hello, x

Wait, I can't eat WHAT?

2010-03-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

I now have a possible answer to why I haven't been eating since about October, which I first wrote about here a few months ago. I finally got myself in to see a gastroenterologist who gave me an endoscopy which I was dreading something ridiculous but it turned out to be one of the least annoying medical procedures I've ever had done, hooray for sedation. During the endoscopy she found probably the last thing I expected--Celiac Disease. The biopsy confirmed it, and now I'm waiting on the results of one last blood test to make it official.

For those of you who don't want to read Wikipedia, Celiac Disease is a lifelong autoimmune disorder for which the only treatment is a strict gluten-free diet. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. Wheat, rye, and barley are found in just about everything.

The finding is surprising because I have none of the typical symptoms. I've always joked about having a cast-iron digestive system--I almost never have stomach/intestinal complaints. Appetite increase is a common symptom, but appetite loss doesn't seem to be. Hell, maybe we just found the Celiac by accident and the appetite decrease is caused by something else entirely!

After going in for the last blood test on Saturday, I decided to give gluten-free a shot starting yesterday. Maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, but not eating gluten for a few days can't hurt. Brad and I hit up the store, and I immediately realized how confusing this diet is. From my research before heading out, any ingredient labeled "Flavoring", "Natural Flavoring", etc. is suspect. That eliminates so many foods! Flavored with what? Tell me! I can't believe that this isn't required by law.

Despite the frustration we managed to find quite a few foods that I like and aren't glutenated (don't know if that's a real world but I'm going to be using it constantly from now on). I don't think I'm really going to start to miss gluten until my insides start to heal and I get my appetite back!

Are you a forest person or a trees person?

2010-03-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

I started reading a book called Brain Rules last week, and in the fourth chapter on attention the author slipped in a recommendation to start explanations with an overview of the concept, then break it down into lower level details because that's how people learn best. The author seems pretty scientifically rigorous and this was presented as a blanket generalization, so I was surprised. Mostly because my brain is completely unlike that.

I work terribly with high-level overviews of systems when I don't know the details. Actually, I'm pretty sure that I'm always terrible with high-level overviews of systems. There have been a couple of very memorable moments in my life where I learned enough rules about something that the entire system and how it worked suddenly became clear. Choir-of-angels-singing-from-the-heavens moments, truly. The most memorable of these was the day that I finally understood math--some piece of knowledge fell into place in high school calculus, and all of a sudden everything that I'd learned prior made perfect, wonderful sense. Before that moment I'd hated math. Then I ended up at college majoring in computer science and spent three years as an Algebra TA.

After thinking about it more, I realized that the high-level stuff was actually discussed, usually in the first week or two of a new math class. I vaguely remember analogies being presented about functions and derivatives, but without anything concrete this all went in one ear and out the other. I would have greatly benefited from having the analogies/overview explained to me AFTER learning the mechanisms and details, but that never happened.

Looks like the way my brain works might be in the minority--most people that I've talked to about this genuinely prefer the overview-before-details approach to learning. I wonder how it breaks down as a percentage of the population, but I'm having trouble locating actual research on the subject.

I've definitely made mistakes in the past by assuming that everyone's brains worked the same way that mine does. Instead of explaining a system or concept in a generic way, I've tried to introduce it by assigning people concrete tasks, assuming that after working with the system in a few different ways, they would develop an internal model of the system on their own since this is how I learn best. I heard the question that's the title of this post asked by a coworker who was explaining a system to a new employee a few weeks ago. I'll definitely steal this question for use in future instances where I have to explain a complex system and tailor my explanation based on the answer from now on.

Top 10 Reasons to Put Your Scale in the Trash

2010-03-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

I saw this Huffington Post article about ten reasons to trash your scale. While I agree with the sentiment and many of the reasons, I think that a few are either dead wrong or could be more compelling. Here we go...

1. Have you ever had a day when you are feeling great and then you step on the scale and your day is permanently ruined? Yes, sooooo many times. I can even pinpoint the start of my unhealthy relationship with my scale. In grade school they would line us up at the beginning and end of every year to measure our height and weight on a medical scale. In front of everyone. At the end of fourth grade I weighed 90 pounds--I was already 5'1". The rest of my classmates who hadn't started their growth spurts weighed about 60 pounds. I was mortified--90 pounds is SO MUCH MORE than 60.

One of my friends who was the same height weighed in at 105 in this weigh-in. They gave us sheets of paper with our height and weight on them to take home to our parents. On our bus ride home that day she was clutching that piece of paper and crying. Doing this to little kids is sooooo messed up. Do they still do this? I'm guessing it might be even worse now with everyone freaking out about childhood obesity.

2. If you really want to know how your weight is impacting your health, get a tape measure. What really matters is your waist circumference. If you are a male, your waist circumference should be less than 40 inches. If you are woman, less than 35 inches. I'm sorry but this is just another magic number and you're replacing one with the other. Do you really think that a very short sedentary woman with a small frame who has a waist circumference of 35 has the same health risks and issues as a large-framed tall athelete with the same measurement? That a sedentary guy with a 40-inch waist is as healthy as a sumo wrestler? And that any of those people is HEALTHY! YAY! when their waist is 34.5/39.5 inches but OMG BAD YUR GONNA DIE! after finishing thanksgiving dinner?

If you must use waist circumference as a measure of your health, wouldn't it be better to advise people to grab a tape measure, take down their own measurement once, and set up a calendar reminder to do the same thing once a month (same day of your cycle for women, as hormones effect this) and try to keep the number from going up?

3. Your weight alone is a poor indicator of your health. Get a complete physical by your doctor to determine how healthy you are. This.

4. A scale doesn't tell you about your strength and endurance. Can you run a mile? Can you touch your toes? Can you walk comfortably? These things are what really matter to your life. Not being able to do these daily activities tells you a lot about the state of your health. Nice. Please tell this to someone disabled.

5. Use your clothing as your guide. Not bad advice. Works better for short people I'm guessing though--I've definitely stepped on a scale and thought "How the hell did I gain 20 pounds? All of my clothes still fit!" so for me personally, clothes are not a good early warning sign that I might want to hit the gym a little more often.

6. A scale does not measure your body fat to muscle ratio. You're right, it doesn't, but a) this is essentially redundant information if you've read points 2-5 and b) you're getting dangerously close to prescribing more magic numbers.

7. A scale doesn't consider your healthy weight "range." It only gives you one number. This is irrelevant. BMI is horseshit. Height/weight tables were developed by insurance companies to maximize profits. "Healthy weight" ranges don't tell you any more about your personal health than a single number.

8. A scale can't determine your worth even though we often give it that power. Agree with this absolutely. But neither does waist size. Neither does body fat percentage. Neither does yearly income, value of your house, IQ, networth...

9. Instead, focus on the process of eating mindfully rather than the outcome results of a number on a scale. Agree absolutely, especially since weight loss attempts are bound to end in failure for over 90% of us. Focusing on health rather than weight has been shown to have positive outcomes.

10. Scales are not all the same. Don't be surprised if your weight at home is different than what they record at the doctor's office. Okay, seriously, who doesn't know this already? Did the writer just need a tenth thing to round out the list?

Here's two more that weren't touched upon. Anyone got more?:
- Glycogen. Changes in the amount of stored glycogen in your body can make weight fluctuate drastically. In the past I noticed that my weight will go up 3 or 4 pounds the day after an unusually tense workout--I'm pretty sure this is glycogen in my muscles for repair work.
- Numbers on a scale are hugely triggering for people prone to disordered eating behavior.

Introverts 101

2010-02-22T09:02:00.001-08:00

I found a blog about introverts the other day, probably linked somewhere when I was going through Google Reader. Very very interesting--"It'll be fun!" and other extrovert lies made me laugh out loud because of my initial urge to counter with "But it's true, it will be fun!"

Introversion has caused me confusion my entire life, largely because I grew up in a family with two people that are extremely introverted and suffer from social anxiety, not that they knew this about themselves necessarily or ever explained this. Another thing about people like this is that they can be extremely different in a situation with a few people they know well than around strangers. At home, my dad was gregarious, told stories, made jokes. When he left the house for a reason other than employment (which was rare, most of our errands involved my mom, sis and I), he because a totally different person, quiet and terse. When he was like this at home, it usually meant that he was angry with us, so I spent quite a few years trying to figure out what he was mad about in public before I was old enough to figure out his introversion.

It took me even longer to discover that my sister was the same way. It wasn't until she was 18 and I was 20 that I realized that she was just like my dad in this regard. I'd taken her shopping for some school stuff (we were at the same university, she was just starting out) and we ran into one of her high school classmates in the aisles. This girl had been a cute popular cheerleader type, she was very nice and greeted my sister, tried to be really friendly, and my sister just paused and finally got out a tentative "Hi." In the car I was laying into my sis for this, like "She was being so nice to you! Why were such a bitch back?" Her response was something like "I wasn't sure why she was talking to me, I was confused and put on the spot." Then it clicked and I realized that she was just like Dad.

If it takes you 18 years of living with a sibling to realize how introverted and shy she is when in public, there is definitely need for some introvert education.

Hitting the Wall

2010-02-18T05:30:00.000-08:00

So back in December I was ranting about, well, lots of things, but all related to this random loss of appetite I'd been experiencing. It's still going on. I went back to see the doctor in January and had lost another 15 pounds since my appointment in December, so she did a bunch of blood work that all came back totally normalsauce, so no idea what's going on yet.

Here's how my day goes with eating: I wake up in the morning, I'm not hungry but want to force myself to eat something, anything. We're out of fruit that I normally can force down a few bites of, so I look at cereal. I pour myself about a third of a cup, look in the fridge for milk, and notice there's not much left, so decide to skip the cereal since I will probably only eat two bites and Brad will make better use of the milk. I look around the kitchen for anything slightly appealing, even considering snacky foods like chips and chocolate, but they all seem gross. So, breakfast is coffee, a gummy vitamin, and some omega-3 capsules.

