Someday I will be telling children about licking stamps, and they will not believe me. I fear someday I will be telling them about the postal service, and they will not believe me.

Reading through posts, I catch "blueberry cobbler" in Mariah's, and my mind chirps, "I have blueberries! And gluten-free flour. I wonder if..." The answer is yes, I can make gluten-free blueberry cobbler.

In other news, I've planned out my scholastic career for the next two years. Now to finish my homework.

Humility is the best cure for anxiety.

Tuesday is a dancing night, but I stayed in for movies & sexy timez with Neil, then strawberry wine making. Also, strawberry syrah jam, two jars destined for birthday presents. Everyone I know is having birthdays. They come in waves. Lately a lot of Cancers & Aquarians are in my life. Leos are a constant. I rode my bike around the lake twice at dawn & made fish for dinner. I wish part of me could splinter off & dance, then rejoin my body later. My Cosmic Forces jar slipped & shattered on the hearth, which is difficult not to read as an omen.

BBC's Robin Hood ended with the anti-climactic deaths of Robin, Guy, Alan, the Sheriff & Isabella. It jumped the shark in the third season, relying heavily on character tropes until they became a self-parody, dispensing with clever dialogue in favour of ham-handed exposition & plot points, and creating false conflict with contrived situations.

The last is what I loathe True Blood for, though they at least have decent dialogue. True Blood reminds me a bit of Vanity Fair, in the utter lack of sympathetic characters. Meanwhile, back in Botswana, the excellent No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is stalled at Episode 6 since Jill Scott had her baby. May it be traditionally figured & happy.

I just acquired Robin of Sherwood, the 80's series, recalling it dimly, but enjoying it as a child. I had to stop five minutes into it, because 4 soldiers, on horseback, arrived on a ferry, and set fire to the entire village of Locksley, unimpeded. Was it a low budget that prevented more soldiers? Could they not afford to build more rafts for the horses? Beware, your doom arrives slowly & ridiculously, clearly visible for miles. Further viewing vindicates my earlier opinion, but I still think horses on boats are not very intimidating.

Dyeing my hair red(der) for summer. Auburn only gets you half-way through June. I have a new dress that isn't quite me, it has large bright flowers, but it might be my Hispanic heritage in colouring. I'll wear it with red bellydancing shoes. I've been biking late at night because I don't like dodging people & bugs. My bell strikes fear into the staggering drunks. I've been clubbing exclusively the past few months, because I don't feel like listening to music through anyone else's body, but the tango scene in Easy Virtue left me wanting to share that space. I've started & quit a job in the space of a month, it wasn't worth it, and I have a couple occasional gigs that get me through. School is on track with A's, and more to come. I brought home Cloud & Ashes, and A Man Without Qualities to read in the week between. Goth dancing tonight, after a well-earned nap.

Ingrid Bergman is the CEO of a company in the 40's, walking through a mall half-empty, clearly disassociated with everything around her, and not engaged in the bustling post-war commerce. The bright sunlight through the doors casts the interior false light into shadow, and she is silhouetted disappearing into it. When next we see her, it is also under electric light, with blinds drawn against the day in her office, talking to her male secretary about accounts. They find troubling discrepancies with some of the numbers & she summons a manager & is brusque with him about it. He is ill-pleased, and has a menacing mien when she dismisses him.

The next shot is finally, briefly outdoors, during sunset at a beach/lake house, on the dockside porch with her secretary, drinking cocktails & then retiring inside as she begins to feel uneasy. They start to see bugs, first only a few, then swarms of insects and snakes. Horrified, they try to brush them off & flee, but are incapacitated, then hordes of screeching monkeys surround the windows & begin to break in.

It is at this point it is revealed by the camera they are hallucinating, cutting to the quiet, still perception of the manager, who had let himself in & tells them they are experiencing the effects of an experimental drug cocktail containing LSD. He then extracts the code to the wall safe from the terrified Ingrid, flashing back to her perception, as he opens it, and the secretary lifts himself from beside her & manages to make it to the desk. He grabs a pistol from a hidden compartment in the desk, and fires on the manager who has just opened the safe. To Ingrid's eyes, the manager becomes a bipedal lizard & falls to the floor as black blood seeps across the carpet toward her. The secretary leaves the pistol on the desk & approaches to comfort her. She faints.

