donut shop, and the scene changes.

I'm a squire in chainmail, with nothing but a letter opener as a weapon. I make it past the guard. I have to get to the princess because we're in love. The guards were huge, with chainmail. I had to beat them.

~~~

August 15, 1999

I dream of witchs in velvet robes walking down my street. I'm at a carnival, and I see them. They take me in, teach me things. I go through a door and there's a comic shop. The girls who play the Sweet Valley twins are there. I buy some comics. The scene changes.

I kill a fat man's brother in a war in my living room. I run out of bullets and a compatriot throws me an extra clip for my water gun. I run to the bathroom with my gun and clip, with the fat man chasing me. I lock the door and drop my gun and clip. The gun falls to pieces and I lose the clip. I pick up pieces of my gun while the fat man beats on the door. He breaks it down and I run past him.

I'm running from him to my middle school black top. He yells, taunting, saying I can't go there, I'm not allowed, I'll get in trouble. I keep running. There's a big clubhouse. I run into it, running up and up. the fat man's there and I push him off the side.

(I wake up with my hands clutching the sheets, because I was still holding the remains of my gun.)

~~~

April 26, 2000

It's been monthes since I've written in you. Many things have happened, many dreams have been had.

Last night, I had a disturbing dream. I went two doors down to ask a question, and someone who looked like Chris was at a computer, so I tapped the window and waved and smiled. As I'm walking away (question unanswered), I think that that wasn't him (oops), and then he's there closing Dad's car doors, and I say sorry, I thought he was someone else, and just says shut up, real casual. It doesn't even hurt.

* obviously the medicine was doing something, since i felt the need to mention it twice in a single sentence using two variations of the word.

** there was a wavy line under august 12th's entry, and i'm assuming i wrote this during one of my various trips to the emergency room, but i have no idea what i was thinking here. apparently i was completely retarded.

*** lightrail = san jose's half-assed answer to electric mass transit.

**** withe = my number one, all time most common misspelling, where, because my head is moving faster than my fingers, i combine "with" and "the".

+100 things that make me happy+ #17: pinup, erotic, and boudoir photography

2011-08-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

name me a person in this world who hasn't questioned their sexuality, and i will retort with "shut up."

it's an odd way to start a blog post, and also semi-inaccurate: i am wired for wiener. which i guess makes my liking of nudie photography more confusing. girls are just... they are pretty to look at. they're soft and curvy and they get all the cool underwear and hair and makeup and they're just fun. period. boys, on the other hand, look... awkward. or cheesy. or disconcerting.

however, if having a tumblr account has taught me anything, it's that kids love their harry potter. er, wait, no. it's taught me that cameron is better than damien. wait, no, who? shit. what has tumblr taught me?

OH YEAH, ok. it's taught me that it's ok to find things aesthetically pleasing and it doesn't make you a perv. so here i am, liz, 29, los gatos, saying: i like to look at girls.

hurray!

(a caveat: the following blogs may or may not contain some "doing". you know, that kind of doing)

i follow a few tumblrs that deal primarily with the aforementioned photography genres:
http://zeeaugusto.tumblr.com/
http://rainy-nightss.tumblr.com/ (i don't know if ghostery is screwing with the layout or if i'm blind or if the person who runs this tumblr just forgot, but i can't find the navigation links on this one. if it truly appeals to you, check out the archive)
http://libraryvixen.tumblr.com/ this one is especially good, it's a favorite of mine and my guy.

and not a tumblr, but definitely a site everyone should check out for a delightful mix of poetry and pinup: poetic pinup, featuring the lovely and talented harlean carpenter.

so, yeah. now to just get the fuck over my little tiny artistic roadblock (how many years now? seven? eight?) and get back into painting. and not feel like a weirdo whilst doing it.

arrggh: a recap

2011-07-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

i have two posts i've been sort of working on. one of them is a 100 things that make me happy post, and the other is my take on why it's ok for children to view violence but not sex. they are, obviously, not mutually exclusive.

i have learned to knit. i can cast on, knit, purl, change colors, and cast off. i'm making a scarf. thank you, sid, for the needles.

i connected two major parts in my book, and now am at a loss. i need to think more.

"book? what book, liz?"

why, the book i'm writing. it's a fantasy/horror. it's fantastic and horrific. i'm terrified to share it with anyone. why? because things in your head hold power. acres and acres of power. that's why depression takes such a deep hold, and illogical fears are illogical, and why therapy is so damn effective. once you talk about the things in your head, they tend to lose most of their power. so what if, upon scribing my characters and story--the people and creatures that have lived in my head for so long, their lives--onto paper, it turns out that they and my work are a waste of time and not nearly as cool as i thought they were when they were all up in my brainmeats?

the healthy attitude would be:
"so what? even if this isn't some major epic that gets published and receives acclaim from lots of people, it's your story, and if you like it, and the people who love you like it and support you, that's what matters. and when it's done, and you're happy with it, you move on to your next project, and do other things with your life."

my attitude:
"FUCK FUCK FUCK."

my ear is infected again. this is the third time in less than a year. it's the same ear as always. see, i can't swim. so when i was younger and in gym class and we had to swim, i would float, with my ears submerged, because everything sounds cool that way.

that led to my first major infection in my right ear, and a loss of some hearing. over the last decade or so, i'd get the occasional infection, in the same ear. then, last year, i got my first sinus infection. in the summer. please imagine that pain and horror, a sinus infection in 90 degree heat, for just a moment.

k, so that introduced disease to a whole new part of my head, a part which is conveniently connected to my ears. and now, every time i get a cold, it goes all up in there, and i have to take antibiotics. but really, three times in a year? so now i'm looking for health insurance that i can afford, so i can see an ENT and get something invasive done, because i'm 99% sure that i have fluid build-up in my eustachian tube that keeps getting reinfected. searching for affordable healthcare is one of the joys of living in my country. it's made all the more entertaining by being a member of the unemployed sector.

why bring up such a touchy topic? i googled "free health line" this morning, and the first page had links to websites in australia, new zealand and canada, boasting about their 24 hour free health help lines. there was a link to an american page with lists of health lines, sure. the general health link had a list of phone numbers. all on the east coast or in the midwest. none of them were 24 hour. i think i need to start a fundraiser.

ok, i think i'm good now. g'night!

+100 things that make me happy+ #16: cartoons for adults

2011-06-30T22:24:00.001-07:00

right now, gangster no. 1 is on tv. before that, it was chitty chitty bang bang. both of these serve to remind me that cartoons are so, so awesome. way more awesome than both of those.

i mean, come on, how can you not love this:

i don't want you to be intimidated... but my high score is 6.

(8/11/11: i haven't touched this because i haven't been inspired. so rather than let it rot and give up completely, i'm just going to list the cartoons i love, and if i have something immediately awesome to say/post about them, i will. if not... then i won't. it's definitely one or the other.)

ugly americans
archer
frisky dingo
metalocalypse
south park
12oz mouse
aqua teen hunger force/unit patrol squad
squidbillies
old school looney tunes
regular show
adventure time
family guy
american dad
superjail
home movies
spongebob squarepants

all of the above are things that i enjoy watching. the end.

+100 things that make me happy+ #15: frozen yogurt by the ounce. and by ounce, i mean at least sixteen of them.

2011-06-20T20:07:00.001-07:00

summer is sure taking its sweet time arriving here in the bay area. we had one hot day (of course it was the day i had to help move 2,000 motorcycle and scooter tires, duh), and then a bunch of nice moderate days... and then tuesday we had a rain storm. and i do mean storm, we had to turn on the lights at one in the freaking afternoon. it was oppressive.

for the longest time, i was all about rain, and clouds, and wind and gloom and fog and blah blah blah. it set a mood, and you got to bundle up. and seeing as i have atrocious skin on my legs, i didn't have to stress about overheating when i pulled on jeans and pants and flannels every day.

but let me tell ya, ever since moving to the santa cruz mountains, i have been all about summer. i think there might be a correlation between that shift in mood and how much propane to heat the house costs. that and one thing i have always liked about summer was how i could be sitting around at eight-thirty and still see my hand in front of my face, or drive with my headlights off. and now, thanks to fantastic on-going trends, i have a new thing to love about summer:

froyo.

not just tcby, get-a-cone-and-walk-down-the-street-lazy-styles froyo. no, fuck that. that's amateur hour. when i enter a frozen yogurt establishment, i want AT LEAST six different choices of yogurt. at this point, i will take a large squirt of each, trying to keep complimentary flavors grouped and then realizing that that is folly and it's all sugar so just pump the damn yogurt.

there must be a minimum of ten feet of toppings NOT including the fruit. this is important. if i were a better person, i'd bring a tape measure with me (yes, that would make me a better person, it's providing a vital service). the toppings need to be fresh and varied. they need to include cereal and nuts and chocolate and candy and various gelatin-based bits. there should be a sauce bar of some kind, but this is not crucial.

when you finally get to the fruit, it, too, needs to be vibrant. no pansy-ass kiwi and pineapple niblets, please, it's insulting. this is also the section where you will find the brownie and cookie dough bits. if you don't find them there, throw your yogurt on the floor and leave.

there should be a little cooling machine next to the registers. in it is a canister of whipped cream. apply liberally. if you don't find it there, throw your yogurt on the floor and leave.

now to pay. they will weigh your yogurt and charge you by the ounce. if you have less than 16 ounces, throw your yogurt on the floor and leave.

