Letterblade

Dear Brain,

Spelling matters. "There was not enough beer in the world for this" and "There was not enough bear in the world for this," mean two very, very different things. Especially when you're writing about Ben Grimm and Matt Murdock in a somewhat compromising situation.

"Not enough bear in the world," while perhaps appropriate for Ben (except for the whole hair thing), is not what you meant. At all.

No love,
tartanshell

---

Dear Matt Murdock,

This is not a slash fic. This is not a slash fic. This is not a slash fic.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Frustrated love,
tartanshell

---

Dear Ben,

See above.

- tartanshell

Because my LJ is All About Me, I just wish to note that any time anyone talks about The anniversary of the L'Ecole Polytechnique killings/massacre, my prime thought is, "I never heard about this at the time. What the hell, me?" (This might be because I was in high school and, axiomatically, teenagers are self centered, but /still/.)

In memoriam--

* Geneviève Bergeron, 21, was a second year scholarship student in civil engineering.
* Hélène Colgan, 23, was in her final year of mechanical engineering and planned to take her Master’s degree.
* Nathalie Croteau, 23, was in her final year of mechanical engineering.
* Barbara Daigneault, 22, was in her final year of mechanical engineering and held a teaching assistantship.
* Anne-Marie Edward, 21, was a first year student in chemical engineering.
* Maud Haviernick, 29, was a second year student in engineering materials, and a graduate in environmental design.
* Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31, was a second year engineering student specializing in engineering materials.
* Maryse Laganière, 25, worked in the budget department of the Polytechnique.
* Maryse Leclair, 23, was a fourth year student in engineering materials.
* Anne-Marie Lemay, 27, was a fourth year student in mechanical engineering.
* Sonia Pelletier, 28, was to graduate the next day in mechanical engineering. She was awarded a degree posthumously.
* Michèle Richard, 21, was a second year student in engineering materials.
* Annie St-Arneault, 23, was a mechanical engineering student.
* Annie Turcotte, 21, was a materials engineering student.

I recently heard about White Whole Wheat Flour and thought I'd give it a try, esp. since I'm not generally fond of Whole Wheat flour except in rare bread recipes.

I've tried it out in two recipes so far:

1. Blueberry Muffins
2. Bacon and Leek Mini Quiches

And I am happy to report that it works wonderfully! It's a bit drier, less dense, and less nutty-tasting than regular whole wheat flour, but not as light or dry as regular unbleached white flour. Even with all the butter in the quiche recipe, the texture of the crust wasn't super flaky, but it definitely wasn't as chewy as it would have been with (dark) whole wheat flour. All in all, I give it a two thumbs up! I'm looking forward to trying it out in my bread machine to see how it works for some of my favorite breads.

For those of you who enjoy baking, give this flour a try, I think that you might like it!

( Below are Cthulhu Carols I have come up with; the list will be updated as we get to them. )

I was watching a show on the history channel last night about sex in Pompeii. Apparently there were a lot of brothels, prostitutes, orgies, and of course sexual slavery.

Sadly all I could think was 'no wonder Jack went there'.

Then I started beating off plot bunnies, because dammit if I had time to write -- I'd be writing.

Choooooocolate.

Completely wheat-free.



Flourless Chocolate Cake
(Recipe source The Gourmet Cookbook)

Ingredients:

8 ounces good quality bittersweet (not semi-sweet) chocolate, roughly chopped
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 9 or 10 inch springform pan and line the bottom with wax or parchment paper (cut into a circle to fit bottom of pan). Make sure to grease the liner as well.

In a double broiler or in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water, add chocolate and butter. Stir constantly until melted. Remove bowl from heat and whisk in sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Last, sift cocoa powder into mixture and whisk until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared springform pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out with moist crumbs and top should have a thin crust. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 10 minutes and then remove sides of pan. Invert cake on a plate and then back onto the rack to fully cool before serving.

Yield: 10-12 servings

I keep having people try to schedule things with me, and they laugh when I say that maybe I could see them in February. So here. My December. Let me show you it.

( Cut for if you don't care )

So yeah. I am for serious on this. If you are not already on my calendar for December? See you in 2010.

Why do I say February? Because I'm running the literature track for Arisia, which is midJanuary. And I am budgeting time for things to go haywire. Because I am a smart cookie.

Now it is time to get ready to get out the door for the Bazaar Bizarre, for which I am tabling/selling stuff for BARCC. Come by for the free hugs and affordable lavender gifts!

Title: Calling a Truce (6/?)
Part Six: HERE

Ah. My transcripts finally arrived from Seattle Central.

