HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY

Oh god, and what a Thanksgiving it's turning out to be here at Laurel House. We have a full house. No joke. Laney's best friends from highschool, Sarah and Maggie, are here, and Maggie brought her friend Caitlyn, who also comes with an adorable seeing-eye golden retriever named Glory. My contributions to the festivities are Stephan and Ryan (sanura, likely to chronicle the events of the next couple of days much better than I), and their former housemates Bryan and Ben. Bryan's friend Mollie is staying elsewhere, but she's around, as is Evan (prof_vencire) who is supposed to be spending Thanksgiving with his family but is ducking out of some of it to spend time at Club Laurel where clearly ALL THE FUN IS HAPPENING HELLO.

At Ben's suggestion, I drew a little diagram on the scroll of paper we keep tacked up in the kitchen to write notes to each other. It has the names of all official members of Laurel House, the names of their guests, arrows between people indicating how everyone knows each other, a few physical descriptors, and a chart of people's relative heights which Ben added on the side. It's already proved very useful; for a while there was a rumor going around that Francesca was my cat (?), and I keep forgetting Caitlyn's name and wanting to call her Catherine or Crystal. Whenever there's doubt or confusion, we can refer to the little chart!




Last night I made a big pot of black bean soup and a couple of loaves of quick cheese bread, and later on a huge pan of brownies which vanished in less than half an hour. We all sat around drinking wine, beer, champagne, bottled mojitos, Bailey's, or hard cider (this house is so filled with alcohol right now it's absurd), getting tipsy and getting to know each other. Stephan and Evan and Ben got in arguments about their respective political ideologies and visions of utopia, which means they're all getting along famously. The females in the party all had fun looking at my copy of Lost Girls, a graphic novel which I bought recently thinking it was about fairy tales and discovered to my surprise but not exactly displeasure that it was mostly about sex (and fairy tales). Everyone flirted madly with everyone else. Half the group retired to bed around midnight, and the rest of us stayed up getting drunk(er) and playing Never Have I Ever, which is always a great way to get to know a group of strangers with whom you'll be living for a few days. Eheheh.

Now everyone's had breakfast and showers (except one of us who is rather hung over and is staying in bed, who shall remain nameless because she might kill me if I make fun of her for it), Stephan and Ben have gone to the airport to fetch Ryan, and in the kitchen .... the Grand Cooking Marathon is commencing!

I'm not in charge of much this year -- just an apple pie and a pumpkin flan and some caramelized sweet potatoes, and I might take over the salad and/or the green beans if Laney gets stressed out, we'll see. I'm a little disappointed not to be making the traditional Club Dahlia aerodynamic rolls, but that's not really an appropriate dish for an indoor Thanksgiving, I suppose...

Oh fuck it, I want aerodynamic rolls. It's not Thanksgiving without aerodynamic rolls.

Guess I better go get on that then, huh?

FUTHER UPDATES AS EVENTS WARRANT.

Does anyone else feel as though, when you don't participate in livejournalness for a month or so, it's very very hard to start posting/commenting again? My bloggozoid and commmentezius muscles just go all weak and squishy. Can't think of anything amusing or interesting to say for myself, and can't think of much to say to other people besides "yay you!" or "oh noooo" or "I like the blue fuzzy one better, myself, but you should just go with whichever's got the best personality and the nicest car" and other such mundanities.

Anyway. I know I'll look back and be irked with myself for not posting anything, so here are some small situps and crunches for my flabby bloggozoids, and maybe later I'll try to tighten up the commentezii.

( And FLEX and STRETCH and FLEX and HOLD for one, two, three, four.... )


Yesterday was National Bundt Cake Day! I made a chocolate-orange bundt cake in celebration.


From http://www.foodandwine.com

Happy belated Bundt Cake Day, everyone!

Phew, that was quite a livejournaling workout.

Hi! Hi! I'm alive! You can stop poking me now! You four or five who poked me! I'm here! I'm posting!

... And now I'm having trouble thinking of things to say. Okay. Well, here's some rambling:

( My father came to visit me! )

Hm. What else. Well... ( I'm finally starting to feel twitchy about how little my life contains in the way of music, theater, or dance. )

Okay, there has to be a third thing, just for symmetry's sake. Umm.... um. Okay, here's this: for the first time ever (well, that I can remember) (  I celebrated a romantic anniversary with someone!  )

Okay. That's that. Um... how are you all these days?

ETA: Ehehehe, I like how I claim to have nothing to say and then type about 10,000 words anyway. Natter natter natter.

