i would trade perfection for flavor

Figs

byErica Jong

Italians know
how to call a fig
a fig: fica.
Mandolin-shaped fruit,
feminine as seeds,
amber or green
and bearing large leaves
to clothe our nakedness.

I believe it was
not an apple but a fig
Lucifer gave Eve,
knowing she would find
a fellow feeling
in this female fruit

and knowing also
that Adam would
lose himself
in the fig's fertile heart
whatever the price—

God's wrath, expulsion
angry angels
pointing with swords
to a world of woe.

One bite into
a ripe fig
is worth worlds
and worlds and worlds
beyond the green
of Eden.

from today's Writer's Almanac

narcolepsy

I stumbled upon this interesting series of interviews with narcoleptics in the New York Times. I don't think about being a narcoleptic much. Since finding medication to alleviate most of the sleepiness my life is so much more manageable.

It's a weird disorder and kind of funny. Not as funny untreated, though. Untreated it's a ball and chain.

may

Walked past one of our security guards a few minutes ago and said hello. She responded, "It's National Prayer Day. Don't forget to pray!"

If I were really as mean as I'd like people to think, I'd have told her, "And May is National Masturbation Month. Don't forget to masturbate!"

in which i break up with atk

This is personal and filled with drama...I broke up with America's Test Kitchen! In an email, no less (they won't take my calls):

For years, I've been damn-near evangelical in my love for Cooks Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen. I receive your publication and I own your cookbooks. While perusing recipes with a friend (who pays for web membership) we hit a recipe that was blurred out and reserved for "Editor's Choice" memberships only.

...I've had it with premium memberships, elite memberships and all the other marketing crap that striates and monetizes every level of information and makes everything into a goddamn tollroad. I am heartbroken to say this, but I'm done. I'll go elsewhere for recipes from now on.

Seriously, I'm bummed. But a girl has to set some boundaries.

*see shameful update

happy easter to my peeps

To all you believers out there, enjoy your chocolate-covered resurrection celebration tomorrow.

Today, however, take comfort in the words of the great philosopher, Miracle Max:

See, there's a big difference between mostly dead, and all dead.
—Miracle Max

magic mouse?

They call it the magic mouse. I didn't know this when it came with packaged with my new iMac at work. See the smooth top surface? No buttons, just touch control. Not unlike the surface of an iPhone, I assume, but I don't know if it's the same technology. Something about the magic makes me less inclined to research.

Of course it's wireless, so when IT dude asked me if I wanted to keep it or get a "regular" mouse, I said I'd try this one. More because I dislike cabled mice so much I bought a wireless one for work on my own dime. Or my own $10, which was how ridiculously cheap wireless mice are these days.
Excluding this magic one, which is not so cheap.

Okay. So why a post about the humble and innocuous mouse? Because it triggered a phenomena that I hadn't expected nor experienced before.

20 years of mouse technology has seen dozens of changes that seemed significant to me. The addition of scroll bars. The transition from little wheels and balls (chock full of desktop bellybutton lint) for motion to laser sensors. And of course, wirelessness.

Some failures (for me) were Apple's first round mouse that looked cute but required visual "righting" because you couldn't tell quickly, by feel, which curve was the top. And the trackball: a large ball inserted into a stationary mouse–which some folks loved but not me. I draw with my hand and wrist in a movement that I couldn't quite transfer to just my fingertips. There's also the Wacom-style pads and styluses, which my coworker swears by. The tablet seems quite intuitive but I never have felt quite as comfortable with it.

All these things were nice little adjustments that happened over time and made computer life a little more pleasant. I played with the pristine little lozenge and thought its low profile might be a problem. It wasn't.

Here's the amazing thing: the touch movement, scrolling and clicking were so...intuitive I was unaware how quickly I'd adjusted. Within days, I was at home with my now Flintstone-like block-o-plastic mouse and realized I was dragging my finger over the completely non-responsive surface* of a mouse I'd used for years.

In less than one week, my decades-long training on clicking and scroll bar use was seamlessly supplanted. That is creepy and amazing. I hadn't personally experienced technological evolution at this speed before. If mice were a species [yes, I'm chuckling] this one would be the genetic super mouse that adapts as its ancestors die off. That is, if it wasn't priced $50-$60 in a market where you can get a decent wireless mouse for $10-$15.

The only drawback is that it's so sensitive that sometimes I'll be working in a palette window of one of my programs, adjusting an image size or line width. Then, I'll move the mouse to my main window when suddenly the 25% adjustment that I chose is racing up to 90% because the cursor was still active in the little field. It interpreted my innocent move as a command to scroll the numbers up.

The other surreal behavior is that when my fingers are just hovering over the top, Magic Mouse thinks I'm just asking for something very quietly and complies. Like a Ouija board planchette, it sometimes moves things around without my participation.

See? It really is a magic mouse.

*Like whispering at a rock concert, nothing is communicated.

in response

When you delete an email in Gmail, the following phrase appears in highlighter yellow:

This conversation has been moved to the Trash.

Just thought this might be helpful when walking away from rabid teabaggers.

a little something while you wait

It's an age-old quandary, well, since the age of written communication anyway: writing takes time and energy. It is the living part of my (godhelpme) facebook status: The minutiae of sustenance is the getting in the way of living. Conversely, depression drives many of us to write, which is often therapeutic but not often conducive to good writing. There are exceptions, of course, but I am not one of them.

So while I toil with the turmoil and wrangle with the tangle, enjoy this.

This poem from today's Writer's Almanac picked my spirits up:

Naming My Daughter

by Patricia Fargnoli

In the Uruba tribe of Africa, children are named not only at birth but throughout their lives by their characteristics and the events that befall them.

The one who took hold in the cold night
The one who kicked loudly
The one who slid down quickly in the ice storm
She who came while the doctor was eating dessert
New one held up by heels in the glare
The river between two brothers
Second pot on the stove
Princess of a hundred dolls
Hair like water falling beneath moonlight
Strides into the day
She who runs away with motorcycle club president
Daughter kicked with a boot
Daughter blizzard in the sky
Daughter night-pocket
She who sells sports club memberships
One who loves over and over
She who wants child but lost one.
She who wants marriage but has none
She who never gives up
Diana (Goddess of the Chase)
Doris (for the carrot-top grandmother
she never knew)
Fargnoli (for the father
who drank and left and died)
Peter Pan, Iron Pumper
Tumbleweed who goes months without calling
Daughter who is a pillar of light
Daughter mirror, Daughter stands alone
Daughter boomerang who always comes back
Daughter who flies forward into the day
where I will be nameless.

chatty cathy

It is difficult to tease out whether this is just the upper half of my normal loquacious cycle or the result of the quarterly switch-over of sleep-disorder meds. I'm leaning towards the latter. Why? Because then it's not some cracked-out aspect of my personality...it's just the speed.

