Syntactic Sugar

We moved into the new house! The cats are back! Oliver and his family came to visit!

Damn, I found the most awesome book trolling Wikipedia for information on posionous mushrooms. Its theory is that Christianity was a sex/hallucinogenic drug cult and Jesus WAS the mushroom. OMG! Too bad it's so hard to get a hold of.

I bought The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook and I've basically been gorging myself on cheez. I am apparently "doin it wrong" because the agar (vegan gelatin) set up and it turned into a tasty but very uncheeselike spread. Also I have yet to get the right balance of lemon juice to citric acid, and my mozzarella turned out very sour...eww. The chedda had more or less the right amount of citric acid but it was still a little overpowering so I'll definitely cut down the next time I make it. I'm also an idiot and I don't know what cheese tastes like so I'm like "Whoa this tastes just like cheese!" and apparently it doesn't. I'm almost out of my nutritional yeast and my pee is turning neon yellow from the crazy B-Complex. Also, flax seed (not oil) is a LAXATIVE. Be aware.

The new house is pretty awesome. It's located really near everything and it's not on some twisty road in the mountains...I get my own bathroom and the cats have stopped fighting and love eachother again. Yay! I bought a desk from Craigslist so the only downside now is that I have a million boxes in my room and I have some nasty-ass bruises all over my legs....

It was really great having Oliver and his family come to visit...we went to hike at this place called Sugarloaf mountain and then went to Pearl Street and kind of passed out from the heat...

I was lonely after he left, so I put an ad on Craigslist looking for friends...I actually got one response from a pretty cool sounding guy so we might have coffee this weekend. I've also gotten a response from "grababootienpinch" and two guys from Texas, one of whom thought that Bubble tea was a Texas phenomenon. These have been quietly shoved aside. It's kind of embarrassing posting on Craigslist or whatever, but I figure if things go terribly wrong (a la my "showing Conspirators of Pleasure to a group of people I hardly knew" incident) I won't be in Boulder again for some time. So take that, bitches!

My mom brought home a CD today and asked if I knew the band. At first I thought it was Amandine and I got super excited, but then I realized it was the Arcade Fire album Funeral with an album cover I wasn't familiar with. So now my mom is turning into an indie snob, just like me! Although, I'm not sure if she'll honestly like them...She'll probably think they're bad singers.

Oliver lent me a book called Summerland which is sort of like American Gods for kids with baseball. The baseball is kind of turning me off, but there was a pixie in it, so I kept reading. We'll see if the faeries outweigh the baseball. It actually has kind of a Sam Snoozle feel to it, which I like (no one is gonna get this reference so just keep on movin'.)

Roger, over and out.

Whoa, this post is way overdue.

I survived the last week of school and finals (or should I say "final"), drunken senior week, and graduation (with honors!).

Now I'm just chillin'in da hood (Boulder) wif my mommy. We're living in this studio apartment and sleeping in the same bed which is funny because she always used to hate it when I came in after getting scared in the middle of the night. Apparently I'm a lot better to sleep in the same bed with, and *she's* the one doing the honk-shuu-ing.

The only thing of note during Senior week was the infamous Booze Cruise. People were getting super silly and screaming and stuff towards the end and my laptop battery died, but it wasn't as boring as I thought it would be. I wore a silver dress that I found in the donation pile in Kirk - they were going to throw it out, and it was never worn and had a 90 dollar price tag on it! I got lots of compliments and I didn't have to worry about getting booze, river water, or vomit on it.

Oh yeah, and me and Oliver went to a Laura Veirs concert. Here's the funny thing, this is what I thought she looked like. And this is what she looked like in real life (my mom commented "She looks like a soccer mom") Actually she looked cuter than that but nothing like the publicity photos they take of her. She was so adorable and said cute things, and I loved her even though I was supposed to hate her since she went to Carleton. Oh, the opening act was kind of crazy. Liam Flynn, I think? The songs started out fine but then he'd do this crazy looping thing and distorted guitars and screaming...it was actually quite funny. But anyway Laura Veirs was brilliant and she sung a lot of stuff from her new album I hadn't actually heard (if you check me out on Last.fm you'll see that I'm listening to her way too much now) I really liked Pink Light, Nightingale, Drink Deep, and Cast a Hook. I was gonna talk to her on the way out but a stupid indie idiot was all introducing her to his DAD and stuff so I chickened out and left.

My dad and Shaeri came on the Thursday before Sunday graduation - unfortunately my mom got sick and couldn't come *sad meow*. We had a pretty fun time - we went to a tea/coffee shop and saw live music with Oliver and all had dinner together with Oliver's parents at that Thai place. I don't think I've had more photos taken of me in my life!! Thankfully my hair was behaving so I looked pretty good. Oliver's dad is totally old skool (respect!) and he brought a film camera. I got the prints in the mail the other day and uploaded them here along with uploading the few photos I took on the riverboat cruise. Enjoy! And I apologize for the stuff on the scanned photos, apparently our scanner has some dust on it or something -_-

We have been making tons of vegan food here. I bought a cookbook (The Whole Soy Cookbook - deceptively vegan) with my dad that I had stolen a recipe out of before because it looked like it had more stuff in general that I'd like than the Veganomicon. We made curried tofu with mango-pear chutney, and picked spinach out of the garden and put peanut sauce on it (that wasn't in the book, I stole it from the Thai restaurant on Selby). Both were super good. We tried an alfredo recipe that wasn't in the book because it looked interesting (it had tahini in it) but it also had some beans in it which made it weird. It was good but not alfredo-saucish enough. Tonight I made this pizza thing where I took a whole wheat tortilla and put some soy sausage and marinara on it with a few chunks of soy cheese. When they say "it melts" they lie. Big time. I had that shit under a broiler and it only looked a little gushy. Anyway that was pretty good and easy to make.

