life is hilarious!

gosh. I guess it's been a while. well, as has been the trend for just about the entirety of 2009, things are going really well.

tomorrow (halloween!)* will be nine months since jon and I met on that take-a-chance night. I know what you're thinking, and yes guys, I'm giving birth to the quints next week! but aside from those five little alien devils over whom I will lord the fact that they've ruined my beautiful youth etc etc, I still feel indescribably in love with jon.

oh goodness, there is so much to record on this electronic log. I got and assembled my new surly pacer, classy and sparkling silver, strikingly similar in weight, geometry and style to my beautiful blue univega**. I built the back wheel with some semi nice components, nice enough that the price tag hurt me. plenty of people buy entire working bicycles for $180, but gosh, guess I got a pretty good hand built wheel now! and for the same wheel it might have cost me $250 or more if someone else had built it.

this is strange. it's been too long that I can't really update on minutiae, which has definitely been the modus on the ol' eljay up to now.

hey! well! god! I sure got a loose journaling muscle, I ain't got a crap idea of what to tell you next! there's a lot, and stuff! I'm reading a book called the reality dysfunction by peter hamilton and it's really weird! mostly good but really just incredibly long and sorta outlandishly gruesome sometimes. he keeps using all these gay ren fair words, like "fraught" and "I'm a fucking racist." ok so that last one wasn't so much ren fairy but the dude keeps talking about people's "fine asian features" and shit, it's gonna make me vomit. anyway it is a pretty good story. pretty fucking crazy. he might genuinely believe in The Devil, we'll see I guess. it'd be pretty disappointing if he does. about halfway through this 1100 page monster I'm gonna give it an 85%. sometimes he decides to slip into another genre altogether and I'm not sure he does it very well. at least, when he gets mad "wasn't life glorious when we all wore bodices and shitted a whole bunch on poor people and stuff" talking about boughs and cobbles and idyllic pastures etc etc, IT'S EXTREMELY ANNOYING and totally out of place. ok. just because you write genre doesn't mean you have to REALLY WRITE GENRE, know what I mean? ok again.

ha ha!! spastically moving on! so I'm going to jon's family's house for christmas this year. that's pretty crazy to me. basically this thing with a jon is a real live Thing at this point. but I'll miss the christmas mass at his dad's church, which I do have some strange feeling of sadness about - one of the very few aspects of organized religion that I have a personal appreciation for, especially ones as old as his family's episcopalianism (and obviously my own catholicism), is the pomp and tradition and arrogant glory of all of it. so much GOLD! and the damn-ye organs & hundreds of years-old music, sung by heart by everyone. I get SO DOWN WITH THAT SHIT. but I'll miss it, and despite the tradition etc etc, it doesn't bother me because fuck, when it comes down to it, being in a church makes me squeamish.

jon & I and buddy matt were at this grotto at like 82nd and killingsworth or something and it ended up being this MAD catholic affair. and I got pretty uncomfortable. I can't help that I am going to sociologically analyze all this oppressive crimethink crap! and how they are asking for money ALL OVER THE PLACE! y'all, the catholic church is one of the wealthiest, endowmentiest institutions to ever exist, and that's the way it's been for an empire's-length time. why are you asking the people who just want to Be Good Catholics or whatever for another damn dime?

hey. I'm on a songs ohia kick right now, at a place where I don't have any of my songs ohia music to listen to. am on mike's computer right now, listening to captain badass and love leaves its abuser and just be simple and nervous bride farewell transmission and lots of stuff from the magnolia electric album, courtesy youtube. thanks for not being a dick about this stuff, jason molina!

WHOA, HELLA RAINBOW Y'ALL. hahaha what a hilarious religious sentiment, "god never sends rain without a rainbow!" I don't think that dumbfuck ever came to the godless northwest.

anyway. that's probably enough. bye guys.

*ok so I started this entry a while ago.
**pour one out y'all

SchoneSchoup Winterlich*

2 cups dry split peas
1 head garlic
1 box container of broth (we used chicken). or use 3 cups of your own broth/stock!
A couple cups of water
3 tbsp butter
3 tb bacon grease
1 potato (we used a big russet potato. .79/lb, y'all!)
1 onion
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
1 ham hock (whole foods didn't have any - new seasons always does)
2 bay leaves
WINE! WINE!
salt & pepper, we didn't use much, probably because we used store-bought broth.

Chop the garlic finely (but messy chopping is fine - just do it smallish) and chop the onions, carrots, celery & potato rather large. They'll all mush up really well, so the little consistency the veggies will have if you chop them large, you will want.

Some butter, low heat, in your large stockpot! Then the garlic for just a second, then all the vegetables. Stir them around, add some more fat (either the butter or the bacon grease), let everything sweat for a few minutes, stirring very regularly, especially if you have a crappy thin-bottomed cauldron like I do :(

Add the broth/stock. Add ham hock and peas. Add bay leaves. Add more water if you need to - everything should be covered with liquid by a sloshy amount. Though it will be marginally less tasty, you can always add more water later if you're not sure now.

