The In-Between Girl

Rollercoaster brain

2012-05-11T10:40:00.000-05:00

I wonder more and more every day if I should go back to a psychiatrist and get medicated. My OCD is pretty under control, my social anxiety is tolerable (no panic attacks in a long time now!), but I have clear periods of ups and downs. When I’m up I’m a creative fountain spewing words and pictures and ideas in all directions, soaking up information like a sponge, and cooking like mad. When I’m down, I am a misanthropic slug with a learning disorder.

I haven’t written here since March. I haven’t worked on The Project since the end of February. I managed to ooze out a creative writing exercise the other day outlining a backstory for one of my Skyrim characters but I haven’t fleshed it out yet.

I worry that, like in the past, medications would do less evening out and more bringing everything down to a dull monochrome. I lost a good chunk of memory from my high school years and still have short term memory and word recall issues and if that actually got worse I honestly don’t know how I would function. I mean, the other night I forgot the words for “sink” and “cutting board.” This happens every day.

At least I’m losing weight, or at least I think I am because I have avoided the scale, and I didn’t have to manually squish my boobs into my jacket this morning. I’m doing a (loose) low-carb keto-esque thing and it’s going pretty well. I do miss fruit, however.

Very soon in our future will be a new (old) car and a new (probably new) TV. So that’s exciting.

Human Zoo

2012-03-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

This weekend was a flurry of physical activity. I started on Friday after work by running C25K Week 1, Day 3 to the bike shop to pick up my newly tubed-and-shiftered bike. Unfortunately the bike shop isn’t that far away and I only got halfway through my run. I biked back home where Husband and Lily were waiting for me to go for a walk to the playground and the liquor store.

My bike. She is glorious now. It’s an older bike (I’m thinking 60’s, maybe?) and its shifters were previously located on the crossbar because clearly the Italians who designed it were completely insane. Every time I had to shift I had to reach down and fumble around and I felt like I was going to just fall right over. Now I have fancy—well, not fancy – but real thumb shifters on the handlebars where nature intended them to be.

Funny thing is that I’m so used to riding my scooter that I spooked myself twice on the ride back home because there was no turn signal switch for my left thumb. Also I left my helmet at home and had to carry my change back in my shoe because of poor planning.

Saturday was another walk to the park to play tennis with S & H. There was tennis for hours. I had to take Lily over to the playground a couple of times because she got bored watching us and chasing tennis balls.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, only I didn’t play tennis at all. Lily and I spent quite some time at the playground and I did some serious peoplewatching.

It’s still strange to see all these people who are my age and also have kids around Lily’s age. What really irritated me was the amount of helicopter parenting going on. Parents! Let your children play in the playground! It was like these people had some kind of invisible tether connecting them with their children like an unbreakable 5-foot rope. I actually saw a mother start to walk away from her daughter but stop suddenly, like she had reached the end of her umbilical rope and couldn’t physically move any father.

Me, I sat on the benches, moseying around when I had to as Lily worked her way around the playground equipment and my sight lines were lost. I stepped a little closer a couple of times to remind her to take turns on the slides. I watched her explore all the equipment and I could see the gears turning in her head as she discovered what everything did. All on her own she conquered the big metal slide she had been afraid of only days before. She came running over to me, beaming with pride, shouting, “Mama! Mama! Yaaaaay! I did it!” I gave her a huge hug, told her how proud of her I was, and watched her go down the big slide over and over again. From the bench.

There were three different kids, ranging in age from around 2 to maybe 4, playing on one of the playground structures. This particular structure had a wooden ramp that was barely an incline – more of a short boardwalk -- that led to a platform where the kids could take sand and send it down a tube. This is not exactly a high-risk piece of equipment. Maybe if a kid were to run blindfolded up the walkway they could possibly run headlong into the little shelf thing on the edge, but said kid would have to be incredibly derpy and/or mentally ill for any sort of injury to occur. And yet three different parents for the three different kids all stood around the thing, eyes glued to their child, at regularly spaced intervals in a 3-foot radius from the kids. Lily occasionally dropped in to assist with the sand dropping and I’m pretty sure one of the moms looked back at me as though she were expecting me to leave my seat and also hover around like some kind of parental electron to the offspring nucleus.

I offered a small smile in her direction. Why would I need to, when there were three other hyper-alert adults within arm’s reach already?

In other news, my pants and coat are already fitting better.

