You can have my husband...

...but please don't mess with my man.

Today was my first day at the new job. It's good; I hit the ground running, and didn't feel like I had any catching up to do after six months off. My new supervisor plays World of Warcraft, and it gladdens my heart to no longer be the sole geek of the office. But the day got better: when I got home there were stargazer lilies and peche lambic waiting for me. That's because I have the best man in the world.

Christmas was a delight. Scott's mom stayed with us for a few days, most of which were spent in a debaucherous state of intoxication. One night we got home from the bar at 1:30, and I thought it'd be fun to listen to some Desmond Dekker and dance while the buzz was on. Linda (the mom-in-law) danced right along with me and then we moved the party to the front porch where we chain-smoked and consumed an additional three bottles of wine and I funked my ass off 'til four in the morning in front of god and everybody. I love that lady. Her son is rad.

I'm not a huge fan of the top 40-type hits

So why can't I stop listening to Gold Digger? Would Kanye West have even been on my radar if he hadn't made the most important political statement of the 21st century? Probably not. But he did, and in doing so earned a permanent soft spot in my heart. And his album is very good. Yes, this is a past-due assertion, but its truancy is not for lack of truth. The album is good.

Birds are so crazy!

Today when I was standing on the porch having a smoke I almost got beaned in the head by a ruby-throated hummingbird! Birds are so crazy!

Man I am in such a good mood today!

Last night I dreamt that I was roller skating in the children's section of the library and Scott had a little black kitten wearing one of those hats that French-Canadian lumberjacks wear sitting in his breast pocket. It was awesome. I giggled in my sleep so loud that I woke myself up!

Last night I made us a bunch of delicious ginger-pear vodka martinis. Scott is so cute when he's a little buzzed. Since we had two of 'em before we even ate dinner, we were both a little shwilly and got all snuggly on the couch and watched Primer after dinner. Films like Primer make me feel a little stupid, but I guess "the thinking man's art film" has confused quite a few people, so I don't really feel that bad.

It's a wonderful, sunny day, and it's Friday. I feel very happy today. Maybe tonight Scott and I will go on a dinner-and-a-movie date. That'd be fun.

Road Trip

Unfortunately, not the fun kind. Tomorrow Scott and I will be driving to Eureka, CA at breakneck speed to attend the memorial service of my Aunt Tammy (my mom's younger sister). We have to leave at around 5am to make it to the 1pm service.

She got diagnosed with leukemia about two weeks after my mom died. They found a tumor on her spine, and upon operation found a couple more embedded in the spinal cord. The first surgery left her paralyzed from the waist down, so they gave her radiation to kill the other two. But she went into kidney failure last Thursday and didn't make it. I can't imagine what my grandparents must be going through, having lost two daughters within six months.

She was only in her early 40s.

Finally!

That little cunt Jayla got eliminated last night. Hooray! Her gums were too big. Porn star in t-minus 10 seconds.

Thanksgiving redux

Yeah, so it's been a few days and the story has well-nigh rendered itself obsolete, but Thanksgiving was a far more depressing ordeal than imagined in my wildest dreams. You know how I thought it was gonna be awkward with my grandpa and dad in the same room, since they're all of a sudden estranged from one another? Well this is even better! My grandpa called my sister-in-law at the last minute and told her to tell me he wouldn't be coming. She asks him if he wants my number to tell me himself, and he says "no" and hangs up. I was actually relieved to hear this, since I don't really care for the old coot. I was just trying to make up for the fact that I never go visit him, even though he only lives about a mile away from me. An atheist can only so take so much sermon from an old man (particularly one who evidently thinks you're retarded and needs to explain everything he says) before an atheist wants to peel the skin off her face. So yay, no preachy old grandpa.

"How could Thankgiving have been worse, then, and not better?" you might be asking yourself. Well it could, and here's how: Remember how my mom died last April? Well this is the first (non-Hallmark-invented) holiday since her death, and my dad looked like he wanted to fucking blow his brains out. He felt like a fifth wheel (unsurprising, since it was Scott and me with my bro and his wife). I tried to distract him from his misery by asking how the job search is going. Yeah, he has no job. After the meal he just sat on the couch, his head hanging very low over his cup of coffee. After he left I talked to Jeremy and Sandy about things, and it doesn't sound so good.

After my mom died I knew my dad would be completely fucked, not just because he lost the only person in this universe who would tolerate him, but because theirs was a household absolutely dependent on two incomes. My family's broke, pretty much always has been. A month after mom died, the Blazer or Bronco or whatever got repossessed because he missed some payments. I ended up paying for her funeral and everything so he wouldn't hafta worry about it, but I knew he needed more help than that.

