good news on a rainy day when i have a cold and am cranky

Another reason chocolate might be good for you.

pimp my library


Please don't ask why there's an emergency exit sign in my bathroom; I've been trying to figure that out for almost two years myself. It also points in the wrong direction.

Dollar had sent out everything smaller than an SUV by the time I got to the counter with my reservation number clutched in my sweaty fist, so instead of my usual rolling anchovy tin, Thursday afternoon I had Pure Hauling Power in the form of a Chrysler Pacifica. I had cup holders up the yin-yang. I had a DVD player for the entertainment of anyone lounging in the back of my aircraft carrier. I had two and a half more feet to consider when looking for parking spaces; more even than I'm used to from my days driving the company van to catering jobs. Pulling into the Albertson's parking lot in Danville in that baby, on my way to my annual doctor visit, I was Rachel Griffiths in the Pip Karmel film Me Myself I, dumped unceremoniously and without warning into a life I might have led, had things been different. I couldn't figure out what I'd done with my 2.3 kids, but I knew they had to be around somewhere--an illusion only enhanced by my purchase of a twelve-roll package of toilet paper and ten packets of chocolate chip cookie mix (hey, they were on sale, okay?)

Look, I'm a soccer mom! I chirped a couple of hours later, swinging out of my rental in the driveway of Java's new place. I see that, he responded, leading the way into a kitchen that appeared to be molting, but an evil one.

I was taking advantage of my unexpected upgrade and performing a complex transfer I'd only dreamt of being able to do before the weekend: giving Java my (mismatched) bookshelves so I could make room for the spare (matched) shelves BunnySlope was giving me as she moved from one place to another. Why virtually all of my friends moved on Thursday is a total mystery--not only Java and BunnySlope but Thread. Not just all at the same general time, but on the same day. And Slick, it turns out, is moving tomorrow. Clearly I missed the memo.

But I didn't miss the chance to stir up the board feet. As soon as I got home and got the uprights out of my boat, I was moving books around. I've only assembled two of the three units BunnySlope and her partner were gracious enough to give me, but it's already making a huge difference in my place. At least one I can see, although the improvement might be a little subtle to the untrained eye. I'm trying to go from books in five shelving units and all over the floor to three units, period. People who love books will understand my blissed-out state of the past couple of days--I've been handling my babies until I'm too tired to stand. Does this one want to be over here with the foreign language dictionaries or here next to the fiction? Will all of the craft books fit on the same shelf, or do I need to start another one? Should I put 'fibers' and 'fabric painting' next to 'papermaking', or closer to 'painting'? Should I sort by size or spectral order?

It's been great. Makes the prospect of moving--I've been thinking about that again this week--seem like not such a given. Because I'm feeling like there's hope for getting organized and pleasant and guest-worthy in here.

thank you for my new ear

This is a commercial Web site, with a twist; it belongs to a retired CIA disguise master who couldn't just hang out and play golf all day. He decided to take what he knew about building facial prosthetics and help people who were missing ears, eyes, noses, fingertips, nipples... it's pretty amazing stuff.

Especially when you look at the page comparing ear reconstruction surgery with the prosthetic ears. Apparently it's hard to grow a convincing ear on someone who was missing one to begin with. Bob Barron has had a lot of people come into his office after surgery failed.

Looking at the photos and reading the testimonials, you realize that there are people here who probably go out as little as possible because they don't want to deal with being stared at. With a little painless non-invasive work, Barron can fix that.

Heck of a second career, no?

i wonder if this woman will marry me?

How to make a pinhole camera out of an Altoids tin.

must. go. to. sleep

Three gigs in one day was just as strenuous as expected, especially since I also racked about twelve miles on my bike, many of them through lovely Fruitvale, Exotic Land of Enchantment and Drive-By Shootings, after ten pm. Nutcase, yes. But before I put myself to bed, I wanted to share this; something I loved the first time I saw it, and then never saw again. I don't know where Paper Chase found it, I'm just so glad she did.

And yes, it's work-safe.

whiplash

Home from Portland, and some of the finest old-school diner and kitschy Mexican food imaginable, to find that I am working not one, not two, but three modeling jobs tomorrow. Good lord, how did that happen? It was so nice to have a weekend where I didn't think once about work, or my outside responsibilities; just met nice people, learned interesting things, wandered through Powell's as promised, and spent good time with a friend. And then, bang! Six modeling gigs this week, and two catering; time to make the donuts.