This is why I married him

2012-03-26T08:49:00.001-05:00

Me: Argh... trying to find a song and I have no way to search for it because it's an instrumental.

It's that one... from the 70's or early 80's....

There's horns....

Husband: Herbie Hancock?

Me: Nope... kinda funky disco.

Husband: Oh. Pick up the Pieces

Average White Band...

I believe.

Me: OH SHIT.

Shenanigans

2012-03-15T11:29:00.001-05:00

We got a real sitter (Thanks, Alicia!) and went out for a real grown-up night out last Saturday. We ended up at The Public House after unsuccessfully trying to drink at Club Jager when they weren't open even though the sign said they were. We had originally intended to barhop around the North Loop area, grab a couple of pizzas at Black Sheep, and get over to Acme in time for Marc Maron's show.

Black Sheep was a madhouse so we just kept ordering more and more appetizers at The Public House. The pork belly sliders, hillbilly spring rolls, and frito pie were absolutely amazing. If you're looking for food that's both highbrow and lowbrow and completely casual, get over there. They've also got a great beer selection.

Maron killed it with his story of his experience in Minneapolis 12 years ago. I wasn't sure what to expect at Acme. It's a lot smaller and more intimate than I ever expected. It's got kind of a rustic interior going on. Low ceilings, huge drinks, red curtain. I had a gin and tonic and two martinis before I left so by the end of the show I was pretty good to go. I got all drunk-shy and didn't talk to Marc after the show or get my picture taken, but I did leave him a present -- a blue Duplo block Lily had inexplicably given to me earlier that day. Don't ask -- I don't know why I did that.

A drunken stumble (on my part) and a short car ride later we arrived at Donny Dirk's Zombie Den. It's a classy joint in a horrible neighborhood and if you go there you should be aware that cabs will not pick you up after about 1:00 AM. S and I started off with a drink involving absinthe. It was really strong. I'm not much of a drinker but I was on some kind of fucked up mission that night to get fucked up. Husband stuck with beer and H was drinking something called a Kali Ma, which had chai-infused rum and... I have no idea what else, but it was amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I had four of them. It wasn't necessarily my idea to have four expensive-as-shit, strong-as-hell specialty drinks -- S kept feeding them to me. They were so good that at one point I asked the bartender to give me change just so I could give her a second tip. At the end of the evening we were all pretty trashed and the conversation turned political (I railed off about Ron Paul for what seemed like forever) so we tried calling for a cab. That's when the sympathetic doorman informed us that cab drivers really, really don't like this neighborhood. An hour and a short but adventurous walk down to Broadway later we flagged a passing cab down and finally made it back to the sweet embracing cradle of South Minneapolis.

Forgot about the daylight savings time change, woke up at 9:00 AM when I was supposed to be picking Lily up, and drove like a champ to retrieve the child. I came back home and proceeded to sleep for three or four hours. As hangovers go, it was a damn cakewalk. My last hangover was several years ago where I drank much less (demon Jamison), woke up wanting to die, and puked about 10 times over the course of a day. Interestingly, that evening also ended in the North Loop neighborhood.

All this to say that I am going to be 32 tomorrow and I probably shouldn't do this sort of thing anymore. Not that I won't.

Paging Dr. House

2012-03-08T10:50:00.001-06:00

It’s hard not to feel like a hypochondriac sometimes.

I’ve always had what I assume is a small, dried out turd where whatever controls my immune system is supposed to be. Every minor bug that wafts my way infects my system like GIs at a cheap eastern European whorehouse. I’ve had strep throat dozens of times, ear infections, sinus infections, bronchitis, giardia, and one time I even had the norovirus.

I also grew up being told constantly that I was never sick, that it was all in my head, that there was nothing the matter with me. Never mind the low-grade fever I often had, or the white spots that appeared on my throat, or the seemingly constant battle with nausea. My stomach issues got marginally better once I figured out I was lactose intolerant but I was still frequently plagued with problems. Later in my junior high and high school years this was all compounded by my crippling depression and mental issues.

So now whenever I get sick I always doubt myself first. If it gets to the point where I have to go to the doctor I feel positively crazy. I’ve had some terrible doctors in the past that haven’t helped. Hello, guy who didn’t take my joint problems seriously and caused me to permanently screw up my stomach with Aleve. Caught a horrible case of H. Pylori after that little episode and I’ve had IBS ever since.

