Then Who's Been Cashing My Checks?!?

This really happened.

My friend and I both had a wildly rough week, and I was excited to be able to hang out with her in what is possibly the most non-threatening environment there could possibly be: a craft fair at St. Michael's College.

We walked around for a ocuple of hours, bought a few things. I found this great present for my mom, whose birthday is in a couple of weeks, and as I was handing the crafter my card, we made small talk. "So," she said, noting my out-of-state card, "What are you doing up here?"

"I'm actually a graduate student here at St. Michel's right now."

She looked at me and cocked her head a little. "Honey, that's not possible." She leaned forward and whispered; "St. Michael's hasn't been open to students for five years."

WOAH!

It's been almost a year since I posted ANYthing!

Well, this is daunting. Where to start?...

Maybe it's sort of a chicken-shit thing to say, but I'm kind of glad it's taken me this long to write anything. The people who might have checked it once upon a time have probably all forgotten by now, and the people who may still see what's going on over in my little part of the world are 1) forgiving and 2) kind enough to allow me to do the rambling that I need to do.

Everything just seems so punctuated now with Facebook status updates, tweets (both of which I do, and how!) that it's signs and wonders how anyone feels listened-to or heard at all. Maybe we're all making up for it by having vivid inner lives. Or that's what I tell myself.

I'll be honest; my vivid inner life consists largely of colorful, sprawling fantasies in which my past mistakes are somehow made right. Not that I go back in time or anything (right? Because that would be NUTS!) but that all the loose ends I walked away from, all those burners that I left on somewhere find really complicated, intricate ways of resolving. And I know; this is really just a glorified way to hold on to the past and not have to deal with the present.

But dammit, I love my past. I have a great past. And maybe between a demanding full-time job, an infuriating graduate school career, and teaching a class, it's the one thing I feel like I still have a modicum of control over - the only part of my life that still feels like mine.

Or maybe I just miss my friend.

Don't worry; they won't all be this way.

BRING BACK "DEAR RICK."

One thing I do miss is this certain article that would sporadically appear in this paper. It was an advice column called "Dear Rick," and I'd like to share my favorite one with you now, as it seems obscenely germane.

This particular one is from June 2006, I believe.

Dear Rick,

I’ve been a little reclusive lately. So reclusive that I’ve gotten three emails from three different people asking "Where are you?" "What happened to you?" "Where did you go?" in that order. The truth is that I haven’t gone anywhere. In my reclusion I’ve been thinking a lot. Sometimes about the future, sometimes about next year, sometimes about growing old. Sometimes about friends or sex. Mostly I’ve been thinking about Love. I think about Love a lot, probably because I’m lonely, and when I think about it I sometimes believe and sometimes don’t believe something that I’ve always felt to be true even before I felt it. That something is that Love is not a thing, just a word, and a pretty vague one.

I’ve heard people say about other people’s Love: He/she thinks they are in Love. I say bullshit. What else could you call it? What else could it be? If you think it, you probably are.

Love is something you say after trying it on and walking around the block or after walking around and around the block until the seams are ripping and the soles are worn through. You say to yourself, "This is it. This is Love. I Love you." Love is something that you whisper to someone in the middle of the night because you can’t think of anything else to call it. Every time you say it, it will be different and it will be true. And only you will ever know.

That decision, the naming of the thing, seems like the best definition there is.

I’ve also been thinking about crashing my car and spiders in my shoes.

So, my question is: Do you Love me, Rick?

Sincerely,

Spiders In Shoes Scare If Exist

* * *

Dear SISSIE,

No. No, I do not. You need an editor.

Rick

If you would like to read a couple more "Dear Rick"s, you should mosey on over here. That's my brother's LJ, he's the one who introduced me to Rick in the first place. He doesn't post on the LJ anymore, but if you want to read more "Dear Rick"s, you should find some way to let him know, and he can look for some more for us. His most preferred methods of communication are heliograph and crying in the nighttime.

A Note Regarding Bear Countries, Young and Old

I've been thinking a lot lately about place.

Backing up: I was going to make a post about things that have been happening in the interim between the last blog and this one, and all of them have, to me, been fairly important.

Then I got a text message from my friends over at AppyLove, and I was reminded of what "life-changing" really means. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing bad. In fact, I couldn't be prouder; my dear friend Dr. Allen Rigell just matched in Wisconsin. For those who don't know, "matching" is the term for when a newly graduated doctor chooses a residency program, and the residency program chooses him or her back.