I don't take enough vacations, I'm realizing. So often when I travel, even if it's intended to be fun, there's a work component: interviewing people or visiting particular places so I can sell writing about the trip. Even last year in Berlin I was carrying two huge binders of material so I could work on the museum project, which I did during the day while MonkeyScientist did his own writing in the other room.

I come from people who don't vacation... at least we didn't when I was a kid. Usually if we traveled en famille it was to Chicago at Christmas to see family and friends, which was stressful, or it was because one of my parents had some work-related thing to do in another city. I'm not complaining about that, just noting how the early pattern seems to inform my adult life.

Off to rehearsal, speaking of getting back to it. Hopefully it's warmer at the studio than it is in my apartment... yeesh.

if you can't lick them, join them

I have to admit that my first thought upon reading this is, how the heck do you find the waist on a toad? Also, check out the eggs. I'll be having nightmares about what happened to that poor little boy after the picture was taken and the pods got him.

According to someone with some time on their hands, these are not, incidentally, the kind you want to get high off of.

Not that the staff here at Waterbones reccommends getting high off any sort of toad, of course.

if you're a healthy 6'3" male, you might want to watch out

Mr. Nice Guy's in line for a new meniscus. A darkly funny post from a consistently funny man.

wow

It amazes me that some of these people are still alive, let alone hold this opinion. Heartening news.

Also, if you're doing your laundry, may I suggest you make totally sure you know that your leather gloves are not curled up resting in the pockets of one of your hoodies? Whoops.

some people get to name stars

This woman named a planet. Or at least a "trans-Neptunic object". Very cool article from the BBC.

it's spring, and i'm in love



Everyone, meet Salome. She's a Bridgestone X04, from the last year Bridgestone sold bikes in the States. I bought her then from someone who clearly understood my needs, priorities, and limitations better than I did; something solid that could handle both road and trail, and would last. Last week, when I took her in to the bike shop to be rehabilitated after years in storage, the gearheads were thrilled with her (the checklist I got when I retrieved her reads, fantastic bike!!!) Anyway, there's a whole lot of story about me and bikes (mostly about me falling off them, and being afraid of them, and so on), but I shan't tell it now as this week has been crazy busy and will continue in that vein until Monday morning, when I plan to sit still and do nothing for ten minutes and see how that feels. But I just wanted to mention that this beautiful sunny week was exactly the right time for me to have a working bike again; she extends my range and my freedom in a way I couldn't have comprehended back when I owned a car. We've been seeing, as they say, quite a lot of each other.

Until I do have time to tell that story, and some other ones, let me point you at some interesting things:

Odius and Peculiar have had a particularly splendid run of fascinating science and science history tidbits lately, including references to a fuzzy Tyrannosaur; if you haven't been over there lately, I encourage a visit.

Through them of course I met Writhing in Apathy, who explains why one should always carry a handkerchief, among other things, in a veritable burst of activity after too long an absence that also includes a funny-if-gross story about her erstwhile roommate.

Were you French-kissing seven or more people a week as a teen? Apparently that's dangerous. I don't know what to think about this, as I haven't had time to think in days, preferring instead to run on raw animal instinct and Clif bars. But it feels a little like the usual sex panic adults ladle out to teenagers. By all means, make sure the scamps know about meningococcal bacteria, but let's not get too whacked out about it, shall we?

You know they found another Pharonic tomb, yes? Just five kilometers away from old Uncle Tut's place. I love this because they thought the Valley of the Kings was all tapped out, but no. Makes me yearn for the golden era of exploration, when they probably didn't first go in with all sorts of electronic imaging gear and rebreathers and whatnot.

what the heck is gas mark 1/2?

If you're not just interested in the how but the why, let me point you at Cooking for Engineers. Some parts of the site are more satisfying than others; for example, the "ingredients directory" mostly just shows you what various vegetables look like, and seems unfinished. But there are also useful articles on things like the smoke point of different fats, how to decipher USDA beef grades, ingredient substitutions, how to make butter (with cool science about why it works!), and--especially useful for those of you who have expatriated, or are using a cookbook from a country that uses a different system than you're used to, a conversion chart for oven temperatures.

the hidden costs of war, or are french children really so dreary as all that?



