The 2007 list may be found here.

This entry is post-dated, so it will always show up as my first entry. If you are reading my journal directly, rather then through a friends list, you'll need to scroll down past this entry to see if I've written anything new.

Books marked with an asterik (*) are re-reads.
I re-read books a lot, usually when I'm completely ass out of material to read.

( Gonna learn me a book. )

I miss photography and thus, I've decided to start trying to take at least one photo of something every day.

( camera phones are the devil )

Washing dishes in the bathroom sink is far more difficult than I ever could have imagined.

See, Sunday afternoon my kitchen sink decided to up and shit the bed. The Engineer had just finished washing dishes from my having made pancakes earlier for lunch. I was sitting in the living room, smoking a cigarette and rubbing the belly of my marmalade cat.

"Where's all this water coming from on the floor?" He said.

"Water? Is it bad?"

"Yeah."

I went out into the kitchen and discovered that yes, there is indeed a great quantity of water coming out from under my cabinets and slinking across the floor, much in the manner of the 50s version of the Blob. Only clear. And not, ummm, flesh-eating.

Opening the cabinets showed us that everything underneath had been sprayed with water. Further investigation proved that the connector which attaches the U-bend pipe to the actual drain seems to have fucked off. That's where the water was coming from.

Fuck, says I. I called the apartment building's answering service and put in a plaintive call for our maintenance man to respond, post haste. He calls back several hours later to tell me he will be out Monday afternoon.

Ok. So, Monday morning I load the cats into my bedroom with their food, water, and a litter box. It's not that we're not allowed to have pets, mind you. It's that a few years ago, our former maintenance man had been installing a new air conditioning unit in the living room and left the window wide open for God knows how long. One of our cats, Misty (the one with the hyperthyroid who died last year), got out and was returned a couple hours later. Because of this, I'm paranoid of the combination of maintenance on our apartment and the cats. The cats are quite unhappy about this turn of events, but I turn the air on for them and go to work with dreams of a fully functional kitchen sink dancing in my head.

All day long, I'm snarly about the sink (and about an audit at work which is going to begin on Tuesday morning, but I can't discuss that) and hoping that when I get home, everything will all be well.

Arrival home is uneventful. And by uneventful, I actually mean that one of the cats has successfully pulled a throw rug under my bedroom door and blocked the opening of said door. And the sink hasn't been fixed. It doesn't even look like anyone has been in the apartment, other than my brother. And the only evidence of his existence was junk mail sitting on the kitchen table which was not there this morning.

I called the office again, left another message for the maintenance man. That was at eight-thirty. Now it's eleven-thirty and he hasn't called. I somehow suspect I am going to be woken up at stupid o'clock in the morning either by him calling or him ringing the door bell. Neither of which are going to do wonders for my already oh-so-cheery morning demeanour.

So now I'm sitting at the computer, smoking cigarettes and drinking the last of my diet grapefruit soda when I should be cutting my bangs and getting ready for bed.

Irritation abounds.

Aristotle ate last night.

Not one mouse, but TWO.

This is indeed one of our brightest days.

/cheer!

He still won't take the prey unless I do the Dance of a Thousand Dead Mousies for him, which is getting old because I'd like to just toss the food in there and then go chase shiny things for the rest of the night. The Engineer's snakes all eat with no problem (well, one of them gets stuck in a box for the event and he is PISSED about the entire state of affairs). Why can't mine?

Unfair.

In other snake-related news, this has been killing me all day:

Dear Young Master Aristotle:

If you do not stop sulking and refusing to eat every time you miss your first strike at the prey I am dangling before you, I am going to turn you into a belt.

Love,
tara

P.S.
Lying on the prey afterwards does not constitute eating it, you know. And it's just downright insulting, to boot.

Late to the party, but I've been busy. I don't normally do memes, but this one is about books and I am a complete book junkie. That being said, I have severe issues with some of the books on this list being known as "the top 100 books". Specifically, the Harry Potter books. I love them and all, but top 100? Please.

I can comfort myself in the notion that Anne Rice is nowhere near this list, at least. Or Heinlein. ick.

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on their list. So let's see how many I've read.

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read (or read again)
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

Now, behind a cut:

( ok, you fuckers. It's ON. )

Despite many, many, MANY possible and disasterous derails, camping this past weekend went smashingly.

It rained on Friday night, quite hard, but it magically stopped the second we pulled up to the camp site. I ran off the road at one point and almost whaled a tree, because my night vision does not combine well with rain, badly defogged windshields, no street lights to be found, and general car-tension. The Engineer yelled at me. I had it coming.

Miss Ella and Tony Smash are two of the best camping partners I've ever had, forgetting propane tanks and bringing the wrong tent notwithstanding. Seriously. Even the bad parts go smoothly with them. Also, sitting around the fire and laughing until I literally can not breathe is one of the best things in this world.