She awakens sober in the morning sunlight, shuddering & startled, though only birds are calling outside the window, in an otherwise still room. The body, blood stains, and contents of the wall safe are gone. On the desk remains the pistol, which she picks up, and notices something remaining in the safe. It is an unsigned note from her secretary, "Don't try to find me. I hope you can forgive me."

Fin

Then I had a post-dream analysis within the dream, where I called the script "profoundly misogynistic, no matter how well acted & directed, or how much I love Ingrid."

5 AM & I couldn't sleep because my mouth & mind kept evaluating the projected menu for Sunday, so I climbed out of bed, peeled, sliced & set the eggplant to drain. I lay awake, attempting to decide whether to soak the sun-dried tomatoes in wine, verdict yes for the roasted red pepper rolls, no for the wild rice, and if I choose to add them to the sauteed mushroom & onions that are to go in the eggplant, then wine will already be present. Do I want to change the flavour of goat cheese in the roasted peppers to distinguish it from the goat cheese in the eggplant, maybe mellow it by blending with cream cheese, and would adding kalamata olives to the black olive tapenade be too much tartness? My tongue voted against the kalamata with everything else going on in the dishes the tapenade will accompany.

This is the recipe I'm loosely basing the eggplant on: Mushroom and Goat Cheese Eggplant Rolls. I want to make half their menu. I can't link the roasted peppers because it's so bastardized it exists only in my head. Essentially, it's strips of roasted red peppers wrapped around the tapenade, goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, and possibly basil & pinenuts. I'll probably scatter rosemary over them, to tie it into the wild rice. Dessert will be an attempt at making healthy Hostess-esque chocolate pudding pies, as per Neil's request. I'm beginning half of the food today, to finish tomorrow. Just like my biology paper. :)

I keep looking at the other amazing actors in Valkyrie & wondering if I could just fast forward the parts with Tom Cruise. Is it as bad or better than I fear? Blueberry pie in the oven & ferry & hotel booked for Victoria next weekend.

So much for my resolve against Mammon. I caved & bought plates on clearance at PCC. In my defense, they're lovely, were a third of the original price, and I've never bought plates, since I inherited an old set of dishes when I went to college. Also, they're robin's egg & poppy:



I might still get the kite plates from Urban Outfitters. Between these & actual food, we are prepared for dinner parties, excepting the cooking.

I think we all know I'm pro-choice & love children, but this is still hysterical:

As the president began his commencement address, at least three protesters interrupted it. One yelled, "Stop killing our children."

The graduates responded by chanting "Yes we can," the slogan that became synonymous with Obama's presidential campaign.

The Eggs Florentine was a success, being essentially a crustless quiche on a bed of spinach & sauteed vegetables, primarily mushrooms with garlic, carmelized onions, and celery. I also added pinenuts & melted cheese over the top. I think I may have put basil in the egg mixture. Experiment deemed worthy of repetition.

I'm making eggplant again this weekend, but after baking in marinara, I intend to grill it, and spread with a black olive tapenade, which I have some notions of how to blend. What would be a good side dish, that isn't salad?

From a textbook published in 2003: "Global warming might actually cause more rain & snow, not less, in the Pacific Northwest; warmer skies hold more water, and computer models predict it could get dumped here." Drier droughts, wetter wet seasons, and glacial topography suggest not living on hills. Or downtown Seattle. We're due for an earthquake.

God doesn't care what kind of sex you're having, as long as it's consensual & healthy. Homosexuality is nobody's business except the people practicing it.

Frankie Manning interview

I am now reading Gormenghast, as my estimable boy brought the trilogy over, and I don't have the burden of papers & tests due until next Sunday. Two of the otherwise stodgy and pedantic elder men, both given to verbosity, feel a deep sympathy when the young earl is imprisoned after adventuring beyond the walls of the castle, and visit the boy out of a paternal sense of injustice in locking up children. They all end up on the floor playing marbles. It's my favourite part thus far.

http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25059520b3d89e0120b49221340025
Via Penny Arcade

I am in love with the new GI Joe series on adult swim. It surmounts the absurd jingoism & ineptitude of villains that crippled the original series, and presents a sophisticated, intelligent scenario of how effectively the military might be used to counter terrorism & would-be despots. The animation is more stylized, and the characters remain fun. I guess The Baroness wins for cosplay.

For less violent cartoons, I adored My Neighbour Totoro. My only qualm was they labeled what was clearly a two year old as a four year old. Back to homework.