that 25 things list meme

There's this 25 random things meme going on and it seemed like something worth participating in. Here's mine that I posted on Facebook, although I'd assume anyone who reads this blog already knows a good bulk of this info:

1: My first word was "Orange" except that I said it in Mandarin and I thought I was referring to a tree. I said it when I was 10 months hold and really didn't start talking again until I was about 3.


2: On a related note, I'm not sure if it's because my brain is wired for the math/sciences or because I have creative habits, but I have a bad tendency to be an ephasic neologist (wait, is ephasic even a word?). I also frequently to garble my idioms. For instance, "He sure has a thick spine..." or "all bark and no chewing..." People either are confused or think I'm just being an ass.

3: When I was a kid I saw a commercial about the consequences of writing bad checks. It featured an ominous voice-over and imagery of a close up of someone writing a large sum and then a jail cell door slamming shut. It freaked me out. I thought that "bad check" meant that the numeric amounts were spelled incorrectly and was convinced that I'd go to jail as an adult unless I shaped up my orthography skills.

4: I was bullied really bad in 4th grade (for my race). It was so constant and caustic that my family actually moved to a different school district...and the bullying continued but it was of a different variety (hair and clothes). And then for some odd reason it miraculously all stopped in 8th grade...

5: ...for the longest time I thought the bullying halted because I was math club president. I think in reality it was because I held that position in such high esteem that I grew a huge ass ego and I was spewing confidence and cockiness so much that the bullies didn't think I was worth messing with any more ... or maybe it was because I had my cadre of other proudly nerdy friends surrounding me. Who knows?


(Jr. high math club. A bunch of tagged friends are in this photo)

6: People tend to get my age wrong all the time, even people have known me for a while. This past year, I've gotten anywhere from 19 to 37 with the majority of the guesses clustering around 24-26 and 33-35. Rarely do people nail it (I'm 31 BTW).

7: I don't remember when my first kiss on the mouth was exactly except that it happened right before band practice in a stairwell either in 9th or 10th grade. I was too busy trying to set the guy up with another one of my friends to even see it coming. After that *poof* instant boyfriend. If only dating were that easy in adulthood,

8: I always wanted to be a ballet dancer but mom kept pulling me out of class insisting that I was too "old." It wasn't until college that I began to dance seriously and I started with a non-major's ballet class. At one point in my late 20's I was dancing 18 hrs a week including company class and rehearsal on weekends. I continually took classes until I became very-very-not-bad. I ended up injuring myself and had to cut back drastically, but I still take 1 pointe class a week these days...

9: Some of my weirder hobbies: Quilling, lapidary arts, lampworking, wire-work, floral arranging, belly dancing, playing theremin etc. ... I'm definitely one of those people who knows how to do a lot of things, fairly well even, but I don't really excel at any one thing.



(lapidary arts=gemstone cutting)

10: I think I'm missing that part of the brain that stores random song lyrics. I can't even recite "Baby Got Back."

11: I'm not religious anymore. Although, I would say I am spiritual and acknowledge that greater powers exist beyond the human realm. Specifically I believe in nested sets of "gods" (countably infinite). Living in a 3-dimentional world, its very easy for me to believe there are entities and forces living in the 4th dimension that appear all powerful and omnipotent from our vantage point. And for those in the 4th dimension, the same goes for the 5th, and onwards.

12: The worst job I ever had was serving as one of Trent Reznor's fan club message board admins. I had to sift through the love letters , amateur pr0n and watch out for for death threats. I hated his fans so much. It wasn't even worth meeting him in person.

13: I'm the type of person who feels sympathy for inanimate objects. For example, I feel the innate need to buy one color each of a set of something so that the other colors don't get jealous or I will use the mug that been sitting in the back of the cupboard for a while because I don't want it to be neglected. This is the same reason why I own every single NIN Halo in existence--It's not because I'm a collector, I just don't want the other CDs to feel left out!