I've dug my SAT scores out of the boxes.

I have the transcripts from UW.

Time to wave it all in front of the state of Maryland Dept of Education to see what I need next to teach.

Listening to the soundtrack from Out Of Bounds.

And snow has frosted all the trees. I think this is going to be a snowy Christmas.

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Holy crap, Rune, where is your Chrome birthday art???

I AM ASHAMED.

In other news, my state got some snow yesterday. Not much, and I'm sure it will all melt by this evening, but I fucking LOVE snow and am hence extremely happy. <3 <3 <3

Post moar Christmas wishlists, friendslist! Get in the spirit! I'll be following up with one shortly.

My Twitter tweets for the day.

Read them or not at your leisure. There may be some new stuff in there, so if interested, check ( behind the LJ cut. )

I kid you not.

Photographed this evening during the snowfall. Welcome to winter!

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Arghghakfdf I hate lace knitting.

I started on my first shawl today, the Forest Canopy Shawl.

I frogged it at least three times, before I even got to the lace repeat. THEN I was like, huh, I really should use these lifelines people keep telling me about. So I'm putting in lifelines on every odd row. Which doesn't change the fact that lifelines are a pain in the ass to pick back up when the yarn you're using is mohair, plus you're going to need to rip back again if you, I dunno, forget that the row the lifeline is on is a purl row, and start doing another purl row after it, rather than the lace pattern.

It's like, jaysus, it's just YO and sl1-k2tog-psso. This is not rocket science. How can I go so wrong? And yet consistently I end up with the wrong number of stitches in a row, usually because I forgot a YO.

I think part of the problem is the yarn I picked is wholly inappropriate. I thought I could make it work with the Berocco Smart Mohair, but no. It's too dense, even with 8s, and tinking mohair is tough. Of course the only other suitable yarn I have is:

1) Even hairier mohair (Dynasty Yarns Mongolia), and mohair is just a Bad Idea for a first lace project
2) a half a ball of cotton/corn fiber blend (Queensland Haze), which is about half as much as I need
3) Some Berocco Comfort DK I was planning to use for another project.

After my attempt with the Berocco Smart Mohair, I think trying anything worsted is right out. Maybe I need to go invest in some more of that Queensland Haze. It's great stuff.

The first real, ground-blanketing snowfall of the season arrived today. I know I'm going to spend a lot of time kvetching about snow later, but right now, I'm finding it quite lovely. Any excuse for hot cocoa, nu?

Work continues to be interesting, in a Ken-Russell-flick sort of way. Winning Caller do Jour was the guy who immediately started hollering ad nauseum about how badly his brother-in-law is mistreating him, without ever quite getting to (a) what said brother-in-law is actually doing, or (b) why I should give a rat's patootie. I finally spoke up:

Me: Sir? This is the phone company. What can I do for you?
Mr. Hollering Jackass Guy: I WANT YOU TO STOP HIM! STOP HIM FOR GOOD!
Me: ...Excuse me, but did you just ask me to put a hit on your brother-in-law?
Mr. Hollering Jackass Guy: WHATEVER IT TAKES!

I then informed him that this was, well, gosh, I dunno, illegal as hell, reminded him that I had his phone number, and that I was indeed hanging up on him. He continued yelling right up until I cut him off, somehow getting Duval Patrick involved. Ride 'em, cowboy.

Runner-up in the Caller of the Day race was the woman who was already screaming when the call arrived: "—RN UP THE HEAT! I'M FREEZING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! TURN UP THE DAMN HEAT! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?! I'M FREEZING! TURN UP TH—" Evidently, however, she herself did not speak English or understand me, because she screamed over top of me, leaving me unable to communicate that she both has the wrong number and should go do something more productive, like not calling me. I got her two more times, both proceeding exactly the same way. I hung up on her all three times. (She was docked points, however, for doing the same thing two weeks ago.)

Unrelatedly, our stemware collection is down to one sad, lonely little glass. I shall be drinking alone, it would appear.

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I was only half-serious when I suggested this last night, but then a friend actually took me up on the challenge, and it was really awesome. So! I'm making this Officially A Meme, because if the Holiday Wishlist thing could start here and explode like an explodey thing, who knows what will happen? :D

OKAY SO. Here's the facts:

1. A lot of us like singing.
2. Singing makes a lot of people happy. Also, being sung to (or for) usually makes people happy.
3. Music connects people.

Therefore, if more people sang and were sung to, wouldn't we all be happier and more connected? :D (Logic is totally my strong point.)

