perfectly controlled impulsive boredom

i am a control freak; i realize this. funny thing is, those around me might not (at least the ones who don’t know me well). i have a hard time letting someone else take the lead (unless i want them to—more control). it comes down to what I want to do, and when and how I want to do it—going places, buying things, processing opinions and ideas…it’s all just my impulsiveness really. is it better to be impulsive or controlling? are those two things interchangeable? perhaps it is perfectionism. another characteristic of mine. funny, too, this only relates to certain parts of my life—food, pedicures, dirt (or the lack of), aesthetics. even funnier still is my ability to relinquish control and perfectionism when it comes to my artwork—possibly stemming from my impulsiveness. leading me to believe that control and impulse are not interchangeable. my impulsiveness comes from the initial excitement and the imperfections come from the boredom that soon follows. if only I could (and perhaps others out there might agree, particularly those with similar characteristics) get paid handsomely for blogging—the perfect (no pun intended) forum for initial excitement/impulse, enabling both complete control and the ability to quickly move on the next idea once boredom sets in, thus starting the impulsive cycle all over again. all the while meticulously perfecting my words and ideas (and getting frustrated that though they make sense to me, it could be better written—or not…it’s my blog dammit). i’m in control here. now if i could only figure out how to change my fonts/font colors/font effects...it would be perfect.

photo credit:
Sarah Hobbs, Untitled (Perfectionist)

what is that?

lately i have received countless postcards, flyers, letters, and pamphlets (to name a few) about wedding shit. yep, shit. i think i've been punk'd. and the really sad part about all of it (well there's lots of sad parts, actually) is that this stuff is really bad. take for instance the letter i received today from some cake company in the valley (and don't get me wrong, i AM all about supporting local businesses) that is a complete throw-back to the 80s. the letter went something like this:

Dear (insert my name here):

Congratulations! We are so happy that you are getting ready to get married, and am sure your are just as happy about planning your wedding.

stop right there. they've got the wrong bride.

anyway, the letter continues and goes on and on about the wonderful cakes they have to offer for the special day (gag). so, i read on. why? i haven't a clue; it's exciting getting mail. i should have known not to open it by the looks of the really bad company graphic on the envelope (which, by the way, did not suggest it was a cake company); hey what can i say, i am opinionated about art. the letter closes with someone's signature and a contact number. and wait there's more. a second page. i would think it would show examples of wedding cakes. but no! it's examples of really really bad holiday cakes! a lopsided and grotesquely colored pumpkin, a cornucopia filled with real fruit, i think, a ghost cake, a banquet table with croquembouche, and additional info about holiday party cookie trays! clearly the guilty party who wedding punk'd me has not read my blog! other than the part about me supporting local business. i like art and food! and artful food. not the mundane. and i know this cakerie is trying to make it, but whoever they hired for advertisin needs to be fired...or at least given a stern talking to about demographics.

other sad points about the bombardment of wedding galore...too much paper! what a waste of money. they're wasting it on me, anyway, as i won't be supporting the company who offered to let me rent a vera wang gown for $250 or the company who wants me to hold a reception in some lobby that was photographed using really bad lighting and looked as though a spaceship was about to depart in the background. i guess i have found the niche for those who want to know where not to spend their money or their time.

but there is hope in all of this. what, might you ask? well this paper trail will not be wasted, rather reborn as art. i am embarking on some new artwork stemming from these gloriously tasteless mailings, perhaps the world's ugliest rendition of a wedding cake (see photo above).

at which point i will track down my punker and thank him/her/them...

i call it shrimp and quinoa and black beans and pineapple

i am thankful to be home. to be well fed. to be wearing comfortable clothes, have running water, electricity, a cozy bed, good things to read, a blog to have fun with, good friends, and love. these little life luxuries make the things i am not so thankful for (like traffic, litter, gas prices, snobs, cleaning the cat box...) a bit more bearable. they make me realize that i have it pretty good. things could be better, let's say in a place with no traffic or litter, but i'd still have to clean the cat box. i'd rather not talk about litter or the latter litter for that matter as a way to end this blog entry. so i'll close with tonight's dinner...an amalgamation of things recently purchased at the farmer's market. items i didn't think i would use together but have worked out really well for this evening. did you know you can buy shrimp and fish at the farmer's market? i didn't until i did. i haven't found a name for this dish yet, and i don't really know what geographic region it might best reside in...i'll have to think about that. for now i call it shrimp and quinoa and black beans and pineapple since that's pretty much all that's in it.

