bacon

This post is an assemblage of some recent conversations and links that all stuck together in my mind as relevant. The sticking point being food. (Food and food culture, btw, are often on my mind.)

First, Wendy wrote this delightful post about being vegetarian in a family where vegetarians are suspect. (Which, is exactly what being a vegetarian in MY family is like. I've endured quite a bit of ribbing at large family dinners for neglecting to put meat on my plate.)

Then, Carrie wrote this very insightful piece about what if you were living just for you, making all of your life decisions NOT in the context of anyone else's desires/needs/preferences, etc... This is something I come crashing up against often. But it's interesting to note: this concept seems most pervasive when I am standing in the check out line at the grocery store, doing the weekly shopping for my family.

(Also, there's this this Cracked article about stupid habits you develop growing up poor, and recognizing that I do have angst over spending money on food, a frugality that scratches and pushes against quantity vs quality.)

Well, it all culminated for me with Carol posting this tantalizing recipe for Cornbread. Made with bacon drippings. Carol, Wendy and I had a brief back and forth on twitter about alternative lipids to use in place of the bacon drippings... But deep in my heart, I knew I wanted to do this recipe with bacon drippings.* Also, I realized that I was hesitant to admit that out-loud on social media. (The ironic twist; I feel as out of place eating meat among my creative community as I do NOT eating meat among my family members.)

Food is a funny thing.
Food culture is funny thing. So much emotion and personal identification (and group identification) is tied up in it.

So, when I heard this song on the radio, I couldn't help but laugh just a bit, in some disillusionment with ever knowing which group I am truly part of:



Mostly, right now, my food culture is just to enjoy sharing food and being fed.

*I have now made that cornbread (complete w/ bacon drippings) several times. It is delicious.

free the birds. (100 other lovers, Shake it out.)

"...I am in love with an idea
Sophisticated Neurological appeals
I want to negotiate some kind of a deal
I want to tear it open show you that it's real..."

~Devotchka. 100 other lovers.



"...I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
Cause I like to keep my issues strong
It's always darkest before the dawn..."

~Florence and the Machine, Shake it Out

*****

Anyways, last month a tree happened to sprout up in my
book. I was quite pleased with that.

wierd is okay.

Read an interesting article the other day.

I learned a few helpful labels; ie my preference for solitary activities and for work over play may be tied to Social Anhedonia. My difficulty with close relationships and intimacy, as well as my odd social quirks could be linked to a Schizotypal personality. My distress at the inability to successfully filter out the pervasive stream of information (and my ways of coping with it) could be a touch of Cognitive disinhibition.

It's nice that "weird" is being more appreciated lately (the market value of out-of-the-box thinking helping to facilitate positive social change in work-place environments), but I'm haunted by the fact that I'm merely missing the higher IQ and a greater working memory required to pull all the odd edges together into actual viable creative power. (Heh, that itch just never seems to go away for me, even after an artistically busy and successful year.)

********
Random wrap-up stuffs;
I have been enjoying Bones quite a bit (yes I know, I am a bit late to jump on that bandwagon). Particularly, I love actress Emily Deschanel's portrayal of dr Temperance Brennan with a social awkwardness that boarders on Asbergers Syndrome. Then, from the more tortured end of the genius spectrum, I finally got around to watching Sylvia. Personally, I wanted more from the movie, particularly, I wanted more of Sylvia's words. So here, November Graveyard, performed by Plath herself:

The scene stands stubborn: skinflint trees
Hoard last year's leaves, won't mourn, wear sackcloth, or turn
To elegiac dryads, and dour grass
Guards the hard-hearted emerald of its grassiness
However the grandiloquent mind may scorn
Such poverty. No dead men's cries

Flower forget-me-nots between the stones
Paving this grave ground. Here's honest rot
To unpick the heart, pare bone
Free of the fictive vein. When one stark skeleton
Bulks real, all saint's tongues fall quiet:
Flies watch no reserrections in the sun.

At the essential landscape stare, stare
Till your eyes foist a vision dazzling on the wind:
Whatever lost ghosts flare
Damned, howling in their shrouds across the moor
Rave on the leash of the starving mind
Which peoples the bare room, the blank, untenanted air.
~sylvia plath

In Defense of Humbug. (and...THE HOBBIT!!!)

This. Yes, this. I need a little validation, now and again for the fact that December in general (and Christmas specifically) is a no fun time of year for me.



This next bit is something Malanie posted to her FB page, however she had merely stolen it from someone else who I do not know. But it's brilliant so here you go:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that the USA is necessarily greater nor lesser than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms :

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Best Regards (without prejudice)

Name withheld (Privacy Act)

Meanwhile, on a totally different subject (but helping me feel happy)... GUESS WHAT WAS JUST RELEASED!? First Trailer for The Hobbit (coming Dec '12)

down time (and being okay with it) ((JUST KIDDING))

Yesterday, I did a test run.
I'm signed up for the local marathon next week. After a very busy summer/autumn where I fell off the training schedule, I thought I might be able to at least pull off the half marathon (it's what I did last year.) But yesterday, attempting to run even just half the distance, I found my legs and my heart were just not in it.
I shall be bowing out of the race altogether.