So now I’m having problems again and I’m having a hard time. Again. I’ve been dealing with dizzy spells for years. No big deal, I’m usually dehydrated. But recently they’ve gotten much, much worse. Like, almost-passing-out worse. I’ve been drinking fluids like a horse and eating protein like a champion to no avail. And what’s even more awesome is that my heart will randomly start beating out of my chest for no good reason when I’m just walking around or standing there. My anxiety has been almost completely in check and it always happens when I’m not exerting myself. Cardio and strength training at the gym has been going fine. So that’s worrisome enough for me that I went to the doctor.

I need you. For, um, medical reasons.

My EKG at the doctor’s office was fine but that only means that it was fine at that particular moment. Everything else checked out. My doctor had no explanation for me but told me if my heart does its palpitation dance again I should go to urgent care or an ER and that I should call him so he can send me to a heart specialist. Greeeeaaaat. He prescribed me something for my dizzy thing and said to me, no kidding, “This is used for dizziness. It’s an antihistamine but it helps. We have no idea why but we use it anyway.”

I’m not thrilled about taking pills for this (up to 3 a day!), especially when they can make me drowsy, and especially especially when nobody can come up with a good reason for why they work.

But yesterday, when I spent a good portion of my afternoon being constantly dizzy, I was forced to reconsider my stance. I guess the mystery will continue until I have a heart attack or pass out.

Some technical difficulties

2012-03-02T13:35:00.001-06:00

You may have noticed (probably not) that betweengirl.com has been down for a few days. This is because GoDaddy is balls and makes it as difficult as humanly possible to transfer your domain away from them.

I actually started the process back in December in the midst of the big SOPA/PIPA dustup. I got so frustrated I had to walk away until my domain was about to expire and I had no choice but to act or lose it.

So I had to change all my settings in Blogger and at my new registrar and now I wait until everything talks to each other and all my forwarding and DNS and stuff is caught up.

I mentioned a while ago that I was considering moving to WordPress but I discovered today you have to pay $99/year for domain mapping. So unless I want to dick around with forwarding my domain from my registrar's side and have my blog at betweengirl.wordpress.com, I'll just stay here at Blogger. Mama's too busy for all of this.

On the bright and non-technical side of life, I've been writing somewhat regularly. Just not here. And not for anything public (yet [maybe]). I won't say anything else for fear of jinxing my writing streak.

So what's new in the life of the In-Between Girl? Nothing. Work, Skyrim, D&D, family. Too broke to fix or replace anything, so I'm just waiting for the truck to die, in which case we will be well and thoroughly fucked unless we can sell the rotting, useless husk and get something cheap on Craigslist. We are still without a washing machine. I am trying to stay positive.

Short and

2012-02-07T21:47:00.001-06:00

I gotta get out of this self-destructive mode.

It's the end of January already

2012-01-31T10:05:00.001-06:00

Another year goes by and I have neglected my blog once again. It’s been a combination of me not having two brain cells to rub together, being really busy, being sick all the damn time, and a big ol’ dollop of apathy.

Also, Skyrim.

Hey, Skyrim! I’m almost level 40, a wood elf, werewolf, queen of two-handed weapons, smasher of faces, Harbinger of the Companions, up-and-coming member of the Thieves Guild, sometime student of the College of Winterhold, Thane of two (three?) holds, and bride of Farkas. Main storyline? What main storyline? I’m already dreaming up my next character. I could play this game for YEARS. I just hope that 1.4 patch fixes the damn lag on the PS3.

BRB, gotta ogle pics of Farkas.

I’ve been trying to stick with a weightlifting plan but I’ve gotten derailed a few times by illness and injury. My hip decided it wasn’t going to work properly for a couple of days, which was both painful and mysterious, as I hadn’t done anything that could have aggravated it. Then I got sick two days last week. Then I got sick again yesterday. I think yesterday was due to something I ate. I spend the first half of my day in the bathroom and passed out on the couch sweating and shivering the whole time. I still have some of that kickass cancer patient anti-nausea medication left and that came in real handy. I was finally able to stop purging and get some rest after that. I’m debating whether or not to try going to the gym today. I’ll probably just do a mini session.

I got a call from Memorial Blood Centers last week telling me I’m a good candidate for platelet donation, so I have that to look forward to. When was the last time you gave blood? DO IT.

