fishbowl full of fireworks

Hey, I am very briefly featured in today's issue of B! Twitter has all the sweet hookups! I'm on page 16, if you able to get an issue in the remaining hours of the day, or just take a gander online while you still can!

You can ask me things! Anonymously, even!

http://www.formspring.me/mykitchensneeze

Go on, do it. You know you want to.

I can has entire Etsy store plz?

I got my hair chopped off today.

( before. )

( after. )

I'm glad I finally went to a proper salon and got my hair cut. I've been trimming it myself for about a year and using box dye. I decided to pamper myself a little bit since I never really do that. My clothes have holes in them, I've been wearing the same shoes for a million years, I can afford to spend some money on a good hair cut. Especially since it was looking REALLY stringy and flat and unhealthy. I also got my eyebrows done professionally for the first time ever, they're awesome. (Not that I have a lot of eyebrow to speak of.) I feel great. My head is like 10 pounds lighter (we cut off a good 6 inches) and my hair, like, moves.

People are disgusting, terrible, horrific creatures.

Hiromi Sato's art is amazing, I want to incorporate some of it into my Kawaii Sleeve.

GIANT FUCKING JELLYFISH TERRORIZE ASIAN PEOPLE.

Rock on, Huge Alien Jellyfish. Rock on.

PS, Does anyone want to come see the JELLYFISH: THE INVASION HAS BEGUN exhibit with me at the Aquarium? I know it's expensive but I'll drive! I like jellyfish, they are neat, and confusing. We could see dolphins too!!!!

Yesterday I got tattooed! It's the first piece on my Kawaii Half-Sleeve. Here is a bad picture taken with my cell phone:



PARDON MY BOOBS.
Do you know how hard it is to take a cell phone picture of your own bicep? Well, let me to you, it is hard. Very hard. I basically had to fold myself in half for that shitty picture. When it's healed, I will take better pictures. You're all waiting with bated breath, I am sure. But it was very bloody and lymphy yesterday and therefore not very photogenic. In fact, tattoo slime is reflecting the light and obscuring one of my favorite parts of the tattoo. There's little stars inside the heart! Yay!

We touched up my Little Prince, too. For some reason, I have had all sorts of problems with color not falling out of The Prince's outfit. It's probably because of its location -- no matter how I sleep, the spot with The Prince gets knocked around. He got really scabby the first time around. When I had him touched up, I scabbed up yet again and the color came off with the scab. My artist made some suggestions about how we could try to keep it from scabbing and hopefully it works.

I think I'm going to try to do a little bit each paycheck. Next time I want to get my Pixel tribute. She's also going to have the little speech bubble with a heart it in. It will be adorable.

So far my improvised chickpea burgers are a hit with everyone who has tried them (one vegan & two meat-eaters) and a few people have actually requested the recipe so here it is. They aren't so much "burgers" as "fried hummus balls" but the latter does not sound very appetizing.

( chickpea burgers. )

YAY!

Damn, PETA. Is there any left to offend?

PETA, I'd like to say a few things to you about this billboard.

1. VEGETARIANISM IS NOT A WEIGHT LOSS PLAN.

Why do you want people to be vegetarians? Because they're looking for the newest way to be slim, trim, and beautiful? Or because they actually give a shit about animal rights and want to do their part to end animal cruelty? Does it matter to you?

I have been a vegetarian for many, many years now. I have been a vegetarian for so long that sometimes I forget that people aren't vegetarians and don't expect everyone they encounter to be a vegetarian. Vegetarianism is, quite simply, part of who I am. My reasons for giving up meat are varied and complex. I had wanted to give up meat for years, through most of my childhood, but what gave me the final push to actually do it was working in an animal shelter. It became very clear to me: Hamburgers are made from cows, chicken comes from chicken, pork comes from pigs, and those animals are no different or deserving of their cruel fate than the dogs & cats I cared for every day at the shelter. I could not, in good conscience, work with neglected and abused animals while I was on the clock and then eat a hot dog on my lunch break. If I went home and cried about an abused, neglected dog that had to be euthanized, how could I eat a cheeseburger when the animal that cheeseburger was made of was treated just as bad as the animal I was distraught over and met an even more horrible end? I sound like total bleeding heart here and I don't care. I feel strongly about this. I think you can judge a person, and a society, by how they treat their animals. We treat ours horribly. Not only do we treat our "dometicated" pets terribly, like they are disposable toys, we treat our non-pet animals with no consideration and no compassion. What does it say about us? Nothing good. And I want no part of it. Furthermore, we don't need meat to live. We're omnivores. We can go either way. I feel that if you try to live compassionately and cruelty-free, it tends to spread outward.