Turn the heat up to high, let it boil, and then turn the heat back down to a simmer, add the remaining fat that you didn't use earlier & a splash of wine, put a lid on it, and go watch a movie in your living room.

Come back in about two hours (stirring every once in a while, especially with previously mentioned thin-bottomed Target pot syndrome) and smell for a while. Then, take the ham hock out of the soup, scrape the soupy bits off, and then move it to a plate to cut all the meat off, and then into smallish pieces. Return all the meat to the soup, stir it up, & serve!

You could definitely serve this with some really awesome crusty bread or baguette or something, but it's EXTREMELY filling, so don't worry if you didn't think of that essential soup thing.

VARIATIONS!
a little less rich: use less fat, duh! in fact, the next time I make it, I probably will try to use less as it was extremely rich the way it was. the ham adds a lot, I think.
veggie: don't do it! :(

this was the sick soup that we made for my boyfriend when he was really sick this past weekend. we just came up with the recipe on our own & winged it. ohgod, it was so good - easily one of the best soups I have ever eaten.

*note: there is nothing even remotely german about this soup, aside from the obvious appreciation of putting large hunks of meat into just about anything. I just made up the stupid name and now I like it.

OMG U GUYZ THINGS R SEW GHEY WHEN FRIENDS HYJAQUE YR LIVEJOURNAL :( :(* :(:(:(:(:(

PS ILU SALINE ALOTTTTTTT

rest in peace, you blue bike of love and freedom.

jon & I were riding home to get soft at each other for just a couple minutes before he went home, and I thought that he heard me when I said "we're going right up here baby" and he didn't & ran into my back wheel in the most minute of ways - we were going between 5 and 10 mph, probably. we ride low & slow sometimes. moving on, the derailleur hanger (the tiny teeny weeny baby part of the frame that sticks off the very back & holds the derailleur), which had been bent & then bent back into place many times, and I found out later, very seriously wrecked before I even owned it, bent all the way into the spokes, thrusting the derailleur in there, which then got thrown around the wheel, which then snapped the chain. luckily none of this had anything to do with my brakes, and I stopped immediately, and fighting back tears, carried my beautiful, broken bicycle back to beigeland.

on steel bike frames, because steel is both extremely strong and malleable, typically the hangers do just fine. and if they get a little bent, you can whip 'em back into shape with no problem. you can do this many times.

with bikey, this had been done too many times. several times, in fact, since I have met jon (seven months ago, y'all), has the hanger needed adjustment. not a good sign. that the minibabyest crash, where nobody was hurt & everybody was going extremely slowly & the amount of force was SO, SO minimal, means that my derailleur hanger was weak as crap and had that shit coming to it anyway.

so now my motherfucking GORGEOUS bright blue univega, out of which I have ridden the SHIT, is effectively totaled. this breaks my heart. having to leave at EXACTLY a time to catch the bus and stressfully jogging there at 6:40am (because I never, ever give myself enough time for a bus) has been sad. I mean, it's actually incredible that I only take one bus, and it takes me, essentially, door to door from home to work, and getting some reading done on the commute, too, is fucking awesome. however, my bike ride in to work fills me with the most incredible energy, and getting to, at the end of the goddamn day, get on my fucking BIKE for an asskicking time of gloryfun and flipping off the occasional dickbag, is such an amazing way to physically get out some result-of-passive-aggression frustration.

so. all day monday I researched bikes. jon suggested a surly so I looked at those. I figured he had a long-haul trucker in mind, and those are darn good bikes, so I was looking at that, but was dismayed to find that the wheel size changes under a certain frame size (54cm). I want 700cc wheels, because they're big and really attractive... and because then I can buy colored rims/other accessories for them much more easily than with 27" wheels. although jon did find some deep v's for his 26" wheels on his karakoram mountain bike he's building up, but anyway, 700s are sexy.

so I found another bike that surly sells, and no matter the frame size (I need 52), the wheels are 700. the description on the website is hilarious. not sure who it's directed toward, but the description seems to call the surly pacer the ugly stepchild of the surly line. but y'all, it is lightweight, sleek-as-fuck, and has a dude wearing a dress as the "bikemodel." also it can hold some RACKS, y'all, and the derailleur hanger? thick as a gordita, my friends. this is a bike that I could potentially hang on to for the rest of my life. on tuesday I came into citybikes & paid for it, and it will arrive in the next few days, awaiting jon's capable & my learning hands to build it up, for me to ride into the sunset whenever such an opportunity may arise.

and my old bike? turns out I can make it into a single speed, very probably. not a fixed gear, which would actually be sorta cool, but the whole hanger thing weakened that area too much for a fixed gear. which is fine, because I don't really think I'm a human what needs a track (or facsimile) bike. at least not at this point. but it will be really nice to have a second bike, eventually, when I buy more parts. oh god, I am addicted, y'all, to bicycles. obsessed. it's all I think about. I buy more bike shit all the fucking time, now, and lawrdee, I am so happy with this recent practical, if expensive (way less expensive than car ownership!) hobby. it would be an amazing thing to never own a car.