I go to work and see bananas in the microkitchen. I grab one and make it my goal for the day--to eat this damn banana. Around noon everyone else is grabbing lunch but I'm so not hungry. Eventually I realize that I won't be and the cafeteria closes at 2 so if I wait much longer, I won't have anything to choose from but snacks. I make myself a spinach salad with cucumbers, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar and eat that. I decide I want to make it to a dance class at 5:30 so I get started on the banana around 4:30. I eat half of it, and getting that much was incredibly difficult.

Go to dance class. I've been active my entire life starting with dance lessons at age 3. I enjoy exercise and do it for regularly for stress-relief/health reasons if not just for fun. Given how much trouble I have eating now, I'm petrified of losing lean mass and getting terribly out of shape, so I'm looking for ways to get exercise in that are fun and not terribly strenuous. Just get the blood flowing for a bit, have some fun. They've started offering dance lessons in a new space at work, so I'm exploring those. The one I went to last night was probably the most elementary class available, an hour of light movement with a lot of breaks and explanations, so perfect or so I thought.

After the class ended, I knew that I had hit the wall. Since I am not a marathoner or triathelete, this is a new experience for me that only has been an issue in the past couple of months. Basically you hit the wall when your body's glycogen stores are completed. Usually it takes several hours of pretty intense exercise to get to this point (marathoners tend to hit the wall at around the 20-mile point), but I guess my glycogen stores are now super-low because of what I'm eating.

I was so confused the first time this happened to me! It was after the first hour-long dance class I tried in the new space. I made it through the class which was more intense cardio than I'd bargained for, but afterwards I had to sit down in the hallway for about fifteen minutes before I could even move to back to the locker room and change. I'd planned to go back to work after the class which I did for a couple of hours but my brain was definitely slow--I remember staring at some code I was working on and being like, "Whaaaaaaaat?" so I eventually went home and laid down on the couch. I felt terrible--I was tired, naseous, dizzy, had a terrible headache, and was just completely out of it. About four or five hours later the food I ate post-workout started to kick in and I started to feel human again.

I learned my lesson from that episode, so ever since I've been trying to make sure that I eat something substantial (banana, pack of almonds) before I try a workout. Since doing that I haven't had issues as severe as the first time, but this is still an issue. From some experimenting I've determined that I'm fine as long as I limit my workouts to around 40 minutes. Last week I was on the elliptical machine and lost track of time from being distracted by a conversation with my trainer who was waiting for his next client. I was fine one second, then got hit with a wave of chills and nausea and immediately stopped--it was almost exactly at the 50 minute mark. It took me a couple of hours after returning to my desk and eating something to be back to 100% mentally.

I guess I just have to watch it from now on--take the classes I want to take but peace out after about 40 minutes. I'm going to hate doing this though, it feels soooo awkward. Will the teacher be offended, thinking I don't like her class? Will everyone be staring at me thinking I'm this awful out-of-shape chubby person who can't even finish? (Not to mention that sometimes I'm having fun and don't WANT to have to stop.)

Most of the time I appreciate how physically demanding workout classes offered are, but right now intense calorie burning is pretty much the last thing I want from a class. I wonder if there's a local senior center that'll let me drop in on their aqua-aerobics classes? (Joking. Kinda.)

Males, Females, and Ratios

2010-02-09T07:51:00.001-08:00

An article from the NY Times about the female:male ratio at the University of North Carolina has been mentioned on at least three blogs on my Google Reader with various opinions about the topic. The article itself is pretty silly but I find the general topic fascinating.

You don't have to have a demographically-verified highly skewed ratio to hear similar complaints to those voiced in the article. Every person I talk to who is single and looking for a partner will eventually say "It sucks being a single (man/woman) in (college/neighborhood/city/greater metro area) because..." In large metropolitan areas on the east coast, single women significantly outnumber single men, so they cite that ratio. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the number of single men is much higher than that of single women, but there are still reasons to complain. "Nothing but nerds and sociopaths" is the best complaint I've ever heard voiced about dating in Silicon Valley from a woman's perspective. (When said by my friend in her charming French accent, it came across as adorable instead of bitter.)

From my male friends, the complaints are usually about the difficulty of getting a woman to give them the time of day, particularly on online dating sites. I love reading OKCupid's analyses of online dating trends, and find it very interesting that the metrics they use to measure "success" in that world are quite different for men and women. Women are successful based on number of new contacts per month. Men are successful based on the ratio of women who respond to them per contact attempt.

Given my gender and experiences, I naturally sympathize more with women's complaints, but cannot argue with the evidence to support complaints from men. After all, only 40 percent of human men who have ever lived got the chance to reproduce, while 80 percent of women have. From the UNC article (emphasis added by me):

Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said.

I found the claim that 50% of the men around would even be options quite generous. While running the numbers on the two biggest deal-breakers/filters I applied when dating, these two alone eliminated all but 1 or 2% of men from consideration. For anyone curious those two factors are height (I'm taller than 50% of American men, and cultural pressures and my own insecurity made me very reluctant to consider dating anyone shorter) and intelligence (again, being reluctant to date anyone who could not match wits with me--arguably a less shallow criteria than the height thing although I've come to the conclusion that exceptional intelligence is just as much a matter of hitting the genetic lottery as possessing movie star looks). So yeah, it's tough out there for men too.

I think that the largest frustration I encountered when dating was learning that things that I thought should be advantages (being smart, successful, and independent) turned out to be disadvantages in the dating market as a female. I was commiserating about this with my hairstylist a few years ago when we were both single--she was half-jokingly considering telling men she met that she worked a minimum wage job and had tens of thousands of dollars of debt since most men ran the other direction when they found out that she was a successful business owner who had her life together.

Seeing this site about dating Googlers last week brought this subject to mind again. After going on and on about their dating service and how to verify yourself as a Googler, there's this lovely bit at the end:

Date a Googler welcomes female Googlers looking for men, as well as same sex relationships, but cannot offer the same benefits/dynamics for these groups.

Fantastic. After thinking about this issue for a while, my best theory about why men are turned off by successful women is similar to the reason that I avoid dating short men. I know there are fantastic guys out there who are shorter than I am, but cultural expectations have programmed me to associate femininity with smallness, and masculinity with tallness. If I'm in a relationship with a man shorter than me, I will feel uncomfortable and unfeminine any time we leave the house together--"They're staring at us because I'm a freaking giant over here." But they're probably not even starting at us. Culture puts a lot of expectations on men too. They have to be tall, strong, smart, successful, and able to protect and provide. If they are in a relationship with a woman who doesn't need to be provided for, maybe it feels similar to the way I feel with a shorter guy.

But I am not a guy so I have no clue, that's just my guess. And, hey, I found a great guy who loves how smart I am so everything worked out in the end. At the end of the day it's not about ratios and playing games to make yourself more attractive to a larger percentage of available people of your preferred gender. You only have to find one.

Ummmmm.....

2009-12-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

This is a screenshot from a search I did last night. The result is definitely understandable given that there are so many more people interested in and linking to information about human penis length than cat length. Still, totally giggled like a schoolgirl at that one.

Rant about body comments

2009-12-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

People's attitudes about appetite and body size are really getting on my nerves lately. For the past few months I have had a significantly reduced appetite. For the first month or so I thought my body was finally wising up and dumping the extra pounds I put on when I got sick and had to take prednisone last year. Then I got the flu, so it made sense that I didn't want to eat that week, and for a few weeks after that I just figured that it was taking a while to get back to normal from the flu. However, the flu was ages ago, and the appetite decrease has only grown more pronounced. It wasn't until last week that I dusted off my old mental calorie count dictionary honed from years of dieting and started doing the math and realized that even with forcing myself to eat at fairly consistent intervals, I was getting about 800 calories a day if I was being generous with the numbers. Yesterday I had to force myself to eat more than 200 calories for the day.

I went to the doctor for that combined with some other issues. I don't weigh myself anymore, so when I discussed the appetite reduction with her and she asked if I'd lost weight, I could really just shrug and say that her chart knows better than I do. (They weigh me every time I go in, and I always ask not to be told. Giving up dieting and the fantasy of being thin is difficult enough, and I worry that hearing the number will trigger old habits.) According to them, I was 12 pounds lighter on this visit than the last time I came in two months ago, which is a fair amount of weight to lose unintentionally.

The problem is when I try to share this issue with people and I get comments like, "Oh wow, that's awesome! Good job!" or "Maybe it's because of a healthier lifestyle!" Um, no, eating less than 1000 calories in a day is not a healthy lifestyle, and it's not awesome. Unless you're obviously underweight, everyone assumes that you must welcome weight loss for any reason. It might start to get a whole lot worse soon--I'm fairly tall so weight loss isn't really visible on me until I've lost 20 or so pounds, after which people start noticing. If this continues I can look forward to being subjected to a whole litany of "You've lost so much weight!", "You look really good, what are you doing?"

These comments have always been a huge pet peeve of mine, even when I've been intentionally trying to lose weight. I've heard from a lot of people that they love hearing this kind of stuff when they're losing weight and that it's encouragement, but it's always driven me up the wall. It reminds me that people are always checking out your body, making judgements on it, and keeping some mental tally of gains and losses in body size. The comments imply, if not implicitly state, that the commenter believes that you look great NOW, as compared to 20 pounds ago when apparently you looked terrible.

In my ideal world, people would not really notice these things, and if that is too much to ask, they would keep comments to themselves. There are so many reasons for people to lose and gain weight, and these reasons can be incredibly personal. I know that many drugs for depression/anxiety/bipolar can cause pretty severe weight gain, so can something like prednisone which is sometimes used long-term by people with some autoimmune conditions. Someone could be pregnant and not ready to share that information, or they could be really sick with something that is causing weight loss. You don't know what's going on, and it's not your body, so shut it, even if you think you're giving a compliment.

