Oyster Farmer clip

You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

Oh, if that title were true, I'd be burnt to a crisp. As I believe I've mentioned before, I am constantly (well, often anyway) musing about the sexual potential of customers, various celebrities, random strangers, people I've known for years. It's the curse or blessing of my [almost] middle-aged hormones, I suppose. Today after seeing my favorite classical musician customer (looking especially fetching, I might add, despite his awful Coogi sweater), a couple of co-workers and I were talking about the subject. One of them freely copped to doing exactly what I do. (Which does amount, I admit, to objectifying a person nearly completely. So sue me.) The other co-worker claimed to have never done such a thing. She said that when she was in a relationship she never even thought of anyone else as attractive, let alone about doing wonderfully naughty things with them. Now that she's single I think her implication was that she's just too chaste to think that way. A load of bullshit or sadly true? Your guess is as good as mine with this chick. I had to listen to a verrrrrrrry long exposition about how her life is just like the life of a certain former very popular TV character. Very long. And, by the way, not so much.

I just finished reading "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers. Man, I thought I liked her, but I could barely make myself finish this book. It was tortuously slow going but I didn't want to give up. Give me Flannery O'Connor, Harper Lee, Eudora Welty or, more currently, Donna Tartt, any day. Sorry Carson, but don't feel bad because I don't much like William Faulkner either.

I have all evening to myself and I'm going to spend it with my celebrity secret boyfriend, Alex O'Loughlin, watching The Oyster Farmer. Yum. I'll leave you with a lovely candid from ComicCon.

It was you breathless and tall, I could feel my eyes turning into dust

Guess I should have posted a picture of our little silver Christmas tree earlier, but I didn't. I've enjoyed it's flashing lights and tinkly ornaments, but I'll probably take it down in the next couple of days.



It's really kind of hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone. This wasn't my jolliest of holiday seasons, but it was all right. Christmas day was actually pretty damn fun, particularly when my sister and I waged a furious boxing battle against each other with the Wii. She won, but it was by decision, not a KO, at least. It was nine minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise and much yelling and screaming. There was a threat of the entire thing being posted to Youtube, but it hasn't happened yet. Perhaps I'll post it, if I don't look too ridiculous. I've never wanted a videogame, but I think I'd like to have a Wii. The tennis, baseball and bowling had their charms as well. I wonder what else you can play on it? I could barely move the next morning though. That's some real exercise you get from the Wii.

I haven't cooked much lately, what with my foul moods and the holidays. But on this, my brief day off, I've baked a loaf of bread and made a ginormous pot of chicken noodle soup. Wanna see?





The house smells really good from the bread baking and the soup simmering. An added salad should make a lovely dinner.

You broke another mirror; you're turning into something you are not.

What a fucking day. Mid morning, at work, some sort of hormonal surge or something sent me into a total tailspin. It was everything I could do to keep from sobbing into the lattes. I'm not even sure what it was that set me off. Perhaps the fact that I have to work on so many holidays now. For the last 15+ years I haven't had to work between Christmas Eve and January 2 and it's just shocking to have no choice in the matter now. I'm feeling like I do nothing but work now; that all my life revolves around going to work. Can't stay out late because I have to get up at 3:45a the next day. Can't go to dinner because I have to work until almost 11:00p. Can't do anything but wait for the next shift to start. This job takes up way more of my energy than I expected and sometimes I really resent it. Today is definitely one of those days. I don't feel like I have a single bit of control over when I work and I hate that. Do I even have any vacation days? How long before they start accumulating? At my last job I walked in with three weeks vacation. God, I miss that. Sometimes I miss those regular hours too. Today is not a day that I value the variety this job provides. The only good thing that happened today is that I got to go home a couple hours early.

I need some serious Christmas cheer. Tonight we're celebrating with Steve's family, including his very ill youngest brother. I don't suspect it will be a terribly cheery event. Hopefully tomorrow with my family will improve my mood. Of course, I'm already fretting that I have to work on Wednesday at 4:45a...

And I've had the breath of liars blowing me off course in my sails.

