Sick B*tch

But know that vengeance shall be mine. ...Oh, how it will be mine!

2012-03-07T15:42:00.000-05:00

I shall begin with a brief disclaimer: ~~I am about to talk about things that may make some people uncomfortable.~~
If you don't like or agree with what I'm saying, feck off.

No cartoons today. I'm too angry to make them funny.

I have been in a bad mood. To be more precise, an ANGRYsort of bad mood.

Lemme back up.

I had a stash of vitamins* (yes, I know, leave me alone)that should have lasted me quite a long time. And then new vitamin*-friendcalled me one night last week and asked could she please *borrow* a few becauseshe had run out and her supplier wasn't due to refill her stash until theweekend, and she was about to start withdrawing. Because I am a ~~nice bloodyperson~~ complete moron, I said ok, and gave her several of them (lessthan she had asked for, but still quite a few). She swore she would get them backto me by the weekend.

Guess what.

She didn't.

ok maybe some hastily drawn piccatures of how angry I am...

It's been two weeks since she took them. I know she was having some personal issues and I was prepared to be lenient....

BUT THEN: Last Saturday, vitamin*-~~friend~~ nemesissays she has half of the thingies she owes me. I said I couldn't come get themthat night because I was already out, but if she was willing to throw them inmy mailbox (like old vitamin*-muffin used to :*O), I would throw her afew bucks for gas. She said cool--no problem.

Later I get a text that she had to do some family thing, soshe gave my thingies to her best friend to drop off. Then around midnight, shetexts again and says that Friend said the drop-off was done.

I go check my mailbox: No money. No thingies.

I don't get angry very often. Anyone who knows me well willtell you that you would need to perform some truly epic feats of douchebaggeryto get me angry or offended. Some of us are just like that.

The problem with people like me is that when someone managesto push me into actual ANGER, the reaction is like 100x what it would be in anormal person. A normal person gets angry and talks smack about you behind yourback until they eventually get over it. Me? I get angry and I will RUIN YOURF**KING LIFE.

Of course the friend says she totally dropped the stuff off.And now vitamin*-nemesis has gone from "I swear I'll talk to her" toavoiding my calls and texts. And she still owes me the rest of my thingiesback.

I cannot even begin to put my rage into words. Paul#2 (we'respeaking again, against my better judgment....) says I shouldbreak both of their legs and then run over their dogs and burn their houses down, and I must admit I find that course of actionincredibly appealing. I still don't know who the friend is, though. I have mysuspicions, and once they are confirmed SUCH VENGEANCE SHALL I RAIN DOWN UPONHER YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT.

When it comes to Serious Vengeance, I have no morals. None.

I may or may not keep all y'all updated on this, dependingon how illegal it gets.....

He's a good man. And thorough.

2012-02-28T23:18:00.001-05:00

Not much to report on this end...... I am currently a slave to Downton Abbey. Actually waiting for the season 2 finale to load so I can watch it before I go to bed. I've been neglecting blogger again, but I shall try my best to catch up with all you wonderful people this week. To make up for my lack of bloggering, everyone on my mailing list shall receive something nice over the next week and a half or so, for St. Paddy's Day. :D

In other news, everyone in my house is sick, and everyone at work is sick (colds, bronchitis, sinus infections...). I have not fallen prey to any disease as of yet (::knockonwood::), although my nose is permanently cranky since we have the heat on most of the time. 'Tis currently slathered in baby bum cream.

stylin'!

I received a lovely package of goodies from Désespérée de Maigrir--a nice little collection of tea, some lip balm, and DELICIOUS strawberry jam. I made a snack of it this evening with melted peanut butter and ice cream.
This, my friends, is what PMS looks like:

I 'spose I should give a brief update of how things are going in the ED recovery department....
At the moment, it's going pretty well. I've had good and bad days, but as time goes on, the bad days become fewer and fewer. I have thrown myself into my fiction writing, and that helps immensely. At the moment, the fairy book is in the process of final editing and illustration, book 3 is nearing completion, and I have made a good start on book 4.

With my mind focusing on all that, I can honestly say that most days I just don't care about the ED stuff. I eat when I'm hungry, I allow myself the occasional junky food and don't feel guilty about it, and I think I'm maintaining my weight. I have no idea what that weight actually is, as I have not stepped on the scale since around Christmas, but I still fit comfortably in my 0 and 00 trousers, so I'm guessing around 105-108. And right now, that means nothing to me. So yeah, recovery is going well.

....On a less happy note, my cat had a rather bad trip to the vet recently (for her annual checkup). The vet says shehas an enlarged thyroid, but that it's likely caused by a thyroid issuethat'll be easy to medicate once it's diagnosed. In order to diagnose itproperly, Callisto needs blood work, but since she has a heart murmur that isnow an arrhythmia, and an anger management/anxiety problem, she needs to besedated for things like blood work.

This means that the blood work is going to cost about$500.00.

I do not have $500.00. I have of course started saving witheach paycheck, but I don't really make a lot of money and I have rather a lotof bills, so the saving is not going too well.

With that in mind, I have started up an internet shop:I'm selling mugs now with some of my pictures from this blog. More shall be added soon, and I shallalso take requests for other mug designs. I might put some of the pictures fromthe LotR post up on mugs, but they'll probably be limited edition because Ihave a feeling those could get me sued...

Kitty says buy mugs!!

I was there the day the strength of Men failed.

2012-02-23T13:31:00.000-05:00

Sometimes when I'm watching telly or a film, there areevents in the plots that irritate me because they could easily have beenavoided. Now I know the obvious issue with that statement is that if events hadunfolded differently and more efficiently, there probably wouldn't be a film ortv program about it in the first place, but still......

What I'm trying to say here is that Elrond is an @s$hole,and EVERY SINGLE BAD THING that happens in Lord of the Rings is his fault. Thewhole messy business of the one ring--Gondor being without a king forcenturies, Sauron re-rising as a bad dude, Frodo and Sam's near-deathexperience taking the ring to Mordor, Gollum becoming Gollum, and Bilbo's lifebeing ruined forever; not to mention the deaths of Boromir, Theoden, andcountless people of Middle Earth--ALL of it is Elrond's fault.

After the first war with Sauron, after Isildur cut the evilring from the bad guy's hand, he and his buddy Elrond strolled over to MountDoom to throw the ring back in the fire and be rid of its evil forever.

and then, presumably,

umm, what?

What Elrond OBVIOUSLY should have done:

Problem solved.

Carol-Anne, I have asked you to keep the children quiet today! And for Christ's sake, get them out of the gaaaaaaaarden!!!!

2012-02-17T14:07:00.007-05:00

I gave my mothera bit of a fright the other morning.

(Actually"bit of a fright" might be an understatement...)

You know howsometimes you have a really vivid dream right before you wake up in themorning, and the stuff happening in the dream kind of mimics stuff that's beengoing on in real life at the time, so when you wake up it takes you a minutebefore you can separate the dream from real life? Like for example, I oftenhave dreams in which I find and purchase super exciting stuff likeBaroque-style gowns, epic shoes, or extremely rare and expensive My Little Ponies,and wake up thinking I actually DID find and buy these items for a low price.And then when I wake up properly, I get kind of depressed when I realize it wasonly a dream.

The othermorning, when I went back to bed at around 5.00 after a trip to the loo, I hada dream that my colourist, Greg had died. Aside from the fact that he is theone and only person on the planet whom I trust with colouring my hair, I adoreGreg as a friend. We're both kind of snarky and sarcastic and love to gossipwhilst I'm getting my hair did. We've even gone to see the Pogues together. So naturally, in the dream I got quiteupset about his passing. Like REALLY upset. And because sometimes in dreams,your reactions to things can be quite a bit more extreme than they would be in reallife, I was like FRANTICALLY upset. (I don't get frantic, even under extremestress or in life-threatening situations.)

Most of the timeafter these types of dreams, it does take me quite a while to sort the two out(more than it probably takes normal people, I think). But the other morning...Perhaps it was a result of the sleeping pills? Or just a side effect of havingepic sleep problems in general? Whatever the reason, that morning when I wokeup again at around 6.00, my brain refused to separate the dream from real life ever after the normal waiting period.

My brain alsofailed to shake the frantic-epic-panic-attack that Greg's death had caused. Iwas wide awake, I knew I had just had a dream about Greg's death, but I COULDNOT figure out where the dream ended and real life began. That made the panicattack worse.

So, naturally:

You know whensomething sudden and startling shakes you out of a deep sleep, you get thatheart-stopping FEAR? That particular kind of terror that is only caused bynightmares.

Yeah I'm prettysure Mum almost had a heart attack.

While her brainwas struggling to (a) wake up properly, (b) make sense of what I was saying,and (c) respond in the appropriate fashion; my brain decided to figure out howto separate the dream from real life.

Funny story:

This one time, abunch of us stayed up at my friend, Number2's house in Upstate New York. Hisparents were away, so we were having the craic wandering around in thewilderness, dressing up in Number2's mother's old 70's and 80's clothes she hadstashed away in the attic,

and drinkingourselves into a stupor. Even my friend T was drinking, and she NEVER drinks.

We retired tobed at around 2.30/3 in the morning--T and M in the spare room, S downstairs onthe sofa, and me in withNumber2. Myself and Number2 stayed up until like 4 in the morning finishing offthe two bottles of wine we had stashed in his room and trying to convince the old and quite contrary VCR to play Harry Potter. (I'm amazed we didn't keepanyone else up with the racket we were making trying to get that VCR to workbefore we eventually passed out.)

I had a reallybad dream. I was locked up in some kind of hospital, and awful horror-movietype things were happening all around me, and then someone started screaming.Like SCREAMING--horrific, blood-curdling screaming. It was so horrific if wokeme up.

Except thescreaming didn't stop when I woke up.

My brainactually cannot recall the sound of the screaming. It was that terrifying.

I tried to wakeNumber2, but he sleeps like the dead and so after shaking did not work, Ipunched him in the arm several times until he woke up and then made him go outinto the hallway first to investigate. The screaming was coming from the spareroom, and the more awake and alert I got, I realized it sounded like two peoplescreaming. To be precise, it sounded like both M and T were screaming.

S was first tothe scene, which still amazes me as she was downstairs, in the dark, ALONE, andyet she still rushed TOWARDS the scariness. By the time Number2 and I gotthere, the screaming had stopped and S was in the bedroom doorway asking T andM what the heck happened.

T was sitting upin her bed, the blankets pulled up to her chin, with a look of confusion andterror on her face. M was standing in the closet looking kind of dazed.

(Now before I goon, I should perhaps mention that M has a long history of intense sleep-walkingand sleep-talking. (Sleepovers at M's house were super fun in high school.)

[His exact words--none of that was fabricated.]

I feel bad forM's mom. There was a while there that she kept finding all of M.'s pillows atthe bottom of the basement stairs every morning for like 6 months. And thenthere were the times she'd be sat in the living room watching tv, and M (whose bedroomwas on the other side of the living room wall) would start banging on the wallsand screaming swear words.

Oh and mypersonal favourite:

The time M knocked his bedroom door clean off its hinges. And that didn't even wake up him up.)

T, still shakenfrom the whole incident, said she had half-woken up to M wandering around theroom in the dark. He wandered into the closet and then started banging aroundand shouting "ARE YOU SERIOUS? ARE YOU SERIOUS, T?!?!?" etc., and soT not being properly awake, she got frightened and started screaming, andthen M started screaming louder.

I'm guessingthat's when I woke up.

M.'sversion: "I don't know what was wrong with T, I was just getting up to go to thebathroom."

He managed tosay that with a straight face, while still in the closet.

S managed tocalm T down and the rest of us--dazed and shaken and still kind ofconfused--went back to bed. The next morning, once we were all fully awake, wediscussed the events of the night until all of us were doubled over and sobbingwith laughter.

That incidentstill makes me laugh quite a bit, actually.

Statcounter is really fun. It shows you more detailed info than the Blogger stats (although the downside is that there's a limit to how many records it keeps, unless you pay for it). I am greatly amused by some of the ways in which people have arrived at my blog when searching the internet. I think my favourite ever was "nude man bears explosion". And A LOT of people search for images of women in electric chairs. And baby bunnies. It's a bit disturbing how many people search for baby bunnies. And recently someone read my entire blog over the course of 2 days. I'm not gonna lie--I felt immensely flattered. :)

So, that's two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering, and four Colditz salads.

2012-02-14T11:45:00.001-05:00

This survey is fromTempest:

1. Have you ever talkedyour way out of a ticket (bad grade, punishment)? If so, how?

Oh goodness...adding"bad grade" and "punishment" just made my answer potentially severalpages long. I've always been one of those @ssholes who refuses to abide bysilly things like rules when they interfere with my own personal wants andneeds, and my general attitude is such that I tend to get away with this sortof behaviour about 98% of the time. High school is probably the bestexample--the teachers and other various authority figures all eventually gaveup giving me punishments like failing grades or detentions. By the end ofsenior year, my homeroom/history teacher was actually starting class 15 minuteslate to accommodate my morning schedule. And the vice principal and I came toan "agreement" in which I never had to serve detention ever (becauseby then I had accumulated so many detentions that if I actually startedshowing up to those detentions, he would have been stuck after school every dayof the week for the foreseeable future).

Not many teachers had a problem withthis, either. One who did was the evil troll-hag that lurked in the basement of myfirst high school, the one who tried to give me detentions for"non-uniform" shirts and shoes pretty much every day. I stoppedshowing up to those detentions fairly early on and the Troll-hag complained tothe principal, Sister Ellen. I heard from my fav teacher, Sister Linda, thatapparently Sister Ellen told Troll-Hag to just forget about it and leave mealone because "there's just no point."

(≧∇≦)

I think my fav ever thoughis how I passed geometry sophomore year.

Mr. Crucio and I did notget along. This was when I still attended the Catholic high school, and in thatschool, the teachers rotated cafeteria monitoring. (We didn't have monitors inthe public school, and I'm not really sure what the administrators of theCatholic school thought we would get up to if left to our own devices...) Mostof the teachers on monitor duty just hung out with the lunch ladies, oroccasionally the "cooler" teachers would mingle with the students. (Iliked it best when Sister Linda monitored; she would sit at my table to eatlunch.)

But Mr. Crucio took hiscafeteria monitoring duties very seriously. On the days he monitored us, itwent from lunch time in a school cafeteria to lunch time at a maximum securitypenitentiary.

He actually would not allowus to leave the cafeteria.