Now, I actually did have heatlh reasons for giving up meat. For whatever reason, after I had my gallbladder removed, I just could not digest meat properly. It was miserable. It took awhile for me to make the connection between the awful feeling I got after eating and meat but once I realized I was experiencing what could be compared to "dumping syndrome" (sweating, going cold, chills, just general gastic unease) and cut out the meat, I felt a million times better. And it has had other positive effects on my health. I have healthy blood pressure, healthy cholesterol, my heart functions great, no diabetes, and as I am a Big Girl from a family of Big People with Big People Problems, I credit my heart-healthiness to my vegetarian diet.

HOWEVER. I have not lost any weight as a vegetarian. In fact, I have gained weight. I was at my heaviest when I was vegan. See, vegetarianism is not necessarily synonymous with Eating Healthy. It's a lot easier to be a Junk Food Vegan than a healthy vegan. And the list of vegan snack foods that are readily available is enormous. Hell, Oreos are vegan! Utz potato chips are vegan. French fries are usually vegan too. You can be vegan and still eat quite well. And when I was vegan, I baked a lot. I made vegan cupcakes, vegan muffins, vegan cookies. In massive amounts. You know what makes vegan cookies taste awesome? SUGAR. Lots and lots of sugar. And, if you're an ovo-lacto veggie like me, you have even more ways to get into trouble. And that Purely Decadent Pomegranate Chip soy ice cream I love so much? 800 calories per pint. Seriously. That's a little bit less than your average pint of Ben & Jerry's but still pretty terrible for you. If you're a raw food vegan, well, you will probably lose weight because you will be consuming significantly less calories. But, bottom line, vegetarianism is (in my experience) healthier -- but HEALTHY and THIN are not the same thing and do not go hand in hand.

As a lifetstyle, I think vegetarianism has a lot of benefits, both health-wise and otherwise. But marketing vegetarianism as some sure-fire weight loss plan is just a bold-faced lie.

2. FAT-HATE IS NOT FUNNY, COOL, OR OKAY IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

I have always been a Big Girl. From the age of 4 or 5 on, really. I was a tubby preschooler. And I pretty much grew up totally hating myself because I was overweight. Sometimes I still do. Sometimes I got so low that I wondered whether life was worth living if I didn't lose weight. I put myself in the hospital because I hated myself and my weight so much and went to extreme measures to make myself thinner. Did I get thinner? Yeah, I did. But I also nearly died and had to spend a week hooked up to an IV. Am I going to blame the media? No. But it sure doesn't help to grow up chubby in a world that tells you that being the way you are is not acceptable. It can be hard to learn to love your curves and extra fluff when society constantly tells you that they are not worth loving and need to be eliminated. Hell, I've known men who have had strange inner struggles with their attraction to bigger gals because having a Fat Girlfriend is seen as some sort of failure of masculinity. The first time a guy seemed to be genuinely attracted to my fluffy self, I could have died of shock. Sometimes I'm still a little surprised when someone thinks I'm all that and a bag of chips.

All the Fat Hate in our culture is not doing anyone any good.

Referring to overweight people (and women, specifically, seem to be who is targeted by this billboard) as "whales" is ludicrous. Seriously, that's the best you got, PETA? 'Whales?" I have heard more creative stabs at fat ladies on the play ground in Kindergarten. And is that what you've sunk to? Playground taughts at fatty? Exactly how is making fun of overweight women helping to further animal rights? Maybe someone will see that billboard and go, "OH WOW. I don't want to be fat like that cartoon lady in the polka dot bikini! I am giving up meat, right here and right now!" That seems unlikely, to say the least.

I suppose I understand what PETA was trying to do with their tactics. Shock people, get them talking, get them thinking. And that's cool. Not my style, but it has its place. But now PETA's tactics turn people away from the animal rights movement. It gets them talking, but only about how much they hate PETA. And when I tell people I am a vegetarian, sometimes I feel the need to clarify like that I'm not a judgmental jerk and don't get up on my soapbox and condemn all meat-eaters as the Devil Incarnate and won't preach to them about how awful their lifestyle is and that eating a bucket chicken is like being a Nazi. Why? PETA. I think PETA has seriously DAMAGED the cause they're fighting for. And shit like this isn't helping, especially since it's offensive to a ton of vegetarians who also happen to be curvy (and fabulous) ladies.



