why does everyone tell me I'm delicious?

Yes that is the waffle and fried chicken combo on b's plate. The Yule log cake below was amazing…

soothe the tumors

Xmas San Diego 2010 has been overwhelmed by the city's biggest rain storm in years. It started raining the day I arrived and has been pissing ever since. Of course, there is supposed to be sun tomorrow, my last day here. But even chilly gray drizzle beats real winter any day, mittens down. And I do get that this is desert, and rain can cause problems, but it is hilarious that 6 days of drizzle is the biggest weather event local news has seen here in years.

It has still been a fabulous trip. Glad it's not my first time here, so when we spend the days hiding inside, at least I don't fear I'm missing anything; we've done all the "must dos" here. Relaxing, reading, napping, happy hours and hours, unexpected fun hidden in brownies, ocean beach for fish tacos, buttery brunches, dodging puddles, and did I mention napping? Think I need one now.

wayfinding

cannot explain how essential long breaks from school are to maintaining my sanity. working with junior high school students sucks every ounce of patience from my bones and the exhaustion wears on the deepest fibers of being. were it not for breaks like this weekend, i would surely have strangled several moody middle schoolers. having a 5-day weekend is one of the few incredible perks to working in a school. as much as i am enjoying the thoughts of this being my last year, i already miss the occasional respites.

knowing a move out of minnesota is coming makes me nervous and excited; knowing that we will not know where we'll live until mid-february turns my stomach to giddy butterfly knots. b is applying to PhD programs this month, and most announce acceptance in feb. the current list of possibilities:

San Francisco

LA

Boston

Princeton, NJ

Baltimore

way west or way east seems to be the plan. yet if all of these schools have their heads up asses and don't accept my smartypants sweetie, and if i am unable to sell my townhouse, minnesota could be added to the list...ugh. but even if that happens, i want to leave my current job. it is time. to move. on.

why is it so hard to get myself excited about the idea of a terrifically terrifying new adventure at, gasp, 36? clearly, i will be much more able to adjust to new surroundings now versus when i am 40, right?

what am i thankful for this spanksgiving freakend? a lot. it has been a lovely, if long long distance, year. my health remains spry, the love of my life keeps becoming more fabulous, my amazing group of friends, a solid healthcare plan, a roof over my head, a warm comforter on my bed, and plenty of pop tarts in the cupboard. oh, and the fact that i can (and will) take a nap anytime i want today. that's pretty sweet.

think i'll take one right now.

and then it was white

of course weather is a subject of small talk everywhere, but minnesotans have a special flare and incessant need to review discuss and predict it. perhaps it's because of shit like this week (here i go) - it was 70 degrees on tuesday and now it has been snowing for 12 hours and will for about 24 more. why the hell can't this happen on sunday night?!?! what good is snow if there is no snow day closing school?

this sudden shift to winter that is never sudden but always feels surprising has inspired the need to hibernate and fire up the crockpot. on today's menu, migas - a recipe i have wondered about for a while and finally decided to try. i have never cooked an egg-based meal in the slow cooker. yeehaw.

i miss palm trees.

ooooooo and a fabulous friend sent me this link to some awesome nerdiness. not a new idea, that we are all made from the remnants of a supernova, but a fascinating one to contemplate again. i love thinking about the comment that when you look at the night sky, the starlight is literally photons from that star touching your retina. photons that have traveled hundreds of trillions of miles for billions of years. the cells of your retina are their final (?) resting place.

aren't you a little old for that?

a happy halloween is coming to an end here in the land of opportunity. this tuesday will bring a wave of stupidity to the voting booths, mouth breathing, teabags steeping; i'm afraid i won't be able to buy enough hand sanitizer to get all the dumb off after my trip there.

