Rambling thoughts for a winter's night

When I walk home after sunset, I think I know what it's like to be a horse

or some such day-creature whose eyes alone do not reign over sight

in quite the way we fancy ours do

and who shies at shadows.

The telltale colors cloaking each form are quieter here

they require much sharper scrutiny 

than in the waking world.

I stop on the sidewalk for no reason

refuse to go on when the way is clear

because there is a strange shine on the stone

and I cannot tell if it is wet, slick, set, soft

for a moment I fear it will suck me in, pull me down

if I do not tread with care

but of course it is solid, only made of shinier stuff

than the square on which I stand.

I pause to admire the way the shadows cross

the darkest absorbing all that passes

but light darkening lighter, when they meet

neither blending with the other

all crisply informing with plain pictures

whether something lurks to the sides.

For several seconds I stop and stare

puzzling over the leaves that are not leaves

too much black and white and order

in the chaos crunching underfoot

I step carefully around the spot, unwilling to touch

unsure why, until the shapes resolve

a fallen sparrow in the fallen leaves

I try to make my silence a little more silent

out of respect for the dead.

I walk on, wanting to be home now

out of the wind, on familiar ground

not always glancing over my shoulder

when a low-flying leaf scampers by my side.

Street lights, headlights, Christmas lights 

all  are loathsome here

striking me briefly blind when I look away.

I watch a man and a white dog by the curb

suspicious, for they never move

they still don't move, so still I watch

I draw near and with one blink they are gone

or rather transformed,

boxes on boxes and three white trash bags

still unmoving and unmoved by my mistake.

Something small slithers after me

block after block, unrelenting

I turn to frighten the thing

which is the sneaking strap of the pack I carry

swung carelessly by my side

skittering along the sidewalk in my wake

I walk on.

This block smells of smoke

evil stuff, but I breathe deep to taste the ingredients

melting plastic, burning bark, smoldering leaves?

enough to make me hesitate in the haze

look and listen around just for a moment

hoping this fire is supposed to be

before making my hasty escape.

I rest a moment, blow out my breath

just to see the smoke

the kind that doesn't burn to breathe.

This block smells of apples

I do not know why this would be

have no clue which chemicals contribute 

but it is nice.

I do not linger here though

indeed, I have never walked more swiftly tonight

because I know this street

I know these trees

I know the way
I am close to home, and I have walked long enough

I forget the load I carry

and break into a trot.

Childhood Trauma

This. 

This is the face that will haunt your dreams.

Look at it

LOOK AT IT.

My mother maintains that the Thomas the Train nightlight is "cute." She thought it was "funny" when I ran screaming from the thing as a child, or when she would secretly switch it from place to place in the dark AS IF IT WERE MOVING ABOUT OF ITS OWN VOLITION.

I have tried explaining to her theories such as that of the Uncanny Valley, or pathogen avoidance, or just the flat-out fact that anthropomorphic steam engines with translucent gray "skin" and giant leering pedo-grins on their disembodied faces are EFFING CREEPY BY ALL STANDARDS, but she will have none of that.

So am I in the minority here? Is it just my imagination that this thing was bloody terrifying and still is almost two decades later? 

For the record, plugging him into the wall does not help -- his sickly face emits an unhealthy, uneven orange glow with an effect akin to that obtained by holding a large flashlight under your face. And then he's just sitting there, grinning, slowly emerging from the walls while you sleep.

Speaking of which ... 

sweet dreams.

Puzzling

Sooo ... what career option lends well to overanalysis and narrow focus? I find it's virtually impossible for me to see or hear something new without turning it around in my head and comparing it to a host of similar, different, and unrelated things until I have fit it in the proper cubby in my vast collection of similarity, differentness, and unrelatedness (they're words, they're words, shut up spell check).

Everyone does this, but I believe it's to excess with me. First time I listened to Lady Gaga's Edge of Glory: "Oh, that's interesting. The chorus has a nice feel to it. Now it's going to be stuck in my head. Hmmm-hmm- ... wait, "edge of nowhere," that's not in the song, it's edge of glory. Why am I ... oh, wait, wait, I see now, with the loud voice and the rallying and the up-down-up -- this sounds just like Song for the Lonely!"

