Cookery in the works

I've been silently Master Planning over here (more playing catch up with said plans, actually) and enjoying many nibbles of delicious dairy products at my new place of work, Calf & Kid. I'm absolutely loving it and the ladies and gentleman I monger with. And even though we're such a tiny shop and will no doubt be heavily bombarded during the coming holiday seasons (only the shop's second year of such traffic!), I must say I just can't wait to experience it.

For the more immediate future, I'm hoping to have a food blog up by the weekend. A friend of mine convinced me. Or rather, he reminded me: "Why don't you have a food blog?"

The idea had always been floating around. I think it was just one of those things that seemed so obvious—and if you know me, you know that I tend to stubbornly, and often foolishly, avoid even attempting those opportunities that would come easiest to me.

So this is me finally slapping my hand and saying, "Stop that."

Dialogue

Me: Hey Life, how's it going?

Life: Things are happening.

Me: Well that's a bit curt. Don't you think?

Life: Who are you?

Me: It's me, Wendy. Same old, same old, remember?

Life: You are not the same or old.

Me: Always so literal, you.

Life: Literal: free from exaggeration or distortion; without allegory; absolute-

Me: Exactly.

Life: I suppose you can call me this. But you are not what you say you are.

Me: Well what would you call me? Isn't this all transient? The impression I'd gathered thus far was that change is the only constant.

Life: Then what shall I say?

Me: I don't know, usually we tend to form conclusions about the things that concern us and which things we concern ourselves with. Otherwise, how do we go on?

Life: The We, the Us, the Self, the Other. I feel you tire of these separations.

Me: Well-

Life: You said change is the only constant.

Me: Well why don't you tell me what I am.

Life: You are insane if you think this works.

What I've been working on

For the last week I've been working on art stuffs, exploring my styles, understanding erroneous and successful technique along the way. Here are a few of my results.

A work in progress. Doodle with calligraphy ink on drawing card stock.

Poppies. First finished canvas with acrylic, copper leafing, and calligraphy ink.

Mountain vista. Watercolour on sketch paper.

Do let me know whatcha think. Any feedback is appreciated!

If Things Were Like My Brain...

I would be Boss Nova, mad vocalist and Casio harmonizer in a psychofunkabilly band called Nightmare Bear. But even sounding so ruthless, our music would be like if Devo and Reverend Horton Heat ate a buffet of Isaac Hayes. We'd wear undergarments made of goose feathers, and I would have the most kickass stage footwear, like go-go rollerskate-boots and those tennis shoes we had when we were kids that blink when you step. And I would be dating Steve Martin, Patrick Stewart, and Jeff Goldblum at the same time.

*Sigh* And I dream.

Full of Todays

I've always been a 'busy body' (not to be confused with "busybody"), active and energetic, prone to laugh fits. Also quite anxious and easily taken by cabin fever. Which is why I've started crafting again. Sewing, in particular, is one of the very few things I know of that I can focus on effortlessly, and that actually relaxes me. I don't know why exactly. Perhaps because it was one of those activities I learnt I could do at home and not be bothered, like drawing or reading. Or because I've always preferred manual activities that allowed me to build or design something. Like a blank canvas for my imagination to explore and shape, unravel and piece together in my own way.

But, still out of a job, and without monetary means to make much more progress on crafts, I'm left with monotony--the state in which days blur together, undistinguished by happenings, weeks vaguely strung along by one's basic understanding of how time works. My mental calendar would look like a blank page with some rudimentary visual structure that would imply a grid, lines missing and shifted.

When this happens, it's very easy to fixate on things one shouldn't fixate on, and get caught up in little dramas in your head. That's pretty much what my Todays have been like.

When I came back from India, I relayed to a friend who inquired about how I was doing, that my brain felt like a very dark place with something wild scratching and pacing around inside. That something hasn't died yet, and though it's weaker now than it was, I worry sometimes that I'm secretly keeping it alive. People hold onto what's known to them, and I know a lot of horrific things now. When I was younger and in hard times, I remember I used to tell myself to suck it up and just deal. "So many people have it worse," I would say. But at least I had lived those hard times; it was familiar to me, and I'd understood how to cope. It's a very different story when you see and hear and feel things that you realise you've never truly known, and then must find some human way of taking it all in, rebuilding yourself, and unveiling that to the people you've known, the job you've had, the world you've been living in.

Ah well. Gotta keep on keepin' on somehow 'til I figure it out.



What Becomes of the Brokenhearted - Jimmy Ruffin

I found this picture tagged on Facebook from a friend's visit to the zoo and misread the signage. Removed from context, it inspired in me a variety of fictitious and comedic scenarios...

FEATURE
Incentivized leisure is U.S.'s ticket out

Visitors and employees alike enjoy membership perks offered to combat the erroneous financial conservation spurred by recession. (Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle, WA.)



SEATTLE, Wa.--In our economic crisis, many Americans are being forced to trim their leisure expenditures. But recent fiscal analysis shows a direct correlation between domestic market simulus and propensity of money squandering.

Animal lovers in particular have proven a consistent indicator of overall growth. (Beinder-Woopie, 2008) One incentive for visitors of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo this holiday season includes a complimentary bird with each zoo membership. The sign, however, warns one to "Please be careful where you step birds on ground" (see above), though it is a bit misleading; Woodland advises its members to be careful where on the ground they step their birds, as one could mistakenly trip into a pothole* (not shown). Thankfully sanitary wipes are kept on-hand should bird-stepping become too messy. Zoo employees encourage bird-stepping further from entrances and exits to ease congestion. Bird salvaging is not recommended.


*It may be noted here that "potholes" in the context of zoos actually refer to strategically placed boobie traps, camouflaged for the very small animals that attempt escape.

Wartimes much?

It may look different from the sort we're familiar with, the kind we teach our kids in class and visit at museums or heritage sites, but can anyone deny our time as one of war? Because I'd like to see better evidence of the experience than something so domestic, so casual, as the creation of militaristic and political "moe anthro" comics (unequivocably NSFW). The latter term refers to the personification of inanimate objects or concepts as "moe," the Japanese word for "budding" but which, in the context of genre and Japanese slang, generally refers to cute things with specific traits.

You know an era has truly made history when they start producing media designed around characters that represent actual, known countries relying on dialogues of stereotyped international relations and current policymaking. There's a fracking geopolitical revival spreading around...

This is one for the books, Jerry. Really one for the books.