"this music mads me; let it sound no more" king richard ii: v, v

I'm back, baby, and better than ever! It's been a while but here I am! Moved in, almost settled, finished with school all the way until September ..... yeee haaaahhhhhhh!

I do love the Downcity lifestyle. Little old PVD is getting there, it really is. Saturday afternoon I found myself NOT to be the only person poking around on Westminister St.; there was quite a nice little flow of people to and fro. The Providence Gay Pride Parade zoomed right in front of our apartment and lots of good times were had. I'm a nice little Saturday morning walk away from Nick's on Broadway.

Last evening I found myself back on the East Side for a little while; I was laying out on the Brown Green, reading, when I heard some music coming from down the street. I walked over to investigate and found these guys warming up. Then they formed up and headed over to what looked like an opening barbeque party for the Brown summer high school program. They were fun and pretty good too.

When I got home, I was lying asleep in bed - blissfully asleep, I think it should be noted - when I suddenly heard on the street below me the same now familiar semi-cacophonous sounds of a brass band, penetrating right through my closed window. I glanced bleary-eyed at the clock; the numbers 1:30 swam before my eyes.

I was ... unthrilled, to say the least.

Always something unexpected in the City-State.

"cooling of the air with sighs" the tempest: i, ii

I feel like such a hypocrite right now.

I don't own a TV. I don't own a car. Blah blah blah, I eat organic and local. Pftthb. The fact is, I am sitting in my apartment, positively basking in the Central Air. It's a hot and hazy and humid day out there. And I'm not suffering. I'm sitting back, sipping on a nice cold Sanbitter, listening to the Pet Shop Boys and getting ready to prep for class tomorrow, and dammit, I'm enjoying the temperate room.

So freaking sue me.

"some say he's mad," macbeth: v, ii

I was walking home from work yesterday, and a dude riding a bicycle on the sidewalk came up behind me fast and yelled derisively "Look out, hippie!" Which, as anyone who knows me can attest, is an odd thing to call me, as I think I'm not really on the hippie end of the spectrum. I was wearing chef's pants, which maybe looked like something else to him (some kind of hippie pattern maybe?), but that's really all I can think of.

So we're in the new place, officially now. I mean, everything we own is in the new place. That's about the extent of it, though. It's pretty much a mattress and a bunch of still-packed boxes and us.

I'm kind of tired of nutcases. There, I said it. But then I think that I should be more compassionate; surely no one wants to be a nutcase. But there seem to be a lot more of them out and about now that the warm weather has arrived, and I have to confess that I sometimes just wish I could walk down the street without incident.

Yesterday on the bus in to work a dude was coughing (a lot) right behind me, and I could just tell from the lack of muffling that he wasn't covering his mouth. I was about to turn around and say something or at least shoot him a dirty look, but then he started mumbling to himself and it sounded kind of like he was speaking in tongues, so I decided to just ride it out. Sometimes better to let these things slide. Although in this day and age of douchebags knowingly traveling on public modes of transportation with TB, it's sort of a wash when it comes to personal safety.

"'tis no time to play now" romeo and juliet: iv, v

I just watched the Sanbitter video like 3 times rapid-fire. It's mesmerizing. Oh, and I have studying I'm supposed to be doing, so that makes it more transfixing.

I was walking past this really seedy bar this afternoon just as the Preakness was finishing up. I heard this guy yelling at the top of his lungs "Get up there! Get up there!" and then he cheered so loudly I could hear him down the block. I guess he had a little bit of money on the winning horse. I can only hope for his sake it's enough to upgrade to a different bar; the one he was in advertised in the window that they had no public restrooms.

Oh, also, I just read this headline: "Study: Vitamin overuse could lead to cancer." Nice."A new study from the National Cancer Institute suggests a link between heavy use of multivitamins and increased risk for prostate cancer." Nutrition is getting to be more and more of a lose-lose proposition.

I just watched the Sanbitter video again. The guy's wearing a piano tie. It's awesome. It's awesome in the "it makes no sense" kind of way. If I understood Italian it would probably just be lame, but since Italian is just about as decipherable as Klingon for me, it's just pleasantly nonsensical.