So we got this dog, Shorty (I wish we could change his name), on Christmas Eve. He’s a six-year-old puggle. Now that we’ve had some time to get acquainted with him I’m convinced his previous owners were completely insane to give him up. He’s a sweet little lump of a dog who likes to cuddle. He’s gentle with Lily and is finally getting into a rhythm with Bindi. He’s only half curious about the cat and pretty much just ignores Sara now that he knows that even looking at her will be met with a hiss and a swat from that grumpy old beast. Shorty likes to sleep under the covers and be the little spoon with me until the bed warms up. He also likes to tear around the yard about once a day or go for short walks before returning to the couch.

Blah, writing. I don’t know why I’ve had such a hard time lately.

Doing my (frothy) doody

2012-01-04T07:29:00.004-06:00

Find out all about Rick Santorum here! Politics at its best!

Working on it

2011-12-28T22:01:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to write. Blogging. Fiction. Anything. I can't seem to muster enough brain cells together to finish more than a sentence or two.

I've been feeling more than a little scatterbrained lately and my social anxiety and OCD are coming back in waves. I should probably talk to my doctor about going back on a small amount of medication again but that just seems like quitting, you know?

New Year's Eve this year is looking like a clusterfuck. A bunch of us are going to the Wild game, then to dinner, then the next part is fuzzy. Every year a friend-of-a-friend's husband puts on an invite-only party with fancy dress at a local establishment. A bunch of us were originally against going this year because 1) it's across town, 2) BAR PRICES, 3) the dress code, and 4) getting a taxi on NYE is nigh impossible. We were going to do multiple house parties and a progressive dinner thing, but then out-of-towners got thrown into the mix and suddenly everyone's like, "let's show 'em around town!"

I haaaaate going out on NYE. They don't call it Amateur Night for nothing. The last thing I want to do is stand ass-to-elbow with a pack of suburbanites who come to the "big city" once a year, pay over-inflated alcohol prices (after waiting at an understaffed bar just to order), then worry about how to get home. Husband and I are more into getting into our jammies, drinking our own alcohol, and going to bed at a reasonable hour.

So we decided to do the hockey game and dinner and then skedaddle back home. I predict I will be asleep by 11:30.

Dear Target: Your comment form is too short.

2011-12-14T11:37:00.000-06:00

Sorry I'm using the generic comment form, but I couldn't find one specifically for Archer Farms.

I'm surprised to find myself writing today about some Archer Farms Lunch Bowls I had yesterday and today. I've never felt so strongly about food that I actually had to complain to the company about it. First time for everything, I guess. I get that I'm complaining about something that cost me less than $1.50 each, but I'm mostly irritated because I work on one side of Minneapolis and Target is on the other, and I don't have a ton of time for lunch so now I have to go back across town to Target (the only grocery store in the area) and buy more food for lunch.

Yesterday I tried the Vegetable Masala bowl. I'm not going to beat around the bush -- it tasted like burnt dish soap. I didn't even know what burnt dish soap tasted like before yesterday. Also, rather than being called "Vegetable Masala," it should be called "Rice, Four Lentils, and About Half of the Vegetable Content of Bowl Noodle Masala". I took about three and a half bites before I had to throw it away.

I am right now torturing myself with the Kung Pao Noodles. Seriously, did anyone actually taste this before rubber stamping the production? It tastes like sweet, insipid, stale weirdness. This is not kung pao. It's not even imitation kung pao. And I loves me some kung pao. To top this all off, the peanuts are actually, for real, rancid. Not even stale. Rancid. Another four bites. Into the trash.

In general I've been quite happy with the quality and taste of other Archer Farms products, but something must have happened in the QA process here. I have a Couscous Primavera bowl in my cabinet and I'm considering taking bets around the office over how many bites I can choke down before I give up in defeat.

First World Problem

2011-12-13T09:31:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday Husband took Lily down to her uncle's house to watch football and spend some quality time with her cousin. And so I found myself, for the first time in months, by myself with nothing but free time on my hands.

No demanding toddler? No husband occupying the TV with his video games? No feelings of being chained by housework and childcare? What do I do with my time? The world was my oyster -- or at least the part of the world I could walk to. Meh, it's easier to stay in the house. I had options!