Which was totally stupid,because a lot of us liked to occasionally go to the library during lunch (read:sneak outside to smoke; I'm sure there were good students who actually went tothe library, but I was not one of them) or go to the school store and buycandy. Or I dunno, go to the bathroom. Or leave the cafeteria early to stop at ourlockers. None of the other teachers ever stopped us from leaving the cafeteriaduring the lunch period. Just Mr. Crucio.

The simple solution to thiswas to leave the cafeteria via the back door. Sure he'd yell and stuff when hesaw you leaving, but by the time he shuffled all the way across the cafeteria,you'd be well on your way upstairs.

But after a few weeks, Mr.Crucio caught on to this and started monitoring from the middle of thecafeteria, where he could cover both exits. That still didn't stop me fromleaving as soon as his back was turned, so eventually it became his personalmission to make sure Mich stayed in the cafeteria.

Game on, b*tch.

I never understood whyeveryone else was afraid of "getting in trouble." I mean what theheck could the teachers actually do to you? They weren't allowed to usecorporal punishment. Sure Sister Clara had ignored that law, but I hadnever encountered any other teachers that hit us. So what else could they do? Yell at you? Oh man, I'm scared now!

-_____-

Mr. Crucio got more andmore intense at cafeteria monitoring to the point where he was pretty muchcircling my lunch table like an effing shark to make sure I stayed there.Eventually, I got fed up with this. I attempted reasoning with him. I justwanted to go to the library; none of the other teachers had a problem withstudents leaving the cafeteria before the end of the lunch period; none of the other lunch monitors saidwe weren't allowed to leave; etc., etc. But Mr. Crucio would not be swayed.Even when his monitoring-partner (my gym teacher) tried to argue my case ("For God's sake, just let her leave."), he would notbudge.

And so Mich lost her temper.In front of half of the school.

Ever watch that episode ofFawlty Towers with the Germans?

Yes, ladies and gents--Istood up on the table, gave Mr. Crucio a sieg heil,

and then did that walkright out of the cafeteria with him too stunned to even chase after me andyell.

The next morning I receiveda notice that I was suspended from school for a week. (My thoughts: SCORE, week-long vacation! :D)

That afternoon, I receiveda notice that I was no longer suspended for a week, but instead would have athree-day in-school suspension.

The morning after that, Ireceived a notice that I would have a one-day in-school suspension, with ahandwritten note at the bottom from the principal: "PLEASE just stay inthe cafeteria when he's there."

(I thought I had savedthat notice, but after an intense search of my bedroom I have come up with nothing.)

Throughout all of this, Mr.Crucio was my geometry teacher. I suck at math in general, but I suck twice asbad at geometry. That plus Crucio's blind hatred of me resulted in a bigfat F at the end of the year.

So the day before the yearended, I did what I always did with the teachers who were threatening to failme--paid them a visit and talked them into giving me a passing grade. Mostly Ijust had to do this for math and Spanish and sometimes science, and it usuallytook no more than 10 minutes. But--not surprisingly--Mr. Crucio did not want togive me a passing grade.

It took all of my restraintnot to come right out and call him a MORON.

Mich: "You are awarethat you are the only geometry teacher in the school, yes?"

Mr. Crucio:

Mich: "Do you reallywant to have me in your class AGAIN next year?"

Mr. Crucio:"Jesus..."

And that is how Mich got aD in geometry.

2. Peter Piper picked apeck of pickled peppers. Why the heck would he do a thing like that?

- OBVS so I could cook theminto a delicious stir fry.

3. You hear strange noisesand run to your neighbor's place to find out what's going on. She's clutching amarble lamp, and her husband lies dead on the floor. You've seen suspiciousbruises on her before, but she doesn't have any now. What do you do?

Casually mention thatlye and hydrofluoric acid can do wonders. And that as far as I know, no one everdoes any intense hiking on this one particular trail at the Ramapo MountainState Forest. The trail isn't even actually marked....

Oh yeah and I didn't seenothin.

4. Andy Griffith, Dick vanDyke, or Lucille Ball?

Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuucy!!!

5. Is the glass half emptyor half full? What on earth is in that glass, anyway?

Either way, WHERE THE HECKIS MY WAITER because obviously I need a refill. Allagash White, and pour itCORRECTLY if you please.

6. Lots of casual friendsor a few close ones?

Idk.....depends on my mood.

I received two lovelypackages this weekend, and shall now gush over the contents of said packages. Iam not doing this to show off, mind you--this is so the angels who sent thepackages are getting proper thanks and appreciation.

I got Peri's package onFriday.

There was some lovelymanicure things; lotion, which says I should use it sparingly but which I havebeen using every half hour; some delicious colours of embroidery thread; a lovely pair of earrings; a littledog-money-squirrel thingy in a little house; a fun turtle craft project; and a FANTASTIC diary.

...so much win...

Then Jeanne's packagearrived on Saturday:

I got some awesome newbooks, a cigarette rolly thingy (1st attempt = epic fail, but sure try tryagain), some yummy lip balm, Hello Kitty ribbon I've been wearing in my hair,

a set of pink bracelets, and this GORGEOUS set ofknitwear:

You gals definitely spoil me far too much. <3

This is my own private domicile and I will not be harassed........b*tch!

2012-02-09T17:00:00.003-05:00

There is but ONE fun thing left from the hoard-pressies, so if you haven't joined the mailing list yet.....
Tell Mich to send you stuff!

Some survey thingies, because I have blog-writer's block...

This one is from my bff Jeanne:

1) If you could be a superhero, who would it be?

Can I be a super villain instead? Obvs, Harley Quinn.

2) If you woke up one day and found that you have become invisible,

what is the first thing that you would do?

Torture Little Sis to death, then Boss; then follow Stephanie March around until I get to see her nude.

3) If you were marooned on an island with just one person,

who would you want it to be?

That's a very difficult decision. Do I go with someone yummy, or someone entertaining? Keeping in mind that eventually I'm probably going to end up killing and eating whoever is on the island with me when I go insane/get bored....

I think I have to go with Wolverine.

4) If you could do anything OR wish for anything that would come true, what would you wish?

That Mummy would win the Megamillions.

5) What was the last movie you watched?

The Help. Little Sis promised I would be balling by the end of it, so I spent the entire film in absolute terror thinking it would have a horrific ending with a lynching or something. It didn't, and I didn't end up balling. Nice movie.

6) If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?

Pay off my credit card bills and my car and my outstanding medical bills, pay off Mum's bills and her mortgage, pay for Little Sis's college education (providing I haven't killed her yet after my stint of invisibility); and then buy a nice little cottage on the coast of Maine, and a nice sailboat.

7) Do you have any strange phobias?

Yes.

8) What's your Favourite Car?

1968 Pontiac Firebird. And it MUST have the bird on the bonnet.

9) What do you want to be when you grow up?

Idk. Not this.

10) Tits or Arse, or both?

Yeah I definitely have to go with boobs.

...I realize thistook ages, but I'm finally accepting the blogger award from Peri (thanks,m'lady!!).

7 things thatmake me happy:

- my kiikiiiis

- My Little Pony

- writing

I got a package from Elk in the mail over the weekend, with some of the original illustrations from the book. There was much squealing, and I had to dig out the book in its original form so it could meet the pictures.

- birds,

... and especially owls

- tea

- the sea

I want to live by the sea one day.

...and,

- music. I would DIE without that radio station.

...and I'm supposed to nominate 5 morerecipients, but I'm doing 7 instead so it matches the list of things I like:

- Jeanne

- Honor

- Kazehana

- Elk

- Anne
- Matthew
- Tracy

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand one more

This one is fromBersercules, my pretend boyfriend:

What is thefirst TV show you ever saw?

Most likely some murder mystery. Mum is an addict.

What is yourfavourite TV show?

At the moment, Breaking Bad, but it changes...

Who do you thinkis the greatest character ever conceived in TV?

Frank Black. DUH.

Who is thegreatest villain? (in TV)

That's a tough one. Do we mean favourite villain asin the one I like most, or the one who is actually the baddest mf'er on theblock? I think imma have to go with Lucy Butler, because she probably freaks me out the most.

Best weapon in aTV show?

Biggest pet peevesin TV?

The annoying wives of the main male characters on cop shows--the onesthat get all upset that their hubbies are spending too much time out fightingcrime instead of time at home with family. CRY ME A FECKIN RIVER, likeseriously, you KNEW your hubbie was a crime fighting bad ass when you gotmarried, so why the eff do you suddenly develop a problem with it later?!? Someexamples of the wives I want to punch in the face are Elliott Stabler's wife,Agent Hotchner's wife (but she's dead now, so it's all better), Frank Black'swife....this list could probably go on and on.

Did you realiseI was riping off R.gers questions?

I don't even know who that is.

If you were acharacter from any TV show who would you be and what would you do?

I think Iwould have to be Ignignokt, since I apparently channel his spirit already. TheMoon rulz #1!!

What is the onequestion you love to answer?

"Can I get you a drink?" YES PLEASE.

If you could beone animal what animal would you eat?

As long as I get to eat all the otheranimals, I don't care what I am.

Did you everwatch the movie This is Spinal Tap?

No.

Using keys to gouge expletives onto another's vehicle is a sign of trust and friendship.

2012-02-03T10:28:00.000-05:00

So remember that time I cleaned out some of my hoard and gave stuff away? Well there was one thing I saved until now, so some of you shall be getting something in the mail quite soon... With that in mind, if you would like to join my address book, you can send me your info (anonymously, if you like), and thus be included whenever I send out random things like Christmas cards or other little goodies. If you join in the next couple of days, you'll get something over the next week or so! ;)

Here's a fun recipe that I saw one day watching some cooking show on PBS:
Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Glaze Icing

You will need:
- Muffin pans
- 1 stick of butter, softened
- 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 or 3 lemons
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- about 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

To make:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour the muffin pan(s)--depending on how big you want the cupcakes, you can use a tin for 6 giant ones, or (what I prefer) a tin for 12 smaller ones, plus I usually end up with enough to fill another tin of 6 cupcakes. I also use cupcake cups instead of greasing the pan because it's easier than risking all the cupcakes getting stuck to the pan, but you don't have to use them.

- In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar and butter. Add the eggs one at a time, blending the first one in before adding the second one.

- In a smaller bowl, mix together the yogurt, vanilla, and the zest and juice of one lemon.

- In another smaller bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder and salt.

- Add a little bit of the flour mixture to the butter and sugar and mix it in well. Then add a little of the yogurt/lemon mixture and mix it well, and then keep alternating adding a little at a time until everything is combined.

- Using a small spoon, put the batter into the muffin tins and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes (a little longer if you make larger cupcakes), or until a toothpick stuck in the middle of one of the cupcakes comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the tins for about 10-15 minutes, and then let them cool completely on a baking rack. If you used paper cupcake cups, take those off all the cupcakes. When they're completely cooled down, move on to the icing...

- In a small bowl, stir the confectioners sugar with the juice from 2 or 3 lemons. You want the icing to be pretty runny, so use as much lemon juice as you need to make sure it's properly drippy.

- Then drizzle the icing over the cupcakes. Delish!

I stole that photo from PBS because my camera ate my photo of the final product...

If you make smaller cupcakes like I do, it usually yields about 18 of them, which makes each cupcake with the lemon glaze about 160 - 170 calories.

♥

Someone call the ambulance; there's gonna be an accident......

2012-01-31T11:06:00.001-05:00

My mother used to work withthis guy named Vinnie. I have only vague memories of him, as I was only fouryears old at the time. She worked with Vinnie at a printing company inCarlstadt, and I remember him having dark eyes and dark hair, and wearing nicesuits, but I don't remember if he was handsome or not, or how I even gauged handsomeat the age of four.

On weekends, Mum often hadlots of friends over on Friday or Saturday nights, or she would meet those samefriends for dinner and some drinks at Il Villagio (it wasn't that fancy back then...). Some of my earliestmemories are of Il Villagio--in particular memories of falling asleep in thebooth after my dinner of noodles with butter (which wasn't even on the menu,but they made it anyway because it was among the only 4 things I would eat in general{plain pasta, potatoes in any form, chicken nuggets, and chocolate}). I havevivid memories of laying down in the booth while Mum and her friends ate anddrank, and of being showered with salt (Mum uses a TON of salt).

I was in love with Vinnie.I was actually convinced that we were getting married, and I told him so oneweekend when Mum had him and a bunch of other friends over for barbequed steakand drinks. The adults present, of course, just laughed because they probablythought it was cute--how adorable, this kind of odd and sullen-faced littlegirl wants to marry handsome (let's just say he was) 30-something Vinnie fromaccounts payable.

I did not find this funnyin the slightest. I fully intended to marry Vinnie. But Mum sent me off to bed and made mesay goodnight to him, and I recall feeling kind of pissed off that no one hadtaken me seriously.

That was the second time Itried to run away.

Vinnie had a silver sportscar. I knew which one it was because he had shown it to Mum and me when he arrived thatevening. So I packed some essentials into my Care Bears backpack after Mum hadsent me up to bed, and then crept downstairs, out the front door, and foundVinnie's car in the driveway. Lucky for me, he had left his silver sports carunlocked.

I presume I fell asleep inthe backseat, because my memory goes blank there. The next thing I recall iscoming home (with Vinnie) to my mother and not understanding why she was mad atme when she was the one who ruined my wedding.

'Tis interesting what a child's mind remembers.

Recipe time!

I came up with this all bymyself--a tasty and slightly healthier version of French fries. I havesuccessfully served this to children without telling them that it containsStrange Vegetables, and they all liked it. 'Tis also very easy to make.

You will need:

- Parsnips

- Olive oil

- Salt and Pepper

- Rosemary, sage, thyme,and oregano

To prepare:

- Preheat your oven to 350degrees F. I usually do these in the toaster oven, but you can do them in theregular oven as well. I line the baking pan with foil, because it makes foreasier cleaning, and grease it with just a tiny bit of the olive oil rubbed onthe foil.

- Cut up the parsnips intoFrench fry shapes. I make them just about the size of Wendy's French fries, butyou can really make them whatever size you want--just make sure you adjust thecooking time.

- Dump all the cut upparsnips in a mixing bowl. Add enough olive oil to coat them evenly, but nottoo much oil or they end up too greasy (last time I made this, I used about 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil for 6 smallish-medium parsnips). Then sprinkle on some rosemary, thyme,and sage to your taste. And add a pinch of oregano (I'm not crazy about lots oforegano, so I only use a tiny pinch, but you can really use as much as youwant). Mix it up together so the parsnips are evenly coated with the herbs. Addsome salt and pepper as well.