And much better than learning the reason why glycerine is added to rolled fondant. (The reason is to make it more pliable and to prevent it from cracking and tearing when used.)

And with that ..... off I go.

"a pleasing cordial" king richard iii: ii, i

I'm excited to be moving, but, ugh, is there anything worse than moving? Packing. The pits. There's nothing for it but to just grab a box and start putting stuff in it. Try to keep organized, but by the end, there's a good chance that everything will get smushed together. The place we're moving to is smaller, too, so we're also supposed to purge as we go, and that makes it tougher too, or at any rate, more time consuming. My worry is that at first I'll be holding on to things sentimentally that I don't really want to keep, but that in the end, as the clock ticks down I'll start ruthlessly ditching things I will regret getting rid of in the long run. On the bright side, the clock's already ticking down, so maybe I'll just keep an even keel.

My favorite beverage at the moment is Pellegrino's Sanbitter (that link is great if you, uh, speak or read Italian; actually, it's pretty great even if you don't; I highly recommend clicking on the "videoclip" section). The bottle is cute as a button, sure, and that appeals to me, as does the ruby red syrupyness of the drink.

But more than that, it has this great sweet/bitter combo that I just love. It's a nonalcoholic version of Campari. Yum. Plus it gives you a SWEET red tongue when you drink it!

"fair flower, untimely pluck'd" various poetry: x

There are some beautiful flowering trees around the place where I work, and they are in full bloom right now.




Imagine my dismay that when I arrived this morning to work, I saw a crew of landscapers taking a chainsaw to several of these trees, cutting them down a branch at a time, then going right for the trunks. The pink petals were all around us in the air, churned up by the vibrations of the saw. If it had been two days from now, these would have been green trees, and while I hate watching trees being cut down, it wouldn't have been as heart-wrenching as this was, watching these beautiful pink branches at the height of their bloom being chopped down like they were nothing.

Put me in a rotten mood, I can tell you.

On the bright side, I got new glasses this week, and they are wicked cool.

"the majesty and power of law and justice" king henry iv, part ii: v, ii

I thought I'd share with you what kind of state Rhode Island is.

If you walk past the building that houses the Rhode Island Department of the Attorney General



You'll see an inspiring quote to the right of the door:


A quote from a comic book author. On an engraved placard. I just think that's great.

On the bright side, at least our courthouse doesn't have a monument to the Ten Commandments in it.

"the wretched animal heaved forth such groans" as you like it: ii, i

This morning I awoke early as the sun poured through my bedroom window. I opened my eyes for a few moments, enjoying the Spring light, and then looked at the clock, pleased to note that I had quite a while left before the alarm would go off. I closed my eyes, a slight smile on my face as I prepared to sink back into sleep.


"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! SKREEEE SKREEEEE SKREEEE SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

What tha???

"SKREEEEE SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Dude, what the hell is that??"
V was awake now, too. "I don't know." ..... "But whatever it is, it's not doing well."

"SKREEEEEEE SKREEEEE SKREEEEEEEEEE!!" rustle rustle rustle
"I can see the branches outside the window rustling."
"Are our screens all in?"

......
"SKREEEEEEEEEE SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
rustle rustle rustle


"SKREEE SKREEE!"
.....

"SKREEE!"
....


....

...


.......


....................
"Huh."
"Huh."



----

In a later discussion, we decided that it was probably an oppossum meeting an untimely death, based on V's unfortunate observation of a previous oppossum death (by car). I wonder what kind of animal it met that demise with, however, as 'possums are fairly big and mean, and the dogs in our neighborhood are small and hors d'ouerve-sized, and would probably make a tasty snack for any 'possum worth its salt. I'm guessing it might have been an owl or something. Thing is, we live in a city; it's not like we live out in the sticks where hearing animal encounters is normal, so it was a bit of an odd beginning to the day.

---

In other news, be sure to check out V's new post on Six Sentences. Good stuff, as always.

"...POP..."! hamlet: v, ii

Finally, the flowers and leaves are starting to POP!!