idiot politicians on both sides have demonized the idea of paying taxes to such an extent, lies are now oozing out of every orifice about how they will cut taxes. it is impossible. all the shit americans expect the government to do for them have to be paid for, dumbass. and YES rich people should pay a helluva lot more in taxes than i do. they need to pay into the system that allows for their obscene wealth. michelle bachman, one of the dumbest creatures on the planet, loves to insist that if we end the bush tax cuts for wealthy people, they won't be able to create more jobs. her proof? well, obviously -- it is the fact that since those cuts were put in place, we have lost millions of jobs. daddy warbuck's tax cuts do not create jobs.

the photo - taken in a cell in alcatraz. there's a metaphor in here somewhere.

jiffy lube lied

about a month ago, there was a news report about an edmunds.com study on oil changes. they investigated the frequency of oil changes modern cars need, and they proved that the "you need to change your oil every 3,000 miles" idea is a complete lie. the quick lube shops continue to promote the idea with their little window reminder stickers, but they admit, you do not need to change your oil that often (their argument is - well, it's not necessary but it can't hurt to do it that often). the study explains that there indeed was a time when you had to change oil that frequently but with motor oils are much more efficient than they used to be.

the website suggests everyone can wait a minimum of 6,000 miles/6 months, but you should follow what your owner's manual recommends. a quick look at mine, for a 2001 Honda, showed that i only need to change my oil every 7,500 miles - which means twice a year, instead of 4-5 times per year. a savings of at least $150 and far less oil being thrown away into the environment.

this country's ridiculous appetite for oil, which in part led to one of our wars; climate change accelerated by our wastefulness; the gulf spill -- it can hurt to change your oil too often.

way too funny

this has to be one of the funniest things i have seen in years. especially if you already think paula deen is a little creepy. i love it near the tasting, when she licks her fingers, fingers the monstrosity, and feeds it to the hungry puma

bucketful of gee bees

i thought it was time for my first topical subject line... gay blood, camp GB, and the great brainwash. my lack of blogging lately has not correlated with a lack of shit i have to blather on about.

first on the list is the brainwash -- the insanely pervasive myth about vaccines. an episode of frontline focused on the debate (info and episode here). i have several friends currently pregnant and wondered what their views on this are. it all started when one (now known to be suspicious) study found a possible link between the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine and autism. since that study, its claims have been debunked by over a dozen other studies, and it has been shown that it cannot be replicated - a sign of a poor study. there is no link between MMR and autism.

jenny mcarthy took her son in for vaccination, and within days he had autism. that is how she remembers it, and there is no denying how someone choses to remember things. when the argument becomes "i am his mother, i know that something changed after he got that shot" it becomes irrefutable. even oprah couldn't counter that. that single flimsy study is the entire backbone of mcarthy's argument. she has enough celebrity power to make her own ridiculous fears and delusions "true" for suburban moms everywhere. she and her army keep changing their hypothesis - first, it was MMR, then it was an additive (derived from mercury), and on and on. what we are left with is pockets of the country where too many children are not immunized, thus creating the possibility of an outbreak. the concept of herd immunity was fascinating to learn about; when we all get our shots, we all are safer.

second topic - gay blood. did you know that in the US gay men cannot donate blood? if a man has had winkwink relations with another man since 1974, he is disqualified. they don't want his/my blood. since 1983, the FDA has banned gay blood. even the red cross called the ban "medically and scientifically unwarranted". this may finally be changing...

finally -- the day after returning from san diego, i went to winona, mn, for the 8th annual camp GB, a gathering of some of the most beautiful souls i have ever been lucky enough to know. we had 5 days of hot summer fun.

we rented a pontoon and went on the river, watched a backyard movie projected on a garage, painted, released the kracken, rocked some small town karokee (and got the girls all riled up), floated in the lake, and lounged as much as possible. such a gorgeous way to wrap up the summer.

don't even get me started

just heard that scientists found an enormous underwater plume of oil in the gulf (surely just one of countless others) which measures one mile by 22 miles and is sitting 1/2 a mile below the surface, just waiting for a good time to lube the beach.

