Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Frost on the windowpanes.

I dreamt that I was part of a group of people told to pray at gunpoint. I began the Arabic prayer, "Allahu akhbar...." We're all People of the Book.

Post-it note on coffee maker at work (approx.): "It's a bad idea to leave the coffee pot on when it's empty. Just sayin'." The note doesn't work. Pot of crusted, burnt coffee when I got in to work this morning. Again.

Last week I found a tie discarded in the gutter. I put it on a parking meter. It's still there.

11:45 a.m. Bus slows to a halt twenty feet before its stop. Honks vigorously. Finally, disdainfully, a pigeon flies away from its resting point four inches in front of the bus' tire.

Gained lots of interesting new information in response to the reverse vegetarianism question. I now feel like I've got a much better grasp on the various vegetarian alternatives...and what alternatives I can use for those alternatives. (Say that ten times fast!) On the other hand, the image of "vegans raiding Ground Zero and eating all the outfits" is downright terrifying.

I propose a new homily: "Too many irons smother the fire."

The denouement bites cat ass. How's that for literary criticism?

( Birds, Ice Mother writing, and odd discussions )

If I had a Flickr! account, would you look?

Would you be annoyed if I still posted photos (not as many as there, but about the same as currently) here?

Felt very productive and accomplished at work today. This is rare, and to be noted.

Beneath manhole covers, I heard the rushing of melted snow hurrying away. It was a good sound. I was tempted to wear a lightweight coat today to celebrate the onset of spring, but that would have been a Bad Idea.

Got back three rolls of film today. I am Excited. I have Pretty Pictures. (P.S. Stop nagging me to set up a Flickr photostream--I'm on dial-up, and it takes forever for me to load. Which is my way of saying that I've been thinking about it.) Really annoyed with the errant eyelash or whatever that has meant all my photos have a little shadowed swoop in the corner. Think I might have gotten it out last time I changed film, but I've thought that before.

Confirmed that I'm not testing this weekend either. Good: I wasn't ready, and certain of my kicks really suck. Bad: I'm now in a class of my own (as always, and actually how I work best) and behind the others. I'm expected to determine when I'm ready to test and confirm it with the Inst. Though I hide it really well, I'm a perfectionist. The Ice Bitch is hungry because I've starved her for such a long time; I see her behind my eyes when I look in the mirror. She thinks I'm dinner. Conclusion: twenty spin kicks and twenty jump-spin kicks a night until I get it right. Or injure myself horribly by careening into walls because I'm dizzy.

Since I've been working full-time, I haven't been able to write much creatively, and it's making me jittery. Also feeling post-partum loathing of Vicesteed. When I have babies, you'll all watch me very, very closely to make sure I don't drown them in the tub, yes?

On Friday, I saw my first green buds of the year tentatively growing from a bush that clung to the riverbank.

This morning, I woke up and thought that somebody had dusted the tree with powdered sugar.

The twelfth day of Christmas may not yet have come and gone, but I am surrounded by the signs that the end time is nigh. Santa hats have vanished from the population. Snowmen have gone anorexic, flaunting sickly skeletons of leaves and twigs. Plastic light-up Santas lie on their sides, their lights burnt out, and nobody cares. Nobody smiles when they see twinkle lights on trees and lampposts, not anymore. The season of smiles has gone, and all we have left is the grim trudge to Spring, through slush and mud and cold and illness.

Except...I am growing a pot of paperwhites in my study, so Spring will visit me early.

Phone message from the hospital, to be preserved in perpetuity because it shows just how loopy I was:

Hey, hon, it's Abra, um, in case you get this because you seem to be AWOL at the hospital. I'm in room # and the phone number is #. I hope you weren't, like, driving to surgery yourself for some unknown reason. Love you. Bye.

I'm feeling a whole lot better. I've switched to OTC Ibuprofen with no particular problems, though I really miss my Vicodin sometimes and I didn't sleep particularly well last night. I can totally understand why that's considered highly addictive. When I was taking it, any pain I felt was quite distant, and everything was happy, fuzzy, and rose-colored. Hell, if I knew I could get more Vicodin, I probably would. Just for a little while.

I still get abdomen pain sometimes, but it feels more like cramps than anything else, and I've had thirteen years of learning how to deal with that. I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't cramps, and it isn't sore abs, and I shouldn't push through the pain--I should stop doing whatever it is that's causing the pain. There are sometimes weird muscle-flutterings from the area that was operated on. That can't be good, but it doesn't seem to be horribly bad either.

I'm still in fashion victim trapped in the eighties leggings-and-t-shirt mode. Still writing. May be up to doing some low-key socializing this weekend, but we'll see. Probably going to go back to work part-time on Monday, if they want me and the bus ride doesn't kill me. I feel so much better than I did right after I got out of the hospital. I'm capable of lifting a teapot now! I'm not walking hunched over like an old crone!

In happier news, we got a Christmas tree! Our old realtor dropped it by the house after Phil was stubborn about not picking up the (free) Christmas tree. It isn't decorated yet, but it's set up and waiting to settle. Foundling smells like pine tree, but the tree is still upright, so I'm not going to ask any questions.