Spring. I have a love-hate relationship with it. Because much of the time, if I really think about it, Spring is fairly shitty: rainy, raw, muddy. But days like today, the day the flowers POP, the day the air feels like a soothing bath, the day the sunshine is finally warm, the first day you smell that hot sidewalk smell mingled with that muddy earth smell and the smell of every plant and tree waking up and waving in the breeze .... it's just so fucking gorgeous.

Anyway, that day is today, and the fact is, nothing on a day like today can make me feel sad. Even though I was dealt a minor disappointment during the day today, my attitude was magically transformed from the usual "why me?" to the much more desireable "que sera, sera!"

I feel like I can handle anything on a day like today.

"we shall remain in friendship" antony and cleopatra: ii, ii

Congratulate me -- I just got a 94 on a very rigorous practical exam in my chocolates class. It was very stressful, but in the end I feel like I kept a very cool head. There were a couple points where I had little episodes -- like "Do I even remember the first thing I need to do to temper chocolate??" But my cooler side prevailed, just kept my head down and kept moving.

Yesterday I caught up with some awesome friends I haven't seen or even really talked to in years. What felt especially great about it was that after just a few minutes, I felt just as comfortable with them as I ever did in high school. I'm really, really bad at keeping in touch with people, even people I love and want to be in touch with. I always kick myself for letting myself get so out of touch with people whose friendship brings me warmth and happiness, and I always vow to not let it keep happening. I hope this weekend will be a new leaf for me.

----
I feel like I want to close out with something really awesome and funny.
Oh, how about this:

"this happy day" julius caesar: v, v

Just because it's Friday the 13th doesn't mean there isn't awesomeness afoot.

Today is



THIS gal's birthday.

As you can see, Amy is a gal who knows how to have a good time.

This pic was taken the last time I was able to spend her birthday with her, and it must be said that it was in a much warmer climate than the one either of us is in right now.

Happy Birthday, Ames!

"live cleanly as a nobleman should do." king henry iv, part i: v, iv

That's me passing out from cleaning.

You know, if I would just, say, keep up with things around the house, it wouldn't be like this.

But, as a wise man once said, "I am what I am, and that's all what I am."

I wonder if I will ever be a grownup. All the grownups I know have a place for everything in their houses, or at least, it always looks like they do. Organizational systems baffle me. Drawers always fill with junk, bins are never used for their expressed purpose but instead as catch-alls. I start out with such good intentions; I even buy and read magazines like "Real Simple" and think, yeah, hey, that's a good idea, I should do that! It never happens.

Now the place is pretty clean, pretty tidy, and I have to say, it is gratifying to look at a tidy home. But tomorrow, I'll come home and I'll have something in my hands that doesn't have a place in the house, and it will get put on the counter. Then my shoes will come off, and will stay wherever I was standing when I took them off. Then I'll do homework and when I'm done there will be papers that don't quite make it back into my bookbag. Then it will just snowball. I can promise myself all I like that it won't happen. But it will.

Anyway, it's done now and I can relax.

---
It seems tacky to me that someone is already auctioning Anna Nicole's old diaries. I struggled with myself over whether to read the article about it, and in the end, the devil on my shoulder won out and I read it. It was depressing. I shouldn't even be writing here about it. More than anything, Anna Nicole made me sad. She was an easy target to make fun of because she was so outrageous, but most of the time she seemed like she was just crying out for someone to tell her "you're ok."

---
Well, it's getting to be yawn-thirty here, so guess it's time to hit the sack. Goodnight, Moon. Goodnight light, and the red balloon.

"she was a vixen when she went to school" a midsummer night's dream: iii, ii

Today was a warm early spring day. Even now, as the afternoon wanes, the air is temperate and drivers are cruising the streets with their windows open, perhaps blasting a hip new tune. You know, like ..... Gangsta's Paradise??

Seriously, someone just drove by my house blasting that song! It's more than 10 years old! The kids in college now were 9 when it came out.

Just got back from class. All things being equal, it was about as good a day in class as I could hope for -- I was lucky enough to not have any trouble tempering either dark or milk chocolate and was able to get all my production done very efficiently. My products turned out pretty nice. A good day.