However charming or witty or urbane I may have been today, I wish I could just shut-the-hell-up because I'm a exhausted with sound of my brain churning out thoughts and my mouth trying to keep up with the deluge.

playing with my food

Nudging other projects aside (momentarily), I made a cake for my coworker last week. It was his 30th birthday and he shares the date with my son who is exactly 1 year older. So he benefited from transference as I poured some missing-my-boy energy into the celebration.

Mike is nuts about cars and drifting, so I made a three-layer cake to match his wheels...in a smaller way*:

Still, it's a large cake pan (14" diam) and I ended up tripling the yellow cake recipe (the equivalent of 6-8" layer cakes) because we have a lot of people in our department...and the proportions worked better.

I made the rim template in Illustrator from his photos. I iced the whole cake in the chocolate frosting, laid the template on top and used a toothpick to make the outline. Then, I took some regular butter cream frosting and using my little cake decorating set, drew the outline and then filled it.

The chocolate frosting and yellow cake recipes are from Cook's Illustrated. The frosting uses dutch-processed cocoa (couldn't find Callebaut so I used Droste) and melted chocolate (I used Lindt milk chocolate) and copious amounts of butter as well as confectioners sugar and corn syrup. Seriously, I'll never use another chocolate frosting recipe if I can help it. The taste and texture are decadent.

We also filled his cube with balloons and shrink-wrapped that fucker. I thoroughly enjoy these significant birthdays. Maybe it's the lack of religion with all its ritual that I've supplanted with secular celebrations. Whatever it is, it's fun.

*A word about photographs. I really don't like stopping and taking pictures of my work...all consumed with process as I am and (in this case) sticky hands. Whenever I'm working on something, my dear Barbara will come around like project paparazzi to document. I usually grumble because it means I have to stop, clean off some surfaces and generally fuss about it's not-quite-doneness. Then, when everything is done (in this case--eaten) I am so grateful she took some photos. We've repeated this cycle for over 23 years so you'd think I'd stop grumbling. Let me make this completely clear: she's completely right on this one and I'm so wrong. Thank you, dear woman!

painless steak?

An Op-Ed piece from the New York Times this past week by Adam Shriver (a doctoral student at my daughter's alma mater, Washington University)...that unsettles me.

The problem:

Veal calves and gestating sows are so confined as to suffer painful bone and joint problems. The unnatural high-grain diets provided in feedlots cause severe gastric distress in many animals. And faulty or improperly used stun guns cause the painful deaths of thousands of cows and pigs a year.

The premise:

We are most likely stuck with factory farms, given that they produce most of the beef and pork Americans consume. But it is still possible to reduce the animals’ discomfort — through neuroscience. Recent advances suggest it may soon be possible to genetically engineer livestock so that they suffer much less.

A solution:

This prospect stems from a new understanding of how mammals sense pain. The brain, it turns out, has two separate pathways for perceiving pain: a sensory pathway that registers its location, quality (sharp, dull or burning, for example) and intensity, and a so-called affective pathway that senses the pain’s unpleasantness. This second pathway appears to be associated with activation of the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex, because people who have suffered damage to this part of the brain still feel pain but no longer find it unpleasant. (The same is true of people who are given morphine, because there are more receptors for opiates in the affective pain pathway than in the sensory pain pathway.)

Neuroscientists have found that by damaging a laboratory rat’s anterior cingulate cortex, or by injecting the rat with morphine, they can likewise block its affective perception of pain.

The article concludes:

If we cannot avoid factory farms altogether, the least we can do is eliminate the unpleasantness of pain in the animals that must live and die on them. It would be far better than doing nothing at all.

I understand that blocking pain in terminal patients is a humane thing to do. After all, what is the point of denying relief for that kind of suffering in hospice? And Mr. Shriver's conclusion makes some sense, if we can't change the format, at least reduce the suffering...justified by it's better than doing nothing, right?

What needles me about this approach to animal suffering is the message it sends to sloppy humans: You can kill your food without "humanity" once the animal is anesthetized from pain. So, don't worry about the abysmal conditions, digestive and dietary damage inflicted. And don't worry about half-assed stun gun performance--the creature has its pain center "interpreters" turned off--you're guilt free. It is fundamentally and philosophically so full of holes that it makes me queasy.

Wouldn't it be better to put some of that energy into finding solutions for the cruel conditions, rather than research ways to pull a pleasant curtain in front the cruelty? Aside: what happens when animals don't react to pain? Will their keepers have no clue to serious illness or injury because the animals don't low or squeal?

I'm going to talk my steak-loving self right into vegetarianism at this rate. Fuck.

yesterday

Definition of insanity:
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

This is the suicide note my nephew left on the white board in his room before he killed himself yesterday. (The saying is attributed to Albert Einstein...for whatever sad irony that is worth.)

He'd been plagued by a number of physical illnesses, the worst of which was Crohn's disease. The terrible pain overlapping the depression overlapping the prospect of more pain proved too overwhelming for him to bear.

I grieve for him. I grieve for his parents, burying their 30-year old son. I grieve for his grandmother, with whom he lived for the past few years and mourn the end of their gentle symbiotic relationship. He helped her do the things around the house and yard that even the hardiest (and she is) 84-year old can no longer do alone. She made sure his ravaged digestive system got the healthiest food possible and provided him a place to rest and heal. In her hard life, she buried an infant son, a 21-year old daughter and her 46-year old eldest son, my children's father. Her own husband died suddenly at 50. And now this dear grandson killed himself in the basement room where he lived in her house.* She is stoic and staunch in her religion but this must shake her world.

And my heart breaks for my children. Lars was born less than six weeks after my son. He was his closest cousin; when I spoke to my son last week, he was worried about his cousin's health. The friendship between Lars and my daughter has been a wonderful thing to watch blossom as they've become adults.

And now he's gone and so is his pain. And that's the only cliché that gives me any comfort right now.

*As it turns out, he did not die in her home but in his car.

enough

In many ways I consider myself a skeptical liberal. 15 years in the clutches of religious fanaticism left me with a bad taste in my mouth for extreme following. Whenever I feel like I'm asked to muffle logic and intuition in order to be part of a group, I start backing towards the door.

Because of that, I've never felt like a single-issue voter. We are all multifaceted. I am not just a feminist voter, queer voter, urban voter, racial minority voter, etc. Weighing the economy with social progress sometimes means delaying one or the other. These are difficult decisions. (I choose not to be a politician because these issues are messy and exhausting...and I've lost some enthusiasm for/optimism in the political process. Mostly, I'm just fucking tired.)

In a microcosm, we make these decisions all the time. Can I pay down my debt this month or fix the transmission or get that root canal? Do I save money for my child's college tuition or do I pay for braces? And these are, in terms of survival (think: Haiti) very luxurious options. But they illustrate the age-old struggle of deciding which desired goods can be obtained with limited resources. More significantly, which cannot be obtained. So Taxes, the Economy, Jobs, Government Programs, Helping the Poor and Social Policy are not party-line black and white in my mind.

