Oh man, you guys. You guys. I totally want to dominate the world with y'all. (My evol plan, since I suppose I should mention it? Backrubs. I shall make everyone succumb to me, one by one. With backrubs. I once started an entire row of people sitting on the steps down the house in our mainstage, giving the person sitting in front of them a backrub. It was glorious.)

Also? I ATE A STRAWBERRY LAST NIGHT & HAVEN'T DIED YET. I've been allergic to strawberries for about twenty years. If I'm still not dead, I consider this a minor victory. I don't think I'll eat more than one strawberry at a time though. Color me paranoid. Or just hive-y. (I was a bit itchy last night. But I think it was bug bites, not hives. I hope.)

Mmm. Strawberries.

So, speaking of things that I love, and gakking from loads of people on my flist--

I love

giving backrubs. Blueberries. Cheesecake. Pineapple pizza from Papa John's. Plosives and clickatives. Alliteration. Weskits. Rolled-up shirtsleeves. Acoustic guitars. Harmonies. Green trees and blue skies and horizons stretching out as far as the eye can see while driving on the interstate. The breeze. Fireflies. The changing of the seasons. Baking with my mom. Walking arm-in-arm with my friends. Visiting with old friends. Snuggling. Illya Kuryakin doing gymnastics. The cast of Barney Miller. Big Finish audios. Parker and Hardison. Builds and undercuts. People who know their shit. Water. Underwater archaeology. The 1830s. Words. Sunlight. Going underground by myself in a hoist in solid dark while singing Sinead O'Conner songs. Simon and Garfunkel lyrics, and Dean Martin's voice, and the Smother Brothers singing "Chocolate," and the intense comfort of happy memories. My nephew. My new car. My old car. Roses. Puppies. Cats. Making babies giggle. Making other people giggle. Giggling. Connections. The network of people that I know across this small world. The Indiana Dunes. Gage Park. Forest Park. Lake Storey. Fireworks. County roads. New experiences.

Shredded zucchini looks like an exploded tentacle monster. Honest. Sadly I forgot to take pictures before I mixed everything else into the bowl to make zucchini bread, but I had an exploded tentacle monster on my counter for a little bit there. Oh yes. And all it took was the grater!

I was tagged. I can’t stop myself!

Meme: Firstly: People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blog and replace any question that they dislike with a new, original question. Secondly: Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.

( Read more... )

I would like to see Dean Winchester trying to do research on microfilm, only the film won't catch on the take-up reel the way it's supposed to when he starts winding, and then when it finally does he realizes he's put the film on backwards and then when he's trying to wind the film back up on to its reel so he can reverse the roll it gets all tangled and he has to start rolling it up manually and carefully while praying that some librarian won't come his way to see if he needs help and has seen what heinous act he has done to the microfilm (because Dean knows what those librarians are like when you tear microfilm), and then when he finally gets it all right and straight and proper and looks at the film, it doesn't actually have the information he wanted anyway.

Hey, buddy, you wanted research, you frickin' got it. *grumbles*

Now for the meme of choice (at the moment):

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

ionlylurkhere gave me these five topics to ponder

( Middle school Who (I would be secretly fascinated to know if you have Opinions on books v audios) )

( beta reading )

( academia )

( working environments )

( fave baking recipe )

There was a pay phone ringing at the grocery store this afternoon. I did not answer it and thereby catapult myself into a strange adventure of ransom calls, high-speed and unlikely car chases, and dark and mysterious strangers.

No, instead, I accidentally stole somebody's grocery cart. I don't know how it happened. I temporarily abandoned my own grocery cart in the fruit and veg section to investigate the loose baby spinach (purse over my shoulder because I am just that paranoid), and then I went back to what I thought was my cart. I made it all the way to the other end of the store and was perusing the cereal when I looked down and noticed an onion, a couple cucumbers, and some unrecognizable yellow vegetable thing instead of the expected grapes, bananas, and ginormous nectarine that I had picked out.

Seriously, how did I manage so carelessly to steal somebody else's unpaid-for-yet vegetables? I know I'm a bit distracted today, but come on. The worst part isn't even that, it's that I had one of my canvas totes in the cart I was using. Oh well. Maybe somebody else will use it instead of plastic bags.

Tonight I have successfully cooked for dinner pork chops and stuffing. I know, I know, one of the simplest meals to cook (packaged stuffing, frozen broccoli nuked in the microwave, goof off online for an hour while everything cooks), but a) I've never made this by myself--okay, so I did keep calling my mom while I was in the grocery store with such questions as "What color bag does the stuffing come in?"--and b) I've mostly been living off of cereal, sandwiches, and fast food of late out of laziness and an extreme lack of motivation to cook.

In other words, tonight's dinner was an unqualified success. And I have leftovers! For later this week when I once again fail to find the motivation to cook! And I have another meal to add to my extremely limited repertoire!

Next week's adventure in cooking shall involve baking my own chicken pot pie. And next month when my dad visits I shall inflict my cooking on him once again. Huzzah!