... ha! that was a test! if you have less than 16 ounces, go back to the beginning of the line and add more shit.

your yogurt cup should now look like willy wonka and captain crunch went to a frat party and got hammered and threw up, and weigh as much as the average house cat. if it doesn't, you did it wrong and are now a failure. at yogurt. and that's the worst kind of failure, in my opinion. if, however, your cup meets all the aforementioned criteria, you are now free to sit and orally bask in your accomplishment.

one of these days i need to remember to take a picture of my epic yogurt creations, because i have yet to find a picture online that truly captures the spirit of yogurt-by-the-pound.

the website describes this yogurt as an "incredible frozen yogurt and topping combination". yeah, that's really incredible, if the definition of "incredible" was recently changed to "staying in one color scheme and being lame and boring". because as everyone knows, gummi candy + frozen yogurt = the hard, unappetizing bits swimming in melted yogurt that no one eats because they hurt your teeth.

oh look, someone likes mochi! you know what i like? chicken curry. maybe i should pour some over my yogurt and forsake all other toppings. BORING.

look at this fresh, healthful offering! a little yogurt, some nice chopped fruit, and oh, look out, a little syrup there! they're getting craaaaazy now! i think the only thing this cup needs is a little advice:

YOU DON'T EAT FROZEN YOGURT BY THE OUNCE FOR YOUR HEALTH. PUT SOME DAMN CHOCOLATE IN THAT BITCH.

i quit you, internet, you disgust me. i'll try and take a picture next time.

nooooo help meeeee

2011-06-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

i've been sucked into tumblr and the tiny fame that comes from reposting the works of others! AAAAHH!!! on the plus side, a wider audience = more exposure when i post my own stuff, so there is that. but AAAAHH!!!

+100 things that make me happy+ #14: the fragile euphoria of drawing and having that drawing come out just fine

2011-06-11T22:55:00.000-07:00

there was a time in my life when i was fairly prolific. i drew all the time. mostly in class, which in retrospect makes a lot of sense, as i seem to do things best when i'm doing them in lieu of other things, like geometry and science.

i can't quite pinpoint when my multi-year-and-still-going dry spell of creativity began, or the reasons behind it. perhaps it was the nagging notion that just because my mother thinks my drawings are good and that i look great in this sweater vest, doesn't necessarily mean everyone else will feel the same way. and maybe that was coupled with a pre-built lack of self-esteem and desire FOR the acceptance and/or friendship from the very peer group i hated. and maybe that was mixed up with the already growing habit of swallowing myself inward to make myself as bland and "normal" as possible, so perhaps i could just be left the fuck alone for once.

it's really hard to say, exactly.

regardless of its origins, the spell has continued, and i have no idea how to really make it go away. the solution most likely has its roots in self-acceptance and forgiveness of myself and others, and a lot of crying and talking and quite possibly running away from everyone and everything and learning to be an autonomous unit.

all of the aforementioned messy bullshit makes the times when i do put pencil to paper and have it come out good all the more relieving. it's like, maybe i am good, and maybe things aren't as shitty as i'm making them out to be. which is usually how it works out. i'll learn that completely, one of these days, i'm sure. in the meantime, i'll continue about my merry way, getting over my fear of myself in millimeters of graphite and single drops of india ink. and cat hair. lots of cat hair. so... so much cat hair. dammit, finn.

+100 things that make me happy+ #13: learning to use my camera effectively

2011-06-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

in case you hadn't already guessed, this will be a picture-heavy post. because lo and behold, liz actually sat down for fifteen minutes and read through the manual that came with her camera all those years ago. and surprise, surprise, there's no longer noise or blur! MAGIC!

and since having learned to wield my camera in a more professional and pleasing manner, i have taken a great many pictures of random shit. mostly my cats. because they're insane. and plants, lots of plants. i live in the mountains, i have a lot of plants, all right? they're just there.

like this one:

look, ma! light and composition!

and this one:

omg, perspective and shit!

and then there's the things inside my house that somehow become much more interesting when i'm staring at them on a computer screen! like the wienerdog in my kitchen:

and of course the creatures in my house, like this little guy:

and these not-so-little guys.

i'm trying very hard not to fall into the pit of "i can take a decent, clear photo, ergo i am now a photographer and can call myself that and people will think i'm awesome, especially if it's black and white", but it's difficult when i'm having so much fun. i just have to keep bringing myself back down to earth with thoughts like, "you've never taken a photo class in your life" and "try being awesome with a real camera and not just your sony point-and-shoot before you fly off the handle". it works, i promise. but even with those thoughts, i feel more confident in my ability to accurately record my surroundings, and that really helps when i see something that perhaps i might want to paint later.

like this:

i'll probably give her wings or a tail. she'd like that.

2011-06-08T17:49:00.001-07:00

there is something to be said about liking yourself enough to not need everyone else to like you. but it seems so hard. does anyone really feel that way, completely?

+100 things that make me happy+ #12: getting a full, good night of sleep

2011-06-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

i don't know if irony is the correct word to use when writing about how good it feels to get a full night of sleep after not having really gotten one the past few nights, but let's just plow right ahead, shall we?

i've found that everyone's definition of "a full night's sleep" is different. my affianced describes it as, like, six hours. i describe it as no less than eight. science has currently settled on seven hours as being the magic (adult) number (at least last i read).

i say screw my guy and science.

i don't know if it's just me and my hardcore urban lifestyle (computers, baked beans, nachos), or the fact that i'm female, or having fibromyalgia, but i notice a distinct, horrible difference when i don't get a certain amount of fancy, non-interrupted sleep. like, for instance, i become retarded. literally, my ability to think severely retards. and with retardation comes frustration and irritability over my inability to function as a normal person instead of some drooling, rabid forest yak.

in my semi-self-imposed idiocy, i tend to forget (or just straight ignore) the fact that maybe not staying up until one in the morning on my laptop will help me achieve the rest i need and desire. this will go on for a few days, and then the hunger sets in.

my body will demand energy from some source, and unfortunately, my fat ass seems to always be its last resort. so when the sleep rations are low, i start to eat like a maniac, thus adding to the never-ending-but-always-on-my-end resource that my body chooses to ignore. which i suppose is for the best, otherwise i would probably never sleep, and then i would die. but i would look fabulous at my cremation*.

wow, that all sounds terrible. which probably makes those nights when i DO sleep well all the more fucking fantastic. i am a motherfucking ninja when i'm fully awake and alert: i deal better with people, i remember more things, i hit fewer pedestrians with my car... it's a better situation for everyone involved. i pretty much glow in the dark, i'm that awesome.

unfortunately, the seductive, serotonin-restricting glow of tv and laptop always lures me with its siren's song, and i find myself stuck in an endless cycle of sleep-well, sleep-bad, sleep-well, sleep-bad. one of these days, i will win a nobel prize for discovering the gene that programs people to forget that sleeping and eating well and exercising will always make us feel better than sitting on the couch eating sour cream from a tub at two in the morning whilst watching skinemax.

google that in ten years, that'll be the exact first line of the abstract.

*i see no reason to have my descendents pay thousands of dollars to stick my dead body in a box designed for putrescence, have a fancy carved rock put in place lest they forget that i'm rotting in said box, and then be forced to eat terrible casseroles and jell-o with carrots and pineapple. i will burn and be returned to the cycle of life, thank you very much.

