“Driving Sideways”

Like yesterday, today wasn’t a total loss.  I got some work done (might still get a little more done before I turn in, too), but I don’t have much of a sense of accomplishment.  Instead, I just have the feeling that something’s hanging over my head.  Which — oh, wait, it is.  It’s called the end of term, and it’s two weeks away.  Eep.

I can’t exactly say it snuck up on me, but I’m definitely underprepared for its arrival.  Oh, well.  It’ll all get done.

PS — We are precipitously close to reaching 600 comments.  As usual, the person to post the 600th comment gets a picture postcard inscribed with a story on the topic of their choice.  Happy commenting, and good luck!

5 Things:

Sleeping in. Today was the last day of vacation — no more lie-ins after today, alas, but they were sweet while they lasted.

Culinary adventures. I made brown rice & lentil stew today.  It’s not the best dish I’ve ever cooked, but for something I just dreamed up on the fly, it turned out pretty well.

My fuzzy pink socks. I don’t think this needs any further explanation.

Real movies on Hulu.  Often the movies I find on Hulu are, like, weird independent movies made in someone’s kitchen — or they’re old horror movies with expired copyrights — so I’m always pleased when I see recognizable studio films available there.  I watched Silent Hil there today.  It wasn’t a great movie by any means, but it was very pretty, and made all the better by its free-ness.  There’s a pretty good crop up right now — Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula, Addams Family Values.

Chocolate chips.

“Ooh La”

Not a whole lot to say about today.

Did some work, but not as much as I intended to do.  Work is hard!  Somehow, I always manage to forget that.  But I did get a few things started, so today hasn’t been a total loss.

Also watched a bunch of Spaced on Hulu.  I’ve seen this series all the way through at least three times, but that doesn’t stop me.  It’s just so sweet.

5 Things:

Fresh to-do list. Mostly the same things to do, but it looks so much tidier.

Pie.

Doing dishes. I dread doing them, but once I actually start, I always enjoy it.

Butter. Is everything not better with butter?  Of course it is.

Vacation disorientation.  What day is it?  Disconcerting, but it’s a sure sign that my vacation is working.

“Forest Families”

I did not participate in any Black Friday nonsense, unless you count having a copy of my GRE scores sent to one of my colleges.  I’m telling you, grad school applications are expensive.  I better get in, ’cause I can’t afford to do this again.  Ha.

I told myself I was going to get lots of work done today, but I didn’t accomplish much.  Instead, I watched Wanted.  I was prepared to like it, since I enjoyed Night Watch well enough, and I quite like James McAvoy.  But I was seriously turned off by Wanted.  It’s very stylish, with lots of impressive action sequences and cool special effects, but I found the characters extremely one-dimensional and unsympathetic, especially McAvoy’s character Wesley, who basically seemed like a less endearing version of the Narrator from Fight Club, and without the benefit of a charmingly unhinged alter ego.  Watching a bunch of poorly defined characters run around fulfilling some hazily defined objectives for unclear reasons is not really my idea of a good time.  Admittedly, it could have been a lot worse, but that’s not saying much.

On the plus side, I went to look after Jeremy’s cat today, who is always such a love-bucket.  I went home and took a long, yearning look at petfinder.com, because I want a kitty so bad, but it’s not to be, at least not right now.  At least I have many friends with many adorable kittens to tide me over until such time as I am capable of caring for a cat of my own.

5 Things:

Leftover pie.

Fried chicken wings.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Although I was sad to see Simon Amstell leave as host, Noel Fielding is now a regular panelist and they’ve had a bunch of fun guests this season, including Janeane Garafalo, Martha Wainwright, and Harry Shearer.  Can’t go wrong there.

Peppermint tea.

Janeane Garafalo. OK, seriously, I love this woman.  I know I just mentioned her in the same breath as NMTB, but she deserves her own slot on the list.  She is, I think, one of the formative influences on my adult identity.  Tell me that doesn’t explain a lot.

“We Didn’t Start the Fire”

I don’t know why, but this song got stuck in my head somehow.  I don’t understand it, seriously, but I’m not gonna try to fight it.

Thanksgiving dinner was a wonder, seriously.  Jeff and his girlfriend Tiffany hosted dinner for a bunch of us Folklore & Ethnomusicology people staying in Bloomington for the break.  Tiffany made a truly magnificent turkey and everybody brought lots of beautiful food and we sat around a fold-out table for almost six hours eating and talking and talking and eating.  Man.  Good times.