Why, after all these years and many instances of betrayal, am I still surprised and shocked and hurt when someone I thought I could trust proves to be, at the least, unreliable? So I was shocked the other day at work when I realized that I probably couldn't trust someone I thought I could. Now, I have no proof, but it suddenly became clear who was the likely culprit. It sucks and I of course will not trust this person again, but I do still like 'em. Sigh.

Last night we DJed at the Royale. The end of that evening has left me in a bad and rather angry (however futile) mood. Most of the night was entertaining and not all of the end was bad, but there were definitely big parts I could have absolutely done without.

Today I made more candy, wrapped a bunch of gifts and tried to figure out appropriate gifts, if any, for co-workers. I didn't do nearly enough work and I'm sure I have a zillion things to do before Christmas. I only work until early p.m. tomorrow so I guess there will be no rest for me on this Sunday.

Baking some more chicken tonight, with potatoes and buttered peas. Old school and simple.

When you're near me I have difficulty concentrating

Well, the review went pretty well. It lasted, however, for almost three hours. My boss and I, when we have the opportunity, tend to talk. A lot. I feel pretty good about my place and confident that, even if I'm not always the most people-oriented person, I do a damn good job. It was important to me to know I was doing well. I'm kind of an overachiever that way. So, since I got home so much later than I thought I would, it was Papa John's pan pizza for us. The last two times we've had PJ's pizza, it was good. Really good.

Tonight I have spent too much time online stalking a customer I'm kind of obsessed with -- for no real reason (ok, well, he is pretty cute). At any rate, today I asked him what he plays and where he plays it. He's with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra but I'll keep the identity of his instrument confidential, just in case. All further info is from my online, er, research. He has been playing since he was three. Three! And his current instrument is nearly three hundred years old. How cool is that? Anyway, I've been around rock musicians for over half my life, but I've never known a classical musician. Kind of fascinating.

Now I have to put down my computer (I had to give her up to Roy for over 24 hours for some tweaking and I missed her sorely), get to the kitchen and figure out what I'm doing with some chicken quarters. I guess I'll bake them with garlic and other spices or something. There will be broccoli and maybe a sort of risotto. However, I don't know if I have the wherewithall for risotto as I have some killer cramps right about now. Update: I'm baking the chicken withbrown rice, mushrooms, shallots and broth. Hopefully it'll work out into something that tastesgood and doesn't take a gazillion minutes to cook. Oh, and the cramps are abating.

Speaking of Roy, I wish I had a picture of him sitting on our couch with his legs crossed (guy-style -- can't think of what else to call it), with Foxy Brown's eyes and snout peaking through the open triangle of leg that results from that position. She stared intently at him and he just stared back. I laughed and laughed.

Oh lord deliver us from the elements

Yesterday I managed to squeeze in one more cookie recipe: paper thin oatmeal lace cookies. Really tasty, but a total pain in the ass to make. Plus they are extremely delicate, another pain. Again, at least they taste good.

Dinner tonight was easy: turkey smoked sausage roasted with potatoes and Thai ginger carrots from Trader Joe's.

Tomorrow I get to work eight hours and then submit to a performance review. Oh boy. I'm afeared my occasional lack of people skills might come up. Maybe. How to prepare? Expect the worst, be happy with what I get. Deal with it constructively? I'll try my best.

Why oh why do you treat me like a snowman

I have been a neglectful blogger. I just haven't had time these last few days. Let's see, to catch up with dinner reports, we weren't home together at dinner time last Thursday; and on Friday night we had pork pad thai from King & I. On Saturday I reprised the portabella cream pasta from Steve's birthday which we had with a simple romaine and tomato salad. Yum. Last night I made a pot of chili that turned out quite nicely. I cooked a batch of pinto beans in the pressure cooker, then made a big batch of chili using languiza sausage (sort of like chorizorizo). Topped with grated cheese and oyster crackers, it was great with a bottle of merlot.

Today is Christmas baking and cooking day. So far I've made lemon cornmeal poppyseed cookies, chocolate almond biscotti drizzled with white chocolate, milk chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies (chilling in the fridge but not yet baked), cream cheese mints, white chocolate nut clusters and I'm getting ready to prepare a chocolate walnut buttercrunch toffee. Who knows what else I can squeeze in.

