Confession

For the first time in my 27 years on this planet, I forgot to add water to the rice before I cooked it. For shit's sake. G opens the rice cooker and dry rice spills over the side. (No clue why he tipped it in the first place.) Embarrassing. In defense of my error, I was finishing a roast chicken and cooking asparagus, and was waiting for the water to finish filtering. But still. I'm so glad I didn't do that around family. My sister would've blogged it.

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My Awesome Day.

After taking houseguest #4 to the airport today, I went to Ikea. I bought two drawer bottoms for 3 frickin' dollars each because mine warped during the winter and now one doesn't fit in the little grooves anymore. I know I could've gone to Home Depot and gotten something sturdier, but knowing me, it was worth ponying up the 6 bucks.

I also bought a plant stand, and sawed the legs off because it was too tall. (We have a saw! My dad bought it for me last year, and I thought it was funny. Now, I'm just grateful we had it.) Well, G did most of the sawing because...well, he had better control. This replaces the box I've been using for the past 11 months. (I'd been waiting to find something small enough!)

I also made a little desk shelf out of cabinet legs and a shelf piece from the As Is section. I didn't gain that much space, but now things are a little more spread out and less cluttered.

While we were gone, the landlady had a new toilet installed (smaller tank! shiny and new!) and re-caulked our sink.

I had a hot dog and some canned baked beans for dinner, because I was trying to avoid eating cheese for dinner and just ended up being hungry and cranky. Now I feel kinda weird. Similar to the feeling I get when I eat poptarts or triscuits. Mmmm processed foods.

Now I'm catching up on blogs, but I'm really not in the mood to focus.

And that was my awesome day.

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Correlations

Someday, I'd like to make a graph of how many posts and words I've posted over the years, and compare that to a graph of my level of happiness over the years. When things are super shitty, I write a lot, but when I'm just drifting like I am now, there is very little worth saying. I guess I also post less when I'm super busy, but I'm usually not that focused on my happiness when I'm surging towards a deadline.

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Yes, it's spring.

It's 4am, and there's a robin somewhere outside, very happy to be alive. I guess it's better than a mockingbird or a blue jay (I really don't see either one up here). And no I did not get up to tell you this, but I was thinking about going to bed...

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Thank you BBC.

Great tits cope well with warming

Not worth clicking the link unless y'know, you like great tits.

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Confession

Today I bought The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Again. As I still do not have a job (some may say I am actively avoiding the search), this was an indulgence. Err, so was going out for Thai food and watching The Flight of the Red Balloon in an actual movie theater, but I've justified most of that already.

In January or February, I read a borrowed copy, and loved it. A few weeks ago, I actually went to a couple used book stores and bought a paperback version for myself.

Today I found the first edition second printing of the hardback sitting in the used section of the university book store, and decided that was much cooler than the paperback. (Okay fine, a second printing isn't nearly as cool, but having it in hardback is still kinda neat.) So now I have an extra copy. I'd offer to send it to you, but I'm really bad about going to the post office. Yep.

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On killing my own food. Oh, and Twitter.

I like to think that I have no problem killing fish. But I've never snapped the head off of a live fish. Or clubbed one. Hmm. What's the best way to kill a live fish? When we'd go fishing, we'd let them suffocate, sitting in a bucket while we caught our quota. After a few hours of fishing and a few hours driving from Monterey to San Jose, everything was usually dead. Passive killing. The gutting was no problem.

I'm not so sure about killing something bigger and furrier, like a cow or a pig, but I think the gutting part would be okay if I had someone to walk me through it. I'd probably have issues raising a cute baby something and then slaughtering it myself, but I doubt that'll be an issue, unless I go farm-hippie, or the world goes to crap or something like that.

I tell you all this because contradictorily, the thought of steaming lobsters or clams alive weirds me out. I was reading an article about how to debeard a mussel (you pull on the beard and the mussel pulls back?), and that's creepy. Like hacking off an octopus leg. And I know, bivalves don't have brains, or if they do, they have wee tiny brains that would never be able to express pain like a delicious, gasping fishy; I just don't like the idea of interactive gutting.

In other news, the rest of the world is all about Twitter and twittering (140 character blogging), and while I kind of want to try the hep new thing (well, it's not that new), I rarely post as it is. But you might see a twitter mini-blog some day, because I often think of you guys--I just don't want to hammer out a good entry all the time. We'll see. What do you think? Will a steady stream of short blurbs replace the occasional long entry? Or will the twitters supplement the longer posts? Would you want to see some short thoughts? Do any of you twitter? Also, do any of you use RSS?

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Well, hello May.

It's getting to the point now where I am bored of the internet and want to do Things That Cost Money. It used to be easier to ignore those urges, like the first time I looked at my bank account and realized I didn't have enough money for rent. (Damn that was scary.) But now I've got a fat tax rebate, some yen exchanged (the bank clerk asked if we had just come back from a trip. Har har.), and a few other checks deposited, and it's becoming more difficult. Technically, all that money should go into a savings account, maybe my retirement fund (I am very proud that I took the steps to do that), and I still haven't fixed my camera, but I just stare at my account balance and think about concerts and movies.

The weather's also getting nicer, which means I'm starting to feel guilty about sitting at home all day. At least I have my windows open.

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