Maybe it's not worth getting upset about. And by talking about it, I am giving PETA what they want. I AM TALKING ABOUT THEM. But, shit, this billboard is just so wrong. And I find it personally offensive. I am honestly having trouble summing up my thoughts on this issue in a coherent way, but this person did it really well: Go read this blog post on Vegan Hope. Isa Chandra Moskowitz (vegan chef and author of some really awesome vegan cookbooks) linked to it on her Twitter yesterday and I think it sums up a lot of my feelings on the issue perfectly.

I am sort of developing an obsession with trying these macaroons. I read a couple of food blogs here and there (i.e., Epicute, Pretty Pretty Yum Yum, Cupcake Blog before it ended) and I've seen these macroons pop up over and over again. And wasn't Kirsten Dunst always eating them in Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antionette?" THEY ARE JUST SO DARN PRETTY. And they look so good. If only you could buy them on the internet. Boo.

In general, I do not like these things. At all. But, you know, what the heck. I have a PayPal account. If anyone would like to donate some pennies to my Going To School and Improving My Life Fund, you can do it here, and I will find some way to repay your kindness.

I'm not expecting anyone to donate anything, of course, but why not just make a button and see what happens? One time someone donated $20 to a fund I half-jokingly created to see The Residents in concert. And while that was a worthy cause, this is much worthier!

Oh, the answer to this is obvious.

THE DEATHLY HALLOWS:

* Mad Max Showdown between hero and villain!
* Scandalous details about Dumbledore's past!
* Dumbledore & Grindelwald: Tragic, vaguely slashtastic love gone wrong!
* RON & HERMIONE KISS! Finally!
* Neville Longbottom kicks ass and takes names!
* Snape: Not good or bad. Just heartbroken. Aw.
* ALL (well, most) QUESTIONS ANSWERED!

Was the Final Book the best book? Eh. It was pretty darn good, though. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I had a hard time finishing it because I didn't want to get to the end. The end of the book was THE END OF HARRY POTTER, the series I'd been following since I was a teenager. The end of the series I'd spent countless hours reading and rereading and had gotten into heated debates about online. Oh, I never wanted to finish that book. I thought the epilogue was a little sickly sweet and uncharacteristic of Rowling's writing, and I didn't care for Ron's abandonment of Hermione & Ron in the middle of the book since it seemed so out-of-character for him, but I was glad everyone got a Happily Ever After.

Book 6 was also an awesome read. Some people had problems with a fanfiction-y focus on romance but, you know what, people read fan fiction because they want to read about the characters snogging. Rowling was just giving her audience what they wanted. (Although I really seriously thought that Ron & Hermione's unbearable romantic tension would be consummated with a big ol' make out and they would Get Together by the next-to-last book -- and instead, Ron acted like a little bitch and the tension got worse.) I loved the glimpses we got into Voldemort's childhood and his family history.

I've actually been missing Harry Potter a whole lot these days. I miss being so INTO something. I have a short attention span. It's rare that anything (or anyone) captivates me for more than a hot minute. And, in a lot of ways, I identify with Harry Potter. What initially captivated me about the books were his mixed feelings about his deceased parents -- when I read the first book, where Harry is bombarded with stories about how wonderful his parents were and how they did so many cool things and what an honor it was to know them, I sometimes had a hard time reading it. Because that mix of anger, resentment, sadness, and longing is something I'm familiar with. My father died before I was old enough to even register that I had a father -- in fact, Harry and I may have been the same age when we lost our respective fathers -- and I had the same experience throughout my childhood. People would tell me all of these stories about my father, and my throat would just close up, and I could feel tears coming. And I was so angry about it, so confused. For a long time, I preferred to know nothing about him at all because it's a lot easier to deal with someone you know nothing about not being around than having to accept losing this great, awesome, interesting, talented, rock star father you never got the chance to have. Even now, I wonder how my life would be different if he hadn't died. And HP, he understood.

That's what sucked me in. And I miss him! And Ron & Hermione! Boo. I want more. I also miss Harry and the Potters. It's kind of silly but between the books, following around Harry and the Potters, having heated discussions about the books, reading books ABOUT the books and then rereading the books... Harry Potter was a huge part of my life for a good long while. Some of the most awesome nights of my life were had at Harry and the Potters concerts. (Yule Ball 2006, FTW!) Hell, I even distinctly and fondly remember my ex-boyfriend's roommate throwing a Harry Potter Party to commemorate the release of the Half-Blood Prince. I dressed up (well, sort of) as Luna Lovegood and he spent months growing out his hair to dress up as Snape. (Much to my despair -- the long hair drove me absolutely nuts, I insisted that he cut it the day after the party.) And midnight release parties! And driving up to Brooklyn to see Harry and the Potters WITH JAPANTHER (!!!!)!