As Joe Biden would say, it's a big fuckin' deal.

The corollary to that, though, is (sometimes) you're completely uprooted from the things you've known and done for (sometimes) your entire life.

When I moved to Vermont, I knew things would change. I knew I wouldn't know soul one up here. I knew I was embarking on something. And I did my fair share of assuming. I assumed my roots in Tennessee would stay firm and healthy. I assumed I'd never hurt anyone deeply enough to have to let them go. I assumed that no matter what happened, I could manage on my own, and I assumed that even if I couldn't, I'd have my love to help me.

I found out, out here in my Bear Country, what happens when we assume.

But that's the great thing about the great white wilderness. It doesn't give you one thing that you want, but you learn (very quickly you learn) what it is exactly that you need. And when you zero in on that, Bear Country blows wide open. In that way, it becomes your own.

I love you, Allen and Amanda, and I'm proud of you every single day. I'm proud to have known you and proud to have shared some of my most wonderful memories of Tennessee with you guys. And I am sad that you have to go through the hard journey, leaving what you know, and going out, out, out into what looks and feels like the jaws of the beast sometimes. I am sad that I feel now more than I have in months that my time in Johnson City is truly over, that the love I had there once is gone away in one way or another. You guys afforded me so many opportunities that I would have never had any other way. You guys kept me engaged with what was going on when all I wanted to do was dry up and blow away. You taught me how to love that place again, when all I wanted to do was to nuke it from space sometimes.

I know you guys. You're smart. You're talented. You're ridiculously magnetic. You're bold when you should be. You've got just enough Southern distrust to keep the Midwesterners guessing, and hearts big enough to accept the difficulties ahead and to go ahead and look for (and find) the good stuff anyway. Or the bad stuff. Bear Country is nothing if not a surprise a minute.

I know I'll talk to them again. Pretty soon, probably, and fairly regularly after that. We may even sing together again, or figure out how to do some long-distance recording. I just want them and the rest of world to know that I think they are two of the bravest, loveliest people I know, and I wish them nothing but the best when they get to their new place.

This I say to everyone: go forth, out into your own Bear Country, whether it's Wisconsin, Vermont, your new girlfriend, your new singleness, your new job, your new joblessness, or your 52nd year on Earth. Embrace the unchartedness, then get to work drawing that chart. Include some room to be lucky and astonished at what you find out there. Be brave. Be true.

"You can bring a storm with you;
I know you always will.
When the wind blows hard to ride,
I’ll be there by your side." - Count this Penny.

A Culture of Cold: Part I

The backstory: it's 2:30 in the afternoon, and -13 degrees outside.

One thing I don't have to say about New England is that it's cold. It's cold cold cold, and it's cold for a long time. Most people who've lived here for a long time are pretty flippant about it, especially when I mention something. In fact, they love laughing at me when I say it's cold. "You don't know cold," they snort, "you're from Tennessee."

I ask you this, though: when is -13 degrees NOT considered cold? That's cold, I don't give a rip who you are.

The cold permeates everything here. It's a way of life. Even the locals' reactions when I say "it's cold" is fairly cold, in and of itself. "You don't know cold"? Harsh. Frigid. Conversation is frozen on contact. Don't get me wrong; these are, in general, just about the nicest people you could ever meet. As nice as any venerable, hospitable old Southerner I've ever met. They're just closed-lipped about it, by and large. If a Yankee likes you, he or she just goes ahead and takes you in and doesn't make a big deal about it. You maybe have to have a little ego strength and some good insight, but you're in. A New Englander will always give you a chance, but doesn't always have the time to make you feel all warm and cozy.

And you know why?

Because it's fucking cold out there.

You Got Poison In My Whiskey.

Cross-post from my old LiveJournal, circa 5/11/2009, that I think bears repeating.

===
I was listening to Coast to Coast AM last night, and a guy called in and asked Ian Punnett if saying the word "dalma" had any sort of satanic implications. Ian Punnett was confused for a minute, because 1) he hadn't heard the word "dalma" and 2) because he's not exactly the one to counsel people in such things. But the guy kept talking and said that when he gets drunk, like really drunk, the word "dalma" comes into his mind, and he just says it. And he was afraid that this made up word might actually be satanic, and that he might actually be invoking some evil spirit through his drunken made-up word without even knowing it.

