A Nice and Awesome Week

I woke up early this Saturday morning with a start.

What time is it?!

Convinced I was late for work/school/reality, I blindly groped for my cell phone, which doubles as my clock and alarm at night: 7:23 SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, it told me. And with that I flopped (somewhat delicately  but we'll get to that later) back down into the deliciousness of my warm bed and uttered a word of relief, awesome.

Here are some events leading up to my relief this morning:

• In the middle of Monday night, I wake up to sounds of Housemate's dogs. I can hear one snoring and shuffling. Just the dogs, I think and begin to settle back down. That's when I clearly hear the high-pitched ha-ha-ha! of a child's laughter coming from the room above me. I stop mid-roll. OMG. That's not the dogs. And Housemate and her kids were absentee that night. So, there's only one explanation here. Yup. We have baby ghosts. Which is awesome.  

• Throughout the week, I have had multiple games of Words With Friends waiting for me to make a move, but most of them have less-than-awesome tile racks. Thus, I put them off and piss off four friends. 

• Thursday morning and I wake up early-ish to prep for a big day. I begin to mentally list all that has to be done while I shuffle from the bathroom to the kitchen to get my coffee. I stop on the way to the shower to scoop the litter box. As I'm bend over, groggy and uncaffeinated and scooping litter I hear the unmistakable sounds of water gushing. I abandon the task at hand and run back into the bathroom to see sheets of water pouring out of the toilet and onto the bathroom floor. That'll get ya going faster than coffee, lemme tell ya. Mentally groaning I splash into the inch of toilet water flooding the floor to inexpertly fiddle with the water tank. I get it to stop running and stand there as the water trickles to a stop, the bottoms of my pants waterlogged. Nice, I think, and go fetch extra towels.

• Nearly dressed that morning, I get a call from a coworker to announce that The Big Thing at work that day has to be delayed due to the weather; no one will be arriving on time since the world has frozen over. Ooohhh, this is awesome, I think, and begin to remotely direct the office on the interim what-to-do's until I can arrive after class.

• Reaching my car that morning, I find that it is entombed in a quarter inch of ice. As I toil at uncrusting my car, I think, This is just awesome. I run out of time and steam after the windshield and leave the rest of my car looking like this:

Those weren't rain drops, it' was ice and it was like that everywhere.

• The drive out into the world that day was harrowing. I drove 20 mph on ice sheets as I passed 14-car pileups. I slid into place at my destination, and congratulated myself on thankgodfully not inflicting any injury to myself or others.

• Friday morning I'm walking to the car, woefully ignorant of the black ice blanketing the driveway, when I slip and come crashing down. I land squarely on my tailbone, and I think my wrist, and lie spread eagle in the driveway.  Winded and bruised, I groan and wonder how it is I've come to be on my back. Aaaaaawesome. It was just like a cartoon character, whose body slips and begins to fall before the head moves. There was a yard sale of my belongings across the driveway and I had to pick through the snow to recover my keys. I still can't sit straight on a chair.

• But, at the end of the week, there was this. Which, is indeed, just awesome.

Epic Lentil Fail

Sundays are my my day to play Domestic. I get caught up on chores, tidy, putter, clean and cook. This routine has become quite enjoyable and I happily plan my lunches and breakfasts for the coming week. I've begun to enjoy cooking, which may come as a shock to some. I know, I know, we'd better check the temperature in Hell.

I've discovered I'm not half bad at it. Yes, I need a recipe and yes, I pour over it numerous times before diving in. But, I've learned what I like and what I don't and have become more daring with just winging my measurements and eyeballing the cooking. I'm happy, and relieved, to say it generally works out. Take, for example, the pumpkin pasties.

Which is why I felt I could easily handle the delicious-looking lentil curry you see below. Lentils, curry, rice, yogurt. All things I enjoy and all things with which are easy to cook. And the fairly straightforward recipe from Whole Foods gave no indication that what lay ahead would be anything less than yummy.