After my semi-success with the muffins last week, I was emboldened to try making cookies tonight.

( Adventures in cooking. )

It's like some kind of cookie train wreck. I can't stop eating the disgusting thing. Only chocolate can rectify this tragedy.

And for that, I deeply apologize. But I HATE WRITING. I hate analysis, I hate finding examples in the texts, and I hate thinking. It's gotten worse since grad school. I can apparently only write two-three sentences (an entire paragraph if I'm on a role) before I have to distract myself and do something else. Otherwise my head will fall off. Revising is fine and dandy and sometimes even rather cool, when what the hell I'm trying to say finally starts to congeal, but first drafts suck.

It appears to be snowing in orange. Either that, or those are awfully small leaves falling off that tree outside my window. How wonderfully consumerist-Halloween of nature.

Muffins were a (qualified) resounding success. In that this was the first time I've ever made muffins from scratch not at home using the gas stove I'm used to and under my mom's supervision. But I didn't burn them! And I didn't undercook them! They're a bit--firmer?--than I would like, so I think I left them in just a minute or so too long, but I accomplished baking all by myself! Yay. Next weekend maybe I'll try cookies.

Handel had some happy, happy crack, back in the day. Is his stuff considered Baroque or what? I don't know my musical differentiations. I don't know my music history. I just sing the stuff. But I do like this--era. It's layered and flows into itself.

I am almost certainly going to make blueberry muffins today. If I get off my arse and do homework first. Because obviously homework takes precedence over food. Is it Thanksgiving break yet? I just want a day off. One.

I made brownies tonight. Just out of a box--it almost feels like a sin--but I had to call mom beforehand to ask her advice about using their high altitude directions. She said yes. I realized I didn't have flour, and it calls for adding 3 extra tablespoons. She immediately suggested Bisquick (which I do have--go figure), and then was like, "wellll..." since it's not only flour but other stuff too.

"You *have* to make them tonight?" she asked, and I was stubborn. "I could go out and buy some flour," I thought out loud, and she agreed. So I said good-bye, put on my shoes, grabbed my coat and keys, and headed out the door.

I was *almost* to the store, almost when I realized I was wearing the paint-stained sweatpants and no bra.

I just couldn't face a crowded grocery store without a bra on.

Bisquick it was.

But hey, the brownies still taste good...

And because of all that, once again I missed simplypony on IM! Curses! But I did finish watching Angels in America and get a load of reading done. I'm so accomplished today.

See, Gregory House rocks. He can't be pigeonholed. It irks me that all the other characters try to pigeonhole him anyway--it really comes off like the producers freaking out because they think their audiences'll be too stupid to get it--'cos of all the telling instead of showing going on, with everyone saying "Ahhh, but see, that isn't House-like. This is House-like." (Even Wilson shouldn't be categorizing House. And have I mentioned lately that Robert Sean Leonard still rocks?)

(And oh how I laughed in that one ep when House did a faux-British accent for a line. Laughed and laughed and laughed. See, I was just doing this bit for a character who was British and doing a fake-American accent. Do you know how hard it is to fake your own accent? Daaaaamn.)

Have been quite moody and broody of late--and have every freakin' right to be, dammit, and maybe that isn't the proper attitude to take but I couldn't care less--but tonight went to dinner at Johnny Carrino's and went into what is apparently in true form my public giddy mode. I shouldn't be allowed in restaurants with people of my own age. At all. (Athletic flames, anyone? Sushi Popo, anyone?) But it was, as I said in the car afterward, "better than scrambled eggs." Which had been my original plans for the evening. Cooking and eating scrambled eggs, that is, not throwing them on the wall in a decorative pattern or anything. I think the university would object.

I swear there wasn't anything alcoholic in the orange cream soda.

I also spent money. And didn't feel guilty (much). Because I got PAID yesterday. And it was glorious.

So that whole post-thing yesterday? Yeah. My holiday spirit showed up eventually. About the time I was cooking dinner for my parents. And when mom and I did our traditional drive-around-for-lights thing last night.

(I really like cooking. Bustling about the kitchen getting things prepped and pulling them out of the oven. It's nice to be competent at it, and productive, and it's somehow all a bit comforting too. And I'm all about the comfort, y'see.)

Oh, and I got pressies today. Lots'n'lots of pressies. Including a DVD player, finally. And all 3 Harry Potter DVDs. And pretty shirts and jammies. And, bizarrely, a coffee maker which I'll probably be making lots of use of next semester. And another pretty new watch (we have present traditions in this family--mom buys me watches, dad buys us all calendars, and I've taken to getting dad a calendar so he's got one too--he quite liked the one I got this year, of Colorado landscapes, but then he's been saying he wants to go back to Colorado for years now). And a $150 gift card for B&N. (So, all those books and CDs I asked for Christmas and didn't get? I'll indulge and buy msyelf. And some new DVDs. 'Cos, hey, we're in the money here.)