I am so that guy right now.
===
Maybe I'm just going on the old adage that the least common denominator in every failed relationship I had is me. Or maybe I just feel like it's the truth, that without even knowing it, we bring with us wherever we go a poison that we cannot fully understand until we open our mouths. But by then it's too late, and you're ass-deep in demons without the skills to disperse them.

Passing the Buck, and Other Stories to Tell in the Snow.

If I listened solely to my Tennessee friends, I'd be halfway convinced that the apocalypse is creeping slowly north, and that we're all destined to die in a snowy explosion, our frozen hands making flailing slapping motions at the old lady trying to wrangle the last jug of milk from the dairy cooler.

I called my mom last night, and she picked up the phone crying, which is usually not just bad news, but outright identity shattering, if recent history has taught me anything. "Is everything okay?" I prepared for anything.

"Yeah, just....just, are you safe?"

"Am I safe? Well," I looked around in my kitchen, where I'd been attending to some beef stew that had been simmering peacefully for three hours, "I mean, yeah."

Turns out, the drive from her job in downtown Knoxville to her house in South Knoxville took about two hours to make because of the icy snow that started at noon and continued into the evening. This is a drive that should have taken no more than fifteen minutes on good old Chapman Highway. I could understand anxiety, but the woman had been pushed to the crumbling edge of her sanity. I could also understand if I was actually living in or near Tennessee; however, I sat in two feet of snow myself in the great state of Vermont, one thousand very long, very safe miles away.

She shakily relayed her tale of the drive home, the deadlock in front of the Kroger on Chapman Highway, the cars gnarled up like pretzels on the side of the road, the usually decent people of the town gnawing at the fleshy calf muscles of the weak or sick. "I don't know if they're going to make us go in tomorrow. It's so snowy, you can't even drive on it. I guess it's about at two inches now. How much do you have?" I told her. "Oh my God," she said, "oh my God. Well, has it kept you from anything? Did they call off your work, or what happened?"

"I think they're pretty used to dealing with it up here," I said, "and if they called off work or school for every day where over five inches of snow fell, the town would have to shut down until about late March." She was quiet. "But that's just a conservative estimate, I guess. Maybe mid-April."

When I talked to Will D. later, he told me that the clinic he was rotating through in Rogersville had closed its doors at four in the afternoon to the great disgust of the patients needing care. "I guess it was just too snowy for us to say," he said, "and goddamn, there is nothing on the shelves at Wal-Mart right now, you should see this!"

I don't want to be one of those smarmy people that says "Guys, get it together, it's just snow!" but apparently I am, since I used that very phrase more than once tonight. I remember what it was like driving in Tennessee during snow days, and it was quite the harrowing experience, but as someone who's now schlepped to work in fresh powder, smacked a blizzard in it's snow-face at 3 in the morning, and dug my car out from under almost 3 feet (all within the same two-week span), I can't help but want to scoff a little (just a little). And do you want to know what I blame for my new smugness?

Snow tires.

The day I put snow tires on my car is the day I lost my snow-complaining privileges in the world at large. I don't even have the good, studded kind - I have the regular cross-your-fingers kind. But when you have them, you have them, and that's it. "God, can you believe it? I couldn't even see the road this morning, I saw three dead, frozen people." "You got your snows?" "Yeah." "Oh, well, you're fine then."

But I suppose if you live in a place where you need snow tires, you lose the privilege to complain about snow tires. Where does this end? When can I complain again?!

In fact, today I have to go to Wal-Mart in Williston, as my olive oil has gone rancid and I have five dollars left on a gift card for there; somehow find a new headlight for my car; and return some stuff to various stores on Church Street. I'd ask Jesus to take the wheel, but he sees that I have snow tires, so he says I'll be fine.

Hay, MMX, How U Doin?

First things first: two thousand ten. I don't care if you're bored by the end of saying it. And screw your linguistic continuity between "nineteen" and "twenty." Listen, if people cared so damn much, why didn't they cry about it in 2001? No one called it "twenty-aught-one" except for I will when I tell the youths of the future about the good old days when ye mee-maw was leaving cryptically-grafittoed pumpkins on the doorsteps of her poor, poor professors at Halloween-time. I digress, as I do love referring to my future self as ye mee-maw.