It doesn't that much I suppose, but from then on they were interchangeable as far as being stuck in my head went.

Not long before that I was collecting Christmas music and stumbled on Sheryl Crow's rendition of All Through the Night (the lullaby, not the other one). Found myself stuck on the chorus again, couldn't figure why, was driving me batty until it clicked. "The chorus to this sounds just like We Owned the Night! It even has the same last two words, and they're both the chorus so if I compared they'd probably both show up around the 45 second mark!" (Yes, with new songs I tend to skip straight to the end of first verse/beginning of chorus to see if I like them, and I've learned over the years that that's about 45 seconds in.) In my mind this was Very Important And Significant. For what it's worth, I think the choruses start at 47 seconds and 50 seconds, respectively.

I also rattle off quotes (books, movies, TV shows, song lyrics, sayings, random things said by friends or coworkers) at a moment's notice. If I get them wrong or forget part of them (which is rather often), I'll spend up to twenty minutes searching until I find the correct version. When someone said I had to go back (to work) soon, I dug through my shelves for my copy of "The House at Pooh Corner" just to figure out what Owl had to say about "Backson" (as in, "BISY BACKSON" and "the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson").

Sometimes things go terribly awry and quotes stack upon quotes in an endless progression. "You need to press the button" becomes "You need to press the button ... button, who's got the button," which (if you've just watched a lot of Buffy recently) further transforms after a moment's recollection to "You need to press the button ... button, who's got the button ... my money's on, THE WITCH." And then people stare at you just a little bit. But that's okay, because you're psyched that you got the quote right the first time.

It can be helpful at times ... speaking of Buffy, I'll always remember how to spell Juliet Landau's name since waking up this morning and thinking, "Is it Juliet or Juliette, I'm pretty sure it's just "et," not "ette," Landau, Spandau ... HEY, it's like Spandau Ballet but backwards!"

As Lorelai Gilmore would say, "My brain is a wild jungle full of scary gibberish." I would recite the rest of the (oddly appropriate) quote here, but you've humored me long enough already and I still haven't given you any pictures. Here, thanks for waiting:

(I totally made a puzzle out of this ... /plugging website)

In which there is more of an actual recipe

Okay, welcome to part two of "learning to bake from a college student whose cupboard is full of instant noodles and oatmeal."

Now that you have your crust cooling, your cream cheese softened, and your sweet potatoes cooked nice and mushy, it's time to assemble everything. Brush the cookie crumbs out of that mixing bowl and put the peeled sweet potatoes in it. Make sure they're peeled right, with no gross bits or buds or eyes or whatever. Flecks of un-mashed potato are okay, big stringy chunks of stuff are not. Mashing them with sour cream makes things go a little smoother, and it makes the mashed parts paler than the rest so the chunks stand out and can be mercilessly pureed.

Okay, mash that stuff up and put it in a bowl, or maybe whatever you used to melt the butter in for the crust. Now dump all that cream cheese into your once-more-empty mixing bowl. If you have a real actual mixer, then by all means use that, but otherwise get ready to build some superhero arm-muscles.

If you have brown sugar, you'll want to add a bit over half a cup of that. Or, use white sugar and pour in some molasses. You can make pretty shapes if you want before you mix it all into a mush.

Add enough to make it a nice sort of silly-putty shade.

Mix it really well at this and subsequent stages, cream-cheese chunks are sort of off-putting. Now you need about three eggs; two is enough for two packages of cheese, four if they're medium and you're using three packages. 

Bystanders tensely awaiting the arrival of all the king's horses and all the kings men. Okay, now you're adding them one at a time, so if it's looking too runny at some point just don't add another one.

Once those are all mixed in and it's fluffy and lump-free, pour in whatever fall spices you want. Pretty much the same as for pumpkin, though I prefer more ginger and no allspice for sweet potatoes.

Pour all that in, whatever amounts look good.

Mix in a cup or so of sweet potato, break out the masher again if it's really lumpy.

Pour it on that crust you made a little while ago.

Have some leftover mashed potatoes while you wait, throw on a little molasses or black pepper or whatever floats your boat.

Cook it till it looks less like clam chowder and more like this.