i'm deep in to the back swing of school, whatever that jumble of words means. i am instantly overwhelmed but not getting stressed about it. my mind flies to recent summer memories to escape. like the day i was flying back to mpls, got to my seat on the plane to find a fussy baby in exhausted mom's lap in the middle seat and a very crabby old lady on the other side of him. i had the aisle, but after only 3 minutes of the baby kicking my leg, i leapt from my seat and tackled the flight attendant so i could upgrade to first class. holy shit was it worth it. i have only flown first class a couple of other times, magical upgrades, but only on short flights. the nearly 4-hour flight was a dream. i had not even sat in my luxurious seat when i was offered a bailey's to go with my coffee. we got cheese & crackers, a full meal, warm cookies, endless booze, actual leg room, and NO babies.

another notable from the california trip was one night when we went to hillcrest and the hilarious bar, urban mo's. we went seeking a specific purple drink that b had discovered there, but we were foiled, no such purple joy was to be found. we enjoyed our replacement drinks, then wandered inside to watch the dance floor. there was a way too fabulous queen OWNing the dance floor, we would sashay to one side flip and snap and hip bang around then take another corner. he was amazing to watch. then - beyonce's single ladies came on, and i knew he was going to rip it up. holy crap -- he started doing the video dance, the floor cleared and within seconds, he magically had 2 backup dancers. the entire bar watched hypnotized by the camp. i tried to film it, but must have double-tapped because only 2 seconds recorded...

to make it up to you, here is my nephew performing the same song...

while sprawled out in first class, enjoying my complimentary everything, the USA Today taught me that the delightful "dr" laura is an ignorant bigot and that a man in massachusetts got good news when the biopsy from the mass in his lung came back; it turned out it wasn't cancer. he had a pea sprouting in his lung.

learning is delicious

let them say we're crazy

The day of the march was the decision day for Prop 8. Judge Walker ruled prop 8 unconstitutional, ending the ban on gay marriage. After the decision, the judge was attacked in the media because he is openly gay, implying bias and personal activism (I can just hear Sarah Palin meowing about it). When reality is that this judge was appointed by Reagan and was accused of being *too* conservative during his confirmation.

The point is - the ban was unconstitutional. ALL people are created equal, is what they meant to say. Plus, this should never have been put to a popular vote; the result of scare campaigns and idiotic reasoning does not reflect what is right. Allowing interracial marriages would not have been approved by popular vote, but it was the right thing, the "American" thing to do.

is that a name or an intersection?

We have one more night at a fancy resort in the desert of Palm Springs. The mountain views are inspiring and the cake is delicious. We have a cool little villa with a private patio (our view is the 2nd pic). Yesterday we sat thru a 90-minute "time-share sales pitch" knowing we could only say NO but they gave us $200 in gift certificates for attending. It actually is a tempting deal, despite us not having the extra $10,000 to throw around and not really wanting to own a desert villa in the middle of a golf course. Fortunately it was pretty painless, and was fun (?) to do it as a couple. The last person to try to sell us shit had the greatest name Grant Broadway.

this whistle is on

i'm reveling in the time i have in san diego with my love, trying to absorb every milligram of joy in each moment. we've filled ourselves with delicious meals, insanely strong drinks, bad movies, and giggles. yesterday we went to the zoo -- my favorite moment was seeing the baby gorilla (baby frank) thumping his adorable little chest. it's a far stupider behavior when humans do it. as george bush so often proved.

there are moments at the zoo when you become trapped between baby strollers and families of fatties who apparently always have to stop and spread out in the middle of the pathway (not trying to get out of others' way) to tie their shoe, hoist up pants, or search for that lost snickers bar at the bottom of the oversize wicker bag; when trapped in these countless pockets, i can truly identify with the zoo animals.