This year I am thankful for: good friends.  And good food.

I heard on the radio that we might get some light snow tonight, although no accumulation.  If we do, it’ll be the first snowfall of the year.  Winter, she is a-coming.

Now I’m off to sleep, I think.

5 Things:

My mother, who deals with my baking emergencies with all the calm and expertise of a field nurse.

The Village Pantry. Saving me from my baking idiocy almost as frequently as my mother.

Walking around deserted towns.  I walked over to Jeff’s this afternoon, and it was like post-apocalyptic Thanksgiving, all grey skies and empty streets. Wonderful.

Homemade marshmallows.

My loved ones. Corny, I know, but sometimes it’s necessary to roll with the cornball sentiment and let people know just how wonderful they are.

“Remedy”

Today I did oh-so-much laundry and made oh-so-many rolls.  So much starch in my house, and tomorrow there will be even more!

Oh, and I’m halfway through my last application.

I also watched a Nova documentary about the Roman baths on Hulu.  Oh, ancient technology, you are so awesome!

5 Things:

This [via ONTD].  Actually, I find this magnificently embarrassing, but it’s also hilarious.

Bread!

My local groundhog.

Scrambled eggs with cheese.

This nice scene-analysis of Barton Fink. Love that movie.  Chet!

“Meddle”

Well, my day of bread didn’t happen today, but that’s OK with me, because I wound up hanging out with Jeff and watching At the Mouth of Madness.

Conceptually, it’s a pretty awesome premise — an insurance investigator is hired to find a Stephen King-esque writer who’s disappeared with the manuscript of his latest book, and quickly discovers that all the things the writer has imagined are terribly real.  In execution, the movie is hampered by spectacular cheesey early 90’s special effects, a mediocre female lead, and an essentially tensionless script.  (Dramatic tension seems to be the theme of the week.)  Still, I can’t resist a spot of metafiction.

Tomorrow, though, there will be bread!

5 Things:

My red cowboy boots.

Peppermint mocha.

Little Boots.

Riesens.

Sam Neill and his odd fake-American accent.

“Oomingmak”

When I woke up this morning, it really looked, for the first time all year, like winter.  It was that cool-grey dark of early morning, real winter light.

I did two modeling sessions today, which I was a little apprehensive about, but it turned out to be just fine, since they were separated by the space of a couple of hours.  During the break, I ate lunch and tidied up my house for another group of prospective tenants.

Then, when I was done, Melhouse and I met up, grabbed a bite to eat, and went off to see New Moon.  I don’t really know if I have enough to say about it to really constitute a review.  It was laughably cliche at times, but it did have some nice little moments in it.  The interpersonal interactions felt much more naturalistic, less stylized (or less awkward, take your pick) than in the first film, and there’s some pretty solid little scenes.  But the problem, as far as I can see, is that there’s no real conflict at all.  There are a lot of moments where dramatic things seem to be happen, but I never really felt like anyone was doing much work to really sell the tension.  It just kind of drifts along from point to point.  This is a really remarkable achievement, considering that the whole story is basically about being in conflict.  But, you know, whatever.  My Twilight furor has cooled considerably since the first movie came out last year.  I enjoyed New Moon, but now that it’s over, I don’t particularly feel the need to go back and see it again or linger over it much longer.

I have to say, though, that sitting in that movie theater seat hurt like a mother.  It’s not actually the theater’s fault.  My chair at my new job is incredibly uncomfortable, and after almost ten hours there yesterday, my back was killing. I think the theater seat just rekindled that discomfort.  Blech.

5 Things:

Classical music on the radio.

My tidy house.

Pepsi.  I’m not sure why, but I’d been seriously craving a Pepsi recently, so when I had one today, it was delightful.

The day of bread I have planned for tomorrow.  At least one, possibly two recipes to try out tomorrow.  Hooray!

Vacation! Which should really be more like a work week, but we’ll see how that goes.

“From the Valley to the Stars”

Well, I failed big time yesterday.  I completely forgot to post, and not even for a good reason like a house fire or an epic fistfight with a racing jockey.  Just got tired and forgot.

To make up for being so remiss, have some miscellany:

First, a slightly overdue but no less awesome piece from BoingBoing: a flaming soundwave visualization. Science is so much cooler when it involves fire!