Recently a few things have set my non-single-issue stance on its moderate ear.

Exhibit 1
A couple of weeks ago a transgendered woman, Myra Ical, was murdered in Houston and her body dumped. The Houston Police Department sent the story to the media in a way that makes me want to wring my hands and somebody's neck. The Chronicle's initial story: (subsequent stories were more respectful after the community outrage that prompted a vigil/protest)

Police are trying to determine why a man was killed and left half-naked in a field known to police as a hangout for prostitutes and drug users near the Montrose area.

Ruben Dario Ical, 51, of Houston, who also went by the name of Myra Chanel Ical, was found dead in the 4300 block of Garrott about 2 p.m. Jan. 10, police said.

He had numerous bruises and defensive wounds, as if he had struggled against his attacker. He was partially clothed.

Police said that the area where Ical's body was discovered is a well-known spot where homeless people camp and is frequented by prostitutes and drug users.

First of all, jesusfuckingchrist, it's an established practice to refer to a transgendered person by the gender with which they identify themselves. You can say, if necessary, that she was also known by her birth name but show minimal respect, assholes.

To compound that crime, they associated her death with the place where she was dumped, a "well-known spot where homeless people camp and is frequented by prostitutes and drug users." Well, shit. It's hard enough to get people to care about another death in a big city. Not to mention a transgendered person's death. Then, compound the insensitivity by insinuating that she was a prostitute/drug user and you know what happens? Nothing. NOTHING. Because people can tuck the tragedy away as just the loss of another one of society's undesirables. Not a lovely, caring woman who fought like hell not to die.

Exhibit 2
Like many of you, I am both fascinated and annoyed by Facebook. Often at the same time. But the one way in which I must give the phenomena its due is the reconnection with far flung family members. Cousins, to be specific. I'm now aware of their children going to college, their homes being renovated and holidays shared...all with cousins that I haven't seen or talked to in years. And that my fellow-jaded readers is fanfuckingtastic.

Here is a partial exchange between my wonderful cousin, one of his commenters and me:

Posted by my cousin:
"A man and a woman together create a family where individuals of the same gender cannot create a family," said NH state rep. Jordan's Ulery. (AP) Seriously?

Friend of the cousin;
Why is it that a man cannot have an opinion? Just because we may not agree with it doesn't mean our opinion isn't as valid as his...Opinions do not threaten anything if you don't get offended. If Mr. Ulery said fat people cannot create a family, I wouldn't be offended. It's his opinion, my human rights would be affected? Seriously?

Me
Opinions cannot threaten anything unless they get enacted into law or are used to prevent one group from having equal rights...Ah, there's the rub. Ulery's completely in his rights to have an opinion. And so is anyone else protesting that their human rights ARE affected if, as a lawmaker, he works to codify that opinion.

Now, I'm not trying to pick on my cousin's friend. She is probably a lovely person and perhaps just playing devil's advocate. Besides her simile is weak and an easy target. But since she gives voice to the opinions of so many people, I felt the need to jump in.

You'd better believe that if anyone (in politics or not) advocated that "fat people" could not create families, it would produce a ground-shaking response from our overly-sated population taking to the streets. And as absurd as it sounds, if that notion moved towards law there would, and should, be an uproar. This particular discrimination, however, is not a real threat to the full-figured. (They deal with plenty of other irritating types of discrimination, though. And I'm not just Speaker for the Extra-Larges, I'm also a client.)

The point is, of course, that when a lawmaker says, this group...this group of "others" is not to be given credibility, respect or protection, his "opinion" can morph into legislation that discriminates. And that, my queer and non-queer friends, pisses me off.

Exhibit 3
In his State of the Union, Obama looked into the surly faces of the military brass and said, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is going away. High fucking time. Is there anyone out there that doesn't understand the logical and constitutional cluster-fuck that is DADT? That's rhetorical, obviously there are hordes of ignorami.

If I said, You can stand in front of me, protect me and even take a bullet for me but you can't tell anyone you're a Christian, most people would sprain their middle finger tendon shooting me the bird. And rightly so.

But we, as a nation, have no problem saying to thousands of soldiers, Look, you can sacrifice your life for your country but you'll need to offer that priceless gift in silence. If you want to Die for Us, you gotta Lie to Us.

End of the Exhibits
No, it actually wasn't these three experiences that pushed me here. They were the proverbial straws.

So here it is: if you vote against same-sex rights, you vote against me.

I may love you as family or friend but now (and always) it's personal. And I'm not proposing that friendship with me is the brass ring. I don't expect want of my friendship to topple organizations or cause wholesale apostasy (though, that would be sweet, wouldn't it?) I'm just saying that I view friendship as powerful and rare, each person's gift to give or not to give. I'm no longer giving on this one. This, by the way, is how I feel about racial bigotry and all the other ignorant attitudes used to discriminate against anyone swimming outside the mainstream.

You can no longer count me as your friend if you are an active part of a

• church,
• party,
• civic association or
• club, etc.

that works to deny me

• the right to marry my partner of 23 years,
• the right to teach outside the closet,
• the right to serve my country openly,
• the opportunity to foster or adopt children,
• Social Security benefits if I lose my spouse,
• spousal rights in hospitals and emergency rooms,
  
• the right to raise my children without fear of losing custody of them,
• general legal equity as an openly queer citizen,
  
• etc., ad nauseum

and you quietly acquiesce.

The government demands and receives my taxes. Civic organizations appreciate my patronage. My community expects me to fulfill neighborhood obligations. Charitable and political groups ask for donations of time and money. And then I'm told: but you don't get to have the same rights. Enough. It is political and it is personal. This is my life and if you love me, you will not silently condone this bigotry in your church or party or organization or community or family and get to call me friend.

wtf scotus?

“The rule announced today — that Congress must treat corporations exactly like human speakers in the political realm — represents a radical change in the law,” he said from the bench. “The court’s decision is at war with the views of generations of Americans.”

“While American democracy is imperfect,” he wrote, “few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”

Justice John Paul Stevens
via The New York Times

sports and the athletically unsupported

As the non-sportly half of a relationship with a woman who loves sports (and was herself an incredible athlete) I find myself musing about sports more than I'd expected. Ever.

To be sure, my interests are tangential. I am interested in team logos and colors (Rockets and Texans: nice; Astros: meh). I am fascinated by expressions and chants (Good eye! Good eye!). I am curious about superstition and it's manifestations (You don't wash your socks during a streak? You velcro and unvelcro your glove three times before every swing? You draw a smiley face on your away game cup?). I like to mock the interviews (see Bull Durham: "We gotta play it one day at a time."). Being a wordaholic, I mostly like to see if where the team lives has anything to do with it's name.