bedtime, y'all. pictures of my new bike v soon.

since purchasing my bike in march 2007, I have slowly increased the amount of bicycling in my life. when I first started biking, I had a crappy case of untreated asthma, and a bike ride of less than a mile would send me into an attack. I got health insurance, treated it, & started biking a little more on weekends, fearful of hills and generally careless.

my first winter, I biked pretty rarely. months went by, I am pretty sure. the next summer came and anthony and I rode to sauvie island and back, nice & slow. definitely tired when we were done but it was a pretty easy ride altogether and I felt really good about it. participated in the world naked bike ride and felt, suddenly, this incredible charge, this spark of electricity that I'd had very few times in my life, and I knew more than ever that this was something I wanted to be part of. incredible, but spark aside, I was still a fairly weak cyclist that dreaded the hawthorne bridge! ha ha!

so I kept at it, well, a bit. I still took the bus to work every day, but tried to ride nearly every day. when I went to peoria for five days, I missed my bicycle every day, EVERY DAY. and I knew that I would - I looked into shipment options so that I could ride in peoria. I'm glad I didn't, my shit would have been SPLATTERED (and it was really expensive). but getting back and onto my bike was euphoria. I still rode a lot in the winter with my heavy ski jacket. mostly, as I recall, I didn't really let it stop me. I was still, counting trip-for-trip, mostly a bussy person, but the biking was happening more and more.

then jon & I started dating, & jon is a bicycle mechanic and worker-owner at citybikes. hell yeah! jon actually owns a car, but (though it is a fucking awesome car, an old datsun Z2) it is driven about once a month, if that. we started biking everywhere, everywhere! even in my crappy dirty never-actually-been-cleaned ski jacket from when I was 12 (really)!

recently, I've taken two bike tours, and though I'm still a pussy, I'm actually bikey stronger and pretty confident. my favorite thing, actually, is riding in incredibly busy traffic. by "pussy," I mean that I still can be a MAD wiener about steep hills and other hardies. and that's also a reference to when I was so pissed off at the hill we were climbing on the most recent tour that I was yellin' and stuff. yeah.

but I love riding with traffic. in oregon, we have a statute that says that bicycles have the right to the full lane. most drivers, I have found, are INCREDIBLY respectful and totally, totally down with bikers. when a driver is especially cool*, that is, when they obey the laws of traffic and aren't dicks to me, I smile at them and give them a friendly wave & sometimes mouth thank-you at them. the coolness of the majority of drivers gives me hope, an actual overall hope for humanity. yes, the portland bubble, I know.

I've been riding to and from work every day for a little more than a month, now. it feels fucking good and it's DEFINITELY something I look forward to every morning and afternoon. it takes about 25 minutes and I take new routes and derivations almost every week. it is extremely fun and great and I just feel so fucking good about it I can hardly keep it to myself. I feel lucky to be able to be at a distance from my job that that is an option. okay, I feel fucking lucky about my entire life. IT'S ALL LUCK!! shit. shit.

anyway. THE REASON I AM WRITING THIS ENTRY. today on the way home from work, I smiled and thanked two separate drivers that were cool to me, I don't remember what they did. ok, for this next part, understand that in northwest portland and in plenty of other parts of the city as well, it ain't no thang to go at the rate of traffic. for that reason, I always ride in the MIDDLE of the lane, because I am going as fast as traffic, and to ride next to the parked cars presents the risk getting doored**. but mostly, because I'm going fast & there'd be no reason for me to get over, as I am generally going at/above the speed limit, or at least with the current pace of everyone else.

much of my ride home consists of my taking the entire lane to myself. as I am generally going very fast***, this is safest for everyone involved. most importantly, it's LEGAL. while I was on everett today, eastbound from 12th going to broadway, I was in my own lane and speeding up for the small amount of time that I would be able to go fast with no stop signs or lights until I got to broadway (this whole stretch is probably a quarter to a half mile - not super long). out of nowhere comes this gray blue sedan that roars by me with less than six inches of space between us. my heart is racing just thinking about it again. he flips me off and I do the same and yell, in my loudest and most masculine**** voice, that bikers have the right to the full lane. he sped off, doing maybe twice the speed limit.. so I caught up with him, kicking ass on my bike. he SLAMS on his brakes, and I dodged out of the way just in fucking time. JUST in time. I scream at him, call him an asshole again, give him the finger again, and speed away, shaking the whole rest of my ride home, which was most of it at that point. was actually wondering if he'd follow me and harass me. it seemed unlikely but I was paranoid after the encounter.

the point is, I guess, is that I am starting to get a little militant. you would too if it seemed like there was a threat on your life at least once a week. fuck. this shit isn't isolated, it's just the first time I've written about it. I screamed at a guy dangerously passing me just a few mornings ago. I actually ran into a car (TOTALLY fine, I was going slow & the guy was stopped, I mostly used the car as a cushion, ha ha, weird I know) when he was entirely in the bike lane. for those of you that do drive, spread the word that threatening bikers from within your 2+ton steel cage of death does NOT a safer better road make. nor does it get cyclists off their rightful share of the road.

and everyone! when you do something wrong, acknowledge it and say sorry to the other cyclists/drivers on the road! when someone else does something awesome, acknowledge it and say thank you! man! this would make for an AWESOME community of transporationists! ha ha, transporationists.

alright, word! time to get back on my bicycle with which I am in love!

