I should be better at updating.

I’m going to start working hard at being a portrait photographer instead of just a useless dilettante. I’m going to get more work in my portfolio and start whoring myself out (as a photographer!) on craigslist and all of the other sites, and then I’m going to upgrade to a Macbook and a 5D and L-series lenses. Yeah. That’s my plan.

At least this plan feels at least moderately achievable. I’ve had so many other grand plans in the past that I feel a little dumb announcing this one publicly. I have a history of failure. Epic failure. Failure of grand proportion. But, I really think I can do it this time. God knows, I can’t just sit here thinking about it all the time.

This past weekend I went to a nerdfest in Anaheim and was lucky enough to get to take some photos of my pal Steph. Would you like to see them? Here they are. Not particularly inspired and my background is completely blown out, but for my first non-Greyson portraits I’m pretty pleased with the turnout. As I get more familiar with my camera and particularly my flash, I should see some real improvement and I’m very excited about that. Anyway.

I’ll try to keep a bit more updated.

Over the past few, oh, I don’t know, decades, I’ve been trying to decide which I find more offensive – having nothing to say when you want to say it, or saying things just to fill the void. They are both just completely distasteful and frustrating for me but I’ll be damned if I can decide which is worse. But, anyway.

In the effort to throw something – anything – out of my brain and into the tronotubes, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately. It seems like I am falling into at least one pattern of housewifery that doesn’t make me want to tear the heads off Barbie dolls and fling them into the fire. And miraculously, cooking and eating food I would never gravitate towards naturally which, by the way, has been taking me to a place I normally would not ever, ever go.

Whole Foods.

Now, before anyone gets their organic, fair-trade  panties in a bind, I don’t have a moral opposition to healthy or natural crap. I’m a consumer’s consumer, I’ll buy pretty much anything that catches my eye that won’t offend my delicate midwestern financial sensibilities (i.e, i’m cheap). The last part there is why I don’t shop at Whole Foods, or at any other natural foods/product stores. The prices! I can’t stand it! Some part of me just cannot cope.  So, I told you that so that I could continue with this thing about the unusual foods.

I got a wild hair to make vindaloo for Warren. As a general rule, I don’t ever go, “You know, I think I want Portuguese/Indian food.”  I’m not big on curry, lamb, anything that isn’t deep-fried and covered in Crisco and gravy, so on and so forth. But I heard Warren crying in his sleep late one night, and it sounded something like, “Please, please stop making me eat green beans in pork fat. Please, not another bite of pan-fried chicken breast! No, no, no more homemade mashed potatoes with two sticks of butter and half a cup of whole milk!”  It was pitiful, and after I was done mocking him ruthlessly and with vengeance I decided that extra dose of mercy might go a long way towards keeping me from charbroiling in the Lake of Fire..

So, I found a recipe that looked relatively simple and sounded OK and still involved my favorite animal, pork. Mmm, sweet bacon, love of my life. But in this case, pork tenderloin. All of the ingredients were easy to find – except garam masala. I looked for it for three days. I went to Target. I went to Albertsons. While searching for substitutes on the internet, some genius mentioned World Market (or Cost Plus, depending on where you live). So off I trod, toddler-in-tow, to World Market (which, if you’ve never been, is possibly the worst  place to take a kid to whom everytime is grabbytime.)  And yet, I was foiled again. Not to be defeated, I asked a clerk at the World Market if he knew where one might locate such a rare and fascinating spice blend, and lo, he shined the light on the dreaded…the awful…the….

Whole Foods.

At this point, if he would have said to look under an old hooker’s left breast fold, I would have been like, sweet, know where I can find one, but still, I was dismayed because my one previous experience with the place – which until recently was known as Wild Oats, for reasons I cannot possibly fathom – left me with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth, something like the taste you get when you see a really cute pair of shoes with a $1,500 price tag. I’m a goer, though, so I went and they had not one, but two different brands of the miraculous garam masala! And even more amazing, they were less than I would have expected them to be. Except one of them was salt-free and I could not wrap my brain around the idea of something being salt-free. Everything in my life has salt.

Unfortunately, I also recalled that I was scheduled to whip up some tacos for dinner that night per my Weekly Menu of Terrible Doom* and failed to get cheese. As you know, one cannot eat a taco without cheese, that would be like eating tortilla chips without queso or an omelette without eggs, and so since I was in an alleged grocery store I might as well go see about the cheese.

I think I had a minor stroke in the dairy section, to be honest with you. $6 for TWO  CUPS OF SHREDDED MEXICAN BLEND, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!?! And then Greyson looked at me and was like, hey, Mom, don’t be such a cheap-ass ho. So I had to call Warren and tell him that he had to pick up cheese on the way home because I would have an aneurism and possibly explode if I had to pay $6 for a miniscule amount of cheese. My phone was breaking up and for a minute I thought he laughed at me and asked for a divorce, but what he apparently really said was that I should stop being ridiculous and buy a block of cheddar to shred myself.

Damn him and his common sense, not that I was thrilled by the price of a block but I have to pick my battles.

