Chronically Distracted

My birthday this year had quite a magical tone to it, for me, even though the day didn’t go exactly as I planned it. I’m flexible, so as long as we cooked the dinner I planned, played scrabble, found out our ages on the wii fit, and watched the second episode of Firefly, I knew I’d be happy!

( Pictures! They are out of order. Just so you know. )

Finished the book, but I haven't finished my thoughts-written-out, so that should be coming up soon.
Good book too, makes me want to grow a garden.



Which I did!! There shall be pictures up soon. It's so purdy. Family planted it together, my dad built it (I helped), and together he and I picked out veggies and planned.
I am a lucky girlie.

I've probably shared this link before, but with my slowly increasing, if somewhat whiny, efforts to be healthy, looking at many of these pictures make my arteries hurt. Obviously I have to encourage others to check it out (which I found through mr. boyfriend thanks to kokopellinelli ): http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/page/1

Mini-update over!

ETA: To be honest, there are probably some things on that website I would eat if it were allowed. But it's not, thank goodness.

To Me!

I had vegan banana waffles for breakfast. Quite yummy.

What better way to celebrate my birthday than with some muppets! Yay muppets!!






Heeheeheehee.

Or, better yet, Happy Two Days Before My Birthday!

To ensure an amusing, if not hilarious, fourth of July, please watch the following, brought to you by http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/ :



It's going to be really hard not to watch this over and over and over again today.

My List. In no particular order. Except for the first one, which I am currently reading.

- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and CAmille Kingsolver
- Racism Explained to My Daughter by Tahar Ben Jelloun with responses from William Ayers, Lisa D. Delpit, David Mura, and Patricia Williams
- From Mouse to Mermaid ed. by Bell Hass and Sells
- ¡Caramba! by Nina Marie Martinez, transl. to Spanish by Liliana Valenzuela
- A New Dawn ed. by Ellen Hopkins (yes this is a book about Twilight. It's a fun analysis of the whole thing).
- The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
- The Sophia Teaching by Robert Powell
- The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro
- Haiku Mind, 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart by Patricia Donegan
- Righteous Porkchop, Finding A Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms by Nicolette Hahn Niman

It's quite a list, which I didn't really think about when I made it. Will I read it all? I have noo idea.

A couple of the books (the Kingsolver and Mouse to Mermaid ones) are leftovers from classes I took where we didn't read the whole book but I'm brain-thirsty for more.

And a few I'm already halfway through, like ¡Caramba! and A New Dawn. The book I have already read this summer already is Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher. A crazy, funny book filled with personal tragedies (that's they way I would put it) turned into an amazing book that I will probably own one day. If I ever get famous and write a book about myself I hope the sad stuff comes out with such great funny lines. Every time it took a turn for the quite sad it ended up in the reflection of the insanity of life through humor. I loved it, mainly because it took things that would probably normally make me feel a little squirmy learning about, because of how personal the book reads, and keeping me reading because of the writing, the humor, and the power within the words.

Good book.

This should be a fun little experiment!

Ooh, back from vacation!

Seattle was awesome. Like amazing library, amazing food, amazing view, amazing museum with SCIENCE FICTION and MUSIC.

Have you been to the Seattle Space Needle?! :D

I promise I will post pictures and stories soon, like how I tiredly walked through Pike's Market marveling at everything and didn't quite wake up all the way until I saw a store in the mall I had been wanting to go to but couldn't find one in my area.
I really wish it hadn't been the mall that woke me up. Maybe it was the smell in the store. Or the sugar from the pastries kicked in.

Plus!:

There is a plan for the future of my lil' ol livejournal.

I hope to emulate the posts of my favorite bloggers (such a pretty word, emulating), but during this time I also am going to start a bit of a book journal. There are several books I want to read this summer, and usually I don't do that because reading during the semester has about worn me out, but I need to catch up with my reading list.

Here's the new plan: Post the list of books I want to read. Write my reactions once I finish them, very short ones because I never feel qualified to write any kind of review. Move on to the next one.
I probably won't go through the whole list, but it'll be a nice try.
Along the way I'll hopefully be sending out some love to my favorite bloggers.

Tomorrow or the next day, maybe: Book List!

I’ve re-counted all the days and it’s all done, my three hundered and sixty five days of blog posts. There may not exactly be writing for a each day, but there are pictures and youtube videos where there is less writing.
This did keep with my original plan, because I wrote pre day 1, “I’m planning on using pictures to help illustrate my stories a little, and youtube videos to make them interesting (and for the days when I'm not able or just don't have the energy to post more).” Hey, I totally forsaw that, go me!

