G.I.P. and Sundry (5 things)

[capri0mni]

First: in the week just past, the zeitgeist within my circle / friends list seemed to be revolving around cake. Some folks were sad, and contemplating bringing cake into their lives for cheering-up purposes. Others discovered they'd had unexpected success, and were contemplating cake for celebration purposes. Still others found they were using cake as a social and political statement. So I decided it was time for a properly pleasing CAKE icon. So I worked on one this week, and just finished it a bit ago.

It's a word-based icon, because sad experience tells me that when a picture of a cake coexists with a motto about cake, words and pictures distract from each other in the cramped space of a 100-pixel square. So I hand-lettered the phrase "THIS calls for CAKE" as an 8 inch square image, with the words "for CAKE" centered on a plate, with a dessert fork beside it. Then, I shrunk it down to 13% its original size, and then fiddled in MSpaint to color and neaten it up.

If I had cake, I would eat some right now.

Second: Anne Rice was speaking through my radio, this morning, because she has a new novel out. This time, she's writing about a werewolf character. To be honest, I tried to read Interview with a Vampire, and while her writing struck me as skilled, her whole worldview of Good Vs. Evil, and how that works, put me off and I couldn't get drawn into her world because I was too busy protesting in my head (Um... yeah. Okay... except No). And based on the things she was saying today, it seems that those are still the driving philosophies of her writing. So, although I've long been intrigued by werewolves, I will probably not read this new book.

Still, I had to chuckle at the end of the radio interview she gave on today's Weekend Edition: Sunday. When the host asked how she gets ideas -- do they come one at a time, or in bunches? -- Ms. Rice said they're like a horde of zombies crowding onto her porch, trying to get in, and she has to open the door and only let in one at a time, and tell the others to go away and wait their turns.

Hee! Plot Zombies! I smell a new meme...

Third: Earlier this week, LiveJournal had a writer's block (in honor of V's Day) asking

If you had to give up one, which would you choose: Love, Friendship, or Family?

And my immediate thought was: "Giving up on a Family that gave you no Love would be a super easy choice. Same with a 'Friendship.' So the writer of this question probably didn't mean 'love,' at all, but rather sexual romance. And that's easy -- I gave up on finding romantic, sexual, love a long time ago."

And then, I got to ruminating / brooding on how much of a "choice" is there when (nearly) every man who replied to online personals I posted (Back before I decided to stop looking) ignored every boundary I set in my profile, and set red flags waving in my brain. Each one of them, it's true, offered me a mind-blowing sexual experience, and I could have probably taken that last step out of culturally-defined childhood into culturally-defined adulthood. I declined their offers, however.

I'm almost without any doubt (reasonable or otherwise) that the creeps responded to my ad the way they did because I was upfront about being physically disabled, and they thought, therefore, that I must be desperate, and willing to "put out." And meanwhile, the decent guys held back because they were afraid they'd be stuck in a "caretaker" role...

A couple of years ago, I came across the statement that everyone who's a virgin is a virgin by choice. But when your actual, physical safety is at stake, how much of a choice is it, really?

...It doesn't help that Valentines comes a month after my birthday, when the Happy has almost all worn away, and the Feeling Older is left behind.

*sigh*

Fourth: When I went shopping on Friday, I saw a display in my store's produce section -- "Jazz" Apples -- a cultivar I'd never heard of. So I bought three (they were pretty). I like new cultivars, bio-diversity and all that. They were also tasty (though two were tastier than one. I know I have apple geeks in my circles, so I thought I'd share. Here's a webpage about them: http://www.orangepippin.com/apples/jazz

Oh, and their scientific name is "Scifresh" -- Geek pride in the orchards?

Fifth:Last night, we got the first real winter cold of this season (It's been a weird winter, even by Virginia standards), and the National Weather Service, at around 4:45 pm yesterday, issued a storm warning for the area that included the word "Thundersnow."

How cool is that?!

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Thundersnow is very cool. I didn't believe it the first time it happened -- without prior warning -- when I thought it was just the apocalypse. Did your forecast deliver?

I just finished a book by Hanne Blank called VIRGIN, which explained in very thorough detail that female virginity has no physical existence. Intriguing, and definitely could take one's mind off the gloomy and true thoughts re: finding true romance.

I'll search out this Scifresh/Jazz apple. I'm pretty blissed out by the arrival of Pink Ladies.

Best wishes!

[capri0mni]

Thundersnow: I think so, I heard a few rumbles of thunder, but I was away from a window at the time, and it was dark. But there was a single layer of snowflakes on the ground (in the shade) when I was eating breakfast.