Back to the monologue at hand, I suppose everyone was still so proud of themselves over coming up with the very chic "Y2K" that they didn't even notice it turned into "Y2K+1" real fast. So, in Bear Country it's two thousand ten. Trust me; I'm a linguist.

Now that unpleasantness is out of the way, and I feel better.

Burlington found itself on the business end of the lake effect this past weekend. I think the final total was 33 inches, or as I now know it, "Dude, where's my car?" Rookie mistake: I left the snow on the car instead of being a good little worker ant and clearing it off. Thus, my car and I had a rough morning. Have no fear: I got the little snot running just in time to make it to work, where my first patient was crumpled up in a ball on the floor and my second looked like an unholy hybrid between Robert Goulet and John Waters. They do not cancel Monday on account of snow here.

I tell this story for a reason. In 2010, this bear is dead set on diversifying, and along with her, she's bringing the Country. Because all sitting around on your dump watching the snow fall gets you is a dead car. And even if at the end of the road, nothing is waiting for you but pain and a room that smells like 'Lectric Shave, you gotta get up and dust it off, man.

Among the more exciting stars to which Bear Country intends on hitching her wagon is the deadly charming Jack Will Travel, two self-described "knuckleheads from suburban New Jersey" who specialize in jetsetting on the cheap, outing the secrets thereof, and all-around fast-talkitude. What's not to love?

And then there's AppyLove, just a-shinin' away in a part of the country that I left not too long ago. What can I say? The girl can pull the homesick out of Kari like feeding the five thousand with two loaves and some fishes, and I was beyond honored when she asked me maybe just maybe to write a guest column for her blog. Not to mention to lay down some vocal tracks with their band Count This Penny. Am I a lucky punk? Yep, I sure am.

Of course, there will be more out of me as well - plenty of life lessons and rookie mistakes to go around, adventures in living below the poverty line in Vermont, being a diplomat of the South, grad student follies, ESLarity, cooking, cleaning, creating, and you stopped listening at the beginning of this paragraph didn't you? It's alright. Bear Country waits for no man.

And if you've been good (and I know you have been), maybe I'll tell you the story about the time we went to the Vermont Cat Fanciers Cat Show...

Dissociative Fugue.

I've been thinking about drawing a comic strip starring Jupiter. It would maybe help if I could draw or was witty. But, you know.



I got a letter from AMANDA! today, I'm waiting to read it until the codeine's gone.

Which should be around a quarter to seven.



I got galleried in some guys Flickr gallery for this picture:

The story of this picture is that it was taken at the Fox Theater when Austin and I went to Atlanta to go see the Smashing Pumpkins. We both had the same camera, and found that it was really amazing when you took a picture of some lights and then spun your camera around real crazy-like. Yeah, it's been done. But who cares? I like the picture.

Then I looked at the date that I took this....and it was in 2007.

Damn.

I was all set to cook like crazy this week, now that I'm feeling better, but grocery money became doctor money real frackin' fast.

I have, however, begun an earnest endeavor to make fingerless gloves that convert to mittens. Ambitious? Why, thank you.

Where The Wild Things Aren't.

taken at the Other Place, Burlington, VT.

I had this surly little post all done up in my head. Really. I've been socked in my antfarm apartment for the past five days with what's either a really, really nasty cold or the flu (which is a sad thing for me to admit, because in ten years of medical assisting, never have I ever once come down with the stinking flu). Thursday, in fact, when it started, I even scored a free movie pass from a patient who owns Essex Cinemas on the very opening weekend of Where the Wild Things Are, a movie that I genuinely was ready to wade through the Radiohead-and-Urban-Outfitters-had-sex-with-each-other crowd that was sure to be there. And NERRP. Could barely even make it up the stairs by the time I got home. Foiled.

Adding to my misery: No heat in the apartment until Monday, and it's getting cold here, folks.

Needless to say, I spent the next several days watching The Godfather trilogy on VHS (oh, did I not tell you? My TV won't connect to my DVD player) over and over and over again and have crazy fever dreams. Yes, I even watched Part III. No, I am not proud of this.

I swiped some tapes while I was at home. Babe. Rushmore. Standard fare. I would rather not talk about being at home at the moment, save to say that one doesn't watch The Godfather trilogy for four days solid and not learn a little something about family.