I went swimming in Lake Absegami, which I had to be forcibly removed from. I made friends with every daddy long-legger that came across my path, even the one who was on the toliet seat every single time I went into the bathroom. I saw a billion stars over my head and got dizzy trying to watch them. I was a shark. I was a Viper pilot shooting down Cylons. I found a purple bucket. I ate terrible ice cream and wonderful camp fire-cooked steak (done way past my liking, but still freaking bangin'). I lost a purple bucket. I wondered where all the hot dogs went, in song. I threw things at Tony. I chased the shade all afternoon. I worried about losing my muffler completely on the road, just casting it off like unwanted chaff. And I got a sun burn on one arm from standing on the side of the road.

When I came home, when I was finally able to actually sit down and rest after unloading the car, I gave Tinker the biggest hug ever because I missed him so much all weekend. He purred and headbutted me for half an hour because he is my friend. Then I passed out face down on the couch while attempting to watch Les Stroud go off the grid. Watching television face down generally doesn't work out much in my world, so I am unsure as to why I thought it would this time go round. I never learn.

Waking up at four in the morning, stiff with couch-sleep and one of the cats sleeping on my back, I staggered deliriously into the kitchen and smelled the left-over bag of marshmallows. They just don't smell the same at home as they do when camping. It's disheartening.

There's so much laundry to do, it's frightening. But, I'm not inclined to even touch the pile (but for moving it from my bed to the floor, then back to the bed again) for at least three more days while I recover.

When do we get to do this again?

The muffin joke is apparently SRS BUSINESS.

PEE ESS:
Deux pains se reposent dans un four. Est-ce que premier pain vers le deuxième pain et, il se tourne dit "Est moi, ou ilfait- il obtention chaud dedans ici?" Le deuxième pain regarde le premier pain et indique, "Merde foutue sainte! Un pain parlant!"

OH, AND ALSO:
I'll have what I'm having.

I totally just had to write an email to El Presidente of ORGANIZATION X and inform him that if he does not get DOCUMENT X to me by Thursday, he can not continue working at ORGANIZATION X until he does. Not only that, but I also told him that in the event an employee of ORGANIZATION X does not have DOCUMENT X, their employer (meaning, him- the owner of said organization) may be subject to repurcussions of a judgey-type nature.

I LOVE HUMAN RESOURCES.

My business-letter writing skills are where it's fucking at, yo. Tail up.

Hilarity. Let's see how well this one blows through.

Why, OH WHY, did I just do an image search for grillz?

Also, while we are on the subject, am I now indeed contemplating buying a set of said grillz?



Omg. Ten dollars! This is a bargain! Sign me up!

Also: Care Instructions: You should rinse the grillz in cold soapy water after each use. Store grillz in the box provided. Do not use solvents to clean. Do not place grillz in boiling water. For hygiene purposes, do not share your grillz.

This website is a cornicopia of hee. STRAIGHT BALLIN' ON A BUDGET, YA'LL.

**edit**

Umm.
I changed my mind about the hee-ness because I clicked on something called "Balla Powder".

Balla Powder Is A Mens Line Of Talcum Powder That Is Guaranteed To Leave Your Boyz Feeling Dry And Comfortable. Balla Powder Will Make Clammy Sacks A Thing Of The Past And Will Put Batwings On The Endangered Species List. Intended For Use In The Nether Regions, But Can Be Used Anywhere Where Dryness, A Great Fragrance, Or A Little Tingle Is Desired: Your Boys, Underarms, Feet, Buttocks. Baby Powder Is For Babies. Balla Powder Is For Men.

D:

It's amazing to me how much I've changed over the years.

A moment ago, I noticed a WIDE OPEN OPPORTUNITY in a particular person's journal (who I dislike most heartily) to take a potshot at them. Not just any potshot, but an anonymous one. Anonymous without IP tracking, at that.

Anonymous without IP tracking? Mighty fuck! It's like a goddamn golden ticket to Laughmyassoffville. Get the pleasure of sharking a dig at someone, without all the resulting drama? SIGN ME UP.

I had gone as far as to click on the "leave a comment" link when the cliche little angel and devil Taras popped up on my shoulders, the wee fuckers.

Angel: And what is this going to serve?

Devil: Do it.

Angel: Don't you have enough things to occupy your time with?

Devil: Do it. Do it now!

Angel: Maybe you should just go read one of your books instead. You have lots of books to read. Isn't this kind of childish, anyway? I mean, anonymous comments on the internet.

Devil: Do it!

Angel: You're better than that.

Devil: Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!

Angel: What is that sound? Is the cat throwing up on your bed again? Maybe you should check that out. Or how about playing a few rounds on Urban Dead? You love Urban Dead.

Devil: YOUFUCKINGWUSSDOITDOITDOITDOITGODDAMNCOWARDYOUKNOWYOUWANTTO!!!11! WHOLEAVESTHEIRACCOUNTOPENTOTOTALLYANONYMOUSCOMMENTSANYWAY?! THEYREASKINGFORITDOITDOITDOIT!!!