So I pressured Jeremy and Sandy into moving in with him. The house is plenty big enough, I figured, and the baby would lift his spirits a little bit. They'd pay a little less than what they were paying in rent for their apartment, and everyone wins, right? Not so much. My dad ended up quitting his job a couple of months ago and according to Jeremy he sleeps in 'til noon every day, drinks coffee for about three hours, goes out for awhile returning with a stack of DVDs that no one can figure out how he's affording, and hasn't been following up on job leads. He's not getting unemployment (since he quit), and even though I made him a resume and Jeremy faxes them off for him, he's not really trying to find a job. It sounds like he's just given up on life, and I'm worried that he's gonna end up homeless or something. The man is an island, and no one can seem to reach him. He needs to finish mourning so he can begin his life again, but he's just so miserable. Jeremy and Sandy are getting fed up with him jumping in on their arguments (they've only been married a year), and they don't have much privacy.

Anyway, after everyone left on Thursday Scott and I cleaned up, while I went through my usual mental broken record-loop, "what can I do to fix this? what can I do to fix this?" I know that I can't save my dad from himself. I just don't know how to make this better. I can't help feeling like I should take the situation into my own hands, because frankly, no one else will. But it's not my job to keep bailing my dad out, he's an adult. On the other hand, he's also a motherless child who's never not had a woman to tend to him. And at 53 years old, he just needs to grow up. I just hope things don't have to get any worse for him before he realizes that.

Dinner was good though. White bean turkey chili last night was even better.

Castlevania - Curse of Darkness

My review can be read here. A very fun game indeed.

Yay! Two days 'til Thanksgiving. I'm already getting my prep started: I have cranberries in tripel sec on the stove and stock fixings roasting in the oven.

This year will be interesting, as I've been informed that my father and grandpa aren't speaking to each other. Unfortunately, I'd invited my grandpa over weeks before the altercation. What happened is evidently my grandpa accused my dad of being "too angry." What next, is he gonna accuse the sky of being blue? Sheesh, old people. Nothing pisses off a dude with anger management issues worse than being told to calm down, so things have escalated much further than they should've. Oh well.

What'll probably happen is I'll stay busy in the kitchen to remain as oblivious to the rift as possible, while Scott insists on helping so he can stay the hell out of there too. My dad and grandpa will be silent to each other during the meal and then my grandpa will announce that it's time to go home 5 minutes after eating. I'll secretly wish that my dad would leave too, but will be a polite hostess. My dad will stay and rant about his father until he decides he's due for a bong hit, says he's "got to go take his pain medication" and wants to leave. Then Scott and I will breathe a sigh of relief, pour ourselves a couple of stiff ones, and sit on the porch chainsmoking while we decompress.

I'm gonna be such an awesome mother

I'm clacking away at the keys, when I smell something. It's that familiar smell that something terrible has happened. It's so strong that I check the floors, assuming it's coming from the room I'm sitting in. Nothing. I go to the living room and the stench could peel the fucking paint off the walls. There, on the freshly shampooed area rug, is a steaming pile of cat shit. But this time, unlike as it's been for the last week or so, it's not just a mound of cute little tootsie-rolls. This time it comes with gravy.

"Awesome!" I think to myself. Today, instead of merely sopping up vomit from the rug, as is my seemingly daily chore, or waiting for shit to cool down from that 105-degree cat-intestine temperature, I have the joy of both plucking turds and trying to blot special sauce from the carpet. I go to the under-the-kitchen-sink cabinet where cleaning products are kept, and discover that we are out of Kids 'n Pets. Awesome. I dump half a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner on the mess, spray the entire house with orange spray and return to the computer.

I just know that I'll be an awesome mother because I, with a saint's restraint, calmly resisted the urge to grab the crow bar from the coat closet and bludgeon Caesar to a bloody pulp. I mean, that's just good parenting. Besides, if you think diarrhea is hard to get out of a carpet, well, you've never eviscerated a cat in your living room.

(Edit: it should be noted that I did clean up the shit before dumping carpet cleaner on the spot. I didn't just pour a bunch of cleaner on top of a pile of shit and wish it well.)

More adventures in my nether regions

I'm hungry. But it's not my stomach that's growling, it's my right ovary. Huh.

It's already November?