--cook 3/4 c quinoa in 1 1/2 c water for about 15 minutes.
--while that cooks, reheat about 1 1/2 c black beans on low adding a dash or two of ground cumin.
--in a saucepan, melt 1/2 tbsp. butter and 1/2 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. once butter is melted, add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic. before garlic browns, add 1/2 lb. peeled/deveined shrimp. cook over medium low heat until bright pink, sprinkling with another dash of ground cumin. be careful not to overcook as the shrimp can get rubbery.
--right before the quinoa is done, add 1 c chopped pineapple (no this did not come from the farmer's market--i don't think pineapples or bananas grow in california) and the juice (about 1/2 c).
--spoon a generous serving of quinoa into a bowl. top with beans. top with shrimp. top with sauce from pan. top with salt. repeat in second bowl. serves 2.

was so yummy i scarfed it up without taking a picture, so you'll have to settle with the one posted here. similar to an evening in our house, except ken's usually the sous chef and i'd be the one in the apron (though i rarely don one). enjoy.

to do lists: a blessing in disguise

along with acronyms, my life revolves around to-do lists. why do i have so much to do? do i bring this upon myself? are these items really what i need to-do? such things include: pay bills, food shop (followed by a list of items, not all of which can be purchased at the same store--for example, there's the farmer's market list, the whole foods list, the cvs list), go to post office, clean out car (as i seem to live a good chunk of my life in there), go to yoga, call so and so, clean house, do laundry...and these are the daily to-do's...the ones before the bigger ones--follow-up on recent projects (i.e. home buying/mortgage brokering), work on a business plan, have a yard sale (including cleaning out storage)...and the even bigger ones--travel to greece, to italy, to france, to spain, to jamaica, to greenland, to sweden, to iceland, to south africa...

didn't i already blog about lists? goals? what's the difference between a goal and a to-do? for me, the immediate to-do's are check-offable...and the last entry on each one off my lists? check all other lists. as if i am going to forget to food shop or pay bills, leading me to believe that i do bring this work upon myself. at least for the time being i am avoiding my list (though addressing a goal) and leaving the dishes in the sink, the living room unswept, and the bills unpaid while i enjoy the now not-so-daily blog, as originally intended. perhaps if i gave up my to-do's, i'd be able to blog daily. but then really, who has that much to say? so to readers out there, be thankful for my to-do's or i just might be blogging about even more uninteresting stuff than i already am.

thank you bell laboratories

i live in a world of acronyms, initialisms, and alphabetisms. what's with these little creations? i decided to do a little investigative research and whatd'ya know, the use of the word acronym was formed by bell laboratories, formerly american telephone and telegraph company (aka at&t). guess bell grew tired of their own alphabetism--based on one's inability to pronounce at&t as a word? just a thought--and now we have a little word--that would be acronym--that describes the ridiculousness of abbreviating groups of word to make them pronounceable. oh this is making my head spin! so let's take a look at the acronyms, initialisms, and alphabetisms that have crossed my airwaves in very recent days...

MLT
CST
PLT
RFI
DSA
CNN
DVD
JPEG
COR
AAA
WWPO
PMC
D1/2/3/SI
CI
TED

and the list can go on and on...it's all getting a bit silly that we are getting a bit lazy. wtf?

school daze

i am a teacher. and having just started the school year, am reminded of the exhaustion felt immediately following the first few days. how quickly i forget, and every year at the start of school i ask myself if i felt this way last september...tired? stuffy nose? sore throat? body aches? and the september before that and the one before that and so on. and then i ask myself is it really the readjustment to school life or could it simply be seasonal allergies? and though i greatly enjoy teaching and find such pure joy from the idiosyncracies, humor, and innocent spirit of children, my current physical state sure makes me long for summer.

on the subject of art

if art is so subjective, why do art professors profess their objectivity? who's to say that one's art doesn't work? perhaps it isn't working for the professor as a subjective viewer. but when it doesn't work simply because it doesn't because the professor says so, well there lies the professor ar objector. as an art educator and as an art student, this idea of subject/object plays a large 2-part role: when helping students fine-tune their work as well as when i fine-tune my own work. with my students, i want them to find happiness in their work while also gaining an understanding of basic art principles, of why their art is effective but not to change it to please me or the observer. as a student myself, i find myself trying to please the professor. and i know why. because i am paying for continuing education. in order to receive a degree i need to produce work effective in their eyes, irregardless of my interests, my decisions within the medium, my subject matter. and the professor will look at the work and disregard it. not engage in questioning it. relay that the art should speak for itself. well, of course. thus speaking to the interpretation of the viewer and making it subjective. looks like where i teach and where i am taught are clearly expressing great differences in the philosophy of art and art education. where does that leave me? to keep teaching the way i want to be taught, to keep learning what i don't want to do, and to propel myself to doing what i do want to do.