---

And? I didn't do it.

It's either growing up or going soft, I don't rightly know.

The angel is currently pattering around, looking smug and self-righteous. And the devil? Well, she's bathing in a tub full of gin.

OMFG.

Why didn't anyone send me the memo about how awesome Gogol Bordello is?

Seriously.

OH HAI U GUIZ!!!1!

GRADES ARE IN!

GUESS WHO TOTALLY GOT A'S IN ALL HER CLASSES THIS SEMESTER? EVEN THAT SHITTY SOCIAL WORK PROCESSES CLASS WHERE A GROUP PROJECT NEEDED TO BE DONE AND THREE OUT OF SIX GROUP MEMBERS ONLY DID ALL OF THE WORK??


p.s.
I totally only need 9 more credits to enroll in the funeral services program at Mercer. Of course, finishing out this first degree is 27 more credits.

I wanted to change my name to Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow Meow, but unfortunately- someone beat me to it.

That, and apparently it's a boy's name.

hrmph.

I lament the loss of the grand mixed tape making of my youth. CD mixes just don't cut it, in my opinion.

Making playlists in iTunes, while still only a pale imitation, fulfills my need to catagorize songs according to my whim and internal attachments. Until tonight, I really only had two playlists. One was called, I Am Made of Awesome (for times when I am indeed feeling made of awesome) and the other is The Saddest Sound You've Ever Heard (which is obviously a collection of some seriously sad fucking songs.

Tonight I made one I called Frailty, Thy Name is Woman and it is dedicated to my prior romantic entanglements. I was originally going to put them into some sembelance of chronological order, but my brain started swimming at the idea and I scrapped the notion. Some songs are on here because said prior romantic entanglement put them on a mix to me (like the Sisters of Mercy and Weezer, those two particular tracks are not what I'd call omens of a healthy relationship), others I either sent to them or attached to them myself for various reasons.

Ava Adore, Smashing Pumpkins
O Superman, Laurie Anderson
This Is How I Disappear, My Chemical Romance
Who Are You?, Tom Waits
Pet Sematary, The Ramones
I'm Free Now, Morphine
Ex Lover's Lover, Voltaire
Song About An Angel, Sunny Day Real Estate
From Here On Out, Rise Cecilia
Disintegration, The Cure
La La Love You, The Pixies
Possession, Sarah McLachlan
You Are The Everything, REM
If Only, Information Society
When I Disappear, stellastarr*
Straight To You, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Last Day of Our Acquaintance, Sinead O'Connor
Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying, Belle and Sebastian
Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart, Nick Cave
Gorecki, Lamb
Troy, Sinead O'Connor
Wish You Were Here, Rasputina
Paris and Rome, The Cranes
Mechanical Animals, Marilyn Manson
Little 15, Depeche Mode
Hey Jealousy, Gin Blossoms (this song never fails to make me start snickering)
Things About You, Radiohead
The Last Beat of My Heart, Siouxsie and the Banshees
Halah, Mazzy Star
Do You Take This Man?, Diamanda Galas
Reptile, The Church
I've Been Loving You Too Long, Otis Redding
When You Don't See Me, Sisters of Mercy
This Love, Pantera
No One Else, Weezer
A Letter to Elise, The Cure
Stars, Hum

The third person we hired for the HR department three weeks ago submitted her resignation (by email, yesterday) and slid her keys under my door for me to trip over this morning.

Oh, great.

Thus, starts a whole new round of recruitment.

I am so not looking forward to this.

And the oh-so-glorious three-day-weekend did nothing but make me resistant to coming in today. But, I knew if I called out, there would be a mighty avalanche of bullshit. Because that's just how we roll here. Lo and behold, I come into work to this resignation nonsense. See?

Maybe I'll leave early today.

Why can't I be independantly wealthy and live my life as a lady of leisure? That would be awesome. I would eat hot and sour soup and play video games every day, then go to class at night. MADE OF AWESOME.

I get the hot and sour soup today, but no video games. And no leisure. What I get is a big bucket of bitchflakes and a TMJ headache from clenching my jaw all night as I slept.

I made a creme caramel this weekend, for eating after dinner on Sunday.

And the Engineer, otherwise known as He Who Loves All Things Sweet, did not like it. He put a big spoon of it into his mouth and then froze in horror, making the most hilarious awful face.

He said it tasted of bacon.

Bacon?!

That, and the texture reminded him of fat.

hurgle.

While I love me some bacon and fat, those two things do not belong in the same sentence as a cream and vanilla-based dessert.

His description of it made me a bit green around the gills, so I couldn't even eat it at that point (I'm very impressionable), so I wound up throwing it out.

Goodbye, creme caramel. I hardly knew you.

*tear*

DIARY OF THE DEAD! DIARY OF THE DEAD! DIARY OF THE DEAD!

:D

Also, the Engineer and I watched Frontier(s) Sunday night and OMFG YA'LL. FRENCH HORROR MOVIES FOR THE ULTIMATE WIN.