*stopping in the middle of the road at an intersection, where the driver does NOT have a stop sign, but I do, OR if I get there CLEARLY after them and I am coming to a stop, and they try to wave me ahead, THAT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE COOLNESS. that's fucking stupid and infuriating. obey the laws of traffic, cars, and I will know how to guess what you are going to do! whenever a car tries to wave me on when it is SO CLEARLY their right-of-way, I get all the way off of my bike and look in the other direction until they go. I can't even exactly say why that's such a huge pet peeve of mine, but it PISSES ME OFF ridiculously.

**when someone opens their car door in your path and you hit it/them. this is a very bad thing to happen and sadly, somewhat an inevitability for most cyclists riding in cities. I don't know many people in portland that it's happened to, thankfully - I think it's because this city has just set things up pretty fucking well.

***yes I wear a helmet

****pretty masculine, let's be real

just got back from a ~100mi bike trip. details, map & all, later! shower & nap now.

hey y'all. tell me if this shit is warranted because I am this close to popping xanax on the bike tour.

I am nervous as shit:
- I ride my bike every day to work. most days I ride around 15mi/day. not bad, right? but I'm on a totally different bike, one that just does not go fast on its own. at all. it has mad low gears, so I won't have to dismount on some big ass hills, but all these people jon and I are touring with are HELLA BIKERS - duh, every single one of them is a citybikeser. so i'm just really nervous. I mentioned something about how jon and I stopped about every ten miles and how since it will be hot, we should consider stopping at least that much, and someone said (and everyone agreed with him) that we should really try to not stop too often. fuck! fuck! I have a slow bike that I'm not used to, it uses TOTALLY DIFFERENT muscles than my road bike (it's mountainy & we've got dovetail bars on it) and I am just terrified that I am going to be The Great Slag of the trip. terrified. but I bet it's a bad idea to take xanax while doing an entire day of need-to-be-alert exercise. fuck. fuck.

okay, I am definitely freaking myself out. but hey, any thoughts, my toury bikey friends? or anyone else with endurance sporty exp?

thanks for easin' me on down, y'all.

oh and also this is going to be fun as shit, deets after.

here's the article from a few days ago from the boston globe about sarah palin's objecting to obama's cap and trade plan*, which hilariously enough, was part of her & mccain's platform last year.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/07/palin_slams_oba.html

the best part about any news article covering so inflammatory a character as sarah palin are, of course, the comments. following are hand-picked, for her pleasure, a smattering of the best of the conservative reactionaries' comments, plus a couple of good jokeys. italic comments on some are mine.

*for the record, I don't know what cap and trade is. I don't really care.

Sarah Palin is one of the most strongest GOP leaders and with time will grow in popularity and strength and Support the Democratic party fears her and we all smell it

Posted by deniro11 July 14, 09 12:32 PM

talk about Dumb Obama surrounds his world with smart people why he lacks any Intelligence or knowledge on matters that require simple thinking my pet rock is smarter than he is and its name is Rocky

Posted by deniro11 July 14, 09 12:35 PM

thx for the memoriez, & also the smells, deniro11


WAKE UP!!! Green is the new FACISM!!!! The Earth does not need your help, you arrogant human fools!!!

Posted by Scott July 14, 09 12:40 PM

TASTE MY WRATH, AND ALSO MY MENSTRUATION, FOOLISH MORTALS!!!!!!!!


She is highly intelligent. And don't be hating on her because she is extremely hot and you can't have her!

Posted by Jamie July 14, 09 12:42 PM


Say what you will about protecting "Gaia" or whatever, but I would hate to see our economic potential or recovery curbed because of special interest that is currently under much more fire from the scientific community.

Posted by Worried... July 14, 09 12:44 PM


SARAH PALIN IS RIGHT!! OBAMA'S CAP N TRADE PLAN WILL ONLY FILL THE POCKETS OF THOSE ON THE TOP AND MEANWHILE WILL INCREASE THE COST OF EVERY MARKET PRODUCT THAT AMERICANS BUY. IF THIS IS MADE LAW, IT, ALONG WITH THE NEW NATIONALIZED AUTO INDUSTRY, THE NATIONALIZED BANK INDUSTRY, AND NATIONALIZED HEALTH CARE WILL LEAD TO THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR DEMOCRATIC FREE SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT. ALL WHO VOTED FOR OBAMA'S "CHANGE" , ALONG WITH THE REST OF US, WILL BE DEPENDENT ON GOVERNMENT FOR EVERYTHING, EVEN OUR LIBERTY!! AMERICANS MUST BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT WHAT THESE POLICIES WILL DO TO THEIR OWN LIVES!! GREEN MAY BE COMING BUT AT WHAT COST?? HIGH INFLATION THAT NO ONE CAN COPE WITH?? IT IS COMING!! AMERICANS MUST ACT TO PREVENT OUR UTTER DESTRUCTION!!

