I’ve been working on some fiction stuff and also drawing again, PLUS I have a child who’s discovering the joys of bipedal locomotion, so I haven’t been posting much of anything lately. I also haven’t been reading blogs.
Is anyone familiar with small press or independent publishers in Chicago who focus on fiction and short fiction? The much vaunted Twilight Tales is on hiatus.
It is, for those if you experiencing winter in the midwest, very very dry.
If you are a normal person, you’ve probably had to deal with dry, scaly skin and nose bleeds.
I had my first nose bleed ever yesterday.
Oh, sure, I’ve had blood in my snot a few times, especially when it was super dry and I had a cold. But yesterday? I made up for a life time sans nosebleed. Blood ran in a river for, honest to God, an hour. You know how I usually exaggerate stuff for effect, comedic or otherwise?
I am not exaggerating.
A friend of mine who’s suffered such extensive, frequent nosebleeds that she wound up getting her nasal vessels cauterized, talked me through it– the nose pinching, the head tilt, the waiting. My hand cramped up from holding my nose shut. My eyes watered, and my lips dried out from breathing through my mouth. It was kind of like a nasal period, complete with giant black slug-like blood clots.
Let me tell you, internets, it was awful.
Especially because, once I stopped actual blood streaming, there was still both a faint trickle, a bit of a runny nose, and a gigantic fear of dislodging the blood clot. Yesterday was Christmas according to the Eastern Orthodox calendar, so we went to Nesko’s family’s house for dinner, and I was all paranoid that I’d 1) start bleeding again 2) people would notice I was being nasty by sucking up snots instead of blowing my nose.
We got some cash presents, which we are going to use to get humidifiers, one for each bedroom. I cannot imagine dealing with a nose bleeding baby, and would like to head that trauma off at the pass.
Feel free to tell your blood horror stories, nose blood or otherwise, in the comments.
For whatever reason, Niko was up and down all night which meant a night of very interrupted sleep, which for me usually means weird-as-all-fuck dreams. Most memorable of them was a 2-parter that involved 2 abandoned buildings we (where “we” was me, Nesko, my youngest brother, and some other people) had recently gotten ahold of and were trying to figure out how to rehab them and what we would use them for. There was actual talk about ripping out walls, etc. Only we were all dressed like we were at a Vampire: The Masquerade LARP in the late 90s… lots of black vinyl and fishnets and eye liner and flannel and really appalling hair.
One of the two buildings had a very large room on the second floor that was all dusty floorboards and decaying plaster and lathe walls with chunks of plaster missing and the lathe showing ominously through, a big faded oriental carpet in the middle of the floor several tones lighter than it should have been from thick dust. It was a massive room with two incredibly worn out white wing chairs, and an attached nursery and bathroom. The windows were wooden framed with wobbly glass and iron counter weights. We were debating what to do with that room, especially. It had been billed to us as the master bedroom and I wanted to keep it that way, but everyone else wanted to subdivide it into smaller rooms for some reason having to do with a threat of some sort.
The lighting and everything was kind of horror-movie ish, and there was lots of dirt and grim and it was hard to actually see anything and all the wall paper on the walls looked like it had been soaking in tea for awhile.
The dream shifted, as dreams do, and I realized that I was Jeffrey Rowland from “Over Compensating” which is not something I have ever aspired to be. Some other people and I were holed up in a barn, but it wasn’t a very good barn… the walls of it were wood slats and the wood was gappy and had bits missing so you could pretty much see inside from the outside and see the outside from inside, and it would have been pretty much impossible to actually defend. I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car in this barn that was filled with junk, and there was something about breakfast so I got out of the car and then someone else came in and I yelled at them to get away from my car, so I went over to it again.
Only it wasn’t a car, it was a table that someone had made into a car by attaching casters to the legs and an engine and gear shift to the underside of the table. Because of the location of the shifter, it was impossible to read what gear you were in, but that didn’t really matter because instead of “P,” “D,” “R” etc it said “Child,” “dorito,” “coffee cup” and “lime.” (Yes, I can read in dreams about half the time.) These weren’t really, you know, very explanatory. I think there was a steering wheel, but I don’t remember. Someone my brain identified as The Sheriff burst in and I had to peel out of there and escape. I didn’t know what gear to use though! I cycled through them all, quickly, and managed to get out of the barn and drove down a country road.
