| Autumn & Deni (or anyone else with any helpful hints) |
[Nov. 20th, 2008|03:10 pm] |
Hey guys, I have a dog training question: How do you get a dog to walk properly on a leash?
See, this dog that lives at my house (Brea, I've talked about her before) has been going on walks with us. Which is fine. Except she's a pain in the ass.
She goes absolutely schizoid crazy when we're getting ready to go - jumping up on us, biting the leash, etc. When we leave, she pulls on the leash really badly for about the first half of the walk (we usually go 2.5-3 miles, so this is A LOT of pulling), and she has started lunging at any cats or squirrels she happens to see (which is weird because she lives with three cats and is fine with them and she never chases squirrels when she's just in the yard).
We kept thinking that the more we walk her, it will get routine and these behaviors will settle down, but it's been months now of walking 4-5 times a week, and nothing. It's annoying in the extreme. I really want to be able to keep taking Brea on our walks, but I'm started to dread the nightly leash battle royale.
Have either one of you ever successfully trained a dog to use a leash properly? I want her to walk by my side and not lunge crazily at every little thing. |
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| Yes We Did |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|11:48 am] |
Yes We Can became Yes We Did.
In the summer of 2004, after watching a relatively unknown senator from Illinois give a speech at the Democratic National Convention, I knew I was looking at the man who would become president. He was new, he was untested, but I knew it had to be him. We didn't have ten or twelve years to wait around for him to gain experience, either. We needed him now.
I wasn't the only one who thought this.
Since that time, I have been volunteering and donating to Barack Obama's campaign. I remember the early days when we were a long shot and we knew it. For four years I have been told the following things over and over again: It will never happen; He might get elected but the Republicans will steal the election; A Black man will never be president of this country; etc etc.
We proved them wrong.
Thank you to everyone who voted, especially those in the swing states. Thank you.
I can't believe this day has come. I am pround to be an American again. |
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| Wow |
[Apr. 18th, 2008|10:12 am] |
Woah, Annette, that quiz is scarily accurate!
My Personality
| | Neuroticism | | Extraversion | | Openness to Experience | | Agreeableness | | Conscientiousness | |
| You do not feel nervous in social situations, and have a good impression of what others think of you, however you feel strong cravings and urges that you have difficulty resisting. You tend to prefer short-term pleasures and rewards over long-term consequences. You have a generally cheerful disposition. Generally you are not considered to be an emotional person, however you are aware of and in touch with your emotions. You see no need for pretense or manipulation when dealing with others and are therefore candid, frank and sincere. People find it relatively easy to relate to you, however you feel superior to those around you and sometimes tend to be seen as arrogant by other people. You have a reasonable amount of will-power and are able to follow through on tasks that you feel you need to complete. You can be distracted however and have been known to procrastinate.
| Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.
The best Buying Pet Gifts. |
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| Happy VD |
[Feb. 14th, 2008|05:43 pm] |
I wanted to get you a bunny for Valentine's Day.
That's cute, right?
A little bunny, all hopping around and being cute?
And I remember you saying you always wanted one when you were little,
but your mom wouldn't let you.
But apparently other people had the same idea, because the pet store was all out.
I drove around Los Angeles until I found a place that sold live rabbits.
It was in Chinatown.
I can't stop crying.
Taken from here. |
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| Want another four years of the same old shit? Then vote for Hillary! |
[Feb. 8th, 2008|05:06 pm] |
Love Republican economics? Vote for Hillary. No, seriously. Not only was Hillary Clinton on the board of directors of Wal-Mart during its hardest union-fighting days, I don't think it's a coincidence that Wal-Mart didn't even consider granting health care benefits, not at any price, not even the least benefits, to anybody but management until after she was on the board. Speaking of which, if you love Republican economics, you're going to love Hillary Clinton's health care plan. It is the Republican plan. No, really, it is specifically the exact same plan that Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts, the exact same plan that both he and Huckabee are running on: no cost controls for insurance companies, no cost controls or even negotiations with the prescription industry, no accountability or oversight for either industry, but make buying insurance at whatever cost the insurance companies want to charge mandatory for all Americans. If they don't, then take at least a thousand dollars a year away from every American family that can't afford insurance, at gunpoint, and give that money to the insurance industry. That's HillaryCare II, and if you like it, you may be a monster. At the very least, if you think you might like it, you should have a good look at how it's working in Massachusetts, which is to say, abominably.
