| Time for a fresh start |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|05:40 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
In case you were wondering, my big house-buying plans are slowly shaping up. I have basically secured the loan from the Bank of Mommy and Daddy and should have cash next week. It is not a big loan, but I'm not into having a big debt. Despite my stellar credit rating, my weird work history would make it difficult to get much bank financing anyway. We are hoping to find a great deal on a "unique fixer-upper" and will be looking at foreclosures. T is enjoying finding them on the Internet. At some point in the near future, we will actually go out and look at some of them. As soon as he closes his browser window...
There was an awesome place that was on the market for more than a year...it went under contract the week my parents finally agreed to grant me the loan. We're not rushing into anything, but I'm still on track to own my first home before I turn 35. Whew. |
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| Chasing Dragons |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|12:26 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  OK | ] |
Today we deliberately drove into a series of severe thunderstorms. It was exhilarating. |
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| Write, right? |
[Jul. 10th, 2009|04:23 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
Last night, I was reading ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tabort the end of one of my children's books, and the Bear came in, started messing around in the kitchen and caught the last five or ten pages. When I said, "The End," he called out, "Hey, where's that from?"
"Um...my brain?"
"It's pretty cool," he says. "I like it."
Well, of course you're going to like the climax of a book when all you've heard is the really exciting bit at the end where they're the first to discover alien life in the universe. Still and all, I do write a fine ending. The problem with that book is the first page....
Time to finish the novel I'm working on now (SOOOO close to the end of the first draft), revise this other book, and send it out into the world to fend for itself. I know it's good because it's the only thing I've ever shown many_simulacra that he actually liked. |
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| Home! |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|10:42 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  relieved | ] |
A long day of travel yesterday. T and the kids got me at the airport and we drove right out to the fireworks. The kids were kind of freaked out by the possibility of noise, but of course, afterward, we went to their grandparents' house and they raved about how great fireworks were. They passed out on the ride home. T and I celebrated our reunion in the pool...and the hot tub...and the yoga studio...and the bed.... |
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| What did I eat? |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|09:10 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | chipper | ] |
Even though crowds make me misanthropic and the Taste of Chicago brings out my inner gourmand, I can't help but loving everything about it. We *always* go on the most crowded day, but most people are pleasant and understanding about the realities of a crush of humanity. The weather was cool, and so were people's tempers. And, MAN, Chicago tastes GOOD!
Things I ate:
- Chicago style spinach pizza
- Coconut shrimp
- French fries
- Red beans and rice
- Mustard-fried catfish
- Pad Thai with tofu
- Peach cobbler
- Chocolate-covered strawberries
Things I didn't eat even though I really, really wanted to:
- Lobster
- Crab cakes
- Shark
- Pierogies
- Potato pancakes
- Blintzes
- Samosas
- Curry
- Enchiladas
- Tamales
- Cheesecake
- Watermelon
WTF food of the year (do not want):
- Popcorn-sicle (caramel corn and cheese popcorn flash frozen on a stick)
In past years I have gotten two strips of tickets and wished I could afford more. This year I ate my way through three strips--36 tickets. I just ran out of stomach. I definitely didn't run out of motivation. If I actually lived in the city, I would be there every day and try EVERYTHING (everything that was not meat or broccoli). We took tons of fun pictures, spent a wonderful hour people-watching in front of Buckingham fountain, and spread out a blanket on a perfect little hill just west of Lake Shore Drive. There was time to throw lo5t's tarot.
Fireworks were wonderful. There were some new ones, as always. We liked the smiley-face ones. Real crowd pleasers.
Then we shoved along shoulder to shoulder with a million of our closest friends back to Wabash, where halfcaff had parked his car. Of course, we neglected to take into account the fact that Wabash was closed to motor traffic. There was no way to get the car out of the garage. Instead, we drove up to the roof (10 stories) and looked down on the crowds getting on the red line until they opened the roads again. |
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| Some kind of town |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|12:07 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  drained | ] |
Sleep would be the intelligent option...
excellist may be right. Is LJ on the way out? Five years of my life exist here. I like LJ. I don't write about day-to-day stuff in a private journal anymore; I keep my pen and paper journal for private stuff and write everything public--everything I would tell my friends about--here. It would be hella sad if this forum disappeared while short-attention-span-theater like FaceBook or (heaven forfend) Twitter became the favored method.
Today was incessant. We took the nephews to the Botanic Garden. Usually, we cover a lot of ground and go through a good portion of the gardens, although it's scarcely possible to visit everything in one day. With the kids we basically saw the vegetable garden, the water lily garden, and, of course, the reason for the trip: the train garden. For the last ten summers, they've run dozens of G scale model trains through a garden full of natural material replicas of major American landmarks: Statue of Liberty, Taliesin, Mt. St. Helens (it erupts every 30 minutes), Old Faithful (it erupts every 5 minutes), the White House, and so on. It's clever, but your average adult would spend five or ten minutes admiring it. These kids were in there for over an hour. We had to drag them out.