If anyone is still reading this, please just question the de facto assumption that small=good+healthy and large=bad+unhealthy, and that moving toward being small is to be congratulated no matter what the means. Also, give just a tiny bit of thought to why comments on the size and shape of another individual's body are deemed to be fair conversational game, not on rare occasions, but often immediately upon greeting someone you haven't seen in a month. Maybe I'm the minority, but I can't be the only one who finds these comments uncomfortable and slightly offensive.

Blue Heron in flight

2009-05-18T08:04:00.001-07:00

Blue Heron in flight
Originally uploaded by psydereal

I was walking with Kim, Nik, and Brad through Golden Gate Park to get to the California Academy of Sciences and we saw a Great Blue Heron just chilling. Kim got a little too close but I managed to get a pretty clear shot of the bird in flight.

My birthday came early...

2009-05-06T23:01:00.001-07:00

Brad
Originally uploaded by psydereal

I was really upset when I saw some funky pixels in the pics taken by my old trusty Digital Rebel, definitely sensor-related. Brad sensed my pain and replaced the Rebel with a new Canon 50D, and he didn't even make me wait until my real birthday next week. I love the new camera, it's ridiculously fast, the LCD display is about twice as big as the one on the old camera body, and I can take better pics in low light thanks to the higher ISO. Fun!

Shopping

2009-04-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

I decided that yesterday would be a good day to attempt to spruce up my wardrobe for spring/summer. I felt as if I'd been wearing waaaay too much black/grey for the past couple of years and too many knits so my goal was to work some more light/bright colors into my wardrobe and experiment with cotton button down type tops. It was an experiment in failure to say the least--there is a reason I never wear button down types and haven't since I was about 16 and my chest developed. Enough said.

The bid for a less monochromatic look ended when I said "Ooh, let's go into White House Black Market." Sigh. Well, lesson learned I guess. I did end up getting quite a few cute things, including a dress that I probably would never have picked up myself but the saleslady brought me, and everyone in the store freaked out over when I came out of the dressing room in it. So now I have to be on the lookout for occasions to wear a nice dress.

Coachella Sunday

2009-04-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

Arrived around 4 on Sunday and met up with our friends to see Lykke Li as our first show of the day. In my opinion this was one of the best sets of the weekend--I liked her album but absolutely loved her live and have been listening to this album over and over again since we got back! She had amazing intensity and stage presence and I found her fascinating to watch.

After this show we headed to Peter Bjorn and John which was okay but not great. The highlight of the set was when Lykke Li came onstage to sing the female vocals on Young Folks. After that we hit this lull in the afternoon where there was absolutely nothing to be excited about so we ate dinner and found ourselves in front of the tent where X was playing, which I ended up digging.

Following the lull in the action was the hour or two where I needed to be in five places at once. Started out at My Bloody Valentine, everyone was freaking me out about the loudness of the show. I've been wearing earplugs to shows for years so was already prepared. The show started and honestly I wasn't really feeling the first few songs so we left for the dance tent where Christopher Lawrence was spinning. I remember loving his set when I saw him live ten years ago and the first 30 minutes didn't disappoint but then the set started to get all trancey and we left. I could hear noise from the MBV stage and the Kills playing three stages down, and was torn, both sounded so good. Ended up running to the main stage to hear the last wonderful 15 minutes of noise from MBV.

Saw Flavor Flav acting all crazy for a few minutes, then got seats for The Cure. I'm not a huge Cure fan but they were amazing. Robert Smith's voice sounds just as it ever has, and he sells the emotion of the songs so well. A great headliner and end to the festival weekend.

Honestly next year I'm hoping for a dud lineup, or at least a lineup full of bands everyone else likes but I never got into. :) It will be two weeks before my wedding, and I get the idea there will be too much to do to take four days off to party in the desert. If Daft Punk or Rage Against the Machine decide to headline an encore set though, I'll be reconsidering.

Coachella time

2009-04-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday and I'm in beautiful ridiculously hot Indio California for Coachella. Brad and I are staying cool in the house and keeping hydrated for the next hour or so to avoid several extra hours in the sun, everyone else in our crew has headed to the festival already to catch some early acts.

On Friday we did the early thing with the rest of them and while it was cool to see Gui Boratto playing some really nice techno (with a bit of prog house thrown in) and then We Are Scientists on the main stage, I think I got a bit too much heat and too little water so I wasn't feeling great later in the evening. After We Are Scientists we headed to the dance tent and caught the end of Steve Aoki's set which was terrible, and then the beginning of Felix da Housecat's set which was also terrible. Having heard good things about The Hold Steady we headed over there, but were similarly unimpressed. Walking past we heard Los Campesinos! and they were actually playing an awesome set that we were lucky to hear the last half of. One of the highlights of the day in the whole "band I've never heard of being really fucking cool" way.

After Los Campesinos!'s set, we headed to the Outdoor Theatre to see Conor Oberst. I like Bright Eyes but hadn't gotten much into his solo stuff and while it's not what I would generally listen to on a regular basis I liked the part of the show we saw. We left halfway through to catch Franz Ferdinand which was awesome. They're one of those bands I never think much about but then realized I knew and liked all their songs.

Next stop was the dance tent for Ghostland Observatory which was awesome, intense, and weird. The one not-so-great spot of the set was when they played one song that went on about 10 minutes longer than it really needed to, but the awesome lasers and rest of the set more than made up for it. Next up was Girl Talk who I was ridiculously excited for, but the area in which we were standing got really crowded, hot, and intense and the sun/dehydration from earlier in the day really started to catch up with me, so we left a few minutes into his set. No great loss though, I've seen him play three times before.

Unfortunately it started to get extremely cold at this point, so we found the metal/fire dragon/snake sculpture to huddle around for warmth. From this area we could hear and see most of Paul McCartney thanks to the giant screens on the side of the main stage.

Learning from my mistake of getting there too early on Friday we waited to get in on Saturday until around 4 which was an excellent call since it was MUCH hotter on Saturday than on Sunday. We met up with our friends at the Outdoor Theatre where we parked for most of the day, hearing Drive-by Truckers, Superchunk, Calexico, and Fleet Foxes--all of which were awesome. Some weirdness during Fleet Foxes though, we were watching the show when halfway through some kid just collapsed right next to us. His eyes were wide open, it was kind of freaky--he didn't have any friends around or anything, some guys carried him off hopefully to find a medic. I've seen sooo many people getting carried off this year--people need to learn that drugs, alcohol, and dehydration don't mix. In any case, spending most of the day at one stage was really relaxing and chill and a nice way to spend the day instead of running all over the place to see this act and that act.

The sun went down during the (amazing) Fleet Foxes set, and we headed out to check out Junior Boys which I really wasn't feeling especially after the soulful acts we'd been seeing all day. Got to the dance tent just in time for the Chemical Brothers DJ set which has been one of the high points of the festival for me so far. They went on with no introduction, no fanfare, and started playing really awesome banging dance music. It was such a refreshing change of pace from most of the stuff I'd been seeing there this weekend, no 80's hair metal, no giant breakdowns every three minutes (I'm looking at you Felix da Housecat). It might have been a little minimal/hard for some people but Brad and I were digging it. After an hour of dancing though I was parched and we had to leave to get water, so we ended up heading over to see the Killers which I wasn't digging at ALL (neither was this ~~guy~~ gal (how sexist of me) so I'm just going to remember the Chemical Brothers as the end of the evening. ;)

Hoping to get there today to catch Lykke Li, Peter Bjorn and John, My Bloody Valentine, Christopher Lawrence (who I loved when I saw perform ten years ago but realistically I will probably bitch about today. I've gotten so freaking picky about electronic music it isn't even funny!), The Kills, Public Enemy, and maybe a few minutes of the Cure.

Echo

2009-04-15T09:05:00.001-07:00

IMG_0459
Originally uploaded by psydereal

Surviving

2009-04-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

I tackled one of the tasks I have been dreading for the wedding on Sunday, finding the dress. I can't exactly put my finger on why it was so terrifying. Part of it was this fear that they would only have size 2 samples and I'd be stuck trying to squeeze myself into these things and imagining how they'd look if they fit properly. I think the rest of it was the stress of it...choosing this extremely expensive item that is supposed to be THE PERFECT DRESS.

Anyhow I mustered up some courage and got the process started. I heard you were supposed to get the dress thing locked down about a year out, so I called a place I'd gotten a good recommendation for the other day, thinking I'd have to wait at least a week or two for a weekend appointment, but they had openings right away, so I booked one. Kim came with me while her husband and my fiance played video games and had beers.

For one thing my fears about the size thing were unfounded. This place had all kinds of sizes, I tried on quite a few gowns that were several sizes too large and had to be clipped. I was also pleasantly surprised at how nice I looked in almost all of them, but honestly, they just weren't me. So many dresses were full of beading and lace, I told my lady that I didn't like beading at all. Most of the others were very structured, which turned out just to be too much for me. When the saleslady brought out the dress I ended up loving, she was like "This is not too simple, is it?" Nope, it wasn't, it was perfect. And a great price too.

Happy that I'd easily come under the number I wanted to spend, I decided to have a little fun with Brad when I came home, and tell him that I'd found the perfect dress but it was a little more than we'd wanted to spend. I told him a number about $4000 higher than what the dress actually cost me and Kim and I kept it going for a few minutes before telling him the real price.

A week in London

2009-03-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I made arrangements for last minute work travel. Turns out two projects I work on both had lots of things going on this week and all of the work was being done out of the London office so it just made sense to head out there myself instead of trying to coordinate everything over email with a seven hour time difference. Actually it was the first time I'd done international travel for the office and while I have looked forward to getting to do it for some time, it was quite a difficult week.

For one thing, the time zone in the UK is a sweet spot for turning one into a workaholic. You get in at a reasonable hour and spend your day working and just when the day is about to end, folks from the States start coming online and sending you emails. There just is no good time to turn off your computer and walk away from work so you end up working say, from 8 to 11. And then you go back to your hotel and work on emails some more.

