$disanpoter

so sweet and so cold

i took myself to mcnally robinson again today - this time for a reading by the authors of A Book of Beginnings and Endings and The Memory Palace of Isabella Stewart Gardner. I'd been more intrigued by the former, because i have always been interested in the idea of publishing a collection of endings. I bought both books; i think they will be thought provoking, though the first author's reading was annoying. she was clearly responding to the cultural expectations of poetic prose emerging out of the slam poetry movement, for she employed the same softened speech, sing-song intonations and arbitrary word stresses you find in bad slam poetry, the kind that mimics the style to compensate for a lack of substance or genuine motive. it's a shame, too, because what i read of the work beforehand was fairly good and got completely lost in the delivery. both authors had a refreshing balance of theoretical and critical knowledge of narrative without getting mired down in over-intellectualizations either in the work or the discussion.
during the question and answer, betsy called. i hopped out and agreed to come meet up with her and the D of infamy up at chat n chew. that made for some interesting interactions, not least of which was an evolving friend:not friend motif. more on that can possibly be found here, either in the presence of words or by way of their absence. after we went to decibel to digest the situation and dispense of any lingering misgivings by way of innebreation and a bit of willful absurdism: we played drunken haiku. it was, as it should be, amusing and a poor literary showing (on my part at least...betsy's were better). hers are at the link above; mine to follow (bold words are the ones we had to incorporate):

of shoe horns and sweet moods

harvest moon. each time
it rises, it ends the world
with each breath, each sigh

the first time i saw a harvest moon, i thought perhaps the world was ending. not that i really believed that, but sometimes the vision of something can be so breathtaking it raises the thought in your head in spite of the soundness of your modern science-informed disbelief. i was alone in the first house we had on shelter island - it was the summer i worked at coecles harbor and thus lived alone during the week while my parents were in the city. the house was set just back from the wetlands and looking out, you saw first the tall reed grass and the lone scragley tree, then the still water, and then the gentle slope of the causeway and little ram, then the sky. the moon was rising where the causeway met little ram. it was a fiery orange, watery and wavering over the dark green of the island at night, and it was consuming the sky. i can find no more emphatic way of describing it for someone who hasn't felt it, it just seemed fitting that the world might end in the gradual swallow of that mellow yet massive orange orb.

harvest moons make my soul ache. i just told this to my friend A Ho, but i doubt it seemed very relevant or significant in the midst of an IM chat. we're picnicing tonight. i'm looking forward to it. as if the above isn't indication enough of it - i'm feeling in the mood for serenity and beauty. positively pastoral, which is always an odd feeling to have sitting in the hard, urban-minded chest of mine. it's the beauty thing. beauty heals me. it's my spirituality.

in other news, this morning i was thinking of having a party at my apartment in the not to distant future. this got me on the topic of themes and i thought i could have an silly 80's movie party where we watch Dark Crystal and the Neverending story. why did i think of these? i think because i've lately been in the mood (on the plasmating level of thinking and mooding) for a movie night and because i sadly do not get to go to a lecture tonight on parchment - oh and because in confluence with this someone on facebook had an image of two old elvish people - all of which reminded me of the aura of arcana cultivated in NES...anyway so this led to the slogan "M is for Mangey" because they both have mangey puppets. but, this, i quickly realized would not be an attractive party quip...but could make for an excellent smarmy t-shirt!

Co-incidentally, shortly after i thought this to myself in the midst of a simultaneous conversation about the shortcomings of the frameword we're building our data management application in, my co-worker CD offered up an equally amusing (and more usable) product. I had exclaimed in surprise and preemptory enthusiasm that i'd found some functions in the function reference that might actually be useful to us. A moment later, I corrected this saying, well...they show potential for being shoe-horned into something useful - and CD said, yes it's too bad they don't use that as a marketting tactic, pass out a bunch of shoe-horns with [the name of infrastucture service] printed on them. so it was amusing to me. so what. i'm a dork. we know this already.

[Natural Sciences] This edible is rich in...

I was eating the banana of my breakfast just now, and on licking a bit of mushed banana tip from my fingers I tasted that familiar flattening taste one experiences when eating an unripe banana. Instantaneously my mind offered me the commentary it must be the potassium.

just like that. but that whole mind/voice this is a separate issue.

as is the accuracy of that conclusion, (which i in no way mean to endorse despite the fact that it was my own mind that suggested it to me).

what this here is about is how strange it is that bananas are rich in potassium. not bananas specifically, or potassium specifically - but the whole this fruit/vegetable/other is rich in this valuable compound thing. not on a social/trend level, but on a biological level. is it a biproduct of growing in potassium overrich soil? does their dna produce enzymes that bind with potassium? what is it about bananas that causes them to be 'potassium rich'?