I baked some bread and rolls, then watched some Good Eats in the dining room, then relocated to the living room to fire up a video game for the first time in, like, forever. Hey! Uncharted 2! I hear this is a fun game! But the controls suck ass and I can't see anything and I'm not good at shooting people. OK, what's on TV? Crap... crap... 80's crap... crap... same old cooking shows... crap... and shitty cartoons. OK... How about some Netflix! What Would Jesus Buy! Haha! Well, this is kind of long but I dig the message, and now it's over... What about the computer? Don't really wanna play Minecraft right now... Can't do much in Glitch because I'm still waiting for Mining IV and I'm swimming in currants with nothing to spend them on... Don't really wanna click around on Reddit outside of work... Don't feel like exercising... Too tired to read....

I am unfulfilled.

In which my two-year-old completely freaks me out

2011-12-06T08:32:00.001-06:00

We moved our bedroom down to the basement this weekend so guests don't have to go traipsing through our bedroom to get to the bathroom and so we can finally have an actual dining room. With a table and everything. No more eating on the couch. And we have room for our ~~Christmas~~ ~~Yule~~ ~~Holiday~~ tree.

So things are in a state of disarray and I'm slowly trying to clean and organize it all.

I put Lily to bed last night and went downstairs to tackle the mountain of clothes that needed to be put away. A little while later I went back upstairs to bring some towels and some of Lily's clothes up and get a glass of water. So I was putting things away in the kitchen, then I walked into the living room and my sweet, beautiful daughter scared me half to death.

She was sitting silently on the couch. She had been there the whole time.

"Play wif my toy," she said simply, holding up her toy airplane we recently unearthed from the basement.

My mind boggled. The child gate was still latched in front of her closed bedroom door and the bathroom door to her room was still locked. I have absolutely no idea how she got out of her bedroom. She must have ninja-climbed over the gate and shut her door. I didn't hear a thing from downstairs, and I was listening.

The hotel soap

2011-11-11T22:06:00.001-06:00

I was trying to publish this from my hotel room in Chicago a few weeks ago but their wifi was shit and I couldn't get the pictures uploaded. I found it sitting in my drafts folder today.

Between yesterday evening and today I have been in the process of using exactly

one bar of facial soap,

one bar of body soap, zero shampoo or conditioner, and one bottle of lotion.

That is the condition I left the soaps in when I left. They are still, essentially, two whole and complete bars of soap. I don't know why I put the shampoo and conditioner in the shower because I was never planning on using it. I'm funny that way.

I came back to my room this evening to find, in addition to my other soaps and shampoos already in the room,

One additional shampoo, one additional facial soap, and one additional body soap.

I'm afraid if I stay here much longer the situation is going to turn into this.

And Chicago? You're beautiful.

lol, butts

I suppose it's just the beginning

2011-11-09T13:30:00.000-06:00

Halloween was a success. We were unable to find a Foofa costume but Lily didn't have any problem at all being Brobee. I had to sew the chinstraps to the hat because there was no way on Earth that thing was staying on her head.

We stayed home for once because Monday night Halloweens are stupid and we didn't want to deal with the hassle of traveling to the suburbs this year. We took a spin around the block and chatted with neighbors a bit, which was nice, then returned home to finish passing out candy. We had to go to the store twice for candy refills, as we underestimated the amount of children in our neighborhood. There were only a few kids who looked a bit old for trick-or-treating, and nobody neglected to wear a costume.

No costume? No candy. You must parade in front of my door for my amusement.

Staying home meant we put forth a tiny bit of effort to decorate the house. We had lights around the door, hanging decorations on the boulevard tree, and I actually carved a small pumpkin. Lily carved a fake pumpkin at daycare.

Time it takes for a fresh pumpkin to start shriveling in the full sun of a west-facing picture window? Evidently half a day.

Please excuse my crazy window setup. That's where I incubate seedlings in the spring and I haven't had a reason to dismantle it yet. Anyone want to build me one of these bad boys for next year?

Somebody must have flipped some kind of switch at work because the last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy. I can't even begin to catch my breath right now and I'm going out of town for business tomorrow for three days.

Meanwhile, our 5 day old baby niece is recovering from major surgery, Thanksgiving plans are up in the air, I need to register for spring semester classes while I'm out of town, and I've got about 10 billion projects floating in my head and around the house.

Soon I will tell you about my adventures in once-a-month-cooking. If I get some time.

Blog-In

2011-11-08T09:26:00.000-06:00

This is a blog-in.

---

Dear 2012 Presidential Candidates,

We are your future constituents and we are parents.

We are American mothers and fathers and grandparents and guardians. Our families might be the most diverse in the world. Blended and combined in endless permutations, we represent every major religion, political ideology and ethnic culture that exists. We are made from equal parts biology and choice. Our children come to us in every way possible—including fertility miracles, adoption, and remarriage.

