Here’s some advice from me to you, it’s asdvice that should seem obvious, but I’m retarded and I have to believe that statistically speaking there are other retards out there that need this advice. Anyway…If you find a stray xanax in your purse, a xanax that was not prescribed to you, don’t think “man, my anxiety has been rather high lately, I will take this pill!”. It will make you hyper and also kill your sex drive. Like kill it dead for something like 3 days.
Pretty hard to kill my sex drive, the little pink pill succeeded.
I’m sure everyone in a 3 mile radius is pretty pleased at this development and is sleeping more comfortably.
yeah? well screw you, pink pill wore off!
And now the time has come for the lists. Every time I have something big coming up I have to make lists and of course I must post the lists on here so that you, my faithful reader (all 18 of you) can see how mundane my life is…
* move fish tank to basement. There’s just no way I can get it set up in time and the thing with a 55 gallon aquarium is that you can’t just put water in there and then dump some fish in. You have to put in the water, treat it, get it to temperature, buy 2 fish, let them live and eat and poop in there for a few days, buy 3 more fish, let them live and eat and poop for a few days. Soon, enough poop builds up to feed the bacteria that eats the poop and ammonia and whatnot and keeps the tank happy. If I were to set up now, I’d probably have like 4 fish in there by the time of the party. So, the tank goes in the basement for now and that clears up space for standing.
* move the tv out of the living room. We can do this closer to the day of the party, but it takes up room that could be used for standing or sitting or eating.
* grocery shop. I need to find a way to bribe/coordinate with my sister so that I might go to Costco with her and use her membership. My sister’s birthday is coming up, please wish her a happy birthday and all that. April, I love you and you are pretty and I love that you got a hedgehog!
* IKEA shop, I know I said I shouldn’t go to IKEA because I will buy party geegaws, but you know what? I want party geegaws. I like them, I want them, it’s my party and I’ll geegaw all I want. I’ll go with a couple coworkers who have promised to keep me on track with the frames and geegaw hunting.
* Get hair cut, bleached and dyed. Next wednesday. It’s cutting it close, but that’s where it’s at. Still trying to pick a color.
* Clean carpets. That’s saturday. Carpets must be cleaned before guests arrive.
* Quite often I start a post and then go somewhere and then come back. We just took the dogs for a walk. Did you miss me?
* Pick out serving dishes. People think I’m a freak for this, but I pick out my serving dishes in advance, i write the names of the items I am serving on to little post it notes and stick the notes to the dishes. This way I know things are going to be laid out well and I’m not trying to stick half a salmon in a souffle dish because everything else is being used!
* Talk to neighbor about losgistics. I don;t want her to be angry with me for us being too loud or something, so we’ll figure out how to have the best laid out party ever. Smokers to the front of the house and all quiet at the back. That should work well.
* Make a liquor store list. My well stocked liquor cabinet has been dwindling for a while now and my last party (a year ago) wiped out a lot fo reserves. Mostly I’ll have wine and beer and soda, but i figure a few people might want a scotch and soda or screwdriver or something. I aim to please!
* Make sure david knows I appreciate him! He’s been super mr helpful and I really appreciate his help with this and a bunch of other stuff.
* get a bow tie for Ghengis. he’s totally handsome, he’d look great in a bow tie.
I am pretty sure this is going to win for most boring post ever.
Oh! Congratulations to Yakuza Mary on the adoption of her lovely new dog, Fletch! Good for you, Mary and Chris, now we can go to the dog park together.
Song-o-rama is tonight. If you’re in town come see David perform. Tell him to sing the damned lobster song!!!
beebo-lo-reebo!

It is apparent on days like today when anxiety creeps up and crankiness seeps out that I should focus on those things that I love.
I love being alone in the house for short periods of time. I especially love this when I am feeling motivated enough to get something done.