A specific scene in it, which seemed to go on for forever and a day, totally gave me a panic attack. I had to get up and walk around the apartment, flapping my hands, to shake it off. That's only happened once before, when I watched The Descent.

Seriously.

The Mall Ninjas story reminds so much of one of wemble's former boyfriends, that it's a bit uncanny.

That guy was such a frigging douche. For serious.

I am now going to tell a story that Wemble absolutely hates because it is made of all things hilarious shows how trusting she used to be of people (before I beat it out of her).

Please keep in mind that the pair of us were only 18 years old during this story. And before anyone throws any rocks, remember yourself at 18. Like, REALLY remember. You all know you did and said and believed some MASSIVELY dumb shit.

---

I remember one night, we were having a party in my apartment and he was there. I was tripping face, which seemed to have been my normal state of existence during that part of my life. Wemble's ex came into the apartment all huffy-lunged and red in the face, demanding a pot of water be put on the stove so he could boil his knife.

Why, you ask?

Because he had been walking through the projects and saw four Neo-Nazi skinheads beating down a black guy and had jumped in to save the dude. He said he stabbed three of the skins and chased the other away. Afterwards, the black guy offered him a complimentary handjob shook his hand for being such a standup guy or whatever.

So, here I am in my bedroom with Wemble. Tripping quite heavily. And I say to her, "Wemble. Your man out there says he stabbed four skinheads in defense of some guy in the projects. And now he's boiling a knife in my kitchen."

"Yes." She says, bless her heart.

This wasn't sitting right with me. "Wemble," I said. "I'm not sure you quite understand. Your boyfriend says he stabbed four skins whilst in a fight in the projects."

"Yes, that's what he said."

hrrm. Still not sitting cool. But, I sat there in silence for a minute. Was she drunk? Had she been hitting my acid stash? This was in my pre-internet lingo days, but still: WTF, yo? Maybe I'm just not explaining it correctly.

"Wemble. Your boyfriend? John? He says he STABBED four skinheads. With a KNIFE. In the PROJECTS. The knife? It's now in my KITCHEN. On the stove in a pot. Because he said he had to BOIL it. FOR REASONS OF A FORENSIC NATURE." All of this was said with accompanying hand motions. I even performed a sieg heil when I said "skinheads".

Her response? "Well, yeah."

That's when I got up and left the room.

She's actually an incrediby smart girl, I swear. Just a little...wifty sometimes. That being said, I can out-wift her any day of the freaking week. So, it's not like I'm living in a glass house and throwing rocks at anybody. For every hurrr...Wemble story I have, there's probably ten about me.

So there.

She's my girl and I loves her.

<3





How did this go from OMFG MALL NINJAS to OMFG I LOVE MY BEST FRIEND?

Saturday night's Cure show was nothing short of mindblowing and absolutely hksjdhkljglag. I hurt from dancing. I hurt from grinning like a maniac.

heh.

14th row-floor tickets, yo. OH EMM GEE EXCLAMATION POINTS

Set-list for those who care:

Open
Fascination Street
A Strange Day
alt.end
The Walk
End of the World
Lovesong
Kyoto Song
Pictures of You
Lullaby
Maybe Someday
The Perfect Boy
From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea <--- omfg!
The Only One
Push
How Beautiful You Are
Inbetween Days
Just Like Heaven
Primary
Never Enough
Wrong Number
One Hundred Years
End

1st encore:
If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
The Kiss

2nd encore:
Freakshow
Close To Me
Why Can't I Be You?

3rd encore:
Three Imaginary Boys
Fire In Cairo
Boys Don't Cry
Jumping Someone Else's Train
Grinding Halt
10:15 Saturday Night
Killing An Arab.

I am maintaining that the reason why they did not play Disintergration is because Robert Smith heard me talking a load of shit on Wild Mood Swings, which is most likely the shittiest album ever recorded and I refuse to acknowledge its existence as part of their discography. hrmph.

1 18 page final Western Civ II exam = finished (not for lack of the fates fucking with me, I lost almost half the exam yesterday when I rondo-fingered the computer and did not save the document when I closed it)

1 12 page paper on why abstinence-only education doesn't work for Social Problems = finished (and I am heartily sick of the phrase "abstinence-only education")

1 Power Point presentation for Social Work Processes class = finished (despite not getting the completed outline from the rest of my group until after five o'clock today AND not having Power Point on my computer)

Next? A 12 page paper on Polyamory for my Sociology of the Family class. I've got my outline typed and my references formatted, but I'm so bleary-eyed right now, I can't think straight enough to do any work on it. Which is wonderful because I have a late class tomorrow night and Tuesday night is a concert. I will get this shit done.

Also, have been carrying around an anxious knot in my stomach for two weeks. Work? School? I can't identify it, but I keep telling it to STFD and leave me alone.

Something's in the air.