Our very modern families embody the freedom that defines America. We embody America. We are rich in diversity, but we are united in our family values. We come together today, with one voice, to express our grave disappointment in the national political discourse.

The 2012 countdown has barely begun and we are already bombarded with the warmed-over, hypocritical rhetoric of 2008. We are living in a time where 15.1% of Americans now live in poverty, the unemployment rate stands at 16%, and we are spending close to $170 billion annually between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Given the current state of affairs we would expect every candidate to focus on the issues that truly matter: job creation, debt-relief, taxes, education, poverty, and ending the war(s). Instead, it is already clear to us that the conversation has been hijacked, with the goal of further polarizing our nation into a politically motivated and falsely created class-war.

We will not stand for another campaign year in which politicians presume to know what our family values are as they relate to the nation.

To be clear, here are our family values:

• Affordable health care, including family planning, for all Americans. We will not tolerate any candidate using the shield of “Choice” to blind us from the issues that really matter. When funding is stripped from organizations like Planned Parenthood, access to sliding-scale health care (including yearly pap smears & mammograms), comprehensive sex education, and family planning is blocked from the poorest of the population.

• Access to education, and the ability to actually use it. We want quality, affordable, federally-funded full-day, pre-K programs made available in every State, in order to provide an even starting point for all children enrolled in public schools— regardless of the wealth of the district or town they live in.

• A reinstatement of regulations for banks issuing mortgages and full prosecution for those who engaged in fraud. We want full accountability —investigation, indictment and prosecution— of those individuals and financial institutions who engaged in fraudulent lending practices and who helped create the massive foreclosures that left many families homeless or struggling to keep their homes.

• A return of strict environmental regulations protecting water, air, food, and land that were removed in the last two decades. We want our children to grow up in a world not weighed down by the strains of pollution and global warming. Between BPA in our products, sky-rocketing rates of asthma in kids, questionable hormones in our over-processed food, and more, we need leaders who will put our needs and safety over the desires and profits of large corporations.

Family planning, healthcare, education, economic solvency and environmental safety: these are our national family values.

Candidates who demonstrate the ability to understand the gravity of these issues, and their impact on our families, and who can provide actual, viable solutions to these problems will garner our support and our votes.

We believe in our democratic system, and we'll continue to use our voices and our votes to see that it reaches its fullest potential.

Sincerely,

Your future constituents,

The Mothers & Fathers of America

If you would like to forward this letter to your elected officials, you can find their contact info at the following links: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtm

To see who else is participating in #BlogIn2011, please click here.

Making do

2011-10-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

*Beeeeeeep* The train doors open.

I squeeze out into the cold. Hubert looks frostbitten today. There isn't even a hint of sunrise peeking between the buildings but the sky is violently clear with a bright gash of moon and pricks of stars.

The brave OccupyMN souls are still sleeping outdoors every night. I wish them well in my head. I can't imagine any kind of cold weather camping, much less sleeping in the cold without a tent. If the temperature in my bedroom falls below 65 I swear my extremities go numb and I can start to see my breath.

I'm not happy about being back on the train. The day before I tried to start my scooter in the morning and she wasn't having any of it, even after having the battery conditioner plugged in for twenty minutes. I conceded and walked to the bus stop in defeat. It's frustrating when the afternoon highs are hovering around 50-60 degrees.

So I am forced to embrace the cold. I do so grudgingly. I take the cold, smash it into a ball, and stuff it down into my solar plexus much like I do with the heat and light of the summer sun. It's like stoking the coals of a fire. The pain of the cold brings focus. The focus brings strength.

I pick up my pace.

Kimchi Chronicles, let's see where this is going

2011-10-12T11:41:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon Kimchi Chronicles last night on PBS. At first I was like, who is this orange lady and what is going on here? She was touring around Seoul and the surrounding area eating bulgogi.

The orange thing turned out to be unflattering light. Marja is actually black-Korean and adopted in the US. The show is evidently about her discovering her Korean roots through food.

The Korean travel scenes are fantastic. I missed the first 15 minutes or so of this show but when I jumped in she was talking with several locals and an expat about the different types of bulgogi. It's a beautifully shot show made by the same people who did that insufferable Spain series with Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, and (ugh) Gwenyth Paltrow.

