afternoon

Yesterday H picked me up at 1, and we went somewhere in East Sac so she could pick up some stuff for the clothing exchange from her friend's porch, but the friend forgot to leave it out.

Then we went to her place, my first time seeing it--she moved in November. We squeezed orange juice and drank it. She listened to the longest voicemail I had ever heard.

Then she brought out crafting stuff, and I got obsessed sorting buttons. She has a huge button jar. I liked the metal ones and shell ones, the wood ones. We found two that had a lion and a unicorn on them.

We listened to Sufjan Stevens and talked. I pet Purrcey. I stared out the window at the ivy.

Then it got dusky and she had to take me home because she had to get ready for the clothing exchange party. She said she would look for headbands for me.

oranges

There are a variety of neighbor children. One is kind of new, and she throws the biggest fits in the world. At first we referred to her as "the umbrella kid" because the first world-class fit we ever heard her throw was over an umbrella. We worry about her. We hear her start screaming and we're like, "Oh great."

But there are two Mexican boys who live a few doors down, and they are sometimes loud but very reasonable people. They yell and stuff, but they seem happy. Right now they're shooting baskets.

They say hi to Erik but not to me. Once one came to the door selling chocolate. I was sorry to say, "No, thank you."

Anyway, yesterday one of them had a bunch of oranges, and we went somewhere, and when we came home the oranges were all smashed in the parking lot.

Yesterday we went for a walk in the neighborhood, and one of the kids was on his bike and riding his bike around us. He didn't say anything to us, but he kept riding his bike near us, and it was very friendly.

what I slept through

Last night there was a commotion. There was knocking, and someone said, "Dial 911!" and someone said, "He's passed out, but he's still breathing." And I guess an ambulance came. Kitty woke me up a lot, but mostly I slept okay.

This is the shortest cold ever. And I was able to go for a walk every day. What a weak-ass cold!

nutrition facts

I need to figure out how many calories in two tofu scramble burritos before I continue eating this meal every single day of my life! I also need more lemons.

Dear X,

Reading how wonderful you are makes me feel inadequate, your girlfriend hurt my feelings at San Francisco Zine Fest four years ago, and I'm not joining your stupid facebook group, ya twerp.

love,
Bitter

SAT scoring

Well, I kind of blew yesterday. Well, I worked two and a half hours, which is something. I got distracted....

Tomorrow I'm supposed to see my friend H! I wanted to bring her some vegan Mexican wedding cakes, but I'm afraid I still have germs. I don't want to bring her germ bombs.

dreaming

Los Campesinos!
The Regency Ballroom
San Francisco, CA
Fri, May 7, 2010 09:00 PM
$18

damn thread

Yesterday I was reading my own zines at the park, and they fell apart in my hands. I really need to be using waxed thread so it'll hold knots. So I'll get some before binding Please Pass the Plants. I think in green (plant color). Anyway, I'm sorry if you're reading my zines and they fall apart. Arg!

unhappy hipsters

My idea of hilarious.

http://unhappyhipsters.tumblr.com/

"And one day, a ladder appeared."

freecycle

Someone asking for a leaf blower because they want to make a hovercraft.

Three Degrees: A Zine About Autism

Hi, everyone. This is not a zine I'm making but a zine my friend Megan is making. If you have any experiences with autism, please submit! If you have friends who do, please ask them to submit! Megan is a vibrant, creative person as well as being dedicated and hard-working. I'm confident she'll do a great job with this zine.

***

I'm looking for submissions for a new compilation zine called Three Degrees: A Zine about Autism. I'm looking to compile essays, poems, photographs, and art about your personal experiences with or perspectives on autism. The name of the zine is derived from the theory that everyone knows a person with autism by... you guessed it... three degrees. I chose this title to reflect that autism can affect pretty much everyone.

I want to include submissions from a wide variety of people. Maybe you're a parent or sibling, a teacher or caregiver. Maybe you have a family member or friend who has autism. Maybe you've only encountered a person with autism once. Maybe you yourself are on the spectrum. Do you celebrate neurodiversity? Do you hope for a cure? As a sibling myself, I'm particularly interested in other sibs' experiences, but like I said, I'm looking for a variety, including all the feelings that experience includes: joy, frustration, love, embarrassment, reward, etc.