Posted by Donn July 14, 09 01:01 PM

I think Donn was my high school civics teacher


He is still President Obama...Miss titleless! he is not against responsible drilling....just define responsible.

Posted by orlando July 14, 09 02:04 PM

most of the amusement from these comes from having no idea whaaaatthefuck these people, orlando included, are saying. maybe he's talking to an anonymous commenter? I have no idea.


With an 'illegal' president (Where's the birth certificate?) that we now have soon he will be promoting that we allow him to remain in office indefinitely just like his friends in Cuba and Venezuela

Posted by Annie July 14, 09 01:50 PM

lololololol birthers


The last speech she gave there were no "tele-prompters". She did not ramble and speak incoherent.

Posted by Jerry July 14, 09 01:44 PM

adverbs r ur fren, Jerry. & u kno, proper use of quotation marks


It would be nice if all the Palin supporters would check their spelling before submitting comments. Mispelled words and por gramer negutivly impact my abilty to take seriusly calls to ignor scentific reserch and pruposed economic polisy.

Posted by HM July 14, 09 01:36 PM


It just amazes me how Liberals are sooo stupid and ignorant. Global Warming is a hoax! You are foolish to think you could possibly have any kind of affect on the climate with CO2. WE ARE MADE OF CARBON! WE EMIT CARBON! One volcano eruption puts WAY MORE pollution into the atmosphere than we could possibly attempt to do in a year. Carbon Dioxide is a trace gas in the total makeup of the atmosphere, .038 of 1 percent!! THAT'S LESS THAN 1/2 OF 1 PERCENT!!! 100 years ago it was .028 of 1 percent!! Chew on that for a while...... Keep drinking the Gore/Obama Kool-aid, idiots!

Posted by kurtg July 14, 09 01:21 PM

I FUCKING LOVE KOOL-AID AND I'LL MOTHERFUCKING SLAUGHTER ANYONE WHO SPEAKS AGAINST IT. also I am amazed too also.


I have no specific political affiliation I am neither liberal or conservative in my views like what I suspect most of the silent majority in this country I just want to live my life with the least drama possible but current politics is dividing this country by left and right race sex in truth I wonder how long we have left as a union

Posted by fin July 14, 09 01:07 PM

this one's fine I guess but I just love the runonnity of it


Palin is great because shes logical woman who sees through BS.. who cares if she is republican or democrat- she doesnt.. if she wants to be an analyst - awesome! Obviously she believes she'll have a larger impact and at least she isnt apart of the the same machine blind leading the blind that we have right now.. which CLEARLY isnt working all of you 1 trillion annual deficit/highest unemployment EVER lovers..

Posted by Laura July 14, 09 03:12 PM

"1-trillion-annual-deficit/highest-unemployment-EVER lovers.."


Well spoken Sarah.

Couldn't have said it better myself.
You'd make a fine President.
We need people like you fightin for America.
Cause it is the right thin to do.

Posted by George W. Bush July 14, 09 03:04 PM

I actually really want to believe that this is him

hey so I just found that I'd written this down & I remember it was goddamn delicious. here y'all go.

1lb dover sole, cut into long, thin strips
- sole is good for this dish as it is not particularly flavorful on its own, having very little fat or other redeeming qualities. hey, at least it's not stupid tilapia with all omega-6 fats.
1 bunch kale, chopped
A few cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup onions, chopped
2 loose tbsp shredded basil (torn up by hand is fine)
2 cups bread crumbs (approximately - how much you will need will depend on how liquidy the fish is)
2tbsp sour cream
1tbsp mayo
1-2tsp horseradish
some hot pepper flakes

cook kale in butter and garlic! it will reduce in the pan. stay the course & keep stirring. add basil just before the kale's done - it doesn't really need to be cooked, but just melded. taste the kale - is it done? if it is, take it out and chop it up a little.

spread the kale around in the bowl you will eventually be mixing all the ingredients up in. let it cool off for five minutes or so. then, add the fish, incorporate. add salt and pepper if you want - it's probably a good idea. I have friends that add curry powder at this point - that is an excellent idea, though mine without was wonderful as well.

now, throw a big pile of breadcrumbs directly into the bowl. manage as best you can making fish patties. they won't REALLY stay together that well - it's okay, it's just for sake of getting them into your skillet all one thickness.

then, heat up some more butter (or coconut oil if you like - I personally used butter and lard) and throw all the patties in there. smash them down & into each other, break apart to flip. they will not stay their original shape & it benefits them greatly to smush them down, so if you make a Single FishCake, that's fine, it's what I did. anybody have any tips for the cakes themselves staying together? they really didn't with these. they were still TOTALLY delicious, just not really bunable. haha, bunable.

