we can finally start a family

i'm uncharacteristically updating my blog on a friday night ! i want to make sure that i cover all the great stuff that happened last week, despite the one major, major, major, major bummer.

last wednesday, nick and sandi came down from nyc and we had the besttttt timmmmmeeeee. we went to south philly tap room, where i got the most delicious eggplant parm i've ever had (and everyone else had the best brussels sprouts they've ever had- but they had bacon) and a really delicious apple and watercress salad, as well as a couple of delicious san diego beers (recommended by gavin, the biggest proponent of san diego ever). nick and sandi were like... fucking adorable and delightful and hilarious as always. nick has a new haircut where he looks like half of a depeche mode video and sandi said a thousand hilarious things. we came home after dinner and (wahhhhh) played with weirdo and had the best family night.



on thursday, i cooked all day and like... every single thing i made came out weird. it ended up not mattering, though, because jeanne's new roommate alexis made a shitload of super delicious food. jeanne, mike, alexis, ned, and i had a good thanksgiving and watched the kids in the hall.



the menu was:
- seitan turkey
- vegetarian ham
- stuffing
- cornbread stuffing
- mashed potatoes
- shepherds pie
- cranberry sauce
- orange honey cranberry sauce
- delicious gravy
- roasted vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, parsnips, carrots)

there was a surprising lack of dessert (the dessert i made was overcooked and i burnt my ganache !) but i'd rather have food than dessert anyway. i had the best time, though ! ned had a good story about his customers that i am still laughing about, alexis is super cute and nice and has a really cool mean cat, mike is my favorite, and jeanne is ESPECIALLY my favorite. vinegar and fig too !

on friday, i worked on school work a little, and then christina and i braved local 44 again. i don't know if i've talked about it here, but i had the worst meal of my life at local 44 when i went with bill and christina- it was like... "mushroom stew" that was just unseasoned boiled mushrooms, pearl onions, carrots, and potatoes, and it tasted like they were boiled, rinsed, and boiled in new water. i seriously like recoil in horror every time i walk by because it was so gross ! anyway, we braved it because we were cold, and the food was awesome. i got a vegan reuben, and we split disco fries (fries with onion gravy and cheese) and it was... very heavy, but delicious.



i also tried some new scotches- i tried laphroaig and dewars, and of course they were both gross. guys, what's with scotch? why do i keep drinking it? one of these days, though, i'm going to love it. i know it. on saturdayyyyyyyy, mouse came over and we watched a few episodes of it's always sunny in philadelphia and ate delicious food and played with weirdo (wahhhhhh).

on sunday, i met up with mouse and kati to go to berlin mart in new jersey ! we met up with meesh and greg there, and we saw a lot of funny things and mouse made me laugh so hard that all of the people at the flea market thought i was behaving inappropriately for a flea market. it was a great fucking day ! i got:

- a greedo
- a yoda
- two jawas
- a grizzlor (a he-man guy- i got him for jeanne cause someone made him into a magnet)
- some work gloves (even though i don't do work)
- the best possible hairclip



after that, we went to blackbird pizza, where i was psyched to try a seitan cheesesteak, but they were out of seitan. they had some pizza and stuff butttttttttt i'm not vegan and i can eat real pizza so spending $3 on slices of vegan pizza didn't seem appetizing, so i just had some water and a good, awkward sulk. annnnnnd then we came home and weirdo died.

this past week has just been... stress and studying. next week is my last week of classes, and i have four papers to finish- 1 two page but with heavy research, 2 one page with heavy research, and one 10 page with heavy research. my genocide final paper is stressing me out a lot- i wrote a proposal that was mostly based on like... my strong emotional reaction and not a lot of research that i did, and my professor wrote this back (she actually wrote one email with this praise and then wrote a second cause she forgot she sent the first, with MORE INTENSE PRAISE):