The part I didn’t quite get to writing about as much happened to be what I had planned to be the main focus of the 365 days of writing, Portland.
The plan I wrote:
“I plan to write or post for 365 days about what it was like living in Portland, the
move up there, the move back, and trying to get used to being back. I’ll also write
about other things (like crocheting!), but my main focus will be on the trip and
what I learned and how I may have changed.”

Not spending 365 days on Portland is fine with me because although the trip shaped who I am now, I don’t think I need to be spouting or blabbering and forcing myself to write about a topic in a blog that is only for fun. I wrote about trips, annoyances, mr. boyfriend, wanting to move forward, and all about me, and I surely ignored writing rules. Not sure if people enjoyed that or not, but it became a comfortable style for me.

This blog turned into a slightly absurd, hopefully informative, exhausted effort in writing and expressing myself everday.
I love it, got tired of it, and am so excited with having finished it. It may not have been the best of my writing, but finally I felt comfortable not having to write perfectly everyday.
I’ll be keeping up this blog, I have some plans for this summer and Friday kitty video day will probably be kept up a bit. Not posting everday, but I’ll keep on posting.

For the next couple of days, tho, I’m taking a big break. And it’s going to be nice to not have to worry about finding an internet connection since on out and about!

Thanks to everyone who’s read and commented, it’s be so great to get to know people and hear different views on what I’ve written about. If anyone has any comments, explanations, or improvements I could make, please let me know!

[gonna check for typos later! running out of time!]

Vacation Log. Monday, 7:00 p.m.

Portland has more trees, and is smaller. But there are a lot of cute doggies here. There are way more big buildings, and it feels smaller than San Francisco, but still imposing in the city-ness of it all.

The space needle looks a lot cooler than I expected it too, and hopefully it will be equally as fun to look at when we actually go. The Jim Henson’s Fantastic World exhibit is probably going to be totally awesome.

At the airport the security guy liked my astronaut elementary shirt :D


The sky is clearer than I expected, and Pikes Place Market much more alive than I thought. People selling interesting wears. I missed out on a fresh fruit smoothie, ended up getting an “emerald city smoothie” instead.

Bought a small, pretty flower vase to mount on the wall, and also got two satchels of lavender.

Very curious about where we’re going to eat dinner tonight.

End Log for the day.

[Tomorrow: Hopeful reflections on the past 364 days, and plans for the future. I'm excited for a break, but it's going to be weird not posting everyday.]

Man, after having a successful school career getting my B.A. I just tripped. up. registering for classes.

My perfectionism took over, I took too long to register (by three days). I totally got (most) of the classes I needed, just not necessarily the sections I thought I would get. Not a disappointment, because I figure it'll all be good, however I'm disappointed in myself for not taking advantage of the time beforehand to be ready for the actual day of registration.

But! Guess what? I'm going to try, in my perfectionist state, to let it go. Because I see what's happening, my brain has decided that since grad school is unknown territory the best approach is to dive in full of fear and drive using a perfectionist map where failure is not an option but the only one I can see.

It's easy to gather from that reflection that perhaps I shouldn't actually starting worrying about how difficult the classes will be until they actually start. So that way I can be rested and not nervous wreck in August. Rested and ready to Rock.

Plus, the upside to all the research I did is that I know more about the classes than I would have otherwise!

Now, to make up once again for Friday Kitty Video Day, here is a very short video, but with purr love for reallyginnyf:



(source: http://www.love-and-hisses.com/?m=200808&paged=10)

I'm posting this now, to be added to later.

We're having an art day! And I'm having a stress day. Trying to pick classes.

Altho the art day part is full of beautiful assemblage and collage and awesomeness and cute doll heads.
Along with some Opera: http://sfopera.com/o/275.asp

Which is why I'll be out late tonight, and why I'm really excited! Opera singing is an amazing feat of lung power and skill. I love it. The power of music, muscle, and voice is amazing.

So, future update in this space, after I have seen my first live opera!

Update:
Yeah, um, the Opera is amazing. It also ends very late at night. It nearly made me cry but I managed to keep it together much better than when I saw Up. Only because crying = nose running = blowing nose = make a lot of noise in a very quiet theater (except that poor lady whose cell phone started ringing Right At The Saddest Part).

At the Opera house in San Francisco we saw La Traviata, set in the 1920s Jazz era. Which essentially meant that while we were waaaay up in the balcony (like, up about five flights of stairs), we could see tiaras and dresses sparkle. Even though I knew the story, having read the synopsis, the actors, the singing, the set, the clothes, pulls you from the your seat four rows down from the very top into a story of love and devotion and sadness.

Someday, I'm totally sitting in the box seats.

Guess what I forgot to mention yesterday?!

I received one of the scholarships I applied for. :D :D I'm going to be getting a whole bunch of library related stuff, and I am so excited. Especially because I'll be connected with other library students, and with groups that will hopefully help me be a part of the community.