after the zoo, we decided to go out to eat before rescuing micah from his kennel. we went to the hillcrest neighborhood - the gayborhood, if you will, and i will. we tried a newer place called Gossip Grill. as we were enjoying our drinks, we learned that there was a "march for marriage" (to protest the beyond retarded prop. 8) that would be coming down the street just outside our window. after we ate and sucked down several more drinks, we could see crowds start to gather. across the street, a guy in an upstairs apartment turned on a bubble machine. and the marchers started to come into sight. it was beautiful. there were so many people marching and cheering, and maybe the margaritas had a little to do with it, but i couldn't help myself from getting weepy. (i love my straight friends, but f*ck you for a minute) it is both awesome and awful to be in an area like that, where it is normal to see gay couples holding hands as they walk down the street. when the rare straight couple on the sidewalk makes you do a double-take. these beautiful pockets of the world in all the cities where they thrive (and the liberating joy i feel) are not about excluding the breeders, but instead they are a swing of the pendulum away from what we live every day.

if there is anything in this country that should be free, it is love.

you tall drink of bitch

another step in the purge completed -- the destruction of years and years worth of files; of bank & credit card statements, bills, and miscellaneous paperwork. saved every year with the intention that i would someday sort thru it, but instead, over the years i just got bigger file crates and kept stuffing more and more in... i finally went thru it all and filled a box with 25 pounds of pages to destroy. i found a company that does secure shredding with a drop off location near my house - hurrah. i tried buying a cheap shredder a few months ago, but it would get jammed with 2 pages at a time. not worth my time. now i just have to trust that the person at the drop off location actually kept my shit secure until the shredders came later today.

these are miniature horses, miniature horse ponies to be exact. my sister raises and sells them on her farm. they are insanely cute. yet i cannot imagine having one as a pet.

put a cork in it

it is Day 100 of BP's spectacular oil spill in the gulf. our brains cannot comprehend the scale of this gift...
interactive map here
yesterday those poor sweethearts at BP announced over $17 billion in losses this quarter, after having set aside $32 billion to pay for the spill. article here. as expected, Tony Hayward, BP's CEO, will step aside in October. but don't worry about that sweet little earthfucker. he'll no doubt get a fat severance and his pension is worth $17 million. the well has been capped for 12 days, but the massive underwater plumes will bring sludge to beaches for years...

images of the catastrophe make me think of waterfronts i love, like the bay bridge above. i like to think that humans are so hypnotized by water because we subconsciously connect with knowing that we are from water, that we are water. at the cell level, all life is aquatic. we yearn to return.

today brought the Veterans' association to pick up bags and boxes of discards from the great purge. just noticed that the stuff is gone! the project is nearly complete.

so funny (in that sad, "oh my god, i have become my hoarding grandma" way) to see some of the crap that i had stored -- mounds of VHS and audio tapes, notebooks and handouts from high school classes, a tub full of stuffed animals, oh my. all gone.

was I too hard on the beaver?

i am recently past the half-way point in summer vacation. poor, poor me, i know. but now the downhill slide back to school has begun. groan. this summer has be wonderful - relaxing, rejuvenating, and filled with giggles. the break has given me ample time to ponder and read, yet i have been very unmotivated to blog. of course, the news has not been without nerdy fun - such as this - scientists found what they believe to be the most massive star ever discovered. they estimate that when it was younger, it was 300 times the size of the sun, and remains 10 million times as bright.

it has been lovely having my californian sweethearts here for 2 months, though i have to fight the ipad for one's attention... saw the fam for a couple of weeks in early july. since returning, i have been taking on the challenge of my overfilled basement. with the possibility of moving next summer beginning to loom in my brain, the great purge has begun. i have been going thru boxes, file crates, gigantic plastic totes, and throwing away (recycling) as much as possible.

i have so many teacher materials that i no longer need. when i was finishing grad school, i really didn't think i would get a job at my school, so i bought ridiculous amounts of resources and photocopied EVERYTHING i *thought* i might "some day" use. i imagined working in some shitty district with no resources. turned out i got my dream job, and after teaching everything from Kindergarten thru middle school, i now know i never want to work with the little ones again, so i can get rid of all of the boxes of elementary school resources i have. a large stack of boxes has been set aside to give away and/or sell this fall at school, and perhaps on craigslist or some shit.