The part that lost me was when she was back in her super-modern tricked out kitchen with her snooty French chef husband, a man who admits he has never washed a single dish in his entire married life, and some random celebrities. Chef Husband Guy made crazy steaks with wagyu beef and plopped butter mixed with kimchi down on top of them. Make no mistake, this is in no way Korean food. At least Marja made somewhat authentic LA kalbi.

Then there was the scene at the end with waif-like Heather Graham halfheartedly picking at some other Korean food and complaining about how spicy everything was. Presumably at the end of the evening she jumped from the balcony and caught a light breeze back home.

FUCK I hate cooking shows with celebrities.

I've got the series set to record on DVR so I'll check out some other episodes as they become available. But I'll probably skip the wanky celebrity parts from here on out.

It's been a while, so have some random crap

2011-10-10T10:12:00.001-05:00

I've been busy, exhausted, and evidently too manic to put a coherent sentence together. So you get this. You're welcome.

I still put two spaces after my closing punctuation.

Every time I see these apple-peanut butter-marshmallow smiles I laugh uncontrollably. I tried to make them once and almost peed myself.

Lily has yet another ear infection. She has two giant bottles of medicine in the fridge. If it keeps going like this we'll have to explore the ear tube option, which will probably give me a heart attack.

The temperature has been in the 80s for over a week and I am overjoyed.

I thought of a rhyme this morning: "Autumn, fall, I hate it all." I hate falling leaves, raking, rain, having to dismantle the garden, everything turning brown, the weather getting colder, football season, and having to winterize my scooter. The only good thing about fall is the food.

For many years my favorite song was Golden Earring's "Twilight Zone."

My favorite song is currently still Hot Water Music's "Trusty Chords."

I am seriously considering a Hot Water Music tattoo, but band tattoos are kind of dumb, you know? Besides, I haven't even gotten my Lily tattoo yet and probably shouldn't immortalize a band before my own child.

I commuted on my bike on Friday. We had a terrible windstorm. I couldn't physically pedal into the wind at times and ended up with a massive charlie horse. I rode my husband's bike, which has the smallest, hardest seat in existence. So my leg hurts and my crotch hurts. So no more biking for me this year.

I've been popping in and out of the OccupyMN protest.

Our daycare lady's brother died this weekend and subsequently she is closed this week. That's really awful and I'm a terrible person for saying this, but this is really inconvenient. I'm going to buy her flowers and send along some dinner when she opens again.

I've been craving pulled pork, Husband has been craving beef barbacoa. Which meat will prevail?

My midwife suggested I try an elimination diet to try and figure out why I need to take a prescription antacid every single day to function. I've tried gluten free before but I think that might have made things worse. So I'm going to try dairy-free and soy-free diets over the next couple of months. I'm planning dairy-free starting next week for two weeks. I'm getting lightheaded just thinking about it. On the other hand, this will be a good time to make some more homemade cheese and not prematurely sample the goods before it's properly aged.

Did I mention I made some goat cheese? Turned out great. I need to find a source for goat milk in large quantities. That shit is expensive at the co-op.

It's Friday and I need to lie down

2011-09-16T15:43:00.001-05:00

This has been the longest week ever. I've been sticking to my Abstinence Month guns though, and for the most part I've been doing well with my diet. I still have an endless parade of all the things I want to eat running through my head at all times like a delicious ticker tape.

Jelly doughnut... Fudge brownies... Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream... Hurricane... Chocolate Chip Cookies... Nutella... Flourless chocolate cake... Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting...

Damn it, anyway.

We took Lily to Yo Gabba Gabba Live! last night. She was the embodiment of sheer, unbridled joy and glee. More on this later.

I think I want to finally move this blog to Wordpress. But I'm not sure I have the time for that.

The new version of Minecraft came out and my Minecraft desktop computer's Windows 7 hard drive died. I'm having a hell of a time reinstalling onto the third drive right now. It might be time to buy another 2 TB drive anyway. Which sucks because I'm swimming in 40GB drives that are almost useless here in the 21st century.

I started taking Zantac last night. I had crazy dreams and fitful sleep that wasn't helped by Lily's need to come in and sleep on the Big Bed last night at 2:30 AM. Today I can barely function. It's a good thing I didn't ride my scooter this morning considering the first time I went on Claritin I ran a stop sign and two red lights in my car. Hopefully this will all even out before the first hard frost.

What are we doing this weekend? NOTHING! GLORIOUS NOTHING!

Silly mama, there's only one kind.