Now if I could just wave my wand and have the bathroom clean itself. *sigh*.

"such sweet-complaining grievance" the two gentlemen of verona: iii, ii

I would really prefer it if the portmanteau-word "ginormous" would disappear completely from the American lexicon. I can't explain why, but it irritates the hell out of me, almost as much as hearing the Austin-Powers-inspired phrase "YEEAH, Baby!" exclaimed by a douchetastic frat-boy. I guess I don't feel as though the word ginormous adds any value or color to the language; in fact, if anything, it feels to me as though it detracts from the language.

I'm sitting at the bar at a tea shop right now, and I am loathe to confess this but I need to get it off my chest -- instead of studying for the last hour an a half as I intended to do when I came in here, I spent it purusing a copy of JANE magazine that someone had left here. That's an hour and a half of my life that will never be restored. I just feel fortunate that I was able to stop myself before delving into the LUCKY magazine that was underneath it. Man, it is like eating M&Ms.

Meanwhile, I am trying to tamp down all the knowlege I already have in my head about tempering chocolate so I can make room for more. As soon as I think I have learned all that I could need to know to succeed in this class, more information is presented. The class is extremely interesting and I find the work supremely gratifying, but it is pretty intense, to say the least.

On the bright side, I feel pretty relaxed today, and am hoping I will have a nice sleep through the night and will wake up tomorrow feeling ready to go.

Well, back to the books.

endeavour thyself to sleep twelfth night: iv, ii

This is the crappiest part of the week for me. I think. Actually I'm torn. It's one of two times: It's either 9pm on a Saturday night, when I am at home, trying futilely to settle down to sleep so I can get up at 5:30am for my all-day Sunday class. Or it's Monday at 7am, when I wake up and remember I have to go to work, and I haven't had a day off when you consider school and work since March 9 and won't be having one until April 8 (thank the gods for Easter, even though I don't observe it).

I shouldn't complain. I'm just feeling sorry for myself. I mean, I'm taking advantage of an opportunity not everyone has, to go to school and learn a trade and a craft that I really enjoy. But I'm still fucking exhausted, and I'm tired of Saturday nights being such a bummer.

Oh well. Time marches on. Each word I type is that much less time I can spend in the throes of my once-a-week insomnia. The one night I really need to get to sleep is the one night I never can. I get too nervous that I won't wake up in time and so I can never fall asleep. It's pathological, really.

"an apple, cleft in two, is not more twin than these two creatures" twelfth night: v, i

So, I have to confess that I did look for photos of Boy George when he was doing his community service in NYC, picking up trash. I didn't feel good about it, though -- he's a bit of a wash-up at this point, he looks like hell these days, and more than anything it just seemed sad to me. However, I took pure glee in this one. Why? Because Naomi Campbell is not a wash-up, she's a spoiled brat who threw a cell phone while she was having a temper tantrum because something didn't go exactly her way. The article states that "she has blamed her temper on lingering resentment toward her father for abandoning her as a child." Get over it. It's sad and all that her father abandoned her, but it doesn't even register on the scale of acceptable excuses for assaulting at least three employees.


In other exciting news, I have joined the wireless revolution, and I am now typing to you from a brand spanking new MacBook. It's great. My favorite perk so far is that it has a built in camera with PhotoBooth, software that lets me take pictures using different cool filters such as this one:


Fun, right?

Oh, also, apparently I have a twin roaming around the city; according to V. she looks so much like me that people who know me have addressed her as if she was me before taking a second look and realizing that it's not in fact me. Now, I assume that since we are twins, one of us must be the evil twin, so I will assume, unless I meet her and it proves to be otherwise, that I am the evil twin.

Someone I work with speculated that if we ever did meet, it would create a tear in the space/time continuum and unmake the world. Maybe I'll stay in tonight, just in case.

"I writ at random, very doubtfully." the two gentlemen of verona: ii, i

Suddenly, this year, I no longer care about the Oscars. Why might this be? I can remember a time when I wouldn't miss the awards shows -- any of them. And so far I haven't watched one this year. I don't think I even know who's nominated.