Part of the problem with the table car was that the seat didn’t have wheels (although it seemed to move ok) and wasn’t actually attached to the table. It was just a wooden dining chair. So I had to keep stopping the car and scooting back into the chair because the table was pulling me forward so I was sitting on the edge of my seat. I had my foot hooked up under something on the underside of the table to try and keep it all together.
Then I woke up.
If you were going to compile a cook book of very, very basic recipes for people who have never cooked before and grew up in houses where people didn’t cook, what would you put in?
After talking with a lot of intelligent, accomplished people I know who don’t cook, and then talking to my mom, we (my mom and I) have tentative plans to start a cooking blog with photos.
Among other things, I was thinking of doing themes. So, for instance, there’d be a post on how to cook rice without using a rice cooker, then there’d be posts about stuff you can make with rice. (For some reason, I know a lot of people who have no idea how to cook rice, and are also intimidated by it, whereas I just throw some rice and water and bouillon cubes in a pot and wander off for an hour or so and it’s No Big Deal.)
My mom cooked and baked professionally for years, and I was lucky enough to grow up in a home where “from scratch” cooking was normal and accessible. I think that gives me an edge over a lot of my peers, because I have basic skills in the kitchen and am not intimidated by most recipes. Not everyone has that.
What recipes would you be interested in seeing? What sort of topics would you expect to see discussed?
Let me know!
Last year I only made one resolution, which was to act with less fear and try more new things. Yes, those two are very closely intertwined. I’ve been doing a generally good job at this, but need to remember to keep doing so.
Do you have any resolutions for this year? Do you make resolutions or no? Do you feel bad if you don’t keep resolutions? Do you feel extra good if you do keep them?
The Cat Sìth (Scottish Gaelic: [k?aht? ??i?]) or Cat Sídhe (Irish: [kat?? ??i?]) is a fairy creature from Scottish mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its breast. Legend has it that the spectral cat haunts the Scottish Highlands. Some common folklore suggested that the Cat Sìth was not a fairy, but a transformed witch.
The myths surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish Folklore, but a few myths occur in Irish folklore as well.
From Wikipedia.
The Cat Sidhe, in Faerie, has two forms: a stocky, powerful, bipedal fur-covered form with large teeth, claws, and tail; and a large stocky mountain cat type form. Cat Sidhe are skilled trackers, hunters, and guards who live in the Winter Court. Like most Fey in the Winter Court, they are more reserved than the Summer Court. Unlike most Fey, the Cat Sidhe are not immortal. They have long life spans, but they still age and die. Further, Ice Trolls (which do not live in Faerie) prize their pelts and hunt and kill them when they can.
When Cat Sidhe cross Iron Side, they are consigned to either a fully human looking form (bipedal, no fur, no fangs, no claws, no tail) or fully cat. They tend to prefer the cat form, as the human form leaves them feeling naked and defenseless. The longer they spend Iron Side, the more likely they are to be stuck in that form. As a human shaped Cat Sidhe cannot cross back into Faerie, this poses a problem.
Cat Sidhe do not tend to take part in political intrigue. Although intelligent, they are not devious or overly secretive (any more than any other feline influenced race).
Cat Sidhe, with their limited life span, do experience pregnancy– which is rare among Faerie. Females have 1-3 litters in their life time, of 3-7 kits. Generally, more males than females are born and survive. Cat Sidhe are able to interbreed with other fertile Fey creatures and humans, although it’s unlikely. Their offspring generally take after the non Cat Sidhe parent, although this is not always true, and are usually sterile.
Do you have plans for tonight/tomorrow? What are you doing for New Year’s Eve and Day?
We were going to go out and see some friends, but decided against it because:
So we’ll probably do any and all socializing the following weekend. I think I’m going to make pizza and we might get some fizzy cider or something and watch a movie. We might also go to Nesko’s parents’ house, which is five minutes away, and come home around 8:00 so as to get Niko tucked into bed and also avoid all drunken driving.