Finally, when browned and done, mix up the last four ingredients in a separate bowl. Serve saucey with fish cakes!

we others are the exception and the danger - and we need eternally to be defended. -well, there actually are things to be said in favor of the exception, provided that it never wants to become the rule.

wow, y'all! listen to yr bod! I have been CONSTANTLY tired as crap for like three weeks, but whatever, I went out every night but one each week anyway! and then this last friday night shit started to SHUT DOWN. first I got a UTI (pee after sex, ladiez - how did I not ever know this? I feel like this is Sacred Womyn Knowledge or some shit) and basically drank not at all (despite being on the pedalpalooza Bro Ride - me & shelley went in bro-drag - yes, it was amazing), and then saturday I was craaazy sick & in a lot of pain. so I slept ALL DAY, and drank nothing but water and pure cranberry juice (eugh), and still didn't have any beer (that is a victory, y'all), & me jon passed out around midnight even after all that sleep. so that was awesome.

basically, NO RK, YOU CANNOT PARTY EVERY NIGHT. YOU CANNOT. be reasonable, asshole!! it WILL catch up to you, don't be retarded, etc etc.

but woo! woke up on sunday in no pain, feelin' like a million buxx, and I'm still drinking MAD LIQUIDS, and all is well. woo woo!!

I think I cured my UTI by sleeping a lot, drinking maybe five or six bottlesful of water, maybe more, not smoking, not drinking anything but the aforementioned, and of course, the like-eating-raw-lemons, a bottle of pure cranberry juice, $9.99 courtesy whole foods.

unrelated: I had a dream last night I was at, like, a day prison camp. like, not sleepover, you just had to be there every day. and the one day I was aware of the transit, I rode my bike, and I rode on damen avenue in no particular city. damen devolved into like a tent city, and me (and all the other bikers headed to day-prison) just had to ride as quickly as possible by the thick mass of homeless people, in order to get to prison. ha ha! that's weird!

I remember I could fly. well, everybody could. it was just really tiring, a lot of arm-flapping and you went really slowly and got fatigued really fast. someone in the day-prison camp, another woman prisoner, had come up with a way to fly that was way better. at first, when I heard about it, it was something with a convex dish fitting inside of a larger concave dish and you fit it on your face. then, I guess because that just wasn't silly enough for my subconscious, the equipment became a winged sock hat, a witch's hat, a smushed fake plastic carrot nose, and a huge, funny-shaped wicker basket that you wear like a necklace.

jon's alarm went off just as the beautiful lady warden (ha ha!) had finished dressing me up in all this, so I could really really fly.

weird dream, huh guys?

first, jon's roommate's bike was not stolen. he for whatever reason hadn't locked his bike, and when citybikes closed, another employee had seen it & put it in their locked garage. so it is still around.

also, I need to learn about sleep, or something. left the house at 1030pm to go to a show, and i'm pretty sure I didn't get to sleep before 2, and then woke up late and am going to work without even my teeth brushed. I wanna party! & in order to do so, like, every night, I am abusing the shit out of my body right now. but fuck! my life is like a 24/7 funjob

I know it technically was a good weekend, but I am of the opinion that Someone is fucking with my world. all kinds of crappy shit is happening to people around me, and damn to me. for the most part, the inconveniences are minor, but not everything. maybe it's just my long, long stream of serendipity & inexplicable luck coming to a close for the time being. but that my friend nearly wrecked her brand new bike (a car pulled out in front of her, wheel was fucked so that was a $50 fix instead of a new frame altogether), that another friend got extremely sick on sunday for a reason we could not divine, to the point where he ended up horking in the middle of a grocery store? jesus. it's really all happening at once.

last night, what looked like was going to be an awesome night was just seriously one thing after another. beer got spilled on a computer (it is okay after all), dinner was extremely close to being ruined (it wasn't), and even though jon & I had a very good night after all("i love you! and I love you! this is neat!"), the evening was capped off by jon's roommate mike's bike being stolen, jon's front wheel being stolen, & my rear wheel getting stolen as well.

I'm not doing a very good job of not bitching. "don't be a princess" is rolling through my head more than biological functions, but I am really upset about this. I am still super motherfucking broke all the time right now and it doesn't make sense and I can't afford this.

I think I am just going to get another crappy machine built wheel, even though my boyfriend builds amazing wheels and I have my eye on some gorgeous rims - I just can't afford this shit right now.

it could be worse (it can always be worse). I still have my bike, my job life apartment relationship supportsystem, and so much more. but not being able to ride my bike is going to be really crappy, I think. I'll be talking to jon later about what he thinks I should do. what a pile of shit.

edit, next day: perspective helps. a new wheel just means the next part of my tattoo will wait.

one cup flour
1/4 cup ice water
1/4 cup olive oil
one tsp salt
one tbsp dried rosemary

five eggs
3/4 cup loosely packed chopped spinach - you could probably do almost twice this amount & it would be awesomely spinachtastic with no negative effects.
3/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion
one tbsp finely chopped garlic
one tbspish room temp butter
3 ramekins (I used french onion soup bowls - any flat-bottomed dish will work, just depends on how much you want per individual serving)
1/2cupish whole milk cottage cheese

preheat oven to 400. chop everything. set aside. mix flour, salt, rosemary. grease ramekins with butter. add olive oil & ice-cold water to flour mixture, mix quickly, add more olive oil if it's too dry. paste crust into buttered ramekins, being sure to make a good seal against the dish. I only went a little less than an inch up the sides of each ramekin.