The Minnesota team is called The Vikings. All those Scandinavian-descended mid-westerners rightly picked a name from Nordic history. (Although "Vikings" is rather showy and aggressive for such a unfussy people, eh?) Then there's the Miami Dolphins, San Francisco Forty-Niners, New England Patriots...all clearly symbolic and geographically-rooted. I particularly like the Baltimore Ravens (shout out to my man and opium-hound, E.A. Poe) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Argh). H-Town, of course, has it's NASA/space-flavored team names: Astros, Rockets and the sadly defunct WNBA Comets.

When a team is usurped, bought or flees to another town, I think they ought to create a new name. Like the witness-protection program: start a new life, new branding, new location, new name.

When the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to L.A. (and broke my sweet mother's heart, you bastards) they kept the Dodgers part. This from Wikipedia:

"By 1890 New Yorkers (Brooklyn was a separate city until it became a borough in 1898) routinely called anyone from Brooklyn a 'trolley dodger'..."

Which is a lovely bit of local history that produced a name. However, since Dodge(r) is a word that has multiple meanings and connotations (Artful Dodger, Draft Dodger, Dodge baller, Dodge vehicles are craptastic, etc.,) I suppose it was more adaptable to the California move than some other names.

When the Houston Oilers (lousy logo, pukey colors but understandable nomenclature) moved to Appalachia, it seemed right that they became the Tennessee Titans...well, the alliteration works anyway. (I'm not sure being named after the Giants who spawned the Greek Gods isn't setting yourself up for some disappointing comparisons. But it's SO much better than the Tennessee Oilers, which just conjures up the image of Jed 'n Jethro gnawing on greasy possum fritters.)

When the basketball team from New Orleans named themselves The Jazz, I thought, right on. Jazz is an American concoction with a bluesy heart and lyrical playfulness. New Orleans Jazz is unique from St. Louis Jazz is unique from Chicago Jazz, etc., so great name! Then, they were jettisoned out of Louisiana to Utah. Utah. Where innovative, experimental and cutting edge land with a dull thud.

• Utah is Scenic not Shimmying.
• Utah is LDS not LSD. (A stretch but do you have any idea how long I've waited to say this?)
  
• Utah is Hiking not Hip-Hop.
• Utah is Mormon not Mardi Gras.
• Utah is Casserole not Creole.
• Utah is The Tabernacle Choir not The Jazz.

I could go on but I'll rein myself in here.
When the team became the Utah Jazz, a little part of me died.

And I can't stand basketball.

I just hate it more that two words standing next to each other in line are forced to hold hands when it's obvious they are not meant to be together.

As I overheard Barbara cheering the New Orleans Saints, it dawned on me–Hey, if the Saints moved to Utah, they wouldn't have to change their name at all.

genre-fucking

Movie slacker that I am, I'm always tickled that I've seen any of the movie(s) being referenced.

holiday handiwork

I went on a Linzer tarts kick over the holidays. They're one of my favorite cookies (and my inner adolescent giggles every time I say, "Ooo, I love eating tarts"). Here are a few of the piles of tarts we made over Christmas and New Years:

I found this great Linzer tart recipe on epicurious.com. The cookies are basically shortbread (read: butter, egg, brown sugar and just enough flour to hold it all together) but this recipe replaced some of the flour with ground roasted hazelnuts. And there's no way that won't make everything in your life better. Sandwiched between the not-too-sweet cookies I spooned some Trappist jam:

Trappist Preserves are god-damned awesome. The are really made by monks at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. Trappist Monks also make incredible beer, I understand. (If the Catholic church wants some PR spin away from the pedophiles, just shine a big ol' spotlight on the Jam & Ale Brothers.) I bought mine at mega-wonderful Specs in downtown Houston. I tried raspberry, apricot and blackberry preserves. The raspberry, to my tastes, was the best. Blackberry a close second. The apricot jam was phenomenal but a little too mild for the cookies. The finishing touch is a fine sprinkling of powdered sugar on top.

While I was trawling for cookie recipes, I stumbled upon these handtool-shaped cookie cutters:

Sold by The Cookie Cutter Shop, I ordered them so fast my mouse got dizzy.

Which led to additional batches and these cunning "tool tarts" which I took to my dear design guys and friends at work:
The pliers (see cookie cutter image above) shape turned out to be too breakable-none of them made it to this stage intact (maybe better with a less shortbread-type recipe) and as you see, the screwdriver needed to be handled carefully. All that aside, these were mighty tasty and fun to present.

Out of the kitchen and into the...um, living room. Many years ago friends (real lesbians with horses) gave me a bunch of leftover washable wool they'd used to make horse blankets (see?). In addition to fashioning a Wuthering-Heights-worthy hooded cape from it for my daughter years ago, I created this tree skirt:

For those of you who don't know my love of all things associated with tools, I made the pattern to match a circular saw blade (Is this a fucking big blade, or what?):

It took me forever to get around to making this simple skirt. Now that it's done, I've decided that every year I want to add some small embellishment. Two years ago, I blanket-stitched the edges for contrast and to help keep the skirt from getting distorted over time.

I used black felt that I had for backing and that was not a great choice as it tends to shed. I figure if I continue to embroider the skirt, it will help contain the backing as well as decorate the top.

This year, I added metal eyelets to each point and satin-stitch-covered them in different colors:

I have always been terrible about documenting my projects–I'm just not comfortable with photography. However, I've been inspired by my friend Kim, who is crazy-creative and a damn good photographer and her husband (my coworker) Gary, who explained that the little flower symbol on my digital camera was as close to a macro lens as I was going to get (thank you, hombre!). So, here. Proof Examples of what I did on my Christmas vacation, with very little Photoshop cleanup needed.

happy palindrome day! !yad emordnilap yppah

Today's date is 01.11.10, for all you binary & palindrome lovers. I know this one doesn't have the cachet of 01022010 but this is the one I caught.

Yours,
Enitatine (Like Ovaltine, only saltier)

drinking from the firehose

There's this: The Ragbag (thank you, Risa)
And this: Sarah Belfort
And deargods, this: Song and Stamp
And then, this:

(thank you Dave)

If I live a thousand years, I could never get enough of it all. Words and making stuff and food and design and music and art and hula-hooping Jesi.

There's a tsunami of wonder out there on the interwebs.

her hrc, really?

I've been bitching for years that the HRC (Human Rights Campaign, an national organization fighting for queer rights) has been dominated by wealthy, tux-owning gay men who liked to go to and throw black-tie fundraisers.

Sure, they've raised good money and I figured that even their male-centric efforts helped all queer people to some degree. Every time I received an invite to a $200/plate dinner, I just tossed it. Like we'd drop $400 for a meal, however good the cause.

Well, times are hard. And even the HRC has to broaden its donor base and reach out to the lesbians down here on the ground. I just received this invitation to "Her HRC; A National Night of Celebration for Women." Okay. That's not bad AND they managed to price it for almost everybody: $10.

Now Joe Solomonese (president of HRC) pissed off a lot of people recently with his Democrat bootlicking and lack of criticism of the Obama administration's disappointing inaction on GLBT issues. Yet even in that light, Her HRC seems like a decent gesture.