Want to give the Republicans tons of extra mud to sling? Vote for Hillary. On the list of proofs that there is no god that can be counted on to punish liars is that Hillary Clinton can say she's running for office on her 35 years of experience, in all safety, while standing under a clear blue sky. People, in all her years since she graduated from college, Hillary Clinton has never earned a single honest dollar in her entire life. Every single job she has ever held, all of which paid her huge money for little or no work, and every "advance payment" she was ever handed in exchange for books on which she did little or no work, and every "amazingly lucky investment" she has ever made all of which made huge money, was given to her for one and only one reason: to curry favor with her husband. Her law firm clients were all companies that did business with the state of Arkansas while her husband was the governor; why do you think she's treated her billing records from those years as such a deep dark secret? That book advance came from a company that wanted favors from the FCC. Her commodity trades are an even more egregious example. People, please, the Chicago Board of Trade isn't an honest trading floor, and hasn't been since the 80s at the very least. It's a casino. The only people making actual money there are the brokers. They've been telling the joke for almost as long as even I've been alive that the only way to make a small fortune in commodities is to start with a large fortune. When Hillary Clinton, while her husband was running for re-election for governor, walked into the Chicago Board of Trade and won a series of consecutive wagers, totaling to huge money, you should treat it as if someone sitting at a roulette wheel in a casino, with the casino owner standing behind their chair, bet everything on 22, three times in a row, and all three times 22 came up on the wheel. You don't have to know how the wheel was rigged to know that the wheel was rigged. You don't have to know what the casino manager's motives were to know who decided she was going to win.
What, you've never heard any of this? Then you're young. But don't worry: if we nominate Hillary Clinton, you will hear about it, all right. Six times an hour, every waking hour of the day, from the convention to the election. And her answers, even if they are truthful (not that they could be), are going to go over as well as John Kerry's answers did when he got "Swift Boated". No, really, do not pick a candidate who is going to have to spend the entire campaign on the defensive over ethics scandals.
Want to protect John McCain from serious criticism? Vote for Hillary. Speaking of nakedly transparent attempts to bribe her and/or her husband, I was just reminded that none of the newest generation of voters are old enough to remember the Keating 5 scandal. Charles Keating was an anti-porn crusader, a successful Republican fund-raiser, and, it turned out, the owner of an almost entirely fraudulent savings and loan. Five Republican politicians were caught accepting huge amounts of money from Charles Keating, all at about the same time, all while he was trying to buy protection for his right to literally cheat elderly people out of their retirement savings. None of them actually went to jail, although the careers of four of them were instantly over when Keating was convicted, because it was trivially easy to show that they did do him huge favors after receiving huge checks; the only element of the crime of bribery that couldn't be proven was an explicit quid pro quo, but nobody had any doubts. The one who got away scot free was ... John McCain. McCain escaped on two grounds. First of all, as someone who'd spent decades campaigning against bribery of Congressmen (the issue for which pro-business Republicans claim he's "not really a Republican," since the Republican Party is enthusiastically in favor of corporations bribing the government), nobody was willing to believe it of John McCain. Secondly, they combed over his record, and couldn't find any evidence that he ever actually did anything for Keating ... yet.
It's a pretty flimsy defense. I'd love to watch McCain squirm over it for months. But if you nominate Hillary Clinton, he'll get away with it, because with her as our candidate, we can't attack that "I didn't know it was supposed to be a bribe" defense. That's her defense, for her entire pre-Senate career, too.
Want to see at least three more years of the war in Iraq? Vote for Hillary. Hillary Clinton's whole defense on her vote to authorize the Iraq War is, "I didn't know George Bush was an idiot." If that's true, then she is far too dumb to be President, because the rest of us knew that years ago. Don't believe her. Hillary Clinton spoke fervently and frequently about the need to invade Iraq and impose democracy, and you should not even vaguely be surprised by this. This is the same woman who persuaded her husband to nominate Madeleine Albright for U.S. Secretary of State, where she dragged us into so many brushfire wars that Colin Powell quit his job as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in disgust over just how little American troops' lives were worth to her. Hillary Clinton is from the wing of the party that likes going to war, for the same reason Bush likes it: expansion of presidential authority.