"This is going to be a great paper. In fact, you could probably publish it--if you feel like putting the extra work into it (which need not be done for the version you hand in as a final paper in this class). I would be happy to help you polish it and send it out. The idea you will be pursuing is very innovative and also very important. It could put women on the genocide map, so to speak. And it would bring necessary attention to their suffering--their suffering as survivors not just of a genocidal process, but also of genocide written on their bodies and lives"

i know that someone suggesting that an undergraduate freshman publish something is a big insane compliment, but it put this insane amount of pressure on me- i feel super unsophisticated and emotional and like i barely even know what i'm talking about? like i'm just kind of chauncey gardenering my way through this.



so, this week? studying reading freaking the fuck out and not being able to do a bunch of shit and alksdlksajdlkjalskjdklsajs alas poor roxy. anyway, i just wanted to get that out.

gucci mane

what's up ! hey ! on friday mouse and i went to mike bukowski's art show at benna's !!! it was all monsters inspired by d&d manuals and everything looked amazing. i was basically having an anxiety attack about getting there first to get the owlbear and i'm glad i didn't sleep on it because everyone kept admiring it and a few people were coveting it. i also bought the giant troll. i wish i had some pictures of it but i was too excited ! here are a few that appeared in the interview he just did for denis' bloggggg.


"an Achaierai, a Grell and a Necrophidius"

jeanne also made a really cool vegan axe cake, which mouse cut with a plastic axe. it was pretty awesome because the handle basically looked like real wood and the blade looked like an iced fart. no offense jeanne !!!



after the show, we went to the pope and i had the best vegan meatloaf i've ever had in my life, with mushroom gravy, broccoli, and mashed yams. holy shit. i wish i was eating it right now, and also forever. i also decided to try scotch on the rocks for the first time, to debut my signature drink, and it did not go well. i got a johnny walker black first and it was pretty repugnant- it was also a gigantic glass of scotch (i figured a... whatever, on the rocks would just be a shot on ice? but it was like a full glass of scotch).



mike and jeanne's friend justin g. (maybe my friend too? i'm gonna add him and his gf on facebook RIGHT NOW) suggested that i try glenfiddich 12, which he said tasted like honey, so i got a shot of that with ice. i discovered that... it tasted like scotch, but at that point i was like, 'hayyyy' from drinking a bunch of scotch so i didn't feel betrayed or anything.



after that, the waitress (who was extremely nice) suggested that i try irish whiskey if i wasn't into scotch, so she brought me a tullamore dew, which at that point did not taste perceptibly different to me because the scotch had burned off all of my tastebuds. at that point, she suggested i try tequila instead- not that night, but if i was ever at cantina. she was referring to a local establishment called cantina los caballitos, buttttttttt i thought she was talking about this cantina:



and was like, "why would i ever be there? that isn't even like.. here and now." and felt pretty dumb. i had a great time though, and mike, jeanne, and ryann invited me to come to new hampshire with them this weekend to see a bunch of cool pumpkins and junk !

on saturday, i intended to read and study all day, but early in the day i stood up and something horrible happened to my back. i got a really really horrible not right pain and barely made it back to my bed (i was in the living room). i basically spent 8 hours saturday laying face down on my bed, holding in my pee, totally unable to move. it was really fucking scary- a bunch of people offered to help me, and i really wanted to go to the hospital, but... i couldn't get up to let anyone in.



it was really weird and shitty ! if you aren't a fat person, you may not know that doctors are really shitty to fat people. despite many thin people i know having back problems and having similar stuff happen to them, i know what would happen if i went to the doctor- i have gained weight lately and i'm sure it's related, but what's probably more related is that i have done very little physical activity since starting school- i feel like i have very little time anymore to do anything, and since this side was injured a few years ago, i think i have to be more consistent with doing yoga/walking/riding my bike to keep it from getting reinjured. anyway, i knowwwww i should talk to a doctor (a friend with similar problems suggested sports medicine) buttttttt i don't want to have to deal with it.

anyway, around 9 or so i was able to get out of bed and walk around and take a shower and pet my poor stupid kitten and felt more human almost immediately. by the time i went to bed, my back actually felt pretty good. today it feels even better, though i keep getting an on and off nerve-y pain in my thigh, but my back itself feels better than it has in weeks. i think this is like... when a coconut falls on someone's head and they turn into a sexy version of themselves? and then all that has to happen to fix them is another head injury?