Looking forward (to the future) to being a part of a set community, of learning a set of skills particular to a field, learning the lingo, I can feel the anticipation. It's growing as I learn more, along with the nervousness.

I'm really hoping that this is the kind of nervousness that comes before a performance, where it really is giving you the energy to go forth and get things done.

Like registering for classes, which I'm hopefully going to do tomorrow and just go for it. Instead of going back and forth about the different sections, teachers I know nothing about, hoping everything works out.

Being scared of having a bad experience shouldn't stop me, I should have the perspective that even if a class is not what I hoped it would be, it doesn't mean that I'll never have a good class ever again. (I kinda hadn't thought about that til this moment, self-reflection blogging is helpful!)

So here's to having more perspective, jumping in, with a side of caution, and the last 4 days of the 365!!!

In Pictures. And Food. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!)


















Sleep time now!
(5 more days to go! Anyone else excited?)

Not really ready, I have classes to sign up for and am short on clues as to how to choose which section.

Draw a circle, put the sections numbers around the circle, put a pinhole in the mirror and attach an spinning arrow, give it a spin and let that decide?

Put the numbers in a hat and choose that way?

Compile a comprehensive list of each teacher, their specialities, past syllabi, assignments in past syllabi, and then decide?

Close my eyes and point?

Write the names on pieces of paper, throw the paper on the floor, and choose the first one ms. clover sniffs at?

Or just do all of them, then make a decision based on which name comes up the most?

I'm sure I'll think of something.

Next major decision? Should I buy the rest of the Rent movie soundtrack, or just a few more select songs so I can buy that episode of Psyche that takes place in a novela?

Each time food I'm about to eat something I've suddenly found myself sniffing at it first. Like a kitty, I suppose. Or a wolf! I make an attempt to be discrete, even tho I don't notice it's happening until after I've started. And hopefully it looks cute, if it's at all noticeable.

Have any of you ever craved lavender before? Or tea? Because I have been, and I dunno if it's connected to my new habits of wanting to take a sniff at whatever I'm about to eat. Oh, and I mostly drink herbal tea, so I know nothing about "real" tea.

Odd thing may be, I'm enjoying it. Like a new sense is being alerted now that things are changing and I'm moving on. I have to take more classes than I expected the first time around, so I can be a full time student, but drinking tea (at this point it's mostly chamomile and mint, with a lil bit of green tea but I may venture out a bit) and taking in smells of food and drinks has been quite lovely.

It could be a bit of a calming ritual, but I don't wanna think about it too too much. Don't want to ruin how slightly unaware I have been about all this for the past few weeks. Even though I'm writing about it. I might google lavender, because there has got to be a reason I want lavender so much, when I've never especially loved the smell (I like it, just not love).

This all means, of course, that I get to do lots and lots of research and I'm excited :D I love researching, even if by the time I'm done I'm on information overload and unsure if I can implement anything I learned into my life. Either way the more I read the more answers I get, I just need to get an organizational system in gear.

Right now going to finish my tea and see if we have any lavender eye pillows I can use.

We got to the airport, and mom and I told dad that we were gonna go grab a pretzel. I'm always hungry, you know.

I excitedly rushed over to where the pretzels are, where we met my sister. My mom, sister, and I all giggled and smiled and talked as we waited for my pretzel. We walked down the hall, predicting a reaction, rushing but not, to where my dad waited.

As we turned the corner and my father came into view he smiled, a little unsure, wondering why he saw my sister walking with us, where she had come from, where she was going, as my mom yelled out "Surprise!"

We all grinned happily as we surprised my Dad with a visit from my sister for his birthday, which he totally didn't expect, and we all get to hang out for a week for some birthday fun!

I love June.

Today we all went to the zoo. :D. The Oregon Zoo.
Before that we went to the rose garden and the japanese garden, where everything is serene, beautiful, and luscious, depending on where you looked.

Now I'm watching the fantastic Tony awards, Next To Normal looks amazing. :D :D What can I say, it's been a good day.

And at the rose garden we found the name of a rose, on the lists and lists of the roses names. The rose plant named Cinco de Mayo. Obviously I had to investigate:



I like it. Not sure why it's named Cinco de Mayo, but it's quite an attractive flower.
It smells beautiful at the rose garden.

Then, later at the Zoo, I saw this beautiful creature:

A barn owl up close.

These too:




Later, I shared an amazing burrito and nachos with mr. boyfriend at http://www.laughingplanetcafe.com/, and I'm extremely jealous that there isn't one where I live. Tomorrow is back home where I'll only have wistful memories of Portland to cling to until my next visit.

I forgot friday kitty video day again!! Guess it'll have to be replacement kitty video saturday again, heh. Which actually works out for me, 'cause vacation has been fuun!