- I prep the baking pan bythrowing in a tiny bit of whipped butter (after coating the foil very lightlywith the oil), and then sticking the pan in the oven for a couple minutes justuntil the butter melts, but you don't have to use the butter. I just think itadds a bit of a nicer flavour to the parsnips.

- Then dump the parsnipsinto the pan, and try to spread them out evenly. Cook about 30 minutes (less ifyour French fries are smaller, longer if they're larger).

Delicious!

♥

That would be an ecumenical matter.

2012-01-27T22:29:00.002-05:00

xoxoxocd sent me GORGEOUS print of one her watercolours.

Y'all should check out her blog--she's really amazingly talented.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
You know how sometimes when you partake of certain smokey treats, some things are like 1,000x funnier?

When I'm not boarding up the windows, running from black helicopters, and scouring the house for listening devices, I am in fact prone to intense fits of laughter.

Like the kind of laughing fits that leave you writhing on the floor and sobbing. And you never know what's going to set off these laughing fits. It could be anything.

Jump ahead to 50 seconds into this song:

I happened to catch this in a scene of Breaking Bad after a nighttime smokey treat.

And I almost died laughing. So I thought I'd share. :D

Sometimes you really just need a good laugh.

Hope y'all have a nice weekend! I'm behind on comment replies again, but I shall try my best to catch up. I have a busy-ish weekend ahead, what with getting my hair did and going on a shopping expedition for Jeanne's birthday basket, but then I think it's good to keep busy.

xo!
♥

King illegal forest to pig wild kill in it a is!

2012-01-24T00:29:00.002-05:00

I'm not going to b*tch about the football because I know it's a Big Thing, and I also know that as an American disliking football the way that I do, I am in the minority.

Having grown up watching rugby, I find that I am simply unable to take football seriously. They seem like rather similar sports, except that in football they stop the game every 8 seconds, and they have the players padded up to their eyeballs presumably so they do not get injured.

. . .

Rugby players do not wear padding.

But regardless of all that, I am still a Yank and so I will proclaim my allegiance to a football team if pressed to do so. I will support the Eagles, and I get a lot of sh*t from a lot of different people here in the NY/NJ area because of that. So now I shall explain myself.

I flat out refuse to support either of our "local" teams--the NY Giants or the NY Jets. Why? Here's their stadium:

Why oh why does New York get TWO teams and New Jersey gets NONE, despite the fact that both teams call New Jersey home?!? I find this preposterous and refuse to support such a grievous insult.

Even after explaining this to people, I still get "but WHY the Eagles?!??!"

I used to live in Philadelphia. Specifically, I lived in Philadelphia in 2005 when the Eagles played against the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Eagles lost.

I have never seen such madness. CHAOS IN THE STREETS. It was like something out of an apocalyptic movie. The citizens of Philadelphia all LOST THEIR MINDS the minute that game ended, and took their insanity out on their own city.

That night, I was hanging out at a friend's apartment. He lived on the 3rd floor of his building, and across the street from The Irish Pub on Walnut Street. The Pub was packed, and in the apartments above it, people were having Super Bowl parties, so between the partiers and the pub-goers, we stayed up to date on the game without actually having to watch it (by shouting "what's the score?" out the window every so often). We watched a marathon of all the Alien movies instead, which both Chris and I found much more interesting than football.

We could generally tell how the game was going by watching the people at the party in the apartment directly across from us, and the people hanging out outside the Pub. It didn't seem to be going all that well.

When the game ended and we inquired as to the score from the people outside, we did not receive any answers; because it was at that point that everyone had lost their minds.

From our spot three floors up, Chris and I had an excellent view of the ensuing mayhem. People knocked over street signs and traffic light posts and street lights. They hurled dustbins and newspaper vending machines into the streets. They hurled them at cars. A couple dudes started throwing footballs around, which quickly escalated into a bunch of dudes attempting to bludgeon each other to death with footballs. People were screaming and yelling and swearing and sobbing.

AND THEN

two complete idiots (or perhaps they were just a bit touched in the head? I mean seriously, every sane person living on the East Coast knows that people in Philly are craycray about their sports) come out of a bar down the street

wearing Patriots jerseys.

It was like watching one of those nature documentaries, when the lions spot a couple stray hyenas in their territory.

The two Patriots fans got jumped by nine HUGE dudes. They didn't even get a warning. No foreplay of hostile words were exchanged, as would have been customary under the normal circumstances of drunken sports-related fights. No shouts or jeers from the Eagles fans as a preliminary show of hostility. Nope. The nine guys who attacked were actually that furious. And as far as Chris and I could tell, those nine dudes didn't even know each other.

Two cops saw the whole thing and attempted to break it up, with nightsticks.

They gave up after a couple seconds, and one of them radioed for back-up while the other watched the fight and tried to hide his proud smile for his fellow Philadelphians.

I stayed on Chris' couch that night, as we both agreed that it would probably not be safe for me to walk the 16 blocks back to my apartment alone. The next day, wandering around the city, I saw that it wasn't just the people near Chris' place that had gone mad with grief when the Eagles lost the Super Bowl--every part of the city that I saw was left in chaos. Cars destroyed, windows broken, whole city blocks T.P.'ed, traffic lights and sign posts and street lights laying in the street.... It was nuts. No one from New England was safe in Philadelphia for the next several months.

And that is why I support the Eagles. I'm not supporting the football team itself really; I support the Eagles' fans.

I know what people like you get up to, and I think it's DISGUSTING.

2012-01-21T12:52:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry to all of you whose blogs were once linked on the side, in my blog roll. Blogger is being a turd and wouldn't let me update it, and when I tried re-installing that widget it just went away forever instead. I have complained multiple times to Blogger about this problem, but SURPRISE SURPRISE they're doing nothing about it. :*(

I finally got around to answering Kazehana's questions!

1. Your first car: What was it's name, color, make and model and what's one good story about something ridiculous that happened in it? (e.g. my first car was named Pablo, burgundy '78 vw bug. once swerved up a hill and ran over a neighbor's lawn while driving high in a hail storm.)

My first car was just The Jeep. I think I've already relived most of what happened to that car. The Devil's Tower story is probably the best.

...but what my friends and I got up to in The Jeep is probably a fun tale unto itself.

My first two years in high school, I had a lot of older friends--mostly people I had met through a long chain of other people, like friends of friends of friends of friends. I did A LOT of partying. Sex and drugs and rock and roll to excess. But then after my sophomore year, a huge chunk of that group of friends went off to college, and the rest of the group scattered. I started a new school in the autumn for junior year (because I was SO DONE with Catholic school). I knew people at the public school already, so I fell into a new group of friends pretty quick.

But none of them did drugs. Or partied like the world was about to end. Or did anything, really.

(This was a good thing, as by the end of sophomore year I was probably very near to needing an extended stay in the loony bin.)

Mum had also cottoned on to some of my more brilliant tactics (like telling her I was sleeping at a friend's house and having that friend's older siblings pretend to be their parents and tell mum over the phone that I was welcome to stay there the entire weekend), and so she curtailed my already limited freedom quite a bit.

On top of all that, I live in THE MOST BORING SPOT ON THE PLANET. And my friends and I had absolutely feckall in common with the other kids in the area.

So what's a group of 16/17 year olds to do on a weekend when we had no money, no drugs, and nothing remotely exciting within reasonable driving distance?

We drove around the most populated town centers and screamed SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT and WHOOOOOOOOORE at all the annoying Typical Bergen County kids. Sometimes we told younger kids to kill their parents, Marilyn Manson style. Sometimes we told the asshole I'm-so-cool-because-my-parents-are-super-rich types to go back to Mexico. We told scantily clad 14-year-olds to put some clothes on. This activity evolved over time, gaining new phrases and in some cases, noisemakers. Like the vintage car horn that came off one friend's great-grandmother's car in the 20's. Or the Crimson Hooter (don't ask). Or the jam band with the Crimson Hooter, a harmonica, and a kazoo.

You don't need drugs when 4 out of 6 people in the clique are out of their f**king minds.

2. Who was your first best friend and how did you get rid of them (or if you got dumped, how did they give you the shaft)? I'm talking grade school, people...I want the playground dirt.

I have wracked my brain over this question for like 2 weeks.

I didn't really have friends in grade school. I hated everyone. Up until around age 7, in my town you were friends with the children of your nanny's friends. I do have a good story for that...

My nanny was friends with this nice other nanny named Yvonne. Nanny and Yvonne were from around the same part of Jamaica, and so they liked to chat and hang out maybe once a week, which was pretty easy when I was 5 and only in school for half a day. Yvonne's charge was the same age as I was, and also in half-day kindergarten (except David was in the public school).

David's family was filthy f**king rich. FILTHY. I wish google had caught up to them, because I'd love to show y'all a photo of their house. It takes up their whole side of the street. And it's their second house on that spot--sometime in the 90's, they apparently got bored of their house, so they knocked it down and built a new one.

Now as you can probably imagine, David was a wimpy, whiney spoiled brat. I hated that child with a passion very unbecoming of a 5-year-old girl in frilly pink dresses who was extremely small for her age. The fact that I still remember this so vividly proves just how much I despised him.

David loooooooved to show off his masses of the most expensive, most awesome toys ever. Even more than that, he loved snatching them away the moment you saw them, and proudly declaring that they were HIS toys and you were NOT allowed to touch them.

Yeah well I had enough of that sort of thing in like 2 minutes. I remember being outside by myself a lot at his house, playing on his amazing swingset. I had a strong dislike for most other children, so I was quite happy playing outside by myself.

But then one day, for some reason, I really wanted to be inside playing with his toys. Of course, peasant that I was, I was *not allowed*.

L O L.

Employing my skills in cunning and trickery, I somehow managed to get little David out of his playroom (this thing was about 3 times the size of my bedroom, filled with every toy you could think of, and was generally every small child's greatest fantasy). And then little Mich shut the door, and locked it from the inside.

And I had my way with David's toys while he kicked and screamed outside the door. I gleefully shouted through the closed door that I was touching ALL of his toys, and there was feckall who could do about it. HA!

Nanny didn't take me to David's house after that.

I never really went in for the whole "best friend" thing. Honestly, I don't think I had anything resembling a proper bff until I met M in high school. I've always been more of a lone wolf. :D

3. Once upon a time there was a world with no television; if you lived then, what the fuck would you have done to entertain yourself instead of hanging out in front of the tube?

I don't watch much television now, to tell the truth. I'd probably do much of what I do normally--read, take lovely walks outside, write. I'd probably either sing or play music (in my head this world is the 18th century) since well-to-do ladies were expected to be learned in singing and playing something like the harpsichord. I would enjoy fashion much more than I do now.

delicious painting by Jean François de Troy

I would have tea parties with my lady friends, and spend lots more time bird watching. And I would probably go to bed early.

4. What's the most vivid dream you've had in the past week?

I dreamt I could take off my spider tattoo and it would come alive and be my buddy and hang out on my shoulder. And then when I had to hide him, he would go back to being a tattoo.

5. A Wookie, a Jawa and an Ewok steal a TIE fighter. Where the hell are they going?!

They're part of a massive intergalactic drug ring, and the Empire is starting to crack down on their manufacture of celestial meth. The lab they were using on Tatooine was raided by storm troopers, and they accidentally blew up the lab on Endor, so they decided a mobile lab would be best, hence the stealing of a TIE fighter, because who the heck would expect a floating meth lab hiding in a TIE fighter?

6. Revenge or PRE-venge?

Both. Need to keep all your bases covered.

I am snowed in! :D

...but the mf snow has stopped already. So much for the blizzard that was meant to last until this evening.

♥

I'm unclean a libertine, and every time you vent your spleen I seem to lose the power of speech; you're slipping slowly from my reach.

2012-01-18T13:51:00.003-05:00

Ok so I realize that when most people go shopping for giftsfor other people they're not considering whether or not the gift recipient is ahoarder. They're just trying to be nice by taking time, effort, and money toget that person something nice. And I shouldn't be looking the gift pony in themouth.

I overheard Mumsy on the phone with Loud Auntie the otherday. Mum had just unearthed a stash of National Geographics (a stash I thoughtI hid pretty well, actually...) and said: "I really wish people wouldTHINK before they go getting Mich magazine subscriptions!!"

A number of friends and relatives are quite fond of givingmagazine subscriptions as Christmas and birthday gifts. If you are a hoarder,or if you know a hoarder, you know why this is a disastrous idea. Most peoplewho read magazines and receive magazines in the mail are perfectly fine withreading the magazine once and then throwing it away.

I could probably build a decent sized house out of all themagazines currently in my possession.

Once in a blue moon (usually under the influence of somestrong sedatives), I can pull myself together enough to go through the houseand get rid of all the magazines, but ONLY if I'm taking them to the recyclingcenter. I attempted, at one time, to keep a box out in the garage, right nextto the spot where we dump all the newspapers. I told the fam that this new boxwas for magazines and junk mail, because there's a bin at the recycling centerfor that.

(Junk mail is a whole other problem--non profit organizationswill insist upon sending me more address labels than anyone can possibly use,as well as personalized notepads, dream catchers, year planners, magnets, etc.etc. etc., and I am also incapable of throwing those away.)

So the recycling box was a good thing, I thought. I canhandle it if we're recycling the magazines and the junk mail. It's the WASTEthat upsets me most. Mum, Lil' Sis, and Stepdad all make fun of me relentlesslybecause I am obsessive about the recycling. (Our town only picks up therecycling once a month or less--generally we have to go to the recycling centerand do it ourselves unless of course you want your garage to become completelyoverrun with empty plastic bottles and cat food cans.)

We're good about recycling plastic, aluminum, and glass.We're a bit lax with the cardboard, but that doesn't make me as crazy becauseit's mostly biodegradable. Sometimes I find Lil' Sis trying to sneak plasticbottles into her bin upstairs because she's too lazy to take it downstairs tothe recycling bin, but usually she's pretty good with that because by now sheand Mum are afraid of me.

But for some unfathomable reason, no one can seem to graspthe concept of the junk mail/magazine box. I even caught Mum a couple timestossing magazines and junk mail into the regular bin, the one in the kitchenthat is THREE FEET AWAY from the box right outside the door. When I confrontedher about it, she was all like "what the hell's the difference if I throw3 things in the bin instead of recycling them??"

::facepalm::

As cliche as I know it sounds, every little bit does in factmake a difference. And having lived in New Jersey for the past 30+ years, you'dthink Mum would know exactly what kind of difference it makes.

See all those pleasant rolling green hills?