14: People often ask me how many/which instruments I play. For the record: piano, voice, flute, violin/eViolin, celtic harp and theremin. Oddly, the instrument I consider myself the worst on is one the ones I've performed on the most, violin. This was mainly through the industrial rock band Lucid Dementia. The instrument I consider myself the best on is flute.



15: For the longest time my parents thought I was gay even though I had a steady boyfriend pretty much throughout highschool. They made this assumption due to the fact that almost all my friends were gay men in college. (Wrap you head around how atrociously faulty that logic is).

16: I used to be married, but it didn't work for either of us even though we stayed married for close to 7 years. We function better as friends.

17: I'm a little bothered by the fact that words such as brassy, muddy, wet and dry are often used to describe sound/sound-mixes. Like, why didn't new/unique adjectives evolve for those characteristics? I'm serious, this keeps me up at night....

18: I changed my major 5 times in college: petroleum engineering --> mechanical engineering --> civil engineering --> architecture -->cs -->math. The whole time, what I really wanted to major in was studio art, but my parents wouldn't have it.

19: People say I look more like my dad than my mom.


20: Personality wise, I'm a good mix: In inhereted my dad's analytical side (he was an engineer) and my mom's creative side (she was a textiles and apparel major). I also inherited my dad's hot temper and my mom's sense of control....

21: So I have a really low tolerance of people who throw temper tantrums.

22: Someone on Facebook once said 96% of my status updates seem to be food-related and well, that's about right. I love food. I'm almost constantly eating (in fact right now I'm wolfing down hot wings). Taking photos of food and cooking are two hobbies I greatly enjoy. I even have a recipe blog. One of my more enjoyable and fulfilling activities is to cook an elaborate multi-course meal for friends and sit around the table sharing conversation for hours.

23: I would rather be known for my brain or introspection than for my looks and for being honest/fair than nice.

24: My Meyers-Briggs (INTJ), Eastern Zodiac (Cancer) and Chinese Zodiac (Cancers) descriptions of my demeanor are all pretty much dead on.

25. The best gifts I've ever been given have almost always cost next to nothing: a pair of socks, a bag of rocks, a sonata composed on my behalf...

Oh happy day

Sort of a meta post, but I figured amongst all this election hype, some additional humor is always welcome.

A group of us buds have been discussing online and in person how absurd some of the labels for Obama are. As if calling him "Messiah" isn't already a bit much, additional lines have circulated amongst the medial that would put Chuck Norris descriptions to shame. Mentok pointed out this morning that:

Canadian Governor General Michelle Jean today described the Obama presidency as "a new page in the history of civilization"

Goodness.

I have agree that this dude has the hardest job in the world and doesn't need the extra baggage of people putting stratospheric expectations onto him. Stress, I tell you. I would not want that kind of stress at work. An online buddy offered "Sin O-Man Bunz" as a good (stripperesque) handle for President O. I like that. It brings him down a few notches to earth.

So cheers to President Sin O-Man Bunz. I wish you the best of luck. I already know you (and your crew) are all human. You're hopefully gonna do the best job you can. I'm just glad you're running the country and not me.

In case you were wondering....

I merged all 3 of my blogs into one and deleted the originals. So, all postings go here now!

Hand made cards

I decided to pick up quilling as a hobby and made these cards:

Go Amaryllis Go!

My dear friend Beth got me an Amaryllis bulb for the holidays and it bloomed right before Christmas. Isn't it just beautiful?



Now, most of you know that I have a black thumb. Hence, the fact that I was able to witness the progress of this plant from start to finish is a sheer miracle...and being the nerd I am I took photos of the entire process. I suppose I have no children or pets at the moment (Penelope went home to RitchN remember...) so I snapped away like a proud parent.

Here she is when she first arrived--tiny little stubby tuft of green protruding from it's bulb. Beth had picked out a lovely rustic red receptacle which matched the decor of my abode perfectly. She told me all I had to do was keep the soil moist. For good measure I played Mozart every morning as I got ready for work...



Even after one day, I noticed growth! In fact I was astounded by how quickly this thing would shoot up:







I estimate that it grew roughly an inch and a half every two days.