We had a late lunch in the cafeteria and then I scarcely had time to collect myself before I had to go collect lo5t. We took the train to Ravenswood and halfcaff picked us up. He took us to a lovely bar called the Violet Hour, which is elaborately draped with curtains, creating a nice, mysterious feel. They make all their bitters and fruit syrups fresh every day, and the drinks are handcrafted with minute attention to detail. I had something called the Oldest Living Confederate War Widow, which was made with gin, absinthe, lemon, honey syrup, and orange bitters, and kind of hit me like a velvet-covered bowling ball. Death by lemonade: yummy to the extreme. Somehow, we lost two hours in there.
Then we ate dinner at Sushi X, where I enjoyed my usual favorites: caterpillar (eel) roll and spider (soft shell crab) roll. Don't tell the god of my fathers. He will smite me. We went back to Halfcaff's place for a bit. Got home pretty late and then talked to tabort til he passed out.
You know, I never reset the time on my computer, so here's I'm thinking it's 12:21, and, in reality, it's 2:21. And Lo5t demands my presence tomorrow...
Too wound up to sleep! Taste of Chicago tomorrow and finally back to my peaceful home and loving boyfriend. |
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| Future of Antioch and Ice Cream of the Future |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|01:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  busy | ] |
Looks like the alumni are winning the fight for Antioch College....
In local news, some of you know that my dad has a sideline business doing science-themed parties and exhibitions for children of all ages. We went to see him perform for day camp kids this afternoon. My mom is his lab assistant. They have adorable matching lab coats with their business logo. It was the liquid nitrogen program today. Features include freezing a rose and crumbling it to dust, freezing a racquetball and smashing it against the wall, freezing various gases to watch them change to liquids and solids, displays of florescence and luminescence, superconductivity, magnetism, electromagnetism.
The all-important finale is the instant ice cream activity. My mom mixes cream, sugar, and vanilla (the little kids ate all the chocolate syrup) in a bowl. My dad pours liquid nitrogen on top. Viola! Ice cream. The kids were pleased.
I took some nice pictures but for some reason T's camera does not recognize my brother's USB cable, and my card does not fit into his card reader, so I have to wait til next week to get the pix off the camera. |
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| Willfully Dumb or The Saga of the Wicked Step-Grandma |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|10:16 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
My nephews like the kids who live two doors down from Mom and Dad's house, and someone left the back gate open, so they ran down there, with me chasing after. Their friends came out, and the middle-aged woman with them made a comment or two of small talk as all the kids started digging up the lawn. Then this:
Woman: What nationality are you?
Me: Um...I'm American.
Woman: I mean, what nationality are your nephews?
Me: Uh...they're American too.
Woman: I mean, they look different.
Me: You mean because they're biracial?
Woman: I don't know what that means.
Me: They have one black grandparent.
The woman then makes some overly enthusiastic conversation about how mixed-race people are always so beautiful, which goes on for a while, until I get tired of that and try to move on.
Me: So how old is [the younger little boy she is watching]?
Woman: I don't know.
Me: He looks about two and half.
Woman: I'm not their real grandmother. I'm just married to their grandfather.
Me: Maybe he's three?
Woman: I wouldn't have any way of knowing something like that. I have no idea.
Older brother: [Woman], play with us.
Woman: No. |
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| OMFG Surprise Party! |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|04:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | exhausted | ] |
That was one gigantic surprise party. And yeah, my parents were gigantically surprised, which is kind of amazing, given that we had probably forty or forty-five people. Try coordinating forty-five people to show up at one place at one time, carrying food, drinks, and dj equipment, and to keep it a secret from everyone else.
Sissy told people no presents; they could bring dessert if they want. Consequently, we have about a year's worth of dessert now.
The weather was perfect, the timing was perfect. The music and dancing came off without a hitch. No bugs, plenty of food and drink. Lots of shiny, happy people. Sissy's quilt was admired by all. Massive success.
Would have been nice if I could have slept more than two hours last night. Hopefully, that objective will be achieved tonight. |
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| The Big Plan |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|12:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
It is this:
Phase one (complete): We surprise my parents by showing up with my sister, who never comes home.
Phase two (in progress): We surprise my parents when their extended family, who never visit here, show up.
Phase three (projected): We surprise my parents when all their friends jump out from behind the couch to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Parents receive commemorate family quilt. Falafel is consumed. Israeli folk dancing commences.
In case you were wondering what I'm doing this weekend. |
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| Stuff |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|11:08 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | calm | ] |
Getting close to my Chicago trip. I'll be there June 26-July 4, so let me know if you want to hang out! Yes, you!
