incogkneeto.com blog

The difference between my Prince-husband and my Prince-cat is not in their abilities to purr or sunbake, nor is it in their affinities for blocking passages in the house, nor even in the great pleasure they each take in relentlessly prodding at me while I’m sleeping. The difference I can pinpoint, if any, is that one is here and one is not. And maybe one has a tail and the other does not, but that other has something comparable.

It is definitely not in their affinities for blocking passages in the house.

“I like this picture I took of you,” says he.
I say, “which one?”
“The one where we were sitting next to each other.”
“Seriously? Why?”
“Your skin tones look nice.”
“Except for all the pimples all over my face.”
“True,” he says.

Oh sweetest of hearts. I am a precious wife not to retaliate when he responds to me this way. He sees the trap my female mind unwittingly sets for him and does not play along. I believe this has gone poorly for him in previous relationships. But I have self-awareness. And just he waits until I can discard my last nuvaring and clear away the bumpy clouds on my forehead because he has become the bearer of birth-control!

The zoom-in of my eyeball did look nice in the photograph, however. It always does.

At work, we have a game called the Awesome Jar. It’s simple: it’s a 25-cent penalty to the jar every time someone uses the word “awesome”, all in the interest of eventually holding an Awesome Party. It was devised because a few of my coworkers are a little too liberal with the adjective and thus otherwisely-expressively deprived. But not me! (No, with me it’s all the shit, the shizah.) I think the jar contained over ten bucks last I noticed.

Today my ex-coworker brought in her newborn baby. I finally caved. “That is so awesome,” I said, obviously simply because babies are awesome when they’re sleeping, and partly in awe as the witness to the process of a teenage mother. Caught red-handed, and prosecuted by the new girl. But frankly, I think I did my crime well.

“It must be really hard for her to talk so soon after we broke up,” you have repeatedly told yourself to drown out images of the black-haired Adonis laying your ex-girlfriend upon a bed of imported silk cushions, removing a string of freshly killed quails from around his broad shoulders, and riding your beloved Becky like she was the last boat to America.

Freshly killed quails!! Good lord! I hope this writer is well-compensated.

He smiled in recalling this. “In my mind, I was transported back three thousand years. I heard what a person at that time heard, experiencing the same awe. I could imagine this person listening, a woman, I think, a very beautiful woman.” He squeezed LuLing’s hand. “And I thought to myself, in another three thousand years, perhaps another woman will hear these tones and think of me as a handsome man. Though we don’t know each other, we’re connected by the music. Don’t you agree?” He looked at LuLing.
“Buddha-ful,” she answered.
“Your mother and I think alike,” he said to Ruth. She grinned back. She realized that Mr. Tang translated for LuLing, as she once had. But he knew not to be concerned with words and their precise meanings. He simply translated what was in LuLing’s heart: her better intentions, her hopes.

- Amy Tan, The Bonesetter’s Daughter

I am enjoying these forests on my legs. Typically I can’t stand hair growth on my legs but I guess I have never let it become a forest, which is fuzzy not prickly. I grew it out to try a homemade sugaring recipe, which I bombed and haven’t re-attempted yet.

Yesterday morning I took my new headphones and hacked Gigabeat on a crusade around downtown soliciting coffeeshops with the idea of handing out Lowry #318 advertisement-adorned cup sleeves, which we would provide freely to them. Basically franchises had those franchise-like rules that seem to be decided at random on a detatched moral system and their corporate offices said no. Indies were cool with, even excited by it. Too bad Dunn Bros and Starbucks are the shops immediately across the street! And the policy is too bad for them, it wouldn’t hurt them for a patron to move in across the street. Buuut that’s why Dan and I are indie coffeeshoppers. I stopped at Black Dog to drink beer because at 11:00am it was all I felt like eating, and because I am jovially accepting every alcohol-consumption opportunity having come of age twice now. I then manouvered over to the library to sign up for a free tai chi class that will be meeting weekly on Tuesday, which was fine but only skimmed the surface due to time and freeness, and if I’m diving into tai chi again it’s going to be the deep end :)
I sure do miss taoist tai chi :( If only I had stuck with it while I was living in Calgary, I might know enough by now to open a branch here… (that is the problem, it is international but there is no Minneapolis branch.)

I crocheted a lot at the Bean Factory beside Borealis Yarns, and was eventually joined by Daniel. I had some emotional ups and downs but once Daniel’s presence re-affirmed his existance all was, and always is, well again. The barista there was so sweet, the cusp of sweetness where you wonder whether a person wants to be your friend or if they are just very sweet.

I have new adorable bermuda-length shorts, which I haven’t been able to crawl out of. Bermudas are usually awful on me but various trendy design features cause these ones to be cute, even, maybe, and exactly what I need for summer. I needed some long shorts. They are oh-so cozy-pozy both in cut, design, material (mostly bamboo) and coverage (not like the home-cut ones I almost wore out that my butt was falling out of).