What the fuck? Time flies when you're having fun (or are an unemployed board whore that plays too many video games). This year we're doing Thanksgiving at our house again. What with my mom being in an ash can and my new sister-in-law being inept in the kitchen, how else will my dad get to eat turkey? I really want to do a southwest-themed dinner, but sadly, my dad has the palate of a five-year old. If I were gonna do it, this is what I'd make:

Roasted turkey with sweet orange-tequila glaze
Cornbread-jalapeno stuffing
Chipotle-sweet potato souffle, topped with sharp cheddar
Roasted corn and red bell pepper risotto
Warm carrot and red onion salad with escabeche chiffonade for kick
Mole negro with roasted pumpkin seeds (instead of gravy)
Fluffy, soft flour tortillas (instead of dinner rolls or brioche)
Espresso flan with Dagoba Xocolatl ganache for dessert

Sigh. It would be so good! And I've been saving my cornbread scraps in the freezer for months! Oh, well. I'll just make this stuff for a dinner party sometime.

I like cake!

My review of Hello Kitty Roller Rescue got published on f13.net. Here it is for your viewing plezh.

I also have an awesome head cold that has me pretty incapacitated. I'm gonna eat some baked beans and watch I Love the 80s 3D.

2, 4, 6, 8, 10!

Last night was so much fun! The Go! Team fucking rocked. I haven't shaken my ass that hard since I was like, 18.

Here I am looking retarded next to Ninja. I swear I'm not fat in real life.

The pictures with the guitarists didn't come out that great. Oh wells.

You may be asking yourself, "since when is Heather such a huge starfucker?" To which I'd reply: "One doesn't have many opportunities to be a rabid fangirl in Portland, so when one does, one must strike while the iron is hot." And I've learned that if you ask nicely, you can get almost anything you want. And I never forget to say thank you.

Today is the day after, and I'm not sore yet. That little delight is usually saved for the second day after. I think I may have overdone it in kickboxing last night. I know I overdid it at the show, jumping up and down like a 16 year old black cheerleader from the Bronx for two hours. My ankles hurt a little and my ears are still pretty fuzzy. What'll inevitably happen is I'll wake up for my job interview tomorrow and be completely fucking hobbled and they'll think they hafta hire me because they don't have any disabled people in the office.

Oh, if you haven't listened to the Go! Team yet, do. They sound like what little black girls are singing when they double-dutch.

Alton Brown Has a Very Hairy Chest

Noticeably so.

Scott and I met him yesterday at Wild About Game, a food event that included a wild game cookoff of which Mr. Brown was a judge. I kept asking people working the event, "when do we get to meet Alton Brown?" And since no one knew, I just followed a waiter to the judges' room and peeked in. There he was! He had a shitload of food to taste, so Scott and I took off for awhile and got back just when the last dish was being presented. We waited outside the room and when he stood up I ran over to the door and pounced on him! He was visibly startled by my sudden presence.

I nervously asked, "would it be totally inappropriate if I asked you to sign this?" and presented my old copy of On Food and Cooking, an early food science tome by Harold McGee. He looked at the book, looked at me, and said, "You want me to sign this? Are you sure?" He sort of oohed and aahed over it for a minute, and I joked he could sign it "McGee" if he wanted. He sat down and started writing:

Then he glanced at my tattoo and said he'd never seen a girl with DNA on her arm before. I was really nervous and shaky, which is strange because he seems pretty normal. I felt that I'd already bugged him enough so I didn't bother asking for a picture with him. Then I thanked him, shook his hand and giddily ran back to my table. Yay!

I wanted to send him another thank you, but it seems that people have been sending him rude things on his site, so he's disabled the contact part of his page. Oh, well.

Now I just have a figure out a way to meet Tony Bourdain....

Disaster averted!

This morning in pilates we were doing some move where you're on your back, kinda on your shoulders, and with your legs slightly spread and your arms on the floor, you lift your legs up so they're pointing up in the air. When I did this I sucked so much air into my vagina that I knew, I just *knew* I would have the hugest pussy-fart if I tried the rest of the move. I quickly got up and ran to the bathroom where I swear I queefed for like, 5 minutes.

Oh, don't look at me like that. You know you've been there.

I love on some buffalo wings, all dressed in delectable sauce.

Well said, Roast Beef. Well said.

A Letter to the Fiery Furnaces

Dear Fiery Furnaces,
How are you? You guys rocked last night. I appreciate the artistry and showmanship of playing your old stuff totally different. Eleanor seems to have lost some weight and now resembles a young Patti Smith with a cuter face. Love the haircut. Did you notice the dude in front? He looked like he learned to dance by playing DDR. Way to live up to white stereotypes, Acid Trip! And then that Ally McBeal girl who was doing the generic 80s thrash-the-shoulders-shake-the-head-back-and-forth dance threw a flower onstage, clearly wishing for validation from Eleanor. But Eleanor was enamored of Go-Go Boots, the hopeless fangirl who impressed the band with her knowledge of every song lyric (as evidenced by her singing along to every tune). She was to you what Houx is to Metric. Lucky girl got the playlist and props from Eleanor, but if Houx had been there, an onstage hug would surely have ensued.