+100 things that make me happy+ #11: sterling silver, especially rings

2011-06-03T01:01:00.000-07:00

this one is pretty simple: i never really liked gold. despite claims and evidence of its worthiness and rareness, it always struck me as kind of cheap. kind of like the kardashians.

my everyday jewelry ensemble consists of the following:

a ball chain, knotted, with a the pin of a grenade and a squirrel pendant my affianced found in the yard at his shop

one octopus...

... and one rose

my pseudo-engagement ring on my middle finger (too big for the other one) and a simple, scrolled band

and a piece of turquoise that looks like a power line against a dusky sky, and a SEAHORSE!

notice a theme?

it doesn't hurt that silver is cheaper (kind of), more accessible, and more interesting than gold. though i think the last might because of the two aforementioned reasons. i'd be more experimental with a cheaper metal, too.

there isn't much i can do to dress up the subject of silver... someone killed themselves on the property i live on, so i'm not feeling especially creative at the moment. i promise the next one will be better.

WELL THAT'S COOL.

2011-05-31T16:08:00.000-07:00

so i guess youtube has decided i don't get the privilege of embedding their videos in my blog. both mc chris and daffy are on a white-box hiatus until youtube decides that sticking broken glass up its butt isn't a healthy hobby.

remember:
+ = :(

dear panda express,

2011-05-28T17:27:00.001-07:00

over-indulgence hinders body & mind.

you are aware of the fact that you are a chinese fast food chain, right? is this really the advice you want to be giving your customers?

love,
liz

randomness.

2011-05-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

there isn't a point to this post, at all, except for this:

i love you, mc chris.

+100 things that make me happy+ #10: seahorses, sea dragons

2011-05-24T15:28:00.001-07:00

oh snap, we have achieved double-digits!

oh daffy. will you ever win?

so it could be said that i've been in college for about ten years. unfortunately, saying it that way makes me sound like i'm a retard; also, it's not entirely true. i've been taking community college classes for about ten years. i've taken math, english, pottery, life drawing, greek mythology, computer graphics, botany... i've taken a lot of random shit.

i've also taken marine biology. it was an ok class, i learned some interesting factoids that i could sprinkle into conversations at cocktail parties. ALL the cocktail parties that i go to, where conversation-sprinkling is a required art. yes.

the advantage of taking a marine biology course in california is that we're pretty much one big coastline, and therefore have access to amazing resources for study, such as the monterey bay aquarium. i think it might be actually be illegal to have a marine biology class within 100 square miles of the aquarium and not go there for a field trip, and my teacher had no interest in breaking laws. except for flirting with students. but anyway. i've always loved the aquarium*, so it was no hardship for me and my boyfriend to head down and out to monterey for a day. after all, there are so many things to love about the aquarium: the otters, the penguins, the jellyfish and sunfish and sea turtles and... what's that over there?

no, not there, there. next to the penguins. is that... is that a tank of seaweed?

no. no, it wasn't a tank of seaweed. it was a tank full of the most awesome animal ever to grace this planet:

the leafy sea dragon.

how much do i love leafy sea dragons? does INDELIBLY ETCHING ONE INTO MY VERY FLESH answer your question? my first and currently only tattoo is dedicated to this fine fragile creature, right on my left shoulder (lol, pun). I sketched a picture, using a photo as a reference, and then took both the sketch and my sister to a small, elderly chinese tattoo artist named pinky (RIP). and there i sat, sweating and clinging to both my sister's hand and the back of a chair, and gave my body as a living monument. leafy sea dragons are unfortunately threatened, so i figured if they somehow went (god forbid) extinct in my lifetime, i would have dedicated myself to their memory. and if they (hurray!) didn't, i would always have one as a reminder of how totally freaking awesome they are.

another thing to love about the aquarium is the rotating exhibits. last time i went, they had a magnificent seahorse exhibit that left me in a tiny, quivering puddle of delight on the floor. luckily, my guy was there to scoop me up before i was mistaken for evidence of a crack in the million-gallon outer sea tank, thus causing panic and terror for everyone. i really try to avoid that at all times.

so if you're ever in california--or more specifically, within 100 square miles of monterey--do the honest, legal thing, and visit the aquarium. don't let the man get you down.

*i spent my 21st birthday at the aquarium with my mom. true story. haters gonna hate.

+100 things that make me happy+ #9: bearded dragons, especially babies with big dumb heads

2011-05-23T15:09:00.000-07:00

once upon a time, i had the manliest man*, ever, named mr. hifi banjo strings (banjo for short). he lived in a spacious bachelor tank in my bedroom. he had big, meaty thighs and a huge black beard, and he subjugated all objects and creatures within his line of sight. he was missing a bit of his tail, but i always told people that if they thought that was bad, they should really see the other guy. or not, because it would be incredibly disturbing, such was the extent of their fucked-up-ness via my dragon.

one day, he was joined by a beautiful lady dragon named gelfling. their love had the power to cross the two layers of glass between them, and they pined for the day that they could finally be together as dragons are meant to be. and when that day finally came...

they got it on.

which left me with many fantastic learning experiences! such as, female bearded dragons can hoard sperm inside them for multiple clutches of eggs! AWESOME!

and that they can lay anywhere from five to thirty of the damned things! SWEET.

and, of course, that baby bearded dragons can climb ANYTHING, including the slick sides of the plastic cup of water in their incubator, scaring the shit out of me and leaving me performing a slightly modified version of the heimlich on a creature the size of my pinky finger!

RADICAL.

and when it was all said and done, my baby girl gifted me with 74 eggs total, 69 of which were viable, spread out over three clutches. broken down, that's 24 in the first, 26 in the second, and then another 24 just to make it a nice, even palindrome. of numbers. yes.

now, in reading this, you might sense that i was less than pleased with the situation; and if that's the case, why is it included in a list of 100 things that make me happy? after all, this isn't the list of 100 things that are incredibly inconvenient and vexing.

so i offer you the following image. i believe it fully conveys the joy and wonder and whimsy that being a lizard mommy brings:

that's right. that's a pile of baby bearded dragons. that's how they sleep! like puppies, only smaller and goofier! also, more self-sufficient, as the timing on each and every hatchling was thirty seconds flat from egg to full mobility.

unfortunately, both banjo and gelfling have since passed on, and the babies have long since found new homes. i now have a new man in my life...

word.

*the night gelfling laid her first clutch of eggs, my mom and i raced to dolphin pet village in a panic for coconut shavings, an incubator and advice as to what the fuck we were supposed to do. it was near closing, and i was waiting outside whilst my mom paid, with banjo sitting on my knee on his little leash. one of the employees came out to start moving the cat furniture and parrot cages they had on display back in to the store, and he looked at banjo and said, "that's the ugliest dog i've ever seen." i guess i can't really fault him for that.

+100 things that make me happy+ #8: coconut, in all its forms

2011-05-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

every year for his birthday, my father asks for german chocolate cake. german chocolate cake is, of course, a cocoa-based caked with a coconut frosting. because nothing says "LIEBEN SIE" like a nice tropical coconut.

and every year, i wouldn't eat it.

why? because when i was a kid, i hated having to chew coconut. it was tough and fibrous and i was as easily bored as i was amused. i didn't have time to sit and chew my way through an entire piece of that stuff; there were bugs outside that i had not yet built homes for.

of course, as everyone knows, one distinguishing characteristic of most children is that they're totally retarded, and i was no different, seeing as how i passed up innumerable opportunities to consume coconut. i love coconut. i love how it smells, alone and mixed with other things. i love how it tastes, alone and mixed with other things. i love how it feels, alo- wait, no, it's actually kind of rough. scratch that. the other stuff though, yeah. totally.

i was crushed to discover that bath and body works had discontinued their coconut cream lotion, and further dismayed to not find any suitable substitute. i was overjoyed to find that alba's coconut creme lip gloss was a dollar less at whole foods than walgreens. it was interesting and informative to learn that fresh coconut milk was not an acceptable substitute for butter in a cookie recipe (though they still managed to taste pretty good, one point for me, awesome).

my shampoo is coconut. my luna bars are coconut. i am a coconut. and you know what? coconuts are hard on the outside, and solid, and rough. you don't fuck with a coconut. and that's how i will be. i will be like a coconut. and when i'm done, i will smell damn good. and that's all that matters.