You may want to put a pan under it, buttery crusts drip and start little mini fireworks in your oven. :)

I left mine in for about 45 minutes at 375, and the edges were getting pretty done so I went for 20 or so minutes at 300, then it sat in the oven for a while to cool off. Basically, it should be springy but not too jiggly, and a knife stuck in the middle should not come out covered in greasy soup. You can get fancy with water baths and all that, but why bother when you can just chuck it in the oven? You can even re-cook it a while at a low temp if it's not done in the middle. It's cheesecake, it's gonna be awesome no matter what. Letting it cool is the tough part, I usually make mine a day before but you can skimp on that and try a slice as soon as it's stopped feeling warm to the touch. Now you need to prepare the caramel sauce:

C'mon, you just made a whole cheesecake from scratch, did you really think I'd make you whip up a batch of caramel sauce too? Now drench that masterpiece in liquid caramel and have at it before anyone else finds out it's done.

Thanksgiving recipes? From the lizard girl?

I know, it just doesn't sound safe. Particularly since I currently have a Rubbermaid container full of live insects feasting on the scraps generated by this recipe. Don't worry, no pictures of them. Lots of other pics though, so I'll probably split this up a bit!

Well, this year I made sweet potato cheesecake with gingersnap crust and caramel sauce. I also did this last year, but now I actually know more or less how to prepare it.

So first, put on some festive baking music or something. 

Next you need take the cream cheese out to soften. I used about 2 and a half 8-oz packages -- you can use three if you have 'em, two if you don't happen to have 4 oz. left over from making crab rangoon.

If you're feeling super ambitious, you can even have them all be the same brand, but that requires planning and stuff. Next, you need a couple sweet potatoes, or one crazy big-a ... mazing sweet potato.

That's not all forced perspective with the cream cheese packages, it weighed well over a pound. You can bake it if you have time, or boil it or microwave it or whatever. Just get it cooked all the way through. Don't start mixing stuff in your mixing bowl yet though, you need that for the gingersnap crumbs. By the way, you need ~2 cups of gingersnap crumbs. More is generally better if you want the crust to go up the sides a little.

Then you need to melt 5 T or so of butter, less usually works just fine.

You're mixing food and stuff now, so tie back that unruly hair or people are gonna get grossed out thinking there might be hair in their food.

Once you've spent like half an hour taking pictures of all this, stop for a minute and think whether you're supposed to be writing a 5-page proposal essay today. If you are, take a five-minute research break.

Whew, that was exhausting. Back to the important stuff. If your gingersnaps aren't very sweet, pour some sugar in there.

Mix it up till it's all sparkly.

If it looks like there's too much butter at this stage, add more gingersnaps. If you have no capacity to plan for the future and already ate the rest of the batch, you big giant hog, just pour a little more sugar in there and hope for the best. Now you need to squish it into the cheesecake pan. You can use plastic, like this ginormous bag.

Or if it's just for family, do it the normal way.

Bake that for a while, five or six minutes maybe, till it's kind of crunchy but not burnt. Congrats, you've started the cheesecake and finished a gingersnap crust! I could have just said "make a graham cracker crust, but with gingersnaps" ... but that takes the suspense out of it. Next up is the cheesecake itself.

Beware of Squirrels

Or rather, be aware -- it's Squirrel Awareness Month, after all.

In the spirit of that (and also of needing to atone for a blog-free September), here are some squirrels and squirrely things for you to be aware of:

Squirrelface - I've discovered that if you approach while keeping the escape tree between yourself and the squirrels's field of vision, you can pop out and startle it into running right towards you. (And then you take a picture and leave them alone because it's not nice to scare squirrels).

SQUIRRELBUTT. Decided I wasn't worth staring at and went off to be squirrely somewhere else.

Squirrels of City Hall.

Squirrel prints from the dewy grass. :)

That's all for now, folks. Go notice a squirrel today!

This took FOREVER...

Which in my world = about 1.5 days. Yes, I'm that impatient. Clearly, hyper-realism will never be my thing. As it is though, here's what I managed to scratch out with Inkscape in that amount of time:

Not sure I'd want it on, say, an iPhone skin

But I have to offer it on everything. Someone did buy some pretty goofy-looking tigers on a *tie* of all things, so....