Looks delicious, doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so too.

I've got this one in the bag, I thought. How's that saying go? Oh, yes. Pride goeth before the fall.

Admittedly, I altered it. I didn't cook that rice for an hour (what kind of rice needs an hour to cook?), I didn't soak those lentils overnight (my package said "ready to cook"), I also decided to skip the stove top and went to the CrockPot because it's, supposedly, more fool proof.

So, in went the lentils, the tomatoes, the onions, garlic, curry powder. I improvised with coconut milk.

When I came back some time later it all smelled wonderful. Then I lifted the lid. "Oh," I said. The looks of it? Not so wonderful. And the smell, lid once lifted, wasn't so bueno.

But I divvied it out into bowls, on top of rice, and told myself it would be great. Fantastic even!

Nope.

This doesn't look tasty, does it? It wasn't.

I have never successfully cooked a lentil recipe. This is about the fourth that has failed. I like lentils, really! And I happily eat them.  Just anywhere other than my own kitchen. Me and lentils? I've decided that we'll agree to disagree. I'm throwing in the lentil towel.

Wombat Blues, Vol. 3

A little known Wombat fact is that I love (love) making playlists. If this were the 80's, mix tapes would positively multiply about my house, car and backpack. Instead of this blog, I would be personally forcing a Sharpie-marked cassette into your hands, insisting that, no, really, you'll love it!

My playlist alter-persona rotates through The Musical Moron Twins and Rob Gordon. And, yes, I can easily organize my music autobiographically. But as Rob says, "the making of a great compilation tape...can take ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch." There are, indeed, a lot of rules.

Great mix-tapes are labors of love. They are simultaneously homage to your favorite musicians and a form of self expression. Using another person's words to say what you feel is a delicate thing. It's a  unique triumph when you hit upon that balance of tribute and originality.

This is a blues playlist I made a few years ago and it continues to be the favorite of all my anthologies. I obsessively worked with it for days before being satisfied with both its variety and cohesive theme.

So, it is my pleasure to present to you some rockin' Wombat Blues:

1. Jace Everett - Bad Things
2. The Black Keys - Howlin' For You
3. The Black Keys - When the Lights Go Out
4. The Beautiful Girls - Girl, Lately So Many Things Have Been Changing
5. Rocco Deluca and the Burden - Swing Low
6. Stevie Ray Vaughan - Dirty Pool
7. B.B. King - Chains and Things
8. Joe Bonamassa - Blues Deluxe
9. R.L. Burnside - Poor Black Mattie
10. Lightnin' Hopkins - Got to Move Your Baby
11. Bob Dylan - Beyond Here Lies Nothin'
12. Tom Waits - Heartattack and Vine
13. Dan Auerbach - Street Walkin'
14. Scott H. Biram - Blood, Sweat and Murder
15. John Mayall - Room to Move
16. The Rolling Stones - Midnight Rambler
17. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)

PS - You will indeed need room to groove and move to #15. I dare you to keep that head from bobbing.

Ineffable

6:22 AM

We’re not doing this, objects the conscious bit – the bit that sees illusion.

And with that, I’m awake.

For far too many gut-wrenching moments I am winded.  Dizzy and eyes-wide-open blind. The dark and silent room is at once too large, shrinkingly small and ear-ringingly noisy. The January air swims with heat and I feel branded. I want to cast about and clear the cob webs, but they’re sticky and they cling.

I stare at the red numbers of the clock: unassuming, solid and then finally changing. One minute of reality.

6:23 AM

I blink and see the run is rising. To be thrown into sunlight from a place securely lightless is disorienting, nauseating. Tossed from ship to shore I awake to nothing more than pale morning light. It was just a dream.

And yet I feel unhinged.

Dreams like these are heady things.

6:24 AM

I am exhausted. There are limits, you know.

12:33 PM

Tissue thin-images float around my head and settle, like dust, on my mind. I am stale with recollection and flattened with grief.