Browsing through Eva-Maria Metcalf's otherwise rather dry critical biography of Astrid Lindgren, I find this delightful nugget on the challenges of translating Pippi Longstocking:

Overall, the English translation is fairly true to the original. The same cannot be said of the French adaptation of Pippi Longstocking. The editor of the first edition of Pippi Longstocking in France seems to have had little appreciation for the tallness of the Pippi tale. He wrote to Astrid Lindgren that the French Pippi (Fifi Brindacier) couldn't possibly be made to lift a horse--a pony would be more like it. His reasoning was that Swedish children might perhaps believe absurdities about a small girl being capable of lifting a whole horse, since Sweden had not been involved in World War II. French children, however, were much too realistic to swallow such unreasonable stuff. That is why Fifi Brindacier lifts only a pony. Lindgren in turn asked the editor to send her a photo of a ten-year-old French girl lifting a pony with one hand, because that child would most assuredly have a secure future as a weight lifter.

gung hoy fat choy!



I met this little boy ten years ago in China. That's a bunny he's got there.

Nice for once to have explosions in the neighborhood that don't drive me straight to the phone (how many gunshots, miss? Rapid or spread out?), although it took me a minute to remember what they were. Funny that I remember sitting in exactly the same spot at this time last year; strange that I've been in this apartment for at least that long. I grabbed my marketing bag, coincidentally a totebag from a women's conference I attended in Beijing in '95, and headed down the street to buy dried nectarines and chili-lemon almonds before all the stands at the farmer's market had shut down.

Outside, the sun was bright and the air tangy with gunpowder. A mass of flattened brick-red paper on the sidewalk testified that a bunch of firecrackers had indeed gone off right outside my building, and there were several Chinese families walking down the street. Civic boosters, fooling nobody, have tried to rename my neighborhood "Little Saigon" in honor of all the Vietnamese restaurants, but we all know it's the Tenderloin. And that there are more varieties of people than "Little Saigon" would indicate.

In front of me, a little boy, maybe two feet fall, was chasing the pigeons, arms spread wide. They barely broke a sweat avoiding him (do birds sweat? Anyone?), just bobbed away a little faster than they might have ordinarily. He kept trying, though, with the tenacity of the very young.

Something that has been troubling me lately is that MonkeyScientist, about whom I still have conflicted feelings, is seeing someone new to Berlin. Through his offices I have access to her blog, where she describes (circumspectly, but at length) the wonders of her new home and life. Regardless of whether he and I will be able to maintain the kind of friendship we would like--a question with which I have been struggling for weeks--I get to follow along with the bouncing ball as she has the adventures I so badly wanted to have with him. Some of you may remember that last year at this time, I was making noises about making a big change in my life; how many figured out that the change I was considering was a transcontinental move? I applied for a job with a German animation company, I bought German-language instruction materials, I bookmarked the Goethe-Institut's Web site and those of various expatriate bulletin boards. Not only because I missed him so fiercely, but because I was getting bored, and needed to change something after fourteen years in San Francisco, the longest I have spent in any one place. And he is a very good person to have adventures with; we have similar tastes in amusement. I don't know that many men who will go to puppet shows under their own steam, for example.

Obviously, that move didn't happen. He's there, I'm here, and it's Chinese New Year again. After what has seemed like an unusually long and emotionally difficult year, too much of which I have spent wishing I were doing things with him. So lately, I have been working overtime at having adventures here, and remembering what drew me to the Bay Area in the first place. All of the recent posts about the running around I'm doing? I'm trying to see my city with the new eyes I would have brought to Berlin (or Paris, or Barcelona... still, incidentally, in the running), and the old heart that is connected to so many wonderful people here. New friends and old, artist clients who honor my spirit through their work, some great editors I've finally gotten nicely broken-in (KIDDING, Wry, kidding. But only just), the whole wide network of people who like and care about me and their interesting friends and family and lovers, the folks I would miss more than I probably realize were I to leave.

It is not always easy because I tend to both introversion and the kind of schedule that makes most people throw up their hands in despair. But I'm trying, and it's getting easier. And I'm enjoying myself immensely, sometimes too much to capture in a blog post when I crawl home at four in the morning, bits of Russian hors d'oeuvres in my teeth or my feet protesting three hours of dancing at the GlasKat in boots with four-inch heels.