The other day, I was heading outside for a cigarette with one of my co-workers and I paused at the copy machine to look at something that had come off the printer. I had turned around to walk away when my co-worker, Gloria, teased me impatiently for holding her up and, out of nowhere, said:

Come on, Matilda.

And it froze me in my tracks.

My mother used to call me Matilda; it was a pet name. When I was wee, I had this little, hand-me-down plastic giraffe toy that I called Matilda from some Playskool zoo or jungle set. And I took her everywhere I went for years. I don't know if the giraffe came first or the pet name, but no matter where the name came from- that's what my mother called me.

She would stand and brush my hair at the kitchen table in the morning, and sing to me.

One of my earliest memories is of that. The autumn sun spilling through the curtains, the hard bristles of the brush running rhythmic against my scalp, the dark and spicy scent of my mother's favorite perfume, and her voice.

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me?"

I stood stock still there and stared at Gloria for a minute, until she gave me a funny look and said, "What?!"

I told her the story I just related to you and it made her brain blink. She didn't even know why she called me that, she said. She'd never called me anything like that ever before, never called me anything by my given name. It had just popped in her head and came out of her mouth before she even realized she was saying anything.

Mother's day is coming up.
Strangeness is afoot.

I miss my mother so fucking much.

Her absence has become so commonplace, so business-as-usual to me that it almost bowls me over when I suddenly remember and that wave of loss comes roaring back again. It washes over my face and I taste the sting of the ocean on my lips, the wave that knocked me down after I threw my arm in a wide arc and scattered her ashes into the sea.

I wish I could find that giraffe.
I miss her, too.

DEAR INTERNETS:

Tonight, I kicked the shit out of my World Lit final.

Dang, seriously. I made it my little bitch.

Especially with the essay I wrote comparing and contrasting the relationships of Shakespeare's Hamlet/Ophelia, Marie de France's Bisclavret/his wife, Anne Bradstreet/her husband, and Beowulf's Grendel/Grendel's mother. Then I discussed what these four relationships said about the nature of love.

It was entitled: Douchebaggery, Thy Name is Hamlet.

I love this class and am very sad that my last night of it is next week. Except for how I had to sit through five different students tonight attempting to read Sonnet 130 (My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun...) for twenty-five points of extra credit.

That was pretty painful, yo.

This class seriously kind of maybe makes me contemplate going into literature as a some kind of major and eventual profession. But, I am not quite that much of a maschochist.

Oh, what manner of nonsense is that?

Yo ho, yo ho, it's a mortician's life for me!

Love,
~tara

P.S.
The Engineer totally talked about masturbation and ball-shaving tonight to the Masons. It slayed me.

For real-real, not for play-play.

This shit is bananas. 18 page exam, all essays. Can't go over 18 pages. Double-spaced. 12 point Times New Roman. One inch margins. How the hell is this supposed to happen when it asks questions like, "Explain the causes of World War I?" Stupidity. My brain is fried. And I'm only just starting section 6 (there's 9).

Also, my Tuesday/Wednesday professor did not show up for class on Tuesday/Wednesday. What gives? I waited around for an hour both times (because I am a kiss-ass) and...nothing. Called the office: no cancellations.

It's kind of worrisome because this not her normal mode of behavior. That, and we have FINALS next week (and papers due, which I haven't even started yet because I suck) and there hasn't been a review. They were supposed to be tonight/last night.

I also have my World Lit final tomorrow and I'm shitting bricks over it. AND a group presentation on Monday for Social Work Processes.

...gah.

Has anyone ever heard of The Playing Fields?

Holy Mary, Mother of Mice. This is a goddamn good band. Like, for reals.

I had received a friend request on MySpace from some DJ in London and when I went to check out their profile, Hello, New World was playing. Sweet Jesus. I immediately searched them out and downloaded their entire album, after only hearing that one song and now I've been listening to them over and over for the past couple of hours while I work on my Western Civ II exam.

She thinks of her father as a train wreck,
Riding his rollercoaster towards death, and
They speak in a twist of languages,
Speed winding in her stomach round
All the bends.

(& all you'll ever see is you looking back at me.
& all you'll ever see is you looking back at me.)

It puts this knot in my stomach that I can not explain.

Well.

Actually, how I feel about that bit of lyric can be explained. Particularly if you know anything about my father. But, I mean the music as a whole.

Yeah.

I'll quit while I'm ahead. Go listen to them. Now.

**edit**
A description, if you please:

"The band’s sound is... what might happen if Lou Reed and H. P. Lovecraft met in a pub one dark and gloomy night and decided to form a band. Some of the most hauntingly-poetic lyrics ever to grace a debut - or for that matter, platinum - album." (Music4M)

I went to Best Buy today with the Engineer and picked up a fistful of movies.

If anyone wants to know how the remake of Day of the Dead is? Don't bother. I should have known better because everything I'd read said it was abysmal, but I still bought it with starry-eyed aspirations. Blergh. You would have thought Resident Evil II and Night of the Living Dead 3D would have taught me a particular lesson.