The fun part will be the variations - silver fox, Arctic fox, Fennec fox, etc. I may have to consult Harry & Elspeth's mummy for help with those.

In other news, finally got all my textbooks ordered (not putting it off to the last minute, they apparently just couldn't decide on a math book till now), and got 5 bucks MP3 credit from Amazon in return (which totally makes up for the 127-dollar textbook, right?), so now I'll be finding five or so songs to buy. One will be "Read My Mind" by the Killers, I'll have to think on the rest. Maybe some Mika, Iron & Wine, Decemberists, something to while away my last school-free afternoons with.

A Game of Murder and Intrigue

Okay not really, that's just what was going on at one point while we ate cookies in the dark and made sure nobody broke the library.

Everyone was organized into teams for the somethingth annual APL-Y Overnighter, a party rewarding the hard work and dedication of a MILLION BILLION youth volunteers (actual numbers may vary). Team leaders were all staff, and I was quickly voted the unofficial Most Boring Team Leader Ever. What can I say, devising entertainment for smallish groups is not my strong point.

The kiddies (some of whom were worrisomely close to my own age) didn't have to stay in their assigned groups for anything but the Organized Games, a couple little competitive bits of fun using Common Library Objects. First off was the giant tower of books. Thanks to a solidly built foundation from a longtime volunteer and some clever ideas about which books to use (I'm pretty sure everyone started following our structural lead after a few minutes), our tower was totally the tallest.

There was admittedly an equally-tallest tower (the night was full of ties), but I have no pictures of it that do not also include a whole bunch of kids who may or may not want their faces on my blog. So let's show ours again, in relation to the fellow who got to measure the towers:

He's not holding a flag, it just looks like he is.

Honorable mention was team #4 (alphabetically by team leader), who bears the distinction of having built by far the most towers in the allotted time. Props also to the team who built the tower just out of sight in the above pic, next to the pillar numbered 5. The guy stacking the books in that one was more or less trapped between the pillar and the book tower the entire time, as it was much taller than he was and to squeeze between the two structures to escape would have most likely meant an utter collapse of the building project. Now that's dedication!

All in all a pretty cool night, though I sort of wish I'd gotten a picture of myself at some point. The mess made was astounding, but so was the speed with which it was all cleaned up. By the time the library opened at 9AM, everyone was out the doors and on their way back home - or more specifically, on their way to bed. Fifteen hours of partying can have that effect on a person!

Finger-lickin' good...

Just for you!

So is this deal limited to babies, or can persons of all ages enjoy a hearty Breast Meal?

KFC, I hate your fried chicken but I do love your coupons.

Multicultural fail....

In case I ever doubted I was living in a state bordered only by other parts of the Midwest:

Nice effort. The sign's even better (worse?) from the other side, where "Mexican Food" ends up in the middle and looks even more like an odd afterthought.

College students can't buy groceries

Really, it's a wonder we don't all die of malnourishment on Ramen noodles and/or run out of money instantly after discovering a cool new overpriced store.

See, my shopping strategy is "only buy stuff that's cheap or on sale UNLESS it looks cool or I might need it for a recipe at some point or I'm really hungry or there's shiny stuff in a vending machine."

As a result, my backpack and pockets are full of Twix wrappers and my pantry currently contains:

1 bag glutinous rice

3 cans assorted tomato product (always have tomato product and chicken stock, you can make a base for anything)

3 packages Maruchan Ramen (this, frozen chicken stock, canned tomatoes and mixed veggies are the only things I always have, in case I need to make a meal fast - the stock and veggies mean I don't have to use the seasoning packets)

2 jars peanut butter (sale)

1/2 packet dried porcini mushrooms

1 small jar instant coffee (I do not drink coffee)

1 bag dark chocolate-peanut M&Ms (sale)

1 container dried apricots (I'd forgotten about this until today; there are maybe six withered apricots left in the bottom)

1 box rolled oats (for the morio worms)

1 box quick oats (for me, if I decide at some point to like oatmeal)

1 box pumpkin Pocky with 3 sticks remaining (it was the last box in the display, had to buy it)

1 bag evil-tasting puffed-wheat cereal (sale)

1 bag marshmallows

1 bag black walnuts

1 can chili-lime flavored almonds (sale; these taste like heavily-salted evil)

baking soda

baking powder

salt

honey

imitation vanilla (I have had this forever and do not use it; I think it's mostly just evaporating)

giant tub of ground cinnamon (I sort of inherited this, I will never have to buy cinnamon)

flour

sugar

cocoa powder

cornmeal

bread crumbs (I don't think I've ever used these)

The high proportion of "I don't use this" items explains why there is so much stuff in my cupboards even though I can never find any ingredients to make food with and I have no money. It may also explain why I have no money....