So, I'm looking at the invite and see that it's sponsored by Tylenol. Tylenol? Oh. It's a woman's event. With women and their womanly parts. And pains. So Tylenol. Sure. The predominant message here is that we need pain relief. That's refreshing.

Then, at the bottom is a plug for a Buying for Equality iPhone application...it starts out with

"Shopping before the event?"

REALLY?

I am well aware that not all lesbians/bisexual women consider khakis their dress-up clothes. Not all lesbians wear ball caps and big ol' plaid shirts. Hell, many of us are not even allergic to nail polish and pumps. But if you are addressing a large group of (large-ish) women who largely do not partake of the girlie-defined world o' shopping, perhaps leading with the next line would be a little less ridiculous "Now you can find companies and products that support equality..."

Shopping before the event...puh-lease.

my blog's saint's day

Here we are again. Celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany or, as I like to call it, Epiphenita Day.

Here is your feast from my new favorite food photo site, FoodPornDaily.com:

Black bean chili with butter-roasted pumpkin
jessieschmeckts via foodporndaily.com

I think I need a macro lens. I want to photograph everything this close and clear. God (or something) is in the details, my friends.

matter is neither created nor destroyed. i know this.

Spent the day cooking. Not because it's the New Year. No, it's just because I want to work on some projects and I find that cooking every other day sucks up more energy than I wish it did. That said, I'm pretty committed to eating healthy so don't want to start throwing fast meals together because that usually means the nutrition part gets haphazard.

Okay, so I cooked like a demon. All told, I think I've got almost three weeks of meals frozen. Chili, Senate bean soup (that's really what the recipe is called--it's just a ham bone, white northern beans, carrots, onions, garlic, etc.), arroz con pollo y frijoles negros, and corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. The corned beef I didn't freeze because the potatoes get all gross mealy.

Now the reason I'm telling you all this is not just to brag like a self-righteous pioneer. No, I want to talk about weird physics. Stay with me, this shouldn't take long. Okay, sometimes I drive to work in the morning and at the end of the day I get in my car and find I need to adjust the seat. I'm relatively sure I haven't shrunk over the day but I can't figure out how my legs felt comfortable reaching the pedals at 7am but suddenly need to be closer at 5pm.

The corned beef recipe called for 2 teaspoons of peppercorns. This went into a large dutch oven. Two teaspoons is not really that much when it's swimming in a gallon of broth. When I took the corned beef out and dumped the cabbage and potatoes into the hot broth to cook, I didn't add any more seasonings. When everything was cooked and cooled I moved the cabbage and potatoes into two casserole dishes and combined them with the corned beef.

I like the flavor of pepper and cloves and bay leaves. I'm just not interested in biting into any of them. So I started removing them from the dish. Bay leaves and cloves accounted for and plucked out. Here's the weird physics: I am pulling out peppercorns and they just keep coming. Like clowns out of a VW. Like rabbits out of cages. I am looking at a pile of peppercorns that is way greater than the amount I measured into the pot. Where did they all come from? Fucking peppercorns.

attacus atlas for my girl

Indebted again to the Writer's Almanac:

Vladimir Nabokov's short story "Christmas" is set on a country estate buried in snowdrifts outside St. Petersburg, Russia. The main character, Sleptsov, carries the coffin of his adolescent son to the village church plot, goes to bed, and wakes up on Christmas Eve Day.

He goes into the room that had been his son's summer study, separate from the main house and unheated, sits at his son's desk, and numbly sifts through some of the dead child's belongings. The son (like Nabokov himself) had enjoyed butterfly-collecting, and at the desk the father finds the tools of the hobby: cork-bottomed spreading boards, supplies of black pins, a torn muslin net, and "an English biscuit tin that contained a large exotic cocoon." Nabokov writes that the cocoon was "papery to the touch and seemed made of a brown folded leaf. His son had remembered it during his sickness, regretting that he had left it behind, but consoling himself with the thought that the chrysalid inside was probably dead."

Sleptsov sits, sobs, and returns to the main house carrying a few of his son's belongings, including the biscuit tin with the cocoon...He's convinced he'll die of grief, the next day, Christmas. He sees earthly life "totally bared and comprehensible — and ghastly in its sadness, humiliatingly pointless, sterile, devoid of miracles."

And then, Nabokov writes: "At that instant there was a sudden snap — a thin sound like that of an overstretched rubber band breaking. Sleptsov opened his eyes. The cocoon in the biscuit tin had burst at its tip, and a black, wrinkled creature the size of a mouse was crawling up the wall above the table. It had emerged from the chrysalid because a man overcome with grief had transferred a tin box to his warm room, and the warmth had penetrated its taut leaf-and-silk envelope; it had awaited this moment so long, had collected its strength so tensely, and now, having broken out, it was slowly and miraculously expanding.

"... And then those thick black wings, with a glazy eyespot on each and a purplish bloom dusting their hooked foretips, took a full breath under the impulse of a tender, ravishing, almost human happiness."

Which led to finding the picture of this gorgeous moth (named Attacus Atlas):

via happyraindrops' photostream

And this antennae-bedazzled close up which I hope will delight my dear color-texture-shape-enchanted daughter:

via NatureFreak07's photostream

bubonic marketing

I love that it's named Black Friday. For the retailers, it's all about being In the Black, as opposed to where they're swimming right now, which is In the Red. For those of us who loathe shopping, it's a plague warning shot and we're quarantining ourselves/hunkering down...only venturing out into Target-Shopper-Free zones, if at all..

dynamic tension

I was writing to a friend about the ongoing, internal sparring match in me brain.

In the far corner The Inner Pragmatist dances in anticipation of a slugfest with The Inner Purist. It's a necessary battle, I believe. But not constantly. Except while you're in it, it sort of feels like you're always in the ring.

Here's how it goes. I agree to do "x" because it's sensible and potentially beneficial financially. Inner Accountant raises its arms in victory. Inner Philosopher sulks and starts picking a fight because "x" is also time-consuming and sucks a little of my soul out.

I agree to do "y" because it's practical and appropriate (goddamn, I so hate that word). Inner Intellect applauds, Inner Emotion jeers.

Oh, fuck. Enough with the "x" and "y". Too much cryptic annoys.

I agreed to be a supervisor at work and I'm crabby as hell about going to meetings and I'm letting myself get all anxious as if I'm responsible for the fucking world. That kind of hypocritical, egotistical, counterproductive whining is OBNOXIOUS to the nth degree. And yet, here I am.
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood, I tell myself.

The "y" is so much harder. A couple of years ago, I/we stopped paying for our children to fly home for the holidays. (Which, by the way, they never asked us to do and were ever grateful for the gift.) Economic constriction made it easier but ultimately, they are adults and need to figure out whether they want to come home enough to figure out how to do so, she said firmly...

...while her heart howls with grief.

I just can't get this shit aligned.