So, my tacos were delicious as was, surprisingly, the pork vindaloo. I would probably eat it again, if only to save Warren from having to eat fried chicken yet again, the poor soul. Then I made him fry me up some hot wings because I can’t be trusted with anything that might cause an accidental housefire.

*I thought about scanning a couple of them in, but decided that no one, least of all me, could possibly care.

Those who know me will hardly be shocked by the news that I have perhaps lost my intoxication with Wii Fit. And with Wii Sports. Shortly before we purchased it W was telling me how a study showed that  Wii owners play a game an average of 9 times. I like to think that my subconscious had something to do with the fact that I used Wii Fit with dedication for exactly 9 days. I’ll get back to it, it’s just that we bought MarioKart, and then Guitar Hero III, and any self-respecting slacker can inform you that having fun while being lazy trumps actively breaking a sweat, any day. (note: breaking a sweat due to household temperature does not count, and I say that because I did try to justify to myself that sweating while jamming on my fake guitar totally counts as aerobic exercise.)

Truly, my lack of discipline is embarrassing and I promise you I am appropriately ashamed of myself.

I’m curious about the scorn people seem to have for ‘bloggers’ right now. Oh, I’m sure it’s always been there, but it seems to be the soup du jour. Not all people who blog are pompous pricks, though I will admit that I almost said ‘I find myself curious’ which is like a guaranteed ticket to douchebaggery. Anyway, I want to blame it on Myspace because Rupert Murdoch owns it and because I’m harboring blanket hate for teenagers today, but I can’t even do that because I genuinely don’t understand what’s wrong with people writing. Good, bad, about Sarah Jessica Parker’s missing mole or Barack Obama getting rid of nukes, it’s still an intellectual pursuit at heart and I can’t help but think that can’t be anything but a positive thing. Especially for those Myspace teenagers.

As parents – as a nation – we are so focused on the physical health and fitness of the upcoming generations that I am a little nervous we aren’t focusing enough on their tiny little developing brains. Being athletic and eating your veggies is important and all, but to me it seems like being a little overweight would be preferable to being an idiot. I’m not talking about just uneducated, because you can be plenty smart without a degree or diploma, I’m talking dumb as a stack of bricks because no one could be bothered to instill the importance of knowledge in between playdates and soccer practice.

I’m overreacting and I know it, and I know that when I was 15 I had stupid conversations and did stupid things, but I was pursuing experience because I knew experience begets knowledge and knowledge is the secret to world domination. That’s definitely one secret I’ll share with my kid.

After months of fruitless longing, I have finally acquired not just a Wii – which was a chore in and of itself – but also my whole reason for wanting a Wii – Wii Fit!

I’m not much of one for reviewing things because I feel ridiculous doing it, but I just wanted to share that I did 35 minutes today of strength training, yoga and balance games and I hurt in ways I was not aware I could hurt.

And here I thought my daily meanderings to the mailbox counted as exercise. Tomorrow is going to be awful, I can just tell.

Anyway, it’s so much fun! I’ve always wanted to try yoga, since I have such a hard time relaxing it seemed like something I would get a lot of benefit from. Earlier this afternoon I was doing the tree pose and Warren goes, "You seem to be well suited to yoga, I hope you’re not insulted by my surprise." or something very like that. I suspect he was commenting on my outstanding natural grace.

OK, fine, or my obvious lack thereof. Anyway, it’s nice to be able to try it out without publicly humiliating myself. So, Wii Fit gets two thumbs up from for that alone, let alone the fact that I can slalom, ski jump and hula hoop!

The console itself was bundled with Wii Play, Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy. I haven’t played the latter at all, though Warren seems to enjoy it. Play is very…meh. Wii Sports is bad ass. I never thought I had violent tendencies but I gravitate towards the boxing like it’s cornbread or something deep-fried. I’m all pow pow BAM! It’s impossible to be mature about because the whole time I’m playing I’m hunched over with the remote and nunchuk like I’m boxing for real and trash talking my non-human opponent. I’d be embarrassed if I didn’t enjoy it so much.

So, in conclusion, if you don’t hear from me it’s because I’ve either sprained every muscle in my body or I’m boxing on my Wii. ^_^

[20:30] <Ali> There’s a word for the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. Is there a word for lighting someone on fire?

[19:35] <Rawn> the lady working the desk behind mine says “So what’s the poop?” a lot.
[19:36] <Rawn> It really makes me want to light her cube on fire.

[14:14] <Sindri> I was talking to Ali on the phone earlier, because sometimes I just randomly call her when I’m lonely, and she said you had this thing she read about on CNN
[14:15] <Sindri> http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/06/18/o.empathy/
[14:15] <Sindri> She might have seen it on Oprah
[14:16] <Sindri> She was like, “That’s totally what Cal has. That’s why we can’t ever have a good cry together after the TV gets repaired.”
[14:16] <Sindri> and I was like, “Go on…”
[14:16] <Sindri> And then I realized I’d unzipped myself on the freeway
[14:16] <Sindri> Actually, I didn’t realize it until the trucker did the horn thing.
[14:16] <Sindri> actually, it wasn’t until the third trucker.
[14:16] <Sindri> …
[14:17] <Cal> I’m not sure that link can live up to the intro you just gave it.