I'm sure there's more to write about but I am very tired out - I'm not sure why. We're moving into the house on the 28th and the kitties are coming back YAY! More news then. xoxoxo

Okay, no one can accuse me of being a bad vegan. Today at lunch I was *mad* that they had ice cream and the a-la-mode desserts bar. They had a huge pan full of smushy brownies and fudge. I just have such a taste aversion I couldn't bring myself to get any, knowing I'd feel sick afterwards. I really need to get my own place so I can make my own vegan marshmallows and brownies and know what's going into my own food. I guess that also means I'll have to learn how to cook but it'll be worth it.

So I went to the Robyn Hitchcock concert on Sunday. It was pretty awesome and the guy who did the opening act looked like the guy from Eraserhead. Robyn made an awesome comment about how we should all think liberal thoughts and be as liberal as possible, so that when our bodies decompose  and turn into earth that Republicans can't rise up from the ground. Hehe. Also awesome was the 60 year old man sitting next to me who asked, "So, come here often?" when I was clearly there with someone else. I mean honestly...old men hitting on me at the Pride festival...now this? How desperate are you guys?

During the break I noticed that one of my favorite throat singing groups, Huun Huur Tu, is going to be playing there in a week or so! I am so there. If I can convince anyone to go with me, that is :)

On Saturday I went to the Macalester Bad Comedy group. It kind of lived up to its name when they did a sketch on child rape. Fun! The rest of it was okay though.

There was a "flurry" yesterday, or on Monday or something, but I napped through it. Mostly it has just gotten really cold, which has given me the excuse to troll Etsy for awesome scarves and gloves and whatnot. My Logics professor said she loved the way I dress, so I've got standards to live up to, people.

I usually don't post about crap like this, but...I found this really awesome shampoo and contioner. I had been using this crappy-ass generic Whole Foods brand stuff which turned out to have tangerine oil in it (ugh). I guess it didn't have Sodium Laryl Sulfate or whatever in it but it still was pretty lame. Anyway I have a lot of split ends and I like Herbal Essences so I decided to try their new thing called Break's Over. It smells kind of candy-ish, but okay. And man it really makes a difference. If you're looking for something to straighten your hair and make it really soft you should try this for sure. Not an ad, I swear.

Speaking of hair, hanging out on Etsy has alerted me to many beautiful hand dyed wools and wool roving. I found a few online communities for hair extensions (this LJ community and this forum). I hate my short hair so much I wonder if I shouldn't just do a full head of yarn - I think I have enough Collinette Point 5 back at home. I'd probably do this over break though. One tip that I found is to use horse hair braiding elastics instead of normal ones, since they are extra tough. I also found a good guide here. I'm excited about it actually but since I've never done a full head...who knows.

Frida Kalho icon in honor of the exhibit that's going on here in town. I should go sometime - it'll be blue house!

Well, nap time for me.

Well hello there my dearies. What have I been up to? What have I been up to indeed.

I applied to a bunch of Grad schools and fellowships. The grad schools I'm applying to: Indiana U, U Washington, U Maryland, Buffalo, and Ohio State. Most of them told me that as long as one of my GRE scores was around 500-600 the other one shouldn't really matter. Also I got the impression that on some of the fellowships that they wanted you to whine about disabilities and stuff because they want diversity, so hell! I'll take being the weaker sex and having dyscalculia for 100 points, sir.

In all honesty though, I feel weird playing up my "diversity", but it's what they want. I wonder how far they really want to take it, though - what about one's medical history or sexual orientation? Hair color? I can guarantee you that naturally blond girls are a big minority in Computer Science.

I had fall break the week before last but honestly my memory is cloudy on what actually happened. Heh, that makes me sound as if I were in a drunken stupor (which I wasn't), but I don't think I did anything noteworthy.

For Halloween I got out my 60s Stewardess dress and tried to make Oliver into a passable emo kid. His hair really wants to curl though, so it's hard. But he honestly looks better in eyeliner than I do! We took the light rail downtown but it got kind of late so we kind of just wandered around, saw someone with a pimped out Ghostbusters car, walked behind some random homophobic hillbillies,and went home.

It is hard being a vegan. Especially on Halloween. But not for the reason you might think. On the light rail, a guy dressed like a cow was playing with his udders. In front of me, a vegan! Gasp! And later...it gets worse. Someone threw an...I can't say it...an EGG at us! It didn't hit us but damn. How offensive can you get, some people...sheesh.

That was completely facetious by the way. Damn the English language and its lack of mood indication particles! Now if I were speaking Quechua...

Actually being a vegan isn't as hard as I thought it would be, except for the dreams. I used to dream about eating hamburgers, but now I dream about eating ice cream. And then the next morning I think, "God, I'm an awful vegan." Honestly I have been very strict these past few months - the last thing I can remember eating is a cookie at the MoA at the beginning of the semester. Oh, and the stupid Cafe Mac veggie burgers with cheese in them, but now I don't eat them anymore. It's not hard for me to be a vegan since milk and egg grosses me out, but it is kind of difficult if you are at a restaurant or someone's house or something.

I am going to a Robyn Hitchcock concert tomorrow, I think. I do not know much about this individual or even where exactly this is but that will get sorted out tomorrow and it should give me some indie cred.

Me and Zoe's perverse sims youtube channel got deleted. Pity. We are working on a new sims video which follows the life of Valanice, Rosella, and all those fun kids. Yeesh, this wiki is excessive.

Well, it has gotten late. I think I shall retire to bed for now. I quite possibly may have a random rant about Philosophy of Language later this week. Speaking of which, Wittgenstein is now one of my favorite movies.