Oh, hey, do you know who else was at your show last night? The fucking SHINS! That's who! Scott and I bumped into them outside, casually talking amongst themselves. Actually, Scott recognized them and I sauntered up and asked them if I could please have my picture taken with them. They said yes and I, embarassed that I had interrupted and possibly outed them, said thanks and strolled away quickly. Unfortunately, every time I try to post that picture I get an error message from blogger. Oh wells. I'll try again later.

So, in addition to seeing a stellar show in a venue small enough to accomodate my need to be 5 feet from the stage, I got to say "sup" to my favorite band. Yay.

Your friend,
Heather

Shadowgate Kicks So Much Ass

Remember that game? I was in 10th grade the first time I played it. Although it'd been out for awhile at that point, my parents finally got me that NES that I'd wanted since 6th grade for Christmas when I was in high school. By that time SNES was already out, so "a day late and a dollar short, Mom and Dad!" But it was all I had, and I was thankful, dammit!

Scott and I were extremely bored the other day, so we strolled on down the CD and Game Exchange down the street and for $50 we picked up Shadowgate (for the Gameboy; luckily the GBA is backwards-compatible), Banjo Kazooie, Paper Mario and Jet Force Gemini for the N64 and another copy of Eternal Darkness for the Cube. I've played them all many times over, but seeing as Scott has always primarily been a PC/PS guy, he hadn't ever really dicked around with the cool N64 games that Rare made in their glory days, and had only fiddled with Eternal Darkness once when we rented it before we moved in together. He has clearly been missing out, and thank goodness we can still find all that shit for 5 or 10 bucks each.

Anyway, I forgot how complex Shadowgate was. The puzzles and adventure aspects of the game are still light years beyond what's coming out these days, despite that fact that the "adventure" takes place within a text box that is your DM's wet dream. I don't miss the shiny at all. It's just so much fun to fuck around with something so delightfully old school and not be able to use my years of adventure/puzzle gaming experience to fly through it. It's nice to revisit something and still get the same enjoyment out of it as I did when I was a kid, and it's even nicer to know that I haven't become jaded by the ocular masturbation that is modern gaming.

Now if I can just figure out what the fuck I'm s'post to do in that room after the gargoyles...

Rejected!

The intarweb community is not my friend. The admins at f13 (except schild, he's okay) are power-hungry little cockmunches who den (or delete) my threads whenever I disagree with them about the humor of any given subject (e.g., Napoleon Dynamite). And those PC fucks at urbandictionary.com chose not to publish my definition of "finnuh", which I list below for your reading pleasure.

finnuh (future tense verb, ebonic): "fixing to" or "going to"
"I finnuh kick yo ass."
"You ain't finnuh put me on no house arrest."

This is exactly how I submitted my definition, but evidently the editors haven't seen Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Hell, I haven't either, but how could they have missed the trailer?

Speaking of movies that won't be winning any accolades, I really wanna see Roll Bounce, the admission of which was met by a "you're joking, right?" look from my betrothed. Sometimes it's hard to have a lover with such a refined cinematic palate. But seriously, honey, how can you resist a 1978 rollerskating battle flick starring Lil' Bow Wow? How, I ask?

Fwumpus

I feel like crap today. Yesterday I used my certificate for a free session with a personal trainer at the martial arts studio where I take kickboxing and pilates. I allowed the trainer to stack more weight than I really should've (i.e., I ended up leg pressing 280lbs), and did all those insane one-legged squats and bench presses and reclining/hanging pull-ups (like an upside-down push-up). I did this for an hour and a half, after a ten-minute warmup on the treadmill. I can't remember the last time I was in this much pain. Everything except my abs are excrutiated. That is precisely why I, with a Marine-like tenacity, decided I should suck it up and go to pilates this morning. Well, yep, now my abs are sore too. Good job, Heather. I popped three extra strength tylenol and tried to sleep it off, but woke up when I stretched my legs out and felt like burning knives were piercing my quads. To make matters worse, I have somehow managed to put on three more pounds, despite working out for four hours a week for the past month and a half. I skipped lunch today in an attempt to burn something off, but I just feel grumpy and my head is killing me. I'm halfway through my second non-fat latte of the day, which is oddly not helping. I just want to eat a big bowl of pho and pass out. I hope Scott didn't have Vietnamese for lunch today. There's leftover buffalo and chantrelle shepherd's pie, but I feel too fwumpy to have gravy again for dinner.

Watched "Our Song" on IFC today. It felt like a failed attempt to do Mi Vida Loca in the style of Spike Lee, and fell far short of being what it really could've. Kerry Washington is a compelling young actress, though, and made it somewhat bearable.