(for the record, I said no such thing as Cal is awesome, and also the TV thing is an inside joke)

And from a separate conversation…

[14:12] <Sindri> The difference being that Cal actually wants to hit her.
[14:12] <Sindri> like, with a pipe.

He was on a roll today:

[10:44] <Sindri> You know, what they say about getting desensitized is true.
[10:44] <Sindri> 15 years ago, this shit would have freaked me out
[10:45] <Sindri> Now, I’m like, “Whatever, trannies at work don’t even make me blink”

In an entirely different conversational realm:

Clark: What is that white shit?! WHAT IS THAT WHITE SHIT ON FUCKING MARS????!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/press/SS019IOF897904859_127F8RABCT1_full.html

Ajax: Awww shit, they found my stash. Great, now how am I gonna kill stupid rich people?

Frank: I think it’s a chewy nougat center.

Steve: Did you have to look the spelling up for “nougat”? Don’t lie…

Frank: no. but I totally googled it right after that because I realized that other than it being a chewy candy center I had no idea what nougat really was. Turns out the answer is: it’s a chewy candy center

I have great friends.

Since this is the first part of what will undoubtedly become a lengthy list of parts, let me preface it by saying that I am currently averaging no less than 10 ~300 page paperback historical romance and/or romantic suspense books per week, and it’s probably closer to 14 or 15. My hobby is scorned in my household by my literary snob of a husband and, frankly, most of the rest of the world as well. As a result, admitting it carries a faint hint of shame, and that I should feel any shame at all for READING BOOKS is just ridiculous, so there’s a wee bit of anger and really, it’s just a terrible cycle.

And all that, just for the introduction to a short list! Anyway, because I read so prolifically and obsessively, I quickly run out of the authors known to me and hit up the library selecting at random. I carry a green tote of doom to le bibliotheque and I have very little criteria about the books that end up there – I read the first page, then find a more…involved scene in the middle. If I don’t roll my eyes, it goes in the bag. Once home, if I make it 20 pages in without my lip curling in disdain, I’ll keep reading. If I make it halfway through without being bored to tears, I’ll pick up another book by the same author. Really it’s quite systematic and I cannot possibly imagine anyone reading this being interested in my book selection methodology. I’m sorry, I just get so caught up in the setup.

What I really want to say is that Lisa Kleypas deserves public ridicule for a multitude of things, but since I just finished one of her books tonight and this in particular stood out:

The phrase “…amorous, marauding mouth”

I MEAN, REALLY.

Never mind that there are scads of historical romance novels (I favor Regencies, personally) that are so well written that the genre is incidental, that phrase single-handedly illustrates why Warren sneers at my reading material. Well, that and the god-awful cover art on so many of them, but still. Yes, it loosely makes sense, the adjectives fit and contextually it was fine (though no actual plundering in the piratical sense was occurring) BUT IT SOUNDS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS. AMOROUS MAURADING.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go amorously maraud my refrigerator.

Before I moved to Utah to live with Warren, Sunday morning was sales ads and a bowl of cereal before heading off to work. I didn’t give a single thought to domestic or international politics, couldn’t possibly have cared less about the talking heads that feature so prominently on the television. The TV itself was rarely on in my household before either the evening or before my brother was awake, which was frequently the same time.

Even after I moved out here, for the first few years in the old house on 17th South, my routine didn’t change much except I no longer worked on Sundays. It was still cereal and the Sunday sales ads. It’s a habit I picked up from my parents, who for as long as I can remember spent their average Sundays in the same way, except coffee instead of cereal. But it was always the Sunday paper.

My life today still includes the Sunday paper – I read the sales ads, and Warren reads the paper itself and the New York Times, but the difference is the talking heads are always on in the background. Warren has a pattern established, his own routine, that while he reads the paper he points the kitchen TiVo* to Face The Nation with Bob Schieffer, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, The Chris Matthews Show, and his personal favorite, Meet the Press with Tim Russert.

I don’t personally care for any of them, and it would be hypocritical and stupid for me to pretend that I feel a personal grief for the passing of Tim Russert earlier this week. I don’t, however, want to minimize his contributions to both journalism and politics by that statement. Warren was immensely respectful of Tim Russert and he was far and away his favorite of the Sunday morning political hosts, and so it’s for him that I mention the much too early death of Tim Russert, and that in this household in particular, he will be missed.

*i love you, tivo

I’ve had a blog on Livejournal for many years now and so every time I try to host one of my own I feel like I’m cheating on it. Which, honestly, is stupid and I’m OK with admitting it. I’m OK with most things, which is a surprisingly frustrating state of being.

Blog is such an ugly word. It sounds like some kind of anaphylactic byproduct. Or something my dog might cough up on the carpet. Anyway.

The sun is setting orange and red over the Oquirrh mountains tonight and it’s beautiful. I’d take a picture but, well, I stole batteries out of my flash to power my laptop mouse. Sometimes you have to make those kinds of difficult decisions in your life when you’re lazy and Costco is a 10 minute drive away. AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME NOT GET MY BATTERIES AT COSTCO!