You think you've heard her promise to end the Iraq War? Listen more carefully to what she's actually saying. She says she'd start bringing troops home within 60 days. That's not much of a promise; some troops come home every week. She does not say she won't send more troops in to replace them, or even more troops than that to expand the war. Why won't she say that? Notice that she also says she wants to end the war as soon as it can be done "prudently." People, don't fall for that. It means the exact same thing that Richard Nixon meant back in 1968 when he promised us "peace with honor" in Vietnam. It means she intends to end the war by winning it. Like Nixon, she thinks that she's such a smart person and such a tough person that she can win it quickly and painlessly. Don't let her try. She'll do the same thing Nixon did, pour in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands more troops, while financing it by deficit spending, while expanding government spending. The last time we let someone promise us "peace with honor" it not only made our eventual loss in that war much, much worse, but it also wrecked our own country's economy so badly that it took us at least a decade and a half to dig our way back out of that mess.
So knowing that the one thing that the entire Republican Party agrees upon, the only thing the entire Republican Party still agrees upon, is their violent hatred for the Clinton name ever since Clinton's humiliation of Ronald Reagan's anointed heir in 1992? And knowing that, you want to make sure that they all turn out to vote this November? Vote for Hillary Clinton. |
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| Questions for the Clintons |
[Jan. 22nd, 2008|11:22 am] |
If Hillary's experience is so great then why are all the records from her time as first lady sealed in the Clinton library?
Why won't Bill release them? (He has sent a letter asking that they not be released)
Why won't Hillary make him?
What are they hiding?
Why can't they be a little transparent?
Do we really want our leaders hiding their records from the public?
NO MORE WASHINGTON POLITICS AS USUAL!!
Barack Obama will change this. He will be transparent. The American people will finally be involved with the way America runs again.
The Clinton Years:
1993 - Hillary's Failed Healthcare
1993 - Travelgate
1999 - Pardongate
2000 - Hillary's Hotel for Campaign Bucks
Lets have the records!!! |
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| ACL, various life events |
[Sep. 17th, 2007|05:46 pm] |
I know I haven't posted here in ages. I really need to work on that. I was looking at my journal archive and I used to post a lot! And a lot each time! I had forgotten.
Austin City Limits Festival was this past weekend, and it was phenomenal as always. On Friday I had to work, so I couldn't get there until after 5, but I still got to see Spoon and Bjork. Bjork was amazing. Really. If you have never seen her in concert and get a chance, go. It was one of the best shows I have seen in a long, long time, and in my opinion the best of the festival.
Saturday was Sara Hickman (forgettable folk singer), Zap Mama, Damien Rice, and Arcade Fire. I also saw a little unknown band in a small tent that will certainly not be an unknown band for long. Of those, the best were Zap Mama and Arcade Fire. The hype around Arcade Fire is true. They really ARE the best alternative band since Flaming Lips. Zap Mama was a hot little band, half the members from Argentinia, half from France. Totally hot, totally sexy, really, really funky jazzy cool music. All their songs are about sex. Which was amusing. Saturday was also Stephen Marley, who I watched about half of. I kind of think the Marley family is milking their father's fame for all it's worth, but whatever. Regae can be fun.
Sunday was a great day. I saw Robert Earl Keen first, then a band called DeVotchKa. I had never heard of them, but will definitely be buying their music. They are sort of a cross between Eastern European stuff, rock, and folk. Really recommend them. They have a violinist that is just totally bad ass. Then I sat and suffered through Lucinda Williams, whom I loathe, but watched for the sake of my friends. Really, that woman is just so annoying I don't even know what to say. Then, was Regina Spektor who was just unreal. She's a lot like Tori Amos if Tori were a bit more playful and funny. Great show, and she was so cute when she looked out into the audience and realized how many people were watching her. She just looked really shocked and giggled and then, I swear to God, said hi to her mom. Super cute girl, and amazing musician. After Regina, I tried to watch Wilco, but was so far back I couldn't hear. The biggest disappointment of the festival. I will see them again soon.
Then, we saw Bob Dylan. Who, as my friend Jeff put it, is like listening to someone's crazy old grandpa they let out of the home. Just bad. But still, it was Bob Dylan, so we stayed through to the end. We also decided that he could be a great Simpsons character, or a Muppet. Either one.