"tart gratitudes"

From Saturday's Writer's Almanac. (Read it out loud if you can.)

Cranberry-Orange Relish

by John Engels

A pound of ripe cranberries, for two days
macerate in a dark rum, then do not
treat them gently, but bruise,
mash, pulp, squash
with a wooden pestle
to an abundance of juices, in fact
until the juices seem on the verge

of overswelling the bowl, then drop in
two fistsful, maybe three, of fine-
chopped orange with rind, two golden
blobs of it, and crush
it in, and then add sugar, no thin
sprinkling, but a cupful dumped
and awakened with a wooden spoon

to a thick suffusion, drench of sourness, bite of color,
then for two days let conjoin
the lonely taste of cranberry,
the joyous orange, the rum, in some
warm corner of the kitchen, until
the bowl faintly becomes
audible, a scarce wash of sound, a tiny
bubbling, and then
in a glass bowl set it out
and let it be eaten last, to offset
gravied breast and thigh
of the heavy fowl, liverish
stuffing, the effete
potato, lethargy of pumpkins

gone leaden in their crusts, let it be eaten
so that our hearts may be together overrun
with comparable sweetnesses,
tart gratitudes, until finally,
dawdling and groaning, we bear them
to the various hungerings
of our beds, lightened
of their desolations.

Poetry done right is magic. This rolls over the tongue and imagination:

"...for two days let conjoin
the lonely taste of cranberry,
the joyous orange, the rum, in some
warm corner of the kitchen, until
the bowl faintly becomes
audible..." (italics added)

when the wild thing stole my heart

I went to see Where the Wild Things Are for my birthday. With a little trepidation, of course. If you love a book dearly and know it damn near by heart, you feel protective of the story. Right or wrong, it is woven into your life and there is a wonky sense of ownership.

Simply put, the movie was wonderful. Those that criticized the pace as slow have spent too much time in the world of Transformers. This is a story. A story you tell your children as they drift off to sleep. The creation of Max's backstory was surprisingly illuminating and seamless. His behavior even more dimensional with those layers.

Among the more wonderful aspects was keeping the truth of Sendak's non-Manichean world. Love is mixed with fear is mixed with violence. When the monsters pile up to sleep it is warm and comforting and dangerous for Max. When he urges the dirt clod fight it is fun and exciting and hurtful. But the undercurrent remains an unsentimental love.

And this gem: Max's costume becomes filthier and filthier throughout the adventure. I can't express how delightful that is.

It is a reminder to me of my lifelong fear of and fascination with "rough-housing." God, that expression sounds dated. But here is the way it went: wrestling and fun-fighting started out with laughter and always ended with tears. With adults or just children. I began to fear chaotic energy because it was associated anger and hurt. I am sorry that I don't enjoy the wild rumpus enough.

That said, the story shook the kaleidoscope of maternal memories more profoundly. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Nonetheless, that was my Wild Thing. My own boy. Swirling in a world of fear and love and anger. And guilt and sweetness. So clear a snapshot of the world from his point of view. The blur of love and anguish from that time came back into brilliant, harsh focus. It was overwhelming. Overwhelming.

So when a towering muppet with James Gandolfini's voice begins to cry, it was the last straw: I cried my fool head off in a public place. Thank god movie theaters are dark.

this week's theme emerges

via holytaco.com

stopping by for a sec

So much to tell you, so many things pulling on my coattails...this from last week's Writer's Alamanac:

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Addendum: And this from today's:

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins, biologist and author (b. 1941)

Be back soon.

48 in 58

Yesterday was my birthday. It was wonderful, full of all the things that make me happy. St. Barbara, calls from my children, family and friends. Cards and presents and great food. And incidently, the most beautiful weather we've had here in 6 or 7 months.

Listening to the Writer's Alamanac this morning, I learned something that would make a birthday-phobic person shriek. But I am not all that phased by the number associated with my years on earth so I didn't.

When I was born, there were only 48 states.

49th state: Alaska January 3, 1959
50th state: Hawaii August 21, 1959

Wow. Just the sound of that seems to evoke sepia tones.

ides of october

Today is Oscar Wilde's birthday. Hear Garrison Keillor's brief bio of him on the Writer's Almanac.
And in his honor, here are Mr. Wilde's last words. I can only hope that I will have such presence of mind in my final moments.

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.
~Oscar Wilde, writer, d. November 30, 1900

feedback

The Chronicle, like most newspapers, gets its fair share of irritated reader feedback. Here is one that I particularly enjoyed (edited to maintain this moron's anonymity):

I have a comment on bad or poor taste. On Sunday's paper there was a half naked pregnant woman on the front page. My daughter commented on it. And I am tired of seeing Mexicans in your paper and reading about foreigners.

Reminds me of a friend of a friend who, after telling a wealthy client over the phone that her items were ready, the woman actually said, "Good, I'll have my Mexican come by to pick them up."

There's so much material here I'm stymied. Where do you start?

anti-depression

Maureen Dowd's op-ed in the NYT today:

According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.

I'm not making judgments on these studies and their scientific or social accuracy. For all I know they are solid studies. For all I know, they're quackery. It's the reaction to these publications that I find disturbing.

Personal observations can be dismissed as anecdotal and tainted by a lack of objectivity. Be that as it may, I've noticed that reports like these tend to give many women (and men) something to point at and say, "See, proof that women ARE depressed!" and snuggle down into what they now see as justifiable malaise.

Yes. Women often juggle two demanding jobs. Yes. Women are not treated equally in the workplace. Yes, yes, yes, women are judged on their looks in ways that critically devalue their talents and intelligence.

It sucks and it's wrong.

But it's external. EXTERNAL. And the only way for that gross unfairness to destroy you is if you let it in and make it comfortable.* Forgive the annoying self-help sound of that. We are not helpless. And the old adage is true: Living well is the best revenge. If you're not happy, stop sulking and sighing. Figure out how to get happy. Or happier.

Happiness is not something presented to you, wrapped up in a pretty, beribboned box. It's not something that you experience and keep forever. It's not something that solves all your problems. It's not a automatic perk of financial success or physical beauty. Common sense, right?

Start small. Do something that makes you happy. Focus on that. Repeat.

*I have met so many people who seem invested in misery. They invite it in, serve it some nice tea and make sure it feels right at home. When good things happen to them, they are reminded by their permanent house guest of all the wrongs done to them or that something shitty is just around the corner. Many people look at their past and bemoan that they should have appreciated their youth, enthusiasm, potential or health. Whatever patience I once had has been worn thin on this. Boot your inner hand-wringer and stop investing in your own gloom.

huntsville via nyt

Building AND Recycling! In Huntsville, Texas of all unexpected spots. God I love this place.

But I really love this roof. Made from salvaged roof shingles.

Dan Phillips started Phoenix Commotion, a company that makes low-income housing out of construction leftovers and salvaged materials. (I just read this article on the New York Times website...a long way get to a city just a few hours north of here.)

