I take sick-leave for two days and everybody's freaking out about deadlines.... Of course, they do that anyway, but this time I get the feeling that they believe I can fix everything.

I bet accountants practice signing their name in ways illegible to mortal man.

Found out a long time ago that hook-kicks are a terrible idea when wearing jeans with holes in the knees. Straight-leg spin-kicks, though, seem to work just fine. A dog barked tentatively at me from his balcony four stories up as I practiced brown-belt basics in the tiny park behind the building. My toes squish in not-quite-dry grass, and the balls of my feet carve divots out of the ground.

Neurotic Southern woman is still neurotic and completely lacking in self-awareness.

The fridge is a spawning ground for empty paper bags. I knew they had to reproduce somewhere.

Target has safety pins in dark metallic shades of green and purple and blue and red.

Things taken out of my backpack:
1 pocket tape-player with the battery held in by hairband
1 orange hairband
1 old MN Timberwolves game ticket - Minnesota Timberwolves vs Toronto Raptors
1 Victoria's Secret gift certificate, as yet unspent
1 AMC Movie Theatre gift certificate, as yet unspent
1 homemade bookmark made from HR Geiger calendar
1 ghost-print water bottle three-quarters full of water faintly flavored by orange Kool-Aid
1 7" long metallic silver laurel, long separated from the car it belonged to
1 1" long solid appliqué piece of a hand and rose covered in black felt
1 spool of white thread
1 bag small semi-sweet chocolate chips


Ground turkey. Huh. I'm going to make dinner out of this? The packaging says it can be substituted anywhere that you'd regularly use hamburger, but I find this suspicious.

Misread an email title in my hotmail account as "Net-Funded Jerusalem" - which may be a reality and is certainly an interesting idea. Actual title was "Net-Funded Journalism" sent by Warren Ellis - another interesting idea, with worrying implications of pay-for-spin, not that normal news isn't like that anyway (except for the BBC). Haven't actually read it yet.

Read another email title in my gmail account, absolutely correctly, as "Paul Bunyan, Modern-Day Sex Symbol." Eek!

Wonder how long playlists written to will remain belonging to only that piece of writing, inseparable.

Grammar aside, I really love the first line of my penthius freewriting today: Inseparable they were when they were little, cute as buttons, round as houses, and green as the sky.

Jello Biafra is not music. I know this.

No, I cannot contribute $25. Sorry, eh?

Ok, not making anything with ground turkey. It is vacuum-packed in a way that makes it impossible to thaw quickly. Spaghetti it is. Contemplated additions to the basic red sauce: Marie Sharp's fiery hot sauce; barbecue sauce; garlic; crushed whole tomatoes; peanut butter; soy sauce?

Any recipe beginning with "Note that the chops need to marinate for at least three days" has me salivating from the get-go.
Crucially Delicious Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 cup oyster sauce
1/4 cup black bean garlic sauce
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped peeled fresh ginger
It's for this Hoisin-Marinated Pork Chops recipe

What is black bean garlic sauce and where can I get it?

"Pulsating Pineapple Coconut Ice Cream" *snorfl*

Fennel is just a weird-sounding vegetable. Anybody have any experience with fennel?

Things I don't want in my fridge (that are there):
- butt-ends of bread
- apricot preserves
- pineapple [anything]
- 3-week-old red Jell-o
- Russian salad dressing with expanding borders
- an entire frozen chicken
- weird Mexican artificial mango-flavored gelatin cups

Phil: "I can yell at Abra if I want to! I am the Lizard King! I can do anything!" ...I'm married to the Lizard King??? I dated a lounge-lizard once, but he's in Kansas now....

Things I actually put in the spaghetti sauce:
+ smoky chipotle salsa
+ whole crushed tomatoes
+ an improbably massive scoop of minced garlic
+ Bac-O's (fake textured soy bacon bits that are a freakish pink-red color)

Improbability is in the details. I'm going to make that my journal title.

Computer crashed. Lost place where I was considering the relative merits of s-exotic-sounding-food vs. Italian z-exotic-sounding-food. Involves eggs, sugar, wine, and fruit. I've lost my new word!!!

Katie bringing fancy canapes! Katie is a cooking goddess!

Then got phone number for long-lost friend to invite. Called number. Had apparently changed one number. Hereby invite you to call (651) 734-8754, listen to the message, and imagine what was going through my head as I tried to figure out whether this was, indeed, the message of my long-lost friend, who mostly likes folk music.

(651) 734-8754 is going to be rather freaked out if lots of people call.

I am evil.

I am also the gal with a date sometime next month with long-lost friend! (I got the correct number)

I should be cleaning right now instead of reading my email. Fuck off, conscience!

CSI: They just sprayed cold water on the corpse and his nipples got hard.

Ok, the orange hairband was what was holding the tape player together.

Need to figure out room arrangements for food/drink/vids/poker/chitchat.

I have no idea at all whether I just threaded the sewing machine spool correctly. This could get interesting.

Finished listening to "Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem. Particularly well-suited to listening to on audio-book, as it's all about the language. It's sort of a mobster/detective story with a protagonist with Tourette's (this mostly fails to describe it). Really, really enjoyable.

Ironing and pinning is annoyingly time-consuming.

Still up in the air as to whether my lungs and sinuses will clear out enough to make Tae Soo Do class tomorrow a reality. However, work and socialization no problemo--just trying to sweep out the last cruddy remnants that make it hard to catch my breath. A significant part of my mind is also wailing, "I shouldn't go to class! I should clean! I shouldn't write! I should clean! I shouldn't go to work! I should clean! I shouldn't sleep! I should clean!" I tell that bit that we're doing fine, honestly, and doesn't the house look much nicer than it did while I was sick?

As I've said before, I like throwing parties, because afterwards the house is so much cleaner!