Um Yeah

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:45:56 GMT

i hope everyone is listening to or watching Barack Obama right now. He is being awesome and historic in his speech.

advice?

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:56:42 GMT

One thing i've learned by doing this whole working from home/freelancing thing is that it's impossible.

You take a 5 minute break and somehow three hours has passed. You manage to work for two hours, and then you're hungry again. 10:00 p.m. comes and goes and you haven't got anything done. even the three hours was eaten up by some dumb procrastinating project and not something important.

I'm beginning to realize why I was so horrible at Swarthmore. My time management skills are shit. I expect to get days off. I don't like having work to do on the weekends. I prioritize and prioritize and I never make it through my list. People invite me to dinner and I go. I always want to go to sleep at 11 pm and sleep until 9 am.

How do I do this? How do I improve my discipline and focus? When I'm at work, I don't have this problem. I am always doing something. always moving forward. I am on time. I am able to set everything else in my life aside and just focus on work. What do you do when you have to bring this into your house?

and other cooking disasters

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:04:29 GMT

Most of you out there have probably read Calvin & Hobbes, and you remember that Calvin's mother always cooks this amorphous green (sometimes orange) blobby stuff for dinner, and Calvin finds it very threatening. ...

I've figured out the recipe.

Cooking with spam for dummies

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:01:34 GMT

Is spam any good in soup or is that just the sort of thing one should never try?

I'm assuming it works basically like hot dogs, which are ok in soup. Right?

Cicada

Mon, 26 May 2008 16:45:30 GMT

The cicadas have arrived. They have this awesome sci-fi-ish sonic sounding buzz that is reminiscent of alien-movie-landings.

Interesting

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:53:48 GMT

http://www.swarthmoorhall.co.uk/index.htm

Poll

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:05:25 GMT

1. If you are wearing a knee-length skirt to a job interview, what sort of shoes do you wear with it? What do they look like? Can you walk in them? Are they remotely comfortable? Do you think they're attractive or are they just something you bought to wear to job interviews and for that matter, you absolutely hate them? Do they have that necessary, I-am-sitting-here-looking-posh-but-not-drawing-attention-to-myself look? Where did you buy them and how expensive were they?

2. If you are wearing a knee-length skirt to a job interview, do you wear pantyhose? black socks? knee-high socks? no socks? something else?

Option 3: You never wear skirts to job interviews.

Option 4: You only wear long skirts to job interviews.

:)

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:55:07 GMT

There is nothing so luxurious or awesome as owning a dishwasher.

cooking pancakes with coconut milk in place of butter

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:34:12 GMT

We got macademia nut pancake mix and maple syrup for Christmas.

I'm mixing it up. I realize I only have one teaspoon of butter. I'm out of cooking oils.

The only other option is to break open the coconut milk and use it as my cooking oil.

It burns. But the burned bits taste good, like little bits of burned sugar.

the mix creates light, fluffy pancakes, and the subtle flavors of maple syrup and coconut and macadamia together are fucking awesome. the best pancakes ever.

a book you should read

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:08:23 GMT

"Confessions of an Economic Hitman"

fascinating book -- sort of a personal narrative of global economics. that tells an indispensible history of American foreign relations in the past 30 or so years.

links together a lot of things i knew were related but couldn't figure out how they were related to each other.

sometimes the writer gets annoying, but it's worth the read for the solid info.

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:26:43 GMT

[img]http://www.rdos.net/eng/quizpoly.php?p1=57&p2=35&p3=54&p4=70&p5=36&p6=26&p7=60&p8=26&p9=59[/img]

Stable version, release 5.0 (2007-10-19)
Thank you for filling out this questionnaire.

Your Aspie score: 120 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 75 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie

i was driving home and

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:24:52 GMT

i just saw a sign advertising hillbilly tacos and sno kones.

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 01:24:59 GMT

My mother finally gave me the wedding tablecloths back. She sewed them into the strangest, sweetest pillowcases ever. Thank you everyone for all your kind & beautiful words & pictures.

I also got a Bible verse. I'm trying to decide how I feel about it.

i think this is incredibly clever of the AC-T if it gets rolling.

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:09:33 GMT

http://citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=myhigh

the gaping loophole in the Fair Housing Act

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:00:15 GMT

Let me get this straight. I totally never knew this and stumbled upon it in a random and convoluted trek through the internet:

The Fair Housing Act, as it stands currently on the books, which says that it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, national origin, color, or familial status in housing DOES NOT APPLY TO THE RENTAL OF SINGLE-FAMILY UNITS unless the single-family units are owned by a person who is renting more than 3 or so single-family units and unless they publish or advertise that they are discriminating.

So then zoning comes along and says multi-family units can only go in x location.

and wa-la we have segregation. (i knew about the zoning already. i had that explained to me at "The State of Black Asheville" Conference a while back. but I had no idea the federal law itself had a huge gaping loophole in it like this).

Here is the link. Tell me I am somehow stupid and wrong about this:

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/housing/title8.htm

How to survive doing dishes --> find some awesome music

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 02:46:13 GMT

I just wanted to make a post so I could put this song under "Music."

You can find it here

http://www.myspace.com/laurablackley

and you can find more here

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=999960925009

history

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:16:44 GMT

I thought I posted my sophomore paper to livejournal, but I can't find it. Does anyone remember?

I wanted to go back and see how much of it came true.