break eggs in large bowl, mix it up real good. add raw spinach, onion & garlic. i like the veggies raw to start, rather than sautéed - the flavor in the end is much sharper that way & still very rich.

generous spoonful of cottage cheese in the center of each ramekinned crust, spread it out a bit, haphazardly. mix egg mixture up a lot again, pour evenly up to top of each crust. bake uncovered for 25min or until crust edges are golden brown!

sort of a bare bones entry, but I basically made this recipe up & wanted to share/log it for myself! i'm pretty sure you could do a million different things with this recipe & it would be fine, like a ton of basil, or chives, or fresh dill like my neighbor is growing in his 20-strong container garden he keeps in his parking space. for her crustless quiche, bread&honey threw in some salami - I'm really broke right now so I didn't do that but it would go awesomely, too. you can also just use regular cheese, cheddar's fine but I'm sure gruyere or a ton of other cheeses would go awesome with this, too!

anyway, this was delicious & despite this rather dryly written entry, I hope you make it & love it as much as I did!

edit: was just informed that it turned out beautifully with artichoke, cheddar instead of cottage cheese, as well as pancetta! well, duh. and evidently their crust was a bit higher than mine & it still cooked through wonderfully. and tbh I made up all of the amounts, based on memory of eyeballing how much each amount was. except the crust, the crust recipe I just looked up & followed. I ended up putting a BIT more olive oil in it but the proportions are pretty on. anyway now I have proof that I did it right! thanks coworker mike & girlf jenny!

further edit, try it with the cottage cheese, y'all. I really think that's part of why mine turned out so creamy & so delicious. it's different than an ordinary gooey quiche. try it! basically I am going to try a little bit of cottage cheese in more egg dishes, it kept everything so moist.

since I didn't want to log anthony out of his last.fm (as my computer is now kaput entirely) in order to try its "radio" function, I just went back to good old pandora, which has motherfucking pleased me in the music it's played so far.

I am reaaally wanting to get into metal, lately. all kinds of metal. please. the scrowffo vocals, the only thing that's ever really turned me off, totally add to most of it for me, now, and I'm happy as shit about this totally new kind of super super intricate music.

so I put "agalloch" as its own station (my only other one being "going to georgia radio," sigh, sorry guys, I'm looking forward to the next band I get painfully obsessed with to be much more rocky and less pussypantsy, too) and the bands it's played so far are opeth, neaera, pelican, mogwai, red sparowes, explosions in the sky, uhh opeth again now (I think I liked the other one better, which was from some live album. this one is from still life, & it's pretty alright. yeah).

I've also been seeing some metal, recently, too. fuck mountain (jon's band) is pretty rockyrocky, with elements of blabbedybloo and hooplah (no I will not describe it for you). portland locals, celebrating their 13th anniversary this july, jonny x and the groadies, recently put on an incredible show. and I have seen aranya twice recently, sorta icemetally druidic screamy with a girl vocalist whose range goes from soprano heights to screamyscary gutter-wrenching with some mathy drumbeats.

I feel like I am seeing some serious talent, lately. I'm so, so pleased to know so many musicians again & to be able to go to a TON of cheap shows, like, at least three or four a month it seems like. it feels really good to support this again, which I haven't really done on this regular of a basis in five or six years.

also, all this metal fucking rules.

anyway things are great, four days til I go meet jon's parents in chino, maybe a month or so til my new cargo-y touring bike is done, a month and a half til our next bike tour (three days! ~150mi! wwwwooooowwww!!!!), and jon's been my boyfriend for nearly five months.

ah, also, I got stoned last night for the first time in, like, a while. we were playing super bomberman! it was awesome! I didn't feel nervous or anxious once, I just ENJOYED THE SHIT OUT OF IT, which has really not happened in an extremely, extremely long time. that I ended up going to bed probably much earlier than I would have was minorly annoying, and the next day, after sleeping NINE HOURS or something, I still could not wake myself up & I was groggy til like 2pm - extremely annoying. still, though, I guess I can see myself doing that again every once in a while. nice to know it won't make me freak out.

later y'all!