In other words, Indri, stop moping around already, it's gotten old.

Happy new year.

technical question

Can anyone recommend a good, reliable Web hosting service for a small business site? I've got my domain name parked, and design ideas; now I need a host.

Bad experiences also good to know about. Thanks!

friday night roundup

It's nonstop fun around here, but I'm putting down the Cheddar Beer Kettle Chips (they've got Spicy Thai now too, and Roasted Red Pepper with Goat Cheese; what the hell happened to plain reconstituted potatoes pressed into consistent shapes?) for just a sec before I take to my bed with the next installment in the Dan Simmons Hyperion series (Endymion. Yes, I'm obsessed), where I will likely pass out mid-chapter, with the lights on. In no particular order:

1. Novocaine rules. Wednesday morning I had some dental work, and was numb up to the eyes and out to the ears. I like how the assistant entertained herself afterwards by handing me a cup of water and telling me to rinse. No control of my tongue or lower lip, and you want me to drink from a cup? When I think I'm about to swallow said tongue, or perhaps said lower lip? Which now ends somewhere roughly just above my collarbone? I am happy to report that I did not choke to death on half a sip of water, despite my best efforts. And that the people on the street who noticed that I was getting ice cream all over my chin and not noticing because I couldn't feel it, did not point and laugh.

Much.

Later that evening, some friends yielded to my fear that I will become a total reclusive hermit, and agreed to join me at a bar in the Mission, where we hung out and talked smack for several hours. This is actually kind of a big deal, as I am not much for hanging out in bars, and usually only socialize with one person at a time, as I am easily confused. It was really quite wonderful, I drank something weird made with mango vodka, and Snufkina is going to make herself a T-shirt that says "shiksa goodness". Any more explanation will belabor the point.

2. I am starting to think about grad school. Specifically, the MFA program in Creative Writing at SF State. If I think about it in terms of "how will this enhance my earning potential?" I have to sit down, I'm laughing so hard. But when I look at the course listings, I salivate. Seen as an opportunity to keep actively learning interesting things, it doesn't sound too bad at all. I'd be in my forties by the time I was done, but that's not feeling like as weird a concept as it was yesterday when I started doing the research.

3. Meeting other bloggers proves once again to be a worthwhile exploit; today I discovered that Writhing in Apathy is every bit as smart and charming as her writing suggests. Especially when she's impersonating an aged Irish Catholic nun.

4. Do you have anything this cool lost in your basement? I wish I did.

disney bastards stole my lunch

The clownfish is out of the bag: Disney has bought Pixar for a gazillion dollars, and swear they're not going to touch a hair on the head of their precious. There's much talk flying around about shares, corporate culture, and Steve Jobs.

Well.

I can tell you exactly where some of Pixar's animators were when they found out, because I was there too. Naked and working hard. I had just begun the third and final series of narrative gesture poses, this one entitled "Model Waking Up And Getting Dressed" (the first two had been "Watching The Superbowl" and "Diving Off The High Board"), I was having an awesome time, the artists were making great drawings, and then someone's cell rang. He took it outside and then came back in, paler than he'd been to start. We all have to be in the atrium in ten minutes, he said, and people started grumbling and packing up their pads.

At least we'll always remember where we were when it happened, someone said. I wasn't sure what to do, so I kept my legs where they were, raised and half-in and half-out of my jeans. I hope you guys aren't in trouble, I tendered, having completely forgotten that I read about rumors of a sale just the day before. We've been sold, said the instructor. Do I still get to have lunch? I asked, rather piteously, for the free lunch is the best of many good things about modeling at Pixar.

Yes, you can still have lunch. Next to him, a guy in black-framed glasses snorted. Make them give you lunch and dinner.

Perhaps I should put my legs down now? I continued, but the instructor had turned away to gather up some handouts about emotionality in drawing (sticking eyes on a toaster is not animation, I'd heard a tour guide explaining to a crowd of teenagers earlier. Knowing what an object is thinking and feeling is animation.)