The Bear is leaving tonight to see his new baby nephew back east. He takes the train. So he leaves at 1 a.m. And arrives sometime next Tuesday, I guess.
My friend the librarian is coming over tomorrow! Except she is not a librarian anymore. Budget cuts, remember. Now she teaches first grade. She is bringing her son (3rd grade). Maybe we will swim. I haz a frend!
Apparently, after spending the day writing marketing copy, I can only think in short, pointed, tongue-in-cheek prose bubbles. |
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| Interlude |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|04:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
Somebody just called to say he'd kinda sorta locked his keys in the car with the engine running because he was really, really focused on his iPhone. LOL!
We rescued him. Now back to work. |
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| Nihilists |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|04:30 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
One thing FaceBook does really well is show you how dumb you used to be, based on the current attitudes of people you admired in your youth. |
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| Allium or nothin' |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|09:21 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  awake | ] |
T and I went to an adorable little garlic and onion festival held on a 63 acre hippie farm south of the city. We pet the donkey; we rode the hay ride (even though T found this about as exciting as riding in a station wagon, and it was kind of cold, and kind of windy, and kind of raining). It was a very beautiful place; which hardly looked like the desert. They had every kind of garlic and onion for sale, plus sunflowers, other vegetables, local raw honey, handmade soap, beeswax candles.
We ate the roasted elephant garlic on toast. We ate the fresh home-style onion rings. T finished off with the "Count Dracula" garlic sausage while I warmed up with a potato and garlic tart. We also split a bottle of prickly pear lemonade. The farm is a private residence, but they had cute little gardens under trees, along with lots of wooden picnic tables, decorated with mason jars holding sunflowers and leek flowers. An incredibly picturesque farm.
We settled in to enjoy the live music, but the live music was so wailingly awful that it seemed more prudent to walk away from it, rather than suffer in the second row.
Instead we chatted with local artists, and then resisted a hard-sell pitch from the folks at the humane society, who did their very best to send us home with a perfect little kitten. I mean, a really perfect little kitten. So purrful! With adorable little black ear tufts! And cuddly! But I don't want to be one of those people who gets arrested for have 50 neglected cats in a 2000 square foot litterbox/home. Better do right by the cat I already have, even though he doesn't play, just follows me around and demands ear-scritching, and occasionally climbs trees to tell the doves to get the hell out.
Anyway, Mr. Next Door is at it with his freaking jackhammer again. He started at 8 a.m. Whatever the hell he's been doing back there all these weeks, it better raise our property value, reduce carbon emissions, clear my sinuses, and provide a habitat for endangered species. Seriously! I have lived my whole life without being pestered by jackhammers in private residences. What kind of project requires jackhammering every weekend, week in and week out, and some weekdays? It's a tiny freaking backyard.
If T decides to wake up today, I'll ask him to go up on the roof and spy. |
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| Eat your heart out! |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|12:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
erraticrabbit asks, "What does one wear to a play party?"
Well, this is what I wore there. What I wore inside is a different story.
A red-letter night! |
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| Breaking the silence! |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|03:17 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  didactic | ] |
Longtime followers of this journal know that I am not shy about sex, neither talk nor action. However, about a year and a half ago, I moved all explicit material over to a new journal (no, you don't want the URL. Trust me. If you don't already know it, I have determined that a frank, uncensored discussion of my sexuality would probably hurt your brain) and kept details here to a bare bones minimum, out of respect for my prudish friends (and my little brother, who stalks me via this journal).
However, this is interesting and not too explicit. (But, seriously...don't want to talk about sex? Move on.) I just read this interesting article about withdrawal as a legitimate form of birth control. The article discusses the fact that, although we were all told back in high school not to do this, many women are doing it, successfully, and not talking about it.
I am one of them.
Sparky and I quit using condoms about 5 months into our relationship. T and I quit after we went through the third box. In three and a half years of using it as my primary means of birth control, I have never had a pregnancy scare using withdrawal. (In that same time period I have had one minor freak out with a broken condom and one rather serious fright with Plan B.)
Turns out there are possibly not quite as many sperm in a drop of pre-cum as your health teacher wanted you to believe. And that is fine, quite frankly. This is not a parlor trick for teenagers. The average teenage boy can cum in his pants leafing through the Victoria's Secret catalog. The average grown-up man with a few years of sexual activity under his belt is perfectly capable of controlling whether or not he ejaculates at a given moment, and has no trouble pulling out in time, should he choose to do so.
Granted, some might argue that pulling out interferes with the woman's pleasure, which is true to an extent, but I am fortunate to have a boyfriend who will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get the job done. He's a trooper. Any guy who isn't willing to do so probably isn't mature enough to have sex anyway. Some might argue that it interferes with the man's pleasure, but again, it's not usually all that difficult to help a guy finish. I would argue that the loss of pleasure associated with withdrawal is substantially less than the loss of pleasure you experience by inserting a plastic barrier between yourself and your partner, and, in my experience, a thousand times nicer than the physical and psychological headache that is hormonal birth control (eight years experience there).