Curled snakelike at the back of every thought is 6:22 AM and really, that’s where I am. I never truthfully wake up.

You're a Mean One, Medaglia Doro

Only three days into the semester and I am tired. Barely past Syllabus Day and the name game and the establishment of the color coding system and I am up till midnight, awake at 6am and living hour-to-hour.

Although I shouldn't be, I am startled to find how quickly I have dropped back into prioritizing tasks based on energy level rather than availability of time. Not tonight, I think, but I'll put that on tomorrow's list. And then tomorrow becomes today, but today doesn't have enough energy to spare so it's pushed to a brighter tomorrow, and so on and so forth and that's how the road to hell is paved.

Only three days into the semester and already I'm rationing out my caffeine. Morning, afternoon, evening. I'm not addicted, just efficient. And I have no qualms about fueling this degree with caffeine.

Today's prescribed intake got a new twist on an old trick. Instant! Now, I must admit I am lacking in the instant coffee experience. But since the office's "coffee" barely passes as such, I'm exploring other non-pocketbook-breaking options to support my habit.

Voila!

How delightful! It's pocket-sized, it's practically real coffee, it's cheap, it's portable, it's strength variable. I was so pleased with myself for thinking of instant coffee to solve my Office Coffee Woes.

But a word to the wise: don't be cocky with this little jar of cute. Don't assume that since it's not really coffee it won't have the same caffeine content. And, please, don't add two (or maybe three) tablespoons when the directions clearly state one. If you do, your eyeballs will buzz. And that just won't do.

I haven't yet landed on the right instant-to-water-to-cream-to-sugar ratio. Updates to follow. The little jar of cute recommended lemon twists...which aren't readily available at the office, but thanks for the hot tip.

In other news: it continues to be cold. Freeze-the-snot-in-your-nose cold. It's the kind of cold that wipes away resolve. For example, it being nothing other than too damn cold was excuse enough to put off grocery shopping for two nights, even though the cat and I were both down to crumbs. 

I'm not kidding about the snot. Ten seconds outside and your once warm sinus tissue is suddenly frozen stiff and it's more comfortable to breathe through your mouth.

Snow Day

Or, as my low-brow side would exclaim: hash tag ermehgerd! Snerr!

At 6:45 AM, I tromped outside in my jim jams and boots to survey the damage.  The first cognizant thought of the morning really was that low-brow ermehgerd! quickly followed by shoveling.  I unfortunately snapped my photographic evidence after I had cleared away the 2 feet of snow surrounding my car. Therefore, my photo is left somewhat wanting. But it's still pretty:

The snow was to my mid-calf. And that's not just because I'm short, it's because there was a lot of effin' snow.

After shoveling for about thirty minutes I assessed my progress. I then weighed it against my potential success and the remaining carpet of snow, ostentatiously stretching out beyond my capacity for shoveling. So, I thought, Screw it. I'll just gun it out and hope for the best.

And that's just what I did. And it worked out well.

Back inside, my morning routine was set back an hour. And the coffee was cold. Alack. 

Disadvantage of Being an Adult, #43: your college calls a snow day, but you still have to go to work.

I flitted around making myself presentable and rockin' out to Janis Joplin. Thank you, KRCL. Even though the coffee was cold and the weather was frosty, it was all rather delightful.

Upon arriving to work, a coworker in the elevator studied me for a moment and asked, "You know who you look like?"

"Uh, no..." I say, curious.

"Jennifer Lawrence. You know who that is?" she asked.

I do indeed know who that is. While I don't quite see it, since I am so rarely likened to young, beautiful celebrities I'll take it. But the likeness is not for me to decide. What do you think?

Snerr Day 2013 ended with an impromptu jump out of the car (left blinking in the middle of a neighborhood road) to help a Mitsubishi Eclipse stuck in the gutter. I have these nifty insta-traction things, made of something akin to steel wool, that you stuff under a car's wheels to get some, uh- traction. The Mitsubishi Eclipse, thus unstuck, was very thankful. 