Submissions can be as short or long as you like, but keep in mind I'm on a budget, so try not to submit something that will take up more than three half-sized pages.

No derogatory or hateful submissions will be accepted.

Deadline for submitting is March 1.
Please send submissions to: meganallore @ gmail . com

All participants will receive a free copy of the zine.

Can't wait to hear from you!

desperate times call for desperate measures

I haven't read livejournal for weeks because I was so overwhelmed knowing how behind I was. So I decided to leave the poetry groups and vegan groups and cut a few friends. It was kind of sad, and I hate hurting people's feelings, but it was even sadder to not read the news of certain friends. So I had to compromise.

tree

Please enjoy these photos Erik took on today's hike at Cataract Creek.

fungus

fence

stairs

bummer

Today Erik hiked at Cataract Creek in the rain. He came home early, to my delight. I made tofu scramble with spinach.

While he was gone, I proofread an oral history interview. It wasn't too difficult. Looks like I'll have some transcribing work starting Sunday....

I'm sick! It's my second cold of the winter. I'm not amused. But so far I'm okay--I'm not stuck in bed or anything.

Erik's laptop's hard drive is full! He has to delete stuff.

freecycle

Someone asking for a metronome on freecycle.

miracle

walk at Howe Park
baked sweet potato biscuits
proofread a little bit
Erik did laundry
made tofu scramble
ate chocolate
prepared more zines to send

Oh, and Erik put his ipod shuffle through the washer and drier, and it still works!

two movies

Last night we finished watching a documentary about Zen Buddhist Ed Espe Brown called How To Cook Your Life. We loved it. While we watched I addressed envelopes for sending zines, so go me.

Then we started watching Waking Life which my friend H loaned me quite a while ago and I want to give it back this afternoon at writer's group.

I was going to put a link to Ed Brown's wikipedia page, but some days my cut and paste doesn't work, and today is one of those days.

lack

I'm sending out the new zines ELM 46 and fi 6 at a snail's pace. Today I only sent to two people. What the heck? I'm dragging ass and unmotivated and not concentrating well and blah blah blah blah blah.

dream deferred

This morning we were supposed to go to brunch with friends, but I was sad to have a call saying someone was sick. We had been planning on tofu scramble at Fox & Goose. Alas. We went for a walk instead in the rain-wet world. Then Erik went to sushi with his bestie. In the afternoon we went to Temple II where I wrote a long-ass letter to my favorite person in Florida and then read my own zines. Then we went to the co-op where I succeeded at not buying kale chips. But I did buy a vegan cinnamon roll--I was so hungry, and I knew it would mess up my blood sugar, but we had leftover sweet potato black bean chili right when we got home and I was okay. Also we bought mung beans, soy yogurt in lemon and cherry, waxed paper, bananas. We oggled the truffles, both white and black. Erik agonized over whether to buy Pain au Levain and decided no. I am so tired. Erik's washing dishes, and we're listening to a Yo Yo Ma CD that has some good stuff and some hokey stuff. Hmm, don't know how to spell hokey.

passwords

I have always been fascinated with the whole idea of what people choose as their passwords. There's a little article about it on yahoo today.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108641/If-your-password-is-123456-just-make-it-hack-me.html?mod=family-love_money

fi 6

All about the logistics of care: losing services, cost of medication, the quest for refills, and running into a former psychiatrist at the grocery store. Featuring a cover image by artist Niku Arbabi.

elm 46

Poems about playing with snails, lost love, secrets, sex, a trip, Satan, being in the hospital, a mistake, cows, getting tricked, lizards, architecture, and a pretend barn. Book and zine reviews, an essay about how Erik and I have been together for 10 years, one letter to the editor, and a nice bandanna cover. Available for trade--32 pages of 100% fun.

wow

I just made my mom's recipe for Mexican Wedding Cakes vegan-style, and they are so good--I think they are the best cookies in the history of mankind.

all me, all the time

Yesterday I was without internet. I baked sweet potato biscuits for breakfast then a new recipe for vegan oatmeal breakfast cookies which did not knock my socks off. However, I'm eating some for breakfast right now because I can't think of anything else. And Erik likes them, of course. He likes everything.