Yay, new OC tonight.

Bittersweetness

So I'm engaged. I've never been happier, as this coming year is my preparation for the biggest adventure of my life, as well as my opportunity to throw the biggest party Scott and I'll ever undertake. I've been struggling with bouts of insomnia, visions of brown orchids, oakmoss, wild boar and expensive French lace running through my head like so many proverbial sugarplums.

But it's not all squee and breathlessness. As I read through the numerous bridal guides, planners and magazines, I have a recurring reminder that something very important will be missing from this occasion: my mother. She died suddenly of cancer in April, only 11 days after having been diagnosed.

Truth be told, if she were here, I'd very likely be shooting down her every idea and suggestion, insisting that this will be done my way, ignoring her raised eyebrows at such notions that praying mantises will be featured on our invitations. Much eye-rolling would ensue. But I miss her. And for the first time since she passed, I actually realize that I no longer have a mother.

I relate this story to anonymously comfort a dear friend of mine, who has been in a long process of bidding farewell to an ailing parent. I want to say this to him: It's okay to not feel like you're mourning, and it's okay to feel relieved that you won't have to deal with it anymore. There will be little moments throughout life when his absence is felt, and you may not respond in those moments by feeling a profound sense of loss. We don't have to feel guilty to be okay with the departure of our parents. You're in my thoughts and in my heart (and I selfishly hope I get to see you soon).

I'm engaged, bitches!

I said yes! Check the bling - and the stone's old so no dead Africans. Yay!

New Favorite Drink

I am currently loving my latest concoction, the Gayhound. It's like a Greyhound, but with ruby red grapefruit juice instead of regular.

*Gayhound*
1-2 oz. good vodka (we use Monopolova)
4 oz. pink grapefruit juice
coupla ice cubes
sprig of fresh rosemary

Stir together in a heavy tumbler. Sip. Curl toes.

The pink grapefruit juice makes it special, but the rosemary makes it magical.

Beachtastic fun

This weekend was Emily's bachelorette party at a condo at Cannon Beach. Here is a picture of me buzzed off my second Sex on the Beach Friday evening (cliche, yes, but it was a fucking bachelorette party), blissfully unaware of the hangover I would have the following day.

We spent Saturday at Short Sands so some of the girls could surf. I was too hungover to try and surf like the other girls (goddamned schnapps!!), so I laid out in the sun with a magazine on my face and clutching my jacket around me to keep the sand from blowing into my mouth, nose and ears. Check out the awesome sunburn I scored!

Unfortunately, it hadn't occurred to me to apply sunscreen to my legs or belly (in the narrow strip where my shirt rode up a little). I actually had come to the beach wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt. I mean, I grew up in Oregon and I know the coast weather pretty well. I was even wearing my boots, which I eventually took off so I could put my feet in the sand.

It hurts so bad that I can only take lukewarm showers, and the first ten minutes of my day are spent hobbling around as my burned skin stretches out to give beneath the muscles. I obviously can't shave, which is making matters worse, as I now have stubble poking its way out of my scorched follicles, and scratching the burn when my legs brush against each other.

Birthday pics

I've added a few pictures of the birthday party that Danno took. The food pic I just stuck in The D and Me post below. Enjoy.



Scott and I are enjoying the music of Jean-Jacques Perrey, moog master.








Scott looks really sexy next to Angeline.









Our exotic friends: Angeline and Eloine (French) and Shinichi (Guess).









Satan loves you!

WORD.

This is a pic that Damon just sent me. It is my hero, Jables. Damon is an extra in the movie. Word.

Oh, btw, here's the link to the movie teaser.

The D and Me

OM fucking G. Today my friend Damon is working on the set of The Pick of Destiny. Ring a bell? Yes, that's right. That's the new Tenacious D movie. My friend is hanging with The D today. When prompted to ask a question for him to pass on, I was speechless. The best I could come up with is, "Have you ever rocked your own fucking socks off?" I'm such a fangirl it's sickening. I want to ask him to get an autographed cumrag for me, or some other keepsake, but he hasta be on his best behavior. He has far more discipline than I.

In other news, I had a fabulous birthday party on Saturday. I spent two days preparing $200 worth of tapas for only about ten people. I made:
* Crepe purses stuffed with smoked salmon, capers, cucumbers and creme fraiche, with a little lemon zest
* Different crepe purses stuffed with plums and peaches simmered in red wine and white peppercorns, mixed with chevre and fresh rosemary
* Organic heirloom tomato salad with 6-herb walnut pesto and balsamic syrup
* Canellini bean tapenade
* Kalamata olives marinated in the 6-herb walnut pesto
* Anchoiade
* Curried cauliflower crostini
* Tuna mousse
* Crudites and antipasti of salami, figs, almonds and roasted red peppers with brie and Huntsman (double Gloucester and Stilton)
* Mushrooms stuffed with a ragout of sausage, cream, arugula, walnuts and nutmeg
* Gorgonzola-walnut pate with honeyed figs
* Golden beet slices topped with the gorgonzola pate and drizzled with balsamic syrup
* Parmesan tuilles with pear slices
* Cocktail: a pitcher of cosmopolitans made with raspberry coulis and lemon balm from the garden, and hibiscus-cranberry juice.