Yeah those are hills made of garbage.

You can see that from the New Jersey Turnpike, and after youdrive past it your car will STINK for miles.

So I stash my magazines where Mum can't see them, with theintention of gathering them all up on the weekend when I do the recycling.Except I never remember them when I'm loading everything else into the Virus Pimp. Over time (as in months), the magazines pile up. I've got two wholeshelves filled with National Geographic, Smithsonian, Discover, and NationalAudubon magazines. A while back I started sneaking the new issues into theoffice, to the little basket in the waiting area. There's like six months worthof them in there.

Big Sis#2 is usually the culprit, at least the last fewyears. This Christmas, she got Mum Us Weekly (I have no problem throwing thoseaway for some reason) and me Nat Geo and Smithsonian (as opposed to Discoverlast year). I get the Audubons anyway because I donate to them. And Big Sis#2 is ahoarder, too!! She's worse than I am. She uses the bannisters of her stairs as agiant filing system for like four years' worth of mail. (It's brilliant and itmakes me warm and fuzzy inside.) Considering that, one would think that BigSis#2 would steer clear of things like magazines.

This morning, I forced a huge pile of magazines back under my desk at home,and blocked them from spilling out again by employing the use of my file boxes(milk crates--I have four of them, and they contain everything I've everwritten, separated into colour-coded folders).

THIS WEEKEND I shall leave many many post-it notes remindingto me to empty the house of magazines!! Y'all may want to open the bettingpools now. ;) I'd say there's a 5:1 chance of me not even noticing the post-itsand forgetting all about the magazines for another two years.

Bored?

2012-01-16T15:05:00.001-05:00

Want to see a great feat of knitting? (Jeanne, Peri, and Amber--I know you'll appreciate this!)

Search this on Google Maps: 44.244273, 7.769739

Then switch to satellite view, and zoom in.

That was knitted by a bunch of old ladies.

Did you say "Abe Lincoln"?

2012-01-12T16:59:00.005-05:00

OMG

...although I'm not sure the child should be reading anything related to Sookie Stackhouse...

but YAY, a child I've never met likes my book! :D

I've been kind of quiet, I know.... I apologize. But it's actually for a POSITIVE reason this time!! I've been writing up a friggin storm in the fiction world. After finishing the first rough edit of the fairy book, I was finally free to devote all of my attention to Book 3. I've been working on that one on and off for over a year, always forcing myself to back off from that project to finish the fairy book first. But now it's all about Book 3, which I'm pretty sure is the best thing I've ever written.

With that in mind, I am in desperate need of guinea pigs to read the finished fairy book!! Any of you who read Underwood interested in reading Book 2??

I also had a few side stories/notes I've been playing with since the fairy book got started, and over the last several days one of those has actually turned into something that could well end up a novel. I'm not questioning it at this point--I so rarely get such intense bursts of inspiration that I do not question them when they happen.

So since I have been neglecting blog-writing, I'll share a super secret recipe instead......

Mich's Epic Brownies!
(a.k.a., Coconut Curry Brownies)

From this point on, I must ask y'all not to question me. They're delicious. I promise. My friend's mother once consumed a total of 17 of them in one day (they were tiny, but still...). Whenever I tell people the ingredients, they're like "omg ewwww, really?!?" But the brownies are AMAZING; I swear.

You will need:
for the brownies...
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 - 3 tsp curry powder
- 1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips (~6 ounces)

- 1 cup melted butter (2 sticks)
- 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 can coconut milk

for the icing...
- confectioners sugar
- 1/2 can coconut milk

- 2-4 tbsp. melted butter
- curry powder

To make them:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, sugar, and vanilla.

Beat in the eggs one at a time, and then add the 1/2 can coconut milk.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, and salt and mix them together. Then add the curry powder.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the sugar/butter mix, until it's well blended.

In a saucepan, melt the chocolate chips on a low heat.

Stir that into the brownie mix. Once it's all mixed together, pour the mix into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan. I like smaller, denser/fudgier brownies, so I make it a pretty thin layer in the pan, and thus have enough mix left over to also fill a 9" x 9" pan.

Bake between 30 - 40 minutes, until a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out clean.

To make the icing, just mix together the 1/2 can of coconut milk, with 1/2 cup confectioners sugar, 2 tbsp. melted butter, and a sprinkle of curry powder. You can add more sugar and/or butter until it's the consistency you'd like. I like to drizzle it on the brownies rather than ice them properly, so I tend to use less sugar and butter, and more of the coconut. I also like to make the icing a bit more exciting with food colouring, and then sprinkles.

that's half of the batch--each brownie is about 2" x 2" (bite size)

I made these for New Year's Eve. The entire batch was annihilated in under an hour. By 7 people.

You tell me. You're the one that looks like you just crawled out of a microwave.

2012-01-06T16:57:00.005-05:00

Noprogress on the M issue yet... Our work schedules clash a bit, so I prob won'tget a chance to talk to him until the weekend.

Moreprogress in the anti-ED movement. (That being said, I feel the need toapologize again if I'm not commenting on your blog when you've commented onmine. I'm not ignoring you, I promise; I just need to to avoid triggeringposts. Self preservation and whatnot.) It's a daily struggle, but I'm doingpretty well, I think. It helps that I do really LOVE food. I like trying newfoods and experimenting with making new foods. I'm still counting calories, butnot in order to restrict them; it's more because I have lost the ability toknow how much I should be eating on a day to day basis and I don't want tounknowingly start consuming 4,000 calories a day. I figure I'll ween myself offof the calorie-counting as I re-learn how to feed myself properly.

Keeping the::omgI'mtoofattolive:: anxiety at bay is tough, but I'm starting to like mybody again. One good thing about the weight I've put back on over the lastcouple months--my boobs are back! The ED robbed me of my delicious rack, butit's now starting to come back into its former glory. And I'm starting toremember how much I loved having an actual figure.

that's the dress I wore on Christmas Eve

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Matthewnominated me to answer some fun questions (thanks, guy!!), so here goes:

QuestionOne- Sadly you're forced into competing in a fight with famous boxing legendMike Tyson in his prime. Before fighting him in the ring however you're allowedto pick three other bloggers who would come out individually to fight Mikebefore you had to (you know, with the intention of weakening him or beating himso you'll have an easy fight or won't have to.) Who do you pick to fight Mike?

Well now,that is a dilly of a pickle. Sadly, I don't think I could live with myself if Isent someone else into danger in my place, so I'm afraid I'm just going to haveto take my chances and fight him. I might propose, since he clearly has thebest chance of winning a fight in a boxing ring, that we compete against eachother in a different sport?

I mightnot win that one either, but sure at least I'll have fun while I'm beingslaughtered.

QuestionTwo- What super power would you pick? The ability to read minds, to teleport toanywhere you want to three times a day, to see everything you touch turn intogold, or to turn into a cockroach on a whim (that's not really a power thoughbut still!).

Thecockroach power would actually be quite useful, but I'm going to have to gowith teleportation. I've no desire to see the inside of anyone's mind (my ownis quite enough thanks), and gold kind of clashes with my skin tone. Butteleportation would not only allow me to never set foot in an airplane everagain, it would ensure that I remain in 1st place in the ongoing competitionbetween myself and my siblings (and a few cousins) in which we attempt tofrighten the living daylights out of each other with stealth.

QuestionThree- Some record company bigwig phones you up and orders you to feature withany musician alive or dead in their next album. Which musician do you pick?

MarilynManson, without question. I've always wanted to be in one of those videos.

QuestionFour- Can you draw? If so draw me however you interpret me, it's fine if youcan't!

QuestionFive- What would you rather be? A bar or a car? (My best friend Ryan once askedthis question during "open mic" night at a bar and the confused facesmade back at him were hilarious.)

I'll haveto go with car, as bars tend have more of a chance of being filled with skanks,idiots, and vomit. But what kind of car? So many choices!!

1968 Firebird?

Monster truck?

Jaguar Roadster?

QuestionSix- Um, could you tell us something about your past that nobody on here knowsyet?

I tried tothink of a good story, but me mind is a blank. So instead, here is somethingalmost as fun.......

ONE of thefollowing is NOT true:

- I lostmy virginity at age 14.

- I oncecrashed into a parked car and fled. it wasn't a bad crash, but still...

- I havenever told either of my parents that I hate them.

- Myfavourite meat is wild boar, second favourite are game birds.

- I haveparticipated in consensual incest, and it was within the first 4 degrees ofkindred.

- I adorePhil Collins, Abba, and Britney Spears, and have all of Brit's albums on myipod.

- Istarted working (as in for money, and not doing things for my parents) at age12.

- I havetwice worked as a bookkeeper for vitamin* dealers.

- One ofmy close friends used to kill animals for fun, and leave the bodies on hisenemies' doorsteps.

- I havepeed in my sister's shampoo because she pissed me off.

- I do notown any pornography.

- Mymother used to bring me to the bar with her when she couldn't get a babysitter,and leave me to sleep on a bench in the corner.

- I havebeen a serious insomniac since age 12.

I'll lety'all guess which one is the lie, because I'm never telling. :)

And now Ineed to come up with six more questions, and six people to answer them.

>:D

First, thevictims:

- Kazehana

-Insomniac#4

- Jeanne

- Elk

- HonorRegzig

- Peri

Questionthe First: Who is your daddy, and what does he do?

(Bonuspoints if you know what movie that's from.)

Questionthe Second: What was your favourite band/musician when you were 15?

Questionthe Third: You're on a crowded train and the person sitting next you has REALLYBAD gas. The only other seat available in your car is next to a mother and herscreaming child. What do you do?

Questionthe Fourth: You're running late for your best friend's wedding, and you're inthe bridal party. (Or you're one of the groomsmen, if you're a dude). Whileyou're flooring it down the highway to get to the church, you see your archnemesis pulled over on the shoulder--their car is on fire, and they'restruggling to get their 2-year-old and their dog out of the back seat, but theycan't seem to get the door open. There's no one else on the road. What do youdo?

Questionthe Fifth: Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Andfinally, Question the Sixth: Are you prepared to give your life for Gondor?

Do we walk in legends, or on the green earth in the daylight?

2012-01-03T13:53:00.003-05:00

Anothernew year! Time to make ourselves promises we don't intend to keep.

Lastyear's New Years mantra-thing never cametrue as far as 2011 not sucking as bad as 2010. If anything, I think 2011 wasworse. So let's hope 2012 is a bit better, eh? And the only way to ensure thatthis year is a bit better than last is to MAKE IT better than last. We are theonly ones who can make ourselves and our own lives better or worse, and thisyear, I want my life to be a little better.

I amdetermined to make myself a better person. I want to love myself as I am. Iwant to try and get back some semblance of who I used to be before the ED andthis depression, and to do that I am not going to focus solely on myrelationship with food; I'm going to focus on everything else.

I am going tomake more of an effort to go out and do things with friends and acquaintances, becausethis whole hermit thing is unhealthy. I want to do activities on weekends that do NOT involve going to the gym.

I shallalso stop the unrealistic fantasies about running away, and instead turn thatinto something doable--starting this week, I shall deposit as much as I canspare from each paycheck into the Maine Fund. No epic plans, no unrealisticgoals; just saving. When I have enough money that moving to Maine is actually feasible, then I will decide if it's something I really want to do.

Myinternal well-being will no longer be a giant pile of decaying sludge. It WON'T,dammit. I want the Old Mich back--the fearless (often reckless) Mich whoscoffed at dangerous things like foul weather,

wildanimals,

obnoxiouspeople,

and poorbody image.

That lastone continues to be an ongoing effort, but it's actually going pretty well. I'mdefeating each small obstacle (eating out, knowing if/when I'm full or hungry,not bingeing, etc.) as I encounter them. I have, however, just encountered anobstacle that is proving the most difficult one yet....

(...bewarned, lengthy blather ahead...)

The bondsof friendship should be strong ones, right? Especially with people you'vecalled friends for over a decade. Doesn't that make them practically likefamily?

A year agoI might have said yes without hesitation, until certain events cast shadows ofdoubt on that concept. After that, I would have said yes, but only perhaps forthe CLOSEST close friends. Now after last night, I am doubting even thatnotion.

I've hadmore or less the same group of friends since the second half of high school. Wegained and lost members of our group over the years, and we're not as close tosome of the others as we used to be, but as for the two friends I've knownlonger than most of the other people in my life, we're still very close. I'veknown one of them for ::omgIfeelsoold:: 22 years, and though we probably couldnot be more different in personality/interests/etc if we tried, we will befriends until the day one of us dies. The other I have known now for 12 years,and even though there have been some rough patches, he's probably my closestfriend ever. Out of all the friends I've ever had, he is the only one I wouldsay is more or less, at this point, part of the family.

.....andby now I'm sure you sense the BUT coming...

M and Ihave survived as bff's this long because we are so alike in our interests, inour dysfunctional family histories, and in our numerous hang-ups. We're not somuch alike in personality, but our natures complement each other, so that whenwe're together we just kind of bounce off of each other like Eddie &Patsy, and the differences don'tmatter. (For the record, I've always been Eddie.) We've had rough patches--Mcan be equally unreasonable and quick to anger, and I'm a stubborn mule whowill not give in, apologize, or back down EVER--so there have been times inwhich we stopped speaking for months over something completely retarded. But wealways went back to the way things were after a while. (Usually with no mentionof the fight--we would just go back to being bff's while pretending the latestfight never happened.)

Among ourshared hang-ups are the issues with eating and weight.

OurED-behaviors are pretty similar: most of the time keeping a "healthy"weight as a result of the never-ending binge-starve-exercise cycles, withocasional extremes. M tends to reach those extremes more often because he isthat sort of person--he does everything in extremes, never with a happy mediumor any kind of moderation. It's all or nothing.

So almosta year ago, M had lap-band surgery. He had been in a nasty binge cycle for areally long time and finally reached a weight that his doctor said was"medically" obese, and so I think his insurance covered the surgery.I didn't think M was anywhere near obese, but then he is 6' 5" and so hecould probably weigh up to 400 pounds without ever looking obese.

After thesurgery, his eating didn't really improve. Yeah he couldn't binge like he usedto and he couldn't eat a lot of the binge foods he used to without the lap bandforcing him to throw up, but he found that he COULD binge on certain things(like ice cream) and so after the initial weight loss, he was really justmaintaining a healthy weight.