+100 things that make me happy+ #7: cover songs

2011-05-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

i started writing this a week or so ago, and finally got around to finishing it. important point: i finished it. hurray!

oh. snap. nitty-gritty time.

see, when i made this list, i just wrote stuff down (see: typed) and numbered everything. and then when i started writing about each item on the list, i went in numerical order because i have just enough of an OCD tendency to be really annoying and not allow myself the luxury of skipping about the list all willy-nilly. much like the manner in which you can't fight the gorgetron.

so while everything on the list makes me happy, there are some things on it that make me really happy, and cover songs are one of those things. (it feels weird to speak plurally about a singularity, but OH WELL GRAMMAR MCWRITEGOOD, take two interrobangs and call me in the morning. i'll be drunk)

i've always enjoyed cover songs, though for the most part with the same kind of passion i felt for other songs; it wasn't until fairly recently that i developed a real keen interest in them. so much so that i started a (neglected at the moment, i need to get on that once i'm off your mother {LOL}) blog about them, focusing more on the ironic variety, i.e, a death metal group covering ace of bass' "all that she wants". another baby, by the way. that's all she wants. she's not very deep, that one.

oddly enough, a lot of my favorite covers end up being songs that i didn't know were covers. the killers doing shadowplay, nine inch nails and dead souls, nirvana and where did you sleep last night?... totally in the dark here.

that's why i really should get back into my covers blog, because it was in researching other songs that i discovered the origins of those, and a bunch more. i have a whole big nirvana cover/covered retrospective that i need to finish up and post for the delight of all, and for my own personal self-edification. that and i need to continue with things and not let them slip away. but that's for another discussion.

a couple of favorites from my blog:

send me an angel:

mixpod.com
first is cover. skip forward for original.

livin' la vida loca

mixpod.com
first song is cover. skip forward for original.

*(totally unrelated: my cat just got drool all over my arm. she has this adorable habit she picked up as a kitten, of suckling on fluffy objects and kneading her paws. she did that to the sleeve of my robe that i happened to be wearing, and i ended up with a puddle under my typing wrist. so cute)

a day in blog posts

2011-05-02T11:06:00.001-07:00

so unfortunately, my ironic covers blog has become more of a reliquary of easy links to my favorite blogs than an actual blog itself these days. i know, i know, i should get off my lazy brain and finish my massive nirvana tribute, and then, ya know, post other things. but until that time, i will still check it daily to see what my favorite bloggers are up to.

this morning, i was treated with several new postings. over at bittersweet, the day's recipe is for cereal milk. ingredients: cereal and milk. now, you see, people, you might look at this and go, "uh, duh". but much like with modern art and groupons, it isn't always the difficulty of an idea, but rather the timing. sure, you see now that adding cereal to milk, letting it steep, then straining it out and drinking the milk is easy, but had you ever thought of it based on its own merit? or had you, like me, just dumped cereal into a bowl/mug, poured milk over it, eaten the cereal, and then drank the remaining milk? it's not always who does it best; sometimes it's who does it first.

upon reading the recipe, i immediately thought of the box of fruity pebbles i had leftover from my cheesecake (see previous postings) and thought what if, just maybe... i were to pour the pebbles into my food processor, grind them to fruity dust, and mix that with milk? it'd be like a protein drink minus any nutritional value whatsoever! and lord knows we need more of those in this world!

up next, the sweet gal at blissful baking is done with her sugar-free season of lent, and is back with a vengeance, in the form of earl grey shortbread cookies. those of you that know me know i hate bergamot with the fiery hot passion of a thousand decaying, rotting suns, and therefore would probably not delight in a cookie based even partially on the flavor. but the recipe calls for two tablespoons of loose tea leaves. i could easily go into a non-drug-induced trance and start reading the combination of letters that form "earl grey tea" as "lapsong souchong tea" or "that can of loose-leaf bing cherry tea that nice cute guy at whole foods gave you as a sample since it was going to be discontinued anyway". or, ya know, i could avoid the whole mental-reconditioning stage and just do it that way. for ease, you know.

and then, to round out my sensory experience, there's the pioneer woman. she cooks, you know. and what she cooked apparently has either extreme street cred or a history of sexual harassment charges, in the form of knock you naked brownies. i personally like the idea of food that can force me out of my clothes, if for no other reason than to avoid that terrible stomach cramping that happens when you eat too much in pants with no room for forgiveness. if that food happens to be brownies, then all the better, because then you only have to worry about washing chocolate and caramel off yourself, and not pre-treating your clothes. see, the pioneer woman has the answers to everything.

once i've done the 800-mile run required to burn off the calories ingested through the previous postings, then i can think realistically about wearing clothes like what was posted today at haute macabre. as i commented in the post itself, i really need to learn to sew, because i am in no position to afford fancy designer clothes, let along fancy designer clothes made to order. and i really, really like the outfit the gal is wearing on the right. i also deeply appreciate the set of legs on the girl on the left. she looks like she can withstand more than a breeze, and that is rare in the women of high fashion modeling.

so yeah, a fun day of blog reading. well, fun morning. ok, fine, fun fifteen minutes because i read too damn fast. i either need to slow the fuck down or find more blogs.

fruity pebbles cheesecake, part two

2011-04-27T21:18:00.000-07:00

last time, on "as the pebbles bake"...

so you have your tye-dyed extravaganza. joseph has nothing on you and your pie dish. and you could just sorta grab a fork and chow down on a giant fruity pebbles cookie. but that would be half-assed. and here at chocolate~murdercakes, we like to do things at least two-thirds-assed. which is why we will now fill the crust with... um... filling.

because i was worried about the integrity of my crust, i was afraid to use a regular baked-cheesecake filling, thus subjecting my base to another hour or so in the oven. so i opted for the good ol' philly cream cheese no-bake cheesecake. but i had no cool h-whip. i did, however, have a big tub of nonfat plain yogurt (don't ask me why i have what is basically a non-food in my fridge. just sit back and think happy thoughts about how i thoroughly defile it into pie). so i placed a single block of cream cheese into my bowl with eight ounces of non-food, and about a quarter-cup of white sugar (i didn't want to go crazy with sweetness, seeing as how the crust was constructed from a "don't eat" on eat this not that's list of cereals).

after five minutes of pain and suffering in the form of trying to combine a chilled block of cream cheese with watery yogurt using a wooden spoon, i sucked it up like a big girl, dumped the whole mess into a mixing bowl, turned on my mixer, and blasted that sucker on "creaming" for a couple minutes. my result was a light, airy bowl of fluffy, creamy goodness, made better with a splash of vanilla extract and another spoonful of sugar.

i tried really hard to keep crumbs out of the filling, but i, well... failed. so there's cute little specks (yes, that's right, they're cute) in the filling, and the next morning...

thanks, jerry!

it grew flowers! LOL! no, no, that was me with a plate of pebbles, picking through for the colors i needed. and let me tell you, post cereal, you are sorely lacking in the green department. just sayin'.

fruity pebbles cheesecake

crust:
1 1/2 cups fruity pebbles cereal, crushed
1/3 cup butter, melted

filling:
1 block cream cheese, softened
8 ounces non-fat plain yogurt
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

fruity pebbles for decorating

for the crust: preheat oven to 375 degrees. combine crushed fruity pebbles and melted butter in 9 inch pie dish. press down and up around sides of plate. bake for ten minutes. allow to cool completely before filling.

for the filling: place cream cheese, yogurt, sugar and vanilla extract in mixing bowl. mix on high for a couple minutes, or until completely combined. pour into cooled crust and refrigerate overnight.

use extra fruity pebbles for the decoration of choice. you could do...

this:

or maybe, this:

or even this:

it's really up to you. use your imagination! enjoy!

fruity pebbles cheesecake, part one

2011-04-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

so yesterday was easter. for the past few years, my mom has been in entrenched in the living hell that is shopping mall retail work, compounded with the extra water-boarding of the children's book section of borders. however, as many have read recently, borders books has taken a bit of a nose-dive, and by "nose-dive", i mean "bankruptcy". the majority of the stores in our area have closed, including my mom's location at oakridge mall. as a result, she was free and clear to do easter up right, instead of yelling at children opening packages and escorting twitching men with hands buried in their coats to the door.

such a celebration, obviously, called for special things. mom made a big-ass ham with fruit sauce; baked beans; brown bread; and stuffed potatoes. that left my sister and i in charge of dessert. remember the aforementioned requirement of specialness?

my sister made a chocolate roll cake with orange buttercream frosting. and i made a fruity pebbles cheesecake.

the idea had been stewing in my brainmeats for a couple of months now. it started with the idea of froot loops cheesecake, but upon viewing the cereal aisle at safeway, it occurred to me that:

a. fruity pebbles were practically already crushed
b. fruity pebbles and froot loops are the exact same cereal

the beauty of it also lay in its simplicity: with a sugar-laden cereal as your base, there was no need to add sugar. just melt some butter, press it down, and your technicolor dream-pie would be ready for take off.

first, a glamor shot.

this one shows my genius technique for not getting crumbs everywhere: take a large sheet of parchment and fold all the edges in an inch. pour your fruity pebbles in the middle (as shown). place another sheet of parchment over it all, and go to town with your rolling pin. then you will end up with...

modern art!

in my world, modern art = a cup and a half of pebbles crumbs.

