bacon and dreams

I had a very strange dream last night. Somehow, an experiment my dad and I (I think) were doing messed up magnetism. In what way I'm not sure, but small stones and rocks started flying all over the place, inside the house, pelting us, scaring my grandmother. We went outside and it was worse. I suggested we get heavy-duty tents to sleep in, and if we should board up the windows (which were mysteriously unbroken).

Then, abruptly, it stopped. The explanation was that whatever was going to be magnetically drawn already had been, so there was no more.

Gotta love dream science.


Last night, in honor of my sparkly clean kitchen, I cooked dinner for Snow. We collectively had a stroke of brilliance and I cooked bacon-wrapped turkey and cheese sausages, with scrambled eggs with green peppers and onions.

And it was really, realy awesome. Despite the smoke-filled apartment. That part is irrelevant, as my place still smells like bacon. And in case anyone wonders - that is *awesome*.

one second

I sometimes feel like my life is measured out in by the rounding of the clock, in flipping of the calendar. Rinse for 30 seconds. Brush for 2 minutes. Cleanse and then apply for five minutes. Stop if burning occurs. Apply to teeth for 10 minutes for a whiter, brighter smile. Sprinkle cleanser on non-poreus surface, leave for 15 minutes and rinse. Be sure to use adequate ventilation, or lung damage may occur. Take daily, unless rash appears. Rash may be fatal if left untreated. Apply and leave overnight for firmer, more luminous skin. File for disability within 30 days, or lost eligibility. Employer provided disability will expire in three months. State provided disability expires in one year.

Have the worst year of your life and try to recover some kind of normal. Try to believe the medication is working. Listen to the rain and wonder how long it will fall. Try to relax, knowing it will fall and stop, fall and stop forever.

i believe in harmony, i believe in christmas eve

<3 <3 <3

old techno fuels my soul

make art, not money

If only that paid the bills, yo.

Doodle:




More later, p'raps.

books will outlast us all, i think, i believe

I've been trying to watch less tv. As a result, I've been reading a lot - approximately at a rate of a book a day. Fortunately, I don't mind re-reading books, which gives me a pretty good library to choose from.

I really wanted to read Jonathan Lethem's "As She Climbed Across the Table", but apparently had lost/given away my copy. So I settle for reading "Invisible Monsters" by Chuck Palahnuik. It's not his most talked-about work, but I like it a lot. He has a way of creating the most completely fucked up characters that have ever lived. It makes me feel normal.

Then I read "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem, whcih I got at the new Cody's on Shattuck. Man, I am so happy they are back. I'd seen the recent movie of it with George Clooney, which I thought was amazing. The book was equally if not more stellar, and gave me a really good appreciation of what a difficult translation it must have been, from novel to film. There's something I love about that sort of claustrophobic, paranoid fiction.

I have more books queued up. "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman", a short story collection by one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, bought at The Other Change of Hobbit on Shattuck, a specialty scifi bookstore with a really cool store cat. I don't know why I never bought it until now, I have all of his other books which are in print in the US. His short stories are unsettling, confusing, evocative. They leave me feeling lightheaded, in a good way.

I finally, after going to all of the bookstores in town, found a copy of "As She Climbed Across the Table". It is in queue, probably to be moved to the top. It's a funny, strange, surreal book that makes me feel good and lonely at once.

At the same bookstore (Black Oak Books) I picked up on impulse a book called Birmingham: 35 Miles. It seems to be set after an environmental disaster of some kind. It is strange and somehow twistingly nostalgic that our greatest threat for an apocalyptic future is what we've done to our world, rather than the implements of war we once thought we'd destroy it with. Anyway, I'll report back on that one. I liked the cover. I judge books by their covers a lot.

In fact, when I lend out or lose copies of books, I find myself feverishly trying to find the same edition, or at least one with the same cover art. I really did want the version of the Lethem book I had before - but alas, it being so hard to find, I took what I could get.

I'll read them all. I'll read them again. I'll read them until their pages are frayed and crumbling and then I'll give them away and buy them again.

Today my mother told me she's afraid my dad will die before he's 70, that he has cardio-pulmonary problems and an enlarged heart. He is more frail than any of us knew and I am very very scared and I don't know how to deal with it at all.

remember when i used to live for music

I knew tv was bad for me. I just didn't understand why.