I love making up my own version of aloo mutter paratha (indian flatbread with potatoes and peas) for me and onion kulcha for him. I love the methodical act of chopping, of mixing up the spices, of heating the cumin seeds and mustard seeds first, adding the cinnamon, the ginger, the cardamom, the ground cumin, the cayenne, and the turmeric. Sauteeing the onions and garlic. I wanted potatoes and peas on mine (I don’t like onions). I had a small bag of potatoes but earlier today I discovered that the potatoes had died and leaked potato juice all over a bag of whole wheat flour. Had I put the flour in the cambro I bought for it this would not be an issue. I did not love that.
I didn’t have potatoes, but I did have tater tots. Yes, I took 6 tater tots, microwaved them, hacked them up a bit and sauteed them in a myriad of spices and butter. I put our respective toppings on our flatbread (tortillas, i’m so ghetto when it comes to cooking lately). I loved the process of making a vegetable biryani.
I loved having dinner ready when David got home.
I love my mug that says “please go away” and it has a bunny on it.
I love my dogs. Of course you know that because I write about them almost constantly. I love watching Ghengis navigate his world. He noses through his toy basket until he finds what he wants, he pushes the bad choices out of the way. Ghengis adores David, follows him around like..well…like a puppy. I love Ghengis’ little trot with his ears perked up.
I love Maddie for all of her whacked out attachment and loyalty. I love that she is the perfect size for cuddling.
I love tea with milk and sugar.
I love that even when I am cranky for most of the day David will still buy me an ice cream after the show just because I mention it.
I love that people would come in from out of state and even out of the country just to celebrate my housewarming.
I love when things fall into place.
I love Sebastian Joes mint mocha ice cream.
I love that David fixed my space bar on my computer.
Today, I decided I need to get better about sharing. I used to be good about it, then i stopped, now I have to get better with it. It’s like a habit or something, you get used to it but if you stop it’s hard to go back. Even simple things i’ve become very possesive and selfish about. And a good many of you are familiar with my ‘politics of ice cream rant. I won’t reproduce it here but suffice to say, no one has ever written more words on the issues revolving around a bite of ice cream.
Anyway, what I’m saying is that I think it would be good for my soul and my karma and my well being to share more.
Oh, and also, I think I just need to accept that sometimes I have bad days and it’s not because of any deep seated issue or stress or pms. It could just be because I’m having a bad day. I think I need to stop apologizing for them.
I love my bed.

Let’s see, the first and pretty much only order of business is this:
There is now an official moratorium on eating breakfast with me downtown. It’s just not worth it. I love you guys dearly, but two weekends in a row I had to start my Sundays off snapping at my boyfriend and cursing the pull of the urban center. Uptown, Longfellow, Northeast, Franklin, Dinkytown, Lyn-Lake, South…any of these places! They’re great, fine, wonderful neighborhoods to get a bite to eat and the reward balances out better with the journey.
The problem is this, there are good and fine restaurants downtown, but driving and parking is a hassle. No convenient place to park that isn’t a ramp trying to suck next week’s paycheck out from under you. So you drive around and around and around. You drive down one-way streets, you have to strategize your journey, go too far down 7th and suddenly you have no choice but to cross hennepin and go over to 1st and things get a little futzy for a few blocks. When you drive down a 2 way street you focus on the parking on your side. Drive down a one way and you have to freakily pay attention to the car in front of you AND both sides of parking and inevitably, if a spot presents itself it’s on the far side and you’d better be willing to cause a major traffic disturbance to get over there because it’s not like you can just circle the block. You leave that spot and 2 Cooper Mini’s will have wedged themselves in there by the time you return.