... which you will then pour into your pie dish...

... and combine with 1/3 cup melted, unsalted butter.

(gratuitous rubber ducky tea kettle shot)

after you've patted your crumbs into the dish, you will bake them for 10 minutes at 375, at which point you will be rewarded with a fragrant, tye-dyed extravaganza. which will be continued in part two, as soon as i get the rest of the pictures.

+100 things that make me happy+ #6: indescribable moments of excellent qualities of sunlight and clouds

2011-04-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

wow, i'm pretty sure there is no way i could've come up with a more pretentious, hipster description and title, buttttttt there you go, that's the best i could do. because there are times when you step out your front door in the morning and the mist has burned off the christmas trees in the farm next door but it's still lingering in the sky above, and the sun is yellow and the trees are pink and you're just like, "... yeah."

since i fail at words, this will be mostly a picture post, via stock.xchng and google.*

no, i do not live in a castle.

nor by a lake.

i do not live in a rickety, falling down fisherman's hut.

and i unfortunately don't live anywhere near this.

this and the following photo exist in better sizes, but the photographer is apparently a paranoid android and has emblazoned his full-size photos with ugly watermarking (and i use that term lightly, since in my mind, "watermarking" is a subtle yet distinguishable mark upon an image, whereas the marks on this guy's stuff look like they were done in MS paint)

see above.

and then i randomly found a painting that totally got what i was going for!

i hope that was helpful in shedding some light (LOL) on #6**... one of these days, i'll get a real camera, and then i can take some pictures of the light around my house. perhaps someday the weather will stop sucking my balls and make it even easier to achieve the aforementioned. because it's kinda hard to take good pictures of good light when you're lacking both.

* my photography-fu is unfortunately weak, due to lack of skill and a camera capable of catching all the nuances of color that occur around my own home. :(

** upon further reflection and searching results, i've found that there is a way to describe the light that i sometimes get up here: HDR. sometimes, my mornings exist in real-time HDR. the future is now!

+100 things that make me happy+ #5: listening to my music turned up loud whilst driving somewhere i want to go

2011-04-16T11:39:00.001-07:00

i learned to drive kind of late in life, and by "late in life", i mean twenty-one. yeah, i could've gotten my permit at sixteen and rocked garbage cans and mailboxes the whole city over, but it just... never came up, i guess.

most of my learning was done on manual transmissions, in my '84 rabbit and my boyfriend's seemingly never-ending supply of cars that he picked up at auctions in the area. the night i got my permit, i drove around an elementary school parking lot, and then a spooky backroads way between santa cruz and san jose. luckily it was late at night, because i spent the whole time freaking out, thinking a class of seersucker-clad preschoolers on their way home from a field trip to "take a fuzzy baby animal home!" farm would stray away from their julie-andrews-clone-chaperones and wander in front of my 15mph-creeping vehicle. at midnight.

obviously, things worked in my favor, which brings us to today, with the eight years of driving experience i have tucked under my argyle belt, and dramatically morphed attitude toward driving that includes speeding up when i see a pedestrian even consider strolling across the street in front of my car if there isn't a damn pair of solid lines bisecting my path. this experience is made all the more exciting when coupled with my mp3 player blasting industrial, rock, techno, richard cheese, and WAT IT DO?. even better, take the speed and the blaring audio, place them on a winding and seldom-traveled mountain road, and you have yourself a very happy girl.

i indulged in this little pleasure the other day. just me and imperative reaction rolling down mount charlie road, taking it all the way to scotts valley, and then on to felton for some nachos and gasoline, then north on highway 9 to boulder creek and the (apparently) newly paved bear creek road, past david bruce winery, and all the way home again. the trip only came out to about three-and-a-half hours of my time, and i didn't get a chance to stop at san lorenzo valley high school (school was still in session) to poke around and take in the layout (book research and whatnot); but it was a beautiful day, i was full of vallarta, and a construction guy smiled at me both times as he waved me past. good times.

+100 things that make me happy+ #4: falling asleep to a scalp massage

2011-04-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

from mid-april to early march, i had dreadlocks. no, i am not rastafarian. jah does not provide for me, nor do i find all things irie.

back when i was a wee teen, i attended CCOC (central county occupational center; or, as we liked to sound out, "see-cock"). and every day, during break-lunch-siesta, i would sit on a bench with my fries and hot chocolate and watch the mechanic students line up at the cafeteria. one of them was a girl.

not only was she a girl mechanic, she was a girl mechanic with black and pink dreads. and she was skinny. and wore all black. and was therefore absolutely awesome to me, a lightly-chubby network admin student* with crappy red curly crap-hair.

she, along with a certain vampire: the eternal struggle playing card (i bought tons of those stupid things when i was younger. it was only for the pictures and because "vampire" was in the title, i never actually played with them) that cemented dreadlocks in my mind for the next decade. yes, it took me at least ten years to make good on my fantasy of wild, crazy noodle-hair.

it cost $245. it took over four hours. it happened on the day peter steele died. and six months or so later, i was tired of it.

what's the point to this big long spiel? during that whole time, my scalp was off limits to me or anyone else, outside of hair washing. a whole year devoid of the feeling that comes from lying under clean, warm blankets in a dark room while someone else's hand (that part is important, because the muscles in your shoulders get sore quickly if you do it yourself, thus ruining the effect) strokes your hair and rubs your scalp. it's almost like being in the womb again. because i totally remember that time, duh.

* HAHAHAHAHAHAHA i remember NOTHING from that class except deltree and always check the physical layer! and getting humped against a wall. that was completely different, though.

omg reblog!

2011-04-12T15:07:00.001-07:00

i found this on a tumblr. and now i am doing it.

bold everything that is you.

I’m loud.
I’m sarcastic.
I cry easily.
I have a bad temper.
I’m easy to get along with.
I have more enemies than friends.
I’ve smoked.
I drink coffee.
I clean my room daily.

My appearance:

I wear makeup.
I wear a piece of jewelry at all times.
I wear contacts.
I wear glasses.
I have braces.
I change my hair color often.
I have a piercing.
I have small feet.

Relationships:

I’m in a relationship now.
I’m single.
I’m crushin’.
I’ve missed an ex before.
I’m always scared of being hurt.
I’ve told someone I loved them when I didn’t.
I’ve told someone I didn’t love them when I did.
I’ve been in love more than two times.
I believe in love at first sight.

Friendships:

I have a best friend.
I have at least ten REAL friends.
I’ve gotten a phone call in the last 48 hours from a friend.
I’ve beaten up a friend.
I’ve been in a serious fight with a friend.
I can trust at least five people with my life.

Experiences:

I’ve been on a plane.
I’ve taken a taxi.
I’ve taken a city bus.
I’ve taken a school bus.
I’ve made a speech.
I’ve been in some sort of club.
I’ve won an award.
I’ve spent 24 hours on the computer straight.

Music:

I listen to R&B.
I listen to pop.
I listen to techno.
I listen to rock.
I’m one of those people who play songs repeatedly until I hate them.
I download music.
I buy CDs.

Television:

I spend at least six hours a day watching television.
I’m in love with Days Of Our Lives.
I’ve seen and liked the O.C.
I’ve seen and liked One Tree Hill.
I’ve seen and liked America’s Next Top Model.

Family Life:

I get along with both of my parents.
My biological parents are still together.
I have at least one brother.
I have at least one sister.
I’ve been kicked out of the house.
I’ve ran away from my home.
I’ve made my parents cry.
I’ve lied to my parents.
I’ve lied to my parents about where I am.
I’ve lied to my parents about what I’m doing.
I’ve lied to my parents so I’d be allowed out.

Hair:

I’ve been brown.
I’ve had streaks.
I’ve cut my hair in the past year.
I’ve dyed my hair in the past year.
I’ve been blonde.
I’ve had black.
I’ve been red.
I’ve been light brown.
I use conditioner.
I’ve curled my hair.
I’ve straightened my hair.

well, that was enlightening. i guess. not really. i feel exactly the same as i did before i did this, which, i believe, places this squarely in the "waste of time" bracket.