The Ever-Increasing List
of things I should actually write details about so I can remember later how much fun they were but might never get around to writing more about because I'm lazy and busy having fun so this run-on-sentence-ridden update is probably all for now:

- Minnesota Brownie Exchange + Blues Dancing! (Picture Laurel House stuffed to the gills with 40 or so people -- mostly blues dancers -- and brownies of every conceivable type, followed by an impromptu dance party that lasted until 2 AMish, god I hope the neighbors forgive us)

- Dancing with Laney and her coworkers at Conga Bistro, which masquerades a restaurant by day, but at night fills up with what must be a small but notable percentage of the Latin American immigrant population of Minneapolis and becomes a bar/club. The men are rather aggressive but fun to dance with and they go away with a grin and a shrug when you tell them firmly, the drinks are strong, the bartender is hot, and they play almost enough reggaetón and merengue to satisfy Laney and me. It's so much fun, we've gone twice and I think it's going to become our Sunday-night tradition. Despite the overwhelming heteronormativity, the blasting music, and the very obvious presence of a few gangsters, it feels amazingly safe and friendly and laid-back. Everyone's there to drink and dance, and if that's what you feel like doing then you're welcome there, and it doesn't matter if you're white or don't speak any Spanish or can't really dance well, and it apparently doesn't even matter if you're queer because last time we were there the bar was totally taken over by a happy party of half a dozen gorgeous transwomen and a couple of accompanying lesbians and one gay man, and nobody even blinked (except me). It was awesome. I love it.

- It's pear and apple season, and I'm going crazy at work trying to come up with recipes to use everything. There've been a couple of crab apple-pear crumbles, one pear-chocolate-walnut pie, one caramel apple pie, a couple of apple-raspberry pies, one ginger-pear upsidedown cake, a multi-layered apple bundt cake, and one cinnamon apple bread pudding with maple cream sauce. Tomorrow I have an experiment I want to try which will involve layers of phyllo dough, pears sautéed in brandy and butter, and a honey glaze infused with a tiny bit of thyme. I'll be curious to see how well my sense of invention can hold out against the onslaught of apples.

- In the past two weeks, I've had one person favorably compare a chocolate-raspberry torte of mine to the cakes at Café Latte (one of the most famous cake places in the city, ahahaha), two people say that the white chocolate almond layer cake was the best cake they've ever had, one person say I've completely sabotaged her attempts to go vegan because she can't stop eating my baked goods, and one person say she's been recommending this place to all of her coworkers since I started working there. And this is just the stuff I hear directly; apparently my coworkers don't pass on the stuff that customers tell them. I can't even describe how good all this makes me feel. I have a cool job! And I'm GOOD at it! How amazing is that!

- Slightly over a week after having begun Things with Danielle (we're not calling it a Relationship yet, except accidentally, because we still have to work out some stuff re: monogamy/nonmonogamy/etc). I'm a little bit bowled over by how well it's all going. I was expecting things to fizzle, I was expecting the housemates to get weird, I was expecting to need way more private time than she wanted to give me, I was expecting to be sexually incompatible, I was expecting everything and everything except what I've actually got -- which is an incredibly sweet and comfortable and fun and interesting and hot... Thing. For once, I'm not worrying about whether things are moving too fast, whether I'm giving the other person what she needs, whether I'm attaching too much or too little emotionally, blah blah blah blah... I'm just enjoying the good conversations and the lovely companionship and the gradually deepening intimacy and the stupefyingly large quantity of really good sex and so forth. What's even better, she's on pretty much the same page -- i.e. "this is fun, this is satisfying, I really enjoy spending time together, I don't really know where this is going but I'm having fun figuring it out, I'm learning a lot, etc." If anyone had told me ten days ago that this would happen, I would have blinked quizzically and laughed a little bit. But boy am I glad it did happen.

- ... I think I had like eight more things to write about, but I'm sleepy. Oh well.

やった！

When I walked in, Narita-sensei did a little double-take and went “懐かしいいい！”　... Although it became apparent when we talked after class that she couldn't quite remember my name. Heehee. But she did remember other things about me (music major, worked in a café, liked to cook, etc.) and wanted to know all about my trip to Japan and what I was up to now. She was very interested to hear that I'm a baker now, and wants to come visit my café. (Incidentally, apparently there's really no exact word for what I'm doing for a living right now -- 料理人 implies mostly savory stuff and much more expertise, and although I rather like 炊婦 apparently no one actually says that. Anyone currently living in Japan have any suggestions?)