Rain or shine every morning before work, I'd have my blinds open, played Mozart or NPR depending on my mood, sip my coffee and enjoy looking at Ms. Amaryllis. It wasn't until a bit later that I realized I completely forgot something I learned way back in elementary school--plants travel in the direction of sunlight.

Yikes!
I rotated the pot...



...and realized I needed to be more mindful lest Ms. Amaryllis end up kinda wonky and vertically challenged. So, each morning, I'd rotate her so that the head was facing furthest away from the sun:



..and eventually she'd straighten out:



...then I overshot a little:


Tis true that there are all sorts of contraptions that can help a amaryllis plant grow straight, and Beth even provided a crafty suggestions involving knitting needles, but by God, I was adamant that my amaryllis plan would be able to manage to keep her head up and grow strong without the aid of any sort man made object. Sure, I was imposing my own value system on Ms. Amaryllis, but it was for her own good, damnit.

I sound harsh and all, but really I coaxed her gently. Kept her well watered and encouraged her. I was happy to see her progress each day when I came home from work. "Grow! Grow, like the wind," I told her. She grew and grew...







I assured her that I didn't care that she wasn't perfectly straight. I loved her the way she was, swaying sinusoidally but moving upwards nevertheless and then suddenly one Saturday morning awoke to find the start of a bloom shyly peaking through it's protective bud.



I had no idea the bloom would be red (my favorite color)! For some odd reason, I suppose because I attribute amaryllis to Christmas, I expected it to be white, so I felt giddy when I saw the bust of color coming through. More coaxing and admiring and day by day the trumpet shaped blooms came to be:







I'm in awe that this thing knows how to bloom in pairs. What an intelligent plant! Making room for all of its flowers. How civilized and well-planned it is.

Anyhow, Ms. Amaryllis and I had a good run together and I put her to rest yesterday. Still what a lovely gift to appreciate and admire during the holidays:

4am slam over coffee

One of my artsy/fartsy buddies, Daniel Link is an amazing singer/songwriter. He's also a genuinely nice guy who has has been there, done that and then some...and often has uncanny insights on how the world works which he often records in his song writing. I was listening to the song "4am Slam Over Coffee" while walking in to work and was struck by the line:

I always try to give the benefit of the doubt even if the person is an asshole, because even assholes have bad days

That's a good one to nosh on. There are so many ways to interpret this song lyric! Even assholes can accidentally be nice? Even assholes are asshole? Even assholes should get a break? heh...I dunno.

***
Just got an IM from Ritch. Dude Penelope's farts it smells....bad human farts.

Poor kitten.

Am I slowly becoming the crazy cat lady?

This one I am calling "Penelope." My friend Donna rescued this tiny calico kitten in a partking garage on Monday and I took her in to see how we'd get along. Although not as short as the one night stand I had with Fumiko, the black kitty, I get the sense that Penelope and I aren't in it for the long hual. We're not really clicking, if that makes any sense.

I have so many better things to post about of course---craft brunch, this super fast amaryllis plant, musings of how to dress for a technical interview, dating horror stories etc. And yet, I post a cat pic.

I may very well become the crazy cat lady.

Luxurious BLT

Hot Damn. I just made myself a Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich that was so good that I just had to blog about it. What about your Thanksgiving Leftovers?

Yeah, what about them?

In all seriousness the only part I really like in a Thanksgiving feast is the stuffing. Everything else is basically stuff I can get a Luby's or Jester Cafeteria. Sure, I make a bad ass Turkey-day meal (or rather Goose-day meal) but I'm not a huge fan of leftovers in general. People usually balk and go "but don't you like the convenience?" Kinda. It's just that reheated leftovers never quite taste as good the original. I can reconstitute stuff (I make a pretty good yam, pumpkin and potato cream soup with chopped turkey and french fried onions on top) but that too gets old after a while.

No, this morning I decided to make myself a luxurious BLT. Oh man, it was good. First off, I baked my bacon-- a trick I learned from a coworker, former chef, named Bruce. Just pop in a bunch of strips laid out in a single layer on a cookie dish at 325 for 20 minutes and you will get the most uniformly browned delicious bacon ever without the grease splattering and curled up weirdness. Drain on paper towels as you would normally.