+100 things that make me happy+ #3: portland, oregon

2011-03-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

oh man, where to start.

do i start with my deep, inbred fear that i am a hipster asshole, seeing as how i love so many things hipster assholes love? (fake glasses, ironic t-shirts, cafes, birds on things)

do i continue with the fact that even that deep, inbred fear does not taint my happy feelings when i daydream about a little bungalow with a fireplace on a skinny, tree-lined lane?

do i then extrapolate upon the two cafes per block, the wee-tiny streets, and the telephone poles plastered with current flyers advertising current events and shows, currently?

or perhaps how, if i miss the mountain roads or beaches, i can always take a day trip to astoria on the coast?

there is, of course, an unfortunate side to portland, and that is: the reality of it. portland is like any other place. it has its good sides and its bad sides. all the stuff up there is the good side. the bad side includes: the impossibility of employment; separation from almost all my family and friends; and the fact that a new place doesn't change you, it just change what's around you. and all that new stuff around you doesn't stay new for long. after a bit, it becomes exactly what you left behind.

but this isn't "100 things that make me happy until i think about them all the way through and realize that they just suck".

SUPER BONUS ROUND: peanut butter noodles

2011-03-20T10:58:00.001-07:00

so last night i rocked my kitchen hard. i pulled out an old favorite recipe from allrecipes.com, and transformed it into a magical taste sensation the likes of which has not yet been witnessed on this plane. (vrooooom!)

behold: liz's peanut butter noodles

1/2 cup chicken stock/broth
2 tbsp soy sauce
4 tbsp peanut butter
1 1/2 tbsp honey
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp chili powder
two small carrots, julienned
two green onions, sliced, whites separated from greens (racist!)
2 tbsp chopped peanuts
8oz spaghetti

cook spaghetti as per instructions. drain and set aside.

combine broth, soy sauce, peanut butter, honey, garlic, ground ginger, and chili powder in a saucepan. cook over medium heat for about five minutes, or until peanut butter fully incorporates, stirring frequently (it'll look weird for a while, just let it do it's thing). add carrots and white parts of the chopped green onion. lower heat and cook another five minutes.

put spaghetti in a large bowl. pour sauce over it, and add greens of green onions and chopped peanuts. toss until spaghetti is coated. eat forever and always.

+100 things that make me happy+ #2: tea

2011-03-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

i'm not really one for broad generalizations. they usually just piss me off. that being said, there are two kinds of people in this world: coffee people and tea people.

oh sure, plenty of people like both; i'm fond of a mocha every once in a while, and sometimes my betrothed likes a cup of chamomile to help him fall asleep. but there's always a preference, a choice you'd immediately make when asked what you'd want if you were stranded on an island that just happened to have electricity, clean water and a pot. and for me, that choice is tea.

my enjoyment of tea is so basic and ingrained into my psyche that it feels uncomfortable, almost wrong to talk about it like it's anything special. because it's not, it just is. sky's blue, water's wet, liz drinks tea. done.

my day begins with a cup of tea, always black, with cream and sugar (fancy english styles!) if given the option (i.e, if i can afford a can of it) i drink republic of tea's vanilla almond or cinnamon plum. unfortunately, delicious teas such as those are around $10 a can for 50 bags; which isn't terrible, unless you're jobless and watching all the dollars. for those who are (me), there is big lots! (also perfect for finding the accompanying tea snackeries)

the birth of my tea devotion is an almost perfect parallel to my sister's childhood induction into the hall of coffee drinkers: it all starts with mom. whereas my sister, as a wee sprout, would sit with mom and drink coffee, i would always join her in a cup of breakfast tea (red rose, and a whole tin full of tiny ceramic animals) with cream, sugar, and a freshly baked cookie. (usually chocolate chip; see previous post)

mine was not the most overwhelmingly awesome childhood ever, so, in retrospect, i guess these tea times were even more comforting and important. as a result, whenever i'm feeling like absolute crap, one of my first thoughts is "let's make a cup of tea."

+100 things that make me happy+ #1: chocolate chip cookies.

2011-03-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

what's this? 100 things that make someone happy? that someone being me?

a while ago i started a list at work. that list was 100 things that make you happy. i got the idea from some article online, i think it was in the yahoo dating section or some crap. anywho, i think i got to maybe number 20 before it was time to leave, and then my coworkers found it and lorded over me that they had the power to turn me into putty in their hands because they knew what made me happy, BWA HA HA HA.

long story short, i never finished the list. so i have started it over, and will post all one hundred things i come up with. some will be tangible, some will be intangible. some will be adult, some will be childish. sometimes i will falter, and feel like a loser because i can't even think of 100 happy things and what's wrong with me. and then sometimes i will kick myself in the ass and get over it and continue with my list.

#1: chocolate chip cookies

there are a LOT of cookies out there. macarons, macaroons, peanut butter, brown butter, chocolate, vanilla, sandwich, wafer... it would take charlie sheen's mind to fully elucidate upon the entire spectrum of cookies that exist in this world (or "terrestrial realm", as mr. sheen would put it).

that said, the one cookie that will always remain beautiful in my heart and mind is the chocolate chip cookie. it has everything delicious in this world: butter, sugar (two kinds!), salt, chocolate... and then you mess with deeply browned butter; all light brown sugar versus white and dark; milk chocolate chips vs. semi-sweet vs. 88%; coarse sea salt... my god.

and considering that the chocolate chip cookie is a cookie that is infinitely open to experimentation, they are almost impossible to screw up, and therefore stand as the litmus test of all bakeries, cafes and coffee shops. if you can't even get a chocolate chip cookie right, then why the hell am i going to trust your scrambled eggs or pork chops? i'd probably come out with worms AND head lice. (yes, your crappy pork chops would give me lice. because you failed at chocolate chip cookies)

i am still on the search, like so many in this world, for the chocolate chip cookie. luckily, or perhaps unluckily, as there are billions of palates in this world, there's millions of recipes. i have a folder in my bookmarks dedicated to nothing but chocolate chip cookie recipes. there are 17 recipes in it. most of them proclaim to be the "best" cookie ever, and extol its magnificence up and down, elaborating upon its crumb, and moistness, and chip-to-dough ratio.

what is my idea of the perfect chocolate chip cookie? well:

1. it has to be big. if you're going to eat a chocolate chip cookie, eat a chocolate chip cookie.
2. a high chocolate-to-dough ratio. notice i didn't say chip-to-dough; if you use those awesome chocolate discs instead of chips, then obviously you will have a higher ratio of chocolate but a lower ratio of chips. you will also have a high ratio of delicious.
3. soft. crisp is meringues and shortbread. hard is for biscotti. the perfect chocolate chip cookie must have a firm, chewy exterior, and a moist, almost gooey interior. and it must also have...
4. a good shelf life, meaning that it retains those texture variances for a few days, or as long as they last in the jar.
5. a good backbone. the dough has to have something to balance that chocolate. i recently tried my hand at browning butter for a cookie recipe, to develop those malty, caramel-y notes that people wax romantic over in food blogs. i unfortunately did it too well, and ended up with ghee. i used it anyway. they were ok. i also didn't use vanilla, having read earlier that day about a certain famous new york cookie shop that didn't use vanilla in their chocolate cookie recipes, and they have a cult-like following for their chocolate chip cookies.

again, they were ok.

so i have some baking to do, some practice to tuck under my belt--or gut, depending on how long it takes me to the get the recipe right and how many "failures" i'll have to taste test along the way. until then, here's a recipe that hasn't let me down yet, and is oh-so close to my perfection.

best big, fat, chewy chocolate chip cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (i added a full teaspoon last time i made them, and they had, in my opinion, a better fluffiness to them without being cake-y)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted (if you know how to properly brown butter, by all means, rock on)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (sorry fancy new york bakery with slews of fans, but there was a little something missing when i didn't use extract. and it was extract.)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (i used 72% chocolate disks)

now, when i make chocolate chip cookies, a secret i've learned is to make your dough, then refrigerate it for at least eight hours, longer if possible. i think my minimum in the past has been twelve, i usually strive for twenty-four; and i've read tell of those who say anything less than 36 hours is just a waste of time. if you need your cookies NOW, however, preheat to 325F. and you should have parchment paper. parchment paper is the BEST.

sift together your flour, soda and salt. my method of sifting is to whisk it with a fork. set aside.

cream together your melted/browned butter and sugars until well blended. beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. mix in dry ingredients until just blended. stir in chips/disks.

drop dough by the QUARTER CUP (1/4 CUP) onto your prepped sheets. no, really, do it. don't look at your silverware drawer for a tablespoon, grab your quarter cup measuring cup and fill it with dough, and then put that dough on a sheet. you will like yourself more for it, i promise. the original recipe says to leave three inches between, but i found that between the refrigeration, the extremely melted butter, and the extra baking soda, they keep their form fairly well, so you can probably get away with less room.

bake about 15-17 minutes, but definitely check at the 15 minute mark. you want toasty edges and sorta-soggy centers. let them cool for a few minutes on the sheets, then move them to a rack to complete their cycle of coolness.

there was something i was going to add and now i can't remember, dammit. OH! yes. if you end up refrigerating your dough, leave it in the fridge until your oven is heated and your ready to start shoveling dough onto your totally prepped sheets. the cooler the dough, the more likely it is to maintain its form. it has something to do with the fats in the butter and whatnot.

annnnnnnd enjoy.

dear sir/madame: i love you.