That was the festival. Ya'll, it was so hot. I don't think I've ever sweated that much in my entire life. I am SO TIRED. I am going to wash clothes and go to bed insanely early tonight. It was worth it, though. I love ACL fest. Three days of music, and hanging out with friends, and parties, and dancing. I wish my life were like that every weekend. heh. |
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| Rain and Harry Potter |
[Jul. 20th, 2007|01:39 pm] |
My god. This rain is ridiculous. I have never, ever, in all my days seen a summer as cool and rainy as this one. It's bizarre. Not that I'm complaining about the cool temperatures, but this much rain is just weird in July. It's kind of getting to me.
Tonight Harry Potter is released, as I am sure you all know. I am as excited as a school girl on crack. However, if you don't want the book spoiled for you, DO NOT READ THE REVIEWS. I repeat, do not read any reviews, especially on New York Times or Salon if you know what is good for you. Luckily, I've been able to avoid them, but some people I know haven't been so lucky. WHY are they posting reviews with spoilers?! Why why why?? |
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| Amazing |
[Jul. 10th, 2007|05:21 pm] |
When I had just about lost all hope in anything, and was ready to throw in the towel on this whole stupid mess and just, I don't know drop out or something, a person does an act of kindness that simply stuns me.
I am amazed and humbled. Yes, God, I get it. Ok. |
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| Happy 4th Everybody! |
[Jul. 4th, 2007|11:02 pm] |
Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans out there! Hope you had a good day.
My aunt and I had a little barbeque and get together at her house today. It was fun, and good to see some people I hadn't seen in a while.
In other news, my sister and her boyfriend moved to Austin and it just so happens that their apartment is right down the street from mine! Yay! I'm so happy that she is finally going to be living in close proximity to me again. I have really missed getting to see her regularly.
Also, I decided over the weekend to get a second job so that I can start saving more money. I want a new computer and I want to take a trip to Amsterdam and Paris. I feel like smoking legal hash and looking at art for a couple of weeks. Wish me luck. I feel like this is a reasonable goal to work toward.
And finally, I had a REALLY bizarre dream last night. You'll never believe it. I dreamed that Barack Obama and I were making out and talking about how to hide our relationship from the paparazzi. o_0 I think I've been dwelling too much on politics and spending too much time on gossip blogs. Both of those things seem to have merged into an unholy union in my subconscience. |
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| Icky Poo |
[Jun. 22nd, 2007|09:33 am] |
I was SO SICK yesterday. Ick! I stayed home from work and went to the doctor, and he told me I have strep throat AND a sinus infection - at the same time. This really blows. I'm on heavy duty antibiotics, Sudafed, and Advil. I'm suffering through work today. I shouldn't have come in, but I couldn't afford to miss another day. Blech. I hate being sick.
Speaking of which... have any of you bought Sudafed recently? Oh my God. Ok, so apparently the meth-heads ruined it for everyone and now if you want the good Sudafed -the one that really kicks ass- you have to ask the pharmacist for it. Then, they go behind this little locked door and get it for you. Then, they make you show your ID, which they look up in this big book to make sure you haven't been buying too much or something. THEN, you have to fill out a FORM and sign some kind of legal paper, and your NAME goes in a government LIST! All for freaking Sudafed! Sheesh!
In other news, my kitty is a BOY! I'm going to call him Stewey, and he got fixed this week. He is doing fine and chasing Ani all over the apartment, so everything is going well on that front.
I'm kind of glad I got a boy kitty. I've never had a boy cat before, but a lot of people I know have, and I generally really like them. |
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| Is this a sign of decline? |
[Jun. 20th, 2007|01:59 pm] |
If you're bored, and have a minute, click on this link: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=100743&hl=
You'll be taken to a page off of a food forum I belong to, wherein a young kid and his girlfriend blog about eating accross Europe.
Scroll down and look at these dinners. Go ahead. There are lots of pictures, he's plainly very proud of having eaten all this, and it's all very safe for work. Go look. (Skip over London as it's not that interesting and head straight for France and Spain.)
Now, I don't know if you had a chance to take a gander at those prices... You did? Good. And besides, how could you miss them? They're boldly posted after every single picture. The price of each one of these multi-course meals (of which they are each eating at least two a day, sometimes it seems like three) is my monthy food budget. And I eat well.
I don't know why, but I have a massive problem with this. I enjoy luxury dining as much as the next spoiled foodie, but my luxury dining is pretty limited to rare occassions, and it is rarely on my dime. It just seems so... immoral (is that the right word? what about de classe? no... what about egregious?) somehow. I don't know. Am I overreacting?