Also, jet lag, it seems as if it is much easier to recover from when you don't say, work 15 hours a day. Go figure. ;)

The week was rather hellish but it was productive as intended, and the story has a happy ending. Myself and two other engineers on the product met up for fish and chips at a pub and spent the day walking around London and seeing the sights, ending up at the Tate Modern and then going to an interesting neighborhood (the East End I think?) at night for dinner and drinks. Getting to see a bit of the city besides the few blocks between office and hotel really took the edge off the week.

CBS, how I hate you. Let me count the ways.

2009-03-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

The start of March Madness means that I have to interface with CBS. This is why I hate you CBS:

You are always showing the wrong game. With four to pick from, I guess the odds are pretty good that you will pick the game I'm least interested in to show. Especially when I live on the west coast, which means CBS thinks that I care about Washington state and Arizona. I can't name a single team west of Colorado that I give two shits about. Damn you CBS!

So I go onto your website to get the streaming video, yay! Except, wait a minute, what's this? You only work with Windows machines running IE! Are you kidding me?!?

Damn you, CBS.

On the way out of Silicon Valley...

2009-03-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

We stopped for burgers and I took this shot of Brad eating one. I happen to love it and am not sure why.

2009-03-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

Our new apartment is moved into and almost feeling like a real home. I kind of go a little nuts when I'm living in place without Internet or my TiVo, which was all of last week due to Comcast and their awesomeness. Thank God for 24 on DVD amirite?

One of my coworkers stopped me in the hall and asked me how preparations were going. I assumed she meant for a small presentation I have to do at work tomorrow, so I started talking about that. She looked at as if I was nuts and said, "No, about the wedding." I guess I need to give back my girl license now, not assuming everything in the world is about my upcoming wedding.

Could be on my way...

2009-02-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

Yoga is one of those things that I know other people are super into, but I just for the life of me haven't gotten it. The climbing gym that I belonged to for a while had yoga classes included so I tried to see what the fuss was all about and took an hour and a half class that I thought was the biggest waste of time in my entire life. I considered this the end of the yoga experimentation.

Recently I've declared war on cortisol in my body which has led me to decisions to cut out caffeine and alcohol among other things, and which made me decide to give yoga another try. I took a class at work, and had almost as bad of an experience as my first class, but I was going to stay the course and at least try it a few times, maybe I was missing something.

As luck would have it, a friend of mine sent out an email the next day. She'd recently gotten certified as a yoga instructor and was offering free instruction for the month of February to help her learn to be a better teacher. I happily took her up on the offer and went over last night for some private instruction. It was a world of difference. Instead of following a fast-paced class and trying to imitate the instructor and people around me, I actually had the time to learn the poses, how they should feel, and how to focus on my breathing at the same time. After we were done I felt amazing. I think that the next time I take a class I will get so much more out of it, and I've stopped bad-mouthing yoga. ;)

Big steps!

2009-02-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

This weekend was pretty chill, but we accomplished quite a bit. B. and I managed to find an apartment that we both liked, had all the features we wanted, and was under budget--not quite an easy task! We get the place officially two weeks from now, and will move in shortly after. We both live alone and have for the past several years (excepting two horrific months I lived in San Francisco with the roommates from hell about a year ago) so sharing space might take some getting used to. ;) If I didn't think we were up to it, we wouldn't be getting married.

Speaking of marriage, we locked down a date and a location! We're putting down a deposit on Wednesday and then it will be too late to elope. ;) The wedding will be in late spring of 2010, and I'm super excited. 2010 sounds like it is so far away but I have a feeling the time will pass very quickly.

So I gave up...

2009-02-02T08:37:00.001-08:00

On the whole Project 365 thing. It was so much harder than I thought it'd be! And my fiance came back into town, which doubled my lack of motivation to go out and find pictures of stuff, so I called it quits. My friend DB called it, said I'd be done within a month. Oh well.

One thing that I actually did follow up with was the no boozing. I haven't had any alcohol for a month, which for me, is a big deal. I'd tried to do this before, but for some reason after two weeks of not drinking life always seemed to go to shit. I wasn't convinced that it was entirely a coincidence so I was wary. But no, things are cool, I'll have drinks with dinner on Valentine's Day, am looking forward to it.

Next weekend Brad and I have a tasting with the venue that we're probably going to go with for the wedding. Hopefully the food doesn't suck and we can put a deposit down and start really planning.

And the Coachella lineup is finally out. Girl Talk is playing again this year! The lineup is a whole bunch of awesome, can't wait until April.

026/365

2009-01-26T21:00:00.001-08:00

026/365
Originally uploaded by psydereal

The blank Coachella poster still up on the website because despite all the rumors and that the lineup is generally released on a Monday, it looks like we won't be hearing anything official until tomorrow.

025/365

2009-01-26T20:55:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

This church by Brad's house is so adorable, I almost wish I believed in God so I could get married here.

024/365

2009-01-26T20:54:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Went to Ben's birthday party on Saturday night. Took a picture of the birthday boy before it got too hectic.

023/365

2009-01-26T20:52:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Went up to the city to play poker at Lisa and Mike's. We played Omaha which is like Texas Hold 'Em only 10 times more confusing. I got the hang of it by the end of the night and ended up winning back all of the money I lost earlier.

022/365

2009-01-26T20:51:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

This is a skirt of mine, the closest thing I can find to the wedding colors I think I've finally settled on, light aqua blue and bright red.

021/365

2009-01-21T22:02:00.003-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Never thought I would own something with this logo on it. That still is true, the shoes I got on mega awesome sale didn't fit so I have to send them back. I am a sad kitten.

020/365

2009-01-21T22:02:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Waiting with laptops for the inauguration.

And I am missing a day! I took a picture on the 19th, I just can't find it on my various CF cards...it was a dinosaur picture too. :(

018/365

2009-01-18T19:10:00.003-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Checking my mail I noticed that someone in my apartment complex has a Christmas tree in front of their door. On January 18th. It was quite festive, the ornaments were miller lite cans.

017/365

2009-01-18T19:10:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

The most exciting thing I did yesterday was hit the gym. Thank goodness it was a weekend and no one was there. The New Year's crowd giving up? ;)

016/365

2009-01-18T19:09:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

If you couldn't tell from the entry I posted earlier today, Brad is in Florida for over three weeks on a work thing so we have to Skype it. And yeah, his webcam really is that poor quality. ;)

2009-01-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

When B. mentions that he'll be away for three weeks for work, I'm always "No big deal, three weeks is nothing." Then, a bit over halfway through it, I realize that three weeks is a very long time!

015/365

2009-01-15T20:16:00.003-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Sorry about the picture quality but this shot of Jamie and Brittany at dinner tonight was too priceless not to post.

014/365

2009-01-15T20:16:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

The new bright red checkerboard scarf I started for the knit-for-the-homeless group I'm a part of.

013/365

2009-01-13T22:19:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

The sky was an interesting shade of blue/purple when I left the office today.

012/365

2009-01-13T22:18:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

This is the #2 cat of the household, Wolverine. Also known as, I left my CF card at home and had to find something in my house to photograph after work. But really, he deserves more pictures. He's like the second child.

And so it begins...

2009-01-12T21:45:00.000-08:00

I haven't even made one decision regarding my upcoming wedding yet but I am already starting to see how stressful it can become, especially if you happen to be one of those girls who really cares a lot about every little detail. (Luckily, I am not one of those.) I'm kind of anxious to get the venue and date nailed down, and figure everything will start coming together from there. To that end B. and I have come up with a list of three venues we are considering. One of them we saw, it was quite lovely, and the staff there seems really together and on top of things and quick to reply to my emails. The second one on the top of the short list has not seemed really together and quick to reply, but we have two personal recommendations saying that they are actually great to work with.

One of our friends is actually helping us deal with them and we are starting to make some headway. Venue #1 is starting to fill up and we are arranging a private tasting at the start of February--if nothing else changes until then we will probably book it. The only problem with the venue really is...it's the only one we've seen. I guess if we haven't seen anything else there will be no regrets with the one we actually choose, right?

B. is in Florida right now for work and will be until the 28th so I am missing him a lot. Um, I guess not much more to say about that that isn't sappy and retarded, so I'll stop now.

011/365

2009-01-11T21:01:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Today I went over to my friend's house to meet her new baby Diya. She was very cute and small. Diya was born on the same day that Brad and I got engaged exactly one month ago, so December 11 was a very lucky day indeed.

I was talking with Kim the other day about babies and how over the past year I've actually been thinking about wanting one lately. I never thought I would be the type to actually want to have one, I always figured that I'd end up in my thirties and realize that I should do it now or never, bite the bullet, and then end up loving and being really into my kid.

This Christmas though, I definitely was thinking that it would be great to have a child to spoil on Christmas morning. Kim said that she felt the opposite way, that she saw all the presents under the tree for (mostly) her and was stoked that the presents were for her, realizing that if she had a child they wouldn't be anymore. Such different perspectives! I am definitely preparing for a child in my future, she definitely isn't there yet. Life is so funny.

010/365

2009-01-11T10:06:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Kim while we're waiting in a giant line at a coffee shop in the Sunset. Because apparently it is the only coffee shop in the area?

009/365

2009-01-11T09:56:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

There's a giant android and his dog in front of the building where I work.

008/365

2009-01-08T19:36:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

8 days before I had to resort to posting my cat. :) In my defense, I totally had a picture planned out for this evening, it was going to be my neighbor's awesomely tacky Christmas decorations still up. Well, they took them down while I was at work today, which quite a disappointment and Echo had to take over as a somewhat reluctant model, hiding behind my bike.

007/365

2009-01-07T21:35:00.003-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Diana, acting like she doesn't want to be photographed.

006/365

2009-01-07T21:35:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

I finished my knitting project for our belated knitting secret santa.

005/365

2009-01-05T18:28:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Brilliant fall colors in January--only in California.

004/365

2009-01-04T11:44:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

When I first got my engagement ring I tried the reverse-lens macro trick with my 50mm lens. I decided to see what happened if I used my giant 17-40mm lens instead and the result was a lot more magnification. I also realized I need to clean my ring. ;) Maybe I should invest in a real macro lens someday?