She's actually going to a bit of trouble for me, emailing me the worksheets because I can't log in to the website without officially registering for the course, which would mean having to pay. I am very touched and grateful.

And very glad that the third time was the charm.

Phew.

... Now to review 200 kanji and handfuls of honorific forms and transitive verbs in time for Wednesday. Eheheheh.

Damn, I am so lucky to have ( the job I do. )

This gloat brought to you by a totally exhausting day spent making eight quarts of ratatouille (no, I'm not joking, and boy have my knife skills improved) and also inventing ways to use up ten pounds of Bramely apples (answer: raspberry-apple-candied ginger tart, cranberry-apple deep dish pie with an oatmeal crumble topping, and a rum apple cake which will be frosted with maple buttercream tomorrow). Yay, I win!

First Japanese class started five minutes ago. I'm still at home in my room. I got scared.

Arrrrrg, self.

Phew. Life!

We had another blues dance party at Laurel House last Friday. ( Oh god oh god oh god. )

( And then we had a Corey and a Peter at Laurel House too! )

And now I'm starting on a Week of Crazy, during which I will have to work nearly double the usual number of hours at Fireroast (we're catering a huge wedding next Saturday) and will also (I hope I hope I hope) start Japanese classes again at Macalester. And there are birthday parties springing up everywhere, and Evan visiting the cities this weekend, and I'm going dancing with Laney on Saturday, and the house is a mess and I have a to-do list a mile long, and wow I don't think life has ever had such a wonderfully high ratio of fun/stress.

There. That's me, mostly.

... And how are you all?

Didn't get the job.

Dammit.

ETA: For what it's worth, I'm not terribly upset or anything. I get to keep my free schedule and pursue more hobbies and whatnot. I just have to continue trying to do it on about $160/week. Ugh. And I feel bad, because I really could have done that job quite well, so I can't help fretting a bit over why I didn't get it.

THE CLOSET DRAMA
Or, What To Wear?
A drama in verse, composed by a Sad Pauper, two evenings before an important interview

Dramatis Personae
ANNA, a young woman
CLOSET, her closet


ACT 1, SCENE 1

[Enter ANNA.]

ANNA: Oh Closet mine, I come to thee in hope.
Thou hast in long years past revealed such cloth's
Of varying shapes and sizes, types and makes
To suit not only me, but also too my friends,
My housemates dear, and strangers on the street
For all occasions, costume balls, fêtes, hikes,
and trips to cafés, there to chic-ly lounge.
Preponderance of ruffles there may be
Within thy bowels, also fair long skirts,
and blouses that display the female bosom,
Perhaps a few too many patterns bold
and colors that proclaim the wearer's cheer.
And yet, oh Closet, I have faith in thee,
No quav'ring doubt gnaws at my confidence.
Produce thou, then, an outfit fit for this
My first interview for an office job!

CLOSET: Alas! My mistress, though I've served you long
And faithfully, I hope, and with success
I cannot give what you have never bought
Nor e're concealed in my capacious chest.
You wish a blouse, not over-large, nor yet
Of smallness that reveals immodestly?
A skirt, not long, but yet of such a length
So as to hide your rounded thigh and knee?
And shoes that, while not sneakers, seem to say
That you come not intending to beguile
By tottering heels, peeping toes and such
Your future boss? (For t'would be in poor style.)
And furthermore, for fear of seeming clownish
Must all these things be dyed in sober hues
No yellows bright nor reds flamboyant
But such as Earnestness herself might choose?

ANNA: Thou speak'st exactly, darling Closet mine,
And neatly voiced my thought before I spoke.
Moreover, I must also pause to note
You're rhyming your iambic! Most impressive.
I would but add to that list you have named
The stipulation, be it not too hard
That such as you produce for this occasion
Be at least a little stylish.
For I am young and vain, and would not like
To appear frumpy, though I must be modest.

CLOSET: Oh Mistress Anna, I must beg you, cease!
No more conditions -- t'will, I fear, be fruitless.
For I have nothing such as we have named
And must send you off shirtless, skirtless, bootless!

ANNA: What sayest thou? Would'st have me go naked?
T'would be, I fear, a rather grave offence
Against my former teachers and my school
To appear nude when they debate my hiring.