Then in the afternoon I washed a metric ton of mushrooms, chopped bell peppers, peeled ginger, got out onions, got out spices, got out a can of tomato paste and a can of chickpeas and the can-opener, etc. Found brown rice. But Erik got home from work early, so we went for a walk during a brief period of rainlessness. And then he worked on fixing the internet--it took a long time. I bound zines and then made dinner. Mushroom curry. I was feeling really, really down and Erik gave me pep talks. We tried to go to bed early since he's working outside the home today.

Still stormy today, which I like--however, my computer went off for a sec earlier, so I guess my UPS isn't plugged in. What the heck.

I want to make Mexican Wedding Cakes, a cookie my mom always makes, so I can put it in the vegan cookzine. I know it can be done--in fact, my mom used to bake with margarine, so I've kind of had it vegan many times ("kind of" because the powdered sugar wasn't vegan, surely, but some people are not sticklers about that). I need to wash dishes. I also need to put in a chickpea cutlets recipe, how I make it, from The Veganomicon. I'd also like to make the black bean sweet potato chili one more time to make sure I've got the bean-to-spices ratio just right, but I forgot to soak the beans last night. I guess I could just cook them all day.

Well, that's what's going on with me. I'm enjoying The Elegance of the Hedgehog and want to finish it sooner rather than later so I can give it back. I want to scan the covers of new zines Erik and LM Magazine 46 and functionally ill 6 so I can blog them and post to facebook and maybe livejournal. The cover of fi is excellent, made my artist friend Niku. The cover of ELM turned out fantastic too, better than I'd imagined, though it was kind of embarrassing to photocopy a bandanna.

daytrip successful

This morning we went to Berkeley. There I photocopied Erik and LM Magazine 46 and functionally ill 6. Their paper cutter is great.

Then we went to Tilden Park's botanic garden and walked and looked at plants joyfully. We were lucky it stopped raining for a while. The creek was roaring with water.

Then we went to this Japanese store in Oakland that Erik likes and I helped him shop for buckwheat hull pillows, for which I deserve a super-valuable reward. In the end, he didn't find one that he really liked. We resolved to go to Japantown sometime.

Then we went to Global Exchange where I bought a few cards and my favorite stationary shop were I bravely didn't buy anything, not even a green Pilot G-2.

Then we went to Indian-Pakistani food. Then we went to our favorite tea shop. Wrote in my journal, read, got sleepy. When we got home I noted that the car made it to Berkeley and back one more time. Thanks, car!

too tired to think of a title

Tonight there was a puja for Swami Brahmananda. I drove there in the dark and rain! I sang my heart out, and it was beautiful. Barely anyone was there, but the choir sounded like a powerful force.

We haven't been sleeping well, so I have been yawning and blinking a lot. This afternoon we went to Temple II and I wrote in my journal and read The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I drank my two pots of Ginger Tangerine tea.

Well, California's going to be wet for a while!

Tonight I got a kick-ass email from my ButterSword friends that I will reply to tomorrow. However, gmail wouldn't load properly so chat didn't work, so if you're reading, loved one I chat with every night, that's why I was missing. Talk to you tomorrow.

suggestion

For a good time, you might go to Plan-It-X Records and listen to "put my head in front of your head" by Best Friends Forever. It's about wanting to go back in time and marry Abraham Lincoln.

http://www.plan-it-x.com/

bean trouble

The adzuki beans are not sprouting well. Only about a fourth of them have sprouted. I don't know what's the deal. The black-eyed peas are a day behind and maybe are having the same problem, but it's too early to say. Maybe lentils and mung beans and garbanzo beans are just easier, and if so, I wouldn't mind sprouting them exclusively.

morning

Last night was writer's group. We met at Temple II at 8. I didn't write anything I liked, but my friends did. I'm just not a fiction writer. Sad face. Erik and I went to bed late, and then this morning there were leaf blowers and loud neighbors and a phone call.