Dinner tonight will be leftover chili. Maybe chili mac using leftover plain pasta from Saturday...

Oh, and I hate snow. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty for about an hour, then it freezes to ice and makes driving in the City hazardous and horrible..

Snipping snipping snipping goes the scissors man

After work yesterday morning I dashed down the street to the library to return some overdue books. When I came out of the library I noticed that one of my back tires was very flat and, indeed, had a tear on the side. All of my plans for the day went out the window as I headed to the tire place to get some replacements. I knew the damage was going to be bad; after all, my car is sort of a sports car (well, I guess it is a sports car) and those tires always cost more. So, $342 and two (yes, only two) tires later, I didn't feel like doing much other than going home.

A brief stop at the grocery store led to this dinner last night: Beef and bean tacos in whole wheat soft tortillas with cheese, tomatoes, green onions and salsa. Refried beans and cheesy rice on the side, all washed down with a peachy sauvignon blanc. Oh, and a toffee almond chocolate bar for dessert.

All eaten whilst watching the happy return of Life on Mars on BBC America. I would give you a link here except that the flash-heavy BBC America site gives my poor little clamshell agita.

And where's the sense in recompense when recompense don't make no sense at all

Today I came home from work. lazed around a bit and then added highlights to my hair. Then I went back to doing nothing. Just the way I like it. What with flashes and other lighting it's hard to get a decent picture of highlights, but I tried.



Well, the highlights are there; just too subtle to see in that picture.

Dinner tonight was a bit of an experiment, in a French vein. I tossed romaine lettuce with a dressing made of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, shallots and Dijon mustard. I heaped the salads with cubed potatoes and leftover roast pork fried crispy. And on top of the whole shebang, fried eggs with runny yolks. Seriously, it is a rather traditional French thing to put a fried egg on top of a salad. At any rate, it was quite good.

But I can't help the feeling I could blow through the ceiling if I just turn and run

Wow. I was having a serious bad day when I wrote that last entry. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I reacted so strongly to the causative events. Thank goodness things seemed much better by the next day and have remained so. Some day work will settle into being completely routine. It's not there yet, but surely it will happen, right? Does routine ever exist in retail? I have no idea.

So in the last week I struggled very much with the idea of making jewelry for Ziezo. In general I haven't felt very inspired these last several weeks. The pressure of making something cool enough for that store on top of the stress I felt over not having any good ideas topped out about mid-week. I wasn't feeling my most confident and I pretty much let my fear of being criticized make the decision that perhaps this wasn't the best time for me to try for a consignment deal at there. I didn't feel great about the decision (I don't enjoy being so thin-skinned), but there was a certain amount of relief.

Pair that with going to the Rock and Roll Craft Show VIP party (thanks, Dana, for making me your date for the evening!) on Friday night and whatever creative genes I have are hanging their little DNA heads low. I opted to not participate in RnRCS this year because I just didn't, again, feel inspired to crank out that much stuff. Was that a mistake? Last year I was a top 5 seller and this year walking around and looking at all the great stuff and not seeing any of my things made me feel a little regretful and kind of sad. Ah well, I never dwell long on regrets as it's a useless waste of energy, so I'm getting over it. I really can't imagine when I would have had time to do enough for the show anyway.

Today I woke up with energy to do some cleaning and rearranging. We traded the huge futon in the living room with the mid-century sectional piece upstairs and I'm so happy we did it. I cleaned up the upstairs sitting room, finally took all my craft show junk out of the front foyer (suddenly our downstairs has basically gained a room), AND, most importantly, put up our silver Christmas tree. We haven't bothered with a tree the last couple of years and I really missed it, I guess. Oh and I did the laundry and dyed my hair brown. Not bad for a day.

I've decided to start chronicling what I cook. Tonight for dinner: Roasted pork "country ribs" slathered in steak marinade. Roasted sweet potato chunks with olive oil and parmesan cheese. Green beans with a sauce of butter, shallots, balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sugar.

Only love can bring the rain that falls like tears from on high

How do you blow off a day that divebombed into shitty, shake off a pariah label, and start over fresh the next day? Seriously, how?

I so miss the days of never having to leave my house or interact with other humans.