I took a 70 mile bike trip! here's an expanded-upon synopsis I wrote for mapmyride.com:

We began at 2400 SE Taylor St in Portland, and went down to the river to catch the Springwater Corridor Trail. We stopped about every ten miles or so & split a sandwich and some banana. We took the Springwater that out to Boring, and then after some wacky, totally unhelpful advice from an extremely friendly, batty old woman, we found our way to 224/211, where we then found an extremely awesome woman at the Hitchin' Post Pizza in Estacada who told us exactly where to go. We went down to the bridge of 224/211 & crossed the Clackamas river there, then a right onto Hayden, which was a very steep grade uphill, and then onto Springwater for just a step. Springwater looks really farmy, but as soon as you get into McIver State Park, it's lush woods with great camping. A warning: on a bike, it's $4/person/night. not that bad (not really that good in my opinion - camping should be CHEAP!) but there is only one space available for bikers (or anybody without a car). In a car, it's FIFTEEN DOLLARS/night/person. like, hostel prices. but it was very nice camping, even though the wood they sold us was crappy.

the camping was awesome, too. we bought wood for $5 a bunch, and jon built the fire while I pitched the tent.* then we made bacon, ate the bacon & left the fat in the pot, and then made a dish of chicken legs, parsnips, potatoes & sweet potatoes, as well as roasting a can of baked beans & some tomatoes and onions over the fire, too. it was all fantastic and would have fed another person easily. as it was, we didn't really have a way to take it home, so we threw out the leftovers. that was a Crappy Thing, I think. though we were basically working the whole time on our feet, it was really relaxed & really awesome. there were some things that we didn't bring that we made a list of throughout the trip, so that they'll be remembered (or better compensated for) next time, but it was great and we did fine.

sleeping was hard. no bedroll. next time! I got very little sleep, which was something I'd needed very badly after 40 miles of riding. but whatever, it was one night & it wasn't worth bitching about.

the next morning we again made bacon & ate it, leaving the fat in the pot, and made french toast! which was AWESOME. we each had three pieces, one apiece as they were ready two at a time. we even brought maple syrup, which was retardedly expensive (almost $6 for probably 5 ounces - next time I'm bringing the container up to the counter for them to tare.) and tooootally delicious.

cleanup was superfast and supereasy. thank god. when we got on our way, I walked my bike up the hill that lead us into the belly of the beastMcIver because it was so goddamn steep, and I have shit for low gears on my bike.

I had a scare a bit down the road. basically, my seat post is just slightly too short, & it has been for a really long time. I gave myself a somewhat serious knee injury. it's the next day & it still hurts like a biiiiiiiiitch to do anything but have it COMPLETELY straight. what's funny is I can totally put weight on it, I just can't use it to bend my leg. so I thought that my knee might prevent me from being able to finish the trip, and I was wondering how I could get home. we stopped at this amazing ACTUAL greasy spoon dive restaurant (View Point, with one of the most amazing vistas of Mount Hood that I have ever seen), whose hostess had the sweeeeetest smile, and bought excedrin and coffee ($3 for two coffees, total). I popped four of the horseysized excedrin (rec. dos. 2/adult/6hrs) and then 2 more a few hours later. this was just to make it home. I ended up being okay, but fuck if it didn't hurt pretty much the entire way home.

we took Springwater Road all the way up, which bypassed Boring altogether, and saved us ten miles of riding on the way home, which was fine due to my injury (and then jon's - he managed to hurt his ankle, too). also, on a ride this length, CARRY AN EXTRA SPOKE (along with tools to repair a flat, but every cyclist knows that). jon broke one & it fucked his wheel and made it extremely hard to ride for the remaining 15mi.

on the way home we talked about getting me a new bike. my univega is awesome, gorgeous, wonderful, and even pretty sturdy, but mostly it is made for going extremely fast - you don't need a fast bike for touring, you just need a solid bike that has low gears that you can put a rack onto. so we're gonna build up this red mountain bike frame that he has. the frame is a karakoram - evidently pretty alright? having a bike mechanic boyfriend is awesome. this may be put off for a while, I have been inexplicably broke for a couple months now. ha ha, maybe I should stop pouring money into my 401k! sry mkt!

oh, and per my rating it Hard on the site - it was only hard on the select uphills - Hayden, getting back up the hill at McIver, and part of Springwater. mostly it was pretty flat. but I did have to get off my bike a couple of times since I have no low gears - lame, I know. but that's why I rated it that. basically, get yourself some granny gears for this route, especially if you're going to be hauling cargo for some bike tourin'.

and I rated the surface of the route Rough because there were some unpaved bits we went over. the last 2.5 miles of the Springwater Corridor into Boring were all gravel and fairly crappy. but probably fun if you have big tires! which I don't. but it was still sorta fun, just extremely taxing.

so then when we got home, we had a couple beers, a few cigarettes, played video games for approximately nine seconds, and then passed out for about four hours. then when we woke up, our friend lionel recognized exactly our exhaustion and made sure we got plenty of water and salt. revived! thanks lionel! lots of sleep and mexican food later, I feel great, even if my knee is still an asshole.

here's the link to the actual map, so you can wrangle around it a little if you want: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/us/or/portland%20to%20mciver/100124296395385748


*haha

if you can't trust the ones that love you and even are sometimes absolutely enthralled by you, then life isn't worth shit and you can go eat a dick.

that is, trust is a hard thing to learn, but I can do it. life is extraordinary right now, and feelings of nervous, misplaced jealousy are really just clinging, fearful paranoia.

lessons larned, y'all! and not even terribly difficultly.