Keep in mind this kid is in college, and not even old enough buy a drink in the States. When I was that age, I went on trips with my friends, but I guaratee you we weren't doing stuff like these kids are.
Am I being a nay-saying old person, or is there something legitimately wrong with this picture? |
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| New Kitty! |
[Jun. 14th, 2007|10:46 am] |
Hey everyone, guess what? I got a new baby kitty!
My sister rescued this little kitten, which she can't keep because a) she just doesn't have the finances right now; and b) her boyfriend is really allergic. So, I took it!
I went to PetSmart and spend waaaayy too much money getting it all set up, but it's worth it. I can't tell yet if it is a boy or a girl, but it is cute, cute, cute nonetheless! It looks like a little gray and brown tiger, with markings on its eyes that look like eyeliner.
If it is a boy I will name it Stewey. If it is a girl I will name it Phoebe. What do ya'll think of those names?
Ani, Josh's cat, is REALLY PISSED OFF about this new addition, so I have them separated while I'm not home. I hope they start getting along soon. I want them to be friends and love each other!
When Josh gets back from New York I'll borrow his camera and try to post some pictures. The new kitty is just too cute! |
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| I don't like Mondays. |
[Jun. 11th, 2007|01:26 pm] |
So, Josh is off to a conference for nine days. (A conference hosted, we discovered the other night after a marathon internet surfing session, by an orginization with very close Yakuza ties! Josh is going to a Yakuza conference for grad students! Haha! I really hope he still has all his fingers when he gets back...)
I had to get up at [i]five o'clock in the morning[/i] to take him to the airport. I am cranky. And tired. And I look really drawn and pale. Lack of sleep does not suit me. I hope the Yakuza are happy.
I'm leaving work at three to go home and sleep. Or watch "Oprah." Which ever happens first. And I think I'm totally going to be bad and go get some bratwurst and saurkraut for dinner. Nummy. |
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| Hudson's On the Bend |
[Jun. 8th, 2007|09:54 am] |
Guess what, you guys? Josh and I went to our Hudson's dinner last night! We had had our reservation for about a week, but I didn't want to say anything for fear of jinxing it. A little back story: Hudson's On the Bend is an old standard in the Texan fine dining scene. It was one of the first high-end restaurants in the Austin area, and has been a noble grande dame for years. Situated just outside the city limits, driving there means a view of the lake and surrounding hill country. My fathers talks about the first time he came to this restaurant, when it was the only thing around for miles. Not the case anymore, but it is still a lovely setting.
All told, it was a fantastic meal, just as good as I had hoped for. The restaurant itself is very pretty. The entrance is tucked away at the back of the building, and to get to it, you walk through a gorgeous garden full of herbs, edible flowers, and vegetables. Huge old live oak trees weave their branches together forming a canopy, and the staff has strung fairy lights through them, creating a really romantic atmosphere.
The inside has a very homey feel. Several rooms of varying height levels are scattered throughout. It's a large place, but you never realize it until you really look around. We were in a room with about ten other tables at the front of the restaurant, half of which were occupied. We had a nice table. Massive works of art dominate the walls, the decor is what I call "tasteful Texan." It's certainly very identifiable as uniquely Western, with the cedar plank flooring, star of Texas chairs, and large Native-American inspired murals, yet it is not over-the-top, or tacky. It was very comfortable and warm feeling. Beautiful linen table cloths, nice china and silver, and canister candles completed the look.
We began our meal by ordering a bottle of Chilean Chardonnay. Josh picked the wine, as he is a bit more knowledgeable about wine than I am. Unfortunately, I can't remember the maker, and it's not on the online wine menu. I really should have written it down, because it was a delightful wine. Crisp, citrusy, and a bit tart, it had a complexity that really rang out on the tongue. It was also a very good value. If you like wine, but feel you can't afford really good stuff (like me), I highly recommend checking out some Chilean wines. These are just as good as similar wines from California or France yet are priced at about half what you would pay for a good wine from those regions. Something about the Chilean terroir really creates excellent wine. Go get some before everyone finds out and the prices sky rocket.