003/365

2009-01-04T09:56:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Messing around in the car while B. drives us around.

002/365

2009-01-03T16:36:00.003-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Ian, aka the muppet dog. I was taking care of him over the holidays.

001/365

2009-01-03T16:36:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by psydereal

Marina in Redwood City at night.

weddings, rejecting bridal diets, and a resolution

2008-12-29T19:24:00.000-08:00

I've been engaged for over two weeks now and I still can't stop looking at my ring. It's so sparkly! I can't get over how gorgeous it is. We've started making tentative plans already because I figure this is one area where getting started early can only be a good thing. We have decided on April of 2010, and are leaning towards having the ceremony on a Sunday. We've ballparked a budget and a guest list. We've even visited one potential site and I can definitely see myself getting married here, and there's the possibility that the other sites we are looking at (after all due diligence is required here) will be even better. I've made a vow to myself to stay away from bridal magazines at all cost. I got a giant dump of Bay Area wedding info from a friend of a friend that is uber helpful--basically I'm just going to go into this with word of mouth recommendations and stay away from the gorgeously shot wedding porn that serves no purpose but to make you feel inadequate so you'll buy more stuff.

Speaking of inadequacy inspired by publications trying to sell ad space, I'm also not going to give in to the traditional bridal frenzy to lose as much weight as possible before the big day. I'll admit it's tempting to do it--after all, it is pretty much the best motivation for sticking to a diet that you could ever possibly have, but I'm going to trust in science and not marketing. Science (and personal history) have basically proven that any weight you lose is going to come back within years, possibly bringing friends with it, and I'm not going to harm my long term health by losing weight to look good in photographs on one day. My fiancé fell in love with and proposed to me looking exactly as I do now.

I am going to cut out booze staring Jan 1 for two reasons: 1) Even though I refuse to diet I figure cutting out those empty calories will help me look a bit sleeker for the big day (maybe even shinier and healthier!) and 2) Adding drinks to dinners out really adds to the price, and I want to put that extra money over the year toward a fantastic honeymoon! I will be making exceptions for wine special occasions like anniversary dinners and birthdays. I'm sort of using it as an excuse to drink things for the next two days though, so we'll see how this goes...

Thinking about the new year

2008-12-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

So, looking back over 2008 I have been really really terrible at documenting my existence. This could be viewed as a good thing I suppose, far fewer photographs of me with the singular facial expression that is the only way I like to see myself in photographs (a friend of mine calls it my Zoolander face), my arms wrapped around the shoulders of various people. Maybe I got tired of seeing those photos? Kind of a flimsy argument since I've been really bad about writing text about my life as well.

I've started thinking that I should do the Project 365 for 2009. Honestly, just considering it has sort of changed the way I view the world slightly, and I think getting into the habit of this will be a great way to see the interesting moments in every day. Or I'll just devolve into posting pictures of Echo and Wolverine every day.

So, Jan 1, 2009. It begins. :)

Engagement--text this time

2008-12-21T19:48:00.000-08:00

In case the posted photograph of a ring wasn't obvious enough for people, I got engaged on the 11th. It was really sweet and low-key, our nine month anniversary was on Thursday and B. had suggested that we go out for dinner. He took me out to dinner and mentioned that I should save room for dessert because he'd gotten Sprinkles cupcakes (which I love). We walked home and once we got into the apartment (seriously right after, the boy didn't even give me time to take off the giant sweatshirt I was wearing as a coat), he asked "So do you want a cupcake?" I was like "Well, I don't know...I'm kind of full...but I'll take a look at them!"

So he goes into the kitchen and grabs the box of 4 cupcakes and opens them. I look and am all, "That's weird, this one has a button on it!" I guess I sort of figured it was a special holiday flavor with a button shaped candy on top. :) Then B. grabs the button cupcake and gets down on one knee. He said a bunch of things that were really sweet and awesome and then asked me to marry him. I thought I said yes though video evidence shows that I actually nodded vigorously. The special cupcake was actually a trinket box from etsy that was just the same shape/size as a Sprinkles cupcake, and it had a ring inside of it.

B. had champagne waiting and so we toasted to us, called our parents who all seemed pretty thrilled, and then proceeded to geek out over the diamond. I love my ring, it's absolutely perfect, and I'm so thrilled to be able to call B. my fiance.

Engagment Ring

2008-12-14T13:12:00.001-08:00

IMG_0036
Originally uploaded by psydereal

Fishie and starfishie

2008-12-04T16:17:00.001-08:00

Fishie and starfishie
Originally uploaded by psydereal

Brad and I with our awesome pilot

2008-09-17T23:35:00.001-07:00

brad and I with our awesome pilot
Originally uploaded by psydereal

Probably the highlight of the trip was our helicopter tour. In one hour you see some of the most beautiful things you have ever in your life. We did our research and went with Jack Harter, a company that flies doorless choppers which made it even better. I was practically hanging out of the thing taking photos.

Waterfall in Kauai

2008-09-17T23:30:00.001-07:00

IMG_9501
Originally uploaded by psydereal

We had a spectacular vantage point--a helicopter.

My love-hate relationship with the Olympics

2008-08-14T15:48:00.001-07:00

I love the Olympics. I waited for the opening ceremony last week with huge impatience and was rewarded with an amazing show. Now I know that a few of the elements have been faked, which is kind of unsettling, but was I ever amazed last Friday night! Also, I'm a huge fan of watching gymnastics, it's probably one of my favorite sports. I know what it feels like to swim and to run. I do it at about a tenth of the speed of Olympic athletes to be sure, but I have some sort of analog. My body has never been anywhere close to doing skills that gymnasts do, it's as if they belong to a completely different species as the rest of us.

The hate part comes into play with NBC's so-called coverage of the Olympics. They decided to show some events "live" which I might appreciate if I lived on the east coast or mid-west where indeed, some things are being shown live. Instead, because I live in California I get the worst of both worlds--the events aren't shown live, but I still have to stay up late to see things finish, and wait while announcers fill up airtime as they wait for events occurring in real time. I'm an old 27-year-old lady, I don't want to stay up until 1 AM to see the end of my beloved gymnastics!

If you insist on this crappy format, start it at the same on the west coast as the east. My Tivo can start going at 5, and allow me to skip the crappy synchronized diving (WHY is this a sport?!?) and watch hottie Michael Phelps and gymnastics (the only things I really need to see!) that gets over at a decent hour live?!?

my head is asploding

2008-08-06T15:53:00.001-07:00

The blog of unnecessary quotation marks. I totally need to send them that boat that's always parked outside of Lo's house that's name is: 'Awe'some.

Quel weekend

2008-08-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday evening I know that Echo was around, I picked her up and brought her in from the patio where I was reading and made noises at her. Then I went to the gym, came home and showered, and played some video games. Little cat was all up in my bidness as usual and Echo is generally more reserved, and since I wasn't paying close attention I don't know if Echo was there or not, I have no solid memory of her in those few hours. It would not be unusual for her to have curled up to take a nap at that time of day, so I didn't think anything of it.

Then I went to my friend Katie's and spent a few hours drinking wine and shooting the shit with a few other friends. Dounia drove me home at around 1 AM because I'd had a bit too much wine and didn't want to risk driving. When I got home, I was so exhausted and just fell into bed. I did notice that Echo didn't come to the door, but like I said, Wolvie is so excitable that she is more reserved these days.

Around 5 or 6 AM I noticed that Wolvie was much more demanding of attention than usual, much more. And I noticed that Echo wasn't around the floor by the bed where she usually is at night. So I got up (like Wolvie was going to let me sleep anyway) and started searching the house for Echo. I looked in all of the Echo-sized hiding places and some smaller than Echo-sized. At this point I was pretty convinced that I was much more likely to find her sick/dead curled up somewhere in my apartment and was scared of THAT. After searching it became apparent that she was not in the apartment, she's a giant cat, she can't hide that well.

So I walked to get my car and made some fliers, posted them up around the neighborhood and basically this entire morning has been spent walking around looking for the cat. My neighbor said she saw a cat that meets her description in the garage, looking really scared. If that's true, it means she hasn't gone far, but there are a lot of Echo-lookalikes out there which I discovered on my various tours around the neighborhood. :(

I spent basically all of Saturday looking around the neighborhood for my cat. Both cats are foster cats, and basically don't know how to take care of themselves outdoors. Eventually I decided to pack it in for the night and was feeling very discouraged. At 2 in the morning I heard the screen door make a noise and jumped out of bed, standing there was Echo looking very keen to get in and meowing at me. I was so happy. She's also very happy and filthy from running around in the outdoors. She seems really happy to be home, as happy as cats generally seem, and Wolvie is really stoked to have his friend back. God I'm so relieved!

so....angry....

2008-08-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

I was absolutely astounded to read this article about the Health and Human Services plan to deny federal funding to medical organizations that don't "accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions, including providing birth-control pills, IUDs and the Plan B emergency contraceptive."

This is absolutely ridiculous. If you do not believe in providing safe and effective birth control to women, you do not belong in the medical field. Period. If you cannot look to the positive effects that access to birth control has had for the health of women and children and see how necessary this is, I don't feel that you are mentally competent to provide me with medical care.

If your religious beliefs are against contraception, that's great. Don't use it yourself. But if you wish to work in the medical profession, you had better not be imposing your morality on people that are counting on you for care.

getting wolvie from the shelter

2008-07-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Kinda late, but this was one of the first vids taken with our new camera, and shows me meeting our new kitten for the first time.

friends with the ex

2008-07-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

Interesting post today on Jezebel about being friend-dumped by an ex because his new girlfriend tells you too. I am conflicted on this issue, mostly because I've been on both sides of it, in a manner of speaking anyhow. I'm pretty sure that none of my exes have ever been forbidden to talk to me by a new girlfriend, though I could be wrong.

