Behind the Curve

?!

idat — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:30:27 GMT

Chiropractor told me since my back was improving, next I should go to the Lancome store, get a free makeup lesson, find a great guy, and before I know it, I'll be living in NJ with a family of my own! WTF!?!?!? Lady, if you weren't LEANING ON MY SPINE...

In a New Jersey State of Mind

idat — Mon, 24 May 2010 15:12:15 GMT

I suffer from what I call "The New Jersey of the Soul." (No offense, New Jersey.) This affliction causes me to feel, no matter where on the globe I am (Manhattan, Seoul, Hawaii, some parts of Beijing) as if I were in New Jersey.

Although when I was in Charlottesville, VA, I did feel more like I was Nyack, so I've got that going for me.

And the banks of the Yellow River were pretty awesome. Shanghai too sci-fi to believe.

True story

idat — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:40:00 GMT

I actually started the morning by whipping heavy cream into butter so it wouldn't go bad.

Also green tea. Also white tea. Also oolong tea.

idat — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:32:03 GMT

Dear Herbal Tea,

I hate you.

Love,
me

What I've been up to...

idat — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:32:12 GMT

http://wp.me/pL3ln-2c

Me, the tool user

idat — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:02:42 GMT

When you purchase a mini-trampoline online, I expect it would be useful to know before you pay that the assembly instructions call for 3 able-bodied adults to assemble the thing. Girls who are 4'10" living with two 70-year olds need not apply.

It seems I have neither the height nor the weight to assemble a mini-trampoline with nothing but myself and my wits.

It took me, my wits, a 20 lb dumbbell, a 25 lb dumbbell, and a 10 lb sledgehammer.

My Bridget Jones Life

idat — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:11:48 GMT

Currently reading "The Two Income Trap" and terrifying myself.

Meanwhile, within the space of one year, my parents have progressed from conveniently forgetting they made me promise never to date anyone I met online to telling me that single, childless women actually do quite well in life.

It's liberating to know they've given up on grandkids as well as the irrational hope that I won't die alone.

Next, I shall read a book about the failure of the genome project. It's like bus bunching; the NYPL always delivers my top ten most depressing books-on-hold at the same time, while my requested copy of David Sedaris' latest languishes in the hands of someone just a little faster on the catalog search.

idat — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:18:13 GMT

idat

And now, the iPad

idat — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:08:35 GMT

And this mean's I remain firmly on the fence about the e-reader.

Good times!

idat — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 01:57:01 GMT

The Food Network is back, and my father is happy once more. Phew!

Yesterday, my ex-roommate threw a lovely joint birthday party for Li and me. There was much merriment and many board games to play. (As an unsocialized, only-child type person, I never learned the art of playing games, so I just ate cheese and heckled the actual players.)

She even baked primal (grain-free) cupcakes for me! Unfortunately, I had already baked a sugar-free, coconut flour based cake to bring to the party, but people seemed to enjoy it. Here are pics:

NYC Paleo on the map!

idat — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:43:01 GMT

While I spice some organic lamb patties, I'll just post the following link:
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/fashion/10caveman.html

As time goes by

idat — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:47:44 GMT

I remember mom warning me when I was a child not to sit too close to the TV for fear of the "radioactive waves."

I note that years later, 1) everyone would sit inches away from the CRT monitors of their computers, and 2) we would invent huge, honking flat screen TVs that we would feel as uncomfortable sitting close to as we would being in the first row of a movie theater.

He wants his Food TV

idat — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 03:31:35 GMT

So, the Food Network has been dropped by Cablevision. This would have little bearing on me, because I watch all my TV on sites like Hulu, but The Food Network is my father's desert island cable channel.

He is now undergoing severe withdrawal pains and must drown his sorrows in the methadone of PBS programming. Of course, like any replacement drug, it doesn't quite scratch the itch, so he watches it with the volume turned up to 11. (Now playing: "That's Entertainment" - described in the listings as "show-stoppers from some 70 MGM musicals, with Fred Astaire" - at FULL VOLUME.) This is excruciating, not only to me and my mother, but (most likely) all the neighbors in a 3 apartment radius.

No Food Network? That'll never fly in this berg. New Yorkers survive on soggy, disappointing takeout made palatable only by watching Paula Deen deep frying Snickers covered ice cream.

They can't take away our food porn. It's all we've got!

Trying out a new blog, until I get bored with it

idat — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:41:38 GMT

The Silent Evidence Speaks

Aw, he remembered!

idat — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:33:53 GMT

Thanks, xkcd guy!

In which I am AMBIVALENT about e-readers

idat — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:44:14 GMT

I'd rather like an e-reader device, but I doubt I can be trusted alone with a "download instantly" feature. I'm pretty sure impulse buying is where an e-reader would cost me the most money, even when taking into account the huge damn price of the thing itself. Hence my ambivalence, because the NYPL branches offer free books for the borrowing, AND you can sit in them! Even Starbucks forces you to buy coffee to rent space.

As an aside, I submit mortifying library story #372: I was in the Mid-Manhattan branch searching fruitlessly in the Literature section for a Stephen King book (feel free to laugh for several reasons - but Dewey and his decimal system did direct me to be where I was - I still claim miss-shelving shenanigans), when an erudite looking fellow offered to help me find whatever it was I was looking for because he knew the floor like the back of his hand. Too ashamed to admit I was looking for supernatural dreck, I declined his offer and slunk away to the medical reference section upstairs. Still, I find it in my heart to return every once in a while.