the thought of moving is so overwhelming to me on so many levels -- having to prepare and sell my townhouse, the home search wherever we go, the packing -- it all gives my stomach knots, so the basement project feels like something i can get done now. this way i don't have to focus on the bigger pains yet...

she sucks the shells off skittles

so much free time these past few days, but so little motivation... to exercise. to blog. to do anything, really. piddly cleaning, imaginary errands, and crap TV have filled the bloated minutes. i have watched my partner dissolve into his new iToy and i watched betty white's new show - hot in cleveland - the pilot was really good. hope to see more betty-heavy episodes to come.

it isn't often that the daily news truly affects and infiltrates my mind, but even thinking about the oil spill puts my stomach in knots. when i first heard of it - 70 fucking days ago - i feared it was going to be the ugliest thing this country has ever done to the planet, and it's turning out to be true. at first, the idea that this shit could be pouring into the gulf until august seemed impossible. now it is a certainty. at first, BP lied by claiming only 1,000 barrels were leaking a day. currently, we are accepting the lie that it is closer to 60,000 barrels, which means it is likely over 200,000 barrels in reality.

the scale of this disaster is beyond any coherent analogy, with news anchors claiming the oil slick is either the size of rhode island or alaska. whichever turns out to be true, this is going to destroy the region for years. one of the sickest little twists to this nightmare is how BP bought up the google search terms so that when you google "BP oil spill" or any variation of the terms, you get no useful results. as though there is no leak.

then why does everyone tell me i sound amazing?!

earlier this week, b decided that he needs to get an ipad. the giddy thoughts of fondling its prettiness make me need a new toy.

i can just hear the clamoring nerds stampeding to the apple store thursday for the release of iphone 4. it is damp-in-my-pants amazing. after patting myself on the back for a year for waiting to jump on the iwagon until the 3GS came out, now i cannot talk myself out of blowing another $300 for the new one.

the new OS will also be fab - folders for apps, multitasking, ibooks and more, but i can get that update on the 3GS. the new shape, size and apparent feel of iphone 4 intrigue, but hardly justify the purchase. the forward-facing camera which allows for video chatting is amazing, but will be very limited at first (only works with other iphone 4's - but someday will work with apps like skype).

perhaps the most amazing change is the processor. apple has always been hush-hush about the Samsung chip in the iphone, but this time they are showing it off. they are using the new customized apple-designed A4 chip, the same one that runs the ipad, but apparently in the phone it will be twice as fast. ok, the processor AND the display are the big sellers -- there will be 328 pixels per inch -- four times the pixels as the 3GS. blows every other smartphone display away. what is a nerd to do?

casserole of nonsense

one of the biggest questions in particle physics relates to the existence of matter. in a mathematically perfect universe, there would have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter created after the big bang, and they would have annihilated each other. there should be nothing everywhere. scientists don't know why the universe is composed of matter, and not its evil twin.

recently, a new clue to solving this mystery was announced. scientists at Fermilab's Tevatron, the largest particle collider in the US, discovered that muons, described as "fat electrons" might be the reason we are here. the reason we are really living.

they believe that after the big bang, neutral B-mesons, which switch back and forth between their matter and antimatter states trillions of times per second, and eventually decay to muons. because of the rate at which they alternate between the two states, they end up as matter more often than antimatter. that, not jebus, is the reason we are alive.

who cooks a musician at the height of her career?

could not be happier to have the school year done with. junior high school students - especially the boys -- are nightmares through and through, and they went way beyond proving that on the last day of school. not looking forward to the fall. so ready to dive headfirst into summer vacation. purging of stacks of crap in my basement is tedious project number one.

pictures help me learn. saw this in barcelona.

recent favorite quote - the older you get, the better you get. unless you're a banana.

what i thought felt like forever

why can't i start every day this happy? she is amazing.

when days are this gray, and oceans bubble with tar balls, we all need to straddle a sink. no?

oh, and here is some fabulous news. tyra banks has decided to "write" a novel. how did she come up with that incredibly unexpected title?!

a collective WTF

shut up and sit down, america. this is why you are fat. i want one.