2010-12-18T10:39:00.000-08:00

long ago, i signed up for an account with onemodelplace.com. it had nothing to do with wanting to become a model (though, if by chance the world of fashion were suddenly turned upside down and short, chocolate-loving girls with dreads became the new trend, i wouldn't turn it down); rather, if you're into figure drawing and want a constantly updated source of women contorted into odd positions in extreme lighting with vapid looks on their faces, then haute couture shots are where you look.

so i signed up, a while ago. so long that i can't quite remember why i stopped looking at it. i think the layout pissed me off. anywho, i got an email from them today:

Dear H,

We love you and we miss you! :-) We'd love to have you back on OneModelPlace.com.

really? you love me and miss me? what do you miss the most, exactly? my stunning contribution to your online community via signing up and then immediately forgetting you exist? my original intentions of using your online portfolios for my own personal gain? please, tell me, i really want to know.

this was the first thing that jumped to mind upon reading that:

apparently, the future is now, and a random modeling website that i put about six minutes of my time into loves me. i'd love to go into more detail, but i have some errands to run today. perhaps while i'm out i'll stop by starbucks for my latte and a happy ending.

oh yes it's ladies night, and the feeling's wrong.

2010-12-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

ok, body, let's have a talk.

you are twenty-eight years old. hear that? twenty. eight. not fifty-eight. not even forty-eight. twenty-eight. so please, explain to me why i don't have full useage of my left arm, or practically ANY useage of my right hip?

explain to me why, at twenty-eight, on a saturday night when my peers are out sloshing it up with their zimas and shimmying their hula hoops about to their dan fogelberg, i am in bed in pain?

ok, to be fair, body, even if i wasn't in pain, i probably wouldn't be out anywhere shimmying anything, but still, it's unfair of you to decide that, since i'm not doing anything BETTER with my time (at least in your opinion) i should just go ahead and hurt.

OH AND THERE GO THE CRAMPS. god, you are so PREDICTABLE, BODY! "pain? you call that pain? FOOL!" now of course the hip pain is, once again, radiating down to my shin. like i said, predictable.

when i talk about my various body pains, it isn't so much in self-pity as in self-disbelief. i really, honestly can't understand why, at a relatively young age, i am beset with the joint problems of a pentagenarian (way to be prejudice against 50 year olds, spell check, real classy). granted, i'm not in the BEST physical shape in the whole world of ever, but all my cell counts are normal, my fluids are flowing, and my blood pressure is almost negative. i'm not overweight, just soft. the only overeating i really do is at indian buffets and right now ("right now" being the holidays, which of course doesn't count, so forget i even mentioned it).

ok, yeah, i have fibromyalgia, but that's not a very good excuse. after all, my mother and sister didn't seem terribly bothered by their fibromyalgia until they got older than i am, so what gives?

unfortunately, my habit when confused and frustrated is to voice those confusions and frustrations. this leads people to believe that i am an attention whore, which is mostly untrue. i say "mostly" because, of course, who doesn't sometimes crave a little attention, and if that attention can be in the form of pity and sympathy, well, sign me up for some of that. some. however, even pity requires some kind of response from me, and as i hate the back and forth of someone who doesn't know how to respond to someone else, it just ends up making me feel awkward. i guess the ideal situation would be to scream about my shitty body at the top of my lungs, and for everyone around me to kind of look at me for a second, then go about their business.

so if you're out on the street and you happen to see a short chick with dreads yelling at the sky about why her leg hurts, don't worry, just keeping walking along.

the torture of christmas tree shopping: X-TREEM personification

2010-12-03T11:25:00.000-08:00

yesterday, i beat my sister and b-i-l to big lots by a rather wide margin, and as a result, i had some time to burn. the situation was made more interesting by the fact that i had just left my therapist, where we'd discussed, among other things, my anxiety over time that isn't filled with purpose. the purpose doesn't have to be particularly purposeful, but it does have to be planned, something specific. so when i found myself with about half an hour between "therapist" and "spend my money on stuff that i'll decide really is needed", i got a chance to practice not being a fruitcake.

i wandered around beverly's fabrics and crafts for a bit, musing over wtf i was going to do about christmas presents this year. i played with the idea of buying paper mache boxes and doing... something to them, to make them cookie-holding-worthy. nothing says love like paper mache, right?

i went across the street to starbucks to procure my yearly cranberry bliss bar. the girl at the register really, really liked my hair, it seemed to just delight the hell out of her. cue another internal episode of "keep the dreadlocks because they seem to encourage positive attention, or accept that i'm kind of over it and keep walking around with hairy sausages on my head?"

i then went back across the street and into the christmas tree... area? stand? section? i'm not sure what to call it, and the knowledge that everyone knows what a section of parking lot fenced off and filled with trees looks like doesn't help me at all, this needs a name. and "lot" won't work, because then it's a lot inside a lot, and that's just ridiculous.

ANYWAY. into the christmas tree amorphia. something i've noticed this year is that all the trees seem really nice. green, shapely, fragrant--i've yet to come across a tree that wasn't pleasant to be around, and these trees were no different. i was initially drawn in by the short little fatties that were as big around as they were tall, and from there on drifted through huge towering nobles and the stereotypical 6' acute angles. these last ones were the problem, unfortunately. i'd touch a tree, run my fingers through its branches, and think, what a lovely tree.

and then i'd feel it.

the tree next to it. staring right at me. it had branches too. they were also covered in velvety soft needles. it was as tall, and its backside didn't have a space near the bottom like that one did.

and then, over here! look at me! see how my branches flare at the bottom! you are the only person capable of truly observing my tree-esque glory, and if you don't buy me, i will be hacked into logs and burned while i'm still alive.

THAT is what EVERY tree in that lot was saying. i was quickly and painfully made aware of my role as the tree messiah, and i couldn't just take one tree, because then what would happen to that tree? how could i just leave it there, in the cold? the sky darkening, the lights going out, it would just sit there, alone, crying spindly foliage and dreading its black future as a wreath. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME, WOULDN'T I PLEASE THINK OF THE TREES?!

i experienced a great despair as i thought of my tiny, pathetic bank account balance and how my house, while comfortable for two people, two cats and a lizard, would be a poor substitute for sprawling acreage and nightly mistings from coastal fogs. more pathetic than my bank account, however, was the fact that i was seriously entertaining the idea of buying every tree in a lot so they wouldn't be hurt.

i left, quickly. i went to big lots and returned my malfunctioning cat laser toy. and no, i did not think about what would happen to it when it was no longer in my sight.

viva la "lots and lots and lots of words with no end"

2010-12-01T09:46:00.001-08:00

it has come to my attention that i write very easily when i don't worry about little things like run-on sentences. when i just allow a thought to ramble on endlessly, everything just kind of flows on its own.

case in point, a recent email to a friend:

"i bought the taste of home holiday magazine because i'm weak-willed and i saw the most adorable idea in it ever and immediately knew that if i didn't buy the magazine i'd forget it and cry the rest of the season, even though i haven't forgotten it at all and i probably could've saved the ten dollars, but dammit, it was so damn cute. they're these little dove-shaped cookies, but what makes them so cute is you layer sliced almonds on them, so they look like feathers. i know, right? there was also a recipe for sugar cookies using cream cheese that i wanted to try, thinking that the cream cheese would bulk them up and make them not so delicate so maybe half of these year's batch wouldn't come out on fire. also, i have parchment paper."

that paragraph is constructed from a mere five sentences. and two of those sentences make up about 70% of the information given. long sentences are FUN. who decided that people shouldn't be able to just write long, meandering, winding lines of text? who decided that my desire to write two pages to someone without a single period was bad form? show me that person, and i'll show you someone about to get punched in the face. with words.

sometimes i think grammar and punctuation rules were invented merely to make writing more intimidating and difficult than it needs to be, to keep the "masses" in check. if word got out that anyone could be brilliant, then what would all the self-proclaimed brilliant people do? cry into their crumpets and silk scarves, that's what they'd do.*

well, ladies and gentlemen and dicks and hos, i am here to tell you, right now, from a completely uninformed standpoint, that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE IT ANYMORE. jump up out of your seat! thrust your fist in the air! then immediately sit back down and thrust both fists at your keyboard and TYPE WORDS ENDLESSLY.