And then afew months ago, he stopped eating. I didn't see him for a good while what withthe holidays and me being a hermit because I've been in an epic funk, and thenjust before Christmas when I saw him again, he looked EMACIATED. On a 6'5" frame, that looks kind of alarming. He's also--I have only very recentlydiscovered--been seriously abusing vitamins*. But unlike me (only using themwhen I work out) M is using them all the time. And I'm pretty sure he's beenusing them for a really long time. Like long enough that he has stopped payinghis credit cards and his car was repossessed for non-payment, and M is nowfiling for bankruptcy. I also heard hints that he's not paying his phone andhis dad was helping with the car insurance. And since he only moved into hisapartment a couple months ago, I would imagine that at least most of his moneyhas been going towards the vitamin* habit.

I am in noposition to tell anyone they should eat. I am also in no position to tellsomeone they have a drug problem and should seek help. It would obviously behypocritical of me.

On Sundaynight, M showed up at my house completely off his face on vitamins*. Heinformed me that he had just come from the hospital, and that he had snuck outof the hospital because they wouldn't let him drive. M had surgery on an ulcera few weeks ago, and he said he went to the hospital Sunday night because hewas in pain.

I'm not sure I believe this, because our vitamin*-friend decided to quit thevitamins* last week (>:O) and so is no longer selling them. M was gettingdesperate when I spoke to him on Friday, and then lo and behold, he comesover Sunday night fresh out of the hospital hopped up on dilaudid and with aprescription for 20 percocets.

-________________-

I want tohelp M, I really do. But he doesn't want help. He wants to be thinner still,and he sees no reason in quitting the vitamins* (whereas I Officially Stoppedon Saturday because my supply ran out and I am not looking for more). I've alsobeen doing ok in the eating department as well--not perfect, but ok.

As much asI hate to admit weakness, I have to say that it's REALLY FRIGGING HARD toremain hell-bent on this recovery when M is deep in the madness of anorexia. Isee him looking gaunt and sick and I would be a total liar if I didn't admitthat I feel jealous beyond words. I see him looking like a chemo patient and Iwant it too--I want to not eat, I want to lose 20+ pounds, I want to lookhalf-dead--and the more time I spend with him the more my carefully constructedfoundations of healthy eating start to crumble.

The partof me that wants to be free of this hell--the part of me knows beyond a shadowof a doubt that being that thin, aside from being unhealthy, IS NOT ATTRACTIVEIN ANY WAY--that part of me is saying OMG RUN. That part of me wants todistance myself from M so that I don't sink as well, because I have come waytoo far to let the same old demons sink me now.

But I feellike a coward, and a bad friend. Running from someone else's problems hasdestroyed some of my past friendships. I don't want to destroy this one. Idon't know what to do.

The only thing I can think of to save myselfis sitting M down and telling him that, while I don't want to tell him how heshould live his life, I cannot continue to be around him if he's planning tostay on this path of starvation and drug abuse. But that feels cowardly, and bad-friend-ish.

What do y'all think? If you've kept reading this far, that is... I'm scared for M, but I'm twice as scared for myself.

♥

The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.

2011-12-28T16:52:00.001-05:00

Some anonymous comment replies, before I forget...

Pogo - Palestrina was indeed the inspiration for Hallestrina's name. I like the way it sounds. :D
And thanks for the art-love, and the defense of my art work. You are a treasure. <3

Spooky's Darling - We thought of including Boromir, but in the end we only knew of one actual person who favored Boromir over all the other characters, and his personality matched all the people who like Faramir best. (Which obviously makes ppl who like Boromir totally-super-awesome [can you tell Faramir is my fav ever?]).

neverfit - You are correct. Eowyn kicks Arwen's @SS!! Especially since Arwen isn't even in the books hardly at all.

Anonymous from the art post - Which art piece offended thee? The twins I did at age 17 without ever having any training whatsoever in art? Or should the tree made of wire perhaps have been made to scale? "Art" is what you make it, not what others tell you it is. And for the record, beginning anything with "no offense" when you know full well you are going to sound offensive just makes you sound uneducated.

Sam, from the last post - Blogger won't let me look at your profile. :( Do you have a blog?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Someonesuggested I do a "day in the life of Mich" post. (In the suggestion box, which is now gone because I was having technical issues and it pissed me off so I deleted it.) My weekdays arepretty much all the same, so I wouldn't bother doing a weekday in the life ofMich (unless y'all really really want to be bored to death?). I thought of vlogging a Saturday, but I feel like I suck at vlogging.Plus I have ADD.

Weekendsare tough for me because I'm pretty sure I do actually have ADD (Mumdisagrees--she thinks adHd). At least on workdays, there are specific things Ineed to do and the rest of the day beyond time spent at work is mostly devotedto the gym and alternately watching TV and trying to sleep. That doesn't leavemuch time for boredom.

I can'thandle boredom. That's kind of why I've never been a huge tv-watcher, otherthan a couple shows that come on at night. I can't watch tv in the middle ofthe day. Just can't do it. Days I'm not working, I generally bounce from onething to the next without much of a predetermined plan. This can be a problemif I'm hanging out at a friend's house and my companions are sitting watchingtv. I last maybe 10 minutes. 20 maximum.

And thenI'll start checking out the books on your shelf. And your movies.

I mightadmire your family photos. After I've explored your living room I'll go to theloo.

Don't getme wrong--I don't root through drawers and cabinets or anything; that wouldmake me uncomfortable. :/ But I do love checking out other people's houses. I'mfascinated by them, because no two are alike and none of them are like mine.Idk how to explain it without seeming like a nosy creeper....... oh well.

So on myway back from the bathroom I'll take my time having a shifty at the rooms en route back to the tv. If I run into another member of the household, chances are I shan't return to the tv at all. Your mom and I will be bffs by the time the movie or tv show is over.

Thisbehaviour is the reason I was often the favourite of other people's parentswhen I was in high school. ...That also may have had something to do with the factthat Mum never raised me to call people Mrs. or Mr. Whatever. I called all theadults in my life by their first names while most of the other kids stuck withMr. and Mrs.

Some parents got really bent out of shape about that. I remember agirl scout's meeting or something like that and I had to ask the troop leadera question. When I called her "Diane" (I was 7) she practically toremy head off.

. . . . . . . . . . .

What wasI talking about?

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Ohyeah--Day in the Life of Mich.

-__-

This iswhy bird watching is a great hobby. If you have a bird feeder that you keepfull and a birdbath next to it, it's like an ADD wet dream. The fun that comesfrom my attention span jumping from one activity to another without everfinishing anything...

can behad in one simple activity.

Oooolook, a frigginbird!

FrigateBird, actually, but you get my point.

turn the volume way up, it's super budget

<3 !!!

Bah bloody humbug

2011-12-25T11:05:00.000-05:00

Guess who woke up with a tummy bug??

-______________________-

Someone bring me a hot water bottle naaooooww!!!

I'm just going to lie here face down on the floor watching the Christmas Story marathon until I can stop feeling sick long enough to do something productive, like wander off into the wilderness to live among the grizzly bears.

The boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay, and the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day...

2011-12-24T00:04:00.003-05:00

I tried to do a vlog of my Christmas decorations like last year, but I never get any alone time in my house anymore. :( I feel that Mum would lock me up if I was wandering about the place in a Baroque gown talking to myself with my camera and making an even bigger fuss than usual over the decorations, so I guess last year's vid will have to do. It's mostly the same decorations anyway....

Ok so I know I said wasn't going to post until I caught up with commenters, but I wanted to post a nice Christmas recipe in case any of you might like to try making it for Christmas.

Pat yourselves on the back, kids, because I am now going to share My Own mince pie recipe. (The version I usually don't hand out to people so their pies are never as good as mine.)

You will need:
For the filling - red and gold raisins, currants, and cranberries (I just get the Sunmaid kind because the raisins and cranberries come all in one package. 2 packs of those and a box of the currants end up being the perfect amount.)

...but if you want to get technical about it: 3/4 cup of each the red and gold raisins, the cranberries, and the currants

- about a 1/2 cup of dark brown sugar (you may need more later, but let's start with that)

- a 12 oz. can of frozen apple juice concentrate

- one lemon, and one orange

- one Granny Smith apple, and one gala apple

- 1/4 cup of softened butter

- 1 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice; and 1/2 tsp. of ground clove, and ginger

- between 1 to 1 1/2 cups of brandy. I use E&J

Cut up the apples and dump them into a big mixing bowl, followed by the raisins, cranberries, currants, apple juice concentrate, brown sugar, butter, spices, and brandy. Add the zest of the lemon and orange. And mind you don't zest any of your fingers into it as well.

Mix that up real nice. I like to let it sit overnight in a covered bowl, so all the solid ingredients can properly soak up the flavors of everything else, but you don't have to do that.

The filling mix then needs to be cooked in a crock pot on low for 8 hours. If you don't have a slow cooker, go buy one.

....or, just heat the filling mix on the stove for at least 2 - 2 1/2 hours on a low heat.

After the eight hours, it should look like this:

Appetizing, no?

To make the dough:
I much prefer a shortbread dough, as that's always what we had growing up when Granny made these.
You will need - 3 1/2 cups of butter (7 sticks of butter) softened
- 4 1/2 cups of flour
- 5/8 cups confectioners sugar
- 5/8 cups light brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix it all together in a large bowl. It's easiest if you use your hands. When it's well blended, wrap it tight in cling wrap and let it sit in the fridge for about 2 hours, and then let it sit out of the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Once the filling is slow-cooked and the dough has had a good sit, you're ready to make the pies!
You'll need a good cutting board or a good surface for the dough, and a muffin pan. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, and line your muffin pan with muffin cups.
Make sure your cutting board or surface is well-floured, and keep the flour out because you're going to need it. The shortbread dough is not as easy to roll out as regular pie dough, but sure just try your best.

I usually just do a little bit at a time. You want it about a quarter-inch thick.

And then I use the container for the muffin cups to cut circles.

'Cause they're pretty much the same size as the muffin cups, which works for when you take those little circles of dough and use them to line your muffin cups in the muffin pan.

And then use a small spoon to spoon the filling into the dough in the muffin tin.

I like to use a star-shaped cookie cutter to put a piece of dough on top of each mince pie, but you can use any shape you want, or cover it completely, or not cover it at all.

Before putting them in the oven, lightly brush the exposed dough on the top with some scrambled egg. I also like to sprinkle a teensy bit of cinnamon sugar.

Bake for about 15-17 minutes, and then let them cool on a rack.

Amazing pies!! Not exactly a low-calorie dessert, but these pies are so rich that you physically cannot binge on them. One is quite enough.

I hope you're all having an amazing Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Yuletide/Whatever. Eat pie!
<3

It's possible, pig; I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again... perhaps I have the strength after all.

2011-12-20T12:15:00.000-05:00

I'm still here. Not entirely better, but then I was never perfect to begin with, so I suppose I shouldn't go round expecting miracles.

I am now so far behind in responding to comments that I may not be doing a proper post for a while (shouldn't even be doing this one really, in case it generates even more comments...). The last post will eventually be deleted because it's whiney, but not until I have responded to all you glorious people who took the time to comfort me in my misery. <3

Am actually writing again (the fiction, not this), which is good. Also eating everything that isn't nailed down, which is bad; but sure it's Christmas and everything else sucks so bad right now I'm not sure I even care. :/

Got myself an early Christmas present:

Winchester bowie knife--it's pretty sweet.

And just to give you an idea of its size....

pardon the hangover pallor

Don't worry, I'm not using it on myself.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the planet who gives their ~~drug dealer~~ vitamin*-friend a Christmas card. Lil' Sis was making fun of me.
(She's no longer getting a Christmas card.)

I feel like I'm rambling, so I'm going to shut up now.

Hope y'all are having a nice week so far! ♥

shut up

2011-12-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure all men are pigs.

every

last

one

I just hate everything right now. Especially myself.

Time heals the wound, but then there's still a scar.

2011-12-13T18:19:00.004-05:00

I apologize for my absence. I've been in a funk. Again.
:/

Pogo inquired about one of the things on my wall from the hoarding page. Here's a better shot of it:

Acrylic on a 4' x 3' canvas. I painted that my senior year in high school. And creepily enough, I started it on the night of September 10, 2001. The painting itself continues to horrify my mother, which is why it hangs behind my bedroom door, so she can't see it if she needs to go in my room.

I have twice been offered large sums of money for that painting, which mostly confuses me because I don't think it's all that special. I still can't part with it though...

My forays into the fine arts are few and far between. Even the enforced art I had to endure my first year in college (media arts majors had to do the same foundation courses as everyone else, although the school has since changed those requirements...). Most of my work was absolute crap, but occasionally I produced something that gave my professors orgasms.

The best ever was the 6-foot tower of army men, all of them symmetrically arranged and hot-glued together. It was on display in the school's gallery until a senior sculpture major "accidentally" knocked it over and destroyed it.

2nd runner up was this:

We had to choose any album cover and create a model of it, to scale but twice the size of a CD case. I was one of only 2 students in a section of about 40 kids who chose a classic rock album. (That's Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, if you can't tell). My prof made a spectacle of me in front of my peers when the project was finished, and I was not amused (I'm not big on being the center of attention). I was even less amused when my masterpiece vanished from the display case. Apparently it was making the rounds in different professors' offices. Eventually I managed to steal it back from one of the graphic design offices.

This project is Mum's fav:

I call it "The Tree". Or, "How to Finish an Assignment in 3D Design Without Actually Doing Any Work."

When my 3d Design prof started us in the wood shop, I flat out refused to use any of the saw and sanders and other deadly machines. I'm really not fond of power tools, especially things with large moving blades. But alas, Prof told me that in order to pass that particular "mixed media" assignment, I MUST use wood as well as stone and wire.

So I dug that little triangular piece of wood out of the scrap pile, slapped it on my rock with some hot glue, and wrapped a wire hanger around the whole thing to make a tree. I used much thinner wire that I got in a jewelry-making shop to make leaves and things. As much as Prof hated me at that point, he had to admit that he adored The Tree.

Why did Prof hate me? This project:

That was the first wood shop assignment--we had to make an animal that was in some way mechanical, with lots of moving parts. I decided to do a dog/wolf/?? thing on wheels, because it seemed easiest.

Except me "making" that consisted of me first asking Prof to please show me how to work each and every machine in the wood shop, then giving him instructions on how I wanted the pieces of wood cut, then making him sand all of them, and then him "showing me" how to drill holes in them, which resulted in me only having to put the pieces together at the end. Prof pretty much did the entire thing.

And somehow I still got an A.

:D

I shall hopefully catch up on commenters this week, but I'm not promising anything in the way of haste.

I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs...