Who's got two thumbs and did her good deed for the day? This girl!

Word of the (Yester)Day

Enthusiasm – n. 1 strong interest or admiration 2 great eagerness 3archaic extravagant religious emotion

The word enthusiasm used to be confined to the ecclesiastical world. Not until about the 18^th century did it leap from clerical notes to our notes so we could use it to describe today’s verve, zeal and general pep in activity.

It comes directly from the Latin enthusiasmus and less directly from the Greek entheos, but let’s take the Greek because it’s easier to break down. En simply being “in” and –theos meaning “God” (think theology). Both the Latin and the Greek refer to divine inspiration, of being “in God,” a possession by, and communion with, God.

Early American revivalists were labeled as “enthusiasts” –originally a pejorative term condemning their perceived excessive religious emotion.  I’m glad it’s no longer derogatory. But I’m a little sad to learn that it has lost most its original connotation of religious emotion received from divine inspiration.

Yesterday I met two young men who couldn’t be much older than me, if they were at all. These young men were religious devotees, by choice and with strong interest and eagerness in their pursuit.  Their enthusiasm was abundantly clear – spilling over into their dress, their haircuts, their speech.

I’ve never been openly religious, so this very public display of religious devotion was fascinating. As if I were a child, I wanted to point to this and that and ask what, why, when and most intensely, how.

These two young devotees were refreshing, thought-provoking. It was not even the least of my business, but I so eagerly wanted to know why they chose to be men of God instead of any other number of possible things. I was, and still am, curious and inquisitive and risked being downright nosy, but I kept my manners. I smiled and nodded and smiled some more at every question they patiently answered.

One’s eyes were bright and earnest, the others often down turned, soft and unassuming. They spoke as their eyes suggested.

For thirty minutes these two young men spoke with me, a stranger. We spoke happily, steadily, and perhaps, you could say, even enthusiastically.

Coffee in Arcadia

When you don’t have regular half-and-half for your morning coffee, don’t dismay. Just dig a little deeper into that fridge to find leftover whipping cream (for those holiday treats) and your staple almond milk.

Turns out, a dash of whipping cream and a tot of almond milk is ah-may-zing in coffee. It’s certainly different that half-and-half, to be sure. Nutty and lighter than milk, so it also changes the body of the coffee. But it’s great. Especially if it’s too early to put on proper clothes and brave the 10 degree weather to go to the store.

Nearly every time I add milk to my coffee I think of Tom Stoppard, specifically, Arcadia. See, there’s a bit in that play about jam and rice pudding, it being a lesson in chaos theory:

When you stir rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself around making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink, just as before.

-Tom Stoppard, Arcadia. Act 1, scene 1

Tom Stoppard is a burr in my heart. I chase the themes and motifs and metaphors and deeper meanings through his plays, but just when I think I can catch them, they vaporize – smoke in my hands. I love Stoppard because he continues to be challenge; I chafe at Stoppard because he continues to be a challenge. His language is deceptively simple, his meanings rooted in more layers than the pages of the book itself.

That is why, eight years after first reading Arcadia I return to it with my morning coffee. Eight years later I am still contemplating the jam and rice pudding and its function to the play, and the function of chaos theory to my daily life.

I’m not sure I’m much closer to digging out the gem of meaning than I was eight years ago, but that’s okay. Stoppard and I continue to struggle, but in the meantime he’s left me with a daily reminder of why I do struggle. The outcome of the challenge changes with me, its meaning growing and adapting as my own roots reach still deeper connections between literature and life.

New Spectacles Year

The New Year rings in so many things. The Utah Inversion (yes, capitalized, it’s infamous), road-to-hell resolutions, the start of tax season and a renewed bank of money in Flexible Spending Accounts. What’s that I hear? Little cha-chings! of cash registers going off in the background as the new year is rung in with the boom of fireworks and the smack of kissing.