for instance, something that probably happened to all of these women

on sunday, i did some studying (finally), and went to mouse and kati's birthday party at ed's. alan, nate, and anna came and we had the best time. i got a greek salad and it was totally the worst, but all of my friends are so cool and funny i can't stand it? mouse looked particularly sharp in his button suspenders. the only real disappointment was that benji wasn't able to make it, because mouse realllllly wanted to wrestle someone for his birthday. pooooooor mouse. we got gelato after dinner (at my nudging) and i picked up some new cat litter for the kitten (she is not psyched about feline pine, because the granules are bigger than her feet), and came home to do some reading and pet her a little bit. here are some pictures:


weirdo is as bored by this asinine book as i am !





right now i'm reading critical essays about huckleberry finn (i don't careeeeeeeeeeee), that gerald graff book (ughhhhhhhhh), and we wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families by philip gourevitch (hooray). i actually wish i'd opted for a writing seminar with less reading because these books are such a waste of time, and my genocide class requires SO much reading.

so, that's about it. my back feels okay, this is going to be a busy week at work, i have a lot of reading to do so i'm going to try not to do anything fun this week, and and and.. i don't know. i have to go because the receptionist is being fucking annoying because she doesn't understand what the job of a receptionist is.

throw every last care away

ahhhh my back is ruined ! i fell asleep in a crappy position when i was benadrylled out and hurt my back and it's felt crappy for a week ! it's specifically the muscle i use to get up and sit down- so it's fine when i'm up walking around or laying down or sitting (except in my work chair, which is a problem), but having to sit down and get up from a sitting position is torture. TORTURE !


it actually hurts right about where the skeleton is hurt

i had a good weekend ! on friday i intended to do homework but ended up taking a nap, eating dinner, reading a non-school book, dropping my laundry off at the laundromat, and loafing. i managed to finish my outline of a chapter we had to read but i still have an essay to write before my class tonight ! i'm nervous that i won't be able to get it done because all of the material for the writing seminars is poorly written and i don't think i understand the instructions, but i'm sure i can bang something out- it's a first draft, anyway.

on saturday, i got a car and went to the bank and picked up kitten supplies. i got a tiny litterbox, a bunch of (tiny) cans of kitten food, and ordered a broken heart best friends necklace for the kitten and pizza's collars.


i didn't get THIS one cause it was $220

after my errands, mouse, nate, and anna came over to watch the phillies game, which was a total bummer. fuck the mets. we got pizza from ed's buffalo wings and pizza, since they have vegan pizza. the vegan pizza was probably the best vegan pizza i've ever had. the non-vegan pizza was probably one of the worst pizzas i've ever had. the vegan pizza was better than their regular pizza ! probably the best development of the night, though, was that nate and anna decided to come with us to the old timey baseball game on sunday !

...the old timey baseball game got rained out on sunday, but we all went to delaware anyway and went bowling with kati and alan. i didn't bowl because i'm too competitive and also too bad at bowling, but i knitted and drank a giant fountain coke, so i had a really good time. the bowling alley was blaaaaring like... weird tween music? like a mix of bad teen pop music and... adult pop music being covered by teenagers? also they had cosmic bowling at 2pm.



i like all that stuff though ! after bowling, we stopped at a kind of crappy thrift store (this was like, the most teenagery day ever- bowling and thrift stores !) and went back to kati's, where she and alan made us dinner- sweet potato fries and those veganomicon chickpea cutlets. kati also had cherry cider which was excellent. their house is so cute. they also have a very handsome 3-legged cat named sandy who sort of has a half leg? and the tip of his half leg is hairless and the nub feels like a paw pad ! pretty exotic. he is the cutest and he and anna formed a special bond.



sandyyyyyy. after dinner, we came back to philly and i unwisely took a nap before starting my homework which means i.. didn't really start my homework. i SORT OF finished huckleberry finn, because the essay i have to write is about the end. i'm probably going to write the essay at lunch today. basically i have til 5:30 to cobble something together. i sort of hate this writing class? no one wants to be there so the environment is weirdly hostile and i don't really have a class friend. oh well, i like the professor and it's a good class to take alongside a hard class.