I finished laying out ELM 46 this morning, and I can't decide whether to go to Berkeley to photocopy tomorrow or Monday. The apartment's a world-class mess, and I am a sleepy girl who needs to take a shower before choir practice.

happy update

My shoulder's better. I can reach any which way and sleep on my right side again.

oh yeah

Yesterday I was working on zines all morning and lost track of time, but we made it to Music At Noon with time to spare where we heard awesome musicians. The violinist was from Belgrade, and the pianist was from Moscow. The music was thrilling. I guess we liked the Prokofiev best, and they got a standing ovation. Then they did an encore, but it wasn't as great. We left the church all dazzled and went to McKinley Park. Then Erik took me to the huge normal grocery store across the street for onions but I noticed the organic extra-firm tofu was on sale and got one of those too because tofu has become critical around here!

conclusion

I did a little research and found a website saying Natural Value's waxed paper is 100% paraffin and vegan.

http://www.veganpeace.com/ingredients/ingredients.htm

Today I had lunch with my friend P--she picked me up at noon. We talked about our church friends, her kids, zine-making, someone who wanted to marry her a long time ago. We stayed at the restaurant maybe an hour after we'd eaten our food and probably bothered the waitstaff. Lots of other eaters came and went while we were talking. Sometimes I was distracted by their conversations. For a while to our left was a dad and teenage son--the teenage son seemed a bit surly and his hair was wild brown curls. They wore very similar shoes. I could have sworn I heard the dad say something like, "When you get on the boat, you're not going to turn into a homo." WTF? Then she took me home and we stayed talking in her car for a while.

I've been losing everything lately. This morning I found my address book, though. I think losing stuff leads to losing more stuff because for example everything on my desk gets stirred up while I'm searching and what belongs on top gets redistributed so it's on the bottom.

This morning I got sidetracked researching suicide notes and my mental health suffered as a result. Then I was reading long wikipedia articles on Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Elliott Smith. I guess other than lunch with P I've done a crappy job taking care of myself, but tomorrow's a new day.

promises promises

Tonight we tasted the sprouted garbanzo beans. They're good! The bean part's so big, it's different.

I can never decide whether to call them garbanzo beans or chickpeas. Both names are there in my mind.

I started a new master to do list. It looks so tidy.

I made tofu scramble for dinner--it's my favorite meal. Tonight we tried it with mushrooms.

Too tired to sustain a paragraph. Tomorrow I want to tell you about the concert. Night!

three beans

Went to Temple II today--wrote a note, finished a long letter, and almost done with Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice. Then we went to the co-op where I got three new kinds of beans for sprouting! They are adzuki, lima, and black eyed peas.

On the way out I asked the person at the desk if she knew whether Natural Value waxed paper is vegan. She said, "Prrrobably?" I said, "Maybe I should contact them directly." She said, "What are you worried about?" I said, "That there might be something animal-y in the wax." She said, "I don't think we would carry it if it was gross." Yeah, like the whole, uh, butcher department doesn't contain animal products?

Raining again. I sent a bunch of mail today--birthday present to bestie, letter and zine and postcards to the ButterSwords, zines to Icarus pal, and zines to Anno Domini in San Jose. There's a helicopter circling, and it's pissing me off!

lentils

I don't think I ever reported that our lentils sprouted. They were quicker than the mung beans! Now we have some garbanzo beans going.

default printer

Today I figured out how to change my default printer, and life is better now.

brunch

Yesterday I went to vegan brunch at my friend Kat's place. It was so fun! I don't like parties, but this one was very small, and I knew and liked everyone there. It's rare that I see people other than Erik and church friends, so this brunch was special to me.

Kat said she'd put all the recipes up on her blog. I want the recipe for sweet potato biscuits especially.

In addition to eating wonderful foods, I also got to see Kat play Wii (I had never seen a Wii before). And she showed me her worm bin in the backyard. I brought her a piece of art my by artist friend Predrag in Serbia. She loaned me two books. I got some nice hugs, and I got to visit Smokey the cat who lives in the laundry room.

yikes

I really hope they don't install speed sensors on red-light cameras!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget-cameras9-2010jan09,0,3286125.story

boom CHOCO boom

I really like this vegan rice milk chocolate bar made by Enjoy Life.

http://www.enjoylifefoods.com/our_foods/chocolate_bars/rice_milk_bar.html

Pt Reyes yesterday

Enjoy these gorgeous photos Erik took on his hike yesterday.

one mushroom

two mushrooms

close mushroom

pine needles

green whirl

trail tunnel

tofu scramble

I made the tofu scramble for lunch, and it was everything I wanted it to be. I added an small onion. Next time I'll add bell pepper and spinach, I think. So flavorful! We ate it in burrito form.