I feel a bit bad for the capitalistic tendencies making me all good and happy, but meh. For once I shall wallow in the materialism and not feel guilty for getting crap I don't really need. (And dammit I *will* spend that $150 on fun stuff and not on textbooks. Maybe I'll buy a history book or two to assauge the guilt.) I'm not used to having money to spend for fun. I'm not very good at having money to spend just for fun. But I shall make an exception this year, 'cos we're fricking almost rolling in the money anyway and if dad wants to get a little carried away who am I to stop him?

And hey, more money from paychecks next semester to put away in savings. Go me!

I hope my nephew likes the pressies I got him. (Of course he will; he's three, or will be when he gets the pressies in a couple days.) Parental units enjoyed their presents. (Mom's t-shirt is a sheep wearing a Santa hat and saying: "Baaaaa humbug." When I saw it on the compy screen, I *knew* it was meant for her.)

Oh yeah, speaking of DVD players...they don't need any special plugs to connect to TVs, do they? I mean, my telly back in my apartment's rather...old. Before DVDs were the common thing they are now. Hmmmm. B&N doesn't sell television sets, does it?

*sunny smile*

My toaster and I do not get along.

We do not see eye to eye on a number of things. The major one being that my toaster does not feel I require toast, merely slightly-warmed-up bread. I disagree with this point, but quite often my toaster refuses to listen to me. This generally leads to an altercation between us, which consists of me stubbornly smacking the lever to make the toast go down, and the toaster stubbornly popping the toast immediately back up.

*smack*
POP!
*smack*
POP!
*smack*
POP!
*smack*

Eventually we come to a compromise, it lets the toast stick around and get warm for a while, and we only have to go through the routine a couple more times before I actually have toasted bread.

We might need counselling. Or to go our separate ways.

Alas.

Though at least this time I wasn't dancing around the kitchen with the wooden spoon.

I have this tendency to dance around the kitchen. I don't know why.

Anyway. Making orange-flavoured chocolate chip cookies. Yum yum. Unfortunately, telling the flour to mix in with the rest of the batter does *not* work and you actually have to do the work yourself. Also, sucking on chocolate chips is an excellent way to get cavities, but I'm going to the dentist on Monday anyway. After which I plan to see ROTK because I don't think I can wait any longer than that. It's not a good sign when you can start spontaneously sobbing at commercials, is it? I blame Pippin entirely.

Have finished everything for my grad school applications, picked out a monologue to memorize for auditions (er...hopefully, though I still might change my mind), and am taking the GRE tomorrow morning. This all makes me sound wonderfully on top of things and efficent, etc, but unforunately my brain has taken a turn to the disorganized side. I can't keep track of *anything*. Left half the crap I could have really used this break at school, forgot where I put my purse the other day, can't find a picture of Uncle Buddy I picked up at the house while in Topeka...

And that house is still full of ghosts. It can't be helped, I suppose, when at least three different generations of my family have lived in it, and my sister manages there fine, but every time I go back with mom we just keep stumbling upon memories. And we still miss Buddy.

My sister is, in her way, much more of an activist than I am. She writes to change the world; she demands that it get better and she's not very forgiving. We were discussing the Irish Famine, and I was trying to explain various perspectives on the whys and wherefores of it. My sister was angry; I had bypassed anger in favour of objectivity and trying to understand the different era. That always happens with the two of us--she can't forgive our mother for growing up in the 1950s, and I can't judge mother for growing up in the 1950s.

Then again, I have a feeling mom mellowed considerably by the time she had me.

That didn't end up quite where I expected, but that's alright. Better to write about my sister than complain about my dad, really.

One bagel left at the breakfast cart this morning. And it's not even a very good bagel.

First year I was indifferent to Flunk Day. Second year I was mildly unhappy with Flunk Day (but then, spending two hours trying to talk your drunk roommate out of sprawling in the first year boys' dorm and coming back to her room is a bit of a downer). This year, even though it hasn't actually even had a chance to happen, I despise Flunk Day.

Flunk Day, for all you non-Knox people, is a day in spring term when the entire campus takes off to party. This involves being woken up at some godforsaken hour in the morning by screams and whistles and loud banging from outside your window, going to the mud pit, and being thoroughly plastered by nine am. There's cotton candy and picnic style food and big game-type-things that the school hires in, and there's a band or two in the evening by the time everyone's exhausted themselves, and the next day we all go back to classes like normal. Nobody knows when Flunk Day is coming, but most people like to predict.

And I'm not going to be happy whatever day they finally get around to choosing. And they are *fast* running out of possible dates, as Wednesday is the start of the mainstage play, and next week is the teach-in and far too close to the end of term anyway.

I just dropped half my bagel, with cream cheese, on the floor.

Scene partner cancelled rehearsal last night, so we hadn't rehearsed since Friday and basically had to wing the scene today. Messed up too. Yay. And this afternoon I have a meeting with the dean about summer internship and getting funding for gas/housing and good stuff like that and I feel completely unprepared for this meeting.

So I shall eat my bagel and sulk.