According to the article, withdrawal, done correctly, is only slightly less effective than using a condom. Which makes it more effective than other, widely accepted forms of birth control (diaphragm, sponge, cervical cap, female condom).
Let's face it: any time you let a boy put his lingam anywhere near your yoni, you could theoretically end up with a bouncing bundle of joy. Personally, this does not scare me. I'd like to plan for it, but if it happens, it happens. Anyway, I feel withdrawal affords me the same protection as barriers or pills. Barriers break. Pills slip your mind. Both can suffer from quality control in the factory. It's entirely possible to screw up either of these methods and not even notice. If you screw up withdrawal, I guarantee that you'll notice. Yes, it requires a certain degree of trust between man and woman, but if you don't feel that already, then what, exactly, is your long-term relationship built upon?
I have been sexually active for 17 years, exactly half my life. I have done some risky, stupid shit. I have tried a few methods of birth control (and I may try a Nuva-ring or something like that in the future). In my practical experience, I know a fuck of a lot more about human sexuality than, say, a professional sex therapist. I am here to tell you, you can have unprotected sex with a careful (disease free) partner (who you trust implicitly) without getting yourself knocked up.
Let the controversy begin. |
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| Cake and taxes |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|04:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hungry | ] |
Goddamnit, every time I log on to LJ I want to EAT that birthday skin. CAKE. I am weak.
Ever since excellist's updates on the subject of wedding cake, I keep thinking of when lo5t took me wedding shopping and the snooty cake lady informed us that it was "high-quality cake." And wouldn't let us have seconds.
Monday, tabort brought some stale cupcakes and we ate them anyway. CAKE!
Today I went to see my tax professional. Have to start paying quarterly or the IRS spanks me. The payments are sick. At least the tax guy didn't charge me for his time setting them up. He is a nice guy.
It is "raining" here, at the rate of approximately one raindrop every minute. Very weird.
Having done a minimum of work work, I guess I'll write some fiction now, resisting the urge. The urge to bake. To bake CAKE. No cake for Dragon :( |
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| Ups and downs |
[Jun. 7th, 2009|01:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | okay | ] |
Yesterday, T took his kids and me to see Up. What a wonderful film. Everything a movie should be: funny, emotional, suspenseful. A local reviewer here wrote that it topped any live action movie made in recent years, and in a way, I would agree. The animation is beautiful, but that's secondary to the characters and story. The idea of making an elderly widower a hero is almost anathema to Hollywood. And then making the villain twenty years older than the hero! Wow. So much of the pathos of the story is based on the character's age, the fact that he's lived this full, rich, happy life full of amazing memories, symbolized by the house he shared with the love of his life. And the house that first lifts and transports him is eventually recognized as the very thing that's pinning him down. I mean, this film is brilliant. Go see it.
Last night T took me to a play party and I played. Yay! Fun.
He is sick now, poor thing. I think he has an ear infection. I wish he would go get some antibiotics. Instead, he went to work.
Just now I checked my email and found a friendly email from the Big Man asking me if I would like to see him, have some (presumably) meaningless sex, and take a road trip to the east coast, where I could write in a rental cottage on the beach while he completed a 3-week contract. Keep in mind that I haven't heard a word from this guy in more than 2 years! And now he's "thinking about you so much; your affection, your lips, our bodies pressed together. I want to be inside of you again so badly Monica; God I have been so excruciatingly aroused for you." I am torn between blowing him off completely the way he did to me, and telling him off: "Well, I'm in a committed relationship right now, but if I ever want to have meaningless sex with an emotionally retarded, 6'4" infant who will likely stop taking my calls afterward, I'll send you an email." He was kind enough to attach a current photograph of himself, indicating that he's not aging all that well. |
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| Everything is backwards |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|09:54 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
1. In case you missed the FaceBook update, we took the kitty for her shots and learned that she was a he.
2. David Carradine committed suicide? WTF?
3. T's special drama friend decided to call three times between 1 and 2 a.m. last night. Welcome to day three of my ongoing headache.
4. Why am I fucking awake? |
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| Tricksters |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|12:42 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cynical | ] |
What really bugs me is that we live in a world where the Gary Trudeaus and the Jon Stewarts--the people who are trying to make us laugh--are the only ones allowed to tell the truth. I'd have a lot more respect for the Republican old guard if they came forward and said, "Yes, we were waiting for a major terrorist attack on US soil because it would allow us to accomplish our true objectives on the global stage." And then I'd be really impressed if they went on to say, "Sorry, we were wrong about how great war is for the economy." |
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