I've been in a bit of a slump, the past few weeks. Burnt out.

I am finding comfort in food, and drink, reading, and watching TV. In not pushing myself so hard. For just a little bit. So it makes sense that I'm off my game, physically. What I am trying to do, right now, is be okay with that. To allow myself that. A break. To not panic that this is the end of my active life. To see this as just a lull, where I catch my breath, and breath.

Yesterday, I ran a route that is one of my favorites: a beautiful hilly trek through the gorgeous scenery of Sabino Canyon. It's 7.4 miles total. Yesterday, I only got through 5 before I had to stop and walk. That was a disappointment. But... as I walked the rest of the way through the canyon, back to the parking lot... I just tried to enjoy the fresh air. The view. I was in an awesome place. Might as well enjoy it, even if not getting the workout I had hoped to get.

Down time. It's necessary. So, be okay with it.

*****

Dec 16th Update: JUST KIDDING!



I did end up running the race. Told myself it would be a nice slow one, gave myself permission to stop and walk if need be. Then Katy found me a running buddy (who just happened to have finished his first Iron Man) and with his coaching and encouragement, I ended up running the race even faster than last year.
Thank you Katy!
(And Jarreau!)

covered by friends.

Last week I visited Portland for the Orycon Convention. It wasn't until I was boarding the plane to Portland, seeing everyone around me carrying heavy jackets that I remembered I had left my own jacket at home. (I haven't had to wear the thing since last January.)

I did have my favorite burnt orange hoodie that Mel gave me. Plus, my soft blue-grey scarf that Sandra knitted for me. Those got me warmly to Wendy's house. Then Wendy gave me the cutest lime green padded jacket you ever did see to layer over the top of all of that.

Covered by my Friends.

Last year, Katy came home from Hawaii with a sea-turtle-carved-in-bone necklace for me. That little turtle shielded me and lent me strength as I trained my body for a marathon and dealt with some emotionally difficult situations as well. Recently that necklace snagged and broke. I was quite disheartened by the loss of that little bone turtle. Was trying to collect all the beads and broken parts and piece it all together again, when, coincidentally, Mel (again) gave me a tiny silver dragon on a chain.

(Perhaps this new year will need more of the Dragon than the Turtle)

Again, covered by my Friends.

I believe in friends.

oh that feeling...

(Oh, that feeling's gone!)


love it.

My son: just like me.

My off spring and I, we share a few quirks, a few choice personality traits. I have noticed this makes us occasionally volatile (?) together? Only every now and then. But enough.

The other morning was... 'difficult'. We had pressed each other's buttons. An emotional meltdown was in full swing and I only had a few moments before we were supposed to be in the car going to school.

So I sat him in a chair, gave him a notebook and pen, and said; "Make marks. Whatever marks you want to make." He immediately calmed down, and threw his full focus into the pen and paper. He made marks on the paper, and was ready to get in the car and go to school after a few minutes.

Of course, he made some fairly pointed marks:

But it worked. Meltdown averted. Balance regained. Ability to move on with life attained.

How did I know to put a pen and paper in his hands?
Because it is what works for me when I am on the verge of a meltdown.
I figured, it would work for my son too.

(For you entertainment, a glimpse at some recently marked pages of my own:)

hard working animal

I got paid an exceptional complement the other day. Someone said they were impressed with my work ethic, and that I was an animal.

The individual paying the complement went on to ponder exactly what sort of work ethic an animal hath...

As the owner of an Australian Shepherd... I know a bit about working animals.
Psycho dog is not happy unless she has some job to throw her heart and soul and energies into. Even if that job is just catching a frisbee out of the air again and again and again and again. (Though, she'd be much happier with a herd of sheep, or something.)

The thing about psycho dog... she doesn't know how to just hang out with others. At the park, when other dogs come up to say "hi, wanna play" she has no idea what to do with them and prefers to throw herself into her 'job' (ie, catching said frisbee out of the air again and again and again and again.)

Anyhow, it just got me thinking, because I have not been a very good friend lately. That impressive work ethic, me throwing myself into a quick succession of deadlines, etc... There are times when I wonder that I do that as avoidance. As coping mechanism to survive the difficulties of human interaction.

Pay this no mind. This is just post-midnight ramblings from a brain that is refusing to wind down for the day.

Anyhow... Random, but I have now cut several throats in a recent project. For your entertainment, a glimpse at the bloodshed:

why I'm not around much right now

I'm not dead! I swear.

Though I have had a few near misses this past month.

see... I had to battle a mecha-octopod in a japanese bathhouse:
Finally was able to blow the darn thing to pieces.
THEN... I had to wade my way though a hoard of zombies in an abandoned temple:

Finally got them put to rest.
THEN... I had a traitor's throat that needed cutting:

I'm still working on that one, but almost there. Very lucky to have such a good comrade-in-arms helping me through all of this slayage.

Anyhow, aside from that mess I have also put a few new Art Nerd posts up at the Functional Nerds, wrote a post for SF Signal, was able to finagle my schedule to make it to World Con, where, incidentally... I was inducted as the newest member of the InkPunks!!!! (Hard at work on my first post there.)

So, you see, I'm not dead...yet!