aquarium from below

right-side up jellyfish

Unpacking

The Bowl

I work across the street from this grocery store, and shop there at least twice a week.

It kind of sums up my feelings about Berkeley in a nutshell:

It may be a "town of hall monitors" but the food oh! the food!

Ocean Beach Bonfire

Where I Live

The Saddest Wienerschnitzel

My Job, In Wildlife Metaphor

I am a momma bird who eats data. I chew it up, swirl it around, cut it 100 different ways, and puke it back up in a digestible form for my baby bird clients.

If I'm doing my job right, it comes up as a coherent story about a place, a time and a community.

If I'm doing my job right, it looks easy. It isn't.

Despite my unappetizing description, it's actually quite an interesting and enjoyable process.

Try Not To Crack A Smile

Just try.

via jezebel

Friends and Llamas

New Growth

Navigating

Nick and T

WTF?

My mom just used the phrase OMG in an email.

I can't quite figure out why, but this struck me as odd.

Do your parents use internet acronyms?

It Was 90 Degrees In Venice Yesterday

The menu:

Peach salsa and tortilla chips
New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp
Homemade cornbread with chipotle butter
Brazilian collard greens
Rum-glazed grilled plantains
Fresh margaritas, beer and wine

I've missed my kitchen...

Cognitive Dissonance

Coming back to LA is like traveling back in time. I'm trying to roll with it, but if my hand starts to disappear I'm on the first plane back to San Francisco.

Look What I Just Found On The Sidewalk! It Lights UP!

Three cheers for Berkeley!

There Are So Many Donut Shops Within Walking Distance Of My New House.

Sensational.

First Impressions

So Long, Los Angeles

Thanks (to all of you) for the memories.

I'm Going To Miss My Cakes

Cakes not pictured, but still missed: Julie, Eileen.

I Can Hear It From My Bed At Night

Ok, Guys

Who left the copy of Machismo in my bookshelf?

(Link NSFW)

Everything Changes

I accepted the offer. I can't figure out if I'm more excited by the new job or the new city.

I think I'm in shock.

Can't Work Out What I'm Supposed To Do

Everything will change next week. Or not.

For now, I wait.

Can't Go Out, Can't Stay In - Whitey

Caramel

Back At The Purifoy Foundation

My Imaginary Friend Is Real

And he likes pastrami....

My First Time As Anything-Of-The-Month

I'll try not to let it get to my head.

Flea Market Photographs

Razbliuto

I recently heard this word on the Savage Love Podcast (episode 66, very nsfw). Defined as:

(n): the sentimental feeling you have about someone you once loved but no longer do

Razbliuto. It's fun to say, descriptive and meets a vocabularial need. Unfortunately, it's not a real word, but when has that ever stopped the English language?

Even better than the word itself is the context in which it was introduced. The woman who mentioned it has a grammar fetish - that is, she gets off on using big, fun, delicious words in bed.

How awesome is that? It's like, the nerdiest fetish ever. Go her.

Bethany On The Mountain

Other Food-Related Flotsam and Jetsam

Best word ever.

Om nom nom nom.

Skirting Salad Boredom

A very, very useful guide to basic salad combinations.

Miss Ginsu, via Slashfood.

Freaky Observers

The Boltzman brain problem suggests that, over eons of time, there is an infinite possibility atoms colliding in outer space to create recognizable things, from the mundane (the unscrambling of an egg) to the grandiose (a parallel universe). There could also be another you out there, just floating in space. Or, according to the Boltzman brain problem, an exact replica of your brain.

In fact, it is more likely that just your brain is out there than your whole body. Nature tends to do thing as simply and with as little energy as possible, and the creation of your brain is statistically "cheaper."

So it's entirely likely that your brain is floating somewhere out in space, fully aware, with your memories and the illusion of your world around it. Lots of your brains, in fact. And because the creation of our universe the way it is was such an improbable occurrence (ie there's only one "real" you, compared to many floating brains), it is statistically more likely that you are one of these brains in space, and not yourself in this universe.

Kind if disturbing, right?

The thing is that most cosmologists don't really believe this is true - but they can't figure out how to disprove it. And this flaw in the use of probability to predict the universe creates all sorts of issues in other parts of cosmology, which is in itself disturbing.

Or maybe it is true, in which case - wooooaaaahhh.

Check out the NYTimes article for a much longer and more detailed description of the whole phenomenon.

I'm An Alien Rock-Star Spy!

Remember when you were a kid and playing pretend was basically the best game ever? You could be whoever, whereever, whenever you wanted, and reality was no hindrance to your fun. Fly to outer space and shoot lasers out of your eyes? Sure! Transform at will into a talking unicorn-pegasus hybrid? No problem! Die a dramatic death and come back to life? Practically a given!

We were talking about this the other night, trying to figure out at what age playing pretend went out of style. M played openly until his friends started making fun of him for being uncool. I willingly gave up public playing in a pre-teen attempt to rush adolescence. But we both admitted to playing pretend privately until we were much older, and eventually these pretend games dissolved into our modern-day fantasy lives...which then led us to ask if we've ever really stopped playing pretend.

And of course, we haven't. From silly daydreams to the occasional complete delusion to the half-truths we tell ourselves just to get through the day, we still do. So what's the difference between the way we pretend now, and the way we played then? Obviously reality is more of an issue now. But how many of our modern-day hindrances are self-imposed, the byproduct of our shrinking imaginations?

I don't have any answers. Just pontificating into the ether.

But here's one of my favorite songs about playing pretend (the adult way):

Aaron and Maria - American Analog Set

back on california soil

19 mosquito bites later.

pig in a truck

now he's in my belly.