Oh Harry.

Dear Hispanic Man at Sunoco Station,

While I suppose it's nice to know that my ass and titties (your words!) meet your standards for aesthetic acceptability, I do not feel that shouting your opinions about my various body parts while I am trying pump gas is appropriate. In fact, it's quite unsettling and happened to make me extremely uncomfortable. Furthermore, I am unsure as to what you hoped to acheive by loudly commenting on the posterior and chest of a complete stranger in a public setting. Has this technique ever resulted in anything more than the subject of your commentary hurriedly averting their eyes or shooting you a dirty look? After you have told a strange woman that she has a surprisingly round bottom for a white girl, and that her breasts are adequate, has she ever responded by saying, "Why, thank you! Say, would you like to have coffee sometime? Maybe, if you are interested, I can fellate you! What do you think?" Probably not. So perhaps you should change your tactic. See, if you had maybe come over and simply told me that you found me pretty... I would not have felt quite so violated and offended by your behavior. I would have accepted the compliment and expressed gratitude and finished pumping my gas and gone on home, feeling a little flattered. I would not have allowed you to touch the ass and titties (your words!) that you find so worthy of comment, but I would not have felt the urge to tell the cop sitting in his car across the street that you were sexually harassing me and being a public menace, either. Therefore it would have been a step in the right direction.

And, finally, I would like to remind you that I am not here for your viewing pleasure or amusement. I am simply a woman, at the Sunoco station, trying to fill her gas tank. Regardless of what your feelings about my body are, I deserve to be treated with some degree of respect and I have the right to go about my business without lewd comments and catcalls from men such as yourself. Perhaps you thought that because I possess a larger-than-average behind, I would be grateful for your attentions, no matter how demeaning or dehumanizing. You were wrong. I found your comments insulting, unwarranted, and frankly a little disgusting. And making kissing noises and calling me "baby" was not appreciated either. I am not your baby. I don't even know you. I shudder to think how to talk to and treat the women in your life that you actually know if this is how you treat strangers. I hope that one day, some white girl with a big ass who is on the receiving end of your litany of lewd comments clocks you square in the nose. It will be well-deserved.

Love,
Linda

Kitteh be drinkin' mah waters! D:

Earlier today, Ash and I were walking to my car on The Avenue when we were stopped by a man and a woman and asked to officiate an impromtu foot race. The man won.

I freakin' love this song.

I've been cooking with seitan a lot lately. Seitan and assorted Indian sauces that come in jars. Seitan may very well be my new favorite food. Here's something I whipped up today, with pictures! It's super cheap and super easy. Like, seriously, you put stuff in a pot and warm it up.

( seitan with calcutta masala and basamati rice. )

Pretty basic (dump thing one into pot, dump thing two into pot, etc) but over the years I have gotten a lot of people who wonder JUST WHAT IN THE HECK DO YOU EAT IF YOU DON'T EAT MEAT?!... and the answer is, well, spicy savory stuff like this. Usually just a bunch of different componenets dumped together, made tasty, and eaten from a single bowl. (You know, like KFC's Famous Bowls! Only without the dead things and the potential for a heart attack!) And lately I've been trying to make more of an effort to cook my meals instead of, like, going to Wawa or Panera Bread out of sheer laziness. So far I am spending much less money on food and saving gas by not having to leave the house every time I get hungry and I've also been trying to monitor my caloric and sodium intake. And it's fun. I kinda wish there were people around to cook for but oh well. More for me.