Our meal began with amuse bouche of alligator and andoullie sausage fritters on a bed of chipotle tartar sauce. This was similar to a hush puppie, only much better. It was crunchy and spicy and did precisely what amuse bouche is supposed to do - whet your appetite for what is yet to come. I doubly lucked out because Josh keeps Kosher (with the exception of an annual Chinese New Year blow out party) and sausage and aligator are about as far from Pareve as you can get. So I got to eat both of them! Yay! They were delicious. You will also notice that Josh's Kosher status informed the rest of our meal, so that we could share.
For appetizer we had the Wild Mushroom Artichoke Leek and Goat Cheese Tart on a Masa Crust with Champagne Beet Sauce. This was good. I will not say it was fabulous or mind-blowing, because it wasn't. It was perfectly servicable, but the goat cheese overpowered the flavor of the mushroom. The fried leeks on top of the tart weren't as crunchy as I would have liked, and I felt that sauce lacked depth. I did enjoy the masa crust. So many times, masa is way too thick or chewy or dry, and this was none of those things. It was crisp and had a nice earthy flavor that melded well with the goat cheese. I would really like to experiment on my own using masa as a base for things.
For main course, I chose the Red and White Tuna. This was sushi grade Ahi and Hawaiian Wahu on a smoking cedar plank with a coconut rice cake and seaweed slaw. The presentation on this dish was absolutely beautiful. I really wish we hadn't forgotten the camera so that you could see it. The mound of slaw led into the towering rice cake which formed the base from which the cedar plank jutted out, displaying the fish. My tuna was cooked a perfect rare, and the chef had alternated the red Ahi with the white Wahu, almost like a flag. A strip of ancho chili sauce ran down the middle. The cedar plank gave off a very fragrant aroma, and subtly, but interestingly flavored the fish. That coconut rice cake was a thing of beauty to be savored. It was flash fried and crispy crunchy on the outside, smooth and creamy on the inside, just ever so slightly sweet, and divine. The seaweed slaw was also interesting - seaweed combined with Napa Cabbage made a lovely briny and sour complement to the fish and sweet rice. The whole composition of this dish was excellent. Spicy, savory, sweet, salty, and sour - the differing flavors played with each other, at once complimenting and challenging. This dish was one of those rare things that is fun to eat and never gets boring. Every bite was a new experience. I could have eaten the entire thing, but halfway through we switched plates so that we could each fully experience both dishes.
And I am glad that we did. Josh's entree, Courtney's Hot and Crunchy Ruby Trout came on a bed of Mango Habanero Aioli, and was lightly splashed with Ancho sauce. This was not the same ancho sauce I had on my fish - mine was pungent and thick, a tiny bit going a very long way, while this ancho sauce was light and airy, dancing around in the mouth and lending just a hint of spicyness. It was served with roasted vegetables (forgettable) and a goat cheese cake (delectable). The fish had a wonderful crunchiness while at the same time achieving a perfect doneness. I have often found with fish as delicate as trout a crispy crust often causes an over-done fish, but not so in this case. The fish was tender and juicy, the sweet/spicy aioli and the ancho sauce did not overpower. The goat cheese made a nice complement, but again, the vegetables were bland and forgettable. But who really cares about vegetables when you're eating a meal like this, right? I enjoyed this dish just as much as the tuna. It was yet another exciting blend of flavors that never got old.
Our dinner dishes cleared by the oh-so-beautiful young bus boy (seriously, this kid was a sight to behold - if only I could be 20 again!) it was time to move on to dessert. And oh, did we ever move on to dessert. Fairly full from the meal, we had to split, but the choice was obvious as soon as we saw the menu: Rosemary Olive Oil Cake Layered with Lemon Curd and Butter Cream Icing on a Prickly Pear Sauce. Oh heavenly, food of angels and gods was this cake. So moist, the rosemary and olive oil flavors coming through on a cloud, suspended by sharp, tart lemon curd and smooth creamy butter cream icing. This was the cake of my dreams. Not too sweet, just right. The perfect ending to a close-to-perfect meal. I will dream about this cake, I will be talking about it for years.
We finished the last drops of our wine, settled the bill (don't even ask), and made our way out to the car. By now, the sky was deep purple, almost black, cicadas sang in the trees above us, candle light lit the way back to the car, all was right with the world. If you get a chance, go to Hudson's. You really won't be sorry. |
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| Moment of Clarity |
[May. 18th, 2007|10:44 am] |
I am in my second week of not smoking. All is going well, and the cravings have subsided considerably. I am still on the nicotine lozenges, but will be severely rationing them beginning next week. I am currently on five to six per day, but want to go down to four per day.