hmm, what else? i started the presto chango jacket for helen's baby. it will look like this but less purple, more red, and cooler with cool faux jet buttons:



i'm going to go find breakfast or something and then get to work on... work.

steve the popcorn

hey guys !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

on friday, i rushed home from work to do my german interview. basically the professor meets with you one on one and asks you 2309823 questions in german. i got 46 out of 50, and i have turned in all my work so far, so i think i'm doing pretty well ! immediately after, i met up with mouse, nate, and anna to go to a wilmington blue rocks game in delaware. kati and alan were also there, which was a pleasant surprise !!!!! i have to say, minor league baseball is a total mindfuck. the team looked like high school kids ! their mascot was a moose (um, rocky bluewinkle) but they also had a piece of celery who ran out when the team scored a run? and the kids in the stands had celery stalks?



in addition to that, they had two sherlock holmses, an eating contest, a contest for who had the dirtiest car in the parking lot, and a three year old setting off fireworks. i've never felt so sophisticated in my life, and i'm a florida swamp redneck ! i had a good time though because nate and anna are the best, i never get to see kati, and i'm glad i got to hang out with alan again because he is the nicest ! mouse, of course, was also pretty sharp. oh, and i coveted a stuffed celery so much that kati bought me one !!! haha. not proud !



on saaaaaturday, i spent six hours doing 45 minutes worth of homework. i wrote outlines for my essays on friday night, so i just needed to write them and submit them, but i dragged my feet forever and complained forever and basically wasted a whole day. it was okay, though, because i needed a little rest ! i'm concerned though that my history essay thing was wrong because my professor culls together the best answer from peoples' submissions and the best answer was nothing like mine.



after work, mouse and i went to whole foods, where we got stuff for dinner and some okay fruit, and came to my house with the intention of watching doctor who and baking brownies. while the brownies were in the oven, mouse got sick and started puking, and the doctor who discs started skipping ! we ended up watching futurama while mouse frowned on the couch, and then we... watched superbowl XXIII? it was on espn classic.



it always bothered me that i didn't understand football, but every time i try to learn i immediately forget what's going on. it doesn't help that the action stops constantly so i turn my head away from the tv and forget to look back. but basically: each team has four chances to advance their position (called 'downs'), like in world war I. if they make it 10 yards in one down, the number of downs starts over. the center hikes the ball to dan marino, and he passes it to someone else on his team who has to run with the ball as far as he can go. there are people on both teams trying to block each other and block the blockers. a touchdown is 6 points, if you kick it through the thing you get 1 more point. you can kick it through the thing at any time for 3 points (field goal).



we had a good time, though, and by the end mouse felt good enough to eat two brownies (i think the reason he stayed so late was that he wanted to make sure he got to eat a brownie !).

on sunnnnnday, christina and i (mostly christina) cleaned our apartment (which was a mess, our landlord's dudes fixed a leak in our livingroom and took everything off our walls/moved everything away from the walls) and i cleaned my bedroom. we also went grocery shopping and ran some errands. i kept MEANING to study, but instead did every possible thing other than that. mouse came over on the way home from his mom's, feeling well enough to have a warmed brownie with coconut milk ice cream, and watched a shark show on netflix with me. i'm glad i got to hang out with mouse a lot, because he's the best.



okay, i have two more things !!!! the first is that i'm going to try not to buy any pens anymore. i was looking for some highlighters yesterday, and found this in a bag:



i used to collect floaty pens, those pens that you tilt and a picture or object slides through water in the barrel- mixed in with those were a bunch of unopened and opened pen sets and random pens and markers. this probably represents 1/2 to 1/3 of the pens and markers and highlighters i have. i posted that picture on flickr to hold myself accountable, but when i was out on sunday i bought more highlighters. so, no more pens !

the other thing is that i finished reading the girl with the silver eyes.