The problem I have is when girls who are dating guy friends who you've never been involved with get jealous and beat them (emotionally) into limiting contact with you. A former friend of mine had a crush on me once upon a time. I was aware of said crush and was careful not to encourage it as the feelings were not returned. He eventually got a new girlfriend who I thought was cool for a while. One day my friend did me a favor by picking up my cat from a friend's house when I was super sick, and his girlfriend got super insecure and jealous, thinking that if he would go out of his way to do me a favor he must still have those feelings for me, etc. etc., and he stopped talking to me. It was all super lame and I roll my eyes at the stupid insecure girl for it.

On the other hand, I am generally unhappy when I hear about my current boyfriends interacting with their exes. If they had normal exes, it wouldn't be a problem, but most of these girls seem to be emotionally needy and a little unbalanced. I was chatting with a friend about this and I mentioned that I don't want them taking his emotional energy, that's for me! He told me I was being unreasonable and he compared it to being upset when he spends his money taking a friend out to dinner because he's supposed to be buying dinner for me.

I said that wouldn't be unreasonable if he was taking his friend out to Alexander's for kobe steak every week for no special occasion and paying say because his friend was broke. He would be using money and applying it frivolously toward something that isn't bringing any real rewards. Whenever crazy-ex-girl calls the guy I'm with up and goes on and on about her personal problems with him, he's spending his emotional energy dealing with it when this friendship doesn't have any real upsides.

However, I'm not really an iron fist type, I would never forbid my significant other a friendship or dictate who they can speak to. I generally try to keep the majority of my unhappiness about it to myself (not always succeeding) and trust that it will eventually work itself out and crazy will go away and find someone else's shoulder to cry on. And that usually happens.

As for my own relationships, I don't do friendships with exes. It's not worth it.

echo grooming wolvie

2008-07-20T13:49:00.001-07:00

echo grooming wolvie
Originally uploaded by psydereal

The two cats are getting along swimmingly, voluntarily crawling into the cat carrier together and being darling.

Wolvie plays Geometry Wars

2008-07-16T09:37:00.001-07:00

After this we realized that a better name might have been "Player 2."

lovely weekend

2008-07-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

It really was, damn good times. Just hung out with the boy for the entirety of it. Awesome aspects included but not limited to: a new wine bar/bistro in downtown Mountain View, lots of movies, pomegranate-vodka cocktails, French food, board games, pinball, Jack Bauer, and cream puffs.

I'z super loved!

2008-07-09T20:01:00.001-07:00

IMG_9194
Originally uploaded by psydereal

Meet Wolverine!

2008-07-03T21:54:00.001-07:00

IMG_0093
Originally uploaded by psydereal

He's a fearless eight week old kitten. <3!

object lust 1

2008-07-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

Brad and I went on a fact-finding mission this weekend for a camcorder to take with us to Hawaii. I saw this baby at Fry's and was immediately drawn because it is one sexy piece of hardware. (However Sony HDR-TG1 is not a sexy name. I will call it Gisele.) We looked around, resolved to do homework, and left--and ended up making the purchase later that day. What happened to my staid not-swayed-by-style boyfriend? I'm not sure but I'm not complaining.

Expect plenty of stupid videos to fill this space soon, once I figure out how to use video editing software! Speaking of, does anyone who reads this know anything about video editing that they'd like to share? I'm a complete novice.

IM digest

2008-07-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

me: d00d i had the yummiest steak last night
i don't know how people can be vegetarian
even when i tried to be for two months earlier this year, i had a swanky-steakhouse exemption
Ben: um...cause some people believe it's morally wrong to kill an animal.
me: nothing is morally wrong when it tastes that good

lily: how could you hate ben gibbard--he made the postal service and the death cabs
me: i hate how condescending his music is
and he's ugly
ilyneko: hes beautiful as a person
and he makes music about the true hurts in life
Note: I don't think that the person who wrote "Someday You Will Be Loved" is a beautiful person.

Brad: Holy crap
Our camera can record at 240 fps for 3 second bursts
I don't know if we'll use it, but that's cool as hell
I see slo-mo kitties in our future

Birthday dinner

2008-07-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

I took B out for his birthday last night and I tried to find pictures of some of the dishes we ate but failed. That's too bad because the meal was incredible. We went to Alexander's steakhouse in Cupertino (actually that website has some really awesome food pictures but not of what we had!). In any case, amazing food, wonderful company, god damn shelling out for a meal once in a while is completely worth it.

If you couldn't tell, I'm super glad to have my boyfriend back, even if it's only for a couple of weeks. :)

Look at Banner!

2008-06-28T18:08:00.001-07:00

Look at Banner!
Originally uploaded by psydereal

Part of the awesome banner I put up in B's apartment for his homecoming. We've been watching a lot of Arrested Development. Also, sharks rule.

Budgets. Damn am I growing up?

2008-06-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I've edged toward abandoning my laissez-faire attitude toward personal finance. For the past few years I've basically been operating under the conditions where I have enough disposable income to do most fun things I want, but live in an area where the prospect of buying a place without a second income involved is more or less impossible (and frankly damn hard even when you have someone else helping!). So if I have money to do something in my checking account at this very moment, yay, let's do it! That was literally my only attempt at budgeting. While it's been going all right I suppose, I realized that in the near future I'm going to want to contribute to the down payment on a house. In order to actually save money, I'm going to have to change my approach.

I remembered my friend using online budgeting software a few months ago so I pinged her today to ask what she used. I started my account at mint.com this evening and plugged in most of my accounts, and fiddled with it. Looking at the trends chart, from Feb-now, the largest money-sink in my life is, naturally, the roof over my head. Nothing much you can do about that one. My second largest money-sink is the car. Thank God I just made my final car payment so my expenditure in that category will be vastly reduced despite gas prices.

The final significant category that I've decided to focus on reducing is on Personal Care. This consists of the trainer, the monthly fees for the climbing gym, and bi-monthly visits to a (pricey!) salon to turn my blond hair dark brown. I've decided to ditch the trainer--I feel that I've made a lot of progress and the amazingness of my ass after past year should be motivation to go to the gym myself and do the occasional set of squats and lunges. If I need some help for special occasions in the future, I can add this back into the mix, but for the mean time I'm going to rely on my internal motivation for a while and see how that goes. I'm not going to resort to cutting back on the hair stuff yet, I'd have to be desperate for cash to do that. ;)

Ur doing it wrong!

2008-06-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

A blogger-who-shall-remain-nameless asked today, what is the most cliche life lesson you know? I've had this on my mind for some time now, so it's as good a time as any to write about it. The most cliche life lesson that I've been knocked on my ass by is that when you meet the one, you just know. Every time I'd heard that in the past, I had rolled my eyes at such a trite thing, either internally or externally depending on if I was in the line of sight of the speaker.

I'd attributed the cliche to our human brain and its wonderful tendency toward hindsight bias. Of course you're going to say that you always knew the person was the one on your wedding day. No matter what you thought of them as you were getting to know each other, you're going to enhance the feelings through your memory to be greater than they were. Hindsight bias, now that made logical sense to me. Meeting someone and in a short time realizing that you were going to be spending your life with that person? Complete and utter nonsense!

Until naturally, it happened to me. I'm telling you, I'd much rather be wrong and happy than right and unhappy, but I'd always wanted those people to be wrong. I'd always wanted to be better than them, more logical. Alas, it was not meant to be. However, now that I'm here, I wouldn't have it any other way.

This experience, and how much it has differed from ones I've had in the past, hammered home another life lesson, which while not a cliche, I strongly feel should become one--If love is hell, you're doing it wrong.

Bike rage

2008-06-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

I did a search for "bicycle road rage" but only seemed to find incidents of car drivers having road rage against cyclists. I am not having an easy time finding people discussing cyclists having road rage! Maybe no one admits to it? Maybe this is because when car drivers road rage against cyclists there are more harmful immediate consequences (like, cyclist death and injury) whereas when a cyclist is overcome by road rage it mostly takes the form of trying to memorize car details and fantasizing about finding them and beating the crap out of them? Not that I would know or anything...

I was biking to work today when every single cop in the city decided they needed to be where I was going. The road I bike on to work is treacherous for bikers at the best of times in this location--you have to cross a lane of freeway-bound traffic to get from one bike lane to another on top of a hill, it totally sucks. At this time however, three lanes of car traffic were smooshed up together on the right side of road to let the police through. No one was moving and I had no bike lanes at all. So I'm weaving through the stopped cars trying to get to a place where everything made more sense and was not absolute chaos when this lady yells out her window "Are you out of your mind?!?!"

I replied. "Maybe. What the fuck do you suggest I do here?" and continued on with my route-finding, while ignoring the (thankfully brief) urge to stop, go back (her car was stopped, she wasn't going anywhere) and give her piece of my mind and possibly break a few laws.

Seriously, I never have these problems behind a steering wheel. I leave that to my little sister who had her license revoked for six months because of an incident of road rage. I might curse at someone who's behaving in a particularly dumbtarded manner, but I never have brief moments of contemplating their death or how I might drag them out of their car by their hair. I'm a very non-violent person normally. What changes when I get on a bike?

One other point--damn do emergency vehicles make things dangerous for bikers! People in their cars hear sirens, panic, and swerve over to the right without even looking! If they don't get dangerously close to hitting me, there's the problem of my lane completely disappearing. It's totally not cool.

Please stop it with the 100 pushups thing!

2008-06-24T07:41:00.001-07:00

I don't know what happened but in the past 24 hours I seem to see this thing about training to do 100 pushups everywhere. How did this start? Why does everything think this is a great idea? So here's my PSA for the day: STOP IT.

For one thing, it's a very unbalanced training regimen. If you aren't throwing some rows, lat pull-downs, or pull-downs in there are on a regular basis you're setting yourself up for really buff chest and tricep muscles and little weakling back and bicep ones. While I think that's silly on an aesthetic level, apparently such imbalance also puts strain on your joints and can cause injury.