http://chubbyvegangirl.blogspot.com/2008/04/tofu-scramble.html

I reprinted functionally ill 6 in Palatino Linotype and redid the layout, and it will be better this way. Tomorrow I'm going to vegan brunch at a friend's place. I want to go to Berkeley for photocopying and other fun on Sunday. But I guess I need to finish ELM 46 first. We'll see!

sprouts are delicious

Last night we decided our sprout babies were done growing and tried some. So good! I thought they'd be kind of hard, or beany--I was concerned I wouldn't like them. But they taste fresh and delicious! Kind of like lettuce? They're crisp. We ate some plain last night then this morning put them in sandwiches for breakfast. (Maybe I'll have tofu scramble for lunch.) I already have lentils soaking to make lentil sprouts next. Once I get some experience with different beans and seeds, I would like to make a sprouting zine.

eeee!

Today was the best mail day in the history of mankind! I got awesome letters from my ButterSword friends, and they agreed to collaborate on a vegan cookzine! Heck yeah! They also sent a fabulous bottlecap magnet that I put on the fridge.

I got a letter from my favorite person in London, my patron, the excellent Eddie of Zine Monger. I admire him from afar!

I got a mini-DVD of Lapland from my loved penpal M of Finland. The envelope came adorned with Moominstickers! That was so thoughtful of you, M! I haven't tried to watch it yet. Hope it works.

And I got a packet of zines in trade from Jamez, two of his and some extras. Haven't read them yet.

Shortly after receiving this world-class mail, reading the letters multiple times, and Erik telling me about his hiking adventures, I developed a nasty headache. I stubbornly felt the pain for a while then took some generic ibuprofen. And my headache went away easily. I am so lucky.

Erik's hiking pictures turned out amazing, so I will hopefully post some tomorrow.

edit to add: This morning I found more in the envelope from the ButterSwords! There's a cat magnet and some flower stickers! Oh, and some art--a laminated page from a book. There's a woman in the water and a monkey man on the shore and a gnarled tree above and stars in the sky.

Also this morning I remembered one more mail from yesterday--a postcard from the girl in Canada who sends me postcards all this time! This one has a picture of her Christmas tree on it.

we're famous!

We got a shout out at ButterSword!

http://buttersword.com/2010/01/05/010510/

kiwi fruit evening

Today Erik is hiking with his best friend T, and I have been reading and goofing off on the internet all day. I feel the need for more protein-rich vegan breakfasts, so I researched that a bit, and visited facebook, and caught up on livejournal, and visited We Make Zines to observe the drama there. I've been reading A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World and enjoying that very much--I think I'm almost done. Oh, and there's a cookbook for college students I checked out from the Carmichael library yesterday. It has a recipe for tofu cooked in orange juice that I'm very curious about, a breakfast food. Otherwise, I'm ready to try tofu scramble, something I've avoided making for years. My chosen recipe is printed and ready for tomorrow morning's breakfast time.

The river yesterday was perfect. It was a cloudy day, and there were few people out. We explored a sand bar and sat for a long time talking and playing with stones. Our only animal company was the birds and some distant fishermen. I wore a hat and scarf and jacket. Before the river, we ate ate Sunflower and watched feral chickens. (I had a super nut burger--Erik had his beloved mushroom millet burger.)

Our sprouted mung beans are almost ready for eating! I wish I was a photographer and would take you a beautiful picture.

Today I've done no work on the three zines I've got going. I thought I'd get a ton done with Erik absent, but nuh-uh. Right now I'm eating kiwi fruit and hankering to get back to my book.

river

Today we had a good time at the river, but I will tell you about it tomorrow because I have to go to bed now because Erik's leaving for a hike at 7 tomorrow morning.

holy beans!

I think our babies are sprouting! Tonight I rinsed them a few times and turned our jar upside-down to drain. I'm so excited!

Another super-exciting thing is that the co-op has a new kind of kale chips! They're made by a company in Santa Cruz. They're very similar to the kind made by the company in Berkeley and might be cheaper (I haven't done the cost-per-ounce math). We devoured the whole bag on the drive home, tahini flavor.

http://superherosnacks.com/

omg!