For tomatoes I used some from my friend Ko-Ko's garden. Bright red. Not mealy. Super juicy! What's weird to me is that he managed to grow these indoors. I'll have to ask for more detail on how he managed such good produce in an apartment space.

The lettuce, I used arugula instead (or "Angela" as Jay accidentally called it once which I now refer to it as such around him) with some loose leaf spinach. Not quite as crunchy as the typical iceberg lettuce, but really I just don't get iceberg lettuce in general. It has no flavor, seems to consist mainly of water and I doubt there's much nutritional value to it.

Toast up some nutty whole wheat bread, slather on a thin layer of mayo on one slice and a thin layer of dijon on the other and pile on the Angela, bacon and tomatoes. Viola! The most magnificent BLT sandwich ever. It's so good, I want another one, frankly.

Cat action boarding on zoophila

I slept with this cat last night. I borrowed her.

She was asking for it: rubbing herself up all against my window begging for trouble. I mean really, the audacity of her flirting like that, calling to me softly whenever I had the blinds opened a crack. She walked right into my apartment like she owned the place, never mind her collar indicates she lives down the block.

Anyhow, she wouldn't leave me alone! She's gorgeous. Brunette, green eyes...totally different from other cats I've known. Or perhaps I should say she borrowed me, nestling down into my pillow next to my head, purring away. What a sassy bitch, but let her have her way. She didn't even call me the next day after she bolted out of my aparment in a hurry to grab her next meal. The nerve!

Still, if she comes back, I *suppose* she's invited to come in.

Dinner with Peggy

Just had a lovely dinner with my friend Peggy who up until recently would always introduce me to her friends as "my old Bible School teacher." Painful but true. Pegs is a good 10+ years younger than me and when I was in high school I taught Bible lessons at church to the little ones. Hard to believe isn't it? This is how I met my lovely friend.

She's always been a dancer. I still remember when she was 7, when she donned my pointe shoes for the first time. Dainty slender fingers pressed again the wall in my family's foyer and another hand outstretched but not touching mine. I was ready to grab her in case she'd topple over, but she never did. In fact she balanced quite well executing some painful bourrees clobbering in time against the tile floor. She'd dance continuously through college, easily surpassing my skill level when she turned 10 or so, eventually becoming a company level dancer.

We kept in touch when I went off to college. I kept all of her letters, mesmerized by how her penmanship would become more refined each year. School pictures with glasses, then with braces, then with a handsome boy at her side during senior prom. I still remember her mother confronting me once: "She's been checking the mailbox every day for several weeks and finally she broke down and cried." I vowed to always respond within a week.

Email replaced the letters when I was in graduate school. Advice on college vs. ballet company. What major? Where to live?

And so soon before I could even realize it, she turned 21 and we shared drinks for the first time at my place. I had not seen her in person for nearly 10 years and she towered over me, long boned and elegant. She had to stoop over to hug me and we chuckled at the height difference. When I left home, she came up to my shoulder. Me, newly single. She, a supportive friend, not a child, but a full fledged opinionated woman whose sympathetic ear I could use. Aside from a slight valley twang, which I find endearing, she's quite eloquent and hilarious to boot. We cuss like sailors around each other.

She's a strong gal emotionally. Much stronger than I ever was. I suppose watching your parents get a divorce at a young age and toggling between two households toughens your skin a bit. She danced in the Houston ballet throughout high school. She taught English abroad at the age of 19. Finished college in 4 years. Worked as a bar tender and then as a hostess at a high end restaurant. Now is a teacher in elementary school. She's partied. She's loved and lost. Broken hearts. Had her heart broken. In a lot of ways she's experienced a whole lot more than I have. What will she be like in 10 years when she's my age?

Every time I speak to her new stories unfold and I'm constantly amused by what she has to share with me. I suppose I'm getting old, and yet at the same time I'm connecting with her in a different way. She came out well, I want to tell her parents...