Work is a silent shout lately, there is so much inner conflict that I feel terrible saying anything at all because it is all negative. Things like, thanks for the pay raise but the new shifts mean worse tips and ultimately the same income. Being separated from Daniel is always depressing. But when he doesn’t ride his bike and it is still here it doesn’t feel like he is quite as gone :)

Bringing music to work should help. And, blogging helps :)

Simple pasta dinner, in detail angel hair and Newman’s Own spicy italian sauce.

On angel hair box I am told: Pasta and Other Complex Carbohydrates are the Preferred Fuel for the Brain and Body which is what I think I will respond with if anyone ever rags on carbohydrates around me again. Do you know it is hard for me to spell brain, as my brother’s name is Brian? It is hard to spell that too. Well, anyway… It sounds exactly like what I need. and lots of it.

I have been feeling so stupid, so clumsy, so needing an anti-hex spell lately. Having many headaches. (maybe not enough complex carbohydrates?) Really seriously considering the possibility of having been hexed. It’s just little things… getting caught on things, losing balance suddenly, trying over and over to push my hair behind my ears but instead unravelling it all, going to turn on a light that is already on, can’t concentrate at all, can’t sculpt mentally like I normally can. Yesterday as I was handing a receipt off to a customer I managed somehow to grab one tucked underneath (waiting for tip adjustment) the debit terminal and then hit the button to open the till, all in one gesture meant only to deliver the one paper slip. My house needs cleaning and organizing desperately but I can’t comprehend where to begin. It’s like this army of curse-ants, they are all very tiny but when they come all at once they gnaw on me all over until I am a crying unproductive mess. You can imagine what the interaction with keyboard is like. Well, if the carbohydrates don’t work then I will rake Craigslist for a shaman. Or at least ramen.

Mike Gravel is the only politician I’ve ever liked, and I wholly like him. I would vote for him for anything in a heartbeat. Even though he dropped out I would still write him in, if I could vote in the U.S.
But today on the phone my daddy asked me, knowing the answer of course but wanting, oh, I don’t know, what do daddies want when they ask you these things? whether I thought Obama or McCain would make the better president. I thought I would have to think hard about a witty, or at least catty response, but what came out of me without nor needing my consent was: “That’s easy: Obama, because he at least is running on behalf of all the American people, while McCain is definitely only running on behalf on some of the American people.” By definition, a good American president should be a guardian for every American!! Not just the straight ones, not just the white ones, not just the ones who own cars, not just the ones who don’t educate themselves, not just the post secondary-educated ones.
Truly, Obama would unite where McCain would divide. Which is actually the only path to sustainability, which is what this culture really needs more than anything policy-related… because it is or is not the foundation for policy, without it… it’s like a handled ring without a net in it, you can’t catch butterflies that way.
But that’s just my opinion, someone who wants to live in simple peace and good health with some physical pleasureable embellishment - generally, high-quality things, but few - and enough money to see all my loved ones a few times a year. A few less of the bits where I get pulled over by police on my bike and threatened with arrest for riding in a whole lane of a three-lane road (perfectly legally) because I can’t travel at the speed of cars (because my legs aren’t gasoline-fueled engines and/or it’s early in the season for me), and my bicyclist husband gets some serious dances with death thrown at him by men with pick-up trucks instead of penises and the police say they can do nothing with their license plate numbers.
But I suppose I need that to know me?

I am amidst a phase of severe computer instability, or internet at least. Hence there was no follow-up to the maple cookie recipe, but they were quite good (rolled too thin though, and I think I would use all maple sugar) and followed by a coconut oat chocolate chip cookie batch. (Which was the real winner! The dry, flaky coconut gave the edges the most scrumptious cripsness.) If I leave this computer, no matter for how short or long a moment, the connection is dead until the machine has finished rebooting. This is the common variable in connection-deaths that I have found: not how long has the computer been on, but rather, oops walked away for a moment. I went just to stir my pasta, and it died. Maybe it is in love with me? Don’t leave me, baaaaby~! Yes that must be it. Except I did try reasoning lasciviously with my cell phone whose charge lasts 2 days and 6 hours (ugh) and it hasn’t behaved any better, soo…

The pasta has made me feel better, but the sleepiness is kicking in. Eating pasta is like doing pot but not getting high, just coming down.
Taking off the socks makes me feel even better.
Why did I get so many forks? I only needed one.
!

I guess much of this is just rambling thoughts, and I want to document them because right now I feel like a mental person trapped inside a very primally-functioning body. So it’s an attempt at regaining mental control. I think my brain is high on some kind of chemical imbalance, because it’s kind of fun.

I was lying here when Daniel came over to kiss me hello, carrying a mug of coconut juice (?). After a very wet kiss, I said, “I totally thought you were going to pour that on me.”
He said, “Oh, no no no no no no.”
How adorable!

Now he is getting all excited over the stickers that came with Adam Freeland’s album.

Now he is rinsing in the shower after biking all the fuck over the cities. “My ass is so sore,” he says, for the world to hear.