Electroshock

No, not a treatment program.

I have recently discovered, to my surprise, that I am a character on The Electric Company.

This is mostly surprising because I thought The Electric Company went off the air in the 70's.

As it turns out, there's a new one, and 8-year-olds everywhere (and by "everywhere" I mean "at the library") are just familiar enough with it to instantly conclude upon seeing me that I am "from TV." Never mind that I am not, in fact, a 15-year old Latina rapper; we have the same hair.

Well, I guess it's always good to have a fan base.

In other news, I realized how frighteningly easily-amused I am. Quick backstory: I have a useless habit of repeating things in a schizophre-- eh, poetic -- way and putting the wrong word endings (usually from another language, though I likely get them wrong in that language as well) on things when I'm saying them in my head, just for the sake of making them sound different. Things like -dad or -itas instead instead of -ity or -ness, -mente instead of -ly, and -en instead of -s for plurals. I don't always notice I'm doing it, which I suppose should be worrisome.

Anyhow, it was the last one that figures in today's tale. I was ... well, you know I have a gecko, right? Because that will cut down on a lot of explanation here about why I was putting morio worms in an ashtray. Anyhow, I was talking to myself about how the dish was deep enough to contain the beetles, but was it enough for the worms ... the wyrms ... the wyrmen ... VERMIN! And then I ran to my dictionary to confirm that "worm" was in fact the root for "vermin," and was excessively pleased that it was, because I do not have a life.

Some of you may be slightly more squeamish than would allow for my safely posting an image of my tub-o-worms, so we'll go safer and post some pretty pink blumen:

Pretty, yeah? Go outside, enjoy the weather, don't be like me and sit alone in your room inventing a new type of screwdriver ... wait, no, that was someone else who also spends most of the day living in a box.

420 views ...

ONE DAY LATE.

Well, since I've started a post I guess I have to say something interesting in it. Stupid rule, if you ask me. Have a drink while I think of something.

Okay ... Pandora. Finally got around to using this site, and for one of my channels it's great. Gave me lots of nice, mellow songs. All good.

The one that was intended as a nice, upbeat, 80's/90's channel, went a bit wrong. First I kept getting lazy, slow music and shifting it to the other station. Definitely not much resembling my seed songs (which included Layla, Ballroom Blitz and Roll to Me). Finally I made the mistake of thumbs-upping "Rocky Road To Dublin" from the High Kings, because it was the first song that wasn't slow music or rhythmic screaming.

Whoops.

Here's what happened next, to the best of my knowledge:

Me: That's more like it. :)

Pandora: Ohhh, you like *that*? Awesome, I have lots of that!!! *plays three Irish folk songs followed by two other versions of Rocky Road To Dublin in a row*

Me: Wait, wait, what? No! Stoppit! *thumbs down* What happened to all the other songs I gave you?

Pandora: But ... but you liked it. Do you want me to go back to the slow music?

Me: NO!!! *thumbs down*

Pandora: ... Fine, I'm just going to give you whatever's on top of the pile.

Me: "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)"? Well ... not your best work, but yes, this is the right direction. *thumbs up*

Pandora: O_o But ... but ... I thought you liked the Irish music. Okay. Breathe. Think, Pandora, think. Celtic folk song, yes. Irish folk songs, no. All other folk songs, no. Repetitive pop music ... yes. WTH. Um ... um ... OMG WAIT I KNOW WHAT SHE WANTS!!!

Whether this was in fact Pandora's thought process, its next move was to very enthusiastically present me with "(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles."

Bless its little robot heart.

Job Security

So, guy walks up to the desk at the library the other day, looks around suspiciously then turns to me.