Meanwhile, in other awesomeness, it's supposed to snow again here. I shouldn't really complain, since we've seen almost no snow this year, but now I'm spoiled.

I am almost finished with the class I am taking; I had a practical exam today that went as well as could be expected, given the instructor's unrelenting criticism and insistence on standing over one while one is attempting to execute the most difficult parts of the day's assignments. I'll be glad when this one is over.

Anyway, that's all I've got right now.

Oh, I almost forgot; how do you suppose this guy lists this on his resume??

"why are you grown so rude?" a midsummer night's dream: iii, ii

So I was at the grocery store, picking up a few necessities the other day. Fairly normal stuff, in my life:

- baking chocolate, for melting to practice writing in chocolate (for writing or drawing on pastries)
- deodorant, for keeping me so fresh and so clean clean
- tampons, for the usual reason

I got to the checkout, and it was just about 5pm, so it was busy, a line of people behind me. Now, I'm not the kind of person who is embarrassed to buy tampons; it is a fact of life and nothing to be embarassed about. Maybe it was marginally unfortunate that the same day I bought them I also bought chocolate and deodorant, but frankly, I wasn't thinking about it all that much; I needed what I needed. But the check out gal, upon getting to my order, actually stopped what she was doing and looked at me knowingly and said, "Awesome selection of products!" BE SERIOUS! C'mon, show a little discretion here, gal. I'm all for keeping it real, but mind your own damn business!

In other news of impoliteness, can anyone explain to me why anyone would go to a play and allow their cell phone to ring not once, not twice, but three times during the course of the show?? Things are getting out of hand.

"though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe" king richard ii: ii, i

I wanted her to pull it together. Come to a realization, you know? Start taking better care of herself, now that she was a mom again, after losing her son. I thought it could happen; she could be the poster girl for Turning Things Around. She was out there, kind of a dumbass, trying to be the thing that she thought people wanted, pumping herself full of unhealthy chemicals, making poor decisions. But she was 39, it wasn't too late for her to have an epiphany about the direction her life was heading; so I believed. Guess I was wrong.

Not to say I admired her or necessarily felt sorry for her. But times like these, when I reflect on the life someone in the public eye who makes poor choices, like a model or an astronaut, I'm reminded of how we're all just doing the best we can. I make poor choices all the time - maybe not as spectacularly, maybe not on camera or with the end result of a restraining order, but I do. It's a struggle, making sound decisions, sometimes; we're such a muddled species. We know right from wrong but often Right doesn't "feel" right. Or it doesn't feel good, at any rate. Strange animals.

Anna Nicole: no doubt even in your death we haven't heard the last of you.

"the stars above us govern our conditions" king lear: iv, iii

So by now, most of us have probably read about the Astronaut Love Triangle. Here are a few of the key points that stuck with me:

- The astronaut accused of the attempted kidnapping/murder/whatever it was she was going to do drove 900 miles to do it. That's NASA perseverence! (I guess when you've orbited the Earth 300 times, 900 miles starts to seem like a drive to the corner store.)
- "Inside a bag Nowak was carrying, the officer found a tan trench coat, a new steel mallet, a new folding knife with a 4-inch blade, 3 to 4 feet of rubber tubing, several large plastic garbage bags and about $600 in cash, the report said." That's the kind of preparedness we have come to expect from This Great Nation's aeronautical experts.
- "Inside the car, police found an a half dozen latex gloves, MapQuest directions from Houston to Orlando International Airport, e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein, diapers Nowak said she wore to reduce stops along the highway and a letter indicating how much she loved Oefelein." I don't think I need to elaborate on why this part stuck with me.

The woman in question is a married mother of 3. She and the man she was pursuing were on space missions together. This has Lifetime Movie of the Week written all over it. Seriously, it can't be far off. Is it wrong that my own version of the movie features Nowak, played by Courtney Cox, confronting the man, Bill Oefelein (played by Brent Spiner), and having a climatic final argument, and then driving to Kennedy Space Center, commandeering the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and blasting off, away from this crazy world, to the only place where she can truly be herself: Space.

I think it could work.