I'm not going to get romantic (sentimental?) over how much I love real books with real pages that have a real scent and a real feel and varied angles and textures that catch the light in a particularly lovely way. The written word, moveable type, mass printing, books - historical game changers all. So is a lot of dead technology, like the first iteration of the plowshare and the Apple II.

One the other hand, SHINY. And I could use the shelf space.

I haven't researched the various devices out there. As with the Blu-ray v. HD DVD throwdown, I plan to sit on the fence until a technology like streaming and downloadable video makes the entire issue moot. But right now, I have to say...I like name product name "nook" better than "Kindle."

In which I wonder why I didn't really like Avatar that much

idat — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:39:34 GMT

Ok, I didn't really expect much from Avatar, because I am officially old and curmudgeonly. In fact, I feel rather like Panthro (the least sensitive of the Thundercats) who, when confronted with something of awesome, life-altering beauty, said "it's pretty" or something like that.

Avatar is pretty. The effects are no doubt a great achievement, but at my advanced age I tend to suffer special effects fatigue at about the 20 minute mark. Avatar comes across as an amalgam of three familiar, superficially rendered storylines, a handful of character stereotypes, and maybe one too many chase scenes. It's not the sort of movie that's going to stay with me. You know what movie does stay with me, year after year? Aliens. But I like my futuristic visions of hell as overtly dystopian as I can get them. This is probably due to a childhood kept carefully ignorant of Disney and its ilk by well meaning parents. I find chestburster aliens much less disturbing than the friendly flying jellyfish type. You always know where you stand with a chestburster.

In Avatar's defense, it is a fun romp. You know, with a Message. And Sigourney Weaver kicks ass as usual. (With SCIENCE!) I shouldn't say she transcends it all, but (and this could all be just my skewed perception) she has a certain wry gravity, not to mention a fair amount of cred left over from Aliens/Ghostbusters/SNL/Death and the Maiden/The TV Set, etc. that makes her the most fun thing to watch on the screen.

Ok, I guess I sort of worked that through. Off to purchase a copy of Aliens.

idat — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:54:59 GMT

Vaguely want to see Avatar. Can I handle the 3D???

While I wait out my library hold on JSF's latest

idat — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:25:38 GMT

Reading The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth. Whether you agree or not, it's lovely and quite thought provoking.

Primal Pumpkin Pie (Gluten Free) (Full of Nuts, Though) (D'oh!)

idat — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:43:37 GMT

Pie Crust (Adapted from Mark's Daily Apple)

Ingredients
1-1/4 cups nut meal (almond, hazelnut, etc.)
1/3 cup coconut oil (melted)
1/3 cup butter (melted)
1/4 tsp salt (not needed if using salted butter)
1 egg white

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine nut flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Add melted fat a bit at a time (you may need less than the recipe calls for), mixing all the while until mixture resembles coarse crumbs and then holds together in a ball the consistency of dough. Refrigerate until ready to use.

When ready, place in a pie dish, molding to the dish with your hands. Place the pie crust in the freezer for just a few minutes.

Beat the egg white until frothy. Retrieve the pie crust from the freezer and smooth the egg white (you won't need all of it) over the surface of the crust with your hands.

Bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes or until crust turns a rich golden brown.

Pumpkin Pie Filling (Adapted from Mark's Daily Apple)

1.5 cups canned pumpkin (not pre-seasoned pumpkin pie filling)
3 eggs
Sweetener to taste (this year I used some Truvia powdered in a coffee grinder)
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
(or pumpkin pie spice, or food grade essential oils, to taste)

Preheat oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix all filling ingredients in a bowl. Pour into pie crust. Bake for 30 minutes or until set at the edges and slightly wobbly at the center.

Electric Boogaloo

idat — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:27:06 GMT

In the tradition of Step Up and Step Up 2: The Streets...

I hereby propose a new series of films aimed at the burgeoning population of urban yoga practitioners. It's like You Got Served meets Vinyasa Flow Yoga, Grace, Power, Surf, and Sunset.

...In which two urban yoga gangs, both alike in dignity, take it to the streets to out breathe, out asana, and bliss each other out...and learn some valuable lessons in the process!

Pose Off: Just Breathe
...if you can!

Coming soon.

What, you thought I stopped reading the internet?

idat — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:33:05 GMT

Oh, a nifty new linky tool. This is a test.

In a world in which there are vegan and zero carb diets, I've been obsessing a bit about paleo/primal nutrition, intermittent fasting, and evolutionary fitness. Linkfest follows:

This is handier than typing out html. Do kids today still use html?

Off to meditate, or something.

Happy Halloween

idat — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:24:56 GMT

My apartment building is renovating its hallways. The problem is that they now look like the hallways from Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining. Seriously, I keep expecting to see a pair of creepy dead twins down there. The naked, hanging light bulbs don't help. I'm pretty sure they are scaring trick-or-treaters away.

Finished reading Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness, which was both amusing and interesting. I don't think it told me much I didn't already know (I've read a lot of those "science of happiness" books!), but it told me a lot of things I've forgotten.

I made myself rather sick eating too much sugar free candy. Coincidentally, I had a dentist appointment today. No cavities! Also, I apparently have one, lonely wisdom tooth, not impacted or anything, just sort of hanging out, singing a little song to itself. OK, maybe not that last bit.

TV

idat — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:51:27 GMT

The more I watch Glee, the more I surreal and less cute it seems. Which works for me. And Jane Lynch rocks, as always.

Man, I miss Arrested Development. And yet maybe it ended at just the right time, before the specter of shark jumping could raise its ugly head.

idat — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:46:23 GMT

Finished reading "Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell. Not as compulsive a read as "Cloud Atlas," but enjoyable nonetheless!