That, children, is not what this post is about. No, not by a long shot. I woke up this morning, and it was pretty much like last morning. Angry animal trying to claw its way out of my chest. Fever scorching damn something out of my body. Every step I took hurt even my hair. And I have a boatload to do for school. My dog might be getting sick. And all of a sudden, there's a knock at my door.

There was a package with a card taped to the front, from my homies at the old office. That's right. The place I used to work. And it was full, filled up, with stuff - Easy Mac, PopTarts, yarn!, gummi eyeballs, brain-shaped icecube trays, peanut-butter filled pretzels. And just this coincidence alone was enough to make me smile, but then....the heat came on.

Listen - I have mulled over this "family" nuisance since things fell apart. But from Celena sending me that care package without thinking twice; to Will getting takeout for me from a thousand miles away while I'm in the throes of something fierce; to Amanda and Allen who let me share their stage and continue to enchant me with all they're doing; to the unlikely posse at the OP who send me drunk text messages to casually let me know that they miss a lady being around and causing trouble; to Aaron whose worrying almost matches my own; always to my other-half, my brother; and to my mother, who, while she vexes me to no end with her strange assertions and needless alarmism, actually gives a damn about what the hell I'm doing with myself up here. I have a wonderful family. I have an amazing, wonderful, family.

And yeah, New England in the autumn? They weren't lying to you. It is divine. I said to Thomas one evening a few weeks ago as we sat outside on the corner of Pearl and N. Winooski that I was worried the good weather was coming to an end, and that I felt I should soak up the goodness before the inevitable iron curtain descends. "Nah," he said, flipping his cigarette dismissively. "There's a lot more than this. A lot more ahead."

Sincerest apologies for the sick-rant. Bear Country will return with lasers set on stunning sometime next week.

Why Am I Such A Mis...fit?

image via popvssoda.com

There's a girl in the program I'm in from Japan. She has been in America for about a year, but never south of Philadelphia. The other day, she asked me: "What's the difference between the South and the North?" I wracked my brain for about thirty seconds before I decided it wasn't worth the time and effort, but something bugged me about that question, as it has bugged thousands upon thousands of people before me. What is it that perpetuates this relationship, where we just cannot seem to stop being irritated by one another? It's like two kids sitting in the backseat of a car on a long trip. "He's looking at me." "He touched me first."

Here's something that's insanely hard for me to stomach: the nasal northern /a/ (also written as ä).

Before anyone says anything: I know. Okay? I know. The southern version is probably just as grating to listen to. The southern guttural /a/ tends to sound like someone trying to induce vomiting. And I've gotten flak more than a few times for my "accent," which fifty per cent of the time, people say isn't that bad anyway (I think when people find out I'm from Tennessee, they start wanting to hear the accent more than anything - or maybe I'm kidding myself here). But, seriously. Here is a real and true conversation I heard out at a store the other day:

WOMAN 1: Oh, look at these! You know, my mother-in-law likes cardinals!

WOMAN 2: What?

W1: My mother-in-law likes cardinals!

W2: Oh, cards?

W1: What?

W2: Did you say 'cards' or 'cardinals'?

W1: Cardinals

W2: Well, you could get her some cards with cardinals on them!

You can hear it in your head, can't you? Let's take a look at this for a minute, from a phonologic standpoint. Do you see how many times they used that damn sound within that little bit of conversation? Let me help you out:

WOMAN 1: Oh, look at these! You know, my mother-in-law likes cardinals!
WOMAN 2: What?
W1: My mother-in-law likes cardinals!
W2: Oh, cards?
W1: What?
W2: Did you say 'cards' or 'cardinals'?
W1: Cardinals
W2: Well, why don't you get your mother-in-law some cards with cardinals on them!

Thirteen times. I didn't think I'd have a hard time with accents up here - in fact, I really didn't expect there to be too much of one. People in Vermont, especially in Burlington, are from all over the place - New York, Boston, Canada - not to mention that I've spent a good deal of time with you guys from the Midwest, with your "come with"s and your "soda"s, and it never really bothered me. But now, I don't know if it's because I can't get out or what, but Jesus.

I've even heard my accent change slightly, especially in words like "talk" or "walk." Even my /a/ is moving slightly north of the Mason-Dixon line. Not my /aɪ/s though. Those - like most of my diphthongs - are still, thankfully, Southern. Most people here think it's cute anyway. In a town full of people from all over the world, they think the Southern accent is cute.