KFC has started promoting their groundbreaking new "sandwich" - the revolution is the omission of a bun, replaced by two fried chicken breasts that serve as the bread and help you get the cheese, bacon and sauce in your mouth. this is something your ipad will never do for you.

i just threw up a little, and not sure why, but i want to deep fry it and wrap it in bacon...

we'll have missed the point

so, the show... i have seen the girls many times, but only one other time when it was only them, without a band. so few artists actually sound better live, free from production room magic. and even though these two have been trucking for a long time, they still sound terrific.

between songs it would become completely silent. so people randomly shouted out requests, which they would play. i flipped thru my mental ipod trying to think of something to holler. for some reason, "caramia" came to mind - definitely one of my favorite songs, but a song that really needs a band, not something they would play acoustic. anyhoo, i poo-pooed my own idea and just decided to stay quiet. until, i had more to drink, and then had a little more to drink, and near the end of the show, that song came barfing out of my mouth at one quiet moment - said it like a total smart ass. and emily fucking responded - she went on for minutes, i'm sure :) she said something like, "oh, god! what a train wreck that would be, we've never done that one, just the two of us... ahh, the train wrecks of our lives." she had mentioned before that they are working on a holiday album, and then said that (train wrecks of our lives) should be one of the song titles. i'm not making this shit up.

after the show, we lingered. mostly because we were too wobbly to move just yet, and we figured amy was going to come and make out with us. the foxy aunt clare lady who brings them their guitars threw me the song list, which i'm sure they fondled profusely.

one of my favorite song surprises was worldfalls. a favorite that someone requested was watershed. and there's something so right about the line - "i heard that you were drunk and mean down at the dairy queen"

defector of a kind

saw the most amazing indigo girls show last weekend. Totally had a
conversation with Emily and got their set list. more soon

blank title line

got a text tonight from b during an earthquake, he is fine and was home for the shaking. apparently a 7.2 quake hit about 120 miles southeast of san diego and was felt all the way to LA and beyond. i wondered about earthquakes for the first time in a long time on this trip, i usually just ignore their potential when i visit california - doesn't everyone? but when we were on the 44th floor of a downtown hotel on thursday night, the thought of the recent quake near LA crossed my mind. since there is nothing you can do to predict or prevent them, you just have to live and love now. passing thoughts of "which is better, being on the top floor of this building or being in the elevator" fortunately remained passing thoughts thanks to overpriced drinks.

a very interesting moment on this trip happened on a day we went shopping in la jolla, a fancy foo-foo area (also has the beach where the seals have taken over). anyway, we went into a local bookstore and i saw the "meet the author" wall plastered with karl rove's fat face. he was appearing there for a book signing later that day. if there is anyone more evil than dick cheney, it's rove. stunned and giddy, i overheard pussyfaced white women buying the book and asking if he was going to read, "no, he'll just be signing books" was always met with "what a shame." i had heard about a woman who tried to perform a citizen's arrest on him for war crimes the day before in LA. i had trouble figuring out how i could get out of jail in time for my flight friday morning, so decided not to risk it. i was bound to teabag him if i stayed. plus he wasn't going to be there for another 2.5 hours after we arrived, and we were d-o-n-e shopping, all pissy and tired. i wanted to leave a steaming turd in every copy of his book on their shelves, but the best i could do were some skid marks n sprinkles.

my spring break was terrific. but it unraveled no epiphany about what to do about work next year. back to school tomorrow, ugh...

only 68 days until school is out. perhaps for good.