You will find a spot, 1/4 mile away. You will be late to breakfast. You will snap at your boyfriend and secretly blame him for the Marquette-Nicolet-Hennepin aves one-way scheme fuckedness. If you go down 7th (a one-way headed west) you eventually hit Marquette, a one-way going north, after that comes Nicolet, logically that should be a one way headed south. It’s not. You’re not allowed to drive on it. It’s for pedestrians and buses and homicidal bike messengers. After Nicolet comes Hennepin, a one-way that goes north. huh. Now you must cross Hennepin, which in your mind is the dividing line that takes you out of downtown and into pointless-town (it also makes clear to you that you will be late and this road configuration is clearly your boyfriend’s fault).
All of the restaurants that everyone wants to eat at are located on 8th street (a one-way headed east) just east of hennepin or nicolet or marquette. No parking, no easy navigation and the food at the places just doesn’t have the excess of plus points that bring us above even.
I can stay in bed and break even.
And this leads me to another concern of mine. I’m becoming cynical. Nothing dazzles me anymore. Nothing is new and exciting. In everything from food to performances to movies I see artifice and method and gimmick. I’m especially getting irritated with restaurants lately. I’m just not DAZZLED with the food. The food is only ‘okay’, more often than not all I see is gimmick. And I’m not talking about chain places or fast food, we can all agree that the food there is mediocre at best. You eat at Chilis or Applebees you get exactly what you deserve. I’m talking about the places where you have a chef, someone who creates dishes and menus, places where they craft recipes, not places where they throw a frozen steak on the grill and serve it in a lake of cheese.
I’m tired of big portions shoved in front of me as though that’s the trade-off for artistry. I’m not amused by neo-pseudo-fusion cuisine anymore. It’s wonderful that you want to be creative, I do indeed want new and exciting combinations, but don’t just plunk 3 disparate ingredients in front of me and expect me to be impressed with the novelty. I’m not going to sit there and eat it and think “i know I should like this, a professional made it” I’m going to thing “you’re just trying to be amusingly different but you’ve come across as inattentive”.
and I’m tired of being that person! I want to be the person that gets excited by food again. I want to go see a movie and love it from beginning to end for all it’s flash and color.
I want to look at things and see the possibility for success and joy. I spend too much time and energy dealing with people who too easily see the distant disaster.
I was going to also write a great big long thing about how much I love my dogs but now I’m cranky and Ghengis is barking and Maddie has the foulest breath I have ever come upon. And I have to go make dinner.

Today’s surefire cure for the hangover…15 minutes with mom and half a bag of dill pickle chips. I was still tired and poorly motivated but the sickiness and headache went away (of course the two alleve and 4 shots of espresso probably helped).
David found a notebook for me, hallelujah. Of course, once I got the notebook I was completely incapable of finding the motivation for listing food and making grocery lists. But i have the notebook and that’s what matters. My living room is strewn with cookbooks, my email is full of links in emails with subject lines reading “recipes” or “here”.
The highlight of the day was a call from local superheroes Dena and Levi inviting us over to celebrate the new fire pit they installed in the back yard. It was beautiful. It truly was the nicest fire pit i’d ever seen. Dug out of the ground, lined with bricks around the outside, layer of gravel on the bottom and previously hidden/recently found river rock pavers edge the top of it. We also got to sit on the sturdy little benches that Levi had made just minutes before we got there.
I love eating food made over an open fire! We had veggie burgers and corn and potatoes!! They also got a s’mores kit with hand made marshmallows in it. So very good. handmade marshmallows taste like frosting!
I also got to swing on Dena’s special swing that levi made for her and set up in a tree. It was fun but my fear of heights and being out of control took over. Sad.
Came home to discover that things were not bad. Nothing chewed, no pee, nothing broken. It’s early, but I think the hormone/pheromone doohicky might actually be working. As I wrote this she made a deeply contented sigh. I love how many people told me (and rightly so) that perhaps Maddie would not be so issue ridden if I didn’t put rabbit ears on her for fun.
they’re probably right.
I’m off to bed early. I need to have some actual, non-drunken sleep tonight.
Special thanks to the super-duo for inviting us over for the maiden voyage of the S.S. Firepit! We had a most excellent time.