I also picked up Cloverfield, because I haven't seen that yet and I don't care what anyone says about it. It's giant monsters destroying NYC. Sign me up.

And I got Secretary because I'd always wanted to own it.

And!

I got the 20th Anniversary of Shark Week collection. hee. It's like twenty different episodes from Shark Week. Like Air Jaws and Prehistoric Sharks. And I am stoked.

Now it can be Shark Week every week! Shark Week every day!

I made bread again today.

I'm more than a little impatient and far too involved in the Veruca Salt mentality of "I WANT IT NOW!"; how very American of me, yeah? So, this recipe linked above is a good one. No kneading, 45 minute rise. Extremely dense and heavy bread, but that's ok. I like it like that.

Who am I kidding? I'd like bread if it were covered in spiders. Clown spiders.

Or spider clowns. Dude, it's bread. It's like bacon. Or how guys tend to think of blowjobs. Even when it's bad, it's fucking awesome.

Except turkey bacon, that shit is disgusting.

And I had a bizarre moment of omgimadethis when I was sitting on the couch eating it and watching a zombie movie. I totally took four ingredients and made them into a substance.

It's not like normal cooking, I think. Normal cooking is something else entirely; you're taking foodstuffs that already exist and combining them. Making bread is more...primal. I know that's an incredibly nerdy statement, but it's true. At its most basic, it is flour and sugar and salt and yeast. That's it.

The only thing I could compare it to is when a sculptor takes a mound of clay and turns it into a running horse or a bust of a man or a giant president.

Now I'm nerdy AND pretentious. Fantastic!

Next time, I reckon I'll put kalamata olives in it.

It has been suggested on more than one occasion in the past few months that I may have some difficulty with "letting things go".

Confused? Probably not, if'n you know me, but I'll explain further anyway.

I'm more than a touch morbid in that I seem to have an undeniable attraction to dead things. Wee animals in jars, animal skulls, human cremains. It all holds a strange fascination to me, to the point where I actively collect these things.

I've also started talking about preservation methods for my pets. Out of the animals from my household who have died in the past four years, I have more of them in my freezer (and the Engineer's freezer) than I do in the ground or cremation boxes. I've talked about preserving some of them in fluid, in clear jars, for display (and I still think this isn't a bad idea). I've made semi-serious jokes about having my marmelade cat, Baby, taxidermied when he finally dies. But, instead of having him frozen into an unnatural pose, I want him filled with those tiny styrofoam balls they put in squishy pillows. And a heating pad. So I can still sit on the couch and rub his belly into oblivion.

When discussing these things a couple of weeks ago, it mentioned to me that perhaps all of this is the reason why I am so drawn to funeral service and am so determinedly (is that a word?) pursuing my education in it.

And honestly? I am not sure sometimes.

I have an incredibly strong fear of death, which has gotten much worse since my mother died and I have grown older. I obsess over it. I lie in bed in the little hours of night, unable to sleep because my head is full of "what if...?"s. I paralyze myself with thoughts of car accidents, gun attacks, and malignant cancers. A terror grips me when I think of what comes next after this life; my religion has been shaken to its core and barely provides shelter to me any longer.

All of this is so bizarre to me. I used to be perpetually suicidal; I've attempted it three times in my life when I was younger. Everything hurt so fucking much, I just wanted it all to stop. And as I grew older, I recognized I couldn't ever put those I loved through the particular kind of hellish pain the survivors are left holding, but the thought of self-annhilation was never very far from my mind.

Now? The very idea makes me sick to my stomach. Suicide is now an abomination to me. Mine, or anyone else's.

I don't understand any of it, personally. My brain has become such a whirlwind over the past few years that I'm not sure how I even get my boots on, half of the time. I'm so tightly wound, if one were to flick me, I'd probably *ping!* like a fine crystal wine goblet. Which is hilarious when I think about it, because I'm always hollaring at the Engineer for being uptight and how he needs to be more laid-back.

I think I need to go smoke a cigarette and shake this off my back. Who writes this shit on a Saturday afternoon, anyway?



My biggest fear is if I let you go,
You'll come and get me in my sleep.

If gays were allowed to marry, the population would drop.

If gays were allowed to marry, the population would drop.

If gays were allowed to marry, the population would drop.

IF GAYS WERE ALLOWED TO MARRY, THE POPULATION WOULD DROP.

...

...

It is amazing my how head has not shot clear off my neck in that class yet. By the time I finished with the rondo idiot who made the above statement, he had minor scarring and a pronouced stutter. That boy is lucky he didn't leave the room with a goddamn limp.

Ridiculous on so many levels.

In other news: I has a samosa. My Director of Operations brought it in for me because she knows of my deep, un-changing love for samosas.

Also, I got to spend last night watching men in tuxedos swan about with their henpeck gossip and political machinations. It was all so incredibly Roman senate-like and it was almost too much to hide my giggling. I tried to convince one of my favorites my friends that now was the time for him to Hulk out. Instead of Hulk-ing out, he told me a story about how when he was a stockbroker, he got stabbed in the chest with a pencil by a competitor.