The trick is to puree the raspberries, strain out as much of the seeds as possible, then freeze in ice cube trays (store cubes in a ziploc freezer bag). Use the cubes in your drinks. Then when the "ice" melts, the cocktail becomes more raspberrylicious instead of watered-down.


God, just looking at that list I can't believe I pulled it off. I also made a plum chutney with ginger, chili flakes and black cardamom (to top little toasted nan triangles), but there literally wasn't room on the table. I should go into catering or something. Luckily, among the vast leftovers (slowly being wittled away by a lazy Heather in too-hot-to-cook weather), there remains the majority of a bottle of cognac, a full-but-one-shot bottle of Maker's Mark and half a bottle of frosty Monopolova vodka.

My Little Friends

Here are some of the skulls I've collected in the field over the years.

The one on the right is a duck, and I think the one on the left is an owl. Unfortunately, since I'm a botanist, I never took any advanced anatomy/physiology courses in college.


I think the really clean one is a poodle or something. I found it near a residential area in Hood River. The other two are a muskrat and a lab rat. Behind the skulls is a large tortiose's carapace.


From left: muskrat, raccoon or possum, nutria, cat, another raccoon or possum. Behind/between the two rightmost skulls is a rat skull that I mounted in an antique wooden pastels box that I lined with handmade African paper.

This horse's skull was my greatest score. First, it was already nearly completely clean. Second, I almost never find both the skull and the jaw of anything. Third, it was found only about 10 feet from where I parked, so I didn't hafta lug it around with me all day.


These are windchimes that I made from the femur and humerus bones of roadkill (small furbears), with the scapula of a mule deer as the wind catcher. I shellacked the bones first to waterproof them and give them that rich amber color. The tubes are from a length of copper pipe that I cut and drilled myself. Small vertebrae cap the leg bones. I don't know shit about the tonality of copper tubing, and accidentally cut the pipe into lengths that emit a delightfully sinister series of sharp and flat notes when the wind blows. Just lucky, I guess.

I'll post pictures of my insect, fish and herpetofauna collections tomorrow when I can get photos in the daylight.

Oh, and sorry these pics are so tiny. I took them with my phone and don't know how to enlarge them without making gigantic pixels of distortion.

Vanity

I love my new camera. Phone. It's a phone. But now when I get bored I can put on way too much eyeliner and mascara and take Nico-esque self portraits which can be turned black and white using Photoshop. I haven't figured out how to turn pics sepia-toned, but whatevs.



Today I did a little bargain shopping and found two nice little accessories on sale. I bought a scarf that's all iridescent sequins and makes me feel pretty. Also, I bought a little pink corduroy purse with appliqued leather flowers. When I got home I noticed that someone had slipped a matching pink wallet inside, I assume with the intention of buying the purse and stealing the wallet. Sometimes purses come with wallets, but this one is real leather and had its own price tag on it. Whoooops! I needed a new wallet anyway, and after a lifetime of being earth tone girl, I've recenty discovered that pink makes me feel fabulous. So I guess I'll just keep it. I think I can convince my conscience to not eat itself over it.

Wow, this might be my most vapid post yet. I spent the morning watching a couple of those VH-1 "Why So'N So is So Rich and Fascinating" shows. I learned a new word today: celebutante. It was coined for Paris Hilton. That kinda explains it, I guess.

How To Draw Blank Stares From a Crowd of Vietnamese People

Go to a Vietnamese karaoke bar and do "The Humpty Dance". Give a shout out to your SE Asian peeps by throwing out a "Cám ón" at the end of your performance.

Sit at the only table of white people and have your buddy Danno do "America" by Neil Diamond.

Do your rendition of "Aqualung", Jack Black style. Be a female wearing a short skirt, and bust several running jump-kicks and a friction burn-inducing knee slide for your air guitar solo.

Tell the only chubby girl in the joint that she's got a great booty. While you're holding the microphone. And mean it.

I have awesome powers.