They call singers a GLEE club for a reason, right? Share the glee if you like the show. If you hate the show and just like singing. I don't care how you do it. Turn up the stereo and sing into your phone, making a voice post. Or, if you're like me and already had music/video editing shareware on your computer, open up a file in Audacity and record a new vocal track on top of it.

We do it in the shower and in the car. Some of us do it onstage, or in karaoke bars, or in church. And yet...most of us don't share this part of ourselves on LJ, our musical glee.

So do it, if you love singing! Put your voice out there! Sing along to the songs you love, and let's see if we can't get Livejournal being its very own Sing-Along Blog! And if you're self-conscious or nervous, don't be. Unless you're a professional singer, why would you expect to sound like one? We're all human, and the point of this isn't to wow our audiences. It's to share, to connect, and--most importantly--to have fun.

(...Come on. You know you want to. Yeah, you--the person sitting there thinking, "I want to but no way would I ever get up the nerve." It's only singing. ♥ )

Someone, eventually, has got to create a simulated anachronistic internet within the Internet, where we could post to Usenet and BBSes, play text adventure games and MU*s, and in general enjoy the romanticized version of the early cyber-age - no blinking ads, no eternal September.

(You know, when we had to walk five miles in the snow and everything was better. Also, this.)

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Something incredibly dorky that happened the other day:

Me: *driving chiba_yuriko home from work*
Zillions of crows: *flying home to roost*
Me: Holy crap crows everywhere.
Crows: *fly dramatically*
Me: >.> *reaches over and turns up the CD player, because it happens to be playing Tori no Uta*
'Isha: ... you are such a dork.
Me: :D

It's the little things.

So, I know I promised a longer entry, but my life hasn't slowed down enough since NaNo ended. And, apparently, I am a giant douchmonkey and I forgot to tell just about everyone that I was going on vacation with 'Isha's family to Anaheim this week.

Er, yeah. I am, in fact, in Los Angeles right this minute ^.^;

Hi!

So yeah, I don't know if various California peeps will be in the area, but if you are, we'd love to get together. We'll be doing a lot of family stuff but there will be times when we're free. You can reach me by any means, because I have my phone and it has full internets.

So I'll be blogging from Anaheim the next week or so. I can't wait! I've never been to Disneyland around Christmas time and I've never been to Universal Studios at all. Lots of new stuffs for this trip! I might be posting video too so keep an eye out for it.

Later peeps!

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I did not rake during the week I took off for Thanksgiving. That's because it kept raining, every other day. Had it rained the first three days and then not rained the next three, I could have raked toward the end there. But it kept soaking the leaves, and soddening the sod.

Today, snow was forecast. So unless I wanted the lawn to steep in tea until spring, I had to get as much of the lawn raked as I could

(This may be a false prompt. I'm from Vermont, where, once it starts snowing, the snow doesn't melt until April. Sometimes May.)

So, after sleeping in too late considering what I wanted to get accomplished, I raked the west side of the yard (where the leaves are densest on the ground). I took care not to rip up the vegetation, but the main vegetation is broad-leafed plantain, which is all dead and gone anyway. This left a lot of exposed soil, subject to erosion. This is not good. We may have to spread some (shudder) grass seed.

About half an hour into that, it started to rain. And then stop. So I kept going.

The southeast corner is much easier to rake into the forest, because it's a tight curve around the house there. But the next step was getting leaves from out around the chicken coop, and they were somewhat matted up in there. And wet. The sporadic rain now has pieces in it. Huzzah, wintry mix.

I'm now getting to the parts of the lawn with scattered patches of lovely moss. It's beautiful, but fragile, so I am being more meticulous about how I rake. With the southeast corner cleared to the back deck, I now start figuring out where the leaves on the south side are going to go. I decide, reluctantly, that dragging the leaves across the back lawn to the southeast corner is the best bet. I sweep the rest of the leaves off the back deck onto the back lawn, and then rake leaves out of the sinkhole and into the woods.

Just then, the extraordinarily loud sound of the neighbor's leaf blower stops. I look up to see a man about my age sauntering toward me. He's dressed a bit more for the weather than I am, in a flannel shirt and faded baseball cap (I'm in a t-shirt, and sweating, despite the 35F weather). He introduces himself as "Doug", that he's my new (as of August or so) neighbor, and that we hadn't met yet. I acknowledge, give my name, shake his hand, and make a little weather-related small-talk. He goes back to what he was doing, and I go back to what I was doing.