Swarthmore Alumni Council Election Ballot

Sun, 20 May 2007 01:42:04 GMT

I got this alumni council election ballot thing in the mail.

Does anyone else find it amusing that the South is in the same group as all the territories dependencies and foreign countries?

Woot!

Tue, 15 May 2007 01:48:50 GMT

We have wedding vows :)

a riddle of my own

Sun, 13 May 2007 20:49:23 GMT

I want to know the name of an Italian movie about a movie director. The opening scene involves a guy calling his mother. The closing scene is a funeral.

That is all I know about the movie.

Lessons

Wed, 02 May 2007 01:04:11 GMT

I angrily jotted this down in my notes this morning from work:

According to my boss, If a black man is shot in a working class, residential neighborhood, his murder is of less interest (and therefore should be placed lower on the page) than a few college kids and a police department who were inconvenienced by their own stupidity for a few hours.
_________________________________________________________________
Today was also my last day of classes. Ever.

And it was the day the Board of Commissioners voted on zoning. But I didn't get to stay to hear their decision, because I had to leave. My last class EVER was at 6 p.m. I left the zoning meeting at 6:10 p.m. So I was horribly late, and I still don't know if it will or will not be legal to put a mobile home on certain areas of the county including Leicester. I think it will be ok to live in one that's already there. No one will be allowed to build any new. I wish I knew these things. I always leave county commissioner meetings feeling like there's so much I need to research and figure out and learn. If I were a better journalist, I would know these things.

The public was SOO angry about that zoning. I had never heard anyone call an elected official all the things I heard them call this board to their faces today. The public comments today were so sad and angry and funny.

I did learn some interesting things. According to the attorney who was representing the County Commissioners, there are currently 627 manufactured home parks registered in Buncombe County. They have lots for a total of 8,000-something manufactured homes. 12,145 total parcels of land in Buncombe County are occupied by manufactured homes.

a lot of emotional rollercoasters, today, very bittersweet. anger and sadness and joy and loss for words.

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 17:15:53 GMT

Jim is taking requests for wedding reception music. Anyone got anything they absolutely think we have to play at our wedding reception?

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 01:33:32 GMT

Working full time and going to school is exhausting. Even if it is only two classes. And you prior to now thought they were relatively easy classes.

You learn how to utilize your lunch breaks amazingly well. I never knew so much important stuff could be accomplished in a lunch break.

The best dinner in the world

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:36:16 GMT

1 head of Bok Choy
1.5 lb deer
seasonings, oil, some kind of marinade to taste.

dessert: (as if dinner wasn't already perfect) dark chocolate raisinets

cost: $4.11 (ok, so the deer was free) ($2.99 if you skip dessert) (1.49 if you save the other half of the bok choy for later and skip dessert).
serves: two
time: fast

Put some oil in a frying pan. Throw the chopped up deer in. Make sure there's some liquid, and something acidic. I use barbecue sauce. The liquid and acidity are what keeps the deer from being shoe leather. Cook it on relatively high heat, but try not to let it boil too much. Unlike cooking beef or chicken, in this case a little boiling is ok, anyway, a rollicking simmer is happy. Add seasonings. Cook it until it's no longer pink on the inside (or longer, depending on your taste).

chop up your bok choy. Heat oil in another pan and throw in the white stalks while you're finishing chopping up the leaves. Add seasoning to the oil. Add the leaves. Cook until the leaves are wilted. (this is extremely fast.)

Serve them together. They should both leave some nice liquid which when mixed makes the most divine broth ever.

Physiological Effects: Eating this meal is like a fine massage to the brain. You can physically feel all the nutrition coursing through your bloodstream and relaxing you. It's a lot like really good sex. You feel at one with the universe and as if the lights have been turned on in your brain for a kind of aurora borealis or something. Any infection, depression, angst, or stress-related illness will immediately be cured.

However, alas, this meal will not do your dishes or your homework.

Substitutions: Bok Choy requires red meat. Use beef if you don't have deer. And cook it the way you would stir-fried beef, not the way you would cook deer.

Disclaimers: These effects are caused in me. However, I have severe, prolonged cravings for bok choy. If you don't like the stuff, your effects probably won't be as good.

Definition: so what is bok choy anyway? it's a mellow, mellow, sweet, sweet vegetable, with cabbage-like stalks and kale-like leaves, with none of the bitterness or scaryness associated with cooked greens in general.

montage, fast-moving time

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 22:56:32 GMT

My next door neighbor is yelling again. I can hear her through the kitchen wall this time.

Addressed lots of wedding invitations yesterday, but not all of them.

Went & saw a play with my parents. had lunch at a restaurant downtown. A. got off work at 7:30 am, came home, went to sleep. I brought him an Arby's turkey bacon ranch sandwich, since nothing on the gourmet sunday brunch menu looked like anything he would eat.

Time is speeding up and barrelling toward graduation and wedding. All this excitement makes it hard to concentrate.

Homework. A story for an arts magazine. whether or not I want to try to carpool with Nikki.

the interpretation of dreams. I dream that global warming disrupts the ecology of the top of Mount Mitchell (the highest peak east of the mississippi, which isn't far from here) and I am learning the names of the plants that are dying from an old lady at the base of the mountain.

I also dream about high heeled shoes and decapitated people and that Granny is trying to tell me something, but I'm not sure what.