flip flop

I live in flip flops and if I could go barefoot, I probably would. I KNOW how detrimental filp flops are to one's health...particularly back pain, foot pain, and who knows what else. Trouble is, there are no flip flops I've found that support the foot while looking great. This isn't to say that my flip flop collection is so super fabulous. But the ones I have, I love. I've been thinking of going back to a Birkenstock...the ones I lived in through most of high school and college. My concern, as an adult living in Los Angeles, is the look of the shoe. How superficial. Especially in light of all the other things I could be blogging about right now or focusing my energy on away from this computer of mine. The Birk makes a pretty stylish looking shoe, but is it what I am after? Which then makes me second guess it altogether. If I'm not sold immediately I give it some thought. Clearly I am giving it some thought. And still thinking about it, I haven't made a decision. It seems my mental state matches my fashion state. To flip or to flop?

to market

Okay...so I skipped a day of blogging. Yesterday was very busy, and today, more so but in a different way. We just finished dinner and I am proud to say that I don't often have many repeat items on the dinner line up. Frequent favorites include portobella mushroom sandwiches with a lemon/blue cheese/dijon dressing. So tasty! And roasted potatoes. Tonight's dinner was a roasted root vegetable salad with each ingredient coming from my trip to last Saturday farmer's market. Oh how I enjoy getting up and heading out the farmer's market between 8 and 9...leisurely spend an hour or so perusing the pickings...before coming home to unpack before heading to yoga. This habit has been rewarding for many reasons...1) financially because I buy only what will last for the week; the produce has not been treated with any fertilizers or preservatives and tends to spoil faster than regular store-bought produce. And the food seems less expensive than in the stores, seeing as it isn't imported and marked up...2) Also, the food is fresher thereby healthier as there has been less time since it was picked for the vitamins and nutrients to diminish...3) I am proud to be supporting local businesses (an on-going goal of mine)...4) by supporting local businesses the environment is taking less of a hit in terms of oil consumption to ship it...and 5) it's just plain nice to be in the open air looking at the varieties of food available and all the colors, as well as personally challenging my cooking abilities further by using only what's in season. Now I know some of you readers might be saying you've known the benefits of farmer's markets all along...and I have for quite some time...but it's only recently become a real passion/now tradition for me.

gustav, goals, and gameshows

I figure now that I started a blog over my oh-so-restful-making-me-overly-ambitious holiday weekend, I might as well keep up with it. Thank goodness Gustav passed. Now we just have to think positively about the remaining days of hurricane season. And assess what impact Gustav had on the Gulf. Just because it didn't leave the same impact as Katrina in scope, doesn't mean it left no impact whatsoever. Oh the Gulf... Next on agenda...donate more to the Arbor Day Foundation to plant native trees in the hopes of lessening the impact from the carbon emissions from the decaying trees that fell AND get someone to better effectively implement contraflow...why would people want to leave under a mandatory evacuation if it takes many, MANY, MANY hours to leave? With this in mind, I've decided to create a list of my big picture goals...and they're big...for me, at least. (The creation of this list stems from a conversation with a very good friend this morning...so thank you tw...if you're reading).

do more for humanity, particularly the united states (this includes supporting local businesses, planting trees, being an advocate for the arts in schools, better educating myself so i can better educate others,...) if anyone has any insight on how to become a philanthropist without having been born into millions, i'm all ears

read at least for 30 minutes a day, if not more (currently reading "The Billionaire Who Wasn't", perhaps this will give me insight to a career in philanthropy (for me, starting at the age of 30 in today's society...so far, insightful but not user friendly for application...i'm hopeful...is there "Philanthropy for Dummies" out there anywhere?)

go to yoga EVERYDAY. i LOVE it! the hard part for me is getting to a class near my house at the end of a busy day and a long commute before making dinner packing lunches cleaning up figuring out what to wear tomorrow so i don't have to do it in the morning before another long commute while also wanting to read for at least 30 minutes and become a philanthropist. 'nough said.

there are more goals which include working on my artwork, writing a book (sort of), going to the beach at least once a week, getting outside more, cataloguing my music (and adding to it), keeping up with this blog, carpooling, oh yeah, and buying a house IMMEDIATELY.

i guess i could check off "keeping up with this blog" and feel proud to have accomplished that goal for today at least. now i shall turn off the tv on which the the gameshow "wipeout" has been playing. granted, it's entertaining background noise, but come on, let's get real...who comes up with this stuff? 'nough said. now i have time to read.

the quiet

how i enjoy the early morning quiet of our neighborhood. particularly today's morning. the fog rolled in and so far it's still here. i can smell the sea air and the horses. some wonder why i live so far from work and ask how i make the 40 mile trek (each way) daily. i ask myself this, too. some ask "why not just move back to the westside?" this question frustrates me because though i do voice my anger/irritation/loss of patience about my commute, i so enjoy my life at the end of the day and the early morning quiet. and by the looks of it, my commute isn't awful, comparatively.