Another BoingBoing find hearkens back to an article that swept my circle of friends last summer about the so-called “2D lovers,” AKA people in serious romantic relationships with anime characters and inanimate objects. Now, apparently, a Japanese man is set to marry his virtual girlfriend. This seems really problematic to me on a lot of levels, not least of which: does it count as consent if your partner is imaginary? Or is that automatically some kind of bizarre authorial coercion? OK, I’m not going to entertain this line of thought any further.

Hm, what else?  Yesterday was a good time.  Went over to Jeremy’s to have vegan pre-Thanksgiving dinner and rounded out the evening with a viewing of the truly bizarre 80’s film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension.  Of all the ridiculous, overblown 80’s sci-fi movies I’ve seen, I think this one pretty much takes the cake.  It’s completely and unapologetically absurd, basically doing away with any semblance of plot or character development in favor of spectacle and fantasy.  Which kind of endears me to it, actually.  It’s so completely resistant to making sense that it’s really sort of impressive.

Wah.  My back hurts from sitting at the phone all day, so I’m a-gonna go to bed and sleep mightily.  Tomorrow, I do some modeling and then I’m going to see New Moon!  Yes, I’m a little embarrassed by this, but only a little.

5  Things:

Comfort food!

Donuts.

The Haunting. Shirley Jackson continues to deliver awesomeness.

Mini-breakthroughs. I know I say it frequently, but I’ll take it where I can get it.

Vacation! Hello, vacation, she is in sight.

Oops!

Well, it’s official.  I completely forgot to make a post yesterday, for I think the first time in almost a year.  Boo.

I will try to make up for it with something spectacular tonight, although I’m not sure what.

“Troubled Waters”

I know I already more or less broke this news yesterday, but 3 of my 4 MFA applications have officially been submitted.  I mailed the envelopes this afternoon.  Phew.  Only one left.

Hm, what else?  Work was mildly distressing, although not really too bad.  Had a nice chat with Michelle on my way home.  Ate some popcorn, and now I’m planning on going to bed and sleeping way the hell in tomorrow morning.

Before I do, though, there’s something I’ve had on the back burner for a while that I cannot neglect to share any long.  Behold, my dears, this truly incredible recipe that Jessica sent me a while back:  Triple Threat Cookie Cake Pie.  Yes, that’s right, a cookie, a cake, and a pie all rolled into one. Surely to bake such a thing would be folly, like trying to create a living human from scraps of reanimated tissue. Certainly this desert would rise from the cooling rack and wreak havoc on several Swiss villages. I can’t conceive of baking something so insane — let alone eating it. But at the same time . . . I’m kind of curious. I feel like, with the right combination of ingredients, it could be awesome. Or fearsome. Although, as the Gothic writers will tell you, there’s not always a clear line between the two.

Speaking of which — have I ever mentioned this very weird birthday coincidence? I’ve known for a while that I shared my birthday with Courtney Love and the kid from The Wonder Years, but then a couple of years ago, I discovered that I also share a birthday not only with Ann Radcliffe but Matthew Gregory Lewis, too! Two of the most famous Gothic novelists share a birthday, which is weird enough, and then I show up on the same day. Not that I feel this suggests some kind of destiny or anything, it’s just weird. Maybe next year I’ll bake the three of us a Triple Threat cookie cake pie.

. . .  I just checked Wikipedia, and apparently I also share my birthday with the inventor Elias Howe and anthropologist Franz Boas.  And — what the hell? – Ottorino Resphigi, a composer I recently discovered.  Oh, man, and Mervyn Peake!  And Oliver Sacks and David Hockney.  Also — boo! — Donald Rumsfeld, Dean Koontz and O.J. Simpson, but we won’t invite them to our joint party, OK?  And Jack White and the little girl who plays Lucy in the Narnia movies.  Way to go, birthday, that’s a pretty good crowd!  Man, wouldn’t it be cool if you could have a birthday party attended by all the people who shared your date of birth?  I feel like that would be a good time.

5 Things:

Cat Power.

The Haunting, by Shirley Jackson.  I’ve had this one out from the library for a long time, but I’ve finally delved into it.  So good.

Thanksgiving break, which basically starts for me on Monday night, thank God.

Saturday.

Sleeping in.