In exciting news, I am going to have a new car on July 12th. Well, newish. A (handsome) pal of mine hooked me up with his brother, who was selling one of his cars for a very reasonable price. Both the pal and his brother are car geeks who like to tinker and there's been a lot of work put into this car. My mom and I drove all the way down to La Plata to check it out yesterday and I think I'm getting this car for a steal. It runs beautifully, nice pick-up so I can speed without much effort, it's clean, and it's all shiny and new inside. Homeboy even replaced the nuts and whatnot inside. And he's got ridiculous anal-retentive records of what he's done to the car and what parts he's put into it. He even has the receipts for the parts he's bought. I think my mom worries that I am gulliable and that the car was probably a lemon, but she feels good about the car too. It also gets WAY WAY WAY BETTER gas mileage than the Grand Marquis (and I won't even get into what a gas hog the Crown Victoria I've been driving is), does not leak oil all over the road, and won't require me to dump 2 quarts of oil into it every couple of days. Now that a new car is on the horizon, I'm realizing just how much of a burden has been lifted. I had a lot of anxiety about the car just breaking down -- is today the day it just gives up? Am I going to end up stranded on the side of the road and get in trouble at work for not making it to a shoot? Every time I saw the number of miles roll around, I got anxious. No car makes it to 247k miles. That's insane. It's running on prayers and good will. And then there was the anxiety about having to buy a new car -- I can't get a loan, my credit is awful, and I couldn't afford a car payment even if I were able to secure a loan in the middle of a damn recession. But this car is going to be paid for, wham bam thankyoumam, and that's the end of it. As long as I maintain it, I think I should be able to drive it for years to come. SO. Bully for me! My mom is actually PAYING FOR THE CAR, which is awful nice of her.




Oh, and I made myself significantly blonder than I previously was. No one really noticed, unless I pointed it out. Boo. But with one or two more colorings, I should be blonde again! Yay!



I'm pretty happy witht he strawberry blonde thing I've got going, though. It's rather nice, if I do say so myself.

You sing the truth, Really Tall Black Dude With Pedophile Glasses!



My week basically consisted of sweating. And whining about sweating. And being hot. And whining about being hot. I was shooting at a day care in a government facility in Rockville and they had me in this teeny tiny room that had a door that was too heavy to prop open by normal means. So I spent several hours each morning breathing in warm, stale air. Everyone who came in exclaimed, "Oh my stars, it's warm in here!" Why yes! Yes, it is. Try running around trying to make toddlers laugh under two hot lights. Just try that for a few hours and then we will discuss it being warm. I turned beet red and periodically had to step out into the hallway so I could, you know, breathe. We tried opening the windows, but as it was well over 90 degrees outside, it just made matters worse. And then I went home and sat in my ridiculously hot bedroom, sweating, and unable to sleep. My one oasis has been the car. That shit gets arctic. I need to move to where it's arctic all the time. I prefer arctic to sweltering. Or if I could just travel around in a hermetically-sealed bubbled that is consistently kept at 73 degrees, that'd be sweet.

I really really do not enjoy this weather.
I do not understand people who do.
Y'all are freaks.

I have to go to a birthday shindig for a friend today. I am fairly certain he is going to make me go outside because he likes to fuckin' do that, even when inside is preferable, and has less bugs, and air conditioning. But he's all LET'S GO FIND A FIELD AND SKIP AROUND MERRILY IN THE DISGUSTING MARYLAND HUMIDITY WHEE! Oh, it will be terrible.

I actually don't mind the heat as much as I mind the humidity. I just can't stand the moisture, and feeling sticky and dirty and moist, and feeling like I am trying to breathe warm pudding when I go outside. I probably just need to live in New Mexico, where it's warm and dry and you'll never ever break a sweat. And where the sky looks like this:



Man, I am missing New Mexico a lot these days.





So, because I am a hypocrite, I got a Twitter. This is me. Don't worry, though, I plan on Tweeting on Twitter only. Because Livejournal is for Livejournaling, and Facebook is for Facebooking, and Twitter is for Twittering, and never the twain shall meet. What the hell? I don't want to be the only kid on the block without a Twitter. I also started a film & music specific blog elsewhere, but I want to build it up a little more before I start telling people to check it out, as right now it only has two rambling entries.

Something fantastic happened at the Double T last night with Jay and Ash. We had this waiter who was an amusing mix of creepy and awesome and he was taking Ash's plate and he asked if we wanted to hold onto our silverware and Ash frantically exclaimed "I WANT TO HOLD ONTO YOUR PICKLE!" and snatched Jay's pickle off his plate. Oh, it was hilarious. A true unwitting That's What She Said moment. About 10 minutes later, when we had all recovered from the hilarity, the waiter silently came up to our table and laid an entire plate of pickles in front of Ash and walked off without saying a word. COMIC TIMING: Ur doing it right! Maybe you had to be there. But, trust me, had you been there, you would have been doubled over and in pain from the funneh.

And, because last night was just a freight train of ridiculosity and hilarity, here is a picture of The Pug that Ash made with a handlebar moustache, a top hat, and a monocle: