Wha?

For a while there I was pretty good about using a planner... I wrote down assignments and deadlines and things I needed to do. I still write things down (most of the time) but remembering to look at it later has become rather spotty. I woke up this morning and all of a sudden it popped into my head that I got a take-home test in Invert last Thursday that's due tomorrow and I don't even know where I put the paper!

At least I remembered it at all...

Plenty of fish in the sea

Screw feather blennies and their damned red-tide susceptibility! I don't need them when there are filefish to work with!! Yes, I'm switching topics AGAIN!

I now have 4 thumbnail-sized filefish and a rather annoyed puffer in my tank here at home. We couldn't find any large files, which are what I needed, but at least there are some out there. Maybe I'll have better luck at high tide. In the meantime I'll watch these guys flit around and hope for inspiration.

Herbert is alternately running away from and charging at the Teen. He doesn't care, he just wants his ball, but Herb is seriously affronted by the lack of respect.

Memory

The night before was spent sleepless, giggling under the covers. We wound our way under lowered skies across Florida's spine to the Atlantic, off for a beaching weekend. The rain never stopped, but slackened enough to tease us out of the car. We were damned if we were going to go all that way without at least walking on the beach! After five miserable minutes huddled squinting into a drving spray, we headed back to the hotel room and broke out the picnic basket (complete with cheap sangria) on sheets instead of sand. A few hours later we woke up to Beck singing on television, drawing us and a sit-down crowd out of sleep and into his show. We slid back into dreaming until the next morning then drove home in the grey light after the storm, bathed in the glow of new-washed green.

companionable silence

I didn't get those linkfest posts in blogs, where someone will do an entire entry of 20 "I like _____, go check it out " links and call it a day. But I see now... it's like one of those phone conversations with my closest friends, the ones that come in the middle of weekend mornings or Thursday afternoons. We don't say much - not much that's very meaningful at any rate - but we stay on the phone for hours. I'm just happy sitting there with the person on the other end of the line.

So yeah, linkfest. Let's just hang out for a while!

When I read this: Trouble is, I’ve never been a big bean fan. Now Im coming around. It will not surprise you to learn that this involves copious amounts of pork. I knew I had found a kindred spirit. Matthew is a food writer in Seattle who is making me add even more detail to my elaborate fantasies of living in down the street from Pike Place Market and shopping for dinner every afternoon after working at the aquarium (oh, there's more, much, much more... I don't have much in the way of a five-year plan or anything but I WILL live in Seattle at some point and I think about how glorious it will be every time I go outside in the armpit that is south Florida.) I spent all afternoon pouring through his archives, alternately laughing and drooling.


Mike Patton's voice is featured in several tracks on my life's mix tape... I played Crystalis while listening to the first Mr Bungle album on repeat... Listening to those songs makes my fingers curl around a phantom SNES controller and I can still see those ice falls coming down the mountain. Jeff Gillis turned me on to that game... I would thank him for it if I knew where he was. ANYway, the point is, through Faith No More and Mr. Bungle and Lovage and Tomohawk and General Patton and his X-ecutioners and a bunch of other projects I haven't gotten my hands on yet, Mike Patton has made this incredible, amazingly varied body of music while staying pretty much below the radar of most people. It's not music you can leave on in the background while doing other things - it demands your attention - but your focus will be rewarded. Start out with Lovage and work your way though.


Alright, the link fest was pretty short... I've got more but I really need to get back to work. Part II coming soon.

Sexy Martin

Sexy Martin

Yes, everything of value in my life is marked by a Pearl Jam sticker... I have a stash of them saved up for special occasions. Im in love with this laptop... like, cook it dinner and give it head in the living room while it watches television love. It's like it was when I first got a computer... there was this whole amazing world out there for me to explore. The novelty of bringing the computer into the kitchen so that I can instantly consult a recipe, or finish listening to a podcast while I'm doing the dishes, or just sit outside in the garden while I'm doing work is not going to wear off for a while

I've had a lovely day of lounging... I'm watching Jaws. I was so scarred by this movie (I saw it when I was seven and it took 10 years before I could even go in a pool without checking for sharks first) but I love it so much now. There's a huge part of me that wants to be Matt Hooper. When the shark first swims by and he's taking pictures and telling it how beautiful it is... that's me underwater. Hell, that's me above water too. I talk to the fish in the lab more than I talk to my co-workers.

break

At 4:30 today, I completed the last thing I had to do this week for school. For the next 10 days, I am on Fall Break. There are a lot of things I don't like about New College, and a lot that I do, but Fall Break? Best thing ever.

I am choosing to overlook the very bad grade on yesterday's O-Chem test - complete with "poor work" scrawled in red across the top - being super behind on my thesis, and that my apartment is 2 steps away from looking like my room in high school. My break will not be spent lounging on the beach or visiting someplace cool; I will be playing catch-up. BUT!!!! Those worries are for Monday. In the meantime I'm going to go out for breakfast, walk down to the farmer's market for flowers and veggies, lounge on the patio, and have a double header at the dollar theater. And that's just Saturday!

Like Mel Gibson's shoulder....

...this will be disjointed. Ah, Mel, how manly and tortured you were in Lethal Weapon! If only you had stayed an action hero/ Shakespeare dabbler and not gone towards the Light of the Lord in such a ferverent way.

My dinosaur of a desktop finally went extinct - at a spectacularly bad time, of course - so I finally got my wish... This is is coming to you from the shady green haven of my patio where I'm lounging with my new laptop! I am so in love.

I'm also in love with singer/ violinist/ professional whistler Andrew Bird. I got his latest album almost a year ago and even now I'm waking up singing his songs. It is now my mission to spread the word to the rest of the world.

I went out looking for blennies today with no luck - they might have been there but I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, much less their little feathery heads. I'm doing the TIP class this weekend so maybe some of the 20 kids I'll be shepherding will find a few. (Yes, I know we won't be collecting anywhere near their normal rocky habitat but I have to keep the dream alive somehow) At this rate I'll never graduate.

John Cameron Mitchell (the man behind the wig of Hedwig) has another movie coming out - Shortbus. I'm hoping that Burns Court will show it but the non-simualted sex might throw Sarasotians off. Maybe those of you up in Gainesville will get it at the Hippodrome.

We've got two cuttlefish in the lab now. They are pretty tame - though it wouldn't be a good idea to let them take food directly out of your hand, they come right up at the first swish of a shrimp in the water and snag it as soon as you drop it. I'm trying very hard not to get too attached to them yet but it's hard to resist their flashy charm.