He also says that mobile homes are a blight on the planet...can't argue with that.

I've been researching solar roof panels. I'm interested in finding ways to combine long-term money-saving and, you know, not accelerating the polluting of our little planet here. But I would also like to have some decent aesthetic, in addition to frugality and conservation...most of the solar panel solutions I saw were butt-ugly (and expensive). I mean, a beautiful clay roof with dozens of large blue-black reflective slabs plopped on top like an afterthought? What a shame. I'm hoping solar panel technology advances in manner of the microchip-smaller, faster, stronger. It's a great concept, especially for those of us living right next door to the sun.

i confess

I went to see Julie & Julia and like dozens of clichés under which I am loathe to fall, I am yet another blogger who loved it.

• Not just because I happen to love writing and cooking.
• Not just because I believe fresh bread is divine but may have been created for the sole purpose of conducting sacred butter into our pastry holes.
• Not just because Meryl Streep is fucking amazing and enchanting as Julia Child.
• Not just because there were two love stories I could relate to and empathize with.
• But all these things and a Saturday afternoon matinee with my own St. Barbara.

I'm a little embarrassed to say I'm making hamburgers for dinner. Half ground beef and half ground turkey at that. Oh, I'll saute onions, add beautiful ripe tomato slices and place them on a bed of fresh romaine but we're still talking hamburgers here.

I also have another confession. Some of you are aware of this and seem to have forgiven me but...I'm seeing another blog. Yes. It's true but I love you best and this is only a fling. A three-month infidelity that makes me love you more. I understand if you are irritated. Maybe you won't want to have anything to do with the other blog.

But just in case you do...it's all about DIY. Fixing up the place. No. I mean that's what it's called. I talk about tools and fixing my house. See, you aren't even interested! It's a very narrow scope and is no threat to anyone or anything right here. There are some good diagrams, however, I must admit to that.

PS. About that movie. You know, if you filled a life-sized glass cow to the brim with butter and cream and floated it in a olympic pool of wine that's probably close to what Julia Child consumed in her life. And she lived to 91! Fuck all the hater dieters. Julia sneers at your Lean Cuisine.

thought for the day

From today's A.Word.A.Day:

There will be no Homeland Security until we realize that the entire planet is our homeland...
-John Perkins, economist and author (b.1945)

food for thought; pie for poetry

Another delicious morsel from [today's] Writer's Almanac.

Blackberry Pie

by Jennifer Rae Vernon

is kernels of juice
blue, mom makes it do
magic heat to vanilla ice cream
purple dream

there were many nice things,
the corduroy pinafore
the daily notes in lunch sack
of a smiley face and curly cue hair
your mama loves you, and do great
with a thermos of homemade soup

dad too, he rocked me on front porch
after seven yellow jacket stings
i howled through the valley
in baking soda paste
while he sang, in the big rock candy mountain...

but just like grandma vernon always said
don't bother doing anything nice for your children
they'll only remember the bad things, anyway
like when she tethered my dad
to the front yard tree
so he could play when she was at work

was that bad? a ruined childhood?
bless her heart
and pie too, is sometimes
tart

sexy, sexy salad

From yesterday's Writer's Almanac. Poetry that makes your veggies blush.

Vegetable Love

by Barbara Crooker

Feel a tomato, heft its weight in your palm,
think of buttocks, breasts, this plump pulp.
And carrots, mud clinging to the root,
gold mined from the earth's tight purse.
And asparagus, that push their heads up,
rise to meet the returning sun,
and zucchini, green torpedoes
lurking in the Sargasso depths
of their raspy stalks and scratchy leaves.
And peppers, thick walls of cool jade, a green hush.
Secret caves. Sanctuary.
And beets, the dark blood of the earth.
And all the lettuces: bibb, flame, oak leaf, butter-
crunch, black-seeded Simpson, chicory, cos.
Elizabethan ruffs, crisp verbiage.
And spinach, the dark green
of northern forests, savoyed, ruffled,
hidden folds and clefts.
And basil, sweet basil, nuzzled
by fumbling bees drunk on the sun.
And cucumbers, crisp, cool white ice
in the heart of August, month of fire.
And peas in their delicate slippers,
little green boats, a string of beads,
repeating, repeating.
And sunflowers, nodding at night,
then rising to shout hallelujah! at noon.

All over the garden, the whisper of leaves
passing secrets and gossip, making assignations.
All of the vegetables bask in the sun,
languorous as lizards.
Quick, before the frost puts out
its green light, praise these vegetables,
earth's voluptuaries,
praise what comes from the dirt.

why pink and blue annoy me

Interesting article in today's New York Times on Caster Semenya, a South African runner who won gold at the world track and field championships in Berlin but who is being gender-tested because she was 2-seconds faster than the rest of the runners (though she did not break the world record) and it seems, she just doesn't look female enough.

First of all, let me get the wordplay out of my head: Her name is Semenya and I want her to be from Kenya. Okay. Thank you. Moving on.

Two quotes from the article were particularly fascinating:
It turns out genes, hormones and genitals are pretty complicated,” Alice Dreger, a professor of medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University, said in a telephone interview. “There isn’t really one simple way to sort out males and females. Sports require that we do, but biology doesn’t care. Biology does not fit neatly into simple categories, so they do these tests. ”

Dreger...said the doctors could examine genes, gonads, genitalia, hormone levels and medical history. “But at the end of the day, they are going to have to make a social decision on what counts as male and female, and they will wrap it up as if it is simply a scientific decision,” Dreger said. “And the science actually tells us sex is messy. Or as I like to say, ‘Humans like categories neat, but nature is a slob.’ ”

Nature is a slob. That's my kind of science.

hats off to dad

Last year I wrote a post about my father. It was, in part, about waterboarding. His retired police friends have a habit of sending mass emails about this or that. Last week they sent him an email that accused the Obama administration of arbitrarily denouncing waterboarding and taking away this effective interrogation tool. This is his response and it makes me proud:

The worst mistake we make as free thinking human beings is that of allowing others to lead us by the ears. Waterboarding is torture and its classification as such predates The Inquisition in the 13th century. It has been denounced for 700 years, give or take a hundred. Neither President Obama nor Nancy Pelosi had anything to do with the promulgation of this as torture, they are just not that old.

Waterboarding is an attractive interrogation technique because it causes great physical and mental suffering without leaving any marks on the body.

In the past when law enforcement authorities in the U.S. (Texas 1983) use[d] waterboarding, a sheriff and his deputies were convicted and sentenced to four (4) years in prison.

In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years in prison at hard labor.

We are the good guys, we do not torture even our enemies.

frontal lobe combustion

Did you ever deal with an issue so confusing, contradictory and demanding that you were sure the problem-solving part of your brain was about to burst into flames? It feels like I've had a couple of those every day this week. All I've got upstairs is soot and ashes. And, mixed-metaphors be damned, a cranial charlie horse.