Awesome!

Afterwards, I went home and read Shakespeare's sonnets to the cats.

The end.

The bake sale went well, I think. I wound up not making the bread because...err, I forgot about the dough. It wound up staying out all night Friday and all day Saturday. When I finally got home and checked out the bowls, they smelled horribly of beer. So, I threw them out and started again (only one bowl this time and it's currently in dough form and finishing its two hour sit).

Both halves of the Irish cream chocolate cake sold, all of the peppermint chocolate chip cookies sold. And the majority of the cupcakes went, as well. I brought home the rest of them and ate one last night. Verdict: HOLY MARY MOTHER OF MICE. That is a serious effing cupcake that kind of made me a little dizzy to eat. Sweet Jesus.

On the way home, I suddenly had the urge to hit the comic book store. I very rarely have the chance to go because they always close before I get out of work and thus, the Engineer usually goes without me. I've been working on building up my Hellblazer graphic novel collection and the Alan Moore line of Swamp Thing, so some holes were filled in their lines. I also picked up a Books of Magic I didn't previously have (and which I actually didn't really enjoy, it was kind of boring). And another graphic novel called God Save the Queen, which I'd never heard of before and which turned out to be quite good.

Friday night, Aristotle had another incident with the wood chips. This time, the damn prey was on a paper towel and there was no dead mousie dance to be seen. And he missed. Wood chips in the snout, panicking me trying to get them out by myself with hands that are shakey on a good day. It wasn't as bad as the first time, but I was still freaking out. Especially because it's a little difficult to wrangle a squirmy snake, pin his head, force his mouth open, and fish out wood chips. It should take five hands to do this. I had two at my disposal.

I tried to container feed him last night to avoid all of this happening a third time, but he was really not down with that. grr. Next week, I will try to lay down towels in his tank and then do the dead mousie dance for him. Rather irritating. He was such a good eater before. Then he had to get all stupid with his strikes. Not fun.

What's worse than being woken up at five-thirty in the morning with a charley horse in your left calf?

OH, WAIT. NOTHING.

I could have cried. I think I did cry. I probably woke my brother up with the shouting. And it still hurts.

...gah.

What is wrong with me that I keep volunteering to make large quantities of food for people?

Tired Tara is tired.

Currently in my kitchen, I have roughly four dozen peppermint chocolate chip cookies, a dozen dark chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache glaze, two halves of a dark chocolate bundt cake with powdered sugar on top, and three bowls of bread dough a-rising to be baked tomorrow night.

One of those goddamned cupcakes is calling my name with a sweet siren song of "You want to eat me! You'll never get to sleep anytime soon if you do, but you should eat me because my glaze is imperfect and there is an even number of me and my brethren! And you know your OCD just will not allow that to stand! You hate even numbers!" It doesn't help that I didn't eat any dinner because as soon as I came home it was time for CUPCAKE MAKING A-HOY! Oh, and getting the Engineer caught up on season 3 Battlestar Galactica, so he can start watching season 4 with me and I can stop kicking him out of my apartment on Friday nights to watch it by myself.

At the tail end of May? I volunteered to make spaghetti sauce for fifty. Oy.

This bake sale thing is on Saturday and I will be working the table from open to close, which is to say: from STUPID O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING until early afternoon.

Check me out, being a good Mason girlfriend. :D

I like to push my boundaries once in a while, just to see if my tastes have changed. Particularly regarding food. For instance, I used to labor under the delusion that Brie cheese was gross. Now? You'd have trouble prying it out of my cold, dead fingers.

So, I was invited to a coffee tasting last weekend (the one we just came out of) by the wife of Grand Poobah from the Engineer's lodge. Ok, says I. I'll go to this thing, despite it is at fucking stupid o'clock an early hour. How early? Shit, I don't even get up that early for work.

I tried six different coffees. And the verdict?

I still don't like the damn stuff. It is VILE.

Everyone kept laughing at the faces I was making after every sip. It looked a lot like the D: style of face, which I am quite good at making in person. How do people drink this shit? I mean, seriously. It's NASTY. And I prefer to drink diet soda!

Blergh.

Same day, only later on, I also tried lox for the first time. Sweet suffering mice, it tasted like oily, slippery, compressed chum. Ew. And the texture in my mouth was enough to make me gag. The Engineer said if one eats it with cream cheese, the flavors play against each other and it helps with the texture. So, I tried it that way.

SWEET CHRIST, WHY DID I DO THAT?!

That was, to say the least, even worse. I took one of my favorite food substances, cream cheese, and wrapped it in flexible chum. Ick.

Later on in the day, I got extremely inebriated and told an entire room full of Masons the story of how wemble lost her virginity (and how I was forbidden, upon pain of death, of telling that same story at her wedding reception). I swear it was topical. hee.

Good times.