Advisory

I'm having a bowl of Special K Red Berries this morning. I like the Fruit and Yogurt one better, but this one's still pretty good. The only thing is, if you get one of the strawberries before they've had a chance to reconstitute a bit, they're a bit too tangy. Everytime i eat this cereal, my initial reaction is 'oh no, the milk might be sour.' Then of course i remember it's the strawberries, but what's funny about this is that it happens even when i know, know the milk isn't sour. that, this morning, turned itself around in my head this morning until i heard that voice in there pronounce well, they should have a warning on the box 'not for those afraid of milk' hey, don't look at me - i can't control what that thing says - though on considering this i came to the conclusion that the appropriate advisory to place on food products for people like me is:

Advisory: not for those afraid of their own refridgerator.

ever notice...

how north america vaguely resembles a kangaroo?
well, it's amusing me, at least, this morning. I'm also liking my breakfast routine lately. Traditional greek yogurt - the thick unsweetened stuff - with jam (this week ikea cloudberry jam) and smattering of fresh direct nut granola.
I do think i'm going to begin making my own granola though. The kind you can buy never have the right proportions for my taste. Like the fresh direct, too much sweet and not enough nut. the nuts have the protein. i need more nuts!!! eh. I think if feel i might as well, i've got enough oatmeal to feed an irish catholic family for a week.
i was also thinking of maybe making my own popcorn snack...with coconut flakes and something else which i'm forgetting at the moment.

all that aside. i need coffee. now.

lessons in self

I've discovered by virtue of having them at arms reach and consistently opting to abstain from food rather than abate my hunger with them, that I am rather not particularly fond of puffed rice cakes. and so it occurs to me, that the real message in those amiable Quaker rice cakes commercials is that having unappetizing food around is indeed an effective means of weight management. it simply doesn't get eaten.

in my case, this means i skip meals when stressed, not out of any undue concern for my figure (though in all likelihood i probably should at the moment) but simply because i'm sucked in by the need to accomplish things.

as for dietting, i still prefer the ice cream nutrition management plan, and fortunately i still have some easy mac packs next to those flavored discs of styrofoam.

red bull did not give me wings

the easy mac i had for lunch (i either forgot to eat breakfast or have forgotten eating breakfast) wasn't quite as substantial as i'd hoped it would be, so i went down to the cafeteria about two hours ago in search of some nosh. they didn't have much. i don't like their brand of yogurt and the fruit looked pretty pitiful. I didn't want an untoasted bagel without cream cheese so I checked out the deserts. Just when i thought I'd have to resort to my tamari rice cakes, I saw an unusual treat: a hazelnut cream thing in a light chocolate shell. i caved. i knew i shouldn't eat it, but...hazelnut cream!! well, since i was being bad, i decided to get one of those diet red bulls. believe me, i'd have gotten the regular but they were out. at least that would help keep me going.

but has it? no. it has not. i have no wings. i'm hardly managing synaptic moments. the calcium in my nerves is screaming that man does not think on it's electromagnetic dance with phosphorous alone but on sleep, sweet, sleep (and some protein for pete's sake).

i am however, quite disappointed in the red bull. it's supposed to give me wings.it's supposed to trick those pesky compounds into thinking they have the reserves they need to run on. why can't they make a drink full of ATP and whatever that other thing was it reacts with to become APD and energy?

self cleaning utensils

they've now got touthbrush holders that sterilize your touth brush with UV rays after you use it. I think it's about time we had self cleaning travel utensils and containers...which btw reminds me that i may have to wait on the mp3 player and get a scanner instead. so i can sketch out these things...

anyway, the best way i've come up with is to have a really small container on the bottom that the scraps get pushed into and the some kind of brush/squeegy that came down from the top with a tiny amount of water to get anything left off. after that a short dose of UV could sterilize the interior. The scraps and any remaining water would be sealed off prior to extraction between plastic sheets. These could be reused by collecting them at home and reconstituting them in a plastic making machine that came with the set.

i'm not really satisfied with that yet. I feel like there ought to be a better way...like a portable dishwasher/lunchbox...

Applied Efficiency: Refridgerator Doorlets

Sometimes you have to open the refrigerator door all the way, and sometimes you even have to hold it open with your foot, your under-chin holding one item in place while you cinche more and more items between your side and your arm until your not at all sure you can make it to the counter (or even attempt to put something back) without dropping what inevitable turns out to be the most important and more breakable ingredient.
BUT...

naptime

It's been a sleepy day - not so surprising when you factor in the craziness of last night (i even earned a dollar for stupid human tricks), and the post lunch sugar drop really wasn't helping anything. So, I had a licorice twizzler...then i had a spoonful of peanut butter. Then being in a bit of a glu-coma, I heard a voice: hey, i wonder how licorice and peanut butter would taste together?

The results are inconsistent do to the resources available: organic, unsweetened peanut butter and plain old american 'licorice.' First the peanut butter overwhelmed the licorice, then the licorice overwhelmed the peanut butter as i attempted to tweak the ratio. After several attempts, I've decided this question requires more rigorous investigation. The problem, you see, is the flavors don't match. the peanut butter is a more subtle and grainy creamy than your popular peanut butter, a flavor range one would image going quite nicely with the more complex and robust flavors of real (eg dutch) licorice. Conversely, the twizzler's conforming to the general trend in american processed foods of strong clearer flavors, might go well with a less natural peanut butter, but just doesn't jive with the all-natural. still...i'm liking the possibilities.

Next week : "Licorice cream cookies"... delightful.