CLOSET: And yet, if such conditions as I named
Be truly needful, I confess I've naught
Within the confines of my bulging breast
For you to seem as office workers ought.
In all your soujourns to and from Goodwill
You've brought back fluffy skirts and battered heels,
Shirts in glorious stripes and 'broidery bold
And dresses over which the lustful keel.
Amongst these riches, many holes abound
And stains, for all were bought at such a price
As would not serve to buy a single suit
Of decent quality, nor yet a bag of rice.
Search though you may within my well-stuffed walls
Tearing clothes from hangers in your rage
Yet will you find nothing inside to suit
The solemn rites in which you will engage.

ANNA: Mine ears! Mine eyes! Can it be true? Can thou
Who hast e're now provided all I need
Have truly nothing I can wear on Tuesday?
What shall I do? Oh help! Oh woe is me!

CLOSET: Perhaps tomorrow you could buy a suit?

ANNA: This sensible suggestion gives me pain
For such requires going to a store,
A real one, not the Goodwill, where they'll charge
What clothing's actually worth! These four long years
I've scarce set foot in such a place as that.

CLOSET: But if you get the job, you'll have the money
For things like suits, though they be priced at cost.

ANNA: And if I don't? What then? I shall have paid
And yet not got the post!

CLOSET: You'll have the suit.
'Twill serve for other interviews to come.
Perhaps auditions also. Come now, Mistress,
Dry your sulky tears of disappointment
And face the morrow's shopping with brave heart.

ANNA: I won't! I shan't! I'll wear what you can give.
Convention be damned, I will not buy a suit.

CLOSET: A grave mistake, I fear --

ANNA: Shut up. You've failed.
I'm going now to sleep. Think well on this.
Tomorrow, Closet, we shall speak again
And if thou still hast nothing meet to give
I'll clean thee out, give all my clothes away,
And go to find a nudist camp to live in.

[Exit ANNA. The CLOSET sighs and goes to sleep.]

END SCENE 1.

A couple of people (including my beloved maternal unit) have recently informed me that I haven't been posting enough lately. But... well, I'm sorta stuck for things to post about. Life is as usual -- burying myself in mountains of butter-flour-sugar at work, hanging out with friends, pretending to study Japanese, and avoiding cleaning my room. There's been a goodbye party for Evan (*sniffle*), and a nice trip to the lake, and a surprise birthday party for Laney, and a hangout with old Mac music buddies, and a couple of visits to nice bookstores, and one funny visit to my very first sex toy store ever, heehee. And we finished Avatar a couple of days ago (I cried a little bit). And I have an interview for that job at Macalester. And I haven't called my voice teacher or my psychiatrist and I feel guilty about that. And there were tornados yesterday (Danielle and I cuddled up in the basement and she tried to get me interested in Buffy with zero success) and it's cold and rainy now and it's AUGUST for god's sake so I'm annoyed. In general ... well, life is as usual. Blah blah blah.

But this is not the kind of posting that satisfies my mother.

So I'm reviving this meme from a year ago.

"Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, favorite type of underwear, life experiences etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other."

Fire away, peanut gallery.

Hey guys. You know what's awesome?

日本語！

( 必死に勉強している！ )

It makes me happy. Even as it drives me crazy how each character has two or three meanings and half a dozen possible pronounciations, and how you need to know nearly two thousand of them before you can consider yourself at the level of a Japanese highschool student. ARRRRRG.

I think I have a hundred or so under my belt right now. Maybe two hundred.

... Well, I always like a challenge. *buckles down*

Home with the FAMILY! Until the 1st. Dad still lives for the thrill of a good pastry and a bit of linguistic trivia. Mom is sunburned and full of news and t'ai-chi joy. Jeremy enjoys saving videogame princesses, making cupcakes, being cynical, and biting me. Dogger continues to be adorable and smelly. I love them all.

Have also had a Corey and a Peter the past few days, on the first leg of the Epic Pre-Grad-School Roadtrip. Lots of loving. They left this morning for the Grand Canyon. I'll see them again in MN in a few weeks. Hooray.

Still experimenting with the Adderall dosage. No conclusions yet. I still can't quite believe I have ADD. Wouldn't I have noticed before now? I dunno.

I have internet only when I can steal it from another family member, so I have absolutely no idea what The Flist has been up to, sorry. Please let me know if anything thrilling or devastating or cute happens.

Following the instructions of Nice Psych Dude, I have increased the dose of Adderall to 20 mg the past couple of days.

And.... I still don't really think I feel anything. I don't know. I feel ever so slightly different, but I can't quite put my finger on what the difference actually is. And I've been studying my own behavior so closely, looking for signs of change, that I think it might just be a placebo effect.