2011-12-07T16:20:00.004-05:00

A friend and I had the most nerdalicious hour-longconversation EVER last night. We discussed how you can psychologically profilesomeone based on their favourite character in Lord of the Rings. As far as all the people we know, our conclusions are quite accurate (obvs with a couple exceptions). Here's what wecame up with--

If your fav character is:

- Frodo - You are the everyman, humble but also courageous.You're probably the quiet type.

- Sam - Yeah we get it, everyone knows you're a great personand a really good friend, or at least you'd like everyone to think that. Thesad truth of the matter is that people like Sam do not actually exist, but sureyou're probably trying your best.

- Gollum - Put the drugs down.

- Eomer - You are probably a woman. Or maybe a gay man. (Wedon't wanna discriminate.) Whatever you are, you appreciate very manlygood-looking dudes, and your personality is probably of the Alpha persuasion.

- Legolas - You are definitely into dudes.

- Aragorn - You're probably male and you wish you rockedthat hard. Too bad no one actually rocks that hard.

- Merry and/or Pippin - You're just all around awesome, andyou enjoy the simple comforts in life. Mainly eating, drinking, and being merry.

- ...and if your fav is just Merry - Same as above, but you read the books beforeyou saw the movies.

- Gandalf - You are a giant nerd and we salute you for it.

- Faramir - Congrats, you read all three books. You're also probably about as close in personality to Aragorn as any real human could hope to be;you just don't brag about it.

- Galadriel - You are strong with the Force. ...and you'reprobably kind of a weirdo.

- Arwen - You're a dude. If you're not a dude, you are a hopeless romantic, and you might want to try and accept the fact that you will never find anyone in real lifeas awesome as Aragorn. He just doesn't exist.

- Eowyn - You, m'lady, are more awesome than you think youare. Don't be so hard on yourself. ....You also might be a feminist.

- Saruman - You're an asshole.

- Treebeard - Hippie!!

- Tom Bomadil - You rock harder than pretty much everyone,ever.

- Gimli - You like video games. A lot. (I disputed this, butsince I couldn't think of anything else it stays...)

- The Mouth of Sauron - You laugh at innappropriate moments,are fluent in sarcasm, and you might be a sociopath.

- Theoden - Good job, you're a mature adult!

- That Drunk Hobbit at Bilbo's Birthday Party - You are the life and soul of everybody's party.

Anyone like anime? These nearly decapitated me when theyfell out of my closet. I'm pretty sure I stole them from someone...

...claimed on a first-come-first-serve basis. You can take all or a few.

Those Protestants; up to no good as usual...

2011-12-06T15:29:00.004-05:00

Firstsome anonymous comment replies, because I've forgotten to do it for like thelast 20 posts...

Cleo:Thanks for the Underwood-love!

Pogo:That painting was actually painted by me. I'll post a decent pic of it if I canremember...

Anonymous1 from the first car post: I got the Cthulhu sticker on ebay, while trying tofind this one I saw of a t-rex eating a Darwin and a Jesus Fish (and inside thet-rex it said, "shut up").

Anonymous2: Glad I could make you laugh. :D And the alethiometer is still in my purse.

Ithink it's pretty much a security blanket at this point... I like shiny fancy things.

Spooky'sDarling: you are correct in the pronunciation of "Mich," since it'stechnically just "me." But you could go either way, since it alsokind of refers to Michiru. :D

Em:Not creepy at all. I'll still be your nanny if you want. ;)

ArachneMorte:That was my pumpkin pie; thanks for the compliment!!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Almostran out of vitamins* this weekend.

shutup

Butnew Vitamin-Friend is a muffin, and not only did he come through for me, healso DELIVERS. We have fallen into a system in which the only contact we haveis through texting, and all transactions are conducted via my mailbox.

Thisbecame problematic Sunday night when I went to retrieve my prize at around 11.00.A dense fog had settled over Bergen County and my driveway looked like a scenefrom a horror film. And OF COURSE when I need to go to the mailbox, theraccoons decide to start some kind riot out the front garden.

-__-

LittleBro #2 texted me on Friday to see if I wanted to go see some band with him onSaturday. Since I hardly ever get to hang out with the Little Bros, I of coursesaid yes. We had a good dinner (omg the ranchhouse salad was DELICIOUS) and the band was ok,and I was reminded why I never go out anymore because the place was filled withloud girls in offensively short skirts, and awkwardly drunk guys in lots ofplaid.

Wegot home around midnight, and I went to bed with the intention of fleeing Dad'shouse before they could try and convince/guilt me into going to church withthem. This plan failed, because Step-Mom woke me up Sunday morning to tell methat Little Bro #2 was playing the drums in the church's "band", andwould I like to come to church with them to see him play?

Lesigh.

I'mcompletely tolerant of other people's religions. As far as I'm concerned, thereis no right or wrong choice of religion. They're all more or less the samebasic principles--something large and immortal created the planet and everythingin it; and you shouldn't do bad things like killing people and stealing, and you'll can get some kind of reward in the next life. And I think it's great if you've found a faith that really makes you feel happy and fulfilled and junk.

However

I'mnot sure about everyone else, but I feel really awkward around other people'sreligions. It's like going over to someone's house on their laundry day, andsitting in their living room when the family's knickers are hanging up to dryon the clothes horse and on the radiators (probably not such a commonoccurrence in the States, but I'm sure you can imagine how awkward that wouldbe...). You're sitting in your friend's living room just trying to hang out andhave a good time, and trying to look anywhere but at your friend's mom's bright red Victoria's Secret wonderbra.

That'show I feel when I go out to eat with Dad & Co., and they say grace in themiddle of the restaurant. Or when I'm spending the night and they do the familypraying thing before bed (I hid in the bathroom for like 20 minutes Saturday night until I was certain they'd gone to bed). On Thanksgiving, I got the Evil Eyebecause I automatically crossed myself after Dad finished saying grace overThanksgiving dinner (I cant help it; it's like a nervous tic).

Acouple of friends have said they feel the same way, and they actually opinedthat it's because we were raised strictly Catholic. We've been conditioned to believe that all other religions are full of heresy. Especially the Protestants.

o.O

Thething I dislike more than my father saying grace in the middle of a restaurant,more than the nightly family prayer, more than the forlorn look ofdisappointment he gives my religious jewelry, is going to church with them onSundays.

Ican't handle it.

so I just sink into my chair and pretend I'm invisible

Theinformality of the Service (I got told off for calling it "Mass"),the lack of any kind of art on the walls or windows, the constant leaping outof the chairs with "halleluja!" and "praise the LORD!!"from random churchgoers, the religious pop-rock, the powerpoint presentationprojected over the cross, the table of coffee and breakfast pastries thatpeople hang around during the service (blasphemers!!), the way they call their minister"Pastor" instead of THE pastor (that drives me extra nuts; I don'tknow why...).

I have nothing against it, but experiencing someone else's religion up close and personal like that is difficult. It'sjust so completely alien to me, and it goes against everything I was raised tobelieve about the practice of religion. YOU PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE SO OBVIOUSLYENJOYING YOURSELVES.

we're going to be SMOTE because y'all are having fun

Andit proves that the Catholic teachings have truly been perfected as far asClassical Conditioning, because even though I'm not a very devout Catholic andI don't go to Mass very often, attending my father's church always makes mewant to run screaming across the street to their town's Catholic church andcurl into a ball at the priest's feet, begging for forgiveness and psychicallyabsorbing the nice calm, quiet, and very pious hymns.

Ihad one of Palestrina's madrigals playing on my ipod for most of the drive home, to make me relax.

WTF.

I guess because religion really is such a personal thing? But it still bothers me that I get so bothered by daddy's church. If that makes sense.

♥

Oh Christmas tree, much pleasure thou can'st give me...

2011-12-04T15:54:00.003-05:00

Firstly I want to say thanks for all the support I got on the last post. You are all truly amazing. <3

You know what drives me COMPLETELY FREAKING INSANE?

I can handle nails on a chalkboard. I can handle people talking about horrific gore and violence and bodily fluids while I'm eating. I can deal with germs and annoying/loud/obnoxious people and really bad drivers and children speaking with their mouths full.

But

I cannot

under any circumstances

EVER

stay in a room with your f**king Christmas tree

when only one strand of lights is blinking.

WHAT IN THE NAME OF CHRIST ALMIGHTY IS WRONG WITH YOU

It's wrong. So very very wrong. And I will fix it. Even if it means going out and getting you a whole new strand of lights to replace it. The blinking lights shall be disposed of, never to sporadically darken your doorstep again.

That's just as bad--that one length of fairy lights along the eaves of your house that blinks every couple seconds

even though none of your other lights are blinking.

I'm going to burn your f**king house down because I CAN'T LOOK AT IT WITHOUT BURSTING A BLOOD VESSEL.

....ok Christmas rant over....

Now a Christmas art project instead.

Mum bought a bunch of new garland things at K-Mart. I strung them about the dining room, but they needed a little something more.

I dug around in the downstairs closet to see if we had any nice ribbon in festive colours. We didn't, but we DID have a bunch of leis hanging around on the bottom shelf (from a birthday party? idk....). I grabbed those and some pipe cleaners

as well as some yarn and glue.

After some experimentation, I made cute flower things with the pipe cleaners and the red and green flowers from the leis.

And attached them nicely to the garlands.

Even Mum liked it when I was finished! I think it looks pretty awesome.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaand this is exactly why you should never throw anything away.

Hope y'all are enjoying your weekend!

I ain't been droppin' no eaves sir, honest.

2011-11-30T10:25:00.002-05:00

So I was watching Lord of the Rings last night (Fellowshipof the Ring, extended version), and it got me thinking. In particular, thebeginning with the hobbits got me thinking.

I identify with the hobbits. They're awesome. Sure the elvesare all fancy and junk, but they seemed kind of stuffy and uptight. I wouldmuch rather be a hobbit.

And as I pondered that fanciful notion, I realized that Ipretty much used to BE a hobbit before my eating issues took over every aspectof my life. I had always taken pleasures in simple comforts, and food used to beone of those. Not bingeing as I tend to do when I let myself eat a"normal" amount, but just taking pleasure in food. Eating what I wantwhen I want. Cooking pretty much all the time just to play with flavours andtry lots of new things. Having a piece of chocolate or some other sweetindulgence just because it tastes nice. I count alcohol in this as well. I missbeing a beer snob, and appreciating expensive French wines. I miss doing allthat and being happy with myself at the same time.

I WAS happy then, and one should be happy doing those sortsof things. There's nothing wrong with eating. NOTHING. There's nothing wrongwith a BMI of 20.4. There's nothing wrong with weighing a 3-digit number.

I had a moment last night--it lasted maybe 30 seconds--inwhich all of this became so clear and simple that it felt as though a hugeweight had been lifted off my chest. I felt like I could breathe again.

It didn't last, but that's not the point. The point is thatit was there, and it existed for a long time before this disorder. Which meansit can exist again.

It's like trying to remember a vivid dream hours afteryou've woken up: You get sudden glimpses of images from the dream and you havea vague memory of certain emotions that you can't really put into words, butit's all too hazy to really grasp it. It's getting harder and harder to remember, butyou KNOW it was there.

I used to be happy.

So now I'm trying to force myself to stop and think. Why doI want to lose more weight? Why, deep down, do I want to look like a chemopatient? I won't be pretty--no one is pretty when they look sick. And I mostcertainly won't be happy. That "woohoo!" feeling of watching numbersdrop on the scale rarely ever lasts more than an hour or so after the weigh-in.Instead, I'm just back to being miserable.

I'm sick of hating myself. SICK OF IT.

So am I giving Recovery a proper try? (Again?) Maybe Ishouldn't call it "recovery," because by now I really hate that word.Instead, I'm going to try Living again. This obsession with food and numbersand weight is not living; it's turning me into the walking dead. It'sexhausting and depressing and hateful and no good will ever come of it.

I'm not gonna lie--it's also terrifying. It's like me withmy vertigo trying to walk in a straight line without tripping or falling down.So easy to fall, and one tiny little slip up is enough to send everythingcrashing back down. Being content with myself is a completely alien feeling bynow, but I'm going to try and hold onto it as tight as I can. I'm so sick ofliving in this nightmare.

....that being said, I'm going to apologize in advance if Istop giving some of your blogs the attention I have in the past. As much as Ihate to admit to such a human weakness as being "triggered," I'd belying if I said I wasn't triggered when reading about starving and fasting andpurging and whatnot. I'll keep checking in on everyone's blogs, but I may haveto pass over some of the posts.

It doesn't mean I love any of you any less. <3

You shouldn't be married, you should be studied! You're a big, dumb, weird...thing!

2011-11-27T13:16:00.001-05:00

I still can't think of anything to write.

So here's a video of my kiiikiiiii Callisto being a spazz and playing with an old receipt that fell out of my purse.

Callisto turned 14 last week. Which makes her roughly 75 in human years.

You have destroyed his spirit, you have taken him from us. All that I could forgive. But Debbie..... pastels?

2011-11-23T23:40:00.002-05:00

I can't believe I have 500 followers. That's intense. Heyy'all! Am I continuing to live up to your expectations?

...with that in mind, I have created a new page^ entitled"Suggestion Box". Depending on how often it gets used, it may or maynot remain there for the foreseeable future.

I don't know what to write. And this encompasses my fictionas well as this blog. The fairy book has been "almost done" formonths, and yet I still haven't written more than a few sentences towards theending. I even tried taking a break from it for a while and then printing outthe whole thing to try and refresh the story in my head, but still when I sitdown to write:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Nothing.

lolz

I was starting to lose weight for a minute there. Then I atea feckton on the weekend and have leapt straight back up again. 107 lbs thismorning. I have a feeling the 104 lb goal for tomorrow won't be happening.

But I need to SNAP THE EFF OUT OF IT because I know this iswater retention as a result of the vitamins*. My measurements have gone downfrom where they were at the end of the summer, and I'm roughly back to where Iwas when I weighed 96 lbs (how that's possible I have no idea): 32" -23" - 32". And I can see bones sticking out, so rationally I know I'm not fat,but I just want to FEEL like I'm not fat. Just once. I want to enjoy Thanksgivingwithout cowering in terror under the dinner table.