I'm working on three zines at the same time! I'm trying to catch up on my book reviews and zine reviews to I can finish up Erik and LM Magazine 46 so it can be done and ready to send out at the same time as functionally ill 6. That might save me a little postage.

Mackey

We wrote to Whole Foods to complain about their CEO saying global warming doesn't exist. They sent us back a form letter. There's a little thing saying the letter's protected by copyright so the recipient isn't allowed to disclose to anyone its contents, those fuckers. That should be illegal! So I won't paste it here.

arg

Agonizing over fonts--the new functionally ill was in Times New Roman, and there's really no excuse for Times New Roman, right? I'm pretty fond of Palatino Linotype. I showed Erik the first page in Times New Roman and asked him to compare it to the first page in Palatino Linotype, and he had no opinion on which looks better. He said they look like the same font. Jeeze.

"Look at our little sprouting beans!" he said from the kitchen.

new vegan cookzine

I've started work on a new vegan cookzine. Just now I spent quite a while tinkering with the instructions for Mixed Pea Curry. I'm pretty excited by the project--the last cookzine I made was years and years ago, and the way we eat is different now.

beginning to sprout

I found a very easy and pretty clear explanation of how to sprout here at this cyclist's website.

http://cycling.thenoisies.com/2005/03/sprouting-101-nutrition.asp

I have some mung beans. I bought cheesecloth at the dollar store the other day. So we put a fourth a cup of mung beans in a glass jar, covered them with water with a couple inches extra, and secured some cheesecloth over the top with a rubber band.

So we need to rinse, drain, rinse, rinse, drain until they look like tasty sprouts. There's a chance my beans might be heat treated and won't sprout. We'll see.

If this works out, we can try sprouting quinoa.

robot melon

There are some poems here that are my favorite kind.

http://www.robotmelon.com/issueten.html

Farm Sanctuary

There's a Farm Sanctuary up sort of by Chico. I want to visit! They have a bunch of animals.

http://www.farmsanctuary.org/farm/

my shoulder

I hurt my shoulder about a week ago. I slept on it wrong, I guess. It hurt a lot the next day and less the next, but it still hasn't gotten better. I'm wondering what the hell.

what hurts most
1. getting dressed
2. washing my hair
3. reaching into a cabinet or fridge

Putting on a seat belt was bad until I found another way to do it.

no poo

A friend mentioned this alternative to shampoo on her livejournal.

http://www.naturemoms.com/no-shampoo-alternative.html

It's called No Poo and uses baking soda and apple cider vinegar. I'm kind of curious about it. I've been washing my hair less frequently lately--every other day instead of every day. It looks quite messy the unwashed day, but I'm trying not to care, and when it's cold enough, I wear a hat.

Take Care

New distro in NSW.

http://takecarezines.org/

old sweater

Last night I baked vegan banana bread, with chocolate chips this time, and it's almost all gone already.

Last time I baked banana bread, I put in some buckwheat flour, which made it have a dark color. This time it looks more like dessert.

Today I got some fantastic mail--a CD from Maryland, a book and badge and card from my loved one in Australia, and a collage and a painting from my mailart friend in Serbia.

Tonight for dinner we had tofu and broccoli with leftover brown rice and hoisin sauce from a jar. The sauce was too sweet for me, but otherwise it was a very nice meal. It's the Whole Foods store brand.

This afternoon I made a proof of functionally ill 6. It's really short, and I'm worrying it's too short.

Lately I've been wearing a brown sweater my ex-mother-in-law bought me maybe 12 years ago.

great 2010 so far

Last night we stayed home for new years, set the alarm for 11:30 to wake up and talk quietly with a candle lit, and Erik rang his bowl bell when midnight arrived. We listened to neighbors yelling "Happy New Year!" and some fireworks. It all seemed funny to me.

Earlier yesterday, while I was making vegan mushroom curry for dinner, Erik asked me if I had any resolutions, so on the spot I resolved to eat more vegetables, which sounds like a boring resolution, but vegetables are very exciting to me. Erik's resolution is the same as last year's: to laugh more.

This morning I slept in super late and just had a sweet potato for breakfast. We need to go to Whole Foods--I have a list that includes smoked paprika, mung dal, vegan chocolate chips. Last night I wanted to bake vegan banana bread, but we're out of canola oil, so that's on the list too.