Much later after that, my body started screaming at me that it was no longer running on anything resembling a full tank and that rest needed to come soon, or I was going to throw a rod. I went to bed at around 11 o'clock (unheard of in my part of the world, I normally go to bed at 1 a.m.) and STILL got up late for work. And now the slight sickness I was feeling on Friday is rebounding.

Therefore, I'm cutting class tonight to go home and vegetate on the couch. hrmph.

Feeding Aristotle tonight and he was being stupid-headed. Struck twice at the prey and missed both times, the second time garnering a face full of aspen. The Engineer went to rewarm the mouse up for me, because it was getting kind of cool to touch and I noticed Aristotle opening and closing his jaws.

Wood chip stuck in his mouth. Oh, great.

I pin him and flick it away, only to notice there's another one actually lodged in the entrance to his throat.

Again, I say: oh, great.

More pinning and a move to the bathroom later for better lighting, and the Engineer fishes the chip out with a pair of tweezers. It was the tiniest bit bloody, but his mouth seems to be ok. I put him back in the tank and he laid there for a few moments, breathing heavily and probably freaked all the fuck out, before moving into his warm-side hide.

I put the mouse on a paper towel in the tank, but I really don't think he'll eat it. He doesn't like still prey and seems to preferthe dead-mousie-dance for feeding time.

I'll call Dr. Joe tomorrow and see what he says about the entire spectacle.

I'm only freaking out a little bit. Just a little, I swear.

Really.

If I say it enough times, maybe I'll convince myself. :/

*edit*
SONOFABITCH!
That greedy little fucker ate the goddamn mouse!

The Engineer just went into my room to check on him and reported back that the mouse had vanished. Now, being a mouse of the dead variety, I am assuming it didn't just re-animate itself and is now lurking about in my bedroom somewhere.

Although the idea of that is actually kind of amusing.

Zombie mice. heh.

Eating ice cream, studying World Lit, and holding Aristotle (all at the same time) is probably the best way to end a night.

Class tonight was...interesting.

Sociology of the Family, which is always a big hit with my blood pressure. Tonight's added bonus was the material we were discussing was sexuality, which led into a conversation about homosexuality. Things were going rather well and not much dunder-headed bullshit was being said, until the STUPID GIRL I CAN'T STAND pipes up with "Why do homosexual women dress and act like men? I have a homosexual woman friend and she says she doesn't even known why!" And then she started busting out with all manner of nonsense about trans-gendered people. I can't even put any of it into words. My head, it almost imploded. I spoke up quite a few times, and spoke completely over the stupid girl because she wouldn't shut the goddamn hell up, and explained the concepts of GENDER (which is hilarious, because it's a topic we already covered and not all that long ago).

Another student, one I generally like, started on about how animals in the wild do not exhibit displays of homosexuality. The professor and I tag-teamed him on that one. He kept insisting only animals in captivity do it, and stated the Discovery channel was his source of information. I told him to read a book, which got me a warning eyebrow from the professor.

The stupid girl is on my list of people I wish to hit with a brick. She never shuts up. Like, ever. I can hear her in the back of the room, constantly yammering away in this fake high-pitched voice- even when the professor is lecturing. And it makes my blood boil. She also doesn't understand the concept of Sociology being about the majority, rather than the individual. Every single topic which comes up, she's got to counter it with some bullshit about someone in her family was completely different and blah blah blah. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

The Engineer and I have a phrase we use when people pull shit like that: WHEN I WAS A FRUIT FLY...

He started it because of one of his co-workers who constantly has to insert herself into every conversation on earth with stories of how when she was involved in X, she did Y. It goes to ridiculous levels, hence the outlandish claim of having once been a fruit fly.

My Tuesday night class was a lot better, even if I did horribly upset one of my classmates. Not intentionally. And not personally. We were discussing poverty and one of the exercises in the book asked for students to attempt an experiment by living on poverty levels for food purchasing. The professor asked us what we thought of that. I snorted before I could stop myself and she asked me what was up, which got a story from me (I very rarely talk about personal things in class) about my experiences in growing up poor and living in my early twenties (also poor). I spoke about the things we used to do to get by (panhandling on South Street, stealing from all over, dumpster-diving, getting discarded food from places like South Street Pizza, etc.) and the things my mother did to get by when I was a kid). [As a side note, something I realized last night: I now make more money than my mother did. How fucked up is that? It says a lot about how our economy has changed and how a dollar doesn't go as far as it used to and it also says a lot about how screwed up it was she was making $10 an hour at her last job, at her age and level of experience.]

The classmate interjected with her own story of growing up with a very large extended family that could be relied on and then asked me about going to family. I briefly told her of my family (or lack thereof) and how growing up, we didn't have that tether, and how I still don't have that tether. I could see in her face how badly this idea bothered her and she made a comment about how scary it must be to live like that. I agreed with her and told her how even know, if something were to happen- I would be fucked. FUCKED. I don't have anywhere to go. I already live w