You think I was kidding about the tough boot-short skirt combo? Well on my walk home from Fred Meyer (we're talking 5 blocks, here) I was hit on today 3 times. Three times! The first guy caught me on the corner and told me I look fantastic. Thanks, guy. That was nice. Second time was in the Kwik-E-Store and some skungey hippie guy says, "Thank you angel," and then looks at me like he's waiting for a response. He finally says, "aren't you gonna ask 'for what'?" I just said I don't believe in angels and thankfully he didn't pursue it further. So I'm leaving the store and as I'm passing that poe-ke-lon (kick dudes' asses) place, the first guy comes rounding the corner, all agush and asks if he could maybe have my phone number and take me out for a drink sometime. I told him that I'm flattered, but taken. Gotta hand it to the guy, though. Takes some stones to just walk up to some chick on the street and straight mack. That was prolly all the game that dude had.

....wait, did I just get mini-stalked?

Finally feels like summer

Today is a lovely day in P-town. Scott bought me these hawt Frye boots for an early birthday present.



They look especially cute with a teeny skirt. Imagine my delight when I saw that very ensemble listed as one of Vice magazine's Dos (after I was already rockin' it). Hooray.

Mary Tyler Moore

Today is the first day of No Job, Hooray for Me. Yesterday was my last day at a company I'd been with for two years. I was sad at first and felt like a reject, but I'm looking forward to taking a month or so off.

Instead of working at a company that doesn't appreciate me, I'm gonna be the uber-housegirlfriend and rock Scott's world. Today I had all my errands done before noon, and I already have a full pot of freshly homemade chicken stock cooling for tonight's oyster mushroom and shiitake risotto. Dang but I got this shit dialed in.

When he arrives to a clean house, he'll find me wearing pink and holding a cold beer. I will kiss him and ask him about his day. We will sit on the front porch in the sun and smoke cigarettes (yes, we're back at it) and listen to records and hold hands.

Weight Gain Battle

So, I've decided to start using speed. In other words, I've started upping my caffeine intake to battle the weight gain usually inevitable in smoking cessation. I'm drinking a can of Rockstar(TM) Energy Cola, which, in addition to extra caffeine, is loaded with all those herbal uppers. I'm all afidget and kinda twitchy, which better suits my personality than being all slow and sleepy, as the past week has been.

Unfortunately, ephedra is no longer legal in dietary supplements (you can always leave it up to some whiny cunt with a heart condition to go bitching to the FDA and ruin it for everybody), but I can still get it in bulk herb form at the hippie grocery store, I think. If not, maybe I'll just fucking drive to eastern Oregon and pick some. Benefit of being a botanist, I know how to identify all those lovely plants that get you high.

I was never one of those little bitches who obsesses over her weight. I was a very skinny kid and didn't even start growing tits 'til I was 18. I had a friend with an eating disorder in high school. She idealized my body as what she was striving for as she ate her half package of Nutter Butters, washed down with a bottle of ipecac. She landed herself in the hospital a couple of times, for attempted suicide I think. She started using smack to keep her weight down, and died of a self-inflicted overdose at age 17.

I didn't even start keeping track of my weight until a few years ago, when I noticed that a lifetime of being the skinny kid who out-ate her entire family was catching up with an aging metabolism. It had taken me ten years to put on the 30 pounds that started to show on my frame. It took only one month to lose it last spring, when the boyfriend of four years suddenly dumped me. When I found myself, all of a sudden, at my prime, teenaged weight, I started really paying attention to my body, because everyone else was.

Some of my friends said they were worried, but I think they were just shocked at how quickly I lost that much weight (my coworkers, who saw me every day, even noticed). I put 5 pounds back on at the end of the summer, and called it good. A little more than a year later, I've kept the weight off and goddamit, I intend to keep it that way. I weigh 135, give or take 1 or 2 pounds, depending on the time of day. Not bad on a 5'7" frame with a propensity for building muscle.

I will start exercising, and probably counting calories a little. I will try not to annoy Scott with this new obsession. Being a control freak at heart, I think it might help me a little when I'm battling cravings that I can't abate if I buckle down and focus on keeping this ball in my court. I'm eating turkey jerky and sugar-free gum for lunch today.

* * *

When I get home I will take a shot of vodka from the freezer and mow the lawn. Then I will consider making a very healthy dinner, but will ultimately decide on chili-cheese dogs with tater tots and mac 'n chee, or some other culinary delight. I will consume one TrimSpa fat-blocking pill before eating, take some vitamins after eating, then pace around the kitchen for an hour thinking about having a snack. I'll probably eat two or three spicy garlic dills, having recently discovered that pickles have only 5 calories and no fat. Then I'll either geek out with Scott or lay on the couch and watch VH-1 until I forget about how much I want to smoke.

April Showers

...bring May flowers, but what the fuck good is torrential rain in May? It's dark at 1 in the afternoon, and it sounds like the sky is breaking. It's supposed to be nice and warm and sunny, dammit!