You can't listen to music while you watch tv. Not really, anyway.

I blamed not having a proper stereo. I blamed my hard drive. I blamed everything. I never blamed being distracted.

I've read a book and a half in the last day. I walked three miles. I did everything but watch reruns of things I've seen a thousand times. It's good.

Not listening to music is never a good sign for my mental health. Clearly I feel better.

And in addition, annoying my late-partying neighbors with Leonard Cohen at 9:00 in the morning makes me surprisingly happy. Take this walts, with a clamp on its jaws, loves.

i win

"StumbleUpon has temporarily run out of sites relevant to you. Please sign up for more topics."


I won Stumbleupon!

tivo is my lord and master

Things I watch live:

Battlestar Galactica
Lost

The best stuff on TV. Nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. I want to get to it before the spoilers start seeping.

Things TiVo gets for me on purpose:

Top Gear

One of the funniest shows ever. It makes me laugh until I hurt pretty much weekly. If the US ever makes a version of it, it will doubtless pale in comparison to the effortless fun of the original. Somehow it is a car show that you don't have to care at all about cars to love. I of course care about cars, so it's like a win win win win win.

Law and Order Criminal Intent

The best written procedural, with the best cast of all. A psychological Sherlock Holmes, it is intense and engrossing and I don't feel like I always outsmart it. Not sure what else to say, except that it's really high on my list.

CSI: Miami

It's not just that it's sexy, or the orange gel on the lens... it's the charismatic characters who somehow seem to *give a fuck*, unlike other CSI casts. I believe them, somehow. Even Horatio's glasses care. I can tell.

Various reality : America's Next Top Model, Top Chef, Project Runway, Hell's Kitchen etc.

Skill-based reality gets its hooks in me. ANTM must only be watched with the fast foward and mute close at hand. Top Chef is great just for the inedible looking food people pretentiously throw out. Project Runway is worth watching just for Tim Gunn (my hero).

I am presently probably not watching Hell's Kitchen after it was clear this season is going to be the "Beat on and say nasty things about women" season.


CSI

The original is still good, but totally pales in comparison with Miami. I stopped caring about these characters about a season ago. Apparently the cast is starting to rotate, which kills the chemistry of even a once good show.

Things TiVo decieds I might like (Nothing else is on):

Las Vegas

Trashy! It's a guilty pleasure. And really stylishly done.

Crossing Jordan

I have a harder time suspending belief about the level of investigation a coroner's office would do, even though the role of the CSI is equally exagerated. Also, a lot of the time I want to smack Jordan.

NCIS

So much cheese. The stories are somehow good, but every time the goth-punk-haxor chick comes on screen I want to break things. Preferably her hair extensions. I'd actually like this show if it wasn't for her.

Various History & Discovery channel stuff

I like the subjects usually. Really Big Things I will often watch, as well as Mythbusters or Smash Lab. But How It's Made bores the living hell out of me, and most of the History and Discovery channel shows seem like rehashes from school filmstrips.

It strikes me as perhaps not healthy that I can watch hour upon hour of CSI: Miami before I'll watch the history of war machines on History Channel.

It's Horatio's sunglasses. I blame them.

What I do while I should be looking for a job

New gallery on sevenbridgesstudio.com

New splash page for the totally unused extortion.com


I am so productive!

doom doom doom doomy doom doom

I am Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Who are you, and what have you done with zoembie

I spent the last hour practicing basic embroidery stitches.



That is all.

go get yourself some (not so) cheap sunglasses

In which I discover I haven't been paying attention

So today I got extremely awesome new sunglasses. I haven't had prescription sunglasses... well, ever. So that is a happy thing.

I wore them on the way home today, a lovely, sunny day with scattered white fluffy clouds. And as I walked, I noticed how *awesome* everything looked. How crisp shadows seemed, how nuanced textures became.

The sunglasses are polarized.

The reason my good photographs aren't great photographs is that I am not using a polarized filter.

I actually own one. But after trying it once to not a lot of great effect, probably because I didn't configure my camera right for it, I put it away without a lot of thought.

But this is the tool that everyone else is using to make their work look incredible, and I have stupidly been wondering how my eye has been failing me.

All I needed were sunglasses.