Today I saw Back to the Future with Mr. Boyfriend at the student run theater on campus, a sweet date after not having seen him for a while, and not knowing when I'm going to be able to come back (soonish, I hope, but never as soon as I wish). We, family and me, had a lovely breakfast with friends and new friends, yummy and lovely.

Here's another maru video, hopes you like it:


Kitty noises and green eyes:

I'm a horrible person.

I ate an antelope burger.

It was amazing. Almost a nutty flavor, lighter than beef, and delicious.

If I could I would blame my father, the vegan. Because he suggested it to me, and, I have to admit, my eyes lit up. Obviously it was my decision in the end, and it was a delicious decision.
We were eating at a restaurant I had been curious about, via pictures ms. honeybear had been posting in her flickr. Everyone else had or shared delicious veggie burgers (I know 'cause I had a piece). I became the lone animal killer, but in my defense every other animal on the menu looked to be, by the description, the kind grown and raised in a healthy environment.

Also, it's kinda a thrill to be able to say I ate an antelope burger. All my carnivorous friends are gonna be jealous.

My vegan father, whom I have many memories of eating steaks with, thought I'd like it 'cause he tried it, and thank goodness for sane portions because I was actually able to eat the whole thing. With some fries, of course. We also asked the waiter if they could go easy on the salt.

It may not be my proudest moment (it wasn't my not-proudest moment either), but it was so good and it gave me a little story to tell.

It also sparked a conversation about my annoyance over a few green websites touting vegetarianism and veganism as a great saving grace. As if, if we would all become either of those the world would be saved. I think being a vegetarian or a vegan is and can be extremely important, whether for health reasons or to protest the horrible treatment of animals done by too many companies. But calling it the great saviour is not true, when if everyone became vegetarians we would have to cut through so much land and kill habitats for many animals. On top of that, supporting sustainably grown animals that have grown over time to rely on a healthy farming system to survive, like cows and chickens, we keep the variety of farm animals that are out there from dying out.

I may be a horrible person who eats meat, but I'm gonna try to do it in good conscience, and eat vegan and veggie when I can 'cause that food is gooood.

Also? I totally ate an antelope burger. :D

(To even it out, I also ate at laughing planet again, bowl of organic potatoes, corn, broccoli, and cheddar cheese = YUM).

Oh, Portland.

I love being back where I'm familiar with several places, and can't wait to go traipsing around downtown and other areas. It's muggy and rainy, we had to run to our hotel after having dinner. I'm not sure if I could live here, but visiting fills me with happiness.

It could be because this is the only place I have lived away from all that has been familiar to me, having grown up in one county. Here I had to make the familiar, and even though every time I comeback I either have a hard time with certain aspects of it here or I love the trees and the way the buildings are arranged, I made some kind of connection.

I enjoy the brick buildings, but not the streets that I find scary. Maybe I like the way the blocks are arranged and I can actually get myself to one side of downtown to the other without feeling it necessary to get into a car. The crazy weather can be amusing except when it makes me miss less insane California weather. My anxiety grows when I feel surrounded by strangers who could possibly be crazy (as my experience has told me), but the very fact that I am taking the risk to walk on streets by myself makes me feel a bit stronger, even if momentarily. Everything changes every time I come back.

Hope my last post wasn't too much of a downer, I didn't mean it to be!

Just all the thoughts zipping around because of the extreme show I watched, the need for a concrete thing I can do to help create change.

Which is why I'm still going crazy doing research, looking for those soap and shampoos and conditioners and toothpastes and everything.

Now I'm participating in the mainstream by watching Make Me A Supermodel. What can I say, superficiality can be fascinating, no? By that I mean I love the art, the drama, and looking at how it actually all comes together. Modeling is such a strange process.

But that's really not what tonight's all about. Tonight's all about packing, stuffing suitcases, anticipating, planning, watching Firefly commentary, excited phone calls, interneting, and trying to finish up left overs.

Like artichoke dip.

This morning I got up early to get some labs drawn, managed a mishap with lab paperwork, and came home. In a few days I'll be away and vacationing and I'm oh-so excited. Will there be pictures? Of course! More rambling posts about nothing? Probably! Obsessive ranting about trying to remember which ingredients are bad for me and which are good? I wouldn't doubt it!

For realsies now (I try not to use that too much, promise) I'm nearing the end of this, and wondering what I've been doing all along, how I've made it thru the 352 days so far, the many youtube videos I've used. What I've said and who I've said it to may surprise me when I go back and read it all, but hopefully I won't be too embarrassed by it all.

I'm excited about vacation and the end of the 365, hopefully I can summon some more creativity to push me through the next few days.

(Any requests about anything I should write about? I'll give almost anything a shot!)