it was pretty good, though not entirely fleshed out. it could've been even longer ! basically a weird girl with silver eyes who has telekinetic powers discovers that her mom worked at a pharmaceutical company while she was pregnant with her, on a drug that was discontinued because it was harmful. she has never fit in and been an outcast/weirdo her whole life because she can't/won't control her powers, so when she hears that her mom had three pregnant coworkers, she tries to find those kids to see if they are like her (they are !). additionally, a misunderstanding leads her to believe she's being investigated for using telekinesis to kill her grandma.

overall i liked the story, but something that struck me was that every single book i've read so far in this recent batch of purchases contains some form of fatphobia or fucked up comments about fat people. this one is the worst- she has a babysitter who is a big fat disgusting fat slob fatty fat slob who eats an incomprehensible amount of food (and i'm saying this as a person with an eating disorder) to show just how fat and slovenly and disgusting she is. in all of the books, there is a bad character who is fat, or a character who is described as nice DESPITE being fat and enormous and fat and ugly. re-reading some of my most beloved books from childhood sort of jolted me because so many books contain hateful shit about fat people and i wonder in what ways that subconsciously affected me and my peers? like, i don't even REMEMBER it from when i was little, and i was definitely always fat.

anyway, that's about it for now. i got a small amount of knitting done and i'm stressing a little. monday-tuesday-wednesday are the worst/busiest for me schoolwise so i'm not looking forward to the next three days.

p.s. wikipedia list of notable hutts

rice is nice

ahhhh i feel like crap ! i stayed home from work today (though i will probably guiltily work from home even though no one cares and i don't have any deadlines or anything today) because i had a hard time dragging myself out of bed this morning. i went to bed at a really reasonable time for me (12:30) but had trouble staying asleep, and now i just feel... weird? that's the best way to describe it. i don't have cold symptoms, but i feel tired and achy and like i'm made of lead.

anyway, last night we went to thoreau, the new vegetarian restaurant at 10th and spring garden ! it was nice to see kati and kevin (and nice to hang out with mouse, of course) and i'm super lazy about trying new restaurants so i kind of killed two birds with one stone ! thoreau is super super tiny and poorly decorated- like, the tables are big and the chairs are big and comfortable, but there's like 400 of them crammed into a teeny room.



that picture is kind of deceptive- see how close together those tables are?

the staff is really nice, and until they get their liquor license, it's a byob with no corking fee, so i brought a bottle of crappy champagne left over from my hotel birthday party last year. we all ordered different things and everyone really liked what they got (though mine and kati's came out like 15 minutes after everyone else's because... the chef burned himself). this is what i got:



Blue Plate
Rosette of purple Okinawa sweet potatoes atop sweet corn gravy, grilled avocado with edamame succotash, brochette of Szechwan carrot syrup-glazed shiitakes.

every single thing on the plate was delicious, though by the end of the dish the giant lump of sweet potato was a little dry and the succotash had red bell pepper (i should've asked, since bell peppers are not food). i enjoyed the mushrooms especially. i guess my only real complaint is that the price point ($20-$24 for an entree) is a little too high for meals with no real protein. i also thought that their garnish of a giant sprig of rosemary or a giant whole pepper for each meal was wasteful and silly looking. overall, i'd definitely go back ! no one got dessert, though, since we were all full (and mouse is on a 'diet' to stay under 145 for his tournament on saturday).

by the way, did you guys know that champagne and corn is a miserable combination?

i came home after that for our raid and spent the first half of the raid drunk and confused and the second half post-drunk and annoyed. i think one of my main problems with playing warcraft is that the guild i'm in is like... 50% cool dudes i already knew and then like... 50% real true nerds. i know being "nerdy" is cool now, but i don't mean like, a regular person wearing non-prescription "nerd" glasses and talking about how they love math- i mean like, mountain dew drinking 21 year olds who use constant internet slang and nerdily/arrogantly talk about their character's gear and anime.



mostly i can deal with those nerds (even though "nerd arrogance" is like... my least favorite trait. we all totally blow, buddy, and the sooner you realize it the sooner we can be at peace) but sometimes it weighs very heavily on me.

anyway, today will mostly be spent checking my work e-mail and watching the golden girls. hayyy.