I know that there exists a segment of our society which believes that we should all know our neighbors, socialize with them, and generally sign Kumbaya around campfires with them. I am not one of those people. I could have done very well without ever knowing Doug. If I ever meet him in a context where I care, that could well change.

I am now approaching the south-east corner of the yard, which means raking around the kids' swing-set. The kids are mostly too old for the swing-set now. But my younger still plays on it from time to time. Whatever. This corner is also under the two oaks which are actually in my lawn, rather than in the woods, so there is high leaf density here as well. It's heavy. I look at my watch. It's been an hour and a half. The rain gets heavier, then backs off again.

The moss on this side is very thick; it's like a carpet. It's gorgeous. And fragile, especially when wet. My shoulders are letting me know how much they don't enjoy heavy, meticulous work. But as I don't want the moss smothered until spring, I get this corner done as well.

Okay, the east side only looks covered towards it south end, thanks to the two oaks. It actually just looks wind-swept along the north. I pull the leaves away from the east side of the deck, and clear out the southern half of the east side. tamidon comes out with some leftovers which are now chicken-food. She proclaims the job I've done to be splendid, and that the rest can either be done or not. More wintry mixy stuff starts falling. I decide that I'm done for the day, after "only" two hours, and I come inside and have a beer.

Maybe a nap now.

"I'm a reasonable man, McArthur, so I know this isn't snow."

Cut n' pasted from roadnotes:

What I haven't posted about, in part because it's been too stressful and painful, is that for the past twenty days -- basically since the seizures -- Soren's speech has been garbled. He said he felt as if he'd been set back three months, but at times it was worse than that. Inability to choose the right pronoun, confusion of verb tenses, dropping crucial words from sentences, inability to find words, perseveration. . . it's been somewhat hellish.

On Thursday, he saw his doctor, explained this, and demanded to be taken off the Lexapro, which he remembered taking before, and having the same effect. (I don't remember Lexapro, but I know that pretty much every anti-depressant he's been on has made him woogly and somewhat incoherent; this is going to be an ongoing problem, I fear.) His doctor agreed that the Lexapro isn't working, told him to quit it, and implied that it would take a couple of days to flush out of his system.

Yesterday, Soren and I talked in GTalk, and even by early afternoon, the improvement in his verbal comprehension and communication was clear. He's not quite where he was before the seizures, but he's so much closer; and this morning he was still closer.

So the Lexapro goes into the pile of meds he's no longer taking (Baclofen, Lexapro, Mirtazapine, Seroquel), and we monitor his moods carefully. And we talk.

I'm truly blown away beyond words (and yes, I know everyone else saw this months ago, but I'm just getting caught up now). Kseniya Simonova was the winner of this year's Ukraine's Got Talent competition. I'd seen sand animation before, but this...just watch:



(Linked to by selinker, who said that Simonova's performance "ends all need for further 'Got Talent' shows." It's true. And now I need to go wipe tears out of my eyes again....)

Last night, the law office had it's Holiday Party in Atlantic City. Expensive dinner and Stephen Lynch concert? Hells yes! There was much love for it! (Though he did all his new songs except "America" and that made me a little sad.)

Anyway: Saturday/Sunday: finalize papers/estate tax outline/wills outline/christmas shopping

Monday: work 830-530 (apparently I'm writing an honest to goodness Supreme Court brief next week)
study for estate tax

Tuesday: work 830-300
job interview 330
estate tax final: 630pm-930
all night long: study for wills

Wednesday: 930am-130 wills final
200-500 work
500-1100 sleep
1100-? drive overnight to SC
Thursday-Wednesday: gone vacationing
Thursday (17): 830-530 work
600-700 interviewing final
Friday (18): all day - NJ Practice take home exam

Saturday: Free alcohol party at Logan House from 9pm-10pm in Philly (ATTN FLIST: YOU ARE ALL INVITED! I WILL DRIVE CUZ I DON'T DRINK)

Monday/Tuesday (21/22) work 830-530

....xmas stuff...

Saturday(26) : Hetalia Christmas Party (ATTN FLIST: YOU ARE ALL INVITED, AGAIN)

Today, I would like to clean the house!

As I am the kind of person who can't be on my bare feet for any length of time or suffer the pain of no arch support, I went searching for a pair of shoes.

I found one of my three strap sandals.

I found one brown tennis shoe.

I found one of my two-strap sandals.

I can't seem to find a pair of any shoes suitable for wearing around the house.

.... what? I don't even have words.

ETA: I found the second tennis shoe. It was in the laundry basket. What?