Also, what is the effing point of getting really really good at one upper body exercise? The only thing you're going to get good at is doing pushups. The second you try to do anything else with your upper body you're going to either fail or be in incredible pain the next day because it used one of the muscles not worked by pushups. There's a reason there's dozens of different versions of pushups, pullups, squats, and lunges. Changing the position of your limbs slightly when you do these exercises works the muscle in a different way or focuses on a different muscle. If the goal is to develop overall upper body strength, you need to do a variety of strength exercises, with (oh yeah) balance. If the goal is just to get really really really good at one pointless exercise, I'm just confused.

So I'm going to go for a swim. If I can't convince you that the 100 pushups thing is dumb, please throw in a few reps of seated rows in there now and again kthnx!

<3

2008-06-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

Just found out today, randomly at the gym no less, that there's a new Girl Talk album out. Girl Talk is my hero. They're doing the Radiohead model where you pay whatever you want for the download.

I'm through the second track. <3 Girl Talk.

Weekend at the River

2008-06-23T10:45:00.001-07:00

IMG_9156
Originally uploaded by psydereal

I just had a wonderful relaxing weekend at my friend's parent's house in the Tahoe area. It was so nice to be out there. For one thing, the thinner air makes me sleep like a baby, which is nice. It's also been a while since I hung out at someone's parent's house. You just don't do that much when most of your friends are transplants, and it's nice--parents take good care of you, always make sure you are well fed and comfortable. I miss having parents nearby!

The river was fun except for the snake. I was swimming in the river and my friend screams my name. I turn around and there's a snake with coloring resembling that of a rattler in an S-shape right in front of my face! Apparently I handled it rather gracefully, I don't remember exactly what happened I just knew that I got the hell away as fast as I could.

Evangelizing Web 2.0--Fail.

2008-06-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

In the past year or so I've really learned to love Google Reader. At first I used it because of several friends of mine that have extremely sporadically updated blogs. I will never check the sites regularly, but if they do wake from their comas to post I want to know about it. Add the feeds to Reader and get notified of updates via the iGoogle widget, and I am golden. Usage started out slow, but my collection of subscriptions slowly grew to encompass most of my reading material and some new discoveries. My favorite part of this is that I can share items and things that I share automagically show up in my friend's feeds as well (not to mention showing up in my FriendFeed). It's gotten to the point that I barely ever leave Google Reader when looking for browsing material, it's all right there which is fabulous.

I lose major geek cred points for admitting this openly, but I'm not really into the whole webcomic thing. I read xkcd regularly, but that's only because it's about my life. B. and I wondered at one point if they've bugged my bedroom because of a few instances where random features of conversations we'd had would show up in the comic the next day. I'm know that I'm supposed to love Achewood but it's too inside-jokey for me, and I'm not going to sit around for an entire day reading back story just to be one of the cool kids.

My dear B. though, is rather obsessed. And I noticed he would check the sites manually daily, which I sought to correct for him. This is a procedure that should definitely be automated. I finally got him to give it a shot, but apparently many of these webcomic sites do not have RSS feeds. My jaw hit the floor. To me, a publisher of web content without an RSS feed is like an opera singer with laryngitis. This can't be true...can it? In any case, my subject was less than impressed with the technology, and my attempt at winning my boyfriend over to the dark side was a spoonful of fail.

Road Rage

2008-06-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

I don't really suffer from road rage when I'm driving a car, but I notice that I get the worst case of it almost every time I bike to work. The most recent occurrence of this was last week. I was driving on a two-lane road with no bike lane and keeping a few feet away from parked cars on the side of the road as every biker should to avoid getting "doored." However, some jackass in a silver BMW apparently didn't know that the law gives me as a biker full use of the lane, and decided to honk his horn at me for delaying him for a few seconds. As he passed me, I looked up to memorize what the car looked like and dead serious with no thought said aloud "I am going to find you and fucking kill you."

I then giggled at myself for being so melodramatic, but for those few seconds, I was in a cold rage. Scary stuff. I wonder why this happens to me when I'm on two wheels but not four?

Why are you standing so still?

2008-06-15T11:37:00.001-07:00

I gave in to temptation this morning and let myself peek in the lives of some people from the past. I'm not really sure what I wanted to find. Did I want to see the my ex-boyfriend and "the other woman" in domestic bliss to torture myself or something? Or to try to torture myself, as I don't really think it would bother me all that much these days. To poke myself to see if there was still sensation somewhere? I'm not sure what I really wanted, but it was a slight itch, and I was bored, so I scratched it. Of course I was disappointed. I wasn't looking at the right timeslice for drama of any kind. If you stop following these things you really lose the thread, which is the whole point I suppose. Anyhow, it was boring, a total let down. Everyone still seems to be in the same place.

That always happens when I look in on people from the past--they seem to be in exactly the same space. Maybe this is just an affect from the me-centeredness of my universe, but it seems to me that I just can't stop changing. I am so different now from the person I was a year ago, in many different ways. I had changed from the year before as well, and the year before that. At times I feel as if adversity makes us change more rapidly than we would normally, and I think I've faced a bit of personal adversity in the past few years, thus the amount of rapid change. I think all of these changes are a positive thing, I don't regret any of them. I've learned so much and am happy with the person I am and the place I am in my life--extremely happy.

It makes me wonder though--how can all these people stand still when I am moving so fast?

Today's hot topic is...

2008-06-09T20:26:00.001-07:00

I have been a Barack Obama supporter from day zero, but watching the coverage of Hilary's concession on Saturday made me feel a little bittersweet. Don't get me wrong, I've been waiting for this thing to be over since Super Tuesday. I don't know, maybe it's the feminist part of me stirring or something. I do in fact feel that the sexism has been a huge issue in her campaign, and I feel bad about that. The things that certain cable pundits have gotten away with saying are pretty terrible. I think Hilary's candidacy has been a good thing for women overall--I think she did pave the way for someone else to win this in the future, and I think learning that sexism isn't as dead as we thought it was might be a valuable lesson.

Pardon my elementary take on the subject, I've never been a particularly good student of feminist theory, but the way I see it, women are (or have been in the past) disadvantaged in three ways: institutionally, culturally, and biologically. We've gone a long way in getting things equal institutionally--I have access to an equal quality of education and equal job opportunities as my male peers. The fact that a lot of women in Generation Y see this as no big deal is somewhat of an insult to the feminists who paved the way for us, but also can be seen as a sign of progress. There are still issues with pay equality, some glass ceiling stuff to work through, but for the most part, we're good there.

As for biology--well, that's kind of a tough one to change. Given the current medical technology, we can't make my reproductive scenarios as equally varied and un-tethered in time as a guy's. Maybe someday. However, this is one of the gender inequalities that most chafes me in my life.

Cultural sexism is what I think was most encountered by the Clinton campaign, and another thing that really bites me in my life right now. The fact is that culture is afraid of strong women. Part of the reason that the campaign went on so damn long is that Hilary was most appealing as a candidate when she was down. The second she was seen as an underdog, as she was seen as picked-on or ganged up against, the voters seemed to rush to her defense, in the same way that Martha Stewart became a much more popular figure after she was knocked down a peg and put in prison. A woman is only appealing when she's down. In the same vein, why is it that a man can raise his cachet with the opposite sex by becoming more successful, while the more success a woman attains she's less attractive in the dating market?

I was composing this entry earlier today but later had a conversation with my boyfriend about a book he was reading, and we started discussing good books in general. I mentioned a few (Memiors of a Geisha and Girls in Trucks) that I remember enjoying recently and he, half jokingly I think, dismissed them as chick books. Why is a book/movie with a female protagonist almost instantly dismissed in our culture as something for chicks? Why are men the default and women the "other"? It's these kinds of cultural things that I feel are the current battleground for fighting sexism. Culture takes a lot longer to change than it takes to pass a few laws, but is several orders of magnitude faster than biology, so I'm somewhat optimistic.

Hawaii

2008-06-08T09:05:00.000-07:00

The boy and I are planning a September trip to Hawaii, the island of Kauai to be exact, and I could not be more excited. Unlike most residents of California, I haven't even been once. Boy just left for three weeks in Arkansas for work, which makes me sad, but I'm making the best of it by being all industrious-like.

I've recently re-discovered how awesome libraries are. They're free, and you're not stuck with piles of books you'll never re-read again that you are required to schlepp between apartments. It's fabulous. I found some recent Kauai guides at the local library yesterday, and spent quite a few wine-soaked hours pouring over them and planning out fun things to do on the island. (This was when I wasn't coaching my friend in the finer points of GTA IV and watching him go on cop-killing sprees.)

I wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice by planning things out so far in advance. Will I psyche myself out before the actual trip? I'm going to go with no, I doubt it. I haven't been on a real vacation since Thailand a year and a half ago, so I have the right to be stoked.

What an awesome weekend!

2008-05-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

I can barely walk due to a combination of sadistic trainer, uphill hike, and bay to breakers, but it was quite a bit of fun.

Irony

2008-05-09T17:29:00.000-07:00

me: i do lots of things ironically

B: Yeah, me too. I'm trying to cut back though
I'm... not sure why.

me: oh is irony dead?
i was wondering that myself
i'd noticed that i'd cut back recently as well

B: Which... oh my god. Plug your ears so your brain doesn't explode

me: haha
go ahead

B: It's kind of ironic. Because the hipster mentality is that once something becomes popular, it's no longer cool. So by discarding irony because it's popular with hipsters...
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
The irony is collapsing in on itself. I think our tendency to cut back is born of a desire not to implode
But in so doing, feeds into the irony vortex
Oh god. You can't escape irony
Fighting it only makes it stronger!

me: i love you

B: I love you too.
:)

Coachella, very late

2008-05-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here's Coachella from the point of view of the iPhone photographs that I sent to my boyfriend as updates over the weekend. I had an amazing time and this is in no way a comprehensive overview. :) Also, these are in reverse order.

Giant inflatable pig over the crowd during Roger Waters' set. This was an epic set by the way. Everyone in the group was completely amazed and surprised at how amazing it was. I was not. I'd seen him perform in 1999 in Kansas City and was blown away then. Good to know not much has changed in nine years.