*all brilliant people wear silk scarves and eat crumpets. this is science.

what do you do with a b.a in english?

2010-11-29T09:58:00.000-08:00

Asperger Syndrome compromises one’s ability to read nonverbal social cues. A simple example of this deficit is answering the question, “How are you?” It is loaded with so many nonverbal issues that I simply freeze. Even if you tell me, “Just say fine,” sometimes the situation looks special to me, and I can’t figure out why it’s special, so I can’t talk.

does anyone else do this? like, literally, this situation, when someone asks "how are you?" and you want to answer, but you feel impossibly uncomfortable just blurting out "fine! good! awesome!" because there are so many little factors in your life that have to be weighed and balanced that will ultimately affect that answer and, having weighed them out, will give you an answer that is maybe less than fine, or good, or awesome. and to just throw out some trite little social plum would be tantamount to lying, and lying is shit, too.

and of course you know that 90% of the time, the person asking "how are you?" is doing it just to be polite, or as an ice breaker, and to give a real, honest answer about yourself is far fucking more than they really care about. so really, why ask in the first place? why not, "hi, how's your last five minutes been?" or, the more common and easier to answer "hi, what's new?" defining what's new in your life is a lot easier than piecing together your mental state at any given time.

so how am i? i'm leaving a message with my therapist to see what can be done about being tested for asperger's, because as much as i dislike self-diagnosis, the frightening feeling of familiarity i felt while reading this essay, coupled with having a severely autistic brother and a fully-functioning autistic sister, has made me wonder if, maybe, i'm not really as stupid as i think i am.

and how are you?

old draft post #1

2010-01-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

(dude, awesome, old drafts! i'm posting these!)

i will be gone for 15 days in mid-february.

i've never been anywhere besides home for that long. it brings up certain issues, such as:

- who REALLY has over two weeks worth of underwear?
- the last time i went on this trip was for half the time, but i came back to someone fired at my work. i'll probably come home to my place of business leveled, with a group of old women in babushkas weeping around the rubble.
-

cheap eats #1

2010-01-25T10:00:00.001-08:00

i've been in doctor's office a lot lately: bloodwork done to test the amount of medication in my system; a cyst removed from my head, plus a follow up; the eczema on my legs treated, with yet another follow up. and i'll be back at least once more in march to have a mole removed.

what the HELL does this have to do with frugal feasting?

in the waiting room of the dermatology and out-patient surgery office (convenience!) i've watched the same accent health program at least twice, and can be comfortable with the knowledge that i can't break my funny bone. (i was very relieved when that line of a-b-c-d questioning was credited to accent health kids, or i would have had to be sent to a real hospital to stop the swelling in my brain after i bashed my head repeatedly into a wall)

anyway, apparently accent health also has a healthed-up recipe of the month, and this month's recipe is shepherd's pie. the filling was a fairly straight-forward mix of lean meat, vegetables, and gravy, nothing too special. what caught my interest was the topping: a mix of cauliflower and potatoes, rather than straight mashed potatoes. i had to give that try.

except for baking (and even then i like to tweak things) or if i'm going for an exact flavor, i usually don't follow recipes, and i don't eat meat, so rather than just link to the recipe, the following is my interpretation . the prices listed are current for safeway.

1 tbsp olive oil (or canola, your preference)
half a large yellow onion (i think $.99/lb? i had one on hand already, but it's onions, they're always cheap), chopped
couple dashes of salt
2 carrots ($.99/lb), sliced
4 plain white mushrooms (i think $2.99/lb, but it's four mushrooms, the price doesn't even really enter in at that point), sliced
1 cup frozen corn (a bag of corn is, like, two or three bucks, and obviously can be stretched over generations)
1 can peas ($.99)
one bag morning star fake meat crumbles ($3.99)
one can of beef broth ($1.49)
2 tbsp wheat flour

one head of cauliflower ($2.99)
three large red potatoes, peeled ($.99/lb)
2 tbsp butter
about 3/4 cup milk
s&p to taste

preheat your oven to 350°

all righty, heat up your oil over medium heat. saute your onion with salt (the salt helps break down the membranes, thus allowing a massive flavor explosion) until glassy. toss in the mushrooms and carrots, let those squish up. add the frozen corn, peas, and fake meat, crank up the heat a little and let the frozen bits melt, stirring often. pour in your can of beef broth, add the flour, bring it up to a boil, then let simmer while you...

steam your cauliflower and potatoes! if you don't have a vegetable steamer, then you are FAILIN- i mean, you should invest in one, they're cheap and convenient and look like a spaceship. basically, you want them soft for mashing, so you could boil them, but i've found steaming is faster.

once they're squishy, put them in something that will allow you to mash in the butter, milk, s&p, and whip them to a frenzy.

i did my filling in a large cast iron pan, so i just smeared the caulitato topping over it and stuffed it in the oven. if you don't have the convenience of a large cast iron pan, just put the filling a regular casserole dish and commence the smearing and stuffing, cooking for about half an hour.

we didn't have any side dishes or anything, so we only ate the casserole, and we got about five servings (second helpings for john and i, and the equivalent of one adult serving for maddie), and still had half of the pie left. so if you serve it with some salad and/or bread, it'll stretch for, like, five years.

i bought the carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, potatoes, and broth last night and my bill came out to about $7.50. so...

$7.50
$3.99
$2.00 (approx. price for a bag of frozen corn)
$1.49
$.99
$.50 (approx. price for an onion)
equals... $16.47. for a whole shepherd's pie that will feed you for probably close to a week.

delicious!

what did you ever do to me, bicycle duo?

2010-01-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

the following took place a while ago (like, weeks).

i was driving to work through majestic (ha!) willow glen when some movement on the side of the road caught my eye, then re-caught both my eyes as my brain processed: male. shirtless. bike.

and this guy was cute. skin that toast color that only good genes can supply, in shape but not lumped all over like a mutant gourd. did i mention he was shirtless?

so i was doing the "looknowdon'tlookoklookagain" routine as they came closer. yes, they. he had a partner. the partner's manner of dress was such that it wasn't until they were about two car lengths ahead of me that i realized it was a gal: obviously NOT shirtless, blond, baseball cap, smiley. her now-known presence caused me to immediately cease and desist all looksy-looing and keep my eyes firmly ahead.

why?

what reason did i have to stop looking just because he was with a girl? was i afraid she'd notice my staring and, in a jealous rage, attack my car with her bicycle? if so, she should get some help, because riding with a guy who looks like that is just asking for stares.

did i just immediately lose interest at the sight of her? considering my interest in the first place was passing at best, not some sudden strike of love that would make me forget all about the boyfriend i had back at home, and forsake all others before him, that, too, didn't seem likely.

was i thinking entirely too hard about this? probably, because i think i (or my inner me, who always boils everything down to the worst) came upon a reason, and it's really, really stupid.

if i were walking/riding/being around with my boyfriend, and girls were looking at him, right after the initial flare of possessiveness, there would be... happiness. a little thrill. a tingle of pleasure and pride. i didn't care so much if the guy saw me staring as i did about his girl seeing me. some small, petty part of me wanted to deny that, albeit tiny, joy, to this person. this person i've never seen before, and probably never will again seeing as i couldn't pick her out of a crowd. this person who could volunteer at soup kitchens and sew clothes for orphans and is out biking with her man to train for the upcoming "5k-mile-bike-to-cure-everything-bad-ever-and-save-puppies".

... come to think of it, that there is a really good reason to hate her. forget i said anything!

oh me.

2010-01-01T10:34:00.000-08:00

how hilarious, i get crazy-excited about omglolblogging!!!!1 and now i can't think of anything to write about! HA!

is the original content of my first post and obviously so not worthy of such a title, so i hereby dub this post #0.