I always look forward to FSA season. I never set aside much and it’s always gone by mid-year. I plan ahead and then spend accordingly. This year? Glasses, baby! My eyeballs require enhanced magnification to focus in on those distant things, like street signs, so why not dress them up in enhanced style too?

Thus I have thrown myself into the hunt. I’ve dashed from here to there looking for statement glasses that, of course, state me. Whatever that may be. I am determined to make a très chic choice, and since I am officially in my late twenties, I need something reflective of this new level of sophistication and class. *cough* Yeah, that’s right.

This time around I am armed with technology to aid me in my search. Each step of the way I’ve whipped out my smarter-than-me phone to snap photos of myself to later present to friends and family for their opinions. I’ve never seen so many successive photo of myself. It’s rather unnerving. High resolution screens make me look fabulous, by the way.

I’ve not been inspired by much. However, these three caught my eye. (Ha! Get it? Do ya?) Pardon the glare.

Most of the people who have patiently been giving me their opinion vote for number three. Eight people can’t be wrong, can they?

I've always wanted to be the spinster at the end of the street in her shabby-chic Victorian house. These get me one step closer. And they go so well with the life I imagine myself living as a Steam Punkster. I can almost hear that taffeta swishing.

#whimsical 

I have a weakness for tortoise shell frames. I call these #thesafeoption

Cat eyes! Yes! Give me that old-time glamour! These will match a pair of jeans, or little black dress or that haze of cigarette smoke floating around the martini bar.

#thewinner

Today's Headlines

• I find myself relieved, and more than a little happy, to once again be single. And that's okay. There's an expansiveness in my life again that doesn't do much apparent other than let me breathe easy.
• Since I am a coffee snob, I am surprised to find that I like Folgers Special Roast coffee as much as, if not more than, the craft beans. And that's okay. Well done, Folgers.

That is all.

A Wednesday Masquerading as a Monday

I was once told that everyone has a story. That may be true, but some people’s stories are better than others. For example, let me tell you the story of my day. I leave it to you, dear reader, to judge its goodness.

 I woke up in a panicked dread. Not a great way to start a morning, let alone a year. This particular dream was frolicking in my real-life dread of transferring to a university I’m not all that enthused to attend. But more on that later.

So, up I jumped to see that the clock read late-thirty and thus began my real-life panic. Hurrah. Coffee, shower, coffee, hair, coffee, clothes, coffeecoffeecoffee. The holidays wrought havoc on my tenuous control on a morning routine.

In all the hustle, I didn’t really have time to throw together a respectable lunch for that appetite which I don’t respect at 8am but dearly fear at 1pm. Pumpkin PAH-sties made it in the bag, along with some peanut butter, string cheese and grapefruit. But when I skidded into work (looking fabulous for late-thirty), this bit of nonsense was waiting for me:

Yes. ‘Round here we call that a “hoard” of candy. Look closely and you’ll see organge KitKats. I know, craziness! To answer your question, no, they’re not that good. Shame. The giant candy cane that could be easily weaponized cracks me up.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past, holiday candy haunts the office ostensibly looking as fresh as it did two weeks ago. You can’t walk two feet without identifying something dressed up in red cellophane and surely chocolate covered. So, go ahead and ask me how that poorly packed lunch worked out.

Well, I’ll tell you. I carefully timed my chocolate snackage so that my blood sugar wouldn't ever truly fall and I wouldn't know how hungry I actually was. It’s a skill, thank you very much.

As I studiously worked at my desk and rationed out my chocolate intake, my phone would periodically chime its inoffensive mild chime to tell me that it’s my move in Words with Friends. Actually, Words with Dad. It makes me smile to see that it’s my dad, my 66 year old dad who cannot use a computer, who has completed his turn in the Words game on his newly-acquired iPad. It was an out-of-left field Christmas gift and I've spent several nights talking myself hoarse teaching him how to use it.