I want to feel some difference. In fact, to be totally honest... I want to feel crazy and energetic and euphoric the way a 'normal' person does on 20 mg of amphetamine. ( Because the more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm intensely, irrationally uncomfortable with the idea of having ADD. )

( Meds! )


( Friends! )

And tonight our NEW HOUSEMATE, Laney's friend Danielle, arrives! I can't wait to meet her, she sounds fabulous. ... Although I still have cleaning to do, ack. But maybe I can still find the time to bake the strawberry tarts I've been promising Laney and Ben? It would be a nice "Welcome to Laurel House!" sort of thing, I think, arriving to the smell of fresh strawberry tarts. Mmmm.

This is very curious.

For various reasons, the psych I've been seeing asked me to try Adderall for a week. I was dubious and a bit wary. So I procrastinated, and only picked the meds up yesterday.

Tried 5 milligrams yesterday afternoon just before work, went to work and sleepily struggled through, then came home and slept for almost 16 hours straight.

Hello, brain -- you know Adderall is an amphetamine, right? What gives?

Woke up this morning. Another 5 mg. No noticeable effect for an hour. Now I am twitchy and intense like I am when I've forgotten my Effexor and am having an anxiety episode, but am not terribly anxious, just... erm, speedy. But I'm not sure if it's because of the 16 hours of sleep, an unusually strong cup of coffee, or the Adderall.

Perplexity. And... twitchiness.

ETA: Tried to practice, but can't -- no focus. Having trouble reading because I keep skipping chunks of sentences. Very physically restless. Decreased motor control. Can't access any emotions. This is really weird.

I'm nearing the end of the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

For those of you who don't know, Avatar is an animated fantasy television series which aired on Nickelodeon between 2005 and 2008. prof_vencire had mentioned it to me several times, but last Friday as his birthday party drew to a close he sat me down and had me watch a couple of episodes. I thought it was cute and interesting. There were fuzzy fantastical critters, and a strong female protagonist I liked. And Evan told me it got better, so I watched a few more episodes.

And then all of a sudden I was watching eight episodes in a single sitting, and muttering at my computer screen, and gasping when surprising things happen and squeeing out loud at cute things and awkward romantic situations and tearing up at sentimental moments. Please understand, this is a level of emotional response which is usually confined to Takarazuka plays starring performers I'm especially infatuated with.

I just watched the episode in which Jet dies. (He does die, yeah? They leave it a little bit ambiguous, but I'm pretty sure he's gone, along with the other Lost Boys of Neverland Freedom Fighters, dammit I liked those guys.) And now I'm afraid to finish the season. Because they've proved that yes, although this is technically a kids' show and therefore provides more than a fair share of rainbows and snuggles and last-minute redemptions and deus (well, cowskunkus) ex machinas, they WILL go so far as to kill off a significant character. And I'm even more afraid to start the third season, because then I'll race helplessly through it the way I've raced helplessly through the first two. And I know it will be tragic, and bad things will happen to lovable people, and I'm betting Zuko dies in some self-sacrificial gesture of redemption, or Aang gets killed and reincarnated, or GOD FORBID they kill Appa my beloved cowskunk (who is actually a flying bison) at which point I will cry. Really. And I only cry about once or twice a year.

Everyone, go watch this show. Now. If you have ever adored an animated film, or felt deeply moved by kids' fantasy stories like The Neverending Story or the Narnia Chronicles or the Lioness Quartet or whatever, go watch this show.

ETA:... I just realized. This is the first time in my life I have EVER cared about spoilers. Most any book or movie or play or whatever, I'm perfectly content to know the ending and who dies and who smooches and whatnot. But not this. Wow!

It's the one week anniversary of my shortest-ever haircut!

I promised pictures. Here they are.

( The best thing about this haircut is its versatility. )

Well, there you go, people who craved pictures. That ought to be enough to hold you off for a while.

My hair is gone. Gone, gone, GONE! (... Well, okay, not shaved, but definitely the shortest it's ever been.)

Popular consensus has it that I now look like Audrey Hepburn's gay sister.

People cannot stop giving me head rubs.

I am SO PLEASED.

Whew. What a weekend. Spent too much money, but I think it was worth it.

( Friday: Potluck! The Dakota! Intoxication! )


( Saturday: Work! Cupcakes! Friends in the park! Good books! )


( Sunday: PRIDE! Hot girls! Hot sun! Hula hoops! Hooray! )

... I think I need a day off, after a weekend like that. Phew.