Maybe one day I'll be able to talk about this stuff with some sort of sociolinguistic knowledge, but until then I'll just go ahead and put my hand in a coffee grinder.

I'm a Butthead.

So I was a total butthead and didn't get my piece to the Halloween show on time. I feel like a jerk. Sorry, Bran.

If it makes him feel better, I haven't had time to do anything lately. Between new job, school, changes in the schedule, stupid professors, and Jupiter getting sick for those couple of days...I just don't know.

My brain hurts. My neck hurts.

My computer's still not back from when Best Buy kidnapped it. I'm thinking of calling the police.

Here's something more than a little distressing: PUMPKIN SHORTAGE. Is this just canned pumpkin or what, people? Because pretty soon, I am going to be craving some turkey-pumpkin chili. I must have the gourd.

I'm going to do a series of x-posts from the old LJ account, just so I can have a continuum. But right now...I'm going to go home and make a big pot of potato soup.

Oh my, things have been busy.

I'm switching my garb from LiveJournal to this thing. LiveJournal is dead to me. Dead.

Water, water everywhere - and those damn boards did shrink...

Hm.

I was going to make this big post about the stuff I'm working on for the PoMoNoBo Halloween Art Show, and about school and the first week and all that stuff....but then I started listening to Iris DeMent, and now I just want to throw up and die.

An arm's just an arm 'til it's wrapped 'round a shoulder
Boots side-by-side, they go stepping out together;
A note's just a note 'til you wake from your slumber,
And dare to discover the new melody.

Oh, sweet is the melody so hard to come by;
It's so hard to make every note run just right.
You lay down the hours, and leave not one trace,
But a tune for the dancing is there in its place.

G-Damn It.

When It Goes Away.

The day I left Tennessee, Knoxville proved to be a place that should immediately be nuked and started from scratch. I haven't heard too many good things from there lately, and my optimism that the people I love who still live there can pull out of the mire they've created is starting to wane, and quickly.

I spent the evening yesterday sharing a beer with a raging ketamine addict. Before you judge the wisdom of such an action, as I have already judged it thoroughly myself, it was pretty funny. Kind of like a Dostoevsky novel.

Other things, other things. I had my first ever trip to a laundromat. It was not very exciting. The leafy-green spendin money dwindles and dwindles. I may get a job at Williams-Sonoma, which will complete my whiteness. I no longer have a garden. Jupiter is not happy here, and the jury's still out with me. Although I will say that the loneliness I feel - the loneliness that I have - is forcing me into a more than a few intensely introspective moments, in which I have to wonder: what am I doing here? Why am I talking to this ketamine addict? And why, in the wake of my departure, and in all my teary goodbyes and my wonderful friends whom I miss deeply, do I feel rendered so unlovable myself?

Tomatoes aren't even in up here yet. Some guy down the street has a bucket of romas growing, and they're not even pink. Hard little green knots still. It is a culture shock.

My birthday is Wednesday.

Mehitabel Moves Out.

Hey Laaadiiiess,
originally uploaded by The Rat Bat.

This is Mehitabel. She was the first pet of my own that I got when I moved out of the dorms and into my first apartment. When we got her, she had half a tail and a gimp foot from where it had gotten strangulated by un-shed skin.

The foot and the tail both grew back, and today, she got a new home.

Goodbye and Godspeed, you salty old wench, you.

Trick S'mores.

I watched "Cook Yourself Thin" on LifeTime a couple of times, and have been thinking up tricky ways to get people to eat healthier! Here's a quick recipe for those smart-ass kids that are always wanting S'mores! Shut up, kids, it's time for you to learn a lesson in NUTRITION!

I call these F'MORES! because they're Fake s'MORES, and when you give one to those mewling little brat kids, not one of them will ever ask you F'MORE!

1) Get a Wasa whole-grain flatbread. There is fiber!
2) Put on the "chocolate"! (tricky secret #1: it's BEANS!)
3) Add the "marshmallow"! (tricky secret #2: it's CHEESE!!!!!!!!)
4) Put that shit in the microwave, smash it all together, and ENJOY A F'MORE!


Alright, you got me. I'm poor, I had leftover beans and a whole lot of nothing else in the cupboards. I made some quick refried beans and did this up for a quick and sad little lunch one day.