Not that I'm alone. My family members have had a trying week and mine can't even compare. I just think the wisps of smoke coming out of my head holes deserve some 'splainin', Lucy.

Speaking of 'splainin': Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor–the sound of that makes this Puerto Rican woman stand a little prouder.

saturday morning solace

"At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived."
—Rose Macaulay, from today's Writer's Almanac

Last weekend I was in Michigan visiting my sister. Grand Rapids in July (fleeing Houston) is a delight. Houston in December (fleeing Grand Rapids) is likewise. The berries were abundant and the mornings were cool. I was thrilled to have four whole days with my sister. Just two sisters and the occasional child, grandchild or friend stopping by. [I, not too subtly, also celebrated the absence of her rod-up-his-ass, soon-to-be ex-husband.] We tinkered around her new/old (1925) and completely beguiling Craftsman bungalow. Fixing this, unsticking that. In between we dined and napped and talked and laughed.

This weekend I'm facing a little post-visit slump. And the return of the What Am I Doing with My Life Short and Long Term Goal Review. I probably go through this too much, but time passes and a girl wants something to show for it.

So I review. And remember to count that time spent relaxing with partner or self is not wasted time. Inner Puritan be silenced. But there are items ahead. Projects. Travel. Health care. House Repair. Writing. Reading. Major and Minor Expenses. And I want to do it all and do it really well. Which is a key to my inaction.

When I was a girl, I joined the ranks of band fags everywhere and took up the french horn. I loved the horn. I loved the sound it produced (when I didn't make it sound like an elephant in rut). I loved the design of it. I loved the way it blended in the orchestra and I loved when it rose above the ensemble. But I was a mediocre horn player. That was clear for 8 years. It was one of the only activities I persisted at, knowing that I would never excel.

I remind myself of this when I am unwilling to complete something that isn't exactly what I wanted. When I become mired in perfection. Which is part of the reason I am writing this mediocre, self-serving post. Blogging can be a tiresome examination of all things mundane. It's not my goal. But I'm getting out of practice, so this is my response to just writing something.

I have some lumber that needs cutting. I refuse to go outside and work in this bloody heat. I ought to clean the mess in the rest of the house...but hell, why not haul in the miter saw and cover that back room in sawdust anyway? Unkept or unlived? It's a pretty easy choice.

the perils of overenthusiasm

Bought a new shredder. Isn't it a beaut? Felt quite droll using the registration card for my first shred. Ha, ha, so ironical am I.

Then, we went to town on the bag of accumulated sensitive paperwork. Worked pretty well, only overheated twice (it has a temperature sensor and I appreciate the heads-up...rather than other shredders which just stopped for no apparent reason).

Damned if I can't find the manual now.

not related to the previous post

Sometimes when you cook, the simple joy of Nature's bounty is payoff enough:

The only disappointment was that the yolks weren't conjoined. Now that would have been amazing. Still in all my years of baking, I've never run into a single twin (hehe) egg, so three two cheers for mitosis.

step 1: admit that you are powerless over the flesh

via passiveaggressivenotes.com

More important than the immature, yet decidedly funny, retort to the Vegan support group flyer is the alt tag to this image: soyfuckers anonymous.

From the famous (I assume) passive-aggressive note I loved so much.

I only regret that I haven't started the Houston chapter of Soyfuckers Anonymous. Or designed the Bacon is Life logo.

what they said

Religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
-Stendhal
via Wikiquote

A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.
-Jose Bergamin, author (1895-1983)
via A.Word.A.Day

What gods are there, what gods have there ever been, that were not from man's imagination?
-Joseph Campbell
via Wikiquote

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
-Napoleon Bonaparte
via quotdb.com

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
-Voltaire
via Wikiquote

Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man. I'm not worried about my soul.
-Clarence Darrow, American Lawyer and Civil Libertarian
via wikiquote

I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.
-Clarence Darrow, American Lawyer and Civil Libertarian
via wikiquote

a few of my favorite things

There are times that I can feel great despair over the human condition. Then I see something like this and, difficult as it may be for some of you to join in my glee, I feel hope.

Rather than choose shame or self-loathing for a genetic condition that falls outside the norm (syndactyly), this person takes their particular set of assets, marries form to function and infuses (an offering, oh mighty pun-gods.) the whole thing with humor. What a marvelous tat, indeed.

Then there is this. I want my driveway covered with lizards.

Have I mentioned that I adore Cory Doctorow? I don't read sci-fi as a rule but most of the random boingboing posts I am drawn to are authored by him.

I'll read his stuff...got to get through Moby Dick first. Which, by the way, is great but not quick read. Halfway there.

In the meantime, I will dream and plot all the ways I can surround myself with beautiful, well-crafted, funny things.

the muse is probably not amused

After writing about creativity and divine inspiration, I feel a little crass posting this. Like trading out A Muse for amuse. But I kind of have to. For balance.

Okay, you know this happens regularly. A graphic behind the talking head is not the breaking news. A photo is published that doesn't match the story. Two stories are published side by side that produce an unintended (most of the time, I assume) irony.

Okay, so it's not funny that people died in the ConAgra plant in North Carolina. It's not funny but the juxtaposition of the image is amusing. Not hysterical, just amusing.

Amusing. Like one of the first eyewitness quotes that started: "I was getting ready to pick up a piece of meat off the line and I felt it [the explosion]..." said worker Chris Woods.

Amusing like the atypical comment (as the comment section following most articles is a huge fetid pile of human brain waste) I read: "Explosion...what the heck is in those Slim Jims anyway?"

But my favorite thing about this unfortunate event was the image of a building spewing forth cellophane-encased Slim Jim spears like so many fireworks streamers. That amuses me.

fucking genius

I've kept this particular talk on the back burner of my must-see TED talks. A back burner piled high right now. My daughter just emailed me this same link and helped me reduce that pile by one. Worth far more than the 18 minutes it took to watch...

I don't believe in daemons or spirits but all my life I have felt that creative inspiration was as close to (my limited understanding of) divinity as anything I have ever experienced. I don't feel the need to overanalyze that notion because atheism is just as much anti-certainty about the unknown as it is anti-god.

It is good to feel proud of your "work." But whatever it is, absolute credit is the flipside of total blame...it's not all you. If you believe in the spiritual component, give it due. If you believe in the collective experience of history, share the spotlight. If you believe in capricious Fate (as I do), make room on the podium or the gallows.

So, I add my "Olé!" to hers. And Olé! to the creative souls of my daughter and my son.

awad of words

From yesterday's A.Word.A.Day:

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it they are wrong.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)

Take that, Puritans.

And from Monday's A.Word.A.Day:

PURLICUE (PUHR-li-kyu)
noun:
1. The space between the extended forefinger and thumb.
2. A flourish or curl at the end of a handwritten word. Also known as curlicue.
3. A discourse, especially its summarizing part.

I've highlighted my favorite definition.