I'm actually cooking quite a bit for Thanksgiving this year.I already made my vegetable soup, and am cooking the Brussels sprout fricassee tomorrow. (The recipes are also up on the recipe tab^, but blogger is being abiotch won't let me edit that page.) I'm spending the night at Dad's house tomorrow, for the first time in like 10 years.... o.O

I made a pumpkin pie tonight as well! My own recipe, finally perfected after several years of trial and error. Here it is:

You need

- 1 pumpkin (you need a specific type for baking)

- packaged pie crust (unless you want to make your own; I'm rubbish with pastry)

- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar

- 1 cup heavy cream

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp ginger

- 1/8 tsp nutmeg

- tiny pinch clove

- 2 eggs, and the yolk of a third egg

To make it:

- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Cover the bottom of a pie dish with one of the pie crusts and bake for 5 minutes. Let it cool down completely.

- Use your Herculean strength to cut the pumpkin in half (not kidding--I had to use a meat cleaver and brute force). Scrape out the seeds, and then boil the pumpkin for about 20 minutes, or until you can easily stick it with a fork. Let it cool down a bit and then drain the water and scrape out the middle of the pumpkin. Show it who's boss with a potato masher.
- Put all the mashed pumpkin in a cheese cloth to drain the excess water, and let it drain for a couple minutes. If you don't have a cheese cloth, you can just use lots of paper towels--layer like 2 or 3 on a plate and spoon the pumpkin into the middle, then lightly squeeze the water out. Repeat until tons of water stops coming out.

-Preheat the oven to 425 again.

- In a mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin (you shouldn't need more than 2 1/2 cups of it; save the rest for soup or mini pumpkin pie cupcakes or something), the sugar, cream, and eggs, and the spices. Mix it up real good.

- Pour the pumpkin mix into the pie dish, over the pre-toasted crust. Most prepackaged pie dough comes in 2 sheets, so you can use the second sheet to make little decorative things to put around the edges of the pie if you like. Brush the dough with a little egg, trying not to get too much on the pumpkin.

- Bake for 10 minutes on 425, then turn the oven down to 350. Bake it for about 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Keep an eye on the crust while it's baking--if it starts to turn too brown too fast, cover the edges with a thin layer of tin foil.

- Don't worry if the pumpkin part looks like it's risen too much once the pie comes out of the oven. It will settle back down. You should let the pie cool for two hours before serving it, or before sticking it in the fridge.

Have a nice Thanksgiving, my fellow Yankee readers! Try and enjoy it--you all deserve it. <3

Moral fibre? I invented moral fibre!

2011-11-18T14:37:00.002-05:00

Apparently I was heinously bloated because after I took thediuretics (and I didn't take more than the recommended dose--go me!) I felt SOMUCH BETTER. Less sluggish and swollen. And I have magically dropped down to105 lbs, which is 1 lb away from my goal for Thanksgiving. I really just wantto get back down to a "safe" weight by Christmas so that when I gain a ton of weight overChristmas (which I am wont to do) I won't flip out as badly.

Are any of you lovelies in the NY/NJ area with nothingto do for Christmas? I've been collecting holiday orphans so that we might havea nice big family Christmas. At the mo' we've got a family friend and one ofLittle Sis' friends coming for Christmas dinner, and onepossible acquaintance whose family is all out in California and she can'tafford to fly there.

I am totally serious, by the way. Of course you'd have to beevaluated and ruled out as a serial killer first, but as I am cooking theentire thing, Mum has told me I'm allowed to invite whomsoever I choose. I'mselecting a live turkey myself and it shall be cooked the day after it'skilled, so you know it will be DELICIOUS.

In other news....

Still waiting on my car. I have so far left three messageswith Valley Body & Fender and have yet to receive a call back as to whenthe Virus Pimp might be ready. I kind of want to know in advance so that I canempty all of my bank accounts.

...Scratch that--just got someone on the phone and it lookslike the Virus Pimp will not be ready until after Thanksgiving.

>:O

I ran into one of the kids I used to babysit the other day.I was their nanny for like 2 years while I was in college--a boy and a girl whowere 10 and 7 when I started. Now they're 16 and 13. o.O The girl is still moreor less the same, except now taller than I am (which isn't difficult, really).The boy, however, is nothing like the awkward potbellied know-it-all that hewas 6 years ago. He's actually not even so much a boy anymore. He's sporting a dustache and everything. Which is frigginWEIRD.

All in all, they've turned out pretty well, and I hope thatsome of that was my doing. I was glad that they were with their dad yesterday(even though he always creeped me out quite a bit...) rather than their mom.I'm pretty sure she still thinks I'm a deranged neo-nazi.

...I should probably explain that.

I taught those two children how to play pretend.

Can you believe that? They actually didn't know what thatwas. And they're not the only ones. SO MANY children have no idea how touse their imaginations and just make sh*t up as they go along. It's sad.The boy and girl I babysat had no idea--all they did was play video games orwatch TV, unless I forced them to play a board game or go outside. I tried toget them to play outside as much as possible, but they would always fight backwith the same "there's nothing to DO."

And then it dawned on me one day--they never play pretend.

Idk about the rest of you, but when I was little, that's allwe did. Sure we played some Mortal Kombat on the Megadrive, or Super Mario onNintendo NES, and we all stopped everything at 4.00 to go watch Batman, butmostly we were told by our parents and nannies to get the eff outside and playuntil dinnertime.

We played cowboys & Indians; we played X-Men (I wasalways Storm :D); we played the A-Team (I was always Murdock); we played randomweird games with dragons and adventures and castles made of the swingset, or wewent to war with the treehouse as home base and wielded swords (usually treebranches) and rifles (Nerf guns). It was good craic.

I tried explaining this to the boy and girl, and they wereflabbergasted. You would have thought from their reactions that I had just toldthem they had inherited the entire Hershey factory.

The boy (10 at that time) wanted to play War. He was apretty smart kid and was going through a World War II phase; so specifically, hewanted to play World War II. He went about setting up trenches in theliving room using the big couch cushions, proudly declaring, "I get to beEngland, because the Allies win." he made his little sister be Russia orFrance or something. And guess who Mich had to be?

We were hiding behind our pillow-trenches and hurling bombsat each other (stuffed animals) when their mother came home.

Did I mention that they're Jewish?

-____________-

That was kind of an awkward moment... Their mom was all like, "oh that's nice.....," but she sounded slightly alarmed.

I am sooooo bored. Boss has been in Court all day and there is feckall to do. Except for filing, which doesn't count because I don't want to do it.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!! <3

Sweet boy come in; I am the dark side of you.

2011-11-15T14:50:00.003-05:00

It's going to cost $2,200.00 to fix my car. (T.T)

I do not have $2,200.00.

Anyone need a kidney? Or some eggs? It doesn't get muchpurer than my Celtic genes. I'd offer a piece of my liver, but that wouldprobably only make you worse if you really need a functioning liver.... Ishould probably start prepping my cardboard-box-house.

So I know I was in Eff-Recovery-Mode at the end of September and then in October I kind of sort of tried again, but that attempt was muchmore of an unbalanced tightrope act and mostly I swayed on the side ofDisordered.

Well, as of mid-November, the disorder is back with avengeance. Why, you may ask? Because on top of all the other colossal stressors, I STILL WEIGH 108 MOTHEREFFING POUNDS.

It's been over a month. Not a single fluctuation in myweight. I suppose it could be worse--my weight could still be going up (inwhich case I think I'd either snap my own neck or end up in lockdown at Bergen Regional). Even then, if my weight went up because of bingeing, I might not gosuicidal-crazy, because at least then I would know the wheretos and the whyforsof said weight gain. Binge = gain. That makes sense.

But no.

I have not had a real binge in quite some time. Over amonth, I think, which is probably a record for me. Sure I've had days in whichI have eaten more than I would like, but nothing that really qualifies as abinge. And I've been exercising like a fiend, as per usual. I even changed upmy exercise routine to include some toning and less cardio, and now the cardiois mostly interval training. I drink plenty of water. I don't really drinksoda. I lay off caffeine except for my 2 allowed caffeinated beverages in themorning. I've cut down on salt (which is a HUGE accomplishment for someone inmy family...).

And yet no change whatsoever in my weight. None. I'veplateaued before, but never like this.

Last week saw me going back to super-restriction. Most daysare starve-a-thons except weekends, and even then I haven't been eating allthat much on weekends. I even broke out the old food diary.

I had a very long internal debate on whether or not I shouldpost that. It's like showing people the filthiest, darkest, most slime-infestedregions of my brain and it makes me want to cower shamefully in a corner. And Ialready feel like I want to cower shamefully in a corner because I'm FAT.

I know, I know. I'm not really that fat. I need to chillaxlike hardcore. But it's not that easy. If it was, it wouldn't be a Disorder.

Today, I have eaten some turkey bacon (45), coffee that Iended up pouring down the sink because I've lost my taste for coffee (5), sugarfree French Vanilla fake cappuccino thing from powder than comes in a tin (25),and yogurt (50). I'm thinking about maybe having a cup-a-soup soon (50). I didmake myself a salad as well, which I shall try to eat (seafood salad thing fromA&P mixed with baby spinach). It's difficult, though. Whenever I thinkabout eating, my brain is all like NOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU'RE TOO FAT FORTHAT!!!!!

If my weight was fluctuating up and down this wouldn'tbother me so much. But because my weight--no matter what I do--will not budgefrom 108, I am living in a state of constant TERROR. One false move, and Icould go up to 110, 112, 115, 120; and never go back down again. It's like acurse. And Mich's fairy godmother fecked off a long time ago. (If she everexisted in the first place, which is doubtful because everyone knows Irishgirls don't get fairy godmothers.)

Perhaps it is water retention? I'm presuming that's part of it, as Iknow that use of the vitamins* can cause epic water retention. As I havementioned before, the vitamins* enable me to exercise for up to an hour and ahalf on 200 calories or less. But there's also the possibility that they're makingme weigh more. The result is extreme kombat in my brain, as the vitamin*addiction battles the eating disorder.

Yesterday, I walked to CVS on my lunch break to buysome diuretics. I took them this morning, so we shall see how it goes....

......yes, I do in fact know that I have problems and I probably need help, but unless you sweet little chickadees intend to pay for that help (and I accept personal checks, money orders, and credit cards), kindly keep those thoughts to yourself. ♥

*if you haven't figured it out already, they go up your srón and rhyme with mugs.

Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

2011-11-10T11:28:00.002-05:00

So I was coming home from the Palisades Mall last night with Little Sis, and whilst driving down Route 304, just before hitting the town of Pearl River, I had an Epic Fail.

There was a dead deer in the middle of the road. A BIG mf deer, with antlers. Since there were no streetlights and 'twas nighttime, I did not see the deer until it was directly in front of my car. And since it was taking up the entire lane and I was going around 45/50 mph, I had about 1/10th of a second to make a decision. None of the options for sudden swerving looked all that great:

So I went with trying to run over as little of the deer as possible. Let's just say that one of my phobias--the constant fear that I'm going to run a person over and not notice--is now cured. You're definitely going to notice. That was not a small bump.

I drove a little farther to a spot where there was more room to pull over and assessed the damage. Since it was really dark, I couldn't tell how bad the car looked, but I could tell that I didn't have any flat tires, so Little Sis and I decided to continue a little ways down 304 and park in the KFC, where there was more light.

At first, we thought there was lots and lots of blood dripping off the car, but I'm pretty sure it was actually transmission fluid, since it was red and not really the consistency of blood. The deer dented the underneath of the bumper and left some chunks of fur behind, but other than that I couldn't see any damage aside from the fact that the car was obviously leaking something essential.

I tried driving it just to see if we could make it home, but about 30 seconds down the road, the Virus Pimp informed me that he was overheating. I love my car, and I didn't want to risk damaging him any further, so at Little Sis's suggestion we pulled into the next side street--where one of her friends lives--parked the car, and had her friend take us home.

Now I'm just waiting for the car to get towed to the Sunoco station where our mechanic buddy can assess the damage, so I can see just how badly I'm about to be fecked money-wise.

The only upside to this is that the anxiety has completely annihilated my appetite. Which is excellent, because it's epic-starve-a-thon from now until Thanksgiving.

Make some room for my friend, for Chrissake. But... keep your ass handy.

2011-11-07T18:24:00.001-05:00

I don't know what the heck it is about informercials that is so comforting to my sleep-deprived mind. Perhaps the same magic powers that makes the stuff they're selling so difficult to resist? Like seriously--how can you NOT want scissors that cut pennies in half?!?

I've probably bought way too much off of informercials. Like the Slap Chop. (If you're easily frightened, don't click that.) And I will praise the awesomeness of my Slap Chop to anyone who will listen.

And the ShamWows! Those were a gift, but still--I saw the ad and I HAD TO HAVE THEM. Which makes absolutely no sense, because the guy who sells those things and the Slap Chop is horrifying.

I was watching informercials last night. I want a NuWave.

And this cream that Joan Rivers said will make my legs look perfect.

Why doesn't Chuck Norris do more informercials? I mean he totally sold me on the Total Gym. Then again, when those ads were on all the time, I had this really bizarre and awful nightmare in which Chuck Norris crashed the party my friends were having in the woods, and he went mass-murderer on everyone with a chainsaw and brought the Apocalypse with him, and in the end he got me with the chainsaw and nearly cut my leg off, but I still refused to get into the ambulance afterwards because I do not trust medical professionals.

My work trousers are snug around the middle. :*O I don't like it one bit.

ugh

2011-11-05T11:46:00.002-04:00

I have returned to blogger! Sort of...

Basically I took one look at all the commenters I have to catch up on, responded to three, and then got tired. I'm like 3 blog posts behind (4 if you count this one), so if I don't post for a while that's why (I generally like to be caught up with commenters before doing a new post). And I get agitated when bloggers vanish with no explanation, so out of courtesy, this is my half-arsed explanation.

:D

Hope y'all are having a good weekend!! I'm off to the gym with my new supply of vitamins*...........And don't look at me like that--if you lived in my house, you'd be on drugs, too.

<3

A dark age, indeed. Age of inconvenience! No plumbing, no electricity, no nothing! Oh, hang it all!!!

2011-10-31T13:40:00.003-04:00

Happy Halloween, kids!

I apologize for my absence. No, I have not died (although with the temperature in my house, that may be up for some debate).

It snowed on Saturday.

I'm at work now and taking advantage of the power outlets to charge my mobile, ipod, and laptop. And before I leave early to go to Halloween festivities at Big Sis #2's house, I shall go in search of firewood and fill the back of my car with as much of it as I can fit.

I think I may have previously bemoaned the lack of practical architecture that went into the designing of my house. The fireplace is in the Big TV Room (as opposed to the small one; why do we need two??). The Big TV Room has no upstairs rooms over it, and therefore has a really high ceiling, so that it could have floor-to-ceiling windows that are poorly insulated, and skylights that are also poorly insulated, so that when we attempt to make a fire in the fireplace, most of the heat is sucked right up and out through the windows.