I was standing right beside Elijah Wood for the entirety of Gogol Bordello's set and managed to get a decent photo without attracting attention and looking like a total stalker. He is an incredibly small person! Apparently he's dating one of the drummer/dancer girls for Gogol Bordello which explains his presence there. I'd never heard of the band before this, but the set was really high energy and a lot of fun.

The Tesla coil.

The outdoor stage while the National was playing as the sun went down.

Silver balloons in the dance tent while Adam Freeland was playing.

Skydiving!

2008-04-18T09:38:00.001-07:00

From the better-late-than-never file, I want to write about the experience I had a week and a half ago of skydiving over Monterey Bay. It's one of those things that I had always wanted to do, but I kind of got roped into this accidentally. My friend D sent out an evite for indoor skydiving in a vertical windtunnel, and I was down for that no problem. Only a few people responded positively to that idea though, so D was all, "Why don't we just go for the real thing instead?" At that point it seemed too late to say no, so before I knew it, I was headed down south with five other friends to jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet.

I was a bit nervous while we were hanging around at the hangar. This transferred itself to full on panic when my tandem instructor slapped a harness on me and started explaining what we were going to do. He kept saying things like "Okay, when we get to the door of the airplane you're going to get down on your knee like this, and tilt your head back, and..." and all I could think of was "No I most certainly am NOT!" No one else in my group was really freaking out all that badly, but I was going nuts.

They drove us to the drop zone, as we were in the second group to go up, and when I saw the first group open their parachutes and descend from the sky my anxiety faded away because I thought it looked like a ton of fun. Then we got on the plane, and I was fine. I think that's when others in my group started to get a bit nervous however, watching the person before them jump out of the plane really freaked them out I think.

I was the last person to jump out of the plane, and I was just so focused on walking with another person attached to my back that I didn't watch anyone else fall out of the plane or anything. I got to the door and down on my knee like I was told to on the ground and I don't remember being scared at all, just looking at all that ground below me and thinking "Wow, that's awesome." Then we rocked back and fell out of the plane, whee!

It only felt like falling for a second or two, then it just felt like floating with a LOT of wind. I wasn't falling, the plane was going away. Bye plane! It was pretty cold, I wished I'd had gloves or something. 70 seconds of freefall, then parachuting down, which I thought was super fun and would love to try again, to control the parachute and everything myself.

The adrenaline/endorphin rush lasted for several hours afterwards. I was sitting on the concrete in the sun with my friends afterwards, we were giggling at everything and proud of ourselves for doing it.

I didn't get a video, but David did. Enjoy.

Discuss

2008-03-03T14:05:00.000-08:00

(Discussing the article discussed in this blog post)

Maggie: Like boys don't swoon over Obama
please
me: haha
Maggie: EVERYBODY swoons over obama
me: chris matthews gets tingles up his legs
he said so on the teevee
Maggie: there you go
me: yeah, seriously, the biggest piece of evidence in supporting her premise is the article itself
Maggie: Word
me: i think the flaw in logic here is that she's blaming women for being dumb, when it's actually humans who are dumb
Maggie: Congrats, Charlotte Allen. You've successfully proven that ~~women~~ you are stupid
me: Humans: Really evolution, is this the best you can do?
Maggie: Case in point: Multiple editors (probably of both sexes) at the Washington Post who thought this poorly-sourced, pointless ball of ranting was even remotely newsworthy.
Evolution: Ur doin it wrong
me: put that caption on a picture of charlotte allen
as a rebuttal
Maggie: Oooh, now I'm getting to the part where a professional writer bitches that escapist fiction isn't exactly true to real life and, thus, women are dumb.
There's going to be a dent on this desk when my head is through hitting it
me: because men don't read COMIC BOOKS
Maggie: Which totally aren't soap operas + explosions
Wow, the stupid burns.
me: yeah. i thought you'd like that. and by like, i mean enjoy making fun of.
Maggie: Poke Charlotte Allen with sticks!
Ok, I have to get back to making my house a home and caring for men and children now....by which I mean, conduct an interview about the science behind anti-addiction medications.
me: :)
Maggie: You have fun making your house a home, by which I mean programming computers for one of the most successful companies in America

Vegetarianish

2008-02-25T22:37:00.000-08:00

Weird moment, I was leaving the apartment and my cat was reacting to this, and I thought about animals we keep as our pets and the emotions they show. This isn't just the familiar tendency of the human brain for anthropomorphizing everything that we encounter--there are studies of empathy in mice. This is pretty dopey of me, but I thought of how cool it is to do something that provokes joy in an animal.

This lead to the thought of video footage I'd seen last week of cruelty to sick cows in a California slaughterhouse.

Oh no, I thought next. I have to be a vegetarian.

I don't want to be a vegetarian. I live in the California Bay Area. Everyone and their mother here is a vegetarian, and when I hear people talk about how they are, or how they can't eat here because things have meat in them, I roll my eyes on the inside. Also, let me state for the record that I have no problem with the raising, killing, and eating of animals for food. Dead animals taste delicious.

What I do have a problem with is raising animals in horrible conditions, torturing them, making them sick, and then eating them for food. I also have a problem (and have for a long time--just not enough to push me over the edge to vegetarianism before) with the environmental impact of eating meat:

According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a "massive scale" to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity...In addition, animal agriculture has been pointed out as one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases — responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2.

So today was day one of my trying vegetarianism for the first time in, oh, thirteen years. I'll see how it goes. I hope that I don't become a sanctimonious asshole.

Oh yeah and I'm still eating sushi. I've got to draw the line somewhere.

I wish I was kidding.

2008-02-15T08:50:00.000-08:00

Proposal via lolcat.

the following takes place between 6:00 and 7:00

2008-02-06T06:48:00.000-08:00

I'm watching put the window as the sun rises in la over shabby one story buildings, power lines, and fast food restaurants. I still hate the very essence of this horrible city. One thing I do love though--seeing a helicopter rise over the freeway and thinking "dude I bet jack bauer is in there.

if only it were this easy...

2008-02-05T15:40:00.000-08:00

watching people watching 2 girls 1 cup

2008-01-31T22:36:00.000-08:00

Slate has a collection of videos featuring people's reactions to viewing the infamous 2 girls 1 cup video. I thought it was awesome. And no, I still haven't watched the video myself. And no, I'm not going to post a video of myself watching it for the first time, though now that I've thought of the idea, I might have to do this. Damn. I thought I was going to be able to get out of watching this.

This reminds me of a conversation I was having with a college friend of mine yesterday. He's been chilling in the backwoods of Morocco for two years doing Peace Corps stuff. His life sounds like the polar opposite of mine. When I asked him what he does with his time there, his reply was "read a little, write a little. sleep a full night. cooking. hanging out at the corner store. take a walk. find some man on the other side of town takes an hour." Apparently he sleeps nine hours a night and twelve is not uncommon. So zen, he plans nothing in advance: "I asked a guy if he could make some deserts we like today and he said something like "god makes all things" which isn't true."

A thought struck me--holy christ, this friend of mine has never touched the glory that is the iPhone. And even more incredible, to me, he didn't know what a lolcat was. I sent him some links and he was incredibly confused. Then came the most disturbing part of the conversation...

s: we are looking at these. and dont really get them.
i do like the one with the cat food. what is this stuff? this is really odd. i thought i was like "cutting edge" to download the new timbaland.
x: it's like, a geeky internet meme
it was my favorite thing in the world for like six months
s: yeah. i figured it was exactly that. which is cool. but that stuff passes us completely. and part of me is like "gosh I really wish I was in on that" and part of me is like "bfd". I kinda feel the same way about the pres campaign, which as you know, is unlike me.
x: oh there will be many many years to be in on that
you'll never get the magic of lolcats, which is a huge loss
but on the upside, you don't have any idea what britney spears is up to
which is a blessing
s: o no. we follow that dumb shit.
x: ugh, seriously?
s: she shaved her head, went to "a place to relax", claimed she was the antichrist, her sister is knocked up, got a tattoo, lost her kids. this stuff, we follow.
x: wow. i find it sad that even in the backwoods of morocco you can't escape this crap
s: this crap, we follow and gossip about. its not that we cant escape, i think its that we like to gossip and its the easiest crap to follow with no deep reasoned discussions of policy

Which is a good point but is there no place in the world to hide?

mad knitting skillz--i has dem

2008-01-28T21:58:00.001-08:00

Mad skillz is probably an overstatement. I learned to knit a while ago, and have recently picked up the sticks again to knit scarves for homeless people with a group my friend founded. The picture above is the three scarves that I am waiting to bring to the group when we meet this week. Since I've been recently struck down with a strange illness that makes me too exhausted to do much of anything, I've been knitting a LOT. Usually while obsessing over the Democratic primary elections with (yumm) Anderson Cooper.

Seriously, what is wrong with me? I set out to write a blog post about knitting and politics and I still end up veering towards sex.

Pre-Coachella Homework, Friday

2008-01-25T16:20:00.000-08:00

The announcement of the Coachella lineup and tons of new full tracks on last.fm coincided so I've been listening to some new (to me) bands from Friday, but before I talk about that, my first impressions of Friday were that I was absolutely stoked to see...

The National would otherwise strike me as fairly generic, but Slow Show is an amazing track. Stars is my favorite Canadian indie rock band evah! Battles--hooray for math rock! Aesop Rock put out an amazing album last year, Jens Lekman is so damned endearing. Dan Deacon rocked my socks off when he opened for Girl Talk in September. Diplo strikes me as poor man's Girl Talk, but I'll take it.

Unfamiliar stuff I'll be looking forward to checking out at the festival:
Mum - I no longer hold the opinion that IDM is a sourge that should be wiped from the planet, and this is pretty dope. After listening to the entire album--really dope.
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings - Funk is awesome. The fact that only 30 second samples are available here and I have to put on my pirate hat to sample this stuff is not.
Busy P - Daft Punk's manager? Wow. Must download more.