Last night I introduced him to the 21^st century version of Scrabble. We sat across the kitchen table from each other, on our respective iDevices, and tapped and swiped and dragged the letters into words. For points.

Our game continues to this evening so that delightful, inoffensive chime continues. This Grinch’s heart has grown two sizes since my dad got his iPad. Swelled with pride, I see his emails come in, participating in a conversation conducted over long distances, without preamble and with the aid of photos. Participating in a conversation about potential new glasses, he shares his opinion (he doesn't like them) and take the time to tap out suggestions for colors and shapes. And tonight, we casually play Scrabble over the incredible feat of touch screens and wireless internet. This human’s experience just got a little richer.

And thus, dear reader, concludes the Story of Today. I sit now with a fluffy warm cat on my lap and contemplate improving tomorrow’s lunch. 

What I Found: Little Films on a Little Budget Which I Now Heart

Last night, being the traditional night of holding a wake for the dead year, I ended up on my small-ish couch, keeping vigil via video.

I had intended to close the year with The Birdcage, but Netflix cut off its streaming so I turned *ahem* pirate *ahem* and had to allow time to, um- collect the film before its watching.

So I busied myself with the films that Netflix hadn’t cut from streaming and stumbled upon two delightful, charming, fresh and just plain sweet films: Unicorn City and Alter Egos.

 

http://www.unicorncity.com/ 

http://alteregosmovie.com/

I’m still trying to find information on these films – find their back story that is. (Ha! You’ll get that pun once you watch Unicorn City). Neither were Sundance, as far as I can tell, which is puzzling considering that Unicorn City was filmed in SLC.

Side note: even though the Sundance Film Festival descends upon Utah every January and is probably what puts us on the map, not many movies are filmed in Northern Utah. So it’s just bizarre to watch a film and be able to say, “Hey! That’s Hastur’s! I’ve shopped there many-a-time!” and “Hey! That’s Yoshi’s! I’ve eaten there many-a-time!” and finally, to be able to recognize those distant shots of the city like the back of your hand.

Things I do know:

• Unicorn City has ties to Napoleon Dynamite. The writer/director worked as the Storyboard Director on N.D.
• Alter Egos has an impressive list of “Official Selections” from various filmed festivals, but Sundance is not one of them. Again, puzzling.
• The two main characters of Alter Egos also worked together with the same writer/director, Jordan Galland, on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead.
• Alter Egos is from Kevin Smith's production company. Bonus points!

That’s about it. But that’s ok. While I love to trace the cinema breadcrumbs through IMDB and the interweb at large, it has its limits.

Unicorn City weaseled its way into my heart almost immediately. Tabletop gamer, Voss, struggles to keep his guild together while fighting off a scheming rival and land a big-boy job at a gaming company. He concocts a plan to prove to his guild, the company he’s interviewing with, and maybe even himself, that he is capable of leadership. He creates a utopian society in the mountains of the Wasatch, named Unicorn City, where he can lead the group peaceably and his guild can truly live out their character’s lives in full-on LARPing style.

U.C. also has fun and original score, which I might have to track down on the iTunes so I can jam out to dodecahedral dice songs. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.

This movie achieves a level of sweetness I think only low budget, big heart films can. It’s not encumbered by competing visual elements and you’re not distracted by recognizable actors. It certainly holds a special place for gamers, but I think it’s relatable regardless of your hobby. And, the actors are in their character costumes for most of the film, so you get this kind of awesomeness:

Admit it. Now you’re interested.

Alter Egos is wry and equally unencumbered by big budget flash and shine. Skilled storytelling and graceful cinematography makes this film feel bigger than it is. It’s full of unexpected humor and spot-on acting.

These are two films I’ll end up owning, I just know it. Perhaps a belated Christmas gift to moi. 

Last night was a success. As far as party-of-one things go. I also made some first-ever New Year’s resolutions, but I’m not telling.