Wasa flatbreads, though, I need to sing the praises of for a moment - they're relatively cheap, they've got bookoo good nutrition in them, and they are tasty with so, so many delicious things. Hummus, yes. I made BLT Wasa with turkey bacon and homegrown German Queens hijacked from my parents garden - so good. A little tomato sauce, cheese and toppings = quick pizza.

Truly, the Wasa flatbread is my new pep-pep.

Apartmented.

Pearl Street at Dusk in the Snow,
originally uploaded by found_drama.

I am the proud tenant of 9 Greene, one of the more bizarre apartments I have ever seen. There's a grett big kitchen, tiny l'il ol' living room...but the party...the real party...is in the loft.

Oh, you'll just have to see it.

And Jupiter will definitely have to start doing drills to be able to hoof it up them stairs. Or if not, maybe we can rig up some sort of dumbwaiter-type thing.

Now all this is starting to come together.

So if you're perusing blogs in the blog-o-sphere, and you happen upon this blog, consider it a message in a bottle! The Rat Bat is coming to Vermont, and would love love LOVE to meet you!

Press On Me, We Are Restless Things.

I am in the midst of a cooking frenzy.

Having got rid of the kitten what was boarding in my spare room yesterday (Jenna named it Odell), I find myself bored. It's amazing the gap a tiny little kitten can leave in your life when it's gone. Now what will I have to tend to?!
I'll tell you - oat bread.

I already fucked up a pan of granola bars, because if you know me, you know I hate burnt stuff with a passion. The bottoms of these are burnt. Harumph harumph harumph. I might still eat them, purely out of pride. Next up to fuck up - oat bread. Wish me luck.
On the docket for dinner, in honor of Will's giving his life away to surgery rotation tomorrow - long-life udon noodles (with chicken, not tofu - sue me). I don't have sesame oil, but I really want to try out this recipe, and I have a ginger root I need to put to use. If I like it, I'll post the recipe. If I don't, pretend you never saw this.

Movie Lineup for tonight: United 93. Don't think about it too much, it's a little sick.

All the while, I should be 1) cleaning my house, 2) finishing my Peace Corps application, 3) finishing Joe Rice's packet to mail, 4) updating the Etsy site (yes, these are all important), 5) mailing my now delinquent electric bill, 6) LOOKING FOR DAMN PLACE TO LIVE in Vermont!....the list goes on and on.

My smug sense of superiority has really gotten out of control in the past few days since I found out my ex-fiance crapped his pants while they were on tour with the band, then told my sister "I guess I should call her." Don't do me any favors, deuce-dropper. Run away, and complete the transition to being your maladapted and delusional father. The deep-pocketed Squeeka will be there to save you! And, if not, I'm sure you'll figure out a stupid way to save yourself , and hopefully that way will not involve leaving a gob in your gabardines again. Take care, moran. Gahhhh.

(But still, it's a strange gap that such a small thing can make in your life.)

On a Roll.

Well, I've been a busy little bat the past few weeks.


First and foremost, I'm moving to Vermont. Yes, this is true facts. I got accepted to the Applied Lingustics program at St. Michael's College. So I'm looking for places to live in the Burlington area that will take me and my dog in AND that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and the other leg (other arm deposit). I want to live in Winooski, as it is dirtier and much less intimidating than Burlington (i.e., I feel like I could eat a PopTart in the light of day and not be put to a slow, hard death for eating non-local).



OR MAYBE...it won't just be me and my dog....

BUM BUM BUMMMMM

This kitten has been staying with me for the past couple of days, giving my guest room worms and ear mites. It has its first doctor's appointment today. It is very tiny. All these things are true. ALSO, it doesn't have a name, which I've stopped telling people, because of the multiple onslaughts of stupid cat names. "Name it Butterbean." "Name it Electro-Cat." "Name it Peaches 'n Cream."

NO.

All this work has made me tired. Tired, tired, tired. I want a new project. I've been crocheting market bags in anticipation of going to the farmer's market every week to get my groceries (another way Burlington is trying to make me feel like a yokel), but that's not really curbing my project urge. I think I'm going to try crazy quilting. I've amassed quite a bit of scrap fabric, and it couldn't possibly hurt to try, even though I am shit at sewing and even worse at being patient. Maybe it'll make me better at both!

What a precious thought.

Mostly I've been cooking, trying out recipes. I'll have to post some of the successful ones here. One day.