My last drawing as a Pixar animator, said one guy. The guy I wanted to buttonhole, hoping to wheedle the drawing of me as a mermaid out of his pad, was long gone. So I finished putting my clothes on, covering my visitor badge with my scarf, and headed over to the atrium hoping to a) snag that lunch and b) listen in on the announcement.

Needless to say, I got busted, proving once again how poorly suited I am to investigative journalism. First the cafeteria ladies wouldn't let me buy so much as a juice to sustain me (we're closed until the meeting's over, one shrilled, slapping my hand away from the cooler). Then a woman standing nearby recognized me; she'd been in the group of dancers we just auditioned last weekend to try to bulk the company back up. We talked for a minute, and then I said, I probably shouldn't be here, should I? and she responded no, you shouldn't. I'm surprised your host didn't make sure you were safely out of here before this starts. On stage, someone was starting to speak; well, the press release that's going out... So I squeezed between a couple of guys who were wearing sandals with socks, fingers in my ears and la-la-laing all the way, and headed for the main doors where a security guy all but tossed my lunchless ass onto the pavement.

I want my lunch, damnit. Grilled mouse will do just fine. Grr.

overstimulated

Can't find the Henry Miller quote about how it's possible to be living too much to spend time writing it down, but that is what the past week has been like. Keep seeing, doing, and thinking things I'd like to blog, but I'm wiped out by them too. Modeling, seeing performances, learning to play cribbage, dancing for three solid hours at Bondage a Go Go, seeing this dance piece and Underworld: Evolution the same evening, and then a "pancake salon" today at Bunnyslope's, where eight of us ate "surprise pancakes" (will it contain nuts? Chocolate chips? Gummy worms? Avocado?) and did some psychic barnraising around art, right livelihood, and coming to terms with money. It's been a fascinating and intense week, even not counting the story titled "how it took Indri five hours to buy three pairs of socks while nearly getting arrested for breaking and entering", but right now I need a nap, and then I've got a couple of articles to write.

So.

Don't let me forget.

my new plan

Tonight's play was a little intense; a lot of stuff about fathers and daughters and forgiving yourself and forgiving others and not wasting time on anger and the Snow Queen and kids in Tyvek overalls. I might have been better able to focus if the guy next to me hadn't been quietly and thoroughly polluting my aura with sausagey farts; each somehow magically timed to coincide with the especially touching moments onstage. How did he do that? A side effect of excitement? Because that's, you know, a gift.

Happily, I'd run into Wry and her hus-bean in the line outside. Happily not just because they have a car and this meant I didn't have to take some weird hoofing it/bus/BART odyssey to get home, but because they're good company. Sadly, we did not reprise our Fourth of July Mime Troupe post-show experience where we went for margaritas and their friend tried to tell a very long and elaborate story about why he was carrying a little shopping bag with some woman's panties in it. All I remember about the story is that it wasn't nearly as good as it sounds like it should have been, but it was taking so long to tell that the telling itself became hilariously funny. Something like that might have taken my mind off the Weapon of Gas Destruction I'd been sitting next to for ninety minutes. Instead, I shared my new theory on getting married as we tooled across the Bay Bridge.

I won't until I'm forty, I said, pushing my head between their seats, no matter what.

Husband Of Wry: Is this some sort of reverse psychology thing?

Moi: Sure. But really. Even if every man I've ever loved, even the ones who are married now, if I tried to leave my apartment tomorrow morning and every last one of them was standing outside saying, I was wrong, I must be with you, I wouldn't do it. I'd say, I'm sorry boys, but I'm too young to get married. You'll have to wait four years and then you can battle it out for me.

HOW: I think you should tell them this.

Moi: I'll go into bars and announce it, what do you think? Jump up on the bar and yell, I'm not marrying any of you!

HOW: And now who's gonna buy me a drink?

Wry and Husband Of Wry laughed kindly. Then they dropped me off, Wry threatening to take me to a dance performance tomorrow night that involves puppets somehow, and I went to the corner store to buy a can of chili and a carton of milk. I have some garlic-and-cheddar bread to toast and eat with my chili, two fresh bottles of fizzy water, and a new (to me) copy of The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. A good night.

p.s. Is it wrong that I really want to try this? I've had the window open on my desktop for a couple of days now, I think. Mmm, fried food.

twenty-seven new kinds of creepy-crawlies!

California is so awesome. And once again I am reminded, happily, that there are still mysteries.