Guy: "You ever think of having an off-duty cop patrol this place?"

Me: "... Hm?"

Guy: "Ever think of having an off-duty cop patrolling this place?"

Me: "Ah, why?"

Guy: "C'mon."

Me: "..."

Guy: "You know."

Said it as if I were deliberately avoiding a subject. I mean, he wasn't as interesting as the next guy who kept insisting he was in a Very Big Hurry while checking his watch-less wrist and asking me questions he could have answered more quickly by looking them up himself ... yeah, I don't know what it is about Mondays.

And also it's snowing now. So.

It's been a stressful week and we're just beginning. Have some balloons I found on campus:

Yes, I also feel strangely drawn to guess which one's bigger. Which reminds me, you know that thing they always have in "mind tricks" books, where the words say one color and are printed in another and you have to say the printed color aloud? Turns out I'm really good at that one. Does that mean I have poor reading comprehension or am just too familiar with the "magic trick" for it to work?

Bad Girl

Just realized how incredibly ungrateful it looked, posting that I found my camera waiting faithfully in the cold where I'd abandoned it, and then posting that I wanted a new camera.

But y'know, the new one is red. And shiny. And my old one never would let me take this picture, for some reason:

Also, the penguins. I sort of forgot about/ran out of penguins for a time. But there's one staring down at me from this weird box of generic frosted flakes on top of the fridge (and it's fishing in the bowl of cereal ... I do not know what they are trying to imply about their product here), so now I'm feeling guilty again.

But I'm avoiding Zazzle because it keeps asking me to consolidate my accounts, and it's kind of awkward because I only have one other account and don't particularly want to consolidate it. Avoidance is my solution to everything.

Speaking of which ... I can't think of anything clever to say, so g'bye.

Meanwhile, back in the mundy...

If you've read Bill Willingham's Fables, you know that "mundy" is the term his fairytale folk use for the non-magical people and places outside their little fable community in Manhattan.

If you haven't, well ... I've just explained it to you, so it shouldn't matter. You should still read the series though, graphic-novel fan or not. Even if Bigby seems not to have a face half the time....

Anyhow, I've come to the conclusion that if this is in fact the real world, the library is clearly Fabletown.

In the mundy, people carry around bags and purses and water-coolers and things.

In the library, staff (including myself) have been spotted trekking across the lobby with stuffed animals and giant beanbags, or wearing a plastic lei and carrying a pitcher full of spatulas.

In the mundy, closets and drawers are labeled sensibly or not at all. They contain pens and files and mops and such and rarely go anywhere interesting.

In the library, drawers and closets have at one point or another borne labels such as "Sesame Street" and "To Narnia." One closet door leads to a book drop, a book cart, and a shelf half-covered in glass vases.

In the mundy, people misplace hats and gloves and wallets.

In the library, people misplace baby strollers and pairs of pants. There has been a banana in the Lost & Found basket for two days. It was found in the lobby, and no one has had the heart to throw it out. It is, after all, a perfectly good banana. The empty tub of ricotta cheese from the computer area was discarded.

In the mundy, you can sometimes pet goats at a zoo once you've paid your admission and bought some goat feed.

In the library, we brought a very large miniature bull into the auditorium and people had their pictures taken on top of it. Because it was springtime. We did not charge - luckily, neither did the bull. It was a nice bull, really.

THAT one made the news.

Just some musings from me on this, the last day I am a teenager. Now I will be able to remember these things for my memoirs. I do not have to write about the secret admirer from the computer area, because he left me a very descriptive note with illustrations and everything. It is a very useful memory aid, though I am not sure why the Eye of Horus is on it.

Goodnight.

Oh, dear. He took the red one.

I don't typically title my blogs with direct quotes from movies, but I felt like making an exception today.

I have a new cameraaaah, and it's red. That's really all that's important, right?

It works much better in low light,

... in regular light ...

... in Wal-Mart ...

...and just in general, really.

It's a Lumix DMC-ZS7, and I've only dropped it on the concrete once. So far.

In other news, five people have stopped working at the library since I started up there. Some timing I have. :( I wonder if this is tied to my ability to chase away every mall and grocery store I've ever lived across from simply by being in the area for a couple years.