Basically like the original designers of the house were saying, "Hey we're so totally sure we will NEVER be without central heating in the winter that we don't care if this room is sucking the warmth right out through the badly constructed insulation. The fireplace just looks so nice right here in the pointless giant room!"

>:(

You'd think that, growing up with Mum, I would have inherited her love of money and material things and status symbols, instead of turning out the total opposite. When we went looking at new houses when I was 16, I took one look at the big room in this house and said "This is going to be a B*TCH to heat in the winter."

And Mum was like, "Oh but it's so nice and spacious!"

And PSE&G has opined that power may not be back until Wednesday. So until then we'll be stumbling around the house in the dark, feeding logs into the fire that only warms the house up about 2 degrees, and listening to the constant hum of our neighbor's generator.

>:(

Ah well.

So until my power is restored, or until Boss decides to disappear long enough for me to properly catch up on blogs, I shall bid you adieu. I hope you all have a fabulous Halloween!!

Roll the windows down; This cool night air is curious

2011-10-28T10:42:00.001-04:00

So now onto Jeep#2! In case you've forgotten since the Car Post Part 1, I'm talking about this car:

Unlike Jeep1, Jeep2's problems WERE ABSOLUTELY NOT my fault.

PTSD has left me uncertain of the exact chronological order of Jeep2's many issues. I think the recall notices came first:

1. The brakes were recalled, because apparently they had a tendency to fail without any reason or warning.

2. The seatbelts were recalled, because apparently they had a tendency to malfunction and trap the passengers.

3. The heated seats were recalled, because apparently they had a tendency to spontaneously combust.

4. The brakes were recalled a second time, because apparently the new ones had a tendency to fail as well.

After all of these recalls were fixed at Bergen Dodge, and then at Ramsey Chrysler after Bergen Dodge went out of business, I experienced the following recurring problems:

- The brakes were rather temperamental, and would not work immediately if you were driving downhill, in the rain, or too closely behind an expensive car. Oh and if it's snowing? LOL.

- All three of the seatbelts in the back didn't work. Two of them were permanently buckled and you could only be buckled in if you used your ninja skills and shimmied underneath the buckled seatbelt. The one in the middle refused to buckle at all.

- The heated seats apparently didn't work at all either, according to various passengers. I myself was never brave enough to actually turn them on.

And it seemed that every time I brought Jeep2 in for it's regular service, they found something new wrong with it. And that something new usually cost upwards of $500-$1,000. Because of course none of it was covered under the warranty (I'm pretty sure the "warranty" never existed in the first place).

The the Weird Thing started happening. The first time was on my way home from school. I had a late class at Ramapo that night and was flooring it home to watch the new episode of House (this was before House got retarded). About 5 minutes away from my house, while rounding a corner, I noticed that my RPM gauge had started to go nuts for no apparent reason, and I was like wtf?

And then the car died.

Just died. Because it had power steering, I couldn't really steer the car onto the side of the road. And the brakes weren't working. That was totally awesome.

-___-

I had the car towed, missed House, and then like 2 days later picked the car up from the dealership and paid some heinous amount of money to fix "an issue with the central computer."

I don't know much about cars, but that sounds like total BS to me.

A couple days later, one morning on the way to school, THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED. So I had the car towed again. And paid a mothereffing fortune to get it fixed again, because the c*ntrags at Bergen Dodge listed it as being a completely different problem than last time, so I couldn't accuse them of not fixing it last time. But what are you gonna do? I worked and went to school full time--I needed a functioning car.

On the way home from picking the supposedly fixed Jeep2 up from Bergen Dodge, THE SAME BLOODY THING HAPPENED AGAIN. And this time it happened on Route 17 during rush hour, while I was speeding along in the fast lane.

If any of you are familiar with Bergen County at all, you know how awesome Route 17 is.

Now imagine your car dies in the fast lane of a busy highway--your brakes aren't working, and it takes all of your strength to get the steering wheel to move.

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to go back to Bergen Dodge with an axe and a flamethrower. Mum did it for me, and they did manage to fix the Weird Thing after that, about a month or so before Bergen Dodge went under.

The rest of Jeep2's life was more or less uneventful, as by then I was used to replacing the brakes, transmission, shocks, and everything else multiple times a year. I had come to accept Jeep2's status as a total piece of shite. My real problem, during those last few months, was really with Ramsey Chrysler.

The people working their service department are CROOKS. There is no other word for them. Lying, thieving sacks of manure. And the proof that they are truly bad people comes from the fact that they managed to make me lose my temper in public, which is--as anyone who knows me will tell you--more or less impossible.

The last time Jeep2 went in for it's regular service, I got a call that all 4 shocks needed replacing. Since you kind of need those, I said ok, even though I was charged over $1,000.00 for it. (They tried to charge me over $2,000, but I used some very strong language with the gentleman on the phone and asked to be faxed a full report of everything they were doing to the car and its cost, and the price magically went down.)

Less than two months after this, I noticed a funny noise coming from within Jeep2, like a thudding sound every time I went over even a small bump in the road.

Kind of like the sound your shocks make when they need to be replaced.

Just to be sure, I took Jeep2 to the nearby Sunoco station where we know the owners, and had Don look at it (I never got the car fixed there because Mum helped with the service costs, and insisted we only let Factory Trained Mechanics touch the Jeep or the "warranty" would be voided). While I was at work in Express (which was next door to the Sunoco), Don checked out the Jeep, and when I came back, he informed me that I needed new shocks.

And I said that can't be right--I just had them replaced.

And Don was like you want my honest opinion? None of those shocks are anywhere near new. They're all shot. You need new ones.

Now in general I am a very calm and composed sort of person. I do not yell. I do not even raise my voice. I do not get angry, or visibly ruffled, or anything like that. I am the happy, zen-like, calm little center of the universe. But when Don told me that the shocks--for which I had just paid over $1,000--had NOT actually been replaced, something snapped.

It should take like 15 minutes to get from the Sunoco to Ramsey Chrysler. It took me 7.

And you better believe I did some serious yelling.

(There was another woman who had come in before me with a similar issue of paying for something they hadn't fixed. She told me I was her hero before she left. :D )

After that, all future service and maintenance on Jeep2 was done free of charge. Always, and without question.

I only had Jeep2 for another couple months after that. And I was still left with something like $4,500.00 in credit card debt, which I am still paying off.

Oh it's like a disease, son.

2011-10-26T18:02:00.004-04:00

Firstly, hey to new followers! I feel so popular. :D Almost like being back in high school, except in this case I promise I will not ditch any of you to go join the goth kids. (Although goth kids are more than welcome here.) I’ve noticed that a number of ye new followers are not from the realm of eating disorder blogs, so I hope you’re not put off by the more disordered posts. I must say you have all been very gracious in your comments on those posts, and I appreciate it. <3

Starving Artist wanted to hear Car Stories, and I am more than happy to oblige. Be warned—this will probably be a lengthy post. Everyone seems to have some good car stories, especially when it comes to one’s first car. I got my permit and my license within one month of each other, a few months after I turned 17. I never got the permit at 16 because I kept failing the written test, and by the time 17 rolled around I had sort of lost interest because I failed the written test again.

Now, at age 27, I drive a red Toyota Yaris (his name is the Virus Pimp), and it is spectacular.

A bit of history first: Back in 2001 when I got my license, Mum still had a pretty awesome job and thus could afford to have two cars—one for normal everyday driving, and one just for fun. Mum developed a thing for Jeeps in the 90’s, when she was still driving her superhot Jaguar XJS.

I loved that car, but its Issues really outweighed the hotness.

If you have ever been in or driven a car that was made in England prior to the 1990's, then you understand why she needed a second, more reliable vehicle.

The first Jeep worked. I think it was the 1996 Cherokee Sport. After Mum got rid of the Jaguar for the Mercedes SLK,

(that one was super fun)

... she traded the Jeep in for a 2000 Grand Cherokee Limited.

Honestly I’m surprised there aren’t more earthquakes in the eastern regions of this country, because the collected dead of the Cherokee Nation must all be doing somersaults in their graves.

We had Jeep1 when I got my license, and Mum said that since she had the Mercedes, I could have the Jeep. I was like sweeeeet, free car!!

Don’t ever buy a Jeep unless it was manufactured prior to the year 2000. JUST DON'T DO IT.

Jeep 1 had a number of alarming psychological problems, mainly centered around the supposedly high tech electrical system. Below the radio, there was a little display that showed a picture of the Jeep, and would tell you with blinking lights and beeps and junk if and when something was wrong with the car (like a low tire, a light out, etc.). According to Jeep1, the driver side brake light went out the second year we had the car and remained out for the duration of Jeep1’s life, despite the fact that—to the human eye—the light was working just fine. Some of the best mechanics in the tri-state area tried to fix this; all were left scratching their heads.

I will admit that the bulk of Jeep1’s issues may in fact have been my fault.

There’s this thing in New Jersey called Devil’s Tower.

According to legend, if you drive backwards around it three times/six times (it changes depending on who’s telling the story), then Satan or zombies or cannibalistic witches or whatever will come out and eat you, or something like that. So DUH, I had to try it.

Although I did not see Satan, zombies, or witches, I think Satan may have possessed Jeep1. Because it was never quite the same after that night.

At least once a week, the display would inform me of a new problem. Like HEY YOU DRIVER, there’s a tire out! Wheels fell off! THE CAR IS ON FIRE!!! And I would pull over and panic and check the car and lo and behold, nothing was actually wrong. So I did what any sensible person would do and ignored it.

Then the thing with the passenger side window started. It would randomly go down by itself, but ONLY when I was alone in the car. This was also about the time that Jeep1 began to adamantly insist that the driver side brake light was out and it needed to be fixed IMMEDIATELY.

Finally, after my first year in college, Mum decided that enough was enough--Jeep1 had to go. Prior to this, Mum did not believe any of my tales of woe regarding Jeep1. She insisted I was just being paranoid. OF COURSE the window isn't rolling down by itself--what nonsense! The car is possessed?! No, you're just cracked. But then one day, Jeep1 one had an epic seizure.

Mum, myself, and a friend were leaving the house--Mum to go shopping in her own car, friend and I probably to go get stoned--and Jeep1 totally lost it. I HAVE WITNESSES FOR THIS. I did not touch the panic button. I did not touch the Jeep. No one touched the Jeep; no one had even gone near it yet, as we were only just leaving the house. But the Jeep went completely spastic--the alarm was going, the wipers were going, the lights were flashing, the windows were going up and down, and I'm fairly certain that Satan was about to come exploding out of the engine at any moment.

We couldn't get it to stop. Eventually it stopped on its own, but I sure as hell wasn't getting in it after its psychotic episode. Mum sold it pretty soon after that, and we never returned the many phone calls we received from the new owners, who sounded more and more frantic in each voice message they left us.

In what can only be described as an act of total insanity, Mum purchased Jeep2.

(Mine didn't have the grey bit along the bottom; it was all blue.)

I have a headache already. Shall continue this in another post!

Shake a leg Junior! Thank God your mammy died givin' birth. If she'd have seen you, she'd have died o' shame.

2011-10-24T18:18:00.004-04:00

Clytie is a genius. Inspired by her blog post, I made this:

That's a Van's low-cal waffle (70 calories), 2 small spoonfuls of Edy's slow-churned caramel delight ice cream (40ish cals), and just a little sugar free maple syrup (it's 15 cals per 1/4 cup and I think I barely used a tbsp, so I guess it's like 4 calories?).

A nice size Belgian waffle sundae for a grand total of 114 calories.

But I shouldn't even be eating that. I've zeppelined right back up to 108 lbs (BMI 20.4) and I feel anxious and cold-sweat-ish whenever I have to go out where people can see me. Such as leaving my bedroom and being seen by Mum or Little Sis on the way to the bathroom. I've been wearing hardly anything but oversized sweaters and sweatpants to cover up the largeness.

This is my reward for my attempts at Recovery. I haven't BINGE binged in a loooooong time. As in the fill-my-pockets-with-as-much-junk-food-as-I-can-manage-and-hide-in-my-bedroom-stuffing-my-face-in-the-middle-of-the-night kind of bingeing. I haven't done that in WEEKS. For the most part, I've eaten below what a normal person should eat. And somehow I have managed to gain roughly 8 lbs since the beginning of the summer.

No matter what I do--eat normal, restrict, fast, starve, workout--I'm still gaining weight. Every week I go to weigh myself and no matter whether it's been a bad week or a good week food and exercise-wise, I'm still gaining weight.

I AM GOING TO HAVE A MOTHERTRUCKING NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Seriously. This makes me want to do very bad things for which I do not have money.

>:(

My printer at work is accosting me.

Y'all are familiar with my issues with electronics and conspiracy-theory-paranoia by now. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm unknowingly part of some secret government experiment. (I've been watching a lot of the X Files, if you can't tell--I got seasons 6 and 7 on DVD for like $15 each. :D)

Either yes, the government is experimenting on me; I generate lots of radiation naturally; or my office is haunted.

Specifically, my printer is haunted, and it's only haunted when I'm alone in the office.

Look at it there, being Evil while my back is turned.

I'll just be sitting there, going about my daily business, the printer only doing things and making noise when I print stuff.

And then, usually in the middle of a brief lull in the office work, the printer will yell at me.

It kind of reminds me of my old car (the 2000 Jeep Grand Spastic Limited)--I'd be driving along, all alone in the car, and the passenger window would just go down all by itself. (And that was just the beginning of that car's Madness...)

The bathroom in my old house did something similar as well. Mum and I got to talking about that this weekend, actually. We moved out of that house in 2001, and I still miss it.

The downstairs bathroom had a vent in the ceiling that would scream at you when you turned the light on. It was customary for those of us who were familiar with this to send ignorant visitors into that bathroom and wait outside to hear their horrified reactions. The vent did not automatically scream at you when the light went on--sometimes it would start shrieking immediately, sometimes it wouldn't scream at all. The best ever was when the vent would wait before it started screaming, giving the person in the bathroom time to sit down on the loo and relax before being frightened out of their wits.

I've been trawling around youtube for like an hour trying to find something that sounds similar to the screaming bathroom vent, but there's nothing. It kind of a little bit sounds like the noise you hear in this vid, when you let the mouse hover over the "play" button.

Only in the bathroom it was more drawn out.

Watch that video. If you don't find the letter in place of "H" to be funny, I question your sense of humour.