2011-09-09T12:58:00.002-05:00

Me: Lily, what did you dream about last night?

Lily: Pizza!

Me: What kind of pizza?

Lily: Eat pizza!

I'm going to bitch about some things

2011-09-08T12:22:00.000-05:00

Fuck you, fake food

I used to have a crush on George Duran (warning: Flash). This started back when he had his own show on the Food Network back when the Food Network was somewhat watchable. He introduced me to Venezuelan hot dogs and I haven't looked back since. He's cute, has an interesting story, and I liked his personality.

In the years since his show got cancelled he's become a shill for ConAgra's family of pseudo-food. I'll admit that I'll take Hunts (HFCS-free) ketchup over Heinz any day when I'm not eating my own homemade ketchup -- oh yeah, I'm that homemade ketchup making girl -- but a quick glance at their product list is enough to harden your arteries and send your blood pressure straight up to the ISS.

So that's pretty bad in and of itself. I understand that a man's got to put money in the bank. But this latest PR nightmare blogger ridiculousness? What little respect I had for the guy is completely gone. Nothing says integrity like lying directly to people's faces and trying to make a buck off of hidden camera footage. It's enough to turn a person off ConAgra products forever. Phew -- looks like I don't buy any of that shit anyway.

Note that I still buy processed food from time to time (usually spaghetti sauce). I'm not on any kind of high horse on that front. But it'll be a cold August day in Death Valley before I slop a can of Chef Boyardee onto Lily's plate or fire up any Marie Callender's sodium pot pies.

Here's some more on that particular issue. I'm not even going to go back over blogger-corporate relationships.

Do I regret participating in a local event that benefited ConAgra's Child Hunger Ends Here? Yes on the ConAgra thing, no on the meeting other local people thing. My money's going directly to Second Harvest Heartland and United Way from here on out.

Fat and unhappy

In other news, I have gained five pounds and I'm almost back at my record high non-pregnant weight. I've been eating, oh, everything. And beer... oh, the beer. So much beer. It's time to stop. Good thing September is Abstinence Month for me. So this month it'll be no bird, no mammal, no alcohol, and no sweets. I put myself on a strict 1200 calorie diet and I'm back on the Couch to 5K horse. I'm on Fitocracy (hit me up if you want an invite) and Loseit. I'm skating once a week and trying to squeeze in yoga and exercise videos when Husband is out of the house.

BREATHE

I discovered yesterday that even though I'm in the most painful throes of allergy season and 99% of the time I can't breathe through the left side of my nose, my sinuses clear out when I'm exercising. If that isn't the serious motivation I need to get up off my ass, I don't know what is.

I'm currently on Claritin but that's just not working anymore. I'm going to finish out this bottle like an idiot but until the pills run out or we get a hard frost I'm also forced to take either Benadryl (protip: Sominex is the exact same thing and three times less expensive) plus Afrin or two Sudafed on top of the Claritin.

I'm so going to end up with liver failure. Haven't turned yellow yet, though. And I can sort of breathe!

I love my Baron

Another thing I can bitch about today is the anti-Asian scooter sentiment amongst scooter enthusiasts. The instant you mention you ride a Geely, Linhai, Roketa, Baron, Quinqzi, Kymco, or anything other than an Italian or American brand (except for the revered Honda), they immediately throw their nose into the air and dismiss anything you have to say. Need a part? Walk into a bike or scooter shop and see how fast they drawl, "We don't do Chinese scooters here."

Seriously, I just need a lightbulb.

It's extra hilarious considering the GY6 engine that almost every single Asian 125cc or 150cc scooter has are the exact same GY6 engines in Honda scooters that have been made in the exact same factories for decades.

OK, enough bitching for now.

That's a great question

2011-09-01T09:26:00.000-05:00

Why do some progressives support Ron Paul even though he is anti-woman, anti-civil rights, and anti-equality?

Holy shit, what the fuck is going on here?

2011-08-30T15:03:00.000-05:00

I just didn’t expect the death threats.
Wait a second. Death threats?

They decided I had to die.
I got a death threat.
I got another death threat.
And then I got one telling me that if I went to a popular blogger’s conference in November, they would find me, they would kill me, and they would kill everyone around me.

Please read the whole thing.

By far

2011-08-26T09:59:00.000-05:00

The most awesome thing I saw at the State Fair yesterday was an acid washed denim fanny pack.

The rosé at the wine stand was pretty great too.