What are YOUR plans? I can almost guarantee you they’re more exciting and fun than OUR plans.
Despite what the commercials claim, dieting isn’t going to fix all your problems.
No, joining weight watchers isn’t going to prevent jerks from slamming into your desk and spilling coffee all over your shirt. Nor will joining weight watchers prevent rain from falling from the sky and getting you wet.
I just… what?
Dieting isn’t some magic fix that will repair everything that’s wrong with your life.
Also, if you are an adult, don’t be surprised if a child’s size chair is too small for you. No amount of Special K magical special diets will turn an adult’s butt into a child’s butt.
Adults and children are different sizes. Children are smaller than adults. Yes, there are especially large children and especially small adults, but in general, child-sized things are child-sized because children are smaller than adults.
As baffling as the weight watcher’s commercial was (seriously? coffee spills can be solved by losing weight? only fat people spill coffee when jerks bang into them? rain, which once fell on the just and unjust alike, now targets fatties?), the Special K commercial seems more harmful. There’s the push to shrink female bodies, to reduce them to non-adult sizes. There’s existing rhetoric about how dieting mentality infantalizes women by removing their ability to chose what to eat, that dieting mentality punishes women for defying the ideal feminine norm and growing hips and butts and breasts (you know, secondary sexual signs). But now the message is coming clear: adult women are fucking hose beast lard bags if they don’t fit neatly into furniture scaled for children. Women: they need to remain child like and child sized or they are useless and terrible and need to be fixed. Adult women: there is something wrong with them.
The hell?
Note also that both commercials show conventionally attractive women who do not appear fat, or even chubby, and who have children. Ahh, true womanhood. Hot and fertile.
We hosted Christmas Dinner this year, the first time we’ve REALLY hosted a holiday meal. We’ve participated in pot luck in the past (including one year I made a turkey and it was the best tasting turkey IN THE ENTIRE WORLD and I’d never made a turkey before), and one year we half-assed it to the point of not bothering to check to see how long a spiral sliced ham needed to cook and wound up pan frying slices of ham for everyone’s dinner.
This year we made lasagna, cauliflower gratin, mashed potatoes, peas, 2 kinds of rolls, and a spiral sliced ham (well, the ham only needed to be heated up; it was already cooked). All of this, except for the ham, was made from scratch.
There was also cheese and crackers, pumpkin-cranberry muffins, and 4 types of cookies, as well as sugared almonds and spiced mixed nuts. The muffins, cookies, and nuts were also made from scratch.
This was a lot of cooking. I have a 9 month old who needs to be within touching distance of me at all times. I did a lot of prep cooking while he napped or was in bed.
Whew!
Nesko has never personally had to work to host a holiday meal. In the past, we either went to my parents’ or else his family hosted, which is to say that he sat around and drank and talked while Teh Wimmens busted their asses cleaning and cooking. Which meant that Nesko kept fluttering around the kitchen on Christmas early afternoon waving his hands and exclaiming that Christmas “was ruined.”
It was hilarious. And of course nothing was ruined.
The ham and lasagna went in then came out and were covered in foil to stay warm, and the cauliflower and potatoes went in. The peas were microwaved. The rolls were cooked the day before (but I should have heated them up in the oven but I was afraid they’d dry out or something).
Oh! There was also devilled eggs and fudge that didn’t set right (and I need to make a cake so I can melt that fudge down and turn it into frosting).
Next Christmas we are going to make appetizers, cookies, and pie. And if people want actual food we can have sandwiches or something. But people were very interested in the appetizers and were kind of full when the main meal came out. Sure, we could just skip appetizers, but they are MUCH easier to throw together than a meal is.
When we finally have a million billion dollars, we’re going to remodel our kitchen and put in two ovens to make life easier.
Dear Sir:
I notice that you have “WWJD,” or “What Would Jesus Do” emblazoned in very large font across your back.
Due to the vast span of time between Jesus and ourselves, as well as the corruption in his recorded words and deeds, it is hard to say exactly what Jesus would do, although we can hazard a pretty good guess.
I can say with some certainty, however, that Jesus would probably NOT whip his dick out and urinate in public.
Just a hunch.