You think I'm exaggerating, check this out: For Portland, the normal rainfall for the water year (since October 1) is 31.32 inches. We've been in a drought all winter and spring. Last March I think we were only at like, 60% of normal rainfall for the water year. As of May 18, we were at 73%. As of yesterday, we are at 76%. That means in only one day we got an entire 3% closer to normal rainfall. That is insane. By the end of today, we'll probably be close to 80% normal. I'm happy that we won't be in a drought this summer (hopefully), but I'm pissed that I can't barbeque yet.

Adventures in Catassery

Sigh.

So, Scott's cat has decided to revisit the whole "shitting all over the house" thing. Yesterday he not only shit on the carpet, but pissed on the blanket that was on the couch. So half a bottle of Kids 'N Pets later, our $1000 couch that we've had for all of 6 months is now full of catass. Every day I come home from work, dreading what I may find. The last coupla times he actually waited until I was home, and then let it rip when I went to the kitchen. For fuck's sake, I just quit smoking three days ago. I got one good nerve left, and that little fucker is on it.

The first time we caught him doing this was back in November. We tried to give him kitty Paxil, which had worked on my cat the couple of times he sprayed. We were successful at getting the shit in his mouth once, but you've never seen a more pissed-off beast. He just sat under the dining room table glaring at us, letting the meds just drool out of his mouth into a puddle on the floor. Just to spite us. The next time I tried, the little fucker bit me. Like drawing blood, teeth marks all over my thumb and shit.

If we lock him in the basement, the other cats won't have access to the litter boxes. If we lock them all in the basement, that'd be kinda cruel and unfair, and mayhem would certainly ensue. If we try to put him in the bathroom or the mudroom, we'll come home to find all the shelves ripped down, the house plants knocked over, with the soil all shat in and the leaves all chewed up, and a rabid Caesar gone all feral and shit. On second thought, maybe that's not such a bad idea. (no, I'm not actually contemplating exposing my boyfriend's cat to toxic houseplants, but it's tempting)

Seriously, this fucker is bat-shit insane. We tried to let him play on the front porch last weekend, and everything was all cool for like, 15 minutes (which was a goddamned miracle). Then SOMETHING happened. Maybe it was a bird chirping. Maybe it was the wind. Or maybe a piece of dandelion fluff landed near him. But all of a sudden, the little retard does this backflip into the screen door and crashed. I thought he was just gonna plow right through it.

He's a cute, crazy and entertaining little bastard, but I really wish he'd stop shitting in my house. I'm at my wit's end. No one who's trying to quit smoking should hafta deal with this. It's hard enough to resist the urge to strangle a human with my bare hands, let alone a cat.

Top things I wish I were doing instead.

Instead of gritting my teeth and clenching my fists, these are a few things I'd rather be doing (in no particular order):

1) Making homemade stock
2) Eating biscuits and gravy
3) Playing the new Zelda, even though it won't be released for like, 6 more months
4) Taking a hot bath that smells like lavender and rosemary
5) Having slow, cuddly sex with Scott
6) Planting my tomatoes
7) Drinking some wine
8) Watching Napoleon Dynamite for the Nth time
9) Eating nachos
10) Shopping for summer clothes

I wish I had powers like Sabrina the Teenage Witch so I could just swirl my finger and my work would be finished. I haven't gotten a damn thing done today.

Quitting is a drag.

Scott and I quit smoking. Today is Day 1. It fucking sucks. I've smoked for ten years, and this is the third time I've quit. I'm paranoid that I'm gonna get fat and turn into a raging bitch and that I'll drive Scott away. I've been eating only one meal a day for the last few months, but now it's hard to skip meals when I can't just bust a French. Ugh.

Stupid fucking cancer.

Had a scary dream last night

Oh, Jesus fuck. Last night I dreamt that my brother and I had been charged with espionage for middle-eastern terrorists, and had been arrested and taken to Afghanistan. For some reason, they let me use my cell to call our dad and tell him we were being held up and were gonna be a little late. Anyway, the fucked up part of the dream was when I was in the room where they administer electro-shock treatments as a form of torture to the prisoners. I was watching the dude repeatedly electro-shock this man who was strapped to the table screaming through a gag. I woke myself up when I saw the dude lubing up his gloved fist with Vaseline and made the guy flip over. GAH! Even when you wake up from that kinda shit, you know how the imagery just lingers?

I don't know what's more fucked-up: the shit I saw in my dream, or the fact that I dreamt that shit up.

Keeping up with the Joneses

My boyfriend started one, and my MySpace one is lame (a little game-heavy). Deep thoughts to come.