To be perfectly honest, I am really proud of myself. If you have never smoked, you probably won't understand, but quiting smoking is an incredibly hard thing to do.
The other night, I had a dream that I was smoking. It felt SO REAL. I could see the bright yellow box of American Spirits, and I could feel and hear the cellophane being ripped off. I could hear the snick of the lighter, I could feel the smoke come into my lungs, I could smell it, I could taste it. In my dream, I remember thinking that everyone would be so disappointed. I saw Josh's face when he found out, and I saw the disappointment that my mother and aunt would certainly display.
I woke up very weirded out. That day, I got to work, and reached into my purse for my morning lozenge (the same point at which I used to have my first cigarette). They weren't there. I had forgotten my lozenges at home.
At first I thought that I would be able to last the day, then just head home a quickly as possible. For a couple of hours, this seemed to hold true, but as the day wore on it became readily apparent that I would either have to break down and go buy another box of lozenges, or I would smoke a cigarette.
At lunch, on the verge of panic, I headed out to the drugstore. On the way, I passed the gas station where I used to buy cigarettes in this part of town. I haven't been in there since quiting, and I had a thought: I could buy one pack of cigarettes and smoke a few to get me through the day, then I would throw away the pack. This would be cheaper than buying lozenges (which are ridiculously expensive) and I could justify being cheap seeing as how I was running low on cash, with pay day a couple of days away.
I seriously considered this. I even had an excellent excuse. If Josh found out, I would explain the money situation and the desperation. He would be disappointed, but would understand. If I played my cards right, he would never even have to know. No one else would ever have to know.
It was the perfect deceit. But then I realized it was exactly that - deceit. It was bad for me, it was bad for my relationships, and to buy the cigarettes would be a serious breach of contract. I remembered what I have heard people in AA and NA say about moments of clarity, and I had a moment of clarity. It made me see what addictions can do, how evil and powerful and destructive they are. And inticing. I wanted those cigarettes really bad. But, in the end, I just kept driving and went to the drugstore where I spent a large chunk of what I had left in my back account on lozenges.
The money suddenly ceased to matter. |
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| Wheeee! |
[May. 10th, 2007|11:02 am] |
I got my pass for Austin City Limits Festival today! Yes!
The lineup is freaking incredible: Bob Dylan, Wilco, Bjork, Amy Winehouse, Ghostland Observatory, The Arcade Fire, so many others.
Click here to see the full lineup: http://www.aclfestival.com/lineup.aspx
There are still tickets left if anyone from The Glass decides to make a jaunt down to Austin for the shows. hehe. I have floor space in my apartment as well if you need a place to crash. :) |
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| Responsibility |
[May. 9th, 2007|09:49 am] |
It feels good when you get something done that you had to do but really didn't want to do. I feel like a gigantic weight has been lifted from my back. It's great.
Also, I'm quiting smoking. Again. I think it will stick this time, but please, send me prayers, vibes, luck, thoughts, whatever it is you believe would help. I'd very much appreciate it! And I need it! This is hard! (But easier than the other times.)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if cigarettes didn't kill you, and if the tobacco companies weren't run by packs of evil Republicans, I'd smoke for the rest of my life. God I love cigarettes. -sigh- BUT NO MORE! |
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| Mmmm... Margaritas at 4pm |
[May. 2nd, 2007|05:14 pm] |
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Ahh.. I think I like where I'm working. They just brought in a margarita machine, three kegs of beer, and numerous yummy snackies for us just 'cuz. I know am sitting at my desk with a slight tequila buzz. I think I could get used to this place. |
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| Happy Problems! |
[Apr. 19th, 2007|12:11 pm] |
Oooh, I have a happy problem. I love happy problems. If you don't know what a happy problem is, a happy problem is something like, "Oh man, I got into Harvard AND Yale. Which one should I choose?" or "I got two job offers at the same time."
Anyhow, my happy problem is this: My roommate was awarded a HUGE grant for his research. Seriously, I've never, ever heard of a student getting a grant this big. It's a massive coup. I'm deliriously happy for him. Anyway, he said I could pick a place to go out to celebrate!
My choices are Uchi or Hudson's On the Bend. Click on the links and ya'll tell me what you think. Both are very different. Both are innovative. Both have won awards, etc etc. Hmmm... I really could go either way. Which would you pick? |
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