For most of this season, the weather's been fluctuating between 60s-70s and 50s-40s on alternating days (Like I said, weird even for Virginia). So it's not like the ground is cold enough to support much snow without melting.

I just kind of swooned, a little, reading the line: "A line of storms with embedded thundersnow."

I think "Embedded Thundersnow" would be a great name for an indie rock band... ;-)

Re: "Virginity" -- quite possibly true. About seven years ago, I read the book "The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box" by ... damn, forget her name, and the book is at the bottom of a pile, and out of reach by now.

But anyway, it's a pop-science book all about the natural history and evolution of the vagina, in humans and other species (including spiders and birds, and hyenas [boy, human childbirth is easy compared to theirs!], et alia). In talking about humans, the author made the point that human girl babies masturbate in the womb -- so important it is for the species's survival that those muscles and all the associated systems are in good working order.

And definitely, the whole concept of virginity is a social construct. But it's the construct of a society I have to deal with... so that's frustrating. Also, been thinking a lot about this since learning that song
She never knew she never knew (YouTube Music video); all the iconic life experiences that the songwriter/singer put into the lyrics to represent adulthood are things I've never gotten to know, either. And I've never been institutionalized (except for hospital visits for orthopedic surgery).

You know, I think I've only ever seen Pink Ladies in flower bouquets and Christmas wreaths. What's their flavor profile?

Thanks!

[smw]

1: Funny -- I had a conversation with a friend last night about cake. It ended in my being nostalgic about the time when I baked on a regular basis for a business, and the quite incredible Boston cream pie I made (this involved ganache).

2: Re: Anne Rice, I would agree about her skill craft-wise, but found Interview with a Vampire impossible to engage with. I'd like to claim my reasons were as intellectual as an objection to the morality, but really it came down to Lestat being incredibly whiny.

3: Virgin by choice? That's odd and not something I've heard before, and reflects a very narrow experience. My inability to interact normatively with my age-mates -- and thus potential romantic partners -- has me isolated sexually, but that's not a choice.

5: That is REALLY cool, oh man. It has been drizzling here, much to the horror of the locals, which has me windbagging on a regular basis about missing REAL storms, storms with snow and lashing rain and ice and wind.

[capri0mni]

1. Like I said: last week's zeitgeist was pointing to cake. Period.

About 18 years ago, the one time I got intimate time with certain cousins was when they, Dad and I traveled to Ireland for an unexpected vacation (won in a school charity auction). The vacation was relaxing, but standing in the airport for the trip home was incredibly stressful. One cousin looked at the other and said: "Chocolate cake would help." And they both chuckled. When Dad and I looked at them with quizzical expressions, they explained the backstory:

The elder cousin's mother (Dad's sister) used to work in a school for kids with intellectual disabilities. And one girl with Down's syndrome was perpetually cheerful -- her habitual way of moving through the world was to skip rather than walk. But one day, she came to school sobbing uncontrollably, and all the staff tried to coax the reason out of her, so they could help. And finally, between sobs, she managed to get out: "S-Some Ch-chocolate cake would help." And thus began a search of the kitchen for anything resembling chocolate cake; a Ho-ho or Ding-dong -- anything.

And thus began the family tradition of invoking the power of cake whenever the world just became Too Much.

Genache! One of my regrets in life is that I don't have truly accessible means of baking (or someone who can handle getting things in and out of the oven, at least).

My mother's signature celebratory cake was to bake these brownies (from The Joy of Cooking [recipe]) (with walnuts) into two nine inch round cake pans, and, when they were done, layer them with slightly sweetened, full-fat whipped cream; macerated strawberries or wedges of mandarin oranges were an optional nod to the healthy.

2. Maybe it was Lestat's whining that pinged my brain to the wrongness.

3. I think it was something I read on a "feminist" website, and was in context of trying to make a point about our rape culture, and how dangerous it is to fuzzy up the lines around choice and consent in regards to sexual expression. Which may be a fair point, but, as you said, spoken from a specific P.O.V. (And a privileged one at that).

[pebblerocker]

I'm sure I've had Jazz apples, but when I try to remember them I think I'm thinking of the taste of Sunrise, the variety that's sustained me over the last month -- Sunrise is an early apple and other varieties in the shops were stored old-season ones, bruised and soft.

Now apple season is properly under way and I've bought a bag of lovely 99c/kg Braeburns. Apple crumble time!

I did quite a bit of apple geeking on the site you linked. Thanks!

[capri0mni]

Hee. Just goes to show that not all apple geeks are geeking out about the computer company. ;-)